Friday 30 August 2024

Retrospective 26 - Last Orders Before Lockdown

It has come to my attention that people actually read these things!

Subsequently I have discovered that the last Retrospective I ever did started with the following ominous message...


How young we were. How foolish.

As I start to write this it is 29th August 2024. Thus begins the great work of dredging. I must once more delve into the past and remember what was, burdened with accursed foresight.


On Retrospectives in General

Something that keeps striking me on restarting the retrospectives is how insane and unique an experience this is. Most people don't have this.

Even if you're in that slim sliver of humanity who plays tabletop RPGs, most people don't have a decades-long ongoing campaign where I can read about what happened in the past and see how the effects of those decisions are still relevant in the imaginary game-world milieu of today.

There's a time in the next few years where I'll have been running this game for over half of my lifespan. Wild!




On the Novel Coronavirus

Looking back it's interesting to see these recaps coming out while there must have been that building sense of dread during the start of 2020, culminating in the first of many online D&D sessions in Session 260.

It's darkly funny that almost exactly a year after my campaign reached the post-apocalypse, the real world had an apocalypse of its own.

I know we've all undergone the Great Forgetting and now rarely talk about the pandemic, but it was a hell of a thing in those early days approaching the first Lockdown.

This is very evident in the 3 week gap between Session 258 and 259 - I'd gone to Venice for my Stag Do during the time when Italy was ground zero for the spread of Covid in the EU, and subsequently been forced to isolate!
Great time to go though. Next time there's a global disaster do consider hitting a tourist hotspot so you can see the sights with no queues.
(Do not do this).

I imagine there will be more to ruminate on regarding the lockdown experience in the next Retrospective, so for now I will leave it there!


On the Difficulties of Playing PCs as NPCs

There was a whole arc here where our heroes had to fight and destroy Styx (a former PC) who had taken over Fortress-City Fate in an earlier era.

The trouble is that I've never quite worked out how to do it when the former PC is important in the game world now, not to mention an adversary.
What if I get them wrong? What if the player thinks I'm mocking them personally by the way I'm playing their character? A character is a private thing in some ways, and my taking control of them must be crossing some sort of inchoate boundary.

In this case it was kind of fine. The character kind of got corrupted by their power and so their actions are kind of justifiably under my control. The same way reading a spooky book made it kind of fine for Wanda to discard all her character growth and become obsessed with her imaginary children in that one Dr Strange movie.

It still doesn't quite sit right, but that did lead to me making up the Mentor mechanic so that people's retired characters can be largely off-screen and played by them if necessary!

This may become an issue in the current (Aug-Sep 2024) era because there is now a new God made of PCs... but I foreshadow too much.




On Neo-Spacedin

Weirdly I'd forgotten about the insane story of how Neo-Spacedin came to be!

Built around a crashed UFO whose replicator is stuck on the Undercooked Hawaiian Pizza setting, populated by Mod Cons (sentient modern home appliances) and Indomes (human minds from the Matrix sleeved into real bodies who use the world as a survival video game).

Any time I try to pretend that I'm running a grim and gritty hardcore version of D&D, remind me that Neo Spacedin was founded after the players had an orgy with a bunch of whisks.

I also love the running joke that every newly formed town is some variation on Moondin.
Fun fact - it's called Moondin as a play on "Mundane" because the original joke was that the forest it's in is the only non-magical forest ever found in a fantasy setting.


On the Birth of the Dharga

Wow I didn't realise that this was the time period when the Dharga was formed!
Session 256 sees Dargo, a character whose entire vibe was getting bigger and more horrible as an Inheritor, ascending to a sort of Godhood as a giant flesh-tree.

Wait... how many PCs get retired as a result of some sort of apotheosis? I should look at the stats. You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become God.

I remember this being one of those dramatic "rules don't matter, let's see how it lands" moments.

The great adversary was the Styxmind - the core Styx that controls Fortress-City Fate - a multifaceted being who wanted to impose his Law while being ontologically Neutral.
Opposing him was Sir Robyn, a lawyer wizard thereby containing the conceptuality of Law while being a wielder of Chaos.
Consuming both was Dargo, a being of Chaos invoking the world-consuming yet nonetheless Neutral Shub-Niggurath to become enormous and kaiju-formed, growing to encompass both in a horrific fleshy Yggdrassil. Chaos and Law united!

Russell, Dargo's player, has not returned since the pandemic. Kind of a perfect end to a player run honestly.

This was also eventually be the origin of JONATHON TOAST. An airship! Made of flesh!
I will talk more on Jonathon Toast as he becomes a gameplay concern, then a running joke, then a joke that's too existentially terrifying to be funny any more.

Wait a sec this was also the first session involving Jeremy Wizard! Charles' characters are famously all just Charles in a wig, so I think a lot of Jeremy's vibes get mixed up with the later iteration Celebus in the group's collective imaginary.




On the Best Death

Oh wait I also didn't realise that this run involved what must be in the running for the best ever character death!




After the horrors of the Dharga's emergence, the fleeing players in their wagon were assaulted by a dragon! How could I forget that Andromeda was riding a skeletal motorbike at the time??

During the dragon's assault Tom's character is thrown out of the wagon by a mis-thrown grenade, flies through the air, casts Dig Grave, thumps into said grave, and instantly dies.
Honestly it brings a tear to my eye.
Technically Rivière is still alive because this was a Necromancer Chaos Burst that caused temporary death, but since he never returned one must imagine that he died in that self-dug grave.




On Evicting Styx

The last act before the Lockdown truly took hold and the Moon Era began was the gang -
WAIT WHAT

I peeked ahead to the first session we had back after lockdown and saw the following -


At time of writing that has only just been resolved!

Hands on hearts, bow to George, for resolving the Four Year Dwimmermount Plan.
18 August 2020 - 20 August 2024

Truly incredible.


On Evicting Styx

Ok for real this time.

Their last act as Lockdown drew in is, in retrospect, a real Scouring of the Shire capstone to this era.
They capture the Styxmind in a giant flesh tree. They claim a wagonful of Iron Rations to take back to New Moondin. They escape a dragon attack.

They return home... and find that an iteration of Styx has taken over the place in a Seraphim previously occupied by The Lady!

I remember expecting this to be a whole cool subterfuge-centred segment of the campaign.
Uniting factions, scraping together the remnants of the old order, feints and direct targeted strikes to restore New Moondin to its former glory.

Alas, the Lockdown came slamming in! The New Moondin plot was resolved via a concordance of allies and shenanigans (which to be fair is a very satisfactory way for a plot to be resolved), and we had to retreat behind our laptops for MONTHS!


Tuesday 27 August 2024

Session 383 - God in the Shell

Date: 20 August

Moon: Full
Zenith: Oberon


New Backstory:
- When Julian was a child he would leave gifts out in the garden for his imaginary friend. His imaginary friend was called... Aximander!


Events:

--- Speaking Seahorse
- Full of porridge and having had a nice sleep in Sydney's increasingly crowded extradimensional apartment, the party emerges back into the fourth floor of Dwimmermount. They've spent several days down here, so the dungeon itself is starting to reject them.
- The first thing they hear is a strange blurbling language... why, that sounds exactly like the Seahorse Language spoken by giant psychic seahorses that live in the seas of Counter-Earth! Which everybody knows somehow! I love it when people talk to enemies so I'm honestly never going to try to justify or fix the Languages skill, it's so funny when this happens.
- Sydney casts Stolen Sanctum to steal the embiggened Warhammer Room from last time, this time successfully grabbing it but also making it really really dry in there. Hopefully it helps with the nerd sweat at least!
- They leave the room and approach the seahorses, which are floating psychically outside a door. The lead seahorse says that there's a black ooze guy in there with a God Part, which they want because it might help them clean the seas of Counter-Earth which turned to pus during the apocalypse.
- Sydney gets a call on his jellyphone. It's the Old Miner! He tells Sydney that the black ooze guy is operating on his orders - he's installed a dead man's switch in the god piece so "nothing can go wrong". He's also angry that they even considered uploading Jonathon Toast into the new god!

--- Aximander's Key
- Meanwhile Aximander has approached the portal to Counter-Earth that these seahorses came through. According to the seahorses, Strongus Amongus has gone in there already and seem to be having some Edgar Rice Burroughs style adventures.
- While the seahorses are distracted by Sydney, Aximander fishes his Goblin Key out of his pack. It's a key that can lock any door, so he uses it on the portal and... k-chunk! The portal seals to a thin ripple in space-time!
- The seahorses panic! They've lost their connection to the seahorse hive mind on the other side of the door! They bobble about in concern, unaware that this was Aximander's doing. It's Sydney's turn to use a distraction, quickly slipping the God Part and the black ooze guy (named Slombus) into the cart.
- The seahorses declare that they will take over the chamber that once housed the Frog Monsters and work on reopening the portal. They can feel that there's one God Piece left, and it's in the hands of the Ratmen and their leader Riskit Al-Biskit!

--- Riskit Al-Biskit
- Hagen declares a grudge against the Ratman leader for the crime of stealing one of the God Parts. This unlocks his Grudge lorebond, allowing him to know the direction and distance to the ratman!
- The party head through the teleport maze and appear nearish to where they wanted to go, then convince some ratmen behind a barricade to bring over Riskit himself.
- While Hagen grudgingly stands nearby being rude, the others impress Riskit by telling him that they've defeated the Frog Monsters! They discover that Julgoor seems to have been visiting these ratmen and selling them drugs, largely notcoke, which is why the Ratmen want to turn this dungeon level into a series of small plates restaurants.
- The ratman chief agrees to give over the last God Part in exchange for giving them free run of this level. With the Frog Monsters gone and the leader of the unicorn men stuck on the other side of the portal to counter-earth, there's a power vacuum and business opportunity for go-getting coke-fueled entrepeneurs!!
- Hagen rolls the God part into the Safe Space, forgiving the Grudge. Slombus the black ooze guy goops out of the cart and rolls his piece in there too.
- Sydney spots a kitchen selling Antarctican cuisine and sorely wants to add it to his Safe Space, but is dissuaded by the rats themselves who prefer staying in the dungeon actually.

--- Alaunus 0.4_final_FINAL_this one_FINAL
- The ratmen grant the party passage out, seeing as they're pretty much allies now.
- On the way they spot a room with hookah-smoking ratmen and a statue of Alaunus - God of Loyalty and Fervour - which the smoking ratmen insist can talk!
- Hagen approaches and discovers that it's an older and more limited version of Alaunus. He confirms that his code-base is based on the Old Miner, and it transpires that he only said that because Hagen's links to his God have given him higher privileges somehow. The statue insults the Old Miner, and Hagen destroys the statue! There is a throbbing brain-shaped lump in the base of the statue, but it's built in.

--- Elevator Surprise
- There's one last stop for the final God Piece before they head up the elevator to the launch level - Vespusian's room! Despite his strange and provocative near-nudity, he gives up the God Piece easily in exchange for one of the large sized Gladius pieces - turns out he used to collect Northern Horde!
- They head around to the prison room and get out the final God Parts. Finally! Fetch Quest complete!
- They return to the elevator and see that it's still blackened and crisped. Aximander's previous fire clearance and purge did the trick, plus Sydney's Blight spells would have killed off any survivors.
- They take the lift up to the top floor and angel metal arms unfurl from the ceiling, grabbing god pieces and conveying them onwards. It looks like there was a lot of plant life here until relatively recently.
The party start to follow and... oh no! A ceiling ooze strikes!
- It's the sort that splits when it's hit by energy, which leads to some concern until Aximander casts Shackle to the Earth and pulls the blobs off the ceiling where they are finished off quickly and cleanly.

--- Shadow People
- The party jogs to catch up with the ceiling arms which are zipping down the corridor on tracked grooves in the ceiling, heading to a construction chamber.
- The chamber is large and pillared, shadows scurry away from the light and hide behind the pillars!
- One approaches Aximander, who despite being weakened by the Full Moon is still clearly an Elf. Aximander explains the situation and the shadow-elves agree to let it happen - they're all weaker now of course.

--- Wrench, Meet Plans
- The arms start putting together the panels, and Sydney turns to the others. Have they considered... filling the God shell with pure chaos energy and sending it up??
- Aximander is confused. Hagen is mortified. The Old Miner is horrified - he's been listening in through Sydney's ooze familiar!
- Sydney declares that nothing is ever repeated, so this is the only chance to create a chaos god who will advance magic interests. Hagen fronts the idea of uploading themselves to the God and becoming a mini pantheon. The session dissolves into confusion and theology...

Total: 8000 exp


Treasures Claimed:
- 2 God Parts (2000 exp)
Total: 2000 exp

Enemies Defeated:
- An ochre ooze (100 exp)
Total: 100 exp



Exp Totals:
- Carter / Sydney, Level 8 Magic-User: 248865 (Level up at 288000)
- Kitty / Julian & Aximander, Level 8 Languid Wastrel: 163241 (Level up at 288000)
- George / Hagen the Heretic, Level 8 Dwarf: 132257 (Level up at 256000)
Level Up! +1d10 HP! +1 to Saves! +Lorebond! +Backstory!
































Tuesday 20 August 2024

Session 382 - Shackled to the Sea Floor

Date: 13 August

Moon: Waning Gibbous
Zenith: Minerva


Events:

--- Safeish Space
- It's been a nice relaxing evening in Sydney's Safe Space, the increasingly busy extradimensional apartment which seems to be increasingly out of Sydney's control.
- Hagen has been busy. Sydney's recent trip to the past has freaked out Hagen, because he's realised that the Old Miner is inaccessible without Sydney and/or Sydney's familiar. To this end he's been widening the corridors such that they might be able to get the Old Miner out of the place, but he's also been increasing the property value via engraved wainscotting.
- Sydney, for their part, is trying to hold court in the kitchen while black ooze dinosaurs and Friends-obsessed proto-Dwarfs bang around the place. Sydney wants to kill the giant Mushroom Demon that was previously unleashed by a magical mishap, lest it spread and grow to become yet another big bad.
- Aximander, for his part, is lamenting the moon. It's gibbous, so he's no longer at full Elf power. Nevertheless he's in for the mushroom murder plan.

--- Mushroom Murder Plan
- They roll out of the extradimensional flat and back into Dwimmermount! After Sydney cast Blight last session the terrariums have dried out dead plants in them, but Aximander notices that there are already shoots making their way out of the soil. Something has survived!
- The other thing that survived, of course, is the towering Mushroom Demon that lurks in the Teleport Maze, warping between the teleport points. Whenever it moves it leaves a man-sized mini-version of itself.
- They approach a mini-version. Beyond they can hear the sound of frogs in combat. Aximander attacks and... oh no! He fumbles! The mini-mushroom grows little arms and shatters Aximander's flame blade!
- Sydney whips out the gold spellbook he grabbed from the alternate Sydney and casts Scarf of Repair, summoning a magical scarf that starts putting Aximander's sword back together.
- The mushroom pulses... and the giant Mushroom Demon appears! It's much bigger, shrouded in darkness, and surrounded with glowing spores!
- This is the moment that Sydney was waiting for! They jump forward... and Mind Switch!!

--- Mushroom Mind
- Just according to keikaku, Sydney mind-swaps and simultaneously has Hagen slip the Cat Ring onto their finger! The Mushroom Demon's mind is in Sydney's body, which is now a cat, which is now stuffed into a sack. Sydney is now in the Mushroom Demon, feeling their strange gestalt consciousness through the mycelium.
- A voice from the sack says MEOW! YOU HAVE GRANTED ME FORM! MEOW!
- Unfortunately the Mushroom Demon saved against Chaos, so it only lasts for a round. In that time Sydney discovers what it's like to be a mushroom demon, mycellium pulsing. They can feel the mushroom abilities. And then... they snap back!
- Cat-Sydney is stunned, but the Mushroom Demon is back! Pustules pop and fling jagged shards while Aximander snaps out fireballs.
- Sydney recovers and casts Blight once more! The mind-control spores wink out, the mycelium dies back.
- Aximander charges in with his repaired blade, sinking the sword into fungal flesh, and Sydney rips out a Magic Missile straight into the mushroom's crystal core!
- The Mushroom Demon dies! For real this time! It slumps like a popped balloon, already rotting away.

--- Frog War
- It's time for a quick break, since Sydney has been bleeding themself dry with all this snap-casting.
- They head to the jailer's room. Hagen shares some of his Dwarven brew with the skeletal jailer. Aximander passes over the tupperware of leftovers to Sydney, who gratefully scarfs down some greying dinner from weeks ago.
- Relatively refreshed, they head back past the scene of the dead Mushroom Demon and towards where they heard frogs fighting something.
- It's a massacre! Dead and dying frog monsters amongst dead seahorse monsters, baby seahorses flopping out their last breaths in the salty blood.
- Sydney hangs back due to previously committed war crimes while the others approach. They see a Deep One frog monster mourning its dead brother. Beyond, the horrible Eleyn plorps out new frog monster babies, a frog mermaid looks after her wounded unicorn man devotee. An enormous squid holds open the portal at the back of the room, reaching in from the deep sea.
- They learn that the seahorses attacked out of nowhere, and so the frogs have barred the door. Eleyn notes that the frogs have a bunch of god parts, but she's willing to trade them for -

--- WAR CRIME TIME
- Sydney busts in with a Cloudkill! The roiling cloud of chemical weapon roils through the room, wiping out the baby frog monsters and killing more of the survivors! Eleyn chokes from her many yonic mouths!
- The spell goes subtly wrong though... everyone in the room suddenly wants Sydney's spellbooks! They advance!
- Aximander casts Shackle to the Earth to prevent them from easily leaving the room, while Hagen sends a rune-beam of lightning towards the portal. He misses!
- The giant squid on the other side of the portal is Shackled also... but since it's in the deep sea it's being dragged down into the depths! The portal is yanked to the floor as the squid frantically tries to hold on!
- Eleyn crawls out of the cloud, spitting accusations, as Sydney casts Slippery Slope. All the enemies in the room slide away towards the portal, plopping through one by one and being dragged down to the sea floor!
- Eleyn is last to go, she smashes into the giant squid on her way out and knocks its grip. All of them plummet down into the deep sea Looney Tunes style! The portal closes up!

--- Treasure Time
- Aximander waits for the Cloudkill to dissipate and cautiously enters the room. There's a bunch of treasure in here, some diaries of the frog men, and of course a whole nine God Parts!
- There are also ominous frog idols in the alcoves at the corners of the room. Aximander defaces the pitted iron sea portal, then goes around smashing the idols. They would have been valuable but oh well.
- At least smashing an idol reveals a secret door! Within Aximander finds some tables with miniature terrain and some Gladius sets. Basically ancient Roman warhammer!
- Sydney, desperate and low on HP and mana as they are, decides to steal the room for their Safe Space. Alas, they fucked it. The room is not transferred, and stuff within is quintupled in size! Big Gladius sets and not-so-miniature terrain I guess.

--- A Reproducible Meal?i!
- It's time to relax in the Safe Space once more, so Sydney summons up their extradimensional flat once more.
- The door opens and a black slime man with a black slime velociraptor friend step out, letting the party into the place. Sydney wonders if this is fine.
- Hagen sees a Terran eating black ooze snacks in front of the endless Friends rerun and asks for one, despite being warned that it's not healthy for Dwarves. It burns his palm so he doesn't eat it, but he does find that he can contact the Old Miner through it. Interesting!
- Sydney decides that they want to cook something that they can actually cook again. Imagine! The result is Sydney's Homely Porridge, involving stale old beer, giant millet, and a dash of milk. It's actually pretty good!

Total: 8000 exp


Loot Lifted:
- 500gp of pitted gold coins. (25000 exp)
- 2000sp of sunken treasure. (2000 exp)
- Deep One diaries made of seaweed - count as 3 iterations of Book #171. (300 exp)
- Destroyed frog idols (800 exp)
- 9 God Parts (9000 exp)
- Roman Legion gladius set (2000 exp)
- Red Elves gladius set (2000 exp)
- Northern Horde gladius set (2000 exp)
- Dominator gladius set (2000 exp)
Total: 45100 exp


Denizens Defeated:
- Giant Mushroom Demon (1000 exp)
- Eleyn (500 exp)
- A wounded unicorn man (75 exp)
- A mermaid (100 exp)
- Several frog monsters (200 exp)
Total: 1875 exp


Totals: 
- Carter / Sydney, Level 8 Magic-User: 230340 (Level up at 288000)
- Kitty / Julian & Aximander, Level 8 Languid Wastrel: 144716 (Level up at 288000)
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 Mana! +free spell! +backstory!
- George / Hagen the Heretic, Level 7 Dwarf: 113732 (Level up at 128000)

Tuesday 13 August 2024

Session 381 - Between a Frog and a Dark Place

Date: 6 August

Moon: New Moon
Zenith: Minerva


New Backstory:
- Grog Greedy caused his whole caveman commune to flee when they saw the changes that demonic mutations had wrought - his humungous forehead. Once per session, cause someone you've met to flee from you for a round.


Events:

--- The Mushroom Demon Cometh
- The party is within Dwimmermount, still hunting for the God Parts they previously manufactured and sent up to the Teleport Maze. The built-in terrariums in the walls flicker with a low light.
- Aximander is currently filled with the dark of the New Moon and looks like the Devil, red skin and goat legs and all - maximum mana, maximum power! Grog Greedy has returned, his skin was replaced by a demon recently so it's red too! They've got a cart with a bunch of God Parts on it, but there's a bit of an issue...
- Before them, for reasons as yet unknown, the Teleport Maze flickers with the shadow of an enormous mushroom! Sometimes it's just a man-sized mushroom surrounded by spores, sometimes it's huge and shrouded in darkness!
- They sprint past anyway, trusting their silver suits to protect them from spores. The suits work, but as they run past the smaller mushroom is replaced by the big one and its dark aura!
- They make it past regardless, taking the direct line, and reach the door! They careen in, finding themselves face to face with a very shocked skeleton!

--- Back to the Future
- A long time ago, somewhere relatively close, Sydney is looking out from the top of Dwimmermount across beautiful golden fields. It's the past! Sydney got transported here after accidentally being indirectly involved in the summoning of a giant mushroom demon.
- Nevertheless he gets a call from the Old Miner on his slime familiar phone. The slime familiar, oddly, has a pupil now like it's a big eye. The Old Miner chats a bit, and informs Sydney that according to the call records they are indeed in the past!
- Sydney suddenly warps back to the present day, now pupil-less slime slopping on one shoulder. Of course, they're back where they left, in the Teleport Maze... so they instantly warp away!
- Unbelievably Sydney appears in the teleport maze node closest to the other two, which is on balance much more convenient for me!

--- Prison Guard
- Aximander and Grog are face to face with a skeleton in a prison warden hat! He's actually quite polite, and he's guarding the prison cell in this room.



- They persuade him to let them stash the God Parts in the cell, and he lends them the cursed keys he protects.
- Aximander tries them out and opens the cell door... but an olive slime drops on his head! Luckily his Elf senses let him see it coming and he sidesteps, then blasts it with fire! The slime collapses into olive oil, which they duly collect.
- They lock away the god pieces in the now-empty cell, and discover that the other keys can be used to shift the cell between three different spaces! It's three cells in one! They shift it to a new visible one (with no god parts) and hand back the keys. Simple!

--- Title Drop
- They leave the prison guard and return to the corridor to find... Sydney! Hurrah!
- Unfortunately there is an issue.  The gigantic mushroom demon has returned... and with it the frog demoness Melissia! She's been taken over by the spores and has broken a wall terrarium to let the demonic mycellium spread! There are also a bunch of mushroom-infected frog men!
- Aximander lambasts her for breaching their deal... then blasts her with a fireball.
- The mushroom demon exudes its darkness aura and Melissia turns into her seductive form. Sydney and Aximander briefly consider themselves rivals for her love... but not so much.
- To make things worse, non-infected frog men appear from behind the party! It's a two-front battle! They're trapped between a frog and a dark place!
- Grog uses the powers he stole from a dragon to create a projector out of his massive forehead. He transforms the area around the frogs into a fly-filled swamp, distracting them!



- Aximander is at full Elf power, so spreads his hands and dims the magic around him. The darkness is now not quite so dark, the seductive Lust Demon powers not quite so compelling.
- Sydney follows up with Sudden Siege Engine, spearing the huge mushroom with a ballista bolt. It doesn't quite reach Melissia on the other side though.
- Aximander is going ham, flinging fireball after fireball at Melissia, frying her completely!
- The giant Mushroom Demon isn't looking so hot either, harr harr.
- With that, the Mushroom Demon warps away, leaving behind its man-sized spore version without the darkness aura. It does however begin infesting the fried corpse of Melissia with mycelium-filled mud... and she begins to arise...

--- Roy Mustang Mode
- Sydney doesn't want this demon to spread. Good thing they have Blight! It will kill all the plants within a mile, but that feels like a fair price for wiping out the mushroom demon!
- The blight bursts out. The glowing spores of the Mushroom Demon turn to ash. The flowing mycelium dies. There is a sound like a thousand Goblins crying out in pain and being suddenly silenced.




- The earth homunculus doesn't stop... but it also doesn't attack. It's trying to stop the fighting. Sydney and Grog team up to kill the smaller mushroom but trigger the Teleport Maze! Sydney is briefly blurred as he warps back to where he is, but Grog appears in a room filled with darkness.
- With Grog's illusion gone, there's nothing to stop the frogs from attacking. Aximander strolls forward, lighting his flaming sword, and blasts them with fire again and again! Soon there is nothing left but frog-shaped piles of ash.

--- Roy Mustang Mode 2: The Mustanening
- Grog is face to face with big floating pregnant seahorses, their eyes filled with the sparkling lights of the demon mushroom infection!



- He flees! Good thing Grog is good at fleeing via a backstory bonus! He gets a massive headstart, but runs randomly through the level in his attempt to escape!
- To my utter shock, he chooses the exact right left-right-left sequence that gets him back to the party!
- Sydney summons up the extradimensional apartment while Grog falls onto the Lust Demon's body and digests her. Yum. He steals the power to form a Love Triangle!
- Alas, that took some time. Trailing him are a bunch of infected floating psychic seahorses and infected croaking frog monsters! Grog bundles into the front door of the flat, while Sydney holds it open. Aximander stands in the doorway and snaps his fingers over and over as he turns the pursuing monsters to dust!


- Any survivors hop, crawl, or drag their burned bodies away from the scene of the massacre. Aximander smiles and goes back into the flat.

--- A Lively Post-Massacre Meal
- Sydney uses their last scraps of Mana to cast a cleaning spell on everyone. It goes slightly awry and swaps their ambiguous sex somehow, but everyone is otherwise clean!
- They cook up a nice meal, "Frog's Famous", with the frog legs and the olive oil and some of the seemingly endless millet and stale beer. You know what? It's pretty good!

Total: 8000 exp



Enemies Defeated:
- An Olive Slime (50 exp)
- Melissia the Succubus (750 exp)
- Mushroom Spore (250 exp)
- Loads of frog monsters (850 exp)
- A bunch of seahorses (900 exp)
Total: 2800 exp



Exp Totals:
- Carter / Sydney, Level 8 Magic-User: 211815 (Level up at 288000)
- Kitty / Julian & Aximander, Level 7 Languid Wastrel: 126191 (Level up at 144000)
- Charles / Grog Greedy, Level 6 Inheritor: 46500 (Level up at 72000)



Tuesday 6 August 2024

Session 380 - A Third of the Way to a New God

Date: 30 July
Moon: Waning Crescent
Zenith: The Allfather


- Events:

--- Split Session
- We emerge to a split session. Sydney is in front of a big old submarine-hatch door, insistent that one wizard with a mook-wipe spell can solo a dungeon. Elsewhere, Aximander and Divinity are speaking with the king of the unicorn men called Strongus Amongus, attempting to persuade him to help them collect God Parts.

-- Lewd Content Warning
- Aximander and Divinity speak to Strongus Amongus. He declares that he's willing to help, and explains that his unicorn forces have been stealing God Parts because the horrible frog men want them. He doesn't know what they're for though.
- After explaining that they are parts of a mechanical God, intended to be sent up into space to defend against the invading Red Elves, he is somewhat confused but agrees to a deal - he'll give the party the God Parts if it means defeating the frog men!
- Together they go to the room where the God Parts are stored. There they see... shock! A wounded unicorn man?? Having some sort of congress with a winged frog lady?? It's that demon they met last time who agreed to get four God Parts for Hagen! What could they possibly be doing?!

--- Sydney and the Frogs
- Sydney is facing the big ol' submarine hatch door. They have drawn a Turn-Heat-Heat glyph on it in the hope that everything within boils.
- Sydney did not consider that the frogs in the pot might not want to boil.
- The locking wheel turns! Sydney quick-casts Meta-Manipulation, hoping that their ability to turn dice will protect them! The door blasts open, sending water cascading out and revealing a frog-man with very burnt hands on the other side!
- Also within - way more frog-men, some unicorn-men with breathing helmets, some beautiful frog ladies, and the huge demonic form of Eleyn! A former character, Eleyn mind-swapped herself into a very NSFW demon form and is now a spawning pod for frog men.
- The foremost frog-man tongue-attacks Sydney and whips himself towards the wizard! Sydney falls back, wrestled, and resists the frog's poisonous bite.
- Sydney casts Cloudkill into the room, hoping that it instakills everything or something. Alas! Meta-Manipulation causes all spells to Chaos Burst! A yawning portal opens behind Sydney, those in the cloud turn into stone gorillas, and another cloud encompasses Sydney!
- Luckily Sydney is too high level to get instakilled, so runs into the room. There is a big floating portal to the depths of the ocean in here, apparently linked to a horrible frog statue, and Sydney chucks it back in!
- It doesn't work as well as they hoped. Writhing black tentacles reach out from the portal, and Sydney flees!

--- The Unicorn Cannon Cart
- It was all a big misunderstanding back in the unicorn zone. You see, the succubus was merely trying to help the poor injured unicorn man... plus he doesn't even have a penis so it's all above board.
- Strongus Amongus reiterates he's willing to part with the God Parts if they are at least unavailable to the frog monsters, his hated foes.
- The injured unicorn man was meant to be guarding the room with the Unicorn Cannon - a ballista that uses unicorn horns (ethically sourced) as ammunition. With some persuasion, Strongus agrees to let them mount it on the cart. Between the four newly acquired God Parts and the Unicorn Cannon, this cart is quite unwieldy.
- They head off and intone the necessary "Ave Vespusian" to disable the teleport maze as they go.
- Beyond is a buff unicorn man guarding the teleport zone. He tells them what he knows of the corridors ahead, and admits that he traded a God Part to the Ratmen in return for some muscle enhancement medicine. He's very nice.
- One of the rooms is allegedly a toilet, so for some reason Aximander and Divinity head there first. Behold! Squat toilets! Also... some sort of yellow ooze!

--- Sydney Shenanigans Continue
- Not content with the fates being on their side and a clear ability to leave at pace, Sydney decides to stick around and try further murder. They cast Carve Rune into the ground, creating a huge Beam Decay rune facing the ceiling! Strangely, despite the death of the Mass Dragon, it works!
- Sydney looks triumphant... but suddenly turns off the rune. They realise something due to a Chaos Burst - everyone in that room is a close sibling! They can't kill them!
- The stone gorillas crumble, revealing the bronicorns within. Alas, the frog-men were killed by the Cloudkill. The Bronicorns, on the orders of the frog-lady mermaids, are already pulling the portal's horrible frog statue back into the room.
- The bronicorns, statue saved, charge at Sydney! Sydney quickly blasts the statue with Magic Missile, blowing it up, but takes a couple of horn attacks from the unicorn-men! Meta-manipulation mitigates the harm.

--- Slime Secrets
- Elsewhere the yellow ooze, declared a "piss slime" by Divinity, squirms towards the heroes! It is quickly defeated by a blast of fire from Aximander. Sydney's distant meta-manipulation is still up though, so a Chaos Burst ensues! The slime is simultaneously turned to stone, turned invisible, and blasted into a thousand urinal cake crumbs.
- Divinity loots the toilets. Aximander looks on in disgust, but does hook a vial of holy water out of a toilet while Divinity isn't looking.
- Aximander notices a secret door on the other side of the room, which opens out into a little chamber containing a statue of one of the Nine High Gods - The Scorned! Divinity prays and gets a blessing of +2 to damage. Nice.
- They exit the chamber and witness some absolute fucking chaos in the teleport maze. Aximander gets punched by Sydney who suddenly vanishes. There is a swirl of spores. Some sort of evil mushroom...?

--- Return to the Past
- No longer stone gorillas, Eleyn and the rest of the surviving frog team pursue Sydney! Sydney can't attack them because they're siblings, so instead flees into the teleport maze.
- Through a convoluted sequence of chaotic events Sydney takes a wrong turn, casts Cloudkill "accidentally" on Eleyn and the gang, warps through the teleport maze twice, and ends up in a mirror universe where an alternate Sydney has just been murdered by buff frogs wielding big bident spears!
- Sydney chats with the frogs a bit, then turns back to the portal to discover that nega-Sydney's familiar (a pet rock) is exploding into a demonic darkness-projecting mushroom to take revenge!
- Sydney sprints into the mushroom chamber, grabs nega-Sydney's golden spellbook, and flash-casts Escape Rope to get out of there... but
- The magic twists. Sydney emerges from the red doors of Dwimmermount. The distant sea is blue and beautiful. The sky is sunny and normal. The grass is green, the forests lush. Distant cities bustle with life.
- Is this... the past?!

Total: 8000 exp


Enemies Defeated:
- Several Deep Ones (150 exp)
 Total: 150 exp


Loots Looted:
- 6 God Parts (6000 exp)
- 16sp (16 exp)
- 10' metal chain
- Counter-Sydney's Spellbook (1000 exp)
Total: 7016 exp


Exp Totals:
- Carter / Sydney, Level 8 Magic-User: 208015 (Level up at 288000)
- Kitty / Julian & Aximander, Level 7 Languid Wastrel: 122391 (Level up at 144000)
- Ollie / Divinity, Level 6 Battle-Cleric (Fighter 3/ Cleric 3): 66404 (Level up at 72000)

Tuesday 30 July 2024

Session 379 - War Crimes Good Times

Date: 16 July


Moon: Waxing Gibbous
Zenith: Alaunus

--- A Surfeit of Frogs
- We begin at the cliffhanger! But for real this time!
- It is the fourth floor of Dwimmermount where all the stuff from the Foundry gets teleported to. Glass boxes built into the walls contain strange plants and creatures. Lights flicker.
- Sydney is midair in the middle of the room, grabbed by a sticky hand-tipped tongue, flying towards a the mouth of a giant four-eyed frog monster. Sydney is looking back across the room at the opposite barricade behind which swole unicorn-men are aghast.
- Aximander acts quickly and casts Shackle to the Earth. Sydney is abruptly on the ground, chained to the floor! Hagan follows up by setting the frog monster barricade alight!
- The frog monsters pull back from their burning barricade. Sydney stands... and vanishes! It's been too long since they said the phrase, so they've vanished into the teleport maze!

--- Deep Negotiation
- Hagan, who knows Deep One like most people apparently, tries to negotiate with the frog monsters.
- They say that they require the God Parts and Azoth because they want to create a Frog God who can clean the waters of in their part of the sea. A full third of the ocean is still blood, you'll remember, as a result of the closely averted apocalypse.
- Hagen counters that there are big ol' pyramids out to the east which can clean the ocean. Maybe they use that technology instead? It's been proven to work already!
- Hagen also gets some good info. It turns out the the God Parts themselves don't teleport, which is why it's so hard to fight over them. There's also a faction of Unicorn Men, and a relatively neutral faction of Ratmen who aren't taking sides. 19 God Parts to collect in total, and most of them under the control of the Deep Ones.

--- Split Session
- Sydney is alone in one of the teleport maze zones, and oh shit! There's a beautiful women here! Her pheremones suffuse the air... but Sydney resists!
- With nobody around to worry about insta-killing, Sydney snap-casts Cloudkill! The woman chokes... and vanishes. Too long in the teleportation zone sucker!
- Muttering the safety phrase "Ave Vespusian", Sydney inspects the double doors out of here. There is a map carved into the wall! Sydney gets their bearings...

--- Real Succubus Hours
- Aximander and Hagen, meanwhile, have bartered their way into past the frog monsters with the promise that they can solve the situation diplomatically.
- The frogs follow warily as the two adventurers approach tall industrial doors at the end of the corridor, a straight shot from the elevator if this teleport maze wasn't quite so in the way.
- They enter the tall cylindrical chamber cautiously. In the centre is a wide pentagram, and within is a winged frog woman! They've both plugged their noses against the pheremones, so the frog woman pouts.
- It quickly becomes apparent that this is no frog lady, 'tis a demon! Specifically her name is Melissia and she was summoned here by a cut-rate wizard ages ago, like two decades if you can believe it. He summoned her, felt a rumble, went up to check out the end of the world, and never returned! She's been trapped here since.
- In the mean time she's allied with the frog monsters, who believe her to be a queen frog or something, and has been helping them by pushing the God Parts out of the summoning circle for them to take. She can't leave though, and is hoping they'll let her out soon.
- She also knows how the frog monsters breed! Eggs that sink to crushing depths hatch into male Deep Ones. Eggs eaten by another creature eventually become female Mermaids. They have got some sort of brood-mare somewhere that's hatching them without the crushing depths being necessary though...

--- Sydney's War Crimes 2: Frog in a Pot Edition
- MeanwhileSydney has worked out exactly where they are! More importantly, they know that beyond the nearby submarine hatch door there must be a whole bunch of frog monsters!
- They draw a sigil on the door - Turn Heat-Heat - and fire up the metal until it's white hot. Those frogs are going to boil!

--- Marine Politics
- The others have negotiated with the demon to strike a deal. Aximander will grant her freedom, but in exchange she must bring them four God Parts.
- She tries to wriggle out of it by giving them a fake name, but Aximander's Elf abilities let him get the real name out of her - Dezriuth'uth.
- True names exchanged, the deal is struck! They break the pentagram and she whizzes away in a puff of smoke!
- The frog monsters are very surprised at this, of course. They explain that the Frog God idea wasn't even theirs, but aquapolitically they agree with the idea of cleaning the ocean. It's a great bargaining chip with other subnautical polities.

--- Strongus Amongus
- Finally the pair decide to go to the Unicorn Men and see if they can negotiate for these God Parts. The core conflict has been them versus the frog monsters, you see.
- The frog monsters make a path through their barricades and our heroes stride heroically in! There they are confronted with an unusually posh and snobby unicorn man who declares that the unicorn men are open for bargaining!

Total: 8000 exp


Enemies:
- Some frog monsters (150 exp)
Total: 150 exp


Exp Totals:
- Carter / Sydney, Level 8 Magic-User: 202959 (Level up at 288000)
- Kitty / Julian & Aximander, Level 7 Languid Wastrel: 117335 (Level up at 144000)
- George / Hagen the Heretic, Level 7 Dwarf: 95207 (Level up at 128000)

Wednesday 10 July 2024

Session 379 - Vespjulian the Ninth God

Date: Never

Moon: Waxing Crescent
Zenith: Alaunus

New Characters:
- Janus, a Cleric who worships the ancient arts of POWERLAD rather than the man-become-dragon-become-god Himself. Was once a management consultant of niche renown.

Events:

--- A Surfeit of Frogs
- We begin at the cliffhanger! It is the fourth floor of Dwimmermount where all the stuff from the Foundry gets teleported to. Glass boxes built into the walls contain strange plants and creatures. Lights flicker.
- Sydney is midair in the middle of the room, grabbed by a sticky hand-tipped tongue, flying towards a froggy doom. Sydney is looking back across the room at the opposite barricade behind which swole unicorn-men look in shock.
- Sydney lands in the jaws of a huge toad and the foam-flecked teeth BITE. Stun poison! He screams but does not struggle.
- Aximander leaps into action, bounding over the unicorn barricade, begins summoning a beam of fire  and.. forgets to say the activation phrase that disables the teleport maze. He vanishes!

--- Unicornucopia
- The Swolicorns are not so foolish. They yell "Ave Vespusian!" as they leap over the barricade, run across the room, and leap across the enemy frog barricade into battle!
- The frogman attacking Sydney is slain instantly by a brutal unicorn horn to the heart! Sydney drops and considers how much pain poison is running through his veins. One move and he could pass out instantly.
- The frogmen retreat, croaking their dismay. The Swolicorns roar in victory!
- Razylymvaer in Sydney's head says "oh ho ho, you're weak aren't you? Just relax, we've got this". Sydney's slime familiar opens up into a smile...

--- Bifurcation 
- Aximander is alone. Truly alone. There's not even the hint of Julian inside him. What has happened?
- Floating next to him, an orb of light. It's... Julian?
- They talk for a while. Julian is fine with Aximander being the body's owner, he just wants a body himself.
- Aximander puts the floating orb onto his flaming sword where it turns into a huge uncut ruby. They're a team for now.
- An extradimensional door opens next to Aximander - inside is Elf Sydney! In fact, many Elf Sydneys! It's the Safe Space of the Sydnot. Aximander enters cautiously.

--- My Mental Roommate
- Meanwhile Sydney is well fucked up. The unicorn-men convey him safely back to to Vespusian and lay him on the altar that Vespusian once rested on (it's the only place to lie down).
- Sydney is offered the blessing of the purple rags. They try to speak... but their mouth moves on its own! They - he - Razylymvaer, speaks through Sydney's mouth! "Grant me the blessing, mummy-man!".
- Sydney passes out, but his body yet moves. Bandages dripping with eldritch purple gunk are wrapped around his damaged limbs.

--- The Sydnot
- Aximander meets the Sydnot, the council of Sydneys, and gets on well because they are all Elves. They collectively trash talk Sydney, a mere mortal. Gifflewim is there too because he loves an Elf party.
- They discuss the now ruby-form Julian. Gifflewim offers to trade for him, but Aximander has cold feet. There's got to be something weird with someone else owning your former self's soul, right?
- They agree that the Gods shutting off magic has got to be a bad thing, since they're all Elves and all. There are like a thousand Sydneys in here, so they agree to help collect the scattered God Parts.

--- Reunion!
- Aximander leaves the extradimensional council chamber at the head of a horde of Sydneys! He once again forgot to tell them about the teleport maze password, so they start teleporting all over the place!
- Luckily Aximander himself is warped back to the start point.
- He meets back up with Sydney, who is now wrapped in purple bandages. Next to him is a rather naked mummified Vespusian who insists the bandages will "grow back".
- Sydney also wants to be referred to with he/him pronouns now and keeps burping out fire. Aximander takes it in stride.

--- Launch! Launch!
- Without any effort from our heroes at all, the Sydneys have managed to collect all the God Parts! Unfortunately they may have triggered a new portal to the eternal depths of the ocean through which an incredible amount of frogspawn and frog-men have burst through.
- There is SO much water, but it's being weirdly messed with by the teleport maze, as though the ocean itself is a sentient thing which is getting teleported around!
- No time to lose! They hoof it to the elevator! Vespusian is coming with, he might be some sort of magical mummy but he certainly doesn't want to face the wrath of the sea!

--- Sacrificial Dragon
- They drag all the parts into the lift and - on no! - someone needs to be in the control room to activate it!
- Sydney growls out that he will volunteer! He is a dragon after all! Aximander finally "realises" that this isn't Sydney at all, but Razylymvaer in Sydney's body! Razylymvaer throws the slime familiar to Aximander, and sees that Sydney's soul has been transferred in there!
- Razylymvaer goes into the control room and salutes, slamming the button that closes the door. It's JUST in time! The ocean crashes against the elevator door... but it holds!
- Sadly approximately 10000 Sydney-Elves are immediately killed by the pressure and/or lack of oxygen as the sea smooshes them all into a big Sydney pancake.

--- All Hail the New God
- They shoot up the shaft to the top floor of Dwimmermount! The ocean slowly rising below as it starts to work its way through the plug of Elf bodies.
- Handily, the systems up here are all automated! Whirring waldoes emerge from the walls and take the God Parts away.
- Aximander follows, Julian in his sword and Slime Sydney on his back, all the way to the launch chamber!
- The Seraphim is complete! All that remains is to upload a mind...
- Sydney gloopily tries to cast Safe Space... but cannot! There's no access to the Old Miner! How are they going to manage this?
- Vespusian steps forward. He was a great technologian in the past, and he studied the Gods closely. He knows exactly how the upload works... but it needs more than one mind and he must be one of them to stabilise the doohickey.
- There aren't many minds going right now. Sydney demurs, he needs to be alive to get the Old Miner out in case something goes wrong. It won't accept Aximander, he's an Elf with no soul to copy.
- The only option is Julian. He wanted a body right? How's being a god sound?
- Cold water pools around their feet. The ocean is here! There's no time!
- They plug Julian and Vespusian into the machine. They scream as their minds are uploaded and... BANG! Vespusian explodes like a sack of old jerky! Julian shatters into a million pieces! Did it work??
- Lights turn on in the Seraphim. A robotic voice says "all systems nominal... launch procedure beginning". A weird cackling mixture of Vespusian and Julian cries out - "I AM COMPLETE!"
- Aximander runs as the launch procedure counts down, flames burning, and the top of Dwimmermount opens to allow the launch of this new God!
- Aximander sloshes in the knee-high water, Slime-Sydney on his shoulder, and realises that they've still got to work out a way to get out of here. The ocean is coming... and it's angry!

Total: 10000 exp


Treasures:
- 19 God Parts (19000 exp)
- A new God
Total: 19000 exp


Enemies:
- Several frogmen (400 exp)
- Limitless Sydneys (100000000 exp)
Total: 100000400 exp


Exp Totals:

Obvs this never happened because we had to cancel the session oh welllll