Session 387 - Happy Hobbit Halloween!

Date: 29 October 1624

Moon Phase: Waning Crescent
Moon Face: Plain

Zenith Deity: Oberon

Returning Characters:

- Brie van der Hells. Necromancer. Still commands the undead priest-zombie Nutella.

- Bulgur, Son of Borgar. Barbarian. Has gained the ability to let out a bellowing roar whenever forced to make a Stun save.

- Gaius Julius Drusus. Halfling. Limited empathy. Commands the tamed Barbarian Lurpak.

- Nines. Inheritor. Still looking for something or someone tasty to absorb.

New Backstory:

- Brie van der Hells was bullied as a child. When Brie's theft of a sack of potatoes was pinned on the bully, Brie just sat back and laughed. Heal 1HP when a randomly assigned attack hits someone else instead of you.

- Bulgur, Son of Borgar tried to help an injured cow - Daisy - during a stampede on the dairy farm. Alas, she couldn't reach poor Daisy in time. Once per session, get to a downed ally's side in a single round by some means.

- Gaius Julius Drusus lost an argument with Nines over the extent of his "reformed" psychopathy. When Gaius fails a Save, someone else can pass the same Save.

- Nines confronted the boss of the gang he was running with after he discovered the gang was exploiting children to facilitate their crimes. At will, cause a creature to prioritise you. 

Events:

--- Hobbit Halloween!

- After last session's death-defying antics trying not to get poisoned by Halflings in a pub, our "heroes" leave through the back door into the thinning rain. They hold a long piece of wood - the actual bar itself - above their heads to ward off the stinging Unmaking Rain.
- The only issue... they warped here, so they've no idea how to get out directly. They pick a direction and head through the streets, the rain stopping and eventually giving way to the weather known as the Warning.

- Gas Fronts are less dangerous now, certainly not insta-death any more, but the Warning still serves to warn that something very bad might be coming. On the plus side, swollen gourds protrude from the earth during a Warning - and of course these are pumpkins! It's Halloween!

- They say a quick prayer to the Gods Above. Minerva is at zenith, and her protection brings a sturdy AC bonus. Gaius harvests some pumpkins and carves them from barbarian-back.

--- The Nicer Part of Town

- Soon they follow the orange glow of Jack O'Lanterns to the better part of town. Less industrial, much more traditional. Hobbit holes and smiling farmers, with even the occasional "Largeling" wandering around. They talk to a Largeling and she says they're welcome here, and that humans disappear in the bad part of town.

- Gaius asks to speak to a "normal sized person" and the lady gets her manager - a lovely hobbit lady called Mistress Proudfoot. No weirdness happening here, no sirree.

- There's a harvest festival tonight! How lovely! There's even a big festive area in the middle of the town square, an absolutely massive church-sized pumpkin inside a hedge maze, and loads of free stuff! In fact, says Ms Proudfoot, they're more than willing to give things away to outsiders to ensure they go on their way!

- Brie finds a potion seller selling potions and snags a couple. One is a Seagull Potion and the other is a Potion of Rodent Charisma. Interesting!
- They also hear the story of the Pumpkin Demon who comes at Halloween to snatch away children. Bulgur immediately disrobes and slathers himself with pumpkin to look the part! It's very spooky.

--- Contests!

- In order to enter the hedge maze you need to win tickets, and tickets are earned through minigames! Classic!
- Gaius goes straight to the archery competition and does incredibly well, even getting to keep the bow! He's able to basically get everyone enough tickets for the hedge maze in one go!
- People want to try the other minigames though, so they do.
- Everyone absolutely gorges themselves at the pumpkin pie eating competition. It's a quadruple shared victory! Nines and Bulgur win themselves Punkinhead Hammers which do massive damage on evens.
- Nines nails the pumpkin slinging contest with a huge crit! Brie meanwhile hucks a pumpkin at an XL Bully owner, angering him. They move swiftly on.
- The Halloween Chili Competition is where competition is fiercest because everyone wants to cook! Between Nines' Haunted Hoedown, Gaius' Nutellu Ragu, and Brie's Halloween Butter Bean Blast there's a clear winner - the Haunted Hoedown! Tastyyyyy!

--- The Maze

- Finally they enter the maze. It's beginning to get dark, but due to the sheer power of the Butter Bean Blast neither Bulgur nor Brie can get lost out here! However they can intentionally explore at the risk of it getting dark...
- Of course they do! Bulgur finds an entire doner kebab, complete with carving knife! Brie finds an "evil fox" who starts to follow her around and have extremely loud sex with fellow foxes in the bushes.

- They hear goblins on the approach, plotting the murder of anyone in the maze...

--- Goblin Murder!

- Nines goes first and tries to talk to them reasonably. However to nobody's surprise the Hobgoblin has been Tamed by Halflings and can't listen to reason! His minions listen to him in turn, so it's a fight!

- The battle is fierce but the obscene amount of damage dealt by Punkinhead Hammers helps wipe out the Hobgoblin and break the morale of his minions.
- Gaius shoots them in the back as they flee. The one survivor enters the giant pumpkin and SCREAMS as the pumpkin walls come alive and squash him!

--- Bulgur Counter!

- Bulgur strides into the pumpkin and the walls begin to close around him.
- Pah! This is nothing! Bulgur easily passes the save and instead smashes his feet into the ground and roars! The earth shakes and the pumpkin walls collapse into themselves!
- Bulgur grabs razor sharp "throwing seeds" from the mess, and the rest follow him in.

--- Demon Ritual!

- Of course, in the middle of the massive pumpkin is the inevitable cause of all this Halloween horror - a Halfling trying to summon a demon! He's got a big pentagram and everything, and declares that Bunkertown must be punished!
- He of course cackles and declares that the ritual will be complete in a FEW ROUNDS' TIME!

- The battle is difficult since the Halfling is standing inside a burning ritual circle that crackles with terrible energies, but soon he is defeated at the hands of Lurpak (forced to burn himself in the energies) and the zombie Nutella (body stuck with razor pumpkin seeds for extra wrestle damage).
- Bulgur's seed-chucking abilities are sure to be legendary after using a patented Random Bullshit Go! attack to pepper the Halfling with seeds.

- With moments to go, the Halfling cultist is defeated! He slumps and the energies of the ritual lash all around the inside of the pumpkin, and the echoing laughter of the Pumpkin King turns into a scream as the unfinished ritual sends it back into hell!

--- Not so Evil Fox

- The horrible fox, who was nearly mind-controlled itself during the battle, leads the party out of the pumpkin as it begins to collapse. Orange flames flicker into the sky as the great gourd collapses behind them! They're safe!

- Afterwards they decide to sit in the hedge maze for a bit, lick their wounds, and have a bite to eat from their leftovers and cold-ish doner kebab.

- Halloween adventure - COMPLETE!

Total: 9000 exp

Loot:

- A dodgy bow.

- 2 Pumpkinhead Hammers

- Lots of Halloween Tickets

- Doner Kebab w/ knife (300 exp)
- The sly attention of an Evil Fox

Total: 300 exp

Murders:

- Several Goblins and their Hobgoblin master. (150 exp)

- A Halfling cultist (50 exp)

Total: 200 exp

Roles:

- Carter the Chronicler and Vanguard (200 exp/level)

- Kitty the Expedition Leader (100 exp/level)
- Ollie the Quartermaster (100 exp/level)

- Tim the Triage and Chef (200 exp/level)

Exp Totals:

- Timothy / Gaius Julius Drusus, Level 3 Halfling: 5743 (Level up at 8000)
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 Taming! +Backstory!

- Carter / Nines, Level 3 Inheritor: 5743 (Level up at 9000)

Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 Meat Point! +Backstory!

- Kitty / Bulgur, Son of Borgar, Level 3 Barbarian: 5443 (Level up at 8000)

Level Up! +1d8 HP! +1 to Saves! +Barbarian Power! +Backstory!

- Ollie / Brie van der Hells, Level 3 Necromancer: 5343 (Level up at 9000)

Level Up! +1d4 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 Mana! +New Spell!  +Backstory!

Session 386 - Halfling Death Cult

Date: 22 October 1624

Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous
Moon Face: Pocked

Zenith Deity: Dispater

New Characters:

- Zeppelino, an inventive Goblin whose tarpaulin parachute is all that's left of his experimental flying machine.

Returning Characters:

- Gaius Julius Drusus, Halfling. Commands the tamed Barbarian Lurpak.

- Nines, Inheritor.
- Manrat Snels, Ratman.

- Bulgur, Son of Borgar, Barbarian.

- Brie van der Hells, Necromancer. Commands the zombified corpse of Priest Nutella.

Events:

--- Mooching Towards Civilisation

- A tarp atop a hill moves and our new party emerges into a misty morning.

- The mists are everywhere, and bring with them a sense of wistful melancholy. Thorny bushes have sprouted in the night, bearing tart red berries that sap the spirit. They nickname them "Merry Berries".

- At sunset yesterday they saw smoke rising on the southern horizon, so they set off in that direction across the bruise-coloured wastes. The hills give way to the muddy flatland, scattered with humps and divots like a rucked blanket.

- Lurpak briefly yearns to return to his friends in the insect temple when he hears someone calling for him, but Gaius persuades him that they are on-mission and must head to the town to the south.

--- Driftwood Marionette

- After hours of trudging through the mists they hear a moaning and perk up from their doldrums. Coming at them through the fog is a man-shape, but it jerks like a marionette. As it becomes clearer they see that its mouth goes all the way down its chest and sloughs out rich loam.
- Gaius greets it and is brought to his knees by a wave of tiredness, beating at his mind. It's an attack!
- Bulgar reminds everyone that the God in the heavens is Oberon, and thus all the faithful Nonanists shall receive a blessing on their ranged attacks!
- This results in a hail of random objects being thrown from the high ground nearby, albeit mostly missing and getting stuck in the boggy ground between them. Unperturbed, the tree-being trudges forward! It's great sigh saps the spirit, and the loam spewing forth from its mouth firms up the ground.
- Manrat is downed, overcome with weariness. Thankfully his Goblin Religion bonus protects him from the worst of the harm, albeit he overextended on the yawn and hurt his jaw.

- Brie's zombified priest lurches forward and starts tearing into the dread ent, then Gaius follows up by flinging his copy of On Beers and Ales which finishes the creature off! It lodges in the creature's mouth as it falls to its knees, a man-sized bookstand, and Brie snags its last dusty breath in a vial.
- Nines shlorps through the boggy ground and collapses onto it as a pile of mud and ooze and mutating flesh. This is normal, he's an Inheritor, and he wants to take its powers. He steals the ability to create soil, which at the very least firms up boggy ground. They see that the loam that it dropped is already sinking into the wastes, hopefullyy to one day build up into fertile ground.

--- A Goblin Approaches!

- Just then, to everyone's surprise, a mysterious flying machine crash-lands nearby! Crawling from the wreckage is a Goblin who unaccountably immediately wants to join the party! This is Zeppelino, and he wields a tarp much like the absent Nostradama!
- Lurpak is asked about Honey the Thick and he tells the party that she's a Cleric of Jonathon Toast who helped bind everyone into a big group.
- Meanwhile others decide to forage for food. It's surprisingly successful! Bulgur and Manrat find some slopworms, sort of blind rubbery tentacle grubs. Nines catches some rolling cabbage - leafy greens that roll like tumbleweed.

- When they return they discover that there is a shimmering heat haze ahead, through which they can see the town ahead as through a lens! Little glowing points of light dance around it like bees around a flower. They try heading into it and find the distance shrinking before them, soon arriving slap bang in the middle of the town they were heading towards!
- It sounds like bollocks but Portal Haze is genuinely on the encounter table I swear!

---Welcome to Bunkertown

- Our heroes warp into the industrial sector of town and everyone here is an absolutely hateful racist. The place is choked with metallic-smelling smog. Children shriek and make awful comments. Gaius is in his element though, and shows off his tamed Barbarian to the locals!

- Bunkertown is basically a mix between the Shire and Fallout - every hobbit hole is its own little bunker with a big ol' vault door on it. Allegedly they're all connected to each other via some means. There is a collapsed pylon in the town square, a ferrofluid fountain, and a leaking river of black gunk that flows out of said collapsed pylon.

- Bulgur tries to find a pub, and lo! A pub appears! It's clearly just been been slapped together, is called The Buggered Goblin, and has a very explicit sign that is made of two taxidermied goblins in flagrante.

- Bulgur goes in and is offered some extremely obviously poisoned honey wine.

- Nines, meanwhile, asks a local whether they know the local area and is shown The Map. Everyone knows The Map. It was generated several years ago and propagated far and wide. Rumour says it's a snapshot taken by Eris as she fell from the heavens, but that doesn't exactly make sense in context... or does it??

- He points at various locations and asks what the deal is. Bunkertown is pointed out, as is Drudgespar the Goblin capital which was once a Dwarf fortress. The city of Grendel makes everyone go "oooo" because it's some sort of steampunk (or at the very least clockpunk) nonsense built around a single central crankshift that powers everything.
- The apocalypse dragon Mardük is currently in the northwest, but it tends to roam. It has a goblin city on its back and a chicken-legged house chained beneath its jaw.

- Finally, Zeppelino gives Nines a brief rundown on the Goblin Religion. It's not a religion for the goblins, it's just how the world works. It comes down to the concept of everything having two souls. One is born with their Body Soul, which starts strong and becomes weak. Over time one develops a Self Soul, which starts weak and grows over time. Objects can gain a Self Soul if they're loved and cared for. It's a bit Shinto, it's a bit speculative evolutionary biology, it's more than it sounds and less than it seems.

--- The Worst Pub

- Bulgur slams down the poisoned wine and begins to die.
- Outside, Gaius and Nines are offering Nines' services as a soil generator to various locals, earning some sort of monopoly money.
- Bulgur is dying for real though. Blood stains his lips. He looks at the bartender and the bartender says "oh no I must have given you the honey bleach!! Oh no!!!".

- Luckily Bulgur has the incredible ability to convert death to mere damage, chokes, and holds onto his life!
- The bartender tries to tame Bulgur with his Halfling mind control powers and Bulgur is having none of it! The mental backlash throws the Halfling to the floor, and then Bulgur reaches over and crunches the hobbit's head into the floor over and over and over.
- Bulgur grabs the honey wine from behind the bar (instead of the honey bleach) and takes a big swig. It is in fact also poisoned and he keels over as his guts start to dissolve.
- Brie arrives, says "oh no let me help!", and tries to seize Bulgur's last breath. Awkwardly Bulgur isn't quite dead, so Brie pretends like she was actually trying to help, honest.

- Brie flips the sign from open to closed and ah fuck... the waitress. The waitress turns out to be fucking hench and is insanely good at wrestling! Zeppelino runs in and immediately gets wrecked, getting corkscrewed in the face and rolling back and forth behind the counter until a lucky roll finally lets him get the better of the evil Halfling.

- Bulgur is weeping blood, so Brie pulls the First Aid kit off the wall, attempts First Aid and... holy shit! It works! Bulgur is saved!
- Bulgur takes the opportunity to pour honey wine down the slit throat of the Halfling waitress, she chokes on her own honey-tinted blood.

--- Anything You Can Find in the Mug House

- Brie takes the waitress' Last Breath and looks awkwardly at Bulgur. She got a Last Breath in the end so no hard feelings right?

- It's raining outside. Manrat opens the door, sees the absurd amount of blood, and enters in a vaguely apologetic sort of way. It's an Unmaking Rain outdoors, the sort of weather that unpicks stitches, ruins tents, and washes away the works of man, so he wants to get out of it for clear reasons.

- We briefly have to contend with the idea that Nines' clothes are made out of his own flesh. 

- I foolishly say that "anything you can find in this real pub" is in the fantasy pub, and so suddenly the party has a handcart and various accoutrements.

--- The Basement

- After a bit of a search in the back room (which is largely just a bunch of pub-related props) they find a hatch into the basement! Turns out these hobbit holes are spherical and the lower level has a ferrofluid-powered heat pump and further storage.

- Those exploring the basement start to sound deep-voiced - some sort of gas related issue. They leave in good time.

- Given that it's raining outside and nobody has bothered them just yet, they assume that the rest of the town's populace haven't quite realised that there's been one or more murders in this fake pub.

- Gaius takes the opportunity to cook "Spring Rain Rolls", utilising Slopworm, Rolling Cabbage, some non-poisoned Wine, Butter, and one of Manrat's ever-present rats. It's bizarrely tasty!

Total: 8000 exp

Loot:

- Poisoned Bar Snacks

- 17 debatably fake Halfling Dollars (17 exp)
- Poisoned honey wine

- A roll of 10-20 Boil-in-the-bag Body Bags

- Handfuls of "Merry Berries" (50 exp)
- Non-poisoned Wine (wow!) (100 exp)
- Book #410: How to Cook Humans (100 exp)
- Book #411: How to Cook Exactly Four Humans (100 exp)

- Book #161: Death and Sainthood (100 exp)

- Halfling-sized Vault-Tec suits (200 exp)
- Halfling-Sized blood-powered pip-boys (500 exp)

- Book #301: POWERLAD's Massive Weapon (100 exp)

- Book #129: The Shame of Dwarves (100 exp)
- Book #238: On Moondin (100 exp)
Total: 1467 exp

Murders:

- Driftwood Marionette (25 exp)
- Halfling Bartenders (100 exp)
Total: 125 exp

Exp Totals:

- Timothy / Gaius Julius Drusus, Level 2 Halfling: 2968 (Level up at 4000)
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 Taming! +Backstory!

- Carter / Nines, Level 2 Inheritor: 2968 (Level up at 4500)

Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 Meat Point! +Backstory!

- Kitty / Bulgur, Son of Borgar, Level 2 Barbarian: 2868 (Level up at 4000)
Level Up! +1d8 HP! +1 to Saves! +Barbarian Power! +Backstory!

- George / Manrat Snels, Level 2 Ratman: 2868 (Level up at 3500)
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 to Saves! A whole 4 Rats wow!  +Backstory!

- Ollie / Brie van der Hells, Level 2 Necromancer: 2768 (Level up at 4500)

Level Up! +1d4 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 Mana! +New Spell!  +Backstory!

- Charles / Zeppelino, Level 1 Goblin: 1384 (Level up at 2000)

Session 385 - Covered in Spread, A New Era Begins!

Date: 15 October 1624

Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous, 

Moon Face: Dragon

Zenith Deity: Dispater

New Characters:

- Brie van der Hells, a Necromancer who used to animate rats as dolls when she was young.
- Bulgur, Son of Borgar. A dairy farmed turned mighty Barbarian having grown strong on the rich milk of the Wheatlands, now from 30% real cows!
- Gaivs Jvlius Drvsvs, an allegedly reformed psychopath Halfling.

- Manrat Snels, a throwback to a former era when the line between Rat and Man was blurred.

- Nines, an assassin Inheritor who used to run in a gang after devouring one of their number.

- Nostradama, a Cleric of Nonanism who has embedded trauma from surviving the Apocalypse beneath a big tarp.

Events:

--- You Wake Up in a Dungeon

- It is the first session of a new arc and everybody is covered in slime.
- The slime is thick, blocking their vision. Somehow they can feel each other though. A faint sense of connection between six different people. They are sitting on chairs, bound at the wrists, and their thoughts echo between each other. Nobody knows where they are.

- Nines feels something crusty brush his lips and BITES! His teeth chew through... delicious bread and butter?
- The bread-giver startles, but finishes wiping the butter from Nines' eyes. He sees a priest before him, wondering if the "training" has worked!
- One by one the priest wiped the slime from each persons' mouth and eyes, offering them the bread sacrement which is variously accepted or rejected. Each slime is in fact a spread, and he gives each person a codename as he goes, from Butter the Basic through Marmite the Divisive, to Strawberry the Overrated and so on.

- The priest introduces himself as Priest Nutella (pronounced New-tella, apparently) and declares the party before him to be Infiltration Team Jam-Before-Cream, intended to infiltrate cities and gather more minions to the cause. Alas, their training had to be aborted early because the facility is under attack by electric ghosts!

- Another figure appears at the door, a huge muscular man called Lurpak the Inflated. He comments that waking these guys was a bad idea, but tells Priest Nutella to join him heading for the front lines. The priest leaves with him, shouting back to the group that they should grab weapons and help defend the complex!

--- Electric Ghost?

- Left to their own devices, the team look around and gather their things. The wrist bonds are not strong, designed more to stop them falling off the chairs rather than actually shackle them, so they are soon broken open.

- Wiping the spreads off their faces they take stock. Six chairs in a circle surrounding a big lump of flesh covered in thin hairs. Yuck! The walls are big flagstones with etchings of various creepy-crawlies on them, mostly insects but there are worms and grubs and stuff too.

- Gaius stabs the flesh lump and it bleeds! Within is a horrible insect thing. Nines collapses into mud-flesh and devours it, but can't name the ability it carries so merely digests it.
- More importantly there the delicious smell of fresh bread from nearby! They follow the smell into the next room, finding themselves in a kitchen and bakery. Powered butter churns, a big oven, and loads of barrels of spreads and jams and chutneys.
- The very middle of the room has a cage with a blue-skinned and dragon-winged Goblin in it! He zaps the bars, which is what's powering the butter churns and stand mixers and such.

- Man-Rat Snels tries to get his lone rat buddy to chew through the wires. This kills the rat. Nines instead uses oven mitts to disconnect the wires, thus allowing the blue Goblin to stop powering everything. Alas, they can't let him out without some sort of wrench because he's bolted in there.

- Bulgur examines the butter and extracts a pat of it, sparking a looting frenzy as people lift various ingredients and expensive cast iron dutch ovens. What a treat!

--- Multi-Faith Sermon

- Something has come back to the amnesiac Nostradama. She's a Nonanist Cleric! One of the most common religions out here in the Drudge Wastes, she believes in the Nine High Gods as equals in heaven. This despite the recent schism that resulted from a new God joining the pantheon.
- Nevertheless, she finds it in her heart to include others in her sermon, and her oratory even manages to convert Brie to the Nonanist faith! She's going to have to be very careful given that she's going to lose her Faith Bonus as soon as she benefits from a chaotic spell, but we'll see how that goes.

- Even Zibiddy the blue goblin appreciates the sermon, he's even more committed to the dragon Marduk than he was before!

--- Buttery Goblin Discovers Butterfaced Zombies

- Rather than piss about trying to find a wrench, Bulgur decides to bend the bars! It's a classic manoeuvre, helped very much by lubing up Zibiddy with delicious butter. With a pop the goblin flies out and sliiiiiiiides straight out the door on the other side!

- They hurry after him and find that he's slid all the way through the next room and bashed through the door at the other end! He's found himself in a room bisected by bars like a jail. Behind the bars are numerous bodies with their faces covered in jams and spreads.
- Gaius butters himself up and slips his thin body through the bars. But then the bodies MOVE! They move like zombies and can't get the butter off their faces, and worse, they have no tongues! Stabbing does little, but at least they're trapped.

- There's a smaller annex which is zombie-free and has piles of mystery stuff. Gaius slips through and checks it out, finding a book about beer and a vial of acid. Not too bad!
- Also in this annex is a collapsed bit of wall, behind which are a bunch of surprisingly large ant corpses. He rubs some into his hair.

--- The Indoctrination of Lurpak

- Bulgur meanwhile is listening at the door. He hears loud whispers. It's clearly Lurpak and Nutella arguing, with Lurpak saying that they should have used drones rather than messing about with Nutella's precious infiltrator project!
- They mention that they've only managed to kill one Electric Ghost so far, and Zibiddy yells out in shock and grief! Lurpak opens the door and finds himself face to face with Infiltration Team Jam-Before-Cream who are doing their best to hide the goblin behind their robes.
- Nines leaps into action but his surprise attack is thwarted by the priest's iron baguette cudgel! Manrat Snels bites Lurpak, and while he's distracted Gaius leaps up and touches the Barbarian, taming him and forcing him to attack Priest Nutella!
- Brie steps forth and kills the priest before the confused Lurpak can really understand what's happening to him, knifing him in the heart and snatching the priests' Last Breath into a glass vial. She takes the priest's iron baguette too, for good measure. She then checks the priest's neck and finds a big fleshy lump with a long thin thread coming out of it...

- A memory suddenly surges through Nines! He remembers something like this before! He remembers... Jonathon Toast! The spreads, the threads, it all makes sense! He knows not where the memory came from, but he remembers it clear as day!
- Finally Brie sucks in the Last Breath she just captured from the dying priest and casts Animate Dead, raising his corpse as a zombie! It's still fresh, so it looks almost like he's still alive. Lurpak can't think straight through the fog, but this seems ok, right?

--- Loo Break

- Nines inspects the walls and finds that they are covered with the fine threads, forming some sort of larger network. Attempts to burn, cut or tear them don't work because they are fine, flexible, and strong.

- They ask Lurpak to lead them out and he declares he needs the toilet first. They acquiesce and find that the toilets are a sort of group drop toilet over blackness and are treated to a spectacular performance from Lurpak.

- Manrat Snels drops a rat down to scout, and it returns in a few minutes to say that yes it's a big cave full of poo. Big insects too, actually. The cavern keeps going if you're interested.
- Nines drops a torch in point-first to investigate further. It's not a pretty sight, but the fumes are keeping that flame very much alight.

--- The Escape

- Since they're an official infiltration team of the Toasted Ones, have a tamed Lurpak under Gaius' mental aegis and the still fresh-looking zombie Priest Nutella under Brie's control, it's actually pretty easy to leave. Zibiddy is naturally trying very very hard to stay on their good side, and they hide him by having Gaius ride on his shoulders in a long coat with his wings forming a, to quote, "dumptruck ass".

- They pass by some myrmidon types wearing ant carapace armour and wielding ant shields, go through some rooms with murderholes in the ceiling, and out to the front entrance. There are trenches and fortifications built out towards the Wastes, all manned by small groups of fighters taking aim with guns and bows.
- Zibiddy sees fellow blue goblins sitting outside of firing range and surges with energy! He practically teleports out from under Gaius, zig-zagging like a bolt of lightning!

- They talk and soon spread their dragon wings and fly away, off towards a distant spire on the horizon that glimmers as with blue fireflies.
- The soldiers in the trenches are confused and turn to Lurpak for guidance. They are extremely tractable, it turns out, and accept the explanation that this was all part of the plan.

--- Night Under a Tarp

- Taking their leave, the party head up the hill. It's rocky and covered in mud, but an easy climb nonetheless. The sun is setting over a clear crisp autumn day.

- From the top they take their bearings.
- Below they see a wide swathe of flat land - the bruise-coloured mud and slime of the Drudge Wastes. Black rivers of sludge or tar cut through the landscape. On the horizon in that direction they can see smoke rising - very likely a town!

- In the other direction the hills continue, rising from the wastes in smooth hummocks. Distantly in that direction is a huge stone structure, a pyramid amongst the hills.

- They can see the firefly-wreathed spire on the horizon towards the setting sun, buzzing with what must be more of these electro-goblins.
- Nearly as distant they can also see a strange spike like a huge sewing needle, reflecting the sunset.
- Darkness is coming, though, and under the light of the gibbous moon they forage for food. Gaius and Nines find something tasty! It's mudfish! A sort of grainy and bony strong-scaled fish that lives in the moist mud of the hills.
- Gaius cooks, since he's got the Halfling's natural knack for food. He cooks up what he calls Butter-Basted Fish of the Waste! It's got butter, bread, mudfish, and for some reason rat! It's actually really good, since they made sure to grab a bunch of salt and spices and fancy ironware from that kitchen before they left.
- Nostradama unfurls her tarp. She hates it, but it's the best they've got. They huddle under the tarp on the top of the hill and try to sleep while rainclouds gather in the skies above.

Total: 8000 exp

Treasure Gained:

- Salt

- Spices

- Book #281 - On Beers and Ales

- Vial of acid

- Various fancy cast iron pots and pans (200 exp)

Total: 200 exp

Enemies Defeated:

- Priest Nutella (50 exp)
- Lurpak the Inflated, controlled (50 exp)
Total: 100 exp

Roles:

- Carter the Chronicler and Cartographer (200 exp/level)
- George the Expedition Leader (100 exp/level)
- Kitty the Vanguard (100 exp/level)
- Tim the Triage and Chef (200 exp/level)

Art Attack:

- George (100 exp/level)

Exp Totals:

- Timothy / Gaius Julius Drusus, Level 1 Halfling: 1584 (Level up at 2000)

- Carter / Nines, Level 1 Inheritor: 1584 (Level up at 2250)
- George / Manrat Snels, Level 1 Ratman: 1584 (Level up at 1750)

- Kitty / Bulgur, Son of Borgar, Level 1 Barbarian: 1484 (Level up at 2000)

- Ollie / Brie van der Hells, Level 1 Necromancer: 1384 (Level up at 2250)

- Zoe / Nostradama, Level 1 Cleric of Nonanism: 1384 (Level up at 2250)

Session 384 - The Ascension of Deusix!

Date: 27 August

Moon: Waning Crescent

Zenith: The Lady

New Backstory:

- Hagen fell in love, of a sort, with the Old Miner from a young age. His heart has yearned for the Old Miner since then, and thus has never taken a lover. +1 AC when protecting someone older than you.

- Rudolphus saw a starving fellow student drop a loaf of bread, and returned it because students have to look out for each other. +1 to reactions with the destitute

Events:

--- On the Substance of a New God

- It's finally happened. Every single God part has been collected, gathered, and taken up to the launch facility at the top of Dwimmermount.
- As the God is put together by whirring brass machinery and connected by whirling ratchets, the party look at each other warily. The room is tense. Just who, or what, are they going to load into the heavenly machine?
- They decide to ask a currently existing God about the process. Handily they are in the God's very own mountain, and Minerva is easily contacted.
- The first core issue is that a new God requires the Old Miner to willingly give a copy of His mind as a template.
- The second core issue is that the person uploading themselves as a Core Mind gets their brain drilled out, which is not good for one's health. Uploading as a subsidiary Branch Mind is possible (and non-lethal) but it needs at least one core personality.
- They also discover that the current Gods contain branch copies of the minds of believers. While originally a combination of entire Dwarf arcologies, over time they have become more human as the relatively quick-breeding and short-lived human worshippers died and copies of their minds were integrated into the Gods.

--- The Options Mooted

- The broad options put forward are thus:
1) Upload the Old Miner. His stated goal is to flee into space and survive.

2) Fill it with pure chaos and see what happens.
3) Upload the party and become a new God

- The option of uploading Jonathon Toast is mooted but not really considered, for good reason.

--- Some Debate Missing

- This whole session was basically a long discussion of which option to go with, what to name the new God, and other such stuff.
- At some point, Red shows up! Tim doesn't want to upload Rudolphus because he likes Red more. This is accepted.
- Eventually they reach a decision - they will all upload as Core Minds and create a NEW GOD!
- The name of this new God will be Deusix. Six characters in one God, plus it can be read as DEUS IX as in "God 9", plus naturally it's a mechanical God so it's a "Deus Ex Machina". It's a great play on words!
- They phone up the Old Miner on Sydney's jellyphone and he agrees to be their God template, albeit "this is the last time!" and he largely does it so he can live a quiet life in Sydney's soon-to-be-inaccessible extradimensional apartment.

--- Ascension

- Decision made, they all line up to get their brains cored out. There is brief pain, then a surge of consciousness. They can feel each other, deeper than any teamchat. They are connected, yet separate. The first God to be made of more than one Core Mind!

- They declare themselves to be a six-sided God and the god-shell forms into a huge six-sided die. Each Lord gets a face. That's right! The pun is even better! Deusix is a giant d6!

- The cube God is conveyed through the mountain to the launch chamber. There is a long countdown, the peak of the mountain spirals open, and Deusix is launched!
- Looking up in shock with his single cyclopean octopoid eye, Jonathon Toast the horrible blimp whale and/or normal man sees a bright beam of light fire out of the rising God! It gets him straight in the brain and widens to obliterate him utterly. Deusix breathes a sigh of relief - that's an issue solved!

--- Abstract Battle

- The boosters detach as Deusix reaches orbital velocity and altitude. It's dark up here, and they can perceive the glimmer of the stars glistening from their brass die-faces.
- A connection opens up and the six core minds of Deusix are suddenly floating in white space.

- The eight other Gods are here, and one by one they test this new God until their thoughts are finally working in unison.

- With this final integration there are now Nine High Gods once more! Deusix takes the place of fallen Eris, and the Wheel is finally reformed! The Red Elves on their Red Moon have been foiled and no longer have access to the world, and thus can no longer slowly mine out the world's supply of magic.

--- Distant Echoes

- Meanwhile, down on Earth, Sydney's many backup plans trigger simultaneously. A rebirth via cocaine heart, a rebirth via the Lunar Womb, a cascading event that has the potential to resurrect many Sydneys! What grim horrors will these chaos-obsessed beings get up to? Only time will tell...
- Inside the remarkably packed interdimensional apartment, Sydney's slime familiar is once more unbound. Free of its master, the demon called Tal Vik Nam Kir Sor Bet plots with the Old Miner...

Exp Totals:

- Kitty / Julian & Aximander, both Ascended to Godhood.

- Carter / Sydney, Ascended to Godhood.

- George / Hagen, Ascended to Godhood.

- Tim / Red, Ascended to Godhood.

- Charles / Grogg Greedy, Ascended to Godhood.

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!