Sessio 465 - Bait and Switch

 Date: 29 September 1626

Zenith: The Lady

Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous

Moon Face: Dragon Face (Tidelocked)

New Backstory:

- Everything changed for Mother Swan when she got on the boat to Loegria. She raided and pillaged for years, started a dynasty, and now she's here! Once per session, undo and retake an action, including all associated rolls.

Events:

--- Save the Children

- We've got a small party today. Mother Swan, Mother Flotsam, and Masvani-i-Manavi have decided to go down the spooky hole and see if they can save the children who were sent down there and allegedly mutated into horrors beyond mortal ken.

- They're in single file, lit only by Mother Flotsam's lantern, and every last one is a squishy wizard of some description (other than mother Flotsam who is of course not a witch and just old).
- The passages are tight. They reach a four-way intersection and head left, soon hearing voices from behind a barricade of broken furniture to the left.

--- She's Turned the Weans Against Us

- Upon realising that the party are real people and "not children", they are allowed through the shoulder-high barricade and into a group made up of two guys in guard uniforms. Apparently there were four of them originally, but one was taken by the children and the other was sadly sacrificed for the greater good and/or greater food.

- They say that the children "ate the pearls" and become "dark emotionally". There's a grub somewhere. They've been down here for 34 days.

- Mother Swan says she'll get them to the surface for the measly price of all their stuff - 32 iron rations, 2 casks of ale, and a spell that creates a magic Dwarf for the also measly price of sacrificing a friend.

--- The Promised Weans

- They head back out into the corridor, heading for the very close exit... and are assaulted immediately by children! They are imbued with dark magicks, able to smooth stone like wet clay, and awfish to behold.

- Masvani's lead zombie-centipede is attacked and shoved backwards, sinking partway into the wall behind. It's now blocking the way, stuck fast.
- A cavalcade of attacks ensue. Mother Flotsam throws her cat into the fray to create a Blade Storm, Masvani fires his crossbow, Mother Swan casts Paranoia on a chile and makes it distrust every friend around it.

- The kids retreat, splitting up, and vanishing into the tight passages of the complex.

--- I'm Here for the Trap

- They recover, take a breath, talk about how the retreating children might easily ambush them at the exit, and continue on.

- Good lord, it's an ambush!

- This time there are two extra kids who swim through stone. Given that the passages are so tight, this is the one thing we didn't want to happen.

- Mother Flotsam is pulled through the wall by a swimmer kid. He's trying to close the wall over her, drawing her into a stone cyst. She yells, "close your ears!" and casts Babbling Curse on the kid!

- It's enough of a distraction to give them the chance they need! Everyone escapes, other than the poor Zombie-Centipede who has to be abandoned and presumably devoured by awful shadow children.

--- Things Have Progressed Considerably

- They reach the surface and finally get to ask the rescued guards what the hell these Pearls even are.
- Turns out that eating a pearl or two gives you immunity to the mermaid pheremones that are endemic on the islands. Eat too many and you become grub-like, but a measured dose means the frog monster Deep Ones can't get you while you're out fishing in the lonely mists.

- Sounds like getting these pearls is valuable! They skip around the town, only to discover that Gump is all but abandoned. The oil merchant's shop has been a recent victim of fire (although Mother Swan does claim an untouched jar of pig grease from the wreckage) and the Blacksmith is locked up tight.

- They head to the Town Hall again, site of the cultists from recently, and see that they've ascended to a new level of consciousness...

- Spiderweb-threads dangle from their necks, they all speak as one... they are cultists of Jonathon Toast now!

- The party back out, smash the pig grease at the entrance, set it alight, flee.

--- They Went Thataway

- After the first couple of cultists are consumed by fire, another jumps out and looks around in consternation. A quick "let's get back to the ship, fellas!" echoing between the houses sends the hive mind running in completely the wrong direction down towards the beach. Safe!

- The party have decided to go down to the big pearl-laying grub, capture it, and sell its pearls for sweet sweet obols. This requires going back into the depths, so the guards they rescued decide that they'll just stay in their office thank you very much.

--- Do You Know What Grub Is

- Back down to the depths, being veeewwy veeewwy quiet...

- They take the right branch and reach a steel door that's been eaten away by acid, leaving a small crawlspace. The grubs which ate the door are still crawling around there, so Masvani stuffs one into a vial.
- This angers the grubs.

- What follows results is a combat where the grubs roll REALLY well and the players roll not so well. Every burst of grub-vomit degrades armour. Masvani ends up in the tattered remains of his skeleton armour, covered in bug juice, slip-sliding through the hole under the steel door. The others quietly make mocking comments which Masvani pretends not to hear.

--- Mother Grubber

- They follow after Masvani who has opened the steel door from the inside, down a stone passage, and into a chamber where a HUGE grub is suspended from the ceiling by great chains. Great pincers rhythmically squeeze the grub into peristaltic motion. Behind it's caudal end, a bucket collects the big gobstopper-sized pearls which are constantly extruded.

- Masvani grabs the bucket of slurm-pearls and is delighted! 4000 obols of the things!

- Mother Flotsam casts Fairytale Polymoprh and turns the queen into a little earthworm. The great bulk of the Mother Grub shlorps down into a tiny form... but she Saves vs Chaos to define her own terms... and because she is a Royal she can emerge back into her true form as soon as she plops to the stone floor!

- The Mother Grub is nevertheless grateful to be free from her restraints. As her grub minions form up around her, Mother Flotsam gets a mental concept of "thank you, you may leave now" from the grub's primitive mind.

--- Burn

- They swiftly leave, and when they're back to the surface of the village Mother Swan uses her years of experience in looting and/or pillaging to burn the place to the ground!
- The village is alight, the buildings crumbling under the flame. Satisfied, they head for the shore.

--- Bait and Switch

- Standing atop the cliffs, they look down towards Masvani's skeleton-powered ship which is anchored just off the shore.
- There are a bunch of cultists on it, several more swimming around and climbing up the ladder to get on.

- Turns out saying "hey they went thataway!" and sending a whole contingent of hive-mind fishermen towards an unattended ship has unexpected consequences.

Live Masvani Reaction

Total: 11000 exp

Treasures Claimed:

- 4000 obols in Grub Pearls (4000 exp)

- 32 Iron Rations (320 exp)

- 2 casks of ale (1000 exp)

- Dwarf Sacrifice Ritual spell

Total: 5320 exp

Enemies Defeated:

- Several horrible children (100 exp)

- A couple of stone-swimming children (200 exp)

- A pile of grubs (100 exp)

- The Grub Mother (100 exp)

Total: 500 exp

OOC:

- Carter the Ship's Logamancer and Quartermaster (200 exp/lvl)
- Kitty the Captain (100 exp/lvl)

- George the Marine (100 exp/lvl)

Exp Totals:

- Carter / Masvani-I-Manavi, Level 6 Necromancer: 61836 (Level up at 72000)

- Kitty / Mother Flotsam, Level 6 Not a Witch: 47916 (Level up at 72000)

- George / Mother Swan, Level 4 Magic-User: 17157 (Level up at 18000)

Session 464 - It's a Cannon Event

Date: 22 September 1626

Zenith: The Lady

Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous

Moon Face: Dragon Face (Tidelocked)

New Backstory:

- Mother Flotsam was asked to commit crimes, and she was happy to give it a go! Like Yoshi before her, she committed tax fraud in Fortress-City Fate. +2 to hit forces of law.

- Mother Swan approached a fallen star that fell during a moonlit harvest. It spoke inside her mind. Once per session, cast a random spell for free.

Events:

--- Celebus De-Wormed

- We return to the party as they pick up the pieces (by which I mean, loot) that they didn't get time to grab last session. The boss monster dolefully remains in its jar, defeated by being transformed into a mantis shrimp.

- Mother Swan plucks worm-Celebus from his jar and gives him a little kiss. As the Queen Mother to Swan, she's close enough to a princess to count as one!
- Celebus is back to Necromancer form! Asked what he wants to do, he has one idea... find a girlfriend! Mother Swan says she's too old for him.

--- Time to Loot!

- They go down into the basement and find a load of nice stuff!
-- Lots of skeletons for Masvani to raise (he raises 6)

-- 5000 obols in grave goods

-- A red bell made of crystal...

- Clement the Strangler (nee the Priest) tells them that the bell causes all once-living matter to merge into one super-creature that will kill everything it can find. In this case it was formed from fish bits that they were chucking down there.

- Masvani touches the bell... and it wants to ring! A shimmering peal rings out... and the party get out of there! They sprint out like Odysseus and away!

--- Murder She Rote

- They want to go to the island of Gump, but first they decide to first head to the port town of Rote to see if they can acquire some cannon for Masvani's ship. Cool idea!
- The harbour is full of the remains of a large navy, all scuppered and rotten. The town itself, though, is very much alive! They disembark onto the pier and hear coins clinking from the buildings on the pier.

- The peek in and wow, coin pushers! It is a real seaside pier! In the same building there's an arena with Necromancers doing gladiatorial skeleton fights.
- Celebus decides to throw his pointy hat into the ring. It's him versus a guy called Gravlax Ur. Place your bets!

- After several rounds of Last Breath wrangling, Celebus wins! An older lady throws her arms around Celebus and congratulates him on his victory, they walk off into the crowd...

--- Amusements and Rote Knowledge

- The others play various amusements and gain some fun prizes!

-- Benito find's Faller's Friend spice which grants +5 to Climb when used in a meal. 6 uses.

-- Mother Swan finds the classic Tupper's Ware. Holds 5 rations indefinitely.

-- Mother Flotsam finds a Vial of Skyfire. Shattered, covers the sky in yellow flame for 4 hours and removes weather effects.

- They discover that Guido is the proprieter here, albeit he's got a beach-ready body now. Conveniently he's got some salvaged cannons, which Masvani buys 4 of immediately.

- They leave and see posters extolling the virtues of the Witch-Pirate of Guernsey, who is something of a hero around here. Talking to people, it seems he defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588... then also defeated the Counter Armada the next year. Possibly just for the love of the game. Currently the say he's hunting frogs in the Channel.

- They sprint back to the boat like Odysseus. Not because they need to, but because they want to.

--- Dead Cusk

- Following their old naval map, they head for Cusk, another seaside town on the way. Hopefully they can get some rumours on about what awaits them on the other islands.

- When they reach Cusk, though, the town is completely abandoned. Empty buildings, plates out on tables, like everyone suddenly up and vanished one day.

- They find some books though, and at least some of them haven't been waterlogged and ravaged by time.

-- Book #221 - Eris

-- Book #241 - Drist/Necropolis

-- Two POWERLAD novels

- Masvani scans around with this ESP crab stalk and feels no minds nearby, other than Stoneshell Crabs on the beach. They decide to leave.

--- 21 Gump Street

- They sail to find a thin beach of sand and rotted boats. They can see a town on the cliffs, and a carved path leading upwards. They follow on, of course!

- There's one building with smoke coming out of it - a town hall. Otherwise the place seems pretty abandoned. They knock at the town hall doors and it's answered by a proper cultist-looking cultist.
- Within there's a ritual going on. They're trying to create a creature that can kill the frog monsters in the sea, then continue on to see the Witch-Pirate. They insulted him a few years back and he promised revenge.

- Mother Swan wanders over to the Chandler's shop. The man within sells Swan a 12' candle that screams diatribes as it burns. Asked about tunnels he says... what tunnels?

- Benito enters an abandoned home with green goo on the floor. He touches it, and finds that it burns! Shaking it madly from his fingers he looks around and sees some rare inks and parchment.

- Mother Flotsam inspects a statue of a goat chasing maidens, surrounded by colourful mushrooms. Very tempting. She casts (or doesn't because not a witch you see) her spell "Control Zed" as she easts a red mushroom. She goes berzerk and attacks Benito!! Then zoop she's back to before.

- She tries some more mushrooms in this way, until she hits an indigo hallucination mushroom and loses control of the spell! She drools and gibbers.

--- Traditional Feast

- It's getting close to time, so it's time to cook to close out!

- Benito concocts the "Beanwitch", a sandwich of beans and mushrooms between slices of soft bread.

- It's delightful! And it grants extra healing from food the next day. Perfect!

Total: 8000 exp

Loot:

- 5000 obols in grave goods (5000 exp)

- Book #221 - Eris (50 exp)

- Book #241 - Drist/Necropolis (50 exp)

- Two POWERLAD novels (100 exp)

- Faller's Friend spice

- Tupper's Ware

- Vial of Skyfire

Total: 5200 exp

OOC:

- Carter the Ship's Log Manager, Lookout, Quartermaster (300 exp/level)
- Kitty the Captain (100 exp/level)
- George the Marine (100 exp/level)
- Charles the Naturalist and Ship's Cook (200 exp/level)

Exp Totals:

- Carter / Masvani-I-Manavi, Level 6 Necromancer: 55029 (Level up at 72000)

- Charles / Benito Brazil, Level 6 Halfling: 45282 (Level up at 64000)

- Kitty / Mother Flotsam, Level 6 Not a Witch: 41709 (Level up at 72000)

- George / Mother Swan, Level 4 Magic-User: 11150 (Level up at 18000)

*LEVEL UP! +1d4 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 Mana! +Free Spell! + Backstory!

Session 463 - Am Nae a Fookin Octopus

 Date: 15 September 1626

Zenith: Alaunus

Moon Phase: Waning Crescent

Moon Face: Dragon Face (Tidelocked)

Revealed Backstory:

- Mother Swan experienced a very hot summer in Swan's basement, but she stayed in there for 77 years regardless. +2 Wisdom

Events:

--- Straight Down

- There is a monstrosity in the basement of the shattered church, and our heroes are very up for murdering it.

- They descend down into the crypt, Mother Swan poking ahead with a very big candle.

- They shove aside a couple of bloated corpses and stride through the shin-high water.

- Mother Swan's candle turns out to be a great idea! A big bloated porcupine fish explodes ahead of her when it's dredged up.

--- Food Fight

- Mother Swan notices an octopus monching a corpse and bashes it with the butt of his rifle so she can make dinner out of it later.
- Alas, octopi are resistant to bashing damage! The irritated cephalopod leaps at the old lady and chokes the fuck out of her with its many limbs!

- Mother Swan tries to resist, but the octopus judo-throws her into the scummy water and bites her foot off! Holy shit!

- The others try to help to no avail, the octopus is just that good!

- Mother Swan finally manages to kick the octopus away and kill it with some technically outdated dagger rules. It's gone! Her foot is gone too though.

--- "Run Awaaaaay!!!" -Odysseus

- They flee, Mother Swan being dragged out of the doomed locale by a youngish guy and a fellow old woman.
- There's an awful door opening noise from below, so Mother Swan sends her familiar down there to distract whatever it is. It casts Summon and conjures a slimy snake which acts as a very efficient distraction.

- They drag her to the boat and sail away, noticing a horrible fish amalgam watching them from the ruined church after it destroys the summoned creature.

- Masvani's got the foot issue covered, which is very nice from a Necromancer perspective. He swip-swaps a new foot onto Mother Swan, which will work great up until she hits 0HP again.

--- Yom yom

- They fish and plan their next meal. Mother Swan fishes up a very tasty Blistered Seahorse (or the salty blisters are tasty, at least) while Mother Flotsam fishes up Blood Cod (skulls for the skull abalone... we'll workshop it)

- It's called "Beak of the Octopus That Bit You" and contains Octopus, Blood Cod and Blistered Seahorse. It's yummy!

--- The Long Way Round

- Given that there's a spooky figure spooking around the church, they decide to take the overland route, parking up at a beach to the east and walking over via the graveyard.

- The boat creeps round via the water, and Mother Swan spiderclimbs her way up to the belfry. Below she can see that the church has a floor of ankle-high fish guts, and (horror of horrors!) a load of evil octopuses wiggling through the detritus.

--- Suicide Boys

- The others spend a while gathering flammable guano and chucking it into an emptied coffin. Masvani gives it to a skeleton and has it run into the church, detonating in a glorious fireball! There's a delicious smell of cooked fish from within.

- There are only 6 octopoids in there, rather than the hundreds they'd all been scared of, so they run in and start stabbing!

- Much relatively embarrassing rolls occur, but when the dust settles the octopi are dead!

--- Fairy Story

- A horrible gurgling burbling noise comes from below, and the evil creature emerges from the depths! It's a mass of nasty half-dead fish and has tentacles for days!
- Mother Flotsam doesn't care. She polymorphs it into a mantis shrimp which can only turn back if it punches a royal. Very cool!

- They plop it into a glass of sea water so they can use it as a grenade in future.

--- Tasty Treats

- We round off the evening with "HyperJesus Christ That's a Lot of Octopus" which is largely an octopus-based dish, albeit with seaweed (for the umami) and bread (for dipping). It's delicious!

Total: 9000 exp

Foes Dismantled:

- Lots of octopuses (50 exp)

- The big boss, mantisised (80 exp)

Total: 130 exp

Exp Totals:

- Carter / Masvani-I-Manavi, Level 6 Necromancer: 49929 (Level up at 72000)

- Kitty / Mother Flotsam, Level 6 Magic-User: 37809 (Level up at 72000)
*LEVEL UP! +1d4 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 Mana! +Free Spell! + Backstory!

- George / Mother Swan, Level 3 Magic-User: 7450 (Level up at 9000)

*LEVEL UP! +1d4 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 Mana! +Free Spell! + Backstory!

Session 462 - The Broken Church

Date: 8 September 1626

Zenith: The Dead God

Moon Phase: Waning Crescent

Moon Face: Dragon Face (Tidelocked)

Events:

--- Heavenly Speculation

- We return (with... half a laptop screen...) to the party looking over the edge of the massive sinkhole where Fortress-City Fate used to be. They're all aboard Masvani's walking boat which plods along on many skeleton legs, deciding their next course of action.
- There is some discussion on the merits of returning Mars to the heavens. Back in the Christmas Special, retired character Hidra removed Mars from a magical orrery, precipitating the current space elf attacks and subsequent Red Elf refugee crisis. Maybe replacing Mars would make them go back?

- A discussion for another time, perhaps.

- In the mean time it is decided that we're off on a nautical expedition!

--- Down By the River

- Names are mooted for the big sinkhole. Charybdis. The Maelstrom. The Massive Hole. No matter the name, there's one big issue - the current on either side will drag any ship down!

- Thus they walk the boat a bit further along until they get to a cliff low enough to jump down.

- Heavy clouds rumbling with intracloud lightning rest softly overhead, but there's no rain. The wind blows from the south-east, billowing the sails of the skeleton-legged ship as it leaps ungracefully from the shore and plops down into the water!

- Mother Flotsam spies a church on the islet at the mouth of the river, and the boat paddles against the flow (some speculation - is it still "downstream" if you're going against the current?) to go check it out.

--- Priest of a Shattered Church

- They arrive to find the church in pieces. Most of the nave has crumbled into the sea, leaving just the transept perched on the edge of the cliff. There's a priest sitting on the remnants up there, fishing into the submerged rubble below, and he's just caught a horrible gribbly thing which he seems very happy about!

- They hail him and chat. He says there's a ton of treasure down there, and up in the church for that matter. This whets everyone's appetites for loot, of course!
- Benito orders his butler to dive in and look around. He finds a Ghost Bomb shaped like a sea mine!

- The others decide to root around too and find various loot in the form of candle stands, engraved plates, and shiny knick-knacks.

- The priest is somewhat offended but nevertheless throws down a rope ladder to allow the party to climb up. He is adamant that no arms and armour are allowed inside the church, so anyone who wants to stay in armour (like, say Masvani) aren't allowed in.

- He's also a racist so doesn't want Goblinda and her (very trendy) Goblins to enter either.

--- Tricksy Hobbitses

- The older ladies (Mothers Flotsam and Swan) are allowed up because they seem harmless.

- Benito in his childlike guise climbs up and, when helped up over the edge by the priest, attempts to Dominate! It works! This releases his hold on his butler, of course, who gleefully jumps overboard to escape and... is sucked away by the current. Alas, Butler Dave, we knew you all too briefly.

- The priest, whose name is Father Clement, is swiftly renamed Priest Dave.

- Mother Flotsam, meanwhile, has had a look around. There's an altar where the top surface has been shifted aside to reveal stairs going down, and she pulls aside a curtain to discover a fire around which more bedrolls than one priest would need are arrayed. Something's up!

- There's a shout from above and several arrows sing towards her! There are people up in the rafters, and indeed the rafters themselves are crisscrossed with boards to make it easier to get around up there!

- Mother Flotsam uses her backstory power to find a helpful stranger and... dear lord... a talking Moray Eel is here! It yells encouragement.

--- Battle Above

- The jig is well and truly up. The archers above leap nimbly across their boards, staying out of sight, as various characters shimmy up the rope ladder and into combat.
- Mother Flotsam throws her taxidermied cat up there with its prepared Razor Spiral spell and creates a slicing area of AoE razorblades! This flushes the archers out of cover, and into the line of sight of Benito and Masvani who've been aiming just for this reason! Bullets ping and ricochet!

- "Priest Dave" aka Father Clement reveals to Benito that he's really a serial killer called Clement the Slasher and the priest thing was all a ruse. He runs over to a massed pile of pews and shimmies up the hidden ladder to attack his former friends.

- One of the archers kills the cat, but the razor spiral continues. 

- Mother Swan pulls Mother Flotsam back out of the line of fire in an act of old lady solidarity. Flotsam whips a stone from her sling up at the archers and corks his arm!

- The first of the archers falls, splatting to the stone floor of the church.

--- Goblin Nonsense

- Goblinda finally makes it up to the church, slowed by her Goblin crew's insistence on beatboxing their way up. They form a tower of goblins and wobble towards the archers. Clement slashes the hamstrings of one of his former fellows before Goblinda pokes him off the battlements with her paddle. The man falls and is impaled on a candle stand.

- Soon there is only one archer remaining, who tries to plead with Clement before a one-two punch of Clement's daggers and Goblinda's wobbling paddle sends him plummeting below where he crunches back-first onto the open altar.

--- Mysteries Below

- Mother Flotsam's backup taxidermied cat finds itself rapidly ensouled to become her new familiar. She's always got a backup, you see.

- She questions Angus the "Scottish" Moray Eel on what's going on here, and he tells her that these bandits have been catching sea creatures and throwing them into the sepulchre below to create and/or feed some sort of creature.

- They throw Angus back into the sea where he can... oh no! The current! He's swiftly dragged back towards the giant hole. Maybe he'll meet Butler Dave on the way?

--- Finishing Up
- While deciding whether they go see what the horrible thing is in the crypt, they loot the church. They find such cool stuff as a book on Pirate Law, a pouch of Blinding Beans, a glass sword, and a figurine of a sausage dog that extends a looooong way when activated.

- Mother Swan creates Mother Swan's Big Soup, an intentional rival to Mother Flotsam's soup of a similar name. It contains Devil-Carp, Brine Pike, Lamprey, Chewing Bark and Blood and it would taste AWFUL if not for the presence of Benito and his Halfling cooking skills. As it stands, it's tasty and gives everyone +1 to their Dexterity, possibly because they're leaping away from the soup.

Total: 9000 exp

Enemies Defeated:

- 4 bowmen (40 exp)

Total: 40 exp

Treasures Looted:

- 190 obols-worth of miscellaneous valuables (190 exp)
- Ghost Bomb harms living but heals dead

- Book on pirate laws and customs (50 exp)

- Pouch of Blinding Beans blinds someone as long as the beans are on their eyelids

- Figurine of Endless Dog, when activated, becomes an endless sausage dog useful for finding your way back from places, plus its cute.

- Glass Sword deals exploding damage, but shatters on a fumble.

Total: 240 exp

OOC:

- Carter the Chronicler and Paymaster (200 exp/lvl)
- Zoe the Directionman (100 exp/lvl)

- Kitty the Vanguard (100 exp/lvl)

- Charles the Artist (100 exp/lvl)

- George the Chef (100 exp/lvl)

Exp Totals:

- Carter / Masvani-I-Manavi, Level 6 Necromancer: 45635 (Level up at 72000)

- Charles / Benito Brazil, Level 6 Halfling: 40782 (Level up at 64000)

- Kitty / Mother Flotsam, Level 5 Magic-User: 33515 (Level up at 36000)

- Zoë / Goblinda, Level 5 Goblin: 18518 (Level up at 32000)

- George / Mother Swan, Level 2 Magic-User: 3756 (Level up at 4500)
*LEVEL UP! +1d4 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 Mana! +Free Spell! + Backstory!

Session 461 - Laptop-Less Journey to the Big Hole

Date: 1 September 1626

Zenith: The Scorned

Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous

Moon Face: Dragon Face (Tidelocked)

New Characters:

- Ellengast Progenitrix, aka Mother Swan! A Magic-User who is a former prisoner, mentored by Swan (RIP)

New Backstory:

- Hammer Hatmakerson learned a lot about Necromancers in his tutelage under Celebus. Once per session, give someone an extra point of Mana.

- Masvani-i-Manavi has great respect for Mother Flotsam, his mentor. At the start of the session copy one of their Skills. Transferrable on death or if the character isn't at this session, with a compelling reason.

Events:

--- A Minor Disaster

- Turns out I forgot my laptop today, so it's going to be a janky session where I try to run everything off my phone.

- Luckily everyone is very nice about this!

- This foreshadows another laptop-related event.

--- Who's She? The Swan's Mother?

- The party have just murdered Swan the Swift in his bony swan form.
- They see a figure coming up from the dungeon below. It is the Mother of Swan! Swan's mother! The Mother Goose, if you will! She thanks the party for killing her no good son.

- She joins the party following the retirement of Hammer Hatmakerson, now King Hammer. 

- Also, Gaius returns for one night only! He's a true Roman.

--- A Visit From a God

- They decide to return to the Goblin Wastes, and determine to go via the sea since Masvani has a walking boat and all.
- They head down the King's Road, the long road that leads towards where Fate used to be before it started walking around. They spend the time cooking and relaxing, making Mother Flotsam's Big Soup which is super good with the Halflings around.

- It grants 1 damage per die from cold, which is determined to be the Blessing of the Soup Dragon.

- In fact it's SO good that the God in Heaven today actually comes down to try it! He is The Scorned and is a love bomber, albeit Benito barely notices.

--- Lore Mana from Heaven

- They ask what the situation is up there between the Tadpoles and the Red Elves and whatever's going on with the moon.
- Long story short - the Tadpoles have basically eaten most of the corpse of Ereshkigal which was thrown up their in the End War. The Gods are spread thin trying to stop them entering the atmosphere, since the Red Elves at least only came from moonwards. These new guys can just fly around!

- The Marlingspikes can be repurposed to send energy up to the Gods, so if they can get the Red Elves (who should be grateful to be allowed through in the first place to be honest) to recalibrate them for that purpose that would be great.

- Putting Mars back might help, but the Tadpoles seem to be quite happy to set up shop on the moon so they'll need a reason to leave.

--- Fireside Chats

- We roll to see who's been talking to who and end up with quite the convoluted web of conversations.

- Mother Flotsam bonds with Mother Swan over their shared disappointment in their children.

- Mother Flotsam also shares tea with Masvani.
- Masvani in turn shares some advice with Benito.

- In turn Benito bonds with Gaius over his book on how to cook humans (no "for" in this one), which is troubling.
- In fact all in all, when all's said and done, the party look at themselves and say... "Are we the baddies?"

--- Lights in the Mist

- They are safe from the Unmaking Rain that drizzles down around them, safe in the ship.

- However, drifting in from the mist, tiny lights! They settle on equipment and do weird magic stuff.
- Benito's perfume now heals, but can run out.

- Mother Flotsam's Quicksilver Charm improves.

- Masvani's soul of a resentful goat man he captured that time will now hurt him if it's released.

- Gaius' Halfling Spices now have a loaves-and-fishes effect that will make a meal infinitely shareable

--- A Big Hole

- Finally, as a summer storm rages around them, they reach the sea. Classic Britain.

- Before them, beyond a shattered bridge, is the island where Fortress-City Fate once stood (or perhaps squatted).

- In the past, before the End War, a huge tentacle of Shub-Niggurath rose up from the core of the Earth, then was chewed up by the constantly whirring maw deep beneath Fate.
- Now, with the city gone and Shub-Niggurath exploded into poison, all that remains is a bottomless pit in the middle of the island, down which the waters pour endlessly.

- They approach and stare down the hole. It's endless. They can pick out a city down there, built against the walls of the borehole, fed by pouring water. They can also see countless holes in the walls, doubtless entrances to the Veins of the Earth.

Total: 8000 exp

OOC:

- Carter the Chronicler and Chef (200 exp/level)
- George the Directionman (100 exp/level)
- Charles the Paymaster (100 exp/level)
- Kitty the Vanguard (100 exp/level)

Exp Totals:

- Carter / Masvani-I-Manavi, Level 6 Necromancer: 42579 (Level up at 72000)

- Charles / Benito Brazil, Level 6 Halfling: 38326 (Level up at 64000)

- Kitty / Mother Flotsam, Level 5 Magic-User: 31159 (Level up at 36000)

- Timothy / Gaius Julius Drusus, Level 4 Halfling: 10454 (Level up at 16000)

- George / Mother Swan, Level 1 Magic-User: 1700 (Level up at 2250)

Session 460 - How Did We Get Here

Date: 25 August 1626

Zenith: Minerva

Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous

Moon Face: Dragon Face (Tidelocked)

Revealed Backstory:

- Benito Brazil pissed off the King of Brazil and confronted him, leading to Benito's exile. May cause creatures to prioritise him at will.

Events:

--- Late to the Party

- We return to the party who have recently found their way into a mansion of some sort in the Gardens of Ynn, accessed by a mirror that was recently stolen by Masvani who didn't realise at the time that it had to remain in place to work its magic.

- Also, Hammer Hatmakerson has returned! And somehow found his way into the manor within Ynn! As have his cavemen buddies!

- Good thing too because a golden crocodile on the fountain in the antechamber has just come alive and bared its golden teeth, making a beeline straight for Benito!

- Hammer chucks a magic sword at Benito (presumably a dime a dozen) and Benito swings down on the crocodile! It pings from its metal hide and seems to have missed... but oh wait he's religious! It hits!
- Hammer and his cavemen follow up and through some alarmingly big rolls utterly destroy it. Ooga booga indeed.

--- Where My Stuff Man

- Just to remind everyone, we are actually here because Benito got drunk and his stuff got nicked by a strange man.
- To that end, they explore through a couple of rooms until they find... a balcony overlooking a stage! A passing goat man is interrogated and they discover that Benito's stuff is indeed her, a man carried it past half an hour ago. However it miiiggght have been turned into stage props by Extras quasi-magic.

- Benito shouts, nay DEMANDS from the balcony that they need to put on a play about Brazil. He's surprised when a huge papier-mache King Kong emerges!

- The man of the house, Scilloideae, is the play's director and he's livid about what just happened (and baffled by the big gorilla).
- Thankfully Benito is there to explain. He got drunk in Bell and just wants his stuff back.

- After some conversation the director is happy to give said stuff back. All the glitter-covered cardboard copies of Benito's gear are gathered and, with a click of Scilloideae's fingers, returned to normal. Hurrah!

- With all that received, and with no easy way out due to Masvani's mirror theft, they're forced to head back out into Ynn and hope they can find their way home through the gardens.

--- Sail Away Sail Away Sail Away

- They exit into Ynn and the first thing they see is a great big ship up the top of a big cool jaggedy mountain. The ship itself is built around and on a floating rock which is currently not floating very much, so just a big normal rock really.
- They investigate and find a Red Elf is in there, struggling to get the rock going. Also he has the worst Jamaican accent but people seemed to enjoy it?

- All it takes is one touch from Benito's hand and the rock starts floating again. This seems way too easy but maaaybe there's a lore reason.

- They start flying the shape of the Broligarchy and hey! I shuffled the deck wrong! They're out of there already!

- And here's Masvani too! Lovely!

--- Martian Concerns

- Despite the party's previously established pro-genocide position vis-a-vis the Red Elves, after actually meeting one they're all suddenly going back on their previous position. Funny how that works.
- Turns out the Red Elf colonists have nowhere to go back to since Mars vanished approx 8 months ago, plus their brethren have died over and over until they turned into the horrible space tadpoles seen recently.
- Hang on actually this is possibly the best out of context line of the season -
- "They need to head back to the Goblin Wastes and find Hidra to get Mars in preparation for Christmas so they can put Mars back"

- It's a long way back, but they can follow the old King's Road to the edge of the wastes.

--- Onwards in a Different Boat

- Now that they've got Masvani and his silly boat that runs on many skeleton legs, it's time to set off again!

- As they approach Swansburg (nee Salivasburg, nee Salisburgh) there is a brief encounter with giant cockroaches, but it's not much to write home about beyond some extra armfuls of haemolymph they harvest from the bodies. Hammer scrumps wheat from the nearby wheatfield.

- The longarms used to quell the bugs in said ambush are assiduously taken back by Masvani and put back in the gun locker, probably the only time we've ever seen proper gun management in the game. Fingers off the trigger and no pointing the business end at anything you don't want dead, folks.

--- New City Same As the Old City

- They cross through Swansburg's gates and nobody bats an eye at their walking boat, since this place is PACKED with the undead. Some living zealots with bells on sticks wander past, proselytising about Deusix.

- They continue on, a huge wooden swan looming on the central motte. Most "people" they pass are skeletons in various tabards going about their errands. The only living people tend to be big bags of skin.

- They hail a fleshbag and Swan is crushed to discover that there's no serfdom here, skeletons took all the jobs. Cash-for-bones signs advertise the only real way for the average living man to get by. Will Hammer truly have to kill Swan for betraying the ideals of medievalism?

--- The Battle for the Crown

- They approach the motte and find it is a big big pile of bones. So many bones.

- There is a great battle against a bone man who is turning into a swan shape as they battle. It's Swan himself! And he's absorbing all of the bones!

- I am clearly too tired at this point to run anything properly but on we go.

- Hammer strikes religiously, Masvani gives the goose-monster teeth, Goblina (who turned up!) throws goblins into the fray, Mother Flotsam chucks a guano bomb in, Benito makes Hammer very big with a Growth Potion.

- Hammer, now huge, gets his hands on the neck of the Swan swan and snaps.

--- Opportunity

- They walk into the quiet throne room of Swan the Swift. It's empty.
- Hammer takes the crown that rests on the throne, feels it scream, and puts it on.
- He throws down the Seed Skull of the Forgotten King at his feet, a magical artifact that will cause a kingdom to bloom here. His cavemen will remake this rotten land.

- Also they cook something called "Cockyleeky" from cockroach viscera, an ostrich egg and a couple of handfuls of wheat. It's not great!

Total: 9000 exp

Foes Defeated:

- Some cockroaches (35 exp)

- Swan the Swift: Bone Edition (100 exp)

Total: 135 exp

Treasures Claimed:

- A Kingdom (invaluable, but let's call it 10 000 exp to be nice?)

Total: 10000 exp

Exp Totals:

- Carter / Masvani-I-Manavi, Level 6 Necromancer: 39779 (Level up at 72000)

*LEVEL UP! +1d4 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 Mana! +Free Spell! + Backstory!

- Charles / Benito Brazil, Level 6 Halfling: 36126 (Level up at 64000)

- George / Hammer Hatmakerson, Level 6 Fighter: 33955 (Level up at 64000)
Retired but also *LEVEL UP!* +1d8 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 to Hit! +1 to Crit/Fumble! +Backstory!

- Kitty / Mother Flotsam, Level 5 Magic-User: 29059 (Level up at 36000)

- Zoë / Goblinda, Level 5 Goblin: 16162 (Level up at 32000)
*LEVEL UP! +1d6 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 Goblin! +Backstory!

Session 459 - It's More or Less the Same as the Things That You Said

Date: 18 August 1626

Zenith: Oberon

Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent

Moon Face: Dragon Face (Tidelocked)

Events:

--- Ok then, that was always allowed

- The Red Elves roll their bubbles into the town of Bell. Masvani has strong misgivings.

- A guardpost is immediately diverted around because Bell has recently quintupled in population due to Masvani's actions last session

- It's fine though? Shanty town vibes here.

- As a result the Red Elves are invited in with little fanfare. They roll their bubbles into the centre of town and set up in the park.

- The sky is threatening. It's a Swarm Warning, a fairly common weather event in summer. Flies abound. Beetles clutch the earth. 

- Masvani casts a spell and instantly dies.

--- Wait what

- Yea he's fucking dead
- Mother Flotsam brings out the worm that is named Celebus, a fellow Necromancer, and asks him what the fuck just occurred while sipping tea with fellow old ladies.

- Worm Celebus states that this was the "Little Death" which afflicts Necromancers every so often. Masvani will return! Specifically at midnight.

- Meanwhile Masvani watches his corpse from the ghost dimension. Without Celebus giving information this may have been way more horrific.

--- Chores

- Benito hits up the church, goes round the back, and kinda-sorta seduces a man named Trevor Upmarket into being his minion. Horrific stuff. 

- We discover that Necromancers can order around their troops from the ghost dimension because that's really fucking cool!

- Masvani exploits this technique to have a good look around town. He investigates the Red Elves' Resurrection Engine and finds it empty. Something to investigate further?

--- Mother Flotsam Gets Pissed

- It's carousing time! Mother Flotsam gets so fucking drunk,,,,,
- Masvani returns! And tries to get the populace up in arms regarding the Red Elf refugees but everyone's more annoyed by the influx of no-longer-dead who recently tore themselves from the loam.

- Mother Flotsam pisses off the local baron's wife who has only recently returned from abroad.

--- The Morning After

- Benito awakens to discover that he's lost all his gear, Awful! He has vague memories of an older guy putting his stuff away for safe keeping?

- Hang on, he knows that face! It was the Baron's butler!

- They head off IMMEDIATELY to confront him, and in short order discover that he lobbed everything through the Baron's mirror that leads directly into the gardens of Ynn as a kind of sick joke

--- And what Alice found there

- Mother Flotsam and Benito run into the Baron's bedroom. The Baron and his wife leap out of bed! Sadly for them, Mother Flotsam is prepared. She casts her Babbling Curse and both of them jump through the looking glass before anyone can stop them!

- Masvani grabs the mirror and hauls it away. To his horror it it changes back into a normal mirror as soon as he leaves the room!

- Quoth Carter, "oh no".

--- A Cloakroom

- Mother Flotsam and Benito Brazil stagger out of a wardrobe. They are confronted by a little goat man sitting on a little chair. They are very obviously in Ynn.

- We are now in a split party situation! On the way downstairs, Masvani persuades the Baron's daughter to come along with him and abandon her lyre. Mysterious!

Total: 8000 exp

Exp Totals:

- Charles / Benito Brazil, Level 6 Halfling: 32299 (Level up at 64000)
*LEVEL UP!* +1d6 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 to Mind Control! +1 to Cooking! +Backstory!
- Carter / Masvani-I-Manavi, Level 5 Necromancer: 35952 (Level up at 36000)

- Kitty / Mother Flotsam, Level 5 Magic-User: 25232 (Level up at 36000)