Session 196 - Attack of the Clones

Another week, another LENGTHY recap!

POWERLAD punches Andromeda in the gut.
RJ dies to his own poison bite.
Flaming Fury throws herself into a room full of frog monsters and is torn apart.
Styx sets off to enter an angel.

I swear it's not on purpose that Charles always misses the big treasure hoards!

- Ollie UPGRADES Synthia with epoxy armour!

Session 196 - Attack of the Clones

Campaign Date:

Friday, 5 May, 1601

Moon Phase: Third Quarter

Zenith: The Dead God

Zodiac: Aries

New Backstory:
- RJ and the Spiderkids constantly ratted each other out for stealing things and minor misdemeanors, making them remarkably good at spotting narcs (Save vs Law to discern if someone is planning to betray you)

Treasure and Equipment:

- 300 gp (15000 exp)
- Potion #149
- A violet gem - amethyst (3750 exp)
- A green gem - chrysoprase (500 exp)
- A red gem - jasper (500 exp)
- A circular shield with central star

- 3 angular Dwarven short swords
- 3 suits of Dwarven chainmail

- The “god damn control rod” - a thick black baton topped with a large red crystal

Total: 19750 exp

Enemies Defeated:

- A stone golem (250 exp)
- 3 doppelgangers (225 exp)

Total: 475 exp

Exploration:

- Explored 7 dungeons areas (140 exp)
- 2 wandering monster rolls (100 exp)

Total: 240 exp

Events:

--- Fists of stone!

- “WHO DARES DEFILE THIS TEMPLE?” (50 exp)
- We open on the cliffhanger - a strangely squat and angular statue of Dispater rumbles to life and roars a challenge in ancient Dwarven! (50 exp)
- RJ, who speaks the old language, kneels before it on spidery limbs, flanked by his three surviving siblings, and prays for mercy. (50 exp)
- When that doesn’t work, RJ unsheathes his katana - the POWAHA! His siblings web onto the ceiling while, screaming a battlecry, he slashes directly at the stone chest of the statue! … It’s completely ineffective. (50 exp)
- POWERLAD, Andromeda, and Flaming Fury follow up! Flaming Fury smashes with her pick, POWERLAD goes low with a gut-punch, and Andromeda leaps off his back and punches it in the head! (50 exp)
- The monster hits kick up a cloud of stone dust… but as it settles the statue is unharmed! (50 exp)

- It roars and smashes RJ right in his compound-eyed face, blasting him backwards through the low pews and sending his katana skittering across the ground. From the ceiling, his siblings jeer at his failure dickishly. (50 exp)
- Despite enjoying their brothers’ failure, RJ’s siblings rope up the statue with waves of webs! The statue is held down! (50 exp)
- POWERLAD takes the opportunity to smash in with his massive hammer! It rocks straight into the statue’s face… and a single splinter of stone falls from Dispater’s face. It raises a hand to its cheek and in old Dwarven says “All that for a chip of stone?” (50 exp)
- RJ charges across the room in slow motion, roaring his challenge… but it’s mostly him pretending to run slowly so it’s lame and he doesn’t even reach the statue. (50 exp)
- POWERLAD slams back in with his hammer, but the statue deflects and punches him straight in the chest. He flies backwards, but catches onto Flaming Fury’s beard! Instead of flying back through the pews he spins round and tears off a chunk of beard! (50 exp)
- Andromeda is still on the statue’s head, and it spins its body to send her flying off! POWERLAD sees her flying past, horrified, and climbs to his feet! (50 exp)
- RJ charges back in as the statue tears its way out of the webs! He slashes with his katana, but it blocks with a hand and smashes him hard. RJ is slammed back across the room, through the back curtain, and crushed against the back wall! (50 exp)
- RJ’s carapace cracks, haemolymph welling slowly from his pudgy spider body. The spidersiblings, worry overwhelming their dickishness, scuttle across to patch him up. They’re alarmingly effective. (50 exp)
- Flaming Fury strikes back, eyes burning. She ducks under a powerful punch and rams her pick into the joint of its elbow, pulling down hard to drag it off balance. (50 exp)
- POWERLAD bursts forward, giant hammer in hand, boosting his muscles to swing in with incredible strength! He smashes the statues legs out from under it, and Flaming Fury drives her pick home. (50 exp)
- The statue slams to the floor, defeated. Its head springs off like a rockem sockem robot, clunking to the grounds. (50 exp)

- The spiderkids, seeing that RJ is feeling fine again, begin the friendly mockery once more. The group smash down some rations to feel better. (50 exp)

--- Styx makes it home

- Behind the doors of the elevator, Styx, his goblins, and the two NPC adventurers take stock of their situation. (50 exp)
- The main doors have irised shut, and angels can be heard singing from the now-revealed secret room. (50 exp)
- Styx investigates, finding a bunch of machines that seem to control the elevator. Two angels are interfacing with the machinery, overseen by a second-tier angel on its unfolded metal legs. (50 exp)
- Styx sings a request to let them up via elevator and the angels comply, bringing him and the rest up to the first floor. (50 exp)
- It’s an easy walk back to the now-permanent temporary shelter, making sure to be careful of the green slime and the robo-rat corpses. (50 exp)
- Styx briefly considers scooping up some more god powers from the nearby statue of the Lady marked on the map, but avoids it due to HP concerns. (50 exp)

- They finally arrive back in the safe room, Ilda and Lady Goth run to their friends in their adventuring party and tell them everything that happened. Styx and his minions set to planting new goblin spores to replenish their numbers. (50 exp)
- It’s iron rations and leftovers for dinner, the returning adventurers settling down for a well-earned rest while the others barricade the doors and stand guard. (50 exp)
- Before he goes to sleep, Styx prays to the Dead God who is currently in orbit overhead. It doesn’t go how he expects - the Dead God is real impatient and lively! (50 exp)
- He talks for a while to the irascible and distracted deity, who reveals various information as he rambles - Ereshkigal is assaulting the prime tentacle with beam-artillery support from Fortress-City Fate, the Rebel Dead have been forced back to defend the Barrowmaze. (50 exp)
- Styx also finds out that there is such thing as a control module for angels, and that the Seraphim mothership atop Dwimmermount has such modules within it. Time for an excursion! (50 exp)
- He asks if Ilda’s party is willing to help him acquire a control module, and to his surprise they all agree! They’ll set off in the morning… whenever that is. Time loses meaning underground. (50 exp)
--- Seeing double!

- In the chapel of Dispater, RJ leans against the wall and eats a ration to keep up his strength. Sporty Spice and Noel G guard the stairs down… and are startled when they see some strange blurry shapes ascending the steps towards them! (50 exp)
- The shapes resolve into.... Sporty Spice and Noel G?! The spiders stare at each other aghast! (50 exp)
- The blur increases to encompass both the spiders, it’s hard to tell which is which… and suddenly they’re under attack! (50 exp)
- RJ tries to work out which is which because he’s so used to spiderkid betrayals… but he fails. Before his very eyes he sees Noel G die, poisoned by his sister! Or was that the fake? (50 exp)
- Confusion mounts as Noel G accidentally bites Beetlejohn his brother. He apologises… but is it the real him? (50 exp)
- POWERLAD runs over to investigate and sees that RJ has webbed himself into a protective coccoon! He looks on in horror as his children devour each other. How to tell who’s who?? (50 exp)
-  He grabs both Sporty Spices and holds them apart - but suddenly there are two POWERLADs! One says “Put down my daughter!” and the other drops the spider… the blur continues as the POWERLADs swap positions. How to tell who’s who? (50 exp)
- Flaming Fury comes over all funny as that strange sensation she picked up at the wreckage of the alien ship begins to squirm in her head - she cries out as weird energies flow out towards one of the Beetlejohns! (50 exp)
- The Beetlejohn turns and transforms into Flaming Fury… but has been Charmed by the strange power! To Flaming Fury, who already experienced the death of one of her paradox-clones, this is wonderful! (50 exp)
- The Flaming Furies run to meet each other and laugh and dance. The doppelganger keeps telling her that she wants to kill her, but won’t because she’s having such fun! (50 exp)
- The POWERLADs have each other by the throat, so Sporty Spice skitters in with an incredible display of webwork. The POWERLADs are wrapped up tight! (50 exp)
- RJ and Sporty Spice separate the trussed up POWERLADs and try to work out which is which - hard when they keep switching places at random. (50 exp)
- The POWERLADs are asked “how did you meet your wife?” and one of them totally fails! RJ bites him and the POWERLAD transforms into a copy of RJ… only to discover that spiders aren’t immune to their own venom. The spider morphs into a clay humanoid and hits the ground with a splat, dead. (50 exp)
- Flaming Fury asks Flaming Fury if she can stick around a while, which Flaming Fury is fine with! They have friendly chats for a while, despite Flaming Fury’s insistence that she’ll have to kill Flaming Fury at some point. (50 exp)
- Belatedly, RJ sees Noel G’s body hidden under the curtain. In all the body-swapping back and forth it was the real Noel G who died to a bite from the clone of Sporty Spice. Alas, the Spiderkids will truly never be the same again. (50 exp)

--- God war denial

- POWERLAD grabs the head of the deanimated Dispater statue and carries it over to the headless statue of DIspater in the room nearby. When he places it on the neck stump, he’s filled with the blessing of Dispater! (50 exp)

- Until POWERLAD leaves Dwimmermount, he gains +2 to hit from surprise. Neato. (50 exp)
- Andromeda goes to RJ to distract herself from the shock/pleasure/fear of seeing two POWERLADs at once again, and RJ lets her borrow his copy of the POWERLAD vs the MIRROR DIMENSION manga. (50 exp)
- Almost hearing the voice of Styx somehow, the party decides to take the replicant to the frog ritual room. Hopefully it will cause religious strife by becoming a copy of whatever underwater boss monster they summoned last time! (50 exp)
- They reach the door to the ritual room and spin the wheel, opening it slowly to view the scene within… (50 exp)
- Torchlight flickers out across a sea of frog-flesh, swarms of frog monsters and the sweet smell of pheremones, an abominable croaking that rises to a cacophany! (50 exp)
- The party is FUCKING SCARED! Flaming Fury goes to slam the door shut… and finds herself being kicked into the room! She rolls tries to fight off Flaming Fury, fails, and Flaming Fury kicks her into the room! (50 exp)
- There is a scream of pain and fear as the frog monsters descend upon her, a sustained wail of “whyyyyyyy!?”. Flaming Fury slams the door shut and spins the locking wheel before turning to the rest of the party, relieved. (50 exp)
- To her shock, the wheel begins being turned from the other side! She struggles to hold it closed, and the quick-thinking spiders web it shut. Phew! The webbing shudders but holds… for now. (50 exp)
--- Friendly dwarfs

- They retrace their steps through the ruined chapel and into the next area - a large circular stepped pit with four door-shaped alcoves and an ornate hexagram at the bottom. The ceiling has an equally sized nonagram. (50 exp)
- Inspection seems to show that the alcoves could generate portals to different places, probably places in this very dungeon. They’re currently inactive though. (50 exp)
- Moving on, they come across a group of three Dwarfs! The Dwarfs seem friendly and introduce themselves, saying that they’re here hunting a Control Rod that will allow them to control the machines on this level. (50 exp)
- They also warn of threats nearby - there’s a room with a heavy robo-skeleton presence nearby, and beyond it a locked door through which a vast lake of azoth can be seen. (50 exp)
- The spiders offer to carry people across the ceiling of the robot room, and one of the Dwarfs agrees. He’s tied onto the spider’s back and Sporty Spice scuttles across the ceiling! (50 exp)
- The robo-skeletons spring up when the door is opened, but deactivate again when the door is closed behind. (50 exp)
- Meanwhile Flaming Fury checks another door, it opens onto a dark room. In the room is a fair amount of loot… and three corpses. (50 exp)
- Suspecting a trap, RJ stealths in. Unfortunately he’s not so good at it… mostly because he’s humming his stealth theme and being super obvious. (50 exp)
- Fearing the worst, Flaming Fury throws in an oil bomb and a lit torch to light the room! The corpses, surrounded by torn up bags and rolling coins, are revealed! (50 exp)
- RJ leaps forward with his POWAHA katana and slices the head from a corpse! It shears straight through the neck muscle and the head rolls towards his feet… revealing the face of Gedvar - one of the Dwarfs! (50 exp)
--- You gotta be fucking kidding
- At the same time, POWERLAD and Andromeda hear the tapping at the door to the robot room that signifies someone wants to get out. They open it and Sporty Spice crawls out, the dwarf nowhere to be seen… (50 exp)
- There is a shout of shock from RJ, and POWERLAD looks up to see the spider dropping towards him, transforming into a POWERLAD itself! (50 exp)
- With the door still open, the roboskeletons advance! POWERLAD suckerpunches Andromeda as she struggles to decide who’s who! Threads of black poison can be seen pumping through POWERLAD’s veins, sure sign that Sporty Spice bit him before he transformed! (50 exp)
- Andromeda collapses, bludgeoned by her true love, clutching at her abdomen. Bruising wells beneath her skin. (50 exp)
- POWERLAD, enraged, unleashes his Dragon Punch! Ninhursag uncoils from the stone, shattering the rock to bite down on POWERLAD with a sickening crunch! He dies, turning into a POWERLAD-shaped lump of clay and splatting onto the ground. (50 exp)
- Meanwhile, RJ turns away from the Dwarf’s head to shout a warning, and sees Flaming Fury kick one of the dwarfs into the room! He sets his spidery feet and lifts his katana as Flaming Fury slams the door closed. (50 exp)
- The Dwarf transforms into RJ - Solo Round! They run at each other screaming faux-japanese battlecries... (50 exp)
- RJ looks like he’s going for a cool overhead slash that’ll become a super rad sword lock while they yell catch phrases at each other and grunt… but instead he weaves and bites RJ in the face! (50 exp)
- RJ screams in pain as the poison pumps through his body… then collapses into a lump of clay. (50 exp)
- RJ looks out at the combat between two Flaming Furies as the door begins to swing shut. He manages to kick [loot goes here] across the threshold just before the hatch closes and mag-locks shut (50 exp)
(Tim’s going to be away for a month so this seems a fortuitous place for him to mysteriously disappear.!)

- Outside the room, Flaming Fury is once again in battle with a clone. Why won’t she leave her alone?! (50 exp)
--- Styx sets off
- On that cliffhanger, we return to Styx who has had a long rest and thus displaced himself in the game’s chronology. Several hours after the battle against the doppelgangers, Styx sets off with his gang of NPC adventurers. (50 exp)
- Next stop - the mothership! (50 exp)

Total: 3850 exp

Misc:

- Aggressive Negotiations bonus (50 exp)
- Balls to the Wall bonus (50 exp)
- Best of Intentions bonus (50 exp)
- Better Part of Valour bonus (50 exp)
- Brutal Kill bonus (50 exp)
- Dramatic Battle bonus (50 exp)
- Fame bonus (50 exp)
- Henchman Abuse bonus (50 exp)
- I Immediately Regret This Decision bonus (50 exp)
- Long deliberation bonus (50 exp)
- Ludicrous gore bonus (50 exp)
- Mind Control to Major Tom bonus (50 exp)
- PETA bonus (50 exp)
- Poison is OP bonus (50 exp)
- Pundemonium bonus (50 exp)
- Pyrrhic Victory bonus (50 exp)
- Split the Party bonus (50 exp)
- WWE bonus (50 exp)

Total: 900 exp

Party Roles and Individual Exp:

- Remembrancer (Carter / Styx - 100 exp ea)

- Caller (Kitty / POWERLAD)- 100 exp)
- Mapper (Carter / Styx - 100 exp)

- Treasurer (Timothy / RJ - 100 exp)
- Quartermaster (Ollie / Flaming Fury - 100 exp)

- Guard (Kitty / POWERLAD - 100 exp)

- Tracker (Timothy / RJ - 100 exp)
- Art Attack bonus (Ollie - 100 exp)

- Chippo Man bonus (Ollie*2- 100 exp ea.)
- Hummous Hero bonus (Timothy - 100 exp)
- JÜGBRINGYR bonus (Timothy*2, Ollie - 500 exp ea.)
- Near Death Experience (RJ and Andromeda - 100 exp ea.)

Active Businesses:

- Knickers Gloves Bodices. Risky. 1020sp. (Ratimir)

- Blood Honey Healing 4 U (Co-dependent businesses)

--- Honey Healing. Safe. 1095sp. (Bertha) +1%

--- Blood Honey 4 U. Safe. 10515sp. (Sir Robyn) +1%

Rumours:

-

Death Toll and Injuries:

- Several spiderkids, eliminating the Spiderkids as Extras from the game.
- RJ has a broken leg which will likely never recover… but at least the gods saw fit to grace him with many spares.

Exp Totals:

- Kitty / High Priest POWERLAD!, Level 7 Muscle Wizard: 132225 (Level up at 144000)

-- Devotee of Ninhursag, Bond 10 (-50% exp)

--- Andromeda, Level 4 Muscle Wizard: 13922 (Level up at 18000)

---- Devotee of Ninhursag, Bond 5 (-25% exp)

- Carter / Styx, Level 7 Goblin: 65196 (Level up at 128000)
*DING!* +1d6 HP! +1 goblin buddy! +1 Tinker! +backstory!

--- Break, Robo-Armoured Goblin Buddy
--- A bunch more goblin buddies
--- Ilda, Level 3 Fighter: 7218 (Level up at 8000)
--- Lady Goth, Level 3 Necromancer: 4870 (Level up at 9000)
*DING!* +1d4 HP! +1 level 2 spell/day! +free spell! +backstory!

- Ollie / Flaming Fury, Level 5 Dwarf: 26585 (Level up at 35200)

-- Devotee of Ereshkigal, Bond 3 (-15% exp)

- Timothy / RJ, Level 4 Spider Fighter: 14190 (Level up at 16000)

*DING!* +1d8 HP! +1 to hit! +1 to crit/fumble!

Absent or Retired:

- James / Ratimir, Level 6 Ratman: 33991 (Level up at 48000)  
- Charles / Zena, Level 7 Fighter: 64285 (Level up at 128000)
- Suzie / Dumbledorris2, Level 4 Inheritor: 17186 (Level up at 18000)  

- Henry / Witchfinder-Sergeant, Level 5 Cleric (Unorthodox): 14963 (Level up at 28000)

--- Erstwhile, Level 2 Muscle Wizard: 3105 (Level up at 4500)

- Andy / Carrie Meleste, Level 6 Termaxian Cleric: 52811 (Level up at 56000)

--- 4 Henchmen Undeserving of Names, Level 0 Bootlickers  

- Ollie / Synthia, Level 5 Inheritor: 24639 (Level up at 36000)

-- Devotee of Ninhursag, Bond 2 (-10% exp)

- Timothy / Sir Robyn, Level 6 Magic-User: 60599 (Level up at 72000)

- Kitty / Bertha, Level 4 Necromancer: 9931 (Level up at 18000)

- Kyle / Gimlass the Brave, Level 2 Dwarf: 2257 (Level up at 4400)

- Ollie / Tremendo Picante, Level 2 Ratman: 2654 (Level up at 3000)

- James / Raaf van Held, Level 4 Fighter: 14838 (Level up at 16000)

- James / William Fox-Shitt, Level 3 Cleric (Zeanist): 4571 (Level up at 7000)