Saturday, 18 May 2019

Session 224 - Coming Out of the Shell

The first trip outside the Shell! The team travels through the grey mists and persistent rain of the post-apocalyptic Autumn, brushing off a couple of ambushes from a few tasty scavengers, and finds their way through to the crashed Seraphim.

We also try some new Rebuild mechanics and I think they're working pretty good! Yay!

Andromeda gets grabbed by a crab. Private Barrett leads from the rear. Damnation Snels executes a Styxian. Red tries her hand at programming. DJ tries to sneak some man-meat. Grumpy becomes the team cook.

Timothy supplies the first Spider Papal Bull of the new world. It seems somehow directed at a specific sibling of theirs...
Spider Papal Bull of the Year Of Our LAD 14: Thou shalt move out and not live on thy Brother's Couch Thou shalt not go on month long benders with thy idiot friends Thou shalt be more careful with money, thy siblings are not a bank Thou shalt get a real job "Adventurer" is not a real job It is decreed that Dad is a Lawyer, not an "adventurer" Verily the Holy LAD was a humble crossbow mechanic and later a High Priest "World's Greatest Duellist" is not a real job either Neither is "Face-stabbinator" Go forth from this house and annoy someone else for the rest of the day Here endeth the sermon

Carter's response in the recap to the Bull

And here's the current state of New Moondin for any interested.
Next season is Winter - no standard Rebuild effects trigger, so no resources or builders! Basically Winter is about surviving through to Spring. There's enough food to do that, so all good!



Session 224 - Coming Out of the Shell

Date:
14 years after the End.
September

Characters:

Character Backstories:
- Barrett: During the fall of the Witch Pirate’s fleet, Barrett was caught in an ambush from the Loegrian Navy and commanded the counterattack. +2 to party’s first round initiative when you’re at the back of the marching order.
- Damnation Snels: The Lord found Snels in a tale reminiscent of Jonah involving a non-euclidean whale. Double first fleeing roll after failing a Stealth check.
- Grumpy: When he first left his Dwarven arcology, Grumpy had one last kiss from his forbidden love. When you first kiss a willing person, gain +1 HP/level for the rest of the session.
Salvage:
- 18 obols in tattoos and trinkets (18 exp)
- 37 steaming lumps of cooked stoneshell crab (37 exp)
- 6 arquebuses with shot and powder (360 exp)
- At least 1 rationsworth of human flesh??? (? exp)
- Misc angel metal (100 exp)
Total: 515 exp

Murder:
- 6 filthy scavengers (30 exp)
- 6 stoneshell crabs (150 exp)
Total: 180 exp
Overland Exploration:
- Explored the overworld (100 exp)
- 2 random encounters (100 exp)
- First party to climb the High Hill (100 exp)
- First party to glimpse Battlefortress Fate (500 exp)
- First party to travel beyond the Shell (500 exp)
Total: 1300 exp
Dungeon Exploration:
- First party to enter the Crashed Seraphim (400 exp)
- 1 Wandering Monster group rolled (50 exp)
- Explored 3 dungeon areas (60 exp)
Total: 510 exp

Events:
--- Rebuild Phase: Summer
- We open with the shiny new Rebuild Phase mechanics, with a new focus on building up settlements! New Moondin has some unique stuff, but it basically hinges on building Farms and Commercial areas.
- Summer brings quick-build buildings, so farms are swiftly built to put New Moondin’s surplus population to work! Unemployment is at an all time low!

--- Rebuild Phase: Autumn
- Autumn brings bumper harvests before the winter! Enough surplus is stored to feed the population over the coming months, and the excess is put towards more Farms. New Moondin will be thriving in the new year!

--- Pre-Expedition: Planning the First Trip Out of the Shell
- The party stocks up for a trip out to the crashed Seraphim - an angel dropship - just outside the Shell. Thankfully DJ finds Andromeda’s stuff amongst the wreckage of the Hot Box. Hurrah!
- Tents are checked over for damage and surplus food is purchased - the town’s new farms have increased the available ingredients - bread, beans, potato, turnips and something called Low Truffle. A bunch of them are purchased for the trip.
- The plan - take the road to the Saviourbone Mine, head up the High Hill and try to see where the crashed angel dropship is exactly, then head for the dropship itself. Sounds easy enough!

--- Expedition Day 1: A Grey Autumn
- It’s the first of September when the group sets off in the direction of the Saviourbone Mine. The world is cloaked in a melancholy mist, softening edges and sapping the spirit.
- The new road to the Mine is easily followed, and after a few hours they are greeted by the priest Arnold Nonymous. His voice has changed in the Autumn… or something.
- He directs them to the High Hill, easily found since it’s only a mile away and looming over the landscape, and they continue on.
- From the top of the hill they can see for miles. The river passing through New Moondin clearly starts among the Gad Cliffs, they can see a lake formed by a dragon footprint to the northwest, and far away to the north they can just about make out Battlefortress Fate!
- More importantly, the crashed Seraphim can be seen a couple of miles to the northeast! It’s quite an easy walk since the hills dip down into flat fields for a bit, so they march off for the edge of the Shell.
- When they’re close enough they decide to set up camp and investigate the angel in the morning. Andromeda and Snels decide to forage the local area while Barrett sets up camp, DJ keeps watch, and Grumpy cooks up a nice meal. How civilised!
- Snels and Andromeda fail to find much food, but they do find some human bootprints leading off through the mist. A rarity in the end times! They decide to follow them.

--- An Ineffective Ambush
- They follow the prints into a copse of scraggly dead trees and see the figure of a man crouching over tying up a shoelace. He hails them as they approach. He’s wearing survival gear similar to New Moondin’s but more raggedy and patched up, a whole different vibe.
- They chat a little, but Snels hears a soft click from the right and turns his head in time to see someone raising a rifle! He dives into Andromeda, knocking them both to the ground, and the figure fires!
- Crack! A sharp report and the man they were just talking to gets hit right in the eye! There is a muffled “Oh shit” from the shooter, and other voices begin yelling, “what the fuck man you shot Sam?!”
- The people begin running, but Andromeda’s blood is up. She sprints after them, trailing her whip, and Snels unholsters his pistols and follows on. They run deeper into the copse, but Andromeda is faster. Her whip flicks out and snags one around the leg, but he trips and rolls and the whip is torn from her grip!



- Snels snaps off a shot with his pistol at another runner who turns and yells, “they’ve got guns too!” and ducks behind a tree, unslinging their arquebus and returning fire.
- Andromeda leaves the whip and rolls into cover, sending a shot from her beam rifle fizzing into that guy’s head. The stasis beam cores out his skull and he slumps twitching against the tree.
- Nearby, DJ and Barrett are sprinting towards the sharp reports of gunfire. Something’s going down!
- Snels pulls the trigger on his second pistol and it misfires! The gun goes flying off to his left. Seeing that he’s weak and needs to reload, he’s attacked by two of the ambushers. He fends them off, moving backwards, as Andromeda lines up another shot.
- Barrett arrives through the mist behind the more distant arquebusiers and takes out the first by kicking his leg out from under him. The gunner falls and brains himself against a rock. DJ takes a more direct route and stabs the fuck out of the other.
- Snels flips his pistols, holding the by the barrels and smashing at his foe’s face and chest with the heavy stocks. The man defends himself with his arms… and his head just fucking explodes. The body slumps to the ground, revealing Andromeda standing behind him with her bloodstained hammer.



- The last survivor on the ground rears up with a roar of anger! She tries to grab Andromeda from behind, but with an easy grab and roll Andromeda has her pinned to the ground by the throat. The fight goes out of her, and she starts sobbing and apologising.
- Damnation Snels calmly reloads his pistol while Andromeda interrogates the hostage and the others arrive to find out what’s been going on here. The hostage says that this band of scavengers has been preying on the general population for a while. They thought they could take two people - apparently they were wrong.
- They’ve been living in a hidden cave close by the Prepper enclave. She can show them the way if-
- Snels blows her brains out. He’d heard enough, and her constant Styxian blasphemies were too much for him to deal with. The others are aghast as he calmly collects his other pistol and walks back to the camp.

--- Expedition Night 1: A Fortifying Meal
- When they arrive back at the camp covered in blood, Grumpy has prepared a nice meal for everyone! He calls it Fruits of the Earth - a sort of hash made from Potato, Beans, and grated Low Truffle. It’s truly superb! The Dinner Perk boosts speed during a chase, which might come in handy later.
- The night itself passes uneventfully as the mists give way to a sustained grey drizzle. Grumpy takes his time on watch to fix Damnation Snels’ broken pistol for him.
- In the darkness of the pre-dawn the party rises to travel towards the Seraphim. They follow Grumpy’s lamplight through the rain and, soon, through the Storm Shell itself.
- There is a feeling of crackling static when they pass through the Shell. The rain comes down harder, and there is a scrabbling sound from nearby.
- Dark shapes are moving in towards them! Grumpy plants his lantern-pole into the mud and takes out his glaive - it sparkles with runes, glowing white hot and hissing in the rain.



- They’re fast, somehow! Huge crabs wearing stone shells, they strike with their pincers to little avail. Andromeda gets nipped and grabbed by one of them and takes another follow-up strike to the belly, grazing her slightly.


- Red slips into a parrying stance with her new parrying dagger while Barrett attempts to evade their notice and dodge around behind them. Snels blasts away with his pistols, bullets bouncing off of their stone shells, and DJ drenches a couple of them with oil.
- Grumpy jumps forth and with a mighty thrust of his white-hot glaive cleaves straight through the stone shell of a crab like butter and cooks it from within! The oil it’s soaked in erupts into flames, and the other crabs flee!
- Red attempts to attack two of them as the flee and gets nipped in return, then gives chase! The crabs remain surprisingly fast though, and they quickly go to ground in the constant rain.
- Conveniently enough the crab Grumpy killed is already cooked! They turn it over, finding that it’s a sort of giant hermit crab in its stone shell, and harvest its delicious crab meat. 40 pre-cooked rations… lovely!
- Red and Andromeda chomp down on a few handfuls to get back up to strength and the rest is packed away neatly. Not a bad breakfast, really!

--- The Crashed Seraphim
- The soft glow of dawn is on the horizon as they reach the crashed angel dropship. When they were spinning overhead they looked something like metal flowers, petal-like arms radiating from a central hemisphere. Now, down here, smashed and dented, the crashed Seraphim looks almost squalid.


- Here and there, angel corpses lie on the bare earth. Brass arms and wings broken reaching out of slick mud. Barrett grabs some angel parts in the hopes he’ll be able to use them for something.
- They enter the Seraphim via a petal. The rails that once held countless angels are mostly empty now, dropped into combat in the end of days. The rails lead to the hub hemisphere and inside to a loading bay.
- The bay is huge, containing a wall rack in the opposite wall that once held more angels. There is only one there now. The floor slopes upwards at a gradient - the angel didn’t land straight-on - but strangely gravity points towards the floor. There is a low hum and a rumbling sound - the power’s still on!
- Red unwisely calls out in angel-song, which she apparently learnt from her dad, and there is a rising whirr of systems coming back online. The angel in the rack starts singing - it’s struggling to turn back on.
- Barrett understands it too, and works out it’s stuck in a boot loop. He climbs up and tinkers with it, somehow power cycling it so it works again. Success! A claw grabs it and tries to take it to the wing outside via rail, but gets stuck.
- Red and Barrett try to talk to the angel and put it in “friendship mode” but it doesn’t work. It’s one thing to know how to read a language, it’s a whole other thing to know how to code! The angel scans them but otherwise does nothing. Red tries touching it and is amazed at how all her money Tattoos disappear - that’s one to watch out for!
- Grumpy tires of this and follows the rails as they curve round to the right. He peeks into another large bay. Sixteen spherical angels are singing back and forth to four second-tier walker angels - the ones with the beam cannons. They’re in a maintenance room where trees of robotic hands await angels to repair.





- Barrett tries the other direction and finds a chamber with a large dead screen and some more angels singing about upgrade requests. They seem confused.
- He tries to sneak through the chamber to the door on the other side, but he’s spotted! The walker angel’s wing-cannons whirr into position and fire! He flees, stasis-fire zipping over his head and bouncing from the walls.
- Red tries to tell the repair room angel that “armour needs replacing” and they prepare to receive a damaged angel… but that’s all.
- Snels has had enough of this foolish experimentation and storms in, crucifix held high! One of the angels scans him, then ignores him. The doorway on the other side of the room whirrs open and three more base-model angels walk in.
- Grumpy walks in too, thinking it safe. He’s scanned by an angel and all the walkers train their cannons on him! He legs it, beams hissing past overhead and ricocheting down the corridor!
- The others in the entrance chamber see Grumpy stomp past on the way back to camp, saying something about how he’ll be making them dinner for when they get back out of the dungeon.

--- Chef Grumpy
To be fair, he does! Using a combination of potato, turnip, and stoneshell crab he cooks up “Neeps in the Deeps”. It’s not great, but he spends enough time on it to make it good! The Dinner Perk is a boost to Saves vs Law, appropriately enough for a meal cooked by someone who just ran out of an Angel!

Total: 2650 exp

Team Bonus:
- Absolutely Disgusting bonus
- Aggressive Negotiations bonus
- Balls to the Wall bonus
- Best of Intentions bonus
- Brutal Kill bonus
- Classic Charles bonus
- Dramatic Battle bonus
- Dramatic Chase bonus
- First Against the Wall bonus
- Holy bonus
- Ludicrous Gore bonus
- Masterchef bonus
- Pundemonium bonus
- Rebuild bonus
- Rumour Investigator bonus
- Tactical Fighting bonus
- War Crime bonus
- What The Fuck Guys bonus
Total: 900 exp

Individual Bonus:
- Chronicler (Carter / Grumpy - 100 exp)
- Expedition Leader (Carter / Grumpy - 100 exp)
- Cartographer (Carter / Grumpy - 100 exp)
- Paymaster (Charles / DJ - 100 exp)
- Quartermaster (Kitty / Andromeda - 100 exp)
- Vanguard (Tom / Barrett - 100 exp)
- Triage (Kitty / Andromeda - 100 exp)
- Chef (George / Snels - 100 exp)
- Art Attack bonus (Tom, Carter, Charles, George - 100 exp ea.)
- Attacco d’Arte bonus (Tom, George - 100 exp)
- Artapalooza bonus (Carter, Charles - 100 exp) - Fiction Fanatic bonus (Timothy - 100 exp) - Chippo Champion bonus (Tom*2, Charles*2 - 100 exp ea.)
- JÜGBRINGYR bonus (Kitty*2 - 500 exp ea.)
--- Juggo Multiplier (Kitty - 500 exp)

Exp Totals:
- Kitty / Andromeda, Level 5 Laddite Cleric: 21030 (Level up at 28000) - Tom / Privateer Barrett, Level 5 Specialist: 18133 (Level up at 24000) - George / Praise-God-For-He-Gave-His-Only-Son-So-That-We-Might-Be-Saved-From-Damnation Snels, Level 5 Snelsman Cleric: 16730 (Level up at 28000) - Timothy / Red, Level 5 Fighter: 16330 (Level up at 32000) Level up: +1d8 HP! +1 to hit! +1 to crit/fumble rolls! +Backstory! - Charles / Dustin Johnson, Level 4 Intergalacticist Cleric: 11985 (Level up at 14000)
- Carter / Granite "Grumpy" Ironjaw, Level 2 Forgelore Dwarf: 3727 (Level up at 4400)

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