Tuesday 8 October 2019

Session 241 - Dinos & Dissidents

So first - an apology. You’ll notice a big retcon in the recap below, essentially writing the terrorist plot out of the game’s chronology.
I shouldn’t have let a PvP situation occur without both players being ok with it, and especially shouldn’t have tried to fix an issue in-fiction rather than just talking about it properly at the table.
The in-fiction solution where I made it a political clash clearly didn’t work, so I don’t know why I thought it would work this time!

Which leads to me having to make a proper rule on PvP and attacking other players’ characters:
- It is impossible to kill another player’s character without their consent.
- If PvP occurs, it usually occurs without dice rolls. We decide the outcome “from above” unless the players involved want it to go to a roll-off.
- If anybody feels like their character is being attacked due to real life player-player issues, we talk about it for real to make sure.

I’m going to be real careful about premeditated secret plots in future. Especially secret terrorist plots. Two secret terrorist plots, two occasions when I thought I’d lost a player forever. There’s a pattern here I’m not going to be repeating.
If you want to enact a secret terrorist plot, radicalise the rest of the party first! Split-second decisions that end up fucking over the party are, of course, hilarious and I love them. Mostly because it means there's no collusion between player and DM!

Anyway hopefully this is all less relevant now that you guys have reached DINO WORLD.
Exciting times!
It’s fucking wild in there, and remember you can leave at any time… but with all these dinosaurs and none of that poisonous rain who would want to?


We've got some sweet pictures from Ollie this week, picturing his other character Beepbox Strawberry Stars de Moor. Pictured looking hot in a cool vest, and also the design of his upcoming angel armour.



Also the poor ghost kid who was murdered. Murdered! By DJ.




Session 241 - Dinos & Dissidents

Date:
15 years after the End.
May

New Backstory:
- Zulu has a secret crush on Grumpy. If Grumpy would be damaged, can jump in the way and take double the damage instead.
- Dargo had debt collectors demanding money from him after he took over another person’s life. They seized it by force. +1 to hit people who’ve taken something from you.
- Andromeda has great respect for Grumpy. When Grumpy succeeds at something, Andromeda gets +1 to do the same thing.
- Edvaldus had to shore up a building to keep hungry people away from his sweet dog, protecting Mossy from their post-apocalyptic predations. Once per session, prevent something from destroying a barrier or fortification.
- Grumpy has great respect for Andromeda. When Andromeda succeeds at something, Grumpy gets +1 to do the same thing.


Character List:


Overland Exploration:
- First party to visit the ruined town of Mink (200 exp)
- First party to visit the town of Enoch (500 exp)
- First party to enter the Dome of the Dinosaurs (1000 exp)
- A random encounter (50 exp)
Total: 1750 exp

Salvage:
- 10 iron rations (500 exp) - A massive gold bar (130 exp)Total: 630 exp

Events:

--- Snels Cleans House
- A split party! Grumpy, Luna, Zulu and Edvaldus have made it back to New Moondin. Edvaldus runs ahead to the Snelsman church while the others follow at a more leisurely pace.
- He gives the necessary codewords, revealing that he’s been a Snelsman spy all along! There is heightened security in the church, and he ascends to Damnation’s room in the belltower to inform him of Red’s treachery - she uploaded a false god to the Seraphim, threatening everything!
- Damnation turns to him, his eyes black with prophecy. A vision of fire and poison flickers darkly in the depths, a vision of death and betrayal. He reaches out to Edvaldus and grabs him around the throat - “You have failed me for the last time, Edvaldus!” he roars, and throws him out of the window!
- The rest arrive in time to see Edvaldus plummeting from the belltower. He screams as he falls, and crunches to the ground. Dead on impact. His sweet dog, Mossy, wriggles out of Grumpy’s grip and runs to the corpse, whining at the death of her master!
- Above, Damnation Snels turns from the window. His vision clears, and for the first time he sees the corpses swinging from gibbets attached to the church! He whirls to his guards and demands an explanation, and Suffer-Not-The-Demon-To-Live Shepard enters, explaining that these were traitors! There is a resistance movement that must be crushed!
- “You monster, we do not kill children!” proclaims Damnation, and points to Shepard, yelling “Fire!”. Shepard is blasted by the guards’ beam rifles, falling back out through the window, plummeting after Edvaldus! The crowd below cheers - Shepard is dead!


- Whirling, Snels tells his guards to follow him and strides from the church, heading directly for the Red Letter. The media has been independent for too long! He sees Grumpy scurrying away towards the newly renovated Justice Dome, previously the Hot Box, and smiles grimly.
- The soldiers goose-step past Luna, who is busy dragging the corpses away. She takes them into an alleyway and raises them as zombies, clothes them in hooded robes, and makes one of them carry her while the other escorts. Master of the Dead at last!
- They invade the offices of the Red Letter and scatter the staff, allowing only pro-Brotherhood writers and editors to remain. They seize control of the press and proclaim their first order - print wanted posted of Red!
- Zulu has used the Lawyer Cake to pass the bar in mere minutes, and is now a certified lawyer in New Moondin! She uses her legal powers to make the whole thing legit. Plus Snels controls the courts, so it’s pretty easy to make it work...
- Finally, he turns to his guards again. “God has foretold a plan to commit a terrorist atrocity at the Justice Dome tonight, while I am giving an inaugural speech. It is a joint conspiracy between the Necromancers and the Spider-Priests. See that they are dealt with.”
- At the Justice Dome, Grumpy is dismayed to discover from a passing Spider-Priest that the terrorist plot has been called off. The entire population of New Moondin will be there tonight, motivated by spectacle and a proposed tax for non-attendance. Collapsing the dome will destroy the town. Sadly their experiments with spider-based knockout gas were also a failure - it merely smells poisonous.
- Grumpy turns round to see Damnation Snels standing before him, arms open in benediction. “God told me what you were going to do, Grumpy. But I forgive you”.

--- Seventh of May, Expedition Day 6: Luck Be a Lady
- Miles away to the west, outside the Storm-Shell, the enormous brass hemisphere of the Seraphim crab-walks across the scoured earth. A halo of 44 angels orbits it, glinting brightly.
- Inside the central core of the great machine, Andromeda, Dargo and Red stand watching a hologram of the Lady inside a holographic cockpit.
- Andromeda asks her what the plan is, and the Lady tells her that she plans to go to Fortress-City Fate, fuck up the “little green guy” Styx, take control of the city, and use it to reboot all the angels.
- It seems that after the End War, a burst of demonic energy from Fate took down the angels’ comms network, followed by another demonic EMP which took the angels offline. They’ve been down ever since, and without direct access to the hardware the Gods were locked out… until now!
- As they get closer, the Lady discovers that Fate is covered with an enormous bubble of hard clear diamond. Beneath the dome are miles of jungle, the Fortress-City Fate towering above, and even the soaring peak of Mt Death Frost!
- Andromeda floats the idea of sending in a small assault team of several individuals, getting into Fate, and granting the Gods access from within the city. Rather than just smashing their way in, naturally. The Lady initially says no, then says “oh why not!”. Sounds like a party!
- Red decides to adopt the Lady as her new mum, and volunteers to receive an earpiece that will allow her to communicate with her from afar! She is warned not to use it to connect to the Gods above while the Lady’s not in the sky - but it can be used to talk to the Seraphim version of the Lady if you’re in range.
- Dargo’s been looking out of the open gate at the front of the Seraphim, and calls the others over. Below he can see wagon, stuck along the road, with someone gawping up at the Seraphim looming overhead!
- Andromeda wants to go see if the wagoneer needs help, but the Lady’s not interested. She’s willing to give them a lift to ground level though, so summons a few angels to courier the party down. They land near the wagon and the angels fly off, following the Lady towards Fate.

--- Fleurette’s Horde
- The wagoneer is awed by the spectacle of these people delivered by angels, and is intrigued by their sealed survival gear. She herself wears nothing of the sort, most intriguingly having a thin dangling metal band around her wrist - her kara - that allegedly protects her from poison.
- Her beast of burden, unable to wear such a band, gave out soon after she set out of Enoch. She seem naive about the ways of the post-apocalypse, and inside the wagon the party is amazed to find a massive supply of rare, valuable iron rations!
- The woman, Flourette, dismisses it as “just food” while the others gaze upon it in amazement - more treasure in one place than they’ve seen in ages! Andromeda and Red agree to get her back to Enoch in exchange for the food, which seems like a great deal to Flourette.
- Dargo collapses into blood-mud over the dead ox to the woman’s alarm, but is assured that “this is normal where we come from”. He takes the form of ox and begins to drag the wagon with his newly stolen strength. Inheritor power go!
- They travel slowly, acid rain pouring down around them. This is Flourette’s first time with acid rain, and she soon realises why everyone else is so worried about it! Her clothing is nowhere near adequate! Dargo’s ox-speed is powerful but slow, especially in the wet, so they decide to ditch the wagons and hoof it. Red and Andromeda grab some iron rations for the road.
- Distantly, through the rain, they hear a great rumble and a shattering sound. They can see the shining silhouette of the Seraphim smashing a great leg-claw into the glass dome! Red tries to call for transport assistance via her earpiece, but its staticky and she can’t get through.
- Dargo’s strange crab-ox form carries Flourette while Andromeda uses her dragonskin wings to carry Red. Lonely Blade, Red’s spider-brother in sword form, engages a ghostly flame when the sun starts to set.

---Seventh of May, Expedition Night 6 - To Enoch!
- Evening brings them to the walls of an abandoned town. It’s set up as an anti-Dead bastion, a relic of the times before the End War. Andromeda does a flyby and scans it with her infra-vision but sees nothing moving within.
- Despite the night they press on, following the road and the light of Lonely Blade. Thankfully the acid rain clears for a time, and in the late Spring warmth they pass by the town and jog along the road. They pass a stoneshell crab moult and in the distance they see a rainbow-hued light show from whatever the Lady is doing to that dome.
- They continue on as dawn arrives, heralded by more accursed acid rain, and get into Enoch before it starts to pour too fiercely! The town is lit by gaslights and has a weird frontier victoriana feel. People stand in the rain, marvelling at the way it melts away at their clothes. Remarkable!
- A guy on a porch sees that the party have lost their kara bracelets and, horrified, invites them into shelter! They talk to him a bit and he drops lots of strange terminology - hardcore mode, indomes, a simulation they’ve all left, getting bored in paradise, multiple human iterations, and dinosaurs! Apparently he once got killed by a pterasaur in there.
- Andromeda explains that they need to get inside the dome, get to Fate, and meet the Fated King Styx. Time is of the essence! The man tells them that it’s too dangerous in there, but he’ll tell them the way in. Also Andromeda calls Flourette “Flan” and the name sticks, to her dismay. He himself is dismayed at Lonely Blade’s voice.
- As they’re about to leave, Andromeda asks if anyone’s heard of someone called Pearl. He has! She’s some cool tyrannosaurus hunter who came out of the dome recently, very impressive! Andromeda leaves a message.

--- Eighth of May, Expedition Day 7 - Into the Dome
- They head to the entrance into the dome with all haste in the pre-morning light of the crescent moon. They haven’t slept, but this is important!
- They follow their guide who takes them along the side of a lake and points up to a cave from which a waterfall pours. They climb up and find a long tunnel banded with strange matte material, through which water and a conveyor belt move outwards towards the lake.
- They climb along the sides of the tunnel, walking on the edges of the conveyor belt until they reach a stone door which grinds open to show… the most wonderful rainforest! The rush of fresh, clean, oxygenated air surges into their lungs, making them feel better than they’ve ever felt before!
- Birdsong and strange warbling echoes through the dense brush and towering trees. Far far above, Fate begins to shine like the morning sun. Andromeda suddenly realises that Fate is truly distant, many miles above their heads, and this dome is truly vast!
- As they turn to leave, realising that getting to Fate is going to be far more difficult than anticipated, they hear voices coming through the trees. A mismatched pair of warriors - a thin pale man arguing with a huge bronze-skinned lady. They’re alarmed to see that the party, and doubly alarmed that they aren’t wearing bracelets!
- The pale one leaves quickly, identified as undead by Andromeda’s heat vision. The other one tosses down a massive gold bar and also turns to leave, but Andromeda puts up a storm shell to prevent her leaving and demands, “Exposition! Now!”
- They discover that there’s an elevator in the centre of the miles-wide dome, and apparently nobody goes back into Fate. Everybody comes out, dies, and sometimes comes out again. She’s very surprised to discover that some people survived outside the dome this whole time!
- She tells them that if they need to talk to a Styx they just need to smash some stuff and one will come running, so Andromeda yells “STYYYYX!” loudly.
- A massive roar answers! The warrior looks scared and flees, getting zapped by the Storm Shell as she does so. The ground trembles as a massive beast looms overhead, inspects the party, and moves off. The booming cry of the terrible lizard echoes across the rainforest as it stomps past, shaking the earth!


- Welcome to the Dome of the Dinosaurs!

Total: 2300 exp

Team Bonus:
- Best of Intentions bonus
- Better Part of Valour bonus
- Diplomancy bonus
- Fame bonus
- Heresy bonus
- Internecine Strife bonus
- Literally for real a terrorist bonus
- Noblebright bonus
- Pundemonium bonus
- Split the Party bonus
- War Crime bonus
Total: 550 exp

Individual Bonus:
- Chronicler (Carter / Grumpy - 100 exp)
- Expedition Leader (Kitty / Andromeda - 100 exp)
- Cartographer (Carter / Grumpy - 100 exp)
- Quartermaster (Ollie / Zulu - 100 exp)
- Vanguard (Russell / Dargo - 100 exp)
- Triage (Kitty / Andromeda - 100 exp)
- Chef (Johnathon / Luna - 100 exp)
- JÜGBRINGYR bonus (Kitty, Timothy - 500 exp ea.)
- Corn Colonel bonus (Timothy - 100 exp)
- Art Attack bonus (Carter, Ollie, George - 100 exp ea.)
- Artapalooza bonus (Ollie - 100 exp) - Recursive Character Kill bonus (George - 500 exp) - Amusing Death bonus (George - 500 exp)
Exp Totals:
- Kitty / Andromeda, Level 7 Laddite Cleric: 59300 (Level up at 112000) - Tim / Red, Level 6 Fighter: 42013 (Level up at 64000) - Carter / Granite "Grumpy" Ironjaw, Level 6 Warden Dwarf: 38657 (Level up at 70400) - Ollie / Zulu Snakebite, Level 6 Barbarian: 37784 (Level up at 64000) - George / Praise-God-For-He-Gave-His-Only-Son-So-That-We-Might-Be-Saved-From-Damnation Snels, Level 6 Snelsman Cleric: 36640 (Level up at 56000) - Russell / Dargo, Level 4 Inheritor: 12965 (Level up at 18000) - Johnathon / Luna, Level 3 Necromancer: 4592 (Level up at 9000)
Level Up: +1d4 HP! +1 Mana! +free spell! +backstory!

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