Session 330 - The Rapid Birth of Porcini

Date: 21 August, 22 p.p.

Moon: New - Dragonwane
Zenith: Minerva

New Backstory:
- Ian Brown greatly disappointed his tribe who foreswear weapons by wielding a narwhal tusk for longer than a single spur-of-the-moment attack. Each session you can cause yourself to automatically pass an attack, a save and/or a skill check. Once each. You get -2 to that type of roll for the rest of the session.

Events:

--- A Tremendous Surfeit of Lore

- They are many levels down, at the bottom of a crevasse blown through the insides of the great machine that is Fortress-City Fate. The walls of the chasm above glimmer with blue lights, red imp-bulbs, and the occasional shower of sparks.
- Down here, though, there is a fungal garden. Soggy soil veined with pale green mycelium, huge bulbous mushrooms oozing pale liquid, a carpet of little mushrooms that mutter quietly in tiny voices, and strange low many-limbed trees that look like they're made of compressed people turned to pale wood.

- In this strange place we find Ian Brown - Mancunian Barbarian, Swan the Swift - Ancient Warrior, Dorian de Mone - Demon Shapeshifter, and their trusty robot companion TM-RLY.

- Ian Brown picks a mushroom... and it squeals! Under the cap it's got a little goblin face, and it cries "muuuurderrrr" in a little voice before dying. Ian eats it.
- He gets a bit of a stomach cramp... and is that the sound of faint giggling?

- Dorian approaches one of the squat trees and prods at it. A portion of the trunk of the trees moves and resolves into a face! It's an old, old goblin face, weathered into a sort of shrivelled-potato bark... and it talks!
- The first thing it does in its old old croaky voice is congratulate Ian on his goblin pregnancy. It's been some time since he's seen someone carrying a Tummy Gobbler to term! Perturbed, Ian asks how it will be born, and is told "well there are only two ways out"
- It seems that this goblin and his fellows who make up the tree are here to filter and lightly carbonate the various goops, oozes, and byproducts of the great machine into the fizzy water in the pool in the centre of the vast chamber. Ian tries some and it's pretty nice!
- While the explosion that revealed them to the upper levels was fairly recent, they have been here for long centuries, since before the Goblins were forced underground...
- Yes it seems that in common year 1989, some centuries after the Dwarves first saved Humans from Halfling rule, the Goblins were forced underground by the Dwarves of that era. This tree-Goblin fled the city of Gabalagoo with his brethren, where they eventually made their home within machinery below the golden city of Fate.
- Swan is fascinated, but the others want to move on so he promises to return and ask for more lore!

- The last thing the goblin tree tells them is that the double-doors gate to the south rarely opens, but when it does he always sees some big guys and little guys coming out, and they always jump over something just past the entrance.

--- Ian Brown Gets Shanked By a Tiny Bastard
- Ian Brown kicks open the door! He eats a mushroom (not the floor ones, the beer brewing ones from above) and hears a little "yay thanks!" from his belly. He himself doesn't get any nutrition of course.
- Swan picks some little screaming mushrooms from the ground and lobs them towards the inside of the door. It was a trap! Metal plates pulled from the walls swing down on greasy chains, killing nobody.
- The party hides as a way-too-big Dwarf and an even-smaller-than-a-normal-Dwarf Dwarf come to investigate their trap going off. A pile of mushrooms, is it?

- They are suspicious, so Ian runs in to attack the smaller Dwarf! The small one speaks English, while the big one only speaks Ur-Kalladh. Swan and Dorian dash in to deal with the big one!

- Swan is struck by a big stone-embedded fist of the big Dwarf. It looks like stone has been driven between its knuckles, and the knuckles themselves are partially stone!
- The small one crits, gets a Combo result, and shanks and shanks and shanks and shanks and

- Ian reaches 0HP and flies into a Barbarian Rage!
- The small one shanks and shanks and shanks and
- Ian grabs the small one around the head, trying to drive his thumbs into the little fuckers' eyes and
- The small one shanks and shanks and shanks and
- The knife goes into Ian's wrist and twists and tears and it's hanging by tendons but he can't feel the pain through the rage and
- Dorian hammers the big one with a splattery ridiculous wound with his Mace of Ridiculous Wounding, causing the big Dwarf to laugh at the absurdity, which gives Swan the opening to cleave upwards and bisect the big bastard. The Dwarf falls in both directions, revealing the mess of clockwork and stone inside him, and
- Dorian turns to see Ian holding the small one by the neck with one hand, blood pumping from the stump of his forearm, face contorted with rage... and pops out his mantis wrist-spurs. Dorian plunges the spurs into the little one's back from behind, finally killing the little bastard. Even in death, it won't let go of the knife.

--- Ian Brown's Last Hurrah
- Raging and, somewhere in the back of his mind, knowing that if he stops raging he will die, Ian Brown shoves his good hand into his stomach, breaks through skin and muscle and organ wall, and tears something green and goopy from within! Hescreams to high heaven and sprints down the corridor and into the next room, blood pouring from his arm and torso, narwhal tusk in hand!
- He leaps over some crude ninepins, skids past a couple of smooth stone bowling balls, and slides down a smooth bowling lane towards three huge Dwarf guys!
- He skids on his own blood, slips into the huge outstretched hand of one of the big lumbering guys, and it smashes him to the ground breaking every single bone in his body, then stamps on him for good measure.
- Ian Brown opens his eyes. His body is whole again, and the world is all grey and wavy. A very confused valkyrie holds out her hand to him and pulls him to his feet and they float off to Valhalla...

--- Aftermath
- "What the heeellll was that?" says one of the small Dwarves who had been watching the bowling from the sidelines.
- It jumps up and runs out the door from whence the mad bloody Barbarian came, slipping slightly on the fresh blood. At the crossroads, near the door that leads to the screaming mushroom garden, it sees a sloppy clay-like being, a hale and hearty ancient warrior, and a very small slimy mushroom-headed Goblin that is crying like a newborn baby, all standing amongst the bloody remains of its good friends Blorbo and Stabbo.
- "Did you guys just see that?!"

--- Confusion
- For their part Swan and Dorian and their newborn goblin pretend they had nothing to do with it. Some mad Barbarian charged past, killed the two dead Dwarves you see here, and ran screaming into the next room!
- The rest of the Dwarves from the bowling room turn up and begin to weep. The party asks for directions to the stairs and the begrieved Dwarves point them in the right direction.
- The party hurry away before anybody questions it, into a room containing... more huge Dwarves who are making modifications to other huge Dwarves. Moving swiftly on!
- These, however, are not so easily tricked! They give chase, catch up to our heroes... and are befuddled by Swan's sign language for "walk down these stairs".
- While they discuss in their deep Ur-Kalladh voices, the party slips down the stairs...

--- An Unfortunately Cooked Swan
- They skid down the stairs and come to a smaller room, warm, with the sound of pistons hissing. The floor is crusty and bubbly.
- The Goblin newborn speaks! So swiftly do Goblins gain their voice! He has decided that his name is Porcini. Everyone says "awww" including TM-RLY who transforms into perambulator mode. The accoutrements of a Cheesemonger are claimed by Porcini from a nearby blackened corpse.

- This does unfortunately distract from the fact that this hot room with its hot crusty floor is a trap room...
- Swan steps forward, breaks through the black crust, and into the molten metal beneath! He steps back without significant wounds, but took a hell of a lot of HP damage.

- Dorian has a plan. Swan schlorps into a meat necklace and goes around Dorians neck, while Dorian picks up TM-RLY (who is holding Porcini) and activates his heat resistance gained from a candle guard back in the Dharga.
- It works! They cross the room!

--- Creche of the Flame
- The next room contains... giant robot babies. Their breath shimmers with a heat haze, and they occasionally burp flames. They say "goo goo ga ga" in robot voices.
- They do, however, speak. Their mother, the fire robot Alpha Prime, is in the next room. They are to be quiet.
- Dorian tries the other door that doesn't lead to robo-mum. Inside... a bed with a quietly snoring fire robot, and  the robotic snuffing sound of fire-breathing robot dogs! Swan emerges from the necklace, takes a wrench from his Specialist Tools, heats it up and throws it to the dogs like a red hot bone. It works!

--- Curse of the Fire Child

- The next room has a bowl of very very beautiful fire burning in a big wide bowl. Swan and Dorian feel the desire to stare into the flames, but resist. Porcini however...
- Swan listens at one of the double doors out, keeping his ear away from the hot metal, and hears the clatter of bowls and spirited conversation. Dorian peeks out the other double doors  and sees a big metal bridge that swings out across a moat of molten golden metal. He turns to tell the others and grabs Porcini from the ground before he gets to the fire. Bad baby! Good parenting!

- Porcini whimpers sadly because he cannot touch the fire. TM-RLY apologises for not noticing that the baby was gone... and also remarks that its insides feel weird now. Like the baby's been tinkering in there or something?

--- Those Who Guard the Molten River
- They thank the robot and... hey what where did that baby go?! They hear a cry from the bridge and see Porcini crying at his singed hand while he tried to sneak across!
- On the other side of the bridge, a huge broad-shouldered bepauldroned robot stands up from one of two metal armchairs that face away from the bridge! A fire burns in a furnace in its chest, and its voice booms out - "Is that a little baby?!"

- Porcini replies in his little Goblin voice, flabbergasting the robot. Another robot leans around its armchair and says - "Is that baby talking to you?!"
- The two huge robots advance cautiously, while Swan, Dorian and an apologetic TM-RLY come over from the other side. They have a nice chat!
- The repair robots that the party is looking for are probably the bastard robots one level up, trapped in a maintenance annex because their responsibility is to fully repair Fortress-City Fate and that would mean repairing everything and removing all foreign bodies, which would be a pity because there's not much that's original spec in here these days. Hell, these robots used to be mindless droids that stoked the furnaces and recycled broken parts into new ones before eventually gaining sentience and getting weird with it.
- They're guarding the entrance from the next area, which they call the Temple of the Unraveller. It's full of beings who call themselves the Unravelled, and they're bad news. The Unravelled worship a being on the next level down, a horrid amalgamation of the last scummy bits of Shub-Niggurath that were caught in the grinding maw on the bottom of Fortress-City Fate and never cleaned out... and a wizard who was foolish enough to think that merging with Shub-Niggurath was possible or wise. The guards call it... Shub-Wizardwrath.

- If the party wants a way out, all they have to do is get to the zone to the south-west... which does mean going through the Temple of the Unraveller.

- Still, the robot guards are sufficiently charmed by the party that they offer dinner! They lead the party through to the dinner table where dinner is just finishing up. The guests have names referring to British politics that are basically completely out of date even two weeks later, but I think "Jacob Greased-Cog" was a real highlight!

- They say they'll try to rustle up some people food, because they basically just eat fire. It is... holy of holies... a safe zone in the dungeon to heal up!

Total: 10 000 exp

Enemies Overcome:
- One huge Dwarf guy (250 exp)
- One tiny shanky Dwarf guy (75 exp)

Total: 325 exp

Exp Totals:

- George / Swan the Swift, Level 7 Barbarian: 80579 (Level up at 128000)

- Kitty / Dorian "Ditto" DeMone, Level 6 Inheritor: 56688 (Level up at 72000)

- Tom / Porcini, Level 2 Proto-Goblin: 2668 (Level up at 4000)
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 Goblin Buddy! +Saves! +Backstory!

Session 329 - Right to Repair

Date: 21 August, 23 p.p.

Moon: New - Dragonwane
Zenith: Minerva

New Characters:

Sydney, a Magic-User and former (?) vagrant with an ooze familiar.

New Backstory:
Ian Brown lost an argument with Swan the Swift about the finer points of Barbarism.

Events:

--- Slime!
- We open where we closed - the party stuck inside the ooze room with a big ol' gelatinous cube gumming away at an unharmed huge mutant dwarf. He's enjoying it!

- The Dwarf escapes, his lavender skin condition healed up by contact with the goo. Fair enough!

- The gang debate what floor they're on. Ian insists ten, citing no evidence. Swan thinks it's more like 6, and furthermore that the server room is on level 5 so they need to go up the slime tube. And they do!

--- More Slime!
- Up the tube they do a bit of classic dungeon exploration. There's an ominous glopping noise, which they follow to a bridge that goes over a pit of ominously glopping black ooze. Thankfully they realise the bridge is an illusion (or at least a projection) before walking on it!

- Ian traverses the gap by the use of one of them necklaces that you swallow and get turned inside out then sucked into the necklace. It's still a surprisingly safe means of travel!

- A bit of handy ropework later and the crew have crossed the ooze unglopped, then come out into another room with MORE goop just glopping there. This time a tempting piece of cheese is in the middle of pivoting bridge that will dump anyone walking to get it into the slime!
- Ian simply ties a rope to his narwhal tusk and spear-fishes the cheese over. It's... cheese! Ham is also found. If they find some crackers we're in Lunchable territory.

--- Roboda Roboda
- They hear whimpering sounds and investigate, finding a wheely robot that's been trapped by waist-high walls! It wants to go fix the data stacks. Data stacks?! Where?! To the south!
- They release the robot from its confinement and are careful to tie a rope to him in case he slips on the slime with his wobbly wheels.
- He starts to lead the party towards the stacks! On the way they pass a room containing a person the robot calls the Mucus Mage. Unfortunately that draws the Mage's attention!
- They're polite to him, so he's fine albeit snotty. He's down here hunting the beautiful ruby that teleports around the place and eludes his capture, and he's become obsessed.
- Dorian sees the ruby floating in the Mucus Mage's room and goes to catch it with a lunchbox! Sadly it teleports away... but Dorian still tries to convince the Mage that he caught it in the lunchbox. It does not work for long, and makes the Mage sad.
- It reappears and Sydney whips a Magic Missile at it! The missile blips back and forth as the gem vanishes and reappears split-seconds before being hit by the unerring missile. Alas.

--- Server Issues
- Maybe they'll come back for the gem some day. For now, the servers! These must be fairly easy to fix, right?

- It is, in fact, worse than they'd hoped. A massive hole has been blown in the central mass of Fate, the walls lined with glowing blue computer lights and the tiny red pods with imps inside that are used to backup the citizens minds.

- The robot says that it'll take a lot of robots to fix. Or they could just turn the system off and on again, but that would mean erasing the saved mindstates of Fate's citizens and tantamount to genocide, which we can all agree is generally bad.
- More robots are down on the lower levels of Fate, and this convenient giant gaping hole will make getting down a few levels fairly easy!
- Swan breaks a demon pod open and extracts a eggshell beige imp of the 8th Sin - landlordism. It dies when it's unplugged and splurts into thick, hastily applied beige paint and drips all over a plug socket.

--- The Debate of Our Times

- It's a few levels down - they reckon down to level 8 - and come to a sort of blown up valley floor that's been colonised by big huge verdant mushrooms.
- Sydney tries to plug an imp pod into himself but only succeeds in waking up the little guy, who frets because he was LARPing as one of the maintenance crew on the first level of the dungeon and wants to go back in.

- Ian lobs him across the room and a tentacled robo-angel swarms down to catch it! The light fades, and another tentacle-pod-angel reconnects a fresh pod to the empty socket.

- They ask the little robot what Fate even is. What is this technology? It lore-dumps with relish!

- Fortress-City Fate was originally an ark that escaped from a Shub-Niggurath infested planet before it cracked like an egg. The Red Elves were those original inhabitants, though obviously they live on Mars now. Many questions are raised by this new info!

- Arguments once more erupt over turning Fate off and on again vs fixing the place, and continue until the pub closes...

Total: 6000 exp

Loot:
- Cheese (1 exp)
- Ham (1 exp)
- A robot friend! (2000 exp)
Total: 2002 exp

Kills:
- Some imps
Total: 0 exp

Exp totals:

- George / Swan the Swift, Level 7 Barbarian: 77911 (Level up at 128000)

- Kitty / Dorian "Ditto" DeMone, Level 6 Inheritor: 54020 (Level up at 72000)

- Tom / Ian Brown, Level 3 Mancunian Barbarian: 4501 (Level up at 8000)
Level Up! +1d8 HP! +2 Barbarian Rolls! +Backstory!

- Carter / Sydney, Level 1 Magic-User: 2001 (Level up at 2250)

Session 328 - Increasingly Incoherent Dwarves

Date: 21 August, 22 p.p.

Moon: New - Dragonwane
Zenith: Minerva

New Characters:
- Oktar the Rat-Eater, Dragon-Hun and Alleged Mutant.
- Ian Brown, Tamer of Horses and "awright luv?" enthusiast.

Events:

--- The Sewers
- It has been a long time since last we met, and to everyone's delight they are in a nasty sewer. Slime drips from the brass walls, pooling in slick slippery puddles of foulness across the tarnished floors Fortress-City Fate's innards.

- There is, however, a massive glowing red ruby ahead.
- Newcomer Oktar runs DIRECTLY AT IT despite the Admiral Ackbar-esque protestations of Dorian Demone, Swan the Swift, and Tyler Lockheart.
- It merely vanishes, sending Oktar slipping into green slime (but not Green Slime).

- Tyler attempts to help him up, which ends up with both of them slipping around on slimy slop.

--- Behold a Tube

- They decide to follow the runnels of slippery goop, following a sort of churning honking schlorping sound. They come across a capital-T Tube, worryingly organic, with man-sized holes leaking various colours of goop. It's made of tarnished brass.
- Tyler tickles the rim of the grey hole with his board. It starts leaking grey gunk and extends a little tendril towards his face...

- Oktar fists the purple hole and is rewarded with a faceful of aggressive jelly foetuses which begin to crawl down his throat!
- Tyler tries to catch the grey ooze in a jam jar, finds it's too big for one jam jar, and shoves the whole jar into the hole! It crunches and munches and spits out a floor hazard mad of jam jar shards! All metal objects on his person begin to shiver and hiss acrid fumes.

- Oktar is having a bad time because the jelly babies are trying to kill him. Swan lobs his battleaxe into the melee and hits Oktar.  Dorian smashes at the jelly babies with his mace and hits Oktar. Oktar chomps down onto a jelly baby, gets punched in the belly from the inside, and goes into a RAGE!
- The raging Barbarian destroys a swathe of jelly babies with his Death Trance multi-attack, but heedlessly snaps his own leg and has several fingers devoured by ravenous jellies!

- Swan smacks the remaining jelly babies towards Oktar who yearns for Valhalla, this will be a hard one to explain to the valkyries.
- Oktar is torn nearly to shreds by the jelly babies as he slaughters them! Swan the Swift grants him not-so-swift mercy. It takes some time to finally kill the man. Tom grabs another character sheet.

- Dorian demolishes the grey goosh that is minding its own business in its little hole honestly. Enemies slain!

--- The Damp Descent

- Ian Brown, Mancunian Barbarian, appears fairly rapidly. He comes upon the party while they are looking upon the grey hole. It is much less active currently.

- Using a variety of ropes and rope-like objects, he is lowered down the hole.

- It's quite a long way down, but eventually he slips out the bottom of the grey tube and finds himself in an oozy altar room! The ground is slick, various colourful gunks slorp towards their assigned coloured orifices... and on an altar is a small scale model of the ooze tube!
- He picks up the slime idol and feels the very specific feeling that oozes shall not attack him and will, in fact, convey him up the tubes if he so wishes!
- He feigns death by screaming and yanking down the rope, so it's a miracle that his prank doesn't get him killed by his fellows when he returns up the tube!

- They descend by the orange tube, and the resulting gorp attacks the party! It's the sort of ooze that splits into two when attacked!

- After various amounts of ooze-slaying, the ooze is slain!

- Time is taken to think of 90's Manchester music scene puns that also relate to oozes. I shall not convey the results.

--- Urgh? Argh! Uhhhhh!

- Using the slime totem to urge some grey ooze onto the metal barricade, followed by some spirited crowbarring, the way is unblocked!
- Beyond are painfully bright electric strip lights and the sound of grinding rails. Less like skateboarding, more like trains.

- Let's split up gang!

- Tyler and Ian go left, finding an area with loads of rails hung up vertically like wind chimes. They jangle unsweetly, and will be hard to move through without making them ring.
- Dorian goes straight ahead, coming across a big mutant Dwarf with his back to him, spinning a rail turntable which is covered with various symbols and muttering. The Dwarf doesn't see him.
- Swan heads right towards some sort of rough music. He peeks round a corner to see a troupe of three huge double-size Dwarf drummers banging away while a small crowd of other huge Dwarves dance to the beat.

- Of note, several of the huge Dwarves have colourful faces and beards, possibly slime related?

--- Mahgahloooof
- Tyler tries to slip through the wind chime rails and fails, making them smash against each other and ring discordantly! Swan sees the Big Dwarf crowd start to turn and look, so uses his noisemaker slingshot to cause a distraction. Success!

-Tyler doubles down and rushes in. Inside, more huge Dwarves! They are mollified by his air-horn but don't speak his language, so grunt and gesture instead.

- Is the head Dwarf called Magaluf? It's unclear.

- He follows one of them through a room containing ooze-coloured (and dead) Dwarves and to a room with a big ol' pool of glistening ooze. It shimmers like sunrise over water.
- The Dwarf he followed mimes washing, then goes to wait behind the door.
- He pretends to bathe and feeds the Dwarf some jam as if it's come out of him. The big Dwarf goes to tell his friends, and they all come to taste the man jam... but that's all we know. Maybe next session?

--- Ooze Bath

- The big Dwarves in the music room keep miming to Ian that they want the "Idosh" he's holding. He feigns not knowing what they mean despite his only possession of note is the slime idol.
- He leads them back towards the ooze room, baiting them with the idol. Once they enter he squeezes the purple side of the idol and a whole load of jelly babies squirt out of the purple hole! They hit the lead dwarf dead on and... are absorbed into his skin. He seems quite happy actually!

- Ian tries again with the white side and unleashes a classic Gelatinous Cube! It glorps over the Dwarf and... he seems happy enough in there! He swims out and it looks like that lavender rosacea he had has cleared up! 

- We leave it here because the Dwarves are fairly happy and nothing has gone wrong... possibly?

Total:7000 exp


Treasure:
- Slime Idol makes slimes not attack you (8000 ob)

Total: 8000 exp

Foes:

- A horde of jelly babies (100 exp)
- A grey glorp (250 exp)
Total: 350 exp

OOC:

- Chronicler & Paymaster: Kitty
- Vanguard & Chef - George
- Expedition Leader - Tom

- Death's Witness: Dorian, Swan, Tyler

Exp Totals:

- George / Swan the Swift, Level 7 Barbarian: 75910 (Level up at 128000)

- Kitty / Dorian "Ditto" DeMone, Level 6 Inheritor: 52019 (Level up at 72000)

- James G / Tyler Lockheart, Level 5 Specialist: 23234 (Level up at 24000)

- Tom / Ian Brown, Level 2 Mancunian Barbarian: 2500 (Level up at 4000)
Level Up! +1d8 HP! +2 Barbarian Rolls! +Saves! +Backstory!

 

Session 327 - A Time Jump In Reality Only

Date: 21 August, 22 p.p.

Moon: New - Dragonwane
Zenith: Minerva

New Characters:
- Supply Teacher Mark who is a Spider-Kid, failed chalk-cutter, and apprentice teacher.

New Backstory:

- Peter Parabolus had a wounded wasteland dog, which he took home and cared for. +1 to Beast morale.
- Iskander resisted the hottest summer his homeland had ever seen. +1 to Con.

- Iskander had the best moment of his life when he went back to see his father who loved him so much. Once per session, cause someone who trusts you to become immune to fear and morale checks for ten minutes.

Events:

--- Celebus: Reanimator

- Down in the whirring depths of Fortress-City Fate, the party are standing around debating what to do about the dark Dwarfs talking in the guttural tongue of the Dwarven Arcology of Ur-Darghab.

- Swan the Swift and Supply Teacher Mark show up, having somehow evaded the perils of this mechanical maze! They join Celebus, Dorian Demone and Jojo Fullbeard. Also joining them, a whole theatrical troupe who are trying their best to stay at the back.

- Celebus has collected a few Last Breaths by now and wants to reanimate a Dwarf skeleton for shenanigans. They decide to walk back to the room with all the Dwarf corpses because obviously. On the way they nearly run into a mechanical angel with contra-rotating plates... but something shifts and it's simply the shadow of a Dward scuttling past.

- They reach the room of dead Dwarves and Celebus achieves his achievable dream by animating a Dwarf corpse as a skeleton. There is one weird thing though... a gem drops out of the skeleton's belly.

- To their surprise it seems all these Dwarves have gems in their bellies! They must have swallowed them! The Dwarf corpses are all gutted and the gems taken.

--- Are These Dwarves Tough or Just Lucky?

- They remember the lift they saw before, and decide to find whatever shadowy key might unlock it and let them skip some levels. They do remember that there is that one room with the shadowy dwarf behind a shadowy desk with a shadowy key around his shadowy neck... but it's full of cosmic horrors beyond their comprehension so maybe they keep that as a backup.

- Alas, on the way back to where they began some other shadowy Dwarves happen upon the party and move in to attack! The Dwarves extrude tendrils of shadow that attack the shadows of our heroes. Worse, it saps their strength!
- Swan is berated by Jojo who invented the "obvious" fact that the solid Dwarf is the true shadow, and to damage these guys they need to mime attacking the shadows on the ground with their shadow weapons. We say the word shadow a hell of a lot.
- Supply Teacher Mark shows off his spider prowess by fighting from the ceiling in this narrow corridor. Dorian uses the hell out of his Axe of Ridiculous Wounding despite knowing that it will the later damage his joie de vivre. Celebus makes his giant snake skeleton chuck that very same snakes' animated skin at the foes, then scurries around grabbing the black odium of the dying Dwarfs' Last Breaths.
- The Dwarves are slowly slowly worn down, not helped by some absolutely appalling rolls by combatants on all sides. But at last, finally, they are dead and lootable for their stomach gems and also an interesting-looking book about some sort of War of the Roses. Hmmm.

--- Eldritch Fear of a Plump Helmet
- Exploring further, they find a pair of doors with what look like short toilet door signs. Trying the bearded female side they discover... a dorm! The true toilet lies within. There are also, to the surprise of all, female Dwarfs in there?!
- Jojo casts Summon and it goes about as well as one might expect.
- Later, after having run across half the map, being chased by a whole theatrical troupe who were possessed by the smoke spores of a Plump Helmet Demon, we wonder once more about why Summon is such a fun spell to use.

- During their flight from the Demon they happen to absorb a couple of living shadows into shields their bearing Take-Light glyphs. Pretty good move!
- Finally they hide in an abandoned Smithy, hiding behind the door as the possessed theatre troupe prowl past along with a similarly possessed dog. Dorian expands, clutching the whole party in her goopy skin, and turns invisible just in time to evade the sight of the possessed.

--- Reasonable Chance of Ooze

- Having basically turned this part of the level into a possessed mushroom versus shadow dwarf battle royale, they move away from the deliciously yeasty smell of Plump Helmet smoke and towards a place which they haven't yet explored.
- Signs, such as the smell of poop and the loud gurgling from the walls, point to this being the inevitable Ooze Zone. However... to suspicion and delight... at the end of the hallway, glimmering in the dark, is an enormous floating ruby.

Total: 5000 exp

Loot:

- 28 Dwarven Belly-Gems of Various Types (2800 exp)

- Book #116: Ur-Darghab, City of the Deeps (100 exp)

- Book #234: The Wars of the Roses (100 exp)

Total: 3000 exp

Monsters Defeated:
- A hefty serving of Dwarf-Shaped Shadows (400 exp)
- A large smattering of Shadow-Shaped Dwarves (1000 exp)

- A gaggle of mushroom-possessed theatrical types (200 exp)
Total: 1600 exp

Exp Totals:

- George / Swan the Swift, Level 7 Barbarian: 73210 (Level up at 128000)

- Charles / Celebus Uppytus, Level 6 Necromancer: 64236 (Level up at 72000)

- Kitty / Dorian "Ditto" DeMone, Level 6 Inheritor: 49319 (Level up at 72000)

- Ollie / Jojo Fullbeard, Level 4 Muscle Wizard: 11755 (Level up at 18000)

- Tim / Supply Teacher Mark, Level 2 Spider-Kid: 2020 (Level up at 4000)

Level Up! +1d6 HP! +Mysterious Spider-Powers! +Backstory! +Saves!

Session 326 - The End of Suspiria

Date: 21 August, 22 p.p.

Moon: New - Dragonwane
Zenith: Minerva

Events:

--- Evade the Shadow Dogs

- Suspiria, Jojo and Dorian leave the quiet kitchen many levels down into the dungeon below Fate, accompanied by a giant lizard and a moaning clone of Suspiria. The machinery in the walls here is fairly well maintained, shining brass pistons and whirring cogs spinning and hissing in clanking rhythm.

- They hear faint distorted animal noises and follow them down the shadowed hallway, lit by the soft red-tinted light that glows from within Dorian.

- They peek round a door and see a few shadowy pitch-black hounds with blue flames licking around their jaws. They're eating the shadows of corpses. The party sneak past, leaving well enough alone.

--- The Surface of the Sun

- They enter a large room with stone tables and big shields mounted on the walls. They have Repel Light glyphs embossed on them. Jojo takes one... and from under the tables some flat Dwarf shadows crawl out and attack the party's shadows!
- Suspiria gets the worst of it, her Strength being drained as the shadows rip and tear into her own shadow.

- She tries to snap-cast Magic Missile, but the magic winds out of control! Hallucinatory Terrain forms, the room is suddenly bathed in light like the surface of the sun!

- The shadows scream silent screams and flee as fast as they are able! 

- The half-blinded party wrestle a couple more shields off the walls and stumble out of the room, the sun-terrain refuses to fade.

--- Shadow Food

- The party continue, entering a strange little annex with an obvious secret door - a false wall painted Wile E Coyote style to look like this underworld machinery.
- The annex itself contains a bunch of dead Dwarfs in black hooded Klan-like robes who cast no shadow, and some long-smashed kegs of ale.

- They try the secret door and lo! It opens!

- Inside there are humans and goblins dressed in rags, caged by broken pistons. They say they are LARPers from above, captured by demons and traded to the shadow Dwarfs who are slowly eating their shadows. The weakest have the tattiest shadows, scraps of shadow-stuff bleeding in the light.

- Suspiria tosses them some mushrooms and they fall upon them gratefully. In exchange they tell the party all they know about the shadow Dwarfs and their leader To'coatl Cthon who wears a crown of twisted metal, and of the shadow-hounds that breathe cold flames.

- Jojo picks the lock, releasing the captives. They are given directions to the dragon cultists upstairs, hard to follow because the Passwall spell has long vanished, and a few of the captives decide to help out the party because hopefully they're a safe bet. Splink the Goblin and Gregory the Human carry stuff for Suspiria, and Alan the Human - becomes a porter for Jojo. Warm bodies! - Belatedly it becomes apparent that the whole lot of them are some sort of theatre troupe, including a mime.

- Some hooded robes are grabbed for the three who will be tagging along with the party, and also some boots. The plan is to have the ex-slaves kneel on the shoes and pretend to be Dwarfs who've captured some people. Classic!

- They also say that Plump Helmet beer helps to heal damage from shadows. Luckily they brewed some last session! Suspiria and Gregory share a cup and they can feel that it's helping... although they will need a full serve.

--- The Sins of Dwarves

- They travel on, eyes peeled for shadows. A wave of darkness washes past impersonally, tying Suspiria's shadow to the clone of her she accidentally generated last session. They can't be apart now, but it's... fine? They come to a long pillared hall, skeletons in manacles tied to the ceiling, each pillar carved with one of the five Dwarf Sins - sloth, whimsy, inattentiveness, deceit, and cowardice. - Suspiria gives it a go, throwing off her deceitful stealth roll, removing her whimsical turban, and walking with brave attentive gumption towards the other end of the room! The pillars which glowed briefly let her past, and she gains some Dwarven constitution!

- They hear some distorted dog-growls and a language nobody can place. They don't go that way! - The other direction links back up with the hallway to the kitchen, but there's some metallic grinding sounds from behind another painted secret door...

--- Dwarfs and Angels - Might as well check out this secret door. They fling it open... and see a full three-dimensional Dwarf wreathed in shadow behind a desk... and two robotic creations that are each made from three repurposed angels, layered on top of each other, grinding around each others' spherical bodies!

- The angels go straight for King Gizzard the Wizard's Lizard! Gregory jumps in the way to save the cute beast, shattering a shield against an angel's drill then getting the other one's drill straight to the brainpan.

- Suspiria goes for a "Snold Snerson",the snake version of Hold Person. Snakes blast out of her fingertips and go straight through the shadow Dwarf... but his shadow is held by the snakes' shadows! - Something is wrong with Suspiria though. She sees herself in a darkened room, painting the scene. She paints more and more legs coming out from her torso. So many legs. Her friends scream, running, as the creature crawls out of her skin. She laughs, crying, as the monster emerges and the shadow of its chitinous claw guts the shadow of the Dwarf. - The rest of the party slam the door. The shadow-bound husk of Suspiria is trapped on this side, pinned to the secret wall. The party step backwards as the clone writhes and shrieks.

--- Lift Denied

- They back slowly away... then turn and run. Screams follow them down the hall. - They come to a room with... a lift! It looks like it will go straight down. The trouble is that it's locked up tight with shadowy locks, which clearly need some sort of shadowy key. A pity that they've got a cosmic horror problem in the room with that Dwarf...

- They explore more... and come across a friendly Dwarf called Gurny! He's from Ur-Kalladh, near Dwimmermount, and while he doesn't speak the language of these shadow Dwarfs he knows they're speaking the dialect from Ur-Darghab. He's a philosopher.

- They hear kettle drums from behind another hidden door and investigate. They lift up some portcullises, quietly sneak down the hall, and peek round to see some more shadow Dwarfs playing kettle drums. Or at least, the shadows of the shadow dwarfs are playing the shadows of kettle drums. They're singing in Ur-Darghab, which I voiced very well I thought!

- Considering this might become a fight, we pack up for the night for now...

Total: 7000 exp

Enemies Defeated:

- Some Dwarf shadows (225 exp)

- Two repurposed angels (500 exp) - A shadow Dwarf (250 exp)

Total: 975 exp

OOC:

- Kitty the Cartographer & Paymaster (200 exp)

- Ollie the Expedition Leader & Quartermaster (200 exp)

- Tom the Vanguard & Chef (200 exp) - Death's Witness bonus (200 exp ea.)

Exp Totals:

- Kitty / Dorian "Ditto" DeMone, Level 6 Inheritor: 47299 (Level up at 72000)

- Tom / Suspiria, Level 4 Magic-User *DECEASED - BECAME LIVING PORTAL TO A CHITINOUS REALM*

- Ollie / Jojo Fullbeard, Level 4 Muscle Wizard: 9735 (Level up at 18000)

Level Up! +1d4 HP! +1 Mana! +Free Spell! +2 to Saves! +Backstory! - Tom / Gurny, Level 2 Dwarf: 2734 (Level up at 4000)

Level Up! +1d10 HP! +1 Lorebond! +2 to Saves! +Backstory!

Session 325 - Worship the Dragon

Date: 21 August, 22 p.p.

Moon: New - Dragonwane
Zenith: Minerva

Events:

--- My Friend the Lizard

- The party wake up on the straw beds in the blocked-off dungeon annex and they are HONGRY.
- The walls continue to ripple with strange gravitational anomalies.
- Everybody wants to eat the giant iguana they locked in the throne room nearby. 
- Suspiria slightly opens the door to the throne room, and a big lizardy tongue comes flicking and licking out! She Charms it and feeds it some butter, which it seems to love! Lizard friend! Her familiar is jealous once again, and the lizard seems averse to Celebus' snake skeleton with its captive skin kite.
- They check out the throne and find a book of spells laying on it. When Dorian sits on it he experiences snakey visions and gets more WIS!
- Summising that this is a Chaotic-only effect, the rest of the Chaotic characters sit on the throne and get some extra Wisdom. Nice one!

--- Dragon!
- They keep exploring, gingerly pushing over some double doors to find a large room with a well. Celebus collects a few samples in his Necromancer vials.
- There's some priestly chanting coming from one direction, so they go the other.
- Parabolus pushes open a side door and finds a room with cool snakeskin robes and fanged-mouth masks. One of them is extra fancy and shimmery, so Parabolus grabs it before Suspiria gets a hand on it! The fanged-mouth masks, however, glue onto your face and give you a poisonous bite... Parabolus is stuck! His eyes look slitted like a snake's behind the mask...

- Suspiria opens the next door and... it's the DRAGON! It warps space, head and teeth rippling through non-euclidean angles to bite her! She's down in one hit, organs crushed, bleeding heavily and...
- No she wasn't! She uses a backstory ability to avoid catastrophe! She leaps out of the way just in time, shimmering dragonteeth smashing into the just-closed door!

--- Cult Life
- They swiftly back away, walls shimmering with gravity whorls, and back through the well room towards the chanting. The rippling distortions on the walls are following them now, humming and thrumming.
- They tumble through a door into a room containing snake cultists in their snake robes! A draconic claw ripples through the wall, hunting for the party, and nearly gets the head cultist! The party save his life, and while he's grateful he's still unsure about them.
- No matter, Suspiria attempts to chaos-cast Nut and the spell goes horribly awry, nesting in her chest, tearing her own way out of her own body, shedding herself like skin. There are now two Suspirias.
- The cultists fall to their knees at the miraculous sight of shedding skin!
- Suspiria (the new, nude one) is given a robe and sits on the throne as the cultists praise her. She hears a voice in her head...

- "I require a new scion!" says the voice in a dragony tone, and Suspiria immediately accepts. She eats a nut and butter and the dragon tastes it through her mouth. It is pleased!
- She is now indoctrinated into the Drakencult, and Celebus joins too as a new cult disciple! Their connection to the Mass rune is strengthened, and Suspiria's black eyes now see the entropy of all things!

--- Down

- They poke around a few other rooms now that they're on friendly terms with the cult and, more importantly, the dragon. They find a book called Beyond the Aether in the priests' bedroom, and some wine in another. Suspiria drinks some wine and loses HP, but she can speak with snakes now!

- Using some gravity nonsense and a Passwall spell, Suspiria creates a portal in the floor (a wall to her, since she's standing on one) and creates a shimmering hole down into the next floor of the dungeon...

--- It's Brew Time

- They come down via rope and rune into a kitchen-slash-brewery, stocked with casks, brewing supplies, and bags of mushrooms marked Plump Helmets! They nab them.
- Hearing running water, they head out along a corridor to find a well! Suspiria jumps in, finding a small pipe and a handful of obols.

- She then offers to cook, and this one's a doozy. Parabolus insists that their meal should be a beer, brewed swiftly via handwavey timeywimey nonsense! They call it Save vs Poison Beer, and it contains a heady mix of Holy Water, Demon Water, Plump Helmet, Salted Butter, Dragon Claw and Snake Meat. Quite the beer!
- It goes fine, great even! The tasty brew that results even grants a bonus to Doom saves! Must be something about the way the Holy and Demon water create some kind of Neutral Water.

Total: 6000 exp

Loot:
- A snake-themed spellbook
- Boa skin (500 exp)
- Fancy snake cult robe (1100 exp)
- Book #174 - Beyond the Aether (100 exp)
- 100 Plump Helmets (100 exp)

Total: 1800 exp

OOC:

- Charles the Chronicler and Art Attacker (200 exp)
- Kitty the Expedition Leader (100 exp)
- George the Vanguard (100 exp)
- Tom the Chef (100 exp)

Exp Totals:

- Charles / Celebus Uppytus, Level 6 Necromancer: 62216 (Level up at 72000)

- Kitty / Dorian "Ditto" DeMone, Level 6 Inheritor: 44565 (Level up at 72000)

- George / Parabolus, Level 5 Specialist Ventriloquist: 15122 (Level up at 28000)
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +2 Skill Points! +Backstory!

- Tom / Suspiria, Level 3 Magic-User: 8334 (Level up at 9000)

Session 324 - Snakes Alive!

Date: 21 August, 22 p.p.

Moon: New - Dragonwane
Zenith: Minerva

New Backstory:
- Jojo's twin, Apollo, got punished for tipping over Swan's family heirloom... but it was Jojo who did the deed. Eventually Jojo admitted that it was her fault! (At will, cause a randomly targeted attack to hit you instead).

- Dorian let a wampire lady in through a fleshy "window" of the Dharga, leading to much hijinx. (Once per session, replace a random encounter with the least threatening thing on the local encounter table).

Events:

--- Snakes!

- After last session's ominous snakey foreshadowing, it's time for snakes! Big ones!
- The party enters a room with snake theming, a massive snake slithering around the machinery on the ceiling, and multiple smaller (but still very big comparatively) snakes writhing through the cogs and pistons of the walls.
- An old joke about snake snanguage returns! All snake words snart with a sness and a snenn!
- The snakes snattack! Dorian attempts a blow dart to very little effect! Celebus tries something insnane and snanimates a shed snake skin.

- The skin kite snake skin will go on to absorb the skin of every last motherfucking snake in the motherfucking room as they are chucked straight into its skin-maw.
- The larger snake has a great time biting at one person while trying to squeeze another in its coils, then chucking them at other people. 

- Celebus gets squeezed by one of the smaller snakes and simply ejects from his flesh! The snake is left to curl around a blob of skin and organs while the True Celebus, the bony skeleton version, runs around punching other snakes.
- Jojo who gets thrown to the ground then murders the big snake with a crossbow bolt! Pour one out for the XXXL danger noodle.
- Celebus, knowing that skin kites can be complete aresholes, climbs back into his itchy skin prison and reanimates the big snake as a snake zombie! It picks up the now very big skin kite snake in its mouth and carries it around to stop it from eating people unsanctioned.

--- Loot!
- Dorian searches around for anything interesting and finds a thing of interest! It's a Morning Star of Ridiculous Wounding and does extremely silly damage at the cost of your Constitution.
- Celebus finds some snobols in the snake snoo.
- Jojo sees a very limited map of the level which is at least somewhat useful. She photographs it with her magic photography spell which she hadn't prepared this morning... and it Chaos Bursts! Other than some spectacular vomiting it has no other effect, thank goodness.
- They spend some time eating.

--- Books!

- They move on and find a looted library containing a few leftover books. They are titled The World Behind the Mirror, the Nature of Dwarfs, and the Nature of Demons.
- They have a little read and find out some minor lore.

- Some gravitational distortion warps them back to the start of the room as they try to leave. Jojo surmises that there's a dragon of a gravitational nature around these here parts.

--- A god damn iguana

- They poke around the dungeon some more, finding a snake-themed room with a massive iguanadon in it. Some shenanigans and Meat Points from Dorian later, they lock it in a snake-themed throne room. It piques their interest, but nobody is game to face down the big iguana just for the sake of a cool throne room.

- Thankfully the iguanadon room has a few beds in it, so they decide to block off the door with various furniture and have a nice nap. What could go wrong??

Total: 5000 exp

Loot:

- The Morningstar of Ridiculous Wounding
- Some loose obols (18 exp)
- 2 holy snake medallions (1000 exp)
- Some loose snake-themed trinkets (18 exp)

Total: 1036 exp

Enemies Defeated:
- A very big snake (250 exp)
- Some smaller snakes (200 exp)

- A rather large iguana (100 exp)
Total: 550 exp

Exp Totals:

- Charles / Celebus Uppytus, Level 6 Necromancer: 60066 (Level up at 72000)

- Kitty / Dorian "Ditto" DeMone, Level 6 Inheritor: 42415 (Level up at 72000)

- Ollie / Jojo Fullbeard, Level 3 Muscle Wizard: 7001 (Level up at 9000)

Level Up! +1d4 HP! +1 Mana! +free spell! +backstory!