Session 319 - Boss Battle at the Dharga's Heart!

Date: 13 August, 21 p.p.

Moon: Waning Gibbous - Dragon Face
Zenith: Dispater

New Backstory:

- Aemilius Princeps lost a lot of money, incredible amounts of riches in fact, after the Empire was invaded by hordes of barbarians. Once per session, somehow work out the general location of something that used to belong to you.

- Suspiria was starving to death, and when she saw a beggar drop a crust of bread she ate it without any guilt at all. Get maximum health when you eat to heal.
- Dorian made the first romantic move with a lover in the painting dimension and had a long, beautiful, imaginary relationship. Once per session, cause someone to make a romantic advance upon you.
- Swan the Swift confronted the wizard Merlin, who locked him in a coffin for 1000 years before he emerged into the present day! At will, cause a creature to prioritise you.

Events:

--- Final Battle
- They are at the elevator once again. The elevator that will take them all the way up to the final boss room. In the centre, the glowing orb of a Save Point shimmers.

- They hit the orb and their HP is reset! Definitely a pre-boss battle save zone!

- With that, the elevator rises. Up into the beating heart of the Dharga, then up and up further until they finally reach the crest of the flesh-tree. The world is laid out before them. The huge presence of the dormant Fortress-City looms in the centre of the shattered dino-dome. Distantly, the rippling forcefield over New Moondin shimmers.
- Nestled in the huge peristaltic flesh of the tree, arranged evenly around the elevator, are three platforms of black glass, bulging meat, and a wide shallow cup wreathed with grapevines. Upon each is a monstrous manifestation of one of the entities that make up the Dharga - Sir Robyn, Styx, and Dargo himself.

- And finally, also here to pester the party, are the Valkyries! The witch with the boiling cauldron, the hotheaded redhead guy with TWO razor shields now, and bow-wielding prepubescent girl who is totally a thousand years old.

--- Battle is Joined!

- The battle begins, and dice are rolled to generate what happens each round... this time it's the huge Styx being teleported into the central elevator, along with a gang of the dressed-up ratmen and ghouls from below!
-Styx declares that using "programmarie" he can program the Dharga to do whatever you want! No need to destroy it! The party quickly indentify the flaw in this plan - they'd have to trust Styx.

- The anime witch magics Dorian and a skeleton into her cauldron on the black glass zone, bone soup! They take damage from the boiling potion, and random spells begin erupting from the cauldron.
- The skeleton turns to bone-mush, but Dorian uses his demonic power to shlorp out of the cauldron and attack the witch with his stirge-borne mosquito proboscis! The witch is being drained of blood!
- Suspiria begins shaping spells unbound and throwing them into the combat. Magic missiles hit the bow-wielding Valkyrie, despite her position on top of the extendo-lance!
- Celebus is under attack from the other Valkyries AND Styx! Luckily they only destroy one of his companion skeletons.
- Swan finds himself in an embarrassing life-or-death struggle for survival against... a fake ratman. He just keeps bungling the wrestle rolls. Iskander stifles a laugh, decapitates a ghoul-woman, and spins gracefully through the air to combo into the bow-wielding loli cleave her in twain!
- But oh shit she was older than she looked... and was pregnant! Iskander tries to grab the falling foetus, fumbles it, and squeezes it out of his hands like soap. It lands on the metal surface of the shallow cup-platform with a splat.

--- No Funny Business!
- The next round sees Sir Robyn swap out with Styx in the central elevator. He brings with him an ultimatum - Rules Lawyer mode! Only generic abilities can be used, and no funny business like gambits!
- Sir Robyn declares that if the party assist him he can destroy the Dharga. Legally it's not a person, you see. It's the only safe way.
- His raccoons attack, immediately devouring Aemilius' trained goat! Oh no!
- The shield-wielding Valkyrie is extremely annoying for Celebus, since he always blocks the first hit. Celebus wails on him regardless, despite consistently getting blocked by his shield technique.

- Swan flash-steps behind Sir Robyn and slices at his back, while Dorian continues to succ the witch to death as she struggles.

--- Dargo Returns
- Sir Robyn is replaced by Dargo, the origin of the very flesh of the Dharga! Grapevines erupt from where Sir Robyn stood and wriggle over the central elevator.
- Dargo declares that his desire is to be unbound! He will destroy the Thorns! Obvious drawbacks here, but then...
- Sir Robyn zaps Aemilius with an intelligence reduction beam from his platform, while on the central elevator Swan and Iskander do a combo attack on Dargo! Even Suspiria gets a look in, shanking the oozing form with a filleting knife.

- Dorian finally succs the witch into submission. She's bloodless, emaciated, and definitely dead.
- Aemilius tries to mind-control Dargo but is rebuffed. 

- Dorian looks up and realises that Styx has been back on the black glass platform for a few rounds now, and Styx is coming for him! Luckily Styx fumbles and stabs himself!
- Swan hits Sir Robyn with a Jim Beam beam... and makes him more powerful! Sir Robyn loves booze! How did they not realise from all the wine theme!? They neutralise Sir Robyn by passing him the wine cornucopia they found earlier, he's distracted!

--- Bosses Defeated

- Dorian and Styx are having a slugging match over on the black glass platform, with Styx rolling honestly terribly. A lucky between-rounds boss swap lets Iskander and Swan soften up Styx before he's returned to Dorian, who deals the finishing blow!

- The real Styx crawls out of the chest of the big ogre version, congratulating Dorian.

- Aemilius, after several attempts, finally mind-controls Dargo. Great success!

- The bosses are forced to the negotiating table by organised resistance.

- We end undecisively, since the pub is kicking us out early again. The broad choices are Destroy the Dharga with Sir Robyn, Unleash the Dharga with Dargo, or Control the Dharga with Styx.
- Aemilius immediately sees another ending... Merge with the Dharga.
- We decide to make a decision next session, after much between-session discussion...

Total: 6000 exp

Enemies Defeated:

- The Valkyries (750 exp)

- Dharga Entity Sir Robyn (1500 exp)
- Dharga Entity Styx (1500 exp)
- Dharga Entity Dargo (1500 exp)
- Sundry Mooks (250 exp)

Total: 5500 exp

OOC:
Chronicler: Charles
Expedition Leader: Kitty
Quartermaster: Ollie
Vanguard: Tom
Triage: Tim

Exp Totals:

- George / Swan the Swift, Level 7 Barbarian: 71190 (Level up at 128000)

- Ollie / Iskander Fullbeard, Level 6 Fighter: 57461 (Level up at 64000)

- Charles / Celebus Uppytus, Level 6 Necromancer: 57132 (Level up at 72000)

- Kitty / Dorian "Ditto" DeMone, Level 5 Inheritor: 26509 (Level up at 36000)

- Timothy / Aemelius Princeps, Level 5 Halfling: 16104 (Level up at 32000)
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 to Domination! +Backstory!

- Tom / Suspiria, Level 3 Magic-User: 4584 (Level up at 9000)
Level Up! +1d4 HP! +1 Mana! +Free Spell! +Backstory!

Session 318 - Castle of Giants

Date: 13 August, 21 p.p.

Moon: Waning Gibbous - Dragon Face
Zenith: Dispater

New Backstory:
- A terrible thing followed Aemilius Princeps back home one night... specifically because he'd dominated it with his Halfling powers and made it follow him back home. Once per session, cause the most terrible threat on the local encounter table to show up somehow.

Events:

--- The End of a Fantasy
- After years of fantastical war against the invading Turk, Dorian surveys his vast painted kingdom from atop the walls of a Constantinople that never fell. It is the end of the old age, and the start of the new. His unicorn, now grey around the muzzle, nuzzles his cheek. The world has been conquered, but now it is time to return to the real world and leave this place behind for a time.

- A small voice speaks in Latin. It's Aemilius Princeps and he is clearly more real than the rest of this oilpaint unreality. After a long time in a foreign land, the self-proclaimed Emperor of Rome has returned!

- They leave the painting, Dorian's crown melting away as they step down from the wall and onto the flagstones of the dungeon-within-a-dungeon Dorian entered hours ago, or years ago, depending on how you measure time.

- Aemilius' trained goat is here! As is Swan the Swift who still thinks he's a flesh golem, and to the mild disappointment of all the surviving manservant Jonathon Toast.

--- Guards! Guards!

- Just then, a vine-rimmed portal opens up! Out step two robot-shaped guards made from grapes. They demand that they are the Dharga's immune system and that the party must be ejected immediately!
- Aemilius explains that he's a tax collector, Dorian is obviously part of the Dharga so he's not a threat, and Swan explains that he is in fact obviously a flesh golem. The guards leave, saying they need to speak to their manager.
- Aemilius has the cunning plan to take the paintings as VR experiences and/or escape routes, so they are all rolled up and divided between the goat and Jonathon Toast.

--- Sacrifice
- They continue to explore, heading down some stairs into a chapel to Dispater. Those Bosnians last week definitely worshipped Dispater, so that makes sense. Swan digs up a bible from behind a pew.
- He prays to Dispater and hears the whispered words of He of the Subtle Knife. That Swan is a man, not a flesh golem, and that using the altar to sacrifice an animal will allow you to transform into the beast during a full moon. 

- Aemilius shields his goat from the party's avaricious eyes! Nobody wants to turn into Jonathon Toast so he's out too.

- Swan disbelieves the god about the flesh golem thing. He's obviously a flesh golem since he's obviously made of meat.

--- Joan of Bosnia

- They press on with an eye out for animals, coming to a round room with a big stained glass window showing Joan of Arc Bosnia. Aemilius investigates and discovers the glass is soft like skin. She implies that sacrificing someone on the altar will free her... but unfortunately Toast is carrying the paintings so they'll need to find a replacement loud dogsbody if they want to kill him.

- They continue, finding a room with loads of opulent yet giant clothing. They attempt painting-based storage solutions, but anything dropped on the painting simply gets added to the painting itself.

- They decide to come back later, and explore a few other rooms. One has been ransacked by Croatian ultras, and another has a mirror that shows your skeleton instead of your reflection. Swan's insistence on being a flesh golem starts to crack - flesh golems should be way more fucked up inside.

--- Guards! Guards!

- No sooner do they try to take the skeleton mirror outside for later pickup and sale, than more guards show up! Some 1s on the encounter table, finally! These are robotic like the grape guards, but made of wax!
- Tyler Lockheart shows up too! Presumably struggling free from the guards.

- This time the guards have checked with the manager and the party needs to be brutally arrested. Aemilius tries to summon the legal spirit of Sir Robyn but he's been recently involved in a magic-related incident and is no longer alive.

- Battle is joined with the wax officers while Tyler smokes a roll-up unhelpfully nearby.

- Swan wields the goat as a weapon while a guard smashes Aemilius' skeleton porter. Sad! He was the reloader! In revenge Aemilius Dominates one of the guards, sending it against its fellows while Dorian and Swan batter it.

- Soon only two wax guards remain, one of them dominated. Aemilius sends it off back to HQ to write up a report about how everything went fine actually.

- Dorian eats a guard to gain its waxy powers. Swan's iron stomach prevails as he eats another to heal.

--- Joan Returns

- They head back, dragging the skele-mirror and some of the heavy coats with them, only to find Joan scratching at the window, stretching the skein. Tyler tries to calm her down with a spliff, and Swan blasts her with a Jim Beam to get her drunk.
- It's all for naught however, since Aemilius tries to Dominate the Bosnian Saint and fails, enraging the glassy maiden. She shatters the glass and strides forth, free at last!

- The party flee because of course.
- A chase scene follows, with many twists and turns as they run through the hallowed halls. Very Scooby Doo.

- She catches up to the party in the painting room and battle is joined! Luckily Swan has a load of painful blade poison and slices it deep into Joan's leg. She roars in agony then immediately falls unconscious, shattering on the flagstones. Anticimactic!

- Aemilius scoops the shards into the painting of the giant fish, trapping her shattered body inside.

--- Some Giants
- Swan goes for a nap in one of the bedrooms and finds a giant lady, dead, on the bed. She's got a cool ring with a cabochon, and when Swan puts it on as a crown he finds that he's possessed by a presence that makes him feel fanatical and narrow-minded. Perhaps the spirit of Snels?!

- The giant is also wearing a glowing cloth robe, which Aemilius tears off a piece of and attaches to his floating moon rock to create a sort of glowing balloon.

- The next room has some dead inquisitor guys in buckle hats and a bunch of smashed coffins. Aemilius gets a hat for the goat, very cute. The inquisitors were clearly killed by a trapped coffin. One coffin remains untouched...
- Inside there's another dead giant, perfectly preserved. Her hands rest on a globus cruciger, a holy hand grenade looking thing, and when held in both hands negates magic. Swan takes it, since he's the least magic.

Total: 8000 exp

Treasure:

- 8 magic paintings (8000 exp)
- Giant clothes (10000 exp)
- Giant cabochon ring (1000 exp)
- Skeleton Mirror (2000 exp)
- Anti-Magic Globus Cruciger

Total: 21000 exp

Foes Defeated:

- Wax Guards (300 exp)
- Joan of Bosnia (200 exp)
Total: 500 exp

Exp Totals:

- George / Swan the Swift, Level 7 Barbarian: 69173 (Level up at 128000)
Level Up! +1d8 HP! +2 Barbarian Rolls! +Backstory!

- Kitty / Dorian "Ditto" DeMone, Level 5 Inheritor: 24492 (Level up at 36000)

Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 Mutation Cap! +1 Meat Point! +Backstory!

- James G / Tyler Lockheart, Level 5 Specialist: 20834 (Level up at 24000)

- Timothy / Aemelius Princeps, Level 4 Halfling: 14087 (Level up at 16000)
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 to Domination! +Backstory!

Session 317 - Blood and Bosnians

Date: 13 August, 21 p.p.

Moon: Waning Gibbous - Dragon Face
Zenith: Dispater

New Backstory:

- Dorian is good buddies with Swan the Swift after their adventures together within this flesh-tree. +1 to each other's rolls when next to each other.

Events:

--- The Mirror

- Iskander and Dorian stand before the mirror that recently turned Swan into a flesh golem (in Swan's head at least) and try a bunch of ways to break it. Punching yourself does nothing. Hitting it reflects damage back. Curious "ghouls" and "wererats" look on in bemusement.
- The "ghouls" offer Iskander a bath in the scummy pool in their bodged-together "graveyard" but he declines. Washing off the poop would reveal his glowing skin.
- They're not aggressive, so the pair walk away to the exit, past the figure of Swan who is worshipping at the foot of a big meaty statue of a woman. Convenient timing for a player absence!

--- Meat Zone

- They leave, and continue along the randomly generated dungeon path, emerging into a Dharga-themed meat zone. They pass through a chamber with a bone altar, continue through a room with lots of faceless dead bodies fallen in a sports-like competition.
- There are two exits. One has a chirping sound, and a quick peek through the dripping bone portcullis shows a bunch of dog-sized ticks feasting on more bodies! Not that way then. They go the other way and find some broken-open kennels for the ticks.

- No encounters, perfect! They continue onwards.

--- The Anal Fisher
- They enter a square-ish room with a big blood-filled anus on the floor. Charming. Fishing in the "pool" with a thin bone fishing rod is a man, who declares himself to be the Anal Fisher and he has inconsistent tests in each of the rooms off the four corners of this room!
- They pick the spike room and, discovering that the challenge is to press the button at the other end of a booby-trapped spike room, Iskander just shoots it. Challenge complete!

- The Anal Fisher says that they've earned the right to exit through the anus... but they demur and go through a door into an empty room. Iskander brings the Fisher along, in case he tries something.

--- 2D better than 3D
- He tries something! The room is large and has a bunch of those 2D redcap goblins in it! Iskander pushes the Fisher into the room and he dies of a thousand papercuts.

- Combat is joined, and after a few embarrassing rounds where everybody misses everybody else, the goblins are defeated! The bait in the middle of the room was three velvet bags, and they contain 770 obols in small red gems. Nice.

--- Ermagot
- The next room has bodies hanging from hooks on the ceiling. Iskander shoots one and the hook retracts up to the ceiling, which beats like a heart. In the middle of the room there is some delicious rye sourdough! They both have some, tasty.
- From all four doors, a gang of random people who are all hallucinating wildly enter! They congratulate the pair on becoming bread eaters, and the bread contains rye ergot! Iskander licks some of the dried turd covering his body and vomits up the bread, saving himself from ergotism. Dorian has eaten worse honestly.
- It's a fight! Iskander lobs a magnet bomb, forcibly removing the haemoglobin from the bodies of a whole group of them. Apparently I agreed to this??
- Dorian blowguns another foe for a single point of damage, which is just as useful.
- Luckily these guys are high as fuck the whole time, so keep on missing. Dorian's wrist spurs get an absolute workout, stabbing them through eye sockets and slashing achilles tendons while Iskander basically spins in a big circle murdering people.
- The final two fall to their knees and surrender! Their names are Jonathan Toast and Samantha Bread, and become questionably loyal porters. Samantha seems rather taken with Iskander... or she's just high as fuck.

- They loot the corpses of their new porters' former compatriots and find some pain blade poison and a Confusion Bomb!

--- Bosnians
- Since they've got guides now, they discover that they could skip all the way to the final zone! Since it's just the two of them, they decide to take a detour into a Gold Zone which has an actual specific map.
- A long corridor ends in a huge brass-bound gate with a broken lock, guarded by two very slavic men in knightly armour. Their faith is Enlightened, and thus they consider Iskander's Intergalacticism faith to be heretical.
- Iskander shanks one with a fish.
- It is discovered that Iskander actually speaks Croatian due to his Croatian grandmother, so he can understand these Bosnians quite well. Some time is spent looking up Croatian swearwords. Also it turns out that in this fictional game universe Bosnians have a mutual hatred with the Croats.. apparently irl they both hate the Serbs but that's by the by.

- Iskander's Croatian-swearword-powered swing demolishes the holy armour of one of these guys, even while they have the Backstab-boosting faith bonus of Dispater in zenith. Dorian follows up with his wrist-spurs, fumbles, cracks a spur, and hits the other!
- Killing one, he turns to the other who is about to cry out for help! Dorian is too swift though, clapping his hand over the man's mouth while Iskander sinks his blood-drinking fish into his belly.

- Dorian takes the armour from one of the guys while Iskander loots the flag of Bosnia & Herzegovina from the other.
- They pass through the gate and a strange energy washes over their psyches...

--- Dream Paintings
- They pass through the grand entrance hall, Dorian proclaiming that it will be a good palace for him. He boots open some double doors and enters a gallery, Iskander impishly following behind.

- The paintings shimmer holographically, and Dorian tries one that has a unicorn sleeping with ladies around it.

- Dorian has replaced one of the ladies! He is now in the dream-world, and jumps onto the back of the unicorn. He knows that the Turk yearns in his heart for Constantinople, and rides off into the distance on unicorn-back to assist in its defence!

- Iskander, meanwhile, enters a painting that depicts Bosnian Achilles locked in a duel with Croat Hector, Constantinople burning under the barrage of Ottoman bombards! He helps Hector win the duel, and turns to see the Samantha Bread, she of the face that launched a thousand ships, looking at him in open awe.

- Distantly, the sparkling flank of Dorian's unicorn leaps clean over the parapets of Constantinople and into Mehmed II's honour guard... the great city shall not fall yet!
- We leave the characters conveniently in the dream world, giving whoever shows up next week ample time to arrive...

Total: 8000 exp

Treasure Collected:

- 770 obols in red velvet bags (770 exp)
- A Confusion Bomb
- Blade Poison - Pain
- Bosnian Flag

- Heavy Armour

Total: 770 exp

Foes Defeated:

- The Anal Fisher (5 exp)
- A bunch of 2D redcaps (300 exp)
- A gang of ergotic crazies (250 exp)
- Two holy knights (200 exp)

- Imaginary Bosnian Achilles
- Potentially countless imaginary Turks

Total: 755 exp

Totals:

- Ollie / Iskander Fullbeard, Level 6 Fighter: 55444 (Level up at 64000)

- Kitty / Dorian "Ditto" DeMone, Level 4 Inheritor: 17017 (Level up at 18000)