Session 419 - Sic Semper Colonis

Date: 30th September 1625

Zenith Deity: The Lady

Moon Phase: First Quarter

Moon Face: Pocked Face

New Backstory:

- Nieval the Good was told an ancient truth by his father on his deathbed - they are of a long lineage of many Nievals the Good. The name and daredevil profession passed down from father to son on the moment of the father's death. +2 Wisdom

Events:

--- Elfpox Blankets

- Manrat sweatily awakens in the bubble-tent to the sound of Nieval the Good regaling Gryphon with his backstory. Manrat has a cough and a deep red rash. What's going on? Is it the tent? Why is he sick? Is this the curse of using Red Elf technology without being an actual Quislist? (Yes)

- There's more castle to clear so they head back into the castle. Hopefully the Quislist priest has a cure.

- Nieval is still weak from last session's shadow-sucking encounter, so they drape his floppy body over Ezekiel (Sulphur's huge zombie minion) and help Manrat in.

- They reach the weighing-scale floor before the temple and Gryphon asks his father's head on his waist what the point of this is. His father says that it's to stop a pile of goblins from invading the chapel. If 20 goblins (or, in fairness, 10 humans) are in the antechamber at the same time it sets off the poison gas trap. Good to know!

--- Standard Coloniser Behaviour

- Nieval and Gryphon cross the weighing room and enter the chapel, not trusting Sulphur's various minions to be lighter than the trap.

- The head priest of Quislism is here! They ask him for a cure to Manrat's rash, and possibly to buy some Red Cream, and are informed that the cream will cure the rash! Or rather, since the Red Cream resurrects the dead, if they kill him and resurrect him he will be free of the rash!
- What is the rash? Why, Noctis Flux! The disease that afflicts non-believers who use the Red Elves' pillows. Believers are unaffected of course, due to religious antibodies or something. The priest and his minions have one dose of Red Cream left, 500 obols, available for today only because it's the end of the month and it will soon lose its curative properties.
- Manrat, hearing this, looks up Noctis Flux in his Martian Bible and finds nothing but bad news.

--- Thus Always to Colonisers

- Manrat marches in, surrounded by his horde of rats, and raises his rash-bearing arms to the priest. The priest begins to proselytise about the foolishness of false belief while Manrat throws his arms forwards and sends his hordes into battle!

- The Cleric stamps his foot and declares that this land is his land! Rats and bullets are deflected from his righteous territorial claim!

- The Cleric's battle-sisters move to defend, but are also beset by rats! They wield longswords and red-stained chain. They attempt to defend the (relatively) devout Nieval before he attempts to stab them (apologetically) in the back!

- Gryphon is quietly pleased about this development. They are after all clearing his castle. He swings his grappling hook to help the rats get into the priests' armour.

- Sulphur arrives with his minions. Skeletons are of course lighter than a whole person, which means it's Fine for the lumbering zombie hulk to follow along too. He sucks down a Last Breath and orders them into battle.

- Sulphur and his gang miss over and over against a nun who is clearly practicing Nun-Fu, so he blows off her leg with a Humorous Amputation Punch! Confetti flies and the nun dies under an onslaught of undead claws and teeth.

- The priest and the surviving nuns, seeing this, decide to withdraw into the ablution chamber with all due haste and bar the door.

--- Body Blow

- The retreat leaves the party the opportunity to plan. They can hear things being piled up against the door. Sulphur grins and hefts the zombie-torn carcass of the battle-nun.
- He chucks the corpse at the door and at the opportune moment detonates it with a Corpse Explosion punch! The door is blown inwards, and before they can recover Gryphon swings in on his grapple-rope and straight into the priest!

- His first blow takes off the priest's head, the second drains the last of his life-force through Gryphon's shadow powers! Turns out eating that shadow was a pretty cool thing to do!

- The sisters hold and attempt a fighting retreat towards the secret exit and Sulphur sees something strange happening to the body of the priests. Souls whirl around it, but these souls are unlike the souls she sees normally.
- Sulphur knocks one of the nuns into one of his skeletons, who rips out her throat and exposes it so he can collect her Last Breath. It's a good day for breath-collecting! If you love a wetty.

- There's one nun left, and Gryphon takes the opportunity to rip out the priest's spine and fling it at the nun. Destroying the body usually stops resurrection nonsense, right?

- The nun shrieks, "you have no idea what you've done!" and bravely fights back against Nieval the betrayer. 

- Sulfur slurps down the wetty Last Breath and tries to command the red priest to stop reviving, but it feels... discordant. His heart rings like a cracked bell. It doesn't work. His body reforms as a flesh bubble thing with the priests' face sliding over the skin.

- Gryphon punts the flesh-blob into the secret room with the stoneshell crabs and hopes for the best. Sulphur brutally murders the remaining nun as she tries to follow.

--- Cockatrice Finisher

- They slam the door and hear panicked crab noises as the priest-blob blossoms. Luckily Nieval's backstory makes him perennially unlucky and the worse thing on the encounter table shows up all at once...
- Luckily for him, they appear in the room with the crabs and blob-priest!

- Our heroes crack the door and witness the stone-billed cockerels descend upon the stoneshells, their eggs, the blob priest. All turns to stone under their deluge. The collapsed entrance is soon blocked by the swelling mass of the stone blob, the crabs who don't escape are soon turned to rock and rubble.
- The cockatrices start to nibble at the rocks as the party quietly closes the door and moves a safe distance away...

--- The Taste of Safety

- With a bunch of dead colonisers on their hands and a relatively clear and safe area, they decide to make the ablution chamber their new basecamp. After all it has an actual toilet!

- They loot the bodies of the dead, retrieving a suit of heavy red armour from the priests and a few suits of red-stained mail from the nuns. Plus the nuns' swords and the priest's cudgel.

- They find loot amongst the Quislists' belongings. A shard of dragon-core which pulses with barely-constrained energies. A magical regenerating canister of squirty plastic cheese. Some specialty switcheroo crossbow bolts. Detailed instructions on how to brew an Invisibility potion.

- Given that they've now got infinite cheese and (for now) a ready supply of rats, they decide to make what is possibly the first reliably repeatable recipe - Gryphon's "Delicious" Moussaka! In the sink! It's Cheese and rats, layered like a lasagne! It's also incredibly tasty somehow. So good that you sleep like a baby!

Total: 7000 exp

Loot:

- 3 Longswords

- A cudgel with a Nonanist symbol on it
- Heavy Armour (Red Elf plate)
- 3x Medium Armour (Red-stained chain)

- Shard of Explosion Dragon Core (100 exp)
- Squirty Can of Plastic Cheese counts as 1 ration but never goes off or runs out

- 2 Switcheroo Bolts swap location of you and target

- Potion Instructions: Invisibility

Total: 100 exp

Foes:

- Quislist Priest (250 exp)

- A few Quislist Battle-Nuns (225 exp)
Total: 475 exp

OOC:

- Carter the Chronicler, Cortopgrapher and Paymaster (300 exp/level)
- George the Expedition Leader (100 exp/level)
- Kitty the Vanguard (100 exp/level)
- Charles the Chef and Artist (300 exp/level)

Exp Totals:

- George / Manrat Snels, Level 8 Ratman: 122728 (Level up at 224000)

- Kitty / Sulphur, Level 5 Boo-gilist: 24705 (Level up at 36000)

- Carter / Gryphon, Level 4 Fighter: 8805 (Level up at 16000)

*LEVEL UP!* +1d8 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 to Hit! +1 to Crit/Fumble! +Backstory!

- Charles / Nieval the Good, Level 4 Specialist: 7082 (Level up at 14000)

*LEVEL UP!* +1d6 HP! +1 to Saves! +2 Skill Points! +Backstory!

Session 418 - Nieval's Shadow Gets Sucked

Date: 23rd September 1625

Zenith Deity: The Lady

Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent

Moon Face: Pocked Face

New Backstory:

- Gryphon was gravely insulted by foreign diplomats in the century before he was cursed, and he challenged them to a duel immediately! +2 to Strength

- Nieval the Good heard knocking at the window of his war rig, and discovered it was a mutant wastelander come to kill him! Nieval survived, the mutant did not. Once per session, cause the most terrible threat on the encounter table to suddenly appear!

Events:

--- Nieval Gets Drained

- In the annex next to the chapel in the bowels of the castle in the middle of the Drudge Wastes, Manrat is staring at the toilet in horror.

- Alas, it is not your common toilet horror. It's a crawling swarm of shadows emerging from the bowl! Manrat slams the door in fear!

- He staggers out into the chapel, surprising the Quislist Cleric and the three Sisters of his retinue. He backs into his allies - Gryphon who grew up in this castle and Nieval the Good his hired goon.

- The others wish to flee and leave the Shadows to it, but Gryphon insists that these are just shadows so what's the issue? Plus there's meant to be a secret door in there somewhere, right?

- They go in, torches flickering aloft, and discover that in the torchlight the shadows are vulnerable to damage! Manrat shoots one and creates a shadowy hole in its chest.

- Nieval demands they use his explosive javelin and throws it into the bathroom, destroying the toilet and revealing a hidden mechanism behind the sink! It's the trigger for the secret door alright! The shadows get nuclear-shadowed onto the walls, and largely stunned.
- The party moves in, Nieval in front, and...

- An unstunned shadow bites the head of Nieval's shadow clean off! Nieval's strength plummets, leaving him a shell of his former self, barely able to stay upright!

- Manrat send in waves of rats to tie up the Shadows with their little rodent shadows while Nieval back, then under rat-cover, strikes the shadow that stole his strength! The shadow fades, revealing that these were the shadows of previous staff of the castle, and vanishes. Sadly for Nieval, his strength does not return!

- Between the rats and Gryphon's fancy sword, the shadows are defeated! Gryphon captures the last piece of the last shadow between two shards of mirror, which he insists works (it does!) because he wants to use it in a meal.

--- Nieval's Quislist Epiphany

- They head out, and the priest expresses surprise at Nieval's new look. He looks terrible!
- Nieval inquires into the Quislist religion and the priest takes pity, giving a sermon about how all men are weak in comparison to the beautiful and strong and noble Red Elves of Mars. Nieval is converted!
- As a sign of trust, he is entrusted with a Red Elf bubble tent which fits 5, expands out from a central device, and has a sort of frosted glass effect when viewed from the outside.

--- We Got Crabs!

- He returns to the others, newly enlightened, and finds Manrat and Gryphon forcing the mechanism that opens the secret door.

- It opens and reveals a room with a caved-in ceiling through which waste-sludge viscously drips. Stoneshell crabs raise their pincers in warning! The room has a whole lot of crab eggs strewn about in the ankle-high gunge. 

- Gryphon plays a song of peace which relaxes the crabs somewhat, and they allow Manrat close enough to feed one of them a hunk of Gryphon's Flavour Cube which has grown no tastier since it was first cooked. The crab vomits everywhere, and the party scarper!

- They head out into the chapel and briefly chat with the priest and his followers. They know nothing about the sinking floor towards the exit (they just walked in and weren't heavy enough to set it off).

- They also restate that there's an Elf with a magic greatsword around here somewhere. They don't know where it is though.

--- Bubble of Relaxation

- Gryphon suggests heading back out and having a bite to eat. Capital idea!
- It's a sustained drizzle that soaks into skin. Scrubby trees hang with withered fruits, which Manrat warns them away from. Last time he ate some autumn berries it made him so viscerally nostalgic that it took him a day or two to recover.

- Gryphon doesn't care, and assumes that you can probably cook out the nostalgic ingredients. He picks a few. They smell like something from an old memory he can't quite place. He tries some and feels his memories getting cloudy...
- The whole group decides to forage together for safety, and they find 6 skiprats! Long-legged hopping rats whose speed allows them to escape Gas Fronts. Manrat's rat swarms lure them in for the hunting kill.

- Nieval sets up the bubble tent and realises that from the outside things might look a bit suspicious...

- Gryphon cooks for everyone, slapping together a meal he calls Necromancer's Ravioli. He makes the ravioli itself from a Mushroom Goblin Head, filling it with rat meat and shadow-stuff. It is actually really tasty and is so good that tonight they count as sleeping in Splendid conditions!

- The exotic foods grant some strange powers, like Gryphon's shadow-wrought strength draining touch.

- They sleep soundly, safe in the bubble, and consider their plans for the morning.

Total: 5000 exp

Loot:

- Red Elf bubble tent

Foes:

- A bunch of shadows (450 exp)

Total: 450 exp

OOC:

- Carter the Chronicler and Cartographer (200 exp/level)

- George the Expedition Leader and Vanguard (200 exp/level)
- Charles the Paymaster and Chef (200 exp/level)

Exp Totals:

- George / Manrat Snels, Level 8 Ratman: 120034 (Level up at 224000)

- Carter / Gryphon, Level 3 Fighter: 6011 (Level up at 8000)

- Charles / Nieval the Good, Level 3 Specialist: 4188 (Level up at 7000)

*LEVEL UP!* +1d6 HP! +1 to Saves! +2 Skill Points! +Backstory!

Session 417 - The Dead and the Devout

Date: 16th September 1625

Zenith Deity: Alaunus

Moon Phase: Waning Crescent

Moon Face: Dragon Face

New Characters:

- Likelangelo, a failed artist (not Hitler!) and Specialist whose art is very much not the strong suit. Maybe it's just too avant garde?

Events:

--- Breach and Clear Off

- After resting in Gryphon's dad's room (RIP in peace) our now mysteriously smaller group made up of Manrat and Sulfur decide to clear the prison section with the goal of turning this castle into their new base of operations.
- They leave and... who's this?? A new character arrives! His name is Likelangelo and he's an awful painter and a real master-of-none of a Specialist. Still, more bodies is almost always good!

- The cell they open is full of midges which fly out and bite people's eyes, it's nasty. Sulfur huffs a Last Breath and sends in a skeleton (name of Gnasher). A grey pseudopod reaches out from under the bed and melts straight through Gnasher's ribcage!

- They close the door. Leave that one as-is, they reckon. Good thing it bars from the outside.

--- Wake Up Dead Man

- They find a net under the bed of the last room in this arm of the prison, and go to the other side which has (get this) more prison doors barred from this side. Manrat sends rats to scout, some return.

- Sulfur sends a skeleton into one of the rooms and it reports that there's a guy in there. Sulfur enters himself, still speaking with the Voice of the Dead, and talks to the shrivelled husk of a man that unfolds itself from the straw pallet.

- The shrivelled man is happy to speak to another with the Voice, and says he'll let everyone leave if Sulfur leaves him a skeleton. Sulfur isn't putting up with that! Necromancer battle!
- Faster than Sulfur can blink, the man is RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM and reaches out with a withered hand, draining a level! He saves so thankfully it only lasts 10 minutes, but he is suddenly filled with fear!

- Sulfur tries out Black Blood Baptism for the first time, punching the withered wight in the stomach and sending black viscera pouring out. It covers Sulfur's entire body in midnight vantablack, grants him a mighty amount of HP, and gives him a draining touch! Alas, there are downsides, like eventually turning into a ghoul if you don't drown yourself in bodily fluids within a few days. Sulfur notes that this is bullshit.

- They trade blows, Manrat contributing nothing of note with Sulfur's rune-hammer, until Sulfur hits the wight with a Confetti Punch and explodes it into confetti! He is surprised himself, that was only supposed to blow a bloody limb off!

- They loot the bed, finding jewels, and Manrat besets Sulfur with a horde of 60 rats which lick and spit all over him. Spit is a bodily fluid, you see, so the black blood washes off under a tide of rat-spit.

--- Our Big New Best Friend

- Minor loot is found in empty rooms until one door bumps into something. It's a massive corpse stitched together from multiple corpses. It's a goddamn Frankenstein! You might be about to say "Frankenstein was the scientist, not the monster" but I counter with the fact that Victor was indeed the true monster in the end.

- It rears up when Likelangelo pokes it with a stick, but Sulfur is there! He still speaks with the Voice of the Dead and subjugates the giant zombie, who he names Ezekiel.

--- Urn Your Keep

- In the final room they come upon a huge urn with a big skull on it. Very goth.

- Sulfur speaks with the entity within... it's Gryphon's auntie Mildred! She says that she will grant three wishes to whoever opens the urn. This seems unlikely, so they get Ezekiel to hoik it onto (and, due to a flap of skin, into) his back to use it as a bioweapon. Or I guess in this case necroweapon.
- There were an ungodly number of urn puns which I will not record here on mental health grounds.

--- Highway to the Flavour Cube

- They leave the dungeon into the "fresh" air of the Drudge Wastes to shake off the cobwebs, cook a meal, and reset the Underclock.
- The air is beset by a Melancholy Mist, bringing a sense of sadness and longing. Bushes swell with fat berries, which Manrat warns them away from. They fill you up, but hollow you out emotionally.
- He then sets up the cooking equipment and with a noxious mix of Lard, Mushroom, Bread, Watermelon and Rat he creates "Gryphon's Flavour Cube". All who smell it gag, all who eat it immediately vomit all over the floor. Good thing that Manrat has cleverly named it after Gryphon so future generations will blame him instead.

--- Pressure

- The next day Likelangelo is still feeling rough (and his player is pooped from jetlag) so stays at the camp while the other two venture back into the broken castle. They've got Sulfur's coterie of Dead with them so it's not as foolish as it sounds.
- They open a large set of double doors carved with the nine-pointed symbol of Nonanism. They haven't tried it before, and within is a large space with robes hung up on the far wall.

- Suspiciously, the floor drops very subtly when stepped upon. They quickly jump back and consider. It's not rocking, it's all pressing down at once like a big pressure plate. It resets back up when they jump off. Hmmm.

- Sulfur sends out a skeleton to the big set of similarly carved doors across the room. Nothing happens when the floor depresses, and it reports back that there's nothing in the next room.

- They surmise that it's a pressure plate that responds to too much weight at once, so they carefully leave the minions behind and investigate the robe rack. There are nine robes, one per deity, and a Nonanist symbol in the pocket of one of the robes which has a holy lustre.

- Manrat takes the symbol and the Alaunus robe (since Alaunus is at Zenith) and heads through the next doors into a dark and gloomy church.

--- Worshippers

- A voice cries out from the darkness, "who goes there? Do you worship the foolish 'Gods' of this planet?"

- Manrat reveals that he's a Denialist and shares their dismissal of the Nine as false gods. This intrigues the voice, and it sends out a sister to frisk Manrat. She emerges from behind one of the grand pillars, wearing fake red elf ears and with red facepaint. 

- Before she can get close, Manrat pulls out his Martian Bible and declares that he is in fact a worshipper of the Red Elves too! The voice approves, but the sister frisks him anyway. She pulls back in shock when she sees what he's wearing under his robe - red plate armour of the Red Elves! He speaks the truth!

- He introduces Sulfur as a "recent convert" as the sisters and the Quislist priest who leads them light the torches in here. It's a large church, albeit recently graffitied with Red Elf propaganda.

- The priest offers them a sermon, food, and shelter. Quislism is a new religion, we must help each other! He offers a 5-man bubble-tent that can only be used by Red Elf worshippers, which they sheepishly refuse. Instead they take the two-man tent and some cured Mushroom Goblin Cap flavoured with butter and lard.

- They also mention that they've heard a Bibliognost Elf is roaming around the dungeon wielding a magic sword. Manrat's ears prick up! He also sometimes hears the snapping of pincers in the ablution room next door, but doesn't know where from.

- Manrat and Sulfur declare that they must ablute and go in. It is nice in there. Nine-way fountain, toilet with running water, wardrobe, chest of drawers, some beds. Manrat finds a big silver Red Elf ear that would serve as a holy symbol too.

- They look around for a secret door and... OH NO! CLIFFHANGER! Half a dozen Shadows swarm out of the toilet and towards our heroes!

Total: 8000 exp

Foes:

- A wrinkled old wight (75 exp)

- A goddamn Frankenstein, subjugated (100 exp)

Total: 175 exp

Loot:

- A net

- Bread (5 exp)

- Mushrooms growing on said bread (5 exp)

- A garnet, emerald and amethyst each worth 500ob (1500 exp)
- Trinkets and gems worth 200ob (200 exp)

- Lard (5 exp)

- An urn containing Gryphon's auntie Mildred

- Nonanist Holy Symbol (100 exp)

- Cured goblin head (5 exp)
- Two-man tent

- Quislist Holy Symbol (100 exp)

Total: 1920 exp

OOC:

- Kitty the Chronicler (100 exp/level)

- Issy the Expedition Leader and Cartographer (200 exp/level)
- George the Vanguard and Chef (200 exp/level)

Exp Totals:

- George / Manrat Snels, Level 8 Ratman: 118217 (Level up at 224000)

- Kitty / Sulphur, Level 5 Boo-gilist: 22311 (Level up at 36000)

- Issy / Likelangelo, Level 2 Specialist: 2771 (Level up at 3500)
*LEVEL UP!* +1d6 HP! +1 to Saves! +2 Skill Points! +Backstory!

Session 416 - The Dad That Should Not Be

Date: 1st September 1625

Zenith Deity: The Scorned

Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous

Moon Face: Clean Face

New Backstory:

- Manrat was the "audience" during the music of his ritual creation. When someone succeeds at a Music roll nearby, +2 to your next roll.

- Gryphon was washed away in a flood of goblin filth, which cemented his love of being in vehicles above such filth. +1 to Piloting.

- Sulphur was accused of consuming souls in the spirit realm... but it wasn't him that time! This forced his fusion soul into corporeality. Half damage from traps.

Events:

--- Faces New and Old

- Gryphon and Sulphur are huddled around a meagre fire in the night, camped on the fetid ground inside the crumbling curtain walls of a fallen fortress. Nieval the Good, recently healed and clutching his wounds after last session, will be left up here to recover and as such will not be appearing in this session.

- But hark! A sound! A pile of rats emerges and reveals Manrat hiding within! And skulking from the darkness, two Halflings! Gaius Julius Drusus, Roman Halfling Emperor, and Havarti Honeybun, a sweet Halfling lady with no such pretensions. Gaius rides upon Lurpak, a very strong manservant who has developed an odd couple relationship with his mind-master.

- Gryphon and Sulphur fill the crew in. This is a big ol' castle. Classic dungeon vibes. Lots of loot and lore about the mysterious goblin immotile Morning Light Mountain.

--- Spiders!

- They enter the castle, the Halflings loudly discussing how human flavour changes based on social class. Gryphon sorta remembers the way, and they come to a hall in which the high ceiling is covered in webs.
- Gaius spots it as it leaps - a pug-sized hunting spider! It hits him in the face, covering him with a thin layer of web as Lurpak tries to swat it away. Gaius fumbles with his torch and tries to light the web. Alas! It causes MORE spiders to leap out as they flee the flames!

- Gryphon swings his grappling hook and gambits to swing himself INTO a jumping spider! They hit midair and fall in a scrabbling heap. Havarti runs over to "befriend" the fallen spider but shock!!! the mental wrestle is LOCKED! They're in a MIND WAR!

- Gaius lays down covering fire. Sulphur gets bitten hard but ghost-punches it to death in retribution. Havarti loses the MIND WAR! She's stunned, overwhelmed with the spider's weaponised memories of webs and feasting.

- Manrat raises his arms and an outpouring of 40 rats surges forth! Gryphon pulls a spider into the swirling rodent vortex where it is consumed utterly.

- Havarti comes to and sees the devastation. The spiders are dead. Black smoke gutters on the ceiling as the slow fire consumes the grotty webs.
- Two daggers of strange design drop from the crackling webs - they are Sais, such as Raphael the Ninja Turtle might wield. Writing on the blades each read "long suffering". They keep them for Nieval, since their power increases with every lingering wound or disease the wielder is harbouring.

--- Father's Favourite Torture Sauna

- Gryphon leads them further into the castle and they come across what is clearly a torture chamber. Gryphon wonders why his father remodeled his favourite sauna into this!

- He finds a jar of eyeballs and tosses it to Sulphur. Useful reagents! Sulphur himself is pulling teeth out of a skeleton's mouth when SNAP! It bites his hand! Sulphur sucks out the lingering soul, deactivating the skull, then... keeps pulling teeth. It's a handful per cast, you see.

- They also find a couple of books. A racy POWERLAD novel (An Affair with POWERLAD) and a book on the Runic Wars. Sulphur reanimates a squad of skeletons for good measure. Waste not want not!

--- Coats and Prisons

- Gryphon leads them on and they find a chamber with a bed, wardrobe, and other bedroom accoutrements. Gryphon lifts a ring of keys and  a bag of coins from the dresser. Gaius gets a big cloak from the wardrobe and drapes it over himself and Lurpak for a two man "three kids in a coat" routine.

- In the back of the wardrobe is a magic lute! It's a Lute of Courage and causes all morale checks to succeed when played! Gaius plays it very well, a classic tune, then passes it on to Gryphon who promises to learn to play.

- The next area has a few prison cells. Searching the dank straw reveals cooking chorizo (tasty!) and a sachet of Beethoven Spice that grants +5 to Music when used in a meal.

--- I Am Your Father

- The next room is a study with has a body in it, slumped over a desk. Sulphur detects that there's life left in the body!

- They jostle the body and it wakes up, revealing that he is Gryphon's father! It transpires that it was he who hired the witch who cursed Gryphon to sleep for a hundred years and a day, and that he's been slurping Gryphon's blood the whole time to gain eternal life for himself!

- This is very much considered an evil act by all and sundry, and they subject him to summary execution. However his decapitated head rolls to the ground and keeps talking! He's an intelligent undead now!
- Gryphon attaches the head to his belt and chats with his dad while the others loot the corpse.
- They find a key (#12) and a spiked Wolf Choker which summons a spiritual hound!

- With the pub taking last orders, we finish on that bombshell. What will happen next time??

Total: 6000 exp

Treasures Looted: 

- Two Sais of Long-Suffering gain +1 die size per lingering injury and disease.

- Book #384 - An Affair with POWERLAD (100 exp)

- Book #150 - The Runic Wars (100 exp)

- Small bag of coins (300 exp)

- Ring of keys

- Lute of Courage negates morale checks when played

- Box of Cooking Chorizo (10 rations) (10 exp)
- Beethoven's Spice grants +5 to Music. Runs out on 1 in 6.

- Wolf Choker summons a HD4 Spirit Wolf to guard you in your sleep.

Total: 510 exp

Enemies Defeated:

- Some pug-sized hunting spiders (300 exp)

- Gryphon's Dad (20 exp)
Total: 320 exp

OOC: 

- Carter the Chronicler and Paymaster (200 exp/level)
- George the Expedition Leader (100 exp/level)

- Tim the Triage (100 exp/level)

Exp Totals:

- George / Manrat Snels, Level 8 Ratman: 114246 (Level up at 224000)

- Kitty / Sulphur, Level 5 Boo-gilist: 19440 (Level up at 36000)

- Timothy / Gaius Julius Drusus, Level 4 Halfling: 8854 (Level up at 16000)

*LEVEL UP!* +1d6 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 to Mind Control! +1 to Cooking! +Backstory!

- Carter / Gryphon, Level 3 Fighter: 4194 (Level up at 8000)

*LEVEL UP!* +1d8 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 to Hit! +1 to Crit/Fumble! +Backstory!

- Ollie / Havarti Honeybun, Level 2 Halfling: 2925 (Level up at 4000)

*LEVEL UP!* +1d6 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 to Mind Control! +1 to Cooking! +Backstory!

Session 415 - A Castle in the Wastes

 Date: 19th August 1625

Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous

Moon Face: Dragon Face

Zenith Deity: The Lady

Retired:

- Maxwell has retired to concoct schemes that will keep Morning Light Mountain contained.
- Zeppelino has retired to lead the Drudgespar goblin remnants. Manrat also did this further to the south-west so we might be in a warring states period.

 

New Characters:

- Nieval the Good, Specialist and former "Rig Rider". Survived in the Wastes via a vaulting pole, an exploding javelin, and sheer fucking will. Latterly became a villein to our other newest member.
- Gryphon, bearer of ancient techniques of swordcraft. He was cursed to sleep for a hundred years and a day and woke up in the post-apocalypse. Made it out of his country pile alive and hired Nieval with baroque coins.

Events:

--- Crash Landing

- In a minor retcon I have drawn the following - 

- The landing site is up to the players, and they decide to go for the castle to the east.

- Given the recent retirements it's just Sulphur crash-landing in the balloon made out of a very large inflated pig, and thus he lands in the sludge a short walk from our new additions. Their names are Gryphon (long-lost lord of the nearby manor) and Nieval the Good (recently hired because he can speak the modern lingo). 

- In the usual way of things, everyone trusts each other.

- Gryphon informs the party that there is much treasure in his castle, or at least that was so in the last century, so they all head towards the collapsed fortification as it sinks into the stinking goo of the Drudge Wastes.

--- An Entry

- Before entering the dungeon proper, Gryphon clambers onto the roof and grabs some weaponry from the decayed bastion. He finds trinkets and a few knives.
- The stairs leading in are, for some reason, leading downwards from the surface level. Inspection reveals that they are hinged, overengineered, and would have otherwise have led upwards.

- The entry chamber is lined by pillars. On the right they are carved to represent noble bow-armed humans. On the left they are carved into snivelling goblins with shelf-fungus on the back of their necks.

- With no immediate danger they head into the dungeon, taking note of stone feathers that flake in the corners. They speculate that there's a cockatrice around here somewhere.

--- Falling Floor

- The corridor turns left and fans out into a multitude of doors. The floor is covered in ankle-height sludge.

- They go north and, hey! The door hasn't been opened for a while! The floor is untouched by sludge and has big chequerboard squares within a chalk rectangle that runs around the room.
- Sulphur tosses his POWERLAD novel onto a square and sees it rock downwards on a hinge. Taking a peek, he sees countless fungoid goblins on punji pit spikes. Honestly it wouldn't hurt to fall down there at this point due to the sheer number of corpses.

- Nieval walks around the chalk outline to the door and discovers that it is locked! Sulphur punches a handful of teeth into the keyhole and magically detonates them.

- KABOOM!
- The lock is destroyed, the door opens.

--- Falling Floor 2: The Lowering

- Behind the door is an annex with crossbows, spears and swords mounted on the walls. This is clearly a defense position. The lack of crossbow kills in the pits is a credit to the designer, the goblins just fell in there!

- Our heroes arm themselves. Waste not want not and all that.

- They continue on and discover a room in which the floor whirrs and lowers when stepped upon. The walls have awful paintings of dying goblins on them, such that as the floor lowers more horrific tortures are revealed.

- Gryphon and Sulphur tie themselves to a rope, run to different doors, and discover that the floor falls faster with more weight on it. Gryphon opens his door and hears goblin voices from within.

- Gryphon shouts to lure them out. These goblins have big ol' fly agaric mushroom heads, and their leaders' head is extremely plump and effulgent. 

- Their hobgoblin leader declares that he's a motile of Morning Light Mountain and is doing its bidding. He also declares that his mind will transfer to his minions if he's killed. Battle ensues!

--- Caught in a Trap, No Turning Back

- Gryphon attempts to throw the hobgoblin straight into the pit, fails, and is saved by Sulphur who somehow manages to whiplash himself into the pit. THEN Nieval exchanges himself with Sulphur. It's a hell of a time.

- The hobgoblin tears the mushroom straight off his head and frisbees it into combat where it starts spewing stun poison.

- Nieval slaps the hobgoblin's hand and feels some mycelial horror worming its way into his palm. He starts to feel it invade his brain. This is very much NOT GOOD.

- His fears begin to manifest in a very physical way. His shadow splits and splits and splits. The worst part is that the others can also see this happening.

- Sulphur dives down, hammer blazing with glyph-fire, smashing the hobgoblin on the shoulder. Alas, the follow-through shatters Nieval's nose.

- The burning hammer keeps the shadows away while Sulphur's return swing knocks the hobgoblin's head right off its shoulders. It's dead! Maybe!

--- His Saviours

- Gryphon fishes his allies out of the pit. Nieval is truly fucked at this point. They drag his barely-surviving body out of the castle and prop him up against a wall, then go searching for something to cook.

- They find a few bulbs. Better than nothing. It's the soft-glowing shallot called Glimmerjack that grows amongst tree roots.

- Gryphon cooks up "Gloam Stew", which honestly sounds really tasty from his description despite having only one ingredient.

- They basically pour it all down Nieval's throat until he feels better. He is now extremely full but otherwise surviving. He lives!

- Without any camping gear they peer up at the castle. Do they go back in? Only time will tell.

Total: 7000 exp

Murders:
- One mushroom-headed hobgoblin (100 exp)

Total: 100 exp

Treasures:

- Some weaponry

- 12 obols-worth of trinkets (12 exp)
Total: 12 exp

Exp Totals:

- Kitty / Sulphur, Level 5 Boo-gilist: 18017 (Level up at 36000)
*LEVEL UP! +1d4 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 Mana! +Free Spell! + Backstory!

- Carter / Gryphon, Level 2 Fighter: 2371 (Level up at 4000)
*LEVEL UP!* +1d8 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 to Hit! +1 to Crit/Fumble! +Backstory!

- Charles / Nieval the Good, Level 2 Specialist: 2371 (Level up at 3500)

*LEVEL UP!* +1d6 HP! +1 to Saves! +2 Skill Points! +Backstory!