Session 292 - Spectres and Space Ghosts

 Spectres and Space Ghosts

Date: June 18, 21 P.P.

Moon: Third Quarter
Zenith: Minerva

New Backstory:
- The coffers of Aemelius Princeps' civilisation were running low, so he was forced to raise taxes. +1 Charisma.
- Liber Quint was shoved into a charcoal hole by her brother, which might be why she has such an affinity for charcoal. If you fall, automatically pass your Climb check to grab the edge.

Events:

--- Ghoulfriends

- After the flea attack of last session, the party have entered the small house of a couple of Necromancer types. Their mouths and clawed hands drip with gloopy ectoplasm, making it quite hard to understand them.
- Liber Quint gives one a handkerchief which really helps. Their boss next door is the Caretaker and he's a mean one. They've all been blessed by their new Necrogod with ghouly ectoplasm powers, and they're opposed to the other Necromancers in the mausoleum across the way. They're fundamentally divided on whether the vampire lord Cyrus survived the End War, and whether they should go seek him out and install him at the head of a new Necromancer civilisation.

--- Actually Frankenstein was the doctor

- They leave to seek out this other faction, and conveniently randomly encounter them on the way! They have cool clockwork skeletons and Frankensteins (monsters) that fizz with electricity and constantly ask existential questions.
- Aemileus greets them as their rightful Emperor, to general giggles. Swan the Swift notices that they've got wiggly daggers, just like him! He tries to convince them that he's a member of their order, "proving" his Necromantic power by waving his arms around while Liber sends up a wall of fog! Unfortunately the magic goes a bit haywire and all the plants around start growing super fast!
- Persuaded by the display of power, they invite the team into their mausoleum. Swan tells them that he's 1000 years old and knew Cyrus personally, which they're amazed by. He also asks if they could bring back the flea-punctured corpse of Igor back to life as a Frankenstein zombie, which they agree to do!

--- It's.... ALIIIIVEE!
- They rush Igor's body to their resurrection chamber which is, of course, down in the basement. Fizzing anbaric current flows through the table, through the bolts they installed in his neck, and into Igor's corpse! He opens his eyes - Igor has returned!
- He immediately recognises his master, Swan the Swift! It transpires that his life was so awful that death was a gift, leading to an amazing result when he's turned into a frankenzombie! That plus he's got electric fists now.
- The scientists explain that this technology is a combination of crashed Seraphim technology, mad science, and the weird energies of pod containing an evil space ghost called Torpo the Sane. It goes without saying, but naturally it would be absolutely fucking terrible if someone let the space ghost out.

- Further conversation reveals that these Necromancers are incredibly uninformed about the world outside, they didn't even know that Mt Death Frost was previously stuck under a dino-dome, or that there's a massive flesh tree out there now!
- They listen to a quick death-church service before they leave, gaining improved saves against Law and the ability to cancel other people's religious bonuses. Nice. Aemileus takes umbrage at the Necromancers' insistence that gods are all either fake or worthless, considering how all the Emperors get deified and all.

--- Coast to Coast
- They have a quick peek outside and dear lord that's a lot of plant growth! Swan is clearly a powerful mage! Might leave that for a bit though, seeing as it would be silly not to talk to this space ghost they've heard so much about.
- Torpo the Sane, as it turns out, is not particularly sane. He is rather talkative though. Apparently he got banished from his home planet after eating most of the life on said planet. He claims that Liber Quint is destined to open the glyph-inscribed coffin and join forces with him, which she does not believe somehow.
- After a bunch of attempts to get them to let him out, he yells out to the Necromancers in the rest of the complex that the team is letting him out! Naturally they rush in to stop our heroes!
- Aemilius swiftly Dominates the frankenzombie and forces it to turn on its master, while Liber Quint twists her heartspell into another Wall of Fog. Unfortunately the excess magic escapes again, this time as a Cosmic Horror result! Luckily (or "luckily") for Liber, it's one of the few non-instadeath results! Her eyes explode from her face and new eyes flicker into existence along her arms and hands, bubbling like frogspawn!
- This is all certainly enough chaos to escape with, so the gang make a break for it! They run out of the mausoleum and off through the twisting trees.

- Aemilius decides that he has seen enough of his empire and heads off to return to the Moon, Cambridge and/or Australia.

- The others make a loose plan to head to Mt Death Frost and see if Cyrus is actually alive or not. Plus they can check out the flesh tree and all that weird stuff that's bound to be over there!

Total: 5000 exp

Valuables:
- Igor, resurrected!

Foes vanquished:

- A Necromancer (50 exp)
- A Frankenzombie (25 exp)
- 2 clockwork skeletons (20 exp)
Total: 95 exp

OOC:
- Kitty: Chronicler & Cartographer
- Izzy: Expedition Leader
- Timothy: Triage
- George: Vanguard & Chef
100 exp per role

Exp Totals:

- George / Swan the Swift, Level 4 Barbarian: 12307 (Level up at 16000)

- Kitty / Liber Quint, Level 3 Bibliognost: 6310 (Level up at 9000)

- Izzy / Astro Moon, Level 3 Muscle Wizard: 5669 (Level up at 9000)
DING! +1d4 HP! +1 Mana! +free spell! +backstory!

- Timothy / Aemelius Princeps, Level 3 Halfling: 4587 (Level up at 8000)
DING! +1d6 HP! +1 to Domination! +backstory!

Session 291 - The Untimely Death of Clacky Snip-Snips

 The Untimely Death of Clacky Snap-Snaps

Date: June 16, 21 P.P.
Moon: Waning Gibbous Dragon Face
Zenith: Oberon

New Backstory:
- Astro Moon had very religious grandparents, hardcore Styxians. She turned her back on them. Apostate to Styxians. Immune to Styxian Clerics.
- Celebus Uppytus had a terrible birthday because nobody showed up. On June 15th every game year, and every real year, and on the week of your actual birthday, a known ally of your choice shows up during the session.
- Iskander defeated an enemy in glorious combat and granted them their death. +1 Dexterity.
- Swan the Swift bumped into an old acquaintance - the dog he saved back in the distant past. It was a thousand years old by that point and laughed in his face, clearly some sort of trickster deity being a dick as per usual. Once per session force someone you've met before not to act for a round.
- Liber Quint killed someone in a tragic charcoal burning accident, only finding the blackened bones several weeks later. Allies cannot be harmed by your fumbles.

Events:

--- There's Been a Murdahrrr!

- Church bells desperately ring out across Kink. The party, now much reinforced over last session, hurries past human crab-worshippers and giant crabs alike on their way to the church.
- They burst through the door and... horror of horrors! A huge dead crab lies in the aisle! Crabspeaker Johnny Snips, a man wearing false antennae and massive crab-speaking castanettes, is here with the local priest Peter Papenguy investigating the scene!
- Celebus inspects the corpse. It's a murder alright! And the murder weapon was... a distinctive pincer! Some of the crab meat within is gone too. He takes a rubbing of the pincer shape in order to pincerprint suspects.

--- One-Claw McGraw
- They head straight across town to see an old grizzled hero crab by the name of One-Claw McGraw. In front of the house they find another crab waiting - Elemy Scorpio the Crab Squire!
- He refuses to let the unworthy approach One-Claw McGraw, so Iskander challenges him to a noble duel. Scorpio draws an elegant rapier, while Iskander has his skeleton hand him a heavy hammer.

- They duel, and despite the fancy legwork of the Crab Squire he is forced to yield to the superior warrior.

- They enter the house and meet One-Claw McGraw himself! He indeed has only one claw, and also somehow an eyepatch. He lost the claw and the eye in a battle against the crystal dragon to the north, which menaces the good stoneshell quarries of the crabs.
- Celebus compares the rubbing of the murder weapon to One-Claw McGraw's one claw. It's a perfect match... except it's the wrong way round! Clacky Snap-Snaps was murdered with his missing claw!
- Charles makes the most perfect NANI!!??! face.
- The witnesses to the dragon fight were his squire, Elemy Scorpio, and his squire's squire Barry d'Louse. Barry now works at the Barber where he works in cleaning and de-lousing the crabs' stone shells. Barry is now a suspect.
- One-Claw McGraw himself says that he was outside Clacky's house when the murder happened! He was spurned by her, and wished to woo her by standing outside the window and serenading her with some classic Peter Gabriel.
- As they leave with their suspicions, they see the town gossip Kyle Conselle who is delighted to let them in on the secret that Pennicrab Sugarclaw, a nudist crab living in a mansion on the edge of town, was also wronged by Clacky Snip-Snips. Clacky took her old shell, and no new one fit, leading to her current situation. Another suspect!

--- Split the Party

- They decide to split up to investigate suspects.
- Iskander and Liber Quint interrogate Barry d'Louse. He confesses that he doubled back after the disastrous attack on the dragon, reclaiming McGraw's other claw and also eating the meat from his lost eye stalk. Disgusting! However, he sold the claw to a collector - Pennicrab Sugarclaw herself! The plot thickens.
- Celebus and Astro Moon go to the egg-laden mansion of Pennicrab Sugarclaw. She tells them that she can't have done it - everyone would notice a naked crab walking through town. She did, however, have McGraw's other claw as a souvenir... but it recently went missing from over the mantlepiece! No crabs could have got in here undetected, so the thief must be a human.
- Swan the Swift and Eegor go back to Elemy Scorpio the Crab Squire and find out that Barry always had a thing for Clacky Snap-Snaps, but she wasn't into humans and honestly how would that even work.

--- Mystery Solved!
- Barry d'Louse is clearly the most suspicious taken to the church to see the body and... he breaks down in tears. It was him! It was all him! He even points out the murder weapon where he'd hidden it behind the pews - it's McGraw's other claw!
- He tries to run, but Iskander shoots him in the leg. He is dragged before the Crab Queen in the river under the bridge, and pleads guilty. Premeditated crab murder - a capital crime. Iskander suggests he be executed by One-Claw McGraw whom he tried to frame, but Swan the Swift swiftly kicks him off the bridge and into the waiting maw of the Crab Queen!
- She devours him whole, and in thanks for this great service to crabkind gives the gift of the Gifflewim Coin she has been protecting. She warns them never to flip it, for Gifflewim is a great danger now, infected by the Idea of Thorns.

--- Off to the Local Dungeon Locale
- With a fair bit of time left in the session they're at a bit of a loose end. They do grab some cheeky crab meat and crab lice on their way out, so Astro Moon cooks up "Seasea Landland" from the seafood, some butter, and a prickly pear that Celebus picked up from the roadside.

- It looks pretty fucking dire honestly, just a protein shake slurry, but somehow she manages to kick it over the line from Palatable into Tasty. 
- There's a big obvious dungeon nearby - one of the wing-petals of a Seraphim thrusts from the ground where it crashed during the End War. They head that way overland, the interminable Heatwave forcing the poor party to reluctantly slurp down the Seasea Landland slurry to keep on going.

--- Flea for your Lives
- They arrive at the site and find the way in has several statues of Necromancer-Generals carved out the front. There's also arguing from a house near the base of the ruined Seraphim petal.
- They investigate and hear some ectoplasm-spewing necromancers having an argument over whether Cyrus Carnithrex Maximus, millenia-old vampire overlord of the Undead forces during the End Times, is still alive. One side argues that he's alive (well, undead) and they should head off to find him and reinstall him at the head of the Necromancers, the other that he's either dead or defeated and so there's no point leaving the safety of their current base of operations.
- But suddenly, maybe attracted by the noise, an accursed sproinging begins from behind! It is nothing less than enormous fleas, and their accursed bouncing! Swan the Swift remains outdoors to face down the new foe!
- Celebus and Liber Quint spring into action, dumping oil all over the fleas. Swan tries to light the oil and is dragged back by Iskander! A rivalry is born on the battlefield! "I won't let you get all the glory SWANNY!" booms Iskander!
- Swan pulls Iskander out through the window and they tumble into the oil amongst the fleas. The torch drops and lights the fire! They wrestle in the oily fiery mud, fleas dying around them.
- It's getting tense until Celebus activates his backstory and One-Claw McGraw shows up! He was following the party to make sure they didn't get into more trouble! He spits water on the fire and breaks up the fight!

- Iskander and Swan the Swift shake hands, a fierce rivalry between warriors has been forged.
- The drippy necromancers inside the house, honestly quite baffled at what just went down, let the party come inside to rest up. The party feast on fried fleas and settle down to sleep, except for Astro Moon who finishes of the Seasea Landland and Liber Quint who disappears in the night to do spooky elf stuff beneath the light of the Dragon Face Moon.

Total: 7000 exp

Valuables:
- A fair amount of crab meat

- A Gifflewim Coin (500 exp)

Total: 500 exp

Foes Vanquished:
- Elemy Scorpio, defeated in a duel (25 exp)
- Barry d'Louse, indicted and executed by Crab (5 exp)
- 5 Corpse Fleas (25 exp)
Total: 55 exp

Exp Totals:

- George / Swan the Swift, Level 4 Barbarian: 11033 (Level up at 16000)

- Ollie / Iskander Fullbeard, Level 3 Fighter: 7408 (Level up at 8000)

- Charles / Celebus Uppytus, Level 3 Necromancer: 5824 (Level up at 9000)
DING! +1d4 HP! +1 Mana! +1 Free Spell!

- Kitty / Liber Quint, Level 3 Bibliognost: 5036 (Level up at 9000)

DING! +1d6 HP! +1 Mana! +1 Free Spell!

- Izzy / Astro Moon, Level 2 Muscle Wizard: 4395 (Level up at 4500)