Dramatis Personae
+Linlin Kins as Umquat
+Ronnie Whelan as Ronnina
+Frotz Self as Varouj
+Adventures of the Mind as Don Harper of Mars
Alternate Titles
“These Guys Are Like…Interdimensional & Shit”
“They’re Gonna Pull a Blerkinman On Us”
“Desmodicus the Dead”
Body Mods
Umquat got straight edge tats on the back of her hands, because she’s a nerd.
Loot
20,000cc found in a dumpster.
The Half-Living Remains of Galens Brook.
That’s 5,000 XP & CC each
NPC Interactions
Robot Monster: Is disappointed Don did not hug him. (No Loyalty Change)
Sheniqua: Wished she’d been able to kill Desmodicus herself. (No Loyalty Change)
Dividia Gaym thinks the party seems like a pretty fun group. (Loyalty improved to 3)
Albert the Great thought Don was a little annoying. (No Loyalty Change)
Faylana Thought the cult was fuckin’ creepy ass shit. (No Loyalty Change)
Norno was put off by Don Harper’s antics. (No Loyalty Change)
Tube Man, was resuscitated, violated, terrified, given a new heart against his will, and brainwashed to slowly start liking the party.
Bric Shelic provided a heart for a fair price!
ASCII was too busy to join the adventure, but is glad the group has finally found Bric Shelic. She enjoyed the parts of Umquat’s stream that she saw. Over the Haven Turn, she comes by to pay respects to Galens’ remains.
Helen is a little overwhelmed by all this baking she’s suddenly been asked to do, and is concerned she might end up murdered by Umquat.
Low Level Mongoose & Their Prisoner: The mutant was returned to Dukes of the Dome territory, and executed for his crime of Muscegination. The mongoose team got paid 500 credits for a job well done.
Kids on the Sidewalk: Got scared away by Don Harper, just another drug addled adult. Adults suck!
Desmodicus the Hateful: Finally killed by the party.
Melissa the Philaquamort: Did not notice or interact with the party, but was seen by them.
Cult of the Cosmic Mind Cube: Started the session off with a fairly good opinion of the party. Then the party took their artifact under threat of violence. They appreciate that they got paid, but they view the party as unstable and scary.
The Police Cops: were threatened by the party. Word gets around that The Breakfast Club is getting too big for their britches, but nobody is quite sure what to do about it.
The Hangman: Got called out by Umquat on stream. Offered an apology. Umquat challenged her to a game of Dragon Warrior Monsters Go.
The Cult of Akiovasha
I’ve been lazy about tracking this, so here it is all together. At the end of session 43, it was established that the Cult of Akiovasha was followed by 22% of the people within Rulers Beneath the Black territory. That was in February.
As of this session, there have been 9 months. (9 haven turns) since then. According to the (as yet unpublished) religion rules, it grows by 1d4% each month. This is modified by Don Harper’s investments into Don’s Playplace Back of House.
Month 1: 23%
Month 2: 24%
Month 3: 27%
Month 4: 31%
Month 5: 34%
Month 6: 41%
Month 7: 48%
Month 8: 50%
Month 9: 53%
As of right now, the Cult of Akiovasha has reached parity with the Rulers Beneath the Black. There is a full-on religious crisis going on in Rulers territory. The powers that bee hold true to the faith, but the people have largely turned against them.
Any further growth of the religion is limited to the small chance of growth from Don’s investment, or direct player action.
Haven Turn
Haven Encounter: 1, “Major religious event occurs for a randomly determined religion.” The mysterious Akiovashan Murderer killed a Cardinal, and dropped the bloody chunks of his body onto a a BTB ceremony meant to drive out the evil of the Akiovashan Cult. People have taken it as a sign that the power of The Black is at an end, and many flock to the cult. (This is represented in the month 9 growth listed above)
Umquat: ???
Ronnina: ???
Varouj: ???
Don Harper: Continues training up to “Expert” with Machine Guns (Month 4 of 5)
Plot Threads
The party set up a facial recognition app on one of their phones, tied to Mr. Mungo’s magic painting. They’ve strapped that phone to their clothing, so that it will constantly any crowds they see for his face.
Highlights Recap
After going through their records, the party noticed they had more than a few loose ends to tie up, and decided it was time to clean out their metaphorical closets. They started with the big tube they retrieved from the sewers, back during their mission to free the Akiovashan Cultists from Rulers Beneath the Black control. (Session 48).
They had the device moved to a cell in the basement of Ronnina’s tower. It appeared to require technological expertise to open, so Don Harper was locked in the cell with it. (Not entirely of his own volition). After tinkering with the keypad for a bit, the tube began to whir and beep, releasing nitrogen vapors into the air. It slid open to reveal a man in a strange plastic jumpsuit within.
The man was groggy, and had a difficult time responding to the PCs grilling him on who he was. He seemed very confused to not be in a hospital, growing increasingly more distressed over time. He asked if he had been woken up because a cure had been found. The players asked what he had, and he answered that it was a Persistent Aortic Thrombosis. The players had no idea what that meant, but Don figured he probably needed a new heart, so he suggested they call Bric Shelic, and take this guy to the mutant hospital.
The more the man woke up, the more coherent and distressed he became. He knew he was on Mars (and seemed to think the players were dumb for asking if he knew that), but said he’d only been here 6 months before getting his diagnosis, and going into cryostasis until a solution could be found. When the players tried to tell him how much had changed, and showed him pictures from their adventures on their phones, he figured they were promoting some kind of movie or some shit.
So they brought in Albert, a mutant, to show how much the world really had changed. The tube dude passed out, and Umquat took the opportunity to sharpie the word “BITCH” on his forehead.
While unconscious, the party took him to the mutant hospital. Don Harper had the doctors drill into his skull to extract some fluid. The logic being that if he was a real person, there would be fluid. If he was an alien, then they’d probably just kill the alien.
When the man awoke, his immediate thought was that his head hurt. When his hand felt the wound in his skull, he began to freak out, but the party had him restrained to the bed, so he couldn’t escape.
It should be noted that during this whole process, Don began to act more and more strangely. Shouting wildly, insisting on absurdities, and generally making a nuisance of himself. This, of course, only increased the tube man’s anxiety (the party never did get his name). He came to believe that there had been some kind of riot, and that mental patients had taken over the hospital, and were ‘playing doctor’ on him. (Which was not an entirely incorrect assumption, really). Umquat assured the guy that it wasn’t so bad, that he’d eventually come to like the party. She said this, activating her mutant persuasion abilities, and the man failed his save. So, in the future, he will indeed come to like the party.
This belief was only reinforced when Bric Shelic arrived, pushing in his cart and promising a wonderful new heart for him. From a nice young woman, very fast runner! (Which Bric Shelic knows because family told him, not because Bric Shelic chase her, oh no. That is not the case at all.)
Umquat, tired of all the noise, decided to prescribe a sedative to tube man. Namely, her fist. She layed him out cold, and Bric Shelic set to work, using a carpet knife to open his chest, break his ribs, cut out his heart, then began licking all over the place with his adhesive saliva, reconnecting everything back to where it was supposed to be.
Bored with Tube Man, the party decided that their next loose end to tie up would be finally getting to the bottom of what happened to Galens Brook. Umquat set about preparing to go. She contacted ASCII (who was busy), and figured out how to set up a LiveStream on Croaker.
Frotz, meanwhile, went to visit Helen, the woman who escaped from the Friends of Needletooth Jack. He asked if she’d like to get out for a bit, maybe come along on an adventure. Helen politely declined, but offered to play her skills as a baker to help out around Trumpquatia. Varouj gave her some money to get flour, and told her where she could find tools.
Umquat, overhearing this, shoved 3000 credits into Helen’s hand, and demanded she make a giant ball of bread in the exact shape of Umquat’s head. Don, overhearing THAT, promised to pay Helen a bundle of cash if she made a cake with a stripper compartment in it for him.
It was all very silly.
To make things even sillier, Don decided to pack a suitcase full of drugs, and do this adventure while on Space LSD. Which, ya know, is how Galens Brook died, and we ended up on this adventure in the first place. He tied himself to albert, then popped the tab. Immediately, Albert turned into an alligator, munching on intestines that were falling out of Don’s belly. He punched the alligator, then ran to one of the life-sized stuffed animals nearby for comfort. Raggedy Anne (Varouj) gave him a good hug, got him calmed down, and the party got on their way.
As they traveled to the den of the Cult of the Cosmic Mind Cube, Don Harper saw a sphere of cougars, all tangled up with one another, rolling past them. The rest of the party saw a group of Fighting Mongoose, dragging a mutant around in chains. Umquat stepped forward to ask what they were up to, and they said the mutant was a bounty they’d just recovered. He’d had sex with an un-mutated woman in Dukes of the Dome territory, and they wanted to bring him back to face punishment for his crime. Umquat decided she didn’t care, and none of the rest of the party did either, so they all moved along.
Further along, Don found himself in a dick factory. Off to one side, there was a very smelly, very large, very hairy vagina, out of which a conveyor belt was running. Along the conveyor belt were dicks of many sizes, shapes, and colors. Thinking he would retrieve a dick for the gobbos, Don went over to the belt to grab one. As he approached, he noticed they were actually quite large, and he poked at one experimentally. Almost immediately, a crowd of people charged in, with the fervor of Black Friday shoppers, they grabbed all the dicks and ran off again. Don Harper mournfully lamented the loss of his gift to the gobbos.
What the rest of the party experienced was hearing a rustling in the bushes, followed by Don Harper running over to a sidewalk and pushing a child over. Other children ran over to help the child up, then they all ran away from the unpredictable drugged out adult.
The party moved on.
A giant hamster ball appeared, filled with puppies who frolicked happily towards Don Harper. Then, one of the Teddy Bears Don was traveling with made a jacob’s ladder out of string, and suddenly all the puppies were on fire! Don was sad.
In point of fact, Desmodicus the Hateful had finally tracked the party down, and was ready to destroy them. No more speeches, no more games, it was time for the fuckers to die! Varouj couldn’t have agreed more. Umquat poured their last Potion of Perfect Aim down Varouj’s throat, and he raised the Arrow of Unmaking in his bow.
Desmodicus managed to release a single bolt of lighting from his mouth, before Varouj let the arrow fly. It struck home, and instantly Desmodicus popped, leaving just a few flakes of golden flesh behind. Desmodicus the Hateful, dragon of mars, dead without pomp. The party continued on their way.
Later on, off to the side, Don saw a giant tidal wave, moving in slow motion, with little people sitting at the crest like it was a couch. Within the water were sharks and bones roiling together in chaotic uncontrol.
In fact, the party was merely passing by the baggage train of Melissa the Philaquamort, a noted Comet Caller & Wizard. They avoided her, and she ignored them.
A few hours later, as the party were nearing their destination, Don perceived them as walking through an esophagus, filled with bloated polyps. One of the polyps was burst open, and there were glinting eyes within. One of the teddy bears reached in after the eyes, and pulled out a beast of vomit and slime, which the teddy bears seemed to think was cute. They took off part of its eyes, and handed them to Don, and he begged them to put the eyes back!
What actually happened was that the party stumbled upon a bag of 20,000 credits, just sitting in a dumpster. They pulled out some, to see if there was anything else in the bag, but there was not. It was just an unattended bag of money. They debated briefly what to do with it, then ultimately decided they may as well keep it, despite it being “obviously a trap.”
Finally, the party reached the mouth they’d been looking for, and a little old grannie with big grey hair and a fuzzy coat popped out of the mouth like a tongue. There was some dumb pointless chit chat, then all of Don’s stuffed friends decided to let themselves get eaten by the mouth! He found this very unusual, and even distressing as the little alligator started dragging HIM into the mouth!
In reality, this was just the door to the den of the Cult of the Cosmic Mind Cube. Umquat made friendly introductions, the cult expressed their happiness with the article that had been published, and everyone went inside to chat.
The Cult was the same as always. They had a variety of people whose bodies had been contorted into cubed shapes, or were in the process of said contortions. They congratulated Umquat on dying, since one must die six times to reach full Cubula Awareness. They offered the party chairs of cubed up people, and asked what they could do.
Umquat laid out the facts as she knew them, of Galens brook going to an alley, fighting a large woman, and becoming a goo that the cult later collected. The cult was able to fill in some details, confirming for Umquat that it had, indeed, been The Hangman who killed Galens Brook. She turned her face towards her Livestream (which she’d been continuing through this whole adventure). She swore to kill the hangman, and broadcast that oath to dozens of members of the Internet who were watching what had so far been an intensely interesting stream.
She turned to the cultists, and asked what they did with Galens. They indicated a bit of flesh, stretched over a square frame. A thing that exists only to experience pain. Umquat said she would buy it from them, and to name their price. They quibbled a bit, not wanting to sell an artifact of such philsophical, cosmic, cubic significance. But they also didn’t want to die, and Umquat was scary, so they took the 10,000cc that Frotz offered, and the party went on their way.
The party had only a few notable encounters on the way back, most of which they just ignored: a cult of power worshipers, performing a ritual. A group of Redstone Lord Guards out on patrol. Don’s was also coming down from his high, so his reality gradually started to realign with everyone else’s.
When they were nearly home, the party did bump into a group of Police Cops, which tried to hassle the party a bit, but they were in no mood to be hassled. The PCs more or less dared the…other PCs…to attack them or get out of the way. The Police Cops decided to get out of the way, and the party made it safely home.
Within, they found a positively massive flower arrangement, growing in a garden that must have been transported here at great expense. There was a card with it, from the Hangman. “I don’t remember it, must have been when we did drugs together. I’m very sorry.”
Umquat, still streaming, said. “You think this is enough? You’ll know when it’s enough.” Then she shut off her stream.
(Don, who for the last few hours had been mimicking Umquat, called some random Internet mook on the phone, said the same badass line devoid of any context, then hung up.)
Thus ended November 2517.