Dramatis Personae
+Frotz Self as Varouj
+Ronnie Whelan as Ronnina
+Moreven Brushwood as The Four Gobbos
+Adventures of the Mind as Don Harper of Mars
Loot
Worldbuilding
There are 56 Dukes
NPC Interactions
Robot Monster – Loyalty remains 10.
Dividia Gaym – Loyalty improves to 7
Sheniqua – Loyalty remains 11
Albert the Great – Loyalty remains 11
Nrrk – Produced some pamphlets.
Duke Bacob – One of the Dukes, a rival of Duke Dayvos. The party framed him for attempting to cause a slave revolt in Redstone Lords territory.
Highlights Recap
At the start of the session, the party was watching a bit of Hoop Hang, as the Blue and White teams went at it with one another. They were very interested in sponsoring a team with cybernetic augmentations that would let them more easily overcome their opponents. But, knowing they had work to get to elsewhere, they regretfully tore themselves away from the Sport of Dukes.
The factory was only a few blocks further along. It was a remarkably tidy place, for the post apocalypse. The surrounding buildings had been cleared out to make room for a nice park, and to prevent anyone from getting an overlook into the factory campus.
The campus itself was surrounded by a high wall, with the 56 flags of the various Dukes mounted equidistant from each other around the edge. 56 in all. The grounds were patrolled by guards in black-and-grey uniforms, which matched none of the flags. Two garrisons of the same guards were positioned nearby.
The factory itself was a brutalist thing, with large smokestacks, and no windows except way high up on the walls.
The party decided to investigate the sewers, but the area was too crowded to do so easily. Don Harper stealthed his way through the manhole, taking Ronnina, Albert, and Poog along with him, while the rest of the party waited up above. Just down below, the party encountered an iron grate made of welded rebar. Too sturdy to knock down easily, and too narrow for most of the party to slip through…except for Poog.
Don lent the gobbo a phone (and by “lent,” of course I mean “pinned to his shirt,) then helped (shoved) him through the bars. Poog attempted to sneak forward and check out the room beyond, but Gobbos are clumsy, excitable little creatures, and he promptly tripped and made a ruckus.
There were six guards in the room at the end of the hall, as well as a set of stairs leading up. Poog scurried and scampered about, and the guards reacted more or less like they would if a racoon had gotten loose. They didn’t take things very seriously, though once Poog started throwing Poop, they did get serious about killing the little gremlin.
Unfortunately, despite all his clever japes, Poog wasn’t able to evade notice, and wound up leading three of the guards right back towards the gate where her companions were waiting. Albert and Don Harper had both been struck with a bout of fade, and wandered off, leaving Ronnina alone. Hearing the racket, she jumped into the sewer water and waited.
Poog managed to keep ahead of his pursuers, and jumped through the grate. The guards were just about to give up and turn around when Ronnina surfaced, and blasted them with Cone of Cold, instantly killing them all with frostbite. The spell also froze the iron bars, and encased Ronnina’s hand in a giant brick of poo-ice.
With her Lasorator, Ronnina first freed her hand, then cut down the gate. She raised the three guards as zombies, and sent them down the hall to kill their companions (which they did, easily, since they were significantly tougher as the zombies of a 10th level caster than they had been as living men and women).
Ronnine moved to the stairs, and sneakily peeked up above, to discover that it led into a shed on the factory grounds. A small wooden thing, with large windows, lots of pipes, valves, and boilers. A bay door, and a few crates.
Deciding that there was no future in pursuing this course, Ronnina changed tac. She took the 6 uniforms of the bodies of the guards, then stacked the bodies in a pile, and opened a fire portal beneath them, causing them all to fall through to the plane of fire. Ronnina also planted a bomb on a 4 hour timer, then they made their way back the way they came, out the sewer, and to a hotel down the road to plan their next move.
The party decided that the Polyester factory wouldn’t be the best way to start a war. Too well defended, too unreliable an outcome. Varouj contacted Nrrk, the propagandist, and had him make up 300 pamphlets using the colors of Duke Bacob (one of Duke Dayvo’s rivals). The pamphlets were aimed towards slaves, and used language such as “Rise up against your oppressors! Come to the service of Duke Bacob for freedom, and a chance at revenge!”
While those were being prepared, Varouj and Ronnina conspired to kill 6 randos, create 6 highly lifelike zombies, and outfit them in the uniforms they’d taken from the factory guards. They also got a burlap sack, and filled it with rocks and rat poison.
Once the pamphlets had arrived, they set out again to find one of the Polyester carts. They paid a hefty smuggling fee (50cc per head) to climb under the bolts of cloth, and get past the Howler’s wall.
Once there, they found a place to store their zombies, and began to set things in motion.
First, they set a bomb near the wall. Something loud to attract people’s attention, and perhaps make them think someone had tunneled under the wall.
Second, they handed out some pamphlets to groups of slaves, and left others in conspicuous places where they were likely to be found.
They set the bomb to go off in a few hours, and instructed the zombies to go on a murderous rampage as soon as the bomb went off. And, importantly, not to speak, or surrender. To fight until they were “killed.”
Finally, they acquired some jugs, and sought out a well near a military base. Frotz stood in line with the jugs, and when it was his turn, Ronnie used a minor spell to create a distraction, while Frotz dropped the rat-poison teabag into the well. Unfortunately, people saw him do it. Also fortunately, he managed to cover it up with some quick thinking, acting as if he was very upset to have lost his bag, and “trying to catch it,” but failing.
Some nice folks offered to go get a pole to help him fish it out, and in the hubub, Frotz and Ronnina managed to slip away, heading North towards the rest of Redstone Lords territory, where the wall was being torn down.
The session ended In Media Res