Session 21: Farmer Revenge
Run on March 10, 2021 | Week 21, Year 1
GOBLIN MARKET:
It was “advertise via abusing other goblins” day in the Goblin Market. There was a lot of scrambling to be the one doing the abusing, rather than the one being abused. The party purchased a plastic explosive and detonator (strapped threateningly to a desperate salesgoblin’s head) for 160r. They also purchased a pink spherical IOUN stone (#378) which can paralize. This was purchased for 600r. Details below.
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Still inside the painting which they ended last session in, play began with Samo attempting to harvest Regdar’s spiritual essence. He clearly saw some escaping, but it was different from the essence he’d seen previously. Faster, slipperier, more diffuse. He was unable to gather it. The party also met a young local of the painting village (called Antillus) named Daryash, who was more intrigued than frightened by these mysterious and murderous outsiders. The rest of the village avoided the party, but it was a peculiar shunning. It lacked passion, considering the magnitude of their offense, and within a few hours the villagers seemed to largely have forgotten it ever happened.
In Regdar’s home the party found martial gear, but nothing of any interest for them, so they moved to another nearby home which Samo had heard once belonged to a troublemaking magician. Inside they found a slovenly pig pen of a home, with a large ritual space stinking of long rotted corpses, and a small study which included an undead creature. Daryash recognized Ogl, a woman who’d run the local tavern and been somewhat over-fastidious. Samo attempted to parley with her. Unfortunately for this creature, she wasn’t able to deliver the sorts of information Samo would have found useful, so he shot her and took the 6 books that were in the room. He didn’t even ask if she would mind them being taken first.
Meanwhile, Idono went out into the nearby woods to hunt rabits. He found them peculiarly shallow, only navigable for about 20 feet, after which the treese became nearly as dense as a palisade wall. His hunting wasn’t terribly successful, which resulted in some mocking from the nearby farmers. He took revenge by making a thundrous and frightening racket by killing a rabbit with his uzi, sending the farmers running with fright. Later, Aneth joined Idono, and they were able to procure a good clutch of rabbits together.
A few hours were spent reading the 6 books taken from the magician’s home:
One was a locally produced history of the world. It was heavily annotated, pointing out contradictions, absurd unliklihoods, and generally demonstrating that the history was a poorly constructed farce.
One was an incredibly intricate spell for escaping the painting. It worked by drawing on the same effect that caused the party to be pulled into the painting, and reversing it within a small section of the painting world. Samo immediately saw numerous ways in which it could be simplified.
Two books were magical treatise written within this world. Magic here seems fairly simple to understand, but operates on vastly different rules than magic does in the real world.
One book was a magical treatise written by the magician themselves, in which they laboriously reconstruct ‘real’ magic, without themselves living in the real world. It took the form primarily of a series of documented experiments and equations.
The final book was a diary. It revealed a great deal about the Magician, including the fact that he had renamed himself Adolphus the Hateful. (There was a whole page of name experiments, all but this was crossed out). It told how the strangeness of the world was first noticed, how some experimental murders resulted in brief infamy, followed by banality, followed by a different person arriving in town from one of the impassable barriers which surround it. Not the same person, but ready to fill the same niche they had in the community.
Having learned all they cared to, the party focused on collecting as much food as everyone could carry. Chickens, potatoes, etc etc etc. Heaping it up as much as they could, and escaping the painting world with it. This required the sacrifice of one painting person, but by now the party had decided they weren’t real people and they were fine with that. Their journey back to the surface was uneventful: Plucky talked to the chickens, Muscles dropped a bag of grain in which he’d hidden some swords, and the Security AI thanked Samo for returning Sarah for repairs.
Finally, the party stopped by the Goblin Market on their way back up.
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LOOT:
-3 swords smuggled out of Regdar’s house by Muscles, because he figured Idoru would like them, even though the rest of the party wanted them left behind. They were a Mainz Gladius, a simple Kopis, and a Cinquedea.
-6 books written by Adolphus the Hateful, detailed above, but certainly containing more information according to each book’s general content.
-Great heaps of Good Food, and food producing animals. The equivelent of 18,000r worth. Divided among those present (Samo, Aneth, Idono and Daryesh) that’s 4500r each, which may either be kept, turned in for experience points, or divided between those two purposes.
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INJURIES:
-none-
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NEW RULES:
-Spirtual Essence Collection: Having been taught how to collect these bits of waste energy released when a soul leaves a body, Samo may attempt to do so by rolling a d10, with the target number being equal to or less than his current level. Once collected, the essence must be stored in some appropriate vessel. An empty spell slot in Samo’s mind, or a magic vessel such as an enchanted jar, or the stone Samo took from the Bone Boss’s mind (which may hold 6 essences total.) The uses of these essences are variable, and will be explored with Samo as he experiments.
-The pink spherical IOUN stone may be activated to imbue the wielder’s touch (even through a weapon) with a paralyzing ability. The one hit must save versus wands or be rendered immobile for d3 rounds. This stone is quite fragile. If a 1 is rolled on the touch attack, then the attack will actually be successful, but the stone will have been over-stressed, and will crack. After this it loses all its magical ability, but it’ll still orbit your head.
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VIBES:
-Muscles, Gorgeous, Plucky: Having a decent time.
-Bing Crosby & Pet Turtles: Extremely annoyed at having been left alone with each other for a full week.
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HOOKS:
-Can the painting be repeatedly exploited for a steady supply of food, potentially collapsing the game’s ration-based economy?
-How can this information about Adolphus be used against him?
Session 22: Ecology of Hate
Run on March 24, 2021 | Week 22, Year 1
NOTE:
I wasn’t able to write this recap right away, and I took very poor notes during the session. Please advise me about any glaring omissions!
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GOBLIN MARKET:
At the goblin market, the party finds a high tech Prosthetic left arm, and a very janky goblin-constructed shotgun that is only barely safe enough to risk using. They purchase neither.
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The party descended to the 5th sublevel, and Samo used his life-detecting magic rod to look around. The walls are apparently filled with the same turtles Samo has in his terrarium up top. Looking up Samo saw almost straight through level 4, to the nerds on level 3. Looking down he saw straight through level 6, and spotted some dinosaurs on level 7! Won’t that be neat? The party then moved past the acid, into the falling meat room, and went to confery with their Gorgonite friend Siccsi.
The party had a pleasant interaction with Siccsi. Samo used his magic knife to zhush up her dinner, and the party learned that the Kobolds and Gorgonites don’t get along very well, mostly because it seems the Kobolds think they can make themselves feel big by bullying the Gorgonites.
The party pushed south of the falling meat room for the first time, and came upon a trash heap overgrown with lovely moss and fungus. Really well maintained stuff. It seemed to be cared for by someone passionate and skilled. The party even found a snare that seemed to have been placed out for game (why someone would need that this near the meat room is currently a mystery.) Pushing forward the party found a door with a window in it, which revealed a room so thoroughly covered in black mold that it at first appeared to be a magical darkness.
Not wanting to mess with this, they pushed north, and came upon a lab filled with malfunctioning equipment they coulnd’t understand. Some of it was makred “Property of Sonic Research Laboratory.” While investigating this room, they heard the door to the black mold room open, and discovered that a smear of black mold had been peeled off the wall inside. This black mold smear attempted to ambush the party. It failed, but only after a protracted battle in which Idoru both mastered the mysteries of Hydra Stance, and was injured severely enough that her maximum hit points were reduced.
The party set off to return the way they’d come. As they passed through the fungus room they made a guess, and called out for their long-lost companion Pinecone the Moss Dwarf, who popped her head out to greet them! She told a story of having been caught by the dragon, and put to work among a group of slaves digging a tunnel to some mysterious end. She escaped, and had been hiding out here ever since, endeavoring to devise a means by which she could help her fellow dragon slaves, as well as studying and containing the nearby hate moss. The party offered to lead her back to the surface, but she declined. She has work to do down here.
The party returned without her.
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LOOT:
Nothing?
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INJURIES:
Idoru’s max hit points reduced by 6.
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VIBES:
-Muscles, Gorgeous, Plucky: Having a decent time.
-Bing Crosby: Better, now that Pearl is taking care of him.
-Pet Turtles: Repopulation in progres…
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HOOKS:
-What might be accomplished, now that the party has contact with Pinecone again?
Session 23: “Oh no, the game got hard while I was away!”
Run on April 7, 2021 | Week 23, Year 1
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GOBLIN MARKET:
Amid the sacks of sawdust, sticky action figures, and rotted honeydew melons, the party found a goblin selling a circular buzz saw. She was having entirely too much fun with it though, and wouldn’t sell for less than 1100r, which the party didn’t want to pay. They also found a goblin selling a napalm grenade, which would have been really helpful if they’d visited the goblin maket at the start of the adventure rather than the end. They purcahsed this for 140r.
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After deliberating about whether to push further into level 5, or continue the search for level 7, the party settled on the latter, and descended to level 6. They picked up Sarah the secuirty bot, and were just on their way to visit the RogueSexBots & Cyborg Snake, when they heard a peculiar sound. The giant stone head which vomits zombies was down in a room to the South. Normally the head blocks the earliest path towards the East on this level. The party decided to alter their plans to investigate this unusual opportunity.
In the room that the Head normally occupies, there were two dozen zombies milling about randomly. Samo managed to win command over 5 of them, and with some skillful manipulating got them to herd the others into one quadrant of the room, enabling the party to zip through to access the Southeast door. On the other side they found…the room with the magic fantasy village fresco on the wall. Rather than return to the previous room to explore its other exits, the party turned North.
This room appeared to once have had some machinery in it, but all that had been dragged away. The only thing of note now was a heap of concrete rubble and rebar. The party approached the rubble without taking any particular precaution, and were subjected to a surprise round from 10 highly skilled undead archers. The surprise attack was devestating, and the cover afforded by the rubble made it difficult for the party to counterattack. Almost immediately two members of the party—Vince Torne & Unnamed Ghost Girl—were on death’s doorstep.
The party did get a few licks in. Most notable, Vince was able to cast “entangle,” which caused wires to grow out of access panels on the walls, making movement next to impossible for the undead. The party also had some success hurling rocks in an arc over the wall, and Unnamed Ghost Girl performed a flying kick that caused one chunk of rubble to fall in and deal seriou damage. Unfortunately, the undead were well prepared for someone taking cover on the opposite side of their barrier. Four dropped down, and a moment later, two spears were thrust through openings in their barrier. The angles were awkward, but the points struck home, and Unnamed Ghost Girl was forced to return to the ether.
Early in the fight, Samo cast Summon Monster, and here finally its effects activated, pulling 6 of the Kobolds from level 5 out of their homes, and depositing them in this battlefield, compelled to attack the mummies. They’d been summoned behind the barrier and were able to get some excellent hits in. Samo was also able to summon a swarm of flame-belching turtles from the walls. When the undead chose to retreat, Pearl was able to use her IOUN stone to turn the near side of the barricade into a field of razors. All this, combined with the remaining players pouring their own projectile attacks onto the fleeing undead, made short work of them. The party quickly looted what they could from the bodies and behind the barricade, then set off to flee back to the surface, stopping at the Goblin market on their way.
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LOOT:
10 good quality compound bows
10 suits of kevlar armor
1600 r worth of rations & batteries
That’s 400 rations or xp each for Vince Torne, Pearl the Little Girl, Samo, and whatever character Veronica makes next.
INJURIES:
Unnamed Ghost Girl, formerly Aneth until that name was discarded, died.
Vince Torne took an arrow in the thigh, very close to—but not quite on—his knee. The injury dramatically reduced his speed during this session, but will be healed next session.
Sarah the robot took a whopping 19 damage (out of her 25 total hp)
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VIBES:
None of the hirelings joined the party during this session. They all just chilled back in town. Gorgeous and Muscles got drunk, and Plucky messed with them by letting the Crooning Skull of Bing Crosby into the room whenever they weren’t looking.
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NEW RULES:
Danny Phantom-Esque Ghost Class
d6 HD, Save & Advance as Cleric
At the start of play, this class has the following abilities:
- Ghost Sense: The ability to detect and communicate with Ghosts.
- Accelerated Healing: 1hp per hour to both their human form, and their Ghost form. Advances to 2hp/hr at level 4, and 3hp/hr at level 6.
- “Going Ghost,” which allows them to immediately switch into their ghost form as a free action. Their ghost form has its own hit points which start at 4, and increase by 1 at each level-up. If Ghost Form hit points are reduced to zero, they revert to human form. Damage does not carry over into the human form.
- Supernatural Agility: While in Ghost Form, the character gainst +1 AC, and has advantage (roll twice, take better) on any roll to tumble, dance, etc.
At first level, players may also pick or roll one “Common” ability, from this wiki entry: https://dannyphantom.fandom.com/wiki/Ghost_powers
For her first character (now dead) Veronica rolled Spectral Body Manipulation, which we are ruling as somewhat of a lowish-powered version of Mr. Fantastic’s powers. That character is dead now, so the next one might roll somjething diffrn’t.
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HOOKS: Who were those exceptionally well organized mummies?
Session 24: Pro-Hocky Bomb
Run on April 21, 2021 | Week 24, Year 1
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GOBLIN MARKET:
After digging through canteloup rinds, broken action figures, and cardboard boxes filled with the little beads from beanbag chairs, the party found a goblin with a decapitated leg strapped to her hip. She called herself the wonderous three legged beast. Samo noted that the reversible spell “Detach / Graft” was tattoed on the leg. He purchased it for 700r, and asked the goblin where she found it. It was in a toilet somewhere. Samo—in a very smart decision he definitely won’t regret—asked the goblin to bring him anything similar that they find in the future. Meanwhile, Idono found a goblin using a magic potion as a musical instrument. After hassling the goblin for a bit, the party purchased the potion of “Transform Into Random Animal” for 80r.
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After visiting the goblin market, the party descended to level 6, collected Sarah, and met up with the friendly R.S.B. door guard and the Cyborg Snake to ask for passage south to the second elevator. During this conversation, the party mentioned both that they’d be happy to do something for the RSBs sometimes, and also that Samo was able to do magic. The RSB guard was intrigued by this, and asked what sort of magic Samo was able to do.
TL;DR: the RSBs appear to have been constructed out of fears that the humans might need help repopulating. They have since extracted the human incubation devices from themselves, and set up a lab where they’re able to rapidly grow whole crops of humans in artificial rooms, jacked up on fertility drugs. These are then traded as meat around the dungeon. The RSBs are always looking for ways to speed up this process or improve it, and would be interested in magical assistance. Samo couldn’t think of anything he could do on a large scale (yet), but did help them by treating some of their meat with his magic knife, and suggesting that they sell it as a new “premium” cut. See how that works for them.
The RSB guard (whose name was finally determined to be Rodiroqu) then led the party South to meet up with the Children Who Can’t Help But Be Creepy. When asked what the children called themselves, Rodiroqu said they keep changing their name, but everything they come up with is creepy, and they really don’t want to be creepy.
The party got along with the creepy little dude who answered the door, and were shortly thereafter led to a door with a sign on it that reads “do not open this door.” Using a stick, they opened the door, and a mirror was placed on the ground so they could look inside. Samo attemptted to poke his head in to get a very quick look, but the guns are so fast, and so accurate, that they got a shot off at him right away. Fortunately, it only dealt 4 damage.
After some deliberation, the party came up with an ingenious plan: they had some plastic explosive, and a single detonator. Using Vince’s “entangling growth” ability, they got a bunch of wires to come out of the walls. Using the wires, they split the plastic explosive into two clumps, and spread the detonator out to connect to both of them, then using Not-Aneth’s telekineses and the mirror, they safely placed the explosives inside both armored gun casings, blowing them to bits.
Samo then led the way into the room, and was immediately fired upon by two more gun emplacements. They flanked the door on either side, and had not been visible from the angles the players were able to see into the room with. This second blast did a total of 18 damage before Samo was able to stumble back out of harm’s way. Samo then used his magic to summon a swarm, which clogged up the second set of guns, allowing the party to disassemble it, and retrieve a bunch of bullets. Notably, the bullets seem to be constantly loaded from below.
They party did not open the elevator, as they needed to retreat for the week. However, the elevator is now clear, and notably it goes both down, AND up.
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LOOT:
2 whole but not-designed-for-hands auto guns.
2 sensor packages.
220 Bullets (2,200r)
That comes to (440r or xp) each, divided among Samo, Vince, Not-Aneth, Pearl, and Idono
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INJURIES:
Samo hardcore tanked 3 blasts from the autoguns, taking a cumulative total of 22 damage. Somehow this did not kill him. The referee must try harder.
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VIBES:
The referee forgot about hirelings, so once again they spent this session chilling out in town. Plucky suffered a bit of a depressive fit about how bad the world has become. Gorgeous bullied her about this, and Plucky wandered out into the desert for a few hours to calm down. Muscles got into a fight with a 13 year old, and very nearly did disproportionate violence to her. Then he remembered that human children are relatively tall by goblin standards, and got kinda confused about whether it was okay to murk this lady. During his confusion, she knocked him flat with a baseball bat. The crooning skull of bing crosby mostly wailed in the attic.
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HOOKS: What will we find when the new elevator goes down?
What will happen when the new elevator goes UP!?
Session 25: Succumbing to Wires & Cockroaches
Run on May 5, 2021 | Week 25, Year 1
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GOBLIN MARKET:
Among casette tapes meant to teach one how to knit while they sleep, crumpled dorm room posters, and water damaged western novels, the party found a canister of Weed-B-Gone (with spraying mechanism) guaranteed to take out all manner of mold and fungus for 160r. They also found a clay jug which was actually three different clay jugs transpositioned on top of one another. Each of the three held a gallon of liquid, but one never knows which of the three will pour out when the jug is tipped: Essence of Decay, Burning Napalm, or Potent Mutagen? (800r) The party purchased both items.
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After buying out the goblin market’s items for the week, Samo also purchased a spool of aluminum wire, and wrapped it elaborately around an animated skeleton to hold it together in the proper arrangement, then used some cloth straps to attach the skeleton to Vince’s back. Vince, a one armed player with 3 Strength, is now able to use this janky rig to increase his effective strength to 9. The extra hand can’t be used, since it only amplifies Vince’s movements, and he has no arm to move. Further, it may become a liability for Vince if—for example—the party encounters someone who can turn undead.
The party also slipped down to the 3rd sublevel so Idono could sell some ’80s pop culture magnets to the purple robed nerds.
Moving swiftly, the party descended to level 6, reached the second elevator, and made the decision to take it all the way up to level 1. (Incidentally, this is a fully functional elevator, not simply an open shaft like the other one.) When the doors slid open at their destination the party was met by…a plaster wall. The elevator had been sealed off. A subtle hole was drilled in the plaster so the party could peep through, but beyond was an empty hallway. Using a paper funnel they blew coffee grounds into the hall, then did what they could to re-seal the hole in the wall.
The party returned then down to level 6, left the elevator, returned to the elevator shaft, climbed back up to level 1, and set themselves the task of locating a coffee smell. They conversed briefly with some Bovines, and begatn their search by scouting through Bovine areas, finding nothing of note. They then visited the “Deadly Trap This Way” room, which they had previously visited in session 2. To their surprise they found that the trap had been reset, and that instead of a table filled with food there were now barrels labelled “Whisky.” Obviously wanting to avoid the pit trap, the party rigged a sort of lasso to throw over and snare one of the barrels. Carefully they began to tug it towards them, which triggered an explosion.
(Behind the barrels was a pack of C4, rigged with laswer tripwires. Each barrel had a 1″ by 1″ mirror on the back of it, which the lasers were directed towards. Moving the barrels moved the mirrors, broke the beam of light, and set off the bombs.)
Fortunately for the party, everyone made their saving throw and only took 1 damage. Unfortunately, Vince only had 1hp, so he had to roll on the death table. Fortunately he rolled a 1 on that, which means his DEX got increased by 1. Extra fortunately, the explosion damaged a nearby wall enough to reveal a secret door! The party went through the door into a hallway. They encountered a group of 14 robots which they defeated with a deft application of Vince’s “Entangle” spell, and Samo’s “Summon Swarm” spell. The party harvested their guns and batteries. In the next room, faced with what appeared to be an obvious trap, Samo cast “summon monster,” and gained control over 6 green skinned pig people who really really didn’t want to be here. They were sent to retrieve the trap’s bait (a freezer filled with ballpark hot dogs). Four of them died in the attempt, and the spell ended before the other two could be put to any additional use.
The party found they were now in an area they’d already explored, so they backgracked to the secret door and went the other way. They encountered a basketball court where Samo made a point of taking both nets. The party then headed south, and voila! A coffee smell! They found the drill hole they’d made in a false wall, cleaned up the coffee, and left the place otherwise undisturbed now that they know where it is. They did listen at the next door, beyond which they heard some robots laughing about how the more food they hoard, the less food there is for biologicals to eat.
They returned to the surface with a good haul of loot.
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LOOT:
Freezer full of Ballpark Hot Dogs – 4000r
56 Batteries – 1120r
12 Bullets – 120r
That comes to 5240r, or 1747r or xp each, divided among Samo, Vince, and Idono
2 Basketball Nets
1 mismatched set of humanoid robot shell casings.
2 Semiautomatic Pistols
Idono received an additional 1600r for selling his magnets to the purple robed nerds.