Session 10: We’re the Republican Party From Before the Civil War, But On Mars. | January 2528
Played on August 24, 2022
======
Dramatis Personae
Idara Māpès (Ava)
Car, wrasslin’ religion fighter.
Udon (Chris)
Gel, springhaired specialist. (40cc per mission)(Hired again!)
Target “the Chef” Dugan (Elias)
The Congolese Charging Devil (CC For Short)
Triple Dave (Eric)
Child #320, pink haired anime protagonist.
Gofar Mundo (Mars)
======
Domain Turn Recap
Consequences
(Eric – Recurring) Every social encounter this session is made with 3d6 drop the highest, because everyone the party meets today has been infected by the memetic plague Triple Dave created which makes people perceive him as being the stinkiest man alive.
World Event
3 Faction Actions!
Progress Bars
(No active progress bars!)
Faction action
The Outsiders: Have established a third settlement outside the Southernmost exit they control. This has prompted some rumblings from among the non-Outsiders who live in their territory, and worry that the Outsiders may not be as invested in protecting their territory within the Dome any longer. During this session, the party has a +1 to recruitment rolls, since so many folk in Outsider territory wouldn’t mind relocating at the moment.
The Overunder Duchy: There was a barroom tussle on the border between the Electric Gorilla Association and the Overunder Duchy, which resulted in a death. A citizen of the Electric Gorilla Association is being held by the authorities of the Overunder Duchy on a murder charge. EGA citizens are in an uproar. If the party doesn’t find some way to resolve this sitution to the satisfaction of the people, citizens are going to start forming possees and warbands on their own—potentially setting off a war.
The Overunder Duchy: The Terapontiff and the Overunder Duke have had a minor public disagreement, which quickly escalated out of all expected proportion! The Terapontiff is using this as a bid to force Varouj the Overunder Duke to acknowledge her authority as greater than his in matters of ethics. The party had a window of a vew days to attempt to leverage this situation. They did not do so, and after 3 days Varouj was able to use some shrewd political maneuvering to resolve the situation gracefully. If anything, his position is stronger than it was previously. The Terapontiff’s failed gambit has resulted in Varouj being seen as a religious authority in addition to a civil one.
Player Actions
Elias: Recruits “Public Access” to manage the spy school. (Takes advantage of +1 to recruitment. Gets an 11!)
Marsgirl: Sent ASCII to extract the guy being held in Overunder Duchy custody. (d12 (3) vs d4 (4)) Failed. Prisoner was moved to a more secure location within the private residence of the Overunder Duchy’s Duke of the Treasury. Overunder Duchy makes a big public stink about how their neighbors don’t think the rule of law ought to apply to a murderer so long as that murderer slept on their side of the street.
Ava: Permanently garrisoned more troops in the as a show of force, and to prevent Overunder law enforcement from being the first one on the scene in any future sitautions.
Eric: Made a diplomatic request for the prisoner to be turned over to Electric Gorilla Association employees. Failed.
The Overunder Duchy’s kangaroo court executed a citizen of the Electric Gorilla association. The party made a good show of trying to get him back, which prevented impromptu citizen warbands from forming. It’s a tragic event, and escalated tensions on both sides of the border.
======
Adventure Turn Recap
With Tandy’s defection, the party lacks any engineers in their employ; and for some reason the well of talent seems to have run dry. Word has reached the party of one potential source of the brain drain: a cult that appears to be especially attractive to the scientifically-inclined. The party was sent to investigate. (2 Encounters Distant)
[Travel Turns]
Enc 1: Out of nowhere, Gobbos erected a store right in front of the party lickity-split! Dozens of them swarmed around to nail, and strap, and paint all in an instant. Most of what the shop had to offer were maritl aids and fetish gear; however among this the party were offered a memo detailing the secret plans of the Redstone Lords (140cc, purchased), a brigt green rectangle orbiting one Gobbo’s head (IOUN stone 233, 700cc, not purchased), and a Sniper Rifle (1350cc, purchased).
Enc 2: Child 320 wandered over to a vending machine to get some food, and was startled when the vending machine opened her up and pulled her inside. The party noticed a light blinking beside the machine’s wifi antennnae, and Triple Dave successfully hacked into the signal, and discovered that there was an AI in the machine who was negotiating a price to sell Child 320 to someone. The party coulnd’t figure out how to force the machine open, and it threatened them with unspecified defense mechanisms that use up a lot of power. The party did figure out how to cause some damage to the machine by starting a small fire beneath its steel-braided power cable. After calculating the damage this was likely to cause it, the machine offered to sell Child320 back to them for 102.76cc. The party paid the fee, but just as they were leaving the men who’d come to buy Child 320 ambushed them! They successfully grabbed the kid, and did a couple run-by stabbings of the party. Gofar Mundo applied her sniper rifle to the kidnapper’s head, and Idara skewered two more on her two swords. The fourth surrendered, and admitted to being part f an underground slave trading group. The party took him prisoner. By phone they arranged to meet with another agent of the Electric Gorilla Association to turn him over before they continued on their way to the cult. (+1 Encounter)
Enc 3: After dropping off their prisoner, the party very nearly ran into a full Waerod of Redstone Lord soldiers, who were in the midst of fortifying a building. Gofar Mundo successfully used her stealthy stealth abilities to create a distraction which allowed the party to pass the area by unhindered.
Destination: The party arrived at a 6 Story Building which had a peculiar amount of its entrances and exits bricked up. Aside from a single doorway, all other doorways and even the windows had been covered over by bricks. Not just on the lower levels where outside access might be expected either: the windows were bricked up all the way to the top level, leaving only this one single point of entry. Are they desperate to keep people out, or—as Gofar Mundo suggested—are they attempting to keep people in?
[Exploration Turns]
Target “The Chef” Dugan didn’t trust this single entrance, and so attempted to scale the East side of the building. He made it! Up there he discovered a roof dense with bulky HVAC machines, supplemental power cables, communication dishes and antennae, and many many many wires going in every direction. Heading south, he discovered an area where wires formed a dense layered mat on the floor, criss-crossing back and forth, seemingly constantly laid ever more by little spiders who spun insulated electrical wire from their bodies, and soldered them in place with little soldering bites. Beneath a clutch of spider eggs Target found a dead adventurer: purple, with big horns on her head. Searching her body, Target found a little frog figurine that felt magical. He returned back to where he’d first got up to the roof and dropped a rope down for his companions.
Enc: NPC chatter. Target was alone, but everyone down below was having a real good time sharing dirty jokes or something.
Once everyone had climbed up, the hirelings set to work hauling CC up (who, being an Eland, cannot climb), and explored to the north. The web of wires here was much more dense, and wove through the room like curtains. Idara hacked a path through the webs following the Left wall.
Enc: Encounter sign. The party heard movement approaching through the webs before they were confronted.
Beblith, Giant Demon Web Developer, confronted the party about destroying her work. Udon responded apologetically, being sure to play with his Cat’s Cradle in his hands as he did so, to demonstrate a certain web-making kinship. The reaction roll was excellent, and Belbith admitted she was going to need to re-do that work anyway. The party offered to help repair the damage. Under her direction (Engineering rolls at +1) they had a 50/50 success/fail rate, which wasn’t enough to piss her off or enough to really endear the party to her.
From talking with her the party learned that the nerds down below were working on something that required a lot of cooling, and that the roof system was supplemental to the liquid cooling system running in the basement. Mostly her job was to manage incoming power, network connections, cooling needs, and keep it all balanced and running. Her business card said she takes work in exchange for souls of Purity Rank 7 or better, but she didn’t specify the bargain she’d made with the denizens of the building. She did tell the party how to get down, though: just head over to the Western side of the building. There’s a stairway over there. To the best of her knowledge the elevator doesn’t work.
======
Skill Points
Triple Dave: Earned 1 skill point for being unable to figure out how to pry open the vending machine that captured Child #320.
======
Loot
“Public Access,” a skilled spymaster trained back in the days of The Internet. Significantly more adept than Splitter was.
Sniper Rifle: In addition to functioning as a normal gun, the Sniper Rifle has an “Aim” action, which can be used to avoid penalties that might normally be applied to very difficult shots.
Redstone Lords Info: They’re planning to gather together as many centrist / gullible journalists as they can to tour the experimental farms they’ve got set up outside the Dome. The memo includes a partial list of journalists, and an explicit list of the areas they must absolutely be kept away from.
Frog Figurine: If worn for 2 months, it will absorb one curse the wearer is under into itself. The figure will then turn gold, and whomever posesses it will instead be under the curse.
======
Injuries
Gofar Mundo: -2hp (run-by stabing by slavers)
Triple Dave: -2hp (run-by stabing by slavers)
======
Next Session
Party begins just as Beblith has asked them to leave so she can get back to work.
Session 11: This Dungeon Is Boring | February 2528
Played on September 7, 2022
======
Dramatis Personae
Udon (Chris)
Gel, springhaired specialist. (40cc per mission)
Norman “Normie” Atomic (Pollux)
======
Domain Phase Recap
Consequences
Dildopulon pays for airtime on the Overunder Duchy’s TV network. He goes on an unhinged rant about the theft of his Dildo collection, which honestly makes him look utterly ridiculous and implicates him in some shady behaviors. The party could probably use this as leverage in some very specific propoganda action if they wanted. Though, The Overunder Duchy is in no way implicated, they had little cards identifying it as paid-for airtime.
Additionally: In response to the Party capturing a slaver, the Redstone Lords “discover” an underground slavery ring and break it up and punish everyone involved, and they’re quick to get that information out on their TV station “Superior Viewing.”
World Event
3 Faction Actions!
Progress Bars
(No active progress bars!)
Faction action
The Vengeful Alien Emigres attempt a daring raid on the party’s underground auto-farm. They wanted to download some information from a computer console, but despite being outnumbered and outgunned the party’s local security teams overcame the invaders. All were either captured or killed. None escaped.
Needletooth Jack: For the first time in living memory, the territory of The Friends of Needletooth Jack has expanded. A whole block of new buildings have been absorbed by the fleshy mass of cronenbergian horror. People are frightened, and could be prompted to extreme action much more easily than normal if it made them feel safe.
Ashgar the Resurrector & His Chums: Electricity goes out in the dome for 3 days. During that time, magic doesn’t function at all. A beam of energy can be seen arcing away from Mars off into the distance of space. If anyone takes thinks to look (the party did) they can see the beam impact with Earth’s Moon, orbiting Jupiter. The dead thing inside the moon unfolds, shaking loose the cruft we thought of as the moon’s surface. Who can say what this means long term, but for now: does the party want to take advantage of the dark and lack of magic?
Player Actions
1: Taking advantage of the blackout / magicout, the party got in touch with the Outsiders to retake the environmental control substation the Akiovashans had claimed. Each side contributed one Veteran and on Soldier grade waerod. The Akiovashans, lacking any clerical magics, were completely overwhelmed. The raid was not gentle. Most of the defenders were killed, and a few more were taken as captives.
Using the secrets they already know about the Akiovashan’s plans, the party was able to point a camera at their captives and talk to them long enough to get all sorts of useful confessions. They then got together with the Outsiders, the Lords of Light (with some arm twisting), and even got some representatives from the Overunder Duchy to join in (diminishing non-Beneath-the-Black religions is in their interest). All together, the four factions issued a statement condemning the Akiovashan’s aggression in taking the facilities in the first place, and tried to pin responsibility for the blackout on them as well. The message was spread around the dome on TV, along with an invitation to any factional government in the dome to send inspectors to visit the environmental control stations. Everyone benefits from these systems being run responsbily, after all!
Wildly, despite a massive bonus of +7 from all their efforts, the party’s attempt at Propaganda failed. The Akiovashans are too popular, and were too quick to get their own spin on the story out. Public opinion is too muddled on the issue to be useful.
2: A group of adventurers was hired to visit the new edge of Needletooth Jack’s territory and collect some samples as directed by the Denikaw, the Electric Gorilla Association’s research wizard, in order to aid her with researching a spell that will enable communication with the creatures of Needletooth Jack’s territory. The effort was successful, and a clock for the research will begin next session. (4 Ticks, No Setbacks).
======
Adventure Turn Recap
Having ended their conversation with Beblith the web developer, the party moved further into the spaces between the HVAC units on the roof. They came upon a large open area shaded by a massive communication dish, in which the floor was so cluttered with computers that it was awkward to move through. Laptops, tower PCs of every quality, even gaming consoles all cracked open and rewired in complex webs by the spiders. Udon and Normie both attempted to use the computers to figure out what was going on with the dish, and discovered that it was in communication with a space station up in orbit above mars.
Deciding that this dungeon was boring (middlefinger.gif), the party descended the rope and went off home to Umquatia so they could get up to the space station. While traveling home they were seperated by a bit of falling rubble, the two groups were able to reunite without either encountering any harm along the way.
Once home, the party identified the space station being communicated with as a hulk that was also in geostationary orbit, about 10 miles away from the station the party had control of. They consulted with Jeb the Great and Powerful Wizard to see if a portal could be opened to that station, but the spell would have been made with a 7-in-6 failure chance, and the party was not interested it trying to obviate that. Instead they got Jeb to make a plastic mold of a big magic sigil which they could use to create a summoning focus for him on the other station, then they loaded into their freighter ship and used 1/10th of a slab of solid fuel to travel over. The space station was in pretty bad shape, but of the two semi-functional ports they opted to dock with the one on the station’s “south pole.” After matching their rotation and docking, the bay door opened 5% of the way, and the party slipped into a warehouse.
The place was filled with crates that were intended to be transported down to mars, but never made it there. It looked like a lot of 500 year old food, but who know? Maybe it’s still good? Anyway they found a powered pallet jack and moved some stuff around so they could roll out Jeb’s plastic mold and pour acid into it to mark the floor’s with his “homing sigil.” While doing this, udon was nerely tripped up by a scurrying little gremlin who laid a tripwire along his path. Udon threw it some food, and it was gone by the time he leaned over to cut the tripwire.
In the warehouse’s office, Udon and Normie attempted to find out what they could using the active computers they found. They did manage to get a map of the station, but oddly no information about the communications from the ground. Apparently, whatever is communicating with this place is on an entirely different network…
======
Skill Points
Udon: Failed computer check +1
Normie: Failed computer check +1
Security Force: +1 XP
Alfred’s Waerod: +1 XP
======
Loot
None
======
Injuries
(HP, Saving Throw, and Permanent Injury)
None
======
Next Session
The action begins in the Warehouse’ office. The party must be given a map with information about what the rooms were originally used for.
======
Questions:
What needs to be restocked?
Does anyone need to be added to Recurring Characters?
Who did the characters wrong?
Does anyone owe the party a favor?
What reputational effects might impact the Domain game?
What tools would help the rough parts of this session work better?