10 months of gaming every other weekend, 20 sessions of Cha'alt. This is the campaign finale.
As I mentioned last time, I'm pretty sure this was my longest campaign - especially if you count the 17 sessions from the year before. Also, Cha'alt, just with different characters. Mostly the same players and there were a few cross-campaign threads.
While it was a great time and solid session, I don't know if a finale can live up to all the high expectations one has for it. Ideally, the last session should be the best... and that, by definition, can almost never be the case. Every campaign finale has a thousand opportunities, and so even if you hit many of them, there will be things you miss. However, a lot of loose ends were tied, and the conclusion was satisfying.
We almost had the core-four (one of our regulars unfortunately had a family medical issue he needed to take care of), but then our table also re-acquired 2 guest players, both of whom had participated in one previous session.
Connor, the tech guy from Carcosa, and ST1X the assassin droid with a heart of darkness, joined Drogon, Jua'an, and Gorra. Everyone leveled and chose a special ability from Cha'alt Ascended before the session began. 2 PCs made it to level 10, another level 9, and the guest PCs were at level 7.
This adventuring party definitely counted as "high level," which provided another challenge for me, as that's what I have the least experience with. But I anticipated the PCs curb-stomping everything in their path and tried to provide several non-combat encounters, along with some really powerful foes... who mostly got curb-stomped, but at least there was the potential for PC death, dismemberment, and petrification.
Oh yeah, since it was session 20, I reminded everyone that something special would happen if someone rolled a natural 20 on any die, so they should let me know. That came up one time. Read on, hoss.
It started with a dream... the PCs found themselves on the yellow brick road, on their way to the emerald citadel. A storm was on the fuchsia horizon. They came to a bus stop and found various clothing which psionically encouraged them to wear - a suit of metal, a cloak of golden fur (with pimp boa upon Jua'an's suggestion), hat made of straw, pair of ruby slippers, and a broom-stick.
Everyone picked something. Conner wasn't there because he got ditched by the PCs back in Carcosa and I determined that soon after he fell through a portal and landed in Cha'alt. So, he's been in the land of vintage lazer demon sleaze for about 4 or 5 months. The PCs would be encountering him soon.
Upon reaching the emerald citadel, they opened the door to reveal the massive eye of Uma'at-Allah. Then, Isaac (their mortal enemy) appeared from the shadows and pierced the Old One's eye with his sword, turning it milky white. Leveling his sword at the PCs, the eye in Jua'an's sword of the conqueror started ringing. They all woke-up with a start to the alarm clock on the nightstand.
The PCs had experienced a shared dream, but didn't still have any of the items worn on the yellow brick road. A messenger appeared with the information they'd asked for - a map of the area they needed to find - the orange temple of twin suns. It was on the other side of the planet, requiring several weeks to travel on foot. And they only had 3 days (now 2, after sleeping) to get there and stop Isaac before his ritual that would irradiate the planet's surface with rays that would kill everyone.
The documentary camera crew (I really should have utilized that more throughout the session, would have been a smart move to have the PCs do a confessional spot before fighting the big bad) suggested the PCs find transport at the Mos Eisley cantina - an exact copy of the legendary spacer bar from the original Star Wars movie (because that's the way it was programmed back when Cha'alt was merely a super-simulation video game).
So, they went to the cantina. Meanwhile, Conner was there playing 17-dimensional chess with a bounty hunter who worked for Jabba the Hutt (could have used an Alpha Blue NPC from the old days - Grabba the Butt) named Nebulon with an insectoid surgical-armor face patch and his own henchmen (that's what you've gotta do when the PCs are that powerful - even the henchmen need henchmen).
The backstory of this game was Conner found a starship freighter on Cha'alt, salvaged it himself and got it working again. The previous owner, Jabba, discovered it survived somehow and wanted it back, so they were going to play one game of 17-dimensional chess to determine if the ship would stay with Conner or go back with Nebulon to Jabba.
Just as I was explaining the rules (essentially, first person to roll a 17 wins), I told Conner's player to roll a d20 and he got a 17. Lol. That was a short game, but he won fair and square. Just as Conner was walking away from the table, the PCs entered the cantina.
The reunion turned into an argument about who left who when someone went behind a bush to pee, and why a segment of the Carcosa population may have been enslaved. But the important thing was that everyone is here now, and the PCs needed transport to Qa'atar (I needed a regional name because the aquaduct is so ancient that no one even knows what that is, and would never call it that).
After negotiating a price, they were about to leave the cantina when they spied a pink-skinned woman with a tentacle for an arm. Drogon could see her tattoos under that loose-fitting silk dress and talked to her, finding out what he already suspected, based on the eldritch-infernal glyphs intermingled with her slut glyph tramp-stamp she has been chosen by the Dark Gods. The woman, Vira, also claimed to suffer from frequent sexual night-terrors (this will be an important detail later).
More negotiating occurred so the PCs could also enlist her services for the next week. Vira asked ST1X to buy her a pina colada from the bar, but ST1X refused, instead offering her some pink fuzzy hallucinogenic drugs.
On their 6 1/2 hour journey, they saw a rare chartreuse sandworm stand erect, ululating - an omen! The worm sang the song of Armageddon - inside every man are two wolves, one chocolate, the other peanut-butter, both love pizza with pineapple. It sounded like if a whale was auto-erotically asphyxiating itself. Everyone agreed they didn't know what that would actually sound like, but I won the heccaeity war, so didn't care.
As Drogon was half-asleep, he heard a voice whispering to him, "It is time, call upon Uma'at-Allah for guidance." The sorcerer did, and a chartreuse door appeared. Opening it, he saw the glyph of "moving on" or "discovering a new path," unburdened by what has been, then a flash of some image, an impression of a banana spreading itself open to reveal a mass of tentacles inside. The same glyph appeared on the outside of the banana. Then, they saw Isaac, joyously laughing. He tells them their presence here has all been a mistake and then he turns into a snake-man from Cha'alt's antediluvian pre-history.
The snake-man holds out his hand, showing 2 pills - one blue, the other red. The blue pill will return them to Earth. The red pill will allow them to remain in order to save Cha'alt from destruction. Jua'an confounds the GM by swallowing both at once, which makes everyone laugh, including me. Players...
But eventually, they all take the red pill. As they're about to swallow them, the red pill turns into a little puddle of glowing chartreuse syrup (zoth, the blood of the Old Ones) in the palm of their hand.
Slurping it up, they each receive a non-consensual robot (A.I., vision-self, or whatever) orgasm. I've wanted to include a few of those ever since that one guy got canceled for GMing such innocuous frivolity on his stream. The PCs awoke to find Vira, the pink-skinned, tentacled escort jerking, sucking, and fucking the entire team. So, we all went to the centerfold to throw the milky-cream dice over her and see which die was highest of those that hit their target. It ranged from 5 to 12; those non-transferrable sleaze points can be used to augment any (of your own) roll.
Shortly after, the PCs arrived at a small settlement powered by a kala'axian crystal ensconced in a giant, Tyrian-purple stained banana peel. The elders welcomed the adventurers, showed them a turquoise tablet containing a prophecy - grasp the banana by its flesh while concentrating upon the glyph in order to create a fresh start.
Then, then went down a spiral staircase (though, Jua'an went back up quick to steal the kala'axian crystal) into the aquaduct tunnels and caves that contained a mineral that made the walls, ceiling, and floor orange, and there was also about an inch and a half of water on the ground.
Soon, the PCs heard the snarling growl of creatures inside. They wound up fighting 3 of those things - they killed the sound guy of the documentary crew and scratched one of the PCs before everyone wailed on them until they were dead. No pockets; no treasure. However, their lair did contain a dozen or so colorfully stained popsicle sticks (which they took).
Next, they encountered the viscera'az council attending a humanoid slave auction. They feed on negative emotions while also deriving pleasure from the darker and more sexual feelings. Long story short, they traded Vira for yet another ultimate weapon - this one turned individuals (and things) into a banana on a failed saving throw. Also, once per year, it can reverse time by one hour.
Continuing on, the PCs found 22 humanoids preparing a ritual / celebration for Isaac and the New Gods' glorious return. Not wanting Isaac to absorb all those folks and become uber-powerful, they wasted them with fireballs, banana-ing, and general mayhem. All that was left was a banana shaped door.
I ordered a couple pizzas which my wife went and picked up, preparing us for the final act.
They waited and argued and dawdled enough for streams of chartreuse and fuchsia slime to ooze from under the banana door. Finally, they readied themselves for the door to blow open as 2 lesser spawn of the New Gods exited. ST1X had his axe prepared to strike. It slammed into the chartreuse one's guts, Connor successfully transformed the fuchsia one into a banana, Gorra decided to combine 3 or 4 Cha'alt X-Cards together (putting the severed wizard's hand ultimate weapon onto his sandy groin and then somehow punching one of the lesser gods in the balls... I think) - it was wild, but now he had a stockpile of Divine Favor, and several rounds of combat almost saw Connor petrified, but eventually the PCs prevailed.
Through the banana door, they found themselves adventuring inside a gargantuan banana. My map was a big hit, and Jua'an's player noticed the glyph on the banana, just like in their vision.
Isaac was there with a banana-dragon, which I didn't realize was a thing. As I tried to describe what it looked like, someone found it on their phone and I just said, "Yep, that's what it looks like."
Isaac was partially turned into a banana (but only because after Isaac made his save, Gorra used his once per day miracle - his newly chosen special ability - to force Isaac to lose his saving throw) as Drogon used the zoth scooped-up from earlier to infuse his sorcery, based on the special ability chosen at the session's start.
He rolled both a lavender demon moon die of destiny and a gilded die of Satanis. Rolling horribly, he borrowed a point of Divine Favor from Gorra and the next attempt was much better. He flambe-d the banana-dragon with a fireball. I had him roll on the magic weird effect table in Fuchsia Malase and he got the radioactive caster result. I also had to come up with something embarrassing, awkward, or cringe (as per the gilded die). Turns out that when you super-size a spell like that, it's the same as going for a swim in a cold pool of water - shrinkage. And everyone could see his baby-dick due to the radiation making the sorcerer's clothes transparent.
Meanwhile, Jua'an rolled his 2nd attack (that's the "feat" he chose) at Disadvantage - a 7 and 20. Because of it being session #20, I ruled that the 20 would count, despite the Disadvantage. He did over 100 points of damage. Between all that and Gorra temporarily donating his severed hand to ST1X, the assassin droid grabbed Isaac by the throat and squeezed until his head popped off and black blood flowed out.
They all checked the dead avatar's pockets to find all manner of weird stuff. Cha'alt was saved, and now the PCs could retire, go run their brothel, or fuck-off to Alpha Blue where the rest of their stuff is currently being stored.
When prepping for a gonzo game, it's important for the GM to come up with goals for his session. That's something I'll be talking about in my upcoming book PRIMORDIAL CHAOS: Gonzo Like A Fucking Boss.
Some funny things from this session...
- "It's like a lending library of tentacled whores."
- "We're all gelatinous down here."
- "Running out of room to write stuff down." - That's an indicator of needing to wrap-up the campaign... or at least grab a fresh character sheet.
- "Make him sign a last chance agreement."
- "Even the breast-men are ass-men."
- "That attack obviously required its own bass solo... as all great attacks do." A bass solo was playing in the background as Jua'an struck with the sword of the conqueror.
- "The Dark Gods are horny."
So, that's it. My plan is, going forward, to run a one-shot of something completely different later in September, another investigative (cosmic) horror one-shot in October, and just keep doing one-shots for different systems once-a-month until I get tired of that, and then who knows...?
Thanks for reading and staying with us these last 10 months (or 2 years, if you count both Cha'alt campaigns). If you can, please back the Kickstarter and share it everywhere on social media. ;)
VS
p.s. If you haven't heard the good news -
I decided NOT to quit the business side of gaming! Yes, I'm keeping the gates of Kort'thalis Publishing open.
This is the mailing list landing page. I'd appreciate it if you joined so I can keep in constant (well, maybe once a month) contact with you. Thanks!
