Crystals of Chaos [session report #13]

 

Ok, it's Sunday, the day after our game, and really the only time I'll have to write up this session report, as I'm going on a family vacation starting tomorrow.

Again, the "3-player summer syndrome" strikes again... although, it's not really a bad thing.  In fact, it's kind of nice to focus on a smaller adventuring party... every once in awhile.  My only real concern is that 3 players is very nearly 2 players, and I won't run a face-to-face game with only 2 players when the full party is 5 or more.

Anyway, we have Robard the dwarven sorcerer (back from his spell research sabbatical), Kra'andol the half-orc warrior, and Heighten Chancery Philthrop III the halfling thief.

I had planned on the PCs waiting out in their starship Jefferson for the 2 weeks between sessions because of Zagreus' injuries.  However, since he wasn't among the illustrious 3, the adventurers could continue right away, after a good night's sleep.

There were only a handful of locations left unexplored on the 3rd level of Cremza'amirikza'am, along with the cave belonging to The Mutilator that wiped his ass with the PCs last time, so the PCs went at it.

First, they encountered an opium den, humanoids in a haze, lounging on pillows, golden fabric covering the rock walls.  The proprietor bade them smoke his opium for a nominal fee, chase the dragon, and have the visions.  Weirdly, the halfling did not partake.  But Kra'andol and Robard did.

Specifically, the sorcerer was looking for insight on how to defeat The Mutilator.  Kra'andol was just looking for a good time - and he was still pregnant, according to the medical-droid who scanned him at the end of last session.

Now, I can't remember ever doing this, but I'm going to set down something here on the blog that happened which I didn't mention during the game.  Maybe Kra'andol forgot his dream upon awakening... or perhaps something was blocking his memory until now.

During his sojourn through the purple labyrinth, Kra'andol felt something on the left side of his abdomen, looked down, and saw a little creature - Kua'ato - poking out, a sort of conjoined twin fused with the half-orc's belly.  The two of them began having a conversation about the nature of life, death, mercy, bloodthirst, slavery, and freedom.  This "Kua'ato" told the half-orc that he was the manifestation of Kra'andol's pregnancy, and not to worry... things would work out, eventually.

Meanwhile, Robard found a 6" hole in the purple maze after an hour of walking around.  He stuck his arm through, briefly touching a slimy, organic, fleshy thing and decided to pull it through.  Out came a tentacle that terminated in a tentacle on the other side, about 5-feet long.  Robard decided to wear it as a scarf.

Upon waking from their opium dream, with the tentacle (and hidden Kua'ato), they went to the next cave containing a Quick Stop convenience store.  Outside was a sheet with "I ASSURE YOU, WE'RE ZOTH-PILLED!" scrawled on it, covering up the metal curtain that couldn't be raised, due to a bunch of savages in the demon-haunted tunnels and caverns of Cremza'amirikza'am.

Going inside, they found Cha'altian drinks and snacks.  The clerks Dante and Hicks (Imagine the 2nd guy as not Michael Biehn, but Bill Paxton who got confused as Hicks in Aliens) were trading banter between themselves ("I'm not even supposed to be here today, and my girlfriend sucked 37 dicks," the PCs ("That's a fabulous tentacle-scarf, hoss!," and a 3rd party customer who came in looking for scarlet demon jizz and happened to mention that someone brought forth Goza'ar the Goza'arian from her slumber outside this universe and gave her form.

This knowledge freaked out Dante who was a worshiper of both Goza'ar and Kort'thalis (the two of them prophesied to be flesh-bonded groin buddies, and possibly instrumental in destroying or merely enslaving every humanoid on Cha'alt).  Dante leaped over the counter and stabbed the customer in the throat before he could say more, such as give away Goza'ar's current location.

Dante was beheaded by Kra'andol and Hicks mentioned an opaque box made of shadow-glass with a sign above it that read, "Break glass in case of a Goza'ar related emergency!"  I didn't mention it during the game, but Hicks was quietly rocking back and forth on the floor behind the counter whispering to himself, "Game over, man.  Game over..."

Inside the shadow-glass was a scroll that could summon an elder god named Quiza'ak-Nyath (prophesied to bring down the Goza'arian).  All the PCs would have to do is find Goza'ar, speak the Cha'altian Latin in the form of ancient eldritch-infernal glyphs, choose its final form, and watch them duke it out.

Walking to the other side of this level, the PCs explored another group of caves.  They snuck past a bunch of demons running train on some woman to find a demon exiting a cave that contained a freshly murdered leprechaun.  Apparently, being anointed with the green blood of a leprechaun will prevent you from dying for one hour - but the blood must be warm or else no dice!

Quickly bathing in the green blood, the PCs went down to The Mutilator's cave.  The halfling thief took such a massive blow that he would have died if not for the leprechaun's blood.  Kra'andol went from about 50 HP to 3 as the bodybuilder demon critted on him.  But eventually, they took him down thanks, in part, to Robard's 60-point fireball.  

The demon champion wasn't dead but just KO'd, so they gazed upon all of his unpainted miniatures, looted his stuff (including the massive double-handed purple plasma sword and a valuable looking time-crystal), admired the crystalline back wall of this cave, and went down the stairs to level 4. 

Upon reaching the next level down, they got past the magenta illumination, but still ran into a woman who worked at a demon's massage parlor down here in Cremza'amirikza'am.  They told her to ask for Vanessa at the fried chicken and whorehouse on level 2.

Then, the PCs found a cave containing a courtroom populated by kangarooids who wanted to try the PCs for murder-hoboism.  After being questioned, a couple of kangaroo-humanoids tried to clap slave collars on them.  That didn't work for the Crimson Bastards, so Kra'andol decided to just lop-off one dude's hands and the other's entire body into pieces.  The courtroom went into a panic as the adventurers wandered off to explore another cave containing memory-crystals guarded by 3 demons playing a game of chance that involved dice and cards... old-school... 3d6 in order!

After a bit of conversation, the PCs walked away - only for Heighten Chancery Philthrop III to toss a thermal detonator behind him, towards the memory-crystals.  It blew-up the entire area, but they weren't interested in investigating the debris.  However, one of the demon guards wandered out of the smoke-filled cave.  Also, a neon-pink juice began spurting out of a few different holes in the cavern, eventually creating several puddles.

I almost forgot, I actually remembered to let the players know that if their character took the time to do a reality show "confessional" spot, that I'd award them an extra point of Divine Favor.  All three made use of the opportunity, which opened up new dimensions of characterization and PSYCHOCOSM character-player-setting bonding exercise.

Moving on, the PCs came to a huge cave containing 3 different demon factions that revolved around a sleeping Old One who might, if woken-up, make reality disappear - everything in the universe merely being a dream the Old One was having.

The PCs worked out a deal to murder one of the demon factions in exchange for a centaur-hottie slave.  Creeping up on the wasp-demons while invisible allowed the halfling to explore the mirror-like vein of crystals in the outer cave wall.  Being invisible, he could see right through it for a time - showing a thousand of machine-pods containing humanoids surrounded in pink goo.  Did this have anything to do with the luminous pink juice that spurted from the cave cracks and crevices after the massive explosion?

They killed all but one of the demons in the faction that wanted to wake the Old One and possibly initiate an apocalypse.

And that's where we had to end it as time was running out.  How many sessions remain of the Crystals of Chaos campaign?  I don't know.  At least 1 more... possibly 3 or 4.  I'm looking to close it out this fall, but anything can happen.

Ok, amusing or poignant words and phrases from the session...

• "Rest your weary trouser-worm in this centaur-hottie."
• "Poor bastard, he wasn't even supposed to be here today."
• "I want more sexual encounters of the 3rd kind."
• "Hello, violet, my old friend."
• "It's tentacle casual."
• "The finest in cloth armor."
• "Cremza'amirikza'am seems to be salted with whores, cam-girls, and THOTs... does every woman down here have an OnlyFans?"

On the way to get subs after the game, Robard's player asked me what I would do differently now that I have a full Cha'alt campaign under my belt (as you'll remember, for the last few years, I was pretty much only running one-shots)?  There's so many different options available, I told him, that my mind was swimming, like looking too long into the abyss, I didn't have a definitive answer for him, except to say that I would start PCs off at 1st level, not worrying too much about how squishy they seemed during the first couple of sessions.

Incidentally, the guy on the intercom was doing a heavy Irish accent, and when I got up to the window, I asked where the leprechaun was, and the dude said his little fingers were in the back wrapping sandwiches.  Only proving that, yes, we are living in a matrix-type simulation.

Then later that night we watched the 1981 Excalibur, which I hadn't seen in maybe 8 or 9 years and the 3 other guys I watched it with had never seen.  It was amazing seeing it again on blu-ray... so much based wisdom and spectacle and creativity and talent.  Sometime soon, we'll have to watch Zardoz, as well... a Cha'alt movie if there ever was one!

In two weeks, of course, is VENGER CON II: Electric Boogaloo!  So, super excited for that.  Weekend badges still available.

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you on the other side!

VS