Carcosa Mission Creep (Cha'alt campaign, session 16)

 

Only 3 players this session.  It's summer, and stuff happens, but I'm happy we got to play.  Anything less than 3 players, and my current mindset is to cancel the game.  However, maybe I should have a little RPG something something on the backburner in case of only 2 players... might be the perfect time to playtest a new thing?

Anyways, we have Nix, Jua'an, and Gorra.  As the PCs and their purple-people + orange dude entourage left the caves for the Nameless Plateau, the muddy purple sky darkened and it started to hail.  Seeing black waters on their left and jungle on their right, they sought shelter under the canopy of the jungle.

One of the Carcosa natives suggested that everyone secure loose belongings just in case one or more lemurians sneaks up and grabs a piece of their gear.  Who or what are the lemurians?  They're a vaguely humanoid species of lemur that live in the jungle.  Smarter than the average Earth monkey, but they can't speak and are slightly larger than our lemurs.  

As a decoy, one of the purple-men picked a vegetable or fruit that was a cross between an eggplant and a banana from a nearby vine and had it sticking out of his open fly.  Sure enough, a lemurian soon grabbed that, while others got a colorful silk scarf from a purple harem girl, and Nix' power ring.

The lemurians were easy to chase as that one had the colorful scarf in his hands... leading the PCs straight to an ancient temple rumored to have been built by the snake-men thousands of years ago.  After getting their stuff back (without having to resort to violence), the PCs ventured inside.  Fears of lethal guardians inside did little to dissuade the adventurers.  

Before I forget, a few of those shining tetrahedrons were not that far away in the sky, revolving around an even larger shining tetrahedron.  Strange and disconcerting...

The temple had Carcosa-glyphs etched into the stone on the outside of its cyclopean masonry, but none of the adventurers could read it - especially without their sorcerer companion.

No sooner did a newly promoted orange-man scout ahead than 3 ethereal shoggoth-worms appeared.  The orange-man went over to greet and negotiate with them, but a shoggoth-worm bit off most of his shoulder and also the poison weakened him to the point where he was just lying there, asking for help... which would not come until after the ensuing battle.

The blaster was barely affective, but Jua'an's sword could damage them.  Gorra, being a priest, hadn't (ever?) used his eldritch beam power and this might qualify as a Lovecraftian abomination - just because you don't see any tentacles doesn't mean they're not actually there.

Yes, his scorching beam of lavender light seared the ethereal shoggoth-worms.  Meanwhile, Jua'an got a telepathic message from his sword, or rather, the eldritch-eye that was part of his new magical blade.  It told him to call upon the blade's power, uttering the name of some Great Old One or other.  Jua'an became super-charged... fuchsia (still crystal, though)... with a third eye... and his personality was different.  He was still Jua'an, but also someone completely new.  I'm going to have Jua'an's player determine aspects of this other fellow, named Zeno, before next we game.

Now, attacking with Advantage and doing double the damage, Zeno made quick work of the creatures.  Once vanquished, the lemurians worshiped the PCs as gods.  Thinking it might be handy to have 4 monkey-people on the "payroll," they took 4 along with them into the further gloom of this snake-men temple.

They encountered a couple humanoids, jale-men, hiding behind some rock formations.  These were warriors of an entire jale tribe living in this temple.  They accessed the temple from a different way than the main entrance and have been living here for about a year.  Meaning them no harm (yet), the PCs asked these two to bring them to their people.

I read the description of the color jale and speculated that the hue might look slightly different to different people, which caused Jua'an to wonder if their coloring looked different to each other, and if so, how do they tell each other apart from others?

The jale-men introduced the PCs to their people, showed them the grandest point of interest in the cave system, a golden pylon.  However, that area of the temple was infested by creepers (half spider and half man from the Beneath Kra'adumek adventure).  After killing a few creepers (though 2 of the 3 PCs were paralyzed during the fight), they reached the gold pylon.  Unfortunately, the gold pyramid key that opened the pylon was missing.

Assuming the pylon key was somewhere in this temple, the PCs began to explore, intending to eventually make their way back to the creeper caves in order to smoke them out and search their lair.

Their exploration led them to a gigantic eyeball that was attempting to absorb several jale-men into its pupil.  They hacked away at some of the tentacles, saved all but one of the jale-men, and then decided to leave well enough alone as the eyeball attempted to force itself into the mind of a PC.

Then, they found a hunting party of yellow-men who found their way into the temple (no one asked, so I didn't provide a reasonable explanation).  They had cornered a large demon-rat which Nix shot for them.  They went away in peace.

Next, there was a jale-shaman digging at the base of this corroded metallic monolith carved with Carcosa-glyphs.  The shaman divulged that the purple-men were weakened by their recent ordeal and ripe for attack, which is why he was digging for clams.  He found 3 by the time the PCs had heard his story.  Inside the clams were tiny worms known as verma'aqua.  Once you remove their poisonous egg-sac, swallowing a verma'aqua yielded psionic powers within 2 or 3 days... and when the swallowed worm fully matured in 18 months, it bursts out of your chest (occasionally, the host survives - save or die).

Being composed of sand, Gorra took one, and I think the PCs took the 3rd one with them.  In exchange, the shaman got that trident +1 Nix had been carrying around for awhile.  The shaman took a handful of jale-men with him to attack the purple-men in their caves and reach a lower system of caves which only the purple-men chief knew how to access.  The shaman also gave the PCs a "book," which was really several parchment pages strung together, revealing the mystery of the Carcosa-glyphs so they could be understood.  

The monolith warned of the forbidden zone and toxic levels of radiation; however, that message was already thousands of years old.

Heading back to the creepers, the PCs narrowly avoided a mauve worm that was burrowing through the cave system.  The PCs fired a flaming wooden spear tied with peatmoss into the creeper cave, started a fire at the mouth of their cave, and covered that recent worm hole with a blanket from the jale-men.

After awhile, all the creepers were dead, allowing the PCs a chance to thoroughly investigate their lair.  They found the gold pylon-key, a laserdisc of Rochelle, Rochelle: a young woman's erotic journey from A'agrybah to Za'arnath, various high-tech parts, and 8 hexagonal coins of turquoise.

We stopped the session just before the PCs went into the pylon.  I got to use one of my new maps, as well.  Not my favorite, but it's weird aesthetic suited the oddball environment.

A few choice phrases heard 'round the table...

• "Would a sleaze-based weapon have it's own +5 bonus?  It definitely has a strange Cha'altian logic to it."
• "Like being touched by God... or a God."
• "Our healthcare plan includes a cyber-surgeon for lost limbs in the call of duty, but passage to the cyber-surgeon, that's not included.  There's a co-pay for that."
• "Carcosan men hobbies include running for their lives, trying not to be sacrificed by Old One worshiping sorcerers, and fucking like crayola rabbits."
• "Fat chicks come from aliens."
• "Go to your happy place while we commit atrocities." 
• "Bad mojo is our business."
• "By the time we get back to Cha'alt, I bet everyone will be drinking New Gods soda."

Next session will be Saturday, July 6th.  We're so close to VENGER CON III: Revenge of the OSR that I can smell it... If you want to game with us, get yourself a weekend badge right over here.

Enjoy,

VS

p.s. Need your hardcover Cha'alt books?  I got you covered, hoss.  Also, in a week or so I'll be launching another Cha'alt-related Kickstarter campaign.  Stay tuned! 

Crimson Ability Scores Hack

 

All the trolling and discussion and whatnot on social media about ability scores [3d6 in order or die trying, hoss] got me thinking about them again.

While none of the Crimson Dragon Slayer iterations use ability scores (that I can remember), I still fondly recall a time when running other peoples' OSR retro-clones that did use them.  

So, this blog post contains game mechanics for incorporating ability scores in any OSR system, including the various Crimson Dragon Slayer editions.  Come up with a list of those six... Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma.  Roll 3d6 for each - in order - and consult the table below...

If whatever you're rolling (most likely a skill-check, saving throw, attack, defense, or special maneuver) would benefit from a particular ability - all you have to do is make the claim and be ready to back that claim up with justification if the GM requires an explanation - then add the following to that d20 roll.  This modifier can be applied once per day per ability score.  For example, if a strength bonus has already been used to lift a heavy portcullis, another ability score could be implemented, if applicable, but utilizing strength again would have to wait until the next day or after a long rest.  

Attention, a point of Divine Favor can be spent to carry that beneficial modifier throughout the scene or encounter.

If the same d20 roll is penalized by a particular ability, the GM applies the negative modifier once per ability score per day.  If the modifier causes that PC to fail his attempted action, there's a 2 in 6 chance of being rewarded with a point of Divine Favor under the rubric that the Gods have a special providence for fools, drunkards, and weak-ass jabronis with suboptimal ability scores. 

• 18 = d8
• 16, 17 = d6
• 14, 15 = d4
• 8 through 13 = n/a
• 6, 7 =  -d4
• 4, 5 = -d6
• 3 = -d8

Magic items, high-tech devices and priest blessings that enhance a particular ability score add d12, while those same things (magic, tech, or curses) that cripple a particular ability score subtract d12 from the d20 roll.

Yes, this means the priest class has a new ability.  Once per round, a priest can bless or curse a single aspect (ability score) of a humanoid they touch [if a priest touches an enemy combatant, that lasts one round per priest's level.  This blessing or curse goes beyond the normal range, which is why it's plus or minus d12.  Like other positive or negative ability score modifiers, this only affects an individual's particular ability score once per day; however, Divine Favor can extend either a bonus or penalty through the current scene / encounter (but not beyond the limit in rounds of a priest's level).

Even if these were official (which they're not because I'm workshopping them publicly so folks can poke 'em with sticks), they are optional rules.  Nevertheless, I would appreciate GMs playtesting this "Crimson Hack" and providing feedback.

Thanks,

VS

p.s.  VENGER CON III: Revenge of the OSR is just around the corner.  Info and weekend badges available right here.  If you want the hardcover Cha'alt trilogy for your RPG collection, the gorgeous, professionally printed, limited signed and numbered tomes can be found over yonder.

Do Crayons Have Angry Souls? [CHA'ALT campaign, episode 15]

 

Another session, another chance to caress the true reality of tentacles, blood, and slimy openings beneath this matrix veneer of what we wrongfully assume must be legit...

This entire session took place in Carcosa.  One of my goals was to make this world feel distinct, and I think I accomplished that.  We had the core-four + a special guest player, a friend of one of the players who lives next door to him and is about to finalize his divorce.  One of the benefits of unmarriage-ing is being able to do things like this, so we were glad to have him.  If his work schedule permits, he'll be joining us again.  He travels a lot, so it shall be up to the Gods themselves. 

Because we didn't know if he'd be returning anytime soon, I commented that he was like a special guest star that the showrunner would like to make a recurring role, but the show probably couldn't afford.  Like if Land of the Lost was able to snag Ernest Borgnine for one glorious episode!

Before I forget, we decided to do the session number roll thing again.  Since this was the 15th session, anyone rolling a natural 15 would get a critical-success (including me).

We left off with the PCs, Drogon the human sorcerer, Nix the demon-clown thief, Jua'an the crystalline warrior, and Gorra the grog priest, foraging for spam and tang on the crashed starship.  Having ate, drank, and rested, they began to explore the rest of the ship.  

Weapons locker - empty.  Stasis room - dark, but Drogon fiddled with the keypad and got it open, only to find a solitary human frozen in time, and about to punch someone.  Moments later, he was mobile again... alive.  He asked who the 4 humanoids were, not recognizing them.  Jua'an claimed they were part of the maintenance crew.  Gorra said that he was that dude from the future.  After introducing himself as Quin, he ran out of there, heading for the bridge.

Eventually, they connected, along with another crew member who survived the shining tetrahedron in the sky, and watched a hologram asking for help.  Apparently, there was a ship damaged and being chased by the Koda'an armada that went through a wormhole and made emergency landing on this planet, Carcosa.  

The ship they were currently in was a rescue ship sent after the first ship.  Unfortunately, something happened in orbit, knocking the ship out of the upper atmosphere, causing it to crash here.

The sky was a dim, dusky purple, a t-rex could be seen some distance away, along with the Nameless Plateau up ahead.  Just then, the surviving crew member the PCs found who was scared shitless of the shining tetrahedron thought he heard it coming and hid under the captain's chair.  Moments later, the floating pyramid disintegrated a 5' x 7' chunk of starship ceiling as it passed overhead.  Going outside, they could see it was moving away.  Now, they believed, was their chance to explore.

The PCs knew why they were here on Carcosa - find the sorcerer atop the Nameless Plateau and convince him to open a gateway to Quorta'ath, where the super-weapon resided that could defeat Isa'ac back on Cha'alt.  Quin just wanted to get off this planet, which was motivation enough for traveling with the Crimson Bastards.

They reached the plateau without any problems.  Nix checked it out first before the others joined.  A green-man sorcerer had 5 purple-men tied to 5 standing stones, and a wicked-looking curved dagger in his hand.  The PCs approached and told them what they wanted.  The sorcerer replied with what he needed from them in order to create a portal to Quorta'ath, which he'd done before.  He needed 2 more purple-men for sacrifice and his favorite concubine who was stolen from him several days ago, now in the hands of the purple-men chief.  They live in a cave about a half-day's journey from here.

Believing that sounded like a fair trade, the PCs set off with a crude map drawn in blood.  Before descending the plateau, the adventurers watched as the sorcerer, Irro, slit the purple-men throats, spattered their blood upon the stone monoliths, and invoked Tsathoggua with strange words and silly walks.

There were 3 hazards on the way to the purple-men cave.  The first was a t-rex menacing 2 orange-men.  Drogon attempted to fireball the dinosaur, but his spell backfired.  He decided to stimulate a Cha'alt X-Card, which we explained to the new guy - anytime a player wants, he can grab one of eight cards that promote a certain aspect of the campaign, of Cha'alt... eldritch, gonzo, science-fantasy, post-apocalypse, humor, sleaze, pop-culture, and grindhouse exploitation.

Drogon's player chose humor, and had an idea about the t-rex's gas igniting the magical flame.  While we made the assumption that such a thing might have also taken place, an idea - a very Carcosan idea - suddenly came to me and I went for it.  The orange men, who were both hiding among a cluster of boulders, saw the sorcerer using his magic to take down the dinosaur.  One of them decided to aid his casting by taking out a dagger and stabbing his orange-man companion.  Sure enough, the humanoid sacrifice boosted Drogon's magic, and the t-rex ran away from the sorcerer's burst of flame.

Gorra attempted to lay on hands and save the orange-man's life, which he did.  Both orange-men were grateful and pledged their lives to Drogon, Gorra, and to the adventuring party.  All this prompted the PCs to ask themselves why magic in Carcosa is fueled by ritual murder.  The prevailing theory, posited by Jua'an, was that these crayon-colored people must have angry souls and releasing that energy somehow powered sorcery.

A few of the PCs wondered aloud what was going on in this world, which led to the angry soul theory.  Quin speculated that the shining tetrahedron, seemingly separate from the Old Ones, might be keeping the inhabitants of Carcosa in an artificially barbaric state - monitoring from the sky and disintegrating forms of high-technology, etc.

Continuing on, the PCs stumbled upon the outskirts of a green-man village.  Three women were picking berries and putting them into wicker baskets.  These startled gatherers didn't run away, but offered the adventurers berries.  The PCs began to flirt with such stellar game as "Hey, ladies..." and "How you doin?"

I made everyone roll to see how well their seduction worked.  Quin, Jua'an, and Nix (I believe) were the lucky recipients.  Heading over to nearby shrubberies to engage in amorous activity.  Upon nutting their way to the sleaze factor-5, they continued on.

The purple-men cave in sight, they saw 500' of putrescent pits containing pools of a strange liquid that appeared colorless, then suddenly iridescent mauve, puce, and some kind of beige that glowed unnaturally.  Jua'an threw some sand into a pool.  It sizzled and bubbled.  Best to stay away.  By the time they reached the cave, they were attacked by a putrescent lurker.  It devoured Taz in one round as Quin blasted it with his makeshift plasma splicer.

Oh yeah, Quin was a level 4 mechanic and gizmo-engineer who knew his way around a blaster.

Just inside the cave, they heard stuff, so Nix went in to see what was what.  He noticed a smaller, weaker purple-man about to be killed by two muscular purple guards.  Nix blasted the guards, saving the smaller one who was named Tor.  Like the orange-men before, Tor felt duty-bound to serve Nix and the party for the rest of his days.

Since Tor lived in the purple-men village, the PCs used the guy to show them around.  He found them black robes, like gender-neutral berkas, which non-purple humanoids were supposed to wear inside their village.  

When someone asked why Tor was being persecuted, he replied "I dared suggest that numbers may exist above and beyond 37."

Tor gave them a guided tour of savagery as the PCs saw the executing of rival tribesman captured in the last raid, women being sexually aroused by tentacled horrors whose teeth had been removed (in preparation for the nightly tribe orgy), and priests doing mysterious things down a far-off cave.

Eventually, they came to the chief's personal cave.  He was out on tribe business, but there were 2 guards preventing them from entering.  The PCs, especially Jua'an, dazzled them with tantalizing tales of H.R. departments, 401 K plans, fancy new uniforms, paid time-off, dental, and they'd actually get paid... eventually.  All this if they would stop working for the purple-men chief and join the Crimson Bastard workforce.  The guards agreed, and let the PCs in.

They saw 3 women, lounging in the chief's sleeping cave.  One was only purple because the tribe had dyed her skin that color.  Irro's favorite concubine didn't really want to go back to him, as the green-man sorcerer liked to engorge him member with bile from the nigrescent crab, which doubled his size and potency, but also frequently gave her yeast infections.

While all this discussion was going on, Jua'an assumed there must be treasure around the chief's cave and started searching.  He rolled a 15(!), finding a massive, obsidian sword with an eldritch eye where the blade meets the hilt... along with an infernal sheath that resembled a bright orange-cracked rock of volcanos near bursting with hot lava.  Both of these were magical.

However, the PCs convinced her [I don't think I gave her a name, so I'll call her Jaura] that once she was delivered to Irro and he opened the gate to Quorta'ath, they would be able to abscond with her through the portal, so she'd never have to submit to the crayon-folk ever again.  She agreed, so off they went.

On the way out, they heard agonizing screams interspersed with colorful albeit disjoined prose coming from the priest cave. The party was divided on if they should investigate.  They split the party to see what was going on.  Briefly, several humanoids were being tortured by the priests who were drinking the milk of rancid moon-lotus which gave them visions.  The words between screams were used as prompts to direct the priest's visions as they wrote down what they experienced.  And those experiences would eventually become both lore and law for the purple-man tribe. 

Killing the priests, freeing the prisoners, and telling them to drink the rancid milk of the moon lotus because now they were the lore-givers, the PCs fled the cave in hopes of making a speedy dash out of these caves and back to the Nameless Plateau.  Rejoining their companions, the adventurers reached the cave mouth from whence they came.  However, it was blocked by 4 purple-men guards and a gigantic toad spawn with a thousand eyes.  The PCs would have to fight their way out!

Oh yeah, before leaving that cave where torture poetry was born (there's a Taylor Swift joke in there somewhere - find it and gain a point of Divine Favor), Gorra sipped some of the rancid milk from a moon lotus.  Nothing happened for several minutes - and you know what that means - when the effect does come, it's probably going to be a doozy!

Just prior to facing the enemy at the cave mouth, I passed a note to the sand-construct's player - "You see a purple portal in front of you... several purple tentacles beckon you inwards."  Gorra went in.

As combat commenced, Tor advised that energy weapons would be useless on the toad creature, and that Jua'an's new blade was known as the sword of the conqueror.  So, Jua'an hacked away at it, the others blasted the guards, the orange-men climbed on top of the horrid spawn punching it from above.  Nix tried to backstab the giant toad, but missed (as he would continue to miss - but thankfully the toad also kept missing him).

I passed another note to Gorra's player, "You've been having sex with purple tentacled whores for days and then exit the portal where only a few minutes have passed."  With his +5 bonus in hand, he charged into battle.

The toad scored a crit when I rolled a 15 on the attack for Quin.  He would have been at zero, if not for the +5 hit-point bonus for laying with that sexy green chick.  Meanwhile, Drogon believed his sorcery was doomed without human sacrifice, so stopped short of blasting it with a fireball.

Jua'an was the only one doing lots of damage to the creature; although, Quin had an outside-the-box idea of shooting the cavern ceiling.  His first attempt failed, but the second time he rolled a 15 and a stalactite fell down, impaling the sucker from above.  But it wasn't dead yet.  More hacking, guards coming from the rear which Drogon blasted to keep them at bay... one of the orange-men was eaten by the toad-spawn but the other landed the killing blow - punching it through an eye-socket that must have reached its brain... or better yet, putting his entire weight upon the fallen stalactite that impaled its skull.

With that, they were finally able to leave the purple-men caves towards the plateau.  That's where I decided to end things because time was up, and all the major events of the session head been dealt with.  

A number of hilarious and/or poignant things said during the game...

• "What's your 5-year goal?  Lol, what am I talking about - this is Carcosa!  Ok, what's your 5-week goal?"
• "Are you a God?"
• "Do crayons have angry souls?"
• "Roll for butt stuff."
• "The government shall be one man and he decides who they'll go to war with."
• "The softer side of murder-hobos."
• "This is my journey of discovery."
• "Red shirt or stormtrooper - who will the monster go after first?"
• "Save a life, get a free slave!"
• "If this is the best they've got, in 6 months we'll be running this place."
• "I don't know what you guys are playing, but it's not D&D.  This is the craziest campaign I've ever seen."
• "It's like Inception meets Star Gate."
• "Was the purple tentacles, whores, and sex even real?"  "Well, It sure felt real to you."

A day or two before session 15 of the Cha'alt campaign, I ran a virtual, one-shot Cha'alt scenario on Roll20.  I'm waiting until I get another Roll20 one-shot under my belt (most likely Thursday) before I do a session report write-up of that.

Thanks for reading, hoss!

VS

p.s. Want to find out for yourself what it's like to live in an absurd and awesome wet fever-dream of savagery, super-science, and sorcery?  Experience the magic for yourself.  Next month is VENGER CON III: Revenge of the OSR.  If you don't have your weekend badge yet, get it here!  Need the gorgeous hardcover Cha'alt trilogy?  Here you go!