No One's Innocent - CHA'ALT Campaign (session 18)

 

Surprise, motherfucker!  We're back in the saddle with another session report...

I was excited about this one because it had been a month since we'd played.  Our regular scheduled gaming intersected with VENGER CON III, and I was running Cha'alt for other folks (plus one of my home game players).

Additionally, the last Cha'alt campaign I ran in 2023 made it to 17 sessions, so this one put us over the top.  So far, this must be the longest continual RPG campaign of my life.  We're gonna keep it going, at least until mid-October when I hope to write and run another investigative horror scenario in the vein of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.

We had our core 4 + 1 brand-new player who I met at the aforementioned convention 2 weeks ago.  He's also a Wisconsinite and lives an hour and a half north from us.  90 minutes is a crazy trek to come play for 4 hours, so I appreciate his commitment.

Ok, this was a doozy of a session.  Considering everything I just said, I wanted this one to really move the campaign down the line - and it did.  I had a little something special planned that would replace the sleaze factor-5, a game mechanic I wanted to playtest.  Also, we did that thing where if someone rolls the number of sessions we're on, that counts as a critical-success.  18, baby!

Here are the players - Nix the demon-clown thief, Drogon the human sorcerer, Jua'an the crystalline warrior, Gorra the grog priest, and now ST-1X the droid warrior.  I determined that Gorra, who's been fiddling around with technology for the last few sessions finally found an intact droid chassis and enough spare parts to build himself a gigolo Joe.  

One thing I like about not doing 1:1 event timing in campaigns is that I get to pick-up right where we left off.  This isn't always something I do, but when it's dramatically appropriate, it really helps.

As it happens, the PCs at the end of last session commandeered a sky-ship from The Vortex mutants and were heading to the Nameless Plateau.  Gorra flipped a switch, turning ST-1X on.  The PCs were checking their new droid out and getting acquainted (including discussions of what's going on with the simulated world within a world they're in, and how that dude from the previous session seemed convinced that he made all the simulations real and their own separate universes) when ST-1X heard a barely audible chirping noise every 20 seconds or so.

After drawing their attention to it, half the party could hear the intermittent beep and discovered a pair of purple worm-skin driving gloves in the glove compartment (which Nix quickly claimed) along with a high-tech device that had weird symbols, seemingly counting down like in Predator.  Then, a vid-screen turned on and there was a mutant in a pre-recorded transmission, basically admonishing the PCs for coercing a sky-ship out of them.  He was very rude.

The PCs opened the ship's door to throw it out.  I rolled a little d4 table I had ready, and got a 1.  The explosion damaged the ship, forcing them down.  ST-1X grabbed the wheel with his groin-attachment to pilot the sky-ship safely down.  He rolled an 18 - the first of many!

He set it right down on a freshly plowed field.  As they exited the ship, the PCs saw a couple of farmers sitting atop a giant purple worm with a plow attached.  Yes, these were Carcosan redneck purple-men farmers.  As the adventurers know full well, strife has recently befallen the purple-men of the caves.  Not having the other purple-men they needed to give Irro the sorcerer so he could open up a portal to Quorta'ath, the PCs asked if there were any more of them.  Yes, it turns out the farmers had a daughter - Ellie-May, with big tits, blonde hair, and wearing those Daisy Duke short shorts.

In order to prepare for the voyage by purple worm to the Nameless Plateau, Gorra and ST-1X decided to play Turing-test with Ellie-May in the outhouse with a shattered moon cut out of the door.  This happened while the purple-men were disengaging the plow from the worm.

So, thinking about the sleaze-factor during and just after VENGER CON, the exact moment was during our last Inappropriate Characters show with Erik Tenkar (I mentioned a pornographic die-drop table somewhere in the chat).  The idea was to roll a set of 7 dice upon a picture of a beautiful woman in the tongue-out pose I'm sure you've seen on the internet at some point.  This was a die-drop table - closest to the hole determined how many "sleaze points" were acquired.  Those sleaze points can be used to boost any roll for the next 24 hours, but are not transferrable.  

As it happened, both rolls provided Gorra and ST-1X with 9 sleaze points.  Those would come in handy.  Also, I bought some clear with milky-white creamy interior dice just to use with this die-drop table... because I am a colossal pervert!

Having emptied those particular pipes, the creator and created joined-up with the others and they rode that worm off to the Nameless Plateau.  At the plateau's base was a small group of red-men (wearing strange strawberry hats) who were trying to save their precious cargo from some shrieking, radioactive horror attempting to abscond with those crates the red-men were risking their lives to protect.

Jua'an unsheathed his blade of the conqueror and hacked the thing to pieces as it lit up like dried kindling due to the horror's failed save.  The red-men were grateful and gifted Jua'an with both a strawberry beret and a box of their "precious cargo" - a little something labeled Sweet, Sweet Strawberry Douche [an actual made-up product spoken of in a vintage porn scene I stumbled across several days ago].  The girl on the box was wearing one of the promotional hats.  The whole place smelled like strawberries and embarrassment as the PCs rode the worm up the plateau.

Oh yeah, a couple of purple-men met the PCs at the Nameless Plateau because they knew they'd be there, and the adventurers told them it was very important the purple-men showed up at the Nameless Plateau.

At the top, they saw Irro trapped in some kind of zone of dimensional instability.  Then, Jua'an's sword began to tingle, the eye stirred, and everyone heard a telepathic voice.  It said they would have to stop the subterranean demons from using their infernal super-weapon to slaughter everyone on the surface.  Only then would Tsathagg-kha release the sorcerer who would help them enter Quorta'ath. 

A hole opened up in the ground near them and they saw a cave lit by pink crystals.  I'll briefly mention each encounter so this doesn't run too long (a lot happened this session)...

• The PCs acquired pink fuzzy buds from this weed.  Both Gorra and ST-1X partook of the buds.  After about a half-hour, they started seeing eyes everywhere.
• They talked to and bought cheese from a cheese consultant and connoisseur who carried a platter with him full of exotic cheeses.  His name was Jarun.
• Two demons were fighting about how soon to start the invasion.  It just kept going and going, so after 5 minutes they went to explore further.
• They ran into a spherical eye-beast with 2 humanoid slaves - a sexy redhead with amazing rack named Scarlet and a half-demon I didn't bother naming.  The PCs killed the eye-beast and mercifully allowed the slaves to stay on and work for them as barely paid followers.
• They discovered a pool of mutated purple zoth and partook.  One of the side-effects nearly killed them as the entire cave filled-up with a translucent purple goo for 4 minutes.  Some swam through the goo to reach the other side.  ST-1X didn't need to breathe, and Gorra's player stimulated the POP-CULTURE Cha'alt X-Cards which allowed him to take advantage of Scarlet's extra supply of oxygen which can be accessed through her vagina.  Jua'an used the ELDRITCH card to infuse his new glass bones with demonic purple zoth glass as a living skeletal system that was just as eldritch and evil as Tsathagg-kha's eye where his sword's hilt meets the blade.
• Bypassing more demons, the PCs finally found a temple where some ritual to bless the infernal artifact was being held.  Nix did his best to steal the weapon from under their noses, but his terrible rolling only allowed him to grab it and throw it at a demon, killing him.  The artifact was a sort of bladed frisbee that comes back to you after you throw it, sort of like a glaive, but not really. 
• Once Drogon magically put the other demons to sleep, a massive statue to some Devil-God awoke - but the PCs ran the Hell out of there before it could attack.

Top-side again, the PCs bade Irro, now freed by Tsathagg-kha, to open the gateway to Quorta'ath using only 2 purple-men.  Irro agreed, spilling the rednecks' blood as the portal opened unto a world of magenta jelly.  The PCs went through with their entourage (including Irro), sloshing around the slime-desert until they found a stone entrance to some temple.

Entering, the PCs saw two dead humanoids.  They check the bodies - a bar of gold and a laser-pyramid containing some holographic message.  "Great exalted one, we bring you a gift to exchange for the blasphemous glyphs of the night ocean."  Something I found on page 162 of Carcosa.  A particular wall in the cave also contained a message that read "Don't trust him - The Crimson Bastards."

Realizing it must be possible that they themselves left that message at a future date for themselves to find, they put this knowledge on the back-burner while continuing to explore.

The party entered a huge dark cave and Drogon provided a light source which showed a 6-foot by 4-foot stone face of H.P. Lovecraft just sitting on the cave floor.  The PCs tried to skirt around it, but the stone began to crack as monstrous tentacles worked their way through the surface.  Gorra had the bright idea of giving the creature a pink fuzzy bud, some purple zoth, and old-fashioned chartreuse zoth.

This only strengthened the creature, as its tentacles erupted out of HPL's stone face.  Everyone contributed to the fight as the PCs mostly avoided getting hit.  But the half-demon NPC was ripped apart.  The killing blow was dealt by Jua'an as he critted on an 18 after invoking his other self, Zeno.  He rolled so many d6s it looked like a Shadowrun firefight.  He found the creature's brain and stabbed deep down, cracking it open, splintering the skull, and killing the thing.  During the climax, Jua'an was awash in zoth, making them realize this had been some proto-Old One itself or the spawn of such.

Apparently, this was some sort of challenge.  A bloated and festering dolm worm slouched grotesquely upon a massive and obscene altar made of bone and petrified flesh (also from Carcosa, page 162).  Banter bounced back and forth from the intelligent worm to the PCs.  This creature was named Sha'az-Nythub, and he ordered one of his servants to fetch and display the other ultimate weapon the PCs were after upon a silver platter.  

The sentient worm said he was happy to have the PCs owe him a favor, to be collected at his convenience.  

It looked like some weird alien dildo, but the PCs took it anyway.  Just before leaving Sha'az-Nythub, one of the PCs (I think it was Nix) suggested they try the ultimate weapon out before leaving Quorta'ath, in case the bloated and festering worm tricked them.  After all, that message from "The Crimson Bastards" has to mean something.  A couple other PCs agreed.  Only Jua'an seemed convinced that Sha'az-Nythub seemed like an honest bloated and festering worm and must be beyond reproach.  

Before leaving his presence, the PCs tried blasting the worm with the ultimate weapon.  It fizzled, and that was it.  Realizing they'd been tricked.  Nix threw the bladed frisbee boomerang at Sha'az-Nythub.  As it had accumulated power since Nix attuned it, and the glaive-ish artifact had been instrumental in killing the lesser Old One.  

Nix used his sneak-attack which also happened to crit - so he, too, rolled massive amounts of damage, enough to kill the worm outright, sawing it into pieces.  Just before Sha'az-Nythub died, he told them not to look in the furthest alcove.  Of course, they did, seeing the true ultimate weapon sitting on a pedestal.  Since pedestals trump platters, they seized on the opportunity.  

It was a withered hand of a sorcerous demon - that was the ultimate weapon the PCs sought to defeat Isa'ac.  They took it, Jua'an added a footnote to the scrawled message on that cave, letting people know that "Jua'an was here," and asked Irro to make a portal to Cha'alt (basically back to Carcosa but a thousand years in the past).  No sacrifices had to be made because, apparently, Cha'alt is on the main drag, whereas Quorta'ath is way the fuck out there in Bumble-Fuck Egypt.  

The PCs stepped through to greet the familiar fuchsia sky, twin suns, and desert heat.  We ended it there.

I'm exhausted just from typing all that out, but I'm not done yet.  Here are some amusing phrases heard at the table...

• "He was polishing it to completion, just like in the centerfold of Toad Load Monthly."
• "The treat is the flesh it tastes when sinking-in and cutting folks to pieces."
• "Blow 'em sky high with your own supply!"
• "Of course that dildo thing wasn't the real super-weapon.  Pedestal trumps platter."
• "Yes, those redneck purple-men call their worm Jessie."
• "No grain (of sand) left behind."
• [People singing] "Strawberry beret..."
• "Nix healed the banana-ness, not the clownness."
• "Vaginal air filtration system." 
• "Death is our gift."
• And of course, "No one's innocent."

The middle of August is tricky for me because of work, but I'm fairly confident we can play August 17th.  

I didn't get time to finish coloring the sleazy die-drop table, but when I do, I'll show pics.  I could just use images cut out of porn magazines (and probably should have); however, I really wanted to draw a woman on her knees with her tongue out expectantly.

Ok, that's it.  Thanks for reading session report 18 of the 2nd Cha'alt campaign, and thanks again to Evan for joining us.  Let the good times roll!

VS

p.s. There will be a big announcement for VENGER CON IV right around September 1st.  In the meantime, you can still acquire the hardcover Cha'alt books here (it's easy!); I'm also launching a new Kickstarter on Tuesday or Wednesday.  It's for a gonzo guide to gaming.  Check back to this blog for details.