Dark Sun has come home to roost!
In fact, there's so much Dark Sun inspiration in Cha'alt that it felt relatively similar. Sprinkled throughout, you'll see what I chose to include in my Dark Sun, and how all this could be picked-up and carried back over to Cha'alt. Not the Cha'alt we're familiar with, but closer to the equator.
We had the usual four - Strum, Crane, Ug, and Beigizona (who soon became Mista Firestorm once the PCs were transported to Athas).
Leaving off with the PCs ready to head into the downward sloping tunnel leading from the outer edge of Ira'ad to the ruins of that once great kingdom, a sherpa made his presence known, telling the adventurers he was assigned to them by the "Oops, we need another guy" Temp Agency. This NPC was named Twitchy because of his frequent twitches.
Before I forget, we have the convention page for VENGER CON VI: Belief is Reality. Here it is. Grab your weekend badge now. It's the last weekend of June in Madison, WI.
“You know, if you play your cards right, I’ll take you to the old presidium with the secret entrance to The Electric-Banana Late-Nite Sanctuary of A’achenshablefishtkorrid-dorna’achtbraunschweiggertenz von O’ohm. It’s a real trip, man.”
FYI, I wanted to tease that location which will probably come up again at a later point in the campaign. I had just finished watching that one Monty Python's Flying Circus episode of the German philosopher with the crazy long name. This doesn't come anywhere close, but it's an homage.
As Twitchy mentioned the various noteworthy aspects of Ira'ad's ruins, the PCs noticed a foreign-looking glyph. This glyph was drawn with an accent, a dra'awl from the southern-reaches. Translated, it means "solar eclipse" and could be traced back to Athas, a neighboring dimension.
Interestingly, 3 of the 4 players rolled natural 20s when searching their mental history for information on the Athasian-glyph. Bemoaning their good-bad luck with such a wasted roll, I allowed them to "bank" their 20s to use later in the adventure so they could re-roll for the current skill-check. They all agreed.
Hearing a hundred Kha'alestinians approach with wormskin shields emblazoned with purple severed penises, Ug traced the zoth he just purchased from Twitchy upon the glyph as Strum shot flames from his magical fingertips. Rolling on a d100, the sorcerer immolated 16 of them - which is a lot, but not nearly enough when there's 100 infidel-slaying jiha'adis in front of you.
Finding themselves in the open desert, on the other side of that portal, with a tangerine sky and obsidian city in the distance, they began walking. This was after being introduced to Mista Firestorm who, it turned out, was a child inside the body of a hulking assassin droid. Think Adam Sandler from that Waterboy movie. It was as strange as it was humorous. Firestorm was also a dimensional traveler, and had somehow followed the adventurers to Dark Sun by getting there before they showed up. I'm sure all that will be explained next session.
At any rate, Firestorm wanted to help the other PCs hunt down and kill demons just as his parents had done and showed him how to do. And so they walked...
Soon enough, they ran into a couple of escaped slaves named Tik and Tak (half-siblings) who were on their way to a slave auction near the city-state of Tyr. The young natives were hoping to rescue their friend who can sometimes see future events in his dreams.
"Metal is rare, there are no gods – they were either driven
out or murdered a thousand years ago, the sorcerer-kings rule Athas with an
iron fist, and are served by the cruel templars and mouth-sewn psions (psionic-users,
but if they had their full power of speech could command or destroy men at
will). Most of the inhabitants are poor
and many are slaves. Athas is a desert
due to the defiler sorcerers who drained the world of its magical energy. Oh, and you hear that barely audible sound
like the back and forth smacking of violin strings? That means thri-kreen are near. Hopefully, it’s not a rape-gang. If we keep moving, we should be alright."
So, if Cha'alt didn't have the Great Old Ones and their ichor replenishing the planet's magical vitality (but was still a radioactive desert wasteland due to the apocalypse), it would look a lot like Athas.
Almost to the slave auction, they came across an overturned slave caravan with several slaves trapped underneath the bone carriage. A gigantic black beetle was trying to eat them all, but the PCs watched as the first was devoured. Long story short, they eventually killed the beetle, "freed" the slaves by allowing them to take the party the rest of the way to the slave auction, and Ug made black carapace armor out of its outer shell. Additionally, a gland in the beetle's interior had the equivalent of sunscreen oil, which they rubbed on their skin and took the excess with them.
Soon enough, they arrived at a small, man-made ziggurat with raised stone steps that terminated in a wide platform where slaves were auctioned off. The first of three rounds included the dregs, of which there was a one-eyed ex-whore who Strum took a shine to and ended up convincing the sorcerer-king Jethryk to buy for him.
FYI, the standard greeting has changed from "By His loathsome tentacles" in Cha'alt to "May the sleeper never awaken" on Athas.
Speaking of Jethryk, the PCs were eventually invited to his crimson and gold tent and asked about an irregular metal box stained tyrian purple etched with eldritch-glyphs that meant something in particular. The reason why they didn't open the box is the sorcerer-king's seer saw doom and horror accompanying its opening. Failing their rolls (and having already spent their 20s during the previous combat), we used a relatively recent game mechanic known as Fairy Dust...
Strum regaled the table with tales of his coming across a scroll-case with similar glyphs during a visit to Hell, and with his zoth fueled delirium when the rest of the party was fighting to protect the bastard-princess from being torn apart, he finally had time to read the scroll whilst hallucinating, providing him with understanding of subtle eldritch mysteries once attuned to such glyphs.
The sorcerer learned that opening this box is to usher-in the possible doom of Athas, which they pretty much already knew. That within this box is the location of the sleeper who shall one day awaken, and centuries ago, they came from beyond the stars, a race of gods known as the Void-Black Succumbing. These gods were ancient... great and powerful.
This was the Scroll of Riva'an and it spoke explicitly of a Great Old One known as Keelta'anpadra'aj.
Having relayed all that, the sorcerer-king's templars opened the box as Strum poured over the scroll, only doling out the barest of details. Needing a portal back home, the PCs agreed to journey to the temple of absent divinity, find the sleeper, one of the Void-Black Succumbing, and place a creature that would suck its ichor whose benefits would immediately transfer to Jethryk.
Since the sorcerer-king was going to purchase the slave who dreamt of the future to tell him about the box, but now didn't need him, due to the PCs illuminating Jethryk, Crane asked if he'd buy and release Tik and Tak's slave friend so they could be reunited. The sorcerer-king was in a generous mood and did as the priest requested.
First, of course, they all went back to the palace in Tyr where they enjoyed the royal treatment. Strum had as much fun with the one-eyed whore in the palace as he did earlier within the privacy tent. I asked Grok to come up with a suitable name, and from its suggestion, we chose Nyla Blindside. We also determined that her fake eye was just a painted rock that she wedged in there to keep up appearances and also doubled as a cavity-opener to keep it wide enough to fit other things in there, as well.
Leaving the next day with Jethryk's templar, Junar, they rode giant lizard mounts. Halfway into the first day, they encountered a floating entity with tentacles hanging, a hundred eyes, and singular, hungry mouth all cracked and scabrous, resembling the fur of a deadly spider. This thing was coming towards them slowly, but Junar warned that in combat, the entity is fast. Apparently, it's called a zyrek, which means "punishment for failure" in their land. It eats people as a means of natural selection, or so the rumors go.
Bishop Crane was hoping his eldritch beam wouldn't fail him in this godless land. Luckily, it was there and blasted the thing before Ug with his magical sword Orin, the droid's knives, and Strum's magic missiles (with the help of a slave's blood - Jethryk told the sorcerer that unless he used the magical chartreuse syrup they came with, he'd have to spill blood to fuel his spells). They eventually killed it, but not before the zyrek attacked Junar. I rolled randomly as I normally do for who got targeted, and then rolled a natural 20 of my own which resulted in double damage - 2d20, ouch!
That was enough to kill the templar, which, as the PCs admitted, would probably save them the trouble of having to kill him later if the sorcerer-king planned to betray them. Speaking of which, Jethryk gave Strum a little insectoid-parasite to swallow that would allow him to use the benefits of zoth (or other potentially harmful substances) without the ill effects. Mista Firestorm asked aloud if that was such a good idea, as it came from a 300+ year old despot who wanted nothing more than continued power over his city-state, and perhaps all of Athas. Strum realized the danger, but ate it anyway.
Oh yeah, the blood of this creature was slime-green with just a hint of yellow and the faintest glow. Upon investigation, it was the equivalent of zoth-lite or zoth-zero, having approximately one-seventh the potency of the real stuff back home. Also, they searched the templar's body and come away with 30 ceramic pieces, 3 Athasian pearls with a tangerine-purple iridescence, a jeweled bone dagger, and a papyrus scroll written in code that the PCs were determined to decipher.
As night was falling, they were about to make camp. We ended it there. This session was less gonzo than usual. Notice that I didn't draw any suggestions from the Black Skull of Secrets. I wanted this session, and probably the next, to resemble Dark Sun, or how I envision it, rather than just be Cha'alt 2: Less Metal; No Gods.
I expect the PCs will be out of Athas by the end of next session, but you never know. Also, I'm not sure on when we'll play next. Will have to check availability of the players before making that determination.
Thanks for reading, hoss! Feel free to comment and share. Perhaps my version of Dark Sun will inspire others? Oh, I finally got the promotional artwork for VENGER CON VI: Belief is Reality, and now the convention's landing page is up - you can check it out here.
VS
p.s. Want some hardcover Cha'alt? Here's how (and they're currently on sale!)!!
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