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I'm so glad that I ended my Crystals of Chaos, 9-month and 17-session Cha'alt campaign before leaving for vacation. After 3 weeks, I come back to only two players being available... which wouldn't have worked. And not sure about next week, either, but I'm going to schedule a session.
Between inertia and analysis paralysis, I chose to run more Cha'alt, which upon reflection, just seems stupid. That's like being on a cheesecake diet for most of the year and then when you're off the diet, you decide to eat cheesecake.
I mean, there's literally dozens of RPGs I own that I could have run, that I probably should have run. On the other hand, I do love cheesecake... and Cha'alt. So, here we are. Another Cha'alt one-shot, but this time in-person (as opposed to the virtual one-shots I run once or twice a month on Roll20).
Oh yeah, a small but deciding factor was my custom, hand-made Cha'alt X-Cards [YouTube video showing all 8 of the finished cards] which would be finished by game time (Saturday afternoon). We ended up only using 2 of the 8, but that playtest experiment was fruitful, as I believe you will see by the end of this session report.
Ok, my two players started the session with new 3rd level characters - Nix the salty and crusty, chaotic, ambidextrous demon thief and Ha'arumph the half-orc, also chaotic, always positive but a bit dim warrior with a giant spoon-shaped weapon named Soulnier the Castrator in which Ha'arumph can project his smoldering, volcanic intensity. Once the half-orc's player, Steve, started voicing the character, I saw him as an orcish Simple Jack from one of my favorite comedies, Tropic Thunder!
Both PCs lived in Kra'adumek and had been day laborers, recently promoted to troubleshooters by the Purple Priests of that city-state. This halfling with a gimpy leg ushered them to the Great Temple where they were blessed and told of their mission - explore an old crystal mine. All the crystals were gone, but signs and portents indicated that something strange may be happening in the caves and tunnels of that old mine.
While in the temple of the Purple Priests, they noticed a "holy water" font filled with zoth and a familiar saying carved just below one of many Lovecraftian Gods - "Where there's fuchsia, chartreuse cannot be far behind." This is something the PCs had heard throughout their lives.
The adventurers hired a couple of reptilian riding spiders which cut their time in half. I don't roll for it often, but decided to check and see if the Fuchsia Putrescence (borrowed and slightly altered from The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence) would be seen overhead. Sure enough, it was.
The PCs narrowly avoided getting scooped up by a tentacle and devoured by the gargantuan floating thing above.
Shortly after, they made it to the mouth of the cave. It soon forked, and the thief scouted ahead, noticing 3 humanoids who were using advanced technology (a sort of ultra-vibrational tuning fork device) to pry a particularly large and hard to get at purple crystal from the wall.
Just before the PCs made their presence known, everyone heard a female cry for help coming from the other tunnel. The PCs hid, hoping the humanoids would pass by without noticing them. Sure enough (since I rolled a 1 for the NPCs' perception check), they didn't see shit.
That's when the PCs decided to dig that ostrich-egg sized purple crystal the rest of the way out, using the warrior's sharpened spoon weapon that he could heat up. It eventually popped out just as they heard even more insistent screams from a woman.
Taking the crystal with them, the PCs checked it out. They found a woman stuck halfway in a smaller tunnel. And the 3 humanoids had pulled the female's pants down (she was still wearing her underwear) and who knows what would have transpired if not for their timely intervention.
With a quip and flashing blades, the battle commenced. Wounds were taken on each side, but Nix and Ha'arumph easily prevailed. Then, they unstuck the woman and got to hear what she was about... a recently escaped slave who noticed a glowing banana about 9-feet inside a smaller tunnel.
Using the smaller Nix and the spoon weapon, they fished out a novelty, banana-shaped crystal rimmed jaccard. Nix took that, being a thief [it's so unbelievably useful that a crystal rimmed jaccard grants the thief using it Advantage when employing the tools of his trade], and gave the woman, Parev, the 40 talons they took off the dead NPCs. Parev wanted to join their little band, hoping strength in numbers would allow her to survive.
On their way to check out her screams, the PCs had bypassed another tunnel to the north. So, they backtracked to see what was down there. A slumbering creature covered in tentacles! They left it alone, proceeding to other areas.
They found a pool of zoth with several humanoids (the slavers who Parev escaped from, in fact) around it. The leader, Blood Beard, about to plunge his sword into the zoth in order to enchant it with ichor of the Great Old Ones. The PCs went in another direction before engaging with them. They found a petrified worm and just around the corner two braziers making the entire area fragrant with peach incense. That system of tunnels and caves terminated with a fuchsia door.
Nix and Ha'arumph spent a decent amount of time on that door, trying various ways to open it. Some techniques were so ingenious, I almost caved, but there was a specific way of getting that fuchsia door open.
Eventually, they guessed... or at least assumed that zoth might open the fuchsia door. Not wanting a direct confrontation with the humanoids in the zoth pool cave, they devised a plan. One of them would lure the humanoids out, and the other would draw the sleeping Lovecraftian creature down the tunnel so the two would intersect.
I had each PC roll a d6. If a 1 was rolled, their plan would breakdown at some point leading to potential disaster. Steve, usually the worst roller at our table, did not disappoint. He rolled a 1, but I reminded him that if he tapped one of the Cha'alt X-Cards, that would yield a point of Divine Favor so he could re-roll. He pulled the eldritch card, and rolled a 3 to counteract the critical failure.
I described how the sleeping tentacled thing's psionic-shadow rose and followed him as the half-orc attempted to mind-meld with it. Then, as planned, the two factions made contact. I wasn't sure how to adjudicate the battle between mythos spawn and NPC slavers; so, I had each player roll a d20. Nix's player rolled slightly higher. I described the head-slaver, Blood Beard, as the sole survivor, withdrawing his glowing magical blade from the shadow thing.
It only took a couple rounds for the PCs to dispatch Blood Beard, since he had been wounded by the creature. Then, they looted the bodies. Aside from some gold and a set of miniature thieves tools, there was a cerulean ring, it's jewel dancing in the faint light of torches and mystic crystals. The PCs didn't have a sorcerer, nor time to discover it's magical nature, but it makes water taste like fine worm wine to the ring-wearer.
Having the overgrown spoon weapon dripping with zoth, Ha'arumph hit the fuchsia door again, and this time zoth droplets were visibly absorbed into the door, it shimmered, and opened. Inside, all was blackness.
They walked through and found themselves exiting a nearly identical door into a nearly identical cave which they'd just left. However, this door was chartreuse. And instead of peach incense, the braziers issued a citrus lemon-lime fragrance. Oh, and the petrified sandworm was no longer petrified. Wisely, the PCs decided to creep past it with ludicrous success - to the point where we all speculated if the worm might be blind.
Realizing this was some kind of parallel universe, the adventures retread their steps to see what else was different. Their first inclination was to see if another crystal was there. It was, but this time, it was a fuchsia crystal. So, they liberated that and kept going north to find a couple of cultists guarding a malevolent entity summoned by their High Priest. For now, the monstrous demonic creature was trapped inside a magic circle.
Nix and Ha'arumph surprised the cultists, but had difficulty finishing them off, mostly due to Steve's infamously terrible rolling. I suggested maybe drawing another Cha'alt X-Card from the pile, and he obliged. This time he drew sleaze and described how Ha'arumph quickly stripped Parev's clothes and pushed her into the cultist - who was so shocked that he involuntarily grabbed her naked breasts and proceeded to motorboat them as the half-orc warrior hacked into him from behind.
Not wanting to be left out of the sleaze-making, I described how the summoned creature's tentacle went through the backside of a distracted cultist standing near it... into his ass and out his mouth. It took a round to shake the dead cultist from its tentacle. If Colin had been there, I know I could have wrangled a "gross" out of him. ;)
Realizing how formidable the summoned creature probably was, the PCs made an expeditious retreat. The cultists pursued the PCs all the way back to the chartreuse door... where the sandworm was waiting. They discretely snuck past (they originally rolled so well - two natural 20s and a 19, so I had no problem letting them sidestep the worm). However, the High Priest and his cultist companion weren't so fortunate. The sandworm ate the High Priest and I believe Ha'arumph decapitated the cultist.
Oh yeah, either just before or during the PCs' retreat, the half-orc used the purple and fuchsia crystals to mind-meld with the demonic thing trying to break out of the magic circle. Steve rolled a 19 (in 17 sessions, no one had ever seen him roll anything higher than that), so not only did he repel the demon's psychic force (that I was fully prepared to let a disastrous roll crush the half-orc's already simple mind), but also glean an insight as to how they might get home, in case it wasn't obvious.
By now, I would hope that several of you might have guessed the solution - hold the fuchsia crystal up to the chartreuse door. That's what the half-orc did, and the door opened, allowing them to return to their own universe.
Getting back and being "home free" was pretty much the ending. I didn't have anything beyond that planned. We got a late start, so that was a three-hour session.
Delving into the Cha'alt X-Cards some more, instead of earning a point of Divine Favor (which appeared from that session's vantage point to be "the middle man")... the end result was diverting failure into a more prosperous direction. Both times Steve played a Cha'alt card, he attempted to turn a bad roll (or result) around. As it should be. Sure, an anti-climax may be possible, but shouldn't that be the exception, not the rule (all things being equal, at 3rd level, most straight-up rolls are 50/50).
Essentially, if we decided to continue along that route (doing away with the Divine Favor's re-roll), the "cost" of finding a silver lining to the current situation's cloud was coming up with a way to make the game more eldritch, sleazy, etc.
After all, what is Divine Favor if not the gods of Cha'alt nudging reality in a way that's favorable to the adventurer implementing it? Since I, as Game Master, step-in to the role of Cha'alt gods, it's ultimately up to me to decide just how much help to give the PCs and what that looks like when the smoke clears.
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Just the way it was organically used in the session took Cha'alt X-Cards in that direction. I'm excited to see what happens the next time we use them. Now that I'm aware of that possibility, I'd be happy to forgo Divine Favor (and the resultant re-roll) instead of offering a celestial offramp that mitigates whatever failure that PC is currently wallowing in.
Basically, what I'm trying to say (at least partly) is that even if a Divine Favor reroll was unsuccessful, an aspect of my GMness feels bound to give the PC a leg-up. And if that's the case, then the Divine Favor is rather superfluous. It may not be what the PC or player intended, but something good will no doubt come from altering the fabric of reality via Cha'alt card narrative influence.
Hey, at least I'm consciously aware of my bias. Favoritism, like privilege, isn't a dirty word. And neither is "design." As in, this is the way I've designed my game, my adventure, my campaign, the way I Game Master. It's tailored to my specifications.
I feel like so many GMs are pushed and pulled, swayed this way and that by their unconscious mind... unaware of why they make the rulings they do. Oh sure, we all have dice to fall back on, but if I may quote another favorite movie John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness... "He lives in the smallest parts of it. In the atoms... smaller... invisible... he lives in all of it."
By that I mean, even with clearly defined parameters and success or failure determined by rolling, the GM has too much power, too much control to remain absolutely neutral. Over time, absolute neutrality is an impossibility.
In fact, I would caution GMs from clinging to the falsehood of neutrality in favor of consciously helping to create the type of experience they'd like to see. We're not the sole author (don't forget the players are there, too). However, it is our story. In this case, I feel the need to clarify that "our" means GMs take an active part in it, and are most likely the prime creator - but that doesn't mean the GM owns it fully or that other narrative contributions are meaningless.
Did someone say PSYCHOCOSM?!?
Even though I would have liked a break from Cha'alt, I'm happy we went back there, into that world. But I can almost guarantee that the next time we play, it'll be a different game. No matter how much I love cheesecake, I still crave other desserts - and this week, it's apple-cider donuts!
Thanks for reading,
VS
p.s. Do you have your weekend badge for VENGER CON III: Revenge of the OSR yet? If not, don't wait. You do NOT want to miss an entire weekend of non-woke gaming with some of the most outrageous, controversial, and awesome gamers in the hobby today! Additionally, I've still got Cha'alt hardcovers for sale - details right over here.
