Immersion in Roleplaying Games - the Ultimate Metric

 

One of my favorite topics is being talked about right now.  It's in the air, can you feel it?  We've been dancing around the issue for decades.  Just when it seems like the hobby has reached a consensus, new theories crop up, alternative paradigms.  I've been discussing it back and forth with folks since writing How To Game Master Like A Fucking Boss.  

The ultimate yardstick for gauging an RPG's merit and the experiences it yields - immersion.  

Unrelated interjection: I'm pleased as punch to announce that Sandy Petersen will be this year's Guest of Honor at VENGER CON IV: Post-Modern Apocalypse - it's very own blog post coming soon.

This all started when I was watching this YouTube video on a channel called Family Table Top.  I was happy to see he called out "fun" as a false metric for judging RPGs and the experience of playing them.  Fun is vague - how can you determine how much fun was had?  Fun is limiting - fun doesn't account for all the things that go into roleplaying, what we put in, and most importantly, what we get out of it.  And fun doesn't take into account what RPGs are for, their purpose, what gives that medium its meaning, relative to other pastimes that are exclusively meant to provide some form of entertainment. 

The vlogger was talking about connection, seeing that as the chief goal of RPGs.  Connection between all participants (since he roleplays with his kids, wife, and ex-wife).  I thought that was interesting, and understandable considering the context.  

I told him that I could see immersion as a connection between those playing an RPG and their characters, the world, and overall narrative, but as he was using the word "connection," we seemed to be at different places.  

In response to his comment, I asked if he could basically roleplay in a holodeck powered by a sophisticated A.I., would he do it?  I certainly would.  I can't say if that would completely replace my home gaming group as I like those guys, I like what we do at the table.  I like the shared imagination and collaborative effort we all put in.  The social connection aspect is not lost on me.  

However, if it was a choice between gaming around a table and actually putting myself in Cha'alt for several hours, I'd absolutely jump at the chance to make that my reality, rather than simulating it using boxed text, dice, random tables, and silly voices.

And if that's the case for others, as I assume it would be, social connection (as awesome as it is) must take a backseat to immersion.  If anyone wants to disagree or build a case against, please comment below.

Elsewhere, he asked how I get my players to connect to Cha'alt... and vice-versa.  Below is my reply...

• I start by treating Cha'alt like it's a real world.  Things are happening all around the players, big and small, fast and slow, perilous and whimsical.  Even if the PCs weren't there, stuff would be going on.
• I use aesthetic keys or watchwords to keep Cha'alt consistent and cohesive.  You should all know them by heart at this point... eldritch, gonzo, science-fantasy, post-apocalypse, humor, sleaze, pop-culture, and grindhouse exploitation.
• As the GM, I try to respond to the PCs as if there were an overarching narrative or meta-plot moving people and events in a certain direction like the current of a river, while still giving players as much agency as possible.  There are forces at work, and those forces have their own agendas, usually contrary to whatever the adventurers have in mind.

That's probably as good an answer as I can give on how I approach my Cha'alt campaign setting, using the living world and living story as my guiding lights, simultaneously mindful that the PCs are the stars of the show.

Later, on X, I got into a discussion about immersion and what makes an RPG more immersive than another.  This is subjective, clearly, because my definition of an immersive game is rules-light, a "rule of cool" freewheeling vibe, and the occasional use of storygame mechanics.  A lot of gamers who also value immersion want something totally different in their RPG.

The final question I want to address is the following - why would immersion be the ultimate metric for determining the value of RPGs if half (I'm just pulling that share of the pie out of thin air) the fun comes from out-of-character and "character adjacent" banter around the table?  

For starters, immersion, like various parts of the roleplaying experience requires breaks.  In fact, I believe immersion benefits from stepping outside of the game in order to observe what's happing from an exterior position (a bit like thinking outside the box).  For instance, when you're busy swimming, you have a different perspective of the ocean than standing on the beach.  In order to fully understand the ocean, you need to experience it from at least two sides - the more "sides," the better your understanding. 

Secondly, (this is something that I'm writing about now in a new book focused on the player, rather than GM) everyone around the table can be in-character while not actually speaking in-character.  It's probably easier to think of it as a running interior monolog spoken aloud or stream-of-consciousness conversation happening parallel to what's actually happening in the game.  Like when a player is talking from his the point of view of his character, even though his character isn't saying those things - we still know it's the character being expressed and not the player... which is key.

Even when the GM is off-handedly musing about the geo-political zones in S'kbah, he might not be speaking as the narrator... yet, he, too, is, nevertheless, speaking in-character as it pertains to the campaign setting - which is absolutely part of the game.

Third, immersion doesn't just have to be for the character, world, and story (I'm assuming that genre-emulation is swallowed by world and story in equal measure, but I suppose there are some who want to see that as a separate classification) - we can also be immersed in the game itself, the act of playing and all its parts.  If we can be immersed in the game, that means everything, all around us, the totality is part of the roleplaying GAME experience.  Picking up dice and rolling them is part of the game, making a Monty Python reference is part of the game, the GM asking a player how his character knows the Wacha'ati tribe's native language - that's also part of the game. 

Not everyone is going to care about the same things.  Take religion, for example, some folks are going to focus more on the sacraments, others following the commandments, reading the bible, going to church, walking the narrow path, proselytizing to others, etc.  It's all Christianity.  I think it would be disingenuous to think that all Christians value all aspects of their religion a 10 out of 10 all the time, but it's all still Christianity.  Similarly, even the subjectively "less special" parts of RPGs are still aspects of the whole, and worthy of immersion, if one were so inclined.  

On the other tentacle, doesn't the separation of immersion beg the question - is there a hierarchy?  Sure, all are important, but are some immersive aspects more... essential than others?  Going back to religion, is thou shalt not murder primary in comparison with honor thy mother and father?  What about learning the stations of the cross compared to not committing adultery?  Stratification seems only natural.  However, I will leave it to you, dear reader, to decide for yourself which aspect of immersion is higher or lower on your personal list.

Ok, then... put that in your pipe and smoke it!

VS

p.s. Want the hardcover Cha'alt trilogy?  Here's how (and they're currently on sale!)!!  Want to join the Kort'thalis mailing list to stay up-to-date on what's going on in the skinematic Vengerverse?  This is it!!  Last but not least, I'm organizing a based-as-fuck RPG convention in Madison, WI this July.  Grab your weekend badge for VENGER CON IV: Post-Modern Apocalypse!!!

"There's No Place Like Home" - CHA'ALT Campaign 3.6

 

Ok, this doesn't have anything to do with this particular session, per se, but our family theater room is up and running again, and we kicked-off the new projector (last one died when the bulb burned out and fried some internal electronics) by watching Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2.  

That scene after the opening where they're fighting the abilisk and rip it open - the thick, effulgent chartreuse blood pouring out - that's basically zoth.  What the Old Ones have flowing inside their eldritch veins... not just them but their spawn and their spawn's spawn, and various servitor-entities such as the star-born sovereign, black-yoke vassals, and principalities of darkness who attend to their divine pleasure.  

The last time I watched the movie, I remarked on that, too, but I'd forgotten the scene and watching it again made me perk-up.  It's almost as if Cha'alt were slowly but surely coming to life right before my very eyes...

This session is brought to you by skin-of-our-ass-games!  As in, we nearly didn't get to play today, but just made it by the skin of our ass.

Three players - Bandersnatch the blue-suede sorcerer, Thurberus the v'smm priest and cult leader, along with the astonishing appearance of Botsterdomus the droid priest ladies' man, and prophet of the almighty algorithm.  

Yeah, no thief and no warrior - good luck, hoss!

After leveling-up Botsterdomus and the opening evocation, I flashed the PCs back to the beginning of last session where they placed the soft blue dream-crystal upon a boulder-sized chunk of stone masonry from the temple at the end and beginning of the universe.

Reminding everyone what happened at the end of last session with the RV and the crash of The Venturan into the desert, I described the twisted metal and black smoke wreckage of that colony ship where the PCs' adventures began.

They slowly drove along the length of the crash, murdering a guard they never liked, and just seeing what's going on.  Soon, they came to Bela'ak, a half-demon, half-dark elf sorcerer who I wanted to introduce from my GaryCon pre-gens.  That one Cha'alt session in particular stayed with me, and the parallels between the LOST style plane crash on the beach and the colony ship crash in the deep desert seemed apropos.

So, there he was - Bela'ak stabbing survivors of the wreck with a magical staff of obsidian-like flesh.  Each soul taken added another thorn - 7 thorns meant that his staff could blast a death-ray, but then the thorns would be gone and he'd have to start collecting souls all over again.  The staff's name was Nya'avenkshem, which means "seven souls cast into the pit of Hell."  

The dark-elf demon would say "Praise be to Yog-Soggoth!  His seven-lobed burning eye gazes into the unquiet void."  The PCs questioned him, and Bela'ak seemed nice enough.  He was looking to kill Thoth-A'amon, the sorcerer-priest who made his home in The Black Pyramid long ago because Thoth-A'amon had killed those dear to him.  Bela'ak, realizing the formidable nature of the adventurers and cognizant of the fact that they were on a mission from god, made a deal with them.  He would adventure with the party until Thoth-A'amon was dead.  After that, he'd give up his staff to the party and go his own way.

Bandersnatch read his aura and saw it was both dark and transparent.  Sure, you couldn't trust him farther than he could be thrown.  Nevertheless, Bela'ak wouldn't betray the PCs out of hand.  He was an honest villain.

BTW, I decided to break-out a set of dice that I'd never used before... this one's got more orange and some shimmery purple.  I felt like coming back from GaryCon, I just wanted something new to mark the occasion.  

The 6th thorn was acquired when Bela'ak stabbed yet another wounded crash victim with his staff.  The victim, with his dying breath, said "Nexus... the hive.  It must be destroyed!"

Moving on, the PCs encountered a tribe of primitive Zevateef wearing animal skins.  They were beating on an energy shield protecting 5 silver-skinned humanoids with colorful forehead crystals.  Their shield would give out soon by the way the wave patterns were fluctuating.  So, the PCs decided to wait it out to see what happens and possibly loot the bodies of the winners (whom they would surely murder).  

However, the silver-skinned dudes asked for help and pledged their loyalty to the cult of the dead and tentacled cow.  Botsterdomus lobbed a thermal detonator that went right into the central primitive's satchel.  They pretty much all died right away.

Oh yeah, there was a faction of Jurtwee throwing mud cakes and sand-balls at both factions.  A missile command spell made them scurry back to the recesses of The Venturan... or what's left of it.  One Jurtwee fell down from his perch and Bela'ak used him to gain the 7th and final thorn.

Moving on (with the silver-skinned humanoids following close behind - they were from the space station Liberator and so called themselves Libertarians), the PCs ventured inside The Venturan to see what could be salvaged.  Another small primitive but heavily mutated tribe was trying to get inside a locked door - hitting it with "the holy vessel" from the first adventure, which was revealed to be a plasma reactor core.  The PCs cautioned them not to smash the volatile power source into the metal door.

After investigation, no power was getting to the door, which is why it wouldn't open.  The mutants included a pink-skinned female with fish scales and 3 breasts.  Botsterdomus took her to a more secluded area where he laid his healing hands upon her and began "gleaming the cube" which, on Cha'alt, means running his pick-up artist game on her in order to achieve mutually beneficial sexual gratification.  

The sorcerer and priest waited patiently while listening to the moans of the pink girl.  Eventually, Botsterdomus came back to help with the door and they got it open - it was a theater room with Beta-Maxxx laser 8-track casette disk player - including 4 different Beta-Maxxx laser 8-track cassette disks that were clearly foreign imports, but still exactly what the cyber-surgeon Reznik wanted as payment for his digital services.  

The titles were... 

• Lucky Blonde Gets Her Fuck & Internally Jizz
• This Chick Named Ka'ara Has a Scandinavia Mature Babe in Her Pussy
• Edward Penisworm & Banana Vagina
• Womb Raiders of the Lost Lesbian Prophecy

Oh yeah, while they were waiting for Botsterdomus to finish, Thurberus inducted the rest of the mutants into his cult, and they promised to faithfully adventure with the PCs in exchange for a quarter of the loot found beyond that door.  Which means, this mutant tribe is now the proud owner of the Scandinavia porn diskette.

Before any further exploration could occur, Bandersnatch felt a disturbance in the magical fabric of the metaverse.  Putting his scrying crystal up to his head, he saw a cave containing a warrior wearing a badass helm and a sorcerer standing behind him.  Kurva'ak the warlord wanted his wizard to grab the mutants and their plasma reactor core, which is exactly what happened.  Becoming a giant, orange holographic head made of light, Kurva'ak told the PCs he was taking the mutants and their weapon of mass destruction (which was prophesied towards the end of last session by the Supreme Council of the Violet Alien Demon Worm).

With the mutants and their WMD gone in a plume of orange energy, the PCs were at a cross-roads - take off for the warlord's subterranean lair now, or continue to search the wreckage for valuables?  In the end, they chose the latter.  After all, they might find something that could help them fight - and at only half-strength, they probably wouldn't be able to defeat Kurva'ak, his wizard, and small army of men on their own.

Continuing on, they encountered the flying manta-ray scorpion that was still guarding the upper level.  This time, the PCs had weapons and experience.  So, they decided to slay the guardian and see what was up there.

It was a harrowing battle.  Thurberus was paralyzed for 5 rounds (I made a judgement call and decided that a paralyzed priest could potentially heal someone, but the other party would have to do most of the work, like pick up his paralyzed hands and lay them on him so all the priest would have to do is generate the energy or rather focus the energy generated by worshiping his god), Bandersnatch was knocked unconscious, Botsterdomus couldn't hit the broad-side of a barn-worm, and the NPCs weren't of much help, either.  Luckily, Bosterdomus did a fuchsia burn and scored a much-needed critical hit that crushed the manta-ray's skull.

Such a strange creature, the adventurers felt sure there was something to be harvested from it.  I had them each roll a d20.  Thurberus rolled a 1, but the other two rolled well and had heard rumors of draining the blood, treating it with zoth so it would become a sentient ooze - 2 gallons worth!

Due to the death-cult's priest crit-fail, I determined he was sure that putting the manta-ray-scorpion's nuts in his mouth would do something awesome.  So, that's what he did.  Looking like a squirl with bulging cheeks under his bronze (or is it gold?) v'smm mask, the others prepared the thing's blood.  Not wanting to waste the opportunity, I rolled the flavor random table in Chartreuse Shadows and got "pretzels," which made sense as we laughed at those salty manta-balls resting in Thurberus' mouth. 

Additionally, one of his cultists ran up to take a photo of the cult leader with his mouth full of salty, pretzel-flavored manta-balls.  "That's going in our cult newsletter - most likely the centerfold!"

Searching the upper-level, they found the armory.  I decided to give the players a chance to "win" weapons of war with the same dice rolls which had all but betrayed them in the previous battle.  I listed out what would have been there assuming a fully-stocked armory on The Venturan.  If they rolled a 16 on a d20, that item was still there.  Anything over a 16 meant that there was more than one, determined by how far over they got.

In the end, they found 2 stun-batons, 2 laser-swords, and I asked if they wanted me to roll (as I was due for something good, I thought, and they had been rolling so terribly).  This was the final roll with the biggest payoff!  They said yes, so I prepared the d20 for rolling, softly grinding it between my palms.  And then, I rolled a natural 20!  That means they found 5 (my math was wrong before... stupid math!) - yes, 5 - photon torpedoes.  Those things are, like, seven-fold more destructive than a thermal detonator.  Score!!!!!

Telling his remaining cultists to put their newly acquired weapons stash in the RV, the PCs had another decision to make as they looked out a window and saw a gigantic spider carrying a dozen Ka'alestinian jiha'ad fighters beyond the wall, heading for the crash - keep searching or go back.  In for a talon, out for a gold piece; they decided to push their luck.  The top of the punishment dome was cracked open with a rope already tied to some metal infrastructure so they could shimmy down.

They did, and soon rescued their crab friend from the first adventure.  Destroying the security droids with laser-swords and getting his inhibitor off, the crab followed the PCs onward.  

Next, they entered a weirdly angled five-walled room, each with a strange symbol upon it, and a blue sphere hanging mid-air in the room's center.  Meanwhile, a disembodied voice could be heard repeating two distinct sentences...

• "The black sphere leads to death."
• "This is the riddle of Tyr, the God-King of shadow dimension 11-A-437."

I won't reveal the secret of this room, except to say that Thurberus accidentally solved the puzzle almost immediately and then decided to merge spheres and that was a good end-point as we had 5 minutes remaining and I wanted more time to think through the ramifications of the sphere experiment being performed.  

Oh yeah, I rolled twice on the NPC detail table found in one of the Cha'alt books (this is for Bela'ak, since he's likely to be sticking around for awhile), and came up with sensitive hearing and magenta cat named Mistoffelees.

In the downtime, Bandersnatch wants to make that 2 gallons of sentient ooze into his familiar, which I thought was a fine idea.  

Ok, next session is in two weeks... Saturday, April 12th.  I'm awarding 2 more points of Divine Favor to Bandersnatch and Botsterdomus, and 3 to Thurberus for being such a good sport and going with it as those manta-ray scorpion testicles sat in his mouth.  How long were they in there, anyway?

Here are some amusing quotes from the session...

• "Part cassette, part disc... all laser."
• "All the zeroes have turned into ones." - that means a machine is horny in binary language (get ready for a non-consensual robot orgasm.  Surprise, motherfucker!).
• "Clear!" - the idea of someone using Thurberus' hands as electro-shock paddles in order to heal themselves while he was paralyzed.  Lol
• "Hey, Bela'ak.  Tell us about your hot-pink pussy." - referencing his magenta cat.
• "Say cheese, Thurberus.  Oh yeah, that's going in next month's issue."

I just found my notes from that GaryCon Alpha Blue / Cha'alt session which I couldn't find earlier when I was writing up my convention report.  So, I'll just put them here...

• "Grabba the Butt... he'll mess you up... butt-quick!"
• "Purple petrified sand from a worm massacre - tastes like cinnamon."
• "There'll be space Hell to pay."
• "You're playing with space fire."
• "Do androids have artificial souls?"

That's it.  Thanks for reading.  BTW, I have the VENGER CON IV games list (so far) on the landing page here.  Lots of great stuff, and I'm hoping to announce this year's Guest of Honor soon (tentacles crossed the stars align and that comes together)!!! 

VS

p.s. Want the hardcover Cha'alt trilogy?  Here's how (and they're currently on sale!)!!  Want to join the Kort'thalis mailing list to stay up-to-date on what's going on in the skinematic Vengerverse?  This is it!!  Last but not least, I'm organizing a based-as-fuck RPG convention in Madison, WI this July.  Grab your weekend badge for VENGER CON IV: Post-Modern Apocalypse!!!

GaryCon 2025 Convention Report

 

This won't be a multi-part blog post like my recent videos here, here, and here.  Instead, I'm gonna try to get it all down right now.

Overall, it was a great time.  I saw Joe Manganiello at the bar during the charity auction on Saturday (was heading there for my dinner reservation - the yukon gold mashed potatoes were not as creamy or buttery as I remembered, but the prime rib was on point), and I had to get a quick photo with him.  For my wife if anything, but it's always cool to meet a celebrity.  Even if the entire interaction took 3.47 seconds.

Had dinner with the old-school, gray beard, X crew who saw me about to eat alone and asked me to join them.  Thanks, guys!  I'm all-in if they want to make this a yearly tradition, dinner together Saturday night followed by a gaming session (I volunteer, as tribute, to GM in 2026 and after that, whoever wants to), probably off-site.  Cerulean Rex mentioned a brew pub and pizza place just a few miles away that sounds ideal.

Anyway, I met a ton of friends, fans, familiar players, and well-wishers throughout the weekend, and that was awesome, too!  Bought some cool stuff + got a sack full of swag.  You can see all that in part 3 of my con report vlog.

But yeah, let's dive into the sessions themselves.  Obviously, I'm not going to detail the five sessions I ran at GaryCon, even if three of them began in nearly identical fashion.  Rather, I'm going to hit the highlights and talk about what worked, what didn't, noteworthy stuff, wisdom gleaned, and inspirational detritus (in no particular order)... 

Too much boxed text?  I'm not sure what the right amount is.  I think you can err on the side of a little more "read aloud" since PCs seize on any tangible (albeit in our collective imagination) stuff they can find.  I've recently been experimenting with X's grok A.I., and it gave me some nice descriptions for a Cha'alt location.  I asked grok to describe things in the style of Clark Ashton Smith - and it did - which made it so cool that I kind of wanted to use it all.  But when I publish the scenario, I'm going to rein it in.

The pre-gens were a hit.  I still can't believe (yeah, I can, actually) I forgot to hand-out the 2nd group's character sheet notecards until two-thirds of the way through the session.  But hey, it worked out.  There wasn't too much on the notecard, anyway, and the players focused on roleplaying, as they should.

Demographics: There was one woman each in the first and second sessions (both Cha'alt) of the five I ran, two LGBTQ+ individuals total (I didn't ask, just made a judgement call based on perception), and zero "people of color" or non-white folks.  Not that I care about mutable or immutable characteristics when we game (just thought it was interesting data), my focus is on the game, not identities or politics.

Interestingly, one of the women was in that Cha'alt session I ran years ago at GameHole Con around Halloween with the downbeat ending.  She remembered, especially since the PCs entered The Black Pyramid's museum and that's one of the rooms the other adventuring party explored, too.  She remarked that she was one of the few PCs in that other session who wanted to do stuff.  Everyone else (well, not everyone, surely) just kind watched and waited, believing discretion was the better part of valor, perhaps?  Years ago, that session was heavily criticized by another player at the table; you can see for yourself in the comments section here.  

Anyways, that was just one of the many strange and awesome coincidences that occurred at GaryCon this year - like finding a rogue d6 of the blue variety under an empty table next to where we were supposed to run Alpha Blue (the system uses d6 dice pools and it's called Alpha Blue)... except that I found the space too distracting and loud, so we moved to a hallway where it was relatively quiet.  I took that as a sign - one of many!  

Speaking of blue, that color was a theme in the dramatic reading (I handed out a two-page script to a couple of players and they read / acted it aloud while I took on the narrator and loud speaker parts) that began all three Cha'alt sessions.  It was inspired by those two older guys in the movie Cabin In The Woods.  I'd never done anything like that before, but I think it worked.  Mostly because it was referenced later in the sessions, and became a major plot-point in at least one of those sessions.  It led to a greater understanding of what was going on behind the scenes, causing an apocalypse (yes, another one) as a Great Old One awoke, which actually would happen later, off-screen.  

Everyone who read did a great job, and that's something I want to experiment with again.  Just getting players to loosen up and interact with the story in a physical but also theatrical way helps prepare for the session ahead.  I believe last year or the year before that I opened with a dream sequence where a specific line was repeated several times throughout the narrative like a feverish esoteric refrain.

The fruities were a big hit, they always are.  At the end of one of the three, the PCs encountered a small army of fruities from a mirror universe or dark timeline, providing another opportunity for combat.  I know my sessions aren't combat focused, but I was really surprised how many PCs did everything they could to de-escalate potentially violent situations.  That means, I should either skew encounters to have more non-combat usefulness / gameability or take them out altogether and replace them with more interesting non-combat encounters.  Of course, as soon as I do that, players are going to want to rip someone's head off.  Lol, sometimes you can't win.

When something comes up that's just tentacles-down fantastic (in terms of lore, more so than PC or GM success), it becomes more or less canon, unless something happens to upend it down the road.  The desire to taste a fruitie after its demise and some inter-player commentary led me to officially recognize that tasting a fruitie will leave that particular flavor in your mouth whenever you eat something.  I assume a priest could maybe cure that, or it goes away after several months, maybe a year.  So, be careful which fruitie you're going to munch on, if at all. 

The all-time greatest lore addition to any session of the weekend has to be the Chad-player who cut through all the fancy language, romantic prose in order to get to the crude, sleazy center of those polished fuchsia stones representing points of Divine Favor.  "Dude, thanks for the cum-rock... nice," he said as I handed him the Advanced Crimson Dragon Slayer metacurrency which has been incentivizing awesomeness at my table (and many others) for at least 5 years.

Sexual gratification wasn't the only way to acquire Divine Favor, but it was definitely one of them.  Referring to it as a "cum rock" made me laugh the hardest at any point during the convention.  Wow!

I love it when groups of people who know and game with each other sign-up and play in my sessions because they already have the rapport of adventurers who've been doing this for awhile.  The built-in comradery is infectious and easy to (role)play off of. 

Case in point, another highlight (at the same table) of the weekend was the demonic possession of a PC.  I gave those other two PCs who knew him best the chance to notice that the possessed PC was acting "not himself."  The first PC rolled poorly.  The second who was balls-deep into his character rolled a natural 20... and without missing a God damn beat, said aloud to anyone who cared "I don't care at all what's happening to him," and went on to say that another person's, another character's concerns were so far beneath him that it wasn't worth another thought.  Which goes to show - stay in character even when you're speaking out-of-character.  It actually made perfect sense because that's the way he played his character from the get-go.  Honestly, I was taken aback for a micro-second but immediately realized that this is the way.  That player was doing what so few dare to dream - he found his character, got into character, and stayed in character.  It was immersion personified.  

Definitely, grab onto whatever scraps of personality / background the GM has provided and hold on tight.  But the rest is up to you, the player.  Treating it as an acting gig can help introverts and wallflowers overcome their reticence.  You've essentially been "hired" to do a job, which is to become that character for the entirety of the session.  It would be a shame if that character was never fully realized at the table, which is basically our stage, as roleplayers.  

So, my advice to all players in the future (in my games, if nowhere else)... 

• Find your character (who you're supposed to be that session or campaign, however you want to bring that character to life). 
• Once you've found him, get into character using whatever means at your disposal.  I think I'm going to write more about this soon.
• Stay in character - no matter what happens.  I'm not talking about occasionally breaking character when the table explodes in laughter or clutches their collective pearls - that's fine.  But if you're portraying Vanilla Ice with a crippling cheese addiction and penchant for buggery, then for the love of Yog-Soggoth, be that character until the session's over or your character dies.  That commitment is worth more than a carafe of zoth on Cha'alt.

In fact, I'd be interested in examining just how players make their characters come to life when in the company of other players that they're familiar with.  It's like the apprehension melts away and you instantly get a full-fledged character that is being roleplayed, back and forth.  But it wasn't simply familiarity - because I saw that at a similar table and it didn't fast-track or super-charge characterizations, the actual roleplaying.  And it wasn't interpersonal conflict since I had another group that were constantly trying to jack each other, but it was like their characters were merely pawns or masks they were wearing in order to get the other guy.

Yeah, I'm not sure what it is, but I'm going to keep thinking about it.  Eventually, the answer will come... it always does.  Maybe it's healthy competition?  When the potential conflict or agreement has friction (doesn't necessarily have to be two characters at odds with each other, but that tension / chafing / friction must come from somewhere... perhaps another faction, NPC, the dominant / counter culture, or even one's own disparate needs), it seems to create more juice than either cooperative or destructive.  Maybe that's the Goldilocks conflict... not too cold, not too hot, etc.?

But how to instill this - especially into players that don't have a long history with each other?  I suppose, come up with encounters that force them to compete, right?

Oh yes, I want to talk about one of the ways my old-school renaissance is very much venn diagram squished with story-gaming.  If a PC comes up with something on the fly, and it has potential (gameable potential) without breaking the proverbial bank by being over-powered, ridiculously stupid, or genre breaking, I'm going to ask for three things.  And if an answer for all three is presented, then it exists as the player has suggested (at the GM's discretion, of course).

1. What does it do?
2. Where does it come from?
3. How did you acquire it?

For example, a player wanted to use some poisonous or explosive (something like that) fairy dust because, after all, she was playing a pixie-fairy.  After she provided explanations for my answers, I was satisfied and allowed her to have it.

I'm not sure I need to explain why that's a net-positive thing, but can if anyone likes - just ask me in the comments below.  Debate me, bro!

Two of the three Cha'alt sessions got to play around with the Cha'alt X-Cards, and that was fun.  I talked about that in one of the videos.  Imagine (it helps to perceive it animated) sentient tentacles having a disagreement with each other that eventually breaks down into throwing tiny cream pies at each other.  That wouldn't have been possible without the Cha'alt X-Cards, my friend.

Outside of the game, I chatted with one of the Alpha Blue players the next day, and he asked me, though admitted he was almost afraid to ask, how much of the adventure was scripted / plotted and how much was improvised.  "It's a combination," I said.  And that whole acknowledgement of our hobby being one thing while also kind of being something else entirely, the elusive shift.  That's what makes it special, giving it power which almost no other hobby can claim.

For instance, it's about winning... while also not at all about winning.  It's about meeting player expectations, while also doing the opposite.  It's about saying yes... and no.  Simulating a natural or unnatural world as it is, while also having a narrative in mind.  Sandbox vs structured adventure.  The push-pull creates tension which generates energy and that gives roleplaying games life!

For the cosmic horror investigative 1970s scenario, I loved it because it all came together and lasted the 3.5 hours I wanted it to, right down to the minute.  Also, the players were fantastic bringing their characters to life with what little I gave them.  But at the same time, it was perhaps my least favorite because of the noise.  It was really difficult to hear people and I constantly had to project rather than use my normal, casual voice.  Nevertheless, I'm glad I ran it and everyone seemed to enjoy what happened.  

Without further ado, here are the quotables (not just at the table, but in private conversations and on social media, as well)...

• "That's not elder god money."
• "The partition of sleaze."
• "I know it seems like I've gone off the deep end, but trust me when I say there's a perfectly rational explanation for why I have to kill her."  A PC trying to tell us why he's about to murder an NPC who a pixie-fairy just had sex with on the beach after the party had a bitch of a time saving her from a giant crab.  Apparently, the player decided that each of his 11 daggers (part of his pre-gen backstory) was named after a woman he killed, and he had one unnamed dagger left.
• "That's a cum rock, dude."
• "Those fruties are tragically delicious."  
• "If women were a dessert, they'd be cheesecake."
• "Venger, I think you're the best Game Master I've ever experienced."
• "It's ShadowDark's con, we're just gaming in it."

Ok, I think that's it.  Feel free to ask questions if you're so inclined.  The Cha'alt campaign continues this Saturday, and I'm excited to get back to our "home table."  I will probably launch another Kickstarter at the end of April, so look out for that.  What will it be for (no, it's not Book 4 of the trilogy - I still have around 100 more hardcovers left to sell before I can crowdfund that son-of-a-bitch)?  Here's a hint... less is not always more.

Thanks for reading, hoss!

VS

p.s. Want the hardcover Cha'alt trilogy?  Here's how (and they're currently on sale!)!!  Want to join the Kort'thalis mailing list to stay up-to-date on what's going on in the skinematic Vengerverse?  This is it!!  Last but not least, I'm organizing a based-as-fuck RPG convention in Madison, WI this July.  Grab your weekend badge for VENGER CON IV: Post-Modern Apocalypse!!!

"Endless Purple Pathways" - CHA'ALT Campaign 3.5

 

Third season, fifth episode or session of our CHA'ALT campaign.  This one felt like the gonzo days of yore when mildly prepared adventurers would traverse the wacky, madcap environs of The Black Pyramid and Cremza'amirikza'am.

One of our 5 was taken ill and so 4 players entered the chat... H'ork, Bandersnatch, Thurberus, and Tinker.  We started with recounting the last few cavities of worm interior from last time, but it wasn't until halfway through the session that I remembered exactly where we left off - the PCs (Bandersnatch in particular, if memory serves) was going to put a dream crystal on the chunk of masonry that subtly glowed a yellowish-green where the velociraptors had imprinted upon it.

We're going to turn that into a cut scene that, inexplicably didn't make the final cut, even though this is something the PCs are going to want to know and remember...

As the softly blue dream crystal is laid upon the cornerstone, the adventurers experience a dreamlike world where they visit a temple upon Cha'alt; although Cha'alt at this particular time, doesn't resemble the fuchsia skied desert wasteland of fear and loathing.  Instead, it looks a lot like Carcosa - and is, in fact - the future of Cha'alt, a thousand years hence, Carcosa by another name.

In this far, far future is a temple - the temple at the end and beginning of the universe.  It glows like zoth and is carved with all manner of glyphs from various ages, but primarily eldritch glyphs from when the Great Old Ones originally ruled over the planet.

A cult of humanoids gather, led by a lady High Priest and her minions - the High Priestess is wearing a lowcut top, accentuating her melon-heavy breasts.  One of her minions isn't bad, either.  She's practically nude with pink body-glitter all over.  The High Priestess wields three artifacts, including an ornate black box.  As all the cult's followers drink the special kool-aid and go to sleep, the black box is opened and whatever's inside is unleashed upon the temple.

For reasons unknown and unknowable, an apocalyptic event occurs, affecting the entire universe which abruptly ends and then starts anew as the temple remains, the Great Old Ones crawling and slithering upon the surface of Cha'alt... as it was in the beginning.

Now, back to the High Priestess with the rockin' tits and her sensual acolyte.  I'm sure during orgiastic celebrations, there's lots of interaction there... fondling, squeezing, sucking... and that gray alien who was dying and went into the dream crystal is there, too, jacking-off to what is being shown.

Actually, I'll present this as a flashback the next time we play (dreams have a way of being forgotten and then suddenly remembered), which won't be until March 29th, our next session, as Gary Con will interrupt the normal flow.  

So, the session actually started off with a trip back to the purple labyrinth.  Bandersnatch researched his book and came upon a passage referring to the purple glyph of dreaming which can be found in the center of the purple labyrinth.  The center happens to be close to the access point they found earlier.  

The book suggested conjuring an hourglass full of purple sand, which the sorcerer did and turned it over to see how long they've been in there, once their exploration concludes.  

Miles and miles of purple corridors zig-zagging, forking, stairs going up and down, etc.  A purple slime trail led them to a bubbling pool which all but H'ork investigated.  Tentacles came up from the pool and swallowed them, brining them to an endless ocean where a submarine shaped like a purple banana awaited them, hatch open.  A faceless purple humanoid piloted the submarine under the water, showing a prior civilization sunk beneath.

Eventually, the sub popped-up again and exited the PCs into a circular chamber of purple hallways.  In the center of the maze's center was a purple glyph hovering midair, phasing in and out of reality.  Bandersnatch touched the glyph when it was phased-in, and then they both phased-out together.

Before returning, the sorcerer saw as through a purple saturated lens... but it was a familiar scene.  Cholak the demon lord was speaking with a rival party of adventurers.  The demon told these mercenaries to kill the Crimson Bastards once they had successfully translated the Nyazian scroll and return the scroll back to Cholak once they'd finished their task.

Upon Bandersnatch's return, they followed a purple corridor which eventually led them back to H'ork, and then found their way back out of the purple labyrinth.  On the way, they discussed the situation of Cholak's not-that-surprising betrayal and what to do now... should they still get the scroll translated?  If so, should they give it to one of their friends or sell it to the competition, such as Kort'thalis?  And how will they get to it if the Ka'alestine jiha'adists are watchful at the border?  

Checking the hourglass, no more than 25 minutes had transpired when it felt like most of the day had gone by for those within the maze.

Continuing on within the purple worm corpse, the PCs came upon one of the larger worm cavities containing a civilization of humanoids constructing a pyramid to house their sacred scrolls - documenting the eldritch lineage of Yog-Soggoth and his voluminous spawn.  They also had some energy crystals, but instead of lugging it all further into the worm, they decided to loot the place on their way out.

However, the most significant aspect of the pyramid builders was Thurberus' ascendancy as cult leader.  3 of the 4 PCs reached 3rd level and were eligible for an old-school feat (now included in the PDF and print-on-demand versions of Advanced Crimson Dragon Slayer).  Thuberus chose cult leader, Tinker chose fast healing, and Bandersnatch chose psionics [he rolled disruption, read auras, and empathy].  Cool idea, the sorcerer gaining psionic powers, but actually bit him pretty hard in the butt as you'll see later on.  Both magic and the mystic arts of mentalism burn through hit-points like a wildfire through mismanaged California.  

That pre-session discussion led to me scribbling a d6 useless psionics table which I vowed to utilize at some point before the session's conclusion.

So, yeah... the party's dark priest acquired his first cultist and all followers of the sacred and tentacled cow (an aspect of Yog-Soggoth) shall, it was soon decided, to remain nameless.  Not only will this help strip Thurberus' followers of their previous identity, but it saves time not having to learn everyone's name.  As the session progressed, Thurberus would recruit a few additional cultists, enticing them to move up the ziggurat to the elite ring of glory within the inner-circle... perhaps betwixt the flaming trapezoid and chartreuse eye?  Cultist #1 (known colloquially as "you") has ideas!

From there, the PCs encountered a surprising treasure chest, a gelatinous green abomination where Thurberus was able to scorch it with his lavender beam [new house-rule: a priest can use followers to charge the eldritch beam instead of his own vitality].  The creature scored a critical-hit upon the sorcerer taking him down below the threshold of survivability.  

The v'smm priest immediately laid his healing hands upon Bandersnatch as a nubile, slime-covered beauty either decided to herself or was placed upon him, doing her best to jumpstart the sorcerer back to life after someone stimulated the Sleaze Cha'alt X-Card.  She originally appeared after Bandersnatch stimulated the Grindhouse Exploitation card [download the free Cha'alt X-Cards PDF now] which led to the tentacled thing handling her in a most inappropriate way for all to watch and fantasize about later. 

H'ork and Tinker finished the abomination off as the sorcerer eventually came round, weakened and lucky to be alive.  From its slimy wake, the PCs found an orb of pondering, which they took.  A bit later, when he was feeling up to it, Bandersnatch gazed into it and sort of asked the orb for advice on if they should go further into the worm or leave and perhaps return another day.

The orb showed a powerful sword deeper into the worm corpse, so they continued on.  I won't go into too many spoilers as this pertains to the free Advanced Random Tables: Worm Interior PDF over at the Red Room.  However, the PCs defeated a death-knight to claim Ura'az-Vethun, activating the blade with ultra-telluric glyphs by polishing said glyphs with the Lovecraftian entity they recently defeated.  As the magical blade attuned itself to H'ork, the half-orc warrior welcomed the sword on this journey.

During that battle, the warrior H'ork took a fair amount of damage.  Thankfully, not enough to kill him.  It's the first time the tumescent dice-mechanic was tried, and I think it went over well.  Awesome, in fact!  Download and read the PDF to see what the Hell I'm talking about.

Later, the PCs freed 7 members of the Supreme Council of the Violet Alien Demon Worm who tasked them to walk north and liberate a device of mass destruction from the warlord Kurva'ak (who had in his possession a magic crystal that, when added to the newly acquired Ura'az-Vethun, would make it even more powerful).  The Supreme Council are cursed with second sight.  They were imprisoned during the apocalypse and need to make up for lost time.  Before leaving, the PCs learned that Cholak was not the major player he led the PCs to believe.  The demon lord was a servant of the Principalities of Darkness, who wanted the translated scroll for themselves.

Shortly thereafter, the PCs ran into Simon (immediately disarmed by H'ork saying "banana cream pie" as they entered the cavity) who wanted the sword for himself, but didn't realize they already grabbed it.  Simon mentioned that no one on Cha'alt could read the ultra-telluric glyphs so why would they want to hang onto it?  Better to trade it in for 10,000 gold pieces (BTW, this would be early retirement money for pretty much every native of Cha'alt).  Simon offered his RV van with Freedom Rock spraypainted on the side.

The last thing was pygmy-banana-folk who were trying to get something out through the worm's anus.  The adventurers helped, then drove the RV (shag carpeting, 8-track, glass terrariums full of purple-scorpions, and a collection of finely polished bowling balls) out the front of the worm, picking up the crystals and sacred scrolls on their way.  

Just before exiting the purple worm corpse, there was a tremendous Cha'alt-quake like a massive meteor had just slammed into the planet.  Close - it was the crashlanding of a familiar ship - The Venturan.  The colony ship where the PCs originally started this season of the campaign.  It was broken into 3 segments, but still kind of mostly intact.  

But that violent reverberation tossed the PCs around like ragdolls.  I made up a little random table on the spot to cover the eventualities (if you've seen Anchorman 2 recently, cheers, hoss!)...

1. Bowling ball
2. Purple-scorpion bite
3. Both
4. Neither

H'ork and Thurberus both rolled a 2, allowing me to roll on the shitty psionic powers table I came up with at the session's beginning.  The former got "make things taste like honey - but only in the mind" and the latter's result was "basket weaving."

Upon recovery, the Crimson Bastards drove (cult follower #1 took Driver's Ed in High School) towards The Venturan to see what was left of the infrastructure and inhabitants.  That's where we ended the session.  three-and-a-half-hours well spent.

Yes, I spoke the Cha'alt invocations at the top and bottom of the session.  I award 2 points of Divine Favor to every player who attended.  

Aside from the two uses of Cha'alt X-Cards, there were also a couple of unnatural 20s due to 4th wall breaking.  Nice!

I also had a GM's screen up.  I've been preparing for Gary Con the last few weeks, and using that preparation to incrementally improve my GMing as a whole.  Now, I don't normally use a screen when I GM because my game mastering is done in my game room where everything is pretty right there.  But at an unfamiliar table in a convention, I'll probably be more nervous / anxious when running the game.  So, the GM's screen is kind of like a security blanket - but also a useful one, more than just peace of mind.  What I've been putting inside the screen is going to help, hopefully.  So, even though I didn't use the screen at all for this session, having it out was good practice for when I'm running Cha'alt in Lake Geneva two weeks from now.

Now, for the poignant phrases voiced at the table...

• "Purple glyphs and purple slime... goes together like peanut-butter and peanut-butter."
• "4 out of 5 elder gods recommend this sub-cult of Yog-Soggoth."
• "We'll call her Snickers because she always satisfies."
• "Asking an NPC's name is a sign of weakness."
• "Orgasm into wakefulness."
• "Does the back rubbing go with the cult joining?"
• "Roll for skimming the text."
• "Nauseous, not cautious."
• "Are you jacking-in or jacking-off?"
• "Imagine what kind of porn that would contain."  "Tentacles, brother.  Tentacles."

Thanks for joining us on another phenomenal session in the 3rd year of our CHA'ALT campaign!

Enjoy,

VS

p.s. Want the hardcover Cha'alt trilogy?  Here's how (and they're currently on sale!)!!  Want to join the Kort'thalis mailing list to stay up-to-date on what's going on in the skinematic Vengerverse?  This is it!!  Last but not least, I'm organizing a based-as-fuck RPG convention in Madison, WI this July.  Grab your weekend badge for VENGER CON IV: Post-Modern Apocalypse!!!

Hardcover CHA'ALT Sale!!!

 

I'm updating the look of my game room with some new paintings I've been working on.  It's been ages since I've painted anything, and it feels pretty good.

The upshot - I'm trying to get rid of those ever-present boxes of hardcover Cha'alt books.  So, here's a sale (domestic shipping only - if you live outside the USA, email me for a special quote)...

 

• If you want the original Cha'alt hardcover, signed and numbered by yours truly, it's $25 + $5 shipping / handling.
• If you want the 2nd book, Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise, in hardcover, signed and numbered, it's $30 + $5 shipping / handling.
• If you want the 3rd book, Cha'alt: Chartreuse Shadows, it's $40 + $5 shipping / handling. 
• If you want all three - the entire Cha'alt hardcover trilogy will only set you back $100 (shipping / handling included).

The PDFs are included.  So, if you don't already have those, just send me your DTRPG email address after purchasing.  Speaking of which, send money via paypal to Venger.Satanis@yahoo.com

Anyone not know what Cha'alt is by now?  Cha'alt is my eldritch, gonzo, science-fantasy, post-apocalypse, humor, sleaze, pop-culture, exploitation grindhouse campaign setting.  It's got everything you'd want in that kind of book - the works!

Don't believe me?  Here's the RPG Pundit sharing his thoughts on the matter (he just released his own parody setting supplement called Ch'o'rt, FYI).

Thanks for helping me out, hoss!  While you're here, take a look at some of the new paintings in the game room, where the Cha'alt magic happens.

Enjoy,

VS

p.s. Want to join the Kort'thalis mailing list to stay up-to-date on what's going on in the skinematic Vengerverse?  This is it!!  Last but not least, I'm organizing a based-as-fuck RPG convention in Madison, WI this July.  Grab your weekend badge for VENGER CON IV: Post-Modern Apocalypse!!!

"Long Day's Journey Into Night" - CHA'ALT Campaign 3.4

 

Bandits to the left of me, bandits to the right... stuck in a purple worm corpse with you!

That should be a song... somewhere, maybe in Cha'alt where yesterday's adventures took place.  I did what I said I was going to do as per this blog post.  I spoke the Cha'alt campaign invocations.  Definitely felt weird the first time, but I assume as I keep saying it and saying it and saying it, the unfamiliarity will soon wear off and what's left behind shall be nothing but pure, uncut vibe.

It's the 4th session, so 4 was the number of the day, and anyone who rolled a 4 got a success or critical-success, depending on the circumstances. 

The club-hopping, honorary Florida man, pick-up artist player was still in Miami or some such place, so we soldiered on without him.  4 players.  H'ork, Bandersnatch, Therberus, and Tinker.  Let's get weird!

H'ork was awoken from his session-long slumber by the emphatic ravings of a madman - "It's penis water!  Worm wine is made out of penis water... it's worm pee!  A'arrrggh!"

Flash-forward to a mildly disturbing dream they all had...

"You're in a dark cave, the odor of death and decay surrounding the rough stone walls - crystals embedded, softly glowing, magenta, lavender, orange, periwinkle, and chartreuse.  Many glyphs are also written upon the wall of rock and sediment and veins of luminous quartz, but you can't make out any of the words, except for one central, one primal glyph.  What is that glyph  What does it mean?"

At that point, I showed them the Cha'alt invocation glyph and prompted each player to give me an answer on what they believed the singular glyph to mean.  H'ork said "worm anus."  Bandersnatch said "servitude."  Thurberus said "an advertisement for worm wine."  And Tinker believed it symbolized a chalice or cup.

"An infernal whisper makes you turn around.  The almost human face of Cholak is rotting away from his skull.  He laughs and then reaches into your chest, pulling out a fuchsia unicorn made of shiny wrapping-paper.  Suddenly, you find yourself in the middle of a party - people you don't know are attempting to grasp your hand but you aren't letting them.  Why?  Why aren't you allowing them to take your hand?"

Another prompt to each one of them.  H'ork said he was anti-social.  Bandersnatch simply said "not clean," when someone asked if it was hands or people, he said "both."  Thurberus said "no hands."  Tinker said he needed his hands for picking pockets.  Continuing on...

"From across the room, Bea Arthur [another dream-laden Golden Girls reference] gazes at you with [at this point I had all of them roll a d4 with my random table at the ready - H'ork got "longing," and the other three got "contempt."].  Raising her eyebrow as all those people turn into eyeballs - staring at you.  From a nearby door, a swarthy native of Cha'alt screams, "Not the ja'am-gabbar... anything but that!"

I told the adventurers that they awoke on the floor of Julian's wine bar, hair matted with worm piss.  A'ahhh, the good life.  The early morning air was cool and refreshing.  It won't be long before it's hot as balls again.

Before leaving, Thurberus left a note thanking Julian for the good time... but found a note left for the entire adventuring party.  It was a Dear John or Dear Crimson Bastards letter written by Sass.  She'd grown tired of exploring dark and dangerous places with a bunch of scruffy nerf-herders.  Instead, she's decided to shack-up with Alkameed who clerks at the curio shop At Your Mercy in the merchant district.  One NPC down, the PCs continued on.

The PCs had a few different options open to them, but they all decided to finish their Federation Occupied A'agrybah business before treking to the Temple of Unimagined Horrors via the purple worm corpse.  Walking to the Blue Banana cantina, they passed a couple of Federation soldiers who called them Cha'alt scum.  Keeping discretion, the Crimson Bastards let that one go.  

They checked-out the cantina, which was more like a tiki bar that served blue banana daiquiris - made with real blue banana ketchup (that came about because I mimed (with sound-effects) the blue velvet elf making a drink and the sound I made suggested that of a ketchup bottle being squeezed.  

Speaking of which, there's a slight but generally unnoticed difference between blue suede elves and blue velvet elves that only they're aware of.  To everyone else, they just look the same.  

Questioning the bartender, Kreed, he didn't seem of much help in locating Captain Neevo.  However, Tinker got a sense that he was hiding something or aligned with the Federation, so they stayed to have a couple drinks to see what would happen.  After awhile, a blood-elf, tough looking with plenty of scars, walked in, talked to Kreed in hushed tones, pointing at the PCs, and then the blood-elf went down a hallway towards the back of the cantina.

The PCs followed.  At the end of the hallway was a door ajar, but on the way, there were restroom doors, too.  They checked both.  In the mens, Ace Ventura (or a humanoid who looked just like him) did the whole "Whew, do not go in there!"

They found a darkened stairway going down.  Tinker flew down there first to see what was going on.  He saw the dude who just went down, Vargzini, 2 thugs, and Neevo tied to a chair.  Vargzini had a blaster pointed at the Captain's head and wanted that password to the S.S. Motherfucker, or else he was going to kill Neevo and the PCs upstairs.  Since Neevo believed this was his last chance, he blurted out the ship's password "Blushing Anal Captives, part 7 - all one word; all caps."

The PCs immediately attacked.  Tinker back-stabbed, Bandersnatch put the thugs and Captain Neevo to sleep, and Thurberus and H'ork blasted their way to victory.  Untying Neevo, he agreed to pay them double for the crystals (2,000 credits each) in exchange for also saving his life.  Neevo picked-up a blue VIP badge that he flashed when they got to the starport.  The Federation security forces gave them a wide berth, and they got back to the ship to finish their business.  Neevo also gave the PCs a communicator to get in contact with him if they should ever have the need.  Oh, and Tinker bought that blue VIP pass for 400 credits.  Money well spent, probably, we'll see...

There was a funny and meaningful exchange between the Blue Banana bartender and the PCs on their way out.  Basically, the Crimson Bastards are taking over from Vargzini.  The good news: they get to keep the profit and whatever shady business practices he was dealing in.  The bad news: taxes are due tomorrow and they're almost out of blue banana ketchup.  Of course, as soon as that deal was cemented, Tinker turns around and gifts the cantina to Julian - in exchange for a 10% kickback and available resources... should they become necessary.

After learning the Federation has banned high-tech transport, the PCs realize they could use Tinker's newly acquired worm pendant to transform himself into a worm so the other adventurers could ride him all the way to the purple worm corpse.  But it wasn't long before a couple of the PCs noticed a worm caravan following at a discrete distance behind.  And the other two [who rolled 1s] saw a mirage of an oasis and the Swedish bikini team playing by the water.  

When it got late enough, the PCs decided to stop and make camp, as did the caravan behind them.  The party's sorcerer (along with Thurberus) went invisible and flew back to see what the other group was doing.  Lo and behold, these black-clad desperadoes were applying poison to their daggers and then heading over, on foot, to the PCs' campsite.  

Leaving a trap - they placed a thermal detonator in a pile of sleeping blankets, setting it to trigger when the assassins stabbed at them.  It worked, killing 4 of the 7 and wounding 2 others.  Since the PCs got the drop on them, it was easy work mopping up the rest.  They left one on the brink of death so they could find out who these guys were and why they wanted to kill them.  

The final assassin said he was sent by Na'azir, and that he belonged to The Blades of Na'azir, a mercenary / assassin guild located in A'agrybah.  And any other information the PCs wanted to know could probably be found in a letter within the scroll tube in his robes...

"Borusk - Favor this unworthy servant of Hell's malignant heart - our Devil-God Kort'thalis, by stealing the Nyazian scroll and murdering the infidel worm sludge who work for that detestable thorn in our master's side, namely Cholak.  Once your tasks are completed, find me in the basement of the Blue Banana.  Oh, and destroy this parchment after you've read it - don't be a fool like your predecessor.  - Na'azir"

Stealing the assassins' worm caravan, they made out for the purple worm corpse in the morning.  The rest of the night was uneventful.  

It was nearly mid-day when the PCs could see the purple worm corpse and just beyond it, a barrier of some kind - almost like a fence bisecting the desert.  Wandering nomads walked the S'kbah wastes, so the PCs questioned one of them.

These nomads were here to keep the jiha'ad from spilling out past the barrier - rows of humanoids impaled upon petrified thin-worms.  Beyond the barrier was a city-state called Ka'alestine where anyone who did not conform to the strictest obedience to their particular religion was put to death, and better to be killed outright than suffer the ja'am-gabbar!

To their dismay, the PCs discovered that the Temple of Unimagined Horrors was positioned beyond the Ka'alestinian border of impaled victims.  Deciding to worry about that later, they went into the mouth of the purple worm corpse.  Only a few encounters in, I realized it might be a good idea to pepper the gonzo fun-house "dungeon" with some normal or pedestrian encounters rather than keep going with unrelenting weird shit.  So, there was a good mix of combat with human bandits along with stumbling upon a lodged pink organic starship, a dying alien with dream-crystals, a popsicle diorama of the Deathstar playset with variety of action figures, etc.

I won't go into too much detail about those things because I'm using my latest PDF (and it's free) over at the Red Room to come up with "worm stuff" for Cha'alt - Advanced Random Tables - Worm Interior.  Suffice it to say, things got strange.  

A couple times during the session, Thurberus activated his golden disco lumination orb to light their surroundings.  Both times, I played this on my phone. 

We ended with the adventurers attempting to place the dream-crystals upon a chunk of cyclopean masonry, and what that would yield - which gives me plenty of time to come up with something.  

If the PCs get any downtime, Bandersnatch is already focused on learning more about the purple labyrinth - after reading the book he acquired a session or two ago, as well as, experimenting with a portal he found.

The players liked the intro / outro.  That's good because I'm going to keep at it, saying it before and after every Cha'alt session... even Roll20 one-shots.  Mention was made of putting the invocations to music (I think that was suggested in the original video that kicked-off this low-key obsession), so that'll be applied next time.  Perhaps, something like that?

One more thing, Thurberus' player brought a Star Wars-esque retro-future cape-poncho that he fucking sewed himself!  He gets 2 points of Divine Favor, and everyone else gets 1.

Before I forget, during one of the combats, H'ork rolled an 18, since he's a 2nd level warrior, that means the adjusted roll would be 20 - an unnatural 20!  As per the optional rule recently introduced in Primordial Chaos: Gonzo Like A Fucking Boss, if a player does something that breaks the 4th wall, that unnatural 20 counts as a critical-success.  H'ork tried to come up with something, I think it was humming a familiar tune... I must admit, I forgot.  But when I asked if anyone else wanted to make a contribution, Thurberus said it's a good thing they're not Stormtroopers, otherwise, they'd never hit anything.

A bit later, Thurberus rolled a 19 in combat and I told him if he did the tentacle motion while saying "By His loathsome tentacles" to get him to 20, and then came up with another 4th wall break, he'd get a critical.  After giving it a half-second thought, he decided nah, too much trouble.  Lol.  It's good to know where the line is.  Of course, different circumstances change the math.

What's good this session, as in, quotable...

• "Reamed and loving it!"
• "Feel free to use the restroom sink to take a Cha'altian shower."
• "Wait... did you guys leave a mess for me to clean up downstairs?"
• "While you're out, remember to grab some blue banana ketchup on your way back.  We're almost out."
• Worm-shit is flameable, so if you're camping with a worm, you can always burn its feces. 
• "He needs some comfort."  Someone else: "Oh, the comfort you'll find at the end of a Cha'alt blade."
• "Blood flows downhill."
• "Sandworms are people, too."
• "The best little lemonade stand in Cha'alt."
• "Yeah, let's sell worm piss by the side of the road."
• "It's a fine line between martyr and murder." - That's one of my favorites!

Thanks for tuning-in, hoss!  Hope you were suitably entertained.  Next session is scheduled for Saturday, March 8th.  Until we meet again...

Enjoy,

VS

p.s. Want the hardcover Cha'alt trilogy?  here's how!  Want to join the Kort'thalis mailing list to stay up-to-date on what's going on in the skinematic Vengerverse?  This is it!!  Last but not least, I'm organizing a based-as-fuck RPG convention in Madison, WI this July.  Grab your weekend badge for VENGER CON IV: Post-Modern Apocalypse!!!