For those who haven't been keeping up, I just ran the 14th "episode" of my Cha'alt campaign via Crimson Dragon Slayer D20 Revised (still free, still awesome).
Many believe that such an ultra-light ruleset can't sustain a long-term campaign. Well, they're wrong. Sure, I come up with the occasional ruling on the spot, but I'd be doing that even with a 200+ page rulebook.
And amazingly enough, we got the band back together! The only thing we didn't get to try out (that I can remember) were the lavender moon dice of infernal destiny! Oh well, next time!
Jackal the dwarf warrior, Krandol the half-orc warrior, Heighten Chancery Philthrop the 3rd (halfling thief), Robard the Red (dwarven sorcerer), and Zagreus the dwarf thief. The cleric PC we picked-up late in the campaign was absent because his player had family affairs he needed to contend with.
So, with five players, we embarked on this latest stretch of the odyssey. Since everyone was present, I had plans of ending the campaign with this session. However, as you'll shortly see, that was pleasantly derailed. I use that word "derail" specifically because I do try to let the PCs go where they may and follow their action to wherever it takes them... while also providing a loose narrative structure to keep things moving along.
If I had pushed things too hard in the direction of my own preconceived notion for how the adventure should turn out, I'd be railroading the players. Not cool, bro.
After all, we're cooperatively creating a story as we go. As long as all the details and ending aren't set in stone, the tale we tell is alive and malleable, possibilities abound, fuchsia sky's the limit.
Two weeks ago, our normally scheduled program was postponed due to VENGER CON. So, it took a little time before we recalled what happened the session before. But once a couple details were presented, our memories refreshed.
It started with a dream... a dream of colorful dragons and riding on their backs through weird space. Along the way, the PCs saw a serpent's eye as big as one of Cha'alt's moons, fuchsia tentacles bathed in chartreuse flames rising from a black pyramid and a crystalline banana shattering into a thousand shards, each one reflecting the face of a Great Old One so monstrously terrifying that looking upon its untenable visage immediately woke them up.
The PCs settled old business, which included acquiring payment in humanoid slaves, including some beach girl centaur hottie, named Nineteen, that I stumbled upon over at the Lamentations of the Flame Princess facebook page months ago. Robard immediately claimed her as his concubine. I decided to roll on a few tables that I didn't normally have access to, and determined that she was insecure and had 6 kids (because Zagreus had found a time crystal earlier, it was indeed likely that some of those kids actually belonged to Robard).
The other thing the PCs got from their demon allies was information - that Commander Andrak of the Federation had gone to the southern caves in hopes of making his way down below Cremza'amirikza'am to find that ancient artifact / secret weapon / apocalyptic device he's been after since the campaign's halfway point.
Then, they noticed a violet spot of light on the cave floor, it was from a shaft that had no beginning. Robard used his sorcery to find an invisible dimensional rift that led them into a dark bio-mechanical cave containing 40 or 50 humanoid battery-pods like from The Matrix, each filled with a person surrounded by wires, cables, and translucent pink goo.
The pods were being guarded by 11 black spider-droids, about the size of a big dog - and beyond all that was a large violet crystal glowing so intensely that it's light penetrated another dimension (the PCs' home world). Robard casted a spell on Jackal, creating 5 additional mirror images of him. But he wanted to super-charge the spell by making a ritual out of it, takes longer but if you're not in a rush, you get a bigger and/or better effect.
I decided to roll on the weird spell aftereffects from Fuchsia Malaise. So, rolling the percentile and wouldn't you know, it came out "radioactive spider"!!! What are the odds? Yes, 1 in 100... but still!
Normally, I don't keep a ton of other books nearby me when I'm GMing Crystals of Chaos, just trying to keep a somewhat restrained "work space." However, because of the convention a couple weeks ago, I had my Alpha Blue books right next to my chair. Since the radioactive spider result mentioned a possible mutation, I asked everyone to roll. Everyone unfortunately "passed," which means no mutant... Venger sad.
Then I had the silly, genius, totally irresponsible idea of suggesting that anyone who decided to intentionally fail their roll would get a bonus point of Divine Favor. 4 out of the 5 agreed. So, we got Krandol with possible seizures each scene / encounter (which I forgot to roll later, I'll have to write myself a note for next session), divine healing hands for Chancery, and eidetic memory for Zagreus, and Robard the Red smells like roses pretty much all the time. Oh yeah, and centaur-hottie got danger sense.
Hey, in my defense - Cha'alt is gonzo, and also I still thought this might be our last session. Why not go out with a bang? There was certainly a bang... keep reading, hoss!
Ok, spider-droids dispatched with the PCs taking no damage because all 3 hits were directed at Jackal's mirror-clones, leaving two magical clones "alive." I'm not sure if it's written into the fine print of that spell or because of the ritualized gonzo nature of how the spell turned out, but Robard commanded everyone to destroy the last two mirror images of Jackal, lest they take on sentience of their own and try to replace the "master image."
So, the PCs made short work of them. One of the clones might have wounded a PC, but nothing significant. Robard decided to plunge his black bladed demon sword into the violet crystal in an ongoing effort to make the GM squirm... more likely, an unconscious effort to push me out of my comfort zone... or that's just what his character would do in that situation. Who can be sure?
After giving it some quick thought (and forcing Robard's player to burn a couple fuchsia stones on attaining a halfway decent d20 roll), I determined that the violet-hued techno-magical suit of retro-futurist armor belonging to the Samurai-Rangers of the Lost Universe would fuse itself to both Robard and his black infernal sword. I listed all the benefits, but Robard's player is going to do a write-up of how it all shakes out.
Lastly, the party fiddled with a battery-pod, releasing one of the simulation-dreamers who assumed he was still in Chicago, circa 1999. So, he decided to tag along and see what Cha'alt had to offer before deciding to awaken his fellow batteries. That NPC's name is John Dick, an amateur male porn actor.
Meanwhile, back on Cha'alt, the PCs have made quite a name for themselves in Cremza'amirikza'am and picked up a couple followers - Ma'ato (green and slobby) and Namir (the color and smell of Corinthian brown leather who's arrogant and resembles George Hamilton). The PCs then asked about the camera crew - now that I think about it, this may have happened before the violet shaft of light scene, but whatever - and it occurred to me that I should come up with a random table to determine what's going on with their documentary... are they on break, eating lunch, going to get more filmstock, fucking an intern, etc.
Eventually, we decided it would be hilarious if they were on strike. I described all three crew members holding picket-signs demanding more money with some catchy slogan. Ideas were flowing like moderately-priced wine, and it was hard to keep up with what everyone said, but I do remember lots of laughs that lasted a few minutes. And it ended with studio executive sharkoids giving the PCs 40% investment in the production for 500 gold pieces.
Next, the PCs headed further south and found a massive chunk of ka'alaxian crystal with tangerine striations embedded in an even more massive stalagmite. Who's going to touch it? A common refrain in my games. I believe multiple PCs did, and they experienced the same vision...
Commander Andrak, one side of his face horribly burned and scarred from his last tangle with the PCs, standing in a cave embedded with blood-red crystals. The Federation officer held a crimson box in his hands. When he opened it, there was a flash and the adventurers could see the entire planet of Cha'alt explode.
That bastard Robard the violet-red asked if that vision would allow him to teleport there using his sorcery (because technically, he has been there or at least seen the place via the crystal's warning). I said yes, and then he opened a portal, and everyone came with. So there they were, standing in "the last room" of the adventure, possibly the campaign, hours ahead of time and with approximately 90-minutes of game time remaining. Lol
After a minute or so of deep thought, I told Robard that the blood-red crystals were forcing his mind to project them all into yet another dimension - a crimson labyrinth. Luckily, I had brought my VENGER CON Like A Fucking Boss d100 gonzo table with me downstairs before the game's start. I rolled on it several times to give me ideas, since I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen until I spontaneously thought it up. Now, that's auto racing without a seatbelt - not for the faint of heart!
The atmosphere was 7% cinnamon. Then I rolled on a result that simply said "The day God went mad." Of course, I knew what that was in reference to, since I wrote it and all. It's the original title for the vintage episode of Doctor Who episode called "The Face of Evil." So, in the distance, there was a mountain (similar to Mount Rushmore) fashioned in the likeness of Tom Baker.
Inside his open mouth, the PCs saw a few humanoids. So, off they went to climb. Then I rolled again and got Satan's Little Helpers - just inside the mouth was a biker gang whose High Priest had been taken down a corridor and through a locked door - this was technological and the bikers asked the PCs to help free their High Priest, and in exchange, the bikers would do something for them (but I forget what exactly).
Krandol used his purple plasma sword to burn a hole through the door. Inside was their High Priest, sitting cross-legged with arms out at his side, meditating and chanting under his breath. In each hand, he had a crystal - one chartreuse and the other fuchsia. I imagined the High Priest as resembling PeeWee Herman since Satan's Little Helpers was from PeeWee's Big Adventure and Paul Reubens just passed away (RIP, hoss).
One of the PCs asked him what he was doing, and the High Priest replied "Waiting for it to come!" And the PCs noticed an infernal glyph carved into the stone floor beneath his lotus position.
Chancery Heighten Philthrop III, who'd been relatively quiet so far, decided to get the party started with a laser blast at the High Priest. Literally, everyone at the table assumed the halfling thief's player would miss because that was his MO. However, that notion turned out to be utter bullshit, as he scored a 15. Plenty good enough to shoot a stationary humanoid who's preoccupied and with his eyes closed.
He got the High Priest in the neck and blood spurted out, then his head opened wide and this small, squidgy, slimy green Lovecraftian obscenity slithered out and hovered in mid-air... then grew into the size of a mid-sized car with massive tentacle - the fuchsia and chartreuse crystals also hovering next to the horror.
I forgot how much raw firepower the PCs could exert when they're all assembled. And all my attack rolls failed and/or the PCs made all their saves. So, they killed it without a scratch (I should have beefed it up mid-battle, but decided against it on a whim). Then, to add insult to injury (not really, but that's what it felt like) someone (most likely the halfling, since he just acquired divine healing hands) asked "Does anyone need healing?" To which everyone responded "Nope," since no one had a single HP taken from them.
Oh yeah, on that first round of combat, the PCs blew the conch shell to summon that worm the dark elves used a few sessions ago. So, he showed up to eat the flesh and drink the emerald-green blood of the abomination once it finally showed up one round later.
However, I subverted that anticlimax by telling them the emerald blood seeped into the infernal glyph and made the entire thing glow as an "earthquake" shook the entire place and pieces of the mountain they were in started crumbling. They hightailed it out of there on the bikers' motorcycles and as they were exiting the mouth, noticed a priest or something of the Tom Baker religion, this dude in priest robes had a Tom Baker scarf wrapped around his neck. He mentioned something about the Tro-kla'an or convergence of weird occurrences and mystical events that would likely result in another apocalypse.
That priest asked the PCs for a lift out of this micro-universe, so they allowed it, if he could hold on to Nineteen, Robard's centaur-hottie concubine (who wasn't a slave, but her own woman - she can do what she likes). He did and grabbed her boobs on the ride back, which Robard swore revenge for (not a cuck, but possibly a simp - Lol). We'll have to see how this plays out next session.
The PCs made it out of the crimson labyrinth (on second thought, in my mind's eye, it's more of an expanse or realm than a labyrinth) dimension to the blood-red crystal room. Realizing that I still had the exact same logistics problem as earlier, I quickly followed-up with "And then the apocalyptic explosion was so HUGE that it psychically blew everyone back through the teleportation gateway you used to get here, and back to the spot you were in before reaching the red crystal room."
We were about out of time, and that was a perfect point to end the session. It didn't go the way I expected, but I (and it sounds like all the players) felt it was an awesome session! I know I'm extremely biased, but it seems like VENGER CON a couple weeks ago helped prepare me for improvising the eldritch, gonzo, science-fantasy, post-apocalyptic vibe of Cha'alt.
If all goes well, session #15 will be in two weeks. Although, the middle of August is a tricky time for me work-wise, so no promises. I won't know how much work I'll have to put in until it gets much closer.
In any case, thanks for reading! You had to be there to hear all the jokes (including a strange but dirty Doctor Who anecdote). Nevertheless, the following are a few amusing phrases heard at the table...
- "White Jackal Privilege!"
- "Dumping random A.I. generated shit through the multiverse into Cha'alt." [Basically, whenever you use the prompt "Cha'alt," then whatever you generate using A.I. will appear somewhere in the Cha'alt multiverse]
- "Don't cross the crystal streams."
- "Worms that eat up Lovecraftian abomination corpses are called Cha'altian roombas."
- "You might have to find another God." [I didn't say it, but good advice in this campaign, and reminded me of the movie I just finished, the 1976 King Kong - classic!]
Please, comment down below if you have a question, feedback, or just to say "Hi."
VS
p.s. Do I still have gorgeous, premium hardcovers of the
Cha'alt trilogy for sale?
Do I...?!? Yes, yes I do. In today's world, buy from the little guy, the independent creator selling books out of his basement, just trying to break-even - not soulless corporations that first and foremost care about profits - and are hard-pressed to come up with good content!
