Mysterious Qada'ath [Cha'alt campaign, session 5]

 

Sometimes, I run meandering, stream of consciousness sessions, other times they're dungeoncrawls or standard sandboxes of wandering around and the PCs find adventure where they can.

This was a linear (but not railroad, as the PCs always had a choice and I never forced them down, nor would I force them down a particular path) scenario.

Before I forget, in 2 or 3 days from now, I'll be asking for VENGER CON III: Revenge of the OSR GMs and players to give me their tentative schedules and wish-lists, respectively.  So, come back soon for that blog post.  I know a lot of gamers are already looking forward to this July's VENGER CON in Madison, WI.  Time to start planning in earnest.

Ok, back to the session report.  One of my favorite players returned after 2 months of dealing with personal matters, so he came in with a brand-new character... and now that I look back at my notes, I have no idea what that character's name is.  But he's a warrior and made entirely of crystal.

Nix the demon thief, Gorra the grog priest, and Ha'agly Morningwood the pixie-fairy sorcerer rounded-out the adventuring party.  4 is a good number of players, so away we go!

I meant to take a before and after picture of the 3D printed "dice display" thing, but I do have an older picture that I'll try to link or show here in a minute.  But you can see pics I took of the new paint job.  The color scheme is pure Cha'alt, and even one of my daughters, before the game, said "That's your aesthetic, Dad."

What's it for?  It keeps your dice in one place, so when you need to roll that d12, you know exactly where it is, perched atop its little spot upon slime-flesh mountain!  ;)

Anyway, I suggested the PCs should already be together, but asked the crystalline warrior's player how he would have met them.  In line at the leech store.  That must have been after explaining the method of getting high off blue glass.  You melt it down, have a leech suck it up, and then press the leech's mouth into your skin as it secretes the liquid blue glass into your system.  It's a debilitating and all-consuming euphoria not unlike heroin (whereas the Federation-made drug fuchsia malaise was more like marijuana... a mellow, feel-good laziness).  

As the PCs walked down the streets of the fantasy cyberpunk (i.e. Shadowrun) dreaming city of Qada'ath, they saw drones with mechanical arms drop down from the fuchsia sky (though beneath the Great Old One floating above the city), pluck humanoids from the orange labyrinth, and deposit them deep into the interior of the city.

Meanwhile, a dissident was shouting warnings to anyone who would hear, "Stop taking the blue glass!  The Supreme Council doesn't serve Uma'at-Allah (the Old One overhead) but themselves!"  

Before he could reveal any more about the blue glass drug, a black-clad city guard known as a sand-blade arrived to shoot him point-blank with a laser rifle.  As the crowd dispersed, another sand-blade asked the PCs where their wristbands were?  No wristbands?  Off to the Citizen Orientation Center!  They went inside a little hover-van that contained a couple other humanoids waiting to be processed.  

Skipping ahead... 

However, I do want to highlight a spontaneous exchange between Crysta'ar [I'm just going to start calling him that] and another guy in the waiting room who bought the deluxe Chevy-grade package of blue glass leeches with the full warranty - even though Qada'ath gives away free drug paraphenalia like it was 2022 San Francisco...

The PCs got inside a locked area of the facility where people were strapped down to a chair watching an alternate version of The Wizard of Oz with ultra-violence, suicide, and animal cruelty (remember, these are the bad guys) as a clipboard and lab coat guy occasionally affixed one of those translucent, neon-pink organic slimy things to the back of someone's head - which made them scream bloody murder.  Apparently, the lab coat guy explained, that little pink squidgy thing transferred dark emotional energy as if a nightmare was asphyxiating you... anally.  

The PCs convinced lab coat guy to give them wristbands so they could wander around, pledge allegiance to Uma'at-Allah, and leave the Citizen Orientation Center.  Everyone realized it was weird that no one was murdered and nothing was stolen, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

During the allegiance pledge part of the processing, I had each player roll a d20 for their character.  Both Crysta'ar and Morningwood rolled a Gilded Die of Satanis, and sure enough, the result came up a 1 or 2.  Morningwood started squealing like a fangirl at a Taylor Swift concert and Crysta'ar was uncontrollably vibrating which made his voice wobbly.

After, they were approached by a violet-skinned elf named Z'quiro.  He was employed by a guy who wanted to know how blue glass was made.  A guard at one of the manufacturing factories was already bribed, so all they had to do was slip in, find out, and relay that information back to Z'quiro.  The PCs asked, so the violet elf told them his boss wanted to create a competing product.

So, the PCs snuck into the factory through the door manned by the bribed guard - "The sandworm always sings thrice." - and they killed another interior guard, saw beds full of 32 people resting and watched as humanoids were taken to some ritual chamber.  3 priests used their spiritual powers to change humanoids placed upon an altar-stone into sheets of blue glass.  Cue one of my favorite actors Charlton Heston - "Blue glass is people!  It's people!"

Finally, the adventurers get some satisfaction the old fashioned way, killing everyone who stand in their way.  The first two priests died quickly as Crysta'ar and Nix had blasters (Gorra's player had to leave 20 minutes before the session's conclusion).  The third priest gesticulated in an eldritch manner and a supernatural light emanated from his hands as a factory worker was turned into a Lovecraftian abomination.  

At one point, Crysta'ar's player rolled another gilded die and got the result he wanted, sliding across the freshly mopped floor - face first straight into the open robes of a dead blue glass priest. The pixie-fairy sorcerer who's afraid of casting spells rolled with his mini-blaster accompanied by a gilded die - that came up 6.  So, he succeeded, but then a ceiling vent blew him into the tentacled creature, and Morningwood's pants got stuck to the tentacle slime, ripping off and leaving him half-naked.

Morningwood got another decent shot off, but was 1 point away from hitting.  I hadn't mentioned it before, but this idea was swimming in my head for weeks... if players made the sign of the tentacle while intoning "By His loathsome tentacles," they'd get a +1 on their roll [usable for each player, once per session].  So, the pixie-fairy's player did that, and that resulted in a hit... for 2 points of damage. Before the creature was blown apart by the others, it slapped a massive tentacle at Morningwood, putting him down 10 HP and Nix 6.

On the way out, they broke-up sheet of blue glass and filled their pockets.  That's where we ended the session.

No one stimulated a Cha'alt X-Cards, unfortunately... but at least the Gilded Die of Satanis got quite a bit of playtesting - and it was all positive.  I have another idea for some far-fetched meta-narrative mechanic, but won't reveal that until next session.

Below are some great quotes from the game...

• "That might be poetic justice, but the real poetry is in the bloodshed."
• "In this version, the flying monkeys are the good guys."
• "Sausage Candy giving out sandy handies."
• "Chili's baby-back leeches."
• "I yearn for something weird!"
• "Yes, that ceiling vent has always been there."
• "Sand powers, activate!"
• "Please, leech responsibly."

Now that the PCs are aware of a major secret of Qada'ath, the supreme council, and Federation, things will start heating up.  I'm also experimenting with campaign arcs, a concept I heard about on YouTube where you break up the campaign into three-session chunks, rather than running it episodically or as one continual season.  

Looking forward to the next game on Saturday, January 27th.  Thanks for reading.  If you enjoyed this, please comment and share with others!

VS

p.s. Only 6 days left to go on The Cha'alt Experience: Designing Worlds Like A Fucking Boss Kickstarter.  If you haven't already, grab your weekend badge for VENGER CON III: Revenge of the OSR right over here!