Mysterious Qada'ath [Cha'alt campaign, session 7]

 

Huzza'ah for the bare minimum!  I have a personal rule that I don't run virtual games for less than 2 people and live, in-person games for less than 3.  So, I was thankful that we had 3 players for yesterday's game.

An interesting line-up, as well.  We had the grog (sand construct) priest and two sorcerers - Morningwood and Drogon (who started out the campaign as a priest, but converted at the beginning of last session).  That means no warriors and no thieves.

After banging the gong and catching Morningwood's player up on what happened last time (can you believe he didn't read my blog post session report?  Outrageous!), the PCs continued to explore the system of caves and tunnels beneath Qada'ath.

Morningwood, being a pixie-fairy, turned himself invisible and flew around the cave containing a warlord named Skull-Face, a dozen soldiers  armed with spears, and a trio of sex-slave harem women.  He heard two interesting pieces of conversation.  Something about x'queeu being uncovered and that these guys were planning on conquering as much of this "dungeon" as they can in just a few hours.

Gorra the priest called up his demon friend who lives in the Outer Settlements of Qada'ath to see what was going on.  Apparently, Gonzo has been acting strange.  He burned his own house down, stole the Ark of the Covenant, and was looking for the PCs.

They kept searching in other caves.  Halfway down a tunnel, they found a humanoid citizen of Qada'ath eating a sandwich in the dark, trying not to be seen.  He recognized Drogon who denied being himself.  The guy pulled out his communicator and showed video footage of the Crimson Bastards (that's what I'm calling the PCs - it was their adventuring party name in the last campaign - until they come up with a better name) doing stuff they actually did (killing some guards and sand-blades) along with stuff that they didn't do (but probably wanted to), like blowing up the blue glass factory and barging into the executive offices of Supreme Councilor Kra'ang and shooting him point-blank in the head.  Just before dying, the pink little squishy guy muttered "X'queeu."

  Drogon knew that word due to his priest and sorcerer combo-background.  The word x'queeu means holiest of holy weapons.

Apparently, they were public enemy #1, and denounced as terrorists.  Believing most of the footage was doctored by The State, the PCs filed this information away, and kept going (after Drogon autographed the dude's sandwich receipt from Jimmy Ja'ans).

They kept going down the tunnel and found an old, gray-haired, balding, rough-looking mercenary choking a small red muppet named Elmo as a red-shirt alien humanoid and crew member of some starship was huddled at the back of the cave in a fetal position crying.  Yeah, I know, but... I couldn't resist.

The PCs discovered that the merc was hired by Gonzo to kill the Crimson Bastards.  So, the PCs tricked the merc into giving up Gonzo's location by telling him that the Crimson Bastards were hiding out among the dudes in Skull-Face's cave, reassuring not-Larry David that they would be his backup as soon as he entered the cave blasting.

Then the PCs explored two other caves - one containing a portal and 4 neo-templars from another dimension who were dead-set on destroying the Ark of the Covenant and its dread contents - the x'queeu!  The neo-templars explained that the holiest of holy weapons was an artifact that could pierce the veil between dimensions, allowing the Old Ones free reign throughout the multiverse.  

These neo-templars were looking for Gonzo, so the PCs made a deal with them.  They would take them to Gonzo in return for help (if they needed it) getting out of these caves and back to the Outer Settlements and one of their magic weapons the neo-templars wielded.  

Gorra took a morning-star +1 that could manifest a hurricane once per day.  

The other cave contained cannibals with glowing green eyes who were swarming around a massive crystal.  The CHUDs were chanting "Meequay denza'an irikais," which means... once the artifact is released, our redemption will be at hand (or tentacle).  

Drogon wanted a better look at that crystal, so he fireballed them.  Unfortunately, he rolled a 1 for the d6 fireball table in Advanced Crimson Dragon Slayer, which would have backfired on them.  So, he spent a point of Divine Favor and re-rolled - getting another 1.  There were 2 polished fuchsia stones (representing points of Divine Favor) remaining on the table, so Drogon decided to employ fuchsia burn, using them both to achieve a critical success.

All the cannibals were smoldering husks, but the crystal absorbed some of the spell's super-charged magical energy, allowing me an opportunity to roll on the weird, wild spell after-effect table in Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise.  I rolled a 73, which, as it happens, is usually everyone's (and by everyone, I mean reviewers) favorite.  The sorcerer's head falls off, and gross stuff pukes out his neck, growing tentacles and an egg hatches that produces a miniature sorcerer who slowly grows to full size.  

In the massive crystal, the PCs saw a vision of one possible future - the Ark being loaded onto a Federation military transport as Gonzo looked on.  Then, a map of Cha'alt showing a red line - Indiana Jones style - the transport making its way across the S'kbah desert to the Crimson Rock of Sacrificed.  Finally, the planet Cha'alt imploding into a hundred-million fragments!

Now, the PCs were extra motivated.  So, they bypassed a crystalline dragon (though Gorra broke a tiny piece of it off, in case he had a chance to clone himself a crystal dragon at some later point), and found the cave containing ka'alaxian crystals that could reshape reality itself with a sorcerer's ritual - the primary reason why the PCs came down to these caves in the first place.  

There were a couple scholarly humanoids studying the glowing chartreuse crystals.  The PCs noticed silky, translucent spider webbing all over the ka'alaxian crystals.  So, they bade one of the scholars to touch a crystal in hopes of triggering any trap or alarm or whatnot.

Interrupting this, Drogon's player decided to stimulate a Cha'alt X-Card - HUMOR.  And he had his own idea, explaining to the table that maybe those translucent strands was jizz, rather than spider silk.  Very well, I said... these sticky strands are spider splooge.

BTW, I talked about this whole encounter and even created a D100 "Spider-Jack" random table group project for anyone who wants to participate between now and Valentine's Day.  Here is the Inappropriate Characters YouTube episode.  I'm hosting the D100 table over at TheRPGsite.com in the Design, Development, and Gameplay board.  See what we've got so far and submit your own entry!

Sure enough, a 3-foot portal opened in mid-air above the PCs.  The giant spider (the size of a medium-sized dog) sat on the edge of the portal, jacking off - as interdimensional, crystal-coveting spiders often do.

The PCs managed to pry a ka'alaxian crystal loose and Drogon wished to use its energy to destroy any giant spider army that might be behind the one seen and close the portal to their dimension.  To seal the deal, Drogon chose to call upon a lavender demon moon of destiny, and inexplicably, decided to roll a gilded die simultaneously.  "This I gotta see," I said while leaning in with anticipation.

He rolled a 5 on the lavender moon die, resulting in success, but then a 6 on the Gilded Die of Satanis - holy shit, a critical-success + something awkward, embarrassing, or cringe as the cherry on top.

I determined that Drogon closed the portal with a blast of eldritch energy, shooting the spider perched on the portal's edge towards the sorcerer's crotch.  As the spider was already in jack-mode, he began jacking Drogon off while the ka'alaxian + crit-bonus manifested a bewitching beauty made flesh, or a close approximation, for the sorcerer to slide into (with the help of the spider, who now saw Drogon as his master).

It was one of the craziest, fucked-up things I've ever GMed, and we were all here for it.

Soon after, the PCs found a door out of the cave system, but this hand-print looked a bit different than the last.  Being suspicious, they insisted the red-shirted crying starship dude (Wesley) put his hand on the imprint pad.  One failed saving throw later and Wesley's hand disintegrated.  The party's priest Gorra immediately tried to heal his hand back - which only produced a tiny hand growing out of the stump, like Kristin Wiig's SNL character with the tiny hands.

I suggested that Morningwood's player, who suggested the SNL sketch reference, stimulate the POP-CULTURE Cha'alt X-Cards in order to get the Divine Favor bonus.  He did, and that little hand made Wesley cry even harder.

Now, outside in the hot desert air under fuchsia sky with twin suns, the PCs + neo-templars began the hour-long walk back to the Outer Settlements.  20 minutes in, a hover-limousine pulls up.  A tinted window descends as a high-end escort asks the PCs if they want a ride.

They all pile inside the hover-limo as 3 sexy escorts start telling the PCs how awesome and strong and manly and handsome they are.  The girls start touching them while offering them blue dreamers (a designer sex drug) - without ever discussing money!  I even had them roll a sort of insight check to determine if this was fishy.  Drogon's spider pet/minion, Ta'anzo, was suspicious and Morningwood's player rolled a natural 20, so he definitely felt a disturbance in the force.  

Earlier in the session, I bugged the pixie-fairy's player about the scepter he acquired a couple sessions ago.  He's been a player in my D&D one-shots and campaigns, off and on, since the late 90s.  I had forgotten some of that guy's quirks.  One of them being, if he's got an item with a variable effect, his risk adverse nature will usually prevent him from utilizing it.  Also, he's afraid of losing HP, which is just simply an occupational hazard for a sorcerer, using my Advanced Crimson Dragon Slayer.

Apparently, my ribbing was enough to get him to use the rainbow scepter - he rolled a 6 on a d8 - indigo (psionics).  Morningwood started to receive telepathic impressions from the girls... how Gonzo had hired them to kill the Crimson Bastards and how the girls had gotten their pimp to inject poison into the blue dreamers.

Bound and gagged, the escorts were no longer a problem.  The driver took the PCs straight to where Gonzo was living now, in a rent-controlled apartment above the cantina.  By this time, it was about a half-hour from our usual end-time, and I knew coming face to face with whatever was behind the door to Gonzo's apartment would be lengthy and a major set-piece (from a design standpoint).  Plus, my kids were getting antsy and wanted my attention.  So, we ended things there.

Hopefully, all 6 players will be able to make the February 24th game.  I'll leave you with a few choice phrases from this session...

• "I will keep my ear to the sand."
• "Be careful and watch your tentacles!"
• Jimmy Ja'ans
• "It doesn't pay to be rude in Cha'alt." - after that merc told the PCs to get the fuck out of the cave, they shot him.  Lol
• "Do I get that sleaze factor bonus because I talked about gonzo-style porn to those neo-templars?"

Thanks for reading, hoss!

VS

p.s. The Cha'alt hardcover books are on sale - right over here!  Also, weekend badges are available for VENGER CON III: Revenge of the OSR - grab yours now!!!