Mysterious Qada'ath [Cha'alt campaign, session 8]

 

Finally, we are back from our unexpected hiatus.  Thanks for tuning in.  I think you'll be pleased to read about this particular game... it was bananas!

We returned with 4 players - Drogon the human sorcerer, Nix the demon thief, Juan Tufrifo the crystalline warrior (and blue glass pusher), and Gorra the grog (sand construct) priest.  All 4 Advanced Crimson Dragon Slayer classes were exhibited - the most important kind of representation!

Before I forget, I opened the door as the first player arrived to see a package at my front door.  It was the fake squishy banana that I had ordered from Amazon just 2 days prior.  So, that was a prop I kept on the game table throughout the session.  And you can bet your bottom-dollar I'll be bringing that motherfucker to Gary Con with me!

The party started at the Quick Stop convenience store in the Outer Settlements of Qada'ath.  They needed a place to plan their assault on the cantina after discovering that Gonzo had taken over the 2nd floor apartment above the desert watering hole (that had been newly renovated to include a strip club with jacuzzi, dance floor, etc.) upon claiming the Ark of the Covenant for himself.

While the other three PCs discussed the merits of sneaking around vs barging in with guns blazing, Juan Tufrifo was in the back alley (still within earshot due to a small window of the convenience store) offering free samples of his blue glass leeches.  This attracted the attention of a spicy little number with big boobs, lavender skin and crimson splotches (part moon-elf, part blood-elf, all tramp).  She (just realized we forgot to give her a name - oops, let's call her Qua'anita) decided to show her appreciation with her mouth, thus becoming the crystalline warrior's new girlfriend.

After the details of their scheme were set, Drogon turned Nix invisible so he could sneak in.  Gorra became sand and looked into the upstairs windows before following Nix inside, Tufrifo distracted the tough-looking mercs surrounding the cantina by trying to sell them blue glass.  And Drogon's spider familiar, Ta'anzo, was also creeping inside and giving his master telepathic impressions of what was going on.

Meanwhile, all 4 PCs saw a man wearing tan robes.  His outstretched hand was stained purple.  Only Tufrifo interacted with him.  All he said was "Soon..."

Inside Gonzo's apartment, they found a man imprisoned.  This turned out to be Va'angoosh, an arcaneologist from A'agrybah who's studied the ancient texts and knows the prophecies and esoteric lore of Cha'alt.  They also stumbled upon a peanut butter and jelly room that soon released a peanut butter demon and two jelly fiends from the raspberry pit.  Gorra, who had to become sand-humanoid in order to not be stuck to the floor, was smacked by the peanut butter demon, took a little damage and made his saving throw to keep his sand free from the slick oil of his peanut buttery foe.

Nix attempted to backstab Gonzo, but just as he began to slice and dice, a small portal opened.  A tentacle quickly exited the portal and blocked Nix's attack before disappearing.  Apparently, Gonzo was favored by the Old Ones due to his possession of the Ark of the Covenant.

Everybody got the Hell out of there as Nix threw a photon detonator between the legs of the peanut butter demon.  It exploded, sending pieces of mercenary, drywall, flaming peanut butter and molten raspberry jelly all over the place.  Meanwhile, they could hear Gonzo scream his disappointment and threats of revenge.

Talking to the arcaneologist a bit more, Va'angoosh told the PCs that there were 3 prophecies connected to the Ark of the Covenant.  The first revealed that a Federation officer named Holt would officiate a ritual involving the murder of 111 humanoids at the Crimson Rock of Sacrifice, then Yog-Soggoth would appear and grant a Greater Wish [which means no limits, as opposed to the 6th level sorcerer's spell which has various limitations and restrictions].  In this case, the planet Cha'alt would implode.  The second prophecy states that Cha'alt would be saved by a rag-tag group of adventurers who are strangers in a strange land.  There was also a third prophecy where something akin to grape soda, possibly Purple Prizm, was spilled upon the scroll.  All that can be known about this third revelation is that it involved the Purple Islands.

 They met back up at the Quick Stop as Tufrifo's ex-girlfriend had words with his current squeeze.  It quickly became a cat fight as the clerk, Dante, said that kind of thing was unacceptable - unless done inside the kiddie pool full of mud.  So, the girls fought as the purple-stained hand guy came in to buy a pack of smokes.

Dante told the PCs that about this time of day a customer usually comes in, and has his own transport.  He could take them across the S'kbah desert to the Crimson Rock of Sacrifice.  

They asked and that sounded good to him.  The driver was re-fueling his transport and challenged Gorra to a game of 17-dimensional chess.  This involves a random table I'd been working on.  The very first move, dude sitting across from me rolls a 17, winning the game.  Like Teddy KGB, transport guy (Again, no name that I can remember... let's call him Slade) felt so unsatisfied.  So, they played again.  

This game took longer, but Gorra eventually won that one, as well.  So, the PCs got a discount on the ride and Slade also told them about where they could find another laser-sword + photon torpedo (which makes a photon detonator look like a jagged rock).  Tufrifo's crystal eyes lit up at the sound of that.

Slade drove them to a ruined temple halfway between the Outer Settlements and Crimson Rock of Sacrifice.  A banana was found laying on the ground at the temple's entrance, next to a broken pillar and crumbling Cyclopean stones.  Tufrifo squished it under foot.  Inside were stone steps leading to a network of caves and tunnels that had, at one time, been modified into a zoo.  The stench of lion B.O., monkey poop, and tentacled turtle-worm piss still saturated the subterranean "dungeon."

Nix scouted ahead, and soon found clowns.  Nix had always seen night-clowns as rather pathetic, cringe-inducing folk (which would soon be ironic - keep reading).  This trio of clowns were reenacting scenes from a movie whose poster was up on a cave wall - Police Academy 2.  I liked the visual of a clown putting on a martial arts style headband that was actually a skinny balloon and miming the poorly-dubbed language of kung-fu films.

Instead of killing them, Nix got the information he needed and let them be - the location of laser-sword, photon torpedo, and that they were being guarded by a tentacled clown-worm.  

The rest of the party moved around to find another virtual reality game like the one they used originally to enter Cha'alt.  This one was called Metebelis-3 and the promotional sticker-posters on the game showed blue light, a spider leg, and terrified humans.  Ta'anzo the spider familiar tried it, and then Drogon and Gorra decided to strap themselves in as well.  

They appeared on an alien world, got some weapons, and Gorra attacked his fellow humans as giant demon flying spiders swooped down to attack everyone.  Drogon wanted to test out the limits of the game by jumping onto a swooping spider while trying to mount it, sexually.  It looked as if he might be successful as the Metebelis-3 game lost power due to low battery, and shut itself down.

Ta'anzo knew how excited his master, now way beyond arachnophilia, had gotten in the game (Juan Tufrifo called this "spooge sense") and offered to finish Drogon off.  The spider familiar took out a small bottle of zoth-based lube from his satchel (or possibly a built-in spider pouch due to an evolutionary quirk) and went to work.

"How are you going to clean up all that mess?" another member of the Crimson Bastards asked when he was finished.  That jogged (spider-jacked?) my memory - the PCs all had Tyrian purple sexkerchiefs from that A'agrybah noble who the PCs had helped a few sessions back.  So, the post-coital cleanup was easy enough.

Moving on, the PCs encountered a larger cave where 20 or so clowns circled a woman getting gangbanged.  She seemed to be enjoying it as the clown-slut took on a couple of dudes in the front while a third was behind her pulling out brightly colored scarves [note to self: next time, go with cream pie trick and/or banana in the tailpipe].  Tufrifo plied has trade as a scummy drug lord (acquiring lots of jellybeans, night-clown currency) as Nix's player wondered if I could possibly make this scene even sleazier, so he stimulated the SLEAZE card (Cha'alt X-Cards), and I'm ashamed to say it only took me a second or two to come up with the following.

Another clown took out a dozen or so candy-colored balloons, pressing each one up to the woman's vagina as she queefed enough air into the phallus-shaped balloons, inflating them to a size good enough for sticking into their clown bottoms.  As the PCs witnessed this utter depravity, they could hear a nearby clown humming 99 Queef Balloons (in the original German).  Dear Lord, what kind of degenerate filth game is this?!?  Lol.

Soon, the adventurers made their way to the southeast corner of the dungeon, passing a cage containing 4 humanoid prisoners who'd been captured by the night-clowns while they were sleeping and expected to be sold into slavery soon.  Not sure if they should free the prisoners now or later, they opted for now... cannon fodder and such.

Finally, they arrived at a massive cave that contained the tentacled clown-worm.  Drogon started things off with a fireball, but rolled a 2, and then opted for fuchsia burn since Gorra had a Divine Favor fuchsia stone from the previous session and Nix just earned his by stimulating the SLEAZE card.

60 whopping points of damage right off the bat.  Then, blasters and the crystalline warrior's laser-sword cutting a swath across the worm belly and eventually penetrating internal organs as juices of darkest periwinkle sprayed him and everyone else in the cave.

A couple of the humanoid prisoners were crushed to death, Gorra was minorly injured, but then just before the godlike creature expired, it critted on Nix, bringing him down to half his usual health, and requiring a saving throw.  He failed; then I remembered the new optional rule in Advanced Crimson Dragon Slayer that allowed Advantage on saves if the player recounted a memory from his character's life, perhaps something relevant to the current situation, something that might give the PC inspiration or solace in his time of need?  "Like a flashback," another player replied.  Yes, exactly!

Wasn't long before Nix was reminded of the spawning pits where infants were dropped into the fiery domain by... the Great Old Ones or possibly Demon Lords (I was too busy writing to hear and remember all the details) and these babies had to crawl their way up to safety, which meant that only the fittest would survive, thus ensuring the strength of their species.

Apparently, this was something that the player had in his mind for awhile but just hadn't articulated until now.  And it might never have seen the light of day (or dark of night) if not for that new optional rule.  So, I gave him 2 more chances to succeed in his saving throw (Nix should have joined in on the gangbang, I guess), but never made it to that hard to reach 17+ threshold as a 3rd level character.

That meant he was becoming a clown himself!  By the battle's end, Nix was powdering his nose and craving jellybeans. 

In that last cave was a large stone altar where the 4-foot long by 1-foot across photon torpedo rested (a transparent aluminum window allowed one to see the orange photon energy going every-which-way inside.  On a stone pedestal was the hilt of a laser-sword.  And at the back wall of this cavern hung a neon banana sign.  One player misheard and thought the laser-sword was banana-shaped... I loved that idea, so we went with it.  Tufrifo took the neon banana sign down off the wall and was about to put it in his knapsack when its radiant energy burst - turning everyone in the area into banana-men.

By this time of the game, Gorra's player had to get changed for work and people were picking-up their dice, going to the bathroom, etc.  So, I don't think everyone heard or knew what was happening.  Usually, for significant events I make sure that everyone is present at the table and paying attention when I describe those sorts of things.  

However, I thought it was more appropriate for this to be a more private moment focusing on Tufrifo and his reaction.  If this were the final moments of a TV show, after the initial credits there's sometimes an extra minute of post-climax story that happens before the episode concludes.  And I could imagine the inadvertent actions of one character affecting everyone in dramatic fashion, without the others even being aware of what happened... and the curtain closes.

That it.  Thanks for reading.  There is no campaign like a Cha'alt campaign.  Next session is already this coming Saturday because I'll be busy with family stuff the following Saturday, and the Saturday after that I'll be running games at Gary Con!

Enjoy,

VS

p.s. Why should we have all the fun?  Get your hardcover Cha'alt trilogy now!  And game with us this July in Madison, WI because it's VENGER CON III, motherfucker!