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!)...
- Bowling ball
- Purple-scorpion bite
- Both
- Neither
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."
