Another exciting session - this time we tried out that narrative d6 mechanic, which I initially believed was an original concept, but soon realized it's been done many times before.
But that's no reason not to use it. After all, I didn't create the wheel, either.
We had a full-house today, and I almost had to break out the extra chair. Unfortunately, the new player whose character is Black Francis the dark-elf thief had a prior obligation. However, he plans to return in future adventures.
So, it was H'ork, Bandersnatch, Thurberus, Tinker, and Botsterdomus. I wouldn't know until after the session was over that this would be the Bots' last session. His player has a job opportunity in Florida and he's moving away.
Even though I planned for a half and half session where the players spend a portion of the adventure in purple-Cha'alt and the rest on Cha'alt-prime, it seemed more satisfactory to continue the purple thread until certain deeds were done. Let's see what those were...
The PCs dreamed before being woken up by Isithar just in time to be escorted to the Feast Hall where a banquet was being held in their honor...
You open a black door and enter what seems to be a temple made of solid gold - various statues decorate both sides of the processional access - these statues have been chiseled out of purple-jade. Their likeness is monstrous and malevolent - Great Old Ones you've never seen nor heard of.
As you walk through the temple towards a conflagration of golden flame, you notice mirrors just beyond the eldritch statues. You see yourselves, but the reflected images do not correspond to your own movements, and the familiar but subtle purple hue is absent.
By the time you reach the golden flame, tentacles slowly wrap themselves around you like a boa-constrictor, casually hugging your body as the tentacles squeeze, getting tighter and tighter. Just when you think the tentacles are about to squish you into oblivion, you hear a crack and then your bodies break apart like glass - shards of broken glass go everywhere.
On his way out, Isithar tossed Bandersnatch a dried bat scrotum as a good luck charm.
Bandersnatch, being an elf of the world, warned the rest of the party of drow treachery; they are a cunning and cruel race that will backstab you without a second thought. With that wisdom imparted (and talk of just getting the fuck out of there or initiating wholesale slaughter), they exited their bungalow and greeted priestess Theeysa, an attractive dark-elf wearing magenta panther spandex and sporting an aqua-hued mohawk.
Theeysa, accompanied by 5 clerics, gifted the adventurers with a gilded mauve banana symbolizing virility. Onward they went into House Purpurea territory. On the way, they saw a dark-elf attempting to cleanse himself of masculine toxicity and giving religious praise to literal pussies atop pedestals, and were told that this was a matriarchal society of female supremacy. And the city of Chud-Letha'az, as a whole, worshiped Igna'aktolath, the demon god of Quorta'ath.
About halfway to the Feast Hall, a horn sounded. It was another female drow up on a ridge, blowing into a conch shell. "Someone is trying to summon the mauve worms to destroy us. Quickly, we must leave." Botserdomus shot the shell-blower right between the eyes as the golden conch rolled down the ridge right between his legs. He picked it up for later.
As a distraction, Tinker turned himself into a worm and entered negotiations with all 5 of them. Eventually, he talked a few of the worms, who were both hungry and horny, into exploring better prey in the caverns above. The last male and female mauve worms were charmed by Tinker's worm-seduction and the less said about that, the better.
Just outside the Feast Hall, there was a stone marker with glyphs and a flaming eye within a triangle at the head. Bandersnatch read it, but didn't translate for anyone. It gave directions (a thousand feet to the north-east) to an access point that leads "somewhere else."
The PCs entered the Feast Hall and shortly after the entire city-cavern shook like a cha'altquake. Apparently, the Kha'alestinians above believe Chud-Letha'az is their holy land, and bombard the surface, hoping to one day blast a hole into it and pour their invading forces in with the intent of usurping the city.
To build an appetite, Queen Laurakah offered the PCs a bevy of female prostitutes to satisfy their urges before dinner, either in a private antechamber or in full view of the 25 - 30 drow of House Purpurea. All but Tinker partook of the dark-elf girls, as he'd just had his fun minutes before.
The meal consisted of spider-milk cheese, BBQ spider legs, worm wine +, and purple scorpion meat. Most of the party tried everything. Although, H'ork in particular stayed away from the enhanced worm wine. For some reason, drinking the sweet nectar from a sandworm's neck penis is preferable to it being filtrated through the bladder of a beautiful woman - go figure!
The Feast Hall included a massive statue of their Quorta'athian demon god, Igna'aktolath with two large pinkish-purple gemstone eyes. Thurberus overheard a dark-elf say they were lavender garnets. At one point, Tinker excused himself and was able to wedge a window slightly ajar so he could come back for the eye gems later.
Just as the banquet was coming to a close, Queen Laurakah told the adventurers what she wanted. House Drentreatise were "warmongers" in her words. They had ambitions of conquering neighboring lands, expanding their power and influence. The geek squad and that ancient technology (the teleporter) was their ticket to glory.
The Queen wanted them to assassinate Isithar, and as they were being extracted from the commotion, the mauve worms would be called and House Purpurea would take control of the entire city. Queen Laurakah infected the prostitutes the PCs had just lain with with a magical sexually transmitted disease. the party would not survive (except for Tinker who didn't have sex with them) unless they got the antidote, which the Queen would give them once they killed Isithar with a ja'anus thorn.
Not liking the idea of being coerced, even after being offered lots and lots of gold for completion of their mission, the PCs soon departed with retribution on their mind. Who's to say the Queen wouldn't simply have them murdered after doing the job? Thurberus negotiated a couple of the once-infected prostitutes (they were given the antidote) to keep for their trouble, the PCs left and told Isithar everything.
Isithar advised they could get the antidote themselves - there was a gargantuan demon-spider who nested in a cave far to the south. Milking that spider would heal them, and if enough milk could be acquired, it would certainly diminish the dominance of House Purpurea.
They went to the cave, Isithar went with them and gave them aid. After Tinker was nearly burned to death from the demon-spider's fiery breathweapon, they hacked it enough where the thing couldn't fight back any longer. They kept it alive and in House Drentreatise's care so the city could benefit from its curative spider-milk.
Now, ready to rock, the PCs attempted to search for that hidden access that might lead them out of Chud-Letha'az. Meanwhile, Tinker flew up through that cracked window and tried to pry out those lavender garnet eyes. The first popped out with ease. The second was really wedged in there. Being huge compared to the pixie-fairy's size, he was happy to escape with just the one eye (which they later placed in a safety deposit box in the purple labyrinth for safe keeping - etched by Bandersnatch with the glyph of the Crimson Bastards).
Returning to the others, the secret door was found. It lead to a cave where one set of stone steps led up and the other down. Going up, they walked for about 45 minutes until reaching the surface. A half-mile away was their RV. They grabbed a couple photon torpedos and went back down, setting the charge for the ancient technology, convincing the geek squad that they needed to get the Hell out of there and come with them to safety. The PCs asked the Federation technicians if there was a way to remove the teleporter and take it with them. Yes, the main console could be extracted. However, there wouldn't be a power source. That was fine, the PCs told them. And so the geek squad started cutting wires.
Bandersnatch summoned a demon to carry the teleporter (which the PCs believed would be House Drentreatise's key to conquest) and escort the geek squad and prostitutes up to their RV. Botsterdomus blew the golden conch shell, summoning the mauve worms [I rolled a 12 on the d12 - that's a lot of mauve worms]. As they made their way out of Chud-Letha'az, they sent the ancient technology that was left over straight to Hell.
Meanwhile, the PCs took that secondary path down to find another system of caves about 30 minutes further below Chud-Letha'az. They encountered an isolated tribe ruled by the cult leader Zeeku. Zeeku hated fun and enjoyment, believing it led to wickedness. He enforced his laws with his codpiece of wonder. The PCs warned these natives that having a good time wasn't immoral and Thurberus offered them a complimentary shake-weight.
Upon Zeeku's entrance, where he summarily threw the PCs out of his domain, Thurberus challenged him and was blasted by the properly jeweled codpiece of wonder. Now, Thurberus' player rolled a 1 on his saving throw, but his "opportunity / complication" d6 came up a 6. So, I ruled it was a lethal blast that should have been a direct hit at point-blank range. However, the native who Thurberus was nice to, jumped in the way, heroically sacrificing himself to save the v'smm priest of the benevolent shake-weight.
The native was disintegrated by the codpiece's blast, and the PCs left before Zeeku could get another shot off. Before departing, they gifted the cult leader with a photon torpedo of his own.
In determining the threat level of this "gift" from Zeeku's perspective, I rolled a d20 and d6 for the cult leader. The d20 succeeded, but the d6 was a 1. Zeeku was wary of the photon torpedo the PCs left behind, and so placed it in the center of his meditation chamber in order to reduce the object's psychic resonance - Zeeku believing it some kind of mind control device.
The PCs had set the detonation for about a half-hour, giving them plenty of time to reach Letha'az before it exploded. They did hear a sound and felt a slight tremor like rocks falling and compacting far away. Climbing up to the surface, they got in the RV and followed the trail of that Great Old One they released days ago.
It eventually led them to a Kha'alestinian desert crawler vehicle outfitted with missile launchers (gear the Federation had abandoned years ago, during their first attempt at colonizing Cha'alt).
Gary from the geek squad teleported the Purple Bastards right behind the pilot, killed him, and took command of the crawler, raising a purple flag to show it was theirs. On their way out, they ran over a few of the spear-toting Kha'alestinians. Taking the crawler and the RV up to the smashed city cates of Kha'alestine, they were greeted with more jiha'adist warriors who attacked the crawler.
Tinker threw a scorpion on the face of a guy who clung to the side of their vehicle. Botsterdomus threw back a thermal detonator that had been thrown through an open window into their cockpit, and many others were laser blasted by H'ork as the PCs rolled through the rubble and into the city to loot the place and eventually catch-up with Igg-Yig-Yatha'ak.
Just before the camera faded to black, the PCs got an anonymous call on their communicator. It was the voice of Isithar, the sound of flames engulfing Chud-Letha'az in the background. "I will have my revenge upon you, Purple Bastards!"
That's where we ended it. Every player gets 3 points of Divine Favor as a reward for good roleplaying and destroying multiple civilizations in a single session.
All in all, I think there were a dozen or so instances where the narrative d6 came up either a 1 or 6. From those events, that included Zeeku, Botsterdomus ending up with the golden conch shell - oh, and one of the rooftop crossbow shooters trying to stop the PCs from escaping Chud-Letha'az dropped when Bandersnatch shot him and a spider-scrotum coin purse fell out of his pocket after landing with a thud.
Would any of that have happened if we hadn't been rolling that extra d6, prompting moments of opportunity and complication? Possibly, but most likely not. In honor of the most significant uses of that little narrative beauty, I'm going to, from now on, officially call it the Zeeku die.
The only downside? My taking the time to jot down notes based on the results, which, now that I know this game mechanic is a success for us (not every optional rule is right for every table, RPG, or campaign), I won't have to waste time with notations.
Feel free to comment your thoughts, hoss! I welcome the feedback.
Enjoy,
VS
p.s. Want the hardcover Cha'alt trilogy? Here's how (and they're currently on sale!)!! Want to join the Kort'thalis mailing list to stay up-to-date on what's going on in the skinematic Vengerverse? This is it!! Last but not least, I'm organizing a based-as-fuck RPG convention in Madison, WI this July (Sandy Petersen will be joining us as VENGER CON's Guest of Honor). Grab your weekend badge for VENGER CON IV: Post-Modern Apocalypse!!!
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