"If Anyone Says 6-7, They Die" & "Velvet Handjobs" - Virtual Hump-Day Cha'alt Campaign

 

We left off with the PCs wanting to get into the gigantic toad statue.  The 5th session's roster was just The Saint and Dirk, the desert ranger.  

Between the 5th and 6th sessions, we finally got around to codifying exactly what vocation Dirk was.  He's going to playtest a new class, which is like a ranger, sort of, but more like a survivalist.  I envision him to be a little bit like a warrior (ok, he's not much of a warrior, actually) and druid (hardly a druid, either) with a little bit of beastmaster thrown in for good measure (an embarrassing amount, to be completely honest).

BTW, my Kickstarter campaign for Pulp-Drenched Cities of Cha'alt.  Back it if you can, and tell folks on social media that this exists!  Also, The Survivalist class and Turquoise-Elf playable race will appear in Pulp-Drenched Cities.

The Survivalist

D6 hit-dice and damage.  Special abilities:  As many times as the character's level, he can go out into the desert or any environment, really, for 1d4 turns (so, 10 - 40 minutes) and forage for what he needs to survive with a 2-in-6 chance of success.  The survivalist may try again after an hour of travel, assuming he’s in a new area (no going around in circles).  Survival, in this case, can include food, water, sex, drugs, magic, high-tech, weapons, shelter, transportation, etc.  Even with a successful roll, that does not mean it's automatic.  The GM can include a guard, encounter, trap, natural hazard, inconvenient location, or whatever in the process of finding, securing, and returning that which he sought.

If the survivalist is being hunted, he can expertly cover his tracks and/or throw those pursuing him off the scent - including those of his traveling companions.  The survivalist merely needs to succeed in an easy skill-check (10+) in which he may, of course, add his level.

Additionally, this class can communicate with animals at 10% per level.  So, at 3rd level, he'd have a 30% chance of being able to converse with a lower creature.

Session Five

Ok, back to the play report!  The duo try to find a way into the toad statue, but aren't having much luck.  They spy a scrawny indigo humanoid sitting beside some bushes.  He informs them, using weird speech patterns, that they need an offering.  The indigo dude hands ST a yellow crystal, and the droid holds it out to the toad.  A door opens in its underbelly and the PCs walk inside.

The PCs also learn that they're in Carcosa and eldritch glyphs are known here as starry-void runes, and infernal glyphs are called horned-blood runes.

Inside, a toad-man threatens the neck of a turquoise humanoid with a dagger.  He asks the PCs if they'd like to do the honors, proving that they're worthy of exploring the temple of His Mucculent Eminence.  ST and Dirk are both keen, and pretty soon the turquoise man's throat is spilling-out with shimmering orange blood like tiny jewels.

The toad-man is pleased and offers to guide them for only 5% of the take.  They agree as the ghost of the dead turquoise dude leaves his body and rises up to go elsewhere.  Before leaving the temple, he assures the adventurers that 5% is the standard rate.

Continuing on, they come to a bunch of humanoids, most likely cultists (with some toad-man taint) due to their black and crimson robes, hauling around a really big gilded cage.  Inside is a purple humanoid.  The cultists release the purple dude because of some sacrificial offering involving hunting Mr. Purple.

He runs towards the PCs, as the cultists do, as well.  This eventually turns into a battle where the PCs are victorious.  They find some weird money belonging to this place and twin crystals of a blue-green hue.

However, The Saint was wounded in battle and the party needed to find someone who could repair him.  Their toad-man guide knew someone who could help and headed them down another tunnel until they came to a spiral staircase with some weird looking ruffians loitering.  This gang was a cross between A Clockwork Orange droogs and extras from Falco's Rock Me Amadeus music video.

The PCs watched for a bit, and then combat seemed inevitable.  That's where we stopped. 

Session Six

Session 6 was just last Wednesday night, and here's what happened then - we had all three players back - ST-K1, Ka'az, and Dirk.

They take on the ne'er-do-wells, and eventually kill them all.  The party loots a whole bunch of currency they've also never seen before, and keeps going - by this time, ST is on his last robot legs.  He's fading fast.  The Saint powers down in order to delay the inevitable just as they arrive at some kind of high-tech facility.  Beardless pale dwarves with blue aprons get ST onto a medical slab.   

Payment is given and the machines start doing their thing.  Before long, ST has been frozen in carbonite!  And Ka'az is being escorted out the back to an area of the temple that looks completely different.  The blue-velvet swashbuckler is asked if he wants a starry-void rune tattoo or a horned-blood rune tattoo.  He opts for both, and they get to work.

An elf with mauve skin shows up, talks to Dirk, convinces Dirk to give him both the blue-green crystals to pay for all the work being done, and gets the beardless dwarves to fix the droid while in carbonite.  A day and a half later, Ka'az has a weirdly awesome tattoo all over his back and one sleeve up to his shoulder.  The Saint is repaired and transplanted with brand-new parts.  

We ended there, and I have to remind the guys to go up a level.

Before taking my leave, I'd like to outline the turquoise-elf, a new player-character race for those who'd like to try it...

Turquoise-Elf

Aside from rocky outcroppings, the S'kbah desert includes several crevasses.  The grains of Cha'alt sand are rich in minerals like quartz, feldspar, and jale. When the sand compacts and hardens enough to become stone, fissures inevitably open up.  At the bottom of many a crevasse are deposits of turquoise.  The deepest crevasses, several kilometers below, usually contain turquoise-crystals.  

Elves born of such crystalline turquoise frequently live underground, though some do live on the surface in cities like A'agrybah.  The following are distinct peculiarities of turquoise-elves...

• In the light, their bodies seem to be semi-translucent, as though they were part crystalline, which is why they enjoy partial resistance to lasers and similar concentrated energy / beam technology, doing only half-damage.
• Their blood has a dazzling appearance - shiny little deep-orange gemstones or crystals.  The first time a humanoid sees the cascading orange jewel-like blood, they are perplexed and dazed for one round [save to avoid].
• When they die from misadventure (rather than old age), their ghostly spirit can still be seen and heard.  In this incorporeal form, they can fly wherever they choose.  The ghost-form of a turquoise-elf has one week to return to the turquoise-crystals in the deepest crevasse, at which point his physical self can regenerate, housing his spirit anew.
• The downside of being a turquoise-elf is sensitivity.  In extreme heat, they roll at a Disadvantage.  The softness of their bones means they fracture easily; 2-in-6 chance of a bone fracture every time they take 10+ damage from a single hit, and remain at a Disadvantage until healed.  They are highly susceptible to substances like poisons, acids, toxic chemicals, and drugs - leading to increased negative consequences... sometimes with strange side-effects like connecting to the spirit world.

  

Thanks for reading, continue visiting this blog for more very soon!

VS

p.s.  Yes, weekend badges are now available for July 2026's VENGER CON V: The Will To Power.  Want a great new TTRPG community where you can hang out with other gamers, get ideas, advice, and training in order to improve?  Look no further than the fastest-growing group on X - it's the Kult of Kort'thalis. 

"If You Build It, They Will Try Climbing Over" and "I Proceed To Trip Balls" - Virtual Hump-Day Cha'alt Campaign

 

Ok, I'm blogging about sessions 3, 4, and now we're up to 5.  Here is thy session report, hoss!

BTW, if you haven't backed my current Kickstarter, please do (and if you can't, share the KS campaign with your gamer friends on social media).  Pulp-Drenched Cities of Cha'alt is a book all about detailing and running cities on Cha'alt, but can be used for a variety of settings.

In session 3, we had Dirk Diggler, ex-military survivalist, Ka'az Shoro the blue-velvet elf swashbuckler, and a couple of other PCs who never made it to the end of the session.  Not sure if they were thrown off by my GMing style - this Sofa King has his own shit going on - or just lost interest, but yeah... they washed-out early on.  Well, early enough.  Finn was ok, a human adventurer and sexual deviant.  But Jinx was just a rainbow elf, and... I don't know what her deal was.  

So, the big wall that stretched forever was scaled because they found rope.  They went over the wall and discovered the Federation Hotel and Casino.  Several security guards with stun guns drove up to the PCs in a golf cart.  The adventures made a valiant effort, but before long they were stunned. I don't think the player who had Jinx liked the way I handled it.  Probably jarring because it seemed, I can only assume, like the PCs had a chance of either escaping or defeating them, but in the end, they were all stunned.

So, the remaining 3 woke up in a holding cell inside the Hotel and Casino.  They throw Jinx' body into the laser bars of the cell and it short circuits.  They escape and wander into a hallway and then the casino floor.  Lots of sexual depravity followed by the death of those same security guards who captured them at the start, and then finally a portal opens.  

It's ST-K1 here to rescue the party!  He tells everyone that they were transported 39 years into the future, but luckily, ST was able to track them down and open a portal out of there.  Actually, it turns out that The Saint still needs to figure out how to get them all back to their original starting point in time.  

Since ST isn't there, I roll for him.  I roll a 1 out of 20.  Oh shit!  That's where we ended session 3.

Session 4, we had The Saint, Ka'az Shoro, and Dirk Diggler rounding out the adventuring party...

You get zapped into a steaming jungle. There are green plants all around you, enveloping you, claustrophobic, like. And it feels so wet... the humidity, you're drenched. Like you're breathing in liquid air.

They headed in a certain direction and eventually saw a volcano, steaming almost ready to blow.  The Saint detected a strong magical presence, perhaps an artifact, so they headed towards it.  

At the base of the volcano were stone steps carved into the mountain, like in Ace Ventura 2: When Nature Calls, and they began climbing while examining that pink stone they looted.  It was an energy crystal of decent size and clarity.  

ST had a fevered recollection in his synapses about orange tang and astronauts just as pterodactyl-demons swoop down and attack the party.  The PCs soon drove them off.  A bit later up the mountain, they find a circular metal hatch with keypad next to it, just off to the side as the stairs open into a little rest area.  The keypad has a big red button that says "don't push me."

After trying the more obvious codes like 58008, the Saint decides to push the red button.  An automated voice tells them the door will self-destruct in [I roll a die; get a 1] one second.  Everyone dives for cover!

There's a woman screaming at the top of the volcano, and the PCs decide to head up there rather than check out the blown-open hatch.  Marching up the volcano as quickly as they can, the adventurers eventually reach the rim.  A blonde woman is chained to a big stone balanced on the rim and several tall, green-scaled black-eyed insectoid-lizard folk stand around ready to sacrifice her.  A shorter member of their species with golden scales stands between the others and the party - he takes out a pouch from his tunic containing a purple powder. 

Eventually, the purple powder goes all over and everyone but ST-K1 is tripping balls.  He's a droid, after all.  Then Ka'az' player did something I did not expect... he stimulated a Grindhouse Exploitation Cha'alt X-Card, desiring to turn the blonde into a protagonist for some rape/revenge movie where she cuts their reptilian-insect peckers off.  

She goes on what you'd call a roaring rampage of revenge!  The blonde runs over to the sleestak who are also tripping balls and cuts their lizardhood like one of those 1970s cannibal films where they decapitate the turtle.  She gets three of them.  It's gross and bloody, and then she cooks them over the hot, rising lava.  By the time she's finished eating them (speaking of cannibal movies), the PCs are more or less lucid.

"Revenge is a dish best roasted over hot lava," ST said.

Mid, the midnight-elf NPC, decides to do something crazy.  He holds a rock in front of his face as a sort of disguise, then unzips his pants and stands next to the blonde, hoping that she'll want to suck on it instead of gnashing it with her hungry teeth.  I roll and sure enough, if works!

"I am Alexia from Kartha'aj. I'm a princess, but my settlement was destroyed by the sleestak. They took me to their fire god in hopes of currying favor with the dark gods of Carcosa."

Long story short, Alexia goes her way (after Ka'az tells her about the glazed donut custom of his people) and the PCs head back down the mountain on the opposite side to find a sorcerer who lives in an ancient temple - he might know where to find a pylon.

As the adventurers reach the temple, they see a massive toad-god statue carved into the side of a hill.  The statue's eyes glow a yellow-orange.  That's where we ended the 4th session.

I'll post sessions 5 and 6 after the 6th one happens this Wednesday night.  We still have an opening if someone wants to play.  Just give it a try, no pressure... first one's free.  ;)

VS

p.s.  Yes, weekend badges are now available for July 2026's VENGER CON V: The Will To Power.  Want a great new TTRPG community where you can hang out with other gamers, get ideas, advice, and training in order to improve?  Look no further than the fastest-growing group on X - it's the Kult of Kort'thalis.