Two-and-a-half months ago, we concluded year 3 of our Cha'alt campaign, and yesterday we launched into our 4th year. At the end of this blog post, I'll talk about my goals for year 4, preparation, etc.
But now, let's get into it. Weirdly, I only had 2 players. 1 was sick (this has been the season of sickness, actually, I think I've been sick every 3 or 4 weeks since the end of VENGER CON... damn!), 1 had a long-standing appointment to get a massive tattoo (better be Cha'alt-themed, hoss), 1 new player thought the game was on a different day (I don't have direct contact with that player because it's the adult son of a current player (that's why I always send out text reminders a couple days prior), and 1 was just MIA (he texted me weeks ago to make sure we were playing and I sent him announcements and reminders but he never contacted me back).
So yeah, character creation was easy with only 2 players. 1 had a character concept ready to go, the other browsed the options in Advanced Crimson Dragon Slayer and pieced his character together right in front of us. There's no right, wrong, or best method of generating a character. And, in my estimation, character creation is a year-long process. Just as I'm always discovering and/or forging new aspects of Cha'alt, players identify new aspects of their characters... which is awesome, true to life, and the way it should be.
We had Deacon Elijah Crane, a human priest of the Celestial Temple of the Lords of Light from the planet Erath, a human-centric world, who found himself enmeshed with the Federation. He was temporarily sent (exiled?) to Cha'alt for "diversity training," as he believed that humans were a superior species to all the other humanoids, and specifically chosen / favored by the gods and made in their likeness (at least, that's my interpretation).
Next was "Ug," a lizardtaur warrior who doesn't really think about anything too deeply. His birth-name is rather unpronounceable (even by Cha'alt standards... yikes!). Some people say "ugh" when he walks by, so that name stuck. I clarified my vision of the lizardtaur, there's no horse, it's just part man (the humanoid half is probably a bit reptilian, more or less) and the bottom half is all lizard, but a four-legged lizard like an iguana or gecko. He wears a human skin vest and normally wields a scale-shooter.
I picked-out a new set of dice (I have lots that I still haven't ever used, and a couple sets that I've only used once or twice). These are chartreuse-green with dark-fuchsia numbers... perfect! And holy shit, those angled-spheres roll awesome - they are PC-killers, doom dice... "Surprise, motherfucker!"
Also, we used Zeeku, where the players rolled a d6 along with their d20. On a 1, it added a complication; on a 6, it added an opportunity. To incentivize players to use the system, when a complication arises from a 1 result, a point of Divine Favor is added to the player-pool for anyone at the table to use.
Answering an advertisement for grand adventure on the Chartreuse Worm cantina message board, the PCs and a couple other guys showed up at the appointed time mid-morning at the cantina. The cantina's manager addressed them, handing them a spatula, mop, and bar rag, expecting them to start working there at the cantina.
Oh yeah, on the way to the cantina that morning, they overheard a Federation announcement about the water shortage and how it would benefit citizens of A'agrybah to turn-in their neighbors for water use infractions. And sand scavenging is expressly forbidden. And just as they turned onto the street of Incontinent Unicorns, where the cantina was located, they noticed a large, digital billboard hanging in the fuchsia sky. On the billboard was a woman in geisha makeup wearing a kimono and drinking a crimson can of coca-cola.
You see, A'agrybah, like most Cha'alt cities, has a symbiotic relationship with the Great Old Ones. The Old Ones require humanoid sacrifices to show their faith, it strengthens worship which empowers these Dark Gods. Every month, 111 people in the city are sacrificed. Those who make the list are named from the dregs of society... criminals, the unemployed, homeless, crippled, the lazy, stupid, and weak, beggars, debtors, you get the idea. It basically exempts the priesthood (of which Deacon Elijah Crane is not a part), Federation personnel, administrators, politicians, gladiators, merchants, guild members, and various VIPs. It's possible for lowly labor-grade citizens (and certainly disobedient slaves) to find their names on the sacrificial list, but unlikely. Also, there's a way to buy your way out of that particular predicament to the tune of 437 talons.
As the PCs began their first shift, they overheard a couple of elves talking about a hole in the ground they discovered beneath the Crimson Rock of Sacrifice. Apparently, the hole leads to a long, winding stone stairway going down far below the desert. The elves believe there are riches down there (oh yeah, dio-r'sum is the word for "down below," which has more of an exotic and romanticized "mythic underworld" connotation), and just need strong backs to carry all the loot back to A'agrybah.
The elves didn't get any takers when randomly asking cantina patrons, but Deacon Elijah Crane overheard enough, and volunteered himself and Ug to the task. The elves, Frayick and Froon, would pick them up on a liberated reptilian riding-spider tomorrow mid-morning (the Federation has been cracking down on all forms of transportation in the city - as planned, this adventure builds off last week's Cha'alt one-shot).
In the meantime, the PCs kept working. During a break, the head-chef asked if they wanted to go out back in the alleyway and smoke the pineal gland of a desert black centipede. Deacon doesn't do drugs - especially weird alien drugs on a degenerate planet like Cha'alt, so he passed. Ug, however, was down. They smoked and began seeing various subliminal propaganda messages behind what was presented on the surface. For instance, that digital billboard with the geisha woman revealed an eldritch-glyph that said "The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be!" underneath the surface. Roger and the other player in that virtual VENGER CON one-shot will hopefully appreciate that, as it happened to them, too, but in a different form. It's all part of the skinematic Vengerverse, folks! ;)
Later, 3 missionaries from Kra'adumek walked into the cantina, bothering customers with their religious spiel. Deacon Crane soon put a stop to their proselytizing a false religion, as he talked smack about their purple alien demon-worm. One of the missionaries pulled out a dagger, thinking the priest bartender would back down. Nope. Deacon pulled out his belt-whip and smacked it down on the mauve missionary's shoulder. Ouch! With that, the missionaries left the cantina.
The elves showed-up with supplies - weapons, water, and pick-axes, along with that reptilian riding-spider they stole. On the way out of the city, bribing a gate guard as they went, the elves cautioned the adventurers not to say that they were going dio-r'sum, as that is against the law of the Great Old Ones. There's just too much down there that could be disturbed... or awakened. Not wanting to chance it, the Old Ones, through their priests, made it illegal to go poking around the various subterranean realms below the desert.
An hour after starting out, their riding-spider lurched forward with a jerk that nearly threw its passengers and supplies. Its scaly leg got caught by a tentacle attached to a zarla'ac-pit. By the time, the PCs and elves hopped down, three tentacles were wrapped around three of its eight legs and the riding-spider was being dragged into the awaiting maw full of big teeth.
Ug smashed his shield down upon a tentacle, severing it. But two more wrapped around him and its next attack, if successful, would pull him into its mouth. Sure enough, I rolled a crit next round and Ug got chomped... hard. He was at negative 2 HP. That means, if no one came to his immediate aid, he was as good as dead. Thankfully, the party's priest saved the day, healing him as he dragged the lizardtaur out of there. Meanwhile, the elves hopped back onto their reptilian spider and said goodbye, not thinking that Deacon and Ug would make it out alive.
But then Ug scored a crit of his own and enough tentacles were severed that the zarla'ac simply left them alone. Tracking the reptilian spider on foot was no easy task, but payback was on their mind, and the energy of that negative emotion kept them apace... until the spider slowed, coming to a couple of caravans angled towards each other. Humanoids were out in the sand, talking or shouting or looking at something. The elves jumped down to converse with a group of black robed folks and a separate group of pallid-green robed folks. Meanwhile, the PCs snuck upon the spider's back to steal it away from the elves who left them to die not more than an hour ago.
As they pulled-out, the elves said to the caravan men, "Hey, your new slaves are getting away." The PCs were soon being pursued by six men on foot who were running after the reptilian spider. Ug shot them with his scale slingshot as one of the robed men had a crossbow and kept firing. Eventually, enough were wounded by the lizardtaur to stop the men from running after them.
It wasn't long before the PCs arrived at the Crimson Rock of Sacrifice. I rolled on the same random table as that one-shot, and sure enough Deacon Elijah Crane had some experience with that sacred location. Shortly after the Deacon arrived on Cha'alt, he was cheated in a game of 17-dimensional chess by a scoundrel. A sympathetic onlooker told the priest something he heard - that if you sacrifice someone upon the Crimson Rock, it grants you favor with the gods.
Anyway, the jumped-off their spider mount and soon found the fissure at the bottom of a crater, in the shadow of the Crimson Rock of Sacrifice. Heading down into it, Ug barely making it through, they took their first steps down when they heard something from above - the sound of machines.
Both caravans were converging on the PCs' spider. They waited and watched, after debating on whether they should make a stand here or go further down hoping to escape them once reaching the bottom. The two elves stayed back by the reptilian spider they originally stole - holding what appeared to be a large orange-glowing crystal - while the robed men, 9 of them, walked towards the fissure.
The lizardtaur climbed the rock wall, getting close enough to skewer the first person coming through. Which he did, with a critical-hit (I believe with a 6 on his d6, as well). The black robed man was instantly decapitated as his body was wedged into the fissure. When another man went to help his friend out, Ug killed him, too.
At that, the robed men from the caravans realized this whole place and/or plan was cursed and took their leave - also taking the orange crystal and the elves with them - as slaves. Two slaves were offered, and two slaves they now have. ;)
Additionally, the caravan men decided to leave the reptilian riding-spider because this is a dangerous region of the S'kbah desert. Better to be safe and secure inside the fiberglass caravan than out in the open riding atop another elf's stolen spider. BTW, Ug named the spider Harry.
The stairway was 6-feet wide with a drop-off on either side, about 8-10-feet beyond the stairs were cave walls festooned with gems, minerals, crystals, and veins of unknown deposits. Too far away to easily pluck as one walked down.
Making their way, the came upon a massive blob of translucent pinkish purple organic material with blue veins. One of them poked it with a stick, for which it created a pseudopod to thrash them with. After taking a bit of damage, Ug shot it and the thing retreated down the stairs and hugged the underside.
At the bottom, the PCs saw a half-dozen Federation soldiers standing around a machine, a type of non-food replicator (as Deacon recognized) that was fabricating the missing crystal keys assumed to open the long cement-block wall painted with a 7-color rainbow, each band of color terminating with an indentation. 2 of the colors were already present, housed in their indentation - one purple, the other blue.
Deacon approached with conversation, gave them his ID so the Federation could verify who he was. He and Ug, the priest's "assistant," seemed eager to help, so the Federation allowed them to stay. After awhile, they searched the area to see if the Federation missed anything. Ug eventually found an eldritch-glyph that looked similar to the one he noticed on that digital-billboard. The glyph meant "This is the way." Ug pushed around the glyph and the wall moved a few inches. He pushed again and a secret tunnel opened.
Crawling through the 5-foot tunnel, they eventually reached a wide-open cavern containing 9 insectoid-demons. Unsure of their strength, the PCs began blasting. Being first level, they soon realized they were outmatched and ran back to get reinforcements. The Federation captain allowed one of his men, Frank, to go back through the tunnel armed with a blaster (they gave Deacon a blaster, too). Ug stole the purple crystal from its home when no one was looking, placing it within his human-skin vest.
Finding fewer demons, and two short green-skinned humanoids, they attacked again. This time, they had a chance, but the green guys used some kind of psionic power on them. It made them feel like some dark, arachnid-like force was over and on top of them, crushing them. After a couple failed saves, the PCs were knocked unconscious and taken to a iron cell hanging about 6-feet from the ground. They were in a different cave with several bug-demons attending.
Using the purple crystal Ug liberated from the rainbow wall, Deacon super-charged his beam, blasting the demons. From there, they forced the cell open and escaped. All these bug-demons had on them was a femur-scepter and human bone necklace.
Eventually, they caught up to more demons, told Frank to head back through the tunnel and warn the others because a formidable force was waiting for the Federation soldiers on the other side.
I think that's where we ended it.
Wasn't used to prepping a 4-hour session since I've been running 90-minute and 2-hour games since the end of October. Will have to get on that for next time. Fewer players always makes the game go faster, too.
I've been watching videos from this YouTuber, her channel is WriteSparky. It's been inspiring me to write my Pulp-Drenched Cities of Cha'alt book, and providing me with the much-needed push to flesh-out Cha'alt. This goes back to what I was saying at the top... you'd think that after 8 years, you'd pretty much have a campaign setting all sewn-up, that the fundamentals have been squared away, all that's left are new details based on what the PCs are doing from adventure to adventure. Well, you'd be wrong. There always seems to be more to write, more to think about, more to create.
Hopefully, this year of the campaign will showcase the inner workings. Those details aren't just background; this isn't subtext. No, they translate to what's right there on the page and in front of the players' faces - it's the bloody text!
Oh yeah, just before we finished the session, I told both players to write something that they'd like to see happen in a future session. You can read all about that right over here!
And there were three ones rolled consecutively. You know what that means... a portal opened, an arm emerged with a hand holding a fish, the fish slapped the adventurers across the face, the arm withdrew, and the portal closed.
When it comes to experience points, I'll hash that out at the start of next session, in two weeks, so the players are familiar with what to expect. But I did make a point of awarding both players the bonus point for MVP because they showed up. Hey, if you want to see my brand-new XP and leveling rules I'll be trying out, email me: Venger.Satanis@yahoo.com
As for my plans for this campaign, I'm pacing myself. Starting slow, easing into things, and when it ends with a bang, that'll really be something. Ok, cool. Thanks for reading, hoss!
Enjoy,
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. Want the hardcover Cha'alt trilogy? Here's how (and they're currently on sale!)!!
No comments:
Post a Comment