"The Ruin of A'agrybah" - CHA'ALT Campaign 5.5

 

We had a full table for this, our 5th session in the 4th year of our Cha'alt campaign.  Hey, it's 4/20!!!  Praise be to H.P. Lovecraft!

It had been a long, long time since I'd run any published Cha'alt adventures at the table, so I prepared a little something from Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise.

Before actually banging the gong and starting the session, everyone wrote a little suggestion for the Black Skull of Secrets, and a couple characters leveled.  So, we had Strum the human sorcerer at 2nd level, Deacon Elijah Crane at 3rd level, Ug the lizardtaur warrior at 2nd, Spoons (a new character that player decided to go with - I'm letting his XP stack because otherwise every fresh PC would always be at 1st level) a demon survivalist who lives in a school bus at the trailer park just outside A'agrybah (2nd level, also), and the nefa'arius Naza'akul human thief (1st level, but will reach 2nd by the session's end).

Deciding to play-out the introduction of Spoons with the rest of the party, the PCs walked towards Ja'alette where that sorcerer's tower was on the way.  Passing the trailer park full of junk, such as plastic flamingos, broken down lawn mowers, and duct-taped kiddie pools, they noticed a demon working on his school bus.  Next to him was a toilet full of beers.  

Spoons asked Strum to hold a flashlight so he could see the inner workings of the engine.  Strum held it in place for about 2 seconds before tossing it aside and casting a spell, creating illumination spheres to light what the demon was doing.

Unfortunately, casting that spell triggered the zoth hangover / withdrawal Strum was now going through.  He felt lightheaded and dizzy + nauseous.  The sorcerer's player was smart and it probably helped that he knows me.  If he had approached this news with an attitude like "How dare the GM describe something that negatively impacts my character!?!" like another friend of mine (West) might have, I'd keep giving him both barrels because that's just human nature.  But no, Strum's player roleplayed it to the hilt.  Vomiting into the toilet where all could see the zoth that had absorbed into his system.  

Strum went into the school bus to take a nap while the rest of the party made Spoons' acquaintance.  Naza'akul helped Spoons take some parts out as they were looking for Federation tracking devices.  Spoons used to drive the school bus for A'agrybah children before they fired him.  The demon believed the Federation were still trying to take his bus away.

They didn't find it, and put back all the parts the best they were able.  Deciding to ride rather than walk, even though the speed was comparable, they all hopped in and drove 5 mph towards that sorcerer's tower.

An hour or two into the journey, they came across 111 priests wearing fuchsia and chartreuse robes, each carrying a page from some book of demon resurrection passages (probably a knock-off Necronomicon).  They were headed towards Kra'adumek to revive the purple alien demon-worm that had recently been slain.  

Elijah Crane had an idea to derail their agenda.  The PCs offered the priests alcohol and some of them a ride on the school bus.  During the next couple hours journey, the adventurers borrowed a page from one of the distracted priests.  By this time, Strum was feeling better and was able to alter a passage of the page in order to miniaturize the demon-worm as they resurrected him.

Now, going their own way, as the paths to Ja'alette and Kra'adumek diverged, it was night when the PCs arrived at the tower.  While it was still a couple miles away, they saw a single guard just standing in the sand as if he was waiting for something. 

They got out to talk to him and discovered that a woman was sent down to a fuchsia flesh-pit next to the guard.  She had likely murdered the sorcerer Vromka'ad, and her being down there was a sacrifice, as the flesh-pit contained weird creatures that Vromka'ad had manifested via genetic experimentation.

Deciding to see for themselves, while hearing a female yell for assistance, the PCs jumped down after throwing the guard down first to cushion their fall.  In quick succession the following transpired...

• The PCs made their way around a flesh corridor of tendrils dripping a violet goo that almost burned through their flesh.
• They saw some skeletons being devoured by an aqua slime - Strum blasted it into salt with his wand, and they looted a silver scroll tube containing a letter warning Vromka'ad of doom awaiting him from a loved one.
• They talked to the woman, La'ala, who admitted to murdering Vromka'ad on their wedding night as she was jealous of the attention her sorcerer fiance and then husband showed some of the serving girls.
• They investigated a cube that had run out of energy.
• They talked to some priests of Xa'atan who apparently was a Demon-God slumbering below the flesh-pit.  The priests were gathering crustaceans for some ritual.  The PCs attacked and killed them, but not before taking heavy damage from the head priest's ruby-red eye-beams.
• They found a dead warrior wearing strange plastic armor (which Spoons decided to wear) and a high-tech device attached to his head.  The device was an intellect enhancer, and the party decided to see what would happen if they attached it to Ug's head.  Hilariously, he became an articulate British gentleman complete with top hat, monocle, and cane.  That lasted for the next hour before someone removed it, preferring the old Ug (but it's still with them, in case they want the lizardtaur to be brain boosted again)
• Oh yeah, all the way through the flesh-pit, the PCs were subjected to dark, loathsome whispering that made them feel like a foulness was polluting their soul.
• They made their way past a flesh-tunnel of giant clams (possibly bearded).
• Eventually, they came to the big bad of the flesh-pit.  Unfortunately, the evil susurrations affected the PCs to the point of self-harm.  Only a few eluded the creature's defense mechanism.  But before those who failed their save were able to suicide themselves, one of the adventurers convinced the rest that the best and quickest way to die would be to try and kill that tentacled thing growing out of the back wall of the flesh-pit.

Pulling out a suggestion from the Black Skull of Secrets, I had La'ala show her true face, ripping off a mask in true Scooby Doo style to reveal that she had been Taylor Swift all along... just in time for the beast to blast her with its eye-beam that shot a 9-inch hole right through her.  I did manage to roleplay TS a bit before her demise.  She started singing a sad song about breaking up with her mean boyfriend.

The rest of the team hacked away.  Elijah used his lavender beam, Strum his wand of lightning, Ug his magical sword, and the thief and survivalist did their best with simple melee weapons.  It almost killed the party, but they eventually killed it - finding a sphere and black crystal segment to something with glowing topaz veins behind the creature's eye.

That brought the cricket-ball sized spheres they found up to 3.  They also had both magical gloves - the crimson could create a bubble around something or someone.  The purple glove allowed the wearer to manipulate whatever was inside the bubble.

Coming back out of the flesh-pit, they made their way to the tower.  The door was open, and they saw a black gateway surrounded by a dozen or so spheres hanging in mid-air.  Eventually, they figured out that if a sphere was touched, the black gate would take them to whatever dimensional-room corresponded to that orb.

But before getting to involved with that, Ug touched a glowing white cube in the corner of the room and released a psychotic manticore that almost killed the party (again).  Luckily, Spoons used the unconscious Strum's lightning wand to deal the killing blow after most of the part had been rendered unconscious.

They found a bedroom along with a sexy female demon with yellow and magenta fur and horns.  She wore a maid outfit and was down for whatever, but Naza'akul decided to rest, instead.  Asking her which rooms she wasn't allowed to enter and clean (after finding out she didn't know where the demon-slaying sword was) provided them with enough info to locate the magical blade.  It was in the fire room.  Elijah tried to grasp it, but the flames rose up, preventing him.  Since Spoons was a demon with partial resistance to fire, he tried, only taking a couple points of damage doing so.

Before the fires sphere, one of the PCs touched the gold sphere and found Vromka'ad's treasure room (Strum's player gave me an idea about a gold Trump-glyph).  Luckily, the maid told them a safe-word to use so they wouldn't get zapped by security protocols.  

The sword Kaltha'alax came alive and spoke to the wielder, telling him to prove himself worthy, he should strike down the first demon he sees.  The PCs decided to keep the sword sheathed until needed, as they didn't want to kill the female demon made or Spoons.

We learned that syvra'atch means mercy in the ancient tongue, that demons like to talk during movies (but it's usually helpful commentary and fun-facts), and Ug prefers women that are salamander-esque.

Playing right up until the end of our time, I just gave everyone max XP and the nefa'arius Naza'akul was awarded the 5th quadrant which allowed him to reach level 2.

If anyone's curious, I've been making video responses to what the RPG Pundit vlogged about immersion and emulation here.  My videos in response are here and there.  Just a couple of hardcore gamers ranting, raving, and sometimes talking past each other about Game Master theory and practice.

Comment if you've got something to say, hoss! 

VS

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