"The Ruin of A'agrybah" - CHA'ALT Campaign 4.16

 

It's not uncommon for me to claim a session of Cha'alt was particularly wild, unhinged, after dark, or surreal.  But this one was definitely batshit crazy.  Strap in, hoss!

If I was to title the session, I'd go with "Side Quest to Save the Universe," "The Day Steve Rolled Five 20s in a Single Session," or "Cha'alt Book Saturation!"

Let me explain about that last one.  Lately, we've been having some bad luck with our septic system.  Thankfully, no Cha'alt books were destroyed, but all of them had to be moved out of the unfinished area of our basement.  The only logical place to put them was in my game room, which I did.  So many books, both in boxes and loose, stacked on top of each other, Cha'alt, Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise, and Cha'alt: Chartreuse Shadows.  All those exposed books must give off some kind of gonzo radiation because our session was definitely... influenced by something... unnatural. 

Ok, let's get started.  Only 3 out of the 4 core players, Bishop Crane was absent.  That means Strum the human sorcerer, Ug the lizardtaur warrior, and Mista Firestorm a teenage human thief stowing away in the frame of an assassin droid.

Before the recap, I had everyone come up with a celebrity cameo rather than gameable suggestion for the Black Skull of Secrets.  Since there was only 3 PCs, I planned on introducing all 3 celebrity cameos that session.  This is an idea I came up with for Primordial Chaos, which I was flipping through while prepping this session.

Picking up where we left off, a door appeared in space - the door was outlined with a glowing purple effulgence, lighting the adornment of spidery bas-relief, creating deep shadows where the viewer got the sense of something inside, watching those standing before the door.  The center of the purple door showed an arachnid-glyph that also glowed purple.  

Inside was a partial purple labyrinth, the missing sections of floor, hallway sides, and ceiling were a black void of nothingness, save for a dimly lit purple area in the far-off distance.  After that, the PCs dealt with a succession of hallways and doors which led to either a ton of purple spiders pouring out, a giant spider-claw trying to kill them, a "room" filled with purple webbing that in the distance contained a gleaming purple jewel.  Ug unsheathed Orin and began cutting a swath until he reached a gem on the end of a butt-plug.  Trying to sever the jewel from the plug, Orin informed his master that the butt-plug was magic, and he could not cut through it.

Taking it for the sorcerer to properly identify (whoever has attuned the magic item, a woman "wearing" the butt-plug falls madly in love with him), they went through the last door which opened into a massive purple chamber containing a furry spider arm the size of a semi-truck.  Shortly thereafter, a clockwork gnome wearing purple robes shushed them, saying "Do not raise your voice, lest you arouse A'araknar-Thule," while pointing to the massive spider-member. "That's no arm."  The clockwork gnome led the adventurers to a pit full of milky eyes - white orbs gazing blindly at anything coming close to the edge.  "The way out is through there."

Ug kicked the gnome into the eyes, saw him sink and vanish, then jumped in himself.  Mista Firestorm went next.  Strum looked for an alternative, but realized the original door was locked, and decided to jump down into the eyes, as well. 

Soon enough, they were all reunited in a burgundy-mauve system of tunnels and caves where the purple secret of A'araknar-Thule resides.  As the clockwork gnome explained, this is N'yoto, the place where His priests contemplate realities devoured.  The priests themselves act as an energy source for the cosmic spider.  If all are killed, A'araknar-Thule becomes insubstantial, like a shadow.

Before encountering the first group of priests, the PCs came across Chevy Chase hovering on a silver saucer, wide-eyed and sleep deprived from hanging 1,000 Christmas lights in the huge cavern just down the way.  It was a hybrid of Christmas Vacation and Pierce Hawthorn from Community who would routinely follow them around, unseen, shouting "Gay!" every time there was an occurrence like shoving the butt-plug up a monster or priest's bottom.

The priests in this huge cave were watching interdimensional cable shows from worlds the cosmic spider had already devoured.  Before long, a sea-glass-hued monstrosity with gelatinous flesh and tentacles hovered nearby.  The PCs made room for the creature to eat the spider-priests first, and so it did.  But then there was another lavender horror, and they both were attacking - until Strum dominated one of them, telling it to fight the other.

Eventually, both were subdued, but Mista Firestorm wanted to try some stuff out on the dominated monstrosity before the spell wore off.  Any surviving priests were dispatched.  The PCs did save one just in case they needed a survivor.

At one point, Ug's player rolled three 1s in a row, and the hand holding a fish appeared from out of nowhere, slapping him across the face.  Ug also had a little talk with Orin, or rather, Orin had a little talk with Ug.  "The only time you bring me out is to hack shit, we never just talk or hang-out, anymore."  To smooth thing over, Ug laid some of the porn magazines on the flat of Orin's blade and were immediately absorbed into the sword's own pocket dimension, which I'm calling blade-space because it sounds fucking cool.

There were priests who tried to use math to figure out if A'araknar-Thule could eat an infinite amount of dimensions if he continued on forever.  Other priests were licking purple tentacles coming down from the ceiling, as the slime was hallucinogenic.  One of the final groups were writing poetry commemorating reality lost... "Reality lost, flippity frost, the spider's run down the chair leg.  Mingling ma'ast, reality lost; watching the spider-jack isn't gay."  To which, Pierce shouted "Gay!" from a safe distance.  If you can't imagine what I'm talking about, here you go.

Not too long into their N'yoto foray, a couple of drug dealers named Walter White and Jesse appeared, trading the fart-squid jetpack for an entire pound of blue persuasion crystal-meth.  

Realizing the sorcerer had to use blood or zoth (zero) to fuel his spells, the mass casualties of the cosmic spider priests allowed him to wish for advanced healing, a charged-up golf cart with monster truck wheels, and a barrage of fireballs that immolated stragglers as the PCs drove by the various caves.  

Before getting to the end-boss of N'yoto, the PCs decided to go through the few caves that got passed-over in the beginning, as the adventurers were worried about surviving priests keeping A'araknar-Thule alive and kicking.  It was the perfect time to use my Ya'ada Ya'ada Ya'ada game mechanic, as we didn't want to take time out to go over backtracking and blasting fools with ranged weapons they couldn't hope to evade.

As per the rule, each player came up with a detail (we forgot about the slap-bass, FYI)... Ug had a pile of heads stacked up on Orin as the lizardtaur played hide and seek and slaughter.  Strum used the dead priests to continue fueling spells.  Mista Firestorm had previously used juice boxes up enemy wa'azoos, but now that he had the magic butt-plug, he pursued that... liberally.  

One of the priests, probably the lone survivor the PCs fed crystal-meth to, told the adventurers about a fracture or fragmentation in time and space, a purple crack in reality.  If they jump into it with a specific place and time in mind, that's where they will appear.  

But first, they had to destroy the pond of gross goo where elongated spider parts grew out, acting like a barrier.  This is where Ug's player rolled his 5th and final natural-20 of the day (he normally rolls 1s, 3s, 4s, etc.).  Mista Firestorm using his newly acquired feat to give the enemy Disadvantage when attacking Strum.  Since I first rolled a crit, having to roll again saved him a potentially life-threatening amount of damage.  A ton of firepower dealt to the spider sludge eventually killed it.  

Before they could jump back to where they were supposed to be, the tiny insect Strum had swallowed all the way back at sorcerer-king Jethryk's palace gave him indigestion.  The stomach cramps soon turned into a little critter ripping out of the sorcerer's abdomen, causing a fair bit of damage as he fainted.  Luckily, Strum was dreaming about the caves beneath that temple of absent divinity, overriding Ug's contemplation of Cha'alt, sweet Cha'alt.

Mista Firestorm had other plans, allowing Beigeizona to reappear next session.  The PCs jumped into the purple crack, arriving back in the Moshtobah caves as if they'd never left.  

I got to try out my recently created dice-tray, and thought it would be amusing to use dice that looked EXACTLY like the tray's flooring.  It was as if the dice seeped into the gonzo-jam color and were absorbed.

Next game won't be until Saturday, October 3rd as I'll be on vacation in-between.  While there weren't many big events happening, a lot of social interaction type roleplaying transpired.  I hadn't expected to make this a bottle episode where the PCs save the universe from A'araknar-Thule, but didn't want to end our Dark Sun stint without Bishop Crane.  As the party's sole priest, potentially resurrecting a Great Old One wouldn't be the same without him.

Thanks for reading, commenting, and sharing, hoss!

VS

p.s. Want some hardcover Cha'alt?  Here's how (and they're currently on sale!)!!  And in even BIGGER news, you can now buy an all-access weekend badge for next June's VENGER CON VI: Belief is Reality convention in Madison, WI right over here.

"The Ruin of A'agrybah" - CHA'ALT Campaign 4.15

 

Turns out, the two-part foray into Dark Sun has become a three-parter, at least.

We had 3 players - Strum, Bishop Crane, and Ug.  Before I forget, here is another awesome review of Pulp-Drenched Cities of Cha'alt. "Stream of consciousness on acid," indeed, hoss. 

As the tangerine-hued sky darkned to a burnt-orange, the PCs saw a number of ancient and massive pillars sticking out of the sand.  Each was 30-feet from another of its kind, and there were dozens of them, all over the desert.  They made for good campsites, at least that's what the one-eyed whore Nyla said as the adventurers' approached on their giant lizard.

Two groups were camped upon arriving, so the PCs decided to camp in-between.  Setting up a watch system, Ug soon smelled sand-fish cooking at the campsite towards the east.  Before long, Ug and pucha'ata followed their nose, and asked to be admitted into the neighboring camp so they could eat something.  The supplies they had were zoth, zoth-zero, crayons, weapons, and drugs - no food.

As Ug ate and talked with these Athas elves, reciprocating their hospitality by offering his new friends crayons to eat.  The waxy taste was, apparently, the feature, not a bug.

Meanwhile, the other two were sleeping soundly when a quiet rumbling soon turned into vibrational tremors.  At that point, Strum woke up, thinking a sandworm or something similar might be stirring nearby.  Then, he saw movement around the closest pillar to their camp.  He woke Crane up and the two converged on the humanoid who immediately gave himself up, saying that he was a mul (half-dwarf and half-man) slave who would love the chance to serve such prominent and wealthy masters as themselves.  

They were strangers in a strange land and saw the value in taking this mul with them.  I blanked on a name for this half-dwarven slave who stood before them, short, stocky, bald, and muscular.  So, I decided that it's customary on Athas for a new master to name or rename his recently acquired slave.  Mul became Donkey, which soon became Don Quixote or just Don.

Since the party had lost their templar tag-along last session, Don would steer them round the cultural curves, so to speak.  Eventually, they all ended up at the camp with sand-fish (Strum put Ug's crayon sharing to shame by letting all 7 elves have a go with his one-eyed whore), seeing the electrical storm flash lightning - fuchsia and chartreuse lightning, which is rare in these parts... perhaps a sign?

Turns out, these elves were also going to the temple of absent divinity.  They had a prophetic scroll and demonic cube, both with infernal-glyphs, that foretold a great change in the balance of power on Athas.  Why not travel together, the PCs thought, especially since they could probably use the scroll and/or demon box at some point.  

So, Don moved all their stuff to the new camp, and they slept until morning, then continued their journey to the temple.  About halfway there, the PCs' giant lizard stepped on something that didn't sound like the  familiar sound of reptile-paws on sand.  Disembarking to check it out, they found a metal hatch in the sand.  At first thinking it was a starship of some kind, they opened it and jumped down into a cave (with the help of dried intestines, serving as rope). 

It was a large, irregularly shaped oval cavern that contained a small tunnel the PCs would have to crawl through, a whole bunch of lightless and lifeless crystals embedded in the cave wall, and a three-sided golden monolith or obelisk towards the center with an eye formed into each side of its golden exterior.  

Ug tried to move the gold obelisk but couldn't.  Eventually, it spoke to him telepathically, telling him that it was too weak to regulate the doorways of time and space - the soul energy of the crystals required the death of the void-black succumbing (or Great Old One as the PCs know it on Cha'alt) to revitalize them.  

Their current mission was to awaken Keelta'anpa'adraj from his slumber, not to help the sorcerer-king, nor assassinate this magnificent creature (as Bishop Crane calls the Old Ones).  But if Keelta'anpa'adraj ended up dying inadvertently, knowing the crystals would be recharged was good knowledge to have.

Before leaving this cave, Crane summoned a fruitie to travel down the small tunnel and report back what he saw - man-made horrors beyond comprehension... several humans were giving insect-folk piggy-back rides.  Hearing that the tunnel widened as it went, and wondering if there was something valuable or noteworthy down that way, Crane and Ug went in to see for themselves.  Sure enough, the thri-kreen rape-gangs were doing their dirty work.  And this is what was heard.  Trying to back out quietly, they were spotted, but Ug used his fire stick and Crane his blaster, taking 4 of the 12 out, which made the praying-mantis folk back off so the two could make an expeditious retreat.  

Once reunited, they eventually made their way up to the surface, making a mental note of where this hatch was so they could find it again, if need be.  

Continuing on with the Athas elves riding a giant insect behind them, they eventually came to the temple.  Deciding to sleep just outside as it was nightfall again, the early morning was disturbed by a living, floating, platform with tendril-roots hanging down as it was driven by the 3 psions standing on top of it.  

Eventually, they landed, the psionic-warriors jumped off and faced down the PCs.  One was fire, another ice, and the last storm - each having a corresponding opal embedded in their forehead.  Several rounds and saving throws later, the PCs were damaged but not dead, nor encased in ice.  Each opal was removed upon the psion deaths.  

Strum took the fire opal, keeping it for later (he hadn't decided where to place it yet), Crane took ice, attaching it to Kaltha'alax which would give him an additional 1d6 cold damage and on a critcal-hit, would encase his opponent in ice (save to avoid).  That left the storm opal for Ug who embedded it into his own forehead successfully (we rolled to make sure).  Once per day, he can blast an opponent with a 6d6 lightning storm (save for half damage).  If he wants to keep using it, it costs him a d6 in damage with an additional d6 every time he uses it until the next day when it resets.  So, if he used it 3 times in one day, the first one is free, the second would be 1d6 damage, and the third would be 2d6 damage to himself.

The temple was half-buried in the desert, an amber basilica on top and the lower exterior of the temple was fashioned out of dried lizard skin.  Inside, the PCs found the place was in disarray... smashed altar, tentacled pillars full of cracks with big chunks taken out, braziers that hadn't seen any amber-lotus in weeks, and a spiral staircase going down in the center.  Looking down, the PCs noticed a gigantic boulder preventing anyone from going up or down.

A lonesome priest named Maddox was the keeper of the temple, waiting until the Old Gods returned, but after a century or more, even he didn't really believe the Gods would come back.  Maddox had been maimed (his left-side shoulder and arm were basically useless and he walked with a limp) during a battle that took place just a few years ago when templars had ransacked his temple and crippled him due to criticism of sorcerer-king Jethryk's frequent attacks on neighboring city-states.  

He called the network of tunnels and caves below the temple the Moshtobah caves (moshtobah meaning unattainable riches from below), claiming there were supposed rumors of a godlike entity slumbering deep under the absent divinity.

In exchange for a few minutes with Strum's one-eyed whore, Maddox promised the adventurers something that was left behind in the holiest of holies for cataclysmic emergencies.  The PCs agreed as Maddox took the prostitute into the confessional for a good time after showing Ug the cabinet doors that opened into a hole in the rock.  Not feeling very optimistic, Ug put his hand into the hole, felt something, and withdrew a thermal detonator.  Upon activating it and throwing it down the stairway, the boulder smashed into several pieces, allowing them to explore what was beneath the temple... hopefully finding the sleeper.  

I forgot until just now the phrase that everyone uses in Dark Sun (according to me)... "May the sleeper never awaken."  Next session I'll have to spam it to bits & pieces!!!

I was able to utilize the new map that I'd been working on, slowly, for a couple months because of Kickstarter rewards which always takes up a ton of my free time.  They started at the center and worked their way outward, hearing a woman humming or singing to herself as she tidied up her cave.  

She was alone, not having access to the temple above, but occasionally mixing with the other natives down here.  She mentioned a wild story, her purpose, to check on the interdimensional webbing of the cosmic spider, A'araknar-Thule, making sure he didn't come back and begin eating the reality of their world.  

After telling her about the lonely priest above, she left to check the temple out, warning the adventurers not to look in her special box in the corner of her cave.  Of course, as soon as she left, that's exactly what the PCs did.  They found a big box of porn - battery-operated devices, laser-disc 8-track cassette tapes of classics like "Sand Gets Literally Everywhere," "That Lizard in Loungewear is my Pimp," and "Ex Harem-Girls of the Insatiable Sorcerer-Kings," specialty magazines (such as Hot Scales Monthly and Spicy Iguana), lube, ball-gags, dildos, her hand-written sex journal, the works.  

She had access to the interdimensional strands via a scroll that would open a portal.  Being handed the scroll and told they were now in charge of that particular mission, until she came back (which might be never), they spilled a couple drops of blood and read from the scroll.  A portal appeared.

The PCs peered into it, saw the webbing that could definitely have been made by a gigantic cosmic spider, were careful not to mess with it too much on the off-chance that vibrations would actually call A'araknar-Thule to them, cut a "crossbeam" strand, and then Ug threw in one of the pink sexual devices from her box, hoping it would stick to the web (and it did), finally using the purple labyrinth glyph inside the portal just to see what would happen...

At that point we were running out of time, and so I paused the game so I could think through the potential ramifications of opening a portal to the purple labyrinth within another interdimensional space containing an alleged spider of cosmic size and power.

Notable quotes from the session...

• "Dark Sun: the land of sexual frustration"
• "The love of a thermal detonator is equal to the love of a one-eyed whore."
• "One man's cataclysmic emergency is another man's Tuesday."

Our next game is scheduled for Saturday, September 12th.  That's going to be a session not to miss as it's the probably the last of Dark Sun (for awhile, at least), and I won't be available for the following two Saturdays as I'll be on vacation.

Enjoy,

VS

p.s. Want some hardcover Cha'alt?  Here's how (and they're currently on sale!)!!  And in even BIGGER news, you can now buy an all-access weekend badge for next June's VENGER CON VI: Belief is Reality convention in Madison, WI right over here.