Bonus Content for Purple

This art is not in The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence.  The artist, Chad Robb, was inspired by reading it.  I'm glad he decided to share them with us.

Even though Scott Charlton of Octopus Games inspired more than a few entries for While They Were Sleeping (a random table for crazy stuff that could happen when the party beds down for the night), he wasn't done there.  No, Scott wanted to contribute an encounter that could be the seed for one or more Purple sessions.

I tweaked a couple details (blame me if you hate the NPC names) but it's Scott's baby.  Enjoy...

A dangerous alien outlaw, Jivatan, is being tracked down by a sorceress, Kaelix Versoom.  Both are of the same, horned, purple-hued race.  A feature of their race is the ability to make their flesh translucent like glass, allowing them to blend into most any type of background.

Weeks ago, the insurrectionist Jivatan escaped to the purple islands via his starship and joined the Purple Putrescence worshipers.  Because of his skin color, the outlaw was able to create a cult around himself in short order.  The Sect of Strangulation is only seven members strong, but their use of oxygen-depriving poison derived from the Purple Island Lotus makes them especially powerful. 

Kaelix Versoom can be found wandering the islands searching for mercenaries.  In exchange for slaying the beast that guards a magical statue called the Transplanar Eidolon, she will give the PCs access to her spacecraft (if that’s not enough, her ship also carries interesting magical and high-tech items – see below).

This gigantic, multi-limbed, three-headed demon statue towers over the island Kelis.  Its limbs and heads each represent a different power. A stylized chamber beneath the statue's robes bears a magic pentagram with lines leading to various symbols and designs. An individual may "plug-in" to the statue and sees through its eyes, activating powers through the access points assigned to various ultra-telluric dimensional nodes. 

The sorceress uses the Eidolon to scout the island and find the outlaw's hidden spacecraft (within a sea cave on Kravian).  Kaelix is hunting Jivatan for his revolutionary views and terrorist activities.

She knows the spell Blood Tendrils (see below).

The following are items found within Kaelix Versoom’s starship…

Foam Guns

These sleek matte silver weapons are used to contain and immobilize biological threats.

Each gun holds up to 12 projectiles that explode with a compact concussion on contact, flinging out viscous blue-green fluid in a 12’ radius. This fluid reacts with air as fizzing white foam that expands rapidly and sticks to whatever it touches, dissolving any organic material for 3D6 damage plus 1D6 damage per round until washed off, frozen, or magically healed.

Conversion Gauntlet

This reinforced black glove is decorated with a band of seven clear crystals and a plush interior that shrinks to fit the wearer’s arm comfortably when donned. The wearer makes an Intelligence check to activate the device, giving them telekinetic strength equal to their Int score (in lbs.) at a 50’ range. 

The gauntlet has 3D12 charges, each round of activity expending one charge. Optionally, the GM can allow the user to expend multiple charges to increase range, lift capacity, damage, or to accomplish fine manipulations at distance; wielding a sword or picking keys off a belt.

Atomizer

This sleek pressurized canister is made from a virtually indestructible alloy, containing an internal pneumatic pump and adjustable spray nozzle. It currently holds purified alcohol but will siphon and filter up any liquid through a retracting siphon valve at the bottom, spraying out a fine mist cone to 12’. 

The canister is capable of containing very caustic liquids safely and holds equivalent to a potion vial. Igniting sprayed combustibles shot at a target through the canister causes 2D4 damage and sets targets on fire if they fail to save. The siphon allows the user to purify water one vial at a time, since the microbial filter kills the tiniest organisms.

Psychic Protomorph

This is a thick glass jar of pale yellow slime with a glittering crystal suspended inside. Should any spell caster or psionic-user concentrate on the crystal, they will soon discover that it controls the nutrient-rich primordial goop around it.  The Protomorph can be made to grow into a creature of nearly any shape desired. The crystal remains inside the creature as part of its nervous system. Those hoping to manipulate the slime may do so on a successful wisdom check.  

Every 10 rounds, the check must be made anew.

 ___

Blood Tendrils

The magic-user cuts himself for 1D4 damage, thereafter growing 2d4 dark red prehensile tendrils to attack and grasp with strength equal to the caster’s intelligence. 

The tendrils can also be used for locomotion; brachiating, running, swimming, slithering, and pulling are all viable options. Tentacles do 1d6 damage plus strength (intelligence) bonus.  Tentacles are dispelled upon taking 4 or more points of damage.

That Miraculous 15%

One of the players told me I had just uttered the quote of the day.  The intelligent and chaotic sword was being grilled by its new master and it responded with: "You don't get to hear my origin story before I've tasted blood."

Earlier this afternoon, I ran the very last playtest of The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence.  I didn't think I was going to get the chance to do another one after Gary Con, but I did.

There are more reasons for GM burnout than too much gaming.  A few members of my home group started getting busy or had better things to do or maybe it was spring fever.  I don't know.

In any case, the two week break turned into a month break and I decided to do another public, noob-friendly D&D meetup (using Swords & Wizardry) instead of trying for one last big day of gaming with my homies.

Ah, new blood for the purple islands... In fact, there were 10 players.  10!!!  All but two were strangers.  That was gratifying because I feared that scheduling another home game would leave me with several empty chairs and the feeling that no one cares about the time and energy I put into scheduling/preparing for a game.

The public library was very accommodating - a nice, big, quiet, clean space with good tables and chairs.  Couldn't ask for more than that.  Again, it took me way too long to make 10 pre-generated character sheets.  About two hours time; I could have spent that on tweaking encounters and planning the story arc.

I completely forgot about Purple's spell casting mechanic until the end.  The party ran into two back-to-back encounters that were very similar.  Maybe the original Star Trek is rubbing off on me.  For all the variety in the book, the lack thereof in my near random choices was pretty ridiculous.  Only had one critical hit.  This time it was one of the PCs scoring it and not a monster.  Nearly the same result though - total bloody carnage!  I love my critical hit table, and my d12 concurs.

I came up with a new reason for PCs to arrive: as convicts upon the purple islands penal colony like Escape from New York meets Game of Thrones.  I'll definitely include that as a suggestion in the book.

The climax was anti-climactic, unfortunately.  That's not the fault of Purple or the players, just myself.  Pure GM ball dropping.  After three and a half hours of challenge and exploration, the PCs found some human/spider hybrid wizards within the tower they sought and asked them to open a portal back to their home in exchange for a magic sword of Chaos they picked up.  The spider-people basically said, "Sure."  The PCs went through the portal and that was it.  If that happened in a movie, it probably would have been a major letdown.  They got what they wanted too easily.  Where was the conflict, the drama, the barely getting out alive?

That's kind of a drawback with campaign world and hex crawl books, they can provide a terrific framework, but they aren't a scripted adventure.

Ultimately, I believe that this session was slightly more successful than the last.  Gary Con's was pretty awesome, but I just felt something was missing.  After a couple weeks of giving it way too much thought, I realized what it was.  The missing 15%.  I tried to run the Gary Con playtest as written, without going off script, without that little bit of ingenuity and invention.  I forgot to include that modicum of inspiration which makes every session unique.  In hindsight, I wanted to run Purple as uncontaminated as possible, meaning I tried to run it like a computer might have done if given the manuscript and nothing else.  Instructive, but a bad move in terms of the overall roleplaying experience.  When making the most out of an adventure, a GM always has to put his spin on it, his 15%.

Well, I've got more revising to do.  Next time I run Purple, it will be with the finished manuscript in hand.  Probably the middle or end of June.  Can't wait!


VS

p.s.  Just want to mention that the image is not a part of the Purple book.  In fact, I didn't stumble upon it until after I wrote the framework and created the Purple Putrescence.  But it's awesome, and a super cool interpretation of that godlike entity slurping foolish humanoids as it passes overhead.

p.p.s.  Thanks to the Madison Geekery guys and gals who helped me playtest Purple!