Cha'alt X-Cards

 

Cha'alt X-Cards have arrived!!!

The idea happened, we playtested it, and now it's a thing on DriveThru (for FREE)...

Here's the PDF on DriveThruRPG.

As a friend on Facebook said, instead of "No spiders," it's more like "More sleaze, please!"

Imagine empowering players to make the game more awesome just by holding up a card - without disempowering the Game Master.  

This is a way of creating Cha'altian sessions that could all too easily revert back to vanilla D&D.  I know... I created Cha'alt and even my imagination sometimes falls back into the comfortable rut of standard fantasy tropes.

And remember, you don't have to use Cha'alt itself to benefit from those Cha'altian vibes.  Use Cha'alt X-Cards with Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland, or any game that values eldritch, gonzo, science-fantasy, post-apocalypse, humor, sleaze, pop-culture, and grindhouse exploitation!

In my estimation, this is even bigger than forever improving D&D combat with Crimson Escalation... this is a concept that takes the hobby of roleplaying games in exciting and new directions.  

Fiction first... for real!

It's a free PDF, so I hope you give it a try.  I'm currently busy custom-making Cha'alt X-Cards for friends, fans, and supporters of my work.

Enjoy,

VS

p.s. Cha'alt hardcovers are here.  Details and weekend badges for VENGER CON III: Revenge of the OSR are here.  And if you want a tentacle-made set of Cha'alt X-Cards by yours truly, paper is $15 and wood is $20 + $5 for shipping for one or multiple sets:  Venger.Satanis@yahoo.com

His Arduous Journey Into Night

 

Ok, I was wracking my brain trying to think of what I should run for yesterday's game.  

Very soon, I want to create some kind of Cha'alt + Wretched New Flesh scenario, running it for my group and then self-publishing it through The Red Room... or letting them publish it themselves (I don't really care, as long as it gets out there to fans of both Cha'alt and Wretched New Flesh).

A few interesting details came to mind, but the stuff that was supposed to gel in order to fashion an entire adventure just wasn't coming.  Time was running out, unfortunately, so I didn't think I'd be able to get a Call of Cthulhu type scenario ready by the game.  It's Halloween season and with my 5 kids, there are so many activities happening that free time is precious few at the moment.

But then the night before the game, I buckled down because I knew I had to get something on paper as time was running out.  And then an idea for another investigative, Lovecraftian horror scenario entered my brain and I feverishly wrote it down.

That's what we played yesterday.  Well, sort of... I have my own Call of Cthulhu hack that's perfect for a rules-light D20 Game Master like myself.

Same characters.  We lost one player, but picked-up two more.  Here's the roster of PCs...

• Aleister Bird - artist who dabbles in the occult, really good with his hands and capable of stabbing people with his paint brushes.
• Jack Hawkins - ex-cop turned private eye who's a marksman
• Ha'akeem - the son of a wealthy Arab diplomat who consults for Two Jacks Detective Agency, knows sleight of hand, likes to gamble, and wears a turban.
• Billy "Knuckle Samich" Cannoli - low-level mob enforcer who provides security and drives the investigators around in his car.
• Finneus Smythe - university professor and amateur parapsychologist who wears a fedora and pencil-thin moustache.  His sexuality is questionable.  

I'm not going into a ton of detail for this scenario, similar to last session report because I'll be self-publishing these two adventures.  I also came to another decision that I'd been waffling over... what to run for this March's Gary Con?  

I keep being pummeled between the twin forces of consistency and variety.  I don't want to run all one thing the entire con, but I also think running a wide variety of stuff during my six-session shift is a mistake.  

On Saturday morning, I'll be running the first scenario, and Saturday evening I'll be running the second.  The other days, I'll either be running Cha'alt, Alpha Blue, or a mix of both!

The situation is as follows - last month, a person was murdered on each night of the full-moon (I'm going by standard Buffy/Angel full-moon cycles that last three consecutive nights).  This month, the full-moon phase has just started and the person murdered the previous evening was a friend to the investigators - Finneus Smythe's player took it upon himself to engage with this bit of roleplaying, suggesting that he had a somewhat closer relationship with the deceased.  

So, the PCs took up the adventure, and began their investigation.  Same as before, Chicago 1929.  I didn't forget the sanity checks this time!  And by the scenario's end, there was a whole lot of shaken, not stirred going on.

When I run these scenarios at Gary Con, I'll have not only revised them slightly but will provide some period color in the way of props (or at the very least, pictures).  I almost included some non-plot related period action, but decided against it due to not having foreshadowed it from the beginning.  Something I'll rectify when I'm running it at Gary Con.

All in all, the game was a success.  It was nice diverging from Cha'alt... and yet I feel myself being drawn back into my eldritch, gonzo, science-fantasy, post-apocalypse, humorous, sleazy, pop-culure, grindhouse exploitation campaign setting.

Speaking of which, I decided to put the Cha'alt X-Cards [info about that here] on DriveThruRPG.  It should have final approval and be available to download for FREE tomorrow.

Thanks for reading,

VS

p.s. I've still got Cha'alt hardcover for sale - get a deal here!  And, of course, there's July's VENGER CON III: Revenge of the OSR in Madison, WI - grab your weekend badge here!  If you're inquiring about getting your own custom, tentacle-made set of Cha'alt X-Cards, email me at: Venger.Satanis@yahoo.com

The Call of Crimson

 

A few of my gamer buds online have been asking me about my d20 hack of the Call of Cthulhu RPG...

Well, here you go!  Do this, and you'll be playing a rules-light investigative horror RPG worthy of H.P. Lovecraft himself.

• Every PC gets 10 HP per level (if this is a one-shot with medium to high challenge, make the PCs 3rd level).  You're unconscious at zero HP and lower, up to your level in negative numbers.  Go beyond that, and you're dead.
• AC for normal, unarmored humans is 10.
• Every PC gets 1 point of luck per level that can be spent throughout the scenario.  Spending a point of luck allows that PC to re-roll his failed die result.
• Choose an individual special skill that has nothing to do with your character concept.
• When attempting an action, favorable circumstances yield Advantage (roll twice, take higher result) while unfavorable circumstances yield Disadvantage (roll twice, take lower result).
• The target # for skill checks is 15 (assistance yields Advantage).
• When attempting an action, roll a d20.  If your character would have that skill (you may have to justify it with a recollection from your character's past), add your level to the roll.  
• Sanity - if a person sees something unbelievably shocking or just plain scary, make a saving throw (your save is 20 - character's level).  Each failed save means the PCs gets worse...  1st failed save means character is visibly shaken; Disadvantage on all rolls for the next hour.  2nd failed save means he's developed a lasting phobia (choose as appropriate), as well as, some kind of off-putting mannerism or tic.  3rd failure means permanent insanity and unable to function as an investigator.

Ok, that's all I've got so far.  If something else comes up during play, I'll add it to the list.

Again, nothing revolutionary.  Just my attempt to make Call of Cthulhu play like Advanced Crimson Dragon Slayer.

VS

Call of Cthulhu one-shot [session report]

 

Well, it finally happened.  I ran something other than Cha'alt for my face-to-face gaming group.

This time, especially considering the season, I decided to run Call of Cthulhu.  Except, it was my own rules-light, O5R hack of the game using Advanced Crimson Dragon Slayer as a model.

In a 3.5 hour game, I think each player rolled maybe 4 or 5 dice.  So, the system was virtually invisible, which is exactly what I wanted.

Instead of the usual character creation which can burn up to 30 or 40 minutes of game time, I opted for pre-gens.  After all, this was a one-shot (or was it?) and why bother the players with character generation if they're never going to play these characters again?

Last Gary Con, I decided to make my life easier by coming up with a one-page list of available characters - each having 3 or 4 sentences describing that character's concept (including name, class, race, background, etc.) along with relationship ties to both the setting and other PCs.  

I gave every player a sheet containing all the possible characters.  Since I made more than enough characters, there was not only a decent amount of choice, but if something happened to one of the PCs, it was assumed that the non-chosen PCs were sort of hanging around in the shadows and could be played in a pinch, so no one had to sit out for even a short period of the game.

Worked fantastic for Cha'alt at Gary Con, but I think it makes even more sense for something like Call of Cthulhu.  There was a 7-person investigative team that formed Two Jacks Detective Agency.  Some investigators were part-time consultants, so it makes sense for only a handful of agency personnel to tackle any particular assignment.

I had 4 players and each chose a pre-generated character with instruction to invent some little character detail on their own, that wasn't written down for them.  This gives players some creative control while allowing for customization and future roleplaying opportunities.

The PCs included (this is the truncated version)...

• Jack Hawkins - Private eye and co-owner of Two Jacks Detective Agency + marksman 
• Jack Princeton - Private eye and co-owner of Two Jacks Detective Agency + plays the piano
• Billy "Knuckle Samich" Cannoli - Mob enforcer and hands on security + good cook
• Finneus Smythe - University forensics professor and amateur parapsychologist + took boxing lessons from Billy

I started writing this homebrewed scenario the day after our last game and it took me until the morning of our actual session for me to say that it was "done."  Something like 6 pages of notes, descriptions, key NPCs, eventualities, clues, timeline, and so on.

It was literally double )in some cases triple) the amount of preparation that I'd spent on any session of the Cha'alt campaign, but that's the nature of the beast with RPGs like Call of Cthulhu.  If there's a way to "wing it" and still have a reliably satisfying investigative horror game, I don't know what that looks like.  If you do, teach me!

I might release my house-rule hack for Cthulhu as a free one or two-page PDF sometime down the road.  And since the adventure is already written, it's a no-brainer to self-publish the thing in the near future as a system neutral scenario.  Would go well with The Outer Presence of any Lovecraftian investigative horror RPG.

The scenario took place in 1929 Chicago.  It involved the mysterious disappearance of a retired shipping magnate.  I'm a huge fan of Masks of Nyarlathotep, so this adventure was reminiscent of that campaign.  I suppose if a group had already experienced the first session or two of Masks but not the rest and wanted to give it another try (sometimes, groups break up at inopportune moments), this could be a satisfying re-introduction.  

I won't go into too much detail, but I felt it went well and everyone seemed to have fun.  After the adventure was over, the players told me it was a success, so that was encouraging.  Shaking off the cobwebs, I suppose I still have the knack.

Towards the end of the session, things started to get weird.  That's when I should have asked for a sanity check or two, but in my slow descriptive build-up, I forgot to pull the trigger and only realized the missed opportunity when things were back to normal.

There were a few moments where we stopped to view what was happening through a Cha'alt lens... "Now, if this were Cha'alt, we'd just start lapping up the milky-green goo dripping off those tentacles," or some such.  Good times!

Predictably, there was a civil disagreement about what to do with the evil cultists at the end - hand them over to police or deal with them ourselves?  I remember that hotly contested dilemma from back in the day when I was running my Call of Cthulhu campaign almost 20 years ago.

In two weeks, I'm going to run something else in the horror vein... and could possibly continue the Cthulhu game with the same players + new people since I'll be hosting that meetup game at the local library, instead of my house.  I did that specifically to give some new meetup folks a chance to game with us.

If I did stay with my own take on Call of Cthulhu, I would write another scenario for the same cast of characters.  The revolving PCs inside a fledgling detective agency just worked too well to abandon the idea.

Ok, that's it.  Thanks for reading!

VS

p.s. Yeah, it's not until July, but my Madison, WI old-school RPG convention, VENGER CON III: Revenge of the OSR, is currently selling weekend badges!  Also, I still have Cha'alt hardcovers for sale - I need to sell a couple dozen more trilogies before kickstarting Book 4 of the Cha'alt trilogy.  So, order yours today. 

"Prophecy Mine" [Cha'alt one-shot session report]

 

I'm so glad that I ended my Crystals of Chaos, 9-month and 17-session Cha'alt campaign before leaving for vacation.  After 3 weeks, I come back to only two players being available... which wouldn't have worked.  And not sure about next week, either, but I'm going to schedule a session.

Between inertia and analysis paralysis, I chose to run more Cha'alt, which upon reflection, just seems stupid.  That's like being on a cheesecake diet for most of the year and then when you're off the diet, you decide to eat cheesecake.

I mean, there's literally dozens of RPGs I own that I could have run, that I probably should have run.  On the other hand, I do love cheesecake... and Cha'alt.  So, here we are.  Another Cha'alt one-shot, but this time in-person (as opposed to the virtual one-shots I run once or twice a month on Roll20).

Oh yeah, a small but deciding factor was my custom, hand-made Cha'alt X-Cards [YouTube video showing all 8 of the finished cards] which would be finished by game time (Saturday afternoon).  We ended up only using 2 of the 8, but that playtest experiment was fruitful, as I believe you will see by the end of this session report.

Ok, my two players started the session with new 3rd level characters - Nix the salty and crusty, chaotic, ambidextrous demon thief and Ha'arumph the half-orc, also chaotic, always positive but a bit dim warrior with a giant spoon-shaped weapon named Soulnier the Castrator in which Ha'arumph can project his smoldering, volcanic intensity.  Once the half-orc's player, Steve, started voicing the character, I saw him as an orcish Simple Jack from one of my favorite comedies, Tropic Thunder!

Both PCs lived in Kra'adumek and had been day laborers, recently promoted to troubleshooters by the Purple Priests of that city-state.  This halfling with a gimpy leg ushered them to the Great Temple where they were blessed and told of their mission - explore an old crystal mine.  All the crystals were gone, but signs and portents indicated that something strange may be happening in the caves and tunnels of that old mine.  

While in the temple of the Purple Priests, they noticed a "holy water" font filled with zoth and a familiar saying carved just below one of many Lovecraftian Gods - "Where there's fuchsia, chartreuse cannot be far behind."  This is something the PCs had heard throughout their lives.

The adventurers hired a couple of reptilian riding spiders which cut their time in half.  I don't roll for it often, but decided to check and see if the Fuchsia Putrescence (borrowed and slightly altered from The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence) would be seen overhead.  Sure enough, it was.  

The PCs narrowly avoided getting scooped up by a tentacle and devoured by the gargantuan floating thing above.

Shortly after, they made it to the mouth of the cave.  It soon forked, and the thief scouted ahead, noticing 3 humanoids who were using advanced technology (a sort of ultra-vibrational tuning fork device) to pry a particularly large and hard to get at purple crystal from the wall.  

Just before the PCs made their presence known, everyone heard a female cry for help coming from the other tunnel.  The PCs hid, hoping the humanoids would pass by without noticing them.  Sure enough (since I rolled a 1 for the NPCs' perception check), they didn't see shit.

That's when the PCs decided to dig that ostrich-egg sized purple crystal the rest of the way out, using the warrior's sharpened spoon weapon that he could heat up.  It eventually popped out just as they heard even more insistent screams from a woman.

Taking the crystal with them, the PCs checked it out.  They found a woman stuck halfway in a smaller tunnel.  And the 3 humanoids had pulled the female's pants down (she was still wearing her underwear) and who knows what would have transpired if not for their timely intervention.

With a quip and flashing blades, the battle commenced.  Wounds were taken on each side, but Nix and Ha'arumph easily prevailed.  Then, they unstuck the woman and got to hear what she was about... a recently escaped slave who noticed a glowing banana about 9-feet inside a smaller tunnel.

Using the smaller Nix and the spoon weapon, they fished out a novelty, banana-shaped crystal rimmed jaccard.  Nix took that, being a thief [it's so unbelievably useful that a crystal rimmed jaccard grants the thief using it Advantage when employing the tools of his trade], and gave the woman, Parev, the 40 talons they took off the dead NPCs.  Parev wanted to join their little band, hoping strength in numbers would allow her to survive.

On their way to check out her screams, the PCs had bypassed another tunnel to the north.  So, they backtracked to see what was down there.  A slumbering creature covered in tentacles!  They left it alone, proceeding to other areas.

They found a pool of zoth with several humanoids (the slavers who Parev escaped from, in fact) around it.  The leader, Blood Beard, about to plunge his sword into the zoth in order to enchant it with ichor of the Great Old Ones.  The PCs went in another direction before engaging with them.  They found a petrified worm and just around the corner two braziers making the entire area fragrant with peach incense.  That system of tunnels and caves terminated with a fuchsia door. 

Nix and Ha'arumph spent a decent amount of time on that door, trying various ways to open it.  Some techniques were so ingenious, I almost caved, but there was a specific way of getting that fuchsia door open.

Eventually, they guessed... or at least assumed that zoth might open the fuchsia door.  Not wanting a direct confrontation with the humanoids in the zoth pool cave, they devised a plan.  One of them would lure the humanoids out, and the other would draw the sleeping Lovecraftian creature down the tunnel so the two would intersect.  

I had each PC roll a d6.  If a 1 was rolled, their plan would breakdown at some point leading to potential disaster.  Steve, usually the worst roller at our table, did not disappoint.  He rolled a 1, but I reminded him that if he tapped one of the Cha'alt X-Cards, that would yield a point of Divine Favor so he could re-roll.  He pulled the eldritch card, and rolled a 3 to counteract the critical failure.

I described how the sleeping tentacled thing's psionic-shadow rose and followed him as the half-orc attempted to mind-meld with it. Then, as planned, the two factions made contact.  I wasn't sure how to adjudicate the battle between mythos spawn and NPC slavers; so, I had each player roll a d20.  Nix's player rolled slightly higher.  I described the head-slaver, Blood Beard, as the sole survivor, withdrawing his glowing magical blade from the shadow thing.

It only took a couple rounds for the PCs to dispatch Blood Beard, since he had been wounded by the creature.  Then, they looted the bodies.  Aside from some gold and a set of miniature thieves tools, there was a cerulean ring, it's jewel dancing in the faint light of torches and mystic crystals.  The PCs didn't have a sorcerer, nor time to discover it's magical nature, but it makes water taste like fine worm wine to the ring-wearer.

Having the overgrown spoon weapon dripping with zoth, Ha'arumph hit the fuchsia door again, and this time zoth droplets were visibly absorbed into the door, it shimmered, and opened.  Inside, all was blackness.  

They walked through and found themselves exiting a nearly identical door into a nearly identical cave which they'd just left.  However, this door was chartreuse.  And instead of peach incense, the braziers issued a citrus lemon-lime fragrance.  Oh, and the petrified sandworm was no longer petrified.  Wisely, the PCs decided to creep past it with ludicrous success - to the point where we all speculated if the worm might be blind.

Realizing this was some kind of parallel universe, the adventures retread their steps to see what else was different.  Their first inclination was to see if another crystal was there.  It was, but this time, it was a fuchsia crystal.  So, they liberated that and kept going north to find a couple of cultists guarding a malevolent entity summoned by their High Priest.  For now, the monstrous demonic creature was trapped inside a magic circle.

Nix and Ha'arumph surprised the cultists, but had difficulty finishing them off, mostly due to Steve's infamously terrible rolling.  I suggested maybe drawing another Cha'alt X-Card from the pile, and he obliged.  This time he drew sleaze and described how Ha'arumph quickly stripped Parev's clothes and pushed her into the cultist - who was so shocked that he involuntarily grabbed her naked breasts and proceeded to motorboat them as the half-orc warrior hacked into him from behind.

Not wanting to be left out of the sleaze-making, I described how the summoned creature's tentacle went through the backside of a distracted cultist standing near it... into his ass and out his mouth.  It took a round to shake the dead cultist from its tentacle.  If Colin had been there, I know I could have wrangled a "gross" out of him.  ;)

Realizing how formidable the summoned creature probably was, the PCs made an expeditious retreat.  The cultists pursued the PCs all the way back to the chartreuse door... where the sandworm was waiting.  They discretely snuck past (they originally rolled so well - two natural 20s and a 19, so I had no problem letting them sidestep the worm).  However, the High Priest and his cultist companion weren't so fortunate.  The sandworm ate the High Priest and I believe Ha'arumph decapitated the cultist.  

Oh yeah, either just before or during the PCs' retreat, the half-orc used the purple and fuchsia crystals to mind-meld with the demonic thing trying to break out of the magic circle.  Steve rolled a 19 (in 17 sessions, no one had ever seen him roll anything higher than that), so not only did he repel the demon's psychic force (that I was fully prepared to let a disastrous roll crush the half-orc's already simple mind), but also glean an insight as to how they might get home, in case it wasn't obvious.

By now, I would hope that several of you might have guessed the solution - hold the fuchsia crystal up to the chartreuse door.  That's what the half-orc did, and the door opened, allowing them to return to their own universe.

Getting back and being "home free" was pretty much the ending.  I didn't have anything beyond that planned.  We got a late start, so that was a three-hour session.

Delving into the Cha'alt X-Cards some more, instead of earning a point of Divine Favor (which appeared from that session's vantage point to be "the middle man")... the end result was diverting failure into a more prosperous direction.  Both times Steve played a Cha'alt card, he attempted to turn a bad roll (or result) around.  As it should be.  Sure, an anti-climax may be possible, but shouldn't that be the exception, not the rule (all things being equal, at 3rd level, most straight-up rolls are 50/50).  

Essentially, if we decided to continue along that route (doing away with the Divine Favor's re-roll), the "cost" of finding a silver lining to the current situation's cloud was coming up with a way to make the game more eldritch, sleazy, etc.  

After all, what is Divine Favor if not the gods of Cha'alt nudging reality in a way that's favorable to the adventurer implementing it?  Since I, as Game Master, step-in to the role of Cha'alt gods, it's ultimately up to me to decide just how much help to give the PCs and what that looks like when the smoke clears.

Just the way it was organically used in the session took Cha'alt X-Cards in that direction.  I'm excited to see what happens the next time we use them.  Now that I'm aware of that possibility, I'd be happy to forgo Divine Favor (and the resultant re-roll) instead of offering a celestial offramp that mitigates whatever failure that PC is currently wallowing in.

Basically, what I'm trying to say (at least partly) is that even if a Divine Favor reroll was unsuccessful, an aspect of my GMness feels bound to give the PC a leg-up.  And if that's the case, then the Divine Favor is rather superfluous.  It may not be what the PC or player intended, but something good will no doubt come from altering the fabric of reality via Cha'alt card narrative influence.

Hey, at least I'm consciously aware of my bias.  Favoritism, like privilege, isn't a dirty word.  And neither is "design."  As in, this is the way I've designed my game, my adventure, my campaign, the way I Game Master.  It's tailored to my specifications.

I feel like so many GMs are pushed and pulled, swayed this way and that by their unconscious mind... unaware of why they make the rulings they do.  Oh sure, we all have dice to fall back on, but if I may quote another favorite movie John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness... "He lives in the smallest parts of it.  In the atoms... smaller... invisible... he lives in all of it."

By that I mean, even with clearly defined parameters and success or failure determined by rolling, the GM has too much power, too much control to remain absolutely neutral.  Over time, absolute neutrality is an impossibility.  

In fact, I would caution GMs from clinging to the falsehood of neutrality in favor of consciously helping to create the type of experience they'd like to see.  We're not the sole author (don't forget the players are there, too).  However, it is our story.  In this case, I feel the need to clarify that "our" means GMs take an active part in it, and are most likely the prime creator - but that doesn't mean the GM owns it fully or that other narrative contributions are meaningless.

Did someone say PSYCHOCOSM?!?

Even though I would have liked a break from Cha'alt, I'm happy we went back there, into that world.  But I can almost guarantee that the next time we play, it'll be a different game.  No matter how much I love cheesecake, I still crave other desserts - and this week, it's apple-cider donuts!

Thanks for reading,

VS

p.s. Do you have your weekend badge for VENGER CON III: Revenge of the OSR yet?  If not, don't wait.  You do NOT want to miss an entire weekend of non-woke gaming with some of the most outrageous, controversial, and awesome gamers in the hobby today!  Additionally, I've still got Cha'alt hardcovers for sale - details right over here.

Crystals of Chaos (session report #17)

 

This session concludes the Crystals of Chaos 9-month Cha'alt campaign on 2023.

That scene from Kill Bill (volume 2, I think) where Bill's brother asks Daryl Hannah's character which she's filled most with, after it's all said and done... relief or regret.  Like her, I'm sure every GM feels a bit of both.  And like him, if pressed, we'll usually feel more of one than the other.  So, which is it?  

It's sad when things end, but if nothing ended, there also wouldn't be new beginnings. Put me in the relief column.  So many things transpired, in and out of the game, since January.  Also, it does suck that not everyone could be at the last session.  But we have to take a 3-week break after yesterday's game and I'd been meaning to reach a conclusion for a little while.  Plus, I want to experience new RPG awesomeness.  

So, while the RPG Pundit is already chiding me for concluding my 9-month campaign when his World of the Last Sun has lasted 10 years, all I can do is nod and laugh and be grateful for everything that led up to this point.  What we accomplished is quite remarkable, as you can see by reading my Crystals of Chaos session reports.  Thanks this Crystals of Chaos, we have the lavender moons, Cha'alt X-Cards, fuchsia burn, and so many things!

Who was on the roster?  Robard the Red, Jackal, and Heighten Chancery Philthrop III.

Last session, the PCs had taken the hellevator down to the bowels of Cha'alt where the Hell Worm dwelt.  They were chasing a Federation officer named Commander Andrak who got hold of a device that, if opened, would annihilate the universe.

Before breaking camp and heading off in search of Andrak, the party got a visual communication from Starship Jefferson (their transport presumably still parked above Cremza'amirikza'am).  It was Teddy Westside wearing a banana-furry costume.  After the initial shudder, the PCs asked what was up.  

"I've got good news and bad news.  Which do you want to hear first?"

The bad news, Robard said.  "The bad news is 19, aka centaur hottie."  Then what's the good news, the sorcerer followed-up?  "I'm getting married," Ted replied.  

Yep, Teddy Westside and centaur hottie were eloping to Alpha Blue... and taking the Starship Jefferson with them.  They assured the party that they'd be back eventually to pick them up after their honeymoon.  

Robard fell into a deep, dark depression... and we all watched him go down the emotional well.  It humanized Robard, made him more relatable, watchable (from an audience's perspective), and provided extra fodder for roleplaying.  Throughout his breakup ordeal, he was awarded a couple Divine Favor fuchsia stones for character embodiment.

The PCs saw another brown pool of sweet smelling candy water, and a white unicorn trotted up to it, turned around, backed up a couple paces, and pooped into it.  After the unicorn finished her business, a couple demons came along.  

Robard wanted a unicorn horn as a spell component and the halfling tried to help by remotely shoving his hand/tentacle through a portal to hold onto it.  Heighten critically failed and the unicorn stabbed his hand, instead.  Robard used one of his infernal lavender moons of destiny dice to make this a defining moment for his character.  Unfortunately, he, too, rolled a 1 on the d6.  Even though he had that Divine Favor.  Robard refused to spend it, only accentuating his emotional depths.  Robard missed and broke down crying.

After the demons led the unicorn away, the PCs examined the brown liquid pool that smelled like blueberry waffle cone graham cracker cheesecake, knowing what it was from before and just now, Jackal turned the pool into zoth with the tip of his trident.  Heighten dipped his hand tentacles into the zoth and healed himself.

Meanwhile, the demons took the unicorn to a nearby cave where a demon Willy Wonka waited upon a candy-studded chocolate tentacle thrown.  Further back in the cave, a film crew was getting shots of THOTs wrestling in candy slime.  Where did these women come from?  demon Willy Wonka touched the unicorn with his wand and she turned into a hot chick, which the candy man sent to his film crew to create even more content for his OnlyFans account.

Seeing demon Willy Wonka as a threat and wanting the unicorns / hotties for themselves, the PCs attacked without warning.  The battle was quickly over, ending in a fiery crescendo as Robard fireballed all three.  The demons were dead, and Willy Wonka with devil horns and a tail was mostly burned to a crisp.  The PCs took his wand and broke it, but instead of turning the girls back into unicorns, it permanently kept them humanoid females.  

And there was another spell cast (or maybe this was still due to the fireball), but I rolled on the d100 weird spell aftereffect table and fruities came out of a portal to challenge the adventurers for supremacy of this domain.  Robard's character grabbed the Cha'alt X-Card for "sleaze."  So, I told them the fruities wanted to decide things with a fuck-off.  Whoever can bang these sluts the hardest and best would rule this candy cave and all the unicorn girls it contained.

I had everyone pick a woman, sexual position, and bedroom maneuver, then asked for a d20 roll.  Real quick, all the players were rolling like crap most of the game.  The strawberry, who revealed his strawberry dick upon opening his trench-coat, won the fuck-off when I rolled an 18.  The PCs hung their heads in shame as the fruities victoriously danced and gyrated their junk to the crippling defeat of the Crimson Bastards!

At some point in there, the film crew recording the slime candy wrestling girls (who used to be unicorns) and the documentary film crew capturing the adventurers' exploits needed some legal guidance so one group couldn't sue the other... and a demon lawyer was summoned.  The halfling murdered the lawyer because of course he did.

The OnlyFans film crew either joined the PCs' documentary film crew or died horribly.

Knowing the PCs as I do, it wasn't at all surprising when the PCs decided to crush the fruities... and crush them they did.  Jackal's player held up the "exploitation & grindhouse" card - I leaned into such cannibal holocaust fare as primitive humanoid tribesmen came out of the shadows to light a bonfire and prepare a fruity feast.  Everyone had plenty to eat as the screams of chopped up and burning anthropomorphic fruit filled the cave.

I believe it was at this point that Colin, Robard's player, said something that was so glaringly obvious that I scarcely know how it wasn't part of the Cha'alt X-Card guidelines this while time.  Of course, a PC should be incentivized with Divine Favor after he taps a card.  So, yeah, I started giving that out.

After the cannibal carnage, the PCs decided to take it easy for the rest of the day, sleep in the cave, and wake up the next morning to continue their journey.

The PCs kept going, walking down the main tunnel which eventually led to a deposit of massive crystals showing different scenes in space, time, and dimension.  Specifically, these four... Commander Andrak opening a red box and Cha'alt exploding; demons launching a brutal attack on the surface, specifically, A'agrybah, killing the banana-men defensive guard; an alien temple containing humanoids all wearing lavender robes - at the center of the temple is a weird device; and a world similar to Cha'alt but everyone and everything had dicks covering it.

The halfling wanted to use his dimensionally remote tentacle hand to grab Andrak and pull him through, which he did... as they found out that Andrak was just a humanoid shell or puppet for Ubbo-Sa'athla who wanted to destroy the whole universe and remake everything with dicks all over stuff.

Jackal hacked into Andrak who just crumbled and melted away.  Heighten used his hand again to knock the red box away.  Robard cast a spell using the party's unicorn girl entourage menstrual blood to fuel his sorcery (it was just lucky that the girls got their periods that morning).

I rolled on that d100 wild magic table again and Robard was out of phase with everything on this plane.  But he saw a portal to the purple labyrinth, and went in with the box, trying to lure Ubbo-Sa'athla into it.  His plan worked, but then Ubbo-Sa'athla was trapped in the purple labyrinth with Robard - even if the sorcerer escaped, the Great Old One would have a chance to either leave or destroy that extra-dimensional wizard plane - which would be a shame since sorcerers of Cha'alt (and other realms) rely on the purple labyrinth for all kinds of strange mystical stuff.  

The labyrinth itself was trying to communicate with Robard.  Robard wanted to use another soul-shard corresponding to the infernal lavender moons of Cha'alt to trap the Great Old One and explode the red box without harming the PCs, Cha'alt, or even the purple labyrinth.  He rolled a 3, which is the lowest roll possible while still succeeding.  Creating a much smaller and even more purple universe behind yet another portal, Robard went in... and so did Ubbo-Sa'athla, then Robard escaped just as the instability of that device inside the red box was triggered by so many dimensional doorways.  

It exploded, ending that universe within a universe within a universe... possibly even now being remade in the Old One's image... as everything and everyone are covered with dicks.

Upon walking out of that cavernous crystal area, the PCs saw graffiti on the rock that read, "Go immediately to the Chartreuse Dragon Cantina ~ Crimson Bastards."  

They teleported there, at which point the PCs were met with a surprise party.  Even though Teddy Westside and centaur hottie weren't there, all the adventurers... Krandol, Zagreus, and even Gath were there.  And a bunch of NPCs lost to the mists of memory.

They all drank and ate and laughed at stories of their adventures.

That was it.  I closed the campaign with one last gong, and the players and I talked about how much we enjoyed the adventure and the whole damn thing.

Receiving a point of Divine Favor was really both a no-brainer and master stroke that I still can't believe I didn't think of.  I'll have to read through my posts, but I'm pretty sure that notion never actually came to me.

Oh yeah, this session's audio was also recorded on a tiny device.  So, once the audio is cleaned up, we might have something neat to share with folks.

The following are hilarious and/or cool things that were said this session...

• The unicorn/centaur sexcapades reminded someone of this SNL sketch with Christopher Walken. Here it is, if you're curious.
• "He flew too close to the lavender moons."
• "Unicorns have IBS, but zoth makes them regular... but too much gives them constipation."
• "The only economy that's still viable on Cha'alt is OnlyFans."
• When you can legitimately say, 'Surprise, motherfucker!' you get to roll your attack with Advantage."
• "I should have listened to my Mother and gone into bird law."
• "I was touched by the greater magics of this place."
• "Would that be a dickopalypse or dickaggedon?"
• "Maniacal laughter is the last phase of grieving." 
• "Objection, your honor, he's leading the GM."
• "Failing foreskin... instead of failing forward, but also a dick joke."
• "I don't think there was ever a 'normal' Robard."

I've said it before and here it is again, thanks to all the players, everyone who's reading these session reports, those commenting and talking about Crimson Dragon Slayer and Cha'alt, the people who've purchased Cha'alt, and support what I'm doing with Kort'thalis Publishing.

When I'm back from vacation later this month, I'll let you know what we plan on doing Saturday, October 7th.  Colin was thinking about running a SLA Industries one-shot, and then I've got something wicked up my wizard sleeve as Halloween draws nigh.

So long and thanks for all the fuchsia tentacles!

VS

p.s.  Get your Cha'alt hardcover trilogy and a custom made set of Cha'alt X-Cards with this here special deal.  And don't forget all the fun you'll miss if you don't attend VENGER CON III: Revenge of the OSR... next July in Madison, WI.

Cha'alt X-Card Trilogy Deal

 

Ok, here's the deal.  I need to get more hardcover Cha'alt books sold before Kickstarting Book 4 of the trilogy in January.

I also want to get my Cha'alt X-Cards into the hands and tentacles of gamers like you.  What are Cha'alt X-Cards, you ask?  A set of 8 cards, each with a different descriptor that comprise the greatest campaign setting ever made... CHA'ALT.  

It's eldritch, gonzo, science-fantasy, post-apocalypse, sleaze, humor, pop-culture references, and exploitation / grindhouse (added later, after the initial pictures were taken).

At any point in the session, a player can grab a card from the middle of the table and raise it up, letting the GM know he should incorporate a bit (or perhaps a lot) more of whatever is on the card into the current encounter, scene, moment, whatever.

EDIT: And the player who tapped the card gets a point of Divine Favor (or your metacurrency of choice) as a reward (incentivize the play you want to see more of).

So, that prisoner exchange the GM is describing suddenly becomes tinged with alienage and cosmic horror, assuming the eldritch card was tapped. Does that one convict tweaking-out have forbidden knowledge locked inside his subconscious - about to rip and tear its way out like a thousand screaming tentacles?

You see what I did there?  I just came up with that secret subplot just now, thanks to the Cha'alt X-Card prompt.  And players are encouraged to come up with their own inspirational ideas when they raise a particular card... subject to the GM's capricious whims, of course.

Anyways, I made myself a set of Cha'alt X-Cards and got to try them out.  They worked even better than expected, so now I want YOU to have your own set... and it gets even better - I'm going to handmake these 8-card sets so that you'll have custom Cha'alt X-Cards of your very own.  They'll be colorful and weird and probably low-fi art-punk as Hell.  I'm going to try a bunch of different things and let folks pick out their favorite (subject to availability).

The ones you see here on this blog post were the original prototypes.  I can and shall do better.  I'm hoping these will be cherished artifacts for years and years to come, used in various games (both Cha'alt and non-Cha'alt), and one day as ebay worthy as one of Banksy's public murals.

So, how do you get your set of 8 uniquely custom Cha'alt X-Cards?  Purchase the full trilogy of hardcover Cha'alt books at some point this month, in September, and then before the end of October, I'll mail out the Cha'alt X-Cards (you'll get the actual books days after your order).  I can't send them together because 1) I have to design and physically make them, which takes time... and 2) If I tried to send the cards along with the books, I'd lose the "media mail" discount on domestic shipping.

Speaking of which, this deal - a set of free Cha'alt X-Cards - is only good for those living in the USA.  For those living outside the USA, I can send you a set of Cha'alt X-Cards for an additional $20.

For the entire, professionally printed, gorgeous hardcover trilogy of books (that also come with the PDFs if you don't already have them), it's $130 domestic ($200 foreign).  Paypal me at: Venger.Satanis@yahoo.com

Got a question?  Just ask...

VS

p.s. I'm currently selling weekend badges for my midwest gaming convention VENGER CON III: Revenge of the OSR.  You should go, hoss!

The Burning Man

 

It had been ages since I'd run a session on Roll20, way before VENGER CON.  

After all, I didn't need these infrequent fixes now that I've got a bi-weekly Cha'alt campaign going into its 9th month, and 2 or 3 times a year, I'm a GMing fool at conventions, running shit all weekend long.

Nevertheless, I missed my 90-minute, text only, 18+, virtual sessions that used to be my gaming bread and butter the past few years.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of running Cha'alt: Burning Man for Charles H. (he did a post-game audio clip) and a guy named Paul I found on Twitter who was interested in getting Cha'alt for himself.  So, I said, why not try it out for yourself to see if it fits?  

The characters were a half-human / half-lizardman elemental sorcerer named Nicolo and a Mi-Go type crustacean priest working to bring back Cthulhu named Erka'al.

Usually, when I set these Roll20 sessions up I try to think of a cool sounding name that evokes a simple and gameable concept.  I don't always follow-through with that concept, but it gives me a starting point.  This being Cha'alt, I'm happy to use something topical to get the ball rolling - getting that ball to initially roll is usually the hardest part.

Since the Burning Man festival was in the news, I used that.  And since most of my Cha'alt one-shots start with the PCs wandering the desert, it seemed like a no-brainer!  The PCs stumbled upon some kind of large gathering which turned out to be a ritual with a mysterious purpose.  As I do, the Burning Man idea was conflated with the Wicker Man - PCs saw humanoid slaves caged inside the abdomen of this gigantic man made out of wicker or bamboo.

An elf filled them in before he took off on his reptilian riding spider, giving Nicolo (who had asked if he was holding any drugs) a glass vial of zoth.  A storm was coming, dark purple clouds appeared on the horizon, moving towards the valley where this ritual was taking place.

Various other attendees caught their eye - a man blowing into a translucently violet conch-shell, an insectoid slaver leading three slave girls by their collars down to the wicker man, and a High Priest who drew a sigil into the sand while chanting.  The sigil became a pool of liquid.  The High Priest dipped his tentacle into it and withdrew it wreathed in flame.

As the fire was set at the base of the wicker man and the slaves were yelling for someone to help them, the PCs assessed the situation, trying first to glean more information via Erka'al's psychic abilities.  He discovered that these celebrants were attempting to summon a conqueror worm in order to rid themselves of an otherworldly entity living in a nearby cave.

Nicolo inquired about purchasing a blonde slave who had been flirting with him.  He didn't have near enough gold, but the insectoid slaver told him that if he killed the neza'ateem (that's what they called the thing in the cave... in the ancient tongue it means "something birthed by the unknown"), he could have the slave girl free and clear.  

In old school tradition, Nicolo asked if there was some secret, some scrap of information, a trick or weakness... something to help them slay this neza'ateem.  The slaver gave the sorcerer his necklace, a tentacled entity fashioned out of purple-jade that would hopefully bring him luck.

As the flames licked higher and the storm was directly overhead, the adventurers made their way to the cave (about a mile away from the valley).

Just outside was a stone marker with carvings, the topmost being an eye inside a triangle.  A few humanoids had followed them and gathered outside the cave, waiting to see what fate was in store for them.

They went inside and saw crystals embedded in the rock walls, just up ahead was a body ripped in two and the gruesome remains gnawed at by the beast they were hunting.  The tunnel forked, and the PCs went in the direction that didn't have bloodstains.  They found slabs of stone with bodies laying on them.  This was some kind of mausoleum.  

Nicolo took a purple crystal from wall, drank the vial of zoth, and tried to vision-quest his way into answers.  Being 3rd level and only two of them, it seemed apparent that they needed an edge.

In this vision, the sorcerer saw the entity being cut in twain by a magical sword.  He tried reaching out to locate the sword and Erka'al, who was watching his companion, saw Nicolo's hand extend like a tentacle, going for something beneath a death-shroud laying upon one of the bodies.

It was a sword, and the sorcerer could feel its magic.  The two of them looked around to see if there was anything else they could loot that might help them slay the neza'ateem.  Erka'al found a badass helmet in the likeness of a winged serpent.  it wasn't magical, but it was well-made and mighty to behold.

Without too much screwing around (there wasn't much time before the session was going to end), the creature approached - tentacles, teeth, and bad breath.  It made its way towards them as the priest shot it with his luger.  The bullet went in, spurting emerald-green blood as it did so, but that didn't even slow the beast down.

Charles asked me about Advanced Crimson Dragon Slayer as he was looking for a way to even the odds. I told him he could either spend a point of Divine Favor to get Advantage on his attack roll or call upon one of the infernal lavender moons of Cha'alt, allowing him to do what would normally be impossible.  He chose the latter.

"Just roll a d6," I said.  He did and it came up a 6 - critical success!  I narrated how he swung and hacked into it, the blade going cleanly through, bringing the entity down into two pieces that flowed with green blood.

Afterwards, the adventurers exited the cave, were met with rejoicing and praise, Nicolo got the girl, and someday there might be more to come.

It was a good, solid, and satisfying session.  I was stoked to try out the "epic deed" mechanic for a 3rd time (every bit of playtesting helps).  It worked as intended, a decent chance of overcoming an insurmountable obstacle that makes sense, that's immersive... according to the campaign setting.

The players had fun and want to do it again, so we'll see how our schedules go.  I'm aiming for every other week, as that seems doable.  This session went over by 10 minutes or so, but generally speaking a 90-minute scenario isn't too exhausting in-between my requisite Game Mastering duties.

Thanks for reading!

VS

p.s. VENGER CON III: Revenge of the OSR is open for registration, so get your weekend badge before we're capped at 100 attendees.  Also, hardcover Cha'alt books are still for sale!

One-Page Collaboration

 

Sometimes, I get people asking to collaborate with me.  Occasionally, I'll want to collaborate with someone in particular... or a third party really wants me and another person to work on something together.

And usually, this doesn't go anywhere because as creators and self-publishers know, a project can take up to infinite time, energy, and money if one isn't careful.  And it's difficult to suggest parameters without knowing exactly what the other person is thinking, and you you want to see how it goes, and people in such a situation usually try to be open-minded and flexible.

Pretty much everything that could invite disaster, or at the very least, unnecessary suffering.  However, I had an idea earlier today that just might make everything nice and easy.

I'm calling it the one-page collaboration for a reason.  That's because both parties agree to keep the parameters at one page (which also may include both sides of a page, or two side-by-side pages "control panel" style, but whatever).

No matter the project, if it's worthwhile, we should be able to boil it down to one or two pages of gameable material.  The sort of thing you can have sitting in front of you at the table, behind your screen, waiting to be used.

At this point in my life and hobby, I just want to focus my "extraneous project energy" on short and sweet, hyper-minimalist stuff that I can use in my Game Mastering... plug and play, hoss.

Having said that, if anyone would like to do a one-page collaboration with me, just let me know.  Chances are, I'm down to clown.  I do have a couple ideas in the tank, but also come to me with what you want to do.  Who knows, maybe we'll meet in the middle and genius will strike between the two of us?

The fine print - whatever we collaborate on is jointly owned.  I can self-publish and sell it, and so can you, if you so choose.  We can take the content (which may vary between the two of us) and put our own aesthetic spin on the layout, if we so choose, or both put out the exact same thing.  Any costs over $50 (that I'm happy to pay) will be split 50/50.  And somewhere in the product, there will be language saying that this was a collaboration between Venger Satanis and XYZ.

Ok, I think that's it.  Don't forget about the Fall 2023 Cha'alt Game Ja'am - details over here!

Enjoy,

VS

p.s. VENGER CON III: Revenge of the OSR weekend badges are now available (while supplies last, attendance capped at 100). And the Cha'alt hardcover sale is still going strong - get yours today!