Calum's got a blog, All Watched Over by Insane Machines in Space, and his session reports are very entertaining. Check it out!
http://bellasbarandgrillescifantasydnd.blogspot.com/
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2014-05-29
session recap, 5/18/2014
CAST
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Gutboy the Cleric (6), his henchpeople Trezgar the Elf (3) and Bunny the Thief (3), and his blink dog Rufus II
Pai Mei the Wu-Jen (4), and his henchmen "The Doctor" the Time Lord (2) and Father Conan O'Brien the Barbarian Cleric (2)
Simon the Halfling (3), and his henchmen the Unnamed Mariner (2) and Roger the Halfling Guardian (2)
Too many henchmen failed abysmally at living during the last expedition to the Anomalous Subsurface Environment, so the recruiting began anew. Fortunately, there are plenty of veterans of the Great Zombie War now looking for profitable and violent employment. The interview process went something like this:
Various "Oriental Adventures" type classes from Dragon Magazine: "Never mind, we withdraw our application, we're too complicated too run"
Father Conan O'Brien: "Ever hear of a Barbarian Cleric? You have now! Look, sword! Let's do some prayin' and killin'!"
Roger the Halfling Guardian: "Why, cousin Simon, I never thought to meet you here! Of course I'll guard you as you crawl through a stinking hole of death! It's my job!"
Then, plans were made - silver bullets and weapons were acquired in abundance to deal with the Werewolf Frat Party, and a canoe was also purchased, for subterranean paddling. And off to the dungeon, and through the still-friendly Lair of the Cod People.
Cod-Man: "What's that thing you're carrying?"
Pai Mei: "It's a boat, so we can cross that lake"
Cod-Man: "Why don't you just swim?"
Pai Mei (pointing at neck): "No gills"
Cod-Man: "HAHAHA! Well, try not to DROWN in your BOAT! HAHAHA!"
Cod-Man #2: "Good luck breathing, Mr. I-Need-Air!"
The cod-man chief exhorted them once again to murder the Hinge-Headed - empty promises were made, and the party headed back to the Tomb of Elvis. They passed the last of the Toothmen, and gave him the promised mushroom pie - "THIS IS AWESOME! I love you guys! Seriously!" - and down they went to the tomb.
They reconnoitered the area, and found that the door that Pai Mei had wizard locked had a hole clawed through it - and beyond was an unconscious, presumably inebriated, presumably werewolfian, naked man. Father Conan was sent in to slit his throat with a silver sword - and the werewolf gurgled his last.
The group then turned their attention to the Tomb of Elvis. They arranged themselves carefully to deal maximum damage to the smoke chimps, and prodded the canopic jars with a 20' long pole. The smoke chimps arose, and were slaughtered, controlled by Bunny through the use of the Sword of Unlife, and repelled by Gutboy's nihilistic non-faith. Once the area was clear, Father Conan slid the lid off the sarcophagus, revealing a mummified corpse with a brittle pompadour atop its head, a gold amulet around its neck, and dog-headed golden staff clutched in its hands. All three were absconded with, and the triumphant party headed back to town ("Oh, cod-men, yeah, we need a second canoe. THEN we'll get those hinge-headed. You can totally trust us.") The party briefly engaged with a 20' tall giant grub that reared up from the corn-fields around Chelmsfordshire, and slew it without breaking a sweat.
Once in town, Trezgar studied his ancient magics of identification, and probed the mysteries of the tomb-loot. The pompadour ripped from the mummy's head gave its wearer the power to charm an onlooker with a sneer and thrust of the hip. Striking an opponent with the dog-headed staff would both damage with its magical puissance, and likely turn the victim into nothin' but a hound dog, barkin' all the time. The amulet was just an expensive bit of jewelry, promptly sold off.
All thoughts of canoes were then discarded - Gutboy was hot to take control of the BAGGER 288 with the remote control device he had installed. He first approach his patron Davrik Lerdingfast about assisting them:
Gutboy: "It's time to take control of the BAGGER 288, but we need a little assistance. He who controls this will control... well... everything! I believe agreed on one million gold for delivering it to you."
Davrik: "Yes... I had and do agree... but I'm coming with you. Meet me on the Street of Lesser Men tomorrow morning, west side of the city. I'll have my men prepare the expedition immediately."
The morning arrived, and Davrik had not skimped on his preparations. He had a dozen outriders mounted on horses, two iguanadons loaded with supplies and a half-dozen wranglers to lead them, and he himself sat behind the wheel of an ancient convertible Lincoln, with bull's horns mounted to the grill. Another half-dozen manservants and butlers, and Professor Smithen from the Academy, were also in the retinue.
Gutboy: "Oh... hey.... can we borrow some horses?"
Davrik (disgusted): "Seriously? You don't have horses? Very well, I'll send my man for some. But really."
Another hour delay, and more horses were brought for the party. The expedition rode west for several days, past Mt. Rendon and the megadungeon beneath, until they came close to the blast-zone where the globe-shaped alien ship had been destroyed. Davrik directed: "We'll head southwest through the woods until we hit the remains of the green moon. We should be able to pick up the tracks of the machine there." The car was left with a few riflemen to guard it, and a howdah erected atop one of the iguanadons for Davrik to ride in.
As the expedition headed closer to the blast zone, the vegetation began to take on a sickly green glow. As they struck camp, Davrik headed off with half his outriders to do some hunting, while the party twiddled their thumbs with the servants. As they waited for Davrik's return, five mutant deer burst into the camp, glowing bright green, and bearing razor-sharp antlers, fangs, and curved claws instead of hooves. The party handily took down the deer that charged them, and then assisted the outriders with the remainder.
Davrik soon returned, bearing several mutant deer carcasses of his own.
Davrik (to manservant): "You! Skin these things! We're going to eat well tonight!"
Gutboy: "I don't think that's wise. These are radioactive! It's poisonous!"
Davrik (revealing amulet making rapid clicking noise beneath his shirt): "Yeah I know, this amulet from the Scientists tells me the same! Don't worry, it'll protect us!"
Gutboy: "I don't think that's how it works. That's poison. But you could perhaps make trophies and give them to your enemies."
Davrik: "Fine. You there! Cut the heads off these things and wrap them up!"
The reached the blast zone without further danger - although the squirrels chasing along in the trees were also glowing bright green with nasty little fangs. The blast zone was a two-mile-wide crater of glowing green glass. Across the crater they could see a quarter mile trail where the BAGGER 288 had cut its way through the forest, heading north. Gutboy insisted on riding around the edge of the crater instead of crossing it - passing, as they did so, an intact fragment of the alien spaceship, with a closed hatch, which was resoundingly ignored - and followed the trail into the plains north of the forest. The trail cut across the road again, and led to the smoking stump of a wizard's tower. Clearly, the BAGGER 288 had not been idle.
A day later, they saw smoke in the distance, and the bulk of the BAGGER 288. Davrik pulled out his binoculars, glanced through, and handed them to Gutboy and the rest of the party. Looking through, they saw the BAGGER 288, and horrifyingly, at least 100 skeletal-looking robots carrying lasers. The BAGGER and robot army were approaching a windowless tower of black basalt, the concentrated laser fire barely scarring its surface.
Gutboy hatched a plan. He put the remote control device in Rufus' mouth, tied his ring of invisibility to Rufus' tail, and then slid it over the end of the dog's wagging tail. The invisible Rufus then blinked forward towards the BAGGER 288 and bit down on the remote control - but nothing happened.
Gutboy yelled at Smithen - "Why didn't that work?" Smithen took a look through the binoculars - the antenna they had left on the exterior of the BAGGER 288 was gone. Gutboy surmised that the antenna had been destroyed in the nuclear blast when the alien ship exploded.
Gutboy watched more through the binoculars as the BAGGER 288 closed on the tower. Its giant cutting wheel easily sliced through the base of the black tower, and the edifice collapsed in a heap. Black shadows oozed from the rubble and rushed along the ground towards the robots, but laser fire from the ground troops eliminated the shadow-things before they struck a single blow. Gutboy then started in alarm, as he saw a score or so of the robots turn and begin marching towards him and the rest of the expedition. "Time to go!" he shouted, and they turned south. The robots quickly gave up pursuit, and the expedition, after a further week's travel, finally returned to Denethix.
Davrik: "Well, that was an unmitigated disaster. I could've been hunting on the Ceratopsian. Absolute waste of time."
Gutboy: "Well, you got those deer heads..."
Davrik: "Fat lot of good! Look at them!"
Davrik opened the trunk of his car, revealing a pile of rotting, glowing deer heads. They were clearly unsalvageable and completely unsuitable for display. He had his men dump the radioactive remains in the middle of the street, and angrily drove off, leaving a crowd of beggars fighting over the poisonous, meaty head-scraps.
Gains: Was-Hound Staff, 2500 gp gold amulet, Wig of Lordship
Kills: One werewolf, four canopic apes, one ankheg, five radioactive deer
Losses: Shockingly, none
--------
Gutboy the Cleric (6), his henchpeople Trezgar the Elf (3) and Bunny the Thief (3), and his blink dog Rufus II
Pai Mei the Wu-Jen (4), and his henchmen "The Doctor" the Time Lord (2) and Father Conan O'Brien the Barbarian Cleric (2)
Simon the Halfling (3), and his henchmen the Unnamed Mariner (2) and Roger the Halfling Guardian (2)
Too many henchmen failed abysmally at living during the last expedition to the Anomalous Subsurface Environment, so the recruiting began anew. Fortunately, there are plenty of veterans of the Great Zombie War now looking for profitable and violent employment. The interview process went something like this:
Various "Oriental Adventures" type classes from Dragon Magazine: "Never mind, we withdraw our application, we're too complicated too run"
Father Conan O'Brien: "Ever hear of a Barbarian Cleric? You have now! Look, sword! Let's do some prayin' and killin'!"
Roger the Halfling Guardian: "Why, cousin Simon, I never thought to meet you here! Of course I'll guard you as you crawl through a stinking hole of death! It's my job!"
Then, plans were made - silver bullets and weapons were acquired in abundance to deal with the Werewolf Frat Party, and a canoe was also purchased, for subterranean paddling. And off to the dungeon, and through the still-friendly Lair of the Cod People.
Cod-Man: "What's that thing you're carrying?"
Pai Mei: "It's a boat, so we can cross that lake"
Cod-Man: "Why don't you just swim?"
Pai Mei (pointing at neck): "No gills"
Cod-Man: "HAHAHA! Well, try not to DROWN in your BOAT! HAHAHA!"
Cod-Man #2: "Good luck breathing, Mr. I-Need-Air!"
The cod-man chief exhorted them once again to murder the Hinge-Headed - empty promises were made, and the party headed back to the Tomb of Elvis. They passed the last of the Toothmen, and gave him the promised mushroom pie - "THIS IS AWESOME! I love you guys! Seriously!" - and down they went to the tomb.
They reconnoitered the area, and found that the door that Pai Mei had wizard locked had a hole clawed through it - and beyond was an unconscious, presumably inebriated, presumably werewolfian, naked man. Father Conan was sent in to slit his throat with a silver sword - and the werewolf gurgled his last.
The group then turned their attention to the Tomb of Elvis. They arranged themselves carefully to deal maximum damage to the smoke chimps, and prodded the canopic jars with a 20' long pole. The smoke chimps arose, and were slaughtered, controlled by Bunny through the use of the Sword of Unlife, and repelled by Gutboy's nihilistic non-faith. Once the area was clear, Father Conan slid the lid off the sarcophagus, revealing a mummified corpse with a brittle pompadour atop its head, a gold amulet around its neck, and dog-headed golden staff clutched in its hands. All three were absconded with, and the triumphant party headed back to town ("Oh, cod-men, yeah, we need a second canoe. THEN we'll get those hinge-headed. You can totally trust us.") The party briefly engaged with a 20' tall giant grub that reared up from the corn-fields around Chelmsfordshire, and slew it without breaking a sweat.
Once in town, Trezgar studied his ancient magics of identification, and probed the mysteries of the tomb-loot. The pompadour ripped from the mummy's head gave its wearer the power to charm an onlooker with a sneer and thrust of the hip. Striking an opponent with the dog-headed staff would both damage with its magical puissance, and likely turn the victim into nothin' but a hound dog, barkin' all the time. The amulet was just an expensive bit of jewelry, promptly sold off.
All thoughts of canoes were then discarded - Gutboy was hot to take control of the BAGGER 288 with the remote control device he had installed. He first approach his patron Davrik Lerdingfast about assisting them:
Gutboy: "It's time to take control of the BAGGER 288, but we need a little assistance. He who controls this will control... well... everything! I believe agreed on one million gold for delivering it to you."
Davrik: "Yes... I had and do agree... but I'm coming with you. Meet me on the Street of Lesser Men tomorrow morning, west side of the city. I'll have my men prepare the expedition immediately."
The morning arrived, and Davrik had not skimped on his preparations. He had a dozen outriders mounted on horses, two iguanadons loaded with supplies and a half-dozen wranglers to lead them, and he himself sat behind the wheel of an ancient convertible Lincoln, with bull's horns mounted to the grill. Another half-dozen manservants and butlers, and Professor Smithen from the Academy, were also in the retinue.
Gutboy: "Oh... hey.... can we borrow some horses?"
Davrik (disgusted): "Seriously? You don't have horses? Very well, I'll send my man for some. But really."
Another hour delay, and more horses were brought for the party. The expedition rode west for several days, past Mt. Rendon and the megadungeon beneath, until they came close to the blast-zone where the globe-shaped alien ship had been destroyed. Davrik directed: "We'll head southwest through the woods until we hit the remains of the green moon. We should be able to pick up the tracks of the machine there." The car was left with a few riflemen to guard it, and a howdah erected atop one of the iguanadons for Davrik to ride in.
As the expedition headed closer to the blast zone, the vegetation began to take on a sickly green glow. As they struck camp, Davrik headed off with half his outriders to do some hunting, while the party twiddled their thumbs with the servants. As they waited for Davrik's return, five mutant deer burst into the camp, glowing bright green, and bearing razor-sharp antlers, fangs, and curved claws instead of hooves. The party handily took down the deer that charged them, and then assisted the outriders with the remainder.
Davrik soon returned, bearing several mutant deer carcasses of his own.
Davrik (to manservant): "You! Skin these things! We're going to eat well tonight!"
Gutboy: "I don't think that's wise. These are radioactive! It's poisonous!"
Davrik (revealing amulet making rapid clicking noise beneath his shirt): "Yeah I know, this amulet from the Scientists tells me the same! Don't worry, it'll protect us!"
Gutboy: "I don't think that's how it works. That's poison. But you could perhaps make trophies and give them to your enemies."
Davrik: "Fine. You there! Cut the heads off these things and wrap them up!"
The reached the blast zone without further danger - although the squirrels chasing along in the trees were also glowing bright green with nasty little fangs. The blast zone was a two-mile-wide crater of glowing green glass. Across the crater they could see a quarter mile trail where the BAGGER 288 had cut its way through the forest, heading north. Gutboy insisted on riding around the edge of the crater instead of crossing it - passing, as they did so, an intact fragment of the alien spaceship, with a closed hatch, which was resoundingly ignored - and followed the trail into the plains north of the forest. The trail cut across the road again, and led to the smoking stump of a wizard's tower. Clearly, the BAGGER 288 had not been idle.
A day later, they saw smoke in the distance, and the bulk of the BAGGER 288. Davrik pulled out his binoculars, glanced through, and handed them to Gutboy and the rest of the party. Looking through, they saw the BAGGER 288, and horrifyingly, at least 100 skeletal-looking robots carrying lasers. The BAGGER and robot army were approaching a windowless tower of black basalt, the concentrated laser fire barely scarring its surface.
Gutboy hatched a plan. He put the remote control device in Rufus' mouth, tied his ring of invisibility to Rufus' tail, and then slid it over the end of the dog's wagging tail. The invisible Rufus then blinked forward towards the BAGGER 288 and bit down on the remote control - but nothing happened.
Gutboy yelled at Smithen - "Why didn't that work?" Smithen took a look through the binoculars - the antenna they had left on the exterior of the BAGGER 288 was gone. Gutboy surmised that the antenna had been destroyed in the nuclear blast when the alien ship exploded.
Gutboy watched more through the binoculars as the BAGGER 288 closed on the tower. Its giant cutting wheel easily sliced through the base of the black tower, and the edifice collapsed in a heap. Black shadows oozed from the rubble and rushed along the ground towards the robots, but laser fire from the ground troops eliminated the shadow-things before they struck a single blow. Gutboy then started in alarm, as he saw a score or so of the robots turn and begin marching towards him and the rest of the expedition. "Time to go!" he shouted, and they turned south. The robots quickly gave up pursuit, and the expedition, after a further week's travel, finally returned to Denethix.
Davrik: "Well, that was an unmitigated disaster. I could've been hunting on the Ceratopsian. Absolute waste of time."
Gutboy: "Well, you got those deer heads..."
Davrik: "Fat lot of good! Look at them!"
Davrik opened the trunk of his car, revealing a pile of rotting, glowing deer heads. They were clearly unsalvageable and completely unsuitable for display. He had his men dump the radioactive remains in the middle of the street, and angrily drove off, leaving a crowd of beggars fighting over the poisonous, meaty head-scraps.
Gains: Was-Hound Staff, 2500 gp gold amulet, Wig of Lordship
Kills: One werewolf, four canopic apes, one ankheg, five radioactive deer
Losses: Shockingly, none
2014-04-30
session recap, 4/26/2014
CAST
--------
Pai Mei the Wu-Jen (4), and his henchpeople Barbara the Scientist (2), "The Doctor" the Time Lord (2), and "Crusty" Tim the Fighter (2)
Simon the Halfling (3), and his henchbeings BW-5891 the Robot (2) and an Unnamed Mariner (2)
A Dwarf (3), and his henchmen Nvaran Azimuth the Thief (2) and Piston Honda the Sumo (2)
[editor's note - a character sheet went home with a player. The dwarf's name is thus forgotten]
A dwarf, a halfling, and a wu-jen go into a bar. What better place to find idiots willing to sacrifice life and limb for a half-share of the loot? Only the drunk and desperate need apply. The interview process went something like this:
Geisha to Simon: "My eyes are up here, you little bastard!" (slap)
Geisha to Dwarf: "I don't even need a reason to slap you." (slap)
Pai Mei to Randolph Carter the Dreamer: "So, where are you from, and what do you bring to the table?"
Randolph Carter: "I have been trapped here in this land of slumber, unable to awaken. I bring the lucidity and clarity of dreams!"
Pai Mei: "NEXT"
Dwarf to one-footed thief: "Pass."
One-footed thief: "Discrimination!"
Simon to Unnamed Mariner: "And what can you do for us?"
Unnamed Mariner: "I bring the knowledge of the sea! Endless ways to apply that to dungeoneering, cap'n!"
Simon (eyeing the other pitiful dregs looking for work): "Close enough. Hired!"
Pai Mei to guy in long overcoat and crazy-long scarf: "All right, what's your story?"
The Doctor: "You can call me the Doctor. I'm trapped in this temporal zone, but not even the local tachyon atmosphere can entirely diminish my perceptions."
Pai Mei: "Hired!"
Nvaran Azimuth to Dwarf: "Sure, I can go underground, no problem - just get me out of the city! The Fist knows my face!"
Dwarf to Nvaran Azimuth the not-handicapped-thief: "Hired!"
Disappointed with the quality of henchmen, the party began a pub crawl looking for more. Pickings were slim, as press gangs had rounded up most everyone for the just-ended Great Zombie War. They did discover a robot, a scientist busy scrubbing it's bearings, and an old man in plate mail.
Barbara the Scientist to Simon: "You disgust me!"
BW-5891 the Robot to Simon: "I LOVE YOU!"
"Crusty" Tim the nonagenarian Fighter to Pai Mei: "I like the cut of your jib, sonny! I'll be dead soon anyway, let's go!"
The bizarre crew headed off to the dungeon, passing through the burned wreckage of Chelmsfordshire. A city official tutted as them they passed, and remarked to one of the Unyielding Fist accompanying him, "We need to rebuild this place double-time. Look, revenue just walking away!"
While camped overnight, a moaning was heard - three zombie Moktars, undoubtedly victims of the war, shambled into their camp. The fight was brief, but "Crusty" Tim took a hit to the noggin and was knocked out cold. Unwilling to enter the dungeon so weakened, the party headed back to Denethix to wait for "Crusty" Tim to recover from his wound. Nvaran put a burlap bag over his head, and told the Dwarf to tell anyone who asked that he was just a slave.
A week passes - "Crusty" Tim is as ready as he'll ever be - and back to the dungeon they go, this time uneventfully. Once inside, the party decides to revisit a chamber with a balcony overlooking a swirling pool of water - but are stopped on the way by a pair of charred corpses. As the corpses take wounds, jets of flame shoot from the hot coals within their bodies. The burning corpses crush "Crusty" Tim's ancient bones and tear apart BW-5891's hydraulics before they are laid to rest.
With no medical assistance available ("Barbara - can you help Tim? You're a scientist!" "No way, he's all sticky! Disgusting!"), Tim bleeds out. The robot is too heavy to drag around, so Barbara attempted to remove its head, to be attached to another body at a later date. Sadly, she didn't pay much attention in her robotics class, and the machine's lithium battery pack bursts into flames as the light in its eyes faded away. The robot's last words were, "I... LOVE.... YOU...." to its beloved master.
There is no place for sentimentality in the dungeon, though, and the party continued on to the whirlpool room. Pai Mei, expecting great things from Simon's unnamed Mariner, demanded to know what could cause such aquatic phenomena. The Mariner thought for a bit, and exclaimed "Oh yeah, I've seen that before! That's how toilets swirl around!" This epiphany did not convince Pai Mei.
And deeper into the dungeon - past the Cod Men, who apparently blamed the Hinge-Headed for the looting of their temple, and demanded that the party go forth and slay the can-headed invaders. The party smiled politely and agreed, but the Cod-Men were unwilling to send any of their own to aid this effort. After their fishy allies were out of earshot, the party decided to head down to the 4th level in search of gold, instead.
Down they went, past Bathakrog the Last of the Toothmen, past the laser trap, and down to the 4th level. They opened a secret door, discovering a large chamber with a walled central portion - the walls entirely covered with murals of crowds of people adoring a beloved king with a pompadour and a sneer. Two bas reliefs at either end of the walled central portion depicted the king's face - the party pressed on all four eyes simultaneously, and the sneering faces slid upwards, revealing entrances into a secret tomb.
Within the tomb was a sarcophagus surrounded by eight canopic jars, with the lids carved into ape faces and covered with gold leaf. Pai Mei sent Barbara in to investigate - she picked up a jar, and its lid flew off - as did the lids from the rest of the jars. Clouds of smoke and ash flew out, coalescing into angry floating smoke-chimps. Barbara dropped the jar and tried to flee, and the party took some pot-shots at one of the chimps - the arrows split its belly open, revealing red-hot charcoal intestines. The chimp disemboweled itself and used its flaming intestines to lasso Barbara's neck and haul her back into the room, where the ash apes rended her limb from limb.
In a panic, the party fled back through the secret door and slid it closed. The smoke chimps had no idea how to open it, and eventually the noise from the other side died down. Piston Honda slid the door open, and saw that the chamber was deserted. The party looked into the tomb again, and all the jars were closed except for the broken one, whose shards were covered with a pile of ash. They cautiously pulled the sneering faces back down over the openings, and decided to investigate some of the other doors leading out of the outer chamber.
They heard the noises of a party coming from beyond a pair of large double doors (shouts of "Chug! Chug!" and voices drunkenly singing "Louie Louie") - Piston Honda peaked behind the doors, and reported that a half dozen werewolves or so were getting wasted. They carefully closed that door, and investigated another. Piston Honda peaked in, and saw four naked men among a pile of furs, refuse, and their own excrement. One of them yanked open the door, saying "Well, don't you just look delicious."
Simon was not fooled by their innuendo, and suspected cannibalistic werewolfism rather than an invitation to hook up - he put his theory to the test with a silver bullet through the closest man. "Dammit! They got silver!" the man shouted, as Piston Honda yanked the door closed. Pai Mei then rattled off a powerful incantation to lock the door in place. The werewolves behind screamed and battered at the door, but the party down the hall was too loud for them to be heard.
The group realized they only had 3 silver bullets left, and were woefully unprepared for a fight with werewolves. They headed back up to the third level, investigated a subterranean lake on their map and realized they didn't have a boat either, and then gave up and returned to town, vowing to be better prepared with silver weapons and/or boats on their next visit.
Gains: Absolutely none
Kills: Three moktar zombies, two charred zombies
Losses: BW-5891 the Robot, Barbara the Scientist, "Crusty" Time the Fighter
--------
Pai Mei the Wu-Jen (4), and his henchpeople Barbara the Scientist (2), "The Doctor" the Time Lord (2), and "Crusty" Tim the Fighter (2)
Simon the Halfling (3), and his henchbeings BW-5891 the Robot (2) and an Unnamed Mariner (2)
A Dwarf (3), and his henchmen Nvaran Azimuth the Thief (2) and Piston Honda the Sumo (2)
[editor's note - a character sheet went home with a player. The dwarf's name is thus forgotten]
A dwarf, a halfling, and a wu-jen go into a bar. What better place to find idiots willing to sacrifice life and limb for a half-share of the loot? Only the drunk and desperate need apply. The interview process went something like this:
Geisha to Simon: "My eyes are up here, you little bastard!" (slap)
Geisha to Dwarf: "I don't even need a reason to slap you." (slap)
Pai Mei to Randolph Carter the Dreamer: "So, where are you from, and what do you bring to the table?"
Randolph Carter: "I have been trapped here in this land of slumber, unable to awaken. I bring the lucidity and clarity of dreams!"
Pai Mei: "NEXT"
Dwarf to one-footed thief: "Pass."
One-footed thief: "Discrimination!"
Simon to Unnamed Mariner: "And what can you do for us?"
Unnamed Mariner: "I bring the knowledge of the sea! Endless ways to apply that to dungeoneering, cap'n!"
Simon (eyeing the other pitiful dregs looking for work): "Close enough. Hired!"
Pai Mei to guy in long overcoat and crazy-long scarf: "All right, what's your story?"
The Doctor: "You can call me the Doctor. I'm trapped in this temporal zone, but not even the local tachyon atmosphere can entirely diminish my perceptions."
Pai Mei: "Hired!"
Nvaran Azimuth to Dwarf: "Sure, I can go underground, no problem - just get me out of the city! The Fist knows my face!"
Dwarf to Nvaran Azimuth the not-handicapped-thief: "Hired!"
Disappointed with the quality of henchmen, the party began a pub crawl looking for more. Pickings were slim, as press gangs had rounded up most everyone for the just-ended Great Zombie War. They did discover a robot, a scientist busy scrubbing it's bearings, and an old man in plate mail.
Barbara the Scientist to Simon: "You disgust me!"
BW-5891 the Robot to Simon: "I LOVE YOU!"
"Crusty" Tim the nonagenarian Fighter to Pai Mei: "I like the cut of your jib, sonny! I'll be dead soon anyway, let's go!"
The bizarre crew headed off to the dungeon, passing through the burned wreckage of Chelmsfordshire. A city official tutted as them they passed, and remarked to one of the Unyielding Fist accompanying him, "We need to rebuild this place double-time. Look, revenue just walking away!"
While camped overnight, a moaning was heard - three zombie Moktars, undoubtedly victims of the war, shambled into their camp. The fight was brief, but "Crusty" Tim took a hit to the noggin and was knocked out cold. Unwilling to enter the dungeon so weakened, the party headed back to Denethix to wait for "Crusty" Tim to recover from his wound. Nvaran put a burlap bag over his head, and told the Dwarf to tell anyone who asked that he was just a slave.
A week passes - "Crusty" Tim is as ready as he'll ever be - and back to the dungeon they go, this time uneventfully. Once inside, the party decides to revisit a chamber with a balcony overlooking a swirling pool of water - but are stopped on the way by a pair of charred corpses. As the corpses take wounds, jets of flame shoot from the hot coals within their bodies. The burning corpses crush "Crusty" Tim's ancient bones and tear apart BW-5891's hydraulics before they are laid to rest.
With no medical assistance available ("Barbara - can you help Tim? You're a scientist!" "No way, he's all sticky! Disgusting!"), Tim bleeds out. The robot is too heavy to drag around, so Barbara attempted to remove its head, to be attached to another body at a later date. Sadly, she didn't pay much attention in her robotics class, and the machine's lithium battery pack bursts into flames as the light in its eyes faded away. The robot's last words were, "I... LOVE.... YOU...." to its beloved master.
There is no place for sentimentality in the dungeon, though, and the party continued on to the whirlpool room. Pai Mei, expecting great things from Simon's unnamed Mariner, demanded to know what could cause such aquatic phenomena. The Mariner thought for a bit, and exclaimed "Oh yeah, I've seen that before! That's how toilets swirl around!" This epiphany did not convince Pai Mei.
And deeper into the dungeon - past the Cod Men, who apparently blamed the Hinge-Headed for the looting of their temple, and demanded that the party go forth and slay the can-headed invaders. The party smiled politely and agreed, but the Cod-Men were unwilling to send any of their own to aid this effort. After their fishy allies were out of earshot, the party decided to head down to the 4th level in search of gold, instead.
Down they went, past Bathakrog the Last of the Toothmen, past the laser trap, and down to the 4th level. They opened a secret door, discovering a large chamber with a walled central portion - the walls entirely covered with murals of crowds of people adoring a beloved king with a pompadour and a sneer. Two bas reliefs at either end of the walled central portion depicted the king's face - the party pressed on all four eyes simultaneously, and the sneering faces slid upwards, revealing entrances into a secret tomb.
Within the tomb was a sarcophagus surrounded by eight canopic jars, with the lids carved into ape faces and covered with gold leaf. Pai Mei sent Barbara in to investigate - she picked up a jar, and its lid flew off - as did the lids from the rest of the jars. Clouds of smoke and ash flew out, coalescing into angry floating smoke-chimps. Barbara dropped the jar and tried to flee, and the party took some pot-shots at one of the chimps - the arrows split its belly open, revealing red-hot charcoal intestines. The chimp disemboweled itself and used its flaming intestines to lasso Barbara's neck and haul her back into the room, where the ash apes rended her limb from limb.
In a panic, the party fled back through the secret door and slid it closed. The smoke chimps had no idea how to open it, and eventually the noise from the other side died down. Piston Honda slid the door open, and saw that the chamber was deserted. The party looked into the tomb again, and all the jars were closed except for the broken one, whose shards were covered with a pile of ash. They cautiously pulled the sneering faces back down over the openings, and decided to investigate some of the other doors leading out of the outer chamber.
They heard the noises of a party coming from beyond a pair of large double doors (shouts of "Chug! Chug!" and voices drunkenly singing "Louie Louie") - Piston Honda peaked behind the doors, and reported that a half dozen werewolves or so were getting wasted. They carefully closed that door, and investigated another. Piston Honda peaked in, and saw four naked men among a pile of furs, refuse, and their own excrement. One of them yanked open the door, saying "Well, don't you just look delicious."
Simon was not fooled by their innuendo, and suspected cannibalistic werewolfism rather than an invitation to hook up - he put his theory to the test with a silver bullet through the closest man. "Dammit! They got silver!" the man shouted, as Piston Honda yanked the door closed. Pai Mei then rattled off a powerful incantation to lock the door in place. The werewolves behind screamed and battered at the door, but the party down the hall was too loud for them to be heard.
The group realized they only had 3 silver bullets left, and were woefully unprepared for a fight with werewolves. They headed back up to the third level, investigated a subterranean lake on their map and realized they didn't have a boat either, and then gave up and returned to town, vowing to be better prepared with silver weapons and/or boats on their next visit.
Gains: Absolutely none
Kills: Three moktar zombies, two charred zombies
Losses: BW-5891 the Robot, Barbara the Scientist, "Crusty" Time the Fighter
2014-04-20
Happy Easter!
Happy Easter everyone!
Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
John 12:23-25
Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
John 12:23-25
2014-03-16
session recap, 3/13/2014
CAST
--------
Gutboy the Cleric (6), his henchpeople Trezgar the Elf (3) and Bunny the Thief (3), and his blink dog Rufus II
Pai Mei the Wu-Jen (4)
As Gutboy and his retinue considered the cave entrance, the bag man lowered himself into it. They then heard a commotion from behind - Pai Mei was hurriedly descending to the bottom of Southdeep, shouting "Sorry I'm late, just got back from my Pilates class!"
A "clang" was heard from beneath cave/pit as the party debated who should go first. Finally, Pai Mei agreed, ropes were lowered, and the descent was made.
The entrance to the cave was a 20' wide hole in the ground, and descended into an 80' wide space dug out of the dirt. A tall heap of trash and refuse from the town above came to within 10' of the entrance - Pai Mei lowered himself onto the pile and clambered down to the bottom, the rest of the party following after.
The floor of the cave was, strangely enough, made of riveted steel, and had a trapdoor in it. Two tunnels were dug into the dirt walls of the cave as well - one leading west, and another southeast.
They first opened the trapdoor, revealing a chamber with a conveyor belt running along its floor. It was too dark to see the walls of the chamber. The prospect of belts and conveying was deemed too dangerous, and the duo decided to head down the dirt tunnel to the southeast, bravely sending in the robot ZN547 ahead of them.
The narrow tunnel meandered some 800' through the dirt, and ended at the entrance to a steel tunnel, heading back roughly north. The steel tunnel was lined with girders, holding back the earth, and the "floor" of the tunnel was a series of metal buckets stretching off into the distance, their openings pointing south towards the party. Pai Mei deduced that this was the talings-disposal section of the BAGGER 288, and once again their wariness of automated conveyances led them to abandon this entrance to the great machine.
They returned to the main cavern, and then followed the west tunnel. This tunnel spiraled downwards, opening into another dirt cavern, the floor littered with ancient bones and skulls, and the north wall occupied by massive vertical treads. There was another small tunnel high up on the north wall, above one of the treads.
Once again, the party bravely sent the battle bot ZN547 into the tunnel above - as it clambered up, there was a disturbance in the bones. A massive earthworm, 6' in diameter, reared up from beneath the bones and sped at top earthworm speed towards its prey.
Arrows flew, and Trezgar expended a sleep spell to no effect - and the earthworm descended upon the grad student Sally, gulping her down whole. More arrows were shot into the beast, the battle-bot descended to impale the worm with its drill-hand, and Gutboy unloaded a full clip from his newly-purchased machine gun into the beast. The violence finally overcame the worm, tearing it open vertically, and the bullet-ridden corpse of Sally slid out of its ruptured gullet.
With admirable practicality, Gutboy kicked Sally's body aside and began inventorying the contents of the worm's digestive tract. He managed to extract 76 gold coins of ancient and unknown provenance, the faces and writing stamped upon them unfamiliar.
Their mercenary instincts sated, the party climbed up the giant treads and crawled down the narrow tunnel, getting much smaller earthworms tangled in their hair. This tunnel opened up into a third dirt cavern after a short distance, the east wall being made of steel. A metal stairway emerged from the dirt and ran up to a door in the steel wall. ZN547 opened the door, and instantly the sound of heavy machine gun fire was heard, and the battle bot staggered back under a hail of bullets. Pai Mei shouted "A trap! Destroy it!" at the robot, and it obediently passed through the door - loud banging and crashing - and returned with a mangled machine gun on a tripod, a metal wire running from its trigger to the door's handle. "THREAT ELIMINATED!" announced the damaged robot, as Pai Mei considered that he may have been too hasty in ordering the destruction of the trap.
The party began pouring into the BAGGER 288 (for surely this door must lead into its interior). Inside they faced a massive turbine, 20' high, its ends disappearing into the darkness - and then, laser-fueled violence! Four robots were waiting in ambush, and opened up with their laser-equipped arms, catching the party in a crossfire. ZN547 and Bob the grad student were lacerated under the burning beams of light, and Larry the grad student's nerve broke - he ran back into the dirt cavern, screaming that the extra credit just wasn't worth this kind of risk.
While the party may have been outgunned and surprised, they were not without resources - Trezgar used his sleep magic to put two of the attacking robots out of commission, and Gutboy's paralyzing incantations locked up the third's positronic circuits. A hail of arrows finished off the remaining robot, its hydraulic lines severed and reducing it to immobility.
Professor Smithen began yanking microchips from the felled robots, and Gutboy set himself to work ripping their laser-equipped arms off at the shoulder. They then began exploring the turbine chamber, finding a ladder and trapdoor leading upwards. Gutboy convinced Smithen to order his assistant Michael to climb the ladder and open the trapdoor - he did so, and then quickly backed down the ladder, shouting "Robots! Robots!"
Pai Mei borrowed Gutboy's 20' extending pole (once Mongo's), put the deceased grad student Bob's pork pie hat on top, and stuck the pole up the hatch. The pole jerked, and Pai Mei pulled back a shorter 15' pole - it had been sheared off. Gutboy then put on his ring of invisibility and climbed the ladder to reconnoiter - he found that three welding robots were watching over the hatch, waiting for the party.
A plan was hatched - Gutboy climbed up again, invisibly, and then Pai Mei followed up the ladder. Just as Pai Mei reached the top, Rufus blinked into the room, and both the dog and Gutboy assailed the wayward welding machines. Pai Mei clambered into the room so that Trezgar could get a shot off with his boy - but one of the robots shoved its welding torch into Pai Mei's face, burning off his luxurious eyebrows. No longer would he be considered the dandy of the Secret City of the Shoguns.
With the robots already badly damaged by the sneak attack, and Pai Mei's magic missiles decimating them, the battle was over quickly. The party moved deeper into BAGGER 288, finding a broom closet, a locked room, and a lead door with radiation warning on it. Then, surprisingly quickly, they stumbled into the control room of the Destroyer of Worlds - clearly the back exit was the best way in. A hairless, sore-covered gorilla stood in the middle of the room, with cables hanging from the ceiling jammed into its flesh.
The gorilla's rolled back in its head, and it shouted "You! You have come to awaken the Beast! All is lost!" Gutboy ignored the screaming gorilla and headed to one of the control stations, eager to plug in the USB stick that would activate the evil machine. The gorilla wasn't down with that, and began slapping Gutboy furiously about the neck and face. With his bag-men compatriots somewhere above, the wired gorilla was quickly dispatched.
Gutboy plugged in the USB stick, and the banks of long-dormant monitors began to light up. A feminine voice announced "Initializing systems. Reboot required." as the BAGGER 288's turbines began to turn. Gutboy quickly ordered Professor Smithen to connect his override aparatus, and then the Professor and his assistant ran out of the room, dragging the antenna cable behind them, as they had to mount it outside the door to the BAGGER 288. Gutboy and Pai Mei then did some quick mental math, and realized that staying inside the living machine, Destroyer of Worlds, Harbinger of the End, was probably suicidal, and ran after the Professor.
As they exited the machine, they noticed clumps of dirt falling from the ceiling of the caves - the tunnels were going to collapse. They rushed through as fast as they could, the ceiling collapsing behind them. As they reached the top of the BAGGER 288 and the hole leading up to Southdeep, they found that five bag men were waiting for them. "It is them! They have awoken it!" shouted the angry gorillas.
"No time!" should Gutboy back. "We'll all die if we fight!" The gorillas apparently agreed, and clambered up the pile of Southdeep's garbage and up out of the hole, followed by the party. The people of Southdeep stared out their windows as the party wound their way up and out of the quaking pit. Only when they reached the top did Gutboy shout "You have to run!" down at the inhabitants - just in time to see the pit collapse, burying the hapless villagers.
Having escaped being buried alive, the bag men then began beating their chests and charged Gutboy. Trezgar still had a sleep incantation available, and most fell to the ground in deep slumber. The one left awake was slain, and the remaining sleepers had their throats slit. As they finished their business, a 50' wide saw blade erupted from the earth next to them - apparently they weren't as safe as they thought. They ran from the blade as the rest of the BAGGER 288 began to dig itself up from the earth. It trundled off to the west, towards the mile-wide alien spaceship, the flamethrows attached for some reason to its might digging blades and saws setting the forest ablaze. Clearly the manufacturers of 21st century mining equipment had some important safety questions to answer.
The party made their way back to Denethix, and Gutboy and Pai Mei headed towards Davrik Lerdingfast's mansion. The butler escorted them to the roof deck, where Davrik stood watching the progress of the BAGGER 288 through one of the many tripod-mounted telescopes that had been brought out for the occasion.
Gutboy looked through one of them, and witnessed the undead horde's futile attempts to stop the machine. The lasers of the skybike-riding zombies were unable to penetrate the BAGGER 288's armor, and the shells from the ground artillery merely bounced off. The great blades of the machine scythed mercilessly through the ranks of the dead, and finally the machine reached the glowing green spaceship. Its giant blades cut through the ship's hull as if it was cardboard, and Gutboy barely had time to glance away as the ship exploded in a massive mushroom cloud. When the explosion subsided, nothing was left but a vast empty crater - and the BAGGER 288, continuing to crawl off to the west.
Davrik: "Quite a show!"
Gutboy: "Yes, and I think I can offer you a deal. How much would you pay to control that machine?"
Davrik: "What? Control it? Ha, a hundred thousand gold, I suppose."
Gutboy: "We're very serious, and that's not nearly enough."
Davrik (scowling): "If you can bring that thing to heel, I can offer you a million and a half. That's all I have liquid right now."
Gutboy: "When we disable it, it will be yours. You'll need to take care reactivating it - we won't reprogram it."
Davrik: "Get it done, and we'll talk."
Gains: 76 gp, four laser-equipped robot arms
Kills: Giant earthworm, four battle bots, three welding robots, five bag men, and the bag man oracle, and (indirectly) Ki-Ris, the Duvan'Ku spaceship, and most of the undead army
Losses: ZN547, Madame Prepin's grad students, the entire village of Southdeep
--------
Gutboy the Cleric (6), his henchpeople Trezgar the Elf (3) and Bunny the Thief (3), and his blink dog Rufus II
Pai Mei the Wu-Jen (4)
As Gutboy and his retinue considered the cave entrance, the bag man lowered himself into it. They then heard a commotion from behind - Pai Mei was hurriedly descending to the bottom of Southdeep, shouting "Sorry I'm late, just got back from my Pilates class!"
A "clang" was heard from beneath cave/pit as the party debated who should go first. Finally, Pai Mei agreed, ropes were lowered, and the descent was made.
The entrance to the cave was a 20' wide hole in the ground, and descended into an 80' wide space dug out of the dirt. A tall heap of trash and refuse from the town above came to within 10' of the entrance - Pai Mei lowered himself onto the pile and clambered down to the bottom, the rest of the party following after.
The floor of the cave was, strangely enough, made of riveted steel, and had a trapdoor in it. Two tunnels were dug into the dirt walls of the cave as well - one leading west, and another southeast.
They first opened the trapdoor, revealing a chamber with a conveyor belt running along its floor. It was too dark to see the walls of the chamber. The prospect of belts and conveying was deemed too dangerous, and the duo decided to head down the dirt tunnel to the southeast, bravely sending in the robot ZN547 ahead of them.
The narrow tunnel meandered some 800' through the dirt, and ended at the entrance to a steel tunnel, heading back roughly north. The steel tunnel was lined with girders, holding back the earth, and the "floor" of the tunnel was a series of metal buckets stretching off into the distance, their openings pointing south towards the party. Pai Mei deduced that this was the talings-disposal section of the BAGGER 288, and once again their wariness of automated conveyances led them to abandon this entrance to the great machine.
They returned to the main cavern, and then followed the west tunnel. This tunnel spiraled downwards, opening into another dirt cavern, the floor littered with ancient bones and skulls, and the north wall occupied by massive vertical treads. There was another small tunnel high up on the north wall, above one of the treads.
Once again, the party bravely sent the battle bot ZN547 into the tunnel above - as it clambered up, there was a disturbance in the bones. A massive earthworm, 6' in diameter, reared up from beneath the bones and sped at top earthworm speed towards its prey.
Arrows flew, and Trezgar expended a sleep spell to no effect - and the earthworm descended upon the grad student Sally, gulping her down whole. More arrows were shot into the beast, the battle-bot descended to impale the worm with its drill-hand, and Gutboy unloaded a full clip from his newly-purchased machine gun into the beast. The violence finally overcame the worm, tearing it open vertically, and the bullet-ridden corpse of Sally slid out of its ruptured gullet.
With admirable practicality, Gutboy kicked Sally's body aside and began inventorying the contents of the worm's digestive tract. He managed to extract 76 gold coins of ancient and unknown provenance, the faces and writing stamped upon them unfamiliar.
Their mercenary instincts sated, the party climbed up the giant treads and crawled down the narrow tunnel, getting much smaller earthworms tangled in their hair. This tunnel opened up into a third dirt cavern after a short distance, the east wall being made of steel. A metal stairway emerged from the dirt and ran up to a door in the steel wall. ZN547 opened the door, and instantly the sound of heavy machine gun fire was heard, and the battle bot staggered back under a hail of bullets. Pai Mei shouted "A trap! Destroy it!" at the robot, and it obediently passed through the door - loud banging and crashing - and returned with a mangled machine gun on a tripod, a metal wire running from its trigger to the door's handle. "THREAT ELIMINATED!" announced the damaged robot, as Pai Mei considered that he may have been too hasty in ordering the destruction of the trap.
The party began pouring into the BAGGER 288 (for surely this door must lead into its interior). Inside they faced a massive turbine, 20' high, its ends disappearing into the darkness - and then, laser-fueled violence! Four robots were waiting in ambush, and opened up with their laser-equipped arms, catching the party in a crossfire. ZN547 and Bob the grad student were lacerated under the burning beams of light, and Larry the grad student's nerve broke - he ran back into the dirt cavern, screaming that the extra credit just wasn't worth this kind of risk.
While the party may have been outgunned and surprised, they were not without resources - Trezgar used his sleep magic to put two of the attacking robots out of commission, and Gutboy's paralyzing incantations locked up the third's positronic circuits. A hail of arrows finished off the remaining robot, its hydraulic lines severed and reducing it to immobility.
Professor Smithen began yanking microchips from the felled robots, and Gutboy set himself to work ripping their laser-equipped arms off at the shoulder. They then began exploring the turbine chamber, finding a ladder and trapdoor leading upwards. Gutboy convinced Smithen to order his assistant Michael to climb the ladder and open the trapdoor - he did so, and then quickly backed down the ladder, shouting "Robots! Robots!"
Pai Mei borrowed Gutboy's 20' extending pole (once Mongo's), put the deceased grad student Bob's pork pie hat on top, and stuck the pole up the hatch. The pole jerked, and Pai Mei pulled back a shorter 15' pole - it had been sheared off. Gutboy then put on his ring of invisibility and climbed the ladder to reconnoiter - he found that three welding robots were watching over the hatch, waiting for the party.
A plan was hatched - Gutboy climbed up again, invisibly, and then Pai Mei followed up the ladder. Just as Pai Mei reached the top, Rufus blinked into the room, and both the dog and Gutboy assailed the wayward welding machines. Pai Mei clambered into the room so that Trezgar could get a shot off with his boy - but one of the robots shoved its welding torch into Pai Mei's face, burning off his luxurious eyebrows. No longer would he be considered the dandy of the Secret City of the Shoguns.
With the robots already badly damaged by the sneak attack, and Pai Mei's magic missiles decimating them, the battle was over quickly. The party moved deeper into BAGGER 288, finding a broom closet, a locked room, and a lead door with radiation warning on it. Then, surprisingly quickly, they stumbled into the control room of the Destroyer of Worlds - clearly the back exit was the best way in. A hairless, sore-covered gorilla stood in the middle of the room, with cables hanging from the ceiling jammed into its flesh.
The gorilla's rolled back in its head, and it shouted "You! You have come to awaken the Beast! All is lost!" Gutboy ignored the screaming gorilla and headed to one of the control stations, eager to plug in the USB stick that would activate the evil machine. The gorilla wasn't down with that, and began slapping Gutboy furiously about the neck and face. With his bag-men compatriots somewhere above, the wired gorilla was quickly dispatched.
Gutboy plugged in the USB stick, and the banks of long-dormant monitors began to light up. A feminine voice announced "Initializing systems. Reboot required." as the BAGGER 288's turbines began to turn. Gutboy quickly ordered Professor Smithen to connect his override aparatus, and then the Professor and his assistant ran out of the room, dragging the antenna cable behind them, as they had to mount it outside the door to the BAGGER 288. Gutboy and Pai Mei then did some quick mental math, and realized that staying inside the living machine, Destroyer of Worlds, Harbinger of the End, was probably suicidal, and ran after the Professor.
As they exited the machine, they noticed clumps of dirt falling from the ceiling of the caves - the tunnels were going to collapse. They rushed through as fast as they could, the ceiling collapsing behind them. As they reached the top of the BAGGER 288 and the hole leading up to Southdeep, they found that five bag men were waiting for them. "It is them! They have awoken it!" shouted the angry gorillas.
"No time!" should Gutboy back. "We'll all die if we fight!" The gorillas apparently agreed, and clambered up the pile of Southdeep's garbage and up out of the hole, followed by the party. The people of Southdeep stared out their windows as the party wound their way up and out of the quaking pit. Only when they reached the top did Gutboy shout "You have to run!" down at the inhabitants - just in time to see the pit collapse, burying the hapless villagers.
Having escaped being buried alive, the bag men then began beating their chests and charged Gutboy. Trezgar still had a sleep incantation available, and most fell to the ground in deep slumber. The one left awake was slain, and the remaining sleepers had their throats slit. As they finished their business, a 50' wide saw blade erupted from the earth next to them - apparently they weren't as safe as they thought. They ran from the blade as the rest of the BAGGER 288 began to dig itself up from the earth. It trundled off to the west, towards the mile-wide alien spaceship, the flamethrows attached for some reason to its might digging blades and saws setting the forest ablaze. Clearly the manufacturers of 21st century mining equipment had some important safety questions to answer.
The party made their way back to Denethix, and Gutboy and Pai Mei headed towards Davrik Lerdingfast's mansion. The butler escorted them to the roof deck, where Davrik stood watching the progress of the BAGGER 288 through one of the many tripod-mounted telescopes that had been brought out for the occasion.
Gutboy looked through one of them, and witnessed the undead horde's futile attempts to stop the machine. The lasers of the skybike-riding zombies were unable to penetrate the BAGGER 288's armor, and the shells from the ground artillery merely bounced off. The great blades of the machine scythed mercilessly through the ranks of the dead, and finally the machine reached the glowing green spaceship. Its giant blades cut through the ship's hull as if it was cardboard, and Gutboy barely had time to glance away as the ship exploded in a massive mushroom cloud. When the explosion subsided, nothing was left but a vast empty crater - and the BAGGER 288, continuing to crawl off to the west.
Davrik: "Quite a show!"
Gutboy: "Yes, and I think I can offer you a deal. How much would you pay to control that machine?"
Davrik: "What? Control it? Ha, a hundred thousand gold, I suppose."
Gutboy: "We're very serious, and that's not nearly enough."
Davrik (scowling): "If you can bring that thing to heel, I can offer you a million and a half. That's all I have liquid right now."
Gutboy: "When we disable it, it will be yours. You'll need to take care reactivating it - we won't reprogram it."
Davrik: "Get it done, and we'll talk."
Gains: 76 gp, four laser-equipped robot arms
Kills: Giant earthworm, four battle bots, three welding robots, five bag men, and the bag man oracle, and (indirectly) Ki-Ris, the Duvan'Ku spaceship, and most of the undead army
Losses: ZN547, Madame Prepin's grad students, the entire village of Southdeep
2014-03-07
Ziltoid the Omniscient
So why didn't anybody tell me this existed? AWESOME.
[EDIT - it is PURCHASED and in my grubby little hands! Hail Ziltoid!]
[hat tip to Wheggi @ K&KA]
[EDIT - it is PURCHASED and in my grubby little hands! Hail Ziltoid!]
[hat tip to Wheggi @ K&KA]
2014-02-23
Phase Wanderer
Phase Wanderer
No. Enc: 1d4 (1d4)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 120’ (40’)
Armor Class: 7
Hit Dice: 6
Attacks: 1
Damage: 1d10 plus grab
Save: MU6
Morale: 8
Hoard Class: VII
XP: 820
Phase wanderers are men and women who, due to their perverse insistence on experimenting with particle colliders, have shifted themselves partially outside of the normal three dimensions. They now exist agelessly and eternally in a world of malevolent shadows, just outside our own.
Phase wanderers appear as shimmering distortions in the air, vaguely humanoid in shape. They surprise opponents on a roll of 1-4 on a d6.
Due to their extra-dimensional nature, phase wanderers are only damaged by gold and magical (including protonium) weapons.
The phase wanderer attacks by clutching at its target. Contact with a phase wanderer is incredibly damaging to creatures more firmly grounded in the three dimensions, and causes 1d10 points of damage. Furthermore, on a successful hit, it has a 50% chance of grabbing hold and dragging its victim out of phase.
While a victim is so clutched, the wanderer will become solid as his victim phases out and becomes translucent. During this temporary transition, the wanderer is back in phase with the normal three dimensional world, and may be damaged by normal weapons. The victim will correspondingly see his surroundings become dim and insubstantial.
The victim will take 2d10 hit points of damage per round while in the shadow dimension as his atomic structure breaks down. A successful “force doors” check will allow the victim to break free of the wanderer. Alternatively, the victim may attempt to slay the phase wanderer, and will have a +1 bonus to hit while clutched
Anyone killed by a phase wanderer will be permanently transposed out of three dimensional space, along with all their belongings (with the exception of protonium metal). The wanderer will go back out of phase once its clutched victim perishes.
Should the phase wanderer be killed before its victim dies, the victim will return to normal three-dimensional space. The wanderer’s corpse (and any belongings it may be carrying) will fully return to normal space as well, although it will be hideously dried and shriveled.
No. Enc: 1d4 (1d4)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 120’ (40’)
Armor Class: 7
Hit Dice: 6
Attacks: 1
Damage: 1d10 plus grab
Save: MU6
Morale: 8
Hoard Class: VII
XP: 820
Phase wanderers are men and women who, due to their perverse insistence on experimenting with particle colliders, have shifted themselves partially outside of the normal three dimensions. They now exist agelessly and eternally in a world of malevolent shadows, just outside our own.
Phase wanderers appear as shimmering distortions in the air, vaguely humanoid in shape. They surprise opponents on a roll of 1-4 on a d6.
Due to their extra-dimensional nature, phase wanderers are only damaged by gold and magical (including protonium) weapons.
The phase wanderer attacks by clutching at its target. Contact with a phase wanderer is incredibly damaging to creatures more firmly grounded in the three dimensions, and causes 1d10 points of damage. Furthermore, on a successful hit, it has a 50% chance of grabbing hold and dragging its victim out of phase.
While a victim is so clutched, the wanderer will become solid as his victim phases out and becomes translucent. During this temporary transition, the wanderer is back in phase with the normal three dimensional world, and may be damaged by normal weapons. The victim will correspondingly see his surroundings become dim and insubstantial.
The victim will take 2d10 hit points of damage per round while in the shadow dimension as his atomic structure breaks down. A successful “force doors” check will allow the victim to break free of the wanderer. Alternatively, the victim may attempt to slay the phase wanderer, and will have a +1 bonus to hit while clutched
Anyone killed by a phase wanderer will be permanently transposed out of three dimensional space, along with all their belongings (with the exception of protonium metal). The wanderer will go back out of phase once its clutched victim perishes.
Should the phase wanderer be killed before its victim dies, the victim will return to normal three-dimensional space. The wanderer’s corpse (and any belongings it may be carrying) will fully return to normal space as well, although it will be hideously dried and shriveled.
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