Living Apocolypse Esoterica - #1

I'm a week late on this (and Weird Writer beat me too it) but here we go.  

The Cast :

- The Referee, played by Wendi.  

- Amina "The Hack" Kandinsky, a salvager, played by myself.

- Charlotte “The Doll” Dufour, a homonculus musician, played by Weird Writer. 

=========

Late evening at Amina and Charlotte's regular haunt. The bioluminescent lamps paint the place in a queer, underwater sort of light. Charlotte is sitting at their regular booth, watching a modded man with four arms playing two synths at once, to the accompaniment of a singer with a truely prodigious number of breasts. Charlotte didn't think highly of the musical talent tonight, but that's how it was with open mics—take what you can get.

Amina was over at the bar, waiting on their drinks, when out of the crowd steps Fat Zejneb, cornering her. The older woman put out her cigarette and leaned in conspiratorially. Amina fidgeted, wanting to get away, but still waiting on the drinks. It was surprising to see the fence here. She almost never left her computer repair shop.

Zejneb had a job for her, see. A lower level had recently been opened up for salvage, but the first crew that went down had all died—to the last man. Zejneb's buyers were willing to put down big money on the recovery of whatever was down there. Double—triple even—the usual rate.

The Hack nodded along in a non-committal fashion, internalizing what Zejneb was saying, but looking to wriggle away the first opportunity she could get, so that she could think the thing over. Eventually, she got her chance, and slunk back to the booth where Charlotte sat.

While Amina had been talking with Fat Zejneb, Charlotte's mother had turned up, carrying a big suitcase, and flanked by two other witches.

The Hack sat down at the table just as the witches got up to leave. Charlotte filled her in. Amina begin to complain about Zajneb, but stopped short, as they both watched two pale men stand up and very deliberately follow the witches out.

They glanced at one another, then stood, and hurried to the door. There was a flash of light from outside.

They arrived just in time to watch Charlotte's mother run off into the gloom with her suitcase, leaving the other two witches to struggle with the pale men at the end of the block. The pale men wore suits and their heads were shaven. They carried mean looking knives. One of them was missing an arm (it was lying on the pavement nearby) but it didn't seem to bother him.

The witches were crouched down low, like the knife-fighters, but with pieces of chalk pinched between their fingers. When they got the chance, they'd lunge and scratch a marking onto the ground.

Amina scooped up an empty bottle from the litter on the curb, yelled "Hey fuckface!," and hurled it at one of the pale men. It bounced of his back and onto the ground, but he swung around to glare at The Hack and to tell her to mind her own business. She spit a glob of phlegm at him.

Charlotte began to play her flute, weaving together a potent melody, but in her nervousness mucked up the notes and fumbled the instrument into the curbside refuse.

Amine collected another bottle, and another, taunting the pale man, threatening to throw them whenever he took a step toward her, ready to run the moment he actually advanced on her.

But while he was distracted, the witches finished their spell. The first pale man, the one-armed one, dropped his knife as he began to bubble and melt from the inside out, collapsing into a pile of steaming meat. The second man's face began to boil and, after a glance at his fallen comrade, he booked it into the night.

Amina dropped the remaining bottles she'd been holding. Charlotte found her flute and began wiping it off. They both trotted over to where the two witches stood, tending to each-other's injuries.

Immensely grateful, the witches explained that they were relative novices, who'd sought out Sophia, Charlotte's mother, for protection. Someone was hunting witches down for the "eggs" inside them; the knots of alien flesh gifted by the Black Goat, which granted them their flesh-shaping powers. With Sophia gone, they were distraught.

Amina's mind worked fast. She told them about how she was planning a salvage expedition to one of the lower levels, and that Sophia's secret lab was on the way, so they could take the witches with and drop them off. Everyone quickly agreed to this plan.

Deciding it was best to get off the street (and since Charlotte's home was with her mother), Amina lead the gang to her own apartment, which was nearby, up a rusty flight of stairs, clinging to a support pillar.

The interior of the apartment was a mess, cluttered with salvaged junk that Amina hadn't yet sold, or couldn't sell, arranged in a haphazard fashion.

Feeling nervous, she closed the door to her small bedroom, cleared off the kitchenette, and began to make coffee for everyone. The performance soothed her nerves.

After making everyone coffee, Amina got on the phone and started calling up contacts, feeling out if there was anyone who'd act as a guide for the lower levels. While she did that, the two witches and Charlotte talked. Then the witches started disrobing.

As she watched, phone forgotten, the two witches pressed their nude bodies together and began to paint strange symbols upon themselves in their own blood. As they chanted their wounds began to knit back together.

The ritual over and Amani feeling strange and embarrassed, she called up a guy with snail-eyes named Danton, who worked as an illicit guide, and agreed to meet tomorrow to go over the details.

That night, the two witches slept naked and curled up around one another on the floor of Amina's living room, while she and Charlotte slept on opposite sides of her bed. The homonculus had a fitful night, spent in the grip of strange dreams.

Primates (Glaugust 2026)

For Glaugust.

James
A pallid chimpanzee, with a barcode tattooed upon his forehead. Sarcastic. Pensive. Bitter. Knows more than you. Talks philosophy round revenge. He smokes old-fashioned, paper cigarettes—to dull the pain of his cheap, testbed implants. He can't stand direct eye contact or physical touch. It stresses him to the point of rage; a fact he finds embarrassing. Virtuoso netdiver, one of the best in the business.

Jame's Crew
Modish ecoterrorists, five in number. Their skin is a sallow-green colour, the result of gene-splicing for photosynthesis, which they show off via transparent raincoats. Carry boltcutters, bombs, and 3D-printed submachineguns in duffel bags. Flippant, haughty, cruel toward mankind but reverent of of nature.

The Hotel Suite
High up, overlooking the city, curtains drawn to let the light flood in. The crew sprawls out across room, some napping in the nude, others loading magazines bullet by bullet. A computer's picked-over entrails are spread across the carpet. The wet bar is buried in takeout containers.

Jobs
Plant this bag in this fenced-off location then walk away and don't look back; get us dirt on an executive, the kind of thing we could use to blackmail them; there's a rare plastic eating fungus being studied in this lab, steal it; we're going to assassinate a politician during his commute, and we need you to run interference.

Payments
Money, for the small stuff. Information and services, for the big stuff. Anything you could want to know, Jame's can find. Anything you could want opened, Jame's can crack. It only ever comes in exchange for helping further his and his crew's agenda.

The Hit Squad
The company still owns James, and occasionally they try and collect. Their hitmen live in a permanently altered, HUDs-and-all, gamified reality, where they get XP bonuses for smoothly executing the board's enemies. The hitmen dress in ill-fitting suits, mirrorshades, and carry colourful, compact assault weapons. During missions, they idly trash talk the opposition like a Call of Duty lobby.

The Mechanic: A Contact For Lost Girls

For my lovely Weird Writer's Lost Girls.

Inspired by Crow's Biker contact.  

Stained with grease and smelling of motor oil and burnt metal, the Mechanic rarely, if ever, leaves the garage at which they work. Whether a boy or girl, it doesn't matter much to them, and they prefer the company of machines to people.

The Mechanic lives in a world of their own, amidst the whispering of engine parts and the lurch of living metal. In this way, they understand something of the supernatural currents which underlie and infiltrate Saint Tenebrae.

They can tune-up or repair vehicles, as well as enhance a girl's Hacking skills after a session spent tinkering together.

The Mechanic can be convinced to loan out a vehicle so long as the players promise to bring it back in one piece, without a scratch on it. This is a good way for a gang to gain access to rare or specific transport, such as a hearse, bus, or limo.

Their obsession skill is Hacking or Driving. When obsessed, the Mechanic will try and get a lost girl to spend more and more time at the garage, hanging about while they explain at length, the secrets of piston, crankshaft, and sparkplug. They might go to great lengths to get a girl to come back, even sabotaging vehicles, so they must be brought in for repair. Unfortunately for the lost girl, she is little more than a means to sublimate the Mechanic's love for machinery. Expect to fuck amid the disemboweled entrails of an engine, without aftercare, as the Mechanic has an epiphany about some hereto unrealized improvement to be made.

If rejected, the Mechanic places a curse upon the gang. Anything mechanical they interact with, but most especially vehicles, breaks down or otherwise malfunctions at the worst possible moment. The garage is shuttered the next time the gang visits, and the mechanic nowhere to be found.

Classic Traveller Solo - Play Report - #1

Foroan (0101) C59A366-9 Ni

 

The aqueous moon of a gas giant, host to a small colony of political dissidents, exiles, and jelly harvesters from Pavat (0104). Toxins in the atmosphere required the use of a filter mask. Of the few thousand inhabitants, most live in the single starport-city, or on isolated seasteadings and jelly harvesting rigs.

 

Prad Nadja (884798, Rifle-1, Shotgun-1. Air/Raft-1, Cr1,000) is twenty-two years old. The last four years of her life, she has spent in a skullduggerous line of work she does not often speak of. Currently, she is stuck on Foroan, with dwindling funds.

 

To alleviate the problem, she has engaged herself with a certain clerk (who did not give a name) on the promise of some Cr5,000 for delivering a package to a remote seastead. The job was negotiated over drinks at scummy bar—the kind the jelly harvesters frequent after a long spell working the rigs—amidst flickering holographic phantasmagoria and thumping music. Into her charge went a sealed courier bag and the keys to an air/raft, parked in Bay 18.

 

Wasting no time, she left the bar, shrugging off the wispy illusions as she stepped into the fluorescent lit corridor. It was midmorning, local time, and she’d promised to be prompt. But first, she decided to look into some protection; the business seemed a touch risky, better to be on the safe side.With less hassle than she’d worried, she bought a shotgun and box of shells (wildlife attacks were not unknown on the moon, apparently).

 

[-Cr160]

 

She arrived at Bay 18, with the shotgun underarm, wrapped in waterproof cloth, and the courier bag in hand. The bay was a private garage, of sorts. An attendant gave her a cursory nod, and directed her to the air/raft after she showed him the keys. It was an older model, salt-scoured and open to air. Hopping in, she stowed the courier bag and shotgun, buckled up, and ran her hands over the controls.

 

The vehicle thrummed to life. She eased it gently out of the bay and into the open sky. The weather was fine; cloudy, but with shafts of sunlight breaking through, and rents giving view to the ruddy gas giant looming above. Flying low, then climbing, the starport quickly dwindled away behind her, becoming a vague greebled sprawl floating on the calm ocean.

 

The air was sticky and dense, the filter mask dug into her cheeks and made her breathing loud. Settling in, she cracked open a thermos of coffee and sipped it through a straw-port in the mask.

 

[encounter check: negative]

 

After a several hours easy flying, the sun and gas giant having made their stately progress across the sky, she picked up the seastead’s radio beacon, and began her descent.

 

The steading jutted out of the sea like a stalk, surrounded by a halo of lesser structures: docks, storehouses, generators, and the like. She circled in and touched down on a landing pad, where two women were waiting for her. They were heavyset, white-haired, and could have been twins save for the scars. One patted her down while the other searched the vehicle, lingering on the wrapped shotgun, but making no comment. They led her inside.

 

It was a relief to doff her mask, and breath in the seastead’s crisp, conditioned air. The two goons took her along an enclosed walkway, which connected halo to stalk, and into a sumptuously decorated room. She ran her eyes over the wood panelling and upholstery, feeling out of place. There was a snort. A furry, dog-like creature sprang off a couch and came bounding toward her. She tried, awkwardly, to fend it off with the courier bag, while it snuffled and drooled. Its face was grotesquely human.

 

A man entered. At his command, the dog-thing heeled. He wore a loose silk robe, with nothing on underneath, his lithe, angled body on full display. Like the two women, he had a shock of pure white hair, but his face and body were unmarred—as if he had never known a blemish in his life.

 

She tendered over the bag, which he took without a word, like she wasn’t even there. He opened it, pulling out a thick sheath of paper, and immediately began to pour over it, spreading documents out onto the wet bar.

 

Nadja waited patiently, then impatiently. Her stomach gurgled. This, at last, caused the white-haired man to look up. He examined her for a moment, then turned back to his papers. A wave of his hand: Feed her. The goons escort her down a ladderway, to a kitchen, where one of them began to slapdashedly fix her a bowl of rice and squid. She ate thankfully.

 

An hour later, they were summoned back upstairs. The papers had disappeared and the man stood, waiting, with the courier bag in hand. He smiled at Nadja. Do you know who I am? To which she shrugged, and answered truthfully: No. He laughed and said, mostly to himself: Good, good. Then he handed her the bag, newly heavy. Take this back to the clerk. And with that the two goons escorted her out.

 

The weather had taken a turn. The wind plucked at her hair and clouds were gathered on the horizon, blotting out the setting sun. The waves had begun to roll, making the seastead bob and putting her off her balance. She got back in the air/raft, stowed the bag, cracked her knuckles, and prepared for the flight back.

 

An hour in, and the winds were even worse. Below, the ocean heaved. The air was humid and heavy; a storm impending. It was taking all Nadja’s concentration to keep the vehicle on course.

 

[surprise: none; range: medium]

 

That, at least, was the excuse she gave herself for not noticing the other air/raft until it had dropped suddenly from on high, in the clouds. A loudspeaker blared out: Halt and heave to. The other raft was enclosed, maybe even armoured. It certainly looked heavy. There were police markings on the side.

 

Nadja slowed, allowing the other raft to catch up. Then, just as it was above her, she accelerated and shot off!

 

[roll of 11 +1 vs 9]

 

She was away, racing low and fast, almost skimming the wave tops. Lights were in the red across the controls. Then a clunk. One of the impellers faltering. The raft veered, nearly going into a spin.

 

[roll 2 +1 vs 5]

 

She crashed through the crest of a wave, swamping the vehicle. Worse, she watched helplessly as the courier bag came loose and was swept overboard.

 

Sodden, suddenly freezing, she managed to stabilize the raft and bank around. She searched the heaving sea for a glimpse of the bag while cursing herself for not securing it better. Then she spied it, bobbing and tumbling, mercifully afloat. At the same moment, the police air/raft appeared in the distance, sirens flashing.

 

Hesitation. Desperately trying to think up a way of retrieving the bag without wrecking the raft. Then resignation. She chose flight, abandoning bag and police behind her, and zooming off over the open ocean.

 

It was night, by the time she made it back to the starport, and landed in Bay 18. There was a new attendant, who looked at her askance, as she got out of the waterlogged raft shivering and swearing. She threw the keys at him and trudged off, down the city’s labyrinthine corridors, to her hostel. She left her wet clothes on the floor, the shotgun on the on bed, and took a hot shower—some relief to her sore, taut body—then passed out.

 

The next morning, she muscled her way through a knot of tryworkers fresh off the night-shift and into the back of the dimly lit bar, to the booth where the clerk was waiting for her. He had her money, but was confused as to the lack of a return package. Wasn’t given nothing, she lied.

 

[+Cr5,000]

 

With five-thousand in her pocket, she quit the scummy dive and bought herself a nice, fancy lunch on the upper level, from the starport’s only restaurant. The administrators and managerial types looked at her askance, as she sat at her table, wolfing down imported Kareenian beef.

 

[-Cr50]

[encounter check: positive; bandits]

[surprise: no; range: short]

 

While walking home, Nadja noticed she was being followed. Her awareness came too late, however, and as she ducked down a corridor she found her way blocked by several men and women in rubberized coveralls and rain jackets. Behind her, an equal number had filled up the corridor, preventing escape. Knives and lengths of pipe appeared.

 

The foremost thug smiled at her, not unkindly, and parted his jacket to reveal the butt of a pistol. With a sigh, Nadja surrendered herself into their keeping. They lead her down twisting passages and gangways, deep into the bowels of the starport, somewhere below the waterline, so that the tramp of their feet mingled with the groaning and creaking of old metal.

 

They ushered her into a disused airlock—murky water on the other side of the viewport—where a woman was waiting, sitting on a plastic chair, smoking a cigarette. She was dressed like the thugs, in the heavy coveralls of a jelly harvester. There was a union badge pinned to her collar.

 

Luciette. She introduced herself, offering a hand. Nadja. Nadja replied, not bothering to shake it. You were supposed to deliver a package back to the clerk, where is it? Nadja considered her reply, then said: Give me another five-thousand and I’ll kiss and tell. Luctiette shook her head. Oh no, you’ll tell me, or they’ll find your body floating in the surf at sundown. She put her cigarette out on the viewport for emphasis. Oh well, it was worth a try; Nadja explained what had happened, in detail. And you didn’t see the police pick up the bag? No. Luciette seemed satisfied. Well, be seeing you.

 

Before Nadja could ask any questions, the thugs had maneuvered her out of the room and away down the echoing corridors…

 

+++++++

 

Was bored the other day and played a little solo Traveller game. Didn't note down all the little places I rolled reaction rolls to determine things like "how's the weather" or "are these thugs going to jump her or be polite." The whole exercise ended up very noir. 

Pornographic Woman

André Masson

 

A monster for Lost Girls.

 

A cascade of images and snippets of video, jerkily edited together, forming a gestalt organism: a pornographic woman. She is an amalgamation of a thousand parts. Blink and she changes. When a pornographic woman speaks it is clipped, inhuman, dripping with over-acted sycophancy—like an AI trained on sultry soundbites.

 

Pornographic women lurk in alleyways, abandoned buildings, and beneath flickering street lights. They sing a siren song to entice lonely, alienated girls to them. Victims cluster around the pornographic woman, entranced, touching themselves, but never each-other, and never ever her. A pornographic woman refuses to be touched; contact would reveal her insubstantiality, and break the illusion; touching a pornographic woman fractures her into a million component parts; her form loses cohesion, becomes protean.

 

Each pornographic woman has, for a heart, a cassette tape, a USB drive, a smutty magazine, or some other piece of wank material. Ripping it out of a pornographic woman kills her. The hearts make for a potent magical ingredient.

 

A pornographic woman's victims will fight viciously to defend her from attackers, and will resist attempts to rescue themselves.

 

Some wizards keep pornographic women as pets. 

 

Pornographic Woman

No Stress or Conditions, can be taken out in a single hit. She's desire itself, and too unstable to recognize herself, and therefore immune to magic that aims for the will instead of flesh.

Siren Song: Faint moans and canned phrases. A tingle at the base of the spine. A sense of revulsion and yet also curiosity. Save with ESP or become entranced.

Overwhelm: An explosion of video and audio. A goon-session flood of fucking bodies, chopped up with rapid cuts. The pornographic woman will try to flee while her attacker is dazed. 

 

Enthralled Victim

Stress: 8

Armor: 1. 

Skill: Defending Her Lady at +3 (use for attack, defense and doing maneuvers that would redirect damage towards themselves). 

Will immediately lose all Stress if they see the Woman for what she is. 

 

(Weird Writer helped me stat it)  

Two Girls And A Poem

 

For the girly bandwagon, and for my beloved Weird Writer <3. 

++++++

 

Names, handles, profile pictures

All blent together.

Seeing a person 

Through the shape 

Of what they've written.

Blogs like old friends,

Keeping me company.

 

Women who write

With fevered imaginations,

Creating art that makes me wonder

How much brilliance we lose

To the ephemerality of the internet. 

Some kind of beauty in that,

In it's own right. 

 

Girls I've fucked and

Girls I'll never see

And girls I hope 

To hold hands with

And giggle alongside

As we kiss and play games

One day.

 

Clumsy attempts at poetry,

Tending towards prose,

To express my love

For you all.

++++++

 

For Lost Girls.  

 

The Tag-Along  

Shy, suspiciously nondescript, often bookish. She lurks on the fringes of different girl gangs, never quite a part of the group. A hanger on. Present, but not really there; unacknowledged, unincorporated, unrecognized; forever standing a little bit apart from everyone else. There is a high likelihood she becomes quietly obsessed with a girl. Once and a while, she will be able to offer up a startling insight or piece of information, exactly what the gang needs to solve a problem. But if ever acknowledged by the group, the superposition of the tag-along (a part of the group and yet not) collapses and she becomes another kind of girl, often messily; 2 in 6 chance she turns on the group and swears vengeance, particularly if jilted. 

 

The Feral

Some girls just can't stand the pressure of having to think constantly, all day long. They crave sweet release from sapience, and seek out magical means to lock, dampen, or shut down the higher functioning of their brain, becoming like animals. Some find a place in a girl gang, others roam the alleyways. Knowing a feral girl can boost one's street smarts, but it's often difficult to interpret her. Feral girls often will become obsessed with girls who perform feats of Charisma, or who are affectionate towards them. They will loyally follow the object of their obsession and even defend them, but also become possessive, and will lash out at others who come to close to their girl. 

Twenty Rival Adventurers

Gage Lindsten

 

Created for a friend of mine's campaign, wherein various adventurers are competing to win a jinn-king's wish. Entries without spaces between one another form a party. 

1. Abelard. A young, flaxen-haired swineherd in a sheepskin vest. Carries a quarterstave and a knife. Quite naive, but surprisingly ready to do violence. Walks through the world as if it is a fairy tale, with vague dreams of princesses and newfound fortunes.

2. Agi, a fiery-tempered young noblewoman; dispossessed heir to a distant throne. Wields an antique blade taken from a barrow mound. Wishes for a mighty army to reconquer her kingdom. 
3. Börk. A spanglehelmed, maille shod, axe wielding warrior from the far north. Thinks magic is effeminate. Owes a life debt to Agi, but grumbles about the heat.
4. Rathskell. A gloomy, phlegmatic physician (and dabbler in magic). Hopelessly in love with Agi. Sees portents in everything.

5. Esme. A haughty witch whose body is woven together from thorny vines and continually blooming and dying flowers. Followed by a host of lovers/slaves who have been beguiled by her pheromones. Wishes to birth a florid kingdom amidst the deep desert.

6. Hamatakar. A spry warrior with a massive sword, many sashes, and a long, oiled mustache. Braggadocious, vain, yet anxious; he wishes for his legend to live on forever.
7. Amamina. An otherwise practical-minded thief; she wishes Hamatakar would love her back. Wears an amulet that silences her movements.

8. Jory. An old, grizzled hand at adventuring. His weapons and kit clatter as he walks. Carrying a weight of rock dust in a sack—his petrified and subsequently pulverized best friend, who he wishes to resurrect.

9. Gob & Magob. A twin-headed ogre carrying a huge kanabō; one head, Gob, is philosophical, an aesthete; the other, Magob, is brutish and gluttonous. They desperately wish to be split into two separate persons.
10. Waset. A decrepit old sorcerer, done up with unguents and perfumes, and carried upon a palanquin by animate shabti (of which he has many bundles). Wishes to have his youth again.

11. Arslan. A fast-talking, hard-drinking, joyfully-brawling horse thief from the steppe. Never stops smiling. Wears little more than robe, boots, and knife, and rides his steed like lightning. Wishes for a beautiful wife. 

12. Ray-Man. A wizard made entirely out of glass, who speaks with a sibilant voice. Casts various light based spells. Tends to hover. Wishes for the perfect lens.
13. Durm. A somewhat crazed warrior, shod in pangolin-scale armour, armed with mace and sword, and tattooed all over with glowing ink. Wishes for a portal to a demon dimension, for ill-understood reasons.
14. The Twins. A pair of lithe thieves, who communicate silently with little taps and signs. One shoots the crossbow while the other reloads. Both poison their daggers. They wish to find their long lost mother.

15. Margret. A level-headed young woman from another dimension; very lost. Just wishes she could go home. Gets by with wits, a dagger, and various minor magical items. Rides upon a sheepish, easily cowed lion (who can talk, if he wants).
16. Stagnum. A brazen head, a calculating engine, carried by Margret; animated by a bound spirit whose one wish is to have a real, irrational flesh body.
17. Effraye. A lanky, straw-haired youth; rather foolish, but happy to follow instructions. Wishes to be as cunning as Margret.

18. Hort. A worn out, peaceable man locked into a set of sentient, bloodthirsty armour, which refuses to let him die. The armour seeks glory and honour in combat. He just wishes to be free of the curse.

19. Carneaux. A jaded gourmand underneath a colorful parasol, attended by scampering servants and stolid bodyguards. He has grown weary with mundane foods, and wishes to be able to eat anything and everything in the world.

20. Jali. A massive, oiled up wrestler; a folk hero who has slain countless monsters with her own bare hands. Followed by a horde of adoring fans. Doing this for the sheer challenge of it—the wish is just a bonus.

An Encounter, Featuring Pregnancy

Havoc's post motivated me to dig up this old draft and finish it.

Encounter :

 

A heavily pregnant noblewoman, Pia, wrapped in blue robes and carrying a parasol. She is haughty and irritable; for a year now, she has delayed giving birth (through sheer willpower). Accompanying her is a small retinue of handmaids and servants, as well as her trusted advisor, the sorcerer Nebo. He is fat-faced and shaven-headed; obsequious and cunning; he carries a polished mahogany horoscope board along with sundry magical instruments. Secretly, he is the runaway king of an antique land. 

 

Together, Pia and Nebo are searching for the astrologically perfect time and place for Pia to give birth, that her child might grow into a world-conqueror. They will pay with old jewelry and silks for information about astrological phenomena, portents, and magically significant locations.

Lair of the Lamb - Play Report - Geas'ing Yourselves Free

It's been a while since I've run anything, been busy, so leading up to this session I spent far too long vacillating over what to run the game with, so, at the penultimate moment, I said fuck it and just went with the GLOG rules that come with the module—although we cut leveling, after some discussion, and just started the player characters with CON derived HP. This worked great. Turns out all you really need is something to roll for adjudicating some situations. Who would have thunk it. 

+++++++

Initial Characters :

• Millicent, a militant wetnurse.
• Otily, a handsome, but gloomy, scribe.
• Wendelfred, a philosopher.

Replacement Character :

• Naomi, a brutish, but serene, deserter.

+++++++

The last thing any of them remembered was being fed a warm, soporific draught. Otily wakes up naked, cotton-mouthed, bound in a sack. There is a clasp-knife in her hands, with which she cuts herself free, along with the other three prisoners struggling in the shallow stone bowl. As they all stand up, feeling around, they hear the door creak open and a huge, lumbering shape squeeze itself inside; fetid, heavy breathing; wet, slimy noises. Silently, they find the wall, and creep over to where they thought the door was. As they find the threshold, they hear a strangled scream and the sickening crunch of break bone. Stumbling out into the pitch black of a corridor, they smell a barnyard stench coming from the east.

Otily, being the only with a knife, decides to go back for the others, and Millicent follows her, while Wendelfred stays at the door. They manage to sneak over to one of the stone bowls easily enough, but just as they've freed someone, the Lamb takes notice. A bite from out of the dark removes a chunk of her arm (dropping her to 1 HP), but she and Millicent and the newly freed prisoner manage to scramble away and bolt out the door, which Wendelfred slams shut on the Lamb. It hits the door full force and squeals in pain, but the door holds. The next blow is heavy, however, and Wendelfred knows he can't keep it shut for long. They all dive into the room to the east, following the barnyard scent, with Millicent in the lead. She trips over a goat and into a pile of hay. Everyone goes to ground and listens to the Lamb snuffling and sniffing in the corridor. Groping, Wendelfred finds a wooden bowl on the floor and flings it out of the room; the Lamb pursues the sound, south and away.

Silence. Breathing easier, Wendelfred and Millicent (now in charge of Sam and Gert, the two others freed) search the room, while Otily slinks back into the room with the bowls to free the remaining prisoners. The group sorts itself out, quietly, amid the cold, damp stone. The goats' collars and bells are collected and muffled, the living goat brought along on a piece of twine, and Millicent tasks Sam and Gert with carrying one of the dead goats between them. They also collect scraps of burlap and twine from the bowl room. Then, heading south, the party comes to a junction, with light coming from the east, and a vinegar scent from further down the southern corridor. They choose to pursue light, and come out onto the landing.

The burning torch is seized, as is the fire-striker, while one of the new henchlings is delegated to carrying the tar-soaked chest. Wendelfred and his lackeys also take the time to pry the metal pole free, while Millicent soaks some of the burlap scraps in the leaking pitch in order to augment the already guttering torch.

Moving further east, in pursuit of a truely repulsive stench, they come out into a huge, vaulted room, dominated by a slimy, effluvia-slick pit at its center. Listening at the north door, they hear irregular splashing, which greatly tempts them, cotton-mouthed and dehydrated as they all are. But first, they circle round to check the south door. As they do, a croaking voice rises out of the pit, asking if anyone is there. Initially they are suspicious and don't answer, but as the voice pleads and begs, they change their minds. They learn that the woman is named Akina, and she has been living at the bottom of the pit and surviving by eating parasites off the Lamb and drinking vomit. They also learn that they are beneath the White Temple. Wendelfred, a philosopher, is thus able to supply some lore about Vandoh, the god the temple is dedicated to, leading to much speculation. They promise to free Akina later, when they have rope or some other means of getting her out. She is dejected, but hopeful. They also think to toss the dead goat they've been carrying into the pit for her to eat.

Opening the south door reveals a room full of piled bone pellets. They shrug, and circle counter-clockwise around the pit to the north door and Millicent (who has been leading, carrying the burning torch) opens it. The first thing they see is a slimy pool and a fountain of a fish with hands. Then they notice the huge, wallowing bulk within it. The Lamb emerges out of the water and for the first time they see the beast, illuminated by the flickering torchlight. It is huge, grotesque, resembling an obese cow, covered in nodules at its milk lines. From out of the fleshy coil where its head should be, a bloody horse skull peeks out and tastes the air.

At the same time as they see this, Millicent, who had just stepped over the threshold, collapses to the ground, flopping as she violently hallucinates drowning in heavy armour. Someone manages to snatch the torch and drag Millicent away; they retreat along the eastern edge of the pit as the Lamb squeezes through the doorway. But it hesitates on the edge of the torch light. Thinking fast, they glance into the room to the east, and upon determining it has exits, retreat into there. The Lamb crawls after them. They pass through crab mural room and into the abacus mural chamber, still dogged by the Lamb. Seeing the pole supporting the sagging ceiling, a plan is rapidly devised.

Wendelfred positions himself with his iron pole to batter the post down, while two of his henchlings (Naomi and Ithel) confuse the Lamb with ringing bells to either side. As the torch light recedes behind them, the Lamb enters, squeezing its way into the room, but hesitates at the onslaught of noise. Wendelfred hits the post. Once. Twice. Thrice. It gives way. Naomi makes it through the door first. Poor Ithel trips and falls. And Wendelfred leaps to safety just as the roof collapses in a chaos of masonry. Everyone—save poor, crushed Ithel—is alive, if dusty. They take a moment to breathe. They can hear the Lamb slowly digging itself free underneath the rubble. Then they explore the room, noting the moldy door to the east, the door to the west, and the cobweb filled crack on the south wall, from which comes afresh breeze.

They bash the moldy door in, and investigate the room beyond, but are turned off by the corpse-shaped fungus mound on the floor, and don't go any further. The western chamber proves more fruitful, revealing an unused torch, a crawlspace, and a stone sarcophagus. Wendelfred reads the inscription on it ("Shadrakul, who will not meet her apprentice in this life."), noting that it is written in Elegiac, the language of the greater undead and magicians. Upon opening the sarcophagus, they hear a mechanical noise, but find it empty, save for a seam along the bottom. First, they put their living goat in, and are pleased when they hear it bleat in alarm briefly, but then hear the tinkling of bells as it moves about somewhere below. Next, they convince one of Millicent's henchlings (Jody) to climb in, taking the torch with her. She reports back that she's fine, having landed on some soft rugs and that there's a skeleton in robes down there. They then contrive to turn the sarcophagus lid so the weight is pushing down the rim (surmising that that was how the mechanism worked) and manage to crack the bottom open enough that they rescue Jody with their iron pole and some climbing.

Wendelfred decides to climb down, landing on a pile of fancy rugs. There is indeed a a seated skeleton in robes, offering up a black iron spellbook and balancing a delicate crystal goblet on one knee. He takes the spellbook briefly leafs through its pages, barely grasping the arcane formula put down on the metal pages. Then, he reaches for the goblet. Something stirs within the skeleton's rib-cage; he grabs the goblet nonetheless. A skeletal serpent darts out and strikes, sinking its fangs into him. The poison floods Wendelfred's body and he collapses, dead.

Meanwhile, everyone else was busy using the sarcophagus lid to break open the tarry chest they'd been lugging around, and find a flask of oil and another torch inside. Eventually, one of Wendelfred's henchlings, Naomi (the new PC), decides to go down into the sarcophagus hole to see what became of him. She finds the goat munching on a corner of rug and the dead Wendelfred prostrate on the stony ground. From him, she retrieves the spellbook, and chains it around her waist. She also loots the skeleton for its black art-deco-esque robes, which she puts on.

After helping Naomi climb back out, the party investigates the crawlspace, sending Millicent through first. They discover it opens up onto the bone pellet room. One by one, everyone files through, and begins searching the pile for anything of value—save for Naomi, who sits down to run her fingers over the metal pages of her new spellbook and feel arcane secrets pushing at the edge of her mind.

Nearly an hour passes. With all their rooting around, they turned up a silver bracer styled like veins, and a mysterious vial of black fluid. From the whispering words of the iron tome, Naomi has gleaned the secret of casting fear (and one magic die to cast it with).

The party decides to sneak out of the bone pile room and around the edge of the pit, heading westward to the landing. Their plan is to seek out the vinegar smell, because it would be something to drink, hopefully. Stopping at the landing, however, they decide to explore the corridor southward. From a closet along the passage, they loot a broom, small hammer, and gong. Then they investigate a chamber which is dominated by a fish with hands holding stone discs with numbers on them; a tumbler lock. There is also an acrid, milky pool of liquid—prodding it with the broom sizzles and burns the straw.

Shrugging, they head back north, but as they come out onto the landing, they see the Lamb squeezing its way out of the eastern corridor. It does not seem deterred by their torchlight any longer. Panic. Naomi steps forward, feeling the formula come unbidden into her mind, and word fear rings out like a tolling bell. The Lamb writhes, squeals, and calls out "father!" before turning and fleeing. Disturbed, the party makes haste westward. They re-explore the bowl and goat room, but don't discover anything new. Then, while passing the junction, they meet the Lamb once more. Again, Naomi casts fear, this time with even greater effect, but she can feel the magic has sapped her of strength (no more MD for the day). She uses the Lamb's ongoing terror of her to pin it in the northward passage, while her companions hasten southward following the scent of vinegar.

They find two rooms. The eastern room behind a locked door, which one of Naomi's henchlings, Theobold, begins to break down. Everyone else crowds into the western chamber, where they find two stone troughs—one is filled with vinegar, in which bobs a wine bottle. Quickly and greedily they drink it up, ignoring the burning sensation, happy to have any kind of refreshment (vinegar has electrolytes; the -4 modifier for dehydration is at last banished). They also fill the wine bottle for Naomi and Theobold, then bustle over to the now opened eastern room.

Inside, they find a table with a weird fruit on it, a wooden chest, and an iron and lead chest bolted to the floor and wrapped with linchpinned chains. The wooden chest contains some sort of masked helmet with a pipe that slots into it, purple powder, and a torch. They grab the whole chest to carry, and toss some excess items inside it. Then Otily goes to open the iron and lead chest, and gets a splitting headache as she removes the first linchpin. A nosebleed follows the second linchpin. She decides to put on the masked helmet and light the pipe, thinking it is some sort of defensive measure pair with the iron chest. The smoke makes her drowsy. She finally opens the iron and lead chest, and what looks like a deformed elephant's skull shoots up into the air. She—and the others standing round—watch as parts of their skin violently sloughs off and spirals through the air to begin wrapping around the floating skull. Rapidly, the demon head reconstitutes itself, bellows out "I, Davok, am free at last!" and then geases Otily to carry him out of the dungeon, and drops into her arms.

Everyone runs north, reuniting with Naomi just as her torch gutters out. The Lamb is lurking somewhere in the darkness. They take the junction eastward, booking it as fast as they can, pausing only to briefly ask if Davok can blow open the locked door on the landing (to which it grumbles something about being tired). Finally, they make it back to the bone pile room and hastily crawl one by one back into the safety of the sarcophagus chamber, where they catch their breath.

Someone passes the bottle of vinegar to Naomi, who slakes her gnawing thirst. They take stock. The room is fairly safe all things considered. And they are dead tired after however many hours creeping and running through the dungeon. It is decided that they will all sleep together in the safety of the sarcophagus hole (while leaving some people above to keep watch). First though, they spend some time making a rope out of the carpets, with Otily cutting strips with her knife, and everyone else tying then together. Naomi reads her spellbook. The living goat (still down the hole) is hastily butchered and eaten, the hot blood further quenching their thirst. Eventually, they sleep, and a night (or possibly day?) passes in the damp, cold dungeon.

They wake, less tired, if still aching and sore, and variously wounded. Climbing out of the sarcophagus hole and heading into the room with the city under water mural, they consider the crack running along the south wall. Millicent takes the lead and begins burning cobwebs away, causing a flood of little red spiders to wash over her. She makes it all the way to the far end of the crevasse, glimpsing daylight from a small, fist sized hole, and hearing the shouts of a chicken vendor, before one bites her. The party drags her out as she wheezes and coughs mutely.

They confer. Chipping away at the hole with the iron pole is considered, but it would take far too long. Then Otily has an idea: she lifts up the demon-head and entreats with it, trying to convince it to geas the chicken vendor so that he will go forth and hire some labourers to widen the crack. Davok grumbles, but remarkably, agrees. So, Otily squeezes her way into the crevice and holds the demon-head up to the hole, so that it can call out, imperiously commanding the chicken vendor and promising him rich rewards. Overcome, the vendor cries "of course master!" and dashes off to fetch labourers. By the time Millicent's wheezing fit has worn off, he has returned and the party hears the sound of picks breaking stone. Bit by bit, the hole widens. And then, all of a sudden, it's big enough to pass through. With delirious cries of joy, they clamber out into the sunlight, blinking and squinting.

They find themselves on the edge of the market square, beneath the walls of the White Temple, behind a line of stalls (somewhat hiding them from the bustle of people). The labourers standing around with their picks and prybars look on them with wonder, while the chicken vendor looks expectant.

But it's not over yet. Naomi and Otily and Millicent agree, they need to go back in for Akina, who is still down in the pit. A few of the henchlings have already slipped away, and the others are hesitant to go back in the dungeon, so they rally the labourers and go charging inside, taking the coil of carpet-strip rope with them. Through the sarcophagus chamber, along the crawlspace, and out into the bone pile room. They pause here, and peek out the cracked door into the chamber with the pit, to check for the Lamb, and found it empty. Skulking out, they call to Akina and lower their makeshift rope into the pit. She clambers out; a bedraggled, wizened, filth covered woman looking desperately happy. Hastily, they beat a retreat they way they came, with a quick detour by Otily to grab the skull of the robed skeleton in the sarcophagus hole. At long last, they escape the dungeon.

Back in the bright sunlight of the market square—the White Temple gleaming in the sun, the crowds loud and bustling, the colours brilliant—they note a merchant conferring with the guard at the temple gate, pointing toward them. Some shirts and cloaks are procured from the labourers. Otily, carrying the demon-head, scurries off, pursued by the chicken vendor eager for his reward, and the labourers demanding their pay. Naomi follows, with her spellbook and skull, trailed by Theobold, still carrying the iron pole. But Millicent lingers, then decides to march over (trailed by Sam and Gert, as well as Akina, who stuck around), to harangue the confused temple guard, before also making off into the crowd.

They meet up again in a quiet courtyard, amid the city's bustle. The chicken vendor was paid off with the silver bracer. Akina tries to give Millicent a ruby ring that must be worth a fortune, and they comfort the poor woman. Meanwhile, Noami and Otily sit on opposite sides of a fountain and interrogate their respective patrons' heads. The necromancer's skull is pleased to finally have an apprentice to teach the secrets of the quiet world too. While, Davok is just happy to finally be freed after a century of confinement, and begrudging offers to take Otily on as his warlock, for her reward. They also learn, from the demon-head, some facts about the Lamb (such as that it is the child of Vandoh) and the dungeon. The sun shines down on them, wonderful and warm.

+++++++

Deaths :

• Unknown (eaten by Lamb)
• Ithel (crushed by collapsing ceiling)
• Wendelfred (poisoned by skeletal snake)
• Goat (eaten by party)

Favorite Quote :

• "We have been set up in such a gameic environment, it is terrifying to inhabit."

Favorite Proposal :

• Since Millicent's a wetnurse and everyone is thirsty, a potential solution presents itself, à la Grapes of Wrath.

Speculations :

• This is all some sort of trial or tribulation.
• The Lamb fears bells, which is why the goats were unmolested.
• The code to the tumblers was in the abacus mural in the room they collapsed.
• The Lamb has been trained to expect something when illuminated.
• Shadrakul, the necromancer, was the Lamb's father.

Some Perverts And Magic Items

Yah, yippee, I'm participating. 

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A woman dressed all in brilliant red. She has the ability to swap bodies (at her choosing) with whoever she fucks. She only does this consensually. Wants to "try out" different bodies. Does her best to keep them in good condition for the next inhabitant. 

 

Waterlogged, salt-scoured sailor. Whatever vessel she crews upon invariable wrecks itself, but she always survives. She finds shipwrecks deeply, sexually arousing, but feels conflicted about the loss of life. Has barely dodged being lynched more than once. Possibly some kind of elaborate sexual roleplay on the part of an ocean goddess. 

 

Questing knight who had his dick and balls stolen by a witch as punishment for failing to satisfy her in bed. Deeply embarrassed about the whole thing. Trying to learn to be a better lover; he must satiate a hundred and ten partners before she'll give it back. 

 

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1. Mummified sorcerer's penis in a pouch strung on a string. The wearer impregnates whoever they sleep with, without fail, irrespective of sex, infertility, etc. 

 

2. Amulet of green jasper inscribed with a radiant serpent. Prevents illness and upset stomach, no matter what edible substance the wearer eats, unless the amulet is removed before the wearer has finished digesting and excreting the meal. 

3. A bronze phallus on a cord which, when hung over an entryway, prevents malicious spirits, demons, etc. from crossing the threshold. 

 

4. Lapus lazuli gem shaped into a scallop shell, set in gold, with a small golden goddess figure embedded. The amulet, when worn, makes the wearer appear more graceful and charming to those of lower status, but more uncouth and disgusting to those of higher status. 

 

5. Figure of a small, crouched man which, when kept in the pocket or hung over a lintel, will cry out should a thief cross the boundary. 

 

6. Hematite amulet, etched with the design of locked pot, which halts menstruation in the wearer. 

Lair of the Lamb - Play Report - Two Runs

A while ago, I ran Lair of the Lamb for my girlfriend. She was unlucky and died very quickly with no other freed characters to act as backup. So, impromptu, we decided to play again from the top, adding in a slight time loop feel. Unfortunately, we had to call it quits before the second run really wrapped up.

 

RUN #1

 

The Herbalist wakes up, burlap pressing against her face, cuts her self free, and finds herself in a pitch black room, in some kind of basin, with other groaning, human forms in sacks. She creeps over to the wall, then, as she hears some huge snuffling creature approaching, hides back among the sacks. Unfortunately, the creature goes straight for her basin. She is showered in blood as it messily bites into one of the wriggling sacks. She tries to quietly flee, but catches its attention. It begins to slowly lumber after her while she follows the wall out of the room, into a corridor, down it, than down another corridor—pursuing a glimmer of light. In the landing, she quickly examines the chest that smells of tar, realizes she can't open it, briefly considers taking it with her, then dashes down the south corridor smacking her parched lips together. She can hear the creature in the distance. She passes a closet and comes out into a room with a fish-statue holding tumblers, a lever, a recessed door, and a milky puddle. She tries sipping from the puddle but burns her lips—acid! Then, the creatures bulk fills the corridor above her. Frantically, she pulls the lever. There is an awful grinding noise, then psssht a shower of acid falls upon her. She collapses to the ground, her skin boiling off, and we fade to black as the blurry form of the creature moves into frame.

 

RUN #2

 

The Herbalist jerks awake, burlap pressing against her face and the phantom pain of her boiling skin rapidly fading. She cuts herself free and quickly scrambles over to the wall and presses herself against it. Moments later, she hears the bulk of the creature squeezing itself into the room. She slips out into the corridor and ignores the strangled scream and crunching noises behind her. She creeps south, following the scent of vinegar, and finds two doors—one locked. The other, unlocked door leads into a room. Groping around, she finds two stone troughs: one half-full with vinegar, the other dry and smelling of stale milk. She also finds an empty bottle, which she fills with vinegar. After pouring a few drops into the dry trough and nothing happening, she creeps back out and up the corridor. Then, following the light, she enters the landing. She takes the south corridor to the fish-statue room and tries pouring some vinegar into the milky acid pool, but nothing happens. Then she tries the closet and finds a broom, hammer, and gong. At first she goes to take the broom, but thinks better, and instead grabs the torch from beside the landing's metal doors. With this, she follows a horrid stench eastward and comes out into a large room with a fetid pit at its center. She skirts it, heading towards a door in the south wall, and hears a faint voice asking if anyone is there from the depths of the pit. The Herbalist ignores the voice and slips into the room south. It is heaped with hundreds of bone pellets, from which glisten fragments of metal and scraps of cloth. She exits, creeping again around the pit's rim, and heads east into a room with an elaborate crab mural. Then south, into a room with a sagging sealing held up with a pole. Carefully, she passes through, and into the room to the south, which has a corridor west, a door east, and a huge crack on the south wall—splitting a mural of a city in two—from which a breeze is blowing... 

Violence - Prohibition Era Skirmish

(This is from a while back, last year I think, thought I'd post it since it was mostly done).

St. Louis, 1929. 

Dusk. The glow of the city in the sky. A railroad bridge looms over a little riverside cemetery; fireflies darting between the gravestones. Higher up: the road. Lower down: reeds, mud, and the Mississippi's turgid waters. A car is parked on the slope,

Three racketeers stand in and around a shallow grave, freshly dug up: Camille, a butch lesbian type, stands with her hands on her hips looking down on the sweating, pudgy Vince, while Tommy, his hair slicked back, chews on a toothpick and leans against a headstone. Wood splinters as Vince pries open the coffin, revealing nestled bottles of liquor. Before they can take satisfaction in the unearthed cache, headlights flick on, drowning them in light.

Up on the road, a car has pulled up, facing down at them. They hear the slam of car doors. And shadows move across the bright headlights. A voice—Dutch accented—rings out and they immediately know who it is. Their nemesis: De Graaf. 

He's standing up on the verge, looking down into the graveyard, his right hand man Nico standing beside him, a sawed-off BAR resting on his shoulder. Two more goons flank them: Lenny and Howard. 

Camille began walking toward the car, hands raised, presenting a sympathetic figure. Tommy edges towards the cover of a thick clump of headstones. Vince, still standing waist deep in the grave, slides his revolver out of its holster. 

Vince fires, Camille and Tommy both dive, Nico lets out a wild shot from the BAR only to grunt and go stumbling back—catching Vince's slug in the shoulder. Howard and Lenny go running left and right respectively, while De Graaf goes to earth. 

(intermediate details lost to history, seems like everyone's taking potshots and Camille creeps up to the gang's car; trying to get a shotgun maybe?)

Camille pulls the back door open, using it for cover, while yanking open the passenger side door. De Graaf fires, shattering the back door's window, but the bullets merely fly over the crouched Camille's head. 

(details also lost)

Suddenly the BAR opens up and chews through the back door, perforating Camille with slugs. She goes down, slumped half over the passenger side seat. 

(further missing details; the rival gagsters were advancing or had split int two groups I think; definetly one or two were downed)

The BAR opens up again, turning the top of the gravestone to stone splinters and downing Tommy who was hid behind.  

 

Vince cowers in the grave, the bottles clinking under his feet. He hears the crunch of footsteps and the rustle of grass as (presumably) De Graaf and Nico approach. The two stop at the car, examining Camille's body. She's alive, just barely, but they don't realize it. They move on, edging closer to the grave.

Stooping, Vince reaches down, grabs a bottle, and with an underhand throw lobs it into the river. Gunshots ring out at the plop. As the last echo dies, Vince twists around, popping out of the grave and firing at either Nico or De Graaf—he's not sure which. It turns out to be De Graaf, but the shot goes wide, clipping a fragment of the Dutchman's jacket. Both De Graaf and Nico open up, the first's shots going wide and spitting up dirt, but the second hitting Vince dead on. 

He's not dead though, not quite, and can only look up dazed as the two mobsters stand on the lip of the grave. He has just enough time to notice Nico is cradling the BAR in one arm, favoring his uninjured shoulder, before they point their guns down, and finish him off.

Sirens in the distance. De Graaf and his men beat a hasty retreat, pile into their car, and are off. Later: policemen with flashlights combing through the graveyard. Camille and Tommy whisked away in a police ambulance; one with several slugs in her chest and the other with a nasty head wound. 

A few days later De Graaf throws down his newspaper in disgust upon reading TWO GANGSTERS IN HOSPITAL AFTER GRAVEYARD GUNFIGHT.

+++++

We didn't end up using the suppression rules, which we should have as they would have been useful. As well, there was a couple times when dis/advantage should have been invoked (Nico's shoulder injury, the bright headlights, etc). Furthermore, we didn't roll for each bullet as an Injury Check—mostly we forgot to, but also it would have slowed things down measurably. Without that however, I think that players survived being down with a bit more regularity than if we were counting each bullet as an Injury received. 

 

One thing that was a bit muddled was calling the number of bullets fired. We tried to mainly do this before rolling but sometimes did so after. I think that it would work best if you treat it as a gut/impulse choice. I.e. "I fire of three shots at him!" At least insofar as flow is concerned (since obviously ammunition tracking is an issue as well). 

 

The BAR definitely chewed people up, what with its ability to really commit to firing off multiple shots (a 20 round magazine) and the +4 to Injury Checks for being rifle caliber. 

A small thought. The +1 for each additional shot does not read that cleanly. When running I might just make it a +1 for 1 shot and then an additional +1 for every shot after to a max of six. This would make the target de facto 15, which is fine I think—25% chance to hit as a default—and it just makes everything read more intuitively.

Three Occult Mercenaries

BOTTOMLESS :

Leering lips. Shaggy hair. A pair of dark sunglasses, tight jeans, and a milsurp jacket. He stinks of liquor. With a dainty, two-finger grip he pulls a new bottle out of the well-stocked refrigerator buried in his bigger-on-the-inside duffel bag. There is an M1911 tucked in the small of his back. His right pant pocket holds a wadded up copy of an archaeological research paper on the Italic bacchanalia.  

The face. Oddly eloquent, even when inebriated (which he always is). Knows a touch of dipsomancy, but mostly relies on his pistol. Equipment—like Razorback's GPMG—gets stored in his magic duffel bag when the trio needs to operate covertly.   

RAZORBACK : 

Shaved head. Broken nose. Rolling shoulders and a glimpse of spreading, mechanorganic tubes beneath his white tanktop. He snorts like a bull and grips the barrel of his Rheinmetall MG 3, the ammunition belt shifting in his lap. The program which implanted the symbiote in his back was cancelled before they worked out the emotional regulation issues. Now, he and it coexist uneasily, dreaming each-other's dreams; a melange of mutual bloodlust. 

The heavy. He goes where the other two point and doesn't think very hard about it. The symbiote has given him boosted reflexes, strength, and inhuman regenerative abilities. He can tank anything short of an anti-material round, given enough time to knit his flesh back together. 

WORMBOY :

Gaunt features. Lank black hair. Drab clothing, perpetually mudstained. His mouth opens and closes like a fish. At his side, a messenger bag filled with skinny mason jars. They contain his brood; a dozen wet, wriggling larva. When released, they seek out the nearest living organism and attempt to wriggle down its throat. 

The brains. Doesn't talk much, but the other two do what he says. He always has the situation scouted out and assets per-suborned. Whatever his larva enter, he can puppet, though each new body adds to his disorientation. 

An Offering For The Goat-Mother - Play Report

Per Weird Writers "Just Run It" advice, I decided to run a little horror-investigation scenario I had written up a while back.  

CW: abuse, suicide

WW played as Alice Kent.

Loadout : Phone, wired earbuds, meds, laptop, change of clothes, pepper spray, printed photo of Cheryl (her missing girlfriend), a Leica brand camera, and spare film
Skills : Photography, Homosexual Underground, Botany, Urban Exploration

Cheryl Wayland—Alice's girlfriend—went up north to visit her family for the first time in three years after much cajoling on their part. That was almost a month ago, and Alice hasn't heard from her since.

SATURDAY. After a four hour drive up from the southern, more urban part of the state, Alice found herself driving past a sign for LAUREN, MI; Pop. 755, "Elk Hunting Capital of the Midwest" and a big statue of an elk.

The town was little more than a main street hemmed in by pine forest. A diner, a handful of bars, a gas station, garage, two motels, a hardware store, and a big building emblazoned with WAYLAND SPORTING GOODS on the side.

Tired, Alice pulled into the parking lot of one of the motels and checked in. As well, she showed the receptionist the photo and asked if she'd seen Cheryl recently. The response was cagey. No the receptionist hadn't seen the Wayland's daughter. But Alice was able to get the family's address.

She left some of her belongings in the motel room, then drove out to the Wayland's house on the edge of town. The place looked to have once been a farm, though not any longer, with a sagging barn and big house built in the last century if not earlier. Alice parked on the verge and crossed through the gate, walking up the long driveway, to the house where a new truck and car were parked.

Peering inside, she didn't notice anything interesting in either, and so walked up to the house itself to try and look in the front windows. She'd just caught a glimpse of a living room when an "ahem" turned her head. A middle-aged woman in a floral print dress and apron ("tradwife chic") was standing on the porch, looking down at Alice with a suspicious expression.

Alice introduced herself and explained she was a good friend of Cheryl's and was looking for her. The woman's face twisted into something like worry and she asked if Cheryl was alright. Alice explained that the last she heard she was here with her family and things were going well but then there had been nothing but radio silence since then.

Oh but she left weeks ago! We had a big fight and she stormed out and, well, she doesn't ever call us (this last part said with a note of accusation). Alice nodded along. A boy shouted for mom from inside the house. Just one minute Arthur Jr! Well, if you hear from her please call us... With that Patricia Wayland (Cheryl's mother) closed the door.

Alice pretended to leave, but in fact sidled up against the house to try and eavesdrop. She saw Patricia twitch the curtain aside to look out on the driveway (luckily not noticing Alice pressed up against the clapboard) and then heard muttered conversation between Patricia and a gruff voice, mentioning her name, Cheryl, and expressing concern. Alice decided to slip away and walk back to her car.

Getting in, she didn't yet start the engine but sat and watched the house for a while, pretending to mess with her phone (terrible signal out in the backwoods). All was still, nothing stirring. Eventually, a police car with the words LAUREN COUNTY SHERIFF on the side came round the bend and slowly drove past. Alice took this as a sign and left, driving back to the motel where she parked.

Hungry (it being mid-afternoon) she walked over to the diner, a place which looked like a time capsule of the 50s. Inside there were one or two patrons and a waitress—her name tag said Mindy—serving them while someone else worked a grill in the back. Alice ordered an egg, toast, and coffee and as she was being served showed the waitress the photograph.

Oh my gosh. You know Cheryl? We used to be best friends in high school.

Mindy, it turned out, well, used to be best friends with Cheryl—"even if she did become a lesbo." Was she really missing? I thought she was still at her family's. Yeah they had a fight, Cheryl had come into the diner crying afterward but her mother had come and convinced her to come back.

Alice managed to convince Mindy to meet with her after Mindy's shift finished in two hours. Then she finished her meal and headed out.

At the gas station, she poked the young clerk a little. He vaguely remembered Mindy from high school, couldn't remember having seen her since but hey did you remember what car she drove? I always remember cars. And in fact he did remember seeing Cheryl's car a few weeks back and it being towed later on. When asked where car's got towed to in Lauren he laughed and hiked a thumb at the garage next door. Only one place miss.

The garage, unfortunately, was closed (it being a Saturday). She skulked around and looked into the fenced off lot. There were several cars, in varying conditions, and few under tarps. Not immediately seeing Cheryl's, she tried calling the number on the garage's sign, to get some one to let her in, but got an automated message asking her to call back later.

Moving on, she walked down to the hardware store and, after some fake browsing, showed the old clerk a photo of Cheryl. He definetly recognized the photo but said he didn't. As she was leaving she saw him picking up a phone and dialing it.

At Wayland Sporting Goods, which was open and the busiest place she had yet been to in Lauren, she found a clerk and went about purchasing a handgun. After seeing her hesitancy about waiting for an ID check, the clerk offered a shady deal to get her one now, which she went through with.

She'd killed enough time by then and walked back towards the motel, espying Mindy leaving the diner as did, and caught up with the latter. After some cajoling, she managed to convince Mindy to come along with her and stake out the Wayland's place. They packed into to Alice's battered white sedan and drove off.

They parked on the edge of a road a ways away and then walked through the woods till they came to the fence/treeline of the Wayland's Place and hunkered down to watch. The evening wore on and nothing much happened. Eventually, they saw a man—Mindy identified him as Arthur Wayland—come out of the house, get in the truck, and drive off. A while after that, around dinnertime, they watched Patricia Wayland come out of the house carrying a big crock pot. She walked across the yard and over to the barn and to a cellar door opened it, and disappeared inside. After a while she came back out with the crock pot and went back to the house.

I think they're keeping Cheryl in there.

What? Mindy was incredulous. Why would they do that. But Alice had already gotten up and was creeping her way out of the woods and across the wide expanse of mowed lawn.

The house's windows watched her like blind eyes and she was acutely aware that any moment someone could look up and out and see her, but she made it safe to the barn and around the backside to the cellar door (which was out of view of both house and driveway). Said door was locked shut with a big padlock and chain.

Unsure what to do at first, she decided to creep around and slip inside the barn. Within, she found some rakes, shovels, deflated inner tubes, tools. Searching the last, she turned up a hacksaw and crept back outside with it and back around to the cellar door. She started sawing.

It was loud and tiring. Within minutes her arms ached. She had gotten two-thirds of the way through when she heard the sound of a car on gravel, coming up the drive. Stopping, she sidled over to the corner of the barn and peeked out. Coming up the driveway was Arthur Wayland's truck followed by the sheriff's car.

She watched five men in total get out of the two vehicles and go inside the house. After a few minutes of silence, Alice returned to the door and began sawing again. She had just finished, the chain falling to the ground, when she heard the slam of a screen door and voices. Again to the corner and peeking out. The men were now dressed in white robes and followed by Patricia. They were walking right toward the barn.

Quickly, Alice ran to the cellar door, opened it, descended the steps, and gently closed it again. She was in darkness and spent a moment fishing out her phone and turning on its flashlight.

Strange carven figures—deer and beasts of the forest—leapt out at her. Then she heard the rustle of cloth and swept her phone light around. In the back corner was an insensate figure in dirty clothes, leashed to the wall with a dog collar. Alice hurried over. It was Cheryl.

There was a dull, glassy look in Cheryl's eyes and she didn't really respond to movement. Some dirty plates sat on the floor nearby.

Alarmed voices from the doors above. Alice quickly shut her phone light off and darted to the other side of the room. The doors were wrenched open, letting in the fading twilight, then silence. No movement. Alice slipped out her handgun.

Down the stairs came the sheriff, his gun out, squinting in the light. Behind him another man. Alice waited a beat, then, aiming at the sheriff, pulled the trigger. The bark of the gun surprised her and the shot went astray. In a snap the sheriff had twisted and shot back at her but missed. She fired again and the sheriff dove for cover while the second man did the same. Quickly, she spun and shot at where the sheriff dived and heard him yelp. She shot again, this time greeted with a meaty thud. Alice ran to where he had fallen in the shadows of the cellar, but as she did the second man came barreling into her and they both hit the wall hard. She kneed him in the groin and he keeled over moaning. On her hands and knees she scrambled over to the sheriff—he was dead, shot twice in the chest—and grabbed his handgun, discarding her own (now empty).

She spun and aimed at the doorway, but there was only silence from up the steps. A minute passed. Two. She crept over and unhooked the leash from the wall and hauled Cheryl to her feet, putting her in front of her. Cheryl stumbled along, mutely. Up the stairs, one step at a time, and then out into the fading daylight.

Someone cried out "Don't shoot, we need her!" To either side of the cellar door: Patricia Wayland, Arthur Wayland (with a hunting rifle), and the hardware store man (holding Arthur back).

Alice demanded to know what was going on. Arthur said it was none of her goddamn business. Carefully, Alice began backing away keeping Cheryl close to her. The Wayland's followed, dogging her. They contained like this around the edge of the barn and half way across the property. Again Alice demanded to know what was happening. Arthur just told her that she'd killed the sheriff and the state police would hunt her down like that. The hardware man rambled something about god needing Cheryl to save them all.

Alice made a decision. She put her gun to Cheryl's temple and pulled the trigger. A blossom of blood and Cheryl's body fell to the grass. Arthur Wayland bellowed in rage and another shot rang out. This time Alice fell, the wind knocked out of her as she hit the turf. It had gone through her shoulder. A long stretched out moment. She managed to look up and see and the Wayland's advancing, Arthur working the bolt of his rifle. Raising her pistol, she fired and caught him in the leg. He fell to one knee cursing and the hardware man grabbed a hold of him. Again she fired and Arthur toppled, shot through the chest. Patricia screamed and the hardware man took off running.

Patricia Wayland ran to her husband, grabbing at his body, and screamed slurs and abuse at Alice. One last time, Alice demanded to know what was happening. Patricia, screamed some more, then began ranting about deer, god's chosen prey, the things in the dark of the woods, her daughter being corrupted, etc. Alice, from the ground, raised the gun again and shot her too.

Silence.

The squeal of a car pulling out and hurtling away down the road.

Mindy running out from the tree line, hand over her mouth. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Alice handed her the car keys and told her to go.

Silence.

She checked to make sure she had a bullet for herself.

Silence.

It was dark now and oddly peaceful. The woods alive with animal song. Alice couldn't quite say how long it had been. She stared up at the stars above. They seemed to be blurring, twisting in on themselves and performing a strange dance. She couldn't tell if it was the bloodless or something else. Out from the tree line stepped tall, shaggy shapes with thin limbs. They were as tall as the pines. One by one they came—a closing circle. Till they stood nearly over her and Cheryl like a ring of standing stones. Then there was a pressure like the pressure of a storm rolling in and the stars disappeared, blotted out by some black descending form and for the briefest moment she felt its alien scrutiny. Then it passed. The tall things turned and left. In the distance a police siren could be heard. Quietly, Alice slipped from consciousness. She would not wake up.

+++

Notes :
The main issue with things was that Alice, a pregen character I had thrown together about ten minutes before play, and her skill set were a bit ill-suited for the scenario. Likewise, there weren't enough threads or leads for WW to pursue to learn more about the cult or interact with the locals. But other than that, it was a good time.   

I Ran The Ultraviolet Grasslands! - Session One

 

Another duet game played with M., this time taking a break from the Iron Coral for some caravaneering.  

The Cast : 

The Decapolitina Twins, Ala and Juan, both yellowlander climate migrants, driven by dreams of machine demons and internal abnormalities.

Origano, a wine vampire priest with inebriated hypnosis powers, indebted to Juan and pursued by loving enemies (his former coven?). 

It was early morning in the Violet City and the party found themselves in a palatial chamber, sitting upon an uncomfortably plush couch. Before them was a dais beneath a skylight (through which they could hear the market bustle and distantly see the citadel) and lounging on a cushion, attended by glassy-eyed servants, sat Brighteyes one of the city's mercantilist cat-lords and current owner of the party's rather large debt.

 

Of the three, Juan was standing, pacing up and down the couch, acutely aware of the burly enforcers guarding the door. 

 

Brighteyes explained with care that while she could simply have their knees broken, she'd much rather put healthy hands to good use. As such, she had a little task for them. See, her idiot nephew, Twinkles, had gotten it into his head that he wanted to take a tour of the far grasslands and make a study of the strange fauna; an aspiring natural-philosopher. What she wanted the party to do then, was to be his escort and keep him safe. To that end, she had prepared mounts and supplies. 

Having little choice in the matter, the party agreed wholeheartedly and one of the cat-lord's lackeys led them out of the manor and down the Violet City's twisting, cobbled streets to a large caravanserai (owned by Brighteyes of course) just beneath the city walls. 

There they acquainted themselves with their caravan: four mules, a horse (for the nephew), seven sacks cheap supplies, a vet kit, and an adventure kitchen. The party also invested in three cat-rifles and a laboratory kit. 

Having looked over their little caravan, they set out to find Twinkles, using the address Brighteyes's manservant gave them. 

Shortly, on a little alleyway off the Rue des Pattes they found the Grinning Moon Bordello. They entered with awkward nods to the half-naked entertainers; "We're looking for the pussy.' and found the madame who waved them outside into a little walled garden in the back, There they found Twinkles, a suave black cat, in the lap of his manservant Bertram, studying a pair of insects on a rock. A scantly clad woman reclined next to them, looking bored. 

The cat talked (telepathically) liked a British playboy, albeit of an intellectual bent. There was a brief argument over eating luncheon or setting out now—which Juan favored—settled by Twinkles insistence that they eat lunch and set out the next morning. Then they collected the cat's bags and ate at a little cafe overlooking the sea. 

That night they slept in the caravanserai and left early, passing through the morning mists past cat coffee plantations and little freeholds. By the end of the day even these began to dwindle away, replaced by tall grass and isolated copses. 

 

For a week they travelled along a rough, but well used track the land gradually flattening out; a sea of yellowish grass. Somewhere along the way Ala turned her ankle, but eventually they made it to the Low Road and the High—an ancient viaduct from the Long Ago thrust up out of the steppe. 

 

On the Low Road they overtook a Rainbowlander caravan, hundreds strong and piled with silks and fruits, heading for the Porcelain Citadel. The party joined in with them and spent the next week in the caravan's boisterous company. They variously picked up rumours of a lost gate and tried to convince the caravaneers to gift them some food (Ala and Juan were splitting a sack between them; +1 fatigue for both) but the Rainbowlanders had made this trip before and knew how punishing the steppe could be. The merchant-owners, strutting about with their ledges, kept a careful tally of supplies and wouldn't part with a morsel; though the party received a few kindly scraps.

At the weeks end as they approached the Porcelain Citadel they passed shambling human-like forms and the other caravaneers whispered about the Porcelain Prince's used up polybodies and profligate tastes. Passing through the ring of defensive golems, they came at last under the white bulk of the citadel. 

Twinkles immediately shacked up in a second-floor suite in the caravanserai, leaving the party to squat with their animals in an empty  in an empty shack among the scrappy, unaffiliated outlanders who haunt the Lowest Line. For several days they sold themselves to the orchards, picking cherenkov cherries just to pay for food. All the while they listened to the raucous noise of drinking and song from the Two Serais and watched the distant, duplicated forms of the Porcelain Princes walking about their manors.

 

Eventually, Twinkles came back round, satisfyingly tired and having seen the sights to his content. Bertram, the manservant, was sporting a shiny new ceramic prosthetic; very chic. At this point the party was muttering and plotting—the cat was going to have to go. They convinced him, with tales of strange vomish mechanisms ("Really, I've heard that they're not nearly as a violent as people claim.") to head into the deep steppe on the Trail of Vomish Dreams.

 

After finagling funds for supplies out of the cat, they plunge into the grasslands. A week travelling deep into tall, yellow grass through thick haze, beset by swarms of biomechanical locusts. Once, they came across the spoor of some huge biomech beast, which they spent an extra day avoiding.  

They'd heard rumours, back at the Porcelain Citadel, of a rusting metal obelisk, toppled on its side and covered in strange glyphs. Twinkles was, predictably, excited by this concept and so they spent three days following game trails and odd markers till they found the iron monument. 

Bertram begin copying down the glyphs in Twinkles's journal, at the latter's direction, while the party set up camp. As the sun set—a red fiery glow over the steppe—biomech prairie dog-crabs begin to appear out of their burrows to dance an eerie ritual around the obelisk. The parry watched their bioluminescent antenna swaying in unison from a safe distance around their campfire. 

Later that night, the moon high in the sky and washing the world in silver, Juan and Origano rose from their sleep rolls and crept over towards the cat and its servant, with garrote-lengths of cord in hand.

Origano slowly wrapped his garrote around Bertram at the same time Juan made a lunge for Twinkles. Chaos! Bertram groans and paws at his neck as the life is slowly strangled out of him while Twinkles leaps away, telepathically bludgeoning Juan, and disappeared into the tall grass. The harsh but distant call of a biomechanical beast howled through the night.

With one last shudder, Bertram expired. Quickly the party broke camp. From Bertram's corpse they retrieved a heavy purse (over $800), a holdout pistol, and the cat's journal. Then they dragged the body a ways away and hide it in the grass.

 

With Ala riding and Juan and Origano guiding the mules they spent a week trudging in silence, heading southeast toward the Grass Colossus, dodging roving beasts the while. Eventually they crested the green capped ridge surrounding the vale and walked down into it towards the colossus, rising from its mound.

 

As they passed through the outer fences and into the teeming nomad tent city which surrounds the Colossus, they met a band of drunk, broke journeymen with whom they made camp. Their incongruous joviality seemed to break the silent spell which had hung over the party, and they plunged into the tent city with refreshed spirits. 

With much haggling and a confusion of languages—none of them had ever heard such outlandish permutations of the trade tongue—they managed to buy another weeks rations, plus two sacks extra, in yogurt, cheeses, and jerky. Then, contemplating the heavy purse of Rainbowlander currency, they decided to buy two more horses for their caravan.

The only nomad willing to take their foreign currency was Draganogac, one of the judges of the Colossus who mediated disputes, and a rich man besides. He gave them two fine steppe-horses for their money and reminded them that the judge's would always pay good mead and salt for vomish trophies.

The talk of the tent city was that the next night, the Colossus would dance! Already there was an air of festivity, with new nomad clans arriving by the hour and drink and song loud to be heard. The party decide to stay for the ritual and the next day watched a wicker wagon wheeled toward the Colossus with a shivering, wretched man inside—an adulterer condemned by the judges—fed beef and spices by force.

That night, torches and bonfires flared and the drink was hot. Around the Colossus the priests and magicworkers took their places. Then began the dances. The party, beside their journeymen friends, watched in awe as the sacrifice was lifted—bound and gagged—into the burnt heart of the Colossus. And the it was alight! The flames of the bonfires seemed to burn higher and the priests danced more frenetically, drumming and chanting.

With a shudder, the Colossus moved! Burning bright with the living flames at its heart it began to dance a stomping dance.

The nomads cheered, and laughed, and cried. And then, as the Colossus's dance grew more energetic, they one by one began disappearing into their tents. The Colossus began to dance more wildly, stepping down off its mound. The party deemed it prudent to also take shelter and hid away in their tent. The night passed uneasily, with the sound of rustling, dancing grass, the gutter of flames, and the occasional screams of terror.

The next morning, half tent city was already gone. Detritus from the festivities was everywhere and the fire pits still smoked. The Colossus stood once more upon its mound, but its chest was blackened and its hands bloody. Shivering in awe, the party quickly broke camp and trekked up and out of the vale and away towards the South-Facing Passage...

 

+++

 

This was essentially one long introduction and setup session, despite the caravan getting five weeks deep into the Ultraviolet Grasslands.  

The initial setup was a bit janky, M. spent a lot of time looking to the cat-lord for direction as to what the party was doing (something M. brought up herself at the end of session). The betrayal, murder, and escape ended up nicely setting up a proper game with the players fleeing deeper into the grasslands, etc. M. said she was looking forward to more freely being able to riff off the setting and characters. 

There was also some jank with the resolution system (a modified version of Was It Likely's Impact) I was using. Some misapplication, forgetting to use it, etc, but by the end we'd ironed it out and are looking forward to the "and then" energy it brings to the table. Specifically, we worked out that it works best just straight up rolling on the impact table and forcing the player to spend HP (in this case renamed to Luck) to avoid/alter. Creating a sort of cascading chain of consequences. 

I had a bit of trouble at times running straight from the book (for example: there aren't rumour tables for every location) but I think I will have honed my method by the next time. At the Porcelain Citadel in particular, I didn't dangle enough hooks out. M. was a little aimless as to what to do. Hopefully the party, now sheared from their escort mission, will get more dynamic and we'll be better able to explore the characters. 

 

We're talking about giving the party some more tools for interacting with the world and maybe some more adjective traits. The necessary texture, for building decisions and descriptions. Also we might make XP from discoveries and carousing feedback into recovering Luck.