DCC Campaign Update: All my Friends are Dead

This past session came as close to a TPK as our DCC campaign has ever seen. By the end of it, almost everyone was dead. How did this happen?

Like this:

1. The PCs started out in a monastery they decided (in a spurt of optimism) was not really an "Evil Monastery" so much as a "Good monastery that had made some bad choices" and fallen in with the wrong crowd.

2. They found their former accountant Serath had now become a Cleric.  He's a neutral cleric, which means he's not really into it but just treats it as a job.

3. Said Neutral Cleric was determined never to sacrifice gold for divine approval. He's more of a "prosperity Christianity" style of cleric.

4. The PCs slept in the monastery, but not before demonstrating a that they live a life of stunningly troubling paranoia.

5. Schul the rogue found three evil-looking black scrolls in the monastery library, in a skull-motif cabinet.  He decided "this doesn't really look evil at all"!

6. The PCs find an ominous looking hidden shrine to the Lord of Death.  The Neutral Cleric proceeds to use it as the bathroom.

7. They find another set of secret underground rooms, and start to realize that finding hidden doors is easier than assumed.

8. They start to get a bit too bored when the first underground rooms they find are exciting locales like the cloak room, pantry, and the monastery well-cistern.

9. They totally fail to spot, in their rush, the Mutant Sewer Octopus Thing in the cistern.  The Neutral Cleric barely survives, but his brain damage reduces him to a vegetable and it's time for a mercy kill.  Monastery 1, PCs 0.

10. They find an underground river, where a venerable old yogi has been meditating in perfect stillness for 12 years. Of course, they decide to poke him with the hallucinogenic staff until he's forced to break his trance just shy of achieving nirvana. 

11. They learn from the highly annoyed yogi that somewhere deep in the underground complex of the mountain below the monastery there is an Arch-Gate to the Qlippothic Netherword, as the monks call it; or as it is known to Clerics, the Recycle Bin.  If you can get through the Arch-gate, and get through all the insanely dangerous ordeals in the realm of death, you could theoretically try to resurrect a daemon that has been deleted.  The PCs immediately decide it might be a cool idea to resurrect Tiamat, in spite of the fact that they were peripherally involved with the selfsame dudes who betrayed and murdered her.

12. They go back up for a rest, and meet three newbies who were lost and made their way to the monastery gate. They're 2 mutants and a halfling; and the party debates whether that makes them "Two and a half-man" or "two and a half half-men". 

13. Ack'basha the Cleric immediately press-gangs them into the party.

14. Ack'basha also tries to sell the newcomers on joining his crusade to defeat Sezerkan and recover the Sacred USB Cable that would restore the world, and purge it of all the abominations... you know, abominations like mutants, and halflings.

15. Ack'basha also tries to convert the newcomers, and is thus reminded that all Halflings are New Atheists. And Cannibals. 

16. The PCs do note that this particular Halfling seems stunningly well versed in philosophy (albeit of the sophomoric 1st-year-philosophy-student variety) for a half-feral murderous savage.

17. They go back down into the dungeons, and almost immediately run into some really big hobgobins.  They assume that these are locals at first, but will eventually learn that these goblinoids are here because they too are looking for the Arch-Gate; to resurrect the daemon they worshipped.

18. They get into a rumble with these goblins, resulting the party getting the shit kicked out of them, killing the halfling and Mutant 2, and with most of the rest of the the party being captured. Monastery 3 PCs 0.

19. The captured PCs learn the tradition of how the goblins elect their replacement chief (the former chief having died in the fight); which consists of the two main candidates beating each other with rocks until one is left standing.

20. The goblins also run into the Yogi, who kicks the shit out of them with some powerful magic.

21. The remaining free PC manages to convince the Yogi to help, which he does by randomly summoning a trio of Religious Fantastics.  All named Nigel, of course.

22. The 3 Nigels' rescue attempt, consisting of charging straight at 20 goblins, proves disastrously ill-thought out. 

23. Ack'basha the cleric's attempt to use his cursed power rings doesn't work out as planned.

24. Ack'basha then remembers his powerful holy beads, which cause harm to any chaotic being they even touch, so he proceeds to gently carress his captors with it to surprisingly great effect.

25. Ack'basha then proceeds to cast a darkness spell in the surrounding area, and everything turns into a massive clusterfuck of a melee.

26. The rescue attempt having failed, Mutant 1 goes nuts, runs away, and then in a bout of murderous insanity tries to kill the Yogi with a canoe oar.

27. The Yogi survives, goes murderously insane too, and ends up beating Mutant 1 to death with a wooden begging bowl.  Monastery 4, PCs 0.

28. Ack'basha gets away, gets his armor on, goes back to the Goblin's base-camp, kicks the crap out of the goblins there, and takes their stuff.

29. The remaining goblins still in the dungeon find and finally kill the badly-wounded Yogi.

30. Schul the rogue, who had been hiding out, attacks the remaining goblins in a desperate attempt to recover all the party's stuff before they get away.  He kills the new chief with a very well placed two-handed Axe-backstab. Unfortunately, the rest of the goblins make their morale check and butcher him. Monastery 5, PCs 0.

31. The few surviving goblins decide to high-tail it out of the monastery and off the mountain.  Ack'basha the Cleric is literally the Last Man Standing.  Monastery 5, PCs 1.

It remains to be seen whether Ack'basha will be led by these tragic events to consider whether his blood-vendetta against Sezrekan is in some way responsible for the loss of all his friends and allies.  But my bet is on no. He'll probably figure out a way to blame it all on Sezrekan too.

RPGPundit

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