DCC Campaign Update: He'll Be Remembered, But Not Missed

When last we left our totally anti-heroes, they well up shit creek.  Bill the Elf had revealed the rest of the party's hideout to the Minotaur SWAT team, and he had then turned himself in to a human collaborator, revealing his real identity and demanding that he be taken to the wizard Pertinax (the crazy wizard who was responsible for the teleporting of random minotaurs to attack the party; which he'd achieved through the production of cursed minotaur-underwear, in order to attain immortality).

Now:

-Bill gets handed over to the Minotaur Police, who quickly shackle him up, gag him and put a bag over his head. Soon he's doing the "Guantanamo shuffle" into a van, hoping it will take him to Pertinax.

-The PCs in the attic of the hideout are about to be raided by the SWAT; they come up with a plan to send their new Clown-Minotaur Zombie down, holding a grenade. Unfortunately, Minotaur Zombies aren't very good at holding live grenades, and he drops it right over the trap door, blowing himself to bits and alerting the SWAT to the PCs' presence.

-"Captain, there's a secret door!"
"It's more like a secret hole now, asswipes!"

-"Fuck all you guys, I'm casting Ekim's Mystical Mask!"
"Maybe one of the results is that it protects you from gas grenades?"
"It doesn't, because that would actually be useful"

-The PCs decide to try to break down a wall and climb their way out of the attic; unfortunately, when Chu tries to kick the wall, he does no damage and falls flat on his back.
"Great, we're going to be defeated by a wall."

-The Fishman had cast enlarge and spider-climb, and when the Minotaur SWAT team burst in he skitters up to the roof.
"What the fuck is that?"
"Some kind of wall-crawling fish-man!"

-"the captain is the largest minotaur you've ever seen. He's like the Dolph Lundgren of Minotaurs"

-"Chu can break the wall!"
"No Chu can't"

-"I'm 25% taller now, can I reach the window?"
"No, even 25% taller, Chu is still under 8' tall"

-"What did you roll on the deed die?"
"I rolled a Chu."
"NO! We're not taking it that far."

-The Minotaur SWAT are rushing in!
"Chu goes into a fetal position on the floor"

-One of the Minotaurs pumps of a burst of gunfire into Ack'basha, and he's down!
"I did it! I killed Ack'basha the terrorist! Tholia, Fuck Yeah!!"

-Zeke rushes at the Minotaur by the cracked wall, and both fall through it. Miraculously, the Minotaur breaks Zeke's fall!

-The Fishman, who was still on the roof, scuttles out the same hole to escape!
"I'll follow Zeke; I can either kill him or we can.."
"What?? Save us all with you and Zeke both at 1hp and your Ekim's Mystical Mask?"
"fuck you!"

-Chu decides that he might as well give it a shot too, so he jumps out the hole in the wall under heavy gunfire. He too breaks his fall on a minotaur corpse, and gets away, catching up to the other two when the weaklings are frantically trying to lift a manhole cover to get into the sewers.

-Dolph Lundgren Minotaur is a Minotaur of duty; he was told to assassinate Ack'basha but he has his doubts about the reasoning for his orders.
"He's a good guy, but a terrible actor!"

-The matter is irrelevant, however. Ack'basha fails his luck roll. The cleric is dead!

-"Bill the elf feels a great disturbance in the force... he gets hard!"

-"Ack'basha died like he lived.. trying to kill a minotaur."

-Ack'basha's player gives him a 'viking funeral':

-The other PCs (and Zeke) are not yet aware that Ack'basha has died. All except the fishman, mind you, who has broken the 4th wall.
"We're saved by G.O.D.'s grace! I'm sure Ack'basha is fine too, as he's G.O.D.'s chosen servant!"
"Dude, I can hear Ack'basha's player rolling dice for his new zero-levels. I'm telling you he's dead!"
"huh??"

-Eulogies for Ack'basha:
Chu: "He was a real fucker."
Fishman: "he'll be remembered, but not missed."
Bill: "He's now in the Holiest Sanctuary of all!"


Ack'basha, a self-portrait made by his player:

-"It's sad that Ack'basha died, by I really thought for a bit that everyone was going to die, except Bill."
"So it would have been a Total Party Bill?"

-The surviving non-Bill PCs are making their way through the sewers, when they run into a trio of newbies: a human food taster for the Minotaur Royal Family, a Halfling Marine who fled the palace with the food taster, and a human alcoholic they ran into in the sewers.
Ack'basha's player is looking over his three new 0-levels trying to decide what class they could eventually play: "In theory, they could all be clerics, but I really don't want to play another cleric right away."
"Remember, the Halfling can't be a Cleric"
"Yeah, halflings have no god, and no god wants them!"

-"It's three new guys: that means either Bill or Ack'basha are dead!"

-"Can you heroes help us get out of here?"
"My friend, we can't help anyone!"

-Meanwhile, Bill the Elf is inside the palace and finally meets face-to-face with Pertinax the wizard.

-"So, some of your friends have escaped, but Ack'basha the cleric is dead!"
"Really? Thank you!"

-"I'm supposed to believe you have no intention of avenging Ack'Basha's death?!"
"He killed me twice! Trust me, I'm OK with it!"

-"Alright then, what do you want??"
"Huh. That's a good question... I usually just wanted the opposite of whatever Ack'Basha wanted. But now... my life has no purpose!"

-When Bill enthusiastically offers to commit genocide on the Minotaur race if that's what Pertinax wants, Pertinax starts to get the uncomfortable sensation that of the two of them, he might actually be the 'good guy', at least compared to Bill.

-"So do you Minotaurs have any weaknesses?"
"No, we have no weaknesses!"

-"So what's the Alcoholic's INT?"
"7"
"So he's not even a smart drunk!"
"he's still smarter than Bill!"

-The food taster snuck back into the palace, and found out that Pertinax, having apparently cut some kind of deal, has let Bill go.
"So the plan is, you newbies will go out on the city streets looking for Bill"
"Oh, and remember, he doesn't actually look like an Elf; he looks like a glowing mutant-human"
"So, he's called Bill the Elf but he doesn't look anything like an Elf?"
"Bill's a Trans-Elf! You have to respect his pronouns!"

-When they finally find Bill, they learn that his deal with Pertinax was basically that Bill agreed to keep slaying the cursed minotaurs as they appeared, to help him reach immortality. And that he and the PCs would leave Tholia, never to return. So, with Ack'basha confirmed dead, the rest of the party promptly teleports away to return to the tower that holds the Libram of Ten Spheres, to get rid of Bill's geas.

-"So wait, there's still going to be minotaur attacks?"
"Yes."
"So we've accomplished nothing?"
"As usual, yes."

-The PCs arrive back in the Badlands, but decide to rest up so that they can recover much needed hp and spellburnt attributes.
"Man, NOW I'm starting to miss Ack'basha... well, his healing magic, anyways."

-No sooner do the PCs start to rest, that a Minotaur attacks! Chu gets KOed, the Fishman chickens out, Bill fires a magic-missile and phases out to the ethereal plane, and Zeke can't hit the broad-side of a barn. But the Newbies incredibly turn out to be the heroes: the alcoholic and the halfling in particular kick the shit out of the minotaur for everyone.
"Holy fuck, that alcoholic is a Drunken Master!"

-Realizing that they need to hunker down and have some protection against random Minotaur attacks, they move over to the tower, and camp out by its wall, with a Sequester spell for protection.

-"The alcoholic is out of booze!"
"That's OK, being an alcoholic is not a state, it's a way of life."

-Some kobolds show up, and the PCs make short work of them.  The halfling is starting to scare everyone; freed from the discipline of being part of the Minotaur Emperor's guard, he's quickly going back to  his feral state. He eats a kobold corpse, starts wearing hide-armor, and putting a kobold skull on his head as a cap.

-A minotaur teleports in, but promptly falls into a pit trap!
"It turns out minotaurs aren't very good at climbing!"
"So they DO have a weakness! That other minotaur lied to me!"

-The halfling gleefully throws kobold corpses into the pit to annoy the minotaur, until the other PCs mercy-kill it.

-While the PCs are recovering, the Fishman finishes his studies and has now learned Patron Bond!
"Great! Now you can randomly end up stuck with the King of Elfland as a patron!"

-Some more kobolds attack, and when they fail, they send a band of ogres.  The party kicks the shit out of them too. The halfling takes to making himself a necklace of ogre-teeth.
"This halfling is seriously starting to freak the shit out of me!"

-"Raf was my halfling slave-name! From now on, I want to be known as...um.. Ref!!"

-Fully recovered, the PCs decide to head into the tower. As the newbies level-up, the halfling decides to join the party in the tower, while the other two stay outside to stand guard (and no doubt bugger off, unless the halfling dies).

-"Ack'basha was bound to die, I just didn't know it wouldn't get to be Bill who did it"
"You did rat them out, so in a way you did it by proxy."
"Hey, I saved your life once too! Remember that time when you were unconscious and I just shook you awake instead of offing you?"
"So not having killed me counts as 'saving' me?"
"Bill saved you from himself!"
"If only someone could save Bill from himself!"


Well, that's it for this session!  Stay tuned next time when the party, sans Ack'basha but plus one really deranged Halfling, ventures back into the blue tower to seek out the Libram of the Ten Spheres!

RPGPundit

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