DCC Campaign Update: Could I Negotiate With Someone a Little Less Stupid?

As of last session, our PCs were in the caves below the temple of the Lord of Blood and Fire. They had found (and "mended") the giant magical battle mecha in the form of the aforementioned Daemon, and had gone down into the cave to try to find the specific gems that they believe powered the mecha.

But they'd had a pretty bad time down there, with the death of several of their key members (Chu, the Drunken Master, and the Fishman wizard); most of them killed due to the fault of Morris the Creep. However, their numbers were quickly replaced by a cleric from the cult of Ackbasha named Shebubu, a bard with an axe-lute who can't speak above a whisper, and a guy named Whoom that is knows he's the new PC of the player who formerly played the Fishman. They'd just finished taking out a demonic monster from the demiplane of Blood and Fire, and sealed the gate to that demiplane (at least, temporarily, using Ward Portal).

Now:

-"Bill won't die by accident. Only through his own stupidity, or the effort of someone (let's face it, probably the other PCs) to actively try to kill him"

-"Where's Shebubu?"
"His player didn't come today."
"What the fuck are you talking about, Whoom?"
"Never mind"
"Anyways, I'm sure he'll turn up"
"The other 0-level guy that came with the Whisperbard is gone too you know, now that Whisperbard is lv.1"
"huh? you talk weird"

-Morris: "Did someone die last time?"
"What the fuck?! You really just said that??"

-"I look forward to seeing a conversation between the Whisperbard and Bolt-0! A dude who can't speak above a whisper and a robot who can't modulate the tone of his own voice..."

-"I don't cast Mend that often. Usually we only break things."

-"Bill wants to commit genocide on the radioactive mutants?"
"Yes"
"But... you ARE a radioactive mutant!"
"Only temporarily"

-"Who has Chu's bag?"
"Whoom?"
"You do?"
"Whoom's bag are you talking about?"
"Exactly!"
"You fuckers."

-"I have no idea who has the bag."
"Bill, you're holding it in plain sight!"

-"I want to destroy the idol!"
"Me too!"
"Whoa... are you some kind of mind reader or something?"

-"These idiots want to use the Idol to destroy Tholia! It's not even on the same continent! How would we even get there?"
"What's a tholia?"
"We call it Minotauria"
"Is that a land full of Minotaurs?"
"Exactly! That's why they should have called it Minotauria!"

-Suddenly, the party suffers another random minotaur attack!
"From minotauria?"
"There's no place called that!"
Fortunately, the party had sequester up, which meant this particular minotaur immolated himself in 1/6th of a combat round.
"See? That's why we want to keep being attacked by minotaurs! Easy XP!"

-The party has to get back up to the mecha idol, and Morris, who was responsible for wrecking the lift and killing half the party, is drafted to be the one to climb the 200' cable to the top.
"Can't someone go with me??"
Whisperbard: "I can go right behind you, and shout down to the others if you get attacked by the shadow monster"

-The party decides to rest the night before the climb.
"Ok, the password for the new sequester is 'Chu'".
"How many?"
"There's Chu passwords?"

-"The wizard Nikos and I are pals!"
"I love that you think that."
"Didn't he kill your brother Ted? And wasn't that what drove you insane and turned you into history's greatest monster?"
"That's like the Joker being grateful to Batman for making him what he is."

-"Someone needs to keep watch."
"I'll keep watch you guys."
"Oh great. Now someone needs to stay up to keep an eye on Morris while he keeps watch."
"#creepyjuggler"

-Half the party has taken to whispering back when the whisperbard talks to them.
"Stop whispering, you fucks!"

-"So it's decided: we're going to do on purpose what we usually do unintentionally... fuck everything up!"

-It turns out the Shadow-beast is still in the sequester-area of the engine room. It tries to attack.  Whisperbard throws Bill (in a Colossus/Wolverine "fastball special" style) up into the room but he ends up falling flat on his face.

-Whoom climbs into the room, but forgets to say the password to enter the sequester and ends up brutally self-immolating!
Note: this was after all the players were just reminded of the password, and after a lengthy discussion with Bill's Player about whether or not he needed to say the password. There was literally NO excuse for Whoom's player forgetting to say the password literally two minutes after all this.

(the rest of the party had this reaction):

-"Whoom the Self-Aware was self-aware of everything except how not to catch fire."

-"Well, Whoom's death marks the end of the self-aware characters."
"Thank god!"

-"Whoom failed his luck check. He's definitely dead."
"Morris is going to neck-stab him a few times, just in case."

-Once the Shadow-creature is destroyed, the PCs put Whoom to rest by kicking his corpse down the shaft into the cave.
"Goodnight, sweet prince!"
"He'll be missed... whatever his name was."

-Getting back to the temple, they of course find Wally the Airdale Terrier/Scout with three newbie 0-level PCs: A Mutant Mutant-Hunter (with psychic powers), a Mutant Equestrian (with a horse named "buttercup"), and a Dwarven Rat-Catcher.

-"Do we really want to join this party?  We may get cancer from the radiation mutant!"
"Oh please, none of you are going to live long enough to die of cancer!"

-"Man, I thought your Mutant-hunter was going to be like a bounty hunter or something, not a fucking degenerate."

-"This mutant-hunter is a freaking creep, but he may or may not be worse than Morris."

-"this forest was created by G.O.D.! So I say we burn it to the ground."

-There's a weird feature to the world of the Last Sun: there's lots of normal animals who can talk, and lots who can't.  There isn't really any visible difference between the two, until one starts talking.

-"If my horse can't talk, and goes through the sequester but I call out the password as I ride it through, it won't catch fire, right?"
"well, you can't be sure."

-The PCs decide to hold out in the temple, and to attract the Duke of Abstinence and his army of orcs, they start banging on their shields and making noise. The Whisperbard plays his axe-lute.

-Some Orcs do show up, but they're zombie orcs. They die crossing the sequester. The PCs light their corpses on fire in the hopes the smoke will attract the Duke.

-Instead, a Minotaur appears!  The Psychic Mutant Mutant-Hunter tries to use his "dominate" power to control the Mutant, but the cost is so high it leaves him completely paralyzed.
"The Mutant gimped himself!"

-Night falls.
"During his watch, Morris stares creepily at all the other PCs while they sleep."

-In the morning, the Mutant Equestrian wakes up to see a huge army of orcs assembled outside the temple.
"Guys!! This is important, wake up! Hurry!"
"What??"
"Do any of you have a horse-brush on you?"

-"Attention, scum!"
"I think they're talking to us..."

-The Duke is somewhere in the forest, surrounded by 300 orc mercenaries.

-"Could I negotiate with someone a little less stupid?"
"I don't think that's possible."

-Attempts at negotiation fail, and Bill decides to fuck it all and maxes out on a Cloudkill spell. He kills two-thirds of the orcish army in one round.

-The Dwarven Rat-Catcher is killed by a hail of arrows, and Bill is somewhat injured.

-"Can you heal me, cleric?"
"Fine, but only because you're going to kill a shitload of G.O.D.'s creatures!"
"Just like Ack'basha used to!"

-"Did we leave anyone alive in the forest?"
"Dude, even the birds are dead."

-Suddenly, there's yet another minotaur attack!  Bill sacrifices his last remaining magic sword to regain his Magic Missile spell, and then fails his roll, accomplishing nothing.

-"G.O.D. damn it! Literally!"
Zabaz the God-hating cleric manages to delay the minotaur with "Word of Command: Shit", allowing the newbies to make short work of him.

-"At this point there's been so many minotaur attacks that when I open the DCC book it flips naturally to the 'minotaur' entry."

-The next day, when the PCs are triumphantly returning to Gaga City, there's another minotaur attack. Bill injures it with a magic missile and promptly vanishes to the Neutral Zone. The minotaur gores the Whisperbard right through the heart.  Tragically, the whisperbard has died!

-Bill finds the transparent mutant pirate (now a 1st level wizard) in the Neutral Zone.
"How the hell did he end up there??"
"He became a little TOO transparent"

-The people of Gaga were forewarned by their bird-based social networking that the PCs were arriving, and they greet their heroes with a huge party. The PCs learn they are to be guests of honor at Queen Zoey's ceremonial pole-dance.

-The wizard Palombo is there too. He only has a small library but promises Bill (and the transparent wizard) that they can use it.

-Harembe (Queen Zoey's apeman bodyguard) is there too, having just arrived from Highbay.

-When rewards are being handed out, the mutant equestrian gets in line, hoping no one will notice that he wasn't with the original party that set out.
"Your highness, I would like to be one of your knights!"
"I'm sorry, who are you?"

-In a surprising act of party fraternity, the other PCs insist that the equestrian was crucial to the party's success, so Zoey knights him anyway.

-"After what you have done for my kingdom, you are all welcome to stay here as long as you like! Or until you become unpopular."
"So.. not long then?"

That's it for this week. We'll see how long the PCs manage to keep up their heroic reputation in Coolland. Will they turn a corner and start being good guys? Or is this just a temporary blip in an otherwise perfect career thus far of fucking everything up beyond belief?
Stay tuned to find out!

RPGPundit

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