Saturday, 27 January 2018
DCC Campaign Update: Chocolate Jesus is Their Hippomagus
In our last session, the PCs had won the Death Race 3000! They were about to enter into the Citadel of the Wardens, which held the gate into the heart of the Sun, their most likely route to get to the Crown of Creation and to rescue G.O.D. from Sezrekhan.
That was four weeks ago, because we didn't play over new year.
Now:
-"Look, I'm over 40, it's been over four weeks, and I did a shitload of drugs in my early 20s. I could have murdered a prostitute 4 weeks ago and not remember it."
"I know how you could get blood stains off your clothes"
"Jesus Christ, Bill's player!"
-"I need to get some thief tools."
"You know a place called Chazob's Thief Tool Emporium. It's run by a mutant guy who looks like a baseball mascot. Or maybe it's just a regular guy in a baseball mascot outfit."
-"The high-tech thief tool kit includs a sonic screwdriver, sonic hammer, sonic grappling hook, well, sonic everything, basically."
-The Catboy decides to go with the modern-tech kit, that includes a multi-tool, a grappling-hook gun, and a makeup kit for disguise purposes.
"What the hell is he going to disguise himself as, other types of cats?!"
-"You notice how every shopkeeper who deals in illegal goods has a vaguely Eastern European accent?"
"So like a gypsy?"
"I guess."
"It could be worse, he could have gone full George Lucas."
-"A thief needs good tools."
"Hey, look at me, I began as simple Eastern-European stereotype, and now see what I've become!"
-"If I have one complaint about this campaign, it's that there hasn't been enough King of Elfland lately."
"he's like this campaign's More Cowbell!"
-When the PCs get together, they find out about Heidi's new girlfriend, Dorma the warrior-woman pseudo-klingon, who plans to slaughter the Wardens and take over the Citadel.
"Did you just proposition me?"
"I would shatter your pelvis, little man!"
-"I am your partner of blood, in every respect. I have thrown the ritual Heavy Objects at you! We are sworn to take the Citadel and bathe in the blood of the Wardens."
-"Vizi stop trying to show my partner your light-saber!"
-"Dorma, we're not actually trying to take over the Citadel, we're trying to get to the Sun."
"You wish to destroy the Sun? I am pleased! Since ancient times, my people have had but one great wish: to destroy the sun!"
"We don't want to destroy the Sun!"
"Yeah, we want to kill G.O.D.!"
"You do? I have chosen my mate wisely!"
-"Hey guys, where's the dolphin at?"
"We left him behind in the ATV."
"The one we sold?"
"Yeah."
"He'll be fine."
-The PCs walk down the great thoroughfare surrounded by cheering crowds, in a scene vaguely reminiscent of the end of Star Wars.
-Along the way, Heidi steals a trombone from a musician, and gives it to Max the Bard.
"Now I'm truly ready!"
-The Wardens appear. They're big-headed 1960s-sci-fi style psychic aliens.
-"Hey Wardens, see that pseudo-klingon woman? She wasn't with us!"
"Then she is expelled!"
"I will kill you, little man!!"
"Hey! You made the Wardens telekinetically eject my mate!"
"It was a bad match, Heidi."
-"The catboy was totally with us though. He's Mu."
"I am not!"
"He's Mu's buddy, Meow."
-The PCs enter the Citadel and find themselves in a completely barren white room, the Wardens standing above them ominously.
"We do congratulate you, champions, on winning the Death Race, but our immortal lifespans are long and boring, fulfilling our sacred duty..."
"He said doody!"
"Can you let him finish?!"
"That's what Sami said!"
-"You have ascertained by now that the promise of a long life filled with pleasure was a trick. We intend to use you for our amusment."
"Oh crap, you're not going to have sex with us, are you?"
-"Are you going to use us to fight with past champions?"
"No, they are all dead. We go through champions too quickly, unfortunately."
-"Look, we are here to kill G.O.D. in the Crown of Creation."
"That is forbidden!"
"Hug G.O.D.; I meant to say we are going to HUG G.O.D."
-"We are the Wardens. We guard the gateway to the Heart of the Sun! We will investigate these claims you have made about Sezrekhan taking over the Crown of Creation, and the menace he represents, and consider whether we could permit you to travel into the Heart of the Sun to deal with the crisis. But WHILE we consider, we want you to amuse us with a great challenge we have created for champions."
"Why should we?"
"We have placed a magical artifact that can raise the recently dead in our special track."
"Ok, we're in."
-"So I guess we're really doing this? We're doing another fucking side quest?"
-"I didn't want to go into the core of the sun anyways; I bet its hot."
"You'd be OK, you have fur!"
"How does that make any sense?! That's even worse!"
-"You are all being sent to the Death Zone, where our new contest is ready for you!"
"Can't we go somewhere nicer?"
"Don't worry, it's just a name.. it's not really Zone."
-The PCs arrive at the start of the Death Zone, in some woods.
"I hide"
"Why?"
"Because I'm a thief!"
"He's also a cat."
"And a coward"
"I'm all three!"
-"Even the Hippomagus is making fun of you, that's a new low!"
-"I'm going to climb this tree!"
"The catboy should get a bonus to climbing trees, but then be unable to get back down!"
-Heidi checks out the view from the air: he sees the woods branch off into two areas: a glowing wasteland of radioactive ruins, and a barren badland full of geysers steaming with noxious gases. Beyond both is a large lake of fire.
-"For a 'death zone' there's surprisingly few dangers in these woods."
"Maybe we're going to die of boredom?"
"I think the Wardens are truly shitty at making adventures."
-The tree at the intersection in the woods is moving. It's a Trent!
"I fly away."
"Hey, where are you going, asshole? I'm here to give you a warning! It's all I exist for!"
-"The two paths in the woods lead to terrible dangers."
"Yeah, a radioactive ruin and poison wasteland. I saw."
"So you know you're doomed either way!"
"No, we can just all fly over them."
"...You know, you're all a bunch of real assholes! Anyways, the one with a jetpack could fly away, but your companions will all die!"
"No, I can just fly them over one by one."
"Well fuck, why do I even exist then?!"
-"I'm already a mutant, what could happen if I went through the radiation zone?"
"Famous last words."
-"I'm a vegan mutant, so I'm already mostly vegetable."
"Truer words have never been spoken."
-"So a talking moving tree is a Trent?"
"Yes. To avoid copyright."
-"Wait, is 'the Hippomagus' your name, or title?"
"I took on that name when I became a wizard."
"What was your real name?"
"I'd rather not say please."
"Alright, now you have to tell us!"
"I bet your real name was Hungry-Hungry!"
-"We'll camp out here tonight."
"I'll sleep by the Trent."
"Don't try to fuck the trent, dude!"
"I just want to sleep with nature!"
"Sami knows all about that!"
-"You know, the Wardens are probably watching and listening to us..we should stop talking about how much this scenario sucks."
"Oh, yeah. Man am I feeling adequately challenged by this dumb adventure!"
-"OK, let's get to this."
"he said doodies!"
-That next morning, the Hippomagus remembers he can cast Fly, so he does so and the whole party gets across the badlands in one go.
"We are soo challenged right now!"
-Searching for the object, the Vegan rolls a '1' on Detect Magic and ends up growing goat hooves.
"Yes!"
-"The Vegan should try again."
"Why me? The cleric also has detect magic!"
"Yes, but the cleric is a valuable member of our party."
-The Pcs land in a small strange alien wood before the lake of fire. There, they encounter a Shrub-Ent with a scottish accent.
"If ye seek the object that will win the death zone, ye must cross the lake of fire. But beware! Its infested with Fire Sharks!"
"Do you have any treasures, shrub?"
"I'm a fucking shrub, what do ye think!? Boy, ye might be retarded."
"He is. It's the lack of protein."
-Avoiding both the lake and the fire-sharks by flying again, they arrive at a metal island in the middle of the lake. They find that in the middle of the Island there's a kind of hollow mountain, where supposedly the life-giving object is guarded by an Ettin, who is also made out of metal.
"Fuck's sake, it's like the Wardens are a 15-year old GM who's played too much RIFTS!"
-They encounter the Ettin, a two-headed metal giant, who is zealously guarding a metal mini-fridge. The Ettin apparently has a keen sense of smell.
"Fee Fi Fo Fum.. I smell the blood of a catperson!"
-In the ensuing fight, Sami dives on the mini-fridge to try to scoop it up, but finds it's bolted to the ground and she takes a nasty tumble.
-Max the bard plays the trombone during the fight.
"He's helping!"
"No, he's revealing our location! We were invisible, you idiot!"
-Vizi empties an entire clip of his automatic rifle, without hitting a damn thing.
"Suppressing fire!!"
-The Hippo-Magus, who is clearly improving as an adventurer session-by-session, kills the Ettin.
-It turns out the island has other defenders: a bunch of satyrs with explosive apples!
-Heidi shoots the bag of apples one of the satyrs is carrying and blows him to smithereens.
-Vizi empties yet another clip, once again not hitting a damn thing.
-They finally beat the satyr-bombers. Heidi is now 1xp from leveling up.
"He's in the danger zone!"
-The magical object turns out to be a "yogurt of revival". Apparently, when given to the recently dead, it may bring them back to life.
-Their mission completed, the PCs are transported back into the white room.
"Wow, Wardens, that was a really hard quest! I got a nasty paper cut here."
"I think I got the flu."
"the catboy lost the ability to hide!"
-"We have been considering your situation. We were created by the ancients to make sure no one unauthorized could pass into the Heart of the Sun."
"Wait, though, Mongo is an ancient! Tell them to let us through, Mongo!"
"There appears to be... something wrong, with your Ancient."
"No there isn't! He's just fine the way he is!"
-"Very well... we have no option but to let you pass, for we have been ordered to do so from an Ancient. Though we're pretty sure this was NOT what the Ancients really had in mind!"
"Tough shit. This is what you get for being Lawful Freaks!"
-"I only need 1 xp to level!"
"Kill the catboy."
"He's worth 0 xp."
-The PCs oblige the Wardens to give Max the bard the lifetime of pleasure that they had promised in the Death Race, since he has no interest in going with them into the Sun.
-"Hey Wardens, do you have anything that could make me smarter?"
"There are some things even beyond our great power!"
"well then, just give us a bunch of good shit!"
-"Could you guys remove this gem from inside my chest without killing me?"
"We can attempt it, though there is a risk you will die."
"Go for it"
"What? No! I don't consent!"
-"You guys can just make things out of thin air, right?"
"Basic elements, yes."
"We want cash!"
"We cannot create credits."
"What about platinum?"
"Sure!"
The Wardens create a small mountain of platinum tokens.
-"How are we going to carry all this?!"
"I could empty my waterskin."
"We're going into the Sun. We might need water!"
-The Vegan asks the powerfully-psychic Wardens to erase Ekim's Mystical Mask from his mind. They read the Vegan's mind and are horrified. One of them vomits.
-The wardens also remove the C4 Vizi had implanted inside him.
"It was put in my chest or something."
"No. We have detected the C4. It is in your colon."
"Sure, but it was put in there through my chest."
"No, it was clearly inserted via your anus."
"Hah!"
"That's OK. It's still better than when Mu was raped by ghosts."
-The Vegan just wants something, anything! Thus, he ends up blowing thousands and thousands of platinum pieces in sacrifices used by Sami to attempt (and fail) to use Divine Aid to restore his stamina.
"You should have known, when you bet on G.O.D. the house always wins!"
"G.O.D. was hungry!"
"G.O.D. doesn't love you, vegan."
-"We warn you heroes, the Core of the Sun contains special guardians."
"Special... like Mongo is special?"
-Heidi gets the Wardens to remove the Geas placed on him by the demon of the monolith removed; incredibly with no consequences to him as he succeeds at three consecutive saves!
-The Vegan still desperately wants to get something good out of his time with the Wardens.
"Hey, could you guys do psychic surgery to put those cyber-eyes we got in the slums in the Vegan?"
"Yes, but he may go blind!"
"DO IT!"
"Hey!!"
-"Wait, instead of replacing his real eyes, can you put them on the sides of his head?"
"No, how would that even work?"
-The Cyber-eye surgery fails!
"Apparently, just plucking out your real eyes with telekinesis and then trying to shove the cyber-eyes into your sockets didn't do the trick."
-The now-blind Vegan spends all his remaining share of the platinum on the cleric to use Divine Aid to try to get his eyes working. It fails.
"Man, now he's blind and broke!"
"And vegan!"
-Strangely, Sami feels pity for the Vegan, and makes use of some of her own money, and finally succeeds at activating the cyber-eyes. Unfortunately, the operation had also had the effect of leaving him alcoholic. So now he's an Alcoholic Vegan Psychic Cyborg Wizard.
-The whole drama with the Vegan done, the PCs are transported into the Heart of the Sun.
"It's very bright in here!"
-The light and heat, in spite of there being an obvious magical barrier protecting the PCs, is intense.
"Because of his infrared systems in his cyber-eyes, the Vegan is effectively blind right now."
"Fuck!"
-The PCs encounter the guardians of the heart of the sun: the Jesus Patrol!
There's Historical Jesus, Republican Jesus, Sweet Baby Jesus, Black Jesus, Chocolate Jesus (he's not black, he's made of chocolate), and a Mexican guy named Jesus.
"We are the guardians of the Sun!"
"Yo no se porque estoy aqui. Creo que hubo algun tipo de error?"
-"Hey Black Jesus, do you know a guy named Blitzkrieg Sakomano?"
"What the fuck, dude, you think we all know each other?!"
-"What we really need right now is Tech Support Jesus."
-"You guys, I think Chocolate Jesus is their Hippomagus."
-"Historical Jesus will go and consult your presence with the Heart of the Sun. But I warn you, the Heart of the Sun has not really been herself since that thing..."
"Wait, the Heart of the Sun is a woman?"
-"the Spirit of Sun is a stunningly impressive female figure made of pure fire!"
"Well, hello there!"
-Apparently, the Spirit of the Sun has lost the 'transit orb' which is needed to use the gateway to the Crown of Creation. It was stolen by an ex-boyfriend named Fabritzio.
"I.. I just make terrible choices in relationships."
-"Where is Fabritzio?"
"Well, the last time I met him was on the surface of the world. But that was a few hundred years ago so who knows?"
"A few hundred years ago? Oh shit, he's probably dead!"
"Oh, that's right. I forgot that humans live for such a short time..."
"So he was a human?"
"Yes. At least I think so. You mortals all kind of look alike to me."
"So what was special about this guy that made you fall for him?"
"He was cool and rode a bike."
-The PCs agree to help, and after the Spirit of the Sun changes shape into a non-fiery form, she teleports them all down to the surface, to the last spot she'd seen Fabritzio.
It turns out to be the Zombie Empire.
And on that bombshell, we ended the session! Stay tuned next time to see if the PCs manage to recover the 'transit orb' and get back to the mission at hand!
RPGPundit
Currently Smoking: Lorenzetti "A" + Peterson's Old Dublin
POSTSCRIPT: If you love this campaign, and want to see the world it's based on, be sure to check out the Last Sun supplements for RPGPundit Presents!:
Hipster Elves!
Gazetteer of the Middle-Northern Wildlands
The Great City of Arkhome
Stay tuned for more!
Alcoholic Vegan Psychic Cyborg Wizard is now the name of my theoretical The Who cover band.
ReplyDeleteJust read the next update, the vegan gets a couple of corruptions that make it even stranger.
DeleteYou'd think it'd be more of a kind of Prog-Rock band name
ReplyDelete