Thursday, 31 January 2019

Adventure: The Defilers

In this week's RPGPundit Presents, I give you a new medieval-authentic adventure scenario!

An anonymous donor funds a renewal of the church at Netley Abbey, but to what end? Are the two Fathers who they claim to be or is there more to their story? And what is the connection to the Gild Merchant and their gangs?

 The Defilers is an adventure is playable for Lion & Dragon or any other OSR game, or for D&D or other fantasy RPGs with slight modification.  It is an investigative adventure, and if the players aren't careful or lucky, they could end up facing a powerful supernatural menace.  As with most Medieval-Authentic adventures, this is set (by default, you could change it) in real medieval locations and based on concepts from medieval legend and folklore!



Plus you get a floorplan of what a real medieval abbey looked like!

So be sure to check out RPGPundit Presents #65: The Defilers at DTRPG or from the Precis Intermedia Webstore!


And while you're at it, be sure to pick up the rest of the great supplements in the RPGPundit Presents series:


RPGPundit Presents #1: DungeonChef!

RPGPundit Presents #2: The Goetia  (usable for Lion & Dragon!)

RPGPundit Presents #3: High-Tech Weapons


RPGPundit Presents #5: The Child-Eaters (an adventure scenario for Lion & Dragon!)









RPGPundit Presents #17: The Hunters (an adventure for Lion & Dragon!)




RPGPundit Presents #21: Hecate's Tomb (an adventure for Lion & Dragon!)































RPGPundit Presents #54: Medieval College Adventures (compatible with Lion & Dragon)




RPGPundit Presents #58: Expanded Prior History Tables  (compatible with Lion & Dragon!)





Stay tuned for more next week!

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Mastro De Paja Rhodesian + Image Virginia 





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Wednesday, 30 January 2019

Video: D&D Is Not For "Making Story": The History

There's a whole generation of new D&D gamers who missed all the long history of people studying and debating RPG theory, and the thinking behind the conclusion that regular RPGs are not a good medium for 'making story'.  And a lot of them have been fed the same old bullshit as in the old days, being told that's what D&D is for.

So here's uncle Pundit giving all the newbies a history lesson explaining the long history of studies and how they proved RPGs are not for story-making, and what they really are for, and why it matters.



RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Lil Devil Corncob + Image Virginia
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Tuesday, 29 January 2019

Classic Rant: Real Magick in RPGs; "Spells", Part II


 I decided, based on some of the comments I got from the repost of the classic "real magick" series to elaborate a little bit on the mechanics of ritual magick and what you could call "spellcasting" within that system.

Now again, remember, before I proceed, that if you're using this in a modern occult RPG, you should note that 90% of the people who claim to be 'into' the occult will never, ever actually do any magick at all. Some of them will, when pressed, admit they "tried the lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram once, and nothing happened, so I didn't do it again". 
Only a tiny minority actually get to the place where they're even ATTEMPTING to do actual magick.

Then they want to imagine it looks all like this:



And once in a very long while it does, if you have a group, and a temple space, and a lot of money and support; but more often it looks like this:



Some guy in his basement trying to muddle through a spell with whatever resources he has.

And the thing is: the fancy groups with all the trappings? Shitloads of time, they'll be worthless. They're obviously successful enough to but together a coherent facade, so that means they've got more stability and won't be completely out to lunch, but they have to sacrifice too much to practicality and compromise, and so won't be very intense. They might pull off decent initiations, or those sorts of group rituals where the goal is just that everyone walk away feeling good and all 'energized' about the experience, but the likelihood that they'll do anything really extreme or intense is very very low.

The dude in the basement? 90% of the time he'll be a nutcase pursuing a dead end. Or a slacker, cutting too many corners, too worried about looking cool with his pet snake (even though there's no one there to see him) and not bothering to memorize the ritual to actually do anything effectively. But once in a while, he'll be the guy who can actually put enough raw intensity into the work to get something to happen.

And that's when the basement stops looking like the above, and starts looking like this:




So I guess the lesson in this long preamble is that the really effective magician will neither worry about appearances NOR cut corners. They will not concern themselves with technicalities or visual impressiveness for its own sake, but will at the same time make every effort to do the best work and put the most intensity into the operation with whatever resources they have at hand.


Now, one important detail I think may have been still misunderstood from my explanation of "spells" in the original blog entry I reposted yesterday is that magick doesn't organize itself in terms of what effects you want to do. The whole D&D paradigm of "this is the Fire Ball Spell!" or even "this is transmutation magick, which works in a specific way, and different from conjuration magick" is not correct. I realized that people were making this mistake when someone looked at my list from yesterday and asked me "ok, but what if you want to do a curse?"

Magick is organized not by the effect you can do with a type of magick (so it's not that there's "curse magic") but rather by what medium you use to have effects take place (and whether you're dealing with 'higher' powers, 'lower' powers, trying to go to them, trying to get them to come to you, or making use of "linking" objects so that you and they can connect without either having to "go" anywhere).

So to explain:

Let's say you need money. You could do that through:

-An Invocation of the spirit of Jupiter

-an evocation of a Goetic spirit that is theoretically supposed to be able to bring you gold.

-by 'banishing' all the obstacles in the Earth Element that get in the way of your achieving financial stability.

-by performing a divination to determine what would be the best way to make some money.

-by doing a sigil with bindrune magick or chaos magick that is meant to attract money.


All of the above would have very different manifestations and delivery methods for what you're trying to achieve. They are different tools to the same end, but take different paths to get there. 
Invoking Jupiter means trying to put a piece of the Archetypal God of Prosperity and Power inside you, to make that change you from within and impress on people without. Evoking a goetic spirit is where you are summoning up one of those unredeemed 'shadow side' shell-being non-entities that represents all those things within you and without you that sabotage your efforts to make a living, and turning it around so that it (and all of it's bad qualities) starts working for you, instead of against you. 

Banishing the earth element means trying to have a clean slate, to wipe out everything getting in your way, and knotting you up on the inside and out.

 A divination is to try to connect yourself to your subconscious and to Superconsciousness, to achieve a moment of trance or clarity where the right choices and path become clear to you.

 A sigil is taking your will (and often other stuff, like your Need, your strong emotions, your fear, your frustration, all your emotional energy, and all your ambition, and all your desire) and putting into a symbol that exists in a physical form in the world (usually on a piece of paper, but it could be carved into wood, or a rock, or engraved into metal), and doing some energized trance-based cathartic ritual of release of all these things into that symbol, which then manifests as an expression of Change in the world. 


Now, those are all the kind of things that happen with someone who is starting out, or getting a bit of practice. The low-level practitioner. For the beginner, the first timer, any of the above can go wrong, it can get fucked up, or nothing can happen; there can be not enough focus, not enough intensity, not enough understanding of what one's true Will really is demanding from one, or any number of other things that can generate failure. Experience increases success and also makes it clearer what KIND of magick is best for any given situation.

But now, if you were particularly competent, you might already have a working relationship with a facet of a god that contacted you on the astral plane, and provided you with detailed instructions for how to create and consecrate a talismanic object that will resolve your financial difficulties, making clear the conditions that applied (like, for example, that you MUST accept whatever offer or opportunity for work comes your way). You would receive information that would lead you to a coin of no known origin in a place it shouldn't be, then perform the appropriate consecration and invocation ceremony to the glory of this Jupiteran-Aspect God, and then take careful measurements of subsequent results as you use the talismanic coin with the special mudra that was indicated to you on the astral plane.

Adept-level magick looks like that last paragraph. Where did you think Morrison got all that psychedelic stuff in The Invisibles from?


RPGPundit

(Originally Posted January 9, 2015)
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Monday, 28 January 2019

RPGPundit Presents is Back in Spanish!

So, when the RPGPundit Presents series came out, it was originally being matched with a Spanish Translation for every issue, which I figured was a good idea in terms of offering that as a service to Spanish-speaking gamers that might prefer the books in their native tongue rather than English.

Unfortunately, our translator had some personal difficulties that got in the way of that project continuing. While I'm fully fluent in Spanish, and my spoken Spanish is very good, I'm definitely not up to a level of writing in Spanish that would be viable for a professionally made product. So for a while, we were forced to suspend the Spanish issues.

But now we're back! Our translator was able to take up the job again and we hope that the series will continue.

As of today, I present our Spanish readers with RPGPundit Presents #41: Mercaderes y Caravanas Medievales.  This is a translation of Medieval-Authentic Merchants & Caravans.

"Este número presenta pautas para dirigir actividades comerciales medievales en juegos OSR, incluyendo lo que ocurre durante viajes en caravana (encuentros varios) y ferias mercantiles, además de cómo gestionar impuestos, peajes y conflictos."

So, if you're a Spanish gamer, be sure to check it out! You can purchase Mercaderes Y Caravanas Medievales on DTRPG, or from the Precis Intermedia Webstore!


RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Dunhill Shell Diplomat + C&D's Crowley's Best


(note: as of the moment of publication, DTRPG is down for some upkeep, so if you were planning to purchase it there and the link doesn't work, you can either try again later, or alternately pick it up from the Precis store!)


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Sunday, 27 January 2019

Wild West Campaign: The Death of Jeff Young

In today's session a couple of critical events took place.

First, Bat Masterson found himself obliged from lack of funds to sell his share of the Oriental Saloon to Milt Joyce. He'd have sold to Wyatt Earp, but Wyatt was even more broke than Bat, between the expenses required to keep the family safe and a large investment in one of the only lots in the Tombstone mines that failed to dig a damn penny of silver.



With Milt Joyce now owning the majority of the Oriental, Wyatt was left with no choice but to sell his share as well. Now the Oriental, which had been Wyatt's home base since arriving in Tombstone, was in the hands of a former business-partner who had soured to the Earps, to Doc Holliday and to everything to do with them. Joyce had turned to the side of the Cowboys.



Worse still, no sooner had Joyce taken over the Oriental that he sold half of it (at a profit) to Johnny Behan, the political tool of the Cowboys and corrupt Cochise County Sheriff.

Wyatt wasn't going to stand for that. So he went into the Oriental and started playing Faro. And he kept right on playing for a day and a half, walking away with $10000, effectively bankrupting the Oriental and their owners.

Crazy Miller went to offer Joyce the chance to sell the Oriental; but Joyce, knowing Crazy's allegiance to the Earps, told him to his face that he'd rather see the Oriental burnt to the ground than sell it to Miller. Miller responded that this just might be arranged.

Meanwhile, the Earp's trusted jailer and master coffee-maker Cooter had been on a routine trip to the Tombstone mines for the Marshal's office. He'd done the route because nowhere outside of Tombstone was safe from the Cowboys. In the town, the Cowboys were mostly behaving themselves - excepting Johnny Ringo who got drunk and shouted at Wyatt and Morgan that he wanted them dead, in broad daylight. It looked like something might happen but then Doc Holliday showed up and said "Why Johnny Ringo, all I want from you is ten paces out in the street". Ringo and Holliday were about to face off, but Behan and Jeff Young stopped the duel by each threatening to arrest their own man. Neither the Cowboys nor the Earp gang were quite ready for open combat in the streets just yet.



But beyond the town, the Cowboys ruled. And after Mayor Clum was attacked on the road last month, the Earps figured that any of them would be in danger if they tried to go out there themselves; but they sent Cooter figuring he was innocuous enough that the Cowboys wouldn't bother with him.

Only Cooter never made it to the mines. He'd disappeared along the way. With Virgil still recovering from his assault (and unlikely to ever be able to use his left arm again), and Wyatt distracted with his vendetta faro-game against Milt Joyce and Behan, Deputy Marshal Morgan Earp found himself in a quandry. He finally decided to send out Deputy Charlie Bassett along with Deputy Jeff Young, Kid Taylor and Sherman McMaster to find out what had happened to Cooter. Of course, the Cowboys were prime suspects.

They found the Tombstone Mining Corp wagon off the road from the mines; it had been attacked and the driver slain. Cooter, the horses and the cargo of the wagon were all missing. Bassett easily found a trail leading toward the Dragoon Hills. They  had crossed paths along the way with a troop of a dozen US Cavalrymen, who were looking for some stolen horses. They suspected either Mexican Banditos or Commancheros, leading the posse to think that maybe it wasn't the Cowboys who had taken Cooter. They kept following the trail.

By the next morning, the PCs on the streets of Tombstone were surprised to see a horse approaching carrying a Mexican girl and Cooter.  Cooter had been taken by Commancheros, managed to fast talk his way out of being slaughtered, and then the Mexican girl helped him escape; she was a prisoner of the Commancheros and figured Cooter and Tombstone were her best shot at getting away. According to Cooter there were 13 Commancheros in the horse-rustling gang, and the PCs realized that the posse they sent out were potentially headed into serious trouble, while looking for a man who had already gotten away.

Left without  much choice, Morgan Earp decided to go out with another posse to try to rescue the first. He took Other Miller, Crazy Miller, Buckskin Frank Leslie, and Turkey Creek Jack Johnson with him. Bat Masterson and Doc Holliday stayed behind to watch Wyatt's back while he played his epic faro game in the Oriental.

Unfortunately, even knowing exactly where the Commanchero camp was, the second posse were still at least six hours behind. They also started to be followed (from a distance) by some cowboys almost as soon as they left town. Three Cowboys turned into eight, and then thirteen, and just when it looked like the Cowboys would ride in for a fight, the PCs saw the Cavalry approaching (literally) from the other side. The Cowboys turned back, figuring that killing US Cavalry troops would not be a good career move. The Cavalry troop mentioned having seen Bassett's posse the day before, and the PCs explained that their companions were hunting the self-same Commancheros who'd stolen the US Cavalry horses. So the Cavalrymen went with the second posse.

But meanwhile, the first posse had already been spotted by a couple of Commanchero scouts in the early morning; and they saw them back. In spite of knowing that they were facing Commancheros, and that the Commancheros knew they were coming, everyone in Bassett's posse agreed to go forth, to rescue Cooter.

They spotted a trio of Commancheros, waiting to ambush them from higher ground behind some rocks. They got off their horses and behind some trees and started shooting. Unfortunately, they hadn't spotted the Indian Commanchero who was behind them with a bow and arrow. They were in a crossfire. When Jeff Young went to shoot at the archer, one of the Commancheros behind the rock got a bead on him and managed an incredibly lucky shot that went right through Young's heart.

Jeff Young was easily the best gunfighter of all the PCs. He was probably one of the three best gunfighters in the entire Wild West; only Johnny Ringo or Doc Holliday were likely to be his match. But in the west, even the very best shots can die in a fraction of a second from bad luck.   And that Commanchero had a bullet with Young's name on it.

After that, everything had gone to hell. The archer shot an arrow into Sherman McMaster's shoulder, knocking him down. Kid Taylor managed to shoot the archer, but another Commanchero got a lucky shot on Charlie Bassett; Bassett was also hit in the shoulder but worse than McMaster, the shot left him unconscious and the bullet was lodged. Kid Taylor dropped a second Commanchero while McMaster struggled to grab his rifle in spite of his vicious wound. The other two fired at kid, one of them shooting off his favorite bowler hat and slightly grazing his skull; an inch lower and Kid Taylor would have died too.



McMaster, a tough former Texas Ranger, managed to grab his rifle and fire from a prone position, killing a third Commanchero, and then as the last one was about to shoot McMaster back, Kid Taylor took him out.

The Lawmen had won this round but Young was dead, Bassett and McMaster were both seriously injured, and they all knew that there were more Commancheros likely coming, so they found themselves forced to beat a hasty retreat.

They rode toward the Tombstone Mines, which was closer than the town, but a couple of hours on the way they ran into the second posse and the Cavalrymen. Both groups were shocked, one at the death of James Young, and the other at discovering that Cooter was safe and back in Tombstone. The whole group wanted revenge against the Commancheros for the death of their comrade; but Kid Taylor had to treat Bassett and McMaster (who would've slowed down the posse anyways). So they headed toward the mines, along with Buckskin Frank for extra protection.  The rest of the party and the Cavalry unit headed toward the Commancheros.

Kid Taylor got the injured to the mining camp and managed to treat the other lawmen's injuries.

Meanwhile, the main posse got to the Commanchero camp only to find that they'd already raised stakes. They obviously realized that their location had been compromised and headed south, probably toward the Mexican border.

The posse wouldn't give up, and followed them south. A day and a half later they caught up to the Commancheros in the night, got the drop on them, and after killing a couple the rest surrendered. They were taken to the Cavalry fort to be hanged.

Jeff Young had taken over as Tombstone City Marshall from Virgil Earp, but he only lasted a month on the job, which at this point seemed to be cursed. Even so, when Mayor Clum offered Other Miller the title, he accepted it immediately. There was no way he was going to back down from the confrontation coming with the Cowboys.

RPGpundit

Currently Smoking: Mastro de Paja Bent Apple + Dunhill Elizabethan Mixture

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Saturday, 26 January 2019

DCC Campaign: Even G.O.D. Wouldn't Know How To Fix You



In our last adventure, the PCs had been heading back to Coolland on the SS Sidequest, when they were distracted by a sidequest. They ended up in the Gargantuan Tower. Meanwhile, Sami had mysteriously disappeared at the beginning of last session, after acting strangely and for some reason saying "I must return to my home planet".

In between sessions, we've also discovered that literally everyone wants to kill Catboy:




Now:

-Sami wakes up on a metallic table, paralyzed, looking up at a pair of Grey Realm aliens. One of them is female and dressed in a slutty cheerleader outfit with large boobs and huge 80s hair. The other is male, muscular, and dressed in a varsity jacket with amazing 80s jock hair.
"What the hell is this?"
"Don't be afraid, we're popular!"
"Yeah, and we need your help."
"You know I usually charge for this sort of thing, right?"
"If you help us we will reward you handsomely."
"I'm listening..."



-"We snuck off with one of the stupid Jade Game Controller's UFOes and used his stupid mind control ray that he built for his big invasion plan to kidnap you, to help us with our problem."
"Wait, what invasion?!"
"None of that matters, me and Tiffany have a problem!"
"No, it does matter!"

-"Ohh wait, are those the Troy and Tiffany that Queen Priscilla always talks about??"
"Holy shit, it is!"
"Yeah, the Tiffany who stole Troy from her!"

-"Wait... do you know Priscilla?"
"Yeah, but no, but she's a total slag and if she said I had gonorrhea she's a complete liar!"

-"So what do you want from me?"
"Well, Tiff and me can't have kids. We want your help to get her pregnant. I just don't understand it. I've peed on her ass a dozen times but she just won't get knocked up."
"Jesus, the aristocracy of the Grey Realms is really really inbred..."
"Look, there's not enough money in the world for this shit."



-"Free me and I'll help you."
"OK.."
"No wait Troy, I don't trust her. She's a lying bitch that's friends with Priscilla."
"I AM NOT FRIENDS WITH PRISCILLA!"

-"Can you make us have a baby?"
"What do you think I am? A goddamn leprechaun? I don't just grant wishes!
"Ohh, so that's how it works."
"No, it doesn't!"

-"Well what can you do?"
"I can pray to G.O.D. to make your wife pregnant."
"OK, but it'll be my baby right?"
"Um.. sure."



-"But before I can help you, I'll need my assistants, Heidi and Bill."
"Wait.. Bill the Elf?"
"No, Troy, it can't be him; Bill is advising the Jade Game Controller."
"No, um, I meant Bill Salamander."
"Oh."

-"I don't think we should trust her, Troy. I think she's a liar like Priscilla; and you can tell she's needy!"
"Shut up and do what I say, if you want to get pregnant."
"I do want to get pregnant..."
"I just love you so much, Tiff..."
"Oh Troy, I love you too!"
"The two Greys start to kiss with visible tongue."
"And I'm still paralyzed?"
"Yes. You can't  move."
"For god's sake can I at least blind myself somehow?!!"

-"Bill Salamander is an expert in obstetrics, I'll need his help."

-"For your reward you can either have a bunch of money or a really cool Ferrari. Tiff won't let me keep a Ferrari when we have a kid because she says they're not family safe."
"When you say money, how much do you mean?"
"How much do you want?"
"How much do you have?"
"I don't really know, my family is super rich."
"That's a good start!"

-"The problem with Bill is that even if he swears not to kill you, he'll probably kill you by accident or neglect."
"Yeah. No matter what, Bill will end up killing you because of something he did or didn't do."

-"OK, so teleport my friends here; just teleport all of them."
"TELEPORT INITIATED... WARNING HIGH RISK OF TELEPORT ERROR, SUBJECTS ARE IN AN EXTRADIMENSIONAL FOLD SPACE."
"Meh, do it anyways."



-"Wow.. so we're totally going to take this ship, aren't we?"
"We'll get it while the Posh Elf's player isn't here."
"Yeah, and we'll probably lose it again before the player comes back."

-"Everyone in the party in the Tower is currently under the effect mind control ray except the Catboy. They all start saying 'I must return to my home planet' and start walking toward the hole in the wall."
"Oh shit! I try to get to them and save the halfling."
"really?"
"Hey, he was really badass last session!"

-"People are teleporting away as they go through the hole. On the other side, everyone is lost except Bill and Zeke, and then a few seconds later a monstrosity appears, a melted/fused amalgam of Catboy and the Halfling!"
"Oh God!"
"ATTEMPTING RECOVERY"
"They vanish for a moment, and when they rematerialize, the Catboy seems OK, but the Halfling is in a coma and bleeding out of every orifice. Tiffany drags his half-dead body to the other room."

-"While he's looking at Bill, I'm going to try to stab Troy."
"And I'll avert my eyes so no one is looking at Catboy and he has a chance of success."

-"You successfully stab Troy."
"He screams shouting 'aw, goddamn it, potato dagger!'"



-"After Catboy stabs Troy, Tiffany jumps on him, bites him and leaves him prone, and deaf from a concussion."

-After Sami prays for Bill to be free, he drops Tiffany.
"I kill her."
"No wait a second!"
"OK, 1 second. Now I kill her."
"Damn it, Bill don't kill Troy"
"Catboy gets up and kills him."
"No, Catboy!"
"Catboy can't hear you, he's deaf."



-"Zeke is still paralyzed."
"So?"

-"Troy and Tiffany are both dead."
"That's the second-sweetest news I could get. The best would be if Priscilla was dead."

-The party has some trouble getting the ship's computer to listen to them, until catboy successfully imitates Troy's voice. Though catboy's player absolutely can not, to the amusement of the party and the vicious laughter of the GM.
"Troy's voice is basically the Cartman voice. You can't do the Cartman voice?"
"Stop hitting him, he's already dead!!"



-"Computer, change main user to Catboy."
"VOICE OF USER TROY ORIGINATING FROM CATBOY'S BODY DOES NOT COMPUTE DOES NOT COMPUTE!"
"The computer is catching fire!!"
"OK, computer change main user to Sami!"
"COMMAND ACCEPTED."
"Whew."

-"So where were you guys?"
"Castle Gargan--"
"No! The Gargantuan Tower, for copyright reasons."
"Yeah, that. But let's not go back there, it's too huge."
"That's because it's bigger on the inside."

-"NOW FLYING OVER CITY OF MINAJ."
"Did Bill just whisper 'we should destroy it'?"
"No... OK, yes."

-"Computer do you have a cloaking device?"
"CLOAKING DEVICE NOT INSTALLED UNTIL PHASE 3 OF INVASION PLAN"
"Invasion plan?!"
"Don't worry."
"What?! What part of 'invasion plan' is not a problem?!"
"Oh sure, when it's Sezrekhan it's always a huge problem, but when it's your invasion.."
"It's not my invasion, Bill!"



-"Computer, how long until repairs are completed?"
"REPAIRS WILL BE COMPLETED IN ABOUT ONE HOUR FOR THE NEXT SIX HOURS."
"Oh shit, it's running Windows ME!"



-"I'm a bit worried about where Lenny & Heidi went..."
"And Quilliam.."
"Who?"

-The party land their UFOe just outside Minaj and walk toward the city. Along the way they meet an old herder named Hoppy.
"Hey Hoppy, want to join us?"
"No, Catboy! No more NPCs! Leave Hoppy alone!"
"Hoppy appreciates that, ma'am!"



-"Can we rest? I'm pretty low on Luck!"
"Sure, rest for 6 hours."
"I mean, what could go wrong in 6 hours?"

-"Catboy is a freaking herder."
"Do you mean a hoarder?"
"No, he has a herd of pet NPCs."

-"Just how urine-filled is the ship?"

-Bill finds that the Halfling was placed in the lab by Troy and Tiffany before they died.
"They froze him in carbonite; he also seems to have wood."
"I guess that's a side-effect."



-"We now have 4 severed hands in total: 2 grey alien hands, 1 alternate-timeline catboy-hand, and the Hand of Alan Moore."
"Why do we have so many severed hands? What's wrong with us?"

-While resting, the GM makes Catboy do a whole bunch of Fortitude saves, but he succeeds all of them.
"What's wrong with me?"
"You don't know. You should have failed a Fortitude check if you wanted to find out."

-"Computer are the repairs completed?"
"REPAIRS WILL BE COMPLETE IN ABOUT ONE MINUTE FOR THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES."
"Goddamn it."

-"So we're walking to Minaj?"
"yes."
"to find the Duke of Blood and Fire?"
"You're confused again, Bill."

-Catboy finally fails a Fortitude save and loses 1 point of Stamina.
"Why the hell did that happen?!"

-Going down the road, they run into another peasant that looks exactly like Hoppy.
"Hi there stranger.. what's your name?"
"I'm Hoppy."
"OK, something's going on..."

-"I bet it's an invasion of body-snatchers!"
"Hey Hoppy are you a body snatcher?"
"Don't ask him that!"
"Hoppy doesn't understand, Hoppy is just a simple farmer!"

-They keep moving and run into a couple of other Hoppy peasants, one of which is in a peasant woman's dress.
"Hello strangers! I'm Hoppy."
"Oh yeah? And who's that with you?"
"That's my wife, Hoppy!"
"Catboy, I swear we'll leave you behind."

-"As you approach the city of Minaj, you see it's makeshift walls are surrounded by hundreds of Hoppys, many of them naked!"

-The PCs fly over into the city's defenses.
"Who's in charge here?"
"I am. Who are you people?"
"I'm Catboy!"
"Ew."

-"Hi, I'm Salamander."
"Oh... you're the guys who either saved or wrecked the capital city!"
"..yes."
"Wait... is Blingbae with you?!"
"No."
"Aww."

-"What the hell is happening here?"
"We don't know. We just know that these Hoppy guys started showing up from out of nowhere. They started appearing somewhere in the northern part of the kingdom, and before we knew it they were everywhere. They've besieged Gaga and now they've reached Minaj!"
"Wait.. my friends, this sounds like a story from the Holy Books. Surely you've all heard the story of King Amilidiah?"
"Oh, sure.. but why don't you tell us about it anyways, Zeke?"
"No, Zeke, no one has read your stupid Holy Scriptures."
"...you're the Cleric, Sami!"



-"King Amilidiah was a greedy king who wished he could control his kingdom by being everywhere at once. So G.O.D. sent him a cursed crown, which made duplicates of himself. Each duplicate would duplicate itself every day, until soon there was no one in his kingdom but copies of himself, and thus the King realized how miserable that was, and his kingdom was then struck down by the Lord."
"Thank you, Mr.Exposition."

-"We should deal with these Hoppies first.."
"Bill casts a huge choking cloud."
"It murders 500 Hoppies in a few rounds. The survivors turn to flee."

-"So Gaga is under siege you say?"
"Yes."
"OK, we'd better go there to help too."
"If you go there, please, my name is Chief Guard Sweible. Tell Elsa that I have held out here. She was the one who trained me."
"That explains why all your men have shovels."



-"How do we deal with all these guys."
"There must be a Hoppy Zero."
"Hoppy Prime."
"Wait.. we saw a peasant on the road to Mra. He was just like Hoppy, remember? We stayed in his barn!"
"Did we?"
"Yes, but we just thought he was a normal peasant."

-"Sami, I'm still feeling bad."
"About what, Catboy?"
"No I mean I feel sick."
"Any idea why?"
"Well, I did have a halfling inside me less than 24 hours ago."
"Even G.O.D. wouldn't know how to fix you."

-On the way back to the UFOe, the party is attacked by 200 Hoppies.
"Those are the ones who killed Hoppy, get them!"
"I call dibs on being that one!"

-After a short fight, the Hoppys flee for their lives.
"I'm going to give you guys 2XP for defeating the Hoppys, but just because a bunch of asshole players didn't show up this session."

-"G.O.D. please fix whatever's wrong with Catboy."
"I don't think it worked."

-"Is there a med-bay in this ship?"
"There's a lab."
"There's an entertainment room."
"There's a probing table."
"Guess which one we'll try on Catboy first?"



-"Computer, scan Catboy."
"INTELLIGENCE LEVEL NEGLIGIBLE."

-"PROBING REQUIRED"
"Guys I don't want you watching this happening to me!"
"Let's go into the entertainment room and play foosball!"
"Yeah, and turn the stereo on loud to drown out Catboy's screaming."
"We all leave Catboy alone with his shame."



-"I sit in the probing position."
"I'm just going to assume we all know what that is."

-"PROBING SEQUENCE COMMENCING. ALL CREW MUST REMAIN 5' AWAY FROM PROBING TABLE."
"Catboy starts crying."

-"PROBE ACTIVATED."
"A tube comes down from the ceiling, with a large red bulb at the front."
"Oh god!"
"PROBE DESCENDING. REMAIN STILL. DO NOT MOVE."
"Oh god no!"
"PROBE DESCENDING."
"No please!"
"The probe stops about level with your body."
"Why does it take so long?!"
"A beam of red light shines from the bulb at Catboy."
"What the fuck?"
"REMAIN STILL. PROBING IN PROGRESS."
"..."
"PROBING COMPLETED. PROBE ASCENDING. REMAIN STILL UNTIL ASCENT COMPLETED."
"Wait.. that's it?"



-"Ha! You realize that since we were all in the other room, no one is ever going to believe Catboy wasn't actually probed!"
"Son of a bitch."

-"Do you need some ice cream to soothe your ass?"
"Are you OK, Catboy?"
"Leave him alone, it was clearly a very traumatic experience."

-"So according to the computer, Catboy was poisoned when Tiffany scratched him!"
"We forgot how dangerous Grey Realm aliens can be, because we mostly know Priscilla and she's absolutely useless."

-"I like the detail that all the regular-citizen Grey aliens talk like normal people but all their aristocrats sound like Cartman!"

-"Computer does the ship have weapons?"
"NO WEAPONS INSTALLED IN THIS VESSEL UNTIL PHASE 2 OF INVASION PREPARATIONS COMMENCE."
"When is the invasion due to start?"
"60 GREY REALM DAYS FROM CURRENT DATE."
"Convert that to material plane date?"
"60 MATERIAL REALM DAYS."
"Oh."

-"Computer, take us to the Fortress of Cher."
"SPECIFY: DO YOU WISH TO GO TO THE FORTRESS OF CHER IN THE EASTERN CONTINENT, FORTRESS OF CHER IN THE NORTHERN CONTINENT, OR THE FLOATING ISLAND KNOWN AS THE FORTRESS OF CHER?"
"There's seriously three places in the world called the Fortress of Cher??"

-"We could just go to Lol and help the Hippomagus!"
"Yeah."
"But if we did we'd have to return the Sunstaff to him. Do you really want that?"
"No."

-After wandering around aimlessly for a while, they finally fly to Gaga.
"You find that the city is surrounded by thousands and thousands of Hoppies assaulting the city barricades."
"So it's like World War Z?"
"World War Hoppy!"



-"How likely are they to hold out?"
"Well, you think a lot of those barricades are made out of yoga mats."
"Those are pretty sturdy!"

-"Is bill getting off to kill Hoppies?"
"He's absolutely getting off, and he's also leaving the ship."

-"Who is that? Is it Blingbae?"
"It's Bill."
"Aww, damn it!"

-"I cast choking cloud... natural 20!"
"You create 3 huge clouds, killing everything in their path."
"Alright!"
"You can kill about 1000 hoppies per round!"

-"Bill's never met a genocide he didn't like."

-"Elsa hear Bill Elf is here! Is good! Bill can kill anything except Fire Vampires."

-"Queen Zoey is down under the palace in a bunker with a door labelled 'Secret Bunker'."
"Wouldn't it be better not to have labeled it at all?"
"Yeah, but you know, it's Coolland."



-"Your Majesty, we need to find Hoppy Prime."
"There's a Hoppy Prime?"

-"Yes, see, there's this crown.."
"I'm sure you've heard of it from the Holy Scripture, your Majesty.."
"Damn it Zeke, no one has your Holy Book!"
"You do, Sami.."
"No I don't!"
"Yes you do, it's in your Holy Tablet."
"Wait.. what? Oh, there's PDF reader on this thing... oh shit, there's a ton of files here. When I became a Cleric I probably should have read the Terms and Conditions."

-"Bill should be finished in an hour or so.."
"I think it's going to be a lot quicker than that. I'm pretty sure Bill won't last for more than a couple of minutes."

-"Computer, find Bill the Elf."
"BILL THE ELF LOCATED."
"Visuals."
"VISUALS UNAVAILABLE, BILL THE ELF IS NOT LOCATED ON THIS PLANE."
"What??"
"Computer, take us to Bill."
"TRAVEL TO BILL THE ELF'S CURRENT LOCATION WOULD REQUIRE EXTRAPLANAR JUMP FROM THE UPPER BAND. DO YOU WISH TO PROCEED?"
"No."

-"Is there another Bill the Elf?"
"Troy mentioned something about Bill the Elf advising the Jade Game Controller."
"Yes, and you totally ignored that until just now. You'd think that would have been important."

-"Computer, detect the nearest cobra-headed humanoid."
"COBRA HEADED HUMANOID DETECTED."
"Visual."
"You see Bill the Elf on a nearby rooftop, surrounded by piles of Hoppy corpses. He's smoking a cigarette and looking really satisfied."



-"Half-melted corpses of Hoppies are all across the barricades."
"I'm not cleaning that up!"

-"Where are we going now?"
"Here on this spot on the map.. which I didn't bring with me."
"You just pointed to your bare hand."
"Yes, yes I did."



-"I'm just going to get some more burgers."
"I keep forgetting that Bill is really obese now."



-"We're going to have kill Bill eventually, aren't we?"
"I can hear you guys!"
"We know."

-"Bill, we're friends, right?"
"Damn right I'm your friend, Zeke!"
"That's right though I don't appreciate your salty language."
"Oh, sorry."
"Don't forget, just change an m to an r, and you get a darn wholesome word."
"You're a fucking tool, Zeke."

-"Bill has a nap."
"Catboy plays DDR."
"Sami looks at those PDFs on her Tablet.. well, that's not right. Delete. Delete... shit is there an audiobooks version?"

-"Sami gives up and just starts to play the games."

-Flying between Gaga and Fort Cher, the PCs spot a huge mob of Hoppies building a huge structure in the shape of a giant Hoppy head.

-"There must be 50000 Hoppies down there!"
"Yes?"

-"Hey, we just want to talk to Hoppy Prime, you guys."
"We will defend our king!"
"Where is he?"
"We won't tell you!"
"Please?"
"No!"

-"We don't want to become Hoppies!"
"That's now how this works!"
"OK we don't want you to take our jobs!"
"That's not Hoppies, that's Mexican Clerics."

-"Computer... Computer?"
"It doesn't work like that, the computer doesn't answer until you give it a command or whatever."
"OK, Computer, from now on whenever I just say 'Computer' you say 'Yes Mistress'."
"YES MISTRESS."
"That's better."

-"Computer..."
"YES MISTRESS"
"Can you scan for the Crown?"
"QUERY: DEFINE NATURE OF PARTICULAR CROWN BEING SOUGHT"
"Um, it probably weighs anywhere between 50 grams to 2 kilos?"
"QUERY: DO YOU WISH TO USE THE ROYAL TIARA OF QUEEN PRISCILLA AS BASELINE FOR SEARCH?"
"No!!"

-"Computer, can you search for an image of the Crown of Amilidiah?"
"DIMENSIONS OF CROWN OF AMILIDIAH CAN BE DERIVED FROM DESCRIPTION OF CROWN IN THE BOOK OF HOLY SCRIPTURE FOUND IN THE DATA BANKS OF SHIP'S COMPUTER."
"Ha!"
"I hate you so much, Zeke."



-"CREATING MODEL IMAGE OF CROWN OF AMILIDIAH FROM BOOK OF AMILIDIAH, CHAPTER 3, VERSES 1-286"
"That's right, the Book of Holy Scriptures dedicates quite a few pages to an explicit description of the Crown, praise G.O.D."

-"Who the fuck programmed this computer?"
"Maybe it's the Grey Realms version of Zeke Bodean?"

-"The Computer pinpoints one Hoppy, not on the giant head but in among the throngs of Hoppies, making his way away from the ship, wearing a very big cloak."
"Catboy misses with a natural 1."
"His rifle gets entangled on Tiffany's pom-poms."
"Seriously? Screw it, Bill kills him."

-"You did it, Bill! Truly, you were the smiting hand of the Lord and this fine ship was His vessel, all guided by the Holy Scripture!"
"No it wasn't, god damn it!!"

-"We need to give this ship a new name!"
"What about Amilidiah?"
"Fuck you, Catboy."

-"Hey guys, look what I found...it's a music disk made by Bill the Elf!"
"What? That's not me!"
"Yeah, you can tell that's not you because he looks like an Elf!"

-"His hit song is '99 Problems but Being Bill Ain't One'!"



-"We need to go stop this fake Bill."
"No, we should just let everyone think that this dude is the real Bill."
"Yeah, and our Bill is just Bill Salamander."
"Why not just Salamander?"
"Because we're not smart enough to remember not to call you Bill."
"Oh, good point."

That's it for this session. Stay tuned next time to see what the PCs do, and how quickly they lose their now vehicle!

RPGpundit

Currently Smoking: Winslow Crown Cutty + C&D's Delta Days
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