Yes, our heroines get a few bucks for their troubles, a parade in their honor, and one free grog-lite with the purchase of any meal or side at the Leaky Bunghole… but their triumph against the forces of evil earned what money could never buy.
Badia and her new BFF get into all kinds of adventures. Sometimes, it’s just the two of them, but Carmella and Coily Q. Bertha are always ready to provide back-up, and maybe one day Shelly will finish her design for Froggy Force Five—five frogbots that each team member can pilot singlehandedly, or all five can combine to form Leaptron! But while the giant robot thing’s probably never gonna happen, Badia’s newfound friendship with Izzy is certainly beautiful…
And speaking of friendships, who is that gorgeous young lady at Emi’s side who moves with such grace, she appears to glide? Yes! That is Naja in her human form, clothed not in bandages but a lovely fuchsia gown. She and Emi are on their way to dine with O.J. and Bonnie. When the two are on their own tomorrow, Emi will flip the hourglass teal-side-up so Naja may enjoy her more serpentine humanoid form as the pair reconvenes traveling the globe. Perhaps Utopia is not the ultimate destination, but simply one more stop on a life-long journey…
And what is the deal with Randy and the marshal? The world may never know, and the few who do know may envy the rest of us who decided not to pry. One thing is certain: criminals best beware. Entire gangs are finding their gang world crumbling beneath their feet—quite literally—sending them straight to hell via the earth’s molten core! Ohhhh, frontier justice is hot, alright…
I’ll write a wrap-up post tomorrow, in the interest of ending rather than awkwardly petering out. Feel free to add a bit more to the scene as you see fit today.
In the meantime, I thought you might get a kick out of the only written source material for this: a six-sentence prompt (nine, counting the title) that I threw together a day or two before recruitment.
Copy-pasted from my Notes app:
Knights! Chimera! ACTION!!
Beginning - three factions are sent on the annual monster hunt.
Middle - the chimera isn’t that bad a guy. Will our huntresses talk to him or kill him anyway?
End - the knights are actually evil robots trying to overtake the kingdom. Choose your method of defending the innocent!—or will you protect the king, though he’s kind of a jerk?
And if you REALLY wanna know…
Some TL;DR’able Facts:
Obviously, many edits were done in my head. I started making NPC avatars to commit to ideas as they came to me. Flo being a frog and O.J. being a sand mage were decided before recruitment. They fit so perfectly with Badia and Emi so I could effortlessly come up with bonus gear.
XIII with a tattoo of the tech wizard’s logo was for Bella, so I didn’t do much to develop the tie-in between him, Mother Brain, and the death of Bella’s parents. You all failed to stop the assassination and he lost the coin toss. (Whether your fails were odd or even determined the target.) Since Bella wasn’t playing, him dying made things much easier! And the third act had no ♥️-bonus for saving lives anyway. The hope was that you’d all kick ass so bystanders wouldn’t die. Basically, you guys had unbelievable timing with good and bad rolls.
The plan for damage was ♥️ to ♥️♥️ in Act I, ♥️ to ♥️♥️♥️ in Act II, and ♥️♥️ to ♥️♥️♥️♥️ in Act III. The brain’s damage was to be anywhere in that range, but I gambled you would win at the highest difficulty level, which was ♥️♥️♥️♥️ damage and you could only shave off 1/16 of its health bar if your narrative did not convince me you’d find its weakness. I calculated you could barely win a slugfest, but odds were not that good. If you figured out what to do (and all three of you did—and Emi even said it!), I thought the brain might land a knock-out.
I got one of you down to ♥️ in each act, but dropped no one. You guys defied the odds with some of those unfavorable d12 rolls! I’m happy with that result!
I’ll tell you now, I pulled punches exactly once. When Randy threw his item off the cliff, I thought it might be funny if Randy the Savage (whose name I almost changed) would try to out-Randy Randy. His axe was just granted power to strike one target for ♥️♥️♥️, then explode (as Monster Hunter Tri’s switch-axe does), striking all for ♥️♥️♥️ damage… or he could throw it in a way that was easy to dodge, losing the item hit or miss.
The unused portion of the Fuchsia scroll was your TPK Insurance. I’m glad you ended up winning without it.
I already felt like Randy really got to shine last round, using earth magic to get past BAMB’s attempt to shield a wound. Combined with Badia’s high roll, Emi’s hit is just enough to finish the job, so let’s make it official then. Big bad’s dead; nothing left to kill!
I hope you enjoyed the cheap thrill ride that was this game! Feel free to stick around to give your PC some closure, but I hope none of your heroes leave without saying goodbye.
You all come out of your dreams smashing and magicking the Mother Brain until telepathic waves emit the monster’s last seven words: a barely-intelligible empty threat, “duh” and “ow.”
A grotesque splash of brain matter confirms that enemy is defeated! If you need to lie down for a minute or ten…
1d10 MINUTES LATER . . .
Word that the king will recover is brushed off as a thing that’s nice to know, but what matters most to the people whose butts were saved from whatever the f%@$ just happened is YOU… our heroines!
The people cheer as you rise from the smoldering ruins of the broken cobblestone square. Sure you’re battered and covered in brain gunk, and there’s a single tear rolling down Badia’s cheek that the people are pretending not to notice, but still… you just defeated the queen of the monsters—feared by man and beast alike—and lived to tell the tale!
What do you mean you never heard of her until she just showed up? Well… of course you didn’t. She’s a giant brain. She made people forget she was ever even—
Oh, hell. Let the investigators, historians and armchair quarterbacks piece it all together. The point is you did your good deed, and got a little taste of fame, fortune and fandom.
So now what? You can say your goodbyes, head off into the sunset, write your own happy ending, or stick around and find out who might’ve taken notice of your amazing prowess and heroics…!
If you’re interested, NPCs await to give you a send-off…
Badia:
Not far from where the cannons were, you notice a pounding on the lid to the sewers. Could someone be trapped below…?
Emi:
O.J., the “other” Sand Mage, approaches you with an elderly woman at his side…
Randy:
XIII, the fembot, is at the marshal’s side. She’s wearing a badge…
I prefer to avoid botting, but given the pace we’ve kept up since last Friday, I think I should commit to resolving the round by about 24 hours after the last player post.
For the first time in her bizarre adventure, Emi feels the pain of battle! (Lost 1♥️ after Copper Naja used her last 3 to absorb damage.) This does not break her as the brain had hoped! Emi awakens with a newfound boldness—she blasts sand right between the monster’s eyes, into its exposed frontal lobe!
Naja slithers onto Emi’s shoulder. She is unharmed from her experience as a “shield.”
Badia is broken by her nightmare, crying out to her fictional father—or perhaps her real dad! She struggles to escape, as Randy also has strange visions to overcome…
The beam hurts like hell, but Badia fires back, blasting a hole clean through the belly of the beast. The hulls of broken ships snap from the sheer weight of the upper body, and grotesque tendrils writhe and grasp desperately.
The creature falls, splashing into the shallow waters at the shore. Broken pieces of ship remain semi upright like markers in a giants’ graveyard, but Randy is no among the dead here. He swept onto the beach in the giant waves, along with a few withered corpses.
OoC note in black:
You rolled center position; I rolled monster position.
Based on your roll, left is aimed at 4, center at 1, right at 3. Any cannon can be adjusted one position left or right before the yet-to-be-seen enemy can act.
But all you need to know is: you effectively won initiative.
Emi (clarification):
You won initiative with your earlier success. You will be able to use your copper scroll before the battle begins, or you can wait. There isn’t a right way or a wrong way. But given the time it takes the enemy to act, Emi has time to use the scroll between attack waves.
All (note):
The above successes mean you win initiative. See Badia’s spoiler if you’re wondering how a 1 wins.
I intend to begin the battle tomorrow, but will post tonight if I can. House guests and grill duty, y’know!
You will need ranged attacks for the first leg of the battle. Difficulty to hit is based on distance, but so is the creature’s damage!
Cannons are d20 for Badia due to her Hunter day-job; d12 for Randy & Emi. However, the Causeway and Sandy Beach each add power to their respective magic elements.
AND HAPPY 4TH!
(If you celebrate it… a lot of people in my other games are from countries other than the U.S.)
@Randy, sorry I botted you there. I figured with two players already hitting the assassin droids we could just bring that leg of the battle to a quick end.
Randy could position himself on the causeway for stronger earth magic. There’s also a sandy beach and three cannons (the U’s), though your characters can’t see them yet.
For now, I assume you are all near XIII, the only NPC who hasn’t fled or died.
There are several others clinging to the building, but all at once, the surviving droids plunge into the sea. From Badia’s position on the east side roof, she can see a whole army of droids. Some are leaping from the castle.
Even those who might be able to get a shot at the king as his guards hastily carry him inside ignore him.
Badia makes short work of one assassin droid as it prepares to put a pellet in the king’s brain. Others surround her, but that just makes them easier to cleave with her axe.
There’s a lot of talking and accusations and speculations happening. Nobody’s calling RoboJohn a liar, but nobody really knows how he became a robot. Same with the Velvet Ape—he was flesh and blood when he killed the barbarians last year. The Queens just look at each other, having nothing to add. Walter tells Donny he’s out of his element. And it seems there will be an investigation. It’ll take weeks. The king agrees it’s time to move on, reward Team Huntress and call it a night.
And as he’s about to give the sign for the fanfare…
Everyone, roll a d20.
• Badia is rolling “Hunter” because she has hunter’s instinct.
• Emi is rolling “Naja” because Naja has serpentine instinct.
• Randy’s rolling “Pimp” because someone’s about to get f+~$ed.
_
I’ll tell what a 9+ means after all three of you roll.
_
If any of you wanted to join the conversation or react to Naja’s transformation, you may do that in addition to rolling.
The baying of murder poodles deters any further prolonging of long goodbyes. Cleansed of the scent of freshly spilled blood, you make it to the city gates safely. Some poor antlered creature is being ripped apart and feasted upon by fluffy, cottontailed predators. Such is nature.
I’m at the airport waiting for my wife’s bro and sis. So I’m very available now, but will be busy soon.
In the interest of not screwing you out of the reward you earned (+♥️ for sparing surviving knight and smartly taking the fight outside so the chimera wouldn’t die helping you, so +♥️ for both Sam and Flo surviving), let me know if you want me to flat out tell you how to heal.
(I’m just gonna wait for Emi to post before we move the scene.)
Emi is aware that the transformation magic that changed the water to a healing spring, herself to a mermaid and Naja to a humanoid creature are all very powerful spells. It is unlikely that Donny can cast another spring anytime soon…
@Emi, yes, I meant the attack roll is how you turn the attack around. But I’ll add chip damage to Robert the Strong from your nat.19. (I throw in counter attack damage when the roll is high and your narrative works.)
Like many of his biologically-male clients, Randy’s rocket enlarges considerably and goes off prematurely
If we are to bash males as a group... You forgot to mention their small manhood.
I’m bashing people who go to brothels, not all men. And from a professional’s POV. Granted, my knowledge of the working girl’s perspective is limited to Lili Von Shtupp’s song in Blazing Saddles.
Also, the rocket is very big. I guess a compensation line, like what they say about muscle cars?… well… I didn’t want to tack on more of that. 15 is my limit on dick jokes.
^That said, if I crossed a line with you, sorry. Misread on my part.
Like many of his biologically-male clients, Randy’s rocket enlarges considerably and goes off prematurely. Luckily, Randy managed to strap it on in time.
No, not ‘strapped on’ in the way the marshal bellowed in mixed company this morning. Randy has the rocket strapped to his back like that famous bird hunting gnoll, Wile E. Coyote.
Randy soars about the mountain road. He’ll need to stay close enough to the battle for his earth magic to do any good—but as long as he stays out of melee, only ranged attacks can hit him.
How it works:
THIS BATTLE ONLY
You can choose to be in flight or on land at the end of your turn. (You’re in flight now.)
If you use your bone, you end your turn on the ground (or close enough for a melee weapon to hit you).
If you use earth magic, I will assume you are flying unless you tell me otherwise. Benefit of flying: only two knights have powerful ranged attacks. (Others have crossbows, but they are easy to dodge in flight.)
All reflex saves are d20 in flight. Flight ends after this battle or if you lose your ♥️s.
FOR THE REST OF THE GAME
Rolling >10 (the number on the counter) with any defensive dice will charge the rocket (10, 9, 8…)
The rocket will explode at zero… or it MIGHT go off prematurely when you fail to defend! (I’ll manage this.)
OoC, but will use black text. Your Big Bone will last for the rest of the game. You don’t know what the Rocket in Your Pocket does, but I’ll tell you it has two effects. One is temporary and the other, like the bone’s, lasts for the rest of the game.
When you decide to light it, you do that instead of attacking. The difficulty to light the rocket is “1.” There is no need to roll, nor is there a benefit to rolling a 20 (when you light it). So you CAN roll… but the die roll will not change that what the item secretly does will automatically work perfectly.
I’m not encouraging you to use the rocket on this turn. (There’s a 50% chance you’ll lose initiative and can’t anyway.) Just posting this now so you know what to do when you become curious enough to use the rocket. I’ll narrate exactly what it does after the fact. (Nothing porno aside from blatant word-plays.)
The least amazing coincidence is players asking where the other knights are as I’m posting the reveal.
The best coincidences were having a frog-worshipper and a sand mage. Yes, the bonus items are created after I know of your characters, but the frog head on the chimera and sand as one of the beach-themed magi elements were both planned before recruitment.
I stifled my urge to tell you that. Toy for Badia available soon, assuming you don’t all doubt Flo’s story and murder the chimera.
Gonna let PCs work through this a bit. I’m curious as to how Emi might weigh in, but in any case I’ll post after you make a decision. Or if that doesn’t happen today, in the interest of maintaining our rocket-up-the-ass pace, I can always make poor Sir Willis say, “I’m not dead yet, ack, barf, [insert more helpful last words here], gag.”
Our heroes waste no time! With the magical spring and all its pink floweriness gone, you run across the plateau. The body of water (which you’re running beside) is now in its natural form: a rushing stream that crashes over the cliffside.
Hell of a view below. The sea seems to have a purplish glow. Trick of the light from dusk drawing near? And the sea is speckled with boards floating from a shipwreck. Flotsam? Isn’t that the name of the chimera?
Right! The chimera! Focus—
The terrain takes on an upward grade. Trees are gnarled and twisted by the elevation, the heat, and maybe just because this is how trees look near a monster’s lair.
You know what else looks gnarled and twisted? That guy!
It’s one of the knights. He’s on his back. One limb is bent the wrong way. Another is bent the right way, but the wrong number of times. Is he even alive?
• Check in the knight?
• Keep going?
• Plausible third option?
My 11-year-old said (yesterday, in the pool) she would build an underwater hut if she suddenly became a mermaid while swimming. Then she said to her sister (8), “Now let’s pretend we’re mermaids, like we always do when we swim.” Somehow the game switched to pretending to be “obnoxious boys.”
Anyway… I think you know I, as narrator, was kidding that mermaid magic delayed you. The unavoidable ape fight delayed you and the need for healing delayed you more.
Had Donny died—which the Stranger would not have liked—the healing spring would not have been an option. (You would have had a means to heal a little, though. I’m not a monster!) In this case, mermaid magic (sans spring) would have given you a chance to catch up to the knights. You’d move from one enchanted body of water to another. But in my opinion—as the guy who wrote this crap—is that the path that increases you max HP is the better one.
As Randy partakes in what might have been his most innocent skinny-dipping session ever, he comes of with a crazy idea that just might work. (And why not? His last one did!)
What he ends up with is a sweet melee weapon made from one of the oversized arms that grabbed him.
But the entire party notices something else: Randy’s got a rocket in his pocket. Tied to it is a note from a guy who calls himself El Duderino. Some of us wizards noticed you trying to mess with water and lightning. You were out of your element. But that’s cool… that’s cool. Give fire a try. And that’s the part where he signs that weird name.
Maybe a flashback will tell Randy when this dude found the chance to slip a rocket and a note into the pocket of his technicolor dreamcoat. Maybe not. But it’s a tiny rocket… and the straps, um…???
Randy’s new toys:
• The Big Bone – roll an 18+ to ram enemies repeatedly or whatever. (Effectively, you have a crit-range like a Pathfinder katana.)
• Pocket Rocket – you don’t know yet! (Semi-hint: it will do two things; one temporary and one for the rest of the day… which is synonymous with ‘rest of the game.’)
Oh… and despite its being currently pocket-sized, it doesn’t strap on like… oh, you know.
@Randy,
I’m fine with the bone being another reason for you to roll d20 attacks (you’re a pimp, so a “pimp stick” is a melee weapon).
Regarding an overpowered ridiculous item like the sand snake scrolls, you already have one—it will be revealed next GM post. Hope you’ll like it.
@Badia,
Yours will come too. Like Emi-Na, you happened to create a character who shared a trait with an NPC. I hope you’ll find Badia’s prize worth the wait.
Sorry for the confusion, but being a mermaid for a spell (ha ha) seemed like too much fun.
Nothing to be sorry about. It’s so much better this way. Really loving the imagery of Naja with a snake head, woman’s body and mermaid’s tail!
Underwater:
Those of you who swim underwater can see not the spring, but the actual lagoon! (Of course Wizards of the Coast can use magic this strong near the actual coast!)
You’re pretty sure the battle was well above sea level, and should you look up from the deep, you can see a roaring waterfall coming down the west side of the plateau. Your gear is waaay up there! But not to worry. If you swim toward the surface, yes, the magic that changed the water let’s you swim up to the spring where purple flowers obscure the sight and sound of the waterfall. You don’t even feel like you had to go up more than a few feet to get back.
So what’s down there in the actual lagoon? Oh, y’know… fish. And there must have been a shipwreck or something. There’s a broken board with a logo shaped like a T.
I meant they would cast one or the other, but no reason it can’t be both! And if I did have a reason, it isn’t worth ret-conning that!
_
Your characters can choose to bathe as mermaids or not, and can end the spell at will!
_
The fuchsia aura is only the healing effect though, just so I don’t cause confusion.
Before the Bath…
O.J. looks Naja up and down. He seems deep in thought, but does not say why. After Emi expresses her wish to see him again he says, “You are invited to dine with my wife and I after the hunt is over.” Gesturing toward Naja he says, “It will be dinner for four if you prefer.”
The wizards leave with the healing spring as their parting gift.
In the Bath…
Our heroines get a little break. There is a fuchsia glow about Badia and even brighter glow about Randy. Though Emi-Na is not wounded at all, her skin glows the same color as the others, however briefly. Naja had noticed the teal magic of petrification matched the scroll that gave her that very power. This spring has a fuchsia aura. It is not difficult for the snake to deduce that a connection exists between Emi-Na’s colored sand and the natural auras found in other types of magic.
Naja also finds she may hold onto this almost-human form while in the bath, though she could revert to her natural form before the spell ends.
You’re all fully healed; max ♥️ increased by 1.
_
For now, you are free to chat in peace or RP getting back to business. I will move forward tomorrow if no one moves me sooner either via RP or a post in discussion telling me to fwd pls!
Normally, I’d say you just blew a combat-over. But with that roll…
The stone around the Velvet Ape cracks! The teal shell crumbles into sand and the creature’s raised fist starts to shift downward… but not to attack.
Its face has been cleaved in two, and the split spreads throughout the still-hardened body.
With a CLANG, both haves slam to the ground. The insides of the ape are a combination of hardened innards, gelatinous blood (gradually reverting to liquid) and oil, dead wires and mostly metal bones.
In case it was unclear, you don’t need to defend yourself this round. After Emi lopped off the other hand of the last zombie, it was so weak it just collapsed.
The acid blood that splashed Other Jeff in the legs was from the attack that you very luckily dodged with a d12. So not a failure on your part. Actually, your decisions—particularly the defensive use if sand—along with your amazing luck are the reason we don’t have any dead wizards.
Also, you have the teal, fuchsia and copper scrolls. If you ever want to see what any of them do, you can just activate one with the appropriate color of sand. (Difficulty is “1.” So you can activate a scroll without a die roll—or even with a nat.1 or any roll from 1-20.)
I’m not pushing you to do that now or at all. Just thought I’d clarify that since this game is moving faster than expected, and I felt I could have clarified that more.
Oh, right! You meant the rod failed and—got it!—you’re writing fails as attempting magic you don’t know. Okay, so you were aware you got hit.
The only thing you seemed to miss is that you get to hit back. I usually mention that in the spoiler, or if you can’t attack normally, I tell you that.
I wrote:
Both of you roll 7 or Less:
You lose ♥️♥️ as he slams your heads together repeatedly. You’re stunned. You need to roll a 10+ on your next attack to hit!
So after getting heads conked, you’re down to 1 ♥️ and you need to roll a 10+ for your attack to hit. But you can attack.
