Slipstream: The B-Team

It's gonna be fun on a bun...in space!

Recall that last time, our heroes had their asses thoroughly kicked by the bounty hunter team known as Crocodilis (in fairness, that happened in large part because they use a slave-controller helmet and took their gear away). The heroes - Zeenia, Abbas, and Iris Blue - are loaded into a converted Dracos dragon-ship and taken away. Meanwhile, their crew - first mate Hwoot, Bird-Man warrior Craw, on-board mechanical Chirrp, guns-akimbo Rill, holy warrior of Nivek Kk-Kree-Chek, and Zeenia's sidekick and medic Gruff - is still locked in forcefield prisons with the Drascosians use their ship's sonic lance for who-knows-what.

Whatever they're doing, they finish it and release the crew. Craw and Gruff converse with the Drascos foreman and clear a few things up. To wit, when the heroes interfered in an assassination attempt way back here, they took the side of King Ssoriss...who is actually a toady of Anathraxa. If the Drascosians of House Telepathicus had known the heroes' real agenda, they probably wouldn't have helped out Crocodilis. Ah, well.

The Dracosians agree to give the crew the Darkwing back, including their gear and sonic lance. They also tell them that Crocodilis is heading to Barter, where they are going to hand over the heroes to Anathraxa's people. Iris Blue is to be executed on site, Abbas to be declawed and defanged, and Zeenia dried out to immobilize her and then taken to Anathraxa. 

The crew takes off in the Darkwing and rides the Slipstream Wave at maximum speed to the Graveyard. Hwoot expertly navigates it and they arrive on Barter. Craw and Gruff spot the port where Anathraxa collects her taxes - that's probably where Crocodilis is going to make the trade. They circle the city, careful to avoid notice (Barter Town has a great deal of ship traffic so this isn't too hard) until the spot the ship. 

They land nearby, but Rill, Craw, Gruff, and Kk-Kree-Chek disembark and fly into the hanger where Crocodilis is getting out of their ship. They swoop to the attack! Haresh, the Drascosian leader of Crocodilis, yells "Ugh, where'd you come from? Kill them!" His flunkies leap to combat!

The crew of the Darkwing seems outnumbered, but what's this? Hwoot and Chirrp fly in, evening the odds! Gruff fells the Pyrite bounty hunter with his mighty claws, and Rill fires his twin ray guns (well, until they both short out - the player was rolling a lot of 1s). Haresh draws a bead and fires on Craw, dropping him but not killing him, and he takes cover behind the corpse of the Pyrite and shoots down a bounty hunter. Rill and Chirrp are nearly slain by the bounty hunters, but quick actions from Gruff and Kk-Kree-Chek (before he himself takes a serious hit) keep them alive. In particular, one of the Raptor Men leaps on Chirrp and rends him open, but Kk-Kree-Chek, having taken Zeenia's weapons off the body of a bounty hunter, skitters up behind him and ends him with two quick stabs. 

Haresh and one remaining bounty hunter realize the fight is lost, and flee. The crew rescues the heroes from the ship and everyone heads back to the Darkwing, but Rill and Chirrp are too badly injured to engage in spaceflight for a few days. Zeenia pays off some people in Barter Town to keep the ship hidden, and the heroes rest a bit. But they get restless, and the three of them - plus Hwoot and Gruff - head out to a bar for a drink.

They're barely into their cups when the door flies open and a strange-looking alien totters in. He's barrel-shaped and has two stubby arms, a single round eye, and is yelling in terror. Abbas recognizes him as a Psiclops, a race of people that Anathraxa's minions scattered to the Slipstream, probably because they're all psychic. And sure enough, two Earthling hunters burst in after the Psiclops, brandishing weapons and yelling "DIE PSI-SCUM!"

The heroes leap to his defense. These hunters have picked the wrong bar.

Chill: Awooo!

Here we are in scenic Boise. Here's last time, not that that's related too much, since this is a new case. 

It's July 31st, 2020 (and recall that in our Chill game, the pandemic wasn't a thing, so it's more or less a normal Friday in late July). The envoys are all doing their various things: Jordan is on a date with a firefighter (a friend-of-a-friend), and they're getting out of seeing Birds of Prey. Jax is exploring an abandoned strip mall that's supposedly haunted. Melanie is finishing up an AA meeting. Willa is at the ranch playing Among Us. Zoe and Dylan are both on the Boise State campus (Dylan is trying to get his lesson plans for the fall done, and Zoe is doing her Twitch stream). 

Zoe and Dylan both get a text alert saying that the campus is on lockdown - there's an active shooter. Dylan texts the dean and asks for information, and gets an (obviously copy-pasted) reply to the effect of "not a big deal, no threat, just stay put, should be over quick." Zoe barricades her door and prepares to fight. Back at the ranch, Darnell leans in and tells Willa about the alert; she keeps an ear out but doesn't have much else to do. 

A few minutes later, the campus alert texts "all clear." Dylan leaves his office and follows the flashing lights to Friendship Bridge, which crosses over the Boise River on campus. He sees an ambulance, a bunch of police, and the coroner's van. He also sees a young man sitting on the back of the ambulance being interviewed by the cops - he recognizes the guy as one of the frat boys involved in the xaxog case some years back. He goes over to talk to him (the police are finishing up) and activates his newly acquired Telepathic Empathy discipline, which jogs his memory: the guy's name is Jason Drake.

Jason tells him that he was walking towards the bridge on the footpath when a big freaking wolf came out of the brush. He thought that the wolf had blood on its muzzle. He drew his gun (he has a CCW permit) and shot it, and it ran back into the trees. That gunshot was what tripped the lockdown, but no one was actually hurt.

Well, no one was shot, anyway. Turns out there's a body down in the river, and the police are fishing it out now. Drake doesn't know who that is, and he didn't see the body.

Dylan knows when something hinky is happening, and after all, his brother is a werewolf (last seen here). He texts a bunch of the envoys (coincidentally the ones the players are controlling this case!). Jordan cuts her date short, but arranges to meet him for brunch the next morning. Willa grabs an SUV and heads for campus, and Zoe, already in her car and getting ready to head home, gets out and walks back toward Friendship Bridge. Dylan, while waiting, walks to the brush where Drake indicated he shot the wolf and finds a blood splatter and a trail of paw-prints. The wolf that left these prints is missing a toe on its left front leg. That's Alex, his brother, all right.

Dylan follows the tracks in the woods a little ways, but doesn't get farther away than 100 yards or so. He meets up with Zoe and explains the situation, and she uses her Postcognition discipline to see the wolf. The encounter goes down just about as described - the wolf appears, blood all over its snout, and spots Drake. It snarls and flattens its ears, bracing to run at him, and he shoots it. It turns and runs, and that's all Zoe gets. Dylan looks down the hill and sees a girl's body on a stretcher and the police processing the scene. He manages to keep his dinner down (Dylan has something of a weak stomach), and it's clear that the girl has been torn open pretty badly.

Jax and Melanie arrive and meet up with the others, and Jordan gets there shortly after. No one is keen to go traipsing into the woods after this thing, but Dylan isn't about to let this go - this is why he's in SAVE, after all. They wait for Willa, and Willa, as usual, lends a voice of experience. Maybe she can call up the spirit of the dead girl - if the death is recent, it doesn't matter if she hasn't become a ghost. She sits on a bench near the bridge and uses Voice of the Dead, and the girl's spirit slams into her like a subway train. 

She talks to the girl briefly, and learns her name (Emma Whitman). Emma just remembers walking across the bridge when the wolf tackled and bit her, dragging her into the woods. Willa gently explains that Emma has died, and Emma passes on gracefully. No information about whether there's any reason she was killed, though - wrong place, wrong time?

The envoys follow the wolf tracks into the woods, and about 500 yards away, they just stop. They don't change into human tracks, they don't change direction, they just vanish. Zoe looks back again, and she sees the wolf walking along, and then it just vanishes. No puff of smoke, no fanfare, just kind of folds in on itself. Zoe senses the Unknown and tries to delve a little more, and she realizes with horror that its master called it home. She relays this to the others, but no one has any idea who or what such a creature's "master" might be.

The envoys decide to head back to the ranch to do some research. Zoe gets on a video call with a couple of her internet nerd monster enthusiasts, while Melanie just hits the virtual books about werewolves. Jordan walks the ranch's perimeter and checks the locks and the panic room, and Willa starts making go-bags for the envoys, since this case feels like it has the potential to get unpleasant. Melanie, in addition to the old stories about werewolves, silver bullets, wolfsbane, and suchlike, also finds local stories about the "Wolf that Won't Die," a kind of urban legend popular with the hunter/hiker/outdoorsman set in this part of the country. The Wolf supposedly shows up periodically in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, and when people shoot it, it just turns and goes way. Maybe it's related? But this creature has been sighted since the 1980s, and Alex Reeves only disappeared a few years ago.

Zoe and her people delve into the notion that a werewolf might have a "master." There are legends about people selling their souls to Satan for such power, sure, or being cursed by wizards or demons or whatever. The Wolf that Won't Die shows up in their research as well, and it gets even weirder.

See, there are verified sightings of the Wolf, incidents that Zoe and her people can nail down with names, dates, and so on. And every single person that has reported seeing the Wolf is dead. They don't all die of the same thing - suicide, murder, car accident, even malaria, for crying out loud. They don't die a specific amount of time after seeing the creature; in some cases it's been months. 

Zoe brings this to Dylan's attention, and he does a little checking. The other guy that was with him and his brother when they were attacked by a wolf, all those years ago, is dead. He drove off the road into a pole, and the official cause was mechanical failure. That means that Dylan is the only person that the envoys know of who has seen the Wolf that Won't Die and lived (unless you count Alex, who might not technically be dead, but he's not at all well). 

Willa, meanwhile, asks Darnell about wolfsbane - is it something you cook with? Darnell tells her that wolfsbane, or aconitum, to use its official name, grows wild around here. He looked it up last time the HQ dealt with a "werewolf." It's toxic, though, so they need to be careful. He says that it'd be better to look for it in the morning; hard to see at night. 

The envoys decide to get some sleep. Zoe dreams, and sees herself and a bunch of other envoys walking in the prairie around the ranch. She finds silver bullets in the blooms of purple flowers, but she also sees the other envoys vanishing, one by one, yanked into the brush or doubling over in pain. She runs and the wolves chase her, growling and snarling that they want her to join the pack. She yells something at them - a phrase that doesn't mean a thing to her - but it stops them and they stand confused, giving her time to grab the silver bullet-flowers.

She wakes with a start in the morning and runs to find Dylan. Dylan hasn't slept much and is already in the kitchen. Zoe excitedly tells him her dream and tries, in vain, to remember the phrase that she heard. She knows it wasn't English (or Turkish, for that matter), and is pretty sure she'd know it if she heard it again. 

Jordan and Willa go out and pick some aconitum flowers (Jordan also digs one up and plants it in a pot), and then she gets dolled up and heads out for her brunch date at the fire station ("He cooks." "HAWT."). The others slowly wake up and start going about their mornings, but then Darnell gets their attention and turns on the news. Seems the body of a young man has been found dead behind a self-storage facility about three miles from campus. The body has been dead a couple of days, but it looks like the man was killed by a wolf. 

The envoys head out to investigate (except Zoe, who stays behind to do more research). By the time they get there, the cops have cleared out, and all that remains is yellow tape. They search the area and find a gap in the fence behind the facility, and fur and blood caught in the chain link. It looks like the wolf grabbed the victim, killed him, and then pulled him through the fence to hide the body. Jax uses Postcognition to verify this, but screws it up and sees a barrage of violent and confusing imagery. He stumbles off and does a bump to steady himself, but learns nothing of use.

At this point one of the employees of the storage facility finds them and chases them out. He confirms that the cameras back here do work, so maybe they caught what happened? The envoys don't ask him, however, they just fall back to the ranch.

Zoe, meanwhile, does some digging into SAVEPoint and learns, much as Dylan did years ago, that SAVE classifies lycanthropes in a few different ways: inherent, infective, astral, and inflicted. Dylan calls to update her and realizes that when he did this research, "inflicted" wasn't there. Zoe checks the changelog and sees that "The_Den" added this information a few months ago. The Den is the nickname for the Lykos Project, a SAVE facility in Maine that studies lycanthropes. Zoe gives them a call, and schedules a video call with one Gabriel MacNamara for later in the day.

Jumping ahead to that call ("Anybody heard from Jordan?" "No, but that might just mean the 'brunch' went well."), the envoys chat with Gabe about werewolves. He tells them that "inflicted" is a classification that SAVE has only started using recently. Basically it's people who have been cursed with lycanthropy by a more-powerful creature, such as a magical lycanthrope. 

Zoe points out that this type isn't mentioned in SAVEPoint. Gabe says that's true, mostly because of lack of data. Magical lycanthropes are very powerful creatures of the Unknown that can turn into animals, but that's almost incidental. The Den has no information on how to kill them, and run-ins with them tend to end with dead envoys. 

Gabe, an experienced prescient dreamer himself, also tells Zoe that the phrase she used might be an actual phrase, a symbol, or something she needs to figure out by learning more about the "master" in question. In any case, he asks that the envoys keep in touch. If they all get slaughtered in the next couple of nights, he wants to be able to send a follow-up team. 

With that cheery thought in mind, the envoys start considering their next move...

Character Creation: Briar & Bramble

Cute fuzzy animals! No, not Cairn!

The Game: Briar & Bramble
The Publisher: Drunk Wizard
Degree of Familiarity: Haven't played this, but I've read Watership Down and I've played lots of PbtA games
Books Required: Just the one

Briar & Bramble is a PbtA game involving a community of animals and the trials and hardships they face trying to keep it together. It hits some of the same notes as Cairn, except that these animals aren't uplifted or anthropomorphic, except inasmuch as they talk to each other and they're sapient. No walking around or wearing clothes or having cities, though, it's very much "real animals in the English countryside" kind of thing.

All of that in mind, let's make a character. I really like the playbooks in this game - one of them is a dog that ran away from humans and joined the Community (and has a move called "The Goodest Boy in Town"), another one is "the Flock", which lets you place a group of animals all working together. That's the one I keep coming back to, so I'm gonna do that. 

Oh, the first thing I need to do is come up with a concept. So I want my "flock" to be a bunch of rabbits, and the basic concept here is that they're the hoi polloi, the silent majority, the vox hopuli of the Community, if you like. Said bunnies make up the bulk of the Community membership, which I think in play would let the other PCs really shine as [whatever their roles would be], but have the Community itself have some direct representation. 

I get to choose a tag for the Community, either Collective or Large. I'm gonna pick Large, because I don't mind if the Community has a leader or not. 

I get a 10-clock for my harm (crunch all you want), and I get +2 Sense and then +1, 0, and -1 for my other stats. Let's see. I'll put the -1 into Fierce, since I'm bunnies. +1 into Reflex (again, bunnies), and 0 in Social. 

I get the one of us move to start, which allows me to assimilate more rabbits into my "flock" and heal Harm that way (it's not very easy, though). I get one more move to pick. Ooh, I'm gonna take sacrificial lamb. If someone in the Community takes harm, I can take the harm instead (basically whatever would attack the squirrel eats a rabbit instead). That's kind of dark, but I think it's in concept. 

And that's actually it, because the other part of chargen would be assigning relationships and it's just me. I think the Vox Hopuli would talk to other members by chittering amongst themselves and then shoving a rabbit to the front to speak nervously to the others. Mostly they're a bunch of brown-and-white bunnies, though. 

Blue Rose: Attack of the Deflated Volleyballs

Today we started a new Blue Rose game! We are in the village of Ray'fin, south of Amber Bay, in the water, so you know what that means! Fish!

Ahem. Meet the characters:

• Greeni: Greeni is a rhy-bo, a dumbo octopus. The rhy-bo take care of a particular section of the Reef, keeping the coral safe and healthy. They don't have names, but are designated by their jobs. Greeni takes care of the green coral. 
• Gali: Gali is a rhy-fen (dolphin). She's deeply connected to her pod and was the one who introduced Greeni to the village of Rayfin. 
• Makala: A sea-folk warrior, she's a liaison to the town of Amber Bay and a protector of the reef and Ray'fin. She also saved the life of Adad's little sister when she wandered too far from home. 
• Adad: A sea-folk warrior. Adad practices meditative magic, more inward focused and intent on self-control and improvement than affecting the outside. He also has a very big family - three parents, a bunch of siblings, and a small but growing collection of niblings. 

The children of the Ray'fin have, of late, become lethargic. Not to the point that anyone is thinking there's an illness running rampant, but enough that it's noticeable. Adad swims out to the Reef to ask Greeni if she's seen anything weird or concerning of late.

And indeed, some of the coral seems to have a kind of mold on it. Adad casts Second Sight and notes that while it's not overtly magical, at least not powerfully so, it does have a kind of "off" vibe to it. He and Greeni swim further down the Reef to where the coral turns teal, and speak to Teali, the rhy-bo that protects that section. 

Teali says that she's tried to clean off the mold and points out a hole in the rock that seems to be just full of the stuff. She also seems tired and bleary, more than a bit run down. Greeni and Adad decide to swim up to the surface and look for Gali - Adad is curious to know if the rhy-fen pod have noticed anything.

Up on the surface, Makala and Gali meet with Thyria, the matriarch of Amber Bay, and talk about trading and contact between their people (Gali dances and entertains the children). Adad and Greeni surface and call to Gali, and Makala joins them out of curiosity. 

They dive back down and check out the mold. No one has seen anything like this before, and all of them are concerned by it. Adad and Makala use their special abilities (that is, thumbs) to scoop some up in a shell and take it back to the surface for study. Adad discovers that the stuff sizzles in sunlight - a sure sign of Corruption. Greeni casts a Cure spell on it and it shrieks and turns to dust. That might destroy it, but who knows what effect that shriek (with its psychic and sonic components) might have on the Reef.

The characters dive back down and talk to Teali again, and realize that she's on the verge of a breakdown. Cleaning the Reef and trying to fight back the mold is clearly taking a toll. They decide to descend a bit more, and trying to find a cave entrance or something that might lead to more of the stuff, maybe an origin point.

The four of them descend into a part of the Reef past a drop-off, and Greeni bumps into a section of coral that's been chewed on and cracked off. Adad knows what did this - coral crushers, and there's a school of them swimming this way!

The horrible little fish are sort of similar to piranha, but larger and more...squishy. There's an especially large one directing the others, and they immediately make for Greeni and start biting (rhy-bo are especially delicious). Greeni spews a bunch of ink and swims away to hide, and the crushers turn their attention to Adad, who enhances himself magically and starts punchin' some fish! Gali and Makala, much more skilled as combatants, strike fish, and between the four of them, they manage to kill the alpha crusher and most of the smaller ones. It takes a toll, though, and Greeni spends some time casting some healing spells. Adad casts Body Control and stops himself from bleeding (there are bigger fish down here than coral crushers, and the characters have no desire to meet one), and the characters gingerly pick their way deeper.

They find another drop-off, leading into a ravine, and the mold definitely gets thicker and stronger there. They decide to return to the surface, resupply, and head back down when they're up to par.

Next time, we'll see what awaits them in Ray'fin!

Character Creation: Metroville

Can't all be A material.

The Game: Metroville
The Publisher: Tyler Elliott
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

I love superheroes, and I love supers RPGs, but there are a lot of them and some of them are pretty bottom-of-the-barrel. I don't mean to say that Metroville is a bad game - "good" and "bad" aren't useful descriptors and besides, RPGs live or die by their at-the-table experience, for me. I just mean that Metroville utterly fails, at any level, to make me want to run or indeed finish reading it.

Some of this is the artwork. Appreciation for art is subjective, of course, but the interior art for the book looks like something an 8th grade art student could have drawn. It's all black and white, which is fine but this is a supers game, which means that the lack of color stands out. 

But even beyond that, there's a surprising lack of...care, I guess? to the game. There's an example of play (yay!), it's got accompanying illustration (also yay!), but the characters don't have names. Behold:

Like, if you're going to make a game where people use their real names but run around in tights, OK, but there's no setting per se and it just feels very slapdash. Like, "you know how this works, it's an RPG, get to it!" And that approach, putting pressure on the table to already know the basics, can work if you're bringing something interesting to the game, but there are so many supers RPGs that not only explain themselves better but have better production values and better systems, and more support, so what are we doing here?

Also, and this is just a nitpick, I guess: The example of character creation (yay!) wavers back and forth between past and present tense. Very weird.

So let's make a character, how about. We start with character themes, which is just another way to say "concept." 

Oh, this is cute. The section on the fillable sheet (yay!) that says "hero name" isn't fillable (boo). 

Well, anyway, I kind of feel like making an angsty character, but leaning into the "woe is me" teen angst. Actually I think I might lean more towards early 20s, because that's another great source of unbridled, stupid passion, plus you can drink. My character's name is Winter Worthy (his parents were apparently big AJR fans), and he emphatically does not like his name; he goes by Dub (short for Double-U, he refuses to be called "Dubya," and yes his middle starts with W as well. When he's drunk he's fond of saying "I'm a web page lol!"). 

Anyway, I see Dub as getting super powers in a freak accident, and I want his superhero name to be Sleet, so maybe something rain/cold/gray related? Let's move on to the next step. Next step is Origin, which I've already decided will be "Experiment or Accident." 

Next we do Attributes. We have Body, Agility, Mind, Willpower, and Charisma, or BAMWC for short (named after the famed comic artist and spelunker Arthur Bamwc, obviously). I start with 2 in each, and then five more points I can use to bump 'em. 

Well, not to be too predictable, but I picture Sleet as more agile than strong, so I'll raise Agility twice, Mind once, Willpower once. I get a Maximum Stamina of 7, too (I guess I could have raised that, but eh). 

Powers! And...look at this.

 Gobbledy-gook. What do you mean, you get a major power and then...another major power? Why wouldn't you take two major powers? What's this "-5 traits but it really means +5 traits" shit? I can kinda see what they're saying, I think, but it's so weirdly phrased.

OK, so, there are only five "minor" powers, and they're meant to be things that don't change or improve, but they're totally just powers that are arbitrarily put there. One of them is invisibility, for crying out loud, which I think I want. 

But I know I get one Major Super Power, so let's pick that. It can be Mental or Physical, although "shapeshift into an animal" is mental, which is pretty mental. I'll take Control Weather. There are lines on the sheet but I don't know what I'd put under there. Anyway, I'll take Invisibility as my other choice.

Next are a couple more traits, and the book says that Origin determines them, but that's not at all true. Armor (misspelled as "armour," which I think is French for "love," guys) is 0 by default, and Awareness is dependent on Mind and any mental/danger sense based Talents, so I'll come back to that after...

Talents! I get 3 points in General Talents and 2 in Unique Talents, which means I need to think about Sleet's backstory a little. I think Dub comes from a very comfortable suburban family, and secretly feels really bad that he can just be happier, but he feels really angry and miserable all the time. One night, leaving a bar with some of his friends, he slipped and fell down an embankment and wound up in a ditch covered in (he thought) freezing water. His buddies were about to go after him, but then some governmental types showed up and shooed them away, and looked for Dub, but just couldn't see him. Dub learned over the next few weeks that he could control localized weather patterns, and especially excels at lowering the temperature and calling rain. He's working up to snow.

OK, sure. So for General Talents, I'm thinking Swimming, Driving a Car, and Human Nature, all at +1. For Unique Talents, I'll take Dramatic Poetry and Guitar Playing, also +1. 

Traits! OMG, this is just...look, it's an ad/disad system. You want it to balance out. Most times you don't start with any points, some Origins (including mine) start with a few. So basically I start with 5 free points in traits, meaning I can buy 5 points' worth without taking negative traits. Fucking GURPS did this in 1986, for chrissakes. 

So why is this:

...a thing that exists?

Anyway. Good lord, most of these are super powers. Well, fuck it. I'll take Earth Sense, which lets me sense things through the earth (a-doy), I'll take Athletic, and I'll take Cool, Calm, Collected (although in Sleet's case it's more like "disaffected" or "dissociated"). 

Awesome, nothing left but the details. Well, Dub is of average height and build, and he knows he's not going to be punching anyone out anytime soon, but he's quite capable of turning invisible and knocking bad guys off their pins with gusts of wind or making them step in puddles and slip (surprisingly effective!). Sleet wears a white-and-grey outfit with a full face mask, as he finds it easier to make that invisible. 

That's it. Ah, well, they can't all be Wildsea. 

Wicked Ones: Burn the Baguettes!

How'reyanow, goodnyou, here's last time.

Our heroes protagonists have made their way to Ikae's Refuge, a camp set up in the northern part of the region, not far from the dwarven stronghold of Stonefell. They wait until the cover of darkness, surround the place, and strike! Unfortunately, the denizens of the Refuge, and specifically a cleric of B'eni, the God of Charity, spots them first. The cleric yells a warning and throws magic up into the air, bringing light to the whole camp!

Queequaz the Querulous can't have that, so he incants and calls upon his acolytes/backup dancers to join him, praying to Crevice to cancel the light spell. It works, but it takes a minute (Crevice is often busy). Thudd races across the camp on his brand new prototype device called a "two-wheel," towards the bakery. He crashes into the trees near it, and falls off laughing like a maniac.

Baldruf, as ever, is a little more subtle. He creeps into town and slips into the window of the inn. He notices as he does so that there's a storehouse across the way, with a wheelbarrow of goods just sitting there. That's definitely ripe for the plucking, but the inn looks interesting, too. Once he's in, though, he finds himself confronted with alert, pissed-off burghers. The bartender grabs a big ol' club off the wall and the men make for Baldruf. He holds out his crossbow and rasps two of the only words he knows in Light Tongue ("GIVE GOLD"), but they apparently don't know what this device is so they don't know to be afraid of it. They rush him, but he slips through them and into the back of the inn.

Fnort, as ever, is about as subtle as a sock full of rocks. He and his kobold minions charge into the living tents and grab a couple of smaller humans, incapacitate them, and yank them back into the trees. Fnort sends his minions to take these sorry sods back to the Sepulcher, and goes looking for more heads to bust.

And indeed, the cleric of B'eni is right there. Fnort charges across the camp...and nearly gets felled by an arrow. It misses him, but he doesn't see where it came from, and figures the cleric is as likely a source as any (does the cleric have a bow? No. Was he facing Fnort? No. It's fine, just go with it). Fnort charges in and swings his sock o' rocks at the cleric, as Queequaz and his minions defecate and desecrate the prayer circle. The cleric bellows in outrage and calls up a spell to force Queequaz and his minions into supplication.

Queequaz, of course, ain't having it and reverses the spell, sending the cleric to his knees in pain. The cleric casts another spell and sends Fnort and the minions stumbling back. Queequaz maintains his footing, however. 

Thudd gets up from the heap he landed in and tries to smash through the wall of the bakery, but it proves a little too sturdy. The baker comes charging out with a peel and tries to brain the imp, but Thudd is too nimble. He jumps into the window of the bakery, knocking down shelves of ingredients and setting sparks flying off the over. The baker charges in and tries to push Thudd into the fire, but Thudd is again nimble and flees up the roof. Realizing that his tail is on fire, he pats it out and manages to set the whole roof ablaze. 

Baldruf, still being pursued by the mob, runs out of the inn and tries to distract them with a caltrop throw. They aren't fool, and Baldruf turns around and charges straight through them. The bartender swings his club, but Baldruf leaps over it and takes advantage of the chaos to disappear. He sneaks around to the door of the storehouse - it's locked, but it's a simple lock and he picks it easily. Inside, he finds a real prize: A cask of dwarven ale, marked with the seal of Stonefell. 

Back at the prayer circle, Fnot sees the guard with the bow advancing. He puffs himself up and tries to look scary, and then spins his sock o' rocks and flings it. He...misses, and the sock hits the ground and bursts. But hey, Fnort doesn't get an arrow to the eye, so small victories. 

Baldruf hefts the cask and carries it out to the wheelbarrow, as Thudd jumps up and down on the roof and squeaks "FIRE! FIRE!" (But in Dark Tongue.) This acts as exactly the sort of distraction Baldruf needs, and he pushes the wheelbarrow with the dwarven ale right out of town. Thudd jumps down and gets on his two-wheel and pedals like crazy (but does grab a baked confection on the way). Fnort and Queequaz beat the cleric into unconsciousness and Fnort hefts him up to his shoulders, and Queequaz slashes the ankles of a couple of his acolytes to act as bait for the town guard so they can flee. 

The monsters arrive back at the Sepulcher of Suffering, and they count up their loot. Baldruf finds something curious - an arrow wrapped in leathers. It looks like an ordinary arrow for a longbow, but when he takes his attention off it, it becomes a bolt for his crossbow! Clearly this is a magical item, and Baldruf holds onto it. He also fills a skin with fine dwarven ale for later use.

Speaking of ale, Thudd gets very drunk and stomps around the dungeon, and winds up breaking the bone lock leading toward the guard post. Baldruf takes some time and fixes it, but grumbles to himself that he's going to get Thudd for wasting his time.

The other monsters have their own pursuits. Queequaz and his minions sacrifice the cleric as part of their ritual to someone up a nightmare creature. Thudd finishes his two-wheel and starts mounting a ram to the front. He also has his minions keep working on the trick wall behind the altar. Fnort arranges things in the new reliquary (it's not quite done yet), and goes to visit Gral, his ghoul buddy.

Gral is a ghoul of the East Front, and is generally willing to trade things for meat. Fnort brings along some choice chunks of cleric (waste not, want not), and Gral happily trades him a flail that the ghouls took off some unfortunate but delicious traveler. Fnort heads back to the Sepulcher to practice.

The imps of the Sepulcher, seeing that Fnort is putting things in the new room, decide to help. This, of course, means that the Wicked Ones are going to be finding stuff they really need turning up in the reliquary for a while...

They start planning their next move. It's finally time, they decide, to finish off the Confraternity of the Three. They have a plan. They're going to trick Ikae's Refuge into calling for the Confraternity's help. When the Confraternity responds, they'll ambush their camp and burn their church! It's foolproof!

Well, we'll see, won't we?

Character Creation: Bones Deep

Sounds dirty, dunnit? It's not, though.

The Game: Bones Deep
The Publisher: Technical Grimoire
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: I think just the one, though I have a pdf of Troika! handy

 

In Bones Deep, you play a skeleton exploring the ocean. The idea is that once you die, your skeleton "hatches" and goes exploring, and the ocean's a great place for it because it's not like a skeleton needs air or food. The game is really goddamn weird, but perhaps less so than Troika! itself (which it's based on). 

I love deep sea stuff, and so this game was pretty enchanting to me right off. First thing we need to do is pick which kind of skeleton I want to be. Not species, more in terms of goals and dreams. Told you, it's weird. I think I will be a Keeper. That means I have sea creatures living in and around me, and I can command them if I can give them treats. 

OK, having picked that, I roll 1d3+3 for my starting Skill (again, not a skill, but a trait called Skill). Ugh, rolled a 1, so my Skill is only 4. 

2d6+12 for starting Stamina gives me 19. 1d6+6 for starting Luck gives me 10. 

And then I pick a Drive. There's one on the sheet (whenever you successfully command a creature you heal), but I dunno. I think I want to train and communicate more than command. So let's say whenever I figure out what a creature likes, I (and the creature) recover 1d6 Stamina and I get 1d6 Luck. 

My list of possessions says that two random creatures follow me as henchman, and wouldn't you know it, there are a bunch of creatures in this book, as well as a handy d66 table to roll on. So I roll...25 or 52 (I can read these either way) and 41 or 14. Let's see what that translates to.

25 is "dusky damselfish." 52 is "ripsaw catfish." 14 is "barreleye". 41 is "humboldt squid." 

Well, shit, I know I want the squid. His name is Ablert (yes, that's spelled right). Ablert wants to be friends with everything in the ocean. 

For the other fish frand, I'll take the dusky damselfish. Their name is Lyle. Lyle has a Scrappy-Doo type of personality (but less annoying), quite willing to pick a fight with something several times their size. I imagine Ablert has had to yank Lyle out of the jaws of a much bigger fish more than once. 

My skeleton's name is Chovy. Chovy has kelp growing from his arms and it's not uncommon for smaller fish to swim into his eyes if scared. Ablert often spends time wrapped around and through Chovy's ribs, but Lyle swims out ahead to make sure the way is clear. 

And that'll do it! Into the ocean!