Smiles and Snakes along the Suan Hi River: The Weird Marches Current Campaign Update
When last we left our heroes, the Whispershire Adventuring Guild, heeding the call of the drunken monk, Ayo's, god. They arrived at the most disturbing city of Hillhaven, populated by the widely grinning cultists of the Smiling God. Find the earlier post here.
Characters:
(Many of these characters and players are not there every session. It is a West Marches style game so people come and go, even though this little mini-campaign completely broke the format.)
Ayo, Drunken Monk, Follower of Ahuiteteo, Scary Lady played by Dan D
Good Mistress Penelope, Wizard, Mother of Snakes, Very Scary Lady played by Jozo
Trapper-sama, Warrior, Yelly-boi, Brave and True also played by Jozo
Linden, Elf, Labrador Puppy in Disguise, Secretly Brilliant played by Xela
Wyrd, Thief, Fortune Teller, Protector of the Weak and Innocent also played by Xela
Nettie, Cleric, Worshiper of the Stars, Devoted Companion played by Battie
Elf Boi/Gurl, Elf, Gender-Swapper, Dead by Falling from a Great Height, RIP, "F" in the chat played by Thoobn.
Dimitri, Halfling, Haberdasher, Heccin World Wise, Has a Dead Brother played by Mr. Mister
Gareth Girthwide, Dwarven Spell Forge, Has a Big Very Unlucky Family played by Owl
John Strologer, Astrologist, Speaks in the First Person, Huge Ego also played by Owl
Ori Goodchilde, Halfing, Kind of Disgusting, Very Funny Character played by Sam
Sorry if any characters or players were left out. There are a lot and I can't even track down the information for some of them.
Feeling that something was amiss in this obviously super creepy place, they made to leave but found they were being followed by Venik, a priest of the Smiling God. Ayo and the Good Mistress, through subterfuge, managed to separate the creepy, masked cultist from his guards and engaged him in combat. In the course of this battle. Venik's terrible strength became clear, being obviously more physically strong than his slim figure would suggest. His mast came off, revealing a hideously tormented visage, marked by thousands of self-imposed torments.
They managed to kill him with the help of Penelope's summoned hounds and left him buried in a shallow grave.
From there the party delved into the Suan Hi forest, heading in the suspected direction of the Temple of Ahuiteteo. After getting lost, they stumbled upon a shamaness of the river, heading to a nearby shrine because the river spirits of this place were going mad. At the shrine, the party discovered a samurai-esque warrior who demanded they profess their love to his mistress, the Lady Lotus. One of the party takes his offer of a strange pipe the warrior called "his Lady's love" and fell under the mind control influence of this strange Lady.
They defeated the warrior but the shrine was indeed destroyed, but seemingly by a spirit's own hand. During their travels, they happened upon a pool of liquid darkness. Near it, bubbles of blackness spread onto trees. After another encounter with a similarly charmed warrior, they found the temple and Ayo was horrified. The monks of the God of Drunkenness were not drinking! They were sucking from hookah pipes each marked with the round smiling feminine face of the Lady Lotus! The pinkish fumes filled the temple and all members of the party shielded their faces from the beguiling smog.
It seemed that the mind control effect only touched the minds of the men of the monastery the female monks hid from their male counterparts. While the menfolk of the temple began wheeling all the valuables out to the Handmaidens of Lady Lotus. These strange Handmaidens were described as being some sort of puppet-like automata full of the gas that comes from the drugs.
Ayo descended to meet the river spirit which guarded the holy booze below the temple while the others began riling up the male monks in an elaborate scheme to purge them of the Lady's influence. Down below the monastery, Ayo met the spirit, corrupted by the dots of liquid darkness like those seen before. She retreated and joined the others. Their scheme turned out to be a success with Linden's accidental brilliance showing that they could use a local plant to induce sobriety.
With the monastery's aid, they destroyed the coming Handmaidens and found that pink slimes emerged from within after the puppet body was ruined. Ayo assumed that the Lady must be responsible for the dark corruption that plagued the land so they set out from the temple to travel to the village of Gotu. They brought their cure of sobriety to the men of that village and gained the aid of the militarized women of the village.
They attacked the castle where the Lady had made her residence. Penelope cast a mighty spell and summoned an army of 20 5HD Snakes that would remain for a week! Even with these minions, they barely escaped that place alive. The Lady Lotus, a giant puppet much like her Handmaidens, proved too strong an adversary for them, though they managed to kill her wizard servant. They attacked from above, breaking through the roof falling onto her massive artificial body. Elf Boi did not manage the jump, falling onto the floor far below and dying. RIP.
Ayo fell unconscious. Dimitri passed out. Penelope called upon her snakes to recover her friends and fled back to Gotu. Upon returning, the villagers informed them that a warband from Hillhaven had entered the forest and that all the Handmaidens were returning to their mistress. Ayo suggested they play the two forces off each other, hoping the survivor would be weak enough to kill fairly easily.
They traveled to the warband but found some cyborg, cat-racoon hybrid allies along the way in the form of the PAW (Professionally Awesome Warriors) agents: Skipper, Kowalski, Rico, and Private. They agreed to help PAW return to space in exchange for their help in defeating Lady Lotus.
Penelope disguised herself as a morbidly obese priest and the party came along as her entourage to tell the warband about the threat of Lady Lotus. The smiling cultists led them to their Second Prophet and the voice which emerged from the shadows was immediately familiar. Venik had died by their hand but he had not stayed dead, his god raising him up and giving him new insight and power, becoming his Second Prophet.
The party called for their PAW backup and their army of snakes. As the backup did battle with the army of cultists, Venik yelled: "Possess me, Smiling God!" Erupting into a shower of meat, his smile hideously widened on his face as his internal meat grew and shifted into a great many armed worm with wide, unblinking eyes and thousands of perfect teeth.
Then he said, "Not again!" As Penelope's summons once again consumed him. However, some of these snakes slithered away with hissing chuckled, smiles spreading over their serpentine faces.
Having watched their messiah get eaten by a bunch of snakes, the cultists became catatonic, their entire worldview shattered. One guy had a heart attack and died.
With only two days left remaining for their snake army, they booked it back to the castle with a cart full of explosives, ready to blow a hole in the wall and rush the central keep. They found the forest around the castle walls shorn of many of their branches. These branches were laid around the palace, heavily littering the ground. Penelope approached the branches and smelled, getting a whiff of the sweet scent of Lady Lotus' formula. After taking some damage from archers on the wall, she retreated. Regardless of this information, they decided to use the snakes to push up their explosives. Some snakes fell into pits of inanimate pink slime, hidden beneath the branches. After fumbling their entry and few times and taking out the archers, they breached the walls and proceeded to the palace roof once more. The courtyard, however, was empty. Lady Lotus had prepared for their coming and taken the noble family hostage, her warriors holding their weapons to their necks.
Linden, bolstered by Dimitri and Ori's Halfling Luck cast a Sleep spell at a 36. If you read my "What's the Deal with DCC?" post, this might sound familiar. The entire area around the castle, including plants and animals, falls asleep. Lady Lotus and her minions fall asleep. A great vibrating noise comes from below. Linden picks the awakening condition as "being hugged" and hugs his companions and the hostages. They venture downstairs to see a great dull golden sphere. Within, they found a ton of loot, magical items, and a strange jar of sulfurous black powder. Ayo drunkenly hugged and snogged the sphere, activating the machine spirit of this spherical golden barge, the Cloud Skipper. The spirit pled for the life of the Lady Lotus, and the party allowed PAW to take her prisoner as they took control of the ship.
Kowalski's analysis of the ship's readouts says that the black stuff or Void is coming from soem ruins to the north, likely of dwarven origin from the runes inscribed on ruins int he forest. PAW agreed to ferry the party back and forth from their Guild Hall to the ruins until they had completed their mission and so the ship teleported back to the Hall.
There Ayo unleashed a wave of such splendid debauchery that the entire city of Whispershire would have a hangover for days, spending an inordinate amount of wealth gained from her travels. However, she found her self marked for a dark purpose, a glob of Void attached to her hand.
Linden also caroused, awakening from his stupor next to a gorgeous elven lady with a wedding ring on his finger. Leaving in a hurry, he angered his new spouse for no one has ever rejected Madame Delure of House Delila.
The Guild was vastly improved by the influx of treasure and the party, with a few characters rotated in, left for the dungeon.
This post has already gone on long enough so I will end it here, leaving the story of the first dungeon expedition for another time. This write-up covered so many sessions that shoving them all together was honestly a crime, but I needed to catch up on these.
Tune in next time to see the Carousing Table I devised for the Weird Marches that will be appearing in Into the Weird Blue Yonder upon its release.
Characters:
(Many of these characters and players are not there every session. It is a West Marches style game so people come and go, even though this little mini-campaign completely broke the format.)
Ayo, Drunken Monk, Follower of Ahuiteteo, Scary Lady played by Dan D
Good Mistress Penelope, Wizard, Mother of Snakes, Very Scary Lady played by Jozo
Trapper-sama, Warrior, Yelly-boi, Brave and True also played by Jozo
Linden, Elf, Labrador Puppy in Disguise, Secretly Brilliant played by Xela
Wyrd, Thief, Fortune Teller, Protector of the Weak and Innocent also played by Xela
Nettie, Cleric, Worshiper of the Stars, Devoted Companion played by Battie
Elf Boi/Gurl, Elf, Gender-Swapper, Dead by Falling from a Great Height, RIP, "F" in the chat played by Thoobn.
Dimitri, Halfling, Haberdasher, Heccin World Wise, Has a Dead Brother played by Mr. Mister
Gareth Girthwide, Dwarven Spell Forge, Has a Big Very Unlucky Family played by Owl
John Strologer, Astrologist, Speaks in the First Person, Huge Ego also played by Owl
Ori Goodchilde, Halfing, Kind of Disgusting, Very Funny Character played by Sam
Sorry if any characters or players were left out. There are a lot and I can't even track down the information for some of them.
Feeling that something was amiss in this obviously super creepy place, they made to leave but found they were being followed by Venik, a priest of the Smiling God. Ayo and the Good Mistress, through subterfuge, managed to separate the creepy, masked cultist from his guards and engaged him in combat. In the course of this battle. Venik's terrible strength became clear, being obviously more physically strong than his slim figure would suggest. His mast came off, revealing a hideously tormented visage, marked by thousands of self-imposed torments.
They managed to kill him with the help of Penelope's summoned hounds and left him buried in a shallow grave.
From there the party delved into the Suan Hi forest, heading in the suspected direction of the Temple of Ahuiteteo. After getting lost, they stumbled upon a shamaness of the river, heading to a nearby shrine because the river spirits of this place were going mad. At the shrine, the party discovered a samurai-esque warrior who demanded they profess their love to his mistress, the Lady Lotus. One of the party takes his offer of a strange pipe the warrior called "his Lady's love" and fell under the mind control influence of this strange Lady.
They defeated the warrior but the shrine was indeed destroyed, but seemingly by a spirit's own hand. During their travels, they happened upon a pool of liquid darkness. Near it, bubbles of blackness spread onto trees. After another encounter with a similarly charmed warrior, they found the temple and Ayo was horrified. The monks of the God of Drunkenness were not drinking! They were sucking from hookah pipes each marked with the round smiling feminine face of the Lady Lotus! The pinkish fumes filled the temple and all members of the party shielded their faces from the beguiling smog.
It seemed that the mind control effect only touched the minds of the men of the monastery the female monks hid from their male counterparts. While the menfolk of the temple began wheeling all the valuables out to the Handmaidens of Lady Lotus. These strange Handmaidens were described as being some sort of puppet-like automata full of the gas that comes from the drugs.
Ayo descended to meet the river spirit which guarded the holy booze below the temple while the others began riling up the male monks in an elaborate scheme to purge them of the Lady's influence. Down below the monastery, Ayo met the spirit, corrupted by the dots of liquid darkness like those seen before. She retreated and joined the others. Their scheme turned out to be a success with Linden's accidental brilliance showing that they could use a local plant to induce sobriety.
With the monastery's aid, they destroyed the coming Handmaidens and found that pink slimes emerged from within after the puppet body was ruined. Ayo assumed that the Lady must be responsible for the dark corruption that plagued the land so they set out from the temple to travel to the village of Gotu. They brought their cure of sobriety to the men of that village and gained the aid of the militarized women of the village.
They attacked the castle where the Lady had made her residence. Penelope cast a mighty spell and summoned an army of 20 5HD Snakes that would remain for a week! Even with these minions, they barely escaped that place alive. The Lady Lotus, a giant puppet much like her Handmaidens, proved too strong an adversary for them, though they managed to kill her wizard servant. They attacked from above, breaking through the roof falling onto her massive artificial body. Elf Boi did not manage the jump, falling onto the floor far below and dying. RIP.
Ayo fell unconscious. Dimitri passed out. Penelope called upon her snakes to recover her friends and fled back to Gotu. Upon returning, the villagers informed them that a warband from Hillhaven had entered the forest and that all the Handmaidens were returning to their mistress. Ayo suggested they play the two forces off each other, hoping the survivor would be weak enough to kill fairly easily.
They traveled to the warband but found some cyborg, cat-racoon hybrid allies along the way in the form of the PAW (Professionally Awesome Warriors) agents: Skipper, Kowalski, Rico, and Private. They agreed to help PAW return to space in exchange for their help in defeating Lady Lotus.
Penelope disguised herself as a morbidly obese priest and the party came along as her entourage to tell the warband about the threat of Lady Lotus. The smiling cultists led them to their Second Prophet and the voice which emerged from the shadows was immediately familiar. Venik had died by their hand but he had not stayed dead, his god raising him up and giving him new insight and power, becoming his Second Prophet.
The party called for their PAW backup and their army of snakes. As the backup did battle with the army of cultists, Venik yelled: "Possess me, Smiling God!" Erupting into a shower of meat, his smile hideously widened on his face as his internal meat grew and shifted into a great many armed worm with wide, unblinking eyes and thousands of perfect teeth.
Then he said, "Not again!" As Penelope's summons once again consumed him. However, some of these snakes slithered away with hissing chuckled, smiles spreading over their serpentine faces.
Having watched their messiah get eaten by a bunch of snakes, the cultists became catatonic, their entire worldview shattered. One guy had a heart attack and died.
With only two days left remaining for their snake army, they booked it back to the castle with a cart full of explosives, ready to blow a hole in the wall and rush the central keep. They found the forest around the castle walls shorn of many of their branches. These branches were laid around the palace, heavily littering the ground. Penelope approached the branches and smelled, getting a whiff of the sweet scent of Lady Lotus' formula. After taking some damage from archers on the wall, she retreated. Regardless of this information, they decided to use the snakes to push up their explosives. Some snakes fell into pits of inanimate pink slime, hidden beneath the branches. After fumbling their entry and few times and taking out the archers, they breached the walls and proceeded to the palace roof once more. The courtyard, however, was empty. Lady Lotus had prepared for their coming and taken the noble family hostage, her warriors holding their weapons to their necks.
Linden, bolstered by Dimitri and Ori's Halfling Luck cast a Sleep spell at a 36. If you read my "What's the Deal with DCC?" post, this might sound familiar. The entire area around the castle, including plants and animals, falls asleep. Lady Lotus and her minions fall asleep. A great vibrating noise comes from below. Linden picks the awakening condition as "being hugged" and hugs his companions and the hostages. They venture downstairs to see a great dull golden sphere. Within, they found a ton of loot, magical items, and a strange jar of sulfurous black powder. Ayo drunkenly hugged and snogged the sphere, activating the machine spirit of this spherical golden barge, the Cloud Skipper. The spirit pled for the life of the Lady Lotus, and the party allowed PAW to take her prisoner as they took control of the ship.
Kowalski's analysis of the ship's readouts says that the black stuff or Void is coming from soem ruins to the north, likely of dwarven origin from the runes inscribed on ruins int he forest. PAW agreed to ferry the party back and forth from their Guild Hall to the ruins until they had completed their mission and so the ship teleported back to the Hall.
There Ayo unleashed a wave of such splendid debauchery that the entire city of Whispershire would have a hangover for days, spending an inordinate amount of wealth gained from her travels. However, she found her self marked for a dark purpose, a glob of Void attached to her hand.
Linden also caroused, awakening from his stupor next to a gorgeous elven lady with a wedding ring on his finger. Leaving in a hurry, he angered his new spouse for no one has ever rejected Madame Delure of House Delila.
The Guild was vastly improved by the influx of treasure and the party, with a few characters rotated in, left for the dungeon.
This post has already gone on long enough so I will end it here, leaving the story of the first dungeon expedition for another time. This write-up covered so many sessions that shoving them all together was honestly a crime, but I needed to catch up on these.
Tune in next time to see the Carousing Table I devised for the Weird Marches that will be appearing in Into the Weird Blue Yonder upon its release.
Ayo has been killing it on the character arc front all on her own. Achieving her quest through failing at every step and stumbling forward by luck.
ReplyDeleteYeah I really like that she has had this awesome arc and that it has been really natural.
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