SHIELDBREAKER: Play Report 5

Jim-Thing: A collage/digital edit created by our very own z_bill!

Click here for the Session 1 Play Report!

Click here for the Session 2 Play Report!

Click here for the Session 3 Play Report!

Click here for the Session 4 Play Report!

Click here for the NPC Character Cards!

Characters 

Jim Casper: Tartarian-Mutant Specialist. Working in a storehouse in the Tartarian kingdom, he learned about a mysterious martial cult, and has since been attempting to learn more about it. Has a mutation, a slit on his body which must be fed ancient artifacts. After his death at the hands of Kail under the effects of the Shit-Shroom, Ortega used apoptomancy to bring Jim back to life as an Unliving Metamorph. He now has completely white and cytoplasmic skin, a giant exposed brain, necrotic tentacles, levitates, can bud like a fungus, and has a bony detachable eye-like growth on his knee.

    -- Player: Z_bill

Kail: Mimic Knight (Fighter). A bland-looking mutant with greyish skin and coal-black eyes, giving him a stone-like appearance. Seeking something to make him special, he chanced upon a mimic, and was able to arrange a symbiotic relationship. The mimic armor slithers over him, occasionally altering its appearance to various effect. With his armor, Kail now seeks adventure, and has joined the Pearl Panthers to get it.
    -- Player: David Horowitz

Ortega: Mutant Apoptomancer. The fools back at the academy turned a blind eye to the limitless potential of the immune system... but who's laughing now?? He got kicked out of the academy for a very, very uncontrolled experiment and is now on the run. 

    -- Player: Saker Tarsos

Xx_Slayer_Queen_69 (Slayer): Mutant Phreaker and thrillseeker. Goth cyberpunk hacker-type with a scarlet mohawk and a black jacket covered in spikes and red eyes to boot. She has an automagic PMC on one arm and she makes it look good. She also has a roth obsidian visor.

    -- Player: Michael Kennedy

Play Report

• At the end of the last session, the players found themselves in a room full of viscera. Destroyed aquorum drones; exploded frelin and gozen; violated soma addicts; broken psycho-cells with fetal nematode-like corpses. Patches of null-space around the plastic, cybernetic, bio-tissue remains of SWORD corpses. Rows of dead SHIELDS delicately placed on emergency tables. The room is surrounded by shadow and null- the entrance cannot be found. The null-space has been occupied by a Spreading Shadow. 
• Spreading Shadow: An ethereal mass in the shadows, spreading shadow-pseudopods. Claws reach out to prey from the shadow. The shadow is a pocket dimension. From within, it hums. The walls feel like fur or moss-covered chitin. The fur-like cilia push and pull at the objects within. Will only attack infrequently (every other “round” or so).
• Also in the room with them is the mutant cult-leader / drug producer SOMA (pictured above). 
• SOMA: A mutant in his 40's wearing a cloak. He has jaundiced yellow skin and spiky platinum blond hair. He produces the drug soma, and has formed a cult of homeless and social undesirables deep within the Grand Stable system.
• There are seven lamps, numbers written above them in blood, only the last lamp is lit, and it is violet colored. The numbers read 18-15-25-7-2-9-22.
• SOMA offers to help the party escape if they give his cult amnesty from the law, legal autonomy, and if they sample his soma. Instead, Slayer... slays him (accidentally, supposedly). Serabia freaks out and nearly gets absorbed by the shadow. Kail saves her, but in the process nearly dies, and his consciousness is temporarily taken over by his mimic armor. 
• They eventually solve the puzzle and open a rainbow-light portal which takes them to another room.
• The next room is completely dark. Eventually they see a void elemental, not because it produces light, because it is darker than dark and therefore stands out even in absolute darkness.
• Void Elemental: A vantablack void orb with thorny tendrils. It is not clear if this is an organism, construct, or the platonic concept of null. Suction cups on the trendrils create mini-black hole vacuums.
• It makes the following statements each round as it attacks the party:
• What does the cow say?
• What is the non-binary response? 
• Do you still hate me? 
• What does the cow say? Do you still hate me?
•  In response to the last statement, on the verge of death, the party says "Noo" And the Void Elemental dissipates (the correct answer was supposed to be Mu/Moo but I misheard and anyway it ended up being funny so I ran with it ;) ). 
• The party, a faction of the mercenary group the Pearl Panthers, are now known as The Knights Who Say Noo.
• After escaping this room, they find themselves in front of an unlocked, but heavily reinforced door, covered in scratches and indents from SWORDs, lying dead in front of the door. In a hallway preceding the door, they find two weapons (generated using the Weapon Hack 2.0).
• Kaiber-Gaussian Sniper Rifle: An ancient artifact, a magnet-rail sniper rifle. The magnetic field of the rifle is kaibermantically encoded, and not a physical magnetic barrel that could be reverse engineered.
• Heavy: 1d10, Two-handed
• Total Cost: 3
• Qualities: Long Range (1); Magical (1); Deadly (1)
• Flamemare: A one-handed but powerful, piston-pumping warhammer, powered by devil-water which leaks onto the handle. The combustion of the devil-water frequently ignites onto the leaking surface, covering the head in flame.
• Medium: 1d6, One-handed
• Total Cost: 1
• Qualities: Sticky (0); Devil-Water (0); Elemental: Fire (1)
• They enter the room and find the SHIELD, who gives the following monologue: 
• Read the monologue quickly, with little space between sentences. Put a twinge of anger and sadness and voice-breaking in it. Imagine it building up as it progresses into a mad crescendo. 

I was alive once, I think. I think I am. I am, am I not? Null, Unalive, Unliving. If I am, I am Unliving. Am I, I? Can four dimensions exist while three are null? Where are the vertices of null-space? If space is null, what are objects? Null objects = Null life. Living = Unliving. Yes = Not Yes ~= Yes. Binary logic dissolves and I remember when they separated my sibling and I, when my heart turned Blu and my mind went to a faraway place, and my sibling hunts me like a dog and we are broken inside. Fractured, defined by conflict, mathematical models derived from psychic suicide, playing a game no party understands to serve ends that mean null, and now I ask you: What was it all for!? Am I alive?! What am I!? AM. I?

• Suddenly a SWORD enters the room from behind and attacks the SHIELD. The SWORD ignores the party, and they choose not to intercede. The SHIELD casts kaibermantic magic missiles at the SWORD, but eventually the SWORD latches onto the SHIELD's throat and tears through it. For a brief moment, the party sees consciousness, remorse, and finally hatred in the SWORD's eyes, and it attacks the party.
• After defeating the SWORD, they go into a mesmeric trance. They hear the following voice in their heads, along with this song (although I screwed up the audio so they only heard my the voice >.<).
• Play this video, wait until after the cassette tape clicks and the music starts, and then read or say out loud the below to yourself slowly. It's better if you can get someone else to say it while you close your eyes, or you for them. The timing doesn't matter too much, but if it helps, I finish the monologue with a little under a minute left in the song.

Your eyes are warm, your eyelids heavy. You close your eyes and take a deep breath, in through your nose, out through your mouth *breath 5s in, 5s out*, and then another *breath*. A warm current flows through you, radiating out from you like a soft blanket tickling your skin. You think about everything leading up to this moment, all the way back to childhood. You acknowledge the bad moments but only focus on the good. You’ve been through a lot. I know there were times you thought you couldn’t make it, but here you are, and you’re doing it. Even when the world feels wrong, you can find your center, I know you can. Just think of all that you’ve accomplished. Think about where you are right now. Think about the people around you, and the experiences you’ve shared, and the memories. It’s hard to believe, it feels like you’ve only just met and now you all are such good friends. It’s wonderful, isn’t it, all the people in the world, and how at any moment any of them can become your friend. Mmm… it feels good, doesn’t it, focusing on the good. There is still so much left to do. I know it can be daunting, but I believe in you, I believe you will do it. And if you don’t, if your adventure is cut short, that’s ok too, because you will always have those good moments, they carry with you. Every moment leads to this one, so every good moment is with you too, always. There is good and bad, but you get to choose which moments drive you, only you get to make that decision, and I believe in you, I believe you will focus on the good. Take another deep breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth, *breath*, and again *breath*. Ok, take your time, and slowly open your eyes. I’m sorry to say, it won’t be like this anymore, it may be cold, you may see bad things, but that’s ok. You always had to open your eyes, but remember, you will eventually close them again. Things can be bad out there, but when they are, just remember that you were here, and you will be here again, and in fact you never really left. You are here right now, in this moment and in every moment. I would wish you good luck, but you don’t need it, because no matter what happens, you will find the good in it. I know you will. I believe in you.    

• This scene was inspired by the "Coffee Break" scene from the videogame Earthbound (below).

• The party magically find themselves at the terminal entrance of the Grand Station. They meet up with Gary Molehands and the violinist cricket, Mr. Myce leaves the group to do paperwork, and they reach out to their handler, Arnold Tanaka, to get paid (and gain 2 levels!). They meet back up at Helnwein's Tavern, where this adventure started. 
• Helnwein serves them a strange purple drink with living fish eggs in it from Sporie's, which gives Jim temporary lucidity, and then the entire party is psychically imprinted with a memory from a page of one of Jim's occult books of a picture that looks much like his new form (see picture at top). The moment passes, and they only vaguely remember this impression.
• Arnold tells the party that they will be receiving a dossier of new missions in the near future, and for now should just enjoy the city.
• CAMPAIGN END!

The Breakdown

    I'm really happy with how this campaign went! The first couple sessions were a bit of a learning curve, but I think I really hit my stride with session 3. This session was a little on the short side, in part because they got through the puzzles a little faster than I expected, and I'm still annoyed about the audio issue with  the "coffee break", but on the whole I think this was a fun journey, and I'm looking forward to the next adventure!

    We decided that the next session we're going to do a one-shot of something else, a different system and setting and possibly different GM, and then come back to the next Phantasmos campaign. I really wanted this one to be entirely within Nova Arkham, but I think the next campaign will involve exploration!

    The "coffee break" is a thing I've wanted to do for a while, and I think it was fairly successful. Try it out yourself and let me know what you think! I'd like to see more of this kind of thing- integration of guided meditation, ASMR, breath practice, etc. in tabletop. It's kind of weird, but then that's what I'm all about ;).