This ended up being a great session. Really leaned into the Concept Crafting in this Survival Sandbox Scenario (S^3 ;)) to great effect. I try to write these PRs within a day or two after the session but this time I got busy, so it may be briefer and more approximated as a result, but it was a great session.
Current Index
Play Reports
Some other posts for context
Color Codes:
NPCs, the actors I try to embody with my so-called "voice acting"
Design Notes
THE CAMPAIGN
The Corporation
RegeXperience: “Live for the RegeXperience”. Childishly edgy experimental entertainment and defense company that doesn’t want the world to know what’s really behind their algorithm. EXPERIENCE, ALGORITHM, ENTERTAINMENT
The Manager
Baz Beetz: Infectiously enthusiastic “artiste” and true believer in the company mission who is as profound as nonsensical.
The Cyblessed Liaison
“Tastes like eating out the ass-end of human progress.”: Like a cheap flaccid little candle dripping wax down an otherwise glorious cake wearing a tacky suit reminiscent of a 1980’s faux-wood-paneled station wagon.
The Issue
The Team must survive on Neo Siberia Bead, overtaken by the angelic Ophan bio-engineered slime molds, Smiling Boy Cultists, and famine. Not only must they survive, but they must hatch an escape plan within a month, before the Solar Scorch immolates the entire Tomino's Array (and lasers Washington DC into oblivion...)
The Team
Ben: Larry
Nazarite Contract: Fast Lane Fintechnomancer
Golem: Lycaon Strain
Larry's past life was one of public mission in conscious contrarianism to his peers partying with the money of their employers. The brief accolades received from new acquaintances never quite made up for the lack of money and freedom. When he'd ask what others were doing to make the world a better place, they'd stare as if they had never considered the question before. What's the point of caring if no one else does?
Lukas: Ikarus
Nazarite Contract: Infrared Ranger
Golem: Chemysterious Cascader
Was an heir to a crime family but betrayed them when his conscience caught up to him. In need of structure and a sense of justice, but without any good frame of reference and few other options, he shortly thereafter accepted the Nazarite Contract with The Corporation.
Huffa: Ernst
Nazarite Contract: Psychonautical Sub-Mariner
Golem: Forgetting Pile - An oozey amorphous Golem collective made of empowered trash and detritus.
An old man who trawls through the unconscious sea gathering the things people forget from their dreams. Sometimes its material that The Corporation deems useful.
Crisis Captain preview of things to come...
Where we left off...
On the verge of bringing the Upstartups into the fold, the Team must now deal with the Space Settlements. The Corporate Alliance and Ziegler Bead are on the verge of war, and the Amalekite Fleet lingers ominously just beyond their reach.
The Team chose to follow Cyril Ziegler aka THE EMISSARY to Ziegler Bead on Tomino's Array to negotiate terms of war. The negotiations quickly go sour as Captain Cobra and the Pirates of Perversity crash through the castle. In the process, The Team learns that the Royals present in the negotiations except for Cyril were all body doubles and that The Zieglers and their personal army have invaded Asimov's Array. They are remotely triggering a Solar Scorch, wherein the Solar Tech of Tomino's Array will be harnessed to overload, burning out the entire Array, and pointed towards Washington DC to incinerate the entire city. They also learn that Captain Cobra and the Pirates of Perversity were inadvertently responsible for the Ophan Crisis, overbreeding wild Ophan, the bio-engineered slime molds of the Array critical both as maintenance droids and livestock, in order to collect on the bounty (aka the Cobra effect aka Perverse Incentive). On top of all that, Ikarus' Karma attracts him to a folklore book on Hibernating Hyberia, a supposed ancient advanced civilization that had encrypted itself into history, whose 111th Genius Prince and Spirit Companion will raise them back to glory, and that Hyberia may have been part of or contemporaneous with the Amalekites.
Despite The Team's attempt to halt Conflict between the Pirates and the (false) Royals, pinkish Ophan flora overtakes Ziegler Bead, funneling The Team into the completely overtaken Neo Siberia Bead, along with Captain Cobra and Cyril Ziegler, who they've convinced via Karmic Attachment to find new purpose working against the Ziegler Family who were prepared to sacrifice him.
They've begun to scavenge resources, fix broken systems, and build shelter, surviving the Ophan wilds and the Smiling Boy Cultists, until they can plan their escape before the Solar Scorch, and (maybe) save Washington DC.
Cleaning the Lake
After securing shelter, the Team must clean Magenta Lake so they have clean water and food, before the end of the phase (~1 week). Investigating closer, they find two Smiling Boy Cultists, Sheepish Esme and Himbo Hogarth. The affable Hogarth tries to indoctrinate them into the brotherhood, encouraging them to starve themselves in service of the Ophan, which they politely resist.
Ernst summons The Forgetting Pile for a moment, modding their Gear with a PORTAL, using the trash powers of The Forgetting Pile to filter out the pollutants from the water to a safe location and ungunk the Pipeline Pig mecha, then sending it back to the Tehomic aether before more Pipeline Pigs would arrive in retaliation.
After cleaning the Lake, they found a buried treasure HARPOON and some resources OIL and GLASS.
Napalm Octopus Drone and The Razzle Dazzle Dog
With some spare time on their hands before the end of the phase, The Team decide to build some Gear for defending their shelter and exploring safely around the Smiling Boy Cultists.
Combining OIL+POWER they craft an Inflammable Octopus Drone, its tendrils shooting out oil from slits in the shelter, creating an oil mote that Ikarus can light up with his Eternal Flamethrower. They Mod it with RUBBER ((OIL+POWER)+RUBBER) to make it bouncy like a Napalm Octopus Drone.
They also combine ILLUSTRATION+GLASS to create a jeep-sized, dog-like quadrupedal vehicle with Razzle Dazzle camouflage, The Razzle Dazzle Dog.
Turkey head on a stick
Smiling Boy Cultists, including Sheepish Esme and Himbo Hogarth, but also Virtual Boy headgear-wearing Sarai and Cult Leader- Ropemaster Abe (Michael Parks type, especially like the Kevin Smith movies Red State or Tusk), arrive at the Domicile, with the intention of forceful conversion. The Cultists wear masks like faces within faces, or like tanned human baby hides.
Hiding in plain sight among them are two Cyblessed Poachers, visible to Ikarus and Larry respectively given the Karmic Attachments they made in what they thought were dreams at the end of Phase One (previous session).
Cyblessed Poachers: A posse of Cyblessed are illegally hunting humans amid the chaos. Wearing pink hunting gear in the style of the girl’s cartoon Shalom Bebee like Hello Kitty meets Pink Panther cartoon.
“Patriarch”: Gaunt old man in a blue collar shirt naked from the waist down, his light barely penetrating a ball of white hair like an anemone. Wd12 Impossible Proofs told through Dogma.
“Patronizer”: Gaudy but good-looking middle aged professional, entirely in gold, surgical light for a head, wearing too many expensive watches telling different times. Pd12 Unconscious manipulation of non-spacetime dimensions.
The Smiling Boy Cultists can't see the Cyblessed Poachers, nor can be convinced of their presence, and they refuse to see the Cyblessed as anything other than god-like saviors.
A mysterious Visceral Eviscerating Hollering, a sound as if coming through a broken beer bottle, snipes one of the Cultists, setting off Conflict.
I should have written the Conflict notes ASAP, but roughly from memory...
Larry activates the Napalm Octopus Drone and Ikarus lights it up with the Eternal Flamethrower, brutally burning many Cultists and a murder of tamed Ophan, while Ernst works with Captain Cobra to take down some more Cultists and activate The Razzle Dazzle Dog for an escape.
For defeating some of these threats, they receive ROPE, ROCK, and ROCK.
"Patriarch" attacks Ikarus with an Impossible Proof, triggering Ikarus' Crisis Captain Nazarite Feature.
I asked about a Henshin / Power Rangers Morphin' Time-style transformation sequence, and Lukas hadn't thought about it so tbd on that, but imagine something like that for yourselves.
The same mysterious force that sniped the cultist with a beer bottle funneled Visceral Eviscerating Hollering attacks Leaping Lorenzino, and rather than reactivate the Karmic Attachment to protect him somehow, Larry chose to let it happen, so the Venus Figurine mini-Golem body broke and Leaping Lorenzino is back to being a homoerotic smartphone app.
Larry <did something I no longer remember...> to denegrate "Patronizer", transforming it into "Penniless" by devaluing its self concept, forcing it into retreat (and gaining the Mod PENNY).
Larry throws the Harpoon through "Patriarch"'s anemone bioluminescence, creating an open wound. Ikarus throws a ROCK through the wound, which eventually gets pushed out as a PEARL, but managed to injure "Patriarch" (I think it was a bit more involved than I'm describing, wish I had written this sooner after the session...), forcing its retreat as well.
Eventually everyone gets in the Razzle Dazzle Dog and makes a stealthy escape.
Phase Three Fresh Air
At the beginning of Phase Three they notice that the air is getting thinner, and must acquire more oxygen before the end of the phase. Larry uses his Zip Ribbon Regressor Nazarite Feature to learn that the oxygen generator is broken, that it exists in the Ophan Forest, and it's part of a complex of buildings that the Smiling Boy Cultists have co-opted.
They infiltrate in the Razzle Dazzle Dog, and Ernst alone uses their WetOps Nazarite Feature to "hide in plain sight" as a "janitor" for the Cultists. Seeing Sarai zonked out wearing her Virtual Boy goggles, Ernst uses the Sub-Atomic Treasure Nazarite Feature to pull an object from Sarai's subconscious that might aid in fixing the oxygen, instead finding that Sarai's subconscious is a direct portal to the Virtual Zoetrope Superhighway Vessel of Tehom (from Session 2). Ernst pulls crimson VR voxels of the rings from the Virtual Zoetrope Superhighway and uses them as gaskets to fix the oxygen machine, and The Team extricates without drawing the attention of the Smiling Boy Cultists.
They investigate the perimeter of the Neo Siberia Bead with their spare time, finding a suspicious looking alter atop a hill, upon which is the skeletal remains of what appears to be a child sacrifice, which they take as *SKELETON (the * denoting it's a special item in this case).
The Team attaches a WING Mod to the Razzle Dazzle Dog ((ILLUSTRATION+GLASS)+WING) to turn it into a flying machine, and when they investigate from the skies, they find that the Cultists, Ophan, and Pipeline Pigs, including Ophan-infested Truffle Pigs, are converging towards them, and towards a flying human child - Ophan hybrid creature, staring directly at them... and that's where we end the session ;).
Unfortunately due to some scheduling conflicts we're going to have to pause for a couple weeks or so, but looking forward to seeing where this goes! I might end up running a FIST one-shot in the meantime involving FIST and CYCLOPS teaming up against The United Spacetimes of America, if I can find enough people and figure out the scheduling...
This session sounds like some bombastic madness! I love it!
ReplyDeleteIt was, thanks! In retrospect I wish I had clarified this in the PR, but also part of what was cool with this, is that between this and the previous session, they're finally seeing the ramifications of having not followed up on the Tomino's Array Issue from the start of the Campaign.
DeleteAt the start of the Campaign they had two issues they could pursue, one involving the Upstartups in SF, and the other involving the situation on Tomino's Array.
So if they had gone into space earlier, they might have had a chance to figure out what was exacerbating the Ophan Crisis and maybe made stronger ties with either the Ziegler Family or the Pirates of Perversity, which could have had broader political or economic implications, but by the time they got there, everything had already gone to shit and now war is basically inevitable lol.
There have been a handful of other pivot moments like this, where things are still moving whether they're looking or not, and they only have so much time to stay on top of everything.