Rolling a double 20 is very 2020

So, there's a massive hole in the ground in Thistlehold. There are things coming out of that hole, and we fight them. They keep coming back with more friends. And then there's a wizard abomination thing, and that's not good - especially when neither Hairy Dog nor Yahana are with us. They were kept out of the city because a giant spider and a (sort of) tame kotka are a bit ... eye-catching.

In the middle of the fight, a nice double 20 (it was 2020 at the time, after all) ensured Murmei's bowstring snapped. Things continued along those lines. Deadorna very nearly died in the fight. Fortunately, it turned out that a counterspell was useful, because that wizard had a big Corruption cloud, and let's not?

Finally some Templars showed up to help, but there's still a bunch of Corruption boiling up from that hole in the ground, so things aren't exactly looking fabulous, shall we say?

Can I bite it in the butt?

There's a weird abomination creature wanting to get into our witch circle. It was like a spider with too many limbs, even though spiders already have too many limbs? Or not spidery, tentacle-y. Either way, it died.

We went to go see our arch troll friend Uhux, as we were supposed to let him know what had happened to his friends.

Can I get Willpower for that?

Last time ended on a cliffhanger - things had just turned frosty between Frankie and the boxing promoter, because someone failed his Intimidation roll. (He succeeded on the first one. It was very satisfying.) Turned out that the eight weirdos around the corners of the boxing ring were staring around the room in sequence. Once the situation was defused (because Frankie thought it best not to start a fight in a room full of mindwhammied people when he's in the presence of his big brother and a number of other humans), four of them walked away.

Lottie is a much better negotiator, and got a much better deal. She should go back to the boxing promoter and re-negotiate the percentage. Ellie said she'd find Valenti for us, seeing as how her childe apparently knew where he was. After leaving Ellie's she went to see a production of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, or at least a part of it, in order to negotiate a new deal at the theatre. This was also successful, because she's the negotiator of the two!!!

Lottie then bumped into Theo Bell and offered her services in the mood changing department (to help him become the next Brujah Primogen) and asked him to please maybe keep an eye on her cousin, seeing as how Frankie's sire has been shit. Theo did this by essentially hijacking the taxi Frankie was in to get out of Harlem. Frankie, bless him, went "this is basically my boss, I should tell him what I know if asked" and told him about both the werewolves and Ecaterina at the steelworks incident in Gowanus. This apparently spooks Theo, who says Elysium is likely to be called the next night.

I'll pretend I didn't just Google that

There was a lot angst, angst and more angst in this session, because of the thing we learned the previous session and how we couldn't discuss it with Julius. On the plus side, Frankie's BFF Benny got to make his first appearance!

We talked to Julius about our weird chaos dreams. Turns out Lottie is having Norse mythology dreams, Val is having Greek mythology dreams, and Frankie Egyptian mythology. We were advised to keep the dreams going as long as possible to learn as much as possible.

Lottie and Val went to place a call at a phone box, which was essentially the two of them arguing for half-hour IRL. After which, we cut to another half-hour of Julius and Frankie having a chat involving discussing if relatives of vampires are somehow protected by default - because Frankie would be very concerned about the Manganos obviously and it totally has nothing at all to do with those two ghouled relatives of Julius Charlotte showed us last session. No way, no how, no siree. #smooth Then they awkwardly had a talk about ghouls in general (because of Benny), and being in love with Angela - at which point Julius botched a roll and somehow got the impression that Lottie and Angela were lesbian lovers?!?

Did we win?

So, we were faced with a number of creepy evil clowns and then a big octopus monster thing and creepy Walt Disney type dude? I may have got my notes and memories a little scrambled. We take it down, the deadland becomes ... not so bad any more?

Going back to the people we were trying to save and the town to tell them of our progress, Vince accidentally chatted up a widow by botching his pheromone roll. She was planning on dumping her kid and coming with us ... but um, we got the heck out of there. Because ain't nobody got time for that. He was very sad about it, it was touching. But at least he got laid, eh? ;)

Just like the French

It has been a while since we did this (don't believe the posting date, it's a month later) and my notes are a bit scant, so it's anyone's guess what we did at this point.

Something about an adult dragon being a dick, teleporting 5m up into the air, almost forgetting Booker, Jayson on the ground, and "Shemarrians here?!"

For the second session, we went to Roswell and looked at Naruni weapons and the Coalition States came to blows with the Shemarrians and Splugorth.

Maybe the next place we go is peaceful

So, having survived eight creatures last time, we were now face with three big ones and a boss - all thanks to the number of things we had slain in total. The forest is apparently keeping score.

After a brave fight, where none of us died, Murmei (!) managed to land the final blow on the Death Prince, much to his own surprise.

We decided to head back to Rafe the gardening wraith to stay the night, as it seemed relatively safe, and gave him one of the satnav flowers. The next day we used one of said flowers to find some more things: the colour of an elk, and an old wizard playing a convoluted boardgame with a raven.

While Elindra chatted away to the raven, Valgai had a chat with the wizard and traded questions and answers. As it happened, the wizard had cast a time stop spell and was waiting for the raven to die of old age (so he wouldn't have to part with his fancy wand artefact), but it was of course a magical raven, and the game had lasted for 300 years already. The wizard got the last bit of info he needed and disappeared.

Later on, we came across a number of realistic-looking stone statues and a basilisk that wanted us to go kill a lindworm and cut out its eyes as a trophy. It gave us a dragonslaying sword as help. Diplomatic as ever we gave the sword to the lindworm and tried to trade info, but it went so-so. It wants to snack on some tasty goblins, but we're friends with goblins these days, and besides, we've not actually found any so far, so how that'll work out is anyone's guess.

We're in the Shadow Realm of attack carpets!

Soooooo ... We've started playing Godbound, but I need to make a copypaste post and grab a logo and stuff, and since we're having the bank holiday Monday off, we're gonna need a filler anyway, so let's do that this week and start on the new stuff next week instead.

Victorian characters in their last outing for this adventure - gasp!

Axe, not ass - makes more sense now

After putting Deadlands: Hell on Earth on pause for a bit, we've instead arrived back at the Blackstone Juggernauts. Booker informed the crew that our friend and boss John has in fact been replaced by someone and we should look into that. Gorbash went to talk to Ixchal and give her that white rose petal - she was suitably impressed - and Jayson went for a booty call at Maria's.

Apparently there's a big bounty on all of our heads - except for Donna's, which Booker found incredibly suspicious.

Then a Rakshasa called Sister Anna wanted to meet us at a diner that did very nice burgers and milkshakes. She wanted some stuff back. And then there was an ominous ringing sound coming from Booker's coat ...

You do crit damage on a fumble if you crit on the damage roll

So, this is where it ends. Well, not entirely, of course, but for now.

We broke out Alistair and his Shemarrian assistant/slave from their prison, there was fighting and some of us got our heads encased in ice. Lucky for us we all had a spell on us which meant we didn't actually have to breathe, so it was more of an inconvenience than anything else.

Somehow we got out of there alive, all of us, and headed back to Magestar. But where, oh where, is our Beloved Leader of the Blackstone Juggernauts, a.k.a. John?

You know there's such a thing as dice rolling apps, right?

We continued fighting the Nxla cultists who so rudely interrupted us when we went to visit their neighbours.

Oh well, they're not standing anymore, that's for sure.

We then decided it was high time to get out of that town ... because even though we've paid for our citizenship, they will probably still frown on mass murdering ...

Damn dice behaving like dice!

Our last instalment of Hell on Earth had us in a hospital. The one where they make those bloated zombies we've kept seeing. We fought the doctor who created them, although for some of it we were just flailing around at the zombies rather than being competent fighters ... oh well. At least we lived to tell the tale!

Get out of my guts!

We're back in the future, and this time we have a couple of new friends:

• Elliot Harrison, a Templar
• Rufus Sterling, a Huckster (replacing Duke Carpenter)

We've travelled a lot and made it down to Louisiana, where we stopped because the van broke down and helped a guy not to get slaughtered by a pack of rats. Aaaand then we were about to be attacked by river pirates, so we got out of there.

Everyone's killing innocents, why can't I?

With a van loaded full of innocents (and some of the party that don't have their own means of transportation), we got the hell out of Coalition State. Without dying, so there's a plus. The SAMAS and their pals tried their very best, but while we don't actually have plot armour ... we sort of still appear to have plot armour. ;)

Does a low roll mean you fail early or very, very late?

Again, I was barely conscious during these sessions, which is why three of them are combined into one here, as not a lot of stuff was noted down at the time.

As you can tell from the dates, there were a few cancelled sessions during this time. During some of them we boardgamed, but quotes weren't written down. The week before the final session, we were supposed to have the final session, but umm ... character sheets and stuff were left at home, friends from Sweden were visiting and we ended up playing Cards Against Humanity instead. Like you do. *cough*

Whose side am I supposed to be on?

So what happened was ... Hecate showed up in Ulmolf's head and sang her siren song again. For character replacement purposes, Ulmolf said "alright then" and had Odin show up in town, asking him wtf he thinks he's doing. They both disappeared through a rift back to Asgard.

Ulmolf's replacement is a demigod by the name Elyssa. On the plus side, Elyssa is a good person, so maybe we can keep Gorbash on the straight and narrow for a while yet ...

In the warehouse where we found the necromancer last session, there was indeed a necromancer. She had a half-dead bloke tied to a wall and she was very pleased to see Booker.

Apparently it was all some sort of ritual to give Booker all the knowledge in order to fight what he needs to fight as the Chosen One, but we didn't really know this when we may or may not have conked her over the head and having her dying on us and completing the ritual.

A lot of people in town (whose HP were powering the spell) died in the process and because the spell sort of backfired because Booker was supposed to be the only one present in the building and not the entire party, Alistair let Gorbash and Jayson know they ended up with a soul each tied to them ...

Mansions of Butthurt

A couple of players down, we did a bit of boardgaming. In this case, Mansions of Madness. The GM of the game targeted one of the players first, because he had the lowest stats, and the player wasn't too pleased about it. We all got to be the target at one stage or another, and in the end we all died and Cthulhu took over the world. Oh well ...

What kind of a spaceship IS this?!

With Steve and/or Dave being a new wallpaper pattern, it was glaringly obvious we had a bit of an Eldar problem aboard the Arkadius. Rusty managed to shoot one to oblivion before Nemiel showed up. Fulgentius tracked down all the intruders for us to take down. There were flamethrowers shot down airshafts and everything!

On the bridge, Orlandis used gravity (or lack thereof) to play Asteroids with dead bodies and a hidden Eldar. Lucius wasn't too keen on being thrown around the place thanks to the creative piloting.

Once the intruders were dispatched of, a team were sent down to the planet below to infiltrate a mountain complex. Turned out to sort of be less of a mountain and more of a problem. A problem which wasn't solved when Nemiel managed to summon a demon prince from the Warp.

But at least we fired a warning flare first ...

We're all about the failing today

After the joinage of a brand new player to the group, the crew of the Arkadius now has an actual played Navigator! Lucius of House Brabazon, a.k.a. Eyes.

Most of the party went down to the planet and talked to people, rolled badly and waded around in mud and that sort of thing, while aboard the ship one of the flight crew - Steve - went missing. With Dave sent to find him, Dave also went missing. One of them was found smeared on the walls of his cabin ... and one of them Dark Eldar nearby. CLIFFHANGER!!

I've never been so tense to start a boardgame

After finishing Hunter, we've had a couple of sessions of boardgaming. The first one was zombie survival game Dead of Winter, and yesterday, we played the XCOM boardgame - which is a very stressful (yet fun) experience.

We also started putting together characters for the next roleplaying game we've got lined up: Deadlands: Hell on Earth. It's like Deadlands, but in the FUTURE. With MUTANTS. And RAD POISONING.