I wonder if moon flu is flammable

In a break from regular scheduled programming, he's a session from a few weeks ago, when we were supposed to have a one-shot session of Gamma World, which turned out not to be finished, so we'll continue at some point.

The group of mutants (the GM and one of the players are making their first appearance here on the blog - hi guys!) assembled on a keelboat headed for Fargo. It didn't get to Fargo, it got to some place where the sandy ground was turning into glass. A big metallic worm robot thing told us its task was to terraform the planet, despite our protestations. Fargo, it said, had been wiped out. It then decided to suck up a lot of water and turn it into sulphuric acid. Fortunately, before this, it ate the boat and spat it out much improved, so we were able to get the heck away from there.

To Fargo, as it happened. There was a horse and a bunny and some other creatures there. Turned out the bunny had some kind of robot eye-arm stuck in its brain, which we got rid of. (Not that the bunny seemed at all grateful for it.)

We used the mechanical eye-arm to lure out a bigger thing, made of goo, from a kind of pyramid structure. It made a noise to turn everyone against each other, making Jetstream use her flamethrower to make Orson into calamari, but we could play at that game too and so almost accidentally commanded it to kill itself.

On the inside the pyramid contained a massive pool of green goo and a person who didn't seem too happy to see us. And then a bigger thing came out.

Starring:

• Cecil, a plastic ladybird who used to be a children's toy and therefore hates everyone
• Gunther von Lunar, a vampiric plaguebearer from THE MOON!
• Jetstream, a regenerating speedster with a short attention span
• Mr Johnson, a seismic shapeshifter
• Orson, a hypercognitive octopoid former biker and also scientist

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!

In Soviet Russia 'flubber' is a verb

We didn't have a roleplaying session this past Monday, so here's one we played earlier:

Our Soviet Russian characters have now moved into the 1980s, and oh the 80s music punning that ensued ...

Sit down, shut up and roll initiative

Trying to get out of Coalition State ... Going so-so. Especially since we're also trying to save some people along the way. Oh, if only we were the bad guys, we wouldn't have tobe all helpful and stuff!

The OTHER Black Forest

Further adventures in 1960s Soviet Russia. This time it included a trip to the Black Forest. When pointing out that the Black Forest is in what was then WEST Germany, it was decided that there was obviously also ANOTHER Black Forest ... somewhere in the Soviet Union.

This should eventually have landed us back in Victorian England (and our third set of characters), but the quotes don't reflect that for some reason. o.O

Thank god we're not actual Russians

When the modern characters met the Russian bear, he started telling a story, which landed us in 1960s Soviet Russia - and our second set of characters ... Cue exaggerated and wildly inaccurate Russian accents!

Are we in an extended Shakespeare metaphor?

We ended up partaking in an M&M campaign, because it's nice to get the band back together, as it were.

It's taking place in three different times. In this particular session, modern day American characters somehow ended up transported to the island in Shakespeare's The Tempest, where they met a one-armed Russian teddybear with rocket launchers. Soooo yeah. :D

Let's see if Nxla can be distracted by ice cream

We're in Nxla's realm! Or, as we found out later, not Nxla's realm at all, but a place where he'd once got to and liked it so much he decided to stay.

A bit of Nxla was found playing with some kind of creature on one side, and on the other, a human being brutalised by some other kind of creature, a sort of lizard-cat type thing carrying a globe. We made short work of the creature and rescued the human. Yay for us!

Unfortunately, right about then the Nxla tentacle spotted Booker and we had to leg it. Being the slowest one in the party, Jayson was picked up by Elyssia and casually tossed over her shoulder. (Whether or not she took the opportunity to cop a feel, we'll leave unsaid.) Not the most dignified means of travel, but at least it was effective.

Meanwhile, Gorbash decided to play hide and seek with Nxla to avoid the rest of the party getting tentacled.

Turned out the lizard-cat people had a whole village where they were keeping stray humans safe, because they are good guys. And we just murdered one of them. Oops? Luckily for them, they have some kind of resurrection thing going on, so the one we offed won't stay dead for very long.

Pretty much all humans are in the lizard-cat village, so all we need to do now is to herd them back to the gate and wait for it to open so we can all go through and return home. Or at least that was the plan until we found out that Alistair is looking for the soul of his brother which he believes to be in this particular realm. Fun times await?

Why are we so atrocious?

We went to a town called Angels and were going to use Booker as bait. After much arguing about this point, Alistair and Ulmolf had enough and decided to go check out the town by themselves. As Gorbash and Jayson also went to have a look around, Booker decided he was going to agree to the bait plan all along. Following on from this, Booker went around various hotels checking in but not actually making use of the rooms.

Gorbash, trying to fit in, decided to make himself nicely inconspicuous ... by copying Jayson's looks, and because dragons are supernatural and therefore supernaturally beautiful, the end result (looking like Jayson's more attractive brother) did not go down very well with the Cyber-Knight, who's used to being Mr Fanservice.

Cups of tea were had. Stalkings were done. In the end, Booker got a message from a six-year-old girl to please help by rescuing her mum in a warehouse. Booker, being the nice chap that he is, decided to use her as a meat shield.

The child's mother wasn't in the warehouse, of course, but a necromancer was, so he bravely ran away.

We need a flowchart at this point

We're doing a bit of boardgaming at the moment because various people can't make the sessions for various reasons.

Last Tuesday, we played Once Upon a Time, which went from a children's game to something along the lines of Game of Thrones, but even more convoluted - hence the need for a flowchard. We followed this up with A Study in Emerald, where the game play was straightforward but the setup was about as convoluted as the previous game's storyline.

The bonus round was written down playing Boss Monster, Runecast and King of Tokyo. There were some spectacularly bad foreign accents during Monty Python Fluxx as well ...

I like my character but I don’t like my dice

One player down, we had a session where we couldn't start the Hell on Earth adventure, but instead of doing a boardgame like we'd normally do, we had a one-shot Dungeons & Dragons adventure. Or part of one, at any rate.

Our usual D&D GM would like to get to play the game as well as GM it, so I volunteered to do it, but having never run an adventure from a printed book we thought maybe I should give it a try first and see if I was comfortable doing it. Turns out I was so comfortable that I nearly wiped the party on their very first encounter. ;)

The players rolled up new level one characters to use going forward (that way they could get to try them out as well) and then we did as far as we had time for of part one of the 5th Edition starter pack adventure - being ambushed by goblins, finding a cave and so on.

I'd apologise but this is hilarious

Ahh, our first Hunter session since May 2014. It's good to be back, even though we're technically back in Derby.

So, the world's about to end in about a week's time and apparently, there is some old Japanese legend of people who bear the mark of a curse that go through a sacrifice of fire in order to cleanse the world of the curse. It looks like an orange circle, this curse mark thingamajig, and is currently occupying the skin of both Eddie and Tilly.

Since May, we have of course lost Tommy Crane's player, but we've instead gained Alex Surname, a 30-35-year-old war veteran who spent a couple of years in a mental hospital being treated for PTSD after coming back from a tour in Afghanistan. There was a werewolf, and there are no werewolves in real life, that sort of thing. He also made friends with Keles Moriton (formerly known as Rommel) in Afghanistan, and now he told Alex to make friends with us lot.

Alex also has an Alsatian, but an adult version called Karl. He pointed out that Tilly's 10-week-old puppy wasn't a puppy at all, and despite the party's best efforts at gesturing him to STFU and not trigger the Russian, Zolistagol finally realised that Rommel (the puppy) wasn't a puppy and freaked the hell out. It almost ended badly.

Not as badly, however, as things ended for Eddie's "chemical analysis lab" in a generic warehouse. The hollow Nazi gold bar we found turned out to contain something that turned people into radioactive barf zombies (!), and they're hell-bent on spreading themselves upon Derby like a bad case of Ebola. Err, yay?

The person who comes last can be Wil Wheaton

For the past few years we've hosted a New Year's boardgaming extravaganza at our place. This New Year's Eve was no exception.

We warmed up by playing Dixit, then Cards Against Humanity, and Betrayal at House on the Hill - which saw in midnight - and the next day, we rounded off by a few games of King of Tokyo.

That's right, we sure know how to party! #wearehorriblepeople

Getting maimed? Not in the mood!

Well, the Rakshasa were toast and the party survived, so that's good. The group also had a chance to catch up with Booker. Drake went and got his armour sorted, as his player was indisposed.

Booker, it turns out, used to kill innocent people for money before he met us. We daresay it explains a few things. The amulet he bought off a friend (who was a little too eager to get rid of it) turns out to be a symbol of Splugorth, and that's generally not considered a good fashion accessory.

And then we used those red bandannas to infiltrate Rakshasa Raider territory while trying to find that big box full of doom gate, and uh, let's just say we're starting to have a Bad Feeling about this campaign ...

Dragonslayers are GO!

As far as cunning plans go, ours was very cunning indeed. First, Gorbash antagonised Milan by dipping a toe in the guy's territory. Milan, so big and strong, apparently needs six Rakshasa to combat Gorbash, which says a lot about both of them. Gorbash tried reasoning with him, but Milan wasn't interested.

With Milan out of the way, Baradhi and Sir Jayson went to find the gate box. Baradhi astral walked into the building, down some stairs and found the box in the basement. Unfortunately, there was someone there who could see him, so he had to make a quick exit.

After reporting back to HQ, we decided that the best option to retrieve the box - or destroy it - was to not have Milan there, because he's a fricken DRAGON. So we went somewhere near a ley line in his territory, tooled up and waited.

He shot first.

Or, okay, breathed fire first, barbecuing some poor bystanders in the process. Baradhi cast Carpet of Adhesion to make sure he couldn't move, and then we shot him with everything we had. First, Gorbash was blinded and accidentally blew up a building (with innocent people inside) thinking he was aiming for Milan. Sir Jayson, who was blinded next, still had a good aim, though, and his robot horse came into its own as well.

Now Milan is dead, so we can all call ourselves Dragonslayers. W00t! Gorbash took the body to the head of Stormspire (who wanted four pints of dragon blood), said "here you go" and as a reward, the guy is going to go after - and destroy, we hope - that box we were after. So, uh, we appear to have finished the adventure already.

I have to lick … I mean, tend to his wounds

Part two of Meanwhile in Narnia, where the team of Jurisfiction agents have finally made it into Stephen King's The Shining, which is apparently a children's book now.

At the snow-covered Overlook Hotel, the agents look for statues of what are probably petrified Narnians, avoid being read by diving behind a bush and then interrogating little Danny Torrance, busy riding around the hallways on his tricycle. Admittedly, the GM has never read The Shining and therefore based everything that happened here on the Stanley Kubrick film, which of course has very little to do with the actual novel.

Also, there were clues, leading Alice to suspect Mr Tumnus from Narnia might be involved. Who else has hairy legs, horns and wears a red scarf? The Turkish deligh definitely must come from Narnia!