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

Can we run away now?

We came across a clearing, of sorts ... It was sort of an island, but instead of water around it, there was a deep abyss and a rickety rope bridge. We carefully crossed the rickety rope bridge one by one and had a look around. Turned out it used to be a village and they all belonged to a cult, and sacrificed themselves.

We found a troll metal sacrificial knife in a sarcophagus, and decided to skedaddle before night would fall. Watching from the other side of the rickety rope bridge, there were ghosts and skeletons and it was like Halloween had come a month early. They didn't cross to our side of the bridge, though, so we got out of there.

And then we found another clearing and a hill with twenty graves on. Eight or nine of them cracked open and we just about managed to fight them off when a bloody Death Prince emerged. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu...

Like Jesus but with a feminine touch

While Denethor worked on sealing the hole back up, we (well, mostly Elani) talked to the moth man, the Child of Auriga, who thought it would be a great idea for there to be more of its kind. So Elani got to work and spawned about a thousand of them.

We even had time to go on a few tangents, which has been a while. One was which dragon breath would be most useful, another which Marvel or DC superheroes we best represented. Gunda liked being a Thor/Wonder Woman cross.

Aaaand then we went back to Auriga to say hey, we got rid of the Rotting Court, and ... she was different. She was much stronger, but her memories were very different. What did we mean her not being able to separate herself from the World Engine? That wasn't a problem. She also didn't remember a bunch of other stuff, and Yeenogh freaked out when meeting her because there was so many people there who also ... weren't there. It seems Auriga has a bad case of split personalities going on, and one of them is a kid called Hedwig the Winter General.

Apparently the Court of the Sign of Madness is also in the house!

This isn't a good thing.

The GM is laughing AT us, not WITH us

Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it's off into Davokar forest we go!

And we get attacked by corrupt fairies with beady little eyes and long, sharp talons and things!

And we have to convince our hired hands to follow us into a bit of the forest known to generally not let people return. But that's where we had to go, because the elf that kept intruding on Murmei's dreams was. We're now friends with that guy, and have those elves' protection, so that sounds pretty good.

... Right?

An adventuring party? Here? With OUR dice rolls?

In this first proper instalment of the new adventure, we eventually managed to name our airship - The Lady Peregrin (yes, Ladyhawk was a consideration) - and take it to Myth Drannor and when out adventurising we ended up inside some kind of beast. It was okay, we killed it before it killed us. It was admittedly very close, because our dice rolls were garbage most of the night.

We made friends with Viconia, a Drow battle cleric of Kelemvor. We learned about the Silent Forge, and how it's headed by a red wizard of Thay (Elani's favourite people) who is also a lich. Yay, combo bonus!

And we finished off by getting an unsettling dream about three Orc gods who were now among the greater gods. What does this even mean???

Is Booker a good person?

So, to recap: a bunch of people have been sucked through a portal to Nxla's realm. Nxla being an Old One, like Cthulhu and the likes. Not a good place to be. There's a portal and we plan on opening it up just enough to be able to pass through, get the people back out, and get back without bringing Nxla back with us.

Before that, however, seeing as how Booker's epic Chosen One shot saved the rest of us, we went to the nearest city, Magestar, and set up camp at Alistair's, because apparently that's where he lives. We found a male Shemarrian, which is unheard of, and he had apparently been kicked out of his group.

We also met with Joan, a Cyber-knight, who was not too pleased with what Gorbash (backed up by Jayson) had to say about Booker. And to think they didn't even mention the bit about what happened in the Rakshasa territory, or anything about the Symbol of Splugorth, or the symbiote ...

Booker wasn't too keen to talk to her, but we later found out he had been trying to flirt with her. Speaking of flirting, Gorbash went to see Ixchal for some advice about the portal and ended up suggesting that he'd be happy to fertilise her eggs if he survives the whole portal plan thing. They grow up so fast these days!

As the portal neared the southern gate of the city, Booker handed Jayson a letter to be opened on Booker's demise, and then the Chosen One positioned himself atop a building with a sniper rifle. What was feared being a clocktower situation or attempted suicide by cop was in fact Booker expecting a necromancer to show up, and when that happens, he'll be there to take him or her out. Quite reassuring how our first reaction was "oh gods, he's on a killing spree, innocent people are going to die", isn't it?

Surely at some point demigod Elyssia will regret having come to this plane to help out this particular group ...

We had our chance of dying horribly but we failed

Better late than never, right?

Nemiel managed to one-shot kill the demon prince and the group lived to fight another session. Somehow, despite a surprising number of botches around the table, we made it to the end of the session with only minor mental trauma - and a dead NPC, which Orlandis took very hard because they were friends.

Meanwhile on the Arkadius, the ship was being shot at from the ground and had to go into hiding behind a moon. Oh, and a small group of Tyranids are coming our way. Fun!

Don’t worry, it’s only the end of the world!

We went to bed, and in the middle of the night, Bones receives a phonecall from an unidentified source, saying the radio telescope must be stopped or Ghroth (?) would come sooner rather than later. Mulligan has taken to wearing ear plugs at night, and didn't hear Bones banging on the door. McAffe did, but told him to shove off. Cully lent him a sceptical ear, and got the other two out of bed. Early in the morning, we headed back out to the telescope array ...

And were very nearly run off the road by some lunatic surveyor, whose tires we had to shoot out to get him to stop. An ambulance was called, because the man did not appear to be at all well. In Hayden, we - or rather, McAffe - drove over someone's leg, but he was lying in the middle of the road because apparently the poorliness was contagious. And the garage we visited last week was ablaze.

Finally made it out to the telescope array, where we were shot at, but Bones shot back. Unfortunately, for purposes of finding clues, he's a very good shot and blew the guy's brains out. But at least he shot first. (Anyone telling you differently is lying. Yesss siree.)

What then followed were Mulligan pestering telescope staff for information, McAffe and the ever increasingly paranoid Bones going through chalets searching for clues (seeing as how Bones shot the clue we had), and Cully played CSI with the crime scene. It all had a sense of impending doom over it. Is the end of the adventure nigh?

A little bit of sick, a little bit of Slick

The swamp turned out not to be such a big deal after all. Us players were the biggest challenge. To begin, we had a big discussion as to the name of the guy from CSI: New York - not Kevin Bacon but in fact Gary Sinise, whether or not The Stand was a film or a TV series and when it was from ... and then it turned into a discussion who Gary Busey is, what he's been in, and in particular, who was in Leathal Weapon, and so on. Hence why we decided in the end that next time we're trying to think of an actor, we'll say it's Kevin Bacon and leave it at that, or we're stuck for at least half an hour before someone has the idea to use the IMDb app on their phone ...

At the same time, it was decided  that any film we also couldn't think of would be Care Bears, meaning that later on, when the question accompanying a banjo tune, was "aww, what's the film called?!" the answer was Care Bears rather than Deliverance ... and we imagined a hybrid of the two ... we completely lost it and roared with laughter for five minutes.

(You had to be there.)

In-game, we found the town of Blacktree, mainly because the GM thought better of leaving us in the swamp, what with the inbred Care Bears and the ghost of Slick roaming around below the surface, and said we reached the place in a very quick time. Huzzah! We obtained a sample of the eponymous black tree through the cunning use of squirrel, and then discovered the master healing potion maker was in fact a witch. (You should have seen the look on Set's face when the GM told him the witch was an old woman ... Priceless!)

While Jack's negotations with her didn't seem to help all that much in getting her to co-operate, Hugo's 20 gold dross quickly won her over. Flora got to see the potion being made, took notes, and is considering spending a working holiday there. After the potion was finished, we got the bottle and started heading back to Nottingham as quick as we could. As Jack saw a merchant with his missing father's sword in the crowd, he decided to chase after him, with Finn in tow, while Alysiana, Set, Flora and the bottle - and some NPCs - started in the direction of home. Quickly.