Which is why I believe that in the long run, the Trump era could turn out to be a good thing. Rot has existed deep in American society and politics for a long time. It can't be recognized and cleaned out unless and until it's brought to the surface. Maybe Trump's blatant simplistic provocation has brought it out sooner than it otherwise would have been... and before it's too late to purge it.
Arram’s player: Six weeks of work and it turns out to have a Twix wrapper caught in an updraft
The players have also been discussing cultivating Brown Mold, for its spectacular heat-draining abilities, to make a walk-in freezer or even a refrigerated warehouse.
Kernel’s player: kinda icky, but it certainly works… why does it feel like brown mold is an automatic thermal regulator that escaped from one of the crashed spaceships
At least we should be able to get back out of the old monastery basement, if we only use the very edge of the stairs out. There’s also a bunch of doors down here that invite checking. Of course nobody bought door spikes or ten-foot-poles, because, as previously noted, we are not adventurers. Happily, the Monastery doesn't seem very monstery, at least for now. The only signs of life down here is the mold that ate the stored food, then starved to death itself. Happily, it wasn’t Brown Mold.
Kernel: That’s well beyond Purify Food and Water. Interesting fact, if you cast Purify Food and Water on cheese you still get cheese.
Gonno: But what happens if you cast it on Casu Marzu?
Skave’s player: *looks up Casu Marzu* DRHOZ. I WAS EATING.
The next room used to be someone’s office.
Arram: ‘Day 300 - The cult is going well - no one suspects a thing’
Skave: ‘Day 301 - Oh no they found me out. AEIEEE’
Eddison: And yet he had the wherewithal to write that out.
There’s a pair of magical climbing gloves in one of the monk’s cells. And some really nice silverware in the kitchen.
Eddison OOC: Might be platinum. Or aluminium. Sorry, in fantasy language ‘mithril’.
In fact he’s so distracted by the servingware that the dining room full of zombies is a bit of a surprise.
Skave: Don’t mind us, we didn’t mean to interrupt your dinner! *slams the door shut again*
Arram: We can do some comprehensive looting once we’re sure nothing is trying to kill us.
At least we haven’t been attacked by Vargouilles yet. Of course, that might mean the monsters are lurking somewhere in the country around Selversgard. Not that we have any shortage of monsters in the old chapel of the murdered god Aroden - more zombies led by a Zombie Lord.
Zombie Lord: You …are not…welcome here. This is … the temple… of our dead Lord.
Some frantic in-party communication ensues by way of waggling eyebrows - we decide we can probably get away with a few questions before we have to run.
Skave OoC: Knowledge Religion Check, Are there any gestures of supplication for Aroden? Hand movements, Gang Signs?
Eddison OoC: GANG SIGNS?!
Zombie Lord: Vargouilles… do not concern me. Trespassers… on holy ground…concern me.
Eddison: The Vargouilles prey on humans.
Zombie Lord: Humanity turned… its back… on our Lord. Only we remain.
Eddison: Ah. A cult of Undead worshiping a dead god.
Zombie Lord: If you do not leave… then you must stay.
Eddison OOC: Another visitor! Stay a while, stay forever!
Skave: Okaysorryaboutbotheringyouwe’regoingnow (Quick, bunch them up by the door!)
They’re not just zombies, they’re zombie MONKS, and they’ve remembered their Monk abilities, such as Stunning Fist. It’s just as well we have all kinds of special abilities too.
Eddison Finally takes down the Zombie Lord with a Mystic bolt, leaving a single zombie writhing in a Web spell.
Skave: *Critical fail attempting to shoot an immobilised target with his crossbow* Sigh. Gonno? He’s all yours…
Gonno: *flying kick with appropriate Wuxia sound effects*
Time to check the upper levels of the monastery. We take considerable care - we don’t want to fall through rotten timber again and plunge through multiple levels until we’re in the basement again.
GM: You come across a ruined office. You may make a Perception check.
Arram OoC: It’s OK, I like surprises in my life.
GM: There is a buzzing sound from the office.
Skave OoC: Well, give one to the IT Staff, All this time and the servers are still running!
Kernel OoC: It might be a Zombie SysAdmin and we’ll be be f***ed.
Unfortunately, it’s wasps. A lot of very angry wasps.
Both Skave and Eddison throw Alchemist’s fire flasks at it, to little effect. At least we establish that despite their reputation, wasps are not Evil, because if they were our attacks that do extra damage to Evil things would be more effective. Perhaps the wasps had been provoked by the Vargouilles in the next room. THEY are definitely evil.
Skave, Loudly: FINALLY! My mutagen just ran out!
Kernel Summons an Aggressive Thundercloud next to one of them.
Thundercloud: Grrr. argh! *thunder rumble*
Skave Manages to take one out in a single shot.
Skave: Wait, what?
He’s then promptly paralysed by another’s Shriek.
Skave: ZART
Gonno intervenes and uses one of the Vargouilles as a Speed Punching Bag, until it explodes.
Gonno: WHACKITAWHACKITAWHACKITA - I think I broke it.
Skave breathes a sigh of relief as his paralysis fades.
Skave: …Is that all of them?
Kernel OoC: Famous Last words of a horror movie victim…
I dreamed that for some reason I was in charge of a social experiment. We had gathered hundreds of people and divided them into dozens of groups. In each group we randomly assigned people leadership roles in various fields: business & industry, finance, politics, entertainment, agriculture, science, religion, medicine, and so on. Each group was given an initial set of fiscal, societal, and other conditions. The challenge was to build the most prosperous civilization in the long term beginning with what they had.
There was a lot of trash-talking and bragging and such. "I'll OWN you within five years" and that kind of thing. Most groups immediately broke into competition and argument. But there was one exception. One group decided, right at the beginning, that they would cooperate to ensure the success of the entire enterprise. They agreed to put their own self-interest second to the survival of their society. They even drew up a contract as to what that would look like.
When the experiment ended, the cooperative group was the only on whose decisions hadn't led to the extinction of the human species.
Some people from the other groups got mad. I mean, really, really angry. Shouting, name-calling, even a few threats of violence. They thought that group must have cheated or paid off the judges or something like that. They couldn't understand how anyone could succeed where they had failed.
I just got home from seeing The Boy And The Heron, Hayao Miyazaki's and Studio Ghibli's latest. I suspect this really will be Miyazaki's last, and what a way to bow out! It had an even deeper fairy tale feeling than Spirited Away, and it was even more beautiful than Howl's Moving Castle. Expect a bit of a mind screw. Aaaalmost five out of five marching parakeets.
L. Marcus got a reaction from tkdguy in The Non Sequitor Thread
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