And now: Steampunk, or "ARGBLUSGFLRURBMNLBL?"
Captain Jack Harkness, Oscar Wilde and Dream of the Endless are currently having a threesome on my desk. I'm not sure what this says about me as a person, taste in action figures aside.
Today we finished it. The DnD campaign that began in the rich and fascinating pseudo-medieval, pseudo-Victorian world created by the invention of the assembly line. The DnD campaign that spanned several weeks and ended with all of us scratching our heads and wondering what in Great Cthulhu's name just happened.
Part 1: The Mafia And Not Much Else
It all began 100 years after the first campaign and was set in Maztica, the thinly-veiled Mesoamerica ripoff. After a lot of dramatic social upheaval it had been remastered into a sort of Aztec-themed Las Vegas, with plenty of casinos, bars and brothels as well as a thriving organized crime syndacate running everything behind the scenes. This pseudo-Mafia was headed by a powerful lich queenpin by the name of Constance and was, we thought, the driving force behind our introduction to the plot. Said plot ostensibly began in one of the city's main casinos in the form of the owner (henceforth Deanna Troi's Hot Mom, or DTHM for her close resemblance to Lwaxanna Troi of Star Trek: TNG fame) squawking that her trophy husband had been kidnapped.
We ("we" being a part-angel airship captain, an extremely sneaky summoner of demons, a vaguely sociopathic elf, your average half-orc basher of heads, a burned-out dwarven army medic plus his daughter and a creepy voodoo lady of sorts--this list is subject to change at a moment's notice--) immediately jumped on this obvious hook, making our way down into the mafia's observation tunnels that the kidnappers had jumped into. After some cursory glancing around and fighting of two demons apparantly guarding the tunnels, we completely failed to find DTHM's husband due to the fact that after forcing open a door we encountered about 50 heavily-armed mafia guys and were forced to bolt, then skip town in the airship for about a week.
After lying low in a nearby native village and deciding to plot the downfall of the mafia, we went back to the main city only to encounter another resistance group. Said resistance group's leader, Abimbola (henceforth A Bimbo) had been captured by a local crazy witch named Xochitl (henceforth Fo'shizzle) who wanted him for purposes of her own. We broke into Fo'shizzle's headquarters, which happened to be a floating fortress guarded heavily by devils and managed to rescue A Bimbo, who out of gratitude decided to have the mafia resistance join forces with us. After finding them some dilithium crystals to power a giant robot (why yes, the DM was making stuff up on the spur of the moment, why do you ask?) and a great deal of spreading contention among the mafia through rumors and minor assassinations, we were ready to roll.
So after trashing the place, already in nearly full-out civil war, with our (incidentally invisible) giant robot, we looted the place, killed a couple of golems and just missed Constance as she teleported herself to safety. The rebellion pretty much disbanded since they'd all achieved their goal, and things were looking pretty great--except for the fact that we still had no idea what was going on. "Okay," said our intrepid heroes, "now what?"
Part 2: Demons And Devils And War, Oh My
For lack of other leads, the long-suffering DM decided to nudge us on the right track by having the initial casino blown up and having DTHM kidnapped, apparantly by the same people who'd taken her husband. We subsequently went back to the mafia tunnels, only to discover both DTHM and her hot young husband being held in cells guarded by another demon. We got them outta there only to notice two interesting things: not only were they being held right under a casino owned by DTHM's main business rival, but also she was sporting a strange eagle-shaped necklace that her captors had been interested in possessing.
From there we staked out the other casino. The only thing we learned, besides that the owner was really, really good at poker (enough so to beat the demon summoner in a game of such, which had her butthurt for a loooong time) was that the answers probably lay with Fo'shizzle. We booked it for her flying castle, which ended in us yoinking a devil called an erinyes (henceforth Rachel... OK, I'm done) which gave us the information we needed.
Apparantly (Rachel told us) DTHM's necklace was the key to the end of the Blood War. For those not familiar with this universe, the Blood War is the eternal conflict between devils (cruel, calculated, toadying evil) and the demons (chaotic, bloody, apathetic evil) that was basically engineered to keep them busy so that one side or the other didn't overrun the planes and destroy everything ever. Fo'shizzle had been buying the services of devils with a mysterious source of independant wealth, as well as the promise of leading them to victory against the demons. Naturally we decided to look into this a little deeper, so after dragging Rachel back to the airship we made our way back to the casino to ask the owner, Raleigh (henceforth O Raleigh?... sorry) why he'd stolen DTHM and her necklace.
O Raleigh? agreed to give us some info as long as we let him question Rachel, so we led him back to the ship for that purpose. After asking her a few generic questions about the prophecy Fo'shizzle had cited, he was about to teleport away when we burst into the cabin and interrupted his spell. This proved to be a marginally stupid idea after he, bursting through the ceiling of the ship, revealed himself to be a red dragon in human form. We took him out with comparative ease, whereupon we questioned his corpse as to the story behind the prophecy and his place in it.
Part 3: Can Anyone Say "Anticlimactic?"
At first, questioning O Raleigh? seemed fairly unproductive, until we finally sought out the hoard of his treasure he'd mentioned. When we arrived, it was revealed that said hoarde had all been stolen: through a series of logical conjectures, scrying and careful planning we came to the conclusion that Fo'shizzle had stolen it and we needed to get it all back. After an enormous final battle which culminated in a heavy metal rock concert on top of the slowly listing fortress with a pitched battle inside said fortress, (looooong story there) we discovered a portal in Fo'shizzle's private rooms which lead to a small "pocket plane" brimful of very powerful magical items. Rather unsure of how to open the portal, we poked at it for a while until we discovered that it was one of a pair--the other one being in the basement of the apothecary we'd bought potions from just that morning.
Leaving the sociopathic elf to infiltrate the basement of said shop, we retired for the night, only for him to discover two unsavory characters (a twitchy man who we'd seen in O Raleigh?'s casino but generally disregarded and a creepy chick with eyes on the back of her head and claws) sneaking into the shop toward the portal with a bag full of magical items. He attacked in a borderline-suicidal manner, only to kill them both--only to be destroyed the moment after they both fell by the companion portal violently exploding.
Yes folks, it's true: we'd gone the entire campaign without ever figuring out the gorram plot. The be-clawed lady, you see, was a sort of magician called a binder who worked with spirits, minor gods and other unsavory creatures which had been exiled for one reason or another to outside the universe itself. Usually binders simply allow themselves to be partially possessed by these spirits, granting them the spirits' powers in exchange for the spirits briefly experiencing life again.
However, the couple that Sociopathic Elf destroyed wanted to go a step beyond that, hoarding enough magical items to fuse the magical energy into one insanely powerful portal that would allow these spirits to come back into the universe and wreak havoc. Their portals having been destroyed to make sure the artifacts didn't fall into the wrong hands, the whole story was well and truly over. The mafia, Fo'shizzle (their accomplice of sorts) Constance the lich and everything else was supposed to be a hook into this plan for us, but we were so busy concentrating on the details that we completely missed the big picture until the DM explained it to us in small words.
I don't know. I just don't know. And I leave you on the final note of, "ARGBLUSGFLRURBMNLBL?"
Today we finished it. The DnD campaign that began in the rich and fascinating pseudo-medieval, pseudo-Victorian world created by the invention of the assembly line. The DnD campaign that spanned several weeks and ended with all of us scratching our heads and wondering what in Great Cthulhu's name just happened.
Part 1: The Mafia And Not Much Else
It all began 100 years after the first campaign and was set in Maztica, the thinly-veiled Mesoamerica ripoff. After a lot of dramatic social upheaval it had been remastered into a sort of Aztec-themed Las Vegas, with plenty of casinos, bars and brothels as well as a thriving organized crime syndacate running everything behind the scenes. This pseudo-Mafia was headed by a powerful lich queenpin by the name of Constance and was, we thought, the driving force behind our introduction to the plot. Said plot ostensibly began in one of the city's main casinos in the form of the owner (henceforth Deanna Troi's Hot Mom, or DTHM for her close resemblance to Lwaxanna Troi of Star Trek: TNG fame) squawking that her trophy husband had been kidnapped.
We ("we" being a part-angel airship captain, an extremely sneaky summoner of demons, a vaguely sociopathic elf, your average half-orc basher of heads, a burned-out dwarven army medic plus his daughter and a creepy voodoo lady of sorts--this list is subject to change at a moment's notice--) immediately jumped on this obvious hook, making our way down into the mafia's observation tunnels that the kidnappers had jumped into. After some cursory glancing around and fighting of two demons apparantly guarding the tunnels, we completely failed to find DTHM's husband due to the fact that after forcing open a door we encountered about 50 heavily-armed mafia guys and were forced to bolt, then skip town in the airship for about a week.
After lying low in a nearby native village and deciding to plot the downfall of the mafia, we went back to the main city only to encounter another resistance group. Said resistance group's leader, Abimbola (henceforth A Bimbo) had been captured by a local crazy witch named Xochitl (henceforth Fo'shizzle) who wanted him for purposes of her own. We broke into Fo'shizzle's headquarters, which happened to be a floating fortress guarded heavily by devils and managed to rescue A Bimbo, who out of gratitude decided to have the mafia resistance join forces with us. After finding them some dilithium crystals to power a giant robot (why yes, the DM was making stuff up on the spur of the moment, why do you ask?) and a great deal of spreading contention among the mafia through rumors and minor assassinations, we were ready to roll.
So after trashing the place, already in nearly full-out civil war, with our (incidentally invisible) giant robot, we looted the place, killed a couple of golems and just missed Constance as she teleported herself to safety. The rebellion pretty much disbanded since they'd all achieved their goal, and things were looking pretty great--except for the fact that we still had no idea what was going on. "Okay," said our intrepid heroes, "now what?"
Part 2: Demons And Devils And War, Oh My
For lack of other leads, the long-suffering DM decided to nudge us on the right track by having the initial casino blown up and having DTHM kidnapped, apparantly by the same people who'd taken her husband. We subsequently went back to the mafia tunnels, only to discover both DTHM and her hot young husband being held in cells guarded by another demon. We got them outta there only to notice two interesting things: not only were they being held right under a casino owned by DTHM's main business rival, but also she was sporting a strange eagle-shaped necklace that her captors had been interested in possessing.
From there we staked out the other casino. The only thing we learned, besides that the owner was really, really good at poker (enough so to beat the demon summoner in a game of such, which had her butthurt for a loooong time) was that the answers probably lay with Fo'shizzle. We booked it for her flying castle, which ended in us yoinking a devil called an erinyes (henceforth Rachel... OK, I'm done) which gave us the information we needed.
Apparantly (Rachel told us) DTHM's necklace was the key to the end of the Blood War. For those not familiar with this universe, the Blood War is the eternal conflict between devils (cruel, calculated, toadying evil) and the demons (chaotic, bloody, apathetic evil) that was basically engineered to keep them busy so that one side or the other didn't overrun the planes and destroy everything ever. Fo'shizzle had been buying the services of devils with a mysterious source of independant wealth, as well as the promise of leading them to victory against the demons. Naturally we decided to look into this a little deeper, so after dragging Rachel back to the airship we made our way back to the casino to ask the owner, Raleigh (henceforth O Raleigh?... sorry) why he'd stolen DTHM and her necklace.
O Raleigh? agreed to give us some info as long as we let him question Rachel, so we led him back to the ship for that purpose. After asking her a few generic questions about the prophecy Fo'shizzle had cited, he was about to teleport away when we burst into the cabin and interrupted his spell. This proved to be a marginally stupid idea after he, bursting through the ceiling of the ship, revealed himself to be a red dragon in human form. We took him out with comparative ease, whereupon we questioned his corpse as to the story behind the prophecy and his place in it.
Part 3: Can Anyone Say "Anticlimactic?"
At first, questioning O Raleigh? seemed fairly unproductive, until we finally sought out the hoard of his treasure he'd mentioned. When we arrived, it was revealed that said hoarde had all been stolen: through a series of logical conjectures, scrying and careful planning we came to the conclusion that Fo'shizzle had stolen it and we needed to get it all back. After an enormous final battle which culminated in a heavy metal rock concert on top of the slowly listing fortress with a pitched battle inside said fortress, (looooong story there) we discovered a portal in Fo'shizzle's private rooms which lead to a small "pocket plane" brimful of very powerful magical items. Rather unsure of how to open the portal, we poked at it for a while until we discovered that it was one of a pair--the other one being in the basement of the apothecary we'd bought potions from just that morning.
Leaving the sociopathic elf to infiltrate the basement of said shop, we retired for the night, only for him to discover two unsavory characters (a twitchy man who we'd seen in O Raleigh?'s casino but generally disregarded and a creepy chick with eyes on the back of her head and claws) sneaking into the shop toward the portal with a bag full of magical items. He attacked in a borderline-suicidal manner, only to kill them both--only to be destroyed the moment after they both fell by the companion portal violently exploding.
Yes folks, it's true: we'd gone the entire campaign without ever figuring out the gorram plot. The be-clawed lady, you see, was a sort of magician called a binder who worked with spirits, minor gods and other unsavory creatures which had been exiled for one reason or another to outside the universe itself. Usually binders simply allow themselves to be partially possessed by these spirits, granting them the spirits' powers in exchange for the spirits briefly experiencing life again.
However, the couple that Sociopathic Elf destroyed wanted to go a step beyond that, hoarding enough magical items to fuse the magical energy into one insanely powerful portal that would allow these spirits to come back into the universe and wreak havoc. Their portals having been destroyed to make sure the artifacts didn't fall into the wrong hands, the whole story was well and truly over. The mafia, Fo'shizzle (their accomplice of sorts) Constance the lich and everything else was supposed to be a hook into this plan for us, but we were so busy concentrating on the details that we completely missed the big picture until the DM explained it to us in small words.
I don't know. I just don't know. And I leave you on the final note of, "ARGBLUSGFLRURBMNLBL?"