The Goode, the Brad, and the Ugly. (VSM D&D Chronicle)

[Hunter Sopko]

The Players

Goode Twinne (Soppy)- 25 y/o Half-Elf Warlord. Former lieutenant in the army, graduated top of his class from the country's military acadamy, left with his brother after his first tour of duty to strike it out on his own.
Brad Twinne (Andy)- 25 y/o Half-Elf Paladin. Goode's twin brother. As his name implies, he's the snarky one. Also went to the acadamy, but hung out with the clergy because they had no sense of humor to make fun of his name.
Rushault Sutton (Pyro)- 22 y/o Human Wizard. A journeyman type looking for a court somewhere to study the arcane arts.
Morrie (Neph)- ? y/o Elven Druid. Generally keeps to himself on the elves' side of the country, but came to the mainland briefly and got caught up with the party.
Vedes (Shale)- 50 y/o Elven Ranger. Lives as a hermit in one of the forests on the elves' island. Morrie took him along for the ride.
Rui (Nama)- 18 y/o Human Fighter. One of the youngest sons of a noble family. He's out to make his fortune, since there's not much inheritance lined up for him.

(Just shoot me a 1-2 sentence summary of the character to add, guys. For now, I'm ganking Shale's descriptions.)

Since I don't have it in me to do this straight up, I'm just gonna write it however the hell I feel like. VSM and fellow players, feel free to comment if you want me to change up the style. Sorry if I offend anyone, but sarcastic recaps are what I do.

BEGINNING OF SESSION 1

So everyone, sans Brad, is on a road heading into town when these kobold guys are like "d00d, free exp". The travelers, not being people to look a gift level in the mouth, said OK and ruined their shit. Finding no common threads to bind them together though, they just sort of wandered into town on their own.

Unfortunately, the town, which used to be a paradise where human, elves, halflings, lepers, and wookies played in magical fields, has turned to shit. A high profile halfling town figure was strung up on top of the tallest building in town. Seeing as no one believes he could have climbed up there himself, they figure murder is afoot. The crude racial slur carved into the man's chest is also a tipoff.

Not that it matters to anyone. Rui, being the rebellious youth he is, does what all rebellious youths think is cool: He goes to get drunk. Vedes and Morrie eventually wind up at the same bar after going shopping and trying on clothes for one another.

Meanwhile, Brad had gone ahead of his brother to secure the necessary provisions for travel (mainly food and porn). He makes Rushault his bitch hires Rushault as a porter to help him carry it to the edge of town, where he's supposed to meet his brother. Goode finally arrives in town on the twins' sweet ride, the Awesomemocart. It even has crudely drawn flames on the side of it! Musta been why the army let them take it with them. Who can be taken seriously in a cart like that? Anyway, the twins agree to give Rush a ride to where he was going, but they're stopped as they're leaving town. Turns out halfling murder is this season's hotbutton issue, so they've instituted a full city lockdown, no one in or out. Not even 2 for 1 deals on people entering and leaving! The Thunderdome would be sad. After being advised by possibly the stupidest town patrolman ever, they turn back to find some cart-through fast food.

Magically, everyone ends up at the same bar. Imagine that! The party is shocked that Goode is such a high level character that he could continually produce an after-image of himself that makes it appear that there are two of him, but Brad ruins it by telling them they're twins. Asshole. So they sit down and start ripping on how kobolds are total pussies, noticing that it was odd that kobolds are anywhere near this section of the country, much less this city.

In the middle of the conversation, some guys across the bar prove that they're complete wastes of human life by manhandling the waitress staff. The gang calls them on their behavior and much taunting back and forth is had. Rui then attempts to escalate the situation by talking about the leader guy's mother and making a crude gesture to his genitalia (not really, but it would've been cooler this way), and things almost come to blows. Goode though is a peoples' person. He gets up and diffuses the situation, saying that if they bar got destroyed in their fight, EVERYONE would lose. Of course, the fact he's holding a giant axe while he's saying it has no effect on anything. Nope. So the offending offenders get up and leave.

END OF SESSION 1

BEGINNING OF SESSION 2

So they all find an inn for the night. While everyone is sleeping, someone throws a Molotov cocktail through the window of Vedes and Morrie's room. Morrie's girlish scream wakes everyone up. Pansy. Vedes attempts to escape the room by leaping out the other window, only to immediately get wailed on by one of the people from the bar, Nick. Seems they brought along a posse to play. Unfortunately, they're either on a meth high or on an alka-seltzer overdose because they all seem to be acting quite crazy and frothing at the mouth. Everyone but Goode and Brad exit their rooms and the fight is on.

Here's the map of the fight as it looked at the end: http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/8483/showdownatthesawhorse.jpg

In said twins' room, Goode finds Brad in a trance, speaking in strange tongues. Unable to find an old priest and a young priest at this hour, he simply attempts to slap his brother out of it. This gets him launched across the room by some strange force-like force. What a dick! After Goode paid for his damn booze too. Anyway, Brad eventually wakes up and they exit their room in time to watch Rushault torch the peons outside their door with a Scorching Blast.

Fortunately Rui, Vedes and Rushault are awesome enough that they take care of most of the people on the right side of the battlefield. Brad, Goode and Morrie attempt to be useful and draw the attention of the enemy's big bad guy, Ross. Ross takes a swipe at Morrie, but Morrie's like RAWR BITCH and turns into a bear, smacking Ross a few squares and proving why Steven Colbert is right about bears. Goode and Brad then surround Ross and at least do their duty as meatshields, even if they can't hit the broadside of a stormtrooper. Ross switches to Brad as a target and ruins his shit. Thankfully, his ever watchful brother reminds him that some fucking healing surges would be smart, so he doesn't die. This distraction allows Rush and Rui to waltz over and murderdeathkill him in the back.

Of course, they have bigger problems. The entire city seems to be on fire and there's rioting in the streets as more people seem to be affected by whatever the fuck was wrong with those guys. Fucking swine flu. Rushault figures out that due to the evidence, it's probably a magic spell. Thanks Sherlock Holmes. Brad also reveals some god or another has told him where said spell is originating from. How convenient! Thank you Deus Ex Brad.

As they try to figure out a prudent course of action, some military guys run up to Goode and start whining about inane shit like fires, riots, having to kill their commanding officer because he turned into a raving, frothing madman, etc. Don't they know Madmen give you bonuses? This is why the men are not officers. Anyway, this compels Goode to take charge and he orders the men to get their shit together and help out the city. The men will probably be disappointed later on to find out that the temporary promotions Goode gave them won't stick since he's no longer in the army. Oh well. He grabs one of men, Vimes Matvay, to lead them through the safest path to the place in the city it's all coming from, which turns out to be the town square where 4 conspicuously large statues reside.

On the way, they watch an old woman jump to her death, about which Rui makes a witty remark. After everyone lets him know just how fucking stupid that comment was, they press on to the center of town. Brad also drops his snarky act long enough to perform the last rites on her.

In the town square, they find the dead body of a naked woman on an altar in the middle of it all, and the statues have been covered in blood. There's rioting, but no one goes anywhere near the center. It's pretty obvious what happened at this point. The ol' ritual of death ploy. Thats why you don't lock down your city after a series of grisly murders. You just play into their hands. Of course, the party was smart enough to observe all this from far away with a handy spyglass, so they move around to a steep hill where the crowds aren't as thick and prepare to charge the altar.

END OF SESSION 2

Whee!

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

* Jo'ou Ranbu groans at the pun.

Looks fine, though.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Druids are sweet.

[Hunter Sopko]

* Jo'ou Ranbu groans at the pun.

Looks fine, though.

It's pronounced "twine". But we still hate our parents for it.

[Veryslightlymad]

Errata:

There are 3 statues in the town square, representative of the three kings of the Polyarchial kingdom.

I never said that the woman was naked. Funny how your mind just GOES there, eh, Sopko?

[Hunter Sopko]

Errata:

There are 3 statues in the town square, representative of the three kings of the Polyarchial kingdom.

I never said that the woman was naked. Funny how your mind just GOES there, eh, Sopko?

You never said she was NOT naked! Plus it's you. I just assumed.

[Excal]

Wait, VSM.  Your evil cultists don't strip their unwilling villains first?  Dude, that's totally why they fail.  I mean, all the townsfolk in my game know evil Bullywug Cultists do that.  Then again, all the townsfolk in my game know only what a very drunken Desmond has told them, so Eladrin Sorcerors are only good for standing on the sidelines and cheering as Desmond does all the work, as Desmond has the strength of ten, for his heart is awesome!

[AndrewRogue]

Oh good. Bro found a place to channel his snark. I was worried he was going to explode.

[Veryslightlymad]

Apologies to my players. I started to feel pretty darn sick somewhere in the afternoon, and I wanted to see if a little bit of sleep would work.

Then I slept until 2 AM.

[Shale]

No worries. I was so focused on  baseball that I completely failed to notice that nobody was bugging me to show up.

Enjoy your new sleep schedule!

[074]

SESSION 03: Bloody Hell!

Where we left off, the party charged the altar.  Turns out that whoever was there had left in a hurry, and left three spectres there to harass the party.  Which then combined with the exsanguinated blood from the sacrificed girl from before into a huge blood tornado man...thing.  It was called a Gorespectre, but the point was that it was Large, and pretty damned durable by comparison to previous fights (The whole "being insubstantial" thing helped with that, mind you.  Thanks to that, it had nearly 400 effective HP against our meleers).  Several times, it flooded Rui's, Goode's, and Sailor Brad's minds with Oscarfics, macro futa vore doujin, and the like in order to try to destroy their minds.

...needless to say, it took several rounds of Rui stabbing it in the blood and Vedes shooting it in the blood to get it to finally die...to the first hit of ongoing damage from Morrie's Fires of Life.

Yes, it died from what amounts to POIZN.  Epic, that.


Afterward, Matvay engages in Brad-worship, people find out that both rituals don't take longer than a few hours, tops, and the madness suddenly died(alongside the gorespectre).  Eventually, they go to bed at the guardhouse, awaken, eat guard food, and lo and behold, Sehanine gave Brad a new revelation that this madness and killing stuff was happening at multiple towns and wasn't just some sort of local trend.  The session ended there as they were about to decide what the hell to do.  Maybe.

END OF SESSION 3

Yeah, I suck at summaries.

[Shale]

The fight was pretty straightforward, if long. Brad had a Divine Sanction on the specter from the first round, so it couldn't attack anybody but him without eating lots and lots of radiant damage, meaning it pretty much stayed in one place while we hit it with stuff. Hooray for stuff!

[Veryslightlymad]

That was actually Brad's original vision. He only had the one. He just didn't bother to say "This is happening everywhere" because there were more important things to deal with.

[Hunter Sopko]

::Soppy, Jay and Silent Bob pull up to Nama and proceed to beat him up, smack him over the face with a garbage can lid, then smashes the actual garbage can over his back::

We do the Science Sez segments, got it?

[AndrewRogue]

I may not be able to roll worth shit, but dammit all if I can't take a hit.

[074]

It hurts and stings!

Also, yeah.  Brad is tanky.  Not as tanky as Morrie (17 CON+Toughness does that), but still tanky.

[Hunter Sopko]

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

In the morning they find themselves sans a Brad, who has been hauled off to the city council to answer for his crazy visions of, well, everything. Plus he has some unpaid parking tickets or something. I dunno. Asshole still owes me twelve bucks. Anyway, while they're waiting convenient plot device Royal Wizard Giorgi teleports into the closet of the barracks they are in. Apparantly they don't have movies, but they have seen The Fly, so they made sure the teleport circle would be in a place no one would be. I would hate to be a janitor in this world. I'd hate to have "risk of body splicing with wizards" to be in the job description.

So Giorgi explains that he's here to talk to Brad, who is away. Apparantly Brad appeared in a dream of Giorgi's following his vision. Such a popular guy! Sorry ladies, he's taken! So instead Giorgi pulls up a chair and has a pleasant chat with the party. Mostly about cool stuff like how the entire country and it's neighbors have been affected by similar events. The elf isle is literally being attacked by nature, the undead are consuming small villages and goblin invasions have plagued the other two parts of the country. Georgie is at least impressed that we were able to beat a Gorespector. Not exactly praise from Caesar, but we'll take it! Rushault also provides him with a sketch of the ritual symbol, which is familiar to Giorgi but he can only narrow it as far down as "dark magic". Woo helpful plot characters.

With all this nasty shit going down, the party tries to figure out what to do next. Rui suggests going to assist with one of the goblin attacks, because when he stabs them they bleed. Undead don't bleed when they're stabbed, and stabbing is Rui's business, and the elf isle is out because nature also cannot truly be stabbed, and stabbing is what Rui does. Right? Stabbing. Got it? Good. (This may or may not have been verbatim dialogue. Feel free to guess!) Giorgi suggests this may be a good idea, since well, doing ANYTHING would help. He'd also provide a arrangements for their travel. Hopefully that means rocket boosters for the Awesomemocart. Or a rocket launcher. Something rocket based.

Morrie, Vedes and Rushault mostly concur, while Goode is too much of a pussy to make a decision without his brother around. Still, a destination, plan, and general goal would help them immensely, so we leave that for next week!

[074]

Note to self.  Refrain from using the word 'stabbing' in a RP ever again.

[Shale]

As a note, the in-character reason for stabbing goblins is to find somebody in charge and stab him non-fatally until he tells us who's calling the shots. And then there will be more stabbing, and possibly a side order of setting people on fire.

[Hunter Sopko]

Brad exits his meeting with the high-up muckity mucks, as well as the wizard, and rejoins the group. From there they reaffirm their decision to head to slay some goblins. It's apparantly in a country called Inverno, which is totally reassuring. Even moreso since it's a country populated mostly by Eladrian, headed by a chick nicknamed the Queen of the Winter. This is no ominous at all, nope, especially after a quick survey of the group reveals that all of them have little to no diplomatic experience. Joy. However, it's at least agreed that we should check every town along the way for suspicious things such as nature gone awry, the undead or Keyser Soze. You know, the usual suspects. The Awesomemocart is loaded for bear and they finally set off on their intrepid adventure. No one thanks them or is there to see them off. Fucking ungrateful town. Next time they need saving from a crazy ritual we'll all have headaches.

Of course, nothing happens on the way to the border. Brad wouldn't know anyway, since he spent the entire trip sleeping in the Awesomemocart. When we get to the border, the lazy Brad is the subject to a rather excellent zinger that must be reproduced in topic:

<BradTwinne> He sighs. "Fine, fine. Anything you guys have that is probably illegal to bring across the border?"
<Morrie> "My, what a nice town!"
<BradTwinne> "Or into town? Dangerous animals, foreign fruits?"
<GoodeTwinne> "Just you, brother."
<BradTwinne> "That hurts, bro."

That'll learn him about be sarcastic about work. They split up in their usual way, with Goode and Brad going to handle official business, Morrie, Vedes and Rush scouting the town for anything suspicious and llama-Rui hitting a local bar, which I believe is called the Blue Oyster. Goode and Brad learn that the Royal Wizard Georgie wasn't just pulling their chain after asking some less than stupid questions at the local town hall (though Brad asks them in a profoundly stupid way). They learn that a dwarf named Sir Seism is waiting for them with their passports and supplies.

They all meet up with him, and it turns out that he's a rather sketchy looking guy who is oily enough to need regulation by OPEC. No matter, he seems cool enough, but like the rest of them, he has little to no diplomatic experience and is merely a figurehead for his race. Fucking affirmative action. Looks like some on-the-job training in international diplomacy is in order! The bad news is that they'll have to leave the Awesomemocart at the border, which almost makes Brad cry. They're ready to go at this point, which ends the session, and afterwards Brad, Goode and Rush continue on getting to know each other a bit better.

[Hunter Sopko]

So our intrepid heroes set off to the gate to the Fey Wildlands. One problem... not even their new guide Sir Seism knows where the fuck it is. Woo! Excellent start. They know the general direction though, so it's all good. They are met halfway by a giant who says he'll be taking care of their horses and stuff to keep them safe, since they can't take them through the gate. Riiiight. He'll just be using the Awesomemocart to cruise around for chicks.

They do eventually reach the tower. Furthermore, Seism also doesn't know how to use the gate! How fucking useless can you get and not be on Green Bay's offensive line?! Thankfully Rush comes to the rescue with the knowledge they need. After some trial and error, they figure out there's a door on the tower they can enter. THE WORLD IS IN GOOD HANDS, ISN'T IT FOLKS? So they travel up the empty tower to find another door to the roof. Rui, ever the graceful drunk, manages to almost fall down the tower to his death after being hit in the face by the opening door. Seism catches him before he does though, so maybe he's not so useless.

They get onto the roof and find stones on each corner. Three are the same color, one is a different color! It's not rocket science, people... While they're figuring that one out, they hear something coming up the steps. It's a ram! Baa. It proceeds to KNOCK A PARTY MEMBER OFF THE TOWER! I'm not joking. When the party looks to see if he fell to his death, they find no body... which can only mean one thing! Of course, the ram jumping off the roof and disappearing while they watch is also a hint. Congrats party, you just got outsmarted by a ram.

So they appear in the Fey Wilds... it turns out the ram wasn't a ram, but in fact an elderly Eladrian named Zai D'bar in charge of protecting the gate. Dude, a guard is supposed to KEEP people from going through a gate. Either that or it was trying to kill us and forgot which was the magic corner. When we introduce ourselves and our intentions, he agrees to lead us to the palace, graciously filling us in on all those diplomatic things we needed to know. Also, it appears that the knock on the head and/or the trip through the gate has raised Rui's IQ about 50 points. No joke.

The Eladrian city is amazing. All crystal and colors and in perfect HD quality. Also perfectly silent, because crystal is indeed one of the best sound absorbing substances known to everythingkind. The palace is similarly impressive, but they're immediately told to wait. And wait they do! Long enough to overhear other arguments, like how they're absolutely sure that the goblins aren't getting in through any of the normal gates and have no other leads! Great. Goode and Seism talk about who will speak, mostly to get some sort of chain of command going and make sure they're not all tripping over each other speaking. Seism says he'll speak to the Queen, and will refer to Goode if he needs the group's input. Goode specifically asks the group if this is okay with them, to which the only responders, Vedes and Rui, say "Yes. Thats fine."

Needless to say, once in front of the Queen, Rui is all I TALK NAO! and Vedes does the same. Goode is a sad panda from the irony so he keeps quiet ;-; As predicted, the Queen isn't too thrilled that all Bartoni could spare was an 8 person military expedition, but she is still gracious, even if she can't hide her body language. They're brought into a private meeting with the Queen where they explain the symbols and rituals that were involved in the attacks on their country. Fortunately, she proves more useful than any other NPC (save maybe Matvay) by correctly identifying the symbol and giving a good idea of what they're up against.

The answer is of course crappy, independant films a demon named Koyaanisqatsi. He was generally a dickish anarchist that believed that chaos was the only way to run a world. The god Brad serves put his eye out with a Red Ryder BB Gun and destroyed all his power, which might explain why she's getting directly involved via Brad. Seems like he may or may not be getting his power back, since the symbology involved in all the rituals they've encountered is directly related to him, so we have our first clue and the arc begins! Demons! Not bad for level 2!

The queen sets them up with some kickass rooms in the palace for the time being, and thats where we end for this week...

[Shale]

VSM just sent me a message that he will not have internet access tomorrow evening. Game resumes next time.

[Hunter Sopko]

Just as well. Andy told me last night that he can't make it, but his schedule should go back to normal after this time.

[Hunter Sopko]

So after getting put up with swank rooms by the Queen and a nice two week power-nap, Rui of all people is woken up in the middle of the night by a loud clattering. Turns out to be a not too skillful, self-proclaimed Spymaster Du'vall. He says he works for the Queen, but is not here on her orders and thats about all the information Rui gets out of him before Rui lets him go. It went about like this:

Du'vall: "Can you please let me go?"
Rui: "No."
Du'vall: "Please?"
Rui: "No."
Du'vall: "Please? I'll give you booze."
Rui: "Fine. I won't tell anyone either."
Du'vall: "Thanks." In Elvish, a language Rui doesn't understand: "Sucker"

Once morning breaks, the party spends their time exploring the palace on their own. Brad sleeps in, because he's the lazy, useless brother. Morrie and Vedes wander out to the garden, where they meet the Queen and manage to have a conversation WITHOUT causing an international incident. Which is nice. Rui wanders for a while, neglecting to tell his party members about his encounter last night. After wandering a bit, he decided that a bar would be the best use of his time, where he meets the ever-reliable Sir Seism already plastered and doing a Dwarfen jig, much to the amusement and horror of the various tavern-goers. Morrie eventually meets him there after his and Vedes' encounter with the queen. Meanwhile, Goode and Rushault decide to be NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERDS and go to the library and look up shit like local history, information about gates to and from the Fey Wilds and other useful stuff, as well as setting up a meeting with someone in the army they can talk with to get more accurate information about the situation at hand.

Somehow or another, everyone and their mother ends up attending this meeting and much stepping on each others' toes was had. From the sound of things, the goblins have absolutely no motive and haven't been getting in from any gates the kingdom actually controls, which makes things sound pretty likely to be linked to things that are happening in their own country as well. However, the man is incredibly uncomfortable to talk about this being anything less than normal goblin behavior, which causes both Goode and Brad to make awkward, probing questions to find out what the man really knows, and they're pretty much ignored in favor of more conventional questions coming from Rui's direction until they press the issue, to which they get a pointed non-answer. Paranoia meter +1, but they decide the only thing to do at this point would be to head to the front, with Rui still not having told anyone about being spied on.

[Hunter Sopko]

Continuing our adventure after a long hiatus! A DOUBLE EPISODE!!!!

Well, not really. It's one episode of content spread over two eps, because the production company is cheap and can't hire their actors full time.

The party sets off, with Rui still not having told anyone that he was spied upon. They don't arrive at the camp they really meant to go to, but they arrive at A camp. Just as good, right? They also asked to speak to the commander of the army, but instead they speak to A commander IN the army... oh well, diplomats can't be choosers. They were at least expected! Doesn't really bode well for how much they're trusted is it?

The commander already knew about their plan to capture an enemy commander, and his men have conveniently cornered one of them in a nearby cave! Wait... they managed to set this all up in less than a few hours? The fuck? Score one for magical elven bureaucracy! Anyway, the group decides to throw caution to the wind, despite being told that they may or may not be ambushed. The commander SAYS that his men will be there to support them if there is an ambush. Oh joy. They get to trust the people who don't really seem to trust them!

They're shown a map and the general terrain, because who needs those things calls guides that would support any claim that they might get backup if ambushed? Oh well. They set out anyway!

BEGIN SECOND EPISODE!

They set out anyway! They start moving silently once they get nearer the cave, which is a good thing considering that there are sentries outside. Luckily they don't see them! Time to come up with a plan, let's leave that to the former military commander! Goode begins sketching a plan on the ground, when suddenly...

"HERP DERP HAY GUYS, WHY AREN'T WE GOING OVER THERE AND STABBING THEM? BECAUSE I LIKE STABBING! PREFERABLY WITH MY SPEAR!" (May or may not be verbatim dialogue)

Guess who decides to be a fuckup? Yep, Rui. As the party sits there dumbfounded, the sentries go inside and get the rest of the people, who come out and prepare for a fight. 4 turns into about a dozen. Oh well, change of plans! Skip to (what was going to be) the last stage of Goode's plan and draw them out away from the cave!

The party does the smart thing and snipes at them from afar with arrows and magic (gogo Vedes and Rushault!), making the goblins charge at the party instead of holing up in the cave. I love it when a plan comes together! A few goblins fall before they even reach the party, but they're absolutely decimated once they do. Luckily for all involved, it's over very quickly. Goode in particular waltzes over to the commander and knocks off the majority of his HP in two hits, with the oily rogue Sir Seism also getting in a massive crit. Seeing the rest of the goblins dead or fleeing, Brad demands a surrender from the goblin commander. Rolling a 20 and already having a +10 bonus to intimidation, the commander BURSTS OUT CRYING and surrenders like a bitch, as do the two archers that were still alive and fighting. So they get three prisoners for the price of one! Sweet!

It should be assumed that Rui will soon be bitchslapped, or should be, if that damn AC thing doesn't screw things up.