Sunday, November 24, 2024

Infernal Growth #2 Post-Session writeup

Second session follows immediately after the first. We were able to go a lot longer, this time, and really get to try out the combat system.against Deiter, who quite nearly killed a few of the Cutters.

As usual, spoilers ahead for the module Internal Growth. I'm running it in the system it was built for, Incunabuli.
 
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The Cast:
 
- Olaf Olivier of Sorelle, body snatcher. Wants to Get in and Get Out.
 
- Finnegan Fisk of Fror, Firlish Ironmonger. Allegedly cursed by the Other (I keep forgetting to invoke said curse. Immediately lost interest in the assignment when he realized it wasn't the Other, specifically.
 
- Lee Linch of Long Eave, Disorderly, butterfingers. Surrendered her pistolette at Finnegan after he pointed out that she wasn't even qualified to use it.
 
- Aiden Cutler, New on the Scene, Was late enjoying a full Firlish Breakfast

- Padre Faustino Calderon Capard, Algoran Priest/Sir Not-Appearing-in-this-Film. (His player watched Wicked part 1 instead of joining us for this expedition.

***
When last we left off, the gang was licking their wounds in the dining room. the Padre went out for a laudanum break and Aiden Cutler sauntered in. Aiden voted to go downstairs, which broke the tie regarding the up or down question.

On the way down the staircase to the first level, Olaf spotted the trapped stair and Finnegan poked it with his horseshoe, but in the dim light failed to spy the tripwire. He proclaimed it safe to step on, which meant that Lee Linch was the unlucky customer who received the Kilkamessus vagus exposure. This was merely the start of a series of unfortunate events for our dear Cutters. 
 
 All but one of the doors on the first floor were locked tight. Lee Linch attempted to pick two of them, to no avail, but Aiden found the hoarhead candy in the rubber jacket and decided to try on the goggles, and finding he liked them, kept them. Olaf started down the stairs, but finding them too dark for comfort, sent Finnegan Fisk to fetch one of the lanterns from the second-floor kitchen.
 
I rolled poorly when it came to the random encounters, and so the cutters were completely unhindered.
 
Finnegan was able to grab one of the lanterns, while avoiding the pelican, and sprinted back as fast as he could, meaning that the cutters could make it down to the basement with at least a smidgen of light. Olaf, Finnegan and Aiden chose to check out the basement while Lee fiddled with the locks upstairs, because everyone loves splitting the party.
 
On the way down, Olaf paused to ogle the Pilomisis aerugo growing alongside where the banister might be, and once in the basement, she, Finnegan and Aiden wasted no time beelining for Dieter, and (perhaps correctly) judged him (and perhaps the good professor Manx) to be a compulsive onanist from his mutterings. Their attempts to bully the massive ragman into surrendering to the constabulary with racially charged epithets went about as well as could be expected, and Dieter, after missing with his first attacks, nearly killed Finnegan in the second round, fracturing his right arm and causing the ironmonger to fall unconscious with his cloud of poison spores. Olaf ran upstairs to grab Lee as Aiden stabbed Dieter repeatedly, and I rolled a flat d12 per turn that the heat lamp was tipped over to represent the risk of a sudden fire. 
 
The Cutler remained the main source of damage for the rest of the fight. Dieter was surrounded, and though the clouds of poison spores were a deterrent, these cutters are a fairly suicidal bunch. Dieter had barely made it to the stairs when he was on the brink of death, though as I'm writing this now, I realize that I was forgetting to roll for shock when he reached his maluses, but regardless (at 18 stress!), the big man began to beg for his life. The cutters were struck by a sort of pity, and let him go afterwards, and join the random encounter table.
 
The nest feels a little emptier, now
 
 
Afterwards, with everyone very banged up, and hoping for stitches, the gang retreated back up to the kitchen in search of food. Olaf Olivier, correctly assuming that the giant bird must also have giant eggs, chucked her bottle of chloroform at the pelican, hitting it straight in the chest, while dosing it with more than enough to render the bird unconscious. She stole an egg, and realizing that nobody had checked under the platter, decided to be the person who would. She opened it up, and was surprised by the cheese which then proceeded to knock her in the chest with enough force to get a knock out in one round, which is where we ended our session.
The Gang ends this session in the same room as last time, but much more poorly off.

 
***
Two sessions in a week is essentially unheard of, in my games. I assume the other shoe will drop soon and I'll find it impossible to get two people in a room together until after January, but we'll have to see.
 
Coming back in the morning to review this, I have a laundry list of mistakes I made while running the game. That's to be expected, I've never run this system before, and probably my biggest flaw as a GM is that my notes suck, so it's good to have writeups like this, done immediately after to give me a little boost to the memory-bits.
Kilkamessus
Kilkamess

4 comments:

  1. Great fight with Deiter. He really is a run-ender if taken lightly.

    Concerning shock: There’s an updated shock effects table in the wound rules that strongly reduces chances of KOing the gang. My gang found it onerous to get knocked out so easily, so in case yours do, too, it is there.

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  2. Thanks! I think they found it humorous the first two times, but by the cheese it had gotten a little old. I'm honestly surprised that they dealt with Dieter without losing anyone, I was totally prepare to have Aiden be the beginning of the "Second shift."

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    Replies
    1. In retrospect, I'll halve the cheese's ambush damage. I don't know what I was smoking with 4 Bludgeoning

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    2. Ha! I'll admit that I took a double-take when I first saw that, but I figured that a wheel of cheese can be up to, what? 600 lbs? I wouldn't want to be hit by a 600 lbs cheese. That could kill me.

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Infernal Growth #2 Post-Session writeup

Second session follows immediately after the first. We were able to go a lot longer, this time, and really get to try out the combat system....