After the disappointing length of last session, I scheduled a little bonus session for later in the week, and luckily, almost everyone (plus one, so we evened out to the same number) could make it. In addition, Benton was hard at work last week adding Mandrakes to the Incunabuli Managerie. It's some good stuff. They do less straight up damage than my interpretation, but they are no less punishing to fight, as you will see.
If you want to see the last Report, you'll find it right here.
***
The Cast:
John Dole of Bisque, Firlish Stew Captain. After the Padre, he's probably the most vital member of the party with his soothing stews and willingness to shoot first, ask questions later.
Dwayne Ottleson of Fir Reach, Firlish Ironmonger. Thickly accented and hard-hating, Ottleson likes to just charge at a problem and hope that hitting it hard enough will fix it. Makes you wonder how he handles incidents at the factory.
The Strange Woman, Revenant Delver. She's so happy, helpful and eager-to-please, it makes you fear whatever kind of woman she was before.
Vinkle, Lothrmensch Moonshiner. Mister-Not-Appearing-in-this-Film (he was called in for a shift right before combat started)
Jack Lumber of Wood, Firlish Log Feller. Wild man. From the woods. Spoke exclusively in rhyme.
***
It's a dark day in the Lamrey House. The youngest Lamreys are secured, but there's the open question of what their father found in the pit he dug in his field. The Crew is stewed up, but before they leave Lottie Lamrey asks for them to move the corpse out of the kitchen. They draw straws, and only The Strange Woman is willing to do the dirty work. The corpse has been rotting for about a week, so as she starts pulling and it leaves a rank, black ichor trail behind it, I ask her to roll Fortitude to keep it together. She fails and spews the stew all over the corpse. It tastes almost as good coming up. John Dole takes great offense at this -- He spent an hour slaving over a hot stove and she repays him by vomiting it up? Not that he's gonna help her move it. "A've got to stay clean fer tha stew, love."
Once the rotting corpse is outside, Dwayne Ottleson takes pity on the strange woman, and helps her toss the ragwretch corpse on the pile. This is the scene that Jack Lumber of Wood beholds as he enters the homestead. Jack Lumber is a rugged man, whose clothes are made of rough buckskin and furs. He enters the homestead and asks the denizens if he might come inside, and after a brief interrogation, his request is granted.
Inside Jack sees the sad, lonely children, and he digs through their wrecked front room, looking for a mirror. Finding some shards, he shaves off his enormous beard as his dog comforts the children and Else's funeral pyre is made into a sort of mass burning.
Once he leaves the home-turned shack, there is a general agreement that the party should investigate the pit, while John Dole offers to stay behind and watch the kids.
The party walks for a while through the weedy, muddy soil. It would have been a bad year for the family already, with only the garden and the animals to sustain them through the (quickly approaching) winter. Then, near the pit, they notice something strange: there are the two dormant Mandrakes they saw earlier, but also a fairy ring made of little brown mushrooms surrounds the pit. Inside the ring, there are a number of tools and digging implements. Inside the pit, there is a rough obelisk, a mimetolith with the rough shape of a humanoid face. In front of it, a roughly hewn stone with a divot filled with red stains.
Taking in the scene, Ottleson was quick to declare the site to be one of Other worship, accusing the late Almy Lamrey of a list of atrocities so horrid that it would kill the family a second time to merely witness the trial. "'Owevah!" he declared, "The wretched works of men ah the least of my worries! We'd best get the children to the pub before dark! Although..."
Can there be any surprise that the majority of the party decided to destroy the rock? The trio (Dwayne Ottleson, the woman and Jack Lumber) all grab a pick or shovel, and attempt to break the rock, but unfortunately, the noise awakens the remaining Mandrakes, who pull themselves out of the ground and attack.
Luckily for the party, the mandrakes start just out of range of their scream, so they both charge, meaning that the gang can get one down before the first "scream".
But once the scream comes, it's devastating. The whole crew is clumped around the 10 meter zone, and even though Jack Lumber resists a major head wound, everyone else is knocked unconscious by the first blast.
Jack exudes a heroic effort, however, as he holds out against the mandrake for several rounds. All for naught, unfortunately, as the mandrake's scream clicks again, and his eyeballs burst as the infrasonic blast shatters his skull. He's dead before he hits the ground.
In the cabin, John Dole rubs his temples. He can't help but mother hen over the rest of the crew. What would he do if something happened to them? He leaves the children with the unconscious Padre as he walks out to the fields.
***
As John Dole approaches the pit, he can see something is wrong. Someone in filthy clothes is leaning over someone else, sorta sitting on like, their legs--
His player doesn't even wait for me to finish. "I shoot him."
He misses the first shot, but the Ottleson is awoken by the noise. From his position in the pit, he can see the Mandrake leaning over Jack's head, the blood oozing thick from his eye sockets. He jumps into action, scrambling up the walls of the pit, throwing a wild blow into the Mandrakes head. Then, he stands his ground, emboldened the the possibility of dodging the Mandrake's sonic attack. John Dole yells at Ottleson to move, so that he has a clear shot, and then nails the Mandrake in the chest with his sidearm, waking up the strange woman.
It's now the Mandrake's turn. It chooses to scream. I ask Ottleson if he wants to dodge it.
"I have Quick Palms , can I shove them over the mandrake's mouth to dodge the attack?"
I think about it for a second. Rules as Written? No, this is a ranged attack, and thus it can't be blocked... however, this is a cool idea, but also it is kinda dumb and Incunabuli comes with dismemberment rules...
I decide that he can roll agility, and that if he succeeds, he will take a wound centered on his hands with 2x the damage of the normal attack, while the mandrake will test Fortitude to avoid taking damage from the attack, as well.
"Are you sure about this?"
"Hands is better than head."
"Alright, roll."
Dwayne Ottleson charges at the beast, throwing his hands over its mouth before the horrid click, and there is a horrible splatter of blood. Dwayne is thrown back, and where his right hand used to be, a bloody stump pours thick, hot gouts of blood over his face, chest and neck. He holds in a scream as he tries to flip off the mandrake with his other hand, and with horror sees that the finger he feels is no longer there.
John Dole nails the next shot, and the Mandrake tumbles down. He and the Strange Woman tear their clothes, attempting to stop the bleeding. But Ottleson is strong. He holds out through 6 ruined bandages before his allies manage to stop the bleeding.
The Strange Woman drags Jack Lumber to the pyre as John Dole helps Dwayne Ottleson to the cabin. The fight is over, for real this time. Maybe if the gang looks pitiful enough, Esme will let them back into the Lamb & Boar.
Dinner's stew is made of apples, brandy and mandrake root. It's not as good or filling as the stew they had for lunch, but it gets the job done.
***
Good, violent session today. Jack Lumber of Wood was a guest, and I'm sad to see him go so quickly, but it was worth it to mutilate Dwayne Ottleson, whose player always tries to get prosthetics put onto his characters. I really struggle making fair, on the spot rulings, but he seems fairly jazzed about the opportunity to become Venom Snake.
I'm cutting it really close to the wire, here (less than 10 minutes til the start of the next session), so I'll cut it here. Watch out for the next update, hopefully within a week!
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