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Sunday, July 21, 2013

DCC Session Recap Part II - Sailors on the Starless Sea (Spoiler Alert)

The previous post was more about the technical side of last night's Sailors on the Starless Sea DCC RPG Session. This is going to be more of "play highlight". It will have spoilers. It can't be helped. You have been warned ;)

For this, we're going to cut to the chase and head right to the highlights.

The party spent time searching the pool of skulls. One of the PCs found the mechanism that opened the drain (he got sucked down but saved and lived). The rest of the party lowered themselves down after him and searched the cavern, with the fortune teller finding a boney finger with a magic ring. This becomes important later.

Leaving the flooded cavern, they come across an underground beach. There's a viking looking dragon headed boat waiting for them off shore. As they attempt to figure out how best to get to the boat, one of the characters attempts to read the strange sigils on a nearby stone tower and immediately tries to kill another PC (and fails). One of the party's elves makes sure there isn't a second attempt and kills the violator. This becomes the 3rd PC death. (the party did an amazing job of being properly afraid of stuff that could kill them on the courtyard level, as they only lost 2 of 18 up above).

One of the characters swims to the boat offshore and nearly gets grabbed by a tentacle. Another character climbs to the top of the stone tower, sees an area for lighting a candle, lights a candle (thank you candlemaker) and brought the boat to shore.

Halfway to the island with all the lights, screaming and chanting (and probably their fellow villagers) tentacles come up from the water and block their path. The party briefly discusses sacrificing one of the women to appease the beast, but decide not to. Instead, they fight the six tentacles, which quickly grab a handful of party members (including all of one player's PCs). One PC gets grabbed by 2 tentacles and promptly gets torn in half.

I decide to let the elf that grabbed the golden censer and chaos inscribed wrapped incense take a DC 15 Int check to remember he had the items - he never even remembered grabbing the incense and never drew the connection between them and the censer. He made the Int check with room to spare, I reminded him of the loot, he lit it and the tentacles released their captives. Successful Luck checks had the PC land in the boat, failed landed in the water. The character with the magic ring? In the water. Agility check to grab an oar before sinking? Successful.

When they landed on the island they could see the sacrificial rituals going on up at the top. If you can see it, you can shoot it. So, after adding some magical armor protection to one of the tanks and sending the lads out to die as they were to wade through beastmen, the fortune teller casts Scorching Ray from the magic ring - and rolled an adjusted roll of 20! Two rays, dealing 1d10 each, struck the beastman shaman doing the evil ritual, causing him to plumet dead into the sacrificial fire. The beastmen are confused and terrified. The player of the the magically armed fortune teller? A DCC convert in full, I am sure :)

But wait! From the fire emerges the Chaos Lord Animated Effigy. The party contemplates retreating to the boat, but the Chaos Lord is making a beeline to them. There is no time! Those wearing found armor more up to engage him. He wins initiative, swings his flaming flail and rolls a 1. Fumble. In plater armor. D16. Rolls a 10. Armor joints freeze up. Can't attack for two rounds. PCs pile on the rabbit. The Chaos Lord falls, and everything goes to shit.

Back to the boat as the world crumbles down around them. Scene ends as a huge wave pushes their boat down an underground river.

They were extremely lucky in the final scene, as the Chaos Lord would probably have cut down a few characters if he had been able to attack. Killing the shaman from a distance was pure luck and awesome and negated the need of wading through hordes of beastmen.

We'll see where they wind up next week...

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