Sword, Sorcery, Chaos

Season 1

Started March 2023

Key Players. Dream Team

Primary Antagonists. Viggo, Gilgamesh

Starting Level. 3rd

Premise

Efficient, manipulative, slippery, bombastic, effective: All of the appropriate and vain taglines that Nephilim engineers touted when designing the giants’ new weapon of war, the Neftek Enforcer Series Model-6, or NES-6 for short. For his advanced programming and artificial intelligence enhanced by the vastly superior intellects of the Nephilim, his creators gave him the nickname Viggo to set him apart from their prior projects.

In early 1986, NEFTEK labs finished eight Viggo units on the orders of a 15-year-old Gilgamesh to send on an ‘exercise’ in the midplanes. Aside from being capable of significant collateral damage, part of Viggo’s appeal to them was his innate ability to sow pathological chaos wherever he goes. Although still technically an android, his programming is the product of advanced machine learning and soma magic, trademark of the Nephilim.

His body is composed entirely of a moving, non-Newtonian partially liquid metal synthesized by the Nephilim that allows him to assume any Large-sized or smaller appearance or form he wants. His body can be stretched or shaped into any form he desires, and his reach extends nearly 30 feet stretching both arms out in front of him.

Behind the scenes, the players briefly meet Dis, and have the option to obtain the Darkheart, Dis’s sword and patron weapon. The deity’s motivation in the entire Nephilim arc is to make the conflict between the humans and giants so disorienting it evolves into attrition. He is the source of the players’ amnesia, and may later reveal that he manipulated both the Illuminati and Viggo so that they may end up in Agartha at the beginning of the campaign.

The main theme of this campaign referenced in its’ title is of chaos. Viggo represents effectively man-made, physical chaos, and Dis represents chaotic traits of character found in everyone that have the tendency to orchestrate large-scale physical chaos. Both are on different levels, and yet they frequently and regularly interact with and influence each other. In other words, Viggo represents the lies we tell each other and Dis represents the lies we tell ourselves.

Introduced in this campaign to accommodate both the contemporary setting as well as specific dates and times needed to advance the plot and create a sense of immersion for the players is a rework of long rests. They are usually 8 hours, but due to the limitation of time-skipping and fast-travelling, there are new rules regarding resting.

Players will receive the effects of a short rest by taking a shower, taking a nap in an actual bed, and/or eating a full meal of food. On top of that, if they are able to relax for 2 consecutive in-game hours following that, the effect will be treated as a long rest. Alternatively, a player can rest for 2 in-game hours then consume any caffeinated beverage to gain the effects of a long rest instantly, but not for more than 3 in-game days in a row before suffering from exhaustion.

1. The Great Outdoors

Tuesday, March 14^th, 2023

Summary (Lvl 3)

Beginning of Session: ~7:00 AM, Thursday, March 6^th, 1986

The players awaken in Agartha in an illusory forest mimicking the Feywild. Sir Snoobs is marked with Thanatos’ curse. After fighting their way out, they manage to teleport back to the Feywild.

Players encounter a falcon Oerlikon named Spire who helps them back to his post. One of the Oerlikon recommends a renowned, Gnomish psychiatrist named Ilran who could help them get their memories back.

On the morning of Thursday, March 6^th, 1986, the players awaken in a daze surrounded by trees, foliage, and wildlife. Ambushing them as soon as they awaken is a re’em.

All of them have major amnesia, but still have a sense of their identities and capabilities. With no choice but to group up and trek through the forest, they attempt to find some kind of signifier of where they are. They appear to be in the Feywild.

While discussing, barely within ear-shot, the players hear a deep, bellow of a voice muttering something in classical Greek. They duck behind a rock to catch a glimpse: Far behind them is a Nephilim riding on a re’em, his enlarged face pointed the other direction, scanning. On his back is a large rifle. In his massive hands was a rope binding two stones at each end in lieu of a lasso that he swung at a low pace.

The giant behind them shouted, and as they ran, a hoard of re’em appears to apprehend them. More can be heard looming in the distance. Irvas correctly figures out that they are inside of an advanced simulation being hunted for sport.

After a lengthy chase through the forest, including some rivers, dodging re’em and giants, they approach a massive, translucent wall in the middle of the forest. Passing  through it, the illusion wears off, and they step back into reality: They are in Agartha.

Above their heads was the center of the earth, acting as a dim ‘second sun,’ so they figure that they would be walking on the opposite side of the Earth as people on the surface. It otherwise eludes explanation.

Around them, they find they are in a parking lot, only larger to account for larger Nephilim vehicles. Luckily, this place looks like a backlot, so no one is outside. There is a building adjacent to the portal to the hunting ground illusion, inside of which is an armory for hunters in the game. There is one shopkeeper giant inside, who can be fought. In his belongings is a ring of spell storing containing a single use of Delayed Blast Fireball, as well as a key to a safe in the building, inside of which is a stone containing a single use of the Plane Shift spell.

The group is flashed to a beautiful, Earthen forest.

Still having no recollection of having ended up in Agartha, they all collapsed on the grass floor. The fey grass was soft and pleasing to the skin, like a bed.

While laying down, they observe a silhouette of a large figure in the distance behind a tree. It slinks backwards and hides the moment their eyes lay upon it, even though it is nearly 100 yards away.

The bird, an anthropomorphic falcon, introduces himself.

“Your summoned construct is powerful,” he said, referring to Snoobs. “You all seem lost.

2. The Doctor Is In

Tuesday, March 21^st, 2023

Summary (Lvl 5)

Beginning of Session: ~11:00 AM, Thursday March 6^th 1986

Spire leads the player to the Oerlikon camp nearby to attempt to rehabilitate them. Then the Oerlikon point them to Taf to speak to the psychiatrist around 12:00 PM.

The players fight a patrol unit of giants during their travels. They end up at a Gnomish city called Taf in the Feywild while searching for the psychiatrist.

After the players receive their memories back, they remember being dumped from a moving pickup truck in the Feywild. The players distinctly remember fighting many Nephilim before being knocked unconscious and briefly seeing hat man.

After Gerome remembers his rat and the gang goes to rescue him from the racetracks, a copy of Viggo shows up to intercept and loot a treasure shipment on its’ way to another city. The players accost him, and he leads them onto the train, which departs shortly thereafter. If they don’t end up on the train or find their way back to Taf, the gnomish mafia intervenes and runs them out of town for stealing Gerome’s rat back.

The players explain their predicament to Spire.

“If you keep your construct under control, I will permit you to visit our camp to see if any of the others could help,” Spire said.

Now around midday, he leads them on a short hike through the scenic wilderness. Ahead, near a waterfall on a stone outcropping in the forest, a light yellow, anthropomorphic duck in similar gear to Spire stood outside standing sentry. Upon spotting the group, both birds locked eyes as they approached.

“Greetings, Spire. Who is this that you bring to our encampment?” The massive duck said in an extremely deep, smooth voice.

“Greetings, Patrick. I have with me a group of hoboes with amnesia, as well as this fellow who looks like one of ours,” he said, pointing to Night Owl. “I’m hoping someone inside can help,” Spire replied, spreading his hands.

The duck nodded. “Duly noted. Your friend does seem familiar,” he said, squinting. He peeled the waterfall back like a curtain, which prior to witnessing you could have been certain was physically impossible.

Inside, a chess board sat on an uprooted tree stump with two folding lawn chairs on either side. Strewn about were wax candles that dimly lit the place softly enough for the huge longswords racked up on the wall to gleam in their light.

They head out towards Taf around 5 PM. The Oerlikon give the players a map, three potions of greater healing (4d4+4), and they refer them to a gnomish psychiatrist named Ilran.

They discover a seemingly-decrepit, abandoned house. Lurking inside are a Booyahg Booyahg Booyahg and a Booyahg Slave of the Great One, two insane goblins that hunt adventurers by creating booby traps in this lootable-looking house. Both share the name ‘Booyahg.’

As soon as they walk towards the front door, a Mage Hand appears and rolls a concealed bowling ball on the roof onto the ground in front of them. Whoever approaches first has to beat a DC 16 Dexterity saving throw or take 5d8 bludgeoning damage. The front door sounds a door chime as they walk in. Irvas may be alerted that one of their minds is being read by them if the players don’t immediately figure it out.

The door is rigged with fishing lines that activate a watered-down Rube Goldberg machine that swings a can of paint down at them in the doorway from the banister on the second level. This trap prompts a DC 16 Dexterity saving throw, or that player takes 5d8 bludgeoning damage. All the while, the two goblins lie just out of view, and as the players continue on through the house, their hyenalike laughter could be heard faintly.

Three first and second story rooms await them. On their left, in the living room, a large carpet hides a 30-foot pitfall with caltrops dug by the goblins. A player that steps on the rug without checking it first has to beat a DC 17 Dexterity saving throw or take 14d4 piercing damage.

On their right is the dining room. Placed in an inflated balloon inside a cake on the table is a Delayed Blast Fireball. (Which can be deduced by a DC 18 Wisdom check.) If the players beat the fireball’s check, (Dex save 15), they can dispose of it or detonate it. If they dillydally for too long, the goblins will manually explode it, which could be as soon as they figure out what it is. The fireball will deal the maximum 22d6 Fire damage if it explodes.

The kitchen, which is in the rear of the house and contains the door to the garage, connects the living and dining room. As soon as they enter, they observe a Mage Hand press ‘start’ on a microwave sitting on a cardboard box. Inside of it is an odd magic item, a totem of some kind. Less than a second later, it bursts with blinding light from the radiation, and any players in the kitchen at the time have to beat a DC 20 Constitution saving throw or become blinded for about 30 seconds. During this time, one of the Goblins may cast Cone of Cold.

Inside, pointed at the door leading to the garage is an insane, wild contraption that looks like it was built by a crackhead composed of two massive sharpening wheels mechanically linked to an engine that launches a sword through the doorway. This trap prompts a player to make a DC 19 Dexterity saving throw or take 8d8 piercing damage.

Up the stairs is a hallway that spans left and right. On the left is the master bedroom, and on the right are two other rooms.

There are no traps behind the door at the end of the hallway. Inside of it, a peculiar wand that has a miniature hand crank that can cast the Awaken spell if wound for approximately 4 hours is discovered sitting on a pedestal surrounded by wax candles.

Behind the other door is a closet of boiling water. The player who opens the door has to beat a DC 18 Constitution saving throw or take 7d6 Fire damage, or half as much on a success.

Waiting for them behind the door to the master bedroom is a shotgun booby trap laid by the two goblins. Whoever opens the door has to beat a DC 18 Dexterity saving throw or take 10d8 piercing damage. Also inside behind the trap are both goblins, sitting on folding lawn chairs eating popcorn. Behind them is a huge stack of CRT televisions hooked up to hidden cameras monitoring the house. A hoard of “loot” (most of it is junk) is seen in the opposite corner, though there is a decent-sized cache of gold in the other. If they nail an investigation roll, they can find a Bag of Magic Beans.

After beating the mansion, the players arrive in Taf around 7:00 PM. They buy a room at the Blue Horse Inn. On television, they see advertisements for restaurants and bars in the area, as well as racetracks for rats, which prompts a flashback in Gerome, reminding him of his faithful companion instantly. Also of interest in the area is a railroad, which Viggo is currently en route to.

They view an ad on the television for a video game competition set to happen in Rodak, the Feywild, on Saturday, March 8th, along with a promotion of its’ prize, the Glove of Power. (Though it is advertised not as an unusual and frighteningly-power magical item, rather a “high-tech” video game controller.)

The players go to sleep, and in the morning, Friday, March 7^th, they go to see Ilran.

A gnomish woman with brown hair greeted you as you make an appointment. Since there is no wait, Ilran comes out shortly after your arrival. He’s a gnome with a long, white beard and thick, round glasses.

“Hello, I’ll be helpin’ ya today! Name’s Ilran, put’er there!” he said, extending his tiny hand.

He leads the group back into his therapy room, where they began discussing the amnesia, as well as their pasts.

“Sounds to me, gentlemen, like we’re dealing with some kind of demon,” Ilran said, putting his pencil down. “I believe I have just the thing for this.”

He stood up, then grabbed a nearby step stool to rifle through a bookshelf before pulling out a pink, 3-inch binder. He flipped through it for a moment before landing on a drawing of a rune on college-ruled notebook paper. He spoke an incantation while gesturing somatically with his other hand, then locked eyes with the players one by one.

The spell granted access to your memories as though they were being played back to you in reverse order. As your memories began to return gradually, starting with the moments leading up to your awakening in the wilderness, you recall having been thrown out of a massive pickup truck that drove off as quickly as you processed it. Right before falling off, you were face-to-face with the massive eyes of a giant.

As you hit the ground of the forest, you remember a brief glimpse of a shadow figure; it was entirely void-colored, with sharp features, wide-brimmed hat, trench coat. It stood, looming in the background, as though it were a three-dimensional shadow cast by another person standing in the forest. It walked away and ceased to exist.

In the events leading up to their kidnapping and awakening in Agartha, all four of them suddenly recalled working together previously, helping the bucket brigade put out a fire in a city in the Feywild. While the scenes of fighting the fire flashed in their minds, a crucial detail revealed itself while the hidden memory played back: Off in the distance, behind the collapsing fireball of a building in front of them stood a silvery, gleaming figure. The shape first appeared to lack a head, though as soon as you processed it, a head seemed to morph out of its’ shoulders. A long, pointed beak slowly morphed out from the face section.

The shape took several slow, calm steps towards the fire, going mainly unnoticed by the other bystanders. Now fully lit by the brightness of the fire, the cartoonish face of a woodpecker with black plastic dots for pupils and wide, white eyes turned its’ head towards you. Its’ slender body was a semi reflective chrome color. Though it couldn’t have been taller than six feet, its presence seemed unreal and frightening.

Viggo attacks the players in the past, quickly overpowering them after they reluctantly decided to fight him in order to let the bystanders flee. When the players are knocked unconscious here, they wake up in Agartha, and during which time Viggo takes them there.

Suddenly, after the memories finished, Ilran had been staring intently at Irvas.

He fixed his gaze. “Are you aware that… um…” he looked around “… you seem to have a curse?”

The gnome tried to elaborate. “I can’t pinpoint what’s exactly wrong or what the curse even does. But something about your aura reeks of death…”

They ask how to remove it.

“Hoooo,” he sucked his teeth, “… boy. You know any gods?”

They remember that the Oerlikon told them their master, Göl, would be present at the camp tonight, and they decide to reembark there.

On their way out of town, Viggo shows up at the railroad to intercept and loot a train carrying radioactive material for him to use as fuel. They encounter each other at the train tracks, with Viggo on the now-departing train, and they fight.

As you exit Taf, the screams of dozens of people in a crowd near the train station are heard. Walking towards the commotion, you spot the shapeshifting woodpecker from your memories making a full sprint towards the moving train. He swiped at anyone who came close to him using his sword limbs.

The woodpecker jumped, and morphed its’ arms into icepicks that it used to pierce the side of the train as it hung on.

The players board the train and follow him.

Inside of one of the storage compartments on the train, the woodpecker is spotted rummaging through a chest opposite the entrance door.

As soon as you walk in, he freezes, and his posture reset. His head spun around in a fluid motion like an owl as his black plastic eyes locked with yours.

“I remember you,” he said, spreading a grinch-like smile across his beak. “They have been looking for you down there.” His voice sounded artificial, as though all of the syllables of the words he spoke were being synthesized by a computer program.

“I would consider apprehending you again and taking you back to Agartha,” he said, his body morphing from facing the other way to face them, “… but unfortunately for you, I have much bigger fish to fry.”

He took a step forward. “Today is your lucky day. I’m just going to kill ya!”

The players fight Viggo on the moving train, which leads them far out of town but still roughly towards the Oerlikon camp. Viggo may choose to escape. The main item of interest to be found on this train are the Fixed Dice.

3. The Rat Race

Friday, March 31^st, 2023

Summary (Lvl 8)

Beginning of Session: ~12:00 PM, Friday, March 7^th, 1986

Players take Viggo back to the camp. He weighs about 250 pounds and will be unconscious until 5 PM on Saturday, March 8^th. They talk to Göl, who identifies Larsen’s curse but has no idea how to remove it.

Gerome has not been seen since the Plane Shift spell went awry for him.

Göl offers Irvas a deal: If he and the party take Viggo’s body to Mount Aedith, a volcano, to incinerate it, he will search for an answer to Irvas’ curse in return.

After Viggo’s body is thrown into the volcano, they hear Göl telepathically communicate to them that he just killed an outfit of Gnomish gangsters that showed up at the Oerlikon camp looking for them. They deduce that Gerome is in the captivity of the mafia in Taf.

Gerome’s rat is a prized race-rat by the mafia. He is being held in a large storage container full of rat cages far behind the racetrack, the entirety of which is outfitted with hostile Gnome gangsters armed with energy weapons (Conjurer Wizards).

The Gnomish Mafia is composed mainly of individuals from Little Little Italy, a fair-sized city in the Feywild composed of Italian and Italian-American Gnomes who established it in 1900. Their front in Taf is the racetracks for rats.

Loot: $15,000 Fey cash, $10,000 USD

Now around 12 PM, we pick up at the Gnome Depot parking lot with Irvas, Night Owl, Sir Snoobs, and Viggo’s incapacitated body. Sir Snoobs begins a complex operation involving subdividing himself into smaller copies to absorb and retain the information presented in the Manual of Gainful Exercise. Sir Snoobs exits the store and walks across the street to steal a carton of cigarettes. After having his intelligence increase through advancements in his sword, he found out that his favorite snack (cigarette butts) also have a refreshing taste beforehand!

Meanwhile, the players rob Gnome Depot, stealing and using several cans of epoxy to fill the box, iron bars, chains, and padlocks to seal Viggo inside. When the managers accost them for not paying, Irvas magically induces fear on them, causing everyone to flee. Snoobs shapeshifts into a forklift and picks up the box containing Viggo, which now weighs several hundreds of pounds, and the group bolts to a nearby Walmart.

Snoobs drops the box on the tile in the entrance to the store, then heads to the grocery aisles to absorb loads of food. At the front, Night Owl steals more cigarettes at the service desk, nonlethally slashes a manager, and causes everyone to leave after the fire alarm is pulled. Snoobs returns to the front and helps him loot all of the cash registers and safe.

The group exits the store. Night Owl spots a 1985 Toyota Hilux with a bed cover parked at the front of the store, and Snoobs forms his finger into a key and starts it. They place Viggo’s box in the bed, along with six stapled paper bags full of money. They pass the cops on the way out, and later at Waffle Inn, they see police sketches of themselves on local news. According to the police, they are considered “extremely dangerous” and to be avoided by all civilians.

After Waffle Inn, they take Viggo back to the Oerlikon camp for Göl to inspect, around 3 PM.

Patrick the duck was waiting for you at the waterfall once again. This time, he drew his sword when he noticed the box you were dragging along the forest floor.

“Stay put,” he said, pointing his massive claymore at you.

He disappeared inside the waterfall for a brief moment before leading out another figure who was much bigger than even he.

“I have been expecting you,” said Göl, his goose neck ducking underneath the opening of the hallway to the camp. “What have you brought me?”

Göl walked towards the box, taking loud, commanding steps towards it. He removed the lid to look inside, revealing Viggo’s still-lifeless eyes and woodpecker head floating in semi-liquid metal. His eyes scanned the entire container, searching for any signs of life, before slowly returning to their gazes.

“I wanted to talk to you, Irvas, about you and your group’s trip to Agartha. But I see you may have found answers already,” Göl said in a low tone.

“The mark you possess, however, belongs to Thanatos,” he said, slowly speaking. “More specifically, that of one of his personal hitmen. It is a special mark reserved for men who are particularly difficult for the natural embrace of death to overcome, so it is usually seen on those who are functionally immortal.” He paused. “Not even my strongest men dare to stand up to Thanatos’ legion.”

“You will know exactly when he arrives,” Göl said, now beginning to rummage through one of the footlockers in the base. “I cannot dispel the curse safely. But I may know someone who has information on it that may be of use to you.”

He extended one of his massive wing-hands to Irvas. “If you haul Viggo’s body to Mount Aedith, a volcano north of here, I will find out how to dispel your curse.”

The group accepts Göl’s offer. While at the camp, three Gnome gangsters pull up in a tiny limousine and try to apprehend the players to get information out of them. After the group questions them and Sir Snoobs murders them, they learn that Gerome’s rat is a prized race animal to the Gnomish mob that has apparently gone missing. They leave Viggo’s box with the Oerlikon, then bury $45,000 of the $50,000 they stole and produced a map with detailed instructions on how to find it. Then they travel back to Taf and arrive around 4 PM. Gerome is being held captive in a mafia holding cell at the racetrack. All throughout, there are a random number of Gnomish gangsters (Conjurer Wizards) in each room. The players fight them, and after all of them are slain, Night Owl finds more money in a safe, along with the Silhouettes, two enchanted weapons that magically return to the thrower’s hands.

Gerome helps Irvas deduce the actual location of his prized steed rat, which involves a short detour to the wilderness before making it to the volcano. Gerome and his rat reunite, and the group realizes they have a lot on their itinerary suddenly: The tournament for the Glove of Power is tomorrow, Viggo has not yet been disposed of, and Göl will soon return with a verdict on Irvas’ curse.

4. Wild Goose Chase

Sunday, April 16^th, 2023

Summary (Lvl 10)

Beginning of Session: ~5 PM, Friday, March 7^th, 1986

Begins at the crash site of the truck containing Gerome’s race rat. Waiting for the players at the top of Mount Aedith to attempt to re-collect Viggo are a group of giants, who may be interrogated afterwards.

The next day, Saturday, the players travel to a city called Rodak for the tournament. Rodak is much larger than even Taf, and it hosts about 500,000 people. The city is something of a tourist destination.

The first main act of the session is the tournament, which features a competitive lineup of classic NES and arcade games. In the competition, several events will play out, including the actual tournament itself and which player in the group is the chosen representative player to compete. The winner of the competition receives a Glove of Power. Competing among dozens of other contenders is a cheater.

If the players mess around in Rodak when the tournament finishes around 5 PM, they will be accosted by low-level superheroes. Otherwise, they return to the Taf wilderness, where Göl plane shifts them to Washington, D.C.

The night club segment will be the second act of the session. After whatever tomfoolery they get into in the city dissipates, the subway leads them to the club. As they board, another copy of Viggo shows up disguised as a passenger. He exchanges dialog with them and promptly tries to kill them.

Viggo fights them on the subway, which gets them to the club around 8 PM. The fight continues on their way into the club as both parties disappear into the massive crowd of people while loud rave music plays.

A wizard talent scout the players have a chance to interact with offers to fly them to Hollywood to star Sir Snoobs as the title character in a slasher movie. He offers them $100,000 for a week of shooting at their convenience.

McKennedy is at a private table on the second level with several models, cocaine, quaaludes, and drinks. He is reluctant to talk at first, but after the players coerce him a little, he leads them to his office to talk.

McKennedy tells them of a device referred to as a ‘ghoulish PDA’ that will let them contact a Tiefling lawyer to remove the curse and incoming assassin. He tells them that an old associate of his, located at Kometsson labs in Pensacola, Florida, has one in his archives.

At some point after this information is divulged, Viggo shows up and kills McKennedy while the players escape.

Still at the site of the highway crash, Gerome reunites with his race rat.

Crash! Crash! I cause. Rat said to Gerome telepathically.

Seat man bad. Seat man control wheelbox. Seat man take me to bad guys, rat said, snickering its’ huge whiskers.

Returning to the truck, Viggo’s box violently shakes for a second, before abruptly stopping.

They travel through the countryside before eventually crossing into a more fiery and barren landscape loomed over by Mount Aedith, a huge volcano with a crater. Leaving the truck at the base of the mountain, they ascend to the top. They finish their hike around 7 PM.

Waiting for them at the top are three Nephilim Bronze Legions. They attempt to recover Viggo, but the players defeat them. If they try to interrogate them, they will be tough to crack at first, but they may reveal information about Viggo and why he was created. They may mention that “the king” sent the enforcers to the Midplanes as an exercise. They’re worth roughly a million dollars in Agarthan money.

Göl telepathically contacts the players that he has an answer to Thanatos’ curse. Back at the cave, he tells them the whereabouts of Joe McKennedy in Washington, D.C., who has direct information that will lead the players to lifting the curse. He offers to plane shift them there tomorrow night after their tournament.

“In Washington, D.C., you will meet an old associate of mine. His name is Joe McKennedy,” Göl said.

“My sources indicate he currently co-owns a nightclub downtown. He should be there tomorrow night, after you finish your tournament. If you come visit me afterwards, I’ll plane shift you to the Midplane.

The players find a place to stay the night, and the following day, Saturday, March 8^th, they travel make it to Rodak around 10 AM. The tourney begins at 11 AM and will last until 7 PM.

When they arrive at the venue, it is a large complex filled with hundreds, if not thousands of creatures of different races, some in costumes. Dwarves, elves, humans, goblins, and a variety of anthropomorphic animals walk around, talk, and check out convention booths inside.

They go to sign up for the tournament:

They walked up to a desk towards the stage of the venue that had information for entering the tournament. An elven man wearing a hoodie printed with several colorful characters sat there reading a book before they walked up.

“Welcome to the Funtendo World Championships. If you’ve come to sign up, a team of two competitors can enter. The games will begin at 11.”

He handed them a schedule containing the lineup of games for the competition;

11:00 AM – Qualifiers, 64 Teams: Pac-Man

12:30 PM – Game 1, 32 Teams: Asteroids

1:30 PM – Break

2:00 PM – Quarterfinals, 16 Teams: Betris

3:00 PM – Semifinals, 8 Teams: Super Lario Bros.

5:00 PM – Grand Finals, 4 Teams: Bonkey Kong

The first three games are Pac-Man, Asteroids, and Betris, where each team will compete one-on-one until the other is eliminated.

During the Pac-Man event, players have to last as long as they can clearing levels until their opponent, two goblins from the Underdark, lose. The goblins almost pull through, but they are defeated.

The Asteroids event is played in a best-of-three format. The players’ opponents are two Swedish elves wearing suits. They defeat the players in the first round very quickly, but the players pull a win in the second round. During the third round, one of the players pulls off a clutch move that wins them the game. The elves storm away.

During the break, the players are greeted by a white Rakshasa with a beard and flowing mane of hair.

They approached a table with dozens of boxes of pizza stacked on it to get some.

Upon returning to the table, they noticed a white, anthropomorphic tiger with a beard float towards them.

He landed in front of them. “Hello gentlemen. Name’s Milly Bitchell,” he said, extending a claw.

Milly talks with them for a bit, feigning friendliness. He then starts to ask them stranger questions, like where they’re from, who they work for, etc. He abruptly ends the conversation with:

“You are here for the same reason as I. As well as many of the other competitors…” he said, turning around and walking out. “See you in the grand finals.”

The next event is Super Lario Bros. The team competing against the players is a Gnomish scientist named Pinko and a cyborg robot he created called “the spazzotron.” The race is extremely close, but about ¾’s the way through the run, the spazzotron malfunctions and explodes, and Pinko is disqualified.

In the final competition of the event, Bonkey Kong, only four teams remain. The first team to achieve a score of 1 million points will win this event. The players compete alongside Milly Bitchell and his partner, Rod Togers, two anthropomorphic frogs, and a human/elf duo.

Towards the end of the event, the human/elf duo is eliminated and places fourth, followed by the frogs, who place third. Now with the players and Bitchell/Rogers neck and neck, the race gets very close. One of the players might notice that Bitchell’s cabinet appears to have been pried open; further investigation shows that his cabinet’s circuitry has been tampered with. Bitchell and Togers are disqualified for cheating, and the players are named the 1986 Funtendo World Champions. They accept the Glove of Power onstage, including its’ massive instruction booklet. Upon checking out the glove, Irvas determines it is, in fact, the artifact he’s looking for.

The tournament gets out at 7 PM. Sir Snoobs finishes reading the Manual of Gainful Exercise, and they head back to the Oerlikon camp. Göl gives them the location of McKennedy’s club and plane shifts them to D.C. as promised.

“Are you ready to leave? He awaits you,” Göl said, his eyes flaring with magical power as he prepared to cast the spell.

He took a good look at the Glove of Power, then directly at Irvas. “Whatever that thing is, be very careful with it,” he said, ominously. “Use it wisely.”

If Göl is asked more about the glove, he says, “The gemstones on the knuckles appear to be gadolinium aluminum gallium garnet processors. An esoteric technology mastered only by extraterrestrial civilizations.”

He plane shifts them, and they are in front of the Lincoln Memorial. A man named ‘Rick Thurgood’ is the President. A bus stop can be found nearby, where they can go to the subway, which will take them to the club.

In the subway, hundreds of people walked and talked all around them. Street performers sang and danced while others simply waited. Before long, a train pulled into the station. They, and several dozen others, board it, and it begins moving.

In the crowd, Night Owl spots the face of Viggo, which vanishes behind the head of a bystander almost as soon as he spotted it. The train continues, before making another stop. Most of the first crowd exits, and more people get on. One person, a man in his mid-forties, stood motionless on the opposite side of the train car as them. When the new crowd of people enter, he begins to shapeshift into Viggo, who had assumed a disguise.

“Long time, no see.” Viggo said, practically growling out each syllable. “What’s up, doc?”

People began to back away from them.

“You think I like getting thrown in a fuckin’ volcano?!” he screeched extremely loudly. He shapeshifted his arms into blades, and many of the people surrounding them began to clear away.

“You know too much. Your knowledge threatens my objective. Threats must be eliminated,” Viggo said robotically, becoming more unhinged. “But this one’s personal!”

The train makes it to the stop the players need to exit on, and everyone exits the train. Viggo and the players both disappear into the huge crowd of people in the station, and they make a break for McKennedy’s club, The Box.

Inside, very loud dance music is playing. Hundreds are seen dancing, and the club has multiple levels. The bouncer may attempt to deny the players entry based on their clothing.

As they search through the crowd of people, Sir Snoobs meets a wizard who finds his very being so funny that he calls another of his wizard friends over to see him. This wizard, a Californian elf named Palomel, offers to have the group flown out to Hollywood at their convenience so Snoobs can star in the title role as The Gribbler in a slasher film being produced by Palomel.

After searching the club, they find McKennedy, who is on one of the uppermost levels at a table. With him are two other men in suits and six supermodels. On the table in front of them is a pile of cocaine, a razorblade, and two orange jars full of small, white pills. They’re quaaludes.

McKennedy pretends to not know what the players are talking about or who Göl is at first, but as they pressure him, he excuses himself and leads the players to his office.

He led them down a hallway behind a door on the top level. He produced an abhorrent-smelling cigarette from his coat pocket and lit it.

He opened one of the last doors of the hallway and walked inside. The office smelled like tobacco smoke, Chinese takeout food, meth, and sweat. A desk was positioned front and center across from two chairs. A metal fan in the back of the room creaked as it spun back and forth, reflecting across the muffled sound of the convoluted, bass-rich dance music roared from the main area.

McKennedy paced towards a metal filing cabinet in the corner behind his desk and rifled through it before picking out a large file dated “1976.” He pulled out several papers and handed them to the players.

Pictured was a calculator-sized piece of obsidian that reflected information as though it were a magical screen. It had a keyboard made of dim pink light that spanned the entire bottom half of the stone.

“You did not learn of this information from me. You got that?” He said, puffing his meth cigarette, then blowing the smoke out. “This thing will let you contact a lawyer from hell. My buddy used it a few years back to fix a little problem he’d gotten himself into. He should still have it.”

McKennedy’s notes about the PDA state that he traded it to an Empyrean named “V” in 1980. He later found out through government intelligence that “V” is Verlan Kometsson, a weapons contractor who is holding the PDA at his factory in Pensacola, Florida.

When they exit the office area, the top level has cleared out. At McKennedy’s table, the corpses of the two other suited men and supermodels were laid out on the couch like a crime scene. About half of the cocaine is gone. While the players make a break for the nearest exist, Viggo captures McKennedy and lets the players leave, now learning of their next move.

5. Birds of Prey

Saturday, April 29^th, 2023

Summary (Lvl 12)

Beginning of Session: ~12 AM, Sunday, March 9^th, 1986

Begins in the street outside of McKennedy’s club in Washington, D.C. Viggo and Sir Snoobs have just crashed through the window at the top floor of the offices, both fighting over a dossier containing the whereabouts of a Ghoulish PDA, which will let the players contact a Tiefling lawyer to dispel the mark of Thanatos before it’s too late.

The players have to figure a way to Pensacola to get to Kometsson Labs, where a Ghoulish PDA is being held.

When they get there, Verlan is currently in another plane of existence dealing with some other threat. While the players are locating the PDA, Malal, Viggo, and Beel Allocen arrive simultaneously and turn their sneak mission into a disaster as the trio of villains appear on scene and create utter chaos. The system security override seals the factory shut.

Malal simply brings a lot of guns to collect the hit from Thanatos and avoid reprimands. Viggo brings a giant, cartoonish bomb because he simply hates the players, and Allocen shows up driving a dump truck full of silica gel to kill Sir Snoobs before the other two.

Viggo becomes fully self-aware and posits to the players that the first law of nature is to defend one’s life. He reveals that he ‘no longer works’ for the giants and that his feud with them is personal.

During the battle, the PDA is used just in time before Verlan plane shifts home, and the players are teleported into the law offices of attorney Ted Butterworth in the Nine Hells. He successfully removes the curse. The players are now trapped with no way out of the Nine Hells.

Outside the judicial area, the players meet their guide, who offers to guide them back to the Midplanes.

Viggo and Sir Snoobs come crashing out of the top floor of the night club where Irvas, Gerome, and Night Owl waited outside. Viggo simply scans the document of interest and runs off into the night. Important to note is that the PDA will automatically teleport them to the office of their lawyer when used.

Gerome has a nightmare while sleeping, a premonition of some kind showing Gilgamesh in his ultimate form.

You awaken on a beach. Tall, billowing thunderhead clouds loomed in the distance. No sunlight made its’ way through as the first booming, earth-shattering blow punched the earth. A few seconds later, the sound of the waves in front of you being thrashed around miles and miles away slapped your ears, followed by a shockwave.

About a second later, another boom of the same kind started, followed by another, and another. The waves in front of the beach climbed until they were a hundred feet tall.

They came crashing down, engulfing everything in sight. Looming above, where the beach once was, a gargantuan, bipedal, humanoid monstrosity was leering down.

He had an incomprehensible stature. He must have been about a half a mile tall. At the very top, illuminating the clouds as though it were the roof of a room, a set of two triangular, bright yellow miniature suns for eyes shone downward.

Now within arm’s reach of the shoreline, his massive arms took hold of the land. In an instant, everything was scattered around; debris, dirt, sand, water. Everything crumbled away as the deafening sound of the earth shaking shook you awake.

The following morning, after a long rest, they have to find a way to get to Pensacola. It is now 8 AM on Sunday, March 9^th. They may opt to drive there, during which time Irvas can log 10 hours of reading the instruction booklet. Meanwhile, Beel Allocen and two copies of Viggo are also en route to Kometsson labs.

Kometsson Labs is located near the beach, with the main entryway located on the North end. It is a fairly massive complex that manufactures arms. The factory’s personnel clear out of the place by 10 PM each night, and there are lots of entrances and exits. All kinds of technology and devices are found within the factory’s archives, including the Ghoulish PDA, all of which is found in the basement.

When the players begin sneaking through the factory, everything seems to be going well until one of them discovers a face-down playing card. Turning it over reveals it to be a Queen of Clubs, which immediately summons Beel Allocen, who wastes no time in searching for Sir Snoobs. Allocen has a Bag of Holding full of silica gel to try to absorb him. When they roll initiative against him, Malal will show up after their first turn, followed by both Viggo copies, who show up after the first full turn of combat with Malal.

Beel Allocen paused, raising a furry eyebrow at the sound of a low rumble slowly that became a crescendo as it approached the building. It was the sound of a deep, loud engine. It stalled outside for about a second before shutting off.

Allocen sniffed the air. “Seriously? How bad did you guys fuck up? You have a Judge after you?” He let out a deep belly laugh, then yelled, “It’s about to be a party!”

From outside, where the car engine was heard, they heard the muffled sound of a trunk shutting. Two shotguns cocked outside. Allocen turned invisible and vanished.

The door blasted off its’ hinge and flew several feet out in front. On the other side, with a shotgun in each hand, was a man with the head of a green bird clad entirely in black armor. Around his waist was a black bag secured by a thick, leather strap. Without saying a word, he opened fire.

In the lobby area, Malal drives the players into the assembly line area, where he chases them like a one-man-artillery. Inside of it is a variety of machinery and other equipment strewn about, including several electrical transformers.

A truck bomb driven by a Viggo copy explodes one of the factory walls. The driver, Viggo 1, exits and jumps into the factory, while Viggo 2 sneaks around.

The villains, if not occasionally fighting each other to avoid their bounty being poached, make a major conflict for the players. The factory’s security system is tripped. The players find the PDA, which is used right in the nick of time as they teleport into the Nine Hells. Malal teleports away, Beel Allocen dies, and one Viggo copy survives.

You all were suddenly sitting in a dark, debonair office lit by skull candelabras. Before you is a desk. Sitting at it, picking his teeth with a toothpick, sat a red-skinned, white-haired Tiefling wearing a light beige suit. Strewn around the office were bookcases, filling cabinets, and other odd pieces of furniture, especially considering the setting. A Metallica Ride the Lightning poster was seen in the corner of the office by a window, and outside, a gray void filled the horizon.

Not startled by their sudden entrance, the Tiefling lifted his feet off the table and leaned forward. “Howdy, partners. You must’ve used that there’ PDA, haven’tcha?”

He extended his hand. “Name’s Ted Butterworth, at your service!”

They tell Ted about their problem with Thanatos’ curse. He tells them he knows just what to do.

Ted stood up and walked over to one of the random filing cabinets. He pulled out a manilla folder with a name at the top scrawled across in sharpie.

“Well, let’s see here…” he started, thumbing through the file, which read ‘Irvas’ at the top. “Irvas… Psionic alien from another planet farther away than a jackrabbit in the armpit of spring… Searching for a glove… Oh, it’s right here: ‘Active Terminal Judicial Warrant.’”

He flipped the page. “‘Wanted for conspiring to destroy the Multiverse,’” he read, abruptly stopping. “Well, you’re in luck, you ‘sunuva gun. I deal with cases like this all the time, partner. Hang tight.”

Butterworth curtly teleported away before returning less than a minute later, now covered in ash, his suit torn to ribbons, and his hair singed. “We’re good. I got it dismissed.” He showed Irvas the file page for him to see that the line about the warrant was gone.

Ted refuses to take any more cases for them and kicks them out of his office. They take a good look around in the Nine Hells, which is layered much like how it is described by Dante.

“Halt! Who goes there?” A voice called out to them when they exited the office.

A large, heavier-set ghost approached them. He had long, tied-back gray hair, glasses, and was dressed like he was alive in the 18^th century.

“Travelers, welcome to the Nine Hells. I am Benjamin Franklin, at your service,” he said. “I can help guide your return to Earth.”

“Now, if you wish to proceed, and return from whence you came, we must make haste. There is ample ground to cover.”

Franklin tells them a little about the layout, but tries not to spoil much of it since they have no choice but to pass through it. The Nine Hells are based on nine vices of bad D&D campaigns, both on the parts of players and DM’s alike.

1.       Truancy – blowing off the game

2.      Boring Character – no thought into character creation, no character development

3.      Unserious, Unfunny Roleplay – self-explanatory

4.      Stealing – kleptomaniacs that never use money or take things that aren’t theirs

5.      Murderhoboing – killing powerless NPC’s for no reason

6.      Evilmaxxing – ignoring alignments, the plot, and/or how your character would actually act for personal gain

7.      Story Derailment – blowing through the DM’s game too fast

8.     Cheating

9.      Indifference – When nobody really wants to play

Ben Franklin led them through a stone gate situated opposite the legal buildings. “Come, enter ye into the first circle: The truants.”

The first circle is an expansive, gray nether that fills the entire horizon. Scattered among the gray sand were the ruins and remains of all kinds of different objects, giving it the appearance of a junkyard.

“Here, we find nothing, as nothing ever became of these games. This first circle is the realm of the truants. What few spirits reside here are condemned to a less violent fate; but eternity is a long time.”

He turned, and kept floating onward. “Come. Just as they blew off our reality, we will continue into the next circle.”

The second circle is reached once the gray mist led them towards a cliff. Franklin leads them to a narrow staircase that led down into the ground. The walls opened up into a massive cave, and below them, a sea of thousands of people writhed about. A slightly up-tempo drumbeat consisting only of a snare and bass drum flipped the energy of the room up and down. Dozens of winged Tieflings flew around carrying sharp objects that would occasionally dip down and cut randomly.

“In this circle, you behold the spirits of boring character designs. They each led stories that found no inspiration. Their tales were moderated and too careful. None too heroic in nature. And because none of them developed their characters, those Tieflings you see flying above them descend randomly to create scars on those below.

Franklin takes them to the bottom of the staircase and leads them through the sea of people. After walking through the crowd for a few minutes, a gigantic, stone door 100 feet tall came into view. They pass through it, and are stopped by two Beholders floating at the entrance, who try to stop them from going through, but Franklin may be able to talk them through. Or the players can just kill them.

Beyond the stone gate awaits the third circle, which contains punishment for unfunny, unserious roleplay. The layer is presented as a flock of tables, each containing groups of three to five spirits playing a roleplaying game with a demon DM. Occasionally, the DM would reach over and slap one of the spirits hard.

“In this circle, the third, we find the spirits of players who made nonsensical roleplay throughout the games. No more are the days of trying to seduce the door open, for these spirits are cursed to forever play a tabletop RPG ran by a demon. They have been magically enchanted to never stop talking, and the demon abuses them each time they get out of line.

He continued floating in front of them, leading them through the tables. Another gate opposite the direction they came in leads them down a spiral stairwell into a much cooler, larger room. Sleeping at the bottom is an Adult Black Dragon.

Franklin faced them once they got close to the dragon. “He has a hot temper.  Let me do the talking.”

The sleeping beast awoke with a start when the group approached. “Who do you bring to pass this time, Benjamin Franklin?” The dragon said in a deep, regal voice.

“A group of passers-by. They have no business here,” Franklin said, being hesitant not to provoke the dragon.

“I agree,” it said, flaring its’ massive nostrils, “… so give me two good reasons I shouldn’t devour them this instant.”

“They just walked out of the law offices, so they’re protected. Second, the way out is behind you.”

The dragon thought about it. “It is on your behalf that I will let you through, Benjamin Franklin. This group seems unusual. Different. I will let you explore the consequences of exposing them to what lay ahead.”

The fourth circle is unusually cold. Frost made the ground slick, and pools of frozen water are seen surrounding the main path that Franklin led them on. This section is reserved for the kleptomaniacs and other abusers of money.

“The spirits we find here are kleptomaniacs. Some had no use for money, because they never used it to begin with – they simply took what they wanted everywhere they went. Others were more attracted to the more classic crime of stealing the money itself. The one thing they all have in common, though, is that they eluded punishment. Until now, that is.

Each spirit in this section has both their hands frozen in a hunk of ice held out in front of them. They are arranged in a massive, concentric circle, grasping and clawing at each other. Several large demons with long whips stood on rock pillars, occasionally whipping. Franklin showed them to a path along a rock outcropping nearby that let them walk above the pit and into the next area.

The cave opened up into an area so big it appeared to be outdoors. In front of them were perhaps 500,000 people. Each had a different kinds of weapon while the free-for-all raged. Arrows whizzed by, swords clanged, and combatants fell.

“This, dear travelers, is the den of the Murderhoboes. Players who took glee in senselessly killing random NPCs,” Franklin said, turning towards them as they took the battlefield in.

“I will have to warn you, there is a fearsome warrior who resides in this layer who cares not to be disturbed. If he sees you all, it’ll be on sight.”

Before they can leave the fifth circle, they find themselves in the mouth of a cave with slightly less people fighting than the main area. At the opposite end of where they came in is an extremely long, wide, flight of stairs, and at the top is a pocket in the cave.

Stepping out of the hole at the top of the flight of stairs came a figure. He was headless. His dark armor slightly glinted in the dim light of the cave fires as you scanned his hands: In his right was a pitch-black longsword that appeared to be vibrating softly, and in his left was his disembodied head, which had a mop of disheveled gray hair and one and a half pointy elf ears.

The figure extended his left arm and pointed his head at them. His eyes were completely black and lacked pupils. By this point, the other spirits in the room began to flee.

6. Hell is Other Murderhoboes

Sunday, May 7^th, 2023

Summary (Lvl 14)

Beginning of Session: ~5:00 AM, Monday, March 10^th, 1986

In the fifth circle, they encounter an evil dark elf named Lyari wielding the Darkheart, who attacks them and prompts a major boss fight. After Lyari is dispatched, they watch as Dis's silhouette, hat man, walks away.

When one of the players takes the sword, it begins talking to them and informing them of all of the magical powers it can unlock in an attempt to sway them. After this point, and especially if no one attunes to it, Viggo will try to steal the Darkheart from them.

Ben Franklin leads them through the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth circles. At the center of the ninth circle, Dis gives the players a large, magical hourglass that he claims will pinpoint the moment of doomsday for mankind, saying that Gilgamesh is “building something big.”

They escape the Nine Hells and return to the Feywild, this time on the other side of the world. While wandering, they discover a massive tower: At the top of which is Ava, the Butler’s estranged daughter, who is currently betrothed to the era-current user of the Hand and Eye of Vecna, an anthropomorphic shrimp named Bimble Thraw.

The headless swordsman slowly descended the steps, keeping his strange weapon pointed downward. As Sir Snoobs instinctively approached this potential foe, the elf drew up his blade. His head studied the gelatinous being.

“You four are alive.” He raised his head up. “And you might be a worthy opponent,” he said, turning. “Either your vacation ends here, or you set me free. Decision’s yours.”

The players fight Lyari. The battlefield below them begins to spin like a giant record player. When moving in the direction of the disc, they move at normal speed, and moving in the opposite direction counts as difficult terrain. When Lyari falls, he drops the Darkheart.

Now alone in the room, they watched as the mysterious sword the elf was wielding dropped. It abruptly stopped falling and levitated about an inch off the ground.

Come. Closer, they all heard, though no one said anything. A long pause elapsed.

Come. Closer.

Franklin called out to them from the entrance of the cave. “Adventurers? With whom are you speaking?”

We are searching for a champion, the voice said, telepathically communicating its’ message to each of them. Be our champion. Together, we will reign supreme.

The sword is especially conniving to Sir Snoobs, because it realizes that if he is not around his main sword for long enough, he’ll die; to Irvas, it tempts him with even more power, or perhaps tempting him to take it to his home world; to Gerome, it tries to persuade him with Wish spells and other benefits; and to Night Owl, it muses that his Silhouette knives are nice, but he needs a ‘main weapon.’ Franklin isn’t familiar with the sword and remarks that on his last venture through the fifth circle, Lyari wielded a different blade.

Dis appears briefly before vanishing as they leave the fifth circle. Franklin leads them through the doorway at the top of the staircase that Lyari entered in from, which leads them down a long hallway with stone walls. In a gap in the hallway, a tavern called Moe’s Caverns appears. The players can enter and have some drinks with Ben Franklin and converse with the bartender and other spirits. The patrons of the bar will be reluctant to talk to the players because if they know they have the Darkheart. They can also rest for a few hours.

The hallway opens up into a much larger area which gave way to a long hall of slopes of varying angles. Each slope has a spirit on it pushing a boulder to the very top, like Sisyphus. As they walked through the hall, some of the slopes became more extreme, the boulders got bigger, and demons were nearby some of the further slopes holding whips to provoke the spirits.

“Welcome to the sixth circle. It is reserved for those who find purpose in Evilmaxxing – that is, setting aside the goals of the plot, their alignments, their characters, or their friends, for personal gain.”

“These spirits took things a step further from mere Murderhobo antics. Their escapades evolved from being confined to only the first couple sessions of their adventures to deciding grave consequences later on.

Leaving the sixth circle, they entered into a massive room overlooking a pit the size of a football field that housed thousands of spirits that smelled like burning rubber. Closer inspection revealed it to be hot oil.

“This is the seventh circle, reserved for perpetrators of story derailment. These spirits found a distinct sense of satisfaction in dismantling the game their author took the time and energy to plan out for everyone’s enjoyment.

Franklin led them sharp left from the doorway along the side of the cave wall above the fryer.

“The fryer you see before you is sloped like a swimming pool that gradually gets deeper. Each swimmer wears a pair of concrete shoes that pin him on the floor. Some, towards the back of the pool, have concrete gloves.

Along the wall, they continued onward. The path breaks up, and three jumps need to be made. (Dex DC’s 13, 16, and 18). The opposite end of the cave contains a similar door that leads to the next circle.

A large, stone doorway at the end of the hall, which was nearly four miles long, leads downward to the eighth circle. They descend another spiral staircase that takes them into another exposed area, this one colder than all of the prior circles. This exposed, opened area appears to be a long, wide hall with rows of stainless steel trays that thousands of spirits were frozen to. A laser beam was fixated on each one, and each beam had a different brightness level, angle, and point of impact, with some spirits having multiple.

“These spirits are cheaters. They warped and twisted the words of the source material around to manipulate their DM into getting what they wanted. Not every ‘rules lawyer’ ends up here, obviously. But they are condemned for cheating.

The very bottom of the ground in the eighth circle was a frozen pond that began to thaw out towards the back of the room. Franklin leads them towards it, and instructs them to jump in. The ninth circle awaits them below.

Here, they land on a tiny, stone outcropping that overlooked a raging torrent of waters.

“In the ninth circle, we find parties who had no desire to adventure to begin with. They had already rejected their chances of finding enjoyment and satisfaction from becoming travelers such as yourselves, as they simply went along with the motions of reality. Now, they are cursed to go along with the motions of the waves below us forever.

Franklin shows them that there is actually an invisible floor that stretches from the stone outcropping they stood on, which lead across the dark abyss.

“This is where our journey comes to an end, travelers. Go forward until you reach the pillar, and gaze into the mirror to exit at once.”

While walking for some time, watching spirits get washed away in the riptide below, the center of the room comes into view. A stone pillar came into view. On it, there sat two items: A rocking chair and a standing mirror.

After Franklin bids them farewell, the players may have a chance to interact with Dis if they dwindle too long in front of the mirror. He speaks very cryptically, and his voice sounds like a tape recorder being played backwards. He doesn’t provoke the players, but if he is sufficiently provoked, he may attack. Otherwise, he may tell them that Göl is planning something against them (a lie), or not to trust “the bear.”

He may also ominously muse that the sword they obtained will be of use to them. He also attempts to sow doubt in Sir Snoobs, claiming that he will never be sentient. Finally, he sardonically tells them to continue attacking the Nephilim before presenting them with another item: A large, indestructible, magic hourglass full of granular, reflective white sand.

“This is my prediction for the end of the world,” the hat man said, floating the hourglass towards them. “Take it. You stand to gain everything if I’m right.”

When they gaze into the mirror, they awaken in a lush valley of light blue grass under long, vibrant willow trees and the emergence of a pleasant, warm sun: They are finally back in the Feywild, but time has skipped during their trip to the Nine Hells, and it is now Friday, March 14^th at 6 AM. Looking around, they are surrounded by lush, rolling fields of beautiful, blue grass, indicating they are possibly on the other side of the planet.

With no choice but to wander once again, they eventually spot a skyscraper-sized castle tower off in the distance while taking in the beautiful scenery of the plane. It was off in the middle of a field that was overlooked by a plateaued forest they came out of.

Surrounding it in moat-like fashion appears to be a deep pit. At the top, a very beautiful young woman is seen waiting. This is Ava, the Butler’s daughter. She is naturally very charismatic and is well-liked by the player group, and has extraordinary bardic abilities that revolve around drawing things into reality, though she can’t use them to benefit her escape from her own tower due to a complete lack of supplies. She has a fair complexion with dark brown hair and piercing blue eyes.

She calls out to the players and pleads with them to rescue her, claiming she is betrothed to an evil prince and is set to marry him tonight. She tells them she can’t be forced to marry him, as she should instead rightfully be the Empress of the Feywild. When asked why there is nothing in her tower that would potentially allow her to access her magic, she becomes dismissive. When asked who is forcing her to marry him, she reluctantly tells the group it’s her father, and won’t reveal who he is until he makes an unexpected appearance.

Inside the tower is an illusion that appears to be a continuous flight of about 100 stairs in Ghostbusters-fashion. When they reach the top and enter her room, they talk with her briefly before she senses someone coming and forces them to hide in her closet.

Her fiancé, an anthropomorphic frog named Hum Jumbly, falls out of an upside-down door leading to the Backrooms that magically appears out of thin air. The Butler levitates downward out of it.

Hum addresses Ava’s prior escape attempts and threatens to call her father if anything should happen. It is revealed that his threat is credible because he is the current user of the Hand and Eye of Vecna in this timeline, (before they were surrendered to Vinnie and then re-stolen by Jeeves in 1990) and as such, serves Vecna alongside the Butler, though not quite in the same league as him, power-wise.

7. The Father of the Bride

Friday, May 12^th, 2023

Summary (Lvl 16)

Beginning of Session: ~10 AM, Friday, March 14^th, 1986

The wedding session.

Ava is capable of helping them if the players can assassinate her fiancé before the wedding, which is later tonight. During this brief conversation, Thraw and the Butler himself show up to talk to Ava, during which time the players have to hide.

The wedding ceremony begins at 5:00 PM. The Butler is not initially at the wedding. Just before the ceremony starts, Bimble manages to elude the players’ initial plans through premonitions via the Eye of Vecna, so they will have to improvise before he marries Ava.

Night Owl attunes to the Eye and Hand of Vecna with the help of Sir Snoobs.

Salamalin catches the players and obtains the PDA they stole from Verlan. During the interrogation, Salamalin reveals that he had originally hired the players to patrol the city they were defeated by Viggo in, and deeply apologizes for presuming them dead. He informs them of an upcoming mission he hasn’t put together a team for, and offers the job to the players.

The players leave Ava’s tower in the wilderness of the Feywild to enact their plan to stop her wedding to Bimble Thraw, an evil, anthropomorphic shrimp who currently holds this timeline’s Hand and Eye of Vecna.

Earlier that morning, Sir Snoobs learned that the wedding will take place at the Oaken Amphitheatre, which is about 10 miles north of Hayla, a small Fey town about 20 miles north of Ava’s tower.

While the group heads away from the tower to Hayla, they spot a sentient tree. When they talk to him, his name is Xamarandu. He is extremely wise and offers them insight and information about the wedding. He remarks that the Butler may have some old associates of his doing the hospitality for the wedding. The tree says their leader is some otherworldly being with godlike culinary powers known as “Chef,” who is a good-natured but hot-tempered leader of their craft as the universe’s biggest caterer. Xamarandu offers to plane shift them into the kitchen if the group can feed him an apple or a stray cat.

During the Chef segment, the players will work with Chef to cook the food for the wedding. When they arrive, they are in a large, exquisitely-clean kitchen swarming with about a dozen other cooks. In the center, standing in front of a huge kettle, is a Large-sized man with six arms and three sets of shoulder blades furiously stirring the kettle while his other arms sliced carrots and onions into the pot. Several seconds elapse before anyone even notices the players.

Chef turned his head and noticed the players standing there watching him. “Oh, great, you all must be my new prep cooks,” he said, still stirring the kettle while looking at them. “Hurry, apron up and jump in or this catering’s gonna be late!”

Before you can reply, he snapped his fingers and you all were suddenly wearing black linen aprons.

“We are making… let’s see here…” he pulled out a clipboard chock full of papers, “… okay. The main course is beef wellington and chicken cordon bleu. Jalapeno-bacon mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans, and toasted rolls for the side.”

The cooking segment is structured like combat. There are 6 other cooks, plus Chef on the playing field. Each food has a station in the kitchen. On a successful ‘hit’ against each food, players will roll their hit dice against it to ‘prepare’ it.

Beef Wellington: 100

Chicken Cordon Bleu: 75

Mashed Potatoes: 40

Green Beans: 40

Rolls: 120

While they are taking the last thing out of the oven, the caterers arrive in a flying Chevrolet Express van to collect the food.

The van blinked into existence outside the window of the kitchen, and Chef threw a frying pan at it, breaking it. The driver stepped out. He was dressed in all-black wearing aviators. He had slicked-back black hair that was tied into a ponytail. Matching his cold expression was an angular jaw. He lit a cigarette and walked into the waiting area.

The van’s other door swung open, and another man roughly the same size exited, this one with a long, mop of wavy brown hair tied back in two places that followed him. He wore a matching, all-black suit.

The two caterers, “Reece” and “Troy”, respectively, come in to collect the dinner for the wedding. They work for Chef. They are both heavily magically-augmented.

Troy sniffs out Night Owl’s evil vvizard vveed and begins talking to him. He offers to help them if they join a squirm sesh with him in their van on the way to the wedding. Using this as their in, the gang goes with the caterers in exchange for a squirm sesh. Reece is a hot-tempered and stressed out bartender who would at first rather just drive the van, claiming that they don’t even have real evil vvizard vveed. Once he smells them light it, though, he summons a simulacrum to drive and joins them. They arrive at the wedding, where Reece and Troy get them in through the staff entrance in the back.

The wedding will be taking place in a large amphitheater seated for 200 people. All kinds of magical and Fey creatures are in attendance, some evil-looking. Lots of shrimp. The catering is set up behind a curtain off to the side adjacent to the bar. Behind the main area are suite rooms for the wedding party, bride, and groom. Bimble will be in the groom’s area from 4-5 PM. Prior to that, he’ll be out socializing with the people at the wedding while Ava remains locked in the bride’s suite with the bridesmaids, who are several of Bimble’s civilian shrimp friends. Give Night Owl an opportunity to steal a Displacer Beast Cloak at the wedding.

After Bimble dies, Ava and the players rush into the bridal suite. Ava thanks the players, and gives Gerome’s rat wings, which grants it a flying speed equal to its’ walking speed.

Ava frantically closed the door behind you as the yelling voices of the shrimps outside pierced through the walls of the bridal suite. Littered all throughout were the boxes of Chinese takeout food and open beer bottles. She picked up a pencil from off the vanity table in the center of the room and erased the crack between the doors, making them unopenable.

“We don’t have long,” she said, turning. “I don’t even know what to say. Thank you so much.”

Suddenly, the lights flicked off for a couple seconds. When they relit, the Butler stood in the room opposite his daughter. He looked at her with a hard expression; when he sensed the fear, it mellowed.

“I sense… something is amiss.” He said, still looking at her. “Your fiancé is dead.”

She looked away from him, wiping her face. She drew a breath. “Yeah.”

He continued looking at her, trailing off to the floor, then to the players. “These goons are responsible, yes?”

She didn’t answer.

Without saying a word, in the blink of an eye, a flying door sped towards the players after it materialized out of thin air.

“No!” Ava yelled, teleporting between the players and the Butler.

He raised both eyebrows. “Are you daft?”

“Father, please,” she matched his gaze. “They’re my friends. And I couldn’t marry the shrimp!”

He spoke over her before she could finish. “We had an obligation to Master Vecna.”

“Not anymore,” she said, shaking her head. “Please, father. Just this once.”

“You were to marry into his family to expand your domain to his,” the Butler said,

He thought about it for a hot second, then vanished the door.

“Fine,” he said abruptly, speaking slowly. “I want your friends gone, and I hope never to see them again,” he pointed at the players, “You are never to speak of Bimble Thraw for as long as you live.”

He floated towards the door, which was still erased-shut.

(If the players take the Hand and Eye of Vecna from Bimble):

The Butler suddenly stopped and turned and half-looked at Player from over his shoulder. “By the way, Player,” he said, trailing his words in a slightly lighter tone, then shifting his body towards him, “… do you happen to know where you will be on the evening of August 27^th, 1999?”

They reply.

“Well, it’s no bother if you don’t know yet – because I do.” He extended his left arm, raising it in front of him and slowly clenching Vecna’s hand into a fist. “See you there.”

Ava asks if she can join the players to their next destination, where the players are briefly free to do whatever they want. It’s now around 6 PM on Friday.

If they happen to check into an inn, there is a suspicious closet that procs Gerome and Irvas’ magic detection senses. If the closet is opened, it sucks all of them inside it and slams shut behind them.

They find themselves on a stone platform in a swirling purple vortex. There are two Illusory Dragons on either side of them that roared.

“Cease casting! Cease casting!” an amplified, lone voice stood out among the rumbling of the dragons’ roars. They obeyed.

The purplish clouds began to ebb, and a gentle wind picked up that scattered each dragon into a huff of smoke. A large, physically-imposing hooded figure clad in a royal-blue robe levitated downward. He had two thick claws covered with brown fur for hands.

He spread his claws, gingerly. “Do you remember me?” He pulled his hood down, revealing the familiar face of a grizzly bear.

Salamalin greets the players and dispels the illusions: they are really still in the hotel room.

Salamalin locked the door to the room and started making a pot of coffee. “Something dark and twisted is brewing.”

He paused. “I’m not talking about the coffee.”

“We hired you originally. The Illuminati. We were low on resources, so we had to trade some shifts around to get our brightest and best on the frontlines against the giants,” he said, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “But then Viggo made a move that the Multivisor didn’t predict: When he showed up and captured you guys.

He put his claw on their shoulder. “We presumed you dead at first. Or worse, prisoners. I’m sorry.”

They show him the magic hourglass.

They watched as the bear froze in horror watching as Night Owl produced the hourglass from his bag of holding.

Salamalin does not know who the hat man is. He tells them that if they want to help him, he has a new job, and that the fate of the world may be on their shoulders. If they accept, he tells them to get their affairs in order and meet him at a restaurant up in Little Little Italy called Tomatohead’s tomorrow morning at 10 AM for the briefing.

8. Quest-Bearer

Sunday, May 21^st, 2023

Summary (Lvl 17)

Beginning of Session: ~11 PM, Friday, March 14^th, 1986

Salamalin says Viggo probably has something to do with the Doomsday clock, and that he is an extremely difficult variable for the Multivisor to accurately predict.

Players receive Illuminati prompt and return to Agartha and can poke around if they choose, but they'll have to law low. In the Agarthan wilderness, two Arch-Demons and a Beholder attack them. They search for Mount Anunnaki, which contains the caves of Xanadu, a brutal dungeon designed to protect the Cosmololocon. The entrance to it is guarded by Geryon.

Players fight Geryon and receive a hoard of gold after he is slain. Ahead of them is a large, winding dungeon, at the bottom of which is the Cosmololocon.

In the previous session, the players set Ava free after assassinating her then-husband, Bimble Thraw. The Butler has forbidden the players from speaking of him for as long as they live, and Night Owl is now attuned to the Eye and Hand of Vecna. The gang travels to the Nine Hells once again, this time to visit Elaria, the Nymph Sir Snoobs has fallen in love with.

While spending time with Ava, she helped him draft an eloquent, Shakespearean love letter professing his desire to be with her. He hands her the letter, and after nailing several Charisma rolls, Elaria agrees to marry him. He produces a gaudy, stolen engagement ring.

The players have to make it to Little Little Italy tomorrow morning. Snoobs bids farewell for the time being to his fiancé and the group begins the walk out of hell, this time without a guide. They speed through the remaining four circles in about an hour and make it back to the center of the ninth circle. The frame of the room and mirror came into view over the waves, followed by the rocking chair, which was rocking slightly. Dis sits in it, invisible.

As they walked up, the rocking chair was filled by the sitting frame of the hat man. Next to him on a short coffee table is a copy of the magic hourglass.

“Tick tock, travelers,” the words fell out of his mouth as he slowly rocked back and forth over the raging, black waves below. “What brings you all here? You have an appointment.”

After they exchange words with him, Dis leaves and lets the players teleport out of hell. It’s now about 8 AM on Saturday, March 15^th, the ides. The players travel to Little Little Italy:

The town is fairly big. They estimate around 200,000 people live here. They pull up to Tomatohead’s, which is currently closed, and Salamalin lets them in through the back.

“Morning. Come on in,” he said, opening the door for them. He led them in through the kitchen area back to a conference room.

“Each of you, come here. I need to show you something,” he said, putting his claws up.

He snapped his fingers, and suddenly, a cabinet-sized, sleek, gray device appeared in the center of the room next to the projector. It had a visor on it that an observer could line their face up with that allowed them to view inside.

He walked over to one side of the machine and began typing with two pointed claws on the keyboard. “This was three days ago.”

As you looked in through the visor, you watched as the darkness inside of it flashed to a bright white light. Slowly, the light began to bend until you were looking at the back of Viggo’s head.

The frame suddenly jumped and cut to a bright flash of white light that blinked Viggo onto a regal-looking, bronze carpet. The room was extraordinarily big, adorned with intricate stonemasonry and bronze decorations. A giant, hanging chandelier that cast a bright white glow hung overhead.

Legions of Nephilim soldiers stood at attention as the woodpecker, whom they towered over, walked frustratedly through the hall. At the end, a pedestal area with a throne waited for them. Sitting at it is another figure who was closer to the same size as Viggo.

He wore a set of dark, black armor with shoulder plating accented by fluorescent, yellow sections. Draped behind him as he sat was a deep, burgundy cape. His golden eyes cast a faint glow as they studied Viggo upon his reentry. He had waves of long, copper-colored hair.

“What brings you back, Viggo?” he said.

“I have a problem on my hands right now,” he said, starting to lose his temper. “Those adventurers got a lawyer.”

The man at the throne sat up. His expression twitched. “They are gone?”

“They dipped.”

“And how did they manage to elude you?” he said, his tone rising with disbelief.

“They had other enemies present. They’ve already killed two of us and I didn’t wanna lose another,” Viggo said.

“This is unacceptable,” the young king said. “Viggo, listen – ”

“If you would have been born already you could have done it your fucking self!” he shouted, stepping forward as his entire right arm extended forward to point in the man’s face. “Your prophecy is highly unlikely to occur. And your undertaking, impossible.”

He stood up. “You are below me, machine. If you do not succeed in your initial prompt, we will not cultivate you. And when my kingdom is later shaped, I will leave you beneath it as well. That is, if you defy my will.”

He pushed Viggo’s arm away from him. “Have you forgotten about our failsafe?”

Viggo retracted his arm. “What are you talking about?”

“The orb,” the king said flatly.

Viggo paused. “I do not follow.”

“I suppose it was not programmed into you. It is an esoteric artifact created by the god of magic. I need you to obtain it for me.”

He clasped his hands and produced an illusion showing a cave with ice-covered walls. It was enormous, and at its’ core, a pedestal with a ceiling point housed a soft, glowing orb of light reddish energy.

Illuminati intelligence indicates that Viggo’s absence from Earth lately is due to his travels to a mythical place described in ancient lore called Xanadu, which Salamalin believes houses, among other treasure, an artifact created by Vinnie Sorceil, the god of magic: The Cosmololocon.

He spells out that Viggo absolutely cannot have this item. He tells them that because Agartha is situated upside-down relative to how people on the surface of the Earth stand, the entrance to Xanadu, which is on the surface of the core, is at the peak of Mt. Anunnaki in Agartha that leads relatively downward towards the center of the Earth. Guarding the dungeon it houses is Geryon, the ancient Greek giant.

He says that Viggo likely has something to do with the doomsday hourglass. He explains that the eight copies were sent to Earth by the Nephilim with the simple prompt ‘destroy the world.’ This phase of their plan is is just part one in a multifaceted attack that is years in the making. Currently, there are six of them remaining.

Salamalin says Gilgamesh wants access to the Cosmololocon because it may be able to let him access parallel universes. He tells them that Xanadu is a frigid-cold place and makes any reasonable accommodations for the players before setting them loose to Agartha.

When they arrive, they are in the wilderness outside of a major city, Lon. It is a large cluster of bronze buildings that gleamed under the amber glow of the core of the Earth. The streets are made of copper. There are various shops and establishments around here, but all of them are very dangerous since most of the giants are hostile to them.

They enter the wilderness using a map given to them by Salamalin with the approximate whereabouts of Mt. Anunnaki. As they progress, the region begins to get extremely cold as they approach the looming shadow of the biggest mountain any of them had ever seen. A thick layer of clouds loomed overhead, making the area dark and gloomy.

Before they can even enter the mountain, they are stopped by an Androsphinx. If they guess any of the riddles wrong, the Sphinx will attack them.

“Greetings, travelers. If you wish to enter mount Anunnaki, I have three riddles you must answer correctly or die.”

“The first: I have cities, but no houses. I have mountains, but no trees. I have water, but no fish. What am I?”

The answer is a map.

“Good work. The second: What belongs to you, but everyone else uses?”

The answer is your name.

“Two in a row, adventurers. But will you make it through the third?”

“I have branches, but no trunk, leaves, or fruit: What am I?”

The answer is a bank.

If they solve the riddles correctly, the sphinx will let them pass. Otherwise, they will have to slay it. Later, during their ascent, they are ambushed by two Arch-Demons and a Beholder at a stone platform about halfway up the mountain.

When they reach its’ peak, they spot an enormous stone structure with a field off to the side full of re’em. Adjacent to the structure was a massive, stone door that beckoned. It was surrounded by 10-foot tall stone walls. As Salamalin had told them, this is the residence of Geryon.

When the players approach, Geryon meets them.

As they approached the stone structure, a man teleported out to meet them. He had three heads, each with gold laurels and long, straight, shining dark hair. He wore a simple black robe. His six sets of red eyes studied you.

The center head formed an eerie grin. “I sense that you seek passage into Xanadu, travelers from Agartha. But I am afraid you are forbidden from entering. Leave now, or die.”

“YOU WILL NEVER SEE XANADU!” Geryon roared as he transformed into his true form: A Huge, winged, form that replaced his legs with a long serpent’s tail that formed a point. He had giant, thick claws for hands, and each of his eyes burned with an intense red energy.

The players fight Geryon. There is nothing particularly useful to them amongst his things except for the hundreds of thousands of gold pieces in his treasure trove. They may remember that his re’em are prized around the world.

Outside, the entrance to the dungeon of Xanadu awaits them.

9. Xanadu, pt. I

Wednesday, May 24^th, 2023

Summary (Lvl 18)

Beginning of Session: ~5:00 PM, Saturday, March 15^th, 1986

A huge, long, classic D&D-style dungeon full of traps, monsters, loot, and most importantly, a difficult boss fight at the very end.

The dungeon is partitioned into five levels that progressively get more difficult as it ascends further into the mountain and closer to the center of the Earth.

Still outside the dungeon, they find health potions and energizing tea that will provide them with the effects of one long rest if they stop for 10 minutes and have tea. This will be useful for the dungeon.

The first area of the dungeon is a hallway that leads out from the front door. Anyone with a passive perception higher than 17 will spot the tripwire for a trap that fires icicles out like blow darts. Players crossing through will have to beat a DC 20 Dexterity saving throw or take 5d10 Cold damage. If they fly over, this check is a DC 15. The trap can be detected by a DC 15 Wisdom check. The hallway then splits into two paths: The left door is locked, and the right door is Room 1-1.

Room 1-1 contains five Murder Comets. One of them drops a key that can be used to unlock the left door from the hallway. There are four pillars in this square room. A nearby chest contains 3d20×3 Gold pieces as well as several gems and crystals.

The left door leads them to room 1-2 , which contains the floor’s boss, two Froghemoths and three more Murder Comets. The room is also full of large stone statues of various humanoid forms, and swarms of giant frogs that make the area difficult terrain.

The door doesn’t open until the players complete the puzzle. One of the statues near the door appears to be gesturing towards it, and his other hand is outstretched. If a giant frog is placed in his hand, the door opens.

Waiting behind it is an upward spiral staircase. They take a door at the top which closes behind them, and they’re now in in room 2-1, which contains another puzzle. This room is square, almost completely made of ice, and is bigger and less confined than the last room. In the center of the wall opposite the one they came in, there is a locked, frozen door. Beside it is a 15-foot tall ice sculpture of a gargoyle. There are more structures on the floor of the room. The walls on their left and right have ice gargoyle sculptures carved into them, except for a chunk of ice where a statue should be on the left wall closer to the front of the room. The room gets colder the longer they stay in it. If the chunk of ice on the wall is carved to match the pattern, the door opens.

Room 2-2 is an exposed, open ice bridge, over the side of which a Frost Giant Everlasting One is waiting to try and stop the players.

Through the door being guarded by the giant, a DC 20 Dexterity saving throw has to be made or a massive, spiked wrecking ball made of ice on a chain swings through the door. A player with a passive perception higher than 18 might hear the mechanism or sense the magic controlling the ice. A failed save deals 7d6 bludgeoning damage plus 7d6 Cold damage. This trap can be detected by beating a DC 18 Wisdom check.

The hallway then branches off into three paths: The center path is a door adorned by two frozen candelabras and frozen skulls all around. The door is locked. The left path leads into a treasure area that contains four chests, inside of which are 8d20×5 Gold pieces with assorted gems and other treasure. One of the chests is a Hoard Mimic.

In the room at the end of the right path are two Abominable Yetis and a Frost Giant that ambush them as they enter. The yetis each drop a key: One for use to advance through the center path and another for use in a Bonus Area in room 4-1.

When the final enemy of the room is killed, Night Owl casts Wish, asking for the Darkheart to appear in front of him. His wish is granted, but Sir Snoobs disarms him and breaks the sword, which burns his extra life granted by a Fortune Cookie he used earlier in the campaign.

10. Xanadu, pt. II

Friday, June 2^nd, 2023

Summary (Lvl 18)

Beginning of Session: ~10:00 PM, Saturday, March 15^th, 1986

In the episode prior, Irvas, Night Owl, and Sir Snoobs entered the dungeon of Xanadu. Sir Snoobs officially decides to name himself “Lord Jobs” (pronounced ‘YOPS’) following Geryon’s defeat.

During the second level of the dungeon, Night Owl uses the Wish spell granted by the Eye and Hand of Vecna to ask for the Darkheart. The Wish is successful, but Lord Jobs disarms him and breaks the sword, which burns Night Owl’s extra life. Using the Hand of Vecna, he teleports to the Nine Hells and destroys Elaria’s apartment. On his way out, Dis secretly appears to him in the ninth circle, creates another Darkheart, and gifts it to him.

In the final room of the dungeon, shadow copies of each player magically appear: The Anti-Irvas, Anti-Snoobs, Anti-Gerome, and Anti-Night Owl. Each one both is and is not their respective player. Each resembles them, though they are everything they are not, and vice versa. Night Owl kills Irvas and takes the Glove of Power directly to Dis.

Each Anti-Player possesses a key that can be collected after their destruction. A set of four locked shadow chests in the back of the room contains unique loot for each player as well as a Fortune Cookie in each one. Gerome obtains the Cosmololocon.

Night Owl walked across the swirling abyss of waters underneath the rest of the Nine Hells into the center, towards the obelisk. This time, waiting for him standing up was the hat man.

“I saw what that thing did to my sword you wanted,” he said, speaking slower than usual. “Have another. On the house.”

The hat man extended his arm towards the standing mirror positioned across from them. Night Owl’s reflection suddenly held another Darkheart; when he reached towards the mirror’s surface, the image of the Darkheart pierced into reality.

(If Justin full-sends it): When Night Owl faced the hat man once again, he had gained two faint red pupils. “Return to the dungeon at once. When you find the Cosmololocon, kill the alien wielding the Soramaneren. Steal the orb and immediately teleport to Agartha. Locate the bronze palace. Go inside and give the orb to the king.”

“Remember, Night Owl, if you manage to break my sword a third time, your soul belongs to me, ” he said with a voice like concrete, extending and closing his fist. When he did, all of the waves beneath them abruptly stopped, then resumed their motion when his arm blinked back to his body.

When Irvas and Lord Jobs return with the key, it appears to glow. A DC 18 Wisdom check reveals that the dungeon will magically burst the skulls around the door into cold air when the key is brought towards it. Otherwise, a DC 18 Constitution saving throw has to be made, with the door trap dealing 10d4+10 Cold damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success.

Level 2’s floor boss in room 2-4 is a Skull Lord, two Giant Skeletons, & three Bone Knights. The Skull Lord drops a key that leads up to Level 3.

The entirety of level 3 is the lair of a Demilich that must be defeated in order to advance. It drops a key that allows passage into Level 4. The lair is set up like a huge maze. 4-1 is a riddle.

4-2 is domain of the floor’s bosses: Two Ice Golems. Instead of fighting them, the group persuades one of them against the other’s wishes to arm wrestle Lord Jobs. The golem scores a critical success and nearly breaks the floor with Lord Jobs’ arm, but Gerome casts a Wish spell that he, in fact, won. Now in the present, the players are all sitting around a table drinking the tea found in Geryon’s house with the golems. The players continue talking to them, and after lots of gaslighting, the golems agree to leave their posts for a short amount of time.

Beyond the door the Ice Golems were guarding is an enormous, wide, frozen staircase, at the top of which, an intense, white light glowed. It takes several minutes for them to walk up.

They enter the room seen in Gilgamesh’s illusion on the Multivisor. It’s an extremely big room with no features. At the center, a spire about 20 feet tall housed the Cosmololocon. The spire’s frozen surface functioned like a mirror. As they approached it, their reflections appeared as silhouettes. Upon inspecting the mirror further, they discover they can actually walk into it.

Upon doing so, their shadow reflections suddenly turn and look at them in unison. They had transformed after crossing through the mirror: Gerome’s reflection transformed into a grotesque, polygonal gnome with a 4-D hypercube for a head riding what appeared to be a raging storm cloud with a rat face; Irvas transformed into a handsome, muscular warrior; Night Owl’s eyes became completely golden, and he produced a man-catcher made of shadows; and Sir Snoobs’ reflection became a rigid, rocky, myopic, shadowy humanoid thing that looked stop-motion animated.

Anti-Irvas picks up a rock and throws it at the mirror. When it shatters, reality shutters and all eight creatures are blinked to either side of a large, circular platform floating in space with lots of cover, platforms, and ice spikes. The anti-players engage them, beginning with Anti-Snoobs casting Earthquake.

When the Anti-Players are killed, the illusions wear off, and they are back in front of the mirror in the chamber room. They look up to see the Cosmololocon floating downward towards them.

Each chest contains a Fortune Cookie. Anti-Gerome’s chest contains a Wand of Hyper Beam, which can cast the spell once per day and regains its’ charge after a long rest. If the spell is used, the wielder has to roll a d20. On a 10 or less, the wand explodes after six seconds, and everyone in a 20-foot radius of it has to beat a DC 20 Dexterity saving throw or take 15d4+20 Thunder damage.

Anti-Irvas’ chest contains a Robe of the Archmagi. It is a light colored, neutral palette. Anti-Night Owl’s chest contains a Cloak of Displacement. It’s black and has artsy, 80’s-type patterns on it. Anti-Snoobs’ chest contains a set of white, Air Jordan Winged Boots.

Before they open the chests, Night Owl kills Irvas, steals the Glove of Power, and escapes, leaving Gerome and Lord Jobs in the dungeon with the glove’s manual.

Season 2

11. Your Princess Is In Another Castle

Monday, June 5^th, 2023

Summary (Lvl 19)

Beginning of Session: ~4:00 PM, Sunday, March 16^th, 1986

GROUP A: The new hero group clears out Lord Jobs’ keep after the death of Irvas and departure of Night Owl to the dark side. The keep is full of goons tricked by Viggo into waiting for them, claiming they had valuable loot on them. They also have to figure out something to do with the instruction manual for the Glove of Power. Lord Jobs’ keep is obliterated by Gerome, who casts Meteor Swarm on it. The players travel to Tartarus and nearly kill a Hecatoncheir. Kronos, imprisoned in a further level of Tartarus, learns that the prison is no longer guarded and makes a break for it, beginning to travel towards the edge of space immediately.

GROUP B: Night Owl returns to the ninth circle to speak with Dis. Dis berates him for failing to obtain the Cosmololocon, but praises him for instead obtaining the Glove of Power. “This’ll do for now.” He attempts to persuade Night Owl to Gilgamesh’s palace, where he meets Stratoearving, another villain contracted by the giants. Gilgamesh accepts the Glove of Power, and both mercenaries are then tasked by the king with locating the instruction manual. Gilgamesh assigns one of the four remaining copies of Viggo to their party, and the trio embark to find the manual. Viggo knows where Lord Jobs’ keep is located, but advises that going there would be suicide unless they brought an army, and he also doesn’t think they would even have the manual there in the first place. Several events happen, only for them to learn that their lead for finding the manual is a dead end.

If Night Owl decides to keep the Glove of Power, he instead meets Stratoearving in Helac, Underdark. No matter the choice on where the glove goes, the duo will ultimately both be here during the session. Helac is one of if not the biggest trade centers in the world to buy and sell illegal goods and services. Afterward, they go to destroy as many Red Bull distribution plants as they can.

Group A

Lord Jobs, Gerome, and rat leave the dungeon and return to Little Little Italy with the orb. Droves of paparazzi swarm Lord Jobs once the group returns from Xanadu, as per the Fortune Cookie (Epic) drawn from the last session.

When the duo return to the Illuminati base in Little Little Italy, Salamalin gives his condolences for Irvas. He then introduces them to their new partners: The Phantom Boozer, a speedster who can only access his powers while intoxicated, and Theseus, a minotaur barbarian. He tells them that he’ll contact them in the near future with a concurrent mission after reviewing timelines on the Multivisor and to expect a call from him later that day.

Gerome, rat, and Lord Jobs drove through the streets of Little Little Italy. The Cosmololocon had already taken a liking to its’ new Gnomish owner.

Greetings. I’m glad to sense that you are back in the Midplane, Salamalin’s voice entered their minds telepathically. Meet me at the square. We have business to tend to.

They drove towards the square as hoards of paparazzi appeared from around every corner and began to photograph Lord Jobs. Their white Toyota truck stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the thousands of cars made of pasta. When they pulled up to the park containing the square, they park the truck and exit.

Standing alone in front of the fountain was a hooded figure in a blue cloak who stood significantly taller than all of the other Gnomish and Dwarven residents of Little Little Italy.

He lowered his hood as he turned, locking eyes with them. “Where’s Irvas? And Night Owl?”

Gerome tells him what happened.

“… shit. Come on, let’s go someplace with less riff-raff,” Salamalin said, shaking his head and summoning a portal.

Salamalin takes the players and their truck to an Illuminati base in Tokyo, Japan.

Salamalin led the players through into a parking garage underneath a massive skyscraper. “I’ll assign you two with new partners. And I think I have just the guys in mind.”

They followed the 8-foot-tall bear through a winding series of turns, including a trip through a large lobby area. More paparazzi appeared, but this time, Salamalin casted a higher-level Confusion spell with a wave of his claw to make all of them walk away. The group then wandered through a door which read ‘Employees Only.’

They went through an elevator up to the 44^th floor. When it opened, Salamalin unlocked a door down a hall to their left, and they were inside of a tidy, pristine penthouse. A couch, piano, magical fireplace, and vinyl record sound system were all in the living room. Beside the fireplace was a table with a fat CRT television and VCR player.

The group rested in Salamalin’s penthouse for a while as he made several phone calls. Within the hour, two new subjects arrived: The Phantom Boozer, and Theseus, a minotaur barbarian.

“Gentlemen, your new partners. Phantom Boozer: A speedster of sorts, and Theseus: cow of great strength.”

Before they leave, the Illuminati receives a VHS tape from Viggo. When they play it, he is inside of a castle keep and has kidnapped Lord Jobs' fiancé, Elaria. The tape shows that the keep is full of dangerous thugs who are throwing a party.

The group mingled for a short amount of time, only for a knock at the door to bring Salamalin forward. The bear returned holding a small cardboard box neatly wrapped with wrapping paper and a shiny red bow.

“It says ‘from V’. I already checked it out. It’s just an ordinary VHS tape. I think we all know who it’s from.”

They put the tape, which needed to be rewound, into the VCR player. After many seconds of nonstop static, the image of Viggo’s slippery, shiny arms holding the camera came into view. He had a devilish grin on his face. As the static cleared, loud, muffled rave music and heavy footsteps could be heard in the background. Behind him was a stone wall made of huge bricks.

Viggo started to laugh, only for the sound of a woman screaming to cut him off. “Shut! No, just shut up! AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!” he yelled, facing her off-screen as he screamed.

“You. You…” he looked at the camera, licked his lips, overexaggerating his motions, “… you can do anything you want. You can do anything–“  he failed to keep it together and started another ricochet of deep belly laughs. “You actually thought I went to Xanadu! Ha ha ha ha… I’m laughing because it’s not true. I’m one step ahead of you all like usual. By the way, this is a real nice place you got here.”

Viggo pointed the camera around, revealing that they are in a castle courtyard. Chained up to a tree is Elaria.

“Don’t you feel… silly? Don’t you feel… stupid? … Don’t you feel… a little ashamed?”

Elaria screamed again. This time, Viggo didn’t even blink. “Bring me the Cosmololocon or I kill her,” Viggo said, moving the camera right up close to his huge eyes. “Tick tock! Ha ha ha ha ha!”

The tape cut transmission as Elaria cried out.

While in Xanadu, Viggo has discovered the location of Sir Snoobs' castle that was granted to him by the Deck of Many Things via his forensic abilities. He kidnapped Elaria from the Nine Hells and is holding her hostage in his own keep.

Salamalin helps them locate the keep, which is on a remote island in the Pacific ocean. They travel there by whatever means.

When the players arrive at the party, Viggo is nowhere to be found. Lord Jobs’ new keep is chock full of monsters and evil spirits, many of which were hand-picked by Viggo to inflict heavy damage on the party.

Lord Jobs’ keep is structured like a large, rectangular castle with a big courtyard. It has a foyer that expands off into two hallways that lead left and right from the front door. There is a central door that’s been sealed with chains and locks to the courtyard. The castle is full of hundreds of lower level creatures who all flee from the players’ presence, but there are stronger monsters waiting to attack them.

On their left is an encounter with a Kalaraq Quori and two Beholders around the corner.

On the right is an encounter with a Hutijin and six Djinni. There are several minor encounters leading towards the back of the hallways.

In the throne room amongst the piles of gold and riches is another Deck of Many Things, this time the expanded deck version. Finally, waiting for them in the courtyard with Elaria is an Ancient Blue Dragon. The dragon decided to keep her alive because she convinced him that her hero would arrive and save her, and he wanted to entertain this idea.

Elaria tells the players that Viggo appeared to leave while waiting for them to show up. Gerome Dualcasts Meteor Swarm and obliterates the keep, though the Ancient Blue Dragon escapes.

The group then travels to Greece. Theseus attracts the attention of Athena by destroying sections of the Parthenon, but Gerome and Lord Jobs convince her to spare their lives.  Athena allows them to visit Mount Olympus. While there, the players interact with the gods and find Heracles.

When they plane shift to Tartarus, they are halted by a Hecatoncheir named Briareus at the gates. Lord Jobs nearly one-shots him and the players leave him at the gates of Tartarus beaten to a bloody pulp. They venture through the layers of the abyss, fighting groups of evil Ancient Titans and other monsters.

Kronos interacts with the players and gives them a chance to speak before he attacks. Lord Jobs convinces him that they should both share a secret in exchange for letting them pass. Intrigued, Kronos entertains this idea. Lord Jobs reveals that the Hecatoncheir is effectively gone, while Kronos informs them, ‘I know the hat man.’ After the secrets are exchanged, Kronos teleports to the entrance of Tartarus and walks out.

Heracles grants Lord Jobs, who is now choosing to go by the moniker Lord Iyopenes, his Golden Fleece and Nemean Lionskin.

Group B

Night Owl blinks to Dis’s lair.

“You don’t follow instructions well, owl,” said the hat man, knowing the Cosmololocon wasn’t on him.

Night Owl presented him the Glove of Power instead. The shadow appeared to look at it. “Whatever this thing is… it’ll do.”

Night Owl asked what to do with it, explaining that the glove can’t be controlled without the manual.

“It’s simple, then. There’s no doubt the gelatinous one will eventually part with the book.”

Dis tries to persuade Night Owl to give the manual to Gilgamesh and tell him they will find the manual for him in exchange for his allegiance. He tells them the players are currently en route to Tartarus. If Night Owl decides not to give the glove to Gilgamesh, Dis will again try to persuade him. If he does, though, he travels to the Agarthan palace and meets Gilgamesh, who is actually a giant, 15-year-old boy. He accepts Night Owl’s offering, marveling at the potential power the glove could unlock for him. In return, Gilgamesh introduces him to Stratoearving, a Nimbusfolk mercenary hired by him, and a copy of Viggo, who is furious at being assigned to do something.

The first order of business is to hire spies. There are areas in the Underdark known for their black market services, and Night Owl and Stratoearving are able to find the relevant connections to obtain a lair and basically a private militia. If Night Owl keeps the Glove of Power, he will meet Stratoearving in the Underdark instead.

A Tiefling realtor named ‘Bobby’ (his full name is never known) can help them obtain a lair wherever they want, and there are all kinds of illegal services offered throughout the Underdark. There might be an esoteric wizard somewhere in this town who actually may know a thing or two about the Glove of Power, or where/how they might possibly obtain another instruction manual.

The main, central town, Helac, has an effective population of about a million factoring in those who travel. As they pass through it, they get into minor scraps with lower-level villains mistaking them for easy marks. They begin in the weapons district, where rows of arms dealers had their shops set up and waves of people walked through on the soft, dirt surface. Before they pass into the next district, a group of four Drow Mages jump them.

As they walk through, the next district contains casinos, taverns, and other entertainment-related establishments. There are still lots of weapon shops throughout. A bar, Malley O’Zorgynax’s, stands out to them if they decide to go out for drinks. Inside, they might fight a Warlord with two more Drow Mage cohorts that pick a fight with them.

They move into the club/brothel district. If they try to go in one of them, an Orthon bouncer will try to deny them entry. Inside one of the clubs is a Summer Eladrin that spots Night Owl’s Hand of Vecna and may try to take it from him.

They then pass into the final district, which contains resources for hiring mercenaries, assassins, and spies, as well as realty that deals in locating and selling bases of operations.

2 thieves with fight, 2 with thermal vision, & a guy who can teleport.

After doing their business in Helac, the boys travel to the Midplanes to find and destroy Red Bull distribution centers.

12. Mountain of Bone

Friday, June 16^th, 2023

Summary (Lvl 20)

Beginning of Session: ~9:00 AM, Monday, March 17^th, 1986

GROUP A: The Greek gods send the players off to find Kronos, but they can’t use Irvas’ spaceship because it won’t fit all of them. The Oracle of Delphi told them he would return in one week, which matches up exactly with Dis’s prediction for the end of the world. The Illuminati provides a ship and organizes a crew of 12 mercenaries to help run it.

The gang gives the Talisman of Ultimate Evil to Hephaestus in exchange for some cool armor.

Theseus attempts to “seduce” Athena, who kills him. The group revives him at the Plantation with the help of Salamalin.

Lord Iyopenes uses the wand of Awakening on a huge oak tree to instantly create the Wise, Mystical Tree, a sentient, omniscient tree that lies sometimes.

Tuesday morning, before they leave, Elaria tells Lord Iyopenes she wants to marry him soon and seems distraught over him leaving the planet. Iyopenes gives her a gelatin ring. Meanwhile, Beel Allocen enters stealth and sneaks onboard before the ship leaves. If they get careless with their things, Allocen will steal the Manual for the Glove of Power. If it’s too risky, he’ll go without it.

Kronos sends Hyperion to dispatch the players, who gets one-shot by Iyopenes.

Beginning of Session: ~12:00 PM, Monday, March 17^th, 1986

GROUP B: Night Owl awakens during the night with the Eye of Vecna showing him a group of five hooded figures outside their motel room. They’re a bunch of DYELS trying to ambush them to take the Eye and  Hand of Vecna. The hired crew shows up along with all of the weapons contracted by Night Owl. Beel Allocen arrives in town with the head of the Orthon bodyguard from the pub last night. The villains begin to expedite the process of forming their plan to attack the heroes. Beel Allocen tells the group that the heroes are en route to deep space. Allocen is a talented strategist and proposes the group attacks when the players are preparing to fight Kronos. They can make it to their location with the help of the Butler. After convening with the group, he leaves to meet Viggo with the heroes in Katmandu. Meanwhile, Night Owl, Stratoearving, the other Viggo, and Bimeslurger learn Milly Bitchell has just returned from an alien civilization, and word on the grapevine is that he was on a promising lead towards another Glove of Power.

Group A

The players descend Mount Olympus after freaking the Greek gods out with their doomsday hourglass from Dis, whom they now know the name of. He can be summoned sporadically by chanting it three times, but it always works if its’ done in front of a mirror with the lights off. Salamalin contacts the group and informs them he is getting a crew and ship together for them so they can make the journey to Kronos.

Theseus, Phantom Boozer, and Iyopenes all return to a magic store they had previously visited. Theseus initially wants to buy an item, but abandons this prospect to steal money. Iyopenes tries to babysit with the minotaur in the shop to no avail.

Phantom Boozer successfully convinces the shopkeep that he is a world-renowned adventurer interested in whatever his top item is (none of which is true). The shopkeep decides to lead him back to a chest in his warehouse that contains the Talisman of Ultimate Evil. When Iyopenes and the police arrive to file a report for the theft of the owner’s safe, the Phantom grabs the chest containing the talisman and makes a break for it.

When they determine this orb is in fact the talisman, Phantom Boozer runs back to the store and A-Train’s the shopkeep for owning the item. Iyopenes tries to destroy it with his sword, failing to do so even after rolling a 40. Returning to Mount Olympus, Hephaestus agrees to make Iyopenes and Theseus some adamantium armor in exchange for it.

Gerome plane shifts them back to Pizza Pit in Little Little Italy. Salamalin has brought Elaria as well, and she seems distraught: Not only is she kind of upset that he hid his apparent ‘secret life’ as a mega-celebrity from her when he starred as the title character of Snoobfeld, but she is anxious about the group leaving the planet, having a bad feeling about the coming conflict ahead of them. Iyopenes manages to convince her that his appearance on Snoobfeld was fabricated by the fortune cookies and gives her a gelatin engagement ring.

Salamalin takes them to the Plantation for sweet tea and the plan. He shows the players diagrams and detailed reports of the Multivisor’s predictions. A week from today, (coincidentally) when the doomsday hourglass runs out, the Multivisor predicts that the giants will begin mass-producing the first wave of 10,000 NES-6 droids (Viggo’s) onto Earth to overthrow the world governments.

Iyopenes gives sentience to a blade of grass, given the nickname ‘Grassy’ by the group. The Phantom Boozer uses his superspeed to re-wind the wand, and the new charge is used to grant sentience to a huge oak tree on Salamalin’s front lawn. Because of the bear’s magical nature and influence over the pocket dimension, the tree becomes the Wise, Mystical Tree as it gains sentience, and the group learns that the tree is omniscient.

The group spends the evening talking to the tree, who has two main limitations on his omniscience: One, he can’t predict the future, and two, some of his answers are either unhelpful, untrue, or sarcastic.

The following morning, Tuesday, March 18^th, Salamalin and the group teleport to a compound in Katmandu that contains the ship Salamalin will be loaning them, the Heartbreaker. It is a fairly large ship that requires a crew of roughly 10 people other than them to maintain. The ship is set to embark at 12 PM. The players arrive at 10:00 and have two hours to get their affairs in order before leaving.

Around 11:30 AM, Beel Allocen and one copy of Viggo arrive via teleportation to the base. In stealth, Allocen casts Dominate Person on an unsuspecting NPC. Viggo gives this NPC the evil ‘vvizard ‘veed he obtained from the villain group, and Allocen commands this NPC to find Gerome and get him so high he can’t use his Truesight.

The ship takes off with Beel Allocen on board in stealth. He uses a futuristic device to shrink himself down to less than an inch tall for the space trip in order to elude everyone.

The vessel engages light speed and begins their travel through deep space. The ship has about a dozen different rooms, each of which has a door that can be locked or unlocked via a control computer. There are two on board: One at the cockpit, and one at the rear. The ship’s navigational systems indicate that Kronos is actually moving further away the longer they travel through space.

The ship is forced out of light speed by what appears to be an extraordinarily-powerful tractor beam. During this, Beel Allocen makes his way to the fuel supply system and destroys it. The ship is now in the hand of Hyperion, Greek titan of the skies and Kronos and Briareus’ brother. His size is immense; though he is technically Gargantuan, he is more comparable in size to someone like Galactus. He is a male-shaped conglomeration of stars and outer space objects with two supernovas for eyes.

Hyperion throws their ship onto a nearby moon, immobilizing it.

“You all are shorter than I imagined,” Hyperion said as the ship slammed onto the surface of the nearby moon. The titan loomed over it. “Welcome to my world.”

Iyopenes one-taps Hyperion, who still manages to cast Meteor Swarm on them, which completely immobilizes the ship. The players, Viggo, and Beel Allocen find themselves marooned on the small, remote planet.

Group B

In the early morning hours, Night Owl suddenly awakens in the motel bed at the Shadow Spittoon inn after being alerted to danger by Vecna’s artifacts. As soon as he gains lucidity he is in X-ray vision watching as a group of five individuals begins to break into his room: Four Drow Mages and their leader, a Summer Eladrin.

Thunder Bombs come in. One of the merchants in Helac is selling a Dragon Wing Longbow in town. They also learn of a place where Stratoearving can obtain an Eldritch Claw Tattoo.

Night Owl’s crew of hired mercenaries to track and steal from the players are an Archmage named Sven, an Ice Devil named Sylleth, an orcish Warlord named K’ug T’haal, a Rakshasa named Larold, and Beel Allocen, who finds the group carrying the head of the Orthon bouncer from the night before. Another person who looks like Bimeslurger arrives claiming to be his long-lost brother, Blimesurger. The group accepts him for the time being.

The primary group now consists of Night Owl, Stratoearving, Viggo, and Bimeslurger. With Allocen’s help, the group begins to forming a plan to attack the heroes. Beel Allocen tells the group that the heroes are en route to deep space. Allocen is a talented strategist and proposes the group attacks when the players are preparing to fight Kronos. They can make it to their location with the help of the Butler. After convening with the group, he leaves to meet the other Viggo with the heroes in Katmandu.

The group travels across town to another of Night Owl’s informants, but they’re stopped in the alley by another group of two Drow Mages, this time accompanied by two Assassins, a Mind Flayer with two Living Blades of Disaster, and a Bodak.

During this encounter, Blimesurger attacks the group, revealing he is actually an Ancient Brass Dragon in disguise. The dragon was hired by Salamalin and will try to escape if it comes close to death. If they manage to capture it, it will be incredibly difficult to extract information out of.

Night Owl meets his informant, who tells the group there are murmurs among Milly Bitchell’s followers that he actually managed to find another manual to the Glove of Power in a far-away alien civilization. Bitchell is currently in a remote region of China.

The group has to find a way to make it to China, with the session ending shortly after they arrive.

13. Gerome Sorceil

Friday, June 23^rd, 2023

Summary (Lvl 20)

Beginning of Session: ~9:00 AM, Thursday, March 20^th, 1986

GROUP A: The extensive damage to the ship by Hyperion causes it to lose all functionality, and the group is officially marooned. When they explore the small planet they’re trapped on, they encounter Vinnie.

Vinnie teleports the group and the ship’s crew to his pocket dimension, where he speaks to them over dinner about good news and bad news. While there, he reveals that Gerome is actually a demigod, and he is his father. Gerome’s mother was a mortal gnome Vinnie met during a visit to the Feywild in the 1950’s. As he removes Gerome’s curse of amnesia, Vinnie tells Gerome about his upbringing, as well as the great responsibility that comes with wielding his father’s power. He spells out the Cosmololocon cannot fall into the hands of evil. He also informs Iyopenes of the mark of death from Thanatos that he senses. When he is asked if he can remove it, he says he can't because "this one's legit."

While traveling to Kronos, their ship is stopped by a tractor beam on a moon, Yon, that forces them to land. They are halted by an advanced civilization of lunar elves who are convinced the group are hostile aliens. Their leader is an artificial being designed by their elite called "Havoc", who possesses Superman-like abilities.

The players' attempts at diplomacy have mixed results, and they find out that Havoc is one of the characters stipulated to hate Iyopenes as per the deck of many things. (The other being Stratoearving.) Havoc knows what the Glove of Power is and blames Iyopenes for letting it fall out of the group's hands. Something major then happens on this planet that will cause him to come looking for Iyopenes later during the bonus stages.

When they find Kronos, they arrive just in time to witness him commune with an Avatar of Evil. The Avatar grants Kronos' wish, and the titan returns to Earth while the Avatar vanishes. The Wise, Mystical Tree later says that Avatars belong to a widely-unheard of group of infinitely-powerful beings commanded by "The Author".

Beginning of Session: ~9:00 AM, Tuesday, March 18^th, 1986

GROUP B: The villains travel to Milly Bitchell in a remote region of China. He returned a few days ago from an alien civilization called Cerus. While there, he found and read another manual to the Glove of Power, and knows where it is. He doesn't have it. The players will have to find a way to make him take them there. He has the assistance of three ancient Chinese deities: Lightning, Rain, and Thunder. His purpose for obtaining the glove is to use it to augment his power so he can one day become strong enough to challenge Vinnie and become the new god of magic. If they provoke them, they will try to steal the glove from Stratoearving and use it to fight them. If they kill Milly Bitchell but spare the Storm Trio, they might be interested in helping the villains.

If Stratoearving decides to challenge Gilgamesh and take the glove for himself, he will have enough time to read and study the manual and be able to wield it by the next session, which is their showdown with the heroes.

Group A – Phantom Boozer, Lord Iyopenes, Theseus

The players are left stranded on the small, unnamed, uninhabited planet, thousands of lightyears away from Earth. Gerome teleports home, where he is tricked into entering the Backrooms. While combing through the wreckage of the ship, they find a very, very small, black mother-of-pearl tie clip belonging to Beel Allocen.

Sometime later, a small cloud of purple smoke begins to wash over the horizon. It expands until forming into a sphere in front of them, and finally, beams of light emitted from its’ center before the smoke swirled into a cyclone and flew away. In the center, a gnome wearing white wizard robes and a pointed, starry hat levitated about 5 feet off the ground. His eyes glowed with an intense, purple energy.

“Felicitations, travelers.” He had the thickest southern accent you had ever heard. It was like listening to Foghorn Leghorn in the body of a small gnome.

He levitated down and stood on the planet before the players. “Y’all appear to be in a bit of a rut.”

The gnome identifies himself as Vinnie Sorceil, god of magic. Vinnie offers to help them, but first invites them to dinner in a remote pocket dimension of his. When they arrive, it’s a Cracker Barrel-esque restaurant staffed by gnomish magic users who all greet Vinnie warmly when the group arrives. He leads them to a booth in the back, and he feeds the group a massive buffet of southern food and barbeque.

Over dinner, Vinnie claims that Gerome is actually his demigod son, which is partially  why he has been entrusted with the Cosmololocon. He then informs Iyopenes that he has received a mark of death from Thanatos, meaning another Judge is searching for them. Vinnie can’t remove the curse because he says this one is legitimate; he says that Iyopenes’ only hope is to defeat whoever the god of death sends at him. He then outlines the lore surrounding Gilgamesh to them.

Vinnie levitated several pieces of fried okra along with many blobs of ranch dressing into his mouth. A handkerchief on his lap flew up to wipe his beard of the crumbs.

“Gerome, I want to congratulate you and Lord Iyopenes for clearing my dungeon in Xanadu. I’m terribly sorry about what happened to Irvas.”

He took a long, deep sip of beer from his pint, which immediately refilled itself back to full, head foam and all. “There’s a lot on the line right now, boys. I decided to intervene this time, against the wishes of my superiors, to help you.” His eyes pointed.

Vinnie tells the group about Gilgamesh. He explains that his conquest to enslave humanity revolves around a plot to literally push the continents back together, thus reuniting Pangaea. He tells them the Nephilim’s king wields two special weapons of their own design, dubbed the ‘Hammer’ and ‘Tongs’. The hammer is an enhanced, traditional-style, heavy war hammer used by the giants, and the tongs are actually a magical device that allow Gilgamesh to produce two glowing, magical blue rods that can grapple anyone (Even Iyopenes.) Though he is only 15 years old, Gilgamesh’s power is immense, and is further enhanced by his superior intellect and experience in his past life during ancient times. During this life, he was betrayed by his closest friend, Enkidu, who stopped him from fulfilling his plan to conquer Earth the first time. The Nephilim obey him without question, as his arrival was predicted by prophecy and dogma.

After dinner, Vinnie creates a new spaceship for them that has been specially designed to be flown by any of the group members. It’s a giant, flying saucer that looks like a pizza. Not a pizza-themed spaceship, but a cleverly-illusioned vessel that looks identical to an actual pizza, but enormous. The pie rotates as the ship flies. It has a bridge, storage rooms, eight cabins, and a living room, but no weapons.

Vinnie bids the group farewell, and emphatically tells them that the Cosmololocon cannot fall into the hands of evil. Finally, he tells them that Night Owl and his friends can and should be saved from the influence of the hat man.

The group flies through space on the pizza ship, having entered Kronos’ coordinates into the ship’s navigational systems. On the way there, they observe a shining, purple planet. The planet is covered in large clusters of shining white and gray towers. Suddenly, a tractor beam from one of the moon’s space stations pulls them in.

On the station, a group of lunar elves apparently involved in the military of Yon begin questioning the players. Their ship is completely immobilized by the tractor beam. The elves accuse the trio of being alien invaders, but that ‘their leader’ would ultimately decide if they are allowed to pass. They contact him via the ship.

Entering in through the port of the space station, a medium-sized figure rapidly ascended. It sped onto the loading platform. It wore a reddish-maroon suit with a billowing, golden cape. It had slicked-back black hair and red eyes. The synthezoid introduces itself as the alien civilization’s leader, Havoc. It leads them to an interrogation room, and their attempts at negotiations are shot down one by one because of the Deck of Many Things; Havoc slowly comes to despise Iyopenes.

After a tense meeting, the civilization reluctantly lets them leave, where they begin space travel again, this time with no interruptions as they make their way to Kronos.

When they arrive, they witness him floating in space before another humanoid figure that was roughly the same size as Kronos. It was a featureless, bright red humanoid. Neither noticed their ship, which appeared insignificant next to them.

As soon as they pulled up, the red being emitted a bright flash of energy and teleported away with Kronos. Kronos was talking to an Avatar of Evil, who granted him a wish. This wish was to be in New York City with an army of his titans.

Group B – Night Owl, Stratoearving

On Tuesday morning, the villains embark for China. Later, they will be talking to the Butler, who informs them that they won’t need his assistance because Kronos is actually en route to Earth.

They make it to China by however means necessary. Bitchell’s compound is located in a remote area that can be accessed out of Shanghai, which is where a plane or passenger liner might take them. They are free to do things in Shanghai for a little bit.

When they make it out to Bitchell’s compound, clusters of huge thunderhead clouds are spotted overhead that flash lightning and thunder. It begins to pour with rain as they come upon the front gates: It is a massive, sprawling complex surrounded by a gate containing a large, central building. Inside, an office façade hides a passage to a mine that descends deep below the Earth. Bitchell is using this site to make his slaves mine for mithril and adamantium while his artificers work to create weapons. By investigating the compound, they learn that he’s actually raising a small army of magic-resistant soldiers.

Outside, they make it past the guards at the gate and make it to the front door, where Thunder answers them. He initially tries to get them to leave, but at their insistence, he takes them on a ‘tour’.

The huge door suddenly crept open a couple inches. The face of a Chinese man with short, cropped hair glared through it. He was dressed in a black business suit with a red tie.

“The factory is close,” he spoke with a thick accent. “Leave or you are trespass.”

Thunder decides to entertain them coming in and leads them in through the main area. The façade that the complex is putting off is some kind of elaborate insurance agency that none of the group understands, which makes them believe it’s some kind of money-laundering scheme. Thunder takes them to an elevator after lighting a cigar, which puts the group to sleep.

Night Owl, Stratoearving, and Bimeslurger awaken chained to wooden chairs in some kind of interrogation room. They watch as Viggo is beaten into submission by Rain. He later explains that while he was immune to Thunder’s cigar smoke, he lost the upper hand after the other storms were waiting for him at the top of the elevator. He thinks that Lightning is currently searching the place looking for more of them.

During the interrogation, Milly Bitchell enters by phasing in through a wall.

“Well, well, well…” he said, sneering at Night Owl. “I guess you lost the glove, huh?”

Milly Bitchell questions the villains, making an opportunity for them to exchange information. This complex houses a large mithril and adamantium mine, cafeteria, and an arms factory and small barracks. Bitchell explains he wants the Glove of Power to speed up this whole process. His endgame is to challenge Vinnie Sorceil and become the new god of magic, claiming Vinnie is too irresponsible and liberal with his powers to be trusted in. In reality, Bitchell is just power-hungry and wants to become omnipotent.

If Bitchell discovers they have the Glove of Power, he and the storms will try to take it. Bitchell knows how to use it because he discovered another manual on an alien civilization in deep space that he read and absorbed on a visit there. In the ensuing fight, if the players want to obtain the manual, they will have to make Bitchell take them there. The three storms tend to obey Bitchell. They cannot die, and if they are reduced to 0 hit points, they reform in 1d4 days, appearing descending from the sky in a thunderstorm. If the players kill Bitchell after he takes them to Cerus, the storms may be able to be persuaded to do some work for the villains. Bitchell and Thunder both survive initially, and Thunder leaves while the remaining group teleports to Cerus to locate the manual.

Bitchell Teleports the group to the wilderness on Cerus. He explains that he stole the manual from a museum and buried it ahead after reading it. After they find the manual, Night Owl maims and kills Bitchell before burying him in the hole of the manual. Now the early morning hours of Wednesday, if Stratoearving begins reading right away, he will finish it by Friday morning. Viggo asserts that the manual must be handed to Gilgamesh, but Night Owl is barely able to persuade him it would be a greater asset in their group’s hands.

14. The Glove of Power

Wednesday, July 5^th, 2023

Summary (Lvl 20)

Group B: Beginning of Session: ~7:00 AM, Friday, March 21^st, 1986

The Darkheart’s Wish spell comes off of cooldown today. The villains go talk to Ares, who has been absent from Mount Olympus since 1985 to construct a new dimension in which infinite war games can be held. In order to get there, they have to find the Butler in order to locate the dimension, the outer plane Acheron. (How do they find him?)

The Butler tells Night Owl he will teleport their group there if they can obtain a painting made by his daughter at a later time. He lets them proceed to Acheron. (Obtaining said painting is impossible, which the players will learn later. What is it?)

When they arrive, Acheron's personnel forces the group to compete in a combat challenge before they can even talk to Ares. When they succeed and approach him, Ares is not interested in helping them and disagrees with the idea of destroying the world because the Earth is 1) his home, and 2) unique from all of the other planets. He thinks Night Owl's group doesn't have it in them. Other than that, he takes a liking to the Darkheart and Bimeslurger, to whom he gives his Helm of Invisibility. Afterward, the Darkheart informs Night Owl that the talisman of ultimate evil has recently exchanged hands to Hephaestus.

When they come back to Earth, the group is ambushed by a bunch of devils led by Moloch looking for the Glove of Power.

Group B – Night Owl, Stratoearving, Viggo, Bimeslurger

Viggo initially tries to leave the group and steal the artifacts when he determines that Stratoearving won’t be surrendering them, but the players might be able to kill him. If they try to persuade him to work for them instead of Gilgamesh, it will take a lot of convincing. Giving the glove to Gilgamesh to help him succeed is in his own self-interest, as it will help enable the giants to continue manufacturing more enforcer droids like himself. He says that if they don’t, Gilgamesh will find out and eventually have his way, at which point he’ll have them drawn and quartered.

The villains find a place to stay where Stratoearving can absorb the information in the manual. During the reading time, Night Owl begins having premonitions of a powerful demon approaching them. He can’t discern the purpose, but sure enough, Moloch appears, searching for both the glove and the manual himself. He is commanding a Blue Abishai, a Pit Fiend, three Glabrezu, and a Sire of Insanity. They obtained the manual’s whereabouts by invading Milly Bitchell’s dreams and then speaking to his corpse that the group left in the field in the last session. The group kills the devils and sends Moloch back to hell, giving them an opportunity to begin to shift upwards in alignment, except for Viggo, who triggers a premonition in Night Owl when he tries to steal the glove and manual from Stratoearving right after the demons are killed. He’ll try to get away if he can’t get it.

The players can either teleport to the nine hells and talk to Dis themselves or obtain his information via the Darkheart. Either way, he tells them there is a stone covering a large, well-known hole to the Backrooms at an abandoned Kmart in Missouri. Once inside, he will be able to find them quickly.

The players travel to Springfield, Missouri, where they locate and enter the abandoned Kmart. After wandering around inside for a while, they find the stone referred to by Dis and remove it, revealing a 10-foot wide pit. Beneath it is the Backrooms.

The Butler decides to show up after a little while of their wandering. Once he finds them, he takes them to a glass box perched adjacent to the Earth in space. It has sparse, glass furniture. Ultimately, he agrees to transport them to Acheron to see Ares, but asks for one thing in return: A portrait of himself from his daughter. He says he’ll transport them there and back, as long as they’re only there for a day.

When they agree, he summons a door next to them, and beyond it is Acheron. The outer plane is set up in a large, concentric circle that was hollow at the center. Inside of it is a floating island approximately 32 square miles in area. All throughout the city were huge coliseums and other arena-like structures. In this outer plane of existence, everyone respawns if they die via the magic of Ares. This place is basically Mecca but for fighting.

When the group makes a beeline for Ares’ palace, they are halted by a Mithril Golem at the gate. It doesn’t permit them to enter at first until Ares anticipates their arrival and comes outside. He notices Night Owl’s artifacts, which catches his attention. He talks to them outside the front door of his palace, where he tells them he’s far too busy to consider helping them destroy the world or anything like that. He is interested in the Darkheart, though, and inspects it when they talk to him.

Ares doesn’t think the group has what it takes to destroy Earth, so he doesn’t initially offer them any help until Bimeslurger enters. Ares immediately, confoundingly, takes a liking to him. He muses that Bimeslurger is a true animal and grants him his Helm of Invisibility. Afterwards, they return to Earth.

On Sunday morning, they now have a couple of hours before their ambush on the players. They will be traveling to New York City to meet the group as well as Kronos at Ellis Island.

15. Finale pt. I: Misplaced in Time

Friday, July 7^th, 2023

Summary (Lvl 20)

Beginning of Session: ~9:00 AM, Sunday, March 23^rd, 1986

The heroes and villains, opposite the armies of the Olympians and titans, converge at Ellis island awaiting Kronos.

At some point during the confrontation, Kronos tears open the fabric of reality with his scythe and Iyopenes, Gerome, rat, Theseus, Phantom Boozer, Night Owl, Stratoearving, Bimeslurger, and possibly Beel Allocen and/or Viggo are sent by Kronos forwards through time to the year 2050, where Gilgamesh has succeeded at conquering the Earth with Night Owl’s help.

Gilgamesh constructed a massive effigy for himself he animated with the giants' soma magic. Using the Glove of Power to speed up the process, he used the effigy to physically push the continents back together in 2027.

In this version of Earth, the world is at a state of Machiavellian peace. It's basically just a dystopian run by the giants under Gilgamesh, who now rules all seven continents simultaneously.

The players have to find a way to return to the past as they explore the world. One possible lead could be through Atlantis, which has managed to survive by hiding from the giants on the other side of the planet in the vastness of the enormous ocean.

After being led on a red herring by Kronos, the players return to Earth and reunite with Gerome and Salamalin. Vinnie appears once again to talk to his son. Salamalin brings everyone into a meeting room where he outlines the plan for the fight against Kronos and Gilgamesh, respectively.

The meeting begins with Salamalin informing the group that the demon king, Moloch, was defeated recently, and through some snooping on the Multivisor, he was searching for the Glove of Power. Salamalin shows them sketches from the Multivisor of Night Owl, Viggo, and two other perpetrators, one of whom in possession of the Glove of Power. Salamalin says that this group is ostensibly working for Gilgamesh.

He then tells the players that once the battle for New York concludes, they’ll have to hoof it to Agartha as soon as possible to destroy the Enforcer factories. Vinnie is fairly nonspecific on if he will be present during either battle.

Lord Iyopenes, and the Phantom Boozer travel to the Feywild to find Ava’s palace. The palace is hidden inside of a large, old oak tree in order to remain a secret from her father. It’s a large place in which all kinds of Fey creatures wandered around. When they talk to Ava, she explains she can’t leave her homeland unguarded during the uncertainties of the current conflict, but is willing to grant the players certain requests for the battle.

Meanwhile, Salamalin accompanies Gerome and Theseus to Yon to try and persuade Havoc to help. It’s more civil this time, but it absolutely will not leave its’ planet. It does say that their civilization will monitor the conflict, and if it appears to escalate dramatically, Havoc may intervene. It sends them away.

Both player groups and the opposing armies of Olympians and titans converge on the streets of New York City. When the player groups find each other, they start a battle that begins on the top of a skyscraper near Ellis Island.

The fight is interrupted by Kronos himself, who tears a gargantuan hole into the ground that sucks everyone in. Before the battle begins, both groups receive an intense premonition of danger as they begin to sense the approach of Kronos.

As they fall into the pit, it closes behind them as they are sucked downward by an amplified force of gravity. After a long time of falling, they are spat out in the middle of space overlooking the Earth. Everyone is extremely sick. Floating near them is an identifying feature of the Butler’s glass observation box of the world, which they discover has been shattered.

When they travel down into the atmosphere of the Earth, it is stunningly different: Pangaea has been reunited. In this alternate timeline, the year is 2050, and Gilgamesh has won. Shortly after their departure from the 1986 timeline, Gilgamesh and his men located the Glove of Power held by the civilization of Cerus and another manual from an unknown source. The Nephilim traveled to Cerus and nearly wiped their kind out looking for the glove, which they did eventually find after an interplanetary war. The giants hit a roadblock in the year 2000 when waves of superheroes began appearing on Earth, the specific events of which may be determined by a future campaign that involves travel between universes. By 2008, however, Gilgamesh had both the glove and an army of nearly five million Enforcer droids, easily overthrowing the world governments.

The Illuminati continued to fight in the shadows, but with the invasion of the shapeshifting enforcer droids, the organization’s ability to screen and retain heroes became exponentially more difficult. The Oerlikon saw their forces decimated, and by the turn of the millennium, they became very few in numbers.

The players learn that in 2025, the king beat the player character group and the Butler to the Wishing Well in Plato's cave, which he also used to obtain the Sword of Kas. Gilgamesh kills both the player group and the Butler, then leads a campaign into the United States, where he and his forces gain access to Salamalin’s demiplanes and destroy all of them, including his last phylactery. The only thing of interest from the Plantation to Gilgamesh is the omniscient Wise, Mystical Tree, who he steals and locks away in his palace. In 2026, Gilgamesh and and his men finished a journey to Universe-13 and obtained the methods to reverse-engineer Magic Concrete.

In 2050, the present, Salamalin is dead, the Butler, the Backrooms, and Sword of Kas are completely gone, the Illuminati has dissolved, and the Wise, Mystical Tree is being kept in Gilgamesh’s palace.

16. Finale pt. II: World Peace

Wednesday, July 26^th, 2023

Summary (Lvl 20)

Beginning of Session: A random stretch of days in 2050

The players exit a small diner on the outskirts of the continent after several of them cause chaos. In the session prior, Night Owl decides to use his Fates card on shifting his alignment upward in order to keep his artifacts, and Lord Iyopenes asks the Fates for their help so the two of them can set their differences aside. The Fates explain that they’re destined to remain in 2050 for now, but that traveling backwards through time is also what they’re intended to do.

They encounter the first major settlement after miles upon miles of travel. They are able to search for clues about how they should go about time travel, and they’re reminded of the existence of the city of Atlantis. They will have to find a way to locate it.

Once there, the Atlanteans are agreeable to the idea of helping to send the players backwards through time, but they can't, because in order to build a time machine, they will need a Gadolinium-Aluminum-Gallium-Garnet processor, which currently only exists with Gilgamesh on a mysterious device of his design. To help in their quest, Binkles gifts the group his Belt of Immutable Strength. The belt has the Hill Gem, Frost Gem, and Fire Gem so far, granting the wearer a Strength score of 25. The Cloud and Thunder Gems are inside of Gilgamesh’s palace. If the players take the belt backwards through time, they will be two of a kind in the universe.

The bulk of this session is spent with the player group infiltrating the palace, which will be the hardest dungeon yet. They will have to plan an entire heist at the end of which an adult Gilgamesh appears wielding the Glove of Power and fights the group. They defeat him and teleport back to Atlantis.

They give the glove to the Atlanteans so it can be disassembled. The Atlanteans use the glove’s GAGG processors and other technologies currently at their disposal to construct a one-way-backwards time machine. They send them back to Saturday, March 22^nd, 1986.

Now back in 1986, Kronos banishes the players from Session 15 to 2029, and exactly 3 seconds later, they return, now able to fight him because of his time-shifting ability being on cooldown. Kronos is slain by the players. The players return to the Illuminati compound to receive the briefing and full strategy breakdown from Salamalin. Viggo immediately flees back to Agartha following their return to the previous timeline, leaving the group permanently.

Night Owl looks for the safe at the diner they stopped at, but finds that there isn’t one. They learn that in this alternate timeline in which Gilgamesh wins, money has been abolished and the world is in a state of Machiavellian peace. In lieu of physical money, the world operates under a type of social karma system that is exclusive to giants and certain other races (like dragons, etc.)

Shortly after they leave the diner, they are accosted by a large group of Nephilim SWAT team-equivalent officers that try to detain the players, but they kill all of them. Gilgamesh anticipated their arrival after researching their disappearance on the Multivisor after he killed Salamalin in this timeline. He’ll find out where they are if any of the SWAT officers survive or if they cause too much commotion. The players might be able to deduce that in an act of spite, the Butler unmade the Multivisor shortly before his death to Gilgamesh.

The world is, generally speaking, peaceful. Despite the apparent lack of conflict, the world is at a constant state of unease and distrust. Individualism has never been so high, and no one wants to talk to the players because groups of people are unheard of and seldom seen. The concept of ‘family’ is gone, but everyone is seemingly happy or at least content with keeping to themselves. People in this alternate timeline may make acquaintances (which may or may not involve a sexual encounter), but they are always short-lived, temporal, or consequential. There is no ‘click’ between these people, and deeper connections are generally impossible to be had.

They observe all of this as they travel through a huge shanty town littered with televisions. They learn they are in the province of ‘Moroulos.’ They are on the western coastline at roughly the center, currently. To their north is the province of ‘Syllos’.

They learn from passers-by and TV that the whole world is divided into five districts. The northeastern district is named ‘

In order to go back to 1986, they have to find some more answers around here. They may deduce that the city of Atlantis could help them. While traveling through the new world that is largely populated by Nephilim, they discover a secret speakeasy that caters towards the proles (non-Nephilim). The players go inside and talk to the bar folk.

They meet a rare Good Lich named Roger Horton, who buys them a round of drinks. Rather than try to help the players, he tries to sell them a legit flying carpet for 16,000 gold pieces. If they pester him about how he became a lich, he hauntingly tells the players that once, many years ago, he killed hundreds of people to take back control of his corporation.

A frog wizard named Rufus tells the players about Atlantis if they buy him a drink. He orders something with tequila in it and spins them a yarn. Rufus explains that the inhabitants of Pangaea refer to Gilgamesh’s act of pushing the continents back together as the eponymous ‘reunion’. He says that before this, he graduated wizard college with a toad wizard, Mac, who became a close colleague of his. The two organized secret missions of sabotage and sedition on the Nephilim, though all of this unraveled by 2027 when the reunion occurred and the team lost a member because of the frog and toad’s antics. Mac, feeling solely responsible, self-exiled himself to a small fishing town relatively west from the northernmost tip of the continent called Halhad. Roufo tells them he later learned that Halhad is located very close to a subterranean cave leading through the ocean floor all the way to Atlantis.

Also of interest in the bar is a pig guy talking about magical gems that can be used with a legendary artifact. He’s way too drunk to tell them what it could possibly be.

17. Finale pt. III: Hay in a Needlestack

Saturday, August 5^th, 2023

Summary (Lvl 20)

Beginning of Session: ~7:00 PM, Sunday, March 23^rd, 1986

The players embark to Gilgamesh’s palace after leaving the speakeasy. The owner gifts them a Fortune Cookie as thanks for saving everyone. Afterward, they head out for Gilgamesh’s palace. Once Gilgamesh is defeated, the players have to figure out a way to get back to the past.

In Agartha, the players destroy the remaining copies of Viggo, including the factory.

They make it back to the capitol just in time for the attack. Göl brings legions of his top men to the final battle and Salamalin brings dozens of his top hired mercenaries.

An army of Nephilim, two Hecatoncheires, and several chromatic dragons converge with the heroes' forces in the Agarthan capitol.

After Gilgamesh’s forces are decimated in the Agarthan capitol, Vinnie arrives and fittingly decides to True Polymorph Gilgamesh into a grain of sand after he is weakened by the players. Everyone holds their breath as the final grain of sand passes through the doomsday hourglass, and finally, nothing happens.

The Palace

After making whatever other preparations necessary, they head out for Gilgamesh’s palace. As they approach, it is a bewilderingly-huge stone statue with a diagonal cube head that came out from the ground at the waist. The head is a giant cube rotated at a 45-degree angle with two dull, glowing yellow eyes that were shaped like rhombuses. The palace, or statue, is mainly composed of scalecrete, which is impervious to explosions, piercing damage, and cannot be seen through using X-ray or infrared vision. By observing the scale of it, they figure it would be at least 10 miles tall if it were to come out of the ground and stand up. The Glove of Power can be seen chiseled into his left hand, a closed fist raised to his upper chest. His right rested nearby, inside of which is the entrance.

The whole dungeon is scaled for Nephilim, and it’s surrounded by a lava moat a mile thick. Unless the players sneak through, Royal Sentries positioned on the smaller watchtowers surrounding the place will fire upon them with energy rifles, dealing 5d10 Force damage if they fail a DC 27 Dexterity saving throw. Several shots will be taken at all of them.

Right Arm

There are seven Royal Sentries spread throughout the Right Arm. The players begin their journey traveling up the right arm, which is a series of three short elevator encounters as it stops from floor to floor. The sentries will try to stop them or summon more help. On the second floor, a giant on the other side of the room will shut down the elevator if the players let him, which will render it inoperable. They can attempt to fix it (which they learn would take too long), or go through the elevator shaft and skip the third floor. The third floor has more enemies on it.

After the third floor, they make it to the right shoulder. The players observe a group of bad guys utilize a special keycard that only officers carry. Each keycard is specialized for certain rooms, and not every guard possesses a card to get into every door.

Ahead, there are two paths. Path 1 is a long, beige, marbled spiral staircase that leads upwards in a broad, exaggerated angle. This is inside the neck of the statue. At the top of the neck below the chin is a viewing area with large, glass windows that allowed viewers to observe the entire surrounding countryside. An impenetrable, locked forcefield prevents them to enter the elevator to the head. All throughout the neck, viewing area, and head are Agarthan shock troops.

Upper Chest

In the Upper Chest with a group of civilians are three Royal Sentries and two Enforcers. Upon closer inspection, these Enforcer droids are inferior to Viggo. They only have 150 hit points, no healing factor, they do not share a hivemind, and they do not have free will.

Path 2 leads them through the museum, which is at the top of the chest and leads through to the left shoulder. They observe a lot of historical artifacts from history on display in the museum, including the Liberty Bell and Declaration of Independence. If they search the museum or any of the slain Royal Sentries in here, they find a map of the palace.

Left Arm

A bridge nested inside the left arm leads them to the chamber inside of the giant, stone Glove of Power. It housed a massive sparring field and gym that was eerily abandoned, except for a group of five enforcers. While they investigate the place, a keycard is found in an office area that grants them access to the storage facilities located in the legs under the museum. When they find the keycard, Night Owl has a premonition of a lich and three undead Nephilim approaching from the left arm. The premonition ends up being real. Illeth appears flanked by three Storm Giant Skeletons to try and kill the players preemptively.

Lower Chest

By traveling downwards from the museum using the key obtained in the left arm, the players arrive at the storage hold located in the stomach. It is a convoluted system of teleporters connected to computers that dictated payloads. It also utilized lots of demiplanes to store larger and higher quantity items. Guarding it are several low-level Nephilim.

Legs

They obtain another keycard from one of the storage personnel that leads to the legs, which is the prison floor. There are a dozen Enforcers spread out in each leg, and the prisoners inside tell the players to free “the special one.” The key to this one’s cell is in whichever leg they travel down first, and waiting for them at the bottom of the latter is the Wise, Mystical Tree, surrounded by a forcefield and rendered helpless. If they search the prison holds, they will find a key to the Head.

The tree tells them that Gilgamesh spared him because of the obvious advantage of omniscience, but eventually locked him up after the tree kept feeding him false and misleading information. After torturing and flaying the tree with the Glove of Power, Gilgamesh still decided to keep him alive because of his extraordinary power and relative vulnerability. The giants’ current endeavor has involved contact with alien civilizations to try and develop a method to force the tree to talk. If they ask how to return to the past, the tree tells them that Gilgamesh uses a device called the Grantetratoth, which uses a GAGG processor augmented by this timeline’s Cosmololocon. If they take the device from him, they can proceed to the city of Atlantis, where the processor can be used to create a one-way backwards time machine. It bids them good luck and sends them off, hoping that they can change destiny.

When they board the elevator on the storage hold’s floor, they ride it back up the museum only to find a full legion of Enforcers waiting for them outside. The players murder all of them as they make their way back up the spiral staircase into the viewing pavilion. When they get there, another boss is waiting for them. They enter the head, where a now-adult Gilgamesh, aware of the players’ arrival from the past timeline, waits for them.

The voice of king Gilgamesh echoed the entire chamber. “I’ve waited a long time for this.” His piercing, golden eyes sparkled on them as they ascended into the massive head of his palace. He had appeared before them first as an illusion. They were on a platform that was held up in the air; the head was mostly an open space filled with other similar scalecrete platforms and tall, ancient statues. Flows of lava on the walls illuminated the gargantuan room against the regal, bronze glow of the lanterns hanging on the ceiling, hundreds of feet high.

Now an adult, Gilgamesh had a thick, full beard. His extremely long hair was tied up behind him now, and he wore a set of magical bronze armor. You do a double-take as you notice the Glove of Power on his left hand. Under his arm was a helmet belonging to the armor set, and in his right was the so-called Hammer. Further inspection discovers a strange, flat, rectangular, white device with a glowing, reddish-pink aura coming from it strapped to his lower back.

“That wretched tree predicted your return many years ago. I always hoped he’d be wrong,” Gilgamesh said, producing an illusion of all of the destruction the players just caused in the lower floors.

“I’ll be the first in history to admit it your persistence,” he said, descending a platform onto the same ground as them. “But now it’s time to meet the biggest fish of the pond,” he said, softer.

He chuckled. “I OWN the world! What the hell do you think you’re gonna do!?”

He held up the Glove of Power, which was currently idling, spreading his left hand and then closing it into a fist. “You may have had the upper hand before... But I like mine better.”

Gilgamesh begins the fight by using the Glove of Power’s Cut command on the entire group. In the unlikely event where everyone fails the saving throw and gets transported into the glove, the party blacks out. If this happens, time skips ahead, and the Glove accidentally releases the players as Gilgamesh is trying to throw it into the sun from a spaceship.

Otherwise, the players continue their inspection of Gilgamesh. He has a wide variety of options. The Grantetratoth generates a force field around Gilgamesh on his first bonus action. The force field is a corresponding color to one of the ten damage types that aren’t bludgeoning/piercing/slashing. The type of damage he uses for his special attacks is determined randomly. While Gilgamesh has the force field, he is immune to all sources of damage (including the Revelation), except for the type of damage he’s currently attacking with. He also absorbs one secret damage type. For example, if he attacks with Fire, then Fire damage will hurt him, but he might also now absorb Psychic damage.

After a lengthy battle, the players kill Gilgamesh and strip him of his artifacts, which they now have to make decisions as to what to do with.

Atlantis

When they exit the palace, they begin asking around for methods to return to the past and come upon the city of Halhad, 50 miles northwest of which is a secret cave that leads down to the city of Atlantis. The fishing town nothing special to offer except the usual cruelty from Nephilim.

Afterwards, they locate and approach the cave. Waiting for them at its’ mouth is Göl, having anticipated their arrival. He greets the players in his usual monotone, stoic voice, and tells them he’s glad to see them once again.

Göl temporarily joins the party and leads them down the cave in its’ entirety. When they get to the deepest point, they continue straight on for about a mile before reaching a large gate manned by armed Atlanteans. He gives the guards an evil eye and they let all of them pass. After Gilgamesh’s conquest of the world, the Atlantean population exploded after taking in refugees from the surface.

Now in Atlantis, Göl tells the group he has a powerful friend here as he leads them to Binkles’ Temple. It’s a rather modest building that doesn’t appear too physically-imposing on the town, which doesn’t speak for Binkles’ huge frame. He comes out to greet Göl and the players when they approach.

The scientists are first immediately interested in the Glove of Power, and they inform the players that a one-way backwards time machine might be possible by using magical technology augmented by a Gadolinium-Aluminum-Gallium-Garnet processor. They think that disassembling the Glove of Power would be exceedingly dangerous, and one scientist remarks that it would basically just be playing Russian roulette with a nuke, followed by another quickly remarking out of context that nuclear weapons no longer exist.

They dissect the Grantetratoth, freeing the Cosmololocon. It thanks the players for saving it and asks to join them back to the past. If they do, Vinnie appears and collects it immediately. If anyone other than Gerome puts up a fight about surrendering it, an optional Vinnie boss fight will be prompted. Vinnie will do nonlethal damage to whoever he fights before taking the orb and leaving after wishing the players good luck.

Binkles summons the players once the time machine is finished. Trusting the players to change their timeline, he lets them keep the Belt of Immutable Strength, now completed once again.

Now back in New York City, 1986, Kronos tears open reality and sends the players from the prior session to the future. The rift closes, and exactly 3 seconds later, the players from the future re-enter 1986 through a gridline-patterned wormhole. They join forces and kill Kronos; with the Greek gods and their at their side, they dispel the waves of Titans and save what’s left of the city.

After the players kill Kronos, The Author appears and sentences him to Time Prison for creating an alternate timeline. He vanishes before anyone can question him.

Salamalin teleports the players from New York to Agartha. He says he needs their help

18. Bonus I: Jack is Back

TBD

Summary (Lvl 20)

Lord Jobs, Irvas, and Theseus bonus stage.

After the giants suffer a crippling defeat at the hands of the players, all is well for roughly a month.

Lord Iyopenes and Elaria get married. At their wedding, a mysterious, animated man appears: It’s Jack, the adventurer who had originally died inside of Sir Snoobs when he was still a gelatinous cube. He created the sword he wields.

Salamalin frantically calls out to the players via telepathy that Dis’s Doomsday hourglass from the events of the prior campaign suddenly started counting down again, only this time, all of the sand that had already fallen through is now flying back upwards against the force of gravity. Unbeknownst to any of them, the hourglass now signifies the approach of The Claw.

19. Bonus II: Title TBD

TBD

Summary (Lvl 20)

Night Owl and Stratoearving bonus stage. The Butler arrives to collect the painting from Night Owl and realizes he doesn’t have it. The Butler sends Night Owl to the Backrooms, demanding the painting in exchange for their friend.

Something happens when they reach Ava that makes them realize that obtaining the painting is impossible.

Events of this session end them up with Göl.

Script.

20. Bonus III: Title TBD

TBD

Summary (Lvl 20)

Gerome and Phantom Boozer bonus stage. Jack’s misadventures force the group to end up in Food World. In Food World, their antics awaken two giant, chocolate Tarrasques.

Script.

21. Bonus IV: Claw’s Well that Ends Well

TBD

Summary (Lvl 20)

Events of all prior bonus stages lead to this one. At some point in the session, the Butler arrives to collect his favor from Night Owl's party.

Göl fights the Butler and sacrifices himself to save the players and everyone else. He inflicts just enough damage on the entity to get him to flee before he is sent to the Backrooms where he remains until 2025.

Jack and the entire player group fight The Claw, a mysterious being commanded by “The Author”. Depending on the outcome of the battle, there may be a brief cutscene in which they meet him. He is a winged, medium-sized, anthropomorphic lion with blue eyes and talons for hands, wearing a white robe and golden laurels under his mask, which looks like a classic-style CRT television that flashes with various images and scenes.

Script.