Riverboat Gambler - Music

Dali

 

The Priestess who handed the Thresher an enormous loaf and a tureen of spiced lentils told him the thing in his heart was a gift. He said nothing to her but she saw through him into his heart. The Goddess would not take it away like she would a physical wound. It hurt but it separated him from the things that squirmed and writhed in the vaults beneath the Tower of Pain. The ones which, turned loose, would mindlessly kill and kill until driven back into the cave with holy sigils and command words.

Animals had instinctive fear of man. A sword was no different from a stinger or a claw and from the moment they could walk, they ran. Not so for children, even the children of monstermen. They associated creatures larger than themselves with smiling faces and food. They rushed toward the armored figures as they came through the door, chirping excitedly, expecting companionship and play- At what point had he himself gone from expecting companionship and play to accepting the splash of arterial blood on his face without flinching? He recalled playing with pillbugs in the straw. Imagining he rode a dragon. He recalled also how he had set a trap for the cat under the milk pail. He had tormented ants until they flew into a rage and killed their sisters. If others were cruel to him he was crueler still. Perhaps there was no transition. Was that an excuse he made to himself? Did he say he was born rotten because he couldn't accept that he had allowed it to happen? A click came from the big board. Below the image of the bread and the sword, the display ticked over. The Thresher's name appeared in the order of precedence next to his new score. The Goddess' love came freely but her approval was hard won. It filled the Thresher in an instant. Stronger than beer and the taste of buttered bread. Stronger than the bullet in his heart when he thought about what he had done to get his name there.

 

Riverboat Gambler Session Twelve

Diefenbach

On one side of the flooded room

• Roddy Applecreek
• Datura the Elf, still giant from the Potion of Growth
• Jack Fatherd
• Alice Woodfingers the Mower and her two Grain Clerics
• A reduced force of Hsigo
• A Shambling Mound made of ANFO
• Five Giant Bats and six Giant Woodpeckers to carry them 

On the other side

• Baradye the Blue Dragon
• Aldrich Deathdragon, transformed into a smaller Blue Dragon
• Poliouchos the Dwarf, Holy Slave of Quickness
• A Disciple of Zezyan
• 28 desert warriors pledged to the Disciple

 

At the heart of it all, the Star Spawn.

Riverboat Gambler Session Eleven

Roberts

 

Reunited with their boats, flush with the treasure of the massacred giants and concerned about dragon-Aldrich's considerable lead, the Gamblers met with Alice and Captain Leadcutter and planned their next move. They had five giant bats and six giant woodpeckers to carry them into the High Plain. Besides the Gamblers they decided to take Alice, two low level Grain Clerics, the Shambling Mound full of ANFO, a Scarecrow and a spare bomb. They'd ride the flying animals while the Hsigo scouted the area around the party. Roddy prepared a handful of grenades and distributed them to the Hsigo so they could bombard targets from the air. 

 

Encanta stared into the middle distance. The Gamblers thought she was having an absence seizure. Then she snapped her head forward and spoke in a voice they didn't recognize. The Gamblers owed a debt service payment on their cool ship. There was a little matter of 100,000 SP pending.

 

The Gamblers recognized this phenomena. The financial concern to whom they owed repayment had sold the debt to the Repo Men, an adventurers' guild like Iron Cup or Potion Addict. They used long range possession to enforce repayment even when debtors journeyed to the furthest realms. Datura negotiated the Repo Man down from 10K to 3,000 silver pieces, which she paid out of her own pocket. The Halfling pressed her face to the stone block they used as a table and slurped up the coins, which never made it down her throat into her stomach. Then she snapped back into her own body. Why did her mouth taste like sand? 

 

The Colonel's Table: Session Three

On the third night, Fonz Trepanier kept the police busy at the front of the house while the rest of the cadre went over the facts of the case with Nadia in the breakroom.

• Edgar, disgraced cop and Epideromancer
• Jazzy Boulevard, ex-con and mad bomber
• Laine Kornell, elderly bombe addict and Fool
• Thad Albright, juvenile delinquent and Wage Slave

By this point Laine's eyesight had deteriorated completely, nerves destroyed by the methanol he ingested two nights before. Nadia had anticipated this. She had put in the order to "Organs in Mains" on the night of the incident and had a Fedex package with the answer inside. A pair of lenses, like jewelers loops or old cameras. No digital components, no indication that they were meant to replace the human eye. Nadia steeled herself and asked Laine if he was ready for enucleation. The old Fool crushed the last of his catalytic converter dust and snorted it. It was a miracle he had somehow drove to work in this state and now he was ready to solve the problem. Even though, he insisted, his eyes were fine.

Unknown Armies - Holiday in Caledonia Playtest 2 Part 2

 

It was winter in Caledonia. Martial was still learning to cope with only one leg and defense of the Veteran Colony fell to the other three men.

• Rusticus the Latinized Barbarian
• Tarquin the Wine Merchant
• Valerian the Street Thug 

Valerian slept in the loft of his house alongside his three children, roof held up by the ancient menhir around which they built the drystone structure with its roof of sod and heather. He woke to find menhir and roof transformed into an enormous toadstool, under which sat a peg legged man with an enormous nose. Peg Leg told Valerian that he was here to help him. Ever since his wife Finngaula died, the old man had just been going through the motions for the sake of the kids. The fairy would take care of them. They'd be safe from everything that was about to happen if he just handed them over.

 

Valerian asked what was about to happen. The goblin showed him torches burning in the woods, men in mail and saxon helms, and a mountain rising up to crush the settlement. And he told Valerian that this next part wasn't him, honest.

The house was on fire when Valerian woke up.

The Colonel's Table: Session Two

 

Two burger warriors showed up for work that night, accompanied by two new recruits to the Cadre.

• Laine Kornell, elderly bombe addict
• Thad Albright, wage slave
• Jazzy Boulevard, ex-con
• Edgar, disgraced cop

Mick and Nadia were off that night but the restaurant was fully staffed without them. Orlock Bonnavera, Ozzy Packard and Fonz Trepanier joined the quartet for a total of seven frycooks. When the restaurant was overstaffed like that, it meant someone was being on a dangerous mission while the others held down the fort. Orlock took the four out back for a "smoke break" and explained what needed doing. He shouted like he was still in the restaurant and trying to be heard over the endless shrieking and beeping of the machines. It was just how he talked.

 

D100 Questions From D4 Caltrops

 

Responses to random selections from the d100 questions list by D4 Caltrops, whose OSE Encounter Activities I greatly enjoyed.

 

Godkiller

 

Jon Godkiller (who they later called Ahuizotl after his father) lived in the skull of a great dead thing filled with crystals. The skull often flooded with the gifts brought by Water, and when it was dry John and his friends spent most of their time killing and eating the great Bloodbats who were the beloved children of the Healing God. This was, you'll recall, after Wolf died and let Fire remake the world. And remake it again and again until the land rose and fell like cheese in molten dough.

 

Jon liked to swim down into the pores beneath the bones, or the mulch as the men from the cities called it, and fish for things left behind from the days before the land melted. He had a collection of such artifacts and he would often ask Teacher, who was a speaker of the Voice From the Cave, for understanding of what they meant. Teacher made up stories but was in truth just as clueless as Jon. He had been thrown out of the Cave for some reason or another, or possibly it was all a plant so he might spread doubt of the other Gods in the guise of exile.

 

It was Teacher who put the idea in Jon's head to rob the great mating caravan that brought Water his annual shipment of wives. These women, chosen by lottery and gathered from across the realm, were given to the God and then drowned in the act of bearing his tadpoles, which he then devoured. Jon wasn't thankful to Water for bringing the rain and wasn't afraid of his priests, and he wanted a wife who was large enough that he didn't instinctively try to eat her.

I'll Take New York: Playtest

 

Claudine Vega sat in the back of a well-loved Ford Escape, flanked by a pair of greaseballs with concealed firearms bulging out of their stained polo shirts. A third wise guy drove the car, and Claudine actually recognized him. Troy Gottardi, a Genovese family hood. Getting into a car with these idiots was a bad idea for a caster, ever since the New York families declared war on all "satanic black magic shit" in their territory. But Vega had an angle. It was 2004, the monsters keeping magick users from gaining charges in New York City were dead. She was going to get a slice of the treasure. If the mobsters recognized her on sight as a sorceress who could answer their questions, it meant her scheme was working.

 

The Colonel's Table: Session One

It was about 9:00 PM at the Wenatchee combination KFC/A&W on the interstate. In attendance: 

• Thad Albright, juvenile delinquent, working the fryer
• Laine Kornell, elderly bombe addict, at the drive through
• Whistle Jack, working homeless, on the register

They were supposed to have backup but they were alone for the night. Nadia, the gun-toting Maoist who usually explained what they were supposed to do for the conspiracy, left a rack of chicken fresh out of the tophet (which the Coterie insisted on calling the pressure fryer) with a sticky note:

 

SERVE THESE

CHOOSE WISELY

 

Into the Nest: Playtest

The Tomb Robber descended the rope ladder into the burial shaft. The freshly exposed pit was home to the enormous burrowing insects harassing the town, but also to an untouched mausoleum hopefully filled with treasure. Delving alone was risky but meant he wouldn't have to share the rewards with anyone. He hefted his sword in one hand and his lantern in the other and proceeded into the tomb, passing under the image of a man with the wings of a grasshopper.