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Unfathomable! Session 7

 The Dogs of Destiny visit the far-flung future and relics of the ancient past.

The Campaign: Operation Unfathomable! and Odious Uplands!, both by Jason Sholtis

The Ruleset: 5e

The Party:

  • Brother Ded, a monk/political shit-stirrer. (absent)
  • Mort, a fugitive from Imperial justice.
  • Greta, a baby-eating hag-turned-Citizen Lich. (absent)
  • Ulther, a ranger and artifact smuggler. (absent)
  • Zinee, a wooly neanderthal druid/cosmetologist. 
  • Toljin, a magical boy raised by pirates. 
  • Doloth, an unwilling-Citizen Lich.

The Story So Far

The PC Party, ye Dogs of Destiny, have entered the Underworld in pursuit of the fabulous Nul Rod. They have contended with murder-crazed worm soldiers, an ape myrmidon, mutated mutineers, and more psychic mind-bats and giant pill bugs than would have been their preference.


This Session

The PCs faced two paths forward: the north-curving Hell's Back Road, or a little tunnel running southeast. Further up Hell's Back Road, they saw flashes of purple light and heard distant sizzling sounds. At the mouth of the southeast tunnel, they found some torn scraps of bloody fabric. They went southeast.

They encountered the seemingly-endless googolpede crossing through the tunnel at breakneck-speed, and got a few dings trying to jump over the hurtling arthropod/obstacle. Then they found a chamber that had a glowing portal on the south wall, and a man dying under a pile of rocks at the north end. 

The man turned out to be the Dread Pirate Goddard, the antagonist-father-figure of Toljin. Goddard had purportedly gone down into the Underworld with all his best magical loot in order to earn a place in the Afterlife by dying in a fight against the forces of Chaos. Toljin had come looking for a way into the Underworld in order to find Goddard and try to get some answers out of the old man about his life. Now, Toljin had found him, seconds away from expiring. Doloth readied his healing spells, but Goddard wheezed, "It will take more than your magic to knit this broken body... (wet cough) I've only lived this long by GM fiat... (horrible sputtering intake of breath)."

Goddard indicated a pocket containing a bundle of letters written in code, and told Toljin that he had to deliver these to Mother Futility in "the Temple of nNnnuuhhhhrrh..." and expired.

The body was swiftly looted, yielding up some magic items, but the party needs Greta to get back from Spring Break before they'll be able to identify any of them.

They then explored the glowing portal, which lead to a broom closet. Once in the closet, they heard a voice in their head.

Voice: Welcome to the Department of Cosmology at Omni-Cosmic University. Do you consent to psionic translation services? Yes or No?

Doloth: Yes.

Voice: Current settings are PanGal Trade Basic. Would you like to upgrade to Premium Translation Services? Yes or No?

Doloth: Yes!

Voice: Apologies. Your credit record is not on file. Please report to campus security for visitor authorization.

Zinee: Here! Have some gold!

Voice: …

The found themselves in a far-flung sci-fi future (modeled on Star Frontiers), eavesdropping on a conversation between three aliens. Thanks to Psionic Translation Services, they were able to catch a few bits of conversation, discussing the disappearance of on Professor Zabon Gormontine and the existence of a "Spatio-Temporal Fistula." Mort decided to grab a mop out of the broom closet and bust in on the aliens, pretending to be a janitor. Mort, who was dressed in medieval leather armor, carrying a sword, and hadn't bathed in six days, failed a stiff Deception check, and the aliens called security. The PCs retreated back into the past will due haste.

Moving on, they discovered an Ancient Beetle site: the Beetletown Welcome Center and Dwellings. They witnessed some beetle ghosts engaged in esoteric behaviors and were attacked by giant cave swallows who stole all their rope to add to their nest. They explored some Beetle domiciles, upset a bunch of giant pill bugs, and were very nearly killed. 

Then they met a cute but depressed little mushroom guy, Dr. Ukrumus Flaughf, College of Godling Studies, Fungoid Institute of Science. Between bouts of lamenting the rejection of their dissertation, Dr. Flaughf provided some valuable information about the status of Chaos godlings in the region. Namely, that their had been two recent begettings: Sephilax, who had spent weeks going through a series of bodily transformations until it could find a suitable one; and Thrantrix, a whirling ball of levitating snakes who was still in her post-begetting bloodlust phase. They also told the PCs that "Mother Futility" sounded like the sort of name adopted by the Cult Priests of Nul, who could be found in their Temple on the Devil’s Highway.

Mort tried to recruit Dr. Falughf to the party to serve as local knowledge. The morose fungoid found this prospect exhausting, and announced that they were returning to the abandoned Beetle dwelling they'd been squatting in to go "lie down on a beetle bed and stare at the ceiling until I grow roots."

With that, ye Dogs of Destiny settled into an abandoned Beetle dwelling of their own for a long rest. This ended Day Three in the Underworld, and everyone reminded themselves to take their red anti-chaos pills in the morning.

Next Session

We won't meet this week, but when we come together again, there will a lot of different paths they could go down. I'd better make sure they're all prepped!
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