It Was Finally Time to Dance Gleefully Into Chaos
The Stage was set. The characters were made. Plans were made and notes were generated: I was going to start the campaign as a mix of my own ideas and the Turn of Fortune’s Wheel story that was included in the Planescape campaign. I was ready to go and excited.
Stupid Adult Life got in the way for a while. Game night kept getting postponed. Refusing to let that get me down, I kept on adding ideas upon ideas and the nebulous let’s-see-what-happens grand story coalesced in my head. By the time we actually got to play, I was even more excited to get my players entrenched into the series of ridiculous ideas I had in store for them. Mwahahahaha… uh, um, so, anyway, we finally got to play.
It was glorious.
We’re Not In Kansas Anymore…
The session started with giving each player a few moments to summarize what they were doing when they got spirited away.
Lynn described her Genasi fighter, whom we only know as Z, pulling her flail from the skull of a newly made corpse and gong toward a barn to deal with whatever was making noise inside when she was whooshed away. The Tabaxi bard named Hobbler, which Bob was playing, was drunkenly entertaining a crowd, when he went to get more ale and cheese in the basement, and opened the door but never got his cheese wedge. Q’or, the Githyanki Vengeance Paladin played by Chad was chasing a goblin for which he held a bounty: he chased him into a door and poof. Gone. Kera stated that her Swashbuckler was leaving school to rush home to a town she had been banished from when her Tiefling accidentally burned down her adoptive family’s home. She had heard there was a problem, but upon opening the door to leave Bitzie disappeared.
Then I told t hem that they felt themselves being pulled apart, but rebuilt from pieces they didn’t recognize, like they had been separated, sliced up and shuffled back together. like a stack of cards made from similar but not the same collections of cards they were similar but not quite themselves.
They had the feeling of being uncomfortably small and gloriously enormous simultaneously. For the briefest moment that seemed to stretch into eternity. In that infinite moment they were one with the current of time, a temporal rope unraveling before them into a collection of near-parallel strings. Pulled taught and vibrating, one snaps! Bam.
Bitzie opened the door into a dingy bathroom. Awkward. Q’or stumbled out of the back room and knocked a barmaid on her ass, dropping tankards on the ground as an exotic menagerie of patrons looked on in dismay. Hobbler ran into the back of the frustrated bartender, asking him to get out from behind his rusted sheet metal bar. Through the front door Z entered rather dramatically, swinging her flail about as she looked upon the confused bar patrons. Before her hung a man screaming on fire, casting ever shifting shadows about the place.
They had lost their memories for the most part, having no idea what had happened to them, they all found themselves in the Smoldering Corpse Bar. The four of them took an unoccupied table wearing a confused look and feeling an unexplainable attraction to each other. I left them at the table for a few moments, and allowed the awkward feeling to percolate a bit. They got some cheap drinks call bub. I let Z determine that they were in Sigil, since she herself was from the outlands and while she couldn’t remember what she did, she had a vague idea of where they were.
They chatted a little but, as a new group of players as well as characters, I anticipated the awkward hesitation. That’s why I planned an action scene.
Release the (Shadow) Hounds
As the tension between the players was building, since both they and the characters they were playing had no idea what was going on, I had a nine-foot tall devil bust through the door, complete with a Shadar-kai and a pack of Shadow Mastiffs, bust through the main door and proclaimed “IT’S THEM, GET EM!”
Patrons of the bar leap up and got in the way of the Devil and the Shadowfell elf. The Mastiffs start charging, dodging in between the patrons. Q’or and Z flipped the table and kicked it at the devil and his posse with a partricularly great roll: the Shadar-kai backflipped over the table and it hit the devil, which made it laugh.
The back door to the kitchen burst open and a translucent blue Plasmoid and a Warforged made of stone and wood appeared and screamed “this way, quick”. They felt the same attachment to the newcomers at the back door as they did to each other upon their arrival.
They ran for the back door and were told to go hide in the grease pit, which of course they didn’t know what the Grease Pit was but they kept on running. Couldn’t be worse than this cluster-fuck!
The Orthon Devil mentally talks to the group as they flee, making no real effort to chase them: I love a good hunt, it has been so long since I had to put some effort in. hehehe. This will be fun.
The new arrivals stopped two of the three Shadow Mastiffs, but one got past and chased them down. They fought it off, and chose to help the Plasmoid and Warforged. This fight really helped bring the team together, finding their roles and helping each other out. With the three hounds defeated and not wanting to get into an impossible fight with a Devil, they ran.
Stop in the Name of the Law(s of Reality)
Down the dark, damp rusted metal alley of the Hive Ward, brimming with sword like protrusions and leaning in above them like the walls themselves were ready to pounce, the group found themselves within the bustling activity of the Grease Pit, an alley filled with denizens of every type surrounded by the intoxicating aromas of food cooked out in the open. The Plasmoid that looked and smelled like blue-raspberry gelatin held in a vaguely humanoid shape led them to an Orc grilling up questionable meats with an imp so swollen with greasy grub that it looked like a basketball with tiny wings. With a nod, the group hid in a storage compartment while the orc slid a shelf a piece of furniture in the way to conceal their space and kept watch for them.
Hidden away and temporarily safe, the Plasmoid introduced himself as Jhell Oh’baron, or Jhell O to his friends, and the big man of wood and stone was Brickhouse, or simply Brick. They asked what in the fuck was going on. and they got a few largely unhelpful answers. Jhell cast a spell and a brand or sigil appeared above each of their hearts, a glowing circle with a constantly shifting outline of an hourglass, turning into a set of crossed scythes and then into the shape of a skull and back to an hourglass. He said a group found him and wanted to help, that there were more of them about and that they didn’t know what was going on yet but hoped to figure it out. First, though, they had to escape the Hive Ward and get to their hiding space in Undersigil.
When the coast was clear, they set out to find Jhell’s contact. They walked to the end of the street, found some questionable kababs and had a snack while the Plasmoid slid into a crack in the wall, leaving the group behind sort of numb and lost. They were snacking when they noticed a couple of guards in red platemail had stopped, and were eyeing them suspiciously.
The guards yelled Halt and proclaimed “You’re under arrest for violating the laws of the multiverse. We can do this the easy way.” These were members of the Harmonium, a peace by any means kind of police force, and they advanced with electrified mancatchers at the ready. Luckily, my players are not so murder-hobo that they were going to kill fantasy cops trying to do their job, but they were not about to get locked up, having had no control over what happened to them. Q’or and Z fought with the blunt of their blades to do non-leathal damage, while Bitzie tried to pistol whip, but it was Bob who made aggressive motions and spouted insults as his Bard cast heat metal on a guard in metal armor. That guy started roasting in his own armor as he tossed his weapon to the ground and started frantically attempting to doff his armor in full panic mode. The other two guards got softened up before lucky crits knocked them the fuck out, and the group ran.
And they fled right into Jhell O and his contact, an androgynous Shadar-kai elf that spoke in whispers and said to follow them. The group slipped into a small space between dilapidated metal buildings, a space where the warforged barbarian could not follow, so he would find his own way.
It was here, as the Harmonium arrived to throw a monkey wrench in the proceedings, that I found myself using the included adventure in place of my own notes. It was nice to have some structure to borrow, as I had learned with the opening of my Season Two game, I could easily get lost in world building and leave myself trying to show off my creations instead of telling a good story. Since I had given up making my own world, I found myself having more fun running better games as a whole. I was going to use some of the published Planescape adventure, but, I would not use all of it, nor would I ultimately go in the same direction, and anything I did use, I would add the Tyson seasoning to make it my own.
That means more fucked up. Mmm. Tastes good.
The Cake is a lie
My version of the Shadar-kai Farrow was to lead them through a secret way to the hideout that Jhell and Brick were trying to get the group to, assuring them that their contact would be willing to help. Lost and confused, the group had to have faith, and they followed the Shadar-kai into a terribly tight alley and to a sort of sewer grate with the visage of the Lady of Pain on it. From their they descended into the Undersigil.
They moved from the olfactory assault of a rusty sewer, into connecting tunnels and then through various unoccupied but still lived in basements moving through them in haste. As they entered a half-collapsed basement, at the center they find a rat. Not just any rat, but a Cranium rat, laying belly up upon a plate surrounded by the pink crumbs of what used to be a whole cake. Unable to move of its own accord, it’s brain pulses with light and talks to the heroes “Do what you must,” it says directly into their brains. “We have already won.”
Clearly entertained by the rat that gorged itself nearly to death, they asked questions of it. It spoke not of I, but we and us, and would give them no real information past that it answered only to the master, and not whom that may be. Q’or tried to pick up the rat and take it as a pet, but the dyspeptic cranium rat proclaimed “Don’t touch us!” and with that they left it alone and continued on their journey. Having not taken advantage of the defenseless rat, they were not attacked by the onlooking swarm and it even gave them some advice.
“Beware the scent of strawberry.” Ominous…
And here my dear readers, we come upon the Cakers Scene. You read that right. Taking the basis from the Wizards of the Coast published adventure, I took and ran with the ridiculous scene and had a great fuckin time with it.
The adventurers entered a long room, with three tunnels on each side spilling out onto raised platforms, each with a pair of dirty stone stairs down to the lower spillway. Sitting around a filthy and splintered long table were four grimy hooligans in soiled bakers outfits: three of which wore meaty, disheveled brutes with white face paint drinking tea from shattered and reassembled porcelain, complete with outstretched pinky fingers. The fourth, the matron, was quite pleased to see the newcomers and stood to greet them.
Upon the table, sat a multi-layered cake, complete with frosting, fruit and bat-like wings. Because of course. The saccharine strawberry smell assaulted their senses.
Oh, shit. They found themselves in the wrong rabbit hole.
“Come, dearies, join us for tea.” said the Matron in a high pitched but friendly croon. When they hesitated at the threshold, she demanded that they join the party in no uncertain terms. Our unlucky band of adventurers were informed about how the Coterie of Cakes believe that all of reality, the whole multiverse, is not but a many layered cake. Of course, with the aid of the new members like themselves, they could ascend to a proper above-ground faction in Sigil.
After a few minutes of awkward conversation, largely cake related, she then offered them some cake and again she was met with hesitation. Her pleasant demeanor fell and with a deep thunderous voice she demanded that they have cake.
After a couple of dice rolls, the PCs determined that under their plastered on makeup, they were indeed sick and that the cake was likely the culprit. the Matron used a command to force everyone to eat. Kera failed her roll and Bitzie was about to consume the questionable baked treat. The Tiefling was saved at the last second: right before Bitzie took a bite of the delicious strawberry and poison confection, Q’or knocked the sugary death from her hands.
They weren’t ganna take that shit! After desecrating the baked goods that in their eyes represented all of reality, the baking goons pulled rolling pins from below the table and attacked the PCs while the matron extracted her two-handed rolling pin and attacked Chad’s Paladin for ruining the sweet desert.
The fight started out as a fairly standard affair, but, then the fun began. Hobbler missed a baking goon with a firebolt, which instead ignited the cake and the smell of burnt sugar was joined by the Varguille Reflection that gave the cake its wings, eventually crushing it into the table with her flail Z fought the floating head. Hobbler battled the goons that instantly teleported from one tube to it’s partner on the opposite wall.
As the bakery based brutes fell below 10 hit points, I had them slump to the ground and pull cake from who-knows-where and shove it into their faces, the look of ecstacy streched across their faces. I described it like the War Boys from Fury Road, spraying chrome paint across their faces.
DIE HISTORICALLY ON THE CAKE ROAD! proclaimed Chad. A good laugh was had by all.
Since this was going to be the final scene of the evening, I decided to make it just a little more interesting, turning flavorful encounter into a bit of a boss fight. Up-scaling it. Like turning the Battle of Helm’s deep from a good chapter to a climax of the movie scale battle. When the Matron got cut, I described her blood as a sugary syrup. When she was finally defeated half-way through the battle, she got cut in half and collapsed into a disgusting heap of cake and entrails and she left behind a flying Varguille head
Plucked out of their lives across the multiverse against their wishes and striped of their memories, they had survived a few fun fight scenes, did some roleplaying as they discovered who they were or at least what they wanted and had a great time that evening. I wholeheartedly believe it was one of my best run sessions. Ever.
A little bit of official D&D, and a little bit of me. My players were engaged the entire time, clambering over each other with ideas of what they wanted to do. The most important part of running Dungeons and Dragons is making sure everyone is having fun. I nailed it that evening, largely because I was having a glorious time.
Before leaving work that day, I had mentioned to a coworker that I was performing that evening: I had to explain myself a bit. It’s true though, I have to put myself out there, give the facial expressions, some funny voices and just the right descriptions to fuel their imagination instead of boring them with every nitty-gritty detail. Together we started telling a story together. I can’t wait for the next session, to plunge back into Sigil and a setting where nearly anything goes.
Check back here if you want to live vicariously through more Planescape flavored antics. Mmm. Tastes like Strawberry…
Tyson
Obsessive and neurotic collector of little plastic men, novels about the same little plastic men and paints to make the little plastic men pretty. Married to Kera, who puts up with him and pretends that she doesn’t hear him speaking to the little plastic men in between making pew pew noises in the hobby room. Requires adult supervision. A menace to himself but rarely to others. More beard than man
