Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[XcomSquaddie]

Hmmmm. I admire the Good Doctor for destroying the Brain Gear. I think many PC's would have gone closer to the edge before destroying it.

And speaking of seas of weeds, have you read "The Boats of the Glen Carrig"?

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10542
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Jack the sound barrier. Bring the noise.
-Rat Thing B-782

[SavageGamerGirl]

Updated with more of the session. There will be one more update.
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'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here.'
The Order of the Dice... OF DOOM!

[SavageGamerGirl]

Sorry it took so long to get it all done!

The journal for the last session is finally done.
_________________
'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here.'
The Order of the Dice... OF DOOM!

[SavageGamerGirl]

And I'll reveal this here. I told my players this as well.

The Eternal Sailor was a ship captain who got boggged down in the Sargasso Sea in the early 1600s. He went mad and killed and ate his entire crew. For this terrible crime, he was cursed to forever roam the Sargasso Sea, always suffering and never finding respite.

After Dr. Rutherford and Mr. Chesterfield blasted him to bits, his body re-formed somewhere else in the Sargasso Sea to continue his cursed existence.
_________________
'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here.'
The Order of the Dice... OF DOOM!

[haterofshame]

whoopee!!!! Good to have updates even though it took a while

[SavageGamerGirl]

I'm just flattered that others are getting enjoyment from this.

The session from this past Friday night drew inspiration from the Bermuda Triangle legends, the Land of the Lost, the Land that Time Forgot, and HP Lovecraft's Dreamlands.

Yeah, it got weird, but weird stuff happens in the Triangle...
_________________
'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here.'
The Order of the Dice... OF DOOM!

[haterofshame]

Weird = fun . absurd= fun.

[SavageGamerGirl]

Episode 27: The Island

(This adventure is a weird one. I drew inspiration from The Land of the Lost, the Bermuda Triangle legends, and, as you’ll soon see, H. P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands. This adventure is modified from the Call of Cthulhu adventure “The Pits of Bendal Dolum.”)

The Golden Skull was caught in a vicious storm at sea! Wind and waves lashed the deck, and it was all Pirate Pete could do to keep her from heeling over completely. Poor Dr. Rutherford was overcome with seasickness, and could do little to help. Eventually the storm abated, and the Skull sailed into a thick, eerie mist. Hitoshi flew out ahead of the ship to act as lookout. Suddenly, there came a sharp blow to the bottom of the ship, and a crewman ran to investigate. The news was grim. Several planks had been stove in, and the ship was taking on water. Pirate Pete could tell that the ship had struck a sandbar, but none were marked on his charts and besides, they were in deep water and the only known land, Bermuda, was still some distance away. The crew and the heroes did what they could to patch the damage, and while they slowed the leak they couldn’t stop it. If they couldn’t find a place to haul in for repairs, the Golden Skull was doomed! Luckily, the presence of a sandbar told Pirate Pete that an island was fairly close.

Several minutes later, they spotted another ship sailing the opposite direction, barely visible through the fog. She was a single-masted vessel, under full sail, with lights on the deck. They called out to the other ship, but there was no reply. It passed them by and vanished into the thick fog. The crewman on the sounding ropes informed them that the bottom as coming up fast, and eventually they could see the dark shape of the island looming up at them. The mist suddenly parted, and before them sprawled a beautiful tropical island with swaying palm trees, white sand beaches, and the sound of rushing fresh water. Pirate Pete brought the ship into the shallows, and the crew and heroes pulled her ashore. The Golden Skull needed to be careened so the carpenter could fix the damage. Pete informed everyone that they’d probably be here for a few days. They’d need fresh water and provisions, and luckily for them the island appeared to have plenty of both. After all, that other vessel was apparently leaving the island, and if they’d spent any time here there had to be some means of sustenance.

It took many hours to get the ship ashore and unloaded of her cargo and ballast, and in that time Dr. Rutherford and Mr. Chesterfield made a most interesting observation. In all that time, the sun had not seemed to move! They checked their timepieces, and they, too, appeared to have stopped. Most peculiar! With that observation foremost in their minds, they began to take note of other oddities. There was no high-tide mark on the shore, nothing to indicate that the waves ever reached any further up the beach than their present place. It was as if time was, literally, standing still. They began to devise a series of experiments to test this unique environment.

Meanwhile, the others had ventured inland both out of curiosity and to search for possible provisions. Mr. Chesterfield sent his new animal companion, a hawk, along with them with instructions to send it back to him with a message attached should they find anything. Janette and Paul located a narrow fresh water river, so their concerns about drinking water were happily allayed. By the river they also found a small pyramid of rock, about a yard high and covered in vines, that appeared to have been built by human hands. A little further along, deeper into the jungle, stood another such pyramid, and another beyond it. They called Hitoshi and Gunther to join them, and, having nothing better to do at the moment, followed the trail of pyramids to see where they led. After about an hour of chopping through the jungle, a wide clearing spread out before them. Standing in the clearing, towering over square pit 10 ft. deep and dozens of feet across, was a Mayan-looking step pyramid. To either side of the pit were tall, square monoliths carved with images of strange, tentacled creatures that almost hurt the eyes to look at for very long. Hitoshi felt that this place was somehow familiar, but he couldn’t quite remember why. The party spread out to investigate the curious site. They sent Mr. Chesterfield’s hawk back to him to inform him of their discovery.

Back on the beach, Dr. Rutherford had found that objects of different mass still fell at the same rate, Mr. Chesterfield had set up two sticks to test whether or not the sun really was still or if it was some trick of the eye. He could gauge whether or not their shadows moved. After some time of observation, he noted that the shadow had moved, but in reverse of the expected direction. Most curious…

At the Mayan pyramid the party was well spread out when there came a tremendous roar from within the jungle. No sooner had the party turned in that direction when a massive beast stomped out of the trees and sniffed the air. It was a great lizard, balanced on two powerful legs with a great, rectangular head. It’s mouth was filled with dagger-like teeth. (Yup, a T. Rex.) Janette sought cover by one of the ugly monoliths, while Gunther scaled the pyramid to get out of the beast’s reach. Hitoshi flew beside him. Paul, however, was caught out in the pit before the pyramid, and the huge reptile apparently spotted him. It made for the ramp that led down into the pit, and roared again. There came another roar, this time from Gunther’s musket barrel. The shot rang true, and the great beast fell before Paul with a powerful thud. (I spent bennies… lots of them… my poor T. Rex couldn’t roll a decent soak to save his life… literally!) By now, Dr. Rutherford and Mr. Chesterfield had come upon the scene, and were fascinated by the body of the great beast. They had never seen the like of such a creature! Several party members took teeth as trophies. They found an odd golden medallion several inches across with what appeared to be a symbol of the sun on one side. A closer look revealed that some of the sun rays were actually tentacles, some were clenched fists and hoofed feet. Most unusual. Paul fund an obsidian dagger, and claimed it as his own.

Once reunited, the party explored the temple complex, and soon found a wall mural that appeared to be a map. They could see the shore, the line of small pyramids, and the temple they currently stood before. A short distance away, to the southwest, was a larger, more elaborate pyramid. On the map, another series of smaller pyramids lead the way. After a short search, they found these markers and followed them to see what was to be seen.

True to the map, they eventually came to another wide clearing. This pyramid was thrice the size of the other one, and before it, instead of a pit, there was a stagnant lake. A maze-like walkway allowed access from the shore to the pyramid proper, apparently built right up from the depths of the lake. Hitoshi’s odd feeling of déjà-vu was even stronger here. He was certain he had been here before.

Cautiously, they entered to look around. Gunther and Mr. Chesterfield went one direction, Paul went another, and Dr. Rutherford, Hitoshi, and Janette made straight for the great pyramid. The place was eerily quiet, and there were no insects, nor frogs, nor fish, nor any signs of the wildlife one would expect in a stinking bog. Gunther and Mr. Chesterfield found a room filled with skeletons bedecked in golden jewelry, which arose as they entered the room. Thanks to their skills with magic and musket, however, the undead creatures were little threat, and soon the party was reunited to split the wealth. Paul found an atlatl, which Mr. Chesterfield was able to indicate was magical.

Janette, Dr. Rutherford, and Hitoshi told the others what they’d seen at the pyramid’s apex: a great distorted stone face with an opening in one eye just about the size of that medallion Mr. Chesterfield was carrying. Perhaps it wasn’t a medallion, but a key…

Mr. Chesterfield was unwilling to try to use the gold medallion as a key (he does have the Cautious Hindrance, after all), but Dr. Rutherford offered him a wager. He bet the magician that they would not meet a hideous death if the face was actually a door. If he was right, Mr. Chesterfield would have to fund his next invention. If they were wrong… well… they’d all be dead and it wouldn’t matter anyway. Amused, but still expressing serious misgivings, Mr. Chesterfield approached the stone face and placed the medallion in the empty eye socket. With a crack, the head suddenly broke into pieces, revealing a passageway winding down into the pyramid. Steeling themselves about what might be found down there, the party entered and began making their way down the stairs. On and on and down and down they went, far deeper than they thought possible for the size of the pyramid. Suddenly, the stairs were no more, vanishing out from beneath them with nary a sound and sending them all plunging into the darkness.

After a few seconds they came to the realization that they were not falling as fast as they should. For some reason, they were floating gently to ground as light as feathers. They touched down after a few minutes, with no injuries. How bizarre. They were on a black, featureless plain that stretched out in all directions around them. As with the pyramids above, Hitoshi had the strangest feeling about this place. This was all somehow familiar to him. Their curiosity about this strange limbo grew when, in the distance, they saw a dim red light flare up. As it was the only landmark, they started to make their way towards it. Even though the light seemed far, far away at first, they found themselves right beneath it in only a few strides. As odd as the island above was, this place was even odder. The red light came from a crystal hemisphere situated above an open archway of stone. A great stone wall towered above them and to each side as far as they could see. They tried to venture through the archway, but their passage was blocked by an invisible barrier. Hitoshi flew up to examine the crystal hemisphere, and found it to be cool to the touch and unresponsive to any sort of manipulation. Overcoming his caution, Mr. Chesterfield approached the invisible barrier and touched the golden medallion to it. There was an audible *POP!* and the way was opened to them. In the center of the room beyond they could now see a shiny black pillar rising from an apparently bottomless pit. At the far end was another archway, with a phrase in several languages etched into the stone. One was in Latin, which Dr. Rutherford and Mr. Chesterfield could read. It said Speci Animae, The Caves of Life.

The caverns beyond were a twisting maze of stone with occasional strange, glowing crystals embedded in the walls. Eventually they came to a room with walls covered in strange, alien pictographs. In the middle of the room was a single pillar of glowing rosy quartz. In a flash of inspiration (brought about by an Adventure Card), Dr. Rutherford realized that he could actually read them. It would take some time, but he could translate the phrases on the walls. Hitoshi, too, realized that the letters were known to him, and decided to see what they said. He assumed the Lotus position and meditated, humming the ancient words as they came to him. He soon fell into a deep trance, and was provided with a vision. He saw the Earth hanging in the void, and a weird, disk-like dream-Earth beside it. He saw a spark thrown from the dream-Earth to the real Earth, whereupon a black blight formed at the point of contact. The blight grew and grew until the entire planet had been transformed into a dull, black globe. He awoke from his vision and related to the others what he had seen. All of them remembered the many times they’d encountered demons and otherworldly spirits, and how each one had spoken of a war to come. This, perhaps, was a vision of that dreadful time.

Another archway led out of this room, and they wandered through it to find themselves in a vast subterranean cavern hundreds of feet across and stretching into the distance out of sight. Massive, cyclopean columns stretched to heavens, presumably holding up the ceiling far overhead in the darkness. The ground was covered in soft black sand, and, at the edge of their vision, they could make out the whitecaps on the waves of a great underground phosphorescent blue sea. A black pier of obsidian stretched out hundreds of feet into the water, and strange round dome-like structures clustered on the shore indicated an ancient village of some kind, now long abandoned.

They had little time to investigate the ancient village, however, as a large black galley appeared on the horizon. The ship’s huge oars pulled it ever closer, and the party sought what hiding places they could find. Soon, the great ship eased up to the pier and disgorged its sailors, who busied themselves tying the ship off with long ropes. The men were somewhat human-looking, but terribly ugly, with odd turbans heaped upon their heads. They walked with a strange, hobbling gait. The sailors came ashore and started setting up a camp, jabbering and gibbering in a weird language none of the party recognized. Hitoshi wanted to get a better look, and tried to fly up into the darkness of the cave, but he was seen. The captain of the ship seemed to notice him, and smiled, waving him down to come join them. The sailors weren’t posing a threat, so he agreed to do so. The captain asked him to have his companions join them, speaking in oddly accented English, as they meant no harm, and one by one the party came out from their hiding places. They remained wary, however. There was something namelessly unwholesome about the sailors and their odd ship. The captain introduced himself as Shoraasa, and offered them a drink from a bottle seemingly carved from a single huge ruby. None of them accepted the offer. Paul and Gunther engaged the captain in conversation, and got him to admit (via a few last-minute Adventure Cards played at the end of the session) that they were sailors from the Plateau of Leng, and they had set sail from the great port of Dylath-Leen. None of those names had any meaning to the heroes. Asked if there was anyone still aboard the ship, Shoraasa cryptically replied, “All of my men are ashore.” He did not elaborate. He once more bid the heroes to join his men in the camp, gesturing to the comfortable-looking campfire with an eerie grin on his ugly face.
_________________
'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here.'
The Order of the Dice... OF DOOM!

[SavageGamerGirl]

I just wanted to give a heads up that my Colonial Fantasy campaign is winding down. It'll probably end around "Episode 30" or so, with the characters about half way through Heroic rank.

It's been a good run, about 2 years, but I feel it's time to move on to something new.

For a long time I'd been wanting to run Space: 1889 as my next campaign, but I recently got 50 Fathoms and really liked that one, too. So I put it to my players what to do, and after some discussion this past Friday night they ultimately decided on the latter.

So, in a month or so Colonial Fantasy will end and I'll begin my 50 Fathoms campaign.

The problem is that I'll be using the Plot Point in the book, and posting a session journal of it would by default have to include spoilers. I'm not quite sure what to do about the 50 Fathoms journal yet...
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'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here.'
The Order of the Dice... OF DOOM!

[Sitting Duck]

Others have posted their session reports from when running PPCs. One of the most notable was the Necessary Evil campaign Gospog played in (if you haven't read it, you should).
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The rabbit is cuddly. Kids like little cuddly sidekicks. I mean-- The rabbit-- It's a time-tested-- Okay, the rabbit bites.
Blog: http://sittingduck1313.livejournal.com
Evil Wig Enterprises Minion #10 - The Fink

[SavageGamerGirl]

Episode 28: The Ship
The heroes were still trying to make sense of what the strange black ship’s captain and crew were telling them. They said that they had never before been to this strange cave, but they knew that it was called the Cave of Life. It came out in conversation that the strange sailors had been ordered here by “their master,” but they refused to say who their master was — perhaps they didn’t truly know. The captain insisted that they come aboard his ship, saying that they were to be his honored guests. He added that they couldn’t stay here, for “the Mother” would soon arrive. This, too, led to suspicion about just how much he knew about this place.

Things got more and more tense between the heroes and the strange sailors, and before long weapons were drawn. Janette challenged Shoraasa to a duel, and as they traded thrusts and parries it became obvious to her that he wasn’t striking to injure her, but to disarm her. Soon there came a loud wailing, roaring, rushing sound from somewhere in the depths of the cave the heroes had just come from, accompanied by the sound of hundreds of running feet both hooved and fleshy. Something unknowably horrifying was coming, and before any further blows could be exchanged the strange sailors turned and fled in a mad dash up the dock back to their ship. Shoraasa, who happened to be facing the tunnel exit, suddenly gasped and dropped to his knees. The merest sight of the thing that was squeezing its bloated form from the cave mouth was enough to nearly stop his heart! Gunther squeezed off a single shot at the beast, inflicting no noticeable injury at all. He and a few others saw the monstrous thing, and would later struggle to find words to describe exactly what it was that they had seen. As everyone else made a mad dash away from the cosmic horror, Janette casually strolled up the deck. (Terror rolls at −4 for seeing only a fraction of none other than Shub-Niggurath! Had they waited any longer it would have been… unfortunate…) Hitoshi dragged the unconscious body of Shoraasa along, saying that despite his mistrust of the strange ship captain he couldn’t leave him to such a horrid fate.

Once everyone was on board, the long oars slid back into the water, and the unseen rowers heaved the galley away from the dock and out into the phosphorescent blue waters. The ship crew ignored the heroes after that, going about their business of running the ship as it left the Cave of Life behind and sped out into the shimmering waters of a vast ocean.

Soon, Shoraasa had recovered, and began barking orders to his men. Janette claimed that she was now the ship’s captain since she’d defeated him. She returned his sword to him and dared him to take it up if he wanted to challenge her again. He did, and this time was not holding back his attacks. He came at her ferociously, but her superior skill with a blade caused him to once more be humiliated. She easily batted aside his attacks, returning each one with a skillful riposte. With a final thrust of her rapier, she slew Shoraasa and let his blood spill onto the decks. As he pitched forward and fell dead, his strange turban fell from his head to reveal strange backward-curved horns on his head. With hardly a sound, the crew shrugged and dragged their dead captain to a trap door at the bow of the ship and threw the body below decks. Moments later there came the sickening sound of breaking bones and rending flesh. Then all was silent again. Janette took Shoraasa’s sword and thrust it into the deck, daring anyone else to take it up and challenge her right to be captain. The sailors just returned to their work as though nothing had happened.

While the others were trying to work out a plan on how to take control of the ship, Janette entered the captain’s cabin and found it to be lavishly decorated in a Persian style. It was piled high with comfortable pillows and draped with silks and fine tapestries. A golden decanter caught her attention, and, upon filling a nearby goblet, she found it to contain a very fine French wine. The best she’d ever sampled. She also found a map, labeled oddly enough in English, and was able to locate the city of Thalarion that Shoraasa had mentioned. The landmasses and islands were completely unfamiliar to her. Dr. Rutherford and Mr. Chesterfield were repeating their experiments from the island, and found that time was passing at the proper and expected rate. Paul, Gunther, and Hitoshi searched the ship, and Hitoshi discovered a pair of human hands hanging out of barred windows beneath the captain’s cabin. They found another trap door by the cabin door, and ventured below to see what was down there. One of the sailors tried to stop them, but soon thought better of it with a suitable show of aggression on the part of the heroes. He did insist on going down with them, however.

The stairs led to a prison cell lined with shackles on the walls. Paul shuddered at the implications. A human male was standing under the aft windows, apparently delighted to see other creatures besides the odd sailors. As the party went about freeing him, the man introduced himself as Andrew Trellaine, of London. He listened with obvious wonder to their story of how they arrived here, and explained that although he’d heard that physical travel to the Dreamlands was possible he always thought that it was a myth. He told the heroes that his body was back in the Waking World, in a deep, opium-induced slumber. They asked how he got on the ship, and said that he should have known better than to board this dark ship at Dylath Leen. He was hoping to have been in Celephais or the Vale of Ooth-Nargai by now. As before, none of these strange names meant anything to the heroes.

As they talked, Trellaine’s mood changed, and he became concerned. He said that he’d heard the ancient sorcerer called Ankoku Kyō. (Ankoku Kyō was Haon-Dor in the original module, but I wanted to change it to something suitable for my campaign. It may be dreadfully incorrect, but according to Google Translate Ankoku Kyō is Dark Lord in Japanese.)

As soon as the name Ankoku Kyō was mentioned, the sailor with them shrieked and ran back upstairs. The party followed him, and were attacked by the sailors up on deck. The odd men drew weapons and seemed to be targeting Trellaine at first, but spared no attacks on the heroes when they defended the man. They were no match for the heroes’ superior skill at arms, and soon all lay dead on the deck. The party tossed their bodies overboard, and debated what to do next. The ship had no steering wheel or tiller, and was entirely under the control of the mysterious rowers below.

Trellaine warned them not to go into the rower’s compartment, for down there was only madness and death. The rowers, he explained, were horrible moon-beasts, and were best left alone. In a vain attempt to change the ship’s course, the heroes took down her sails and rigging, tying one end of the rigging to the sturdy mast. The sails they tossed overboard, hoping to cause drag that would veer the ship to starboard and towards land. It made little difference however, for the ship continued on its rapid course, ever on and ever westward towards the horizon. At one point, Hitoshi noticed that the kami spirit of the waterfall racing along in the water beside the ship (brought about by the playing of an Ally adventure card). She told him that this was his destiny, and, one way or another, his troubles would soon be at an end. The often-hinted war in the celestial realms was coming to pass, and he and his companions had a part to play in it. She told him that she was going to request help from the Seven Lucky Gods and vanished from sight.

Soon two dark spots appeared on the horizon, which resolved into tremendous pillars of stone as the ship drew nearer. Between these great monoliths she ship rushed, over a powerful cataract larger than any ever before witness by the eyes of human kind.

Rather than falling to their doom, however, the heroes realized that they were now floating not on water but in the blackness of space itself, hurtling with terrifying speed towards the looming moon. Some strange, winged, worm-like beast hovered just on the edge of their vision, but great flashes of light burst before the ship and sent it wriggling away. It seemed that someone was protecting them. Eventually the ship rounded the curve of the moon and hovered in low over the eerie landscape. The heroes’ minds reeled at the sights before them. The ship plopped down in an oily black sea as the oars were once again thrust out into the water to propel the ship towards the tall spires of a truly alien city on the shore. They could but wonder what lay in wait for them on its docks…
_________________
'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here.'
The Order of the Dice... OF DOOM!

[SavageGamerGirl]

Episode 29: The Moon
(And so comes the final session of my Colonial Fantasy campaign. It was a good run, the characters are well into the Heroic rank, and I’m ready to move on to something new. That new something will be 50 Fathoms, the first session of which will be next Friday, July 27th.)

The heroes had little time to ponder the strange, alien city before them. The forward trap door burst open, and the black galley vomited forth its hideous crew of rowers. Six flopping, frog-like Moon-Beasts surged up from below, flailing at the heroes with their long, cruel spears. Paul was stricken to his core at the sight of the horrible abominations (and picked up a Major Phobia of Trap Doors from the roll on the Fear table). As the Moon-Beasts flopped across the deck, Dr. Rutherford called forth an Earth Elemental and retreated with Trellaine into the relative safety of the captain’s cabin. As they fought, the heroes realized that the Moon-Beasts weren’t attacking to kill, only to capture. They thought of what unspeakable fates awaited them should the foul things take them alive, and the heroes fought all the harder and eventually emerged victorious.

Hitoshi once again had that powerful feeling of déjà-vu, and told the others that he was going to follow this feeling through to whatever awaited him here. The others agreed to accompany him, although the cautious Mr. Chesterfield and the terrified Andrew Trellaine were reluctant until reminded that they’d be on their own if they stayed on the ship. The party wandered through the bizarre city, marveling at its alien and cyclopean architecture. The gibbering, naked Men of Leng did not impede them or even seem to take notice of them as they made their way along the narrow streets. Soon, Hitoshi’s instinct took them beyond the strange buildings and maze-like streets, out into the even stranger landscape of the lunar planes. They eventually came to a large crater and, looking down into the yawning abyss, they saw a temple complex identical to the one they’d explored before they came to this strange place. As they drew near, they suddenly noticed a tall, slender, humanoid form standing by the staircase that ascended the ziggurat at the center of the complex. It beckoned them forth, its features hidden deep in the shadowy hood of a flowing black robe.

They drew nearer still, cautiously, and the mysterious figure introduced himself as Ankoku-Kyō, Master of the Temple of Bendal Dolum. The heroes demanded to know who he was and why they’d brought him here, and he drew back his hood to reveal a face identical to Hitoshi’s. Ankoku-Kyō explained that he was an ancient sorcerer of a race long extinct, and that he had once nearly gained control of the waking world. He was defeated and slain, however, and his spirit was banished forever to the Moon of Earth’s Dreamlands. Over the centuries, he claimed, he had brokered a deal with the Daimyo of the Oni—Hitoshi was to be his vessel of flesh and a means to return to his former power. He would be reborn in Human form on Earth, and from there he would open a gate between Earth and the Dreamlands to allow the oni to pass through at their leisure, with him as their general. The Daimyo offered up his own daughter to be sent to Earth to bear a child for Ankoku-Kyō to possess. What was not counted upon, however, was that the Daimyo’s daughter would truly love her half-Human child and would seek to keep him from his dreadful fate. Celestial forces also discovered this plot and sent a warrior to Earth to hunt down and destroy the child. The mother fled to a remote monastery in the mountains of Japan, and during the journey the warrior struck the child with a demon-slaying arrow. The child survived to be raised by the humble monks after the Daimyo’s daughter and the warrior killed each other in combat. The magic of the arrow, combined with the deep meditations and discipline of the monks, allowed Hitoshi to avoid unknowingly becoming Ankoku-Kyō’s gateway. Through many powerful spells and manipulations, Ankoku-Kyō had finally succeeded in bringing his other half here. Hitoshi and his companions wished to return to Earth, and Ankoku-Kyō wished to let them go. He stood aside to let them climb the ziggurat and return home—with the forces of Hell on their heels.

Naturally, they refused.

With a demonic growl, Ankoku-Kyō called forth a force of demon soldiers led by a horrific trio of gladiator demons to force them to carry out his master plan. Combat erupted immediately as the demons growled and leaped into the fray. Hitoshi forced his way to the ziggurat to confront his ‘evil twin,’ whilst the others did all they could to keep the demons from taking them against their will. Paul proved to be quite a fearsome warrior when so greatly pressed, and slew one after another of the demonic soldiers that swarmed him (the first time Paul used his nifty new Sweep Edge, and boy did it pay off!). Dr. Rutherford bolstered his allies’ defenses, and called up a magical sentinel to engage the demons. Janette managed to disentangle herself from the gladiator demon and the soldiers that surrounded her, and charged up the ziggurat to help Hitoshi and get her own measure of vengeance against Ankoku-Kyō. Mr. Chesterfield was struck down by one of the little demons as it tackled him and gnawed a hank of muscle from his leg. Paul and Dr. Rutherford’s sentinel ran to help him, and Dr. Rutherford poured a healing potion down his throat to keep him from passing on. The wound was a grisly one, however, and from that day forth Mr. Chesterfield would have a pronounced limp (in all this time of gaming, this was the only permanent injury that was ever rolled. Also, Gunther’s player was unable to make this session, but one can assume that he was present and assisted in his own skillful way with the combat at hand). Between them, Hitoshi and Janette soon battered down Ankoku-Kyō’s defenses, and Hitoshi knocked the demonic sorcerer from the peak of the ziggurat with a powerful kick. The sorcerer was badly injured, but the two heroes could see his wounds closing before their very eyes. More had to be done to end his threat for good.

Hitoshi asked Dr. Rutherford and Mr. Chesterfield to make sure that he didn’t die. Desperate times called for desperate measures! Without another word, Hitoshi plunged his hand into his own chest, forcing his hand between his own ribs to rip out, once and for all, the demon-slaying arrowhead that had been buried there since he was an infant. He would slay Ankoku-Kyō with the weapon that was meant to do so all those years ago. Janette stood over Ankoku-Kyō’s body, making sure that he was unable to stand up, striking him down and visiting upon him all manner of injury and insult, her magical rapier making it all the easier. After healing ministrations from the party doctors (one magical, one scientific), Hitoshi staggered back to the squirming, bloodied form of his demonic half and drove the arrowhead deep into his heart. With a wail of pain and rage, Ankoku-Kyō faded from sight, a wisp of black smoke that dissipated into the air.

With his threat finally ended, the party assembled to take the gate at the top of the ziggurat back home. Hitoshi declined to come with them, however, saying that he would lead Andrew Trellaine back to safer lands so the poor man wouldn’t be marooned here with the Moon-Beasts. Mr. Rutherford gave him the medallion of Shub-Niggurath, saying that he might need it should he come upon another barrier between this world and Earth. Having said their goodbyes, the remaining heroes climbed to the peak of the ziggurat and stepped through the portal.

The awoke being tended to by the crew of the Golden Skull, on the beach of that strange island where time did not seem to behave as one would expect. Pirate Pete told them that they’d been found unconscious at the top of a strange pyramid a few hours ago, and he and the crew had taken them back to the beach to look after them until they awoke. He wondered about Hitoshi, and the party told him the strange story of what they had been through. Before long, the ship was under way again, leaving the strange timeless island behind. As they entered the encircling fog bank once again, they noticed another ship passing the other way, going towards the island. Their minds reeled again as they came upon the realization that the ship was the Golden Skull… and therefore the ship they saw when they first came to the island was them as well.

The fog bank lifted, and they made their way back to Bermuda, and then, ultimately, back to America for good.
_________________
'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here.'
The Order of the Dice... OF DOOM!

[haterofshame]

Ma'am I tip my hat to you...