Mie RPG group: The Chronicles of Future Earth

[ashmie]

Last Friday we finally took on Chaosiums: Chronicles of Future Earth by Sarah Newton and I have to say had a chaotic blast.
It was gross, macabre and as Leslie pointed out very Metal.

What happened? Well it was the usual story of chaos corrupting a society and our PCs a Spiderfolk (Hsun), Verriki (standard Vulkan Elf alien race character) a gladiator and a lady servant to the Hsun going on a damn fool expedition to investigate.

They visited the precinct of Akemenek which lies outside the citadel within the metal walls of the city of Korudav. All is not well in the precinct of Akemenek. People have seen strange lights at night on Thermifex Hill and have heard weird rumblings and cries underground. People have disappeared, and anyone trying to see the Headman Bilisi Manu has been prevented by Typhor, the sinister new head of the guard. Typhor's men patrol the streets by night, and people whisper that they can no longer leave.

Our representatives of the Venerable Autocracy are sent by their respective temples to find out why the precinct authorities in this area have suddenly fallen silent and stopped sending reports to the citadel.
It doesn't take them long to find unknown to our player characters the tunnel leading to The Fortress of the Third Cyclad or Zemenegu. A name they may have uncovered from the ancient carvings if they hadn't failed their Occult rolls. But it's good for the story so I can reveal it's name now out of game.

What follows is a battle with two skeleton priests in rusted armour. A sensible decision to head west instead of forward towards the wind tunnel or east towards the tunnel with the electrical buzzing sound. They find three portals which are locked but luckily the Hsun character manages to succeed his Fine Manipulation roll and unlocks them, unfortunately he triggers a flamelance trap and the Virikki player (susceptible to fire) is burnt almost to a crisp. Roasted he spends a fate point and misses the flames. The Hsun successfully dodges and does a double back flip onto the opposite wall.
Through the portals they find a huge glowing pyramid that has a hole in it's side that leads to a lower level. Checking the floor below they talk with a swarm of Gimmerlings. What? You know chaos crawly beasties with not a lot of brain, about yay high to a dog. The Virikki does some mind psyonics and persuades them to clear off.

On descending through the pyramid to the lower level they find the walls and exits to be moving like a biological creature. The scenario text reads: Both exits are weird membranes which part rapidly in a sphincter type movement if touched.

Anyway after they descend they are set upon by 4 Chimaera, one from each corner of the chamber. One is goat like, the other is a large ram with snakes from it's back, one is a two headed dog and the other is a very large dog like Chimaera.
A fantastic battle follows and the party are safe.

They take the exit to the south and continue through the chaos warren. To their right is another Chimaera feasting in a grisly chamber of rotting flesh and bones crawling with maggots. They leave well alone and head left over a mostly harmless yellow slime pit.

Finally they are greeted by a wild boar like Chimaera who leads them to the master, the snake that walks, after the Virikki successfully casts talk with beasts.

They have an audience with a lizard type man with a giant squid on top of head. This was once Typhor the head of the guard. Next to him in a throne of slime and decay is the snake that walks. All that remains of Bilisi Manu former kateparch of Akemenek is a hideous semi-sluglike or snake appearance, constantly gibbering (much like the GM) and screaming in broken Sakaraic, occasionally lapsing into chilling moments of lucidity, when it plans for the expansion of it's domain. Rambling something about a planning machine in the lower levels to bring it's friends along to this world. Que the prog rock.

Needless to say our party hammer the living daylights out of this thing that should not be and it's cronies. They manage to lop off the squid like head of Typhor and send the snake that walks exploding into the biological wall that ends up eating it' s master.

We take a break and agree to finish the lower level 3 next time.

Hooray for dungeon crawls, or in this case chaos warren crawls.

It sounds mental but it really was good fun. It reminded me Dark Heresy in a futuristic Greek Myth setting. In terms of this being a one shot this should be finished next session. If any one has ideas of what they would like to play or run after be my guest.

[Moyashimaru]

I'm looking forward to getting back in the dungeon/lair/warren thingie. As for what's next, Dogs in the Vineyard? Kidding, kidding. I'll give it some thought (Maybe we'll convince Gordon or Dave to run something...)

[ashmie]

I could handle Dogs again if I was in the right frame of thought. IE: Not setting fire to buildings and shooting people in the foot.

[ashmie]

This 'one shot' scenario will conclude this Friday if folks are willing.
Leslie and Gordan, any thoughts if you are free from 9 on the 16th. Play at my house if you can.

[ashmie]

We finished The Chronicles of Future Earth scenario last month so here is a quick round up of what occurred.

After vanquishing the boss 'Snake that walks' and the Head of the Guard who now has a squid on his head our heroes descended to level 3. Here they encounter a huge Guardian of the Ancients or mechanical sentinel. Managing to distract the thing with fast talk and dodge their way past it through to a panel operated sliding door. (I think the Hsun spider got caught in said door in the process). They make it through to an underground technological laboratory. Irritating alarms are everywhere and flamelance traps protect a giant blue glowing computer machine in the centre of the room. The guardian of the ancients catches up with them and they manage to successfully hide in some clutter of unknown spare mechanical parts.
Finally moving on they pull a big red lever for no reason and the power is cut. There is a huge explosion as the ceiling begins to cave in and they can hear the explosion of the guardian in the previous chamber.

Cutting a long story short our heroes ascend an air tunnel and discover a Planning Machine. This is a huge electric portal made of stone that can transcend people into other worlds. When they find it the channel is tuned to a world of chaos and hellish abominations through the portal and also in the room with them are frozen chaos beings, again chimera, thralls and lizard creatures. The heroes quickly work out how to operate the machine and flick a switch that changes the world to one of prehistoric tranquility, rivers, mountains and clear blue skies. After shamelessly chopping up the frozen beings in the room the gladiator decides to throw a gold lire through the portal. It makes it and can be seen through the screen in the other world. Bold Marcus Gwaspari the gladiator goes it alone and ties a rope around his waste while the other two feed him into the foreign world. He makes it and seems to enjoy and appreciate his new environment of trees, rivers, and natural undisturbed beauty. However when they pull him back into our world he is now a frail old Gladiator of 90 years of age.

[ashmie]

Finally they find another side chamber that holds 6 sleeping coffins or stasis machines. There is a human in each one, 4 dead and 2 still living from the readouts of the machines. They revive the 2 survivors, one man is completely mad and attacks them and dies of shock. The other is a wise man from time immemorial. He was put into stasis around the time of the Armageddon of the Gods.
He and the planning machine are vital discoveries for our heroes and something their superiors at the Venerable Autocracy are going to want to know about. Well done.

Our scenario ends here but has enough to be continued with if we were to play again.

As an epilogue the gladiator player decides to return to the new world of prehistoric beauty and live out his life there as a young man rather as an old frail man of 90 on Urth. When he goes back through the portal he is returned to his original age.

Weird or what?


Post edit: I've just been correcting my spelling errors. So many. Too long in Japan perhaps. A frequent one is spelling 'no' as 'know'. Madness at last