Campaign Notes Part 3

The series continues. Minimally edited and even less playable. Enjoy?

You douse the fire. Steam and smoke flood the shore and mingle with the mist hanging on the surface of the water.

Plunged into a vault of mist - silence; you can hardly see the rest of the party  - a soft light , the low honk of a horn   - the light resolves; forms a skull in the fog; then you see the lamp  - wrought iron lantern of a edvard munch scream, white electric light pouring from eyes and mouth   - THE BOAT, the chugging of a motor; hull looks like strips of metal wasp-paper curling around a precious cargo, a cabinfull of ghoulish passengers   - a gothic combustion engine and propeller assembly at the stern churns the river into froth  - the cabin is stained glass and metal, can see silhouettes within, murmuring conversation, some passengers lean off the side but all give the ferryman a wide berth   - at the prow stands THE FERRYMAN; raises a hand and the boat pulls to a stop by the shore - two wire thralls slap a sheet metal ramp onto the beach - he is a tall hulk wrapped in fur coats and brass wire   -fishbowl helmet, inside swirling black smoke, two tiny points glowing like stars   - skeletal hands bedecked with rings and bracelets    - wields dire magics, can call the water forth to strangle and restrain, can rise on cold winds, then floats over and blasts you with a sawn off shotgun - controls the boat with one of his rings, opals in a propeller pattern    - silent, polite, stoic. You paid him after all. Doesn’t ask questions visavis being dead, but will boot you if you’re obviously not  - has 800 silver worth of rings and shit, also his eyes fall when killed and roll around inside the fishbowl, eclipsed suns, swallowing one grants CURSED ABMORTALITY

SEVEN “SOULS” RIDE THE FERRY

Outside the cabin: Bok-tet, a kaballist, human leather coat, a shard of obsidian ritual knife hung about the neck. A lucky member of the blue god conspiracy, was granted undeath by his deity before it was annihilated, you’ll find lots of ghouls from around then. The tell-tale rings of the Dead God’s touch. Rebellious, callous, harsh, still dedicated to the tenets that lead him to his forbidden worship – that death is a malfunction, the end of all mourning, etc. Aware this would lead to his starvation, now.

Mollusca Iona, skin like yellow parchment, fat and luxurious, biomechane visor, blinky light bulb jewelry; she is a frequent visitor of the market, murmurs deeply, “hope the band is more lively this year… those princes should be an interesting display… have to remember to finally sample that stew…” 

HISTORY: First bite was at a dark aristocratic dinner in the now-fallen Decapolitan city of Ulkan in the Orangelands, 900 years ago. Red candles, weeping servants. Weeping guests too, once they tasted the meat. Exquisite. Used vast wealth to replace failing organs, eyes, etc, but soon was mostly unnecessary since, like all ghouls if they last long enough, her expanding labyrinthine digestive system does all the work.

Hunder and Yuna, orphan children, skeleton siblings, look out for each other. Hunder has a floppy cap, Yuna has dressed up for the occasion, spell engines grip their spines, escaped from a mad sorcerer’s basement laboratory. Untrusting, dark jokes, Hund is glum, Yuna is a realistic optimist. Not ghouls, but welcome at their Market.

 

Inside the cabin: Ruins-Your-Life, Steppelander ghoul from the lost Tangelo tribe, a wendigo who has acquired a taste for the luxuries of settled civilization that only the Market can provide (century eggs and human pate, specifically, but also fungal cheeses and liquid memories) and is journeying there for the first time. Standoffish and unaccustomed to company. Wears a wide, shadowy sombrero, has three sets of stacked eyes like the pips on a die, very skinny and crooked.

IN THEIR PACK: Some GOLP, skipping stones, locks of kid hair, pouch of gravedirt, teeth, ghoul pants, eyedrops.

Pen name Gunja Teabag, ghoul novellista, producer of penny dreadfuls distributed through underground channels and read mainly by perverts. Maintains a writerly attitude, but in reality she’s never written a word of fiction. Every terrible thing in her books she has done or seen done. First seen by the party wiping away the last of the cocoa face paint she applies to appear human. Has unfinished manuscripts in her luggage, worth a great deal of dangerous money if completed and published. 

And finally Vynn Pozzani, once a die-sel miner, trapped by a cave-in and ate her crewmates to survive, grew twisted and dark and found her way to the Market from above many years ago, keeps their ears on a necklace even now, “Extraction Crew 077”, slipped into solipsism to deal with the event - she moves through the world like an RPG protagonist, no one else is really real. 

Of these, only Bok-Tet and Gunja have weapons other than claws - the first casts rituals that summon choking clouds and decay, the second has a hidden pouch of scalpels, hooks, tweezers, and pins that she can use and throw as daggers.

The cabin and engine are both guarded by a pair of wire thralls, patchy plaz skin sheets, LED eyes, human skeleton wound with thin copper tendons, CPU boxes in chest cavity protected by aluminum spheres bolted to ribs; reprogram or add new instruction by feeding punched cards into slot in the front (scraps of paper around their feet), external speaker visible in neck, just fucking awful to look at. Armed with truncheons, stoles depicting a field of yellow stars on a violet background.

STR: 12 DEX: 6  CON: 12 INT,WIS,CHA: 1   HP: 10 ATK: 12 DEF: 14 DMG: 1d6 MOVE: 25

Robo Scream: As long as speakerbox in throat is not damaged, starts combat by screaming.

Hugs and detonates onboard plastic explosive charge if very low HP (test to resist, else 1d12 damage)

The cabin guards are there just to make sure nothing untoward happens during the trip. The engine guards actively prevent fuckery by drawing their clubs if anyone approaches.

The engine is covered by a tarp-tent stretched over rusted poles (macabre charms hang from the tarp, bundles of chicken bones, little crude dolls, ribbons, strings of teeth, etc). Chugs along, coughs black smoke, chops at the River with a big propeller. Extra jerry cans of guzzolene strapped to the back wall of the cabin.

Campaign Notes Part 2

WHERE MIGHT THE PARTY DISCOVER MORE ABOUT THE PATHS INTO THE GREAT GHOUL MARKET????

ONE: A scuffle in the streets by the university! Two fucking ancient bastards croak and swing at each other with trembling arthritic hands! They are Historians, and these sorts of displays are all-too-common: The Wall of Mist that occludes the past makes archeology a desperately, wincingly sloppy affair. A crowd of hooting students gathers, upperclassmen taking bets.

Here we have a Folklorist of the Close Analysis School in a rage against a Phenomonologist of the Flexible Paradigm. What do they disagree on? Everything, but specifically the ultimate fate of the Kingdoms of the Dead (known only via half-legible copper tablets dredged up from the murky depths of Lago de Kloeken and a strata of compressed marrow/court finery extracted from the surrounding region), the circumstances of their fall, even their geographical placement!

The Folklorist, Hasbint Drennoti, holds that the Kingdoms were dragged beneath the earth by ravens after a lengthy succession crisis (the first of its kind, after the King, Hasbint shouts, “did the first Double Death”), eventually becoming one of the Benign Hells. The Phenomonologist, Kontrast McPoffin, holds that the Kingdoms were obliterated by a vengeful meteor after the Prince launched a curse-engine into space to impress a girl.

Speaking to the Folklorist will reveal more information about the Hells and their occasional contact with the surface. Speaking to Kontrast will be boring and confusing, but will still mention his rival's theories dismissively. The winner of the fight will collapse into a nearby dumpster and fall asleep on a bed of needles and coffee filters.

TWO: Deep within Eigengrau University's library! A book on the Hells explains that, sometimes, beneath a particularly dense concentration of souls, a Hell may extend a questing pseudopod upward from below and graze the underground underbelly of basements and sewers; and that if the enterprising urban explorer ventures deep enough into the stinky depths, they may find a tunnel newly dug, marked upon the roof with an iron ring, or a wooden staircase fresh and clean in the wall of rock, and through these uncanny passages one may pass into the liminal space between the layers of the earth, the Streets Beneath, and from there to any other place within the underworld - but beware! The trip is fraught with danger and hardship, terror and anguish! OOOoooOOOoooOOO!

Zones of The Streets Beneath:

Lit ONLY SOMETIMES by otherworldly orbs or blue fire lanterns, the sickly glow of dreams, there is no earthly way of knowing.

The main road is paved (poorly) with good intentions, snakes through, sometimes is lost; beetle pulled troikas with skeleton nobles, ghoulish backpackers (human jerky, GOLP (good old long pig)), flickering street lights which hop about on chicken legs, flee or curl darkly when startled, eat bugs and rocks.

Upside-down castle hovering above a crater lake of ooze lit from within by stolen moons chained to the bottom like sea mines, giant bats hanging off belfries, love bright sweet things -

             A princess asleep in the basement-attic gently holding a glowing lavender moon, HER CHILD: she fell in love with a passing comet and when he departed on his long orbit, as comets must, she fell into a terrible sadness and with her, her kingdom. Her cries so moved the earth that it opened up and embraced her, pulling her castle down and placing the princess into a slumber. If you take the moon she will sigh and crumble to pale dust, but the comet will return, and he will be looking for his child...

              Guarded by the noble ghosts of her knights, all of whom love her deeply, find their skeletons crumpled inside their platemail and pierce them with their own glaives to dispel the ghosts, maddening chunks of starlight originally given by the comet to his mate as gifts, now roam the inverted halls, they blind and terrify.

The River of Bones also is here snaking through, maybe you'll see the ferry, Huck-Fin steamships chugging (zombie dogs power the waterwheels, motivated by big cartoon steak on a stick), translucent drowned riverfolk in chitin canoes, all on their way to the market, huge corpulent merchants sailing their well-laden barges.

The katamari of lost things, now stuck in a ditch as it sometimes is, little child katamari circling nervously the mother as it tries to heave itself over, forgotten desiccated ape tribe/funginids (fungus is always welcome in the underworld, part of an old deal)/fossil knights compete for resources aboard the rolling trove while it is still.

Dusty dusty desert, easily lost in the storms, gray dust in your teeth and eyes and ass, lost souls travelling in circles. A sandy whirlpool that leads down into one of the real Hells, dire vultures try to fly on featherless wings, stalagmites burst through the dust, smaller ones hide beneath a millimeter of the stuff, razor sharp, meditating damned cross-legged on tall poles on their last step of atonement before reincarnation. Perhaps you will see one open their eyes and rise into the dark roof, sublimating into pure white light. Beetlejuice sandworms?

The Crossroads, a massive rusted draw bridge of sinew and keratin arcs over the river, sometimes rises to let boats past, organic groaning as the ragged barely-flesh caretakers urge the organ-bridge on by poking sensitive bits, going into "the booth" (brainstem zone) and yanking on the medulla oblongata, competing toll-takers before the bridge and after, along the road, along the shore of the river offering fording vessels, gold is pointless down here, all want increasingly bizarre and precious things - memories, senses, names, beliefs and convictions, etc.

Swamplands of the bug warlocks, primordial mosquitos piloting enchanted amber mechsuits through the eons, immortal but trapped, weird bug magic involving blood and time, sucks your blood out from a distance and puts weird diseases in it and shoots it back into you, confused and angry, if you somehow show them evidence of their tiny, much-reduced modern day ancestors they will fall to their knees and weep weird mosquito tears.