Preamble: So here we are still early in the campaign having a lot of fun bouncing off of Pat Wetmore's gonzo world. I thought to myself these players need some sort of grim reminder that all sorts of environments exist in an open gaming experience.
When the campaign was about to launch i gave the players three choices: gonzo (ASE), six guns and sorcery (Black Powder, Black Magic) or weird horror (LotFP). The spineless numps that the players are chose the concept closest to the conventional - gonzo. All were good choices but I had given a lot of thought to a semi-historical War of the Roses era meets Lovecraft, Blackwood and Poe. London flooded and ripe with the bubonic plague with the PCs being either students being introduced to the unexplainable by their professors (afore mentioned literary dudes). Ideas can rest but I really wanted to run some Lamentations adventures. In particular, focusing on the horror genre. So I started dropping them onto the world map and let things happen as they may. Two in particular were close to the party. Tales of the Scarecrow was just outside Chelmfordshire and Death Love Doom was just outside of Denethix.
Time after time we kept passing the cornfield but distraction is a total bitch. Instead our MurderHobos were easily lured in by the proposition of an easy robbery. And so i caught them. Grotesque body horror was coming. I summoned my inner Cronenburg and prepared. We had a great time even though some aspects can be considered grotesque. If you want a one shot that plays like a Cannibal Corpse album DLD will scratch your itch. Far into the future this campaign marches on (+140 sessions) and again the players are on the verge of stumbling into more Lamentations adventures. In particular Towers Two, let us hope they do as Dave and Jobe have presented us with lots of lunacy to play with.
The recap for the session is a little different as I included text from the adventure in an effort to clearly record just how fucked up things were. I have done my best to acknowledge these portions (denoted by italics) and intend no disrespect or infringement towards the author - James Edward Raggi IV, 2012.
I would like to see more adventures like Death Love Doom, products that are designed for discerning adults that want adult entertainment. If you don't like it get bent.
This recap should be avoided at all costs by any whom may ever play Death Love Doom, don't ruin it.
SESSION 7: A Little Slice of Hell (27 Aug 15)
It seemed easy, real easy. “Hey yous guys are getting some notoriety perhaps yas good enough for a job”, Nabob the instant thieves, cutpursers, bouncers and roughnecks UNION representative laid down
“Ya we might need some trouble to keep us up in it”, Ramrod young aspiring rogue about town
“Well there is this short window heist on a merchant’s abode that came across my desk that might be perfect for an aspiring rogue and his thugs”
“Lay it down!” drool drool drool
“Hold on there slippery, here is the deal. Either 50 gold up front or 20% of the take before I starts regaling his highness with all the facts” extending two hands one with an open pouch the other cocked to make an official union agreement”
“Hmm…hmmm…hmmmm”
A true rock and a hard place for MurderHobo real money now or a chunk of the later money, beads of sweat quickly began building on Ramrods brow as he deliberated through the hardest decision of his life.
“Here take it! Now tell us”
The hobos close in on Nabob much like the pack of rabid dogs that they is.
“YES TELL US!”
And a tale he did share, Erasmus Sylvester Foxlowe is a rather successful Denethixian merchant, importing valuable items from parts far and wide. It is a harrowing job, as investing in long-distance shipping is quite risky, and dealing with customs agents in a volatile political environment leaves one vulnerable to all sorts of accusations, not to mention the whims of wizards. But he manages, and manages well.
He does feel guilty though, as he spends most of his time in Denethix proper while his family resides outside of town (Wiltshire). To make up a bit for it, he often sets aside particularly lovely items his business procures as gifts for his young wife. This is especially important now that she is pregnant—with the family’s fifth child!
But the latest trinket to catch his eye, part of a shipment from somewhere up North (maybe even the Wastes).
Several days have passed. The underclass that
work and live around the Foxlowe offices notice that Erasmus has not returned as promised. There is talk... has something happened? Might the rich man’s house outside of town be ripe for a good burglary? The
word has spread, and thieves will descend upon the merchant’s house the next day. Anyone hoping to beat them there had better go tonight. I even heard from Eerie Frank and his fellers, they was casin’ the Foxlowe place. Nothing! Not a peep! No movement! Not him, his brats, or anything! Looks abandoned and there hasn’t been enough time to organize a proper move until tomorrow. This job is ripe for the picking now!
Gobble gobble hook line and sinker. The Hobo hit squad was go! They quickly finished resupplying and booked the first taxi to Wiltshire.
Midmorning as the carriage rolled up to the Laughing Clam Inn on the street of stones, aptly named after the gigantic carved heads lining the main street of Wiltshire. No time to waste, the party made their way to the estate.
All was quiet just as they were told, no people, no animals, no nothing. After some deliberation the group thought they would just walk on up to the house like they were on “official” business like. Up the drive and to the front door. Just before knocking they instead decided to turn towards the coach house, just because.
Entering through the open stable doors they made a grisly discovery or two. Dead horses one with a man sewn to its abdomen and another with its head replaced by that of another man. And there was a carriage with all its wheels smashed. As they inspected this a man, naked except for something on his back appeared from the darkness. Screaming “It’s not my fault it was the necklace, the necklace!” he was holding something that was lost in the dark whatever its was sprayed the band with a black ichor that burned on contact and acted like a giant spider’s web. Four of the six were completely trapped as their assailant ran screaming past them out of the building. Boris was able to connect with an arrow that spun the madman about at the door outside. Clearly revealing a naked man with somesort of chitinous thing on his back and embedded into his flesh be claw and tick like head into the back of his skull. Whatever was sprayed upon the Hobos had come from this man’s genitals…
It burns and burns, with more than a modicum of good luck the party escaped from the spew not in the best of shape. They fell back deeper into the workshop and secured themselves behind doors. Further exploration upstairs lead to some swag and the discovery of another body this time with a horse head sewn on. After searching the building and getting a quick rest the group decided to move on the main house.
Out one side door to another. Just before opening it Gweeb decided to look around the side of the house. Money shot! Black spew enveloped the side of his head and the possessed man leapt around the corner to engage. Without the element of surprise the Hobos destroyed his body quickly, causing the “Flesh-Mover” to disengage from the body and then just to dissipate. Pressing forward into the house.
The dinning room and parlor a vile mess of blood from floor to ceiling with a young girl (Agatha Foxlowe) as a human chandelier remarkably coming to life as the Hobos enter. Her upturned ribs and her destroyed limbs, they all hold candles, which burn down and scorch her flesh. Agatha’s innards hang down out of her body, dangling ever so close to the table where they could rest and Agatha would not feel them pull anymore.
Agatha is fully conscious and retains full use of her head. She is in great pain, but the sensory overload these past days has pushed her past agony, past hallucination, and straight through to a grim lucidity. To tell her story of what happened. “One night after dinner, Daddy told everyone that he had a very special present for Mommy. It was a very pretty necklace! But then a big monster and two smaller monsters came out of the necklace! And the big monster told the smaller monsters to get the lovers, and they jumped on Daddy and Nanny Newguard! Then Mommyand Grandma started yelling at Daddy and the help ran away screaming and so did Miles and then the big monster hurt Grandma! Then Grandma came to get me, and now I’m here.”
“Please stop the pain”
It was decided that a quick release was her only escape. With the flash of steel Agatha was released from her nightmare.
Momentarily set aback the thieves stopped and looked around the room, for the first time noticing the merchant’s wedding portrait. That thing outside had been Erasmus!
The best way to move past the horror is to get past it, and so they went deeper into the house. Into the conservatory they went lifting two violins and then discussed the finer aspects of stealing a harpsichord. A sharp eye noted a number of blood drops inside the fireplace deeper inspection unveiled the impossibly hidden body of Eleanor Smittsby one of the maids. She will never come out.
Crossing the corridor the reckless band found Erasmus’s office. The main feature of the room being his desk that is covered in signed contracts and ownership deeds for companies and property, his bookcase full of ledgers and such, as well as a larger safe. Again the prospect of loot usurps the horror. Ramrod began working the safe and others continued with the looting. A loaded Glock went from a drawer Gweebs’ sweaty little palms, “Every wizard needs a Glock!” Just as Ramrod figures the safe and Carla and Boris decide to man the door…In bursts poor Sabrina Calcidius Newgaurd naked accept for a Flesh-Mover attached to her much like her purported lover Erasmus. Staggering into the room she clearly still has control of her head and arms as she tries to claw her out of the room to no avail, “Save me please!” The Mover drives her forward and discharging a stinger of sorts from her nether regions. The shoot misses and burns a hole through the wall at impact. Before the available Hobos leap into murderful release Sabrina whispers to Boris as axe and mace take her down,
“It’s not true! I didn’t touch him! I didn’t do anything! My uncle can fix this!”
Then her body crumpled and the Flesh-Mover slipped into nothing like grains of sand through an open hand. Opening the safe a mountain of coins and gold bars met our Hobos. Yet again the prospect of riches seems to control our half-crazed Visygoths
Within one of the rooms they discover the distorted yet still living remains, bubbles and froth accompanying inhuman mewing sounds, of Miles Elroy Foxlowe in a lavishly decorated room fitting for the young man of the family. Miles was butchered by his grandmother after the Thing appeared. She cut off his arms, legs, tongue, and genitals with her pinking shears. She pulled his teeth out withpliers. She then sewed the limbs onto different stumps, crooked, before stitching up any remaining wounds. Penelope then slit Miles’ abdomen open, severed the colon, and used the feces she squeezed out to draw a “Dead Sign” sigil on the floor beside Miles. In its circle she placed his tongue and genitals. This sigil is recognized, the very same found within the pages of Jay Decay’s spellbook and upon his map! This discovery stuns the MurderHobos until they are shaking back to reality by Miles labored existence that they promptly terminate.
Further along on this floor they loot Myrna’s dressing chamber of her clothing and jewelry. Into the master bedroom a hidden lockbox of coin is retrieved as a statue of St. MacGyver watches in silent horror. If only they had spoken to the idol, MacGyver would have shown them a ready escape route to leave this nightmare behind. Instead they were driven by greed. To the next floor they went.
First they went into Agatha’s room decorated, as one would expect for a girl spoiled rotten by her parents, lots of pink and lace and frills and ponies and storybooks. She even has a desk that has basic mathematical, religious, and history books, as Nanny Newguard is strict in making sure that young Agatha keeps up with her lessons. Untouched but not empty a new horror came from the closet Myna Richrom Foxlowe and the Guf.
Myrna is a wreck of a human being, as her late- term fetus gained self-awareness and miscarried itself. After dying, it rose from the dead, its mother’s blood and nourishment still coursing through its veins.
The animated fetus half walks, half crawls from the closet. It is still attached to Myrna by both the umbilical cord and strange fibers and cords of fibrous gore, and it pulls her by the womb. It is agony for Myrna, never mind the horror of her miscarriage coming to life and stalking the halls of her home...
The fetus summons forth ropey interior bits out of Myrna and uses them to restrain and strangle the momentarily petrified Hobos. The three clerics attempt to make a unified stand to destroy this obvious blasphemy of life. Instead they are psychically blasted as they are nakedly exposed to “The Plan” (much like poor Lenardo as a matter of fact). They for the briefest of moments become one with the Guf, experiencing the joy and tranquility of being in the company of those yet to be born and gaining the knowledge that the simple act of being born destroys this perfect bliss.
“Every miscarriage is a willful act of a soul against the will of It, raging against The Perfect Plan in order to avoid the cruelty of ever being alive. Those that exist physically are those too weak or stupid or naïve to prevent their own births”. (Raggi, 2012)
This knowledge, even as it is consciously rejected by the clerics, it laid waste to their subconscious and spiritual selves.
This very real damage left all three feeling a great spiritual gulf between them and their own deities.
The party raged on fighting through Myrna’s wombacles to eventually beat the Guf into paste and watch Myna’s last few excruciating moments as she bled out through the broken connection with her fetus. And yet again they do not turn away from the madness at The Bloodworth House…
They discover more personal artifacts of the Foxlowe family that easily fit in assorted sacks and packs. They had a moment of seer confusion when they discovered an obviously valuable marble statue of a cherub that would certainly take at least two people to carry. Finally, for this floor they discovered Conrad Wolf Foxlowe in the nanny’s room along with a half-written letter to her uncle and a number of personal artifacts including a telescope. Returning to Conrad, as he was not going anyplace soon. Sean’s twin brother has been added to by Grandma Penelope. Another’s severed limbs have been sewn on to Conrad’s shoulders and hips and arranged in a mockery of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. A circle drawn in blood has even been drawn around Conrad to complete the image. The added legs’ feet have been nailed to the floor to keep him in place, and the added arms’ hands have eyeballs placed in them, the optic nerves wrapped around the fingers. The top half of his own skull has been separated
from the rest of the body, bisecting the eye sockets, and the brain lies on the floor, still attached to the spine, and the eyes are still attached to the brain. The chest has been opened up, the rib cage carefully removed and placed next to him on the floor. The major organs have been stuck with pins, with labels naming the organs on the end of the pins. The glint of gold shines from between and under some of the organs as Conrad’s natural limbs twitch and he moans in pain (Raggi, 2012). His eyes follow the Hobos as they rummage the room. They don’t even deliberate if they can save this one and as gold coins explode from Sean’s open belly the villains actually look away. We have finally found a line the Hobos won’t cross. Instead entering into a frantic pace of exploration, “To the next room!” The floor was looted for any other valuables and the party then went down to the cellar where they rummaged through the Foxlowe’s stored goods for a couple of trinkets. Then they went to the one unexplored floor to see what sights it had to show.
“We start at 12 O’clock and work our way around”
This robbery is leaving no stone unturned.
Into the kitchen it’s as if dinner is about to be served meat on the spit in pots, pans and bowls. Not a fly, nor abnormal scent just perfect white meat. The more thrifty members of this gang thought this might be a fine replacement for their lack of bear meat in a wheelbarrow. It was decided that it might just be better to leave the mystery meat as it was. Next it was into the washroom full of linens and the architect of this abattoir Penelope Fitzherbert Foxlowe as the fleshy avatar of The Thing a visage of pure horror. "She waddles around nude, her gouged-out
eyes placed where her gouged-out nipples used to be. (The nipples are simply missing.) She carries what will one day be called pinking shears in one hand, a threaded needle in the other. A Dead Sign has been carved into her belly, and lower down is worse still. In lieu of any other pockets, she is using her vagina
to carry her implements of torture and transformation, including knitting needles, a cooking knife, and various knickknacks". (Raggi, 2012)
Penelope is fully inhabited by the Thing in the Necklace.
And so she lunged towards Bimbles sheers and sowing needle ripping into his body.
“I see you, you man! Just like my son, unable to control himself. Now look what he’s done! Come here, man, and I will remove the evil in you! *snip snip*”
Off went his genitals the same for his left hand and in a blink of an eye they exchanged places on his body. Aghast the wretches attack with fury but Penelope seems to take no interest in the demolition of her flesh, gore and once vital fluids pouring freely from all over. Now this put a damper on the spirits of the Hobos they have gotten themselves into a serious situation and luck won’t be enough. Again see strikes this time its Ramrod, tearing his arms off and reattaching them on the opposite side. And again the party launches a vicious counterstrike and again she is unfazed as giant chunks of flesh are removed from her bones as swords plunge deeply into her bloated core and maces crush bone.
“Whore! Harlot! How dare you ruin this family! You will show your shame!” her face is now next to Carla’s feeding her rancid breath to the cleric, restraining her with one hand as her sheers plunge deeply and repeatedly into her abdomen.
“Yes, show them all what is inside you whore!”, Penelope stepping aside to reveal Carla’s modification.
Her insides, organs and intestines hung freely like a full clothes line swinging on the breeze of a warm spring day.
One final blitz and the Hobos bring Penelope low severing limbs and utterly destroying the shell that she was for The Thing. And as she slumped to the floor The Thing is seen for the briefest of moments as it released from Penelope and then dissipated into smoke.
This only seems like it was the end and probably would have been if our gang was a little less morally reprehensible. Instead of running they pressed on. Into the privy then the cesspit drain stuffed with bloody rags and grotesque sounds coming form deep within and then they discovered Sean Tyler Foxlowe in the storage room.
Being only _ year old (and Conrad’s twin), Sean had no chance at all when the Thing appeared. Grandma Penelope quickly got hold of the child and made... alterations.
Sean’s eyes have been torn out, the sockets buttoned closed. A pair of his father’s eyeglasses have been
placed on his head and the sides of the glasses sewn to the child’s head. The corners of the child’s mouth have fishhooks embedded in them and the mouth is stretched open, the hooks connected to fine line nailed to the floor. The child’s chest has been torn up and a clock face has been inserted into the space (the clock still ticks and the hands move even though it is just the clock ).
His limbs have been torn off at the shoulders or hips, and been replaced with crude, non-working, and really not deserving of the name, “clockwork limbs.”(Raggi,2012)
Sean is wailing in pain.
The end of the bloodline
On last innocent.
It is with this act that the band finally can take no more of the horror of Bloodworth House.
And so they ran.
All the way back to Denethix.
Laden with the Foxlowe legacy.
Into their apartment, from behind it’s locked door.
They would reflect upon the night’s dark terrors.
ROLECALL
Carla the Acolyte of TMB (C1) 1190 xp
Boris the Dwarf Veteran (D1) 1021 xp
Ding-We the Apprentice (W1) 728 xp
Gweeb the Acolyte (C1) 460 xp
Ramrod the Rogue (T1) 878 xp
Bimbles the Acolyte GSS (C1) 888 xp
RESERVES
Rahgnar the Dwarf (D1) 958 xp
REMAINING RECUPERATION: 19 DAYS
Serious wound: permanent loss of an eye (-1 to missile fire)
Calvin the Bold Observer (MM1) 819 xp
Hobo Steve the Veteran (F1) 529 xp
Raul the Scout (MD1) 555 xp
Lenardo the Student (S1) 594 xp
Figgins the Halfling Veteran (H1) 559 xp
Elapsed Campaign Time
14 days
Join us for session eight when we ask the questions:
What have we just done?
How are we going to fix our mutilated bodies?
This will come back on us, won’t it?
Did someone say vacation?
Can we just get back to being simple MurderHobos?
Tale of the Tape
Again we dodge death but find a new meaning to the dismemberment portion of the equation. Bimbles is now Bimples the Jenner-like, Ramrod held onto his junk but now his arms are backwards and poor Carla, the whore or so I heard, has her guts on the outside.
KILLS
The whole Foxlowe bloodline and the nanny too it was done outta mercy, really…
Erasmus Sylvester Foxlowe w/Flesh-Mover
Agatha Foxlowe
Sean Tyler Foxlowe
Miles Elroy Foxlowe
Conrad Wolf Foxlowe
Myna Richrom Foxlowe & the Guf
Sabrina Calcidius Newgaurd w/Flesh-Mover
Penelope Fitzherbert Foxlowe, host of the Thing
LOOT
Glock w/9 shots
Arquebus w/shot & powder (2) inscribed
Pikemans Armor (2) as splint
Longswords (2)
Daggers (2)
Rapiers (2)
Violins (2) initials
Silver candlesticks (2)
Deaf Dumb & Blind Statues
Cleric Scroll (1-1st, 2-2nd)
Bars of gold (10)
Fines Dresses (5)
Assorted Jewelry from the Foxlowe collection
Jewelry box (
678 gp
5306 sp
2678 cp
No comments:
Post a Comment