This is 'the next episode', the first full session, and the second night in the 8 week long block of our group's visit to the Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence (using LotFP as the engine). Those of you who have read Purple may question a few moves I made as a GM - obviously as the game is still ongoing, I can't delve into too much detail in my reasoning but hopefully the following serves as a good reason why you should rush out and pick up Purple.
When I was a kid I used to get lost in fantasy worlds with my friends. We'd spend hours pretending we were heroes (or villains) in some fantastical universe, with the rules of reality changing on a whim to accommodate whatever outlandish concept we had thought up of at a given moment. We could be fighting a giant lizard with lasers when suddenly a bigger monster would appear under the command of an evil sorcerer but we'd have some awesome and outstanding way to dispatch the evil and save the day.
If you had a similar childhood experience, then that makes this easy - that's what running Purple is like. If not, read on. Actually, read on either way. As usual this is a bit of an information splurt.
The Midgets
Our last session had ended with the gang waking up to a brand new day, looking out over the field behind the abandoned village they had set up camp in, and seeing that the villagers had been impaled on spikes and left to rot. This prompted a discussion between them: was this perhaps a highly unusual burial ritual, or was it the work of someone sinister? Lost reasoned that it could be a common thing round these parts with Karys countering that it quite unlikely the whole village had died at once and put themselves on the spikes.
After some further discussion, the party split up - Karys and Lyrica decided to investigate the bodies while the rest explored the abandoned the houses. A succession of failed Search rolls from the house explorers turned up nothing but they were interrupted by a yell from Karys.
The first thing Karys was aware of was a large stone thudding into her skull, followed by another to the ribs, while a few stones bounced around Lyrica's feet. They both legged it back to the houses for shelter, Randal immediately dropped into stealth behind the houses and began to circle round while Lost and Ivy confronted the assailants: they appeared to be five midgets dressed in desert combat gear, one armed with a huge laser rifle.
Lost opted to call out to them and an awesome roll stopped the combat dead. It turned out that the midgets were in fact kids, and thankfully Ivy and Lost were able to stop Randal from taking a shot. They bribed the kids with some food rations and got chatting, letting the kids explain that the queen's troops had turned up several weeks ago demanding the village elders turn over any magical stones. The villagers refused which led to the mass execution they saw in the field now.
The kids eventually admitted to the fact that one adult had survived and was struggling to stay alive in a near-by cave. They let the kids lead them there and Lyrica promptly healed the lady and in turn the lady admitted that not all the magic stones had been captured, producing an amber one. Karys pressured her into handing it over, but was immediately stunned by how heavy it was (and lost a point of Constitution). She stuffed it down her bra, but then realised the impracticality of this and put it in her bag.
The lady explained a bit more information on what was going on; the Queen was set up in the Shattered Dome to the east, but for some reason the Purple Worshippers (a group of people dedicated to worshipping the Purple Putrescence) were camped outside the Dome. She advised several times that the characters should just go home, and never look back, so the characters decided to "purple up" and investigate.
The kids had previously admitted that the laser rifle didn't work but on hearing this the mum said that it did work but it only responded to certain people in the village. Each of the players had a shot, but none of them managed to activate the rifle so they left it with the kids.
This bit was a shame. I'd clearly made the process too difficult and on hindsight should have set the target lower as the weapon would have been a fun addition, but I've made a note and hopefully be able to implement it at a later stage.
The Purple
They found a nearby vineyard and rolled around in the grapes for a bit before setting off to the Dome, but the Purple Putrescence showed up in the sky. It appeared to be searching for something though, tentacles lashing out at the ground, when Lost declared that despite all this he was sure things would work out ok in the end (as those around him panicked and hid).
It was agreed before the game start that it was more typical of Lost to instead of being Exasperated to activate his Alice power, it'd be a sort of over-confidence in the face of doom. Think Twoflower from the Discworld series. He rolled and got the result that essentially meant he had a surge of knowledge relevant to the situation.
Unsure of how to implement that, I went with it being more perceptive and gave him a hint - the Purple One was likely hunting for the magical stone that Karys had. After two attempts at grabbing her boobs, Karys let Lost know the stone was in her bag. Lost then flung it up to the Purple One where it snatched it out of the air and buggered off. Now soaked in purpley goodness, the characters set off once more to the Dome, but failing on their Bushcraft roll.
The Pylon
They had been warned by one of the kids that if they came across the pylon they had gone to the south, and here they found themselves. A quick search over it and they found the entrance, marvelling at how it was bigger on the inside than it looked from the outside, before immediately fiddling with things.
The panel was filled with colourless stones which failed to do anything after Lost successfully Tinkered the place to power up. Karys tried to remove a stone from the panel while it was activated, blowing herself across the room, and Lost tried to fit a block of lard into the vacant slot, blowing lard across the room.
After sufficiently trashing the pylon and deciding there was nothing left for them to do here, they ventured forth once more.
The Tower
Another failed Bushcraft roll saw them come across a water tower (and not the Shattered Dome). This creaked ominously, dripping salty water slowly, so naturally the consensus was to loosen the bindings on the poles that held the tower up (no idea why). After a few attempts, they succeeded, causing the giant cybernetic squad to come tumbling out amidst a deluge of water and dead bodies, and roar in anger at the group.
Sufficiently excavating their bowels, most the characters began to run, but not Karys. Karys had been itching to use a new magic spell that I had made a deal with her to have at the start - Stigmata. Stigmata causes the victim to bleed 1d6 per round, no save, with the only way to stop it being to slay the caster. Insanely overpowered for a level 2 spell, but it fits nicely with the gonzo nature of this world. I think if I were to use it in a more serious LotFP game, I'd be amping up the level and at least dropping in a Saving roll.
There is the added effect that magic spells causing interesting reactions on the Islands, and as Karys cast Stigmata she was warped to another dimension and brought close to a gigantic eyeball set amidst a sea of tentacles. A voice echoed out that it knew what Karys was and knew she wanted more power... power that she could have if only she would devote herself to Chaos. I hadn't actually finished speaking when she responded, "Yes!".
Snapped back to reality, I let the spell be amped up into a dramatic one-hit kill, the squids tentacles exploding in a fountain of blood that drenched those who hadn't ran. The side effect of the spell however caused the remains of the water tower to turn into a beautiful buxom magenta skinned handmaiden who immediately threw herself at Karys' feet and gazed at her with utter devotion. Karys named her Buxom.
Giving in to Chaos however earned Karys a new mutation. We discussed a few ideas but settled for eyes falling out of her sockets and now orbiting around her head. Classy.
The Troubleshooters
They set off once more, failing the Bushcraft roll yet again but it was reasoned that they couldn't logically get any more lost so I let them be in the right hex this time. As they went to walk forward though, a hole in reality tore its way into creation and out fell 4 soldier looking types in red armour. They immediately raised their rifles but the group managed to charm them into not attacking. They looked confused but one of them said that the group didn't look too much like commie mutant traitors and instead they legged it in the direction of the Pylon after Lost pointed it out as being something of interest.
The Purple Worshippers
Footage of the group surviving the encounter with the Purple Putrescence had gotten back to the Worshippers and as far as they were concerned the characters were blessed. The group managed to convince them to arrange a meeting with the queen, stating they had a stone to give her (the colourless one that they had retrieved from the pylon). This was agreed to but for now the characters were to spend a night of ecstasy among the Worshippers, indulging in their favourite passions. This resulted in Lyrica hiding in a tent to read her Bible while the others got into the spirit of things. Lost spent considerable time chatting for information so I gave him a bit of brain dump on what was happening on the islands, and he also managed to successfully persuade the leader to find out if anyone had seen or heard from Lost's fiancée Fabian.
The next morning, Randal woke up to a voice telling him to wake up, confusing him. Lost managed to speak to a mystic in a tent filled with hazy smoke who explained that Fabian was on the island to the south, in a temple and in a lot of pain. In gratitude, Lost gave the mystic his whistle. Randal tried entering the tent to see if he could see anything invisible following him in the smoke but failed. Lost got upset that Randal didn't thank the mystic with a gift, so nipped back into the tent to give the mystic a drawing pin.
The Queen and the Sorcerer
Gathered once more, the group decided that they would head south to look for Fabian after visiting the queen as it seemed a shame to come all this way and not do so. They were led inside the Shattered Dome by one of her guards though it was evidently clear that guards were now out of shape and completely apathetic.
They were led to the queen who lay on a sort of chez-long throne, looking very elegant and sexy. Behind her, the sorcerer gazed out of the window, looking very sorcerer-ish and not at all evil, and a few lazy guards dotted the room. Lost gravitated to the sorcerer, asking him a string of questions about what was going on, who happily indulged him - he was confident the characters weren't a real threat.
Meanwhile the queen got pissed off when Karys showed her the colourless stone, smashing it on the ground, but was suitably mollified when they offered to work for her and seek out more stones. The queen instructed one of the guards to clip silver bracelets around their necks (only Lyrica, Karys and Ivy accepting for now), and the queen offered Karys a new spell in exchange for Buxom.
Karys accepted after some careful thought, and learnt a hilarious new Purple spell (cant reveal it till Kat uses it in game). At that point, Randal, who everyone had forgotten about, decided to assassinate the queen. From the shadows, he fired off a shot that sadly missed, but set the room into panic. Karys, being extra panicky, defaulted to casting Summon which is where the game had to end as we begun rolling up the stats for this monster.
Thoughts
I found it hard to convey the lunacy that occurred in this session. I knew it was going to be over-the-top and I presented a lot of it in the cliche manner, playing up the ludacrous nature but at the same time trying to retain the "Fucking hell, we're on an awesome journey!" feel.
I also initially set out to keep the sessions as episodes; sure, the story would develop and be ongoing, but ideally each session would end on a conclusion. This didnt quite work out this session, but it ended on an interesting enough cliff hanger to be enjoyable I'd say!
Also, bloomin' 'eck, Summon? I'm tempted to build an app to streamline that process down.
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