There's More Than One Way to Stake a Cat (Part 6)

The following is a session report for our group's play in A Red and Pleasant Land. Some of the discussion is left ambiguous as I don't want to give too much away to the players at this time. You can view the previous sessions here.

Beware the Jabberwock my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Unless you're a small group of LotFP adventurers in which case go ahead and 'fuck its shit up'. The last session ended with the gang descending into a hidden lair they found which turned out to be, after arriving at a tumtum tree, the lair of the Jabberwock. Eric, Cuthbert, and Winnie got caught in its firey gaze as it asked them, "Who dare disturbs the Jabberwock...?"

A failed attempt at trying to placate the Jabberwock led to an interesting encounter. While the fighters of the group tried desperately to slay the middle-aged Jabberwock, the magic users tried to figure out some way to be of use. In panic, Winnie summoned twenty fish down from the sky upon a now stunned Eric. The fish did give some random abilities however so that kind of helped.

The real moment of despair set in when Cuthbert, proudly one-two one-twoing his vorpal blade into the Jaberwock, got caught in the jaws that bite. Previously unscathed, this knocked him out and left him with a severe wound and stunned for a turn (we use +Daniel Sell's lovely How to Die Properly rules which means death is not instantly death).

Winnie, deciding this was the time, cast Summon. Surprisingly however she managed to summon forth an organic rot demon that was immune to physical attacks and fire, and caused disease with each successful hit, and more impressively she could control it. It was incapable of landing a blow on the Jabberwock but it distracted the mighty dragon long enough for the party to overwhelm it. Cuthbert sliced it from neck to navel before chopping its head off - it was about that moment that Lemule, who had turned into a gaseous form (from eating a fish) and had successfully been inhaled into the Jabberwock, exploded inside the beast's lung.
Cuthbert took the Jabberwock's head as a trophy and decided to turn it into an attractive backpack.

Setting up camp seemed like a wise idea but the following morning saw our vampires feeding on our humans for breakfast. An interesting split had formed in the party; while all had agreed (for now) to work for the Colourless Queen, the divide been mortal and vampire was starting to show very clearly. This was exasperated by the vampire characters referring to the humans as their travelling food source.

Unsure of exploring the lair further they headed back into the labyrinth and after a chain of events they ended up reconnecting the head of someone onto the body of the dead lord of Clubs. This resulted in them quickly departing and finding entertainment elsewhere.

Further exploration found them in a massive pet cemetery, filled with the departed animal companions of the Heart Queen (with entries such as Spot the Dog who had been used as a croquet ball when the Heart Queen couldn't find her set). They found a book in the middle of this area in a gazebo so naturally Winnie picked it up. She promptly failed her Saving throw, lost two points of Wisdom and developed the tendencies of a dog. Eliza took the book from her and lost her ears, instead growing some lovely flamingo plumage on the side of her head. The rest of the group did a bit of grave digging and a successful Wonder roll led to them finding a live gold fish in the mud.

T'was Lemule, not curiosity, that killed this cat.
(art by John Tenniel)

It was then that Lemule had an idea. The group were aware that the Cheshire Cat had been keeping tabs on Winnie and she seemed to be quite secretive at the moment so Lemule idly waved a fish near her head. Success followed as the Cheshire Cat greedily tried to snag the fish, leading to Lemule grabbing the Cat and repeatedly stabbing it to death with a stake. It turns out that the cats do in fact only have one life as opposed to the suggested nine.

They then decided to try and skin the corpse but a failed Tinker roll led to the remains being mutilated further. The Cat's corpse is now another entry on Cuthbert's inventory.

Concious of time they accelerated their progression through the Labyrinth, finding their way eventually to the exit. Before them lay a large tea party in progress, surrounded by giant teapots, afternoon tea sets and cupcakes. Beyond the gargantuan pieces a full scale battle raged all around, leaving this little tea party as an island of untouched politeness.

While they worked their heads around what was happening, the Hatter asked them what they were watching for. He was staring - confused - at the tea party with them, extra confused because he was at the party already. He tapped his watch and corrected that before inviting them all to join.

The table occupants were the Hatter, a Hare, a door mouse, the Heart King and two Club knights, and Illona the Red Bride, escorted by two Red Knights. Also a dead skeleton wearing a blue and white dress - according to the Hatter she was being quite rude and refusing to drink her tea.

The group had found their quarry but, as suspected, things weren't going to be quite as easy as they hoped.

A couple of the players have things occurring the week after next so its been decided that next week's session will be the last session in RPL, the season finale. I'll be discussing my full thoughts and feelings on A Red and Pleasant Land the week after that, possibly in a video format if I'm feeling brave.