With literally none of the players for my Scum and Villainy game available on Tuesday, I asked what else was going on and got invited to join a game of Rapscallion, since they were also down a player. I knew it was a pirate game, using Powered By The Apocalypse. I thought this was enough to have some idea what it would be like. I was very very wrong.
The other players enthusiastically filled me in on the current situation. We were sailing in the transparent shell of a dead titan whose soul was currently possessing the hat of the captain, who was currently a jellyfish in a barrel. Other crew members included some kind of wizard with transparent skin, a ghost skeleton, and a cyclops.
They were in search of an island in the sea of blood where there was a lake of gold guarded by a giant chicken, which they'd been informed about by a pirate called Villacres, who was the seventh son of a seventh son and had a map growing out of his chest.
There were two missing players in the end, so I was invited to play either Captain Bighat, a man with a very small hat who didn't like people mentioning it, or Ravi the demon worshipper. I chose the latter.
We jumped straight into the action. We were sailing towards the island, but were being pursued through the red mist by a Royal Navy ship, propelled by two porpoises and captained by the evil(?) Captain Darling. Observing through a telescope, Marianne the ghost skeleton told us that the captain had giant frog legs and all the crew had squid heads.
The cyclops was furious. He hated squid and wanted all squid to die.
Wit the transparent wizard brought the ship around to fire a broadside at the pursuing ship. Marianne jumped overboard to go and phase through the ship's hull and infiltrate the hold, a job made easier when Wit used his magic to set fire to the giant wicker figure of Captain Darling that for some reason was aboard his ship.
I decided to try to conjure some demonic magic, hoping for fireballs. And I failed. Resulting in my immediately turning into an elephant.
Between my efforts not to capsize the ship and the cyclops raging, both of us rapidly ended up in the water. The cyclops picked me up and threw me back onto the ship, where I landed on top of Wit, crushing him to death. Oops.
Fortunately Death decided to let Wit off this time - for a price.
My demon, Pazuzu, then offered to turn me into something else. Given that the fight was still ongoing, and wanting to be able to swim, and also somewhat inspired by the other ship's method of propulsion, I said 'porpoise'. I had neglected to take into account that I was still on the deck of the ship, and porpoises are not known for their land based mobility. Or ability to talk.
The cyclops was going to put me in the water, but at about this point Marianne's plan to blow up the other ship's powder store came to fruition, and squid and ship bits went flying in all directions. I communicated via vigorous tale flaps that I didn't want to go in the water just now, and we turned once more to make for the island.
The island was surrounded by storms, but by a strange twist of fate they calmed as we approached, just enough for us to beach the ship. With most people a little beaten up from the previous encounter (especially Marianne) we decided to take a nap. I took watch, due to the ability of porpoises to sleep with only half their brain at a time.
After a while I heard the sound of two people having some kind of argument. Quite a way off, but the sound travelled well over the water. Somewhat concerned, I woke the rest of the crew with more vigorous tail flapping. We decided we needed to investigate, despite Marianne's insistence that she'd had a prophecy and didn't need to.
I attempted to stop being a porpoise, but failed. Uma the witch (an NPC) offered to turn me into something more useful. Once we'd got clarification on what exactly she meant by 'useful' she got to work.
(Out came the percentile dice. I rolled 97. "Roll twice." Oh dear. I rolled. I rolled again. 100. "Roll twice." Oh dear.)
By the time she was finished I had the head of a shark, a body covered in fish scales with tiny legs, and arms made of water. But I could walk and talk so we decided to go with it.
Along the shore we found the source of the voices. Two ships with animated figureheads were having an argument. One of them (called Aphrodite) was complaining because she wanted to go out to see, while the other insisted that she was too damaged and would be wrecked in the storm. We chatted briefly, and Wit offered to repair Aphrodite by dismantling the other ship, who didn't seem entirely happy about that idea.
Then we went on our way in search of the golden pool, unhindered by local wildlife and vegetation as Marianne had foretold, with Villacres still going on about the Gallus - the giant chicken that guarded the pool.
And there it was. Not, as I'd been hoping, a lagoon filled with gold coins, but a lagoon of liquid gold. Poking some things in it revealed that it turned things into gold. Marianne jumped in, but managed to resist turning into gold, which was lucky.
And then the terrible guardian of the lake, the legendary Gallus appeared. Except it was in fact a Mollusc. The mighty scallop.
We learned how Villacres (grandfather, not grandson, once we'd cleared up a bit of confusion about how many fathers our Villacres actually had) had been turned into a giant scallop with spit that turned things to gold by some storm mages, but really by the point I just wanted to steal some gold things, so when the scallop sprayed at Villacres and turned him into a gold statue, I started trying to steal the statue.
At this point Death came knocking on Wit's door, and compelled him to attempt to sacrifice me by throwing me into the lake. Fortunately I managed to cling onto some nearby vegetation and avoided becoming a statue myself.
Marianne went through her pockets (I don't know how a ghost skeleton has pockets) and found bottles of the component acids to make aqua regia, the only thing that can dissolve gold. I suggested oranges or lemons as an alternative, since it was a scallop and I really fancied a ceviche, but she threw them into the scallop anyway where the acid started eating away at it.
With the scallop well distracted by everything going on in front of it, the cyclops had crept round the back, and now jumped onto the scallop, smashing it to pieces.
We were discussing the best way to get the maximum possible amount of gold off the island, given that we couldn't remove the liquid gold without it solidifying, when we heard cannon fire. It was Aphrodite, who had opened fire on her fellow ship at the behest of Captain Darling, the evil frog legged fiend!
Apparently he had helped her escape from her toxic relationship with the other ship who was holding her back, and he was going to rebuild her and they were in love. Wit pointed out that the man had frog legs.
"I mean, I know I'm in no position to comment right now but..."
Alas, neither I nor Wit could persuade her it was a bad idea, and Wit set Darling on fire while the cyclops ran in to attack. Darling drew a pair of pistols. Moments later the fire reached Aphrodite's powder store, and the entire ship exploded, showering bits of ship, Wit and frog legs in all directions, while the cyclops jumped neatly down and walked away without looking back because he was that cool.
Which really just left two questions: had our ship become sentient, and how did the jellyfish feel about it?
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