More than Nothing: Total Party Wipe

[Part of the Party Time journal]

The boss battle ensues and its a long one because the current heroes have a dwindling supply of re-roll coins and gear while their opponents ALSO use plot armor to avoid damage. In the end, its almost plot armoring the whole way to see who runs out of it first! [GM Note: As fun as this was for me, it made the fight really drag out so I'm not doing that again :P]

Plot armor:

Master Miner Mama: remembered her neighbor Chitty Chatty noticed her try to hide the gem she found on her land (while helping her plant crops) and demanded to see it as it should be hers. Mama refused and kept the gem. She also had a knack for digging up things ever since she was little, always carrying an earth worm with her. Her past works in other mines didn't pay too well so she began digging into graves of the dead to fund her addiction of cocaine!

Jerghon the Great: was once a decorated and faithful warrior but was no longer fit for the field after developing blood lust!

Mamita: remembered her child hood friend "a bird" who she could finally be around and got into all sorts of fun and trouble with them, finding a feather of a raven together and apparently getting into trouble for painting "a bird", which "a bird" somehow escaped. This is because Mamita realized that "a bird" was just a figment of her imagination and she was alone the whole time. Later on though she befriended Bob the Blacksmith who had a shared interest in birds.

Ughh: remembered his time as a Partopian police with recruit Joseph the Unfair where the team crashed a fireman's protection racket, let go a perfumer whose crime was fleeing from an arranged marriage with an ill-reputable whore monger, and let Joseph kill a thief who suggested he might have information about Joseph the Unfair he wanted to trade for his freedom. Joseph later admits that he was a horse breeder whose prized stallions were seized by the torturous Aeternan cavalry without payment and he enlisted to get them back, planning to desert with his entire herd at an opportune moment. Despite knowing this treason is punishable by death Ughh helped him.

Ughh then recalled the last party he got absolutely drunk / wasted in, apparently it was in a high tree with plenty of his favorite addiction to partake in: nuts. He also hit it off well with "a bird".

Aah: remembered when she learned a market vendor owed her caretaker Governor Quintus some money, and one day saw said vendor leave a bag of money at the market when packing up. She gave the bag to the vendor but reminded them of the debt owed, it was more than nothing. Later she learned Quintus was regularly stealing from the people and she testified against him to be free of him.

Then during her time as Partopian police she arrested a merchant trying to be "helpful" by sending poisoned food parcels to a plagued village as well as his poison supplier, a doctor trying to cure the plague who was stealing bodies from a graveyard and created the poison as a byproduct of her research.

When she was sent to clear out some "demons" in the sewers that just turned out to be narcotic indulging squatters, she gave them a warning to move on before the next one sent in would come to kill them. One of the squatters was Suri, an eight year old girl who wanted vengeance on a silk merchant she claimed killed her family. Aah tried to dissuade her but later found the silk merchant dead and witnesses reporting that they saw a giant spider transform back into a little girl fleeing from the scene. Aah secretly helped Suri and kept her this whole time (in small spider form in her pack) and unleashed her into battle!

Jerghonson: remembered his sibling rival Jimgon died saving his life against a mighty demon and then during his time as Partopian police investigated a stone mason carving cursed runes into the foundations of a number of villas, causing giant rats to appear within. He let the man go in exchange for being introduced to someone with greater power - a toweringly tall man with rotting skin and a horrifying mask who granted him his magical desire: a golden clarinet of sleep, which he had kept hidden all this time because of his uncontrollable urge to keep playing it if he started.

The End Result...

With things going poorly Jerghonson pulled out the golden clarinet and put everyone to sleep, tying up the four champions of the Empress. Then, he wandered towards the city as did his companions (when they awoke) but thanks to the thick magical fog found themselves each arriving alone...

Mamita found herself on an open plain where she was utterly certain that was where the City would be built, and would grow with the right rulers. She stayed to become a founder.

Aah made it to a city of colored lights, strange machines, and discordant music of the future.

Jerghonson found himself underneath a roaring liquid light (space shuttle / missile about to take off) so he fled to continue playing his golden clarinet. Forever.

Ughh saw the city vanish like a mirage and clearly saw the truth that the City was a lie. Then he put on the cursed crown of headsplosions and killed himself.

[Inspired by Mythic Bastionland]  

Wildermyth: What the Duck

[Part of the Cursed story line]

While the Cockatrices were dealing with the gorgon threat, they had come across evidence of hostile sentient robot things, which are more like corpses revived by clockwork machinery. Misia is tasked in investigating them and is joined by the couple Kesten Garess and Bouquet, and Suri the spider queen.

Suri's tenure is very short lived as during a solo exploration of an underground cave, she falls into a enchanted lake which turns her into a duck and is quickly set upon by an enamored male duck (the game specifically shows this isn't another person turned into a duck, its just an actual duck) to start a duck family, leaving her MIA forever.

It's a strange game.

The rest of the team eventually find these robodeads attacking a smithy and barely save elderly smith Hally who says the horde was chasing one of their own which took refuge in her house. Alas this targeted one was badly damaged so Hally opts to try fix it to gain some answers but in the meantime find it had scrawled a map as to the source of these mechanical invaders.

Thea 2: Settling

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Having regrouped with the researcher and elder dwarf the squad use the magic heart to unlock the passage and finally face whatever is causing the world to shatter... it is a massive light infused dragon, better known as a zmey (seems these things always try end the world). Despite their allies, spells and equipment the zmey is a ferocious and tough enemy, using tooth, fang, tail swipe and energy breath to decimate the group before it finally goes down.

Giant dragons are usually game ending bosses.

When the smoke clears, the only ones left standing are zerca Barbara, Captain Bear, Karel, Little Pirate, and Suri the spider queen. Karel manages to use a rare world seed to save his mother Nyrissa after she was cut in two, but everyone else is dead (22+ characters). To honor their memory (and because they are too overloaded to move now) they decide to build a town on that site and are soon joined by house imp Bogdan and Macko, newborn son of Karel and Barbara.

When he is old enough, he might ask about the stone statue in the center of the village lists the names of the fallen but hopefully he will live a more normal life now that the world is saved. While the game lets you continue indefinitely I thought that would be a good stopping point for this tale.

Thea 2: Dark Hearts

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Before leaving Iceland, the team befriend the Shadow Folk who live on the edge of the island (no shortcuts here, just lots of talking over a long time) who then send one of their number, Sylvanas, to help them on their quest. As they sail back to the Slavyan isle they save the syrin Seayanna from a kraken and she too joins their crew and helps them defeat the trolls imprisoning the elder dwarf they found long ago.

Why wear clothes when you can wear shadows?

This dwarf is then taken to the patient researcher who is then able to decypher the tablet in the Red Ridge mine which gives the location of the quake causing threat, but also says to fix it they would need a magical heart assembled by a druid. With no leads on any druids, the team sails to the next island - the isle of darkness, home to striga, undead, vampires and... more followers of the light!?

Sylvanas is handy in convincing the darker beasties to simply let everyone pass while Seayanna uses her charm to convince female bandit captain Yanka to join the team, who then reveals that the Spirit Talker goblin tribe also resides here. Thanks to the goblin children in the party and a little assistance helping them build a catapult, they introduce the group to their leader: an orc necromancer who can construct the magical heart they need to save the world. Not only that, the necromancer and the entire tribe are coming to help too. Things are looking up!

Thea 2: Strength

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Iceland is also home to followers of the light: people, creatures, and tentacles(wtf?) infused by a viral spirit and this faction constantly harasses the team with their "convert or die" methodology to the point that Siegfried tracks down their local base and leads an attack that wipes it out, at the cost of Jaethal who was light tentacled to death. Her daughter, Karina the crazy, also dies giving birth to a son Krisztian - whose father is her half brother Vshesul. The boy really has a thing for incest. Ratslava also gives birth to a daughter Mishka, having slept with King Szuvarek of the Water Demon clan after his rescue.

Anyway, after killing little red riding hood (who in this version is a werewolf), the team find the Ice Demon village and Nyrissa befriends them via an exchange student program: giving them Krisztian to raise as their own while they gain Ice Demon daughter Sniezynki and her pet elemental Icicles.

The Little Red Lie on steam is free to play if you like Little Red Riding Hood.

The team then run into the slaver band that held Romek captive and this time the slavers are killed - with the team gaining a young girl named Anzeka and three young goblins: Jere, Tino and Zosh. As they are overburdened with supplies at this stage, the team trade with the Ice Demons to buy powerful magical weapons and God's Armour? Siegfried decides to test these out at a local arena where the group must face five battles of increasing difficulty in a row and they are victorious! This band of champions are now ready to take on the world.

Thea 2: Iceland

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Since the only elder dwarf on the Slavyan isle is guarded by powerful trolls, the group decides to make a ship and sail to the next island over to continue the search. Ice island, dubbed by Siegfried as "Iceland", is quite inhospitable with the lack of food resources and the constant requirement for faith replenishing rituals. They also save the cursed child Zloslawa from her murderous parents and she too begins learning the way of the witch.

This place is full of witches.

Iceland is also home to the Water Demon clan (russalkas) who are at war with the Water Pirates (orcs). Nyrissa quickly befriend the Water Demons by saving their leader, King Szuvarek, from a Water Pirate base on the lake. Only two of the Water Pirate youths are spared to join the group: Little Pirate and his younger sister Deathlover who is again, witch potential. Valerie quickly gains their trust by having a daughter with Little Pirate they call Zenzimira. Nyrissa then promptly baptizes the girl at the Water Demon lake to turn the child into a Water Demon, deepening the friendship with that group so much that a russalka named Natalia also joins their ranks.

Meanwhile Siegfried encountered the cursed King Kral'Skra, doomed to be forever trapped in his crumbling kingdom by the gods who also stole his face and put it on a lowly demon. Siegfried agrees to find and slay this fiend only to discover it is Kral'Skra's son Romek whose back was infused with his fathers face and is now being towed around by some slavers. After purchasing the child Siegfried makes him face his father and Kral'Skra opts that he instead be killed instead of his son. Siegfried obliges, and Romek joins the group as a zerca.

Thea 2: Red Ridge

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The Red Ridge bandits are an imposing lot, but they agree to let Siegfried's team and the researcher into their territory if the adventurers can first remove from their lands a cave full of demons and a camp full of squatters, who are possibly one and the same. Both are equally easy to massacre, and the child Barbara is taken into the group from the squatter camp as she has the traits of a zerca (a spiritual leader).

Finally granted access, the researcher finds an old tablet in the Red Ridge mines but is unable to read them - now requiring an elder dwarf or elf for the task. Siegfried promises to help and Red Ridge bandit Captain Bear joins them. Also Miloslava has another daughter, Sveibora, this time with her son Vshesul (that motherf*cker) while Valerie helps wandering King "Arathor" to pull a sword from a stone. The thankful King sends Valerie across a bridge (which holds a battle of wisdom) to a nearby lake where the local lady of the lake hands her a less powerful but still magical weapon.

Only movie knowledge can save your characters from certain death...

Meanwhile Nyrissa aids Suri, a little girl found on the road, to get revenge on the rich silk trading merchants that killed her family. Suri turns out to be a spider queen in disguise but Nyrissa keeps her word and slays the merchants which is enough to convince Suri to join the team (and wow, spider queens are strong). Suri then promptly begins teaching Sveibora the ways of witch craft, because spider queens know everything apparently.