[Sorcerer, Actual Play] Rocking Mu's Bed, Finale with Paula and Robert

[Paka]

Out of Game

Getting together to make up Kickers is a nice little half-session activity that I find is best done over lunch or dinner.

We're gearing up for the finale game of this mini-campaign. We decided as a group to jump the timeline ahead 20 years and bring this puppy to a close.

There are quite a few plot elements to bring together but I think it will work. All in all it has been a solid group of games and it has given me some insights into what needs doing in the Dictionary of Mu.

Especially after running DitV lately, I feel that I haven't been driving my Sorcerer game hard enough. I let off the throttle and let my players breath when I should lean in hard. Maybe that's why I asked that this be the last game of Mu's Bed, so I'd be sure to lean hard and leave nothing on the table when we're done.

That said, here are the kickers and several plot threads floating around that need picking up after:

20 Years After

The following is almost entirely player-generated.

We've decided that the Witch King of Lemuria and the Damsel Messiah killed one another in a vicious duel. The Witch King's heir, the Prince, was crowned Witch Emperor and in the two decades following gained control of Hy-Brasil, Atlantis and Lemuria.

After their Kickers they will gather at the Emperor's coronation to summon the spirits of the dead nations that are to be subsumed by the Witch-Emperor's newfound Empire.

Ardash - We find the former concubine of the Witch-King now a aged widower whose nephew sits on the throne of Lemuria with an Atlantean bride who is possessed by an ancient Cydonian Empress.

Amaranth - We find the priestess and bride of a dead god on the brink of having her husband's religion made the state religion by the new Emperor. What will happen to a dead god when he is made into a state religion and thus brought back to life? Will he remain her Demon? Will her bond remain? Will he take her into the heavens as he promised when he was just a hissing dead god with a single worn shrine to mark his religion's passing from the world?

Kickers

Ardash - With a Legion of Stygian Calvalry he is heading to Atlantis to gather their royal acutrements for the coronation summoning and to declare Atlantis a colony of Lemuria, within the Witch Emperor's control.

Amaranth - As her triplets, two daughters and a son, are sent off for marriage and their vocations she takes them on a last maternal trip to the Gladitorial Pits of Black Rock in order to buy them all bodyguards. She will find out that her father, who left Mu's Bed over 20 years ago (in the midst of the first game) to find Amaranth's mother, whom unbeknownst to him, Amaranth herself killed.

Other Tidbits

Carv and the One-Armed Atlantean - Carv was the Prince's lover, before he was a lofty Witch Emperor and he spurned her badly. The one-armed Atlantean was butchered by the Prince in a duel. They've teamed up.

I'm thinking the Atlantean has a new silver arm, gleaming and alien. He might be married to the Khan's daughter and thus able to muster a considerable horde if his wife agrees.

Dogod, Lord of Black Rock - How will he react to his daughter and grand-children? I'm not sure. We talked it over as a group and thought he was taken as a slave while looking for his beloved. Having been the former slavemaster of Mu's Bed, he quickly led a slave revolt and is now the Lord of Black Rock, a vicious gladitorial stadium frequented by many of the nobles of Marr'd.

The Exorcist of Hy-Brasil - He faced down a Guardian Mummy and lived, kidnapped Ardash and was never caught. He is a PC who needs to come to direct conflict with Ardash. Should be a cool thing when it happens.

Flashbacks

Ardash vs. Amaranth - The players thought there was a time in their past when they had fought just after the Witch-King died and Ardash was grieving. They almost started to half-role-play it tonight while making Kickers over dinner. I gently asked them to stop half-playing it and that we'd play it as a flashback during the game.

Summoning her Grandfather, the Late Duke of Mu's Bed - Amaranth's grandfather was killed and Paula wanted him to be summoned during the between times but I figured it would make for a nice flashback.

[Paka]

Next Up

Bangs and Things. Luckily, I have more than a week to let this mess stew together into a coherent set of bangs.

[PTiKachu]

Is there a link to the earlier writeups of this campaign? If any?

[Paka]

Is there a link to the earlier writeups of this campaign? If any?

Good thought. Thanks.

Here they be:

First thread about this campaign:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=122138

First thread about this world:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=3506&highlight=

[Paka]

Bangs:

Atlantis tries to seduce Ardash with all of the pleasures Atlantis can offer.

Amaranth finds her father an angry amnesiac who falls in love with her daughter.

The Exorcist kills Ardash's sister while leading a revolutionary cell in Hy-Brasil. The Witch-Emperor goes mad with fury.

The Witch-Emperor unviels his plan to leave his throne in the hands of a dignitary who wants his power from the Stygian Towers while he plans to lead the best of his people into the Heavens aboard a star chariot, with navigating via a farrow from one of his many pyramids.

The Qan's hordes surround Mu's Bed and demand the king faces his silver-armed champion or they will destroy the city.

Amaranth's in-game demon, a dead god, comes to life as the Witch Emperor declares him the official Imperial Religion and leaves her for the heavens, all former promises of taking her with him a lie.

One of Amaranth's children goes against her plans to marry them off in order to chase the love of a dead desert god.

A guardian mummy's heart, stored in a clay jar under the Emperor's palace in Mu's Bed, is stolen, thus one of the Mummy Guardians is working for someone else.

[Paka]

The following were written the day following the game by the players, e-mailed to all three of us.

From Robert, player of Ardash, former concubine of the late Witch-King. Now known as the Lord Widower.

An old man walks through the dust filled streets of Mu's Bed, the
refined and delicate movements of his stride lost on the drifted sand.
Having arrived in the wilds of what had been Hy-Brasil in a purloined
sky-chariot, he had made his way to the city he came to know as home by
foot, by worm, and other means that came to him along his way. Sullen
red robes wrap round his thin frame, dusted by the faded red of the
desert, and thick white hair tumbles around a heart shaped face lined
heavily with years gone by. Not all the denizens of Mu's Bed had been
exalted to join the faithful in their departure for the stars, of
course, but once the city was abandoned by its rulers, the flow of
foodstuffs and other necessities of life had ceased, and the pitiful
survivors had fled to seek what sustenance they might; stripped of
life, the city wasted little time in joining the rest of Marr'd on the path
to dusty decay. Crumbling stones fell amidst the red dust, and the
red-clothed man falls amidst it a few times too despite his careful
gait.

Footsteps filling in behind him, he zig-zags his way through the city.
Here, he lingers by a snapped wooden pole in the sand - it used to hold
an awning shading the wares of a cunning jeweler who tried to steal
kisses from a lovely concubine. Here, he smiles wistfully at the
weathered rope-strung bones where criminals were once hung fresh every
day; yes, over there was the booth which sold the best juices and light
snacks for a midday contemplation of Things Which Must Be Done. His dry
split tongue remembers the tang of squeezed fruits, but he hardly
cares.

At a building which still stands only slightly weathered, he enters in
for a moment and kneels, offering a prayer to the Reborn Hassan, and
remembers a time when this was a lowly charnel house where a
misbegotten demon-spawned little girl stood upon an upturned butcher's block to offer prophecy in *her* new home. She'd risen far, she had. She'd
called him friend. He offers a prayer for the Prophetess Mother, too.

After a time, he musters the energy to walk again, and his feet find
their way to the Palace. The doors have split, despite the shelter from
winds given by the imprint of Mu's long rotted body, he needs not pry
them open any more than he needs glare at any guards who fail to do so
fast enough to suit his whim. Dust clogs the once grand entry, as it
clogs everything, but within fine stone doors still stand here and
there, clinging to the memory of what used to be. Without missing a
step, he comes to one of these, and for the first time in his long
life, he opens the door with his own hand. Most of the finery once within is
gone, taken away when the place was abandoned, but the door has kept
the sands at bay for now. The stark black paint upon the floor is still
crisp in a ring around a glorious gleaming mirror that winks balefully
from its frame.

The old man's foot grinds crisp paint to dusty powder 'neath his heel.
'Hello, Beauty,' he says, the words finely accented even in his
geezer's wheeze. 'Enjoy My City while you can, wretched thing. You and I will
fall together to the void soon enough. I'll be in the catacombs, 'til
then, if you need to fight about old times.'

The following was written by Paula, player of Amaranth, Head Priestess of her demon, Hassan's religion but was left behind by him when his religion was reborn after the Witch Emperor declared Hassanism the Imperial Religion.

The faithful of Marr’d reached the Castles in the Sky with relative ease. They christened their new home Cydonia and called it good, for the planet was as lush and beautiful as Marr’d was barren. The people rejoiced, and began to settle into lives of greater leisure than could have been imagined in Mu’s Bed or anywhere else.

The Church of Hassan had great difficulties in this new land. A god of survival did not seem relevant in a place where food and water were plentiful and the struggle to persevere was no struggle at all. Food and water literally feel from the sky, as the quantities rain and fruits made the bounties of Atlantis seem like a meager pittance.

Amaranth became more determined than ever to keep to the old ways. She had a keep built and four new wells dug and consecrated with well-water from back home. She instated the slab devoted to sacrifice for Hassan in the main temple and tried to keep her worshipers faithful to the desert ways of their people. She demanded that they drink water only from the wells, that they eat sparingly of the foreign fruit of these new lands, and eat only the food they had brought from Marr’d. All Cyndonian food she ordered they cook in the traditional ovens.

Many people scoffed at the High Priestess’ declarations, and paid only lip service to her religious decrees about diet and water regimen. Amaranth bound the demon of the lost way of life of Marr’d to herself, ever desperate to keep her old life alive. Thus, she, her children, and the faithful lived, again on the outskirts of society, once again becoming a cult around a snake god.

Everything changed when the plague came. The citizens of Cydonia, grown fat on fruit and water from the sky and streams, fell ill in large numbers. Somehow, the followers of Amaranth were spared. It did not take long before Amaranth discovered the reason: the water that fell from the sky was possessed of an alchemy that did not suit the foreigners from Marr’d, and after accumulating in their bodies for years, the poison built up until it killed. People were dying in droves, all begging the Sorceress Priestess to save them. She could not, but she could teach those who survived to drink only water from cisterns, how to cook their food so as to counteract the poison.

Hassan worship boomed again, and this time, Amaranth made a crucial decision. She declared herself a goddess, Mother of Monsters, Guardian of the Cisterns of Hassan-Malteek. She demanded the worship of all who would share in her water and eat of her food. In time, she began to assume the godhood for which she longed, but did not ascend to Heaven.

Time passed, and Amaranth sequestered herself more and more, missing Hassan as much as she had the day he left. One day, when she was very old, her son Cerastes came to her chamber and found her gone, her empty clothes lying on the bed she had shared with Hassan and no other. Word went out that the Goddess had ascended bodily into Heaven to be with Hassan. Her children claim she speaks to them in their dreams and when they enter the prophetic trance. Other, more cynical parties claim she left Cydonia with her oldest friend Ardash, the Dowager Widower, in a stolen space chariot, to return to Marr’d to die.

No one knows what truly happened, though some say, when they draw water from the cisterns, they can hear the laughter of Amaranth and Hassan in the rippling of the water.

[Robotron666]

I enjoy these chronicles of Marr'd and Mu's Bed, but I also think that in the Howard-esque deathscape you've produced, a mix of Gene Wolfe, Mervyn Peake, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, that you've got to start sharing the meat with us. Play is all right, sure, but I want to see more detail.

You may not know this, but I really dig the idea of this world, and I truly want to run a game set in it. However I DO NOT want to use sorcerer, I want to use a granular, pseudo-tactical wargame based narrative epic style rules set, built on the bones of d20 and exalted. World details, or info on how to get them, would be swell, hell, send me a copy.

[DannyK]

How much more *is* there, Judd? I got the impression you were using the communal world-building aspect of Sorcerer & Sword pretty heavily here.

[Paka]

Yes, there is more and it will be a mini-supplement for Sorcerer sooner rather than later. I have some touches to put on it in order to bring it home and make it sing.

Thank you very much for your interest.

The Dictionary of Mu is coming.

[Paka]

The following is an e-mail from Paula, responding to my e-mail after getting their epilogues when I expressed the worry that these pieces of creative writing come from frustration due to tabletop play that was unsatisfying.

Don't get me wrong, it was a fun game but I never felt like I popped it into fourth gear, punched it into hyperdrive and got the engine running in the red.

Her response:

Judd, don't worry. There was really no other way to end it. If we dealt with how things went on the new planets, it would have turned into a long campaign. The way we did it, it is reminiscent of that Wild West oneshot we played: Rob and I each took over narration duties to finish out the story. My epilogue still doesn't have a "satisfactory" ending. Did Amaranth ascend? Did she flee Cydonia to return to Marr'd? I'd like to think she ascended, but no one knows for sure. It was nice for me to be able to have control over that last bit.

You did great. I will miss Amaranth and Ardash, but they were destined to die old and sad.

PAB