Friday, January 8, 2021

Balthazar and Bork in the Wastelands

 Alas, if you did not attend, much hilarity was experienced by

Joseph

and

Eli
The Misadventures of Balthazar and Bork
Being a Comedy of Homelessness, Chitin, and Inheritance
Part Dieux: Electrix Boogaloo
So, the party (Bork played by Joe and the Junker Balthazar VVVMVF played by Eli) alighted on the shipping platform of Mesa 4, which Balthazar's Ancient Family Heirloom indicated was his own personal property and filled with Treasures Beyond Compare.
Jacques, the dirigible pilot who brought them, indicated that they ought to signal by Wrist-O-Com when they wished to escape the premises, and Jacques always gets payment up front which of course drained the Junker's coffers compleatly. Being a bit of a drunkard and Anarchist (not Antifa because O NO You DINT) Bork often took payments in rum, and a good thing, too.
So, within the delivery hangar they were greeted by a cloaked group of spindly ghasts, who immediately sniffed Balthazar's genetic rights to the Mesa and begged of the party to send paychecks retroactively for hundreds, thousands of years, and when it was determined that Bork (now CEO) was carrying RUM, the unnervingly polite and totally undead fiends drank deeply of it and wobbled off, tipsy, to darker climes, directing the party languidly down Maintenance Hallway 4. After nigh on a millenia with no fermentables, their tolerance for alcohol was very low and so they passed out somewhere off camera.
Continuing down the hallway, the party encountered the old "Jiggling Doorknob" problem, which Bork promptly nullified by kicking the door into smithereens and unleashing the masked, blank-faced Monstrous Centipedes within. A short tussle ensued, but the vittttleorious party found, to their surprise, an Ancient and Untouched Cache of Meals Ready To Eat in various unsavory flavors (I did not tell them they missed a collectible limited edition Candwich) but eyes lighting up with dollar signs they signalled to Jacques to return, and meantime they stuffed the carcasses with as many MREs as they possibly could. This effort left them with (perhaps hundreds!) of MREs and a mere 12 minutes or so to explore the remainder of the Mesa, because Jacques has no qualms about abandoning stranded explorers of haunted laboratories and mesas.
Down the hall, they encountered a Security Droid (somewhat malfunctional) who requested access clearance, and of course since Balthazar is the rightful heir a single drop of blood suffices to gain them entrance to Laboratory 4, containing row upon row upon hideous row of shrivelled, Partially Viable Super Psychick Fetal Clones which (although tasty) are well-suited to becoming an anti-establishment Psychick Army to destroy some lower quadrant of Bastion whilst the Junker Balthazar plays fruitless games in Parliament. The drone delivery devices of Mesa 4 only needed their address in Bastion to deliver White Hot Death to the new chairmen of the Junker's (Evil? Misguided? Doomed?) corporate headquarters. It is amazing what paradigms can be busted when you think outside the box.
Ahhh, the joys of Pseudo-Random Generation (by Tablesmith) and fast-and-loose rules systems (Into The Odd) with no expectation of continuity nor clarity! It is good these nanites in my blood have broken the RPG dam that held my heart back in some sense. It has been heavy with serious matters of late...
Perhaps more picaresque scenes, later, G*d willing, if you compleat the requisite forms, of course.

Buy 'The Hounds' - Click Here