Episode Summary: Session 10

Summary

Session 10 of the campaign features an extensive pre-session period of out-of-character conversation among the players—Abdul, Shawn, Brad, Dayna, and Erin—before transitioning into a critical rescue mission beneath New Smoke. The session opens with the group's characteristic pattern of ordering multiple food deliveries while discussing workplace pranks, family histories, and various tangents. Shawn notes that the energy "was going to be extremely different," leading to a decision to avoid jumping directly back into the previous session's momentum.

Once gameplay begins, the session focuses on the aftermath of Sucks and Vasso's capture by the Thunder Hogs. Safia, in rat form, infiltrates the Underground Tunnels Beneath New Smoke with Monster, discovering a network of chambers including the Caustic Barrel Chamber where Sucks suffers severe injury from toxic fumes. The session culminates in a dramatic prison break, with Safia executing a daring key theft and Cat manifesting divine power through their circlet. The rescue attempt ends with the party creating chaos through an improvised bear disguise made from a taxidermy specimen, leaving them poised at the threshold of a larger confrontation.

The session demonstrates the campaign's blend of serious stakes and absurdist problem-solving, as the party transitions from careful infiltration to increasingly desperate and creative tactics.

Events

Pre-Session Table Talk

The session begins with extensive out-of-character conversation. The players coordinate food deliveries, with one participant noting: "I secretly. You know, one is margarita from one place, one is fungus pizza from another place, and one is a different pizza from that place." Abdul reflects on the group's spending habits: "This is the only RPG group I've ever been a part of, especially online RPG where we all just agree that we're gonna blow a hundred dollars every couple weeks."

The conversation covers workplace pranks, including the Szechuan Peppercorn Peanut Prank that backfired, the iPod Touch Prank involving bird noises that tormented Vaheed for four months, and the Air Horn Chair Prank. Dayna shares family history about the Bulkley Valley Creamery owned by their grandfather, now converted into a bed and breakfast. Both Shawn and Dayna discover they each have Danish great-grandfathers who were dairy farmers, leading to extended discussion of Danish Dairy Farming Immigration.

The group discusses Lord of the Rings lore, Star Wars references, and various workplace stories before Shawn addresses technical issues with Abdul's wireless microphone cutting out due to electromagnetic interference from passing buses.

Recap and Mission Setup

Shawn recaps the previous session's events: the party convinced the Swineherd to leave town, explored his house, and discovered magical items including the Wooden Limb created from a stick and Purple Goo, plus two potions. The current mission involves rescuing the Mayor of New Smoke from The Foundry, where she's held by the Thunder Hogs. Cat continues to believe that Mayor (pig) is the actual rescue target.

Safia and Monster previously discovered a supply shed near the foundry containing a secret staircase to the underground. Goober remains in tunnels with Ralston. The recap includes discussion of Nanites in the world and Shawn's joking declaration: "I'm making that canon. Everybody got vaccinated and got microchips, and that led to the end of the world."

Underground Infiltration

The party begins at the market area of New Smoke, with Safia and Monster entering the shed while Vasso, Sucks, and Cat observe. Safia descends the staircase into the Underground Tunnels Beneath New Smoke, finding "guttering torches on the wall, casting flickering shadows across the floors." The tunnels wind extensively with periodic torches.

When voices approach, Safia diverts into a side corridor, entering a wider chamber "half carved out of the natural stone and in half, like constructed." The space contains barrels and has "this, like, really pungent, kind of acrid smell" with "a pall in this room that feels almost like painful."

The Caustic Barrel Incident

Sucks opens one of The Caustic Barrels, triggering immediate catastrophe: "your eyes, nose and mouth are immediately burning and you kind of whip your head back to get away from this." The substance affects Sucks severely: "Whatever it is, is like seeping. It feels like it's seeping through your Skin. And you just start. No, you start hacking like crazy."

Sucks suffers a Debility to constitution, making it difficult to speak without coughing. The coughing alerts nearby Thunder Hogs members: "Once Sucks started coughing, those voices stopped talking." Two gangsters discover Sucks "lying in the middle of the floor, just in the like half moon of light from the torch."

Capture and Imprisonment

The Thunder Hogs capture both Sucks and Vasso. One captor asks: "Have you ever been thrown in prison before? I, I, there's usually not this much back and forth." Vasso attempts to invoke authority, claiming "My dad is God," but the response is dismissive: "Fucking hate this place. So many fucking kids in here."

The captors confiscate obvious weapons but miss Cat's circlet. They remove Vasso's Gold Sneakers with Wings, with Vasso claiming: "Yeah, he's allergic to gold. We got to get it out of him or else he's going to have diarrhea." The prisoners are placed in a Metal Cell.

Safia's Key Theft

Safia, still in rat form, executes a daring move: "You run up this guy's leg. He's wearing these like, dirty jeans with, like, holes in them. And you chomp onto the key ring that's hanging off of his belt." The maneuver succeeds: "You just like, are hanging off of this guy's belt and he looks down and goes, what the fuck? And he slaps you, but the key ring comes off when he hits you and you hit the ground."

Meanwhile, Cat observes from hiding. Shawn notes the contrast: "You were going to murder Nick Silver for no reason and now in this situation, you're exercising restraint?"

Divine Manifestation

Cat's circlet activates, creating a dramatic display: "Your circlet begins to glow with a bright sunlight from. From the twisted vines. Like a little. Like a little tiara." The light manifests as "sunbeams coming through the branches of a tree," causing Cat to respond emotionally: "I lose my. And I'm like, oh, my God, I'm crying."

The Bear Disguise Plan

The party discovers a Taxidermy Bear in their cell. Sucks proposes using it as a disguise: "What I was thinking was that we get. We take the stuffing out of it and we get into it protecting. Pretend to be a bear scare the cards. You get on my shoulders. And then we go out there dressed as a huge bear."

Vasso objects: "We're not small boys. Sucks." Sucks counters: "But bears are huge." Vasso concedes: "two people want on top of each other. The other shoulders. That's like. That's bear." Shawn comments: "Each one of these ideas is more plausible than the last."

The execution can proceed slowly for better disguise or quickly with less convincing results. Mid-transformation, Shawn describes the appearance: "You're halfway through the animorphs cover. That's what you look like right now." The final form is "scuttling forward without moving its lower half, kind of like some sort of weird bear crab is this monstrous figure."

The Bear Lord Confrontation

The disguised party confronts the guards. Someone invokes: "All hollow be to bear lord, brother of the sniff lord." The reaction is immediate: "You say all hollow. And then one of them just screams and turns around and blindly runs head first into a wall and knocks himself out of cold."

Vasso disarms the remaining guard: "You like, you. You take the back of your spear and you like jam it in. You stick it in between his arms and like twist it, breaking his hold on Safia and then whack him in the button in the side of his neck with the spear."

Key Developments

Sucks suffers a constitution Debility from exposure to caustic fumes in The Caustic Barrels, resulting in persistent coughing that impairs speech
Sucks and Vasso are captured by Thunder Hogs and imprisoned in a Metal Cell beneath New Smoke
Safia successfully steals the cell keys using the Hunt and Track move while in rat form
Cat's circlet manifests divine light, potentially tied to the Earth Mother or Cult of the Earth Mother
The party creates an improvised bear costume from a Taxidermy Bear, invoking the Bear Lord (described as "brother of the sniff lord") to frighten their captors
One Thunder Hogs guard knocks himself unconscious fleeing in terror; Vasso disarms the second guard using their spear
Shawn canonizes that the world ended because of COVID-19 Vaccines and Nanites, with everyone becoming magnetic
The session establishes the existence of the Bear Lord as part of the campaign's expanding mythology
Post-session discussion covers potential paid games and technical setup using Foundry VTT, Roll20, and Patreon support models