Turtle Island: Session 2

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Zombies and vodou and marital drama oh my!

Crew Roster

Participants this session are in bold!

  • Nicole: Elf arrested for bodysnatching, now a knife-hoarding edgelord; 4 experience.
  • Nolan: Orc stand-user raised by elves, arrested on accusations of spying; 4 experience.
  • Makandal: Orc maroon and voudonist ratted out while carrying out a raid; 6 (+4) experience.
  • Queen-sama: Elf prostitute, arrested after being caught by a client’s wife; 8 (+4) experience.
  • Xen: Amnesiac dwarf magician following strange dreams to the land of Flo’Rida; 6 (+4) experience.

Downtime

I let Xen spend 1 treasure so everyone present could do the research action (add 1 rumor to the map, or ask the game mother to ‘clarify’ 1 rumor already on the map). In the future, I think I’ll have individuals spend their own treasure; I just wanted everyone to participate this time.

  • Queen-sama asked for clarification on the sea serpents rumor. I said that there have been multiple sightings of the sort of flying sea creature that saved the crew from the prison ship, and that they all seem to agree on the creature’s description.
  • Xen asked for clarification on the mysterious rock in Flo’Rida. I said that since the terrans came from space, there have been worried whispers of something following them from the great cosmic void. That rock is not of this world.
  • Makandal asked for clarification on the maroon rumors. I said that since maroons are so isolated and don’t have much to work with, they are hungry for food besides what they themselves grow. If you bring some, they might trade a favor.

The crew mentioned wanting to build up their ship the next time, into something with a little more heft! We also established the existence of Sir Drake and some relationship between Xamaka and outer space.

Adventure

  • Crew captures a zombie that was about to alert the others (new programming!) about their presence.
  • Stole some cocoa to see how the captured zombie would react, and she helplessly tries to reach for the cocoa to retrieve it from them.
  • Crew uses the cocoa to distract the zombies by throwing some on top of the fence where they can’t reach.
  • Makandal tries to break into the front door of the overseer’s house but fails and alerts whoever is inside—which would be Bokor, the overseer.
  • Crew scrambles to get different angles of the house; meanwhile, Bokor shoots through the door and massively wounds Xen who was waiting to hypnotize him.
  • Queen-sama uses a water spell to break all the house’s windows, giving Makandal clearance to shoot Bokor twice.
  • Xen uses dream magic to give Bokor a nightmare about being visited by angry ancestors, voiced by Makandal.
  • Bokor fesses up about his affair with the mistress of the plantation with whom he had a daughter; the slaves were zombified originally to appease the late master, but since he died it’s all to keep appearances.
  • The crew, with Bokor dazed, gets him to tell them that they can find health potions in the chapel; they plan to make him guide the zombies to the maroon where they can be cured and live freely.
  • Tiffany and her daughter Melanie are practicing reading at the chapel, using a Cathedral bible storybook; when the crew arrives with a wounded Bokor, she tells Melanie to leave and takes out her rifle to point it at the crew; Makandal also has his gun pointed at Bokor’s head.
  • Tiffany and Bokor agree to cure the slaves and let them go so long as the crew takes them to Turtle Island to start a new life. Everyone agrees, and the crew burns the plantation down to make it look like an act of rebellion where everyone died.
  • Crew and the family escort the 150 freed zombies to the maroon deep in Xamaca’s mountainous interior. They convince Melanie that being in the sun won’t kill her but simply turn her light green, and come across another fugitive Bree—a pregnant ex-slave—who accompanies them to the maroon.
  • Although the maroon refuses to allow the family on their land, they agree to help Bokor cure the zombies by providing pork and beans to the loa through whom Bokor zombified the slaves.
  • The family with the crew goes to Turtle Island on an awkward boat trip. Happy ending! Sort of.

Thoughts

  • I think my desire to tell gothic stories that teeter the line between romantic and grotesque is undermined by my tendency to make baddies super pathetic. It’s less Stephen Universe and more like early Dragon Ball, where baddies are easily domesticated into background characters. Not sure what to make of this.
  • We’ve had one combat encounter per session so far, and they have all been of a “medium” difficulty. Although I think the turn order has been too forgiving so far, I like how quickly combat goes. That being said, I would probably reclassify “medium” encounters as “easy”—which is just good to know.
  • I let one player spend 1 treasure for everyone to have a downtime activity, mostly because an absent character was the one with most of the treasure. However, now that everyone has some treasure and it’s not that hard to get, I think I’ll go back to my original hunch that downtime activities are on an individual basis.
  • I kinda don't want to worry about monsters having levels? Like, maybe I should beef them all up and let players become genuinely more capable. Plus, I don't want to worry about monster levels.

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