Turtle Island: The Living Loa, Part I

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Had such a fun session of my home campaign! Got to use my new travel rules and (due to the all-you-can-roll nature of them) honestly I had to convince my friends to end each leg of the trip to actually play where they were wanting to go... But we love it when journeys aren't about the destination, right? The rulebook for Cinco! now has all the latest updates I've been using to play if you're curious :) I'm tired and a little buzzed so I'm gonna summarize this session with bullet points.

Roster

These were the characters in play:

  • Enkidu: Amnesiac dwarf following strange dreams to the land of Flo’Rida; 9 (+3) experience.
  • Makandal: Orc maroon and voudonist ratted out while carrying out a raid; 9 (+3) experience.
  • Nolan: Orc stand-user raised by elves, arrested on accusations of spying; 7 (+3) experience.
  • Queen-sama: Elf prostitute, arrested after being caught by a client’s wife; 11 (+3) experience.

Queen-sama leveled up! I need to remind her player.

Summary

  • Premise: Captain Polly wants Makandal to reach out to otherworldly forces to combat the Cathedral. They might have cool alien laser guns! 
  • Downtime:
    • Queen-sama successfully becomes a dancer slash private investigator for the Ugly Coyote. Garbo has tasked her to fuck with the coffee supply chain to get back at her ex who operates a rival cafe.
    • Makandal hires the helplessly unemployed Bokor (I love domesticated villains!). 
  • Ocean travel events:
    • Enkidu is possessed by a siren's song to twerk into the ocean. After failing to get him out, his crewmembers instead drew the sirens' attention to the ship and scared them off with gunshots.
    • Queen-sama encounters Captain Pitbull's crew (nothing happens of it except we established the existence of Captain Pitbull).
  • Tavern @ Crown Island @ Xamaka:
    • Company privateers recruit, especially targeting pirates who want treasure and orcs who want freedom. Dwarf captain Freya leads the effort, and has grab bags of gold for everyone who registers and promises to map the island and later invade it for the Company.
    • Other crew is searching for an ancient luciferian star port, because of rumors it has advanced technology and something (anything) valuable. Elf captain Valeria wants to recruit away from Freya, and her crew will heckle anyone who approaches the Company crew. Ex-girlfriends?
      • Decided these would just be racist elves. 
    • Nolan and Queen-sama both approach the elf table; they're racist to the former who failed to pass as more elf than orc, but offer the latter a share of treasure in exchange for helping find the alien spaceship ("she seems like a girl's girl").
    • Makandal learns from an orc oldhead that the site for which the elves and dwarves are searching is haunted by a loa, in the form of a fallen angel. Also takes up the dwarves on their offer for free gold.
    • Nolan overdraws his mark received from the elves (an anagram of a C and L for the Church of Light) into an amogus.
  • Land travel events:
    • Nolan is disturbed at night by the sight of a chupacabra eating birds disgustingly. After a whirlwind of an encounter, the players decide it would be funny if this were a Scooby-doo situation and since I genuinely considered that outcome I rolled for it and decided it was true. Enkidu uses his dream-stone to discover that the chupacabra is an emo furry who goes by the name Bratcula after the popular vampire horror novel ("GET OUT OF MY HEAD"). The crew decides to keep him.
    • Crew freed slaves from patrollers using an iron scroll (also by freaking out the patrollers with pure uncomfortable sexual aura).
  • Living Loa Maroon @ Xamaka:
    • A maroon community lives on top of the star port, now threatened by pirates and privateers.
    • Matriarch Yemaya runs a tight (proverbial) ship. They don't get many outsiders, a blessing and a curse. Yemaya wouldn't have it any other way. She has lived through the horrors of the greater world.
    • They leave offerings of rice and beans to the loa of the mountains who protects them from intruders ("Oh, it eats people..."). As a test to ensure the realness of the crew, Yemaya has them serve dinner to the loa (and see if they get eaten or not).
    • The crew passes the test, and sees in the flesh this being of light who lives in the mountains.

Notes

  • I had the players roll off to determine the order of travel checks, but this confused some because it felt like an aspect check. Will just pick someone and go clockwise next time!
  • In general, having players take turns 'leading' the game at a time (even outside of combat) felt helpful because asking the group as a whole either leads to decision paralysis or strong personalities leading by default.
  • New rules for travel felt really fun and engaging. Tapped into a gacha mindset! Should combine the options for discovery and foraging into a general bonus option, just to cut down on choices and make it perhaps a little more likely the players will end their journey (HAHA).
  • New rules for supply (1 supply = 1 full recovery) felt very transparent and intuitive for players to judge their own level of how fucked up they are.
  • I have an implicit procedure for dangers now: the player describe the details of what fucked up thing happens to their character, and the other players have to figure out how to fix the situation. 
  • I need more play-content: encounters, dangers, locations. I also want town to be fluffier: maybe each downtime activity has a corresponding ‘place’ and NPC, and should be more in-depth with long-term goals besides (what we’ve called) building your Minecraft base.

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