What was/is your favourite campaign reward?

Best reward? A small, stuffed, purple toy penguin was returned to its rightful owner.

The Setting [ edit ]

The world of Britbongsteros was the same as our world was until about 15th C but then suddenly magic. This fueled science which fueled magic etc etc. We later discovered this was because of a device at the North Pole which had been keeping the magic from the world. It is here in our world and working. In the world of Britbongsteros, it blew up in 1497.

The British empire existed. Lots about that in the story parts.

'Murica was weird

Due to an effect of local magic in New York (where the only American we met was from) you had to keep eating, all the time, but if you did, you became incredibly strong and fat. (Sorry America). America is a magical place (like /k/) and each state or couple of states has something weird going on. The eastern seaboard is reasonably normallish with crusades being mounted from the area into the middle and western regions. Numerous native American nations hold territory throughout the area. The Native Americans are famed for their aerial prowess with Apache Dragons being particularly feared. The Chinooks strike deep in American states and have excellent logistics. The Cherokee are famed as air cavalry. New Orleans is underwater. The mermaid elves are probably pretty happy. Except the sentient sharks. And the voodoo. The Americans would be pushed into the sea were it not for European Crusaders attempting to push through to get to the supposed holy land which for (insane Mormon reasons) is somewhere in Utah.

France

Was just all slutty elves. That was good.

Germany

Was a mix like Britbongsteros except that they also had bear people.

Poland

Doesn't exist as it does in the modern world. It's more the Poland of 18th century. The Lancers (actual eaglemen) war with both the Germanic bear people and the Russians who are (like the Germans) mostly human but with plenty bears and also wolves. They also have literal bear cavalry.

Switzerland

The place is already Britbongsteros enough. The Swiss are heavily armed, sit on huge piles of money, and wired the entire country for demolition. I really cannot Britbongsteros that. The Swiss have remained solidly out of the affairs of Britbongsteros, remaining normal, painfully so. It is this normalcy which is their greatest strength, they have no hell portals, weird dragons or any other shit. This is why they're trusted by Europe as bankers. They are also fiercely independent and want to keep the lunacy of the rest of Europe out, they patrol the mountain passes, slaughtering ANYTHING remotely non human. Their mercenaries are famed throughout Europe for their proficiency in taking down magical entities, making them highly sought after. Also they make quite good chocolate. The Belgians of course disagree, saying they make the best beer and chocolate. Each year the Belgian dragons send one young (human sized) dragon to compete against the Swiss champion chocolatier in unarmed combat. They send the same dragon to fight the German BrewMeister as the Germans claim they make the best beer. No Belgian has beaten both in one year. It is said that should a Belgian beat both. Europe shall tremble.

Sweden (and much of the north)

Deserted because of Ragnarök.

Spain

Ruled by king Quixote, a noble and honest knight who won the support of the peasantry through his charm and chivalric deeds. Spain is a haven of peaceful learning and culture. All thanks to the steady hand and suspicious mind of Prime Minister At Large Sancho Panza, and no mistake! Those Spaniards who didn't fit in with the chivalric ideal were exiled to the nightmare of South America. The Aztecs and Mayans hold strong in mountain strongholds.

Greece

Is 18th century Greece. The gods ascended 1500 years ago and now it's a shithole full of poets wondering where the majesty of Greece went. (Sorry Greece)

Italy

No one has heard much of the place, but rumours of a second Roman empire have been heard.

Central Africa

Is still marked as here be (literally) dragons. There are European colonies on the coast and a little into the interior. North Africa is much as it was in Roman times (I.E. quite civilized).

The Middle east

Is full of Arabian nights + huge reserves of magic oil. A clusterfuck waiting to happen. A Britbongsteros citizen (Orrance) advocates for Arab self rule.

Australia

Full of criminals. All the people still alive there are one man armies.

China

The terracotta armies hold back the Mongol horsemen (I.e. actual centaurs) along a towering great wall. Some trade now occurs with Britbongsteros, tea for opium.

Japan

Was Godzilla'ed with no survivors. The group loathes all things weeaboo. Additionally, anyone who even mentions the country, or swords, or weaponry, or Tasmanian shadowpuppetry summons Godzilla, and Godzilla will annihilate them and only them.

The Party [ edit ]

Throughout our adventures there were always at least five of us, and usually six. These are:

Angus - An orc from Dundee. Originally a greengrocer but also horrendously proficient with the flamethrower he carries. The flamethrower doubles as a thermic lance.

- An orc from Dundee. Originally a greengrocer but also horrendously proficient with the flamethrower he carries. The flamethrower doubles as a thermic lance. The bard - A human, wears a kilt, plays the bagpipes. Occasionally has great ideas. The DM uses his own taste in music for what the bard actually plays (so usually classic rock or country & western).

- A human, wears a kilt, plays the bagpipes. Occasionally has great ideas. The DM uses his own taste in music for what the bard actually plays (so usually classic rock or country & western). Cruella - Essentially a Dark Eldar wych wearing more clothes. She is vicious and stealthy. Armed with two daggers and a sword that she talks to. Played by Aldous' PC's then (and now again) GF. The latter fact occasionally becomes relevant which is why it is mention it.

- Essentially a Dark Eldar wych wearing more clothes. She is vicious and stealthy. Armed with two daggers and a sword that she talks to. Played by Aldous' PC's then (and now again) GF. The latter fact occasionally becomes relevant which is why it is mention it. The wizard - Not actually magic but can command metal (iron) and summon various sharp or pointy things. Including chainsaws.

- Not actually magic but can command metal (iron) and summon various sharp or pointy things. Including chainsaws. The Navvie (also called Burt) - A very large human with a hammer. He hits things with it.

(also called Burt) - A very large human with a hammer. He hits things with it. Aldous with Purple Penguin Aldous - The character of the one telling the story. A dwarven knight. Wears full plate. Carries twin revolvers and a gatling shotgun. Smokes a pipe.

- The character of the one telling the story. A dwarven knight. Wears full plate. Carries twin revolvers and a gatling shotgun. Smokes a pipe. The purple penguin - Moral compass and possible DM PC.

The Story [ edit ]

The Beginning [ edit ]

It may be best to begin with character creation.

As we know, the party consisted of five people:

Angus: An orc The bard: A human The wizard: A wizard (no shit) The Navvie: A large angry human Aldous: A dwarven knight, also me.

I will describe in a little bit of detail how each of us started out. As a reminder there would be five of us (there were eventually six players) during these adventures as the other player hadn't joined yet, though she did usually sit and drink wine on the sofa and listen (which is how she decided to start playing. There were a couple of her interjections which are worthy of note, so her player will show up every so often.

By the way, the DM is a dick. That's all you need to know about him.

Angus:

"I want to be an orc." "Ok you're an orc. Good for you. What else? "Well Orcs in this setting live in Dundee right?" "Yes...?" "Nothing exciting has ever come out of Dundee right? So I should be boring, I should be something like... like a... greengrocer." "You're a green-greengrocer?" "YES!" "Ok, what would you bring to the party?" "Well I should be inventive maybe, bring some technical skills, I can maybe do some social things right?" "Sure let's go for it."

The Bard:

Japan does not exist in this setting. Godzilla does. He will kill and eat anything even vaguely weeaboo. This was made extremely clear to the Bard's player in advance (he likes to be an edgemaster katana wielding trench coated sunglasses wearing faggot).

"I want to be a Samurai!" "Japan doesn't exist. No." "Well ok, I'm just the one samurai who was sent away to regain my honnah..." "No." "Shipwreck samurai!" "No." "Magic samurai!" "No." DM: "Look, fuck it. Japan was destroyed totally. No survivors. The end." "Oh ok, how about I roll a bard?"

The Wizard:

The DM and Wizard's player had already had an extensive chat about the mechanics of wizardry in the setting, as Anon may already be aware, the wizard wasn't magic in the sense of your average time traveling D&D magic bastard. The idea being that he could only control metal, he could do whatever he liked with the stuff, but it would take time and there'd be DM fiat on his powers. He would receive a bonus to controlling anything iron based as that was his clan.

So essentially that was the Wizard. (They'd spent rather a while working it all out together).

The Navvie:

The Navvie's player is a simple chap who takes a simple approach to life.

"Ok. What do you fancy being?" "I will have a hammer. I will hit things with it. We're done."

Aldous:

"Well, firearms are a thing... so I'd like to play as a specialist with ranged weapons, maybe a brace of pistols..." "You're not playing that fucking elf again." "I'll be a dwarf, an angry one, a Dwarven Noble, bitter and twisted, someone who has suffered a great deal, and seeks for new meaning in life or a means to end it." "Hmm... ok I like that, we're good."

It's worth mentioning we did work out little backstories for ourselves so we all had origins and backgrounds, but that's essentially it.

>How it all began...

The story begins when a god falls out of the sky. He hits the marketplace in Dundee. We all have our reasons to be there be it working, shopping, drinking or traveling through.

There's a light in the sky, people are looking up, it looks like a comet, but it's low, it's coming down, it's coming down towards the marketplace.

It's coming down fast, running isn't going to help, nor is cover.

The comet isn't just coming down, it's screaming, actually screaming.

We can each make it out now, the shape of a man, wreathed in flame.

He hits the ground hard, thunderously so, People are knocked flat by the shockwave, people start to run, five people advance on the crater.

You five.

The five us look over the edge of steaming, smoking crater. The man isn't jam as you might expect. He also has a pretty large pair of antlers growing out of his head.

He opens his eyes and looks at the five of us. He speaks in a language none of us understand. Gesturing at himself he says what we can only assume is his name. Belatucadros. At least that's we think it might be.

The five of us look at each other. There's quite a large crowd gathered behind us.

There are shouts of "What's going on? What's in there?" We decide to perhaps maybe talk to him. To try and do something a bit more positive than gawp.

We descend into the crater. On closer inspection, his legs are broken. He's rather a lot bigger than an ordinary man, bigger than the Navvie, at the very least twelve feet tall.

From behind us, the crowd are making different noises, screams, there comes a gun-shot, then more.

The bard (remember none of have actually met one another at this point) looks over the top of the crater.

"Fuck this, I'm off."

The Navvie and I look at one another, Angus looks out as well.

"UNDEAD!"

The crowd are fleeing, there are undead making there way through, slaughtering as they go.

We are unarmed, The Navvie and I can't carry what must be 800lbs of god. We can't just leave the fucker, Angus offers to help. The three of us do our best to pick him up, to drag him from the crater. We are surprised when he becomes lighter, the fourth, so far silent, person in the crater still hasn't touched the thing, but an iron bar supports the gods lower body, enough that we can carry him. Enough that we can run.

So we pick up Belatucadros (who I'm now going to call Baz for short) and book it in the direction Angus points.

As we run, we push past large numbers of terrified people, on the other side of the square we can see organized ranks of skeletons advancing line abreast. These skellies aren't your common or garden variety ones, they're clad in armour, they look like roman legionnaires more than anything.

We get into what must be Angus's shop. The Navvie suggests locking the door, which Angus does. The windows are small and easily boarded up. The shop is semi-detached, next to it is the inn where the rest of us happen to be staying. The skeletons we can see are advancing on the crater.

Baz is asleep.

Clearly they want Baz.

We know that necromancery has been an ongoing problem for a while as general knowledge and they're probably evil for that reason.

We start talking to each other as we board the place up.

Introductions are made.

There's movement from behind the counter. We improvise weapons (a tack-hammer, my pen-knife, the Navvie's fists, and a couple of hovering chainsaws), the bard sheepishly pops his head over the counter. As does a tiny animated haggis.

"Eep" said the Haggis. "Hi... guys" said the bard.

Realizing the bard probably isn't a threat, I mention that my weapons and armour are next door, as are the Navvies' things, and it turns out, the Bards pipes too.

Angus is already rummaging to try to find something to improvise as a weapon, remember he is a greengrocer, and therefore does not sell much in the way of threatening items.

Across the square, the undead are beginning to break into buildings and clear them, obviously looking for Baz.

"How are we going to get our stuff?"

The Navvie solves the problem by making a Navvie sized hole in the shelf, wall, and a couple of tables on the other side of the wall.

We recover our accoutrements easily enough. The Inn is deserted, now armed and amoured, we see each other for the first time as potential warriors and allies rather than men caught in events we don't understand. Also the Bard is there and his familiar: "Haggis." (yes it was called Haggis).

Angus's shop is not as defensible as we'd like and peeking between the boards on the windows we can see that the undead are starting to turn our way.

The most defensible location nearby is the Steeple Church, the (amazingly enough) Steeple of which is practically a tower, perhaps we can hold out there with Baz until the soldiers from Oliver Barracks or Marines from any of the RN vessels in the harbour can try to retake the town.

We decide to leave, Angus empties the register, leaving a "back soon" note on the counter, and guides us to the back door, which he makes a show of locking behind us (the hole in the wall he appears to have neglected). He is carrying a large sack of what we can't really identify as anything other than "bitz". We also think grabbing some food and beer might be a good idea.

We slink through the backstreets toward the Kirk, we can already smell smoke and there is still the occasional scream, we can hear the Undead smashing down doors. It can't be long before we're spotted, so we move as quickly as a group of men carrying 800lbs of unconscious god can, Angus directs us and we can already see the Steeple above the houses, but we can also hear the crackle of gunfire from up ahead.

Just before we enter the square we decide to ditch Baz for a minute. Apparently the Haggis will keep an eye on him (ok Bard...).

We round a corner and see a detachment of Royal marines unloading into a Testudo of skellies. The Skellies are not going down easy and are slowly, surely, advancing on them. The Skellies have their backs to us, we could break their formation.

It's here we have our first defining moment as a party.

"Are we going to help them?"

There's four fuck yeahs and a "sure whatever..." the "sure whatever" earns the bard a stare from the rest of us.

"Fine you can stay here and watch..."

This is also the first interjection from the sofa of

"Hah, faggot." "Ok, I'm in!"

At this stage we are all very very basic, some of us have fought before, others have literally no idea what they're doing.

The bard is extremely helpful in that the first thing he does, is start to play (this was our first experience of the Bard's music). The DM must have queued this up on his laptop, because as soon as the Bard says

"I am gonna play an inspiring song."

the DM slaps the space spar and Simple Minds - Don't You (Forget About Me) - which was then followed by several already slightly drunk players singing along.

Of course what the DM didn't remind him was that we are the better part of fifty feet from the Skeletons, roman skeletons with perfect drill, the rear rank does a 180 towards us.

"Well shit."

Once we got over the idea that the bard playing music meant that we actually got music, we are staring down a rank of 15 odd skellies with very big shields, which we are a tiny bit unsure about how to kill them.

The wizard goes first.

"Guyz, I have a plan..."

He summons a 10lb iron ball. It hovers in mid air, it starts to rotate in place, gradually gaining speed, meanwhile the Navvie and I start to jog toward the enemy. Angus at this point, as a self declared party face, isn't really sure what he's gonna do, but he definitely has a sack of stuff, which he plops down and reaches into.

OOC: "Angus, what are you doing?" "I'm a social character, I dunno I could..." "ANGUS YOU HAVE NO SOCIAL SKILLS AND THIS IS NOT THE TIME." "I pick up a brick and follow the other two!"

At 25 feet or so I stop and open fire on them. The rounds from my revolvers punch through the shields just fine, but what they're doing to the Skellies behind is kinda hard to tell. One falls and a couple are looking quite shaky. I keep firing, stopping to reload and then emptying the cylinder again.

Angus jogs past me after the Navvie. He stops, reaches into the bag (still holding the brick) and goes for a bottle, which he somehow fashions into a rudimentary molotov cocktail. It sails through the air. It shatters on a shield. Then the one who it hit is shattered into bits. Angus celebrates what he sees as his victory (he never seemed to realize it was the redneck-cannonball that did it, but we didn't have the heart to tell him either) as the Wizard summons some rotary saws, the redneck cannonball does however zip into the main body of skellies, momentarily breaking their formation and buying the marines some time.

The Navvie is starting to realize that even with me firing at Skellies, Angus prepping another molotov and the Wizard keeping his flanks clear, him and his hammer are still running straight at ten or so skeletons. He decides, rather than run away, to take the innovative decision of running at them faster.

The reasoning is easy enough to follow, they're in a single line, one skelly deep, if he can break their formation and keep going, they can't surround him. He smashes one to the ground and gets a glancing blow on a second and keeps going. Skellies may be tough but they are not bright, with some turning to follow him and others advancing on us, they are easy enough to mop up.

We have our first victory! Go us! We are heroes! Except there's still the least 75 more skellies.

"Ah."

The marines are doing a fairly good job keeping them back. Another wizard-cannonball (turns out it's rather effective if your enemies are man sized, don't have guns, and just happen to be lined up) helps break the formation as we hit the Skellies in the rear.

The rest of the combat sees skeletons pinned between us and marines. When the dust settles there's us and about fifteen marines left.

We retrieve Baz and head into the church. We also retrieved the haggis. By the time we get back, the marines are starting to dig in, ripping up pews and smashing windows to make firing ports.

The rest of the city is burning, there are a fair number of huddled civilians within the church as well. The marines are lead by a sergeant with a very impressive tache. They are short on ammunition and are happy to have us with them.

Outside there do not appear to be many skellies about, yet.

Given the way the rest of the city is suffering and how quiet it seems here, we maybe sometime before we are relieved.

Baz semi wakes up. He doesn't look terribly well. Indeed he looks a bit worse than when we found him. He sits up, looks around, vomits into the font and collapses on the floor.

Meanwhile our attention is drawn to the skellies beginning to file into the square.

We pool our knowledge, the marines seem happy to keep doing marine things and leave us to it. We decide to get away from the smell of Baz vomit and head up into the steeple.

On getting the height advantage we realize several things:

1. Yup this city is fucked. 2. That's a lot of Roman skeletons. Why are they Romans? Well necromancers like bodies/skellies that in life were trained (it sort of helps with drilling the skellies), and the Romans did actually do quite a lot of stuff around this area. Don't put it past an intrepid go-getting necromancer to have gone to Mons Graupius and raised the Roman dead, for example, then to have continued the theme with any other corpses.

It was about here that Angus decided he wanted to call them Zombans. We told him if he tried we would throw him from the tower.

The bad thing in particular about it being Romans is Romans are rather good at military engineering. We have a feeling if this turns into a siege, we aren't going to have a chance to starve to death.

We can also see larger shapes on the skyline, undead giants we think. The ships in port are streaming out to sea while the RN vessels fire on the giants.

It's beginning to get dark. The skellies have surrounded the church but aren't doing anything else. Baz pukes again and we attempt further communication.

There's a lot of grunting, and some sign language. In the end, Baz makes writing motions, Angus dips into his sack and comes out with a stick of charcoal. He then ignores everyone else while tinkering with some bits.

Baz draws a picture on a flagstone. It's him and he has some other (what we assume are Gods) around him, surrounding them are lots and lots of little floaty things. He then scrubs out the floaty things, drawing them instead around a second picture, a skull. He then pointedly draws a line through one God after another, until only Baz is left.

What the wizard and I construe from this (the Navvie deciding that alcohol is dangerous in a situation like this and is plugging down all the beer we brought to protect others from inebriation) is that all of the souls that were keeping Baz and his God friends going (I.e. folk who died in their territory) have been hoovered up by the necromancers.

Baz and co. are not likely to have had a great many living believers and now he finds himself the only one left.

Baz then promptly passes out again. Angus is still tinkering. People are starting to get hungry (not a good time to be a haggis). The undead aren't coming because (we assume) church, but we are stuck in here without the forces to get out, we assume they are trying to keep us here until they can bring up something that will let them in. Be it siege engine or magic or something.

We are starting to ponder.

"Why not give them Baz?"

We decide against it because giving them an actual God seems unwise.

It looks like stalemate for now.

Having decided not to hand over Baz, we consider our options again, sadly our options appear to amount to die, or wait for them to break down the walls, and then die. Attempts at finding catacombs or tunnels under the altar or other standard church type things prove fruitless. It looks like we are here for the duration.

There is movement outside.

It looks like whatever they are waiting for has arrived. A patch of darkness coalesces into a vaguely humanoid shape. If we had to guess, it's probably not a good sign at all.

The Necromancer (who, to differentiate him from later appearances, we will call "Frank") hisses and clacks his teeth together a bit before remembering how to speak.

"You have something we want..."

Deciding we aren't going to lose anything by responding we ask

"What's that exactly?" "You have my sacrifice. Give him to me and I will let you leave unharmed."

At this point we owe nothing to the country, we have no royal charter, and we have no purple penguin. This does not however mean that we believe him.

"Why don't you come and get him!?"

The necromancer doesn't seem terribly amused. He makes no reply but there is an almighty thump from the doors as a battering ram is deployed.

We manage to get a look outside. We expected your common or garden variety battering ram, what we did not expect was (one lore check later) the iron man of gorbals (esoteric, but it is on Google) to be clubbing at our door.

We have another problem. There is a commotion among the civilians. We decide the doors are our biggest threat and with the marines firing onto the skellies below as they try to get ladders against the windows, we decide this place may not be as sanctified as we hoped.

The iron man is... well basically a big iron and flesh construct. The wizard is definitely going to be able to do things to it, but he's going to need time. We smash out the stained glass windows and do our best, he seems resistant to shot, hammer, and... Angus? Where are you?

Angus joins us with a large bucket of something flammable, from the smell it's whale oil (rather common as a means of providing illumination), he douses the iron man who although going up like a torch, otherwise isn't terribly bothered.

There's screaming from behind us now

The iron man judders and stumbles, it seems the wizard is doing something... he collapses against the door. A large, flaming object, against the wooden door.

Arse.

It's a strong oak door, toughened by the years, but if it fails we are beyond fucked. The iron man is still banging weakly at it.

The wizard does his best to shore up the door and simultaneously encourage bits of the iron man away from it, reasoning it is Angus's problem, the Navvie and I leave him and the bard to try and put the issue out while we see what is up with the civvies.

We are just in time to see a marine get his throat ripped out by a granny. She screams unlike anything we have heard before, a banshee wail. It appears the undead may not be inclined to come in without a necromancer like Frank to strengthen their animus, if you're in the church and happen to expire, as granny appears to have done, you're fair game.

Some of the civilian corpses behind her are starting to rise.

The marines at the windows are tied up keeping the rest of the undead out, it looks like this is our problem. The problem is that this is becoming an exponential issue as dying civilians rise and kill others, who themselves also rise. We get stuck in as best we can, but it's not long before the Navvie and I are surrounded, fighting back to back, thinning down what is slowly becoming a horde. At least we have their attention... or do we... It seems like some are making for Baz.

When some of the nearby bodies ignite, we at least know help is on the way. Joined by the others, we fight our way to Baz, just as a patch of darkness begins to form above where he lays.

N.b. a recently reanimated corpse in Britbongsteros is not a zombie, it retains all of the thoughts, feelings and emotions it did when living, but the will of the corpse can be subjugated, otherwise they just gradually go feral as the brain dies off. The undead came in three (for want of a better term) tiers: 1. Zombies: the recently reanimated, still bearing the memories of life, uncoordinated, crap in combat, but excellent as a horde. If reanimated but not subjugated they would go feral as the brain decayed, eventually becoming... Tier 2: Skellies. Tough, violent and able to be perfectly coordinated by a necromancer, as there is nothing left to contest the body. Tier 3: if you had sufficient angriness or something left to do, you could end up as a wight or revenant. Also falling into this category are banshees, who are tough, but the banshee "spirit" can possess a corpse where it knows there is likely to be a lot more death to follow (I.e. it is going to be able to do some wailing). Tier 3.5 is ghosts which I will have to remember to tell you about later.

Cù Sìth is what we would identify the thing as once it appears over Baz, but we settled on Giant Fucking Murder Dog.

We stand together, there's a giant fucking dog thing (it's alive/demonic/who fucking knows, but it's in here and it's the size of a bull) and it's standing over Baz. It lowers it's shoulders and growls.

We look at each other, we look at it, it's do or fucking die now. Five men, one haggis. Let's do this.

The bard plays for us Ram Jam - Black Betty 1977 while the undead smash into the Kirk through the windows, marines retreating behind us, trying to keep our backs clear as the beast lopes toward us.

We can see light beginning to come in through the windows behind it, but it's by no means sun up yet.

We run to meet it, pistols and molotov taking it at close range, the harpoon now sticking out of its side impedes it. As it gets in close, the Navvie's smacking it in the face as it goes to bite down on the noisiest target: The bard.

It gets a mouthful of Haggis instead.

(DM: "That thing was retarded you can either lose that or lose a leg.")

Bereft of the daftest member of our party, we club the thing to death.

The sun is definitely rising, but it's by no means light enough to give us hope, we turn and stand with the marines, of whom there are not very many left, the couple of surviving civilians do their best with candlesticks. It's about now that Baz wakes up.

We know Baz as an 800lb lump of useless, smelly, vomiting rubbish, what we do not know him as, is as a god, and he gracefully, slowly, pushes through our lines. The predatory bulk of him slamming into skeletons. As impressive as it is, there's only one of him, and an awful lot of them. Also there's a Frank.

His skellies have opened the door, and as Frank drifts in, Baz is swamped and pulled down like a stag by hounds.

Frank wouldn't be any kind of evil necromancer if he didn't gloat a little, but he's also eminently sensible about it. As Skellies bind him and lift Baz out, he gives us an oddly cheerful wave.

"Goodness that was a lot of effort wasn't it? Why bother? You could have avoided this and all of these people wouldn't have had to..."

The pistol bullet takes his jaw off. The Navvie speaks for all of us.

"We didn't ask to be here, but you know what, fuck you."

Frank beats a retreat with Baz in tow, the rest of the Skellies push toward us, we retreat to the altar, using the stairs to hold them off as best we can.

The sun is up now, and in the distance we can hear the guns on the ships. The shell that takes out the other half of the church makes life somewhat easier.

Eventually we collapse, weary, tired, and grumpy in the light of the early dawn.

We are taken aboard the HMS Victory, this by no means feels like victory, it feels like a beginning, after our story is confirmed by the surviving marines and civilians, we meet Dan Defoe, agent of the privy council. He's quite a guy.

"Well you didn't quite do a perfect job lads, but we think we know where Frank went, it's not a job for conventional forces, and I have a royal charter here that offers you some excellent benefits to signing up." "What benefits are these?" "Revenge, money, arms, women, and being alive to enjoy it."

Angus looks troubled.

"What about my shop?" "Destroyed in the shelling, or if it wasn't I'll arrange it." "My... my... my family?" "See above, you signing or not me ol' green matey?"

Five signatures are added below the extremely impressive signature of "Queenie - Love and Hugs. P.s. I'll chop off your balls."

We sign the charter, accepting the Queen's shilling and agreeing to finish what we started. Well that's not quite right. We didn't start anything. Some giant bastard with antlers fell out of the sky on us. We are not best pleased, but given the choice of fighting further or being disposed of in some unpleasant manner, there isn't really a choice at all.

Dan Defoe (quite a nice bloke really) continues, giving us the best intelligence the crown has on what Frank (our local neighbourhood necromancer) is likely to do next.

"The short answer lads, we have no fucking idea."

Well cheers for that Dan.

"But we do know he (Frank) has a fondness for Romans. It's likely he may be camped somewhere near Battledykes (yes that's a real place).

The party, and we are starting to think of ourselves as a party now, are at this point still aboard HMS Victory while Dundee slowly burns. Battledykes is about twenty miles north of the city. If that is where Frank (not actually called Frank but it's easier than typing "the necromancer") has gone, then it's likely this is also where they have taken Baz.

"Hey Dan, if we are servants of the crown does that mean we can get stuff?"

The DM makes a fatal decision here.

"Well I'm sure the ships stores can be made available to you within reason." >Roll some dice >Angus beams "I wonder if anyone will miss this flamethrower..."

We also make off with a quantity of explosives (dynamite) and ammunition.

One of the ship's boats drops us ashore at Invergowrie (Down the coast a bit).

So our merry little band set off on our first adventure, we have a necromancer to slay and a quest. We feel like proper adventurers!

>It starts to rain. Heavily. >It's also cold as fuck.

We try to push on, on foot, along a road rapidly turning to mud, downtrodden refugees heading in the opposite direction look more than worse for wear, they at least can take shelter in wagons. The bard begins to shiver.

We are barely two miles inland and soaked to the skin. Frozen, we start thinking of looking for a barn or similar to wait out the storm. We find a small cottage, there is smoke coming from the chimney and it looks warm and cozy.

We knock on the door hopefully. Starting to feel rather sorry for ourselves in this weather, yes we have some gear with us, but it's bitterly wet and cold, and we were up all night fighting the undead (if you can't tell we are being punished for our own stupidly here).

The tiny old woman that answers the door tells us that we can bugger off.

The offer of money gets us permission to stay in the barn and the offer of soup.

Feeling a bit happier (Angus seems to have a sniffle) we decide, given we set off late, that maybe we should settle down here for the night, warm up, and generally be of some use tomorrow.

The rain beats down hard on the roof, despite the well maintained farm there are no animals. We should perhaps find this odd but maybe they're all out to pasture. It also seems to be just the old woman.

After the soup we feel drowsy. Very drowsy indeed.

We do our best to stay awake, deciding one of us should perhaps remain on watch, I try to stay awake with my pipe. I'm replaced by the bard, then the wizard, the wizard wakes the rest of us just after midnight.

There is something coming up the road. It's still raining too hard to tell what, but we strain our eyes in the darkness.

There are a number of them. A small force even. We can't make out much, they look from a distance like sturdy, wizened old men, each is wearing what (as the old woman opens the door to the cottage, we seen in the light to be) a bright red cap.

A little lore checking denotes the strong possibility that these might be Powries.

A Powrie, or red cap as Anon will see from the link is a sort of species of dwarf, well armed and bloodthirsty, the titular hats are dyed red with blood and they must re-dye them regularly.

The Powries begin to deposit various dead things on the threshold (we note that they never cross it), these include the butchered carcasses of deer, a boar, and three or four concerningly human shaped things. It appears the old woman has been cooking for these things.

A note on the powries of Britbongsteros A native tribe or race, local to the Scottish borders, entirely mercenary, they prey on travelers. Each is armed traditionally with a long spear or pike. They are excellent woodsmen and incredibly fast over open ground.

There's also enough of them that we are totally boned if the old woman tells them we are....

>She points in our general direction.

What exactly do we do? There's not much we can do. We decide to wait until they get closer and see what comes of it.

About half of them walk toward the barn. The other half seem to have flat out vanished. As they get closer we can see the wicked talons on their hands, their fangs and the rain washes the blood dripping from their hats down their cheeks.

They open the barn doors below us. As the others have disappeared, we wait in the hayloft, ready at least to take some with us. The Powries don't seem to have realized we are there, they are below us, collecting up tools, what looks like farming equipment. Maybe we might get out of this without bloodshed?

>Probably not.

One of them sniffs the air. We do our best to stay quiet. It shakes its head.

Seems everything turned out better than exp...

The other half of the Powries have been scaling the wall of the barn.

Everything goes crazy, there are Powries everywhere, there's gun fire and bagpipes, screaming, shouting and by the way. Did you know, using a flame-thrower in a wooden building is actually not wonderfully smart?

Now the barn is very healthily ablaze and we are nearly surrounded by crazy angry midgets. Taking our inspiration from Ghandhi as to how to deal with this we...

No of course we don't. We shoot them.

Fun powrie fact. Outrunning a Powrie is (according to mythology and therefore our rules) impossible. We need to kill each and every one or we will have mad red hatted tribesmen jumping out of bushes as we stumble around the countryside. The bard, as always, is useless. The wizard summons and chucks sharp implements about. The Navvie (surprise) has taken rather well to combat, and remember this is the first time we are spilling actual blood as opposed to battering skeletons.

Angus is finding the whole situation troubling.

As a reminder, Angus' backstory is he is a shop keeper. That's it. Turning living beings into pillars of fire is a new experience for him, and not one he enjoys. The Navvie reminds him that if they kill us, they will eat us. That seems to help, but what really assists, is Angus getting a pike through the shoulder. He then utters the immortal word of vengeance.

"Ow"

Reaching into his bag of tricks and coming up Molotov, he has a fistful of each.

Now a little note about our DM, you may sometimes get told if you're doing something stupid. Sometimes.

Angus's attempt at (with some rope) making a flail of molotovs does not work. He sets both of his feet on fire, along with launching flame bottles scattering across the barn. Miraculously none of us are set alight, but it does provide quite the distraction, allowing us to beat down the rest of the Powries.

With the Powries removed, we decide the best thing to do is get out of the barn. It collapses appropriately dramatically as we do so.

We debate having a further chat with the old woman who sold us out. We decide probably best to play it softly as we would quite like to stay in her cottage (it being night and raining torrentially) on the other hand, that fire is going to attract every kind of ne'er do well for miles

We decide it's worth the risk (we don't want the DM to consider giving us pneumonia), the old woman is actually surprisingly grateful that we "got rid of the Powries." We are only going to be nice back if we can check her pantry (The Powries had been bringing her human shaped things). She dislikes this idea.

The wizard is able to sense the magical build up and attempts to shove the Navvie out of the way of unpleasant looking ball of dark energy. Shortly afterwards we add one granny to our kill count. Shortly after that, we are reminded (we love you DM) that we ate her soup, which a check of the pantry confirms was not kosher.

I hope anon never faces this situation. You've got tasty delicious possibly human in your belly.

>The DM pops his first beer "Well chaps, who's going to puke first? As a reminder this was your first hot meal in a while and it was a little time and one combat ago..."

Angus decided that actually he's an orc, so he can really can't be a cannibal anyway. The rest of us take a different approach.

>laughter occurs from the sofa.

We bed down, feeling oddly disgusted with our selves and our murderhobo conduct. Consider: we turned up, killed everyone, burnt down the barn, killed an old lady, then were sick in her garden. We're proper adventurers now

Now that that clusterfuck of a random encounter is dealt with, we meet the morning, new and fresh, ready to greet the new day and march onwards to Baz, glory, and not being killed by our own monarch while probably being killed by skeletons.

>onwards

We don't move as fast as we would like (having about twenty more miles to traverse) but we get through daylight without much issue. Our pace is slow as we start to come into necromancer territory - I.E. nearing Battledykes.

N.b. you can follow along on Google maps when places get mentioned.

What does necromancer territory mean exactly? Well it's not quite as weird as you might expect. The gardens and fields are overgrown, the kirkyards and cemeteries lack occupants. The land itself is still green and verdant, there are no creepy Halloween things, it's just very, very quiet.

Thinking we can't be far from our objective, and that we are not attacking a necromancer, and his minions in the dark, we make the decision to bed down someplace. We decide on a good sized farmhouse near Lunanhead.

I take the first watch.

We do not light any fires because muh stealthy. The moon up and I'm just thinking of waking Angus when I see movement on the road below. Lots and lots of movement. Ranks of skeletons march past, followed by war machines, undead giants (who come from Stirling - that is relevant later), but the skeletons are not the Roman ones we are used to.

I wake the rest of the party. The wizard. Then Angus. The Navvie. Then Angus. Then the bard.

Wait a second....

In the hushed darkness there's definitely me and five other shapes. That is a bad number. I should add, the DM has mentioned the extra human shaped shape to me via note, he's still describing the army marching past to everyone else.

Ok. So, if I give the alarm we could end up summoning the army. We also don't know what the extra body is, or even who it is.

The Navvie is easy, even in the darkness you can just tell it's him. Angus you can tell by smell, I know I'm me, the bard, wizard and... thing(?) on the other hand are all very similar silhouettes.

I can't just say "one of you is an impostor" I also can't start shooting, Angus is quite sharp when he wants to be though. He rolls perception. Then goes full retard.

"Something doesn't smell right here..."

He grabs the.... The bard.

The shape knows it's been rumbled.

What is the shape? That's a remarkably good question. Our first thought however is not to worry about that. Instead we dog-pile to prevent whatever it is from escaping.

If anon has ever played any contact sports, you know that if you leap at someone, you're braced for the impact. So it comes as quite a surprise when you miss or meet no resistance at all. Why is that? Because it's a ghost.

This is our first ghost we have had anything to do with. As the shape switches from floaty bard to floaty Angus to floaty wizard, we start to wonder if it might not be harmful.

We lie in a pile on the floor. The ghost is silent. It waves it's arms about. It may in fact be harmless? We aren't sure. It is, at the very least, silent, and we can hear things marching past outside, so we should be relieved by that.

The undead of Britbongsteros I have discussed a few times already, but ghosts occupy a rare and unusual position. Can someone be a zombie and a ghost? No. But if say, for example, as happened to a recently deceased person who was possessed or taken over by (for example) a banshee, then that person has to go someplace. Then we get ghost.

However just because it used to be a person, does not make it smart. However it seems to be waving in the direction of a specific bit of floor

We lift a rather mouldy rug and see a trapdoor. Nifty. Of course common sense prevails eventually. Why is it so keen for us to go down there? None of the characters may have ever seen a horror movie, but we do share at least the one communal brain cell.

The wizard, Angus, and I descend into the darkness of the cellar. The bard and Navvie (not a fan of confined spaces) wait up top. By the light of Angus's pilot light we can see it's a bit more than the standard cellar. There is also a body on the ground, chained out so it's spread-eagled. We think this is what our ghost might have belonged to.

The body is so old you couldn't tell what the ghost was in life, nor do we think it can remember. Which is rather sad when you think about it. We decide the right thing to do is try to put the thing to rest.

Maybe whatever originally possessed it has gone? It's just a husk and therefore... We have no idea. Angus suggests just torching it. The wizard seems to think removing the chains is a good idea. The Navvie (in what is for him a whisper) asks from the top of the stairs what's taking so long? The body's eyes open

We weren't really expecting that, or maybe we should have. It also talks. You'd expect the sibilance of gravedust, instead it's almost cheerful.

"Greetings."

We definitely don't know whats in there, but as its head turns through 360 degrees, burning the thing seems like an excellent idea.

Devil's Bargain [ edit ]

So we have a ghost that quite wants to go home and *something* occupying its body.

I need to explain a couple lore checks first before I go on.

Our new friend introduces him/her/itself (or some other Tumblr bullshit) as Brahan Seer, who the bard apparently knows as a famous soothsayer, it also adds that we can call it Black Donald (Which Google will tell you is a name for the devil).

We will just call him Donny.

>Is it Satan?

We don't think so, Christian mythology is fairly lacking (purposeful choice) when it comes to appearing in Britbongsteros, however the names are helpful in identifying whatever is in that corpse as something we want to chat to before setting it on fire.

>What does Donny want?

Donny wants us to collect something for him. From the local necromancer. The one we are going to be visiting (shooting), that being our good friend Frank.

>What is it?

Something which anons who have read the later stories may recognize, but Donny describes it as a glowing blue box. As many as we can carry. If we do that, he will relinquish the body and the ghost can go back to where it belongs.

We agree. For now. For people who were living normal lives until yesterday, things are getting weird.

We head back upstairs and let the rest of the party know, they agree. So we have literally made a deal with (possibly) the devil.

Our next step is to have a good look at where we are going next. Down into Battledykes.

We wait for sun up.

There are still plenty undead about, but they don't seem quite as effective in the day. We also rather need to see what we are doing. Observation shows that there are small units of skeletons patrolling the countryside, there's also a copse of trees leading almost all the way to where we want to go. We cut down into the woods.

The early morning mist gives us plenty of cover, and from up ahead we can hear hammering.

From a distance we could see the beginnings of a Roman camp, which logic indicated would likely be where we would find Baz. It also occurs to us we still don't have much of a plan... Of course not having a plan never really bothered us later and it didn't bother us at this stage either. We did however take some explosives along for the trip, which we are glad of now.

The Navvie lights the fuse and slings them at the wall. They land at the bottom of it, sizzling, a skeleton looks over the top of the wall. It half turns, before shattering as a spume of earth and flame shoots into the sky. The wall is down and we are running toward the breach.

We need to find, engage and kill Frank as quickly as possible, otherwise the skeletons will soon overwhelm us.

The bard launched into a song at this stage. For the life of me I cannot remember what the fuck it was. KORPIKLAANI - Vodka (OFFICIAL VIDEO) this'll do.

The skeletons are not fast to respond, but they do slowly begin to. As we make it through the breach they are beginning to form up. We can also see a pedestal with Frank on it, aAlong with some chaps in robes.

>Alchemists

These chaps turn up later as well, but they're responsible for a lot of the more magical/weird technology of Britbongsteros. They react plenty fast.

Angus shoots pillar of flame across the formation of skeletons. It turns out large groups of skeletons with wooden shields do not like flamethrowers. Angus gets this mad, mad, glint in his eye.

>Oh fuck yes. It werfs flammen.

The alchemists appear to have brought jezzails. They're not wonderful shots, but they fire extremely large boolets. The dent that appears in my breastplate and takes me off my feet is sore as fuck. I'm fine, but not terribly happy about it. The Navvie is very much in his element, he has picked up an alchemist and is using him as a human shield. It works absurdly well. The wizard and I make for Frank.

Frank has obtained a new jawbone from somewhere. He does not seem terribly pleased. Baz is tied up on the pedestal with alchemist looking gubbins humming into life around him, we can see some of those cubes around him. He does not look terribly well... In fact Baz looks rather pale.

Whatever Frank is up to, we need to do something. Soon. We don't know what the machines will do, what Frank is up to, or indeed what will happen if the ritual/process is complete. The Navvie takes a very direct approach to all things.

"I still have some explosives left right?"

Yesohshitno

He tosses the other satchel at Baz

DM: "Muh adventure muh BBEG my-"

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

A very important DM lesson was learnt that day: Do not trust us morons.

The smoking crater contains one Baz and not much else. The skeletons around us are uncoordinated and bumping into things.

Everything went better than expected? Ish...

Of course, Frank was not the only necromancer around. Of course other necromancers would sense his demise. Of course Frank might have a master. Of course the DM was pissed.

Meanwhile we merrily root about for glowy blue boxes. We find some thinking that should do, and prepare to leave.

When several hundred skeletons turn to look at you in unison, you start to realise there might be a problem.

We have done something that was possibly a bit dumb. We have smashed our way into the center of a small fortress outnumbered, outgunned, alone. Worse still than that, we have angered the DM. The DM pauses for a long, long moment. He looks at us. Each of us. A cold, hard stare.

>Let's do this.

The skeletons start to form up. Perfect serried roman ranks. We begin to back out of the camp. There's plenty of them between us and that hole in the wall too.

>Arse

This is a fairly typical castrum, or roman fort (I really like Romans).

The red things are skeletons.

Purple is us.

Blue is the hole.

Brown is what we just blew up.

I'll give you a clue what happened next.

Well we did blow Frank to bits fairly well. Baz somehow seems to have survived?

>ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL

That's not our Baz. There's what looks like a femur sticking out of his chest. We assume it belonged to Frank. There's a darkness spreading across Baz's chest. He stands up.

The only thing we really recognize about Baz now is that his eyes have this sad, pained look about them, the rest of him in the simplest of terms looks evil. But why use words when if you type "Dire Elk" into google. That's close enough.

We're outnumbered 100 to one and they have what looks a bit like god on their side. A couple of days ago, we were normal people, this is well out of our experience. We look at each other. Silently we agree. There is only one option.

>Leg it.

Skeletons are not that fast. Not-Baz doesn't seem minded to pursue us. Instead we make for the hole in the wall. We get through without too much trouble, legging it into the countryside. We stop running, out of breath and more than a little terrified, at the farmhouse.

There doesn't seem to be much in the way of pursuit. We stop in by, chuck the cube thing at Donny, who is vomited out of the corpse. He gives us a wink and an "I'll see you later wink" as the ghost is lain to rest.

We decide we're going to have to go back to Dundee and explain ourselves.

We make it back to Dundee mostly without incident, except accidentally beating up a swan. We make our way to HMS Victory which is still docked in the harbour. Dan Defoe (the inquisitor to our acolytes) is ecstatic to see us, or at least he was, until we opened our mouths.

We explain what happened (making ourselves out to be desperate heroes, tossed upon the vicissitudes of fate). He buys absolutely fucking none of it.

"So you stopped the ritual. Frank is no longer going to have the power of a God. Excellent. EXCEPT NOW FRANK IS A FUCKING GOD."

He pelvic thrusts and draws his pistol to enunciate his point.

"At least we have some professionals arriving shortly. They can take care of this, and you useless bastards can take them right back to Frank. The Special Bastard Squadron (SBS) should be here soon. Get out of my sight for a couple of hours."

We are not going to be told twice. We scarper. As we get out on deck, there is what looks to be a man sat on a crate. He is wearing a red tam o' shanter and an egregiously jaunty suit. He gives us all a big wink, a very familiar wink.

We didn't mention Donny in our debriefing (seemed like a bad idea), but we think he's probably not up to anything good.

"Hallo lads, so you got chewed out a bit I hear. What if I told you there's a way that you can all avoid being shot at dawn as soon as you get back?"

Ok we might be interested in this....

"What if I told you the alchemists in this city have been doing things they shouldn't? Including nailing me to a floor? And I want you all to be my instruments of revenge. You'll get some brownie points and you will be saving lives, whaddya say boys?"

Tentatively we agree.

>The DM grins.

"I want you to blow up an orphanage." "Wut?"

"There's no kiddywinks in there, the alchemists use it as a laboratory and machine shop. I have a sneaking suspicion, by which I mean I'm absolutely fucking certain, that the stench of my *he spits over the side, it sizzles* wife is involved. Their experiments require fresh bodies and young, pure souls, and I am sure you'll find an excuse to wreck the place once you see what's going on..." Interestingly, the DM hands a sheaf of notes to Cruella.

>Who the fuck is....

She turns up later. It's my Mrs. She was generally floating about in the background and ending up playing with us.

We mull this over, it's a fairly obvious side quest and you never know, it might be fun.

We examine the building from afar. It doesn't seem too intimidating. A large sandstone block, with lots of windows and an enormous yard out the back which it appears is being used as a motorpool. Out the front are tidy and well manicured grounds. The whole thing is surrounded by a wall about five feet high with railings up to a total of 9ft.

Even after the undead attack, it seems entirely untouched. Suspiciously so.

There is also a free clinic being run to one side of it for war wounded, and it sure is busy.

We are not entirely sure what the threat level of this place is. We also know we really ought not to trust Donny. Whatever Donny really is, he doesn't seem like the sort to tell us the truth.

We are a bit pressed for time, but we think we have a few hours. Enough time to canvas the local population and try to gain any intelligence we can on the place. What we discover from various bars and street urchins is the following:

There are about 50 alchemists in there

The more severe cases in the free clinic are taken into the basement

A lot more crates go into the place than come out

What the building gives us is a fairly sizable population, and a whole lot of collateral damage if we blow anything up (civilians in the free clinic and basement), we also don't actually know if we should blow anything up yet.

Fortunately the free clinic also gives us an in.

>None of us are injured.

We consider this issue. We need an injured person to take to the free clinic. They'd have to be a non-combatant, someone who isn't exactly worried about being low on HP. Maybe someone who isn't even all that useful anyway...

Bard: "Why are you all looking at me?"

We sort of... err... cartoon violence ball [we club him over the head and rough him up a bit (lot) but not too badly].

The free clinic is glad to take the bard and his "family" in, though the tricky part is convincing them that Angus' flamethrower is entirely kosher. We explain to the extremely beleaguered medics that it's "welding equipment" and in we go (lucky roll).

The clinic is much as you'd expect something like that to be in a recent warzone. There are silent, terribly injured people, screaming slightly less injured people, there's a woman in labour somewhere, and a great number of harrowed, saddened faces. As most clinics in this situation do, there is a process of triage.

There is a woman with dark hair and a very tight bust who (somewhat obvious clue) has a very piercing voice ordering people around, including selecting people almost at random to go to the basement. As we are arguing with the medics about the flamethrower, the bard is selected and carried off.

Bard's PC: "...guys. Seriously."

No one seems inclined to throw us out quite yet. We have a small council of war.

"Thoughts?" Navvie: "Hey we got rid of him! We're up already. Let's take our winnings and go." Wizard: "I agree with the oaf." Angus: "Pub?" Me: "Pub." Bards PC: looks kinda distressed "...guys? C'mon..."

We feel a bit bad for the bard and decide we should probably make an effort to rescue him. It is kind of our fault after all...

There's a couple of large doors into the main building and we assume that's where he was taken. As no one seems to be paying attention to us we decide extremely stealthily, very covertly to... Walk through the doors.

Again, there seems to be very little actually stopping us, there's no guards around, the hallways are clear, we find some stairs and head downwards, carefully peeking round corners and doorways and we find what seems like a place of intensive care. There are whirring machines and glowy things, but as far as we can tell (which is not much) they don't seem to be doing any harm, no one has that ghostly/deathly pale look of one having his soul sucked out.

There are a number of attendants and similar folk, but they are all bent over machine or patients. The bard is still unconscious, and we decide to leave him where he is for now while we try to work out what we should be doing.

(Yes we are all quite feckless)

More sneaking reveals workshops and some rather cool looking machines, there's a ramp out to the motorpool, but there's a shortage of sacrificial pits or demonic altars and general eeeeeevil. We metaphorically scratch our heads.

Is it possible that Donny is wrong? Or just some sort of supernatural liar? It makes perfect sense that he might be. Perhaps he has an ulterior motive? We have just blindly walked into demonic politics. Pretty blindly too I might add.

There are footsteps coming down the hall. We duck into a storeroom. As it's about head height for me, I peek through the keyhole. It's that lady again. Notably her eyes glow red.

Cruella acts the following out with the DM.

"Did we get what we needed from the bodies?" "Yes Mistress, the organs were harvested as you demanded." "Excellent..." >Oooh we're onto something here... "And you're shipping them quickly? They can't be left to lie around." "Yes Mistress." "Good boy." >Well...

We decide to follow her, see if we can find out just how evil this is...

We sneak along as stealthily as we can in the direction she went. We Metal Gear Solid behind some crates. There's a number of makeshift cots set up with very pale people, looking near death on them. They are attended to by what look like monks. One of the patients expires. He's taken away and we hear the whirr of a rotary saw.

>Those bastards...

A new patient is brought in. A marine, must've been pulled from the rubble of the Kirk. Barely alive. The woman bends over him. Facing in our direction over the body. She slaps the bloodied and bruised young man into wakefulness.

"You're dying."

He whimpers for his mother.

"But you can still serve. Me." >Oh yes, this is it, we cock hammers, we light pilot lights, "Sign here, consent to donating your organs to help others."

She looks right at us, and winks.

There's an earth shattering boom from the harbour that blows in the windows.

She vanishes, we run from the room, out into the motor pool, where we can see the harbour, just in time to see the HMS Victory and the transport ship next to her (which must've contained the Special Bastard Squadron) break into pieces as the Victory's magazine goes up.

>Motherfucker.

Cruella & DM drink their drinks in synchronicity as they smile big shit eating grins.

We punch the nearest alchemist and pinch a pick-up style truck. Stopping to pick up the bard (who is still a bit pissed with us) we make for the harbour confirming when we get there that the Victory, the SBS, and an awful lot of other folk have been blown to bits.

Donny and his "wife" wave to us as they leave the harbour. Donny winks, she blows us a kiss.

>FFS

Well shit. What next? It seems then that Donny is in league with the necromancers? If so, why was he nailed to the floor? If he wasn't, why blow up the Victory and the SBS? He must have an ulterior motive. It's also taken out Dan Defoe and our quest giver.

>Anyone have any bright ideas?

We can't go back and take on Baz ourselves. We could track down Donny though...

We don't really know where Donny has gone though. He left the harbour on a small steam pinnace heading northwards. There's all number of places he could have gone. He's not exactly moving fast though, and we do have a truck... Ooooooh a though occurs...

We follow the coast road.

>Can any of you drive?

Err...

It's decided the wizard is now our designated driver on the reasoning that as the semi (referred to as "The Jalopy" amongst friends) is made of metal, and therefore somehow his responsibility.

Steve Earle - Copperhead Road

With the bard in the flatbed we tear off up the coast road with a plume of dust behind us. We get out of the city heading North North East (anon can follow along on a map here if so wishes as we are taking the A930). We just about manage to keep Donny in sight as we head towards Broughty Ferry, and then between Monifieth and Carnoustie we lose him, the road missing out on the peninsula there.

A variety of driving related tests later (the rest of us are providing perception based buffs and the bard as usual acts as an adventure appropriate mix-tape).

We break for a moment as the DM goes glassy eyed of Steve Earle which leads into Lynyrd Skynryd's Simple Man. We wave lighters in the air and sing along.

As we barrel through Carnoustie the music changes.

Waylon Jennings - Dukes Of Hazzard "Good Ol' Boys" Theme Song

Oh fuck.

We're at the positively mind blowing speed of 45MPH as we hit the main drag through town (a cobbled single track), there's civilians everywhere. We swerve to avoid. Into and through stalls, bits and pieces of merchandise landing in the cab with us, we are joined by a chicken for a couple hundred meters. We skid, narrowly avoiding taking out a nun who is gesticulating rudely. The skid turns into a complete loss of control.

The rear end comes out in front, we spin, narrowly avoiding a ditch. Up ahead, the local church has let out after a service. There's nowhere to go...

>Why didn't you brake?

Hahahahah fuck that.

Making a split second decision. The wizard aims straight at the crowd, and the... oh... the ramp shaped embankment leading up to a statue...

The wizard floors it, the statue isn't terribly impressive, more of a sort of wooden figure/marker post. We take the thing out as we get air (I hate to think what've happened if we crit failed any of the above).

We sail over the heads of the crowd. Thumping down on non-existent suspension, we tear onwards.

Getting out of Carnoustie as fast as we went in, Angus shouts for the Wizard to slow down. The wizard takes his eyes right off the road to stare him down.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

We can still see that steam pinnace ahead. We're catching up.

Around East Haven we hit a fairly sizable pothole. Enough to set us into a spin and burst a tire. We flip and land slightly askew, but otherwise unharmed in a chicken coop. Out to sea we can see smoke from the Pinnace as she gets up a full head of steam.

>Spare tire?

Nope.

>Other traffic to flag down?

Fuck no.

>Plan?

Hell yes.

Between the wizard and Angus's bag of tricks we manage to patch the wheel together with staples and pure orky gumption. It won't be perfect but it'll do. The Navvie helps by acting as a jack with one hand and drinking a beer with the other. The decision is made that the Wizard is no longer allowed to drive. Angus you're up.

Angus gets behind the wheel. He lights a cigar.

"What colour is the truck DM?" "Uuuh... why?" "Just asking." "Roll for it?" [meaning "fuck if I know and I'll make it up based on how the number somehow makes me think of a colour"] "12! It's red."

It was red.

You're basically looking at a Ford Model T in red. With an Orc behind the wheel.

Something that may be relevant at this stage.

OOC: "What happens if I fire a flamethrower straight forward from a speeding vehicle, do we all get toasted?" [there is now an argument about this for the better part of half an hour.]

We eventually manage to convince him that if he's going to do it, he needs to drop the speed a lot first.

If any scientific anons can provide me with some form of proof or equation to allow me to definitively settle an argument five years old, I will love you forever.

Anon says: The thing people forget (and vidya help enforce in people's minds) is that a flamethrower is indeed that - a flame THROWER. Even in WWI the range in the trenches was about 14-18, and contemporary flamethrowers incinerate things at 50–80 meters. 45mph is 20.25 m/s, so assuming a WWI flamethrower (ei: not a particularly cool one) you'll be passing through any flame you throw in under a second - you needed to drop the speed a little, but not a massive amount, unless what you're about to drive through is flammable, will catch impressively AND is directly in your path to slow you.

We head onwards to Arbroath, turns out Angus is surprisingly not bad at driving. We make good time. That little pinnace is starting to get bigger on the horizon. Arbroath however is an issue.

The town seems to have been hit by the undead and there's still plenty of them about. The skeletons have been and gone, but there's plenty of feral corpses (ZAMBIES!) going about. If we stop, we'll get swarmed. We decide the best option is to floor it.

For those who don't know it, it's a small market town & port, it's also where the Declaration of Arbroath was signed (declaring Scottish independence in 1320). Looking at it from the direction we're going, we're at the bottom of a big Y and we want to take the right fork of that Y. We also are going to lose sight of (what must've - now I think about it, have been a very fast steam pinnace - though they have a much less twisty route than us). The first thing we notice is the place is very, very quiet.

We're well into town by the time we start to realize something is properly wrong. We've noticed that there seems to have been signs of fighting in some places, but generally it's as though everyone just up and left.

It's when we hit the crux of the Y at the center of town (near the abbey), and what we later surmise is the poisoned town well, that we realize something is properly amiss.

What's that you might ask?

The zombified horde of townsfolk. Too thick a crowd to drive through, but we're moving too fast to stop at this stage.

We've talked about zombies in Britbongsteros before. You die, you don't necessarily go feral immediately, you have memories, you know you were alive, you know you're dead, and as the brain dies off (unless necromantic influence) you go feral and start eating faces.

We can see some townsfolk are still mimicking life, there's a town crier waving at the crowd a proclamation his missing jaw and dead lungs won't let him read, a mother cradling half a child, but most of our attention focuses on the horde of feral townsfolk that seethe towards the noise of the engine. We're going far too fast to stop.

We plow into the crowd. Zombies reaching over the hood and trying to grab at us as they go under the wheels. Helpfully the tightly packed mass of bodies (who I might add have signs of having vomited black bile on themselves - again indicative to us of generally being poisoned) act as a sort of big cushion, and we are able to slow our momentum and shunt into reverse.

Angus swears and tries to back up as the rest of the party do our best House of the Dead. We start to back up the way we've come. The dead under the wheels are slowing us, slower, slower, stall...

ABANDON CAR.

What we have is significant horde of ex-humanity out for our warm tasty brains. Clearly an issue. However... The Navvie's PC, unusually for once, moans.

"Zombies are boring."

This angers the DM.

We break into a house, reasoning we can at least get out the back door and put a funnel on the horde.

>There's no backdoor.

The zombified old chap at the kitchen table looks disgruntled but otherwise harmless as we charge past him, he breaks into his boiled egg as we smash down the back wall of his kitchen.

Arbroath is one main street and lots and lots of rows of twisty turny side streets, we decide to go a few doors up, and bash through the front door.

Zombies are starting to follow us through the old man's house. The old man himself is in the early stages of zombie and abandons lunch and starts hobbling. Angus aims the flamethrower back at him.

"Dude!" "What?" "We can't just immolate the old bastard he's..." Navvie: "He's a zombie..."

The old man is not moving fast. The zombies aren't planning on eating him, but as he's shoved into the mass of them, his frail bones breaking, ribs cracking as he's carried along by the crowd we can see his arms waving pathetically for help. He might be dead but his body remembers pain and his brain is not quite dead enough to have forgotten what to do with it. Over the general moaning we can hear mumbling desperate pleas.

Navvie: "He's... sort of a... oh shit. Angus... just burn it..."

The flames torch the old man and the front of the horde.

We smash down the front door of another house figuring each house slows the horde until we can cut back on ourselves and smash back the other way to our transport.

These are small fishing village type houses. Tight, windy, the Navvie has to bend almost in half to fit. The next one we bash in the door of we manage to work out the story of what went on from the scene inside, or we think so.

Young couple. One of the kids seems to have got sick first or maybe the mother. There's a trail of black bile leasing from the crib by the stove. There are half a dozen bodies all leading to the back door, looks like dad was a drunk and didn't get poisoned like the rest. Each of the bodies has its head stoved in. Against the back door is a corpse with an empty whiskey bottle and a bloody hammer. Looks like the family all went feral at the same time and judging by the state of dad, chewed him up a good bit before he stabbed himself in the throat. The Navvie clubs his head as he starts to get up.

We get through the backdoor, zombies a little further behind us now, we decide one more house then double back.

We hammer through the front door. The place reeks of shit and ordure. It's not healthy. There's a shape that runs from us. Too fast to be dead. Survivor. Poor bastard has been locked in here by himself watching the town go crazy and eat itself. We follow him (as we must because that's the direction we want to go). Tied to a chair at the table is a corpse that's well and truly feral. She must've have been a pretty lass in life. Her dress is in what a Victorian novel would have called "Disarray" (for the foreign anons - what's heavily implied here is "necrophilia"). The guy is struggling at the back door. He looks over his shoulder at us. More afraid of us than the horde so it seems. He mumbles

"I could never have her, until she crawled to my door and..."

The Navvie (who is in front) smashes him in the face with one massive meaty fist. We leave him for the horde.

The Day That Never Comes - Metallica

We hammer out the back door, the horde is far enough behind us that we run up the street. Choosing a house at random, we stove the door in. We don't know how smart these things are but the Wizard does his best to bolt the door back together. Whatever madness is in this house we're gonna have to wait in here for a little while for the horde to thin out and pass back through onto the street now behind us.

The place seems normal. Everything in good order. Seems deserted. We try to make it safe, staying away from the doors and windows, we reason the best thing to do is get upstairs, there we can observe the horde below without as much risk of them seeing us.

We climb the stairs, all seems very peaceful, we can barely hear the horde down the street. The Navvie is still in the lead. He very gently taps on the bedroom door. No noises from within. He taps again to be sure.

"Hello?"

It's a child's voice.

DM pops a beer and gets that grin again.

The Navvie looks round the door. What the party see is that big, big man, fall to his knees. The little boy, three maybe four years old is missing half his face. Bite marks all over it. You can see the skull through the dead tissue. The little boy says

"You're not my daddy."

He totters to the Navvie anyway, little legs doing their best, one broken and twisted backward. The Navvie, even on his knees, the kid only comes to his belt buckle. Dry old blood smears his shirt.

The Navvie looks at us, big, brown eyes, not knowing what to do. That kid is gonna turn feral, soon. Great big hands reach down, patting, soothing, shushing, caring. They reach for his neck to snap it.

"I'm Thomas..."

The Navvie's player wipes a tear from the corner of his eye.

He nods.

"I'm Burt and..."

He snaps his neck.

DM: "Are zombies still boring you, cunt?"

The wizard puts the body under the bed, thinks better of it, and tucks him into the bed.

We look out the window, the horde is moving as planned, slowly but it's working. We wait.

They seem to have settled back into "holding" mode again, shuffling about aimlessly. We gather at the front door of the house.

"On the count of 3 boys" 1... 2... 3...

The hammer blow takes out the front door, and we pelt across the street. The Navvie shoulder barges down the door. There's ferals in here and we're forced to make noise as one grabs Angus and gets him on the ground, I shoot it in the face. The chase is back on again.

Out the front door, into the next building. This building faces out onto the main street and looks like a shop. The glass window lets what zombies still remain on the main street get a good look at us. Deciding the door is pointless, we go for the direct option, out and straight through the plate glass window together. There's enough zombies that we can deal with them easily enough. Making for the truck, the wizard cranks the starting handle as the rest of us pile in.

The engine doesn't take. Angus thumps the dash. The wizard swears. I knife the zombie under the rear axle just to be sure. The Navvie pushes the truck forward, trying to give us a running start. We join him as zombies shuffle toward us. The engine catches and off we go. On the horizon we can see the pillar of steam turning in, in towards Auchmithie bay.

All in all, this probably took about 15 minutes in game time, we were fortunate that (the DM had) the boat slow down and turn into a natural harbour just up the coast (literally five minutes drive from the town).

We follow the road to the steam, it's now a straight pillar that is slowly petering out. Signifying the boat has come to a stop and the boilers are being allowed to run down.

We don't want to just drive up to Donny's front door. So we stop at the small hamlet just round the coast from the large stately home overlooking the bay. The village is deserted again. It's a short walk from the village to Donny so we park the truck on the main (and only) road out of sight of the house which is about 500 yards across windswept fields from the village.

With the engine off, we hear a sound over the wind. Digging. Knowing we'll regret it, we follow it. There are half a dozen alchemists with repeating rifles (Martini Henry's) standing in a line. They clearly aren't digging. They are looking into a pit.

We wait in the cover of a stable (Angus soothingly petting the cart horse) and watch. One of the alchemists kicks a ladder back down into the pit. Slowly the fifty odd villagers ascend the ladder. The alchemists line them up along the side of the pit, facing into it. I murmur "Babi Yar" under my breath, knowing what's coming.

The rest of the party seem to have caught on, so that when I work out the alchemists are too far away for accurate pistol shooting and start moving forwards, the rest of the party follows.

The alchemists have managed to get the first batch of locals kneeling on the edge of the pit. They raise their rifles on the command of their leader. I manage to drop him with the first shot. The wizard sends a steel shaft through the skull of another, and between us, we wipe the party out quickly. We are fortunate in that it's likely the sound of shots were expected.

The locals as we approach don't seem entirely all there. Their eyes are a pale white. Milky. Without pupils. Talking, waving a hand in front of their faces, it does nothing. There's no one home. They don't respond to external stimuli at all until the bard says to one woman

"Say something... please?"

She says "something"

We establish through some trial and error that they respond to simple commands. Beyond that they might as well be automatons. Some further analysis and very limited interrogation reveals they aren't likely to get better from this. Their soul or essence is gone. We might as well be talking to husks.

We can't just leave them. They will at best starve to death. Angus picks up a fallen rifle.

"We should finish what they started then..."

Each body that falls into the pit is just an empty husk, or at least that's what we tell ourselves as we put down each and every one.

We look on at the stately home. Night is beginning to fall. There's no lights showing and no smoke from the chimneys but this has to be the place. We prepare ourselves and decide to get a bit closer. We have some revenge to take...

Getting closer to the building, there really does not seem to be anyone home. As it gets darker, the wind gets up combined with the sound of the sea, we're unlikely to hear anything. The moon rises and we have at least enough light to mostly see what we're doing. Peeking in through windows shows nothing but darkness. We decide to do some breaking and entering.

The door to the kitchens offers very little resistance. Angus puts his fist through the window in the door and we are in. No alarms ring, again it's all very peaceful. We head inwards.

The kitchens are silent. There's dust on everything, it seems like no one has used these in years. Oddly there is still perfectly preserved food under the dust. Angus experimentally picks up a ham and takes a bite. Apparently it's delicious.

We can still hear the wind and the sea outside, the only other sound is Angus munching. The party continues creeping through the house.

There's a lot of the usual creepy big house stuff, suits of armour, bookshelves, dust, that sort of thing. This continues as we pass through the kitchen, the dining room (with candles that are incongruously lit), library; in the great hall there's a roaring fire, which would make perfect sense if anyone had disturbed the dust on the floor. We ourselves are leaving little footprints as though walking through snow.

Instinctively we gather around the fire, enjoying the warmth.

>Where the fuck is everybody?

The place is plainly and clearly deserted, maybe we got the wrong house? Obviously there's not many others around... There's also the matter of where those alchemists came from... They must've come from somewhere... right?

The DM describes the hall carefully, and how we feel.

>You all have the unmistakeable feeling of being watched, even in this grand room, the feeling of the air changes imperceptibly.

Of course, this encourages us to start investigating, looking in dark corners, peering through keyholes. The Wizard is convinced there must be a secret passage or bookcase. He's tapping on walls and generally being wizardly. Of course, this being Britbongsteros, there aren't any.

It's about this time, the bard decides to look up.

"Guys..."

I'm testing books, the wizard is tapping at the walls, Angus is eating a ham, and the Navvie is checking behind pictures.

"Shut up bard!" "Guys!"

We follow his pointing finger, oooh... that's probably not good.

There are at least twenty old bodies nailed to the rafters. We think they might be the previous occupants of the house. They also seem to have been drained dry. In the shadows, there's something else up there too...

A little music ACDC - Smash N Grab

We are definitely not alone

>Coliunn gun chean (or say hello to my little friend)

It's been up in the rafters this whole time, watching, waiting, and now it drops into the center of the room.

Imagine a headless ogre (more a sunken head set between the shoulders rather than above). Then cover the thing in moss, give it glowing ice blue eyes and some other fun aspects we'll come to. That's what drops down and cracks the flagstones.

The worst part is Coliunn isn't alone either, as he drops, so too do the odd looking bats feeding on the bodies. They're not really bats, they're nondescript in the shadows, but they flap around us, billowing and generating enough force to blow out the fire. The fight is lit by Angus as he sets about torching things, and is really a series of disjointed moments.

The Navvie and Coliunn running at each other, my bullets impacting across Coliunn's chest, the wizard sending flying daggers after whatever those tiny blood sucking bastards are (and they have very sharp teeth indeed!). The bard helps out as only he can (The Blues Brothers - She Caught the Katy).

Coliunn isn't just tough, the fucker regenerates too. Even when Angus sets him alight he's still quite capable of punching the Navvie across the room. The wizard does his best to weigh him down, slowly building up lead on his wrists and ankles. It works, but it also adds more force to his blows.

The bard is lucky to avoid being turned into jam as Coliunn turns his attention to me. The bat things are beyond distracting as they swarm us again, biting, clawing, drawing blood. In the darkness Angus plays flame over our enemies back, the Navvie gets up and starts running again. I back away from Coliunn until my shoulders touch rock. Reloading as I go, I aim for those eyes. A lucky critical (blinding one eye) seems to just enrage him but the wizard focuses on one stiletto sized sliver of steel, driving it into the other eye.

He can't see, but he can still hear and he tracks me easily enough. It gives enough time however for the Navvie to strike him from behind, staggering him. Coliunn turns and runs straight from us, into the wall and out into the night. Given the way he knitted back together after being shot, it seems likely we may see him again. The bats follow him through the hole. In the near silence of smouldering furnishings (the room was large and, although furnished, mostly stone; in all fairness the place should have been blazing though), we reload and prepare to go deeper, we can only be in the right place now...

Alone in the darkness, the wind howling in through the hole where Coliunn reverse Kool-aided, we decide illumination is our first task. Fortunately the Navvie carries a small lantern and there are some candles on the walls which we pinch. We proceed further into the house.

The DM has us rolling perception checks, every time we succeed we get the vague sense of being watched. After the fire fight, we can only assume everyone knows we are here.

We search though more and more rooms, ending up at the bottom of the main staircase. The wizard notices that the rug appears disturbed. Lifting the thing we discover a trap door. The wizard detects no magical fields or alarms so we swing it open. There is a roughly hewn passageway leading off into the darkness. We guess this place has some history of smuggling (explaining the small hidden harbour and this). We descend into the darkness.

It's not long before the narrow passageway opens into a cavern. We assume this is a tidal cave, or at least it's sealed to the outside by water at high tide. The sound and spray of the sea fills the cave. There is still no one about. It's just then that a shape breaks the water.

A large ray, graceful, lazy, unusually it takes to the air, doing a circuit of the cavern before being snatched out of the air by what can only be described as an enormous Moray eel. If we didn't know better, someone has been making monsters...

We follow the cavern towards its mouth. We find the steam pinnace (deserted) and cross to the other side of the water via a rope bridge. The water is seething with foam and only black. Given the precision with which the supernaturally fuck huge eel snatched the ray, we are not keen on the this arrangement but nevertheless we cross.

The caverns extend in front of us quite some distance. From what we can see there are three cave mouths to choose from. We dither like the adventurers we are. Looking and listening, but over the sound of the storm and raging sea, there's nothing to be discerned. Angus notices an enormous lobster claw break the water and come hammering down on something. We decide it's time to pick a direction and go for it.

We head up the middle.

The walls of the cave seem wet to the touch. There's seaweed growing on them. We file this information away for later. If we are down here long we may not be coming back this way.

Angus is in front. The DM asks us

"Do any of you guys have a lantern?" "Err... no..."

Angus does have the pilot light on his flamethrower.

For the sake of mood, the DM turns out the light in the kitchen and lights a candle, placing it on the table. The party (and the players) do their best with what little light they have.

There's no noise we can hear from up ahead, and the cavern/tunnel is starting to get narrower, the Navvie has already turned sideways to fit. All we can hear is the sound of the sea crashing behind us, the flickering light of Angus ahead, and inky darkness behind. In the semi darkness of the kitchen, we huddle in closer to the candle flame. The DM is doing something with his hands. Fiddling with something.

He continues to describe the claustrophobic isolation of the tunnel, the way every time we breath out, the walls close in a little further, until when we breath in, a million tons of black igneous rock ensure that breath is shallower than the last.

We push on. Squeezing, straining. A shape is moving in the darkness. It comes up behind the Wizard's Player and says right in his ear.

"'Allo."

(It's Cruella the player sneaking up behind him)

The Wizard, never the most calm of people at the best of times, jumps out of his skin just about. Cruella (the not-yet) player finds this hilarious and returns to playing with her phone. The poor wizard looks about ready to have a heart attack. The PCs respond in much the same way. Struggling to twist and turn to face the voice. The wizard generally screaming.

Unfortunately Angus can't turn around to set fire to the thing. Nor can any of us do anything to attack it.

It grabs the wizard and... hugs him?

The creature then lets him go. It waves at us and beckons for us to follow it into an adjoining tunnel. Reasoning we have nothing to lose (and it could have just eaten the wizard) we follow (after trying to shout over the noise, we give up and resort to hand signals).

We follow the Shellycoat upward and along into a wider, larger cavern. It's quieter up here.

>Wut is a shellycoat? Some lore checks later (again like most of britbongsteros you can wiki it) reveal it to be a mischievous but mostly harmless water spirit. Apparently.

Anyway, the Shellycoat beckons us forward. The party takes a moment to assemble and generally stretch themselves back into place.

It seems we are in the Shellycoats lair, judging at least by the crude bedding and pile of empty crab shells. It certainly smells like it is anyway. What the Shellycoat wants to show us is down below. There's a hole in the center of the floor and it looks out into another cavern. There's light down there along with a party of alchemists.

They seem to be fishing. Quite innocently. Off to one side, is a large cauldron bubbling quite happily. One of the alchemists hauls up a crab pot and looks very pleased to have caught a large fairly grumpy looking Paromola cuvieri. After a small fight it goes into the stewpot. All very exciting. The alchemists gather round looking pleased with themselves. A few seconds later they duck backwards as a much larger crab claw reaches out of the pot. It grabs one of them, pulling him in. The others, using sticks, over turn the cauldron toward the water, and the still growing crab slinks into the sea.

It seems we know where the giant stuff is coming from. No Donny though...

Angus helpfully considers the cosmic imperatives of the situation. Man playing God, making sea creatures into God sized problems. With the weight of the universe upon him, his intellect squares it's shoulders like atlas and says:

"I wonder what'll happen if I stick my dick in it?"

Fortunately the shellycoat appears incapable of speech, however it seems to understand us fine enough. Some pantomime and "me Navvie you fish thing?" establishes that the shellycoat definitely wants rid of the alchemists, and also the alchemists have a lot to do with some chick and some guy called Donny...

Now people making giant monsters for whatever purpose are decidedly not good as far as we are concerned. They also seem to have something to do with Donny. Meaning...

Meaning... Err...

Oh, yes, kill them all.

Further discussion with Shelly enlightens us that there are plenty more alchemists (and others) beyond the gap in the wall behind those who are fishing. It seems then that we want to approach this quietly...

Fortunately, the shellycoat seems to know a way down from here. Back out into the passage we first came through. It wants to come with us. The party discuss. Essentially do we trust this thing? The answer is pretty much God no. Do we want to have it following us? Again probably not. What do we do with it? As far as we can tell it's mischievous yes, but not actually malicious.

We aren't going to kill it. We can't just tie it up, nor can we knee cap it. Some whispering later we decide the best thing to do is....

I and the wizard pantomime it coming along at a distance. It shows us the direction we should be heading with a webbed hand. Seems straightforward enough. Meanwhile the Navvie gets behind it. It enthusiastically supports the coming along idea.

The Navvie thumps it. The intention being to knock it out. His fist, propelled by the one he rolls, hits it just fine at the base of the skull. It falls awkwardly with a sickening egg shell crunch on the floor of the cavern.

"Oops." DM: "I'm sorry, but head trauma is no joke..." "So..." "Err..." "Shit."

We argue a bit over whose dumb idea that was, then discuss what to do. We all feel more than a bit guilty here. Sheepishly we lay it to rest or try to. When the bard and I go to pick it up, one bleary now red eye opens. There is an enormous dent in one side of its skull, and the horrific incongruity of one side of its head being almost flat from the temple to rear of the skull is a glaring sign of our idiocy.

It shivers and spasms, mewling, trembling, evacuating waste and rocking back and forth. There's just enough critter left to know those people it is looking at did this to it. The poor thing whimpers and looks like it wants to scream at the great unfairness of it all.

The best thing we can do is put it out of its misery. The DM senses an opportunity.

It takes an inordinately long time to kill it. Any pretense at gentle combined with the strange biology of the thing, seems to only make it worse. Eventually, and with my short sword sticking out of its sternum, it collapses. Dead.

"Oh God oh God oh God we are bastards..."

As always, the DM is a cunt. Though it also made a throwaway character into something that even now causes feels.

For anyone wondering, the one person audience was laughing so hard at us she spilt her wine.

We decide after that somewhat embarrassing fuck up to follow the route suggested. It's a bit more spacious than the last time, the descent is uneventful. The group of alchemists are sat with their backs to us. The sound of the surf is more than enough to ensure our inept approach remains stealthy enough to get behind them. We dispatch the fishing party almost before they realize we are there. It might just be what happened previously, but we feel a bit guilty as we ditch the bodies in the waters. They take a moment to sink and are instead swept into the maw of a salmon the size of a bus.

We ponder why they are making these enormous sea critters. It seems like they're just making them to be difficult, to make the waters of the east coast as dangerous as possible. Even if we don't find Donny it seems we are doing the right thing. We sneak up the tunnel.

The alchemists of Britbongsteros: who are they? Dutch traders, or at least that's what they starred out as. The Dutch used to trade prolifically with the east coast of Scotland. It's one of the reasons Scots law is different to English law (continental influence) and also why Scotland had five universities before 1900 and the English only had two. The alchemists were traders then magic happened. Turns out alchemy actually (in a limited fashion) worked as did science. Their motto when it comes to science is like that of Aperture, "because we can" or "why the fuck not'? They were the source of much of the magical tech and weirdness in the early setting. As England and Scotland unified in 1707, more trade with the English occurred. Their plan with the giant sea monsters is twofold. One, the necromancers are paying them to do it (in full soul cubes) and two, if the north sea is full of giant critters and the only vessels that can sail on it are alchemist approved, then... 1. Limit all trade to alchemists only 2. ???? 3. MASSIVE PROFITS

Why Donny? 1. Because they can 2. Think of him as a very lazy and badly trained attack dog, but if you point him at something, and don't mind collateral damage, he is a deniable and highly destructive asset.

Why was Donny nailed to the floor? He fucked them off somehow and gave him what was effectively a magical time out.

There is a natural waterfall in here, freshwater falling from a river or stream above and into the tidal pool. The alchemists (we assume) have got a waterwheel set up and are using it to provide various gubbins.

Lounging on a deck chair is Donny, draped over him is Mrs Donny. He waves.

What he does not do is raise the alarm. The alchemists remain oblivious to us as they seem to be making more of whatever was in that cauldron. From where the waterfall is coming we can see daylight. It seems we have been down here longer than we thought. We formulate a plan of attack.

As we mutter. Donny very ostentatiously relaxes while Mrs Donny makes a show of (in her rather small outfit) making him a drink (think Joker & a very pneumatic Harley).

We decide that clearly Donny wants to watch the fun. The difficulty is what happens (if as opposed to) when we win. Will he just pull another disappearing act? We can't have that. We also don't think splitting up is a good idea. By the time we'll have fought our way to Donny he'll have fucked off. We need something to keep him here. We have an idea....

The plan? We do absolutely fuck all.

Donny drinks his drink. He makes a "go on get stuck in" motion with his hand. The Navvie eats a sandwich. Angus is writing in his little diary, the bard cleans his finger nails. The wizard trims his 'tache and I build a little tower of shotgun shells (pinched a pump action shotgun from the alchemists during our visit to the hospital).

We can see Donny is getting a bit more incensed. The Navvie and I switch to playing rock paper scissors. Angus goes on a mining expedition in his own left nostril. Eating the results. It's about a minute after that that Mrs Donny appears.

Angus has found something chewy. He is treating it much as anon might a toffee.

Mrs. Donny gives a very annoyed stage whisper.

"Hurry up you lot. He wants to see some violence. (Cruella has been roped in to do the girly voices again) Don't make me do it myself..."

We ignore her further. She is standing right in front of Angus now. He has found a deposit that may require dynamiting but is still attempting manual removal.

"Come on you useless lazy bastards..."

This time. We don't club her over the head (lesson learnt) but we do grab her and let the wizard bind her with wizardry chains of cold iron. With her nicely hogtied and gagged

>muh magical...

no fuck off. We have a hold (we think) over Donny.

It's about this time that Coliunn Gunn Chean (our regenerating headless ogre friend from earlier) pops into the cavern via the waterfall.

We decide if we engage in combat and Donny is still missing his Missus as it were, he'll just grab her while we are distracted. I get the job of carrying her as the Navvie needs both hands for his hammer and in can still use a revolver with one. Also I had a feeling that the DM would make someone actually pick up and carry Cruella for a bit and I'd rather it was me. He attempted to enforce this, instead he