Tuesday, May 26, 2015

A&A Playtest 2.1: In Search of the Golden Bones


Long ago lived a pirate who amassed a huge amount of gold booty; so much that anyone would turn mutinous for just a sliver of that treasure trove; old golden beard Fry did the only logical thing.  He had a bunch of rogue alchemists replace his entire bone structure with pure gold.  Well, at least he lived a long and fulfilling life up till that point.  That's what Action Hank told the party and that's what they set off to find.



After washing up on shore the remainder of the party collected their wits and set up camp for the night, setting up a fire to keep the perils of darkness at bay.  Midway through the night the watchstander Balut saw a bunch of coconut sized objects floating just below the water; upon closer inspection he realized they were heads; and one of them was his former pupil who had drowned earlier.  He resisted the temptation to join them and instead fled back to camp to raise the alarm.  The drowned dead proved a difficult foe to best for this first level party but they prevailed with all members in tact.  They chose to burn the bodies and for that many soaking wet corpses a gigantic conflagration ensued.

Naturally, the local natives weren't too pleased with this.  The party surrendered in the face of overwhelming odds, those who surrendered peacefully were treated with dignity while the rest were lashed to logs and carried back.  They wound up in a giant conclave trees that someone had shaped to intertwine into an impregnable fortress whose gate could only be opened by the village shaman.  That's where they met Action Hank, his captured crew and his story of Long John Gold Beard.

The party realized the locals were superstitious about metal and used their remaining metal implements (and coins) to keep them at bay during the jail break.  Regrettably, Line the last of the Gondola brothers took a barrage of blowgun darts shielding his comrades and subsequently went down for the long sleep, Balut also fell victim on the climb out of the tree.  Fortunately, as they left they encountered Rabbababoo, the once and future king of the Sweater Bears; devouring jars of honey his halberd resting on a tree.

"Rabbababoo, my old friend, why did you not come rescue me this past week?" asked the astonished Action Hank, "Because the honey had not run out yet" replied the lazy bear.



The party fled to the north and when approaching a fork headed west towards the sounds of rushing water.  There they saw a number of Salmon flopping up a series of short waterfalls towards their spawning ground.  Naturally the bearman walked over and started swatting his future lunch onto shore.  With that a number of Salmonmen (Salman if you will) leapt from the deep depths brandishing fish forks and demanding the party stop eating their young.  Not content to give up their sushi the party did battle and feasted merrily.  They moved up the waterfalls, encountered more Salman with strange pearls that allowed them to grow three times in size but even then they were no match.


Next the party found some ruins of an ancient Parthenon like structure with some powerful magic sealed in the sole remaining lode bearing column.  Not interested in dealing with it they lift, only to find that Rabbababoo had started eating the strange golden flaky fish statues; after devouring his body weight in LJ's legacy he proceeded to pass out.  The party pressed on without him and found the place on the treasure map where LJ Gold Beard should have been but instead found nothing but a Roc's feather.  They took a gamble and summoned the Roc and were unceremoniously dropped off in its nest where they found old Gold Beard's bones. 

After debating with how to get the treasure and get off the mountain peak they finally negotiated with the Roc to raise its children for the next ten years, and by we they mean the bearman that passed out an hour ago.  The Roc busted open the Parthenon column and retrieved the golden oar of fish frying and used it to tame and pacify Rabbaboo as it's decade long baby sitter while the party rode the Roc to the next island and to greater riches.

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