So this session was actually partly recorded, although the experimental software I used ended up making the audio pretty garbled until I found a replacement afterwards. Otherwise, I'll give some general updates. I'll probably package the next two parts of Cyber Suicide together since it ended on a cliffhanger. I also canceled Tears of The Blade due to personal problems with one of the players. Overall, I wasn't putting too much effort into it anyway.
The session was set up as a really cool way to establish the player's full backstories. The dragon used his lightning breath to spark a fire inside the cave and everyone sort of stood around and told the dragon the truths he wanted to hear. This allowed everyone to present their characters in full so that everyone could bond and learn more about each other in a sort of campfire story time. I thought it was a cool way to explore the characters and give each of them a spotlight.
Raz had established in his backstory that he now had Pyrophobia (+1 Exp for hinderance), and I had done the same thing beforehand for Nel's fear of needles, so I applied the rule to Raz as well.
He sat at the edge of the cave, trying to move him away from the fire.
Nel started first and fully explained her terrible life that had been foreshadowed within the dream. The scene was so disturbing that Matt (playing Nick) was actually uncomfortable with it. I felt guilty for violating my responsibility to respect Lines and Veils, but by the end of the session we resolved to have Nel move on from her past and overcome it.
We did point out one thing we didn't like about Numenera in that a lot of the items or abilities are highly situational. A lot of my players had cyphers lying around that they were stuck hoarding cause we couldn't find a use for them in the moment.
The players are also leveling up pretty quickly because I'm being generous with the EXP, and Nick is only one advance away from Tier 2!
Nick clarified his backstory to the group, explaining it in full for the first time outside of his character sheet. He also threatened the dragon outright, and made a clear message to me that he wanted it dead.
The dragon now feared him as well as Caiden.
Speaking of Caiden, he spoke of the deadly sword he carried and the party realized why the dragon found him so dangerous. The party knows he held a dangerous sword, and when Nick tried to scan it, he was mentally strained to even glimpse upon its dampened power (in a sense, they have never seen the sword in its active state).
After the campfire, Nel fell asleep with her earbuds again, but this time Raz and Nick were there to investigate. Raz basically entered into Nel's dream Inception style by using one of the two pink earbuds. The scene shifted to a roaring fire within a large house that almost burned Raz before Nel reached through the flames and tried to tell him that they weren't real.
They fell out the window of the building [Nick shook the bodies] and fell into the city of Aian. Since both sets of players were active during this time, it was very clear now that this was a dream. Nel being back in Aian reminded her of her old master who manifested as a large shadowy man.
Raz protected Nel and fought the giant shadow-man with his knife. He expected the thing to bleed when it was stabbed, and so it did. Nel fired arrows at him, but his trembling fingers made sure he missed the shot...that is until Raz realized that they were in a dream and caused the bolts to curve back around and hit the man using his focused thoughts (basically they just have to spend effort to manipulate the dream). After two shots he was on the ground, and Nel delivered the final blow with her knife, and within his mind he was able to overcome the pain and the fear that this man had caused. It was a pretty powerful scene that I really wish I had more time to focus on, because it represented all sorts of closure for the character.
Afterwards, now fully aware they were dreaming, Nel decided to celebrate with the candy that he had been unable to taste in a while. Raz, being a criminal, recognized the lollipop (Nel's final oddity) as a form of concentrated hardened hallucinogen (Called Ganch) and told this to Nel. The dream world shattered apart and Nel broke down as he realized that he had been fed this stuff for 3 months straight. I explained also that his intelligence had been secretly lowered due to this fact. It was a terrifying moment that was both very funny and very scary. Nel woke up after this and left the cave, looking out at the starlight as Nick held his shoulder for comfort.
After calming down, everyone "boarded" the dragon in the night and they made way to Aian to hopefully find a cure for this disease. The flight will only take two hours and cross the remaining hexes. I'm going to pre-roll any random events and weather before the session and see if they will flyby anything interesting.
I also keep forgetting to include Nick's penalty for sickness, so I told him to keep track of it himself rather than me keep it secret (when it was public knowledge by this point).
It should be interesting to see what these characters will do in their first huge city, and how they plan to find a cure. Nel pretty much wrapped up her character arc, so I was very satisfied with that. The problem is that I had originally planned to start with Nick's arc and now he seems like a underdeveloped character. Either way, he's still fine with how things are going at the moment
I'm not sure how I will handle the cure research, that's something I have to put a lot of thought into.
I also fleshed out in my own head how the dragon fits into the overall story and it really introduced a neat coherency to everything, finally writing out his stats and backstory.
Doing research and investigation really fits into the Numenera theme, but I'm not sure how to apply it in this context. Some ideas are coming to me, but I'm not sure what the players will do. Either way, I'm exited to throw them into this. The two purple skinned PCs [Nel and Nick] have 5 days to find a cure or they are dead meat (as far as they know!). They also don't know what trouble is lurking in the city itself.
I should also add that I am using Fronts and Factions [I've been watching Adam Koebel dm recently, so it inspired me to bring back that mechanic since I played DW once before to run a short dark high fantasy game]. I'll elaborate on them next session. The idea is that the forces back in Presca [the starting village] are still active and plotting while the players muck about.
Will the village leader make a move? What is Seth doing? Can't the local priest contact Aian? What will happen? Find out on the next thrilling episode of The Purple Horror!
Update: Session 5 is on youtube now! [http://youtu.be/VB-WRnvfm4I]
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