D&D and How I Broke America

(Game session recap with meta...)

Orcus, Demon Prince of the Undead

You'd have thought I learned not to tinker with talismans and sorcery.

Many moons ago in that most wondrous mystical land, "Reality," several of me buds and I were employed at a small cafe which was part of a complex of interconnected shops chiefly known in North America as a Suburban Shopping Mall. It was our nature to get along infamously with the precinct's rent-a-gendarmes, and after closing one day it occurred I should craft a play-dough image of said gendarme which we proceeded to fry in our establishment's microwave oven.

Mere moments later The Rimmer left a back door ajar and gendarmes raided us smoking hash oil in the women's rest room. (Why the women's? Something to do with a hatch to the overhead rafters in the ceiling, or a drainage grate in the floor usable as an ashtray???) Anyhow, because he was holding the pipe, Dingul was trumped up on a charge of illegal possession of concentrated cannabis (now perfectly legal thank you, Prop 64) and several folks lost their jobs.

Fast forward to October 2016 and I am planning our impending gaming session, Anton the Paladin in possession of Bob the Demon-Slaying Bastard Sword that, unbeknownst to Anton, actually slays a demon on the material plain while acting as a gate dimensionally-anchoring demon to a pocket plane completely surrounded by Prime Material imprisoning said demon since, in addition to the dimensional anchor, demon is prohibited from returning to the Prime Material for 100 years - but the pocket plane can only hold one demon at a time. Therefore, if the 100 years have expired any strike on a NEW demon breaks the dimensional anchor and swaps the new demon for the original demon inside the pocket plane.

Now, as Judge, I know that Bob the Demon-Slaying Bastard Sword 100 years ago (game time) was used to imprison Orcus and then smashed against the Prime Material Gate to the Abyss located deep in the dungeons beneath the pirate town of Underport. Unbeknownst to mortals and PCs, Abyssal Demons through devious machinations collected and had reassembled pieces of Bob, over time percolating into the dungeon's Orcus Cult reigned by Natrix, Kobold cleric-lich.

Once the party obtained Bob the Sword last session I knew it was only a matter of time before before Anton either by Bob's ego or Anton's own volition would use the demon slaying sword against another demon, especially since the party could hear a certain Glabrezu demon standing just outside the secret treasure room door where the party was situated. One hit on a demon and Orcus would be freed!

I wanted a new miniature to commemorate the occasion, and decided to go with a very hideous Reaper unpainted resin mini, scaled to be 15' tall as Orcus is described from the 1st Ed. Monster Manual. Initially I painted the Orcus mini in reds, however, the resulting figure appeared too much like a Balor or Pit Fiend. Here is where things went bad...

Recalling our original lead miniature Orcus from back in the day was painted in various fleshes and browns, and believing to myself there must have been some canon for painting Orcus that way since I always tried to paint things according to description, I decided to follow that scheme and paint a more humanly fat goatish demon lord. Ha, I thought, wouldn't it be funny if I made all the tufts of hair yellowish such that Orcus would be some fashion of Donald Trump! Hahahahahahahaha, how humorous and topical of me!!! Even remember my second thoughts, do NOT jinx the presidential election...

Self-control not being one of my strong points, I finished painting my Orcusish-Trump effigy, had a grand reveal and hearty laugh at our game November 5th, then November 8th Donald Trump was elected our 45th President of these United States. Don't mess with voodoo magic, kids...

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Thus it is so, shortly after befriending a lost snake-mystic and her companion dog-naga, the adventurers burst through the secret treasure-room door to attack. Anton Paladin immediately destructing Glabrezu in a whirl of slate smoke, when appearing in the darkness a bellowing obese bat winged and goatlike giant - Orcus! Once Paladin struck his second blow, realizing there were no demon slaying ability, man-with-no-name opens a Shadowalk and our heroes cling along the border between Prime and Shadow at 50 mile per hour straight up and out of the dungeon. Orcus's dissonant braying laughter fading into distance.

Above ground, the party spies adjacent northward a large bay or estuary, on the opposite shore a distant five miles or more away stand what appears gigantic humanoid statues hundreds of feet tall carved into very cliffs miles in either direction, broken easterly by two immense waterfalls.

Decision made to venture west through the forest few hundred feet south of bay coast and hopes to find some land leading northwards, adventurers make their way trudging eight miles by midday when they are hit with pain-inducing sonic boom. Flying in through trees while fading in and out of physicality are three large, bat-like spiders known by man-with-no-name as phase wings. (Essentially large flying phase spiders that also emit battish sonic beams for damage)

Phase Wing attack!

After blistering attacks and taking some injuries, the band elects to make camp. Sends barbarian orc up one of the 100' tall trees to get bearings and look out for more of the shifting Phase Wings. Alas, barbarian visions something southwest far more unworldly, hovering top-like structures that seem to be probing the forest with a beam of light - and headed in the party's direction!

Hover Ship

As the hover ships approach orc-barbarian descends his tree, then spotting bands of Drow elves moving up through the forest ahead of the hover ship some few hundred yards distant. While the majority of the adventuring crew hides within the elven thief-mage's rope trick, the snake-mystic conceals herself in the underbrush in the form of a serpent and commands her dog-naga to climb a tree. The drow posse immediately halt at the party's position, thirty or more of the dark elves armed with whipblades and strange knobby pistols and bathed in the colorless light from now overhead hover ship. Striding confidently through the score of soldiers arrives an armored woman who is certainly the drow priestess in command.

Drow Priestess of Hover Ship

The priestess chanting rhythmic spell casts gaze in a purposeful pattern around the small clearing where the party had intended to camp. Her gaze stops at the underbrush where snake-mystic is and the snake-mystic's form is returned to human. The drow priestess barks a phrase in undercommon and three of the drow soldiers fire great globs of a glue substance at the snake-mystic, trapping her in the place she stands. The snake-mystic senses poison from the glue, but to harm her it cannot. Still the snake-mystic cannot break free. Snake-mystic calls up liturgy for Baaloloth - shapeshifting into a titanic avatar of her diety, enlarging and breaking free from the insignificant glue that had bound her...

The price? A geas into Chasm of the Drow!

Snake-Mystic's Avatar of Baaloloth

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Food for thought, because all my stories operate in the same Multiverse I have some very tricky time concepts to deal with from my last campaign to this one.

1. Orcus aided Wilderlands of High Fantasy adventurers in their fight versus the forces of Lolth, which must have taken place after the present in the Blipping 2 campaign (because Orcus was only just freed after 100+ years going back to one of our earliest gaming parties).

2. When the Blipping 2 folks released the 10,000 zombies into the Wilderlands, that event occurred before Orcus was released. Thus, in the "past" of the Wilderlands of High Fantasy troupe.

3. This all means Loth has not "yet" been imprisoned on the tower, nor Vecna led the zombie horde siege of Veridistan. It is possible Vecna's zombie horde was not raised by the drow high priestess at all, perhaps being in fact the zombies released by the adventurers of Blipping 2.

Of course, the Blipping 2 game now being in the lands of Krull means that what eventually might happen in The Wilderlands has little meaning to this party. Unless those mauve-skinned humanoid creatures with tentacle faces have some plan up their sleeves...