Britbongsteros Storytime: A less than seasonal tale

Greetings anons.

As it's a holiday weekend in America and I am hungover, I thought it might be nice to do a storytime.

>What the hell is this?

Stories from my long time gaming group that I enjoy telling. Also penguins. Veeky Forums seems to have rather enjoyed the last few threads and you never know you might too.

There's more here 1d4chan.org/wiki/Britbongsteros

>What do I need to know to follow this? There sure seem to be a lot of words on that link.

There's a party of six characters, a DM, and a whole world of weird out there.

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=KoHxG4-Rh4U
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Ure
telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3556709/Raising-the-Dead-the-men-who-created-Frankenstein.html
youtube.com/watch?v=-49noOAFsG8
youtube.com/watch?v=FwNOmS78q-o
youtube.com/watch?v=vUHqtNCK878
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

I'll tell you all who is who now:

Angus - 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).
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.
The wizard - 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.
Aldous - A dwarven knight. Wears full plate. Carries twin revolvers and a gatling shotgun. Smokes a pipe. The more observant amongst you might note that this is also me.

>Wats going on?
This adventure is a stand alone and doesn't really care too much about the established canon (as it were), while the adventure happened around Christmas/New Year this 2015/6, I have only managed to sit down and begin telling it now (barring one abortive attempt while in Africa).

So without further ado, I shall begin to tell "A Less than Seasonal Tale."

[Please feel free to ask questions as we go I'll be in this thread solidly until about 00:00 GMT or 18:00 in New Orleans - which I might add is hot as balls]

We begin in London as the privy council explain over tea served by Baldrick, the gorilla, that the good ship DunRoamin pulled into Peterhead Harbour last Tuesday. This is met with an almost unanimous

"And?"
Aside from Angus, who is picking his nose and simultaneously rolling a cigarette, and Cruella, who has taken a shine to a carriage clock on the mantelpiece and is considering larceny.

Blackadder explains "and the DunRoamin was thought lost at sea two years ago. Wreckage was found. Even some bodies. The 'crew' have no knowledge of the last twenty six months, the cargo of Spanish Oranges are still fresh. The last thing any of them remember is the Northern lights around Cruden Bay. We (the Privy Council) have had the crew quarantined. We suggest (meaning order on pain of death) you find out what is going on. Additionally, some of the local sheep have been (Angus perks up) going missing and returning in fractions. Do find out what's going on?"
Blackadder also mentions a number of other missing ships, ones which were assumed lost to alchemists/sea monsters/necromancery. Given that good King Algernon has already (mostly unknowingly) put up and dedicated a number of monuments, it'd be far too confusing for the old duffer to dedicate them. Additionally wherever that ship has been, we want to know.

So we find ourselves on the sleeper train to Peterhead. Having "snuck" (punched out the guard - cheers Navvie) our way into first class (where they wash the chickens you share the carriage with first) we are smoking and enjoying one of Angus's home distilled whiskies. To our surprise it tastes nothing like whiskey but also doesn't make you go blind.

The surroundings, company, and drink being convivial, the party start to relax, finding their feet as their characters again, old arguments are resurrected and players get in character. As the Wizard and Navvie speculate on what the disappearance could mean, Angus and Cruella snipe at each other over whether Brown or tomato sauce is more of an insult to food while interjecting every so often. The consensus is that it's something to do with time travel, the bard dissenting because obviously it's whales. When pressed further all he says is "fuck whales."

The party are finding their feet again reasonably quickly. The train journey passes quickly. The issue is that the DM is also finding his feet again. Cruella it appears has actually acquired the carriage clock and is inordinately pleased with it.

We start properly in Cruden Bay, a small fishing village. We kind of expect everyone to be missing, we expect things to be not as they should be. Instead, and for once, everything seems fine. In fact the village seems more than fine, they're having a party.

The group are quite content to get involved but the Wizard reminds us we are here to do a job. We make our way (nearly losing Angus and the Navvie to a bar) to Cruden Bay's one and only jail, where apparently the crew of the DunRoamin have been quarantined.

The twelve crew seem altogether normal, if a little lost, you would be too if you'd lost a couple years inexplicably. They don't seem as though they've been at sea for two years. No Rime of The Ancient Mariner stuff here. Talking to them brings us almost nothing new in the way of knowledge.

DM: "The 14 men in the gaol seem perfectly, completely, and utterly normal."
The fete outside seems to pick up a little in noise and cheer.

>12 crew on the boat.
>14 men in the gaol.

Fuck.

Problem solving has never been one of our finer points. We have the crew list and cargo manifest. We know damn well that there's only meant to be 12 people on that boat.

The first idea we managed was taking them out one by one and asking them who was on the boat with them, and to describe them. It seems spending what may or may not have been two years on a boat with someone gives you a very poor recollection of what they look like. Each crewman can vaguely describe maybe two or three others. There's enough overlap and amnesia that no one can definitely be pointed to as an impostor. There's definitely not going to be a nice reason for there being two extras.

The party form a small huddle. The crew being returned to the cell. These people (or "people") are amnesiacs and most don't seem to even remember their own names let alone each others. They all came off the boat though...

Wizard: "Clearly they're all impostors. It's definitely the only sensible thing. Bodies were found remember?"
Cruella: "Shoot the lot."
Angus: "How do we know?"
Bard: "We can't know, we can't leave them here either."
The fuck are we going to do with this lot? We've all seen the thing. We also aren't tempted to pick one at random and start slicing.

Someone has the not too bad idea, that if we're in this situation, and maybe, just maybe, there's some extras in there, we could try asking them things from before the voyage. The Wizard is from near this area.

He starts asking each of the crew about the football team, "Aberdeen United." Most have never heard of it. Some have, enthusiastically so. Aberdeen United don't exist. Of course, while football (soccer to my burger-bros) is a big thing in Scotland, not having heard of Aberdeen FC isn't quite a death sentence, as much as some people I know might disagree.

The questioning continues. We ask each individually about other things, things like how the winter was three years ago (most agree that it was pretty bad - it was), and whether Tunnocks Tea Cakes should be fried or baked (most think either is insane). We are slowly starting to get a feel that three identifiable folk are a bit weird.

That's one too many. Possibly one is just a berk. On the other hand, well, we have no idea what to expect and fuck it, double blind trials and that sort of thing aren't our strong point.

The Bard has been fairly quiet through all this. He's started to notice that most of them move pretty damn slowly. As though drugged or nearly blackout drunk. With the sort of exaggerated care of a man trying to unlock the front door at four in the morning with seventeen pints sloshing about in him and trying not to wake his wife.

We've narrowed things down (we think) to three. We take those three to a separate room. Outside the carnival or fete is reaching fever pitch.

We tie each of the three to a chair. For ease of reference, I'll number them, 1-3. The Wizard has had an idea.

"I'm going to tell you a joke: Two lads in a pub, one says to the other 'Your round Jock' the other says 'So are you, ya wee fat bastard.'"
1 clearly doesn't get it. Two laughs uproariously. Three looks amused.

The wizard shoots number 2.

"Even I know I'm not funny."

It's about this point that several things happen at once.

Truth be told we were kind of expecting someone to explode into a mass of mouths and tentacles. We definitely were not planning on #2 being instead of a corpse on a chair, just an empty chair with rope tied round it. As though we had tightly bound rope to the back of the chair without anyone actually being there. The bullet can clearly be seen having dug a hole in the wood of it. #3 is similarly gone as though he hadn't been there. As we are coming to grips with this. The fete outside seems to involve an awful lot of screaming.

1 appears terrified.

"Why did you people tie me up then shoot an empty chair?"
We will come to terms with whatever that means shortly. Angus has been looking out the small, barred window. Several townsfolk have just been snatched, dismembered, and dragged off by something large, tentacley, and coming from the sea. The rest of the partying folks seem oblivious.

We can still hear music and dancing. Now we really think about it, the last local festive day was two days ago. The townsfolk definitely look as though they've been dancing since then...

We breezed into the gaol/police station thinking the lack of staff was just festive, the keys and jail had been easy enough to find. The snoring, passed out and very drunk sergeant at the front desk was (we thought) reason enough for the lack of efficiency. There is something very wrong here.

The empty chair however presents a very different issue. We all definitely counted 14 crew. We all definitely took three in here. We felt, saw and smelt each of the three we tied up. The wizard can't sense any magic in particular. What the hell is going on.

Angus who is still at the window reports that several pterodactyls just flew past. For the avoidance of doubt that is not normal.

It seems the townsfolk might be hallucinating or under some sort of ergot poisoning. We might have got a touch of it too even on our short walk through town. We can't just bug out though. There's too much weirdness for us to leave this alone. We decide to return our surviving and definitely tangible crewman to the cells. To his thirteen friends. Oh fuck.

We note that it's kind of hard to tell 14 men in uniform with beards apart from each other. Clearly one's the captain and the other is the first mate, but the rest are a bit tricky.

Cruella is greatly in favour of burning the lot.

We are a bit tempted to now. It's about here that the wizard sees that one of the crew has a hole in his jacket. Just above the sternum. He has one on his back too. Perfect for the entry and exit of a bullet from a revolver.

This time I shoot him.

He hits the floor about the same time as his friends bare their teeth and give a horrible ululating cry. Skin flakes or sloughs away to scale or chitin. Muscle flows and warps. The whole group like figures made of wax left too close to a flame. They start to flow and slither into each other. Ropes of sinew and intestine slapping and crawling round the bars. Angus still has his flamethrower and by God is it handy here. The rest of the party open fire as well.

Our original interrogatee is all that's left shortly afterwards. Lying on the floor with his hands over his head, trembling and (when our ears stop ringing) begging not to be shot.

He is lying against the bars, fairly near to us and actually, if he had hit the deck and lain there, could logically have survived.

All of his mates have just exploded however. The wizard decides (supported by the rest of us - even the penguin) to stick a harpoon through him.

He does what you might expect a perfectly ordinary human to do. Scream a bit and expire.

a perfectly
normal
human
Fuck.

Did we just?

Yup. We just executed a terrified civilian like big damn heroes.

Now I'm going to have a sandwich and see if this takes flight.

See if what takes flight?

The thread user. As in see if it gets interest.

Also although a po'boy is just a baguette with stuff in it. They really are fantastic.

Aha, I remember these threads.

And I think stabbing the poor bastard was where you got to last time.


>'Your round Jock' the other says 'So are you, ya wee fat bastard.'
I'm going to use this

It is user, and now I've eaten this po'boy thing and I've had a pint of American "beer" we are going to continue.

We've killed plenty innocent bystanders before but this actually feels worse than usual. Even the Purple Penguin briefly ceases his reverie on the intricacies of axiomatic metaphysics and tits to look disapprovingly on us.

As does the DM. We think we just slaughtered our exposition device.

So to recap, we don't know what's going on, there's weird Thing type person impersonators, dinosaurs, and the population of Cruden bay are under some form of mass hysteria while being massacred. Also it's Tuesday.

We know just what must be done.

Angus, as our resident good samaritan does what he feels is appropriate and makes sure our interrogatee is actually dead. He also takes to opportunity to rilfe through his pockets.

The man coughs up a lot of blood? It seems a lot darker than it should be, the consistency of treacle and hacks one word out before finally and definitely dying. "Merde."

We will process that later. There's stuff to do.

We make our way out of the gaol - and past the still comatose desk sergeant (who is going to wake up to the worst hangover imaginable).

The village is alight, at least one lantern has been knocked over and smoke and sparks colour the scene.

Outside the fete has become a nightmarish scene of violence. The exhausted villagers are being grabbed by long white sticky tentacles which can be traced seaward, toward the end of the village square, if user imagines the villagers dancing in a square then the ones at the western corner are slowly and methodically being stripped of flesh piece by piece by the tentacles. They are still very much alive and seemingly unable to take flight, but they get to watch the person up the line from them being skinned. The only ones saved from this fate are women who are dragged off "whole."

Emerging into the square and making for those tentacles they seem to emanate from a couple of vehicles. Like a bathyscape (pic related) on tracks. Thick diving bell type windows too bright to see within, the tentacles oozing from hatches and ports while the bits of flayed villager are conveyed within.

A pterodactyl circles overhead, but doesn't seem to take part in this.

Oh, I remember Britbongsteros... mostly. I don't remember the pterodactyls, though...

How the fuck do you fight a bathysphere and/or bathyscape?

More to the point, as we make our way to the villagers we argue, it seems that trying to carry them off one by one isn't likely to work.

We are going to have to wreck those things.

As we get closer it becomes apparent the cobbles are thick with some sort of transparent and very unpleasant mucus. It reeks of rotten fish.

The wizard is our best tin-opener and while Angus tries to create a wall of flame between villagers and Bathys, the rest of us follow him.

The Wizard starts to work on a bolt, then another, they slowly (achingly so) start to loosen, he has to concentrate very hard indeed on this task.

This leaves Cruella, the Navvie and myself with the tentacles. Up close they can be seen to be covered in horiffic looking barbs or bladed suckers. You do not want one of those touching you.

As a bolt becomes loose enough it seems the internal pressure of the Bathy fires it like a musket ball (unfortunately into the forehead of another villager - collateral damage though) with this revelation, the bathys very much turn their attention on the Wizard.

We do our best to intervene with shot, blade and hammer, but it's going to take time for the wizard to pop those things open.

They're rather new.

The combat becomes a blur of slashing, shooting and bashing. The fact they are trying to concentrate on the wizard makes the tentacles easier to combat but they are also happy enough to take a chunk out of us - as the bard who has been generally fucking about in the background learns. He was about to try and play something inspiring but instead a tentacle has seized his bagpipes. The two wrestle and the struggle between man and pseudopod is evenly matched.

Meanwhile bits of villager can be seen being dragged into the bathys.

The Wizard is having some success, with three bolts loose now, a panel zings off the lead Bathy. The pressure within causes an ejection of a thick white fluid (shut up whoever is sniggering at the back) and some sort of machinery is revealed within.

Angus is able to turn the flamethrower on the tentacles we are fighting momentarily giving me enough time to get a half dozen slugs into that panel.

Smoke and fluid belches and farts from Bathy 1.

We might be winning, we might not but we are doing our best. The bard at least has won his struggle - his pipes are, for the time being at least, out of action.

youtube.com/watch?v=KoHxG4-Rh4U have some mood music anyway.

The Navvie is usually reasonably well prepared with a couple of blasting charges or some dynamite and decides now is the time for some fireworks.

Headbutting the last tentacle near him (losing a decent chunk of his forehead in the process) he primes a charge and hurls it like a shotput at Bathy 2. He doesn't quite get the charge under the tracks, but it does knock the thing over. It can still slither tentacles about the place but it's definitely immobile.

There are a couple more pterodactyls above us now, and from somewhere nearby thunderous footsteps can be heard.

We are slowly closing in on Bathy 1.

Bathy 1 does its best but with Bathy 2 just about out of the fight we close in enough that the Wizard is able to tear off thick cast iron panels now. There's a crack and a highly pressurised fizz from within before the entire internal hull is breached. It goes up like a bomb, showering bits of highly pressurised pseudoplasm and other goo all over us and everything else within forty feet.

If we had any doubts about this thing having come from the deep sea, those are very definitely assuaged.

Those footsteps are coming closer. Big thumping ones.

With Bathy 1 destroyed and Bathy 2 down, the villagers are at least no longer being eaten.

Deciding we don't have all that much time to investigate Bathy 2 we make for it as quickly as we can. The Wizard sealing shut the ports from which the tentacles are exuded while cautioning us against just tearing it open - explaining that the internal pressure, will, if released, destroy any evidence of what is within the thing.

Looking closer, we can see on one of the hatches some latin lettering which might read:

"Avertissement , contenu sous pression , ouverte avec une extrême prudence"

It seems the real enemy have shown themselves at last. The French.

However the Spinosaurus (or what might be - it's not entirely biological nor does it quite fit the description - but who knows - paleontology being a very dangerous profession in Britbongsteros) which is watching us seems to beg to differ.

Ok so dinosaurs are a new one.

They're not native to Britbongsteros, though there are rumours that there's plenty of them in Africa.

We are not inclined to ask this one particularly about his heritage, especially given that he squares his shoulders and charges right at us without a second thought.

As he gets closer, mechanical or maybe cybernetic augments can be seen on his joints and around the back of his head.

An arc of electricty whips from his ribcage and washes up around his skull.

What the actual fuck is that thing DM?

Spiney races toward us, we move to engage, planning on hamstringing him and going from there.

This, for once, actually goes to plan, with some decent rolls Cruella gets his left leg and not eaten, and the Navvie is able to crush his right ankle as he goes down.

It's almost like he's not paying us any attention and has been told to go for Bathy 2 at all costs.

He just about makes it too, smashing into the thing on sheer momentum. That highly pressurised hiss that proceeded Bathy 1's explosion can be heard, We make for cover and a moment or two later, bits of dinosaur and Bathyscape rain down around us.

We re-emerge to investigate the wreckage.

"YOU ABSOLUTE CUNTS."

The short and very angry orc gesticulating and swearing at us identifies himself as Doctor Andrew Ure (you're not going to believe anything about this guy so have a wiki en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Ure and a link to some of his more fun experiments - telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3556709/Raising-the-Dead-the-men-who-created-Frankenstein.html )

He seems really annoyed that we just killed his pet.

Anyway, hopefully this is all making sense - do please chime in if it isn't.

The orc - or Doctor Ure, explains that that monster was the best chance we had of ending whatever the menace from the sea is, and now we've gone and ruined that. While he doesn't seem especially threatening, Dr Ure definitely has plenty of other dinosaurs around if those pterodactyls are anything to go by. He is also completely mental. We do our best to ignore the small, insane green midget and examine what's left of Bathy 2 for clues.

>Anyway, hopefully this is all making sense - do please chime in if it isn't.
Makes sense so far. Well, aside from where he got the dinosaurs, but I expect that to make less sense.

Bathy 2 doesn't render up much in the way of info, the Wizard reporting: "It's a Bathyscape"
Cruella: "The fuck are you looking at me for?"
Angus: "I reckon we could rebuild this if we really tried...some sort of...maybe a submarine?"
Bard: "I think Angus might be onto something."
Navvie: "Shut up bard. Also more French writing found"

Doctor Ure has become somewhat more insistent to the extent that while everyone else was examining the Bathy (and scraping bits of it and Spinosaurus off themselves) I did my best to calm him down enough to work out what he was on about.

The following information is learnt along with a lot of raving.

>The Bathys are of unknown origin but have been doing things like this up and down the coast.
> Mad Dr Ure is also an agent of the crown, at least he was, the letter of authority he shows me is eight years old and entirely out of date.
>The dinosaurs are what he calls "Galva-saurs" (as in Galvinism - yes I know Ure predated Galvinism by some decades) and are his own flesh melded designs which he suspects the Bathys (who may or may not be French) to have stolen.

I ask him about what happened with the exploding crew members (above) and he postualtes "That could be a logical result of my research, but only a mad" he laughs uproariously "man might do that. If the Crown ever found out about that he'd be burnt at the stake."

So the end result of that is we don't really know what to do.

The rest of the party have now joined us.

Bard: "Where are the Bathys coming from?"
>The Sea.
Bard: "Ok but where in the sea?"
>How should I know?
Wizard: "You knew they were coming here right? You might know where they go next? How'd you know they were coming?"

Angus: More to the point where did you get these bloody great lizards?
>Made them.
Everyone: You what?
>(cackles some more) Well it's been a bit lonely up here in Cruden Bay, what else was I meant to do? I had all these eggs and other bits and...Galvasaurs!

[if anyone paying attention is wondering Cruden Bay has a lot of history and links to Frankenstein...]

It's been growing darker and stormier. Lightning flashes illuminating Slains castle on the near horizon.

>Come up to my laboratory...We have much to discuss, as you see I suspect someone has been stealing my research.

After agreeing that we'd follow him up, once we've seen what we can do to help the villagers (which we do our best to and those that haven't been dissected mostly fall unconscious - but we can provide water and try to move some away from the now steadily blazing town - a process which takes about an hour or so but isn't terribly exciting to tell) we follow Mad Dr Ure up to Slain's Castle because we're smart like that. Dr Ure himself having simply extended his arms, waited a couple minutes in that rather daft position and then been scooped up by two Ptero-Galva-Dactyls.

>Ptero-Galva-Dactyls.
Neat

Based on your other adventures, this can only go well

Just once, maybe, we'll meet someone who happens to be into just flower arranging and not flower arranging and murder. Today is not that day.

Dr Ure (pic related - well it's the corpse he's reanimating or a dramatisation) is very pleased to welcome us, as are the small pack of GalviDeinoychus that scutter about his feet.

We have decided (having met plenty of lunatics by now) that we should start very slowly and softly.

He welcomes us into the great hall. (note although the picture above shows Slain's Castle it did in fact have a roof for most of its history) the chained and mostly assembled item which he describes as "THE GALVASAURUS" is bigger than the Spinosaurus and indeed Babi if anyone remembers him.

We ask him: What are you doing up here?

>The Royal charter [n.b. they only last for four years and need renewed when a monarch dies] should tell you all you need. The kingdom needs soldiers, my original research in Oxford was deemed too unseemly for the populace so I was sent to quieter, more... unseeing areas to complete it. Helpfully new discoveries from Araby [shit was that us?] have assisted enormously.

Party: So you're making the traditional ubersoldats then?

>No, these are so much more, imagine a galvasaurus pulling plough shares, or a hundred powering pumps, why we could drain the Irish sea if we wanted to. Think of the engineering potential.

Party: Ok that's...that's actually less bonkers than it sounds. You err...you don't happen to be using any crazy blood magic or anything that'd mean we have to kill you? [we asked this a bit more tactfully, but then the bard just asked it straight out]

>No? Just science. Why should I use anything else? With science man can usurp the reigns of power from G-d! G-d has other things to take care of, such as our souls, (I don't know how he managed to pronounce it like that but somehow he did) he has allowed science to assist him!

As Dr Ure is working himself up into a proper frothing rant, we change topic.

Party: So Dr, who might be murdering the townsfolk?
Bard: Yeah! What's the French Connection?

>I told you that I don't know, you probably already know they've attacked ships, that they've likely discovered a way to not only utilize my research but to corrupt the human form, to make things which appear to be men but are not, there might be hundreds or even thousands of those sleepers [he means what happened in the gaol] in towns on the east coast already, all seemingly normal until some threat or command and then....

Dr Ure whistles and a ParasaurGalvius cracks open a bottle of Chesnokov brand vodka (there's at least one /k/ommando in the group if anyone was curious) ...it doesn't bear thinking about.

Angus has wandered off but returns at the mention of free drink. He has something to share.

He nudges the Navvie and I and gestures at the Galvisaurus surreptiously. That sure looks like a really big soul-cube if you squint just right. [see britbongsteros 1, it's bad ok?]

Well then... what do we do with this?

Giving it some thought we decide that you know what? Fuck that. We'll deal with that later.

Night has very definitely fallen outside and we are invited to spend the night in the creepy weird dracula inspiring castle.

On second thought we could spend it in the village...which has burnt to the ground...

On third thought, lets stay.

We are given half a dozen rooms and waited on by a couple of small servant lizards (the wizard reckons they might be some velociraptor relative) in any event we decide it's far more sensible - and defensible to all sleep in two adjoining rooms. We also have a chance to properly study one of these lizards up close.

It seems the things are not quite dead but definitely not alive, motive power being provided by some small generator in the chest and thought and direction by the modified box on the back of the skull. If we had to guess it might be a good idea to smash said box if we had any issues with one of these critters.
We have no idea how Dr Ure is controlling the things however - the wizard theorizing it's low level magic tweaking the copper diodes and control in each box on the Doctors part, and when he isn't controlling them direcetly, instinctive behaviour on the part of the lizard.

The traditional Britbongsteros bumping begins.
Alliteratively.

as indeed is tradition. It got a lot more croweded where I'm posting from. It may be necessary to venture back to my temporary home.

We are woken - those of us who were sleeping at least (we've had enough of the DM to know that everyone being asleep at once without explicitly saying X will be on watch first leads to bad things), by a small Galvinychus battering on the door. It seems to very much want us to follow it.

We do with some leisure, it seems that a village up the coast is under attack from our local bathys.

We could just relax here but something tells us that the Penguin would much prefer us to take the offer of being Ptero-Galvi-dactlyed into the middle of the village.

It also sounds fucking awesome.

***

A short while later.

Six adventurers are borne aloft, silhouetted against the harvest moon on our way to Newburgh and wondering what the fuck we have gotten ourselves into this time.

youtube.com/watch?v=-49noOAFsG8

Not all of us exactly have a head for heights nor indeed the way the Ptero-Galvi-Dactlys like to swoop and swerve, the screams of Cruella as her two do a loop-de-loop can probably heard in Inverness, but we make it.

Newburgh is only a few miles away and at this speed it's five minutes flying time.

Below we can see in the flames of the fishing village more Bathys, and something else, something really unpleasant. Like a creature made of chitin and fishhooks it's grabbing towns people and eviscerating them or... oh lordy that's not nice.

It's cocooning them and forcing something down their throats....

With a cry of "Fukken Xenos!" we land in the middle of the town square.

Apparently bonkers Dr Ure will send reinforements but right now, we're it. The big sky above us is fire lit, and all around us civilians scream.

>We Xcom now baby.

>DM? Is this a terror mission? This feels a lot like a terror mission.

>That's not a bad idea bard. This is now a terror mission, save those civvies.

We don't exactly take much coaxing to try and do the good thing but this is going to be bloody hard. They're everywhere and if (as we suspect any villager impregnated - and yes that is probably what happened to the women up at the top of the thread) is going to make more gribbly things, we think maybe we should burn out those nest things first.

Then we have still got the Bathys, and whatever the fuck else there is running around.

Well fuck it. Lets do this.

So we pretty much have two choices. Go for the "nest" and hopefully cut off the alien reinforcements or try and fight through everything and save as many civvies as we can. It seems likely we might save more lives in the end going for the nest but more will die while we do that. It's a DM dilemma and a big gamble.

We like a good gamble though and while the combat isn't too exciting to relate, we wade through mucus and those horrific chitinous beasties to the "nest" or what was once a small inn. Now it's a horrific mess of bodies and bio-resin, we're just in time to see the stomach of some poor woman burst in a shower of gore (muh edge!) and several smaller nastier little things scrabble towards us.

>well fuck this, Angus bathes the place in flame and the Navvie tosses a charge into the flames.

The (fuck it, we'll just call the Chryssalids) the lids swarm us as we do so, the Wizard being knocked to the ground and only saved from a really nasty death by Cruella decapitating the Lid. She in turn is grabbed and dragged a few feet before the Wizard harpoons the Lid standing over her.

Eventually (really a few moments later) we are standing on a pile of chitinous bodies when the charge cooks off.

Still leaving the rest of the screaming and abused village to save.

Out there in the night there are still people dying, being picked apart by Bathys and god knows what else. youtube.com/watch?v=FwNOmS78q-o

We know exactly what must be done.

>Ayyyyyyy LMAO

We are heavily outnumbered but we think we just about have the hang of wrecking bathys, the first two aren't all that bad. The third is where we hit our first big snag.

Angus and myself are herding civvies aside when several of them do that horrible shifting exploding thing and go full Thing, grabbing and devouring others or trying to eat us.

>Fuck. Nothing is to be trusted.

As Bathy 3 detonates, (there's still plenty more of them) we have to execute not only the Things but the half eaten (and possibly contaminated? Turned?) civilians with them.

Just curious, if anyone out there is playing along at home?

I'm following along/bumping so it can be added to the tale on 1d4chan

Is that you glorious wiki-user?

These may be the last few posts from me tonight as I will shortly head out to be social. It may just be you and me left so don't worry unduly about bumping.

The rest of the bathys are a struggle but with reinforcements (fucking dinosaurs!) we manage pretty well.

There's plenty more French in the wreckage, but as the last of them retreat, the wizard looks awfully smug.

He's missing his solid iron broach that keeps his cape/kilt in place and holding it in place with one hand.

It's stuck to the back of the last of the bathys. He reckons that as long as it stays within seven or eight miles he should be able to pinpoint where it goes.

It's also a dead cert that wherever "there" is, is likely underwater, so we are going to have to do some preparation for dive.

Fortunately, there's enough bits of bathy scattered around that with plenty of ingenuity and around four or five days work, it ought to be possible to fashion a crude diving bell and some extremely crude diving suits. We are going to engage the terror from the deep on its own terms.

The tracker indicates that where we are going is reasonably close to the coast in one of the few areas where the North Sea is lower than 100M (110 yards ish) but not much more so. It's still pretty bloody deep - especially in home made diving suits.

Bump

Finally awake again and can continue to follow this.

With the old tradition of BUMP (would post Opus if I had any)

bump, happy 'murrica day

ALDOUS, THE BOY! Welcome back, m8!

How is progress on the potential Drawfag thing? Wasn't there webcomic/graphic novel things brewing?

Good morning anons

Funny you should mention that, draw-fag and I have been talking fairly extensively about styles and that sort of thing. I hope he doesn't mind me posting this - especially as we are likely to go with a much simpler cartoonier webcomic type style.

Be nice as this is a very early draft but it does at least show we've been up to something.

I'll be around a couple hours just now so I might as well continue and try to finish this off before going to celebrate 'Murica day.

Do you remember that very crisp looking drawing of Aldous on the wiki page?

That was always what I envisioned personally. However, this stuff looks good but the lines are a little soft and indistinct so it can be slightly hard to tell what's going on.

Otherwise, solid stuff.

So, going forward in time slightly, we rejoin the party in a purloined fishing vessel ("In the Name of Cod") a few days later. Crude diving suits have been fashioned and with some help from the lunatic Dr Ure we have an air-pumping station set up which is powered by half a dozen Galvelociraptors. The air pumps connecting via tubes to each suit. The suits themselves have a very small reserve of air. The suits have positive buoyancy so if we removed the belt of lead weights we would shoot back up to the surface.

Bard: Guys what about the bends?

DM: That's a very good point Bard, what are you all going to do about the bends?

>Arguing

That's the style we're thinking about going back to. I'll let drawfriend speak more on the topic if he appears.

We know the bends doesn't occur at a specific depth but is more a function of how quickly one ascends. If we have a managed ascent (say removing one lead weight every minute or two and coming up over half an hour) we should be totally fine. However we are trying to use atmospheric diving suits (so we'll stay at about surface pressure anyway) so it may not actually be an issue at all.

The bottom is about ~100M down which we realise is actually further down than anyone dived in such a suit until at least about 1920 and these are very much bodged together suits. However in our favour we do have the wizard who if he senses anyone being likely to spring a leak can repair the suit before the occupant even knows there's a problem. Reasoning that the wizard allows for pretty much factory level precision repair at depth we feel pretty happy.

Satisfied we aren't going to just implode, the party sit on the edge of the 'Cod and fall backward into the water.

I've been trying to find a good picture for you all to set the mood.

We are diving well below where natural light penetrates. It's very very dark down here. We also have no means of communicating with one another - except that the wizard can ding on our helmets to try to direct us if we get lost, and if we want to talk it'll have to be by pressing face-glass together.

We have torches and while some of our weaponry will work underwater, the rest we have decided to place in leather bags sealed with tar.

The descent takes us from light to darkness, to something beyond darkness. Six little spots of light that as we hit the seabed send up a huge plume of silt, bringing visibility down to a metre if that. The slightest movement of our feet sends more of the stuff into the water. We sensibly decided to rope ourselves together but now we are each isolated from one another and yet only a metre or two apart.

You can sort of see some silt here here but those divers are not as deep as us, nor are they plodding along the bottom like we are.

youtube.com/watch?v=vUHqtNCK878

MOOD MUSIC

So to recap, we are going to fight god knows what, if we want to run away we'll have to be slowly lifted up to the surface, we can't see a damn thing, the wizard can only vaguely guide us, and we are roped together and pretty much helpless.

The wizard is in the middle.

To really hammer home the helplessness for us, the DM decides he wants to really mess with people.

Step 1: the party cannot communicate with one another unless the players are physically holding hands. The party are roped together in a manner which is clockwise from the DM and you can't talk to anyone who isn't in that sequence.

The wizard is, for all purposes, driving the party.

He stumbles and by the time he has righted himself with the help of the bard behind him, he realises two rather concerning things. The guide rope has snapped just in front of him - sending Cruella, Angus, and Me off into the darkness unattached (but still guidable) and there's very possibly something big and nasty lurking out there in the gloom.

Additionally, if he were counting helmets, there now seem to be seven of them.

2spook. Underwater shit is so frightening

fun isn't it?

The thing is the players can all listen to this but are totally unable to do a thing about it. The wizard can guide us and try to bring the two halves of the party together but I (as the one on the rope in front of him) have no idea there's even a problem yet.

Hell yeah, America day and britbongsteros all at the same time.

And a happy 'Murica day to you too user.

There's still something out there in the mud or at least that's what the wizard reckons, and there's also the issue of seventh party member.

All the rest of the party can do is watch, remember that.

The wizard tries frantically to guide us all into a circle. Something is interfering with his tapping, people are getting mixed up, airlines are being crossed.

The tramping of heavy lead shod boots is causing even more silt to rise, we're entirely obscured now, lights do nothing more than illuminate the filth in front of you, then suddenly something might loom through it, a hand, the back of a helmet, a tentacle.

>A tentacle

fuck.

>XCOM: Terror From the Deep intensifies

Panic is starting to set in. The party can't do anything but beg the wizard to do something, the wizard can barely concentrate as he tries to process so many things at once, to direct six people, to try to assess whatever threat it is around us, and to try to ascertain if one of us isn't who we should be.

Imagine that choking sensation of being isolated in your helmet, breath rasping, horrible tasting air being pumped down, and only the rank smell of your own sweat and rubber as you try not to hyperventilate. How quickly in that sweating, horrible little box you'd lose your mind, and most of us have no idea what's going on. Then a tentacle traces across the glass of your helmet and something grabs your hand.

The bard has finally worked out there's something wrong. He grips the wizard tightly and starts pulling in on the rope behind him.

The Navvie is heavy but he's not that heavy, rather than allow the rope to go taut and just wait, the bard drags himself and the wizard into the gloom. The Navvie can be made out wrestling with something, something that has lots of tentacles.

an under-the-sea game has been on the cards in this setting for forever, I'm actually surprised it's taken so long

I'm looking forward to the deep sea XCOM remake, I still have fond memories of playing the original one back in 95.

>FML pic related is 20 years old and I remember when it came out

>tfw realizing Terror from the Deep was a mere three years before I started paying attention to PC gaming
>I could have played it when it was new if I hadn't been a console kid at the time
Feels bad man

I completely missed out on XCom the first time around, but got absolutely hooked after Enemy Unknown and went back and discovered what true fear was with the originals.

I'm rather looking forward to playing XCom 2: We Terrorists Now when I get back to the UK.

Now pretty much everyone that isn't the wizard is down to using a knife, and the wizard has his hands full trying to wrangle the party. In the gloom he has no idea how successful he's being but it seems like other hands are joining in in assisting the navvie. The sheer amount of silt and nastiness being thrown up makes it impossible to tell.

Eventually the tentacles withdraw with the creature either going to die or lick its wounds.

There's still the issue that we can't tell who is who, or where, or what is going on.

The wizard manages to get us all to stand in a cirlce, slowly waiting for the silt to settle and visibility to improve. Our hands are linked and bear in mind again that the rest of us has no idea there might be a seventh party member.

>That moment of blind panic the first time your point man steps around a corner into face eating range of a Chrysalid.

It was always that horrible "glorulp" noise when they laid an egg that got me.

Because of this thread I reinstalled Terror From The Deep.

Fuck Biodrones.

That is all.

...

Bump for more bongsteros

much freedom has been celebrated. I will continue this tomorrow if it lives.

See, the problems you have are still all related to basic story structure. Its nice that you're DM did some research, but in an effort to push the boundries he basically resorted to a monster of the week sort of serial with a bunch of disconnected plot hooks and an open ended story line that never gets resolved.

It delves into surrealism but never provides any sort of linear narrative, its just a bunch of disjointed disconnected ideas that have no relationship towards one another, a non-sequiter broken up by repetitive and redundant fight scenes without much in the way of a narrative.

If you can't make sense out of you're vision its just as trite and meaningless as the same cliched narrative you've heard a hundred times before, with a few visceral scenes and endearing anecdotes added in for flavor.

I give it a B+. It has the rudiments of story structure and a quirky narrative style but its mostly fluff and hot air.

>However, this stuff looks good but the lines are a little soft and indistinct so it can be slightly hard to tell what's going on.
I agree completely.
I had a vision of full color and in applying that I lost a lot of definition.
I'm currently stuck with a new program that hid the layer opacity setting and crashes when it feels like it.
Also, my linework is my greatest weakness.

>Otherwise, solid stuff.
Thanks!

>That's the style we're thinking about going back to. I'll let drawfriend speak more on the topic if he appears.
I appear early to bump.
I'm sketching up a version of Aldous but it's not quite there yet and I didn't want the thread to die while I finished.

Ey, have you read the full storytiem, on 1d4chan?
It's long as balls, but there are overarching plots (at least 2 of them, the necromancers and the martian war) and things from past adventures get called back to with some regularity.

There's also a fair bit of alcohol involved, which explains the surrealism and slightly disjointed nature somewhat

Okay, this was just an experimental sketch and it took me twenty minutes to decide the proper way for a dwarf to hold a gatling shotgun, but here it is.
The lines aren’t the smoothest and I’ll try a simpler approach to shading, but this is about how it’ll go.

I tend to skew towards more realistic proportions and Britbongsteros, now that I’ve reread some of it, demands a more comical style than I usually do.
I’m going to shoot for a mix between Judge Dredd and The Tick, but if I come close to landing there, we’ll see.

Bumping for interest

Good morning folks.

Thank you?
This adventure is very much a one off piece of silliness for fun so I guess that came across.

As suggests you might want to try the big campaigns in the Wiki.

That looks pretty solid to me

Your art style reminds me of an old friend from MSPA

Thanks

*tips fedora*

Have you made one of the most popular greentexts of all time you judgemental douche? No? Then fuck off.

bumpan

Aldous come and save us from this bumpless nightmare

Well he is in New Orleans, and yesterday was Murrica day, so he's likely busy and/or hungover

Oh, yeah, the big easy ain't so easy day two

Maybe he'll be inspired by burgersteros

Both. It doesn't help that the weather is actually actively trying to kill me.

Drawfriend you said something about lacking access to the program you previously made drawings with, which program was it?

Well you are a scot (or scotland-dweller) in the deep south, of course it is

I prefer to use GIMP to finish hand drawn drawings, but when I have time to work on art, I don't have access to a computer that I can download programs onto. So I'm left with online software

Obviously I meant to reply to

I am absolutely dying.

A short break to drink lots of water and beer then posting.

As an aside this PBR stuff ain't awful. It's not even pretending to be beer.

On an entirely irrelevant and unrelated note, is it unpatriotic to drink Mexican beer on the 4th of July?

Only if passing over PBR and Bud in favor of Guinness is also considered unpatriotic user. If so we are both due for a tar and feathering.

Hello anons I'm kinda hammered so is it ok if I finish this tomorrow?

I blame NOLA and traps.

Take all the time you need. Also, do be aware that there is such thing as good beer in America, it just takes some looking.

Our liquor will put you on your assistance though.

I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus' garden in the shade
He'd let us in, knows where we've been
In his octopus' garden in the shade

I'd ask my friends to come and see
An octopus' garden with me
I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus' garden in the shade.

We would be warm below the storm
In our little hideaway beneath the waves
Resting our head on the sea bed
In an octopus' garden near a cave

We would sing and dance around
Because we know we can't be found
I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus' garden in the shade

We would shout and swim about
The coral that lies beneath the waves
(Lies beneath the ocean waves)
Oh what joy for every girl and boy
Knowing they're happy and they're safe
(Happy and they're safe)

We livin?

Write fagging to resume around 19:00

Nice way of providing us with a day of bumps.

We would be so happy you and me
No one there to tell us what to do
I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus' garden with you.