Blogpost #3 Episode 2: Rise of Las Cucarachas

Blogpost #3

Poorly written, badly spelled, boring and incoherent notes of our Dungeons& Dragons sessions.

Played in Amsterdam , in the garden, nice weather for once , June 6th, 2015.

Episode 2: Rise of Las Cucarachas.(wherein the band members face the  psychological challenges that big time bands have to cope with…)

Did I mention that all 4 gnome characters have exactly the same ability scores and skills? No? Well now you know….the players decided that all gnome were to be exactly the same..Which saved up a lot of time rolling for new characters, and they all can help each other out figuring how spells work and such…because they’re all the same!

Our heroic band of adventurers wake up in time to have 1^st breakfast. All, except Gibal, who’s still sleeping.

At the breakfast table, the Halfling owner of the Flying Escargot says to them: “yesterday you sang about a Cyclops named Ramon, well, it must totally be a coincidence, but I now a person called Ramon, and he’s a Cyclops too! He owns a tavern in Krostos.”.

Jesus then says (and here it’s always difficult to tell if it’s roleplaying or the player just being his usual self): “...and say to Ramon that he’s a big pooftah and a hufter!” (Dutch for jerk/ asshole, pardon my French).

The owner replies: “Well, that’s weird, I do not know him to be like that, well my employees will see meet him soon as we do a lot of catering in the neighbouring cities”.

The players decided that, as their Big Time, real life counterparts, the band members need to have some mental problems..

Gibal: some sort of narcolepsy

Jesus: drug and alcohol addiction,

Juan: Slightly, just so slightly, psychotic

Jorge: sex addict, “there’s nothing wrong with love”

Jesse, the band manager, just likes to eat a lot and, that‘s not a problem at all, because he’s a Halfling, no? In which way could that possibly a problem? Bulimia, what’s that?

So after breakfast Jesse goes to  the food cart to see if the owner gets the hang of the mayonnaise recipe he gave him….not really good yet, so he helps him developing the better mix.(he used the ingredients in the wrong order!).

Also at the market, Jorge is looking for, I quote -and staying in the Spanish/Mexican/Peruvian theme- “Chicas”. to satiate his sexual appetite….and he finds a nice- rotund- Halfling girl who’s willing to cuddle (but not more than that!). (“..are you in the Rolling Thunder?”).

Jesse, always the hard working manager, orders some ponchos at the market. 10 green ponchos, 10 cp each + 0,5 cp per embroidered letter…not enough cash to have “Flauta de Pan” embroidered, so he settles for “PAN”, 65cp + 10cp extra, for it to be ready the next day.

Everybody (except Gibal, still snoring in bed) is at the marketplace, while cockroaches quite rapidly infest the town…

The Market people start accusing each other of selling rotten food. The poultryman accuses the fishmonger to be the source of the cockroach infestation.

“What? How dare you say that my fish is not fresh?”

“Well, there’s no lake within 100km, how could it be fresh?”  (would that be plagiarizing a Belgian comics about a certain small village in Gaul?...no, no,no”).

So arguments arise and the commotion gets to be louder and louder.

Some villagers try to fend off the cockroaches with boots, brooms and torches. More and more and more keep coming in an incessant stream.

During the commotion, Juan, invisible, proceeds to steal wares from the different market stalls, and placing some of them on different stalls, just to stir up trouble.

Jesus casts a “Crown of Madness” spell on the fishmonger (where a metal crown materializes on the recipient of the spell, and becomes mad). With a crazy look in his eyes , the fishmonger grabs his sharpest knife and assaults the Poultry man who uses a frying pan to parry the blows). After a short fight , the poultry man is critically wounded and the fishmonger is restrained by the rest of the merchants.

Meanwhile the cockroach infestation seems to disappear just as fast as it had shown up.

Then the merchants discover each other’s wares on the wrong tables and again some tumult ensues…

Gibal is now awake and is just in time for 2^nd  lunch at the Flying Escargot”.

For those of you who don’t know: here’s the daily Halfling meal routine: 1^st breakfast, 2^nd breakfast,1^st  lunch,  2^nd lunch, Linner (lunch- dinner), 5 o’clock tea,  dunch (dinner -lunch), dinner, 2^nd dinner, midnight snack.

After his meal, Gibal goes to the market  (where,  meanwhile all dust has settled) and sees that really nothing is  ever happening in this boring town, so “guys, let’s leave!”

Juan also wants to leave and goes towards the stable to ready the carriage, donkeys and alpacas.

Jesus returns to the Flying Escargot  “just for the sound check!”, and drinks , in 10 minutes, the band’s whole booze allocation for this night’s gig…

Juan, has found another chica, and really badly wants to “connect” with her, so he manages in bringing het to the stable for some” haytime” / heavy cuddling, (no deed done, though, in spite of the Charm spell he used on her- remember: it only works for one hour, and the recollection of the subject of the spell is crystal clear, so there are limitations -and dangers- in (ab)using  this spell).

Jesse, back at the “Patatas Barn”, is  perfecting the perfect mayonnaise to perfect perfection, nothing perfunctory about this professional  procedure!

Mayonnaise might end up being a success as the sales of patatas with mayo now surpasses the ones with gravy!

Only Jesse and Gibal are on the marketplace. When streams of cockroaches invaded the town again.

Swarms upon swarms upon swarms, a multitudinous multitude (a lot, of cockroaches… you get the idea) invade the town.

Jesse walks stream upwards, so to speak, and crushes the fouls insects under his boots as he stumble further and further. Now, it’s ankle high, now he’s knee high in the swarms (ankle high for a human), now waist high, and it really starts to hurt as the tiny creatures sample tender Halfling flesh. Buildings disappear under the weight of the swarms the town, streets, alleys, temple, marketplace are in trouble, Big Time!

Villagers flee out of their houses; everybody tries to fight back armed with torches, brooms, etc.

Far behind the swarms, huge cockroaches, buildings high (5 meters), are advancing.

Jesse climbs on a building and readies his bow to start shooting at a mega-cockroach as it come nearby.

Gibal, plays his Doss flute and uses the animal friendship spell in it to at least control the cockroaches near to him.

The huge cockroaches have reached the marketplace, when Jesus stumbles, totally hammered, out of the Flying Escargot and struggles to walk in a straight line towards the creatures …(a very circular straight line).

Meanwhile, back in the stable: Jorge is is still busy with his chica, and Juan is preparing the carriage, while all th time mumbling (we gotta go, we gotta go).

The huge cockroach (who’s been on the receiving end of Jesse’s arrows) spits slime on Jesse, for acid damage. Jesse jumps from the building onto the huge roach, the rogue sneak attacks the bejesus out of the  bug with the help of Jesus. Jesus! What? A huge green acid spitting cockroach…wouldn’t that be an ankheg (monster manual page 21)? Could a thing like that be possible?  A monster posing as another one?? Re-skinning, for the win!

While Gibal plays the Flute he notices that, somehow, sometime, it seems that the big cockroach stop moving for a moment when he hits a special tone/note (did anybody realize the that te words “ tone” and “note”  have exactly the same 4 letters? Mind-boggling). It looks as if the Huge cockroach is glitching, ..a bug in a bug?

Back at the stable, Jorge tries to persuade his conquest that it is for her own safety that he valiantly, heroically, accompanies her towards the ditch at the back of the village...”But I must go to my family”..”No,no , it is MUCH safer here with me”… but now the charm spell ceases to affect her, and she flees towards the village to rescue her family.

Jorge and Juan also run towards the marketplace and join the other bards, using their flutes. The 4 of them all hit a particular note, a harmony, and thanks to “Tenacious Gibal” ’s world famous “inward fluting technique” they force the huge bugs to stop (surely not lifted from Mars Attacks!?).

This allows the villagers to kill the big ones. The small ones, not being controlled anymore disperse and vanish from the village…(question: when a gnome plays a steady beat/ rhythm, is he a metro-gnome?)

The human villagers all claim they did it themselves.

Quite some casualties among the locals, dead, houses burnt down.

The big cleanup has begun.

That night at the Flying Escargot the band gives an awesome gig. The bar is ransacked (but the owner is cool about that, in the light of the incidents).

The new songs played are: “Buenas Tardes Poultryman”, “Just call me Al (Paca)”,

And the villagers chant “Las Cucarachas, Las Cucarachas”. Which the band play, and are from now on called Las Cucarachas henceforth.

Next morning, Jesse gets the ponchos, and because of them helping in rescuing the town, as a gift, free of charge, they will embroider las Cucarachas” (ready next day).

They discover that in a town 3 days from here  (dubbed  “3 days from here”,  by my players) (3 days for “normal” people, not midgets), there’s the yearly Battle of the Bands.

Last year, the Rolling Thunder were a big success. And there’s a rumor saying that Cyclops Ramon, with his 3 brothers are forming a band, yes, you’ve guessed it:” the Ramons”. (“Eye of the Cyclops” is their hit).

End of Episode 2.

DM notes:

Some combat, some (built-in) deus ex machina, some mental disorders, all in an evening’s work.

Adventures hooks/ possible scenarios:

What happens to the fishmonger? How did hebecome  insane, all of as sudden?

What happens to the poultryman?

Where do the cockroaches come from..(who cares?)

Will Jorge get in trouble for “charming” the chicas?

Critical failure: now when someone rolls a “1” on a d20, it’s time for DM intrusion (stolen from The Strange RPG) : a sort of a plot/event complication. Jesse rolled a 1 when shooting arrows at the cockroach, meaning that, that particular giant cockroach now had a personal beef with him, it’s personal (cockroachal?) now.

 Don’t “Kill your Darlings”...your players wil do it for you!  As a DM no need to worry if the monster or encounter you create is good or bad: feed it to your players anyway, thet will destroy it mercilessly…

So, thanks for reading!

Expect next episode pretty soon (or later than that).

Keep on Truckin’

Sjap.

My twitter handle/thingie: @sjapH