Numenera - The Devil's Spine - Session 11

All the Numenera!

We interrupt your regularly scheduled campaign update for our gonzo jaunt through The Devil's Spine to let you know that, as of this blog post, there are less than 24 hours left in the Numenera 2: Discovery and Destiny Kickstarter Campaign. So if you want to jump in on this madness (and admit it... you DEFINITELY WANT IN!) take a quick break from reading and follow the link and go check out the campaign. Then lock in your backer level and get yourself some weird.

You're still here? What? Didn't you hear me?

I SAID GET YOURSELF SOME WEIRD!

Once Upon a Time in the Ninth World

Welcome to our group's campaign log for The Devil's Spine, a mega-adventure by +Monte Cook for the Numenera campaign setting.  

Originally this was going to be a pure and simple campaign log.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Just a record for me and my friends to keep track of what was going on in the game.  But I've decided that, as we progress through the adventure, I'd do some commentary and/or reviews on different parts of the adventure.  So... SPOILERS!

Oh, and if you are expecting this adventure series to look anything like how The Devil's Spine is supposed to look, I apologize now. 

Seriously, all we do is go off the rails.

#ScrewTheRails

Characters

• Belmodan, a Resourceful Seeker who Wields a Whip, played by +andrew lyon 
• New Focus: Collects Bounties
• Keane, a Rebellious Glaive who Likes to Break Things, played by +Craig McCullough 
• New Focus:  Needs No Weapon
• PL4T0, an Artificially Intelligent Jack who Resides in Silicon, played by +Marc Plourde
• New Focus: No Change
• Ruun, an Exiled Glaive who Gazes into the Abyss, played by +William Keller 
• New Focus:  Wears Spurs
• Rooster Bladesmyth, a Slick Jack who Collects Bounties, played by +Reece Carter 

Previously on The Devil's Spine

• Session 1:  Breaking and Entering
• Session 2:  Giving the Pinky
• Session 3:  Trapped in a Box
• Session 4:  When It's Love
• Session 5:  Graduates of the Perucchini School of Gaming Excellence
• Session 6:  PL3T1
• Session 7:  Unjumping the Shark
• Session 8:  West of Weird
• Session 9: Attack of the Cypherids
• Session 10: Peril in the Pit

Session 11:  It's Been a While

Dude, how long has it been?

Five months. Five damn months since we last sat down and journeyed with Belmodan, Keane, PL4T0, Ruun, and Nero. Not that we haven't tried getting together to play. I think there were three occasions this summer when we tried to get this game back off the ground. Maybe even four times. But schedules just weren't meant to be. We were short players a couple of the events, and short a GM (by far the most important part) for another couple. 

I figure the campaign was cursed and just wrote it off. This would've been my second failed attempt at running The Devil's Spine. Seriously, I knew I was letting Monte down at this point.  

But then something happened... the Numenera 2 Kickstarter. I was like "damn, we need to get back to that game!" Then it happened. I put out the call, and scheduled a date. 

And what do you know? Everyone showed up!

Well, everyone except, +David Howard... so his character got used as a plot hook. Again. 

We even got another player for the event, the one-and-only +Reece Carter! I put a call out over on Facebook for another player, an Reece jumped in. And since he's from Australia, I may now have regular players on THREE different continents, when I count +Jonata Sodre from over in the DCC Purple Planet campaign. 

Great stuff!

Anyway, I know a lot of you come here to read the adventure recaps, and I'm just about to get there. But I'm telling you now: you need to bear with me. I read the last recap from May about four times and then went back and read sessions eight and nine as well. Even after all of this reading, I had no idea where I was going with this campaign back in the fall. 

I mean, who the hell had the bright idea to try to do a quasi-Deadlands crossover campaign in the middle of a published Numenera module? 

Dammit, it was a good idea at the time!

But it's all good, I think I remembered enough to at least the the game flowing... sort of. I just needed to make a couple of quick adjustments to the adventure to make things work. Here I'll share them with you:

[GM's Note: Want to shorten the length of The Mechanized Tomb section from The Devil's Spine? Just rip out areas 7 through 17, keep 18, and cut out 19 to 26.]

Look, it's not like these areas weren't full of great stuff, but I just didn't have time to dig through it all. At the rate this party was going, we'd be stuck down in that pit for the next six months. 

Did I mention that this campaign is monthly again?

I promise, this will help make more sense. It'll also give me a chance to undo some of the Deadlands madness that I was starting to throw in. We had a nice and tidy wrap up of The Mechanized Tomb and next game we start in on Beyond the Maelstrom. 

I also promise to run part three of The Devil's Spine a bit closer to how it was originally written by Monte.

I'm about 85% sure that I won't be able to keep that promise. 

"Hey James! Stop ranting and just tell us what happened last night!" 

Okay, okay, here we go.

We started the adventure with the tale of Rooster Bladesmythe. I gave Reece the option of having a character native to the 1870's or the Ninth World. He went with a western-style bounty hunter. Rooster had tracked the no good, cold-hearted Lock Jaw McGraw all the way to The Tomb of Queen Starloscet. Lock Jaw McGraw, also known as the "Strangler of Laredo," was a well known murderer of prostitutes, who would choke them to death with his own beard.

The party met up when they moved beyond a trap laden room into another chamber, discovering Rooster and Lock Jaw. The former had captured the latter, tying him up before realizing that there was no way out of this bizarrely adorned series of tombs and crypts. He couldn't climb out of the pit on his own, at least not with his mark, so he decided to wait. 

But he wasn't expecting Belmodan, Keane, and Ruun. Oh, and he REALLY wasn't expecting PL4T0, who was a floating bot with a cowboy hat. Did I mention yet that Nero was missing?

Nero was missing. No one seemed bothered by this.

You know, the next series of scenes is such a hot mess that it'd be easier for me to break it out piece by piece in bullet points:

1. Rooster uses Lock Jaw as a human shield while negotiating with the rest of the party.
2. PL4T0 tries to scan Lock Jaw.
3. Lock Jaw breaks free from Rooster and starts to crush PL4T0 with his beard.
4. Rooster knocks out Lock Jaw.
5. Belmodan pulls his whip on Rooster an Rooster pull's his gun on Belmodan.
6. Just before there could be any real PVP, the ceramic tiles on the walls start to attack everyone.

No, this was not something that was in the original adventure. Instead, this was the only way I could get the entire scene from completely devolving into a player vs. player scenario. I was like "what the hell could I throw into the adventure that would band everyone together..."

"How about the walls themselves!?!"

Yeah, that's the best I could come up with. Was actually inspired by "The Floors" from Ultima III Exodus. I did some quick stats on the fly:

The Walls: Living ceramic tiles that are comprised of colonies of mineral deposits with insect-like intelligence. Level 4, 5 health per tile, 5 damage with a successful hit as they burrow into skin. 

I thought the tile encounter was a lot of fun, actually. We had some great GM Intrusions, and when Ruun decided to eat some of the tiles, they burrowed into his mouth and replaced two of his teeth. That'll be fun to play with later. Marc was pretty ticked off with me that I would let him scan the tiles to see if they were organic or not. I figured that as minerals they weren't really "organic" but also weren't "machines." Oh well. 

After the battle with the walls, Rooster teamed up with the party and introduced them to some of the chambers that he had already explored. One of which held a sarcophagus bearing a woman's image. The party popped the lid and traveled down a long vertical tunnel. 

[GM's Note: here's where I skipped everything from chamber 7 through 17. Sorry. Oh, and in the next room I totally made up everything except for the "show 'em" that was given to us by the author.]

At the bottom of the tube the party found themselves in a room with three glowing green pods, a floor covered in green ooze, and a bunch of creepy mutant-things just bounding around. One was a cross between a rat and a grasshopper, one was a penguin with thin human legs and tentacles coming out of its back, one was a ball of moving human arms, and the last one was a six legged, dog sized rat with a human face.

That last one would eventually say his name was Mr. Sanderson, and he and Ruun would become pals.

PL4T0 got to work investigating the pods, and came to the conclusion that they were powering the entirety of the facility. One contained a brain and nervous system floating in stasis, another was a dead woman's corpse clutching a blade (a fairly "impossible" blade) and a scepter. The last was Nero. 

[GM's Note: It was Nero's connection to time travel this entire time that caused this tomb from the Ninth World to exist back in a prior world. Because Nero is my giant, walking plot hook. Because time travel let's a crappy GM do whatever they want, whenever they want. How did he get connected to the device? How the hell should I know?]

There was a lot of button pushing (with goo shooting out, causing mutations) and lever pulling, and the party got a hold of the queen's body, the Impossible Blade that they needed, and Nero. But once the Mad Nano was disconnected the entire facility started to collapse, Aliens style. The party did a mad dash to get out of the chambers and back to the pit. 

Once at the edge of the great pit, the party looked up and saw that the sky was moving. Quickly they scaled the wall, with PL4T0 far stepping to the next platform so that he could lower some rope down. This would've gone a lot easier for everyone if Ruun wasn't trying to bring Mr. Sanderson along and if Rooster wasn't dragging Lock Jaw McGraw by rope.

During the last sequence, while Rooster was pulling Lock Jaw up fifteen meters, the rope snapped and the Strangler of Laredo started to fall. But after getting exposed to lots of radioactive goo, Lock Jaw was able to shoot his beard up and at Rooster, in an attempt to drag him along for a ride to certain doom. But that's when PL4T0 swooped in with the Impossible Blade, cutting Rooster free.

Once at the top of the pit, the party looked around and realized that they were back in the Ninth World...

... and Rooster realized that he wasn't in the Old West anymore. 

Quotes

"This is gonna sound dumb... in Australia they spell 'Rooster' with one one 'o'?" - Andy to Reece, just cementing international relations. 

"Have you not been to Thailand?" - Reece brought this up, but then again, so did everyone by the end of the night. 

"It's just splitting hairs." - PL4T0 cutting Lock Jaw McGraw's beard.

Cypher vs. the Sky High Tower

Cypher the Shaman of ACHROMA

I've had several opportunities over the last year or so to be an over-the-top, radioactively gonzo Mutant Crawl Classics judge. Granted, most of these games have been one shots. I've run two sessions of Museum at the End of Time (by +Jim Wampler), three sessions of Nothing's Free in Ocean World (homebrew adventure), and just last week Judge Evie and I kicked off a father/daughter MCCRPG campaign starting with Hive of the Overmind (by +Julian Bernick). Many games, but I wanted more.

I wanted to try out Mutant Crawl Classics as a player! 

Leave it to Judge +Marc Plourde to oblige. My good friend, player, and occasional GM (whenever he can pin me down) offered to run Assault on the Sky High-Tower, by +Jim Wampler, for me and the rest of our Banished to the Purple Planet crew. There was no way I was missing this event! As one of the co-hosts of the Glowburn Podcast, I relished the opportunity to sit on the other side of the Judge's Screen and get the full, mutated experience.

Assault on the Sky-high Tower is featured in the back of the Mutant Crawl Classics Role Playing Game rulebook, and is suite for either 15-20 0-level characters or 8 1st level characters. We ended up with four players, and Marc let us each bring a single 1st level character, backed up with a trio of 0-level fodder. So I thought i'd take a moment to talk about my little team.

After generating four 0-levels via the Purple Sorcerer Mutant Crawl Classics 0-Level Party Generator, I took a look at everyone's stats, hoping to gain some kind of advantage. Three of my four 0-levels would make suitable 1st level characters, but I wanted the best experience. This is the one that spoke to me:

Great stats, maxed out hit points, and a Pure Strain Human... I was all set to play a Shaman!

Cypher, 1st Level Shaman of ACHROMA, Hunter from the Clan of Cog

• Strength 11, Agility 11, Stamina 14, Personality 14, Intelligence 15, Luck 9
• Hit Points 10, AC 10
• Wetware Programs: Invoke Patron (1/day), Security Override

Since ACHROMA is essentially Agent Smith from The Matrix, I wanted to have a name that I could draw from the movie series. Originally I went with Novo (kind of like Neo), but Neo and Agent Smith weren't the best of buds. Cipher (played by Joe Pantoliano in the movie) made much more sense. I swapped the "i" for a "y" as a little tribute to my other favorite RPG system. I think the coolest part of this character is how he has permanent "ACHROMA Over eyes" - sunglasses that are just glued to his face. Super badass!

Cypher has some pretty rad compatriots too. 

• Bromber the Plantient (berry bush), played by +andrew lyon 
• Agutter the Healer, played by +Paul Go 
• Tarn the Rover, played by +Craig McCullough 

All of those guys still have some 0-level characters left, but I don't keep track of minions' names. All in all we are a pretty Pure Strain Human heavy party, but I'm not complaining. Our plantient has an 18 Strength and multiple limbs!

We're about halfway through the adventure (I think), and Cypher is still going strong.  I drank some radioactive coffee and now have a permanently boosted Agility and Luck (both went up by one point). Unfortunately my three 0-level characters (Leondias, Frawg, and Slurps) didn't make it, and I just have the one-PC. But I have faith that Cypher will last until the end.  Our next game is early in November, and I can't wait to take MCCRPG out for another test drive. 

Banished to the Purple Planet - Part Two

Under a Weirdling Sun

Peril on the Purple Planet is an epic DCCRPG box set devised by +Harley Stroh. The adventure is a hex crawl, so player characters get to explore a completely open and lush world. Characters must discover artifacts, make alliances, battle terrifying worms, and sustain the deadly sun's rays if they are to ever make their way back home.

Care to hear about this week's banishment? Read on!

Previous Tales of the Banished

• Banished to the Purple Planet - Part One

The Banished

• +Marc Plourde
• Floyd Pink, Gladiator (PC class under development)
• +Jonata Sodre 
• "Screaming" Otto, Warrior
• +Alex Perucchini 
• Nicodemus, Thief
• +Paul Go 
• Imric, Elf

Banished to the Purple Planet, Part Two

I'm struggling a bit on the best way to share The Free Company's story on the Purple Planet. In the past I've done some pretty lengthy adventure summaries, complete with all kinds of intricate details. But since this is more of an open world, and given that some of the "game" is actually dealing with the minutiae of scavenging, finding food and water, and evading the sun, I'm going to try something different: a day-to-day log of major events. 

Sure, this might make for a less interesting read for folks who aren't as familiar with our player characters, but I think this makes the most sense for our group. At the very least, if you're running Peril on the Purple Planet as well, you can compare stories. Perhaps when we get to more of the "meat" of the adventure I expand on the conversation a bit more. But for now, here's the adventure log:

Day 1

• The Free Company selected Nicodemus, Floyd Pink, Screaming Otto, and Imric to lead the first leg of the journey.
• The party searched the bodies of the dead Kith, and determined that one group (with a banner that appeared to be a head/skull in a box/container) came from the northwest, while the other (with a banner that appeared to be a castle or large structure) came from the northeast.
• The party spent an inordinate amount of time trying to democratically decide where they were going to go. Three of the four party "leaders" chose northwest, while Imric wanted to go towards the water to the southwest. 
• Rather than explore during the hot day, The Free Company rested until dusk and then set out across the wasteland.
• By midnight the party had traveled six miles northwest and found nothing but more wastes. 

Day 2

• Between midnight and dawn the party traveled another twelve miles, moving slowly so that they could search the area for signs of civilization or anything else that could be used as a shelter for when the sun came up. Nothing.
• With the sun rising, the party headed west towards the mountains. There they hoped they could find shade, solace, and perhaps a place for Watson to cast his Patron Bond spell with Aquilia. 
• At the foothills of the mountain (6 more miles) the party saw a party of Kith raiders in the distance (about 2 miles away). Rather than get their attention, The Free Company hid behind some boulders.
• Once in the mountains, the party discovered an ancient cairn. By this time the party found themselves sapped of Stamina by the ancient purple sun. 
• Nicodemus disable a falling floor trap at the entrance to the cairn.
• Once inside, the party uncovered seven sarcophagi illuminated by for greenstone shards embedded in a central pillar. 
• Fearing the sarcophagi contents, the party rested for the night.
• Unfortunately, there was a shortage of water in the party. Imric and Otto did not have waterskins. Imric decided to go without for the evening while Otto drank his own urine.
• After resting until sundown (approximately 8pm) the party started checking the sarcophagi, revealing seven undead kith mummies!
• The kith mummies had burning claw attacks that nauseated victims. 
• Wayne and Gastronomix joined in the battle.
• After defeating the mummies, the party searched the sarcophagi and found valuable jewelry a functional ray rifle with limited charges, a skullcap, and a cache of greenstone shards.
• While the rest of the party wasn't looking, Nicodemus pilfered the four greenstone shards illuminating the room.
• Imric agreed to try on the silver skullcap in exchange for some of Floyd's water. Once donning the cap, Imric realized that it would let him translate (and possible speak) in any language he could hear. 

Adventure Notes

• I know that there is a regaining stamina rule for dealing with the purple sun, but I wasn't sure how the lack of food and water could play a role without dragging down the game. So I went with the rule that only access to both allowed a PC to regain their Stamina loss. I'm interested in how other folks are handling this.
• Given that Jonata was all for letting his PC drink his own urine, I came up with this quick mechanic:
• Urine Consumption: DC 10 fortitude saving throw to keep the urine down, and then only regain 1d3 Stamina loss (cannot exceed maximum Stamina).
• Since we were short on combat for the night, I made the Kith Mummies harder than how they were in the original adventure:
• Burning claws, +4 to hit, 1d7+2 damage plus burned flesh.
• The target of this attack must make a DC 15 fortitude save or the smell of burnt flesh and hair sickened the target. -1D for all actions for 1 round.

Quotes

"One minute I was asleep and next all this shit is purple." - Nicodemus wasn't around for the last adventure. 

"Hey, hey! How do I look in this? Does it make me look fat?" - Nicodemus to Floyd upon donning a shrunken kith head belt. 

"The Purple Planet mixed with Candyland." - Marc commenting on Judge James' description of the forest to the east.

"Pee is drinkable... all I'm saying." - Jonata was ready to do this.

"They should call it the Yellow Planet." - Paul was grossed out that Jonata was ready to do this.

"Raging Nicodemus. Like Screaming Otto, with profanity." - Alex describes his character. 

"It's the strength of the pee!" - Jonata after rolling a natural 20 on the final hit on the kith mummies. 

In Memoriam 

• Screaming Otto's dignity. 

Legends of the Great SCOT 

The Free Company successfully completed the Great Sunken City Omnibus Tour. Care to find out about their previous quests? Follow the links below to greatness...

• Perils of the Sunken City, Part One
• Perils of the Sunken City, Part Two
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part One
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Two
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Three
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Four
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Five
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Six
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Seven
• A Gathering of the Marked, Part One
• A Gathering of the Marked, Part Two
• A Gathering of the Marked, Part Three
• Return to Slither's End
• Lair of the Mist Men, Part One
• Lair of the Mist Men, Part Two

As always, Die Rodney!

Father/Daughter MCCRPG - Hive of the Overmind - Part 1

A New Mutation Forms

I've done a lot of adventure recaps on the Living 4 Crits blog post, but this series is going to be special. I'm not writing any actual adventure summaries. I guess technically I'll be writing part of the blog portion, and doing all the editing, but for this monthly series my daughter (the infamous Judge Evie) will be in charge of doing the actual "recap" for the adventures. You see, this new campaign isn't just mine, it's "ours." 

She asked to write her parts out long hand.

Now that we've had a chance to thoroughly dig through the Mutant Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, Evie and I wanted to roll the game out in a campaign format. So we agreed to start running a monthly father/daughter, co-judged campaign for anyone interested at our Norwin Game Knights events. We'd have a fairly even split of game master duties: I'd take care of giving most of the scene overviews and adjudicating rules, and she'd take care of managing monsters and dishing out ad libbed craziness. 

I know I do a lot of gushing about my family on this blog, and I'm sorry if I drive any of you crazy, but I can't help it. Seriously, this was one of the coolest games I've ever played, and not just because of it being a shared event between me and my daughter. Mutant Crawl Classics was such a wonderful game to run at the club! Of our eight players, five were seasoned Dungeon Crawl Classics players. But our young group (ages nine to fourteen), were absolutely enthralled by the post-apocalyptic gonzo of MCCRPG. 

With all the Mutant Crawl Classics Kickstarter rewards flowing in right now, I really wanted to get cracking on the published adventures. So Evie and I have a plan. We kicked off the new campaign with +Julian Bernick's insectoid 0-level funnel, Hive of the Overmind, and we plan on moving through the rest of the published adventures one by one as the year progresses. I'm fairly confident that most of the players are along for the entire ride. By the end of the night, everyone was clamoring to roll up their mutations and pick out their pure strain human classes. 

So far we have a pretty interesting cast!

Judge Evie striking fear into Evan's heart.

The Initiates of the Dolphinquisition

• Carrie
• Oliver - Pure Strain Human
• Era - Pure Strain Human [Advances as Shaman]
• Ryan
• Ranno - Manimal (Toad) [Advances as Manimal]
• Dr. Snek - Mutant 
• Gavin
• Nike - Pure Strain Human
• Barf - Plantient [Advances as Planitent]
• Alex
• Guthric - Pure Strain Human [Advances as Rover]
• Cactilus - Plantient (Cactus)
• Ella
• Wallace - Mutant [Advances as Mutant]
• Milo - Pure Strain Human
• Nick
• Logan - Mutant
• Dominic - Mutant [Advances as Mutant]
• Evan
• Colossus - Mutant [Advances as Mutant]
• Berry - Mutant
• Alex (Fry Guy)
• Terra AD's Best Blower - Manimal (Lion)
• Nicky P. - Pure Strain Human [Advances as Healer]

Hive of the Overmind - Part 1

Recap by Guest Blogger, Evie Walls

Everyone started out in an ant hive where this giant bee came in came in combat with them. This world is Terra AD! As they destroyed the monster they continued on. After a few fights, Ryan's character discovers a stone hoe. One second later, Fry Guy [Alex #2] and Ryan are bidding and fighting over a stone hoe. As they are each fighting over the hoe it breaks, so does Ryan's character's skull.

A few rooms later everyone hears "help, I'm drowning!" 

Ryan sees a frog thing and immediately yells "those are my people!"

At the garbage room everyone started to explore. A lot of people got pretty cool things. Stone axes, paragon elixer, stim gum, but others were not so lucky Some people said "hello" to giant maggots, but others found plastic babies. Evan found a plastic baby, and slowly flipped it over. As soon as it said "mama" it was getting smashed into pieces by Evan.

In this process Cactilus dies a normal death from a giant maggot. 

A few moments later the party came across a mucous bridge. Everyone made it across... except for Berry. Berry was walking (in a sack) across the bridge and closed his eyes to remember being awesome. As he opened his eyes he was walling into lava.

Well we can say "bye" to him. Peace out!

A couple minutes later everyone is fighting giant swarms of ant-men larvae. A lot of characters took damage during this time including Ella's character who took a hit of 2. During this adventure Ryan is being very "punny!" Ha, ha!

Anyways, these large swarms aren't done yet.

Fry guy's character starts to throw his gum at the ant men larvae. As they eat it, the swarms start to form one giant monster. 

[Judge James' note: this whole encounter modification was definitely Evie's idea!]

This monster spits out goo acid that burns flesh with a 1d4 damage. While they are fighting this thing, the time ran out. Everyone leveled up and we were all ready for more next time. 

Campaign Crematorium 

• Dr. Snek - Dragged off edge of cliff by giant bee
• Nike - Eaten by garbage maggot
• Cactilus - Eaten by garbage maggot
• Logan - Bitten to death
• Berry - Tried to potato sack race across mucous bridge over lava

New Descriptor: Vegetarian

Fun fact: this is currently in my refrigerator

I know that a lot of you out there are just like me: passionate gamers who love Numenera and are super excited about the Numenera 2 Kickstarter. Also, just like me, I'm sure that many of you (if not MOST of you) are also vegetarian. But as we vegetarians all know, it can be really hard to be both a vegetarian at the game table as well as in the game. I mean, there just aren't that many options out there to really play real vegetarian characters...

... until now.

Fun fact: Reubens with beets beat Reubens with beef

Behold, the Vegetarian descriptor! Whether you're playing Numenera, The Strange, Gods of the Fall, or Predation, I'm sure that this is the perfect descriptor for your gaming table, suitable for just about any build.  

Just imagine:

• I am a Vegetarian Glaive who Bears a Halo of Fiber
• I am a Vegetarian Spinner who Farms with Great Skill
• I am a Vegetarian Savior who Works Miracles with Tofu

Literally, your character options are endless. But I know what you're thinking: "James, where are the rules for this incredibly innovative, and health conscious alternative to other descriptors?" Prepare to be amazed.

Fun fact: 1 cup of peas has 8 grams of protein

Vegetarian

When you look at a dossi, gallen, or shiul, you don't see a dinner, you see a kindred soul, experiencing the same Ninth World as the rest of your adventuring party. You have taken a vow to never consume the flesh of another creature, and have earned countless health benefits from this incredibly sustainable diet. Most of your fellow adventurers don't understand you. They take offense whenever you remind them of your eating habits, and they are constantly checking to see if you've eaten enough protein before battle. But one day they will come to their senses, and discover that imitation yol meat crumbles taste 60% like the real stuff.

You gain the following benefits:

Health Conscious: +2 to your Might Pool because of an incredibly nutritious diet.

Friends not Food: Domesticated creatures just love you! They all know, deep down, that you are absolutely no threat and that you would never consider them as a food source, even if you were lost in the Beyond with no other options. You are trained in all tasks dealing with domestic and companion animals. 

Skill: You know how to make great food with seemingly simple ingredients. You are trained in all tasks involving cooking and food preparation. 

Skill: You are trained in all positive social interaction with fellow vegetarians. It's like you just understand each other!

Inability: The difficulty of all social interaction with creature who eat meat are increased by one step. Unfortunately you just can't keep the fact that you're a vegetarian to yourself. Plus you can't not comment on how gross meat really is. Seriously, think about it... super gross.

Initial Link to the Starting Adventure: From the following list of options choose how you became involved in the first adventure:

1. You recently prepared food for the party at a local vegetarian friendly establishment (and coffee house) and thought that they needed a skilled chef.
2. You ran into the group at a local produce market in a nearby city, and it just so happened that you were both buying the same kind of vegetable.
3. One of the party members hired you on as a personal trainer.
4. It has always been your dream to meet new humans, visitants, and other beings and tell them about how great it is to be a vegetarian. 

*     *     *

So yeah, +Jennifer Walls and I are vegetarians, and I hope you got a kick out of this descriptor, whether or not you are followers of our plant-based ways. I've gotta thank +Marc Plourde and +Troy Pichelman for a short back-and-forth on Twitter today that inspired this post. You guys rock!