Numenera - The Devil's Spine - Session 12

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 
• Keane, a Rebellious Glaive who Likes to Break Things, played by +Craig McCullough 
• PL4T0, an Artificially Intelligent Jack who Resides in Silicon, played by +Marc Plourde
• Nero, a Mad Nano who Travels Through Time, played by +David Howard 
• 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

Session 12: Happy Anniversary!

Dude, it's been a year since we started this campaign? Holy crap!

You know, the downside to our games where there is a lot of talky-talky, and not might fighty-fighty is that writing these things out is typically a big, long ordeal. So I'm not writing it all out here. Sorry! We have festive holiday things to do tonight (I think a Disney special is on ABC?) and +Jennifer Walls will be super pissed at me if I'm still down here blogging at 9pm. So I've got thirty-eight minutes to get this all done.

Ready?

Okay, here goes:

I think it's fair to say that some serious party dynamics changed when Rooster Bladesmyth, the bounty hunter from the 1870's, joined the rest of the party during the last session. Fast forward a billion years, and Rooster pretty much started calling the shots in the party... and interestingly enough, the rest of the group was cool with it. Sure, there was some friction with PL4T0, but I really think that "Rooster's Tales of the Ninth World" should be some kind of series.

Maybe on Netflix.

Anyway, the last part of The Devil's Spine, the portion of the adventure where the party would need to find the Gharolan that would help get those blasted parasites off their backs, is called "The Other Side of the Maelstrom." The party needed to cross the Cloudcrystal Skyfields and make their way to the coastal village of Harmuth, where they would find Cagyn. Way back at the beginning of this quest Devola told the party that Cagyn would know how to find some Gharolan. 

Boo yah.

En route to the village, the party came across a small blue-skinned family of former nobles who now bought and traded seskii puppies. Rooster wanted a new dog, so he traded some silver dollars for a seskii puppy that he named Buddy. The party then found out that the family had in their possession the tiny sailor they had sold back when they were last in Uxphon. The dude was not a fan of PL4T0, and after purchase the little guy did his best to get away from the group.

During one of their many spats, PL4T0 slapped Rooster with the little action-figure sized sailor, breaking his back. The party then went into surgery mode, using the Impossible Blade and Nero's medical expertise. The tiny sailor was healed!

The little guy eventually ended up with Rooster, and the two were partners. He said his name was Squinty Miles. 

Because this game is crazy, I made Squinty Miles into an artifact:

• Level 4, whenever Squinty whistles, the person carrying him gains a +1 bonus to recovery rolls. No depletion, but Squinty Miles needs to be fed regularly. 

Like I said... crazy.

When the party entered Harmuth, they found all kinds of happenings going on. News of storms, complaints of robberies, missing children, and an upcoming Festival of the Fish. The team made their way to a small eatery called The Jewel Box, where they dined on super-fresh fish and shellfish, and partook in some strong beverages. The bartender gave them some info about Cagyn, and offered to let them tag along with her delivery lad who would be taking the eccentric scientist food later. 

Cagyn was naked when the party found him, standing in the middle of the Bion Bay holding a box in the water. Some weird ear tentacles on either side of his head were connected to the box. After some introductions, Cagyn told the party that he'd love to help them with their parasites, but the Gharolan they sought was out in the middle of the sea, and his Tracker Ring artifact would be needed to find it. Unfortunately, that ring was missing!

There had been news of a ring thief earlier at the Jewel Box.

This sounded like work for an experienced bounty hunter! Rooster led the party over to Constable Eltre's place and offered to take on the Case of the Missing Rings. The party learned some important clues:

1. The thief liked rings.
2. The thief was able to snatch up to five rings at once without disturbing the victim.
3. The thief was invisible (or practically so). 
4. The thief left behind some mucous on the victim.
5. The thief was striking from below.

Rooster set up a sting operation, that revealed the culprit to be a furry toad creature, that quickly snatched up Squinty Miles! After cutting Squinty from the inside of the toad, Rooster sent the tiny sailor into the small tunnel that the toad-thief struck from. At the end of the tunnel, Squinty discovered all the rings, and the party used Lockjaw McGraw's beard cypher to retrieve them (dangled on the end of Belmodan's whip).

Once back at Cagyn's place, the party traded their gravity belt for the Tracker Ring, and made plans to set off into the sea.

Quotes

Reece - "I don't know why Rooster wants to follow you." 
Marc - "Because we're awesome." 
Reece - "That's definitely not it." 

"Is that a sailor in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" - Marc

"Ya'll dip?" - Rooster to the rest of the party.