Finn

Brad Murray as Cap'n Finn
Byron Kerr as ref

• return to the golem hoping to find a way back to Hothouse
• golem is busy terrorizing the Muddos villages
• Finn confronts him, demands a ride
• Golem says he has a new phylactery, harder to open, mad by Finn's kin
• Finn promises to write anything the golem asks for on the phylactery
• Golem would like a vacation
• Finn promises the world and the golem shows how to open the new phylactery
• Finn writes instructions which do not include a vacation
• Bound by the words, the golem takes Finn to Hothouse, but he chooses a terrifying, chaotic route — a Tenacity check is required
• Finn passes the check but Tenacity is not his strong suit — he's forced to use a trait (Knows the secret weaknesses of metals)
• Brad suggests that the golem is destroyed and Finn is deposited anywhere the ref desires as the early stopping point of the hellride
• Byron agrees. The golem is destroyed. The golem is a named element in the multiverse, though, and so the Civilization value of Muddos must change — we choose to raise it from 2 to 3 — with the golem and Effron (see last session) gone, the scattered kingdoms of Muddos are becoming city-states.
• Finn is deposited in Hothouse as he'd hoped, but he's not sure where he is
• Finn flies into a glass web and is confronted by a rainbow of prismatic spiders who attempt to constrain him (Warfare)
• There is a protracted conflict but Finn is not getting anywhere with it. With two consequences under his belt (Damaged wings and I forget BJDK: Trapped in a web, I think) and all traits spent, he concedes, offering "I live but I will do whatever the spiders want"
• The spiders want Finn to negotiate land from Amak who seems to be organizing Hothouse. Finn does not think this sounds difficult.
• Finn rides a spider with the whole army of them through the glass webbing that interlocks the forest canopy. They descend on Amak's tent village which is become more and more permanent looking.
• Confronted by a swarm of spiders, Amak agrees to their demands. It's not really much to ask — the spiders are granted domination of the skies. Finn is pleased because his kinfolk betrayed him previously. And they like to fly.
• With another new species added to Hothouse (these were the stone spiders of Effron abandoned when he was banished and taken by Sahar as new worshippers) and Hothouse becoming an inter-planar refugee camp / holiday resort / people putting down roots — we decide that the Civilization has gone from 0 to 1.

Pyrol

Brad Murray as ref
Byron Kerr as Lord Pyrol of Jongg

• Pyrol discusses with the freed rakshasas what will happen next. they are strong-willed and uninterested in his direction. They disperse, forming multiple small groups. Will they be bandits? Mercenaries? New cities? We will find out. But Halberd now has rakshasas to deal with.
• They reveal, before leaving, that Jirac was searching for an old woman. The Witch? The Crone? But that he had not found her.
• Shutar accompanies Pyrol back to the pavillion to talk with King Boris. The tournament is going on and it is bloody.
• Shutar participates in the tournament, possibly killing Sir Lawrence and replacing him as one of Boris' generals. He stays beside the king. Shutar becomes a Baron. Boris seems delighted but he now has a rakshasa nobleman with lands.
• Pyrol asks the king about the Crone and he relates the story of Finn and the Crone and the exile of Effron.
• Pyrol elects to go to Westport and learn what he can there. He takes the renamed Sir Steven (Damn you Emmy nominated Bill Hader!) who had accompanied Finn.
• At Westport they find the fisherman who rowed Finn to the island which is now gone. He tells that the old woman returned to Westport after the battle, a beggar, and powerless.
• At some point it became obvious that she was pregnant.
• She has since disappeared from her regular place by the inn.
• Pyrol enters the inn to ask the barkeep but something is horribly wrong. The place smells of void of emptiness of nothing. Foreign magic. The barkeep is unresponsive. His wife follows Pyrol as he goes upstairs to investigate.
• She attacks him, her eyes shining orbs of obsidian and she screams soundlessly. There is a sense of loss and of suffocation. Violence as the possessed old woman begins to strangle Pyrol.
• This is a protracted battle as Pyrol tries to use Tenacity to move this fight into a Diplomatic context so he can try to talk her out of her reverie, her possession. But in every case, we wind up with a wash, no one getting the upper hand.
• In a wash each character takes a 1d hit in the current context. As the context is Violence, each is taking damage to the Substance stress track.
• That means that, although Pyrol is not intent on hurting anyone, and is not using Violence at all, because he is engaged in a violent conflict, he is inflicting harm. Or allowing harm to be inflicted.
• This is the first conflict that went to the end of a battle - tract filled, forth consequence inflicted upon one party.
• The old woman has a lower substance than Pyrol and she ultimately takes a fourth consequence before Pyrol can change the context. She dies. We narrate that Pyrol desperately tries to lever himself free using his ivory-handled walking stick and in his desperation and his terror, he strikes her on the head. This kills the woman. The howling void stops. Her eyes regain sight and she whispers out "Why?" with her final breath.
• Pyrol stands over a woman no longer possessed, no longer terrifying. Blood drips from his permanently stained walking stick.