Planescape - Blood War XXIII. Prismatic Croaker

Theran is a golden slaad

I should probably note that the group is 14th level. The plan is to wrap up the Blood War story by the end of the year. So in the next month and a half, we'll need to complete the invasion of Thanatos, have an epic final battle with Lamashtu, and come to some kind of confrontation with Iggwilv and Graz'zt, who are really the true enemies here.

Future Plans: Once that's done, I want to run a few session that cover the course of nine months time. Theran has 3 babies due to be born, and Bidam has one on the way. I want to give the group some time to relax and recover from the Blood War, and dig in to their relationships with their friends.

City Adventures: I'd also like to explore their status in the city. They'll be around 16th level, and possibly as powerful and influential as the factols in the city. I also would like to use Shemeshka some more. I'd like to roleplay her more like Chris Perkins does. I would like to do some city stuff where the group has some sort of epic struggle with their hated enemy, Ash Vodiran, the greatest thief in Sigil. Maybe he'll attempt his biggest heist ever - stealing Theran's sphere of annihilation!

I'd also like to do adventures utilizing their mansions in the Elemental Plane of Earth, and their festhalls. The players love when the festhalls get used. I'd say the "mob meeting" of all of the brothel owners was something they very much enjoyed and want to do more of. Sigil is awesome, so I think we should definitely pend some time having adventures in the city proper, using all the friendships and storylines we've built over the past few years.

Light Tone: I love that the group is on the side of the devils, and I love running the bad guys as if they were kind of nice people. It's more fun for me that way. The most important thing for me in D&D these days is FUN. I have no stomach for constant violence and misery, I prefer to try to create a game where it feels a bit more like a celebration of everything. In modern terms,

I want my games to feel like the Guardians of the Galaxy. There's adventure, there's danger, but there's still a lot of jokes and nothing is taken too seriously.

This particular evening involves a return to Limbo. For whatever reason, these are always great sessions. I think it is because all of us love Limbo and get excited when we get to go there. The ability to make arcana checks to mold the chaos into pathways and items is such a fun tool to play with.

The Party

(Jessie) Bidam - Platinum-Scaled Dragonborn Fighter
(George) Theran - Elf Wizard

The heroes had gotten their memories back, escaped Demogorgon's prison, retrieved their stuff, and returned to Sigil with their new friends. We went through a bunch of downtime stuff:

• Loving Matrimony: Bidam used his new double-weiner on his wife and rolled tremendously high!
• Hee Hee: Eo Kaplan (the Michael Jackson undead gnoll) wants to open an orphanage because he loves the children, who are the future. To my surprise, the heroes let him use their mansion for his creepy plan. I don't do rape or molestation in my games, so in my head, Eo Kaplan's intentions are unsettling... something like... he wants to make them work in a sweatshop, or he actually just enjoys sleeping with children in his bed in a truly platonic way. Or..! He collects children like some people collect stuffed animals. Something like that. 
• Mel vs. Eo: Mel Narnia (Melania Trump) hates this plan and has moved out of the mansion with her son, Baron Donald Flumph, who Eo is obsessed with.
• Unrequited Love: The group visited Selinza, whose soul belongs to the devils. She now works as a bouncer at the devil festhall of Sigil, known as the "Hellhole". 
• Magic Item Souvenirs: Bidam's kid ask him if he got anything for them when he was away on his trip. Bidam handed them a ring of protection and bracers f defense. What a dad!
• Succubus Queen Buddy: Shami Amourae had made her way to Bazuuma's other abyssal realm, the Crystal Roads of Deluer. She was ready to help with the whole truename thing when the group had time.
• Cabiri Crabs: Some of the group's demon friends were very unhappy that the heroes didn't free Cabiri from the Wells of Darkness when they had the chance.
• Friendly Crustaceans Under the Sea: The group has been making demon crustaceans and selling them to the Blipdoolpoolp, a D&D goddess that I get a kick out of. Demon production has stalled. The PROGENITORS (demon breeders) have lost their mojo. This is a storyline that Jessie specifically requested. She wants to go on a quest to correct their erectile dysfunction. Again, my campaign is stupid.
• Mary Poppins: Amarysse the angel was given the job of maid. She was responsible for keeping the f**khaus clean. She took to it with zeal, singing cleaning songs that probably shouldn't be repeated.
• Morgan Freeman: The devil, Yantz Cogburn, settled in to become a barfly at the Smoldering Corpse tavern, where Eo Kaplan performed his musical numbers and dancers from the Shadowfell plied their trade.

Bovina, possible future goddess of Minotaurs

Divine Mooing: Bovina the cow lady tracked the group down. She asked the group if they had the divine shard - the item that she planned to use to become the new goddess of minotaurs. The group realized that it was missing. Demogorgon took one item from their pile! Demogorgon was going to use the shard to gain tremendous power unless something was done!

Bovina has a thing for Bidam, but Bidam is completely loyal to his wife, Bazuuma. I mean... 100%. Bidam has completely changed from a player to a devoted family man. It's kind of amazing. The demon lord Graz'zt once threatened to seduce his wife away and Bidam flipped out on him.

Despite all these adventure hooks, the group was dead set on one thing - Going to Renbuu and forcing him to change Theran back into an elf. Renbuu's prank had made Theran a golden slaad and he was not having it.

Limbo: Once fully rested and geared up, the group walked through a portal to Limbo (the heroes live in Deadbook Square, an area of Sigil with about a dozen portals to different planes).

The heroes stepped into the githzerai city of Zerthadlun and were greeted warmly by the citizens there. Long ago, the group had learned martial arts in an academy here.

A bunch of modrons were here. They bopped up and down when they saw the heroes, who were famous among the modrons for helping them complete their modron march. The modrons were on a secret mission, observing their chaotic enemies, the slaad. This interaction was meant to foreshadow a surprise at the end of the session.

The heroes used their magic scrimshaw whalebone to summon the ghostly pirate ship known as Bechard's Cyst!

The literal skeleton crew got to work while Captain Ricketshanks shouted pirate cliches and his undead parrot imitated demonic whale sounds uttered by Bechard (the obyrith/demon lord whale that the group had rescued from Yeenoghu's Realm).

Theran used his mastery of mutability to turn the chaos of Limbo into a floating river for their pirate ship to sail on.

Renbuu, one of the Slaad Lords

The heroes began to sail for Renbuu' gallery. They've been there twice before.

Along the way, a swarm of chaos imps infested their ship. Chaos imps are 2e monsters that can inhabit non-magic items. Basically, the group's own items attacked them, including the staff of power and the sword of sharpness! Yikes!

One chaos imp actually inhabited the ship and turned it upside down. Theran fell into the chaos of Limbo, but he was able to cast fly on himself and get back up to safety. The group used magic and intimidation to force the chaos imps to leave.

Chaos Pinwheel: The heroes came upon one of thee random chaos generators. Bidam had used one long ago and gained a wish. He wished to kill the Lady of Pain, which caused a chain reaction that led to Theran becoming one of the Lady of Pain's dabus servants and learning a lot of Sigil secrets.

Bidam and Theran both used it. Each rolled a result that boosted one of their ability scores by 1 point. Not too shabby!

The heroes arrived at Renbuu's lair. He graciously greeted them and showed the heroes his latest works of art:

• A statue of a male elf spewing 7 different colors of liquids
• A painting of a rainbow, but every color in it was a shade of red.
• An always-running play about the life of Zagyg, the mad god. Zagyg is Gary Gygax's old character. In my game, he's an insane time-traveling god who is always causing mischief.

Theran is a golden slaad thanks to Renbuu's prank. Theran demanded to be returned to his original form. Renbuu still was stewing over the time that Renbuu dared to enslave a slaad. So Renbuu reached into Theran's gooey head and pulled out his control gem! Now Theran was a slave of Renbuu!

I have always considered Renbuu a pseudo-ally of the group. I think he's really cool. But it became clear to me here that the group hates him! They wanted to kill him.

He showed them his painting studio where nude models of many different races hung around, not self-conscious in the slightest. Renbuu showed them his paints, which were a special souped-up version of Nolzur's Marvelous Pigments.

The adventurers snatched the pigments, which are able to alter reality.. For example, if you paint a door in the air, a real door is made. That kind of thing. The group started to try to paint Renbuu out of existence!

Renbuu unleashed some powerful attacks. He even turned Bidam's platinum scales back to their original black! Bidam was not happy.

Suddenly, Modrons exploded through the ceiling and attacked Renbuu. Their secret mission was to abduct some slaads and study their anatomy in the hopes of learning how chaos worked so that they could make order out of it!

Renbuu was abducted by the law-abiding modrons and Theran got his control gem back. The group kept the pigments, thanked the modrons, and made their way home.