Wonderland Session 6 & 7

We finally had our entire group together as we began this session.

When we left our intrepid "heroes", the group had heard voices crying for help through the Void, and had gone to their rescue despite the Captain's protests. Once on the island, they had encountered a group of people huddled together on the beach, and one of the people had turned towards the Captain with a wild look of hunger, and we had faded to black.

When we picked back up, I fully intended for there to be a conflict during the session. All of the players had commented at one point or another that they wanted a fight, and I had planned the adventure with that in mind.

But my players had other plans.

I originally planned for the island to be the domain of a very powerful being that granted "wishes", but with tiny twists. I asked people what they were thinking of and hoping for when they encountered this group of people, and began play.

I gave each of them a description of what they saw, tailored to their stated desires. The Captain asked for a proper adventure, so I put him into a combat. "Batman" wanted his past, so I had him encounter a "lost love" that my NPC/villian created. (Special guest star playing the "bad guy" was my daughter. She created the lost love and the story to go with her. It was pretty well done.) Tennessee Jones wanted to help get rid of whatever was hurting these people, so I had her encounter a mountain lion which was scaring the group of people (at least in her head). It went like that, with pretty much everyone encountering something different.

The IDEA behind this was that at some point they would figure out that they were being had, and go looking for the source of the illusions. I had an actual "bad guy" all slated up for them to face. But again, the PCs went another route.

The Captain elected to try to leave, the Clown thought he was rescuing a baby, "Batman" was reunited with his former flame, the Ghost was trying to get the policeman sobered up but was foiled by the presence of plentiful booze and women. The sorceress also wanted to leave and Tennessee was trying to tame the lion.

There was much discussion on what to do, and no one really agreed. The conversation got heated more than once, and many members of the group were more frustrated with each other than their situation. At one point, the sorceress cast a "push" spell on the policeman, which caused him to take aim at her with his gun.

The clown was enraged and bullrushed the policeman, knocking him over and causing an out of game time out while we discussed a few points of etiquette.

After the massive departure from the adventure and game, we got mostly back on track. The PCs were mildly squabbling when a new person entered their field of view. This new person caused more disagreement and suspicion, and the party finally agreed to leave for better ports.

At this point, the party got back on their boat. As they did so, they realized that the illusions were falling apart. Just as all of this was coming to light, the new person decided that they wanted to go along, and hopped on the boat. After a little discussion, the group grudgingly took her with them, mostly for lack of something better to do.

This ended session 6. Session 7 had all of the group except the Ghost back on the boat, headed for a new place to land. The come across a very large "speed bump" and land the boat. They look ahead and up, and all they see for a very long way in any direction are tiny steps, stacked on top of each other. The world is washed out in sepia tones, everything looking very much the same from one edge of their vision to the next.

As they climb the steps, they notice that there is some "give", and that the steps slide under their feet and then slide back as they step off of them. The continue their exploration and climbing, when the Captain makes an unusual discovery. One of the steps has a mark or inscription of some sort, but it is covered by the next step. The Captain tries to push the next step, since they are somewhat flexible, but instead makes something of a hole. He and "Batman" (Alistair) hide the hole and move on. The Captain is really a curious guy, and keeps looking at the steps and keeps seeing engravings and so on.

He puts his head to the step and hears a voice! The voice says: "Silly frog." The Captain wonders aloud- "what frog" and the group decides to investigate with him. They all take turns listening to the step- and with some pushing and pulling, they  reveal more of the inscription and the voice says: "Silly frog. Go outside and play!"

They are completely confused by this and look around for a frog. As they continue up the steps, they come upon a wide expanse of blue that stretches as far as they can see.

They hear a muffled, somewhat rhythmic sound as they look around. They have pulled the boat up the many steps, and they put the boat onto the blue vision. As they do, they find themselves on a big lake, in the boat. Above them, distorted because of their point of view, is a large, angular shape. They also see a very large grey mass off to the right and above them some distance away.

They are super curious about both the large shape and the grey thing, and Alistair  shows his true colors as Batman and becomes a bat. He flies up to the grey mass, and discovers it is somewhat 2 dimensional in that it's flat from behind and he can't really see anything of what it might be.

As he is flying around, he and the group hear an excited, happy exclamation- but again, the voice is muffled and far away. They can't quite make out what the voice is saying, and they can't see the source of the sound, either.

As they continue investigating and floating on the lake, they hear the far away voice making a noise that sort of sounds familiar. They can't exactly place it, but they know it's something they have heard before. The Clown hits on a moment of inspiration and realizes it's a lullaby. Through miming and encouragement, he gets the entire group to hum along. Everyone is humming.

It takes a moment for the group to catch on that the Clown is waving, and they all join in. The sound has changed from a lullaby to a voice that they can almost understand. Then they hear: "Look! They're waving. Do you see them waving? Say hi! They're waving at us! They're very nice. Let's go see them!" The landscape shifts downward in a strange, lurching fashion, and a very large shape comes into their field of vision.

It takes a moment, but the large (REALLY LARGE- as big as a house) form steps onto their same area, and they see the following, holding what appears to be a baby (and the baby is pretty normal size- maybe toddler shaped at the largest).

Most of the group recognize the larger being as similar to the one they met in the underwater adventure, where the Clown befriended a baby. His friend, the baby, is the same baby the larger entity is holding.

Through discussion with the adult, they discover she is the baby's mother. The baby has grown some since the group last saw her, but her mother indicates she'll grow even further before the group will meet her again. The baby is an integral part of the story of the Gods, and so are the PCs. The PCs discover that they are in a giant story book, and that the baby was hearing a story when they arrived on the scene.

They ask many questions and discover that the story they are in has a happy ending. They know they meet the gods and the baby meets the group and the PCs as well. They find out that they have to make at least another stop before they can meet the gods, and that even though the mother knows the end of the story, she can't cheat and tell them what to do- because the story changes as things happen.

The baby decides to play with the Clown for a little while, and her mother continues answering questions for the group. They find out that knowing where they want to go while they are in the Void is a critical step to not getting lost. Those that have tried without direction get lost, and separated from the gods, which is generally a bad thing. They also find out that the story book can show them other places and they can pick a place they want to go, and Mom will put them there. It's a one time "skip ahead to where you want to go" deal, so they look at several pages within the book. The group decides on Meridia, which is where Tennessee is from; and also where the Priests were originally from.

Goodbyes are said, with the baby not wanting to leave the Clown (they really are good friends), and good wishes given. Mom puts the group on the proper page, and this is where we closed for the evening.