Session Capture: Bad Company Session 2, Our heroes get sucked on and find some demons

It doesn't look like it, but this guy
would be in a heap of trouble if this
were GURPS.

The heroes have spent some time in a swampy delta, and are getting tired of soggy dirt, flies, and giant pelicans. Luckily they emerge from the delta, but what they see before them might make them nostalgic for their muddy-bottom days.

The Cast

• Cassana - Cassana is a Cat-Folk priestess who decided because of a vision from her god to travel with the crew of Bad Company. Her supernatural healing makes her a readily hot commodity. She is a prudish bore though, and spends her free time reciting passages and praying.
• Elizabeth - A burly thing of a girl who was raised among rabbit-people. She tries hard, but she doesn’t have the chops for the business. Her adopted father was abducted by a man named Salazar, and she has joined a band of pirates to hopefully secure help in finding this man. She is the support member, and a jack of all trades. She has a horse named Al Freido who helps protect the belongings of her and the party.
• Mr. Tapioca – A bunny-man samurai, and a master of martial arts and strategy, and former, disgraced captain of the guard for Emperor Dyson. He was framed for the assassination of the emperor and now uses his skills to help those he can while on the lam. Introduced to Captain Burbank by Emilio the Goldfish, Mr. Tapioca took Captain Burbank as his liege and master.
• Xelin - Son of Van Zandt the Blight, though he was only a child when the story of that man took place. His lineage is a secret he must keep closely because of the unspeakable atrocities of his father. Unavoidably lead down his inevitable destiny to power and mastery of the cosmos, misfortune follows closely after him. For unfortunate reasons, he finds that the only people he can trust are themselves absolute dregs, and thus finds himself in the hire of Captain Burbank.

Meandering progress,
Double your compression,
double your fun!

Session Summary

So, on day 3 of our quest our heroes roll out, and obviously because they didn't sleep well the previous night, they all stumble about in the hike today with their bad hiking rolls. Elizabeth apes Mr. Tapioca's religious rituals he completes before leaving. Mr. Tapioca hears a sound in the swamp, and decides to navigate the party away from the bird calls. No more pelicans.

So he forges a shallow muddy stream when all of a sudden his Danger Sense goes off telling him to cover his face. He reaches up just in time as several leaping leeches begin lunging at him and the party. They retreat quickly from the stream, but regretfully stay in range of the stream and more jump out at them. They are surprised to learn how far they can jump, but luckily no more but one which latched onto Mr. Tapioca's off-hand found their mark. The party watched as it gorged itself, and struggled to find a solution to the problem [failed Naturalist rolls] but [using meta-knowledge, but I let it slide] Xelin knew the method to remove a leech from the skin was with fire. Using Ignite Fire he scared the leech away before it could do crippling damage to Xelin.

Cassana tried to use healing powers, but her prayers failed, so Elizabeth fixed him up the old fashioned way with First-Aid.

The party continued all day and made camp just outside the delta, finally. An incident occurs where Xelin attempts blackmail for more opium, but his bluff falls flat, and Cassana doesn't help him. He's got more than enough anyways.

On the fourth watch, Cassana gets a weird feeling, and she looks at the darkness, and nothing looks back at her. The feeling startles her, but she doesn't know what to make of it.

The next day, liberated of the dense miasma of fetid decomposition that proliferated the swamp and its dense canopy, the party enjoys a bright sunny day in the uncomfortably warm tropical sun, but with a cool breeze to take off some of the bite. Xelin suddenly smells an incredibly trace amount of smoke. and hearing this, Mr. Tapioca concentrates, and can hear a rhythmic pulsing from the earth in a direction to the south. The party decides to investigate.

They travel for several miles when Cassana, being religiously sensitive, suddenly feels a dark, foreboding, suffocating miasma enrapture her heart. Immense evil is in the proximity. Elizabeth listens closely and hears the drums of an encampment. This must have been what Mr. Tapioca heard earlier. Elizabeth knows from her Area Knowledge this music isn't that of a native culture. She carefully beatboxes the rhythms to Cassana and Xelin who can't place it as either being of Spirits or Elementals of which they are aware. Suddenly, Mr. Tapioca's Danger Sense goes off and he Fast-Draws and slashes to his immediate left, but his sword is caught on a hard, thick, and otherworldly knife.

A child holds it up and smiles revealing a mouth with more teeth than the Osmond family. It viciously slashes with ferocity and force at the samurai. Cassana gasps that it is a demon. The party encircles it closely and begins to try attacking it with difficulty, it is deftly dodging swings from all directions. Suddenly, Xelin [using Hazardous Materials skill at a penalty] realizes he has seen a picture of such a toothy smile and bulging eyes... in the hands of an apothecary... in the demolitions isle at his home alchemist lab/pharmacy. "Doomchild!" He sputters in terror as the party finally managed to surround and get uncomfortably close to it.

As fortune would have it, Mr. Tapioca strikes true [a very opportune moment for a critical hit] with enough knockback to throw the Doomchild wide of the party. It is knocked so far that it's explosion and shrapnel doesn't reach the party. Mr. Tapioca cowers at the sound of the explosion. The drums in the distant still beat faintly. The party resolves to cause a chain reaction to destroy them all in one go.

They climb a bluff and gaze down on the sight of the altar, mottled with blood and ash already, apparently sacrifices were the order of the day. But Elizabeth noticed a few prisoners that were still alive, and Mr. Tapioca's jaw drops as she describes one among them in a way that matches exactly the appearance of his friend, Emilio the goldfish.

Feedback and Other Thoughts

• The players seem to be getting their heads around the rules very quickly. I am pleased.
• A new player subbed in for Xelin who's player in real life is attending a conference right now. He did a pretty good job, his real character will have an opportunity to be introduced in a session or two from now.
• The pacing felt good all-around.
• Some players say it's hard to feel like an island, so I'm looking for ways to make the experience evoke that more.
• I think there is something interesting about GMing a very tightly constrained timeboxed game. Knowing there is only two hours seems to keep people focused on the quest without much floundering. This "floundering" though has a lot of role playing opportunity, so I feel like we gain something, but lose another.