Fish Cult Today Session 3: Our Fish Cult Grows

The Aytollah Goblini, Goblin Fanatic (Maxime Golubchik)

Brutal Pete, Dwarf (Aleksandr Revzin)

Frigga, Witch (Chris P)

Pitwin, Gnome Child (Nick Kuntz)

Sapphean, Blue Wizard (Josh Rapp)

Creedence Clearwater, Fighting Man (NPC)

Goblin Followers, Goblins  (NPCs)

Salty Dogpants, 0 level witness to absurdity (NPC)

Part I: Recap

It was a combat heavy session. The party snuck back to the hills above Portown during the full moon. On the edge of the sea cliffs stood Frigga, performing some sort of moon rite. The party recognizes her from here and there in the multiverse.

Frigga hires and equips the NPCs (she’s the only one who can enter town without causing a scene) and the party heads into the dungeon.

The party encounters some cultists and some bandits, who are also cultists. All are killed or subdued. The Party finds a Fish Cult Newsletter, mentioning two new religious texts. One is about The Cult of the Death of Brutal Pete and the other is The Beatitudes of the Insane Woman. There is also something about a potluck.

Then they find a room to the east that has 3 laughing goblins. They are mocking a crazed dwarf who is digging out a stairway in the south end of the room. He is crazed and minding his own business but Brutal Pete covets his fancy plate mail.  There is struggle watched in horror by the NPCs and with glee by the lauging goblins. The dwarf dies. Brutal Pete asks the laughing goblins if he will end up like the dwarf. The laughing goblins say, “eventually.”

Brutal Pete takes the dwarf’s stuff, plate mail and a nice pickaxe.

The Party then makes its way to the Fish temple, avoiding a gelatinous cube. They get to the room they stole the statue of Blipdoolploop. They decide to open a door and there is a gas trap. No one dies.  There is also a magic mouth it shouts in the fish cult language. Summoning the “Assassination squad.” The party lays down oil and caltrops, the works. They burn 7 naked fish cultists to death. The NPCs start drinking.

There is then a comically long fight when the Kuo Toans arrive. They are eventually vanquished except for 1 Kuo Toan who is charmed by Pitwin. Everyone is going to need some sort of magical hearing to avoid hearing loss after 16 gunshots were fired in a stone vaulted underground room at once.

The party gets a bunch of barbed harpoons, a cool silver helmet and two manuscripts one called The Cult of the Death of Brutal Pete and the other The Beatitudes of the Insane Woman.

The party surveys the room that the Kuo Toans entered from. It is a temple. Pitwin tags the temple. There are frescoes of people making out with fish and some statues that do not seem artistically significant enough to steal.

On the altar, which is more of a lectern, there is another manuscript entitled The Fish Prayer. Frigga takes it. But not until, addressing Blibdoolploop directly and proclaiming herself a new envoy of her will and vowing to cleanse the god of unworthy followers. Frigga gets a 12 on her reaction roll with modifiers, but there is no immediate response.

The party leaves the dungeon taking the charmed Kuo Toan named Fibshbert with them.  The NPCs are bewildered and drunk.

Part II: Treasure

The Beatitudes of the Insane Woman

This short manuscript is a cycle of 12 four-line stanzas. The subject matter is a woman who gazes into the eyes of Blibdoolploop and is driven mad. The madness is presented as a punishment, but also as a desirable thing. The woman is at times considered cursed and at times blessed. The last stanzas describe a ritual celebrating her madness with her present. This manuscript has potential but unclear uses in spell research.

The Cult of the Death of Brutal Pete

This manuscript describes a cult that worships the idea of Brutal Pete dying. The cult formed recently and this document lays out the reasons for why Brutal Pete should be killed. Some of it is racist against dwarfs but the main thrust is that Brutal Pete has a way to control gods and this is blasphemous. The alarming part of this manuscript is that it appears that this cult is not solely made up of Blibdoolploop worshippers. There are many other gods that want Brutal Pete dead, apparently and not all the gods are evil. Some lawful gods view Brutal Pete’s actions as inherently chaotic and blasphemous and according to this document want him dead too. The document also mentions some “lesser heretics,” Barnabus Sleet, Brax The Savage, Lars Hootman, Magic Meryl, and Sapphean,

The Fish Prayer

As far as you can tell this thing is a lot like the Song of Solomon, except about loving fish instead of people and instead of milk and honey, it is fish and pearls.

The Plate Mail of Üle Oakenballs

This is +2 Plate Mail. It is light and unencumbering. It has designs identifying the wearer as a member of the Oakenballs clan. It is also imprinted with the Üle Oakenballs’s memories. Brutal Pete gets glimpses of his adventures and the whispers of chaos that grew louder as Üle grew more powerful. Eventually Üle was unable to resist the whispers of chaos. He went mad, put on his armor, grabbed his pick and wandered until he came to Portown and started digging in the dungeon, his mind completely destroyed, consumed by the ramblings of chaos.

Brutal Pete’s soul has no fused with Üle’s or become infected by this chaos. It is hard to tell exactly what happened once he fought in the armor, just as Üle did so many times.

If Pete was not subjected to racial level limits before he is now. If he tries to exceed level 8 as a dwarf he will go mad and compulsively dig into the earth building or expanding some dungeon somewhere. This is not a curse. This is the normal fate of all dwarfs from Üle home demi-plane. It is possible that divine intervention or wish spells can mitigate this. The laughing goblins were right, your fate is now eventually the same as Üle’s.

But hey, +2 Plate Mail.

The adorned pickaxe is worth 1,000gp and is normal.

Part III: The Interrogation of Fishbert

This is what you can glean of the area from Fishbert. The spawning beds and the lair are to the south of the temple down an underground river. There are many places that the Kuo Toans don't go. He doesn't know exactly why. The temple you are invading now is mostly for the human cultists so he hasn't spent that much time there, mostly just comes up to the temple room for smooching sessions.