16 December 2017 @ 07:29 pm


Hunnerd gold! They start in a timely fashion in the castle of Morden’thal, Unhallowed Creator. Cruroar chortles over the idea of wasting Morden’thal’s time with conversation, and bemoans that the undead had gotten smart about it. The group ponders just who got beat up as they put their minis down in the hallway outside the great chamber they’d opened. The conversation gets so weird I dare not transcribe it here, which after all these years of game reports, should SAY SOMETHING. (Highlight: Cruroar being socially progressive in the most offensive way possible.) At last, the DM begins spilling flavor text onto them.

DM: The only visible spiders, however, are about this size.

The DM holds up a hand. Horrified silence descends on the table.

DM: …to you, not to your miniatures.
Normilan: Oh thank God.
DM: You wouldn’t describe them as threats…. In any other campaign.

The sound of washing dishes abruptly dominates the conversation. And continues to dominate despite the DM’s best efforts.

DM: You can just barely see the throne—
Normilan: I can barely hear you.
Brunt: I hear water. Is there running water in this room somewhere? (as the noise becomes even more aggressive) Is someone loudly beating the running water?!
DM: You see Morden’thal, vinyl gloves on his hands, idly working at a sink.
Brunt: You didn’t change your facial expression whatsoever. You’re talking about what’s going on in the room…

The group yells at Giles, but Giles is immune to all notice for several minutes. This is hilarious to all, but somehow they desperately wrench the game back on track. The DM allows the low-lighters to make Spot checks.

DM: Quirion is in the back, hopping up, trying to see over the massive armored figure of Brunt. This does not give him a chance to see anything.
Eilnys: “Lad, d’ya need a boost…?”

The two spot balconies up above running around the edge of the room, and the group spends a bit of time hashing out vision rules.

Tasha: “Can you see anything in there?”
DM: “Uh, lots of things, but I’m not certain how many you would consider relevant. Would you like an itemized list?”
Tasha: “…Yes.”
DM: “All right. There’s a spider web, there’s a spider web, there’s a spider web, there’s a spider web, there’s a spider web, there’s a spider web, there’s a spider web, there’s a throne back there, there’s a dais, there’s a dais, there’s a spider web on the dais…”
Normilan: On the dais on the dais on the dais…
DM: And you burst into song!
Giles: May your local rogue now check to see if he can find any magical traps?
DM: Where would you like to check for traps, Giles?
Giles: You know how in the previous room it was alarmed for when someone went into it…?

A Search check turns up nothing at the entrance, and shrugging, they elect to mosey on in. Or at least say they will, but don’t move their minis. Qurion moves over to the non-bone side in the interest of avoiding further owlbear skeleton damage. They creep slowly into the room, as Cruroar zips up to check the balcony for trouble and rolls a Spot check.

DM: Straining your senses to the utmost, you see an immense pillar of bone.
Cruroar: (as they take books away from the DM) He doesn’t need that, he’s not a player.
Tasha: The DM actually is a walking D&D encyclopedia.
Cruroar: I’m pretty sure he could lie to us outright and we would not stop him, until a few days later… ‘I feel that rule he said is wrong…’
Tasha: Vampire monk…
Brunt: I don’t think he INTENTIONALLY lies when it comes from the rules.

The conversation gets weird. But nonetheless, Cruroar spots towering pillars of bone at opposite far ends of the room. The DM badgers them to deploy SOME damn sort of light. Tasha hands a sunrod to Quirion and tells him to use it.

Brunt: ‘Now you can return me to the Count of Seacr—‘

In improved light, Cruroar checks the balcony just above them, looking for doors or some sort of exit. Morden’thal stands on the balcony, arms crossed and watching him!

Cruroar: “….hey!” My heads down by you guys – ‘the three--!’ – I’m slowly going back down. Are we rolling initiative?
DM: Are you going to attack him? He doesn’t appear to be making a hostile move at YOU…

They quickly refresh themselves on their Skull Lord lore. Accepting that this seems to be a trap, they slowly creep into the room, none of them quite willing to expose themselves except for Brunt, who takes pride in this job. Tasha discovers the limit of her build, now that her Ice Axe is useless.

Normilan: “Come, Quirion, we can’t be cowering back here.”
DM: But the last time I went forward, you guys complained. A LOT.”
Normilan: “I didn’t.”
DM: “Well, lots of people did…”
Normilan: “Then they can complain about both of us.”
Giles: I was in a D&D group that complained about everything. That was not a fun group.
Cruroar: He’s talking about this group!
Brunt: You know this channel is still open, right?

The towering pillars shudder as Normilan enters – then collapses and reform into rhino-like beings that charge into the group at startling speed. Normilan proposes they aggressively shit themselves to death, as he wanders off.

Normilan: Someone have a mace and call it Windu, please.
Brunt: If I ever get this thing uber-buffed…

Normilan takes a charge and 23 points of damage, and then the creature explodes into shard of bones and collapses! The explosion does pretty trivial damage though, 4 before save for half. The second one misses Quirion somehow, and explodes.

Brunt: You have no reason to answer me truthfully, but if you’d indulge my curiosity, is there any penalty for them doing this every round? When they reform do they lose a Hit Die or something?
DM: They can only use the charge attack once a day.
Brunt: No, the exploding part.
DM: That is part of the charge.
Brunt: I figured they were just going to keep exploding every round.

Damage continues to be terrible. Eilnys gets attacked twice and hit once, and weathers two explosions for minimal damage. Initiative at last results!

Tasha: If a spell range is a creature touched, can I touch myself?
DM: Yes. But only when you think about me.
Giles: This conversation is over.

Tasha spends some time contemplating what spell to lob. Then she just bashes one with her weapon for a few points after DR. The pile of bones surges upwards into a tower once more, now clutching a huge scythe! Cruroar vastly overestimates the power of turning undead at this level as he advises Tasha, while Giles goes to town on a bone pile. As Brunt steps forward, the DM sets a mounted figure on the field!

Cruroar: Did he form out of the wall?
DM: He passed THROUGH the wall! You recognize this figure, though it’s been many years out-of-character. You last saw him in Cruroar’s castle, where he emerged when you were fighting the serpentirs who’d come to reclaim Mer’dovich. You bashed him into the wall repeatedly, but it seems he’s been reformed by the power of the skull lord.

Hunters auto-shot AFK for some reason, and Brunt spends some time trying to figure out just what he should dungeoncrash. He bashes into a bone pile, discovering that the bonespurs can resist bull rushes effectively! Then he remember several bonuses and manages to knock it back 5 feet. Cruroar uses his bracers for an Entangling Blast on the ghost knight, and Eilnys goes to town with her own attacks.

DM: The spectral rider takes a withering blast, and all tracers of honor and glory fade from his view as you wrap him, and I’ll say you got his horse, why not, just as part of a package deal, in crackling tangles of arcane energy.
Cruroar: I probably would have just targeted the horse. I didn’t think about him being two creatures. Uh, thank you for doing that.

A bonespur pile reforms a tower shape, striking at Eilnys and missing, Cruroar is called upon to make a Will save, but fails it.

DM: The power of the skull lord descends upon you like a clammy hand. Your body shudders, and then you scream in agony and shards of your own bone are ripped from your body and burst from your skin.
Eilnys: Ew.
Giles: That’s a few ouchies.
Cruroar: Oh wow.
DM: You take 5 points of damage.
Cruroar: WHAT!?
DM: What?
Cruroar: I feel – I feel like your description was, ‘I’m gonna take 20 points of damage.’
Normilan: Shards. Shards. Not entire bones.
DM: Yeah, it’s not like your femur just popped out.
Brunt: He didn’t pull a Magneto vs. Wolverine on your skeleton. Maybe if you rolled a 1.
Normilan: That’d be funny, though. ‘Aww crap. My arm’s all jiggly.’
DM: You got Lockharted,

The shards fly into the spectral rider, healing it. Another bonespur reform, but misses Eilnys. Normilan is up!

Normilan: I… die.

A pause.

DM: All right, this guy—
Cruroar: Wait, what happened?
Tasha: You need healng?
Normilan: No. Wait, I’m not saying no to that. I do very badly.

Normilan casts Haste. The DM drops a chocolate, which somehow launches clear across the table to the far side. Bimmy is unable to strike a bonespur.

Tasha: “Use your bow, dumbass.”
DM: “It’s an undead, Lady Tasha, it won’t work!”
Cruroar: (looking at the mini) ‘Also my bow is broken.’
Tasha: I really hope Bimmy and Jimmy survive this. I really really do.

Jimmy charges into the fray, gets AOOed, and promptly critically fails his attack roll, trips over Giles, and impales himself on his sword.

DM: ‘The attack deals damage to you instead of the opponent,’ and I rolled like 8 on his damage.
Tasha: How many hit points do these guys have?
DM: He’s close to death.
Tasha: I mean, is he down and bleeding out, or is he able to get up?
DM: No, he is… negative, let’s see here, yeah he’s at negative 8, my mistake. Quirion: “I’m not doin’ that! I’d like that for the record to be established that I am more competent than that! I cast Bless, like Lady Tasha ordered – wait, do I not? Lady Tasha, guide me!”
Tasha: Hold on, I’m thinking.
DM: “Oh my god, we’re dead!”
Tasha: Quirion casts Cure Moderate Wounds on Normilan.
DM: “Please let me roll to casts defensively, Lady Tasha – wait, it’s already taken its attack of opportunity! Ha ha, sucker!” he yells, and promptly heals Normilan. “I’d like to inform you that this healing comes with no proselytizing whatsoever, just one little service I offer that makes me better than the average cleric.”

Tasha heals Jimmy and stabilizes him. Brunt gets scythed, but Toughening Transmutation wards some damage away. Giles makes his attack, bashing a bonespur with his maces. Brunt slams into the Haste – full attack – standard action confusion with his attacks.

DM: Bam! Delivering a blow the likes of which you have not seen from your comrade in some time, Brunt blasts into the beast.
Brunt: I dunno, I used the dislocater feature of my sword not too long ago.
DM: Yep, but you didn’t go all apeshit on something with a mace for a while.
Brunt: I only have that – in case of undead break glass, that’s why I have this thing. It is an undead-bane enhanced warhammer.
DM: It’s also made of glass. Like the glass sword from Ultima, was it?
Brunt: Kills everything in one hit, then it’s shattered.

Brunt brutalizes the bonespur and breaks it. Then things get weird.

Cruroar: Huh. Are you building a warlock?
Brunt: No, I was thinking I’d stick with the dungeoncrash…
Cruroar: I’m reading this ‘items for warlock’…
Brunt: Next time! Brunt! Eldritch dungeoncrash! Eldritchcrash! Oh god! I’m an eldritch grappler!
Cruroar: What’s a ‘keeled mithril full plate’? What does ‘keeled’ do?
DM: (bizarrely cheerfully) Fucked if I know, Cruroar, fucked if I know.
Cruroar: Yes, that’s what I’m buying next, guys. +2 Clock of Resistance.
Normilan: What, do you wear it around your neck like Flavor Flav?

Tasha discovers that the spectral rider can move while entangled, to her horror, and promptly gets smited by it. Tasha reluctantly admits that she’s good (her alignment having slipped from Lawful down to Neutral at some point in the interim.)

DM: I rolled a 3 on his damage die.
Normilan: With his +17.
DM: No, no no, no, well actually maybe… 22 points of damage from the smite.
Tasha: 3 points of damage and it still does 22.
Normilan: That wasn’t 17…

The DM rules that Cruroar must use his entangling blast bracers by winding them up to the tune of Pop Goes the Weasel. Cruroar unloads into the spectral rider, dealing some fairly significant damage. Eilnys goes to town on a bonespur, then dodges the attack of another one. The skull lord summons a bonespur to replace the fallen one, which charges into the fray.

DM: It bursts in, to take – JESUS CHRIST.
Normilan: Yay!
DM: I’m not having a good night, guys. It bursts in, and without warning Eilnys whips her axe around and cuts its rhino horn off. The great chunk goes flying off into the distance, clattering over by the thone, but it bursts into a shower of bone shards. Damage is trivial but Jimmy is bleeding out again.

Normilan: This is a pretty rough battle. I don’t know if this is the final fight, though.
Cruroar: Ummmmmmm…

Normilan ponders. The rest of the group should not be left to their own devices.

Cruroar: No one should get inspiration for singing Space Jam!

No one does. Normilan ponders a move, while Tasha has already planned her turn out.

Tasha: Quirion is going to cast Create Water to wash the blood off the floor, so no one slips.
DM: Quirion refuses your shit, Lady Tasha.
Normilan: I activate my Dimension Strider boots. (moving his mini onto the dais)
DM: Normilan claims the throne, thus activating the secret victory condition. Now he is the skull lord. There must always be a skull lord. Tell no one what transpired here. ESPECIALLY do not erect a statue to it in the middle of Dalaran.

Brunt avoids an attack. Bimmy drops to an AOO; the players bitterly accuse the DM of murdering them out of jealousy. Quirion uses Cure Minor Wounds to stabilize Jimmy, bemoaning that he’s a little out of his depth here. Tasha slaps Brunt on the butt to give him Bull’s Strength. Normilan has pudding.

DM: We need to serve this with crackers.
Cruroar: I…
Normilan: I’m trying to see the pun here, but I can’t.
DM: Pudding on the Ritz?
Normilan: Oh.
Giles: I believe a 16 hits for 9 damage.
DM: Yes, and that is enough—
Normilan: I’m actually feeling tears well up. Good song, though.
Cruroar: That’s a song?!

Giles drops that bonespur, and on the other side of the room Brunt strips the spectral rider of his spae-trombone to get on with the ceremony. For the first time ever, the Mounted Combat feat enters play as the rider attempt and fails to negate Brunt’s bull rush, and back goes the horse 5 feet.

Normilan: What’d he roll?
DM: WHAT DO YOU THINK HE FUCKING ROLLED, given my expression?! I can’t believe my luck tonight. I’ve gotten more natural 1s than anything. ‘The target may attempt to bull rush, overrun, or trip you.’

Brunt slams the horse into the wall with an excellent roll, and receives general acclaim for managing to jelly a ghost horse. Brunt discovers he’s gone up to 8d6 on his bull rushes and deals 45 to delete that horse. The DM bitterly replaces out the rider mini. Cruroar launches eldritch blasts into the fray with good success and drops some enemy.

DM: You hear a slight laugh from up above. “It seems you all need fiercer foes.”
Brunt: You need… FOES. Stalfoes?
DM: BOOM I need more squares.
Brunt: Is this like – the boss fight?! I thought this was just another set… This is a little crazy for a boss fight.
Normilan: I’m going to start going ham.

A literal giant skeleton erupts upwards before them. It seizes a giant morningstar, and then attacks!

DM: Cruroar has just but a moment to look in horror at the weapon descending on him.
Normilan: He holds up a little sign that says ‘mommy’.
Cruroar: I was going to go for, it stops – take a moment, smoke an entire cigarette, get my affairs in order real quick…
DM: You take 35 points of damage as it bashes you.
Brunt: FUCK!
DM: You carom off the ground and back into the air and have to take a moment to right yourself vertically once more.
Tasha: Oh, I thought you were going to say, “He plays paddleball!”
Brunt: I really hope you guys can handle this.
Cruroar: I have 1 hit point.
DM: The bonespur that you guys have literally not touched this entire time—
Normilan: Listen, we’ve had other obligations.
Brunt: It’s not like we’ve done nothing.
DM: --attacks Eilnys and demonstrates why you haven’t touched it, as it does nothing.

Normilan drops Flaming Sphere on the skull lord. Quirion stabilizes Bimmy, and Tasha realizes she’s boned for AOOs and takes the risk.

Cruroar: Eat it – eat it so I can fly away!
DM: Considering it’s a mindless undead, that’s not a terrible strategy?

Tasha gets beaned for 35 and is out. The players realize that the giant can literally one-shot most of them, and accuse the DM of trying to end the campaign here. Tasha declares herself dead, then realizes she’s not dead at all.

Normilan: DM, I just want to remind you there is a knife on the table.
Cruroar: And it’s dirty with cake, too.
Normilan: A festering wound.
Cruroar: A dirty cake wound.
DM: I’ve been infected with necrotizing cakeitis.

Quirion, free, attempts to escape while the rest of the table bursts into the Monster Mash. The DM bizarrely launches into a song about Brunt to the tune of the Huntsman from Freakazoid, as Brunt goes to town on the spectral rider for a pretty nice score of 24.

DM: You plunge the back point of your warhammer into his breastplate, then punch him with your shield. “Raaaagh, this sucks! Weren’t you weaker the last time I fought you? I’ll kill you as soon as it’s my turn!” It’s also his turn. He reaches forward and touches you. Defiling energy surges through your body. You take 7 points of damage.

Brunt lands a blow purely because of the entangle and drops the spectral rider, to his amazement. He promptly gives all credit to Cruroar, because Brunt doesn’t believe he can accomplish things.

DM: You hear an irritated noise coming up from the corner. “Would you stop breaking him?! It’s irritating to put him back together every time. Maybe I should find a new one…”
Cruroar: Oh! Oh oh oh! “Did it take all the king’s horsemen and all the king’s men?” I like spit out blood as I try to get the joke in.
DM: After a momentary pause, you hear laughter coming from the corner. He apparently appreciated the joke.

Eilnys starts wailing on the giant, earning herself a pretty nifty description as she beats the holy hell out of the thing. It beans her for 20-odd damage. A bonespur does nothing effective. Normilan flings a lightning bolt, for bizarrely poor damage.

Normilan: Uch. And uch. That was only like 15 damage.
DM: You fire your bolt through them – only 15, really? How did you roll so low?
Cruroar: He rolled—
Cruroar and Normilan: A lot of 1s.
DM: Wow, I’m so sorry. The skeleton takes it like a champ, and as you fire it up into the skull lord, you see he doesn’t seem to be exactly where he was a moment ago, and the bolt cracks past.
Tasha: ‘Quirion! Stabilize me!’
DM: “I can’t get to you, Lady Tasha, it’ll bash me! But I have to save Lady Tasha… but I have to save Lady Tasha, but I have to save Lady Tasha! AAAAAAH!” Quirion leaps forward and does a roll you could not expect to see from him. The cloud giant barely even notices him flipping past as he scrambles up to you on his hands and knees and slaps in with a spell.
Tasha: Yay, with his Cure Moderate Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooounds! 1 … plus… 3. God damn it. I am at 2 hit points now.

Turning debates erupt as Quirion relentlessly hassles Tasha to do something. She casts Cure Serious Wounds, lamely rerolls, and then rolls a 20 which the group forces her to reroll. It’s a touch attack, so it still hits for 21 points of damage. The group vigorously discusses video games as Giles bashes the skeleton, then everybody teams up on it to beat it into the ground. Cruroar still has a second attack, while Einlys finally starts hitting that bonespur everyone has been ignoring.

Brunt: It’s going to run out of those summons eventually.
DM: It literally never does.
Cruroar: He can keep doing it. If another big guy appears, we’ll just fold up the game right now…
Brunt: All of its power is in its summons. If you keep wailing on him with whatever spells you have, he’s going to flee.
Cruroar: I don’t think he’s here, I think that’s a projection.
Giles: Projection or displacement?
Normilan: I think it’s a displacement, I don’t know what kind of range he has on his summons.
Brunt: If he wasn’t really here he couldn’t be doing summons.
DM: “Interesting theories you have.” He leaps over the railing, slams down onto the ground. Rises.
Tasha: He’s going to do a hero land! He’s going to do a hero land!
DM: Out of his own robes, bones flow outwards, forming into a vertebrae-like staff, which he immediately grips. “All of my strength is in my summons, is it?”

Some of the group bitches that they were talking out of character, but Cruroar of all people thinks this is pretty awesome. Giles attempts to purchase a loot box. Someone takes bashy and cold damage from his staff. The bonespur actually hits Eilnys for minimum damage; the DM only gets grumpier.

DM: Normilan!
Normilan: Fucked if I know…

The group scrambles into motion, jockeying for position. Normilan hurls a pebble which he transforms into a boulder – he hits, but is forced to reroll by the fate-blooded power. Normilan is PISSED. Brunt is--

Brunt: Darth Vader toaster?!

…I don’t know. Cruroar tries to catch up.

Cruroar: So he’s also undead, so sickening blast won’t – I’m not going to waste my time.
Brunt: He may indulge you by going ‘blurgh’.
DM: All three skulls puke. Every space around him is turned into slick terrain, you all fall!
Brunt: That’s how it works.
Brunt and DM: There’s precedent!

Brunt bemoans that his life in D&D is nothing but frustration, then promptly hits the skull lord, because his brain filters out all successes and only indignities reach his long-term memory.

Cruroar: Bimmy! Kick him in the leg!

Brunt knocks him 10 feet back, and some debate ensues, but a skull bursts! The skull lord seizes a scroll out of his shattered skull and conjures a wall of fire to seal off the area beneath the balcony.

Cruroar: Oh, this is a good spot for me to be in! Did I say good? I meant terrible.
DM: Those of you who are within 10 feet of it…
Normilan: Goodbye, Jimmy.
Tasha: JIMMY NOOOOOO!
DM: Let’s see what happens.
Tasha: BIMMY NOOOOOO!
Normilan: On one side, or both sides?
DM: Just the one side?
Cruroar: Which side?
DM: The – the one that doesn’t damage HIM.
Normilan: ‘Oops, I cast it backwards!’

Everyone takes fire damage, except Eilnys, who takes either file or final damage. Jimmy starts bleeding out yet again. Normilan and the DM get into an argument over whether or not Cruroar, flying in the air, will trip the flaming sphere; the DM practically begs him to not set a precedent. Normilan has basically given up, to judge by his broken voice, but he hurls his other enlarging pebble through the wall blindly. Tasha discovers a spell on Quirion’s list that creates a bridge, and proposes to lay it on the floor to cross the wall.

DM: I will allow that. Why do you even have that spell?!
Tasha: Because I thought having a free bridge would be useful! Of course I didn’t remember I had it when we had to cross the fucking chasm to get in here…
DM: High or low? Does high miss or does low miss for concealment?

A very long pause.

DM: I rolled already, so I want to put it in your hands.
Normilan: Oh Jesus Christ, you pick.
DM: All right, I roll to see if high or low misses. What’d you roll?
Normilan: 26.
DM: Cruroar. A boulder flies through the wall of fire and beans the skull lord in the head. He looks shocked at the indignity. “What are the odds? Really? What are the odds?”
Tasha: Can I Create Water to put out the—
DM, Normilan, and Cruroar: NO!
Cruroar: Oh my god!
DM: YOUR GOD STRIPS KNOWLEDGE OF THAT SPELL FROM YOU! You can no longer prepare it! I’m not joking, either!

Quirion drops his bridge. Tasha walks through the flames, because she’s not the one moving the miniatures. The skull lord’s left skull finally gets the center skull’s attention, and the skull lord has a lot of complaints. Attacks fly! Eilnys desperately drags Bimmy out of the fire.

DM: Your two blows shatter the second skull on his side.
Cruroar: Is there another scroll?
DM: There is another scroll, but it falls uselessly to the ground as he ignores it, his remaining eyes fixed on you. “I’ll take you down! I’ll take you and your entire cursed lineage down for what you did to us! THIS IS YOUR FAULT!” he screams, and lashes into you. The first strike does 12 points of damage. 6, and 6. And he bashes you again, this one does 8 points of damage. Cruroar collapses to the stone. The skull lord raises his staff. “Your cursed line WILL DIE!” And THEN –

The DM reaches behind him for a critical fumble card.

Cruroar: Really?! THAT’s what saves me?!
DM: I swear to fucking God. 16. 17. 1. He lunges forward just as Brunt clips him in the back of the head with his crossguard. He stumbles, trips over his body, and falls to the ground, falling prone for… 2 rounds. And since he is prone, y’all beat the SHIT out of him.

Brunt notes that his ability to tank is negated by the DM just ignoring him for the fight, through the DM points out that the undead just attack the people who attack them last when uncontrolled. Normilan parks the flaming sphere on Cruroar’s corpse for some reason, and they desperately save Cruroar (and Bimmy).

DM: Just as you begin to move, Quirion’s elven ears perk up.
Brunt: Oh boy.
Tasha: Shit, what now?
DM: “Aaaah!” He tackles you, hurling you to the stone!
Cruroar: Quirion heard the xenomorph brewing in your chest.
DM: Brunt, I want you to give me a Reflex save!
Brunt: 8!
DM: Giles, I want you to give me a Reflex save!

The bone half of the castle abruptly collapses, with Giles pulling Bimmy out of danger just in time.

DM: For once, you guys have finally gotten your wish. You killed the boss of the dungeon and the dungeon collapsed. That’s what you’ve been longing for the entire time.
Normilan: Welp, our D&D career is over. See you guys.

Cruroar begs for healing. The DM notes that they finished exactly on time, and it’s wonderful; Cruroar complains that his characters always piss off the NPCs, even as the DM yells at him to maybe investigate some of this expository backstory. The game slowly wraps up… with an argument about in-game pregnancy! Woo.