A spooktacular finale for the heroes’ jaunt into the Halloween pocket plane!

Our group

Brus Reckoner

Male half-orc Inquisitor of Yog-Sothoth and protector of candy.

John “Angel Eyes” Wilmarth

Male Aasimar Cleric of the mad idiot god Azathoth.

Fág an Bealach (Faugh)

Male svirfneblin Brawler of archetype Mutagenic Mauler.

Bill the Bard

A lost male human bard with his donkey Bottom.

Picklick

Male hobgoblin rogue.

The story thus far

The heroes have been portal-hopping for a few weeks now with the instructions:

1. Keep moving
2. Find Coin
3. Avoid the others

They had found a band of wandering Contemplatives that said they could lead them to Coin, whatever, wherever or whoever that was. The PCs had to travel through an “airlock”. This turned out to be a pocket plane inhabited by a mad wizard called Merasmus with an obsession with Halloween.

Last week they ran through a haunted house, picked pumpkins from a heavily-defended vegetable garden, and raided a spooky orphanage. The player running Picklick was back this week, so he got to get involved in the festivities.

How do you like those apples?

To introduce Picklick to the Halloween games, they pushed him headlong towards the Kissing Booth, occupied by a succubus. 10 GP to enter. Of course this was a great idea, so Picklick dived in.

Turns out you can only be hurt by a succubus’ kiss if you’re unwilling. Picklick swerved away from the kiss at the last second and got cursed (1d2 CHA damage). Of course then everyone wanted a go. Those with nerves of steel got a bad-ass bonus (+2 profane Will save bonus). The cleric topped them all by closing the stall, popping the cork on the bottle of wine he had caught way back in Session 1 and alternately drinking and making out with her. Apart from some scars and stories to tell, he walked away with a +6 profane Will bonus.

While the cleric amused himself, the others tried bobbing for apples. They had to challenge the current champion Chopper (a yokel with a single big tooth). They had thirty seconds (5 rounds) to grab as many apples as possible. Turns out these weren’t ordinary apples - some were heavy, some were agile… some bit back! But Picklick and Brus were apple chompers from way back and trounced the champion.

The reward for the apple bobbing was a handful of candy. Brus threw it into their tote bag… and it sounded a lot more hollow than expected. They peered in! Someone had stole their candy!

CANDY!!!

The PCs immediately tried to track down the thieves. Eagle-eyed (and multi-eyed and crazy-eyed) John the cleric spotted a breadcrumb trail of candy disappearing between two houses.

Four costumed creeps were sitting around a tote bag, greedily eyeing a mound of candy. The PCs tried to engage with them. The person dressed as a vampire responded: “Vat do you vant?!” When the PCs said “Our candy” and the bullies responded, “Get lost”, then a fight broke out.

The fight was fairly swiftly resolved. Alucard got his head smashed in with a lucerne hammer after trying to color spray everyone. Frankie landed a slam attack or two before being torn asunder by Faugh. Wolfman held his ground and did a bunch of damage (despite being totally surrounded). Meanwhile Baffles hid amongst a cloud of confetti (a thematic repurposing of Flurry), took the tote bag of candy and ran off (making use of his chaos form of a wolf).

The PCs took chase after the clown. He had disappeared into the forest. The PCs followed carefully.

They found a clearing covered in chunks of clown and some of the candy. Clearly something had gone down. Picklick in a moment of clarity searched for traps and found a very large bear trap just near the entrance to the clearing. High-fives all round.

They carefully stepped around it and examined the area. There was a putrid-smelling cave nearby which warranted inspection. But first, they would disable the bear trap. Picklick put a branch in and triggered it…

The jaws of the bear trap snap shut. There’s a weird persistance-of-vision where in the flash of the jaws you see a bear… Weirdly this persists afterwards. Wait… There’s a BEAR!!!

Bear trap sprung and everyone rolls initiative.

The PCs laid into the bear, the squishies keeping their distance from the irate bear. From the cave came two sasquatches, brandishing rocks. A large sasquatch and a toddler one.

Surprising everyone (including the GM), Brus used his megaphone voice curse from the gypsies and a fistful of wrappers to intimidate them with a shouted, “CANDY?!?!”

The bear died by the brawler uppercutting it, opening up a nice opportunity for the rogue to insert a dagger into its throat. Everyone advanced on the frightened sasquatches. The Bard attempted to fascinate them with calming words.

The sasquatches retreated into their cave and tried to placate these blood-hungry PCs with the tote bag of candy. The PCs “kindly” gave it a few handfuls of candy.

A fussin’ and a feudin’

When the PCs returned to town, they decided to tick off the last few festivities available. One of them was the cemetery. Picklick said, “Hell no I’m not going to a cemetery in a haunted Halloween pocket plane.” Everyone decided that yes they would.

The cemetery’s groundskeeper welcomed them and asked for help with his grounds. The Hatfields and the McCoys had been families in the town for centuries, always feuding. Even in the afterlife they were fighting - they’d burst out of their graves and battle! This was unacceptable for the poor groundskeeper who had to clean up after them. So the PCs were charged with sorting it out.

The idea was that one of them would be given a large bag of Soul Salts. They had to pour straight, continuous lines of it to divide the Hatfields and the McCoys. Of course, you can’t step over the line or you’d scatter the salts. And the eldritch magicks wouldn’t work if you crossed salt lines (making a junction).

While they were drawing the lines, the others had to block the zombies bursting out of the ground from interrupting the ceremony.

Despite swarms of zombies, the PCs easily divided the Hatfields and McCoys and earned a small bucket of candy for their trouble.

Before claiming victory, they decided to do the last task available: actually trick or treat!

They knocked on the guy’s door, only to be greeted with, “NO! GO AWAY! LEAVE ME ALONE!”

The PCs advanced into this guy’s home, enquiring about candy. The guy’s house was completely bare and had signs that all his furniture and effects had been dragged towards the front door. The rogue was upset that the place was completely empty.

The man screamed at them: “Go away! I don’t have any candy! Look, I don’t have anything! What? Do you want the shirt off my back?!”

He removed his shirt and the PCs spied a sign tattooed on his belly. It said “CANDY” and pointed towards his belly button. He seemed shocked to see it and then looked at the PCs, horrified.

Although the PCs dabbled with the idea that they could burst him like a pinata, they decided against it. The bard calmed the man down. The cleric tried some lateral thinking and tried to put candy into the man’s stomach. No deal.

Turns out this man (nicknamed John Candy) was a very real person kidnapped and stuck in this pocket plane for a very long time. Enduring months of continual Halloween celebrations was wearing on him. The PCs counted their candy and realized they had enough for themselves and John Candy, so they promised to escort him out once they had dealt with Merasmus the Wizard.

Showdown with Merasmus

The PCs had needed 120 candy to escape, but had almost 250, even after eating fistfuls for their minimal healing ability.

They returned to the bonfire where Merasmus sat about, flanked by spooky dancers (dressed like Dia de Muertos skeletons) and barrels of candy. They poured their candy stocks into the barrels and said, “Sorry, we’ll be leaving now.”

The insane Merasmus cackled, “Leave? Leave?! You can’t leave now! No one ever leaves!” Roll for initiative.

Merasmus theatrically gestured to his mountains of candy which began to whirl and take form… into a hulking candy golem! This giant beast was made of rock candy, candy corn, liquorice whips and bars of chocolate.

Round one the Inquisitor called on Yog-Sothoth to find the darkness between the stars and charge headlong through the bonfire to get in the face of Merasmus. The others circled around.

The dancers hummed Halloween tunes and tried cursing and stabbing the PCs with hidden daggers.

The rogue was entangled in the candy golem’s liquorice whips but managed to wriggle free. Merasmus tried to throw down Dust of Darkness (thinking it was darkness powder, but instead doing nothing to our darkvision-equipped party). He did manage a Deeper Darkness spell, but that was quickly countered by the Aasimar cleric’s Daylight spell-like ability.

Merasmus tried to run stage right, but was hit with Grease from the Bard and then everything from the brawler and rogue. He exploding into spooky Halloween light (STR damage to many people) and turned into a swarm of bats.

They then focussed on the candy golem, chipping off chunks. It wasn’t concerned with the mild attacks - the barrels of candy nearby swirled in to fill the sugary wounds.

Then the brawler put everything into one mighty attack and split the golem in two. Literally.

In any case, the candy golem split into two and reformed into two smaller golems. These guys weren’t nearly tough enough to survive and were quickly shattered like pinatas. The bat swarm of Merasmus disappeared into the night sky and the dancers fled.

Reality then began to dissolve. All the gypsy curses faded and effects wore off. The Halloween revellers melted like turpentine on paint. The PCs quickly grabbed John Candy and ran through a portal in Merasmus’s front door.

Coin

The PCs found themselves in corridors of sandstone that seemed to change angles as they walked through them, like some bizarre 2D tesseract. They could see themselves from different angles down different corridors. Reality was a bit uncertain here, despite the very deliberate stonework.

They stumbled across what looked like a storage room in between two corridors. There were large boxes and barrels covered in sheets. On one wall a large vertical thing was covered in a blanket.

It coughed.

“Hello?”

The PCs warily pulled the blanket off what appeared to be a painting. It was a dashing young man in a castle. He moved.

“Who are you?”

The Bard spoke up. “We are the Catalysts!”

“Oh I see,” he said, not getting the reference to Limen’s rants from episode one.

“And who are you?”

“I,” he said, pausing for dramatic emphasis. “Am Coin. We have much to discuss.”