Caves Of Doom Game

Referee: Dave

Player(s): RooK, Amy, Ulrich, Bonnie

Pre-Game

Introduction

You have been sentenced to death by exile. From stories you’ve heard, you’re likely going to be eaten by insects of unusual size. The planet you’re from doesn’t just kill its criminals, because that’s boring. Instead, they’re packed into an automated ship and sent to a mostly destroyed city planet. Your crimes (either legitimate or the result of a corrupt legal system) have brought you to this unnamed bug planet. Soon the ship you are on will hover above the surface and the shield keeping you in the hold will be withdrawn allowing you to plummet to the surface to accept your fate.

There’s roughly 100 of you on the ship and before departure, you’ve never seen any of your fellow prisoners before (including each other). As you approach the surface, the four of you suddenly have an extreme awareness of each other. You all lock eyes (or light sensitive pseudopods) with each other, knowing that your fates are intertwined, significantly apart from the rest of the people on the ship..

You feel your nanoscopic robots being hacked from an unknown source. Despite the potential distress of this occurrence, you’re all completely fine with it and are content to let it happen.

Then, you are dropped to the surface.

Characters

• Felinid Striker (Amy) - Nala
• Colloidling Technician (Ulrich) - Glub
• Zygroten Assassin (Bonnie) - Raven
• Felinid (Tiger class) Defender (Rook) - Dortho

Backstories

Glub’s family is from a long line of barkeeps. Before the legal troubles, it was studying mixology (aka biology) and is just a few days away from a first stage of scientist.

One of Nala’s grandparents was a modified being designed for pest control. Some of those traits have passed down giving her +2 hit and +2 damage when attacking Vimren. When encountering a Vimren, she must attack unless succeeding in a 2D under will power roll.

Dortho was a slave being groomed for a media event by the famous hunter Jimmy Deathbringer. Some slave rights activists set him free and he snuck aboard the ship. Seemed like a good idea at the time. When everyone was hacked, the slave juice disappeared.

Raven is a murder victim. At least she carries the memories of a murder victim. The killer was sent to the bug planet, but apparently survived the initial arrival. Her family is rich and has been sending assassins to the planet with implanted memories to hunt down the killer. This is the seventh attempt. The killer is a Hylosus named Bax.

Game Logs

January 18, 2025 - Awful Planet

The four prisoners -Nala, Glub, Raven, and Dortho - were being transported to a hostile bug planet on a ship with 96 other prisoners. As the ship hovered above the surface, the shield keeping them in the hold was withdrawn, and they plummeted towards the surface. During their descent, they noticed a beacon about 50 metres away. Feeling inexplicably drawn towards it, they decided to head in that direction. The rest of the prisoners ran towards a more obvious cave entrance and were pursued by all manner of insectile horrors.

Upon reaching the beacon, they encountered three small¹ bugs - two with pincers and one resembling a scorpion. A battle ensued, and with a lack of weapons, the group was forced to rely on hand to hand attacks. Glub discovered a crack in the ground which opened up into a small chamber, offering a potential escape route. Nala was mortally wounded during the fight but miraculously survived due to a mysterious effect from their hacked nanoscopic robots. The group decided to retreat into the chamber through the crack in the ground.

Inside the chamber, the tunnel continued downwards, illuminated only by bioluminescent moss and fungi. They cautiously made their way along the tunnel, with Glub clinging to the ceiling to provide a lookout. They soon encountered and fought another bug, larger than the previous ones. Glub, resourceful as ever, found debris in the tunnel from which they fashioned a club and a piercing weapon from the bug’s pinchers.

Continuing along the tunnel, they discovered a strange plant emitting a purple glow, with medical patches growing at its base and a small humanoid skull placed in front of it. Glub’s keen awareness revealed that the patches were a part of the plant, as if designed to be harvested. Nala, still recovering from their previous injuries, decided to try a patch but was unfortunately hurt by it. Unperturbed, the group pressed on.

After travelling for an hour or so, covering a distance of roughly a kilometre and a half, they heard a growl that made Nala’s tail puff up in fear. They decided to hide, but their efforts were interrupted by a large dog-sized creature and five smaller versions of it. Before they could react, a blaster shot rang out from further down the tunnel, killing one of the smaller creatures. The large one, enraged, charged towards the source of the shot, leaving the remaining four smaller ones to attack the group.

The creatures were very bitey. The battle raged on with wounds on both sides, but nothing taken down yet.

¹ 'Small' being a relative term here - they were about the size of cats.

January 23, 2025 - Vimren are for killing

Having inflicted mortal wounds (aka mortal sphincter) on Nala and Dortho, the creatures backed off to let them bleed to death. The wounds healed (painfully). Nala pretended to apply a patch and collapsed to the ground. Glum found a good throwing rock and offered it to Dortho, who threw it at one of the creatures, killing it. This enraged the remaining creatures, who charged back toward the group.

Raven threw a rock, hitting one of the creatures. Glub threw a rock as well. Nala continued to play dead, waiting for the right moment to use her patch. Dortho threw another rock and hit one of the creatures. One of the creatures attacked Raven, giving her a mortal wound, and another attacked but missed Glub. The group continued to take damage from their healing mortal wounds. Glub then attacked one of the creatures and caused a mortal wound. Nala then used a patch on that same creature, which surprisingly healed it fully. However, that creature was then killed by Dortho.

A new figure then appeared in the tunnel: a Reptiloid, who had been fighting the large creature. He threw the dead creature towards the group causing the smaller ones to panic and run away. He then extracted the weapon that was attached to the top of the creature and tossed it to the group. Raven claimed it. The Reptiloid then grabbed the dead creature and dragged it back to a cave. The group followed.

The Reptiloid seemed non-verbal but gestured to Raven that she should keep watch while he was busy with a med pack. While waiting for the Reptiloid, the group healed, and Glub searched the area and found a damaged tool kit. Glub then modified Raven's blaster, giving it a +1 to hit. The Reptiloid seemed confused by the group's quick healing.

At one point Raven noticed a couple of Vimren watching her, and upon relaying this information to the rest, Nala was triggered to go and kill them. More time passed and once the group was healed enough, left behind the Reptiloid and continued down the tunnel. Before leaving at attempt was made to communicate with the Reptiloid using a communicator, but that seemed to aggravate it.

As they went, they passed the remains of the Vimren they had fought, which were being eaten by the two smaller surviving creatures they fought earlier. The group continued moving through the tunnels for a few hours and then Glub had a sudden inspiration that they were walking into an ambush. It was then that four more Vimren appeared. The battle ranged, with the Vimren being out matched. There was some debate about questioning them, but Nala was insistent on killing them. The battle ended with the Vimren dead. The group was able to claim two 1D/2 lasers and a couple of 1pt blades.