Tonight's To the Horizon session was absolutely insane.
We were just fucking around in-character and ended up having Echo jump off of the crow's nest to see if she could use her Devil Fruit (the Glitch-Glitch Fruit) to reverse and start falling up instead of down.
Siso was up on the crow's nest to catch her if she started flying off into the sun, and Nori made a net out of hair to catch her if she fell.
Shockingly, not thing went wrong and she succeeded.
While we were all celebrating, the ship hit something, sending half of us flying. (Thankfully the two on the crow's nest passed their saves.) It turned out we had hit a massive fucking submarine that had surfaced in front of us.
It was pitch fucking black in there, and the only light was a torch Kai brought. There was also literally no one to be seen.
Echo saw a green light and headed off towards it. Nori was walking the perimeter of the walls and saw a MASSIVE eye outside one of the portholes / windows.
The light turned out to be an Anglerfish Fishman, who came up the stairs/ladder holding a blade dripping with blood.
Currently working on a series of pieces featuring each of the PCs in my Shadows of Astral Undeath campaign. Here's Echo(He/Him)- The first PC, played by @mookybearart!
He's a fighter with a special homebrewed subclass, that Mooky and I came up with together, I'm super excited to GM for him!
Fishman: Who are you?
Echo: We're pirates. In name only.
Fishman: Pirates... What crew do you belong to?
Echo: Well... that's actually a very complicated question... [*long pause*] Kai?
Kai, who has been watching the whole conversation like a tense ping-pong match: ... The Obsidian Pirates.
Echo: Thank you.
Fishman: Did you really forget what crew you belong to?
Echo: Yes.
Fishman: I appreciate the honesty.
[later]
Fishman: I'm going to sink this submarine.
Echo: How soon are we talking?
Fishman: How long did it take you to get down here?
Echo: About 5 minutes.
Fishman, smiling: Let's say seven.
[To the Horizon is a One Piece inspired campaign that uses a completely homebrew system created from scratch by our DM.]
[standing over the unconscious body of a fish]
Guin: "Echo, do you know how to heal fish?"
Echo: "Maybe? But this one breathes air..."
Guin: "Does that make it harder or easier?"
[a few moments of discussion later]
Echo: "Maybe we could splash some saltwater on it?"
Kai: "I know where some salt water is."
[*he picks up the fish and starts carrying it towards the docks*]
[*Guin starts trying to block the fish from people watching with their body, like standing in front of your friend changing in the pool locker room.*]
[*Kai rotates the fish so it's now vertical so it fits better behind Guin's back*]
[as we approach the docks]
me, narrating: "[...] past the corpses..."
Guin: "Maybe we should go to the other side of the dock, not next to where you guys killed all those guys?"
Kai: "You definitely helped kill them."
Guin: "Not directly..."
Echo: "You burned that one guy with the roast pig!"
Kai: "Yeah, to be honest I'm kind of jealous of your pig-throwing skills."
Guin: "Look, I'll apologize to you all later. For now let's save this fish."
Kai: "Wait, what are you apologizing for? We wanted your help!"
Guin: "I'll process this eventually. Right now I just need to blame someone that isn't me."
Echo: "Well, I killed like three of them, so you can blame me."
Kai: "And I shot and stabbed that one guy several times. So yeah, you can blame us."
[putting the fish into the water]
me, ooc: "I'm going to put the fish into the water so its mouth is still out of the water, so it doesn't drown. But I want to make sure the gills are still in the water in case it does need water."
[a few seconds later]
me, ooc: "Yeah, it's still vertical."
rest of the group: [*general hilarity and outrage*]
me, ooc: I said it and I'm sticking to it: Gills in, mouth out!
[one lengthy conversation about methods for submerging fish later]
[the fish wakes up and starts thrashing around]
Kai: "Wait, we're not trying to kill you!"
Guin's player, ooc: "THAT'S what you're opening with?"
[about 10 minutes into a discussion of what to do with the fish now that it's awake]
[Kai fails a Might (strength) save and the fish escapes]
Kai: "Uh, guys? The fish is gone."
Guin: "Well, yeah, it will be eventually!"
[*she goes back to arguing what to do with the fish*]
[the discussion continues for at least 3 more minutes]
Kai: "The point is moot because the fish is gone!"
[back on the ship]
Siso: "Maybe we just have to go underwater and sing to the coral!"
Guin: "Well, there's only one of us who can do that."
Siso: "Kai, how's your singing?"
Kai, after much thought: "Maybe with some practice I could be passable."
Guin: "Can you sing underwater?"
Kai: "Not without drowning. Just because I don't freeze up in water doesn't mean I can breathe it."
Guin: "I'll practice waterboarding you so you can practice."
Kai: "What? You're not okay with killing people, but you're okay with torturing me?"
Guin: "Just for practice!"
[later, in a bar]
Guin: "No coral singers?"
Bartender: "I don't know that I've heard of any. How did you hear about them?"
Guin: "My friend Siso -- that's the blue one -- she told me all about Carlton Vanessa. She'd a big coral singer, like in churches."
[later, still at the bar]
Random Bar Patron: "Am I really drunk or are you floating?"
Siso, hanging upsidown in mid-air: "Yes to both, actually. The two are not mutually exclusive."
Random Bar Patron: "Whoa... sick..."
Miscellaneous Lines:
DM: "I added rules for dying."
~
Nori: "We can talk it over in the bread aisle"
~
Nori: "Have you tried just not being worried about it?"
~
Me, ooc: "Ah, yes, the famous sea shanty "1,000 miles" by the famous bard Carlton Vanessa."
~
Me, ooc: "Yaga Baba!"
Oh, I forgot to mention this on Monday, but we played more of the One Piece campaign, and at the end, two of the party members failed their saves and fell into the water. Which, given that everyone but Kai is a Devil Fruit user is BAD. And since my boy is the only one who can swim, the fate of TWO PCs rests on my shoulders.
(Honestly, I blame the rest of the party because earlier in the session they joked about me having to pick a favorite if multiple people fell into the water.)
I'm going to go after Echo first, because she's not only paralyzed (the mechanical consequence of a Devil Fruit user entering water) but is unconscious and at 0hp. (She's also the ship's doctor, so...) Nori is paralyzed but still conscious, and the DM said he has one round of breath left. (Plus I'm pretty sure he won't immediately drown, even when he does run out of breath.)
But AUGH. THIS IS SO MUCH PRESSURE. I've never played a healer character, or even much of a support character, so I'm not used to having the weight of PC lives on my shoulders. (Usually it's me getting my ass saved by other people, so I suppose maybe this is karma.) I'm going to feel AWFUL if I fuck this up and someone dies.
It's the last Monday of the month, which means it's time for To the Horizon quotes!!
Siso: "I guess you can't really sue coral for copyright infringement."
Kai: "I mean, yeah, which polyp would you sue?"
Izzy, OOC: "Morri, that is the nerdiest possible thing you could have said."
A bit later:
Nori: I can make a hair-boat!
GM: You guys all do remember that when you found Nori he was floating in a boat made out of his own hair.
During combat:
Guin: "This pillar has a slit!"
GM, after we're all done laughing: "I need everyone to make an Agility (Dex) save."
Guin, OOC: "Because of my bad joke?"
GM: "No."
After we all roll:
GM: "Several 3ft-long fish launch themselves out of the water, shooting through the air. Most of you manage to avoid them, but Nori you take 4 points of damage."
Me, OOC: "From getting whacked with a fish?"
GM, affirmatively: "From getting whacked with a fish."
Later in combat:
GM: "Your hair whips do count as appendages."
Shortly thereafter:
Nori, OOC: "So, my hair whips, which were sort of like Katara's water whips wrapped around my arms, they now cover my fists into these comically large boxing gloves."
Guin, OOC: "I'm just picturing a magical girl transformation for Uncle Nori, but it's just his hair."
Siso, OOC: "Man, I wish I could animate that."
The next round:
GM: "Would you like to describe what your Helicopter looks like?"
Nori: "My Helicopter is going to be my mustache."
Next turn:
Siso, OOC: "So, that is a two."
GM (her irl partner): "That is two low."
[*cue groans from the rest of the party*]
