(Risus) Illuminati University - Carnival Atmosphere

September 3, 2006 

The first-ever Day of Sloth Picnic game of Illuminati University (IOU), using Risus was my first foray into casual back deck gaming, with nothing but index cards and six-sided dice.  This is part of my old computer's hard drive that was recently recovered.  The scariest thing was seeing files that haven't been touched since 2007.

Our incoming Freshthings:
Professor Clarence Pittleman 
Telekinetic Talking Coffee Plant (4)
Absent-minded Professor (2)
Hyper-Active Coffee Junkie (1)
Prof Pittleman flies around in the "Pittlecraft", a Macguyer-like assembled hovercraft mad primarily from a 1950's style green plastic mixing bowl, an oscillating fan underneath it, and a bunch of spare parts from Radio Shack.

Duchess
Sugar-Addicted Pixie (4)
Never far from a boy who never grew up [but went to college] (3)
Always has a light (2)
Flies through the air with the not-so greatest of ease (1)

Mongo
Union 'negotiator' (4)
'Club' Enthusiast  (3)
'Auto Collecting'  (2)
Pastry Chef        (1)

Wooly
Magical Sheepherder with a Crook of Whooping Ass (4)
A sheepherder in wolf's clothing (3)
Bad Ass Mofo (2)
Swinging my staff like Barry Bonds (1)

Erica Soggypants
Obsessed with Rachel Green (4)
On the Rag (3)
Depressed Anti-Socialite (2)
Adolescent Bi-otch (1)

Yoda 
Wisdom Above All (4)
Martial Arts Magic (3)
Reverse Talk Funny (2)
Little Green Pimp (1)

The group was assembled as a Freshthing orientation group, led around by Passaic Jones, younger brother of Secaucus and Orlando.  Everyone was quite timid for the first 10 minutes of the tour around campus.  

They were then given room assignments, with the ladies being first to chuck dice for a quick combat over control of the TV in the room.  

Yoda and Mongo were place in a triple room with Science major Red Kresge.  Red descended from a long line of country traveling funnel-cake vendors.  His positive attitude (and offer of free food at the carnival just outside of campus), made him an instant hit with the group.  

Everyone survived their first encounter with the Cafeteria with only minor casualties (and after some critical encounters, we determined Erica's depression was specified as Bulimia).

After lunch, Passaic led them on a tour of Greek Row.  Everything was fine until they discovered a "regular" disturbance on campus.  A runaway cloned T-Rex appeared and started eating co-eds!  Another orientation group of Freshthings tried to take it out (including a Jawa and a hip-hop Genie from previous IOU Christmas game), but horribly failed.

Finally, group action!

What does the group do?

Eric used her On the Rag (3), to curse out and possibly distract the dinosaur.  The T-Rex simply ignored her (I guess that's always a good thing?)

Wooly used his Crook of Whooping Ass (4) to fire some lightning bolts at the creature.

Professor Pittleman, confusing his Telekinetic Talking Coffee Plant (4) with Telepathy failed to silently convince some Co-eds to help them fight.  After a few more rounds of moving some rocks with his minds, he settled down in front of a coffee dispensing machine on the sidewalk for some Java goodness and to use Weird Science Gadgeteer (3) to scrap together some sort of a weapon to destroy the T-Rex.

Duchess used several attempts at her poorly named Flies through the air with the not-so greatest of ease (1) just to get above the T-Rex and sprinkle pixie dust on it.  

Unfortunately, pixie dust is very flammable, and Mongo, using Union 'Negotiator' (4), accurately threw a number of well-placed Molotov cocktails at the beast's feet.  Magical Napalm occurred. 

Yoda... well... Yoda went after the hotties using Little Green Pimp (1), and failed spectacularly.  After a Wisdom Above All (4) roll, he came to a stunning realization, "Wingman I must acquire!"

Despite some spectacular rolls by some players who actually wanted to fight the creature, one of the other tour guides zapped the dino with a raygun, and the party wandered off to finish the tour without missing a beat.

Later that night, the party accompanied Red to the carnival, where he introduced them to his family.   The Kresges ran two funnelcake trailers at the carnival and loaded up the characters with loads of tickets, fried foods,  and powdered sugar, much to Erica's dislike.

In perhaps the only time I like it to happen, the group split up.

Wooly and Duchess spent all their tickets going down the slide.  

Yoda found the Tilt-a-Whir, then won an A*Teens poster at the dart game.

Prof. Pittleman forgot his tickets and spent his time on his Weird Science Gadgeteer (3), to fix the first broken ride he could find: one of those rides where four people enter a cylindrical cage and hydraulics and giant rubber bands shoot the cage a hundred into the air.  He re-opened the ride and a nice middle-class family of four from Kansas were the first to go on.  The ride shot up... and out of the atmosphere.  

"Oh dear," the poor professor said, "I Forgot to add in life support, oh well."

Mongo decided the smartest thing to do was unionize the carnies.  The carnies take offense to this, and Mongo helped demonstrate the concept of the brute squad as Ninja Carnies (5) went forth and kicked his ass.  Mongo narrowly managed to escape certain death... for now.

As the group decides to reassemble near Kresge Funnelcake Trailer #1, a strange figure worked his way through the crowd.  Time slowed down as only a half-healed Mongo could see a small Indian man in a leather vest, mirrored sunglasses, and a bald head with a tattoo of a snake down his forehead.  The man pulled out two Desert Eagle .50 machine guns and unloaded two full magazines at Mongo... just as the Fat Lady stepped in front of him.  A hail of bullets flies across the carnival hitting many innocent bystanders, destroying the dunk tank, and blowing up the propane tanks that were conveniently outside the Funnelcake Trailer #1.  

"Who are you?" a startled Mongo asks...

"I'm Snake Gandhi, Bitch", and two more magazines were loaded.

The group scrambled for a plan to combat Snake's Bad-Ass Mother Fucker (6).

Erica attempted to sneak around Snake Gandhi for a rear attack, Yoda climbed to the top of the Ferris Wheel to get a better view.  The pixie again attempted to fly into the sky to escape the carnage, but with Fly through the air... at (1), she simply became a slow-moving skeet for Snake Gandhi.

Wooly and Mongo teamed-up to fight the Hindu Assassin.  

And finally, Prof Pittleman wandered off, trying to find a game booth that sold weapons. (He did acquire tickets from the recently departed family from Kansas).

Despite some early losses, the characters held their own against Snake Gandhi for some time.   Yoda flew down off of the Ferris Wheel, lightsaber in hand, only to be parried by Snake Gandhi's Invisible Katana.  Erica jumped on his back, as well as a very weak Mongo and Wooly still desperately trying to stop the madman.  With the PCs fading fast and propane explosions spreading across the fairgrounds, salvation came on powdered sugared wings...

Funnelcake Trailer #2 began to transform into a small Mecha, complete with twin Gatling Cannon and Flaming Oil Jets.  Red Kresge, piloting the FunnelMecha (6) pounded Snake Gandhi.  Red's design had many flaws and for each '1' that was rolled for his combat round, he lost a die due to propane and fryer grease explosions (the dude's a Freshthing, did you expect him to power it with fusion?)

 
As Snake Gandhi falls, the flaming wreckage of the FunnelMecha crashes on top of him.... Neither bodies were recovered in the wreckage.  

As after-game notes, the Pixie learned the wonders of the IOU Health Center, and Mongo acquired Enemy: Snake Gandhi.  Both Yoda and Mongo are awaiting their replacement roommate...