#RPGaDay2025 - Day 13 - Darkness

Day 13 of #RPGaDay, and "Darkness" was a pretty neat idea for a prompt.  So neat, I wasn't even sure where to go.  I died in enough variations of Zork "You've been eaten by a Grue" that I try not to use too much darkness against the PCs.  

I even went in front of my players with a few of these, and Hoyce, one of friends and gaming buddies for over 25 years, didn't pull out some war story for our college days.  He brought out a simple tale of a barbarian being rescued in the middle of the night, from a dragon, by a giant sunflower in Gamma World.  

It had started out just like any other day: scaring off brigands, the mammals in the party drinking too much, and Sonny Helianthus, the mutant sunflower, preventing the pure-strain human Lathar from going through with a duel request against an ex-girlfriend.  

He was returning to the inn with the good news that at least Lathar's ex had common sense (she always did), only to find him missing... but with obvious signs of a struggle.  

After a few spectacular perception rolls (for a plant with a Sense stat of 5 or 6...), he uncovered a camp of degenerate humans.   A very passed out, very naked Lathar was strapped to the front a ski-trike...   He was a "totem" to lure out "The Beast". 

With a roar of the engines, the vehicle peeled out into the darkness...

And Sonny, against his better judgement, used his teleportation mutation to put himself on the back of the vehicle.  

There was gunfire, there were stunts, there was a very angry, fire-breathing monster that the humans were using Lathar as bait to lure it out.  

Nightcafe

In the end, Sonny was the Beast, recovering Lathar, turning the others into local authorities, and finally collapsing into his soil back at the inn, allowing for another dream sequence...