#Is it duro or duros I can't tell and NEITHER CAN SPEEDYJELLYFISH WITH HIS ENCYCLOPEDIC KNOWLEDGE OF STAR WARS

[trifoliate-undergrowth]

Taveau, the Duros, and the Magical Sonic Shower

HE’S BACK, HE’S STILL DRUNK AND HE’S STILL A COMPLETE TRASH MAN(dalorian) GET READY FOR THE CONTINUED ADVENTURES OF TAVEAU STARSIDE (in association with my buddies’ characters Grif the human and RRRRAWWWFWJDLDAARRRRRR the wookie, and introducing a Mystery Woman). 

Long post (very long this time) below the cut, featuring fuzzy copilots, failed perception checks, and reality-bending Nat 20s 

Session 2 opens with me reminding everyone that I’m drunk driving and asking DM SpeedyJellyfish if I crash into the side of the spaceport building. He tells me to roll. 

I have a +8 to the Pilot skill, so the score I ended up with was a 23. 

DM: you LOOK like you’re going to crash-Grif and Rralwarr (that’s apparently how we spell the Wookie’s name that I was hearing as ‘Rowler’ before) are clinging to their seats in the back; at one point Grif slides off and Rralwarr grabs him-but at the last moment you make a perfect 90 degree turn and come to a complete stop right next to the building. 

Me: I step out of the cockpit and bow deeply. And then almost fall over.

Grif: I try not to throw up. 

Rralwarr: I am scarred for life! 

DM, to Grif: Roll constitution. 

Grif: (5) 

Joey: ...you lose it. You stumble out of the speeder and it all comes up. ...Other than that you’re fine.

We enter the spaceport and it’s empty and abandoned (not surprising, considering there’s an invasion happening) except for a single, distant figure. As we notice it, DM tells us it’s a Duros, but it’s too far away to really tell much about it-- (Grif does really well on a perception roll) oh in that case, it’s a female Duros in a dark flight suit and boots. 

Meanwhile, Rralwarr’s player H made a joke about ‘making a good perception roll in real life’ because he’d realized that T, M’s girlfriend, was now on Roll20 and was probably going to be playing that character. And lo and behold, she was. Her character’s name is Umbra. 

T (Umbra) then makes her own Perception roll and gets a 13, so DM describes what the group approaching her looks like to her. 

DM: You see a human, a wookie, and something in Mandalorian armor. It appears humanoid. The wookie is taller—seems very well armed. The shorter male human seems to have a bit of a swagger about him, and his clothes look decent but a bit scorched. The third figure appears to be in some kind of vaguely Mandalorian armor, brownish-like, and a poncho. That person you can’t tell much about, but he or she seems to be stumbling a bit, like it’s either very sleepy or drunk.

Grif begins to approach the Duros, and I declare my intention of “sort of mindlessly shambling after him.” Rralwarr says he’s going to grab onto me and hold me in place. DM says “roll a grapple check” and 

we 

both 

roll 

an 

11. 

DM: ......Oh. Well that’s a contested grapple check. Um. Rralwarr, you try to grab him but he just sort of.... wobbles away from you... Like, you’re not even sure Taveau knows what he’s doing, but you fail to get a firm grip on him. 

Me, after I’m done “wobbling” around Rralwarr’s attempts at restraint: I follow Grif. 

H (Rralwarr): I follow to make sure Taveau’s blaster doesn’t go off. 

Me: I’m not touching my blaster! 

H: That’s what YOU think! 

Me, remembering last session’s crit fail: ...You Have A Point

We approached T’s character Umbra and Grif struck up a conversation with her which resulted in her offering us a ride in the shadiest language possible. I didn’t get notes on her opening speech because it was long and I was just fangirling over having another girl in the group, but it gave off a very, very strong aura of ‘sly, arrogant trickster who’s likely to double-cross you at every step of the way’. 

Also, brief context: Rralwarr did really badly on a “lore” roll earlier in the campaign, before I was there; so badly that they’re still making jokes about how he originally thought that Hypori was a tropical planet full of beaches. 

Grif: What matters is that we need to get all three of us to Hypori. 

Umbra: Hypori. Hypori, y’say? Why Hypori? 

Grif: Well 

Rralwarr: Don’t tell her! 

Grif: ...My wookie friend, here, is completely convinced it’s a tropical paradise, and he’s dying to get to Hypori, so... You know, I try to humor him. I’m thinking, once he figures it out, the shock might knock some sense into him. 

Rralwarr: ...You’re really enjoying the fact that nobody else here can understand what I’m saying, aren’t you. 

Grif: :) 

Umbra tells us, shadily in her shady way, that for the right price, she can ‘get us a ship’. Meanwhile, 

Me: Taveau sits down on the floor. 

Rralwarr: Wookie is satisfied! (that I’m not going to accidentally shoot anyone from here)

Umbra, pausing her Bad Guy Speech: ...Is your Mandalorian, ish, friend okay?

Grif: Oh, yeah, he’s fine. He’s been through some rough patches, I think he just woke up an hour ago. 

Taveau: Yyyyyyep. 

Umbra: What sort of rough patches? 

Grif: Oh well you know, there’s the invasion, for one thing. 

Umbra: Invasion? Of what? 

Taveau: Oh, did you miss the invasion, too? 

Umbra: ...There’s been no invasion, to my knowledge... 

Taveau: Aaaaeeeyyyy, you’re just as much of an idiot as I am! 

Grif, making a very halfhearted attempt to smooth things over, tells her she’s ‘just as sane as I (Taveau) am’ and I point out that that might be considered an insult. Grif tries to Persuade her that that’s not what he meant... and rolls poorly, while Umbra rolls a high Perception. 

DM: Yeah, she is not convinced, and she is a little insulted. 

Me: I’m just laughing at all this. 

After Grif mentions the court hearing (that they missed, before the session where I joined) Umbra goes ‘oh, so is it your face I’ve been seeing on the holo-posters?’ but is required by the DM to make a Deception check (because that’s blatantly not the case, and Grif of all people should know) and doesn’t do very well. 

Grif: Wanted posters? What no why would I be on a wanted poster--the invasion happened before we could get to court! 

Umbra: Ah, must’ve been someone else then. 

Grif: Anyway. May we see these ships? Don’t like putting my money into something I haven’t seen yet. 

Me: Taveau is now completely prone on the floor. 

Rralwarr: Wookie is further satisfied. 

DM, to me: Roll constitution. 

Me: Why? 

DM: To see if you pass out on the floor. 

Me: OK you’re right that would totally happen--(and yet, I pass the roll and remain awake). 

Umbra leads Grif off to the docking bay, and Rralwarr hangs out near my limp body, watching them from a diplomatic distance. 

Umbra: Alright, this is the docking bay. Behind some of these doors are ships. Some of them could probably take you to Hypori. Some of them... you really don’t want to open. But I’m not just going to open any of these doors. Like this one? Yeah, it’s got a ship behind it... But it’s got a wicked security system, and I lost the key. So if you want a ship, then... It’s gonna cost 2000 credits. Or, behind this door... go in there and see about getting you a ship for about... 1500 credits? Or you could just pick one of the doors, but... the security systems in this place are pretty tight. 

Grif: Now, I don’t want anyone to get hurt here! I feel like you’re telling me to run headlong into danger, and if I got hurt, my friend here would be very upset. 

Rralwarr: *moves a little closer* 

Grif: *does well on his Persuade roll* 

Umbra: *does well on her Perception roll; can definitely tell that Rralwarr is giving her A Look from across the room* 

DM, interpreting the rolls: Umbra is definitely intimidated by this, she kind of shrinks back a bit, looks a little defensive... seems like she might be willing to lower her prices.

Umbra:  Yeaaaah... I, I, I’ve heard of a few wookies... not bein too happy when someone got hurt... Tell you what, I gotta make a living too tho. For the first door, I’ll go down to 1470, and for the second door, mmm 1250.

Grif: Oh come on now... 

DM: Is Taveau still lying on the floor? 

Me: Yep. 

DM: Roll Perception! 

Me: ...Okay? (rolls low) 

DM: MMmm. Nope! You don’t notice anything :) 

Me: 

Me: I Feel Uncomfortable 

Me: But Taveau does not, and is very much enjoying the experience of being completely relaxed on this nice cool floor. 

I ask DM to describe the floor. He says it’s kind of like a Walmart floor. Taveau’s standards are low. It is a smooth horizontal surface & he is very drunk. He continues to enjoy it, blissfully ignorant of anything that might have required a good Perception roll to notice. Meanwhile, while we’re having technical difficulties with showing T (the new player) how to use Roll20, I ping her character a couple of times on the screen. She responds with: 

Umbra: Your drunken friend is eyeing me... 

Me: Oh, is that what I’m doing? Just... staring at your boots, across the floor? 

M (Grif): Shiiiiiny. 

Rralwarr, who’d been checking on whether the computers had access to cameras showing the ships (they didn’t), then Percepted on the doors and went over to tell what he’d noticed (notably, that they were equipped with cameras AND GUN TURRETS) to Grif. Grif, now even more on edge, continues trying to bargain with Umbra, and DM then tells me to make another perception roll, and this time I get a 15. 

DM: OK... So close to the floor, Taveau, you can hear something. You hear a rumbling noise, that seems to be coming closer, but you can’t really tell what it is, or where exactly it’s coming from. 

Me: I get up a little bit, like up on my elbows, and see if I can figure out where it’s coming from. (decent tactics roll) 

DM: It’s coming from the direction of the city, heading in your direction. 

Me: I get up and lurch over towards Grif and the Wookie and go “hey uhhh do you guys like, do you guys hear somethin”

Grif, still attempting to haggle with Umbra: --scuse me, one moment—what now?

(His *sweetie, not now, mommy’s talking to her adult friends* voice was something to be marveled at.) 

Taveau: Do you uh. Did you, like. Can you guys uhhh hear somethin? Like, a rumbling, like... I thought I heard somethin. 

Me: I flop back down on the floor. 

(Imagine the CLONK of drunk-human-filled armor just dropping down onto this jank WalMart tile spaceport) 

Rralwarr: I gently get down on the floor too. 

(No clonk. The soft sound of a very large teddy bear settling itself onto the floor of the WalMart Space Tiles.) 

DM: Roll Perception! (He doesn’t do very well.) You hear something. But you can’t tell if it’s a speeder bike, an army of droids or a herd of rancors.

Then Umbra rolls, and gets a nat 20. 

DM: Oh you know instantly what this is. You jump up off the floor and go “yep that’s a squad of droids coming this way, they’ll be here in 10 minutes.” 

Grif: SON OF A BANTHA THEN WE NEED TO GET OFF THIS PLANET LET’S GO 

Umbra: Well, yes, but I still expect to be paid first--

Rralwarr: I Shall Intimidate Her (rolls a 22) 

Umbra: (makes a roll to resist this and gets a 10) 

DM: You are very very very very intimidated, cuz he just stomps up and roars at you. 

Grif: I’m sure you understand, we’re just trying to get out of here. Once we’re safe in space I’ll offer you some compensation.

Umbra: I... Still expect to be paid upfront.... 

DM: I don’t think you understand. You have just been... very. Intimidated. 

Me: I felt the vibrations from the deafening wookie roar travel through the floor and through my helmet and into my face. 

DM: Yeah, you’re more concerned about not getting your arms ripped off than about getting paid up front. 

Umbra: ....Okay....

Grif: Now just get us to the best ship-- 

Umbra: Best ship? Oh you didn’t say anything about getting the best ship--

Grif, losing it:  Just give us any ship and it’ll be the best ship cuz it’ll be what’s left because EVERYTHING ELSE IS GOING TO BE DESTROYED WHEN THE DROIDS GET HERE! 

Taveau, still prone on the floor, pounds lethargically on the floor a couple times and goes “hear, hear...” 

Umbra is convinced. But she’s not happy about it, and she’s not a huge fan of us. She opens one of the hangar doors no problem, and successfully resets the alarms after letting herself through. Grif immediately trips the alarms while attempting to follow her, and T provides sound effects. 

T: WEE WOO WEE WOO WEE WOO! 

Taveau: THANKS FOR YOUR “HELP”, LADY! 

Umbra then has to make another mechanics roll to unlock the ship. She gets another nat 20. 

DM:  Mmm okay! You take your probe, and just slide it smoothly into the access port and the hatch opens up, the lights turn on, you can hear the engine powering, it sounds like everything is working perfectly, and not only that but you see that there is a nice hot pot of caf sitting inside the gangway. Fun things happen when you nat 20. 

Grif: ooh caf! I love caf-- 

Taveau: I NEED THIS

Rralwarr, to Grif: Yeah let him have it, if he’s gonna fly this thing I think he needs it more. 

Taveau takes off his helmet and dumps two-thirds of the caf into it. Since this is the first time his helmet has come off, they ask me to describe him. He’s a youngish human man with short, dark hair and beard, darkish tan skin nicked with scars. He hands the rest of the pot to Grif, and walks off sipping caf from his helmet. 

Taveau: Grif. You can have the rest. 

Grif: ....Why thank you. 

Rralwarr: But at what cost 

DM, to me: Roll constitution. (Mediocre.) Yeah, you’re good, nothing unusual happens but Taveau is now slightly more awake. 

Taveau is in fact awake enough to get the ship up off the ground with a single pilot roll this time. Meanwhile, Umbra has disappeared, after sneakily making a few rolls and communicating with the DM behind the scenes--we knew they were up to something because one of her messages that was supposed to be whispered (visible only to him) wasn’t formatted correctly and came up in the public chat. The DM tells us we’re not currently being shot at, but if we want to continue to avoid that we should use the ship’s radar to figure out where the droids are. Taveau is flying and Grif has a better use computer skill, so he goes and does that, leading to this exchange: 

DM: The droid ships are mostly on the dayside of the planet. 

Grif: Taveau, fly into nighttime—

Rralwarr: “Fly into nighttime”??

Grif: Shoosh I’m trying to be useful. Hey, fly to the night side of the planet, there aren’t any separatist ships over there. 

Me, blanking on how to respond and temporarily becoming Travis McElroy (Adventure Zone’s “I do that!” man): Thank you, yep, I do that. 

DM: Meanwhile~.... (rolls a 1d4 and gets a 4) Oh. Well, the little gift that Umbra left you explodes, but she placed it terribly so it falls into an empty cargo hold and does nothing. (He explains that a 1 would have knocked out the main engines, a 2 or 3 would have damaged the shields or other secondary systems, and a 4 avoided real damage entirely.) 

Taveau, only aware that there was just a very sudden, very close explosion: WHAT WAS THAT WHAT JUST HAPPENED 

Rralwarr goes to check and tells Grif what he learned; then Grif has to communicate that to Taveau, who doesn’t understand Shyriiwook (wookiespeak). Grif decides to do this by using the most complicated sentence structure and the most specific jargon he possibly can, resulting in Taveau, who is Literally Too Drunk for This(TM) and just wants to know in words small enough to absorb while drunk driving a spaceship whether the thing he’s in is about to explode, shouting at him: 

Taveau: USE NORMAL WORDS WHAT HAPPENED 

Grif: 

Grif: Bomb in cargo bay. Didn’t damage anything important. 

Taveau: GOOD THANK YOU 

DM, to me: Can you walk Grif and Rralwarr through making a hyperspace jump? (I roll pretty well; Grif and Rralwarr roll to see how well they understand me and Rralwarr does better than Grif.) ...Okay, he explains it very thoroughly, though a bit too fast and with a lot of slurring, so, Grif, you’re still kind of lost. Rralwarr, you get it, so you make the jump. (Another passing roll and a hyperspace jump later): You did it, congratulations. You’ll be in hyperspace for about an hour, if you want to rest. 

H (Rralwarr): Would Han Solo be proud of me? 

DM: I mean, you didn’t do a great job, you’re still a beginner; you just kind of... made it work. So no, Han Solo would not be impressed. 

H: Would Chewbacca be impressed, though? 

DM: Chewbacca was Han Solo’s navigator, he was the one who calculated the jumps to hyperspace for him, remember? So no, Chewbacca would not be impressed. 

Rralwarr: :/

Me: So are you in the copilot seat now? I just kind of silently reach over and fist-bump you after you make the jump.

Rralwarr: :D

Grif goes off to explore the ship, and the DM describes it to him. 

DM: There are 4 cabins each with a small single bed-- 

H (Rralwarr): How small? D: 

DM: ...You might could fit. 

Me, remembering a thought I’d had earlier, about the unlikelihood of Taveau having had a shower anytime recently: Is there a shower? 

DM: There is a small shower, yes. It’s a sonic shower, to conserve water. 

Me: A what now

DM: It’s a type of shower in the Star Wars universe that cleans you without water. 

T (Umbra), snickering from the background:  Clean with the soundwaves. SCARE the germs down the drain. 

DM:  Moving on, there’s a small food prep area, a few weeks’ worth of food, a lot of instant caf, and one bottle... one single bottle... of koati(?) rum. 

Grif: Ooh :D I take the rum and I claim a cabin. 

Rralwarr: I also claim a cabin... Do I fit in the bed? 

DM: Roll an acrobatics check! 

H: WHAT

Me: To see if you can curl up small enough to fit? :D 

H: ..... 

DM: (observes roll) Yep, you fit. Sort of. Your neck might be sore when you get up, but you fit. 

Me: I’m going to take a shower. 

DM: roll dex. 

Me: ...For getting into the shower...? Oh. Oh my gosh you’re right I’m so drunk. Oh no... (nat 20) OH 

DM: OH. OKAY THEN. (thinks for a minute) You get in the shower, you disrobe in the shower and switch it on, and you feel the vibrations from the sonic waves start, and you feel your body start vibrating along with them. And you’re not sure what is happening but you kind of like it. So you keep vibrating for a few minutes and then you’re like, OK, I should probably get out. And you put your clothes back on and get out, and then you realize... you’re not drunk anymore. 

Me: Not even slightly??

DM: Nope. You’re back to normal. 

Me: I’m not even hung over!? 

DM: Nope. You’re still a little tired but you’re OK. 

H (Rralwarr): Hide the rum

DM: are you all resting? Roll to see how much you recover. 

So the session ended with a mysteriously de-drunk-ified Taveau returning to the cockpit and curling up in the pilot’s seat to take a nap while the others rested in their cabins. The strange properties of the vibrating shower will mystify him for days to come, but in a place where people throw rocks with their minds and giant slugs run crime rings, it’s honestly not all that strange, and he’s able to shrug it off as just another weird quirk of the universe and go to sleep. 

I wonder what he dreams of. 

[Episode 1]

[Episode 3]