Previously on UVG…
The Ultraviolet Grasslands: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the caravan Pignocchio’s. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new locations. To seek out new wild game and collect new trophies. To boldly go where no one has gone before!
The caravan known as Pignocchio’s is already a season into their maiden voyage. This post recites their travels and travails so future play reports sound a tad more logical (or at least possess the dream logic common in a psychedelic trek through Luka Rejec’s UVG). The rules I’ve been using for this game have been the moving target that is the work-in-progress Prismatic Wasteland. This journey is the system’s alpha test, and results are promising thus far.
It didn’t start in a tavern. It was a Chuck E. Cheese knock-off in the Decapolis called Pignocchio’s. A wealthy dilettante/celebrity chef/rat puppeteer’s gold finally melted its way through his pockets. Like many in his social strata, he decided a grandiose hunting trip would be a balm for his restless soul.
Art: Moebius (?)
Dramatis Personae
Grillgamesh - The son of a prominent Decapolitan merchant, Grillgamesh’s own dining establishment thrived off his avant-garde boiled meat recipes. However, this dwarfish chef’s passion project was his off-putting puppetry. Puppets of flesh and blood, not felt and string. His skillful manipulation of his pet rat turned the creature into a mascot and namesake of the restaurant.
Hakon Felthands - Forcibly retired from a nomadic life of occasional raiding and light pillaging, Hakon Felthands became a beloved but snooty waiter at Pignocchio’s. Standing head and shoulders above most and bursting at his seams with muscle, Hakon is a simple orc with simple dreams of discovering flying mushrooms. He shared his boss’ passion for puppetry and was the first person Grillgamesh recruited to roam the Ultraviolet Grasslands. The caravan’s first mate has proved a gentle soul and true friend to animals… except perhaps to eels.
Sulmar di Mesa - Unable to obtain a tenured professorship at any of the moderately prestigious schools of mechanobiology, Sulmar became a regular at Pignocchio’s, drowning his sorrows in bowls of braised and boiled beef. He was one of few patrons for whom dinner was secondary to the show; his fascination with Grillgamesh’s prodigious control over his pet rat led Sulmar to saddle up his iron horse and join the expedition when Grillgamesh mentioned it in passing to a nearby customer.
Vera od Vade - A post-apocalyptic renaissance man, Vera is at once a talented cartographer, transactional lawyer, and breaker of kneecaps. Vera signed up for the caravan life after losing an arm wrestling contest with Hakon. Vera, a strong believer in the sanctity of contracts, held firm to his end of the bet and became an in-house attorney for the hunting trip as well as the chief negotiator for sponsorships and licensing deals.
Rian Arandi - This stoned philosopher is adroit at drug-foraging and fluent in the language of love. How he became involved in this months-long journey is a mystery to all, including himself. All the other members of the caravan simply believe he is one of the other member’s friend. He is not. This halfling became committed to the westward pilgrimage when he was handed the Seed of the World by a malfunctioning dryad and told to plant it in the irradiated soil of the Black City.
Giorro de Giallo - This nomadic elven prince desires what all elven princes desire most: to foment a peasant uprising against the ruling classes. Giorro is here to chew bubblegum and negotiate fair wages for the working people of the wasteland. And he’s all out of bubblegum. His joining the caravan was a blur for him. The other heroes found his in dire straits, having been thrown out of a tavern by a burly bouncer. He clutched a blood stained half of a map with a circle around the Behemoth Shell. When he came to, he had no answers for the company’s questions.
Art: Luka Rejec - wizardthieffighter.com
In broad strokes, the story thus far consists of this well-financed yet rag tag company striving ever westerly. They dined-and-ditched in the Violet City. In the shade of a mechanical tree on the limey steppes, Rian met a dryad who tore out her own heart to give it to him. The company evaded motorcyclops on the high road and the low, invaded a romantic picnic of a Greenland cigar merchant at the rusted hand, and became the rightful president of a tribe of animaltronic apes, which they assisted in abolishing the presidency in favor of a parliamentary system.
On the next post, I will unspool a yarn about the caravan’s entry into the Porcelain Citadel - a tale of orphans in caves, golems come to life, and intra-faction feuding.
