Here’s a summary of the story of Kabo Aboom & The Fate of Littleback so far, my first playthrough in an ongoing persistent solo roleplaying campaign using the Weave RPG system. You can see all of my actual play sessions in the Weave playlist over on my YouTube, and consider following me over on Twitch so you can catch me playing live.
Back in April, I finally received my backordered copy of Weave by Monocle Society.
This campaign journal entry covers my unboxing, which essentially included a session 0, through my first three adventures since, where things are today.
Unboxing
After unboxing everything, I went on to create my first season and first character. The playset I picked was Goblins R Jerks and I named the season “The Fate of Littleback”. I pulled The Stag / The Turtle / The Coin as the cards that determined the Theme / Location / Boss.
The theme is that a shard has separated from the moon and is hurtling toward the planet, promising doom and destruction when it hits. The location is the back of a Gladedon, a giant turtle, named Littleback, on which an entire city is built, towards which the shard of the moon is flying directly and dangerously. Apparently no one knows yet about the shard, and the turtle has been asleep for aeons, unmoving, an easy target. The boss is Rufus the Red. How will this all play out?
I created my first character, a goblin, named Kabo Aboom with the cards Flame Challenge Two / The Crown / The River / The Inferno. I wonder who this character is and what is their story?
I thought about the playset, theme, and my character for a while, then, even though I had no idea what I was doing, here’s what happened!
Adventure 1
The Stag / The Turtle / The Coin
Living in a private corner of the broad territory on the back of Littleback, a sleeping Gladedon in the Wilds, goblin Kabo Aboom is spending time futzing around in his junk yard and laboratory when Buck Buck, a friend from the swamp, arrives with the news that the sky is falling. The friends try to get in touch with Kabo’s old connections in the Golem Knights, but none remain and Kabo is persona non grata. In a last ditch effort, Buck Buck convinces a guard to trust Kabo, but Buck Buck is forced to give up treasure, and heads home. The guard agrees to help if Kabo will fix a broken golem, which Kabo does; and just in time! A squire of Brighthearth, who found what had seemed like a lone guard in the outskirts, attacks! But, what seemed a single goblin, turns out to be a Kabo, an experienced Golem Knight in now fully functioning living armor. After dispatching the squire, the guard and Kabo head to see Rufus the Red’s private secretary, a squid sorcerer, who is convinced enough to test Kabo with a puzzle. Kabo slices the Gordian Knot, and crumbles the test in some completely unexpected stroke of genius or folly. Kabo is given an audience with Rufus the Red. When Kabo tells Rufus about the shard, Rufus reveals that it was they who called down the shard, hoping to crush everyone living on Littleback to death, and then mine the valuables from the moon shard after everyone is dead. Kabo proceeds to create havoc and destruction in Rufus’ office, find and steals the device used to call the moon shard down; and escapes with that.
Then, for my second session, I still don’t know what I’m doing, but here’s what I did.
Adventure 2
The Gallows / The Watchtower / The Owl
Kabo heads back to his junkyard with the device stolen from Rufus, and gets in touch with his friend Emarius, a dragon with knowledge about cursed devices, to try and figure out what needs to be done to stop, reverse or otherwise repair the damage done; and the coming moon shard apocalypse. While Kabo and Emarius are talking, around the junkyard otherwise normal people start behaving strangely. Then, carts crash, screams are heard, and chaos ensues as people die and then continue to move. Emarius beats a retreat. Kabo head down to the street to find out what is going on. At the gate, Kabo runs into a Dwarven Buccaneer shouting “Prove you’re still alive or I’ll kill you!” They proceed to have a drinking contest to prove they are alive. Kabo succeeds in proving he is alive, but ends up with a killer hangover. Kabo makes his way outside but succumbs to the spins and collapses. When Kabo comes-to, he’s been pulled into a Plucker’s Yum Yum House where he’s fed a revivifying meal of scraps and mold soup; but discovers that he’s stuck, surrounded by living dead, among a group of survivors.
One survivor, Dazzle, is revealed as a sole survivor of a prior attack of living dead, called the Battle of the Death of the Bands. Dazzle survived by sacrificing everyone but herself. In an attempt to thwart Dazzle’s plan to repeat her dastardly survival plan, Kabo challenges Dazzle to an epic rock band battle. In the first set, Kabo uses his knowledge of explosives and bombs to set off an intense fireworks display to wow the crowd. In the second set, Kabo releases a storm from a bottle, acts as a lightning rod to attract strikes, and, unfortunately, though he, himself, is immune, fries several of the living audience along with some undead. In the third set, Kabo constructs a Rube Goldberg device of traps and plays a rousing clutch guitar solo that blows up the entire place, along with the living dead; and Dazzle’s plan is foiled! Kabo escapes alive, but the skin of his teeth! Ewe! Skin on teeth must be a Goblin thing. Nasty.
After bringing down the house and slaying ’em dead with the power of pure explosive rock n’ roll, Kabo heads back to his junkyard to gather some supplies and figure out what to do next.
Adventure 3
The Woods / The Architect / The Dawn
Kabo digs up a spare automaton heart and a candle of sticking from his supplies, and has a conversation with the dwarven pirate, just now waking up from their drinking contest. Kabo learns more about the dwarven pirate’s history on the crew of Captain Brasker.
Dwarven pirate managed to avoid the fate of the Captain and the rest of the crew on the Barrow Stern, who were all turned into undead, cursed to ride the waves, making amends for all the misfortune and havoc they caused whilst alive. Dwarven pirate recalled a legend about the World Soul, and had hoped to appeal to that powerful entity to restore his old crew mates to life, or at least free them from their fates as undead.
Kabo heard the claim that the World Soul might have the power to correct or cure the dire peril posed by the pending moon shard apocalypse, and latched onto the idea of heading to entreat that entity for help. Kabo gathered as much information about the journey ahead and set off.
Hijinks ensue, and a fiasco unfolds.
The first stage was to stowaway on a boat, run by a Sentinel Automaton that secretly ferries supplies, whatever awful stuff undead pirates need supplied, and let’s just agree not get into the gory details of that bloody gothic nightmare! The ferry sails from the shores of civilization to a remote rendezvous with Captain Brasker’s Barrow Stern somewhere at sea. Kabo manages to climb onto a netted crate being loaded into the boat’s hold.
But, hijinks ensue. Kabo is discovered at some point on the journey, and tries to convince the automaton that Kabo can work for passage, fixing things on the boat. But, the automaton is unpersuaded. Kabo flees and tries to hide in the dangerous fiery engine room, where his resistance to fire saves his skin. Sneaky little goblin sneaks, and ends up in a convoluted game of cat and mouse trying to stay hidden from the crew that remains on high alert for a little stowaway.
But, a fiasco unfolds as Kabo’s luck and skill fail. Kabo accidentally stumbles upon the roost of a Messenger Phoenix, that beings to squawk, revealing Kabo’s position. Kabo makes a hail mary direct assault trying to deactivate the automaton, but fails. A struggle begins, and Kabo tries, instead, to just blow the automaton up; but fails, and is knocked unconscious.
Kabo is captured, and wakes in a cage. Taken to Captain Brasker, Kabo attempts to make an appeal, using what he learned from the dwarven pirate about the captain, for mercy and help, but fails. Kabo-in-a-cage is stowed below decks, and ignored. But, he’s near the Messenger Phoenix, and Kabo discovers that the phoenix and the dwarven pirate were close friends, and is able to convince the phoenix that the dwarven pirate and Kabo are also friends; and wins over the phoenix as an ally. The phoenix agrees to take a message to the dwarven pirate and to let Kabo out of the cage.
Once freed by the Messenger Phoenix, Kabo tries to construct a fully functioning golem automaton out of his living armor and automaton heart, but can’t get tab a into slot b, and ends up with a paper cut in an awfully sensitive place.
Kabo’s failure comes at a further cost as he is once again discovered, this time by a large, deadly, frightening Poorly Transmuted Rabbit, one of the many lost and broken things that crew this boat, and in spite of a spirited and inventive attempt to lead that creature into a lightning trap desperately constructed from the bits of living armor and automaton heart, but gets absolutely stomped.
Captured again, Kabo is about to be tossed to the sharks, when the Messenger Phoenix returns. A message from the dwarven pirate calls in a final favour from Captain Brasker to spare Kabo’s life.
Kabo’s quest to find a way to reach the World Soul and appeal for aid with the moon shard fails, at least for now. Losing important and treasured equipment, having a dirty secret about dragon-killing in his past revealed and rumours about it spread far and wide, including to the ears of Emarius, not having made any progress toward solving the greater issues at play, Kabo is dumped back on shore, much the worse for wear.
To Be Continued
But, the moonshard is still hurtling toward Littleback! What happens next? Find out in my next adventures!
Read the more at Kabo Aboom & The Fate of Littleback, Part 2