Had a game of Gurps fantasy loosely inspired by Tower of God. If you dont know, basic idea is there is a big tower that you climb by first passing a series of trials to cull the initial numbers then proceed up the top level by level. Higher you get the harder it gets, but the more prestigious life you live, and outside the tower life sucks. Few make it to the top. Here, the tower was the center of the city, a sprawling urban expanse with less and less civilization as you moved from the tower to the outskirts. Entry is achieved through a number of ways, a doorway appearing to those with strong desire, paying the way through the gates at the city, stumbling onto secret entries in, or being chosen by the tower itself.
Anyways, we start the initial trial with very low point characters PCs are a four armed muscly insect spearman focused on getting swole, a catboi dancer, a majestic beefy centaur warrior, a lute playing bow shooting lothario, and me, a goblin thief who lucked his way into the competition, without much class or brains but a good amount of cunning. We begin having been transported to a large stark stone room with seemingly one exit blocked by a magical barrier, each of us with either a red or a blue card. With us are a couple of NPCs, a haughty elf magician with magic a rarity outside the tower, a young, chivalrous, and naive fighter, and an ominous dark blob located in a pool of water occupying a corner of the room. A disembodied voice tells us to wait, and that the game will begin shortly, as well as not to engage in any violence yet or there will be consequences.
Players begin to make chitchat with one another, tell names and who they are. I try to introduce myself to the elf, asking what a rich, pretty girl like her was doing in a place like this. Being a four foot tall manlet with crooked teeth, a hooked nose and green leathery skin doesnt tend to be all to attractive to girls not goblinkin, and she lets me know she will not deign to acknowledge me. Knowing I have protection from the voices, I begin to make comments to her saying she should smile more, it'd make her prettier, asking if it was daddy issues or an ex that made her decide to come here, saying you havent had it till you've had goblin baby, etc. The Lothario PC tells me off as a disgusting creature, and proceeds to flirt with the elf more successfully. Centaur and beetle are off comparing insect biceps to horse thighs, and catboi just kind of wonders what they are doing there.
Having gotten bored of pestering the elf, I head over to the pool of water, which few else have acknowledged. I begin swishing my hand in the murky water, seeing if I can clear it a bit to see if I can get a look at whats in it. Suddenly I feel a tentacle rap around my fingers. I panic slightly, but realize quickly its not pulling me in or grabbing me forcefully, its more like a handshake. I shake back, and slowly and without much force pull back against it. It releases its grip after a few moments, and I return to the group.
Shortly after the voice comes back with an announcement that makes me regret everything I just did to the elf girl. "Welcome to the maze of floor 0. Within this portion of the maze are 30 entrants to the tower. Each of you have been given a card, red or blue. In order to proceed to the next floor and begin your journey, you must have both a blue and red card. You may acquire these by any means you see fit. Good luck." I eye the red card in my own hand, and the blue card in the hands of the elf woman. She has pieced this together far faster than I have, turns to the Lothario and the chivalrous youth and says, "would you please get that for me?"
Now a quick bit about our players. We are pretty heavy on the idea of acting in character trumps anything out of character. We had no reason to be a party at the time, we were strangers put in a room together. That meant I was more than fair game to be killed, and our GM was not someone who generally saved characters by an act of god. I begin to back away as the two advance, ready to put holes in me for m'lady, when I hear an eruption of water behind me. I turn to see the tentacles owner, a giant, several hundred pound octopus that has surfaced, its appendages spooling out across the stony floor. Seeing as my options are absolute certain death on one hand and a complely uncertain fate on the other, I move quickly next to the octopus. The others hesitate and back up. Shortly after I am grabbed by the tentacles and plunged into the deep.
Meanwhile the Centaur and Beetle gymbros have teamed up to bully kids for their cards, having quickly left the cell and teamed up to move down the maze. One pacifist immediately gives theirs up deciding violence is not worth it and another needs some convincing. They also find some cards not attached to any participants, and after acquiring their own decide to hide extras to increase mayhem. On the other side the youth, the lothario, and the elf woman enter into a central room, at the same time as a brutal orc warrior surrounded by an entourage of goblins, a group of heroic looking guys including an aged dwarf fighter with an axe, a monk in full shaolin garb, an archer, a halberdier and a couple of less combat heavy types, and finally a young human noble in heavy armor flanked by an elf spearman and a winged elf with a mace.
The look in the female elfs face drops as she sees the young noble. "Glast, what are you doing here?"
"Nice to see you again Ciel." He replies. From the watery grave I was being dragged to I smile, sensing I was right about the jilted lover.
From there the two bicker, Glast beckoning her to join, Ciel refusing, and the two other groups sitting on the sideline listening to relationship drama. Glast eventually cuts the conflict short, saying he will just have to make her join him by force. The dwarf and his group side with Ciel, wanting to protect a lady from a man with some bad intentions, while the Orc is praised for his strength and offered a place with Glast. The two sides then square up and have at it. The Shaolin monk launches into a flying kick. This epic feat of martial arts is shown quickly why we use weapons as his leg is lopped off by the Orc. The dwarf begins to battle it out with the elf spearman, Ciel Glast, and the rest goblins against heroes.
Meanwhile it turns out by a stroke of good fortune I have not been dragged to my death, but have instead emerged into another room through another pool. The Octopus has apparently teamed up with me, having liked that I didnt fear him and made effort to interact with him. I dub him octobro, and I begin to leave the room while he chills. While there I see the back of Beetle, and believing him an enemy, I procede to sneak up on him, garrote in hand. I make it to him jump and proceed to try and strangle the life out of a buff beetle man as a 100 pound soaking wet goblin.
Quick note about garottes in Gurps, wire garrotes are a fantastic weapon with good sneak that can kill a normal man very quickly through cutting damage to the neck. However, this does not apply as easily to beetle men with chitin as a natural armor over their whole body. I do next to no damage while he proceeds to slam me against the wall, unable to reach me. Its now a race to see who goes first, him from strangulation cutting off oxygen or me from having my frame busted against a stone wall. Soon after, the centaur comes charging around the corner hearing the commotion, along with octobro around the other. Seeing as this is about to end up with me as the meat in horse-man and octopus sandwich, I tell the beetle to toss his spear aside and I will stop the garrote. He says no, stop the garrote. Thus a 30 minute long argument ensues where I argue that if I drop it while he is armed he will just turn around and end me, and he argues that that will take too much time, is pointless and he doesnt want to be disarmed. Eventually I decide screw it and just drop the garrote, at which point we make up and buddy up, with the two jocks telling us about the extras they hid, and I procure some for me and Octobro.
Back to the brawl raging out in the main area, the goblins have been reduced to man, but the halberdier is dead and broken, the dwarf is on his last legs, and Ciel is pinned. The Orc, two elves, and Glast dont have a scratch on them. The Lothario, realizing hes on the losing team, has slunk out the back hoping the Orc wasnt too attached to that goblin he sunk an arrow into the heart of before taking his card. Eventually, the dwarf collapses dead, the noncombatants huddle off to a corner and basically decide to quit the whole tower thing, and the last archer drops his bow while the bleeding knight boy goes to throw his life away in a valiant and meaningless gesture as he is swatted by Glast. Meanwhile Catboi, realizing that they are not suited for the brawl being a dancer and all, has sat out the fight and wandered around until they saw a good opportunity and plucked the card from the boys corpse.
We then reconvene in the center as another announcement comes "Time is up. To all those currently holding both red and blue cards, you have made it to begin your journey. Now please, arrange yourselves in groups of up to six members. Seeing his last Goblin has not gotten a card, the Orc slashes him down and calling him worthless. Glast invites the archer to join him. Meanwhile the players all gather around Octobro as our team of six.
We then learned that this Octopus was in fact the most intelligent member of our party, and that essentially the reason why he sided with us was I was in essence his green, hook nosed, knife eared puppy. And thats the story of how I spent a campaign as an Octopus' pet.
