This session was played on 2025-11-01. Instead of the adventures of the usual party, it followed four Onirian characters (Margaret Nguyen, Arthur Moore, Spamton G. Spamton and Abyss) who investigated a haunted house in search of paranormal contraband.
Far away from the usual plotline, deep into the Onirian Time Branch, Spamton G. Spamton is given a mission by his benefactor on the phone: to make a team to go to the country house of known spanish occultish Arturo de la Vara, and retrieve a box full of glass bones that seem to be supernaturally significant.
Spamtom does some sketchy publicity that ends with him recruiting time- (and probably timeline-) displaced Doctor Arthur Moore, amateur ghost hunter Margaret (Maggie) Nguyen, and broke college student Abyss, taking them to the Cortijo de la Vara on Halloween night, 2025.
The car ride ends being utterly hilarious, with the absurd clash of characters, the very anachronistic Arthur and navigator Spamton yelling ads on top of all that.
First obstacle is, of course, the main door of the complex; a huge thing made of solid wood and steel, covered in police tape. Arthur mentions trying to lockpick it, but Maggie goes directly into kicking it unsuccessfully, while Spamtom just climbs on a tree, gets in and unlocks the door just as Maggie kicks it in one last time, resulting in both ending hit and on the floor.
In the outer courtyard of the complex, they investigate three cars: two luxury things belonging to Arturo de la Vara, and a much smaller, older and dirtier thing that belonged to one Amina Benjelloun.
From there, they split up Scooby Doo-style, and Spamtom and Abyss end up in the kitchen area, where Spamtom decides to steal the silverware and Abyss to get themselves some very good yogurt from the fridge. They talk and it becomes quite clear that Abyss thinks he's there playing some kind of alternate reality game or treasure hunt.
On the other side, Maggie and Arthur examine a sitting room full of pretty unsettling catholic paraphernalia and try to make heads or tails of it; they deduce that many of the things might be the property of Arturo's wife Maria, who *was* quite the catholic zealot.
When interacting with an old, expensive-looking and very used bible, Maggie starts witnesses what was probably the ghost of the deceased Maria de la Vara, and she follows it out of the sitting room and towards the complex's swimming pool, where both fall… into what is possibly the Mediterranean sea, with Maggie reliving the experiences of someone trying to cross from Africa to Europe in a raft, and almost drowning.
Maggie is saved from drowning by Abyss, who jumps into the pool to help her and they both end totally drenched and miserable, so the party starts searching for something to dry themselves. They find a dryer in a laundry room, and Maggie decides to put her clothes in and wrap herself in a big blanket, but Abyss can't bear to do it due to a bout of dysphoria, which prompts Maggie to try to explain the very recent vocab to the old doctor.
Spamton leaves the others while they shoot the breeze and meets a short man in formal clothing, including a bowler hat and an umbrella who greets him, and they exchange words. The man reveals that he's here for the glass bones too, and that they will have to make it into a “friendly competition” and “to the victor go the spoils”.
Overwhelmed by the conversation Abyss walks deeper into the house and finds the bedrooms, but his attitude attracts yet another ghost, this time the very neurodivergent and abused daughter of the house Marta, and Abyss starts channeling her, their personalities and experiences overlapping.
At the same time, Spamton follows Bowler-Hatted Man into the bedrooms too, quite furious, and his own mood provides a path for Arturo de la Vara himself to overlay on him. As Spamton and Abyss meet, they start quarreling, with the ghosts becoming more and more prevalent. Maggie and Arthur come to find Spamton shouting at “Marta” to get to her room so he can deal with her later and deal with her cursing friend now, later they notice the possession.
Finally Spamton manages to get a head clear enough to actually put together what is going on, alongside with some knowledge from Arturo de la Vara, and he runs to Arturo's office where he finds a glass bone in a silver dish that has taken an angry dark red color, and he dunks it into a jar of some kind of cold transparent liquid, forcing the possession to cease for now.
Free from the possession Abyss ends sobbing on the hallway. Maggie tries to offer some comfort, but Abyss can only ask her to please “break character”.
Spamton starts gathering the glass bones, and the Bowler-Hatted man enters the office and congratulates him. Then sits on a chair and tells him a story about how these bones are the remnants of forgotten memories, leached of meaning, substance, and color, and brought from somewhere in the deeper reaches of the Great Dream.
And then everyone hears two cars coming in, and things start getting complicated.
Eight gangsters armed with lead pipes and other such stuff break into the complex and find Maggie, Arthur, and Abyss; all of whom fail quite spectacularly to hide. The men start making menacing overtures and then Arthur takes his fucking sword out of his cane, to the amazement and horror of everyone else.
In the office, Spamton panics and decides to run away with the crate of glass bones, to the disappointment of Bowler-Hatted Man who takes one of the bones and walks outside to meet the rest of the party.
Outside, Arthur dispatches two of the gangsters with his sword to the amazement and horror of the rest. Maggie and Abyss try to get in on the action too, but they are not fighters and are quickly dispatched. The gangsters threaten Arthur with hurting the young ones, but this does not deter the doctor, who instead insists that if they touch even one hair on their heads, he will bring retribution upon them.
And then Bowler-Hatted Man calmly walks in and starts talking, which somehow makes everyone stop and listen to him, slowly relaxing as he spins some kind of story about an old god. Arthur and Maggie are the first ones to actually notice that this is not a mere story but some kind of invocation ritual and the glass bone in the man's hand is becoming pitch black, and they panic.
Maggie attempts to punch Bowler-Hatted Man on the face, but he stops her hand with his umbrella. Arthur manages to drive his sword through the man's throat, but it doesn't stop him or even make him bleed.
Spamton tries to escape, but starts to fear someone that's not him might actually come out alive of this place, so he says “fuck it” and just unleashes a barrage of bombs on the crowd.
And the man stands there as the smoke clears up and finishes his story and his invocation, bringing some kind of winged shadow monster.
And so they run like hell. Despite their waterlogged clothes, Abyss is the first one to reach the car, but Maggie (who is still wrapped in a blanket) and Arthur (who is getting in on years) don't manage to run fast enough to be out before the thing is on them.
But Maggie manages to actually identify the creature (a Manifestation of Oblivion) and knows that it is always hungry for yummy dreamstuff, so she channels the ghost of the very dead Maria de la Vara, abusive catholic mother, and lets the creature have at it. This gives them enough time to reach the car and run away.
So in the end they manage to come out with their lives intact and the money that Arthur managed to negotiate as a pre-payment from Spamton.
And Spamton flies off in the night with a crate of blackened glass bones, which clearly won't be a problem for him.
Bowler-Hatted Man has the very unnerving thing when he asks for people's names as if he was fae. Characters did not react to it, but mostly because they caught on that fact and shut up very hard when they noticed. Except for Spamton's player, who didn't realize but was saved by the [ spam dialogue ].
Which interestingly resulted in no one getting his name. And that is funny because players in the old campaigns where he appeared didn't learn his name until a lot later, if at all.
The situation where Abyss and Spamton were possessed by Marta and Arturo de la Vara was apparently confusing enough that Arthur's player needed to call for a timeout to get it explained to her.
Arthur thinks that some spanish gangsters from the 2020s are weaksauce. His sword cane has been used to cut up Klan members after all.
Despite everyone trying to help them with it, we're still not sure if Abyss will ever become Aware and pierce the Veil.
The glass bones that Spamtom is carrying at the end are literally loaded with every conceptual negative feeling that results in freedom by chain-breaking so that might end being interesting.
Regarding manifestations of oblivion, ■■■■■ ■■■ ■■■■ ■■■■ ■■■■ ■■■■ ■■■■■ ■■ ■ ■■■■.