No Rangers Allowed

A very special bonus episode of No Rangers Allowed. The gang is together! Like in the real life! We take the opportunity to play a one-shot of Swords Without Master, a wonderful system of narrative manipulation. Turns out we are all just as ridiculous face to face as we are on the internet.

The party makes a moonroof to imbue their sweet rhymes with astronomical significance. There are some very bad plants, and some very good plants. The gang discovers a treasure trove, both literally and metaphorically, and encounters a brief history of perversion, as well as a longer history of more important matters. No real progress towards processing the trauma of watching a horseman being beaten into paste occurs.

Peripheral contact with the dreaded Riddle Weasel is not enough to keep our party from their prey, and BJ from his bloody destiny. Bernie rolls triple sixes, proving that this is truly Satan's game. But it's not all fun and games; grim revenge casts a dark cloud over the party, one that threatens to open old wounds, and make new ones.

There is a disagreement regarding Ven's insecurities and the party's abuse of his naive trust. Only a sucking, slurping, whispering void of ASMR can rescue the party from this damning lack of esprit de corps. It ends in fire, as our disagreements tend to do. Due to technical difficulties, Miles wears BJ's skin. Sorry.

So there's technically plenty of adventure in this episode - adorable puzzle weasels, Irtian revelations, a dangerous reconnoiter into a bizarre town to organize a rescue mission, and even a brush with nobility - but, let's be honest, mostly it's about hair.

A brightly-colored group of decidedly non-rangerous disciples give the party pause. Ven and Honeydew argue over the sentinels' intentions, but the benefit of the doubt gives way to actual doubt, which belies the devotional structure of the little lake civilization. What follows is pure hircine vengeance, terrifying to behold. Later, we find that the collapse of elven society has had further-reaching effects than previously thought.

The party has a TMNT (original live-action movie version) spiritual experience with the ghost of their friend(?) Gorm, but have no time to properly grieve before set upon by a pack of bandits and their mincing leader. When they part ways, the party is laser focused on the twin goals of Revenge and Escape - until someone offers to give BJ a bath. That's worth a sidequest.

A CLIMAX. The party begins by solving Rivenesque puzzles to unlock interplanetary secrets. Irtya is even more than she has seemed, but before the party can understand the cosmological significance of these partial revelations, the Dragon in the Basement is unleashed. Our heroes fight both monsters and the clock as they struggle to evacuate the Egg. But not every comrade will make it. Sometimes, to save the lives of others, a sacrifice is required.

The party begins to peel back the layers of the dark underbelly of the Egg. Valorous battle is entered: BJ uses filthy ninjitsu; Bernie employs, and immediately breaks, what she affectionately calls her Warbags; and Ven rends the darkness with a megachurch Cuisinart. Honeydew's claustrophobia interrupts the spoofs and goofs, however, and the party barely begins to deal with the presence of a new darkness before a newer, even darker, darkness is revealed...

A very manually-centric episode, involving little grabby hands, fishmittens, and alien Mars Reactor-esque power pedestals. The party falls under a hilarious curse, divers in its effect, but still finds time to discover ancient secrets about The Seed nee The Egg, as well as foment the piscine communist revolution. Meanwhile Honeydew says a lot of stuff about aluminum and electrolysis? A lot happens in this one is what I'm saying.