The 2010 3ygb was held on an area of the Plane of Humact which has been taken over by the Oni Blake.

Photos: * [2010 3YGB, Blake's on a Plane - Aquarion]

The characters were:

• Dot Sylke the Sordanite, Blake's Mum
• Svetlana of Wallachia, Champion of Humact
• Tiberius Ravenschild, not-the-Champion of Humact.

Overview

Blake is the Oni son of Dot, he was born in Grantabrugge but has been raised in Arcadia by the Sluagh, as the result of an oath given to Dot. As an Oni, he constantly infects the magical fae who look after him with magic-eating arcanophage, and as result, in order to keep their oath to protect him, Blake has been raised in an area of Arcadia where time runs fast relative to the Prime - meaning that Blake was born in midwinter but a teenager by the summer solstice, as far as Grantabrugge was concerned.

Blake is a troubled young creature, torn between his mother's teachings about Sordan, the Sluagh ethos of honour and his faerie upbringing, and his basic Oni nature. He has a love of stories (faery tales) and of questing (a popular pastime amongst the Sluagh and also part of their method for ridding themselves of arcanophage infection). Recently, he was provided with a Humacti squire named Ivan, fetched by his mother from the Prime as kept in Arcadia adult company for her son. Ivan told the young Oni many stories of honour, glory and the way of Humact and tales of the Wessex arms and its inhabitants. However, Ivan's Awakening to Humact provided a focus for the Oni nature of Blake, which instinctively and automatically formed a parasitic attachment to the god-plane, leading to the sudden disapperance of both young men from Arcadia, and their arrival on Humact.

Blake has thrown out "umbilical cords" to gain energy from the part of Humact he has ended up on; these have attuned that area of the plane to his way of thought - this region now *is* Blake, to all intents and purposes. The entire god plane is inhabited by dead Humacti; within Blake these have been corrupted by Blake into a pastiche of Prime village life, and the area is also occasionally by angels of Humact from non-corrupted areas, investigating the demon-tainted area. Within the boundaries of Blake the dead have been joined by fantasy creatures produced from the teenager's mind. These reflect the stories he has been told, and are eccentric and exaggerated characters and beasts. In the day, Blake is awake and the natives of the plane are motivated by Honour and what is Right. But while he sleeps at night his true Oni nature comes through and those same individuals became darker somehow, more dangerous, less trustworthy. As an Oni, Blake also naturally generates arcanophages and Taint Beasts within his area of influence - the first encounter of the 3ygb involves Taint Beasts acting as an 'immune system' and attacking the invading mortal PCs when they first appear on Blake.

Should Blake be left alone, it is inevitable that he will merge with Humact - becoming a God and possibly changing Humact, but losing his personality and self. This is not wanted by either the Humacti or Dot, who variously wish to protect their God and child. Should the PCs manage to destroy each of the umbilical cords attaching Blake to Humact, by questing to do so, then Humact will be saved and Blake's Oni nature will be suppressed (he will become a 'real boy' and could return to Arcadia with Dot). Killing Blake outright would also save Humact.

On realising their arrival, Blake has set up a "safe place" for his visitors from the Prime, reflecting his idea of their preferred habitat - a pastiche copy of the Wessex Arms constructed from his own childhood memories of being summoned there and the stories which Dot and Ivan have told him about the place.

Structure

The event was structured into a series of sections, as below:

Day One:

• Arrival, Blake's immune system reacts badly to the encroaching PC party, and his Oni side sends an escalating series of taint beasts to dissuade them from going any further. The PCs are rescued by Alric the Angel and brought to...

• Wessex Arms (Professor Greenheel, Evelyn Brightworthy of St. John, Ariane Tallis, Ceyl of Justice, Elizabeth Gedhrenti, Blackthorn and Briar, a Lightist, some venches. Also featuring not-the-Grantabrugge Gossip, and 'Venches and Veapons', a...more specialist publication. All drinks were obviously Wodka, apart from the Morgagni Rum)

Dot summons Sordan, as requested prior to the 3ygb. He removes her ear and grants her the power to regenerate points of spirit up to her maximum by torturing sentient living people who are able to feel the maiming. A short time later, Humact arrives and tells Sordan to leave the Plane - specific permission was granted for Dot to visit in order to remove Blake, but this may be taking the piss...

Greenheel summons Blake into the Wessex Arms as requested, but instead gets Blake's Self-Image - a rather more dashing fellow than the reality.

There is some mingling, Goblins attack repeatedly, but eventually the pub vanishes, leaving the character party standing in a field with the single 'real' person they managed to identify, the doctor from the village. He leads them to....

• Plane of Blake (Day)

Blake has created an entire village of people to keep him comforted. The party talk to 2 wenches, a small gang of 3 street urchins and the doctor.

The village is surrounded by woods, similar to those Blake is used to from Arcadia. In the woods live creatures: mostly voles, foxes and wolves. Voles are small and squeaky, but if they see another vole die they will gang up and attempt to mob the predator. Fox are solitary ambush predators which prey on voles, ideally by pouncing on them from behind as they pass. Wolves hunt in small packs of 4-6 individuals and are entirely predatory, though relatively rare. The party kill quite a lot of voles and collect their ears, which are apparently useful for making alchemical healing. Dot gets a wolf ear sewn on by the doctor to replace her missing elf ear.

There are also characters from Fairy Tales wandering in the woods. In particular, a Good and Bad Witch.

A couple of Dead Humacti also pass through, investigating the corruption of the plane, they are greeted, expositioned to and given letters from loved ones back on the Prime with much efficency.

As Blake goes to sleep, his Oni side takes over from his more honourable Sluagh-Humacty side (his "true self"), and night falls on the Plane of Blake....

• Plane of Blake (Night)

Re-introducing Evil Villagers and Ecosystem :)

The ecosystem becomes more dangerous, and also acquires Spookidiles (manifestations of Blake's anxieties, which are basically a huge pair of jaws on legs) as well as The Dread Mancipede, a terrible composite undead from a story.

Day Two:

• Wessex Arms

The PCs wake up to find they have been sleeping on the floor of the Wessex Arms. This time the bar is populated more by Specific Backstory Not-a-PCs (Natasha, Argus, Blake duPres, Nocta, Astrid and a Lightist)

There are some reunions with people from various backstories, who are varyingly different to their original selves, whilst Nocta gets into trouble with the Lightist. Dot is willingly tortured by alchemical fire and applies chainmail to an Elemental Elf, more goblins attack the bar. The Humacti meet two wandering Knights with disturbing news from outside on the Plane, including where the first cord to cut might be. Nocta is finally extinguished by the return of the Fire Safety Demons, who evacuate everybody from the bar (with the not-a-pcs vanishing as they pass out over the threshold to go) until finally the entire bar disappears, leaving just the PCs and the Knights, who swiftly run off to rejoin their comrades in battle...

• Death of the King Linear (cutting a cord)

In which two knights are confused because they were fighting in Caledonia just then, and now it is all happening again, but wrong, and they are starting to think they might be dead....a corrupted version of the Death of King Edward of Wessex in which the king is now a rival Oni who must be sacrificed and have his organs consumed in order to return the power to Humact (from "Prince Samuel", an angel he is draining) and slay the cord.

• Plane of Blake (Day)

Featuring the Boy who Cried "Demon", etc

• Ecosystem / Angelcrusher Linear (cutting a cord)

In which the Dread Angelcrusher is wandering the world, killing angels, and must be defeated in order to slay the cord. Sadly he lies beyond a large quantity of enraged animals...

• Storytelling / Red Demon Linear

In which the PCs are occupied telling stories to entertain Blake, whilst a party of Red Demons appear on the Plane, eager to cut out the hearts of everything they meet and consume them, in their quest to eventually eat the heart of the Oni Blake and rise to take over the power of Humact in his place as a new God. Until he calls his Mum on them...

The four Red Demons encounter, in a linear fashion, several stories until they eventually fall to an overstatted final encounter. ie, the PC party. Featuring: Red Riding Hood, Little Bo Peep and her sheep^Wolves, Three Blind Skaven plus farmer's wife, Various Taint Beasts, etc.

The stories told by the PCs and supporting cast of villagers include The Story of Sir Fyodor and the Heart of the Deathless (Svetlana), The Story of Sir Ivan and the Island of the Zombie Snakewomen, The Story of Slaying the Dragon and the Arranged Marriage. Dot refuses to tell Blake a story as he is misbehaving and being a rude Oni, not her nice well-mannered son.

• Plane of Blake (Day)

Featuring Jack Frost (and much hilarity making potions from parts of him), the headless horseman (have you seen a head?), the false hero, the damsel in distress, Puss in Boots. The PCs perform a funeral pyre for a baby which the Red Demons had killed and were carrying to devour later for healing purposes. They also hunt shift-out fairies, which are glittery, giggling creatures that cast healing upon anyone who can kill them before they vanish.

• Plane of Blake (Night)

Featuring the Three Little Pigs and a hunt for the Big Bad Wolf. Dot replaces her other ear with a Big Bad Wolf ear after he is finally slain.

• Religion Time!

Dot yet again finds the word "Summon" carved into her arm and summons Sordan by the village fire, where a "religious festival" is due already. This is done through spirit melding with a local Sordanite, after failing to convince the Humacti to undergo torture for the cause. Humact appears and instructs the Humacti to come with him into the woods, where they are admonished and Tiberius is set a series of personal trials and challenges designed to test his worth to be a Humacti, given his previous Vivamortian upbringing. One of his worst failings is sarcasm, which is dangerously akin to lying, and so he is told he must refrain from sarcasm or levity even as the tasks become increasing more farcial - including and duelling whilst hopping on one leg. Meanwhile, Sordan and one of his pet angels appears, accompanied by a crowd of baying Sordanite revellers and two seriously unwilling victims, and a Sordanite party ensues - including such games as Eating the Organs of Someone Under Preservation, Guess The Letter (number) Being Carved Into Your Back, "Massage" (with daggers) and much general cutting, maiming, disfigurement, burning, mocking and so on, interspersed with occasional bouts of healing so that the fun could carry on.

Hearing the cackling of the Sordanites from afar, the Humacti become increasingly agitated at being kept occupied with 'silly games', especially when a Cure Sufficient from Sordan undoes the hamstringing of one torture victim and they make a break for Humact and freedom. Svetlana suddenly recieves a hook mark burned into her face and discovers that her lost holy symbol was in fact recovered by a figment of Blake's imagination and handed in to Dot, who buried it in the fire the Sordanites are now dancing around. Eventually, Tiberius and Svetlana charge into the party. Svetlana recovers her holy symbol by sticking her hand into the fire to retrieve it (refusing tongs offered by a Sordanite on condition they could then be used on her afterwards) whilst Tiberius attempts to rescue the remaining victim and gets cut down by Sordanites who invite him to stay...Humact intervenes and recovers his paladins, but soon the party comes to an end anyway, Sordan leaving just as Dot has finally removed her armour to be tortured herself rather than mostly inflicting pain on others. Fearful of a trap, Dot runs off into the woodland and cuts her face badly, in an attempt to inspire more sympathy in the Humacti for her own suffering when they next meet.

• Woods of Despair Linear (cutting a cord)

In which the souls of Humacti who died with dishonour by their own hand are found sobbing, bound into trees, and must be persuaded to rise up and meet their alternate, hnourable deaths to escape their purgatory. Featuring the coward who must be killed by a vastly more powerful opponent instead of running away, the lover who must save his true love from undead rather than saving the wrong one, and the army scout who must undergo torture rather than taking an 'easy' way out. Svetlana talks each into redeeming themselves by facing up to their fears (with some unwillingness over the last, until Dot instills the scout with Pride to encourage her to go). The Humacti hold a funeral and lay each to rest honourably after they die, using corpse-like artefact dolls hanging in the branches of each of the trees as proxies for the spirits who were bound within them.

Day Three:

• Wessex Arms (Argus, Verity (not played by Joey))

Dot marries Argus in a Sordanite ceremony conducted by Verity of Sordan, based on the exchange of ring fingers (although Dot has to have her finger miraculously restored after Argus' severed finger crumbles). There are several very sweet, but also very Sordanite, demonstrations of mutual affection related to this both before and after. Dot accidentally establishes that the Wessex Arms 'PCs' are reprogrammable (being based on Blake's 'knowledge' of their character) by showing Argus a letter written by his real self and containing his real-life fear of Sordanism - but manages to hastily talk her way out of it and destroy the letter before it could corrupt him permanently, resetting him back to the suitably-Sordanite, besotted, Blake's-imagination-version of his father.

A Vole Overlord comes in and requires the PCs to perform a funeral for the slain voles, represented by their collected ears (and Dot's discarded wolf ears), to be conducted in the Language of the Voles (Squeak!).

Cyril The Guide takes the Humacti through a choose-your-own-adventure that they define, in order to prepare them for questing through fairy tales, and the monster crew tests their quick-change skills. Huzzah! (Huzzah!)

The Wessex Arms vanishes as Cyril announces that it is Questing Time, for which two-thirds of the character party are prepared. The Humacti then perform their noon devotions, during which they have some comments to make to Humact about the cruelty of the Woods of Despair. Svetlana grudgingly accepts his will, but Tiberius backchats rather too much and becomes Spirit Wracked.

• Fairy Tales Linear

In which the party pass through a series of fairy tales and other stories known to Blake, and complete the narratives to his satisfaction. They are accompanied by an avatar of Blake, and a Narrator who reads from the Book of Blake's Imagination as each scene progresses.

Featuring - Little Blood Red Riding Hood, Dread Pirate Morgagni and her crew, Amazonian Warrior Women, Killing Undead the Wallachian Way, Stealing the Jewel from the Cathedral of Vivamort, The Ritual of Elemental Soul, Blackthorn and Briar!, Defeating the Dwarves under the City, Puss In Boots the Duelling Master, Holding the Bridge Against the Undead Horde, Alternate Vivamortian Tiberius.

During the fairy tales Tiberius repeatedly redeems himself by acting with honour/duelling etc, and then also repeatedly gets himself spirit-wracked again by lying/being sarcastic about Humact, etc. By the end he is once more redeemed by defeating what he might have become had he stayed a Vivamortian, with much panache ("No, you're right; there is one very important thing I learnt from a Vivamortian: you, sir, are the son of a pastry chef!" SPIRIT TRIPLE)

• Final Encounter

In which they finally find Blake, tethered to the plane by the final cord and guarded by Ivan. Blake's Oni side is in control, and commands Ivan's movements. As the first strike is made on Ivan, the party is swarmed by taintbeasts bent on keeping the party away from Blake and the cord. In the ensuing melee, Svetlana calls on Humact by her Ultimate Faith to release Ivan from Blake's grip and service, and to grant Tiberius the choice over his own destiny. Her plea is granted and Ivan's free will is returned to him as the party make the final push towards the cord.

Just as it seems our heroes are doomed to fall under the unstoppable waves of taintbeasts, the cord is finally severed. Time stands still as the cord falls from Blake, and with it his Oni mask. The hordes of taintbeasts, spawned by the Oni that was Blake, wither and fade with its death, and Blake stands before his mother and saviours, no longer corrupted by the Oni but a boy once more. The Narrator, the Teller of Stories, the Keeper of the Book of Blake, closes the book and fades from view.

***

And now Humact is here, Lord once more in this plane, to decide the fates of these wanderers in his realm. He turns first to Dot and Blake, the would-have-been usurper and his mother. Her task here is done, the bargain with her god completed, and they are banished from Humact. Back in Arcadia, Dot decides that Blake's imaginary world is where she truly belongs. The Narrator opens the Book of Blake once more, and Dot places her hand on the page. She vanishes, to live happily ever after in that world of fairy tales and dreams.

Next it is Tiberius' turn. Despite his many failings, Humact decrees that by his actions he has nevertheless earnt his place in Humact's realm. Yet through Svetlana's intercession, Humact places Tiberius' fate in his own hands, to decide where his soul should be destined. He takes that choice and his spirit departs; where it goes none now can say but Tiberius himself.

Svetlana, Champion of Humact, has fulfilled her destiny and is transformed. No longer Humact's mortal champion, she is now his Angel of Redemption, tasked with seeking those who were once loyal to Humact but have fallen by the wayside, and bringing them back to their true path and honour.

And finally, Humact turns to Ivan. Brought here prematurely by his Awakening and Blake's Oni nature, he is sent back to the Prime, for he still has work to do as a newly-awoken Paladin of Humact. His story is not yet over...