Statosfiend campaign begins!

I recently began running a Stratosfiend campaign, something very different from the usual fantasy horror-ish stuff that I've been running for the past five or so years at this point.
Except that maybe it isn't that different after all.

Join us on this play report of the two session long funnel that I ran based off of  Cycle of the Snake-Wolf 2: Return to the Shattered Woods, in which a group of internet cryptid hunters and other supernatural enthusiasts get together to follow rumours they'd heard of a cult up in Shattered Woods that were worshiping an ogre of some kind.

I didn't show the players the cover art, but nobody reads blogposts without pictures 

 The party consists of five players with four lvl.0 PCs each. As such, with such large number of PCs running about the place I as the GM had no hopes of even attempting to learn the names of the characters which is why they are largely omitted here.

The first session refers to four groups of four due to one of the players being unable to attend the first session, but with another player unable to attend the second session the amount of PCs available pre session stayed the same.

Session 1 (funnel)

First session of the funnel ran, I'll drop bit of a report here since I imagine one must love seeing how others play their material.

Four groups of four arrive in their own cars in the sleepy little village around a one lane bridge. After the long drive they decide to drop by the diner before they continue on with the real purpose of their group, finding a cult community in the Shattered Woods and prove the existence of an ogre the cult are claimed to worship.

In the diner a man is getting chewed out on his phone by whoever is on the other end of it as he sheepishly assures that he'll "get it done".
One of the party members manages to eavesdrop on the call, further ending up feeding the interest of the players in this person and their phone.

Plan is hatched to steal the phone, but executed poorly after couple of failed checks. They manage to steal the phone even if it costs the dignity of one of their own.
Number of PCs hurry back to their retired intelligence officer's van to check out the phone, finding it completely devoid of any call history or messages. A small leather flap-badge they nicked along with the phone has no ID inside it either, but does have a strange holographic emblem inside.
Hour of google searches turns not much on the emblem other than a suggestion it might be linked to some conspiracy theory bureau/agency thing.

The group ventures into the Shattered Woods behind the diner, following an easy footpath. Strange echoing knocking from inside some trees is heard.
On first watch after making camp they see trio of green dots moving in the darkness and manage to take a picture with the flash of a polaroid camera, identifying it as some sort of humanoid figure that runs off.

On the day after hike into woods continues. Large mud pit and several hoofprints are found in the middle of the footpath.
Avoiding the mud, they go around and back onto the path where little bit later they find deep gashes low on the sides of trees. Pictures are taken.

Some hours later, more strange knocking echoes from inside trees. It is heard coming from deeper in the woods along the trail a little after.
Group spends an hour ascertaining whether the trees are hollow or if they respond to morse code. Or if the knocking was in morse code. No results.

Continuing along the footpath, it is growing smaller and getting swallowed by the forest until at some point the group has lost their path.
It is late and they are lost, so group decides to set up camp. Setting trail cameras around the campsite, a pair of PCs find a strange mirror hanging from a tree branch and one of them gets mesmerised by it. The other one spots a strange man half standing behind a tree and staring the at two.
The more they look at the man, the more he looks like a woman. The leather coat starts to more look like a hide draped over her. The scraggly hair look more like a mane of black feathers.
Third PC comes running over with the polaroid as rest of the group setting up camp notices what is going on. Three more run over with guns.
She has antlers. She has fur covering the backs of her legs. She is just standing there, arms slack on her sides and staring.
Then she smiles, wide enough to reveal dirty fangs rather than teeth.

They open fire, killing the woman on the spot.

They inspect the body, guns wounds and animal features and all. It is real, and the antlers are real and part of her. Pictures get taken with the polaroid.
The body is buried after spending an hour digging for a shallow grave with nothing but bare hands.

End of session 1 of the funnel.

Session 2 (funnel, cont.)

Play picks up from the night after last session, the group now headed towards a wisp of smoke they saw in the distance.
The trail cams that were set up overnight showed a whole bunch of nothing. Birds flying low past them, twigs falling from trees, and a fox jogging past one of the cameras while making a constant and un-broken eyecontact with the camera. But this was all normal.

The strangeness only picked up again as the party got to the bottom of the hill and began the ascent up the side of another one.
Nobody could quite tell when it had started, but as soon as it was pointed out by one of them it became quite obvious that something was off.
A par of footsteps, belonging to some unseen hiker not part of the group was moving with them. When the group would stop, the sound of footsteps would continue past them. Some attempts were had with a polaroid and phone cameras to see if whoever these steps belonged to would show up in pictures, but to no luck.
The the humming began.

Whatever was walking in front of the group was now humming a slow tune.
Whatever was humming in front of the group was now singing a wordless melody. One that birds all around were joining in on.
It was leaving the group behind as they still stood there unmoving, but the way they could still hear the melody it must have been growing louder and louder as the source of it was distancing itself from them.
The singsong melody became a scream.
The scream became a screech.
Few of the PCs decided to break off running, trying to shout over the cacophony of bird screeches something that the others couldn't really make out.

Then was heard the cracking and shattering of wood.
Something burst out from a nearby pine, embedding sharp splinters in in one of the members of the group, incapacitating them on the spot as something that looked like an animated core of the burst-open tree creaked and popped on top of them.
Quick on the uptake whoever, and armed with both desperation and firearms the group forced the creature to flee before gunning it down as it was attempting to climb up and disappear into the treetops.
Pictures of the creature were taken, and the deceased member of the group was given an unceremonious burial under some twisted branches and patches of torn moss.

From there, they continued towards the heading where the wisp of smoke had been seen.

Reaching the top of yet another hill, in the distance they could see the roofs of buildings among trees.
A little bit closer, at the bottom of a gentle valley, a river snaking it's way through the landscape.
And almost stepped straight down into a 60ft drop down the side of a steep crater embedded into the top of the hill they were currently viewing all of this from.

As one of them cried out to warn the others from simply stumbling into their accidental demises after all they'd been through already, the blood pooled at the bottom of the crated formed into violent ripples.
What followed was more pictures, some amounts of experimenting and finding out that the blood seemed to resonate with human voices in some odd fashion, as well as what can only be described as a full mental breakdown as one of the members of the group took a running jump straight down into the bottom of the crater, braking their feet upon landing and dying from the sheer shock alone.
One of the group members would end up climbing down to fill two canteens with this strange sound-reactive blood and end up drinking one full canteen, describing the taste as thick and somewhat similar to gasoline.

From here the trek through the wilderness continued towards the sightings of potential buildings in the distance.
On the way, members of the group would routinely begin to forget where the were going and having problems focusing on the way ahead. A number of them would instead simply wish to go back.

Clearing the river crossing after only one unfortunate fall-in, they arrived at the edge of a meadow.
On the other side of it there was something unimportant.
More pressingly, by the treeline they were about to leave behind themselves they spotted a number of bodies. Burnt, hiding among the tall grass.
All looking like they had been attempting to crawl away from something.

After a brief inspection of the bodies and the nearby open field, the only thing out of place (aside from the bodies themselves) was the ever so faint sound reminiscent of an idling car. But even that disappeared almost as soon as it was noticed.
No apparent danger was observed, and thus the field was crossed.

About halfway across the field however, the sound of an idling truck became quite apparent once more as the group noticed that which their brains had been trying furiously to ignore.
Shacks of corrugated metal dotting the area.
An old pickup truck idling loudly at the edge of them.
Beyond that, a large barn with it's roof almost entirely caved in and walls covered in cuts from something the size of a bear if not larger.
And finally two age-old houses, almost completely overgrown, watching over the entire "village" from where the hillside began to be swallowed by a forest again.

Around the barn they found a large gathering of people who seemed like they had all just one day been picked from amidst their daily lives to now be here. Hikers, hippies, office drones, farmers, store clerks, and so on.
While a good number of them were sitting around in small groups or knelt down in what looked almost as if in prayer, the closer to the barn one would get the tighter these people would be packed. All the way to the side of the barn, where it was circled by a group that looked almost like some sort of cult members chanting their hymns.

While most of the party stayed behind to inspect the shacks and the pickup truck, few continued over to the barn.
Upon reaching the chanting figures, one from amongst them stepped forwards and welcomed the PCs to the Mercy of Angels and began to explain to them that they have now finally reached the place where they belong after following the call. That their initiation would now begin, as they must first grow accustomed to the presence of the Starchild.
While few PCs actually seemed interested in joining this strange forest commune cult, others tried pushing the man about letting them inside the barn. This unfortunately was met with only more evangelising and getting talked in circles.
As the ones who showed interest in this strange religious group stayed behind to become indoctrinated, the rest of the group reconvened by the pickup truck.

The shacks had contained mismatched sleeping mattresses, blankets, sleeping bags and so forth and seemed to be pretty much only used for sleeping in.
The pickup, conveniently enough, had had it's keys still in ignition. The engine had been making some pretty expensive noises and was currently being given a brief inspection by one of the PCs.
The plan they had eventually arrived was as such, they would take the pickup that had been left here and crash it straight into the barn in order to get a proper look inside. While waiting for said plan to be executed, one of them had managed to record a small interview with some recently initiated members of the cult and learned a little bit more about their workings.

As the sun began to disappear behind the treeline and the congregation around the barn began to disperse, the go-time was here.
The remaining party packed themselves inside and on the back of the pickup.
As the roaring and coughing engine carried them in the slight uphill towards the barn, petal to the metal, everything not nailed or taped down inside the truck was sent flying and clinking around while the vehicle barreled towards the barnhouse.
A few remaining cult members were still left there, presumably saying their prayers. Panicked, they helplessly flailed their arms trying to get the attention of the truck driver who was very aware of them but had elected to ignore their frantic attempts at diverting the pickup from mashing into the bard doors nose first.

Then it happened.
Crashing, creaking and splintering of wood.
A heavy thud as the front of the pickup rammed into something heavier than it's momentum would carry it through.
With another heavy thud something heavy fell down, almost smashing through the windshield of the now-stuck vehicle as the driver tried to frantically coax the dying engine onto reverse.

Behind, they could hear shouts and in the dying sunlight that painted everything orange, a large gathering of people was seen slowly gathering outside the barn.
Flashlights were sweeping the field, and a number of the silhouettes had rakes and pitchforks.
The party decided to bail, but not before snapping one final polaroid of whatever they had rammed the pickup truck into. In the brief glimpse of light that flashed inside the barnhouse, what they saw could only be described as some sort of partially mummified, rotting elephant now leaning heavy against the windshield of the truck.

The mob, as it was still only just forming, was thankfully still far enough that the PCs managed to outrun them. As they ran however, arriving in the treeline at the side of the field, they began to hear the bark of dogs.

What followed was a manhunt through the nightly woods.
The ones who had ran the pickup truck in through the barn doors dispersing all in different directions in hopes of increasing the chances of at least one of them making it back.
The ones who had stayed with the cult now finding themselves forcibly drafted into the manhunt themselves.

While the others ran, one of the PCs who arguably might have re-watched Rambo one times too many decided to fight back.
Armed with an uzi and few spare magazines, he would go on to wage guerilla warfare in the dark woods against the cult and eventually manage to get away after gunning down a total of eight of his hunters.

However not all were so lucky. A number of those fleeing ended up getting caught, eventually torn limb by limb within the dark woods.

Those who survived would eventually return to Washington, and from there presumably to what lives they had. Some trying to forget the events of those three days in the woods. Others riding out their niche internet fame from the pictures and footage captured from the trip.

(Two PCs ended up locked into becoming Clerics of Starry Eyes 3 upon graduating to lvl.1 at the end of the funnel, these were the ones who stayed with the cult.
One PC ended up locked into becoming a half-stratosfiend of some kind upon graduating to lvl.1 at the end of the funnel, due to drinking the strange blood-fuel from the crater.)

 

Afterthoughts

This once more reminds me why I stopped writing session reports for the very first campaign I ever ran, staying brief is something I struggle with so these end up taking way long to write.

The first session was really fun, starting of as very normal and the very very quickly beginning to take a nosedive first towards the comically bizarre as the players hyperfixated on stealing the phone of what was likely some kind of an agent (or just another nutjob like themselves).
From there it steadily moved towards creepy, with the session finishing on an actual combat encounter that got cut short by the presence of firearms much to the advantage of the players. Which I think actually did end up establishing the tone quite nicely.

The second session started much less fortunately with players constantly dropping in and out of being actually present and me or one of the players who was being present having to constantly re-iterate the current circumstances which did end up eating a good chunk of whatever mood was attempting to get established during the happenings of the disembodied footsteps.
Thankfully towards the latter half of the session the players did end up stabilising again and we managed to play through the village mostly without disruptions.

That final escape through the woods scene I actually had no idea how to run, so I resorted to telling the players to instead all secretly bid an amount of luck for each of the PCs taking part in attempting to escape the manhunt, with the lowest bid ending up as the ones getting caught which at least according to player feedback at the end ended up a good enough way to wrap up the funnel.

From here it is on to the meat of the campaign itself, onto the Terror of the Stratosfiend: Cycle of the Snake-Wolf 3: Return to the Shattered Woods 2: The Scales of the Hyper-Visor God or The Final Voyage of The Crab King!
The conspiracy die begins at d8 due to all that went down during the funnel, and I am sure shenanigans will follow.