Just in case last week's session wasn't campy enough. Basic pitch: "It's like Twilight, only with sea monsters instead of vampires." Undersea kingdoms, environmental legislation, forbidden love and baby seal murder in the Puget Sound.

The Beloved: B Flat (Mark), a sentient orca. He doesn't have a human form, which made some of the scenes... challenging.
Attributes: Well-spoken, dangerous, (emotionally) unavailable, ethereally beautiful, wealthy, fast swimmer
Opportunity: newly wealthy and famous due to an inheritance
Obstacle: sudden notoriety and fame
Dream: Found the world's biggest pearl farm

Suitor 1: Belinda Vine (Kayla), a stock-market genius retired young.
Cold but sensitive
Human but magic-touched
Affluent but profligate

Person (and place): Her sentient houseboat
Thing: antique whaling harpoon
Conflict: painful empathic sense, which has driven her into seclusion

Suitor 2: Ondine, Marquesa of the Deep Squid (Sam), a sort of half-squid with a fully human form; nobility from the benthic abyss. Olive Driscott to the human world.
Fawning but kicks down
Swift but clumsy
Impoverished but lucky

Person: Mavorneen the Sea Witch (gosh, did we overuse her)
Place: Sea Cave
Thing: Whale Rib
Conflict: Half-Human Angst

The Prize: Engagement

This was a totally weird session, because almost from the outset it became clear that Belinda and B Flat were the ones with the touching love story; Ondine drifted rather quickly into the scheming-antagonist role, and B Flat became a sort of dreamily naive Nice Boy. This worked totally fine (and Kayla conveniently won a lot of rolls), but it's not how I expected StM to play out.

With whalesong being the only way B Flat could speak, it became pretty inevitable that we started thinking of this as a musical. It is a great mercy that none of us broke into song.

Standout moments:
B Flat breaches over Belinda's houseboat, trailed by sheets of water that sparkle in the sunlight

Belinda and B Flat plan to prepare each other a romantic fish dinner! But B Flat is distracted by the romance vibes and gets beached instead and it is BELINDA'S FAULT. (This was the most satisfying Opponent moment ever, even if I lost the roll.)

Unable to work out exactly how to even start thinking about physical intimacy with a six-ton cetacean, Belinda swan-dives from her boat and face-plants on B Flat's back, knocking herself unconscious. Rescue is required.

Ondine gets B Flat to stage a bloody seal hunt near the houseboat, driving Belinda half-mad with the empathic horror: but she can't resist being on the houseboat to crow about it, and Belinda socks her with the hook end of a harpoon. Ondine collapses squishily.

End of Act 2 musical montage, with everybody confused and conflicted and hurting. Also, Belinda mope montage, back when she was merely mopey rather than clinically insane.

Also, I can't believe that I introduced a crew of corrupt fish-quota pirates into the story and it never went horribly wrong. In other news, this rocket-propelled grenade launcher makes my mantelpiece look awesome.