Caesar's Masks: A New Generation Game - A Superheroic Chronicle

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Caesar Slaad

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So, I had repeated interest in Masks as a game here, in addition to being really happy with the way it is shaping up, I am inspired to share my campaign notes.

The game is set in Halcyon City, the fictional Metropolis style city rife with superheroics, and the default setting for the game.

A few notes:
1) My game notes are mostly bullet points kept by me to capture the highlights and key plot points. I won't be restructuring this into a novella or anything like that.
2) This game is a reboot of a faltered game. I had some people flake out after the fist try. The remaining players made new characters and we played it again with some new players the next month. Though it was essentially a new game, I did collect a lot of ideas generated in the first go-round and decided to keep most of the material, including many NPCs I made for that game. As time went on, I eventually decided that this was an alternate reality from the original games. (Indeed, one of the new PCs is actually an alternate reality version of an old PC, though he doesn't know it.)
3) Though most of this material is original, I use some villains from the Masks game products (like Rosa Rook and Nano), and I use some material for Green Ronin's Freedom Universe and Jacob Blackmon's Super Powered Legends book.
 
Dramatis Personae and Background

The teen heroes (starting)

Yayael - The Transformed. A mysterious native American teen with a shifting reptile-like body and a connection to the "spirit plane"
Flashing Will/Emma Will - The Janus. A young woman with great strength and agility, and the ability to detect and absorb energy.
Ex113 "Excel" - The Bull. An orphaned boy with a mysterious past. Very strong, very good at fighting. Lived at Himura's boarding school for talented youth, before it was destroyed.
Evan Horizon - The Nova. A young man with gravity control powers who accidentally made his mother disappear.

Later we meet:
Night Gaunt
- The Beacon
Hex - The Delinquent

When the team first came together

The team's first mission (when they came together) was to defeat a cadre of assassin robots sent to take out Satoshi Himura, rich industrialist and chief benefactor of the school that Ex113 attended. Himura was saved, but unfortunately, the fight got a little out of hand and the school was effectively destroyed. A politician and industrialist named Alexander Murray used this incident to stoke fear over young supers.

Next: The first adventure!
 
Session 1 Summary (1/20/18):

PlayerCharacterPlaybook
DennisYayaelTransformed
DavidEx113Bull
ChrisEvan HorizonNova
StefanieFlashing WillJanus

  • There is an ad campaign raising fear at the presence of supers; small annotations point to Alexander Murray.
  • The heroes all get invitations to an “informational session” at Rook Academy, a new exclusive school pitched with the intent of teaching “young powered supers” responsibility over their power.
  • Satoshi Himura, Ex113’s benefactor, sneers at the notion of Rook Industries being trusted with such an important responsibility.
  • Emma Will gets an invitation, despite her powers not being public. She finds out that this is due to her friend, Elizabeth Star, putting down Emma’s name on a “do you know anyone else who would be interested?” blank on an application form for Rook Academy.
  • The heroes arrive on a bus taking them to the event. Tables are catered, kids take advantage of this.
  • The site of the academy is next to the exclusion zone. The heroes can see the Rook Guardian[TM] robots lining the fence surrounding the exclusion zone.
  • The heroes go on a tour of the academy. They hear screams coming from the tent area.
  • On investigating, the heroes discover the Rook Guardians are advancing on the students. They defend them, but Flashing Will gets nabbed and pulled into an underground tunnel. Yayael chases down the robot in the tunnel, while Ex113 and Evan Horizon deal with the remaining robots grabbing students.
  • The robot emerges in a small outbuilding in the exclusion zone, to see a team of scientists led by Professor Proteus waiting to put captured students in tubes. A girl with a control collar seems to be factor controlling the Rook robots.
  • Ex113 and Evan arrive. Ex113, Yayael, and Flashing take down the scientists and free the girl.
  • Evan uses his portal ability to catch up with Professor Proteus fleeing on a hover-bike, only to have Proteus use a fusillade of dart-missiles to knock Evan out (setting us up for next time).
 
Nice writeups. Are all heroes in the team PCs, or do you insert some NPCs too?

Also, did you use formal Arcs as advised in the book? (I understand the very Rook Academy constitutes an Arc, and probably the Ad Campaign against metahumans too? If so, would you mind disclosing their countdown clocks ?)

Also, how often do you challenge the characters identities and stuff? Did you use the idea of Hooks from the book? Loved this idea myself, forming PC-NPCs triangles that push their labels in opposibg directions.

How often those Influence moves trigger? Do they feel natural when they do, or do they feel clunky?

Any Moment of Truth triggered yet?

(Sorry for the bombardment of questions, I'm pretty excited as you can see hehe)
 
The four you see listed at the top are PCs. Later they do team up with some NPCs. One thing that's nice about Masks is that the PCs easily build relationships.

I find arcs a little hard to use as written, but lean on them lightly. Sometimes my ideas don't neatly fit into the categories they give you, but the Rook Academy thing is the beginning of a Corruption arc.

I use hooks every session. I've sort of subsumed the hook idea into my "6 point NPC" technique, which I may talk about later.

By "influence moves" i assume you mean shifting labels? It happens all the time, perhaps an average of 1-2 times per PC per session. It's pretty natural.

13 sessions in, Night Gaunt and Emma Will have both used a Moment of Truth. Both were big impacts to the setting, and I'm loving the mechanic.
 
Last edited:
That's cool. Thanks for the info.

find arcs a little hard to use as written, but lean on them lightly. Sometimes my ideas don't neatly fit into the categories they give you, but the Rook Academy thing is the beginning of a Corruption arc.
The Arcs seem adapted from the countdown clocks in AW where you track threats plans or other developments running in the backgrounds and if the players don't interact with them, shit happens. In that vein, the different sub-types presented probably serve more to inspire than to be a rigid classification.

use hooks every session. I've sort of subsumed the hook idea into my "6 point NPC" technique, which I may talk about later.
Please do if you can.

By "influence moves" i assume you mean shifting labels? It happens all the time, perhaps an average of 1-2 times per PC per session. It's pretty natural
Yep that's it.

Another question:

Are situational modifiers a thing? I dont remember seeing it in the book. PbtA vary wildly in this, some hacks suggesting using them sparingly, others not using them at all, etc. Usually the ones that do not use them do as you said before in your "5 power levels" ruling (which I loved BTW) - if the players are not in condition to affect something in the fiction, the GM simply vetoes the roll and ask them to try something else until they do.
 
There are no situational modifiers. It uses narrative positioning as do most PbtA RPGs.
 
Please do if you can.


Another question:

Are situational modifiers a thing? I dont remember seeing it in the book. PbtA vary wildly in this, some hacks suggesting using them sparingly, others not using them at all, etc. Usually the ones that do not use them do as you said before in your "5 power levels" ruling (which I loved BTW) - if the players are not in condition to affect something in the fiction, the GM simply vetoes the roll and ask them to try something else until they do.

6 point NPCs: Masks is very much a "play to find out what happens" system, but I do like having all my decks loaded, so to speak. When I prep for a session, I type a 1-3 page list of possible events and NPCs to encounter.

To help make sure that the session fits the larger narrative, when I am deciding which NPCs might feature in a session, I use a "6 point list". Basically, I start with the NPCs I already know might feature in the game, and make a matrix describing which of the 6 following roles they can fill:
1 - New
2 - Recurring
3 - Rook Academy student/former student
4 - City figure
5 - Backstory figure (from PC backstory)
6 - Hook (can serve as a hook per Masks rules)

Then if I see any are missing (including recurring that aren't rook students or backstory figures, who are pretty much always recurring), I circle back and consider what NPCs I can introduce that might fill the missing roles. That way I at least have a crib sheet ready for me to run the session with.

Masks being what it is, I don't always use all the planned NPCs. I usually just save any stragglers for the next session.

Of course if my campaign is different, this list would look different. An Agents of AEGIS campaign might replace Rook Academy students with AEGIS agents. An X-men style campaign might put in mutants or Xavier's students.

Situational modifiers: Not in the D&D sense. You don't usually say things like "it's windy, so the beacon gets -1 to engage or unleash with the bow". There are conditions, of course. And you can do stuff like have the Elemental Control prodigy use his powers to boost the Beacon's attack by spending a team pool. But that's more narrative than sim.

If something seems narratively important to you, you can make it important in play. The main way the system proscribes to do this is the Custom Moves. Many custom moves give +1 or -1 forward or ongoing depending on the outcome of the move.
 
6 point NPCs: Masks is very much a "play to find out what happens" system, but I do like having all my decks loaded, so to speak. When I prep for a session, I type a 1-3 page list of possible events and NPCs to encounter.

To help make sure that the session fits the larger narrative, when I am deciding which NPCs might feature in a session, I use a "6 point list". Basically, I start with the NPCs I already know might feature in the game, and make a matrix describing which of the 6 following roles they can fill:
1 - New
2 - Recurring
3 - Rook Academy student/former student
4 - City figure
5 - Backstory figure (from PC backstory)
6 - Hook (can serve as a hook per Masks rules)

Then if I see any are missing (including recurring that aren't rook students or backstory figures, who are pretty much always recurring), I circle back and consider what NPCs I can introduce that might fill the missing roles. That way I at least have a crib sheet ready for me to run the session with.

Masks being what it is, I don't always use all the planned NPCs. I usually just save any stragglers for the next session.

Of course if my campaign is different, this list would look different. An Agents of AEGIS campaign might replace Rook Academy students with AEGIS agents. An X-men style campaign might put in mutants or Xavier's students.
Thanks for describing this method. I'm noting it down. I'm usually fine just by following through players responses 'n stuff in the "first session" and then developing threats from there (and improvising the rest), but your method seems good for when the group is on a dry. And I don't think it violates the "play to find out" agenda at all, as you're not writing plots in advance, just coming up with potential stuff to show up that makes sense to be there anyway.

I can't wait to start playing it, man.
 
BTW, I plan on uploading a new session description every Monday.
 
Session 2 Summary (4/14/18):

PlayerCharacterPlaybook
DennisYayaelTransformed
DavidEx113Bull
ChrisEvan HorizonNova
StefanieFlashing WillJanus
BlakeNight Gaunt (new)Beacon
  • Night Gaunt is a new team member. He saw their heroics in the face of the robot attack, and approaches them when gathering afterwords. (Unbeknownst to the team, Night Gaunt faked his way into the school, forging his invitation.)
  • Alexander Murray comes on the news blasting the young heroes for breaking the law and causing mayhem; Rook Academy offers to take them in and teach them responsibility.
  • Meanwhile, Evan Horizon finds himself in a lab, drugged. (See the love letter below). A girl tried to help Evan, but got stopped. He finds himself on a bench across from a pub, where he sees Alexander Murray’s news conference. He also finds the girl’s access badge. The badge indicates she was a volunteer helper (“candy striper”) at a nursing home attached to an old hospital. The badge says her name is Cynthia Gerry (this is a fake name…)
  • Evan takes a bus to the Rook Academy and tells the rest of the team what happened, and shows them the badge. Night Gaunt steals a suburban belonging to Shadowblade, a stealth-based instructor at Rook Academy.
  • At the Nursing home, they bluff their way in. They present the badge and the receptionist calls over the loudspeaker. She gets a call back to a room that is in a construction zone. They make their way past, and find a construction zone and a stairway down.
  • They find a secret lab in the basement and face a pair of inhuman looking men-in-black wielding bulbous onion-like guns. They dispatch the creatures. Night Gaunt takes one of the guns. As the creatures are dispatched, they make screeching noises. They heroes hear echoes in the distance. With her super-senses, Flashing Will determines that the sounds aren’t really echoes of the screeches, but complicated and distinct responses in an alien language.
  • They find a route into an ancient hospital. Yayael spots the girl (Jenna, alias Cynthia Gerry) in distended form, who warns him they are walking into a trap before slithering away.
  • They proceed, a brutish alien-looking man slams the door behind them and grows to distended proportions. More of the screeching creatures are in the distance, and the lights go off.
  • Ex113 and Yayael take the brute down, but not before Yayael loses control to his snake-spirit and attacks Ex113. The thrashing around dangerously damages to the support beams.
  • Night Gaunt notices Professor Proteus slipping off, guarded by some Gila-men. He dispatches the guards and causes Proteus’ vehicle to crash.
  • Evan convinces Night Gaunt to turn Professor Proteus over to the police, but he is sprung hours later by some men-in-black type government agents.
  • (Asked to monitor Rook Academy by Himura)
  • (Invited to a Rook new student party by Pixel)
    • Flashing Will met Chimera (F), a shapeshifter who combines different animals. Emma also broke a Rook Academy sports trophy (to clear her anger).
    • Yayael hung out with Joey Talltree (tribal member with plant control powers), who shared some peyote with him. Talltree gained influence over Yayael.
    • Evan Horizon met the very hot Samantha Sears AKA Corona’s Light, and relaxed a bit (cleared a condition)
    • Ex113 met Tiffany Belz, a new student with Psychic Powers who was on a bus he smashed. She initially pissed him off, but she regretted it later (he gained influence).
    • Night Gaunt hung out with Pixel (M techempath) in the DJ booth (gained influence) and didn’t get in trouble with the faculty.
    • The students heard the clamor about the Superior Six Standoff, which is looking at recruiting members to a “junior team” sponsored by Rook.
  • The heroes participate in the Superior Six Standoff:
    • Night Gaunt failed because he was relying on stealth and his opponent had superhuman senses and his martial arts weren’t up to the task.
    • Yayael did not make the team, and learned with his pit viper senses that at least some of the competitors were not human. (Learn disturbing secret about Rook Academy.)
    • Flashing Will made the team! She faced off against Edmund Flare (blast powers, took influence) and heard rumors that Flare’s mentor (who is on the Superior Six) was involved in the assault on the lab in the exclusion zone (not public knowledge).
    • Evan Horizon faced off against Samantha Sears, and took influence over her when he saved an observing relative of hers from a stray solar energy bolt.
    • Ex113 actually bested his opponent in the competition, but pissed off a judge, who marked him down (possibility: there was some secret, sinister reason the judge did this.)
 
Custom Moves used, session 2:


From Masks G+ group:
When You Attend a Rowdy Student Party...
...tell me who you met and what stood out about them. Then roll with +Superior. On 10+ pick two, on 7-9 pick one:

* you gain Influence over the person you met
* you clear a Condition
* you didn't get in trouble with the faculty

On a miss, the person you met shifts your Labels (GM's choice) and gains Influence over you.


When you compete in the Superior Six Standoff:
Roll + Your weakest Label (choose on a tie).
On a hit, the ordeals of the competition taught you something. Shift the used label up and one other label down (your choice).
On a 10+, you are on the team, and choose both.
On a 7-9, choose one:
  • Learn a disturbing truth about Rook Academy or about the Superior Six (player choice).
  • Describe one of the competitors you faced during the competition who you came to an accord with. Take influence over them.

On a miss, describe how your weak label cost you the competition, and what you learned from it. The GM shifts the used label up and one other label down.
Disturbing Truths:

Inputs from Dave Hill on the Masks G+ community:

  • One or more of the Rook Academy competitors were {robots|clones|aliens} ... at least they were at this competition.
  • One or more of the Rook Academy competitors were taking some sort of meta-performance enhancing drug.
  • The Superior Six were involved in [controversial international event], though this has been not only hushed up, but an alibi established.
  • A previously well-known member of [either team] is no longer around, and nobody seems to know (or want to say) what became of them. [It's best if you you have an idea of what happened to them, but that can be kicked down the road if need be.]
  • The origin story of one or more members of [either team] is fake (the name isn't in the records, the ID is phony, that hospital never existed, etc.).
The question of who else actually knows this disturbing truth (is Rook involved in the cover-up? Do other authorities know about it?) can be an investigation for another day.

The Superior Six final bracket (top two get in):

1​
Night Gaunt
2​
Arctic WolfArctic Wolf
3​
Yayael
4​
FirestarYayaelArctic Wolf
5​
Flashing Will
6​
HaloFlashing Will
7​
Edmund Flare
8​
Tiffany BelzEdmund FlareFlashing WillFlashing Will
9​
Evan Horizon
10​
Corona's LightEvan Horizon
11​
Fusillad
12​
Blue BoltFusilladFusilladFusillad
13​
Ex113
14​
GhostwalkerEx113
15​
Chimera
16​
TalltreeChimeraEx113
Bots/Ringers – Arctic Wolf (super senses, strength, agility, cold), Blue bolt (superspeed)


Love letter for Evan Horizon

Dear Evan Horizon
(No, this is not Halcyon City’s hit new musical.)
(I suspect either you don't get that joke, or I've stumbled upon the inspiration for your character's name.)

Last time we met, you were ambushed by the dastardly Professor Proteus, who knocked you out with a Fusillade of missile darts.

Now you are in a secret lab, at best at the edge of consciousness. Occasionally, a big man and a tall, wiry man — Professor Proteus? — enter the room, and you hear conversation with the phrases like "can't risk it" and "not our primary objective".

Sometime later, someone new — a young girl, perhaps no older than you — enters the room, only to be loudly interrogated and chased out by the big dude.

But then you begin to come to consciousness. You look up to see that a bobby pin has been clipped to your IV line, restricting the flow of the drug, giving you a chance for escape.

Let's see what happens. Roll + superior:

On a miss, the guard notices you moving more than you should, removes the bobby pin, and you slip back into unconsciousness. You awaken on a bench at a bus station, an unclean looking man shaking your shoulder saying “you okay, son?” The only sign that you were anywhere unusual is a welt or scar on your arm. That’s where a dart hit, right? That must be it. Mark insecure.

On a 7-9, you were sharp enough to stay unnoticed until you were alert enough to collect some information about your surroundings. Choose one:
  • You get a clue to the girl’s identity or whereabouts.
  • You remember a clue to the location of the lab.
After that, however, the ruse is discovered and they put you back to sleep and you wake up on the bench as above (but you don’t have a scar and don’t mark insecure.)

On a 10+, the ruse goes unnoticed, at least temporarily. You are able to get a clue to your team members where you are, and can use your powers, though you are still a bit groggy (-1 ongoing for the rest of the ensuing fight.)

Best of luck,
Your GM
(He rolled 7-9 and woke with the badge of Jenna’s assumed identity.)
 
Session 3 Summary (5/12/18):

PlayerCharacterPlaybook
DennisYayaelTransformed
DavidEx113 (“Excel”)Bull
ChrisEvan HorizonNova
StefanieFlashing WillJanus

Character note: the Superior Six:


The Superior Six are Rook Industries' marquee super-team, distrusted by the older super teams in the city. In addition to Flashing Will (PC) and Fussilad (NPC Rook academy student), the superior six are Opal, Hardware, Cryptic, and Mentallica. See Emma's custom move (next post) for details on these characters.

Fulcrum is a villain that wears odd bulbous power armor and claims he is the "source of all powers" and has the ability to control powers of other superhuman beings.

Events:
  • Flashing Will Patrols with the Superior Six (see custom move/love letter). She learns the Opal is taking cues from Hardware (Hardware secretly controls Opal through his armor.) Opal lost influence over Flashing Will (not that it matters).
  • The rest of the team Attends Class at the Rook Academy (see custom move/love broadcast).
  • Yayael shared struggles in Bastion’s class with Pixel. He gained influence over Pixel, and he learned that despite his friendly old professor demeanor, Bastion is really loyal to the Rook cause.
  • Bastion lost influence on Yayael.
  • Yayael gained influence on Pixel.
  • Evan Horizon attended Shadowblade’s class.
  • He learned that behind Shadowblade’s prickly exterior, he is secretly investigating Rook Academy.
  • He ingratiated himself to Shadowblade and gained influence over him.
  • Ex113 attended Bastion’s class. He also learned that Bastion is secretly a Rook loyalist and Bastion lost influence over Ex113.
  • The Rook Academy students go to a combat simulation facility with a retired bank, mannequins, and robot drones. The heroes (minus Emma) and Talltree are beating the simulation and are being critiqued by Shadowblade when his feed drops.
  • They look outside to see that Fulcrum has arrived and knocked out Shadowblade, and is using Tiffany’s Belz’s powers to throw up a psychic barrier around the bank.
  • While the team is completing a simulation, Fulcrum shows up, bragging that he is the source of all supers powers and he can control all powers (a bluff – he can control powers, but this was through stolen Rook tech.) He takes control of Tiffany Belz and uses her to erect a force field around the bank.
  • Superior Six arrives on the scene, and Opal slams Fulcrum into the ground. But Fulcrum takes control of Opal, and uses his invisible power containment pod to “capture” Pixel (Emma sees him disappear). Using Pixel’s power, he nullifies Hardware’s armor capabilities and takes control of Opal.
  • Fulcrum arrogantly claims he is the “source of all superhuman powers.”
  • Ex113 attacks Opal, Opal weathers his blows easily (only Evan’s attacks can hurt Opal.)
  • The group manages to fend off Opal and discover Fulcrum’s controls.
  • They destroy Fulcrum’s control. Instead of merely freeing Opal, Opal goes berserk and starts laying waste to the city.
  • The group saves the citizens in a section of the skyscraper Opal tore off.
  • Talking with the hobbled Hardware, he says his system “programmed” Opal, but somehow Fulcrum could do the same thing with his controls.
  • Evan flashes back to a Rook Academy course talking about alien intelligences and determines that he can speak to it by modulating energy. He finds out that the alien entity that is really Opal isn’t lashing out per se, it just doesn’t understand.
  • The team destroys Hardware’s control module, but this causes Opal to go berserk.
  • Evan learns that Opal in a cosmic intelligence that the super being Opal is a façade. He decides to help him return to the cosmos, risking flak from destroying Halycon City’s mightiest hero (though secretly under Rook’s thumb).
  • However, after AEGIS arrives and takes control over the situation, Rook soon asserts that Fulcrum’s armor is their stolen tech. They reclaim the tech, which is more than likely to show up and cause problems for the heroes in the future.
  • Aside, Emma befriended Mentallica and helped her get some distance from the image that has been crafted for her (went shopping, got some nice clothes.)
 
Custom Moves Used, Session 3:

Move for Emma Will, Patrolling with the Superior Six (Love Letter format)

Emma,

While your companions are schooling at the Rook academy, you get to do some patrols with the Superior Six. It turns out that the team actually has more than Six members, but while some of the permanent members are on hiatus, you get to hobnob with four key members of the established team, plus yourself and the other winner of the Superior Six Standoff. The other members of the team are:
  • The Living Opal (or just “Opal”) – A huge super who looks like a statue made of translucent white gemstone with a glow coming from within. He is an extremely powerful being, but very soft spoken and affable.
  • Hardware – a slender man with unkempt hair and atrophied limbs. He appears to be disabled, but he uses a powered armor-like apparatus to go beyond just a normal level of capability. He is a super-competent technologist and hacker.
  • Cryptic – A man dressed like a ninja with a strange metallic visor and a bandolier of exotic looking devices. He almost never speaks in non-tactical situations and relies on his stealth abilities and gadgets.
  • Mentallica – A young hero with a rocker-girl motif. She has telekinetic and psychic powers, though is most proficient at using them offensively. She spends most of her time with headphones in, listening to music that is always loud enough for bystanders to hear.
  • Fussilad – The other winner of the Superior Six Standoff. He’s a jock-type with cybernetic arms and exoskeleton, with many ports from which he can discharge his various weapons. He’s a member of the Rook Academy and seems disdainful of Flashing Will.

So what happens on these training patrols? Roll + Superior.
On a 7-9, choose one. On a 10+, choose both:
  • Learn a secret about Hardware, Opal, or Cryptic (choose). They lose influence over you.
  • During a tense conflict, you learn more about Mentallica or Fussilad (choose). You gain influence over them.

On a miss, you goof up while on a mission and earn the scorn of your teammates (describe how). Mark Insecure (or any other condition if it is already marked) and shift Danger up and Superior down. In addition, your mundane life obligations rear their ugly head, as described in your playbook.


Move for Schooling at the Rook Academy

At the Rook Academy, you are publicly trying to learn, but secretly keeping an eye on the practices of Rook Academy. How does this go?

There are many instructors at Rook Academy, but a few stand out. When attending class at Rook Academy, choose one instructor that was particularly influential to you:
  • Shadowblade – An African-American man who appears to only have a black wardrobe, with the ability to conjure weapons out of shadow. Always very serious and dour. Sort of scary.
  • Bastion – He looks like a stereotypical eccentric science professor with frizzy gray hair except for the chrome boxes protruding from his balding scalp. Has a genius level intellect and psychic powers.

If you chose Shadowblade, roll + Superior.
If you chose Bastion, roll + Freak.

On a hit, hold one flashback.
On a 7-9 choose one. On a 10+, choose two:
  • Gain insight or learn a secret about your instructor. They lose influence over you.
  • You ingratiate yourself to your instructor. You gain influence over them.
  • You and another Rook student (choose one or create a new one) form an accord to get by in the class; describe how. You gain influence over them. If you already have influence over them, describe how your experience affected you; shift the chosen label up and any other label down.

Spend one flashback to learn an important fact you learned during class that can help you during the current situation. The GM may reveal a fact pertinent to the fiction, or treat as if the hero rolled a hit while assessing the situation.

On a miss, you cross your new instructor in a bad way; describe how. Mark a condition, and the GM will shift your labels.
 
So, does anyone read these? Here's another one in the can.

Session 4 Summary (6/9/18):

PlayerCharacterPlaybook
DennisYayaelTransformed
ChrisEvan HorizonNova
StefanieFlashing WillJanus
BlakeNight GauntBeacon


  • Night Gaunt did the previous Schooling at the Rook Academy move.
  • The students at the rook academy take Shadowblade’s killer test. Most of the class fails (and the students are complaining loudly}. Evan Horizon notices that the grading of the tests is strange, as if the weighting and the grading were done so that only the heroes pass.
  • Night Gaunt notices the light from his laptop is on, the lid open, in the empty classroom. He goes in and sees a video file on the laptop ready to play. He clicks it, and the video is a capture of the group stealing Shadowblade’s SUV. Shadowblade appears behind him and asks Night Gaunt if Shadowblade can rely on him in an upcoming event on the Rook Technology campus.
  • Emma Will learns that the Superior Six are needed for on-site presence at an upcoming Southeast Asian security technology conference being hosted at Rook. Southeast Asia (except Japan) lack super powered heroes compared to Halcyon City, so need the sort of technical solutions that Rook (and other guest vendors) are providing.
  • Emma and the Rook students learn that a special intern group will be sent in to supplement the Superior Six in holding the fort at the conference. But since Shadowblade’s grading put most of the class on academic probation, the heroes are the eligible students.
  • Emma has a track event at the same time as the conference. She tries to train up a replacement, but it doesn’t work. She is going to try to game taking care of both the track meet and the conference.
  • Introduced two new NPCs: Mrs. Rollings (track coach), Anna Jefferson (student captain)
  • At Rook Academy, Yayael notices Talltree being bullied by Halo and friends. Yayael temporarily deposits Halo on spirit realm.
  • The conference is at a rook conference center. Participants include:
  • China
  • Enaza islands (W of Taiwan, S of Japan, expy of Gamorra Island from The Authority).
  • Cambodia (Has super powered queen a la Bialya in Young Justice)
  • Taiwan
  • Vietnam
  • Myanmar (has super-agents on site)
  • North Korea (has Red Star, a nuclear-powered superman, on-site in a containment vessel).
  • South Korea
  • Japan (has less need than other nations. Three of their supers are on-site, Hyper Kawaii-3; see the RGG Super Powered Legends sourcebook).
  • Night Gaunt notices the Myanmar delegation has a van monitoring the Rook LRA (low-risk analysis) building, and notices a group entering the building disguised to resemble a group that just entered.
  • Night Gaunt pursues the agents into the LRA building. One notices him. He engages the one while the rest proceed into the building.
  • The alarm being raised, Yayael and Evan Horizon join Night Gaunt in the LRA building. Emma Will was delayed at her track meet, but peels away at the last minute of the race, doing her best to avoid suspicion.
  • The agents panic and attach rune covered tech devices to a skeleton in the vault of the LRA building. Evan Horizon made wormholes to pull the devices away from the bones, but they are still tethered to purple filaments of light. He uses the last wormhole to move out of the building, but this summons the boar-headed cyber-demon.
  • The Cyber-Demon starts pulling tech devices to its body. Flashing Will arrives on the scene and attacks, trying to weaken the demon with her energy absorption power. He sees her coming and slams her into the approaching Hyper-Red and Blue. They go flying into the collapsing LRA building. In doing so, she sapped the Hyper-ladies’ powers.
  • Evan puts up a barrier to contain the cyber-demon while Yayael and Flashing Will extricate Hyper Red and Hyper Blue from the building.
  • Flashing Will tries to return Hyper-Blue’s power and fails. They try again with both Red and Blue present, and that also fails. It appears that they need all three girls to reverse the process.
  • Night Gaunt interrogates the remaining super-agent to try to find a weakness for the cyber demon. They say some metal is the key to defeating the cyber-demon, but he’s not sure which. They need an expert. Night Gaunt searches using the agents cyber-gauntlet and finds there is a hidden agent in the Japanese delegation, Brock, an arcanotech tinkerer.
  • They find Brock and he says that something transuranic is needed to defeat the cyber-demon. The North Korean superman Red Star is the key to defeating the cyber-demon.
  • They open Red Star’s chamber. Yayael tries to use his earth control power to extract and shape the radioactive metal (Americium), but its unnatural nature repels his effort. Evan comes to take care of this task while Mentallica engages the cyber-demon.
  • Evan shapes the metal into a spear. Night Gaunt throws the spear, which hits the demon. All the weapons and devices it grafted to itself start sloughing off. Flashing Will manages to return the Hyper Kawaii-3’s powers to them, and they are able to engage with and take down the Cyber-Demon.
 
Session 5 Summary (8/4/18):

PlayerCharacterPlaybook
DennisYayaelTransformed
ChrisEvan HorizonNova
BlakeNight GauntBeacon
  • Arthur Murray puts in his bid to run for mayor of Halcyon City, kicking off with an ad campaign that stokes supers’ fears. Rosa Rook rebuts this publicly, saying that Rook Academy and its new Enhanced Training Center will give young supers the training they need to use their abilities responsibly. Pixel is visibly agitated by Murray’s ad campaign.
  • Rook Academy announces that to make up for the loss of Opal in the Superior Six, Student Action Teams will be put in place to help defend Halcyon City. Student Action Teams are led by a professor and labeled by the label the professor embodies (F: Bastion/Freak, D: Blackbird/Danger, U: Shadowblade/Superior).
  • The heroes, part of Action Team U begin a training simulation (in media res, not being advertised in the comic as a sim). Hex was supposed to be on their team, but he is missing (like he does). Also, their instructor is missing (forecasting the absence of Shadowblade). Flying transforming robot-planes drop cylindrical transforming robots. They fight the robots but draw attention from the plane, which fires missiles at them. They deflect the missiles by endanger a nearby ammo depot. Bastion interrupts the simulation and counsels them on how to proceed.
  • Then the group rolled on the advanced neural training task (see below). All three ended up with a technique. Night Gaunt got a technique and a programming.
  • Shadowblade disappears; Night Gaunt investigates
  • Pixel also goes missing.
  • Evan Horizon drinks in Ex113’s dorm room and discovers mysterious note from Tiffany Belz about "having the information he needed".
  • The Team investigates the neural training facility, fight Halo. Yayael teleports them away.
  • Research leads them to an unmarked building in downtown Halcyon. Action team F, led by Mentallica, with Ghostlight and Edmund Flare, confront them. Mentallica sympathizes and helps them get past guard robots.
  • The enter inner vault which has pods and Fulcrum/Taskmaster hardware.
  • They confront Bastion, who is using the equipment to manipulate an imprisoned Shadowblade’s power to open a gate to an entropic dimension. They free Pixel.
  • Yayael attacks Bastion and breaks his arm, charging through a gate. They both end up on an asteroid, with armored women approaching. Night Gaunt goes to grab Yayael.
  • Yayael flees and Evan starts to close the gate. But two of the armored women use their powered pole-arms to force the gate back open. But he notices the third woman is his mother, who intervenes, and the gate closes.
  • AEGIS arrives, laying bare the fact that Rook has captured and were reusing the Taskmaster tech. Rook deflects blame to Bastion, but the Rook Academy is at least temporarily shut down.
  • Though Rook Academy and Rook’s Taskmaster tech is shutdown, the news gives Arthur Murray a big boost in the polls.
Lingering Questions and Issues:
(Normally I trim this stuff off, but it's fun if you view it as a "narrator's questions/teases" sort of thing.)
  • Rook Academy at least temporarily closed down as AEGIS investigates. What will become of that investigation? Is Rook Academy gone for good? What will happen in the meantime? Will the players return to Rook Academy if/when it re-opens?
  • Is this the moment that Himura’s school re-opens? What is it called?
  • Where was Ex113 going to? How were Tiffany Belz and Hex involved?
  • What becomes of Blackbird? Is she destined to become an assassin in black for Rook? Will Kestrel come looking for her? Is she the one who installs the seeds of doubt about Himura.
  • How is Emma’s relationship with Rook changed? Does she have an opportunity to stand up against them? Will the Superior Six be reformed?
  • What’s up with Evan’s mother? How does the fact that she is alive impact him?
  • What will become of Bastion now that he is in the clutches of the Terminus?
  • What does AEGIS investigation of the Rook affair look like? Will they tip AEGIS’s hand? Will they be successful in deflecting blame to Bastion (since he is conveniently not available for questioning)?
  • Is this whole thing about Arthur Murray’s criticism just for show? Is he secretly in league with Rook? After the election, will he say something like he “got Rook to make reparations” and is willing to give them an important contract? (Or, is the contract winner really a secret branch of rook)?

When you Undergo Rook Academy’s Advanced Neural Training:

Roll + Superior and hold one Programming

On a 7-9 choose 2. On a 10+, choose 3.
  • You hold back and don’t let the neural programming take hold. Remove the Programming hold.
  • You learn valuable power techniques. Hold one technique. You may select this option twice.
  • You gain insight to how the neural programming works and can help others program it. When performing a comfort or support move, you gain this additional option:
    • Remove one Programming hold the target has.

The GM may expend one character’s Programming hold to temporarily take control of that character.

A player may expend one Technique hold to do either of the following:
  • When using the Unleash your Powers move, treat it as if the base roll is 9 (add Freak normally)
  • Use one adult move other than Persuade with Best Interests.
 
Session 6 Summary (10/13/18)

In this issue, the team starts to regret getting close to getting an answer to the question of what happened to Evan's mother.

PlayerCharacterPlaybook
StefanieEmma WillJanus
ChrisEvan HorizonNova
BlakeNight GauntBeacon


  • Emma and Evan meet up (with Firestar in tow asking a bunch of super-heroing questions) while Night Gaunt secretly pursues an answer to the question of Evan’s mother.
  • Night Gaunt consulted with Pixel, who said that a company called NextGen Computronix received a contract from AEGIS to analyze the Taskmaster technology reclaimed from Bastion.
  • Night Gaunt asks for assistance from Marcus in acquiring some intrusion gear to break in to NextGen. This draw’s his parents’ attention. He dodges his mother (Anastasia) only to run into his dad who sends him a picture of the scope sight on Emma and Evan at the coffee shop he was headed to.
  • Night Gaunt surrenders himself and gets in his father’s limo, but Emma and Evan see him and follow. Night Gaunt escapes using a jury-rigged flash bomb.
  • The group joins up and Night Gaunt lets Emma and Evan know of his investigation into NextGen. They forge IDs as interns and enter together, but they walk into a trap. Dr. Rex Gordon talks about their exciting developments in reproducing the gate technology (NOT their remit), and show the team into a chamber. There, there is a bright flash of light and they wake up strapped in hospital beds (in the alien fortress known as the Helpful Hospice; see Freedom City/the Annihilists).
  • A Nightmare Nurse (robotic nurse with scary needle appendages) enters as the group awakens. They escape and defeat the robot, but call more.
  • Fleeing leads the group to the operating chamber, where Physician Friendly and some of his Vivisection Bots are about to install armor and loyalty implants on a pair of humanoid aliens (one near-human female, and one more bluish alien).
  • During the throw-down with Physician Friendly, Emma unleashes energy she had absorbed and blows a hole in the roof, attracting the attention of flying armored alien warriors (Shadivan’s forces).
  • The group pushes Physician Friendly and his nurse-bots off as they flee. They get to a harpoon weapon and use it to escape the facility.
  • But now they are lost on Nihilor, the throne-world of the Terminus.
Lingering Questions and Issues:
  • How does the team escape? How might they be joined by their other teammates?
  • Where is Evan’s mother? What is her status? Can she be saved?
  • Who is Dr. Rex Gordon an agent of? How can the PCs stave off an invasion by the Terminus?
 
Session 7 Summary (11/3/18)

In this session, we reflect on "that day we were going down to the waterfront"
(Evan's player was absent, and the planned session centered around Evan’s backstory, so I had a “flashback session”. I ran the “Let Sleeping Gods lie” adventure from the Mutants & Masterminds Supernatural Handbook.)

PlayerCharacterPlaybook
StefanieEmma WillJanus
BlakeNight GauntBeacon
DennisYayaelTransformed
JasmineSyringeTransformed


  • The heroes meet Syringe, a Rook Academy student whose porcupine-like needles bear powerful toxins.
  • The four are on their way down to the waterfront on a casual Saturday to relax and have fun.
  • They notice Darren Abernathy, a shop owner, begging the “protection” that has been dressing him down. When they find he only has a few missing books, they scoff and blow him off.
  • The heroes step in and help to investigate. Abernathy mentions the books in question were queried about earlier by a young man named Hawthorne, which he remembered, because he knew an elderly antique shop owner by that name.
  • They investigate Hawthorne’s shop, but find it closed.
  • They find out Hawthorne was recently committed for dementia issues. They interview him and find out the man who claimed to be “Hawthorne” was really a con artist known to Night Gaunt as Dale King.
  • Checking rumors with local pawn brokers, King is currently dressing down a rich mark named Regina Danvers.
  • They find King leaving an apartment building owned by Danvers, and find out that Danvers seems to be the real person who took the books.
  • Night Gaunt sneaks into the building and finds it is wired for sound, and has no real inhabitants. The building smells damp.
  • Aquatic humanoids start streaming up from the basement as eerie music starts playing from the speakers.
  • They locate the source of the transmission at the top of the building and face off with a sorcerous Regina Danvers, who has a computer system rigged up to scan and play the music from the books and awaken “the Great Worm”.
 
I missed a few weeks, but time to get back to it!

In this session, we return to the main chronology, where part of the team is trapped on Nihilor, a world rules by a powerful alien overlord.

Note here I used the name "Fury" to refer to the female armored warrior that serve the Terminus. It's a bit too much of a dead-on homage to the DC universe, and I need to come up with a better name for them. But for now...

Session 8 Summary (12/29/18)

PlayerCharacterPlaybook
StefanieEmma WillJanus
BlakeNight GauntBeacon
DennisYayaelTransformed
ChrisEvan HorizonNova


Supporting cast (AKA NPCs):
  • Razz – bluish/green alien rescued previous session from Physician Friendly’s. Telekinesis powers.
  • Felis – female humanoid rescued previous session from Physician Friendly’s. Unknown powers.
  • Kiram – “Fury” (armored warrior woman) freed by the group.
  • Mariah – Evan’s mother, a Fury
  • Madame Eviscera – Fury interrogator (villain)
  • Shadowstar (not seen) – Servant or Omega. Evan’s father.
Events
  • Shadowblade enlists Yayael to act as a homing device to find his “friends” wherever they may be.
  • Shadowblade manages to open a portal to the mountainous hideout on Nihilor where the other members of the team and other refugees are staying.
  • The portal attracts attention of the cyber-gargoyles and Furies.
  • Night Gaunt tethers a rope to enter the portal.
  • When the furies attack, Yayael enters the portal to intervene.
  • As the group tussles with the Furies, Yayael uses his earth control powers to erect a wall to protect the group, which opens the ground to a subterranean chamber, along with one of the Furies.
  • The group disarms the Fury and learns that she has a “loyalty implant” that can inflict pain on or kill her. Night Gaunt disables the implant.
  • The group enlists the aid of the Fury Kiram. She leads them to an underground rail system.
  • She warns them that knowledge of the gate that Bastion opened could lead Omega back to their Earth, and tells them that the forces of Omega are raised from the people of conquered realities. Bastion and Mariah (the turned Fury that is, in truth, Evan’s mother) are being interrogated at the Fury’s citadel.
  • Kiram also tells of Shadowstar, a powerful mutant with Evan’s powers.
  • Kiram agrees to lead the group to the Fury’s citadel, on the condition that they first take her to the memory pool, a place where the memories of victims are stored for analysis. There she can recover memories of her home world.
  • They see refugees from the earlier battle being escorted into the citadel on a floating barge. They get Kiram to take charge of the barge (bluffing the other Furies) and orchestrate a breakout on the receiving dock.
  • As planned, they take Kiram to the so-called memory pool. They face two gargoyle-librarians with shifting “puzzle box” memories that assault their minds. They defeat them, take the puzzle boxes, and recover Kiram’s memories of her lost homeworld. She leaves in a reverie.
  • The group travels to the interrogation chamber, where they see a disturbingly disassembled Bastion.
  • They proceed to the chamber where Mariah is being tortured by Madame Eviscara.
  • The group faces off with Madame Eviscera.
  • Once freed, Mariah hacks the computer banks to edit what has gone on here.
  • She explains that she is a technopath, a bioengineered super-soldier on a world under attack by the Terminus. She hid her presence and defeated the loyalty circuit with her powers. Evan’s father is Shadowstar, the alternate version of Shadowblade from her world, who had been altered to have tremendous gravity and wormhole powers, and now serves Omega.
  • The group takes Bastion’s “pieces” and escapes. Mariah says she need to stay so Omega cannot find her world, but uses the puzzle box to give Evan the ability to open a wormhole back to Earth.
  • Once on Earth, Evan tries to spend some time with Shadowblade, without explaining why.

Lingering questions/possibilities:
  • How long can Mariah keep up her ruse?
  • How long until the Terminus shifts its glare to the Earth?
  • Will the group see Kiram, Razz, or Felis again?
  • What happens with Bastion? Is he truly a villain? Can he be put back together again?
  • Does Shadowblade move into some sort of supervisory role?
 
In this session, the team is back on Earth, but are steal dealing with the fallout of Bastion's technology. Night Gaunt acquires some dangerous technology, setting up his imminent shift to the Brain playbook.

Session 9 Summary (2/9/19)

PlayerCharacterPlaybook
StefanieEmma WillJanus
BlakeNight GauntBeacon
DennisYayaelTransformed
ChrisEvan HorizonNova


NPCs:

  • Pixel (Kennon Jones) – Former Rook Academy student. Techempathy powers and superlative hacker.
  • Mrs. Jones – Pixel’s elderly mother.
  • Dr. Simone Harmony – Researcher, friend of Evan. Slender African-American, late 30s. (Simone Missick? Jasica Nicole?)
  • Alexander Murray – Politician running for mayoral office on a “supers regulation” platform.
  • Bastion – Former Rook Academy teacher with mind-enhancing implants.
  • Atti – A native American telepath from Yayael’s tribe
  • Maximillian – Emma’s dog
Events:
  • Himura’s boarding school re-opens, invites the characters back.
    • Night Gaunt and Emma wave off the decision
    • Yayael and Evan join.
  • The city is experiencing traffic jams, hack-attacks.
  • Emma returns home after her trip to space to find her dog Maximilian, a Hungarian Komondor is missing.
  • Evan is questioned by Dr. Harmony at Xerion Labs. She mentions there are problems with Bastion’s treatment and recovery.
  • The group seeks help from Pixel (now living with his mother again) and get a curious response. He is locked away in his basement and quickly gives them info to find the dognappers to get them out of his house.
    • Yayael destroys Mrs. Jones’ car while trying to delay its arrival with his earth powers.
  • The group meets up at the Coffee joint, and splits their efforts
    • Yayael and Emma track down the dognappers and recover her dog.
    • Night Gaunt and Evan go to the lab and learn more about the devices Bastion was using. Something destructively copied to devices in only the way that a techempath like Pixel or Mariah can do.
  • They return to Pixel’s house. They force their way into his basement lair. The lair is a fully equipped hacker command center, but he is nowhere to be found. While there, they find video showing that he has recreated the Bastion implants.
  • They take this information to Dr. Harmony, who helps them create a tracer program.
  • They use their devices to trace Pixel to the airport.
  • At the airport, Arthur Murray is awaiting contacts of his to arrive in the small business jet wing.
  • However, the jet starts to accelerate towards the terminal. Yayael uses his powers to arrest the plane and stop disaster.
  • Arthur Murray is rushed to a car to protect him. However, Night Gaunt sneaks into the car and replaces the driver (and ditches his security).
  • As they flee, the limo is attacked by an animated backhoe, then an array of self-driving cars. Yayael teleports Murray to safety (along with Night Gaunt and Evan).
    • They visit a remote site on the Reservation and leave Murray in the care of Atti, a native American telepath.
  • Emma enters the airport and finds one of the Bastion’s cybernetic nodes in a locker. She touches is and is temporarily dominated.
    • The nodes are Terminus tech (like the Puzzle box)
    • Unlike Bastion, Pixel can communicate with, and be dominated by, the Bastion implants without actually implanting them.
  • Evan arrives on the scene and helps Emma escape the influence of the node. They seek out Pixel and find him in a luggage room retrieving one of the nodes. Emma gets knocked out as Pixel summons a motorized airport transport cart through the wall into her, as Yayael and Night Gaunt arrive in the airport.
  • Evan destroys the Node that was in the luggage; Pixel flees on the transport cart.
  • Yayael and Night Gaunt get the skinny that the trackers are actually tracking the distributed nodes, and find there is one hidden in the parking garage in a vehicle. They face an array of animated vehicles to get at it.
  • Night Gaunt grabs the node (risking being dominated) and reaches out to Pixel. He finds that he is, in effect, trapped in this own mind by the Terminus Nodes. Night Gaunt gets Pixel to lash out at the node he is holding, destroying it and defeating the Pixel-powered Bastion machine entity.
  • Night Gaunt considers keeping the last node for his own uses, but decides to turn it over to Dr. Harmony. Night Gaunt secretly kept/copied the last Bastion node.
 
I'm picking this thread up again. The pandemic sort of killed this campaign, but I have some notion to restart it and put an end to it. Putting these thoughts to internet paper might get the gears going again, as well as serving as something I can share with my players.

In this episode, the group uncovers some history behind Satoshi Himura, Nano, and the Silver Age Paragons, and they get some clues to the path of Ex113.

Session 10 Summary (3/2/19)

PlayerCharacterPlaybook
StefanieEmma WillJanus
BlakeNight GauntBeacon
DennisYayaelTransformed→Harbinger
ChrisEvan HorizonNova
NickHexDelinquent


Named NPCs appearing: Rosa Rook, Satoshi Himura/The Human Tank, Nano (Kenji Himua), Edmund Flare, Talltree, Chimera, Andrew Will, Arthur Murray, Ex113 “Excel” (footage only)

Events:

  • Emma juggling responsibilities
    • Rosa Rook asks to meet with Emma at the same time as a track meet. She elects to go to the track meet.
    • As Emma is getting ready to leave for the opening of Himura’s school, her dad is taking a much-needed day off. The mailman hands him the mail and she sees him get frustrated and shred the letter.
  • Establishing scenes
    • Arthur Murray’s political campaign continues. He has softened his rhetoric, but still a lead in the polls. He says he no longer believes in strict regulation of supers, but that they cannot be relied upon as the only means of protection against super powered threats, and announces the Guardian initiative.
    • Yayael hears from Talltree’s family that he’s been hanging with a “bad crowd”. Yayael encourages Talltree to attend Himura’s school.
    • New students at Himura’s school: Edmund Flare, Chimera, and Talltree.
  • Opening of Himura’s school. There is a reception, inviting parents and non-Students Night Gaunt and Flashing Will.
  • Night Gaunt is hanging outside and notes approaching drones. Drones drop spider-like robots "nano-spiders" on the building.
  • The building’s security measures kick in. Night Gaunt crashes a stolen car into the building and manages to get in before shutters drop down to prevent entry into the building.
  • Himura explains that the whole building has simulator capability installed, and illusions and animated furniture attack the students.
  • Flashing and Hex teleport to server room and deal with nano-spiders hacking into the building controls.
  • Night Gaunt finds an arsenal in an unlocked hidden room.
  • Evan, Night Gaunt, and Yayael teleport out of the building. Evan protects a records building from the nano-drones while Yayael and Night Gaunt go after Nano.
  • Nano, the villain launching the attack, flees. Before he gets away, Night Gaunt and Yayael learn that Nano is Himura’s son who aims to get back at him for “ignoring his genius”. Night gaunt proposes that the best way to get back at his father is to start a business and the best him at his own game.
  • Curious what Nano was after in the records building, Hex and Night Gaunt sneak in and take a look. Night Gaunt finds records indicating that Astro Robotics specifically acquired a campus site away from the industrial center of Halcyon City, and that was the site of one of the final battles. Further, he finds that Astro Robotics had a number of acquisitions of raw materials used in military applications that correspond to no known product that Astro Robotics ever sold.
  • The group puts together a trip to the Astro Robotics campus. At the main building, they see that a number of construction workers are finishing up repairs on a vault door from the basement. Night Gaunt pickpockets the foreman, getting a key that allows him to hack the vault door controls.
  • Inside the vault is Himura’s armory, including a number of Human Tank battlesuits. Night Gaunt relates that the Human Tank was a member of the original Paragons (along with Futurian, Dark Eagle, and Grendel), a prominent golden age super team. The original Paragons disbanded after a fight at this location in which Grendel was killed by some strange monstrosity.
  • Following the trail of wreckage further into the sub-basement, the group finds a set of elevator doors that have been ripped off. Whatever ripped the doors off crawled down the shaft using brute strength. Hex teleports the group to the bottom of the elevator shaft.
  • Once in lab, they access camera controls that reveal that Ex113 was the source of the damage.
  • The lower floor appears to be an old lab, with holding cells, operating theaters, vats of bio-reagents, and a still operational cryo-chamber. The cryo chamber contains some rime-covered monstrous humanoid figure.
  • Reviewing the camera records reveals that Ex113 left only after ripping into the records lab and finding a location to Project Proteus. Evan immediately notes the resemblance to the name of Professor Proteus.
  • Soon after the heroes arrive, Emma hears something descending the elevator shaft. Hex covers the group in an illusion.
  • They see a huge armored figure land at the bottom of the elevator shaft: Himura in a version of his armor modified to accommodate his paraplegic state.
  • Soon after, a bunch of Nano-spiders skitter into the vault and start modifying the tech. Beeping comes from the cryo-chamber in the other room. Himura goes running that way, screaming “Kenji, no!” as he tries to stop the cryo-chamber from heating up.
  • The group appears, helps repel the nano-spiders and regain control of the cryo-chamber.
  • Emma finds Nano. Night Gaunt goes to Nano and convinces him this is not the way to prove himself better than his father. He convinces him the way forward is to sell his inventions. (This was Night Gaunt’s Moment of Truth move from the beacon playbook).
  • Himura explains that the notorious battle in which Grendel was supposedly killed was actually a battle with Grendel after Dark Eagle learned about his secret experiments. Grendel had many child victims he was using to cultivate some “next stage” bio-organism. None of the kids seem to have strange powers or symptoms, and the Paragons covered up the lab and found new homes for the kids. Dark Eagle left the Paragons soon after that, and Himura never quite recovered from the battle and retired, expanding his Astro Robotics shell company to handle operations related to covering up Grendel’s crime and keeping him contained in the cryo chamber. Futurian went on to create a new Paragons superhero group.
 
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I think I am going to post 2 sessions every Monday or I will never get through this. :smile:

Session 11 Summary (4/6/19)

In this session, the heroes follow up on clues about the children victimized by Grendel and save Jenna from bio-engineered assailants and save Tiffany Belz from herself.

PlayerCharacterPlaybook
StefanieEmma WillJanus
BlakeNight GauntBeacon→Brain
DennisYayaelHarbinger
ChrisEvan HorizonNova


Named NPCs appearing: Sam Johnson/The Revenant, Luana Demaris, Chang Baria, Tiffany Belz, Jenna

Events:
  • Following up on names for the data files at the Grendel lab under the Astro Robotics building, the group determines that one child who was experimented on here is Sam Johnson, an assistant DA in the Halcyon City DA’s office.
  • The group goes to the DA’s office under the pretense of doing a school project on super-powered justice. When they get there, they see Sam’s office is closed.
  • While Evan has a discussion with the assistant DA that volunteered to help then, Luana Demaris (new NPC), Night Gaunt sneaks into Sam’s office. Night Gaunt finds his home address and a tipped-over picture depicting a young boy and a pregnant woman.
  • Meanwhile, Emma picks up a rumor from Chang Baria (new NPC), teen gossip blogger, discusses in her Halcyon Beat blog that Tiffany Belz‘s re-entry into public school was brief and she has returned to private tutors. She shares rumors that notoriously bright Tiffany’s grades were slipping and wonders if a guy is to blame.
  • They follow up the Tiffany rumor first. They arrive at the posh Belz residence and are directed to a guest house on the property. Once there, Tiffany welcomes them with a spacy demeanor and introduces them to “Jenny” (really Jenna). Jenna also seems very placid.
  • A group of three men in suits arrive and announce their intent to take Jenna. They notice that the flesh of the men does not seem natural. Yayael takes on crocodile form to separate the MIBs from Jenna. Night Gaunt grabs Jenna and runs with her. Yayael attacks the MIBs and forces them to retreat after an injured one turns into goo that seeps into the ground.
  • Returning to the guest house, the group starts to piece together what is going on. Night Gaunt uses a bit of tech from the Bastion Node to paint a picture of the psychic landscape with Tiffany and Jenna and sees that Tiffany is dominating Jenna but is locked in some sort of mental loop.
  • Emma uses her power absorption to temporarily siphon off Tiffany’s psychic powers and allow her to break out of the loop.
  • After Tiffany recovers, the recounts what happened with Ex113. Ex113 asked for her help getting information about his past. He brought Jenna to her and asked her to keep control of Jenna until he gets back, but he never came back from his exploration of Astro Robotics.
  • “Jenny” its revealed to be Jenna, the shape-warping Proteus lieutenant that warned them they were walking into a trap back in session 2. She acts guarded, but shares information with them about what she saw, including that Ex113 wrecked a Proteus lab and that Ex113 found her when researching info about Astro Robotics. Ex113 never returned, but the inexperienced Tiffany got locked in a mental loop when trying to continuously maintain control of Jenna that long.
  • When Night Gaunt shows everyone the picture he got from Sam Johnson’s office, Jenna recognizes the woman as her mother. Perhaps more surprisingly, Tiffany points out that the boy looks like Ex113!
  • Following up on their next lead, the team goes to Sam Johnson’s home, and find it is a virtual fortress with an insane level of security. Night Gaunt notices a weakness in the perimeter in a garden shed and enters it, to find a hidden arsenal, and the costume of a known vigilante named Revenant.
  • Revenant/Sam Johnson gets the drop on Night Gaunt: Revenant trains a shotgun on him. Night Gaunt talks Revenant down.
  • Collectively, they learn that Revenant is Jenna and Ex113’s father; Tim (Ex113’s real name) and Sarah (Jenna and Tim’s mother) were kidnapped in two separate events, which led Sam to his vigilante life.
  • Closing the loop with Jenna, they learn that Jenna knows Philip Jones/Professor Proteus as her adopted father, who performed experiments on her and pressed her in to service.
  • Epilogue: Night Gaunt reveals to Evan that the Bastion Node he has been using has gone missing. (This is his Shame in transitioning to the Brain playbook.)
 
Session 12 Summary (5/4/19)

This was a momentous episode where several secrets that have been shadowing the heroes burst onto the scene. The heroes continue to follow Ex113's path, and eventually make an illegal foray into the exclusion zone, where they uncover the secret history of the Superior Six. Emma burns some bridges and attracts some unwanted attention.

PlayerCharacterPlaybook
StefanieEmma WillJanus (Scion)
BlakeNight GauntBrain
DennisYayaelHarbinger
ChrisEvan HorizonNova

Named NPCs appearing: Remnants of the Superior Six (Hardware, Fussilad, Mentallica, Cryptic), Jenna Jones, Tiffany Belz, Edmund Flare, Chimera (briefly), Samuel Odin.

Events:
  • Andrew Will comes home and apologizes for taking so much time at work and says he will be working more from home using a new secure computer system. The system is connected to his business negotiating trade with Vyortovia (see the Dread Queen)
  • Yayael tries to remember people from the future and remembers Revenant as a leader of a resistance movement. He remembers violent events and does not see either of Revenant’s children (Jenna or Ex113) by his side.
  • The scene cuts to a meeting at the Himura School for Powered Youth, where they are using the student longue. They bump into Elizabeth Star/Firestar, Chimera, and Edmund Flare there (Edmund playing with one of his glowing bomb-orbs that are his powers’ conduits; a hero foolishly grabs it and gets landed on his arse.)
  • The group agrees to take Firestar with them on their mission to explore a defunct lab that they tracked Ex113 to.
  • Night Gaunt “steals” the keys to the Himura school van, but Samuel Odin apparently notices, and doesn’t look up from the TV as he tells him to make sure he puts the keys back.
  • They go to the Project Proteus lab that Ex113 was heading to when he disappeared. There are signs of damage, and the lab is apparently shut down.
  • Yayael makes a tunnel that he, Night Gaunt, and Evan use to enter the lab. Flashing Will stays in the van with Firestar. The trio moves into the lab and sees a person (soon identified as a “reptoid xeeth”, a bio-construct creature with reptilian features and impersonation powers) feeding computer equipment into the furnace. Evan stops him with a gravity well and Night Gaunt scavenges some hard drives.
  • Meanwhile, a pair of guards (more reptoid xeeth) approaches the van with Flashing Will and Firestar. Emma drives the van away. The guards soon give up the chase and dive into the tunnel. Flashing Will doubles back. Flashing Will enters the tunnel first. Before Emma enters she hears a burst of fire and a scream from Firestar.
  • Flashing Will stumbles upon a burned corpse she soon identifies as a reptoid.
  • The trio sees “Flashing Will” and Firestar emerge from the tunnel. Looking at the tapes, they find lab reports but no security footage, so they resolve to explore the rest of the building.
  • Emma emerges from the tunnel and finds the remnants of the reptoid and computers in the furnace room. She uses her super-senses to find the group, but can also her the ultrasonic screeches of the reptoid xeeth stalking the rest of the group.
  • Flashing Will rejoins the group and notices the false “Flashing Will”. The copycat Flashing Will xeeth morphs into attack mode and attacks Yayael and Evan. Yayael takes the worst of it but takes down the copycat.
  • As the group approaches the security center, Flashing Will detects that three groups of reptoids are stalking them in adjacent rooms and in the ceiling. Yayael takes a turtle-like form and Night Gaunt uses his tech to launch turtle-Yayael into the ceiling, where he takes down the one group and draws the attention of the others.
  • The other heroes grab the security tapes and retreat. Yayael teleports away from the battle.
  • Examining the security tapes, they see Ex113 smashing his way through the lab. He is seen confronting Professor Proteus, who somehow paralyzes him. The lab workers haul Ex113 off and start to make preparations to abandon the lab.
  • They leave the lab and ask Jenna where they might find Professor Proteus. She says that he has sites within the exclusion zone. She says that she may be able to find them, but fears that Professor Proteus may be able to exert control over her.
  • The heroes drop off Firestar (who is shell-shocked), but Edmund Flare gets wind that they want to go into the exclusion zone and asks to go with them. The heroes resolve to take Edmund Flare, Tiffany Belz, and Jenna Jones with them. Night Gaunt prepares some sedative to provide insurance against a turned Jenna.
  • Yayael tries to get the school van into the exclusion zone. He gets the heroes in, but the portal closes with the van halfway in, sending it back outside the exclusion zone.
  • They find some abandoned houses that were in the exclusion zone, and an old van with space wizard art on the side and repair it.
  • Emma hears a vehicle coming. They see a Humvee-style vehicle driving along one of the few drivable roads remaining in the zone. They follow it to a compound in the middle of the zone with thick walls and heavy weapons, manned by AEGIS and contractor personnel.
  • Yayael sneaks into the compound as a tiny lizard and drives the Humvee out. The group makes some rudimentary disguises (jackets from the Humvee, etc.) and bluffs their way back in.
  • As they get close, Jenna feels that the contractor building contains some Xeeth presence. Night Gaunt knocks Jenna out and they investigate the building. Tiffany Belz throws up a mental illusion to make them look like security guards, a talent she says she picked up since the “event” at her place (see last session).
  • The heroes head toward the generator area of the contractor building but lose track of Edmund Flare along the way. They double back and notice that the office belonging to Rook Industries is closed, where it was open when they walked by before.
  • Night Gaunt picks the lock and sees one of Edmund’s bomb-orbs hovering over a profusely sweating security desk clerk. They coordinate an effort to teleport the bomb-orb away, and use the security cameras to locate Edmund in a server room, where he is using another bomb-orb to extort an IT admin to unlock files on the rook server for him.
  • Flashing Will spots a symbol on the security workstation indicating that a duress alarm has been sounded. She then receives a signal on her Superior Six alarm alerting her to the fact that the remainder of the Superior Six is inbound and requesting her presence.
  • Flashing Will steps out to meet the Superior Six while the rest of the group heads into the server room to try to defuse the situation there. She notes that only Hardware, Fussilad, and Mentallica are inbound. Hardware mentions that Cryptic is “already on site”.
  • In the server room, many screens display fruits of the search for information on the Superior Six. Among them, on clear display, is information on Flashing Will’s background, including information that she did not know: her mother’s identity and aliases: Kseniya Tsvetnovadred, aliases: Eliza Will; The Dread Queen, monarch of Vyortovia (See The Dread Queen in the Deck of Villainy).
  • Edmund shows Night Gaunt, Yayael, Evan, and Tiffany footage of Ground Zero being killed by Cryptic because Ground Zero discovered that a Rook-sponsored lab was behind the Exclusion Zone disaster and was covering that up and he was threatening to go public. Night Gaunt talks Edmund into the idea that only the old members of the Superior Six deserve his vengeance (i.e., not Flashing Will, Fussilad, or Mentallica).
  • An unseen Cryptic shoots a sedative dart at Tiffany. It hits her in the neck, knocking her unconscious. The group’s mental disguises disappear.
  • Evan determines that Cryptic’s chameleon-device costume can be overloaded with a flash of light. He gets Edmund to create this flash with a bomb-orb. A number of dull gray squares—shorted out chameleon plates on Cryptic’s costume—appear and betray Cryptic’s position.
  • In response, Cryptic flees down the hall. Before the heroes can find him, he activates some security protocol, locking down the server room and knocking out the lights.
  • Emma is exploring the Rook office with the other members of the Superior Six. When she sees a security wall come slamming down, she dives in, separating herself from the Superior Six.
  • Edmund starts summoning energy and is ready to blow the place up to get at Cryptic. Emma uses a taser charge she got from Night Gaunt earlier and tasers Edmund.
  • Yayael creates a portal for the group to flee through. Everyone gets out but Evan. Evan uses his flare to escape, but Cryptic jumps on him and they teleport together. A scuffle starts in the Humvee.
  • Night Gaunt injects Cryptic with a sedative. Cryptic retreats to allow his auto-injectors time to fight off the sedative.
  • The team uses the time grab Jenna, and puts a brick on the accelerator of the Humvee and sends it off in a random direction to draw Hardware’s attention. They go get the Space Wizard Van to continue their escape.
  • Fleeing with van, Cryptic has followed them and snuck on van and throws a gas grenade in. Evan blows the sunroof out and ventilates the van.
  • A combat ensues with Cryptic as they are fleeing and with Hardware inbound. Emma hangs back and meets up with the Superior Six. As Hardware pursues, Emma convinces Mentallica and Fussilad (fellow former Rook academy students and Superior Six youth recruits) to assist her. (Emma’s Moment of Truth)
  • The rogue members of the Superior Six arrive on site and repulse Cryptic, allowing the rest of the group to escape. Unfortunately, the combat was near the fence and Emma’s mask is burned off when she unleashed a fire-blast at Cryptic. Someone near the fence caught video of the event and spreads it publicly. Somewhere, Emma’s mother is watching. (This is a setup for Emma's transition to the Scion playbook.)
 
Got busy, missed a few Mondays, here's the next two sessions.

Session 13 Summary (6/1/19)

In this session, the team returns to the exclusion zone and face off with Professor Proteus in a last-ditch effort to save their old teammate, Ex113. This session paid off a lot of long lingering plot points and finally pays most of them off. I love it when a plan comes together.

PlayerCharacterPlaybook
StefanieEmma WillJanus → Scion
BlakeNight GauntBrain
DennisYayaelHarbinger
ChrisEvan HorizonNova


Named NPCs appearing: Jenna Jones (briefly), Tiffany Belz (unconscious), Edmund Flare (unconscious), Samuel Odin, Satoshi Himura, Futurian, Professor Proteus, Ex113.

Events:
  • After escaping the exclusion zone, the heroes take their unconscious allies (Jenna, Tiffany, Edmund) to the Himura school. Tiffany seems to be the worst off, suffering from an excessive dose of tranquilizer from Cryptic’s dart (see last episode). Jenna, however, recovers quickly due to her xeeth engineering.
  • As the group arrives, they note that the light is on in Himura’s usually dark office. When they arrive, Samuel Odin tends to Tiffany and makes sure she’s stable. Yayael stays with Odin while the rest of the group goes to Himura’s office.
  • The office door swings open in advance of their arrival. They see that Futurian is in the office visiting Himura. Himura says that there was some sort of incident at the Exclusion Zone and inquires about their involvement. They deny any involvement. Futurian is suspicious of Night Gaunt’s statement, so does a mind scan. Night Gaunt fights if off, and Futurian compliments (albeit somewhat condescendingly) Night Gaunt’s potential.
  • Himura mentions that he wants to pull the kids in as a “sweep up team”/”rear guard” under Samuel Odin’s care. This won’t get them back into the Exclusion Zone in time to find Ex113.
  • They return and speak to Samuel Odin, who shows his war vet cred and helps them get into the zone. They load up with their newfound credentials and head to the exclusion zone.
  • As they are leaving, Emma announces her intent to join the Himura school.
  • When they arrive at the compound in the exclusion zone, they see that the troops seem to be on alert. Night Gaunt disembarks and sneaks into the contractor building while the rest of the group heads to the main gate.
  • At the main gate, the guard tells them that the compound is on lockdown. Odin presents some credentials to the guard, who looks incredulous at his papers, and waves them through.
  • As they enter the compound, they immediately see a group of AEGIS troopers containing some hideous xeeth beast using a pair of force-field devices. Their control of the beast looks tenuous, and one of the force field team loses control and the beast grabs one of the troopers while the other two troopers in that team retreats.
  • Yayael teleports in and saves the trooper from the beast. Flashing Will uses her absorption power to absorb the force-field energy from the scattered AEGIS team’s device and uses it to coordinate with the other team and get the beast back under control. Once its under control, the AEGIS teams use their weapons to take it down.
  • Meanwhile, Night Gaunt snuck into the contractor building in the compound and notices that strange fleshy plants have grown throughout the compound. He ducks into the security room and hacks into the camera system in the lab belonging to the office where Jenna previously detected the xeeth presence.
  • Night Gaunt sees Professor Proteus in the lab, working furiously and surrounded by alien growths. He tries to hack in to interfere with Proteus, but Proteus notices his interference and sends a squad of reptoid infiltrators and brawlers to deal with him.
  • The rest of the team enters the compound and defeats Proteus’ xeeth minions. They head to the lab and confront Proteus. He shields himself with vines from the growths through the lab. He launches into a monolog (in which he refers to himself—Dr. Phillip Jones—in third person). He explains that the Xeeth are a bioweapon placed here by Vanquish (see Deck of Villainy) to act like a scorched-Earth weapon to stop the advance of the Terminus and prevent them from capturing the Earth’s populace, but in doing so converting the entire biomass of Earth to the Xeeth organism. He says they should embrace his alternative that changes the Xeeth bio-infection to create a race of human-Xeeth hybrids. The teen heroes, as you might suspect, do not embrace his vision.
  • Proteus escapes by touching a piece of the organism and being absorbed into it. Night Gaunt grabs him and follows him through. He finds himself in the lifestream, a pocket dimension filled with xeeth organisms, including a huge spherical entity Proteus calls “the core”.
  • Yayael attempts to use his spirit-realm portal to access the xeeth lifestream, but instead xeeth organisms come pouring through. He assumes a snakelike form and manages to enter the portal into the lifestream.
  • Evan is able to use his gravity powers to pry open the portal, allowing him and Emma to get through.
  • Emma notices that part-formed copies of Ex113 are on the surface of the xeeth bio-core. Professor Proteus moves to the core and transmits a message for it to start creating duplicates of Ex113 for his invasion. The group pieces together that the hybrids Proteus is creating are far more dangerous than the xeeth troopers they defeated earlier.
  • Night Gaunt takes a sample of terminus nanotech and creates a nanovirus that attacks the core. Enraged, Proteus attacks the team.
  • Emma tries to free Ex113, but grabs a biological energy conduit attempting to stop the creation of more Ex113 duplicates. In doing so, the core takes control of her and starts using her absorption power to negate the influence of the terminus nanites.
  • Yayael tears Emma free from the bio-conduit.
  • The team confronts Professor Proteus. He retreats beneath the flesh-ground, but Emma uses some lingering electric charge to jolt him indirectly. They expose Protues and incapacitate him as they pull the Xeeth bio-grafts out of his body.
  • Finally, the team wins the day and after 9 sessions, frees their friend.
  • Emma has consequences waiting for her (-> Scion playbook)
 
Session 14 Summary (7/5/19)

This session is the beginning of a new arc that leans into story elements created by the "bossier" new playbooks that some players took (the Brain, the Harbinger, and the Scion). The team travels to Vyortovia and help stop an assassination attempt and learns even more tragic history of the heroes of Halcyon City. Emma learns a bit about her birth mother The Dread Queen, who in turn learns a bit about her.

This adventure is a good example of my longstanding strategy of "known threat up front, hidden threat to be revealed", the hidden threat being the somewhat sympathetic villain Psi-Clone.

PlayerCharacterPlaybook
StefanieEmma WillScion
DennisYayaelHarbinger
ChrisEvan HorizonNova

Named NPCs appearing:
Rook students at party (Tiffany Belz, Edmund Flare, Elizabeth Star, Talltree, Ex113, Chimera), Samuel Odin, Satoshi Himura, Andrew Will, Maria Hardin, Red Lancer, Living Light/Psi-clone, Jack Steinberg (Indirectly), The Dread Queen (Indirectly), the Dark Regents (Indirectly), Chang Baria (Indirectly).

Events:
  • After escaping the lifestream dimension of the Xeeth, the group returns with Ex113, and turn Proteus over to AEGIS. AEGIS Captain Carver dresses down the group for their “dangerous” participation.
  • On the way back from the exclusion zone with Samuel Odin, the group catches scathing commentary from Jack Steinberg. “The supers say we are safe from the terrors of the exclusion zone, but they said that before! What horrors await us?”
  • Back at the Himura school, the other students have a party with the team:
    • Emma has a chat with Elizabeth and Chimera. Chimera says she respects Emma’s power but isn’t sure if she will do the right thing.
    • Evan visits convalescing Ex113 to give him some company and get away from the noisy party. Ex113 expresses his confidence in Evan.
    • Yayael shares some peyote with Talltree out on a balcony and has a flashback. He puts together another piece of his puzzle (he recalls Samuel Odin as the Architect from his Harbinger playbook moves), and flashes back to his time in his tribes’ far future habitat, a domed colony on an asteroid, Earth either being destroyed or devastated. He recalls his elders in an argument. The trip to the past would use his spirit realm connection, but in the wake of Earth’s destruction, the Spirit Realm was vanishing. The Elders expressed doubts that he was ready for this mission, but the window to act was closing.
  • Himura arrives near the balcony that Yayael and Talltree are smoking on, causing them to scurry into an electronics room. Yayael damages some electronics, which is sure to cause problems later.
  • News breaks that Vyortovia, an island nation from another reality (ruled by the Dread Queen), is reopening diplomatic relations with the US. Himura asks the team to join the Astro Robotics team to a diplomatic and economic conference.
  • Historical context: Vyortovian forces caught the Justice Guardians in their facilities. The Justice Guardians were on a mission to destroy a doomsday device that The Dread Queen was developing. With no proof, the Justice Guardians lost their status as a sanctioned super-team, a move that met with widespread disapproval from the public. The folk-rock singer Maria Hardin was a leading voice in the outcry on behalf of the JG. Eventually, AEGIS and the government relented, but this was the last straw for Vyortovia, who cut off relations. So now, Vyortovia will probably not tolerate any recognized super team on their soil, but Himura worries about what Vyortovia is up to and wants the team there just in case the other shoe drops.
  • Emma visits home and finds out her father (being an important figure in Vyortovian business relations) is going on the diplomatic trip as well. She arranges for Elizabeth to watch Max.
  • Night Gaunt (not in the adventure) sends the group some valuable information. He gets word on the street that Red Lancer, a lone wolf assassin, is gathering intelligence and travelling to Vyortovia, likely in preparation for a hit.
  • Emma looks into information in her gossip magazines. She discovers that Chang Baria did an expose as a part of her series on super-assassins in her Supers Beat blog. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, Chang stopped publishing this series before it was completed, amidst rumors of intimidation.) Chang’s blog says that Red Lancer didn’t take slights to her talent well. After a few (deadly) altercations with other assassins, she started working on her own. She was a second stringer for some time until she defeated an alien bounty hunter and took his technology. Now she is known for using advanced alien weaponry including glowing red force-javelins.
  • The team arrives in Vyortovia and starts to take in the local “color”. While Emma is looking down at her phone, Evan notices that she has a striking resemblance to a figure in a Vyortovian propaganda poster depicting the Dark Regents, a local super-team drawn from descendants of The Dread Queen.
  • When arriving at the conference center, the group notices a number of protestors at the conference center site, among them are activist-singer Maria Hardin. There is much press on-site, but he heroes determine that the protestors are at very real risk of being rounded up and taken to a prison by the hardline Vyortovian security forces. As the police are rounding up the protestors, Yayael uses his earth powers to orchestrate a covert escape from the police wagon.
  • After checking in to the conference center, the group makes inquiries about local history and culture. Vyortovia is an island state that was originally in an alternate reality. Through her genius, the island escaped that doomed world, but she used her position and technology to establish her absolute rule. Vyortovia is an authoritarian state. There were rebellions against her rule some time ago, but they were put down and the people were largely dispirited.
  • Evan spots a woman matching the description of Red Lancer entering the compound, disguised as a reporter.
  • The group looks for places Red Lancer might attack, and determines that a specific set of meetings in an exposed dining room are at particular risk. Evan surveys the area and notices that a nearby catwalk would be an ideal roost for a would-be assassin. He weakens the stonework in the area.
  • Emma notices her father in the conference room and uses her agility to avoid coming to his attention.
  • Yayael monitors the catwalk and notices Red Lancer’s approach. He uses the trap that Evan set to throw her off be building. She flees; Evan and Yayael pursue. They chase her to an alley outside the conference area grounds. Yayael teleports to the far end of the alley to cut her off, but when he gets there, he sees a glowing energy form is attacking Red Lancer.
  • Evan pulls Red Lancer away from the glowing figure, whereupon the glowing figure disappears. Yayael captures Lancer using his stone shaping ability. They disarm her as they hear the Vyortovian security forces approaching. They decide against turning her over to a Vyortovian prison and phone in Himura to get her on a flight out of the country.
  • Yayael gets Pixel to remotely hack Red Lancer’s phone and discover a hit-list, but notices that she seems to be directed to attack anyone at that meeting, so as to “send a message”. Emma’s father Andrew Will is on a short list of people excluded from the list.
  • Back in the conference room, Emma notices that the security cameras are imbued with some strange energy. She climbs up to take a look at the camera, but when she does, she notices the energy is hopping from camera to camera. And it seems to follow her dad’s group as they are leaving the room.
  • Yayael and Evan arrive back shortly after this. Even destroys a camera in the chain that is following Emma’s father. When this happens, Emma notices that a figure in the Vyortovian delegation who had been lingering in the conference room jumps up follow Andrew’s group. He looks like he is a recently cleaned up man who might have worn a beard recently.
  • The stalker peels off after re-sighting Andrew’s group, and heads to the Vyortovian servants’ quarters. Yayael follows him. The stalker enters one of the servant’s rooms.
  • Emma and Evan head back to the hotel, the same hotel where her father’s delegation is. She senses those energy signatures again in her father’s room one the next level. She flies up outside the window and sees multiple energy clones surrounding her father! In a crackling voice they accuse him of being selfish and proclaim he will pay!
  • Emma uses her absorption power to pull the energy towards her, giving her father a chance to run from the room.
  • Yayael notices a servant entering the same room where the culprit was, who complains about the drape being open. Outside, Emma sees the man surrounded by a nimbus of light, steaking towards the hotel. He creates a group of energy clones that start attacking the roof above the foyer where Andrew Will has fled. Evan rushes in and puts a moat above them to capture the plummeting debris. The figure blasts away at Evan’s moat, saying that his choices were responsible for killing people and he needed to pay.
  • Emma flies up to the figure and tries to stop him. He turns to her and says she was the reason, because her father chose to kidnap her, the Dread Queen killed the woman he loved. He was once the hero called Living Light, but his vengeance made him Psi-Clone, and now Andrew Will must pay. Yayael joins them and talks him out of the attack, saying that it would make others suffer as he has. Psi-clone relents and retreats, flying off into the distance.
  • Examining Psi-clone’s room in the servant’s quarters, they discover a lock box with a picture of a lovely Vyortovian woman named Petra and a love letter from her.
  • Emma talks to her father. He reveals that he had an affair with the Dread Queen. On subsequent visits, he knew Emma was his child. He saw the painful experiments The Dread Queen used to imbue her older progeny with powers, and did not want her to go through the same thing. While Emma was still very young, he hatched a plan to kidnap her and take her out of the country. He was too successful at covering her tracks, and the Dread Queen ultimately blamed Emma’s disappearance on the rebels, and started a harsh crackdown on the rebel forces.
  • Between this and Himura’s information, they discover that Psi-Clone was a former member of the Justice Guardians known as the Living Light. During their mission The Living Light met the young rebel Petra, and they fell in love. He left after the mission with the promise to return to be with her. When he returned, he discovered that Petra had been killed in the Dread Queen’s crackdowns. He promised to himself to avenge Petra.
  • Before they left, Evan went partying with some Vyortovian women. (Consequences? Never…)
  • As he was sleeping before they left, Evan receives a message from Mariah asking what happened, and that something on Earth is drawing the attention of the Terminus. She is cut off before she can explain.
  • Evan reveals to Emma the secret of Night Gaunt’s shame: a Bastion Node is out there somewhere on Earth.
  • Chang Baria does an entry in her blog post connecting Emma in her appearance in the Exclusion Zone to the depiction in the Dark Regents propaganda poster.
 
Session 15 Summary (8/3/19)

In this session, the heroes help Nano stop thefts by a new technology theft gang called the Niebelung and learn that it is really headed by an old foe. In the ensuing combat, the entire lab is transported to an alternate devastated Earth! The foray into an alternate Earth was really a hit with my players.

I added some details about The Dark Regents (the children of the Dread Queen) here that I don't explain here. Basically, each member of the Dark Regents has a code name that is a Greek letter followed by a name that signifies their power. Emma is half-sister to all the Dark Regents and she has a code name given to her, but doesn't know it yet.

PlayerCharacterPlaybook
StefanieEmma WillThe Scion
DennisYayaelThe Harbinger
BlakeNight GauntThe Brain
ChrisEvan HorizonThe Nova

Named NPCs appearing:
The Dread Queen, Dark Regents (Alpha-Seer and Gamma-Morph), Anastasia (Night Gaunt’s mother), Ekaterina Logan (Night Gaunt’s sister), Kenji Himura/Nano, Maria Hardin, Simone Harmony, The Nibelungen (Alberich/Hardware, Tarnhelm/Cryptic), Tomas (Tiger), Kira (Cougar), Biolab Doctor (Name-Daniel Velez), Chang Baria (Indirectly), Alex Lunsford (minor).

Events:
  • Yayael struggles to remember more about the future and determines that the traitor from his Connecting the Dots move is Cryptic. He recalls that the future disaster was something that could have been prevented, but something affected the supers that could have helped so they didn’t have the ability to respond.
  • Night Gaunt investigates tech thieves that Nano says are copying his tech. The thieves set up an ambush and almost nab Night Gaunt. He is going to need backup.
  • While looking for leads in the criminal underworld, Night Gaunt crosses paths with his mother and finds out that his younger sister, who was in foster care, is now living with Anastasia (his mother). His mother asks Night Gaunt to quit the supers life and to come join their family unit.
  • The remaining members of the team are returning from Vyortovia. Through a ruse using Alpha Seer’s illusion power and Gamma-Morph disguising herself as Emma, The Dread Queen tricks Emma into a meeting where she espouses Emma’s possible future with the Dark Regents. Emma rebuffs her, but Chang Baria captures the fact that she met with the Dread Queen privately in her Supers Beat vlog, casting more suspicion on Emma.
  • On the flight back, Emma is seated in first class with Maria Hardin. Maria seems skeptical, but Emma expresses sympathy for her cause, earning some measure of respect from her. (Development: once Maria sees Chang’s vlog, she may feel like Emma misled her.)
  • Back in Halcyon City, Night Gaunt pulls the rest of the team in on his investigation.
  • Night Gaunt plays practical jokes on Nano/Kenji Himura (carving graffiti in his desk, replacing picture faces with his, etc.)
  • Nano has narrowed down the list of possible leaks based on his watermark, but he has no proof and doesn’t know what method they are using to steal his designs.
  • Nano gets the team passes as interns at Galaxi Robotics (his company, which name is a clear knock-off of the name of his father’s company, Astro Robotics).
  • The team monitors him. They find nothing in his workspace, but notice when he is in the fab room, he holds his hand over the designs. They suspect the ring he is wearing is the device, so they fake a contamination incident to get him to take off his ring and perform some sleight of hand to swap it out.
  • They investigate the ring. It seems to be a monitoring and communication device. Electronic symbols can appear on its surface; it has a “splash screen” of sorts that spells out “Nibelung”, a reference to a clan of dwarves from Norse saga.
  • They trace the signal from the ring to a lab in a scientific campus owned by Veritas Corp. The lab campus is the same one that hosts Xerion Labs (the lab that Simone Harmony works for).
  • The team get Simone to get them in the building. A quick survey of pictures at the reception area reveals that many of the Veritas workers are criminal figures known to Night Gaunt.
  • They monitor the lab workers activities to find a way into Veritas. They exploit the poor security protocol of some of the Veritas workers taking smoke breaks. Evan uses his gravity power to prop open the door when the smoking lab goons head back into the building.
  • Once they sneak in, they find themselves in a loading dock full of crated up items. Yayael opens one of the crates and finds a plastic bag containing parts of a severely damaged robot. Curious about something he wants to get a closer look at, he rips open the bag (which has radiation trefoil symbols on it). A radiation alarm goes off.
  • Workers isolate the room in case there is a problem. Night Gaunt fakes severe illness and gets two uneducated goons to a restroom, where he locks them in.
  • A decontamination team comes down to take care of the supposed radiation leak, but the group detains them and steals their clothes. They put Yayael in a decon suit to disguise him and prevent him from spreading contamination.
  • They head up to the top floor and find a “nerve center” for the surveillance rings. Servers collect information from a variety of targets. The servers show there is a project in a lower floor that is not connected to the surveillance devices, a so-called Norn Project.
  • They head down to the Norn Project. Inside, they find rooms reverse engineering the robot design they saw earlier, as well as a huge machine covered with Vyortovian writing.
  • They bluff and defeat the lab crew in the Norn Project, but “Tarnhelm”, a man wearing a golden helmet with a blank faceplate, enters with security goons and takes on the team.
  • Tarnhelm is repulsed, and Night Gaunt notes that from his fighting style, he is probably the man they know as Cryptic.
  • As Tarnhelm/Cryptic flees, Emma and Yayael give chase. As they are pursuing, the Vyortovian machine goes off. As the pursuers emerge to the outside door, they see that the terrain has changed from the city to a jungle. Inside the building, the power goes away and the emergency lights come on. The lab and its occupants have all been tranpop
  • Yayael manages to capture Tarnhelm by encasing him in rock, but while they are concentrating on him, they notice that an overly curious scientist is a bit too close to the jungle. A silvery creature rushes him, resembling something like a sea bass with four legs. A cougar with cybernetic devices on its head and shoulders pounces at the creature. After they briefly scuffle, they both dart off into the woods.
  • An alarm goes off in one of the labs in the building. One of the bio-labs says they detected a pathogen. Further analysis shows there is an airborne disease that threatens to kill everyone. It’s affecting Yayael and Evan worse, but for some reason, it’s not affecting Emma at all.
  • The lab analyzes Emma’s blood and finds that she has an antibody that suggests she has been immunized against the disease. They could synthesize a cure from Emma’s blood if they had power back.
  • Evan decides to scout. He goes up in the air and sees that the landscape is similar to a primitive reflection of the region near Halcyon city, but the water levels have risen significantly.
  • Evan spots the cougar he saw earlier, going into a primitive hut-style dwelling.
  • The team heads out to the dwelling. Evan yells inside saying “hello”, and is surprised when the cougar answers him. Her name is Kira, and she is joined by Tomas, a cybernetic tiger who also talks.
  • Kira and Tomas speak a language that sounds like a highly German-influenced English. The heroes are able to talk with them and learn about their world. They discover:
  • This world (Earth-V) was like a twisted alternate Earth where Britain and Germany merged into an oppressive empire, but Eastern European countries settled the west, including the island that would become Vyortovia.
  • Kira and Tomas say that on their Earth, a comet hit the ocean and wiped out coastal cities with the ensuing tidal wave. Soon they learned that the so-called comet was in fact a spaceship of an aquatic alien race called the Ikthosians. The Ikthosians attacked from the seas, and the water levels began to rise as they started to melt the ice caps.
  • Soon, a deadly virus started to kill the survivors. Empire colonists like Kira and Tomas survived by putting their human minds in animal bodies. Other Empire military members survived by undergoing transplants into nuclear-powered cybernetic bodies. The cyborgs were still not capable of taking down the Ikthosians, but after they developed a reputation for self-destructing when cornered, the Ikthosians started to leave them alone.
  • Vyortovia escaped by transferring the island to another reality.
  • The power source that powers the cyborgs could be used to return the lab to Earth-H and power the developing of a cure. The difficult task that faces them is getting one for the cyborgs.
 
Custom Moves

This "Love Letter" was used to cover Night Gaunt's activities when his player was missing:

Love Letter for Night Gaunt:

Dear Night Gaunt,

Your team spent some time on the foreboding shores of the island nation of Vyortovia. But while they were gone, you weren’t just resting on your laurels! Nano tells you that he has added a watermark to the first samples of his Nano tech, and says that someone is out there stealing his tech to analyze or reproduce. There is some manner of corporate espionage going on. He’s not sure whom he can trust in his newfound corporation, so he has asked you to look into it.

You track down some leads, but in the end, finding answers relies on you working your contacts and blending in with somewhat mundane criminal elements. Further, you aren’t sure if using Nano’s tech will be something that will tip the bad guys off. Roll + Mundane.

On a miss, something went wrong. You tip the bad guys off that you are on their trail, and you barely escape with your life. Mark afraid (or any other unmarked condition if afraid is already marked).

On a hit: You find the responsible employee. He wears a gold ring that conceals espionage technology and allows him to communicate with his faceless employers.
On 7-9, the buyer covers their tracks. They kill the responsible employee and escape into the night.
On 10+, you find the employee and prevent an assassination attempt to prevent you from getting information. You gather enough clues to help you track down the source of the leak. Take +1 forward on any subsequent investigation.

But wait! There’s more!

While working your way through criminal channels, you cross paths with your family, but not in a way you might expect/ You find out that your younger sister/brother (choose) is living with your mother again. It seems like she is trying returning to a “normal life”. But is she really? If you would like to find out, you can try to pierce the mask, but this will require you meet with her.

Night Gaunt failed the roll and escapes with his life. The team had so set up an operation to get the intel from the spy early in the game.

Anastasia met with Night Gaunt and tried to shift his mundane up and savior down, as she tried to convince him to let go of the supers life and live a normal life. However, Night Gaunt was fixed in his ways (Savior locked).
 
Session 16 Summary (9/7/19)

In this session, the team is still on Earth-V looking for a way to get back, but they must find a way to deal with the phage that doomed this world.

PlayerCharacterPlaybook
StefanieEmma WillThe Scion
BlakeNight GauntThe Brain
ChrisEvan HorizonThe Nova

Named NPCs appearing: Simone Harmony, Tarnhelm/Cryptic, Tomas (Tiger), Kira (Cougar), Daniel Velez (Biolab Scientist), Bismarck (Cyborg).

Events:
  • The mundanes (including Night Gaunt) are feeling the effects of the phage, but none as bad as Evan and Yayael. Evan is feeling under the weather, and Yayael is unconscious and feverish. (Yayael’s player is not present this session, but there are other implications to his feverish sleep.)
  • Daniel Velez (biolab scientist) says he can synthesize a vaccine from the antibodies in Emma’s blood, but he needs power to operate his equipment. He doesn’t need as much power and Simone Harmony needs to power the Vyortovian device.
  • Tomas and Kira say they know of a major city (Raleigh) now submerged under the waves that may have parts they need.
  • To get there, they may need to dive and come up with a boat. Night Gaunt can mock up some breathing apparatuses for the group, but they need some sort of vehicle.
  • The machine shop has tools to make a quick boat, but they also need power. (Retro: the previously mentioned Alex Lunsford is the machine shop’s man).
  • Night Gaunt asks Tomas and Kira if they know where some nearby communities are that they can scavenge batteries from for the machine shop.
  • Tomas and Kira direct them to a community. They find some cars to scavenge, but once Night Gaunt pops the hood open, he finds a swarm of silvery tadpole-snake things feeding on the electricity of the battery. The swarm attacks.
  • The group deals with the swarm and takes the batteries back, allowing the machine shop to make a boat.
  • While the machine shop is crafting the boat, Night Gaunt finds some alcohol in one of the offices of the Niebelung lab.
  • Night Gaunt agrees to paddle the boat, but he goes a little off course due to the alcohol. They find themselves in the deep water.
  • A huge mutant/weaponized anthropomorphic catfish with tentacle-whiskers (barbels) rises from the deep, sending a huge wave at their boat, threatening to capsize it. Emma deflects the wave with her energy absorption powers, but the catfish-monster wallops her for her trouble.
  • Evan deduces the creature is just hungry, and spots a nearby school of giant carp. Evan uses his gravity power to pull the carp out of the deep, and Night Gaunt holds it up to the creature. It quickly snatches the fish, but smacks Night Gaunt hard enough that it sends him reeling.
  • After recovering from their misadventure with the catfish monster, they find the factory and dive for it. After dealing with some dicey situations, they find a submerged container with a generator and mange to extract it.
  • The group returns to the stranded lab complex. When they return, they learn that Cryptic/Tarnhelm escaped from the rock prison that Yayael made for him when a number of automated drones arrived, stunned the guards, and blasted away the rock.
  • The scientists set up the generator. Doctor Velez manages to manufacture a cure for the phage. Unfortunately, Yayael does not recover.
  • On to the next task, the team must find a power source big enough to power the Vyortovian dimensional transport device.
  • Kira and Tomas know where a citadel of the cyborg-men is. These beings eked out an existence by earning a reputation of self-destructing when taken on by the Ikthosian invaders.
  • The team finds a citadel. They observe that some form of automated cannons destroys ikthosian-weaponized amphibious creatures trying to swarm the citadel.
  • Evan floats the theory that the automated guns won’t fire on them because they are human. Before they can consider the likelihood of that, Night Gaunt decides to test the theory and approaches the citadel without telling his teammates. Fortunately, the theory turns out to be correct.
  • On entering the citadel, the teens find themselves in a grand hallway. Two rows of inactive, lifeless cyborg-shells line the hallway. Emma detects power coming from the last one.
  • They wake the thing and converse with it. It says its name is Bismarck. Bismarck is not hostile and has been mentally perusing the limited data-banks of the citadel. However, Bismarck is bored now.
  • Night Gaunt persuades Bismarck to return to the Lab (and Earth-H) with them, as a mean to alleviate its loneliness.
 
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