What are y'all up to these days?

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
I played Savage Worlds for the first time last night.

Been running it for something like 12 years, but have never been a player until last night, playing online in Deadlands.

That was a different experience (especially as I'm not usually a player in anything), but I had fun!
 
I'm planning my next session of Astounding Space Adventures. The players were looking for a non-combat challenge, so I'm working on one where they will literally have to stabilize a sun to prevent it from going Supernova. Should be an interesting challenge for them
 
Final superhero slugfest of the day! My kids like the "villains took over a military base" scenario cribbed more or less wholesale from X-Men #1 (1963). This time my son played Captain America and Black Panther while my daughter chose Ms. Marvel and Shadowcat. Their opponents were Kraven the Hunter, Crimson Dynamo, Hobgoblin, Absorbing Man, and Klaw. Shadowcat almost immediately disabled Crimson Dynamo by phasing through his armor. Having learned how to deal with Klaw last time, Ms. Marvel made short work of him my snatching his sonic converter while Klaw was distracted by Captain America and Black Panther. Kraven had hoped to square off against Black Panther, but instead got his ass handed to him by Ms. Marvel. Shadowcat also managed to disabled Hobgoblin's glider while the latter was fighting Captain America. I forget how they bested Absorbing Man but he ended up in the water and separated from his ball and chain; the kids were sure to keep Captain America's shield out of his reach. At the end of the kerfuffle, Absorbing Man stole a boat and Hobgoblin and Kraven jumped in back for a getaway by water, abandoning Crimson Dynamo and Klaw to their own devices.
Webp.net-resizeimage (9).jpg
Webp.net-resizeimage (10).jpg
Webp.net-resizeimage (11).jpg
Webp.net-resizeimage (12).jpg
Webp.net-resizeimage (13).jpg
 
HEPCATS Team Zero in…

Episode 17: Family Business


23 November, Rhino Year
Real Life Date 25 June, 2020, online

Present: Ayu, Baron von Braun, N0-5R, Pierre Delecto, Sargoth Trio, Zera

Sage and Tanya fly Pierre, Sargoth, and Ayu down to the planet. Their flight is much less eventful than the trip Zera, N0-5R, and Baron took last episode.

With the team reunited, King Longwang McGregor thanks them for safely delivering his son, Prince Erwin McGregor, and invites them in for a feast.

There are copious quantities of food, mostly unidentified meats. Baron gets some blood from the rarest meat. N0-5R doesn’t eat and questions why the team is there at all. Ayu is bummed out by the books on human nature she read in the space station bookstores and is acting like a petulant teenager. Sargoth tries Dragonfolk hot sauce. It’s extremely hot, but he can handle it… until Zera keeps sneaking more hot sauce onto his plate. The heat becomes a bit more than Sargoth can handle (takes one level of Fatigue).

The king is in a jovial mood, and readily answers all the questions the team pose about Dragonfolk government and lines of succession, and asks them questions about themselves. He denies having any involvement in the Borealian Zap Fly attack, or the rocket sled attack.

Prince Erwin and his cousin, Lucas McNord (whom Zera dubs “McNerd”) fail hard in demonstrating leadership abilities.

Lucas tells the team about how Evil Emperor Zeke, the 16-year old conqueror, has been going around the galaxy taking over planets. Zeke’s method is to fly in with his mothership, the EZS Galactic Dominator, (EZS = “Evil Zeke Ship”) and broadcast a message saying the planet has two choices, unconditional surrender or total annihilation. Lucas says that if one were to do something evil, “like kill your own family,” then, “maybe you could get in good with Zeke and he would appoint you a viceroy or something.”

When asked what he would do if he were in charge and Zeke came to Kelsey, Prince Erwin says that, given the choices of unconditional surrender or total annihilation, he would go with unconditional surrender. Team Zero continues to be unimpressed.

The king says that, although Zeke only offers two choices, “he is a politician,” so the king would first try to find a diplomatic solution, and if that didn’t work, then fight.

The team asks King Longwang if he has any secret illegitimate children who may have better leadership qualities than his son or nephew. In response the king laughs long, loud, and jovially.

The HEPCATS’ wristwatch video-phones all simultaneously blare with an announcement: “INCOMING SECRET MESSAGE! INCOMING SECRET MESSAGE! ENTER ACCESS CODE!”

The king offers them a private room to receive their secret message. They are unable to determine if they’re being bugged, but Baron does McGyver a massive reverb situation that should make it difficult for anyone listening in to understand what is being said.

The team was never actually provided with an access code, but Ayu manages to hack the phones, determining that the access code is 6421.

Their video-phones relay a pre-recorded message that has been delivered via satellite:

“Attention Team Zero: New mission! New mission!

Part one: Evil Emperor Zeke is on his way to conquer Planet Kelsey! Do everything in your power to stop him!

Part two: Zeke’s scientist is developing Gate-Stabilizer Technology. Steal it. If stealing is not possible, destroy it.

This message will not self-destruct, but will delete itself shortly.”


The team, after wondering aloud what “Gate-Stabilizer Technology” is, strategizes how to stop Evil Emperor Zeke from conquering Kelsey. They think a military operation is in order, and if it happens to get King Longwang’s two incompetent heirs killed in the process, well, hey, maybe that’s not so bad? The whole team is okay with this plan; even Baron, despite his alleged pacifism.

(Although I don’t recall it being explicitly stated, I’m pretty sure N0-5R is relieved that the team can now get on with an assigned mission, rather than their own plans.)

The team hears a kerfuffle from outside the room, and discover the door has been barred from the outside when they attempt to leave. Pierre telekinetically lifts the bar, and, with everyone pushing, they get the door open, and come upon a scene of Lucas fighting King Longwang, with Lucas gaining the upper hand.

Neither Prince Erwin nor his bodyguard are involved in the fight. Likewise, the palace guards are just standing around holding their spears and laser guns, watching this family drama without getting involved.

Zera grabs Lucas and flies toward the ceiling with him. She says the ride will cost him 5 gold, but he doesn’t have any gold on him. She tries to drop him, but he holds on tight.

Meanwhile, someone (gold star to the player who reminds me who) convinces the guards to make a pointy pile of their spears. Zera again tries to drop Lucas, this time onto the pointy pile, but he has quite the grip and hangs on tight.

Baron lassoes Lucas’s feet, ties the rope off to a torch-holder, and gets the rest of the HEPCATS to help pull on the rope, hoping to spike Lucas. Again, odd behavior for an alleged pacifist…

Lucas is really strong, so the rope-pulling efforts are in vain. Zera has suddenly developed some respect for Lucas based on his strong efforts to stay alive, and decides to fly down and pin him to the ground, wrestling style, rather than something more lethal.

The king seems pretty unperturbed by his nephew’s attack, but when Zera asks, “Don’t you have a prison system?” he decides that putting his nephew in prison sounds like a pretty good idea under the circumstances.

Suddenly, a broadcast comes through on all channels, including the HEPCATS’ wristwatch video-phones:

“Hey guys, hey gals, hey non-binaries, or whoever lives here, I don’t really care. The important thing is, I’m Evil Emperor Zeke, and I’m here to conquer your planet. You have two choices: unconditional surrender, or total annihilation. So, you know, let me know what you want to do. You have ten minutes.”

The HEPCATS brainstorm a plan versus Evil Emperor Zeke, which the king agrees to. He calls for his general, Rance Reeder, to prepare the Dragonfolk Army for military action.

Pierre suggests that sending Lucas on a high-risk military mission might be better than putting him in prison.

King Longwang says he’s going to go try calling Queen Arabella, because, even though the Dragonfolk and the Blues have had their differences, maybe they can work together to stop the invasion.

To be continued…


XP: 4

Bringing totals to:

Baron: 55, Veteran- Levels up!
N0-5R: 55, Veteran- Levels up!
Zera: 50, Veteran- Levels up!
Ayu: 49, Veteran
Wren: 37, Seasoned
Kurt: 29, Seasoned
Pierre: 29, Seasoned
Sargoth: 25, Seasoned- Levels up!
 
Had to push Astounding Space Adventures back 2 weeks (since next saturday is the 4th of July) as two players had real life get in the way. I'm likely going to run 2 or 3 more sessions, then put it on hiatus (as one of the 3 main players is going to be a dad again soon). I'm thinking of going the opposite end, and run a short pulp or golden age game
 
More TSR Marvel Super Heroes today. This time my son ran Captain America and Thor and my daughter ran Shadowcat and Ms. Marvel. The quartet faced off against the combined might of the Red Skull, Crimson Dynamo, Loki, Klaw, Kraven the Hunter, and Hobgoblin.

I'm trying to impress upon them that we can do this without the dolls and other props, but they like physically moving things around. They made a four-area battleground and the carpet was considered swamp. To change things up, this time the heroes had been tipped off and were lying in wait when Loki teleported his crew of ne'er-do-wells into town...
Webp.net-resizeimage (2).jpg
Webp.net-resizeimage.jpg
Webp.net-resizeimage (1).jpg
Webp.net-resizeimage (3).jpg
A second Ms. Marvel doll was brought into play because Loki used his illusion powers to disguise himself as Ms. Marvel and sow confusion among the good guys. (We pretended both Ms. Marvels were wearing the cooler black costume with the sash and stylized lightning bolt as my daughter thinks that's the best one.)
Webp.net-resizeimage (4).jpg
At one point the Red Skull tried to shoot Kitty Pryde and scored a bullseye, but since he didn't know she was intangible he ended up hitting Hobgoblin instead. Hobgoblin then retaliated and the two of them had a private little war in the midst of the bigger fight.
Webp.net-resizeimage (5).jpg
Shadowcat was able to figure out which Ms. Marvel was which because (1) the real Ms. Marvel had Klaw's sonic converter after she disarmed him and (2) the fake Ms. Marvel asked for help killing the other one, which of course the real Ms. Marvel would never do.
Webp.net-resizeimage (6).jpg

When Hobgoblin realized things were going poorly for the bad guys he jumped back on his Goblin Glider and fled into the swamp....
 
Metahuman News
Developed by a retired doctor to help defend his village, Kulo Wing Chun utilizes twelve sets of three movements as the foundation of this fast defensive style.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HouseDokPro

Website: http://housedok.com/

Print: https://studio2publishing.com/products/metahumans-rising?_pos=2&_sid=145b3fa95&_ss=r\

PDF: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/277614/Metahumans-Rising

#Metahumans #MetahumansRising #Superheroes #RPG #TTRPG #MartialArts #WingChun
 
In today's Advanced Fighting Fantasy game, the party left the swamp village of Ekaad, to head to the Tanglewood goblin village to recruit them for their motley horde. One of the encounters on the way is a Troll, who runs a bridge, and charges two gold pieces to cross. He's an amiable sort, and he takes care of his bridge (Even if it is just a fallen tree trunk), and is happy enough to have a chat, but you've still gotta pay.

Now, if you're an Allansian adventurer, even if you've only done the other two parts of this campaign, you basically already have more gold than you could even know what to do with. Two gold pieces is nothing. But the adventure seems to think that the party will pick a fight with the Troll, because... it's a Troll? It's vaguely sorta in their way? For an adventure that has strong themes of "finding every ally you can" and "not judging people on their appearance", it's... jarring.

Anyway. Most of my players were just "fine, whatever", paid the fee, and crossed. But there is always one, and this time, it was the Barbarian Warrior Princess.

BWP: See this axe?
Troll: Yeah.
BWP: D' you know what axes are good for?
T: Chopping down wood.
BWP: And what's your bridge made out of?
T: Wood.
BWP: D' you see where I'm coming from?
T: Yeah. You're gonna chop down the bridge, and then you're stuck on the other side.
BWP: ...
BWP: ...
BWP: I see.
BWP: Two gold, was it?
 
There's a pretty consistent pattern in Beatrix's 5e game: we arrive in a town; the town has a problem; we solve the problem; the town throws us a party. In last night's session, we decided, since people have thrown so many parties for us, it was about time we threw a party for others. So that is what we're currently up to: planning a huge party. We're inviting pretty much every NPC we've met in the campaign, unless they were a villain or jerk.
 
Last edited:
Meanwhile, in Red Ted's Curse of Strahd 5e game, my PC, who had previously been magically aged from 26 to 56, and then de-aged to 16, has now been further de-aged to 6, haha. He still has his memories and intelligence, so he's a very smart 6-year-old, but his strength has gone way down. The PC that's a 12-year-old Asimar girl is mad because, "I didn't want a little brother!" :clown:
 
We're inviting pretty much every NPC we've met in the campaign, unless they were a villain or jerk.
It might be fun to throw a second separate party where you invite all the jerks and villains, and don't show up yourself.
 
Mythras failed to take hold. The first session was fun but the players weren't particularly interested in the bronze age setting and mostly just wanted encounters lined up to fight through. It seems like a great toolkit ruleset but requires a lot more work. Not very well suited to running non-stop action.

My interest though has been pulled towards Delta Green. Read over the Need to Know quickstart and really enjoyed it so I ordered the core slipcase this week. I've got a group playing occasional 7e 1920s Cthulhu investigations so I'm going to pitch trying out DG after our current investigation goes south.
 
Mythras failed to take hold. The first session was fun but the players weren't particularly interested in the bronze age setting and mostly just wanted encounters lined up to fight through. It seems like a great toolkit ruleset but requires a lot more work. Not very well suited to running non-stop action.

If they want that style and you decide to give it another go, classic fantasy Will be more that cup of tea. generally much tougher characters (finances work such that armor is 1/10th the price, and all the fighting classes get extra armor, healing is much freer, everyone gets more luck points, etc) and more suited to a line of encounters. pre-pandemic I was running my folks through a conversion of white plume mountain and it worked very well.

good luck with the delta green. I pulled that down to do a similar sort of thing with Mythras myself. Great book, and a fun setting
 
If they want that style and you decide to give it another go, classic fantasy Will be more that cup of tea. generally much tougher characters (finances work such that armor is 1/10th the price, and all the fighting classes get extra armor, healing is much freer, everyone gets more luck points, etc) and more suited to a line of encounters. pre-pandemic I was running my folks through a conversion of white plume mountain and it worked very well.

good luck with the delta green. I pulled that down to do a similar sort of thing with Mythras myself. Great book, and a fun setting
Classic Fantasy would definitely be more their flavor, at least the two players that joined from my usual group. They're pretty open to trying new systems and were excited about Mythras' combat system, but don't stray far from the classic dungeon crawl in terms of playstyle.
 
Classic Fantasy would definitely be more their flavor, at least the two players that joined from my usual group. They're pretty open to trying new systems and were excited about Mythras' combat system, but don't stray far from the classic dungeon crawl in terms of playstyle.
Oh yes, CF is definitely in that space. Especially if you got a guy who loves fighters and feels they keep getting the shaft.

one thing i found was that halfling rogues need some edge and some definite expectation adjustment at least. You aren’t pulling off 5d6 sneak attack, so it’s important to sort of walk through the advantages for a rogue (hit me up for some house rules that have been tested). Halflings, in particular, are an archetype and have no provisions out of the box.
 
been putting together our mythras cyberpunk, and finding lots of holes. I'm happy I'm finding the holes, but it is a bit tedious at points. currently have done up a troll street samurai, a human street samurai, elf face, elf mage (sorcery adept), dwarf shaman (conjuring adept), and have a concept for how to cost out decking.

werewolf game is at a good stopping point, so we are going to one shot this.
 
Metahuman News
Dating back to 11th century Japan Sagawa Daito-Ryu Aiki-Jujutsu the style focuses on how the body moves and overcoming armed and armored assailants.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HouseDokPro

Website: http://housedok.com/

Print: https://studio2publishing.com/products/metahumans-rising?_pos=2&_sid=145b3fa95&_ss=r\

PDF: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/277614/Metahumans-Rising

#Metahumans #MetahumansRising #Superheroes #RPG #TTRPG #MartialArts #Aiki-Jujutsu
 
Fleeing on the Silk Road from the wrath of the Wu Emperor, four player-characters ride into Samarkand at dusk.
Hanza notices a Nihonese woman standing on the street about the same time that she notices him. This far west, each is surprised to see the other. However, before they can even make eye contact, a yurt in the street explodes amid a shower of icey particles and a horrid creature emerges and immediately starts to cut down people in the crowded street.
Ivan charges with his lance, trampling no bystanders, such is his control of his horse.
Roxanne rides off to the side, shooting an arrow.
Hanza calms his plunging mount and rides toward the creature with his sword drawn.
Nandas calmly begins a spell
Tamamo, the stranger by the side of the road, begins a spell
Roxanne's arrow hits but the creature ignores it
Ivan arrives, driving his lance into the demon and the demon hits him with his sword, taking him from his saddle.
Hanza passes by with his sword, landing a sweeping cut.
A bitter cold rain begins falling on Tamamo, doing damage
She ignores it and launches her firebolt spell, harming the icey creature greatly.
Ivan lurches to his feet and avoids being hit again, but barely.
Roxanne shoots again, to no effect
Bystanders are shooting bows and throwing things at the creature
Hanza locks his wrist and uses his sword like a lance, attacking the demon from behind.
The icey rain injures Tamamo severely but she stays on her feet
Nandas' lightning bolt hits the demon
Hanza and Ivan both strike and demon dissolves into a puddle of stinking ice-water.
The Shah's guard arrives.
The Shah expresses his gratitude but points out that he can't let them stay and risk the wrath of his fellow ruler.
More after dinner
 
Was planning on more ICONS with a pal tomorrow, but it's too damn hot to sit outside (which is necessitated by social distancing), so we're going to have to reschedule.
 
(Continued)
So, the Shah (it's a Shah and not a Khan because this Samarkand, at this time, is a Sarmatian city) honors them at a small banquet. In private, he shows them the location of an old family keep on a map and tells them that they can hide out there while he finds out whether the Wu Emperor is ever going to give up his vendetta.
It's on their way west, so they go there. Somehow, the Shah has assumed Tamamo is part of their group, so she goes along. They spend their time on the way getting acqainted. All of them are somewhat suspicious of the Shah's motives but the old keep is exactly where he said it would be. However, he never said that it was completely abandoned, a detail that might well have been mentioned. Instead of just waiting on the ground floor, they do some exploring and the place is infested with minor undead. In the late afternoon, Tamamo convinces the others that they do not want to be in this known location and they move several hours down the trail west.
Just after midnite, Nandas is on watch when he sees and hears a tremendous roar and flames shooting into the sky from the direction of the old keep. He wakes the others and they all see it burn for hours.
They continue fleeing westward. Roxanne's mumbled chant of vengeance, which had previously mentioned the Wu Emperor over and over, now alternates the Wu Emperor and the Shah.
 
I'm adding two new players to my Pendragon campaign because they keep making puppy-dog eyes at me, and my other gaming obligation, a year-long storyline, is winding down, so I figured fuck it, let 'em in. What could eight players make difficult that six can't?
 
Adding a new player to my 5th edition game. He's never played 5th. He thinks he played 3.5 or 4th but mostly he's played PF. He's a friend of a friend but seems on the ball so far.

Party is up to 5 PCs. A childhood friend, his girlfriend (of what almost 30 years now.) two of their friends from online video games and a third from the same setup I believe. So far everyone is having fun. We've all worked through some of the rough edges of me and them learning 5th edition as well as some minor technical issues of Fantasy Grounds Unity. Tonight we start Waterdeep Dragon Heist. Cross your fingers for me.
 
Adding a new player to my 5th edition game. He's never played 5th. He thinks he played 3.5 or 4th but mostly he's played PF. He's a friend of a friend but seems on the ball so far.

Party is up to 5 PCs. A childhood friend, his girlfriend (of what almost 30 years now.) two of their friends from online video games and a third from the same setup I believe. So far everyone is having fun. We've all worked through some of the rough edges of me and them learning 5th edition as well as some minor technical issues of Fantasy Grounds Unity. Tonight we start Waterdeep Dragon Heist. Cross your fingers for me.
It went well. In two hours we 1) finished off a previous adventure taking maybe 15 minutes. 2) arrived at The Yawning Portal 3) dealt with all necessary interaction there. 4) visited a little of the area and got some flavor of the city. 5) arrived at and investigated a necessary location.
Next week we will deal with the fallout of that investigation and move on to part 2 of the adventure I think
 
Continued my 5e Lost Mines of Phandelver game this past Saturday. 5 of 5 players returning. It's been great that a group of random newbies recruited off of Roll20 has gelled so well together. They're cooperative, enthusiastic, try to explore every avenue before leaping into a situation. They've made useful friends amongst the townsfolk, negotiated with a monster they were afraid to confront, set up a good ambush of some bandits, and took a stealthy approach to raiding a lair that paid off well.
5e runs pretty smooth. The power level is noticeably higher than the older editions I'm used to, but we've had one character death and were a single death save away from another in only 3 sessions so far, so I feel like the game still evokes a sense of danger and excitement. My only complaint at this point is the way actions break down, where you get characters taking a half move, then attacking, then completing the move, then a bonus action, and half the time the bonus action triggers another full action, and so it can kind of slow down turns and I feel like I gotta confirm every time "are you finished?" before moving on. But like I said, the players are all pretty new to it as well, so I'm hopeful that as everyone learns their characters that it speeds up a bit.

My AS&SH game is changing from a city based campaign to a wilderness hex crawl. After nine sessions, the party had made so many enemies in the city and somehow never managed to follow-up on any threats so Khromarium had become an absolute pressure cook that finally exploded on them last night. While the party was in a dungeon, a mercenary band they'd previously crossed raided the area and killed most of the party's allies, while a cult led by a daemon they'd accidentally set free started slaughtering priests of any other religion, and a wizard that had escaped the party's attack on a rival lair managed to blow up the party's house. They'd lost their home, their boat, half their treasure, pretty much all their useful contacts in the city. They managed to flee into the countryside and have some leads of treasures to go looking for in the wilderness.

Lastly, my Delta Green slipcase arrived yesterday. I've been diving into the pdfs over the last week and loving the material, but these books are absolutely gorgeous. The Handler's Guide is going to be quite a read, as most of its 368 pages seems to be devoted to setting information. I'm really looking forward to running this. If anyone has recommendations of favorite introductory scenarios, let me know.
 
Played in Beatrix's 5e game last night. We spent a week of in-game time preparing to throw the party, and then the second part of the session was the first part of the party. All of the NPCs we invited, as well as some others, showed up! :smile:

My PC, Rocky, spent the week taking dancing lessons, so he could ask an NPC he has a crush on to dance at the party.

There were no crazy monster attacks or anything, just PCs and NPCs enjoying a party. It was a fun, different session.
 
Last edited:
My Savage Worlds players continue to be really fun to play with and really bad about answering "can you play this week?" Two of eight players are confirmed for this Thursday's game.
 
For tomorrow's Savage Worlds session, the HEPCATS have ten minutes of in-game time to figure out what their plan is to respond to Evil Emperor Zeke's invasion. I'm not going to make them come up with their plan in ten minutes of real-life time, but I do want to put some time pressure on. I'm thinking of setting a timer for 30 minutes of real-life time.
 
Agent Kurt Warlock has semi-retired from the HEPCATS. It's amicable between the player and I; he'd just rather spend Thursday evenings hanging out with his fiancee than playing pretend, which is fine.
 
So aside from the weekly D&D group I've been a player in, I have recently started a little side game with the same group.
We've moved entirely to Discord for the time being, and I got inspired by the play by posts here on the Pub. I took an old map I made a long while back and basically just used Text adventure logic, no game system, and if we really need a roll we flip a coin or roll a d100. I wing everything else other than the map and it's worked out pretty good so far. The group seems to be liking the looser exploration game and we don't have to organize a session since it's all in a discord chat thread.
 
HEPCATS Episode 18: A-to-Z Wrecking Crew!

23 November, Rhino Year (Jeez, 23 November has been a busy day!)
Real life date: 9th July, 2020, online
Present: Ayu, Zera

The team hears that Kurt Warlock has really gotten into his role as a film consultant on the space station and has decided to semi-retire from being a secret agent to work in movie production instead. Ayu points out that he should be good at making movies, since he’s been the subject of so many.

The team talks to King Longwang about what he wants to do regarding Evil Emperor Zeke’s ultimatum of unconditional surrender or total annihilation.

Zera asks if the Dragonfolk have any devices that would power up two people to superhuman levels where they could fight an army. The King says he thinks his great-great grandfather might have had something like that, and tasks Tim-Jim to go find it.

A plan is hatched to, essentially, surrender, but not really mean it and fight back later.

Ayu: “Your life will change for a while, but it’s temporary.”
King Longwang: “As long as I don’t have to stay inside for two months!”
Ayu & Zera say it seems unlikely that would ever happen.

The King says, since Evil Emperor Zeke is an egomaniac and loves pomp and circumstance, he will invite Evil Emperor Zeke and his army to a huge, elaborate ceremony. While Zeke is distracted, it should give Ayu and Zera an opportunity to sneak onto Zeke’s flagship, the EZS Galactic Dominator, and conduct their “steal or destroy the gate-stabilizer technology” mission. The rest of the team will stay at the castle to help with the distraction.

The dynamic duo asks King Lonwang if he has any stealth gear they can use, so Lt. Skim escorts them to the secret underground armory for Dragonfolk special forces teams. It is extremely neat, clean, and well-organized, contrasting sharply with the HEPCATS’ usual gear-getting experiences.

There Ayu and Zera each get a stealth suit which fits over their current clothes [+2 armor & +2 stealth] and Ayu gets a hacking deck [+2 hacking]. Lt. Skim notices that neither of them are carrying guns (Ayu actually does have her sleeve-blaster, but it’s not visible) and offers them each a standard Dragonfolk Army laser pistol [2d6 + 2 damage].

Zera says she doesn’t really know how to use guns and asks if they are any good for hitting people with. Lt. Skim says, yes, one time he was deep in enemy territory, and his laser pistol ran out of charge, but he was able to take down the giant Blue he was fighting by using his empty gun as, essentially, a very expensive set of brass knuckles. He then realizes he probably shouldn’t be divulging information about secret Dragonfolk missions against the Blues…

Ayu uses the workbench to repair and reprogram the robot flies she acquired back on the space station into three groups with different purposes, but they ultimately don’t help much.

King Longwang calls Evil Emperor Zeke back and informs him that Planet Kelsey chooses to surrender. He invites Zeke to come to the grounds of the castle, “Which is where we usually do the ‘Handing Over the Keys to the Planet’ ceremony.” Zeke says he’s disappointed there was no battle because he likes to lead the troops himself, “as a leader should,” but also confides in King Longwang, “between us leaders, my troops, though vast in number, aren’t really that great. So I’m glad I didn’t have to lose any of them. But don’t tell anybody!”

After hanging up, King Longwang tells one of his functionaries, “Quick, invent a ‘Handing Over the Keys to the Planet’ ceremony!”

Zera asks if there will be a marching band at the ceremony. Several of the palace guards volunteer that they play instruments, so the King tasks another functionary with forming a marching band.

As Evil Emperor Zeke and his army march towards the castle’s front door, King Longwang asks if Ayu and Zera might perhaps want to go out a different way, and suggests, since Zera can fly, that they go out the window of one of the towers.

Zera is initially confused about who should be carrying whom when they go out the window, but they get it sorted and stealthily fly to where the EZS Galactic Dominator is parked. The ramp is down, with one guard at the base of the ramp, who falls for the old “go investigate the sound from the thrown rock” trick.

Inside the ship, Ayu and Zera see a long hallway with several doors off of it. The doors all have keypad locks, but they are easily hacked by Ayu. Behind the first door is a break room with coffee and donuts. Zera takes some donuts. The second door leads to a large walk-in closet where Evil Emperor Zeke hangs the cape/robe garments that he wears over his other clothes. Zera takes the prettiest one. The next door leads to a very long hallway, which they don’t go down yet. They find another door leading to a janitor’s closet. Zera takes a mop.

Behind the next door are a handful of guards, dressed in silver armor with large spikes that is clearly designed with the fashion sense of a sixteen-year-old galactic conqueror, rather than a sense of “let’s equip our guards with functional armor.”


The guards are upset at having been left on the ship while everyone else got to go to the ceremony. Ayu and Zera convince those guards to go crash the ceremony, which they do. With the guards gone, the duo sees that the room contains more of the same type of armor the guards were wearing, some polearms with crescent blades on the ends, silver daggers, and a computer terminal. Zera takes a polearm and a dagger. Ayu takes two daggers.

Zera takes a helmet, breaks off the spikes because they interfere with peripheral vision, and wears it. Ayu puts on a whole suit of armor. (I think? Or did Zera have the full suit & Ayu had just a helmet? Gold star to the player who remembers).

Ayu hacks into the computer terminal and finds a map which indicates that the room at the end of the current long hall is the engine room. The other long hall has a bunch of small, unlabelled rooms, and, towards the far end, an area labelled “Super Secret Research Lab.” The duo goes to that hallway and, before proceeding down it, decide to drop the non-stealthy silver armor and the extremely non-stealthy galactic emperor cape in a pile on the floor. A space-roomba tries to clean up the pile, but it is too big and he just keeps running into it over and over.

Zera picks up Ayu and they fly down the hallway, being as stealthy as possible, which is just stealthy enough to avoid being shot by the automated cannons. When Ayu hacks the lab door, it opens on a scene of two large robot gladiators, Charlie and Dan, attacking each other with giant axes. The robots notice Ayu and Zera and decide to attack them!

A tough battle ensues, in which our brave HEPCATS are able to hit the gladiators fairly easily, but struggle to cause damage.

[Ayu’s player rolls dice poorly, neglects to make the talking-ooc-sign, and says]

Ayu: “Fuuuck meee.”
Charlie: “I don’t want to fuck you, I want to kill you.”
Ayu: “You’re not my type anyway.”

Eventually, between Zera’s powerful swinging of her warhammer, Ayu jumping up on Charlie and stabbing him in both sides of the neck with her twin daggers, Ayu dual-wielding laser guns to shoot a hole in Charlie’s chest, and Ayu romantically wrapping her arms around Zera to demonstrate how to hold a gun properly, the robot gladiators end up in a smoking, sparking, incapacitated pile on the floor.

As the smoke clears, the duo sees Evil Emperor Zeke’s scientist, Dr. Baxter West, working in the lab, and asks him about the robot gladiators.

Dr. West: “The problem with Evil Emperor Zeke is that he’s evil, so he had me program these robots to be a bit homicidal.”

Zera: “So you’re not evil?”

Dr. West: “No, I only work for Evil Emperor Zeke because I’m scared of him.”

Ayu & Zera (paraphrased): “Do you wanna come with us and be a good guy?”

Dr. West: “... Yes?”

Ayu, Zera, and Dr. West begin brainstorming about stealing the gate-stabilizer-technology by stealing the entire flagship, or stopping the invasion by blowing up all the ships while everyone is at the ceremony, or…

To be continued…

XP, for being an excellent two-woman wrecking crew: 6! Bringing totals to:

Zera: 56,, Veteran- Levels up!
Ayu: 55, Veteran- Levels up! Twice!
Baron: 55, Veteran
N0-5R: 55, Veteran
Wren: 37, Seasoned
Pierre Delecto: 29, Seasoned
Sargoth Trio: 25, Seasoned

Kurt Warlock, semi-retired: 29, Seasoned
 
Man, I remember, at the start of this campaign, my session write-ups were, like 3 sentences! :clown:

I like having a record of the details though, both in case I need to check anything plot-relevant later, and for my own (and hopefully my players') amusement.
 
Man, I remember, at the start of this campaign, my session write-ups were, like 3 sentences! :clown:

I like having a record of the details though, both in case I need to check anything plot-relevant later, and for my own (and hopefully my players') amusement.
That's why I stopped reading AARs.
 
First playtest of Mythras cyberpunk/Shadowrun went off with many hitches, but that’s the idea. I made 8 characters for 5 players and they virtually all picked combat focused characters, then they commented On the lack of combat. There were some issues with contacts and research of all things, but otherwise went ok. Not a lot of exercise of the conbat Side, but they got in, got the data, and got out. I had another guy GM (who is frankly much better), I took notes, and the others played and commented.

said GM, myself, and another player have all voices a desire to continue with modifications.
 
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top