West Coast Avengers: The Last Resort

 

I've got interested in trying Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, the years out-of-print game based on the Cortex Plus system, and we were between games in one of my groups so it seemed a good time to give it a try. As MHR is geared to playing characters in the Marvel Universe, I decided to adapt a module from TSR's old Marvel Superheroes game, and since I could find MHR stats for all the characters online, I went with possibly the only MSHRPG module I ever played, The Last Resort by Kim Eastland, which stars the West Coast Avengers--a team I have some nostalgia for, since I subscribed to their comic. 

Paul, Aaron, and Andrea were the group or the season playing Hawkeye, Wonder Man, and Tigra respectively. The stats, unfortunately, weren't period perfect, being based on the versions of the characters from 30 years later, but that's to be expected and only mildly offends my sense of nostalgia, really. 

The story involvements Iron Man and a group of Boy Scouts going missing during the hero's appearance at a Jamboree in Idaho. The other Avengers must investigate, and of course, discover nefarious doings.

I'll reserve my full judgements for both the system and the adventure until we've completed the latter, but some initial thoughts on both: I liked MHR on my read through of it, and so far it has held up well in play, moving fairly fast despite our lack of familiarity with it, but for the simplicity of its base mechanic it does have a lot of exceptions and options to keep track of. The module is silly in concept and detail, and not silly in a way that is congruent with what would be likely to occur in the comics, but it has thus far served its purpose of allowing us to test out the system.

Rockets & Rayguns

Most of my gaming group got together (virtually) for a character creation session for the pulpy science fantasy thing in 5e. I've been blogging about the setting here which borrows from Star Frontiers, Spelljammer, and assorted works of the pulp era of science fiction. The mechanics are the pertinent bits of Rocket Age 5e on top of regular 5e.

Anyway, so far the the party has a Hadozee Explorer, a Vrusk Scientist, a Human Soldier, and a Plasmoid Scoundrel. 

I'll probably be posting some of the material I wrote up or that in an abbreviated form, and certainly the session reports will show up here.

The Spider's Web

 Our Land of Azurth 5e game continued last night with the part heading out for Subazurth, and then to journey through its subterranean highways to the the mysterious domed city of Yai. Along the way to the road, they learn a bit about the history of the local kingdom of Subazurth: How the deposed Rorquar the Gnome King was an enemy of Queen Desire but his son, Gheode, the current king is her ally. The the "gnomes" of this area are Earth faeborn, mostly with a crystalline appearance. 

In Subazurth they are met by Captain Malachite:

He has prepared a cover story for them as "fungus hunters" and has a giant pillbug drawn wagon to give them. He also providers a star-shaped compass that will allow them to navigate to the northern Noxia border. 

They head out beneath Virid to the Virid-Noxia border. The route is pretty easy going. The road has paving stones and the way is lit by phosphorescent fungi on most of the walls. Passing through one outpost, though, they are stopped by a salty veteran of the Subazurth Rangers who tells them the passage is closed for some distance ahead due to a monster infestation. He welcomes them to stay a week or so while he hires a group of adventurers to clear the way.

The party responds that even though they are humble fungus hunters, they will give it a shot. The ranger agrees to let them try. Half a day in, they pass an alcove for a waystation that is full of spider webs. They roll on, but remain vigilante overnight in the next alcove. Dagmar things she sees something at the edge of the light, but by the time she summons Shade, whatever it might have been is gone.

The next day, they again head out, only to be attacked by the breath weapon of some sort of dragon-spider hybrid. It gives the party quite a time, and Kully goes down, but they are able to slay the creature in the end, and take it's head to present to the ranger. They also, of course, search its lair and recover its meager treasure.

Modest reward for their efforts acquired, they again head northeast

Zephyrus to the Rescue

Our Land of Azurth 5e game continued last night with the party trying to find a way to free Queen Desira of Virid from the influence of the shadow man. They have no magic with which to uncharm her and it doesn't seem reason alone will do it. Not wanting to fight the shadow man and his magic-using victim, the party retreats to the castle to seek the advice of Glafko.

Glafko is not particularly helpful, offering to write a strongly worded missive to his Queen making the party's points forcefully. Just as they are about to return to the garden folly and resort to violence, Glafko suggests the crystal winged horse Zephyrus might be helpful. He has freed her from magical influence before. The majordomo summons the crystal horse and he agrees to help.

Back in the garden, the shadow man isn't pleased when he sees Zephyrus, but contact with horse does the trick and Desira falls unconscious. Then, the fight breaks out with Erekose whipping out the ray pistol he got from the future, and blasting the shadow several times. Kully forces the shadow to retreat further with dissonant whispers, but that may not have been the best move, because then he's hidden in the deeper shadows of the garden.

Black tentacles erupt from the ground and grab Waylon and Erekose. Dagmar casts a light spell and reveals the shadow, and Shade puts two magic arrows in him. The shadow disappears. It's unclear whether he is dead or he just fled, but they can't find him anywhere and the tentacles are gone.

They return to the palace and find the Queen is still sleeping. They establish a watch, using Celestie (Waylon's owl familiar) as a window guard. 

During the night, Desira awakens and summons the party via Celestie. She appears to be her normal self again (as much as they can determine that). She listens to what they have to say with interest, particularly when she shows them the Triumph of the Wizard of Azurth volume. She tells them she believes the book to possibly be connected the the Pleasure Dome of Yai--or at least she believes that is where they are likely to find out about it.

To make her point, she has Zephyrus bring out a device. 

And produces a thin black box and puts it in the machine. He makes images of a play where actors appear to be portraying them appear! Desira says she got this from a demon who said it was from Yai and called it a "bootleg." The party is intrigued, to say the least.

The party stays the night and samples the local cuisine in at the Silver Unicorn Inn. In the morning, Desira sees them off, offering to take them to the entrance to Subazurth so they can pass through the kingdom of her friend Prince Gheode, ruler of the earth elemental fae (kobolds or gnomes they are called), which she believes will ultimately be the safest way to the Noxian northern border.

The Queen of Virid

Our Land of Azurth 5e game continued last night with the party making their way to the city at the bottom of the strange, gaseous lake. Kully asks the guards to take them to the Queen, but they don't have the authority and don't know where she is in any case. They direct the party to the palace. 

Within the palace, they find a bunch of courtiers of the elemental faeborn race of Virid and the major domo, Glafko. After they prove their bona fides by relating how they rescued Desira's winged steed, Zephyrus, from the Cloud Castle, Glafko tells them the Queen is her folly at the center of the Silk Garden where her colonies of silk making spiders live. There has been a revel going on within that hedge maze for months, and the Queen hasn't emerged. 

Our heroes enter the maze and have a few strange encounters before reaching the green crystal folly at its center. They have a fight with a dragon-like creature with a snout and long tongue like an anteater that has the power to shrink people. Then they meet an elemental woman made of rock who seems to be pondering deep thoughts and wants to be left alone. Finally, they meet a raving elf named Melfon who warns of the end of the world. He says he read about it in a book called The Triumph of the Wizard of Azurth, but he believes it to be prophecy. He gives the book (really more a dime novel) to the party.

Finally, they reach the folly and find more intoxicated revelers and in a smaller flower garden, Queen Desira. Desira confides that she's been distracted of late and some of her advisors have become frustrated with her. She attributes it to being in love. When Dagmar asks who she is in love with, the Queen says they'll meet him soon.

After a bit more small talk, her lover arrives. A shadow man steps form a path into the center of the garden, and Desira greets him warmly.

Whale Hunting in the Skies of Azurth

 Our Land of Azurth 5e game continued last Sunday with the party on their way to Virid (still!) and encountering an odd character repairing an airship of the sort they had seen used by the Cloud Folk. He gave his name as Captain Ahab Flint and told them his profession was recovering treasure from balloon whales.

It seems these large but slow-moving creatures sifted clouds for food and invariably swallowed all sort of items from old Cloud Giant civilization. These ancient items could be sold for a profit, if you can induce the balloon whales to vomit them up. Flint was bereft of crew and offered the party a ride to Virid and a share in the treasure for their help. The party agreed.

Flint instructed the party in the use of  the net gun to fire the net and reel in the beasts, and the "ticklers" (long poles with leather covered padding on the end) which is used to poke and stroke the balloon whale ribs to make this disgorge the treasure.  Finally, he requested one of them server as "the diver" to potentially fish stuck items out of the very mouths of the balloon whales.

Soon, they sight one of the creatures and the hunt was on. The creature looks like a plump, giant manatee with a sad looking almost human face (not unlike a blobfish). They manage to get a haul of weird gold tokens or nonmetallic coins out of the first one.

Flint also has a musical instrument that looks uncannily like an older version of Kully's. Flint says it was given to him by a guy named Drue. Kully does an experiment by scratching a mark inside his instrument, then later he examines Flint's and finds it on the inside!

After a couple of hauls, they hear a thunderous bellowing, which Flint hypothesizes might be the Giant Shepherd of the Night Skies. This being supposedly claims the balloon whales, but Flint has never seen him. Sure enough, an ebon giant whose skin seems marked with stars and nebula comes stalking across the sky. He throws an ice storm at the ship, forcing it to drop precipitously. The party attacks with spells, but the giant seems unfazed. Flint dives and soon they are beneath the clouds and the giant is far behind.

After stopping to effect repairs, the ship arrives in the Virid capital the following day. The party is confused, when all they seem is a vast lack, but Flint tells them its below the magical waters, and they dive down...

TO BE CONTINUED

Star Trek Endeavour: Uzaveh the Infinite

Back from a hiatus for a couple more episodes, a campaign in Star Trek Adventures... 

Episode 6: "Uzaveh the Infinite"

Player Characters: 
The Crew of the USS Endeavour, NCC-1895, Constitution Class Starship (refit):
Andrea as Lt. Ona Greer, Engineer 
Bob as Capt. Robert Locke
Gina as Cmdr. Isabella Hale, Helm Chief
Jim as Lt. Ross Gordon, Science Officer

Tug as Dr. Azala Vex, Trill Chief Medical Officer

Supporting Cast:

Julie Cobb as Lt. Perez, Security Officer

Michael Zaslow as Lt. Nesmith, Geologist

Synopsis: Endeavour is surveying the 13th moon o Parjali II as a potential cite for an outpost when they discover a humanoid life sign that shouldn't be there. Investigating, they find a robed figure who appears to be a Rhaandarite and a small hut. The being declares himsef Uzaveh, once worshipped as a god by the primitive Rhaandarites, whose evolution he takes credit for. He offers to further "improve" the Endeavour's crew. Locke and his senior officers are suspicious. Locke particularly recalls what led to the Eugenics Wars, but Perez and Nesmith take Uzaveh up on his offer, and Perez is given superhuman strength, while Nesmith is freed from the need to take medication for a genetic condition.

But the crew is unable to contact their ship and they believe Uzaveh is responsible. Eventually, they confront him, and he reveals his true purpose: he needs to evolve them to transfer his consciousness to a suitable body, and he is wearing out the Rhaandarite he is in. A battle ensues with the enhanced crew under Uzaveh's control. A phaser blast eventually disrupts his energies, causing his body to rapidly decay. The crew who were controlled were freed, and their biologies gradually return to normal.

Commentary: This was a mission brief from Mission Briefs 1: Growing Pains, by Michael Dismuke. It was set during the Enterprise era, but easy enough to adapt to a later one. In the original, Uzaveh had an Andorian body.

Jim joined this game for the first time playing Lt. Gordon:

Showdown with the Cyan Sorceress

 

A week ago, our Land of Azurth 5e game continued a week ago with the party coming to what they had initially take to be a hill at the center of the forest of stone shapes, but was actually a circle of close standing forms. There was one stone toppled over to form a platform over a deep abyss chasm beyond where floated the Singing Monolith. On this platform, the Cyan Sorceress had made her camp. 

She tried to shoo the party away, but when they weren't having it, she threw a trinket into their midst that suddenly cause gravity to intensify, slamming them to the ground. Obviously, the time for palaver had passed!

The Cyan Sorceress had powerful magic and several strange devices at her disposal, but in the end their was only one of her against the entire party. With Dagmar's healing keeping Erekose and Waylon able to attack, the Sorceress was subdued. Belatedly some of the weird cyber-zombies attacked, but they were easily dispatched.

With a spell to compel her truth-telling, the party got down to questioning the Sorceress. They found out she and the other Chromic Witches were agents of Queen Desira of Virid, but they had become concerned that the Wizard of Azurth was exerting a strange influence over her, and struck out on their own to find magics to potentially counter his. Somewhere along the way, she fell under the influence of a Shadow. Who or what the Shadow was, she had difficulty describing she seemed to indicate that somehow it was displayed in time and possible world. It was somehow related to the book which was sometimes the Wondrous Wizard of Azurth and sometimes the Marvelous Monarch of Mu. The Shadow wished to use the book to remake the world, or perhaps had done so already. Somehow the revival of these action devices were going to help the Shadow do this. When the Cyan Sorceress was defeated, the Shadow seemed to have lost its influence.

The party was unable to stop the Monolith's emergence, meaning an increased revival of the ancient trinkets and related artifacts, but since the Sorceress was unable to complete the ritual it had been a less significant event than it might have been. The group emerged on to the surface of the Crooked Hills, more informed than before, but perhaps no more enlightened.

Dark Sun: Daggers in the Night

The party's caravan arrived at the Silver Springs Oasis. Eowen and Egon went to try to deliver a message given to them by the elf Iseela back in Dur-Taruk for  Toramundi, Chieftain of the Silver Hand Tribe that controls the carvanserai. With the mention of Iseela's name they are taken through confusing back alleys and underground passages until they are are ushered into a room where the chief sits cross-legged on the floor with a shaman.

Toramundi accepts the coded message. Egon asks him for help with information on Golothlay Canyon. He laughs and tells them he doesn't believe that the House Madar treasure exists, and he thinks they are on a fool's errand which can only lead to their deaths. Any other information will cost them.

Egon and Eowen pay his price in silver and obtain a map which will allow them to skirt some of the known dangers on the way to the canyon. Their employer, Urum ath Wo, is pleased because he has been unable to find a guide. He bids them bed down near the animals and heads off for better accommodations.

That night, while Eowen is on watch, she discovers two masked elves attacking some of the merchants in the party in their sleep. She sounds an alarm, and Egon and Keeb-Raa join the fight. They kill one assassin, but the other runs away. Eowen gives chase, but looses him in the twisting passages of the ancient structure.

Keeb-Raa manages to use his healing magics to stabilize the wounded merchant.

The Petrified Polyhedron Forest

 

Our Land of Azurth 5e session last Sunday saw the party continuing their exploration of the strange, underground tunnels as they searched for the Cyan Sorceress. They had no luck in that regard, but they encountered a number of weird things. Waylon took a bracer off an alien skeleton that allowed the wearer to reach into a pocket dimension. They discovered a room where the walls were covered in green filaments, though they couldn't discern its purpose. Then there was the room where the emanations of a crystal seemed to have frozen a number of people (both aliens and recognizable folk) in time. 

The group freed a couple of the humans, who were priests of the oracular temple above and had been frozen for hundreds of years. The party hoped the priests might be able to shed some light on everything that was going on, but no such luck. They pointed the confused priests in the direction of the surface and went on.

The last room they came to had a column of light that they figured out acted as some sort of teleportation beam. They all used it and came out in a vast, underground cavern, full of a petrified forest of sorts--or perhaps a garden of standing stones might be more accurate. Except the stones are all "natural" and in various geometric shapes. They come in sizes from merely imposing to positively gigantic. And the party discovered that some of them move.

In fact, the party figured out how to nudge who of these rolling stones in a forward (deeper into the forest) direction, and they followed in its wake to the central hill.

Encounter with the Cyan Sorceress

Our Land of Azurth 5e game continued on September 16 and again last Sunday. The party passed through the door opened by the sleep walkers and into an older structure. Just beyond the door, they encountered an animal like a great cat with a ball of energy for a head. The party fought with it, and though it had some unusual powers, put it down reasonably quickly.

They moved into a larger passage where a humming sound presaged the passing of something at high speed. During the rest of the time in this central tunnel the thing periodically passed at unpredictable intervals. They had to be careful and stay out of its way.

Crossing the dangerous "highway" they came into a room full of strange, junk machinery--and another (or perhaps the same) energy-headed cat. They fought it again, and realized finally it would stay did until they shocked it with lightning. 

More weird rooms followed that one. There were several with sarcophagi where beings seemed to be in various states of growth around old bones. Dagmar touched the semi-solid green stuff in a vat and got sucked in and would have drowned, had they not pulled themselves out. A strange, cybernetic undead attacked them, but they stopped it with the first of the trinkets they had managed to figure out how to use.

Eventually they came to a room where some of the hapless, captured townsfolk were being turned into more such creatures. When they moved to free them, the Cyan Sorceress appeared. She revealed that she was one of the Chromic Witches, in the same coven as the Magenta Mage they met back on the Candy Isle. The Sorceress's speech seemed halting, and occasionally she was confused, suggesting to the party she was being controlled by someone. She also mentioned a book as being important which Waylon guessed (rightly) was the Wondrous Wizard of Azurth. The group tried to apprehend her, but she teleported away.

Seven Years in Azurth

 

We played the 7th anniversary game of our 5e campaign last night, having had the inaugural session in the Land of Azurth on October 19, 2014. It hasn't been as many sessions as the time might suggest; we only played once a month over much of that time, though the pandemic and a switch to telegaming led to an increased frequency. Still, it's the longest myself or any of my players have continued a game.

We've lost no characters to misadventure, and only one player has left the game over that time period: the teenage daughter of two of the other players who decided she had been things to do than game with middle-aged folks. 

I can't say my eye hasn't wandered to other games over that time. It has probably helped the longevity that we were able to squeeze in Star Trek Adventures in the pandemic, and I'm able to play some other games with another group. Still, I think the inertia of doing this game for so long actually helps carry it forward. It's much easier to quit something you haven't invested as much in.

I don't think we've plumbed the depths of the setting, yet. There's still a lot more the group could get up too.

Dark Sun: The Bandits of the Crimson Oasis

The last two sessions of our Forbidden Lands Dark Sun campaign saw the party (now having made the acquaintance of the dune peddler Egon the Honest) taking yet another job from the dwarf merchant Urum ath Wo. Urum believes he has reliable information regarding the rumored treasure of the merchant prince Darom Madar said to be hidden in the remote Canyon of Golothlay.

Urum plans to do this deal separate from his work for House Zawir, hoping to strike out on his own. Egon negotiates the party not just decent pay, but a share in future profits.

The arrangements made, the small caravan heads out for the Silver Springs Oasis with the party acting as guards and scouts. At Silver Springs they plan to palaver with Chief Toramundi of the Silver Hands, the elven tribe that holds the Springs. Urum believes he has specific knowledge of the desert that might be helpful.

Along the way, they avoid an erupting swam of baazrag, and notice a halfling spying on them. Eowen the Elf tracks the halfling back to a small oasis, but finds whoever was there has already left. Fearing an attack, she heads back to the caravan, but is waylaid by the halfling. She kills the halfling, but hears that a fight has begun in the arroyo the canyon the caravan was passing through. 

The others are set upon by a dwarf ornamented like a sun priest, and three human bandits. After a short battle, the dwarf and one of the humans are dead. The other two surrender. Looting the bodies, they take studded leather armor and find a pouch with two potion fruit.

Putting some distance between themselves and the canyon, they decide to stop for the the night and make camp.

Dark Sun: The Sand Raiders

I've run two sessions now of Dark Sun using Forbidden Lands (and the Burning Sands Dark Sun adaptation you can find online). To keep it easy as we were getting used to the system, I decided to run the short adventure in the 4e Dark Sun book.

At the caravanserai of Dur-Taruk, the party (Eowen, Elf Ranger; Insam, Ranger; and Keeb-Raa, Thri-Kreen druid) accept a job from a dwarf factor named Urum ath Wo of the merchant house Zawir. It seems a Zawir caravan arrived with one wagon missing and with it its cargo of grain, wine, and wood. Fifty silver was offered for clear directions to the cargo or its return, and the party is eager for the coin.

The party is able to pick up the trail of the lost wagon and track it to a place it was set upon by saurian silt runners.  In fact, some of the silt runners are still there, and the party engages them in combat, ultimately emerging victorious. The bodies have attracted the attention of a pack of kruthiks. The party has to kill them before they can follow the tracks showing where the silt runners too the cargo. They lead to the ruins of an ancient tower.

Stealthily approaching the tower, the party finds a vault where the silt runners and their leader have taken the cargo and the still-living wagon crew. The leader is a largely reptilian creature who has a dagger coated with some greenish ichor. He doesn't get a chance to use it because Insam puts an arrow through a gap in his carapace and kills him.

In the battle that follows, one silt runner escapes but the others are slain. The party decides the cargo is too much trouble for them to carry back, but they free the crew, and after making camp for the night in the vault, they return to Dur-Taruk in the morning for their payment.

The Fire and the Void

Our Land of Azurth game continued last night with the party in the midst of exploring the strange, ruined temple beneath the Crooked Hills. The party ran afoul of a group of skeletons that they quickly dispatched. They avoided a pit trap where they also found another strange item--a vial of silvery liquid. They were disappointed to find it wasn't magical.

They came to a room with a relief of a muscular, bearded man holding a scorched brazier. The group tried burning something in it and a secret door opened. On the other side was a room with a large oven with a roaring flame inside. They discovered the flame was a fire elemental who suggested it needed to be bribed to allow them to pass through to the run beyond the oven. Dagmar gave it gold pieces, which it melt in its flames. Then it parted like a curtain to allow them to pass.

On the other said was a wide, shallow bowl with a whirling void on the inside. As the party began to investigate, a group of the sleepwalkers came in. They largely appeared to ignore the party as one took a couple of items the party took to be trinkets and dropped them into the void where they disappear. When that was done, he extended a hand expectantly to the party.

They decided to give him a trinket to see what happened. He took it and put it in the void. They kept giving him the trinkets they had, even the newly acquired silvery vial, and they all disappeared. The sleepwalkers turned and left.

When they were gone, the party investigated the room further. Waylon figured out that the void was only an illusion. Items dropped into it went down a passage. Erekose found a secret lever to open a secret door. What they found, down a short passage, was essentially a glorified closet with a number of trinkets and other items that had been dropped into the void.

Mindful of the townsfolk's warning about the trinkets exploding, they cautiously experiment with putting groups of them together in the same place, but nothing seemed to happen. Eventually, they divided up the nonbroken items and took them with them.

Beneath the Crooked Hills

A week ago, we had another session of our Land of Azurth 5e campaign. The party had become much more interested in the trinkets and where they might come from. The townsfolk really didn't know, but mentioned a mage who had been looking into the mystery. Unfortunately, she had disappeared.

The party searched her old residence and found some cryptic notes they couldn't make much of. There was also some sort of design or pattern imprinted on a rectangle of an unknown, transparent material. They did discover she had gone into the Hills and never came back.

Knowing there's nothing for it but to explore their selves, they look around until they stumble upon some fissures with foot prints around it. It's a tight squeeze, but they are sure that's where the strange sleepwalkers came from. The party goes in, but it takes a bit of time because Dagmar gets stuck. With they seem a weird glass wall and hear ethereal music. In the next room, they fight a nest of oversized snakes from a pile of debris, before figuring out how to open a door into an octagonal room. There, each wall is adorned with a symbol, and there's a wooden ball in the middle of the room. 

With some investigation, they find a hidden panel that seems to provide some sort of control over what the room does. They eventually decide to put the ball under a symbol matching what the "control panel" shows, and a another, secret door opens.

Mysterious Trinkets

I realized we had a Land of Azurth 5e session weeks ago I didn't blog about. Here's the belated news from Azurth...

The party finally reached the eastern border of the Country of Virid. Immediately, the fae influence became apparent in the more fanciful foliage. As evening approached, they decided to seek lodging for the night in the town of Carabas, nestled at the feet of the Crooked Hills. It turned out there was a fair going on.

Our heroes joined the celebration and took part in various contests to win what the townsfolk call "trinkets." Erekose wins a dueling competition. Kully takes a storytelling prize. Shae won in dancing, showing off her Elven moves. Kairon managed to pull out a victory in kite-fighting. Dagmar, however, only succeeded in getting drunk in the drinking competition.

They still took the trinkets they were awarded, even after seeing a man with too many of them explode (the townsfolk didn't seem over-bothered by this). 

The party was confounded by the strange devices. Each was unique and their use was not obvious. Also, while the items appeared to have spell-like effects in some cases, they did not register as magical.

With no rooms available, the party rented a pavilion on the edge of the fair grounds near the hills. That night, after a strange, shared dream, they were attacked by sallow-skinned, nonhuman somnambulists with strange, branch-like, metallic golden growths out of their foreheads.

The party managed to kill a couple of the creatures and drive off the others, but they are left with the idea that the things were after the trinkets.

Star Trek Endeavour: To Free the Ranger

A continuing campaign in Star Trek Adventures...

Episode 5: "Agents of Influence [part 3]"

Player Characters: 

The Crew of the USS Endeavour, NCC-1895, Constitution Class Starship (refit):
Andrea as Lt. Ona Greer, Engineer 

Bob as Capt. Robert Locke
Gina as Cmdr. Isabella Hale, Helm Chief

Eric As Lt.Cmdr. Tavek, Science Officer

Jason as Lt. Francisco Otomo, Chief Security Officer

and guest starring the crew of  USS Ranger: 

Aaron as Lt.(jg.) Cayson Randolph, Operations

Andrea as Capt. Ada Greer

Dennis, as Lt. Osvaldo Marquez, Medical Officer

Synposis: Continued from last session! The Klingon agent in the Ranger crew has revealed himself by killing Chief Engineer Galv and Ona Greer is next. Thinking fast, Greer charges the spy and knocks the phaser pistol out of his hand. After a short battle, she stuns him with her own phaser.

The combined crews continue their preparations for an impending Orion assault. Tavek gets the idea to modify a sensor buoy to create a sensor shadow that would give the impression of a larger vessel to lure the Orion's away. The engineers manage to get the damaged impulse engine working enough to power the phasers.

Locke and Hale take the shuttle with Starfleet spies and the data for Nogura to make a run for Endeavor. Hale again manages some hotshot piloting to get them away from the Orions. Locke sends a coded message to Endeavour and it seems to be received. The cavalry is hopefully coming.

As the Orions arrive, Captain Greer chooses to share that information with the Orions, warning them that they may soon face two fully armed starships. The Orions decide discretion is the better part of valor and beat a retreat.

Endeavour arrives to rescue the remaining Ranger crew.

Commentary: As mentioned before the kernel of this adventure is the novel Agents of Influence by Dayton Ward. Here the player's deviated to the greatest degree from what the characters in the novel did, which is for the best as it brought it to a close this session. This was a crossover of the two Star Trek Adventure groups, and I think it worked reasonably well, but there are probably limits to how long I was going to be able to keep that many players showing up.

Star Trek Endeavour: The Lost Ranger

A continuing campaign in Star Trek Adventures...

Episode 5: "Agents of Influence [part 2]"

Player Characters: 

The Crew of the USS Endeavour, NCC-1895, Constitution Class Starship (refit):
Andrea as Lt. Ona Greer, Engineer 
Gina as Cmdr. Isabella Hale, Helm Chief

Eric As Lt.Cmdr. Tavek, Science Officer

Jason as Lt. Francisco Otomo, Chief Security Officer

and guest starring the crew of  USS Ranger: 

Aaron as Lt.(jg.) Cayson Randolph, Operations

Andrea as Capt. Ada Greer

Paul as Cmdr. D.K. Mohan, Chief Helmsman

Supporting Cast:

Lt. Cmdr. Galv, Chief Engineer, Ranger

Lt. Leopold, Communications Officer, Ranger

Lt. T'Sar, Science Officer, Ranger

Synposis: Continued from last session! In a flashback, we learn how the Ranger crew limped away from the encounter with the Klingon ship--and the mysterious energy force that destroyed both ships to take refugee in a deep crater. They set up a modified circle of sensor buoys to attempt to keep tabs on the outside world, but they are unaware a malfunction in one of them (a roll of a Complication in setting them up) caused one of them to broadcast a signal. 

Even worse, someone within the Ranger broadcasts a signal to the Klingons, telling them "the traitors" (i.e. the surgically altered spies) are on board. After that the untimely malfunction of one of the impulse engines begins to look like sabotage.

Both of these events have a silver lining, however, because they allow the Endeavour team, posing as smugglers in a J-Class shuttle to zero in on Ranger's location. They arrive just in time. The Orion ship that Endeavor's team encountered earlier appears to have spotted the sensor buoy array, too. They retreat, but then come back with extra ships to attempt a boarding action.

As the Starfleet crews prepare for the assault, Lt. Greer of Endeavour and Galv try to fix the impulse engine--only to have the saboteur reveal himself by disintegrating Galv!

Commentary: Continuing the adaptation of the novel of the same name by Dayton Ward. This was a crossover of the two Star Trek Adventure groups, and I think it worked reasonably well.

Sentinel Comics RPG Session 4: "The Heart of Darkness"

Roll Call:

Blur: Amnesiac Speedster!

Fibbit: Manic Pixie Extradimensional Dream Girl!

Infranaut: IR-Powered Celebrity Hero!

Il Masso: The Rock-Solid Hero of Little Italy!

Supporting Characters: Moonshadow

Villains: Dark Duplicates (Mindfire, Warhead, Sub-Zero, Talon, Robrute); The Void Crystal, Silver Orb, Gold Orb.

Synopsis: Our heroes enter combat with the five villains, and after a couple of exchanges to gauge their powers, find them surprisingly easy to defeat. Moonshadow, via psychic link, tells them that these are merely "dark energy shadows" of a group of young heroes from alternate futures: The Legion of Alternity. She believes their presence here means they have been captured by Anachronus.

With the duplicates defeated, the group sets out to find the location of the evil energy with the Never. Fibit manages to locate but also draws strange, translucent wasp creatures to them. Their presence shakes our heroes resolve but doesn't cause any real damage. They also have to face dark duplicates of Talon and Sub-Zero again, before they reach their destination: A sinisterly pulsing crystal in which they see scenes of other times, perhaps other worlds. Flying around it are gold and silver orbs that attack the heroes.

The team is confronted with their most difficult battle so far. All of the duplicates are recreated, and they quickly re-appear when destroyed. The orbs work against them and protect the crystal. Il Masso shatters the gold orb and Fibit twice creates duplicates of her own to make attacks on all the dark duplicates. Eventually, Infranaut makes a massive attack that shatters the weakened crystal and destroys the silver orb.