On to Junk City

Our Land of Azurth game continued on Sunday with the party still in the midst of fighting the Wheeler marauders in an isolated Sang fort. They manage to capture the leader of the gang, Hatch-Head, and interrogate him a bit. Unfortunately, he doesn't know anything about the Princess. 

They also take a couple of things from him. A fist-sized metal ball and a glass vial of some substance.

Heading on into the city, they find it aptly named as the city is made from and built into caverns of junk. At the only entrance to the city, they are accosted by the formidable leader of the guards who sizes them up as "adventurers" and warn them against looking for gold and experience around here. They assure her that they will be on their best behavior.

And they promptly start looking for trouble to get into. Using Waylon' owl familiar Celestie as a scout, they identify areas of interest within the city. One of them is a weird, giant shallow bowl. They approach it and find several bodies lying outside. They decide to explore the interior. 

Swords Against Sorcery: Wizard's Challenge!

 Last night, I did the first playtest of the Bronze Age comic book Swords & Sorcery system I have been working on. I made a few pregens and this was the line up:

• Oriax the Red, Gladiator Champion (Aaron)
• Thunda, Barbarian Acolyte (Andrea)
• Korag, Primitive Warrior (Jason)
• Kharron, Cursed Warrior (Paul)

The adventure began with the heroes all at a seedy tavern in the city of Djadishar. They are surprised by the sudden appearance of a robed sorcerer with a brass dome over his head like Mysterio. He said he was Narznn Gath and he was here to cause the death of the heroes as his divinations had showed they would thwart his plans in the future. The other tavern patrons rise up, seemingly under the sorcerer's control to take.

Bronze Age Sword & Sorcery comics tend to get to the action very quickly, typically with foes the heroes can deal with relatively easily. Here it also serve the purpose of giving everybody a try with the basic mechanics.

The heroes fairly easily dispatch the unfortunate tavern lowlifes. They figure they had better take the fight to Narznn Gath or he'll keep coming after them. Thunda and Kharron, with their combined occult knowledge, know that he is reputed to dwell in the Tower of Eyes deep within the hellish Desert of Urrd. The heroes aren't eager to cross the desert with a wizard waiting for them. They want to try for the element of surprise. Maybe swifter mounts of some sort or magical transport?

Kharron knows a sorceress who lives in a villa on the outskirts of Djadishar who might be able to help. The decide to seek out Yasheeng of the Gossamer Veil. 

Kharron actually failed his roll here, but with a "fail forward" sort of mentality, this just means a complication down the road.

Yasheeng agrees to see them and even his an idea that might help, but there's a catch. She has a magical mirror which can allow them access to the idyll plane where Zaarzog the Demon dwells. There grows a tree whose fruit can secure the cooperation of the winged creatures than nest in the caves of the Vestari Mountains nearby. However, in return for her aid she wants the large opal at the bottom of the pool near the tree--and she wants a few drops of Kharron's magical blood to ensure they don't double cross her. The party agrees, and jump threw the mirror.

They are greeted to the scene of glade with a small hill and a huge, gnarled tree with strangely fleshy leaves. At the center of the glade is a limpid pool with a giant statue of a seated demon on the far side. While Korag climbs the tree to gather fruit, Kharron dives into the pool after the mikly-colored, potato-sized, gem. Thunda investigates the statue and notes one of its eye sockets is empty, but the other has a white gem in it.

When Korag picks the large, pear-shaped fruit, thick juice drips from the sap. When it hits the ground, wriggling creatures began to grow, ultimately to two-foot tall goblin-things. When Oriax cuts down a few, more grow from the spilt blood.

Meanwhile, Kharron as emerged from the water with the jewel which feels strangely warm in his hand, but then, the statue comes to life with a grinding of it's stone joints. Thunda calls upon her gods and the demon is transfixed for a moment, buying them a little extra time.

Oriax runs to their aid, while Korag jumps from the tree and kicks his way past goblins to the portal. Kharron taunts the demon with the stone--perhaps unwisely, as it snatches him up. 

Oriax attacks but his blade is no match for stone. Kharron manages to pry himself loose. They all try to make for the portal, but Kharron is tripped and pulled down by goblins. Thunda comes to his aid, and everyone runs through the portal, a grasping horde of goblins on their heels.

Wheelers in Sang

After a bit of a hiatus, our Land of Azurth 5e game returned last Sunday with the party headed to Sang to find the Clockwork Princess in the mysterious Junk City. It seems that ability of the leaders of Yai to spy on people through Azurth fails in the vicinity of the Junk City. It's a blind spot. Still, they saw the Princess before she entered the blind spot.

Using the flying ship re-acquired last adventure and why super-fan Irwin-37 as the pilot, they plan on flying to Fort Daldon, a waystation not too far from the Junk City. The group wants to do reconnaissance on the city, but they have to abort when their ship mysteriously starts to lose power.

Instead, they land in the desert near the fort. Their landing apparently annoys some burrowing dragonish creature, and they have a fight on their hands. After killing the beast, they head to the fort. Black smoke rising from it is an ominous sign. Even more concerning are the weird, wheeled people they fight when they call out at the fort's portcullis.

Forced the climb over the gate, they find evidence of the slaughter (and possibly cannibalism) of a caravan and the burning of some of the buildings. Sneaking around, they find some people tied on in the base of a tower, then the marauders attack. They call themselves the Wheelers.

Caught off-guard by the speed and the ferocity of the assault, it takes the part a little while to rally, but when they do they triumph over the Wheelers. They still don't know what's going on, though.

TO BE CONTINUED

13th Age: The Strangling Sea

 

Last night we had our first actual session of 13th Age (after a character creation session). I was running the adventure The Strangling Sea. The setup for the adventure is based on the character's relationships and some random rolls, so we were perhaps a little slower getting started that normal (of course the biggest delay is always the pre-game chitchat), but it ran pretty smooth after that being a D&D derivative.

The party was sent by a wizardly patron connected with the Archmage to find a missing artificer. Their only clue was a friend of his in a distance town. This necessitated a travel montage, which is one of 13th Age's dfferences from other sorts of D&D, which asks the player's to essential describe what happened in a round-robin description of incidents. There seems to be a bit of reticence here in the players' parts, surprising since all of them have run games before and two have published works. Likely, it was just being put on the spot.

After the travel we got to the only combat of the adventure. A battle with some thugs in service of the Diabolist:

The player's triumphed, though without the escalation die, it might have been a close thing. 

Transportation Acquired

 Our Land of Azurth 5e game continued last night with the party intending to go to the Country of Sang and meet up with the Clockwork Princess now that they had secured the Elders of Yai as an ally against the Wizard. Waylon asked the Elders if they could provide transportation. They could, not directly, as the folk of Yai don't leave the city, but they did at one time have a suitable craft. It had been stolen by an impetuous member of their community, Gill-24, but it was currently located not far from the city in the mountains.

The Elders agree to sleep-train the party's biggest fanboy, Irwin-37, to fly it and send hm to accompany the group. With that accomplished, they set out down a precarious set of hidden stairs on the outside of the city's dome. They trek through the mountains, avoiding conflict with a creature like a cross between a porcupine and a grizzly, before reaching the ship's crash site. Of course it was guarded by robots.

The party has bcome pretty good at destroying robots by now. Shade even made constructs her favored enemy!

Inside the ship, they discovered a group of imprisoned creations. Two telepathic, floating things clued them into the fact that the ship was now under the control of a pirate named Garbulex. Garbulex threatened the party over the intercom and tried to turn a giant monster loose on them, but Irwin-37 saved the day by putting the creature back in stasis. 

The party decided Garbulex was going down. They made their way to the control room where Garbulex did a share swivel with tented fingers and gloating thing.

Then the fight started.

Garbulex has some sort of energy sword and a cloak that seems to have a life of its own like Dr. Strange's in the movies. He looks to be a formidable opponent.

Then Kairon polymorphs him into a chicken.

His unpolymorphed cloak manages to fly the chicken out of the ship, despite the best efforts of the party to kill them both. Despite their foes' escape, the party are the easy victors and now have a ship.

The Evil Wizard Explains It All

 Our Land of Azurth 5e campaign continued last night with the part "thought projecting" themselves back to the future they visited before to fulfill Kory Keenstep's unorthodox scheme of making a new film to rouse the Land of Yai from its isolationism. The arrive in the future unscatched except for Shade who has somehow thought herself into a rabbit body. They play around with their ability to think up equipment but realize they can't create a new elven form for Shade--at least not without expending too much energy.

The team goes about their tasks. Most of them are getting footage of generally dystopian events while Kully goes to deliver to the party from the past cryptic messages. After filming their past selves' entrance to the roving Castle Machina, they decide to go to the camps outside of the ruins of Rivertown and do some interviews. Waylon asks after the confused young man they met last time, Roderick Drue. They don't find him, though.

Later, when they are camping, Drue approaches the camp. He asks them for the book, The Wizard of Azurth. When he realizes they don't have it, he becomes angry and transforms into an older and more imposing man who looks like a film negative. This is the Wizard of Azurth! He reveals the young Drue had long ago returned to his own time and that the Drue they met was merely a thoughtform of himself created with the aid of Mortzengersturm in 1893! 

The Wizard reveals how he has been after magical power in an attempt to obtain immortality. He had hoped he would find it in the Land of Azurth, but when he finally achieved the means to travel here in person, he found a post-apocalyptic wasteland. He did meet several child-like, alien creatures, faeries really, who had a copy of the book and were obsessed with it. He coaxed the simple creatures into using their vast powers to create the Land of Azurth from the story book in that wasteland. In the process, they became Azulina and her hand-maidens, and Drue became the Wizard of Azurth.

Since that time, he has realized that that book, imbued with such magical energy, is the object he needs--but the book is lost. He had hoped to use the spy apparatus in Yai to find it, but the city's defenses have kept him out. The party, perhaps unwisely, volunteers the information that it is perhaps no longer so difficult to get into the city. The Wizard, though, is still focused on using a page from the Book of Doors. 

The party did have that book, but now they only have one page. They fool the Wizard into believing the page they have is the entrance to Yai. They turn it over to him and while he examines it, quickly think themselves back to Yai. All except Erekose who can't seem to make it work! As the furious Wizard advances to attack, the party slaps around their friend's sleeping body until he snaps back.

\

They get Kory to make a VHS tape of the Wizard's confession so they can show it to the Elders of Yai. Surprisingly, they are able to convince the Elders to view it and the Elders are convinced. They agree to join the resistance. They tell the party where the Princess Viola is--the Junk City of Sang.

The Entertainment Industry in Yai

 Our Land of Azurth game continued with the party awaiting the archivist in the ancient, abandoned lounge in the depths of the city of Yai. Unfortunately, the Archivist returns in the custody of young guards of Yai who arrest the party. The leader would have summarily executed them had not one of his juniors named Irwin-37 recognized them as the characters from a popular entertainment. In an attempt to prove who they were he asked trivia questions about their adventures, but they barely remember the details and didn't do so well.

Still, it was good enough to so doubt and they were escorted to the city so that the Elders could decide what to do with them. They find out on the way that the show about them is the creation of the reclusive celebrity producer, Cory-01.

In the more vibrant areas of the domed city they are imprisoned while awaiting an audience with the Elders. Irwin-37 reveals that the city is indeed a ship, an ark, sent into space in a long, elliptical orbit to return to Earth after the planet had sufficiently recovered from a cataclysm and could be repopulated by the people for the ark. Apparently, though, something went wrong as they arrived to a world still dangerous and overrun with mutants (which he assumes the party to be). Irwin-37 tells them it has been generations since they landed, but the Elders feel the outside is full of contagion.

After Irwin leaves, a weird, unicycle vehicle brings a mysterious visitor and his body guards. He somehow is able to free Kully and beckons him to come forward. Kully is reluctant, but the visitor reveals himself to be Kory Keenstep, his father! Kully goes with him.

Kory reveals himself to be the producer Cory-01. He connived his way into Yai society using tech from the Toad Temple. He noticed they had read the Azurth book, so he sold them on further adventures of our heroes. He later revealed that he had come by these tales by spying on the party using a device of Yai.

Unfortunately, his production has been shut down due to the Elders' concerns that it was corrupting the morals of the youth. Kory has an idea to convince them using a "ghost trick" he got from an old book he read in Yai. He claims to have a way to send Kully back in time to haunt the Elders and somehow change their minds. He offers Kully a disguise that looks like the outfit warn by the mysterious stranger the party meet in the future.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party got an audience with the Elders. Well, not in person with the giant images of the three Elder's heads. They don't want to listen to the party's concerns about the Wizard and the shadows. They are aware of the Wizard's menace, but dismiss his ability to effect them. The party does get through to them sufficiently that they at least agree to consider their words.

The group is moved from the jail, at least, to better quarters, but they are still prisoners. Kully returns and tells them what his father said. Later, Kory comes to visit and they try to convince him to help, but predictably he is unwilling to stick his neck out--until they mention the Shadows. He's heard them talk about what they saw in the future when he was spying on them, but didn't see any of the events they were describing. He tells them he can send them to the future again, and they can get the images he needs to make a special--essentially a propaganda film to convince Yai to join the fight against the Wizard. The party doesn't trust him, but they agree.

Convincing Irwin-37 to give them a visit with Kory the next day, they are surprised to see the time machine he promised isn't a machine at all but more like a magic ritual. This is why he couldn't send any Yai folk through time: they don't have the talent for it. He explains it won't be their bodies but their "thoughtforms" or something. 

The party prepares. Kully is to go to the location of their other selves and film them--becoming the mysterious stranger the others always suspected he was. The rest of the party will stay hidden and film the Gloom Elves and their Shadow allies outside.

The ritual begins, but it doesn't go as smoothly for Shade as for the others...

To be continued.

The Ruined Temple [Broken Compass]

We continued our Broken Compass game last night, "The Quest for the Serpent Throne" with the adventurers facing a number of jungle pulp adventure perils. First, their path was blocked by rapids on a tributary of the Hooghly. Sam Stone managed to make it across but hardly unscathed, (he took a spill and acquired the Bleeding Feeling.) so the rest of the party decided to find a way around. While they were separated, Sam was taken captive by a jungle tribe. There others were too once they were reunited.

After the Professor spoke to the tribe's chief, the chief sent them to a ruined Naga Temple. There they read ancient inscriptions that revealed the very items they sought could be used to fulfill a ritual brining the return of the Naga's from the Underworld.

Then they had a run in with a giant cobra. The managed to hide in the temple and block the door until the snake went away.

TO BE CONTINUED

Still getting to know the system, so I made a couple of missteps in running this session. The giant cobra was either an Enemy if you fought it or a Danger if you tried to run away. In either case, the difficulty level was such that the character was likely to fail. But a fail in Broken Compass doesn't mean you don't succeed in what you were trying to do, it just means you had to rely on Luck (and use some Luck Points) to do it. The player's were sort of treating Luck like Hit Points and wanting to be too granular with their actions (trying to do one thing to set up something else), when mostly, the scene seemed to be constructed to be an obstacle that made player's use up some Luck to get by. I presented the situation as one they had to succeed at to get through, but really the players were always likely to get through, it was just a question of how much Luck they lost.

Ascending to Yai

 Our Land of Azurth 5e campaign continued last night with the party perhaps entering into Yai from a cave and finding themselves in a storage room. A higher tech storage room of on par with some other strange places they've been in the past, but essentially a storage room. 

The cantrip Thaumaturgy came in handy this adventure as it allowed them to open doors they didn't possess the color-coded key card to open, and to inadvertent free two grateful shedu. The shedu, in return warned them of a brain-eating monster lurking about and suggested this structure had once moved through higher dimensions in some fashion. The shedu also revealed they had been subsisting on a store of twinkies.

They road a lift between levels and found mostly storage, but did encounter a robotic watchman who they were able to successfully talk with via magic. He didn't tell them anything they found useful, however. Leaving a storage area, they found themselves in an atrium on a walkway overlooking an expansive garden, gone wild with neglect below. On the walkway, they also ran into an old man.

He said his name was now "the Archivist," and he had once lived in Yai of which this was a sublayer. He took the party for hallucinations, at first. He did note they looked vaguely familiar. He was a foundling, taken in by the people of Yai and so had always been something apart from them. He took this job to catalog their history, but the people of Yai were now only concerned with their entertainments, not their past. He seldom had any contact with them now.

Waylon asked the old man if he had seen any of the Azurth books. The old man thought that rang a bell and said he would go look. He asked the party to wait in the lounge for his return and pointed them the way.

Broken Compass: Incident on the Hooghly

My alternate Sundays gaming group played its third session of Broken Compass continuing the "Quest for the Serpent Throne" adventure in the Golden Age sourcebook. Paul joined the group playing the Dwayne Johnson-esque pregen Sam Stone I had created for an adventure with my other gaming group.

His strength and brawling skill was much appreciated when the Sumar Nagarani's goons attacked them in the night, trying to get the naga shell. O'Sullivan, Stilton, Stone managed to escape the boat, bringing Professor Ram with them. O'Sullivan commandeered the shuttle boat and guided them to the shore to make camp as he figured it would be impossible to navigate the rapids in the dark. 

O'Sullivan took first watch and his keen hunter instincts allowed him to kill one menacing tiger with a literal shot in the dark and scare off the other. Once everyone got to sleep after being startled awake by the rifle shot, the rest of the night based uneventfully.

We are still getting used to the Broken Compass system but I continue to like it. It moves pretty quick in play. Some aspects (only players rolling and enemies only having one stat) lead to it requiring some thought about how to accomplish certain types of action, particularly things done to require some sort of advantage or give the enemy a disadvantage (the terms used here in the general sense, not in the game mechanics sense). Also the lack of a rules summary, I still continue to feel keenly.

The Perilous Road to Yai

 Our Land of Azurth game continued last night with our 8th Anniversary session!

The party emerged from Subazurth in the vicinity of the domed city of Yai. They followed a mountain trail and were forced to do battle with mindless, mutated and muscled beastmen:

Then, they scaled a precarious ledge to find an apparent entrance to the domed city guarded by a faceless, silver man. He first incapacitated all the party but Kairon with some sort of gas, but otherwise didn't seem particularly belligerent. 

Shade scouted into his cave invisibly and found him trying repeatedly to shut a great mechanical maw (perhaps a door) with a violet light emanating from his hand. 

With no other way to get around him, the party reluctantly attacked. He shot needles at them and was resistance to injury, but couldn't long hold up against them all. He died in a shower of sparks.

The group climbed between the half open "teeth" and entered the room beyond. 

Into The Phantom Jungle

 Last night, I got my other gaming group to try Broken Compass in one of our "not Azurth" off-weeks. I decided to run "The Phantom Jungle," which I found on One Shot Adventures. The group were headed up the Javary River in South America, inadvertently carrying and Inca artifact sought be a cult.

As we the other group, the part was impressed by the simplicity and cinematicness of Broken Compass' rules. I made some pregen's for them (well, adapted some from the basic rules) using some new images.

From the top left they are: Jake O'Donnell (Daredevil Action Hero), Gus Geraty (Old Cheater Wingman), Laura van der Woodsen (Explorer Professor), and Sam Stone (Hunk Soldier).

Star Child

Our Land of Azurth game continued last night, with the party trying to communicate with the child-like star being they had freed last session. The creature didn't know the language but was a quick study. Still, comprehension seemed to lag behind linguistic fluency. The being expressed and interest in a story, and Waylon decided to read from the Wizard of Azurth book.

Meanwhile, the void dragon is getting impatient and anxious for his meal. Kully tries to stall him.

As if they don't have enough problems, and amorphous shadow creature emerges from hiding. It's touch is necrotic and drains strength. The party defeats it, but is forced to take a short rest.

After that, they hatch a plan to make the star child invisible and create an illusion of it to fool the void dragon while they escape. The dragon sees through the illusion quickly, but is at first confused as to the whereabouts of the real creature. Waylon uses that opportunity to attack, and the party is in a fight they initially hoped to avoid.

Using the energy weapons they got in the future, the party gives as good as they get, though not before Waylon goes down. Still, Shade manages to revive him with goodberries while the others make the dragon beat a frustrated retreat to the heavens.

The star child is joined by friends: luminous fairy-type creatures from the stars. She asks for the story, and Wayon (somewhat reluctantly) gives her the book. All the star beings huddle around it, and a sphere of light seems to push the party away and back to their own time. They materialize in Lum-One's workshop.

Quest for the Serpent Throne!

We gave Broken Compass a go last night, playing the adventure that appears in the Golden Age sourcebook for "classic" 1930s pulp. I've given me read through impressions of the system previously, but this was my first time running it.

The "Quest of the Serpent Throne!" brings our intrepid adventurers: hunter and sometime smuggler, Kerry "K.O." O'Sullivan, and archeologist, Margaret Stilton to Calcutta to meet with Stilton's colleague, Professor Upandra Ram. They bring with them an artifact known as the Naga Shell which is supposedly to be essential to finding the mystical Chintamani stone, and opening the temple where the stone can be used to summon the Naga back from their exile to the netherworld.

They head out in search of the lost temple in the Bengal Jungle, but on a steamer up the Hooghly River, they discover they aren't the only one seeking it: Sumar Nagarani, an arms dealer and fascist sympathizer also seeks the temple. He offers our heroes a lot of money to recruit them, and they agree, but refuse to give up the Naga Shell. What will the consequence be? We'll have to wait until next session to find out!

The system went pretty well in play or it being our first time with it. Overall, I was pleased with it, but I'm glad I chose to go with an adventure they wrote as it made up for some of the lack of examples of the mechanics in action in the book. Not that there are any, but I could have used more.

Fire from the Void

Our Land of Azurth 5e continued to explore the tower built to channel the the wild magic of the fallen star. After damage from some traps, they found a room where the energy could be dampened by slowing the flow of energy to the spinning stone--which a wizard's notes was be used somehow to bore into realities.

After shutting off two dampeners, the power decreased considerably. They entered the room where the jagged length of obsidian-like star stone was slowly stopping it's spinning. In the distance sealing of the dark room a shadow shape spoke: 

"How long have I waited? Drawn here from the shadows, warming myself on this meager fire and hating the wan light of the young stars...And you, you come to extinguish it!"

"Once there were many of us. We were born in the first hot rush of the universe with the primal stars. We danced and sang amid the radiance. Now there are few, and the universe has creatures such as you things--cold and leaden. I will share with you the fires of the heavens!"

A void dragon unleashed it's star radiance breath weapon on them! Kairon was dying and none of the rest were feeling so good.

The dragon told them to bring it the creature that had been in the stone. It wished to consume it's celestial energy. It admitted it was unable to fit into the room where the thing was held. It showed them the door and again demanded they get it. 

Kully taunted the dragon that he was hardly afraid of a creature that could leave the room. It wasn't an accurate taunt, but it served for the moment, because the party was through the door before the dragon could react.

In the room there was a glass orb full of an energized arcane fluid. This was the source of the power for the entire place. Within, they saw the shadow of a slim, human hand beckoning them.

They debated briefly on what to do. Kully used music to attempt to communicate. The creature responded with something like ethereal, whale-song. The party decided to cracked the orb. A slim, strange being emerged.

The Invisible Monster Revealed!

 Last session, our heroes took a job to salvage the luxury liner Aurora Queen from the Belt for an insurance company. They find the ship damaged and were unable to locate many passengers. The injured Captain told them a vicious invisible monster was stalking the ship!

The cast:
Jones: human, ex-soldier
Lor' el-Am: Hadozee engineer
Mitchell: another human and ex-Space Marine
Trzkt: Vrusk scientist

The team used the ships internal comms (powered by emergency power) to make a call for other survivors. They heard from two: Big game hunter, Gareth Dugal and actress Vena Kallor who were barricaded on deck three. They decided to first find a means of making the invisible monster visible. They searched the galley for flour with no luck. They settled for a seltzer bottle. They then proceeded to engineering to try to get the power back on. This required splitting the group: Lor'el and Mitchell stayed in engineering and Trzkt and Jones went back to the electrical board on the bridge. They managed to get the power back up, allowing Lor'el to notice insectoid creatures in an open cargo hold!

The creatures turn out to be petrified specimens, but they are fearsome in appearance. The party also finds locked boxes, which they break open. One contains a number of unusual gems.  Another has archeological artifacts, and the last one has more petrified animals.

Taking the gems with them, they decide to head toward deck 3. Lor'el has a grease gun they hope to use to reveal the creature. On deck two, they find more evidence of struggle but no bodies. The creature attacks, and Jones tries to appease it with the gems (maybe they are its eggs?), but the creature shatters several and scatters the others they fight, and Lor'el is wounded, but the creature is forced to run from their atom rifles. It hides in a room, but they run in after it. Lor'el delivers the killing blow with a monkeywrench, and the giant creatures topples onto her and Jones, requiring Mitchell's help to get them out.

They free the actor and the hunter from deck 3. There are no other survivors. In the aftermath, the Captain manages to spin things in his favor and downplay the incident, saving the insurance company money, but keeping the party from a big payday. Taine is impressed with them though, and becomes a partner with them, funding a ship, provided they do work or him when he needs them to.

West Coast Avengers: Radioactive Fallout!

Last night, we continued our double exploration of out of print games by running through the MSHrpg adventure Last Resort using Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. 

Not remembering how close Pyro was to done, I elided the end of that combat, and the crew picked up with the interrogation of the mutant villain. He spun the say tale about the caves to the North and Mr. Chu. The team called in the park rangers to pick him up, too, and moved on to cliffs.

Soon they ran in to Whirlwind, and even after Hawkeye successful suckerpunched him (metaphorically speaking) Whirlwind put up a good ight, refusing to go down, even though he had no success in hurting the heroes. He eventually tells them a similar story to the others.

Finally, reaching the cliffs, Tigra is scouting a cave, when she spotted a big green guy seated on a log in a clearing. Hawkeye is sure it's the Radioactive Man, and shoots a foaming radiation absorbing arrow, that bounces off the guy's back. The battle is joined, and the first round is a draw. Then, the Radioactive Man attempts to sicken them all with an intense dose of radiation. Not only do they resist, but Tigra turns her acrobatic escape into a counter-attack, and claws at his face. Wonder Man stepped in to deliver the knockout punch.

Hawkeye yells at him for hitting Radioactive Man right as he was about to say something about the Mandarin.

A Journey to Pre-Azurth

 

Our Land of Azurth 5e campaign continued last night with the party following a puppy automaton into a scret cave where they found a strange observatory, and it's observer, Lum-One, a automaton version of Mirabilis Lum. He says he's been expecting them. He needs them to go into the prehistory of Azurth and foil "the Shadow" (by which he means the servants of the Anti-Sun, not the living shadow that has been perplexing the party). Lum's theory was that Azurth was born from solidified chaos magic that fell to earth in the distance past (these celestial objects were the origin of the Whim-Wham Stone), and the Anti-Sun's servants are trying to co-opt that.

He reveals to the party that Lum is likely still alive, but senile, and residing in a junkyard city in Sang. He doesn't know anything about the Clockwork Princess' current doings.

He also suggests the shadow the party has been dealing with may be a temporally fractured individual.

All that deep lore out of the way, the party agrees and is transported to a landscape that looks post-apocalyptic (there are ruins of strange buildings) but they do find the knife-like, black tower he told them to find.

Eldritch glyphs that decorate many doors and some floors prove punishing for the unwary, and the party doesn't make it far before needing to rest. Kully does get to viciously mock a gray ooze, though. They do find out something of the tower's workings, however from the writings of whoever was here before. It was apparently built to capture and channel the chaos magic of the stone from the heavens.

West Coast Avengers: The Mysterious Mr. Chu

We continued our Marvel Heroic rpg adaptation of the MSHrpg adventure, The Last Resort. The players seemed a little better with the rules this week, whereas I had forgotten a few things.

The adventure continues to be very silly, with random B-list villains who (as the player's learn) have been paid to hide out in caves in a state park in Idaho, and then get teleported to a spot to waylay the West Coast Avengers. From a testing the mechanics standpoint, though, that works just fine and the PCs tangled with, and defeated Blizzard and had Pyro on the ropes when we stopped for the evening.

Marvel Heroic is simple in base rules but has a lot of little "extras" to remember, particularly in regard to how the metacurrency of Plot Points and the Doom Pool are used. Still, it is pretty fast paced, and opponents go down pretty quick: one or two rounds of PC attacks mostly.

Hawkeye discovered an important clue this adventure after Plantman spilled what he knew. All the villains were hired by a shadow Mr. Chu. Thanks to a call to the Avengers Compound and a run through the databanks, they found that to be a known alias of the Mandarin.

Salvage in Space

We played the first session of a "rockets and rayguns" pulp sci-fi game using a modified version of Rocket Age for 5e. The characters were:

Jones: human, ex-soldier
Lor' el-Am: Hadozee engineer
Mitchell: another human and ex-Space Marine
Trzkt: Vrusk scientist

All were marking time in Ziszkhar, a minor spaceport and domed city of Marva, when Trzkt was approached by another Vrusk named Niszk Zrnn, who was acting as an agent for an insurance claims for a big New Terran shipping insurance firm. The firm was interested in hiring a crew for a salvage mission in the Belt. Niszk thought Trzkt might know a suitable group. In fact, she did, and they agreed to meet the insurance agent.

Arlik Taine told them that his company was preparing to pay out a significant amount on the Aurora Queen, a new luxury spaceliner that had mysteriously disappeared in the Belt, just days from Marva. It's inaugural cruise with only a small group of passengers had been a cruise out to Kronion's moons. It was coming back when contact was lost. A prospector in the belt had a caught a glimpse of a derelict in the distance that might by the Queen, so Taine was willing to pay to have it checked out.

He added that there was a famous archeologist on board, Dr. Brennan Carter, who was returning from an expedition to one of the nameless moons of Vurania, with a treasure in exotic gems.

The crew was outfitted with an aging but serviceable cruiser, and they set out for the Belt, to the coordinates extrapolated from the prospector's sighting. They find the ship, powerless and tumbling through space. Attaching themselves with a magnetic grapple, they went inside. There was evidence of some bloody conflict in gruesome stains on walls and doors, but no bodies. In the ship's control room they found the bleeding and concussed officer in the uniform of the line, Captain Cyril Falconer. He tells them there is an invisible monster on the ship that has been slaughtering the crew and passengers!