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Golden Bee posted:Translation TERROR! On a mutated island, who can tell friend from foe? Another action-packed adventure! We’re back on Rurotonga. Lawyer/Boxer Tacito, Florence, Penny and Aldous are our heroes this week. quote:Natives fishing in waters far to the north of Rura-Tonga spot a disturbing species of fish and race back to the island to tell their chief. Lautoka fears if the heroes don’t find some evidence of the Instead of a blow-by-blow description, I’m just going to focus on a few of the NPCs, the problems they presented, and how the players dealt with them. Chief Latouka: His daughter was recently rescued, by three men from a nearby island. (it was a take on the Legend of the Magic Pomegranate.) Knowing that Tacito Velasco was a great lawyer, he challenged him to solve the riddle… Tacito took credit for the group’s consensus (the youngest brother was the right one). “Curd” Slocum: The island’s only Appalachian and moonshiner. Accusatory and easily outfoxed. Beating him at poker inspired Penny to give to her gambling fixation, which was only a problem which she won the majority of money on the island. People were pissed. Devika and Trudy: The plane the characters needed, Professor Callahan’s, only fit five people. Devi and Trudy both argued that they should be the +1. After selecting Devika, the girl responded to most of the island's perils by saying “you know who loves mutated boar-men? Trudy.” The giant "Fish": The players went to examine it but fled from a nearby Japanese submarine. The damage led to a "minor" plane crash. The giant Snakeipede: This was an actual monster, the size of three connected school buses. The players snuck around it (with Aldous’s butlerly shushing a major asset). Finding themselves outnumbered at a Japanese missile base, they eventually lured it over by setting fire to the ammo dump. Mutated boar-men: The players wisely hid from these guys. The Drunk British Sailor Imprisoned by the Japanese: Florence promised to save him only if he went to sleep until things were safe. The plan worked! Admiral Saeki: Penny’s plan to set fire to the base's kitchen went perfectly well… Until she ran into her best friend’s father, the base commander. She schmoozed him, Then fled when one of his soldiers recovered the plane's passenger manifest, Which completely contradicted her story that she had been in a single-passenger crash on the island*. He later lured the players into a standoff. He complimented Florence’s album, And was going to douse Tacito and Penny with nerve gas… Until the Jaguar-Spirited Abagado kicked down a 5" steel door. Saeki surrendered and fled. *She had filled it in, accurately, as former a Hotel Lifeguard. Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Apr 29, 2024 |
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Jan 15, 2024 04:49
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I've finally got a story of my own to tell! So, I'm in a group that's playing Lancer, and we're slowly going through the No Room for a Wallflower official module. My pilot, Lisa, is a (very recently) former corporate fraud investigator for Harrison Armoury, one of the five main manufacturers of mechs in Lancer's lore, and also the mega-megacorporation that's responsible for a lot of the backstory (read: history of war crimes) in this setting. Long story short, she found something during her last investigation that she really, really wasn't supposed to, and had to drop everything in her life to forge a new identity, then joined in on the mission to some backwater colony planet to lay low for a while. Fast forward a bit through our team's first set of combat encounters, and between her experiences in the first boss battle and some information that she picked up during the post-fight downtime, she's become convinced that they're going to need all the overwhelming firepower that they can get their hands on for future threats, which led to her seeking out a license hacker who could help her get her hands on one gun in particular: the Displacer, which packs a solid punch at the cost of giving you a metric fuckload of heat (basically, a secondary HP bar that you ordinarily want to keep empty), but is ordinarily locked behind taking 3 levels in the Napoleon line of mechs. ...The problem OOCly is that I'm not actually interested in the Napoleon at all; what I am aiming for is the Enkidu, a Wallflower-original mech whose main gimmick is becoming a frenzying berserker murder beast when it ends it's turn with it's heat gauge is at least half-full (AKA: The Danger Zone). The usual big drawback, though, is that a lot of the typical means of inflicting Heat on yourself do it in small increments that take a couple turns to build up... and the Enkidu outside of the Danger Zone has a pitifully low movement speed compared to when it's fully fired up. The Displacer, on the other hand, generates enough Heat that you'll easily reach the DZ in just one attack. Thanks to one of the Enkidu's passive effects, it can't use ranged weapons any more while it's in the DZ, so you'll only get that one shot... but that's a small price to pay when it automatically attacks anything that enters it's melee range. Getting back on topic... My GM reasonably decreed that in exchange for skipping ahead on getting a piece of gear so powerful, Lisa would face at least a couple of significant complications to obtaining it: that she would have to find someone who would actually be able and willing to 3D print the weapon once she actually got her hands on the schematics... and that in the process of getting those schematics, she would royally piss off the manufacturer, who just so happened to be her former employer. So today, she was pointed towards a friendly NPC hacker, and realized that in the process of dropping off the grid in a hurry, she never actually properly faked her death. Through that, she then found out that her old login credentials were still good, and handed them over to him so he could get straight to the schematics in high-security. Naturally, though, this soon attracted the attention of an internal security officer, who froze them up and started ranting about all of the felonies we had just committed, how they would be sending an investigation to the backwater world they were on, etc. Lisa, in a moment of quick thinking, bluffed the hell out of the ISO using her original identity, browbeat them into believing that they had just jeopardized her investigation from another department in their galaxy-spanning corporation into potential espionage from one of the other major corporations, and convinced them to let her intrusion go ahead so that she could "establish a clear chain of evidence".  Now all that's left (...for now) is finding a printer... and then the small matter of actually unlocking the Enkidu.
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Jan 15, 2024 06:30
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According to my GM, I am not allowed to put a Ring of Feather Fall on a chicken just to see what happens.
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Jan 21, 2024 01:36
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CobiWann posted:According to my GM, I am not allowed to put a Ring of Feather Fall on a chicken just to see what happens. It'd be like the chickens in Ocaraina of Time. You can use them as a short-distance glider.
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Jan 21, 2024 07:11
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CobiWann posted:According to my GM, I am not allowed to put a Ring of Feather Fall on a chicken just to see what happens. You'd just be married to the chicken
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Jan 21, 2024 10:21
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Golden Bee posted:Rockets Of The Red Sun! by Peter Schweighofer When we last left off, the players were met by a mysterious voice. Having refused the three trials of the Ascension, the group felt pretty confident that the Red Jasmine cult was weakened in Nepal. Things were complicated by the arrival of the warrior RAVA. She had a flaming sword and demanded to take the trials herself. To emphasize her point, she cut a magic hole in reality, replacing Lala Santinella and Lord Simon with two party acquaintances. (Convenient since we had new players: Thaza O’Rourke, a cat burglar raised by apes, and Sidney Rosenthal, a second-grade teacher who moonlights as the mysterious masked wrestler THE ORCA! Thaza was a rival of Devika and a huge fan of Florence Zee. Sid read Trudy’s articles whenever he could, and he knew Devika from storytime at the New York Public Library.) The group readied for battle, but RAVA disappeared when Mr. Rosenthal took off her blindfold. Weird. Trudy’s contacts (along with some disturbing dreams) pointed the group to Devika’s hometown of Hyderabad. There, Thaza argued that they should use Trudy Truman as bait. Florence loudly disagreed. Meanwhile, Trudy wandered off and got kidnapped. Long story short, everyone who entered the shadow portal ended up being cloned! It took the combined efforts of Thaza and Sidney to take on the Trudy mob. Just before the group could rescue Lord Simon and Lala, someone dragged a flaming sword across the ground… RAVA was easier than a half dozen Trudy’s, since the group was able to assemble and take her on 5v1. But instead of surrendering, she sacrificed herself to demonic powers! The group had an argument: by persuading her uncle and “defeating” RAVA, didn’t that mean Devika had already completed two of the trials, the third of which would make her an evil Goddess? “Fine, you adults do it, I don’t care.” The thirteen-year-old pulled out a copy of Vogue. There was a brief detour as Mr. Rosenthal did what so a few others in the party could do: stand up to the teen millionaire. He said that while it was important to listen to her, she needed structure, which she wasn’t getting from her movie star mom or crooked father. Devika told the 6 foot 10 teacher that he should watch out before someone stole his golden goose and cut his beanstalk. Unfortunately, the 3rd trial was a portal demon! All the adults were sent into fits by its gaze. Devika, not wanting to show everyone up, blocked its vision and proposed a better solution: dynamite. As the richest girl in India, and someone who had sent a lot of money back, it was easily accomplished. Florence pulled permits. Devi and Trudy bought wheelbarrows of top-tier blasting materials. Sydney used his knowledge of architecture to plant everything… KABLAMMO! The ancient temple was leveled. All except for an untouched bookshelf filled with skin-bound volumes. Probably not a big deal.
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Jan 22, 2024 06:13
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In a recent Shadowrun game, the team was hired to delay a clandestine hand-off between third parties by at least 15 minutes, with a bonus payout if the targets didn't know they were being intentionally stalled. The hand-off was slated for the lobby/cafe of a local hotel at 6pm the next day. As the meeting time approached, they identified one patron in the lobby as the intended recipient of the mystery item, and so they went to work:
I think it's a staple of the genre that players always make overly convoluted plans, but really half the fun of running this game is seeing what wild ideas they come up with.
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Jan 23, 2024 00:57
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FreshFeesh posted:In a recent Shadowrun game, the team was hired to delay a clandestine hand-off between third parties by at least 15 minutes, with a bonus payout if the targets didn't know they were being intentionally stalled. The hand-off was slated for the lobby/cafe of a local hotel at 6pm the next day. To be fair, if I was that guy, I would be way more suspicious of an 'electronics glitch' that mysteriously locked me in my room where I'm vulnerable than a cup of spilled tea and someone with terrible stomach distress. (And apparently real! Using Nauseate on themselves and not the target was a clever add, nobody expects the guy throwing up to want to be doing that.) Bonus for creativity. As for the gangs, well, that's Shadowrun.
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Jan 23, 2024 04:13
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So recently I decided to dip my toes into GMing a game, and we made it into all of 3 sessions before I had to go "Are you sure?". The scene is an F-Zero post-race bar party scene. (Yes, F-Zero. I found some completely homebrew F-Zero TTRPG). Here's the character list: Sapralin: This 4-eyed rat alien critter failson of a rich mining tycoon. Lupo: Basically The Stig without the skill. Joseph: Professional gambler that won big and bought an F-Zero car Cardinal: Sentient AI robot that inexplicably has a 200 year old Dell as the computer running the AI. 03/04: A pair of genetically engineered and uplifted raptors "Lord British": Detective of unknown name that races under that alias As mentioned the scene is a bar that caters to F-Zero racers but is technically open to the public, and most of the group was there coming down from the high of their first race. Things were going fairly smoothly at first, but as time went on, I had the group throw a check to notice something odd, a lot of the patrons there were wearing this big chain around their neck. Like, imagine the most gaudy chain from a rapper that suddenly hit it big and was flaunting wealth big, but steel rather than gold. 2 of them notice, and as one of them explains that something seems a little suspect, a fight breaks out at a nearby table. One thing leads to another, some drinks get tossed, a few unrelated people get smacked with said drinks, and in typical comedic fashion it turns into one of those chaotic everybody for themselves bar brawls. I have one dude for each of them to fight and they get into it. 03/04 and Joseph do pretty well for themselves, Lord British isn't actually in the scene yet since he's off doing a bit of detective stuff, Cardinal is holding his own, and Sapralin is completely, hilariously useless in the fight. This is supposed to be easy and it's going about as well as I expected it to, but Lupo asks about a character I made a note of after a few rounds, and decides to throw a beer bottle at the guy, who notably was *not* actually fighting anybody, just enjoying the scene. That guy was Michael Chain. See, for those that know F-Zero lore, he runs a gang called the Bloody Chains. I had setup this as him deciding to do a group mugging by engineering a brawl, doing a little smash and grab on some unsuspecting people and getting out. This was the "Are you sure about that?" because Lupo's player, who did not know the lore about this guy or what his deal is, decided to kick the hornet's nest and went "Yes". For a bit of mechanical context, the way the game works is that stats are rated A to E, and that determines the die you throw for various checks. A means you throw a D12, B a D10, and so on down the line. For most of the fighting skills, Chain has an A rating, with a +3 on top of that. The players have between an A and a C ratings, with at most +1. Also Chain is just the luckiest son of a bitch I've ever seen. Lupo starts getting double teamed, which is very bad because after the first defensive action, your die stages down one size until you're throwing D4s. So Chain picks up a pool cue and starts trying to (and really, succeeding to) beat on Lupo, who goes into full evasive mode. Joseph and 03/04 deal with their guys, and go to help Sapralin and Lupo respectively. Around this time Lord British barges in on the chaos, and one of the punks turns around and threatens him to leave if he knows what's good for him. Lord British gives zero fucks and starts giving him the what for. What proceeds from there is the party mopping up the various gang members, who depending on how they got hit either tactically bitch out of the scene or just get KO'd on the spot, leaving pretty much just Chain fighting like 4 of the characters, and manages to hold his own shockingly well. Sapralin literally cannot roll higher than a 3 when attacking the guy over several rounds (which I played as Chain just no-selling everything from the rat), Cardinal isn't much more useful, and while 03/04 get a few good hits in, Chain gives back about as good, managing to rough up both Lupo and 03/04. If I recall Chain managed to get like 4-5 hits on the player characters while taking only 3, as once the players beat up enough of the various underlings, Chain decided to make his exit via window, taking a rubber bullet to the back but making a clean breakaway as sirens started getting closer. Good times, and everybody had fun, but honestly I'm a little concerned for what might've happened to the players if I'd had the guy keep fighting. Only a little though; I think I got the point across with paying attention when the phrase "Are you sure" gets dropped by the GM.
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Jan 29, 2024 04:22
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Golden Bee posted:Translation Terror: Part Two! A slow-moving disaster of two mismatched hearts. New York City. It was a morning for ill-fated nuptials. Lord Simon and Lala Santinella were set to be wed, despite the former’s homosexuality and the latter’s indifference. Also on hand was their separately adopted daughter Devika, Lala’s ex Penny An’Te, And reliable butler Aldous Bingen. Adding to the tumult was the fact that this was an interfaith wedding in 1935. Simon’s family was Jewish, the Santinellas were Italian. So there was both a Rabbi and a priest, who felt the need to organize the activities and ask personal questions about faith and children. Gambler Penny ran a betting pool on just who would interrupt the wedding. This was the most emotional of our adventures in this multi-year campaign. Lala implied marriage was to protect Devika and her assets, which the millionaire found baffling. She was much more supportive of Simon… This was just another con job, and if they muddled up the wedding contract, none of this hooplah mattered. Meanwhile, Aldous second-guessed all of the venue’s decisions, and knowing the general vibe, let in a mysterious millionaire stranger. The aristocrat offered a motorcycle as a wedding present. It was sleek and futuristic. Lala privately provoked Penny with declarations of love. Devi used her training as a fashion model to buy Simon time during the photo shoot. The contract was voided...Everything was clear for the rooftop wedding! This turned out to be a problem, because nobody interrupted the ceremony. Both the priest and the rabbi asked if anyone had any objections… And no one did. Until finally, luckily, there was a smoke bomb! The Grey Gargoyle arrived, accusing Simon as an accessory to murder! Phew! But things grew complicated as Simon’s mother ran between her son and the vigilante. Her love for her son countered his Gargoyle Gaze long enough for the crowd to be evacuated. Then, the teen millionaire/model/bridesmaid grabbed the Gargoyle’s glare. “This is completely unfair, you have to let me into the Century Club!” Yes, Devika knew the secret identity of the crimefighter: millionaire playboy Gregory Leslie Goyle! As a trained mystic, he was able to counter her mental assault. They were locked in a battle for control as Lala stood up for her fiancé. Maybe Simon was a criminal, but Goyle’s absence of proof was equally gauche*. Interrupting a wedding to try an extrajudicial arrest? Shame on him! Devika grabbed one of the smoke bombs from the Grey’s utility belt during the lambasting. She threw a pellet down so Penny could knock the interloper off the rooftop. He activated his gliding cape, vowing to return. The reception was awkward. Lala announced that the wedding was going to be delayed due to the circumstances…and partygoers fell asleep! Worse, the interloper millionaire had swapped out the wedding cake with one containing a machine gun-toting robot! But this fauntleroy hadn’t studied under the temple bells of Neban. When Devika found him in the kitchen, his mind was no match for hers! Aldous quickly threw the remote control device in a pot of boiling water, ending the electronic threat. With the latest villain subdued, the party was ready for an interrogation and a monologue. Unfortunately, Lala decided to menace him with a butcher knife, sending Devika into hysterics. She ran off to the walk-in freezer. Simon went to check on her. Her teary monologue went as follows: this whole wedding was based on a series of poor decisions that started with her picking Lala as her mother. Devi was crushed by her parents' death, and while she appreciated the worship of the Red Jasmine Cult, it was an environment free of love and nurture. Lala has been really really nice, so Devika just took her on as a mother. Tempted with someone rich and needy, what else was a broke Italian stuntwoman to do? The gentleman thief told his sidekick that she was the only girl he needed in his life. He didn’t need her money, she should give it to charity if she felt bad. This was his fault, and it was handled. Now couldn’t they enjoy the party? Meanwhile, the rest of the group discovered their nemesis’s motives: he was a war profiteer that they had unintentionally foiled repeatedly. Penny said she hoped he had good lawyers, because he’d be facing 100 counts of attempted murder! The group woke up the draughted guests and started the party. Simon made sure to connect with his old boyfriend Max. Devi was coaxed away from her gal pals by Lala, but the damage was done. She didn’t want a mom who blamed her for her own bad decisions and threatened tied-up people with knives. Despite Penny’s efforts, Lala fled, ashamed, into the night. *Goyle observed the killing in the very second episode of this campaign! Simon and Devika distracted while sniper/wedding photographer Javid Kulfi assassinated gangster King Solomon! Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Apr 29, 2024 |
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Jan 29, 2024 05:53
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According to my Storyteller, the portmanteau for Dire Wolves is not "Dilves"
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Feb 4, 2024 07:41
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*points 2 Dilves*
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Feb 4, 2024 08:05
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Golden Bee posted:Kiss Kiss, Ratatatat! It started as a gimmick and sent men to their graves. Atlantic City: a Saturday in April, 1935. The weather's gone from lamb shower to deluge, and Pandora Moulin is pissed. She was promised the nightclub singer/detective, and in front of her were two teenage girls, an elementary school teacher, a lifeguard and a lawyer. It didn’t interest her that the teenage girls were mystic Devika Velyapur and her tomboy bestie, Ava Astor; that the teacher was secretly masked wrestler The Orca; that the lifeguard was premiere gambler Penny An’Te; or that the lawyer was Brujo-trained spirit boxer Tacito Uriel Velasco! Still, they had a job to do: secure the mythical Pandora’s Box, so it could be displayed at the nightclub and bring in crowds. Unfortunately, the box had been stolen from the manager’s office, and the manager had disappeared. Also, the mob was involved. Thus began a tremendous comedy of errors. Devika, when asked to detect the box, had turned red instead of purple, then passed out in her soup. When consulted, Professor Callahan insisted that he would love to figure the box out, and of course that would involve opening it. Tacito helpfully reminded the group that the mythical Pandora’s box was a vase… So this was just a box that unleashed terrific monsters that either chewed people out of reality or slew them in gory ways. The group was in over their head learning Syndicate politics. But mooks and buttonmen were no match for a boxer, a wrestler, and a pistolero. The path of magic destruction led to a shindig at the Seekers of Eternal Knowledge lodge. Unfortunately, one of the members was the Orca’s nemesis, MAN MOUNTAIN DEAN! 350 pounds of wrestler stuffed into a tuxedo, he was a formidable threat. Also a threat? The fact that the box thief, Leo Carpozi, was one of Tacito’s former clients. A social/magic threat was the head of the order, Klaus Sourfeld. With Penny’s semi-intentional help, he and the rest of the club set up betting lines: how many seconds from when Leo opened the box until its contents destroyed him? Tacito refused to let a former and future client be devoured by monstrosities! He slid past the room’s mystic barriers and slapped the box out of Leo’s hands! The Orca also tried to jump down, with much less success, with one of his feet going straight through the wooden floor. DEAN told Penny there was nothing he liked less than crooked promoters; she fled over the railing, and landed on Orca. Oops! The cult decided to use the stairs, except for DEAN, who decided to do his finisher: a flying splash called THE MOUNTAIN SLIDE! It dislocated Penny’s arm, and annoyed the Orca. The party was in a powerless position, but never count out Tacito Velasco, The Jade Jaguar! He reminded MAN MOUNTAIN DEAN that he had helped the continental champion beat racketeering charges. How about a quid pro quo? DEAN, having defeated the Orca, left agreeably. Then there was the matter of the cult. Klaus was about to stab Leo with a jagged knife. Instead, Tacito jumped off a wall, smashing the Seeker of Wisdom with an overhand right. Two enemies defeated in one round! Although they only had five working arms, the group played keep-away with the box until Tacito could mop up the rest. But how to get rid of this cursed artifact? Well, there was always new construction going on… time to put it in concrete. Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Apr 29, 2024 |
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Feb 5, 2024 22:22
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Golden Bee posted:(…) betting lines: how many seconds from when Leo opened the box until its contents destroyed him? gently caress Around, Find Out (Malaká Difficulty)
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Feb 5, 2024 23:34
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Emissaries of the Old Ones, Book One Chapter 1 - The Invasion of Fallcrest X X X X X "That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die...." - HP Lovecraft. X X X X X 26 Years ago The 6th day of Myrddem in the month of Ariwaen, a peaceful spring evening, comes to an end. Midnight. The sky erupts with light as a dome of glistening energy in a hexagonal pattern stretches to all horizons. Magic stops. Time passes. 10 seconds. 30 seconds. One minute. The dome falls and magic returns, slowly growing back to its original power. Her eyelids snap open. Her eyes are orbs of darkness, black and unmarked. Specks of light begin to shine in that darkness like a myriad of stars, and a single, white moon appears to form the iris. But the stars within her eyes do not twinkle, and flecks of color in each reveal them to be not stars but a myriad unblinking eyes within her own. She sits bolt upright in her bed, a little girl with hair as red as Luserius. Her eyes narrow with malice as her thin mouth slowly grows into a twisted smile. Her sweet child's voice escapes her lips, barely more than a whisper as her eyes return to their original green. "They're coming," she says, "And the way must be prepared." X X X X X One month ago Three strange moons... so many rotations of this world. How long as it been wandering? Four seasons? Five? Time is not a construct with which it has often been forced to coexist. It continues searching, blindly, reaching out to feel the slightest... Wait! There. A touch... weak and distant, but undeniably a touch. Lost for so long. Not lost. Hidden. Not anymore. It will find it. Free it. And once it is liberated... they will not be far behind.... X X X X X Now  On Siyradem 10, Emanaus, the Year 3000 Sear Reckoning, Queen Kaelynn Dragonhall of Kaern Korinna sent the Articles of Secession to the High King of Kaeryn pledging to stand against him should he proceed with a planned crusade against the hobgoblins of the fledgling Rhuuk Empire. The crusade never began, but one year later to the day, the counts and barons of the region unanimously voted to ratify the queen's succession, Kaern Korinna was renamed Argentium, the Silver City, and the kingdom of Wintermount was born. When announcing the ratification, Queen Kaelyn declared that a new holiday, the Festival of Sovereignty, would be celebrated from dawn of the 19th day to the midnight of the 21st day of Emanaus each year in remembrance. Today is the second day of that festival's 24th occurrence, Siyradem 10, Emanaus, the year 3026 Sear Reckoning. Last night, on the eve of the first day of festivities, five people came together at a table in the common room of The Broken Goblet Taphouse and Inn on their common quest to find a place to sit. Although their association was fresh and new, they all promised to come together this afternoon to cheer on Poppy, one of their number, in the day's contest of champions, the first of Lethik's warriors to ever enter the tournament. And so you stand among the onlookers at the South Ward Stables watching the contest on a cloudy yet unseasonably warm early autumn day. X X X X X  Iteru Hajar - an Undine (water genasi) Bard from the western continent of Thyrin  Yllestria Mithrilgrove - a Ghealasidh (Pale Elf) Metal and Wood Kineticist also from Thyrin  Velia Starkweather - a Saoirsidh (Starlight Elf) Summoner from Fallcrest  Poppy McClaren - a Champion of Lethik and daughter of local hero, Biff McClaren, Cleric of Lethik    Piran Luca - a Thaumaturge travelling salesman of all that will cure what ails you   The saga begins with Poppy standing in a melee ring with another Champion as she participates in her first tournament ever (and we as the players begin our eternal grapple with strange, crypting etchings, aka the Pathfinder 2e system). Poppy holds her own for several rounds when screams are heard nearby. Several citizens are running from strange toad-like creatures emerging from the nearby Brandywine River - bigger and more upright than bullywugs and, somehow, seemingly more ancient.   The adventurers readied themselves - Iteru beat a courageous anthem on his drum, Yllestria surrounded herself with wooden armor, Piran studied the creatures to Recall Knowledge what he knew of them (such as vulnerabilities or if they had attacks of opportunity, as not every creature in Pathfinder has them), Poppy Raised her Shield, and Velia summoned her eidolon, her father-in-law, Champion Sir Kerien Starkweather, a valiant knight who's been dead for over a year.  The party makes their way through the town, zeroing in on the sounds of screaming citizens, taking on a variety of ancient creatures that smell like a deep, dark, dank place that hasn't seen the light of day or a wet mop in an eternity. This included a mysterious white lizard-creature with a nauseating stench and a gray lizard-creature that keeps spitting green goo on people, to the point where even Sir Kerien becomes Sickened.       After saving several people, including Fallcrest's head ratcatcher Miles Tuppet (Velia - "Yeah, we'll be seeing him again.") the party grabs a rest and tries to piece together what's happening. Between rumors from the Western Continent heard by Yllestria and Iteru along with Piran's esoteric knowledge, the party begins to come up with the vague outlines of a theory. X X X X X Twenty-five game years ago, in a Tanicus campaign with different players, a group of heroes on the Western Continent discovered that while the gods claimed the world long ago, they didn't actually create it - they defeated and kicked out a pantheon referred to as the Old Ones and locked up their servant races, known collectively as the foreclaimer races. There were four known foreclaimer races - gator-creatures, bald blue-skinned humanoids, serpent-types, and what could best be described as 'tentacles things.' Along with the Old Ones, these races also worshiped powerful evil elemental princes known as the Archomentals. X X X X X quote:Piran - "These creatures we've been fighting. They're not simply croaking and growling. They're speaking a language that hasn't been heard on Tanicus in centuries called Aklo. It's a language... from out there. Between things." After saving another group of citizens, the party finds itself in front of Warriors’ Falls, a small waterfall fed by an underground spring that flows into a tributary of the Brandywine. Yllestria suggests checking to see if there's anything behind the waterfall. "In character, these creatures are coming from the river, maybe they're emerging from the waterfall. Out of character, we've all played enough video games to know to always check behind the waterfall."   It turns out that Yllestria was right. Behind the waterfall is a large metal door surrounded by the debris from a rockslide ("Perhaps caused by one of the recent earthquakes," suggests Velia). A dead dwarf lies motionless on the ground in front of the door, clutching a piece of bloody parchment in one hand, while surrounding him are a couple of big New York rats. Instead of snouts, however, they have tentacles.  After defeating them and learning that Pathfinder encourages 10-minute rests after combat, the party takes the time to study both the door and the parchment. The dwarf's fingers were worn to the nub from digging at the rubble surrounding the door, and with his last efforts he used his blood as ink…  quote:The umbral night grows yawning near Iteru studies the metal door, finding runes that, much like the Aklo language, are also from "out there" and are meant to confound and confuse the unwary. Somehow (aka the Aid Action from Piran and Yllestria), Iteru manages to disable the runes and opens the door into a small antechamber for a ruined complex, possibly a temple, possibly a tomb. At this point Yllestria quickly heads back outside the waterfall and uses her magic to set a bonfire and an arrow pointing to the waterfall to grab the attention of the town guard before the party cautiously makes its way inside the complex. Once inside, however, Yellstria, Piran, and Sir Kerian begin to hear the poem inside their heads, repeated over and over again. Only the three of them hear this poem while Iteru is checking two more doors for potential traps. While revealing this to the group, Piran suggested that it might have something to do with dreams - specifically, how his dreams are vivid and sometimes are “visited,” Kerian being a summoned eidolon, and Yllestria slipping into a trance instead of sleeping per her Sidh heritage. quote:Kerian - “I do not dream - my experiences come when Velia summons me. However, I do remember something akin to our current situation. It was about twenty-five years ago when a rockslide uncovered a door much like this one on the side of a mountain. It was obvious that someone had hidden it away and meant for it to remain undiscovered. I remember venturing through the door, but despite my best efforts, I can’t recall what we found inside.”    After dealing with some amoebas in a chamber where the floor warped and the angles became impossible, giving the PC’s Sickness (once again, Iteru had to throw up to purge the nausea), the party came across a diamond-shaped chamber with a glowing fountain (thanks to LEG lights!) near the entrance and a metal door in the shadows along the far wall. Being able to breathe underwater, Iteru bravely/stupidly sticks his face under the surface. The fountain sat atop a water-filled vault, with large, evenly shaped metal plates along the wall separated by shimmering lines.    Before Iteru could explain his theory that the vault is where the invading creatures came from, the shadows near the back door coalesced into a trio of wolves with pools of darkness where their eyes should have been - temagyr, wolves tied to the realm of the Shadow Fae. The wolves were nasty opponents, with Attacks of Opportunity, and nearly killed Iteru when one of them took a bite out of his shadow, ripping out a chunk and rending his soul in the process. Fortunately, Piran could turn his war pick into cold iron… or rather have it mimic cold iron… or rather give it the properties of cold iron (“It’s magic, you don't have to explain it.”), given the party a fighting chance to take them down. quote:Iteru - “I feel like my spleen’s missing.” Another brief rest followed. When Iteru went to open the door in the back of the chamber, he discovered that it was already open. Beyond the door was a tomb, with a sarcophagus atop a small platform, and what could only be described as a floating stomach trying to open it.    Tentacles hung from the bladder like wet paper, and the mouth on its tail was surrounded by a ring of mandibles as it spoke. ??? - “What manner of creatures are you? You resemble the Remnant, but Saracco is long gone.” Piran immediately recognizes the name - it’s a place that his dream visitor hails from, a point of origin from which they had fled. quote:??? - “Are you here for the Implement?” Cue a nasty fight with Acid Sprays, Mirror Images, and Dazzlements. By the end, Poppy and Yllestria are down, but Iteru manages to stabilize them. quote:Piran - “This is where you would have slammed your fist down on their chest and screamed that they’ve never given up in their lives, don’t start now!” It takes a bit to open the sarcophagus, as the gap was narrow as if made for tentacles, not fingers. Inside is a humanoid figure in dark robes with blue skin and no hair of any kind wearing a mummified six-fingered hand around its neck. The corpse itself is clutching a large, nasty looking green-steel sword, with three lines on the pommel that open to reveal amber eyes with sideways pupils that glare at the party. Under the sword is a thick tome bound in some kind of brass, with seven sigils arranged in a circle on a round disc on its cover. As the party studied the corpse, the sword spoke. “Are you here to tear down the gates?” While Piran arranges for safe, non-touchy transport of the items, Kerian says that when he was alive he knew of a sage named Zorah Prentiss who was seeking any information and knowledge about the foreclaimer racers from the western continent. Poppy noted that there’s someone in the Lower Ward of Fallcrest, known locally as Greencloak, who might fit Kerian’s description. The group left the complex and explained what they had found (minus most of the “Eldritch Horrors From Beyond The Beginning of Time” stuff) to the knights who had seen Yllestria’s fire before making their way through the recovering town to Zorah’s shop in the Lower Ward. The sage recognized Sir Kerian, easing the revelation of what the party found in the complex. Zorah showed keen interest when Piran mentioned the words “Armageddon Edge,” and even more when she saw the sword. The book held by the corpse, according to Zorah, was known as the Book of Seven Gates, and will provide its contents to one who invests their soul to it, while the mummified hand was a Hand of the Mage which allows the user to cast the Mage Hand cantrip. But it was the blade that mattered to her.    quote:“I know this as Gruulshahn, the Apocalypse Blade. My research suggested that the current pantheon stole the world from another one. This blade confirms it. The gods used powerful seals to prevent the Old Ones from influencing this world. This weapon was forged for the purpose of destroying those gates. The Abstractions were guardians of the gates on the other side of the seals. If you encountered one, that means one seal has already fallen.” The good news, Zorah says, is that the blade can be destroyed, and the method can be found using a tome called Librum Escorpus or The Book of Dooms. Unfortunately, said tome was lent to a wizard named Theodûir several decades ago. If the party were to retrieve the tome from his apprentice, who is currently residing in his tower south of the city along the river, Zorah could use its power to identify the means of destroying Gruulshahn. Zorah glanced at Kerian, who told her with a simple nod that the party could be trusted. The flick of a switch moved a table attached to the floor, revealing a staircase heading into a hidden basement which contained bunks, alchemy supplies, books, training equipment, and a warded vault for securing artifacts. quote:Zorah - “Welcome to the Fallcrest HQ of the Greencloaks, founded to fight cultists and esoteric threats around the globe.” Later, after attending a banquet thrown by Kennet Greywinter, Count of Fallcrest, in gratitude for the party’s defense of the town and its citizens, the newly minted Greencloaks prepare to secure a boat and head downriver to Theodûir's Tower… CobiWann fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Mar 18, 2024 |
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Feb 5, 2024 23:49
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Oh yes, I'll admit I've missed these a bit. 
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Feb 6, 2024 01:04
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CobiWann posted:Emissaries of the Old Ones, Book One Yesssssssssssssssssssssss quote:a mummified six-fingered hand around its neck. quote:while the mummified hand was a Hand of the Mage which allows the user to cast the Mage Hand cantrip. Ah. Well. Nevertheless. Which character are you playing as? Also, who was in the other Tanicus campaign?
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Feb 6, 2024 06:13
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Ichabod Sexbeast posted:Yesssssssssssssssssssssss Hand of Glory or Hand of Vecna? Nope, only something practical... quote:Which character are you playing as? Also, who was in the other Tanicus campaign? All five players were in the previous recapped campaigns. We had a sixth (and a seventh way back when) but real life happened. I'm playing Iteru, the Bard. I felt it was "my turn" to be the healer this time out and was reading up on 5e Bards when the DM announced our switch to Pathfinder 2e after the OGL mess once the current campaign had wrapped up. Half the fun in the first two sessions was learning a new system.
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Feb 6, 2024 12:10
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Golden Bee posted:Pandora’s Box by Glyn White! Thousands of years of history… And blood by the bucket. The sturmbahnführer held Professor Hamilton at gunpoint. With a sneer, he demanded the party tell him everything about their mission… Or their egghead pal would be thinking lead. And to show he was serious, he cocked back to the hammer. Captain Semya Ivanova snorted derisively. "Men who pull back the hammer are gutless. You’ve saved a fraction of a second for a projectile that can move 2735 km an hour. Here’s what’s going to happen: Your Nazi goons are going to run away. I’m going to drag you back to Nukeograd Syet^. There, great Soviet scientists will keep you in an experimental state between life and death, while your fraying mind tries to think something other than 'pain pain pain'." The Anwärters fled first. The sturmbahnführer kept a brave face a second longer, before fleeing too. He earned a lash across the back, a reminder not to cross the Russian. *** Devika's player, on a whim, decided to switch to another character, Captain Ivanova. Imagine a mix of Indiana Jones, the Continental Op, and Alexandra Kollontai. She wasn't alone, though; she was joined by songbird Florence Zee, the gentleman thief Lord Simon, and two arrogant mechanical Fly-boys, Raymond “Jonesy” Jones and Prof Winston Callahan. (It’s quite a coincidence, because Jonesy's player comes by only rarely, and the professor was first invented to replace Jonesy!) Let's start at the start. Professor Hamilton Dickinson was a colleague of Calla’s, and had dedicated decades to studying the Templars. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been subtle about it, and was robbed by a sword-wielding lunatic on a motorcycle. And of course, the Reich wanted whatever treasures the 13th century Order had been holding onto. What Ivanova was to overland travel and intimidation, the professor was to clue-solving. Latin abounded at every step of the adventure, from DC, to Egypt, from rural France to Iceland. Meanwhile, Florence used her charm to prevent one ambush (Using her Cairo contacts to run an endgame around a traitorous Bedouin), and stopped another when she convinced a Bloodthirsty Templar of the group's honorable intentions. Our most thrilling encounter was in a remote Egyptian Temple. The prof’s curiosity accidentally awakened the Temple guardian, a giant clockwork snake covered in spikes. Florence distracted it, and Lord Simon was able to place a gem in its empty eye-socket, sending the beast back into torpor. Once the group looted the treasure room, Nazi saboteurs made themselves known. They wanted the map to the next location...or else. Semya stared down the platoon of Nazi soldiers. She held her torch next to the map, and said she would only trade it for the Gem Eye of the Serpent. The Nazis, intimidated, agreed. The creature immediately awoke. Needless to say, that fight was truncated. ^Science City Seven, dear reader! Ivanova's hometown! Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Apr 29, 2024 |
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Feb 12, 2024 06:20
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Golden Bee posted:Treasure of the Templars! by Paul "Wiggy" Wade-Williams I didn’t run this adventure, but got a chance to read it afterwards. As written, it has the same problems as P "W" W-W's sky pirate one. Many, many, many fight scenes, plus chases and puzzles that have to end with player success. If you run Treasure of the Templars, you can truncate almost all of DC by having Dickinson give the players the clues (instead of going to his house, going to the auction, having a fight scene, and making sure that the auction prize is smashed open). You can also skip the plane crash, because it feels weird and railroaded. Our GM Had us land in Cairo, gear up for the expedition and follow some rumors into the desert. The final ice genies can also be skipped, because it's right before the climax.
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Feb 12, 2024 06:22
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CobiWann posted:Emissaries of the Old Ones, Book One Ariwaen is the name of the month, but what is Myrddem? It sounds like a unit of time. I have a similar question about Siyradem and Emanaus, I don't quite understand the context.
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Feb 14, 2024 21:42
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Ariwaen is the name of the month, but what is Myrddem? It sounds like a unit of time. I have a similar question about Siyradem and Emanaus, I don't quite understand the context. To quote my DM... quote:The calendar of Tanisha has eight months, Dyadaen and Ariwaen in the spring, Seanadar and Fergudar in the summer, Emanaus and Roanaus in the autumn, and Bilys and Annys in the winter.
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Feb 15, 2024 21:28
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In the 50s, the US Government ran a series of wargames called AGGRESSOR, with a fictional pan-western-european superpower arising and launching an invasion of the US. Some guy behind a desk in the army clearly considered it his time to shine, and flexed their worldbuilding muscles to flesh out a whole fictional political ideology and history, going above and beyond I'm pretty sure that was your DM's granddad
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Feb 16, 2024 00:42
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Golden Bee posted:Treasure of the Templars! by Paul "Wiggy" Wade-Williams A city under siege, with pride on the line. Buenos Aires, 1925. We see Bingen. as we’ve never seen him before. Long curly hair, athletic wear, but most surprisingly, drenched in sweat. Aldous aka "Bee-Sting" is training for Pan-American glory… But can’t outrun his teammate, "All-Star" Ozzy Ojeda. Coach Pirozzi encourages him, But has a dark look on his face… Aldous asks what’s wrong. Pirozzi tells him those radical meetings aren’t safe anymore, take these tickets and bring your sister to America. Tonight. — Santa Monica. 1935. Poker night! Jonesy and his crooked dealing has flummoxed reporter Trudy Truman, Shutterbug/sniper Javid Kulfi, and educator/secret professional wrestler Sidney Rosenthal. Aldous, cleaning up, turns over a copy of the Times, and nearly drops it in shock. On the front page of the world section is his old coach, but with the new title: General. The headline’s just as startling. ‘Leader of Buenos Aires declares autonomous fascist zone!’ Off to Argentina! The city bureaucracy was an enemy to the players. Even landing at the foggy airport was an ordeal. Luckily, the players knew someone with a spare hanger… Unluckily, it was Mack Silver, Jonesy’s number-one frenemy. From there, they had to find the general’s plot and counteract it. Zara Bloom of the NYT had a lead: The general was using motor couriers to discreetly command his forces. Two were about to leave soon, one in the city, the other through the countryside… Which meant splitting up the group. Aldous was the driver for the city. The ambitious Jonesy used his private plane, the Vivian Leigh, with the Afghan gunner-photog in the second seat. They easily caught up to the motorcyclist, but that was only half an answer: He could duck into the underbrush, but they couldn’t. He fled into a nearby village and got off his bike, which required Jonesy to land the plane… Aldous is a fabulous driver, as he proved while navigating a flash-frozen Chicago back in the "Storm of the Century". Unfortunately, his decorum cost him here. His quarry zigzagged through a street market while the butler was forced to take the long round. Trudy devised a faster route, and they cut the biker off in a seedy alley. Orca picked up the guy and shook him. Out in the hinterlands, the driver was a bit more canny. He threw his documents in a water trough and told his pursuers that he didn’t speak any English. Quick thinking Jonesy bribed the village’s bilingual citizen to translate. Plans acquired. Fearing police retaliation, the party fled into the city’s catacombs. There, they got lost (‘It’s hard to memorize a dank warren’ argued Aldous) until they stumbled upon a local smuggler…"All Star" Ozzy Ojeda?! In pulp stories, this is where the group would join up with an old teammate. Unfortunately, the players were ceaselessly rude. Back at Ozzy’s place, a fastidious Javid demanded to use the shower. Jonesy tried to run a scam, Bingen refused a re-race, and Trudy told the criminal that she was in the city as a reporter. All were tossed out on their ear. Still, the players had the motorcyclist’s info. General Pirozzi had a plan for the city’s 10,000 homeless people… Forced labor to entrench the city against presidential forces. The group hurried to the city’s largest encampment. Mr. Rosenthal reached out to a local kid (an eight-year-old who said his name was "lord fartmaster") And used the gossip pipeline to warn everyone quickly. Not quickly enough though… smoke floated up the other end of the favela. "FUEGO!" Someone shouted. Out of the smoke stepped a group of soldiers led by…EL PRINCIPE DEL INFIERNO. Yes, a luchador named "the prince of hell". Orca put on his mask and faced the prince in battle. The luchador threw the Orca a chair… when he caught it, did a spinning kick into his face. Elsewhere, Javid opened fire. Fascists fell into the mud with each report of his rifle. Bingen, the patriot, organized a bucket brigade, demanding the fleeing indigents stand up for themselves. In the confusion, Trudy was grabbed by a goon squad, but freed by Raymond ‘Jonesy’ Jones’s automotive heroics. The wrestlers fought back-and-forth, until the Orca picked up his opponent… And suplexed him into a burning pool of oil! When the smoke and debris cleared, the prince of hell was gone. Trudy knew how to fight back against the tyrannical government… In the press. After the news broke, Pirozzi went into damage control mode, throwing a party for the visiting president… And of course, the group scored an invite. At the party, Aldous’s Hollywood expertise paid off. He was able to read between the lines of his former coach’s pronouncements…Pirozzi was trapped, flailing, and would abdicate if given a graceful option. Meanwhile, the group noticed a very particular guest… Visiting royalty, in fact. From hell. Jonesy, looking to make a quick buck, decided to set up a fight between Javid and the prince. ("Of course he’s a tyrant, he’s a monarchist!"). This idiocy would’ve certainly led to a death, until Aldous unveiled his plan… Using ketchup to fake an assassination attempt! Pirozzi exited public life, and the group got away without being detected. All that was left was the extra fees at the hanger. And the mob boss said disrespected. Probably nothing. BACK TO SANTA MONICA! Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Apr 29, 2024 |
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Feb 19, 2024 08:18
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Golden Bee posted:Meanwhile, the group noticed a very particular guest… Visiting royalty, in fact. From hell. Oh, the luchador from earlier in the adventure! Not an actual literal devil prince. I would have raised an eyebrow at that but not much more. Your crew gets up to enough nonsense on the surface of the earth that I'd figure As Below, So Further Below! was just another thing I missed
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Feb 20, 2024 04:22
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Golden Bee posted:What Ivanova was to overland travel and intimidation, the professor was to clue-solving. Latin abounded at every step of the adventure, from DC, to Egypt, from rural France to Iceland. Meanwhile, Florence used her charm to prevent one ambush (Using her Cairo contacts to run an endgame around a traitorous Bedouin), and stopped another when she convinced a Bloodthirsty Templar of the group's honorable intentions. This is probably the original adventure talking, but IIRC an Academics-leaning character starts out with a bunch of languages and can stunt for more or even infinity, letting you rotate clues a whole bunch without keeping them out of their strike zone. I always forget exactly what engine you're running this is, if it's original Spirit of the Century or just a regular Fate drift that checks most of the same boxes.
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Feb 20, 2024 15:10
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My PARANOIA* group had just made it to their mission location after a short visit to R&D and about an hour and a half (real time) of dumbassery and constant straying from the path. PC #1 commands his IR trainee (we called them munchkins) to open a door, door refuses to open to an IR so PC #1 sprains his shoulder recklessly attempting to break it down. PC #2 just opens the door effortlessly as it was keyed for security clearance RED and above. The party storms into the office and demands answers from the confused ORANGE clerk, clerk turns the tables on them and further attempts at browbeating fail. PC #3 farts and moves to vacate the room, presumably to blame one of the underlings as he often does. PC #2 pulls out the experimental TAC-NUKE grenade he was assigned and, declaring that the only way to expose the traitors who are obviously in their midst is to use it. he presses the button and blocks the door.  :FIVEPC#3 hides behind his trainee : FOURPC#1 struggles with PC#2, #2 wins and keeps blocking the door and holding the bomb : THREEPC#2 just stands there and grins. : TWOPC#3 farts again : ONEPC#1 attempts to rally the trainees who promptly piss themselves. the next clones of everyone found themselves in a further room with the blast doors back sealed and nearby people talking about the loud boom that was just heard. I love this game. *played on a simple indy ruleset.
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Feb 20, 2024 23:35
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By popular demand posted:My PARANOIA* group had just made it to their mission location after a short visit to R&D and about an hour and a half (real time) of dumbassery and constant straying from the path.
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Feb 21, 2024 00:28
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I have been trying desperately to get my group to play a round of Paranoia. Just don't know which edition to use... X X X X X According to my DM, there is no such spell as Otto's Forbidden Lambada.
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Feb 21, 2024 02:57
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I asked Allan Varney and he said "It doesn't matter in the slightest".
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Feb 21, 2024 03:14
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The single page ruleset I use: https://gshowitt.itch.io/justified-anxiety E: I also refer to treasonous activity as ERRORISM, because computers hate glitches. 
By popular demand fucked around with this message at 13:05 on Feb 21, 2024 |
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Feb 21, 2024 05:18
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CobiWann posted:I have been trying desperately to get my group to play a round of Paranoia. Just don't know which edition to use... If it helps, Humble Bundle has the Mongoose edition up right now priced at less than a dollar a book. https://www.humblebundle.com/books/...hing_bookbundle
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Feb 22, 2024 16:27
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Antifreeze Head posted:If it helps, Humble Bundle has the Mongoose edition up right now priced at less than a dollar a book. Ooooooooooooh... thank you, Citizen!
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Feb 22, 2024 16:51
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So I'm running a Shin Megami Tensai themed game of Our Stormy Present, a branch of the Heart/Spire engines, and we have a first time player to the system who wanted to be An Angel With Amnesia. And I have a rule as a GM. If you want to be an Amnesiac With A Mysterious Past, I have carte blanche to, at any time, reach over and make changes to your character. And she accepted. For months, Frances has been excited in DMs about what her past is and making guesses and just... very engaged. And I am so happy that the big reveal was everything she wanted. This week, the party encountered their first Angel NPC, who was using her blood to help sustain a community's fields and environs after the world has basically ended and everything is a lovely Sepia And Grey forever. So the party was very interested in what's what. Also, a pair of Demons had been harassing the place trying to get food for themselves and generally making a mess. And the moment Frances got off the airship, she realized she was terribly hungry. The party, as is tradition, inevitably splits with the Frances (the angel), Ace (our human who is halfway into taking A Deal with the Demons for power) and Smyly (our party's full human who is a horrible monster and our Scoundrel who just can't stop lying especially to Frances). The Angel gets released from her bonds by the fourth member of the party (Misery, If I Must who is one of the Saints who just want to restore the world). And by 'released' I mean Misery drat near bit the Angel's arm off and cut the binds holding her in place. The Angel (Sophia - The Angel of Repose and Derision) does not appreciate that, nor does she appreciate that Frances and the others are here. And this is where I get to reach over and reveal Frances' past. And add this to her sheet. quote:Seconds, Please - After defeating an Angel in combat, you may consume the flesh of the dead Angel to refresh, or clear a minor or moderate Fallout. If you do so, the party will suffer an equal amount of Kismet Stress or immediately suffer a Kismet Fallout of the same Severity. (Roll for Fallout for the Kismet stress.) Sophia, already half injured, goes down easily after trying to take the party and the village with her, and Frances just rips her to pieces. Body horror consumption. Heart, her other arm, sucking the marrow out of Sophia's wings. All the time Sophia is just calling her a failure and an apostate, while she is being eaten. Frances responds by reciting the rules of Communion. It's some of the best Improv I've had at a table, and I'm just so happy Frances' player was happy with the reveal.
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Feb 24, 2024 17:31
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Nerdlord Actual posted:Seconds, Please I'd make a joke about "one more god rejected" but it sounds like Frances was actually quite happy with her meal  How does Angel taste, btw? Decent pick-me-up on the road to attacking and dethroning God, again? I do hope you keep telling stories about this game. I assume you picked something friendly to intra-party conflict? Do you have an idea for happens to the losers who sided with Law after the inevitable Bridge Too Far over Alignment Lock? Captain Walker fucked around with this message at 09:25 on Feb 25, 2024 |
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Feb 25, 2024 09:21
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Captain Walker posted:How does Angel taste, btw? Decent pick-me-up on the road to attacking and dethroning God, again? Apparently like cocaine chicken nuggets.
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Feb 25, 2024 15:39
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Captain Walker posted:
It tasted like 1d6 refresh for her stress tracks so quite good, actually. As to the flavor? Uhhhhhhh, that'd be harder to judge at this point, I'll ask her player what she wanted it to taste like. quote:I do hope you keep telling stories about this game. Okay. One of the first NPCs we designed for the game was Fenny. Fenny is a Hellhound, because if you've got demons you've got to have hellhounds. Only, I decided that Hell Hounds are actually the reincarnated souls of dogs put to sleep at shelters. Because that seemed appropriately hosed up for the setting. So here's Fenny. https://twitter.com/tou_no25/status/1420810421938790404 quote:FENNY (DON'T DEADNAME HER), THE HELLOUND Fenny's name is Fennel. Her deadname from when she was a mortal dog was Ham Sandwich. So you can see why she decided to change it. Fenny worked as the caretaker/professional snitch for the apartment block that Smyly lived in at the start of the game. Think Demon-powered first alert system for dissidence in the area. At the start of the game, in Session 0, Smyly has just found Frances 'Fallen From Heaven' (read: cast out for being a failure cannibal), and was trying to nurse this tall rear end blonde lady to health when Fenny, of course, came sniffing around. Which lead to Frances learning she's really good at being a bodyguard/punching poo poo in the nose. Fenny, of course reports all of this to the fuzz, which kicks off the whole mess from their end. quote:Frances' punch lands and the Hound staggers back against the door. "poo poo! GAH! YOU TALL BITCH WHO THE gently caress LET YOU COME OFF THE BEANSTALK, SHOULDN'T YOU BE SHILLING CANNED CORN? " Fenny flails. Fenny is currently chilling in her little nest in the engine bay of the Airship, after being rescued by Smyly before the Party bailed from the first boss encounter. She is salty about being a Stray Dog again. Nerdlord Actual fucked around with this message at 01:39 on Feb 26, 2024 |
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Feb 26, 2024 01:29
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Last Time: Golden Bee posted:It's not me, it's COUP! Captain Walker posted:Oh, the luchador from earlier in the adventure! Not an actual literal devil prince. I would have raised an eyebrow at that but not much more. Your crew gets up to enough nonsense on the surface of the earth that I'd figure As Below, So Further Below! was just another thing I missed Glazius posted:This is probably the original adventure talking, but IIRC an Academics-leaning character starts out with a bunch of languages and can stunt for more or even infinity, letting you rotate clues a whole bunch without keeping them out of their strike zone. I always forget exactly what engine you're running this is, if it's original Spirit of the Century or just a regular Fate drift that checks most of the same boxes. Also: these adventure summaries aren’t one-to-one who did what when; lines and actions are transposed to present an image of an adventure group where everyone always has a perfect amount of spotlight. With that explained, please enjoy: The girls from Brazil! If looks could kill...they would. “ I’m sorry, this area is uniform only.” The call girls laughed, taking a hat from each guard. The nazi dupes opened the door and left to find refreshments. *** “My supposition: Igor took your superbike to Brazil.” Captain Semya Ivanova supported her argument by pointing out the tire tracks outside the garage and the Portuguese language guide buried under an old carburetor. Penny An’Te corrected her: it wasn’t her bike, it was the one her ex Lala Santinella left her! Florence, who realized her trip to Science City Seven was going to be a bust, suggested the trio get to the airport. As the group flew into Rio de Janeiro, they could see the bike keeping pace…at hundreds of miles per hour over the open ocean! But where was it headed? The girls learned the score from the local communist cell. The Nazis had a base in the jungle, impossible to raid. That’s where the bike was. Florence teased the Russian explorer about her boots, when a lightbulb appeared: their group was three beautiful women. They didn’t need to raid the base, the guards would let them in. And so, a lot of flirting later, the “callgirls” were able to steal back the bike. Unfortunately, the ensuing chase ended up with an enemy rocket bike exploding against a pole in downtown Rio, but that’s life in the fast lane. The Brazil base’s shipping manifests led back to Germany. More disguises! But when they got to the base’s address, it was in the middle of a suburban neighborhood. Two houses with a patch of dirt between...no base. It’s worth noting here the party was not skilled in science, burglary, infiltration, or even very good at driving. Which makes it even more impressive that the group was able to slip past a father and daughter in their backyard, infiltrate the base (via basement tunnel), and get to the mad invention without getting caught. The invention was a new superzeppelin, designed with the motorcycle’s engine as base. The Reich had learned from its last mistakes; the facility was extremely fireproof. Collapsing iron hatches assured that any saboteurs would go down in flames. A tricky spot. Semya, devout communist and nazi hater, went through the personnel files, and learned that the plant’s manager wasn’t in. She called his home number and demanded he get to work! Pissed to be yelled at by an anonymous woman, he said that he’d bring every factory worker that would pick up the phone. Less than ideal for a sneaking mission... Florence grabbed some accelerants, including gas and rags, and set them up near the zepp’s weak point. Penny, pistolero, measured the angles. Unfortunately, there was no way to hit the zeppelin and be on the safe side of the blast doors… Unless she hit a trick shot. And when she shot, sneak-time was over. The ladies gathered beyond the door, holding their breath as Penny aimed for a ricochet. It missed the zeppelin but hit the gascan. Penny fired again, and a wave of force knocked the women backward. The capital began to shake as the girls made it to their escape vehicle…Just as Penny noticed the father and daughter, kicking a soccer ball obliviously! Captain Ivanova rolled her eyes as the Hawaiian lifeguard dove to get the citizens out of the blast radius. Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Apr 29, 2024 |
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Feb 26, 2024 05:56
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Golden Bee posted:Also: these adventure summaries aren’t one-to-one who did what when; lines and actions are transposed to present an image of an adventure group where everyone always has a perfect amount of spotlight. It works, though! You're able to present a coherent narrative which is all the more impressive since though your main cast is like a dozen characters and yet I never have any trouble keeping them straight. Except Florence. Florence is queer as a three-dollar bill and I love that for her. A new flame and a new torch song in every port of call  quote:With that explained, please enjoy: I always do quote:Semya, devout communist and nazi hater, went through the personnel files, and learned that the plant’s manager wasn’t in. She called his home number and demanded he get to work! Some master race. So entitled! None of them want to work! And even when they do work they're easily distracted by a hint of shoulder or thigh. Never hire a Nazi to do a person's job. quote:Just as Penny noticed the father and daughter, kicking a soccer ball obliviously! Captain Ivanova rolled her eyes as the Hawaiian lifeguard dove to get the citizens out of the blast radius. Guess they were the ones running on island time 
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Feb 26, 2024 11:42
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| # ? May 5, 2024 07:04 |
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Golden Bee posted:Semya, devout communist and nazi hater, went through the personnel files, and learned that the plant’s manager wasn’t in. She called his home number and demanded he get to work! Pissed to be yelled at by an anonymous woman, he said that he’d bring every factory worker that would pick up the phone. Less than ideal for a sneaking mission... lol There's a lot of funny moments in RPG stories that, out of context, are very silly. This is a good example, but it's what makes these stories in particular great. Imagining the checks and the effects the system is having on the narrative is the fun of reading between the lines. The above line just reminds me of a running gag in Behind the Bastards where the host has noticed that sometimes you can just, like, yell at bootlickers and they'll just do whatever, sometimes nonsensically. A big, loud, assertive rear end in a top hat can sometimes just... brute force social challenges that game systems like to think are more subtle and less stupid than they are sometimes in real life. I also love adventures where everyone in the party is ill-equipped, mechanically. Stealth missions with no stealthy characters is the typical one. We just had one in 7th Sea that I might write up because it was a well-composed whodunit, it was hilarious, and it ended with a banger of a cliffhanger. Railing Kill fucked around with this message at 12:47 on Feb 26, 2024 |
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Feb 26, 2024 12:42
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