In between writing e-mails to the Kelzsyn's Bluff & Environs project team members, re-writing the Players' Manual, reading your blogs, and having a life away from the computer, I have completed everything but the equipping and 'hook' for the ten pre-generated characters for the product.
--A few of the characters are pretty far afield for the Riverland Peninsula, but that'll be part of the fun for me in writing their hooks. I take it that if the dice gave me those characters, those are the ones I was supposed to have, and it'll all work out in the end. :)
My girlfriend has exposed me to a few (non-RPG) games lately, and I've really taken to the very laid-back Aquarius card game, but sadly, the game is apparently no longer in production. :( --Guillotine, too, is fun, but a bit too fiddly for my tastes in an non-RP game. Red Dragon Inn is still in deliberation, as it was only the two of us playing, and I definitely got the feeling it would show its 'worth' in a multi-player session, so I'll give that a try before giving it a rating.
Off to watch the Coen Bros. A Serious Man.
See you on the flip-side.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Sunday, February 28, 2010
[Playtest Campaign] 26th, FebRuary-
In brief:
* Ymmyk of 'the poor dual brain' has a condition where he occasionally manifests an alternate personality, as an NPC, and this has been used to keep him busy while the player hasn't been able to play. It also surfaced on Friday when said player had a bit of time to 'catch up' on what has been happening, as well as play. He 'snapped out of' an alternate personality and found himself sitting behind a desk in strange surroundings, with even his choice of personal gear different. Fleeting memories of his operating as a small-time crime boss, running at least a gambling house in one of the overturned hulls, as well as what appears a smuggling operation, taking advantage of the extensive tunnels in Doran.
* The Governors and the rest of their pursuit-posse made good use of the cryo-chambers in the subterranean complex by the coast, and Tyb and the Abbekqorru were healed in less than 16 Hours. Exploration suits were donned, HUD units in the helmets were utilised, and analogue computers engaged to conserve power. Weapons (Plasmatic-acid projectors) found by the Abbekqorru (Skelk [leader], Rhur [right-paw], and little Varq) led to improved mood. Varq was suited up. The suits have Jump Packs with a total of 20 Minutes burn time. The party realised that the PMH containers they salvaged may, possibly, be usable with the packs. Even lady Miren suited up and took to the weapon with Ancestral savvy.
* Mela's Fae friends helped her understand that the yellow-green flames and the quake/fault, was a powerful psionic delusion, but the realisation did nothing to prevent the psychic cycle from still causing new delusions/illusions, as well as a head-splitting degree of pain in the majority of the populace of Doran. A confrontation with two Bunk-Bunks went her way, utilising an imaginary acid-attack. A midwife with a new-agey crytal pendant, and Ylnel (Devlyn's cousin, the Fae-studies Specialist) were the only ones to maintain Resolve when the goat-demon appeared, but then disappeared almost as soon as it had appeared, as the Fae-friends led them to a tunnel entrance. Armed with a sickle, a rake, and perhaps a hatchet, these three ventured into the darkness and at Mela's mention, they trio faced a swarm of 'big bugs' -- phantasms, but one which nearly killed Ylnel until a placebo ws administered to her by Mela.
* The Governors emerged from the complex and found the flame no longer present, but the storm still battering the island. Odder still, the Ahzenbakh mansion still stood, with no hint of damage. Ymmyk was encountered topside, having emerged from a tunnel-connected cabin by a pond. H was suited-up, and through his Life Support-clan Primary Field training, quickly recalled the liturgy he had been forced to memorise as a youth, and made good on that. The group travelled to the intact and undamaged Ahzenbakh mansion. A hop over the wall (with the 60 MpH winds at their back) lead by Miren, brought the goat-figure in lawn statue form, to they party's attention. As the group was ogling the empty ground floor of the house and debating what to do, Skelk punched through one of the French-door-style glass plates and opened the door for the party. Entry was greeted by six two-headed dogs, but they didn't attack the furries, and their teeth couldn't penetrate the suits, but Tyb narrowly avoided having his hand crushed by 1,200-1,500 Ft./Lbs. of force exerted by the cute doggy that he was 'playing with' (to his credit, he had participated in the Governor's batch of the breeding operation, so this wasn't sheer lunacy on his part). Miren shot one dog with her energy weapon, now demonstrating true Security Officer training, and then guided the Abbekqorru in their vanguard role to the kitchen, whereupon the group noted plates in the sink, drinks on the counter, and the pantry door to the cellar open wide.
* Skelk stepped into the cellar first and just as Rhur headed in, a kitchen knife bit into the wood-panelled wall ahead of his snout. The pair turned in military precision and fired upon the portly cook, blowing two steaming/smoking holes through his body and burning pits into the stone wall by which he had launched his ill-fated attack. Sounds of piping, drumming, chanting, and moaning could be heard in the sub-level beyond the secret door, also open, and the group approved the furries' suggested use of knock-out gas grenades (also found in the scout complex loot). They threw four cannisters into the room they had clear view of, and Tyb flicker-jaunted into position, quickly joined by the others, in time to see folks copulating with goats, wearing goat-skin cloaks, exsanguinated children, children being prepped for exsanguination, and the goat demon sitting cross-leged at the head of this cavort. The gas grenades quickly caught all of the humans (with the children KO'd first). The demon stood and said calmly,
* Ymmyk of 'the poor dual brain' has a condition where he occasionally manifests an alternate personality, as an NPC, and this has been used to keep him busy while the player hasn't been able to play. It also surfaced on Friday when said player had a bit of time to 'catch up' on what has been happening, as well as play. He 'snapped out of' an alternate personality and found himself sitting behind a desk in strange surroundings, with even his choice of personal gear different. Fleeting memories of his operating as a small-time crime boss, running at least a gambling house in one of the overturned hulls, as well as what appears a smuggling operation, taking advantage of the extensive tunnels in Doran.
* The Governors and the rest of their pursuit-posse made good use of the cryo-chambers in the subterranean complex by the coast, and Tyb and the Abbekqorru were healed in less than 16 Hours. Exploration suits were donned, HUD units in the helmets were utilised, and analogue computers engaged to conserve power. Weapons (Plasmatic-acid projectors) found by the Abbekqorru (Skelk [leader], Rhur [right-paw], and little Varq) led to improved mood. Varq was suited up. The suits have Jump Packs with a total of 20 Minutes burn time. The party realised that the PMH containers they salvaged may, possibly, be usable with the packs. Even lady Miren suited up and took to the weapon with Ancestral savvy.
* Mela's Fae friends helped her understand that the yellow-green flames and the quake/fault, was a powerful psionic delusion, but the realisation did nothing to prevent the psychic cycle from still causing new delusions/illusions, as well as a head-splitting degree of pain in the majority of the populace of Doran. A confrontation with two Bunk-Bunks went her way, utilising an imaginary acid-attack. A midwife with a new-agey crytal pendant, and Ylnel (Devlyn's cousin, the Fae-studies Specialist) were the only ones to maintain Resolve when the goat-demon appeared, but then disappeared almost as soon as it had appeared, as the Fae-friends led them to a tunnel entrance. Armed with a sickle, a rake, and perhaps a hatchet, these three ventured into the darkness and at Mela's mention, they trio faced a swarm of 'big bugs' -- phantasms, but one which nearly killed Ylnel until a placebo ws administered to her by Mela.
* The Governors emerged from the complex and found the flame no longer present, but the storm still battering the island. Odder still, the Ahzenbakh mansion still stood, with no hint of damage. Ymmyk was encountered topside, having emerged from a tunnel-connected cabin by a pond. H was suited-up, and through his Life Support-clan Primary Field training, quickly recalled the liturgy he had been forced to memorise as a youth, and made good on that. The group travelled to the intact and undamaged Ahzenbakh mansion. A hop over the wall (with the 60 MpH winds at their back) lead by Miren, brought the goat-figure in lawn statue form, to they party's attention. As the group was ogling the empty ground floor of the house and debating what to do, Skelk punched through one of the French-door-style glass plates and opened the door for the party. Entry was greeted by six two-headed dogs, but they didn't attack the furries, and their teeth couldn't penetrate the suits, but Tyb narrowly avoided having his hand crushed by 1,200-1,500 Ft./Lbs. of force exerted by the cute doggy that he was 'playing with' (to his credit, he had participated in the Governor's batch of the breeding operation, so this wasn't sheer lunacy on his part). Miren shot one dog with her energy weapon, now demonstrating true Security Officer training, and then guided the Abbekqorru in their vanguard role to the kitchen, whereupon the group noted plates in the sink, drinks on the counter, and the pantry door to the cellar open wide.
* Skelk stepped into the cellar first and just as Rhur headed in, a kitchen knife bit into the wood-panelled wall ahead of his snout. The pair turned in military precision and fired upon the portly cook, blowing two steaming/smoking holes through his body and burning pits into the stone wall by which he had launched his ill-fated attack. Sounds of piping, drumming, chanting, and moaning could be heard in the sub-level beyond the secret door, also open, and the group approved the furries' suggested use of knock-out gas grenades (also found in the scout complex loot). They threw four cannisters into the room they had clear view of, and Tyb flicker-jaunted into position, quickly joined by the others, in time to see folks copulating with goats, wearing goat-skin cloaks, exsanguinated children, children being prepped for exsanguination, and the goat demon sitting cross-leged at the head of this cavort. The gas grenades quickly caught all of the humans (with the children KO'd first). The demon stood and said calmly,
"I've been waiting for you."I held it there despite Tyb's player's incredulity.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
*[Product Review]* AGP's Wilderlands of High Adventure: 100 Street Merchants of the City State-
This review is based on a copy provided by James Mishler.
---
LINK to review on DriveThruRPG
A Review of AGP's Wilderlands of High Adventure: 100 Street Vendors of the City State-
With Geoffrey McKinney's highly detailed review of the material specifics of the product in question, I shall endeavour to illustrate the vast utility of the 100 Street Vendors product, and state up front that this utility truly encompasses any and all genre of roleplaying game, so long as any sort of merchant is required.
As the author, James Mishler, notes, with but a moment's thought, any of these solitary individual merchants roaming the streets of the City State can be turned into a shop, with the merest inclusion of a few shop hands to fill out the 'hired help'. However, I would suggest that larger establishments, perhaps even modern malls, or post-apocalyptic flea-markets, could be formed by selecting a few related trades being clumped together into sectors of the physical location in which the item-questing, or time-killing player characters are roaming.
To reiterate McKinney's review, the depth of detail provided by Mishler in the 100 Street Vendors product is most authoritative, but this value-packed product is only increased in its usefulness by taking it out of the run of the mill fantasy settings that fill the gaming market, by using it for d20 Modern, Future, Post-Apocalypse, Supers, or even hard-Science-Fiction settings, after all these require merchants and places of business to equip PCs, as well as places where important gossip or hard-facts can be secured. AGP's Wilderlands of High Adventure: 100 Street Vendors of the City State fills that role exceptionally well for those Gamesmasters with the ability to think outside of the literal constraints of the presentation for the excellent and enjoyable Castles & Crusades gaming system.
Think of a Traveller game in which a TL7 or lower world is the current place of adventure, and the sorts of isolated encampments often encountered on the fringes of larger population centres. Any one of these merchants presented within 100 Street Vendors could be used 'on the fly' to detail everything the merchant or shop could offer, and with even the barest ability to translate a 3-18-scaled Strength score to Traveller's hexadecimal Stren range, the very scores themselves offered for each the merchants itself is immediately useful.
Likewise, The Morrow Project, any edition thus far of Gamma World, or even FGU's Aftermath!, with their scattered settlements and rarer enclaves of civilisation. All of these could profit from the inclusion of this product with exactly the same briefest moment of 'out of the box' thinking on the GM's/Referee's part.
With this degree of utility, is there any reason for me to go on urging you to purchase this product for use with ALL of your rpgs?
---
LINK to review on DriveThruRPG
A Review of AGP's Wilderlands of High Adventure: 100 Street Vendors of the City State-
With Geoffrey McKinney's highly detailed review of the material specifics of the product in question, I shall endeavour to illustrate the vast utility of the 100 Street Vendors product, and state up front that this utility truly encompasses any and all genre of roleplaying game, so long as any sort of merchant is required.
As the author, James Mishler, notes, with but a moment's thought, any of these solitary individual merchants roaming the streets of the City State can be turned into a shop, with the merest inclusion of a few shop hands to fill out the 'hired help'. However, I would suggest that larger establishments, perhaps even modern malls, or post-apocalyptic flea-markets, could be formed by selecting a few related trades being clumped together into sectors of the physical location in which the item-questing, or time-killing player characters are roaming.
To reiterate McKinney's review, the depth of detail provided by Mishler in the 100 Street Vendors product is most authoritative, but this value-packed product is only increased in its usefulness by taking it out of the run of the mill fantasy settings that fill the gaming market, by using it for d20 Modern, Future, Post-Apocalypse, Supers, or even hard-Science-Fiction settings, after all these require merchants and places of business to equip PCs, as well as places where important gossip or hard-facts can be secured. AGP's Wilderlands of High Adventure: 100 Street Vendors of the City State fills that role exceptionally well for those Gamesmasters with the ability to think outside of the literal constraints of the presentation for the excellent and enjoyable Castles & Crusades gaming system.
Think of a Traveller game in which a TL7 or lower world is the current place of adventure, and the sorts of isolated encampments often encountered on the fringes of larger population centres. Any one of these merchants presented within 100 Street Vendors could be used 'on the fly' to detail everything the merchant or shop could offer, and with even the barest ability to translate a 3-18-scaled Strength score to Traveller's hexadecimal Stren range, the very scores themselves offered for each the merchants itself is immediately useful.
Likewise, The Morrow Project, any edition thus far of Gamma World, or even FGU's Aftermath!, with their scattered settlements and rarer enclaves of civilisation. All of these could profit from the inclusion of this product with exactly the same briefest moment of 'out of the box' thinking on the GM's/Referee's part.
With this degree of utility, is there any reason for me to go on urging you to purchase this product for use with ALL of your rpgs?
Mid-week Post-
* Hello to the new subscribers! :D Thanks for making TGT part of your blogroll.
* I've been fortunate enough to have added a couple or three additional folks to the Kelzsyn's Bluff & Environs project, and am looking forward to seeing this get to print-release just ahead of the Players' Manual, late summerish.
* I'm curious if you folks are looking for any particular data from the setting (including 'crunch') that I haven't touched upon. If you'd be so kind as to ask for it/them in a comment to this post, I'd consider addressing them.
* I've been fortunate enough to have added a couple or three additional folks to the Kelzsyn's Bluff & Environs project, and am looking forward to seeing this get to print-release just ahead of the Players' Manual, late summerish.
* I'm curious if you folks are looking for any particular data from the setting (including 'crunch') that I haven't touched upon. If you'd be so kind as to ask for it/them in a comment to this post, I'd consider addressing them.
Monday, February 22, 2010
[Playtest Campaign] 19th, FebRuary, Part ][-
With the commoners placed down in town, lady Miren is asked to come along, as she is the only other known magicker of any power. Mela is left to help tend the thousand+ injured from the brimstone fault that opened up and affected the easternmost section of the port. Ylliya, too, is dropped off at the Governors' Mansion.
The two Governors, the three Abbekqorru Death-goddess devotees (who have now prostrated themselves in her presence within the Aelbaan Sphere), Darius the stalwart, and lady Miren hop over to the bulldozed ruins of the former Merry Tea-time house, where guards of the highest quality were posted, only to find a few of them still human, while the others have been corrupted into Undeath, glowing yellow-green from their skulls.
--One of the human guards is whisked up into the craft and he explains that beams shot-forth from the site where the demon's scimitar was buried, and all who were so struck turned within a few seconds. He and the others were doing their best to prevent the Undead from digging the weapon up, but a few were cut down by the things. One guard (under the evil influence) was successful in excavating it and then fled over the elevation crest toward the jungle on the south side of Doran, leaving a wake of twisted and hostile vegetation as it travelled.
This trail led the party and this lone guard (the others presumably dismissed to find shelter in the building stationary hurricane) then found a channel in the rock that led from the dense vegetation to the flotsam and jetsam-choked rocky coast. They made the decision to go inland, but first skimmed for Deuterium to fuel the Sphere. They were careful not to fly the canyon (drat...lol), and eventually found a cave entrance below the wind-whipped canopy, and descended and entered the cave, after opening it further.
The Abbekqorru ask if the Goddess can take their lives now, making them immortal guardians of her person, and the ship tells Ashta, that it is possible, not only for the furries, but the PCs as well. They party thought it an interesting idea and before they knew it, a silvery beam struck each of them in the sixth Chakra (Indigo), between their eyes, and they feel themselves ascend to the Aether where they witness a vast fortress of mirrored glass floating in the expanse, rainbowed by curtains of every conceivable colour and hue, like Aurora Borealis. I said that they felt as though they were travelling in all directions simultaneously at the speed of light. It is explained that the ship has copied their consciousnesses and is capable of supporting them in this environment (demi-real illusory magick [Maya?]) so long as the craft survives --a sort of limited immortality, and the closest thing to eternal security that they've yet encountered in the setting.
--When they 'came down' again to their material forms, the already fervent Abbekqorru were sublime, and took the vanguard.
Now forced to go on foot, they proceeded to a set of well-worn crudely carved steps descending into the damp stone depths of the island. The fatigued and outclassed guard was ordered to secure the cave as the Sphere departed to refuel and scout (and able to Telepathically communicate with Ashta, the two essentially being the same entity, one of flesh and blood, the other of gravitically-cultured crystalline material). The guard was told to yell if things required their attention (callous curs that they can often be).
The curved stairway reached a circular chamber with a 20' ceiling and five tunnels leading off in a pentangular distribution. It was cold and grew deathly cold (they took 19 points of damage [6 D&D-type points] and would take another iteration in 10-min. Turn) in a Round, suggesting the Void-aligned presence had been there. Tyb, spooked about clockwise rotations after his near-death via petrification, chose to take the furthest tunnel which was nearest the cave and coast. The tunnel they chose was a 10' gothic arch its full length, with debris-clogged runnels on either side, and curved a few times before reaching a hole in the ceiling which led to the outside and the storm-filled sky, as well as a mossy patch on the floor with creeper vines along the walls and ceiling. Tyb's player remembered they had a Rod of Plant Control, and used it to allow them to pass, as it was clearly a hostile zone/trap. Ashta used her Ring of Scorpion Summoning and Control to draw 5 FD (that's kinda' like D&D Hit Dice, but only sorta', folks)-worth of the creatures, consisting mainly of one Collie-sized critter and a few normal-sized specimen. It was here that Skelk, the leader of her Abbekqorru cohort asked if it would not be a better use of their prowess to send the scorps ahead, which she did.
--The reached a 45* left turn (more counter-clockwisdom) which extended about 45' with 'alcoves' staggered on either side, and terminated in a wheel-valve-door. Along the floor slabs and the walls, a sort of blue-green algae-looking stuff could be seen, and the lead scorp didn't want to proceed. The party fiddled about for a bit until Tyb noted (through his Engineering-'clan'-training) that the alcove-like indentations suggested a compression or other mechanical work feature to them, and that the blue-green was connected to vapour venting up from between the floor slabs. Ashta's searching for Architectural Features was confirmed when she found a scan-plate on the wall, which responded to her, and allowed her to bring up a holo-schematic of the corridor. Tyb then took over and called up a map of the entire level, then understanding that each 'alcove' was in fact a doorway to a pressurised and climate-controlled chamber, some designated as Exploration Gear, Solvent Crew Genetic Material, and other 'stuff', some of which the words held no meaning in current Vrun. It was determined that this was an Early Imperial complex, founded by Scouts who had located Urutsk in a Periphery survey mission. The computer indicated that the wheel-valve-door led to a reconstitution vat and cryo-medical station.
>> Mis-diagnosis of how to equally de-pressurise the chambers caused the Solvent Crew Genetic Material chamber to explosively decompress, doing a fair bit of damage, and knocking everyone back out into the main corridor. Another of the chamber doors opened and tightly segmented metallic tentacles could be seen by Darius who had taken the lead in exploration do to his greater toughness in comparison to Tyb. This thing turned out to be a Defence Droid with a suspensor field, and looked essentially like two 50-gal. oil drums stacked atop each other, with two tentacle manipulators (a la Gamma World), and a laser designator that painted the mutant Darius' forehead. Quick thinking (and a superior Initiative value) on Tyb's part prevented the Droid from killing Darius and then the Abbekqorru.
--However, this Droid's AI was highly adaptive and suspicious, and was, as I said on more than one occasion, set to K*I*L*L* anything that was Aberrant, Alien, and/or dangerous by Early Imperial programming standards (it was a sentinel left behind not only to protect the solvent crew in their cannisters, but to aid them in their dangerous survey duty, should they have been reconstituted). It was not happy that the slightly genetically peculiar Ashta (quasi-Aelbaan) and Tyb (partly-Dryvv-Aelbaan) were contravening its standing orders by telling it to not fire upon Darius or the furries. Lady Miren didn't seem objectionable to it, but it simply ignored her in comparison to the real and present threats blinking in its sensor array. It contents itself with launching an arrow-head-sized micro-missile down the hall to destroy a five-limbed semi-simian critter (non-native) without authorisation from the suspicious quasi-humans, until Tyb secured any unauthorised combat initiatives. I rolled for the AI and it complied, but was growing increasingly ... non-plussed.
With what I am encountering as typical Gamer-ADD, the group only investigates 18 of the 27 crates set up in a cube in the first chamber (E-sheath suits with field communicators, and in the second layer of nine-boxes, rations, no care given to the bottom 9, let alone the other chambers), and then takes this Droid down the corridor back to the central chamber, which is now warmer, and warms fully once Tyb activates Environmental controls via the Droid's interface with the much less 'intelligent' and independent AI of the complex. They proceed down a security corridor that, due to the Droid's interfacing with the complex, required security overrides each 10' to prevent energy weapons in ceiling drop-turrets (they've encountered these before) from blasting them (save lady Miren) into incoherent agitated molecular residue. This, they know, leads to a cargo elevator down.
--It is here that Tyb informs the Droid that the quarry they seek is a dangerous monster and it is free to destroy it and its weapon. Sadly, the Droid has access to the complex' sensor logs which shows that a human (the possessed guard with the demon's scimitar) is the only recent life form to have descended (via a drop-shaft) to the bottom level (which is off-line; the top level being isolated from the rest of the complex' AI-grid). This flagrant violation of its Pro-Human security policy sets in motion its override and it attack's Tyb after he tried in vain to re-gain authority over it.
One tentacle misses, while the second grapples and severs his left leg with 90 points (30 HP in D&D terms) of damage. Tyb, already in terrible condition, goes into a deep and likely terminal coma as he is bleeding 3+ Dynamic Points (like HP, but more useful) a Round. Then Ashta swings, severing one of the tentacles, and penetrates the Droid's casing with her Hullmetal sword, but doesn't do enough past the 15-point armour to really affect its internal workings. Darius sees that the tray of micro-missiles is primed and ready for launch the next Round, and pounds the casing in the desperate hope to deform it and prevent launch, as everyone (again, save lady Miren) is painted by the targeting lasers. A new Round's Group-Initiative roll (then broken-down by Individual Init mods.) has the Droid attempt to strike Darius with its only remaining tentacle, but it fails to do so. Instead, the Abbekqorru (acting in concert) grapple the manipulator for Ashta to then cleave it. Having taken its only possible physical action in the Round, the Droid initiates self-destruct in a vindictive attempt to neutralise the non-human threat to the complex, etc.
--The party drag the dying Tyb with tem, only to have the defences fire upon and strike all three of the Abbekqorru, blowing a few limbs off, and nearly detaching Skelk's chest from his abdomen. Ashta hauls him over he shoulder and begins shouting overrides to the complex' AI (less inclined to blast away with vengeance), but not before all three are badly, badly wounded. Similarly, Darius the Aberrant is targeted, but carries Tyb in front of him and Miren behind him as meat-shields, and has his head missed by a shot. They make it to the end of the long corridor after Ashta succeeds in overriding the security protocols, just as the Droid detonates, doing a mere 3d6 (1d6) damage to everyone.
Tyb's player was less than thrilled, but had to run to his alternating weekly 9Pm game.
The two Governors, the three Abbekqorru Death-goddess devotees (who have now prostrated themselves in her presence within the Aelbaan Sphere), Darius the stalwart, and lady Miren hop over to the bulldozed ruins of the former Merry Tea-time house, where guards of the highest quality were posted, only to find a few of them still human, while the others have been corrupted into Undeath, glowing yellow-green from their skulls.
--One of the human guards is whisked up into the craft and he explains that beams shot-forth from the site where the demon's scimitar was buried, and all who were so struck turned within a few seconds. He and the others were doing their best to prevent the Undead from digging the weapon up, but a few were cut down by the things. One guard (under the evil influence) was successful in excavating it and then fled over the elevation crest toward the jungle on the south side of Doran, leaving a wake of twisted and hostile vegetation as it travelled.
This trail led the party and this lone guard (the others presumably dismissed to find shelter in the building stationary hurricane) then found a channel in the rock that led from the dense vegetation to the flotsam and jetsam-choked rocky coast. They made the decision to go inland, but first skimmed for Deuterium to fuel the Sphere. They were careful not to fly the canyon (drat...lol), and eventually found a cave entrance below the wind-whipped canopy, and descended and entered the cave, after opening it further.
The Abbekqorru ask if the Goddess can take their lives now, making them immortal guardians of her person, and the ship tells Ashta, that it is possible, not only for the furries, but the PCs as well. They party thought it an interesting idea and before they knew it, a silvery beam struck each of them in the sixth Chakra (Indigo), between their eyes, and they feel themselves ascend to the Aether where they witness a vast fortress of mirrored glass floating in the expanse, rainbowed by curtains of every conceivable colour and hue, like Aurora Borealis. I said that they felt as though they were travelling in all directions simultaneously at the speed of light. It is explained that the ship has copied their consciousnesses and is capable of supporting them in this environment (demi-real illusory magick [Maya?]) so long as the craft survives --a sort of limited immortality, and the closest thing to eternal security that they've yet encountered in the setting.
--When they 'came down' again to their material forms, the already fervent Abbekqorru were sublime, and took the vanguard.
Now forced to go on foot, they proceeded to a set of well-worn crudely carved steps descending into the damp stone depths of the island. The fatigued and outclassed guard was ordered to secure the cave as the Sphere departed to refuel and scout (and able to Telepathically communicate with Ashta, the two essentially being the same entity, one of flesh and blood, the other of gravitically-cultured crystalline material). The guard was told to yell if things required their attention (callous curs that they can often be).
The curved stairway reached a circular chamber with a 20' ceiling and five tunnels leading off in a pentangular distribution. It was cold and grew deathly cold (they took 19 points of damage [6 D&D-type points] and would take another iteration in 10-min. Turn) in a Round, suggesting the Void-aligned presence had been there. Tyb, spooked about clockwise rotations after his near-death via petrification, chose to take the furthest tunnel which was nearest the cave and coast. The tunnel they chose was a 10' gothic arch its full length, with debris-clogged runnels on either side, and curved a few times before reaching a hole in the ceiling which led to the outside and the storm-filled sky, as well as a mossy patch on the floor with creeper vines along the walls and ceiling. Tyb's player remembered they had a Rod of Plant Control, and used it to allow them to pass, as it was clearly a hostile zone/trap. Ashta used her Ring of Scorpion Summoning and Control to draw 5 FD (that's kinda' like D&D Hit Dice, but only sorta', folks)-worth of the creatures, consisting mainly of one Collie-sized critter and a few normal-sized specimen. It was here that Skelk, the leader of her Abbekqorru cohort asked if it would not be a better use of their prowess to send the scorps ahead, which she did.
--The reached a 45* left turn (more counter-clockwisdom) which extended about 45' with 'alcoves' staggered on either side, and terminated in a wheel-valve-door. Along the floor slabs and the walls, a sort of blue-green algae-looking stuff could be seen, and the lead scorp didn't want to proceed. The party fiddled about for a bit until Tyb noted (through his Engineering-'clan'-training) that the alcove-like indentations suggested a compression or other mechanical work feature to them, and that the blue-green was connected to vapour venting up from between the floor slabs. Ashta's searching for Architectural Features was confirmed when she found a scan-plate on the wall, which responded to her, and allowed her to bring up a holo-schematic of the corridor. Tyb then took over and called up a map of the entire level, then understanding that each 'alcove' was in fact a doorway to a pressurised and climate-controlled chamber, some designated as Exploration Gear, Solvent Crew Genetic Material, and other 'stuff', some of which the words held no meaning in current Vrun. It was determined that this was an Early Imperial complex, founded by Scouts who had located Urutsk in a Periphery survey mission. The computer indicated that the wheel-valve-door led to a reconstitution vat and cryo-medical station.
>> Mis-diagnosis of how to equally de-pressurise the chambers caused the Solvent Crew Genetic Material chamber to explosively decompress, doing a fair bit of damage, and knocking everyone back out into the main corridor. Another of the chamber doors opened and tightly segmented metallic tentacles could be seen by Darius who had taken the lead in exploration do to his greater toughness in comparison to Tyb. This thing turned out to be a Defence Droid with a suspensor field, and looked essentially like two 50-gal. oil drums stacked atop each other, with two tentacle manipulators (a la Gamma World), and a laser designator that painted the mutant Darius' forehead. Quick thinking (and a superior Initiative value) on Tyb's part prevented the Droid from killing Darius and then the Abbekqorru.
--However, this Droid's AI was highly adaptive and suspicious, and was, as I said on more than one occasion, set to K*I*L*L* anything that was Aberrant, Alien, and/or dangerous by Early Imperial programming standards (it was a sentinel left behind not only to protect the solvent crew in their cannisters, but to aid them in their dangerous survey duty, should they have been reconstituted). It was not happy that the slightly genetically peculiar Ashta (quasi-Aelbaan) and Tyb (partly-Dryvv-Aelbaan) were contravening its standing orders by telling it to not fire upon Darius or the furries. Lady Miren didn't seem objectionable to it, but it simply ignored her in comparison to the real and present threats blinking in its sensor array. It contents itself with launching an arrow-head-sized micro-missile down the hall to destroy a five-limbed semi-simian critter (non-native) without authorisation from the suspicious quasi-humans, until Tyb secured any unauthorised combat initiatives. I rolled for the AI and it complied, but was growing increasingly ... non-plussed.
With what I am encountering as typical Gamer-ADD, the group only investigates 18 of the 27 crates set up in a cube in the first chamber (E-sheath suits with field communicators, and in the second layer of nine-boxes, rations, no care given to the bottom 9, let alone the other chambers), and then takes this Droid down the corridor back to the central chamber, which is now warmer, and warms fully once Tyb activates Environmental controls via the Droid's interface with the much less 'intelligent' and independent AI of the complex. They proceed down a security corridor that, due to the Droid's interfacing with the complex, required security overrides each 10' to prevent energy weapons in ceiling drop-turrets (they've encountered these before) from blasting them (save lady Miren) into incoherent agitated molecular residue. This, they know, leads to a cargo elevator down.
--It is here that Tyb informs the Droid that the quarry they seek is a dangerous monster and it is free to destroy it and its weapon. Sadly, the Droid has access to the complex' sensor logs which shows that a human (the possessed guard with the demon's scimitar) is the only recent life form to have descended (via a drop-shaft) to the bottom level (which is off-line; the top level being isolated from the rest of the complex' AI-grid). This flagrant violation of its Pro-Human security policy sets in motion its override and it attack's Tyb after he tried in vain to re-gain authority over it.
One tentacle misses, while the second grapples and severs his left leg with 90 points (30 HP in D&D terms) of damage. Tyb, already in terrible condition, goes into a deep and likely terminal coma as he is bleeding 3+ Dynamic Points (like HP, but more useful) a Round. Then Ashta swings, severing one of the tentacles, and penetrates the Droid's casing with her Hullmetal sword, but doesn't do enough past the 15-point armour to really affect its internal workings. Darius sees that the tray of micro-missiles is primed and ready for launch the next Round, and pounds the casing in the desperate hope to deform it and prevent launch, as everyone (again, save lady Miren) is painted by the targeting lasers. A new Round's Group-Initiative roll (then broken-down by Individual Init mods.) has the Droid attempt to strike Darius with its only remaining tentacle, but it fails to do so. Instead, the Abbekqorru (acting in concert) grapple the manipulator for Ashta to then cleave it. Having taken its only possible physical action in the Round, the Droid initiates self-destruct in a vindictive attempt to neutralise the non-human threat to the complex, etc.
--The party drag the dying Tyb with tem, only to have the defences fire upon and strike all three of the Abbekqorru, blowing a few limbs off, and nearly detaching Skelk's chest from his abdomen. Ashta hauls him over he shoulder and begins shouting overrides to the complex' AI (less inclined to blast away with vengeance), but not before all three are badly, badly wounded. Similarly, Darius the Aberrant is targeted, but carries Tyb in front of him and Miren behind him as meat-shields, and has his head missed by a shot. They make it to the end of the long corridor after Ashta succeeds in overriding the security protocols, just as the Droid detonates, doing a mere 3d6 (1d6) damage to everyone.
Tyb's player was less than thrilled, but had to run to his alternating weekly 9Pm game.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
[Playtest Campaign] 19th, FebRuary-
Oh, my goodness...
OK.
I dropped the (08+2M) for Critical Tests because I realised that it just was too out of order with the 2d12 methodology I have adopted for resolution rolls, so now it is simply the Secondary Modifier (2M) plus their Ethnic modifiers, plus any purchased through Point-Design. It may be adjusted yet again, but the lower results restored the term 'Critical' to those tests, and success was not as frequent or of the intensity it had been these past few sessions.
--Just proves that what ought to be sound maths rarely survives contact with actualities of play, thus the necessity of 'playtesting'.
Tyb, Darius, and Ylliya rushed off to the Ahzenbakh mansion to warn lady Miren of the approach of the demon, and found the dark haired lass in the front garden with a paralysed ('held') two-headed dog, caught in a vicious snarl, at her feet; a white rose in Miren's hand, her finger pricked and bleeding.
--After warning the lady, she called for her coach, and then granted the driver to fetch his wife and daughter for the evac.
---Dame ?Dienem? (not certain of her name at this point, I'll correct it later) exited the house and began a droll conversation with the Governor until a seismic wave shook the property, knocking loose a few shingles from the roof, and a shutter from an upstairs window. Then the Dame began to wretch and cough. A moment later, fingers came out of her mouth and whatever was inside her began to try and crawl out her distended maw as she was dying a very ignoble, painful, and lengthy death. Miren was suitably shocked, and was unable to act for a couple of Rounds, having already discharged her pistol into the two-headed doggie before calling for the coach.
A couple or few Rounds of combat, resulting in frostbite damage to Tyb as he stabbed the thing inside the Dame's gesticulating, gyrating body, but held on to the Black Metal dagger, and stabbed it with a poisoned blade, finally finishing-off the Dame, but not the critter. Said thing began to make literal headway out of the cadaver and was promptly smashed by Darius using his Spiritual Weapon-enhanced mace from afar, breaking it at the waist and knocking it into the white rose-bush, which then withered and burst into the same sickly-yellow-green flames that had consumed the Merry Tea-time house not a half-hour prior.
--The driver, his wife and daughter had all been audience to these horrors and were rather ... disturbed, shall we say, but were able to collect themselves and get on the carriage just before the house' interior lit up in the same flames, with screams of terror and nastiness filling the rain-pounded air. An unfortunate soul, well immolated in the stuff, ran out onto the long balcony over the front 'porch' of the mansion, and its skeleton, freed of the consumed flesh, turned to some sort of crystalline material, which then shattered in b'zillion pieces on the parkway below.
---The (N)PCs bolted out of there as a second quake struck and nearly collapsed the wall upon them. Looking back, the house burst into the yellow-green flames and then crashed into its cellar as a funnel of the flames reached upward into the storm clouds and strengthened them into cyclonic action.
Ashta and Mela sped over to the House A in the Sphere, but saw that gouts of the same flames shot forth from the various tunnel system openings, and Abbekqorru, Men-at-Arms, and Pirates were making rapid movement from those apertures, some engulfed in the corrosive flames. It was noted that the Abbekqorru were flinging men left and right in an attempt to save as many lives as possible.
--Eight of these bear-dog-men looked up and pointed at the Sphere, and began to keep pace as best possible until Ashta scooped them up into a TK field and brought them along, the warriors thrilled to be 'flying', and psyching themselves up for a righteous bloody battle wherever 'Lady Death' was headed, shouting her praises and generally adoring the pale amazon.
The two groups met as the re-animated corpse of the two-headed doggie had transformed, during its chase after the carriage, into a bone-winged humanoid of clearly nastier origin. These eight Abbekqorru launched into the thing and the scrum tumbled down the hill into thick vegetation for a few Rounds.
--Meanwhile, out of Ylliya's mouth, an ectoplasmic manifestation of The Worm from that other place began to speak to Tyb (accusing him of causing the god to lose face via their successful escape and re-absconding with the fae daughters) and the other occupants of the carriage and then bit Darius for 30 points of spiritual damage (that'd be 10 points for D&D folks). Darius, with anti-undead mace a-hummin', began to speak an exorcism of sorts, based on his Astrogator secret knowledge (of the things that have power over each star), and drove the spirit-form into an unhappy state, driven off in conjunction with a (magic missile) from Miren.
---The three (of eight) surviving Abbekqorru attack the spirit-form of The Worm, but only one is able to strike it, but his sword is deformed and he too suffers frostbite in the attack. Ultimately, it is Ashta's Sphere-launched electrical attack (lightning bolt) that dissipates the creature.
I'll split the rest into a second post...
OK.
I dropped the (08+2M) for Critical Tests because I realised that it just was too out of order with the 2d12 methodology I have adopted for resolution rolls, so now it is simply the Secondary Modifier (2M) plus their Ethnic modifiers, plus any purchased through Point-Design. It may be adjusted yet again, but the lower results restored the term 'Critical' to those tests, and success was not as frequent or of the intensity it had been these past few sessions.
--Just proves that what ought to be sound maths rarely survives contact with actualities of play, thus the necessity of 'playtesting'.
Tyb, Darius, and Ylliya rushed off to the Ahzenbakh mansion to warn lady Miren of the approach of the demon, and found the dark haired lass in the front garden with a paralysed ('held') two-headed dog, caught in a vicious snarl, at her feet; a white rose in Miren's hand, her finger pricked and bleeding.
--After warning the lady, she called for her coach, and then granted the driver to fetch his wife and daughter for the evac.
---Dame ?Dienem? (not certain of her name at this point, I'll correct it later) exited the house and began a droll conversation with the Governor until a seismic wave shook the property, knocking loose a few shingles from the roof, and a shutter from an upstairs window. Then the Dame began to wretch and cough. A moment later, fingers came out of her mouth and whatever was inside her began to try and crawl out her distended maw as she was dying a very ignoble, painful, and lengthy death. Miren was suitably shocked, and was unable to act for a couple of Rounds, having already discharged her pistol into the two-headed doggie before calling for the coach.
A couple or few Rounds of combat, resulting in frostbite damage to Tyb as he stabbed the thing inside the Dame's gesticulating, gyrating body, but held on to the Black Metal dagger, and stabbed it with a poisoned blade, finally finishing-off the Dame, but not the critter. Said thing began to make literal headway out of the cadaver and was promptly smashed by Darius using his Spiritual Weapon-enhanced mace from afar, breaking it at the waist and knocking it into the white rose-bush, which then withered and burst into the same sickly-yellow-green flames that had consumed the Merry Tea-time house not a half-hour prior.
--The driver, his wife and daughter had all been audience to these horrors and were rather ... disturbed, shall we say, but were able to collect themselves and get on the carriage just before the house' interior lit up in the same flames, with screams of terror and nastiness filling the rain-pounded air. An unfortunate soul, well immolated in the stuff, ran out onto the long balcony over the front 'porch' of the mansion, and its skeleton, freed of the consumed flesh, turned to some sort of crystalline material, which then shattered in b'zillion pieces on the parkway below.
---The (N)PCs bolted out of there as a second quake struck and nearly collapsed the wall upon them. Looking back, the house burst into the yellow-green flames and then crashed into its cellar as a funnel of the flames reached upward into the storm clouds and strengthened them into cyclonic action.
Ashta and Mela sped over to the House A in the Sphere, but saw that gouts of the same flames shot forth from the various tunnel system openings, and Abbekqorru, Men-at-Arms, and Pirates were making rapid movement from those apertures, some engulfed in the corrosive flames. It was noted that the Abbekqorru were flinging men left and right in an attempt to save as many lives as possible.
--Eight of these bear-dog-men looked up and pointed at the Sphere, and began to keep pace as best possible until Ashta scooped them up into a TK field and brought them along, the warriors thrilled to be 'flying', and psyching themselves up for a righteous bloody battle wherever 'Lady Death' was headed, shouting her praises and generally adoring the pale amazon.
The two groups met as the re-animated corpse of the two-headed doggie had transformed, during its chase after the carriage, into a bone-winged humanoid of clearly nastier origin. These eight Abbekqorru launched into the thing and the scrum tumbled down the hill into thick vegetation for a few Rounds.
--Meanwhile, out of Ylliya's mouth, an ectoplasmic manifestation of The Worm from that other place began to speak to Tyb (accusing him of causing the god to lose face via their successful escape and re-absconding with the fae daughters) and the other occupants of the carriage and then bit Darius for 30 points of spiritual damage (that'd be 10 points for D&D folks). Darius, with anti-undead mace a-hummin', began to speak an exorcism of sorts, based on his Astrogator secret knowledge (of the things that have power over each star), and drove the spirit-form into an unhappy state, driven off in conjunction with a (magic missile) from Miren.
---The three (of eight) surviving Abbekqorru attack the spirit-form of The Worm, but only one is able to strike it, but his sword is deformed and he too suffers frostbite in the attack. Ultimately, it is Ashta's Sphere-launched electrical attack (lightning bolt) that dissipates the creature.
I'll split the rest into a second post...
Monday, February 15, 2010
[RPG] General Update-
* There was no game this past Friday, but I have decided to ask Tyb's and Ashta's players to write down a list of five NPCs that will be directly answerable to the respective PCs in their administration of Doran.
* I am writing-up 10 pre-gens for the for-profit expanded edition of Kelzsyn's Bluff & Environs that Rob Kuntz, Sean Wills, and I are working on. I've not made much headway since Friday, but so far, both of the characters are Aberrants, and this, I think, will prove to be an interesting 'kink' in the fabric of the product, both from a play-perspective, but also for gamers who purchase it from a D&D angle.
--As stated a few times, this product will be cross-statted for UWoM and AD&D, with Rob Kuntz writing up those stats, as well as writing an adventure/outline for the very open site-setting.
---Sean's contributions are keeping me moving forward, and always gives me a fresh perspective as well as providing intriguing and engaging points to consider on how to integrate.
* Relatedly, I hope to invite a few other OSR folk who delight us all with their daily or near-daily contributions from their cornicopic imaginations to get involved in upcoming releases. I hope they'll have the time and inclinations to join the team effort.
* I am writing-up 10 pre-gens for the for-profit expanded edition of Kelzsyn's Bluff & Environs that Rob Kuntz, Sean Wills, and I are working on. I've not made much headway since Friday, but so far, both of the characters are Aberrants, and this, I think, will prove to be an interesting 'kink' in the fabric of the product, both from a play-perspective, but also for gamers who purchase it from a D&D angle.
--As stated a few times, this product will be cross-statted for UWoM and AD&D, with Rob Kuntz writing up those stats, as well as writing an adventure/outline for the very open site-setting.
---Sean's contributions are keeping me moving forward, and always gives me a fresh perspective as well as providing intriguing and engaging points to consider on how to integrate.
* Relatedly, I hope to invite a few other OSR folk who delight us all with their daily or near-daily contributions from their cornicopic imaginations to get involved in upcoming releases. I hope they'll have the time and inclinations to join the team effort.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)