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Post by CRTaylor on Jan 31, 2014 19:40:57 GMT
Well the next session of my GAC game is scheduled for tonight, Lord willin' and the creeks don't rise.
I'll post the results as the game is ongoing, but to make sense of the story, a little background. The year is 1940, and the PCs are the world's first superheroes. A few years back super-villains started showing up, and mostly in the NYC area. Almost all of them are associated with the 5 crime families of New York City. The mob and super criminals are running NYC into the ground, and the police department is almost totally corrupt. The heroes have been active for almost a year now, and are making a real difference, but war just broke out in Europe and things are getting more complicated.
Last game month (I run one adventure per month however many sessions it takes, pushing the calendar forward) the heroes saved almost 100 people from the Hindenburg as it blew up while attached to the Empire State building.
A historical aside here: yes, the Hindenburg blew up in '37 and in New Jersey. The airship tether on the top of the Empire State Building was never used. But it was in February 1940 in my game.
Why did the airship blow up? Because the Profaci family, tired of the interference of the PCs, had the Shadow (yes, he's a bad guy, so is Batman, and all the rest of the pulp superheroes) place an incendiary device on the ship then told the police about a plot to blow it up. They contacted the Mystery Men and the trap was set. The trap didn't work, and now the heroes are bending their attention to ward the Profaci crime family.
Which brings us to March 1940, and tonight's session. I'll be using the 4th edition Deluxe adventure Mob Rules as a template for the story, gathering several former villains the PCs encountered over the last year as a sort of villain team to face them instead of the Aesesinos.
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Post by CRTaylor on Feb 1, 2014 18:29:25 GMT
The session last night went over well.
Our heroes got a tip that the assistant DA of New York was going to be killed by the Profaci crime family, but first, the news:
-The German airship Hindenburg was destroyed after a freak accident while tethering to the Empire State Building in New York City. 17 died in the blaze and falling pieces, but of the 97 souls on board, 80 were rescued by the heroic efforts of the Mystery Men. The airship tether at the Empire State Building has been closed down permanently.
-Ray Steele defeated B Nagurski in St Louis, to become wrestling champ
-Finland surrenders to Russia and gives control of the Karelische Isthmus to the Soviets.
-27 killed, 15 injured when truck full of migrant workers collides with a train outside McAllen, Texas
-A scheme to rob Christie's auction house was foiled by the interference of two men in strange costumes; One called himself Domino, and the other The Shroud. They did not stay for an interview.
-Benito Mussolini joins Hitler in Germany's war against France & Britain
-French government of Daladier, falls; Paul Reynoud becomes French premier
-In Sweden, a time bomb destroys the office of Norrskenflamman (a Swedish communist newspaper), killing 5.
-The US Census taken in 1938 indicates that 132 million people are living in the 48 Continental United States
-Two members of the Ubersoldaten, Hauptmann Deutschland and Fledermaus appeared at a rally with Adolph Hitler. The Ubersoldaten were thought lost in the sinking of the Graf Spee
-The Lahore Resolution, calling for greater autonomy for what an area of northern India is drawn up by the All-India Muslim League during a three-day general session at Iqbal Park, Lahore.
-NBC radio has a new show called Truth or Consequences
-Cartoon character Elmer Fudd makes his debut in the animated short Elmer's Candid Camera.
Every new month of adventuring I read a list of the news. Its party to help set the historical tone, partly because its so interesting to me, and partly to slip in foreshadowing and hints of future adventures.
PART ONE
So the heroes called City Hall and found out that ADA Schmindt has left work to go home. So they made an AK: New York City roll and tracked down Schmindt's home address, then went from there toward work on the most likely route, figuring that would get them to his car. When they arrived, the hit was on, and a tommy gun shot Schmindt's car up in a drive by on the Williamsburg Bridge, as the PCs were leaping into action. Most of them got out onto the running board and then jumped as their car screeched to a halt, leaped over to the other lanes of traffic. There they managed to stop the ADA's car from sliding into the East River, and the firey energy projector did a move through on the driver's side door of the hit car, crashing through and knocking both the driver and gunner out before they could react.
The "brick" of the group has only 30 STR, and that's only available to him for brute strength application, not combat damage, so he was barely able, with help, to slow the 2300 lb car moving 40 MPH from going off the side into the river. There was some pushed strength that day.
So the PCs captured two guys and had them hauled off to jail, waiting for them to be released on bail or just some technicality by corrupt cops (remember, the city is basically run by the super villains in the mafia). As they waited, a reporter from the New York Times hopped in the car, announcing that he'll be following them around to write a story on the Mystery Men. They weren't very happy but couldn't do anything about it and hoped he wouldn't get hurt. Plus, given the press coverage they'd gotten so far, they weren't confident this would be to their advantage.
They followed Big Mikey and Little Mikey Galluci around but blew thier shadowing roll, so the Galluci's ducked out of their car into a church and went out the back door. Frustrated, but noticing the newspaper guy was behind them, they talked to him because they figured he was on the crime beat. Mike Malloy agreed to look up what he could on the Galluci's and anything else on the street for them. Between Malloy and their one friendly figure in the press Clark Kentson (no he's not Superman, just having fun with the name) at the New York Express (fictional little newspaper) they found out a big shipment of something was coming in for the mob the next night on pier 17.
PART TWO
So the PCs contacted Schmindt and got cops he thought he could trust to come along, and staked out the pier. The cops were back in trucks a block away, the PCs scattered in the crates and on rooftops on the docks. The boats arrived and mobsters started unloading stuff, like suit-wearing guys with fedoras (this is a golden age comic, plus I didn't want any more or less innocent dock workers getting hurt). One of the PCs snuck around to the back of a truck after a crate was loaded and popped it open, and it was weird looking guns. He pulled one out and tried to shoot the cargo ship (a small one, like a converted fishing trawler), but the 14- burnout/side effect explosion went off. All hell broke lose, with people shooting and so on.
The guns were special experimental ones that fired the same energy as the War of the Worlds martian tripods did in 1939 when the PCs stopped the invasion. The PCs found out after defeating the mobsters that the load had been picked up out at sea from a mysterious ship. Everyone was quiet on the ship as they loaded the unmarked crates, but one of them had barked his shin and swore in German...
And that's where it ended. The PCs drew the obvious and proper conclusion that the Nazis had figured out how to replicate the martian heat rays, but that they weren't perfected yet. Up to this point its been pretty standard guns and bullets, these are the first "ray guns" to show up after the War of the World.
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Post by CRTaylor on Feb 1, 2014 19:35:41 GMT
Incidentally, the NYT reporter was present, and it turned out well for the heroes. Because the gun blew up instead of firing, it looked to the reporter like he was attacked, then the mobsters opened fire on him with their tommy guns, so the heroes responded and triumphed.
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Post by CRTaylor on Feb 15, 2014 6:39:47 GMT
So the next game started out with one of the characters examining a Nazi energy rifle from the ship, but he blew his weaponsmithing roll and it was a puzzler to him. So he took it to Dr Zarkov, the mad scientist who built their super airship, and he looked them over, identifying the problem that causes them to blow up once in a while. In time perhaps he can fix that problem (when a character spends points for the guns).
The PCs got a phone call; the bank was being robbed. Here instead of Viper Agents it was just plain gangsters, but they had some of the energy weapons, including a heavy cannon (9d6 blast, -1 OCV). Ogre isn't around as in the scenario, so I swiped Steeljack from Astro City (The Steel Jacketed Man). They tore up the bank a bit, but managed to take him out, thanks largely to the stun-draining energy projector. The annoying reporter was fun to play, I came up with a dozen or so leading and insulting questions like "Would you describe yourself more as a threat or a menace?" The PCs had a hard time restraining themselves, but they managed to play the hero.
Then a message was delivered, a simple ransom note wrapped around a rock. The reporter from the Times, their friendly contact at the Examiner, and the Attorney General Thomas Dewey have been grabbed. Come to the junkyard unarmed and alone at 2:00 AM, it said. So the heroes scouted out the junkyard and one suggested disabling the big crane (but never did). They stashed a few weapons and then came in that night to see a truck parked with what they figured out quickly was a manikin wearing a gangster outfit.
Fearing a bomb, they cautiously moved close, but out of the truck stepped Chemic Al, an experiment gone wrong. They'd met him a while back investigating missing women, and he had been trouble for them. With him was one of the Bowery Boys named Big Duke, low end tanks who they had entangled and enraged, and then The Slugger walked out. The Slugger was the first supervillain in the modern era, who can supercharge an object and hit people with it for a variety of effects. A big baseball fan, he uses a louisville slugger by preference.
There's someone else waiting in the wings, but that's where we quit for the night. No sign of the hostages, it was all just a trap.
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Post by CRTaylor on Mar 15, 2014 16:12:19 GMT
Our heroes started up the fight in the junkyard, and it was a pretty tough fight. Chemic Al is build on almost twice the points of the PCs (but with significant weaknesses and complications) and he was the toughest to deal with. Big Duke unfortunately spent the entire fight being entangled over and over by the gadgeteer/super soldier and finally just ended up sitting on the ground crying. This is the second time they'd run into Big Duke, and the last fight he was entangled continuously as well. They finally took Big Duke down with drains and AVAD Power Defense stun gun attacks, and slugger after using his "Home Run" Attack knocked one of the PCs completely out of the junkyard was taken down by the Super Wrestler Gentleman Jim.
Gold Digger, the moll that got powers managed to use the crane and almost grabbed someone, but Jaeger Nacht, the gadgeteer, jumped up to the crane cabin and webbed her up too. Unfortunately for him, she was able to mind control him. Sadly for her, her command was to set her free, and while she got enough control to force him to do it... he didn't have any real way to get her out of her webs, and he shook the control before long. Tossing a bag over her head to break line of sight, she was basically ignored the entire fight webbed up in her crane, swearing and shouting a the party in a most unladylike manner.
During the fighting, flash bulbs kept going off from the piles of junk and finally it was revealed that the reporter present was none other than the kid sister of Fireman, the energy projector, with a hand-made press pass tucked in her hat. She was grabbed by the final villain Crimson Rebel, and held hostage. Crimson Rebel is a southerner throwback who fights for the Confederacy to rise again and can shape shift into a gigantic red bear. Holding Monique in his jaws, the Crimson Rebel mumbled that they should all surrender, but Jaeger made a last ditch effort to dive over and wrestle the bear's jaws open.
Now, this shouldn't have worked. The bear had him beat by 12 strength, but rolled 3 1's and Jaeger got a really good roll on his dice and yanked the astonished bear's mouth open. Monique dropped free and ran away to take more pictures. Although the Crimson Rebel got a few good hits in with his paws, they took him down. Talking to the broken and morose Big Duke, they got the location of the hostages (a mansion) and chatted quite a while with him about becoming a hero, since this whole villain business just isn't working out for him and he complained about how profits were down ever since The Mystery Men had come to town. They were pretty convincing and actually nice guys to him, and since this is a concept I want to encourage... it will work. He'll eventually drop by their base and chat about what it means to be a hero and give it a try.
So the PCs go to the mansion, and find it largely deserted. One guard is in back, but the house is mostly dark and quiet. Sneaking around, they found a passage to the basement, where music was playing.
There, they found a sunken pit fighting arena, at the bottom of which sat the three hostages, gagged and tied to a drum of fuel and dynamite. Standing above them with some sort of detonator wired to the bomb was Boss Profaci, head of the Profaci (eventually Columbo in our world) crime family. The two guys (!) with demolitions skill in the team spot the detonator as a "deadman's switch" that will go off if he lets go for any reason. The Mystery Men planned their assault, then Commando, the British super spy type with extremely good (and fast) senses noticed that the smoke from Profaci's cigar seems to be moving unusually slowly. The boss moves normally but something wasn't right. And sure enough, the boss' superpower was to slow kinetic energy around him, so much bullets slow and stop before they hit him. So the gadgeteer dives in, shoots at Profaci, and the web shell slows and drops into the pit harmlessly. Fireman, who runs at incredibly high speed, turned around and started looking for the other entrance behind Profaci instead of going in the room.
Boss Profaci invites them in and tells them that everything has changed, now they are gonna work for the families. They can keep doing their hero stuff, as long as it doesn't interfere with the mob work. They will do special jobs for the mob - always hero type stuff, taking out competition and such - but they are working for the mob now. He points out how easy it was to get to who they care about and how they control everything, so the heroes better wise up.
As Fireman reaches the other stairs leading to the door, he spots a greenly glowing man in all black step through the door into the pit room. The green glowing guy is Death's Head - the real power behind the five families - who looks like a man wearing all black, suit, overcoat, and fedora, but his face is a green glowing skull. The PCs sardonically mention the "friend" behind Profaci who naturally disregards their comments, not being a fool. "Maybe that works where you come from, pal but I been around, see?"
Then, to the shock of everyone watching, Death's Head puts his hand through Profaci's chest, pulling his heart out, and drops it into the pit. Profaci looks surprised, and starts to fall dead into the pit. Fireman who steps through the door at this moment, sees this and grabs Profaci's hand. Preventing the hostages from exploding, they keep Profaci from falling in the pit. Death's Head introduces himself, notes that Profaci's war against the Mystery Men was hurting profits, then warns them all that he will be dealing with them in the future, and vanishes. Thus, the party meets the big super uber boss bad guy of the campaign. There's a lot more to him than meets the eye.
Our heroes disarm the bomb (Jaeger rolling a 3!) and set the hostages free. Commando decides that the mansion, now devoid of an owner, would make a terrific new base, better than the old warehouse on the East River they've been using, and Dewey gratefully agrees. And there we ended for the night.
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Post by CRTaylor on Apr 1, 2014 4:53:06 GMT
Next session follows through on a request by the NYC government. They asked the heroes to help infiltrate the Police Department and find out how deep the corruption goes at the recruit level, to see if the people corrupting new cops can be found and taken out. To set this up, I wrote the NYPD ombudsman with a request for info on how the PD did its recruiting in the late 30s and early 40s. I got back a scan of a magazine from 1940 with everything I needed and more, it was amazing.
So half the party went undercover and joined to become new cops. The other half worked outside doing patrols and such. The under cover guys managed to find out not only where the main corruption is in the NYPD (3 police captains, including one that had set up and tried to arrest one of them earlier) but a Nazi infiltrator as well.
Meanwhile a phenom for the NY Yankees was doing so ridiculously well (as in game-breaking well) that a Red Sox player named Jim Tabor visited the Mystery Mansion to ask for help. This was a RP intense story, as there's no combat involved, just a visit with a baseball player. It turns out the kid named Monty Cassino got some powers just like the PCs did, and became a speedster. Hitting that baseball when its floating up to him at 1 mph was almost too easy. The PC (Gentleman Jim, wrassler-become-hero) appealed to the young man's sense of honor, sporting fairness, and the game, and eventually prevailed. The kid went to sign up with the military, and Jim used his connections as a member of the city's superhero team to help him get recruited right.
This was a lot of fun to RP as I knew quite a bit about Jim Tabor, and I got to bust out the southern accent from 2 different places. Monty Cassino will be back, as a speedster in another super group (the one that goes to help fight overseas in the war) along side Captain America, but that's for the future.
The undercover group agreed to take money from the bad guys corrupting new cops, and then had a meeting with the captains. They were in the dark while there were lights on the PCs, but unfortunately for them, one of the PCs has super-senses and could see and identify them anyway. So the heroes were given a job: Capture troublemaking cops and bring them to a construction site.
Consulting with ADA Schmindt, they found out that these cops were the main source of finding cops that the DA could trust, and are an team working inside the PD to fight corruption, gather evidence, and help find good cops. So the ADA tipped off the cops, the heroes went to the bar after hours where they were meeting, and the Mystery Men and hero cops met. After a bit of noise and breaking things to sound authentic, the heros "frog marched" the cops into a truck and drove them to the construction site.
There, all three captains were present. Why? Because this is a golden age game and the bad guys are retards, plus I wanted to wrap this up in one session. Guarding them was a couple of bad guys, including Vahzilok zombies from City of Heroes. Yes, Dr Vahzilok is in my game, doing his evil deeds, this is his introduction, sort of.
So the heroes vanquished the villains, took the captains into custody, and the corruption ring was busted up. Now, perhaps, the PD can start to rebuild without recruits being bent right from the beginning. All thanks to our heroes. Next up on the calendar? The German invasion of France and Dunkirk.
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Post by CRTaylor on Apr 19, 2014 5:56:27 GMT
May 1940. So our heroes rejected offers from Roosevelt, Mayor LaGuardia, and J. Edgar Hoover on people to work at their Mystery Mansion. They found a cook from a night club in Harlem they saved from the mob, a former villain they defeated named Big Duke (noted a few sessions back) signed on as a mechanic, and one of the characters runs a school that helps girls get off the street, trains them, and helps them straighten up their lives; one is a former farm girl who is their gardener. They have a few more positions to fill, but Commando, the upper crust Brit has connections with the embassy to get a butler.
And then, in the middle of their hiring efforts... they felt a strange compulsion and then were yanked away from New York City to a dark countryside with bombed buildings. Overhead war planes fly, strafing the ground, and what at first sounded like thunder and fireworks becomes unpleasantly clear as artillery and small arms fire. Standing in front of them is a Frenchman with an old horn in his hands and a surprised look on his face. Marc Benoit blew his grandfather's old family heirloom horn, supposedly able to call for help in a time of need. Now that the magic is returning, he found out that the horn really does work, and its Roland's old magical horn from days of yore; a very powerful magic item.
So the PCs find out they are in "dunquerque" and the evacuation is taking place. They find some troops, and after a tense moment learn something of what they can do to help deal with the Germans. It seems the Ubersoldaten are helping the Germans out, and they're a battalion's worth of super soldier. Fledermaus, Hauptmann Deutschland, Schmeisser, Kreigsmariner, Warwolf, and Shocktrooper they've met before, but now they've got an army at their back.
Well the PCs first ran into a Panzer II tank with infantry support, and the group's tank managed to push his strength enough to flip the lumbering machine onto its side, while the others dealt with the soldiers in short order. Interrogating the soldiers, they managed to get a map and found out about the super soldiers, but while doing this, they are interrupted by a doctor and French medic: the local makeshift hospital needs help moving, could the heroes lend a hand? Fireman healed the most desperate cases while Gentleman Jim helped move patients, while Commando took the prisoners to the local military base and Jaeger Nacht stayed with one and learned how to run the tank.
Moving out, they finally found where the Ubersoldaten were going to be: a breach in the lines formed by intense artillery fire. A halftrack full of soldiers, a car with officers, and a few walking soldiers plus the Ubersoldaten outnumbered the Mystery Men by nearly 3:1. But a quick grenade into the halftrack and an explosive shell from Jaeger Nacht later and all that's left are the rapidly retreating officers and the Ubersoldaten. They squared off, and that's where we end on a cliffhanger.
Next session: the showdown, and the French magic isn't over with yet.
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Post by CRTaylor on May 3, 2014 6:26:04 GMT
The Ulbersoldaten and the Mystery Men square off in Dunkirk. Outnumbered 6 to 4, the Mystery Men faced the German super soldiers. The fight was furious, with Hauptmann Deutschland issuing tactical orders and using code words to designate special uses of powers. Warwolf managed to maul a couple of characters pretty badly (not enough to transform any into a werewolf, though). Due to some bad die rolls, Fledermaus was nearly useless in the fight; she just could not manage to hit. Hauptmann Deutschland called in the troops, and they began to open fire on the heroes, scoring a few hits with rifle and pistol fire.
Then, during the fight, something huge bashed into the ground, from underneath, like a knee bumping the underside of the table. Everyone paused a moment, then the fight went on. Finally, the ground caved in as a huge sinkhole, with the ruined halftrack sliding in to crash into the cavity beneath. Sneering, Kreigsmariner saw a perfect opportunity: Jaeger Nacht with his back to the opening. Using his Wave attack (a 6d6 water blast with double knockback) he perfectly blasted Jaeger into the pit... then got shot in the back by Commando and dropped.
Into the pit Jaeger fell, and would have landed badly enough to knock him out, except he spent a hero point to minimize the damage and instead landed on the back of...
a dragon.
See the events that lead to our heroes getting superpowers actually caused the magic to start coming back into the world, and things long forgotten, slumbering, or hidden are starting to wake up. A French local was exploring the cave as a possible spot for resistance supplies to be set up, and found a slumbering dragon, stone flaking off of it. Long, long ago when the magic faded, the dragon fell asleep and became covered with stone and mineral deposits. Now as it began waking up, the stone started to break free. Entering the cave when he saw the Ubersoldaten in the area, the French fellow set off a pistol near the dragon to wake it, and ran.
Jaeger clung to the back of the monster, and as the heroes began to finally triumph over the Ubersoldaten, all sixty feet of enormous monster flew out of the hole with a gigantic roar. And here's the kicker. Just before the dragon came out, Schocktrooper did an arclight attack and blinded nearly all the heroes. So all they heard was mighty wings flapping, a gigantic roar, and lot of German exclamations and rifles hitting the ground as the troops fled from the presence attack. Finally their eyes cleared and they couldn't believe what they saw.
The Frenchman ran into the area yelling about what he'd done, but only Commando and Fireman can speak French, so he wasn't well understood. The Frenchman claimed he'd woken the dragon to destroy "those Nazi bastards" but the Dragon quickly proved it was just irritable and wanted to destroy everyone, by laying down a breath attack on the biggest group of people. That messed up Warwolf more than anything else had so far, and dropped more of the enemy. Finally, Warwolf ran away and all the Ubersoldaten were beaten (including Schmeisser, trapped in Jaeger Nacht's web grenade; not strong enough to escape the dragon did all but 1 body of the entangle with his fire breath, tantalizing poor Schmeisser).
The heroes fought the dragon, getting beaten up very badly in the process. Gentleman Jim got hurled across the battlefield, Jaeger knocked out and badly injured (discovering in the process that his regeneration doesn't work on fire damage) and only through a combined mighty effort was the team finally able to defeat the dragon, just as a reawakened Hauptmann Deutschland called in an artillery and mortar barrage. Everyone fled the scene as the area became a death zone.
And that's where it broke up, after one long epic battle. Our heroes rescued the Frenchman (who is a little crispy after being caught in one of the dragon's flame strafes) and the Ubersoldaten, beaten and badly hurt, fled.
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Post by CRTaylor on May 5, 2014 1:05:52 GMT
If there's interest I can post a quick recap of the previous sessions and more background info on the campaign.
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Post by CRTaylor on May 19, 2014 20:02:45 GMT
Our heroes return home after their efforts in Dunkirk and find themselves secret heroes. FDR and Winston Churchill both phone the Mystery Mansion with thanks, but tell the heroes the world cannot know what they did until perhaps after the war - the US is still neutral and the Mystery Men are considered an American supergroup despite being made up of mostly non-Americans (oddly enough).
In fact, one - Commando - works at the British Embassy, and he gets a call from a family friend, Mr Stephenson working at the Passport Office in Rockefeller Place. Mr Stephenson seems concerned that Alex never seems to be at work and is spending money at an astounding rate, but after sounding out Commando's alter ego about patriotism, his attitude toward Nazis, and such, he comes to the point: he is running a bit of a behind the scenes in America and hopes he can rely on Commando to lend a hand off and on. The meeting goes on and concludes with him telling Commando that a new ambassador is going to replace the present one but he has a bit of a problem with blurting things out, so best he doesn't know Commando's job.
Then the Mystery Men get a call: the Empire State Building is under attack by little brass windup creatures! Players of City of Heroes will recognize these guys as Clockwork, and there are dozens in the building. The place has been (mostly) evacuated, and the cops are no match for metallic lighning-throwing machines, so the Mystery Men must come in.
So the Mystery Men check out the building and find that these Clockworks are notably tougher than the last batch they fought in the World's Fair. After a (surprisingly long, because of continuous crappy rolling on both sides) fight in the lobby, the heroes get word from the cops that this is worse than they thought. It seems some fellow calling himself the Clockwork King is holding ten national institutions hostage for $100,000 each:
The Empire State Building
The Statue of Liberty
The Washington Monument
The Lincoln Memorial
The St Louis Arch
The Golden Gate Bridge
The Liberty Bell and Independence Hall
The Alamo
The Hoover Dam
The Hollywoodland Sign
To prove he's serious, a bomb destroyed part of the Hollywoodland sign, leaving it only saying "Hollywood" (yes, it said Hollywoodland until 1949).
So the heroes deduce that the most likely spot for such a device is the basements of the building (two of the characters have demolitions), and down they go, to find a huge swarm of the clockwork working on a strange brass and gears device... and that's where we broke up this time.
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Post by CRTaylor on May 19, 2014 22:26:56 GMT
Oh, I guess I should do an official list of the characters. Commando - British third son of a Baronet, very wealthy and upper class. He was a very young officer in WWI (the great war) and is very skilled with pistol, sword, and staff. He has incredibly enhanced senses and has a tactical skill similar to how Sherlock Holmes is portrayed in the Robert Downey jr films. By seeing how the fight plays out in his mind and seeing minute details he's able to lend the team increased OCV Jaeger Nacht - German expatriot, first effort to create a super-solder in Germany. The attempt failed, making him significantly weaker, but laid the seeds for true power in him to be unlocked later. He's now stronger, faster, and tougher than a normal human and heals very rapidly. He also has a specially built gun with a multipower of loads and a suit of light armor. Fireman - Canadian firefighter with strange fire powers. Instead of being like the torch and able to burn things, he's able to quench fires, heal, and do other strange effects. Gentleman Jim - former Manhattan Wrestler with minor fame, he became stronger and faster, and has the power to make any clothing he wears immensely tough. Mr Mystery - strange and mysterious figure able to teleport and move in shadows. Unfortunately the player had a baby and has been in hiatus for over a year; he might not ever come back  I would love to have at least one other regular player but its tough to find a good fit. |
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Post by CRTaylor on May 31, 2014 14:25:09 GMT
Descending into the sublevels of the Empire State Building the PCs found a swarm of clockworks building some odd device. With a flurry of area effect attacks, the Mystery Men hammered the clockworks and made quick work of this group, including a Clockwork Duke which was able to heal nearby devices. Both demolitions experts examined the device and could find no working parts or explosive materials whatsoever. It clearly did something but what that was they could not determine.
Bringing in their mad scientist friend Dr Zarkhov (the man who built their super zeppelin) to examine the piece, the Mystery Men learned that it was an odd focusing device. Somehow it is designed to take a signal and intensify it massively into a powerful burst of energy, exploding in a bomb-like manner without any chemical explosive. However, Dr Zarkhov noted it was incomplete, and further that the clockwork themselves seemed to be run by the same sort of signal instead of any internal motivation or device. Zarkhov suggested that he could probably build a device that could track this signal if he was near enough active clockwork.
So off went the Mystery Men to the Statue of Liberty to engage a group of the Clockwork on the ground, and Zarkov studied the signal, and was able to lock on. Using a smoke grenade as cover, the Mystery Men withdrew and off they flew to a strange location near the town of Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. There they found a large concrete arrow dozens of feet long laid into the ground with flaking yellow paint. A 50 foot metal tower is built onto the arrow, and at the top of this tower was a weird brass device guarded by a few clockwork.
The big arrow and tower were part of the Transcontinental Mail Service built in 1920 to help pilots carrying mail find the way to the next refueling airfield and the way toward San Francisco from New York City. Now abandoned because of radios and better navigation, the clockwork are using it as a relay station for the Clockwork King's nefarious scheme. There, the Mystery Men defeated the local devices and Zarkhov was able to home in on the main signal, north to Toronto. Hunting it down, the Mystery Men came upon a pottery factory shut down by the depression. And within, a pair of huge, hulking Clockwork Princes and a strange device with a somewhat overweight man dressed in late 19th century clothing wired into it, yelling in rage.
Jaeger fired a tear gas grenade into the room and the fight began. These clockwork proved much tougher than the others, and were dealing serious damage to the party until they managed to open a hole into the main oven room where the King was in his device and another grenade disrupted the device so badly it exploded with electrical energy and vanished in a huge surge of power, along with part of the floor. The Clockwork King was surely destroyed!
The party found notes in the warehouse, part of the journal of Baron Von Klockwerk, would-be world conqueror and genius inventor. Somehow the device amplified his control over his devices, and the relays built on the old Transcontinental Mail Service stations allowed that control to reach across the whole nation. He was demanding 1 million dollars total ransom for 10 locations to give the money to Clan na Gael, an Irish revolutionary group that planned to work with the Germans to help overthrow British control of Ireland. Klockwerk's journal seems to show he dislikes Nazis, but dislikes the British even more, and sympathized with the Irish.
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Post by CRTaylor on Aug 2, 2014 20:06:10 GMT
Finally got back to gaming again after many summertime interruptions and a horrible battle with the flu.
This session: KING KONG. I have been teasing the party with news reports for months and finally the big monkey arrives in NYC. They are invited to the theater to see the 8th wonder of the world (because a former PC's dad was a major part of the expedition - I'd hoped he would be able to come back to gaming and his return would be with this scenario, but alas, it was not to be). So they're dressed to the nines (or in their formal costumes) in the balcony watching the festivities in front of a very drugged, dopey looking 25 foot tall gorilla, when from all entrances run a dozen gorillas armed with stone age weapons. Is it part of the show? A keen-eyed character with analyze target skill warns the others: this doesn't look like an act.
His fears are confirmed when one gorilla bodyslams the main promoter and they clamber onto the stage to set Kong free. The PCs act, but Kong still manages to free himself and basically bulls his way out of the place without stopping. My intent was to have Kong be more of a force of nature that the army deals with while they handle the Kong Kommandos! One PC tries to ride him out like a bronc and gets tossed aside, but they manage to deal with the invading Gorillas.
The police tell the Mystery Men that they've gotten crazy reports from all over the city about gorillas breaking into greenhouses, drug stores, and sporting goods places. The most certain report is of some big gathering of Kong Kommandos in Central Park doing some weird ritual.
King Kong does his thing climbing the Empire State Building, but there's no damsel in distress this time. He's shot off the building by planes and falls to his death... upon which he begins to shrink and turn into an ordinary gorilla.
As the PCs show up at the park, they see lots of dancing and chanting gorillas in an amphitheater, and on the stage: two shaman-looking gorillas wearing skull hats. One is stirring a strange brew, the other painting a Kong Kommando lying on a log with strange white patterns. And nearby them, a beautiful blonde girl on another log, tied down and screaming (its Fay Wray, nabbed off the street selling flowers). What's this? Can ANY of them become King Kong? The ritual must be stopped!
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Post by CRTaylor on Aug 16, 2014 4:55:23 GMT
This session: the KING KONG wrap up. Our heroes readied to attack the Kong Kommandos and stop their nefarious plot to raise another King Kong at the expense of Fay Wray's life, when just as the police left, Gentleman Jim heard one of them refer to his school for girls as a great place to go, er, relax after a tough night. Upset, he dove into the fray, attracting as much attention as possible while Commando and Jaeger Nacht snuck around to get to the girl.
Almost all of the Kommandos surround Gentleman Jim and test his durability with steel weapons stolen from stores and museums, and Jaeger disables several at the stage with a tear gas grenade. Commando and Jaeger engage the two shaman and their bodyguards (Kommandos wearing catcher's gear for extra armor). After an extended fight, Commando rescues Fay Wray, the Kommandos are defeated, and the cauldron of boiling mystic goo dumped over. Gentleman Jim, with visions of being 40 feet tall is disappointed at the loss.
Now our heroes turned their attention to Gentleman Jim's School for Wayward Girls. This was started about a year ago, getting orphans and soiled doves off the street to train them in more productive skills and social graces (walking with books on their heads, etc) and he had seen some success. But behind his back, one of the teachers he hired had begun turning out the girls again, and word started to spread. When the Mystery Men arrived at the school, its empty! Empty, that is, except for the gymnasium, where small time and somewhat clumsy street level hero Domino is hanging on a climbing rope and a gigantic tiger is beneath him trying to get at him.
The tiger, about 50% larger than even a normal gigantic tiger, spots the PCs, and Gentleman Jim blusters in to the room yelling at Domino... when he's blind sided by an unusually gigantic Hippo. The hippo does a glorious move through on him, dashing Jim against the side wall, but he makes his breakfall roll and ends up on his feet. A fray begins, and in the process, the hippo manages to lay a HUGE bite on the brick Jim's head, taking him to -45 stun and -3 body in one hit. Finally the huge animals are defeated, and the shrink to normal size. (House rule, we use hit locations for stun multiples instead of using a d3 roll).
Domino explains: a strange man calling himself the Amazing Zanzo showed up at the circus and waves his wand, taking control of some animals and increasing their size. Then he left in a black delivery truck, and came to the school with Domino on the roof trying to follow and find out his scheme. There, Zanzo and his beautiful assistants gathered the girls, he used his wand to mesmerize them, and drove off, leaving the animals to hunt Domino and pin him in the gymnasium. And that's where the session ends.
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Post by CRTaylor on Aug 21, 2014 22:40:52 GMT
Incidentally, Fay Wray in real life was a girl selling flowers on the streets of New York City when discovered by the director and cast as the girl in King Kong. The movie having never been made, she was still just selling flowers in the game when grabbed by the King Kommandos. It was destiny! Sadly I never got to reveal her name in the game; stuff you forget as a GM |
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