Marchwarden
Mar 30th, '03, 11:50 AM
Hello. I'm looking for commiseration. The Champions of 2018 went up against their nemeses and got creamed. Particularly rough, since they're the latest incarnation of the Crowns of Krim. The GM found them suitable regular opponents for plot reasons and also because of the fairly clear-cut morality (you don't have to feel guilty about opposing the CoK). So, they pop up on an 8- or whenever the GM decides we could use some straight-up action. The only problem is that they aren't the kind of villains who Stun you and then escape before the law arrives. Losing badly to the Crowns can't help but entail infernal woe for the defeated.
Mind you, they have us outnumbered 6 to 5, and heavily outpointed (this is a high-power setting, so we started at 450 and have since garnered eight sessions of experience, but our highest-point members are about even with their lowest).
Their roster is:
Force, Phoenix, Temblor: essentially unchanged.
Bloodstone: finally souled out and got his powerup.
Eclipse: met with a cruel end. He had heard that a certain archaeologist had unearthed the fabled Tablets of Krim, and decided to pay "John Black" a little visit. Desol'd through the wall and got Eater of Shadows right in the heart. While he was still in shadowform. Schwup! Now Giles de Morphant has become Shadowlord, and adding the power of the Shadow Crown to Black Paladin makes for an ugly customer. Yet even that was only the opening strike of a dreadful coup. De Morphant had entered into a grim bargain with a yet crueler power than he. And so it was that, undone by treachery, Dark Seraph perished in hellfire. The Iron Crown now rests upon the brow of Talisman, self-styled Bride of Krim. Very bad. The combined power of the Crowns offers her a chance to match the power of her sister, the Archmage, but she has learned to move cautiously, gathering strength and corrupting the flow of Earth's magic aura, turning it to the dark.
On our first encounter, we cleaned their clocks; this was mainly because they are quite notorious by 2018 and their basic capabilities are quite well known to heroes and the law; we had trained together, but had not yet made our debut. We capitalized on this; we were able to mop up the 5 lesser Crowns before their leader showed up, and then team-piled her. The second time we tangled, they knew what they were up against, but we had found all the necessary clues and followed the leads and roleplayed well enough to convince the Trismegistus Council to fortify us with defensive wards and consecrated weapons and such, so we were able to take them in battle thanks to past performance in the noncombat part of the storyline.
This time...I'm fairly certain we overlooked something. The GM is too experienced to just fling us into a meat grinder. There must have been a warning we overlooked, an opportunity we failed to take...once we've licked our wounds, we'll be back. But, oh man what a pounding we took. Our base is in ruins. Radar Rider was shot out of the sky (nonpersistent Force Field types hate getting stunned in midair) and escaped death by plummeting into Lake St. Clair (he was fished out by a boater). Marchwarden, his body battered and all his arrows spent, was was able to grab his unconscious, nearly exsanguinated teammate Heartseeker and flee ignominiously with Bloodstone in hot pursuit - lost him in a churchyard, thankfully, and made a Paramedics roll to staunch her bleeding. Defender, our leader, is Talisman's prisoner - he's always given her a funny "mystic vibe" which she no doubt wants to understand better, although her studies may not be pleasant for him. Eternia - was torn limb from limb by the Crowns. They scattered the pieces amidst the rubble of our base, as a message to those who would oppose them. Fortunately, they clearly underestimated her awesome regenerative properties ; but we can't count on them making the same mistake twice.
All in all, a dark day for the Champions of tomorrow. Heartseeker will be low on BODY for a while, even with proper medical care, and Radar Rider isn't in much better shape. We need to find and rescue Defender, obviously. Eternia is physically fine, but being dismembered can't have done much good for her self-confidence issues. Homestead is a wreck, and the only bright spot is that no civilian staff were present when the attack fell. Not our finest hour.
Mind you, they have us outnumbered 6 to 5, and heavily outpointed (this is a high-power setting, so we started at 450 and have since garnered eight sessions of experience, but our highest-point members are about even with their lowest).
Their roster is:
Force, Phoenix, Temblor: essentially unchanged.
Bloodstone: finally souled out and got his powerup.
Eclipse: met with a cruel end. He had heard that a certain archaeologist had unearthed the fabled Tablets of Krim, and decided to pay "John Black" a little visit. Desol'd through the wall and got Eater of Shadows right in the heart. While he was still in shadowform. Schwup! Now Giles de Morphant has become Shadowlord, and adding the power of the Shadow Crown to Black Paladin makes for an ugly customer. Yet even that was only the opening strike of a dreadful coup. De Morphant had entered into a grim bargain with a yet crueler power than he. And so it was that, undone by treachery, Dark Seraph perished in hellfire. The Iron Crown now rests upon the brow of Talisman, self-styled Bride of Krim. Very bad. The combined power of the Crowns offers her a chance to match the power of her sister, the Archmage, but she has learned to move cautiously, gathering strength and corrupting the flow of Earth's magic aura, turning it to the dark.
On our first encounter, we cleaned their clocks; this was mainly because they are quite notorious by 2018 and their basic capabilities are quite well known to heroes and the law; we had trained together, but had not yet made our debut. We capitalized on this; we were able to mop up the 5 lesser Crowns before their leader showed up, and then team-piled her. The second time we tangled, they knew what they were up against, but we had found all the necessary clues and followed the leads and roleplayed well enough to convince the Trismegistus Council to fortify us with defensive wards and consecrated weapons and such, so we were able to take them in battle thanks to past performance in the noncombat part of the storyline.
This time...I'm fairly certain we overlooked something. The GM is too experienced to just fling us into a meat grinder. There must have been a warning we overlooked, an opportunity we failed to take...once we've licked our wounds, we'll be back. But, oh man what a pounding we took. Our base is in ruins. Radar Rider was shot out of the sky (nonpersistent Force Field types hate getting stunned in midair) and escaped death by plummeting into Lake St. Clair (he was fished out by a boater). Marchwarden, his body battered and all his arrows spent, was was able to grab his unconscious, nearly exsanguinated teammate Heartseeker and flee ignominiously with Bloodstone in hot pursuit - lost him in a churchyard, thankfully, and made a Paramedics roll to staunch her bleeding. Defender, our leader, is Talisman's prisoner - he's always given her a funny "mystic vibe" which she no doubt wants to understand better, although her studies may not be pleasant for him. Eternia - was torn limb from limb by the Crowns. They scattered the pieces amidst the rubble of our base, as a message to those who would oppose them. Fortunately, they clearly underestimated her awesome regenerative properties ; but we can't count on them making the same mistake twice.
All in all, a dark day for the Champions of tomorrow. Heartseeker will be low on BODY for a while, even with proper medical care, and Radar Rider isn't in much better shape. We need to find and rescue Defender, obviously. Eternia is physically fine, but being dismembered can't have done much good for her self-confidence issues. Homestead is a wreck, and the only bright spot is that no civilian staff were present when the attack fell. Not our finest hour.