Preamble of the Week

[Rebar]

In the spirit of the recent 'Quote of the Week', I've posted a short preamble from our MegaCity [Mysterymen-style] Campaign.

 

One of our players (Night Watchman) couldn't play one week, so the GM planned to handwave him out of the plot. I felt he deserved a bit better treatment...

 

 

 

(We open with the team busily renovating their own base - an abandoned Asian restaurant in Parkdale, T.O...)

 

 

"No, you pebblehead, hold it like this!" Night Watchman grabbed the 4x8 sheet of drywall that Rebar was holding and attempted to yank it from his hands. That left Watchman holding a 2x2 piece of drywall, and Rebar holding two end bits. Which, in a slow-witted attempt to be compliant, he then let go of. Causing them to land squarely on Watchman's toe. Who hollered as much in frustration as in pain. Watchman whipped his cape around and, for the fifth time today, attempted to rend it to pieces with his hands and teeth.

 

Red Rocket and Metroman, on the other side of the restaurant/headquarters, looked at each other with a mixture of fear and amusement, and went back to painting. They had almost finished the South wall, having put a nice new coat of green over the ugly blue that was up there now. They had only the East wall left.

 

The Hero With No Name didn't hear a thing with his headphones on, bopping to a home-burned CD of Abba hits that had 'Metallica' written across it in heavy marker. He had just reached the corner of the South wall, putting a nice new coat of blue over the hideous green that was up there now. It seemed like he had been at this for hours.

 

Pink Panther stood in the centre, shouting directions at nobody in particular, stopping occasionally to arrange skirmishes between the warm-coloured swatches and the cool-coloured swatches, the warms always ganging up on the cools.

 

The Loon had been doing something - long forgotten by all - that was now usurped by a spirited and methodical attempt to explore variations on the 'arms akimbo' stance, including arguments with himself about whether it was possible to have any other limbs akimbo, and in fact, what exactly akimbo entailed. As usual, he lost the argument.

 

"Next time we draw straws for partners, I'll do the picking!" Night Watchman picked up his drill and turned back towards the partially finished exterior wall.

 

"Look, Rebar, just pick these panels up and place them over there. And then stay over there. That's it. Don't help OK?"

 

With what passed for Rebarian knuckles dragging on the ground, Rebar didn't have to bend over to pick up the sheaf of twenty boards. He grasped them all at once and lifted.

 

Night Watchman, standing on the bottommost board in the stack - the one that was sticking out - went with them. But he was too quick and nimble to be bested by a rectangle of rubble. He anticipated - doing a lovely backflip, landing neatly in place again with a flourish and a "aHAH!"

 

Rebar, turned at the exclamation, swinging the boards with him. He felt a thunk, and heard a huge crash - but all he saw was a hole in the brick wall where Watchman had been standing, and a pair of costumed feet poking through the hole. And he was holding 20 4x4 sheets of drywall.

 

"Uh oh." said Rocket, "Better get the Ozonol."

[Bucky]

Re: Preamble of the Week

 

This is great, I love it.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Preamble of the Week

 

Heh. Looks like you have an... interesting team dynamic. (Is "team" the right word, or are you all just a random selection of super who mysteriously seem to repeatedly congregate at the same locations?)

[Rebar]

Re: Preamble of the Week

 

We're a team all right. We take marching orders from the mayor of the city.

 

They just can't afford a budget, so they took away our base, and gave us first & last rent on a run-down flat.

[Chuckg]

Re: Preamble of the Week

 

Heh. Something similar exists with the game I'm running.

 

Aegis, Chicago's official superteam (aka 'the first five superheroes to show up when Holocaust tried to blow up the downtown core, and whom Mayor Daley half-begged, half-arm-twisted into accepting official deputy status') started out with virtually no city budget beyond a receptionist (formerly one of the phone girls in the Public Works Department), a police liason, and space in an unused city warehouse.

 

Then they took down the Aerie, the VIPER nest at the top of the (in my campaign) Sear's Tower. And since VIPER had owned the building... well, it ended up becoming the property of the city, to the delight of the mayor and the city revenue stream.

 

So, as a gesture, he gave them the Aerie -- the top 2 floors of the tower.

 

What he /didn't/ give them was much beyond a basic security system and a confiscated VIPER hover-van to get around in. They're slowly filling the unused spaces with furniture and such. (This was all in the campaign prequel -- session 1 started out 6 months after the team's founding, in the Aerie.)

 

Oh yes, /and/ VIPER wants the Aerie back. Well, actually, they don't want it /back/... now that the location's compromised, it's useless. They just want to tear a big strip out of Aegis to set the precedent 'nobody hijacks one of our Nests and gets away with it'.

 

So far, the team has done nothing to cause a massive city budget shortfall - you know, like blow up something important, and/or get the city sued, or etc.

 

If and when they ever do... well, we get to role-play Mayor Daley's reaction. *evil DM grin*

[zornwil]

Re: Preamble of the Week

 

I really enjoyed this, Rebar, thank you! And bump!

 

(bookmarked to rep later ,sorry, out right now)