Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

[DusterBoy]

Heh.. chainsaws. Awesome but impractical. At least as a weapon.

[drunkonduty]

Campaign: Heroes for Hire

 

Dramatis Personae: 

 

Darkstar; Dark force energy projector and manipulator.

Hombre Panthera; shape changing were-jaguar.

<Universal Translator Fail> A two-headed Alternative Earth alien. His name is never said the same way twice. Luck powers and a ray gun. (Hereafter called <UTF>. )

 

<UTF> is being surveilled by anti-alien racists The Exterminators (from 4e). The Exterminators have also kidnapped an alien from off the streets (aliens DO walk among us in this campaign.) We have been hired by the missing alien's sister to find and rescue him. Lacking any good leads we decide to use <UTF> as bait for a trap. 

 

Darkstar: What we need is some sort of bait that they can take and then we can follow them to their base.

Darkstar and Hombre Panthera look at <UTF>.

<UTF>  Why is everyone looking at me?

 

Lacking a proper tracking device we give <UTF> a flying surveillance drone with the intent that he can let it out when he's at the bad guy base.

 

Darkstar: Here's the tracking device. All you have to do is hide it on yourself.

 

<UTF> takes device, reaches around behind himself, into his pants and, um, inserts it.

 

Darkstar: Um, you could just keep it in a pocket or something.

<UTF>: No, no. They might search my pockets. 

Hombre Panthera: So this is a flying drone? What happens if I operate the joystick like this?

<UTF> Nngyyahhh.

 

We know The Exterminators have kidnapped people from an itinerant day worker pick up spot. We decide we will send <UTF> there in the morning. Since it's late now we hit the sack to get a fresh start early in the morning.

 

Darkstar: You know, you can take the drone out for now. We're not going anywhere until morning.

 

awkward pause.

 

<UTF>  They might try to kidnap me in the night.

Darkstar: That's not very likely...

<UTF> You don't know that! 

[Zylphia]

Yesterday while playing we had a hero get the title "Doctor Thunder: Shocker of heroes, Killer of moms, thrower of couches."

[Zylphia]

"Victor Vector gets punched so hard in the face that the player starts bleeding." Then we looked over and the player was indeed bleeding from his face. 

[Cancer]

"You can never have too much dynamite."

 

"On the contrary, there are times when you can have too much dynamite."

 

"Like when?"

 

"When you are on fire."

[Zylphia]

In my session with my father and company we had a couple great quotes:

 

The Villain turns to Bedrock and says, "Everything special about is because of a lab accident."

To which our teammate Bedrock responds, "Yes, but it was MY lab accident."

 

Our GM, while calculating damage on a villain said: I bet she's wishing she had rubber underwear right now.

 

Then the one we couldn't get over. "Mr. Perfect, we need your help. We need your help to tell Shelly the Anthropologist that she is now a brontosaurus."

"I'm sorry- I thought you just said---"

[BlueCloud2k2]

Scene from the Battle of Detroit during the Mandatory Time Travel Scenario

 

Captain Omega: "Destroyer you fool! If you push the button you'll die too!"

 

Dr. Destroyer: "Then so be it!"

[Drhoz]

Missed a session of Black Crusade, so Jrska's input in the first part of this report is limited. No doubt she was taking advantage of the post-battle chaos in the Ragged Helix to acquire various shineys no longer needed by their previous owners. Such as a Beguiling Gem, which worn as a necklace will give her weaponised cleavage.

Aladar's player, prior to roll: *Muttered sentence*
Cassius' player: what? Laxatives what?
Aladar's player: blacks are tens

To reduce the odds that the Warp entity acts up at a most inauspicious moment, Cassius feeds his staff-bound demon a soul.

Cassius: Now don't say I don't get you anything.

Cassius decides that now is the time to hunt down that alien psychic beacon and attendant pre-Horus Heresy Ultramarines, somewhere Spinward of what is now the Calixis Sector. Although there's no need to rush - instigating trouble en route will hone our skills. Describing warp travel, en route -

Cassius: They've gone to Plaid.

Returning to the Thirteenth Station, and after donning the guise of a Chaos warship and paying a toll of human souls to the blockade fleet, the Chains of Judgement encounters the 'asteroid belt' of human sacrifices floating in space.

GM: You'll need a cleaning crew after this.
Aladar OOC: *Makes Windscreen wiper swishes and squeeky noises*
Cassius OOC: Nah, we'll just use the Sunsear laser batteries.

Having used the warp currents of the Thirteenth Station to fling us off into the Imperium, the first thing to do is switch the chameleonic hull back to Imperial allegiance.

Cog OOC: First thing we do is change the desktop
Cassius OOC:Back to Windows classic, none of this heretical Windows 8 S!@#

And once in the Imperium, our ship's appearance makes it easy to browbeat a passing Rogue Trader into handing over up-to-date (if admittedly incomplete) star maps, if he knows what's good for him. Sure, the real Inquisition will hear about us imposters eventually, but there's so many horrible, horrible things we can do between now and then.

Cassius, who has been somewhat irritated that his minion is more notorious than himself, has been carefully undermining her status by given her gifts. After all, anybody that requires a patron is clearly of lower status.

GM: The most passive-aggressive in-party conflict ever.

Jrska has her own theory about his lack of infamy.

Jrska: My lord, may I act as Devil's advocate?
Cassius: You may.
Jrska: Your reputation as the Scourge of Leman's Solace, and Bearer of the Doomwind, is all very well, but I fear our peers in the Vortex will ask 'Yes, but what have you done lately?'

Jrska's brother Prince Pseudanor may have the aftermath of a coup attempt to deal with, but at least he was smiling again when they saw him last.

Jrska: I cheered him up with a good long pegging.

En route to the Spinward Margin of the Calixis Sector, where the Sevarian Dominate has declared independence of the Imperium, and the Imperium is predictably attempting to stomp the planets flat. We're more interested in what sort of trouble we can cause on the way. At least the fact our ship looks like an Inquisitorial vessel means we can sail right through Imperial systems without anybody daring to pay us much attention. We do get a good look at the defences of the system as we go through - valuable information, in the right hands.

Cassius: 'That matches an Inquisitorial transponder, and they're telling us to naff off. Naffing off, sir!'
Jrska: 'Curiosity is Heresy'

Cassius has a way of discouraging them from spending fuel to get a closer inspection of our ship - appending each transponder ping with an apt proverb.

Cassius: 'Waste is Sin'

Cassius: I looooove the Secutor-class ships.
Jrska: I'll try to get you one for your birthday, my lord.

We do pick up an ominous signal as we're on the way out, however. Cassius grabs a random crew member and slips headphones on him.

Cassius: Put it through the headphones
Crewmember: There's a sort of droning, sir
Cassius: I just needed to see if your head exploded.

What it actually is, is an Ork fleet breaking out of Warpspace, and looking for a fight. We have time for a few comments about Ork psychology and biology while Cassius decides our next move.

Jrska: feh. Orks don't have any appreciation for the finer things in life.

Cog: How well do Orks get on with Chaos?
Cassius: They don't even get on with other Orks.

Aladar: How would you feel if you were sentient fungus?
Cog: I think I'd feel pretty good about myself

Cassius decides to send the Imperial defenders in the system a quick heads-up about the incoming war fleet, then does something bold but suicidally insane - dive the Chains of Judgement into Warpspace via the rift the Orks just opened. The crew scramble to obey, praying they can get the Gellar Fields warmed up before the deamons of the Warp swarm to eat our eyeballs.

Jrska: Will we open fire on the Orks as we pass, my lord?
Cassius: Why? That might weaken them. We are not allies of the Imperium. The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy.

We don't even have time to crank down the shutters that stop us gazing unprotected into the Warp. Most of the crew are merely terrified out of their minds at the sight, and suffer no more than the usual psychoses and loss of sphincter control. Aladar, however, lives up to his reputation ( and rolls 150 on a d100 test ).

Jrska: You... Useless... F**k.

GM: You came throughout it without any mental traumas.
Jrska: No additional traumas beyond the trauma of being Aladar.

Cassius manages to keep the crew at their posts through simple intimidation and lots of shouting.

Cassius: The warp is scary but I'm right here.
GM: They have a force-field protecting them from the Warp...
Cassius: And they don't have a force-field protecting them from me.

Of all the places the jump can take us, we arrive in one of the Fringe's Forbidden Systems, where automated defenses pause in their endless bombardment of the planet below, in order to tell us to fuck right off.

Auto-systems: This system is under Inquisitorial quarantine.
Jrska:
Cassius:
Auto-systems: Leave immediately or be labelled heretics.
Jrska: *Snicker*

We bluff the battle stations into thinking we need to pause here for repairs, and determine which of the crew we need to cull. Fairly standard practise, even more so on Imperial vessels.

Cassius: Blood doesn't make a good lubricant.
Jrska: It does for Khornate war engines.

We demand an situation report from the stations, and press on. The next destination is even more fraught - a system where an entire fleet of Loyalist space marines are currently gathering. It's the Millennial Wardens (a fleet-based chapter Weldun invented and played in the Deathwatch campaign, although he's playing a renegade Storm Crow in this one) who are scholarly, highly intelligent, and even worse for us, regularly work alongside the real Inquisition.

Cassius: The Storm Crows are a fleet-based chapter with incredibly bad luck. Wherever they go there's a disaster.
Cog: Sounds like us.
Cassius: *glares* Not that they respond to disasters, they just happen wherever they go.
Cog: Again, sounds like us.

GM: A space marine's voice comes over the box. You all know what that sounds like.
Jrska: I've been taking Cassius' orders long enough. Although generally there is more shouting involved.

The Wardens are politely forceful - their scans of the Chains of Judgement have revealed no blatantly Chaotic features - continent-blasting weapons powered by tortured kittens, that sort of thing - but they do recognise the alien origin of our chameleonic hull. They quite want a closer look and demonstration. Cassius and Jrska hasten to find some reason to keep them from coming aboard, so they won't discover the mutant crew, or little things like the temple-slash-bondage-dungeon Jrska built in the chapel. Eventually she convinces the increasingly suspicious marines that it's for their own safety.

Jrska: You are Space Marines, and we are reluctant to expose you to possible corruption. Unlike our own acolytes, who are by definition expendable.

Arch-Magos 'Father': They are being exceptionally inquisitive.
Jrska: More so than us, and we've got the inquisition ship .

But Jrska's talented tongue persuades them to limit their study of the hull to the outside of the hull, as well as offering us resupply of food, fuel and volatiles, which was becoming a problem.

Jrska: Wow. Talk about Refuge in Audacity - a shipful of mutants, cultists and traitors, turns up to a space marine fleet and says 'right, give us stuff'

The Millennial Wardens take the pursuit of knowledge very seriously - in their Hall of Ancients, they consult the chapter's many Dreadnoughts for advice on past events and future strategy.

Dreadnought: Today's lecture will be about the Assault on Garrus VII.
Marine: Sir? I have always thought the official account of that assault was exaggerated.
Dreadnought: THUMP. I WAS THERE. Do you dare argue with me?

The Marines are persuaded to send us an up-to-date starmap, too. Where to next? A Shrine World dedicated to one or more of the Imperium's innumerable saints has a certain appeal.

Jrska: I'm going to re-read one of my favourite books - 'The Lives of the Saints'. I find it very inspirational. Look at this one for example - 'Flayed alive with a belt sander'. See what I mean?

Jrska: I've got very fond memories of shrine worlds. One of my best outfits was made by some nuns on a shrine world. Sorry, I misspoke - made *out of* some nuns on a shrine world.
Cassius: *sigh*

Plus, there's the claim that the Sisters of Battle have never ever fallen to Chaos, which is a challenge to our ingenuity and evil.

Cassius: Maybe you can find some Sisters Repentia and teach them they have nothing to repent.

Jrska: Let's demand 600 of their most pious warriors.
Cassius: Let's not. No more treats for you until you're finished the tasks at hand.

Eventually we decide that turning up at one of the temples of seclusion, where such battle-nuns retreat when dealing with crises of faith, and posing as suspicious Inquisitors, will be an ideal way to seed corruption across the entire planet. Hie thee to a nunnery!

[Christopher]

Missed a session of Black Crusade, so Jrska's input in the first part of this report is limited. No doubt she was taking advantage of the post-battle chaos in the Ragged Helix to acquire various shineys no longer needed by their previous owners. Such as a Beguiling Gem, which worn as a necklace will give her weaponised cleavage.

Didn't she already had weaponized cleavage? Or is this a case of "there is no overkill"?

 

Cog OOC: First thing we do is change the desktop

Cassius OOC:Back to Windows classic, none of this heretical Windows 8 S!@#

Anything past 3.11 is the work of Chaos Worshippers.

 

Jrska has her own theory about his lack of infamy.

 

Jrska: My lord, may I act as Devil's advocate?

Cassius: You may.

Jrska: Your reputation as the Scourge of Leman's Solace, and Bearer of the Doomwind, is all very well, but I fear our peers in the Vortex will ask 'Yes, but what have you done lately?'

"Your name is in the mouth of others. Make sure it has teeth!"

 

Jrska: Will we open fire on the Orks as we pass, my lord?

Cassius: Why? That might weaken them. We are not allies of the Imperium. The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy.

...nothing more, nothing less.

 

Dreadnought: Today's lecture will be about the Assault on Garrus VII.

Marine: Sir? I have always thought the official account of that assault was exaggerated.

Dreadnought: THUMP. I WAS THERE. Do you dare argue with me?

Most. Badass. Teacher. Imaginable.

 

I see the Seventy Maxims are strong in this group

[DusterBoy]

I so want to join this campaign, Drhoz... do you have a space empty?

[BlueCloud2k2]

I don't know where you all live, but I'll second that!

[Drhoz]

I so want to join this campaign, Drhoz... do you have a space empty?

 

I don't know where you all live, but I'll second that!

 

Well, given we've lost both the Khornate player (which is a shame, since Jrska was planning on seducing him to Slaanesh) and the allegedly renegade Millennial Warden character, I'd say we had slots free. Unfortunately we all live in Perth, Western Australia, and it's the most isolated city on Earth, that makes for a long commute.

[Drhoz]

Didn't she already had weaponized cleavage? Or is this a case of "there is no overkill"?

 

 

Not so much, actually - sure, she's certain she's the hottest thing in whatever room she's in, and her pheremone emitters would test the celibacy of a statue, but the Beguiling Gem hypnotises the onlooker. Male Gaze = frozen in place while Jrska blows your nuts off with an inferno pistol, or whatever else amuses her at the time.

 

 

 

Most. Badass. Teacher. Imaginable.

 

 

Yup

 

I see the Seventy Maxims are strong in this group

 

Indeed

[Drhoz]

Shadowrun : Total Eclipse Pt 3

 

Another session I missed, which was inconvenient to put it mildly, since our team of mages and adepts-for-hire were off to thwart a major summoning, and Felix was just as inclined towards revenge against the backstabbing music exec Eclipse as the rest of the team. As we'd expected (pessimism is a wonderful thing) the exec in question had defenses, and one of those defenses was his associate Lupus, who was indeed a werewolf. The other was his elven bodyguard, who did his best to prove that a bow and arrow can make short work of a bullet-proof jacket. Happily, Greenlight's panicked running around in the bushes made him a difficult target.

Titus: Combat senses! AKA supernatural paranoia!

Also, the team makes the happy discovery that heavy metals - specifically, lead - inhibit werewolf regeneration, especially applied in sufficient quantity after the aforementioned werewolf has been drop-kicked into a tree by the team's troll leg-breaker/accountant.

Titus: Is it prone?
Greenlight: After punting a wolf into a tree, one presumes it doesn't find gravity to its liking.

Inkubus is what will be called a 'Metal Mage' in later years - metal as in the musical genre. Indeed, it was his connection to Seattle's music scene that got us the original job. Thus, when he summons an air elemental to assist with the team's stealth ...

Greenlight: Spirit of Air Guitar?

Unfortunately, the band that Eclipse is using as part of the ritual to summon the demon Twilight have already started playing.

GM: A low-flying flog sweeps in -
Titus: Oh my.
Labrat: Sounds kinky.
GM: Low-lying fog!!!

Eclipse already has the band under mental compulsion to keep playing, and throws a force-done over them to prevent us simply stunning or shooting them. Happily, the dome doesn't stop the team going after Eclipse himself. Our sniper Warhammer is still rather irked about the werewolf, and the vampire earlier.

Warhammer: I WILL snipe you, bitch! Even if it takes every bullet I have!
Greenlight: But your Edge!
Warhammer: Fuck that! Daddy needs to live!

The Spirit of Air Guitar's assistance does prove helpful - the film crew and security ostensibly there for the music video don't see a thing even as Labrat lobs concussion grenades in their direction. And the force dome is not proof against a maximised Orgy spell.

GM: *facepalm*
Greenlight: Penetrating on many levels.

The bandmembers start gyrating in all the wrong ways, and sound like a garage band on amateur night. Unfortunately, it's still enough to at least partially invoke the spider demon Twilight, who resembles nothing more that Captain N's Mother Brain pasted onto a spider's body. With a Mohawk haircut, because 80's.

Still, could be worse.

 

It's also pretty much immune to anything the team are packing, so it's just as well they're still effectively invisible. But it would have been handy, to say the least, if the team's spirit-binding expert - Felix 'Bubbles' Bethke - was actually present.

Titus attacks! And his sledgehammer bounces off the thing like a squeaky toy.

GM: This is why I wanted Drhoz here tonight.

Greenlight frantically tries to lure it away from the various unconscious bandmembers and other snack food, while Inkubus tries to learn its True Name so he can sic the Spirit of Metal on it.

Titus: Astral cockpunch!

Labrat, the team's rigger, has been feeling a little left out of all this hand-to-claw combat and magical shenanigans, and decides to apply his own speciality - ramming the team's SUV into it at high speed. That Titus is currently trying to get the unholy spider demon into a headlock is unfortunate, but the troll will probably survive being run over.

Labrat: I hate spiders. Hold on, I'm getting the shoe.
Inkubus: Well, the SUV is vaguely shoe-shaped...

It's unfortunate that Inkubus and Warhammer are both still in the vehicle when Labrat squashes Twilight between the bull-bar and one of the filmcrew's trucks. Titus gets out of the way. Inkubus' torso doesn't, and one of his lungs becomes intimately familiar with a very pointy outflung limb. After Twilight evaporates back to whatever magical dimension it came from, Warhammer manages to patch up the gaping puncture with Medi-gel.

Warhammer: And now you're a Twinkie.

Thus the band are rescued, nobody likeable or nominally an 'innocent bystander' died, and the team goes home with everything that isn't nailed down, and Eclipse's unconscious elven bodyguard, who they strip naked and release back into the wild in Seattle's red light district.

Elf: Why is there a tag in my ear?

[DusterBoy]

The reason I like Jrska so much is because she has no inhibitions and no limits at all.

[Drhoz]

The reason I like Jrska so much is because she has no inhibitions and no limits at all.

 

Spoken like a true initiate of Slaanesh - stick around, I'm sure there's a lot Jrska would just love to show you

[Major Tom 2009]

Spoken like a true initiate of Slaanesh - stick around, I'm sure there's a lot Jrska would just love to show you

 

And all that it'll (probably) cost is your soul -- or your firstborn; whichever would amuse her the most.

 

 

Major Tom 2009

[DusterBoy]

Well, I have neither soul nor children, so that's all right. Mind you, Jrska's inventive. I sure she'd find a way.

[Lonewalker]

Best quote from tonight's game, from a Holy Warrior regarding a emotionally-repressed PC:

 

 

Father Winter: "You know, I have Cure Disease. Does it work on Asperger's?"

 

 

- Lonewalker

[Drhoz]

Downtime between jobs - for one thing we have to get Inkubus' lung cloned and replaced, after that Ancient Horror stabbed him through the chest with one of its pointier appendages.

Felix: Look on the bright side - you'll be able to quit smoking while your new lung is healing up.
Inkubus: That there is crazy talk.
Titus: He's still got one good one.

There is a minor glitch during recovery - a seizure provoked by an abreaction to the medication, but the surgeon assures us their will be no ongoing consequences.

Felix: No need to warm up the malpractice lawyers then.

Felix: You'll probably want him out of here unless you want him to harass the nurses. More.

Too late. By the third day he's somehow talked five of the nurses into bed, at once. At least the pay-off from the Elementals job (before they sent the vampire after us) is enough to pay all the medical bills AND give us a very tidy profit on top. Time to go shopping.

Warhammer: I need to get some C12 explosive.
Felix: We can't get you any C12, but we can get you half a six-pack of C4.

Greenlight's: It's urban camouflage.
Felix: What, neon and chrome?

And since we're all Adepts or Mages (even though we do nothing to advertise the fact) we may as well take advantage of the fact and set ourselves up as an Initiate circle. Much argument ensues, even about the circle's name.

Felix: We can always confuse people and call ourselves the Bastards of Carnage.
Inkubus: That's the thing - the name only has to have meaning for us. We could call ourselves the Happy Pink Flufflepuffs.
Felix: *wince* I'm having enough problems with the way you keep calling me Bubbles.

Labrat: The Five Metas?
Felix: Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

We'll have to meet regularly - doing so assists each other's efforts at improving themselves.

Felix: And is an excuse for a good meal.

Plus, if we're going to be working together we need to improve team spirit.

Felix: Movie Night!

Inkubus: We don't accept legitimate mages, this group is for Shadowrunners.
Felix: :/ We don't accept 'legitimate' mages?

Inkubus: We treat others with professionalism and courtesy.
Warhammer: I have a problem with courtesy.
Greenlight: We ARE criminals.

Warhammer wonders how much head armour he can wear on the street without attracting untoward attention.

Felix: You could always get a bulletproof touk and pretend to be Canadian.
Inkubus: *facepalm*

We decide on a name for the circle.

Inkubus: The Set-Up. 'A Human, an Orc, a Troll, an Elf and a Dwarf walk into a bar'
Greenlight: I keep forgetting you're human, Bubbles. But then I don't really think of Aztlans as human.
Felix: *bristles*

But he doesn't say anything. After his various comments about not being able to tell trolls apart, he probably deserves that commentary of his family's origin on the far side of the Rio Grande. Anyway, all healed up, Inkubus wants to make sure he's still the uber-stud he was before, and now he's got a few more tricks up his sleeves to really impress the ladies.

Felix: I don't think the purpose of our Initiatory Circle was so you can Get More.
Inkubus: None of you lot are girls.

And it's during the aftermath of such an evening that Inkubus gets a call. Crawling out from under the pile of willing wenches, he discovers it's his Fixer on the videophone. Apparently another entertainment-related job has come up, and word has got around about how well the team handled the Elementals affair. Presumably the word of what happened AFTER we got paid hasn't. Either way, the Fixer is a bit distracted by the scene behind Inkubus. Apparently the client asked for Inkubus, because his insider knowledge of the Seattle entertainment industry will be useful.

Fixer: 'Interesting piercing'

Felix: Well, it is the Seattle music scene... I wonder if there are any Grunge Mages out there.

Inkubus texts everybody with instructions for the meet with the client. Bound spirits and Felix will watch over the meet-up, just in case it's a Admiral Ackbar. This might seem suspicious, but we DID murder a music exec last month.

Inkubus: Keep weapons light.
Warhammer: I'll leave the rocket-launcher at home

Inkubus is reluctant to leave the sweaty pile on the bed too soon.

Inkubus: I'm still celebrating.
Warhammer: Need back-up?

Titus: Shadowrunning isn't a hobby, it's a profession.
Inkubus: Except for Bubbles.
Felix: Hey!

Either way, the client wants to sabotage the promotion of some new junkfood, called Ambergel. The plan is to meet the simsense star Euphoria who is in Seattle as part of the promotion, and keep her so busy with clubs, parties, etc that she misses all her appointments for the next three days. The client has even arranged a house we can use to keep her on ice.

Client: She has reasonable security on her hotel room.
Greenlight: Reasonable compared to what?
Felix: We remember the crocodile.

The client leaves, and we promptly start brainstorming ideas to get her out of the hotel and off to somewhere we can keep her busy. Perhaps take her up to a nice cabin outside town?

Felix: I'm thinking an anaesthetic aerosol spray and a remote control hang-glider.

Felix: If we want to make sure she doesn't just sneak out a window, how about we hire a boat and go on a scenic tour of the Pacific Trash Vortex?

Felix OoC: I'm sure the biggest problem with the boat idea is that it'll screw the plot.
GM: The cabin idea will screw the plot.
Inkubus OoC: Let's hope it doesn't work then.

Inkubus does feel a little uncomfortable about using his seductive talents in a professional basis again.But he has to admit that it IS a good way to approach the problem, just like it had worked with the Elementals last month.

Inkubus OoC: It's not that I see everything as a nail, it's the game - it keeps giving me nail-shaped objects to hammer.

Inkubus: I'm starting to feel like a prostitute.
Felix: *sings* Gigalo, Gigalo, Gigalo!

Felix: If you're feeling uncomfortable, imagine how the rest of us feel being your team of wingmen.

We do, in fact, go with Felix's boat idea. Euphoria's bodyguards don't care either way, since they get a free boat ride out of it too and we haven't actually threatened Euphoria. Labrat poses as the hired motor yacht's skipper, Felix will be the ship's cook, and the other members of the team are all aboard in one guise or another, as Inkubus' 'employees'. We do get a phonecall on the second evening, however, asking well the hell we are - nobody has showed up to the client's safehouse yet. We tell him we haven't needed it, since the clubbing and boating plan is working so well. We may or may not learn later that by coming up with this scheme, we have completely borked a major magical conspiracy, and they're scrambling to adapt to the changed situation. The change they arrive at is to fly out to our yacht in a helicopter, disable us with a bazooka, sic a notorious international Mage assassin on us, and kidnap Euphoria. The conspiracy has no idea what they're letting themselves in for. Felix is too busy preparing the breakfast trays to notice the attack until it's well under way, nonetheless.

Felix: What's going on?
Greenlight: Look up!
Assorted firearms: Bang! Bang!
Felix: No, the cantaloupe!

(Weldun, Inkubus' player, has been toying with a large transforming Millennium Falcon toy why all this has been going on - he strikes a problem.

Weldun: How do I detach Chewie from Han? Because right now Han's head is up Chewie's arse.)

A rocket propelled grapnel is fired into the yacht and a figure is sliding down towards us, even as the helicopter and bazooka operator behind him are being hit with an assortment of amusing hexes ('hooray for auto-pilot' they would say, if they were going to live more than a few minutes). The figure plummets as the line is severed, then comes to a halt in mid-air.

Felix: ...
Inkubus: ...
Greenlight: Fuck that noise!

Still, the attackers clearly weren't expecting the hail of magic, rifle fire, etc that they got as a welcome gift. Neither were Euphoria and her bodyguards, who were somewhat alarmed when everybody started pulling assault rifles out from lockers, or fire arcane energies, and bringing a helicopter and a flying man down, all in twelve seconds. Felix suggests we throw the sinking helicopter a life jacket, so we can honestly say we offered SOME assistance when the Harbour Authority arrives to investigate

Felix: I didn't say rescue them, just throw them a life-jacket.
Greenlight: ONE life-jacket.
Inkubus:They'll have to get real friendly-like. Let me get my camera.

Greenlight: I shot that guy in the face
GM: Wilhelm scream, splash

At least having all those firearms stashed away makes sense. Even without the risk of pirates, there's paracritters to worry about.

Titus: These things have cleared cargo ships of people.

Inkubus attempts explanations to the pretty but somewhat clueless Euphoria.

Inkubus: I'm a Mage. So?
Felix: The cook is a Mage.
Greenlight: You keep a highly competent crew
Inkubus: Not every Mage goes into security work
Inkubus: He's a Mage butler - it's the new fashion in England. *whispers to Felix* I'll make it up to you.

Still, the payout is generous. We gleefully count our credit go home, and continue our more ordinary lives. We don't know it yet, but rumours about us are already spreading in the Shadowrunner community. That mage we shot out of the sky was bad news, and we still managed to take him down legally, AND offer 'assistance' to a helicopter in trouble afterwards.

Inkubus: NuYen, not Karma. I did not just earn 23,000 Karma.
GM: You just Ascended.
Greenlight: And then you had sex with the dragons.
Labrat: All of them.
All: At once.

Felix: Tell Greenlight and Titus to bring eggs.
Warhammer: I'll bring two, but they're mine.

Inkubus: We're going to get a reputation. How do you keep doing this shit without breaking the law.
Titus: Well we did start that gang war.
Greenlight: And no-one can prove it

Of course, if we ever do have to flee town we have a limited number of options (purely because there's only a few places the publishers have expanded enough for a comprehensive campaign). Best to stick with non-lethal weapons for the time being.

GM: It's either here or Berlin.
Warhammer: Berlin? That's good, I like Russian.
Labrat: German.
Inkubus: ... Russian?!?

Titus: What would a gel-round for a shotgun be?
Inkubus: Bean-bag round.
Felix: Picture it - SPLAT! Right in the face.
Titus: I'm picturing gel miniguns, now. 20 seconds firing and it looks like a mad paintgun battle

[Lucius]

"Jrska: I've got very fond memories of shrine worlds. One of my best outfits was made by some nuns on a shrine world. Sorry, I misspoke - made *out of* some nuns on a shrine world."

 

Should have been both.

 

I'm sure Jrska's outfit also includes a girl scout uniform. Made with real girl scouts.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

This tagline made with real palindromedaries

[Drhoz]

Started another one of Fantasy Flight's Warhammer 40K RPGs - Only War, in which the PCs are all members of the Imperial Guard. So we're wildly outclassed by anything else in the setting, which should be interesting. What our characters don't know is that we're actually playing Dark Heresy, and some Inquisitor is intending to use us as investigators. Or more likely, is testing hundreds of squads and seeing if any of us survive.

PCs - Hal Cornelisz, weapon specialist
Roland the Rat, weapon specialist
Vin, ditto
Sister Dominque, Sister of Battle attached to the squad as medic and faith support

NPC Troopers Remy, Veche van der Beeck, Vyn

Other NPCs Commissar Betyljuce, Sgt. Gerda 'Lucky' Vong, Col. Marikoff

Only War has a couple of interesting mechanics - the comrade system, where most of the characters come with a NPC to provide covering fire, hold gaping wounds shut while the medic fetches the staple gun, and act as expendable meat-shields whenever we get curbstomped, which will probably be most of the time. The other mechanic is Regiment Creation, where the GM and players hammer out what kind of unit you're all actually from. It's important to do that before anything else, since a unit of highborn paratroopers will need very different characters and very different missions to an artillery company that has to scavenge every shell and is actively despised by the other regiments.

Thus, our characters hail from the 71st VDPH, or Van Diemen's Phantoms, a penal legion that specialises in guerrilla warfare and reconnaissance, and whose homeworld is such an atrocious hellhole that getting into the Imperial Guard meatgrinder is actually a step up. Plus, if we manage to survive the campaign we don't have to go back to Van Diemen's World.

The random personality table is amusing, as well. My character, Hal Cornelisz, is loyal to his squad mates and will follow them into hell if he has to. Which is unfortunate, since Roland the Rat has a Deathwish. Anyway, we're en route to the front, in the cargo chamber that the starship is using for a mess-hall, eating our gruel and gambling, when the other regiment being transported turns up for their turn, an hour early. This is bad, because they're from the Mordian Iron Guard.



This picture tells you everything you need to know about the Iron Guard.

So the situation is tense, to say the least, when the other regiment marches in, in their immaculate uniforms and perfect marching formation, to collect their own bowls of gruel and take their places on the benches.

Naturally, some idiot starts a riot.

We, on the other hand, are already crawling under the tables for the nearest exit. After all, if we can get back to the barracks in time we can deny any involvement.

Hal Cornelisz OoC: Well, I'll back you up, because I'm stupid that way.

The next hour or so is spent walking around the maze of corridors looking innocent and helpfully stepping aside for the riot squads, crawling through the Jeffries Tubes when the rubber bullets start flying, and getting back to the Barracks just in time to meet the Commissar. Happily, he seems to assume we aren't actually involved in the débâcle, but he *does* immediately order us to locate and shoot the duty officer that arranged the mess roster. This is extremely alarming, because it's evidence that our Commissar is a nut. We tactfully point out that as mere guardsmen we have no authority for summary execution, but we'll be happy to bring him back so the Commissar can do it. That's his job, after all.

The Duty Officer is located and dragged back, while the Commissar is standing on the furniture and frothing passages from the Imperial Guardsman's Inspirational Primer, and every Phantom involved in the riot is flogged. Happily for the Duty Officer, the battlegroup commander and the ship's captain have arrived by this point and the Commissar is taken off for a long private argument about jurisdiction. The commander is a melancholic figure, but given he has to somehow use the Iron Guard and the Phantoms us a cohesive military force, and his political officer is a violent lunatic, that's hardly surprising.

The next few weeks are spent in various punishment details - cleaning the decks with our tongues, that sort of thing - as Commissar Betyljuce does his best to instil some sort of discipline in the Phantoms. He approves of assigning Sister Dominique of the Order Hospitaller to the regiment as well, presumably hoping her piety will set a good example. Dominique, like all Sisters of Battle, is big on displays of faith, such as mortification of the flesh, and of her own recognisance is sharing our meals in the barracks.

Hal Cornelisz: These rations probably count as mortification of the flesh.
GM: Especially when they're coming out the other end.

The battle nun/combat medic is quite safe from untoward advances - even Roland isn't that suicidal - and besides the Phantoms are a mixed regiment. Vin's off-sider Vyn, for example, who has taken it upon herself to improve the regiment's meals.

GM: First she catches some hull rats, boils them for an hour, slowly add Standard Ration A and corpse starch, then filters out the rat.
Hal Cornelisz: Rat stock.

They say - but not anywhere the Inquisition can hear them - that travel broadens the mind. Certainly the crew of the ship have odd accents and customs, which the squad are studiously ignoring.

GM: See the natives.
Hal Cornelisz: We do not want to see the natives of the Warp.

Although there is a certain amount of excitement en route. Various klaxons sound, the regiment is ordered to suit up, and after a while are lined up for inspection by the officers.

Vin: It's not standing to attention, it's a Mexican Wave of attention. Standing upright when the officers walk past, and slouching again after they've gone past.

Hal Cornelisz: Travel the Imperium! See interesting places! Meet interesting people - and kill them.
GM: Well yes, this is the Imperial Guard. It's a great job. You either buy the farm or get one. Just hope you aren't sent to a desert world. That would suck.

Apparently the ship has encountered an anomaly en route and we've been volunteered to investigate. There's a cloud of starships and wreckage out there, and guess which poor bastards are been sent across to scout? One bright note - some of the Mordians are being sent across as well, so we can compete to bring back the best intel.

Roland the Rat: I saw something move! BZAP!
GM: That was the Mordians.

This is where another Only War mechanic kicks in. Requisitioning gear. The Administratum is so huge and monolithic that screw-ups happen with appalling frequency - artillery regiments being sent the wrong size of shell, or entire planets dedicated to making the wrong size of shell, which then get shipped off to another planet to be broken down, because they're the wrong size of shell. It's all to easy to not get the equipment you actually need for a mission.

Hal Cornelisz: We hope they give us void suits - they might give us re-breathers and a cork.

Vin: We're a penal legion - we get whatever we can beg, borrow and steal.
Hal Cornelisz: Can we at least get some lube with those corks?

And indeed, our first attempt is a miserable failure.

Hal Cornelisz: Ow. Corks it is then.

Lucky for us we have Sister Dominique along to put the fear of the Emperor into the quartermaster.

Sister Dominique: The Emperor Protects and Provides!

And, indeed, sometimes the SNAFUs work in our favour, and a squad might end up with something they didn't actually request but could be useful. In this case, the ration case turns out to contain an officer-class banquet.

Hal Cornelisz: I think we got the wrong packed lunch.

Sister Dominque: I get mag-boots.
GM: What size heels do you want?

As it happens, the naval officer in charge of the shuttle is the Duty Officer we nearly had executed. He is naturally somewhat aggrieved towards us, and does nothing to make the trip more comfortable. But we do manage to get him and the other fly-boys on side by sharing that packed lunch.

Hal Cornelisz: The in-flight movie is Yentl.

Duty Officer: We'll be arriving in - what the Hells is that?
Hal Cornelisz: Standard rations, apparently. *breaking out the amasec and goblets* Want some? And what is 'pate de fois gras'?

Sgt. Gerda 'Lucky' Vong: Check you weapons and your bollocks.
Roland the Rat: Done.
Hal Cornelisz: Tricky for Vyn to check her bollocks.
Vin: She checks mine.
Hal Cornelisz: All the guardsman agree Sgt. Vong has enormous bollocks.
Vin: Brass ones.
Hal Cornelisz: You can barely hear the orders for all the clanging.

Vin: I don't like the look of this
Roland the Rat: We're guardsmen - nothing ever looks good
Hal Cornelisz: We're scouts, and damn good scouts! Or do any of you honestly think those Mordians are better then us?
All: *Dead silence*
Hal Cornelisz: That wasn't the response I was hoping for, boys.

Hal Cornelisz: How about we just blow the airlock open and just catch everything that blows past?
Sgt. Gerda 'Lucky' Vong: Let's not open anything until we know what's on the other side, trooper.
Hal Cornelisz: Just trying to keep morale up, Sergeant.

Sister Dominque: The Emperor guides my hand.
Roland the Rat OoC: That sounds so wrong.
Sister Dominque OoC: It's hard to give up sexual innuendo. Really, really hard.
Vin OoC: That's what she said.

Hal Cornelisz: Did anyone remember to requisition voidsuit patches?

The apparently human-made but non-Imperial wreck is rather bare, at least in the crew section. We do find a teddy-bear in one of the crew quarters though.

Hal Cornelisz: It's some alien fetish. Obviously heretical.

Hal Cornelisz: Crew quarters with a level of austerity that would impress even your Mother Superior, Sister.

At this point I was getting so tired I had to go home - I'll find out what happened next next month, since it'll be a monthly game.

[DusterBoy]

Human made but not Imperial and with a teddy bear in one of the crew quarters, eh? The mind boggles.

 

Another quasi-anarchic situation from DrHoz (or the actual guy gming this). Hats off.

And given it's secretly a "Dark Heresy" campaign, I wonder if these guys will bump into your other DH crew? I'd love to see what happens if Sister Dominique ran into Jrska, ferex.

[BlueCloud2k2]

I shudder to think.

[Christopher]

Another quasi-anarchic situation from DrHoz (or the actual guy gming this). Hats off.

And given it's secretly a "Dark Heresy" campaign, I wonder if these guys will bump into your other DH crew? I'd love to see what happens if Sister Dominique ran into Jrska, ferex.

I guess Dhorz would be talking to himself for a while. Shouting too. Is there a word for flirting with death and oneself at the same time?

 

Because judging by this part I think I know who he plays:

"Sister Dominque: The Emperor guides my hand.

Roland the Rat OoC: That sounds so wrong.

Sister Dominque OoC: It's hard to give up sexual innuendo. Really, really hard.

Vin OoC: That's what she said."