[Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

[CandidGamera]

I'm new here, but this seems to be how these things are done. For a little while now, I've been running 'Third Eye Investigations', a Champions-based game that borrows from sources like :

 

• Planetary (the Comic)
  
• Angel (the TV show)
  
• Witch Hunter Robin (the Anime)
  
• Batman (the.. you know.)

The premise is, essentially, the PCs join up with 'Third Eye Investigations', a detective agency that specializes in the paranormal. They deal with magic, aliens, superbeings, the undead - you name it, they've seen it. The agency existed for ten years prior to the campaign, giving the NPCs in it time to build up a case history.

 

The campaign world is a smorgasbord of the paranormal, throwing in just about everything, but using similar logic to Dark Champions : The Animated Series in some respects. Teleportation, for instance, is a rare ability. If you have the power to grow fifty feet tall? There aren't any "unstable molecules" so you'd best not be modest. You don't hear the term 'superhero', and flashy costumes are pretty rare.

 

We have a lot of fun with the mix of characters, and some good lines arise from time to time. If folks have any interest in hearing more about it, including character write-ups, or whatever, I'd be happy to post them. To whet the appetite, here are brief overviews of the NPCs of Third Eye :

 

"Reach" - the field leader of the group, Reach is the most like a traditional detective. He lost an arm in an accident at a young age, and discovered that, like many, he could still feel the arm there. Unlike many, however, he can manifest his "phantom limb" as a stretchable ectoplasmic limb that can physically touch desolidified entities, wield great strength, or psychically connect him to an object to learn of that object's history.

 

"Scan" - the group's telepath, he spent several years prior to the start of the campaign in a catatonic state - apparently living a life through astral projection/possession on another world entirely. Since his return, he's mostly been relegated to the role of mentally shielding the team's headquarters. He has a tendency to be rather blase about everything, and always seems to be lazily sipping a cup of coffee, no matter what the situation.

 

"Damper" - currently off the team, as he is possessed by the spirit of an ancient sorceror. Damper is an emotional vampire - deadening the feelings of anyone around him. This led to childhood trauma for him, as his parents just couldn't bring themselves to care about him. Three aspects of his powers are : he projects a constant area-of-effect Mental Defense shield that protects anyone around him from empathy-related attacks - in effect, a 'Calm' aura; he can achieve great stealthy results because of his powers - people often notice him, but he tends to slide from their awareness as unimportant unless they're specifically looking for him; and he can focus his emotional-draining powers in an 'apathy attack' - to drain foes of the will to act. Because of his stealth power, the players refer to him as the perfect NPC - because he's one where the player tendency to forget about NPCs that are with them actually makes sense.

 

"Well, I have an idea."

"Oh yeah, Damper! I forgot he was here."

 

And then there's Arthur, AKA "Meme." Arthur's background is a bit complicated to go into for just a teaser, but in short - he is a test-tube grown clone of .. well, that would be telling. Accompanying his birth, two magical rituals were conducted. One imbued him with a great destiny, and the other bound his mind directly to the astral plane. The destiny side is complex and best left for later - the astral portion gives him the bulk of his power. He is a skill-mimic, effectively able to use a VPP to 'borrow' skills from anyone within a certain radius. (This varies by population density - too many minds create astral 'clutter' that's hard to filter through.) He's also got a danger sense (any human that is about to attack him or knows of a danger he is about to face is a potential source of information). The combination of abilities means he is the most formidable of the NPCs in combat. He's hampered by the fact that he doesn't have a lot of his own personality, and lacks creativity to properly employ some of the science skills he has access to, for invention purposes.

 

Whew, that was a long teaser. Any interest in hearing more? Happy to give "episode" summaries, character write-ups, the occasional funny anecdote or quote, or just more background on the campaign world itself. Whatever people want to hear.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

Hey Gamera, welcome to the board! I'm always interested in seeing what other people post. If I thought I could get away with it, I may start posting material from my campaign, but I'm lousy at condensing it.

 

Nice to see another SDer cross over!

[CandidGamera]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

Nice to see another SDer cross over!

 

I've lurked here awhile, reading some of the lovely conversion information from time to time. I was just inspired by Lightray's crosspost to finally sign up.

[Savinien]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

SDer? Not another Careless Acronym Dropper, I hope!

[transmetahuman]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

I'm really interested in this kind of game; I'd love to read more. What are the PCs like? How did you describe the kinds of PCs you wanted in the game to the players - what restrictions on character concept do you have? How clueless is the general population about the existence of the supernatural/paranormal? What about the government/military?

 

And, ya know, keyes-bill/UNITY-style session recaps or plot summaries are always appreciated on here.

[CandidGamera]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

SDer? Not another Careless Acronym Dropper' date=' I hope![/quote']

 

StraightDoper, meaning a patron of the messageboards over at straightdope.com, a lovely and entertaining question and answer site.

 

For the curious who can't wait for me to post stuff, I have some stuff written and posted at my website, http://www.elvenempire,com - go to the Roleplaying Menu item, and select Third Eye. I haven't been as good about updating it as I wanted to be, but it has a lot of information. And in the episode guide, it's riddled with puns.

 

Yes, I use an episodic approach to the game - while there's an overarching campaign story, each session has a story of its own.

 

The genesis of the campaign was due to a few factors - I'd just finished a three-part, three-era epic campaign that spanned several years, and four different superhero systems. We started in a Pulp mode, in 1934 - first using my own homebrewed d20 Supers system, then GURPS Supers. The second incarnation was a followup starting in 1968, using Silver-Age Sentinels. The third was a dystopian modern-age game set in 2002, using Champions. The overarching story involved immortal Atlantean wizards trying to awaken the Old Ones, and conducting three parts of the ritual to do so at 34 year intervals.

 

I found that I quite enjoyed the darkness of the 2002 game, and the rollicking adventure of the 1934 game, and wanted to strike a balance. So when I next went to my playerbase with a list of potential game ideas, I had two related games : 'Paranormal Investigations/Superhero Noir' and a simple modern superheroic game. The players came down in favor of the Noir game, and I borrowed some of the details I'd thought up for the modern superhero game.

 

In addition, to add a little nod and wink for some of my players, I established a Pulp era superteam in the timeline of the new world, based on "jumbled" versions of the team from the 1934 game. (Swapping the names and powersets and nationalities around.)

 

My players currently include four quite disparate individuals. First is Eddie 'the Watchman' Bauer (*not his real name) - he came back from the future to prevent a horrible turn of events. As we noted on his character sheet, he's essentially a walking, talking John Woo flick. Usually he 'Shoots to Wound' though. He has a horrible anti-parahuman prejudice, but is actually parahuman himself, as he will soon discover. (Watchman's player is also a reader of these boards - Page Fault, I believe.) His fatal failing is Pride.

 

Next is Edgar Ravinski, AKA 'Professor Raven'. A Houdini-style debunker of mystic tricks, he is also a genuine medium himself, channeling the spirits of the dead for information or assistance. A master of stealth and misdirection, and greedy to a fault. Due to a confluence of powerful hypnotism and an ill-timed aneurysm, his stage assistant Lenore is no longer quite amongst the living, but still assists him in performances. The show must go on..

 

Then there's Ellan Madrid, a Brazilian girl hiding out from her family, a powerful force in South American organized crime. She has telepathic and telekinetic powers, and was bitten by a Werewolf in the third adventure, and has recently learned to control her transformations. She's probably the nicest of the group - the rest have slowly become more and more corrupt, as befits the genre. Cowardice isn't one of the seven deadly vices, but it's probably her failing.

 

Lastly, there's Lici Kendall, fringe theorist and magic-user. A regular on the Art Bell show, She believes herself to have had several encounters with Bigfoot and other creatures that even paranormal investigators like Third Eye are skeptical of. Her deadly vice of choice is Lust.

[CandidGamera]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

I'm really interested in this kind of game; I'd love to read more. What are the PCs like? How did you describe the kinds of PCs you wanted in the game to the players - what restrictions on character concept do you have? How clueless is the general population about the existence of the supernatural/paranormal? What about the government/military?

 

And, ya know, keyes-bill/UNITY-style session recaps or plot summaries are always appreciated on here.

 

Such synchronicity! I was working on my post about the PCs even as you wrote this.

 

I outlined pretty broad guidelines for the PCs, and it was the players who picked the campaign style in the first place. Essentially, I didn't want anything too flashy or overting superheroic - teleportation wouldn't be allowed without a darn good justification; magic's somewhat depleted on the world (which is a plot point in the campaign) so no hurling of Buick-sized fireballs with spells (though a psychic firestarter would be fine). My key points were "Make sure your PC has a reason to join the investigators, be it a need for protection, a desire for the paycheck, a quest for truth - whatever." Professor Raven's probably the hardest to motivate, as his desire is for money and he already has plenty of money, but he finds it useful to be in a position to play Third Eye off against their primary antagonists, the Brotherhood of the Eternal Sun.

 

The general population is aware of parahumans. There's a registration law. However, they are not aware of magic or aliens - and the government conspires to keep it that way. (Some amusing details on this subject - magical crimes can be put on trial, but always get magic-aware judges and jurors - meanwhile, the public face of the proceeding is fabricated to keep the general public unaware of magic; the relevant law allowing this is the Gellar Act, named after Uri; also, magic-users are exempt from the registration law because of their first amendment right of freedom of religion.)

 

The government is well-aware of magic, having been infiltrated by a couple of magical power groups. They even have their own special bureaus for "odd" occurrences. They're also aware of a few of the alien presences on the planet, but not entirely.

 

Plot summaries will be forthcoming, as time permits. Most of my notes are at home..

[stitches]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

this sounds like a REALLy fun campaign

[CandidGamera]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

this sounds like a REALLy fun campaign

 

We all seem to enjoy it, though it has been plagued by inconsistent scheduling, and I feel my Dungeons and Dragons roots starting to scream for me to run a sword and sorcery game.

 

At least two of my players have been really impressed by the system, as well, so it is helping to spread the HERO gospel. Page Fault and I were already HERO fans by the time I started this one.

 

The basic story arc of the campaign so far:

 

Season One

 

Watchman, travelling back through time, changes the future in a small way.

The team assembles - they soon learn of the Brotherhood of the Eternal Sun, mystical bad guys with their fingers lurking in every corner of the government. Thanks to some clever manipulation, the Brotherhood manipulates Third Eye into attending the release of the spirit of their founder, with the intent on having him possess the body of Arthur/Meme. Watchman's primary task is to prevent that from occurring, and he succeeds - but the sorceror possesses Damper, instead.

 

The last session of Season One was an odd romp, where 'Scan' comes out of his catatonic state, asking for Third Eye's help, and using his powers to project their astral selves into waiting hosts on a parallel world - essentially, each of the players inhabiting a fantasy-genre character similar to themselves. Ellan stays behind to learn about her Werewolf abilities (and as her player takes an eight-month trip to New Zealand.)

 

In Season Two, the team learns that the Brotherhood, foiled in their attempt to take Arthur, is up to a new plan of no-good. Despite the lack of formal spells for the purpose, and the lack of raw magical power available to achieve it, they are managing to erode the dimensional barriers separating this Earth from parallel Earths. Over the course of the season, the players deal with all manner of dimensional invaders, and discover how the Brotherhood is managing the effect, why they're doing it, and how to stop it.

 

In Season Three, still in progress, the Brotherhood's taken more of a back seat as Third Eye deals with alien and possible time-travelling menaces.

[CandidGamera]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

Episode List:

First Season

• 1.01 - One-Hit Wonder
  
• 1.02 - Burning Passion
  
• 1.03 - Bellevue to a Kill
  
• 1.04 - Swarm-Blooded
  
• 1.05 - Power Trip
  
• 1.06 - Miami Weiss
  
• 1.07 - Fantastic Foresight
  
• 1.08 - The Sound and Der Fuhrer
  
• 1.09 - Cult Classic
  
• 1.10 - Surely You Gestalt

Second Season

• 2.01 - Underworld
  
• 2.02 - The Devil and the S.E.C.
  
• 2.03 - Mnemonic Possession
  
• 2.04 - Soldiers of Fortune
  
• 2.05 - Stark Raven Mad
  
• 2.06 - Harvest
  
• 2.07 - Promises, Promises
  
• 2.08 - Dream Girl
  
• 2.09 - Thoughtcrime
  
• 2.10 - Grave Matters
  
• 2.11 - Time to Kill
  
• 2.12 - The Agony of LaFitte
  
• 2.13 - Photo Finish
  
• 2.14 - Breakthrough Performance

Third Season

• 3.01 - Kung-Fu From Another Planet
  
• 3.02 - I Oni Have Eyes For You
  
• 3.03 - Eire Education

Thought I'd copy this list over for now, to give folks some horrible puns to chew on. We've had one session since 3.03 - episode 3.04 'Unorthodox Religion'.

 

Episode 3.02 is part of a running-gag I have; I have for the last several years done a 'Halloween' adventure in whatever campaign I happened to be running at the time. When I was running my 1930's Pulp Supers game, I introduced the players to an oriental fear-demon. He had been sealed inside a jade heart - a Stanford professor of antiquities loaned this artifact to a friend of his to study, then promptly lost contact with the friend. The team was called into investigate, in the adventure I titled 'Loaner of an Oni Heart'. Well, the little fear demon (inspired partly by the one from a memorable Buffy episode) made several return appearances, each time accompanied by an 'Oni' pun for the title. ('My One and Oni', 'Oni the Lonely')

 

And I'm sure the tiny fear demon will return again someday, in 'You Oni Live Twice'.

[CandidGamera]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

1.01 - One-Hit Wonder

 

This session begins with the Third Eye recruitment drive; NPCs interview PCs, trying to determine if they'll be a good fit. Watchman, Ellan, and a third PC, Largo, are recruited. (Largo was a wild-talent wizard with a music focus - essentially a magic VPP that required singing or playing of an instrument.)

 

Watchman has a 'Third Eye Knowledge' and a 'Future History' skill because of his time-travelling background. To provide a little amusement, I introduce a minor change in history - originally, the first applicant Third Eye interviewed was a precognitive code-named 'Zodiac' - and his attitude put them off the recruitment process entirely, so they went forward with no new members. But Zodiac was delayed in this version, as his cab was cut off by a maniac on a motorcycle.. "YOU!" he roared, pointing at Watchman.

 

After things were calmed down, the PCs hit the streets on their first case - someone was distributing a new drug on NYC's streets, a drug that gave the user temporary Super-Strength, called 'Wonder'. (And now the pun of the title becomes apparent..) The substance isn't on any government restricted chemical lists, so while not strictly illegal, it's certainly dangerous, and weird enough to be right up Third Eye's alley. Some general headbusting and street-wising ensue - they discover that the distribution chain flows through a hapless schizophrenic fellow they come to know as "Looney" Ben. Ben has the ability to see things most people don't - and then show other people via Mental Images.

 

They get hints that Ben's receiving his instruction from a person so powerfully telepathic that he can "bodyjack" random folks temporarily. Ben can always recognize the fellow, though. He sees the aura. Without any solid way to track the bodyjacker, the team focuses on eliminating the immediate distribution chain - including the warehouse in which the drug is packaged in its final form. They fight through some more Wonder-thugs to get to the materials, and succeed. If memory serves, they also encounter a lawyer-fellow this session, hanging around with the thugs. Max Epstein, is his name. And he has Purple-Man-esque powers of persuasion. (Suspiciously, as they later learn, absent from the Federal powers registry - he's listed as a parahuman, but the power is unspecified.)

 

Max walks free, as he has done nothing illegal, strictly speaking. Ben goes to Bellevue's psychic parahumans wing for treatment. And Wonder is temporarily off the streets.

[CandidGamera]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

Did the puns kill all the interest, I wonder?

 

1.02 - Burning Passion

 

This episode opened in classic television tradition - our music mage was performing at a nightclub; a well-dressed woman burst into the club, frantic and panting - then suddenly collapses, dead. Roll credits.

 

The woman, widow Martha Thompkins, was a society dame, and had lost her husband under slightly dodgy circumstances ten years before. Examination revealed that the cause of death was that her blood had boiled in her veins. Digging through Third Eye's records, this matched up with the MO of a fellow named 'Fever', part of a small criminal organization dubbed the 'Bloodhounds'.

 

The Bloodhounds are essentially a necromantic group of elementals. Fever was granted the power to control the temperature of blood; Scab can cover himself in an armored shell; Bloodwake is essentially a liquid golem composed of blood; and representing their air aspect is vampire-Necromancer Elias Vance.

 

Investigations proved that Martha had offed her husband for his money, and that the Bloodhounds, thanks to a former maid of Ms. Thompkins, had learned that information and were blackmailing her. She decided to stop paying one day, and the consequences proved fatal.

 

The resolution to the whole plot was interesting - Third Eye managed to get the maid arrested for her part in the shenanigans, but thanks to a Mexican standoff with Fever and their reluctance to take on Vance head to head, they let the Bloodhounds off with a scolding and a promise to stay out of the blackmail racket in NYC.

[CandidGamera]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

1.03 - Bellevue to a Kill

 

"Looney" Ben escapes from Bellevue with the help of an apparently mystic orb, in the pre-credits sequence. The team recaptures Ben, and investigates the orb.

 

While the PCs and the bulk of the team are at Bellevue investigating the site itself, the personnel left behind in the base fall prey to the trojan horse - the orb releasing a tiny swarm of robots to disable the security systems of the base, and a potent gas to knockout those within. This was a plot by the Brotherhood of the Eternal Sun to (re)capture Arthur, but Arthur was with the PCs, so he kidnapped the other NPC team members instead, to use as bargaining chips.

 

While at Bellevue, the Brazilian telepath/telekinetic is bitten by an autistic-seeming girl, and contracts lycanthropy. Once the abduction of the teammates is discovered, the telepath uses Mind Scan to track down the missing members - the team charging to rescue them at the pier where they're about to be loaded onto a ship.

 

There was also a brief confrontation with the agent used to perform the abduction - Reaper. He's essentially an assassin for hire, but with a code of honor. Professor Raven gets to feel Reaper's telekinetic-force blades when he impishly tries to steal Reaper's pay envelope.

 

This episode was the first time Professor Raven got involved in the action, as I recall, as he missed the first two sessions. It also began the Reaper/Raven "feud" - in order to discredit Reaper's standing with the Brotherhood, Raven began to loudly and obviously make "slips" implying that Reaper was working for Third Eye. No amount of my explanations that Reaper worked for whoever paid him, and thus had no loyalty to the Brotherhood anyway, would deter Raven from this course.

 

Later on, Raven actually hired Reaper to do some legbreaking, so it finally sunk in.

 

Reaper is a sort of interesting NPC to me - his powerset, particularly. I took the tactile-telekinesis idea from Superboy, and played around with it. He has accelerated running, enhanced leaping, clinging, and can generate a TK forcefield around himself. He can also manifest telekinetic force blades on each of his fists - they do a small amount of extra bioelectricity damage in addition to their cutting potential, and affect desolidified entities.

[Cardinal]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

Great stuff. Keep it up.

[CandidGamera]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

Great stuff. Keep it up.

 

Thanks. Let me know if at any point somethings needs to be clarified, or detailed. I'm basically writing "executive summaries" based on my original notes (written to plan the session) and my recollections thereof.

[CandidGamera]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

Well, I've got some more time while waiting for something to happen at work.

 

Additional note for 1.03 - the team had a side-trek to 'The Century Club' - for immortals and their guests. They were escorted by Randall O'Connor, a friend of the Third Eye organization - an Irishman who asked the faerie for immortality, and got what he wished for. Notable folks they met on that trip included Elias Vance, the aforementioned vampire Necromancer; Baron Marius Vykann, old European nobility from a country so tiny and obscure that it completely vanished from history - the club's owner; and a strange, crazed-seeming fellow in Victorian garb.

 

1.04 - Swarm-Blooded (alternate title : Chupacabre Cadabra)

 

I really played up the "pre-Credits" sequence this time. Scene: a Mexican goatherd is tending his flock - he seems nervous. One of his goats, 'Cocha', is missing. He moves in the twilight, calling for the lost animal - he hears a stone fall behind him, turns, and screams.

 

The team learns that something aggressive has been killing things in the Yucatan, near Campeche. They fly into Merida and head towards the latest disturbance. The problem had been around for years, but much more aggressive in recent months. The corpses have been found, drained of blood, and locals whisper of 'El Chupacabre'.

 

The team has to deal with a vampiric panther, and the psychic's first Werewolf transformations - they're almost convinced the panther was the culprit, but no matching marks appear on the bodies. Then, a local vampire (of the non-evil persuasion) comes to help them back on the right track. She is Rosalita Alameda Cortes, daughter of the famed European explorer, and has lived in the area for many years. A shaman has been invoking dark magic at a nearby pyramid, which has stirred up the wrath of El Chupacabre - a vampiric ant colony.

 

With their new ally, the team deals with the vampiric ant colony by staking the queen (who is fortunately of larger-than-normal size) - and then proceed to the pyramid, helping Rosalita to corner the shaman, whom she then kills. As a parting gift, Rosalita offers the psychic some special herbs that help her control the lycanthropic transformations.

 

1.05 - Power Trip

 

In this episode, Third Eye discovers new varieties of the Wonder drug have hit the streets. In additional to the original Super-Strength flavor, there's Speed, Flight, Telepathy, Invulnerability, and Shapeshifting. (Disclaimer : Do not ingest more than one variety of Wonder at a time. Surgeon General's Warning : May cause Irrational Attraction to Spandex.)

 

In addition to tracking down the new supply, the team has to do some damage control as a person who was already parahuman (a pyrokinetic) is forced to ingest one of the pills, sending his own natural powers haywire.

 

Research and analysis of the improved pills indicate that longterm use promotes genetic mutation (resulting in an increased likelihood of spawning parahuman children) and increased libido - and these side effects appear to be deliberately engineered, as if the source wishes to cause a boom in the population of parahumans.

 

The body-jacker spies on the team, again, as they do their work - and once they have the drug supply in hand, official government superteam Paradox arrives to take the supply and its protectors into custody.

[transmetahuman]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

The last few posts seem to have slipped under my radar for a while, but I'm all caught up now. Good reading, thanks for posting this. One thing struck me as I was going through these - how does Third Eye, a detective agency, make any money? There don't seem to be any clients in any of these so far. Maybe you're just glossing over them, and the authorities are hiring the agency to help with the chupacabra and Wonder stuff, but the only possible client in Burning Passion (loving the puns, by the way) starts the episode already dead...

 

Another question - do you narrate the "pre-credits" opening sequences to the players, or are you adding those to the recaps?

 

Also, you say the general public isn't aware of magic (though the government is - I'll brush aside my objections to that under the umbrella of genre convention), yet you also say that magicians are exempt from the Gellar Act because of freedom of religion (kinda neat, that, I might steal it somehow). How could the courts have ruled on a freedom of religion issue if magic isn't generally known about? I know that some judges know, and all that, but I'm having a hard time believing that this would have ever been ruled on... or maybe I'm just misunderstanding something in the premise.

[CandidGamera]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

The last few posts seem to have slipped under my radar for a while' date=' but I'm all caught up now. Good reading, thanks for posting this. One thing struck me as I was going through these - how does Third Eye, a detective agency, make any money? There don't seem to be any clients in any of these so far. Maybe you're just glossing over them, and the authorities are hiring the agency to help with the chupacabra and Wonder stuff, but the only possible client in Burning Passion (loving the puns, by the way) starts [i']the episode[/i] already dead...

 

They don't often make a lot of money. They are, on rare occasions, hired to investigate oddities - and are listed in the yellow pages as a traditional detective agency. But their primary source of funding is a financial backer, which I will discuss, since you've asked.

 

Another question - do you narrate the "pre-credits" opening sequences to the players, or are you adding those to the recaps?

 

The pre-credits stuff always occurs in-session - though I dropped it for later episodes. If the PCs are there, then it's not just narrated, it's played out. If the PCs are getting a "viewer's perspective" - like with Swarm-Blooded - it's just narrated.

 

Also, you say the general public isn't aware of magic (though the government is - I'll brush aside my objections to that under the umbrella of genre convention), yet you also say that magicians are exempt from the Gellar Act because of freedom of religion (kinda neat, that, I might steal it somehow). How could the courts have ruled on a freedom of religion issue if magic isn't generally known about? I know that some judges know, and all that, but I'm having a hard time believing that this would have ever been ruled on... or maybe I'm just misunderstanding something in the premise.

 

No, Magicians are exempt from the Registration Act (the Gellar Act is the one that allows for secret proceedings in trials where magic is involved.) The courts were not involved in providing the exemption - the objection was raised on the Senate floor that users of spellcraft are in many cases just practicing their religion, and that the Registration Act thusly could be struck down if used against a practitioner of magic. It's a somewhat weak objection, but it influenced the final form of the act, primarily because the Brotherhood of the Eternal Sun used its influence to make sure that the Registration Act was narrowly-focused.

 

The Congress, Supreme Court, and Executive portions of the U.S. Government are all informed, upon election or appointment, of the existence of the supernatural. Many of these political sorts are already aware of it, having forged deals with sorcerors to increase their chances of winning, or having received backing from the Brotherhood of the Eternal Sun or its opposite number, the Illuminati.

 

Of course, there are always "leaks" about the existence of the supernatural - sort of hard to keep that sort of thing a secret, right? True practitioners don't spread the news that magic is real because magic is a fading, limited resource in the campaign - and the more people there are using it, the less there is to go around. Occasionally, someone will see something supernatural - and if it can't be readily explained as an example of non-mystical metahuman powers, and the witness is a credible one, then steps are taken to keep things quiet.

 

More disreputable sorts, like the Brotherhood, may simply kill the witnesses. The government's official tactic is memory modification. One of the NPCs that the PCs have encountered is Allan Marchand, Director of the Magical Investigations Department at the CIA. One of the items in his charge is an ancient book of spells that deal with memory modification - this will be explained further when I get to the summary for "Mnemonic Possession".

 

But the financial backing - the team was originally pulled together by Jack Spencer, a billionaire investor with his finger in a lot of pies. As the players would quickly learn, in "The Sound and Der Fuhrer" as I recall, Jack used to be a part of the original government parahuman team, back in the 30's and 40's. Kept young by an exotic mineral he discovered after his team investigated a UFO crash in the Yucatan back in '38, he doesn't tend to actively involve himself in the investigations unless absolutely necessary. He does pay for the equipment and salaries, though - which means he gets to encourage the team to investigate matters that might not be otherwise profitable.

[CandidGamera]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

1.06 - Miami Weiss

 

Here's where things start to exhibit synchronicity. The area of the Yucatan in which the team just battled vampiric ants? Near the site of a UFO crash in 1938, that left behind an alien mineral.. (Elerium, for you X-Com fans out there) with exotic radiation that could be used in a number of ways. It also changed the local flora, which then contributed to research, in the 1950's, by a former German scientist, then working for the US Government, about the stimulation of parahuman abilities. The WONDER drug showed similarities to that particular floral chemical compound..

 

Pre-Credits : Arthur's face, illuminated by a computer screen, as he researches the above, concluding with a headshot of the lead scientist of the research project, Dr. Hans Weiss - fading from the headshot to the much older face of that same man today, puttering around his Florida lab. A shadow appears behind him, and he is struck on the head from behind.

 

(At this point, a groan of dismay went up from the players - whether it was from the cliched opening, or the potential frustration of their investigation into WONDER, I'll never know.)

 

The team is briefed on Dr. Weiss, and heads to Miami to meet with him. When they arrive, he's still rubbing his head ruefully, and at first, he is distrustful, but warms to them, offering them lollipops as he shows them around his lab.

 

As a sidebar : Dr. Weiss is a "Scientist!". Meaning, he's an expert in just about every field of science - one of those rare supergeniuses. He did some nasty things while working for Germany, no doubt, but he's mellowed in his old age, and sees parahumans as the wave of the future. As a matter of fact, he's perfected a machine to endow humans with certain particular superhuman abilities - and has a local "vigilante" group that provides him with security because of his hand in their creation. I told the PCs to picture Christopher Lloyd, as Doc Brown, but with a German accent.

 

He reveals that the government dismissed him after the failure of his early efforts - but that more recently, his notes on the chemical inducement of parahuman abilities were stolen from him. He suspects a girl to whom he gave invisibility powers.

 

The complication to this routine investigation comes when the Brotherhood sends along a hired gun to take care of Weiss and Third Eye and wipe out the evidence. The NPCs of Third Eye have faced him before - Breakdown, one of the world's most potent telekinetics. They'd used Damper's emotion-draining powers to beat him in the past, but this time he has a little headband providing some extra mental defense. They ultimately manage to nullify the headband and put things on a more equal footing - and Breakdown flees.

 

Then the team contacts the invisible girl - her codename is Slink, and she's ex-CIA, now a professional thief, hired by persons unknown to undergo the invisibility treatment and steal Weiss's notes. Raven seems to have an immediate affection for her, and they do have similar refined sensibilities. She is able to identify the person to whom she delivered the research notes, though : Max Epstein.

[CandidGamera]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

Ack! Footnote on the above - his assailant. The PCs never discovered this, but since only one of them reads this forum, and the game's almost done, I can reveal. The assailant was not Slink as might be implied by the text - obviously, the formulae had been purloined earlier. Rather, it was a first assassin hired by the Brotherhood to eliminate Weiss. The Assassin failed, and Breakdown was sent in.

 

What actually occurred after the credits-teaser : Weiss whirled on his attacker, punched him out cold, and locked him away to interrogate or use as experimental fodder later. Weiss has used some of his own superpower treatments on himself, over the years.

[CandidGamera]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

1.07 - Fantastic Foresight

 

This episode had another tricksy pre-credits sequence, and introduced another logical-but-hitherto-unknown aspect of the campaign world. Precognitives are rare. Good ones, especially so. And as the players would learn, the registered ones tend to disappear from view. After all, how can any of the shadowy power groups resist the chance to recruit someone who can see the future? It's the superpowered equivalent of the Nuclear Arms race. This was also one of the more complicated plots I'd run.. it's rather baroque. (But if it ain't baroque, don't fix it!)

 

We open with a misty vision of a large theatre building interior, in the upper balcony. A shot rings out and the POV shifts rapidly, as if looking for the source - shadows move in various corners of the theater - things begin to dim. There's a glimpse of Watchman's face, and then a smoking gun in Watchman's hand - and then we see a 16-year-old boy awaken from this dream, terrified.

 

As an aside, it is very difficult to set up visions of the future that actually, subsequently come true in a roleplaying game. But once you know your players well enough, you can manage it, sometimes. Watchman's player was somewhat puzzled by this imagery, as I recall.

 

Getting into the action - the team is called into Jack's office to meet Third Eye's best FBI contact - a 16-year-old mathematical genius (parahumanly so) named Garett Marson. He dates Jack's granddaughter, and sometimes slips Third Eye information from the FBI under the table. Marson tells the team about the 'conscription' of precognitives, and his precognitive friend, Robert Taylor. He informs them Robert has just had a vision of his own demise, and seems to have accepted his fate - Garett would like Third Eye to get him to reconsider.

 

Robert had the vision above, and he's also seen the most likely alternative - his abduction and indoctrination by dark power groups, to further their own evil ends. He's dead-set that he should go to the "Triumph Theatre" that night, even if it means getting shot. He's both dismayed and comforted when he meets Watchman, whom he recognizes from the vision.

 

The situation is far from cut and dry, though. I'll need to sidebar here, for GM-side information. There are five top-class assassins in the world. Anaamika, mistress of combat; Crosshair and Pinpoint, the only two active masters of a gun-based martial arts style (one of whom was Watchman's instructor in his future); Reaper, who I recently described here, and Abattoir. Crosshair and Pinpoint are relevant here. Their mastery of guns, like Watchman's, is beyond the cinematic and into the "patently ridiculous". They can deflect bullets by shooting them out of the air. This was already an established power of Watchman's. You need to know that before I explain the plot..

 

The Brotherhood of the Eternal Sun hired Pinpoint to shoot Bobby with a special posioned bullet - not meant to kill, but to injure. Once he's taken to an ambulance, they foresee they'll have the best chance to abduct him.

 

England's MI7 (which handles the supernatural in my campaign) caught wind of this, and employed Crosshair to interfere with the shooting. However, they are under the impression that the Brotherhood intends to kill Bobby, having ruled out an abduction as unfeasable. Crosshair is supposed to deflect Pinpoint's bullet after it's fired - make it a flesh wound instead of a kill. An MI7 team will be waiting in the ambulance outside...

 

So already, it's a complex situation. Pinpoint and Crosshair fire almost simultaneously - the complication being that since it was already a "shoot to wound" the deflection makes it into a potentially lethal shot. But Watchman is there, and he deflects the bullet entirely, and Bobby faints, fulfilling his vision. Watchman spots someone in the upper lighting rig trying to make a getaway, and gives chase. The rest of the team moves to get Bobby outside - where there's already an ambulance, suspiciously. They exchange some dialogue with the MI7 agents and manage to talk it out, and zip off in the ambulance, Raven's limo following close behind.

 

Meanwhile, on the roof, Watchman confronts one of the gunmen - thinking it might be his future teacher. (Pinpoint) It turns out to be Crosshair, who fouls the safety-catch on Watchman's pistol with a shot, and dives backwards off of the roof, somersaulting into his waiting spymobile. (working for MI7 has it privileges.) Watchman gives chase on his motorcycle. He follows Crosshair, who's trying to track down Pinpoint. On arrival at Pinpoint's motel, there's a large explosion - the Brotherhood intending to off Pinpoint to cover their tracks. All three gunmen survive, and there's a bit of a Mexican standoff - until they all decide they don't much care for the Brotherhood.

 

Then Watchman receives a call from the rest of the team on his wrist radio - seems the ambulance and limo are under attack by a large gargoyle creature - the Brotherhood's agent for abduction. Pinpoint and Crosshair hop in Crosshair's car, and Watchman takes his bike, and they speed to the scene, and help the rest of the team fight off the Gargoyle. MI7 is then able to safely spirit Bobby away to England, with Bobby's consent.

[CandidGamera]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

1.08 - The Sound and Der Fuhrer

 

This was a fairly important episode in a couple of ways. One, the group discovered Jack's heroic past. Two, they got the skinny on what was going down with Arthur's background. And three, we got our best running gag ever. This session also marks the first in-campaign appearance of the borrowed GURPS concept of 'Warehouse 23'.

 

The pre-credits sequence highlighted two shadowy figures, in an unidentified warehouse, stealing a large crated object.

 

Jack briefs the team - he's been contacted by the government. It seems that an object was stolen from a top-secret government warehouse the night before. The object was an alien artifact, recovered by the Nazis from the Yucatan crash in 1938, and confiscated by the U.S. after 1945. They didn't actually tell him it'd been stolen, but were asking him lots of questions about his remembrance of it - which leads him to believe it has been taken. Damper is sent to investigate the Warehouse alone, just to see if there are additional clues to be found.

 

Jack reveals he is a trusted ex-government employee, and is aware of this warehouse where the government keeps all the more unusual mystical, alien, or interdimensional items it comes across. Based on the particular theft, Jack believes that remnants of the Third Reich, now living in Brazil, were responsible for the theft, and says he'll be leading the team down there himself. After making some preparations, Jack appears to be almost 20 years younger (having ingested some of his irradiated water).

 

Once in Brazil, some espionage reveals the situation. The remnants of the German Uberreich (the parahuman Nazi operatives of World War II) have taken a cylinder of alien origin from the warehouse. This cylinder is designed to store brain-patterns. According to the overheard conversation - Hitler's mind was placed in the cylinder shortly before his supposed suicide. (That's right - They Saved Hitler's Brain!) The psychic (Verstandschmelzer) intends to use his powers to transfer Hitler's mind from the cylinder into the body of the brick (Eisenkorper). Except their mystics detect a "Child of Destiny" in the vicinity, which is a much better potential host.

 

Sidebar on the Child of Destiny : It's a magically-enchanted individual who has a specific way in which they will greatly influence history. They may only be killed by A) Their specific fated death or The Spear of Destiny. The creation of a Child of Destiny requires someone of "pure birth" (a loose requirement - interpreted in many ways) and a magical ritual. There have been a number throughout history, created sometimes by the Illuminati, sometimes by the Brotherhood, and in one case, seeming to have spontaneously arisen without the need for ritual. Arthur was created as a Child of Destiny by the Brotherhood, but escaped. The Nazi mystics sense his presence - and are intrigued, having failed to create one during the height of their powers.

 

As a sideline during all this, Ellan's family, in Brazilian organized crime, discovers she's in the country and begin efforts to forcibly compel her to stay. She discovers that all the women in her family are born with the telepathic and telekinetic powers - which are then usually transferred to a male member of the family by means of a mystic ritual, dating back centuries. She manages to escape this fate in time to help the crew infiltrate the Nazi compound, and there's a climactic battle in the basement that destabilizes the building, bringing the house down, seemingly crushing Verstandschmelzer and Eisenkorper before they could extract Hitler's mind, while Jack manages to recover the metallic blue cylinder in question as the team escapes.

 

And as they stand outside the rubble, a mind reaches out to them from inside the cylinder - an alien mind, trapped there since his body was destroyed in the crash in 1938, finally free to speak now that that extra human mind he'd been sharing the space with is gone. Not wanting to hand the government a real live alien mind to interrogate, they constructed a replica of the cylinder to send back, and kept the original in their headquarters. For lack of a pronouncible name for the alien, they dubbed him 'George'. He now uses his telepathic powers to help them out, now and then - from inside the base.

 

But as for the running gag.. both Ellan's family and the Nazis were described as living in "compounds". This quickly mutated into the conceit of a "compound row" - The Nazis at #2, Compound Row, and the Madrids at #1, Compound Row. The jokes about borrowing cups of sugar ensued, about occasionally interfering with each other's deadly plans, and about the terribly dangerous job of being the mailman for Compound Row.

 

"Death ray, for you, sir." "No, you want Dr. Destructo, he's at #4."

 

We still come back to it occasionally. And this adventure is about to get a sequel, hopefully this weekend.. 3.05 - "Thules Rush In".

[CandidGamera]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

1.09 - Cult Classic

 

This episode wraps up the story arc of the first season, though there was one additional episode that "season". For this one, I think I dispensed with the usual pre-Credit sequence notion, in favor of another trope that one of my players used to open games when he was GMing : "You awaken in a dark room.."

 

The session opened right after the group had gotten caught in a little trap. The Brotherhood had anticipated Third Eye reaching this apartment - and in fact had lead them here. They also arranged a mystical booby-trap - whenever Raven tried to channel the spirit of the dead man they would find here, it would trigger a magical explosion. It blew out all the lightbulbs and singed everything, knocking everyone unconscious.

 

The blast uncovered a safe in the wall, and the PCs investigated it as they recovered. Inside the safe was an outline of the Brotherhood's plans - apparently.

 

Back at HQ, Watchman began translating the documents they found. (The Brotherhood uses a dialect of the Basque language - Arthur, though otherwise a Universal Translator, has a built-in mental block with Basque.) Once translated, Arthur decodes it. The document reveals some of the history of the Brotherhood :

 

The man who formally founded the Brotherhood, a sorceror known as Ar'Nath, was regard as a tremendous threat by most mystics - so much so that in 1705, mystics of the Order of St. Hermes, of the Catholic Church, assaulted Ar'Nath in his stronghold in the Southwest of France. (Bayonne, near the Pyrenees) Their desperate ploy worked, to a degree - they were able to magically banish Ar'Nath from his own body, destroying the bulk of his physical form, and then they bound his Spirit to the cave in which they'd found him. They found themselves incapable of destroying such a strong spirit, however, and rather than risk possession, they decided to let the binding do its work until they could find a method to destroy him utterly.

 

According to the document, the bindings that hold his spirit in the cave must be renewed, every century, with a ritual that involves blood, or they begin to weaken. The last renewal did not go off as planned - the Order of St. Hermes having been excommunicated in the 19th century - and the modern Catholic Church regards the stories of Ar'Nath as apocryphal. The Brotherhood believes the time is ripe to shatter the bindings once and for all, and outline a plan to gather many of their members for a ritual to set their leader's soul free.

Third Eye sets out to France to go conduct the ritual to renew the bindings, before the Brotherhood can dispel them. They take pig's blood, and a special satellite camera so Jack can monitor their progress. And Raven uses some of his vast personal wealth to hire Reaper to take out a few mid-level Brotherhood types in the U.S., to reduce the numbers for their ritual. Unfortunately, the Brotherhood wants Third Eye to come to the cave, and planted those plans.

 

The team encounters a token group of cultists in the cave, dispatching them easily - along with their leader, a werewolf who can control his powers better than Ellan can. He's rendered unconscious and tied up, as they proceed to the main chamber.

 

There's a large stone door, with pictographs carved along the walls near it. Time for two sidebars.

 

The pictographs depict the history of the Brotherhood, primarily as they deal with Children of Destiny :

 

Alexander the Great, died his fated death, his fingerbone taken, and used to form the mystic core of a metallic spearhead, the fabled 'Spear of Destiny'. The spearhead became on of the daggers to pierce Caesar's back; it pierced Christ's side on the Cross. There's also a picture of the spear being used to slay 'Arturius'. Further pictographs indicate that Louis the 14th was backed by the Brotherhood, as an attempt to establish control of the world, before they mastered the ritual to create a Child of Destiny. (He granted them their land in return) A script above the door indicates "By his title, our domain was entered. Long live the King." - a clue that to open the door to the inner sanctum, the phrase "L'Roi du Soleil" must be spoken.

 

Once that is out of the way, an arch is revealed, over which is the symbol of the Brotherhood. Sidebar time again.

 

Watchman was sent back from a dark future in which World War III had happened, parahumans were responsible for a lot of the devastation, and his parents had been killed. His mission was to join Third Eye and stick with them like glue, until he saw an arch with that particular symbol - at such time, he was to prevent the team from entering that archway. His mysterious sponsor beleived that crossing that threshhold was a critical historical point for preventing the dark future.

He hadn't informed the group of his mission, or his futuristic origin, but it suddenly came to light when he tried to interpose himself between them and the doorway. Quite the standoff, since he was the combat monkey of the group.

 

Well, Raven tries to get past - and gets a bullet for his trouble, Watchman using his "Shoot to Wound" ability, but still all but KOing Raven. Arthur and Reach moved to engage Watchman as they queried him on his goals and objectives.. and meanwhile, Damper snuck in to renew the binding.

 

In the original future, Arthur was the first across the threshhold, and consequently, was possessed by Ar'Nath - who used Arthur's abilities to rise to the Presidency. From that office, he manipulated world events to ensure that though the general public suffered, the Brotherhood propsered. This was the hoped-for outcome of the planted plans.

 

Watchman's interference, though, was a partial success - Ar'Nath got a body and was thusly able to exit the cave, but it wasn't the right body. There was a brief skirmish with Third Eye on his way out, and they managed to collapse part of the cave on him, but he ultimately managed to escape.

[CandidGamera]

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations

 

Updates to this thread will resume, soon, honest, I just haven't had time to transcribe the notes while at work lately. We wrapped up the campaign two weekends ago - the player base having dwindled due to Ellan's player never really getting back into the groove after her return, and Raven's player having to deal with his yen to GM again.