THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

[Trebuchet]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

It also doesn't work because the historical name is a consequence of WW2.

Sure, that's what "they" want you to think. The truth is much more sinister and far older...

[Steve Long]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

Since it's not exactly in chronological order, I wanted to point out that I just posted the report of last night's adventure in Post #2.

[Basil]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

Since it's not exactly in chronological order' date=' I wanted to point out that I just posted the report of last night's adventure in Post #2. [/quote']

Excellent! Lots of Biff! Bam! Pow! with some Crackle! Zap! mixed in.

[st barbara]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

Sounds great ! My own game has gotten a touch bogged down because some of my players couldn't make it to the last session so I filled in with a bit of mucking about in the Dutch East Indies (the players have been hired to provide protection for two documentary film makers, based on the two guys who made the original "King Kong", who are looking for a German scientist who announced that he was looking for an unknown species of ape in Borneo, and then disappeared !). A nice pub brawl is always a good way to fill out a session where not much else is happening ! Amusement for the game was provided by the player who is supposed to be good at beaurocratics failing all his rolls spectacularly and having to go through several layers of Dutch colonial beaurocracy (and use his "bribery" skill) to get permission to look for the lost scientist (and make a film of the expedition).

[Steve Long]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

January 27, 2006

Thrilling Hero Tales #3

SPEARS OF THE TISANGANI

 

While relaxing in the Hotel Westminster and hoping he’d soon get the chance to return to Africa, Adam MacBryde received a telegram from his old friend Professor Arthur Hogan. It indicated that the Professor might have long last found some solid evidence regarding the supposedly mythical Tisangani civilization and requested MacBryde’s help.

 

MacBryde, Roy Austin, and Jake Brand motored out to the Professor’s house that evening. The Professor greeted them warmly and took them into his study. He showed them half of the “Marsh map,” a map from the early 1800s that supposedly showed the way to Tisangani, and said that his friend Heillard Alswend, a Dutch trader in Stanleyville, Belgian Congo, claimed to have found the other, crucial, piece of the map. He asked MacBryde and his friends to go to the Belgian Congo, retrieve the new piece, and use it to find Tisangani.

 

While the Professor was talking, Jake Brand happened to glance around... and saw a blowgun barrel poking in one window and aimed right at the Professor! Brand dove across the desk, knocking the Professor to the floor just as a poisoned blowgun dart whistled through the air where the Professor had been sitting and thudded into a nearby bookshelf.

 

Suddenly a half-dozen spear-wielding African warriors came crashing in through the windows! A furious melee ensued. MacBryde grabbed the Professor’s map in its leather portfolio and stuffed the whole thing down his shirt for safekeeping as Austin charged a group of the warriors and Brand rifled through the Professor’s desk for the old man’s gun... a decrepit .22 revolver. Shots were fired, spears were thrust, punches were thrown! MacBryde charged two warriors who were about to skewer Austin from behind, bowling them both over just in time to save his friend. Brand protected the Professor; when two warriors leaped onto the desk to try to stab him, he kicked the desk over, sending the warriors flying back onto a coffee table... and then he leapt across the desk, onto the table, and continued pummelling them. Austin kicked a bookshelf just so, caught a ceremonial dagger the Professor had on display as it came flying off the shelf, and with a single swift motion hurled it into the eye of a warrior about to stab MacBryde.

 

Eventually, the fight was won — the warriors were dead or unconscious. As they administered first aid to the Professor, the PCs heard a car out on the road squeal away. Someone had been watching them!

 

Now determined to see the quest for Tisangani through, the PCs planned as much of an expedition as they could and then got in their custom plane, the Soaring Eagle, and headed for Africa. Many hours later they landed in Stanleyville. They checked into the Royal Hotel for a good night’s sleep, and in the morning headed to Heillard Alswend’s general store to find out of this new “map fragment” was genuine.

 

Glad to see them, Alswend showed them the map — and it fit perfectly with the Professor’s fragment! Now the heroes could find their way to Tisangani. Expedition planning began in earnest, with Alswend agreeing to hire bearers for them and provide whatever other supplies they needed. After a morning’s work, the heroes headed back out into the street in search of lunch... only to find themselves surrounded by a group of cruel-looking Arabs wielding knives! Before the killers could get closer, MacBryde pulled his gun and faced them down. After a tense minute or two, the Arabs sheathed their knives and melted into the crowd.

 

During the confrontation, Jake Brand happened to notice a white face watching from a store window, but it quickly vanished when its owner realized he’d been seen. The heroes headed into the store to try to find who’d been watching them, but it was a dead end — in the alley out back they found a European shoeprint, but that was all. Someone knew they were there and wasn’t happy about it; they were going to have to watch their backs....

 

Supplies secured, the heroes headed into the bush following the map. They made it through a mountain pass to a river, where they broke out their boats and began floating downstream. After some tense moments coming through an area of rapids, where they lost a boat and some supplies but fortunately no men, they continued on down the river to the “Twin Obelisks” marked on the map. There they landed and made their way further into the interior.

 

A couple of days later, as they thought they were getting close to where Tisangani must be, they heard a scream of fear from over a hill! Charging to the rescue, they found a beautiful young woman and an old man being menaced by a lion. One shot from MacBryde’s H&H dispatched the lion. As he approached the woman to see if she were all right, he was astonished when she began speaking simple, broken English! She identified herself as Kinara, princess of Tisangani, and asked for their help to keep a “bad man” from taking the throne of her father, King Togalo.

 

Kinara escorted them back to Tisangani, where they were received with astonishment and wonder. The king gratefully thanked them for rescuing his daughter, but one of his advisors — the fierce warrior-noble Boseda — seemed to dislike them. And according to MacBryde’s keen eye, this was not the first time Boseda had seen white men. Clearly something was going on behind the scenes.

 

Later that evening, the heroes were the guests of honor at a feast, where each of them received a special gift from the king. But later on, during the meal, Boseda engineered an argument with the king and launched a palace coup! The heroes found themselves surrounded by spear-wielding warriors. They were just about to fight back — in fact, MacBryde even managed to draw a gun and get off a shot at Boseda, who clearly knew what a gun was and ducked behind the table to avoid the shot — but the warriors threatened to kill the king if they didn’t surrender. Knowing the jig was up, MacBryde dropped his gun. The three were trussed up like pigs and roughly escorted to a lightless jail cell elsewhere in the palace.

 

After using a Swiss Army Knife hidden in Jake Brand’s boot to cut their bonds, the heroes had an unpleasant visit from an old “friend” of Brand’s — Bruce Forsythe, a British adventurer and mercenary with whom Brand had clashed in the past. Forsythe revealed that he was supplying guns to Boseda in exchange for golden treasures; Boseda intended to launch a campaign of conquest across Central Africa. Gloating that the heroes would soon be dead and that he had once again triumphed over Brand, Forsythe left them to their fate.

 

Using the fragments of rope and their belt buckles, Roy Austin rigged up a tool to lift the bars on their cell door. He got one off, and the three heroes were then able to smash the door open enough to get out... just as another light began coming down the corridor! Taking up a piece of plank, MacBryde got in position to ambush this new threat, only to have to stop himself at the last second when it turned out to be Kinara! She’d gotten away from her captors and brought them their pistols.

 

Thus armed, they headed back to the throne room, where Boseda was occupying the throne and planning his campaign of conquest. An eagle-eyed shot by MacBryde brought that to an end, killing Boseda and terrifying his followers enough to get them to surrender without further fight. The king was freed and put back on the throne. Soon more feasting and celebrating followed, and before leaving to return to civilization the heroes were given more gifts and made honorary members of the tribe!

[Steve Long]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

Just posted the report of last night's game, immediately above. Only three players could make it, but I didn't mind -- two who couldn't be there had read the adventure (in Hero Plus Adventure format), and it was intriguing to run it for only three as opposed to the 5-6 players I've had at conventions. I think the session went really well; the players had lots of great ideas and contributed to the Pulpish spirit of things in a major way.

 

For those who think the adventure sounds like lots of fun, don't forget it's available as a Hero Plus Adventure from the Online Store! It comes complete with maps and a cool Ben Seeman-created cover.

 

Next week will either be Nazi Death Zombies Of The Congo! (if the minis I ordered arrive on time) or something else I concoct as a filler (if not, because one of the main villains of NDZotC is based on this really cool mini...).

[Trebuchet]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

I love reading your campaign logs, Steve! It just makes me all the more eager to start our own Pulp Hero campaign set in 1905. Heck, maybe our own band of stalwart heroes encountered the Tisangani tribe 30 years previously!

[Steve Long]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

Heck, maybe our own band of stalwart heroes encountered the Tisangani tribe 30 years previously!

 

Oooh, back when they had the steampunk spear-throwers!

 

I've actually touched on a few Victorian-era events in my own campaign, in the context of talking about things the heroes' fathers did during their own adventuring days -- the time they captained the Aetherial Clipper to war against the Dragons of Mars, or when they used the DaVinci Bombard to save Paris from the attacks of Dr. Hans Siegfried's Hawk-Men. At some point the heroes will probably encounter the now-wheelchair-bound Dr. Siegfried and his equally evil son, Rutger.

 

At some point I've definitely got to create and run a Return To The Valley Of The Tisangani adventure -- even though the Tisangani don't actually live in a valley.

[Therm]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

This was another excellent game, well done Steve!

 

More of the top notch props this week including the Marsh Map (sectioned and aged), more authentic telegrams and maps of all the locations. He's also added our own period map of the world so that we can place pinpoints in all the places we've been.

 

Highlights of the game include the Arabs backing down (have to love a GM saying "no player's ever done that before"), Roy Austin's dagger throw or Jake coming up with that hidden knife. It's always nice when the guy with Luck gets two 6's.

 

Oh yeah...

 

Keeping score - Gets the girl

Macbryde: 1, Koslov: 1, Everyone else: 0

 

That'll teach Koslov to miss staff meetings

 

 

Brad (Adam MacBryde)

[Trebuchet]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

Oooh, back when they had the steampunk spear-throwers!

 

I've actually touched on a few Victorian-era events in my own campaign, in the context of talking about things the heroes' fathers did during their own adventuring days -- the time they captained the Aetherial Clipper to war against the Dragons of Mars, or when they used the DaVinci Bombard to save Paris from the attacks of Dr. Hans Siegfried's Hawk-Men. At some point the heroes will probably encounter the now-wheelchair-bound Dr. Siegfried and his equally evil son, Rutger.

 

At some point I've definitely got to create and run a Return To The Valley Of The Tisangani adventure -- even though the Tisangani don't actually live in a valley.

Hmmm. In light of the tribal name's similarity to words from the speech of the great apes of Tarzan fame (Mangani, Tarmangani, Bomangani, etc.), I suspect the Tisangani homeland may be located close to Opar.

[Steve Long]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

Hmmm. In light of the tribal name's similarity to words from the speech of the great apes of Tarzan fame (Mangani, Tarmangani, Bomangani, etc.), I suspect the Tisangani homeland may be located close to Opar.

 

LOL. I'm more inclined to think that Burroughs, like I did, looked at the name "Kisangani" on a map of the Congo or in a book about the region and just tweaked it a bit. That way you get something fictional that "sounds African." It's a great little cheat that supplies you with authentic-sounding names easily. Similarly, using now-obscure (to Americans) names for regions of Europe like the Brabant or Thuringia is a great source for cool-sounding kingdom names in Generic Western European-Style Europe Fantasy Settings.

[Trebuchet]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

LOL. I'm more inclined to think that Burroughs' date=' like I did, looked at the name "Kisangani" on a map of the Congo or in a book about the region and just tweaked it a bit. [/quote']Well, maybe in your Pulp Hero game. In our campaign La is still single and available; and lost Opar is probably just over the ridge from Tisangani lands.

 

I'm also interested in how you came up with authentic appearing telegraphs? I used Retro-Gram.com, but it's not quite there. (It'll do if nothing better comes along.) Any suggestions?

[Steve Long]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

I'm also interested in how you came up with authentic appearing telegraphs? I used Retro-Gram.com, but it's not quite there. (It'll do if nothing better comes along.) Any suggestions?

 

Sure, it's easy as pie. Just go to the HP Lovecraft Historical Society site:

 

http://www.cthulhulives.org

 

They sell a collection of authentic props for Pulp-era games that's well worth the price. A lot of the props are, annoyingly, Arkham/Miskatonic specific, but the ones that aren't are still worth it, and some of the ones that are you can work around. Where else are you going to find an authentic Russian Secret Police ID card that you can personalize and print out?

 

Additionally, they give several of the props away for free. One of the freebies is the Western Union 1930 Telegram, which is what I use for my props.

[Steve Long]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

Forgot to mention that the HPLHS also sells a collection of period fonts. I don't own that, but some of 'em look pretty nice. They've also got films, memorabilia, and other kinds of stuff. If you want (and can afford it), they even have an authentic wooden chest diddly-bob with all the props and pieces you'd need to re-create The Call Of Cthulhu as a Pulp adventure or LARP.

 

I wish I had the ability to make props like that. I'd be much happier running The Dordogne Zodiac if I could supply the players with the props necessary to really give it a creepy atmosphere.

[Trebuchet]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

¡Muchas gracias, Señor Long!

[Steve Long]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

De nada. Let us know how it works out for you! Some of the props may not be perfect for a game set in 1905, but I expect they'll be close enough -- or that your ingenuity will show you how to make do.

[Trebuchet]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

Those were fabulously useful! I've already downloaded some of the freebies including the telegrams and fonts, but I'll probably end up springing for both the Props pack and the Font pack as well. Nothing adds period flavor like this kind of stuff. Now I just need some "telegram yellow" paper...

 

A 1900-era map of the world as a custom-made item looks awfully tempting as well.

 

Thanks again!

[Steve Long]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

So far I haven't bothered to try to find "yellow" paper for my telegrams, or an envelope for them. My interest in using props goes only so far, I guess.

 

Shouldn't be too hard to find a 1900 map of the world (if you don't already have one). Once you have something in hand, you could easily commission Keith Curtis or John Lees to do some great versions of it for you that you could print out or play around with.

 

After my campaign map of 1935 gets a few more "red dots of adventure" on it, I'll have to take a pic and post it here to show how I made use of Keith's fine work in PH.

[Therm]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

So far I haven't bothered to try to find "yellow" paper for my telegrams, or an envelope for them. My interest in using props goes only so far, I guess.

 

Speaking as one of the ‘prop recipients’ I don’t really think that envelops (accurate or not) are a value add for the prop. The look and period folding of the telegram creates the perfect feel without the extra time needed to tear into an envelop.

But that’s just me. Other opinions may vary.

 

Brad (Adam MacBryde)

[Steve Long]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

February 3, 2006

Thrilling Hero Tales #4:

NAZI DEATH ZOMBIES OF THE CONGO!

 

Finding themselves with some free time in Central Africa, the heroes decided to follow Adam MacBryde on safari in the eastern Belgian Congo. When day while eating lunch, they saw someone running toward them. As he got closer, they could see it was a young boy. They ran out to see what was going on and got there just as the boy collapsed from sheer exhaustion. Over and over he mumbled “Asadi Nduli,” the name by which MacBryde is known to several tribes in the area.

 

When revived, the boy said that his village was being attacked by moto mazimwi — “fire demons” — who came in the night to steal women and children and take them away! He begged MacBryde to come help them. Responding as true heroes ought to, MacBryde and his friends force-marched it to the village, arriving at dusk the next day.

 

Once there, they could find no traces that would seem to come from fire demons — no scorched footprints in the earth, no burned huts. They also found no men; only women and children lived in the village. They said the men had gone off weeks ago when some white men hired them for high wages to work in a new mine. When asked about it, MacBryde knew nothing about the mine; it must be really new.

 

As night fell, the heroes felt they wouldn’t have long to wait. They loaded up plenty of gourds with water from the village well and took up positions to repel the fire demons. They didn’t have long to wait. Soon in the distance they saw a glow approaching, and as it got closer it split into several humanoid figures. They weren’t on fire, but they were definitely glowing with a sickly yellowish-greenish light. They walked slowly and deliberately.

 

Ricky Rockelli shot one in the leg, and when it didn’t stop walking forward he ran up and hit it with his bat. He definitely felt a crunch of bone, and it fell over... but it immediately started to get up! He noticed an odd expression on the thing’s face, and it let out no cry of pain.

 

MacBryde, realizing that something unusual was happening here, chose not to shoot — “Violence isn’t the solution to all problems,” as he said later — and instead tackled one of the “fire demons.” He hit it hard and knocked it down, but it fell without a grunt of pain... and it quickly threw him off as if he were a rag doll! Nearby, Jake Brand grabbed one in a bearhug, but it broke his hold easily with its immense strength. The other heroes waited to see what would happen as the “fire demons” kept shambling forward.

 

As the “fire demon” MacBryde tackled got up and moved forward, MacBryde realized something — they weren’t attacking anyone as long as no one stopped them from going forward. Rockelli, looking at the “fire demons” closely for the first time in the dark night, discovered they had typical Central African features and were wearing tattered clothes. Roy Austin, thinking fast, used some rope to make an impromptu lariat and lassoed one of the “demons” around the legs and jerked him harmlessly off his feet.

 

Koslov, as the group’s expert on the occult, deduced that these were not demons, but men bewitched by some strange African juju. By splashing pure water in one “demon’s” face, he brought the man out of his trance. Before long the group had “awakened” all the men. They were sickly, ill-nourished, and still glowing, but they were themselves again. They reported that Makalo — a powerful local witchdoctor known to MacBryde as a good man — had “put them in a dream” so they would work tirelessly in the white man’s mine. As Makalo renewed the spell from his house in a nearby abandoned rubber plantation, the men would awaken just enough to remember their lives and return in a trance to the village to take their wives and children back with them.

 

Given the strange glow, the heroes speculated that the men must be mining uranium. “But why would anyone want that?” Roy Austin asked. “It’s not good for much of anything.”

 

After sleeping until late the next day, the heroes headed for the abandoned rubber plantation. When they reached it, MacBryde snuck up to the main house and peered in. There he saw Makalo being served by several of his zombies. He looked worried and pensive. The heroes decided to go in and find out what was happening.

 

When they entered, Makalo looked up with a start, then relaxed when he saw MacBryde and said he was glad Asadi Nduli was there. He ashamedly confessed that he’d helped the white men get zombie workers for their mine because they were holding his wives and children hostage at the mines. He told the heroes how to get there, and said that if they could rescue his family he would stop maintaining the spells and the workers would be freed.

 

The heroes journeyed onward, arriving at a ridge overlooking the mine site by mid-afternoon. They saw a mine leading into a steep hillside overlooking a deep gorge into which a small stream plunged as a waterfall. A group of men — obviously Nazis, judging by their uniforms — were directing groups of zombie workers as they brought up small baskets of rocks out of the mines and into a small ore-processing buildings. There was a guard tower, a motor pool, some canvas-covered pavilions, and a few other buildings they couldn’t immediately identify. Nowhere did they see Makalo’s wives and children.

 

One man — obviously some sort of leader — caught Roy Austin’s eagle eye. Although it was a searing tropical afternoon, he wore a full SS greatcoat, buttoned up. His head was completely covered by an iron mask/helmet, and all the men seemed respectful, if not fearful, of him. Once Roy saw him talking to another man wearing an SS uniform who carried a whip on his hip.

 

Since they saw no piles of mine tailings, the heroes deduced that there must be a tunnel leading into the gorge that was used to dump the leavings. As dusk fell and work at the mine stopped, they took action. Creeping around through the jungle so the guard in the tower wouldn’t see them — he’d already almost spotted them once, when some mischievous monkeys drew attention to where the heroes were hiding — they peered into and down the gorge and confirmed their suspicions. In fact there were two tunnels, one above the other, opening onto the gorge. Seeing this as a “back door” into the facility, they roped themselves together, climbed down into the gorge, and with excruciating and perilous slowness made their way along the gorge wall on small ledges. After several near-falls, including one where Virginia Smith barely caught a rock lip to keep from tumbling into the gorge, the group made it to the tunnel and climbed in.

 

With flashlights and torches they headed into the mine, finding many small chambers and tunnels where zombies had haphazardly cut their way through the rock in search of uranium — it wasn’t a professionally-planned mine at all. One room was a shut-down laboratory where MacBryde found the tracks of a wheelchair on the floor. As they crept further into the tunnel system, they heard a voice shout at them in German: “Hey, who is there? What are you doing down here?”

 

Thinking quickly, MacBryde responded, “We were told to bring some things up from the lab, come help us move them.” Muttering loudly, a Nazi soldier walked into the room where they were... and Jake Brand, waiting by the entrance, knocked him out cold with one punch. Brand took the man’s helmet and uniform and put them on as a disguise.

 

Interrogating their captive, they discovered that Makalo’s family was locked up a few rooms over. They rescued them and led them up out of the mine. Stopping at the mine entrance to hide and observe, they saw that most of the Nazis were apparently in the buildings that seemed to be the mess hall and barracks. But there was still a guard in the tower, and several other guards walking patrol. MacBryde and Austin crept stealthily over to a nearby building and found, as they expected, that it contained mining supplies... including crates of dynamite!

 

As Jake Brand began rigging up plenty of dynamite to destroy the mine, the others, determined to get Makalo’s family to safety, debated the best way to get the women and children to safety past the guards. Suddenly their plans were interrupted when three men — a leader in an SS uniform whose face had an odd look (though they couldn’t see clearly in the dark) and two soldiers walked out of the mess hall and toward the mine! They tried to sneak over to the supply shed, but it was too big a group to go unnoticed. The three men saw them, shouted an alarm, and began firing. The man in the SS uniform cleverly moved to cover at the corner of the ore processing building. With a hurled baseball, Ricky Rockelli hit the guard in the tower in the face, knocking him down before he could open fire with his submachine gun.

 

As the Germans began to respond to the alarm, the heroes knew they had to get the women and children to the truck in the motor pool quickly if they wanted to get away. Their best bet, since none of the rescuees could run quickly, was to pile them into one of the nearby rickshaw-like carts and have strong Roy Austin pull them all out to the truck. Virginia Smith herded them over to the cart and got them in it, in the process taking a bullet wound to the arm from the odd-looking SS man. With a diving shot she forced him to flinch and duck behind cover just long enough for Roy to get to the cart and start pulling it for the motor pool as fast as he could.

 

As Nazi soldiers began pouring out of the mess hall and barracks buildings and opening fire, a man appeared in the mess hall’s upstairs window — the man with the whip. Pointing his Luger at Ricky Rockelli, he fired and hit... from nearly a hundred feet away at night! Fortunately, the shot only caused a flesh wound. Rockelli returned fire with the rifle the heroes took from the Nazi guard in the mine, hitting the SS man with the whip square in the chest and causing him to fall back in a spurt of blood.

 

Having finished his work in the mine, and knowing it was about to blow in a mere twelve seconds, Jake Brand came running out with the last box of dynamite... to which he quickly afixed a fuse. After lighting the fuse, he slid the box underneath the ore storage building. Confident that his Nazi uniform was a sufficient disguise in the chaotic melee, he ran right into the thick of the Nazi soldiers as he headed for the edge of the camp.

 

The other heroes moved slowly but surely toward the motor pool, avoiding as best they could the fire from the Nazi soldiers. MacBryde, underneath the guard tower, saw the guard Rockelli had beaned with a baseball getting up and getting ready to fire, so he shot him from beneath. Other shots were exchanged, but Austin got the cartful of women and children to the truck!

 

As the heroes retreated, Koslov, using his idiomatic German, shouted, “The mine! They’re trying to blow up the mine!” in the hopes of luring the soldiers into the mine before the dynamite went off. It worked — a deep voice from within one of the barracks ordered half the soldiers to go save the mine. As Squad B kept chasing and shooting at the heroes, Squad A of the soldiers ran into the mine... just as a devastating explosion blew it up!

 

The heroes piled into the truck and took off, with Jake Brand running up at the last minute to leap on board. But them MacBryde, crouched in the back shooting at the Nazi soldiers, was knocked back when a heavy rifle bullet hit him hard in the shoulder. Bleeding and badly hurt, he struggled to his feet and looked around quickly to find his assailant... and soon saw the iron-masked man at one corner of the mess hall with a rifle! Aiming quickly, MacBryde fired... hitting the man in the shoulder! He fell back out of sight and the heroes made it safely away!

[Steve Long]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

Wow, these updates are getting a little too long.

 

This week's game was an odd sort of blend, half Weird Menace, half Adventure. I think when I write it up as an HPA I'll try to find a way to inject an action scene early on, the first parts of the game were a little slow. The next time I whip up a Weird Menace game, I'll hold it for a day when only three or four people can show up to play; despite all those Scooby-Doo episodes I fondly remember, I don't think the subgenre works as well with a large group of competent heroes.

[Mightybec]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

The fun thing is' date=' I didn't make that up. The island (now known as Sentosa, IIRC) was called that, and that's what the Malay name translates to. Someday I hope to find out how it got the name. [/quote']

I think it's refering to tigers.

[gojira]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

Now that the adventure is safely over, which miniatures did you use for the Nazis/zombies that were so cool?

[Steve Long]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

The main miniature was the one called "Steel Mask" in the "Weird Villains" collection of the Pulp Figures set (http://www.pulpfigures.com). I call him Eisengesicht ("Ironface," assuming my German dictionary's not lying to me). For the other villains I used other minis from my collection that were "close enough," and of course some zombies for the zombies, but that Steel Mask mini is so damn cool I created a character just for it.

 

I told the heroes Steel Mask was the inspiration for the adventure, so if anyone killed Eisengesicht they'd have to reimburse me for the cost of the mini.

 

For this coming week's adventure, I'm primarily relying on a mess of paper minis (mostly generic cultists and bad guys and such) from SJohn Ross's SPARKS Cairo Moon set.

[James Gillen]

Re: THRILLING HERO TALES — A Campaign Chronicle

 

The main miniature was the one called "Steel Mask" in the "Weird Villains" collection of the Pulp Figures set (http://www.pulpfigures.com).

 

ooh, Ilsa and the She-Wolves!!

 

JG