TheTemplar Posted March 15, 2006 Report Share Posted March 15, 2006 Pardon the shouting. I told Frydaddy, our old GM, that I'd keep him up to speed on the continuation of The Defenders campaign. I figured as long as I'm updating him, might as well post it to share with the rest of the class. Seems Herodom likes to read about what's going on in other campaigns, anyway. First, a bit about the campaign & setting (with acknowledgement to The Question Man as I've used the format with which he preceded the Champions of Vancouver post & the Champions book that provided the outline.) Campaign Description: This is a standard superhero campaign. The PC's are superheroes in a modern day world populated by superhumans. They are a government sanctioned, (newly) U.N. Recognized, law enforcement agency who fight against supervillains, evil agencies, and other villainous organizations outside the norm for normal law enforcement, in addition to day-to-day "street crime" as needed. A reasonably heroic motivation is expected of each player character, and at least a Common/Strong Aversion to Killing (if not a Common/Total Code Vs. Killing) is required for all player characters. Importance of the Player Characters: The Player Character's are the premiere superteam of Earth at this time. They are by no means the only group, but they are considered by all to be "the best of the best." They are a division of PRIMUS, and primarily deal with PRIMUS and the US government through a man named Cromwell, their longtime friend-turned PRIMUS liason. At this point, the campaign has been running for about 3 years, and The Defenders have averted repeated disasters, including at least 3 threats that would've destroyed or forever changed the face of Earth as we know it. World Description:The campaign world as it is now is identical to our own, except for the presence of superpowers through all manner of sources - natural superpowers, mutants, mutates, magic, and nearly any other sort of metahuman ability source imaginable, as well as highly-skilled normals without superpowers who also fight crime with their skills or other abilities. It is a mixture of some ideas from "The Champions Universe" with some other home-brew settings as well as several other fictional continuities. Millenium City does not exist, Detroit having never been destroyed by Dr. Destroyer. The great cataclysmic event that shapes The Defenders Universe was "The White Event" which occurred on June 2nd, 1985. A massive battle between the superheroes and supervillains of Earth was happening near Wichita, KS. As the opposing forces met eachother, a brilliant light exploded around them, it's immense force rippled through the multiverse in every dimension. When the light subsided, the entire city of Wichita and all its population had disappeared, along with all the supervillains, leaving only the heroes behind, except Sentinel, their great leader, who also had vanished. The only remnant found by survivors was the shattered remains of Dr. Destroyer's old helmet. The surviving heroes used their skills, powers and abilities to build Paragon City on the cite where Wichita stood, much in the same way as Millenium City was built over Detroit in the CU. Morality The Defenders is mostly a four-color campaign. In comic book terms, it could be best described as "Tarnished Silver." Not as idealistic and black & white as a Silver Age story would be, but also nowhere near as dark and gritty as an Iron Age campaign would be. While the (U.S.) Government is by and large in support of supers and should be thought of as an Ally, there are always people within every organization working their own agendas, or otherwise trying to subvert the heroes. There are also many more blatant enemies - supervillains, evil organizations like VIPER or ARGENT or DEMON, terrorits, and other criminal groups. All PC's are required to have some form of Code of the Hero, CvK or at the very least Aversion to Killing, and are expected to behave like 4-color comic-book superheroes groups like The JLA or the Avengers. Realism: As realistic as possible in a world where men can fly, lift a trawler out of the ocean, or circle the globe in less than 10 seconds. There is a substantial amount of Suspension of Disbelief expected. Technology is a mixture of reality modern day tech and ultra-high supertech. Magic exists and is a powerful force in the world. The world has been repeatedly visited by aliens and other-dimensional beings. Outlook Mostly positive. There will be plenty of elements of humor as well as drama mixed in, but in the end, it can be reasonably expected for Good to triumph over Evil most of the time. Continuity: Serial. The sessions are framed in the context of being a highly popular real-world comic book about the PCs and their adventures (with several PCs having their own solo spin-off comic titles or making guest appearances in the books of other heroes.) Character Building Guidelines: - Starting Points: 200 - Maximum Disad points: 150 - Maximum Points from any One Disad Category: 50 - NCM: N/A - Hit locations: N/A - Knockdown: Knockback is used unless an attack specifies "Knockdown" (IE: Legsweep) - Long-Term END rules: N/A - Limited Push: Yes. Must be dramatically appropriate and an EGO roll required. Various penalties or bonuses to EGO roll apply based on given circumstances. House Rules - All characters receive EGO/5 in Mental Defense, regardless of whether they purchase 5 CP worth of MD or not. - In addition to XP rewards, players will also be given Plot Points at the end of each story arc, which can be used to change the outcome of a failed dice roll or complete some other dramatic task in game. The max PP's any player can have at any time is 7. PP's can be traded for XP's at an exchange rate of 5 PP's for 1 XP. Plot points are awarded based upon actions taken in session (good RP, being highly successful in highly improbable situations, adding their thoughts or their characters insights to this log, etc.) (Full House Rule sheet attached below.) The Defenders -Fantastic-Man: Elected leader of the team since its inception. Archetype: Brick; Powerset: Immortality, Flight, Density Manipulation (Density increase, Desolid) -Nighthawk: Mega-millionaire industrialist who uses his superior intellect, martial training, and high-tech supergear to fight supercriminals and street-level crime. Archetype: Martial Artist/ Gadgeteer; Powerset: Umm... Batman without Bats. -The Mac Bashtee (formerly Albatross): The Mystical Defender of Earth resurrected, and appointed to The Defenders by the Gods of Avalon. Archtype: Mystic; Powerset: Divine/Nature-based magic Multipower -La Esperjisma: Shape-shifting mistress of espionage who also uses her medical knowledge to aid the team. Archetype: Metamorph; Powerset: Shapeshifting, Growth, Shrinking -Tommorow Boy: Teenager from the future sent back in time by Fantastic-Man to warn The Defenders of the greatest threat mankind will ever face... which due to head trauma suffered while travelling backward through time, Tomorrow-Boy has forgotten. Archetype: Gadgeteer; Powerset: Psychokineses & a Gadget VPP. -Warforge: Created in the forges of the Titan Vulcan & guided by an innate sense of justice, as well as several tasks magically programmed into him by his creator, the mystical sentient construct known only as Warforge has crawled through some of the most unspeakable hells to reach Earth. Archetype: Brick; Powerset: STR & an arm capable of becoming many different weapons. -Tornado!: A quick-footed, quick-witted college student who uses an equal mixture of speed and irritation to foil villains. Archetype: Speedster; Powerset: Speed, DEX, Speedster tricks. (NPC) -Cromwell: The group's government liason. Fantastic-Man reports directly to him. He is affiliated with PRIMUS, but no one knows exactly to what extent. (NPC) -Lydia: A cyborg police officer from the future who ended up in our time during the temporal crisis that resulted from one of The Defenders' battles with Time Master. She works at the base, doing upkeep maintenance and improvement work on the team's vehicle, The D-Jet. (NPC) -Noelle Peterson: Base receptionist and girlfriend of Tornado! Formerly known as Girl-Hostage-Of-The-Week, her last run in with DNPCnappers exposed her to chemicals which brought out her latent metahuman abilities. She can create portals to move herself and others from one dimension to another, but hasn't mastered the ability to control this power yet. (NPC) Up Next: Season IV, Issue 1: Enter the Terra-King! (pt.1) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheTemplar Posted March 16, 2006 Author Report Share Posted March 16, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! Enter the Terra King! (pt.1) Following harrowing fight with the Supervillain M'Bomba (named for the Zulu God of Death,) whose plan to use high-tech Terraformers to convert the surface of the Earth into the fertile grasslands that once covered his African home were narrowly averted by The Defenders, aided in no small part by The Mac Bashtee (formerly the superhero Albatross who was killed by Talisman,) The Defenders had hoped to enjoy a period of relative peace. However, the peace they hoped for would not last long. A massive temporal disturbance alerted The Defenders that something was happening at The Pit (a seemingly bottomless hole in the Earth left behind after The White Event in 1985. Nothing or no one to have gone into the pit have ever been seen again. All attempts to probe it with recording devices have proven futile.) Someone.. or something.. was coming up through it. However, The Defenders were not the first to discover this. The supervillain sorceress Carman was on the scene before the Defenders arrived, and had already informed the large metal golem that had come through The Pit that one of the Defenders was in fact the evil that Warforge had been sent up from Vulcan's Forge to destroy. The fight was short lived, as Carman's lies didn't hold Warforge's mind for very long, and the sorceress fled. Warforge informed The Defenders that he had been sent to aid in the Earth's coming battle with an entity known as The Dragon - referring to The Night Dragon, a being of pure, malevolent evil, who takes the form of a great serpent, shrouded in darkness. Glad to have the extra aid, The Defenders led Warforge back to their base, The Headless Cross. They were in for yet another surprise upon their return to The Cross, for awaiting them there was another visitor. Chiron the Centaur, Uncle of The Mac Bashtee had arrived from his home in Avalon to stay with The Defenders to help them train for the battle with The Dragon. The training was grueling, exercising the teams' minds as well as their bodies in a contest against eachother. However, the training session was cut short by an incoming communique from Cromwell, the team's PRIMUS liason. He informed the group that a contact of his in Algeria had been on the trail of some curious apparent metahuman activity when he had suddenly gone missing. He asked The Defenders to travel to Algeria, find Cromwell's friend, and help him with his investigation. Once in Algeria, The Defenders set the D-Jet down in a secluded section of the Sahara where Fantastic-Man, Mac Bashtee, Tomorrow Boy, Warforge and Tornado! made camp. Nighthawk and La Esperjisma, meanwhile, made their way (in cognito) to the nation's capitol in order to find out what they could about Cromwell's contact, who worked for the Algerian government. Their search led them to a warehouse where they discovered they had been asking the wrong questions. Cromwell's friend had been killed and Nights and LE found themselves captured by his murderers who didn't want these two foreigners snooping around in their business anymore. Meanwhile, back in the Sahara, Tornado and Warforge, who were supposed to be on watch duty, failed to notice the large armada surrounding the dune clusters the D-Jet was hiding in. Narrowly escaping the loss of their only vehicle to a tactical short-range missile, The Defenders sprang into action against their assailants, who appeared to be men dressed for desert travel, wearing the customary robes and headdresses of nomadic sahara tribes, but with modern day military weaponry. But, by the time the Defenders reached the areas where these men were, all they found were the robes lying on the ground. It was as though their attackers had disappeared into the sands. The tracks from the military vehicles led the five to a remote base that appeared to be an abandoned military outpost. They managed to stow themselves away on a passing cargo truck only to discover that in addition to crates full of arms being smuggled out of the country, the truck also held Nighthawk and La Esperjisma, who had managed to escape their smuggler captors long enough to stow themselves away on the back of one of their trucks. The truck took them into the center of the compound, where a large number of mercenaries and smugglers were loading cargo onto a large carrier plane. Out of all the mercenaries present though, three stuck out. One was a man wearing silver-grey and red body armor with a large blade where his right hand should've been, whom they heard the mercenaries referring to as "Cornerstone." The others were a woman whose body appeared to have been made entirely out of Quartz who was aptly called "Crystal" and what could only be described as a Minotaur named "Bedrock." Knowing that these 3 were not only appearing to smuggle arms out of the country but also that they were in league with those who murdered Cromwell's friend, The Defenders leapt out of the truck and attacked. They fared well, until the Algerian government intervened, insisting that they were in complete control of the situation and ordering the Defenders to leave at once. Most of the Defenders complied and returned to America, but La Esperjisma used her shapeshifting abilities to disguise herself as one of the supervillains (Crystal - who had been captured and taken aboard the D-Jet without notice) to keep an eye on what was going on. Crystal refused to give the team any information, and though he hated to set her free, Cromwell advised that by detaining her when she hadn't been officially and legally extradited as a prisoner, the team was in violation of many international laws. Crystal was released, and The Defenders only lead seemed to be La Esperjisma, who had insinuated herself into deep cover in the smuggling group and learned that the three supervillains as well as all the smugglers were in the employ of The Terra-King, a Geokinetic mastermind whose endgame was, as of yet, a mystery. To Be Continued... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enforcer84 Posted March 18, 2006 Report Share Posted March 18, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! Cool Thread Templar! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cardinal Posted March 19, 2006 Report Share Posted March 19, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to TheTemplar again. Good stuff. Keep it coming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheTemplar Posted March 20, 2006 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! (Thanks guys! Almost caught back up now - 2 session posts to go.) A Heinous Crime As La Esperjisma continued to keep an eye on things shaping up in Algeria (meaning: her player had one of those 'mandatory sociable work activities' to attend and couldn't be at this session) the rest of the team tried to dig up whatever they could stateside. (Only had 3 players at this session, 2 regulars and 1 new guy who was possibly joining on a regular basis, so had to divert from the Terra-King scenario briefly.) Nighthawk, Warforge and Tornado! were handling the late shift one evening when a Trouble Alert came in from Wahltech Manufacturing - the same company that had developed Paragon City's W.I.S.U.R.D. computerized auto-drive for all traffic within the city limits (Wahltech's Integrated Systematic Urban-Relay Drive) which had dramatically reduced motor vehicle accidents. Nighthawk's contacts and sources within the corporate world of Paragon City had informed him that Wahltech's latest high-tech forays included development of some sort of new prototype ultra-high yield Electromagnet. He alerted Warforge and Tornado! and the 3 raced toward Wahltech's main R&D complex. Upon their arrival, the loading dock doors on one side of the warehouse area were opened, and two unmarked white vans with tinted windows were parked outside. The trio waited for any sign of activity, and sure enough, a VIPER agent emerged from the back of one of the vans, carrying a large box into the building. Hoping to take the VIPER agents inside by suprise, Warforge and Tornado! stormed in through the dock door while Nighthawk snuck in through a skylight in the roof. Warforge easily dropped one of the agents while Tornado! disarmed several of the others. Nighthawk dropped down from the ceiling and engaged the Scarlet Serpent agent who was frantically giving orders to the other four still-concious agents in the main warehouse. A blast of energy from one of the windows informed The Defenders that they were not alone in this fight, as a powered-armor clad hero identifying himself as "Spectro" joined the fray, blasting multi-colored beams of energy from his wrist blaster, each with a unique effect. He informed the Defenders that the X-Ray capabilities from his visor had identified at least 2, maybe 3 more agents in an adjoining room, but that some strong electromagnetic interference was distorting his vision through the walls. As Spectro and Nighthawk wrapped up the remaining agents in the warehouse area, Warforge and Tornado! rushed to the door leading into the next room. Warforge had barely reached the door when a blast from the V-12 "Destructor" cannon on the other side of the door blasted through, sending the mammoth metal man through the air landing several dozen feet away. Tornado! rushed into the room hoping to disassemble the cannon before the other 2 agents of the VIPER 8-team could fire it again when he was introduced to the cold steel fist of the true mastermind behind this operation - Heinous, a high ranking VIPER supervillain who was once Fantastic-Man's protege, now more machine than man and wholly evil. "We can play with these twerps later," Heinous barked to the two agents manning the cannon. "Blow that vault door off so we can get what we came for." As the agents scurried to re-aim the Destructor cannon at the large vault door inside the room, they were all suddenly surrounded in complete blackness as Nighthawk's Darkness Bomb exploded at their feet. The two agents managed to move the cannon into an area just out of the darkness cloud while Heinous fired several cone-shaped blasts into the darkness to keep Nights at bay. With the cannon re-calibrated, the agents fired again and the massive vault door could not withstand the powerful blast. With the vault door now opened, the cyborg Heinous turned and entered the vault area. This gave Nighthawk enough time to quickly dispatch the two agents operating the cannon from the cover of his own darkness. Heinous emerged from the vault carrying the prototype electromagnet as Nighthawk emerged from the darkness. It appeared that Heinous was about to attack as Nighthawk whipped one of his special EMP Throwing Hawks squarely hitting one of Heinous's cybernetic control implants (yep... rolled a 3.) Now unable to fight, Heinous grimaced in pain, then twisted his lips into a sneer and seethed, "Tell Frank (Fantastic-Man) I said Hi," and then took off into the air, smashed right through the ceiling, and flew off into the night, prototype electromagnet in hand. The police and several PRIMUS agents arrived to help process the captured VIPER agents. Warforge and Tornado! recovered just in time to have missed the whole thing. The Defenders thanked Spectro for his help and welcomed him back anytime to aid in the fight against villainy. After informing the law enforcement and Mr. Kenneth Wahl, CEO of Wahltech, who had also arrived on the scene, of all that had happened and about the theft of the prototype, The Defenders returned to base. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheTemplar Posted March 20, 2006 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! Enter The Terra-King! (pt.2) Immediately following the incident at Wahltech, Nighthawk, Warforge and Tornado! returned to the Headless Cross where they found Fantastic-Man and The Mac Bashtee awaiting them. Nights filled the other two in on what had happened, and then the five heroes decided to call it a night. The following morning, Jack Kirby (Nighthawk) had an important meeting with Dr. Ivan Lazarus, CEO of Lazarus Telecomm. Kirby's company Omnitech and Lazarus Telecomm had been working for several weeks on a joint project developing next-generation spy satellites for the U.S. Government. They had made several strides forward during the meeting when a loud explosion followed by a tremendous commotion from the street below Omnitech's World HQ, a skyscraper located in the heart of downtown Paragon City. Both dashed to the window in Jack's office to see Grond on a full-blown rampage down on the street below. In an obviously uncontrolled fury, Grond was tossing vehicles through the air, uprooting lightposts and smashing them into windows, and roaring at the terrified citizens fleeing his destructive wrath. "There's a shelter below," Kirby said to Lazarus. "You should go there... now." "Yes," agreed Lazarus. "You're right. I'll go.. make sure it's safe," he replied in a somewhat curious manner. Kirby's suspicions were aroused, but he didn't have time to think about that now. As soon as Lazarus had run out of his office, Jack Kirby depressed the secret button under his desk exposing the false wall which led to the small side chamber where he kept a spare Nighthawk costume along with many of his more useful devices. Meanwhile, back at the Headless Cross, the Trouble Alert sounded again. Grond was destroying downtown Paragon City! Fantastic-Man rallied the team and they started to leave for The Mac Bashtee's grove, located right next to the Headless Cross, where they could use the latent magics of the place to Treeport to Paragon Park, located a block away from Omnitech Tower. However, they had barely left the Comm Room when a 2nd Trouble Alert went off. Paragon State Bank was being robbed! The bank was just on the other side of Paragon Park from the Omnitech building, so the group decided that Fantastic-Man and Tornado! would go help Nighthawk with Grond, while The Mac Bashtee, Warforge & Tomorrow Boy would go to the bank to try to foil the robbery there. Fantastic-Man and Tornado! arrived at the Omnitech building to find Grond standing in the intersection holding a minivan (with a family of 5 inside) over his head. He launched it at Fantastic-Man with all his strength, but the mighty superhero would not be so easily outdone. Fantastic-Man caught the vehicle in mid-air, and set it safely on the ground, encouraging the driver to get as far away as possible... and quickly. "Where's Nights?!" Asked Tornado! as he sped towards Grond to attempt to dizzy him with his Superspin maneuver. "Up here," came Nighthawk's gravel-voiced reply as the Dark Defender dove from the top of the Omnitech Building, falling headfirst toward the pavement below, and flaring his cape-wings at the last possible second to glide safely to the ground. The three continued to fight the four-armed monstrousity before Nighthawk and Fantastic-Man noticed something had changed since their last encounter with the creature that was once the 2-bit felon Sidney Potter. His skin appeared to be covered by some strange sort of moss. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn't slowing him down any. He landed a devastating backhand blow on Tornado!, sending the speedy young hero sprawling to the pavement. "Get to the bank!" said Fantastic-Man. "I'll take care of Grond." Grond had been badly dizzied by repeated Superspins from Tornado! and aside from an extremely lucky hit that took Tornado! out of the fight, had not been able to keep his balance well enough to fight. Fantastic-Man grabbed the hulking beast and soared up into the air with him. Nighthawk meanwhile called for his car to come pick him up and sped off for the bank as Grond came crashing back down into the pavement. Over at the bank, The Mac Bashtee, Warforge and Tomorrow-Boy arrived to find the bank completely overgrown by a dense cluster of vegetation. It looked as though a rain forest had exploded through the front windows and the glass doors of the elegant building. Vines twitched and twisted and thick branches barred their entrance through the front door. The Mac Bashtee turned into a small snake and managed to slide through the thick foliage to get inside where he saw five supervillains; Hot Rod (a speedster villain the Defenders had crossed paths with a few times before,) Torque ( a brick with the ability to steal abilities and powers from metahumans and use them himself for a short time,) and three villains he didn't recognize. Torque and Hot-Rod were keeping an eye on the dozen or so hostages that were huddled in the corner, two other villains were in the vault - the door of which had been ripped off by the massive vines and tendrils wiggling outward from the mass of plants, and one villain whose skin appeared to be covered in bark and thorns. This last one, called "Thorn" by the others, was questioning the bank president who was hanging upside down by vines. "Open box 273 now!" Thorn demanded the quivering bank president. Meanwhile, outside the bank, Warforge's Battlearm transformed into an axe, and he took a mighty swing at the plants blocking his path. However, they quickly regrew to cover the opening he had made. Inside, a vine extended over to Thorn, blossomed a flower on the end and rose up toward his ear. He bent his head slightly as if he was listening to the plant, and then turned to the two villains inside the vault. "Tachyon! Pulsar! We've got supers outside. Deal with them." With a wave of his hand, Thorn created an opening through the foliage leading outside, and Tachyon and Pulsar rushed out to attack. Pulsar attacked first, blasting Warforge with a burst of green energy that seemed to be ineffectual. Tachyon chuckled, "My turn," as he used his teleportation powers to impale Warforge with a nearby Lightpost. Warforge simply broke the pole off in front of and behind him, and his enchanted metallic body simply absorbed the rest. Shocked, Tachyon radioed back into the bank, "We're gonna need backup..." Hot Rod, never known for being a thinker, charged out of the bank at full speed, the long hair at the back of his mullet whistling in the wind. Upon seeing Warforge he whistled, "Wooo-Eeee!! I'm gonna peel me open a tin can!!" Warforge braced for the impact as Hot Rod slammed into him. Unfortunately for Hot Rod, Warforge didn't so much as flinch, and the superfast villain slid unconciously to the ground. Meanwhile, Torque had also emerged from the bank, and joined Tachyon and Pulsar in attempting to take down the metal behemoth. Tomorrow Boy took advantage of the fact that all the villain's attention was focused on Warforge and began rescuing hostages from the inside of the bank. Meanwhile, inside, The Mac Bashtee shapeshifted back into his human form and attacked Thorn. Thorn's plants were proving to be a problem until The Mac Bashtee used his weather control powers to create a severe cold front, covering the inside of the bank (and a 4 block radius) in a blustering blizzard. Thorn fought hard to maintain his own control over the jungle environment he had created, but in the end, Mac Bashtee's power was too much for him. Exhausted from the struggle, Thorn collapsed to the floor. Warforge was downed outside, and Pulsar was charging up what he intended to be the coup de grace when Nighthawk's car sped around the corner. The roof slid open and The Dark Defender launched himself out of the vehicle, and landed a flying kick to Pulsar's mid section, knocking the flying villain to the ground with a resounding thud. Nights then stood to challenge Tachyon and Torque, both of whom were still reeling from Nights's impressively awesome entrance. Torque, who had absorbed Warforges Multi-function arm power had transformed his arm into a gatling gun and raised it to attack Nighthawk, when the pavement around him turned dark, a circle of darkness growing wider and wider around him, as though he was in the shadow of something. Torque looked up to see Grond, falling from the sky, directly toward him. He had just enough time to utter, "Oh Sh..." before the four-armed monster flattened him, both villains crashing deep into the pavement. A triumphant Fantastic-Man floated in the air above, his arms folded across his chest and a satisfied smirk on his face. Tachyon, realizing that his chances of getting paid for this job had gone through the pavement with Grond and Torque, vanished in a flash of blue light. Mac Bashtee dragged Thorn out of the bank as the plants died away and the mind-controlling spores covering the slumbering Grond receded. PRIMUS and the local police had arrived on the scene about the same time as Nighthawk, and a PRIMUS detention team subdued the five captured villains and prepped them for transport to the temporary holding facility at The Defender's base. Thorn laughed as he was loaded onto the PRIMUS transport vehicle. "You may have defeated me, heroes," he spat, "but you'd never stop The Terra-King!" Thorn was shoved aboard and the vehicle took off for the team's base, accompanied by Warforge and Tornado!. The Defenders spoke with the bank manager, who agreed to let them examine the contents of the safety deposit box Thorn had wanted to open, hoping that there might be some link there to his parting remarks about The Terra-King. They found only a small diskette. The box had been rented in 1989 by an Anthony Milliondeep, who had paid twenty-years worth of rental charges in cash. The disk was locked by a six letter password. A search for Milliondeep in the team's database yielded only two results, both connected to VIPER activity. The encryption on the disk (combined with the practical obseleteness of the technology) proved to be too much for Tomorrow-Boy's 98th century IQ to overcome, but Fantastic-Man deduced that only one man he knew of associated with VIPER would be able to encrypt it that well, and it became obvious that Milliondeep was a pseudonym for Megalo, as in Dr. Anton Megalo, a criminal supergenius in the employ of VIPER. (Mega = Million, Lo (low) = Deep ) They managed to open the disk only to discover that it contained one line of data - a series of numbers followed by an N, another series followed by an E (which the team correctly identified as global positioning coordinates) and the name "Xoruba." They returned to the base to process the coordinates, and discovered that they pointed to a location North by Northeast of Cairo, Egypt, very near the Giza Plateau. It was then that they received a communique from La Esperjisma. She had managed to infiltrate the Terra-King's operation in Algeria, and had discovered a massive underground tunnel heading east, hundreds of feet below the surface. Her transmission, however, was suddenly cut short when she heard someone coming and then her comm link went dead. TO BE CONCLUDED... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheTemplar Posted March 20, 2006 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! Enter The Terra-King (pt.3) The D-Jet soared over the Atlantic toward Africa with Fantastic-Man, The Mac Bashtee, Nighthawk, Tomorrow Boy, Warforge and Tornado! aboard. All six were worried about La Esperjisma, their missing comrade. Ever since her last transmission to them they had not been able to make contact with her, and you didn't have to be as paranoid as Nighthawk to deduce that something bad had happened. Fantastic-Man had briefed Cromwell on what they had found on the disc before they left. Cromwell advised that whatever was at that location was most likely the key to capturing The Terra-King and stopping his plans. He also informed Fantastic-Man that in light of the red tape that had halted their first attempt to stop Terra-King, he had been coordinating with UNTIL and had secured International Police Powers for The Defenders, giving them recognized law enforcement rights in any UN member nation. Meanwhile, The Mac Bashtee had done some searching through his extensive collections of the worlds Mythologies and his various other books on lore of ancient civilizations, looking for any mention of the name, "Xoruba." (If you want to know what he found, the information can be found in the "VIPER: Coils of the Serpent" sourcebook - chapter 1.) As they sped toward Africa, they continued to try to reach La Esperjisma, but all they got was static. Tomorrow-Boy's 98th century IQ allowed him to figure out a way to rewire the D-Jet's comm device to trace the carrier signal from La Esperjisma's communicator, which led the team to a seemingly abandoned hotel in the middle of Cairo's slums. Tomorrow-Boy's X-Ray goggles provided him the ability to get a count on the people in the building - about a dozen or so men, all with machine guns - AK-47's by the shape of them - some on patrol in the halls, but 4 in a room with a fifth person sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, who appeared to be bound there. Surmising that was where they were keeping LE, Nighthawk and The Mac Bashtee snuck in through the roof entrance while Fantastic-Man went to the ground level and kicked in the front door to create a distraction. Tomorrow-Boy, keeping an eye on the terrorists' movements from aboard the D-Jet, where the 16 yr. old was attempting to keep the jet hovering safely, since letting Tornado! or Warforge have a crack at the controls was unanimously determined to be a bad idea. Several of the men not in the room guarding LE began descending the stairs to the old hotel's lobby to see what had triggered their alarm sensors. This allowed Nighthawk and The Mac Bashtee to get into LE's room, quickly dispatch the four guards inside and get LE back out to the roof. Meanwhile, the other terrorists reached the lobby, only to see the world's most publicly known superhero awaiting them. They immediately turned and retreated back up the stairs. With La Esperjisma finally back with them, The Defenders dusted off and headed for the coordinates labeled "Xoruba" on the disc they had retrieved at Paragon National Bank. The region appeared to be a barren wasteland, but after some careful searching, Fantastic-Man discovered an area deep below the surface surrounded by a magical barrier. His body could not pass through, even while his density was shifted to the point of desolidification. However, the creators of this barrier had not counted on a being of Fantastic-Man's strength finding it. His mighty punch set a crack in the field that spread and spread until the mystical barrier crumbled. Inside the sealed area, The Defenders found a chamber, lit by mysteriously glowing crystals that Tomorrow-Boy identified as being Rigelian in origin - and not thought to have been brought to Earth until the Sol/Rigel Trade Agreement of 2517 A.D. All along the walls and ceiling of the chamber, pictograms told the story of 3 serpents (again, for the full story, see "VIPER: Coils Of The Serpent - Ch. 1.") It appeared this structure was at one time a shrine to Xoruba, as evidenced by an enormous stone statue of a great snake wearing a headdress like one worn by the pharoahs of ancient Egypt, matching one of the snakes they had seen in the pictograms. "Learned a bit more history now, have you?" came a rough, deep voice from the dark of the cave that had led The Defenders here. "I never would've found this place without you... Not after you thrashed Thorn. I knew that vegetable wasn't worth the money I paid him." Cornerstone, Crystal and Bedrock stepped into view. "But, here we are, and soon Xoruba's Headdress and the secret of Immortality will belong to..." a mis-shapen creature with a horribly repulsive face wearing armor that looked like stone stepped into view, "... The Terra-King!!" The battle started off well for The Defenders. Mac Bashtee targeted Crystal with a brilliant burst of pure sunlight, the light from which reflected off her crystalline body, blinding Bedrock and the subterranean Terra-King, whose eyes clearly did not welcome such a bright light after living in darkness for so long. Fantastic-Man immediately put Terra-King on the ground, flying into him with all his strength. Crystal returned the favor to Mac Bashtee, drawing on the light from the crystals in the room and blasting him with a brilliant flash of her own that left the godson blinded. La Esperjisma shrank to her smallest size and made her way toward Bedrock the Minotaur while Warforge attacked the horned hulk. Bedrock got up, roaring and snorting in an obvious rage, and seemed to grow even more massive before their eyes. He stomped on the ground, knocking all the others to their feet, except Tomorrow-Boy who had begun to climb up the snake statue to try to beat Terra-King to the Headdress. Without warning, La Esperjisma, who was now directly underneath the rampaging Bedrock, grew to her full maximum size, nearly reaching 50 foot ceiling of the room, sending Bedrock first into the stone ceiling, and then crashing down to the floor, where he lay unconcious. This move, however, drew Cornerstone's immediate attention. He drew his .50 ca Desert Eagle and seemed to drop into some sort of martial stance. He found just the right pressure point he was aiming for on the giant woman standing before him and fired, dropping LE to the floor, unconcious and bleeding. Terra-King managed to break away from his melee with Fantastic-Man long enough to raise half a dozen of his Geokinetic Minions from the stones surrounding the room. Fantastic-Man, using two of the stone minions as weapons, managed to put Terra-King down again, driving him deep into the earth with repeated blows. The other defenders managed to take down Crystal, Cornerstone, and the other rock constructs. With his last ounce of strength, Terra-King raised his hand and laughed, "So be it... if I can't have Xoruba's Headdress... no one can!" And the stone around the statue began to crumble as the statue started to sink into the earth. Warforge, who was standing nearby, managed to grab the headdress off of the statue in time before the statue crumbled and fell into the opening darkness below. The Defenders gathered up their own fallen along with Terra-King, Crystal, Cornerstone and Bedrock and barely escaped through the cave as the Temple of Xoruba crumbled into the bowels of the Earth all around them. GM notes: Our former GM, Frydaddy, ran Pt. 1 of that story arc for us before he moved. Pt. 2 was my first time GM'ing Champions for The Defenders as a whole (only 2 actual members were present for the "Heinous" session, and they are also part of my FH group,) but I'm pretty pleased with the results. The team worked really well together and succeeded in Pt. 3 much more highly than I had even expected. I've got a few style things to get used to, having run only Fantasy Hero in the last 3 years, and hopefully combat will get more and more smoothed out as we go. I think I'll need to up the challenge for them a bit going forward, but all in all, I'd call this first story arc of Season IV a complete success. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheTemplar Posted March 20, 2006 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! On the slate for the next session: The Mac Bashtee's player continues his Star Hero/ Cthulu game toward its climactic resolution before we revert back to Champions for a while. The next issue of The Defenders is titled "Something Wicked This Way Comes..." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rburroughs69 Posted March 21, 2006 Report Share Posted March 21, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! Oh, and I wasn't running Nighthawk in the last session, or I would have thought about LE being tracked with my massive paranoia. Just throwing that out there Jo-el of Souuuuth Dakata. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheTemplar Posted March 21, 2006 Author Report Share Posted March 21, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! I'm not even sure Jo-El (Warforge) even reads these forums. We should start quizzing him each session to find out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fry Daddy Posted March 21, 2006 Report Share Posted March 21, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! Very cool. Better plot than I had planned. You make me proud, Templar. SNIFF! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheTemplar Posted March 21, 2006 Author Report Share Posted March 21, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! Hey, you planted this whole thing, man. Way I see it, I'm just a groundskeeper. Anytime you're gonna be back in town let us know. We'll keep a seat warm for ya. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheTemplar Posted March 28, 2006 Author Report Share Posted March 28, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! Change of plans. Original next issue titled "Something Wicked This Way Comes..." has been bumped. We're on the verge of wrapping up a Star Hero Meets CoC game and I think if the first session back to Champions was something primarily mystic-based the gang would completely run out of sanity points. So, next issue won't be 'Something Wicked..." That'll get bumped to 2 issues from now. NEXT issue will be... err.. well.. I'd TELL you the name of it but that'd make the Freak of the Week too obvious, so you'll just have to wait until (tentatively) late April to find out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rburroughs69 Posted April 25, 2006 Report Share Posted April 25, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! I wouldn't call the person behind the last session on Saturday a Freak of the Week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheTemplar Posted April 26, 2006 Author Report Share Posted April 26, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! No, he might take a serious offense to that moniker. That would be ill-advised. Day Of The Destroyer Season IV - Issue 4 (04/22/06) Present: Fantastic-Man Nighthawk Tomorrow Boy Warforge The Tornado! (NPC) Spectro (NPC) ________ (Some plot details will be omitted, as this is a published adventure.) Jack Kirby's Monday morning began with yet another meeting with Ivan Lazarus, CEO of Lazarus Telecomm. The weekend's launch of the 4 ultra-high tech telecommunications relay satellites their companies had jointly developed was a complete success and went off without a hitch. This morning's meeting was doubtlessly going to be a lot of recapping results and bureaucratic self-backpatting. But, when Lazarus arrived, he definitely seemed troubled. He explained that he had not been completely honest with Jack about the nature of their business arrangement, and that the satellites were, in fact, NOT strictly for communications purposes. He introduced Jack to the man who had initially approached Lazarus about developing the satellites - Mr. Cromwell. Cromwell and Lazarus explained the dual-role of the satellites to Jack - that in addition to serving their known purposes as telecom relays, they also put America squarely at the forefront of the intelligence community with their unprecedented espionage capabilities. Their meeting was cut short, however, when all three men were simultaneously notified of a crime on the outskirts of Paragon City. At that same time, halfway across town, the Trouble Alert sounded, immediately alerting Fantastic-Man, The Tornado!, and Warforge that evil was afoot. They contacted Tomorrow Boy who was struggling to stay awake through the hopelessly outdated (by his 26th century standards) lectures of his AP calculous course at Paragon High, and the four met up with Jack Kirby atop the Omnitech Tower, after Cromwell and Lazarus had left hurriedly, giving Kirby time to slip into the hidden room in his office and change into Nighthawk. Their investigation of the crime scene was producing strange results, but then Tomorrow Boy had an idea. "Open Portal Alpha 6, Grid H." The usual swirling time/space vortex appeared in front of him. He reached in and produced a strange device. "It's an energy tracker," he explained. "I can use this to track any nearby energy signatures which will hopefully lead us to whoever was responsible." But before he could even begin, his voice was drowned out by the sound of a chopper overhead. They looked up to see an unwieldy looking brown and yellow copter. A rapelling line dropped over the side, and down slid... FOXBAT! But not like they had seen him before. This time, he was covered from head to toe in strangely blinking lights, circuits, and various gadgets, including a miniature satellite dish rotating on his shoulder. "A Ha! Fear not, Defenders! Tomorrow Bat is here to help!" he proclaimed. "Pretty sure we don't need his help..." muttered Nighthawk. Undaunted, Foxbat continued. "Open Pocket, Pants Leg! Left side!" And reached into his pocket, producing what looked like an 80s or 90s model Texas Instruments calculator. He aimed it at the crime scene, and then announced, "Yes! A crime was committed here!" Some quick thinking by Tomorrow Boy got Foxbat away from the scene so they could complete their investigation. With the clues gathered there, they made their way to another scene, where a second crime was underway. The Defenders found themselves dealing with a hostage situation and many, many robots. But these mechanical menaces were no match for Fantastic-Man and the Defenders. Heroically throwing himself between the robots and the hostages, Fantastic-Man made sure that the robots wouldn't be able to harm the civilians. The Defenders were also aided by the powersuited superhero Spectro, whom Nighthawk, Warforge and The Tornado! had previously met while trying to foil a VIPER operation. The fight was short, however, and thankfully none of the hostages were hurt. However, the property damage caused by the fight was severe. Following the fight, Nighthawk was able to discover that Spectro was, in fact, Dr. Ivan Lazarus, CEO of Lazarus Telecomm. Between the two of them, they figured out the threat behind the days events and how to proceed. Using Tomorrow Boy's energy detector, The Tornado! ran all throughout the city at full speed, tracing the energy signature to its source. The Defenders proceeded to the location where they found more robots awaiting them. Their fight, however, was interrupted by a message from none other than Dr. Destroyer. After unfurling his latest sinister plot, a hidden door in the wall of the room slid open, revealing a large high-back swivel chair which spun to face them.. and Dr. Destroyer himself emerged to finish the fight! Or so it seemed. A well placed strike from Warforge's blade hand removed part of the good Dr.'s faceplate, revealing that this was, in fact, yet another of his Destroyer-Bots. The damage inflicted by Warforge triggered the self destruct mechanism in the base and The Defenders barely managed to escape as everything around them exploded in flames. _______ GM notes: Another pretty successful adventure. Apologies for the vagueness, but this one was from a sourcebook, and I don't want to give too much out. Seemed like everything went pretty smoothly. Next Issue: Something Wicked This Way Comes... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheTemplar Posted May 9, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 9, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! Something Wicked This Way Comes The Defenders Season IV, Issue 5 Cast Fantastic-Man: Team leader/ Flight Brick w/ Density Alteration powers Nighthawk: Martial Artists/ Gadgeteer/ Detective/ Mega-Bajillionaire The Mac Bashtee: Avatar of a divine Celtic being with Nature Mystic powers Tomorrow Boy: Teenage Gadgeteer/ Telekenetic from the future La Espijisma: Metamorph w/ Power Mimicry pool Warforge: Big mystic-style construct brick. "He's just a metal man." The Tornado! (NPC): Speedster Chiron the Centaur (NPC): Cousin of The Mac Bashtee who has come to Earth to train The Defenders for their foretold battle with The Dragon - an ancient mystical being of pure malevolence. ________________________________ Act 1: It began like any other Saturday. Frank Miller (Fantastic-Man) entered the rec room at the Headless Cross, adorned in bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, box of Cap'n Crunch in hand, ready for a morning of couch-potatoing accompanied by a steady stream of animated entertainment. His grandpa, Frank Sr., who had been staying at The Defenders' base with the team for several months, chuckled and shook his head as he passed the World's Greatest Hero on his way to the base's weight room. The morning's peace was soon interrupted, however, by the blaring of the Trouble Alert. Fantastic-Man rushed into the monitoring room as the other Defenders scrambled from their respective locations to get to the base. He entered the monitor room to see Chiron the Centaur standing beside the trouble alert console until all other six Defenders arrived. He shut off the alarm and grinned, rather self-satisfiedly. "Good. Now that I've got your attention..." he started toward the door, and down the hall toward the elevator. "It is time for your second lesson!" He led the team to their Danger Room, which had been configured into a long, slender white hallway, the floor, walls and ceiling of which were lined with the holographic projector tiles, used to create the simulated scenarios in the Defenders combat training center. Chiron walked to the middle of the room, pulled out his spear, twirled it over his head and thrust it into the ground, and then proceeded to the back wall of the room. "Your task is simple, he explained to them. Bring my spear to me, here, unharmed." An hourglass appeared in mid air above the centaur. "You have until the sands of time have stopped falling. BEGIN!" With that, he vanished. "That's it?!" The Tornado! asked incredulously. Here I thought this would be a challenge!" He ran forward toward the spear and was struck by a blast of light as one of the wall tiles slid open to reveal a blaster cannon. The blast sent the young speedster sprawling across the floor. He slid up against the opposite side wall, and disappeared. "One down, six to go!" Chiron's voice boomed throughout the chamber. Several more attempts to reach the spear followed, which resulted in The Mac Bashtee and Warforge joining The Tornado! in the control room, where Chiron was monitoring the exercise. "That's it," muttered Fantastic-Man after Warforge vanished. He completely shut down the density of his molecules, allowing him to pass effortlessly through the Danger Room wall into the control room. He shut off the simulation, and Nighthawk sprang toward the spear. As soon as Nighthawk had the spear in hand, Chiron teleported himself and the other Defenders into the Danger Room, and accepted his spear from the Dark Defender. "Good... good," he said. "Sometimes you must bend the rules of engagement to your favor, even when they are not. Other times... you must break them altogether. Remember this lesson when you face the Dragon." The slow applause from the entrance to the Danger Room was the Defender's cue that someone else had been watching their progress. "Nice to see you all making such good use of the taxpayers' money," barked Cromwell, their PRIMUS liason. "I need to see all seven of you in the War Room, ASAP." With that he turned, and went back up to the Defenders' tactical planning room. ____________________ Act 2 "We have a serious problem," Cromwell began once The Defenders had assembled in the War Room. "Your holding facilities here at the Headless Cross are completely full - and you all don't seem to have any shortage of lunatics looking for lodging. Luckily, PRIMUS has the answer." He indicated the viewing monitor which brought up the image of a massive facility built into the side of a large mountain. "Stronghold." Cromwell went on to explain how Stronghold was the next advance in criminal detention, layed out many of its defensive capabilities, and managed to abate most of the doubts of the unusually skeptical team, aside from Nighthawk's overdeveloped sense of paranoia and the usual lack of trust that The Mac Bashtee displays for any government organization. He then outlined the plan to move the prisoners from Headless Cross to Stronghold via heavily armored and escorted convoys. The Mac Bashtee and Warforge were able to escort several of the criminals through the pathways between dimensions that the Mac Bashtee knows. Nighthawk and La Espijisma transported more aboard the D-Jet, and Fantastic-Man, Tomorrow Boy and Tornado! escorted the convoy carrying the rest of the captured villains - including the most dangerous villain in the Defenders' holding area - Grond. All three groups arrived at Stronghold without incident, the prisoners were moved into their new holding cells, and the Defenders were allowed to tour all areas of Stronghold and examine the security protocols first hand. The reports from the other convoys carrying metahuman villains from other holding facilities like Paragon State Penetentiary and the Lovecraft Asylum for the Criminally Insane weren't as successful. One was hit by a tactical VIPER strike, which resulted in the escape of Despite and Ripper - both with known ties to the VIPER organization. The other convoy was struck much more subtley. At first it was unclear how Black Diamond mysteriously disappeared while the convoy was en route, but a digitally enhanced review of the surveillance video revealed two things: At first glance, it looked as though a fly was buzzing around the officer onboard Black Diamond's transport. The officer looked away from the monitor for a few seconds, and then seemed to shake his head as if coming out of a trance. While he was distracted, a bluish-black flash in the seat next to Black Diamond preceeded the arrival of Cheshire Cat, who then grabbed Black Diamond and teleported her out of the transport. This made it clear that the fly that had been pestering the security officer had to have been, in fact, Hummingbird. However, plans to pursue the escaped villains would have to wait. Breaking News from Paragon City indicated that a mysterious cult, dressed in reddish-brown robes, had gathered around The Pit - the mysterious chasm left behind by the devastation of Wichita in the White Event. The cult seemed to be performing some sort of ritual. More disturbingly, it seemd that hundreds of onlookers and gawkers had begun to gather near the scene - trying to get a glimpse of what these strange robed cultists were up to. ____________________ Act 3 The Defenders returned to Paragon City and made straight for The Pit. One of the cultists, wearing a horned mask and wielding a large mace turned to the other cultists and ordered them to attack the innocent bystanders that had come to watch the events while a smaller group of six cultist, wearing black frocks over their reddish-brown robes continued some sort of ritual around the pit. The other leader of the cultists - a woman in a long, red robe - began speaking names that carried some sort of power... "Nahema," "Astaroth," "Baal Chanan," "Lilith.." As she spoke, some of the cultists that were approaching the crowds of onlookers were transformed into hideous, demonic-looking beings. The Defenders leaped into action. Fantastic-Man, The Tornado! and The Mac Bashtee went after the cultists that were heading toward the crowds. La Espijisma morphed into a replica of The Tornado!, mimicking his superspeed and sped off to help them. Meanwhile, Tomorrow Boy, Nighthawk and Warforge closed in to try to disrupt the ritual being conducted at the pit. Nearly all the cultists attacking the civilians had been taken care of when a flash of magical blue energy announced the arrival of The Defenders mystical ally, Dr. Arcane. He explained that the group they were fighting was a cult called DEMON, and explained that those attacking the civilians were referred to as The Brothers. He instructed The Mac Bashtee to come with him and the others to keep the innocents safe from the five Demonbound creatures that some of the Brothers had transformed into while he and The Mac Bashtee tried to stop those called The Initiates from completing the ritual they were performing. Meanwhile, Nighthawk, Tomorrow Boy and Warforge engaged the leaders... the two Morbanes. After teaching the Mac Bashtee a simple Dispelling spell, Dr. Arcane and Mac Bashtee focused their energies on undoing the magical summoning spell the Initiates were casting. They were weakening the spell successfully when an unfortunate telekenetic blast fired by Tomorrow Boy sent one of the Initiates casting the spell into one of his fellow cultists. The impact knocked the Initiate over the edge into the pit. His body hit the magical summoning field and burst into flames. The earth shook as a harrowing voice echoed through the air. "Blood has been spilled... a Sacrifice made. The summoning.. is complete." First a great, red claw emerged over the top of the pit, crushing the Initiate standing there... then another. A hideous demonic creature pulled itself up half way out of the pit. The remaining cultists scattered, the two Morbanes, one who had called himself "Bloodknight" and the mysterious woman, teleported away, and The Defenders found themselves face to face with what The Mac Bashtee and Warforge recognized immediately as a Nahemite Behemoth. Warforge had travelled through Nahemoth - the Evil Kingdom - on his way from Vulcan's Forge across the planes to Earth - when he crawled up out of the pit. His passage had weakened the interdimensional barrier enough for DEMON to pull a horrible evil through after him to wreak havoc, destruction and death in the names of the Archdemons they serve. After a harrowing fight, Fantastic-Man managed to get a good enough grip on the Behemoth to pull him all the way up out of the pit and hurl him into the air. He then flew up past the beast as it soared upward, and then drove it back down with all his might... down back into the pit and back to Nahemoth. However, unnoticed by all but Fantastic-Man himself, something unusual happened in this fight. First, when he attempted to increase his molecular density to become stronger to fight The Behemoth, it was more difficult than usual. Then, when he attempted to completely reverse his density and escape the Behemoth's clawed grasp, he also had some difficulty. This did not sit well with the Defenders' leader, but in the end, no harm came of it and it seemed he dismissed it to fatigue. The Defenders tended their wounded as the Paragon City Police arrived to round up the remaining cultists. Dr. Arcane explained that they had defeated an astonishingly powerful opponent and had saved Paragon City from a horrifying threat. He advised that he had been fighting DEMON for some time, and while they had scored a solid victory against the cult, they were still a great threat, and that he needed to go report to The Council what had happened. He advised that with time, he would be able to repair the weakened dimensional barrier between our world and Nahemoth. With a final nod to The Defenders, he said that he was sure that their destinies would intertwine again in the future, and vanished in a puff of blue smoke. END OF SESSION GM Notes This was a fun session, if a bit long. The DEMON fight got a bit drawn out, particularly in the opening phases. Once it was The Defenders vs. The Behemoth, it went pretty well. Some creative thinking by the group sidestepped quite a few obstacles, particularly in the opening Danger Room scenario, and also against The Behemoth - I had figured they would try to beat it down a while before trying to just get it back down the hole it was crawling out of. In the end, it was just as well they didn't, as the session had already gone about an hour or so past our "scheduled" stop time. Not that that ever seems to mean that's when we stop... freakin' addicts. The look on the face of Fantastic-Man's player when he suddenly had to make an Activation Roll on his DI and Desolid powers was pretty priceless. A few rules questions came up, but they didn't slow us down any. Some REALLY good RP from the group regarding the PCs very varying views on things like cooperation with PRIMUS, the Government and the importance of protecting innocents before stopping bad guys. MOST importantly , this was the first session that I feel was actually "My Own" as the first two were the continuation and conclusion of what our prior GM had started, and the last one was a published adventure. It also got a LOT of the groundwork laid for many events that will unfold for the rest of the season, introduced the group to DEMON, and tied up a lot of the dangling loose ends that were out there regarding some of the captured prisoners. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheTemplar Posted May 10, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 10, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! NEXT ISSUE: "The Midgar Serpent, pt.1" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheTemplar Posted May 22, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 22, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! The Midgard Serpent, Pt. 1 The Defenders Season IV, Issue 6 Cast Fantastic-Man: Team leader/ Flight Brick w/ Density Alteration powers Nighthawk: Martial Artists/ Gadgeteer/ Detective/ Mega-Bajillionaire The Mac Bashtee: Avatar of a divine Celtic being with Nature Mystic powers Tomorrow Boy: Teenage Gadgeteer/ Telekenetic from the future Warforge: Big mystic-style construct brick. "He's just a metal man." The Tornado! (NPC): Speedster ______________________________ Act 1: The phone rings one Wednesday morning at the Headless Cross (No... not THAT phone.. the regular, non-aliens-devouring-the-moon one.) Fantastic-Man answers and speaks with the Vice-Principal of Paragon High, who is concerned that Riv Allen (Tomorrow Boy,) of whom Frank Miller (Fantastic-Man) is the legal guardian, has not been at school for a week and a half. Frank explained that Riv had been going through some hard times lately, but that he would make sure he was back in school the next day. "Very good, Mr. Miller," The VP said. "In the future, if Mr. Allen is going to be missing school due to illness.. or whatever.. we would appreciate a phone call." "Sure thing. Have a good day, citizen." Fantastic-Man replied. Frank then tried to talk to Tomorrow Boy, who had been despondent ever since he accidentally caused a DEMON initiate to fall into the pit during a summoning ritual (see last issue - Marv) causing the Initiate to burst into flames. However, Tomorrow Boy was still inconsolable and sequestered himself to the isolation of his lab once again. Meanwhile, it troubled Nighthawk that after nearly a week and a half since the escape of Despite and Ripper - two known VIPER subordinates - that there had been no word regarding whether they had been recaptured. He discussed it with Fantastic-Man, and they and the rest of the team went to investigate the scene where the attack that resulted in the escape of the two supercriminals had occurred. A thorough investigation of the area yielded some very fruitful results. The Defenders found a cave that housed an abandoned headquarters of some kind. Amidst the remains of the office equipment that had been torched in the room inside the cave, Mac Bashtee found a disc and some mostly burned pieces of paper with "Project: Jormungand" written across the top, and some partial addresses followed by a series of numbers below. They also discovered a time bomb in the closet and managed to make it out of the cave as the device exploded, destroying all the remaning evidence of activity there. Act 2 - Upon returning to Headless Cross, Tomorrow Boy and The Mac Bashtee set about deciphering the encrypted information on the badly damaged disc and the partial addresses and the series of numbers (0923062240) on the paper. Meanwhile, Nighthawk took the samples of the mysterious fluid he had found at the scene, which had led him to the cave, back to his lab for analysis. The addresses matched a USAF Munitions storage depot on the outskirts of Paragon City, and the world headquarters of The Geddon Corporation - a multibillion dollar mega-conglomerate with its hands in everything from defense contracts to environmental concerns. The mysterious fluid Nighthawk had discovered was some sort of genetically enhanced super growth hormone, which he deduced was the Omicron serum used by Ripper. The series of numbers, as Tomorrow Boy figured out, was a date and time - 09/23/06 (today's date) and 2240 - 10:40 PM... about 45 minutes from now. The team assembled and Fantastic-Man divided the team into two groups in order to try to stop VIPER on both fronts. Fantastic-Man, Tomorrow Boy and The Tornado! headed for the USAF depot while Nighthawk, The Mac Bashtee and Warforge headed to the Geddon building. VIPER agents were already in position at both locations when the heroes arrived, and it wasn't long before the melee began. The Defenders jumped out to an early lead on both fronts against the agent squads. At the Geddon Building, The Mac Bashtee cast a powerful Lightning spell that knocked out several agents while at the USAF Depot, The Tornado! used his lightning quickness to take down several more agents. However, VIPER had more aces up their sleeve than apparent at first blush. Tornado! was attacked by Sidewinder and Diamondback, who had been inside the USAF Depot when The Defenders arrived, while Nighthawk found himself dodging blasts by Despite and Freon at the Geddon building. While Tomorrow Boy and The Tornado! dealt with Sidewinder, Diamondback, and the remaining agents outside the USAF depot (including a pair of Heavy Weapons Specialists manning a Boomslang railgun on the roof of one of the garages,) Fantastic-Man used his desolidification powers to fly through building into the vault area that a VIPER demolitions expert was trying to blow open. He used his strength to ensure that VIPER would not be able to gain access to the contents of the vault - a cache of warheads. Back at the Geddon building, things took a different turn. After covering the entrance to the building with a cloud of darkness from one of his blackout bombs, effectively cutting off line of sight from Despite, Freon and the VIPER SCS's that were inside the building, Nighthawk found himself facing a new threat, along with Warforge and The Mac Bashtee. An Anaconda class light hovertank rounded the corner of the building. The aft hatch opened and out leaped Ripper, already in a full-blown Omnicron induced fury. As the Tank fired at The Mac Bashtee, narrowly missing him but cutting a deadly swath through a nearby copse of trees, Ripper picked up the unconcious body of one of the Scarlet Serpent special agents that Nighthawk had already taken down, and using her as a club, smacked Warforge half way across the parking lot. With the Titanium Titan down, it was up to Dark Defender and The Godson to deal with these new threats. All was not well at the USAF depot anymore either. In a contest of one-upsmanship against Sidewinder, The Tornado! had come out on the loosing end of a who-has-a-stronger-Move-Thru contest, which resulted in the Speediest Man Alive being laid out cold on the hard asphalt. Ever resourceful, Tomorrow-Boy had managed to take out the Boomslang railgun threat, and enjoyed a fair bit of luck as Sidewinders gauntlet blaster had exploded the last time he tried to fire it at the Boy Genius, which left the speedy snake unconcious. Tomorrow-Boy had managed to avoid everything Diamondback was throwing (or.. more accurately.. spitting) at him when he was unexpectedly grabbed from behind by a cold, steel arm. "So.... You're my replacement... " hissed Heinous. "Radio your boy Frank and tell him that if he doesn't come out of that building with my warheads in 3 seconds, he's going to have to replace yet ANOTHER sidekick." Meanwhile, at the Geddon building, Mac Bashtee and Nighthawk had mounted an impressive rally. Using the Silver Hand of Nuada, The Mac Bashtee had dealt a crushing blow against the raging Ripper, sending him through the air into one of the vans VIPER had parked out in front of the building when they arrived. Nighthawk, meanwhile had managed to board the Anaconda Hovertank and had replaced the gunner. He turned the turret toward the berserk Ripper, who had just pulled himself up out of the wreckage of the van (seeming alarmingly unphased by the mammoth wallop Mac Bashtee had just put on him) and fired the main gun of the tank at him. After the blast, smoke and rubble cleared, only Ripper remained, standing at the center of the blast mark, his full fury now turned at the Anaconda tank. He siezed it by the front and hurled it into the air, directly into the soaring Mac Bashtee. Nighthawk managed to escape the explosion of the tank, only to be frozen in a block of ice by Freon, who had emerged from the building. He also encased Warforge in an icy cage and radioed to Despite and the others still inside that the entrance was secure and clear for extraction. Despite emerged carrying a missile warhead, and with Ripper, they escaped from the scene via a new model airborne gunship. Back at the munitions dump, Fantastic-Man had finally had enough of Heinous's threats. He flew out of the building, straight toward the VIPER commander. "Kyle..." he said as he sped toward the twisted, cybernetically enhanced remains of his former protege, "...you are the single greatest disappointment of my life." Before Heinous could even retort, the mighty fist of the Earth's Greatest Hero sent him careening through the air, into the fence surrounding the base. Heinous rose to one knee, wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and snarled. He then turned his head and touched his ear to receive an incoming transmission. "We're done here.." he barked to Diamondback, "But I'm NOT done with you, Frank. Not by a long shot." He tapped a button on his belt and vanished in a shimmering blue light. Diamondback picked up the still unconcious Sidewinder and also teleported away. Act 3 - The team reconvened at the Headless Cross, where Tomorrow-Boy's anti-virus/ decryption programs had finished cleaning and translating the data on the disc retrieved from the cave. The only file that had been encrypted was titled "Project: Jormungandr" and in it were the plans for a rail gun - an Orbital Rail Gun. No sooner had Tomorrow-Boy discovered this than Heinous appeared on all the major television stations with an ultimatum. "Greetings, all citizens of Earth. I... am Heinous. Behold the great snake that now encircles the Earth... Jormungand." An enormous space station came into view on screen, with a large weapon aimed down toward the planet. "The United States of America has exactly 24 hours to turn complete and total governmental control over to VIPER, or we will begin destroying your major institutions, one by one. With the firepower of Jormungandr, not even your most heavily guarded, hardened, underground facilities will escape us. And... just to show you what we're capable of... I'm going to give you all a taste of Jormungandr's power... by destroying your beloved Defenders." Jormungandr fired and the stolen warhead sped downward through the atmosphere toward Headless Cross. To Be Continued... GM Notes: Good session. Really good thinking in combat all the way around. Tomorrow Boy has put an 11- activation roll w/ burnout on all his TK powers (players idea, mind you, not mine) to reflect all the feelings of self-doubt he has about his powers after accidentally causing the death of the DEMON initiate in the last adventure. That said, he was absolutely on fire with his activation rolls and never missed one. Nice to reunite Fantastic-Man and Heinous after so much time. And, I think it's safe to say that the players of Nighthawk and The Mac Bashtee have personally developed the psych lim: Hatred of Ripper: Common/ Total. I knew he was one bad mamma jamma, but I never expected him to hold his own against all 3 of them for the whole fight... especially once Nights took over the tank. Used a pretty varied amount of VIPER agent types, as each site was hit by 2 8-teams. Didn't get to really do too much w/ 8-team tactics as the agents themselves thinned out pretty quickly and it ended up being mostly The Defenders Vs. Dragon Branch. Nice reactions at the cliffhanger ending, too. No idea where La Espijisma's player was. Hopefully she'll make it for our Memorial Day Bonus session this Sunday night. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheTemplar Posted May 24, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 24, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! Next Issue: The Midgard Serpent, Pt.2 HOPEFULLY coming this Sunday as our bonus Memorial Day issue, otherwise it'll be a week from Saturday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheTemplar Posted May 31, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 31, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! The Midgard Serpent, Pt. 2 The Defenders Season IV, Issue 7 Cast Fantastic-Man: Team leader/ Flight Brick w/ Density Alteration powers Nighthawk: Martial Artists/ Gadgeteer/ Detective/ Mega-Bajillionaire The Mac Bashtee: Avatar of a divine Celtic being with Nature Mystic powers Tomorrow Boy: Teenage Gadgeteer/ Telekenetic from the future La Espijisma: Metamorph with Power Mimicry abilities The Tornado! (NPC): Speedster ________________________ Act 1: The projectile fired by VIPER's "Jormungandr" Orbital Rail Cannon burned its way through the upper atmosphere as The Defenders scrambled to defend their base, and potentially all of Paragon City. With only ten seconds to react before impact, The Tornado! and Warforge (player absent due to nasty headaches - Migraine Marv) rushed outside to watch for the missile's approach. The Mac Bashtee managed to help all the civilian employees of the Headless Cross to his Grove - his extra-dimensional sanctuary. Nighthawk and Tomorrow-Boy rushed to the D-Jet to get it up in the air and Fantastic-Man soared straight toward the weapon, the smoke trail from its re-entry visible to his keen eyesight. As Fantastic-Man rushed upward to try to catch the projectile in the air, The Tornado! aided him from the surface by creating an enormous updraft, propelling Fantastic-Man skyward at tremendous speed. Nighthawk brought the D-Jet over to Warforge to carry the Titanium Titan up to help Fantastic-Man if needed. The Tornado! refused to get in, however, insisting that he stay behind to keep generating the column of upward air to help Fantastic-Man reach the missile and then (hopefully) prevent it from destroying them both along with their base. Tomorrow-Boy, meanwhile was furiously piecing together spare parts to create a modified version of his "Blitz Device" personal teleporter that Fantastic-Man would be able to attack to the projectile so that it could be safely teleported away. With only 4 seconds before impact (and about 1 second before he would meet with Jormungandr's blast,) Fantastic-Man was interrupted by Cromwell over his communicator, ordering Fantastic-Man to retrieve the projectile without damaging it if possible, as it provided the only viable analysis for Jormungandr's capabilities. After expressing his great displeasure with the inconvenience of Cromwell's order - and not feeling at all encouraged by Cromwell's statements of confidence in The Earth's Greatest Hero's abilities - Fantastic-Man met with the missile, digging his powerful fingers into the metal casing around the shell. With all his strength (and then some) and the combined efforts of The Tornado's signature "F5" maneuver, Fantastic-Man slowed the descent of the projectile, buying him precious seconds to think. Positioning himself near the cone of the missile, he pushed to the side, altering the trajectory of the blast so that it was now flying parallel to the ground, allowing him sufficient time to slow the blast down, and return to the Headless Cross with the weapon safely in his possession. He and The Tornado! took some time to recover their expended strength while waiting for Cromwell and his PRIMUS team to arrive. Tomorrow Boy, meanwhile, was going over the information that had been decrypted from the recovered data disc. He was able to determine that the cannon was only capable of firing once every 2 hours, which meant they had about an hour and a half to get to somehow disarm VIPER before they would have the ability to fire again. Jormungandr's defensive capabilities were also spelled out by the disc. The D-Jet (which fortunately had already been modified by Tomorrow-Boy to have space travel capabilities) would be able to bypass the surveillance equipment with it's cloaking field. Some modifications to the D-Jet's Force Field would enable them to phase through the magnetic force field surrounding Jormungandr, and any of the 5 external Airlocks on the Command Center atop the massive cannon would serve as an effective entry point. Analysis of the shell revealed that while it was not the warhead that was stolen from The Geddon Corporation by VIPER (see last issue,) it was similar in size and shape, meaning that the stolen warhead could be compatible with Jormungandr's firing capabilities. Cromwell explained that the warhead stolen from Geddon was the prototype of the warheads that were being stored at the USAF depot. Under a government contract, Judas Geddon had developed a new weapon with near-nuclear destructive capabilities, but without the collateral damage of standard ICBM's - allowing "Smart Bomb" style pinpoint destruction of specified targets without the fallout and horror of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. With the ability to decimate any target at will from their orbital superweapon, VIPER would be able to hold every global institution, law enforcement agency, or even National Capitols hostage with Jormungandr - The Great Serpent foretold to Encircle the Earth. Act II The D-Jet rockets invisibly toward Jormungandr - VIPER's colossal orbital rail cannon - as The Defenders race against the clock to prevent VIPER from firing their new superweapon again. They successfully phase through the force field thanks to Tomorrow Boy's reconfiguration of the ship's force field generator, and successfully dock at one of the station's airlocks. Disguised as VIPER agents by use of their shapeshifting abilities, The Mac Bashtee, La Espijisma & Tomorrow Boy go aboard Jormungandr. A simple mind control spell from The Mac Bashtee gets them (as well as Nighthawk, The Tornado! and Fantastic-Man, who are not disguised as VIPER agents) past the guard monitoring the airlock and also provides them with his security card. Thanks to Tomorrow Boy's evaluation of the base schematics, the group easily navigates their way through the sprawling corridors to the Cannon Maintenance room, where the incognito heroes learn that the tech crew there is rather displeased with the VIPER commander heading this operation - Heinous. They suggest that if "Oculon" were in charge of this operation, it would've gone much more smoothly. As the techs return to their work, The Mac Bashtee provides a much needed distraction by blasting an unused computer station with his Lightning spell. As most of the techs scurried to control the electrical fire and the other tried to convince security that they were in complete control of the situation and that there was no need to bring the mishap to Heinous's attention, Tomorrow Boy made his way to one of the abandoned work stations and covertly subverted all power from the cannon's firing controls, masking the readouts to show normal status. With Jormungandr's firing capabilities temporarily crippled, the team had bought themselves enough time to gain access to the bridge and (hopefully) apprehend Heinous and his VIPER cohorts. They proceeded to the security station where La Espijisma altered her uniform to duplicate that of a Cobra Division Lieutenant, insisting that Heinous had ordered her crew to conduct a thorough exam of the Jormungandr security protocols. Her agents - Tomorrow Boy and Mac Bashtee went to work, pretending to view security files while Tomorrow Boy upgraded the clearance level of the stolen security card to grant them all bridge access. The myriad monitors in the security office showed that Heinous himself was on the bridge & having a rather heated conversation with the holographic images of two heads - the first, a man with dark, slicked back hair, a moustache and a goatee, and the other a man wearing a partial hood that covered his head, leaving his face - and more notably, his oddly glowing eyes - exposed. Upgraded security card in hand, they make for the bridge. They reach the bridge level and proceeded into Jormungandr's main control room. Heinous's increasingly hostile holographic conversations were audible even from the outside of the large, metal doors that sealed the entrance to the bridge. The VIPER commander was so intent in his argument, that he did not even notice the three VIPER agents enter the bridge. "...so as you can see, " Heinous hissed, "Jormungandr is proceeding exactly as planned!" The bearded hologram spoke in a thick greek accent, "So.... your miserable failure of an attack against The Defenders... this was exactly as planned?" "I suppose you could've done better, Draconis?!" Heinous spat back. "Your delusions of glory would've doomed..." "That's enough... both of you," the other image interrupted. "Draconis is right, Heinous. You tread on dangerously thin ground. Another failure will most certainly not be tolerated." Heinous visibly swallowed his fiery bravado. "Of course, Oculon. I will not fail the Sup..." It was then that Heinous became aware of the additional people on the bridge. "Something has come up that requires my immediate attention." And with that, he ended the holographic transmissions. He wheeled about to face the trio of disguised heroes. "It's about time you showed up!" He growled. "But where are the rest of you? Frank, specifically." The heroes exchanged confused glances. "Oh please... don't insult us." A highback chair in front of one of the console stations swiveled around to reveal the bald, aging form of The Defenders' old adversary - Dr. Anton Megalo. "That's right, Defenders..." Megalo hissed coolly. "You didn't really expect us to dismiss the fact that an Airlock guard would mysteriously visit the Weapon Maintenance Room, The Security Office, and then suddenly get a security clearance promotion, did you?" He laughed evilly... "No, my dear heroes. There is no need to continue the charade. This is the part that I believe you like to call the... how do you say? Ah yes. "Unavoidable Violence." The scientist activated a device on his wrist, instantly teleporting Despite, Diamondback, Freon, Sidewinder, and Ripper to the bridge. Act III The battle was long and exhausting. VIPER struck the first blow as Sidewinder delivered a devastating charge on The Tornado!, knocking the Earth's Fastest Man into a computer terminal. The Mac Bashtee, having been blinded by a flare blast from Despite's Arm Cannon, retaliated with a blast of pure sunlight that blinded Despite, Sidewinder and Ripper... and unfortunately, Nighthawk as well. His senses honed by years of training, Nighthawk was able to hold his own against the attacks of Freon and Sidewinder. La Espijisma had used her power mimicry ability to morph into a copy of Diamondback, and the two fought viciously in one corner as Heinous and Fantastic-Man aired out their years of grievances against eachother at the expense of the room's structural integrity. Tomorrow Boy decided to take advantage of Ripper's blindness by taunting the hulking fury while hiding behind the also blinded Despite. In a (literally) blind rage, the berserking Ripper charged full speed into Despite, sending her over the railing around an opening in the center of the chamber that apparently led down to the reactor core of the station. Only a quick save by Tomorrow Boy's telekinetic grasp saved Despite from a firey death. Meanwhile, Fantastic-Man appeared to be gaining the upper hand over Heinous. With Ripper out of control, Despite out, and Heinous losing, it appeared the odds were against VIPER. Seizing the opportunity to at least salvage his paycheck, Sidewinder scooped up Dr. Megalo and sped off for the escape pods with VIPER's highest ranking scientist. But, Heinous's fortunes reversed, and he found himself standing above Fantastic-Man's prone form. As he prepared to deliver the final crushing blow, Fantastic-Man asked him the one question Heinous wasn't prepared for. "Why?" Why had Heinous turned on his former partners and friends.. Fantastic-Man, Wonderboy and Judo Girl. What if he DID succeed in killing Fantastic-Man? Then what? Would VIPER still have a place for him? Fantastic-Man's words struck a chord deep within what little bit of humanity was left in Heinous, and he halted his attack. "I never thought it would come to this," he confessed to his former teacher. "I never meant for..." The words would hang heavy in the air in spite of the deafening burst of energy as a thin red beam pierced Heinous's chest. The cyborg looked down at his mortal wound in disbelief as he collapsed first to his knees and then onto the floor, giving Fantastic-Man a clear view of the upward-aimed arm cannon of Despite. "Coward!" She spat. "He was never fit to lead us! I should've taken his place long ago!" Fantastic-Man rose to his feet, brimming with fury as he stared down the woman who had robbed his former pupil from his last chance at redemption. In a rage unmatched by even Ripper, The Earth's Greatest Hero rocketed through the air, driving Despite into the solid wall of the station, with the reassuring snaps of multiple bones shattering. The Mac Bashtee had recovered from his temporary blindness, however, and discovered that Heinous was, in fact, not quite dead yet. His healing spells managed to stabilize the cyborg, but if he didn't receive medical attention soon, Fantastic-Man's one-time protege would die. With Freon and Diamondback the only two VIPER combatants left standing that were still capable of rational thought (Ripper's rage had clearly gotten the best of him and there would be no reasoning with him in this state,) Fantastic-Man offered one last ultimatum. If these two criminals helped The Defenders incapacitate Ripper, he would personally vouch for them in their upcoming trials and would most likely be able to have their sentences lessened or at least commuted to more enjoyable facilities than Stronghold. Diamondback's cold personality was indifferent to the prospect of hard time, but Freon was convinced that he was far too pretty to go to jail, and agreed to help. After substantial effort, the six of them were able to finally render Ripper unconcious... ....as explosions rocked Jormungandr. The monitors all around the bridge crackled with static as a voice began speaking over the comm. "And thus did the Lord God STRIKE the serpent, forever condemning him to crawl upon the earth... on his belly!" The forboding, steel-helmed visage of Doctor Destroyer appeared on the forward viewscreens. "You pitiful snakes should have remained on the ground where you belong!" The Doctor proclaimed as more blasts impacted the station. "The heavens are the realm of the Gods... and one must expect to endure a few Thunderbolts when one interferes with the Gods!" The five concious Defenders made sure that everyone, VIPER criminals included, were safely removed from the bridge and raced through the exploding station back to the D-Jet. The space around Jormungandr was littered with debris from the exploding cannon as well as escape pods filled with agents fleeing certain doom. As the D-Jet prepared to Re-enter the Earth's atmosphere, the final coffin-nail blasts pierced Jormungandr, and the station exploded in a marvelous array of lights and colors. Most disturbing of all, however, as Nighthawk observed, was that the blasts that were fired at the station were not originating from the surface of the planet... The D-Jet landed safely at Stronghold, where a medical team was on stand-by to administer emergency care to Heinous. The other captured VIPER operatives were escorted to their respective holding cells. Heinous - Kyle, as Fantastic-Man had insisted he be called once again - was in critical but stable condition, and appeared to be recovering, albeit slowly. Cromwell gave a rare round of high praise to the team for an exemplary job and an overwhelming success... ...as the implications of Dr. Destroyer's latest show of power came to full bear in Nighthawk's mind. GM Notes: Holy freaking wow. This is our annual "Big Memorial Day Bonus Issue" session - where our prior GM always tried to have something unusually special up his sleeve for us. This particular adventure couldn't have gone any better had I scripted it. The pace was fantastic. The action was awesome, & there was some REALLY great RP going on. Unquestionably, the highlight of the evening came in the incredibly dramatic moments as Fantastic-Man tried to save Heinous. He used his Presence and Conversation skills to try to reason with him, and managed to give Heinous enough pause to give Fantastic-Man room to talk him down. It seemed like it was going great, until Despite freaking shot Heinous (NOTE: I had originally planned that one of the two - Heinous or Despite - probably Despite - would NOT survive the fight - and when Despite went tumbling over the railing Palpatine-style toward the reactor core, I figured that would do it. Little did I know that Tomorrow Boy would be able to (once again) overcome his fears of using his Telekinesis powers to save her from her fall. So, since she was still alive to witness this gross display of weakness on Heinous's part (from a VIPER perspective, anyway) I figured the only logical course of action would be for her to shoot him. Created this GREAT dramatic moment... but that was topped when Fantastic-Man stood up, squared off for a full Move-Thru... ...and rolled a frickin' 3. You can't buy that kind of drama, folks. Anyway, that's it for this session. Definitely the most fun I've had so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheTemplar Posted June 1, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 1, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! Next Issue: "...Must Come Down!!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Hercules Posted June 2, 2006 Report Share Posted June 2, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! As TB, i'm going to have to quit taken these 21st century mad scientists for granted:D And yes, i'm finally on the forums Templar:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fry Daddy Posted June 2, 2006 Report Share Posted June 2, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! The orbiting particle beam cannon! Love it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Hercules Posted June 4, 2006 Report Share Posted June 4, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! Always a classic, Frydaddy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebuchet Posted June 4, 2006 Report Share Posted June 4, 2006 Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! You have a great story-telling style and sense of humor. Keep 'em comin'! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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