Campaign Log: The J-Crew

[bigdamnhero]

I was going through some old stuff, and came across the log for my last campaign, which ran for six years and only ended when I moved out of state. Since my new campaign is having trouble getting off the ground (scheduling problems), I thought I would post some of the old campaign's log here for the entertainment and edification of whoever.

 

The campaign came to be known as the J-Crew (initially in jest, but the name kinda stuck) because all three PCs happened to pick names starting with "J." It was essentially a weird conspiracy/monster hunter game, set 20 years in the future; some vigilante elements, some horror bits, and some cyberpunkish overtones; one player described it as X-Files meets Cthulu, but with bigger guns. Those of you who remember GDW's old Dark Conspiracy setting may notice some familiar elements, tho I changed as many as I kept. It started out mostly episodic (although one episode could span several game sessions), but got more serial over time as the various sub-plots became more and more intertwined.

 

The three PCs started as 150-point characters, and all had low-level mental powers (although the characters didn't initially know they did); these powers started out in the 10-20 AP range, and eventually rose to the 30-50 AP range. To make them more mysterious, I handled all the mechanics for the mental powers, including the actual power write-ups; so the player would know that he had empathic Telepathy (for example), but wouldn't know exactly how many dice or exactly what Advs/Lims it had. We also used the Shock & Stress rules from Horror Hero (4 Ed), although the PCs had high enough EGOs to mostly avoid the more severe Call Of Cthulu-esque effects. (Some of the NPCs were not so fortunate!) So the Stress Level (aka "the weird****-o-meter") served mostly as a RP aid for me and the players to gauge "how freaked out you are."

 

 

Campaign setting:

 

Our story starts in 2026, 10 years after the global economy collapsed, plunging most of the world into "the Greater Depression." Scientific advancement over the last quarter-century has been mostly incremental, with no new major technology breakthroughs. (At least not publicly!) But then, most of the general public can barely afford late-twentieth-century level technology anyway. In the US (where the campaign is centered) the government does it's best to hold things together; but lack of revenue has severely limited what it can do, resulting in a much higher "anarchy level" than Americans are used to. Much of the interior has been all but abandoned to fend for itself. Cities have become largely balkanized along class and ethnic lines; many major cities have even privatized their law enforcement agencies, resulting in "neighborhood" police forces that are little more than gangs with badges. International megacorporations have gained in power (not quite to cyberpunk levels, but close); some have their own security forces that amount to private armies in all but name.

 

Following the rise of populist dictator Carlos Grijalba in Mexico, relations with that country have deteriorated so badly that the US-Mexican border has become an armed camp. However, most experts believe that the odds of open hostilities breaking out are remote. Relations with Russia are also quite strained, as a result of disagreements over US involvement in the Syrian invasion of Israel in 2012, and the Ukranian Civil War of 2017.

 

Meanwhile, for the last few years a new strain of kudzu vine has been spreading across the US. Dubbed "demon weed" by the popular press, it has proven extremely resistant to pesticides or other controls, and chokes out most other vegetation in the areas it infects. These areas -- commonly referred to as "demonground" -- have so far been concentrated primarily in remote parts of the interior. But even in the urban centers, there have been new strains of mosses and fungi appearing that bear many disturbing similarities to the demon vines. And rumors persist of strange creatures being sighted in and around patches of demonground…

 

Behind the scenes, and initially unknown to the PCs, there has been a steep increase in psychic/mystic phenomena over the last 20-30 years. Learning about this and determining its cause was a major focus of the campaign.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

Cast:

 

John Green: A former bodyguard and martial arts instructor, who ran a successful security company for several years until he was driven out of business by Iron Castle Security (a division of BCH Enterprises). A good fighter, both armed and unarmed, but with a tendency towards frontal assaults. Serious "Good Guy Syndrome," but can be quite vicious against evildoers. His arms dealer contacts keep the Crew well-supplied (when the Crew has money to pay them). Later starts having strange, prophetic dreams and develops other mental powers, mostly centered around boosting his martial skills. Tall and athletic with a commanding presence.

 

Joshua Davidson: Engineer, computer wizard, and Israeli Army veteran. A good sniper, tho relatively weak in hand-to-hand combat. But his real strength is in his technical skills, particularly his ability to reverse-engineer strange devices. Curious, and easily distracted by technical problems; also closely watched by the US government, who suspects he may be spying for Israel (he's not). Later develops mental powers, mostly centered around detecting and countering other people's mental powers; eventually, he develops the ability to open interdimensional portal with his mind. Powerfully built, but still basically geeky-looking.

 

Jeremy Fox: aka "The Fox," aka "Hollis Baker," aka "Ohmar Bradley," aka "Alex Nevsky," etc. An art thief, originally from Ukraine, currently on the run from the Russian Mafia. Sophisticated, stealthy, and somewhat more subtle than John & Joshua, but no slouch in a stand-up fight. His real identity & motivations remain rather obscure to his partners for much of the campaign. His mental powers were mostly used to boost his natural powers of conversation and persuasion (project emotion, etc). Slim, suave and dashing in a Eurotrash kind of way.

 

 

Key Recurring NPCs:

 

Kristin Woodson: The ultimate middle(wo)man; she knows everybody worth knowing, and helps fix people up with other people that they need or that need them. After her early encounters with the Crew, she retreats to her high-security apartment and never leaves, doing all her work over the Net. She becomes an important source of jobs and information for the Crew. Short, blonde and a little chubby with a prominent nose.

 

Liz Saravani: A pseudo-cop from Houston, who joins up with the Crew when she needs help getting out of the city in a hurry. She stays partly out of a genuine desire to help the Crew in their struggle, and partly because of a deepening relationship with John. Hot-tempered and impulsive, the stress of events makes her more and more unstable over the course of the campaign until she becomes known as "Crazy Liz" (but not to her face). She's fiercely protective of Aunt Jo. Tall, attractive, and athletic, with long white hair.

 

Aunt Jo: A wizened old mystic and friend of Liz; she accompanies Liz when she flees Houston, and subsequently becomes the Crew's tutor in the "empathic arts." Although far too old and weak to do much herself, she is an invaluable teacher and source of information. Small and wizened, but her green eyes are as sharp as ever.

 

Erica "Steve" Stevens: A former operative for BCH-Security, Steve suffers from total amnesia for most of the campaign. Most of her backstory is a mystery that is only gradually revealed throughout the campaign. While initially unsure of herself, as her self-confidence increases she begins to reveal an impressive level of combat proficiency, both armed and unarmed. She becomes attracted to Joshua, although he remains completely oblivious to her interest (in and out of character) almost until the end of the campaign. Breathtakingly beautiful, with short red hair and green eyes.

 

Emmanuelle St. Clair: A mysterious foreign beauty who may or may not be Jeremy's rival: another art thief known only as The Phantom. Loyal primarily to herself, she is the Crew's antagonist as often as their ally. Tall and slender, with long black hair and ice-blue eyes, of uncertain nationality.

 

BCH Enterprises: One of the world's largest megacorporations, founded in the US but headquartered on the tiny Caribbean island of St. Marie. Involved in everything from electronics to food supplements to weapons; also controls what may be the largest private security force in the world. John calls them "Evil Inc;" his comrades are initially skeptical, suspecting that he is just understandably bitter because BCH drove his company out of business. But as the campaign progresses, they come to suspect that BCH may be behind a lot of what's wrong with the world today.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

Here's the first adventure. My notes were a little sketchy early on, but got more detailed as the campaign progressed. (Note that Jeremy didn't join until the 3rd adventure; for now it's just John & Joshua.) These notes were used primarily as recaps for the players (and myself), so they're written in the second person present tense. Assuming anyone finds them interesting, I'll try and post new adventures as I get them cleaned up. (The entire log is 64 pages!)

 

Episode 1: “The Ice Wyrm Cometh”

 

June, 2026: John and Joshua are traveling separately through Texas when a freak snowstorm hits. (Yes, in south Texas in June!) You meet up when you both seek shelter at the same hotel. Later, out the window you see what looks like a Yeti, and decide to investigate. You are unable to catch up with the creature, but save a woman named Kristin Woodson from a pack of arctic wolves (although not before the wolves kill Kristin's lover). Following the wolf and Yeti tracks leads you to an underground complex operated by some outfit called the Garland Corporation.

 

Sneaking past several Yeti and a number of corporate engineers and security guards, you explore the complex. At the center of the complex, you find a large room with what seems to be sort of high-tec teleportation device. You also see a strange, 3'-tall insectoid "Ice Wyrm" creature, which appears to be in charge of the whole show. It becomes apparent that the device is somehow responsible for the freak cold weather, and you find enough parts and equipment to convince yourselves that a whole series of the devices is planned. Shooting starts. The Ice Wyrm gets away, but a 30'-long ice dragon comes through the teleportation gate and starts smashing everything and everybody. You find a case of hand-grenades, and wind up collapsing the mountain on top of the big worm.

 

Once the complex is destroyed, the weather begins returning to normal. Sadly, you don't get to question any of the survivors so you have no idea what the Ice Wyrm was or what was really going on. Joshua attempts to report the incident to the FBI, but is met with skepticism and allegations of fraud. (The Garland Corporation subsequently declares bankruptcy and is later bought out by John's old nemesis, BCH.)

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

Episode 2: “Corpsicles”

 

Early July: You escort Kristin back home to Houston, while you all try to make sense of what just happened. Searching for information on other unexplained cold-related phenomena, you learn that several dead bodies appearing to have been freeze-dried have turned up lately in one of Houston's rougher neighborhoods. Related or not, it's weird so you figure you'll check it out.

 

The neighborhood pseudo-police are a little better than the typical gang-bangers with badges. Their Chief (a grim young man named Hondo) and Lieutenant Liz Saravani seem fairly decent in a tough-streets sort of way, but they don't have much use for you. With a little Streetwise work, you learn about a gang of violent nutcases called "the Children of Mother" that you suspect may be involved. You grab one of the punks for questioning, but you don't learn much and it's still not clear if they're behind the "corpsickles" or not. You sneak into the gang's HQ for a little recon. You don't find any evidence of corpse-freezing or other weirdness, but they do have a couple of captives: two female ~cops, who have obviously been badly mistreated.

 

You sneak out to plan your next move, but outside you find Liz waiting for you -- she'd been following you, and demands to know what you're up to. You tell her everything you've learned (tho nothing about Ice Worms and the like). She calls for backup and the ~cops raid the place. You aren't allowed to participate in the raid, but manage to get into the fighting anyway when a number of Children try and get past you to escape. Liz takes a couple rounds in the Kevlar and is stunned; you pull her to safety, which definitely scores you a few points. The ~cops kill all the Children and rescue the prisoners, but lose a few men in the process -- including Chief Hondo, who appears to have been shot in the back of the head. Everyone obviously suspects Captain Stu Helmers -- now the senior ~cop -- but nobody says so openly. Stu orders you out of "his" neighborhood.

 

Meanwhile, Kristin has gone missing. Liz offers to help you find Kristin if you get her out of the city afterwards. (Without Hondo's protection, she's not safe from Stu anymore.) Liz takes you to meet a friend of hers, an old mystic named Aunt Jo, who bears only a passing resemblance to Yoda and has much better grammar. She & Liz don't think the Children had anything to do with the corpsickles, and believe there is something else sinister and strange going on. Rumors are floating around about some strange, albino-like characters lurking in the shadows. Jo points you towards an abandoned post office building, where you might find them and hopefully Kristin.

 

Liz calls up a couple other ~cops (Lawrence and Van), and the five of you begin a search of the old post office building. The first floor seems deserted, but on the second floor you are jumped by some hulking, ogre-ish brute; you empty 32 Uzi rounds, five shotgun shells and a taser into the thing before it dies. Meanwhile, John gets jumped by two weird albinos with long, stringy white hair, who seems to be able to suck heat out of your body; fortunately, it only takes a couple shots to kill them. Lawrence unexpectedly runs away -- you later find his freeze-dried body.

 

Continuing to the third floor: you find Kristin and a few other captives, all weak and suffering from hypothermia. A few of the "captives" turn out to be more albinos playing possum. Joshua gets grabbed and partially heat-drained, and Van and Liz both get shot. And Joshua gets blinded by some sort of mental attack. You kill these two albinos, but when the mental attacks continue and some chemical spray starts shooting out of the next room, you decide you've had enough fun. Everyone empties their magazines, John throws a grenade into the next room, you grab the captives & wounded, and run (limp) away. Behind you, the chemical spray sets the building on fire and it eventually burns to the ground.

 

[GM's note: The irony is John's hand grenade killed the last bad guys, but they didn't wait around to find that out and under the circumstances I can't blame them a bit.]

 

Epilogue: Once again you have survived (once your ears stop ringing from all the gunfire, grenades, etc.), but again you have no bodies, no evidence, and very few answers to show for your troubles. Liz & Kristin both spend the night in the hospital, but are basically okay. Joshua again tries to report the incident to the FBI, forgetting all about the whole "They think I'm a spy" thing. Kristin moves into a new high-security apartment, which she says she has no intention of leaving -- ever. John, Joshua, Liz & Aunt Jo pack up the car and head for New York City, where Joshua lives.

[RDU Neil]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

Totally over the top... and sounds like a hoot. These modern/sf/horror genre blends are a blast... especially with grenades! Always fun to read up on other's campaigns.

 

Good stuff.

[Vassoom]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

Definitely sounds like fun. I especially appreciate the long-term story arcs you embedded regarding the "mysterious" plant life as well as the players' emerging mental powers.

 

Nice work.

 

- Vassoom

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

Thanks both of you - glad you're enjoying it! And yeah, I've always been a sucker for long-term story arcs: some planned ahead of time, and some figured out after the fact. There's a lot more of that sort of thing coming.

 

Re grenades: The player running John was fond of quoting Flora's line from Chronicles of Amber - "Would you like a hand grenade or two? I find they sometimes come in handy in this shadow." I always hate those movies/stories where the protagonists encounter freaky monsters and don't immediately attempt to procure some Bigger Guns.

 

[Edit: BTW, sorry about all the weird formatting characters; not sure what happened, as I'm 99.9% sure they weren't there when I originally posted them. Something to do with the board software upgrade I assume?]

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

Episode 3: “One Flew Over The Empath’s Nest”

 

Late July: On the road in West Virginia, you are passed by an official-looking convoy of trucks & jeeps. John hears a telepathic call for help from a woman named Donna, who has been abducted and is a prisoner in one of the trucks, along with several others. You follow the convoy to a remote compound called the Bradley Psychiatric Center, which is much more secure than your typical mental hospital, complete with armed guards and response vehicles. You get a hotel room in town for Aunt Jo, and that night head back to the Bradley Center. You get inside the compound without being detected and sneak into the crawlspace under the hospital. From there, Joshua is able to tap into the security system and computer network.

 

You learn that the Bradley Center is doing experiments on people with mental powers. They are nominally a private facility, although you suspect their funding comes from covert government sources. After extended reconnaissance and planning, you sneak upstairs and catch the orderlies completely by surprise, freeing 25 "patients" including a man named Hollis Baker (aka Jeremy Fox). You arm those of the patients who seem up to it, and with help from Joshua controlling the compound’s security system you take over the guard force building, catching most of the guards sleeping. The guards on the fence give you more of a fight, but you take them out with only minor friendly casualties.

 

The guard force’s well-stocked arms room (advanced assault rifles, grenade launchers, secure radios, etc.) gets loaded into one of the trucks, and you lock the captured personnel in the arms room. You also take the Center’s computer files, and a supply of a drug called ST-424, which the hospital uses to block mental powers. As dawn approaches, the freed patients pile into whatever cars are available and you all take off, having sabotaged the guard force’s helicopter and other vehicles left behind. Many of the patients scatter, and some are recaptured, but a handful stays with you as you try and find a place to lay low until sunset.

 

[Notes: Frankly, I expected this to be a tougher fight, but the players came up with a good plan and executed it very well. (Plus, the guards blew a lot of PER rolls.) The PCs didn’t think anyone had gotten off a call for help, but elected not to wait around and find out -- a very good call, as heavy reinforcements were in fact on the way. For the gun nuts, the advanced assault rifles they seized were H&K G11s, which became the Crew’s weapon of choice for much of the rest of the campaign. And in case you’re curious, Jeremy had been picked up by the Bradley Center’s “recruiters” while hiding from some Russian mobsters he double-crossed; it made for an interesting way to introduce a new PC.]

[RDU Neil]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

Thanks both of you - glad you're enjoying it! And yeah, I've always been a sucker for long-term story arcs: some planned ahead of time, and some figured out after the fact. There's a lot more of that sort of thing coming.

 

Re grenades: The player running John was fond of quoting Flora's line from Chronicles of Amber - "Would you like a hand grenade or two? I find they sometimes come in handy in this shadow." I always hate those movies/stories where the protagonists encounter freaky monsters and don't immediately attempt to procure some Bigger Guns.

 

[Edit: BTW, sorry about all the weird formatting characters; not sure what happened, as I'm 99.9% sure they weren't there when I originally posted them. Something to do with the board software upgrade I assume?]

 

 

The weird symbols were not there originally. They seemed to have done some upgrades to the boards over the weekend (they were down Sunday morning) and it screwed up posts like yours and mine that were copied from Word. (The last two of my big Secret Worlds posts got screwed up.)

 

I think if you repost them, they should be fine. I'll try it on mine after work.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

The weird symbols were not there originally. They seemed to have done some upgrades to the boards over the weekend (they were down Sunday morning) and it screwed up posts like yours and mine that were copied from Word. (The last two of my big Secret Worlds posts got screwed up.)

 

I think if you repost them, they should be fine. I'll try it on mine after work.

Yeah, new posts seem to be okay, it's just selected prior posts that have the problem.

[Matt Frisbee]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

While it's not the sort of game I would run or play in, the campaign log for the J-Crew has made for an interesting read, so far. What inspired you to do this sort of genre and was it your idea or your players' to run with it?

 

Matt "Ever-the-curious-one" Frisbee

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

While it's not the sort of game I would run or play in' date=' the campaign log for the J-Crew has made for an interesting read, so far. What inspired you to do this sort of genre and was it your idea or your players' to run with it?[/quote']

Short answer: I picked up a copy of GDW's Dark Conspiracy and thought "Wow, great ideas! Uneven execution and the system sucks, but great ideas!" I just really enjoyed the mix of horror, alien invasion, and low-grade cyberpunk. I carried the idea around in my head for a few years before I had the right group to pitch it to.

 

The irony is that in many ways it was the most realistic campaign I've ever run. That is, you know, except for all the extreme weirdness we tried to keep all the Real World bits as realistic as possible. I think the contrast made for more effective game.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

Interlude: “Demonground”

 

Late July: Joshua and Liz go back to pick up Aunt Jo. Joshua calls the R&D firm he works for to say he’ll be a couple more days late, and is told some “government suits” have been talking to his boss. Meanwhile, John, Jeremy, and a handful of others spend the day hiding out in South Franklin, PA, an abandoned town overgrown with kudzu vines. [Note: the players managed to completely forget the stuff about “demon weed” in the campaign background material, so there was far less meta-game paranoia than there might’ve been.]

 

As the day progresses, weirder and weirder things start to happen. One of the freed patients nearly drowns trying to save a drowning woman that no one else saw. John keeps seeing some enormous dog out of the corner of his eye, but no one sees that either. Misshapen monkeys throw poo at you from the trees. Then Jeremy happens upon two locals, a brother and sister; the good news is that everyone can see them, the bad news is that they try to suck blood out of Jeremy's arm. After they get shot, they turn into weird mutated creatures…or did they always look like that, and you somehow just didn’t see it?

 

Deciding not to wait until nightfall after all, you pile into the vehicles and head out. The road out of town becomes a gauntlet of all manner of weird creepy nasties. Bees and other stinging insects swarm the vehicles, a monkey jumps onto the jeep and bites one of the patients, something unseen keeps dropping rocks on the top of the truck, and John’s still the only one who sees the huge dog chasing them. You make it out relatively unscathed, although the patient with the monkey bite later contracts a malaria-like disease and dies. You all vow never to go near kudzu again.

 

Epilogue: Several ex-patients tell their stories to the press, backed up the computer records you swiped. It becomes quite the scandal, as the records do in fact indicate CIA funding, although it’s never definitively established how much the CIA knew about the methods being used. The head of the CIA is forced to resign, and the director of the Bradley Center commits suicide. The patients you freed manage to keep you out of the story, and the government doesn’t want to talk about it, so you dodge the press bullet.

[RDU Neil]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

Interlude: “Demonground”

 

Late July: Joshua and Liz go back to pick up Aunt Jo. Joshua calls the R&D firm he works for to say he’ll be a couple more days late, and is told some “government suits” have been talking to his boss. Meanwhile, John, Jeremy, and a handful of others spend the day hiding out in South Franklin, PA, an abandoned town overgrown with kudzu vines. [Note: the players managed to completely forget the stuff about “demon weed” in the campaign background material, so there was far less meta-game paranoia than there might’ve been.]

 

As the day progresses, weirder and weirder things start to happen. One of the freed patients nearly drowns trying to save a drowning woman that no one else saw. John keeps seeing some enormous dog out of the corner of his eye, but no one sees that either. Misshapen monkeys throw poo at you from the trees. Then Jeremy happens upon two locals, a brother and sister; the good news is that everyone can see them, the bad news is that they try to suck blood out of Jeremy's arm. After they get shot, they turn into weird mutated creatures…or did they always look like that, and you somehow just didn’t see it?

 

Deciding not to wait until nightfall after all, you pile into the vehicles and head out. The road out of town becomes a gauntlet of all manner of weird creepy nasties. Bees and other stinging insects swarm the vehicles, a monkey jumps onto the jeep and bites one of the patients, something unseen keeps dropping rocks on the top of the truck, and John’s still the only one who sees the huge dog chasing them. You make it out relatively unscathed, although the patient with the monkey bite later contracts a malaria-like disease and dies. You all vow never to go near kudzu again.

 

Epilogue: Several ex-patients tell their stories to the press, backed up the computer records you swiped. It becomes quite the scandal, as the records do in fact indicate CIA funding, although it’s never definitively established how much the CIA knew about the methods being used. The head of the CIA is forced to resign, and the director of the Bradley Center commits suicide. The patients you freed manage to keep you out of the story, and the government doesn’t want to talk about it, so you dodge the press bullet.

 

Hee hee hee! Alien, blood-sucking, mutant halucinogenic plant infestations!

 

Much fun!!!

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

Episode 4: “This Old (Haunted) House”

 

Late July: You reach New York to find out that Joshua has been fired from his job -- allegedly for too many extended absences, but it’s obvious they think you’ve become a security risk. The five of you (Joshua, John, Jeremy, Liz and Aunt Jo) all try to fit into Joshua's one-bedroom apartment, and look for ways to establish yourself as “weird **** investigators.”

 

Early August: You learn of a supposedly-haunted house in Westchester, NY, where several people have supposedly disappeared; frankly it sounds pretty bogus, but you don’t have anything else going on so you decide to check it out anyway. The house is appropriately Gothic, and a number of spooky-but-explainable things happen to you. Just as you’ve convinced yourself the whole thing is a hoax, Liz disappears!

 

More serious now, you resume your search of the house. You find a secret panel leading to a series of hidden rooms and meet Dicky Reingold, a harmless-looking old hermit who claims he was just trying to scare people away so he could be left alone. He has cameras and equipment throughout the house that explain all the phenomena you encountered -- except for Liz’s disappearance, which Dicky claims to know nothing about.

 

Dicky shows you some tunnels underneath the house which he says he’s never explored; at your insistence, he reluctantly agrees to accompany you. Rats swarm all over the place, but you make some torches to keep them at bay. After crawling through a long series of tunnels, you find a large underground chamber with many tunnels branching off from it. In the center of the chamber you find Liz: naked, barely conscious, and partly buried under a large mound of wet clay. You start to dig her out -- when all sorts of creatures start charging out of the various side tunnels: Yeti, ice wolves, ogres, albinos, misshapen monkeys, every weird beastie you’ve encountered over the past month!

 

Much ammunition is expended. You manage to hold them off while you dig Liz out, but they keep coming. Dicky seems as freaked out as you are -- until John (semi)accidentally elbows him to get him out of the line of fire, and as Dicky hits the ground all the other creatures suddenly disappear before your eyes! Deducing that Dicky is projecting some sort of mental illusion, everyone empties their magazines into the “harmless old man.” He breathes one last word (“Eve”) before he expires. Sure enough, no more monsters. Checking his body, he seems to be human except for an additional joint in his thumbs and only three molars on each side in his mouth.

 

Epilogue: Since Dicky’s house was legally listed as abandoned, you move in and claim squatters rights. In the house you find an extensive library of books on mysticism and the occult; also a few thousand dollars worth of jewelry, including a locket on Dicky’s bedside with an old-fashioned portrait of some beautiful blond woman. You also find a strange device that looks like a conch shell stuck on the end of a stick; rubbing the stick causes a strange mucous-ey substance to spray out of the shell, causing near-uncontrollable vomiting in anyone it hits. What’s that about?! (Joshua’s just frustrated that he can’t figure out how it works.)

 

[Note: In some ways this may have been my favorite scenario of the whole campaign! I really wanted to do a “reverse Scooby-Doo ending” but wasn’t sure I’d be able to pull it off. But for once the script played exactly as written; every time they thought they’d figured out what was going on, I had another rug to pull out from under their feet. The players were kept guessing right up to the very end and loved every minute of it.]

[RDU Neil]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

Poor Dickey. The GM in me wonders if he might have had more to say... maybe not so malevolent that he required to have multilple clips emptied into him... but hey...

 

(The way your wrote it up, he sounds like he may have been more screwed up than truly evil... but I could be reading that wrong.)

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

Poor Dickey. The GM in me wonders if he might have had more to say... maybe not so malevolent that he required to have multilple clips emptied into him... but hey...

 

(The way your wrote it up, he sounds like he may have been more screwed up than truly evil... but I could be reading that wrong.)

That's just what he wanted you to think. But naw, he was evil to the core. Honestly not sure how much the players picked up on that, and how much they were just being paranoid. The "battle" against the illusionary monsters was quite a bit more tense than I probably made it sound, and the stress meter was fairly high by that point, so being a little trigger-happy seemed in character under the circumstances. Also, John was already starting to get rather protective of Liz. (We did have a few discussions throughout the campaign about whether some of the PCs - particularly John - should have "Shoots first and asks questions rarely" as a Disad.)

 

As for Dicky having more to say... you bet! He actually had quite the backstory. Frankly I was kinda relieved that they killed him, because if they'd captured him and found a way to make him talk it could've cut two years off the campaign. I was eventually able to work most of his backstory in, so you haven't heard the last of him. (But you have *seen* the last of him - no resurrections in this game.)

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

In case anyone’s curious, here’s a peek at the Crew’s weapons & equipment list at this point in the game:

 

John

H&K G11 Assault Rifle (4.7mm caseless)

7.62mm Sniper Rifle (sometimes used by Joshua)

Desert Eagle .44M pistol

Glock 27 .40 pistol (compact & concealable)

Taser pistol

Night Vision Opera Glasses (fictional High-Tec, highly compact)

Secure radio (frequency-hopping, coded)

Light Kevlar (concealable under clothing)

Knife

Medic's Bag

 

Joshua

H&K G11 Assault Rifle (4.7mm caseless)

Galil 5.56mm Assault Rifle (seldom carried once they got the G11s)

Sig P229 .40 pistol

PVS-7 Night Vision Goggles

Secure radio (frequency-hopping, coded)

Light Kevlar (concealable under clothing)

Knife

Handheld Computer

Electrician’s Bag

 

Jeremy (at this point still using the name Hollis)

H&K G11 Assault Rifle (4.7mm caseless)

Sig P228 9mm pistol

“Barf Gun” (the Dark-Tec device described in Episode 4)

PVS-7 Night Vision Goggles

Secure radio (frequency-hopping, coded)

Light Kevlar (concealable under clothing)

Knife

Burglar Tools

 

Liz

M16 Assault Rifle with M203 Grenade Launcher

H&K MP5 10mm Submachine gun

Glock 34 9mm pistol

PVS-7 Night Vision Goggles

Secure radio (frequency-hopping, coded)

Light Kevlar (concealable under clothing)

Collapsible baton

 

Normally, they each carried two fragmentation hand grenades, but at this point, they were out.

Shortly after this they invested in some heavier “tactical” body armor.

 

Vehicles (all fictional 2026 models)

Jeep CS (Joshua’s: basically a next-model Grand Cherokee)

Zil Tovarisch (the cheapest Yugo knock-off on the market – did I mention John’s Poor Disad?)

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

Episode 5: “Our Gang/Your Gang” (Part One)

 

Late August: You spend a couple weeks working on your new house and getting set up. Having heard stories of “the dead walking the streets” of Centerville, West Virginia, you send a query letter to the Centerville Police Chief, offering to review his security systems and procedures and hinting that you’re prepared to handle weird and unusual situations. No immediate answer.

 

Meanwhile, John & Liz take temp jobs as bodyguards for industrialist Randall Irons. After a few days, Irons mentions being very concerned about his daughter Alex. Apparently, there is some bad gang activity at her college: several students have been attacked, including three of her friends, and several several have died. It doesn't seem weird enough for you to investigate… until that night, John has an unusually-vivid dream in which Alex Irons and a bunch of other college kids dance as marionettes, like in an old-time puppet show; you can’t see who’s pulling the strings, but you get an impression of dark beings looming over the scene. The next day, you offer to go check things out. Irons puts you all on the payroll, and you head north to Ithaca, New York.

 

In Ithaca, Jeremy makes friends with the college museum curator, who gets him a temporary visitor’s pass to campus. Joshua hacks into the city police’s computer and college personnel computer (tho amusingly, is unable to get into the campus police system!). You download several reports of attacks on students, both male and female, and start analyzing them for patterns. Meanwhile, John & Liz work the streets and make a few contacts with the local street gangs; according to them, the violence is the result of warfare between two newly-formed gangs, one composed of female students, and the other of male students. The "regular" gangs try to act dismissive of these "Yuppie-kidkid gang-banger wannabees" but you get the distinct impression they're really a little scared of them.

 

You identify a few of the most recent female victims and shadow them. They lead you to a walled compound a few blocks off campus; a private residence belonging to one Dennis Coldwell, according to records. That night several groups of girls exit the compound, dressed for trouble; you again follow them. John gets spotted, but manages to evade them; however, as Jeremy tries to come to John’s aid he winds up running smack into one of the groups of girls and gets attacked. He Judo-throws two of them into some trash cans before getting kicked in the balls and knocked out. Fortunately, at that point John & Liz arrive; warning shots don’t seem to faze the gang-girls, but you shoot a couple girls in the arms & legs and they withdraw.

 

The next day, you set up electronic surveillance of the Coldwell compound. Jeremy chats up two of the gang-girls in the SUB, under the pretense of looking for his missing dog; the girls flirt back and hint that they are involved in something serious, but he’s unable to get any details out of them. That night, a group of gang-girls nearly clashes with a group of gang-boys, but you spoil the ambush by firing a few rounds in the air. Jeremy attempts to defuse the situation by walking in between the two rival gangs and calling for his lost dog; he is the only one surprised when he gets shot at, but he manages to escape with only an arm wound.

 

You do manage to capture two gang-girls (including Irons’ daughter) and question them, but get very little information; their demeanor and fanatical loyalty to Dennis leaves you with the impression they’re under some form of brainwashing or mind control. Meanwhile, you tail the gang-boys to a luxury apartment building a few miles away; a records check shows that the penthouse suite is being rented by a woman named “Denise Cauldwell.”

 

[Can I just say: this really wasn’t Jeremy’s best adventure ever, as Suave Art Thief Guy somehow morphed into Bumbling Comic Relief Guy for several sessions. The phrase “I’m looking for my dog!” remains a sure-fire laugh line for all of us to this day. ]

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

Episode 5: “Our Gang/Your Gang” (Part Two)

 

After a day of planning and preparation, you cause several “false alarms” at Dennis’ compound, and impersonate the alarm company repairmen they call for. (Stealing a van from John’s old nemesis, Iron Castle Security, is an added bonus.) Once inside the compound, Joshua rigs several security cameras up on dubbed loops, and programs the rear gate to open by remote. The next morning, you execute your Trojan Horse programs and sneak inside. Your preparations and reconnaissance pay off: you taser, tranquilize or just plain knock-out everyone inside before anyone can sound any kind of alarm. Your prisoners are four more gang-girls and Dennis, a short man with swarthy skin and very dark eyes; you check, but he does not have the extra thumb and missing molars that Dicky did (see Episode 3).

 

You spend several hours questioning Dennis, who is defiant and uncooperative. Throughout the day, additional gang-girls arrive at the compound in ones & twos and are added to your collection. Dennis eventually tells you that he and Denise (his sister) are Tashakan, a race of cobra-men from Indian mythology; you figure out that their tongues inject a venom that allows them to mind control people, but only works against humans of the opposite sex. After several hours, John gets tired of “playing games” and puts a bullet in Dennis’ brainpan. All the girls scream and go comatose; when they eventually wake up, they remember little of the last few months. But Denise slips out of town and disappears before you can mount an assault on her apartment.

 

Epilogue: All the gang members – boys and girls – go through a few weeks of painful withdrawal, but are basically okay in the end. All your attempts to track Denise hit dead ends. Searching Dicky’s library later, you find a reference in Indian mythology to an Indian noble named Tashaka. According to legend, Tashaka somehow offended the god Indra and was transformed into a cobra as punishment; after many years as a snake, he was able to trick a passing wise man into releasing him, but instead of becoming a normal human Tashaka became a cobra-man.

 

 

[Notes: This was, we all agreed, the weakest adventure of the whole campaign; a real disappointment after the success of the previous story. In hindsight, I think I was so busy creating all this detail surrounding the Villains and the Victims that I never really thought through what I wanted/expected the Heroes to do – a classic case of writing the episode around the guest stars rather than the regulars. As a result, the whole story had a meandering, unfocused feel to it, as if no one knew quite what they were supposed to be doing, including the GM. Frankly, I think the John player executed Dennis at least partly to put the scenario out of its misery. (And not a moment too soon!) On the bright side, the actual assault on Dennis’ compound was very well planned and flawlessly executed. ]

[Vassoom]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

In hindsight' date=' I think I was so busy creating all this detail surrounding the Villains and the Victims that I never really thought through what I wanted/expected the [i']Heroes[/i] to do – a classic case of writing the episode around the guest stars rather than the regulars.

 

Yup. Been there, done that. Happens to all of us, both as GMs and players. At least you recognized it right away...I've been in games before where the entire campaign was like that!

 

- Vassoom

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

Yup. Been there' date=' done that. Happens to all of us, both as GMs and players. At least you recognized it right away...I've been in games before where the [i']entire campaign [/i]was like that!

I try not to make the same mistake twice - there are too many new and interesting mistakes waiting to be made.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

Interlude: “Keepsakes & Mementos”

 

Back at the house in Westchester, Aunt Jo has been sorting through Dicky’s library. Most of the books are blatant nonsense, but there are several interesting and useful volumes tucked here and there; you suspect that Dicky may have collected all the “junk” books just to camouflage the few serious ones. One book she shows you is obviously very old, and hand-written in a language none of you recognize. Tucked inside the book is an equally-old letter, apparently written in the same unknown language. The handwriting is different, tho: the book’s writing looks masculine, while that in the letter seems more feminine.

 

Joshua compares the letter to the locket you had found previously on Dicky’s bedside. As he holds the two of them, he gets a sudden vision of a breathtaking blond woman throwing the locket at him in a furious rage. It fades in an instant, but he is pretty sure the woman pictured in the locket is the same one from his vision.

 

Joshua scans the letter and runs it through several translation programs; while some individual words seem to resemble Old English and/or Gaelic, the computer is unable to translate any actual phrases. Kristin puts you in touch with Dr. Kenneth Michaels, a Professor of Ancient Languages at Miskatonic University.* He seems very interested, so you send him the book and letter for analysis and translation.

 

* (I just really couldn’t resist.)

[Matt Frisbee]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

Excellent work on this summary, bigdamnhero! You should be repped and commended. Looks like I've already done the latter and I'll try to do the former after I post this! Keep 'em coming!

 

Matt "I-love-this-stuff" Frisbee

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Campaign Log: The J-Crew

 

Episode 6: “Dead Guys Walking”

 

September: You get a response from Centerville Police Chief Gilbert Onate, accepting your offer to do a city-wide security consultation. Joshua hacks into their computer system and downloads all recent police reports, so you have something to read on the drive down; in the past three months, there have been six unexplained disappearances and seven reported sightings of people known or believed to be dead. (See attachment.)

 

[Note: Centerville is something called a “Citadel” in my world -- a walled town of a few thousand people. The idea is that gated communities have been extended to a civic scale: why just keep “undesirables” out of your neighborhood when you can keep them out of town altogether? (I’m not advocating this, obviously.) Like most Citadels, Centerville has a very small police force because the whole point is that it’s supposed to be crime-free, right?]

 

In Centerville, you meet with Chief Onate and Lieutenant Nurit Leeds, who between them constitute the entire Centerville Police Department. It turns out Onate has heard the rumors BCH spread about John to put him out of business, so they are rather wary of you. You are allowed to check out the sites of the disappearances and generally explore the town, but are not allowed to carry your guns. (Jeremy pockets a pistol anyway.)

 

That night you go out on patrol, accompanied by Lt. Leeds. Passing a small park, you are jumped by a half-dozen…well, zombies is really the only word that fits, isn’t it? They prove hard to fight hand-to-hand, since they are abnormally strong and seem to feel no pain. When Jeremy and Lt. Leeds shoot them, they die, although their bodies release a terrible stench that causes vomiting in everyone nearby.) You eventually destroy all of them, and Lt. Leeds identifies them as various missing or dead townsfolk.

 

The next day, you appear before the civic counsel and attempt to explain the situation as you see it. While several members would prefer to keep their heads in the sand, you manage to convince enough of them to hire you as security consultants (ie - monster hunters). You also get approval to exhume the graves of the dead guys you fought last night. Sure enough, their coffins are empty; but underneath is a wet, clay substance. Digging through a foot or so of clay, you break through into a series of tunnels under the town. Onate and Leeds provide gas masks -- and your guns -- and accompany you down into the tunnels.

 

The tunnels are low, cramped, and not entirely stable. When more zombies attack, you shoot several and drive off the rest, but the noise causes a cave-in and several of you are nearly buried. Proceeding on, you make your way to a large central cavern. Even more zombies attack, and a hideous blob of fused corpses bursts up through the ground and starts trying to grab and bite anyone it can. Lt. Leeds gets badly acid-burned, and shooting the blob seems to have little effect. Then Liz pumps a couple white phosphorous grenades into it from her M203 and it burns up -- you scramble out of the tunnels before they collapse altogether.

 

Epilogue: Back in the library, you find an Indian myth about Bhuta, the Devourer of the Dead, which matches the description of the Centerville Blob; the legend states that Bhuta could create walking corpse “children” called dharbas.

 

[Note: I had intended the beasties in this campaign to be a mish-mash of several different cultures and mythologies from around the world. Doing two Indian-themed monsters back-to-back was completely accidental on my part, but I think led the players to believe they were in an Hindu mythology-themed game. For many months afterwards, they tried to interpret everything they saw in terms of Hindu myth. Oh well; kept them guessing.]