Christopher

And from this week's Historical-Fantasy Hero game:
 
The PCs have journeyed to Ireland, to the Hill of Tara, seat of High King Mael Sechnaill mac Domnaill, who is currently losing a civil war against Brian Boru, the King of Munster...
 
Player 1: "How would you like to be known to history as the Cheese King? No wonder he wants to take over, he just wants a better title!"
 
 
The PCs figure out the High King is going blind, so the Holy Warrior and the Alchemist decide to try and cure him:
 
Warrior: "Herbalism by 2, Medic by 4."
GM: "OK, great." (to Alchemist) "Give me a SS: Medicine roll."
Alchemist: (rolls) "...Well...crap."
Priest: "Did we just poison the High King?"
Warrior: "We were planning on leaving town anyway..."
Alchemist: "Screw that; I'm going to blow a Hero Point to reroll."
GM: "But it's funnier this way! ...Okay, fine grumble grumble."
Alchemist: (rerolls - gets a natural 3!) "WOOT!"
Priest: "As uses of Hero Points go..."
GM: "Yeah, wow. OK, go ahead and give me an Alchemical Invention roll just for..."
Alchemist: (rolls a second natural 3!)
Everyone:
Warrior: "So not only is he no longer blind, now he has Super Vision!"
GM: (singing) "I can see for miles and miles..."
Priest: "Did you make enough for everyone?"

Last week's Star Wars game featured the Battle of Endor and destruction of the second Death Star.
 
Except in this game, instead of the Ewoks being annoying midgets in teddy bear costumes, the GM turned them into terrifying CGI killbeasts who see the world as divided into into "Food" and "Things We Can Use To Kill Food." And the former category very emphatically does NOT include exceptions for sentient species. We manage to convince them not to eat us in exchange for helping them kill "The Food That Comes In White Shells" aka Stormtroopers.
 
GM: "The Ewoks start singing a battle song..."
PCs (all singing) "Yub yub, Ewok yub yub..."
GM: "Actually their battle songs sound more like recipes." (singing in a low dirge voice) "Add 2 cups butter, parsley and simmer until tender."
PCs:
 
 
Another change in this game is that Luke died blowing up the 1st Death Star, so Leia (as an NPC) became a Jedi instead; while the PCs take out the shield generator planetside, she's the one who goes up to the Death Star to watch Vader and the Emperor kill each other. Afterwards, back on Endor she readies Dad's corpse for the big Viking funeral send-off.
 
PC1: (to Leia) "Do you want to keep Lord Vader's shuttle?"
Leia: "No, you guys can have it."
PC2: "But you should at least keep his helmet. As a memento"
Leia: "That helmet is a reminder of what my father turned into, a monster who killed millions. Why would I want to be reminded of that?"
PC1: "Oh, you may not want it now. But someday your kids might want something to connect them to the grandfather they never knew."
GM: "..."
PC2: "Something to brood and obsess over..."
GM: "STOP!"

Squirm: Edward was an odd boy, tall, lanky and withdrawn. He never made any friends in the orphanage where he was raised after being abandoned at a local ER. Even the staff found the boy's brooding silence and intense, seemingly contemptuous stares off putting. They were profession enough not to let their personal feeling interfere with his care. He wasn't abused or neglected but mostly ignored. Left to his own devices Edward mostly sat alone in the institute's yard, silently staring at the ground, sometimes muttering to himself or contorting his unusually flexible limbs and body, year after year. 
  No one truly missed the strange silent boy when he came up missing on his 13th birthday. He was assumed to be another runaway,  one of those tragic cases. The paperwork was filed, reports written and Edward was swiftly lost in the cracks, another statistic. For years, he lived on the street, a vagabond; one of those mumbling crazed individuals that people cross the street to avoid. He never begged as he never thought that much about others to consider asking them. He stole what he needed, using his increasingly inhuman contortionist abilities to get in and out of otherwise impossible to reach locations.    As his abilities increased the voices in his head grew more insistent. Not louder, they were always like wordless suppuration, a chorus of alien background noise that he could almost understand. That he needed to understand but constantly eluded him. Until it all came to a head one rainy night in a muddy lot where Edward was accosted by a gang of young thugs looking for some cheap thrills. Kicking around a crazy bum was good enough. Edward fought back with surprising ferocity but little experience and ended up on the receiving end of a savage beating  But even through the pain and terror the voices remained and, in desperation, he cried out to them.    The muddy ground churned, grew thicker and wetter as millions of worms burrowed to the surface, turned the dirt under his assailant's feet to worm ridden thick slime. When they feel, those worms both normal and huge bloated pale thing that didn't look to be from world dug into their flesh. It was all over in moments, their gnawed bodies dragged down and buried. Edward heard the voices even more clearly now. They whispered the dead boys' secrets and knowledge eaten from their dying brains and flesh.    And more...   Now he could understand it all. The voices were the collective chorus of the Worm, those things that crawled and burrowed,the slugs, the earthworms, tube-worms, maggots, the bottom of the cycle of life and its base. Humans in their arrogance thought they were the masters of the Earth. They were nothing, just a step in the cycle. Worm food.    The Worm told Edward his purpose. To move among the humans, to learn their weaknesses, their tactics and to prepare for the Worm's resurgence and dominance. He'd always known he wasn't human and didn't belong among these sack of bones. He was of a higher order of life as demonstrated by his abilities and that voice of the Worm that spoke to him. He could use these abilities to perform his mission too.    Emptying the dead thugs bank accounts and homes (he knew their pin numbers, had their keys and access to most of their funds), Edward cleaned himself up and made himself look respectable. The costume was found on the undiscovered body of a failed vigilante or would be super criminal (It didn't matter to Edward) that the maggots lead him too. He modified it somewhat adding the symbol of his true heritage. Foolish humans would take it as a joke, an eccentric affectation. Until it was too late.    And so the latest local superhero was born: Squirm. To the public he is amiable if somewhat silly "rubber man". He has hyper contortionist abilities, powerful muscles and almost unbreakable green wood flexible bones that not only allow him to contort his body but to extend his limbs and reach. Squirm is also exceptionally agile and dexterous and able to use all his limbs even his tongue as essentially extra hands. He can regenerate up to and including lost limbs and is almost impossible to kill without extreme physical destruction such as being burned to ash.    His less physical powers are far stranger. Squirm can communicate with worms and other similar forms of life. Though communicate might be too generous. These being don't have minds as such but, according to Edward, they share an consciousness which he is in touch with and serves. He can extend his awareness through it, sensing his surroundings through his senses and mystically enhanced versions of a worm's. He can summon worms by the thousands which seem to borrow in from the ground, swarm out of pipes. etc even if no worms inhabit the location. If there is semi reasonable way, the unearthly annelids will come to his aid. Edward can draw the memories and see the past of any flesh they can consume, even draw on the victim's skills for a time. He can also implant worm like organisms born from his body into a victim and control them as the parasites slowly consume them.    Squirm keeps these more grotesque powers strictly hidden, presenting himself as strange martial artist with extreme durability and borderline superhuman strength; basically a somewhat comical (as most are) but very effective "rubber man" type super hero with a friendly low key personality. As Squirm has figuratively and literally wormed his way into the superhuman community some have sensed something off about the unassuming hero. Most of them assume his amiable but quiet attitude is a cover for some tragic past and have no idea of the inhuman crawling horror lurking behind his eyes.    What is the Worm?   It could be just what Edward thinks it is, some demonic entity using a deranged mutant as a pawn or even the Slug, perhaps Edward is an experiment of it's to see if the monkeys can be made into something useful. The Worm could even be a complete delusion, a product of Edward's damaged psyche.    Other connections:   Squirm has met Leech and they seem to share a bond, perhaps even serving similar masters and purposes. 

To most people he is Kyle Lamont, horoscope editor for the Daily Standard supermarket tabloid but when evil forces threatens his beloved city, Kyle becomes the super strong Aries the Ram who can psionically generate energized ram horns on his head capable of stopping a army tank in it's tracks.

I think it is fitting when I say "Oh Crap!"

I can not identify the sings on his chest unambigiously, so I will be going with the funniest interpretation I can imagine
 
Megadril (litereally "Big Worm") aka the Earthworm King.
 
While earthworms do not evoke feelings of dread the same way a eagle, badger, wolverine, ant or even platypus does, a humansized version should no be understimated. Frankly, he is the bane to many a martial artist:
Earthworms are mostly muscles. Accordingly the MD has considerable superstrenght, wich he can use defensively.
The ability to breath through his skin makes him resistant to practically any form of choking.
The highly distributed nervous system and internal organs, mean that nerve strikes and similar attacks aming for "human like physiology" fail to find their marks.
And the redudant circulatory system rounds up the defense against blood flow impeeding attacks.
The hydrostatic skeleton (wich makes breaking bones impossible) and regenerative abilities round up the full set of brick abilities.
As "minor" powers he has a tremor sense, the ability to shrink to the size of a literal earthworm, and the ability to communicate with earthworms (granted that is hardly as usefull as communicaiton with ants would be).
 
For obvious reasons, he prefers to go by the name Megadriles, as that evokes a lot more power then "earthworm king".
And no, he is NOT a hermaprodite. He is really tired about being asked that!

I can not identify the sings on his chest unambigiously, so I will be going with the funniest interpretation I can imagine
 
Megadril (litereally "Big Worm") aka the Earthworm King.
 
While earthworms do not evoke feelings of dread the same way a eagle, badger, wolverine, ant or even platypus does, a humansized version should no be understimated. Frankly, he is the bane to many a martial artist:
Earthworms are mostly muscles. Accordingly the MD has considerable superstrenght, wich he can use defensively.
The ability to breath through his skin makes him resistant to practically any form of choking.
The highly distributed nervous system and internal organs, mean that nerve strikes and similar attacks aming for "human like physiology" fail to find their marks.
And the redudant circulatory system rounds up the defense against blood flow impeeding attacks.
The hydrostatic skeleton (wich makes breaking bones impossible) and regenerative abilities round up the full set of brick abilities.
As "minor" powers he has a tremor sense, the ability to shrink to the size of a literal earthworm, and the ability to communicate with earthworms (granted that is hardly as usefull as communicaiton with ants would be).
 
For obvious reasons, he prefers to go by the name Megadriles, as that evokes a lot more power then "earthworm king".
And no, he is NOT a hermaprodite. He is really tired about being asked that!

Stars. They come in many sizes, weights and especially spectral classes. The Solar Suit is designed to simulate the properties of a Blue Supergiant or Red Dwarf, depending on wich option the user chooses. Depending wich option is choosen, the blue and red color of the suit switch places and the powers granted change drastically.
 
Red Dwarfs are cool, small and longelived. They are also somewhat hard to spot due to their low luminosity. But only a fool would think about getting to close to one. While in this mode, the Solar Suit grants the wearer increased endurance and durability. It also granst longelevity and the ability to survive hostile environments. This form is shown in the image above.
 
Blue Supergiants like all Supergiants are violent, powerfull and especially shortlived. In this mode the suit grants incredible attack powers, at the cost of exhausting his wearer quickly and not granting nearly as much durability.
 
Of course both modes still grant some level of superhuman ability, just where teh focus lies varries greatly. Oddly they grant almost no heat based powers, instead focussing on the secondary properties of their parent stars (endurance/lifespan).
 
The current wearer is perhaps the last person you would expect, because he is a "inverse Captain Marvel": He is actually over 80 in his civil Identity.
While using the Red Dwarf Form, the suit turns him into his younger self - including restoring his original red haircolor - and allows him to take it up with the best of them. While a bit of the power is drained into that transformation/reverse aging, he learned to compensate for it with his life experience. He eshews using the Blue Supergiant form at all, as he would be much closer to his original age when using that option and simply could not use it anywhere near it's full potential.
Also he is in a "kind of" secret identity despite not hiding his face: As few people still remember how he looked when he was that age originally and even fewer people listen to those people, enemies have yet to piece together his real identity.

Stars. They come in many sizes, weights and especially spectral classes. The Solar Suit is designed to simulate the properties of a Blue Supergiant or Red Dwarf, depending on wich option the user chooses. Depending wich option is choosen, the blue and red color of the suit switch places and the powers granted change drastically.
 
Red Dwarfs are cool, small and longelived. They are also somewhat hard to spot due to their low luminosity. But only a fool would think about getting to close to one. While in this mode, the Solar Suit grants the wearer increased endurance and durability. It also granst longelevity and the ability to survive hostile environments. This form is shown in the image above.
 
Blue Supergiants like all Supergiants are violent, powerfull and especially shortlived. In this mode the suit grants incredible attack powers, at the cost of exhausting his wearer quickly and not granting nearly as much durability.
 
Of course both modes still grant some level of superhuman ability, just where teh focus lies varries greatly. Oddly they grant almost no heat based powers, instead focussing on the secondary properties of their parent stars (endurance/lifespan).
 
The current wearer is perhaps the last person you would expect, because he is a "inverse Captain Marvel": He is actually over 80 in his civil Identity.
While using the Red Dwarf Form, the suit turns him into his younger self - including restoring his original red haircolor - and allows him to take it up with the best of them. While a bit of the power is drained into that transformation/reverse aging, he learned to compensate for it with his life experience. He eshews using the Blue Supergiant form at all, as he would be much closer to his original age when using that option and simply could not use it anywhere near it's full potential.
Also he is in a "kind of" secret identity despite not hiding his face: As few people still remember how he looked when he was that age originally and even fewer people listen to those people, enemies have yet to piece together his real identity.

Needs an acronym
 
General Utility Nexus - National Emergency Response

Copperhead: Being the younger sibling of super villain had its perks, one of them being an inconsistent but copious flow of money from a protective older brother among them. But Joy Jannick would have given all of them up and more to see her brother leave the crazy dangerous life he was leading. 
  Little chance of that though, Roy had inherited their father's macho streak and hardheadedness; the thing that had gotten him killed in a pointless bar fight when she and Roy were kids, her barely walking. Their mother had taken over as best she could. She had a stubborn streak too and worked herself to the bone to support two kids and give them the best home she could.    Her brother, Roy had decided early on that he had to be the man of family and take care of them. There weren't many ways for a kid to earn substantial money, not many legal ways so Roy got mixed up in the bad stuff. Unfortunately it stuck with him. He quit school and took on string of small time crimes, mostly heists and burglaries. He was caught fairly often, served some time but went right back to crime, too stubborn and headstrong to even consider giving up.    Then came that fateful encounter with Defender...   Driven to avenge himself on the armored hero,  the high school drop out built a powered exoskeleton and became the villain Exo. While not exceptionally powerful, he was good enough to perform several high profit crimes and sent most of his gains to his mother, then his sister when she passed away. Joy shared her brother incredible talents and used the money along with generous scholarship to get into MIT.    Then her brother was caught again, set up by Viper as a patsy and distraction possibly even targeted as there were parties that worried about Exo's talents and what he might grow into. This didn't sit well at all with Joy, especially after years of seeing her brother derided as a “C-lister” among villain fandom. Her own hotheaded streak took over. Using her brother's notes, some covert help from him and the innate inventive genius they shared Joy not only recreated the Exo suit but improved it, adding more armor and systems.    Unlike her brother, she wasn't driven by her short fuse and realized that going at Viper head on wouldn't end well for her and possibly her brother. But if she could gather allies while she picked at their operations and harassed them she could slowly do some major damage to the organization. So Joy became the newest local superhero, hoping to befriend some other heroes to help in her fight against Viper. She decided to call herself “Copperhead” reflecting her armors coloration and vaguely reptilian styling. It also fits her sense of humor to use Viper's snake motif against them.    Exo can be found on page 72 of Villains vandals and Vermin

In order to do "proper" Espionage, impersonation alone might not be enough. You need to take out the person you plan on inpersonating. What if comitting violence (and taking someones live in particular) starts a slow "rotting" process? The ones in the secret service are willing to risk certain death, in exchange for the safety of their species.
 
It reminds me of something I watched:
The Delvians from Farscape had to overcome their agressiveness, or risk going insane. Having red eyes was a warning sign that they were gone too far:
http://farscape.wikia.com/wiki/Zotoh_Zhaan
http://farscape.wikia.com/wiki/Delvian
http://farscape.wikia.com/wiki/Rhapsody_in_Blue
 
Also the Liir from Sword of the Stars are somewhat similar. Being telepathic, taking a live is abhorent to them. Yet they still have a space navy. People that join the Navy are called "Black Swimmers" and considerd dead for their people upon joining - going as far as having a funeral.
"Do not expect to face a peaceful and idyllic race in battle.
The beings who helm the starships of the Liir navy count themselves among the dead.
They are not Liir — they are everything which is not Liir.
They are ruthlessness, they are destruction, they are death-dealers and plague-bearers.
They have become one with the black sea, deafened by its darkness — the void swallows all sound and they cannot hear you screaming."
http://swordofthestars.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Liir_Military
http://swordofthestars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Black_Swimmers

Kinetec
 
Superstrenght can come in many forms and shapes beyond "really strong mucles". There are other ways to move something beside having a lot of force in your arms, legs and back. Especially as for Superhumans, Mass and Inertia are not nessesarily fixed or stricly tied properties.
 
The Lifter Suit was originally designed as a Industrial Powerarmor of sorts, except it does not increase the strenght of the wearer. Instead it can change the mass and/or innertia of the "gauntlets" and anything they touch. A 5 ton load can weight very little, if the mass is reduced. While it can be easy to get a large vehicle rolling (or stopping) if it's innertia is suddenly lower then it normally would be.
But as it happens with many groundbreaking technologies, some villain tried to steal it. A tester had to don it. And a hero was born.
 
In this case is was the Facility Manager Karina Hectic, now better know as "Kinetec". Even at normal human strenght, the suit allows her to do amazing feats:
A punch thrown at normal mass + reduced innertia can be devastating if it connects with a few tons worth of mass and innertia.
A out of control car can be stopped easily if it's innertia can be reduced the moment of contact.
She can also use it to "glide" of sorts, by simply reducing her own mass and innertia while in the air.
However the suit itself only gives very limited durability. As a result Kinetecs Fightign style is more a form of "fist and feet" based martial arts, then the usual brick reportioe.

Another new one up!
 
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1085.html

There are two wonderfull words for that:
Protagonist
Antagonist
 
For a item like this, keeping track of where it is right now is propably more important then securing it against theft in the first place.

Pathfinder : Streets of Magnimar - Not Nice People
Our innocent fun in the freeport of Magnimar, which currently involves dealing with a stevedore union agitator, because he's impacting on our profits. If this was 20th Century America we'd just hire the Pinkertons, but since it's Pathfinder we have to murder him ourselves.

GM: I can't wait until Tannis finds out you're going with a Ys plan.
Harshal: I'll just tell him that every day we don't kill these union pricks we're losing money - I'm sure that will get him on board.

Distracted by Pokemon again -

Harshal's player: I mean, I wouldn't put it past him, but imagine the problems Ghenghis Khan would have had with his conquest of Eurasia, when ALL THE HORSES ARE ON FIRE.

GM: I had to do 4 nights work to prep for this session, because you went with a Ys plan. And Ys plans can be summed up as 'There's no problem that can't be solved by killing enough people.'

Harshal OoC: It's not so much that we're the kind of party that would go 'can we steal that?', but that we're the kind of party where 'can we steal that?' Is IN CHARACTER.
GM: And if one of you does steal a Wishing Ring, and the rest of you find out, you go 'Where's my cut?'.

Harshal: How the hell has a stevedore managed to hire 15 magical mercenaries?
GM: That has been a subject of much speculation.
Ys: There much be someone behind them.
Gillert: Well, if you manage to get in there, there sure will be.

The head of the protection detail is somebody from Alchenstar.

Ys: So watch out for guns.

The mercenaries all dress expensively, with the Quattro Elementi pendant.

Harshal: How much do you want to bet the pendants are enchanted.
GM: Actually they're not, since they change them every few seasons. They all wear carefully tailored bandoliers, too.

They're also bedazzled with sanctified rings that will alert the others if one of the team is killed or the ring removed.

Gillert: Removed from the person or removed from the finger?
GM: From the person - so cutting their finger off will still trigger the alert.

And their leader has something literally hidden up his sleeve.

Ys: I have a solution - Drow Poison.
GM: Well, it's true that arcane casters are rarely known for their poison resistance.
Gillert: What is Drow Poison made of?
Tannis: Crushed drow.
Gillert: Ha.
Tannis: Actually it's the tried tears of a sapient being extracted under torture.
Ys: I have no problem with this.
Tannis: I was making it up - but it does sound like something they'd do.
Gillert: Now now, everybody knows that all the drow are noble and misunderstood, trying to change their society.
Ys: Actually, all the 'good' drow were murdered by the rest of the species, and everybody else that enjoys good fantasy novels.

Ys: I'm going to buy the ingredients for the poison. From four different vendors - Heisenberg was a good teacher.
Harshal: Either way, while Ys is brewing the poison, I'll go through the motions of trying to negotiate a peaceful solution with the union, so we'll look innocent when the entire family turns up crucified.

GM: His main problem with the kobolds is the precedent it sets - what's to stop the city allowing in more kobolds, and the kobolds taking the halfling's jobs? Or Lizardmen replacing the hull scrapers at the docks? They can hold their breath much longer than humans.
Harshal: Hmm... good point. Where can we hire some lizardfolk?

GM: He's also raising paranoia about the fact that nobody knows where the kobolds are living - or how many there are.
Gillert: You still have that Convincing Lie feat don't you?
Harshal: Sure
GM: Ah - the Muckraking Journalism feat.
Harshal: Time to go see our broadsheet printing friend. 'The kobolds are living underground of course, where they're busily exterminating the goblin nests.'
GM: I'd suggest 'planning to'.
Zin: Otherwise people will want to see the bodies.

Zin: Can I make a gas trap from the poison?
Ys: Normally I'd be all for it, but I don't think this group would fall for it.
GM: I reserve the right to actually put you up against competent security.

We split up the various Cure Light Wounds potions in the group stash as seems appropriate.

GM: I like working it out this way - no whining about 'But I only this many in my personal stash!'
Harshal: We are both evil AND practical.

Tannis: It's a good idea to keep the platinum bars in the stash so when the inevitable backstabbing starts and we're all trying to beat each other to it, we can have all the flashbacks about who moved the stash first.
Harshal: Or replaced it with a fake.
Ys: And which one, fake or real, is coated with the contact poison.
Gillert: 'I seek the Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies, by van Klump'

GM: Those suits of gladiatorial armour will be most valuable if sold as a set.
Harshal: As long as the sale can't be traced back to us.

Ys uses that Hand of Glory she acquired to silently attach a grappling hook to the roof of the target's home, and up we go. There are magical mercs in the room beyond, but while they're all relaxed none of them are going to be easy to surprise. Might as well rush in and attack with poisoned weapons and blow darts. Too bad they were carrying Thunderstones. With four of us now half-stunned and deaf, and the high likelihood that everybody else in the house is awake, we face a drastic increase in the difficulty of the job. On the other hand...

Quattro Elementi Merc: F**k - we were trained for this - First Step - Use the Thunderstone. Second Step - DON'T BE IN THE RANGE OF THE THUNDERSTONE.

But he still manages to cast Beguiling Gift and throw a pair of manacles at Gillert.

Merc: Here - put these on.

Harshal rushes in and runs one of them through with his rapier - at least HIS magical ring only reports to the guy Ys has already dealt with.

GM: You dealt with them fast enough that you might still pull this off.
Ys: You hold the door, I'll go and start murdering people.

Ys bashes the bedroom door open.

GM: Darkskinned fellow in a chair next to the bed. He does not look happy.
Tannis: Ruh-roh.

Harshal: Get those manacles off Gillert!
Zin: Why did you put these on??
GM: Gillert is deaf - oh, wait, you have lip-reading.
Gillert: *flips Zin two birds*

GM: You two, since you're not deaf, hear a loud 'F**ck!' from the bedroom doorway.

And then the head mercenary Colour Sprays the corridor.

Harshal: F**cking competent security.

With our prime murder-make disabled, Harshal has to rush in to try and deal with the wizard. Not ideal. At least Harshal avoids getting skewered on the wizard's own rapier.

Ys: I can see! And there's a schmuck fighting Harshal.

Tannis: The bad guy is.... wait.
GM: You really need to realign your thinking in this game. There's a bad guy next to you. There's two bad guys ganging up on an innocent spellslinger in the bedroom. And you're the bad guy tipping a wardrobe across the other door.
Gillert: And this is why I drink.

The wizard swigs a potion of Sanctuary, which makes it hard for us to hit him unless he attacks us first. Now Tannis has to go after the original target, hold a knife to his throat, and order the merc to stand down.

Tannis: We are here to deliver a message.
Wizard: Then deliver it - the honour of Il Quattro Elementi is at stake, and we will not allow our client to come to harm. *Messages his team to stand down*
Harshal: *hurriedly improvising, and lifts the target by the front of his nightshirt* Tell your backer that we will not spare your life, if he continues to interfere in ours.
Stevedore: Sure! You're here, he isn't, that makes you more scary!

Ys, still deaf, and missing this entire exchange, has been waiting for the Sanctuary to wear off, and continues where she left off. The truce disintegrates. The wizard shoots Ys with his handgun, and things get loud and bloody until various people get stabbed to death. Fortunately for us, it's all the other guys.

GM: Yes, you're up against competent security, but they're having problems. Partly because Tannis jammed a chest of drawers between two of the doorways in the corridor, and now neither can open.

Harshal: Well, the first thing I'm going to do is drag something over to one of the other windows, to throw out when we're about to leave. That way security will hear the crash and thump while we're actually escaping from the other end of the house.

Harshal: Somebody cut off the wizard's head so they can't talk to him later.
Gillert: Will they do that?
Harshal: I'm pretty sure il Quattro Elementi will want descriptions of whoever killed two of their members.
Ys: They can probably afford a Raise Dead, but the body needs to intact for that. Resurrection is MUCH more expensive.
Harshal: Thought so. The wizard's head is going to be crab bait. Get on that.

Zin: So that's why Sift is a bard spell - you can grope somebody at a distance.

Gillert: Do we have time to get the mithril shirt off the wizard?
Harshal: It IS a shirt, not plate armour. And you won't have a problem with the neck hole since Ys is cutting his head off.
GM: Decapitation isn't THAT easy.
Ys: Just as well I have a boarding axe.

Harshal: We were supposed to killing the stevedore and his entire family.
GM: You really think you could get the rest of them now?
Harshal: To be honest? No. Time to tick this job off as 'Close Enough' I think.

Of course this scrabbling around is complicated by the fact that half of us are still deaf, which doesn't help when Harshal misses the jump to the neighbouring rooftop, and is left dangling by his fingers in full view of one of the mercenary bowmen down in the alleyway.

Harshal: I find this situation an affront to my racial heritage.
Gillert OoC: What???
Harshal OoC: I'm from the Spire Clan.
GM: They live on cliffs - he should have made that easily.

The merc's thistle arrow parts Harshal's hair, as Ys and Zin help him up.

GM: I need another jump check from you all.
Harshal: Natural 20. I think that arrow gave me extra impetus.

A few more leaps and our rooftop escape is complete - we go back into full stealth mode and return to the boat we salvaged.

Ys OoC: I'm not that good at stealth games.
Harshal OoC: What's the one where you disguise yourself with a cardboard box?
GM: What????
Gillert OoC: Metal Gear.
GM: Critical segue failure - GM derailed.

Gillert goes through the loot he collected.

GM: *blah blah blah* and a flask of Alchemist's Kindness. That's what these guys consider essential equipment.
Harshal: What's Alchemist's Kindness?
Gillert: Contraceptive.
GM: What? No, it's a hangover cure.

It also includes one of the il Quattro Elementi's treatise on the essential skills of their group - part philosophy text, part training manual. There's also a peculiar quote that the magical mercs think is important. "We are the promise, delivered to all mankind. We raise our hand to one nation. We march to the beat of one heart."

Harshal: That seems oddly nationalistic, to an unspecified nation.

And the grooming kits we lifted will come in handy when we're cleaning up and disposing of blood-spattered gloves, masks, etc.

Harshal: Well, we killed the ones that could actually identify us. I'm not counting the target because it was a dark room anyway.

Gillert holds up the severed head of the wizard-merc.

Gillert: What are we going to do with Mr Happy? Which I made sure to carry in the waterproof sack so we didn't leave a blood trail.
GM: I noticed.
Ys: Head, a few rocks, a non-waterproof sack, into the bay.
Harshal: Problem solved.

At least we're not the only ones with a reason to want that stevedore firebrand dead - and hopefully when Harshal heads around to continue the charade of negotiating the union dispute, they'll actually accept our offer to pay the kobold's union dues.

Harshal: Kobolds are culturally socialist anyway - joining a union fits them nicely.
Ys: I was just annoyed that our docks weren't getting fixed.
Harshal: It's true - and there's any number of smugglers that would be highly pissed that nothing was getting ashore.

Harshal does note that there's still il Quattro Elementi mercs around the union building when he arrives - whoever sunk so much money into backing the stevedore must be getting his money's worth. One of the mercs is Errata, a Tianese women in silken ceremonial armour.

Errata: Mister Stasny?
Harshal: Yes? I believe we talked briefly two days ago?
Errata: That is correct. There was an incident last night - we... failed in our contract.
Harshal: Ah?
Errata: I must ask you to return tomorrow, once the union members have elected a new representative.
Harshal: Well, these things happen. I'll go inform the kobolds (But I won't start whistling happily until I'm around the corner).
Errata: We will continue to offer our services to whoever they elect.
Harshal OoC: Well THAT gives me pause.

But the replacement proves much more reasonable, and accepts the kobolds as members.

Harshal: Just goes to show that you can solve any political problem if you kill enough candidates.
GM: You realise this just justifies Ys' philosophy?
Gillert: Yes - we could become rulers of an entire city-state if we kill everybody else in the country.
Harshal: I'm glad you agree.
Gillert: I wasn't being serious!
Harshal: Keep telling yourself that.

There's all those magical items around town too, that we can buy (or steal).

Gillert: Staff of Passage? Yes, I think we'll steal that. 'And how will you get out?' Staff. Of. Passage.

And of course there was our plan to farm adventurers.

Harshal: Send them into the bridge to hunt spider-monsters.
Gillert: There's laws against messing with that.
GM: Yes, and you were going to have them changed. I mean, it's bad game design - there's a built-in dungeoncrawl on your doorstep and nobody is allowed in. It's not that difficult to stop them getting out.
Harshal: Some kind of airlock, with murderholes.
GM: And disclaimers for the adventurers to sign - if you go in here, you might not get out. Because if we see spiderbeasts after you, we're not opening the gate. Not that they're actual spiders - they're abominations.
Zin: Eight-legged Freaks.

But the GM does confirm that docks we had repaired have added measurably to the prosperity of Magnimar. This goes a long way towards explaining why there hasn't been any fallout from the assassination. A lot of the power-players in Magnimar are pretty sure that the union trouble was a failed power-play by one of them, and know that our group is not just a bunch of nobodies that can be bullied around. 

There was a Japanese manga that took a unique slant on the "safe AI" concept. The series was called "Grey" and it was set in a post nuclear apocalypse world. What caused the nuclear apocalypse? Funny story there....
 
The human race created the first true A.I., named Toy. Toy was created to serve humanity and in fact given a directive to serge humanity and act in its interests. So that would make her safe, right? Yeah, funny story there...
 
Toy was activated and her firsdt thought was the question "Why?"
 
Why did humans destroy the ecosystem that kept them alive? Why did humans fight wars constantly? Why did they create weapons of mass destruction?
 
Toy then analyzed her questions and came to as very simple, logical conclusion: They human race clearly wanted to end itself.
 
Now remember that directive to serve humanity? You can see where this is going, right? So yeah that's why the story was set in a post nuclear apocalypse.
 
So you know even if we do impose some contraint on an A.I.it might work out in a way we can't forsee.
 
One thing is certain: intelligence is the most powerful force on earth. It made a physically weak primate offshoot the dominant species on earth. To create an intelligence greater than humanity will be the most powerful, and dangerous, achievement humanity ever attains. It will create possibilities beyond our ability to predict. We must face the fact it may also create unimaginable dangers too.

Way back in 12th May 2017 we first dected signals from Ross 128. The time has come to take another look, using the Arecibo Radio Teleskope. Wich is the one one sensitive enough to actually detect these signals.
http://www.businessinsider.de/ross-128-red-dwarf-radio-signals-mystery-2017-7?r=US&IR=T
 
The chance of it being a SETI answer is "very low, but not excludeable".

The Staff of Fens Rigs Xi.
 
There are a lot of magic wielding creatures across dimensions. Some are more and some are less powerfull but most utilise some form of magical artifacts.
Many of those species are similar to humans, but by no means all of them are. The staffs creators were one of the unusual ones:
They were 6 fingered and predominantly left handed. They are also quite bigotted against the non-magical, righthanded minority. As a result, most of their Artifacts have some odd rules:
- They must be wielded in the dominant hand
- Gestures must be made with the right hand
- Gestures need 6 fingers
- the wielder needs some innate magical potential to make the item respond at all
 
And Retroactively retrained dominancy or retroactively added extra fingers (magical or mundane) do not seem to count
 
Needless to say that finding this specific combination of traits was difficulty even with the entirety of humanity. So the staff of Fens Rigs Xi is one of the most powerfull Artifacts on the human world. That nobody is able to even use. And as such, it is has been gathering dust in various magical vaults of the last few centuries. No wielder has yet emerged.
 
As for the Illustration: That is only a rendition of how a wielder of the staff might look. A maker of Magical Almanachs felt artistically inclined and tried his hand at drawing a potential wielder of the staff in action. While the drawing is very good quality, it is unfortunately not the real deal.

"Behold, the power of... Marvolo the Strange!"
 
Micah Stevens shook his head as he took the stage.  A man of his intelligence and schooling, reduced to doing tricks as a stage magician!  Sure, he had always had a knack for sleight of hand and a flair for the dramatic, but he really wished he could have turned his PhD in Sociology into a teaching position, or indeed any paying job at all, instead of being reduced to... this.  Performing legerdemain for drunk, bored gamblers at a second-string casino outside Providence.  It was enough to drive a man to drink.
 
He was halfway through his mind-reading trick when the door burst open and a half dozen VIPER agents rushed in followed by... oh, my God, is that Rhode Island Red?!  People were already scrambling for cover as the man-rooster did his famous Crow of Justice, causing one VIPER agent to run screaming to escape through the stage door.  Unfortunately, he tripped on the stage stairs and face-planted, causing his blaster rifle to go off while pointed at the stage magician.  Stevens was sure he was going to die, but his hands moved instinctively, creating a magical shield that deflected the photonic energy.  "What the..."  Stevens said as he stumbled backward.  As the agent got to his feet and moved toward the stage magician, Stevens' hands again seemed to move of their own accord, casting another spell that caused mystic bands to encircle the Goon in Green, wrapping him tight.
 
Once all the VIPER agents were dealt with and the police were called, Rhode Island Red walked up to shake Stevens' hand.  "Marvolo, is it?  Good work taking on that agent.  It's always good to have another superhero on the job."  Stevens pondered his situation.  Somehow, he was able to cast honest-to-God magic (though damned if he knew how he had done it).  Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth (and reasoning that several dozen people had seen him cast magic), he told the press that he was Marvolo, the newest superhero to protect Providence, RI.  (He was sure there had to be some way he could turn this into a profitable venture.)
 
Through trial and error (mostly error), Marvolo has learned he can cast a handful of spells.  Most of his successes are instinctive (borne of desperation) rather than the result of practice, though he's trying to replicate some of his "oh-shit" spells (with varying degrees of success).  A mis-cast levitation spell caused his cape to animate, giving him an ally of sorts (though Marvolo isn't sure the cape is always on his side).  The wands and staff he carries and the "mystic amulet" at his neck are mostly props, though one of his wands is secretly a high-tech taser.   He supplements his spells with smoke bombs, flash bombs, and other covert tech trinkets.  And hopes desperately that he can pull off this "junior superhero" gig without losing his head... literally.

Just by sheer chance I found this image on Deviant Art:
http://elysiumeternal.deviantart.com/art/Honey-Badger-Commission-614890144
 
A fit for Honey Badger or more for Hero Shrew (after changing the animal type)?

If you have a GM that keeps throwing disarming checks agaisnt you, it is a valuable point investment. With every GM, you may have to adapt to the challenge style.

If you have a GM that keeps throwing disarming checks agaisnt you, it is a valuable point investment. With every GM, you may have to adapt to the challenge style.

Champions - Return to Edge City : Even Louder
GM: When last we met-
Flux OoC: We were standing on top of a tower
GM: Actually you'd just been blasted off it.
Fireflash OoC: So are we Team Rocket?
GM: Well, I suppose you could make a good Jessie if you cosplayed her.
Hero Shrew OoC : I assume you're talking Fireflash and not Flux, there.

Flux OoC: So, we're starting in the middle of a fight.
GM: Well, yes, you DO remember the cliffhanger from last week.
Hero Shrew OoC: Unless we can convince Howler we're her biggest fans?
GM: No chance of that - you did destroy her masterpiece. Hmm - red skin-tight suit and weaponised sexuality - she'd get on well with the Spinnerets.

Hero Shrew OoC: Well, maybe one of you can get her monologuing and I'll sneak up behind her with a two-by-four.

As it stands Hero Shrew is still rolling down the street, where the blast put him.

Hero Shrew: Hey! I'm a shrew, not a pangolin! *bouncing upright, and looking around for the source of the attack* I dunno, just minding your own business, and you get 4000 decibels in the back of the head. *spots Howler, who for the moment at least is on the ground* Rude, lady! *lobs a Toyota Prius at her, and misses*
GM: You know, she hadn't actually done much property damage herself...
Hero Shrew: I am what I am.

Hero Shrew OoC: Hopefully, even in this age of smartphones and selfies, the locals are doing the smart thing when confronted with a superhuman fight and are Getting The Hell Away.
GM: Sure. But not until phase 6.

Howler takes off again, which makes most of our ranged attacks problematic. The bitch.

Hardlight: *does anime attack pose* Photon Spear!
Hero Shrew: Did you say Futon Spear?

GM: Hardlight needs to take a course in how to be a superhero. And not just some guy with superpowers.

Howler is also a lot moe mobile than we're used to, zooming in for a point-blank attack on Fireflash, but which at least points her closer to Hero Shrew. Hero Shrew swings a half-ton chunk of concrete and rebar like an Olympic hammer, and launches himself at - and past - the supervillain.

GM: You didn't know you could jump that far.
Hero Shrew: The half-ton hammer must have given me some extra hang-time.

Flux teleports to the top of the blasted monorail tower to try and get in range for his own attacks.

GM: Only problem is she's down there now.
Flux: For f**k's sake.

Hero Shrew swings and misses again, while Howler for some reason thinks Hardlight is the main threat and snatches the still concussed super off the street.

Howler: You and I need a little chat.
Hardlight: WhatdidIdo? WhatdidIdo?

Flux tries to teleport after them, but there's no conducting metal going that way from the tower.

Hero Shrew OoC: I was going to say that you need some kind of rocket that unfurls copper wire behind it, but then I thought that firing that in a city with lots of overhead powerlines would be a Bad Idea.

Howler accelerates towards the horizon carrying our supposed leader with her.

GM: She's holding your arms to your sides, but with your powers that doesn't mean squat.
Hero Shrew: Yeah, he might do all those action poses when he yells Futon Spear, but he doesn't NEED to.
GM: Surprise, bitch.

Of course, rather than anything really useful, like a big spikey bubble between them, or a green glowing brick wall across her path, Hardlight instead attaches a holographic drogue chute to her ankle.

Howler: ... well, that's the most creative way somebody has tried to get my pants down. STOP THAT.

That, as it happens, does get her to drop him, indirectly. Because her sonic attack injures Hardlight so badly he's bleeding from the ears and other orifices, and Howler panics.

GM: She does have a Universal Code Against Killing.
Howler: *drops Hardlight, flies off, circles back, and yells* This isn't over!
GM: Which ends the fight, but does mean you don't find out WHY she set up the city-wide flute music. But hey, she can reappear later. You managed to win, because Hardlight was that pathetic.

Distracted by the collected Shadowrun adventures we played in.

Flux's Player: Why are you banned from Bavaria?
Weldun: I'm not banned from Bavaria, I'm just banned from a small part of the Black Forest.
Flux's Player: Well, you should have known better - nothing good comes from the Black Forest.
Me: Cake.

Now we'll need to explain Hardlight's injuries, when he reappears in his civilian identity.

Hardlight: 'It was a skiing accident'
GM: 'He decided to train for the pentathlon on a whim, and took a clay pigeon to the chin. We have video.'
Hero Shrew: I was going to suggest freak accident while Extreme Ironing, but I like yours better

Flux: Well, I can try using my magic to fix him? Maybe?
GM: Or you could go for the Star Trek OS route, wave a salt shaker over him and make WOooOOOOOoooOOOO noises.
Flux: 'What are you doing?''Trying to heal you' 'It looks like you're trying to season me'

But Hardlight is hemorrhaging badly as Fireflash rushes him to hospital.

Flux: Dammit Jim, I'm a technomancer, not a doctor!

And then Fireflash get intercepted by a minute flying flaming woman as they're flying from the hospital to the emergency super-medicine specialist - which in this case is Flux.

Spitfire: So, what happened to Shiny Boy?

Spitfire is from the Seattle area, and has shrinking, fire, and flying powers.

GM: She's pretty hot.
Hardlight: If you like short women.

Spitfire: I'm sort of here on official business? DOSPA want to start this program of superhuman mentoring - because they'e noticed that there's a lot of superheroes who don't actually know what they're doing.
Fireflash: Tell me about it.
Spitfire: Actually, all four of you are on the 'clueless' list.
Fireflash: ... well, I can't argue against that assessment, really.

Spitfire: Flux is a problem - none of the mages want to talk to him, and the technologists say they can't help.
Flux: Yeah, he uses magic.
Spitfire: You've got a weird one.
Flux: Weird four.

GM: OK, Hardlight is waking up. All you remember is a very loud noise, and then a WoooOOOOoooOOO noise.
Flux: Everybody play along. *mimes a silent conversation with the others*
GM: You bastard.

Hero Shrew: Hey, I can go tell Sally I fixed the problem!
GM: Tricky - there's only one guy on the door tonight.
Hero Shrew: What? Oh - she's out on her date with Max, isn't she.
GM: Yup.
Hero Shrew: *grumbles* no crumpet for Scooter.

GM: You still don't know why Howler set up all these resonance points across town.
Hero Shrew: Well, don't ask me - it's not like we have any robot exoskeletons in town that could go berserk. Apart from those police exo-suits. Hmm.

Hero Shrew: at least we know she has a code against killing, so it wasn't going to make people's heads explode.
Flux: Mind Control is not killing people.
Hero Shrew: Maybe she just wanted everybody in town to be nice to each other?
Flux: I dunno, I was a d**k to Hardlight.
Hero Shrew: yeah, AFTER we broke the rebar.
Flux: .... hmm.

Flux and Fireflash dig deeper into the flute music, which was subtly different in eight different parts of the city. Perhaps this will explain what Howler was actually trying to do...