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Christopher

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  1. Like
    Christopher reacted to BoloOfEarth in Quote of the Week from my gaming group...   
    Plan Comes Together, Part 3
     
    The heroes seem incredulous that the villains are calling themselves the A-Team.
     
    GM:  Really?  You knew Ankylosaur, Agrippa, and Armadillo were involved.  You researched known associates and found Airstrike, Augur, and Abyss. Plus some actor named Adam radiation powers that Ankylosaur saved from mutant hunters last week.  (lays out the Google Map printouts that had been handed to the players before each encounter)  Every single location they hit was right where streets formed a nice big "A."  Granted, the one at the fire museum was kinda a stylized "A," but still!  The address for the soup kitchen is 87 A Street.  And you didn't see this coming?
     
    The heroes act quickly.  They've already pre-evacuated the area, replacing many locals and homeless people with undercover cops.  Nexus uses a gate spell to get the mayor to a safe vehicle quite a ways away, while her teammates search the skies, rooftops, and streets for the villains.  Finally, they spot four Vietnam-era choppers approaching from the north, about 100m up.  (Note that the week's news included an item where somebody stole a pair of Hueys getting prepped for an air show, flew them around for a few hours, and then left them in a field for the state police to find.)
     
    Pops:  I could teleport one of you into one of the helicopters to take the controls, and teleport the pilot out.  Maker?
    Maker:  I don't know how to fly a helicopter.  Just small space planes.
    Pops:  How about one of the PRIMUS agents? 
    GM:  Sure.  Master sergeant Ross says he knows how to fly a Huey.  (grins)  So, you're going to teleport Sgt. Ross up there?
    Maker:  Wait a minute.  I don't trust that smile.  I'm going to fly up and check them out.
     
    She flies closer to discover that all four look exactly the same, down to the rocket pods and the crew manning the miniguns. 
     
    Maker:  What, do they have Duplication?
    Shadowboxer:  More like holograms. 
    GM:  Are you still going to teleport Sgt. Ross up there?
     
    Abyss (an alien mentalist scientist studying humans) shows up on a nearby rooftop and hits Pops with a mental illusion.  He sees a truck going out of control, barreling right at him, Malarky, and the squad of PRIMUS agents.
     
    Pops:  Sorry, Malarky, you and I are going to have to take our chances.  I'm teleporting the agents to safety.  Somewhere off the street, like... (puts the squad up on the roof about 4m from Abyss) ...right there.
     
    One of the heroes sees Augur and Agrippa step out of a building, and then Agrippa casts a shrinking spell and the hero loses sight of him.
     
    Nexus:  Wait, I have a spell to do a Mind Scan.  How do I use that to find him?
    GM:  You make an attack roll, your OMCV vs. his DMCV, minus modifiers for how many people are in the area.  If you hit, you roll the dice of effect and I compare the results to his EGO.
    Nexus rolls, and misses.  CIrce, the team mentalist, finds out Nexus only has a 3 OMCV.
    Nexus:  Hey, I said I had the spell.  I didn't say I was good at it.
     
    Circe (disguised as a bag lady) begins scanning for Agrippa, but her scan is only 3d6, Cumulative.  Meaning that it's going to take a while.  It also means she has to drop her Mind Link, so the heroes can't instantly communicate with each other.
     
    Pops:  So, is Circe planning to help us out any time soon?
     
    Nexus is inside the soup kitchen, alone, when Armadillo pops up through the floor.
     
    Armadillo:  Hey babe.  Just you and me, eh?  Nothing personal, wouldn't want to hurt that pretty face, but I've got to take you out.  (blasts her, doing a little STUN but nothing major)  I mean, you're only #4 on our hit list, but I'm more than happy to dance with you all on my lonesome.
    Nexus:  Number 4?  Who's #1?  The mayor?
    Armadillo:  (scoffs)  No, Circe.
    Pops:  (OOC)  Sure, because mentalists are evil.
    Armadillo:  And then Pops, he's #2.
    Pops:  Wait... what?!
    GM:  Hush.  You're not there, and without the mind link, you're not privy to any of this.
    Nexus and Armadillo trade energy blasts, and Nexus is afraid he's going to take her down.
     
    Nexus:  He's in powered armor, right?  Is there any way I can push some buttons, shut him down?
    GM:  (looks at Armadillo's Psych Comp:  Sucker for a Pretty Face and thinks about Nexus' 3 levels of Striking Appearance)  Not the buttons you're thinking of, but yeah, you could push his buttons.
     
    The villains do some damage to the heroes (taking two of them just a few points shy of unconsciousness), and Agrippa casts Silence on Malarky (effectively nullifying him, since all Malarky's spells require Incantations) and then Dispels his Mass Stone Skin spell.  Meanwhile, the heroes take down Abyss, Ankylosaur, and Augur.
     
    Pops:  Circe, have you found Agrippa yet?  'Cause we're about to get our butts kicked.
    GM:  What...?!  How?  Half the villains are KO'd, and all of you are still standing!
     
    Eventually, Nexus gets outside the soup kitchen and flags down Silver Avenger Melanie Flannagan to tell her Armadillo is inside.  Flannagan discovers Armadillo has gone tunneling again and follows him.  When she catches up to him, instead of attacking she plays him like a harp.  (I couldn't possibly beat you in that big, tough armor, etc.)
     
    SA Flannagan:  (Keys her radio microphone, on the assault team's frequency)  Instead of fighting, Armadillo, why don't we go someplace else?  There's a bar just up the street, Williams Tavern.  Why don't you and I go up there, to Williams Tavern.  My assault agents won't even know we're there. We can have a few drinks, get to know each other, just you and I...
    Nexus:  (monitoring the frequency)  Really?!
    GM:  I said you could push his buttons.  Not my fault you didn't pay attention during the briefing, and she did.
     
    Of course, the heroes prevailed, as they are wont to do.  Five A-Team members carted off to the PRIMUS base's holding cells.
  2. Like
    Christopher reacted to BoloOfEarth in Quote of the Week from my gaming group...   
    Plan Comes Together, Part 2
     
    The heroes smell a rat with the reporter, Petersen, always on the scene and hounding them, so Malarky "borrows" Petersen's cell phone (with a teleport assist from Pops). Flipping through Petersen's texts, he discovers that someone has been texting the attack locations and times ahead of time.  With Maker's help, he clones the sim card from Petersen's cell phone.
     
    The heroes (along with the Boston PD and PRIMUS) camp out at the firehouse for Engine Company 39, waiting for 3 am to roll around.  Come 1 am, Malarky's clone of Petersen's cell phone gets a text, telling him to be at an intersection about a mile away from Engine 39's firehouse.  The hero team splits up -- one group goes to Petersen's place to mess with his car, while the other group goes to that location, where they discover it is across the street from the Boston Fire Museum, housed in the former firehouse for Engine 39.  They also notice a car parked across the street, with PRIMUS detective Williams inside.  CIrce runs to a nearby coffee shop, then comes back.
     
    Circe:  (knocks on Det. Williams' window)  Anything happening?  (holds out a cup of coffee)
    Williams:  Not yet.  (takes coffee)  Thanks.  (nods toward the Fire Museum)  So you capes also think it might go down here?
    Circe:  Yeah.  Pretty sure.
     
    Shadowboxer uses his ability to look and listen through shadows to check out the inside of the fire museum.  Nobody at all inside, but he (eventually) notices that someone has replaced all the real fire extinguishers with fake ones.  Teleporting in, he gets one for Maker to check out, and they learn that the fakes are actually fuel-air bombs with timers set to go off at 3 am.  He also discovers a tunnel into the basement, dug by Armadillo.  In the tunnel he finds a bulk-food can of cream of mushroom soup, a ladle, a pamphlet for a south Boston church, and the now-familiar sticky note.
     
    To Do:
    Wednesday 3:00 - Hot time at the Fire Museum.  Hope Just Cause brought marshmallows. Thursday 4:00 - Feed Hizzoner and Just Cause their teeth. Discussing what to do with the fuel-air bombs.
     
    Maker:  Can I deactivate them?
    GM:  Do you have Demolitions skill?
    Maker:  Um... no.  Can I maybe use my Gadgeteering roll?
    GM:  (evil grin)  Maaaaybe.  Want to make a roll?  After all, what could possibly go wrong?
     
    Pops:  We should put 'em in Petersen's trunk.  Or his house.
     
    (Eventually they dump them in the river where they can just cause a bunch of gaseous bubbles.)
     
    Honey Badger:  So, we turn over the ladle, pamphlet, and note to Williams.
    GM:  What about the can of soup?
    Honey Badger:  (belches and wipes his lips)  What can of soup?
     
    It doesn't take long for the heroes to figure out that the next attack is going to take place at 4 pm during a soup kitchen opening that the mayor is attending as a photo op.
     
    GM:  Are you going to coordinate with PRIMUS?
    Honey Badger:  It all depends.  Are they bringing soup?
     
    Circe calls the team's liaison with the city.
    Honey Badger:  (shouting in the background)  Make sure they're bringing soup!  And none of that generic crap!
     
    Some of the heroes go into the sewers and discover that someone (*cough*Armadillo*cough*) has dug a bunch of tunnels all over the place under and around the soup kitchen.  Malarky (whose player works for the local water company) makes plans to deal with that.
     
    Malarky:  I'll buy an inflatable raft and get it set up near the downstream end of the sewer.  Tie the raft up so when it's inflated, it'll completely block everything flowing through the sewer.  Figure a half hour should be enough to fill the sewer line and Armadillo's tunnels.
     
    The mayor and his entourage arrive for the soup kitchen opening.  As soon as the mayor sees Honey Badger, he holds up a large can of tomato soup.
     
    Honey Badger:  (thumbs up)!
     
    Four o'clock comes, then 4:05.  Then 4:10.
     
    Shadowboxer:  Maybe this was all a plot to keep us busy while they hit somewhere else. 
    GM:  Or maybe their plan got delayed because somebody filled the tunnels with sewage.
    Malarky:  (giggles like a little kid)
     
    Finally at 4:15 pm, hidden speakers all over the area kick on, with the sound of martial music and helicopters.  And then the voiceover:
     
    Ankylosaur:  In 2014, various supervillains were sent to prison by a federal court for crimes they probably committed.  These men recently escaped from a maximum security superprison to the New York City underground.  Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune.  If you have a problem with superheroes, if no one else can help, and if you have enough money, maybe you can hire… The A-Team.  (GM cues playing of the A-Team theme music)
     
    (more to follow)
  3. Like
    Christopher reacted to BoloOfEarth in Quote of the Week from my gaming group...   
    A month or so back, I was trying to come up with a new supervillain team for my Boston Champions heroes to face.  Looking through character art, which of course was sorted by name.  Ankylosaur.  Airstrike.  Armadillo.  Hmmm... it occurred to me that I could create an entire team of villains whose names begin with "A."  (Hey, last campaign the PC hero team was known as S-Squad, with all members' names starting with "S.")
     
    And thus, The A-Team was born.  Mercenaries to the core, they specialize in taking out or distracting those darn pesky superheroes, as well as PRIMUS, UNTIL, the police, etc. so their client is free to commit crimes.  I decided they'd be a new team, and taking on the PC heroes would be their first public appearance.  (Their coming-out party, as it were.)
     
    I designed the adventure to be a series of city-wide property damage attacks by an unknown, unnamed group of villains, to culminate in the attack on the hero group.  The villains left a clue at each attack, hinting at the target for the next attack.  They also passed along the attack location to a reporter (Joshua Petersen) who is not a fan of the heroes, so he could make the PCs look bad if they don't figure out the clue and head off the next attack.
     
    First attack was on the A-7 District police headquarters, with Ankylosaur lobbing firebombs at the building before leaping away.  (Side note:  The Google Maps satellite view of the area shows nearby streets forming a very distinctive "A."  This became a feature of all four A-Team attack locations -- and even though I handed out a printed aerial view for each, none of the players caught it.)
     
    GM:  John (Honey Badger's player), you're always saying "We go to Paris, France," so when I saw it was on Paris Street, I knew that was the spot.  And it being at 69 Paris Street, well, I knew you'd appreciate that.
     
    The heroes go to where Ankylosaur was spotted and find a Revolutionary War-style candle lantern, a cigar stub, and a book of Longfellow's poem, with a sticky-note To-Do list marking the page where Paul Revere's Ride begins:
     
    To Do:  
    Monday 1:00 - See how hot the Boston Police are. Tuesday 2:00 - Give 'em a history lesson they won't soon forget. Malarky:  (doing some research on his PC)  At 2 am, Paul Revere would have been across the river and to (nearby town).  Maybe they're planning to attack there.
    GM:  You guys are giving Ankylosaur waaaay too much credit in the intelligence department.  You're assuming he even read the whole poem.
    Nexus:  Does it say 2 am?
    GM:  Nope, it just says 2 o'clock.  Neither AM nor PM.  (smiles)
     
    They narrow the potential targets to either the Old North Church (where the lanterns were hung for "one if by land, two if by sea") or the Paul Revere House (just a handful of blocks away), and decide to wait at the church.  Two a.m. comes and goes without incident.  They gather again at the church in the afternoon, and right after 2 p.m. hear police reports of "huge stone men" menacing people on the same street as the Paul Revere House.  Actually, it's three men and one woman, all stone elementals summoned by the mage Agrippa.
     
    Rocky:  (holding aloft a man)  Where Paul Revere House?
    Opal:  (grabbing a man on the street)  Where I find Revere House?
    Jaspar:  (grabs a passing limo and begins shaking it, shouting at the driver inside)  Where Jaspar find Revere house?
    Stoner:  (hand resting on a man's shoulder like a hundred-pound weight)  Duuuude.  Where's Revere's home?
     
    Honey Badger punches Rocky. 
    Rocky:  You hit Rocky.  Summoner say now Rocky can hit you!
     
    HB takes down Rocky.
    Rocky:  (in Stallone voice)  Adriaaaaannn!
     
    Malarky (himself a college student) finds himself facing Stoner.
    Stoner:  Dude!  Got any munchies?
    Malarky:  Munchies? 
    Stoner:  Y'know.  Peat gravel.  Quartz chips.  (whispered aside)  I just finished off a dime bag of talc powder, dude!
    Malarky:  No, what you want is pizza!
    Stoner:  What's pizza?
    Malarky:  Food of the gods, man.  Start with a nice flaky crust, something that'll melt in your mouth...
    Stoner:  Like limestone?
    Malarky:  Sure, if that's what you like.  Then some sauce, nice and hot...
    Stoner:  ... lava!  Mmmmmmm!
    Malarky:  But the toppings are where it's at!
    Stoner:  What are toppings?
    (They spent the rest of the fight discussing possible stone pizza toppings, from grated tin and iron spices to granite slices and chopped hematite.)
     
    Once the elementals are dealt with, the heroes figure out that they were summoned underground; a roadway tunnel runs just under the street in front of the Paul Revere House.  Teleporting down there, they find an abandoned car blocking traffic; inside is an antique safety lantern, and old fireman's helmet (for Engine 39), with a sticky note:
     
    To Do:
    Tuesday 2:00 - Won if by land -- literally! Wednesday 3:00 - Don't want firefighters feeling left out, do we? Honey Badger:  (grabbing fireman's helmet and putting it on)  Ooo!  I got a new hat!
     
    (More to follow)
  4. Like
    Christopher reacted to Drhoz in Quote of the Week from my gaming group...   
    The carnage at Castle Cragmaw continues, but since the PCs claimed the moral high ground nobody gets to complain. One curious thing - the goblins are using coal for fuel. Despite the ruins standing in a forest. Is the Lost Mine of Phandalin a coal mine?

    There were plenty of quotes from the session, and nearly every damn one of them was lost thanks to cloud storage failure. I will never use it again. 

    Thorn's player: You know, in 25 years of roleplaying, this is the first time I've actually encountered an owlbear. Never get between an owlbear and its cub. Or possibly fledgling.
    Kerak: Chick?

    Kerak: Are there more bad guys coming in the side doors?
    GM: No.
    Kerak: Thank Christ for that.
    Thorn: *corrects the dwarf's mythology* Thank the Red Knight for that.
    Urlon: Does the Red Knight even exist?
    Kerak: I should bop you with this warhammer for that.


    We do eventually find a nearly-dead dwarf being held hostage by a dark elf woman. We can't let her kill the dwarf - or let her get away.

    Elethandiel: You know what will happen if she gets away.
    Thorn: Yes, we'll have another recurring villain.

    Drow: Leave now or the earthworm dies.
    Thorn: *snarls* You labour under a misapprehension, elf - the only way you're getting out of here alive is if you earn our good will. And there is no way you're leaving here unless you put the dwarf down NOW.
    King Gurnt: *snorts* Then we play a waiting game - we wait until my minions return, and then we will see who eats whose bones.
    Kerak: What minions would those be? The dead ones in the castle? 
    King Gurnt: Only the strong go on patrol. 
    Thorn: Ah, like the ones with that wanted poster for the dragonborn. 
    Kerak: They're dead too. Face it, you're alone.
    King Gurnt: And a green dragon might fly down and kill everybody.
    Thorn: Oh, you've met him too?

    Of course, the biggest problem is that the dwarf is near death and can't defend himself. That, however, can be changed.

    Thorn: *holding up clerical symbol* In the name of the god Helm I swear to let you leave alive if you release yo- HEALING SURGE

    The drow is now struggling with a fully healed hostage, and we storm the room. All that follows is surprise reveals of who the drow actually is, the whereabouts of the other missing dwarfs, and clues about the various conspiracies. For example, the dwarf that we just rescued - and the one we were originally hired by all those weeks ago - sent his brothers to Wave Echo Cave. And somebody named the Black Spider organised the kidnapping. We take our leave. Unfortunately, King Gurnt wasn't kidding about his patrols... and there's 30-odd hobgoblins waiting for us outside the ruins.They throw an elf's head at us by way of intimidation.

    Kavorog: Seriously? *throws the changeling's head at them, shows off the dire wolf skin he collected earlier, and throws down the owlbear paws the halfling wants to make into epaulettes.

    The new hobgoblin leader chooses to interpret this as a tribute.

    Kavorog: Nevermind, we can kill him later.
    Thorn: Or the dragon will.

    GM: The sun sets, your mission is complete, and big dark shadows are cast across the land.*flying a dragon toy across the table*

    The next session, which included getting Kavorog's totemic animal on side, the return of Lamech the Gnome, and plothooks for Temple of Elemental Evil.

    GM: Well, now you know why lions were hanging out near the road – it’s dangerous out there in the wilderness, even for lions.

    Kavorog: Is there anywhere I can get my axe Turned into +2?
    Thorn: Yes – you can go ask the Red Wizard of Thay to do it.
    Kavorog: … let’s not.

    On top of all the other stuff we’ve been putting off, there’s that door to the shadow realms under the ruined mansion we probably should investigate. And bored fairy dragons to entertain. But there is still the dwarf’s brothers we need to locate and rescue.

    Thorn: We don’t even know they’re in trouble – they could be hacking away at a huge pile of gold and lost track of time.

    Of course, not all the PCs are coming with us – their mothers complained.

    Urlon: When something goes wrong I want you to be in the rescue party.

    Lamech meanwhile, has been making a tour of the Sea of Monsters, Sea of Holes, etc.

    Lamech: It’s probably concussion speaking.

    He gets rescued by birdlike beings.

    Lamech: At least it’s not machine elves.

    They recruit him to prevent an evil elemental takeover of the world. Lamech takes the opportunity to drop a bundle of stuff on Kavorog’s head through the Aarokocra’s viewing portal.

    Lamech: Wait for it, wait for it…. Bombs away!

    GM: The blazing portal appears in the sky, and winged figures emerge playing trumpets, and Lamech is borne to earth by
    Lamech: Shining winged figures
    GM: … who look exactly like Aarakocra covered in glitterdust.



    Local cleric: We’re sure this is blasphemous – he’s passing himself off as a divine being – but I’ll buy into this for now.

    Lamech: I bring word from the airy realms, word that must be given to the greatest fighters of the age, lest the world fall to chaos! That’s you, you, and you.
    Kavorog: *looks around* Elminster must be around here somewhere, laughing his arse off.

    Lamech: The dark elemental forces are going to make a move on Faerun, and we’re in the right place to stop it. And I get to be an Emissary!
    Kavorog: That has to be the strongest stuff you’ve ever taken – where can we get some more?

    GM: You’re still got your set of dark common clothes.
    Lamech: Actually it’s covered in glitterdust at the moment, but that’ll wear off.

    The druid tells Kavorog about the Emerald Enclave, an association of barbarians, rangers, druids and other treehuggers.

    Druid: If you tell anyone about this I will be forced to kill you.
    Kavorog: Well, you could try.

    Druid: Do you want to join?Druid:
    Kavorog: That was sudden. I’ll just need to pop back to camp, and get the oil for my initiation. *gleefully oils himself up*

    Druid: Your initiation name will be ‘Late-for-Dinner’

    Lamech: Kavorog might not be good, but he does a convincing impersonation. At least when there’s anybody around to watch.

    Lamech: While I certain appreciate the products of nature, I’m not sure I’m the kind of person your group is after.
    Druid: You’re a nefarious hippie drug-user who can string two words together and bluffed a dragon. You were born to be either a Harper or a member of the Emerald Enclave.
    Lamech: … that’s fair enough.

    Lamech: Do I get an initiation name too?
    Druid: *sigh*
    Kavorog: I’ll go get more oil.
    Druid: Fine, you’re Ergot.
  5. Like
    Christopher reacted to tkdguy in More space news!   
    Astronauts eat first space-grown food: http://www.universetoday.com/121798/yummy-iss-astronauts-eat-first-space-grown-food/
  6. Like
    Christopher reacted to Drhoz in Quote of the Week from my gaming group...   
    A warning – this session includes scenes of actual human trafficking and sexual slavery, unlike my jokes about the last one. Spoilers for a published adventure 'Hiding in the Dark', even if we did manage to come up with a better plot to salvage things for the GM.

    Oracle: I should tell you what I have planned, and not leave it hanging in front of everybody like a dick…. I just realised what I said. Sorry.

    What Oracle has planned is combining existing tech into contagious mind-control nanites. But he’s not going to show us the prototypes until he’s perfected the antidote.

    Shell: Oh good, so I don’t have to kill you.

    GM: Why would Shadowrunners even take this job?
    Oracle: Ethics, money, personal interest
    Poe: Boredom.
    GM: But working for the DA?
    Ripper K: It’s legitimate money. We have to put SOMETHING on our tax returns. We’ll just put a few extra zeros in somewhere.

    Ripper K: So is there any fallout from extracting the flying laptop? Do we get a phone call from Boots asking us what the f**k did we just do?
    Shell: Probably not – we didn’t kill anybody in a way that made it obvious it was US.

    GM: You hand Dr Carroll over to the Draco Foundation and they are very pleased and give you lots and lots of money.
    Shell: Yay!
    Ripper K: Will you be burnishing your nipples with this money too?
    Shell: Only if you ask nicely.

    Astronauta’s Player: How much is Cash for Karma?
    Ripper K: *deliberately mishearing it as ‘Cash for camera’* Depends what kind of performance you want me to do.

    GM: A chill rain soaks you to your bones.
    Shell: That’s what the sensors on my bodyshell tell me.
    Ripper K: And apparently I’m webcam whoring for Astronauta.
    Ocelot: I’m picturing it as perfectly legitimate work on polishing Astronauta’s promotional videos.

    We DO get a phone call from Boots, but it’s a job offer.

    Boots: We need somebody with your skill sets.
    Oracle: Given some of the projects I have on the backburner, that’s actually pretty alarming.

    We approach the faux-adobe exterior of Reno’s, where frat-boys try to look tough in combat biker gear and cute little racing crotch-rockets, no doubt bought by their rich fathers trying to buy their love.

    Oracle: I do a Reverse Visa ad – fake leather jacket, 400 nuyen, Victory cargo pants, 25 nuyen…
    Ripper K: Public humiliation, priceless.
    Oracle: Failing to impress me, priceless.
    Ocelot: Oh, don’t be mean.

    Boots: Sorry about the surroundings, but I didn’t feel like ice cream again.
    Oracle: I LIKE ice cream.
    Boots: Well, I don’t. I don’t like mass destruction either. You know what I mean?
    Oracle: …. I can’t say I’ve heard of any MASS destruction lately.
    Ripper K: I was visiting my granny.
    Boots: Oh? You didn’t hear about that ARES chopper that got shot out of the air downtown?
    Oracle: Well, maybe if they’d used their own model of chopper they wouldn’t have had so many problems.
    Boots: YES! FINALLY! Someone who f***ing AGREES with me when I point this kind of thing out! ‘But nobody uses ground-to-air missiles downtown’ Like F**K they don’t! Even if it was just medium calibre assault rifle rounds they fished out of the wreckage of the helicarrier! Er, troop carrier.
    Ripper K: It would be pretty impressive to take out a helicarrier with a rifle.
    Ocelot: Although Hawkeye nearly managed it with a bow and arrow.

    Boots is here to set up an Augmented Reality meet with the Assistant District Attorney, who we’ve avoiding working for in the past.

    Oracle: Well, that explains why Boots called us – if the ADA had tried we wouldn’t have picked up the phone.

    ADA: I dislike turning to those outside of the law. However, I find myself yet again using those of your kind.
    Poe: Well, now we’ve walked off that conversational cliff…
    Ocelot: Starting out strong.
    Boots: Ma’am, may I suggest that if we are going to work with criminal scum, we at least exercise a modicum of tact?
    Oracle: I object to being called criminal scum – I’ve never been convicted of anything. We’re just scum.
    Ocelot: Well, I got that traffic ticket once.

    The Assistant DA wants us to collect evidence to convict various organised criminals involved in the Seattle drug war – especially one ‘Junior’. A number of her best undercover agents are already dead or missing. We all get to bountyhunters for a week! Yay!

    ADA: Only for a week though.
    Oracle: *closing a computer menu* Aw.
    Ripper K: ‘Seattle’s Most Wanted’?
    Oracle: Yup.

    GM: The pay will be 15000 nuyen per runner.
    Ocelot: Works out to that for the runners in the party, anyway. Otherwise we’re calling every shadowrunner we know and given them high-fives. And then march in a line from one end of Seattle to the other.
    Oracle: ‘How did the budget for this operation end up in the billions????’ Well, we imported more shadowrunners from out of town. And a whole bunch of mercs from Bogota.

    The larger bounty depends on bringing Junior in alive. Half that is available if he turns up dead.

    Oracle: That’s still a lot of nuyen for one bullet.

    Junior has never been caught by surveillance.

    Ripper K: Electronic or Mk I Eyeball?
    ADA: Electronic.
    Ripper K: Hey, Poe, you’re our expert on things Mage-ical. Is Junior magical?
    Poe: *frowns* More likely technomancer.
    Ripper K: Good point.

    Junior also runs restaurants and brothels.

    Astronauta Peligroso: I don’t mind going to the brothels – I’d like that part.

    GM: A drunken man stumbles up and winks at you with his piercing blue eyes.
    Shell: McGINTY????

    It’s Joe Martin, a TRiD news anchor, who apparently has figured out who we are, who we were meeting with, and wants contacts in the Running community.

    Oracle: If he doesn’t succeed on his Judge Intentions check he’s a dead man, because I’m going to lure him into an alley and kill him.
    GM: He has Charisma 7 (and a bunch of other diplomancer enhancements)
    Oracle: F**k. I actually like the guy.

    Oracle: *Over the team’s TacNet* Does anybody know where I find a mulcher?
    Shell: I do! And he lives just down the tracks from me! ‘Hey Joe! Got something special for you!’ ‘Grraarrgghhh - This one doesn’t have any Humanis tattoos’ ‘I know! It’s special!’ ‘ Grraachhhhchomp - Tastes like pure douche.’

    Oracle’s Player:: I played in a Shadowrun group that retired when we realised we could make more money making movies than doing runs.
    Ocelot’s player: Van and I did that in Cthulhupunk.

    Oracle: Mr Martin, you need to work on your approach – while we’ve been talking here I’ve sourced a mulching machine and a WiFi deadspot where I can kill you.
    Mr Martin: Oh dear. Well, here’s my card.

    And then we get another phone call, from Athena Tatopoulos, the Editor-in-Chief at KSAF

    Oracle and Shell: IS THERE ANYONE IN SEATTLE THAT DOES NOT KNOW THIS RUN IS HAPPENING????

    Athena makes an even less favourable impression on us than Martin. He, at least, approached us in person, and not as a recorded message.

    Poe: I like the balls on the other guy.
    Ocelot: Whatever floats your boat.

    This job will require old-fashioned legwork.

    Oracle: Can we start at the restaurants?
    Ocelot: Let’s do the brothel.
    Oracle: Aw, I was hungry.
    GM: Well, one of the brothels is under a deli.
    Astronauta Peligroso: I’M THERE.
    Shell: And instantly everything turns into innuendo.
    Ripper K: ‘Who ordered two kilos of Italian Sausage?’

    Shell makes the mistake of going in with Astronauta – forgetting his phobia of nudity. Worse, all the working girls are Bunraku – biochipped with a range of personalities from Shy Housewife to Dominatrix. Which is just creepy. Especially since it’s such a cheap brothel the blank-faced girls are rented out to Seattle’s addicts and chip-heads for less than 40 nuyen an hour.

    There is also screaming from behind one of the walls. Shell, who is not coping well already, kicks through the wall, and finds an operating theatre where a 12-year-old girl is being operated on for biochip implantation.

    Shell: *drawing his memory metal claymore* Hello Doctor. I’m ready to make the incision.
    Astronauta Peligroso: Don’t kill the doc, we need him to put the girl back together.
    Shell: I beg to differ.

    Ripper K: You know, with your distinctive appearance it’ll be pretty easy to track you down after trashing the place.
    Astronauta Peligroso: Not a problem – I’ll get Oracle to wipe all the footage.
    Ocelot: Not from eyewitnesses.
    Shell: OK – we’re killing everybody in the room.
    Oracle: Don’t look at me – Ocelot and I are researching Combat Drugs and delivery systems, so we can dose Junior up in a public place and get him arrested for going berserk. Where can I get a collapsible bow and a dose of Woad?

    How very useful is Shell’s cybernetic nature – especially when he can call a surgeon friend of his, and use his own body as a tele-operated waldo for remote emergency surgery on the girl.

    Shell: And suddenly my personality and body language is that of an 70-year-old Japanese man.
    Astronauta Peligroso: What?
    Oracle: Don’t worry, you’re not high, that actually happened.

    We then call Boots and get Knight Errant to come down on the brothel with both boots. Ripper also suggests we pass suitably edited footage on to Martin and Tatopoulos, since both networks will milk the story of illegal neuroplug surgery on 12-year-old runaways for weeks. The doc, who survives Shell’s rampage, confesses everything to the DA – he was approached by Junior’s thugs, who demanded a cut of his profits in return for certain support in his ‘research’.

    The second location is a battered apartment block that looks like it survived WWI, II, AND III. It’s a Better-than-life Den. One Drekhead claims he witnessed the murder of the undercover cop sent here.

    Ripper K: You know, you can make more money telling your story on the networks…
    Shell: Well THAT didn’t go the way I expected.
    Ripper K: But before you do that you have to prove you have something to show off.
    Shell: It’s like you start every sentence with a double entendre and yank it back at the last minute!

    He has the cop’s commlink.

    Drekhead: I’ll give you a thousand nuyen for it!
    Ripper K: … I think you mean you’ll give it to us for thousand nuyen.
    Astronauta Peligroso: That’s not what he said!

    The third locale is an active drug den in another apartment block. Oracle pretends an interest in the motorbikes of the Trolls acting as security.

    Spike: You here to see Little Bill?
    Oracle: ….. yes!
    Ripper K: ‘I am indeed here to see Diminutive William’

    Little Bill is a dwarf, who has somehow become the boss of troll gang. He has a rap sheet a mile long.

    Shell: Which includes dwarf-tossing.
    Ocelot: Is that what they call it these days?

    Little Bill: Whatchoo you want? You don’t look like the usual clientèle.
    Oracle: Um, can you score me some Woad?
    Little: Well, I can, but not today – I usually carry BTLS, Novacoke, that kinda thing. But I can get you some if you come back tomorrow.
    Ripper K: *over the TacNet* Well, he just confessed on microcamera that he deals in drugs. Ask him whether Junior won’t be here tomorrow.
    Oracle: OK, I’ll come back tomorrow… wait, your boss won’t be here, will he?
    Little Bill: *narrow eyes* What boss?
    Oracle: Tusker? Name of Junior? That I never want to run into?
    Little Bill: Well… I don’t see him often. He has a schedule.
    Ripper K: Bingo XD

    The runners drive up to the next location Junior is known to frequent, an old Irish pub called “Murphy’s Law”, but the place is swarming with Knight Errant patrol cars, ambulances, and bodies riddled with bullets. Boots leads them behind the bar to one of the secret entrances to the Ork Underground. Apparently two of the crime families – Yakuza and the Finnegans - had a shoot-out, and there were a lot of innocent bystanders, including a 7-year-old girl. Oracle gets to work with his sensor drones. The trail leads to an ork standing over the body of a Japanese man.

    Shell OoC: Hey there! You gonna eat that?

    This would have especially offensive, since the Ork is a member of the Yakuza as well. He’s already extremely pissed off, since the shoot out happened when the Yaks got a tip-off that Junior was going to be at the bar, the Irish crooks spotted the guns, and panicked.

    Oracle: How much do you want to bet that Junior sent them the tip?

    More PTSD for Shell – the Yakusa Ork takes us to a strip joint. To meet an Italian Ork mobster. It looks like everybody is joining forces to take Junior down.

    ‘Legitimate Italian-American Businessman’: I love the Ork Underground. I’m a silent partner in half of the businesses down here. Since the fire a few months ago I’ve been heavily involved in the reconstruction.
    Ocelot: ?
    Oracle: We didn’t do it – that’s why we didn’t hear about it.

    LI-AB: I have a lot of information on Junior. I just need you to do a small favour for me.
    Oracle: Goodbye.
    Ocelot: It had better be a bloody small favour – we’re already trying to take Junior down.

    He just wants us to escort some building supplies.

    Ripper K: What, he’s running short on concrete boots?

    Shell: I respectfully insist we do this one job for you, then go deal with our mutual problem.

    Oracle: I’m coming around on the escort thing.
    Astronauta Peligroso: ?
    Oracle: I have six kilos of C12. WE can guarantee the building supplies arrive safe. They won’t STAY safe…

    Shell: This is like babysitting a team of marines that are bored and already don’t like you.

    Topside Construction is actually a legitimate business.

    Oracle: Actually I won’t blow this up – if Junior has been attacking legitimate businesses, that’s just dirty pool.

    This actually appears to be a simple, straightforward, and innocent job, escorting and unloading building supplies down into the Ork Underground. And the other two jobs would have been to a homeless shelter and a soup kitchen.

    Oracle Ooc: Nice curveball from the writers there.
    Ocelot OoC: It just means we didn’t see what went wrong.

    Back to the nightclub – where all the lights are off.

    Ripper K: Oh god.
    GM: You go in.
    Oracle: Oh no we don’t.
    Ocelot: Drone goes in first.

    LI-AB: I suppose I should hold up my end of our bargain. I told you I could help you find Junior, and I can. I’m him.
    Oracle: Dammit. Ocelot, I owe you twenty nuyen.

    Junior explains how he’s spent years building up the Ork Underground’s legitimate economy, despite the opposition from Humanis, xenophobes, organised crime, etc. If it wasn’t for the 50-odd innocent people killed in the escalating gangwar after he got the Finnegans involved, we’d actually be sympathetic. He makes a counter-offer – tell the ADA we failed, and he can wind up the Junior persona over the next few months.

    Shell: Earlier tonight we raided a Bunraku parlour. You have anything to do with that?
    Junior: Bunraku? No, I hate those things. I’ve got some brothels though.
    Oracle: Then you’ve got a problem – someone has suborned the Junior identity.

    Shell: Counter-offer – stop ALL your illegal activities and we hand over a Junior.
    Ripper K: After all, we still get paid if he’s dead.
    Oracle: But only half.

    This seems a good compromise – the real Junior fingers a suitable fake, provides evidence to incriminate him, and we take him down and present him to the ADA as the real deal. Junior will have to pay us the difference, though. Mystery Ork X, who has a counterpart in the Yakuza, and who figured out what was really going on and found a way to make money on the side, turns out to be the manager of the Gravity Bar, a legitimate Manhattan-style singles bar up on the surface.

    GM: ‘Try our range of speciality martinis!’
    Shell: ‘We call this one the Slippery Nipple’

    Unfortunately, X’s Matrix security is ridiculously good for a nightclub.

    Ocelot: Jesus! He’s got corp-level security!
    Ripper K: Well, he is trying to not get himself killed by the Yakuza AND Junior.

    Alarms go off all over the place, and we just have to storm the place.

    Shell: Hey. Wake up. Do you have anything to do with that Bunraku parlour?
    X: Which one?
    Ripper K: Ouch.
    Astronauta Peligroso: Wrong answer.
    Shell: *pops X’s head off*

    True, his friend in the Yakuza will get away, but at least we’ve got a body to pass off as Junior, a very messy van to clean, and a deranged cyborg to hose off.

    Ocelot: A decapitated corpse is really difficult to pass off as an accidental death. If you’d left him I could have passed it off as an accidental overdose of slap-patches. Now we’re going to get so much shit from the DA… did he have a motorbike?
    Oracle: Hey Shell, how many Bunraku-parlour owners are you willing to decapitate?
    Shell: How many Bunraku parlours are there in Seattle?
    Oracle: Problem solved – the rumours will start by themselves, after Shell pops the heads off some more.
    Shell: Excuse me while I go for a very enthusiastic walk.
    Ocelot: Let’s get our story straight. ‘We found him like this’
    Ripper K: We got there while the alarms were still sounding. Which is true XD
    Ocelot: Actually, let’s blame it on a drone malfunction. ‘I haven’t finished tweaking my extraction drone’
    Shell: I don’t know whether I’m pleased or annoyed that you’re covering for me.
    Ripper K: But you’re still going around decapitating Bunraku parlour owners?
    Shell: Eh, I’ll stop after the fourth. ‘1, 2, 3, 4, bored now. See you next year!
  7. Like
    Christopher reacted to tkdguy in More space news!   
    HUGE Discovery
  8. Like
    Christopher reacted to BoloOfEarth in Quote of the Week from my gaming group...   
    More overdue quotes, starting with some mostly out of context:
     
    Honey Badger:  The Banana Splits had a great theme song.  Don't f*** with it.
     
    Maker (discussing what kind of car someone is driving):  A Lexus Luthor
     
    Honey Badger:  I break things, therefore I am.
     
    The news recap of their fight with Deathstroke included the following quote from the reporter:
     
    Nadine Acer:  "The heroes used some unusual tactics, but they seemed to work.  For example, Honey Badger grabbed Scatterbrain and carried her away from the battle, putting himself at great personal risk to keep the mentalist from messing with the other heroes.
    Circe:  Great personal risk?!  She was trying to boff him in the stairwell!
     
    The heroes finally settle on a team name.
     
    Honey Badger:  I want "Just Cause."  That way, when people ask why we're doing this, we say, "Just 'cause."
     
    The team pays a visit to the offices of BEST (Boston Elite Super Team) to have words with T.J. O'Rourke. Circe establishes Telepathy with TJ in case he's thinking of screwing them over.
     
    Honey Badger:  I'll walk in, put my hands on his desk, and growl at him.  Say, does he have anything on his desk that I can bite?
    GM:  What, like a sandwich?
    HB:  No, something non-edible.  Like a stapler.
    GM:  Sure, there's a stapler on the desk.
    HB:  As I'm glaring at him, I take a big bite out of the stapler.
    O'Rourke:  (pouts)  That was my good stapler.  It never jammed...
     
    O'Rourke:  Listen, I'm not doing anything technically illegal!  I never claim that I'm actually affiliated with your team.  If people want to assume that, well, that's their business.  And even though I never say that donations would go toward your team, I do send you some cash.  Well, a little cash.  But if you really want me to close up shop...
    HB:  We never said that.  We want you to work for us.
    Circe:  What does he think about that?
    O'Rourke:  (thought bubble)  What, like legit?  Have I ever worked legit?  There was that one time in Tampa... naw, that's right, I completely conned that guy out of his car...
     
    Shortly after, TJ passes along a call from a local high-end Italian store / caterer (Salumeria Italiana), that they have a pre-paid food order and some "very fine wine" for the heroes.
    Maker:  Is this from Dr. Draconis, thanking us for taking down Deathstroke?  (It was)
     
    The heroes go to pick up the food and find that it's accompanied by a 1.5L magnum of Chatueau Lafite-Rothschild 1978. 
     
    Pops:  (Does a quick web search)  Holy s***!  A magnum of that stuff goes for over $1,600!
    Gaetano Martignetti (owner of Salumeria Italiana):  I told you it was a very fine wine.
     
    The heroes are investigating a series of demonic hound attacks (which was the gist of the adventure).  One demon hound killed a man in Boston, and another killed a retired couple in nearby Arkham.  In each case, the dogs bit off one of the hands for each person after mauling them to death.
     
    Pops:  Which hands were bitten off?
    GM:  For the professor, Dr. McPool, the demon hound bit off his right hand.  With the elderly couple... it bit off the woman's right hand, and the man's left. 
    Pops:  Was the guy left handed?
    GM:  Nope, sorry.
    HB:  Maybe he just wanted a matched set.
     
    (More to follow)
  9. Like
    Christopher reacted to Drhoz in Quote of the Week from my gaming group...   
    Black Crusade : The Fifteenth Arcana
    Having successfully acquired all the fragments of Haarlock's daemonic mirror, and ensured that everybody will blame Marshall Skarman and Enforcer Khan for the string of murders and riots currently rocking Sinophia, all that's left is window dressing, and deciding what to do with the daemon in question.

    Eniek: We need to splash some more blood around.
    GM: Well, you've got that telepath.
    Digna: I've got all those Dark Adsecularii too. I won't suffer too much of a leadership problem if I kill, say, 30 of them.

    The daemon itself seems agreeable to bargaining, and knows quite a lot about the PCs. This is never a good sign.

    The Daemon of the Mirror: Prefect Digna, who has replaced her entire body with plastic and steel, and seeks the Silica Anima, the forbidden artificial intelligence. The perfect mind for the perfect body?
    Digna: Well, THAT should be news to everyone here. And Eniek is going 'Are you insane? Wait, of course you are.'

    The Daemon: Magos Eniek, who seeks to push human biology past all limits of the unaltered flesh, and explores realms your hypocrite colleagues would call blasphemous.
    Eniek: Yes, yes, you know all about us and state the obvious. Can we get on with this?

    The Daemon of the Mirror: And you, little noble? Perhaps I can recommend a good bar.
    Digna OoC: It's called the Floating Vagabond

    The Daemon: After all, if you are so dissatisfied with reality as it is that you must gaze at it through the bottom of a glass, it's little wonder the Ruinous Powers could tempt you with the means to remake reality to match your drunken hallucinations. Or perhaps you simply drink to forget the fate that awaits you and all mortal flesh? I can see your desire, little noble. Speak it. Or wait. But do not wait TOO long...

    The Daemon: And your little pet wyrdling there, who despite his new armour, and his allies, and his power, still refuses to face certain issues from his past.
    Skerrit: I DO NOT HAVE ANY ISSUES

    Methinks he doth protest too much.

    Skerrit: I'm the weirdest psyker ever – I can see the future, see everything that's going to happen. AND I DON'T CARE
    GM: Black Crusade is tricky to prepare for - the players might decide to do anything. Declare war on Holy Terra in one ship, for example.
    Eniek: Nah, not Earth. Only one ship has ever got that close.
    GM: Indeed. And it took the Time Cannons on Luna to stop it.
    Eniek: Yeah. Declaring war on the Inquisition, on the other hand...
    GM: *headdesk*

    Eniek has heard whispers of a certain Liber Ex Incarnis, so his question to the daemon is as to where the Calixian Inquisitors keep such artefacts. The daemon answers instantly - the Tricorn Tower, in the middle of the ruling hive on Scintilla, the sector capitol.

    GM: I'm sure the daemon will be amused if you blow up the Tricorn Tower and go through the rubble for the book.
    Digna: Other way round – get the book, THEN blow up the tower. Remember – Pillage, THEN burn.

    Digna makes a bargain - in return for one of the daemon's names, she and the other PCs will free the entity from its confinement in the mirror. The daemon even offers to teach them a ritual that will move the mirror somewhere where they can question it at leisure. Not being complete fools, they decline this offer, and release it where it stands - the Ritual of Unmaking being suitably spectacular, although the eldritch shrieking form that burns up into the stormy skies over the burning city might take some explaining.

    Digna: Not bad for a ritual originally used against the Polish Remover of N'all, and the Staff of Q'tip.

    Still, blaming it all on some warp-based technology Skarman and Khan unearthed during their smuggling enterprise isn't too difficult - they just have to provide the Inquisition with a believable bodycount. The PCs head downstairs, and Digna hands her assistants a large packet of high explosive.

    Digna: Hold this satchel. And stay here.

    Skarman's Adjutant Fihad Constantine would quite like to know what was going on upstairs.

    Digna: Just dealing with more of your previous superior's mess. hits detonator

    The ritual also seems to have screwed up all the holo-screens and computers down here.

    Digna: Have you attempt the Cant of Power Cycling? It's a basic prayer for restoring recalcitrant machine spirits.
    GM: 'Have you tried switching it off and on again?'
    Eniek: Recite the tech-litany and castrate the unbelievers.
    Daniels: Stop everything, we need to requisition some more unbelievers.

    The Inquistorial Acolytes and the Governor finally arrive. Time to present their evidence, and ensure the Governor never, ever tries to eliminate the party to cover his own role in this debacle.

    Digna: And it's an unsubtle reminder that no matter where he goes we can get at him. So he'd better play ball.

    The Governor is not a good actor.

    Governor: What might have happened if my GOOD FRIEND Digna here had not uncovered this nest of vipers in my very midst!
    Digna: Would you like a sedative, Governor?
    GM: Qualuudes. 'Luuudes, Man. 'Nyquil, Nyquil, Nyquil -'
    Digna: '- you giant fucking Q'
    GM: In the original Green Death flavour.

    Time to get off Sinophia before the Inquisition smells a rat. How to profit from the rioting, carpet-bombing, lynch-mobs etc? Looting, of course.

    GM: I've got all this valuable artwork to sell. They fell off the back of a truck. Ignore the burn marks.
    Daniels: Plasma burns. They're ancient.
    GM: It adds to the patina.

    Digna has other ideas.

    Digna: I shall relieve the burden on the Administratum by taking it upon myself.
    GM: ?
    Digna: Orphans.
    GM: You evil bastards.
    Digna: And the public considers us philanthropists. Right – the older orphans, just hitting puberty – line them up for my steroid trials.
    GM: Actually by 40K standards this is a minor evil.
    Daniels: Nevermind, we'll get better.

    GM: So you've got your adorable orphans going 'Please sir, may I have some more Human Growth Hormone?'

    Technical manuals of the 40th Millennium.

    Digna: At least it isn't one of the Codices of St. Jane.

    Digna wants to make a daemon weapon from the iron in the blood of a thousand victims. She'll need something that will burn off the non-ferrous elements almost as fast is it drains the target.

    GM: Call it the El Chupacabra – can exsanguinate a cow at 200m.

    Routes to Scintilla - do they travel via the wretched mining world of Sepheris Secundus, or the treacherous politics of Malfi, where the nobility genetically engineered themselves to be better at Machiavellian intrigue? Queen Lachryma III of Sepheris Secundus is pretty noteworthy herself.



    (have I ever mentioned how much I love John Blanche's art? If anything could be said to typify Warhammer and Warhammer 40K, it's his designs and illustrations)



    Skerrit: She has a big hat.
    GM: Well, of course, she's queen.
    Skerrit: Which is why the God-Emperor's head is welded to the Golden Throne.
    Daniels: 'I wear the Imperial Palace as a hat'

    Skerrit is looking up certain psychic weapons. He is NOT going to get the trademark device of the Culexus Assassins.

    GM: No you can't have a Animus Speculum. For one thing, you're not a psychic Pariah. A social pariah, maybe...

    Digna makes some improvements to the ship, en route.

    Digna: We now have a best-quality Resolution Arena.
    GM: Let me guess – you'll be exsanguinating everyone who loses.
    Digna: Yup XD

    She also further alters her own appearance, to better influence her targets, and conceal the more obvious mutations. And gifts the party with a matching set of power swords.

    Daniels: I'm a bit worried about Digna – first she gets a boob job and then she gives me a sword.

    Daniels: Good lord – I see you went with the LARGE Etheric Beam Locators.
    GM: They need Double-D batteries.
    Digna: 'they're all synthetic, boys!'

    Of course, getting a chaos tainted ship from place to place is not as straightforward as the bizarrely baroque efforts of the Navigator Guilds. The 'navigator' on the Obsidian Resolve usually selects a crewman, gets stoned out of his mind, flogs the crewman to death, and reads the auguries for the next trip from the blood splatter.

    Daniels: We've got passengers for that!
    GM: Eh – they're not really part of the ship.

    Digna decides this is inefficient, and acquires a wildly illegal technology that allows her to substitute herself. This is a profoundly unsettling experience, not least because it allows her to perceive the Astronomicon - the psychic beacon of the God-Emperor's might, broadcast from Terra and fuelled by the deaths of a thousand psykers a day. And it's LOOKING at her. Side-effects of the trip include disturbing whispers from just behind everybody's left shoulder.

    Daniels: That's not so bad – I'll just turn up the Melodium for a few days.

    Arrival at Scintilla is delayed by some ship called the Rose Tattoo screaming ahead and taking their parking spot. But at least they have a plan for a heist against the Tricorn Tower - Hive Sibellus is built upon the mausoleums of its past, and a popular pastime for the nobility is paying for expeditions into the underhive to find the tombs of their forebears. Some describe this as the fortune of the city being built on the works of their illustrious ancestors. The more cynical describe it as being built on the bones of the dead.

    Either way, it should be fairly simple for Lord-Captain Daniels to stage one such expedition into the catacombs, and seek out whatever secret entrances the inquisitors have into the Tricorn Tower. Now, where can they get some nukes?
     
  10. Like
    Christopher reacted to Drhoz in Quote of the Week from my gaming group...   
    Plans to take down King Gurnt and Castle Cragmaw.

    Thorn: CragM-A-W? Oh, I thought it was Cragmoor. Well, it's not like I've ever seen it written down.

    Thorn: What we do is, is find the Floating Vagabond pub -
    GM: No.
    Thorn: - find a space marine -
    GM: No.
    Thorn: - get him drunk and borrow the keys to his siege tank.
    GM: No. Besides, you can't get Space Marines drunk.
    Thorn: Ah, but we'll be buying him Dwarf Beer.
    GM: F**k off.

    Thorn: OK, how about we take the remnants of an exhausted army up to the main concentration of the enemy forces and stand out in the open, while two essentially helpless PCs try to sneak in through the back door and get to Mount Doom?

    GM: You could always turn up with the dragonborn as a prisoner.
    Thorn OoC: Yesssss... and scare the rectangular Roombas. And when they ask what's going on down there we tell them we have a reactor leak.

    Kavorog: The halfling might be a bit slow.
    Thorn: If we have to we'll strap to the back of one of the dragonborn.
    Urlon: I'm not speeding up the dragonborn – I have trouble keeping up with them as it is.
    Thorn: I don't see the problem. Sure, if we're running away at the time....

    Thorn: What happens if we actually find the missing dwarves that started all this?
    Urlon: We give them a weapon and ask them if they want some revenge. And tell them they have to pay us for rescuing them.
    Thorn: I which case I expect they'll say 'F**k that, we'll rescue ourselves.' You are asking a dwarf to give you some gold, after all.

    GM: If you leave now you should get there by twilight.
    Thorn: Full Twilight? Naval Twilight? Nipple Twilight? Bad Paranormal Romance Twilight?
    Kavorog: Oh god...
    Thorn: Sparkle Twilight.

    Castle Cragmaw is seven ruinous towers built on a platform well above the ground. It's a full-sized defensive fort, surrounded by loose slopes of debris, with at least three possible entrances.

    Thorn: Being PCs, I suggest we find a fourth.

    Elethandiel studies the ruins, and suggests sneaking in via the wreckage of an old sally port might be best, especially if the Orcs think that entrance is already secure.

    Thorn: Exactly how many orcs are we expecting to be in there?
    GM: Not thousands.
    Urlon: That's scary. You didn't say 'not hundreds'
    Thorn: So there could be 999.

    Thorn: So what's the alarm if you see any patrols coming? Who knows how to hoot like an owl?
    Kavorog: Scream and run.
    Urlon: Towards them.

    Happily, one of the NPCs hears the goblins squabbling behind the arrow slits before we blunder into them. Kavorog casts Mend on the door so it opens smoothly and silently.

    Thorn: Is it time to scream the Ultramarine battlecry? F**K! THEM! UPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!

    Kavorog: I open the side door.
    GM: grins evilly Have you seen the movie Tremors?

    Luckily the dragonborn escapes being eaten by the tentacled murderworm. The hordes of goblins and hobgoblins on this level aren't so lucky, and get eaten alive by the wave of berserk PCs.
  11. Like
    Christopher reacted to Drhoz in Quote of the Week from my gaming group...   
    In which Ripper K, changeling porn star, branches out into human trafficking - to whit, auctioning off that arcanoarcheologist who commissioned us to kidnap him and then couldn't pay. True, he's willing to go along with this, but he'd better pray the data in his brain chips is actually worth what he says it is. Or we will be quite cross.

    Oracle: I mean we COULD just rip the data out of his head...

    Shell: I should do something about the phobia of nudity I have – it never comes up.
    GM: Excuse me?! Look who's sitting next to you.
    Ripper K: looks innocent

    Shell: I'm living in an abandoned railyard. Sure, it's a very advanced rail yard, but -
    Ripper K: sings Monorail, Monorail, Monorail, Monorail

    Since the orca is the best at bargaining, he gets Poe to disguise him with a Physical Mask spell.

    Ripper K: I'll ARESearch 'random elf' – make me look like him.
    Poe: Any competent mage will see through the spell.
    Shell: Any competent mage who can see through the spell will be peeing a little.

    That raven shapechanger still wants to be part of the team. Poor, poor fool.

    Ripper K: Can we call you Quoth? Or Nevermore?
    Poe: Please don't.
    Streetrat: Birdman.
    Ripper K: Harvey XD

    The groups coming to the auction include the Draco Foundation, the Atlantean Foundation, and Wuxing, a new megacorp.

    Shell: Oh joy, a bidding war.
    Ripper K: Well, that is the idea of an auction.
    Shell: I didn't say it was a bad thing.

    The Draco rep is the one that hired the team to recover that obsidian artefact a few weeks back. The Atlantean rep is the prick that wanted the artefact and didn't care about the woman who'd been carrying it. The Wuxing rep is new to us. If it wasn't for Astronauta Peligroso's distinctive appearance (and musical accompaniment) there's no chance the Atlantean rep, one Mr Nazir, would even recognise us as the same team. Still, it does give us opportunity to play the rival corps off each other and drive the bids higher.


    Ripper K: I'll mention 'in passing' that Draco has a good reputation for employee care XD

    (Actually, that's not quite true. The Draco Foundation would have drained the arcanoarcheologist's brain and shot him in the head the moment they find out what he knew. Just as well we never knew ourselves.)

    Streetrat: If only we could put a magical compulsion on them 'I MUST WIN'

    The shampagne is being poured when the assassins strike. Wisely for them, they're using long range weapons so they didn't have to try and penetrate our sensor net. Luckily for us, we spotted it just in time and could step in the way of the shot. Unluckily for us, it's an anti-tank rifle. As the SPLATANG echoes around the abandoned hotel and Shell's entirely metal and ceramic body proves its worth, we scramble to get the arcanoarcheologist, the corporate reps, and ourselves to safety. Not that the sniper was a threat for long, but you never know what their Plan B was. Still, we got paid.

    Shell: ooooh, yeah. I rub those nuyen on my synthetic nipples.

    The TacNet Oracle set up is proving pretty damn useful too.

    Ocelot: I'll be sure to say 'thankyou, Overlord' when we're done.
    Oracle: Have to be nice to the potential nascent AI.

    Of course, Oracle is going to have to take the nexus down for upgrading. And keep himself awake for the entire time with designer drugs.

    Oracle: 'Estimated time to completion... one month'
    Ocelot: The f**k????
    Ripper K: Well, I had some movies to film...

    Oracle: I'll finish the nexus upgrade first – THEN I'll work on Project Usurper.
    Ripper K: That's not ominous at all.

    Ripper K: So after a month of sleep deprivation you're going to be working on something called Project Usurper.
    Oracle: Actually I'll need to do Project Thousand Monkeys first.
    Ripper K: ….. right.
    Oracle: I need to get 30 Buster Moves. So I can make a distributed network to run the agents on. 30 animatronic toys wired together.
    Poe: That's amazingly twisted.
    Oracle OoC: I need to commission a picture of this...

    Shell and Astronauta Peligroso knock down a building while wrestling.

    Ocelot: Remind me, electricity does bad things to drones, right?
    GM OoC: Yup – Shell's chassis becomes sentient and ejects his CNS. XD
    Ripper K OoC: His brain pops out the top like toast from a toaster XD

    Shell: Make yourself comfortable. There's some body bags in the back room.
    Ocelot: So.. you heard about sleeping bags at some point but didn't get the memo?
    Shell: These were cheaper.
    Ripper K: And they come with toe tags so you won't forget who you are?

    Poe: You creep me out a bit.
    Shell: That's all right, ravens are symbols of death, you're inherently creepy too.
    Poe: I do look like Severus Snape.
    Shell: I get the feeling I shouldn't trust you with children. But then nobody would trust me with children either.
    Poe: Well, we do tend to eat our young, it's OK.
    Streetrat: I'm starting to feel I shouldn't trust either of you.

    Shell: I've always wanted to be a shadowrunner – I've always felt bad when I've had to kill them.
    All: ….
    Shell: One of them managed to cut me in half.
    All: …
    Shell: They got away but I did get a commendation for shooting one of them in the arse. And afterwards I thought 'I want to be that guy'.
    Poe: The one you shot in the arse?
    Shell: The one that cut me in half. And today I think I was that guy that got shot in the arse.

    Streetrat gets a call from his dad

    Labrat: *singsong* Hellluooooooooo
    All: cackles
    Streetrat: That is so not Labrat.
    Ocelot: Unless he's been out on the town with Inkubus and got into something really interesting.
    Oracle: 'I have something to tell you'
    Ripper K: 'I'm actually your mother'
    Oracle: 'And your father – it's amazing what they can do with genetic engineering these days'

    One Dr Caroll, an expert on AI, wants to be extracted from the Matrix company Datadyne. No doubt people have been hearing about our extraction of the arcanoarcheologist. Odd things about the client – nobody has seen them. Or even knows if they're male or female. Maybe they're an AI themselves?

    Oracle: So an AI is researching AIs?
    Shell: Not outside the realm of possibility.
    Oracle: I know - the quest to understand oneself is as old as humanity.

    We get to work researching the building Caroll is in – particularly ways in from underneath. No point repeating our zipline stunt from last time. The public plans probably can't be trusted – Ocelot suggests rigging a Centipede Search-and-Rescue drone with millimeter radar, send it into the sewers, and map the entire building from the sewerage system. The drone – which Oracle names Shitkicker - produces a full 3D map of the building and reveals some very odd sources of EM interference. Nothing pointing us towards Caroll, but the basement labs are only accessible from secure elevators. Not that secure, however. We could, for example, smash through a wall and go down the lift shaft.

    Shell: Assuming we do go with Operation Kool-aid Man, getting out again in a hurry might be a problem.

    Although possibly not, given all those useful winches and autorappels we can order by the crate, and the 2070 equivalent of card skimmers. And our Rigger, Streetrat, piloting Shell's cyborg body. Plus of course going in disguised as couriers to get better info on their security, and plant the dissolving card skimmers. Maglock scramblers to slow pursuit will also help. Ideas like these cheer us up. On the other hand, we also have the increasing suspicion that one of those basement labs is highly radioactive. Awkward. Just as well Shell is mostly artificial.

    Oracle: And if we take some lead-lined Thermoses we can bring some that stuff out with us. Actually no. Let's not start dealing in radioisotopes.
    GM: You'd have very angry Iranian terrorists after you. And very happy toxic shamans.

    So the plan is – half of us use a stealth ultralight to get to the roof, and use the executive elevator to get into the basement labs. Poe will fly up himself. Shell will just have to get used to the fact Poe has to arrive naked.

    Astronauta: I replaced his underwear with a g-string XD
    Ocelot: I thought about it, but I was too mature to actually do it.

    Oracle, Astronauta, and Streetrat will wait at ground level in the van with shaped explosives for the Mr Kool-aid Extraction.

    Oracle: POWERPUNC- sorry. I'm stepping on your schtick.
    Astronauta Peligroso: shrug
    Oracle: I'll make up to you – I'll buy the tower plate of nachos.

    Security Guard at the Heli-pad: We weren't expecting any arrivals. Are you guys supposed to be here?
    Ripper K: Actually, yes leaning forward with electroshock hand
    Security Guard: Just let me call this i- ZORCH

    Oracle hurriedly hacks the guard's security equipment, before the biomonitors can report the guy's condition to the security desk.

    Oracle, as the guard: Sorry guys, I tased myself.
    Security Desk: Again? For fuck's sake, Charlie...
    Ripper K: 'That's the third time this week'
    Ocelot: 'Save it for the bedroom'

    Ocelot: If you see any important-looking workstations, can you spray this on it? It's Screen-capture Spray – 3 days from now I'll send Shitkicker back in XD

    First problem – the executive elevator already has the CEO in it.

    CEO: Who are you?
    Shell: Escorts ma'am
    Ocelot: hisses to Ripper It's your job to poke her now!
    Ripper K: ….
    Shell: Oh, come on, we give you a straight line like that?
    Ripper K: Nice to meet you *leans forward with electroshock hand*
    CEO: *drawing pistol* – ZORCH

    Her own security pass will be useful.

    Ocelot: I'll put her on the couch, so she won't be quite so apocalyptically pissed when she wakes up.
    Oracle: You did just steal a pistol worth three grand.
     
  12. Like
    Christopher reacted to Netzilla in Quote of the Week from my gaming group...   
    That reminds me of an exchange from an old game:
     
    Z [playing an electricity-based character, has his character absorb power from several cars in a parking lot.]
    Me [new to this group and the characters] So, he absorbs power from nearby batteries.  We shouldn't let him near anyone with a pacemaker.
    GM - [Looks at me, laughs and pretends to scribble furiously in his notes.]
    Z - [turns to me]  You'll get bonus EPs if anyone dies from your suggestion.
  13. Like
    Christopher got a reaction from tkdguy in More space news!   
    xkcd.com had a nice day with the Pluto Image:
    http://xkcd.com/1551/

  14. Like
    Christopher reacted to BoloOfEarth in Quote of the Week from my gaming group...   
    Part 2 of Stroke of Death:
     
    I forgot to say that, in the Heronet Herald article about "Dr. Draconis" breaking Requiem out of Stronghold, mention was made that a few weeks before, Dr. Draconis had been in a battle with the "Virginia Alliance for Global Intervention and National Aid," during which his armor had gotten badly damaged.
     
    Pops:  Is that superhero team actually called VAGINA?
    GM:  They're a loose group of heroes who refused to give their team a name.  So the Heronet Herald editor gave them one.
    Malarky:  It's the GM's way of saying it's time for us to pick a team name.
     
    In response to TJ O'Rourke and BEST, Malarky and Maker set up a website and an email address for the team, even though they still haven't picked a name.
     
    A freak earthquake levels a deserted town in Pennsylvania at 12:02 pm, after which the major networks reveal that they had each received CDs that morning with video files of Requiem demanding the US government abdicate in favor of Deathstroke ruling the country, and threatening to destroy whole cities until that happens.  He said that as a demonstration, they would level Curtin Village, Pennsylvania at noon.
     
    Honey Badger:  A CD?  Really?  How 1990s.
    GM:  Well, he has been in prison for over a decade.
     
    Shortly after that, the team begins getting repeated emails from two local reporters (Nadine Acer at the local CBS affiliate and Joshua Petersen from the local Fox station) and Tommy Dugan (son of Jimmy "Gyro Jim" Dugan), all requesting interviews with the hero team about Deathstroke.
     
    Honey Badger:  What makes them think we know anything about it?  We've never even fought them before.
     
    Honey Badger gets a call from TJ O'Rourke, saying that he received a CD with a video file he thinks the heroes need to see.  From a completely different angle (up above and to the side) it shows Requiem filming his demands (requiring three takes), and then walking over to a table to go over maps and diagrams with Stinger and Death Commando.  The CD also contains diagrams and notes about a device that projects earthquake-like resonant vibrations at a distant location.
     
    Maker:  So can I make a gadget that will detect that device?
    GM:  Sure... the next time it's used.  Do you want to wait until then?
     
    The notes on the CD include computations of the frequency and amplitude waves showing that Curtin Village, PA is approximately 590 km from the quake device. 
     
    Malarky:  We'll draw a circle on the map and start checking out towns along the line.
    GM:  Like, Boston?  Because the line passes right through your hometown.
     
    The heroes look up info on the members of Deathstroke.
     
    GM:  ... and the strawberry blonde there is Scatterbrain, the team's mentalist.
    Circe:  Strawberry blonde?  Does she look familiar to me?
    GM:  As a matter of fact, she does kinda resemble the girl in the bar who whammied Pop Tart.
     
    The heroes take a multi-prong approach:  Shadowboxer and Maker begin researching and checking out disused underground spaces (old subway stations, etc.) in town, while Circe tries to Mind Scan for Scatterbrain.  Eventually Circe get a few bearings, narrowing the search area for Shadowboxer and Maker, and they locate an unusual space under a disused storage building -- a sizable section of abandoned subway tunnel has been blocked off with concrete.  In the storage building above, Shadowboxer spies on a group of heavily-armed hired thugs, so the heroes block off the door leading to the staircase and get ready to force open the armored door leading into the main part of the underground base.
     
    Pops:  Remember, take out the mentalist.  They're evil.  Every last one.
    Circe:  One of these days, I'm going to find myself about a mile up in the air, falling to my death, aren't I?
    GM:  Right next to the monsignor.
    Circe:  (looks to his right)  Oh, hey, Monsignor Vasquez.  How's it going?
     
    Inside, they find Nadine Acer holding a camcorder, interviewing Requiem while the other members of Deathstroke and a squad of agents are scattered around the room, some checking on the Quake device while others are killing time.  The battle is joined, with Honey Badger going straight for Death Commando.  The villain hits the hero, doing basically no damage past his defenses.
    Honey Badger:  What was that?  You hitting me with a feather?
    Draconic:  (to Death Commando)  What's wrong, old man?  Having a little trouble there?
     
    Scatterbrain decides to have some fun with Honey Badger and hits him with a Mental Illusion making her look like Pop Tart. 
     
    Scatterbrain:  Why don't you and I go somewhere and have a little fun?
    Honey Badger:  Oh, no, she's doing it again.  I'd better call Twizzler again.
    GM:  Sorry, no cell phone reception in the bunker.
     
    Nexus blasts Draconic, drawing his attention.  So he does a flying tackle, taking her down to the ground.
     
    Draconic:  Woo, hoo!  Hey, babe, ain't this fun?
    Nexus:  (OOC)  He's going to get grabby, isn't he?
    GM:  Worse than that.  He's going to motorboat Nexus' breasts.
    Honey Badger:  He's going to regret that he's wearing a full helmet.
    Nexus:  This guy's an a**hole.
    GM:  Yeah, basically, that's what I've been trying for.
    Nexus:  (to Malarky)  Can't you do something about this guy?
    Malarky:  (hits Draconic with a Flash vs. all senses)  At least he can't enjoy himself now.
     
    Malarky had trapped Death Commando and the agents in a thorny AoE Entangle, and Death Commando had just broken free.
     
    Nexus:  (to Death Commando)  A little help here?
    Death Commando:  (looks down at Draconic, then to Malarky)  Temporary truce?
    Malarky:  (shrugs)  Sure, what the heck?
    Death Commando:  Be right back.  (climbs back into the thorny mass and comes back out with one of the agents' laser pistols)  D**kweed here doesn't realize that Draconis's armor is vulnerable to lasers.  Do you, D**kweed?  (blasts Draconic with the laser, stunning him and doing 4 BODY past defenses.)  Not bad for an 'old man', is it, D**kweed?
    Malarky:  The worst part is, Draconic is blind and deaf and doesn't know what just happened.
    GM:  Actually, he has some Flash Defense.  He regained the ability to see and hear just before Death Commando took the shot.
     
    The heroes have most of Deathstroke on the ropes.
     
    Death Commando:  Well, I'm out of here.  Take it easy.
    Malarky:  I'll fist-bump him as he goes past.
     
    Pops is standing near an alcove where the concealed exit is, and where Death Commando is heading.
     
    Death Commando:  Yaaaaaa! 
    GM:  It looks like he tries a Move Through, but he barely misses Pops by... (holds hands about three feet apart) ... this much.
     
    Honey Badger:  You know, Nadine got the whole fight on film.
    Malarky:  Too bad that camera's going to have a little accident.  (Holds one of his magical foci)  Probably due to Chiller's little blizzard.  Too much cold isn't good for electronics, y'know?
  15. Like
    Christopher reacted to procyon in Quote of the Week from my gaming group...   
    From my wife, while firing her energy bolts at a mook beating a fallen police man.
    Wife - "I'm not going to take a chance on this one getting away. (rolls a successful hit, then rolls all the dice for her attack)"
    Me - "He missed the roll for his armor.  What did you roll for damage?"
    Wife - makes concerned face "Oh.  Oops. I may have killed him.  The three other cops are watching me, aren't they."
     
    During another session with the 14 y/o boy.
    Me - "Do you have Unluck as a disadvantage?'
    Son - "No.  I bought that off."  Looks at sheet.  "Um.  Maybe I didn't."
    Me - "Go ahead and roll for it."
    Son - (rolls) "Um, what number is bad again..."  .
  16. Like
    Christopher reacted to BoloOfEarth in Quote of the Week from my gaming group...   
    Tried to post from work, and it lost everything I typed.  Grrrr...  Let's try again.
     
    I actually have two adventures to quote, but let's start with two Sundays ago.  Here's part 1 of Stroke of Death:
     
    A few weeks ago I asked by long-time players if they preferred new teams in my new Champions campaign, or to see some old foes (and if so, which ones).  Among old foes mentioned was Deathstroke (though mainly so they could pound and abuse Death Commando).  Thanks to rjd59 for his 6th edition conversions, which saved me a ton of time.
     
    Unfortunately, there are 7 players and only 6 members of Deathstroke, so I decided to add a new member to the villain team.  With the team's long-term animosity with Dr. Draconis, I decided to have a redneck teen find a deserted Draconis armory / lab which included a backup copy of Draconis' original battlesuit.  Naming himself Draconic, he used the battlesuit and other stuff he found to break Requiem out of Stronghold (the rest of the team had escaped in the great Cross-Rip superprison riot) and asked to join their team.
     
    But before we get to the meat of the adventure, we had some other news and personal stuff to handle.
     
    That week's copy of the Heronet Herald included an article that the Catholic Church was sending an exorcism specialist (Monsignor Vasquez) from Rome to try purging the being possessing a missionary to create the supervillain Inquisition (one of the Corrupted).
     
    Pops:  Couldn't they find someone, y'know, local?
     
    GM:  On the day the monsignor is supposed to arrive...
    Pops:  Oh, great, what happens?  The jet is shot down?  Explodes?  Hijacked?
    GM:  Nothing like that.  You hear on the news that the Anti-Pope appeared on the jet...
    Pops:  In mid-flight?  He's got some serious teleportation.  So he killed the monsignor?
    GM:  Not directly.  He simply... sent the monsignor outside the plane.
    Honey Badger:  Probably out onto the wing, next to the gremlin trying to tear apart the engine.  Were they showing The Twilight Zone movie?
    GM:  Naw.  The in-flight movie was Gone With the Wind.
     
    Meanwhile, as the only publicly-known superhero on the team, Honey Badger has been getting mail for the team - requests for public appearance, pleas for help, etc.  For the past week, he's been getting a manila envelope each day containing a typed listing of more of the same, along with a crisp new $5 bill and a handwritten:  "Keep up the good work.  You're the BEST!"
     
    Honey Badger:  Vanilla?  I prefer chocolate.
    GM:  (pause)  Not vanilla.  Manila.
     
    He also has his long-awaited date with Pop Tart, a founding member of Snak Attak! (yes, it's spelled that way), Boston University students who fight crime who take their names from snack foods.  Twizzler (whom the PC heroes met in their first adventure) arranges for HB to meet PT in front of the Boston U student union.  He sees PT flirting with a half-dozen male students, but she breaks away when she sees HB.  (It should be noted that Pop Tart dresses in a naughty schoolgirl outfit and talks like a ditzy blonde Valley Girl.)
     
    Pop Tart:  Oooo!  Sorry, boys, gotta jet.  There's my date!  (flounces over and starts hanging off his arm)  Isn't he dreamy?  (squeezes his bicep)  Ooooo!  What muscles!
    Honey Badger:  Honey Badger brought you a present.
    PT:  (unwraps present)  A toaster?  Ohhhh... because I'm Pop Tart.  (smiles wickedly)  You're trying to get me hot, aren't you?
    HB:  (grins)
     
    As soon as they're out of earshot of others, she begins talking normal.
     
    PT:  Okay, just so there's no misunderstandings, if you're only going out with me because you think I'm some easy bimbo, let me know now and we can go our separate ways, no hard feelings and nobody gets hurt.  The flirting and that other stuff, that's just Pop Tart.  It's not really me.
    HB:  Ummm.. Twizzler said you wanted to go out with me.
    PT:  Well, I figured with the whole "Honey Badger don't care," talking-in-the-third-person thing, maybe you'd get the Pop Tart thing better than most.  I just didn't want you to start out with the wrong idea.
     
    They go out to a nice restaurant, where she occasionally winks and blows kisses at guys staring at the two of them.
     
    GM:  After you finish dinner, you go to a local club...
    HB:  Wait, nobody attacked us during dinner?  That's never happened before.
     
    At the club, she continues the flirting, while still giving HB plenty of attention.  At one point, an angry woman whose date is staring at Pop Tart throws her drink in his face, glares at PT and HB, and storms off.  Shortly after, PT excuses herself to go to the bathroom.  After she returns, she's dialing the flirting thing up to 11 -- deep tongue-kisses a random guy, drags HB onto the dance floor to more grind than dance, etc.  Realizing something is wrong, HB tosses her over his shoulder and begins carrying her out of the club.
     
    PT:  Oooo!  I like it!  (to others)  Bye, all!   We're off to have some fun!
     
    HB calls Twizzler, then takes PT to Twizzler's house.
     
    PT:  A threesome!  You naughty boy!
     
    Honey Badger begins calling in teammates.  Malarky and Maker are able to rule out her being drugged, and Nexus verifies she's not being possessed.
     
    PT:  Honey Bunny, how many people are we going to party with?  I'm not complaining, mind you, just wondering.
     
    Eventually, Circe finds out Pop Tart is under a Mind Control, from the pretty strawberry blonde who threw her drink in her date's face.  She breaks the mind control, bringing the unfortunate date to an end.
     
    A few days later, Shadowboxer is driving in the shadier part of town when he sees someplace in a strip mall.  The sign catches his eye:  Boston Elite Super Team.  (Note that the PC team had yet to choose a name at that point, and BEST wasn't even on the list.)  He uses his ability to see and hear from the shadows to spy on the reception area - where a bored-looking woman (Jan Cramer) is talking on the phone.
     
    Jan Cramer:  (practically a monotone)  Hello, is this Ron Cahson?  This is Jan, calling from BEST – the Boston Elite Supah Team.  I’m sure you’ve seen media reports of the city’s new supahheroes, and their daring exploits to help protect ouah fair city and its citizens.  Prior to their arrival, Boston went without a supahhero team for nearly a decade, resulting in widespread crime and corruption.  We heah at BEST believe in being strongly supportive of ouah supahheroes and the fine job they are doing fighting crime…
    Maker:  (OOC) Does she look anything like the secretary from Ghostbusters?  Because that's totally what I'm seeing in my mind.
     
    Shadowboxer also peeks into the back office, where a guy dressed like a used-car salesman (T.J. O'Rourke) is also talking on the phone while typing on a laptop computer.
     
    TJ:  Perhaps your daughter’s boyfriend is a ‘filthy mutant,’ as you say, sir, but I’m sure you understand that superheroes can’t go around arresting people just because of their genetic makeup.  Has he actually done anything illegal?  (pause)  Uh, huh.  Yes.  Right, sir.  (sigh)  Well, why don’t you give me his name and address?  I can’t guarantee Boston’s super-team will be able to do anything about him, but I’ll be sure to pass along your information.  One more thing sir?  Of course, superheroes don’t charge for their fine work they do, protecting us from threats such as violent mutants.  But on a completely unrelated note (chuckle) would you be willing to make a donation to BEST?  It would certainly make our lives much easier.
    Honey Badger:  (OOC)  Wait.  BEST?  What was written on those papers I've been getting in the mail?
    GM:  You mean,"Keep up the good work, you're the BEST?"
    Circe:  (OOC) Let me guess, this is one of those fundraisers where most of the money goes toward administration, and very little to the actual cause?
    GM:  Very little?  Like, five dollars?  (grins evilly)
  17. Like
    Christopher got a reaction from Lucius in Order of the Stick   
    A temporary temple. Interesting.
  18. Like
    Christopher reacted to Old Man in More space news!   
    I failed to explain completely--bipedalism and binocular vision are examples of convergent evolution here, each having evolved on several distinct occasions. Certainly it doesn't rule out radial symmetry or crystal entities or what have you, but if I had to bet money on the form intelligent alien life will take, it'd be a bilaterally symmetrical, bipedal form with binocular vision.
  19. Like
    Christopher reacted to grandmastergm in Quote of the Week from my gaming group...   
    From the Archdruid, an eco-terrorist supervillain: "You shall all fall before me! You foolish servants of the alien-pollution-industrial complex!"
  20. Like
    Christopher reacted to jackalope in Quote of the Week from my gaming group...   
    My last entry in this thread is on page 30.  That's 577 pages back.  Good lord.
     
    So two great quotes came out of today's session.  The first comes from new player Ben.  We explained to him how PRE Attacks work, and he immediately wanted to try it out against a band of bandits trying to waylay him and his sister.  His character is a super-badass archer who, thanks to an Autofire stunt, Rapid Fire, and Autofire skills can lay down an impressive rate of fire.  His Danger Sense warned him of the ambush long before he reached it, and he started firing into the bandits, forcing them to close with him.  He knocks two arrows at once, aims at the pair of bandits charging him and says "It is raining death in this place and by the end of the day YOU WILL ALL BE SOAKING!"  I thought that was totally worth an extra dice, but sadly he rolled a 7 on 4 1/2 dice.
     
    The second quote came from disgraced nobleman Hannewig Marcellus, who is involved in a romantic relationship the Lady Seeta Zadi.  Marcellus is a disgraced nobleman who has become an assassin; Seeta is a scheming femme fatale who rules an empire of blackmail and extortion.  Commenting on his initial reaction to meeting Zadi, he said "I knew the feeling was love...or I'd been poisoned."
  21. Like
    Christopher reacted to Lucius in Order of the Stick   
    If they build to the same floorplan each time they have a temporary temple template.
     
    If they have a plan for each climate, they could have a temperate temporary temple template.
     
    Lucius Alexander
     
    The palindromedary says if each structure maintains itself and its surroundings at an average meteorological state for a pleasant day in that climate, there would be a temperate temporary temple template temperature
  22. Like
    Christopher got a reaction from tkdguy in More space news!   
    As long as it does not come over because the neighbours keep watching it via telescopes when it tries to eat in peace.
  23. Like
    Christopher reacted to tkdguy in More space news!   
    Time for breakfast
  24. Like
    Christopher reacted to Drhoz in Quote of the Week from my gaming group...   
    Shadowrun 2070 - Fun With Ziplines
    Weldun: Sitting around a table where all the chairs match feels false. Dumpster Dive Chic.
    Van: We call it 'Derelique'.

    Those of my players who were in my Call of Cthulhu campaign still remember it fondly enough to regale the newbies with 15 minutes of anecdotes. Such as Aldous Quinn's infamous boxing prowess.

    'I shot them with this shotgun officer' 'Why?' 'Because I'd have killed them if I'd used my fists'

    Draco Foundation – An organisation set up by the late president Dunklezahn

    Oracle: Just call him Unky Dunky

    Humanis Policlub - Racist f***s. Reputation : Target practise
    Miracle Shooter – An Augmented Reality live action shooter game. Quite popular, and a good recruiting tool for the military and covert merc groups.
    Knights Errant: Currently providing Seattle's police force, at very reasonable rates.

    I missed two sessions, but got a synopsis. They set a corporation up for a later run by inserting a software agent (named Raffles) into their systems, and getting a detailed 3-D map of the entire building by wandering around inside with plans and hidden radar sensors, after the management heard about new communication technology and wanted a quote on rewiring the building.

    Ocelot: We went into the Ork Underground looking for someone and got attacked by an invisible ceiling crocodile.
    Ripper K: What?
    Ocelot: We managed to stun it and carry it out. No-one's ever confirmed they exist before so we're going to sell it.
    Ripper K: And add a new chapter to Newt Scamander's 'Magical Beasts And Where To Find Them'.

    Ripper K: You sound a bit stressed there, should I bring something?
    Boots: Let me check – some more blood would be nice, but I don't think you're my blood type.
    Ripper K: I'll pick up a sixpack of gangers, you can use them as squeezepaks.

    On to Pirate's Cove, to find a smuggler who may or may not have information on a woman – one Fiona Craig - who was bringing an Artifact into Seattle. The first client – probably from the Draco Foundation - wanted her back. A second client - the Seattle DA - wants the smuggler. A third client wanted us to recover the black volcanic glass artifact, but we don't care.

    Oracle: I didn't like the way they approached us. So f**k 'em. Plus I'd been having a bad day.

    The ridiculously useful Bloodhound sensors on Oracle's dragonfly drone confirm we're on the right track, despite a distracting encounter with gangers that Astronauta Peligroso successful intimidates with his Mexican Wrestler Intimidation-fu.

    Boots: Ironically the gator is worth more than the job we were supposed to be doing.
    Oracle: WAY more. It's an uncatalogued paranormal critter from an urban environment and we caught it ALIVE. And a lot of the buyers don't ask questions.

    Boots knows someone in the business.

    Boots: True, he's an uncle. I'm an Ork, I have lots of uncles.

    Of course strolling through the Ork Underground in the company of assorted military-grade drones will attract attention.

    Oracle: If they don't like my toys they can answer to my toys.

    A future PC, Nevermore, makes the mistake of spying on the group in the form of a raven.

    Oracle: Well, I always wanted to try skeet shooting.

    Boots: I've got mixed feelings about Proposition 23.
    Oracle: It's just a vote on whether the Underground is recognised as an official district of Seattle, and gets to vote on Seattle council business.
    Boots: There's still a mix of positives and negatives.
    Oracle: Humanis is going apeshit.
    Boots: That's one of the positives.
    Oracle: I'm expecting lots of work against racist f**ks.

    Pirate's Cove is a impressively large underground river.

    Oracle: And if you look at the ceiling you will NOT see invisible alligators.
    Ripper K: So what's the wireless like?
    Boots: laughs hysterically
    Oracle: It's just improved - because we're here.

    Boots: Stay alert, it's likely somebody else is looking for Uncle Turner.
    Ripper K: It he another one of your uncles?
    Boots: This is the Ork Underground – everyone's my uncle.

    Boots knocks on the door and gets jolted across the street by a charged Ward.

    Boots: Well fuck Uncle Turner then.

    Oracle's drones do some chain gun carpentry. Boots enters.

    Boots: UNCLE. I'M HEEEEERREEEE
    Ripper K: Let's just hope he wasn't on the way to answer the door.

    Boots is encouraged to leave again by a fire spirit.

    Boots: I tag a luchadore. Astronauta, you're up.

    Astronauta Peligroso charges in and mauls the spirit, despite being badly wounded by the alligator earlier.

    Ocelot: Magical troll luchadore to replace the troll sledgehammer-user Streetrat's dad used to work with.
    Astronauta Troll adepts are effective.
    Boots: Just don't rub their bellies.

    Ocelot: What are the walls made of.
    Ripper K: Plasterboard.
    Ocelot: We probably should have checked if anybody was inside first.
    Ripper K: Yup.

    Boots: I'm operating on pure disgust for the universe at this point.

    Uncle Turner also has Ork guards and ceiling mounted track-guns. He also has the woman we're seeking - apparently he was going to double-cross her and try to get a better deal for the artifact.

    UncleTurner: Don't come any closer! Or I'll shoot the girl!

    Ocelot takes advantage of Oracle's TacNet and infravision to shoot the gun out of Turner's hand. Through the wall.

    Boots: Get out from under the table, Uncle, it's embarrassing.
    Ripper K: *turns to the 6 guards and shrugs* Family.

    Boots is rather annoyed at Turner's unprofessionalism – attempting to double-cross a client is never good. Despite the kind of things Shadowrunners are famous for.

    Turner: I thought I could get a better deal!
    Boots: ….... it's over. *rings his Dad, Labrat* Dad? I've got some bad news.
    Turner: *goes white*
    Boots: Unless you have something for me, Uncle.
    Turner: It's in the safe!

    Labrat agrees that execution for this treachery is entirely called for.

    Boots: Put this on. *throws a blindfold at Turner*

    The obsidian object in question is recovered, and the woman safely retrieved. Maybe we'll get a bonus for finding both.

    Boots: Hey, Streetrat! Why do you have a head in the fridge? Oh, nevermind, it's a cake. Why do you have a head shaped like a cake in the fridge? Er, cake shaped like a head. The other way around would be even more disturbing. Love the raspberry icing.
    Streetrat: Don't touch that, it's for Dad!
    Boots: Is that an actual vibroknife?
    Streetrat: Yeah, it's his birthday present.

    We get our pay, and a bonus, and we put the money for the alligator towards getting Prop 23 passed. The DA is annoyed that the smuggler is dead, but we have video and medical proof that he was threatening a hostage. We just don't include the second bullet. Boots has also joined Knight Errant, which means he won't be going on runs any more (sort of a conflict of interests there).

    Ripper K: Does this mean we can trust you to look the other way when we're on a run?
    Oracle: I promise to use non-lethal rounds when you're in the area.

    Boots: The replacement I'm suggesting has a... bit of a personality.
    Oracle: Actually, I think Astronauta Peligroso has more than enough personality for the entire team.

    Boots: Well gentlemen, I won't be seeing you again, except as Officer Montgomery.
    Oracle: Don't take this the wrong way but I hope I never see you again. Except on Miracle Shooter.

    Boots: Astro, I'm not shaking your hand – you f**king scare me.

    Oracle natters on about his phenomenally useful custom medevac drone.

    Ripper K: You should sell this design to DocWagon.
    Oracle: Not yet. I had to do a lot of work on the Valkyrie chassis to get it to work. It's only a few feet long – it needed to take a full human.
    Ripper K: Cut their legs off automatically and sew them on again at the destination.
    Oracle: …

    Oracle: I need to get a Big Rig. For Big Jobs.
    Streetrat: Don't call it Mek-Quake.


    http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_medium/1/13925/291040-181255-mek-quake.jpg


    Boots' replacement turns up at a Miracle Shooter tournament, carrying half of Boots stuff. He's a bit conspicuous.

    Oracle: He's dressed like a Corp who's seen one to many Shadowrunning Vid-shows.

    Shell: Hi! I'm Shell. You must be Streetrat?
    Streetrat: What gave it away? The tusks?

    Oracle: I should warn you that the other Miracle Shooter players think I cheat. I've talked it over with the organisers and they agree that what I do isn't actually illegal.
    Shell: Boots told me he had a decker with a TacNet?
    Oracle: He really knew how to undersell, didn't he?

    Oracle: And now we go kick arse at Miracle Shooter.
    Whiny Pissbaby: They hacked the game! They knew exactly where we were!
    Oracle: It's called millimetre-wave penetrator radar, ya d*ck.
    Ocelot: I imagine you tag them all as 'Whiny Pissbabies' on the HUD.
    Shell: bang bang bang Got 'em.

    Nevermore shouldn't do nearly as well, since magic actually is illegal in Miracle Shooter. But with the TacNet and advice from the other runners it's almost easy for him as well. Maybe he WILL do well on the team.

    Oracle: Spiritual entities won't show up on the TacNet – it's a limitation. Although if I can get some RFID-infused fluorescing astral bacteria...

    Another job arises – a hostile extraction. No doubt our success with the last job impressed potential employers. The meeting takes place atop a skyscraper, where our fixer has been paid to drop off a few mysterious crates and arrange an Augmented Reality meeting with the actual client. The client's avatar is a reptilian figure with Egyptian themes. Composure tests are failed.

    Client: I AM THE SCION
    Oracle: If you're not taking this seriously I'm leaving.
    Shell: Externally I'm impassive – but inside I'm SQUEE.

    Scion: THE DRACO FOUNDATION WANTS TO EMPLOY THE ARCANOARCHEOLOGIST PARKER ACSON. HE IS CURRENTLY AT A HORIZON CORPORATE BANQUET ON THE BALCONY OF THE BUILDING OPPOSITE. YOU HAVE 15 MINUTES TO ACQUIRE HIM.
    Ocelot: With this short notice? Are you kidding???
    Oracle: Actually... we can do it. If you can get a harness on him. Ever seen Batman Returns?

    Scion has arranged a crateful of useful material and tools, including gecko setae grappling guns.

    Oracle: Even better. There he is.*mimes targeting and shooting* The other end of the line is attached to my heavy drone

    And even that might not be necessary – Astronauta Peligroso can easily swing across the street, grab the guy, pull a King Kong, and slide back along a second line, while the rest of us provide covering fire. Then we rappel back down to ground level and our vehicles on the far side of this building. Although the blue dragon tending bar, the multiple security suits, whatever the maitres de is, and the possibility Acson is a mage, complicates matters.

    Our sensor drones are two blimps and a stealthed fighter jet.

    Nevermore 'It's Been A Good Year... (but not for much longer)'

    Oracle has an even better idea. The first grappling line and Nevermore's Magic Fingers to snag Acson, and a second grappling line diagonally between the buildings to act as a break on the line when we haul him in. All this is worked out in AR while Ripper sets up the escape lines. Add stun rounds to knock out Acson, and rifles to target anybody else, and this should be easy.

    First problem – the magical ward around the balcony stops the Magic Fingers. Second Problem – All the gunfire Ripper put into the maitres de was barely enough to knock him unconscious. This guy was heavily cybered. If he wakes up we're in trouble.

    Oracle: Just picture how this appears from the other side 'Yes, this an excellent meal, I'll have th-' RATATATATATATA shattering glass YANK. 'What the f**k just happened?!'

    Oracle: I should build a drone that could grab him halfway across the street.
    Ripper K: Caw caw motherf***ers.
    Oracle: I need to build this drone.

    Still, we're just so awesome that we're already heading for our escape route with the target before the security team get over their surprise.

    Security Team Reviewing the Footage Later: Look at this! Look at this! How long did they take setting this up?
    Oracle: Eh – about 5 minutes. From getting the job to execution.

    We ring the contact number Scion gave us. It doesn't get answered. And Acson's phone starts ringing.
    Oracle: … he contracted his own extraction.

    Oracle: We just extracted our Johnson... what, no comment from Ripper? We know you're a former porn star.
    Ripper K & Nevermore Former?
    Oracle: Dude, porn is still a solvent industry, why are you even here?
    Ripper K: Adrenaline.
    Oracle: Plus it was a niche market. Changelings are out of vogue now
    Streetrat: And he can't get up any more.
    Nevermore There's bionics for that now.
    Ocelot: 'Penis goes up, penis goes down, penis goes up, penis goes down'
    Nevermore 'Honey, I love you so much I'm going to give you the security codes for my penis.'
    Oracle: 'Honey, could you please stop playing with the controls, I'm given a presentation'
    Shell: 'Under any other circumstances it'd be funny, but it's about child protection'
    Ocelot: Cut to the house, a drinking bird is tapping away at the button.

    Acson: I don't have the money right now...
    Ocelot: Don't kill him, we won't get paid.
    Shell: Technically we're still on the clock.

    He claims the corporate knowledge in his head makes him a prize catch for any corp. Maybe we should sell him to the Draco Foundation. Or set up a bidding war.

    Oracle: The more corps get involved the more likely someone will try to extract him off us. And hiding the bodies is so tiresome.

    We DO still that contact number from the last job.

    Oracle: Hi Mr McAlliston. Remember me? From three weeks back? Turn on the Horizon News.

    Oracle: I have no idea what to do next– since when do WE set up the meets?

    Fixer: What sort of meet do you want to set up?
    Ocelot: Information exchange and a transfer of Wet Resources

    Oracle: Right – all the corps we invited to send reps should be on their way. Unless somebody plays dirty, which is unlikely with an hour's notice.
    Ripper K: Look what we managed in 5 minutes.
    Oracle: Yeah, but we're actual Shadowrunners.

    Ripper is Masked as an elf for the meet, while the rest provide overwatch, sensor sweeps, etc. The area for the meet is horribly rundown.

    Streetrat: Dude, I LIVE here.
    Shell: I understand the squatters travel in packs to hunt, and mate.
    Oracle: …. there's nothing I can add to that.

    We secure the area. The sudden appearance of all these security drones makes the locals very nervous. Hopefully it'll make the corporate reps too nervous to try anything as well.
  25. Like
    Christopher reacted to Drhoz in Quote of the Week from my gaming group...   
    My brother has found another MMO to terrorise. It's called Rust, and Ian observed that the economy of the game revolved around hunting down down other PCs and selling their organs for meat. So he decided to become a long pig farmer. He hunts down sleeping PCs while the players are offline, builds cages around them, and steals all their stuff. When the players wake up they're naturally a bit annoyed to find Ian walking off with all their stuff but they can't even get out of the cage because he took all their tools as well. He's been getting hate mail from the admins begging him to just kill the other PCs.

    Weldun: You make a resource-management survival game and then complain when someone finds a way to manage resources efficiently. That also happens to torment them.

    Ian: FATMAN spreading hate evenly. And Pigman is making a come back. Sack on head and head out squealing. And leaning over slowly and asking do they want to squeal like a pig and when they say yes I set fire to the building.

    Of course, since the admins begged him to start killing people, he has. But not straight away, and not by himself, oh no. First, as the Pigman, he targets and imprisons newbies. Then takes off the sack, heads out and 'rescues' these individuals, who of course are absurdly grateful. Indeed, Ian's maskless persona is widely acknowledged as the friendliest character on the server. But once he's earned the trust and gratitude of these victims, he recruits them. Ian runs a trade shack - other PCs bring him goods in returns for guns. Then Ian messages his recruits, has them follow the customer home, raid them, steal the guns, and bring them back to the shack. The customer then has to grind for more resources, go back to Ian's trade shack, and buy another gun. Rinse and repeat.

    Customer: I used to have a gun just like this one, but those raiders stole it.
    Ian: The bastards. By the way, the price of guns has gone up.

    Players started complaining - not because any of them figured out Ian's scam, but because everybody was working flat out gathering resources to buy the same guns over and over, and that got boring. Ian, naturally, rectified this, by dressing himself and his crew in pumpkin masks and rampaging across the server, and building a giant Hollywood Sign on the hills reading "YOU HAVE BEEN RAIDED BY THE PUMPKIN CREW". This is the first thing newbies see when they come onto the server. The resultant carnage spawned rioting and violence galore, made the server more popular than ever, and has PCs turning up at Ian's shack, dumping armfuls of loot, and demanding guns so they can retaliate against anybody they suspect of being on the Pumpkin Crew. Ian has helpfully framed a few people in that regard, planting pumpkins on sleeping PCs, announcing he's found one of the Crew, and having them hounded across the map by howling mobs.

    He's started remodelling his base, as well. As a giant pumpkin. People have noticed this, and also noticed that his base hasn't been raided by the pumpkin-headed maniacs.

    Ian: I'm showing my respect to the Great Pumpkin Spirit. That must be why the Crew are holding off.

    And they believe him.
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