Drhoz

Pathfinder : The Mummy's Mask - Death and Taxes In which the Covenant of Wati explore the probably haunted home of a long-dead taxman, looking for things we can loot. With permission, of course - from people who weren’t born for centuries after the late Pentheru, and probably aren’t related in any way. Not only does the place have a high enclosing wall, but the main building itself looks pretty defensible - but then, he was a taxman. We check the outbuildings first. As Onka, Asrian, and Nemat explain to Zenobia, it’s good tactics to rule out nasty surprises later, in case we have to leave the main building in a hurry. Nemat: Sometimes what you’re running away from is less important than what you’re running towards. One of the outbuildings is the family tomb, complete with dire imprecations against tomb robbers. Zenobia: The usual, then. There doesn’t seem to be any way to open it from the outside, which is a bit odd if they ever intended to put more family members inside. Maybe it’s full. Eventually we try pushing, and it opens easily. All: *sigh* Nemat: Wait, this was the outhouse - I mean outbuilding. Of course maybe it IS the outhouse and we’re about to be crapped on. He’s right too - just like the last time we opened a tomb, we’re attacked from behind by a giant carnivorous arthropod - in this case a whiptail centipede about 8 meters long. It had been lurking in the dried up ornamental pool. Zenobia: Does this thing nip down to the river to eat crocodiles???? Excitement ensues, including ear-piercing screams from Nemat. Of course the screaming is also a sonic attack spell, which helpfully both hurts the beast and expresses Nemat’s opinion of giant bugs. The centipede is intelligent enough to try and run away when it starts getting hurt, but probably wasn’t expecting Asrian to pursue it up the wall and put an arrow through its head. Alas, Zenobia is too slow to help her crush back down from the top of the wall. Cue sad gnoll. We head down into the tomb, with Nemat’s IOUN stone orbiting his head by way of illumination. Nemat: I have to say, it must be annoying trying to read by IOUN stone. There are - of course - carved and armed figures around the room at the bottom of the stairs. It’s also full of corpses. Nemat: That’s an important thing to know. Asrian: Also the first thing we’re likely to notice. Most of the corpses are naked, and mummified only by age and desert heat. There’s ONE linen-wrapped body up on the altar, but it’s not in a sarcophagus. Nemat investigates the rest of the bodies, cautiously, and it appears they’re mostly peasants armed with simple tools. Asrian: That taxman must have been REALLY unpopular. Nemat starts a forensic sketch of the scene. GM: sketchsketchsketch... Sketchsketch sketch… why has that mummy moved? The mummy on the altar is not only moving, it has a few pitchfork spikes and cheap knives sticking out of it. Asrian: REALLY unpopular taxman. The mummy isn’t hissing in in Ancient Osirion, either - it’s Aklo, the language of Aboleths, Gibbering Mouthers, and other things that Really Shouldn’t Exist. Asrian: This guy was into some BAD SHIT. It grabs at Nemat - and then its bandages start wrapping around HIM. At least he manages to hold the bandages off his face long-enough to scream “use fire!!!’ Of course, he still thinks it’s your normal mummy. Asrian realises it’s actually an Adherer after her flaming scimitars nearly stick to it. Adherers are the descendants of the once-human livestock of Phase Spiders. Happily, setting it on fire is still a good idea. Let’s hope Nemat is as fireproof as Asrian. Zenobia throws a flask-full of Keros Oil at the thing, which doesn’t quite ignite but DOES dissolve the glue holding the ‘bandages’ to Nemat. Which gives him to opportunity to cast Resistance to Fire on himself, pull a flask of Alchemical Fire from his own belt, and grapple the thing back. Nemat: The Gods expect us to be heroic, now and then. And then Asrian hits it with her flaming scimitars again, and it’s well and truly ablaze - especially after the scuffle shatters Nemat’s flask and splashes the rest of the Alchemist’s Fire all over the place. Nemat: Ow. F**K! That hurt! Although it certainly seems to hurt the Adherer worse, and we all learn what “OW, F**k, F**K OW” is in Aklo. And Zenobia manages to decapitate the thing so we find out that CHOP THUMP is the same in every language. Nemat considers the evidence, and the facts about Adherers that Asrian can provide. Adherers certainly don’t live for centuries, so it can’t be responsible for all the bodies in here, despite the pitchfork evidence. Nemat: … That sneaky f**k - it REALLY wanted us to think it was an actual mummy! Nemat checks all the bodies again, but all he can determine is that the better-dressed corpses had been beaten and brutalised savagely, and then all the less snappy dressers died suddenly from something that didn’t leave visible wounds. So let’s head deeper into the tomb and find out what that was. Zenobia: No wonder that centipede was hanging around, it could probably smell all the bodies down here. Nemat: …. Remind me to close the tomb door when we leave. The rest of the tomb seems to be of standard layout, so despite the Adherer pretending to be the occupant of the mezzanine level, Pentheru’s family are probably interred down here somewhere. Zenobia: At least all that proved the caryatid statues weren’t animated. Nemat: True. Zenobia big gnoll ears hear something meowing. And then everybody hears lots of meowing. And then we’re mobbed by a swarm of undead kittens. Zenobia: They’re adorable! And horrible.

Pathfinder - The Mummy's Mask : Golden Mouldies Onka: Shall I cast Detect Secret Doors? Nemat: You’ve got that? Onka: Yes, I’ve been holding it this whole time. Nemat: Whoa whoa whoa, fighting one-handed is one thing, but that’s going too far. Onka: …. ? Nemat’s innuendo aside, it’s a useful spell - there are two hidden exits off the false tomb chamber. Asrian OoC: I’ll want some assistance looking for traps - I have the kind of survival instinct usually found in lemmings. The next chamber is stuffed with the cheaper kind of mummy. Nemat: See? See? I told you! Slaves! Never doubt me again. Zenobia: We are fortunate to have you in our party, friend. *examining the chamber* You’d think they’d ensure this chamber was high enough that the water from that last trap can’t drain in here and make the mummies all mouldy. Nemat: This door was watertight - which tells us that the last trap was supposed to flood the room up to the ceiling. Of course, the OTHER secret door is trapped too, but the exact nature of the trap has to hurriedly changed so one of the players doesn’t curl into the fetal position and whimper. Zenobia looks down at the ankle-deep swarm pouring out of the walls. Zenobia: Are these dangerous? Asrian: Very likely! (Now would be a good time to use that anti-swarm enchantment on your new shield!) Zenobia: (Oh, this shield? With some kind of blessing inscribed on it that I don’t know how to read?) Asrian: (Oh dear) Just as well the anti-swarm enchantment activates automatically. Still, Asrian has a few spells that might clear the insects out a bit, and Onka has some pretty spectacular halitosis whenever he’s near an open flame, so we might not even need the shield. Nemat OoC: I’d quite like to get whoever wrote this module in a locked room for a while. Swarms and Animated Objects! Argh! Asrian throws a flask of alchemical fire at her own feet, and somehow doesn’t go up in flames herself. Zenobia: … What are your robes made out of to survive that? Asrian: Yes. Zenobia: Nemat, there’s lots of little bugs inscribed on the back of this shield, is this important? Nemat: … Yes, I should probably have a look at that, now. At least when Asrian re-examines the trapped double doors, there’s no swarm of scary beetles. GM: All these mummified slaves in here must have been the ones that closed the doors, from the inside, when the tomb was closed. Zenobia: That doesn’t make sense - how did they wrap themselves up and mummify themselves? Asrian: Animated Bandages. Zenobia: …. OK, I can believe that. Still, there’s magic, and objets d’art to loot. Asrian: This might take a while. Zenobia: What do you see? Onka: Wonders! And lots of dust. The millennia have been unkind to Akhentepi’s grave goods - most of the stuff stored in here has long since crumbled, but there’s a few alchemical flasks and other items that still look useable. Still, Ahkentepi’s actual body should be in the next chamber, if we’re right. We’re wrong. It’s actually a long ascending staircase, leading somewhere above the water trap’s reservoir. Happily, it seems to be clear of giant round boulders or other traps. Or the GM screwed up, which seems about as likely. Zenobia: What are the odds that there’s some kind of big round boulder behind those doors at the top? Nemat: I hate you. Onka: I don’t think so - it would roll down and crush his grave goods. Nemat: But then they’d just make the door at the bottom of the staircase smaller than the boulder. No boulder. There IS a sarcophagus, and funerary urns, and something that flits into cover. Zenobia: Did anybody else see that? Nemat, Onka, and Asrian: *preparing weapons* YES. Nemat: Another bloody Construct! Well, at least it’s not a Necrophidian. Zenobia: What are the odds that the venom reservoirs have evaporated over the millennia? Nemat: Not good. But at least it’s easier to kill than another Animated Object. Nemat: We’re not disturbing the sarcophagus. Which is probably why we haven’t found any undead down here - we’re not tomb-robbers, we’re actual archeologists. Interfering with the sarcophagus is how you get undead encounters. GM: The first potion smells like carrots - it’s a Potion of Darkvision. Apart from a few secret tunnels that the builders would have used to avoid the traps, there’s nothing else down here for use to explore. We rest up, at the bottom of the access well. Nemat: Everybody in the city knows that we’ve gone into the tombs to recover the treasures of the ancients. Every one of them knows that we’ll be coming back laden done with the treasures of the ancients, and probably down a few people. At we avoided that last bit. But we’re still walking back through a part of town that even the local guards don’t go into - we’re bandit bait. So we’ll rest down here - it’s harder to sneak up on somebody if you have to drop a rope on them first. Asrian does fall ill with something she caught off the insect swarm, but Nemat can treat it. He does note that what he can glimpse of Asrian’s skin is remarkably pale. But that’s not important. Nemat: We’re still bandit bait. Well, mugger bait. Zenobia: The difference between bandits and muggers is how far the criminals have to walk home afterwards. As it happens, some of the town guard show up to give us an escort. Asrian: Hey Sgt. Vinchion. Zenobia: ? Nemat: Asrian has reason to be on first-name basis with the local constabulary. Nemat has an extensive archaeological report for the cult of Pharasma - their scribes can barely keep us. And there’s an extensive pile of loot to sell on, after the government have taken their cut, and we pick a few choice items of our own. Zenobia does want to learn more about the Ancient Osirian culture, and Nemat is happy to expound. Nemat: You know what people are going to say, right? When they see us eating our meals together, and talking in each other’s language, at length. Zenobia OoC: When I realise this you’ll find out how a gnoll can blush. Onka OoC: Why? You’re a gnoll of the world, you know how these things work. Nemat OoC: Maybe. Of course, the ones that know anything about gnoll anatomy are going to go “Oooooh, riiiight” Zenobia OoC: Eh - I’m more likely to end up attracted to Asrian. In which case awkward ladyboners are a real problem. While we wait for the other teams to return from their missions (or not) we do our shopping (some items in short supply given the influx of adventurers, lesser items from the tombs already on sale), and variously carouse, visit shrines to Old Gods, and doing our stint at the local hospice. And, or course, compare notes with the surviving adventurers. But the Cryptfinders seem to be lying through their teeth about the ‘huge pile of loot’ they brought back from the government official they were supposed to be unearthing. Cryptfinder: Ok, fine, it was a brewery. All: *exchange glances* Nothing wrong with that. Nemat: Did you find the recipe? Mad Dog the Gnome is a bit despondent - he lost half his doggos to a Gelatinous Cube. But he did find a nice straight-edged magical sword in the same carnivorous jelly. The Sand Scorpions came back empty-handed, and lost a few members to a pack of ghouls. Nemat, perhaps unwisely, expounds at length about the varieties of undead. They’re considering pulling out, but the rest of us suggest various ways they can continue, even lacking any clerics in the party. The Scorched Hand (the one led by the woman with the spectacular arse, at least according to Nemat and Asrian) are even more irritated then they were before we all went in - not only did they not get assigned to the Sanctum of the Erudite Eye, they inside found themselves exploring a brothel with a basement full of zombies. Still, swapping notes has been useful for everybody - and tomorrow they’re doing another draw for tomb-raiding targets. In our case, we’re exploring the house of Pentheru, a tax official. Could be some nice stuff, if it hasn’t crumbled from centuries of exposure. There’s some nice statues out by the gate, at least. The ruins of the gate also seems to be enchanted to scare off intruders with the sensation of imminent mob violence. Alternatively, it could be the echo of the mob violence that trashed the place centuries ago. Perhaps fixing the gates would dispel the haunt? A shame none of us have metalworking or engineering in our skill set. Zenobia: Now where is a dwarf when you need one?

Pathfinder - The Mummy's Mask : Are You My Mummy? In which our party of state-sanctioned tomb raiders are looting the final resting place of a long-dead quasi-Egyptian general. Basically we’re going through Tutankhamun’s tomb, if he had a larger budget for digging. And since we haven’t found the dead general’s actual body, there’s at least one chamber we haven’t been in yet. I wonder if he’ll be cranky? Zenobia: So, what do you think the Sanctum of the Erudite Eye is? Nemat: Well, the Erudite Eye is a reference to Nethys, one of the Ascended, and once a Pharaoh of Osirion. Zenobia: Ascended? Nemat: A mortal who became a god, without being born one or using the God-rock. Zenobia: Oh. Like your deity, Onka? Onka: *nods* Yes - a self-made god. Nemat: Basically he got enough magical power that he said ‘I’mma God Now!’ Zenobia: When was this? Before the Plague of Madness? Nemat: Why are asking me? I’m not an expert on ten thousand of Osirion history. Besides, it was so long ago nobody is sure when it happened. The next chamber is basically an armoury, with a few extra items such as a military diorama and four funerary masks. The diorama is distinctly magical. Zenobia: Four funerary masks? How many heads did this guy have? Given that the masks represent multiple Old and New gods, it seems to be another example of the deceased hedging his bets by asking all four to watch over his tomb. And then we’re attacked by the toy soldiers on the diorama. Nemat: Those sneaky ****s! I was looking around for statues animated as tomb guardians, I wasn’t expecting little guys! GM: You’re being swarmed by a small army. Literally a small army. Actually, it’s only three of them, but being stabbed in the shins by animated ushabti figures still hurts. Zenobia: *trying to keep the figurines away from her shins* Should we try to talk to them first? We are in here with the current Pharaoh’s permission. Nemat: A good thought, but these things are constructs, without free will. Toy Soldier: *leaping up to bash Zenobia in the head* Zenobia: Ow. Agile little bastards, aren’t they? They’re also a lot tougher and hit a lot harder than you might expect. But they ARE made of wood, so Onka’s mouthful of Keros Oil and Asrian’s flaming scimitars are a nasty combination. Nemat: Can we put the fires out now? The main reason I signed onto this was to limit the damage to cultural relics. Asrian: *picks them up and puts them out with her bare hands* Nemat: … Ok then. Some of the loot is pretty interesting too, such as a shield shaped like a scarab - Asrian takes especial caution with that one, before we risk moving it. The cult of Pharasma will probably be quite interested in it, since Scarabs are one of her psychopomp creatures. Zenobia: I do wonder what equating people’s souls with the stuff scarabs usually roll around reflects about the souls involved. That doesn’t stop Zenobia from using it, for now, but she does feel a bit bad about it. Nemat: Why? Pharasma and Sarenrae get on fine. Asrian: Pharasma gets on well with most gods. Zenobia: Well, you'd certainly HOPE you get on fine with the goddess of prophecy and death. Imagine if you didn't. The four chests and clay jars stacked against the walls are sealed with wax. Nemat: Well, you’re already set, Asrian, but everybody else? Facewraps before we open these. It’s all paperwork and private letters anyway, in the chests. Nemat: I’ll give them a quick skim. GM: Just in case anything jumps out at you. Zenobia: Hopefully not literally. Nemat: ‘Sepia Snake Sigil! Argh!’ The jar contains Nard - and a pint of that costs a year’s wages. Not bad! Time to go explore the other wing of the tomb, anyway. It branches at the first chamber - one set of doors guarded by a statue of Anubis, and the other by a statue of Pharasma. Both sets of doors are slightly ajar, which is slightly alarming. The giant magical mirror occupying the opposite wall is even more alarming. Onka: Well, at least we’re prepared for mirror f**kery. Asrian: What are we expecting? Nemat: Us. Onka: Why not smash it from here? Nemat: Because I’d rather face us than seven years of F**k You. Onka: What if we walk into the room backwards? Nemat: Then our mirror images will come out backwards, then turn around and stab us in the back. Instead there’s an image of Akhentepi, the dead general, who looks looks a bit pissed about the tomb-robbing. Nemat, the only one of us who actually speaks Old Osiriani, explains that we are actually here with the permission of the Pharaoh and the cult of Pharasma, and why. Nemat: (I was hoping to sit on this for a while yet, but…) I pledge to you, Akhentepi, that this is true. I, Nemat Merituzat. None of the rest of us know the significance of that surname, anyway. GM: The shade of Akhentepi casts Sense Motive All: That’s fair. Akhentepi: If it is true that the treasures in my tomb can help the people regain knowledge of the Old Ways... you may proceed. Nemat: Hooray for Diplomancy! GM: Much better than having THIEF etched into your foreheads, anyway. Nemat: I wonder how many of the other teams are going come out with that? ‘What, none of you speak Old Osiriani?’ The room guarded by Anubis is an on-site mummification chamber. GM: Drhoz, you’re probably going to Squee here. Your character is probably going to scream. Two giant Sun Spiders clamber up over the altar. Zenobia: What have they been eating down here? Onka: Tomb-robbers. Nemat: AGFGHHTTRFFGGHH WHAT THE F**K IS THAT! The other set of doors suddenly seems much more appealing, but Onka prepares for more Keros Oil breath weapons, in case of more giant toothy-jawed hairy spiders. One of the walls of the stair over there has collapsed - outwards, into tunnels. Zenobia: Well, I guess that explains how the sun spiders got in. Of course, we’re all so busy sidling along the opposite wall, eyeing the holes, that we step on the large sand-based snake monster that was snoozing on one of the steps. In fact, it was snoozing on most of the steps. Happily, it still seems vulnerable to being cut into pieces. Zenobia OoC: Just call us the Dustbusters. The lower depths of the tomb don’t any statues or symbols of Anubis - it’s all Pharasma down here. Nemat: Onka, note this down - this is fascinating! Don’t any of you realise what this might mean? All: *look blank* Nemat: This tomb could have been built during the period the worship of Pharasma was eclipsing Anubis! (Nemat is a huge geek) But the corridor narrows and ends in a unfinished dead end. Zenobia: The budget for digging must have run out. Actually, one of the letters we found earlier did say that his second wife’s tomb was unfinished, so maybe nobody bothered finishing the job with the rest of his family predeceased. Or, you know, it could be a decoy concealing the secret door Asrian finds while combing the walls. The fact that the door can only be opened from the other side does seem suspicious. We head back to try another set of doors, and discover more stairs heading down. And a big bug. GM: OOOOh, that’s a big bug. Onka: I close the door. Nemat: Always an option. GM: It’s a Mining Beetle. Onka: That would explain the collapsed walls. Zenobia: I wonder if the main reason people avoid coming up to this end of the Necropolis is the giant bugs, and not the undead? After a certain amount of excitement, we proceed to the next chamber - which contains a gold-trimmed sarcophagus and two statues of Anubis. Despite having his pet theory being shot down, Nemat is highly suspicious - someone as rich and powerful as Akhentepi should have been buried with slaves, and we should have found them first. Still, we circle around the room without going near the sarcophagus - after all, no point disturbing the honoured dead unless we have to. Asrian: Don’t mind us, ancestor, just passing through. The set of double doors opposite opens mechanically and automatically, into an empty room. Which isn’t empty for long as the roof caves in and water pours in afterward. Nemat: Close the door! Close the door! Asrian: A water trap in the desert??? As we discover, the water is just to close the circuit around the sarcophagus, which is now surrounded by arcing electricity. Fortunately none of us were up there bothering it. Unfortunately, the sarcophagus now rotates upright. But at least Nemat was right about this chamber not being the real tomb. Nemat: Animated Objects! I hate them! (Except when I’m the GM) The sarcophagus engulfs Asrian whole, to her surprise, and our alarm. It’s not easy to cut air holes in stone. Although, you CAN kick a sarcophagus in the balls, since they’re not immune to Sickening blows. And you can apparently stab them in the eyes as well, since they’re not immune to Blinding. Nemat: Wadjet! Guide my spear! *makes a hole through the sarcophagus, and narrowly misses making one through Asrian. * Zenobia: At least she has an air hole now. Asrian! Quick! Purse your lips and suck!

Pathfinder: The Mummy Mask : Have Shovel, Will Tomb-raid Dramatis personae Zenobia the Gnoll, a cleric of the goddess of healing, Sarenrae. She used to be a butcher, which is alarming since her species has a not undeserved reputation for eating their captives. No doubt it was the kindness of some missionary of Sarenrae that set her on a different path, especially since many priests of that faith are obliged to give healing to complete strangers at least once a day, and all of them obliged to try and redeem the evil. Saving the life of a gnoll butcher would certainly qualify, and leave quite the impression on a more thoughtful gnoll. Nemat of Valat - At least, that's the name he gave on the legal paperwork. He rarely (and to none of the PCs as yet) gives out his real name of Nemat Merituzat. His family maintains a shrine to the Old Gods out in the desert, which is why he usually goes by the other name. For some reason the current Osirion dynasty don't care much for the old religion - and it's not like THAT will ever bite them on the arse, amirite? A thoughtful and quietly observant individual, and well educated in the history and culture of his country. Asrian al-Adjir: Probably not human. Given she goes around veiled head-to-foot all the time, the rest of us aren't sure, but we're not going to pry. After all, as Zenobia the gnoll has said at some length, the world is full of all kinds of people and the goddess said we have to give them all the benefit of the doubt, at least the first time. Onka the Half-orc: "Irori Helps those that Help Themselves." Onka had those words beaten into him more than once by his Shaman Teacher as he grew up in the Jungles of Mwangi. Eventually he escaped to his Mother's Homeland of Thuvia where he became a Spell Sage. The rumour of the opening of the tombs and the temptation of long forgotten artifacts of power have brought him to Osirion, because Irori, after all, had to start somewhere on the road to Godhood. Our newly-formed adventuring party, the Covenant of Wati, have come to the desert city of the same name to participate in some state-sanctioned tomb-robbing. We have various motivations, ranging from ‘money’, to the desire to prove one’s worth to the Goddess of Sunlight by bringing light into dark places such as probably-undead-infested ancient tombs. At least we’re all professional enough to know the basics, and have appropriate equipment - mostly. Asrian: You'll need to buy lockpicks. I can't afford them. Nemat: They were in your backpack. Which was stolen. Asrian: … Onka, where did you get THOSE lockpicks from? Onka: From a market stall. Luck favors the prepared. The ceremony to assign adventuring teams to various tombs is overseen by the the cult of Pharasma (Goddess of Fate, Death, Prophecy and Birth, but not in that order) and her High Priestess of the Mausoleum. GM: Sebti the Crocodile (not an actual crocodile). Asrian: *spluttering with suppressed laughter* Zenobia: ? Asrian: In old Osirian ‘Crocodile’ is slang for accomplished fellatrix Nemat: Well, this is good to know. Zenobia OoC: So, part of the town got rezoned ‘Undead’? Nemat: That’s a gross simplification. Hundreds of years after the Plague of Madness the Pharasman priests designated the abandoned part of Wati as a necropolis, partly to contain the ongoing undead problem, and partly as a memorial. Zenobia OoC: If some of the undead are nobility, does that count as gentrification? Sebti the Crocodile: By order of the Pharaoh Khemet the Third, the exploration of the necropolis will be open only to permitted explorers, and not... Zenobia: Opportunistic grave-robbers? Sebti: Quite. Onka: We call them ‘queue-jumpers’ today. Nemat: Shush. Of course, we can’t go in and just ransack the place. We’ll lose our grave-robbing license if we do that. The first group to get assigned their random assignment are the ‘Crypt-Finders’, a very standard-looking adventuring party. The ‘Daughters of the Desert’ has a human-looking bard leader, who looks surprisingly Scandinavian. Zenobia: And they call themselves the Daughters of the Desert? Nemat: Probably for the same reason we’re called the Covenant of Wati - they got here, were told they had to come up with a name, and panicked. There’s also also halfling ‘Dog Soldiers’ ( “With a pack of good doggos. All 12 out of 10” ), elven ‘Sand Scorpions’, and many other less notable groups. The party’s gnoll cleric chooses to interpret this as good planning on behalf of the organisers. Zenobia: If we’re all going into different buildings, there’s no chance of conflict with these other parties. Asrian and Nemat: LOL The last team before we get our own assignment call themselves The Scorched Hand. Nemat: Well, that doesn’t sound ominous at all. The Scorched Hand’s representative is apparently quite upset about the random assignments, and instead demands access to something called the Sanctum of the Erudite Eye. She doesn’t get her way, and stomps off. Of course, we are all paying different amounts of attention to our possible rivals - as determined by perception rolls. Some of us seem to be developing a trend in the rolls. Asrian OoC: I’m strongly beginning to suspect I’m gay. Nemat OoC: Apparently I’m not paying attention to what she’s saying. Why is it every character I play instantly becomes a Lothario? Nemat: Which of us is going up to draw our assignment token? Asrian: I’ll go. Zenobia: Good idea, you’re the local girl. Our group gets assigned the Tomb of Akhentepi. Time to do some research, before the gates of the Necropolis get opened in the morning. We’ve also been assigned rooms at at nearby inn, the Tooth and Hookah. All: … Onka: That was ‘Hookah’, and not Hooker, right? Akhentepi was a military leader interred shortly before the Plague of Madness. Next to nothing else is known about him. Nemat and Asrian go around to have a polite chat with the Scorched Hand representative, and counsel patience. After all, this Sanctum of the Erudite Eye might be in the next round of of assignments, and the random assignment is explicitly the will of the gods (or Pharasma’s priests anyway). Zenobia: Try not to freeze up when you meet the attractive human female again. Asrian’s self-description includes a Turkish-style helmet, with a veil hanging down around her face, and silver white threads of hair sticking out here and there. Zenobia OoC: So you look like a bulb of garlic? The predictable cloud of hashish smoke and other flavoured vapes in the Tooth and Hookah is not doing Zenobia and her sensitive snout much good. Nemat: I’d better stick close to Zenobia, just in case something happens. Zenobia OoC: Yes, like somebody yelling GNOLL! And attacking. Nemat OoC: Exactly. Zenobia OoC: We are in a bar with dozens of stoned adventurers after all. Nemat OoC: ‘Yes, it’s a gnoll, didn’t you notice the Symbol of Sarenrae?’ Asrian OoC: ‘Do you have a PROBLEM with non-humans?’ Nemat OoC: ‘And how badly do you want to piss off every cleric of Sarenrae in town?’ The inn also has a mascot - a very small crocodile that lives in the well. Onka: But we get drinking water from that. Zenobia: So? Proves the water is clean - if it’s good enough for a crocodile, it’s good enough for us. We circulate with the other adventuring parties, getting to know the more loquacious ones and mobbed by the halflings’ good doggos. Nobody appears to have any information on this long-dead general we can use, but then none of them are locals. Nemat: I’m not local, but I’d at least heard of him. The temple of Pharasma sends messengers to wake everybody in time for the dawn unlocking of the Necropolis. To our surprise, there are actually businesses that operate in the Necropolis, at least during daylight hours, and at least operating from buildings that used to have a similar purpose. The ancient dance hall now appears to be dedicated to the horizontal rumba, for example. But even these people, for whom the cultural strictures against entering the Necropolis don’t seem very effective, avoid going into the northern end of the Necropolis. Guess where the Tomb of Akhentepi is. Nemat: Interesting - this date on the tomb says he died more than a decade before the Plague of Madness. But I’d thought he’d died shortly before it. Apparently 11 years is ‘short’. Zenobia: This is Osirion - eleven years is yesterday. Nemat: True enough - we’ll have to get used to the fact that we’re dealing with thousands of years of history around here. Nemat is also suspicious that the mortar around the door has already been chiselled away, but that might just mean the priests of Pharasma were being helpful in the lead-up to the exploration date. He’s also careful to dig all the sand piling up around the door away - after all, we may have to leave in a hurry, and slam the door behind us. Asrian pitons the doors open, out of similar paranoia. Onka: History is filled with idiots that got stuck in tombs. Asrian: So are tombs. Nemat and Asrian also set up a tripline across the doorway. Again, just in case. Zenobia gets out her tomb-raiding gear, which includes a candle helmet. Onka and Nemat just get out their IOUN torches. Zenobia: ? Nemat: You know how there’s burnt-out IOUN stones, and all they can do is circle around your head? Somebody went ‘Continual Light’ and had a permanent light source that circles your head. Onka: And they even work underwater. Zenobia: Huh. Well, I’m setting up my candle anyway, just in case. Nemat: I’ve got candles too - as you say, my friend, just in case. The dust in the antechamber shows that the Pharasmans didn’t actually open the doors once they’d chiselled the mortar away - and nobody else has been in here in a long long time. Nemat reads the hieroglyphs, which include blessings from Anubis, one of the old gods, AND warnings from Pharasma, who had worshippers even back then. “The Only Thing The Lady Of Graves Despises More Than A Graverobber, Is An Unsuccessful Graverobber. Turn Back While You Can.” Nemat: This is fascinating - if only I had pen and paper to record it. They were clearly playing the odds when they prepared this tomb. Nemat and Asrian wrestle the enormous rolling stone wheel from across the inner door - Asrian is MUCH stronger than she looks, and probably isn’t human under all those robes and veils. Zenobia pops back outside to find some loose bricks to keep it open, and steps over the tripline at the same time a large Ghost Scorpion come in UNDER the tripline. A certain amount of fancy foot ensues, as Onka tries to dodge the rush of a child-sized giant translucent arthropod. Zenobia attacks the beast from behind, and apparently the goddess Sarenrae approves since her scimitar lights up with holy flame as she does so. Asrian: I thought that was my trick. The scorpion is somewhat outclassed, and is soon an ex-scorpion. We proceed deeper, and down a deep shaft, with all due caution. For example, we don’t trust the piton and rope already set up at the top of the shaft. A wise decision, since the rope has perished from decades of decay. A thought occurs to Zenobia, as she is looking back up from the bottom of the shaft, set in the middle of the ceiling, and completely inaccessible if not for the ropes we left in place. Zenobia: What happens if we need to get back out in a hurry? Nemat: Don’t be in a hurry. There are depictions of the late general on the walls, which probably means this is where offerings in his memory would have been left. There’s also a body, that’s been down here long enough to naturally mummify. It looks like he fell down the shaft and shattered both legs. No doubt the rope and piton were his work. But who replaced the mortar around the door when he didn’t come back? Nemat: I’m expecting the traps to start in the next room. GM: Have you been reading this module? Nemat: No - but this room was set up for authorised visitors. The next one won’t be. He’s right, too. Onka’s careful prodding with a ten-foot pole triggers a pressure plate, and darts erupt from the wall. GM: Duck. Nemat: What?? He used a pole! GM: I know. The darts are coming ALONG the corridor, not across it. All: FUUUUUUU- Injuries are minor, the trap is disabled, and we proceed. Weirdly for an ancient Egyptian expy, the next room has a tapestry, depicting some kind of family scene, and a couple of carefully placed mummified cats, which probably isn’t weird for Osirion at all. The fact that the cats aren't reanimated tomb guardians is surprising, though. But back to the family portrait. Zenobia OoC: Is it a trapestry? Apparently not. The family on the tapestry are much younger than we know Akhentepi was at the time of his death. Perhaps that implies his family passed on long before he did. As Zenobia observes, this might explain why the tomb was sealed too - no family left to come and remember him. The next room has a chariot, military frescos, and a large chest that screams TRAP. Nemat: I can understand why that chariot is down here, but how did they get it in? Zenobia: In pieces. Nemat: Ah. Of course. GM: It looks like the chariot was meticulously restored, dismantled, and reassembled down here. But time has taken its toll, so you wouldn’t be able to drive it out of here. Zenobia: Well you couldn’t fit it through the doorway for a start. GM: There is that. Asrian can’t find any traps on the chest. Highly suspicious. The trap, a poisoned blade, is of course designed to stab a thief in the hand while he or she is fiddling with the lock. The chest is filled with a couple of potions and gold-plated metal sheet books. Onka: Remind me - we are allowed to walk off with this stuff, right? Asrian: Certainly are. Onka: Rightio *reaches in* Asrian: Just a moment - I want to check the contents for contact poison first. GM: *sigh* Zenobia OoC: These players more evil-minded than the module designers, are we? GM: Yep. It’s true - that dart trap and the poisoned blade were cunning, but as the gnoll observes, a really cunning trapsmith would have put another trap under the chest, in the event it was ever moved. The book is military biography - interesting to historians, but not as interesting as, say, prophecies that some great evil will resurface at the end of the week. We cart it all back to the shaft, for later sale to the government, and head deeper to continue our free-market archaeology.

Pathfinder : Mummy's Mask : The Covenant of Wati Since the Streets of Magnimar Campaign is ended, we’re starting a new one - Mummy’s Mask. Since it’s a published adventure path, unlike the more sandbox setting of Magnimar, there are bound to spoilers over the coming months. Not that there’s any shortage of sand in Mummy’s Mask, since it’s set in the Pathfinder equivalent of Egypt. Think pyramids and you’ll get the basic idea. I was strongly tempted to bring Vitus the Gnoll back for another go. Previous GM, Weldun: … No. Vitus brings too much baggage. But it would be funny to see him spat out from Champions reality to Osirion, depowered. Me: And no doubt having a bit of a tantrum ‘Fucking AGAIN?????’ Weldun: But then he’d look around, and see all the sand, and somebody would say ‘Good morning, gnoll’. Me: Clearly a civilised reality. And all the sand and pyramids makes it much closer to home than Call of Cthulhu or Champions. Punch the air with both hand - ‘PLUS!’ Still, playing a gnoll again would be fun. I’ve played enough of them over the years. Thus - Zenobia - gnoll cleric of the light goddess Sarenrae. There must have been a really persuasive missionary at some point in her backstory. Nemat - Inquisitor of Wadjet, one of the Old Gods. And probably the only reason Zenobia didn’t get chased out of the smaller towns. Asrian al-Adjir - a Suli Dervish dancer with silver eyes and white hair. Onka - Half-orc Spell-sage. A party of state-sanctioned tomb-robbers in the town of Wati, in Osirion, sent out to explore an assigned tomb by the Ruby Prince Khemet the Third. Funnily enough, despite setting out to make a balanced party, we all ended up making some flavour of combat-orientated magic-user. Which is balance of a kind, I suppose. The characters meet each other when Asrian is robbed blind just before the campaign started, and the rest of us wandered over to see what the commotion in the marketplace was, and find Asrian chasing the thieves down the street with a scimitar. Onka is impressed. Onka: I heard a woman’s noises, and they weren’t screams. Zenobia: And chasing down people who have wronged her with a large scimitar is the kind of thing you appreciate in a woman. The priests of the death-goddess Pharasma aren’t exactly happy about the sheer scale of this state-sanctioned tomb-robbery, but are willing to let it slide as long as they get to control the registration process. Adventurers have been pouring into town from all over. Nemat: Asrian’s gear probably ended up being sold from an adventuring supply stall. Probably a bunch of different stalls. We eventually agree on a name for our group - the Covenant of Wati - and get a wooden token from the priest in charge of registrations. Nemat: Asrian, you are not holding this. Zenobia: Oh? Why’s that? Nemat: She did just get robbed of her backpack while she was distracted by someone lifting her money-belt. Asrian: It’s a fair point.

Pathfinder : Streets of Magnimar - And the Bad Guys Win Harshal: I don’t want the clan finding out about my more interesting nocturnal activities. Gillert: Yes, you’re already a lawyer. Harshal: That’s daytime activities. GM: And quite bad enough - You’re already a killer of words Harshal: *hiss* I wish you wouldn’t put it that way - I can’t deny it, I just wish you would phrase it like that. One item of interest in Magnimar - a series of mugging around the docks, made with poisoned blades - and the poison is oddly slow-acting. And standard anti-toxins made the symptoms worse. In fact, it looks like somebody is trying to inoculate the population with a new plague. Zin suspects Filth Fever, a distemper normally spread by rats and ghouls. The odd thing is how many people are coming down with it, and how few people are getting over it - it’s not one of the more virulent plagues. Ys: Now there’s a thought - what if somebody has had the same idea we did? Gillert: You’ll need to be more specific - we’ve had a few. Ys: What if somebody is trying to lower property values around the Irespan? Harshal’s inquiries don’t turn up any obvious moustache-twirling villains, but there is an unusual shortage in certain alchemical supplies - mostly because of thefts. Ys: And it wasn’t even me. GM: And most of the supplies are the kind they can’t report to the authorities. Harshal: Ah - so the kind where they can’t go to the City Guard and say ‘they stole my crack, arrest them!’ Ys speculates that the poison on the blades is a combination of constitution-lowering drugs and the filth fever organism - but Zin points out that the poison wouldn’t be any good for the germs, either. Harshal: A puzzle - time to catch one of them at it and employ some lead pipe Legilimency. Ys: I just want to watch them in action. Gillert: Professional interest. GM: The problem is how to stake out a crime like this? Harshal: Indeed - random muggings across the docks district. GM: Well, not completely random - the targets have to look like they’re worthy mugging. Harshal: Zin, you’re our trap and disguise expert, can we dress Gillert up as bait? Gillert: F**k off…. I want plate armour. Harshal consults his Little Blue Book for likely waterholes the muggers will target. Harshal: Although since it’s the docklands, I’m not expecting any five stars on the Michelin Index. And if we ALL wander around on the rooftops, half of us can’t see anything in the dark anyway. Harshal: At least from the rooftops we can see the Bat Signal. GM: That’s another problem - if you’re all spread out across the rooftops there’s more chance you’ll run into a certain vigilante. Ys: We had a perfectly civil conversation with her, last time. Gillert: That doesn’t mean anything - I’ve had perfectly civil conversations with you. After a week of sneaky sneakers sneaking, we don’t catch any muggers, but do confirm that there’s at least three of them at work on most nights, spread out between the Wrecks and Underbridge. As the new moon approaches and it gets so dark that Harshal and Gillert can’t see a damn thing, they switch to checking for any connections between the victims. Ys and Zin continue lurking. Ys: The more nights I spend up here on the Thieve’s Highway the more likely I’m going to mugged myself. GM: Eh, maybe not - anybody else you run into up here is going to avoid you. Harshal: Professional courtesy. GM: Not so much - anybody else up here might be up to something even darker than you. Harshal: What we really need in this group is somebody whose name starts with with X - then we’d have an X, Y, and Z. Gillert: I’ll be over here. Ys: Wimp. GM: Well, there’s your W. Gillert: We need a bloodhound. Zin: Well, we DO know a vigilante. Harshal: Are we really going to have to invent a Bat-signal? GM: You’d have to keep changing it every time she grows a new tail. Eventually Harshal berates Gillert into attempting an augury using the Harrow deck, with the simple question ‘Where will these mystery muggers strike next?’ It’s not a very happy reading - lots of past obsession, mental enslavement, random disaster, and untrustworthy brute power. It also strongly implies that Ys is involved. Harshal: Well, going by that card of The Bear, we’re never buying Ys a unicycle. Zin suggests the card means the next attack will be in a place of worship. GM: I’m very glad these screens conceal my face - I know what’s going on and these cards are freaking me out. GM: These cards don’t mean evil as much as hindrance. It’s not evil, it’s differently motivated. The cards for the past indicate a secret we already know, mental compulsion, and obsession. The present cards of the Bear and the Avalanche suggest that some power that CAN be harnessed is threatening to run amok. And the future card imply a momentous and powerful change requiring preparation is coming. None of it is as clear as ‘The corner of Moon Street and the Shambles’. It MIGHT mean the Filth Fever is going to run out of control, but it’s still a terrible choice for a bioweapon - nobody has even died yet, and it doesn’t spread from person to person. Harshal: At least plague masks will conceal our identities. Gillert: And scare them off. And maybe start a new panic. Harshal: Good point. GM: That might be what the cards are warning you about, Harshal. In fact, most of them are warning you. The Bear and the Avalanche - be cautious in your actions. The Keep and the Big Sky - be prepared to move or stand firm, but if you choose carefully big changes will come. Zin enlists Iria for her medical expertise, and we go to interview and examine the victims, who are agreeable as long as they don’t have to pay. Iria finds the cases MUCH more interesting than she expected, she she finds clear signs of bite marks the knife wounds. And recognises them as rat bites. Gillert: Well, we did piss off the wererats. GM: And imagine what’s going to happen on the next full moon. Harshal: F**K. The were-rats have been cunning indeed - the poison and the filth fever reduce the victims constitution, leaving them more prone to the curse of lycanthropy. Which would explain the mental compulsion too. And some of these people were stabbed weeks ago, which rules out most of the lesser lycanthropy cures. And if we inform the authorities they will be a violent purge of the docklands, and we don’t know if all the victims reported their injuries. And if we inform the Nightscales half the Docklands will go up in flames. Gillert: Well, look on the bright side, there will be more vacant land afterwards. But the wererats thrive on secrecy, and rampaging wererats are pretty conspicuous. Harshal: Well, that makes it obvious - the wererats are going to use the chaos of rampaging wererats to get out of town surrounded by all the other refugees, while the lycanthrope hunters are busy. GM: It is pretty cunning of them. I’m quite proud of this plot. Zin: If we don’t tell anybody and try to hide out during the next full moon, all three results will happen. Harshal: Mass arson, violent purge, AND lots of victims. Gillert: And meanwhile I’m down at the docks selling passage on all these ships out town. GM: And some of the refugees will probably be wererats. Harshal: ‘You smell familiar - why don’t you come with us on the trip. Halfway.’ There is no good answer to this dilemma - even rounding up all the victims in a hospital ward we can bar from the outside won’t work, because we don’t know how many people are hiding the fact that they’re ill, thanks to the last plague. Gillert: Maybe we should just burn our own stuff down and leave town for three days. GM: You can’t avoid an avalanche - just endure it. And the next religious festival is the Moondance Festival, a usually private act of devotion towards one of the goddesses. Imagine the fun if one of the devotees was infected. GM: At least the symptoms would be easy to spot. Gillert does another Harrow reading - which is about as unambiguous as it could be, reinforcing the fact that there is an avalanche coming, trying to profit from it or warning anybody would be disastrous, and we’re all bastards anyway. We get out of town, taking Zin’s kobolds with us, using the moonlight festival as our excuse. Kobolds: Yay! We’re taking moon-radishes! GM: Moon-radishes are a big thing for kobolds - they’re basically f**king Fraggles. Alas, this will be the last session for Magnimar - without Tannis Olberech around as a long-term driver for group goals, our GM has been running low on ideas for the party - especially since most of us are content with where we now stand. So let us raise a toast to these villains - may they always get what they need, but never what they deserve.

Champions : Return to Edge City - Invading Mental Privacy So, it turns out that our attempt to outsource surveying of Edge City’s magical field has had some unexpected consequences, such as one Megan Grey, who for some reason has come from Millennium City to follow our employees around town. And somebody ELSE is following her around - the psychic supercriminal Hypnos. We pick the game back up at this point. Hardlight: Yeah, easy to pick back up on - me falling off a roof and landing right between the girl and the evil psi agent and cartoonishly pointing a shaky hand and going "halt, citizen!" And that’s when a purple beam of energy bursts from the head of a woman we thought was just an innocent bystander and hits him in the back. Hero Shrew: Wait, what? GM: What do you mean what? Hero Shrew: What woman? GM: The woman that just zapped Hardlight. Hero Shrew: Oh, right. Fireflash: Context is important. Hero Shrew jumps down to street level, and attempts to distract this other supercriminal. Hero Shrew: Hey, I know you - you’re that woman on television! GM: … well, I’ll give you an extra dice for the confusion factor. Purple Lady turns invisible, at least to Scooter the shrew. And one of the other bystanders turns into a bad 90s punkrock stereotype. So at least three of the people here are PSI agents. As we soon learn, most of PSI, including their leader Psimon, the telekinetic Mindslayer, the paralysing Medusa, tele-empath Torment, and purple invisigirl Lancer are hiding in the crowd. Presumably to ensure Hypnos doesn’t screw up - it’s not like anybody in their right mind would consider our team a threat. Fireflash: I really hope this isn’t one of those female villains that gets excessively jealous around women prettier than her. Hero Shrew’s mental defences also crumble, but with no apparent consequences, apart from pinpointing ANOTHER PSI agent in the crowd. GM: Remember, this was their POLITE attempt to recruit a new talent. They asked first. They just don’t take no for an answer. Fireflash is going through her mental Rolodex of PSI agents and guessing how many of them are likely to be sent on one mission. It’s an alarming list. Largely because the heads of PSI don’t trust some of them out on their own. At this point, Hypnos, who was expecting Megan Grey to resist him in the battlefields of the mind, narrowly avoids a punch in the balls. Megan’s own holo-disguise collapses, and Fireflash recognises her as the minor talent Trace, which explains how good she was at following people. The PSI operatives also recognise us, and consider Fireflash a credible threat, especially after she blinds Psimon and some of the others with a flash attack. Torment: Yes. Yes, I agree Psimon, she’s a threat. FEEL MY PAIN. This telepathic agony disables Fireflash while was she still in midflight. This is not good, since she’s going to hit the ground hard. GM: And now Psimon has to locate Hero Shrew’s mind again. Hero Shrew: Too small a target, was I? GM: And now the one who turned invisible to Hero Shrew, Fireflash and Hardlight gets her go. Flux: Let’s hope she just has a gun. Hero Shrew: We already know she has purple mind bullets. Flux: Oh dear. Hero Shrew leaps over the telekinetic wall Mindslayer put up and slaps Psimon around a bit. This was probably a mistake, since now Psimon knows where he is and can actually implant those telepathic commands he was planning. And Mindslayer, though blinded, is feeling around for anything short and furry and slashes at Hero Shrew with a telekinetic blade. She misses. GM: Hero Shrew ducks. “That looks sharp, lady”. Scooter IS the most agile of your party. Hero Shrew: Despite my build. I bounce around like a rubber ball. A hairy rubbery ball. GM: You hear a voice in your head. ‘PSI are mentalists - if our attacks miss, nobody gets gets hurt. Your friends do property damage when they miss. And it’s the Moreaus that get the blame’. Despite the fact that Hero Shrew is probably nicknamed Captain Collateral, this telepathic order sticks. He’s now compelled to stop his friends from using their most effective attacks, just in case somebody gets blasted through a wall. Hypnos is still trying to get Trace under control. Hypnos: You. WILL. OBEY!!!! Trace: …… nn…. Nnnnnn…. Naff that! *punches him in the face* Happily for Fireflash, nobody has noticed Flux yet, and he gets a blast off at Torment, and, indeed, blasts them halfway into a wall. Hero Shrew: Hey! Be more careful! Somebody paid for that wall! Flux: …. What? That seems a bit out of character… Hero Shrew is the guy that tears his own front door off. GM: And uses pavement as a blunt instrument. But then, pavement is public property. But maybe Hero Shrew is just trying to be a more responsible hero. Flux: At the worst possible time! Hardlight, still paralysed by Medusa mental petrification, at least manages to put a force bubble around Hypnos. Hardlight: Shrew! Get the ball! And then Hardlight gets hit again, by Invisible Purple Mind-bullet Woman. And then Mindslayer’s blade slaps Hero Shrew across the street and into a wall. He flails a bit on the ground below. Hero Shrew: It’s OK, everybody, the wall is fine! Hypnos now has to get out of the bubble before he can go anywhere. Hypnos: FREE ME! Trace: No! Hero Shrew: Maybe if you asked nicely? Flux shoots Medusa in the face. Flux: She looked at me funny. Unfortunately, at this point Fireflash’s flash attack wears off, leaving Lancer, Psimon and the others to act freely. And Hero Shrew is leaping over to stop his teammate from being so careless with his energy blasts. Hero Shrew: Hey! Be more careful! Trace now has enough self-control again to get some retaliation in, preferably against Lancer. Trace: Where. Are. You BITCH! Actually, where are you??? This has never happened to me before… Apparently Purple Mind-bullet Lady is invisible to mental senses as well. And Fireflash is still recovering so can’t do another Flash attack yet. At least Mindslayer apparently thinks that leaving now, with Psimon in tow, is a good idea. Or maybe Psimon thought it. GM: Mindlink is a wonderful thing. So is Fireflash’s own energy blast, targeting Mindslayer as she’s flying off. GM: Mindslayer is PSI’s equivalent of a Federation ship. Hero Shrew: No rear shields? GM: Plenty of shields - but if you get through it hurts. GM: That actually Stuns her. So she drops everything. Including Psimon. Hero Shrew: At least Fireflash is firing up into the air. WATCH OUT FOR PLANES! Fireflash: Scooter, are you feeling OK? Psimon loses patience a bit, and targets the genuine civilian bystanders. Psimon: PLAY IN TRAFFIC! GM: Classic Mentalist move - Instant hostage situation. Also - Hypnos: PLAY IN TRA- Actually, I should be trying to shoot my way out of this bubble right now. GM: It might just be Hero Shrew is trying to be a more responsible hero. Hero Shrew OoC: At the worst possible time. Flux blasts Psimon even higher into the air, so he’ll hit the ground even harder. Scooter reasons that the best way to avoid further possible property damage is to use the villains as weapons. He grabs the semi-conscious Torment and throws him at the semi-conscious Medusa - and manages to hit the invisible Lancer instead. Hardlight figures out the problem with Scooter - and drops the bubble around Hypnos just as Hypnos fires. The pistol blasts a meter-wide hole out of a wall. Hero Shrew: Hypnos: Uh-oh. Once all the debris settles, we’ve actually managed to capture all of them except Lancer, who has no real loyalty to PSI and legged it. Hero Shrew is holding Hypnos by the front of his suit Hero Shrew: PSI, are you? Well here’s Pounds per Square Inch! *PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH.* Of course the civilians who didn’t leg it the moment a superhuman fight started HAVE wandered into traffic. But they’re easy enough for Hero Shrew to gather up and stuff into one of Hardlight’s bubbles until they get over it. GM: There’s always a few who gawk, or freeze. Hero Shrew: Or want to get some photos for their Facebook. GM: Yeah - they fall back to what they think is a safe distance. Hardlight, still paralysed (and will be for a week), calls up the ECPD, and PRIMUS, who turn up to blindfold and restrain the psykers, and put Psimon into deep sedation, until he can be tried by telepresence. Flux: I knew you’d show up. CAESAR Suit: Funny guy. Trace: What the actual fudge? I thought Millennium City was bad. Hero Shrew: You’re welcome. Trace: Welcome? For wha- oh, right, the rescue. Most of Hardlight’s voluntary nervous system has been shut down by Medusa. Hardlight: Ah, Scooter? Can I get a lift back to the base? Hero Shrew: Pokapokapoka! Pokapokapoka! Flux: Maybe electricity will snap him out of it... Fireflash: Back to the lab/And see what’s on the slab - right now, that’s you, Hardlight. The superhero forums seem to think that us managing to catch most of PSI, when none of us have any notable anti-psi protections, is a sign that we’re finally maturing as a superhero team. GM: They think you’ve levelled up. Of course, the question does arise as to why all the important members of PSI were in California at all - just adding Trace to their collection doesn’t seem important enough...

Pathfinder : Streets of Magnimar - Tea and Biscuits and Organised Crime Gillert: So we're sending the lawyer, the murderer and the straight guy. GM: I'm sorry, I didn't realise we were playing Will and Grace - Magnimar. Ys: When you live as long as an elf, you have to assume most of them are bi, sooner or later. GM: Most elf parents just assume their kid is bi as soon as soon as they reach puberty. Gillert: They get 'artistic leanings' After getting plague masks, cloaks, and extra lamp oil, we re-enter the sewers to hunt down and exterminate the remaining were-rats. Somebody has set up an Alarm spell at the entrance we used last time. Gillert gets to work disabling the trap. Ys: Zin might be the trapsmith, but Gillert is a useful back-up, and he's useful in other circumstances as well. Harshal: Zin is useful in other circumstances as well. Such as if we need someone to crawl under the table and find something we dropped. Gillert: Or for getting past traps set at human-standard neck height. Harshal: 'The Penitent Man And Kobolds Will Pass' We sneak up to where we fought Moonbreaker and Silversniffer before - Ys spots a faint light source ahead, since she has low-light vision and the rest of us need a candle-lamp to see where we're going. Whoever is down here with us is doing an inch-by-inch search of the chamber. And she's got five orange-and-white floofy tails. And her lightsource is a diminutive figure with mothwings and long thin ears. Ys: I gesture back to the others to stay where they are, completely forgetting they can't see me. The Flying Fox and her sprite turn invisible the moment Ys gets within 40 feet. Ys: Hey, you're pretty good. Harshal: So, who was it? Ys: Our friendly neighborhood vigilante. Gillert: .... Spiderman? Gillert: What was she looking for? Ys: No idea. Harshal: Perhaps she and the were-rats are in cahoots. Ys: Could be - where's Cahoots? Harshal: Well, I was hoping I'd hear a small gasp of indignation at that point. GM: Sorry, small thing called Unshakeable. Ys: Well, let's find the lair - check the room for secret doors. The Invisible Flying Fox: I didn't think of that. Ys: Hello. It's easier to talk to somebody if everybody is visible. Invisible Flying Fox: Easier, yes. Gillert: Maybe I should throw some white powder around... Invisible Flying Fox: You could - how would you like to be forcefed Shardgel? The Flying Fox reappears, and grins intimidatingly at Gillert, showing all her sharp teeth. The Flying Fox: A little bird told me the rats got hit. Harshal: We heard the same thing. The Flying Fox: What's you're interest in them? Ys: Making sure they're all dealt with. The Flying Fox: So it was you that did the hit. Ys: That would be a safe assumption. The Flying Fox: I heard Moonbreaker got taken down. Ys: Would that be the big one? The Flying Fox: Aw. And I'd already bought one of these. *tosses a grenade from hand to hand* Ys: Wish I'd thought of that. Gillert: I did. Ys: YOU did. The Flying Fox: They were searching for something. Pretty desperately, by the looks of things. Harshal OoC: I bet it's the journal. GM: Was that in-character? Harshal OoC: No. Gillert: Don't give the bad guys information. GM: You ARE the bad guys! Gillert: You can be evil and a good guy. It's called being an anti-hero. GM: That's not how this works! The Flying Fox: So why are you interested in the were-rats anyway? Ys: Purely mercenary. The Flying Fox: Someone paid you? Interesting.... and disappointing. Harshal: People have to eat. The Flying Fox: I guess that makes this a race *throws the grenade to the floor, where it explodes into entangling Shardgel foam, and runs off back the way we came* Ys: I'm not even sure what we're racing after. The Flying Fox: Gives me the advantage then! We find no sign of where the were-rats have fled to. It might well be there, we're just crap at finding it. So we return to the surface to hunt down rumours instead, which we are MUCH better at. And even better, we know that firebrand-cum-investigative journalist at Parvo Crispin's newspaper, who takes shorthand notes of every bit of gossip she overhears. Harshal also gets word that a relative from the Spire Clan is coming to Magnimar. This is probably going to be an issue. Ys: Who is this person and why should I let him live? Harshal: A relative. And the Clan already know he'll be staying with me. Ys: That's not a reason to let him live. GM: The last time Harshal had any relatives in town you killed them. Gillert: YS killed them. GM: And you were an accessory. Gillert: I'm still trying to convince myself I had nothing to do with the actual stabbing. GM: There's a reason it's called an adventuring party - it's because you're party to all the murder-hobo shenanigans. Anyway, the rumours suggest the were-rats have had some kind of ideological split, and are involved in a three-way internal feud. Time to let the Nightscales know. And have another go at decoding that journal. Harshal: Maybe we should keep killing were-rats until we find one that looks important and torture them for information about the journal. But if we kill them all the were-rat problem goes away anyway. Gillert: You want to come, Ys? Ys: No. Harshal: I, however, am of a profession used to negotiations. And Gillert looks like a gullible idiot and will put them off their guard. Gillert: I AM a gullible idiot - I keep hanging around with you lot. Harshal: Exactly. Harshal: Refreshments? You'll be pleased to know that after the removal of certain key individuals, our vermin problem has fractured into internal feuding. Mr White: I'm sure that there are people within my organisation that will be concerned that you could engineer this. I am not one of those people. I care only about results. Harshal: Good to know. However, there is additional information I thought you should be aware of. That vigilante has taking an interest. Mr White: I see. That IS unfortunate. Harshal: Apparently something about the situation appeals to her competitive spirit. I have no idea what that's about. Mr White: Hmm. Still, since you have fulfilled your part of the bargain, it's time for us to fulfill ours. Mr White's silent associate Mr Black reaches into a bag of holding and pulls out a sack. Harshal: Naturally I won't insult our guests by checking the contents now. We're professionals, after all. If they stiffed us everybody will find out later anyway. More tea? Mr White: Thankyou. Gillert: Did you bring the pink biscuits?.... Ys hasn't been near these, has she? The payment is fireproof cloth armour and an alchemical flamethrower. Harshal: Combine that with that magical doorknocker we bought earlier and we can run the best arson scam in Magnimar.

One of the things we looted from the were-rats is an old journal, written in some kind of code that Harshal can't decipher - it appears to be incomplete. Harshal: Although that might just be all the bloodstains. On the other hand, it could also be a binary code with some of the book only readable by those with low-light vision, probably by moonlight. Harshal: That's what I'd do. It's apparent Ghost-ink - it's visible in the light of firebeetle glands or sunrods. Either possibility works, if all Harshal needs to do is transcribe all the contents to decode later. Useful stuff, ghost-ink - especially if you're faking your financial records and expect to be questioned in a Zone of Truth later. You just put the real numbers in ghost-ink. GM: 'Are these your real books?' 'Yes' Ys: I'm calling this the Silver Rodent Decimation Caper. Gillert: I'm half-regretting missing it now. Harshal: About that - exactly where were you last night? We did wait for you. Gillert: I was ill Harshal: Oh really? Hands up which of us had Ghoul Fever? GM: He wasn't sick, he was 'tired and emotional' The adamantium boarding axe is also impressive, but being ungrateful swine we do wonder if it will be even more effective if silvered. At least we don't have to worry about money for a while - our little enterprise re-opening the northern docks is proving so lucrative we could live comfortably on that alone. On the other hand, we could also use it as a profitable front operation for even MORE profitable illegal shenanigans. Guess which we go with. GM: Do any of the rest of you worship a particular god? Zin: I pay lip service to about 4. Harshal: The afterlife isn't something I spend much time thinking about - since it's not likely that I'm going anywhere nice. GM: aw, we missed Tax-fest. Because that's the only day of the year anybody can enter the Temple of Abadar and voice their complaints about the current situation - and the current ruler can't do a damn thing to them. Harshal: Would have been entertaining to see what kind of complaints are made. GM: Would have been entertaining to see how many complaints you lot have engendered. Harshal: I wonder if I can afford to move into a nicer place now. On the other hand, these down market apartments do offer certain benefits, such as when I'm defending someone who is obviously guilty in court. We can kidnap one of the servants of the plaintiff, disguise one of you as him, have the 'servant' knock on the wrong door at my apartments, then stage a scuffle in my rooms. Having the opposing counsel stabbed won't help the plaintiff's case. Gillert: You live such an interesting life. Harshal: Lucrative, too.

Champions : Return To Edge City : Professional Stalkers GM: How am *I* too innocent for the internet?? I'm the one who once pt out a personal ad in game that said 'Lonely adventurer looking for Halfling Size Queen'! We should probably find out why a PI from Millennium City is following Elsa and her girlfriend around, and if it has anything to do with the magical survey work Hardlight hired them to do. Hero Shrew: Flux, you should go talk to them, you're the least conspicuous of us. You're not a shrew and you don't fly and glow in the dark. GM: Yes he does, I've seen the picture he's using - he looks like a reject from Tron. Hardlight: Attempting to actually be competent- Hero Shrew: Hooray! GM: Ouch. Hardlight goes to Elsa and Misty's hotel, and calls up to their room. He asks for both of them, which is guaranteed to get their attention since we have no reason to know about Misty unless we've been spying on them ourselves. Misty comes storming out of the elevator. Hero Shrew: Remind me why we were following them again? Because I forget. Flux: Don't look at me, I'm not a stalker! GM: Great, and now I've got ANOTHER song stuck in my head. Flux's player: The GM's brain is on shuffle. Hardlight: Apologies for interrupting whatever you were doing - first I should tell you HOW I know what I know. I probably should have told you in advance, but it's standard practice for me to assign a covert security presence for any of my special employees. Elsa: I've heard corporate politics can be a bit cutthroat here, but that's a bit much. Hardlight: Quite. But there's a lot of supers in this town. Anyway - our security team reports that you're already be followed by ANOTHER security team. GM: And Misty goes ballistic, actinic energy crawling up her arms. Misty: WHAT? WHO? I WANT NAMES! Hardlight politely enquiries if Elsa and Misty would like their stalker to be further investigated by us. She declines, as Elsa and Misty want to avoid any entanglement in superhero shenanigans even if they already have powers. Which is fair enough, public superpowers are a recipe for Instant Drama. Elsa also makes her initial report on Edge City's magical infrastructure, which basically confirms the Feng Shui information we already knew, but also that it's deeply embedded in the city's magical presence. Elsa: To change it you'd probably have to drastically remodel the city itself - and the last time that happened Detroit got renamed Millennium City. Hero Shrew: Yes, Dr Destroyer didn't really do Orbital Friendship Cannons. GM: Orbital Enlightenment Cannon maybe - one blast from this and you'll be one with the universe. Flux: In the sense of sub-atomic vapour? GM: Exactly. Hero Shrew: Are you going to tell them that their stalker was somehow tracking them without line-of-site or visible tech? GM: With Misty right there? You saw how she reacted to the new that they were being followed. Hardlight: The report I'll forward to Elsa will mention the fact that the PI is superhuman. GM: You don't want to be anywhere NEAR that explosion when it goes off. Flux: Well, somehow super-human. Hardlight: Enhanced in an unknown manner. Elsa WOULD like us to find out who hired the PI, preferable without upsetting Misty any further. Hardlight: Scooter, don't mention the investigation around Misty, she'll probably throw you through a wall and I don't know what your medical bills will be like. GM: It's not like Moreaus trust doctors in the first place. Hero Shrew: With good reason. Anyway, figuring out who hired the red-head to stalk Elsa and/or Misty requires us finding the red-head again, which might be even more difficult now that Elsa and Misty are even more paranoid about pursuit. Hero Shrew's Player: The big mystery was who was sending them, since it needed to be someone who both knew I'd appreciate Cthulhu Mythos related stuff AND knew my postal address. And (Hardlight's player) was convincingly ignorant. Flux's player: He's good at that. GM: Ouch. But we do lurk around the hotel, and after Elsa and Misty leave the redhead shows up - and is approached by a bald-headed man who was ALSO lurking outside the hotel. Too bad none of us can hear whatever they're talking about, since the red-head is clearly surprised, then confused. On the other hand, our party technomage CAN hack their smartphone and listen in that way. Bald-headed Man: -it's really very simple, Miss Grey. We were less interested in them, than in you. We are no longer interested in her. We represent a group of people who can help you grow, help nurture your talents. We know how it is that you follow some-one, and that is good. You have a talent, and we want you to make the most of it. Miss Grey: And what if I'm already doing good? And don't want your help? Bald-headed Man: I wouldn't recommend that - we really aren't good at taking no for an answer. GM: And this is why I was laughing last session - You were following them and followed her, and they were following her and didn't notice you or care about them - I was mentally plotting all this as you went along. Flux passes on the information to the rest of us. Hero Shrew: Well, that last bit was definitely a threat. Flux: We'll have to wait until he actually gets physical - THEN we can beat the shit out of him. Fireflash: We're supposed to be proportionate in our response. Flux: I've demonstrated a lack of control of my powers, so it'll be fine. GM: THAT IS NOT HOW THIS WORKS. Bald-headed Man: I think you need to get off that bike and come with me. Miss Grey: GET. OUT. OF. MY. HEAD. Hero Shrew: GO GO GO. Hardlight: *trips off edge of hotel roof and lands face first on the pavement next to Hypnos and Miss Grey* GM: Fireflash can probably guess who this guy is represents. Fireflash: PSI - when you absolutely, positively, need someone mindraped into oblivion >:(

Pathfinder - Streets of Magnimar - Vermin Control Harshal: Just let me check my Blue Book - I'm sure we can find some kind of secret sex dungeon in Magnimar that will be your tastes. Zin: Sex dungeons? It'll probably be all humans and elves. Not the kind of thing I need to scratch that itch, you know? Harshal: And if they have Half-orc leather daddies? Zin: ... ... OK then. Before we can start getting our cut from every level of the Adventure Farm, we need to deal with the crime problem in Underbridge. And crime in Underbridge is dominated by three different groups - the Sczarni crime family, who we inadvertently joined forces with that time, the Nightscales, who we've mightily annoyed on multiple occasions, and the Creepers, who have child slaves controlled by a system of terror. Harshal: Eliminating the Creepers WOULD be a public service... And the Sczarni were the ones who a priest and his acolytes beaten to death after they refused to make a 'charitable donation' to the needy families of Underbridge. One family in particular... At least the Nightscales don't know that it was us who have screwing with them. One of the independents is the Three Dolphin Milk Parlour, which despite the name is actually a drug den where Midnight Milk users can spend an evening quietly stoned. Other random facts and rumours about UYnderbridge that will probably become relevant at some point - an engineering marvel in Underbridge, dwarfed by the bridge itself, is the Shadowclock, a lethally decrepit tower now closed to the public, but too sturdy to fall down by itself. Or if you want creepy children's rhymes, there's the one about the Scarecrow, a rumoured serial killer operating in Underbridge. GM: Underbridge IS the most impoverished section of Magnimar - to the point you really have to wonder about anybody that actually lives there by choice. Harshal: Out of curiosity, did these rumours about the Scarecrow start AFTER Ys moved in? We decide that the Nightscales will be the best group to deal with, especially if offer them a cut of the profits. Ys: I'll offer 20%. Harshal: I assume you mean you'll go UP to 20%. Ys: Yeah, we'll start at 5% and let them bargain us up. Gillert: Maybe throw in some free adventuring vouchers? Harshal: I sincerely doubt they'd be interested. Ys: Adventuring is the quickest way to make money in Golarion. It's also the quickest way to make yourself dead. Your basic life of crime is much safer. Harshal starts looking for Mr. White and Mr. Black, the Nightscales 'legal representatives'. They're proving a little difficult to track down, which might be because they're false identities donned when needed, or because they're daemons in service to Asmodeus, the Daemon Prince of Lawyers. Ys: You two will have to do the negotiating. Gillert: Will you be there to loom menacingly? Ys: No no no, I don't do intimidation. Harshal: Ys is an assassin, Gillert - she does her best work when you don't notice she was there at all. Gillert is in the middle of paperwork down at our importing business when Mister Black and White make a sudden appearance. Harshal: I see we need to arrange better security down there. Gillert explains that we have an idea of mutual benefit, but wants to have the rest of there before we open negotiations. Harshal: At the very least you want enough of us here to form quorum. Harshal: I was just in the middle of considering internal rules for our little association - for example, if we need to remove one of us from membership and this mortal coil, does the vote have to be simple majority, or unanimous? Ys: No, you just tell me and I do it. Gillert: And it all becomes much less democratic. Note to self - Ys-proof my house. Harshal: Did Misters Black and White have any preferences for where they'd like to conduct these negotiations? GM: They didn't say. Harshal: We'll assume they just turn up then. GM: They do. 'Sir? There's two strange men on the end of the pier' Harshal: Ah good, we were expecting them. Send them in. Refreshments? Gillert: I'll put the kettle on. The Nightscales are a bit unhappy with the idea of opening the Irespan - for one thing, it will require extra security in places they don't want attention drawn to. Ys: What if the Nightscales provide that security? Mr White: Difficult. The organization has recently experienced some set-backs in terms of personnel. Mr White DOES has a counter-offer, which will make it it much easier for the Nightscales to occupy a power vacuum, provide the service we want from them, and let us get our hands on some of those flamethrowers we suspect the Nightscales now have. Mr White: There is a certain population of vermin in Underbridge who are growing in number. The moon-touched. Harshal: Ah - were-rats. Ys: Wait, what? GM: Harshal has it. Harshal: City-dwelling criminal scum with a lunar connection - of course it's were-rats. GM: And, you know, the vermin thing too. Harshal: So, Ys, you have no problem with exterminating the Magnimar population of Were-rats? Ys: I'd have no problem with wiping out the population of Magnimar. GM: She IS an equal-opportunity killer. Harshal: Were-rats on top of nests of goblins - what a pity we never figured out how to flood the sewers with acid. Harshal: Everybody bear this in mind before we go in - Lucretia the were-rat might be hot, but all other were-rats are vermin. Harshal: I'm going to get my back-up dagger silvered as well. I might have to stab more than one lycanthrope. Gillert: Do we want to invest in a silver pellet grenade? Harshal: Probably. 'Oh look, a nest of were-rat children and infants' Pull pin. Lob. We consult our contact Iria the alchemist regarding urban lycanthropes. It's not like we can ask the lycanthropes themselves - the were-rats are too sneaky and the village of other were-folk near Magnimar got wiped out in an unprovoked attack by city militia. Iria: Were-rats also carry Filth Fever. Don't contract it. Harshal: Is there a cure? Iria: No specific. Harshal: Let's assume colloidal silver. Zin: I'm already bright green, I don't want to be blue as well. Iria also prepares some prophylactic infusions. Gillert: She's an alchemist, not a maker of prophylactics. Harshal: Prophylactic as an adjective, not a colloquial noun. Gillert: Oh. Harshal: Yes, it's not like she's making a homeopathic solution of condoms. GM: She does recommend anything to protect you from disease. Harshal: OK, maybe it is condoms. Gillert: We're going to the bathhouse. Zin: Hey, I bathe! Harshal: Oh, you go to an *actual*bathhouse! I understand now - carry on. Zin: *blushes bright red* Gillert: .... *facepalm* Harshal and Zin go to Gillert to their weapons silvered - Ys prepares her own Silver Blanch to apply as needed. Gillert: If there's a Rust Monster down there we've got problems. GM: That WOULD be a dick move on my part GM: The were-rats favour the dock area. Harshal: Makes sense - they must be water rats. Do they all have Norwegian accents? GM: I'll pretend you didn't say that. Oddly enough they avoid the Rat Tavern. But we do hear rumours of a newly-arrived were-rat named Moonbreaker, who has emboldened Magnimar's population of the secretive vermin. He's not as sneaky as the rest of them, but he IS a heavy hitter, and he can break weapons. The were-rats may even have discovered the Silverblood ritual. GM: Why am I not surprised that Ys knows about the Silverblood ritual? Harshal: Horrible ritual with horrible side-effects? Of course she does. The ritual removes the vulnerability to silver weapons, at the risk of wasting to death during the new moon. GM: Were-rats are also the reason ratfolk are unpopular. Zin: I thought they were same thing. Gillert: You made the same mistake everybody else does. Harshal: All rodents look alike to me. Ys: What Have The Rodents Ever Done For Us? We also find out exactly why the Nightscales can't deal with them themselves. Moonbreaker killed so many Nightscales that the Nightscales had to beg for a ceasefire. And that was AFTER they ambushed Moonbreaker. And Harshal receives a whispered message in one ear while he was out at a bar, gathering information. Which is a bit strange, since he was sitting with his back to the wall, watching the door at the time. "You may want to investigate the Swift Dolphin Warehouse, if you're seeking the Stonecutter Clan. But be warned, they are allied with something from afar." The mysterious speaker has quite a high-pitched voice, and smells of honeysuckle. And is apparently small enough to fit INSIDE the wall, since Harshal actually hears them scurrying away, despite the mysterious informants huge stealth bonuses. And while were-rats can turn into rats, they can't speak in that form. Harshal: Well then. On top of all the other information networks operating in Magnimar, one of them has agents small enough to fit behind wooden panelling. GM: Homunculi? Harshal: Imps. Ys: A kobold hit with a Shrink spell. But the honeysuckle might be a clue, since it can be used to conceal earthy smells. And whoever the informant is, they were concerned enough by that possibility to drench themselves in enough honeysuckle that Harshal could smell them through the wall. GM: A fairy Dragon would naturally smell of honeysuckle, but wouldn't hide. 'OK, I need to go now' EUPHORIA CLOUD. Gillert: The exact kind of familiar a stoner wizard would have. Off to investigate the were-rat infested warehouse. Harshal: Appropriate. Gillert: Where else would were-rats live? The warehouse. Gillert: Were we going to kidnap one of the wererats for information? Harshal: I don't believe so. If the opportunity to torture one for information comes up, sure - torture then kill is morally equivalent to just kill, isn't it? GM: Rats the size of dogs do tend to attract attention. Except in Underbridge. Ys: Nobody seems to be watching the building, anyway. Harshal: Or the people of Underbridge have just learned that it doesn't pay to be too nosy about your neighbor's business. Harshal: Since we've re-opened the docks north of Underbridge, there's a chance this warehouse can be re-opened. So, do we clear the drug addicts out tonight? Ys: If it comes up. The question is how. Harshal: I suggest fake daemonic possession. Gillert: 'Fake'? Ys: I was just going to lock the doors and set it on fire. Harshal: But then you lose the building too. We sneak up to the building, carrying braces to seal the doors, and prepared to commit major arson. Harshal OoC: It's almost like we're playing Call of Cthulhu. GM: With these players, sure. That and a lifetime discount on dynamite. Unfortunately, the warehouse has people on watch that can recognise attempted arson when they see it coming. Various gaunt elf Milk addicts crawl out of cover. Harshal: Elves that are addicted to Milk, not people addicted to elf-milk. GM: Given some of the internet references to elf-milk that I've seen, eww. Gillert recognises what they are - they can't be drug addicts, since they're immune to drugs. And addiction. And any kind of characteristic drain. GM: They're ghouls. Harshal: Oh f**k. GM: Which explains how they were so good at staying still for a long time. Ys runs in and decapitates one. Harshal considers the fact that Gillert and Zin both do ranged attacks, and reluctantly runs in to run another through himself. Unfortunately, he's promptly mauled and paralysed by the third ghoul, which is just ONE reason he was reluctant to move in and assist Ys. At least Gillert slaps some Invisibility on Harshal so the barrister might actually survive this. Unfortunately, all the howling of the Ghouls attracts thugs. And when Harshal, still paralysed, fades back into visibility, he's a very tempting target. They still fail to hit him. GM: His blade glances off your armour. Harshal: Just as well I bought it then. But the look of withering contempt I give the thug is probably wounding in and of itself. Harshal: I came here to set addicts on fire and honestly I'm feeling so attacked right now. But before long the lead thug finds himself outnumbered four-to-one, drinks a spring-loaded potion, and turns invisible. He runs off, while we loot the bodies and set up the warehouse fire. We don't even go into the building, but then, we're not exactly the kind of clientele the drug den would welcome. The fire gets reported in a special morning edition of Parvo's newspaper. It's the tone of the report that we have issues with. MIDNIGHT BLAZE - GANG VIOLENCE IN UNDERBRIDGE - Sign of things to come? Irespan Expedition in Question Harshal: F********ck. Reporter: Eyewitness accounts infer that the Flying Fox organised the bucket chain. Harshal: Hmm. I wonder if our young reporter friend is also the Flying Fox. GM: Can't be - she wears glasses. It's also annoying to hear that no bodies were found inside the building. And that the ghoul bodies went missing. The other bodies were found stripped. Harshal: Well, it is Underbridge. GM: That was you - you took everything but their shorts. Reporter: While the building was damaged, it appears it can be repaired. Gillert: Oh look, a warehouse going cheap. GM: It's a classic. On the other hand the article confirms that the warehouse belonged to a defunct trading company. Harshal: Oh look, a warehouse going cheap. GM: Eh - that just adds to the legal snarl as the figure out who actually owns it. Harshal: Whoever it is, I bet they haven't been paying their taxes on the building. So if we pay to get the building repaired... Real estate law is not my speciality, but does the phrase 'eminent domain' come into play here? It falling into our hands is clearly to the city's benefit. Gillert also notices that our young reporter friend got that article written, typeset, and printed remarkably quickly, if she also had to go to Underbridge to get the information as well. At least Parvo Crispin suggests it's the Underbridge gangs getting stirred up in anticipation of the new income stream. Gillert and Harshal investigate the ruins, and find, as Harshal expected, concealed escape tunnels that were collapsed behind them. We decide not to spread this information. Harshal: We don't want people thinking about stuff from the Irespan escaping into the sewers. GM: Some Magnimareans would argue that that is a fair fight. Harshal: But just picture the scene - you're sitting reading the day's broadsheet, and suddenly a giant man-eating spider comes up the s-bend. Harshal also comes down poorly - it's ghoul fever! Zin: I'm calling in Iria on this one. GM: It's a win-win for her - either she heals a friend, or she gets to study someone succumb to ghoul fever. Of course, this whole drug den disaster does raise questions about Harshal's original intel. Mostly, while did they believe Harshal when he said a wall talked to him, especially since he's clearly raving now? Ys: Most of the time, if someone succumbs to Ghoul Fever, they become a ghoul. But don't worry, this won't happen to you. Harshal: Hmm. Quite. GM: ? Harshal: She means she'll kill me. Ys: I don't like undead. Things I kill should say that way. Harshal: I don't like undead either - they hardly ever carry money. It's going to be a few days until we even know if Iria's treatment is working. Harshal: I can't go out and gather information in this state. Ys: Which is why I'm going to do it. Harshal: Well, if you hear any voices from inside walls, you know what to do. Ys: Yes. Kill them. Harshal: Well, that wasn't what I met, but- GM: It'll be amusing to watch you try. Ys: I could disguise myself as a were-rat, fake a beating, and see if the were-rats come to my rescue. Harshal: Two problems there - your disguise might not hold up to close inspection. And since you're disguised as a were-rat, your average Magnimarean would help put the boot in. Ys does get the mysterious honeysuckle voice - they're a bit upset with us that we didn't follow up our attack. She also manages to spot the source - a tiny hooded figure. Honeysuckle Whisperer: You can see me. Ys: Well, caught a glimpse. Honeysuckle Whisperer: Damn. I have instructions in case this happened. Meet me in the alley. Our informant is, in fact, a tiny humanoid rat. Ys: I can see why you have a problem with were-rats. But don't worry, I'll treat you just the way I treat everybody else. Honeysuckle Whisperer: I'd rather NOT be horribly killed, thank you very much. Ys: Hey, I don't kill EVERYBODY I meet. Honeysuckle Whisperer: That remains to be seen. The tiny rat-things really don't have much more information they can give us - they're trying to avoid the were-rats and their undead pets, after all. Our informant scurries off - but as she'll leaving Ys spots ANOTHER tiny robed figure, broader in the shoulder, sneaking around. Ys sneakily pursues, until the second figure pounces on the first, and roughs them up a bit. Second Sneaker: You got SPOTTED. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't eat you for that. Ys: Because you got spotted too. The second figure denies any responsibility for anything going wrong. That's probably because it's a cat. Ys: You're cute. Second Sneaker: HISS Harshal: Yeah, sleek, pretty, murderer, I can see the resemblance. Apparently these guys have a few rules that they are supposed to follow. Second Sneaker: Not to go on all fours! That is the Law! The Claw punishes the Paw for Disobedience! That is the Law! Ys passes on SOME of what she discovered - chiefly that the were-rats congregate under Underbridge - and eventually Iria gives Harshal a clean bill of health. Harshal: We should have asked 'How would WE run an illegal drug den?' And then yes, the escape tunnel would have been obvious. So, time for some systematic exploration of the Underbridge sewers. Harshal: Exactly how many nights a week are we going to be doing this? Because I do have a day job. Expeditions into the sewers may have SOME resemblance to working as a lawyer in Magnimar, but I can't do it for 24 hours a day. Zin wants to buy some more Hide From Animals potions. Potion Shopkeeper: Not much call for them here. Harshal: Hardly surprising - the only animals in the city that you'd want to avoid are guard dogs. Harshal: We're going to need protection from the smell down there too. Should we get Plague Doctor masks? Zin: Just pee on a bandana and tie it across your face. There's also the problem that the Magnimar sewers were designed by a madman who wanted to leave lots of places for Norgorber cultists to hide. GM: Oh, and did I mention that some sections apparently move around? Of course, there's the OTHER problem that only Zin has any sort of tracking skill. GM: Hey! Rat dropping! And rat footprints! Oh wait... Zin narrowly avoids some kind of trap that sprayed an unknown liquid. GM: But with all the precautions you took, none of you can smell what it was. Ys: I'll collect a sample. Harshal: Hopefully it's not Green Slime. Then we hear the squeaking approach of many small hairy vermin. Ys: Rat swarm! GM: 'Swarm', singular? Ys legs it, Harshal is caught flat-footed, and Zin swigs one of the Hide From Animals potions. GM: Which will work right up until you're touched by an animal. Zin: I'd better get climbing then. The rats ignore Zin, and attack Harshal as they try to get past him and at Ys. Harshal: Is this normal behavior for rats? GM: Do you have Handle Animals or any kind of Knowledge Nature skill? Harshal: Nope. GM: Then you have NO IDEA why they behaving like this. Ys' player can guess why, because he knows what a bastard I am. Harshal: ? GM: Ys is carrying a sample of rat bait. Harshal: Then why are they attacking me? GM: Because you're in the way. Zin: I'd rather not get TPKed by rats. Ys is getting desperate, and starts lobbing acid flasks. Despite herself and Harshal being in the splash zone. She gets off much more likely than he does. Ys: Someone up there likes me. GM: I think you're looking in the wrong direction. Zin figures out that they must be trying to get the rag Ys collected her sample with. Ys throws it away, and the rats head off in pursuit. The trap sprayed Beast Bait. GM: I'm quite proud of that idea. We spot a lurking figure at about the same time it spots it realises it's been spotted - we don't pursue. Ys: Do you really want to follow it into whatever ambush they have planned? We'll move past and try to double back on them. It doesn't do us any good - we get shot in the back with crossbows a little later on, largely because Harshal has the group nicely illuminated with his lantern. Ys pursues, because she has no need for light. But our assailants are fleeing in pitch blackness too, which is odd for were-rats, since they should need at least some light. Harshal: So exactly how many dangerous species and organizations are down here? I'm betting that trap was set by CHUDs. GM: Do you want me to count the Norgorber cults as one organization, or split them up? There IS an ambush, but Ys was expecting one by this point anyway. Somewhat surprisingly, it's a female were-rat. Clearly whatever markings they've laid are visible to low-light vision, but invisible to normal vision or darksight. Worse, the bushwhacker is that rumoured were-rat combat monster with the Sunder feat, as Ys learns when one of her silvered kukris gets shattered. And then someone starts summoning giant rats into the combat. At least its Smite Good is completely wasted, since Ys is not in the vaguest sense Good. But even after Harshal and Ys catch up, the situation does not immediately improve for our party of rogues - the were-rat and her back-up are simply that bad-ass. Luckily for us, Harshal's silvered rapier find one of the holes in the were-rat's chainmail, and gets driven through her kidney and out the other side. That still leaves the giant rat and whoever is throwing spells at us, and that none of us can see. Harshal: If it turns out to be Gillert I'll be quite annoyed. And then the body of the combat monster vanishes. Harshal: The f**k???? Zin: *fumbling around blindly* I think I feel boob! Ys: Then finish her off! Silversniffer: *Popping into existence*NOOOOOOOOO! GM: He does have a reason to be this stupid - Lovesick. Harshal: Guessed as much - that Big No was a bit of a clue. Zin, you know where her tit is, you can probably guess where her heart is. Zin coup de grace the unconscious were-woman, and instantly becomes the target for the spellcaster's revenge. Zin: I am mostly OK with this, providing you two finish him off. Zin backpedals fast, and puts a crossbow into the spellcaster's heart. Which is probably a mercy, frankly. Silversniffer really was that besotted with Moonbreaker. But at least we still have silvered weapons intact, so the rest of the clan will probably hold off on mobbing us. The loot includes an old journal. Zin: Probably love poetry. The spellcaster also had no material components - which implies he was a psychic sorcerer. GM: He could stay hidden under his camo net and think bad thoughts at people. We head back to the surface - with the were-rats' heaviest hitters nicely murdered, follow-up attempts at genocide should go much more smoothly, assuming the lycanthropes don't just scatter.

Champions - Return to Edge City - Professional Stalkers Flux: Speaking of supervillains... Fireflash: We're superheroes. Even if sometimes it doesn't seem like it. Hero Shrew: Honestly we're just another gang. GM: I'm going to - and I can't believe I'm saying this - going to assume basic level competence from Gareth Lowell (Hardlight). Basically Hardlight is doing some solo investigation into Edge City's mystic shit, without involving Flux, because he doesn't want to endanger Flux's secret identity. One of the people he discovers is one Elsa, who overdresses for a Californian summer. GM: No Frozen jokes please. Hardlight hires Elsa to carry on the mystic investigation. GM: Flux wants to stay low-profile. And LoCarb is more - Flux: Let It Grow, Let It Grow? GM: I thought I said no Frozen jokes. Hardlight also notes that somebody, a red-headed young woman, seems to be keeping tabs on Elsa. Flux: Well, we know she isn't a vampire. Hero Shrew: Could be a daywalker. Flux: Well in that case we're fucked. Fireflash: Could be a Daewooker, which are vampires that can go out in daylight but only in Korean cars. The mystery woman does dress quite like one of Elsa's associates, but it's the chrome studs and logo on her denim vest that might identify her for us. If we can get a better photo. Hardlight calls in the rest of the superteam. Hardlight: Time for a meeting of the Knitting Club. Hero Shrew: I've learned to purl. Flux: Of course Scooter is the one who doesn't realise 'Knitting Club' is code. Hardlight: You do realise that you're the only one who comes to these things and actually knits, right? And you're knitting with rebar. Flux: Where did you get that rebar? Hero Shrew: *shrugs* I forget. Hero Shrew: So we're working from bad photos and your hunch. Fireflash: We've worked from worse. Flux: Yes, and if I recall correctly we ended up in a sewer. Hardlight: Can we use the photo to make some kind of empathic link? Flux: ..... .... Hero Shrew: You're just making stuff up at this point, aren't you? Flux: Why don't we just follow the person who's being followed so we can follow the person who's doing the following? GM: Did you follow that? Flux shadows Elsa and what seems to be her girlfriend, Misty, and notices a few things, Misty seems to have a wandering eye, which may bode ill for the relationship, and whoever is supposedly shadowing them is invisible. Flux: I may have been misinformed about the situation. Hero Shrew: Or Hardlight is just paranoid. Flux: EVERYBODY says that. Hardlight: Wait, they do? Who says that? Elsa IS doing magic whenever she and Misty think they aren't being watched, but they're really bad a spotting observers. Hero Shrew: No wonder this mystery red-head is following them around. I mean, if I saw somebody turning invisible and visible again and conjuring novelty bondage chains around her girlfriend, I'd want to know what the hell is going on too. They also walk from one end of town to the other. Flux finally spots the red-headed pursuer when she steps out in front of him - she was somehow following Elsa and Misty without needing a line of sight on them. The logo on her vest is a rearing cobra. Hero Shrew: Not Disco Stu then. The redhead is making notes on a PDA - not a FreeWeb device - but doesn't seem to be using obvious magic or technology to follow Elsa and Misty. Flux: So all we actually have is that she's being mildly creepy following Elsa and Misty around. Hero Shrew: So she's mildly creepy for following them around? Remind me what you're doing again? Flux: Following the creepy girl around. Elsa and Misty eventually go back to their hotel. The redhead leaves on a motorbike she had parked nearby. GM: She's Comeliness 18 and maaaybe goes to college. Hero Shrew: *deadpan*Yeah, not creepy at all. Of course, Hero Shrew, Hardlight, and Fireflash lost interest in the pursuit hours ago - Hero Shrew needs sleep before he starts his night shift at the strip club, Hardlight has a civilian ID to maintain, and Fireflash has a RPG session to get to. Flux texts Fireflash to get the redhead's plates run - her motorbike comes from Michigan, and is registered to one Megan Grey, out of Millennium City. Hero Shrew: Ah. The thing you need to know is that Millennium City is filled with rats in capes. Flux: Huh? Hero Shrew: Ubiquitous supers. Flux: But you don't wear a cape. Hero Shrew: I'm not a rat, either. You don't see me making a big deal about it. Megan is a private investigator. Hero Shrew: So she's not a stalker, she a PI. I guess that makes her a professional stalker. Doesn't explain how she's following them without line of sight though. She's also a decade older than she actually looks. And her vest logo is the old of the Cobra Lords, a rather alarming westside gang in Millennium City. At this point the game derails because the GM and Flux's player get distracted by photos of Allison Scagliotti. Flux: And we don't have our own vehicles to follow her. Which is probably just as well - picture Scooter on a scooter. The jokes write themselves. Flux sends his own photos to the others. The redhead looks very familiar to Hero Shrew, since he just just let her into the strip club, where she's quietly playing steel guitar in one of the corners. Flux: Oh dear. Hero Shrew: 'So, what's it like, being a PI?' GM: Please don't - you don't have the Disad 'Clueless'. Hardlight points out that Flux can always go into the club himself, and buy the redhead a drink. Flux: I hadn't thought of that. GM: I know, you keep forgetting social interactions are a thing. And the rest of you keep letting him. Hardlight: Scooter, do you have social skills? Hero Shrew: Sure, but I'm working. And I'm not human. GM: You think that matters? She's just come to a furry tittybar. When the redhead leaves, Scooter notices something else. When she came in her hair was merely red. When she leaves it's an improbable fire-engine red. So she's clearly got high-end training and Image Inducer tech. Who the hell are are we dealing with here?

Betrayal At The House On The Hill: Rick and Morty Halloween Special Played Betrayal At The House On The Hill for Halloween, with the usual bunch of weirdoes. Naturally, since the game involves exploring a troperiffic Creepy Old Mansion, we played them Rick, Morty and Summer, and two slightly more expendable NPCs, such as the suspiciously innocent little girl, and the sports jock. Rick: Twenty bucks says he dies first. Morty: Ah jeez, Riiick, my flashlight is going out! Rick: That's impossible, Morty, that flashlight is powered by a collapsing star. Morty: Then maybe it's finished collapsing? Rick: That doesn't make the slightest scientific sense, Morty. Despite Rick explicitly warning everybody not to split up, the party promptly did. Since Rick never expected any better, he presses on to the Master Bedroom alone to catch whoever is behind the creepy and architecturally impossible building, and reemerges dragging an demented and raving alternate Rick. Rick: Anybody even remotely surprised to find out this guy is behind the Overlook Hotel here? The impossible architecture includes an elevator that keeps reappearing at random places around the house. Rick: Calm down Summer, it's only a Class Four Wonkavator.... barely Class Four. Rick: We're going to get through this Morty! Do you trust me? Do. You. Trust. Me! Morty: No! Rick: Good, you can't trust anybody. Especially not when Rick turns himself invisible and starts hunting the rest of the party down. Of course, it turns out that the killer Rick was the architect all along, and had drugged and switched clothes with Rick Prime when they were separated from everybody else. Real Rick: What, none of you BRRAARRP figured out he was the fake? Nice to know who I can rely on.

Pathfinder - Streets of Magnimar - How To Make Enemies And Influence Ushers Zin: Kobold trapsmith, escaped slave, master of disguise, future Underlord Gillert: A sheep among wolves. Varisian, human, eldritch scoundrel, but not by choice. Ys Danar: Elven cutthroat, former pirate, freelance assassin, etc. Harshal High-seeker: Shoanti investigator and extremely crooked barrister. Tannis Oberech: Human rake and fledgling noble, who hasn't actually been at any of the sessions for a while, which is a shame because his money-making schemes are starting to pay off. Important NPCs: Emelliandra Oberech, Iria, and Ticaria: Scholars of various levels of shadiness. We've done favours for most of them, as part of a long ladder to positions of wealth and influence. We're currently trying to get Ticaria's proposal to open the giant spider-monster-infested ruined cyclopean bridge up to adventuring parties in front of Magnimar's Council of Ushers. Lady of the Council of Ushers - Lady Verrine Caiteil: The Elf In Charge Seneschal of Dates - Jacildria Quildarmo: Highly influential civil servant Parvo Crispin: Owner and publisher of Magnimar's first broadsheet newspaper Lalya Margare: Parvo's spitfire reporter/assistant. It was her idea to sell the paper cheaply, to a much wider audience. Her revolutionary zeal and investigative reporting will probably mean trouble for us later. The biggest bottleneck when trying to talk to the Council of Magnimar is the Seneschal of Dates, and it doesn't matter how even-handedly the Lady of the Council runs things, if the Seneschal doesn't like you, you aren't talking to anybody. Harshal: So we need to frame her for something. Ys: And then blackmail her. Killing her isn't the best option, since we have no control over who replaces her. Gillert: We should try and find out if she's already guilty of something. More efficient than framing her ourselves. Any ideas? Harshal: Sorry, I'm just reflecting on the fact that it's YS who's saying murder isn't the best option here. Ys: Hey, I know murder. Gillert: So far, no luck with dirt-digging. Harshal: Hey, if was easy everybody would have done it. Harshal: Does the seneschal have any kids? GM: No - the joke is 'no man can keep to her schedule'. Harshal: So no kids, and no lover. Or if there is a lover she's discrete. And if she had a female lover the joke would be 'no-one else can multitask' Zin: So, how do you fell about a little light kidnapping? Harshal: Is it anything like light housekeeping? What we DO find out is that anybody that leans too heavily on the Seneschal finds secrets about THEM getting out into the world. Apparently she has her own information network that we haven't even heard of. On the other hand we also hear a rumour that her manse has a secret second level to the basement. Zin: Easy, she's a noble - it's a sex dungeon. She's also well-preserved for somebody in her fifties. The paranoid might say suspiciously well-preserved. Zin: I guess she'll be getting a tail. A very small tail. Harshal: As the pervy gnome-fancier said. Her manse is a little on the small side for the Alabaster District. It barely qualifies, in fact. Gillert: That would explain the basement, too - if you can't build out, dig down. Harshal: And you could sell the marble you excavated, too. She never eats alone, either - she's always seen in company, whether at Magnimar's eateries or entertainments. That could just be because she enjoys her work. But she's also known to be inconsistent on bribes - sometimes, no amount of coin will move her - at other times a mere token will suffice. Harshal: Which must be endlessly frustrating for the people trying to bribe her. Ys suggests we get in, disguised as delivery persons, and use the fact that she has a very small staff to our advantage. Nobody would be insane enough to break in in broad daylight, too. Zin suggests we deliver him in a box. Harshal: 'Here's your delivery from Pervy Kobold-fanciers'? The best time to break in is going to be when the cook and maid are out doing the shopping. If we're careful, they'll won't even know we were there. Although the staff do seem oddly subdued and covered-up whenever they leave the building. Harshal: If the seneschal's level of preservation and the staff's behavior DOES add up to something, I'm not going to be the one that says 'I told you she was-' GM: Why is 'Vampire' the first conclusion you guys leap to? Seriously, it must be the fourth time this campaign. GM: They're not wearing wimples, they're wearing muffin-caps. Gillert: Which are not the same thing as muffin-tops. Zin is delivered, and waits in the box until the butler opens in the box, triggering the trap loaded with drow sleep potion. He drags him off to the closet, and discovers that the butler's belt is actually a cat-of-nine tails. Harshal: Maybe you were right about the sex dungeon. The rest of us get in through a window, cutting and Mending the glass as we go. We can hear somebody upstairs, which should be no problem unless they come looking for the butler in the closet. Ys: Is it a Quasit Closet? Zin sets a tripwire at the top of the basement stairs, just in case somebody finds the butler and they start hunting for us. Ys: Everybody look for the secret doors. GM: *rolls some dice* You have to wonder about Gillert sometimes... you find the hidden latch behind the hanging jerky. Gillert: Well, I'm not useless at this kind of search. GM: But Zin is supposed to be better. Gillert: He was distracted by the jerky. The access to the secret sub-basement is actually a shaft. Ys goes down, and discovers rails. And a flat-top cart. And manacles. And a shrine to the Reaper of Reputations. And a torture rack. And a blood spa. Harshal OoC: Ah - Elizabeth Bathory. GM: Yeah, except this actually works. Ys: SQUEE. Ys is very impressed by the arrangement, and the convenient corpse disposal off the cliffs and into the ocean. Ys is aware that the Reaper of Reputations is one if the multiple aspects of the evil god Norgorber, and has a good number of cult devotees in Magnimar. Harshal: Ys, would I right in assuming that you are a devotee of one of these aforementioned aspects? Ys: *looks innocent* Gillert: This would not be a good time to complain about this. GM: Right. If you object, Ys has everything she needs right here. Ys suggests the rest of us leave - she'll stay and have a word with the Seneschal herself. After changing into a suitable outfit. Gillert: This is creepy as f*ck. Harshal: There are multiple ways events could proceed from here. I suspect it won't be 'The Seneshal mysteriously disappears'. I'm not exactly sure how to feel about this. A few hours later there's a commotion upstairs, and a little after that somebody drops a smoke grenade down the hole. Ys waits sitting on the edge of the bloodbath, and bows respectfully to the Seneschal when she appears with a crossbow. Ys: Greetings, Mistress. The Seneschal: You are trying to curry favour with me, calling me mistress without an introduction. This will not go well for you. Ys: You are clearly high in the favour of the Master. The Seneschal: Who are you? Ys: The Shadow in the Shadows. The Seneschal: That is who you wish to be. Who. Are. You. Ys identifies herself, and the seneschal deduces much about the party's identity, and how carefully Ys has avoided the more bloody repercussions of this meeting by sending the rest of us on. The Seneschal: Clever. Ys: Thank you. Ys also tells the seneschal who we're working for, and offers our services. She's not impressed - all the benefits are mere potential, and none immediate. Opening the bridge to exploration by adventurers still seems the work of a madwoman, even in the opinion of a secret murder-cultist. But then, she's a secret murder-cultist, not a reckless idiot. The status quo suits her, and the Council might actually approve the adventuring plan if she lets it go through. The seneschal is also going to need some really convincing reason, or a really good bribe, to let the proposal go through - especially since she's flatly and openly refused all bribe attempts regarding the proposal in the past. The need for this bribe to be publicly known rules out any of the stuff we stole, and Day-Z the Zombie Anthrax Cow. After all, more people will ask questions if the seneschal suddenly changes her mind for no apparent reason. The Seneschal: One question - where is my butler? Ys: The mahogany closet in the main hall. Gillert: With his pants around his ankles. We decide that melting down one of those platinum bars, and reforging some of it into, as Zin puts it, 'a piece of modern art in the Thassalonian style' should be an acceptable bribe. Our client doesn't argue the point. Gillert: We're not getting paid for this gig, are we? Ys: But we are setting up profit in the future. We go one better - forging a 'genuine' Thassalonian art piece, but telling everybody in advance that 'of course it's a forgery, but it's a lovely example of how good some of these forgeries can be'. Our client even has an idea who can do the forgery for us. Tikaria: Do you know Emelliandra Oberech by any chance? Harshal: *cackles* Tikaria: What's so funny? Harshal: Yes, yes we know her. And Emmeliandra is not only an expert on Thassalonian artefacts, she's also a sculptor. And the fake she produces for us is so incredibly good (a roll of 35 on a d20) that it's only her signature stamp on the underside that suggests it isn't the real thing. The 'Seven Virtues' (and a domino mask from Ys) is duly passed on to the seneschal, and the proposal passed on to the Council for discussion. Of course, now we have to make sure the vote passes in our favour - since we only took on this job on behalf on Iria, as a favour to Tikaria, bribing the Senschal, and all that, so we'll have a foot in the door in this whole adventurer-farming enterprise. It won't be easy - there's 115 people in the Council of Ushers. Harshal starts crafting an opinion piece to go into Parvo Crispin's newspaper, about how adventurers bring money and magical items into a city, after they've looted a dungeon somewhere. So anything that brings adventurers to Magnimar is a good thing. Ys: And avoid any mention of murder-hobos. GM: Thanks to guilds and the Pathfinder's Society, adventurers are considered valuable members of society. And even murder-hobos serve a purpose - they keep money in the hands of pretty people. Thanks to Harshal's Convincing Lie talent, his legal argument, and combined with the cheapness of Crispin's broadsheet, our opinion vis-a-vis opening up the interior of bridge for dungeoneering becomes a very popular opinion indeed. Harshal: Now we just need to be in position to milk every cent out of it when the vote passes. And since Magnimar has no town charter per se, there's no need to put out the dungeoneering plans out for public tender. There's a bit of a scare the next day, when an article by Crispin's firebrand assistant reveals just how much the PCs stand to personally profit from the adventurer-farm. Fortunately for us, the article is mostly about how much the city stands to profit - it might even be enough to reduce tax rates. Ys sends her some flowers in thanks, and the circulation of the paper explodes. Harshal: We've positioned ourselves to ride the crest of this wave to fame and fortune. Although mostly fortune, because we don't want the fame. GM: Tough - she's going to make sure you're famous. Harshal: Ah well. GM: The subtext is that you are the champions of the people. Ys: *cackles* GM: Because you're not part of the entrenched nobility, etc. Harshal: So, overwhelmingly in favour of the Adventurer Farm? GM: Let's not call it the Adventure Farm. Unless you start offering Adventur-cations. Since voting against the proposal is increasing political suicide, the no-crowd start insisting on precautions, and the city getting first dibs on any items the adventurers bring out, and waivers and security bonds. Harshal: *grinning* Such as these forms I drafted earlier? No-crowd: And the gangs of Underbridge will need to be quelled. Gillert: I was going to offer them a 5% cut if they just wracked off. Gillert: I'm trying to argue from the grey areas, OK? Ys: You're not grey anymore, you're heading down into the pitchest black. Harshal: Not really - Gillert is the person we hold up whenever anybody accuses us of being evil. If we were evil, would somebody like Gillert hang around with us? GM: Mostly hanging around out of fear.

Obviously your character wasn't in the Imperial Guard then, where giant steel balls are standard issue. Generals get master-crafted adamantium powerballs.

A bit of flavour text I wrote up for the Militia unit I'm playing in this month's Warhammer 30K campaign, Swamptober - The King's Own Immemorials AKA the Electi Regum, AKA The Majestic XIIth AKA "Those toffee-nosed bastards" The most lauded battalion on Herrio 7-3 before that world was brought to compliance, the King's Own were hand-chosen from the planet's nobility, and equipped to the most exacting standards. When King Kacer the Seventeenth bent the knee in the face of the overwhelming superiority of the Crusade Fleet, the new Planetary Governor thought it would be politically wise to continue the tradition. Not only would this assuage the honour of the previously-ruling families, but it would ensure that the sons of those families were sent off-world where they couldn't foment any trouble for the new regime. The Immemorials accepted this new situation without much complaint (or perhaps failed to realise the intent of the order) and continued much as they had before - as a collection of vainglorious bluebloods, that treated war as a day at the hunt, and used their subsidiary regiment as batmen and beaters until they could finish off the enemy with pre-compliance gravitic rifles and expertly placed kill-shots. Needless to say, they did not take being dropped into the noisome nitre-encrusted swamps of Metallikus at all well. The Satapatis-Baronet de Quincy snorted with disgust. He's had his batman scrub his boots four times today, and they still weren't clean. "What's the problem with you, man, you must have done it a hundred times!" Vurger shrugged. "Don't know sir. Might have something to do with the swamp, sir." de Quincy narrowed his eyes. Every part of Metallikus that they'd seen so far was some flavour of swamp, mire, morass, or petrochemical sludge pit. "Are you trying to be funny, Vurger?" "No, sir. Wouldn't know how, sir." "Exactly." de Quincy stalked around the room, and scowled at the crust of nitre forming on the outside of the armourglass window. "What regiment were you with before you were attached to the Twelfth, Verger?" "Second, sir." "Second? Second? Now what do they call the second? Turnip-eaters?" "Turnip-farmers, sir." "Did I look like I asking you? Turnip-farmers. Well, your regiment is seconded to the Twelfth now, and you'll damn well behave like it! And that means no talking back, and no trying to be funny, and damn well following every order I give you! Scrub them again!" Vurger renewed his pointless attempt to clean the officer's boots. de Quincy glowered out at the horizon, and the disturbingly fleshy vegetation, and the bubbling brown mud. "If only we'd been part of the Third Legion's fleet! Now there's a Legion that knows how to treat people of rank!" His batman paused in the scrubbing. "The Emperor's Children, sir?" "Yes, the Emperor's Children, you damn fool! Did I say you could stop cleaning?" "Nossir. Right away sir. It's just I thought the Third Legion were fighting on the other side, sir." "Nobody's paying to think, man! And help me get my kit on, I feel like inspecting the troops." Vurger sighed and stood up, helping his commanding officer into the breathing harness and weaponry frames, and moving to fetch his own. He muttered something under his breath. de Quincy whirled on him, bristling with anger. "Did you just say something, Vurger?" "Brass Hat, sir. Brass Hat. You've forgotten it." the batman replied, snapping his heels together and gesturing to the onion-domed, spiked lion's helm. The Satapatis-Baronet snatched it off the table, and slipped it on over the filter hood. "It's not brass, you idiot, it's gold-chased platinum." He stomped off towards the airlock. "Yessir, sorry sir. I'm sure the enemy will be very impressed."

Champions - Return to Edge City - VillianCon Me: If Magnus the Red favours a Red-Blue Magic deck, what card games would the other Primarchs play? Flux's Player: Well, Tzeench would play Fluxx, because you keep changing the rules. GM: Lorgar would play Cards Against Humanity - because you take the premise and twist to whatever you want it to say. Me: What would Angron play, assuming he had the patience? GM: Snap. Quadrant are not one of the world's premier super-teams. GM: When Justice League Antarctica is something you aspire to, you have a problem. Quadrant and Mysterious Sugar Cookies. I mean Coins. Elemental coins, anyway, which were apparently the initial seed of this adventure. Hero Shrew: All we know is that they're not radioactive and they're probably made on Earth. Fireflash: We don't know that. Hero Shrew: If they were alien they probably wouldn't have the current market prices printed on them. Hero Shrew: Well, after we trashed that guy's bike. Flux: Hey hey hey, there is no 'WE' in this situation. Flux starts building a spell to locate quantum-locked sugar. Flux: Everyone likes sugar. GM: Tell that to Type 1 Diabetics. Flux: And what are the rest of you going to do? Hero Shrew: Foosball! GM: Yeah, there's about the best you have down here in the old base you occupied. Foosball, air hockey, and an old Atari. Nobody knows how that got down here. Hero Shrew: Hang about, I'm playing ET the Video Game - I'm sure I can get past this level if I keep trying. Flux does determine that pockets of quantum-locked sugar, probably indicating tens of thousands of dollars worth of elemental coins, are clustering together and moving around Edge City, and converging in the suburb of Ditko. Hero Shrew: At least the dots aren't gathering in Kirby. Fireflash: I'll go get the papier mache van, grab Scooter and Hardlight and we'll get moving. Hero Shrew: Hang about... I'm still trying to get. Past. This. Hole. Fireflash: You can't. That game is broken. Hero Shrew: .... what? GM: We can never given Scooter Pokemon Go. Or the first time he sees a Sandshrew he'll either go 'Mom?' Or 'She's Hot' and wander off confused into traffic. Flux: The coins are congregating and now they're on their way to Ditko. I can only assume for a holiday. Flux: I've been humming 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' all afternoon - time to see it that will be prophetic. We do spot a LOT of probable gang members converging on Ditko. GM: What do you reckon - is that a member of the Voodoo Crew? Hardlight: Nah, it's a Spinneret. Flux: Or a goth with a really good tailor. Hero Shrew: We've got representatives of every alt-culture fashion school of the last 100 years converging on Ditko. Is there a convention on? Flux: *gets out her smartphone* I'll check. Flux: This seems like a dangerous place to be. Hero Shrew: I think the term is 'target-rich environment' Flux: Time to be stealthy. Hero Shrew: I'm not sure I can do stealthy. I'm the kind of guy that takes up the entire footpath in Brooklyn. We also spot members of Humanity First, across the road from members of Freak Legion. And they're not shooting at each other. Fireflash: Is that unusual? GM: Normally, just seeing each other requires an exchange of fire. They're all converging on a particular warehouse. Hero Shrew: Warrrrrriors... come out and plaaaaay. GM: Warriors. Good movie. Flux: And that guy was creepy. That whole movie was practically horror. Kung Fu Kangaroos... GM: Wait, what????? Hardlight: I think he's thinking of Warriors of Virtue. Hero Shrew: Wow, we're doing well tonight. First we get Nick Cage and Nick Cave confused, and now this. Hardlight: So, how do we get in there? Hero Shrew: I could pretend I'm a member of PETA - they're a gang of lunatics. Flux: I can disguise myself as member of Dysprosium Dawn. GM: That probably won't work - Dysprosium Dawn CONTROL Ditko. Flux: I could pretend to be from the Sanity Liberation Front. GM: They are hard to spot, it's true. Hero Shrew: That's because psychopaths look just like everybody else. We do spot a unexpected new member of the Spinnerets, too - she's a Fox Moreau. Hero Shrew: Huh - so the Spinnerets accept non-human members. She still looks great in skin-tight red leather. Flux heads in - and discovers there's a $100 cover charge to get in. $100 in Coin. GM: You don't get in, but you do see in. And OH MY GOD YOU WANT IN - Dysprosium Dawn are having a sale - 20% Off Everything. Flux: OH MY GOD I WANT IN. And apparently, since the last leadership shakeup, Dysprosium Dawn have a five-foot tall squirrel-girl as a high-ranking member. Hero Shrew: It's Gadget Hackwrench. Flux: OK, now I have two reasons to get in there. Hero Shrew: *Gives Flux a Look* GM: Got a thing for fluffy tails, do you? Flux: *facepalm* Hardlight makes a suggestion - teleport in along the powerlines. Flux can do that, although the lightning bolts and crawling electrical fire might be conspicuous. Or maybe not - this is a Dysprosium Dawn party. GM: Somebody has probably set up a giant Jacob's Ladder for shits and giggles anyway. Hero Shrew: I was right, it is a convention. GM: No, it's a bazaar. Or maybe a Fire Sale. One of the other Dysprosium Dawn leadership is something of a Cyberpunk Wendy. Flux: 'Would you like a hot dog?' She's really rocking the schoolgirl chic. At least until she hits you. Hardlight: I know, right? Look at those impact hammers. GM: Wait, you are talking about the things on her wrists, right? And the Spinnerets are circulating, intervening before any of the inter-gang tension flares up. But the electrical discharges Flux heard earlier weren't a Jacob's Ladder - it's someone demonstrating a 16-chamber lightning glove. All these intense electricmagnetic fields aren't good for Flux, but at least they have warning signs set up. He eventually notices the two data-brokers from the Spinnerets and the Dysprosium Dawn, who seem to handling most of the actual deals going on. One of the vendors is selling cyberbees. Vendor: And they can 2ml of any fluid you like. I know that doesn't sound like much, but- Hero Shrew: Seems like plenty to me - ricin, for example. I think BZT has a very low dosage too. Fun stuff - causes shared hallucinations. Or just LSD. Flux: Stop giving the bad guys ideas. Another guy is selling early access to some very worrying tech. Spruiker: Visual, RADAR, Multi-scanner, automatically comparing what it sees to its internal database and adding what it sees! Seriously guy, I have VIPER lining up to buy this! Hero Shrew: Uh-oh. GM: Any idea what he's selling, Flux? Flux: Uh... Hero Shrew: It's a sensor for spotting Secret Identities. Flux also spots something that makes him even more nervous - another technomage, watching the room. He decides to leave, in a hurry, pushing his way into the toilets to teleport out. GM: Excuse me, excuse me, I really need to go, cubical explodes with lightning. Ganger 'Dude, are you OK in there? Dude? Jesus Christ, he turned into ozone, I'm out of here' Flux: I have returned from the Cave of Wonders. Unfortunately it's not the nice genie. Hero Shrew: It's not Robin Williams? Flux: No, it's more Steve Urkel. Flux also overheard a conversation, theorizing about the coins - whoever is making them must have expected Quadrant to take an interest, and shut down production long enough for the Coins to drain towards Dysprosium Dawn, and us to follow them there. It's a good theory, and it's lucky nobody spotted us. Hardlight: We're up somebody smarter than us. Hero Shrew: No change there then. GM: Yes you are - the Spinnerets. You know, the ones who told you about the Coins in the first place. Hero Shrew: ... godammit. Flux: One of these days Dysprosium Dawn are going to set up hologram projectors around town and have real-life Pokemon Go. GM: ... well, there goes that plot *deletes GM notes* Hero Shrew: Seriously, we need to tell PRIMUS about that scanner and all this other shit. Flux: I know, right! I got distracted! There was a roomful of shiny stuff! GM: Funny how Scooter, the only one who doesn't have to worry about a secret identity, is the one who's freaking out about this. The PRIMUS tip-line operators are understandably skeptical, and forward our tip-off to the Edge City Police Department. But Flux and Hero Shrew persist, and eventually the PRIMUS is worried enough to send actual help. PRIMUS: PRIMUS units en route. So are ECPD CAESAR Units. Loud explosions suddenly blow six large holes in the walls of the warehouse, and we here somebody yelling 'Every Bug! Everybody Bug!' Flux: You hear that? PRIMUS: I can hear somehing. Flux: They're bugging out. Hero Shrew: They must have got a tip-off. PRIMUS: That has to be at ECPD's end. Flux: Oh, you think? Flux: Well, at least that ID scanner would annoy the super-villains with secret identities too. GM: But are you bastard enough to get Dysprosium Dawn in trouble like that? Wait, of course you are, you rat-bastard. The gangers scatter in all directions, and we fail to catch or even see that scanner vendor in the crowd. We eventually realise the Media Blimps with their 24 hour surveillance of the city might be useful. Hero Shrew: We spend so much time worrying about being filmed doing something we DON'T want them to see, that we forget to consider them when they're actually useful. The EPCD powered armour units arrive, and do even more damage to the building. Hero Shrew: Hey! They all bugged out a few seconds after you got the call! GM: You can't see the faces through the helmets. Hero Shrew: But I bet they aren't happy. Flux: There must be a leak at the ECPD. Hero Shrew: Or they picked up your call to PRIMUS. Flux: Maybe. But I don't make mistakes, so it's somebody else's problem. GM: And you didn't even get to see the best stuff for sale. Flux: I was distracted by the bees Hero Shrew: If anybody asks why we didn't stop them getting away, there were three of us, and they had a hand-held chain gun, 16-chamber lightning gloves, cyber bees, and that just the stuff they had on sale. Flux: And we have no idea what the gangers brought with them. Hero Shrew: Oh, and they had a five-foot squirrel with a wrench. GM: Don't - or the story will become how Hero Shrew wouldn't stop a fellow Moreau. GM: Flux got a good look at their leadership and higher-ups, at least. Hero Shrew: Which apparently includes Gadget Hackwrench. GM: It was a squirrel, not a mouse. Flux: And god help whoever makes THAT mistake to her face. Hero Shrew OoC: She's cute, but I don't think I'm suicidal enough to make any jokes about nuts around her. Flux OoC: Depends, do you want to keep yours? Hero Shrew OoC: Exactly. GM: You didn't pay much attention to this woman, but despite the cyber-augments, she's not a Booster. Hero Shrew: She's one of the Boosters who actually figured it out. GM: Yep - 'You passed the intelligence test! Now you can join Dysprosium Dawn' Hero Shrew: Funnily enough it was me who pointed out that the scanner could spot secret identities. And I don't even have a secret ID. Flux: Yes, that's your role in this party - you point out the obvious. The really obvious. Hero Shrew: Maybe I AM stupid enough to make squirrel jokes. Flux: You work in a place where that's inappropriate. You respect women. Hero Shrew: .... I like the way they look. I like the way they smell. Hardlight: Maybe you should be quiet about that. Hero Shrew: I'm sure I'll like the way they taste, if I ever get the chance. All: ...... Flux: And moving right along- At least Dysprosium Dawn tech is more 'fifteen minutes into the future' than anything as advanced as dimensional engineering. Hero Shrew: I'm sure they WISH they had dimensional tech, so they could take Bags of Holding to their LARPs. Hero Shrew: Well, you still did better than I would have, pretending to be a member of PETA. 'We're against cruelty to animals - it's humans or nothing' Fireflash: Did we actually learn anything from this? Hero Shrew: Not really. Flux: I was distracted. GM: Yes - by shiny toys and cute techno-fetishist girls. Hardlight: So what next? Undersconsin? Hero Shrew: I bags riding shotgun! Fireflash: Let's just go back to base so we don't get into more trouble. GM: Good luck with that - this team... Flux: I got into trouble in my own apartment. Flux: You waved the Coins in front of us and off we went. GM: Yes, this really was a case of 'Chase the Shiny Thing'. One of these days I'll have to write the equivalent of aluminium foil rolled into a ball. At least we learned that both the Spinnerets and Dysprosium Dawn are recruiting Moreaus, which was news to Scooter, and the Voodoo Crew are apparently on speaking terms Dysprosium Dawn again. Listening in to police broadcasts informs us that one of the ECPD CAESER suits got taking out by a Booster. Hero Shrew: That's not good. Hardlight: But the CAESER suits got taken out by the Armadillo. Hero Shrew: Sure. And the Armadillo is an internationally recognised threat. Hardlight: .... good point. Fireflash: I guess I know who we'll be tracking down in the morning, then. Fireflash: Well, I'm going to bed. Flux: Same here. Hero Shrew: That's nice - I've got to get to my night job. GM: Yeah, the one that actually pays the bills. Which begs the question of whether Moreaus count as taxable entities. Hero Shrew: I'm sure we Moreaus do the exact same thing Mexican immigrants do - we pay every damn cent of tax we're supposed to. Hero Shrew: And after I've turfed out the last drunk, it's back home to collapse into bed, and wake up five minutes later to do it all again. Hardlight: One of these days you're going to crash, and crash hard. Hero Shrew: Hey, in this economy, you have to work two jobs. The Booster the police are after calls himself Ulysses Max. He's pretty heavily augmented, and wears an American flag bandanna at times. Hero Shrew: Well, at least he doesn't call himself American Made. There'd be too many jokes. He also has a reputation for level-headedness, so it's a bit strange that he got into a punch-up with the cops. Flux: Maybe we should have a talk with him, when we find him. There's something odd here. He also looks like a character from Mortal Kombat. Hero Shrew: I got banned from my local arcade - I kept breaking the strength tester. We split up to patrol the Booster's home turf. At least Ulysses Max should be on the streets. Flireflash: This is the Boosters. They're all about affectation. Hero Shrew: To be fair, that describes most of the gangs in Edge City. GM: He's not out on the streets. Hero Shrew: Smart move - WE might have forgotten about the surveillance Blimps, but... GM: Remember that Edge City developed an affectation of awnings on most buildings. Guess why. Fireflash: Well, time for Plan B - No Drugs Today. GM: Oh god, you're trying that again. Fireflash: I go with what works. GM: If only one of you had actually taken investigatory skills. Flux: Are we hounding their dealers again? Fireflash: Not exactly. We just choose a street corner. And sit there. All day. So no drugs get sold, no streetwalkers get any johns and if any cars slow down you wave at them and they drive off again. So, how do they react? Hardlight: They try and beat us up? Fireflash: They know that won't work. Hardlight: Are you sure? This is the Boosters we're talking about. Besides, they could just move. Fireflash: Not really - the dealers get assigned to a corner. GM: And the customers need to be able to find them. Hero Shrew: And they're only so far they can move and still be on Boosters turf. And as Fireflash predicts, it's not long until one of the Boosters members comes to find out why we're hassling them. We explain who we're after, and are told he's skipped town. Booster: Everybody knows you gotta lie low if you take out a Spambot. He might be with family in Vegas. Or Reno. There some who say he don't have family, he came outta a vat. Flux: Vegas. Oh, fucking wonderful. GM: Yes 'There's a suspected cyberpath within 20 miles of Las Vegas' 'Arm the anti-air missiles' Fireflash: Dead end then. Back to patrolling then. Two flyers, and two on the ground? Flux: Sounds good. Fireflash: *sotto voice* and it pairs up the sensible ones with the not-so-sensible ones. Hero Shrew: My ears are burning. GM: Sometimes I have to give you a few days to give up on a loose thread - you're like kittens chasing a piece of string in the breeze. Ravenholme Biotech have released a wrist-mounted hologram smartphone, that projects a weak forcefield as the screen surface. Hardlight: I'll have to tell the secretary to buy three - I have some reverse engineering to do. Hero Shrew: I'd be more worried about one interfering with your own forcefields. GM: Or if they both come for the same source technology. That graffiti that has been showing up around town - the double helix glyph and 'In the game of evolution diversity trumps uniformity' has been replaced by new graffiti - the same glyph, and 'The strongest weapons are forged in the heat of battle'. Hardlight: Well, that's ominous. Hero Shrew: *as a member of a persecuted minority* You might want to analyse that paint. Because it would not surprise me at ALL if somebody is trying to discredit the original artists. Hardlight: .... good point. We hit the internets - the second quote is apparently from Skyrim. Hardlight: It appears that it was done by geeks. Flux: Google is having trouble with 'trumps' though. And the slogan is getting airbrushed over a wider part of town this time. And is still appearing in inaccessible places, in less than a second. Fireflash: So we're after somebody with super-speed. Hero Shrew: And can fly, too. Hardlight: Superfast villain? Fireflash: It's just graffiti. Not much of a supercrime. Hero Shrew: Neither was modifying the monorail to make a mildly annoying noise. GM: It's all a question of scale. And two days later, there's a third round of slogans "Control oil and you control nations..." a misquote usually attributed to Kissinger. The rest of the quote is 'Control food and you control people'. Hardlight: I think we're being led on here. Flux: Either that or we're up against the Riddler. On the other hand, Edge City IS a centre for alternative foods. Not least because of the Moreau population. But Ravenholme do produce a lot of it. Hero Shrew: .... I think I'll start a cricket farm. Just in case. GM: Don't forget how young most of the Moreaus would have been at the time of the Breakout. Scooter was just a kid, for example. Hero Shrew: I was a little shrew. Already biting the ends off milk bottles. Ravenholme are, in fact, worried about this latest graffiti, but there's more than one food producer in Edge City that might be targeted. Fireflash and Flux start searching for likely targets. They do notice that the actual variety of Moreau foodstuffs is quite low - less than 30. Fireflash: Well, I know the next thing that LowellTech should invest in. GM: I'm interested to see that Drhoz (Hero Shrew) is following the logic that the Moreaus are a small, economically depressed population, but still worth targeting for consumables. And that appears to have been the graffiti artist's plan all along - to be cryptic until people actually notice this and start talking about. GM: Villain Success! But it is still vandalism. GM: You put the clues together and deduced the correct answer. Hero Shrew: For once. GM: I assume you'll make the press announcement that LowellTech will be expanding into sustainable farming, with LoCarb Developments, with an eye to diversifying the diet of California's Moreau population. Hardlight: *looks at Hero Shrew* Guess who's going to be on the front of the LowellTech food brand boxes! Hero Shrew: uuhhhhh... Flux: NOT the guy that looks like he should be on the poster for Jaws 6? And the company that's releasing domestic robots has also released details of the Laws of Robotics they'll be operating under. It turns out that they just cribbed the Ten Commandments, with humans standing in for god, and a good night's sleep in place of the sabbath. Hardlight: I can see a few ways around that. Hero Shrew OoC: There's a reason Asimov got so many stories out of loopholes in the Three Laws of Robotics.

Pathfinder - Streets of Magnimar - Politics and Other Mayhem In the freeport of Magnimar, built around a cyclopean bridge stuffed with giant spiders, and equally infested with gangsters, such as the player-characters. As the leader of the stevedore's union learned, after we murdered him. Harshal: At least the new head of the Stevedore's Union is a reasonable guy. GM: He'd prefer to not be killed in his bed. Gillert: Under the nose of magical security. Ys: Not enough people died, but it was a success. Harshal: Yes, well, if we ever have a problem with pirates harassing the ships leaving our docks, we'll send you on a working holiday. Gillert: We need to get a dedicated fence. Harshal: Hmm, maybe not - if we keep turning up to the same fence with stuff to sell... Gillert: There's a certain amount of trust involved. Ys: We can always buy the items. Harshal: A valid option. Gillert: You asked which one we should steal first! Harshal: No I did not - I asked which one we should go after first. I wonder about your preconceptions about your teammates, my friend. There's also a third option - Gillert can apply his magical knowledge and start crafting our own stuff. Harshal: So Gillert will actually be useful to the party. GM: OW. You know the appropriate response to that? Only memorise Invisibility and Vanish. 'Oh, you don't think I'm useful? Well F**CK the lot of you *snap fingers*' Ys gets approached by a mysterious figure who has somehow heard we're working on making a magical item, and offers to help as work faster and cheaper. She shows Ys her black-painted fingernails, which is connected to Ys' religious beliefs. This offer might actually be legitimate, as long as some of the funds get siphoned off to the relevant cult. And the enchanted kukri is indeed finished a little early. It's just a bit... quirky. It changes colour with the bearer's emotion. GM: 'It keeps changing colour' 'Well, that's fucking annoying' 'It just changed colour again.' 'Hmmmmmm' 'What's that colour mean?' ' I don't want to know.' Ys: I've got a freaking Mood Knife! Gillert: At least it's not the quirk that raises your voice by a couple of octaves. GM: *sings, high-pitched* 'We represent, the Lollipop Guild, The Lollipop Guild, the Lollipop Guild! We're here to kill you' Gillert: I made a magical item and nothing went wrong. Harshal: Then make another one. Also, those cloaked figures we encountered on the stormy night have been seen again, stalking the streets whenever the night is foggy. We could always try and identify The Flying Fox, that young Kitsune vigilante. Harshal: So, we go to the local high schools and target anybody with brightly coloured hair. GM: Hair dyes are a thing - this is Varisia! GM: Besides, you guys figured out she has five tails. Harshal: Which means she's probably too old to be in high school anyway, so my plan wouldn't have worked. Ys: I need to make some money. Harshal: Having some extra money you don't have to declare on your tax return is always useful. Zin: There's that key the Sczarni have in a fish tank. GM: A fish tank filled with Swamp Barracuda. Gillert: And there's no proof the key is for anything valuable. GM: It could just be thief bait. GM: Don't forget, the key to a good heist is having a buyer in mind. So we hit the various rumour mills. Comparing notes, we discover that one of Iria's friends from the Scholar's Circle, one Ticaria Korvaski, is seeking incriminating facts to use against one of the Council of Ushers, the advisors to the Mayor. Bumping off the Usher is also acceptable, apparently. Further rumours reveal that Ticaria has some proposal to make to the council, but she can't even get the proposal heard because she's being repeatedly blocked by one of the members. Ys: 'I WILL be fucking heard'. Ys: I'd rather kill them, but I'm sure the rest of you would prefer some kind of hold over the council members. Harshal: 'has the ear of Minister Fudge, has the confidence of Minister Fudge, probably has some highly embarrassing photos of Minister Fudge.' We decide to approach Ticaria, to see if she has any suspicions we can act on. After all, if we ransack the Usher's house looking for incriminating evidence we might just find that he gives half his income to orphanages, anonymously. Of course, we COULD just start a Convincing Lie about him, but it would still work better if we had something to base it on. Harshal: After all, the best lies are based on a kernel of truth. Our newspaper publishing friend has a new assistant, who's being doing an excellent job of finding stories to print. GM: She's kind of Harshal's counterpart when it comes to finding information. Harshal: She's an investigative journalist. Whereas I'm a blackmailer. As it happens, she knows exactly what Ticaria has been trying to propose - careful investigation of the interior of the bridge. Mini Firebrand: And they won't even hear her proposal! It's a symptom of the kneejerk policies of this entire city! Gillert: The monsters? That was centuries ago. Harshal: What can I say? The giant spider monsters made quite an impression. Parvo Crispin the Publisher: Now now, we're Magnimar's first newspaper, I don't want to make enemies. Ys: I thought a journalist's job is to report the news and raise hell. Parvo: If we raise hell the lead in the roofs will melt. A major roadblock in getting anything heard by the Council of Ushers is the Seneschal of Dates, a pinch-faced woman who seems to think highly of her own power. Gillert: So, we need to bump off a pencil-pusher. No, wait, forget I said that. Ys: Stop worrying. We need to bump off the right pencil-pusher, which isn't you. Harshal: At least on this particular occasion. We go to see the eccentric scholar Iria, to get an introduction to Ticaria. Iria: Zin! You're green! Zin: Um, I just molted. Iria: But kobolds don't usually change colour - tell me you kept the skin. Zin: .... no? Iria: Ah well, I'll just have to wait until you're dead. Which reminds me, you still need to sign that contract for your corpse. Ys: So, how have you been? Iria: I had cramps for the last few months - nothing serious, just some of my internal organs moving around. We explain our interest in Ticaria's proposal, and getting it heard by the Council. Iria: Is she still on about that? I presume you're going to want some kind of financial reimbursement for getting it through. Ys: Yes. Harshal: As facilitators. Iria: Well, I haven't seen 'Caria in a while. You should go ask Emelyn if he's seen her. Ys: Who? Iria: Emelyn? .... Are you kidding? You live in Underbridge and you haven't heard of Emelyn? Tall elf? Silver chain bracelet and signet ring like mine? Ys: .... you mean the Lorekeeper? Iria: Yes that's him. You really haven't talked to him before? That's funny - he talks about you all the time. All: .... Iria: You should talk to him. Hang on, breath into this first *offering a small vial, that turns purple when Ys breaths into it* Yeah, you really ought to go talk to him. The Lorekeeper has a cottage under the Irespan. With an animated skull on a post outside. Ys: I like this guy. Lorekeeper: You took your time. Ys: Iria sent me. Lorekeeper: I will have to thank her. His cottage is lined with oddments, and more skulls. Lorekeeper: Don't mind them - they're asleep. The Lorekeeper keeps the lore of those left behind, and those of blended blood, which is a bit odd given he's full-blood elf himself. Ys has a suspicion what this means, but isn't telling the rest of us. He has a suspicion why the council is against opening the Irespan, too - Irespan basalt is used in golem-making, but only from blocks that have naturally fallen from the ruins. It's possible the golem-works want to maintain their monopoly on the stone. Lorekeeper: If you want to find Ticaria try the Street of Taverns, and look for the most stereotypical Varisian woman in the room. It won't will be her. He's right, too - no brightly dyed hair, or bright colours, period. Instead she exhibits her flamboyance with a long coat and a wide-brimmed hat with a feather. Ticaria: Let me guess, the council are sending people to get me to move on now? Ys: Actually, we're here to ensure your proposal gets heard. Ticaria: Somebody has actually read it??? She raises a number of reasons sending adventurers into the Irespan will help the local economy, and simple ways to ensure that nothing untoward can get out, even if the adventurers come out again in a hurry. Harshal: It's not as though the giant spiders lay their eggs in people. Ticaria confirms that the Seneschal of Dates is the main bottleneck stopping the Council of Ushers from having to think about anything that might worry them. Harshal: So she's the one we have to kill. Gillert: But then nobody can get an appointment. GM: If nobody is getting appointments, then you're just made your problem everyone's problem. Ys: Why am I the one doing all the talking today? Harshal: In the case of the Lorekeeper, it's because you're both elves. Gillert: That's racist. But with Iria it's because we sent our creepy lady to talk to the other creepy lady.

Champions - Return to Edge City - Music For Balance And Harmony QUADRANT, Edge City's premiere (only) team of Superheroes (debatable) check their rolodexs for anybody that might help us figure out what's up with that weird music Howler arranged to have as city-wide entertainment. Fireflash's guidance counsellor puts her in touch with the local college, whose sound engineering students have been looking into it themselves. Fireflash: Tony Stark's most impressive achievement was creating a new element. Hero Shrew: Sure, but we're also talking about a guy who built a particle accelerator in his own house, and *stood next to it while it was on* The sound geeks aren't much help - they have no idea what kind of code might by encoded into the music. Hero Shrew: What about the frequencies that humans can't hear? Nerds: That's the funny thing - the output was almost entirely in the standard audible range. Hero Shrew: Well, I tried. Flux: Why are you and I evening here? Hero Shrew: I don't know about you, but I'm helping myself to some of the pizza the nerds have forgotten about while they argued. They did discover that there were nine different note sets being broadcast over the city, basically in a three-by-three grid that used the cloverleaf pattern of Edge City's unfinished monorail network. At least they ruled out it being some kind of Quake Trigger. Hero Shrew: Maybe Howler's plan wasn't meant to make sense - we're living in the kind of universe where the Joker thinks he can copyright fish. GM: You're talking DC, this is Champions. Mind you, this is a universe where aliens tried to cut the Florida peninsula away from the mainland, because somebody painted a dotted line and 'Cut Here' along the border. Flux: Wait, what? GM: The Criminal Legion Of Wacky Nonconformists. Flux: C L O ... oh god. These were the same guys that filled the Hollywood Bowl with Jello. GM: But this isn't a CLOWN Caper because then it would make more sense. It does occur to Hero Shrew to ask whether Howler's powers are mystical in origin, given the magical effect Flux discovered plastered over the city. They aren't - nobody knows where she gets her powers, but she's certainly stolen mystic shit in the past. Flux eventually resorts to contacting Witchcraft, in the remote chance she's not actually stopping a global threat somewhere. And eventually realises, with a facepalm, that the nine zones are actually a Feng Shui grid - a Bag wa map - laid out over the entire city. Hero Shrew: Can we get in contact with her and apologise? For example, the sector for Fame and Reputation also has most of Edge City's big-name businesses. Funny that. And the Corporate Circle within the business district itself ALSO reflects the Bag Wa map, to a lesser degree. And the southern end of town is the Front Door, and is the land connection to the rest of the state. Of course, having Marsden in the middle of the map doesn't help. GM: Yeah - there's a cancer in the middle of the city. Flux: This is such a weird thing to do. Hero Shrew: In Southern California? Flux: And now we've destroyed all the evidence. GM: 'Hulk Smash! Problem solved.' 'Actually we needed that intact to figure out what what's going on.' 'Hulk sorry. Fireflash: 'Hulk blue now' GM: Oh god no, the grey Hulk was bad enough, I don't want to see a blue one. GM: It's always possible Howler was trying to measure the Feng Shui of the city. Which would put it way outside Howler's area of expertise. She must have been setting this up for somebody else. Hardlight: Well, we need to find her and ask. And hope she doesn't shoot me in the face again. GM: It upset her enough the first time, when she thought she'd killed you. Flux: Let's find an expert. Chinatown might be obvious, if a little racist. Fireflash: So. Let's Google Chinese Musical Troupes in the area. GM: You. All. Have. Smartphones! How many times do I need to hit you with that clue bat? Flux: Something in the back of my head keeps saying 'Pathfinder. You Don't Know Shit.' Hero Shrew: I'm going to check the supervillain forums and see if they have anything on Feng Shui. GM: Not much Hardlight: Only Dr. Lin Wu. Hero Shrew: Yeah, should probably hope it isn't him. He's the one having an ongoing argument with the Chinese military and government, about who should be the next Emperor. He says him. The Chinese government disagrees. A few new threads do start on the forums, while Hero Shrew is surfing - Feng Shui sabotage of Edge City! But's it all pure speculation. Perhaps there's a connection between Hexagrams and the music? Hero Shrew: If you want to have an argument about octaves and musical scales, we can always go back and talk to the music geeks. GM: Actually, there is such a thing as i Ching music. But the Feng Shui expert we consult does agree that the Bag Wa map for Edge City IS a good match for traditional Feng Shui, not the debased Southern California variety, and is a little worried because Edge City was a planned conurbation. If the big fusion reactor had actually worked as intended, the city would be thriving on a mystic level as well as economic, because its placement was ideal. Of course, the city had to lay off most of the planners when everything went tits up, so tracking the planners down might be tricky. On the other hand, Wing Kong Constructions were heavily involved in the early plans, and it's entirely likely that they wanted to ensure their own success. Flux: So, how do we proceed from here? Walk in? Pretend to be somebody else? Hardlight: Pretend, hell, if this is all Feng Shui I want to incorporate it into the power network. GM: Yeah, you're forgetting that your team includes a weirdness magnet with an interest in infrastructure. And you're the one that told him his energy source is mystic in nature. GM: Feng Shui is a big big deal in Edge City, and nobody knew. Or at least it wasn't public knowledge. Flux: Time to open the Tablet of Khedjamith. GM: Wing Kong Constructions still have most of the infrastructure maintenance contracts. Hero Shrew: And are they using jackhammers as acupuncture needles? GM: Well, properly timed roadworks DO change the flow of chi through the city. Flux: You've just told me that the energy flow of the city is almost perfectly aligned! GM: And it was all by accident! It helps that your GM is a student of the occult. I get to use Feng Shui and it's not shoehorned in! Of course the Taoist is delighted! Flux: Hopefully it's not all a plan to open the hellmouth. Hero Shrew: Where's that Helgate Institute again? Flux: SON OF a BITCH. Hero Shrew: It could all be innocent, despite involving Howler. It's not in Wing Kong's interest to harm the city. GM: Howler does have perfect pitch and sound powers. That's a very limited skill set. Hero Shrew: Well, we should still check. I'll go in as your bodyguard. I just have to look stupid, which isn't difficult. I'll try not to scratch too much. Flux will sneak in while Hardlight and Hero Shrew go in openly to see if it's all legit. One problem - there won't be A secret room, because where the secret would be depends on what kind of secret it is. GM: Feng Shui and the I Ching seem to be very important to this company. GM: I will make you this promise - there's no deathless Chinese sorcerer at the heart of all this. That the Wing Kong building has an internal octagonal well/atrium is suddenly making a lot more sense now, too. Hardlight (in his civilian ID) and Hero Shrew (as Lowell's bodyguard) make an appointment to see one of the original planners. GM: Do you have any reputation or fame? Hero Shrew: Well, I have a *reputation* Alex Yu is a bit surprised to see us, anyway. Alex Yu: So, what can Wing Kong do for Lowelltech? Hardlight: Well you know we're installing a communications network for the city? Alex Yu: Yes, I read it all in the business blogs. You and Centurytech, amirite? Your coverage is pretty good, apart from the grey area around Marsden. Between Dysprosium Dawn and the Sanity Liberation Front, the city is getting a bit annoyed. Eventually Hardlight gets around to the matter at hand - collaborating with Wing Kong to ensure the data network is properly in tune with the energy flows of the city. Yu seems happy to discuss it, cheerfully admits that Feng Shui has been an important part of Wing Kong since they were first established, and suggests a good neighborhood to put the data monitoring services in. Elsewhere, Flux is trying to sneak into the building, and track down any suspicious magical energies. Not easy, since the entire 88-floor building is magical. On the other hand if he just wears a good suit, carries a clipboard, and pretends to wave a card in front of the reader a few seconds after somebody else goes through the security door, he can wander about pretty much at will. Nice to see that real world security failures apply just as easily in a superhero universe. On the other hand, he can only use his Cyberpathy on a computer if the computer is switched on, since he bought it as a form of Telepathy. And it's still a magical spell. GM: 'By the Hoary Hosts of Haggoth! By the spirits of Jobs and Gates!' Flux: If there's anybody else in the room I'll just tell them it's a rubber chicken moment. GM: Sadly there isn't - but if you get too loud somebody in the other room will wonder what all the noise is. 'Divulge Thy Secrets or Thou Will Never Receive Thy Cheeseburgers!' GM: The computer systems have noticed that they're being hacked - but since you're using Cyberpathy the source of the attack is making no sense. What he's finding is that EVERYTHING in the Wing Kong archives is related to Feng Shui somehow. He at least prunes it down to a list of some 30 individuals that were actually involved in the design of the city, back in the day. After we leave and meet up. Hero Shrew: So, you're our data monkey, what did you find out? Flux: .... data monkey. Here, take this phone book, I'm going to bed. Hardlight: We're up against another brick wall, aren't we? Hero Shrew: That's because we're not very imaginative. GM: Well, you are trying to find a particular pebble on a gravel road. Hardlight: We need to narrow it down to the white ones. Flux: ... what? Hardlight: Or black. Flux: .... Hero Shrew: He's talking about the colour of the pebbles, not people. Flux: Ohhhhhhhh. The shrew suggests running the more likely names past Fireflash's FBI contact, in case he or she has been connected to super-villain activity before. Hero Shrew: It might be prejudicing our investigation though. Hey, I know big words like prejudicing. Flux: A Moreau knows prejudice. How about that. Hero Shrew: Hey, I've experienced prejudice. Just don't ask me to spell it. Hardlight: I'm worried that we've ruined something that was actually good for a city. Hero Shrew: They DID hire a supervillain for the heavy lifting. Hardlight: So, how do I get in contact with a supervillain? Hero Shrew: Facebook? GM: Going by previous campaigns, saying "Who? Are they they important?" on camera. Flux: 'Howler says 'My Boobs Aren't Real!' Film at Eleven. Hardlight: No, that's how I get killed for real. Fireflash's FBI contact didn't find any known supervillain contacts from our list of names, but cast their net a bit wider and found that one of them vanished off the grid 8 years ago - no death reported, and their accounts have been untouched. One Qui Zhen Kang. And she lives, or lived, in the worst part of Marsden, where each apartment block is so set against all their neighbours that none of the gangs have ever managed to unify them. Hero Shrew: We'll probably just find out she died eight years ago, and has been eaten by her cats. Flux: Since you're a Moreau that's a bit creepy. On several levels. The apartment block is in the heart of the estate, overlooking a plaza area. Hero Shrew: Everybody remember, we are not a home to Mr Grenfell Tower. Hardlight: Yeah, let's NOT set the place on fire. Hardlight: What a sight we make - four superheroes in full gear trudging up the stairs. GM: The Avengers you ain't. Voice: Who there? Hero Shrew: Hello? We need to talk to you? Voice: I gave down town! Flux: What? Hero Shrew: We're not after money, we need to talk to Qui Zhen Kang about Feng Shui and Howler's whole audio engineering of the city thing. Voice: I don't know any by that name! I've lived here 5 years! I don't know nothing, I ain't heard nothing! GM: You ARE four superheroes having a shouted conversation and asking for information, in the most gang-infested part of Edge City. Flux: We need to talk to the building superintendent. GM: You can usually find the super on the ground floor. Hero Shrew: Actually, all the supers are on this floor Super: Yeah, she moved out - didn't put her furniture in storage, either. About the same time that Feng Shui Triad gang vanished? Huh, they called themselves a Triad, not a Tong. And the real Triads never did anything about it. That never occurred to me before. The Feng He Shui Triad - Wind And Water Triad - have a rather interesting record with the FBI. I.e. Barely any record at all, despite the fact that apparently control four entire suburbs of Edge City, which is practically unheard of. And those suburbs are all in the 'Wealth and Abundance' part of Edge City, going by the Bag Wa map of town. Flux: That's a big area to search. Hero Shrew: So, short of flying around all four suburbs looking for a particular Chinese woman... and I can already see exactly how racist that's going to get. We go to the infobrokers. Fireflash: I don't think we've pissed them off lately - they might actually talk to us. GM: Remember that of the four of you, only one of you was unaffected by that Fear aura. Hero Shrew: Hey, I'm a shrew, we're like that. Fireflash: Never got your quota of fear. Hero Shrew: We're like very small dogs, but more so. Spinneret Infobroker: Since you don't seem to be aware, I'm going to tell you this free - we deal in influence, information, and coin. And I do not mean dollars and cents. Do you understand what I mean? Fireflash: Unless you mean bitcoin, no. Infobroker: If you don't know, you don't have any. But you've been of use to us the past, so consider all debts squared. Scooter has actually heard that the underworld use Krugerrand as hard currency. Hero Shrew: It's like that movie. You know. Fireflash: John Wick? Hero Shrew: Lethal Weapon. Hardlight: *sighs, and phones his executive assistant* Clarissa? GM: Scooter doesn't actually know if Edge City gangsters use krugerrand. Just gangsters in general. Flux: Well, that was a bust. Fireflash: No, this a bust *goes to flash Flux* Flux: ... well, she's legal now. Fireflash: Not yet. *snicker* Flux: Do we want to ask the Voodoo Crew? GM: Do you REALLY want to make another deal with them? Flux: Well, they do deal with major magical threats. Fireflash: No they don't - they co-OPT major magical threats. Hero Shrew: Well, we could pass the word along, as a token of respect. GM: Sure, if you want to kick off a magical war between the Voodoo Crew and a magically active gang that's managed to keep off everybody's radar for the last ten years. GM: Sorry, got distracted by pictures of the Spinnerets. Hero Shrew: Hardly surprising. Flux: Considering how they dress - that's the point. GM: But they're not supposed to distract the GM! If they're that good, it's campaign over, they win. Flux sets up some surveillance. Flux: But I think we're going to have to shake up some druggies. Hero Shrew: Did you just say 'shake UP'? Well, I can do both. And other stuff. 'What happened to him?' ' He fell up the stairs' ' It's supposed to be down, you're just trying to confuse me!' At this point we decide to put the problem on the back-burner - Flux's secret cameras will need time to gather the info we need anyway. Flux: So, lunch? Hardlight: I know a good shawarma place. All: ... GM: We've had this conversation - between Tony Stark and Justin Hammer, which one do you honestly think you're more like? One result of our surveillance - we spot a deal underway between the Spinnerets and Sovereign Chrome, the Bay Park Industrial gang. The latter gang member completes the deal and leaves on his motorbike. Flux: Hmm. GM: Just let him get out of Marsden and mug him - you ARE a vigilante after all. Hero Shrew: How about we just drive up alongside him, open the side door of the van, and I just lean out and yank him in? Hardlight: Sounds like a plan! Hero Shrew: *yoink* Hi there. Hardlight: Halt citizen! We have ques- Ganger: My bike! Hero Shrew: *looks at Hardlight* You were supposed to bubble the bike. Hardlight: I thought you were dealing with the bike! Hero Shrew: He's paying for your bike. Ganger: You have money? Hero Shrew: eh, rewards and stuff *trying to keep Hardlight's millionaire industrialist civilian ID secret* Hardlight: What supers don't have money? *failing to conceal the size of his bank account* Hero Shrew: Well, for a start, Spiderman. GM: The bike has already caused a traffic accident. You guys don't need a J. Jonah Jameson, the media already consider you a threat to public safety. GM: Do you even have any questions for him? Hardlight: Er, um, halt citizen, we, I, er. GM: Riiiight. Hardlight: I keep acting like Superman in circumstances where I should by acting like Batman. Flux: Some of the abilities of Green Lantern, but none of the police powers. Diet Green Lantern. GM: Diet Mountain Dew Green Lantern. All cat piss, no sugar. Hardlight scans the ganger and spots the weird coins in his jacket pocket. Hardlight: Well, what are you using them for? Ganger: ... *condescendingly* To buy things. Hero Shrew: We KNOW they're buying stuff with them, Hardlight, we want to know where they're getting them from. Hardlight: Oh, right. Little help? Flux: You got yourself into this, you get yourself out. GM: You're publicly known supervillains. I mean, heroes. Flux: After this day's work we might need to change career paths. The coins are odd plastic and metal disks, stamped with chemical symbols matching whatever Rare Earth metal is contained within. They certainly aren't standard currency anywhere we're ever heard of, although each is stamped with weight in Troy ounces and average value of the pure metal. Fireflash: Can I pay you one dollar for this $1 cerium coin? Ganger: No? Fireflash: Can I pay you 10 dollars for it? Ganger: OK? Hero Shrew: Now, how are you going to pay for his bike? Hardlight: OK, what's your bank account? Ganger: I'm not going to tell you! Hardlight: Can I see your phone for a minute? Ganger: I'm not unlocking it for you! Hardlight: I'm trying to transfer some funds to you! Ganger: I'm still not unlocking it, you've got him! Flux: Don't look at me, I'm having nothing to do with this mess. GM: Besides, real criminals use Bitcoin. Hardlight: *Sigh* pull over. You will be reimbursed for the damage to your bike, citizen. Hero Shrew: Did we go back to pick up the bike? Hardlight: No, I wired the money to Flux, he'll hack it into the guy's account. Flux: I don't remember this. Hardlight: I sent you the money! GM: Did you get a receipt? We take the weird coin around to find out where it might have come from. Hellstrom Institute: Shit be whack, yo. For one thing, the coin isn't plastic - it's a single flawless crystal of sugar. It's possibly connected to the Black Harlequin, who is technologically sophisticated and insane enough to mint coins out of quantum-locked sugar crystals. On the other hand, the coins don't turn into candies, and aren't filled with plutonium, so maybe it isn't Black Harlequin. On the other hand, whatever coins are circulating are going to end up in Dysprosium Dawn's hands, since they're eager to get their hands on any rare earths that they can get, and will be trading furiously to get them. GM: Next session is going to be fun - if Marsden was a swimming pool, you've just dropped an appropriately sized cherry bomb into it. And it's going to splash all over the city.

Pathfinder : Streets of Magnimar - Not Nice People Our innocent fun in the freeport of Magnimar, which currently involves dealing with a stevedore union agitator, because he's impacting on our profits. If this was 20th Century America we'd just hire the Pinkertons, but since it's Pathfinder we have to murder him ourselves. GM: I can't wait until Tannis finds out you're going with a Ys plan. Harshal: I'll just tell him that every day we don't kill these union pricks we're losing money - I'm sure that will get him on board. Distracted by Pokemon again - Harshal's player: I mean, I wouldn't put it past him, but imagine the problems Ghenghis Khan would have had with his conquest of Eurasia, when ALL THE HORSES ARE ON FIRE. GM: I had to do 4 nights work to prep for this session, because you went with a Ys plan. And Ys plans can be summed up as 'There's no problem that can't be solved by killing enough people.' Harshal OoC: It's not so much that we're the kind of party that would go 'can we steal that?', but that we're the kind of party where 'can we steal that?' Is IN CHARACTER. GM: And if one of you does steal a Wishing Ring, and the rest of you find out, you go 'Where's my cut?'. Harshal: How the hell has a stevedore managed to hire 15 magical mercenaries? GM: That has been a subject of much speculation. Ys: There much be someone behind them. Gillert: Well, if you manage to get in there, there sure will be. The head of the protection detail is somebody from Alchenstar. Ys: So watch out for guns. The mercenaries all dress expensively, with the Quattro Elementi pendant. Harshal: How much do you want to bet the pendants are enchanted. GM: Actually they're not, since they change them every few seasons. They all wear carefully tailored bandoliers, too. They're also bedazzled with sanctified rings that will alert the others if one of the team is killed or the ring removed. Gillert: Removed from the person or removed from the finger? GM: From the person - so cutting their finger off will still trigger the alert. And their leader has something literally hidden up his sleeve. Ys: I have a solution - Drow Poison. GM: Well, it's true that arcane casters are rarely known for their poison resistance. Gillert: What is Drow Poison made of? Tannis: Crushed drow. Gillert: Ha. Tannis: Actually it's the tried tears of a sapient being extracted under torture. Ys: I have no problem with this. Tannis: I was making it up - but it does sound like something they'd do. Gillert: Now now, everybody knows that all the drow are noble and misunderstood, trying to change their society. Ys: Actually, all the 'good' drow were murdered by the rest of the species, and everybody else that enjoys good fantasy novels. Ys: I'm going to buy the ingredients for the poison. From four different vendors - Heisenberg was a good teacher. Harshal: Either way, while Ys is brewing the poison, I'll go through the motions of trying to negotiate a peaceful solution with the union, so we'll look innocent when the entire family turns up crucified. GM: His main problem with the kobolds is the precedent it sets - what's to stop the city allowing in more kobolds, and the kobolds taking the halfling's jobs? Or Lizardmen replacing the hull scrapers at the docks? They can hold their breath much longer than humans. Harshal: Hmm... good point. Where can we hire some lizardfolk? GM: He's also raising paranoia about the fact that nobody knows where the kobolds are living - or how many there are. Gillert: You still have that Convincing Lie feat don't you? Harshal: Sure GM: Ah - the Muckraking Journalism feat. Harshal: Time to go see our broadsheet printing friend. 'The kobolds are living underground of course, where they're busily exterminating the goblin nests.' GM: I'd suggest 'planning to'. Zin: Otherwise people will want to see the bodies. Zin: Can I make a gas trap from the poison? Ys: Normally I'd be all for it, but I don't think this group would fall for it. GM: I reserve the right to actually put you up against competent security. We split up the various Cure Light Wounds potions in the group stash as seems appropriate. GM: I like working it out this way - no whining about 'But I only this many in my personal stash!' Harshal: We are both evil AND practical. Tannis: It's a good idea to keep the platinum bars in the stash so when the inevitable backstabbing starts and we're all trying to beat each other to it, we can have all the flashbacks about who moved the stash first. Harshal: Or replaced it with a fake. Ys: And which one, fake or real, is coated with the contact poison. Gillert: 'I seek the Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies, by van Klump' GM: Those suits of gladiatorial armour will be most valuable if sold as a set. Harshal: As long as the sale can't be traced back to us. Ys uses that Hand of Glory she acquired to silently attach a grappling hook to the roof of the target's home, and up we go. There are magical mercs in the room beyond, but while they're all relaxed none of them are going to be easy to surprise. Might as well rush in and attack with poisoned weapons and blow darts. Too bad they were carrying Thunderstones. With four of us now half-stunned and deaf, and the high likelihood that everybody else in the house is awake, we face a drastic increase in the difficulty of the job. On the other hand... Quattro Elementi Merc: F**k - we were trained for this - First Step - Use the Thunderstone. Second Step - DON'T BE IN THE RANGE OF THE THUNDERSTONE. But he still manages to cast Beguiling Gift and throw a pair of manacles at Gillert. Merc: Here - put these on. Harshal rushes in and runs one of them through with his rapier - at least HIS magical ring only reports to the guy Ys has already dealt with. GM: You dealt with them fast enough that you might still pull this off. Ys: You hold the door, I'll go and start murdering people. Ys bashes the bedroom door open. GM: Darkskinned fellow in a chair next to the bed. He does not look happy. Tannis: Ruh-roh. Harshal: Get those manacles off Gillert! Zin: Why did you put these on?? GM: Gillert is deaf - oh, wait, you have lip-reading. Gillert: *flips Zin two birds* GM: You two, since you're not deaf, hear a loud 'F**ck!' from the bedroom doorway. And then the head mercenary Colour Sprays the corridor. Harshal: F**cking competent security. With our prime murder-make disabled, Harshal has to rush in to try and deal with the wizard. Not ideal. At least Harshal avoids getting skewered on the wizard's own rapier. Ys: I can see! And there's a schmuck fighting Harshal. Tannis: The bad guy is.... wait. GM: You really need to realign your thinking in this game. There's a bad guy next to you. There's two bad guys ganging up on an innocent spellslinger in the bedroom. And you're the bad guy tipping a wardrobe across the other door. Gillert: And this is why I drink. The wizard swigs a potion of Sanctuary, which makes it hard for us to hit him unless he attacks us first. Now Tannis has to go after the original target, hold a knife to his throat, and order the merc to stand down. Tannis: We are here to deliver a message. Wizard: Then deliver it - the honour of Il Quattro Elementi is at stake, and we will not allow our client to come to harm. *Messages his team to stand down* Harshal: *hurriedly improvising, and lifts the target by the front of his nightshirt* Tell your backer that we will not spare your life, if he continues to interfere in ours. Stevedore: Sure! You're here, he isn't, that makes you more scary! Ys, still deaf, and missing this entire exchange, has been waiting for the Sanctuary to wear off, and continues where she left off. The truce disintegrates. The wizard shoots Ys with his handgun, and things get loud and bloody until various people get stabbed to death. Fortunately for us, it's all the other guys. GM: Yes, you're up against competent security, but they're having problems. Partly because Tannis jammed a chest of drawers between two of the doorways in the corridor, and now neither can open. Harshal: Well, the first thing I'm going to do is drag something over to one of the other windows, to throw out when we're about to leave. That way security will hear the crash and thump while we're actually escaping from the other end of the house. Harshal: Somebody cut off the wizard's head so they can't talk to him later. Gillert: Will they do that? Harshal: I'm pretty sure il Quattro Elementi will want descriptions of whoever killed two of their members. Ys: They can probably afford a Raise Dead, but the body needs to intact for that. Resurrection is MUCH more expensive. Harshal: Thought so. The wizard's head is going to be crab bait. Get on that. Zin: So that's why Sift is a bard spell - you can grope somebody at a distance. Gillert: Do we have time to get the mithril shirt off the wizard? Harshal: It IS a shirt, not plate armour. And you won't have a problem with the neck hole since Ys is cutting his head off. GM: Decapitation isn't THAT easy. Ys: Just as well I have a boarding axe. Harshal: We were supposed to killing the stevedore and his entire family. GM: You really think you could get the rest of them now? Harshal: To be honest? No. Time to tick this job off as 'Close Enough' I think. Of course this scrabbling around is complicated by the fact that half of us are still deaf, which doesn't help when Harshal misses the jump to the neighbouring rooftop, and is left dangling by his fingers in full view of one of the mercenary bowmen down in the alleyway. Harshal: I find this situation an affront to my racial heritage. Gillert OoC: What??? Harshal OoC: I'm from the Spire Clan. GM: They live on cliffs - he should have made that easily. The merc's thistle arrow parts Harshal's hair, as Ys and Zin help him up. GM: I need another jump check from you all. Harshal: Natural 20. I think that arrow gave me extra impetus. A few more leaps and our rooftop escape is complete - we go back into full stealth mode and return to the boat we salvaged. Ys OoC: I'm not that good at stealth games. Harshal OoC: What's the one where you disguise yourself with a cardboard box? GM: What???? Gillert OoC: Metal Gear. GM: Critical segue failure - GM derailed. Gillert goes through the loot he collected. GM: *blah blah blah* and a flask of Alchemist's Kindness. That's what these guys consider essential equipment. Harshal: What's Alchemist's Kindness? Gillert: Contraceptive. GM: What? No, it's a hangover cure. It also includes one of the il Quattro Elementi's treatise on the essential skills of their group - part philosophy text, part training manual. There's also a peculiar quote that the magical mercs think is important. "We are the promise, delivered to all mankind. We raise our hand to one nation. We march to the beat of one heart." Harshal: That seems oddly nationalistic, to an unspecified nation. And the grooming kits we lifted will come in handy when we're cleaning up and disposing of blood-spattered gloves, masks, etc. Harshal: Well, we killed the ones that could actually identify us. I'm not counting the target because it was a dark room anyway. Gillert holds up the severed head of the wizard-merc. Gillert: What are we going to do with Mr Happy? Which I made sure to carry in the waterproof sack so we didn't leave a blood trail. GM: I noticed. Ys: Head, a few rocks, a non-waterproof sack, into the bay. Harshal: Problem solved. At least we're not the only ones with a reason to want that stevedore firebrand dead - and hopefully when Harshal heads around to continue the charade of negotiating the union dispute, they'll actually accept our offer to pay the kobold's union dues. Harshal: Kobolds are culturally socialist anyway - joining a union fits them nicely. Ys: I was just annoyed that our docks weren't getting fixed. Harshal: It's true - and there's any number of smugglers that would be highly pissed that nothing was getting ashore. Harshal does note that there's still il Quattro Elementi mercs around the union building when he arrives - whoever sunk so much money into backing the stevedore must be getting his money's worth. One of the mercs is Errata, a Tianese women in silken ceremonial armour. Errata: Mister Stasny? Harshal: Yes? I believe we talked briefly two days ago? Errata: That is correct. There was an incident last night - we... failed in our contract. Harshal: Ah? Errata: I must ask you to return tomorrow, once the union members have elected a new representative. Harshal: Well, these things happen. I'll go inform the kobolds (But I won't start whistling happily until I'm around the corner). Errata: We will continue to offer our services to whoever they elect. Harshal OoC: Well THAT gives me pause. But the replacement proves much more reasonable, and accepts the kobolds as members. Harshal: Just goes to show that you can solve any political problem if you kill enough candidates. GM: You realise this just justifies Ys' philosophy? Gillert: Yes - we could become rulers of an entire city-state if we kill everybody else in the country. Harshal: I'm glad you agree. Gillert: I wasn't being serious! Harshal: Keep telling yourself that. There's all those magical items around town too, that we can buy (or steal). Gillert: Staff of Passage? Yes, I think we'll steal that. 'And how will you get out?' Staff. Of. Passage. And of course there was our plan to farm adventurers. Harshal: Send them into the bridge to hunt spider-monsters. Gillert: There's laws against messing with that. GM: Yes, and you were going to have them changed. I mean, it's bad game design - there's a built-in dungeoncrawl on your doorstep and nobody is allowed in. It's not that difficult to stop them getting out. Harshal: Some kind of airlock, with murderholes. GM: And disclaimers for the adventurers to sign - if you go in here, you might not get out. Because if we see spiderbeasts after you, we're not opening the gate. Not that they're actual spiders - they're abominations. Zin: Eight-legged Freaks. But the GM does confirm that docks we had repaired have added measurably to the prosperity of Magnimar. This goes a long way towards explaining why there hasn't been any fallout from the assassination. A lot of the power-players in Magnimar are pretty sure that the union trouble was a failed power-play by one of them, and know that our group is not just a bunch of nobodies that can be bullied around.

Pathfinder - Streets of Magnimar : Storm This week's pre-game banter included Medieval wedding annulments, the purpose of Regency dance cards, and what the f**k is up with Pokemon? As for the game itself, we've stolen a haunted book and now need to get it home, despite the fact that storm is now hurricane-force. Zin: So... I'm about to go out into a torrential storm.. strapped to a book that keeps telling me that I'm going to die cold and alone. Harshal: Do we need to put a leash on you? As it is, ALL of us of apart from Ys succumb to the Fear effect, leaving Gillert and Harshal running gibbering off across the lawn, while Ys holds Zin down as Zin frantically tries to get the book untied from his chest. Just as well the storm is so bad that the guards are all sheltering the atrium out the front of the house. And just as well the loot is heavy enough to stop Zin blowing away with the wind. On the other hand, Harshal's candle-lantern blows out as he's running around. He runs flat-out into the garden wall, which he can't see in the darkness and rain. GM: Well, you'll find him no problem. Harshal: OW! Zin: Please don't wrap me in wire, it hurts. Ys: Don't worry, I'm not going to kill you by accident. If I did kill you, it would be because I meant to. Ys: Do any of you have any rope? Harshal: Yes! Ys: 50 feet? Harshal: Yes! Ys: We're using 20ft of it to tie up Zin! GM: You realise this is more DO YOU HAVE ANY ROPE? You *are* out in a hurricane. Ys: We're going to keep Zin 30ft behind us. Harshal: Let's hope he doesn't dive in a sewer or start climbing a wall. Gillert: I can just imagine running into one of the Guard - "What are you doing?" "Taking our kobold for a walk" And the city gates are closed for the night so we can't go around the long way. Zin: Sure would be great if we had some Hurricane Camels. All: *look around hopefully, but nobody appears* Zin: Ah well - you can't really summon Crazy Hassan. Harshal: At nobody who's up to any good will be out in this weather. Ys: True. Harshal: Which way are we going again? Ah, I see - I was getting confused with the earlier robbery of the solicitor. Gillert: We do tend to burgle a lot of places. Harshal: They blend together after a while. We stagger blindly down the street against the gale, trying to stop our leashed kobold from turning into a kite. Harshal: So, what exactly did a dragon f**k to make kobolds? GM: Nothing. As far as anybody can tell, kobolds are just one of the degenerate races. Either that, or lots of halflings. We are forced to detour through the park when Gillert spots a line of lights out on the street ahead of us, searching for something. Ys: Everyone into the bush! GM: So you're all hiding in the one bush. With the book. Gillert: Oh f**k. 'What's that?' 'Just a Wailing Bush' The searching figures are masked in iron, and cloaked and carrying sunrods. Ys also notes that they aren't moving right - there's no bob or shuffle in their steps. And then Harshal, Ys, and Gillert succumb to the Fear. Harshal: Drop the rope and run! Ys OoC: Just as well it's tied to my wrist... which I'll have to try and undo as I run, because of the Fear. F**k. Harshal gets lost, hovering awkwardly at the edge of the searchers' light, and can't find the bush again. Gillert recovers soon enough to come back, before Ys can get the rope untied. Gillert: Well, I'm not helping the crazy stabby lady - I'll leave her to it. Gillert: Where's Harshal? Ys: I don't know. Let's just go. Gillert: Well, the worst thing that could happen is that he goes over the cliff. Ys: He'll find his way in this world or the next. Let's just move. GM: This pictures shows you just how high the cliffs are. Gillert: If only the weather was that lovely. Harshal OoC: So, who wants to bet that those searchers are entirely unconnected to the book? Any takers? Gillert OoC: I'm not a gambling man. GM: I can't believe you continue to associate with this group. Harshal OoC: Possibly just taking his life into his hands by associating with us is enough to feed his gambling addiction. They get a little further when a voice calls "Stop there!" Ys: Uh-oh. Voice: Now why do I get the impression you just left the Scalani estates? Ys: I don't say anything. Voice: Going to play it that way, are you? I guess I'll be searching your corpses. Ys: What do you want? Voice: Whatever Riley of the Silks paid you to steal. Ys: Not going to happen. Voice: Corpse-searching it is then. GM: Time to roll initiative - not that you can tell where this guy even is. And whoever it is is also a spellcaster. Voice: *casts Shackle* Ys: This is not the time for sexytimes. If we survive this, look me up later. At least the fight is loud enough for Harshal to hear it, and head to assist. Of course, by the time he gets there, the fight is over, happily in our favour. Ys: Ah, Harshal. There you are. Harshal: Who's this? Gillert: Boyfriend. Ys: Maybe. Gillert: We didn't kill him. Harshal: Just as well - Riley IS paying us a bonus if we don't kill anybody. Gillert: I don't remember that. Wait, why am I, of all people, arguing in favour of murder? We rob the unconscious attacker of his wand, mystery goggles, book bag, thieve's tools, etc, and press on, occasionally delayed by Zin's screaming fits. We see more lights in the distance. Ys: What the f**k are all these people doing out in this weather! Harshal: I'm going to have pneumonia by morning at this rate. We recognise the searcher, this time - one of the wizards attached to the City Guard, out looking for anybody using the storm as cover for nefarious activities. But to the GM's disappointment, our use of the rope means we keep Zin and the Fear effect at arm's length, and we avoid the encounter without more screaming and running around. GM: I did not expect the toddler leash. Riley of the Silks pays up. Zin: Great! Now get this thing off me! The gear we looted off Ys' erstwhile boyfriend is interesting too - his book bag is magical and locked, his wand sprays Magic Missile, and the lenses of his googles are distinctly enchanted. Zin vanishes for a few days, and comes back bright green. Harshal OoC: So, do we call you Kermit now? Zin recognises the sets of armour we stole, from his time as a Chellaxian slave - it's the matching masterworked armour of a pair of famous Chellax gladiators, who got set up as a pair in a grand melee combat because of and spite, and managed to win against the mob anyway and went on a pair until they'd earned enough to retire. Although they were notably completely ruthless from the time of the set-up, up until their disappearance. The armour and the the rest of the outfits are going to be hard to shift, precisely because someone is likely to recognise them. The storm also damaged our docks, and the skilled dockworkers are refusing to work for us, because we use Zin's kobolds as unskilled dock labour. And the stevedores are refusing to unload any ships that use our docks. Harshal: Ah. Union trouble. Ys: I'll find out who's in charge. Gillert: So, do we negotiate the modern way, or...? Ys: Oh, believe me, I'm going to use the old fashioned way. GM: Might be a problem - the chief troublemaker has hired Il Quattro Elementi as protection. Ys: Great - when I kill him, it'll prove that not even iL Quattro Elementi was able to save him. The magically-inclined mercenaries' elements are Grace, Poise, Movement and Magic, and their combat style is apt. GM: Believe it or not I got this from a My Little Pony fanfic. The group is also increasingly well-regarded in Varisia, because their attitude fits well with Varisian values. Harshal: So when we take this guy out we have to make sure any blowback falls on somebody we don't like. Zin: So... snipe him from 100 yards away? Harshal OoC: So, all we need now is a grassy knoll - where can we get a hyena-man and some marijuana? Ys: We don't want to just kill him - we need to make an example of him. Gillert - can you do sound suppression? He can't, but that book pouch we stole was linked to a spellbook in hammerspace that had a suitable spell, and we can probably find somebody to inscribe a scroll of it. Ys: So, we break in and kill everything in the house. Harshal: And crucify the cat. Ys: No, no, the cat can't testify. Harshal: Hands up everybody who has talked to a fox this year. Ys: OK, good point, we get the cat too. Ys: We could introduce them to a certain block of mud. Day-Z the Undead Cow: MMMMMMOOOOOOOO. Harshal: That's true - crumble a bit of the mud into their stewpot and the entire family will be dead of enteric anthrax within the week. GM: And so will you. Ys: Hey, we can wear gloves. Gillert: If any of them get plague no-one will want to deal with them anyway. GM: And you say you can't role-play bastards. Keep tracking that alignment shift... We make discrete enquiries to see what is available by way of magical gear - there's a LOT of stuff, but most of it is beyond our budget. GM: But you guys are the kind of people who would go 'Can I steal that?'

Champions - Return to Edge City : Even Louder GM: When last we met- Flux OoC: We were standing on top of a tower GM: Actually you'd just been blasted off it. Fireflash OoC: So are we Team Rocket? GM: Well, I suppose you could make a good Jessie if you cosplayed her. Hero Shrew OoC : I assume you're talking Fireflash and not Flux, there. Flux OoC: So, we're starting in the middle of a fight. GM: Well, yes, you DO remember the cliffhanger from last week. Hero Shrew OoC: Unless we can convince Howler we're her biggest fans? GM: No chance of that - you did destroy her masterpiece. Hmm - red skin-tight suit and weaponised sexuality - she'd get on well with the Spinnerets. Hero Shrew OoC: Well, maybe one of you can get her monologuing and I'll sneak up behind her with a two-by-four. As it stands Hero Shrew is still rolling down the street, where the blast put him. Hero Shrew: Hey! I'm a shrew, not a pangolin! *bouncing upright, and looking around for the source of the attack* I dunno, just minding your own business, and you get 4000 decibels in the back of the head. *spots Howler, who for the moment at least is on the ground* Rude, lady! *lobs a Toyota Prius at her, and misses* GM: You know, she hadn't actually done much property damage herself... Hero Shrew: I am what I am. Hero Shrew OoC: Hopefully, even in this age of smartphones and selfies, the locals are doing the smart thing when confronted with a superhuman fight and are Getting The Hell Away. GM: Sure. But not until phase 6. Howler takes off again, which makes most of our ranged attacks problematic. The bitch. Hardlight: *does anime attack pose* Photon Spear! Hero Shrew: Did you say Futon Spear? GM: Hardlight needs to take a course in how to be a superhero. And not just some guy with superpowers. Howler is also a lot moe mobile than we're used to, zooming in for a point-blank attack on Fireflash, but which at least points her closer to Hero Shrew. Hero Shrew swings a half-ton chunk of concrete and rebar like an Olympic hammer, and launches himself at - and past - the supervillain. GM: You didn't know you could jump that far. Hero Shrew: The half-ton hammer must have given me some extra hang-time. Flux teleports to the top of the blasted monorail tower to try and get in range for his own attacks. GM: Only problem is she's down there now. Flux: For f**k's sake. Hero Shrew swings and misses again, while Howler for some reason thinks Hardlight is the main threat and snatches the still concussed super off the street. Howler: You and I need a little chat. Hardlight: WhatdidIdo? WhatdidIdo? Flux tries to teleport after them, but there's no conducting metal going that way from the tower. Hero Shrew OoC: I was going to say that you need some kind of rocket that unfurls copper wire behind it, but then I thought that firing that in a city with lots of overhead powerlines would be a Bad Idea. Howler accelerates towards the horizon carrying our supposed leader with her. GM: She's holding your arms to your sides, but with your powers that doesn't mean squat. Hero Shrew: Yeah, he might do all those action poses when he yells Futon Spear, but he doesn't NEED to. GM: Surprise, bitch. Of course, rather than anything really useful, like a big spikey bubble between them, or a green glowing brick wall across her path, Hardlight instead attaches a holographic drogue chute to her ankle. Howler: ... well, that's the most creative way somebody has tried to get my pants down. STOP THAT. That, as it happens, does get her to drop him, indirectly. Because her sonic attack injures Hardlight so badly he's bleeding from the ears and other orifices, and Howler panics. GM: She does have a Universal Code Against Killing. Howler: *drops Hardlight, flies off, circles back, and yells* This isn't over! GM: Which ends the fight, but does mean you don't find out WHY she set up the city-wide flute music. But hey, she can reappear later. You managed to win, because Hardlight was that pathetic. Distracted by the collected Shadowrun adventures we played in. Flux's Player: Why are you banned from Bavaria? Weldun: I'm not banned from Bavaria, I'm just banned from a small part of the Black Forest. Flux's Player: Well, you should have known better - nothing good comes from the Black Forest. Me: Cake. Now we'll need to explain Hardlight's injuries, when he reappears in his civilian identity. Hardlight: 'It was a skiing accident' GM: 'He decided to train for the pentathlon on a whim, and took a clay pigeon to the chin. We have video.' Hero Shrew: I was going to suggest freak accident while Extreme Ironing, but I like yours better Flux: Well, I can try using my magic to fix him? Maybe? GM: Or you could go for the Star Trek OS route, wave a salt shaker over him and make WOooOOOOOoooOOOO noises. Flux: 'What are you doing?''Trying to heal you' 'It looks like you're trying to season me' But Hardlight is hemorrhaging badly as Fireflash rushes him to hospital. Flux: Dammit Jim, I'm a technomancer, not a doctor! And then Fireflash get intercepted by a minute flying flaming woman as they're flying from the hospital to the emergency super-medicine specialist - which in this case is Flux. Spitfire: So, what happened to Shiny Boy? Spitfire is from the Seattle area, and has shrinking, fire, and flying powers. GM: She's pretty hot. Hardlight: If you like short women. Spitfire: I'm sort of here on official business? DOSPA want to start this program of superhuman mentoring - because they'e noticed that there's a lot of superheroes who don't actually know what they're doing. Fireflash: Tell me about it. Spitfire: Actually, all four of you are on the 'clueless' list. Fireflash: ... well, I can't argue against that assessment, really. Spitfire: Flux is a problem - none of the mages want to talk to him, and the technologists say they can't help. Flux: Yeah, he uses magic. Spitfire: You've got a weird one. Flux: Weird four. GM: OK, Hardlight is waking up. All you remember is a very loud noise, and then a WoooOOOOoooOOO noise. Flux: Everybody play along. *mimes a silent conversation with the others* GM: You bastard. Hero Shrew: Hey, I can go tell Sally I fixed the problem! GM: Tricky - there's only one guy on the door tonight. Hero Shrew: What? Oh - she's out on her date with Max, isn't she. GM: Yup. Hero Shrew: *grumbles* no crumpet for Scooter. GM: You still don't know why Howler set up all these resonance points across town. Hero Shrew: Well, don't ask me - it's not like we have any robot exoskeletons in town that could go berserk. Apart from those police exo-suits. Hmm. Hero Shrew: at least we know she has a code against killing, so it wasn't going to make people's heads explode. Flux: Mind Control is not killing people. Hero Shrew: Maybe she just wanted everybody in town to be nice to each other? Flux: I dunno, I was a d**k to Hardlight. Hero Shrew: yeah, AFTER we broke the rebar. Flux: .... hmm. Flux and Fireflash dig deeper into the flute music, which was subtly different in eight different parts of the city. Perhaps this will explain what Howler was actually trying to do...

Our cast of characters, in the freeport of Magnimar : Gillert, a student wizard who fell in with a bad crowd - i.e. the rest of the party. Ys, Elven pirate and freelance assassin. Harshal, Shoanti tribesman making a comfortable living as an extremely bent lawyer. And Zin, kobold trapsmith and wannabe Underlord. And speaking of Underlord business, the problem of searching the sewers, and the goblins nests within. Gillert: I'm smart, I'm sure I can invent a pump and big pipe from the sea. Harshal: Really. I can see the problem already. Gillert: Oh? What? Harshal: The moment the sewers back up far enough you'll be flooding people' homes with rotting sewage and angry goblins. Now, I live in an upstairs apartment, but the rest of you... What can we do about that Kitsune vigilante? She's too clever to be caught easily, and regardless of how many people she kills she can rationalise it under a Good Alignment. Ys: I don't see why we should stop her - I think she's hilarious. Harshal: The thing is that it's the Nightscales who are investigating the theft, and it's the Nightscales who were importing all that flamethrowing equipment. So somebody out there is going out their way to deny the Nightscales a supply of incendiary material, and stop their plan to burn Magnimar to the ground. Ys: Again, I'm not seeing any reason to interfere. Zin: Why do the Nightscales want to burn the city to the ground anyway? They live here. Harshal: Because their new leader is a devotee of a pyromaniac god. GM: I'm still amused that it was Colon who said that the vigilante must be buying from the elven merchants. Harshal: Well, even Gillert does so much cockscrew thinking these days that the obvious escaped us. GM: That IS the purpose of the Fool - to innocently stumble on the obvious. Gillert: How did this group not consider 'insurance scam' when we heard about the Keros Oil? Ys: I was thinking of insurance scam the moment I heard 'Keros Oil' - admittedly, I was mostly thinking 'life insurance'. Gillert: Stealing stuff from the docks to load it back onto an outgoing ship and sell it elsewhere is a victimless crime. Ys: Why do you care? Gillert: I'm good aligned, I'm trying to find a motivation. Ys: Profit is it's own motivation! And how good can you be if you hang out with me? Gillert OoC: I can still be Good if I don't help you. Ys OoC: 'The only thing evils needs to triumph is for good people to do nothing.' Gillert OoC: Hey, I don't know how evil you are - I just think you're a bit stab-happy. Harshal: It's entirely possible that the theft of the Keros Oil was a crime of opportunity, and completely unrelated to the Disco Inferno the Nightscales have planned. GM: Would I do that? GM: While the brothel madam is called Riley of the Silks, no-one knows why. She doesn't wear silk. Harshal: Imagine getting the stains out. GM: No. But she IS almost always oiled, which is odd, given her pale complexion. But then, maybe it just keeps her skin looking young. She certainly has plenty of skin to show off - the amount of cloth she's wearing would make a small handkerchief. GM: But for formal occasions she quintuples the amount of cloth. Ys: Ah - she she covers her breasts as well then. GM: Barely. That and a small wrap around her hips. Zin: She must have the magical woman's armour save. Harshal: 'Mystic power of the uterus'. Ys: Madam Riley - Ys Danar. *proffers hand* Riley of the Silks: I suspect you're not here for custom. Ys: You would be correct. It has come to the attention of associates of mine that you have been making inquiries, and my associates are in a position to offer services including investigation. It would be our pleasure to offer these services. The late nobleman had an item that Riley of the Silks wants - she's confident that the item will be bequeathed, rather than passed down to the firstborn. But she won't tell us anything more about the noble or the item without magical enforcement of certain aspects of the contract - but these aspects don't include success or failure. Harshal: I suspect the aspect in question is confidentiality. Ys: I suspect you are right. GM: Draconic is the most common sorcerer bloodline among kobolds, after the kobold bloodline itself. And the dragon bloodline is more common among kobolds than among any other race other than dragons themselves. Harshal: But then, given how many part-dragon races there are, apparently dragons will stick their dicks in anything. Gillert: 'I got drunk, and made a species - oops'. We agree to a meeting with Riley and some of her associates, after applying suitable disguises. Harshal: Can Zin give us all pointy ears so they'll think we're all elves? GM: Hmm, I forget to get a random prostitute generator. Harshal OoC: Oh god, not the Gygax one. Zin OoC: wait, what? GM: The Random Harlot Table from the first edition Dungeonmaster's Guide. Riley's associates all have heavy gauze over their eyes, and heavy hoods. Despite this, Ys and Zin recognise them as a cabal of deliberately anonymous wizards, who wear the get-up to protect their client's anonymity too. Harshal: I was wondering if their presence meant this was connected to the death of that other wizard - in which case, pay up. GM: They're going to be putting a Lesser Geas on you. Harshal: That'd be the way I'd do it. GM: The Geas is to prevent you talking to anybody else about the item, and against investigating the contents of the item in any way. Zin OoC: So, it's Marcellus Wallace's briefcase. GM: Pretty much. The item is a diary, but not one of the ones written by the recently dead wizard. It's actually much older than that, and rebound in bronze, and belonged to a noblemen, one Avis Scelani, killed by the recent plague that we're all so completely not complicit in. Harshal: Do we need to take any special precaution against contamination? He didn't die clutching it to his chest or anything? Riley of the Silks: I sincerely doubt it. In fact, I doubt that the executor herself knows where the item is held - the locale of the diary will be bequeathed in a sealed envelope. Ys: So the executor has the envelope? That makes things MUCH easier. The Scelani family are not an old family, and got most of their money through 'trade'. Riley got most of her information from the executor, who is a regular at her establishment. Zin: So what are getting paid for this? Harshal: I'm assuming NOT three months credit at the brothel. Riley offers 800 GP for the item, which is a fraction of what she must have paid for the Geases. On the other hand, she'll through in a 200 GP bonus if we don't kill anybody. Or even fight anybody. Zin: We shall be as shadows. GM: She isn't ruling out looting - she's commissioning you to preform a burglary, and is pre-paying you for one of the items. It's generally assumed you'll help yourself to everything else while you're there. Zin, the reptilian in the party, notices that it's quite cold in here. But Riley has been seen in daylight and didn't burst into flames, which rules out the obvious. Harshal: But no gooseflesh, or the other obvious reaction to cold either. GM: And don't say you didn't look. Ys: I was looking the whole time. Zin: All you humans look the same anyway. Gillert: Yes, we all have boots, at the appropriate height for kicking mouthy kobolds. The executor Domillia Pacia works out her top-floor apartment in Keystone, an essentially middle-class section of Magnimar. GM: Prostitution is considered a valuable social service. Ys: I'm desperately trying to not say social lubricant. We wait until she heads out, and Gillert and Harshal head upstairs with Zin in a bag. All: *singing the Mission Impossible theme* Ys: Must be an orc Skald in one of the apartments, playing the drums. Gillert: We'll slip him a few silver to play louder. Gillert picks the lock and gets to work on her filing cabinet and desk, while Harshal searches the rest of the room and browses her book shelves. There's not much of interest, apart from a scholarly treatise on kobolds that doesn't answer the question on why they're all little communistic f**ks. The letter itself is simple enough to open, despite the wax seal, but all it says is that the diary - of a well-connected woman who died many years ago - is in the late man's study, and 'your uncle is keeping watch on it'. Of course, if Gillert had remembered to prep the Mending cantrip, we could have resealed the envelope without Harshal having to break out all the forgery equipment. Ys: You know, I think I know what that letter actually means, and it's not what Harshal thinks. GM: Well, there's only so many plots put there. Harshal OoC: Let me guess, the late woman was actually Tom Riddle. GM: No. It's not a horcrux. GM: So, you're going to break into the place without doing the legwork first? Actually, which of you are actual thieves. Harshal: None of us. GM: Yeah - you're an investigator, Gillert is an Eldritch Scoundrel... Gillert: Well, somebody has to write the Necronomicon. GM: It's already been written. Or wrote itself. Harshal: Just write the Book of Erotic Fantasy - it'll sell better. GM: Do any of you have personal theme tune? I find it helps with character, sometimes. Harshal OoC: Is the there a song called "March of the Morons"? Zin OoC: With Alchemical Rope I could be Spiderman. GM: Easily. Harshal OoC: Spiderkobold. GM: Spiderkobold, spiderkobold, does whatever, a spiderkobold can. Gillert OoC: 'What's that noise?' 'Spiderkobold. He'll be here later. Once the theme tune finishes' The house we intend to burgle has been extensively renovated and added to over the years, which makes for a rather eccentric floorplan. Some faces have no windows, other windows are too small to squeeze through, and there's a third storey tower that's mostly windows. Zin: Well, if I know my rich people with big houses... Harshal: Do you? Zin: I don't. The estate also has a number of guards and rotating patrols of the ground. Harshal: So, the bare minimum to keep thieves out. Hopeful insufficient to keep US out. GM: We'll see. Something that might be to our advantage, when it arrives - towering cumulonimbus clouds approaching rapidly. Harshal: It WILL make the ropes slippery if we need to get out fast. Gillert: It's only two storeys. GM: You're still low enough level that that can kill you. Harshal: We'll make Zin go down first - if he falls, we'll use him to break our fall. Zin: *grumble* GM: Welcome to being of a race that sucks. Ys: Welcome to a party of Not Good People. Ys cuts the window open while the rest of us wait to scramble in. Of course, that leaves a disc of broken glass that the patrol might notice. Harshal: So, Gillert, did you remember to prepare the Mending spell today? Gillert: ..... I asked everybody what spells I should take earlier! Harshal: I'll take that as a 'no', then. Indeed, the house is so fancy it has at least two indoor toilets. Harshal: Fancy. Gillert: They've got the 'I want to read a magazine' one, and the 'I want to take a shit' one. Zin notices that the internal dimensions at this end of the house don't match the outside, and soon discovers the secret alcove beyond. Which is a secret wardrobe. GM: This wasn't that uncommon, given the cost of high-quality outfits. Harshal OoC: So this is wear they'd keep their fursuits, if they had any. GM: Yeah. There's also armour and weapons. And gladiatorial gear, which is weird for Magnimar, and provokes a long discussion of styles of gladiator, and the origin of the family we're robbing. GM: Basically it was a bunch of Chellaxians who got tired of all the eyeshadow. It eventually turns out that searching the top floor first was a complete waste of time - it's all bedrooms, and no study. GM: You have no idea how difficult it was to keep a straight face when you said 'the study must be upstairs'. We also find yet more indoor toilets. Harshal: I have questions about this family's diet. The study also turns out to be the very last room it could be. Gillert: F**k me. GM: Look at the floorplan - the study would also be the office, and be where visitors could go to it without going through the rest of the house. Ys: OK, now we've found the study, I'm looking around for a bust or portrait of a man. Harshal: Oh. OOOOHHHHH! So THAT's what 'your uncle is keeping watch on it' meant. GM: It's a classic misdirection. And then Harshal and Zin blunder straight into the magical trap, and Harshal falls victim to the Haunt. GM: You flee the source of the terror. Ys: Oh dear. GM: Straight out the atrium, and past the guards. At least Ys and Gillert felt uneasy enough to pause near the door, and get attacks of opportunity. Ys gets a certain amount of satisfaction from kicking Harshal's feet out from under him as he runs past. Gillert hurries to slap a hand over Harshal's mouth to stop the screams. Harshal OoC: Maybe the uncle really is watching over the book, and he's a ghost. GM: Eh. Not saying. Gillert: Brilliant. Ys sends Zin back in to search. Ys: Fear me more than the ghost. And the bust on one shelf is very obviously facing towards the chimney, which indeed contains a small wallsafe set into the stonework halfway up, and a sigil of one of the gods of the afterlife, which probably explains the haunting. Which kicks back in just as Zin is passing the book to Ys. We hurry to leave before the profound unease emanating from the book overwhelms us. It's not like the geas we're under will allow us to figure out HOW the book is haunted. Gillert OoC: So, which of us has a will save of +1 or better. Harshal OoC: Not me. Gillert OoC: Well, we'll leave the book with Zin. If nothing else he's easier to catch. We exit, stage left, collecting the more valuable accoutrements from the house we leave. That's mostly the outfits and armour from upstairs - even the silverware is only so much precious metal. Harshal: And keeping a close eye on Zin, in case he suddenly runs off screaming and dumps the book somewhere. GM: Wailing about how it's all your fault that he's going to die alone.

Champions - Edge City : Loud Hero Shrew: If they're being hunted by canine Moreaus riding a kraken VIPER, AND us, I don't blame them at all for wanting to stay on the down-low. Fireflash: Especially that last one. Hero Shrew: Yeah - I mean, just being associated with us in the press will do they social standing no good at all. Hero Shrew: Can we put up LOST notices on all the lampposts? Hardlight: That's a terrible idea. Fireflash: It's a terrible idea, but it still might work. GM: And it's not just three groups looking for them - so are Wild Kingdom, and Cecil the Springbok Mobster. Hero Shrew: I'm surprised he's not named Jack. Hardlight: Hmm? Hero Shrew: Spring-heeled Jack. Hardlight: I'm suddenly wondering what catnip costs around here. Hero Shrew: $50 for a dime bag. Hero Shrew: So, how do we let this pair of sympathisers know that we're here to protect them? I mean, they have some pretty dangerous people after them, if they didn't already know. I mean, Cecil the Springbok is nearly as dangerous as Cornelius Snarlington, Business Deer. Hardlight: We need to set up a working relationship with the Edge City infobrokers. Hero Shrew: Sorry, what were you talking about? I was thinking about Sally again. You think I should tell her Steiner never gave me superspeed? Girls are reassured by things like that, right? I mean, they like it when guys don't go too fast. Hero Shrew: Maybe, if can track Steiner down, I can get him to give me stretching powers. Hardlight: Maybe we should put a watch on Max the Doberman, in case he gets recruited by these canine Moreaus. GM: I'm sure Scooter will love that - he has Max as a 5pt Romantic Rival Hero Shrew: I wouldn't mind putting 24hr surveillance on Sally. GM: Yes, Sally, the only Moreau in Edge City that could drop you with little difficulty. Oh, you've got all these defences? Biomanipulation - one touch and down you go. Hero Shrew: Hey, I might be into that, if it was her. Hero Shrew: *mutters* I don't know what she see in Max... not all of us can have fist-sized knots. GM: It's not common, but some Moreaus are built wide. And that's why they call a 6ft2 580lb wombat Brick. Hero Shrew: That, and the shape of his poop. We go see one of The Zoo's community pillars, a self-taught lawyer and gray tabby by the name of Simon who has been carefully establishing the legal rights of Moreaus. His assistant is skeptical that our business is of a delicate nature, since Hero Shrew is in the vicinity, and delicacy is not a word that one associates with him. Simon's Assistant: Mr Simon sir? The three more public members of Quadrant are here to see you. Yes, most amusing sir, I'll send them in. Hero Shrew: I bet he's assuming the worst already. "So, Scooter, who did you get pregnant?" GM: That's not the worst news, that would be great news! The Moreau birthrate is still lower than it should be. Simon: I've had enough trouble today as it is, answering questions about the 'new Moreau gang in Edge City'. Simon is reluctant to tell us much, but agrees that the possibility of a resurgent Genesys is important enough to make an 'educated guess', and suggests we search for the hippie sympathisers in Moss Park. Hero Shrew: Should be easy enough to find them - Moss Park is mostly lake. Simon: Just remember - keep them safe. Fireflash: That's the plan. One oddity about Moss Lake - the footbridge that runs along its long axis. True, it pre-dates the fusion plant going boom, back when the city architects were mad with cash, but it was still a waste of effort and material. Hardlight: They must be on the north shore - it's the only place on the lakefront that has room for people. Hero Shrew: True, but I'll still look over the lake for any pedalboats with a pair of nervous hippies in it. There is one vehicle parked by the lack that stands out like a sore thumb - a Nakajima Roamer, a luxury RV. Hero Shrew: Roamer or Roma? GM: Roam, like the B52 song. Fireflash: Oh, so THAT'S what the song was about! Fireflash lands next to the RV and knocks on the door. Hero Shrew: Lets hope it isn't an RV full of Canine Moreaus trying to be slightly less conspicuous than a giant squid. Fireflash: It's harder to be MORE conspicuous than riding a giant squid. Blacked out Vis-screen on the RV door: Yes, can I hel- OH CRAP! Fireflash: Well, thanks for confirming who you are. Fireflash: I need to ask you about some large ophidian eggs. Young Hippie Lady: Ophdians, haha, oh, nothing to do with us, what's Ophidian even mean? GM: She's a really bad liar - Buffy, Season One and Two Willow level of bad. Fireflash: You need to improve at that. Outside, Hardlight and Hero Shrew hear something. It's difficult not to hear it. Fireflash can't hear a thing through the RV's soundproofing, and the sound of the RV's shower running. GM: The end of the world is coming - that, or 5 Kundalini Rochin motorcycles approaching at speed. Hero Shrew: Still less conspicuous than the giant squid. Hippie: We can't go to PRIMUS! I mean, think about it. I mean, how do two college kids break into a secret lab and out again? Fireflash: You got hired? Hippie: No, I mean Wrecking Ball - we're unregistered supers! The hippie guy gets out of the shower - he looks like an ordinary human, apart from the greenish-blue skin. Hippie Guy: .... Ah. Fireflash: This might be an indelicate question, but are you an Atlantean? Hippie Guy: You're right, that is an indelicate question. *slips on his disguise bracelet* Fireflash: Sorry, but you're in a lot of trouble. Hippie: *hears the approaching motorbikes* What's that noise? Fireflash: Trouble. Hero Shrew is suddenly keenly aware that the Keep Them Safe line was actually a delayed psychic trigger that Simon planted in his mind, because he's moving to grab the hippies and run them to safety, rather than getting in an punch-up with the approaching wolfpack. He picks up the entire RV and starts running off with it. Hero Shrew: It would have made more sense to tuck one of the hippies under each arm and start super-leaping, but I can do this too. GM: You can still superleap with the RV. Hero Shrew: It might be a luxury RV, but I don't think the suspension would survive that. GM: What suspension? Fireflash: You're underneath it, YOU'RE the suspension. Hero Shrew: Good point! Fireflash: Spine. Of! Hero Shrew: HERO SHREW! Hardlight gets clotheslined by a pair of dog soldiers leaping off their bikes at full speed. Hippie Girl: Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap!!! Hippie Guy: *pushing her towards the cabin* I'm useless out the water, and she needs a run-up! Hero Shrew: There's a lake right there. GM: Which only helps him if they go into the lake after him. Hardlight: Is the RV amphibious?! GM: Any vehicle is amphibious. Once. Hero Shrew superleaps north into the residential suburb of Hockabout, and shakes off the implanted command. Hero Shrew: dafuq? GM: Oh no, the command was still your idea. But now you can have other ones. Hero Shrew: Well, headed into an area with plenty of obstacles and potential for property damage was a good idea before, so it still is now. The dog soldiers have the unenviable choice of stopping for a better shot at Scooter, leaving them open to Fioreflash's attack, or shooting Fireflash instead, who they probably can't hurt. One of them pulls out a shockrod, and discovers just what a hairtrigger throttle the motorbikes have when it zooms out from underneath him at several hundred kilometres an hour. Fireflash lays on some hurt. Fireflash: You guys are FUCKED. The dog soldiers are having real difficulty hurting Fireflash, despite their high-tech weapons. GM: In fact, they're on the verge of questioning the entire report the last team made about you. Hardlight recovers enough to put a bubble around one of the dog soldiers, who discovers he can't shoot his way out. Dog Soldier: Ruh-roh. Two of them, still conscious, salute the trapped canine and run off. Hardlight: Bwahaha GM: This is not a laughing moment. Hardlight: *who is remembering what happened the last time one of the dog-soldiers got caught* Oh, right. Just as well I'm at minimum safe distance. The trapped Moreau drops his gun and goes into violent seizures, and then up in flames. Fireflash, over the comms: Scooter, bring the RV back here. Hero Shrew: Nope, gotta keep them safe. Fireflash: But they're gone now. Hero Shrew: Maybe, but knowing our luck you probably have a gun to your head and they're making you say that. Fireflash: But I don't. Hero Shrew: But that's just what you'd say if you did! Fireflash: But I don't. Hero Shrew: But that's just what you'd say if you did! Fireflash: But I don't. Hero Shrew: But that's just what you'd say if you did! Fireflash: Scooter, just get back here. Hero Shrew: OK. Fireflash starts making some calls, to explain the damage Hero Shrew has down to the roads, and try and keep the two targets out of custody - for one thing PRIMUS has them listed as ecoterrorists. Her handler is quite impressed that Scooter got the targets out of harm's way right away. Handler: He averted a possible hostage situation? That's one quick-thinking brick. Fireflash: Yeah, well, he's surprisingly difficult to pigeonhole. The Hippy Girl has been throwing up in the RV. Jack the Atlantean Hippy: She's used to the Pacific, not all this bouncing around. Jack explains everything about how he discovered the Genesys lab, how he and his girlfriend trashed the place, and why he's sure everybody and all the evidence must be long-gone by now. But he does give us the co-ordinates, just in case. Fireflash OoC: We're just not very good at investigating things. GM: I warned you at the start of the campaign- Fireflash OoC: No no no, we the PLAYERS are no good at investigating - the characters are fine. GM: Well, I'm not sure what I can do about that. Hardlight: I bubbled one and he melted. All over my nice new bubble At least whatever suicide switch that was is unlikely to be a biohazard. GM: High temperatures. It makes them kinda... crispy. Hero Shrew: I do fell bad about that. GM: That just proves you still have a soul. Hero Shrew: Yeah, but it's kinda vestigial by this point. Hero Shrew: -and then the dog-soldier went WHOOF, which was an appropriate sound effect at least. GM: Don't say that in front of any recording device - it wouldn't go down well. GM: Actually the footage of the dog-soldier immolating isn't playing too badly - some of the supertalk forums are already using the term bio-roid. Hero Shrew: ... I'm not sure sure I like that. Flux: It should make the Moreaus happy at least. Hero Shrew: Oh no it fucking won't. We're people, thank you very much. Hardlight: Hey, I use the word sophont in every speech about Moreaus! GM: That's why I'm describing it as sophistry. I'm glad I can drop the term 'sophistry' at a table and not have the players go 'guh?' Hero Shrew: And sophont, for that matter. GM : So the 'players were clever'.. no, 'inventive' ahhh, 'subtle', NO 'or roleplayed well'. Well, OK Hero Shrew OoC: Subtle we ain't. Hero Shrew OoC: I'm probably going to be a bit subdued when I show up to work at the club tonight - if anybody notices, it'll be Sally, and I'll probably unload at her. GM: Yeah, I think people are going to notice that you only bounce people on their heads twice tonight before throwing them out. And you're not even throwing them in the dumpster. Sally: His heart really isn't in it, is it. Fireflash: Party! Hero Shrew: Don't you have exams? And what are the rules for postponing exams in the event of alien invasion? Flux: Same as for other 'natural' disasters. GM: But the aliens have to actually invade. Hero Shrew: So if you're actually *preventing* the invasion, you're shit outta luck. Fireflash: I want to get us a team vehicle - The Quadraphibious Quandrant Cruiser. Hero Shrew: Just call it the Qruiser - it'll save time. Fireflash: I think it used to belong to a supervillian. Flux: Well yes, the spider theme, it's black and silver, and the horn goes BEWARE, BEWARE Flux: If there are any hamster Moreaus in the Zoo, they're probably staying out of sight. 'We need a bagman!' GM: 'I'm not sticking that in my cheek'. Oh god, now I'm imagining hamster prostitutes. Hero Shrew: We should tell Simon that his place is bugged. I mean, the dog-soldiers turning up when they did may have been a plot convenience, but there's no way it was a co-incidence. GM: I'm not that bad a GM - I won't use a plot convenience when I can use plot contrivance. Flux: Did they leave any of those bikes behind? GM: Sure - they arrived on 5, and left on 2. Flux: Nice. But we already have a team vehicle *wistful sigh* GM: Eh, they'll be up for police auction soon. The Kundalini Rochin- Hero Shrew OoC: Of COURSE they're called that. What better name for a crotch rocket. GM: If you want to screw with directional mikes all you need a popular adult device. Flux: ? GM: A vibrator. You hold it against the window and the vibration wrecks any attempt at eavesdropping. Hardlight: As long as you don't use a Magic Wand - that would break the window. Flux: 'So, why does Fireflash take a Rabbit everywhere?' 'It's not why you think!' Hero Shrew: Maybe I should some appearances at Children's Hospitals. I'm a hero now, we do that kind of thing, don't we? Flux and Hardlight: uhhhhhhhhh. Flux: I'm not sure how to say this tactfully... that's more Fireflash's kinda thing? Hardlight: Maybe you should go with her! Fireflash graduates, but misses out on class Valedictorian to one Brent Mandler, Uber-nerd. Hero Shrew: Well, there's a good name for a superhero. Hardlight: Quiet - or he might have a 'lab accident' GM: The school also refused to print the diplomas on vellum. Hero Shrew: Nice. GM: Yes, they actually gave Studio City (the Zoo) as the reason they wouldn't use lambskin. GM: You know Scooter, you have one big problem with having Max as your romantic rival for Sally the Setter's affection. 'You're a dog, I'm a dog' Flux: 'Let's have some spaghetti' Hero Shrew: So, ah, Sally, you know that I kinda, really, really, uh- Max: Hey Sally. We still good for tonight? Hero Shrew: *grits teeth* Hi Max. Max: Hey Scooter. Max and Sally: *suddenly twitching* Can you hear that? Going outside, so can Scooter, and soon enough, everybody else in Edge City. It sounds like long flowing notes on a Chinese flute, coming from nowhere. GM: Even Max got cockblocked, this time. Hero Shrew: Is there somebody that teaches Chinese music at the college? Flux: How should I know? I don't go to the college. Hero Shrew: You're our info expert, hit the googles or something. The sound is pervasive, but can be blocked by earphones and even window glass. Hardlight: Hey, you guys, are you all hearing this? Hero Shrew: Sure. Hardlight: We should meet up and figure it out. Hero Shrew: Well, whatever it is I'm in favour. It cockblocked Max. The media blimps are having real problems with the noise, since it's making their gondolas resonate. Hero Shrew: Hey Flux, is it magic? Flux: er... Hardlight: You still have that magic detector, don't you? GM: No - that was adventures ago. Flux: I'd need to remake it. It'll take an hour. Hero Shrew: Hey, if the sound goes away in the next hour, there wasn't a problem. It IS magical. It's a rather big bit of magic too. Flux: I've barely switched the detector on! The enchantment is simple enough - it's diffusing the sound to conceal the source. And since we're standing in the effect, Flux should be able to dispel it, and localise the source of the noise - like taking a lampshade off a lamp, so we can look at the bulb directly. And the nearest source is the rebar sticking out of the never-finished monorail towers. It's been twisted into very specific configurations to resonate in the rising wind. The same thing has been done to the rest of the towers too. GM: Yes, I went PatLabor on you. Flux: Scooter, get up here and bend these things apart. Hero Shrew: *fingers in his ears* Ow. OW. OWWWWWWW. GM: Scooter has mild super-hearing - and he's standing next to one of these things now. Hero Shrew: OOWWWWWWWWWW. Flux: What? Scooter, I can't hear you over the noise. Flux: The question is who would do this. Hero Shrew: The question is WHY would anybody do this. Flux: I'm going to be pissed off if this was somebody's school science project. 'Except with Magic!' Hardlight: We really are the Great Lakes Avengers. GM: Nah, not really - West Coast maybe. Actually, Fantastic Four is an even better match *pointing at Hardlight, Fireflash, Flux and Hero Shrew in that order* Susan Storm, Johnny, Reed Richards, and the Thing. Hero Shrew: *picking his ear and scratching his balls* Eh? Flux: How did they set them all off on one day? *pokes around and finds scraps of foam rubber noodle that had no doubt insulated the rebar from the wind, until they were ready* Hardlight: If this was all some viral marketing thing I'm going to be pissed. We're just announcing to the onlookers that the problem is under control, and how awesome we are, when SOMETHING blasts the top off the tower we're standing on. The something is a caped superhuman, and the particular superwoman known as Howler. Hero Shrew: And exactly how alarmed should we be by this development? GM: She IS one of the heavy hitters. Hero Shrew: So - very.

Champions - Return to Edge City : Danger Noodles Flux: And then we had the Adventures of Supergirl and Invisible Boy. Hero Shrew: Wait, what? Flux: Fireflash and me. Hero Shrew: Oh. Flux: Giant Lizards From SPAAACE Hardlight: What did I miss??? GM: I don't know what he's talking about, and I'm the GM. Flux: I wanted to see how long I could string them along. What actually happened is that Flux and Fireflash interrupted a fight between VIPER agents and those dog guys we ran into a few months back, over a boatful of giant ophidian eggs. The dog men escaped on a Kraken. Hero Shrew: ???????? Hero Shrew: So, skullbunny troopers. GM: VIPER Hero Shrew: I know, but look at that logo (which does, indeed, resemble a skull with bunny ears) Hero Shrew: And the VIPER troops would say a word even if they were interrogated. GM: Nah, the deal was 'can we go now?' after it was obvious there was no salvaging the fight. Hardlight: Would VIPER hire snake-based Moreaus? GM: In a f**king heartbeat. Hardlight: And what's this about teleporting all the gangs to Mars? Hero Shrew: Just a suggestion. I don't actually have a way to do it. And it would leave a power vacuum. GM: And an actual vacuum, depending on what teleporter tech use use. Flux: You beat me to it. Is there a base on Mars? Hero Shrew: There was, but they got their budget cut. GM: There's still a small base on Mars, but that's only to maintain contact with the species that actually live there. Hero Shrew: Mooooon Bunnnnniessssss. Plus we need to find the missing hippies that actually owned the boatful of eggs. Hero Shrew: I could always go around and shake people and ask "Where are the hippies?". GM: San Francisco. Hardlight takes apart one of the combiweapons the hounds were using. Compared to the biomechanical stuff they were using last time, these ones seem more standardly mechanical, with some rather odd biological elements used for heat dissipation. The missing boat owners were heavily into Moreau rights, judging by the contents of their boat. Hardlight: I fully support these people! Hero Shrew: yeah, and PETA are supposedly pro-animal rights. Hardlight: .... good point. And trying to find out who these guys were in town to meet is also difficult - while there are a few reptilian Moreaus, there are no snakes. Hardlight: So, no Danger Noodle Moreaus. GM: Danger Noodle? Hero Shrew: Tumblr jargon for snek. GM: Scooter, care to explain to Flux why the Moreaus might have problems with humans looking after Moreaus? Hero Shrew: Well you remember how were created by Genesys? We don't like to be reminded of when we were lab animals. GM: Yeah, it's why Teddy Ruxpin killed himself. Hardlight: Scooter, you live in The Zoo, is there anywhere reptilian Moreaus hang out? Hero Shrew: Well, there's no Scaly Street, if that's what you mean. GM: Where, there's Scaly Alley, where the sex workers that don't work for Colin work. But the Scaly bit isn't a reference to reptilians. Hero Shrew: True. It's a reference to the rate of herpes infections. Hero Shrew: It's raining? In southern California? Blame the Weathermaster. GM: That's the problem with being a weather manipulator - no matter what the weather is, it's your fault. Hero Shrew: At if the rain is this heavy it'll wash away the stink of wet shrew. Flux: No... not really. It's really... hanging around. Hardlight: No wonder Scooter is having so much trouble questioning people. Hardlight: Are we going into the sewers again. Hero Shrew: I hope not, they'll be flooded in this weather. GM: No, not the sewers. But there are a rumours that the bulk of Reptilians live in Bayside Industrial and Rucka Marsh. All: .... GM: Where the sewerage treatment plant is. Hero Shrew: Popular with the birders then. Hardlight: Can you smell gumbo? Hero Shrew: Wow. GM: That is... OK, Little Haiti is nearby, but. And most of the Moreaus make some kind of gumbo. Hero Shrew: And you're saying this near the sewerage works, so offensive on multiple levels. Hardlight: So we try the marsh in this downpour? Hero Shrew: Sure, Fireflash can fly, she'll get us out of trouble. Hardlight: So, can we all swim? Hero Shrew: No, I'm dense on many levels. GM: Hardight, stop blowing smoke up Scooter's arse. Flux: At least Scooter wears pants. Fireflash: Who said? Flux: Oh god. Hero Shrew: In this weather you can tell what religion I am! Hardlight: OK, I'm switching on the thermal imaging. Fireflash: So you're using thermal imaging... to find ectotherms... in the rain. Hardlight: Yes. .... Oh, wait. Flux: At least tell me you can make an umbrella with your powers, Hardlight. Hardlight: Oh sure, easy. Flux: And a flashlight? Hardlight: Sur.. oh wait, no I can't. Flux: *facepalm* GM: He's not kidding - a flashlight is 23 Active Points. Flux: Would the Survival skill help us track them? GM: *cackles* Hero Shrew: Survival is more appropriate for driving on California highways in wet weather. Eventually Flux manages to track some footprints. GM: You find the past where whoever it was jumped up. You look up.. and perched on the wall, is a very large Alligator morph. Alligator: Hi. Flux: What big teeth you have, grandma. Alligator: I ain't your grandma. Flux: Yeah, I know, she's taller. Hero Shrew: Hi! You call me Scooter. Alligator: You look more like a Tom. After this rather pointed Uncle Tom insult, a few questions and Hero Shrew blissful dropping more information than the rest were willing to share, the alligator denies that there are any snake morphs, and furthermore, there aren't any reptilian children period. Hero Shrew: Maybe somebody is trying to make some? Alligator: Yeah, definitely a Tom. Hero Shrew OoC: OK, obviously we're missing the hints here. GM: No kidding. I'm going to step outside and have a cigarette, before I shout at you all. Hero Shrew OoC: And decide which orifice to insert the clue bat into? Hardlight OoC: Well there's a thing - there's a copy of the HERO System PDF in the file structure of the Wisconsin Perinatal Association. Hero Shrew: OK, please beat us with the clue bat and bring us to Enlightenment. GM: Every round you were there, at least one of the hounds was shooting at the boat with plasma rounds. And that's a Cadence Poseidon, a luxury yacht marketed to people love the sea so much they never want to get of it. According to the log book the owners have never left US coastal waters, but that's just the log book. These guys had lots of literature about Moreau issues onboard, they chose to dock in Edge City, and the whereabouts of Monster Island is not widely advertised. All: ... GM: YOU HAVEN'T ASKED AROUND THE ZOO. Hero Shrew: Oh. It's a good point. The Moreau community wouldn't tell the cops anything, on general principle, regardless of whoever the hippies are, and we left that half of the investigation to the cops. It doesn't help that we've failed every Streetwise roll we've tried to make either. GM: And it doesn't help that Streetwise can be an opposed skill. And they're hiding themselves well. GM: You don't plan for player success, you plan for failure, and failure is always an option. Especially with you lot. Hardlight: So, self-titled Moreau allies are hiding in the Zoo. GM: Allies that have actually found Ophidian eggs somewhere. Hardlight: Ask Colin to keep an eye open - they might in town for anonymous sex tourism too. Hero Shrew: ......... so they're not self-titled Moreau allies, they're closet Furry fetishists? GM: Flux, you're trying to talk to someone, and literally bump into this guy (eight-foot tall slab of caribou muscle). 'That's funny, there wasn't a brick wall here before.' Caribou: Madam Mille wants to talk to you. You guys have been asking questions. Flux: *Points up at the Moreau's antlers* So, do you shed those or what? Caribou: *growls* Madam Mille is a otter-morph, and Colin's main competition in the anonymous sex tourism trade. Hardlight OoC: OK, I'll try to be respectful. TRY. Hero Shrew OoC: Well, if anybody is going to say something inappropriate, I AM here, you know. The game is interrupted by meowing at the door from the local stray, who apparently survives on a diet of whatever she can catch. GM: Excuse me, I suddenly have pressing concerns....... Sorry about that, if I didn't go out to confirm the kill, she'd just leave it by the door. Cat: MEOW. GM: Yes yes, you're a mighty hunter, now eat it. Madam Mille: Scooter, Scooter, you were being such a good face for the Zoo, why did you have go and ruin it now? Hero Shrew: Errr... whatever you heard, it wasn't me. Madam Mille: You're hunting allies - why? Hero Shrew: Well, they have that holdful of eggs - we wanted to know where they'd found them, and who they were going to. Madam Mille: They stumbled on a Genesys lab. Hero Shrew: The F**k??? Madam Mille: A lab that isn't there anymore because the people you're hunting stole their latest project. Hero Shrew: THE F**K????? Madam Mille: Considering how so many of us girls are 'aesthetically pleasing' it's not hard to guess what our job was going to include. Hardlight: *splutters* Madam Mille: Remind me, what does ophidian mean? Hero Shrew: Snakes, I think they said - long oval soft eggs, not hard like a chickens? Not there are any avian Moreaus either. Madam Mille: Apart from Chickensaurus. Hero Shrew: Yeah, apart from Chickensaurus. Madam Mille: Dogs are loyal to humans. So you can guess what the Wild Kingdom gang are saying about dog morphs showing up now. Hero Shrew: ... that they're working for Genesys. F**K. It would certainly explain why those hounds were shooting up the boat. Hero Shrew: I wonder how VIPER found out about it? Madam Mille: THAT is a very good question. Hero Shrew: I wonder if Genesys were making the snake-morphs for VIPER - it's the kind of thing they'd like. Maybe Genesys decided they needed to destroy the evidence, and VIPER said 'f**k that, we paid for those.' Apparently Cecil the Springbok of the Moreau Mob, and the Wild Kingdom gang, have being looking for the hippies too, which is another good reason for them to have gone into hiding. Madam Mille: It still doesn't make sense - why would Genesys be making snake Moreaus anyway? Unless they're Steiners. Hero Shrew: A what now? Madam Mille: A Steiner. Surely you know.... you don't know, do you. YOU'RE a Steiner, Scooter. Hero Shrew: *looks cheerfully blank* Madam Mille: You think a Moreau with your abilities is normal, Scooter? Hero Shrew: I've never wondered. Madam Mille: *facepalm* You're a Steiner. So is that bloodhound you work with at *snort* the Collar Club. Hero Shrew: Sally? Cool beans, does that mean you think I'll have a chance with her? Madam Mille: *pinches bridge of nose* Flux: A simple question from a simple mind. Hardlight: Didn't one of those dogs call you a Steiner? Hero Shrew: Did they? I forget? Flux: OK, since Hero Shrew isn't going to ask, who was Steiner? Madam Mille: *Doctor* Steiner. Doctor Steiner was the Genesys gene-tech that was building superpowers into some of the Moreaus, very much against the wishes of the other genetechs. Madam Mille: SOME of us listened to Ted when he was having flashbacks to the labs. Hardlight: It's not so bad, Edge City PD are hiring Moreaus now. Madam Mille: They're recruiting Moreaus but do you think they're going to assign them to Studio City (The Zoo). It's theatre, darling - at least Quadrant is actually USING a Moreau for crimefighting. Go out and do your job, and don't disappoint us. Madam Mille: I'd like you to leave now - I have some customers arriving soon and I don't want to explain your presence to them. GM: So you're leaving? I mean, you can, unless Hero Shrew is insisting to hanging around. Hero Shrew: Nah, I'm easy enough to steer - I'm still thinking whether I have a chance with Sally now. We do see the customers arrive, before they see us - it's Viper Girl and someone we suspect is the Black Warlock, out of costume. Time for some property damage!