Drhoz

Pathfinder - Street Of Magnimar : Plothooks a-Go-Go The GM has a whole selection of plothooks that have come to the PCs' attention. For example, a clique seems to have formed within the liberated Kobolds, around a Kobold called Vakri. Vakri has been known to slip away for a few hours here and there, but he always returns with a few loaves of bread and some off-cuts of meat. On a probably unrelated note, stories of a rooftop-leaping vigilante known as "The Flying Fox" have begun to circulate in Underbridge. She has apparently been operating for a few months but due to various factors, including the embarrasment of her victims, the story is only now reaching your ears. She is described as a Fox-Maiden (Kitsune) with a flair for the theatrical and is known to have more than three tails. The Sczarni and the Night Scales have agreed on one thing. The Flying Fox must die and they have jointly offered a bounty of 3,000gp, with Jaster Frallino (head of The Gallowed) offering a extra 600gp for the opportunity to feed her to his pets. The arcane community in the city has been whispering that the Wizard, Trace Reveral, has died. Trace was an odd character as he had once been quite the social butterfly for some time, but in the last decade or so had withdrawn into seclusion. He would emerge from his Naos home for a few social events in any given year, but nobody would otherwise see him for months on end. Reiley of the Silks, a Brothel Madam has been making discreet inquiries into the death of a local noble. More specifically, the disposition of his estate. Private bets are made among the party, on the chance that these will prove connected. The Night Scales and the City Watch are on the lookout for clues as to the location of a large shipment of Keros Oil that went missing off of the docks (not our docks) last week. Keros Oil is highly flammable. Probably completely unrelated to the Fire Cult, as we're sure Sergeant Colon would agree, even if he was aware of the cult. Harshal: I've been wondering how we can use that kitsune cat-burglar sitation to our advantage. GM: What cat-burglar? Harshal: The kitsune. GM: Well, you obviously didn't read it - she's a vigilante. Harshal: ... Quite right, my mistake. GM: Kitsune doesn't automatically mean cat-burglar. Harshal: That's just me being tired and not thinking clearly. Gillert: That's just you being racist. GM: For SOME reason you all met each other and had complimentary skills in stealth. Harshal: If Stealth Synergy is so effective you have to wonder why political history isn't a non-stop string of assassinations. GM: Because Stealth Synergy can be undone with a first level spell - Alarm. Zin: Ys. Ys: *No reaction* Zin: Ys. ... Ys! Harshal: *waves hand in front of the player's eyes* Ys: Hmm? Harshal: *directs her attention to the kobold* Obviously Zin passed his stealth check. Zin: One of the kobolds has been sneaking off at night. Ys: And you want him dropped into the bay with a lead weight around his neck? Zin: No. ... well, maybe later. Harshal: If you're going to Underlord you have to know what all your underlings are doing every minute of the night. Ys and Zin tail the kobold to what appears to be an entirely innocent community centre, think they've lost him, and then find him talking to him talking to some strangers in a suspiciously well-secluded corner of the community garden. Harshal: Not a bathhouse for gay kobolds then. Still, it might be innocent - this meeting apparently happens every week, and the suspect reptilian goes out on other nights as well. Ys considers ways she can be closer next time, without being spotted. GM: There's lilac climbing thickly up the wall. Wait, lilac isn't a vine. Harshal: Wisteria? GM: Maybe. Ys: Ivy? Harshal: Ivy doesn't have purple flowers. GM: It doesn't! Harshal: Carefully pruned Yellow Musk Creeper? Ys: I very much doubt it. Harshal: And we're city people, it's all 'Green Stuff' to us anyway. Gillert: I have Nature as a skill. Ys: Which is just one reason why we should have you killed. GM: I worry about you sometimes, Ys. Harshal: Perhaps he's joined the Freemasons Ys: Or the Captive Masons. Harshal: Well, the kobolds are effectively a captive labour force for us. Gillert: Not strictly true - they're free to leave. It's just more convenient for them if they stay. Harshal: And we have them followed if they do leave. Gillert: It could be innocent - if he's gaining skills, or working a second job, then good on him. Harshal: *thinking* That's our Gillert, tragically naive. Gillert: But if he's passing on info about us to a third party, then we'll have to deal with him. And I realise how strange this is coming from me, but Tannis isn't around. Harshal: Stop trying to think that way, it doesn't come naturally to you. Ys does find an engraving carved into the meeting alcove, and takes a rubbing to pass on to Gillert, who recognises it as the symbol of Shei, an Empyreal Lord with community and self-improvement as her domain. Harshal: So this meeting is probably innocent. Gillert: Not at all - they're just meeting in an innocent place. We're done that ourselves. Harshal: Who are you and what have you done with the real Gillert? Gillert: So she's not an actual god then. Probably just as well - most gods are dicks. GM: Why do you think the Magnimareans prefer to put their faith in the Empyreal Lords rather than the gods? Zin: We still have to find out where he's going on the other nights. Harshal: The bathhouse could still be on the books. We do find Vakri practicing jestering later, and note with considerable interest that he's including spells in his performance. And he hasn't mentioned this skill to anybody. Gillert: Well, we were thinking of opening a bar - in-house entertainment draws customers. Harshal: We should get some elementals in too. Gillert: ... why? Harshal: So we can have a rock band. Gillert: *groan* GM: Saw that coming. Your fault, you listened. Harshal: We should have a word with him, about the magic at the very least. Zin: But I'm not sure he should know I've been watching him. Harshal: Send Gillert in 'Oh hello, you're one of Zin's workers aren't you?' GM: So you're throwing Gillert under the bus. Harshal: If he hits Gillert with a fireball and runs off, it's no loss. Gillert: *sotto voce* arsehole Zin: Vakri, can I talk to you for a moment? Vakri: I didn't do anything! Zin: It's alright, you haven't done anything wrong. Vakri: It still wasn't me! The two talk at cross purposes for a while, neither knowing what the other actually knows. Vakri really does seem innocent, and ashamed he didn't use his magic to escape captivity when he was a slave, but the amount of inadvertent double entendre in the conversation isn't helping. It's certainly not helping Ys, who is eavesdropping from a nearby rooftop. Vakri: I only have a little magic. Zin: And I want to help you make it grow. Ys: OK, I can't contain the laughter anymore. Zin: We're going to support you and you'll certainly have a role in my masterplan. Vakri: *whimpers* Harshal: Would any of the other kobolds benefit from the community centre? GM: Kobolds are still fairly new to Magnimar. Zin: I don't what to overload them with new members all at once. Maybe we can send a bunch down later. Harshal OoC: Send them down on the short bus. Kobolds are 3ft high at best, after all. That kitsune vigilante foxgirl has at least four tails. Harshal: But your average Magnimar criminal can't count higher than three. Harshal: Well, there's a possible in for us, or me at least. I start defending the vigilante's victims. After all, if the Flying Fox can't provide evidence... GM: I think you're forgetting how the law works in Magnimar. 'We know you did it Jimmy - confess' *thump* ' It wasn't me this time!' 'It's always you, Jimmy - confess' *thump* 'Alright, it was me, stopping hitting me' 'Thanks for the confession, Jimmy. Sign here' Harshal: Still, it might get her somewhere we can prepare for her. Gillert: 'Did you hear about Jimmy? He got tied up by a woman! And a fox, no less' Harshal: Well, some people are into that. One of the victims is located, recovering from his injuries in a rear yard, and 'self-medicating. Harshal: I bring along a few extra bottles of 'medication' Victim: She grandstands. Harshal: Monologues too? Victim: Yes! She stands there going on about how we're all criminals and how she's going to bring us to justice! Victim: We were going to raid the perfume warehouse off Dock Road. It was a set-up, man! Harshal: Sounds like it. Victim: She had the whole placed prepped! The sawdust on the floor wasn't unusual, but she'd soaked it in oil - and we didn't even think the smell was funny because they store perfumes there! And she'd chocked all the windows shot so we only had one way out! She has been killing people too - admittedly only in self-defence, but the evidence suggests that her buckler is magical. It cut through an axe, for one thing. Certainly the were-rat clans are terrified of it. And she uses actual magic, and trick arrows she must be getting from the elves. And alchemical grenades and pellets, such as Instant Caltrops followed by Grease spell. Victim: This axe is my proof for why you shouldn't mess with her. Harshal: We should get somebody to look at this. Victim: What are you offering for it? Harshal purchases the axe for another bottle of 'medication'. Victim: The good stuff? We take the axe to a metalworker, who recognizes the damage as that caused by Living Steel. Which is another thing she'd have to get from the elves. Harshal OoC: So, what are the kryptonites for magical girls? Zin OoC: Talking animal sidekicks with dead eyes. Although, as it happens, Harshal DOES know about the Pathfinder equivalent of Magical Girls. GM: I don't want to know how Harshal knows about Magical Girls. Harshal OoC: Give the Blue Book and 'The Lusty Argonian Maid' are a thing, I don't want to know either. Anyway, it means she'll be impossible to scry except when she's transformed into her Magical Girl form. This is not helpful. Add her Invisibilty power that comes with her fifth tail... Zin: Be on the lookout for Magical Girls! Harshal: *invisible* magical girls. Gillert: So who is she targeting? GM: Bad people. Gillert: Well, that's good for us - we don't look like bad people. Harshal: Apart from Ys, when she's bloody to the elbows. Gillert: Well, that's just one of us. Harshal: I need to track down Sergeant Colon. GM: *eyes boggle* Harshal: To find out what the Watch think of all this. Harshal: I hear she's using trick arrows and alchemical weapons. Which she must have got the elves. Sergeant: Oh right, from the elven merchants. Harshal: .... Gillert: Goddammit. Harshal: Thankyou sergeant - that had not occurred to me. Unfortunately, she'd been clever enough to cover her tracks there, too, and she hasn't been stealing anything that she would need to fence. The dead wizard was unusual because he started from nowhere, and actually became quite popular with the nobility. And very popular with the noble women. Harshal: I'm sure they all loved his 'magic wand'. In fact, that's where he was when he had his fatal heart attack. Funnily enough, while his lovers WERE checked for enchantments, none were ever found. Zin: All natural Charm then. Harshal: Still plenty of reason for murder. The local arcane community are all talking about the fact that the spellbook found with him can't be his complete grimoire, and they're also disgruntled that his estate is going to be auctioned off. Rumour has it that the auction will include his day-to-day journals. Harshal: I just bet there's going to be fierce bidding on THEM. Gillert: The auction is still a month away. I'm speaking of us as a group of n'ere-do-wells - Harshal: Or you, as the student wizard, Nerd-do-well. GM: heheeheehee. Gillert: *sotto voce* ..... smartarse. The late ladies'-wizard was apparently also a matchmaker, on occasion. No doubt this will prove highly significant

Champions - Edge City - Back To The Old Routine GM: Gah! Ah! GM now panicking - I know I had a plan for tonight. Hero Shrew's player: Not to worry - we were having an interesting conversation about electroweak forces, virtual particles, and great physicists of the early 20th century. If you can't remember what we were going to do, we'll continue with that. Tyrell's domestic android line is finally starting to sell, despite the very understandable nervousness about robot servants. Also, odd graffiti has been showing up around the Zoo - double helixes and 'In the Game of Evolution, Diversity Trumps Uniformity' Fireflash: That's good - the exact opposite of Teleios, the Perfect Man. Hero Shrew: I'm willing to read it as Pro-Moreau. And at least it doesn't say "think of it as evolution in action". Also, rumour has it that somebody came ashore at the Edge City docks, but nobody can figure out where his passport is actually *from*. GM: The real reason that Edge City's Chinatown dislike the Moreaus is because the Zoo is right next door, so any tourists coming into town go there instead. Hero Shrew: And the money becomes the Furry Dollar. Hero Shrew does track down a witness to some the graffiti going up - unfortunately, it's a sloth, and the graffiti went up while he was blinking. And it's showing up in all sorts of normally inaccessible places too, in and outside of the zoo. Hero Shrew: Well, I'm stuck. Maybe they can fly? GM: Not unusual around here. Hero Shrew: Maybe, but I can't fly, so I'm stuck. Flux: Sure you can fly. You just land again. GM: You fly the same way Superman originally did. You superleap. Flux: 'And then you land in China' Fireflash: Only Grond can do that. GM: And then he starts hitting stuff because the wind whistling in his ears was annoying him. Hero Shrew: Flux, maybe you can find out where this passport guy is supposed from, then go talk to the alternate history fangroups. GM: ..... am I really that transparent? Hero Shrew: Well, yes. We've already had that cinema full of fake Greys. Dock Worker: Yeah, it was weird, he went into the Customs office, but his papers are from somewhere that doesn't exist. Hero Shrew: Where's that then? Dock Worker: Some place starting with B? And he only had funny money. I mean, who carries silver dollars these days? Hero Shrew: ... I need to go talk to some people. Hero Shrew *texting Flux and Fireflash*: Did they use silver dollars back when undead sheriffs were running around? Fireflash: Wut. Flux: I've got a special warning tone on my phone for whenever someone mentions undead. Hero Shrew: Maybe we should check which boat he came in on too? Which is when we all finally notice the four-masted sailing boat in dock, where the cargomaster is currently arguing with Customs about unloading a holdfull of timber from Beringia. The consignee for the timber was supposed to be meeting them, but the phone number on the paperwork has four digits. And the address is for Monterey - which Edge City hasn't been called in 20 years. Fireflash: You're not in Monterey, dude. This is Edge City. Cargo Master: You are joker. This is Monterey. See? That is Aelfen Bridge. Fireflash: The Monterey Bridge? Cargo Master: Aelfen Bridge. A gift from Aelfenheim. Fireflash: ... wut? Cargo Master: Aelfenheim. North of Europa. Fireflash: uuhhhh. Cargo Master: You are joker with me. Next you will be saying Avalon is no longer at war with Europa. Eventually Fireflash gets a handle on things. Fireflash: You're lucky I'm a geek. This is starting to make sense. Customs Officer: This makes sense?? Fireflash: What do you know about Many Worlds Theory? Customs Officer: Oh hell no. This is the Mole Men all over again. The cargomaster DOES understand Many Worlds theory, and further questions reveal that among other changes their Bolshevik Revolution actually ended peacefully, with the Tsar setting up Siberia and Alaska as a separist state for the revolutionaries, after Marx himself realised Lenin was a power-grabbing prick. Fireflash: Our Marx was already dead by then. Cargo Master: That's probably why your revolution went badly. It might also be because their reality has active mages running around. Even their ship is enchanted for permanently favorable winds. So they need to get the passenger Mr Charleston back, and they should be able to get home under their own steam. The Customs house is also glad to see the back of the guy too. Fireflash: I'm going to get him back home. Other Customs: To a place that doesn't exist? Fireflash: It's complicated. Customs: How complicated? Fireflash: What do you know about Many Worlds Theory? Customs: Enough to call off the van from the funny farm. Fireflash: Take a look at this map. Recognise any names? Mr Charleston: Sure. The United States. But you've got Alaska as part of it. Fireflash: And Hawaii. Mr Charleston: Ha - Like anybody is going to take on Kamehameha. Hero Shrew: Somebody did. Fireflash: The fruit companies. Beringia is also the only successful republic on their world and in their US slavery is still legal. Mr. Charleston: I'd like to go back to the real world now. Fireflash: And we'd like to see the back of you, too. Mr. Charleston: Are you trying to tell me that nobody in this world has sovereignty over another? Hero Shrew: Not legally. Mr Charleston: This entire world is an affront to the natural order. I shall have to write a paper about it. Fireflash: Believe me, we're just as offended by your existence. So we're going to get you back on your ship. Mr. Charleston: I have to get back on a Republican ship? Hero Shrew: If I hit him hard enough it might make a suitable hole in reality. Fireflash: ... .... ..... let's not. The crew of the inadvertently dimension-hopping sailboat are about as glad to see Charleston again as we were to meet him. Crew: Oh look, it's Mr High and Mighty again. That evening the boat sails back out of the bay and fades away in a glow of St. Elmo's Fire. Hero Shrew: Should we have told somebody about this? GM: You isolated the situation and allowed it to resolve peacefully. So as far as the US government is concerned, good work! Fireflash gets on the phone to her gaming group. Fireflash: Can I run the next game? I've got some ideas. There's a been a few shifts in the gang landscape too - the Dreadful Boys and the Iron Killers are on the ascendant, consolidating their hold on territories bordering Marsden. Hero Shrew: Well, lets hope nobody tries to unite all the gangs. GM: Given that would mean somebody uniting the gangs aligned with Humanity First with the ones that are aligned with Freak Legion. Not going to happen. Fireflash: 'Warrrriorrrrrrs. Come out and plaaaaay.' GM: Much as I love that movie, still not gonna happen. GM: The big shocker is the Megasyndicate - they control Schuyler now. Which is shocking because the Megasyndicate are allies of the Orphans, which is the gang made of people that can't join anybody else. GM: And then there's the Nucleohitmen. Flux: The what now? Hero Shrew: Is that all one word? GM: Yes. Nobody ever said they knew how to spell, or hyphenate. GM: And the Teleknights have pretty much taken control of Nakajima Plaza. Hero Shrew: Anything like the Teletubbies? If we meet them I'll have to ask which one's Po. Flux: The one eating dumplings. GM: They have been known to beat up anybody making Teletubbie references. Not that that will stop Hero Shrew. Hero Shrew: Not even remotely Also surprising - the Daughters of Lilith staged an overnight takeover of North Marina. Flux: The pseudo-vampires? Well, we hope pseudo. GM: And Scooter heard a rumour that one took on a Juicer, and won. Flux: An actual Juicer or a weakass Juicer? GM: The real thing. Flux: Oh dear. Hero Shrew: Even if we teleport all the gangs to Mars that will just leave a power vacuum. Do we need to deal with any of them, or do we want to avoid a power vacuum? Flux: The later. Besides, we've caused enough damage to the gang landscape. Hero Shrew: Fireflash, you've got sanction - can you find out if the media blimps saw the graffiti go up? Fireflash: I'm a student! My exams are up! Flux: Phone switched off then. GM: Worse, SATS too. Phone in the basket. Fireflash: Oh god, two weeks of hell. GM: And the Principal keeps announcing 'Students are advised to curtail their extracurricular activities for the duration of the exams'. Fireflash's friend Mandy: You were in the news again, weren't you?

Champions - Return To Edge City - You Do The Voodoo That You Do So Well Back in Edge City, where we hopefully deal with a certain undead sheriff for good, before he unleashes some kind of apocalypse. Of course, since we need to stretch this out to a full session, there's no way that this is going without a hitch. One obvious hitch - this entire scheme revolves around an agreement between our team (Quadrant) and the Voodoo Crew, a group of rather alarming people including Papa Vandredi (Papa Friday), Madamme Nwa Dantèl (Madamme Black Lace, of unknown role and powers), Mr Gato (Mr Cake, and the drug merchant for the Crew), Mr Zanmi (Mr Friend, in charge of Protection/Extortion)and La Doktè (The Doctor, in charge of prostitution in Little Haiti). At least Quadrant's bad reputation is merely the result of incompetence. Flux: Hardlight - You know how you want to be Tony Stark? Don't. You'll be arrested. Hero Shrew: So, now to deal with the sheriff. So, Flux, you're our occult expert. You and Fireflash's school counsellor, apparently. Flux: Ok, we have a solution. Hero Shrew: So, what do you need me to do? Flux: Stand around for when it inevitably goes wrong. Flux: Wait a minute.... Damn. Hero Shrew: Do we need to talk to the Voodoo Crew again? Flux: Yes. *sigh* Hardlight: I guess I'll be spending the day in the lab then. Hero Shrew: Yeah, they don't like you very much. I mean, I dunno what their problem is, I think you're awesome. Hardlight: Thanks. Hero Shrew: I mean, you let me use your credit card. GM: There's a black stretch hearse waiting for you. It's widely known as Papa Friday's personal vehicle. Fireflash: The only way he could be more obvious is if he had a giant top hat on it. Papa Friday 's friends on the other side have been yelling at him to deal with the situation, but none of them thought to mention that the Sheriff has Nephilim blood. He's not delighted. Papa Friday: I am the servant of three masters, and none of them know what they need of me. Papa Friday is also grudgingly impressed that Hero Shrew is completely unaffected by his aura of fear. Papa Friday: You are an interesting one, my furry friend. Hero Shrew: Thanks! Fireflash: We need to move him somewhere specific for the ritual. Fireflash's FBI Contact: You realise there's limited battery power on those containment units, right? Fireflash: I've got somebody that can handle that. Hero Shrew: I know where we can get car batteries. Hardlight: Oh? Where? Hero Shrew: Cars. FBI Contact: OK, I think I can swing this, but only if a full squad of Iron Guard come along too. Fireflash: Uh... I'll need to clear that with the Voodoo Crew first. FBI Contact: Wut. Fireflash: Witchcraft is unavailable, Doctors Black and White aren't around, we had to go with local resources. Who else would you suggest to deal with an undead situation? FBI Contact: NOT the guys that were stockpiling corpses? FBI Contact: I don't think this is a good idea. Fireflash: Neither do I - I'm following Flux's lead on this. FBI Contact: Who? Flux: Godammit. Fireflash: He's the fourth member of Quadrant. FBI Contact: Ah, so this Flux guy is your fourth member. GM: I've been paying attention - Flux has been studiously avoiding cameras and every conversation with the authorities. The Voodoo Crew aren't happy with this either. Fireflash: At least the Voodoo Crew are big on contracts. Hero Shrew: Very big. Since Hero Shrew is apparently oblivious to fear (Shrews are afraid of NOTHING) Flux takes him along to look over the ritual site, and meet Le Doktè. He shows us the body of the Tombstone Kid, chained to the gate that now leads to to the Nephilim realm, and explains how the Nephilim used the Tombstone Kid as a wedge to resurrect Thomas Graves, the undead sheriff. It takes a while to hammer this info into Hero Shrew's head. Flux gets to work setting up a Faraday cage around the gate, as part of his technomagery tweaks on the upcoming ritual. GM: I've seen the kind of stuff they sell at CostCo - Americans have no idea how good they have it with that kind of thing. GM: The Voodoo Crew don't have copper mesh around the place - they're not a technologically minded gang. They're more concerned with magical surveillance. Flux: And 'where did that corpse wander off to?' GM: That only happened once. Hero Shrew: Take that magic detector you invented with you when you buy your quartz crystals. You don't want to buy one that actually has residual magic effects. Flux: Yes, I wouldn't want one that had a genie in it. GM: Eh, genies wouldn't be seen dead in a quartz crystal. A small gnome maybe. Hero Shrew: And Geb would LOVE that. GM: So, the ritual. Flux: Dun dun DUUHHHHH Fireflash: Don't do that. Papa Friday anoints Flux, Fireflash, and Hardlight so the Fear aura won't cause problems for the rest of the ritual. He's still a deeply scary individual. Hardlight: So the magical fear has been replaced with everyday intimidation. GM: There's also a bunch of Voodoo Crew footsoldiers. Fireflash: We'll have to call in the Turtles. Flux: ... what? Fireflash: Weve got Foot soldiers All: *groan* Flux: ONCE, you get to do that ONCE a day... GM: Anyway, the ritual. Which is mostly Flux. So why did they even need the rest of you? Which is when Papa Friday draws his sizzling machete and says 'Be Ready.' Fireflash: Oh dear. Papa Friday: Baron Samedi said it would require all of you. Hero Shrew: Well, that's the kind of advice you can't ignore. Figures made of something resembling melting plastic pour out of rifts in the air. GM: Something on the other side doesn't like what you're doing. Hero Shrew: uh... should I hit it? Fireflash: YES Happily, punching them back through the rifts seems to work. Although more of them seem to be coming through, faster than we can deal with the ones that are already here. Mademoiselle Dantèl demonstrates one of her other skills - she's a spell filcher. She yanks the ritual out of Flux's control, and continues it as he gapes at her. Madamme Nwa Dantèl: Well, get out there! GM: Mademoiselle Dantelle is lucky she survived that hit - there's a reason she usually keeps a few zombies around. Hero Shrew: I expect they thought having zombies around today was a bit risky. GM: Well, yes. It's an empty vessel. Fireflash: Possessed Zombie. GM: Not going to happen. Superheroic shenanigans ensue. Papa Friday: I wonder if you even feel the fear of St. Croix. GM: Papa Friday really doesn't want to get into hand-to-hand with these things, but he made promises to his friends on the other side, so... what do you know, he actually hit it. Oh god, no, the smell of burning fat. One of them gets a hit on Hardlight, who learns that their touch drains Comeliness. GM: FaceMELTTTTERRR!!!!! Hardlight: I just looked at the Ark of the Covenant, didn't I. GM: Yes. You don't want to get hit by these guys - they ARE the Ugly Stick. Happily Flux manages to blast the last one back through the hole... and then Hardlight puts a force bubble around both of the rifts. Which is all it takes to complete the ritual without further interference. Go us! Flux: I feel like I'm hogging the limelight a bit here. Hero Shrew: Hey, you ARE our occult expert. And then Madamme Nwa Dantèl gives the power she 'borrowed' off Flux back. Flux: Much appreciated, madam. GM: At least we wrapped up the story arc. Flux: And now we can move forward to Undersconsin. GM: You are going to hate Undersconsin. Flux: Do they still have cheese? GM: ..... yes. Made from naked mole rat milk.

Champions - Return to Edge City : I Left My Plot Token In San Francisco The situation - the superteam Quadrant are neglecting their duties back in Edge City, because we're up the coast in San Francisco, hunting down a group of magicians. Why, we're not entirely clear on, anymore. GM: You've made assumptions so many times that I've lost track of what actually true. And you're stated stuff as definitive fact - including in your quotes, by the way- Hero Shrew and Hardlight's players: Sorry The GM eventually reminds us - There's an undead sheriff threatening trouble in Edge City. The local bokor told us that we could get the help we needed in San Francisco, where a Mysterious Old One-eyed Oriental Gentleman in a Magical Shop said he could point us towards the Tablet of Kedjameth, but not before we dealt with another group of magic users that were causing unspecified problems in SF. THAT barely passed as a hint, but we did find an environmentally-minded real estate development group that apparently thought putting sacrificial altars, stone circles, and body-stealing plant monsters in the grounds was a good idea. Now that we've found them (and survived the Thorn Golems) what do we do with them? Or charge them with? Hero Shrew: I could always loom intimidatingly. Up to their waists. GM: You're not that short. Hero Shrew: True, but my posture is bad. Hero Shrew: Turning somebody into a thorn golem probably counts as deprivation of liberty. Of course, we should also find out if it's connected to that extradimensional Gate the revenant gunslinger wants to open. Flux: OK, somebody invoked Geb to open a gate to somewhere- GM: Guédé- Geb is the ancient Egyptian god of the Earth. The Theosophists call him the King of the Gnomes. Flux: OK, we don't want to accidentally invoke Geb when we're messing up a stone circle. GM: Especially with the Western Gate RIGHT THERE *points to the Bay* Flux: - and then we'll get the codex we need to translate the Tablet of Kedjameth. Hero Shrew: I thought it was the Tablet of Kwijibo. Flux: - you bastard. Fireflash: Why don't we just go see the LoCarb CEO? Rest of Players: *silence* Hero Shrew: That... never occurred to us. GM: Fireflash is becoming the default leader of the party. Hero Shrew OoC: Believe me, we've noticed. Hardlight: So these guys are making low-impact developments - Hero Shrew: All environmental. Hence, druids, or whatever these guys are. Plus a bit of magic always helps with the stock prices. You should get Flux to do that for you. Flux: No. Hero Shrew: You manipulate data don't you? Flux: Yes, but even assuming I survive the attempt - the stock market is run by an AI these days, isn't it? Fireflash: Flux, can you make a device that will detect mystic objects? Flux: Yes, but I'd need to go back to my lab- Fireflash: *yoink* *flies him back* Hardlight goes in to poke around the LoCarb development, in his civilian ID, posing as a potential buyer, with Hero Shrew as his bodyguard. LoCarb Rep: I'm not sure you'd be a good fit for the community, Mr Lowell. We're really after the right KIND of people. But we always welcome visitors, especially if they're willing to take responsibility for their impact on the environment. Hero Shrew: Hey, we're all about responsibility. GM: You pulled up an oak. Hero Shrew: You can't prove anything. *whispered aside* They can't get fingerprints off bark, can they? Flux: Well, at least we've confirmed they're using magic. All over the place. GM: Yep. There's somebody over there with an Amulet of +5 Presence, for a start. Flux's analysis reveals an blanket enchantment on the development. GM: GROW. BE HEALTHY. BE FRUITFUL. Fireflash: Magical subliminal advertising? Hero Shrew: A Positive Affirmation field. GM: Yeah - although the Be Fruitful thing is calling problems. Everybody there is nailing it. Every day. Hero Shrew: Mass chafing problem. It seems to be tied to the stone circle. No doubt disrupting the circle will attract attention. Hero Shrew: We'll probably find out what they're sacrificing to charge up the altar too. Flux: I deal with large energy fields - is anything bad likely to happen if we disrupt the stones? GM: Maaaaaaaaybe? Hardlight: Not a problem. Hey, Scooter! Hero Shrew: *bounces over oblivious of the imminent doom* Yeah? Hero Shrew and Hardlight get ready to dismantle one of the trilithons. Hero Shrew: So, how many cameras are watching us. Flux: None. I can make us invisible to cameras. Hero Shrew: But are any cameras watching the gardens? GM: No. Wireless cameras can be tapped. And if they're up to anything hinky at the altar.... Then we put the trilithon back together, and wait to see how long it will take the coven to notice we've ended their enchantment. We wait. And wait. And wait. Eventually the sun starts coming up. Hardlight: Alright, I'm going for food. GM: I assume you realise you'll need to work in shifts. Nothing happens the next night either. Hero Shrew eventually suggests we just set-up a webcam of our own, and stake out the site from somewhere more comfortable. Fireflash: The No-tell Motel. Hopefully nobody will notice that I keep flying there. GM: 'CEO of Lowell Tech seen spending time at seedy motel with prominent local underage superheroine' It's a couple more days before somebody comes out to check the stones, do something strange with their hands, and leave again. Hero Shrew: They MUST have heard about the thorn golems and hobos by now. GM: Why? Hero Shrew: Hmm. We didn't actually tell anybody about it, did we? GM: Nope. And the hobos aren't telling anybody. They don't want anybody to think they're crazy. And they probably think your donation to Homes for the Homeless was a bribe. GM: Your webcam resolution isn't good enough to see exactly what he's doing, but it's one of the higher-ups at LoCarb. Hero Shrew: At least we don't have a squirrel peering down the lens. GM: It's worse when they wave. Some Moreaus are close to the size of the original animals. The guy comes back with two more of the higher-ups, and they do more of the weird cat's-cradle stuff with their hands. Flux checks, but the enchantment hasn't been restored. A few nights later the entire coven shows up to sacrifice chickens over the altar. And then they start disrobing. Fireflash: Are we getting all this on film? GM: She really shouldn't be watching this - it technically counts as corrupting a minor.... I'm glad that nobody lives next door at the moment. Flux's: 'So, why did Tony get arrested?' The ritual seems to have been cobbled together from all over the place - old-school blood-magic with lots of window dressing. It'll also kill their stock prices when we sell the tape to cable news, or put it up on YouTube. And then we see them putting rats into wicker figures. Hero Shrew: .... what. Hardlight: We've got them on animal cruelty now. Hero Shrew: No, that's not - they don't even - oh my f**k. They probably don't even know that the thorn golems traded up to hobos. Hardlight: OK... get the video. And post it to YouTube. Hero Shrew: Really? Shouldn't we go get the stuff off them first, and threaten to release the tapes if they don't. Fireflash: Nah. Tank their stock prices and buy them out first. Hardlight: Are they even publicly traded? Fireflash: Just send them the video first. Jeez, am I the only one who's seen a Hiest movie? Hero Shrew: I've seen Castle of Cagliostro, but I don't think I could drive like that. Fireflash: I don't think anybody could. We send the LoCarb CEO a copy of the video, and the number of a burner phone. As Hero Shrew figured out, it was the combination of the Thorn Golems and the Fecundity spell that meant the thorn golems kept trading up. And the neo-druids are appalled when they realise how badly they fucked up, especially when their intentions were genuinely good. Which is really rare with magical groups in the Champions universe. At least our anonymous involvement has been a much needed warning to the really careful with interacting magic. And Hero Shrew's insistence that we at least talk to them first means they're still in a position to go fix the invisible Wicker Men problem at all their OTHER sites. Some screaming is involved, but they manage to shut the golems down without our assistance. The Mysterious One-eyed Oriental Gentlemen and his magical shops is back where we first found it. Flux: Nobody touch, open, or lick anything. Hero Shrew: What happens if I blow through this conch? MOEOG: Good evening, young lady. Fireflash: So, did that suffice? MOEOG: That was not your task, and therefore not your question to ask. His cryptic comments about the use and mis-use of power seems to be as much directed at us, as describe the neo-druids. MOEOG: I have held this position for some time. One day, I would like to pass it on. But not to you. It is not your role. But I do know who holds the Tablet of Khedjameth. They will give it you. Go to this address in Millennium City. Flux: Nice to know I can trust you. MOEOG: I see I still have much to teach you. Flux: So, do we get to pick something from the shelves before we go? MOEOG: Not at this time. But go to that restaurant across the lane - she does the best sweet buns. GM: The address you're sent to is quite a big building. Quite a BIG building. Why didn't that bastard just say 'Go to Homestead'? He's just sent you to the Champions equivalent of the Avenger's Mansion. Receptionist: .... and who gave you this address? Flux: A One-eyed gentlemen. Receptionist: ... A one-eyed CHINESE gentlemen? Flux: I don't want to assume, but he was Oriental. Receptionist: Can you describe the place you found him? Flux: THE magic shop. Receptionist: ... wait here. Witchcraft will be out shortly. Flux: *gulp* Witchcraft: So, are you responsible for all the lightning with Quadrant? Flux: Yes? Witchcraft: We thought there were four of you - your team call themselves Quadrant after all. Flux: I like to keep a low profile. Witchcraft: I see the old guy is playing his games again. He seems to think you can understand the tablet. If that's true, I'm sorry for you. Now get out of here. Flux: Thanks ma'am, big fan, bye. Hardlight: So, how was the trip? Flux: Eventful. Hero Shrew: Much property damage? Flux: No. Hero Shrew: Slight property damage? Flux: I've somehow managed to annoy the most powerful mage on the planet. Hero Shrew: Was she hot? Flux: Well, yes, but- Hardlight: Did you get her number? GM: Everybody's got her numb- what I MEAN is that the Champions have a public contact number. Flux gets the Tablet back to his lab - everything he's read about it said it can't be analysed - but his info-magery immediately reveals the arcane equivalent of circuitry. Hardlight: Oh - it's the TABLET of Khedjameth. GM: Yep - Which explains why everyone thought it was incomplete. Nobody else figured out how to change the page. Fireflash contacts her school counsellor - who else would know how to get ancient Lemurian and Atlantean translated? Cortana: We don't teach anything that old in History. Fireflash: I didn't study History. Cortana: Fair enough then. I suppose you could ask them. But the Atlanteans and Lemurians are still at war, technically. And the Atlanteans don't like humans much. And would probably say 'That is an ancient artefact of our magic, and belongs to us.' Or 'that is an ancient artefact of our enemies and should be destroyed'. And the Lemurians REALLY don't like humans. Or you could ask Witchcraft - have you tried calling in the Champions? Flux: Um. Fireflash gets a phonecall a few hours later, from Millennium City. Witchcraft: He's had it for less than a day. I spent THREE WEEKS in the LIBRARY OF BABYLON, with THE LIBRARIAN'S SCROLL and I didn't even finish the page! Fireflash: It's information magic. Witchcraft: It can't be, it's older than the Lemurians- Fireflash: Yes, well, it's a Kindle. Witchcraft: ... The TABLET of Khedjameth. Fireflash: It took me a while to get that too. Witchcraft: Anyway, I can't help you - I'm about to leave this dimension so I'll have one to come home to. Fireflash: Oh, going by yourself? Witchcraft: Just me and Sapphire. Hero Shrew: Hot. Fireflash: She's one of my heroes, you dork. Flux: Hey, you're the one that plays Dungeons and Dragons. Oh, right, 'Pathfinder'. Witchcraft: Anyway, I got to go now YES I'M COMING so try someone more local. Hero Shrew: If anybody has invented a Universal Translator it'll be some Star Trek fan in Dysprosium Dawn. Flux: .... Scooter is on a roll this week. The Tablet is a detailed description of the powers and binding of someone with Nephilim blood. Which is alarming, especially since it means the undead sheriff that started all this no mere revenant. Hero Shrew: And letting him open the gate will probably be literally apocalyptic. Hey! I used literally, literally! Hero Shrew OoC: I'm impressed that it was me that figured out half of what was going on, and the simplest solutions. Flux: That's because you're simple. But not stupid.

Champions - Return to Edge City - Superheroes vs Hyperhobos Hero Shrew: Basically, I'm lurking in the bushes while you two break into a LoCarb business premises, and I'll be pulling up a tree to use as a battering ram when you scream for help. Flux: And Fireflash isn't here because she needs to be at home studying. GM: She can fly here in minutes - it's not that far from Monterey to San Fran. Fireflash: Probably closer to an hour. Longer if I stop for breaks. GM: You really need to get her here - you're going to be here a while. Hero Shrew: I can do that - I'll ring her and tell her what you two are doing, and she'll come here and stop you. GM: You don't find any pentacles, but you do find this symbol all over the place. Hero Shrew OoC: Ah, a Celtic knotwork Yggdrasil Hardlight: OMG, they're not white collar witches, they're white collar druids. Of course, the players know enough mythology and folklore to have a long list of things to be avoided, such as wrestling contests and being shoved into cauldrons. Hero Shrew OoC: Check the canteen for holy grails before you leave. GM: What? Hero Shrew OoC: Cauldron of Plenty. GM: But none of you know that because you all failed to ID the symbol. Hero Shrew: Yeah, we're just not very good. Hardlight: Wasn't there a stone circle around here? We head back to the hotel, arguing about lost languages like Celtic Runes, the Rongo-rongo tablets, and so on GM: Funny thing is, that tablet you're after is in a lost language. At least Hardlight remembers to get Hero Shrew to sniff around the stone circle - literally. But it's Flux who smells the unpleasant odor first. Hero Shrew: The Worst Toilet in Scotland? GM: Not quite that bad. And Hardlight's scan of the stones produces some odd results. They're dolerite, for one thing. The fuzzy five pointed shadow on the scan under the trilithons is probably bad news too. GM: There's a strong ammonia / fecal smell. Hero Shrew: Hobo nest? GM: Miiiiight be? Alright, here's a clue - what do Nicholas Cage and Christopher Lee have in common? Hero Shrew: .... they've both played Dracula? GM: OK, how about Edward Woodward, Britt Eckland, Ingrid Pitt, Ellen Burstyn, Kate Beehan Fireflash: Oh dear. GM: Despite your invisibility, the figure wrapped in wicker can see you. The Wicker Man: YOU WILL FREE ME. GM: You all heard that, incidentally. Hero Shrew: Um. Hardlight: Um... I cast Expeditious Retreat. The Wicker Man: *bursts into flame and comes after Hardlight* GM: Funny enough the fire isn't that hot - yet. The rest of you see fire and hear a yell for help. Hero Shrew: We'll need to beat that fire out *pulls up a tree* Flux: We're not there yet. Hero Shrew: Hey, I remember the plan - you call for help, I pull up a tree and come help. Flux: *sigh* The tree proves oddly difficult to dislodge, which will probably prove important later. GM: You find Hardlight wrapped in wicker which is on fire. Hero Shrew: *grins evilly and heft his oak* We need to beat that out. Hero Shrew: *on phone to Fireflash's message bank* Hey Fireflash - Flux: You're on the phone mid-combat? GM: Soliloquies are single-action. Hero Shrew: - you know how you said to ring you if we did anything stupid? Well, Hardlight's on fire in some kind of cane basket- Hero Shrew OoC: So, do you object to me hitting you with an oak tree? Hardlight: No. Hero Shrew: ! Hardlight: This once. Hero Shrew: I wouldn't want to be the gardener around here. Hardlight: Maybe it is the gardener. Hero Shrew: Nah - a gardener in Southern California would be Mexican. The Wicker Man rebuilds his armour and continues an apparent attempt to transform Hardlight into another Wicker Man. And then four more lumber out of the undergrowth. Flux blasts the first Wicker Man off his feet, and Hero Shrew winds up for a haymaker on it. GM: This will be fun. You'd smelled Scooter when he was wet before, but what do you think of the smell of burnt fur? Hero Shrew: Fireflash is going to have so many missed calls on her message bank. 'What was the number for PRIMUS again?' Flux: 'You might want to bring some weedkiller' Hardlight generates a hardlight chainsaw to get out of his entanglement. Hero Shrew: 'By the Hoary Hosts of Husqvarna!' Hardlight: New plan! RUN! Wicker Men: FREEEEDDDDOOOOOMMMM Flux and Scooter gets grabbed by the other moaning wicker creatures. Scooter keeps whaling on the first one despite the flames that keep erupting from it. Flux finally gets through to Fireflash. Fireflash: Hello? Flux: Do you have a memo pad?! Fireflash: Why do- Flux: This is the last will and testament of- Wicker Men: FREEEEEEDDDOOOOMMMM Fireflash: What??? Flux: I'm being eaten by a wicker man! Fireflash: What??????? Hardlight: ARE YOU ON THE PHONE???? Fireflash: What are you even doing up there??? Flux: We needed to find the guys so the other guy will give us the thing- Fireflash: That is terrifyingly nonspecific! Flux: THE WICKER MEN MIGHT BE LISTENING Wicker Men: FREEEEEDDDDOOOMMMMM Hardlight: THE POWER OF JOHN DEERE COMPELS YOU Flux: That's Husqvarna! Fireflash: Stop telling him he's wrong when he's getting it right! Flux: Do you want me to put you on speakerphone? Flux figures out that these things are actually thorn golems, and that they're draining us for their own power. Not that this does him any good, since all his incantations require freedom of movement. Hero Shrew: What Hardlight needs to do is conjure up a hardlight combine harvester. Hardlight: True. Hardlight cuts Flux free, but the shrew is rapidly losing vitality. Happily, the other two get him free. Hardlight: Run away! Run away! Flux: Escap-ay! Hero Shrew: Will should probably tell somebody about this. Hardlight: Oh, you think? Hero Shrew: We need to get a fire truck up here and run a hose out. GM: Have any of you bought a positive public image yet? Flux: No. And Scooter has a negative one. GM: Yes - you have a reputation for causing property damage. Hero Shrew: Yes, but this time I'm getting the fire trucks in beforehand. Happily, with some forward planning and using Hardlight as bait, we manage to take the thorn golems down and rescue the unfortunate homeless people they were using as hosts. They don't remember a thing apart from the initial wicker attack. Hardlight: I'll get them in contact with the San Francisco branch of Homes for the Homeless and make a generous donation. GM: Ah yes, the Century Industries branch. Hardlight: F**k. GM: Well, Centurion IS one of those CEOs with more money than he knows what to do with. Hardlight also discovers that the central stone of the circle was once covered in blood, but it was repeatedly scrubbed with ammonia and other cleaning products. This is presumably A Clue.

Pathfinder - Magnimar - Cartchase Scene The PCs and a gang of Sczarni cartjackers have just become aware of the full squad of Magnimar's guardsmen bearing down on us. We have a cartload of stuff and an unconscious horse to get away. Harshal OoC: So do we do the Keystone Kops, and hang onto each other's ankles and the rear of the cart? GM: No. But knowing this group I should have Yakity Sax cued. Gillert: Wait - neither group brought anybody who could actually drive the cart? Harshal: .... um. Gillert: I hope we kept the driver alive? Harshal: Zin shot him in the head. Ys: And I cut his throat. Harshal: So no. Ys OoC: Should we go into Initiative order now? GM: I've been letting you guys... Harshal OoC: Panic? GM: Yes. But the guards aren't quite here yet. Harshal boots the horse awake and jumps into the driving seat. Ys OoC: We've still got an appropriate soundtrack - Red Hot Chilli Peppers 'Under the Bridge' Gillert OoC: I still think Yakity Sax is a better fit. We drive into the maze of alleyways, dropping caltrops and marbles. GM: This is especially painful for the guardsman who slips on the marbles, and lands on the caltrops. And then gets used as a bridge by the other guards. Of course the next alley is blocked by workers and a stack of crates and barrels. Gillert: Move that stuff or we'll move your bodies! Harshal: And slice you up and use you as shoelaces! We turn back on the main road, to get more speed, and now have to deal wit a panicking crowd. Gillert: If I wasn't a moral person I'd just Colour Spray them and drive over them. But I am a moral person. Harshal: For now. Harshal: OFF THE STREETS! THERE'S A DRAGON COMING! GM: .... Well, you're going to have fun with that. And there's alway someone who will stop and ask 'which one?' At least the crowd is all panicking in one direction now. Harshal: What I should have said is 'The giant spiders are back!' GM: Yeah - then they'd all be running towards the sea. Zin and the Sczarni are sniping and throwing tanglefoot bags off the cart. Unfortunately, the crowd ahead is diverting around a figure standing in the middle of the road, sword in one hand, palm raised in the other. GM: It's a guard captain. Tannis: Kill him - it suits our purposes. Ys: Yes. Zin: I'll shoot him! Harshal: I guess we're playing chicken then. Faster! Faster! It's Ys's dagger that gets him in the leg. Zin: He used to be a guard captain, but then he took a dagger to the knee. Tannis: It wasn't funny the first time. The Captain rolls out of the way of cart, straightens up, and shoots one of the Sczarni riding on the cart. Tannis: Everything is going according to plan. Tannis checks the wounded thug, hoping to a chance to leave him behind for the guards. Tannis: He's too far gone. Ys: Lose the extra weight! Tannis OoC: Thankyou. The Sczarni sniper boots him off the cart. Tannis: We will avenge him! In due time. Sczarni: F**k that, he owes me 60 silver. By now we're way off course, and see some of our dockworkers have a shouting match with some stevedores. For some reason, Ys thinks that lassoing one of the stevedores and dragging him behind the cart will be a good idea. Harshal: Why have we slowed down? Ys: Don't worry about it. GM: There was a jerk on the wagon. Thanks to the jerk on the wagon. Ys cuts him loose as we round the corner into the final stretch. GM: Should I, should I... Harshal: Yes you should. Gillert: 'please sir, another thump on the head' There's another guardsman ahead, buying a handmeal and wondering why everybody is running. It's Colon. Harshal to Ys: Jump off the cart and save his life. GM: *cracks up* You just asked Ys. To save the life. Of a guardsman Ys: No! Tannis leaps off instead, dropping his disguise and pulling the oblivious guardsman aside as the cart races past. Tannis: Colon, my friend! Come have a drink! Colon: Oh, hello Mr Oberech *whoosh of the cart going past* I wonder where they're going in such a hurry. Final obstacle - a bunch of Shoanti in the middle of the road, having an altercation with Varisians. This is problem for Harshal, since he's a Shoanti who portrays himself as a Varisian, there's racial tension between the locals and the Shoanti clans, and the last three Shoanti representatives that came to Magnimar got killed under highly suspicious circumstances. Gillert: If you run over both of them- Harshal: Yes, it's fair, but! Harshal steers the cart through the Shoanti entourage, taking out the corner of a building as they scatter. And then gets slightly lost finding the empty warehouse we were aiming for, since Tannis jumped earlier. GM: But at least you lost the guards. Zin: And then, back from the road where you yelled 'There's a dragon coming!' A bunch of kobolds doing a dragon dance emerge. Bystander: Really? Ok, I guess?! Dividing the loot. Sczarni Sniper: To tell you the truth, we only really need one of each. Bit more to cover costs. The bosses want to know what the Nightscales are up to. Gillert: ... I think I'm hearing an echo. Ys: *starts to cackle hysterically* Tannis: Don't mind her, she does that. We let the Sczarni hole up in the warehouse, until the guardsmen calm down, and they can take their selection off in a handcart. We'll 'recover' the excess to return to the original buyers. Tannis: What a pity it would be if the Guard caught them as they were passing through Underbridge. GM: You bastard. But if they get caught, what's to stop them singing about you? Tannis: I was planning on burning this location anyway. Harshal: I rather not let the guards know there were two groups involved. GM: The witnesses will confirm that it was a precision operation The reagents are indeed volatile, and inflammable. Some bubble alarmingly when Ys experiments. The alchemsteel and asbestos tubes, and valves, are puzzling too. GM: This is some kind of thrower of flame. Zin: It's a Dragon's Breath weapon! We haven't got all the pieces - but the possibility that a cult leader with a thing for fiery destruction DOES is a little worrying. Time to invest in asbestos underpants...

Champions - Return to Edge City - The Streets of San Francisco So, basically, a Mysterious Old One-Eyed Chinese Gentleman wants us to track down some dangerous amateurs for him, and in return he'll help us get the tablet we need to contain a deadly undead sheriff. Hero Shrew: So we're looking for some yuppies who put the cocaine away for a while and took up sorcery. They found a little mystic shit and wanted to turn it into a whole lot of mystic shit. Somebody hasn't been reading their 'Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds', or they'd recognize a bubble when they saw one looming. So now we have to figure out who it actually is. Perhaps they've been boasting on FaceBook about using mystic shit to make large amounts of money? GM: OK, first problem - 'Make Money Fast Using Ancient Mojo" Hero Shrew: Yeah, I know. And even if you do a geographical limit on the search - this is Southern California. Hero Shrew: What's the street food like in San Francisco? Fireflash: Great, apparently. GM: Plus, you're in Chinatown. Hero Shrew: Great! I'm going on a curb crawl. I'm going to try everything! GM: What's your income again? Hero Shrew: OK, fine *sadface* GM: 'Opens wallet, moths' Flux: Wait, moths? 'Grab, eat'. Hardlight: Oh, fine. *hands Hero Shrew the credit card* GM: The black one? Fireflash: Well, I'm not going back to Edge City in the same vehicle as Hero Shrew after he's been on a protein binge. Flux: Point. I think I'll travel by wire. GM: You do have Streetwise, Scooter - this IS in your skill set. Hero Shrew: OK, OK, I'll ask all the street vendors if they've seen any yuppies doing magic. GM: .... Hero Shrew: Don't I get to do the tourist stuff sometimes? GM: You're a superhero - this IS the tourist stuff. Hero Shrew comes back with a range of novelty T-shirts, a couple of hats, and armfulls of shopping bags. Hardlight: I gave you that credit card for lunch. Flux: Well, he bought lunch. Hero Shrew: Yeah. And all this stuff. Hardlight: *sigh* well, I hope you got a T-shirt for me. Hero Shrew: Sure - 'Meet The New Boss, Same As The Old Boss' Hardlight: *sigh* Hero Shrew: I got one for you, too, Flux (OOC - Who's a popular Mystic figure in the Champions Universe?). GM: Hmm - it occurs to me that most of the magical heroes in Champions are female. Good representation. Hero Shrew: It's the mystic power of the uterus. Flux: Well, if it's low-order magic they're using then they must be transferring the money or luck from somebody else to them. Hero Shrew: I'm sure the business reports will have noticed a company that went inexplicably bankrupt 'What happened? This was a healthy company last week!' Hardlight: So basically... we're looking for a White-collar Coven. GM: By George I think he's got it. Fireflash's accountancy schooling might actually come in handy here. Fireflash: Well, there's one company that keeps going up on the stock market - LowellTech. Hardlight: Oh, ha ha. Very funny. GM: You realise that everybody calls it LOLtech by mistake? Flux: It probably trades as LOL. GM: That's what it shows on the scroll at the market as - LOL, up 5 points. GM: Actually, you nearly go past the company think it's a food ad that got in there by mistake. LoCarb Property Development. Real Estate is one of the Top Ten growth industries in the Bay area - the shit I have to research for you guys. They specialize in low-impact developments. Hardlight: OK, we sneak in and see if they're up to anything. Flux: So, do any of us have stealth skills? Hero Shrew: Well, I could get the door open, but I wouldn't call it stealthy. Hardlight: I wouldn't show up on the cameras, and neither would you Flux. Flux: And what about security guards? Or guard dogs. Hero Shrew: Assuming its actually a dog... GM: Yeah, but when it grows two extra heads and breaths fire you'll know you've found the right place. Flux: These days guard dog. Might mean a German Shepard with an Uzi. Hardlight: True. But are their many canine Moreaus in the security business? GM: Some, but not all are suited for the job. Fireflash: 'Hi, I'm half Pug and half British Bulldog. I'M DOOMED.' Flux: so how do we find the Magic Shop afterwards anyway? Walk into a Starbucks and the MOOECG is there saying 'Latte?' GM: 'Surprisingly there is little call for mystic artifacts in today's economy - I needed a second job'. Hardlight: OK, so Flux and I are going in. Hero Shrew: And when the screaming starts we come in and rescue you. The LoCarb buildings are low-profile, and built into the landscape - LoCarb does stand for Low Carbon, after all. Flux: I'm half-tempted to knock on a door and ask if Bilbo is home. Hardlight: Well, first we have to get in there. GM: It's a gated estate after all, one of their first developments. Flux: We could just fly in. Hardlight: Oh yeah, we can fly. I was thinking in Shadowrun mode again. GM: *cracks up* Hardlight: Try not to tear up any trees. Hero Shrew: But, but, what if I need a battering ram to get into the building? Hardlight: OK, don't tear up any trees until you need to rescue us. Hardlight's Infra-red senses don't show much - probably because of the building's energy efficiency. And Wide-spectrum Radar shows a single computer in the entire building, and lots of lap-top ports, for the same reason. Hardlight: Is there a tunnel to Undersconsin? GM: You're nowhere near Wisconsin, why would there be a tunnel to Undersconsin? Hardlight: Scooter, we need you to dig a tunnel. Hero Shrew OOC: We're never letting you forget that. GM: Why would I want to? I'm actually statting Undersconsin up. For one thing, something will finally happen in Wisconsin. This is a state that decided its claim to fame was cheese. Hero Shrew: Lots of German immigrants in Wisconsin, aren't there? Flux: We aren't going to find Hitler in Undersconsin, are we? GM: A lot of German immigrants in EIGHTEEN FIFTY

Pathfinder - Streets of Magnimar - The Thief On Thief on Thief Caper Pathfinder - Magnimar, continues, as as usual the Harroe Deck in use by the GM and Gillert's character is reading to some interesting random problems - for a certain level of interesting. Harshal's Player: What I'd like to know is why is there so much kobold porn on Tumblr. All: ... GM: Wait, what???? Harshal's Player: I wonder if Kobold Princess has something to do with it. GM: Probably - you know how things snowball on the internet. Gillert's player: *shudders* GM: I bet I can guess where YOUR mind just went. Fun movie, Clerks. Rumours - the Nightscales have settled their remaining differences, after the leadership struggle. GM: The previous leader gambled and lost. He shouldn't have lost, but he hadn't taken PCs into account. Harshal OoC: Rolled badly on the Wandering Adventurers table. The new leader of the Thieves Guild is one Athar Torn. Tannis: Meanwhile, we're looking into the Tannis Oberech Home For Wayward Familiars. Of course, such an undertaking will be a drain on finances, as will rehousing all those kobolds. Zin: I'm fine with raiding another strange wizard's mansion. Gillert: They're not called wizard mansions - they're called magical deathtraps. On the other hand, hiring the kobolds out as work teams generates income. Get to work, you little scaley buggers! Our work on the docks and warehouses is also attracting renewed interest in that part of Magnimar - some people are already showing tourists around. GM: Which basically involved hiring our armed guards to accompany you - since you still need to go through Underbridge to get there. So other people are already making money from your enterprise. Tannis: We need to put a stop to that. GM: ... These guys have no concept of economics, do they. Ys: I think they've already invented vertical integration. Whereas I'm a fan of vertical disintegration. Gathering info on Athar Torn. He's a cult leader, of the Elemental Queen of the Inferno. Harshal: Even with the most benign interoperation of 'cult', this is not a good sign. Gillert: 'We're a book-reading club - over here is the King in Yellow, the Necronomicon...' Consulting the world map as we investigate Athar's background - the map with such useful annotations as 'Huge International Clusterfuck', 'Pirates and More fuckin' Pirates'. GM: There's a lot of interesting stuff in Bungabungaland. Harshal: And we're not going to see any of it, since we're city folk and will never leave town. Magnimar is the best city in the world - who would ever want to leave? GM: Top three, sure. GM: Athar made a statement - you didn't find out what the statement WAS, but apparently there were a number of injuries, and they other gangs are happily following their lead now. So it's possible he had the other gang leaders made an example of. Harshal: I wonder if it's related to that murder in the alley a few weeks back. Gillert: The one we perpetrated or the other one? Harshal: If we keep asking questions about Athar, and the cult, and the Nightscales or whatever evolves to replace them, it's going to attract attention back to us. Gillert: True. GM: Maybe - but as new businessmen - Up-and-coming venture capitalists - Tannis: Thankyou. GM: - you'd have a good reason to wonder what a renewed Thieve's Guild will mean for your business. And of course, sooner or later people in suits are going to show up for their cut. How do we deal with them when they do? Tannis: This is mostly directed at Ys - Ys: You don't want me to kill them, I get that. But I've recently acquired a new toy - see? It has a flat side. Tannis: Very good. Gillert: OK, if they're polite we'll deal in good faith, but if they're stand-over thugs- Ys: We beat them unconscious and dump them in an alley to recover. The inevitable mobsters do indeed show up - but they're Nightscales, not Sczarni. Tannis: And who might you be? Mobsters: Our names are currently unimportant. But you may call me Mr Black, and my associate is Mr White. They want to enter a business agreement, using our docks to import certain goods. They assure us that none of the goods are actually illegal in Magnimar, that they'll expect us to deal with any Customs inspections honestly, and will deal with any transport problems offered by Underbridge. Harshal: Well, they're certainly taking a weight off my mind. If the stuff isn't illegal... Ys: Of course, they've said nothing about whether it was illegal to export from the original port. GM: Magnimar generally doesn't care - that sort of thing is the other country's problem. Mobsters: One more thing - some of the goods will arrive in sealed jars. It is important that only us or the Customs inspector open them. The contents might be spoiled by exposure to air. All: .... Okaaaay The contract Harshal draws up after the negotiations is actual very favourable - although we have no idea what the weird metal objects and stranger fabrics coming in from Alkenstar, and glassware and the mysterious jars from Osirion, are actually for. Gillert: Ah... what do these jars actually look like? Harshal: They don't have animal heads for stoppers, do they? GM: They're not canopic jars, no. Gillert: Can we avoid importing or exporting cattle for a while? GM: Well, there's one cow that would be a really d**k move to export. Hanging around during the Customs inspections doesn't help either - Harshal doesn't spot any of the symbols meaning 'Don't Check This Bottle' that he was expecting, and Ys' best guess that the Nightscales are doing something alchemical to volatise the strange oils they're importing. Harshal OoC: So... they're making a fuel-air bomb because Athar Torn is a cult leader of the Queen of the Inferno. Tannis: ... Oh. I forgot that. Ys: Oh. Greek Fire. GM: You did notice the Customs inspectors were using safety lamps. We do figure out that the metal stuff is made from Alkensteel, a remarkably durable and corrosion-resistant metal. And some of the fabrics are probably asbestos. Ys needs a closer look at that oil - so we plan to hit one of he convoys after they leave our warehouse. After all, if they got stolen from our warehouse we'd have to replace it, but if it got stolen during transport... Harshal: Sign this. Now it's your problem. GM: I would like to remind you that last time you were on a job one of you referred to another by name. Ys: Yes, but everybody who heard us is dead. GM: Either way I'd suggest codenames. Harshal: We need to steal it of the back of a truck. GM: I think you're planning to steal the entire wagon.... and you've finished the false front to the kobold grotto, haven't you. You f**kers. Of course, since all this commerce is legal, we'll have to do it in broad daylight. Gillert: Our stealth bonuses aren't that good. GM: Yes they are. Gillert: Well, we still need to set up a distraction. GM: Kobold festival! Cymbals! Fireworks! It's a Kobold Holy Day! Nobody will know better. Tannis: And that's why I'm paying them a bonus. Ys: I don't want to hit the wagon in Underbridge - I don't want to piss off the Gargoyles. GM: You live there. Ys: Yes, but that's not the reason. Some of them are drinking buddies. A gang that stayed independent from the Nightscales AND the Sczarni. And we go to church together. Tannis: ... which church. GM: That's the question. You've heard Ys say stuff before she's killed people before - you're not sure, but it had the cadence of a prayer. Gillert: 'I have sinned... and it was awesome'. The plan - distract the driver and guards, Zin snipes the driver, and the rest of us, in disguise, dash out of the alleys to deal with the guards, and then we drive off in the wagon. For some reason the GM thinks this is hilarious. Tannis: Zin, how do you feel like setting up a distraction? Zin: What kind of distraction? Ys: Total destruction. Tannis: DISTRACTION. Zin: I'd need more money for total destruction. Hey, guys! It's a day off! The Kobolds do their best to be as conspicuous as possible, while the PCs are invisible. Stealth Synergy is such a useful feat. However, the GM's gleeful expression has us highly concerned. GM: It's a kobold band playing 'Dance of the Parasprites'. You really are just Fraggles, aren't you. The wagon we're hijacking has two half-orc guards, in addition to the driver. This should be easy. Which makes us even more nervous. Gillert: Thought for the day - a tripwire for a dragon is neck height for most creatures. GM: -and... What's the name again? Tannis' player: Tannis. GM: Sorry, it's been a while since I've used the names. Tannis' player: That's alright. Mark. GM: Mark works actually - it's my middle name. Tannis' player: Goddammit. Zin fires, and we rush out. And we find out why the GM has been so giggly - as other nondescript figures dash out of the alleys. Some of them were in the same alleys we were. We stare at the Sczarni hijackers, and they stare at us. The driver tries to stare at the crossbow bolt sticking out of his head. One of the Sczarni trips over the trap Zin set to cover our retreat. GM: You're not the only group out there with Stealth Synergy. Happily, Gillert's Colour Spray affects everybody. Gillert: ... and I've just realised that includes the horse. The guards, driver, and one of the Sczarni go down to the magic. The Sczarni sniper, who had been readying his own shot when Zin fired his and triggered everybody else to run out, finishes off the guard and calls down "Well, THAT was interesting." Ys: Parley! GM: Ys, of all people, just called for parley. Make this date on your calendar. Tannis: *in his Taking Charge voice* OK everybody, continue with the plan! Down this alley! Sczarni Sniper: *reloading* You got a closer spot? Tannis: *hurriedly trying to remember if there are any empty lots nearby that AREN'T our kobold grotto* Ys: *too busy offering up the driver's blood to the god of Murder and Assassination* Gillert: And is anybody even remotely surprised? We wake up the horse, and then we hear whistles, and look down the street. GM: Coming out of UNDERBRIDGE is a full squad of guardsmen. Gillert: Oh, fuck off. Harshal: Exactly what Harrow cards did you draw over there? GM: *grinning evilly* Not saying And thus we flee, trying to outrun the guards, and not alienate our new friends in the mob, and keep hold of the wagon of mysterious goods.

Pathfinders - The Streets of Magnimar : The Killing in the Name of Competence Caper Pre-game chat - rocket science and why Kenya is the best place to build an Orbital Railgun GM: Evacuated Launch Facility. Me: Just call it the BFG and be done with it. Everyone else will. GM: Where were we? Gillert: We were fishing with a wizard and a kobold on a string. GM: Pass me the critical hit deck. We'll need the big one because it's Muskie rolling. Zin's player: .... F**k You. GM: Past Participation Predicts Piss-Poor Performance. Zin's player: *rolls, headdesks* Harshal: So, Zin, just how badly have you f**ked us? Zin's failure to take out the magical alarm bell doesn't screw us completely, because the rest of us were already swinging in. GM: You assumed Zin would succeed in taking out the bell? Ys: Actually we assumed he would fail - which is why we're all going in at the same time. Harshal soon learns the difficulties associated with being the only party member in the room without darkvision, trying to stab somebody in a dark room, and stabs the mattress instead of the Shoanti investigator. Tannis: 'Die! ... this guy is made of straw' Ys: Attacking the strawman GM: So, the only one not bloodied is the Shoanti sorceress. Gillert: Whoops. The sorceress rolls under one of the beds, and uses Ray of Enfeeblement on Ys. Ys: Bitch! Right, step back, draw out an Acid Flask, and make her eat it. The Shoanti investigators defend themselves against a surprise attack by superior numbers with the success usually limited to PCs. And then the door to the room opens. GM: Open/Close - it's a wonderful cantrip. Gillert: Logic dictates they're going to make a run for it. GM: What have we said about logic? Ys: It only allows you to be wrong with authority. GM: The Shoanti scout realises Harshal is no threat and rummages in his pack for a sword. Harshal gets an attack of opportunity. Harshal: *rolls and headdesks* GM: And now the scout has a sword. And because it's funny, the Sorceress hits Zin with another Ray of Enfeeblement. Zin: *falls over and flails helplessly under the weight of all the gear he's trying to carry* Tannis: Godammit Harshal kill that Scout! Harshal OOC: ..... did you just just say my name? Mid-op? Tannis: .... uh... The Scout jumps out the window. Harshal: Pity we can't throw Zin and his backpack at him. Zin: I would be an improvised weapon at this point. GM: Yeah, but you don't have the equipment to throw something that heavy. And you can't see him in the dark anyway. Ys: Which is why I'm the one going after him. The Hunter is taken down, but the Sorceress is now protected with Mage Armour. GM: She's also begging for her life. Tannis: Bitch. *stab* Harshal: Rightio - draw those Nightscale daggers and finishes her off. GM: There's a streak of red and white as one of her tattoos turns into a fox and runs for it. Harshal and Tannis: What the f**k was that? Tannis collects it, after it knocks itself out leaping from a third story window. Tannis: Some kind of small dog? Harshal: Fox. Tannis: Is that some kind of country thing? Well, I know somebody that will buy it... GM: Familiar. Worse, Sage Familiar. Ah, wizards, creating intelligent creatures that get left to wander the countryside when the wizard gets killed. Meanwhile, Ys is trying to track the scout. Despite her Elven heritage, tracking is not one of her skills. And it's night. And raining. GM: At least he's trying to use the back alleys, so I'm counting that as soft ground. Ys: 23. GM: He runs about 400 feet, and then you shiv him in the dark. Harshal moves a chair in front of the door, to delay any investigation. GM: The only thing anybody has heard in the rest of the inn is the Alarm bell clanging. Which only some of them might recognise as an alarm spell. 'Somebody is getting robbed. And it's now muffled... and louder again. OK, time to get my armour on. But it's still not my problem' Zin tries to loot the hunter's armoured coat, and Harshal grabs the scout's backpack. Then we all disperse to throw off any potential pursuit. GM: The fight would have been a lot shorter if any of you had had some kind of light source ready. Tannis: If I'd remembered Gillert had Colour Spray I'd have had him use that first. GM: How could you forget he had Colour Spray? He used it in the first fight! Tannis: Because I don't have a good memory. The loot - Tannis: Magical Fox. GM: Wait, what? It was a familiar. Tannis: Well, I don't know that. GM: Good point. As far as you know it's actually the sorceress. Or a fox that was wearing a people-suit. The Watch do come around to see Harshal in the morning. After all, he was the last one to talk to them. The Watch Commander takes an unholy glee in dropping Harshal in it, although Harshal's entirely truthful explanation that the Shoanti had asked him to investigate graverobbing does deflect his attention. He still has to go around to the inn and identify the bodies, though. GM: Yeah, it's definitely the people you murdered last night. Gillert: 'They're just where I left them' GM: You can already hear the guards talking in the room as you come in. Harshal: It's not Colon, is it? GM: No, it - goddamit, I drew The Fool - it IS Colon. Colon: It's obvious innit - the bint should have been in her room. Snuck in for a bit of rumpy-pumpy, the other bloke took offence, stabbed them both, tried to leg it, and ran into the local gangs. Easy. Harshal attempts to portray total innocence. Happily, even rolling one on the bluff is enough to convince the Watch, partly because Harshal such a good lying snake. GM: And partly because they want it to be true. Harshal: And if it is true, it means less paperwork. Unfortunately, the offsider is that worryingly astute watchman. Watchman: If it was a crime of passion, explain the potion bottles. Harshal: .... A keen observation. That would indeed imply premeditated murder. Gillert: 'Or they were kinky'. Harshal: .... yes, that's entirely possible, Sergeant Colon, but I believe 'sophisticated interests' like that are more of a city thing. Can I see the bottles? Watch Commander: Not unless you want to apply to the justices for a Warrant of Investigation, and take the case off our hands. Harshal: ... tempting, but no. The Watchmen are also admiring the equipment that got left behind. Harshal: Not theft, then? Watchmen: Doesn't look like it. GM: I'm sure it's fridge brilliance, but the scout's backpack being the one you stole DOES suggest he was robbed after he fled. I couldn't believe it when you said you were grabbing his. Harshal's player: OK, I admit I wasn't planning that. Tannis also discovers the fox can understand human speech, after he's passed it onto to Iria for study. Tannis: No invasive stuff, we might have a use for this. Iria: But then I can't do anything! Tannis: Are you going to be co-operative? Fox: *Three taps for maybe* Tannis: Your mistress is dead. Gillert: Do you know who did it? Fox: .... *two taps for no* Harshal: Well of course it'd say that, wouldn't it. The GM checks some rules, and is finding out how hard it is to talk to an familiar, since they aren't ordinary animals anymore. GM: ..... Actually... I might do something with that. *evil chuckle* Sala No-name might be able to talk to the fox, but there's no way that would be a good idea, since Harshal has figured out she's a Wild-blooded, probably Fae, Sorceress, AND a Shoanti. On the other hand, she does assure us the fox familiar with probably lose all it's abilities over the next few days. Not entirely true, but a merely intelligent animal isn't as dangerous as one that can testify in court. Harshal: Problem solved. Tannis: I feel.. that I ... am a nice man. GM: Nice wording. Gillert: He actually said that with a straight face. Tannis: I'm evil, but I am humane. Ys: True. Harshal: *raises skeptical eyebrow* Translations via Sala No-name, and her wolf, to the fox, and back. Tannis: I believe you're going to lose all your magical abilities over the next few days. How do you feel about this? Fox: I dunno, how do you feel like scratching about in the dirt and throwing your poo at people? Tannis: .. I believe some people enjoy it, but it's not for me. Harshal: Tannis, may I have a word outside? Tannis: Alright. Harshal: Do we really want a witness who can identify us by scent running around? Tannis: I'm confident it can't find me. And I don't particularly care. Harshal: Well, alrighty then. *mutters* At least I have an alibi. Tannis: I did the deed. YOU did fuck-all in the entire fight. The fox doesn't want to be given to another mage, or lose his Familiar abilities. Fox: I don't want either - but I can't afford to bring her back! Tannis eventually convinces the familiar that it will be looked after, as befits any intelligent creature in Magnimar. Fox: You're a good human. Harshal: *snorts* Iria: Actually, that's a good question? How many intelligent ex-familiars are running around out there? I need to ask some questions.... GM: There's a reason Sala No-Name is such a good information broker. She casts Ears of the City and Commune With Birds, and now she knows everything that's been happening in Magnimar in the last day.

Star Wars - The F Troop Getting In Deep GM: So, who remembers what happened last time? Fakybe: An astromech who belonged to us, and a bunch of droids we brought into the system, hijacked a ship we owned, with the aid of a friend of ours, and we managed to enable their escape by opening fire on an Imperial pilot. Fendri: Who was flying another of our ships. GM: And you're going to claim complete innocence? Fakybe: Naturally. GM: After the grim interrogation and beatdown, the Imperials are still highly suspicious, and want to assign the Imperial pilot you shot up to accompany you as you try and track down the rogue droids. If looks could kill, or she had Force powers, you'd be dead. Lt. Marelle the Pilot: You didn't even fire at their ship! Fakybe: They were out of range. Marelle: *growls* Fakybe: I'd quite like to know what your lot were doing to all those droids, if they could hijack a freighter. Marelle: I wasn't teaching them anything, I'm a test pilot! Fakybe: Riiiiiiight We 'follow' the droids to the pirate's system. After all we placed a mythical tracking beacon on the freighter since it was our salvage. And our original plan was that the droids would hold off on resupplying at the ex-pirate base until after we'd 'checked' it. Fakybe: This would be a lot easier if we still had an astromech. Fendri: Funny that. We don't have any luck scanning the system for the droids (or anybody that might have pursued us here). We don't even have to fake our failure. But we double-check to keep up appearences, and find another ship already scanning the asteroids... and then the frigate full of Imperials emerges from hyperspace. Which might have something to do with the astromech and the hyperspace beacon we find in the cargo hold. Evidently the Imperials don't trust us as far as they can spit us. The droid R3-KT claims it was ordered to infiltrate the Deniable Plausibility by the Imperials, so they could track us. We act with appropriate suspicion, and contact the Imperial frigate to report the discovery - after all, it might be another rogue droid. They say they'll get back to us. Forvuk prepares to take a vibro-axe to the beacon. Fakybe: We could also drift closer to that other ship, do a spacewalk, and attach the beacon to them. Forvuk: *halts mid-swing* Cool! Let's do that. The Frigate says their stock of droids is all accounted for, and decide to just broadcast a menacing order for all ships in the system to identify themselves. It turns out the mystery ship is that bounty hunter who was hunting down the Wookiee and the the rest of them. So the only way they could have found their way here is if they teamed up with the surviving pirates. Uh-oh. How to confuse things? Fendri: We tell them we need to split up. If the droids went to Nulhutta, we get the others to go to Kessel. Forvuk: Well, in that case we tell them 'If they're going somewhere that welcomes rogue droids, it must be Kessel or Nulhutta. How about you go to Nulhutta?' Then they get suspicious and say 'How about WE go to Kessel and YOU go to Nulhutta' and we say 'Well, if you insist'. We all head back to Fomos for resupply. GM: The frigate has to rendezvous with the big wedge-shaped star destroyer that's back in orbit. Fakybe: I'd like to be a fly on the wall at THAT meeting. Fakybe has a good poke around in the astromech's programming, after it BSODed at Forvuk's threats. It's been altered to only obey Imperial commands, can't be aggressive, but still has self-preservation protocols. Probably not a suicide bomber, them. Fendri: Let's give him back his free will. Fakybe: Droids shouldn't have free will. Fendri: *gasps in shock* Fakybe, after taking Fendri aside: As long as we talking IN FRONT OF THE IMPERIAL DROID, I'm not going to say anything that says we're in favour of droid independence. GM: Good idea. Fendri: We do need a replacement astromech. Fakybe: Well, if the Imperials insist it isn't theirs, I suppose we can. The authorities on Fomos are just as suspicious as the Imperials. Fakybe: We only brought the droids here because they didn't need life support en route! And they were Trade Federation droids! They were junk! Forvuk: You're not saying the Imperials were outsmarted by Trade Federation droids, are you? Imperials: *glower* GM: Either way, it's going to be next to impossible to get legitimate contract work from the authorities on Fomos, because they don't trust you anymore. Fendri: So we go straight to the Hutts. Fakybe: *headdesk* Mogul has already set up his mansion with all the luxuries that befits a budding Hutt crimelord or Hollywood producer. Mogul the Hutt: Hohoho, scum, what you do for me? Fakybe: Nice to see the Hutts are living up to their racial stereotypes. Mogul's mojordomo: My master assumes you are going to Nulhutta to meet with your confederates. Us: ... GM: He's a Hutt - as far as they are concerned there are no innocent explanations. Fakybe: I think we're going to have to take the Hutt job - it's not like we can get legal work anymore. GM: Mogul wants you to do a simple favour for him on Nulhutta. Fakybe: So, do we stop digging our hole when we reach subspace? He wants us to find mercenaries to protect his illustrious presence. GM: He wants you to acquire mercenaries, beer, and do a small favour. Knowing the Hutts, it'll be the last thing that gets you killed. Of course, Forvuk wants to take advantage of the hiring, to find the people responsible for the death of his family. Fakybe: Now hiring - mercenary/bodyguards. Special consideration for those with previous experience on Drelkh? We also have to go see the famous opera-singing Hutt, Melba. Who is Mogul's mother. Fakybe: So, did she eat her husband or what? GM: Well, yes. Forvuk: So, do we have to go find a new husband for her? Fendri: WE ARE NOT PLAYING MATCHMAKERS TO HUTTS. Fakybe: Yente the Hutt. Actually, all we need to do is pick up a bundle of stuff from Mogul's old room. Fakybe: How much you want to bet that Customs on Fomos will be waiting for us? GM: Well, of course, you'll have just come back from Nulhutta. Fakybe: That's not how this will work - Melba will have contacted Fomos to tell them what we're carrying. And then Mogul will bind us to his service by paying our bail. There's still no sign of the droids and our ship either. GM: What's your supposition? Forvuk: They failed an astrogation check and flew into the sun? Fendri: ... They flew off and joined the Rebellion, didn't they. Another thing we could try - find out wherever M-PSR-E0 was staying when he was on Nulhutta, and see if he left any clues. After all, he was only planning to be on Fomos temporarily, before he got involved with our gang of idiots. We break in and convince his security computer to cough up an emergency contact. Maybe we'll be able to figure out what actually happened, who conned who, and all without the Hutts, Pirates, Bountyhunters, BOSS or the Imperials killing us in our beds.

In which a group of outer scumbags have burgled and murdered their way into positions of increasing wealth and influence. In most respects this makes them no different to any other D&D or Pathfinder party, but in one respect we differ. We're fully aware that we're scumbags. Harshal: We'll have to put the kobold in charge of the warehouse security. Zin: Wait, what? Harshal: 'These premises are protected by Underlord Security - Trespassers will be decapitated' Ys: 'Trespassers will be eaten' Zin: I don't eat people. GM: No, but you are short - so the whirling blades will all be at human neck height. Gillert: But the rest of us are human-sized! Harshal: Ah, but we're not trespassers. Gillert: We should install an escape route. Tannis: Why, do you think we will fail? Harshal: No, the escape route for Gillert, on the day he thinks he can actually get away without us hunting him down. *pats our pet poet-mage's shoulder companionably* GM: Or when he decides the reward for handing you in is actually worth it. GM: Gillert HAS been a moderating influence on you all. Ys: Just as well, since I've seen how you react when I start muttering 'Bored, bored, bored' to myself. GM: That's because your solution to boredom is sticking a foot and a half of steel through somebody. Harshal: And if she's really bored she makes sure the point doesn't stick out the other side. Tannis: Do you know how a cockatrice is made? Harshal: When a Mummy Cockatrice and a Daddy Cockatrice love each other very much- Gillert: I'm not finding any information on repairing damaged buildings. GM: First you build it. Harshal: Build it, and they will come. Ys: That's only true of brothels. Zin: I need a barracks. GM: I think you mean Bunks. Zin: Oh, right - I'm housing some workers, not building an army. Yet. Tannis: Our main problem is that to getting to our new warehouse people have to come through Undertown. Which isn't as bad as people think, although I'll admit the population of criminals has gone up by five. Tannis suggests we hire the local delinquents to cause trouble, then hire same delinquents as a security force. Tannis: We need to claim that there's a problem, prove that existing precautions are inadequate, and then solve the problem. That we made. GM: Why do I get the impression that this is going to be an "Ellipsis, Profit!" Situation? Gillert: How do we get away with all this when 'Detect Evil' exists? Tannis: We won't show up until we're Level 4. Harshal: We need to be evil AND a threat. Tannis: And as an added bonus they'll be a whole bunch of undefended businesses. Which we can rob. Ys: Why rob when you can run a protection racket? GM: The Watch have been overtaxed by the looting during the plague. Gillert: We did one job! GM: It wasn't JUST you. GM: Harshal! There is a knock on your door. Harshal: Quick, hide the evidence! There's three Shoanti at the door, who greet Harshal by his Shoanti clan-name. Harshal: Can I help you? Shoanti: High Seeker. Harshal: ... Kinsman. Their tattoos are indicate Storm Rock sentinels, Earth elemental sentinel, and Scarab sentinel. The later is odd, given it's more a Skull clan symbol than Spire clan. For that matter so is Earth elemental. Harshal: This is mildly alarming, especially given our interaction with the local Skull Clansmen earlier. One of them is a Tattooed Sorcerer of the Necromancy school. It probably meant she spent time with the Skull Clan tribe, as part of some exchange programme. They're here to investigate some minor desecration of Shoanti burial grounds, and there suspicions have been raised by the fact that Magnimar's Skull Clan inhabitants don't want to talk about it, when protecting Shoanti burial grounds is the Skull Clan's JOB. Harshal says he'll make some enquiries, and strolls with practised casualness around to Tannis' offices. After all, it was Tannis' cousin Emelliandra who said she was in the market for the kind of trinkets that get used to decorate Shoanti graves - and it was us that uncovered that stash of such trinkets in the possession of the Nightscales Thieve's Guild, and ensured they got passed on to just the right people to ensure they could be stolen again later. Tannis, naturally, denies any wrongdoing on Emelliandra's part - the Oberechs have to stick together, even if they're all complete bastards. Tannis: So don't insinuate anything about my family or I'll kill you. Although I don't say that last bit out loud. Tannis: When your family is not only of Azlanti descent but connected to a creature of ambition and avarice... GM: Yeah, that didn't help. Harshal: ? GM: There's reasons Tannis can see in the dark. Still, Tannis does drop by his cousin's house, since it probably was her anyway. Tannis: Cousin. Emelliandra: Go away! Tannis: Cousin? Is there something I can assist you with? Emelliandra: Go away! You've done enough damage already! Tannis: Is this something to do with our lilac friend? Emelliandra: Oh, so he's a FRIEND is he? Harshal: ? Tannis: The Black Knight smelled of lilacs. Emelliandra has become an intermediary between the party and the Silent Circle (the Silver Masks that have been causing trouble) and is rather upset about it, since she had been going out of her way to avoid such entanglements, and didn't get a choice about this one. Emelliandra: You mean you didn't even KNOW WHO HE WAS???? The Circle calls him the Prince of Tombs. Tannis: Would this have anything to do with the Shoanti Skull Clan? Emelliandra: Oh, that, no, that was actually very usef- oh. OH. *makes strangling motions at Tannis* I could- .... I forgot to send the letter. Tannis: ? Emelliandra: Those Thassalonian fragments from that dig you broke up - they got given to the Skull Clan to add to grave sites. I hired the Skull clan to bring them back here to me. I was going to get a third party to cover their tracks... but I forgot to send the letter. As for how she got involved with the Silent Circle herself - she had been solving a small 'interesting' problem for a client, and found herself in a room with an animated silver mask - she doesn't think she's even actually met a member of the Silent Circle, proper. Emelliandra: My advice is to follow my lead - get out from under them. Because any group that has a GRAVE KNIGHT in their number... I don't think they can be killed. I certainly haven't found any way to do it. Tannis: They don't like being offered tea, either. Harshal OoC: Perhaps they're allergic. Emelliandra: You tried to cultivate a contact, didn't you? With some strange figure that smells of lilacs and wearing full plate? And YOU tried to cultivate a contact. Tannis: *bristling* is it not within my rights? Emelliandra: That is what you're in Magnimar to learn - did it even occur to you to make a background check first? Harshal's investigations get nowhere - everybody is determined not to talk about it. Harshal: So... items were added to the gravesites, and these items were taken away again. Therefore there was no actual theft. Gillert OoC: Gee, which of us was playing the lawyer again? I can't tell. Gillert is becoming increasingly certain that the Silent Circle and their silver masks are some kind of Cabal. The various methods of intimidation they've been using confuse Tannis a bit. Gillert: Well, some people send letters, and some send crowbars. Harshal: I favour a quiet alley and a length of lead pipe, myself. About grave knights Harshal: well, there's one thing worse than Grave Knights. GM: Oh? Harshal: Graver Knights. They're the ones that go DOOSH_DOOSH_DOOSH and wave glowsticks. GM: .... and moving on. Harshal OoC: Hey, somebody had to say it, Kevin's asleep. Ys: Maybe we can find one of their couriers and slit his throat? Tannis: Ironically, it was trying to contact one of their couriers that got us into this whole mess. Gillert: Well, you know what they say - you can't unbottle the genie. Harshal: Yes you can, it's the whole point. Gillert: ... REBOTTLE the genie. Harshal: I think we're going to need a diagram for all this. Iria contacts Zin, because she needs to find Ys. Harshal: Just follow the screams. Zin: Iria needs you. Ys: She already has a girlfriend. Iria: Ah good, you're here. I have an uncomfortable question for you. Ys: Only when I bored. Iria: ... that seems like a bad time to kill people. Ys: It stops me being bored. But you actually want me to kill someone? Iria: Uh, yes? You do that don't you? Kill people? For money? I wasn't sure I was reading you right but Sala thought you were the kind of person who would. Who does she want killed? Iria: There's these three Shoanti that have come into town, asking questions. Tannis: Ah, of course it's them. Apparently Iria is part of the same research group - or chain of conspirators - as Emelliandra. She's also discovered some underground chambers that might be good living quarters for the kobolds, if the kobolds agree to keep working with her. Conveniently, the cave entrance opens onto the same bay as our warehouse and salvaged wreck. Zin: I've always been OK working with Iria as long as she doesn't cut any of my compatriots open. Gillert: But it's OK if it's you? Lots of loopholes in that statement. Zin: ... I can afford healing potions. GM: It's a grotto. Gillert: An upmarket cave. Harshal: It's not a proper grotto unless it's inhabited by a potential saint. Ys: has been doing her own investigations into the three Shoanti, and discovers that they've been to see Harshal. Ys: Oh really. Harshal OoC: I can even tell you where they're staying. Ys: You might have noticed I'm wearing my work clothes. I've been hired to kill three people. Harshal: Let me guess - Tannis, Gillert and Zin. Ys: I'd charge more for them. And wouldn't tell you first. We all repair to Tannis' office, where he is snowed under even more paperwork. He is not happy to see us. Harshal: Would your client be satisfied if they merely left town for good? Ys: No. Harshal OoC: I'm not going to question that, since I know it would be your answer either way. Zin: We can make them disappear. Ys: I don't want them to disappear. Harshal: Ah. Gruesome and bloody murder seems to be the order of the day. Gillert: We should make sure the murder doesn't get connected to your client - who in Magnimar doesn't like Shoanti? GM: There's the Sczarni organised crime families. Harshal: And we've still got those Nightscale knives. Gillert: Niiiice. Gillert: If we do it properly now we won't have to kill as many people later. Tannis: I like the view from the top of your slippery slope. Ys: If they're sleeping in the Common Room in the inn, that's a problem - too many- Gillert: Witnesses? Tannis: Collateral. Harshal: Freebies. Gillert: I offered them a non-lethal solution and they're all '100 GP a head' GM: It's nice to know how much it costs to abandon your morals. Gillert: I'm not arguing with them once they get murder-happy. Ys: We could ambush them as a group, but that's far too close to a fair fight for my tastes. Gillert: We could try and lure one away. Tannis: Seduction? Gillert: Sure - Harshal hasn't seen his kinsmen in ages, it's a good excuse to invite one of them to a pub. Zin: Oh, I thought you were looking at me - how am I supposed to seduce them? Harshal: Everybody has heard the stories about kobolds, and you're just the right height. After Harshal goes in to report his ongoing investigations (and get a layout of the rooms, and who is staying in which) we prepare our assassination. A storm is rolling in too, which is helpful. Zin: The thunder will mask the screams. But it doesn't help Zin climb up onto the roof. Harshal: Lower a rope with a loop on the end. We can haul him up - he's small enough. Ys: True. Gillert: What do you know, we just swung a kobold in through the window. Harshal: You know, one additional benefit of pinning this on the Nightscales is that we know the NIghtscales were involved in digging up the Thassalonian artifacts in the first place - there's your connection. Ys: *thumbs up* Our precaution of lowering the trapsmith and the mage-poet to the windows first pays off - one of the rooms has a Chime of Warding set up. And Ys finds an empty room with twisted reeds all over the floor in the other. GM: You remember this inn, Tannis - the owner is a prude. As an unwed woman, the third Shoanti would have to take a separate room. Tannis: That's why I always carry multiple fake wedding rings. We burst into the other room, weapons raised for combat!

Edge City - Go West, Young Man In which Team Quadrant, Edge City's latest superhero team, are trying to stop an undead sheriff, one Phillip Graves, from murdering his way through the Voodoo Crew with a pair on antique revolvers. Apparently he was the last victim of the Tombstone Kid, another Horror/Western crossover. We don't know how he's up and about again, but he seems highly pissed about something. It might have something to do with a Gate the Voodoo Crew representative mentioned while Hero Shrew was gorging himself on a free Creole meal. Hardlight's player: Are we missing anybody? GM: No. Quadrant is four people. Flux's player: Four people and an owl. GM: Bubo is the bases DNPC. Flux's player: I still count him as part of the team. GM: Bubo is his own mechanism. Somebody finally explains to Hero Shrew why the name Phillip Graves is funny. It takes a while. Still, we have plenty of time to spend waiting for Graves to show up again. Of course, we have no idea how to take the revenant Graves down - he's certainly not attached to his ectoplasmic body, and his remains are still in the mausoleum, and we don't know what fetter is holding him to the mortal plane. We hear shooting, and screams, and it's Graves, and Fireflash swoops down to interpose herself in the line of fire, and yells "STOP!". Graves actually flinches. Hero Shrew tries to takes Grave's guns away (he might put somebody's eyes out) and is quite put out when Graves disperses into shadow and reappears elsewhere. Hero Shrew: That's cheating! Graves reappears and shoots Fireflash twice in the back. Fireflash: There's a reason I had my shield up. Although given how much hurt she suffers, it's just as well she DID have her shields up. But we do manage to get enough hits on him to knock him sort of unconscious, and we get a good look at this strange figure. GM: This guy had a skull for a head, and an ectoplasmic body - 90s shit. Hero Shrew: I think we ought to call in the proper authorities to contain him. Who's the proper authorities to contain a guy with an ectoplasmic body? Fireflash: I can check- Hero Shrew: The Ghostbusters! Flux: OK, limiting ourselves to the real for a moment- Hero Shrew: You mean the Ghostbusters aren't real???? We also discover that he disappears if moved into shadow. Which explains why he shot Fireflash - he has something against light sources. Hero Shrew: At the very least we can arrest him for carrying firearms without a license. Hardlight: So, does his body start dancing if I play 'Higher and Higher' nearby? Flux: Please don't. Hero Shrew: Hey, you're the one who said you were watching Ghostbusters for research purposes. Flux: Where did the Voodoo Crewmembers go? GM: They ran away. They're not stupid. ECPD: So, what is he? Some kind of nutjob? Hero Shrew: Some kind of zombie ectoplasmic revenant thingie. ECPD: .... So if we put him a cell and he wakes up? He just... Hero Shrew: *excitedly realizing a pun* He ghosts out! Fireflash: ... yeah, that's actually about right. ECPD: So we need to call PRIMUS and get them to bring a Special Containment Unit out? Fireflash: Yes. Flux: Didn't we call them first? GM: You have to go through channels. We keep him unconscious enough for the experts to arrive, although he wakes up as we're doing the paperwork. Mobile Special Containment Cell: *pings* PRIMUS Tech: Huh. He just tried to get out. MSCC: *pings again* PRIMUS Tech: And again. Hardlight: You can stop teleporters? Tech: Well, I sure hope we can. Actually ... it looks like he isn't trying to teleport. He's not going somewhere else... he's going somehow else. Graves: *hisses* Fireflash: Hi. Graves: I misjudged you. You are not a child of Elysium. Flux: Not last time we checked. Fireflash: I want to help you. Graves: The only thing that will help is finding the guns. Fireflash: The revolvers you keep manifesting? Graves: *laughs mockingly* You are a fool. Hero Shrew: The guns the Tombstone Kid killed you with? Graves: .... Who could have guessed - The Beast is the smart one. Hardlight: The Voodoo Crew said the your fetters were holding off the apocalypse. Graves: .... I don't know anything about that. Flux: Aaaand we're going to get you into custody now. Hardlight, next time don't volunteer information to the bad guy. Hardlight: We need another meet with Madamme Damselle. And this time I'm coming - fuck her 'scary juju' shit. Flux: We should reciprocate her lunch offer. Hero Shrew: Well, let's check the interwebs. What Edge City restaurants have good reviews? GM: You could be really cheeky... Hardlight: The Collar Club. Flux: No. GM: For one thing Colin the Collie would go mental. Flux: 'You've what? No. No. Get out. Get out of here yesterday. And Scooter? You're fired.' GM: Na, he wouldn't fire Scooter. Nobody wants Scooter to have more free time. The Voodoo Crew high-up is not pleased to see Hardlight at the meeting. Madamme Damselle: I see I will not be accepting an invitation from Quadrant in future. Fireflash: Sorry, what? Hardlight: I wish I knew what you people have against me. Madamme Damselle: You wish to know? Very well - you are like a moth in the fabric of the world. But since you have done us a favour today, I will overlook it this time. Flux: So, you're using the Tombstone Kid's guns as a bar on the gate to Hell. Or Purgatory, or Limbo, or whatever it is. Out of the goodness of your hearts. Madamme Damselle: Not exactly. How does the quote go? 'The world is were we keep our stuff'. So not so much the goodness of our hearts, as enlightened self-interest. She does tell us that whatever realm is on the other side of the gate is NOT the realm of the Loa, but the gate used to be an artifact of Baron Samedi and a gate to the realms of the dead. And somebody *changed* it. This is alarming. Hardlight: I think we need to talk to- Flux: Please don't say we need to talk to Baron Samedi. Hero Shrew: I'm sure they could arrange a meeting. Real intimate meeting, I'm guessing. Madamme Damselle: I'm sure Papa Friday could arrange a meeting. He is blessed by all three Barons, after all. Madamme Damselle: Perhaps you should consider a more permanent solution for Mr. Graves. Hero Shrew: Well, his remains are still in the mausoleum. Madamme Damselle: ..... Oh realllllly. Hero Shrew: ... I just volunteered information to the bad guy, didn't I. She does tell us how the Tombstone Kid came back the first time - he was struck by lightning. But his remains got incorporated into the mysterious gate. Madamme Damselle: So, we have the beginnings of a mutual understanding? Flux: I'm sure the police would call it something else, but it looks like it. Madame Damselle: We operate under certain restrictions. But you can utilize other avenues- Hero Shrew: I can make avenues! Just point me at a row of buildings you want removed. All: ... Flux: That's nice, Scooter. *pats him on the shoulder* Madamme Damselle leaves us a mobile phone in the event we ned to contact each other. It's pink, and has unicorns. Hardlight: I wonder what corpse she got this off. Madamme Damselle: This is your lucky day, Monsieur Flux. Papa Friday has agreed to meet you. Flux: Should I bring my own concrete boots? Madamme Damselle: Most amusing. But why would we waste useful material? Flux: .... Flux: I'm off for a meeting with Papa Friday. If I'm not back in two hours, I'll be back- Hero Shrew: As a zombie? Flux: I'll be back. Late. Flux gets picked up. In a stretch hearse. It begins to sink in that this meeting may have been a mistake, especially when Papa Friday is a tall, slender black man with skull make-up, and sunglasses with one lens. And a small skull on his tophat. An actual skull. Papa Friday: Your power is of a type, Mister Flux. And Baron Samedi tells me you are to seek the Tablet of Kedjamith. He tells me it is full of much knowledge - which is strange, since the Baron says a book is a thing of little knowledge, and a tablet is but a single page. Flux: .... any hints as where I should start looking? Papa Friday: It is hidden in a place I am sworn not to go. Flux: .... Papa Friday: *sigh* San Francisco. I suggest you start in Chinatown. Flux: Well, thankyou. Give my regards to the Baron, and my hopes I never have to give them in person. Papa Friday: All mortals give their regards to the Baron, one day. Flux: Hopefully no day soon. Thanks, anyway. Papa Friday: And I should thank you. It is rare I get to serve the Baron with this hand. *shakes Flux's hand, and let's him out in Edge City's version of Chinatown.* Meanwhile the rest of us a scrambling to try and find Flux, since this meeting sounds like a really bad idea. Flux: please don't show up and offend Papa Friday, please don't show up and offend Papa Friday... GM: How would you track Flux down anyway? Hardlight: Through the team communicators! Flux: The *untraceable* connection? Remember who made these. All: ... Flux: Perhaps Hero Shrew knows a bloodhound. GM: He knows a scenthound. In fact, he's sweet on her. Hero Shrew: *happy sigh* maybe I should get her a box of chocolates for her birthday. GM: *facepalm* You are really bad at wooing a dog. Peanut Gallery: ? GM: It's not as creepy as it sounds. Peanut Gallery: I'm sure it's EXACTLY as creepy as it sounds. But since we're too incompetent to actually track Flux down, we end up meeting him at a Chinese restaurant afterwards. Flux calls in some favors - the Tablet of Kedjamith is a known minor magical artifact, that describes creating and binding a vengeful spirit. But the tablet is incomplete, and is completely unresponsive to any known magical probes. It's written in an especially obscure form of Hebrew, and required expert consultation to translate. It's passed through multiple collections. Flux: OK then, looks like we need to go to San Francisco. Hero Shrew: Road Trip! Photos of the Golden Gate bridge show up on the room's screensaver. GM: That's good timing. Edge City is a two-hour drive from San Francisco. GM: The residents of San Fran have a saying about Edge City. "Nice place to visit, but you would want to live there". Hardlight: Well, my powers didn't cut out when I left the city limits. Flux: And you didn't explode. *hands $5 to Fireflash* GM: You carry enough cash to cover your bets? Classy. Flux: Well, I use electronic funds for most things, but figure paper money would piss her off more. Despite his general cluelessness, Hero Shrew nods the little side street that's somehow behind other side streets, and which is somehow bigger on the inside. GM: So, who remembers the start of Gremlins? Flux: Nobody touches anything, nobody feeds anything, nobody buys anything. Hero Shrew: How about a Frogurht? Hardlight: Hey, a Monkey's Paw! Mysterious Old One-eyed Chinese Man: How may I assist you, gentlemen? Flux: We need the Tablet of Kedjamith. MOOECG: That is a very specific request. Flux: We have a very specific need. MOOECG: My customers are not always so ... flamboyant. Hero Shrew: This is San Francisco, they're all flamboyant here. MOOECG: That is a misconception - while the city has a sizable gay population, they are not all camp. The shopkeeper soon figures out that Papa Friday sent us. Hero Shrew: Papa Friday said he was working on the Baron's right hand for this - that's not the kind of thing you want to lie about. Flux: Scooter... Hero Shrew: Hey, I'm not supposed to volunteer information to the bad guys - this isn't a bad guy. MOOECG: Such naivety - it is good to see in the young. Most practitioners are quite evil. Fortunately, I am not! Flux: You're a good businessman too. MOOECG: Not exactly. After all, Location, location, location. And I don't get much walkthrough traffic. When we step out of the store, it's gone. And Flux and Fireflash realize we were just in THAT magic store - the one that exists in the Ur-City Babylon, and is only ever found by people who need what is within it. Flux: Godammit. Fireflash: Aw, I really wanted that model castle! Apparently there is a group in San Francisco that recently had a downturn, mustered their resources to alter their fortune, and unlike most such groups actually succeeded. But they then took it further, in a grab for power. This is who we have to find to get the Tablet. Flux: We thought this would be simple!

Champions - Return to Edge City : Gumbo and Gunfighters Hardlight: I'm not Lawful Good, I'm Lawful Capitalist Fireflash's player: Hopefully I can stay awake for this session. What happened last time? Hero Shrew's player: Apparently we have to overthrow the Despot of Undersconsin. GM: That was a throwaway line! Hardlight: Maybe I can have the Centurion CEO as a rival. Hero Shrew: So, out of the two of you, which do you think is Tony Stark, and which one is Justin Hammer? GM: Because we've got some bad news for you. Hero Shrew: We did kinda screw the pooch on that whole Six Teens thing. Maybe we should do some public appearances, and prove we're not completely incompetent? Flux and Fireflash: ..... No. GM: I can't stop laughing. Hardlight: Oh, come on, parties, orphanages... Hero Shrew: Children's hospitals. Hardlight: What could go wrong? Fireflash: If I ever find the journalist that started calling me Fireflash... Police Contact: I'd probably have to arrest you. Fireflash: You'd never find the body. Police Contact: .... Fireflash: I'm joking! Police Contact: Maybe, but if he ever goes missing you're a suspect. Flux: So, how is that hole you're digging coming along? GM: Seems to be a party trait. The police do have more info on the hooded dead's head figure that's been killing Voodoo Crew, including video of him strolling through heavy gunfire, only to falter and go down to Voodoo Crew heavy soldiers with shotguns. And despite having his head blown off, and being more full of pellets than a bag of sheep manure, the killer turns up again a few days later. Tear Gas has no effect either. Police Contact: San Fransisco is supposed to get this kind of shit! Fireflash suspects that the killer is some kind of ectoplasmic construct, but there's only one supervillain she knows that uses ectoplasm that much. Fireflash: We'd better hope it isn't him. Hero Shrew: Hmm? Fireflash: Crown, floats around on throne, already dead... Hero Shrew: Oh. OH. Oh fuck! Flux: Hmm? Hero Shrew: Taco-face. GM: Takofanes the Undying Lord. He's been around since the Hyborean Age, and back then he looked at Thoth-Amon and said "How cute, you actually think you're someone." Actually, since the remains they found have no physical qualities other than mass, volume, and viscosity, it seems more likely the killer is some kind of revenant - which hopefully means we won't get killed by Takofanes any time soon. What to do about it? We can't really let it keep killing people. Or worse, the Voodoo Crew somehow gain control of the wraith and use it as an unkillable soldier of their own. Fireflash: I don't like killing people. Hero Shrew: Hey, it's not like I go out of my way to kill people either, they just break so easily, yanno? His revolvers apparently have unlimited ammo, too. Perhaps sending a screengrab of his rather distinctive pearl-handled, machine-stenciled handguns to some gun-fancier's forum will turn up a clue? Flux: .... That's actually a pretty good idea, Scooter. We now also realise that the killer's hoodie is actually an oiled greatcoat with a hood - a slicker. Hero Shrew: Ah, that makes it obvious! He must be Billy Crystal. All: .... *sigh* Hero Shrew OoC: Look on the brightside - if I'm busy watching 1991 comedies for clues I'm not causing property damage. Hardlight: I don't care - I need you for muscle as I go see the Voodoo Crew. They don't like me. Hero Shrew: Yeah , I know - nobody else likes you either. Flux: Well, Fireflash and I can do the research. GM: And those two are going to talk to the Crew. THOSE two. Hero Shrew: Yes, the 'diplomatic' ones. Flux: *facepalm* Fireflash: We forget the leashes again, didn't we? GM: So, how are you going to go about this? Hero Shrew: Ask random passersby if they know where we can find the Voodoo Crew, since we need to talk to them about the revenant that's been filling them with more bullets than a Powerpoint presentation. What actually happens is he attends a polite meeting at an al fresco Creole restaurant, where Mdme. Dantelle has a few unbreathing, unmoving minions holding parasols to shade her. The menu today includes a wide range of invertebrates, which makes Scooter's mouth water. Hero Shrew: Fancy spread - nice to meet someone who likes a meal with more than four legs. The meeting goes are well as can be expected when the group is represented by someone like Hero Shrew. He might not be stupid, but he DOES live entirely in the moment. Mdme. Dantelle: It is appropriate you should be here, since you are responsible for our problem. Hero Shrew: ... me, personally? Or me and the guys? Mdme. Dantelle: We could have contained the revenent, but you interfered with the two... assets. Hero Shrew: ... Oh, right, them, the zombies! I remember them! I'm glad I didn't get bitten. Mdme. Dantelle: Bitten? Hero Shrew: Yeah, bitten by zombie, turn into zombie. You know. Mdme. Dantelle: *polite laugh* Ah, but no - they were volunteers. Only volunteers could become zombi like those. Hero Shrew: Oh. Like your zombie with the umbrella there? Mdme. Dantelle: .... No. Not like these. She also has an ominous comment about how our team aren't the only Inheritors, but it goes right over Scooter's head. Hero Shrew: Thanks for the meal, lady. Mdme. Dantelle: ... Madam. Hero Shrew: Yeah, one of those. Flux: So, did you record the conversation? Hero Shrew: Was I supposed to? Flux: *facepalm* Explicit bloody instructions. Hero Shrew: Hang about, I wrote it down somewhere.... Yeah, the dead guy is Phillip Graves, which is supposed to be funny but I don't know why, and his guns aren't his fetters but the bar he's after is, but I don't think the bar is a nightclub, but they can't give him the bar because of some gate they have to keep shut and they've got some kind of deal with San Fransisco like what the Zoo has with Chinatown. Flux: ...that's it, we're fitting Scooter with a bug. Fireflash: Hopefully one he won't eat. After quite a long time the mechanical owl Bubo manages to get an idea into our thick heads - check the newspaper archives. We discover that Phillip Graves was a sheriff's deputy in the 1890s, and the last victim of the Tombstone Kid, an undead cowboy. The Tombstone Kid was then taken down by a coalition of 19th century heroes. Hardlight: Hey, Flux, can we get some help from your police contact? Flux: Sure. What for? Hardlight: We're going graverobbing. Flux: ... I did not need to hear that. At the very least we need to find Graves' grave, to see if there's been any auto-exhumations lately. It turns out he was put in the family mausoleum in Harristown - better known as Little Haiti. All: OH FOR FUCKS SAKE. Hardlight: Ok, time for the holographic crowbar. GM: Don't you have X-ray vision now? Hardlight: Oh yeah - Wideband Radar! What was I thinking? Fireflash: We wonder that all the time. Hardlight: What did you say Graves was after again? Hero Shrew: Some kind of bar? For a gate? GM: Don't you just love it when the most literal-minded character gets told things in metaphor? Hardlight: Oh god, it's some kind of gate to the underworld. Hero Shrew: *points at the door of the mausoleum* What, like that one? Flux: Time for more research! *watches an illegal download of the original Ghostbusters* GM: Cats and dogs, living together! Hero Shrew: Hey, Mdme. Dantelle said the same thing! Hardlight: .... OK my next power is going to be called Unliscensed Nuclear Accelerator. Hardlight: So we're facing a biblical apocalypse or something - maybe we should call in the big guys? Hero Shrew OOC: No, we're supposed to be the heroes of this comic. And the sales are good enough that we don't need crossover events yet.

Champions - Scum and Villainy (Four-colour Flavour) Hero Shrew missed one session of the adventures of Edge City's newest superheroes, which was probably just as well, since they were up against Armadillo, and there's only so much property damage Hardlight can talk his way out of. GM: There are things that Bruce Wayne finds out simply because he's *Bruce Wayne*. Hardlight (ooc): I'm likely going to spend a few XP on some Smoozing skills. GM: That would require you buying off your "Terminal Foot-in-mouth Disease" Disad. GM: So, let's move past where we left off, cause a recap would cause the smut meter to explode... The Team has been spending the last few weeks in their day jobs: Flux: Go to work during the day, Fight crime as a solo vigilante at night.. Hardlight: Fighting evil by moonlight... Flux: Don't you dare! Hardlight: My usual stuff involves a... surprising amount of paperwork. I don't have a Lucius Fox to handle all my day-to-day drudgery. Fireflash is bored out of her mind and flipping through her phone when she finds a live video feed. ECPD's CAESAR mech suits just got taken out by a guy in someone in proper power armour. GM: It's a Classic Supervillain Rampage! Dude is Liefeldian in the sheer amount of guns and blasters he's pulling out of his armour to shoot things indiscriminately. Hardlight: This looks like a job for... Flux: The Insurance underwriters who are having to assess all this damage! Hardlight: Since I don't really want to handle the G-Forces you pull while hanging onto you, and I can't do the Banjo Kazooie thing, shall we take the car? GM: And what car is this, might I ask? Hardlight: The Nondescript one made of Tissue Paper that doesn't cost any points? GM: Ah. The ECPD are taking potshots at the villain with their sidearms, to little effect. Fireflash: Well, we can stay here, or we can go and do something Really Really Stupid. Flux: You run a diversion, I'm going to try and fix these Mechs! The villain announces himself as the Armadillo, but we're so ignorant of superhuman affairs that it doesn't mean much. He's been waiting for the heroes, it seems! Armadillo: About time you got here! *Blasts Fireflash with his palm blasters, tossing her halfway down the street* Flux counters with a bolt of lightning, doing more collateral damage but not much else. Hardlight: Well, if you call yourself the Armadillo, you won't mind This: Roll Up! *creates a bubble around him* Armadillo: Roll up? ROLL UP? Armadillo Don't Rollup or Roll Down for nobody! So how about we play a game of Hide and Seek? He proceeds to drill down into the street in a maneuver that would make Bugs Bunny envious. Armadillo: Come and get me! Hardlight: Nope. *force walls the hole* Four-colour violence ensues, with energy blasts and property damage, but no bloodshed to upset the comics code. Armadillo: Fine, time for you to taste my SHOULDER BLASTERS!! *click as the blasters fail*... OH COME ON! GM: Okay, his navigation skills aren't actually really built for underground.. the only way he could really tell which way he cold go was by surfacing occasionally. Hardlight: Quickly, Look for the Land Dolphin! The team loses him in a storm drain, but have a feeling he's not gone for long. We regroup by the fallen mechs, where Flux starts repairs, while Hardlight and Fireflash stand guard. Flux: Hummina Hummina... *Parts whirr and swirl around him, as the utterly wrecked mechs are rebuilt to factory spec within half a minute.* ECPD Officers: ...Wow. Uhh.. You want a job? Flux: I'm good for now. Mind helping us out? We're reasonably sure he's coming back. A car flies into the air. The Armadillo is indeed back, raising premiums everywhere. Hardlight: Ah, there he is. Hardlight attempts to trick him with a hologram image of himself, which is just good enough to get him out into the open, at which point he gets hit with energy blasts, and the car he tossed into the air earlier. He dives underground again, and attempts to collapse a few buildings. Pity Hero Shrew isn't there yet, to burrow after him. At least Hardlight's scans work this time. Fireflash blows a bus-sized hole in the ground, revealing him entirely, and Hardlight blows similarly sized holes in the power armour. Armadillo: Alright, that's it, This time you'll get to see what I can do with my SHOULDER BLASTERS! Fireflash: Not before you face my Full power Blast! One bunch of Solid blasts later, and he's out. Armadillo: Eh, it's good.. My lawyer's already paid up. Flux: Paid up..? The ECPD CEASAR units are agitated. ECPD Cop: Damnit! This was a Diversion! Hardlight: What?! ECPD Cop: Looks like the Six Teens are moving up in the world.. you'll see it on the news. Hero Shrew: I've heard things about Armadillos, and them all being identical quads is the least of it. Flux: And then you'd be all 'You're not an armadillo, you're just a human in a suit' GM: And Hero Shrew missing the fight reduced the amount of property damage anyway. The Armadillo had been hired by the Six Teens as a distraction, while they raided Tyrell Corp. The Armadillo did significant damage to one of the skyscrapers downtown, but things should be okay, since Centurion, the CEO-superhero of Century Corp, is ready to pop over from San Francisco in his S&R powered armour and demonstrate his Construction Foam supertech. Hardlight: A CEO and a super? And it's a public ID? I'm taking notes.... Converging on the Tyrell corporation, we discover that the facility has been trashed, that Tyrell had unregistered security robots doing security inside the building, and that the human security were found paying pattycake when the authorities. At least the surviving robot is polite, if unhelpful. GM: It's part of Tyrell's philosophy for Artificial Intelligence - very limited, strictly limited, AI. Hero Shrew: Don't want another Mechanon. GM: More to the point they don't want Mechanon going 'Oh cool, thanks for the toys, yoink.' Hero Shrew: So Tyrell has unregistered security droids. Fireflash: They don't have to. It's just down as part of the electronic security. Hero Shrew: Would have been nice if they'd told the authorities they had androids. GM: They don't. Hero Shrew: ? GM: They don't have androids. They have robots. They don't have androids or gynoids or anything that could be mistaken for anything other than a robot. It's a design philosophy - there's a reason why its torso looks like it belongs on a motorbike. The GM is a little disappointed we didn't get to the factory before the Six Teens had finished their raid - because we would have found ourselves in a fight with dozens of the security bots, as well as the Six Teens, who were leaving fingerprints in the metal, using robots as blunt instruments, and turning the place into a metallic abattoir. GM: This is the consequential damage of a super brawl. Hero Shrew: The kind of thing I do. The shrew has a sniff around. GM: The corner of one of the rooms smells like one of the upstairs room at the Collar Club, when you have send for a cleaner. Hero Shrew: .... they had time for a quickie mid-raid?.... OK, they are teens, but still. Representatives from Tyrell Corp turn up, in a flying car. GM: One of them is six-foot plus, and about as wide. Fireflash: Bodyguard. Hero Shrew: Given some of the CeOs around this part of California, you never know. He could be another super. Hardlight: The Amazing No-Neck Man. Fireflash: We're trying to determine if they took anything, or if they infiltrated your computer systems. Tyrell rep: We know they did, or the robot wouldn't be there. It's part of our proprietary security system - if a Cyberpath interacts with our data systems, the robots attack. Flux: .... GM: Aren't you glad you didn't try to use your powers on the servers? Flux: I'm not that stupid. Twice. Flux: It looks like most of the damage was done in a superfight. Tyrell Rep: Makes sense - the security robots can be... aggressive. Hero Shrew: *punches air* Woooo! Flux: How violent are these security robots? Some Cyberpaths are squishy. Tyrell: If they're squishy they shouldn't be messing around in a robotics factory. Hero Shrew: *nods earnestly* The Tyrell developer eventually determines the Six Teens stole a copy of the entire construction and programming process for the robots. Scooter gets sent downstairs to find a forensics guy, so they can use the residue of the quickie to confirm some Ids. Hero Shrew: You one of the CSI thingie guys? They need you upstairs. Hardlight said you'd need a blacklight. Forensics: ... exactly what did they say to you. Hero Shrew: Apparently they a quickie before the fight with the robots? Forensics: OKAY, at least I know what kit to bring. Hero Shrew: Flux said they did SOMETHING to the servers. Fireflash: I enjoy sex as much as the next girl, but there's a time and a place... Apparently it was Vipergirl and Black Warlock. They were bored. And didn't take kindly to being interrupted by the robots. Hardlight: Huh - a red guy with blue balls Hero Shrew: Guess we found his berserk button. The security footage doesn't reveal Ghost Shadow, the Six Teen ninja, until he's leaving the building. In a full Naruto run. Hardlight: And real ninjas everywhere are facepalming. 'He's making us look bad'. Hardlight calls his secretary. Hardlight: We didn't hire a team of superviillians to raid a rival, did we? Secretary: Well, I'll check the black accounts but I don't think so, sir. We track down a fixer, one Bai Dong Jiang, in Chinatown, who arranges illegal tech thefts and deals. Hero Shrew: I think I know him. GM: But there was something else you can't remember. Hero Shrew: I think he has a robot hand with a grenade inside. Flux: ... That might be someone else. Fireflash: A robot head with a grenade inside??? Hero Shrew: Hand. Fireflash: Ah, that makes more sense. They don't want Flux coming in - they really don't like tech images and cyberpaths. And the building is shielding from electronic signals, too. GM: You go from four bars to no bars. Fireflash: That's OK, I can't drink anyway. The fixer is quite a bit younger than the reputation connected to the name suggests. GM: It's a Dread Pirate Roberts thing. Fortunately, the fixer in question is quite annoyed with whoever hired the Six Teens, since they came into Edge City and didn't arrange the theft through him. He's happy to drop the buyers in the shit, albeit indirectly. Fixer: They're probably up in North Haven, with the Droogs - you know, the ones who saw that movie too many times - the one with the bowler hats, walking sticks and longjohns. Hero Shrew: What, the Avengers? Staking out North Haven that night actually works - we spot Titania, and converge on her just as she's meeting up with others in North Edge Park - and as a black helicopter descending to meet them. Hero Shrew: oh, fuck! Fireflash: Hm? Hero Shrew: Look at the big skull on the front of the helicopter, that's never a good sign. Fireflash: I think this is the same one that kidnapped me. Hardlight uses his powers to turn invisible - and is promptly targeted by a spotlight from the chopper. GM: Targeting radar. Non-sight group. Fireflash: Well, if they're all so focused on the invisible guy.... *FLARE BLAST* Flux fries their sensors, and Hero Shrew lobs a garbage drum into the rotors. The Six Teens scramble to change into their Supervillain gear and guises. Lash actually manages to catch the falling chopper. Vipergirl spots Scooter, to try and kick him in the nuts. He actually feels that. Hero Shrew: That was fucking rude, lady. Hardlight is still invisible, his forcebubble around The Iron Claw is rather tougher than they expect, Flux is blinded by ninja dust and hiding somewhere, Fireflash has been shot out of the sky, and Hero Shrew is being kicked further up the street. Also, the Six Teens, the mercenary Killzone and her minions don't know we haven't contacted the authorities yet. Titania: We have to get out of here. Killzone: .... *glares at Fireflash* I'll collect that contract on you next time! Most of the Six Teens are doing the best to take the murderball down, which keeps them busy. Ghost Shadow goes after Flux. Iron Claw glares around looking for the invisible Hardlight, who is actually just outside the bubble using it to keep himself from the rest of them, as he radios for help. Iron Claw: I know you're out there somewhere, but there is one thing you should know... *slashes out with his claw, and tears the bubble open from inside* I actually know what I'm doing! Hero Shrew grabs Vipergirl's ankle and elbow when she tries to leg sweep him, and briefly considers throwing her into the helicopter rotor. Fireflash OOC: Do you have a code versus killing? Hero Shrew OOC: Yeeeeah. Ah well. I BRIEFLY consider turning her into salami, then just try to twist her leg off instead. Flux OOC: Dang morals, ruining everything again. GM: And if you'd thrown her at the chopper you'd have taken distance and unbalanced weapon penalties. And she's really unbalanced - this is the Viperia fan girl we're talking about. But at least you get to hit Titania with her next turn. Lash is, for some reason, ignoring the rest of the fight and is scurrying over the battlefield towards Ghost Shadow and Flux's battle. Apparently she was going to STOP the ninja killing our technomage. Since Flux actually manages to survive the attack and stun his attacker, it turns into a rescue. The Doom Troopers bug out. GM: Get to the CHOPPPAAAAAAHHHH!!!! Flux: I guess the sale is off then. Flux stuns Iron Claw, and Hardlight legs it with him. Hero Shrew smacks Titania with Vipergirl, who gets knocked a few meters back, and actually says "thanks for the assist", and winks - because she ends up close enough to attack the rest of Scooter's team. Vipergirl: Put me DOWN YOU LITTLE WORM! *eyeblasts Hero Shrew* GM: Lasers from her eyes, Scooter. LASERS FROM HER EYES. Flux: He EATS worms. Hero Shrew: ...... Black Warlock: *using Mind Control on Hero Shrew* Yes. Put her down. Lash has her boyfriend Ghost Shadow safe, but Flux has Iron Claw, and can take off straight for the horizon. Vipergirl: Jesus, look at her go! Black Warlock: *Mental Shout* LET HIM GO. Iron Claw: *semi-conscious* ... wait... what? Flux: .... Well, if you insist. *drops Iron Claw, who plows into the landscape at several hundred kilometers an hour* Hero Shrew OoC: He's going to hit so hard a childless Kansas couple will find him. Lash bugs out with Ghost Shadow and Titania, who is not pleased about this. After Iron Claw wakes up in custody, he laughs his head off, and mocks our erstwhile leader Hardlight as an idiot - because Iron Claw didn't have the data. Titania had it, and palmed it off to Killzone while we were busy going after Iron Claw. Hero Shrew: We made an assumption that made an arse of you. Hardlight: *waits in vain for the 'and me' bit* .... sigh. The Iron Claw isn't considered a serious threat, as long as the Claw is only caged to his back, so he's not going to be transferred to super-facility until after his arraignment. Hero Shrew: So... what are the statistics for super villains rescuing their team-mates mid-transport? Our error - not realising that Titania probably had the data, since she was apparently going to the meet with Killzone alone. Hero Shrew: Hindsight is always 2020 - just like the next US election. Hardlight: I am an idiot and shouldn't be allowed to make the plans. Hero Shrew: But if you don't we'll have to blame someone else. Hardlight: We did the obvious thing. Hero Shrew: Beat up the mooks while the Big Bad gets away to become a recurring villain. Flux: We didn't even do that - Killzone's mercs were the mooks. Did we even go after them? Hero Shrew: Sure - we trashed their transport and made them bug out. GM: ??? Hero Shrew: OK, they actually bugged out because they had the data. GM: Right. Not because you trashed their chopper. Hero Shrew: Yeah yeah, we screwed up. It's Hardlight's fault. Hardlight: Do we get the Keys To The City now? The Iron Claw gets broken out of jail, because it turns out Ghost Shadow can teleport into places he can't see. Hero Shrew: Well, his threat level just went way up. Our screw-up now pretty much total, we distract ourselves by checking local news on Facebook, and other trivia. Flux's player: I don't grow plants inside, that's just wrong. Hero Shrew's player: Well, there's ONE species people tend to grow inside. The Edge City police have released profiles of four of their newly matriculated officers. Three are Moreaus. GM: Actually, they already had non-human officers. Flux: Oh? GM: Canine and equine units - attacking them has the same penalties as attacking a human cop. One of the new officers is a cheetah. GM: They're putting her on Traffic as a rookie, but they won't be given her a vehicle. She doesn't need one. Hero Shrew: Saves on gasoline. Flux: Aren't they supposed to work in pairs? GM: Yes. He'll have a motorbike, and try to keep up. GM: And they have an anthro Thylacine. And everybody wants to know how. Hero Shrew: There's a lot of supervillains whose careers would have been a lot shorter, if they didn't have immunity to their own powers. Flux: 'I am RADIOACTIVE MAN!' Dead in a week. One of Fireflash's friends is complaining about her parents, who are separated. Friend: And mum's been buying a lot of batteries. Fireflash: EWw. TMI. Friend: Yeah, and there's nothing in the house that takes that size of battery, right? Fireflash: Yes there is. Friend: Well, yes, but mine are rechargeable. Anyway her Dad has said he's going to be away for several months training after she graduates. This seems a bit odd, especially he's supposed just a analyst that studies courier data. Fireflash promises to looks into it, and his employers Langaha Logistics. GM: Langaha is a genus of Madagascan snakes. Fireflash: Oh, fucking joy. Hardlight: Hey, you don't know enough to react like that yet. GM: There are PLENTY of companies with snake-related names that aren't fronts for VIPER. GM: Leafnosed snakes aren't deadly, but they do sit and wait for their prey to come to them. Apparently Langaha is acquiring a large number of investors to finance their stepping up to the next level in data analysis. And all their new recruits need to be good analysts AND physically fit and active, before they get sent for months of training and orientation at Greenhill Lodge and Spa, in Honor, Wisconsin. Hardlight: Want to be an intern? Fireflash: Not again!!! Hardlight: Hey Scooter, YOU want to be an intern? Hero Shrew: *scratches his balls* Yeah, I could pull it off. Fireflash and GM: *exchange a glance, shake their heads* Hardlight: Well, at least I can find out if my powers work outside city limits. GM: There are probably better ways to test that. Hero Shrew: Out in Cheese Country then. The spa is probably the only large employer in town. GM: Honor has a population of 800. Hero Shrew: There you go. Flux: We're going to stick out like sore thumbs. Well, you are at least, Scooter. The mayor of Honor is also in charge of the spa. GM: Small town America again. Which detours into a discussion of Dukes of Hazzard. GM: The show that destroyed 57 Chevrolet Camaros for our entertainment *whimper* Hero Shrew: Well, given YouTube channels like the Hydraulic Press Channel and Will It Blend?... Flux does some sneaky internet snooping into Langaha and is promptly traced straight back to the disposable laptop Hardlight provided. That's a little alarming, especially since the data he found all seems to be perfectly innocent sales and advertising data that a legitimate analysis company would be studying. Eventually the GM cracks. Hero Shrew: Oh, we thought it a plot hook. Flux: You have dangled that sort of bait before. GM: It's market data. It's marketing data analysis. it's a LODGE in WISCONSIN. How more boring could I make this? Flux: It did scream Secret Organization. Hero Shrew: We thought it was a VIPER training base. GM: I was just Wiki-walking and found a cool snake! Scooter also hears rumours that a feline half-jack - left side entirely cybernetic - has been seen around the Zoo again. He's been nicknamed the Half-cat, and he shows up every briefly every few years, asking about what supers are around. He seemed REALLY interested when told about Hero Shrew and the rest of Quadrant. Hardlight: Has anybody been asking about the Greys? GM: No. Hardlight: My greatest personal failure! Hero Shrew: ... Flux: Really? You want to count THAT as your personal worst? Hardlight's civilian company Lowelltech does fend off a rival infrastructure contract bid from Centurion's civilian company. Hero Shrew: Good for you - you won your Tony Stark/Wayne Enterprises Dickwaving contest Gangwatchers report that the Juicers have been recruiting, but they new recruits lack the usual heavy augmentation. And somebody has been killing members of the Voodoo Crew. Hardlight: Good for them. It's not me, I have other things to do. The individual has a skull for a head, under a hoodie. And the Voodoo Crew have already killed him at least twice. He's very, very fast with dual-wielded pistols. Hardlight: Well, I can't do anything about that - I'm not allowed to talk to them. GM: They think you're bad news. Not the same thing. Hardlight: True Flux: And you're letting it stop you? Hero Shrew: You could always hang around down there - maybe they'll lose even more members. Flux: 'What are you doing here? 'Eating popcorn' GM: Kevin. Kevin! Wake up! Hero Shrew's player: You can go to bed now. Flux's player: We defeated VIPER. Hero Shrew's player: Turns out there WAS a secret base under Wisconsin. Hardlight's player: Under all of Wisconsin??? GM: I'll have to stat that out. A HUGE number of DNPCs. "I am the KING OF UNDERSCONSIN!"

Star Wars - Scum and Villainy (Space Opera Flavour) In which some scum and villains attempt to make some filthy lucre at the edge of Imperial and Hutt Space. There's no way this can end badly. Forvuk Zayk: Dressellian brute Fendri: Bothan pilot of our Corellian freighter. Fakybe: Chandra-fan con-artist and engineer. Fnord: NPC engineer that works for the starport on Fomos. R4W9: Our rescued Astromech Forvuk: How big can stealth fields by made? Big enough to hide a Peace Moon? Fakybe: Don't think so. Forvuk: Maybe the Peace Moon wasn't blown up at all. Fendri: I saw it explode. Fakybe: You did? Fendri: Well, I saw footage of it. Fakybe: You saw footage of it. Think about what you just said - you saw footage, provided BY the Empire. Although for that matter, how DO we know the whole thing wasn't faked? The Imperials SAID the rebels blew up the Peace Moon - but that's not really that plausible, is it? An installation would have defenses, wouldn't it? How DID a couple of rebel X-wings managed to blow it up? Must have been an inside job. Controlled demolition! Fendri: Proton torpedoes can't melt durasteel beams! GM: And why would they build an installation as big as the Peace Moon anyway? It would be easier to convert a moon into something that can fire a super-thermal laser through hyperspace. Things have been happening on Fomos - the Imperials have been confiscating every droid on the planetoid, and according to Rick of Rick's Cantina Alderaan, they're being stored in a warehouse, or a Lambda-class shuttle nearby. This 'training mission' by the Imperials is getting stranger and stranger. At least Forvuk's obsession about the massacre of his family on Drelkh is useful, since Fakybe goes to the trouble of inviting the Imperials to the audience-involvement screening of a classical bombastic war movie, with musical interludes by those Trade Federation marching droids, and improvised saxophone solos. This might seem like a non-sequitur, but it's all part of Fakybe's plan - as he takes complimentary drinks around to the officer's table, he gives them a polite warning about Forvuk's intentions to ask them about Drelkh, and gets told to warn him off. Forvuk: You didn't ask them about Drelkh. Fakybe: Not directly, but I DID prove myself helpful and polite, and a useful intermediary between the Imperials and any alien species they don't want to talk to or be seen talking too. Of course, it doesn't pay to be TOO subtle about it, or the GM doesn't notice what you're up to. Then complications arise in the form of Captain Trex, a Trandoshan slaver and bountyhunter. He is highly pissed, since the Wookiee Lowrickk, that medical droid, and a pilot named Pash, stole his personal ship as they fled servitude to Trex's bosses in the Hutt dynasty. He wants a word with us, since he already knows Lowrickk and the droid paid us to take them to Fomos. It's abundantly clear that we don't get to decline the invitation for a chat. Happily, Fakybe can tell them the exact truth - we haven't seen the Wookiee and the droid or their contact since the thing with the pirates, we've never even met Pash, and the Imperials have gathered up all the droids on Fomos anyway. Fakybe: But there's still some smugglers on Fomos that were involved with the pirates - why don't you ask them? In a best-case scenario the bountyhunter's gang and the surviving smuggler-pirates will have a shoot-out with each other - but we probably won't be that lucky. We do know where Dario Blunt and the other surviving pirates hang out too - perhaps some careful sniping will ensure a shoot-up? GM: Remember what the Imperials told everybody - massive reprisals if any Imperials get hurt. Do you REALLY want to start a shoot-out downtown? Forvuk: Yes. How to find out what's up with the missing droids? Can we lure the Imperial guards away from the warehouse, to get a look inside? One method springs to mind. GM: On Fomos, water is more valuable than life, but not as valuable as beer. The petty officer is okay with us doing 'maintenance' on the building, as long as we don't go inside. The Probe Droid inside is on a shoot-to-kill protocol. Fendri: I'll just push Forvuk's heavy blaster back to the bottom of the tool bag. Fakybe: It's not a blaster - it's a long-distance welder. Under the watchful supervision of the bored guards, Fakybe climbs into the warehouse conduits to fix all the dodgy cabling that the Imperials added more complexity to. Oh, and plant his commlink where it can film the inside of the warehouse. Fendri receives a brief shot of droids *repairing* other droids, right before the Probe Droid takes out the camera with a heavy blaster. Fakybe: Feed me more slack on the B2 cabl- BANG - F**k! F**kity F**k! Fendri: What's wrong? Fakybe: That Probe Droid just shot at me! Petty Officer: Then you'd better get out of there, son. Fakybe: Believe me, I am! The Imperials shrug it off, blissfully unaware that we actually were up to no good. Fakybe went into the ducting under his own recognizance after all. They also decide that the commlink getting destroyed is better than it being shot while Fakybe was still wearing it - that would have required more paperwork. Fendri: I have a cunning plan. It could go horribly wrong, or horribly right, but this IS Star Wars. Fendri and Forvuk want to recruit one of the Trade Federation droids, and use it to disable the probe droid with an ion blaster. After all, it's only programmed to stop LIVING targets from entering the building. Fakybe: We still don't even know WHY they have all the droids. I'm not even sure why we're doing this. Forvuk: For money. Fakybe: They're droids, they don't have money. Fendri: Hang about, I'm trying to come up with a suitably heroic reason - To give the droids their freedom! Fakybe: Well, I suppose we could tell them to take of Trex's ship and fly off in it. That would be amusing. Any astromechs in the photo I managed to get? GM: Oddly enough, no. VX-49, the medical droid, isn't there either. Fendri: Oh gods, I'm going to be joining the Rebellion. Fakybe: How so? Fendri: Because I'm rescuing droids just because it's the right thing to do. Forvuk: There must be SOME way we can profit from this. The others eventually decide that staging a mass droid break-out, and letting them hijack the YT-series ship in dry dock nearby, and sending them off to take over that pirate base we attacked, is the way to go. We can say we saw that med-droid too, when our astromech goes rogue to pilot the YT. Fakybe: I still don't understand why we're doing this. GM: Neither do I, and I'm the GM. Fakybe: OK, can somebody explain to me why we're doing this, and how we got to this plan? Because I don't recall any of us taking strong drugs lately. Although I can see one advantage to the plan - because if I can't see any reason why we're doing this, I'm sure the Imperials won't think to connect us to the crime either. We head off to recruit the Trade Federation marching troop and their agent, the rogue military protocol droid M-PSR-E0. If droids could have expressions, his face would be a picture. Fendri: Can you help me out here? Fakybe: Don't look at me, I still think someone slipped us strong hallucinogens. Fendri: M-PRSR-E0, I know you believe in droid rights, just like I do - Fakybe: *sotto voce* since when? M-PSR-E0 doesn't want to risk his 10 primary droids, since they're all originals. Number 11 is a replica. Fakybe: Is there a flowchart? Step One : Start Droid Insurrection. Step Two : ???? Step Three - Fendri: Profit! Fakybe: This is such a bad idea - we're implicated three different ways - we brought the Trade Federation droids here, we brought that med droid here, our astromech is going to be their pilot... Fendri: You can say it... Forvuk: 'I have a bad feeling about this' GM: And you have any number of droids who can tell you the odds. Fendri: Hooray, we're starting a droid insurrection! GM: It IS odd that the Impresario thinks this can actually work - obviously he's working from information you don't have. We get the Suitcase ( Trade Federation Droid 11 ) into the warehouse in a heavy lifter crate of tools and equipment. The heavy lifter droid has been tampered with so the inevitable investigation later suggests it was hacked, and not by us. 11 then has a good look around, under the oblivious sensors of the Probe Droid, and discovers that the captive droids are being run through an escape pod simulator. For some reason the Imperials want to find better ways to tell if droids are using escape pods, and survival protocols afterwards. Can't imagine why. Most people think droids aren't capable of much, but maybe that's changing after that whole incident with the Peace Moon. Fnord uses Binary to talk 11 through shutting down all the restraining bolts on the captive droids. Then it's just a matter of walking all the droids out the back door, when the Imperials are looking elsewhere. Our Rodian friend sends us a photo - of an Aqualish pirate captain in carbonite, being unloaded from a ship here in Fomos. Fakybe sends them a thumbs-up emoji. Fakybe: We'd better go check on this. It IS a bit odd - why would the Hutts send a freeze-dried Aqualish BACK to Fomos? And I'm sure the smugglers will try and rescue him the moment they find out. Plus we'll have plausible deniability while the droid insurrection kicks off "We weren't involved, we were busy being shot at by smugglers when it happened." The freeze-dried pirate has been installed in place of the Wanted poster at Rick's place. Rumour has it that one the Hutts, Thakba, ordered this, as the first stage in a Hutt takeover of Fomos and to intimidate the surviving pirates. Mogul the Hutt, the film aficionado we brought to Fomos, has taken over the abandoned mansion opposite Rick's Place, and is using the roof as a sunbathing lounge. I guess we won't be using it as sniper position anymore. Fakybe: You know, I think we might be at least partly responsible for a joint Imperial-Hutt takeover of Fomos. I feel slightly guilty about this. Fendri: *shrugs* eh. Thakba Besadii Diori is the Hutt Kingpin of Sleheyron that ordered the bounty of the pirates in the first place, and ordered the new interior decoration of Rick's. Mogul is from Nulhutta, which at least suggests they're not related. Fakybe: We've given Mogul a foothold on Fomos. It's a good opportunity for him, and Hutts take opportunities. Mogul might have been a small fish on Smuggler's Moon, but here he can be a big fish. A big, brown, turd-shaped fish. Hopefully a business meeting with Mogul will give us an alibi during the droid escape. And if the bountyhunter Trex assumes VX-49 was involved in the escape, he might chase off after them and forget about us. Just recapping the plan, mostly because I still can't believe we're doing this - The Imperials have a warehouse of confiscated droids that they're training in survival skills for some inexplicable reason. For some other inexplicable reason, we're smuggled a replica Trade Federation droid into the warehouse, to disable all the restraining bolts, disable the Imperial probe droid on guard, and hurry them all across to the YT pirate Freighter we captured, where our astromech will fly them all off to the pirate base that only us and the handful of surviving pirates know the location of. They'll 'kidnap' Fnord, 'steal' the Electronic Counter-measures Pod that BOSS temporarily leant to us, and hook it up to the captured starfighter in another bay. The jamming will cover their escape, especially since the Imperial star destroyer is out of system at the moment. Fakybe: Apparently this is what we do now. GM: Yes, a strange plan that will cost you lots of money, and crew. Fakybe: I still don't know why M-PSR-E0 is going along with this. GM: He's a military protocol droid that likes seeing all these old droids marching around not getting shot at. We'll be off making business deals with Mogul the Hutt when it goes down, by way of alibi. GM: Scoundrels might wonder exactly why somebody would want to film on a planet with rugged scenery, rugged extras, and zero change of rain, snow, or fog interrupting filming. GM: R4 is going to be so screwed after doing this. 'They won't just wipe me, they'll fry my circuits. But at least my fellow droids will be free. We'll start a Pirate Collective.' Fakybe: Well, you're already an RRRR unit. GM: Captain ARRR4W9 GM: Mogul has already renamed the mansion as The Voyeur's Hutt. His eyes roll back as he directs a horrified female slave to scratch under a belly fold. Fakybe: Well, there's a mental image I won't get rid of in a hurry. There's the sound of heavy weapons fire, and an almighty crash and roar as the YT Freighter takes off through the roof of the repair hanger. Fakybe: What the Frak was that???? Mogul's Minion: Somebody just stole a Freighter from the starport. Fakybe: Wait, what? A Freighter? Was it OUR freighter???? *punching numbers into a commlink* R4? Fnord? Forvuk and Fendri run out to watch the Freighter disappear into the sky. It's not the Deniable Plausibility, which is a relief, since it means the droids didn't double-cross us. Still, since that Freighter was worth a share of the anti-pirate reward to us, we have to pretend to be upset. Fendri: Hey! No! That was worth thousands of credits to us! Forvuk: The ship's gone! Fakybe: *'faints', apparently believing he means the Deniable Plausibility* Mogul the Hutt: *laughing himself sick* As we hurry to the starport, another unauthorized ship takes off - that starfighter we thought R4 was going to fit the ECM pod to. Fendri: R4 took the starfighter too? Fakybe: That was clever of him.... wait. He took the ECM pod. That was BOSS property. GM: So was the starfighter. Fakybe: *internal facepalm* GM: Shall I roll up some new characters for you? We eventually realize that R4 didn't even go near the starfighter - and we have no idea who took it. Forvuk: Wait, somebody has scrambled our starfighter? GM: YES! Fendri: That wasn't part of the plan! BOSS reports that the starport is in an uproar, they have no idea who took the starfighter, but the Imperial Frigate that just entered the system is looking into it. Fendri: We get in our ship and GO. So does everybody else with a ship too, including the Rodian bounty-hunters, Tie Fighters, etc. GM: Inner system comms are in Chaos as everybody tries to track the skipjacked freighter, contact the starfighter, and figure out what the hell is going on, while the YT still jams everything. Fakybe: Well, time to add to it. *broadcasting on all channels in his native tongue* DON'T YOU DARE SHOOT THAT SHIP THAT'S OUR MONEY IF YOU TORPEDO THAT SHIP I'LL TAKE IT OUT OF YOUR NURFHERDING HIDE. GM: You can hail the Bantam Menace. Fakybe: The Bantam Menace? GM: You had to call the starfighter something. Female Voice: Am in hot pursuit of the stolen ship - are you here to assist or hinder? Fakybe: You stole our prize starfighter to follow them! Forvuk: Pull up or we open fire! Female Voice: That's a negative - this ship has been impressed into the Imperial Navy. Forvuk: .... is the jamming still enough to stop anybody else from hearing this conversation? GM: Probably. Forvuk: Right then - I open fire. Fakybe: Please tell me that was a warning shot. Fendri: That's our ship you're shooting at, remember. Forvuk: Can I fire a warning shot with both barrels? Fendri and Fakybe: NO! As it happens her efforts to dodge the warning shots are enough to wreck the frankly rubbish starfighter anyway. The unknown pilot has to bail out in a hurry. At least we can talk our way out of this if she actually IS Imperil Navy. Fakybe: She never told us who she was. GM: Yes she did! Fakybe: No, she just *claimed* she was with the Imperial Navy. Our ship is called the Deniable Plausibility for a reason. The robot-filled Freighter jumps out, the jamming goes away, and we broadcast to the converging other ships, Tie Fighters, etc. Fakybe: We've stopped one of the skip jackets, apprehending her now! GM: If she has a flightsuit, she can survive if she climbs out the cockpit and into an airlock. If. GM: You can see her now - or her Imperial Flightsuit, anyway. Of course, now the jamming is down you can hear her own broadcasts. YOU GODSDAMMED ALIEN MORONS etc. Forvuk: We can demand compensation from the Navy for damage to our ship. Fakybe: Well, we can TRY, but I don't think we should try and push it. I make a suggestion to the GM that may prove amusing in later episodes - since the Imperials aren't going to believe us, and they'll be very annoyed with the pilot for taking the starfighter without permission, they'll attach her to our ship's crew by way of punishment.

Pathfinder - Scum and Villainy (Fantasy Flavour) Pathfinder, in the freeport of Magnimar, where persons unknown have used an undead cow to spread Anthrax through the populace. We found the cow, but have mostly used the chaos as cover for burglarizing. Dramatis personae - Tannis Oberech: Bastard son of a noble, but mostly just a bastard. Harshal High-seeker Stasny: Corrupt barrister. Ys: Freelance elf assassin Zin: Kobold trapsmith and master of disguise. Gillert: A poet who fell into the company of people mad, bad, and dangerous to know. GM: The Pathfinder's Society think they've found a cure for the plague. Tannis Oberech: Let's steal it. Harshal: Quite. We can't have them profiteering from the misery in Magnimar. So let's steal it and sell it ourselves. Tannis: Or we can use it to discredit the Society. GM: Tricky. Tannis: How about if the cure actually makes people sicker? GM: ... and you have a source of the spores. Day Z the Undead Cow in her crate: MMrRRRRUUMMMMMMM. We want to invest in property - one option is the large boat that ran aground east of the Irespan, destroying every wharf in the bay and still a menace to navigation. The other option is one of the empty warehouses that used to supply those docks. Now we just needed to get the best possible price of aforementioned property. GM: Ys has Diplomacy and Harshal has Intimidate. Harshal: Ys is an assassin - you don't want them to be scary, you want them to seem harmless right up until they stab your enemy in the spleen. Whereas I am a lawyer. 'Your Honour, he's intimidating the witness' 'Correct.' Ys goes in to the bank that currently holds title to the empty warehouse, posing as a Riddleport investor, and offers 1000 gold. The next day Tannis goes in, posing as a tough, and offers 200 gold and menaces. Loans and Defaults Guy: I really can't let this go for less than 15,000. Zin: 15,000??? GM: Sorry, 1500. He was thinking in silver. The banker is quite annoyed that the bank clerks gave Ys the runaround yesterday, even if she is apparently from the despised Riddleport. L&D Guy: She might be from Riddleport, but their coin still clinks. L&D Guy: Ms. Yon. Ys: Yes, of Hither and Yon Trading Company L&D Guy: Now, I am not the kind of person to assume the worst of people based only only their accent, but would you by any chance know any 'facilitators'? Ys: I might know some people who ... do bad things. L&D Guy: Because yesterday I had a visit from a character who made a ridiculous offer and made me feel threatened. And I don't like feeling threatened. He was not the kind of person who can function in polite society. So my superiors are willing to reduce the amount required for the warehouse, in return for his head. We could produce a body magically altered to look like Tannis. Ys, as an assassin with poor impulse control, has an easier solution in mind. Tannis: We have another job for you - we need a body. Ys: Right now I need to pass a Will check. GM: Because right now you're worth 350 gold to her, dead. Ys: You're valuable, now. Tannis: Oh shit. Ys: I've decided not to kill you. Tannis: ... this is appreciated. Harshal: Can we find out where the banker lives and let him wake up with the head on the pillow next to him? We end up getting both the warehouse, and the salvage rights for the grounded ship. We're not the first to have made the attempt, but everybody else had the Nightscales thieves' guild causing trouble. Then we hire all those kobolds as labour to build a breakwater around the wreck, and shore it up, and Harshal writes a fluff piece for Parvo Crispin's newspaper about the value of kobolds in public works. With his talent for convincing lies, this catches on, and the party gets invited to a civic event in their honour. After all, we did secure a navigational threat, and intend to rebuild those wrecked docks. GM: And Sala No-name has moved to a park closer to Ilia. Gillert: The authorities must be glad. GM: Sort of. Down here most people are all 'Cool! Can I pet the doggy?' Gillert: 'Yes. Once.' GM: 'Why?' Gillert: 'Because you'll only have one hand afterwards' GM: Technically you can pet the doggy twice. Tannis' eccentric cousin Emelliandra has been joining ribcages into a long serpentine construct. Pity we didn't know about this when we needed to get rid of that headless body. Emelliandra: I need a body. Tannis: ... why? Emelliandra: I'm making a Necrophidius. Harshal: Of course you are. Surreptitiously trying to sell off those paintings generates an interesting response. A Black Knight turns at Tannis' apartment, wanting to purchase the paintings that Tannis DIDN'T advertise. Black Knight: We have no interest in how you came into possession of them. Indeed, we applaud your initiative - but we want those paintings. We are willing to reward you for them, rather than take them, which is why I come unarmed. The Black Knight correctly identifies one of the paintings as the Obsidian Courthouse, an extra-planar locale associated with Asmodeus, the demon prince of contracts. Uh-oh. Tannis: I need to talk to my business associates, but I give you my word I won't sell it before I see you again. Is there somewhere I can can contact you? A name I can ask after? Black Knight: I do have a name, but I will not be telling you it. Names have power, after all. The room is getting uncannily cold, too. The Black Knight promises to return soon, which is not ominous at ALL. Nor is the strong lilac scent he's using to obscure what he really smells like. Zin: What did they offer for the paintings? Tannis: Two platinum. Harshal: Is that all? Tannis: Two platinum BARS. We agree to the offer, on the additional condition we get a contact in case we acquire more interesting paintings. Black Knight: It seems you are fishing for my name again, despite our generous offer. Very well - I will give you a name, of one we have influence over. Emelliandra Oberech. Good night. The platinum bars are ten pounds each, and stamped with the mint mark of one of the more ominous kingdoms elsewhere on this continent. At least it isn't one of the even more disturbing kingdoms on the other continent. Harshal: I wonder why they even have all those zombie plantation workers, if they're all dead anyway. Ys: He doesn't NEED zombies, but the zombies had a better union.

Kibbutzing before the game, and another example of the kind of conversational thread this group follows - why oreos taste so horrible, Sesame Street songs about sugar beets, and the problems of translating surnames into English. And the T-28 Superheavy tank, of which two prototypes were made, then scrapped largely because the battle they were designed for was already over, and they were too big to transport anyway. And then one turned up abandoned in a field 27 years later. GM: I consider this proof that you can lose ANYTHING in the paperwork. Me: Or the Nazis in an alternate Earth invented dimensional weaponry. GM: The enemy tank has been disintegrated, mein Fuhrer! 'I'm pretty sure it's not disintegrated' 'Do YOU want to tell the Fuhrer that we're making the Americans in another universe stronger?' Back to the game, where we're squirreled away an anthrax-ridden zombie cow, and are debated whether or not we actually want to go after the people responsible, or even inform the authorities. Ys: You keep making me do things I don't want to. Harshal: Look at it this way - you get to prove the superiority of murder over necromancy. GM: If you ask the necromancer-morticians to cast Corpse Compass for you, they'll want to know about the undead cow. These are *socially responsible* necromancers. GM: You could also use the Pathfinders. Harshal: Good point - I hadn't even considered using professional adventurers. As opposed to whatever we are. Career Criminals, perhaps. GM: Worse - they're professional veteran prodnoses. Of course, we don 't have to go after the necromancer right now - we already have the cow, after all. Gillert: Give him a few months to get complacent. Instead we could use the chaos as an excuse to rob some houses. Zin: I vote we make money. Ys's player and the GM: *mocking my tendency to apologise about everything* Stop saying you're sorry. Sorry. Stop apologising For being sorry! Sorry. ARGH! Sadly, Harshal's inquiries fail to find any likely targets that haven't already been robbed - with the exception of one attempted burglary that ended with half-a-dozen Gargoyles dead. That house had a curious Mark on the door. Zin nips across to copy the design, which seems to be an Elf design referencing the four elements - some kind of Guild badge from out of town. GM: They're like the Pinkertons. If the workers are striking 'We'll take care of it'. Ys: We spent too much time on that fucking cow. Harshal: Look on the bright side - you can invite all the thieves guild members around for a barbeque. Most of the remaining premises are under the protection of the Guard, the Mob, private security guilds, and so on. Ys: We're going to piss off SOMEBODY doing this - we just have to pick who we annoy. Gillert: I'd rather not piss off the martially inclined wizards. Or the mafia. Ys: And we've already pissed off the Thieve's Guild. And we have to pawn the goods afterwards. GM: At least they haven't figured out it was you. Yet. It looks like we'll be annoying the Varisian Mob, the Sczarni, who are notorious for the shark tank they use on annoyances. We could try and implicate somebody else for the robbery of a Mob mansion. Harshal: Did we keep any of those Nightscale weapons? Ys: Are we about to provoke a turf war in the middle of a plague? Object d'art are a good choice, especially since their new eventual owners can deny any knowledge of the source. GM: 'Stolen? I had no idea' Harshal: 'If the previous owner can't take simple precautions against theft...' The most intriguing target is a curious house with an even more curious tower at the rear, with very thick walls, and no windows in the upper story. Zin: My little kobold mind is already thinking about flying machines. Harshal: What you really need is a cloak full of trained bats. I've heard African Swallows are fairly muscular too. GM: Does anybody have Knowledge: Engineering? Zin: *waves arms frantically* GM: You look like Kermit the Frog. Harshal: I suppose we could do parkour with the kobold if we throw him hard enough. GM: Kobold hammerthrow. Ys: Zin is an engineer, he can build a catapult. Zin: I'm OK with this. Instead we park a cart against the wall behind the building, and climb up each other. Much less suspicious than leaving a ladder propped against the wall while we're inside. We discuss devious traps on the way in, such as the wizard's tower rigged with a delayed action fireballs, teleport glyphs, and huge heaps of sawdust in the sub-basement. The Green Slime in the basement would just be icing on the cake. The actual building we're burgularizing is, of course, trapped out the wazoo, and the glass windows aren't glass. The locks on the building itself are also beyond our resident trapsmith, Zin, but aren't up to Ys with a crowbar. GM: At least there isn't a permanent Unseen Servant waiting to disable the trap on the inside. Thank goodness for GMs that aren't that sadistic. It's looking increasingly likely that this place was once owned by a mage, at the windowless tower is a summoning chamber. The library door is ridiculously robust too - it has five different locks, interwoven into a puzzle. GM: Summoning Chambers are usually underground - but that's for wizards who don't live in a city where there's a whole city of hurt for anybody making unlicensed excavations. We do find a scrollcase hidden behind a loose stone block in one room. We open it cautiously. GM: 'Guess who prepared Explosive Runes To- ' just kidding. Gillert: I can't read this, it's in elven. Here Ys, you read it. Actually it's a birth certificate, but the name means nothing to us at the moment. The guest room is full of wealth - but none of it portable. Even the fireplace has adamantium bars to stop a thief from using the chimneys to get from room to room. We do find some highly sought-after bath oils though. Zin: Oil of Slipperiness? I wonder what they used that for *looks innocent* The silk sheets on the solid stone four-poster bed in the master bedroom are rather valuable too. Ditto the goosefeather pillows. Zin, who has been scuttling around on all fours looking for traps, finds a magically triggered effect that melts and reforms part of the stone bed and reveals the shelf where they stored all the missing paintings. Yoink! The next door is certainly trapped - fortunately, Zin is short enough that the barbed spike that fires out of the lock passes over his head, instead of into his eye socket. The office on the other side seems innocuous enough, but the ink set in the locked desk might be valuable. Harshal: I'm sure a forensic accountant would find the ledgers fascinating, however. The dining room furniture is Darkwood - very valuable, but too heavy to move. Gillert checks the fireplace for the traditional emergency stash of coin, and finds some. GM: People keep doing it! It's as stupid as keeping a spare key under the obviously fake rock in your garden. Zin does find some valuable wines in the storage rooms. Harshal: So much glass to break. GM: That's why they didn't take it with them. Plus, wine needs time to settle. There are also some politically unfavourable paintings - one of the last King of Chelliax, for example, before the civil war. Odd, given the way Magnimar was founded by people that dislike Chelliax they left it. We bugger off with our loot. An interesting headline : Me: Perth Man Living In Bali Dies During Massage.... 'Massage'? GM: An Unhappy Ending? On Magnimar demographics. GM: Elves outnumber dwarfs. By precisely four. Harshal: Obviously a major elven city. GM: ... and one 'other'. Gillert: 'I refuse to be categorised.' GM: 'What do we put him down as?' Gillert: 'Twat.' Harshal has unexpectedly high skill at appraising stolen goods. Ys: He also to appraise the vict- I mean, clients - to know how much to soak them for. GM: There's also a mithril letter opener - or a mithril longsword for a pixie, if you prefer. GM: The rest of the silver writing kit includes vials of interesting powders and pigments. Harshal: Oh reaaaallllly. GM: And sliding drawers full of sheets of paper. All different sizes and grades. Gillert: It's a forger's kit. Harshal: I think I'll have to make some enquires into this guy's business dealings. Gillert: You do that - I'm not getting involved. Other loot - a case of expensive wine. Gillert: It's 100-grade plonk. Why's it called plonk, anyway? Harshal: From the sound when you hit someone in a head with a bottle. Ys helped herself to one of the bottles as we left - which is annoying, since a full case would have been worth 50% more. Harshal: Does she still have the bottle? The fact that a highly-placed family in Magnimar had a portrait of the last king of Chelliax is odd, given how unpopular Chelliax is in Magnimar. Harshal: It's not like we can use this information to blackmail them - since we stole the evidence. On useful Rogue talents, such as Aura of Innocence combined with Convincing Lie. Harshal: 'Where were you last night when the Archon was brutally stabbed to death?' 'I was home all night reading poetry' 'Then why are you covered in blood?' ' It was very intense poetry'. Gillert: Would Convincing Lie work with written lies? GM: ... Holy fuck. You could be the ultimate muckraking journalist. Gillert: And we happen to know a printer. GM: arrgghhh, you FUCKERS. GM: One of the paintings is in the Tian style, of sinuous, almost serpentine creatures smoking from a hookah. Harshal: Reptilian? Hookers? Hey Zin, I think they're talking about you. GM: Meow. Another is The Old Sage, by Crol Sembill - and THIS portrait is famous enough that Harshal recognizes it. Gillert: Well, we're not selling THIS one around here. And one of them is a painting of a disemboweled creature none of us recognise. Gillert: Charming. Zin: Creeeeeepy. Harshal: I get the impression this was one of those noble houses that used to have a painting on every square inch of bare wall. But the current resident put all the paintings into storage - and replaced them with bookshelves. Zin: What's the title? 'And I Thought They Smelled Bad On The Outside'? GM: One more painting to go. Zin: 'Gnolls Playing Poker?' 'Falllen Madonna with the Big Boobies'? Harshal recognizes the last painting - and starts to sweat. It's an underwater painting of a blue whale - and it's famous because it went missing years ago. It's unusual because the artist was the Shoanti Sanna of the Gentle Waves. GM: You've stolen a lost masterpiece - did you really think I wouldn't throw a wrench in here somewhere? Harshal: I'm surprised the painting has survived. Must have some minor preservative magic on it. GM: No it doesn't - all it needs is a minor cantrip every few years. Mending. Mending. Mending. I keep telling people - this is how scrolls and books last centuries in D&D. Look up the spell!

Star Wars : The F- Troop Returning to Fomos, where a large number of Imperial Stormtroopers are now marching around, and various smoking piles indicate what happens when Stormtroopers can shoot straight. Apparently somebody knifed a trooper on shore leave, and the Imperials reacted with weapons 'set to stun'. There were 'weapon malfunctions'. All shore leave is cancelled, which ruins our chance to sell them cheap beer. Fakybe: Godsdammit. This is why we can't have nice things. Forvuk also what to know if anybody dropped a heavy weapon. Fakybe: I'm not sure I like where this is going. GM: Any mission where you need to carry a heavy gun on a harness is probably a combat mission anyway. Fakybe: Or a shopping trip on Smuggler's Moon. He also wants to know if the heavy weapons he has can fire up through a floor. GM: If they could, somebody would have already done it, and the cantina wouldn't have a mezzanine level. Fakybe's player: That is one of the best 'GM shutting down player's idea' I've ever seen. GM: You can see bodies being carted off by janitorial droids, to the- Forvuk: Glue factory? Half the people we know are missing, and the cantina is closed for repairs - the Imperials are paying, for some reason. GM: 'We killed half the town, but we're rebuilding the cantina as a good-will gesture.' Forvuk is so eager to get a E-Web that he approaches the Weequay he shot up in our counter ambush a few days ago. Weequay: *through gritted teeth* ... isn't a heavy repeater enough for you? At lest that smuggler-pirate that wants to kill us is holding off whilst the Imperials are here. One of the traumatized locals Fakybe is negotiating with is the owner of the cantina - one Rick. Fakybe: Rick's Cafe Alderaan. Rick: The other problem is that they shot the saxophonist. Lots of people want off-planet too, including that pirate star fighter, who has posted bail and is offering a starfighter he doesn't actually own any more in payment. BOSS has too much to worry about to actually care. Of course, this will piss off the smuggler-pirates even worse, but hey, our negotiations with the Imperials are going to piss off the survivors, and any rebels that happen to be around too. Forvuk: Has the Dejarik table been fixed? Fendri: I think so. Can it be modified to play Sabacc? Fakybe: Just as long as it can pick up the Life Day broadcast. Off to the Star Destroyer Eviscerator. GM: A huge orca looms over the globe of Fomos... Forvuk: What's an orca? Fendri: Big marine predator. Fakybe: Well, just as long as it doesn't have the predilections of other delphinoids. But then, Fomos IS pretty fucked, so maybe it does. The star destroyer's supply officer Commander Arcanite is obviously unhappy to have aliens on board his ship. Servitor bots are already scrubbing the deckplates. He also unhappy that he's been assigned to a cadet trip. Cmdr. Arcanite: Welcome to the Eviscerator. Fakybe: And you're welcome to it. Cmdr. Arcanite: What are you and your crew of miscreants doing here? Fakybe: I resemble that remark! Oh, my apologies, my grasp of your language is imperfect. GM: Are any of you carrying weapons, or wearing incriminating t-shirts? 'Down with the Imperium'. Fakybe: 'Free Princess Leia' It soon becomes obvious to Fakybe and the Mon Calamari entrepreneur that the supply officer is trying to make some illicit purchases that he can blame on aliens if he's caught, but also that the star destroyer is so short on supplies that Arcanite is scrabbling to make up the shortfall. Something has seriously disrupted Imperial supply lines. Might have something to do with the Peace Moon being blown up. Fakybe suggests the troops would appreciate something to improve morale. Cmdr. Arcanite: I'm surprised an alien understands the importance of morale. Fakybe: Given the situation on Fomos is what happens when stormtroopers AREN'T relaxed... Cmdr. Arcanite: ... good point. Fakybe adds 'old war flicks' to the shopping list. We check the ship for bugs as we leave - there's a few, but no more than you'd expect. Forvuk now wants to know how much it would cost to fill our ship with high explosive and fly it into the star destroyer. Fendri: We are not going to blow up my ship! Fendri's scruples don't stop him passing the info about an under-supplied and oddly crewed Imperial ship into the Bothan spy network, though. GM: The Hutts have their own space, because not even the Empire wants to deal with giant slugs. Fakybe: ... not enough salt in the galaxy. GM: You fly off, and waste precious water on showers. Fakybe: Don't worry, we'll wring the towels off into a bottle and sell it on Fomos later. Fakybe: I'm sure there's icy moons in the outer system, or comets we can carve up. GM: Sure, but they learned the hard way why you don't mix methane with your ice. Off to the smuggler's moon! Fakybe: Given the shortage of food and water on Fomos, what we should track down are some robot exotic dancers. All: .... GM: There's all kinds of performers available. Gungan Comedians, for example. Fakybe: ... somehow I don't think political comedy from Naboo is very popular right now. GM: There's flashdancer droids that choreograph their own lights. Fakybe: Might be a bit high-brow - remember our audience. GM: Well they like classic Jizz. Fakybe: No they don't - Rick likes Classic Jizz. The customers don't have anywhere else to go. Fakybe negotiates with an Arcona musician's wife-slash-agent, and persuades them that the move is worth it. For one thing it'll help him get off his salt addiction. Fakybe: And they don't have a pirate problem anymore. I hear the captain got shipped off to be an exotic dancer for one of the Hutts. We also hit the rumour mill for any robot performers that need off planet in a hurry. GM: They contact you. Fakybe: They MUST be desperate. It's a troop of Trade Federation droids that do military marches and re-enact famous battles. This could work out, as well as be amusing - for one thing they could double as bouncers at Rick's Cantina, and they fold up to the size of a suitcase. Forvuk: Could a hold-full of these guys take over a star destroyer? Fakybe: You're obsessed - obsessed! Fakybe: Well, let's give Roger Roger and Hammerstein here a chance. GM: The Arcona's agent thinks Fomos is a good idea - no water, no salt. She wants him to dry out. Fakybe: Literally. The films might be a problem - they come with a Hutt film aficionado who controls the display rights, and insists on displaying them himself. Weird and slightly suspicious. Forvuk gets so engaged in setting up the Trade Federation warbots that he forgets an important piece of personal history. GM: People usually hire mercenaries when they need some defenceless locals eliminated. Fakybe: Just ask the colonists on Dralkh. Forvuk: ... I need to go check something. He finds that the merc guilds don't want to talk about the Dralkh contract. Or Contracts. Suspicious. We return to Fomos - to discover that the Eviscerator has left. But there are a large number of landed ships, and an Imperial shuttle. Everything seems perfectly normal. HIGHLY suspicious. But the staff at the starport haven't been replaced by murderous smugglers. Fnord's brother, the customs inspector, warns us that a lot of people want to 'talk' to us, so we'd better stay at the starport and keep all our hatches locked. But they won't torch the ship in berth, since everybody knows we're carrying booze and entertainers. Duros Bro: There's already a tanker on the way. Fakybe: You know, I think we're going to regret not hiring those exotic dancers. The Arcona musician's wife is highly pissed, now that she's actually seen the conditions on Fomos, and learned about the murder threat hovering over us. Fakybe: Look at it this way - the fact that they haven't blown us up in berth means they want beer and entertainers more than they want us. Congratulations! You have a captive audience out there. Arcona musician: He's got a point, Merryl. And there are even more probe droids buzzing around. This is the most suspicious thing yet.

Recap: Hero Shrew: We killed some zombies! And nobody got bitten so we'll be fine. Flux wants to take the zombie's train back to base for study - Hero Shrew is dead against this. Hero Shrew: We both know what will happen! You'll take one down to the basement for autopsy and before you know it there'll be hundreds of zombies trying to get into the compound. Hero Shrew: Every time I go to the base I'm going to be carrying a baseball bat with a nail in it. Just in case Flux got bitten during the autopsy. GM: Flux, you need to make him a device with two lights on it. But only the green like is hooked up. 'If it turns red I'm a zombie. It's a zombie detector'. Hero Shrew: gee, thanks! GM: 'Hey, it just turned red' Flux: 'Wait, what?' Flux: *shambles around the base groaning* Hero Shrew: AAAHHHHH. Flux: I'm not a zombie, it's just coffee withdrawal. Flux and Hardlight try and figure out where Hardlight's powers actually originate, given some of the strange reading Flux had been getting on his detection spells earlier. Flux: I need you to stand over there. Naked. Hero Shrew: I didn't know your swung that way. Flux does make an intuitive leap. GM: Your most heartfelt expletive is 'Tesla's Magnificent Moustache'. Flux: Oh god... Hero Shrew OoC: Ah - broadcast power. Somebody has set up a power source that broadcasts energy to the crystals that empower Hardlight and the Iron Claw, and goodness knows what else. Hero Shrew: I'm going to go buy myself some nice clothes, and a bunch of flowers, and try and impress Sally down at the Collie Club. Actual fresh flowers this time, and not one of those bunches I find taped to traffic poles. GM: You DO know those are shrines to the dead, right? Hero Shrew: Well I know that NOW. Sally, a Golden Setter morph with biomanipulation powers that works as a bouncer at the club, is polite, but overly sensitive to the scent of the flowers. She IS a scent hound after all. Hero Shrew: Sigh. Maybe I'll get plastic flowers next time. Sally is a foot-and-a-half taller than Hero Shrew. GM: At least you have an excuse to look at her tits. Hero Shrew: Yes, I have to look up past them to see her face... But I do have fantasies about what I'd like to do down here. *happy sigh* The Tyrell's new range of domestic bots aren't selling very well. Maybe people find their programmed job satisfaction-joy is a bit creepy. In other news the city is opting to replace the city's Freeweb nodes with tamper-proof self-correcting ones - this will hurt Hardlight's business holdings, AND make Flux's technomancy more difficult. Oh, and the Edge City Police Department has recruited some Enhanced Individuals, and closed the Academy to the public. Hero Shrew: Judy Hopps. GM: No. Also, a Moreau gang calling themselves Wild Kingdom has started up. But they're not recruiting dogs, which is almost as annoying as the rest of it, since Moreaus should work together. Hero Shrew: So who are they recruiting? GM: Mostly late felines and ursoids. Hardlight: So, Lions and Tigers and Bears? Oh My. GM: .... You fucker. And a Voodoo Crew car stopped halfway out along to the bridge to San Franscisco. Hero Shrew: That's odd. Flux: There's only a few reasons you'd do that. Hero Shrew: Yes, I know, like if you've got a nuke and are holding the city hostage. Flux: But you wouldn't do tat out on the bridge. Hero Shrew: Nah, you'd save that for Downtown. The car's occupants are never found - maybe it's related to the sighting of a major San Francisco mystic player in Edge City? Oh, and Fireflash is now a sanctioned super, and technically has police powers. GM: But she is 17, so they're hoping you don't actually use them. Hero Shrew: Can I be an agent too? GM: Sure - DOSPA is fine about that sort of thing. As far as they're concerned, you're a person. 'So you want to become an agent?' 'Yes?' 'What if we wanted you to straight-out murder someone?' '... No?' 'Good, you know Yes and No, you're in. Go do these tests.' GM: The US is weird - at 18 you're allowed to drive, but not to drink. Hero Shrew: You can die for your country, but not drink. GM: You can vote - but not get chemical solace to cope with the results. Hero Shrew: I'll book a booth for you at the club so we can celebrate. GM: No you won't. Same reason she won't be drinking. Hero Shrew: Oh yeah. Fireflash: Well, police do have discretionary powers... GM: Plus there's the matter that what goes on in the club is against the law. Right now Colin is capitalising on the fact that technically they're not people so technically it's not illegal. GM: It's a legal grey area. Bestiality is illegal, but the judge will have a hard time justifying it when both parties can say they are consenting. Hero Shrew: 'And he was wearing the collar' This goes on to a discussion about American sodomy laws, and whether or not watching bestiality porn is illegal. The GM had to research all this because of the Moreau Question. GM: The shit I learned for this campaign... *facepalms and screams* GM: Goddammit - I can see the title of her first biography ' Sanctioned at Seventeen'. And her late autobiography 'Sanctioned at Seventeen and Why It Fucked Up My Life' The question arises of how DOSPA have managed to keep their database of agent's secret identities completely secure, despite everything over decades. GM: It's on paper, at the back of the staff fridge. Behind the cup of coffee that's been there for.. A while. Hero Shrew: The one that looks like Kirk's coffee in The Trouble With Tribbles? GM: Yeah - with fur inches higher than the cup. Now if he'd ordered hot chocolate, it would have made sense. Tribbles taste horrible with coffee. This detours into a discussion of Klingon culture, and the problems of finding kosher bloodwine for Jewish Klingons. Flux: Do Klingons have a religion? GM: Yes. Klingon. Colin the Collie patiently explains why it's not a good idea to let Fireflash party at the club, mans why they wouldn't be able to serve her, with ANY of the club's services. Hero Shrew: Oh.... So, what kind of things do other people do when they graduate? Because I see them come in here all the time. Colin: That's because they have good fake Ids. Hero Shrew: Oh... Hey, I know somebody who can make fake Ids! Colin: *facepalm* The Collar Club does have male 'entertainment staff', such as Clinton the Kangaroo. Hero Shrew: Worked out fine for Tank Girl. Colin eventually says that she comes in, and if any of the staff, male or female, happen to take a thirty minute break, and no money changes hands, it's not his problem. Hero Shrew: Sweet. Hey, Flux, Colin says it's OK. Flux: OK, Fireflash, tell your Mom you're going to a party. Just don't tell her where. Flux gets very nervous about the whole effort to get Fireflash to the club, given the whole age and secret identity thing, and using his own car. Flux: Secret Identity - Pervert. Hero Shrew: So, Hardlight, do you come? Fireflash: That seems a pretty personal question. GM: Do you ATTEND - word choice Scooter, word choice. Max the Doberman Bouncer (Hero Shrew's romantic rival) and Sally are on the door. Max: So that's what you look like close up. I'm sorry, miss, but I'm going to have to see some ID. Fireflash: Hey about my badge? Max: That's the one. If you'd tried your student ID you'd have been on a bus home. GM: If anybody asks you can honestly say you were investigating a grey area. 'But it's either legal or illegal'. 'Not where Moreaus are involved' 'Ah.' Flux: I can't believe the party is happening here. Hero Shrew: It was the first place that came to mind. I have a very simple mind. Fireflash: ... Yep. Sounds about right. GM: The DJ probably ISN'T playing metal - it's hard to strip to metal. I've seen them try. The GM attempts to find a random table to generate what trouble hits us next. Flux's player: You book is slighted foxed. GM: I hope you didn't just predict it. Flux's player: ... Dammit, I'm not precognitive on my own time. Actually our dancer is a mouse girl. She's pretty good. The honey possum might have been a problem. Hero Shrew: Weaponised cuteness. GM: Nah - they have a tongue a third as long as their body. *sings* 'I've got a tongue, that's ten inches long, and I've learned to breath through me ears'. Colin is making doubly sure that Fireflash doesn't get any alcohol. He does NOT want to lose his liquor licence. Colin: I can sell all the tail I want in this town, but sell one drink to a minor and I'm DONE. Fireflash does get plenty of people and staff coming over to congratulate her on her graduation. GM: Cham the fox girl wasn't opening the show today. She'd have been pretty memorable - all she wears are stockings and a set of oversized playing cards. Hero Shrew: Ask her about her card tricks. Flux: Or the ping-pong-ball trick. GM: Colin puts his foot down about the ping-pong-ball trick. Plus there's whole problem of all the canines on staff. Ball! Flux: .... I just got that. Balls flying across the room. I thought it was a gay joke. My brain was still stuck on itty-bitty mousie titties. Fireflash wanders off with the jackal bartender for half an hour. GM: When she comes back down she's... Flux and Hero Shrew: Glowing? GM: *wince* Goodnight everybody. I don't think it's getting out of the gutter tonight. Hero Shrew: And this only occurs to you NOW?

Star Wars: Taxi Driver After shooting up a pirate base, capturing most of the pirates alive if not necessarily intact, and making a not of where the base and the ships are so we can come back and loot or utilise as we like, the Deniable Plausibility is on the way back to Fomos. The ship now has even more people on board, as well as a large amount of loot that the Rodians chose for their part in the attack. It's standing room only. Forvuk the Dresellian Brute: And I'm learning to swing a vibro-axe. Fendri the Bothan Pilot: I'm actually getting worried about the life support - everybody who isn't on duty has to be asleep. Forvuk: By 'sleep' do you mean- Fakybe the Adorable Little Bat-faced Con-artist: Not 'the long sleep' Fendri: Or carbonite. Fakybe: We don't have any carbonite anyway. Fakybe: Don't worry, I'll keep everybody's morale up - I'll organise a sing-along. Fakybe: If you're so desperate to get some target practise, join the Rebellion and go shoot up some Tie Fighters. Forvuk: Target practise is less fun when the targets can shoot back. Fakybe: Quite - I could insert a comment about the Massacre at Dralkh here. Forvuk: *deathglare* GM: When you get back to Fomos there's something alarming in orbit. Fendri: There's always something in orbit, that's not alarming. Unless it's an Imperial Star Destroyer. GM: *sings the Imperial March* Fendri: Goddammit. We act nonchalant, detach the looted starfighter and all that Glitterstim in high orbit, and land normally. The Rodians can arrange to have the starfighter, the pilot thereof, and the drugs, landed later. That distances ourselves from any connection to the raid (and the pilot in question is actually pretty relieved to have been captured - that starfighter was a deathrap). The surface is now swarming with bored Imperial troops, apparently on shore leave, although there's also a suspicious number of probe droids buzzing around. Forvuk: What are the Imperials armed with? GM: Same thing US Navy are when they're on leave. Fakybe: Money! Maybe we can get some cash acting as a taxi service, transporting troops back up to the destroyer. Fakybe: It means they'll be less likely to blow us out of the sky later, if they think we're up to something. 'Hey, I remember those guys! They got me home after I got paralytically drunk at the cantina - and they didn't even roll me for my cash!' We post a card offering off-planet transport at the trading post - even if we don't taxi stormtroopers around, there are certain to be people that want off Fomos in a hurry. GM: The Star Destroyer 'Eviscerator' is obsolete, and only bought out of mothballs after the destruction of the Death Star. This a cadet training voyage for new recruits. Forvuk: So... How many actual Imperials on board? Fendri: *We are not skipjacking an Imperial Star Destroyer.* All the Imperials in the cantina: *staring at us* Fakybe: Don't mind him - he's drunk and an idiot. We make arrangements to get the pirate's ship running again, whilst at the same time keeping the position of the base secret - although for some reason the Star Destroyer is blasting away at a remote part of Fomos 'for target practise'. Fendri handles the negotiations, and the negotiations with the person who answered our ad. It's a Mon Calamari, who is wearing an environment suit to cope with the dryness. Fendri: What the hell is a Mon Calamari doing here? Fakybe: He's an admiral, who was on holiday. Actually, he's an entrepreneur - eventually we decide that bringing in holds-full of cheap booze from another system, to sell to the Imperials. The smuggler we clashed with earlier makes a reappearance too - by sending us a free pizza topped with the hand of that spy that we caught. Fendri: He seems annoyed with us. Can't think why. The entrepreneur also reports that the pirates and smugglers have be making enquiries, to find out what happened to their leader, and who they need to brutally kill in revenge. Fakybe: Maybe we should leave an anonymous tip with the Imperials that the smuggler is a rebel spy. Forvuk: Do you want me to be more overtly evil so you can offer people a more enjoyable alternative? Fendri: I don't think you're evil. I just think you're unnecessarily violent.

Kibitzing before the game this week - cannibalism on the set of the African Queen. Also, Red Dwarf. GM: There was a reason the entire cast of characters was male, and heterosexual. Me: Hence that conversation in one episode about the Flintstones 'Well, I'd go with Betty - by I'd be thinking of Wilma.' Gillert's Player: Ah Betty, the town bike. What long-term objectives do the PCs have? Zin: I want a safe place for the kobolds. Filled with impassable traps. Where I can charge money to train parties of adventurers. Harshal: That's not training adventurers, that's farming adventurers. Gillert: 'Here, sign this waiver'. 'Why is it so long?' Harshal: I'll write up the waiver for you. Basically you want a giant mulching machine, with a sieve underneath to catch the coins that fall out? Gillert: Knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and doing good. GM: You are SO in the wrong campaign. Harshal: I want to be indispensable to anybody that wants to seem legitimate in Magnimar. GM: Tricky - you'll always have competition. Ys: I want to be deadly enough to kill anybody I want. All: ... Zin: Simple. Harshal: And straightforward. Harshal: We need to come up with a heist that can't be immediately traced back to us - by the guards finding a pile of stolen goods in our spare room, for example. Ys: I just want to be in a position where I have the power of life or death over people. I don't mind if I'm working under somebody for that. Harshal: You just want the job satisfaction. Zin: Are we going to be the Mission Impossible team? GM: Dun dun, DUNDUN, dun dun DUNDUN Harshal: It would help me become indispensable. We already have our disguise expert *points at the Kobold disguised as a Halfling disguised as a gnome*. Tannis: We need legal authority to go around beating up people - I mean, be adventurers. Tannis points out that we need premises. Harshal: As the case of Sala No-name exemplified, we need a postal address. Ys: I am not volunteering my place. Harshal: The non-sex dungeon might be a problem. GM: You could always clear out the sewer goblin nests, but that would leave a power vacuum. Harshal: So we install kobolds. And then Zin can become the Underlord. Ys: We could always capture some goblins alive.. GM: Who are you? Ys: I'm not finished. Then we dump them over the wall into whatever district we want to buy property in. That would lower property values. GM: I'm not sure that's what people had in mind when they invented the term 'social engineering'. GM: I'm just glad none of you suggested dressing up some kobolds as goblins and assassinate an arch-duke. Tannis: Plagues aren't difficult to synthesise... GM: I'm glad we're not playing poker. Because people are starting to get sick in Magnimar - ships are already diverting to Riddleport rather than risk whatever mystery disease is at work. Zin's player: Given my familiarity with John Snow... GM: Hmm? I'm not up to speed with... Zin's player: The Broad Street Pump. Harshal: Oh, THAT John Snow - I thought you meant Game of Thrones too. GM: I decided against the one that causes buboes, swollen glands, and eventually bleeding under the skin. Be grateful. GM: It responds to magical healing, but they're having trouble isolating the vector. Harshal: Do people have mosquito screens in Magnimar? That can stop Stirges? The disease, which causes skin ulcers and eventual death, started in the port district but has spread up-cliff, so it's probably not sewer-related. Ys: At least the increased chaos in the streets gives us opportunities. Harshal: For 'random stabbings'? Ys: Yes. Some of the wealthy families have been hit harder than others, but are covering it up. This includes Tannis' relatives. Suspiciously, all these families are ones wealthy in real estate outside the city. Harshal: I suspect Druids. It's always the Druids. Ys: Kill all the cats, it's the Druids. Harshal: If some insane hippie Druid has taken offence at the concept of land ownership, they could easily unleash some kind of plague on the city. Zin: I blame the humans. Ys: I'm an elf. GM: 'You all look the same to me' It doesn't seem likely they caught it at a day's fox hunting either - that would have exposed landowners AND nobility. But it IS infecting farmers, and miners. Zin: Everytime you mention miners it jumps out at me. Gillert: Well, you are a burrowing species. The fact that the Alabaster District uses endless fountains as a water supply seems to rule out a water-borne illness too. And hitting the Dockways first seems to rule out something that came in with the collected harvests, since that district gets most of its food from the sea. Tannis's family are pretty sure their outbreak started with the kitchen staff first - but if it was the food it would have infected everybody at the same time. Harshal: It's invisible whistling spiders that came in with the bananas. The disease IS infecting livestock as well. Are the slaughterhouse workers coming down with the disease even more often than the rest of the population? Tannis: Why don't you go ask? Harshal: Oh sure, I'll go right down. AFTER I find a plague-doctor outfit. Tannis: I can't do everything! Harshal: Oh, alright, I'll go down. I'll take a posey of strong-smelling herbs to hold under my nose. Disease prevention being somewhat amorphous in this era. The GM came up with this plot because he knows his players have wide geek interests, and could probably identify the disease within seconds. It actually takes us much longer than he expects. GM: Oh, that's why nobody has IDed it yet - it's a strictly fictional disease. Actually he's wrong - he was just given an obsolete name for the disease when he looked for ideas. Harshal does notice that the abattoir guild-members all enjoy bathhouses next to the slaughterhouses. So they'd be resistant to infection anyway. But his questions do reveal that new grazing land was opened up recently, after a mine got transferred to new owners who had tenant farmers adjacent. Tannis: I'm sorry guys, but it looks like we'll have to go out of the city. Harshal: I don't DO nature. Ys: I keep getting dragged off to do things I don't want to do, thanks to Tannis' family. Ys' alchemical testing has already ruled out a poison, and her torture-chamber-slash-forensic-lab further rules out a blood-borne disease. Harshal: Who would have guessed that all those blood-letting instruments would actually be useful? Gillert: So, what bits do we actually have to cut off? Tannis: You're not thinking big enough. Zin: You can sell the test. Harshal: No, that's not how to do it. You give the test away free and get prestige that way. Ys: *twitches violently at the mention of doing anything for 'free'* Tannis: You're still not thinking big enough. People are diseased - what do you do with the diseased? Gillert: Shoot them. Tannis: ... No. You put them quarantine. So we fake test results and profit that way. We complain endlessly about having to leave town. GM: It's half-a-day's ride! If you stand on one of the towers - Tannis: - we can see where we're going to. Gillert: I keep forgetting I have a whetstone. Harshal: Well it's standard equipment. Gillert: It's more useful to those adventurers that actually use pointy things. We arrive at the suspect farm, where they've already had to put down half their cattle. Ys searches, and finds somebody's stash of 6 silver coins, which she pockets. Gillert: You monster. Ys: Yes, and? Time to examine the silver mine, which apparently was transferred to new owners to settle a debt. Tannis: Zin? You go in first. Zin: *sigh* Of course I do. Mine Overseer: Well, we got a new donkey. And then it took sick. Then the workers took sick. They can barely swing a pick-axe. They got the donkey at the Archer's Feast, which is about when the plague started. Tannis: Where did you bury it? Overseer: We burned it. It took sick. Harshal: Well, at least you didn't eat it. Overseer: ... No sir. It took sick. But they haven't opened any new seams lately, which is evidence against them exposing themselves to something new and infectious. The old time miners, farmers, and foresters certainly haven't heard of anything like it. The overseer does have a receipt for the donkey, at least. And that eventually leads us back to the docks, and the livestock pens. But it can't be coming in one the ships, since incubation times would lead to plague ships arriving at Magnimar. Gillert: Could a Hag be living under the livestock pens? GM: Possibly. They can certainly infect livestock. Gillert: Either that or we've got a Typhoid Mary. Harshal: Really? And what, exactly, would this Mary would have done with all the livestock to infect them? GM: I should probably have mentioned that some of the infected are coming in with *various respiratory symptoms*, and some with *various gastro-intestinal symptoms.* Gillert: It's not Black Death is it? GM: No, but there is a metal band named after it. Ys' player: Ah. Well, that Ids the disease. Harshal's player: Oh for FUCK's SAKE - it's Anthrax. And it's soon apparent that somebody is deliberately planting the spores around the docks to implicate the incoming ships. But who? Ys: OK, we follow the money - who benefits? Who ISN'T getting infected? GM: Underbridge. Tannis points out that doesn't actually implicate the denizens of Underbridge - they can't afford livestock anyway. Who benefits from the chaos? The Silent Circle, for one. The muckrakers have been very heavily hit by the disease. Gillert gets lucky as we make our inquiries. Muttering Lunatic: ... Just because. It's walking don't mean it's alive... I dun telled them... Just because it's up and mooing dun mean it's alive. Gillert: What's not alive? Muttering Lunatic: I told 'em! Deathwalker knows, the Faceless Five know. Gillert: I'm trying to get an answer from him. GM: Sure, but you don't speak the same kind of crazy. Lunatic: Too late, too late, the Deathwalker planted his seed. Harshal: We're getting back to that 'Typhoid Mary' innuendo, aren't we? Gillert also knows that there are spells that conceal the undead status of a creature. So this 'Deathwalker' apparently sent at least one undead cow to infect the livestock trade. GM: Anthrax spores are most efficiently spread from a decomposing corpse. Gillert: Those sneaky fucks. GM: And it works even better if the corpse is still up and walking around. Just as well Gillert has Detect Magic - if the zombie cow hasn't been sold yet, the traders are unlikely to mention it's odd behaviour. GM: They are trying to sell it - bit of a conflict of interest there. Harshal: What would a zombie cow be called anyway? Gillert: Day Z? GM: ...... Oh god. Gillert eventually locates the cow in a question - and the enchanted cowbell that maintains the transmutation. Wisely, we make inquiries about who is selling the cow before drawing attention. Tannis: It's targeting the nobles. Harshal: It's targeting everybody - it's just that the nobles buy more meat. Gillert: That cow's been there for weeks. Why hasn't it sold? Harshal: Because it looks fine, but it's not behaving right. The buyers can take one look at it and think 'that animal ain't healthy'. The cow has a brand that matches the rest in the pen - five interlocking circles. Gillert: Of course it is. Ys: Why don't we steal it? Harshal: OK, you can, but we're going over here and never associating with you again. You're going to be associating with a plague cow. Every time you go near it you'll be picking up more spores. Ys: Hear me out, I'm not going to go near it. And a plague cow could be useful. I'll just keep it underground somewhere until we need it. Harshal: OK, to wipe out an Orc nest somewhere - we tie the cow up nearby. Tannis: And some day a priest casts Healing Surge nearby, and the undead cow lurches, lows, and collapses. 'Wait, what?' We consult those Necromancer morticians about the identity of the transmutation, and the Carrion Compass spell that can lead to the less socially acceptable necromancers responsible. The spell requires an organ from the cow, which will float in front of us. GM: 'Is that an eyeball?' Ys: Easy to explain - we're Rastafarians. I and I. GM: *groans* Ys goes and hires some labourers to dig a hole in which we can stash the undead cow. Alternatively, nail it into a crate, fill it with mud to stop spore release and reduce decay, and store it in a warehouse. Tannis: And if somebody puts their ear to the crate they'll hear a soft 'moo'. Zin: Why is the lynchpin of this adventure a magical cowbell? GM and Tannis: Because it needs more cowbell. *high-five each other* Everybody else: *howl in pain* Ys: I have named this the Undead Cow-ruption Caper.

The Deniable Plausibility takes off to launch a surprise attack on a pirate base, with the F-troop, a couple of droids, a Wookiee, a Duros named Fnord, a Rodian researcher, and three Rodian would-be smugglers who we're calling Huey, Dewey, and Louie, since we can't speak any common languages. Yes, this is far more people than our freighter is rated for. Imagine the queue for the head. Forvuk: Can we test our guns first, and shoot up a few asteroids on the way? Fakybe: Why shoot up an asteroid? There's some Imperial Tie fighters going that way, they're easy targets. GM: And expendable, too - nobody will notice if they go missing. Our plan - hyperjump into the asteroid field, drift towards the space-worm-riddled planetoid they're using as a base, and dive out of the sun, ECM roaring, and shoot seven colours of shit out of any berthed fighters, drones, etc they have parked nearby. Forvuk: I'm assuming the Wookiee is on the ventral gun, since a Wookiee on top is an ugly prospect. Fendri: I still have to pick up some milk. On Fomos. Forvuk: Do they even have cows on Fomos? Forvuk: Fakybe, did you pick up any fridges when you scanned the asteroid? Maybe we can steal their milk. Fakybe: I wasn't actually looking. Forvuk: Fat lot of good you are. Soon enough their fighter and combat drone are completely incapacitated, and we move in to board their main ship as they frantically try to get the engines going. Fendri: I don't have a Code Against Killing, but they ARE worth more to us alive. Forvuk: So a Code Against Damaged Merchandise? Fendri OoC: Assume a cinematic system until we score a critical. THEN we talk physics. Fakybe, the F-troops resident engineer and liar, doesn't actually have much to do for the bulk of he battle, other that hose down the engines when they start to overheat, and broadcast the following of the pirate's main comm channel. Fakybe: Die Fledermaus to Big Red One, Die Fledermaus to Big Red One - some resistance encountered, send in the marines. The Aqualish pirate captain refuses to surrender, even when he's the last pirate standing. Fakybe: He probably wants to go out fighting. GM: Once you become a pirate, violent death is pretty much guaranteed. If you take him alive the Empire will make him mine glitterstim for the rest of his life, and I don't want to think what the Hutt would do with him. Fendri: The Hutt has interesting taste - he'll have the Aqualish dance for him. GM: *throws up in his mouth a little* Fendri: Well, there's a reason they call us the F-troop. GM: Yes - the eff-wits. Or "Or F--- it's them" The pirate captain eventually takes cover, and offers a deal - we let him go and we get all the glitterstim. Or he remotes detonates the glitterstim and goes out with a bang. We argue about this - the Rodians in particular like the drug offer. Forvuk: I don't suppose you anything about the massacre on Drelk? Pirate Captain: What kind of outfit are you running here? Are you all- Fakybe: OK, just kill him. The Rodians manage to intervene - they get the pirate, the glitterstim, and their relative back, and fuck off to do what they like with it. We get the pirate's base, the rest of the pirates, and the pirate's various ships after their fighter pilot sheepishly limps back to base and surrenders.

Gillert's Player: “…. what are you doing?” Me: “Cosplaying a Portuguese Man-o-war”

Champions - Return to Edge City : Mall Zombies First two hours of session spent discussing nuclear weapons, nuclear accidents, and engineering failsafes. Hardlight: And moving from nuclear weapons to biological weapons? Because the Fast Zombie virus is apparently in the most exclusive hi-end mall in this part of California. Hardlight: Are we going to have to nuke somebody? GM: Hopefully not. Hero Shrew: Unless it looks like the zombie virus is going to get loose and infect half of the state. Maybe we should tell somebody about this? Fireflash: Who'd believe us? Hero Shrew: Well, I know it would be embarrassing if it turns out we're wrong, but - Flux: So, the probably-wanted-super-criminal calls the police saying he has a spell that says there's a zombie plague loose in the Mall. How well do you think that will go? GM: Where did this virus thing come from? I never mentioned zombie virus. Hero Shrew: I've seen movies. Fireflash: I seem to be more pulchritudinous than I was before I got my powers. GM: Well, you have to store the energy somewhere. Hero Shrew: So what kind of clothes am I going to have in my Garfield disguise? I don't think my usual wife beater and torn jeans are going to cut it, here. Hardlight: ... Look like Garfield and dressed like Top Cat? Hero Shrew: So, purple hat and vest, and no pants? GM: It's a mall - a high-end mall. Fireflash: Oh my gosh, I want to go shopping. Hardlight: You can come back after you get your Christmas bonus. Flux: We get a Christmas bonus? Hero Shrew: News to me... Nice to think we'll live until Christmas. The Laguna Complex is full of luxury car dealerships, face-change clinics, bespoke electronics and a few places that actually advertise as Moreau-friendly. Hero Shrew: We are going to do so much damage here. Flux: We? You. GM: I was watching Repo Man the other day. Flux's player: ? Hero Shrew's player: Famously weird movie that ends with a highly radioactive flying car. GM: There was a bus in one scene, and the destination was Edge City. *eyes go wide* (Actually, Repo Man was also an Edge City Production) Flux: OK, where are the medical outlets, we'll look there first. Hero Shrew: You'll have to stop me first - I WAS going to look up the mall security sections, but now I'm having too much fun seeing how fast I can spin the map. We need to get into the secure underground carpark. Hero Shrew: I suppose I can look around for some matronly customer, and say 'Hey lady, you going down?' Flux: .... No, no you are not. Hardlight: Can I Bubble the lifts? GM: Sure, but you'll attract even more attention. Hardlight: Great! Either security will come and talk to us, or they're not paying attention and won't be any use to us anyway. The game is interrupted by a violent 30 second thunderstorm that strikes just outside the door. GM: It's like there was a tiny storm cloud going prrrrrrrrrr across Perth, F**K THAT GUY, prrrrrrrrrrr and moves on. Flux: OK, the zombie signal is behind this wall. Scooter, get digging. Hero Shrew: OK. Fireflash: Hey, wait, hold on - can we at least LOOK for another way in first? Maybe a door? Flux: ... I'm not the only person here who can come up with plans. GM: Tig, what is your actual name? Flux's player: Flux's or mine? GM: Yours. Flux's player: I'm been gaming here for years now! GM: I know, but everybody calls you Tig, and I'm terrible with names. Flux's player: That's fair - I knew you as The Care Bear Guy for years. Fireflash: If I get banned from the Laguna Complex I'm going to ban your ass. GM: You're getting a few nervous looks from people, since they know you're four superheroes in a mall, and especially since Flux keeps waving his hands and saying 'This way' Hardlight: Don't worry people, he's hunting an Arcticuno Flux: Maybe we do need to talk to security. Hardlight: Hail, good citizen. Fireflash: Shut. Up. Flux: Oh god, Mr Foot-in-Mouth is speaking. Fireflash: Can we talk to your boss? Security: Whhhhy? Fireflash: Because there's a situation he needs to be aware of. Hero Shrew: And we don't want to start a panic. Security Chief: OK, what's under my mall? Fireflash: We're found evidence of a lab producing hyper-velocity undead constructs under the building. Hero Shrew: Fast Zombies. Fireflash: I was trying to avoid the Z-word. Flux: Can we help you guys with the situation? Security Chief: Like I can stop you. Flux: Can we get PERMISSION to help with the situation? Security Chief: It's not worth my job to give you permission. Flux: Ah, another guy who knows his law. Security Chief: So that's why there's Voodoo Crew in one of the loading bays right now? Hero Shrew: Oh, f**k. We'd made the mistake of using the public map of the mall as we tried to triangulate the zombie's position - and none of the loading bays are included on the shopping map. As a result, we were wandering through the galleries and carparks and continually winding up at solid walls. Flux: So the Voodoo Crew followed us to the mall rightly assuming we'd find the zombie-tech for them. And that's why they're in the loading bay. Fireflash: We have been here an hour. Flux: Oh my god, we are horrible horrible superheroes. Fireflash: Hi. Would you like to leave? Voodoo Crewman: Yes, when we have retrieved our property. Fireflash: Would you like to leave now? Voodoo Crewman: Yes. Flux: Well, that is a valid answer. I think we need to set some caveats, we have a smart-arse. Voodoo Crewman: You're not as scary as Papa Friday. The worst you can do is kill me. Fireflash: I'm not going to do that. Voodoo Crewman: You might still kill me by accident. And you're still not as scary as Papa Friday. Fireflash: I'm not letting you take the stuff. Voodoo Crewman: OK, that was the signal. We can go. Fireflash: .... What? Hero Shrew: I think they found what they were after. GM: Worse - they switched them on. Hero Shrew: Oh f**k. The two drug-harnessed corpses trot towards us, as we move to defend ourselves. And trot right past us. Flux: What? Hero Shrew: They've probably been told to head back to base. Flux: They have to control them somehow. Fireflash doesn't even want to touch them. Hero Shrew doesn't want to get bitten. Fireflash: ew ew ew. Hero Shrew: I've seen the movies, I'm too pretty to be a zombie! GM: By the way, Scooter, keep track of how much property damage you do. Hero Shrew: Called it. Hero Shrew swats one of them back into the concrete wall of the loading bay, which hurts it not at all. And now they're paying attention to us. Zombie: HHHRRRRRUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHH. Hardlight finally reaches the loading bay. Hardlight: Hi guys, how's thi- oh, shit!!!! Fireflash: Grab that one and hit that one with it! Zombie: *narrows eyes* Hero Shrew: Well, she's the leader of Quadrant and seems to know what she's doing most of the time- Zombie: *grabs Hero Shrew and hits Fireflash with him* Fireflash is no longer moving, to Hero Shrew's alarm. And there's a cyber-zombie looming over us. And another that's giggling alarming and doing a super-speed run at the nearest truck in an attempt to roll it over on us. The shrew launches himself at the dearest undead in a crushing tackle. Hero Shrew: Apparently shrew hugs are more dangerous than bear hugs. GM: You feel a cracking inside it, and grin in fierce satisfaction. And then it seems to inflate again. Fireflash: They have Regenerate???? Flux: Goddammit... Now I want one. You bastard. GM: You can't rip the harness off, it's an implant. It's like trying to rip off somebody's nose. Fireflash: That IS doable. Hero Shrew: 'My zombie has no nose' 'How does he smell?' 'F****ing awful, he's a f**king zombie, what do you think?' Fireflash recovers enough to blast the other zombie across the carpark and into a car. GM: INTO a car. Hero Shrew: So the airbags go off? GM: Yup - so does the alarm. Flux: ... OK, she has the matter under control, I'm outta here. GM: No she doesn't it. Fireflash: I can't do that twice! Hero Shrew is trying to pile-drive the one he has grappled. Hero Shrew: What's a suplex manoeuvre? Fireflash: Hoist the zombie over your shoulder and fall back on him. GM: You're doing a pile driver. Hero Shrew: I never watched wrestling. Hardlight: Says the guy who can suplex a train. Hardlight: I call this the HUSQVARNA SPECIAL! GM: Hey, Hero Shrew, Hardlight is swinging a giant chainsaw at you! Hero Shrew: FUUUUUUUUUU- Hardlight misses, Hero Shrew's piledrive doesn't, and the truck has now had a zombie plowed through it three times. Somebody is going to complain. GM: At least you're paying attention, so you notice when the zombies are trying to regenerate. BLAST. The pieces are crawling back together. BLAST BLAST BLAST. NOW they stop moving. Searching the zombies finds a card with 'Come home - kill any who try to stop you' in Haitian Creole. The Voodoo Crew weren't fucking around. And we also find where the zombies were being stored - in a locker belonging to one of the Dysprosium Dawn's tech-head allies that worked at the mall. Also, forensics indicate that the zombies were volunteers, and alive when the process started. At least it's very unlikely that the Voodoo Crew and Dysprosium Dawn will ever recreate them. Hardlight: Do you have any evil Nemeses? Flux: Well, there's that f**king accountant.

Star Wars Ep. 4 1/2 : The F-Troop Pt 2 Going through the deceased diplomacy droid's memory chips, back on our ship the Plausible Deniability, to find out who killed him and kidnapped that astromech - it was a large Weequay thug. That, in and of itself, isn't very useful information - but if the astromech WAS kidnapped by those local space pirates, then using our admittedly less-than-stellar connection to the local 'smugglers', in order to get a job interview with the pirates, still seems our best plan. What else would we do to make some money? Fendri: What can we smuggle anyway? Forvuk: T-shirts. Fakybe: 'My Parents Took Me To The Kessel Run And All I Got Were These Lousy Radiation Burns' GM: The Wookiee will get shot first - everybody shoots the Wookiee first. Then, if they haven't killed him, the Wookiee goes berserk and hacks everybody in half with an axe. Forvuk: So when we meet these smugglers we want to make sure we get within hand-to-hand range before the arguments start. Fakybe: Well, we could always let them get there first, and send an anonymous call to the Imperials telling them about a bunch of terrorists who were celebrating the destruction of the Peace Moon. GM: Everybody is under a Point of Strain this session because Fendri got a message from his family Fakybe: 'Pick up some milk on your way home' Fendri: I'm FORTY FREAKIN' LIGHTYEARS AWAY. Actually they want to know why Fendri hasn't been making his contributions to the Bothan Intelligence network. GM: Plans for the Death Star would be good. Fakybe: I could sneak aboard their ship and plant a great big bomb in their hyperdrive. Fendri: Do you have a great big bomb? Fakybe: No. Forvuk: We could plant a bomb in his brain and send him off to meet his boss. Medical Droid: You are horrible, horrible people. Fendri: We can plant a bug on the spy and listen in on everything he says. Medical Droid: Do you have such a device? Fendri: No. Everybody thinks I'm a spy - even my family thinks I'm a spy. I'm just a courier! Forvuk: How about we just TELL him we've fitted a cortex bomb? Instead Fakybe improvises a bug, plants it on the spy, and we get him to contact the smugglers to negotiate the meeting with the space pirates. Smuggler: What can you offer me? Fendri: Skills. Fakybe: Also our own ship and no criminal record... In this jurisdiction, anyway. Smuggler: Alright, let our agent go and I'll think about it. Spy: What do I get out of this? You shot me. Fakybe: Free medical treatment - also we owe you a drink. Spy: *grumble* The smugglers don't want to meet outside the imperial base - I can't think why - and suggest meeting at the cantina (neutral ground on Fomos) in a hour. We agree - and get there 50 minutes early, to occupy the best sniper positions. Forvuk: So, would a blaster shot go all the way through the medical droid? Fendri: We are not using the droid NPCs as cover! Forvuk: So we're getting ambushed outside the Cantina. Fakybe: Well, they were GOING to ambush us - but we ambushed them first. Fakybe and the Rodian pilot are using a hired cargo hovertrolley and a crate to check the top of buildings around the square. The abandoned mansion overlooking the square - an ideal sniper position - gains a sniper with a bipod-mounted heavy rifle shortly after it gained us. Forvuk: Nice - I want that rifle. The sniper doesn't spot us hovering beside the roof in the darkness. The rest of the smugglers are gathering in front of the Cantina - and include the Weequay that bisected the diplomacy droid and kidnapped the astromech. Fendri: Set your blasters to stun. Forvuk: ... I'm setting my heavy slug-thrower to Stun. Fendri: *sigh* just shoot them in the legs. Fakybe: We could ram their sniper off the roof with the trolley, and use the crate for cover. Forvuk: Would a heavy blaster rifle go through a hover trolley? GM: Yes. Fakybe: Hmm - better not then - we won't get our deposit back. Forvuk and the Wookiee ride the hover-trolley up to the roof and beat seven colours of snot out of the sniper. Fendri moves to where he can shoot the Weequay in the side. Smuggler: Up there! Fakybe: Bugger - he spotted us? GM: The sniper didn't answer the comm-link, the smuggler looked up, and saw a Wookiee silhouetted against the moon. Fakybe tries to run over the smugglers with the hover-trolley, and discovers the smugglers also had people with rifles planted in every other building around the square. Just as well he's so small he can barely see over the dashboard. The Wookiee grabs the sniper's heavy rifle and blazes away at the smugglers helpfully silhouetted against the lights of the Cantina. Wookiee: RRRRAAARRRRGGGHHH!!!! The smuggler's mooks prove strikingly inept at hitting anything they shoot at. Fendri: Are we fighting Imperial Stormtroopers here? Eventually we shoot them up enough that most of them flee, the locals emerge to loot the corpses, and we cart off the stunned Weequay to interrogate. True, Fakybe and the Rodian are badly mauled, but we do get a free heavy blaster rifle out of all, so, bonus! Fendri: We need to dip our Rodian in a Bacta tank and leave him to stoop. But we don't get our deposit back on the hover-trolley. GM: Contract void if used in combat - it's that kind of place. Also, the Imperials don't come to investigate until well after the shooting stops. The medical droid gets in contact with the Rodian's group, to let them know where he is. And deliver a medical bill. GM: And you know a street urchin you can buy a stimpack off if you need one. Fakybe gets in contact with the smugglers again. Fakybe: Special two-for-one offer, short time only. Your two guys for that astromech. Seem fair? To sweeten the deal, you can keep all the stuff your Weequay was carrying. Forvuk: What???? Fakybe: *hand over the mike* The Astromech is more valuable to us than anything the Weequay was carrying. Forvuk: *grumbles* Forvuk: Can we storm the smugglers' base and take all their Spice? There can't be that many of them left. Fendri: No - I don't smuggle illegal drugs or slaves. Fakybe: How about legal drugs? The Astromech mourns the death of his diplomacy droid buddy, but DOES have interesting navigation data that's probably the space pirate's hidden asteroid base. We tell the Rodian researcher. Fakybe: Interesting data here... Hidden asteroid base. Sound valuable? Rodian Researcher: *squeak* You have to go there. Fakybe: *raises little batty eyebrow* Researcher: We just want my brother back. Fakybe: aaaaah, so that's who that Rodian bountyhunter was. Researcher: Look, you can keep the money. And the pirate ship. Fendri: *already programming in the co-ordinates* Fakybe: Just as well we have an astromech now. *jury-rigs an astromech port into the co-pilots seat.* Fakybe does another negotiation, with the Rodian pilots' buddies. They're annoyed we got their pilot half-killed, but Fakybe offers them half the reward in return for their assistance. That gets their interest - Rodians love hunting. GM: It's why Rodian Bountyhunter is practically one word. The medical droid comes back from the hospital with a Duros engineer in a BOSS jumpsuit. Duros engineer: I am Fnord. Fnord is circumspectly interested in installing and operating electronic countermeasures in our ship, to aid our operation against the pirates - after all, BOSS are even more against the pirates than we are. Fnord: Plausible Deniabilty - Fendri: Deniable Plausibility. Fnord: - is essential. We hope the name of your ship is not ironic. Forvuk: Who knows about the counter-measures pod? Fnord: As far as anyone is aware, the pod is out for testing.