Durzan Malakim

Nope. I picked that pic for his Mexico misadventure with that very idea in mind.

Looking good there @Scything. Am I the only one who captions Drew's face with the thought bubble .oO(What have I gotten myself into?)

It's even funnier when you know that L'Éminence Nocturne is strongest in South and Central America. Mexico City is one of their power bases.
 
From their perspective, this crazy Hunter makes an enemy of them and then heads directly to a beach resort an hour east of Mexico City to hang out and imbibe umbrella drinks, kills the goon squad sent to take him out, and then benefits from the most outrageous string of improbable outcomes leaving a trail of havoc to their operations in his wake and then exits the country unharmed aside from his `fridged` lady friend.
 
The next council of masters will have a few talking points RE: one Mr. Drew Altman...and his little friends too!
 
 
You guys are starting to comprehend how Drew got a negative reputation as a "reckless hunter".

Here's how I imagine Drew's departure and return went:
Murgatroyd: "We should band together for mutual protection from L'Éminence Nocturne. They'll be coming for us, but together we can face any threat."
Drew: "Sounds great. Count me in. On a completely unrelated note, I'm taking a vacation in Mexico. See you in two weeks"
Murgatroyd: "I don't think now is the best time to..."
Drew: "Stay out of trouble, Kid, and make me proud at your agent training."
Murgatroyd: "You're risking making yourself a target..."
Drew: "I'm officially off the clock as of... now. Hasta la vista, hunters. Don't call me, I'll call you."
Murgatroyd: "If you'd allow me just a moment to ward..."
Drew: "No time for magic mumbo jumbo now, Murg. I've got a plane to catch." <Departs>
Murgatroyd: "Shit."
<Several weeks later at the Unconventional Solutions LLC offices.>
Murgatroyd: <Holding an old-fashioned phone receiver to his ear.> "Yes, we're well-equipped to deal with such situations. I'll send my best consultant out today..."
Drew: "I'm back."
Murgatroyd: <Speaking into phone> "...to review the scene and give you an estimate. I think your Pixie problem will be a thing of the past..."
Drew: "Those vampires have a long reach, Murg. I could have used your magic mojo down South..."
Murgatroyd: <Looking at Drew but speaking into the phone> "...Yes. One moment please, my associate has some new information." <He covers the phone mic with his hand>
Drew: "It's like you said. Together we can face any threat."
Murgatroyd: "Sounds great. Count me in. On a completely unrelated note, you've got a 2 o'clock appointment to purge some Pixies."
Drew: "Shit."

Here's how I imagine Drew's departure and return went:
Murgatroyd: "We should band together for mutual protection from L'Éminence Nocturne. They'll be coming for us, but together we can face any threat."
Drew: "Sounds great. Count me in. On a completely unrelated note, I'm taking a vacation in Mexico. See you in two weeks"
Murgatroyd: "I don't think now is the best time to..."
Drew: "Stay out of trouble, Kid, and make me proud at your agent training."
Murgatroyd: "You're risking making yourself a target..."
Drew: "I'm officially off the clock as of... now. Hasta la vista, hunters. Don't call me, I'll call you."
Murgatroyd: "If you'd allow me just a moment to ward..."
Drew: "No time for magic mumbo jumbo now, Murg. I've got a plane to catch." <Departs>
Murgatroyd: "Shit."
<Several weeks later at the Unconventional Solutions LLC offices.>
Murgatroyd: <Holding an old-fashioned phone receiver to his ear.> "Yes, we're well-equipped to deal with such situations. I'll send my best consultant out today..."
Drew: "I'm back."
Murgatroyd: <Speaking into phone> "...to review the scene and give you an estimate. I think your Pixie problem will be a thing of the past..."
Drew: "Those vampires have a long reach, Murg. I could have used your magic mojo down South..."
Murgatroyd: <Looking at Drew but speaking into the phone> "...Yes. One moment please, my associate has some new information." <He covers the phone mic with his hand>
Drew: "It's like you said. Together we can face any threat."
Murgatroyd: "Sounds great. Count me in. On a completely unrelated note, you've got a 2 o'clock appointment to purge some Pixies."
Drew: "Shit."

(Click the pictures)
 
Joey is fresh off his two months of training, sporting a new haircut and a clean Fed-friendly look. @Scything Drew survived a "cerveza, tequila, murdered girlfriend, Mexican prison, your enemies really do intend to kill you" kind of vacation, escaped, survived, resisted, evaded his way to Mexico City, and managed to stay alive long enough to call in his favor with SAIC Harker and get secretly extracted to the US on a banana boat headed to Miami by way of Guantanamo. In the process, divested of his trusty Glock 20 he was forced to rely more on his close quarters battle skills and make do from time to time with crappy pistols he acquired here and there from assailants and corrupt cops which incentivized Drew to broaden some of his "Glock 20" only skills to Pistols in general. He may have also gotten just a little bit luckier, if that can be imagined. @WilyQ Forced to adapt his usually methodical and thorough magical acumen to exigent conditions under extreme stress and imminent risk of death, and to stretch himself to harness more raw power than he is used to, Murgatroyd has found new depths to his ability to work powerful magics. He's also taking the idea of the company he proposed, Unconventional Solutions LLC, very seriously and has busied himself with incorporating and bending his considerable intellect to learning the necessary lore of being an effective CEO for a small but savvy business venture. @Durzan Malakim Killroy has been diligently taking care of the money and real estate side of things to get Unconventional Solutions LLC off the ground, but under his stoic outward demeanor he's quietly excited about being covertly approached by members of a very elite and secretive society he has been intensely interested in joining for many years. He's alert to possible further contact and also being very careful to always present himself in the best possible way just in case he is being clandestinely observed. @King Red Baretta has flourished under Harker's tutelage; in particular Harker has trained her on how to maintain the optimal distance from threats in a gun fight and honed her already excellent situational awareness to a razors edge. Additionally, having sold her share in the questionable business arrangement the other Hunters invested in to Murgatroyd, Baretta finds herself even more financially comfortable than she was before...she definitely isn't continuing to hunt monsters just for the money...it's personal.  @Steve Jack's time spent at Harker's left hand over the last few weeks and the ensuing after hours "cross training" has paid off; Jack's reflexes are even more honed and he can take a punch even better than before. Additionally, he had time to brew up a new batch of Vampire Repellent...sure to come in handy in the nights to come. And also, I finally got around to writing up Jack's Armored Van. @L0rd_Magg0t  
 

 
Name DEX SPD SPD Chart REC END STUN OCV DCV Levels Beretta 15 4     3     6     9     12 6 20 30 5 5 +2 with Colt M1911; OIF (Colt M1911; -1/2) Jack  13 3       4       8       12 6 20 30 8 7   Killroy 13 3       4       8       12 8 25 30 5 5 +2 Overall
+2 with Barret 95
+2 with Barret 95; OAF (Acog Doc Reflex Scope; -1) Joey  10 2/3       4       8       12 4 20 24/36 5/7 4 +1 with Move Through, Grab, Strike Drew 10 3       4       8       12 5 20 30 5 4 +1 Overall
+1 with CQB
+1 with Pistols Murgatroyd 10 2           6           12 6 30 20 4 5 +1 with Ring of Arcane Blasting
+3 with Arcane Magic; Only for OCV or OMCV (-1)
+1 Any 3d6 roll pertaining to Cthonic SFX; (-2)  
Name PD rPD ED rED Mental DEF Power DEF Powers & Equipment Murgatroyd 2/8 0/6 2/8 0/6 0 0 Wristbands of Warding: Resistant Protection (6 PD/6 ED) (Impermeable) (18 Active Points); IIF (-1/4), Perceivable (Those With Supernatural Awareness Can Detect This Ability Being Used If Its "On"; -1/4)   Arcane Shield: Barrier 8 PD/8 ED, 5 BODY (up to 3m long, 3m tall, and 1/2m thick), Impenetrable (+1/4) (45 Active Points); Unanchored, Cost Endurance To Maintain, Emanates From Ring, Limited Range (up to 3'' away from self) ((Green Lantern style force shield); -1)   Supernatural Resistance: 7   Miraculous Survival: 1 Killroy 8/16 0/8 3/11 0/8 0 0 Ain't Got Time To Bleed: Resistant Protection (8 PD/8 ED); Does not protect from first point of body (-1/2) Joey Manegarm 5 1 3 1 0 0 Survival: Garmrhide: Damage Negation (-6 DCs Physical, -6 DCs Energy, -3 DCs Mental) (75 Active Points); Perceivable (Supernatural Awareness; -1/4)   Survival: Garmrhide: Resistant Protection (1 PD/1 ED), Impenetrable (+1/4) Jack Maywood 8/16 0/8 2/10 0/8 5 0 Mental Discipline: Mental Defense (5 points total)   Bullet-resistent Trenchcoat: Resistant Protection (8 PD/8 ED) (24 Active Points); OIF (-1/2), Half Mass (-1/2), Real Armor (-1/4), Torso, Arms, Legs (-1/4) Drew Altman 5/14 0/9 2/11 0/9 0 0 Concealed Bullet Resistant Vest: (4 PD/4 ED) (12 Active Points); Torso Coverage (-1 1/2), Half Mass (-1/2), IIF (-1/4), Real Armor (-1/4)   Lucky Bastich: Combat Luck (9 PD/9 ED) Beretta Colt 5/11 0/6 2/8 0/6 0 0 Cool Shades: Sight Group Flash Defense (3 points); OAF (-1)   Armored Boots & Punching Gloves: Resistant Protection (2 PD/2 ED), Impenetrable (+1/4); Hit Locations 6, 17, 18 (-1)   Final Girl Survivability: Resistant Protection (6 PD/6 ED), Impenetrable (+1/4) (22 Active Points); Nonpersistent (-1/4)  

I'll mention this again in-game and in-character, but Murgatroyd will mention to each of his fellow hunters that it is a matter of when, not if, L'Éminence Nocturne will attack us supernaturally. As the arcane expert of the group, Murgatroyd will recommend either cohabiting in a warded home or having him come out regularly to ward where you live. It's time I start using these Lore skill to protect us.

I'll mention this again in-game and in-character, but Murgatroyd will mention to each of his fellow hunters that it is a matter of when, not if, L'Éminence Nocturne will attack us supernaturally. As the arcane expert of the group, Murgatroyd will recommend either cohabiting in a warded home or having him come out regularly to ward where you live. It's time I start using these Lore skill to protect us.

I'll mention this again in-game and in-character, but Murgatroyd will mention to each of his fellow hunters that it is a matter of when, not if, L'Éminence Nocturne will attack us supernaturally. As the arcane expert of the group, Murgatroyd will recommend either cohabiting in a warded home or having him come out regularly to ward where you live. It's time I start using these Lore skill to protect us.

Jack Maywood Slayer / Alchemist Lord Maggot Joey Manegarm Lokispawn Scything Beretta Colt Final Girl Steve Drew Altman Lucky Operator WilyQ Murgatroyd Arcanist Durzan Killroy Sniper / Cabalist King Red
 
 
Session 1:
 
Murgatroyd...aka Saul Jacobson (his true name was revealed for the first time thanks to having to file incorporation papers for the team's new company Unconventional Solutions LLC) was going about his routine in Boston, trying to drum up business for the fledgling firm. Cleverly, he was using magic to disguise himself as some other late middle aged business man (whom we'll call "Ira" to hopefully avoid confusion) each day when going about his day in public.
 
About a month after the Hunters went their separate ways, as he walked from his townhouse to his office Ira was accosted very rudely by a trio of Boston thugs who were luckily fooled by the magical guise. The thugs' leader asked Ira questions about Murgatroyd in a somewhat comical conversation loaded with subtext and allusions to mobsters movies.

The main thrust of the conversation was that Murgy was being offered a deal by "the powerful people he had made an enemy out of out west". A business card with nothing but a phone number printed upon it was pressed upon Ira to pass on to Murgatroyd and the thugs faded out of the scene.
 
Arriving at the office clearly shaken, Murgy fortified himself in his office and cast a divination spell to trace the card's recent past back to the most magically powerful thing it had come into contact with...the resulting vision revealed the card changing hands a few times down some kind of crime organizations' chain of command to arrive in the hands of the goon who had handed it to Murgy. The card originated from a slim, charismatic, smartly dressed vampire...handed off to a local crime lord in the back room of what looked like a classy restaurant downtown several days ago. 
 
Murgy, characteristically, freaked out. With Drew somewhere in Mexico, Joey in FBI training, and Beretta and Jack somewhere out west running around with SAIC Harker...Murgy wasted no time calling Killroy who was in NYC doing Killroy-ish things. Once Killroy arrived in Boston late in the day, the two Hunters began to do some desperate planning. Killroy's plan basically consisted of "kill them all" but Murgatroyd pointed out the various flaws in that particular approach. The two of them then attempted to use their new access to secured online resources available to them as Section M Special Assets but neither one of them were technical enough to figure out how to manage it.
 

 
The firm's new secretary Laverne, a nice older lady from a town north of Boston proper and a survivor of a ghoul attack many years ago which sadly left her family dead and eaten but happily made her hire-able by enterprising supernaturally active individuals such as our heroes, offered to help but as she lacks the necessary clearance Murgy thought it best to decline. 
 
Instead, it now being early evening, Murgy called Joey down  in Quantico and asked for his assistance. Joey was able to pull up a significant amount of data including a surveillance photo about a suspected vampire fitting Murgy's description named Allan Carr active in Boston since perhaps the late 1930's. According to the case records, it appeared that as many as seven groups of Hunters had attempted to root this vamp out of Boston and none of them were ever heard from subsequently. Also, Alan Carr appeared to somehow be involved with an international shipping and industrial services company with a major office located in Boston, called Aleante.  
 
Murgy and Killroy decided to call the number and find out what the vamps wanted. His first attempt in the late afternoon went to voicemail, but a second try after sunset was answered promptly on the second ring by an urbane, persuasive voice. 
 
Murgatroyd was offered a deal...L'Eminence Nocturne was willing to "forgive" Murgatroyd's transgressions in L.A. if he would deliver "the young man" (meaning Joey) to them and agree to consider future business opportunities for his wizardly services "at fair market prices". The other Hunters would of course have to die. 
 
The vampire on the other end, Allan, did not identify himself and was playing the mysterious voice on the other end game, but at some point in the conversation Murgatroyd adroitly flipped the table on Mr. Carr by revealing that he knew who he was talking to. This obviously unsettled Allan a bit, but he adapted. He gave Murgy 24 hours to decide. However, determined not to get a clean win, Murgatroyd accidentally let slip that "the young man"'s name is Joey. Oops.
 
Murgy, getting even more nervous, called Jack for vampire hunting advice. It turned out that Jack and Beretta were getting settled in to a highway motel somewhere south of Chicago, having just completed a armed delivery of cargo to a Section M facility in the region. Jack, hearing the promise of a vampire to kill, rousted Beretta from her room and convinced her to ride with him overnight to Boston to help Murgy and Killroy out. Beretta sensibly wanted to fly, but Jack pointed out his van is a rolling armory full of vampire killing  stuff. It was also recently repaired and detailed, and he's keen on putting it back into service in his vampire slaying hobby. The two rolled eastward and arrived late afternoon the following day at Murgy's house where the wizard and Killroy had holed up for the night.
 
Beretta, showing that Harker's field craft had been paid attention to, almost immediately spotted a couple of goons watching Murgy's house front and back. Various magic-facilitated shenanigans later, the team eluded the dopes staking out Murgy's sanctum townhousum, followed the trail of Murgy's scrying into and around downtown, and eventually arrived at a upscale condo highrise with heavy magical wards on it, where Allan's trail ended. Going off residual energy, Murgy was able to guess that either Allan lives in the building or visits very frequently. Murgy was also able to tell that the wards on the building were very old, and had been maintained and extended over the years by several practitioners. It was entirely possible that part of the reason Allan had been able to survive as a vampire in the city for so long without major detection was the anti-surveillance protection the wards on this building would have conferred to him. 
 
Surprisingly, Murgatroyd received a call from the number he had called Allan at the day before. A different, deeper and more menacing voice was on the other end. Even over the phone, Murgy felt an unpleasant tingling in the back of his neck. The thought crossed his mind that he might be talking to a master vampire...
 
This conversation was short and couched in less friendly language. Murgy pointed out he had a couple more hours before 24 hours had fully elapsed, but the entity on the other end of the phone was not swayed and demanded an answer. Murgy politely declined and the phone simply went "click"
 
Killroy did some leg work and found a boutique upscale hotel on the opposing street, catercorner but within view. The team relocated to a room with a view of Allan's roof and settled in for some surveillance. Joey, back in Quantico, was reached out to again and he was able to do some hacking and get a plan design document for the Boston City building department with the details of a fairly serious security-related upgrade to the top two floors of the building, including schematics and floorplan. Things got busy, particularly for Murgy...he teleported around a bit and retrieved Joey from Quantico. Then, back in the hotel once again but with plus one more meatshield, the Wizard patiently concentrated and began to bore a hole through the wards encasing the building. That took a while, but paid off, and Murgy was then able to scry into the building and get a tactical assessment. Finding three armed guards and Allan in the top two floors, Murgy described the layout and the positions of the guards to his teammates. 
 
Despite the sun having just gone down, the team (minus Drew) opted to press an assault, and raid the building. Using teleporation, Murgy moved the team to the roof of Allan's building. Moving down the fire escape to the floor below the top floor, Joey kicked the firedoor in and then everyone except Murgy assaulted inward to take out the vampires guards, one after the other. Shots were fired back and forth, blood was sprayed, a guard's leg was severed by Killroy's hand cannon of a pistol and a max-damage roll. 
 
Murgy  had been maintaining an anti-scrying anti-video surveillance spell to cover the teams advance into the building and shield them from any street side cameras (metagame commentary: this was a very smart move by @Durzan Malakim). Once the Hunters were well inside the building and the lights had been killed, Murgy dropped that spell and quickly prepared a new one to make himself invisible to sight and hearing. 
 
This proved to be fortuitous, as while the other Hunters were clearing the lower floor and assaulting up the staircase to the vampire's lair on the upper floor, the vampire himself had dropped down to the fire escape from a balcony and was stealthily coming in behind the Hunters and the trailing far behind Murgatroyd was isolated and in the vampire's path. 
 
The vampire very nearly bumped into invisible Murgatroyd, coming to almost the same spot to look through a doorway from the back side of the condo to the front where the other Hunters were advancing. Seeing the situation had turned against him, with his guards taken out and a team of confident and well equipped Hunters leaving a trail of the odor of vampire repellent behind them, Allan decided to cut his losses and escape.
 
However, before doing so, he muttered "Well played, wizard."
 
As he was standing nearly shoulder to shoulder at the time, Murgy assumed the vampire could see him and lost his $#!^ (failed his freak out complication roll) and started screaming and gibbering uncontrollably. Fortunately, his invisibility covered sound and no one witnessed this and his dignity was retained.
 
Allan Carr escaped down the fire escape and faded into the night.

Awesome. Joey is going to start taking his career as a monster hunter seriously. I took a proficiency with KS: Supernatural Lore to show Joey studying what's out there and getting smart on how to function in the strange reality of hidden things. I'm also continuing to slowly buy off some of his "Only at night" limited abilities so that he isn't a weak link during the day. I hope the group agrees with the direction I'm going 👍.  

Ok, I've got some adminstrata to do to transition the campaign into Arc 4, and also write up last nights session to close out Arc 3: A Trick Of The Night (for now). But in the meantime, @Scything was eager to advance Joey, and he's even more beastly than before. @WilyQ verbally told me what he wants and Drew is bringing his A-game. @King Red is good to go; Killroy is deadlier than ever. @Steve is all in; Baretta is taking aim at whatever enemies the future might bring. @Durzan Malakim has immanentized the next stage of apotheosis; Murgatroyd is more potent and also scowlier than ever. @L0rd_Magg0t is locked in and Jack is back.
 

(CLICK THE PICS)
 
The important detail for everyone is the following: all the survivors of the Trick Of The Night have gained a shiny new 20 point Hunted:
 
  Hunted: L'Éminence Nocturne Infrequently (Mo Pow; Covert; Kill); 20 points  
Each character's complication limit has been raised by 20 points and the commensurate number of character points are added to their available xp.
 
However, some of those points are spent on your behalf; Joey, Drew, Killroy, and Murgatroyd each have +2 points of the Wealth Perk applied representing a combination of their Cthonic and Vampire bounties. Baretta and Jack have +1 point of the Wealth Perk representing their Vampire bounties.
 
All six characters have a 1 point Favor: SAIC Harker; you get to call in that favor exactly once, so don't waste it. 
 
All six characters gain a 1 point Positive Reputation (alternately if any of the characters already have a similar rep I'll bump their existing rep by one point): 
Positive Reputation: Capable Monster Hunter (A small to medium sized group) 11-, +1/+1d6  
All six characters have the option (player's choice) to get upgraded to an FBI: Section M Consultant / Special Asset; this is a +1 point upgrade of your Licensed Monster Hunter perks. Each of you should let me know if you want to take the opportunity to become a Special Asset or not...if you don't that 1 point is available to be spent on something else as you see fit.
 
FBI Special Asset: This is an upgraded version of a Supernatural Hunter License granted to certain Hunters or "special talents" in the US who have higher status and a closer relationship with FBI's Section M. This level grants limited access to federal facilities in general and Section M facilities in particular, and limited access to Section M resources. However, in return, the Special Asset will be called upon to assist Section M at the FBI's discretion.
 
Ill be going through each character in turn over the next few days and will tally up the available points for each and post them here.
 
I'm looking forward to the next arc. I do ask that when deciding what to level up on your PC's you reflect on the idea that the next arc will be more of a 50/50 split between [investigation & roleplaying] / combat so I encourage people to spend at least some of their points on other-than-combat abilities.

The Hunters:
         
 
Part 3: 
 
We resumed in the middle of the battle between the hunters and the three yuppy vampires from the end of Part 2.
 
  
 
At the van, the dexterous vampire lunged across Jack in the driver's seat, reaching for Killroy in the passenger seat, in an attempt to get his dagger back.  Killroy shot him in the forehead with his pistol, but as it was loaded with mundane bullets it failed to cause any harm, the bullet ricocheting harmlessly away. The vamp did not get the dagger, however. Jack had stealthily palmed a holy water globule earlier in the fight, and took the opportunity to awkwardly cram it into the face of the vampire reaching across him. The globule burst and resulted in an immediate catalytic reaction, burning and melting the vampire's neck and face like hydrochloric acid would a human.  With a shriek of rage and pain, badly disfigured and with one eye severely damaged, the dexterous vamp leapt backwards out of the van and ran away from the fight. Off to the side, though laid out on his back with Joey standing on his chest crowing and showing off, the superstrong vamp was not out of the fight yet. He quickly grabbed Joey's ankles and flung himself upright with brute force, tossing Joey off to land on his back a few feet away, all in one abrupt moment. Joey's bragging cut off with a surprised squawk.  Joey got up and took a big swing at his foe, but missed.  The superstrong vamp stepped in with a boxer's confidence and unloaded a punishing triphammer jab to Joey's stomach, doubling the teen over with an "ooof!" of escaping air. In the wrecked government SUV, the tough vamp crouched on the passenger seat facing backwards towards the rear of the vehicle attempted to shoot Murgatroyd (who was in the back seat) in the face at basically point blank range. Drew, still a little off-kilter from getting shot in his armored vest, managed to throw a beefy arm out to push the gun aside and deflect the shot into the passenger's seat headrest instead of Murgy's nonplussed face. Improbably, in the kerfuffle the magazine release of the pistol was also depressed and the clip slid out, bounced off the seat and ended up somewhere between the seat and the center console, out of reach. The vamp was heard to say, "What the #*@! ", while attempting to pistol whip Drew with his now unloaded pistol. Murgy attempted to return the point blank favor, aiming his arcane ring at the vamp, but still shaken from his near-death experience the wizard was unable to focus the necessary magical forces...the ring momentarily began to subtly glow but then flickered out.  Despite the awkward firing position created by the ergonomics of the small space in the cabin of the SUV, him facing forward and seatbelted in, his target crouching facing backwards on the seat next to him, Drew still managed to shift his bulk sufficiently to get his pistol out and put a bullet into the vamp's noggin. It didn't penetrate, but it whiplashed the vamp's head and neck with the audible popping of vertebrae and caused some obvious discomfort.  Meanwhile, Joey continued to swing and miss his superstrong opponent, while in turn the vamp landed heavy golden gloves worthy hits...buying time for his regen to slowly begin to repair his damaged chest; Killroy got out of the van. Not having enough time to unlimber his sniper rifle, he snapped a shot off at the superstrong vamp beating up Joey, but the bullet bounced. After a couple of exchanges Joey got KO'd and dropped to the pavement. Superstrong vamp picked up Joey, probably intent on kidnapping the unexpectedly powerful youth and perhaps take him back to his master for study.  Killroy concentrated and shot the vamp again in the head, and though his mundane round again had little effect, the kinetic energy of Killroy's shot did manage to knock the vampire backwards and off his feet, causing the vamp to drop Joey's unconscious form. But, undeterred the vamp stood again and moved to pick up Joey once more. Jack calmly drew his pistol and swapped from mundane ammo to something a little more effective vs bloodsuckers, unbuckled himself, and exited the van. Seeing that Joey was in danger of being carted off, Murgy displayed a rare moment of selfless heroism, focusing his will and concentrating intensely he projected an intense beam of UV-enhanced eldritch energy out the window of the gov SUV...striking the superstrong vampire directly in the chest. At first a moment of unnatural silence seemed to descend on the battlefield as a subliminal tension mounted and a pulse of power visible to those with supernatural awareness surged from the agitated Murgatroyd down the path of his arcane beam, culminating in a massive eruption of heat as the surprised vampire rapidly overheated and burst into intense white-hot flame from within...in moments nothing was left but a man-sized pile of fine ash which collapsed into a charcoal effigy of a man, streamers of ash drifting away on the wind. The tough vampire, seeing the writing on the wall, bailed from the gov suv and leaped to Joey's unconscious form, apparently intent on completing his dead ally's attempt to steal away with the boy. The vamp picked up Joey, but was pelted by a hail of bullets and an eldritch bolt. In the end Drew, having exited the ruined gov SUV, executed a flying tackle, taking the vamp out at the knees.  The vamp decided to cut and run, and extricating himself from Drew ran away. The fight ended. Joey regained consciousness while the "adults" stood around over him taking stock of the situation and deciding what to do next... Drew wanted to split up and chase down both vampires, who had run away in different directions. The other Hunters were not keen on that idea. There was some indecision about which vamp to have Joey track down. While the discussion was developing, the rapidly recovered Joey got bored so Jack told the young man to pick up the very badly burned remains of the super strong vampire and put them into the back of Jack's armored van. Joey easily carried the corpse over to the van while the grown ups continued to argue in the middle of the street, opened the sliding side door and tossed the body in...then his sensitive hearing picked up the sound of a helicopter approaching. Soon most of the other Hunters could hear the helicopter as well. Drew said "It's just Harker again" and kept trying to convince the rest of the group to go after the super tough vamp instead of the holy water scorched dodgy vamp. A military surplus helicopter with a decidedly illegal nose mounted minigun cleared some buildings and did an attack run down the middle of the street, tearing holes in the pavement as its nose gat spat bullets. "WTF!" and similar exclamations of surprise were flung upon the wind as the Hunters all desperately dove for cover. The oversized Killroy was unable to get out of the way and was stitched by several rounds; a combination of his armored trenchcoat and his stubborn durability saved him from certain death, but left him with several flesh wounds. Jack took a glancing shot as well, leaving a bloody streak across one cheek. Drew and Murgatroyd were unscathed. Joey, still by the van, dove into the van and was unharmed...but the bullets probably would have bounced off his supernaturally resilient body anyway Joey jumped into the van's driver's seat and restarted the engine; moments later the van surged forward to close the distance to the Hunters picking themselves off the ground, as the helicopter was heard to be circling for another gun run. "GET IN!!!", Joey shouted. Drew, Killroy, Murgatroyd, and Jack did not have to be told twice; they all piled in to the van wily nilly. Joey stomped on the gas, and recklessly barrelled forward down the deserted side street... The helicopter executed a strafing run from behind, the armored shell of the van barely managing to stop the bullets pelting the rear and roof of the heavy vehicle with pings and pops, leaving bullet shaped dents visible within the cabin. "She can't take much more of this!", Jack yelled, trying to hold himself steady by gripping a utility rack mounted to the van's inner wall. "LET ME DRIVE!", Drew yelled over the din, and Joey slammed on the brakes...sending everyone lurching but having the benefit of causing the helicopter overhead to overshoot. Joey and Drew changed places rapidly while Killroy finished breaking out his big rifle and boldly took up a firing position by leaning far out of the passenger's side window, his blood dripping down the door panels. "Hold my legs steady, kid", Killroy told Joey. Drew snapped in and the van resumed its forward travel but in a much more confident fashion. The helicopter had managed to flip back around and started another gun run head on, basically playing chicken with the van down the long empty street. Before the helicopter could open fire, Killroy...hanging half out the window very precariously, with Joey the only thing keeping him from falling out, scoped in and put a bullet unerringly through the windshield of the approaching helicopter and into the forehead of the pilot...instant killshot. Unfortunately, this caused the helicopter to nose down and begin to crash...it would surely hit the van head on! "HOLD ON!", Drew shouted, and pressed the gas pedal down as far as it would go. Joey forcibly yanked Killroy back into the vehicle, and everyone braced for impact. But Drew's driving proved to be impressive once again, and he just managed to get under and past the helicopter as it crashed a few feet behind the van....the explosion knocked the back tires off the pavement and pushed the van forward abruptly and nearly flipped it, but Drew managed to steer out of it and get the vehicle stable again, then skidded off to resume pursuit of the runaway vampire...sparing only a single glance at the flaming pile of helicopter wreckage in the rearview mirror. "Since when do vampires have attack helicopters?", Drew asked Jack over his shoulder. Jack shrugged. That was exciting, but a Hunter's job is never done. The gang resumed their search for the super tough vampire that had fled the scene, Drew still driving Jack's van, Joey tracking by scent by standing behind Drew in the back of the van, sliding door locked open, head stuck out the side of the van. Via a series of zigs and zags, Joey navigated Drew around the maze of industrial and office buildings...and a few minutes later the van careened around a corner to illuminate the fleeing vampire limping down the street trying to get to a rare, lonely pay phone attached to the side of a brick building midway up the road (the vamp's cell phone had gotten smashed during the earlier battle). Wasting no time, Drew propelled the van hurtling forward and whipped it around into a vicious drifting sideswipe that sent the vamp flying off the sidewalk and into a pile of trash stacked up by an overflowing dipsy dumpster. Drew halted the van, and Hunters poured out to assault the hapless vampire in the shredded designer suit. Jack ended it by driving a stake through the vamp's heart, causing the undead to lock up into a rigid statue-like stasis. "YES! I DID IT! TAKE THAT BLOODSUCKER!!!" Jack crowed, taking out a cell phone and taking a selfie of himself posing in front of the vamp and emailing it to Harker. "Um...I thought you were a veteran vampire slayer?", Drew commented. "Oh, uh, yeah, I am. This is totally not my first staking.", Jack assured him. "...k..." Harker responded to Jack's text with a terse "good job...rtb"...i.e. return to base...the facility near Riverside. Joey tossed the staked vamp into the back of the van next to the crispy vamp's corpse, and the crew piled back into the van to resume their journey.  
The team relaxed as best they could for about an hour, as Drew continued to "drive with a purpose", making good time in the relatively light early A.M. traffic of L.A. County. Some side conversation between Hunters occurred, but for the most part people settled in for a drive.
 
Jack's phone rang...it was Harker. Answering, Jack heard the distinct sound of automatic weapons fire and screaming in the background. "We're under attack!", Harker shouted into the phone so loudly almost all the Hunter's could hear it despite the phone not being on speaker. "The #$@$ing vamps and a bunch of mercs have penetrated the facility. Get here A.S.A.P.!" Jack said "OK!", and Harker hung up in the middle of a much louder series of gun reports. Drew grimaced and hauled ass, but knew there was no way they would get to riverside in time...they were still at least 45 minutes out. Drew glanced up and made eye contact with Murgatroyd in the back via the rearview mirror. "Fix this, wizard.", Drew commanded. Murgatroyd looked surprised to be directly tasked like that but got over it, nodded, and started digging through his travel notes trying to figure out away. He was coming up short, but then had a flash of insight...the teleportation room in the facility itself! He could attempt to open a portal using the teleportation room as the anchor for the other end! Looking back up he ordered, "Get off the freeway...find some place out of sight!". Drew wasted no time, and took the first exit. Finding an abandoned area beneath the overpass, he pulled over. Murgatroyd shared his plan, to open a gate to the t-port chamber in the facility, and everyone to cross through quickly, and then he'd let the gate collapse behind them. The van would have to be left behind...too big. Jack pulled everything useful out of the back and geared up. Joey grabbed the staked and barbecued vamp bodies, and everyone grouped up while Murgatroy'd sketched out a rough circle and star on the ground while mumbling various stanza's of a spell, making on the fly adjustments to suit the unusual circumstances. He directed everyone to stand in the middle of the circle. Murgatroyd's spell was true, and with a snap of eldritch energy, a shimmer formed around them and as quickly disappeared...leaving the team in the t-port chamber of the Riverside base! It worked! The sound of automatic weapons fire could be heard elsewhere in the building. Standing in front of the closed double doors exiting the chamber, was a surprised Special Agent Brooks...Harker's gofer. His pistol in his hand. Also in the room were the fresh corpses of two SWAT-geared tactical agents...both shot in the back of the head.  

 
Brooks got over his shock and said..."Thank goodness you're here! I was just about to teleport to Vegas for reinforcements!", he said. "What's going on here? We were told vamps are attacking? Where is Harker?", Drew pelted out. Brooks gave the exposition that a team of "a bunch of vamps" and "former sec force mercenaries" had assaulted the facility, somehow evading all the security protocols, and that the last time he had seen Harker was in the underground motor pool garage. "He sent me to teleport for back up", Brooks claimed. Jack took Brooks at face value, but Joey smelled the scent of fear and heard Brooks' heart skipping a beat...which made him intuitively think Brooks was lying. Drew, always suspicious, spotted subtle inconsistencies in Brooks' tale. Killroy's expert ballistic awareness had puzzled out that the two headshot corpses were likely shot from at or near Brooks' position. Murgatroyd was suspicious that Brooks, who gave no indication of being a spellcaster, would be able to operate the t-port circle in the first place. Collectively realizing that Brooks is a traitor, Joey, Killroy, and Drew surged forward to incapacitate Brooks. Drew got his gun away, Killroy and Joey battered him. Not understanding what was going on, Jack lurched forward and punched Drew in the face. "Brooks is a traitor, idiot!", Murgatroyd called out, holding well back from the altercation. To the Hunters' surprise, it turned out that Brooks was not a normie...he's a "special talent", as Section M refers to its supernatural Agents. Possessed of some kind of weird bio-energy field, he proved to be extremely difficult to injure and even pulsed out a bubble of disruptive energy at one point that numbed and briefly semi-paralyzed most of the Hunters. But despite this curveball he was badly outmatched by the Hunters and was soon wrestled down. At some point in the altercation with the traitorous Brooks, the sounds of a firefight outside of the room escalated. Killroy opened up one of the doors to peek out and do a threat assessment...outside the room a clutch of tactical agents were fighting a losing battle with a team of heavily armed mercenaries and several vampires...including two particularly monstrous looking ones.   

 
Getting a quick tactical read on the situation, Killroy dropped back from the doorway, sprawled out prone in the middle of the room, and set up his sniper rifle to project shots into the corridor beyond the t-port chamber.  One of the mercs with an assault rifle noticed the opened door and fired a burst through it into Joey, who was still helping to subdue Brooks. The bullets ricocheted harmlessly off of the supernatural teen, but got his attention. Another merc threw a grenade, which bounced around and landed roughly in the middle of the Hunters...a nice little kill radius. Thinking fast, Drew snapped a shot off with his pistol and improbably rather than explode the grenade was deflected by the bullet like a billiard ball and bounced down the hallway to land at the feet of one of the monstrous vampires menacing the last few surviving tactical agents. The grenade detonated, injuring, aggravating, and getting the undivided attention of the frightening vampire. "Go deal with those mercs!", Drew barked at Joey, still wrasslin with Brooks. Joey unslung his shotgun and boldly strode out into the middle of the corridor, fully exposed to the mercs and vamps; he shotgunned the merc who had shot him, shredding flesh and ragdolling the human back into a wall to slump broken and bloodied.  The other mercs, seeing this apparently suicidal young man pull such a stunt, turned their attention to him and a unloaded a lot of ammo into Joey's slim frame, but other than shredding his already badly abused clothing their mundane weapons had no effect. Joey returned fire, shotgunning one merc after another.  Killroy took a shot past Joey down the long corridor, splattering one of the lesser vamps before it could finish off one of the FBI tactical agents.  The monstrous vampire who had gotten grenaded hurled himself down the corridor at Joey but somehow missed and was carried into the t-port chamber by her own momentum.  Murgatroyd, hovering somewhat anxiously towards the rear of the t-port chamber, was somewhat alarmed by the frightening vamp that was now in close proximity to him, but held himself together and unleashed a lance of energy from his blasting ring, which singed the vamp and angered her further...great, another extra durable vamp. Meanwhile Special Agent Matthews and the Hunter Baretta Colt had holed up in room further into the facility after intense fighting during the earlier stages of the assault; Matthews had gotten shot in the thigh, and Baretta had applied first aid to keep him in the fight. Hearing the boom of Killroy's big gun and guessing her allies from earlier in the night had joined the fight, Baretta made a tactical decision to leave the temporary safety of the room they were hiding in and press onward. Matthews agreed but insisted on coming with her...she helped him to his feet and provided a strong shoulder to help him limp along. Guns at the ready, the ad hoc duo crept through the hallways in search of things to shoot.  

 
The main fight had turned into a wild melee at this point, Jack got into the fight in earnest, demonstrating that he is indeed good at fighting vampires. Joey demonstrated that he's good at killing normal humans who lack the means to hurt him, Murgatroyd demonstrated he's good at mincing around and taking pot shots, Killroy demonstrated that he's good at killing things from far away, and Drew demonstrated that he's able to adapt to nearly any situation and do what is necessary in the moment.  Baretta and Matthews, having dealt with a couple of minor vampires, rounded a corner and entered the main fight from the far side from the t-port chamber. Matthews moved to assist the last two surviving tactical agents, one of which was being fed on by a lesser vamps.  Baretta took aim and exploded the head of the female scary vamp with a volley of highly accurate pistol shots. The other scary vamp, seeing this, lost their sanity and rushed Baretta at high speed, crossing the length of the corridor in a blur; latching on the vamp began to feed on her. A couple new lesser vamps joined the fight and jumped Matthews who was trying to finish off the lesser vamp he had attacked...the trio of lesser vamps bore him to the ground and began to feed on him.  Finally getting Brooks under control, Drew cuffed the traitorous agent arm and leg to the two corpses of the dead agents Brooks had shot in the head. "You don't understand! They MADE me do it!", Brooks pleaded. Drew stuffed a dirty sock from one of the corpses in the traitor's mouth to shut him up. An invisible (or just very sneaky?) vampire materialized in the t-port chamber and menaced Murgatroyd and Killroy, but the sniper revealed that he also is pretty good in a brawl, and with Jack's assistance he fended off the vamp.   

 
Joey was finishing up the mercs, and Drew joined in. Jack, seeing Baretta and Matthews getting fed on, bravely ran down the hall and was just about to stake the vamp feeding on Baretta when another big boom of Killroy's rifle was heard and the vampire's torso simply exploded in a gooey burst of blood and viscera. Baretta and Jack worked together to save Special Agent Matthews, who was still getting fed upon. Seeing how that the fight was lost, the sneaky vamp disappeared and (apparently) fled the scene. The Hunters regrouped. Special Agent Matthews was in bad shape, but alive. He and Baretta provided some exposition on the current situation, and confirmed that as far as they knew Harker was last seen in the underground motor pool.   
The store was closing so we had to stop before closing out Act 2. Steve got 5 XP to apply to Baretta for his combined work of piloting Joey (Scything was unable to play) and Baretta and helping me track some of the combat details over the course of the night (I was operating on almost no sleep and not at full mental capacity, particularly as the evening wore on).
 
Killroy got 3 XP; everyone else got 4 XP.  Murgatroyd was voted MVP. No XP can be spent between this session and the next.
 
@Steve@Durzan Malakim@WilyQ@Scything@L0rd_Magg0t@King Red
 
 
<< Part 2 ... Part 4 >>

Learned this from Facebook this morning.  Thirty Eight Years ago today, George McDonald, Steve Petersen, and Ray Greer birthed the system we all know and love.  Cheers!

All very good entries, there @King Red. I can just see making business cards with "Lionheart LLC, monster management and magic consulting."

All very good entries, there @King Red. I can just see making business cards with "Lionheart LLC, monster management and magic consulting."

Would alliteration help?
 
*Horror Hounds
*Terror Trackers
*Monster Management
*Fear Fighters
*Scare Slayers
*Nightmare Ninjas
*Bogeyman Busters
 
Do we need to sound macho?
 
*Team Bravo
*The Trouble Shooters
*The Lionhearts
*The Courage Club
*The Last Hope
*Knights of Valor

I could see "The Serious Six" since most of us are pretty grim sorts, except for the nigh-indestructible teen. If Murgatroyd keeps earning MVP, maybe "Murgatroyd And His Deadly Friends" could work. 

Each version of the character is online, and can be called up. I post links to them here on the forums. All of the later posts where you see a picture of your character, if you click the picture it will take you to the version of the character that was "active" in the time frame.
 
For instance; click Murgy's face (don't worry, he's into getting his face clicked )
 

 
 
 
 
I wont have time to do it this week, but it will be available before the next time we play.

(click it)

We had a great session Saturday; will detail it as time permits in the Trick of the Night thread...but I wanted to capture the XP b4 I forget.
 
Joey got 0 XP as Scything was playing a tennis tournament (and went on to win 1st place singles, so good job), Steve got 5 XP to apply to Baretta for his combined efforts playing Baretta and piloting Joey in Scything's absence, Killroy got 3 XP, everyone else got 4 XP.
 
Murgatroyd got MVP which is the second win for him. 
 
Drew rolled a nat '3' on a sight PER check and chose to take a +1 to Sight PER 2 pt level instead of max effect. 
 
If I forgot something relevant, update me.
 
Given the team is in the middle of fighting off an assault, no XP spends between this and next session. Sit on that XP a bit. After you guys get clear of the current danger, I want to have a team discussion, and lay the ground for Arc 4. I expect that Arc 4 will take us into late September / October. I'm currently thinking the PC's will be in the 190-200 point range going into Arc  4,  but that's still a bit soft. 

Currently, Murgatroyd and Killroy have strong character developing threads that will actively drive Arc 4...which will have an arcane / secret societies / eldritch theme. I may be able to work in some of Joey's back story, but that's a stretch goal for me and not 100% essential so long as the character continues to grow into his projected curve; Arc 5 will have a nordic theme and Joey's story will play out heavily therein; given Joey and Drew are a duo I'll be working Drew stuff into Arc 5 as well. Depending on where that ends up and other factors, WilyQ may put Drew aside somewhere in Arc 5 and switch over to his original character Miles Hendricks...that's just a maybe but its out there as a possibility.
 
For the rest of the characters, for those of you who have some character development bits you want to specifically work into the next arc, such as any big XP spends to anchor into emergent game play or character arc defining elements, now is the time to start talking about it. For players that want to switch characters going into the next arc, now is also the time to be deciding that and putting forth character concepts. In either case you can ping me via personal message using the board's capability for that and start a convo. 
 
I want to make sure Baretta gets some focus time; but we don't have to "force it". It's up to you Steve where you want to grow her personality wise. Similarly, vampires are just kind of the monster of the week for this arc, but if Jack stays with the group, then obviously dealing with vampires on an ongoing basis is going to be a thing...you guys have made a powerful enemy. It definitely can play thru into Arc 4 furthering the theme of secret societies. As Baretta has a sub-theme of hating vamps due to one of her pre-hunter final girl situations having Jack and Baretta continue to carry the torch of vampire hate into Arc 4 makes sense and will work fine. 
 
Looking forward to seeing some chatter. I hope you guys are having as much fun playing in the campaign as I'm having running it! 

The Hunters:
         
 
Part 2: 
 
The adventure resumed at the derelict sound studio w/ dead Slip & dead Dai, exactly where we left off last session. Murgatroyd put together a spell to help break Joey out of the mental paralysis Slip had put him in Jack was not present, but was driving towards the general vicinity per earlier instruction and was notified via phn by Harker where to go It was established that Jack is one of Harker's assets, and has been working on the op all along, but was responsible for some aspect of the mission happening further south and was not present when the attack at the night club by Dai and his bandmates went down. Having helped Joey, Murgatroyd wanted to use the bodies of Slip & Dai for material components to cast a retrocognitive spell Baretta fixated on watching Slip's car like a hawk per Harker's phn directive Drew looted Slip's wallet and called in Slip's license and car plate to Section M dispatch for lookup Joey tried to hack Slip's phone but it turned out to be encrypted Jack arrived in his armored van as Killroy was moving Dai's headless corpse into the sound studio to get the body out of view Jack and Killroy interacted, then Jack joined the crew inside the derelict building Murgatroyd's spell worked; he was looking for the most powerful entity Slip had most recently interacted with in the last few days.  The spell allowed Murgatroyd to see (not hear) an obvious argument between Slip and a powerful vampire lady of hispanic appearance at some kind of fancy / dressed up event approximately 3 days ago. Murgatroyd retained a vestigial sense of awareness of the direction in which the altercation occurred. Joey hacked Slip's car and was able to get a dump from the nav system. The car turned out to be less than a month old. Joey grep'd thru the data and cross referenced it to eliminate uninteresting locations. The derived set included an office on Sunset Strip which was easily determined to be Slip's offices at Slip It To Me Records, a residential address in Venice Beach and an office in Malibu. Or maybe the residential address was in Malibu and the other office was in Venice Beach. Difficult to say, really. Harker arrived via helicopter, pissed off, and roundly chewed everyone out.  Drew gritted his teeth and suffered thru it, despite it obviously irritating him to take $#!^ from Harker The rest of the team let it slide off of their backs  He instructed the team to put a bag over Slip's head and "perp walk" his corpse to the helicopter, making it look like he was "alive" but incapacitated.  He instructed Baretta to drive Slip's car back to the Section M facility.  He instructed Jack to take Baretta's place with the team and "ride herd" on them. Harker instructed the team to haul ass to Slip's office and grab everything of "actionable value", and to be very obvious in the doing of it He explicitly instructed them to be "be seen" taking Slip's stuff in an official way He strongly suggested that they were probably already being watched He explained to them (in his own way) that his "brilliant plan" is to make other vamps think that Slip has been taken into custody and is being questioned. He wants the team to further that illusion. He hopes that the prospect of Slip giving up details of vampire identities and operations within the city will cause a panic / cause some of the vamps to lose their cool and out themselves. Harker departed via helicopter w/ the corpse of Slip posed so as to appear still alive. The team, minus Baretta, saddled up in their vehicles and drove off to Slip's office Baretta's POV was left at the derelict sound studio as she had left driving Slip's car. Jack took some kind of alchemical potion to grant himself enhanced awareness for the evening. Drew wanted some, but Jack was not in the sharing mood. Arriving at Slip's office, it was decided that Drew, Killroy, and Murgy would go in directly flashing FBI consultant badges. Jack and Joey would stay outside as their appearance does not jive with "FBI Consultant" Killroy opted to leave his sniper rifle in the gov SUV to avoid drawing notice to it Drew bulled through the initial wariness of the security guard in the building and eventually gained access to Slip's offices upstairs and left Killroy and Murgy to loot / case the joint and got the security guard to take him to the video surveillance control room where Drew was able to scan through a week's worth of security footage  Drew didn't find anything of interest in the security footage other than confirming that Slip only came and went after sun down, and that Dai and his bandmates had visited once a week ago slightly before sunset. Killroy found info about the record company's legitimate business activities but nothing of interest to the investigation. However, he took the laptop from the desk of the company's business manager to give to Joey. Murgy worked some magic and confirmed that Slip's office was absolutely inundated with the typical magical residue common to places where supernatural creatures spend a lot of time, but nothing of immediate use. However, looking more deeply, he discovered that the trash can under the desk had a single thing in it, a ripped in half invitation to a "gala" hosted by Glitterglam Industries several day's prior. Murgy remembered Joey saying something about an association between Slip and Glitterglam Industries earlier in the evening. Joey was in the back of the gov SUV doing internet related stuff in pursuit of more clues, Jack was basically sitting in his van contemplating his navel or sharpening a knife or something A sniper shot penetrated the gov SUV, narrowly missing Joey's head. the screech of tires converged from both sides of the parking lot was followed immediately by the chatter of assault rifles as gunmen in both vehicles opened fire on both the gov SUV and Jack's punisher van.  Jack's armored van bore up well, but the gov SUV got shot to hell and its windows are more or less kaput Jack and Joey disembarked their vehicles and took cover in between them.  Jack braced himself on the hood of the van and fired his massive pistol at one of the gunmen in the vehicle on his side.  Jack called Killroy and told him that he & Joey are under attack. The truck re-positioned, coming around to the side so that the rear passenger side shooter could fire directly at Jack without his van in the way.  Jack executed a combat roll, closing the distance between where he was and where the truck currently was, coming up near the rear tire of the moving truck essentially at point blank range to the rear passenger side shooter . Jack snapped off one round at point blank range; the shooter managed to get his arm up in to the line of fire which saved his life but the .50 pistol round destroyed the gunman's lower arm. Killroy told Murgy that Jack and Joey were under attack and ran out, taking the stairs two at a time Murgy opted to take the scenic route...the elevator, calling Drew and nonchalantly telling him of the situation. The truck attacking Jack took off.  Joey ran out into the open, initially to shoot his shotgun, but then just went all in and sprinted across the intervening distance and launched himself through the open rear window of the truck, plowing through one of the gunmen with bone breaking force.  Joey clawed across the seat and punched the gunman in the other rear seat in the shoulder, breaking their collarbone and staggering them. The shooter in the front passenger seat whirled around and tried to shoot joey in the back of the head, but Joey ducked it and the round instead killed the shooter with the broken shoulder / collarbone. Joey and the front passenger fought inconclusively across the front and back seat divide The driver panic'd and took off driving, Joey still in the car.  Joey got tired of flailing around, and instead just pushed forward hard on both the driver's and passenger's side chairs, breaking the gearing and forcing both men face first into the dash. The passenger's head was smashed, but the driver was able to brace himself on the steering wheel and avoid getting crushed. Joey ordered the driver to pull over or get killed horribly. Having seen the incredible strength of the spindly teenager, the driver pissed himself a little and pulled over.  Joey took the wheel, forcing the driver to cower in the floorboards amidst dead former friends, while Joey drove the truck back to the parking lot of Slip's office building. Meanwhile, back at the offices of Slip It To Me Records, Murgatroyd's elevator reached the ground floor as Drew was passing by, on his way out from the security monitoring room. The two of them walked out of the lobby onto the forecourt of the building overlooking the parking lot where Killroy had managed to make it to the shot-to-hell gov SUV to retrieve his sniper rifle and Jack was in the process of telling Killroy what had happened.  Murgatroyd noticed a penny on the ground and bent to pick it up (a 1947 Wheat Penny, what luck!), and a sniper round shattered the plate glass window behind where his head had been a moment ago. The report of a high-power rifle was heard. Oh yeah, the sniper! Drew wasted no time, grabbing Murgatroyd and bodily pulling him to safety over and then behind the security / reception desk inside the building.  Jack took cover behind his van Killroy grabbed some cover while unlimbering his own sniper rifle. Two can play the shoot you in the head from a long distance game! But no one could see where the shot had come from.  Drew, grinding his molars a bit, risked a longer look  and was fortunate enough to spot the sniper very far away laying down up in the hills above the office building, unluckily illuminated by the navigation lights of a plane passing over head on landing approach to LAX. Unfortunately, the sniper was well beyond the range of Drew's pistol (he can do the improbable, not the impossible) and he had no way to communicate the information to Killroy. Drew ducked back before the sniper could take his head off. Drew and Murgatroyd hatched an ad hoc plan, sort of. Not getting into the full details of his brilliant stratagem, Murgy told Drew to grab a stack of paper from the desk drawer and get ready to throw it into the air between the desk they were hiding behind and the front entrance, which Drew did. On Murgy's command, Drew tossed the pile of papers into the air like confetti, Murgy ignited it with his Ring of Blasting creating a flurry of flaming papers, and Drew made a mad dash for the door under the cover of that distraction...it seemed to work as a sniper round slammed into the back wall behind them, narrowly missing Drew. Drew ran full out like the former football player he is to Killroy's position, trusting to luck that he wouldn't get shot. With Drew's guidance Killroy used his own rifle's scope to find the sniper's roost in time to see the sniper rolling out of frame and presumably making a break for it, which he told Drew and Jack. Jack jumped into his van and hauled ass in the general direction of the sniper's position, but realizing they were up against the hills and there was no direct route, he deftly maneuvered his vehicle around and started tacking towards the snipers location via side streets as best he could. Joey, driving his appropriated vehicle like he stole it (which he kind of did), roared back into the scene and seeing Jack's van tear off decided to follow along. Jack and Joey, engines roaring, navigated around the landscape and came to the lip of a canyon. Realizing they wouldn't have time to go around and still catch the escaping sniper, they dismounted their vehicles.  Joey could smell the sniper, and quickly telling Jack that he had captured one of the shooters and he was in the truck, Joey took off running into the canyon at obviously superhuman speed. Jack was a bit nonplussed by that, and glancing into Joey's stolen SUV and seeing the state of the three dead bodies and one terrified survivor, Jack reconsidered his first impressions of the seemingly out-of-place teenager and mentally upgraded Joey from a curiosity to a possible threat. Jack pulled the hapless captive out of the vehicle and coldly questioned him. According to the captive, Jeremy Gardener, he and the other shooters had been hired by someone named "Benny"...$5000 each up front and another $5000 promised on completion. Jack found an envelope with 5k tucked into the man's jacket pocket and took it. Jeremy asked plaintively if Jack was going to kill him...Jack visibly thought about it and decided not to. While that was happening, Joey was racing through the canyon, sniffing the wind and tracking his prey. Quickly overtaking the merely mortal gunman from behind, Joey launched himself off an embankment and landed squarely, feet first, on the shoulders of the sniper. Joey's intent was to disable, but he again miscalculated the frailty of normy's and with a sickening spine splintering crunch the sniper was essentially crushed and died moments later from extreme trauma. Oops. Not to be deterred, Joey realized the sniper was retracing his own path, going back to where ever he had been before going up to the hill to take up a snipers position. Joey tracked the sniper's backtrail up and out of the canyon on the other side, emerging next to another office parking lot and a motorcyle which he could tell by scent belonged to the sniper.  Joey was checking out the motorcycle to see if he could get anything of interest off of it, and called Drew on his cell phone to update him on the situation. As he was talking a dark silver BMW X6 M pulled up and a trio of men dressed in tailored "casual" suits got out. To Joey's sensitive senses they were obviously vampires and his hackles were raised...this was dangerous.    Rather than tell Drew something useful like, "Three vampires just pulled up and are approaching me", he instead said, "...gotta go, bye!" and hung up. Teenagers...¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Initially the bad guys didn't seem to realize that Joey wasn't the sniper, but realization dawned after Joey turned fully around. Wasting no time, Joey pointed his new shotgun at the front-most vamp and finally pulled the trigger on it, hitting the bloodsucker solidly in the torso! Yay!  The front of the vampire's suit and high quality button up silk shirt was shredded, somewhat ruining his casual chic style, but the buckshot did very nearly nothing to the dead flesh underneath the overpriced clothing...most of the pellets failed to penetrate and the few that did made barely noticeable red divots of bloody flesh that immediately began to heal over. Joey was like...uh oh... The bloodsucker Joey shot growled angrily, popped fangs and visibly vamped out...springing at Joey and trying to grab him. Joey shook him off, surprising the vamp with his strength. The other two vamps pounced as well, trying to latch on and overpower Joey.  Realizing that the odds were very clearly against him, Joey ran away, back through the canyon, approaching 90 mph. None of the three vamps he had encountered turned out to have vampire speed as one of their abilities, and they did not pursue.  In the interim, Jack was driving back to the Slip It To Me Records parking lot where Drew was in full swing locking down the scene, getting local law enforcement to set up a perimeter, and being official like.  Drew, obviously concerned about Joey's absence and a bit distracted, did have an uncharacteristic flub with the first cops on the scene, seeming at a loss for how to spin the story. Murgatroyd stepped in and fixed it with some patter. Killroy remained on alert, just in case the sniper circled back. Jack rolled back into the scene in his van. Drew, Murgy, and Jack huddled; Jack updated them that Joey had run off by himself, and the info he had gotten from the goon Joey had captured.  Drew was incensed that Jack let Joey go off by himself, but Jack was kinda of like...not my problem, I'm not his babysitter...also I can't run as fast as a car so whatev. Drew started motivating the group to get organized and go find Joey, when Joey reentered the scene, cresting the same hills the sniper had been up on having followed the same path up the back side of the hills. Remembering that he's supposed to not be seen doing superhuman things, Joey slowed down to normal human running speed for the last leg of it, and jogged down to rejoin the group.  More or less giving the adults the necessary information, he finished with the existence of the three vamps that he had run away from. Jack's eyes light up and he was already on his way to his van to go find the vamps. Drew, cursing a bit, slowed him down and the group got organized...Killroy would ride w/ Jack, Joey and Murgy would ride with Drew in the shot up gov SUV. Jack would follow Drew. Jack was more or less like..."whatev, so long as I get to kill some vamps, cuz that's my jam man." Letting the cops know they were in pursuit of some "drug dealing human traffickers" spotted in the area on the way out, Drew and crew took point and Jack followed behind in the armored van w/ Killroy as shotgun and they all rolled out, leaving Slip It To Me Records in the rearview. Heading west on access roads, with Joey doing his best to try to interpolate where to go despite having taken a very different route to get there, the two vehicle caravan was ambushed by a pouncing BMW lurching out from a side street and trying to t-bone Drew's gov SUV. Drew saw the on coming vehicle at the last moment and stomped on the gas to surge forward, causing the Bimmer to miss. Jack, a pretty good driver himself, also stepped on the gas and barreled forward to t-bone the BMW has it narrowly missed the gov SUV and passed in front of him, the reenforced ram bar on the front of his van squarely hammering into the luxury sedan. Pushing the gas all the way down, Jack rammed the BMW into the back of Drew's gov SUV, squishing the BMW between them. The three vamps inside the vehicle were damaged, though one of them...the same one shot by Joey...less so than the other two. But, they were in full on vampire mode and were not incapacitated.  All hell broke loose.  The van screeched to a halt, the BMW wrapped around its front. The gov SUV kept moving forward, three vamps exited their ruined vehicle in various creative ways...one basically brute forced his way out through seatbelt, metal, and windshield like it was made of tissue paper, another dive rolled out with superhuman dexterity, and the third extra tough vamp pulled himself out through the sun roof on top of the car. The strong vamp hurled himself at the armored van, on the drivers side, shoulder checking it like he expected the van to give way. The heavy, armored vehicle actually resisted the massive force and moved very little, but the driver's side door was damaged.  The tough vamp drew a pistol and shot at Killroy through the van's windshield, but the armored glass stopped the bullet, the bullet spiderwebbing the glass. The dexterous vamp drew a fancy silver dagger and threw it with incredible precision at Killroy through the passenger's side window. Killroy smirked at the vamp, thinking the armored glass would surely stop a dagger after bouncing a bullet...but with a sharp cracking sound the dagger chipped out a narrow gap in the window right next to the jam, passed through with unerring accuracy. Looking down Killroy was surprised to find the dagger sticking in his beefy left deltoid.  The strong vamp brute forced the drivers side door of the van, with the sound of bending metal, and one armed Jack back into the drivers seat. "Dinner!", the vampire said with vampiric presence rolling forth and causing Jack to feel fear and hesitate (PRE attack).  Joey launched himself from the passenger side of the still moving gov SUV, hurling himself at the dexterous vamp, but missed completely and shot past. In the back of the gov SUV, Murgy aimed his ring of blasting and shot the tough vampire still standing on the roof of the ruined BMW, scorching the vamp with UV-enriched arcane energies. The vamp turned his attention from the van to Murgy and the ruined gov SUV.  Murgy nervously let Drew know that they now had a pissed off vamp looking their way. Grimacing, Drew did complicated things with the steering wheel and parking brake, sending the tortured SUV into some kind of power sliding tactical u-turn and got the vehicle pointed back towards the van and BMW.  The dexy vamp ignored Joey and superhumanly leaped clear over the van and BMW to land on the otherside near the drivers side of the van, where Jack was struggling to shake off the strong vamps frightening presence while stealthily palming a holy water bomblet and getting ready to throw it. Looking past Jack thru the cabin at Killroy the dexterous vamp said, with full vampiric scare on, "give me back my knife!"...but Killroy was unphased; "Don't worry, I will!" he growled back. With the SUV pointed back at the fight now, rear tires smoking and seeking traction, Drew released the brakes and barreled forward. Things got really complicated for a moment. The tough vamp on the roof of the BMW calmly watched the approaching gov SUV and timing it just right sprang high into the air, flipped around, and came down feet first through the shattered windshield of the SUV, landing in the passenger seat vacated by Joey earlier.  Drew braked hard at the last moment to control the collision with the front part of the BMW in an attempt to get the broken car to scissor around to hit the driver's side of the van. The BMW jackknifed around the van's ram bar with a screech of metal on metal, around to the van's front panel and then into the open and already damaged driver's side door. The van's front driver's side frame crumpled a bit under the abuse but held out. The super strong vamp on the other side of the door braced himself for impact...the driver's side door hit him and snapped off its hinges with more metal screeching sounds. Then the BMW hit him, and that stopped too. However, the van itself was also pushed back several feet, and this caused the strong vampire to lose his grip on Jack as he...still seatbelted in...moved backwards along with the van. The dexterous vamp grabbed onto the side of the van and lifted his feet off the ground and into the lip of the door, riding along with the displaced van. The vamp that jumped into the gov SUV leered at Drew. "Nice driving!" he said, then shot Drew in the face at point blank range. Luckily, Drew was able to lurch out of the way a bit and caught the bullet on his right chest where his armored vest caught most of the damage...but it still hurt.  Joey, having recovered himself from his failed tackle, power leaped across the battlefield and landed feet first on the upper chest of the super strong vampire, who was now more or less standing in the open as the van had moved back but he had not. Counter to the prevailing wisdom around the table, Joey surprisingly did not bounce off the vamp but instead seemed to catch him flat-footed. Strong vamp went down, his chest visibly compressed and blood oozing from his mouth and eyes. Still "alive" but much more damaged than he had been by the various automotive related impacts he had suffered (Joey's reduced negation doing good work).  Standing on the depressed chest of the super strong vampire, Joey yelled "Boo yah!" The dexterous vampire noticed this and Jack heard him mutter, "what the hell is that kid?". The tough vamp didn't notice that their heavy was in distress.  
The store was closing so we had to stop mid-battle. Everyone got 3 XP, Joey was voted MVP. No XP can be spent between this session and the next.
 @Durzan Malakim @King Red @L0rd_Magg0t @Steve @Scything @WilyQuixote
 
 
<< Part 1 ... Part 3 >>

Ya. I've been doing narrative and rules lite games for the last six to seven years (Fate Accelerated is a favorite; if you haven't checked out my Pathfinder Fate Accelerated stuff you might find it interesting), and only just came back to the Hero System by request of @WilyQuixote (who is a Hero System diehard player) and @Scything who became Hero System curious after years of hearing about past Hero System campaigns and from looking at stuff on my website. 
 
I think the essence of the HS is the SPD chart, the 3d6 bell curve for resolution, a pool of D6 for effect, separate STUN and BODY stats, maneuvers have CV modifiers built into them,  sandboxy point buy vs class / level / tree. More limited things cost less than less limited things. Mechanically similar things use the same rules vs being arbitrarily redefined. 
 
The rest of it is largely embellishment, for me.
 

As you noted, this has been discussed many times before in many different ways. I certainly have strong opinions on this. There are certain old school RPG expectations built into HERO that do not work with most modern gaming expectations.  That said, keeping this to strictly "Actual play" examples:
 
Got rid of the Speed Chart and went to an initiative system... works amazingly well and I'd never go back. It removes a lot of the 'turn based war gaming' aspect, removes a level of high SPD character abuse, and generally works to keep all players "leaning in" to the game instead of tuning out when it isn't their phase. Got rid of END. Flat out, just ignored it and removed the old school, resource management through bookkeeping nightmare. It wasn't missed at all, until we wanted to play around with pushing rules and found a new use for it, but this was an advanced modification, and not something needed for basic play. Implemented a bennie system, called "Luck Chits" that changed Luck as written to be a "director stance resource" that players bought on the characters that would provide narrative control and ability to re-roll, take defensive actions, do power stunts, etc. in the hands of players. Fundamentally transformed the game and probably the most important development in making "actual play' more dramatic, fun, thematically consistent, narratively whole and just avoid the 'ugh' moments that random dice can generate. Implemented structured play group dynamics around character creation. No more individual players bringing their pet creation and trying to shoe-horn it into a game, let alone then trying to make any kind of team out of those characters. Now, every character from concept through build is vetted by the play group, and built with a shared history... often using a shared story telling session to build that shared history... before the actual play begins, or as part of the very first actual play session. I'd say those four are the big ones in terms of changes, though there are a lot of details in the subsequent downstream effects of these.

Also, these changes were made in the context of actually keeping the core HERO functionality... using Stats and Powers and Costs as listed... just sometimes re-interpreting them. 
 
Core things that I feel really do define HERO in actual play...
Paying attention to Active Points being used in any particular action, in increments of 5 for 1d6. So many quick rulings can be made if you just keep this in mind. The 3d6 Bell Curve for task resolution (simply the best mechanic ever) and the "rolling under" for success. This provides such a stable and flexible way to resolve just about anything, and to reflect levels of expertise a PC may have. OCV vs. DCV and all the combat maneuvers that drive the most unique, visceral, fun and interesting combats. Killing vs. Normal damage and resistant vs. normal defenses. (EDIT: Oh... and Stun vs. Body of course) Combat can become very nuanced with slight shifts on these axis.  What I do realize, and this frustrates me, is that #3 and 4 are both crunchy, and counter to my general desire to simplify character build and speed up play. I was joking with my old friends at Origins that I'm 75% in the camp of "give me Nar mechanics that just help guide shared story telling!" but this conflicts with the 25% of me that wants the complex interplay of a great HERO martial arts fight that no other game can do.
 
This conflict drives me!