Scott Ruggels

An unserious Post, but someone put a Tacticool kit on a caplock carbine:
 
 

There’s a new Roll20 project in the works with a Q4 2022 targeted release. The Champions Complete Bundle will include a combined Compendium of Champions Complete and Champions Begins, plus the Champions Begins tutorial adventure and an additional set of maps and tokens.
 
If you’re unfamiliar with Roll20 Compendiums, they provide simple rules and content access with filtering and search capabilities. Additionally, Compendiums allow users to drag and drop character tokens directly into maps and access their character sheets. For example, a GM could drop a villain into a map and access the villain’s character sheet in seconds. The Compendium will use the currently available HeroSystem6e character sheet. Additionally, the GM can share the Compendiums with their players.
 
The Champions Begins adventure will have links to easily access content, character sheets for the pre-generated characters and villains as well as maps and tokens to run the adventure. The Game Master book will also be available in the Compendium allowing GMs and players to quickly reference information. 
 
We will continue to use this topic in the coming months to post news of the progress and to get feedback from the community on the project. 
 
We hope you’ll be as exited about this project as we are! 

An unserious Post, but someone put a Tacticool kit on a caplock carbine:
 
 

58, and started with first edition, day one, and have the flyer from Pacific Origins to prove it.  😁

Yeah the "cannot lift Mjolnir" was taken from "nobody else can wield this" to "it can pin anyone to the ground".  Once you cross that line, you've entered PC territory where they'll find 8913217 ways to use that and break your scenarios unless you force them to buy it and define it.

Fudge: It's essentially so rules-light that there are several suggestions on how to modify the base rules to be able to create characters and run a game. I have a few games based on the rules, but I've never had the urge to actually run it. I've been a player in one game, a Paranoia adaptation running with Fudge rules, and generally had a good time, but that was more due to the group and the referee (who actually has his name in the playtesting credits for the main rule book). I should also note that Fudge provides the "bones" to the Fate Core rules, which is basically a structured modification to allow for easier play. I have a ton of material for that system, but I've never had the urge to actually run it.
 
Palladium/Rifts/Heroes Unlimited/and others: Palladium always read to me like early D&D with the serial numbers filed off, but without any attempt at play balance. One of my friends from high school absolutely adored the various games, but he was the player who would always attempt the most munchkin build in any game that we played.
 
GURPS: The mechanics are clunky, but some of the sourcebooks have eminently stealable ideas. I've always been a big Traveller fan, and the GURPS Traveller materials are generally pretty good, so long as it's adapted to CT/MT. 
 
Marc Miller's Traveller (T4): This version of Traveller had many problems, and each book essentially felt like an unfinished beta test put together by someone who had heard about desktop publishing, but hadn't really figured out how to do it.
 
Castle Falkenstein: The books are beautiful, and fun to read, but I've never had a gaming group that would fit the mindset needed to play it.
 

Warhammer. Chaos spiky bits. I prefer any version of D+D

Have you ever played or owned an RPG that received excellent reviews or was really liked by your friends, but you hated? While there were excellent RPGs I've owned that weren't my cup of tea in the past like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, RuneQuest, or Dragon Age, I never hated them. A few, though, stand out, but not in a good way:
 
FATE Core System - I read a lot of good reviews and I bought some of the digital products to get started as an alternative to Champions and ICONS, but the narrative style of gaming was just too broad and vague for me. It reminded more of me playing soldier or knight in my backyard with my friends in whether or not we hit each other or suffered any damage, or with our action figures on whether the weapons the figure used penetrated the force field, and so on. I ended up hating that rules system, often saying to myself, "Is that IT!?"
 
Palladium Fantasy & Heroes Unlimited (2nd Edition) - I used to play Robotech throughout high school when Palladium had the licensing agreement, and my friends spoke highly of Palladium Fantasy from their game sessions, so I thought it would be a good fit along with Heroes Unlimited as part of the Palladium Megaverse concept. I was mistaken. The skill and magic system proved maddening, and some of the interior art in Heroes Unlimited was just plain awful, along with a lot of gaps in character creation and advancement.

After reviewing the character sheet with friend, she gave me some great feedback. Notably, being able to read the headings and having the character portrait on the right instead of left. I think the final product came out well...hopefully it will attract new players to Hero System.

Which ever is the fastest at the table.   

“Just” a special effect? The problem I have with that, is the effect is pinning another character immobile to the ground.  Very useful until assistance arrives to restrain the pinned character.  If one is going to immobilize another character, I would ask, as a GM that it would have to be stattted out.  Special effects to me are the icing on a cake, but the cake is the mechanics.  Show me how, and let me decide.  

Depends on if the player wants to do that more than once. If only once, the Power skill can work quite well. But if the player wants to do it all the time, then the GM will need the player to buy a power to simulate it.
 
I say Telekinesis, Only To Hold. It is already perceivable. Prehaps with Lockout (if it is part of a Hammer Multipower if you use it to pin you can't use it for anything else).

Sundog will be running a Pathfinder campaign set in Selversgard, a very small riverside logging town - so small, in fact, that it can’t afford full-time murder-hoboes and the locals have to deal with the occasional problem themselves. With any luck, these problems will only arise once a year or so, and the characters can get back to their real jobs the rest of the time. 
 
GONNO : An Oread - mortal humanoids with ancestry in the Elemental Plane of Earth - who has lived and worked in Selversgard pretty much since the town was founded, cutting timber in the logging season and turning it into furniture and housing in the off season. Taciturn to the point that people are startled when he actually speaks, but kind and a good listener.
 
ARRAM ZARDONA: The son of a local family that left town for several years to attend the Twilight Academy in Galduria and get his burgeoning magical abilities under control. Shortly after his return last year the town's aging schoolmarm took ill and passed away, Arram volunteered to keep the classes going until a proper replacement could be found, but took a liking to the work and now holds the position himself.
 
MIYA: Merchant and Part-Time Dancer. Originally coming to town as part of a Trade Caravan, she fell in love with the people of Selversgard and took it as a sign from Shelyn that it was time to settle down and set up shop here. Always happy to meet new people and make a deal, and always on the lookout for opportunity. She has a pet fox, supposedly.
 
A family of ratfolk or Ysoki have come to the town to establish a new warren, in an abandoned apothecary’s shop. The previous owner fatally gassed himself by leaving an experiment running without supervision. They raise various kinds of domesticated rat. 
 
REMILDA : Ratfolk fills the role of local healer/apothecary and wise woman. She delights in spending time in her garden or gathering fruits, nuts, berries and the other bounties of nature from the surrounding forest. She tends to be a little happy-go-lucky, preferring to see the positive things in life. 
 
SHEV : a local hunter and river rat (pun not intended), although this is supplementary to his work as a Stable Master for the warren's domestic rats.
 
SKAVE : Shev’s brother, and cousin of Remilda. Plies his trade as an alchemist, and is the closest thing the town has to a doctor. Most people just come for the drugs, though. (Polypurpose Panacea is a wonderful way to make money.)
 
The ratfolk and their rat farm might be drawing a bit of unwanted attention right now, however, since the town is having major problems with large rats and giant rats, and all the warren’s protestations that their rats are free of filth fever and are disinclined to eat your face might fall on deaf ears. 
 
Shev OoC: Giant Rats? I don’t believe they exist. 
 
Skave’s player: I had a stupid idea to be a member of the friendly Kobold tribe that runs the local mine.
GM: The mine is flooded.
Miya’s player: Well, now we know how the mine was flooded!
 
Gonno’s player: I see Selversgard has all the most important businesses - two mills, a pub, and a brothel. 
Miya’s player: Two pubs.
Shev’s player: That way you can have a pub crawl. 
Miya’s player:  I’m not braining words, no thinky today.
 
Shev’s player: I’m afraid that ratfolk are very short-lived (especially compared to Oreads)
Gonno OoC: I look forward to getting to know your great-great-grandchildren.
Miya OoC: ‘This was your Great-Uncle Skippy - we had him stuffed’
 
“You cast an area of gloom around you”
Miya OoC: Also there’s a Darkness effect.
 
Arram Zardona’s player: This is an oread
GM: And the scary thing is that is half-human.
Miya OoC: Humans f*** anything, I’m not surprised.
Shev OoC: Welcome to the Slutfolk. 
 
Miya: I dismissed the name Skull Crossing as just a bridge or town. It's a massive 10,000 year old Thassilonian dam decorated with skulls........ These guys were nuts.
Arram: Oh yeah, if that thing ever fails we will know about it, briefly, then meet our respective gods.
Skave: And so will most of southern Varisia.
 
The PCs are going about their daily business on a mid-autumn day, when they hear Old Lady Duchess screaming outside the town palisade. She was moving the straw from the collected heaps in the stubble fields and she’s now covered in rats.
 
Arram: A bold fashion choice I’m not one to criticize.
 
Arram and Gonno get the old woman out of the swarm, and Skave improvises a bomb. Which unfortunately sets the stubble on fire. 
 
Shev OoC: Congratulations, your very first action in the campaign is to set fire to the field and injure a party member. This bodes well. 
 
It probably doesn’t help the ratfolk’s reputation that Shev then runs up and flails ineffectually at the flames with his cloak. Possibly fanning the flames, if you’re feeling uncharitable. It’s more of a concern that the rats aren’t fleeing the explosion, flames, or yelling citizenry. By the time we stomp the rats and fire out, Silas of the Green, representative of the local druids, has come out of the village to investigate and offer assistance. He agrees that the rats are behaving very oddly, and notes that they’ve starving, even after they’ve destroyed the wheat inside the bales. 
 
Silas: Come to the church - I may have a job for your little group.
Arram: We’re a group?
Silas: You are now.
 
Shev: Look at the ground, brother. What do you see?
Skave: Ash?
Shev: Ash brother. Why?
Skave: … because I used the wrong kind of bomb. Again. 
 
Shev is the older brother in the ratfolk family. He’s certainly got that vibe. He and Skave dissect one of the vermin - there’s no sign of grain, but there IS an odd yellow material throughout its gut. Remilda and Skave identify it as an alchemical wax that was intended to work as an appetite suppressant and instead causes any food eaten to pass through without giving any nutrition, derived from a species of lily that only grows in dense forest and sometimes underground, and pine resin, which is much easier to acquire. Silas identifies the species as River Rats, and suspects they’ve been coming down the river until they found Selversgard and the surrounding fields. 
 
Remilda: So how much of the winter stocks have been ruined?
Silas: More than people realise. We’ve been having… incidents. 
 
Shev, as a professional rat breeder, knows that rats will starve within days without food, and agrees that somebody must be driving them in this direction if it’s an ongoing problem.
 
Silas: Now I must go talk to the Great Oak. He's not going to like this. 
Miya: I do like Wondermeal - it’s a nutritious food that you can’t eat for more than a week without being horribly sick.
 
Arram talks to the scouts and hunters, to see if anybody has seen the lilies growing anywhere - they have, in a dense copse a day’s ride north from the settlement. Nobody has actually started logging in that area yet, since the local druids haven’t assessed it yet. Getting there requires crossing a small cataract. Fortunately giant riding rats are quite agile - the rest of us, and the donkeys, are less so. Gonno faceplants into a giant web, which promptly leads to giant spider problems. 
 
Skave's player: I was going to try a bomb, but I don’t want to set another party member on fire…
Gonno OoC: Believe me we are all grateful.
Skave's player: So I’m going to use the crossbow instead.
Gonno: …
 
Arram: The spider appears to be nibbling on Gonno’s toes.
Shev OoC: No kinkshaming!
 
Skave: Uh, guys, I think we’re being watched.
Shev: *whirls around with crossbow*
Nixie: *eeps and dives back under the water*
 
Shev verbally abuses his brother for his poor choice of words.
 
Skave’s player: I’m really playing up the charisma penalty, aren’t I.
Shev’s player: So am I! I vanish into the woods for a week at a time!
Miya’s player: The loner and the nerd. 
 
We retrieve a skeletal corpse from the spider’s larder - whoever it was had leather armour and a backpack, and masterworked arrows. It might be a logging scout that vanished in spring. Skave is rather concerned it will rise as an undead and eat his donkey. A little further on we find a clearing and a dilapidated forester’s shack, which we can patch up to something approaching liveable. The three ratfolk cuddle up together on one of the bunks, leaving the other three free for the rest of us. 
 
Skave: Can’t sleep, bones will eat me.
Miya OoC: This is terrible, I usually sleep in fox form. 
 
Gonno is on watch when white lights sweep into the clearing and start forming shapes. He shakes off some kind of mental effect, and retreats into the shack to shake the others awake, and the motes of light form the shape of a woman.
 
Arram: Do you plan on trying to kill us or can I go back to bed?
Skave OoC: Well, that’s a better opener than what I was gonna go with, “Bah-weep-Graaaaagnah wheep ni ni bong”...
Miya: I don’t trust beautiful women in the middle of the forest, I’ve been one before.
 
Ironically, Miya is the only one who succumbs to the lure.
 
Miya: I’ve also had great fun with beautiful women in the middle of forests. 
 
Gonno grabs Miya by the shoulder before she goes out. More lights appear, and adopt the shape of children in a circle around the luminous figure. The woman smiles, leans back, and opens her mouth 180 degrees. Shev skewers her with a spear from 100ft away,  and the image vanishes. 
 
Skave: Right, show’s over!
Arram: I’m going back to bed.
Shev: I have to go out there for my spear!
 
When he retrieves the spear, it’s glowing.
 
Arram: Covered in ghost juice. 
 

That is because having a Personal Focus or a Universal Focus makes no difference in the cost. Either idea has it's own advantages and drawbacks.
 
I would also add a new "Semi-Universal" to this list (which can also be called Semi-Personal also). Basically the GM sets some condition about who can use the item (along with the player of course). It is also having it's own advantages and drawbacks (you can give it out for others to use...someone can't use it against you...yadda yadda) so it also cancels itself out.
 
Champions Complete pages 104-106 has the stuff on Focus. On page 106 it has the paragraph on Applicability. On the table (page 105), they don't affect the price of the Focus at all.
 
Universal = everyone can use it, within reason. Can ge give out to friends, but also can be used against you.
 
Semi-Universal = not in the text, but only a select group can use it. Can only freely be given to members of this select group. But beware, all members of this group can use it, even traitors. 
 
Personal = only you can use it. Nobody but you can use it. It can't be used against you, but your opponent can disarm or disable the device and you can't use it till it is recovered or fixed or something. 
 
It should be noted that it has ALWAYS been a choice which doesn't affect the cost of the Focus. Even in 4th edition it didn't affect the cost of the Focus. I can't swear by 3rd edition or below, but I believe it was never an option which reduces or increases the Focus limitation.

The reading of book is more of a special effect and really does not need to be bought.  You are also reading snippets of books from all over the world.  This means any power related to reading books is going to be incredibly expensive.  What the spell does is to give you knowledge you would otherwise not have access to on a particular subject.
 
One thing to keep in mind is that the rolls for skills are for when you are in combat or otherwise under stress or making the skill roll is crucial.  The spell is designed to be used out of combat and knowledge skills are generally not considered crucial.  This means that for the most part the character is going to almost always succeed even with an 8 or less.  I can see a GM having the player make the roll to see how much information they gain, but for the most part they should gains something even with just a familiarity.  
 
By narrowly defining the KS that player will usually get the bonus for routine task.  So will get anywhere between +3 to +5 on the actual roll.   Being able to get a KS with a roll of between 11 – 13 or less will usually give you a decent amount of information.    
 

Am now with my books. Lingering can be found in FH 5E, p. 258, the discussion on duration of spells.
 
Yes, when the spell is cast, the character pays any END Cost, and also each time when the ability the spell grants is used/activated.
 
Yes, the spell can be utilized at any time during the time limit, even if another ability has been used/activated after the spell was cast (barring, of course, the specific builds of the Powers involved).

CON roll to fully consume a terribly prepared meal to make points with someone.

Speaking of contagious plagues... I ran one in my second Keystone Konjurors campaign (playtest for the Ultimate Mystic trilogy). Only in mine, the plague was Barbie.
 
The player of one of the PCs, Artifex, said the Master of Cosmic Craft had made a 0-point Follower for his stylish loft apartment in Babylon: a human-size, living Barbie doll. Live-in housekeeper. I think: Okay. And, well, bed partner. I think: Ew. Then think: MUAH HA HA HA! Because Barbie is a powerful archetype, one of the best known toys in the world, and a focus of bizarre obsessions. Plus there's that manically/creepily cheerful song by Aqua. "I'm a Barbie girl, In a Barbie World. Life in plastic -- it's fantastic!"
 
It started as apparently a different adventure, I think there was a fire demon. Anyway, some bystanders get hit in the fighting, and one of them partly melts instead of getting burned. He's a living plastic mannikin. He also has no soul. The PCs find other soulless plastic people... and they're turning humans into more plastic people. The PCs eventually traced it back to Artifex's Barbie simulacrum, who is absorbing all the reality from the transformed people and growing into a nascent cosmic entity; also turning Artifex's apartment into a colorful molded plastic Barbie World. Called on this, Barbie tells Artifex to defend her, which he finds he must do: He was Barbie's first victim and working for her all along. Artifex tries to convince the others that this is a good thing. There is no old age, sickness or death in Barbie World. The Dragon would be destroyed. The others did manage to get through to him and convince him to turn against Barbie and destroy her. So, um, yay?
 
Good times.
 
Dean Shomshak

Some great suggestions.
 
Another set up I've seen on the mechanical side is an Inspiring Leader with 10  extra points of  Presence for Defense only, Usable by others named something like "With him on our side, we can face anything". Mind you he was less a tactical genius and more an icon.

Civilla’s player: I grabbed a wand of Decompose Corpse.
Rajira’s player: Why? You already have instant disposal methods
Ayva’s player: cheaper than the potions
Rajira’s player : But more expensive than frogs.
Civilla’s player: The frogs cost me several pool points. It also works on Huge corpses, which I can then use the frogs to finish up.
 
The Victocora estate is indeed for sale - with the exception of the gardens which have been set aside for construction of a public park, by order of Thrune. And he’s willing to exert influence to ensure that the pool with the soul anchor inside it doesn't end up controlled by any of the local families. 
 
There’s still no news about the whereabouts of the half-elf opera star Shensen, who vanished after her shop got burnt to the ground on the Night of Ashes. The only rumour Terzo can find is that she was taken into the Opera House, now Thrune’s domicile, and murdered, but the same rumour gets said about everybody. 
 
Terzo: I wouldn’t blame her if she’d fled town, but NOBODY has heard a peep from her since, and given the opera connection and the fact that she’s a vocal critic of Chellish diabolism…Let’s just say I’m concerned that Thrune took a personal interest. 
 
Rajira has been investing heavily in a public meeting place.
 
Civilla’s player: You are going to have so much Influence…
Terzo’s player: There’s a reason so many European monarchs regarded coffeehouses with suspicion.
Civilla’s player: Well yes. They’re where the Enlightenment happened. And glaring at people who come too close to your private conversation, until they f*** off,  is normal coffeehouse etiquette.
 
Civilla’s player: And Terzo could invest in a beer garden. It’s not banned. Yet. 
 
Civilla has also initiated another arm of the rebellion, that closely fits her position as a daughter of the nobility. The Candlemark Parlour - a tea circle that are actually highly influential rumour mongers.
 
Civilla OoC: Oh, and I can Summon Planar Ally now. Which I don’t do while Terzo is around, even though they’re not REALLY demons. 
Terzo OoC: I imagine half the conversations you lot have, you don’t have when I’m nearby. My sad and hurt expression might make you feel bad.
Rajira OoC: Just like my slitting throats isn't necessarily evil.
Ayva OoC: There’s a lot of contextual variation.
 
Civilla does a bit of magical meditation, in order to ask her goddess for advice. The response she gets is one word - ‘Blosodriette’. Slightly baffling. She also seeks an answer to the question ‘Does Shensen still live?’. The answer to that is ‘Neither’.
 
Civilla: oh F***. Ah, I thank you, Redeemer Queen. Mr GM, I think I’ve done the brainchip thing again, because bits of info are coming together and we need to research how to kill vampires then resurrect them.
Ayva: *sigh* I’ll fast-track the cauldron. At least we already have the Philosopher’s Stone Elixir. 
Civilla: Also I think I know the password to read the Secret Page now. 
 
Ayva also wants to brew a potion that will make our blood unpalatable to vampires. 
 
GM: The downside is you stink of garlic. 
 
The GM is quite glad we’re finally doing something with the Secret Page that Rajira has been keeping between two slabs of lead and far away from our rebellious activities. Apparently keeping it secured has derailed a few major plot developments. Civilla does take a few precautions first, which include making a contract with that Scrivenite entity we met a while back.
 
Civilla: Yilliv the Scrivenite, I call you to aid me with the secrets of this page! Yilliv the Scrivenie, I call you to aid me with the secrets of this page!
Yilliv the Scrivenite: You only had to say that once.
 
The Secret Page is the Contract for one Blosodriette the Imp, who appears in a puff of sulfurous smoke.
 
Blosodriette: F***!
Civilla OoC: How many problems did we avoid by not having an imp hanging around our lair?
GM: At least the death of an entire rebellion team.
 
It’s quite fortunate that we kept the page nowhere near our lair. The contract also binds the Imp to the Sarini family, or in the event of the death of all the Sarinis, whoever has the contract, and she has to stay within 100 feet of the contract. At least hanging around Civilla’s apartment got more interesting when she brought that evil sentient kukri home.
 
Civilla: I could be a real prick here… by gifting the contract to Yilliv. How have you been amusing yourself before we found your contract, Imp? I don’t suppose it was YOU who opened that portal to Hell?
Blosodriette: What? No!
Civilla: You telling the truth?
Blosodriette: I have to, you hold the contract. It was Merindius Sarini who opened the portal, and he got eaten.
Civilla: Of course he did, he opened a portal to hell. 
 
Yilliv: I’d keep the contract secure in my Library.
Civilla: How would you like that, Imp?
Blosodriette: I would much rather you torched the thing.
 
Instead, Civilla offers the creature a job, that will let her thumb her nose at more powerful devils.
 
Blosodriette: Do I really have a choice?
Civilla: You’d have to pledge yourself to my Queen.
Shimza: *shows the Imp her symbol of the Redeemer Queen, the former Demon Lord*
Blosodriette: Oh S*** yeah, this changes things! OK, I’m in!
Civilla: You’ll truly pledge yourself to the Path of Redemption?
Ayva: If she DOES join us, the fairy dragon and the imp are going to get on like a house on fire.
Civilla: Probably literally.
 
Blosodriette is quite a powerful Imp, further up the Descending Hierarchy than Civilla initially thought. 
 
Civilla: I owe you an apology.
 
Civilla gets an unexpected visitor - it’s someone in the uniform of the Chellish Navy.
 
Lieutenant Elia Nones: Good afternoon! I represent the captain of the Scourge of Belial! I seek those responsible for freeing a certain group of Hellknights!
Civilla: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
GM: …. You better have a good Bluff.
Civilla’s player: I do. I’m also thinking ‘Why don’t you say that a bit louder, B****, and I’ll show the OTHER 4th Level Spell I just learned’.
 
Although she didn’t use the phrase Her Infernal Majestrix’ Warship Scourge of Belial, which is the proper pronoun for a warship of the Chellsh Navy. And rumour has it that Capt. Cassius Sargaeta is no fan of Barzillai Thrune. 
Lieutenant Elia Nones: My Captain requests your assistance in a sensitive matter. I advise you to accompany me - not many people get to see my master’s restraint. 
Civilla: As long as he doesn’t hold my family name against me. 
Lieutenant Elia Nones: My captain prefers to consider the actions of the individual.
 
Civilla agrees to get the others together, and meet this very unsubtle woman at the wharf where the Scourge is docked. She sends out a coded message in the formal invite to the other party members. Precautions include having some of our minions and relatives lurk nearby, just in case, and using various disguise options we now have. Terzo, for example, uses his new Hat of Disguise to appear as an ancient sailor with a beard down to his knees.
 
Terzo: Psst! It’s me!
Civilla: PLEASE, show up as somebody we’d actually like to be seen with!
Ayva: Use the Hat of Disguise to disguise yourself as yourself - that way if anybody is looking for illusions they’ll think somebody is pretending to be Terzo.
Civilla: Oh, that’s clever.
 
The ship is currently having the rudder replaced. Apparently that kind of damage is an ‘amusing’ signature of Civilla’s distant cousin the pirate admiral. Elia warns us that the Captain has been in a less than stellar mood lately. 
 
Capt. Sargaeta: I admit my disappointment. I expected something more - towering giants of myth. But this is what the waves bring to my shore. Something more… grandiose. Have some fruit. Still, I require your services, and your discretion. Lord-Mayor Thrune’s proclamations have, shall I say, impacted my interests in the city. I cannot venture onto land to take care of... well, let’s call it a ‘personal matter.’ I could send my crew to attend this, but I would much prefer sending someone with whom I have plausible deniability, should they fail in their task. Can you help me send a message?
Civilla: Would this message be metaphorical, or a threat?
Capt. Sargaeta: No, an actual message. Would you be interested in providing me with aid? I daresay that people in your position could stand to benefit from having a captain in the Chelish navy owe you a few favors, hmmm?
 
Captain Sargaeta’s task for the party is a covert one—he wants the PCs to deliver a message to a friend of his who lives in the Greens. This friend is one Marquel Aulorian, scion of one of Kintargo’s older noble families, and a family increasingly supportive of Thrune. Captain Sargaeta bluntly describes Marquel’s father as “a grasping little prig currying favor with the new leadership in a most unseemly manner.” He’s grown worried that his friend might be in danger, due to complicated “political views,” and the letter he needs delivered to Marquel must be delivered to his hands alone, preferably without his father’s knowledge of the delivery. Once the message is delivered, Captain Sargaeta asks the PCs to return to him and deliver the recipient’s reply—verbatim. In return, he promises his friendship and support, as best as he can give it.
 
Marquel is currently confined to his room in the Aulorian mansion. Any one of us could probably get the letter to him - Rajira and Blosodriette especially - as long as there is no actual trouble at the other end. But there’s no point assuming everything will go smoothly. Combining Rajira’s existing and new skills with Terzo’s Hat of Disguise will give her MASSIVE bonuses, even if she is playing someone of a different gender, species, or size.
 
Ayva: ‘I’m a gnome’ ‘You’re two meters tall!’ ‘I’m a grower’
 
It all devolves to a very basic plan - "dress up as a servant and walk right in". We just have to pick the best target to impersonate first, and pickpocket her keys when she goes out to the market.
 
Civilla OoC: We’re Shadowrun players, of course we’re going to case the joint first.
 
The Aulorians have a guard dog.  A skinless three-headed 300-pound hound.
 
Civilla: it’s so cute!
 
Unfortunately Cerberii are extremely good at locating and immobilizing even the magically sneaky. Unless you have some alchemical Scent Blocker. Which we can make. Pickpocketing the keys and impersonating the servant are equally simple.
 
Civilla: One last thing - here’s a thunderstone. If there’s trouble, THROW IT.
 
Staff: Miss Maudlin, did you forget something?
Rajira: Yes, yes I did -  just need to pop upstairs for a moment.
 
Marquel Aulorian: Are you here to clean my room, Miss Maudlin?
Rajira: No, I’m here to give you this message and await your reply.
 
Marquel Aulorian: Yes, yes, but how are you going to get me out?
Rajira: Ah, I wasn’t contracted to do that, but I strongly suspect I’m going to be. Just bear in mind I wasn’t given the contents of the letter.
Marquel Aulorian: It says I can trust you to escort me to safety.
Rajira: I SEE.
Civilla: I guess we’re going off script.
 
Just as well Rajira brought an invisibility potion with her. Although the scent blocker has worn off.
 
Marquel Aulorian: There’s the west gate, but I believe it’s locked.
Rajira: Just as well I still have Miss Maudlin’s keys too then.
Civilla’s player: Have we just done it again?
GM: Yes, you’re free and clear. *sigh*
Ayva’s player: The campaign gave us six invisibility potions, what did they expect us to do?
Rajira’s player: Use them ourselves?
Civilla player: Why? Potions only last a few minutes, Disguise lasts for hours.
 
Ayva: Now we get him into an alleyway and disguise him.
Rajira: Hat.
Civilla: Hat. 
 
Then we just have to get the keys back to the real Miss Maudlin before she comes back.
 
Civilla: Excuse me miss! I believe you dropped these!
 
Sargaeta sits at his desk, sipping tea and reading poetry by lamplight. He looks up as the party enters, clearly puzzled by the extra member he doesn’t recognise, but a dramatic removal of the Hat of Disguise reveals the truth. Marquel speaks first, rushing into Sargaeta’s arms. 
 
Marquel: Here’s your answer, Cassius!
 
The two embrace and exchange a tender kiss, Sargaeta actually weeping. Terzo finds it all very sweet.
 
Capt. Sargaeta: Ah, my darling! Marquel, my sweet impulsive boy!
 
Capt. Sargaeta: Well, I’m a man of my word! Drop this teacup.
Ayva: *does. It bounces, intact* 
Capt. Sargaeta: Ah. Well, I’d meant to owe you as many favours as there were pieces. Well, try again, perhaps with a little more force this time.

The teacup shatters into a much more amenable 8 fragments, this time.

Capt. Sargaeta: I will assist in any way I can, short of open treason against the queen - just write your request on a scrap of paper and wrap it around a shard of the cup. You have my gratitude and friendship!
Civilla: We value nothing more.
 
It’s interesting to note that the Poisoned Pen of Kintargo, an anonymous and prolific critic of Thrune, is suddenly producing a lot of screeds again, after we got Marquel out - we can probably make an educated guess exactly what the young man’s political views were. 

My wife states that Comedy is properly when the exact same something bad happens to someone else...

"An execution for stealing an apple?"
"Yes."
"I'm going to need a little more context here: Granny Smith? Macbook Pro? Hesperides?"
 
--- --- ---
 
"It's for posteri, uh, posterior."
"'Posterity', you mean?"
"Uh...sure."
 
*pause*
 
"Well, in all fairness, the former usually does lead to the latter."

While I probably wouldn't play it myself, I do appreciate Seth Skorkowsky's videos on Traveller