Scene Three Part A: Along the Waterfront...

Scene Three - Part A: On the Dock

Chaos Factor: 5

Characters: Jimi, Eddie, Mrs. Rosse

Threads: Find out who killed the dead guy. Investigate the Salvage Company.

Wow this scene is long overdue!!! I roll 1d10 for scene setup [5] so this is an altered scene. I was planning to have Jimi interview the Salvage company folks and I’m not sure how I would like to alter the dock scene I was planning so I will try a couple of probing questions to get things rolling...

Q: Does anybody start off shooting at Jimi? [50:50, No]

Q: Is the place deserted? [50:50, Yes]

Rolling up to the dock where this salvage company is located I think about what I found in that file. There were definitely some discrepancies but nothing that jumped off the page and screamed out to me. There is a clue in here somewhere, I just haven’t figured it out yet. My alcohol riddled brain is probably starting to fail me already. Hope not, I’ve got a long time before retirement.

“Well, lets see if anybody’s home,” I say as I get out of the car.

Coming up to the door I note that there is a closed sign in the window. I peek through the windows and don’t find much, some desks, some filing cabinets, lame calendars, pinup girls, pictures of men holding fish and treasures hauled up from the deep, guys drunk at bars wearing wigs and the like. Pretty typical. I don’t have a warrant to start kicking in the doors so I’ll try the other way, for now. I note the security camera that is trained on me as I turn around.

I walk back to my car and decide to take off. I head out a couple blocks an find a nice Italian joint, a couple of subs later and a box full of coffee and I’m swinging back around to the neighborhood near the docks. I find a shitty hotel near the sea and purchase a room, I ask for a room that overlooks the sea. I take my camera with the telescoping lens, the subs, a notepad and a couple of magazines.

Yep, they were expecting me and pulled a dodge. A couple of hours later they show up in a white Ford truck with a cab on the back. Two of them. Then a couple more hours later a small boat comes into the dock, their ship must be somewhere off shore near the coast. I watch them buzz around and take shots of them. I’m far away but with some touch ups the boys in the lab will be able to make an ID if they had a criminal record.

It goes that way until dark. Then thinking about the fact that I have the room for the rest of the night I decide to call for some company. I know just the girl. I tell her to bring a bottle.

Dark Acolytes of Elder Gods

I threw these little acolyte guys against my PBEM group - stats are based on Castles and Crusades but could easily be morphed into LL or S&W:

No Encountered: 2d6

Size: Medium

HD: 2+ (d8)

Move: 30ft

AC: 10

Attacks: by weapon

Special: (see below)

Saves: M

Int: Average to High

Alignment: LE

Type: Human

Treasure: 2

Exp: variable

Description: Acolytes serve the wishes of elder beings from the outer reaches of space and time. They frequently develop religious ceremonies, sacrifices, accouterments, and relics/objects that they feel connect them to their chosen "gods" but the beings that they worship think of them as lesser servants or sometimes as crunchy little snacks :) The acolytes are granted no spells from their worship of these gods, but over time the cult will develop methods of emulating true religions.

For example when encountered if there are over 4 acolytes present at least one of them will be have 3HD and will be carrying some kind of special object, examples include:

1. Lotus Dust(they will blow a pinch of this powder in the face of intended victims, enemies, and sacrifices) it will cause intense hallucinations for 2d6 turns during which time the victim cannot easily concentrate and receives a -4 penalty to all attacks and saving throws.

2. Healing Salve (they use this to simulate divine healing) it is a blend of herbs, fungi, oils and essences of strange plants and from the dark places of the earth. An application of this salve will cure 1d6 hp overnight.

3. Harmonizer - this device can create stunning audible noises when a master employs it by creating a very loud humming noise into one end of the device. If the correct pitch is hit, the device will amplify and harmonize the sound until all creatures with hearing with 60 ft of the device are beset by crippling headaches and stunned unless they pass a saving throw vs. paralyzation.

Other neat ideas are: greek fire, smoke bombs for evasion, strange mirrors with foul effects, etc...

Also, if the group of acolytes exceeds 8 members there will typically be 4HD+ acolyte who will also have access to at least one of the relics described and also will have 1d2 arcane spells. Typically these spells are not the standard spells from the players handbook but are devious black magics of the GM's imaginings. There is only a 50% chance that they will be carrying a spell book if encountered outside of their "church".

Example Spell:

Exquisite Horror - Level 1 Wizard Spell:

CT: 1, R: 100ft, D: 1 hour/level, SV: Intelligence Negates, SR: yes, Comp: V,S,M

Exquisite horror will imbue its victim with unshakable fear and horror. If approached the victim will try to run and hide from any moving creature they notice and if cornered will faint or freeze up with paralyzing fear or attack every being in sight. Victims already suffering from the effects of Lotus Dust will not be allowed a saving throw against this spell.

Recent History and Strange Observations

If anybody is still checking in on this blog... thanks. I've been massively overwhelmed in the last several weeks which has impacted my previous schedule of ~12 posts per month. Alos, my PBEM Greyhawk game is really taking off. My players have descended another level, finally acquired a bit of treasure from their adventuring :) and found an albino cleric. This albino cleric cannot communicate well with them for lack of overlapping languages but through miming and pictography they have decided they are on the same team for now and are now following this cleric down into the depths of this dungeon.

This albino cleric worships a god Ishu, which is the symbol of a three fold woman (bearing some resemblance to Istus) and they seem to be at odds with another group of clerics who have now captured the half orc assassin. There seems to be a battle of sorts occurring somewhere underground and the PC's found their albino cleric nearly fatally wounded lying on a bed in the dungeon. After quite a bit of debate about whether to heal the man they finally did and he awarded them with some treasure (by showing them how to use some golden masks to make their way past mechanical wasp guardians armed with death poison to pilfer some gold and gems).

But during this encounter I noted something quite odd about PC's. They will sometimes obsess over really strange things that you would have never guessed about. Take this description as evidence:

As Geodine and Esmeralda approach the wounded man he looks up apprehensively toward your strange ensemble. Geodine examines the man from a closer and closer distance noting that his stomach wound will be fatal without magic aid. As Esmeralda comes close to the man and takes first his club and then tries to grab at his Emblem he knocks her hand away and yells out something sharp and quick in his strange tongue.

As the torches draw near and he whips his arms about you note that his skin is pale, he must be one of these albino people you have heard about. Looking closer, his eyes seems to have dark brown pigment, so he is not a true albino - perhaps his skin has not seen the sun... ever. His dress is very simple, dark thick padded armor pants, thick boots, and he is shirtless except for his bandages. His hair is a long mass of brownish yellow and held back with a yellow tie. He has a bit of wispy beard upon his face but it doesn't grow thick.

Nau Gui addresses the man in two languages but he doesn't seem to recognize any of it. Instead he speaks once more in a non-sensical tongue, "Curthag unkthatack arosthack!"

A little later I posted this:

In the chests there are some thin metal masks (maybe steel) covered in gold
paint (you can see where it was scraped off in some spots. Also in the chests
there are more pants, shirts, bandages, a jar of what looks to be a salve of
some sort, and a light cudgel.

The rest of the room is bare except for a deck of cards on one of the small
tables. There are two doors in the back of the room one on the wall to the left
and one on the far wall. Esmeralda hears a slight buzzing noise on the other
side of the door to the far wall.

While some of the pc's focused on the dying man or the strange buzzing noise, and the chests full of strange thin metal masks... other PC's decided it was wiser to spend the next week of PBEM time examining the deck of cards that was mentioned in passing. They got into a minor in game argument over who would keep the deck calling each other grabby among other things. PC's will focus on strange things and forget about your obvious clues, I don't understand it, but it is true :)

Streets of Madness: Scene 2

Scene 2: The Interview

Chaos Factor: 6

Characters: Jimi, Eddie

Threads: Find out who killed the dead guy.

The Set up: My idea to start scene two is to have Jimi go and interview the wife of the dead guy. I rolled an 8 for the modifier die so there is no modification of this concept.

The Play:

“Mrs.Rosse like to ask you a couple of questions about yesterday, it was two days ago right..”

The lady across the room from me on the couch looks at me with glazed eyes and nods a slow confirmation to my question. I’m not sure how productive this is going to be, however, we matched her husbands DNA to strands of hair from her apartment so our department had to give her the news yesterday that her husband wasn’t just missing. He was dead.

“Did he go to work?”

“I don’t know, he left for work.”

She looks at me accusingly like I’m forcing her. Maybe I should play this slow.

“Look, we could go through these questions in a couple of days if you’d like. I just like to try to get them out of the way while the events are fresher in your mind if you can handle it.”

“It’s ok Mr. Harrigan. I.... I just miss him...” She sobs a bit with her eyes on the floor.

“What did your husband do for a living?” I know the answer to this but I wanted to give her a softball question to get her started.

“He is, was, a stock broker.”

“Was he depressed?”

“No, I don’t think so,” She runs her hands along the length of her jeans, “he had his bad times like anybody. I wouldn’t say he was depressed? Do you think he did this to himself?”

“I’m not ruling out anything yet Mrs. Rosse, would you mind if I used your bathroom?”

I head back to the bathroom and pretend to take a leak. I turn on the water in the sink and look around. Maybe there is something here.

Q: Does Jimi find anything in the bathroom? [unlikely, No]

Q: Does this lady know anything or not? [50:50, Yes]

Coming back into the room from my search in the bathroom I decide to end this interview quickly.

“Look Mrs. Rosse, we can tap dance around this all day but I’m going to lay it to you straight. I think your husband was murdered, I don’t think committed suicide by climbing into a lion’s cage. I think there is a decent chance that you know something. If you want to see whoever did this brought to justice tell me what you know.”

She looks at me with fierce eyes for a moment and I think she might charge me from across her glass coffee table. Instead she gets up and walks with zombie steps back into her house. I follow.

From the bottom of a desk she pulls out a plastic file binder and places it on the top of the desk.

“Mr. Harrigan, my husband was a gambler. He would bet on anything and after some time that moved into his business practices. He came across a large sum of money during the stock boom and pulled a lot of it out before the crash. We were going to get a better house, but instead he invested a great deal of it into a little known salvage company. I don’t know what they are up to, but over the last six months he has spent more and more time with that file. The other night he spent quite a while pouring over the contents of that folder before heading out. That was the last time I saw him.”

End Scene. I lower the Chaos Factor by one since this interview worked out for Mr. Jimi.

Streets of Madness: Scene 1

This is my first amateur attempt at running a Mythic GME game. I'm running it solo for now, but later I'm thinking of adding my buddy. Unless Jimi gets torn to shreds by some kind of lovecraftian horror or poisoned by a serial killer or shot by a junkie, etc... Check out Risus Monkey to see a real master run this kind of game.

Scene 1: The Murder...

Chaos Factor: 5

Characters: Jimi

Threads: None

The Set Up:

I had already decided that it this game had to start start with a murder. I decide to roll on the random event chart to get an idea for focus.

Random: [NPC Action, Malice and Animals]

I then ask a question:

Q: Was someone murdered by zoo animals? [50/50, Yes.]

The Play:

The constant ringing of the phone pulled me out of sleep. I pick up the phone. It’s the L.t. There’s been a death at the zoo and something doesn’t smell right about it. I tell him I’ll come down quick and hang up. A few minutes later I’m leaving my crummy apartment and head down to the street using the elevator.

Q: Is it raining? (50/50, exceptional yes, of course...)

As I leave the apartment, I pull my coat tight about myself to ward of the buckets buckets of rain crashing down. I head to my rust heap of a car and get inside; it starts like a charm. I take a moment to listen to the rain on the windshield, but it will take more than a spring shower to wash away the filth of this city.

It isn’t far to the zoo, just a bit uptown from the apartment. The whole place is lit up in blue and red lights from the police cars. I pull way into the back to avoid the journalists and then I see a couple of boys in blue standing with Eddie trying to put up a tarp or something to hold back the rain. Eddie is in forensics and he can’t be happy that he hasn’t had a chance to pull anything out of those black cases at his feet. Decent enough guy I guess; just don’t get him started on baseball.

Q: Was it a man who was killed? [50/50, Yes]

Walking up to them they start telling me all about it. Somebody fell or was pushed into the lion cage and was ripped apart by the beasts. I think about that for a second or two. There is a fence and then a wall and then a moat - this somehow got through all of that to end up dead in there. They broke the lock on the fence but how did they get across that moat. I walk in there and take a look. The body is hanging over some rocks like a rag doll, blood streaming down the rocks. Just then I notice I’m standing in the cage with the lions. They are in the back of the cage lying up in the back, away from the rain, their cold eyes glaring down at their fresh kill.

Q: Was there any symbols of the occult? [Likely, No]

Q: Are there any other clues? [Very likely, No]

The fate machine has decided there are ZERO clues about this murder to be found.

Hours later Eddie and his buddies haven’t turned anything up. I can’t believe that this is anything but a murder. You just don’t walk into a lion’s cage for no reason. I head on out of there to get some sleep. Eddie will be at it for the rest of the night but there is no reason for me to stay. I head back to the apartment to get some sleep there will be time enough talk about this one in the morning.

End Scene. I decide to raise the chaos factor since pretty much nothing went the way of our protagonist...

The New Solo (maybe Duo) Game

I figured out what I'm doing for my solo (maybe duo) game. It will be using Mythic&Risus and will be a horror/mystery genre, I'm thinking of calling it: Streets of Madness.

Here is my character:

James “Jimi” Harrigan

Story:

A lean hard man with the characteristic black overcoat covering a wrinkled suit. Jimi was in Operation Desert Storm where he served his country and saw some things that would make you shiver. He has also seen a couple of things in this city that would spin your head but he tells no one so they don’t think he is crazy. Once Jim gets into a case and starts following a lead he becomes an obsessed bloodhound following the clues where ever they lead. You better hope they don’t lead to you...

Cliches:

“Nose to the Grind” Detective (4), Ex-Special Forces (3), Alcoholic Weekend Warrior (2), Stared into the Dark (1)

Items/Equipment/Etc...

Beat up car (with one police light that he can throw up on top in times of need and a police radio), wrinkled suit, 9mm pistol with side holster and three clips, cell phone, notepad, pencil, swiss army knife, metal flask with the hard stuff, Big Red chewing gum

In the back of his car he also has:

12 guage shotgun in the trunk, crowbar, spare tire, rope, duct tape, coffee cups, portable filing case with files

Cliche Explanations:

“Nose to the Grind” Detective: following leads, interrogation, dodging the landlord, dodging bullets, putting crooks in jail, hitting the bottle, shooting pistols, picking locks, using the internet, connections in the force, police authority, reading people

Ex-special forces: being tough as nails, running, shooting, hiding, being unfazed under gunfire, having nightmares and not talking about them

Alcoholic Weekend Warrior: knowing every bar in town, being able to handle a bottle, knowing the regulars in most of the downtown places, waking up in an alley

Stared into the Dark: thinking that there might be strange things out there that regular people don’t know about, having a little bit of knowledge about the occult

The influences for the game to name a few: Sin City, Lovecraft, Seven, Dark City, The Big Sleep, Trail of Cthulhu, The Wire, The Salton Sea, the Black Dahlia, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, X-Files, etc...

This is my first modern game in a while and I'm expecting it will be full-on cliched and fun! I'm pretty excited about it. Now I just have to figure out if my buddy is going to join in... figure out where I'll locate it and get going.

Rolemaster (Take 3) and Amethyst

Having read over the rolemaster core books I set right out to make a character. I started small - a common human ranger. I rolled some stats, then potential attributes, then modified for race, chose some languages then started flipping through the skill list and figuring out things like development points and power points, etc...

Well, lets just say that I may have been accustomed to a simpler way of making characters over the last couple of years (during which the only systems that I have used are Fudge, Risus, and 2nd Edition DnD). I'm not sure I have the time or patience right now to make Rolemaster characters unless I got a group together who would get me inspired to do so. Or maybe if I can figure out that Fudge conversion for Rolemaster that I think is a really juicy idea....

Anyway, I shelved Rolemaster for the short term and I am following the sacred teachings of Risus Monkey by trying to get a Mythic game started up. For now I may start up solo and then add my buddy in later if that makes sense. I'll probably post something up about the game I am planning in the next couple of days. I read through that book over the last couple of days and it immediately "clicked".

Also, Chris Dias of Dias Ex Machina contacted me about his game Amethyst which is being sold by Goodman Games. I checked out these links here, the pictures here, the free adventure Biohazard ( a zombie apocalypse style game), and finally this youtube clip. I wrote this blog post a while back about adding guns to ODD, well this game adds guns, and computers, and cars, and pretty much everything about our modern world to the conventional D&D game. Chris popped the top off his head and completely imagined a really excellent world where all the stuff that exists in our DnD games "came out to play"...

I think this picture that I popped into this post pretty much sums up the game (to Chris Dias or artist Nick Greenwood - if you want me to take this down I will immediately). They talk about it quite a bit in that cool YouTube series where they not only discuss the gameworld but how it evolved with the art from Nick Greewood (who did like 99.9% of the art for the game apparently). I've said before that having Peter Bradley do like 90% of the art for the Castles and Crusades game set up a consistent look and brand for that game. I think the same will hold true for amethyst.

Anyway, I can't say much more since I haven't picked up a copy of the game (I probably won't anytime soon since it is written for 4th edition DnD which I have no plans to play). The combination of technology, magic, fantasy, politics, and interesting imagery makes me want to slap my practical side silly and BUY THIS GAME (which is saying that I have like 50 different campaign worlds that I downloaded as part of the Haiti bundle and like 50 more campaign worlds that I have thought up in my sick head and don't in any way need another game world).

I'm not a fan of the 3rd edition, 3.5 edition, and 4th edition DnD rules - however, just because you don't like the rules doesn't mean there is a lot of gold in a game world/concept regardless of the rules. I could see me running a game in the amethyst game world using any of the familiar rulesets that I have become accustomed to over the years. Or if my DM buddy would get his $#!& together and want to start up our tabletop game (which was supposed to use 4th edition rules- since this DM likes 4th edition and convinced all us "old-timers" to try it but then never started the game all winter long after we made characters in November)

Maybe, just maybe I could convince him to run this game-world instead of the standard fantasy world he had been thinking of running a campaign in.

Who knows, I may go rogue and pick up a copy after all. If I watch that YouTube video about the art one more time I'll probably fail my saving throw and cave in to a moment of consumer weakness :)