Hugh Jass – Human Captain – Alex
Bugsy – Rigellian JumpCorp Pilot – Steve
Kaz – Saurian Security Officer (actually a Pirate trying to go straight) – Dave
The Baron – Human Science Officer coming out of retirement – Norm
The backup officers on JC-701 are pulled into a meeting with Col Jaeger who is discussing an issue with the Holy Binary Dominic Newland. The Binary explains that an extremist faction of Pilgrims that have been attacking into Rigellian space have bitten off more than they can handle. The Rigellian Ambassador explains that he has pulled all the Alliance people off the planet, but coalition forces have remained and will likely resist the Pilgrims. Col Jaeger orders the crew to retrieve the pilgrims and only engage the coalition forces of Rigellia.
“Bugsy” flew the vessel on the scenic route to Amassus IV where they find a fight in progress near the planet. Captain Jass convinces the Rigellian captain, Steveodore Von Bugsberg (a distant relative of Bugsy), to leave the area. As soon as they do, the pilgrims land on the planet despite the Captain’s orders to stand down and surrender. The crew follows them to the surface where they find several wrecked ships.
“Bugsy” and Kaz head over to disable the pilgrim’s ship. That doesn’t go well. The pilgrims blast “Bugsy” for being Rigellian as Kaz attempts to get them to surrender. Kaz blasts a couple pilgrims and takes two pilots prisoner. Captain Jass and Baron join them to search the vessel. Kaz finds the pilgrims’ documents with their conclusions based on circumstantial evidence that the Rigellians are doing something nefarious on Amassus IV. Apparently, there is an underground facility on the planet that has more to it than meets the eye.
Captain Jass leads the team to the facility to check things out. They find pilgrims and Rigellians locked in another battle. After blasting a few Rigellians and take the pilgrims prisoner, the Baron discovers a secret entrance to a subterranean chamber. Down in the chamber, they discover a Rigellian hatchery.
Flashback: Unbeknownst to the rest of the team, the Rigellian Ambassador contacts “Bugsy” and tells him that the planet they are going to is a Rigellian hatchery that has been disguised as a refining planet. “As you know, our particular mode of reproducing can be disturbing to the races that we use as hosts for the larvae. Even though we no longer use JumpCorp citizens as hosts, the images of humanoids and other sentient beings hosting larvae will not make peace with JumpCorp easy. Since you, as I, are highly vested in peace with our neighbors, I need you to find the device I left in your quarters. If, and only if, your crew happens to find the hatchery, you need to use the device to erase their minds. It’s the only way to ensure peace.”
Current Time: The hatchery guards tell Captain Jass that if he and the crew leave now they will not be harmed, but if they attempt to continue into the hatchery, they guards will resist to the end. Bugsy also tells the crew that there is no reason to stay here, after all they’ve got the pilgrims, which is what they were after. Kaz is in agreement, but Captain Jass and the Baron insist on pushing in and just as a fight is about to erupt, “Bugsy” pushes the button. The planet goes into lockdown and the Ambassador’s voice comes over the device, “I’m sorry Bugsy, there is no such thing as a device that can erase minds. You will be honored by Rigellians everywhere for your sacrifice.” And the planet explodes as the reactor goes critical.
Disclaimer: Any resemblance to actual persons, living or soon to be dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Alex, Mike and I went to Origins again this year. This trip marked the 10th anniversary of going to Origins and meeting our good friends Dave McGuire, Tom Wisniewski, and Norm “No Relation” Hensley. In honor of this we all ran games in the settings we ran (or played in) 10 years ago. Norm ran Shaintar since it was in Sean Fannon’s epic Shaintar game that we all really became friends. Mike ran Tour of Darkness. I ran Rippers. Dave ran Mordheim. Tom was missing this year due to real life. We hate it when real life interferes with gaming.
This is the first year in many years that we had to pick up our badges from Origins. It’s a good thing too. While the line was really long, it did move quickly. On the way to our long line, we saw Jim Searcy of Studio 2—the guy who has gotten our badges in the past—standing in the short vendor line. He was still there when we left with our badges.
Waiting in the Badge Line.
After getting our badges and settling into our rooms, I took some games to sell at the auction. I’ve never done this before. The process was simple and the Origin’s auction people were very nice.
Now it was time to play our first game. Geek Chic had not set up their tables yet, so we had to depend on Origins to find a table. They dropped the ball. On Wednesday there are empty tables everywhere. The guy at the RPG HQ told Mike he could not use any tables unless he had an event registered with Origins. Say what? The RPG HQ suggested we use the open gaming area. The open gaming area has about 10 tables and is located at the furthest point you can walk to before hitting Lake Erie. Since there were five of us, we had enough bearers to carry all of Mike’s game stuff to the open gaming area.
On the way, Mike stopped to talk to Origin’s event folks to see if he could register the game as a real event and get a table assignment. Two things happened. One, you can’t register a game at the convention. Game registration is closed. Two, the head honcho at the events area said the guy at the RPG HQ was wrong. The event guy told us we can use any table we want until someone with a real event comes along and kicks us off. This is how it has always been and we were good with it.
After all that, we played Mike’s Tour of Darkness game in the Opening Gaming. For the rest of the convention we never had to use Origin’s Open Gaming tables Again thanks largely to Geek Chic. Those guys (and gals) rock.
I was in charge. From that point on things didn’t go well. Our mission was to free US prisoners from a NVA camp. A helicopter dropped us off well out of sight of the camp. Some say the helicopter flew over the NVA camp on the way to the drop off zone, but those claims were never substantiated. Never substantiated! It was a hard jog through the trap infested jungle to get to the camp.
Once in position to recon the camp, we are immediately set upon by the NVA. Dave’s character, who is carrying our heaviest weapon, is in deep dog doo-doo most of this battle. We also see that the camp is heavily fortified with NVA troops. Some say we should have used the chopper to soften up the NVA. Heck, I didn’t even know the chopper had weapons! (I missed that day of training.) Anyway, after Dave’s character is healed, he begins pumping grenade after grenade into the NVA camp. This cleaned out the camp nicely. We enter the camp.
We search for the prisoners, but fine only a hatch leading to an underground maze of tunnels. There are strange going-ons down there. We fight our way through most of it. We end in a room containing a NVA wizard summoning something weird and horrifying. It is a creature made up of a conglomeration of bodies all jammed together. Even more horrifying is that we recognized the poor souls within the monster. They are our original characters from 10 years ago!
We deal with the monster, but the NVA wizard escapes through a secret door. We chased him to the exit door of the tunnels. Then we hear the sound of thunder and feel the weight of tons of dirt and rock cover the exit we are about to go through. We’re stuck.
Some say we’ll died in those tunnels. We’re about to prove them wrong.
To be Continued…
Mike setting up the endless NVA foes in his Tour of Darkness game
Tour of Darkness: The heroes fight their way through the tunnels.
The Rippers are called in by Inspector Brunt of Scotland Yard to look into the grizzly murders of three people at a church in a small town near Newcastle, England. Arriving at the scene it doesn’t take long for the Rippers to determine that someone has been trying to use arcane rituals to summon…something. And it appears they were successful. With their knowledge of the occult the Rippers realize that one of the candles used in the summoning is missing. Normally this would not be important, but because of the type of ritual involved that fifth candle is needed to end the summoning spell. Until that happens, the spell will be weakened, but beings from another place can use the spell to enter our world. As if to prove the point, two devilkin appear in the summoning circle and begin attacking the Rippers. It’s a team effort, but the devilkin are sent back from whence they came.
Mike’s character determines from a sample at the scene that the substance used to create the pentagram is talcum power. They will need talcum powder once the fifth candle is found to make a new pentagram and end the spell. (Mike’s character critically failed the roll to discover what the substance was. This is not good, as you will see later.)
Now the investigation begins in earnest.
Their investigation leads them to the existence of an occult book. The significance of the book is revealed in a message carried by a smiling child. Someone named Mr. Jack is willing to trade the missing fifth candle for the occult book. The Rippers decided to meet with Mr. Jack at the park. They find Mr. Jack surrounded by children. He is entertaining the children with his sleight of hand tricks. After some discussion, the Rippers agree to the deal.
The Rippers search a warehouse where one of the victims worked and find the book. As they leave they are accosted by a weird and very hostile group of (lost?) circus performers. The Rippers manage to kill the ringmaster, which is enough to send the others packing, but not before some serious damage is done to the Ripper’s crew. After some healing and rest, the group is ready to meet Mr. Jack.
Mr. Jack is in the crypt section of the cemetery. Once again he is surrounded by children. He is also surrounded by tortured souls hanging by chains from posts driven into the ground. Mike’s character tries to deceive Mr. Jack by trading a fake book for the fifth candle. He critically fails his Stealth roll and Mr. Jack immediately sees through the ruse. After that, all hell breaks loose. Literally. The summoned creature is revealed to be what is known as a Horned God. The Rippers triumphantly destroy Mr. Jack and the mortal form of the Horned God.
Mike’s character constructs the pentagram (with talcum powder) and sets out all five candles to perform the ritual that will break the spell. Unfortunately is was not talcum powder that was needed for the pentagram, but grounded up bone. The last thing the Rippers see is the Horned God appearing above them…and he is not happy.
Rippers: The circus is in town!
Playing the characters we played long ago, the Queen sends us on a journey to a new province across the sea. This is more to get rid of us than to reward us for services rendered. I’m in charge again playing an aging swordsman. (What? How could you think this will not end well?) Dave’s intricate plot, well timed diversions, and unending list of characters keep us on our toes. “It’s not a Dave game unless someone is about to die.” (No one said this. I just put it in the write-up because I liked it.)
We set off with a fleet of ships, a whiny new governor, a back-stabbing first mate, and some other guy that seemed to be there just to be mysterious and cause problems. No slight on Dave, I just don’t remember who the guy was. There is an unending list of characters!
Back to the fleet. Soon we are free of the back-stabbing first mate because we throw him overboard. Things seem to be going well until the storm hits. Once it passes we find ourselves alone at sea. We manage to make it to the new province, but we’re the only ship that does. (During the game my character repeatedly must console the townsfolks with the notion that the other ships will arrive “soon”.) The “city” we dock at is a huddled mass of badly maintained buildings and a big wall. The big wall is to keep out the lizard men. They have a special name, but I don’t remember it. The city had a special name too. As did everything else.
We meet the Inquisition…didn’t like the leader or the organization. We fight off a huge lizard man attack and earned the respect of the huddled masses. We catch an assassin trying to kill the mysterious man from the ship that I mentioned earlier. We discover the assassin isn’t there to kill him though. She was there to save him. (That’s what all the good assassins say.) Apparently he has something inside of him (a spirit or something) that is sacred to her people.
She reveals that she needs to take him to a secret temple deep in the Jungle. (By-the-way, the assassin was not human or lizard man, but I can’t remember what she was. At any rate, she was special.) We decide to help her with her quest. Thanks to our amazing tracking skills and social interaction skills we make it to the temple without incident.
Then we are attacked by a huge force of lizard men.
We had to cut the game short, because someone else had reserved our table. (I didn’t know that was allowed!) We find out that the thing inside the guy is a dragon…that appears and … well, I don’t think it ended well for us … again.
Dave sets the scene in savage Mordhein.
Mordheim: The carnage at the Sacred Shrine.
Friday morning we got together with Bob, Phil, and Norm to play some “Shogun”…or “Samurai Swords” if you don’t want to get sued. This is one of my all-time favorite games. I lost an Army first round to Mike. I vowed revenge. It wasn’t long before a few of us were down an army. In the end, I took Mike out of the game, gaining his provinces. Then Norm took me out, gaining all of my provinces. Norm was two provinces shy of officially winning the game, but we called it anyway because he was so dang tough.
Shogun with Bob and Mike.
Shogun with Phil and Norm.
In ETU we all play college freshman at ETU. Each game is a half of semester. Norm is planning on running it for us until we graduate or until we die at the hands of some supernatural evil. Either way it will be great! I am pleasantly surprised how fun this game is. Maybe it’s Norm. Maybe it’s the setting.
I think its Norm.
After last game we are either seen as heroes or troublemakers depending upon who you ask. While still trying to live normal lives and pass algebra, we also have to contend with ghost hunting and flaming spirits trying to kill us.
This game starts with my character trying to get a girlfriend and Mike’s character (a cheerleader named “Double D”) nearly killing a guy with fire extinguisher. Hey, we thought he was a vampire! Al’s/Alex’s character, a college wrestler, gets a chance to wrestle with a big name wrestler. Dave’s character, a rich frat-boy, is seeing his professor on the side. Apparently she—the professor—is insatiable.
We get a paid ghost hunting assignment, so we head to the Sweat Lodge—the college’s gymnasium. All we have to do is summon a ghost and talk to it. This works…a little too well. While we hope to summon a girl that was killed in the gymnasium years ago, what we get are ALL of the kids that have died in the gymnasium…and there have been quite a few! And they are not happy about it!
We realize that salt might damage the phantoms. We split up. This always works in the movies.
In the end we manage to stop the ghosts from killing us and free the one we were concerned about.
Upon returning to the professor who gave us the assignment, his first question was “Did you get any pictures? Readings? Anything?”
Uh, no, we didn’t.
We may not graduate after all.
Norm’s ETU. We summon a ghost. Things go bad after that.
This year our friends Ben and the other Mike were at Origins, so we put together a time we could play Savage Worlds together. Just to make things more interesting Ben brought another friend whose name is Ben. That meant my players were Mike, Mike, Ben, Ben, & Alex…who later changed his name to Steve.
I ran a Sci-Fi game that took place in 1955, eight years after the Roswell, NM incident. In my game, aliens had landed at Roswell and the government is afraid it’s happening again. This time deep in the Arctic Circle.
The Army had lost contact with the O’Dell artic research base. This happened just days after receiving from the base pictures that looked an awful lot like flying UFOs. The army then scrambled to form a team to investigate the situation. The government agent in charge of the operation was joined by an a high-profile adventurer, a father-daughter team of scientists, and an alien…yes, an alien. Who better to know the “enemy” than a hotdog-loving alien who survive the Roswell crash of ’47?
The final leg of the journey to the research base is a six-hour ride in a Polarcat in sub-freezing temperatures. The joyride is interrupted by scientifically augmented polar bears who attacked the team’s polarcat. After the bears are killed, Len-E the alien, confirms that the bear’s augmentations are Alien in origin.
The team arrives at the base to fine it empty and with lots of damage. The radio antenna is busted, the equipment is busted, and there has been a fire in one of the base’s Quonset huts. While getting the radio and other equipment up and running, a lone figure collapses on the outskirts of the base. This turns out to be one of researchers. He tells the team how they have discovered a UFO in the ice and have moved the base closer to this major scientific finding. The damage to the base he explains away as damage from a storm. The party doesn’t exactly believe him, but decide to go with him to the Beta base.
It’s a trap!
They arrive at the Beta base only to be attacked by aliens and furry creatures who look like brown sasquatches. Machinery is humming all around them creating create billows of fog. The aliens are melting the ice to reveal a large alien artifact that looks nothing like anything the team has seen before. But Len-E knows what it is. Len-E also knows that the alien in charge is the Alphan’s worse criminal mastermind, Mik-L. Mik-L intends to destroy Earth with the alien artifact. No more hot dogs for Len-E!
During the ensuing battle, Len-E switches sides—or appears to. The party is able to take over the alien spaceship and imprison Mik-L. They called in the Army and are hailed as heroes for saving the earth! Of course, no one can ever know about it.
Savage 1950’s Alien Encounter. One of these players is an alien.
Savage 1950’s Alien Encounter.
It was a Shaintar game that brought us all together, so it’s only fitting the last game of the convention is Norm running Shaintar for us.
The game begins with a city in trouble. Our party of heroes known as The Chosen of the Horn are sent out to confront evil, drive them before us, and hear the limitations of their women. Or something like that.
The Kal-a-Nar have invaded the city and are rounding up the citizens for some nefarious purpose. While the rest of us sneak into the city, Samar the Wise saunters into the city declaring the death of all Kal-Nar at his hands. What Samar the Wise does not understand is that he is only a 25xp character. With him is our ninja-thief-assassin played by Dee. I’m not sure how many men she decapitated but it became her signature move. The rest of us did our best to send the Kal-a-Nar back to hell. Speaking of sending people somewhere, the Kal-a-Nar are sending their captives through portals. To where, we know not.
As we fight our way to the captives and the portals, Samar the Wise dies.
But wait! A glow encompasses his body. The Silver Unicorn, seeing us as her champions, has given Samar his life back! Samar is now Samar the Wise and Holy. …And is even more difficult to live with than before.
The Kal-a-Nar begin retreating into the portals. We follow…
…and appear in Hell. Hell is decorated with lots of lava, walls, and enemies trying to kill us. These enemies are also trying to free Ceynara, the Queen of Hell. We must stop the summoning! We cannot fail! The fate of all of Shaintar rests on our 30xp shoulders! (We got a level-up.)
After passing through the portals, our party is divided and appear at opposite ends of Hell. Without showing (much) fear we begin the long battle to the center. It was brutal. Each enemy we kill returns as a fiend from Hell. Each step we take is fraught with peril from lava and foe alike. Inch by bloody inch we battle the Kal-a-Nar and their demons. Against overwhelming odds the two parties of heroes meet at the center summoning area—just as the Queen of Hell was materializing from her long slumber in the abyss! With only seconds to spare, we dispatched the acolytes chanting the summoning spell along with their fearsome demon guardians. The Queen fades back to the Abyss. We have won! Shaintar is saved!
…and we are stuck in Hell.
Maybe Samar the Wise and Holy can get us out of here? We can only hope.
An epic finish to and epic game in an epic corner of the Board Game area of Origins. There were about 30 tables in the Board Game area that no one was using and Norm needed an epically long table for the epic final scene…which was epic!
Shaintar with Norm
Close view of Hell.
Wide view of Hell.
The Queen is summoned!
On Sunday we checked out of the hotel. I picked up my loot from selling games at the auction. Then we spent the rest of the day in the dealer area. Mike and I both bought minis for future games. Mike’s minis were AWSOME. Mine were cheap heroclix. J
We had a great time thanks to a litany of friends who shall remain nameless at this time until the NDAs are signed. What happens at Origins stays at Origins.
Chaos Steve
Epic!
Dave welcomes our new alien overlords.
The sheep say “None shall Pass!” (We offered them Alex.)
Not Our Game.
Wish it was.
Origins was different this year from past years. 1) We weren’t running 16 hours of games each, and 2) Alex, Mike’s son, joined us. Both of these things made Origins a lot of fun. We arrived and hung out with Norm after eating at Barley’s. We introduced Norm to Ra, the dice game. The first game you play of Ra is always a little different because it’s hard to tell just what you should be doing. Norm caught on fine though.
That night Norm ran us through a Savage Gladiators game. His arena was fantastic. We fought through several contests. Norm also added rules for “playing to the crowd” and “playing to the…” shoot, I can’t remember his name for it, but it’s the person that oversees the fights in the coliseum. He who has the power to say whether you live or die. My character learned that it’s not whether you actually kill the minotaur that’s important, it’s whether the crowd thinks you killed the minotaur that’s important. We lost a gladiator or two before the final contest in which we all fought to the death. Evil Mike and Evil Mark (Daymude) survived as the duel winners in the “There Can Only Be One Contest”. This shows just how corrupt the government was in the time of Savage Gladiators. Mike and Mark should have been put to death. Oh, and I shouldn’t have died, but that’s another story.
Thursday found two goblins raiding the dragon’s horde. Mike and I were the goblins. I’m not saying whose horde we plundered.
The first game on Thursday was mine. I ran a Deadlands game on a Geek Chic table. There’s nothing better than running games on a $2000+ table. As it turns out every game for the rest of the convention was run on one of their tables. In my game, the brave party was hired to guard one of Professor Vanderkook’s newest inventions—an improved version of the submersible boat. Unfortunately one of the warlord Kang’s lieutenants wanted the boat as well. There was lots of kung-fu fighting, an angry giant octopus, and even a compression explosion within one of the character’s diving suit. Just a normal day in the Maze in Deadlands.
We all got uncomfortably stuffed at Buca di Beppo’s and then returned to play in Norm’s Savage Conan game. This is a real favorite of mine for two reasons. One, Norm in the GM and two, Norm is the GM. And the third reason is that it’s Conan. (The One, Two, Three was all intentional and for no reason at all.) The adventure led us to the home of a large cave troll. Then we discovered it was really the home to a GIANT cave troll! Several of us went down, incapacitated, during the last scene with the mamma of all cave trolls. Al came to our rescue and was able to kill the creature with a fantastic damage roll.
Friday morning Mike got up early and went running with Dave. Dave tried to kill him by taking him over hither and yon. Most injuring was a hairpin curve where something in Mike’s knee went “snap”. That “snap” was nothing that kept Mike from finishing, but his days of running outside on the pavement were over for a few months while that “snap” healed.
Friday’s games stared with Dave’s Xcom game. I think everyone except Mike and I had played in one of these games before. Dave got some very cool terrain from Drop Zone Commander Cityscapes. The city layout was made even cooler by the Geek Chic table that enabled us to put the map under clear Plexiglas with the buildings on top. I got to play Deacon, the medic. Apparently the medic had died in all of the previous games. That, along with my history of playing medics, meant I was going to die. I amazed everyone, including myself, as I played the medic as he should be played…as a support team member. (I’ve learned that medics should not be the first into the fight.) Early in the game Gordon’s character jumped off a 10-story building. He thought his personal wingsuit would save him. It doesn’t when you roll a critical failure trying to deploy the wings. With the help of the medic (me), he survived to fight another day. Xcom is all about repelling an alien invasion. We did it with style and had a great time!
Friday night Mike and I got together with Bob Geiger and Phil to play some board games. But before that, I talked everyone into going to a pizza place for dinner. It was a big hit. Then Mike and I headed to Bob’s room for board games. First up was a game called Dungeon Fighters. What made this game unique was that combat involved you skipping a die unto a board painted like a target. If that wasn’t bad enough, many times you had special throw restrictions. These restrictions required you to throw the die between your legs, off your nose or elbow, or off your forehead. Dungeon Fighters is a cooperative game. We all died a long and painful death.
Next we played Clash of Cultures…until 3 a.m. Bob and Phil had never played before. I won, but only by a ½ point. Phil came in second.
Saturday Gordon ran us through a Savage Crackdown Supers game. (As you’ll see Saturday is a little fuzzy, so I may have this all wrong.) We played characters who were agents recruited for their various skills, some of these skills were induced by a drug. This drug has a name. It shall not be revealed here because I don’t remember its name. Anyway, it gave us all various super powers. It might have been called “Starbucks coffee”, but you didn’t hear that from me.
Our characters visited a super-secret, super secure containment area. Some would call this a jail. It was our bad timing that a jailbreak occurred while we were there. We fought tons of various villains; some with super powers, some not. All-in-all we had a rock ‘em sock ‘em good time.
The last game of the convention was Mike’s Savage IX Corp game. My character was a cybertech enhanced pilot. We were junior officers on a space ship.
That’s all I remember of the game. If Mike sends me more information, there may be more about it after this sentence. Let’s go see…
(I bribed a source who heard about the game from a friend who was sitting three tables away. This is what I got.) Our ship got sucked through a black hole. On the other side we discovered our ship had been badly damaged. Not only that, but a high percentage of the crew and passengers were dead or dying. Mike put us all in charge of our respective areas. This was a lot of fun roleplaying as we tried to get things done around the ship with a minimal staff. Once the ship was somewhat stabilized, we landed on a nearby planet and found a signal it was giving off. Following the signal, Gordon was killed by a viscous animal predator that he <intentionally> scared into attacking us. We discovered that the natives were enslaved by another race. We had a huge battle with them—the slavers, not the natives. Only the timely arrival of some reinforcements allowed us to survive the fight. Norm videoed that last part because Mike made noises for it. See it here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10203238638820205
Saturday night we ate at the pizza place again. It was good.
Sunday Mike, Alex and I spent the day checking out of the hotel and running around the dealer area deciding what things to buy.
Thanks Origins for another great convention!
Chaos Steve
