Looking back, I should have known it wouldn’t last.

Even though we’d been in the new digs for three months I still got a bit of a chuckle walking down the hall toward our offices.  The rich walnut paneling and supposed fine art on the walls and the thick soft carpeting under foot was still cause for a little bit of reveling at my good fortune. Or rather our good fortune; it wasn’t a one man show any more.  Hadn’t been for a good long while truth be told although the days of scraping by to make ends meet by myself after getting kicked off the force were still a pretty strong memory.   Standard crap back then, catching errant spouses, tracking down bail jumpers, living hand to mouth.  Not a great period for Mama Gilhooey’s son, too stupid to look the other way in corrupt system, too proud to ask for help.

And then a sea change, a right time right place kind of event that I still had trouble believing.  Edward Durant and his little girl Persephone getting nabbed by that psycho Uri Rasmuzi.  The father a bonus for the killer and the girl just another child in a string of them that last I heard they’re still trying to get a accurate count on.  Pursuing the sick bastard through three states, finding the father or what was left of him in that dirty warehouse in Indianapolis.  I still wake up at times in a cold sweat from what that psychopath left of the man to cool on the stained concrete.

And then the race through Indianapolis and then Ohio, always one step behind the bastard but somehow always catching a break to keep from losing him.  Tracking him to Columbus and then to abandoned row housing.

Then by some freak of chance, fate or maybe just the girl’s guardian angel looking out for her, hearing that single terror filled scream before the bastard got the gag back in place as I walked past a building no different than the rest.  Of that desperate struggle to move fast and quiet through the building before spotting the door with a finger of light coming from under it.  The smells of dankness and mildew mixed with the heavy musk of the candles flickering around the room as the door gave wave under a heavy shoulder and stumbling into the room.

The look of surprise and disbelief in the killer’s eyes as he turned to stare, crazy eyes, soul-less, dead eyes if truth be told.  And then that faint flicker of relief that still puzzled me even as I put two heavy 45’s through his nasal cavities and the back of his head exploded spraying gore across the girl strapped to the heavy wooden table.   Before the black knife in his hand hit the floor I emptied the remaining five rounds into his center of mass, a cluster of holes over his heart you could have covered with a small book.   It was the best shooting I’d ever done in my life, another sign that the Fates really wanted that little girl to live.

The girl was blindfolded and saved from the sight of the almost headless body, yet another small favor I added to my karmic debt.  I gathered her up, reassuring her she was safe now and getting nothing but little whimpers from her that near broke my heart.  I bundled her up in my overcoat, she was such a small little thing that she just disappeared into it, a golden mop of hair the only sign of her.

Leaving the body in a spreading pool of dark crimson I carried her downstairs and placed her in the car, handing her off to Stella where she immediately dove into her arms sobbing.

Stella, my sometimes partner, sometimes breakfast companion met my eyes with a question and I nodded.  She mouthed the word “Good!” to me and continued to stroke the little girl’s hair.  Slipping behind the wheel I pulled the car into the empty dark street, stopping only once at a payphone to let the girl’s mother know we had her safe and sound and would be back as soon as humanely possible.  A second call as a concerned citizen to the Columbus PD to let them know where they could find Uri aka the Pied Piper.  I hung up as the questions started, I had precious cargo to deliver and no time to talk.

The girl had fallen asleep before I got back to the car and slept the entire way back to Chicago in Stella’s arms.  The woman was a trooper, held the child without shifting or complaint during the long ride home. We rode in silence, we’d known each other since the early days when I was just another honest flatfoot on patrol and she was a unwed mother trying to make ends meet. Neither of us the type to need to fill empty spaces for the sake of noise.

Lois Durant was more than happy to get her child back.  And expressed her happiness in ways that had lead me to where I was now.  Walking down this richly appointed hall toward the heavy oak doors with my name in gold lettering on it.  Rescuing the only child of one of the wealthiest families in Chicago from a child killer had had its rewards.  Although I’d have done it for nothing more than the satisfaction of seeing the bastard’s brains paint the wall.

As I stepped through the doors to Gilhooey’s Private Investigations I was nodding in satisfaction at a future that looked rosy indeed.

And then I saw her, a raven haired beauty with skin like white silk and amethyst eyes to get lost in for days.  She rose from one of the heavy leather couches in our outer room as Candace, Stella’s niece, called out from behind the outer desk, “Boss, Sabrina De La Cote would like to talk with you.  She was referred by Mrs. Durant.”

I nodded, trying to keep my jaw from dropping to the floor and only partially succeeding.  That marble was genuine Italian and I’d hate to break it.  The woman was spellbinding, the knee high skirt she wore revealing legs that would have given Michelangelo trouble capturing their perfect curves.  Assuming the sissy had actually like dames.And those curves didn’t stop there but continued all the way up.

She held out her hand and from somewhere I managed to nod, bringing it up to brush my lips, bringing with it a faint musky floral scent I immediately fell in love with.

“Mrs. De La Cote?  Please, my office is this way.” Taking her gently by the elbow I pointed her toward the door marked Boss.

“Thank you Mr. Gilhooey.” she replied in a soft contralto that whispered things that would get a man arrested for.  And then she said something that near threatened to have me babbling like an idiot.  ”And it’s Miss.”

I turned my head to look back and my secretary and having nothing to do with me trying to get some faint grip on composure, “Candace, give Sargent Roberts a call and tell him to come by this afternoon, would you?”

“Sure thing boss.  Remember you have a ten o’clock with Fiduchi.”

“Right, thanks. Get Jocko over in case that conversation turns interesting?”

“Already taken care of, Jocko and Sully both should be here by nine.”

“Good girl.”

Candace had proven to be a life saver, smart way beyond her eighteen years, talented at making the office run smoothly and although I’d never say it in front of Stella, quite a stunner in her own right.  And her ditsy blond act had worked on more than one occasion to pick up information a prospective client perhaps hadn’t intended on telling us.  At least not immediately.

Door safely closed behind us I eased her into one of the two armchairs positioned in front of the big teak desk I used, mostly to impress clients if one was being completely honest.  Plopping down into my own seat, looking at the vision of lovliness sitting across from me I couldn’t help but think, “Tom old boy, this day just keeps getting better and better.”

Which just goes to show you, you can always trust Fate to build you up only to kick you in the nuts when you least expect it…

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We open this session with the group recovering after getting the power plant shutdown and everyone giving Bubba the big eye or at least the teeth marks on his shoulder from his being bitten by one of the undead they ran into in the cooling tower of the plant.

Everyone’s a little twitchy, keeping an eye on Bubba as Melissa heals his wounds when two mil-spec humvees come roaring into the compound both with a M249 MG blazing away on the top.   As 7.62 rounds chew up their own hummers and the walls of the cooling tower building the group dives into cover behind and under the cars with Sonny sprinting off to the side toward the edge of another building.

Roj pops up from behind cover and sprays full auto mini-uzi’s into the raiders bailing out of the two hum vees and sends them diving for their cover and the leadstorm of bullets catch three of the raiders in vital parts sending them crashing to the ground to bleed out.  He drops back down as the rain of brass tinkles across the concrete parking lot.

Bubba unlimbers his modified Remington 700 sniper rifle and one of the gunners on the humvees head explodes in a spray of red and pinkish gray.   Sonny opens up from the cover of his wall and puts a three round burst into the other gunner.  The sharp bark of the raider’s M-16′s echoes from the walls as they fill the air with messenger’s of copper jacketed death and although they graze our heroes at times they’re unable to zero in as the group continues to keep them back behind their cover.

The firefight while intense is over very quickly as the group riddles the raiders with slugs and take little to no damage other than to their own vehicles.  But they now possess two military hummers to replace them complete with mounted machine guns.

Bubba looks down at the two rounds he had to fire, two shots, two kills and then at the flood of brass scattered around Roj and shakes his dead, “Wasteful…”

WIth guns casually aimed at Bubba they head back to Phoenix to report their success at getting the plant shut down.  Bubba is quarantined for 24 hours in a cargo container but once it appears he’s not going to turn he’s let free.

They move back into the Phoenix society for a couple of weeks.  Over this time the number of refugees fleeing from Flagstaff picks up and these newcomers are debriefed and engaged into the workings of the city…

One of them has a chilling story, that the Flags have uncovered something in an abandoned military base, something that gives them evil chuckles.

Our group is dispatched along with four combat grade citizens of Phoenix to intercept and destroy the raiders that are reported to be at the military base and acquire whatever they’ve found.

The trip is a long one and takes them almost to the former border between Arizona and Mexico before they come to the base.  Melissa spots tracks that several vehicles have recently moved along the road into the base and they do a little recon spying on the base from the top of a nearby rise.  They spot 4 or 5 raiders moving boxes onto a flatbed truck, the numbers far too few for the vehicles they can see, two jeeps and two flatbeds.   In the distance behind the base smoke starts to spew up and they’re not sure what to make of that.

They enter base, the raider vehicles they’re driving, the same military hummers they captured at the nuclear power plant,  they figure will give them the time they need to unload on the raiders in the camp.   With Bubba and Roj manning the MG’s they unload on the raiders they can see easily getting the drop on them and blast them into the next life, Roj taking one out with a leg shot from his MG that amputates the raider’s leg from the knee down.

As it turns out that raider is the only survivor and they slap a tourniquit on him to keep him from bleeding out while they question him.  They learn the raiders have uncovered a cache of nerve gas and have loaded it on a train.  The same train that they see leaving in the distance by the smoke from its locomotive.

A sharp knife takes care of the survivor and they roar off in pursuit of the train.

Catching up to it they send one of their allies over who misjudges the jump and goes down in a tangle of broken legs and arms to be left behind…  A second ally is sent across who makes it, their plan to be to turn on the brakes on the caboose of the train to slow it down.   Then they crest a rise to see a canyon sprawled out in front of them and the train will cross over it on a narrow trestle.

With little time to consider they start to bail out and cross over to the train, our heroes making, Bubba even able to detach his MG and toss it over to Roj who catches it handily.    Leaving two of the Phoenix allies at the wheel.  One of them tries to follow the train across the trestle bridge only to lurch off it and go crashing down into the jagged rocks below.

With our four heroes and one ally they move through the caboose finding no one.  Ahead lies a flatbed loaded with military cargo and beyond that a sealed passenger car.  They continue to move forward and Bubba snatches open the door and heaves a grenade through as Roj smashes down on the trigger of his MG.    Chaos ensues as they blast their way through the occupants of the passenger car using grenades and automatic fire to kill the raiders who were enjoying a nice sandwich and glasses of lemonade after a hard day of loading nerve gas on a train.

Our heroes didn’t get off scott free this time with Roj and Bubba getting chewed up a bit from the raider’s fire.  As they stood in the aftermath the far door on the passenger car opened and another raider enters and unloads on them with an MP5 and they hear footsteps on top of the car heading to the back door.

The Sarge although tough is killed in time for Sonny to race out of the forward door and up a ladder to see four more raiders, one stretched flat about to throw a grenade inside.   The grenade goes awry and does little damage as Sonny peppers the guy.  Roj limps outside and up and joins Sonny spraying the others with machine gun fire and again proving that his heavy training on the gun range is paying off and suppresses or kills most of them.   As the last raider falls down to tumble onto the flatbed below they both turn and see the tunnel about to sweep them off the top of the train and drop down.  Sonny spots the milling throngs of undead using the tunnel to escape the heat of the sun and screams over the radio to the others who immediately slam the doors to the passenger car closed.

With the gushy crackling noise of the undead being battered by the roaring locomotive they hunch down on top of the car hoping there’s no low hanging sign about to sweep them off.

The train exits the tunnel and ahead lies a small community, it’s purpose unknown but the throngs of undead surrounding a train station by the tracks and the muzzle flashes coming from people atop the station tell yet another chapter in the undead’s burgeoning dominance in this scary new world.

Grenades arch out from the top of the station, one of them blowing apart the tracks ahead.   Sonny and Roj bail off the train, trying to tuck and roll in the sands along the tracks, SOnny taking the time to use his walkie talking to warn the others who also bail off the train, tucking and rolling as best they can.   Surprisingly all of the emerge unscathed even as the locomotive hits the warped tracks and derails.  The noise is amazing as the 9 cars of the train tumble and crash about.  One of the tanker cars slams into the edge of the station sending the room collapsing forming a ramp as the undead that survive impact with the smashing cars use to swarm up and over the figures on the roof.

Battered, bruised and limping our group swings wide of the wreckage for the far side of the area hoping for vehicles that they can use to get away.  As the seconds tick by, more and more of the undead catch wind of them and start to shamble their way.  Soon they have 10′s of them then 50 of them stumbling after our living heroes.

As they round the wreckage they spot raider vehicles and they sprint toward them, diving into a humvee mere seconds ahead of the hordes after them.  As Roj presses the start button the first meaty impacts of fists on the window occur and then the engine kicks over and the vehicle starts to move.

On the way back to phoenix they run into a phoenix patrol heading toward them as support.  They explain about the gas and the leader of the convey, the security leader of the town Sasha Green, her eyes light up and she determines to recover the gas.

As our heroes trade glances they all without discussion decided that perhaps somewhere else might be better suited for them.  They head back to town and load up their supplies, a few checking their former allies to see if they want to go and then quietly slip out of town, leaving the two towns of Phoenix and Flagstaff to sort out their differences without them.

And thus ends our view into the lives of several strangers of New York thrown together by the unlikely event of the end of the world as we know it.

Perhaps we’ll pick up their story at a later time and see how well they fared in their trip across this once great country but now the home to atomic craters and shambling dead.

Aftermath –

All in all the module as decent.  A little railroady but sometimes that’s necessary for a canned module like this to keep things moving toward the conclusion.   The great train robbery was something I threw in there ad libbed as I thought it would be a cool fight sequence and it was I believe pretty enjoyable.   Rather than continue the main storyline where the characters become arbitrators in the upcoming confrontation between the two cities they made the obvoius decision and headed out.  Who wants to be anywhere near a malfunctioning nuclear plant between two warring cities armed with nerve gas, nuclear mines and nuclear warheads (something they didn’t uncover but were in the module to be found).

Due to life’s obligations we’re going to taking roughly a month hiatus from RP’ing before we reconvene and see how the 1920′s work out for our group in a dark pulp noir kind of setting.

Hope to see you there, at least vicariously.

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[Sonny had an Action Card called Stool Pigeon that let him get all the information that an extra has.]

While this was going on the other leaders of the group were arranging for inventory of the gear and damage assessment to be performed.   The unknown help from higher on the mountain remains a mystery.  As Bubba is talking with two others of the group there’s a sudden susseration of snow falling and a loud meaty thud as 1000 pounds of undead brown bear lands on the road way next to him falling from above.  The bear stands leaving chunks of itself on the roadway and swipes at Bubba as Bubba turns and runs away screaming like a girl.   It rips three furrows through his ass cheeks as he flees but the damage is minimal.

Sonny, Roj and Melissa open up on the beast at close range, choosing to stand their ground even as the putrefied creature of darkness roars the sound broken by the holes in its throat and charges after Roj after he puts two loads of buckshot into it from his sawed off 12 gauge.

[My son Ryan was running the bear and chose to go after the players rather than the closer NPC's... ]

Roj narrowly avoids taking a huge smash from the bear’s foul claws and stumbles back reloading his shotgun.  Bubba after doing a baseball slide under the bus rolls around and opens fire with his hunting rifle nailing the beast in the skull the hard thick bone causing the bullet to ricochet.

Bubba continues to nail the beast again and again as it keeps it’s attention focused on Roj who jukes and jives narrowly avoiding damage again and again.

[Just some notes about this combat.  I had to burn no less than 4 Bennies, Zombear's 2 for being a wild card and 2 of my GP bennies just to keep the thing alive for the first two rounds alone.  The thing had a toughness of FOURTEEN and the player's kept acing their damage rolls forcing me to soak wounds like a mother.  This costs me later during another fight burning so many here.  I was a little concerned with the bear's high toughness value going into this fight but the opening shotgun blast, both barrels each doing 14 or more damage had me leaving it alone.   The bear did manage to hit a few times with his claws d12+4 damage but the players were able to soak out of them each time.  I was kind of hoping its infected ridden claws might nail someone for 2 wounds and kick off the paranoia as they wait to see if the damaged person turns but alas it wasn't to be.  But the session does end on a high note, see further down...]

Finally Bubba puts the a round through the beasts eye socket blowing the creatures brains to mush and it falls motionless.  Bubba and Roj compared the rents in their clothing, roj’s on the front from where he faced the beast, Bubba’s on his ass as he ran away.  The sikh is walking around a little puff chested now.

Continuing their talks with the prisoners they find out that two cities, Flagstaff and Phoenix have power supplied by a nuclear reactor.  From their talking with the guy who’s trying to save his life by supplying everything he knows, futilely as it turns out, they decide Phoenix is the place they want to go.   Flagstaff sounds a little lawless and the whole they confiscate your goods when you enter leaves a bad taste in their mouth.  Not to mention that’s where the raiders are from so showing up in their vehicles with their goods might not be the best impression to make.

They load up the working vehicles, one of the humvees and the bus are toast, no way to get them working again without a full garage and spare parts supply.  They decide to tow the busted hummer with the working one to keep everyone inside a vehicle as they descend the cold mountains.  With the truck breaking a path, loaded down with supplies they leave the site of the battle.  Though not before stripping both the captured raiders and then tossing them down the cliff side alive to fall flailing to their probably immediate deaths.

[When the thin veneer of civilization breaks revealing the ME ME ME beast we're born with underneath you can expect to see such scenes played out over and over.  Make sure you have friends near by when it happens.]

They make their way down out of the mountains without further issue and the warmth is welcome for awhile.  Spotting lights as they slowly maneuver the highways over the arid lands of Arizona they pull up and send Sonny ahead to scout.   Luckily for Sonny the people with the lights, coleman lanterns, are a little toasted from a cache of liquor they’d found.

They discover another set of Flagstaff raiders holed up in two of the motel rooms.  They maneuver into position and Bubba tosses in a flashbang that Melissa’s been carrying since New York into the room holding the bulk of the raiders and succeeds in shaking them all leaving them dizzy and disoriented.  Bubba and Sonny proceed to lay waste to these raiders as they stumble about.

The other pair, Melissa and Roj don’t have it as easy running into the raider’s leaders.  Both Roj and Melissa catch a lot of buckshot of their own as the raider leader blasts away at the pair.

As the two watchers on the roof wake up from the gunfire and rush over and drop down behind Sonny and Bubba they unload full auto on our two heroes and somehow manage to miss completely. Bubba and Sonny both look at each other and then they and the two gunmen share a glance of incredulous disbelief that they’re untouched.   Bubba swivels at the hip and sprays his autofire across both, killing one and rattling the other and Sonny rushes forward to help the other two heroes as the shot gun blasts are a bit worrying especially when Melissa staggers backwards through the door, blood streaming from pellet holes over her torso and Roj is in there screaming “Holy Cow this hurts!”.

He arrives in time to finish off the leader and Bubba takes out the last guy on the stairs.  Inside the rooms they find three more woman captured but unlike the earlier ones they managed to kill these raiders without collateral damage and they’re all still alive.

They recover quite a bit of gear, they’ve amassed quite a collection of weapons by now and continue on to Phoenix.

They go through the interrogation process and are then allowed to join the city and are allowed to keep all their gear, a bit surprising.  They integrate themselves into the city, electing to join the guards on the walls as their daily duties.

A few weeks later they’re brought to a meeting and are given a mission to escort an engineer from the Palo Verde power plant to the plant to shut it down.  Even though the plant is fully automated they really don’t want it going Chernobyl and have decided to shut it down gracefully.

The next morning they head out and are ambushed by two snipers on the road.  They kill one and drive off the other but not before Joesph is wounded.

They continue on to the power plant to find undead all over the compound.  They whip and attract the undead and then lead them off down the road for several minutes and then return.  As they’re leaving they spot several flagstaff vehicles parked next to the control room.

They roll out and Roj moves up to the building to disable their vehicles.  Someone meanders out of the control room, drops his doughnut as he sees the group and runs back in and slams the door.  The group has a few seconds to get into position when all three doors to the control room open up and raiders show up.  Two are immediately blasted back into the room and the third seeing the way the wind’s blowing ducks back inside and closes the door.

The group moves up to the two open doors and proceeds to destroy the raiders inside in spite of their cover and grenade throwing.  The raiders are slaughtered to a man and the group isn’t even scratched.

Joseph moves forward as the room is cleared and starts the shutdown procedures noting that one of the coolant towers is showing an alarm.  They’re going to have to open the coolant flow using bypass procedures.  Using the security cams they spot four undead technicians wandering in the cooling tower.  There are only four protective suits and Sonny is elected to stand guard outside as Melissa, Bubba, Roj escort Joseph inside to open the coolant.

They open the doors and move deeper inside and encounter the undead.  Three shots ring out and three undead go down but the last latches on to Bubba and rips through his suit and deep into his shoulder, its infection laden bite going deep into his flesh.

Outside the sniper that fled the ambush shows up and misses Sonny who turns and rips a three round burst through the snipers chest killing him instantly.

As they rush Bubba out of the coolant tower while Joseph starts the coolant procedures the blood running out of the deep bite marks is on everyone’s mind.

[Aftermath - You never saw such a bunch of acing, exploding dice rolling in your life on the part of the players.  My poor NPC's never stood a chance in any of it.  Even when I did manage to wound them they soaked the damage away or healed it all right up in the after battle procedures.  They've essentially at this point got an unlimited supply of guns and ammo with everything they've recovered from their attackers.  There's perhaps one more session's worth of adventures left in this module.  It might be eked out to two but I'm going to make it one.  I'm interested in starting the Roaring 20's Supernatural Detective Noir Black Comedy campaign and I think the players have a good enough grasp of the basics of Savage Worlds that they can now make a semi-informed decision as to their characters when they build them. ]

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The highway runs through the middle of the town if town you can call it.  There’s a mall filled with the usual suspects, Starbucks, Orange Julius, Starbucks (yes coffee is just that popular among the highway trade) a Cinn-A-Bonn and various clothing and shoe stores.  A few dash and grab style grocery stores, a bakery and a slew of souvenir shops line the sides of the highway.  Off the south side of the highway is a sprawled collection of houses and a large stone church.

Our heroes looking for a place to hole up as nightfall approaches and with it the infected will start stirring again as the heat of the day fades spot the church and pull the bus around and head that way.   The roads are far from straight once they leave the highway and it takes a few minutes to wind through them to reach the church.

There they find it surrounded by rings of cars, barricaded as best as is possible under the circumstances.  Bodies all containing bullet holes are sprawled everywhere and the windows and doors are barricaded tightly.  Leaving Bubba with Roj’s binoculars and a walkie talkie atop the bus the others, Alice, Melissa, Roj and Sonny inspect the church.  There are no sounds even when they knock, the sounds oddly loud in the still quiet air.  Everyone’s a little spooked by just how quiet things are in the world now with the absence of traffic, tv’s, radios, the almost imperceptible background hum of electrical and gasoline devices and the electricity itself that has denoted humanity for the entirety of their lives up till now.

They find the back door of the church open, obviously smashed in from the outside and of course more bodies.  Inside the church it’s a grisly scene, blood, bullets and bits and pieces of bodies scattered everywhere along with hundreds of empty shell cases.  It was obvious what had happened, a group of survivors had tried to hold up in the church, much like our group had decided to do and had been swarmed and then overwhelmed.  Images of the desperate defenders blasting the infected as they clustered around the church windows and doors, the fear as their supply of ammo steadily dwindled.  They could almost here the echoes of “Reloading!” and “I’m out!” still, picturing the men and women who’s bodies they could see rushing from one location to another trying to push back the inevitable ending with anything they could.

Keeping in touch with Bubba via walkie talkie they, with stomachs churning and minds trying to avoid thinking of their own fates, searched the building uncovering several weapons, all empty, slides locked back, most with blood on them where the defenders in the end tried to use them as clubs in futile effort to stay alive.

Downstairs in a basement under the church they found water along with several melee weapons where the last few survivors had fled the upstairs apparently.  As they worked their way through the… best to think of it simply as debris… they could piece together the events that must have happened.  Here lay a man, possibly a trucker one might think, a broken fire axe next to him, his throat almost gone and his legs missing large chunks of flesh.  Here a woman lay next to a fallen bookcase, the book case itself fallen over in the struggle, her ribs now visible and a empty void where her organs once lay.

The fallen bookcase, containing hymn books and sheet music had fallen in such a way that it blocked another door marked storage.   Roj after listening and hearing nothing muscled the bookcase up away from the door and then yelled in fear as it the door slammed open stopping against the bookcase he held, the opening only a scant few inches.  Through the gap he saw savage faces, mouths twisted in hunger and eyes lit by fury, faces smaller than they should be was his first thought before panic crashed down on him. Screaming in inarticulate fear and emotion he slammed the bookcase back down against the door hearing the snap of small fragile bone and high pitched howls as the creatures, once children, now merely snarling beasts after his flesh yanked their arms back through the gap.

With a thud the door slammed shut and Roj lunged forward to press against it, breath rasping harshly through his mouth as he shouted for the others to help him hold it closed.  Melissa rushed forward to help him hold the door shut shouting for the other two to grab anything they could find to put in front of the door.   A mad scramble ensued as tiny fists beat on the door, each blow echoing through the stone basement.

Gallon containers of water were swiftly piled high on the bookcase weighing it down, the four not stopping until the pile was too high to allow any more to be placed without rolling down and across the floor.

Roj went back upstairs to radio Bubba after the walkie talkies failed to work in the basement. To his relief they worked fine once he’d left the basement.   Bubba, glasses sweeping over the mall in the distance, eyed the sinking sun.  It wouldn’t be long before the Infected rose and started moving.  He swung down after telling Roj to get the others and meet him in back of the church.

The survivors under the leadership of the others worked feverishly to hook up the bus to some of the cars in the ring and pull them out of the way while others hauled bodies outside.  The ghastly sounds from the locked storage compartment were ignored for the moment although Melissa  stood guard in the basement while Tony and Chuk stood ready in case the door started to move.  It was better to think of them merely as creatures, as Infected or monsters rather than children.  It made it easier to deal with the scratching noises coming from the other side of the heavy oak door.

As the sun continued its descent the church was cleaned up and the barricades reinforced as best as they could.  The bus was backed up against the broken door and the bus’s doors were locked and tied down preventing opening from the outside.

As the shadows grew longer outside they retreated to the basement hoping the earth and stone would shelter them from the Infected’s uncanny ability to sense them.

Finally though there was no putting it off any longer and the infected in the store room had to be dealt with.  Roj, pouring a little gasoline from a molotov into a chainsaw that was lying upstairs, got it started and then carved a small hole in the top of the door.  The noise inside sound more like a pack of wild dogs haring after prey and for most that was what they pretended it was as Roj threw in a molotov and after hearing it break inside lit a second one and tossed it after the first.   A gout of flame blasted through the opening and under the door and the sounds from inside grew even more frantic but within less than a minute a ghastly silence broken only by the heavy breathing of those watching was all that filled the room.  The scent of cooked meats sent more than one of the survivors stumbling upstairs where they lost what little food they’d consumed over the day.

The hole and gaps were stuffed with spare cloth and the survivors huddle together near the front of the basement, as far from the storage room as they could get as outside the sun fell and the Infected rose from their torpor.

The group huddled together, sparing a precious half gallon for each person to wash as best as they could from the supply they’d found in the basement as the night passed slowly but uneventfully.  The looming threat of the radio broadcast, telling them to get as far as possible from the city before it was cleansed in a bath of nuclear fire shrouded the dawning of the new day in fear.

As the morning hours crept ever so slowly they passed the time as best as they could until at 11:34 by Bubba’s watch a tremor started to run through the building shaking it as the ground wave reached outwards.  Minutes later another tremor shook the building even as the first was dying out.

“There goes New York and Philly.” Roj said as the rumbling earth subsided and everyone looked around at each other eyes wide.

They remain in the basement throughout the remainder of the day taking inventory and stock, handing out weapons to each survivor even if they don’t have ammo to give them yet.   They find a journal that indicates one of the previous occupants was in radio contact with a group out of Phoenix that was setting up a safe haven for survivors.   Later that night they  are forced to go upstairs as Infected start banging on the buildings.  There they find to their utter horror that the infected now running around the building already bear wounds that should have killed them and in fact appear to be true undead as a light gray radioactive ash lays upon everything.

Alice, a long time Romero fan, steps up and explains the proper way to kill a true zombie and the group uses makeshift spears and crowbars, hammered out through the gaps in the boards over the windows to plunge them into the eyes and heads of the zombies outside after other wounds fail to do any significant damage.

[Dennis: I wanted to ramp up the scary bits here.  Now they have both Infected (still living creatures) and true Undead to worry about.  Like all Undead the cause is pretty much way out there but in this case the Infected were caused by a fungal virus that ate away their rational thought centers leaving only the beast like monkey/lizard brain which created the raging creatures known as Infected.   But when subjected to radiation this mutates the fungus and gives it the ability to stimulate nerve pulses and the body resumes motion and activity and continues its last imprinted activity.  Which unfortunately for the living is to seek out and destroy those creatures that it senses are not part of its hive mind.  In essence the government did what it always seems to do, screw things up more. ]

The group defeats the risen undead around the church, all the bodies they’d pulled out that didn’t have head wounds rose up and sought out the church again.  Luckily for the survivors they’d emptied the church of the bodies and for the most part the last defenders had killed most of the infected with head wounds.

As the day dawned and the Infected went back to their torpor state, a state the Undead were not subject to, they devised a plan.  They need to refuel the bus. To do that they needed a way to pump diesel out of the tanks below the truck stop.  Bubba, while standing watch the day before made note of the stores listed on the Mall marquees and one of them was a hardware store.

Our heroes elect to try to sneak through town to the mall, not wanting to risk the bus running out of fuel in an attempt to get it there.  They reach the mall only to find it filled with infected or undead or both.  They move around to the back side and break into a receiving room next to the loading docks.   Bubba heads up a ladder to the front to drop a concussion grenade to draw the creatures toward the front while the rest try to get into the building.  Melissa is almost grabbed as she pries the door open Roj is there to blow the creature away that’s reaching through it.

The room inside is empty of other creatures even as the concussion grenade goes off out front blowing out the glass and attracting creatures.  Bubba high tails it across the roof to the back and spots undead moving across the parking lot toward him.  He slides down the ladder and hammers on the door to get in, making it inside seconds ahead of the infected after him.  They bar the door on the inside, now that the lock is broken its not going to be much deterrent to the creatures although luck is on their side and the door opens outwards and the creatures aren’t the brightest bulbs on the tree and primarily are pushing against it.

The receiving room opens into the loading dock and after Sonny hears movement inside, his years of living on the streets have honed his survival senses and give him an edge in this scary new world.   A cheap desk is carefully lifted and placed in front of the door blocking it.  When everyone is set, Sonny yanks open the door and the rest start firing, killing the infected creatures that swarm toward them, blocked by the desk.  Bubba is forced to drop down and brace it from being pressed in while the rest kill the creatures.   Everything is going well when the side door is open as one of the creatures outside finally, accidentally pulls the knob sharply and a creature reaches through and tries to grab Sonny.  Bubba shoves a hand through Sonny’s legs, MP5 in hand and unleashes a burst that rips up the creature’s body shoving it back into the others.  Sonny turns and unloads his shotgun on the other two while Roj and Alice finish off the ones in the loading room.

They slam the door to the outside shut and refasten it and check out the loading dock finding a miscellaneous of items, including a H&K G3 still in its shipping create.   Sadly no ammo though.

Using a map on the wall they discover the hardware store shares a wall with the receiving room office.  A fire axe takes care of that and they bust a hole into the hardware store and start moving precious items into the office.  A hand pump, duct tape, flashlights, tools, everything they think they can use is grabbed in swift silence.

Piling their booty near the exit they discuss the gun shop which is across and just down the main hallway outside the loading dock area.  Roj is for retreating outside and then slowly but safely hammering through the roof to drop down into the shop.

Unfortunately fate steps in as Vlad radios in and informs them the bus is getting swarmed with undead, screams echo over the walkie talkie.  Vlad is ordered to head the bus to the mall and the group gets ready and charges into the hall, guns and bolt cutters ready.  They slide to a halt in front of the gun store and snap the lock off the sliding security gate and slam it down behind them even as undead swarm toward them.

They find a treasure trove of guns and ammo inside and load up, ignoring the undead trying to reach through the gate after them.  As Vlad reaches the mall he drives in a huge circle around it in the parking lot as the ones inside carefully kill the 40+ creatures outside.  With those dead they struggle to get the gate back up and their loot outside.   As the bus swings in to pick them up they throw their gear on board even as a huge swarm of undead come around the corner.  The bus pulls away just ahead of the creature’s grasping hands.

They head down the highway trying to cut line of sight with the creatures and apparently it worked as they reach the truck stop and after a few minutes of anxious waiting there are no undead in sight.   Roj and Alice step outside, Roj to pump and Alice to stand guard and the diesel starts to slowly flow into the bus.  The seconds tick away, each minute allowing more precious fuel to enter the bus.  As the tank reaches half full though zombies start to appear from a new direction, drawn by the feel of the bus full of people and they have to abandon the pump and flee down the highway away from the huge swarm and the new swarm.

About this time they realize a bus makes a pretty good weapon and after stringing out the 20 or so new infected they reverse course and smash them flat and return to finish fueling.

They leave the town, taking a bypass route around it and head south west toward Phoenix and this city of safety they’d read about.  Their route is convoluted as they try to steer clear of all major cities for fear of radiation and the light gray dust laying everywhere is an ever present reminder that perhaps it might be too late.

In a small strip town they run into two other survivors, Elijah and Mary, who offer to trade them fresh foods for any canned goods they have and invite them to their homestead.  Paranoid our group declines and gets back on their bus, guns ready and continue on their trip.

[Dennis: This was a canned encounter in the Zombie Run module and it went about like I figured it would knowing my players.  Although I think it would have been a pretty fun encounter to play out.]

After days of driving, siphoning fuel from abandoned semis and the like and many many  detours they reach the Rockies and head up them, running into snowfall on the narrow winding roads through the mountains.  With a cliff on both sides, one up and one down, they slowly navigate the roads and as they near the top they spot a convoy on the road behind them.  Suspicious as one might expect they try to increase their speed but after almost losing the bus over the edge are forced to slow down and the convoy catches up with them.

Gun fire erupts from the vehicles and one of the rear tires is blown out.  Realizing they’re not going to be able to get away  Bubba slams the bus to a halt angled across the road and they return fire.

The fight is intense as fully automatic weapons rip the back of the bus to shreds.  Vlad is downed, bullets smashing through his head as he leans out to fire his pistol back at the attackers and Susan dies a little later, bleeding out as a bullet pierces the veins in her neck.

With few long guns among them things look bleak but slowly the survivors whittle away their attackers in spite of the many automatic weapons they’re facing and unexpectedly shots ring out from the hillside above them creating confusion among the enemy.

As the raiders are down to two men they try to bargain their way out of their predicament and the group yells back that they’re free to go.  As the two men get back on their dirt bikes and head back the way they came, our survivors nail them both with grazing wounds.  Trapped away from the cover of their larger vehicles, taking fire from two directions the two men throw up their hands and kneel in the snow.

Stay tuned to find out what happens next….

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A small introduction to your cast going clockwise.  The characters were picked at random by the players out of 8 total possibilities -

• Sonny Payne – A homeless man on the streets of NYC.  He knows this is the work of the aliens.  He’s a survivor first and foremost.  [and his friends who'll you'll see later.]
• Melissa Montenegro, the daughter of a retired Spanish ambassador, raised in England who is in NYC to visit the birthplace of her mother.  An older woman she is in her 40′s played by Laura.
• Travis “Bubba” Howell -A good ol’ boy with a truck and runs the Howell Feed and Seed back in Barnswallow Missouri where he has a large family.  He’s been a bit reluctant to say why he was in NYC when the event occurred.
• Alok “Roj” Persaud – Roj as he’s known to his friends is a political science major from India going to NYC.

Each of these two has taken a couple of others under their wing although their allies play only a small part so far and we’ll leave them nameless except of Crazy Mary who is another homeless person that’s came with Sonny.

These four and 16 others are holed up in the Baxter building.  It’s been a month since the first reports of the infected occurred, dismissed as rioters, crazies, terrorists.  But within days the ‘rioters’ had become a global phenomenon and things swiftly went to hell in a hand-basket.  The infected are crazed mindless killing machines fueled by a adrenaline rage that gives them great strength and speed although they’re a bit spastic.   Being bitten by the infected leads to the wounded ‘turning’ within hours and joining the mindless throngs.   There is no cure.  If you’re infected you will turn.  Not every bite infects but the odds are stacked against you if you are.

Two scavenging parties that went out over the two weeks prior to today have failed to return.  The parties were both 10 men and women strong against Roj’s recommendations.  He believes the ability of the creatures to sense the uninfected is strengthened the larger the group of non-infected there are.  It was his recommendations that put them on the sixth floor of the building as that seemed to be beyond the creature’s abilities to sense mass groups.

Just last night  another group a couple of blocks down the group that was holed up on the 3rd floor of a building was swarmed by infected and presumably destroyed.

With the loss of the two scavenging parties the group lost most of its youth and the majority of its firepower although Bubba retained a MP5 he picked up off a downed S.W.A.T. officer.

Now things are looking a bit grim.  They have enough food to feed the 20 remaining survivors for perhaps a week although water isn’t a problem thanks to Melissa’s pushing to fill everything that would hold water in the early days before the power went out.

They decide that the ability to protect themselves with something more than boards with nails in them is of higher importance and trek on foot during the hottest part of day 31 of the event to the police museum about a mile away which also included a small police force.  The infected tend to retreat into the cooler parts of the buildings out of the heat during the hottest parts of the day and aren’t nearly as active or present.

Bodies in front of the museum yielded some valuable finds, a police car with the keys in it, Roj, picked up an MP5 of his own, concealed under a body although they found few other items of real value, a couple of flashlights, some MRE’s and the like.  Good stuff to be sure but not the rocket launchers they were all secretly hoping for.

The sound of engines alerted them and they retreated into the police station to watch from concealment.  Two teens on scooters went by in the street, fairly harmless looking but the group decided to let them go by without flagging them down.

The noise though woke up four infected who were slumbering further back in the station who attacked. The battle was short although furious and the two sub machine guns proved to be pretty valuable.  Bubba and Roj gong full auto decimated the infected but not before Sonny Payne was seriously bitten.  Melissa heals his wounds, and her own, using up medical supplies brought by Roj. The three of them trade secret looks as she cleans the savage bite mark on his shoulder.

As the last of the infected dropped inside the police station the growing sound of a swarm of infected pursuing the scooters swelled and then receded outside the building.

[Game Mechanic - If a non-infected takes damage from an infected of more than 1 wound then at the end of the encounter I make a secret roll to see if they've been infected themselves.  The group doesn't know the result of this roll or of subsequent rolls to see when the bitten actually turn.  Typically a bitten turns withing a few hours, fewer more often than several.

In regards to the swarm outside if the fight inside was going on with gunfire when the swarm went by then portion of that herd would peel off and enter the building but the group managed to kill the initial group fast enough that it was all quiet by the time the swarm went by.]

They pile their haul into the police car and head back to their building without further incident.  There, guns leveled at Sonny Payne they take away his new found fireaxe and lock him in the back of the police car and retreat upstairs.  They do leave him a water bottle and a MRE.

It’s not long before a single infected, following the car randomly takes the right turns to end up in the parking garage and senses Sonny where he’s cowering in the floorboards in the back seat.  It starts beating on the glass but has trouble getting through.  Sonny does a Jedi mind trick on it and manages to retreat away by kicking out the glass on the opposite side and then carefully opening the door and slinking away leaving the infected still trying to get to him by going through the window.   Sonny carefully sneaks away down the line of the group’s parked vehicles and holes up in the stairwell and blocks the door using some of the furniture the group filled the stairwell up with.

After a night of trying out MRE’s and watching Little Mermaid for the 18th time on the single DVD/TV player combo unit they have that’s running off an inverter attached to a car battery, the group comes back downstairs to check on Sonny.

Since he’s still able to speak semi-coherently they quit aiming guns at him.  Directly anyway, they’re still pointed in his general direction and discuss their next step.  Sonny, having left his MRE in the car and spending the night hungry remembers where some restaurant supply houses are and the four of them head that way.

The first one they come to is barricaded from inside and when they knock a voice yells at them to go away. They spot another man on the roof who looks over real quick and then ducks back sporting a pistol.  They offer to trade but the group inside wants only ammo and our group has none to spare.   In spite of Sonny’s uncanny ability to come up with bullets by scavenging.

They leave and move on to another place.  There they find it open although not unoccupied, Sonny’s flashlight highlights 3 infected eating various glops smashed out of cans.  They charge but not before Roj and Bubba unleash bursts on two of them turning them into rag dolls.  The third makes it to Sonny who beans it with his fireaxe on the way in and one of the others puts a bullet into its skull.

The gun fire though has roused many infected who begin to move toward the sound.  The group hurriedly moves some furniture in front of the broken door and retreats further into the building.  There they find a cornucopia, coming up with all the food they could want short term and a panel truck to haul it in.  As the infected outside wander away unable to find the source of the noises they load the truck up with food, building a barricade in the back for Roj to hang out behind while the other three are up front.

They head back to their building but not before a bullet grazes Bubba’s shoulder, shot through the window glass. A burst of automatic fire, probably assault rifle calibre rips through the top of the truck and punches holes in various cans of peaches, tomato paste and corn but doesn’t do any damage and Bubba floors it.

They head straight back to their building and park the truck on the garage with back up against a wall and retreat upstairs to enjoy some of the fuits of their labor.

[Unbeknownst to them, they were followed and another group of survivors is deploying outside their building while they sleep.]

They’re shaken awake in the early hours of the next morning by Tony who likes to listen to the radio, there’s a 6 hour loop that’s still playing from a college station and Tony does like  his rap and hip hop, strangely enough for a middle aged electrician out of the Bronx.

There is now a looping EBS message, the voice male and somehow distinguished sounding that says all many major urban centers are going to be nuked in an effort to stem the infected before they start to spread further out into the country and if you can hear this you have 24 hours to get 150 miles distance.

That puts a crimp in their plans and they go into overdrive gathering gear and rushing it downstairs to the garage levels.

They decide to take three vehicles, Bubba will be driving his Surburban as the lead car along with Melissa and six of the other survivors.  Joe, a subway employee is going to drive the Voyager with 5 of the group and Sonny is going to drive the panel truck with Roj riding shotgun.

Surprised to find themselves under fire as they exit the building the surburban takes several hits, one almost taking Bubba out and another burst doing damage to the SUV.   Everyone ducks and the truck surges ahead although leaking steam to disappear down the street.

The minivan isn’t so lucky and takes a lot of damage from a burst of automatic fire that destroys the engine and steering and it continues across the street and smashes into a building. The passengers bail out and try to surrender although a couple are gunned down as they exit the vehicle.

This distraction though proved beneficial to the panel truck and it escapes relatively unharmed although it does take a couple of hits.

The group meets up and continues toward the Brooklyn Bridge only to find it choked with cars and impassible.  There’s some discussion and then the swarm of infected following the sound of the vehicles is sighted and they all make a break for the pedestrian walkway on foot.

They’re chased but with the use of gasoline, molotovs and suppressive fire from the MP5′s they manage to put enough distance between them and the pursuit to escape.

They start looking for transportation and come up with a single car even as the infected are closing back in.  They pile 14 people, somehow, onto and in and around this car, Bubba and Melissa inside and Roj and Sonny in the truck (hood open).   The car is barely able to move but move it does.  As the swarm of infected are working closer one of the people on the roof falls off  and Sonny spots a large wound on his leg.  Whaaaa?  He leans around the trunk lid and spots Crazy Mary concealing a bloody blade.  He takes a moment to consider the situation and then another person falls off the roof, this one also with a large slash on his leg.  Roj and Sonny both start yelling “Crazy bitch on the roof is knifing people.” even as the swarm chasing them is deflected by first the one and then other of the wounded people.

[Mary's bio explains she's a survivor and she failed her spirit/guts check and saw the best way to speed the car up was to lighten the load.  Which she did.]

Bubba aims his MP5 upwards and puts a hole through the car roof and through Mary and she loses her grip and slides backwards smashing the truck lid down onto the ones in the trunk.  They push it back and then reach around and haul her body sideways off the car where it tumbles to the street.

Down to eleven the car is able to go faster and they manage to leave the pursuit.

They continue their trek out of the city, cross two more bridges, swapping cars until they manage to hit the Jersey shore.   They find a city bus that’s still operable and head west, managing to get enough diesel to keep the bus moving for several hours although due to road jams and such they have to backtrack and detour in several places.

They arrive at a small wide spot in the road, a small mall, a truck stop and a handful of buildings. They spot a sign for a gun store in the mall.  Leaving one group to oversee the re-fueling and the two older people and the pregnant girl on the bus, another group is going to head to the mall to see what they can come up with.

What will our survivors find waiting for them at the mall?  A plethora of guns and ammo or empty shelves?  Will they have to fight their way through waves of Infected or will it be eerily quiet?  Tune in next time and see.

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Sushanna Enjoying A Sunset

This is our Finale session for the summer, during the hiatus we’ll be delving into the Savage Worlds system.

Everyone is present and accounted for in this session, Biminey, Stak, T’Balktu, Torel, Visra.  Our heroes have reached level 10 in the quest to end the dangers to their little corner of the world.

We join them in Aricee’s lair where the dragon, shifted into human female form, instructs them in their tasks, how they must defeat the Guardian of the Lance of Unmaking, recover the Lance and then go to Darkmith to destroy the Chaosborn.

T’Balktu and Aricee spend a few hours alone while the rest work on their gear and Biminey crafts magical items.  Aricee gifts T’Balktu for his performance with a matching set of axes, the greataxe known as Ghost Slayer and the throwing axe known as Splintertree.  He is pleased as was she.  And it’s not everyone who gets to lay with a dragon.  Which I’m sure will have no dire consequences…

They proceed toward the Guardian’s lair after Aricee assures them that she will help them return after they find out it’s a chute down into a room.  Biminey uses his Ladder ritual to make it easy to descend into the depths.

There they find a floorless room with flipping platforms on gears and pistons to stand on.  As the fourth one comes down the platform flips and almost tosses Biminey [I think] into the bottomless darkness but a quick grab by one of the other’s saves him from certain death. [Yes this was a return to the Save or Die of the old days but it is the season finale and the dangers are ramped up accordingly.]

They spread out and defeat the constructs that are attacking them for serious damage, inadvertently spreading out and reducing the risk of any particular platform flipping over. [A platform flipped on a roll of 15 or high, +2 for each person on the platform over 1.  By splitting up they made it a lot less likely that a platform would flip.  Purely unintentional on their part.]

They moved around the room, jumping from platform to platform with Biminey working his way closer to the central brain to shut it down but the amount of damage the party can pump out swiftly overwhelmed the mobile portions of the construct.  There was another bit of a hair raiser as T’Balktu jumped on the platform that Biminey was on and caused it to flip over sending T’Balktu plunging to his death only to be snagged at the last second by Bimney’s Acrobatics roll (which he has no skill in) saving T’Balktu’s player from having two deaths in the campaign.

Under the platforms they uncovered the Lance and retrieved with T’Balktu nimbly climbing the pistols and gears to get to it.  There was no sign of Aricee so they left the room of the guardian by T’Balktu using the lance to open a passage through the shielding magic.

Aricee was waiting at the top and she had a bit of an interlude with T’Balktu in a frozen moment of time where she gave him her True Name so he could destroy the crystal binding her to her service as the tunnel’s guardian.   When he destroyed the crystal embedded into her chest a two headed dragon shadow was cast from the explosion of light.  T’Balktu kept this bit of information to himself.

They talked with Aricee about what they were supposed to do, “Kill the chaosborn” and she was going to get them to their destination and bring their airship to them and support them in their battle.

[In an aside, with herself free from her captivity she didn't give a rat's ass about the chaosborn, a minor annoyance only to her and simply wanted the party out of her hair figuratively speaking.  When she didn't show up to help, when they had to walk back because there was no airship, and later on as Biminey figures out the whole 'explode the airship' was bullshit the light began to dawn on the group.  "Never trust a dragon." isn't a phrase that came about by whim and whimsy.]

The group found themselves in Darkmith where a war was going on.  They spotted the central power area and headed that way, failing their attempts to sneak through town and were surrounded by undead, summoned by Phy’el Fleshwalker for the battle.  They defeated a huge swarm of undead only to seem hundreds more running after them.  When the undead all stopped and Phy’el himself appeared.  “If you win, remember I did you no harm when I could have.” he says and all the undead drop motionless to the ground as the cut the strings binding them to him.  Phy’el has long held a grudge against Liloth and her King and like all good evil people is more than happy to screw them over for slights they have done him.  And he’s also hedging his bets, he senses the magic artifact the group possesses, trying to curry a little future favor perhaps.

They push on and reach the ziggurat of power where the Chaosborn is being reborn.  Liloth his lover is climbing the tower toward him.

T’Balktu kicks on his Ghost Slayer ability and charges the Creature, slaying it, at least it’s human form, releasing the chaosbeast within.  He continues to use the Lance of Unmaking against the creature, finally destroying it and the group turns its attention to Liloth who’s a little upset at the events.  But the group has grown too strong for this little regional hazard and mops up the floor with Liloth and the pet shadows.

They recover a Shadowblade, a dreadful greatsword from the shadowfey that was the Chaosborn’s weapon and very gingerly maneuver it into a bag of holding without touching it.

They help mop up the city, joining in with the hobgoblin tribes battling the minor darkness’s still released in the city alongside the strange eyeless, mouthless priests of the white king.

Leaving the city, on foot, they trudge through the swamps surrounding the city and stop off to spend a couple of days with the Soul Eaters in their home range, the tattoo’s on their arms are extended by the tattoo artists of the tribe, depicting their battles against the darkness in stylized abstracts.

They continue back to Larkson where they find Teagon working a power play to take over the city and remove the Council.  He’s hired more mercenaries from Anvil and after all the fighting his forces outnumber the Watch.    With the group informing him that the deed is done and the city is safe he bargains with them to join in.

The group does and become partners with Teagon.  They arrange for Garon and the just appointed Merchant faction Councilor Neev to be moved out of power gently as possible.  They work a deal to keep the Watch alive and in their control and direct all martial activities in the city, although everyone understands that with Teagon holding the purse strings that feeds the mercenairies that that control could be tenuous.  But Teagon is smart and wise and understands the power that the group presents so the deal is made and at this time both sides appear to be genuinely interested in keeping it.  The group will receive a 1000 golds a month each for their portion of the bargain, a fortune really for this town although Biminey is going to donate his income to the Watch to help train, equip and restore them.  The Watch lost most of their men, dead or injured beyond fighting ability, and what’s left are the lucky, green and inept without only a small cadre of veterans.

They bring the airship into town and then fly out to the slaver stronghold searching for the two ships full of the town’s women and children, finding only a work crew lead by a slaver working on rebuilding the islands buildings.  They capture them all, interrogate them and then destroy the newly constructed works and building materials and fly back to their city.

Sushanna tells Biminey that one of the until now dead lights on the ship’s consoles lit green for a few hours one day while they were gone (during their walk back to Larkson).

When they get back to the city, there is talk of a flying creature spotted in the skies out to sea, seen more by it’s blocking out the stars than any direct visual.  It was assumed to be the group’s airship but when word got around that it wasn’t then other people stepped forth saying it was a vast flying creature, a dragon certainly.

What it was, what the green light means, where the slavers took the slaves, where did Phy’el wander off to, where the slavers main bases are and what they’re doing, the rebuilding of the city of Larkson and the outcome of the battle of Darkmith, these questions and more will have to wait till we pick up this campaign and enter the Tier of the Paragon’s…

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The blind woman’s eyes blinked, the milky white hidden for an instant behind pale flesh.  The unseeing eyes turned to point to the back of the heavily robed figure standing at the window, looking out at the rolling waves of the seas below. 

“Yes I felt it, Lady, Bokka Jothan is no more.  It seems our lowest Captain has met something he couldn’t entice, enslave or destroy. Or bore to death with his petty scheming.” Lord Volk said without turning from the view. “His line has proven itself weak…” the high lord over the slavers mused. 

Around the room, shadows stirred where they lay in deep pools, spots darker somehow than the deepest of shadows flickered in each and they all seemed to turn toward the still form by the window.

“Yes my pets, the line of Jotham has failed us.”  At his words the shadows began writhing and swirling.  If one had to make an analogy then perhaps the closest would be a pack of puppies about to be given a treat.  If the puppies were comprised of the stuff of nightmares given substance. “Go, you have your freedom to seek out all of of the Jotham line until the sun falls and rises one time and teach them that failure is not an option.”

Before Volk’s words were finished the shadows began streaming out of the room flowing over the stone like night made liquid.  Soon the chamber was empty aside from Volk and the woman.

She spoke, “Is that wise love?”

Volk turned away from the window and approached her, the rich silks of his robes sliding across the pristine floor without a sound. He reached out and cupped the woman’s chin, tilting her head up to his. “Wise, Lady? Perhaps not but not terribly unwise.  And my irritation with Bokka’s losing of the airship is well known.  To ignore his failure would weaken my position.  Loosing the shades on his line will give the rest something to fear for awhile and perhaps put a stop to their plotting and planning my downfall.  What says the warp?”

The woman, Lady Sethra, stepped in toward Volk and put her arms around him, “The lines are… cloudy now love.  A Great One has become involved and its presence stirs and fragments the now and the future into so many strange shapes that it becomes impossible to make sense of them.”

“Truly…” Volk’s deep baritone rumbled in his chest against her cheek.  “What would have peaked the interest of the one of the ancient reptiles?”

“I know not love but its actions impact the lines of everything.  I would advise activities in the north, the warp and web there are convulated beyond all untangling at this time.  Perhaps in time its attention will focus elsewhere.”

“Perhaps. I’m reluctant to give up the quest for that ship.  If we can duplicate its craftings, imagine the power we could wield.  The very air would become our oceans and our raiders could go anywhere they wished, descending where they would, taking what is rightfully ours by our very predation.”

“I advise time love.  It changes all things and the situation to the north will change in time.”

“Perhaps you are right Lady, perhaps.”  Lord Volk absently stroked the inky black hair of the woman, eyes focused and at the same time not seeing the far wall of the chamber.  He snapped his fingers, the sound belling out, louder than such a slow gesture should generate.  Before the echoes stopped resonating around the chamber the gilded doors opened.

“Yes mi’lord?” questioned the man who stepped through.

“Summon the captains who first issued the reports of the airship. I wish to question them, personally.”

“So it will be mi’lord.” the man bowed, waiting to be dismissed.

Lord Volk brushed his hand over his neatly trimmed beard, “And bring up one of the virgins from the last ship.  I found another gray hair this morning Jovan. It is past time I renewed myself.  Now go.”

“As you command mi’lord.”

The priests of the temple of Eris were able to eventually sever the controlling strings of the undead and they all dropped to the ground motionless and the citizen rose up in arms to destroy those wandering the city streets.

As the group arrived back they found Captain Werrick missing one of his legs from the knee down and discovered that he led a force against three figures that seemed to be commanding the forces as well as breaching the walls, a female in white, a mostly nude man who’s flesh morphed and wavered and a dark shadow figure.

They also learned that ‘merchant ships from the south’ had arrived and were taking on women and children to sail them to safety.  Two of the three ships had already left filled to the brim with children and women and the third was still loading.

The group jumped to the conclusion that the ships were slavers picking up an easy profit and headed to the harbor.

They ran into a group of sailors and approached them.  A noble looking individual confirmed that what the group suspected and delivered an ultimatum, the group delivers the airship to the island and they give the women and children back.  If they don’t deliver the airship then they’re going to infect all the captives with the parasites and give them back.

The discussion rapidly went downhill.  The noble turned out to be a fake, while the real noble, a fire mage of some power was dressed as a sailor.  The sailors were quickly put down leaving the fire mage and the slaver lashmaster.  As things took a turn for the worse for the slavers the firemage made his escape using a contingency teleport ring to teleport back to the ship leaving the lashmaster who surrendered to the group.  As he made his getaway he told the group that they’d just doomed one ship full of children and if they wanted the others returned then bring the airship to him.

The gruop took a few minutes to recover, loot and discuss the thing and smoke started rising from the harbor.  They rushed to the harbor and found several of the small fishing ships on fire as well as the docks and warehouse. People  rushed in to quench the flames.  Once it was clear the flames were under control  the group got out their longboat and sailed out to the airship and set off after the fleeing slaver ship.

after an attempt to set the ship’s sails on fire failed, the firemage simply doused the flames, Stak shot a note down to the ship demanding the slavers debark in the ships boats and leave the captives onboard.   The slavers failed to listen so the group started riddleing it with ballista bolts.  The slavers quickly retaliated by lashing their captives to the sides of the ship.  This failed to deter the group and they continued to try and sink the ship.  And yes their ballista bolts hit more than one captive.

On board the ship the firemage weighed his options and found them wanting and performed a ritual that exploded the entire ship, killing everyone on board rather than see group rescue a single one.

The group turned the air ship around and headed back to its usual place with a rather somber atmosphere.   They re-entered the city.  Torel’s new found ability to see the lines of power protecting the city while holding the battle standard lead them to an old reading room now in use by the high priest as a bedroom as he didn’t feel comfortable taking the last high priest’s bedroom.

They found a mosaic in the floor and using the key they’ve been carrying for so long they triggered a lift, the entire floor of the room that dropped them down deep into the earth into a chamber.

There they were accosted by constructs demanding a pass phrase, when it wasn’t forthcoming they fought the constructs.  Torel in his infinite avenger wisdom opened a door and added in another set of constructs.   But with clever use of the Deamon Heart amulet and a failed reaction roll the new buzz saw construct fought with one of the other’s and the two ended up dealing something like 150+ points of damage to each other which was probably one of the few things that could have saved the group.   In total the encounter ended up a level 15 against a level 9 party which would typically result in someone or all someone’s dying.  But by setting two of them on each other they removed roughly 300 damage the group would have had to absorb and added 300 damage to the group’s output.   Call it luck if you will but it saved them.

Inside the second chamber they found the Book of All Things and Biminey was able to recover an ass load of residium from the cylidners powering the protections on the room as well as enough parts to make a new construct, a mobile buzzsaw that he can deploy in combat.

As they left the temple they were met by Aricee, a strange being in the form of a plain looking woman but with the eyes of a dragon.  She opened a portal leading them into her lair where they waded through piles of gold and jewels to a side chamber where they were fed a great meal.

Aricee told them that their best chance in the upcoming battle was to recover the Lance of Unmaking which is located deep in her lair guarded by a creature.  She tells them she guards the lair, the guardian guards the lance and she has a device embedded in her chest that protects the lance from her.

The group is located in an instant between the past and future and will have several days grace before the time in the world ticks over and the chaosborn is freed.   This gives them time to prepare, recover the lance and save the world.

She also tells them that the lance and the banner may not be enough and that it is possible to destroy the airship in a single cataclysmic event that will unmake everything in the blast radius.

We leave our group there as they prepare to descend into the tunnels after the Lance of Unmaking for their final climatic battle against the chaosborn and go down in a ball of flame or emerge victorious.

Image Credits

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Noir

The Case of the Foot Race

Scene:

Our fearless trio has been canvassing a seedy side of town looking for one Lou “Lucky Lou” Wilson a small time fence that’s come into some property the agency has been tasked with tracking down and returning to its rightful owners.

The purpose of the scenes – Gain familiarity with the chase rules as they apply to foot chases, expand combat familiarity, expose just how bad it is to go up against melee numbers when you only have a gun, that kind of thing. Working up a beginning set of adventures.

Things learned – Chase rules make sense but could see how a chase could drag out with a lot of catch up a bit, lose ground due to rolls.  Gang Up bonus plus unarmed defender bonus is very nasty.  The original last fight scene had the three Wild Cards versus 6 Extras and 1 Wild Card.  Combine that many attacks on top of the bonuses and it was a complete TKO.  Removing two of the Extras eased the blow somewhat and it went from a Game over man! to a “Tough but doable.”

Note: It’s a Pulp setting so there are some things that Heroes get like the police rarely show up until after the fight, they get Bennies more often as Pulp has a bit of an over top to it and the like.   This was written piecemeal over the course of several days as I found time so there may be some inconsistencies.

Our Cast –

Three members of Danger Inc. “Danger is our middle name.” private detective agency -

Jack Antonelli –
Agility d8 (2), Smarts d6 (1), Spirit d6 (1), Strength d4, Vigor d6 (1)
Toughness 5, Parry 6, Sanity 6, Pace 6(10)
Fighting d8 (3), Perception d6 (2), Shooting d6 (2), Streetwise d6 (2), Guts d6 (2), Athletics d6 (2), Insight d6(2)
Edge: Well Adjusted
Hindrances: Big Mouth, Loyal
(Think Tony DiNozzo from NCIS)

Mary Alice Dougherty –
Agility d6 (1), Smarts d8 (2), Spirit d8 (2), Strength d4, Vigor d4
Toughness 4, Parry 5, Sanity 6, Pace 6(9)
Fighting d6 (2), Shooting d6 (2), Stealth d6 (2), Thievery d6 (2) Perception d8 (3), Investigation d8 (3), Guts d6 (2), Insight d4(1)
Edge: Common Bond
Hindrances: Quirk: Prim and Proper, Cautious
(Think Evie from the Mummy)

Pyotr ‘Pete Jones’ Rashnikov –
Agility d8 (2), Smarts d4, Spirit d4, Strength d8(2), Vigor d6 (1)
Toughness 5, Parry 7, Sanity 4, Pace 6(10)
Fighting d10 (5), Shooting d8 (3), Perception d8 (5),Taunt d4(1), Guts d6(3)
Edge: Two Fisted
Hindrances: Phobia: Rats, Wanted: Russian Mafia New York City Based
(Think Pete of BCjr)

Setup –

GM: “It’s late evening, the wind is picking up and it’s a cold one. The streets and sidewalks have been steadily decreasing in traffic for the last couple of hours as the late fall sun sank below the horizon. Trash swirls down the street and there’s a hint of possibly the first early snow of the year, the old timers have been saying this is going to be a cold winter but then they always say that don’t they.  As you’d decided, Jack you’re on one side of the street part way between Pete and Mary Alice on the other. Give me an insight roll with a -4 penalty.”
Mechanically: This is a setting specific skill added to my game with SW to simulate a character’s ability to make a leap of deduction without a lot of facts, to ‘read’ people and to gain clues through intuition on things they may not consciously know.  And to pick up on creepy vibes. The penalty is pretty high for this check but it’s a very hard thing to pick up on hence the -4.

Jack: “Right, I use any reflective surfaces and the occasional glance around to keep an eye on the other two.”
Mechanically, rolls d6 and wild d6 for rolls of 2,6.  6 aces for a total of 5 (9-4).  Success.

Mary Alice: “I keep an eye on Jack, I don’t like him over on the other side of the street by himself.”
Mechanically, rolls d4 and wild 6 for rolls of 3,6.  6 aces for a total of 3 (7-4).  Failure.

Pete: “I stop to check out a window display using it to glance at Mary Alice and Jack casually.”
Mechanically: Rolls a d4-2 and wild d6-2 for a 3 and a 6.  The wild aces for a final total of 7 (13-2-4).

GM: “Well well, at roughly the same time Mary Alice and Pete you both get the feeling that someone has painted a bulls-eye on your back, that feeling of being watched by someone with intensity, possibly hostile intensity.  Good work Pete, you’re typically about as insightful as a rock with a blanket over it.”

Pete: “Ugh, I don’t like this, something’s wrong. Not sure what it is but it’s gotten partly creepy out with a chance of sudden violence.”

GM: “Ahead on the street on the same side as Pete, a man bundled up against the cold steps out of a building with a package under his arm.  He glances both ways and then heads north in the same direction you’ve been going.   Perception checks please with a -1 penalty please.”

Jack: “I give him the once over.”
Mechanically: Rolls a 5 and a 4 for a total of 4 (5-1).  Success.

Pete: “Must need to be somewhere important if he’s heading out into this cold.”
Mechanically: Rolls a 6 and a 3 for a total of 5 (6-1). Success.

Mary Alice: “He’s carrying something I see.”
Mechanically: Rolls a 7 and a 3 for a total of 6 (7-1). Success.

GM: “Although he has a muffler around his face and a snap brim hat pulled down enough of his face is showing that all of you recognize him as Lou Wilson.  He’s about 100′ ahead of you almost to the next intersection.”

Mary Alice: “Bingo, that’s our boy.  I pick up the pace to catch up to Pete.”

Pete: “Should I cross the street?”

Jack: “No no, I give Pete a discrete wave to stay on that side of the street.  We need to see where he’s going and if he crosses over he might wonder why Pete is going back and forth.  We all walk faster but not running yet to close the distance.”

GM: “You see Lou shift the package to his other arm, it’s about the size of bowling ball although squarer in shape and bundled up in gray cloth or canvas.  As he does a low warbling whistle echoes between the buildings coming from, you think, an alleyway ahead on Jack and Mary Alice’s side of the street about 50′ ahead of them.  Lou’s step falters and his head whips around, scanning the street behind him.  He turns forward and breaks into a run.  At this point he’s roughly 30′ ahead of you or 6 squares putting him at extreme range plus for a foot chase.  If he gets 11 squares ahead of you, you’ve lost him.”

Start of Chase: [Lou] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [Pete, Jack, Mary Alice ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ]

Note: Lou isn’t a full Wild Card but isn’t quite a lowly Extra either and has the ability to suffer one wound and gets his own Benny.

Pete: “Crap, what the hell is going on?  I start chasing him.”

Jack: “Son of a bi[bleep]! I cut diagonally across the street.”

Mary Alice: “Good thing I’m not wearing high heels.  I chase after them.”

GM: “And the chase is on!  Mary Alice your sustained pace at a run is a 9, the boys run at 10.  Lou seems to be hoofing it about the same speed as Mary Alice.  This is going to give Pete and Jack a bit of an edge in catching up Lou as they’re just slightly faster over the long haul than he is.  Let’s pull initiative cards shall we?”
Mechanically: I’m using a House Rule from the savage pedia that run speed equals Pace+1/2 Agility die.  This makes some sense to me as barring Obstacles (dealt with by a separate mechanic) a persons running speed isn’t going to vary between 15% and 100% of their walking speed and eliminates one roll per person per round so time saver as well.
Initiative order ends up  Mary Alice KC, Pete JS, Lou 4S, Jack 2C.
Since Mary Alice and Jack were both dealt clubs they have to avoid obstacles.  Given the situation they’re both crossing the street the obstacles are obvious.  Moving cars…

GM: “Mary Alice as you dart out into the street you hear a screech of brakes from behind you, apparently you forgot to stop look and listen. Give me an Agility test at -1.”
Mechanically: The GM has assigned the obstacle density of the area as Sparse which is a -1 penalty.

Mary Alice: “Darnit, I could have sworn I looked.  Okay I try to avoid becoming a bumper sticker.”
Mechanically:  Mary Alice rolls her Agility d6 and wild d6 and gets a 6,3.  The 6 aces for a total of 9 (10-1) and she got a success and raise.

GM: “You put on a burst of speed and get out of the way of the sedan as the driver whips the wheel to the side ending up smashing into a light pole, bringing it crashing to the ground in a screech of metal and smashing of glass.  Give me another Agility roll to see how well you’re doing with the chase.”

Mary Alice: “That roll doesn’t count?”

GM: “Not as far as I can tell, the clubs card means you have to make an obstacle roll.  I assume if you make it then the chase continues.  If you fail it then you have to take damage from the impact.”

Mary Alice: “Okay, I keep on running then.”
Mechanically: Rolls Agility d6 and wild d6 for a 1,6 which aces to 9 for a success and raise.  Mary Alice closes the gap by 2 putting her 4 squares on Lou.

Pete: “I see Mary Alice is okay and keep on running.”
Mechanically: Rolls Agility d8 and wild d6 for 8,1.  8 aces for total of 10 (9+1for being faster than Lou). Success and a raise. Pete also closes the gap by 2.

GM: “Jack as you’re moving across the street you hear the squeal of breaks and it distracts your eyes away from the pothole in front of you.”

Jack: “Whoa!”
Mechanically: Jack rolls Agility d8 and wild d6 for a 5,4 for a total of 4 (5-1).  A success.

GM: “You narrowly avoid the pothole and continue running.”

Jack: “Good thing, that might have broken an ankle.  I shout back, ‘Watch out for potholes M.A.!’”
Mechanically: Rolls his Agility d8 and wild d6 for his chase dice for a 3,6.  The 6 aces for a total of 9 (8+1 for being faster). Success and raise. He closes the gap by 2 squares.

Lou: Yells, “Back off!”
Mechanically: Lou rolls his Agility d8 and gets a 7.  A success and he increases the gap 1 square.

Round 2 Results: [Lou] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [Pete, Jack, Mary Alice ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ]

GM: “You’ve managed to close the distance a little but Lou’s running scared and he’s pushing hard to get away.”
Mechanically:  Initiative cards dealt Jack AD, Mary Alice 5H, Pete JH, Lou 8H making the order Jack, Pete, Lou, Mary Alice.

Jack: “If I pass by anything I could easily grab and throw I want to do so.”

GM: “You’ll take a multi action penalty on your chase test and the grab.  If you wanted to throw it in the same round that would be a -4 to all rolls…”

Jack: “Hmm, okay I’ll just grab something if I can and throw it next round.”

GM: “Not a problem, yes you pass by a garbage can on the sidewalk and an empty beer bottle catches your eye.”

Jack: “I grab it then as I run past.”
Mechanically: Jack is doing a grab action and his movement is an action so he’s going to suffer a -2.  He rolls Agility d8 and wild d6 and gets a 8,6.  The 6 aces for an 8.  He ends up with a 8-2 or 6.  Success on the grab.  His chase roll is also a d8 Agility and d6 wild for a 4,4 for a total of 3 (4-2+1).  Failure so he doesn’t alter the distance between him and Lou.

Pete: “I zip past Jack as he slows down to grab the bottle.”
Mechanically: Rolls Agility d8 and wild d6 for a 6,5. The player spends a Benny to roll again hoping for better results and gets a 8,3.  The 8 aces for a total of 16(15+1).  A success and 3 raises.  Success he closes the gap by 2 squares.

Lou: The fence keeps running.
Mechanically: Rolls Agility d8 and gets a 3.  Failure.

Mary Alice: “I try to run faster.”
Mechanically: She rolls Agility d6 and wild d6 and gets a 4,5 for a 5.  Success.  She closes the gap by 1 square.

Round 3 Results: [Lou] [  ] [  ] [ Pete ] [  Mary Alice ] [ Jack ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ]

GM: “Pete is closing in quickly, that bottle grab cost Jack some time though.”
Mechanically: Initiative cards result in Jack 7S, Mary Alice 8C, Pete 9D, Lou 3D or Pete, Mary Alice, Jack, Lou.

Pete: “I’ve almost got him now!”
Mechanically: Rolls Agility d8 and wild d6 for a 7,4 for a total 8 (7+1), success and a raise.  He closes the gap by 2 squares.

GM: “Mary Alice someone exits a building opening the door right in your face.”
Mechanically: Mary Alice’s club card results in an obstacle check at -1.

Mary Alice: “Oh this is going to hurt if I don’t pull off a high speed maneuver.”
Mechanically: Rolls her Agility d6 and wild d6 at -1 to avoid the obstacle and gets a 2,4 or total 3 (4-1).  She elects to spend a Benny and rolls another set for a 3,1 or total 2(3-1).  She flinches and spends a second benny for a 1,1 or critical failure.  Sighing heavily she tosses in her last benny and gets a 5,4 or total 4(5-1) and avoids the door by a miracle.

GM: “Tough one Mary Alice but you pulled it out of the fire!  Great job.  You swirl and side step, catching the door just slightly and knocking it out of the hand of the gentleman coming out who shouts in surprise, ‘What in bloody hell miss?!’”

Mary Alice: “‘Got a white rabbit to catch dear boy’ I shout back at him.”

GM: “Heh, good one.  Here have a Benny for that one.  You still need to make a chase roll.”
Mechanically: The GM appreciated the reference to Alice and Wonderland and awarded the player a Benny for it.

Mary Alice: “I’m feeling good about this one.”
Mechanically: Rolls a Agility d6 and wild d6 for a 3,6.  The 6 aces for an 8. Success and raise she closes the gap by 2.

Jack: “I wind up and let the bottle fly, trying to nail Lou with it.”

GM: “Okay as an improvised weapon let’s give the bottle your str+d4, probably a little over the top but what the heck there’s nothing in the rules that I can find. You’ll use your Throwing skill.”

Jack: Looks at his sheet. “Oh you mean my lack of Throwing skill?”

GM: “Right, that one, d4-2 plus a wild die -2.”

Jack: “Here goes nothing.  And I mean that from the bottom of my heart.”
Mechanically: Jack is going to be a -2 for his Throwing attack and his chase roll and because he has no Throwing skill that roll is at another -2.  The GM (not finding any reference in the manual declares the bottle will do Jack’s Str+d4 in damage, they seem to knock the heck out of people in bar fights in the movies anyway.  He rolls his Throwing d4 and Wild d6 for a 3,6.  The 6 aces for a total of 6 (10-2-2).  Well what do you know, he actually hit with it.  He rolls a Strength d4 for damage and gets a 4. It aces for a total of 9 damage!

GM: “Not sure how you pulled that off but you actually hit him hard enough to matter.  Great job! Lou is though going to try and soak the wound. Here have a Benny.”
Mechanically: The GM spends a Benny for Lou and makes a Vigor d4 test and gets a 1, failure. This causes an Out of Control check which typically results in a Skid of 1d4 (2) inches but the GM rules that the -2 increments from getting shaken override this on a foot chase and everyone moves up the chase chart by 2 inches instead.

GM: “The bottle clips Lou on the side of the head and bursts into shards of glass one of which opens a slice in his scalp and blood starts to flow freely and he’s shaken and stumbles quite a bit allowing you all to catch up.  Continue your run now.”

Jack: “Sure, I’m pumped, we got this son of a [bleep]!”
Mechanically: Rolls Agility d8 and wild d6 for a 7,5 or total of 6 (7+1-2). Success he closes the gap by 1.

Lou: “OUCH!!!  You [bleep]er!”
Mechanically: Lou rolls his Agility d6 at a -1 due to his wound and gets a 4 for a total of 3.  Failure.

Round 4 Results: [Lou, Pete , Mary Alice ] [ ] [ Jack ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ]

GM: “You’ve closed the gap by quite a bit mostly due to Jack’s making him stumble, Pete, you and Mary Alice are now in the same increment with Lou and this opens up quite a lot of maneuvers you can try when you’re within one increment.  You could for an example try to force him into an obstacle, distract him somehow and make him potentially stumble, maybe make a grab and tackle on him.  Let’s see how the initiative plays out.”
Mechanically:  Initiative Jack 7C, Mary Alice 5H, Pete KS, Lou 9D resulting in Pete, Lou, Jack and Mary Alice.

Pete: “I give him a little shove and let him make acquaintance with the next hard thing in our path.”
Mechanically: Pete and Lou make opposed Agility checks,  Pete rolls d8 and d6 for a 2,6.  The 6 aces for a total of 11.  Lou had better hope he aces his own rolls.  Lou rolls a d8 Agility and gets a 1 for a total of -3 (1-1 for the wound and -2 for being Shaken ).  Pete gets a success and 2 raises 11 vs -3.

GM: “Before you do that, Lou is going try to shake his head to clear it out.”
Mechanically: GM spends a GM benny to see if Lou can clear out his Shaken status.  This is primarily so Lou has a better chance to avoid a second wound in the looming future where a hard object introduces itself to his face.  Lou rolls a Spirit check of d6 and gets a 1 for a total of 0 (1-1 for the wound).  He fails to recover.

GM: “Pete you flail out a arm and tip Lou straight into the path of a light pole!”
Mechanically: Lou is going to take 1d6 damage from the impact and takes 4 damage which is a success and because he’s Shaken he suffers a wound.

GM: “Lou smashes into the light pole and rebounds straight back and falls backwards, his head smashing into the pavement and he stops moving except for his breathing, out like a… well unconscious.”

Jack: “I assume we have to finish this round?  I’m talking about whatever it is I’m about to dodge nimbly out of the way of because of my club card.”

GM: “Good question.  I don’t know officially but I’ll rule that as you see Lou go down you’d slow up and that would help you avoid anything.  You all slow down and then trot over to Lou.  He’s laying on the sidewalk, blood is pouring freely from his nose where he hit the pole face first as well as the lacerations on the side of his head.  A quick check of him and you don’t think he’s in danger of dying.  In fact he starts to groan and seems to be coming around.  A couple of onlookers are looking in your direction but seem reluctant to interfere.”
Mechanically: GM makes a Vigor d4 roll for Lou and gets a 4 which aces to a 10 for a total of 9 (10-1 for his wound).  A success and a raise means the wounds while bloody enough for sure are not life threatening.

Pete: “I look around for the package.  When I find it I unwrap it a bit to see if it’s the bust we’re looking for and tuck it away under my jacket.”

GM: “It does in fact look like the object you were paid to recover.  A primitive arts looking thing carved out of some dense black stone, obsidian or basalt maybe. It’s quite ugly and unattractive and for the life you you can’t imagine why someone would want to steal it much less pay to get it back.”

Mary Alice: “Lou’s going to be okay?  Are we sure?”
Mechanically: She makes a Healing d4  and wild card d6 check at -2 because it’s untrained and gets a 1 and a 6.  The 6 aces for a total of 7 (9-2).

GM: “You believe so.  Scalp and nose wounds bleed like enemy of Capone’s but they’re not fatal. He’ll live although he’ll have one heck of a headache for a day or two.”

Jack: “I rifle his pockets real quickly and let’s get the hell out of here if he’s going to be okay on his own.  I don’t want to explain this to the cops.  Again.”
Mechanically: Rolls a Perception (aka Notice) d6 and wild d6 for a 4,1 and gets a success.

GM: “You come up with a wallet and a crumpled fragment of paper tucked down into the bottom of one of his coat pockets. It’s got an address on it about 3 miles away.  The way he’s stirring you believe he should be fully conscious in a few minutes.”

Pete: “Good work, let’s get back to the car and get out of here before trouble shows up.”

Players: [Discussion on the chase, the ugly bust and the client.]

GM: “It takes you a couple of minutes to get back to where you parked your car, a side lot.  Can I get Perception checks at -2?”
Mechanically: One of the tires is flat on the far side of the car and the car has a slight tilt to it which might be picked up by a perceptive character. The final rolls were Pete 3, Jack 2, Mary Alice 10.

GM: “Mary Alice there’s something a little off and then it hits you the car is tilted slightly, looks like the driver’s side rear tire is flat.”

Mary Alice: “I stop walking. Guys, was the tire flat when we parked?  Anything else odd going on?”
Mechanically: Rolls another perception check to scope the area out and gets a total of 3, failure.

Pete: “I look around.”
Mechanically: Rolls Perception and gets a total of 3.  Failure.

Jack: “Me too.”
Mechanically: Rolls Perception and gets a total of 3. Failure.

GM: “The side lot has a few empty cars in it and one panel truck with the logo of one of the shops that opens into the lot stenciled on it but otherwise is empty.”

Mary Alice: “I don’t like this, I don’t believe in coincidences.  Let’s get out of here, catch a bus back to the office and come back later for the car.”

Pete: “Yeah I hear you but I don’t want to leave the car.  It could just be a flat.  It happens.”

Jack: “Yeah we don’t want to leave the car here.  There’s too many things that might raise an eyebrow in the trunk if you know what I mean. You two wait here on the corner.  I’ll go change the flat and pull around and pick you up. Anything bad happens… I want you to come and save my ass.  No running off.  You hear me?”

Pete and Mary Alice: Simultaneous innocent ‘who me?’ looks.

Jack: “I’m not kidding!”

GM: “The wind’s picking up a bit and blowing street debris around and the first fat drops of a cold rain start to fall.”

Jack: “Freakin’ awesome.  Okay I move to the car keeping an eye out and take a quick glance at the tire.  If it’s not been slashed or anything I’ll get out the spare and change it.  If it looks suspicious then I’m backtracking and getting back over this way.”
Mechanically: Jack plays out his actions and rolls a perception check getting a 15 from a double aced d6.

GM: “The tire doesn’t appear to be damaged that you can tell, no obvious holes, nails or screws in it on the sections you can see.  On the far side of the street a woman bundled up is hurrying past, she doesn’t appear to even notice you much less be paying any attention to you.”

Jack: “I give them a thumbs up and change the tire then.”

GM: “As you open the trunk, the man hidden in there lets loose with a shotgun blast aimed at you…”

Players: [screams of outrage]

GM: “…And yet it happened.”
Mechanically: The man hidden in the trunk was on Hold, on a hair trigger to shoot whoever opened the trunk. As this is a Wild Card, he rolls his Shooting d8 and wild d6 and gets a 4 and 6.  The 6 aces for a total of 10 (8+2 shotgun bonus).  A success and a raise so he gets 3d6+1d6 damage or 5,5,4,6, the 6 aces and adds another 3 for a total of 23 damage.  OUCH!!!.  Jack has a toughness of 5 and is wearing a heavy leather winter coat AP2 for a total of 7 toughness.  Jack is Shaken and is going to suffer 4 wounds (23-7 = 16/4 = 4).

Jack: “Holy [bleep]!  I try and soak that!”
Mechanically: Jack spends a Benny to try and soak the damage and rolls his Vigor d6 and wild d6 for 1 and 3 and fails to soak even one.

Jack: “I’ll spend another Benny and re-roll the vigor check.”
Mechanically: Although you can only soak once per wound, you can re-roll your Vigor roll by spending a benny.  Jack Rolls a 2 and a 2.  He spends yet another Benny and rolls a 1 and a 2.

Jack: “Ohhh, you wanted me to make a soak roll.  I thought you said suck roll…”

GM: “You’ve really got to listen closer.  Here, have a Benny to make up for me being unclear about that.  And no you can’t use it right now. So, thanks to your suck rolls you’re going to take 4 wounds.”

Mary Alice: “Hell, does that mean he’s dead?”

GM: “Jack you’re Incapacitated.  Make another Vigor roll to see how badly you are incapped. You’re going to be at -3 due to the wounds.”

Jack: “Not -4? Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy with -3 over -4 but I took four wounds.”

GM: “Nope, a wild card can only take 3 wounds, anything over that and it doesn’t matter as far as penalties go although you still have to try and soak all the wounds you take from an attack, its just the excess only counts for that one soak attempt.”

Jack: “Okay as I go flying back from getting a load of buckshot in my chest I try to convince myself it’s only a flesh wound.  I bet the the son of a [bleep] is using one of our shotguns to boot.”
Mechanically: Jack makes a Vigor test aces with a 3 and a 6.  The 6 aces for a total of 6 (9-3).  A success.  This means he’s Unconscious but not bleeding out.  He’ll wake up in an hour or after someone successfully heals him.  But for all purposes he’s out of this fight.  Rolling on the Injury table results in normally his Strength being reduced a die type but he’s already at a d4 so there’s no impact.

GM: “The deafening boom of a large calibre shotgun echoes off the buildings and you see Jack stagger back, the chest of his coat ripped into bloody tatters, a man nimbly leaps from the trunk of the car and stands over Jack and ratchets the pump shotgun and looks around.  Let’s draw some cards…”
Mechanically: The GM decided that Pete and Mary Alice are too far off to be dealt into this round even if they’d of made their perception rolls.

MS: The man looks around and spots you, the shotgun barrel rests against Pete’s head and he shakes his finger at you and then beckons you forward.

Pete: “Well that was unexpected.”

Mary Alice: “Does it look like Jack’s dead?”

GM: “You’re really too far to tell but your gut is telling you he’s bad off but probably not dying.”

Pete: “How far exactly are we from them?”

GM: “Roughly 20 squares.  The man arches an eyebrow and gestures at your friend with a nasty smile.”

Pete: “Crap, I hand the bust to Mary Alice and walk over to him.”

GM: “He makes an ‘uh uh’ gesture with his finger and stabs two fingers toward you and then at the ground in front of him.”

Mary Alice: “I reach through the slit in my skirt and pull out my Shank Special.  Pete he’s going to kill Jack if we don’t do something but we don’t have to be defenseless.  We split up and make it harder for him to hit us both and stop about 50′ away.  We both get ready to shoot him if things get nasty.”

GM: Trivia note, the ‘Shank Special’ is a 4 shot revolver on a small frame of the Webley break open design in a .44-40 calibre, designed and built by an Ally character associated with the group.  Small enough to be easily carry concealed with the disadvantage it only holds four shots.  As an aside I do find it interesting that almost universally pistols in Savage Worlds deal a 2d6x damage, typically 2d6+1 and the only real difference is range and whether it’s a revolver or semi-automatic, even the .22′s which I’d have to disagree with.  A .22 can kill but your odds of surviving it barring a shot in a few critical areas (heart, skull, liver) etc. is pretty significant.  As a result to not offend my sensibilities I’m probably going to make it a 1d6+1 weapon for my world.

Pete: “I knew I liked you.  I pull a revolver, I’m carrying the colt peacemakers today and I’ve got a big fat 255 grain slug for this joker.  We spread out about 10 feet as we get into the lot and stop like Mary Alice said.”

GM: “The man’s hand and shotgun are steady on Jack’s head, as you get closer you can see Jack is stirring slightly, he’s not dead and the coat and the cold are both working to keep him from bleeding to death.  The man is white, dressed in dark clothes, a woolen pair of pants and dark turtleneck sweater with ankle high boots of black leather.  The shotgun looks well cared for, in fact it looks identical to one of the shotguns you keep in the compartment in the floor of the trunk.  When he speaks his voice is cultured and smooth, ‘Put the artifact on the ground, you can do it there and then back up out of view.  Don’t do as I ask and your friend is going to die. Take a few moments and decide but not too long or I kill him and take my chances with you two.’”

Jack: “I say we *cough cough* do as the man *coughing blood* asks.”

GM: [Slips Jack a Benny for the humor value.]

Mary Alice: “Shut up you’re dying.  Pete?”

Pete: “I ask the guy, ‘What’s this ugly thing to you?  It can’t be worth much, I know kids that can make better in kindergarten.’”

MS: “That is not a concern of yours.  Please, if you would make your decision?  It is getting cold and I fear the rain is going to start in earnest soon.”

Pete: “I take Aim at his head. ‘If he dies you die friend.’ I want to Intimidate him.”
Mechanically: Pete doesn’t really know how to Intimdate someone so he rolls a d4 and d6 at a -2 penalty and gets a 4 and a 2.  The 4 aces for a total of 5 (7-2).  The Mysterious Stranger rolls a d6 Spirit and a d6 wild and gets a 5 and a 5.  The GM rules the guns make no difference since both of them have them and in fact would possibly give the nod to the MS since he not only has a shotgun but has it pointed at a defenseless bystander who’s a friend of Pete’s and grant him a bonus for it.

Mary Alice: “And if he doesn’t kill you, I will. I cock my gun, yes I know it’s a double action and doesn’t need to be cocked but it sounds cooler.”
Mechanically: M.A. is in the same boat.  No intimidation skill.  d4 and d6 roll a 1 and a 1, critical failure.

GM: “He looks amused by your attempt to get tough Mary Alice and obviously doesn’t find you threatening.”

MS: “Please, no one need die here.  Is this really worth dying over?” he points to the package and then glances at his wristwatch, a large gold plated one, “I’m afraid I really can’t dally here any longer. Please set down the artifact and walk back around the corner and I will depart.  You can then come back and tend to your friend.  You really should hurry, he’s not looking at all well.”

Mary Alice: “Crap crap crap.  Okay I burn this guy’s face into my memory.   I set the sculpture down on the parking lot and motion for Pete to back away with me.”

Pete: “I do so but I don’t like it.  I keep my gun aimed at him.  Mechanics wise, what are my chances to kill him before he pulls the trigger?”

GM: “You suspect he’s not an Extra.  That means you’d have to hit him for enough damage to blow through his toughness and deal 4 wounds in order to incapacitate him.  I’d say a called shot to the head for +4 damage and hope for roughly 3 raises on your damage…  At a -4 penalty to hit because of the called shot.”

Pete: “So you’re saying there’s a chance?”

Jack: “*cough* don’t do it *cough*”

Pete: “Fine, I follow Mary Alice but I’m really not liking this ass right now.”

GM: “You retreat around the corner and wait a few seconds and then come back to see only poor Jack laying on the pavement, the man and the bust is gone.”

Mary Alice: “I hurry forward and check Jack out and do what I can to help him.”

Pete: “Do it in the car, we’ve got to get out of here.  I’m surprised no one’s come by yet.”

GM: “All the stores in the area are closed already and there are few pedestrians.  And a single gun shot in this area is more likely to send people scurrying to turn up the radio than come and see what’s gong on.  The shotgun is also laying next to Jack by the way, the only thing he seems to have taken is the bust.”

Pete: “I don’t want to take any chances.  I help Mary Alice get Jack in the car where she can work on him out of the rain and I change the tire as fast as I can.”

Mechanically: M.A. has no healing so it’s another d4 and d6 at -2.   Jack is in the Golden Hour for healing and the GM rules that they’ve lost 10 minutes with the talk and conversation and movement leaving a maximum of 5 attempts left.  In addition any healing attempt is going to be at -3 due to Jack’s wounds.  Luckily they keep a first aid kit in the car so she’s not at another -2 for lack of supplies.   Mary Alice rolls a  4 and a 5.  The 4 aces for a total of 4 (9-5).  Success and Jack recovers from one wound.

GM: “Pete the tire’s changed and you can get in and drive away while Mary Alice continues to work if you want.  This is going to give her the unstable platform penalty although if you take it slow I’ll reduce that -1.”

Pete:“Sure no problem, I drive as slow as I think will avoid notice and head us over to the safe house on Brown, I want to swap this sedan with the one we keep in the garage there.”

GM: “Okay, you drive through the dark streets as the now steady rain falls down from above.  In the back seat Mary Alice continues to administer to Jack, cleaning his wounds.”
Mechanically: Mary Alice continues to work on him, getting a 1, 6.  The 6 aces for a total of 10 (14-4) for a success and raise.  Jack recovers another two wounds and with a good night’s rest will be stiff, sore and in pain but able to function normally.

Mary Alice: “I really need to learn how to do clean wounds a little better.”

Jack: “*cough* Don’t worry about *cough* it.  You did fine.  I feel *cough cough* great.”

GM: “Thanks to Mary Alice’s prompt attention Jack’s going to be fine, most of the buckshot was blocked by his thick coat apparently and the few pellets that went through didn’t penetrate very deeply and you were able to remove them all.  A few band-aids and some bactine and maybe a wrap or two and he’s good to go.”
Mechanically: Since M.A. recovered all his wounds this makes for the most plausible colorization as to why he’s fine game mechanic wise.

Mary Alice: “I slide in to the front seat giving Jack room to stretch out.”

Players/GM: yak yak who was that mysterious stranger yak yak what’s going on yak yak GM gives them details on certain things.]

GM: “You make it back to your safe house and exchange cars without a problem.  I assume you call the office to have someone come out and clean up the car?”

Jack: “Yeah get Tweedle Dee or Dum out here.  I’ll tell them I cut myself shaving.”
Note: Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum aka Tim O’Malley and John Terrace are Ally’s that work for the Agency in the capacity of high level gophers and interns.

GM: “When you call your answering service you find that Tim is on call this week for general duty and arrange for him to come out and clean the car.  What are you going to do now?”

Jack: “I want to get the mother[bleep]er that shot me!”

Pete: “Forget about that, the S.O.B touched my shotgun! You know how I feel about people touching my stuff.”

Mary Alice: “Lighten up Francis.  Let’s see what we know.  He was a pro, no doubt about that.”

Jack: “Expensive one too.  That cologne he was wearing costs the average Joe two weeks salary.”

Mary Alice: “I don’t want to know how you know that.”

Jack: “I enjoy the finer things in life when I…”

Mary Alice: “Enough, whatever.  Okay it’s late.  Let’s table this and meet  tomorrow and figure out where we go next.”

Pete: “Sounds good to me.  Come on, I’ll drop you off at the office and you can get your cars.”

GM: “Okay you take the clean car back to the office, the night is quiet, filled with the drone of rain and the back and forth of the wiper blades.  It’s cold but not quiet cold enough to turn the rain into something nastier so the driving is easy enough if a little wet.  You pull into the garage of your building and get out to go your separate ways.  As you do you pull up short as several shadowy figures step out from behind cars, support pillars and the like.”

Jack: “Owww my ribs, it’s going to be one of those nights. I hug myself and hunch over a bit, hands under my obviously ruined and bloodstained coat and only by coincidence do I happen to grab the revolver in my shoulder holster.”

Pete: “I move around the car if I can to stand by the others.”

Mary Alice: “Anyone look like they’re in charge?  Are they actually coming toward us?”

GM: “Yes, they were scattered around but all circled on your agencies parking spaces.  You hear a scritching noise and a light flares up as one of them lights a cigar with a lighter.  In the flame you can see his face well enough but you don’t recognize him.  The light goes out with a snap as he closes the lighter and the ember of his cigar flares a bit.  ‘You mugs got sumptin.  A rock of some kind.  I want it. Give it to me this’ll go easy.’  The others have moved closer and have paused about 10′ feet away from you. You can make enough out of them to know they’re all men, bundled up in heavy overcoats. Each of them is carrying a clubbing type weapon, pipe, bat, nightstick, one guy has a pair of heavy brass knuckles.  There are four of them along with what you assume is the boss.”

Jack: “What the hell?  Did we find the Maltese Ugly Duckling or what?  It’s just a crappy piece of art that someone is now paying waayyy too little to find and return for them.”

Boss Thug: “I don’ care about your problems mack.  Give me the thing or my boys will have to take it from you.”

Pete: “Would you believe me if I told you we don’t have it?”

Boss Thug: “No.  Hand it over or the little girl gets hurt first.  Now!”

Jack: “‘Oh you done [bleep]ed up ‘mack’.'  I pull my 45 and level it at his head.”

GM: “This seems like a good time to deal cards.”
Mechanically: GM divides the thugs up into 3, the boss, and two groups of 2 Extras.  Dealing cards yields Jack JS, Mary Alice 10H, Pete AC, Boss Thug Red Joker, Group 1 7C, Group 2 AH resulting in the order of Boss Thug, Group 2, Pete, Jack, Mary Alice, Group 1.  Seems like the thugs were ready for any funny business.

Round One – Order – Boss Thug, Group 2, Pete, Jack, Mary Alice, Group 1

Boss Thug: “The boss re-acts like greased lightning and shouts out ‘Take them down and find it!’ as he moves and ducks behind a car and then comes up with a pistol blazing away.”
Mechanically: The boss is performing three actions, move, draw his pistol and shoot so he’s going to be at -4 for the quick draw and the shot.  But as he’s drawing the weapon from under a bulky coat he has to make an Agility roll to get it out this turn and be able to shoot it.  He rolls his Agility d8 and wild d6 for an 8,1.  The 8 aces for a 10 (14-4).  He pulls it easily. Then he sticks his hand over the edge of the car and shoots at Jack, double tapping with a Shooting d8 and wild d6 for a 1,5 for a 2 total (5+1-4).

GM: “Two shots ring out as the boss levels a 45 semi automatic at Jack but he was in a hurry and they go up into the ceiling.

Pete: “Son of a [bleep] he’s fast.  The others aren’t carrying guns?”

GM: “Not that you can see, looks like they came to beat the [bleep] out of you rather than kill you.  These two here charge forward at this time and head toward you Pete.  Each one is going to try to hit you with their weapon of choice.  They’re going to get +1 to their rolls as a Gang Up bonus which balances their multiple action penalty.  In addition they’re going to get a +2 Unarmed Defender bonus since you don’t have a melee weapon in your hand and no a pistol doesn’t count.”

Pete: “Crap!”

Thug 1: “You’re going down!”
Mechanically: Swings his billy club with a Fighting d8 and gets a 2 for a total of 4 (2+2+1-2) versus Pete’s Parry of 7. Missed.

Thug 2: “Quit ducking!”
Mechanically: Swings a lead pipe at Pete, Fighting d8 and gets a 5 for a total of 7 (5+3+1-2) vs 7.  Hit! Rolls damage of Strength d8+d6 for a 5,5 total 10 damage versus Pete’s toughness of 7 (5+2armour).  Success.

GM: “The two thugs quickly move adjacent to you Pete and attack, you duck and dodge one of them but the other nails you with a lead pipe getting a success which will shake you.”

Pete: “Hmmm I’m going to try and recover on my turn rather than spend a benny to get rid of it.”
Mechanically: Pete could spend a Benny now to remove the Shaken status but he’s going to conserve it for now.

GM: “The pipe hit is only a glancing blow but it shakes you up a bit. Your turn.”

Pete: “I shake it off.”
Mechanically: Pete makes a Spirit roll d4 with d6 for 4,5.  The 4 aces for a total of 9. A success and raise.  Fate’s looking out for him and he gets rid of the Shaken status and can go normally.

GM: “You recover quickly from the blow!”

Pete: “Bringing a stick to a gun fight isn’t the smartest idea.  I pull out both peacemakers and put a slug from each into the boss.”

GM: “Drawing both guns is going to require an Agility roll and an action.  Shooting with both is going to give you -2 penalty for each shot.  And the boss has heavy cover so that’s another -4 so you’re looking at -8 to hit….”

Pete: “What I meant to say is, I put one slug into two of these thugs, no that’s still a -4 on both isn’t it.  Okay I pull out one gun and put one bullet into one thug.  -2.”
Mechanically: Pete is readying a weapon on the same turn he’s going to use it which is an action and he’s going to shoot once which is an action which gives him a MAP of -2.  He rolls his Shooting d8 and wild d6 for 2,2 for a total of 0 versus the Thugs Parry of 6.  Because it’s an adjacent target the pistol goes versus Parry and not a 4.  Miss.  He thinks about spending a benny but decides against it.

GM: “You dig the Peacemaker out and it bellows forth a tongue of flame and the heavy slug whiffs past one of the thug’s heads and flattens against the garage wall.”

Jack: “I pull out my pistol and double tap the nearest thug.”
Mechanically: Shooting d8 and wild d6, 8,6 at a -2 for the multiple action penalty.  Both dice ace.  Final result is 12(11+1). Success with a raise!  He rolls damage 2d6+1+1d6, 4+5+1+3, 13 damage.  The thugs have a toughness of 6 so a success and raise.

Thug 1: “‘The darkness descends, for I am mortally wounded, I fear, this day.’ The pedantic thug goes down as blood starts to spread out from the hole in his coat, the sawed down lead weighed baseball bat clatters to the ground.”

Mary Alice: “I start screaming and shoot someone.”
Mechanically:  Pulling the pistol and shooting costs her -2 penalty.  She rolls Shooting d6 and d6 for a 6,1.  The 6 aces for a total of 5 (7-2).  Success.  She rolls 2d6+1 damage for a 4,6 for a total of 12 (4+6+1+1) versus the thugs Toughness of 7.  Success and raise.  Another Extra goes down as Thug 2 expires.

Pete: “Ummm why screaming?”

Mary Alice: “Figure people might actually come to help a lady in distress rather than running from gunfire.”

GM: “Good thinking Mary Alice, here’s a Benny. The other group of thugs charges forward rushing toward Jack and Mary Alice.”

Thug 3: “You shot Big Bill!”
Mechanically: Thug 3 swings his tire iron with a Gang Up bonus of +1, -2 for MAP, +2 versus unarmed defender.  Rolls d8 for a 3 for a total of  4 (3+1+2-2) versus Jack’s Parry of 6.  Miss

Thug 4: “Sorry about this ma’am, just following orders.”
Mechanically: Thug 4 swings his pool cue at Mary Alice.  d8 at 2 yields a total of 4 (2+2+2-2) versus Mary Alice’s Parry 5.  Miss.

GM: “The last group of thugs, perhaps a little disconcerted by seeing two of their friends go down have trouble hitting Jack or Mary Alice.  But let’s see what the future holds…”
Mechanically: Cards are dealt – Jack 7D, Mary Alice, 6S, Pete 3H, Boss AD, Group 2 8S.

Round Two – Order – Boss Thug, Group 2, Jack, Mary Alice, Pete.

Boss Thug: “‘Will you incompetents take them down!?’ echoes out as he levels his .45 at Pete.”
Mechanically: Boss Thug is going to take Aim, he does like his boys and doesn’t want to kill them with a stray shot if he can help it.

Thug 3: Grits his teeth and tries for Jack again.
Mechanically: Gang up bonus of +1 and then +2 versus unarmed defender, no penalties. Fighting d8 of 6 yields a 9 (6+2+2) versus Jack’s 6 Parry.  Success.  Damage is d6 for a 6 which explodes for a total of 13 versus Jack’s Toughness of 5.  (13-5) = 8/4 = 2.  So Shaken and 2 wounds unless Jack soaks it.

GM: “It looks like that incoming tire iron is going to clock you a hell of a wallop Jack.”

Jack: “Soaking here boss!”

GM: “You’re out of Bennies Jack…”

Mary Alice: “‘Watch out Jack!’ I give him one of mine.”
Mechanically: Mary Alice lets Jack use one of her Bennies through her Common Bond Edge. Jack spends the Benny to soak and rolls Vigor d6+d6 for a 2,4 for a success which reduces it to one wound.

GM: “Jack you take a wound and are Shaken.”

Jack: “Crap, I spend a benny to get rid of the shaken… oh right.”

Thug 4: Tries to take Mary Alice out and not for a date…
Mechanically: Rolls Fighting d8 for a 1 for a total of 5 (1+2+2) versus Mary Alice’s Parry of 5.  Success.  Damage is Strength d6+d6 or 2,3 total 5 versus Mary Alice’s Toughness of 6 (4+2armour) and the blow bounces off her thick leather coat.

Mary Alice: “I shoot this S.O.B!”
Mechanically: Shooting d6 and d6 for 5,5 versus his Parry of 6. Miss.

Pete: “I put a hole in this [bleep]er!”
Mechanically: Pete rolls his Shooting d8 and d6 for a 8,6.  Both ace for a total of 12 (8+4).  Success and raise versus the thug’s 6 Parry.  Damage 2d6+1+1d6 for a total of 9 damage (4+3+1+1) versus the Extra’s toughness of 6.  The Extra is shaken but not out.

GM: “You grazed him but didn’t draw much blood.  He’s still very much in the fight. Let’s recap.  Jack’s taken two wounds, Pete and Mary Alice are doing okay so far.  One thug is fine, two are down and one’s shaken.  And then there’s the Boss who’s got a bead on… Mary Alice’s head.  Let’s deal’em…”
Mechanically: Jack 8S, Mary Alice 4S, Pete 3C, Group 2 KH, Boss 6H.

Round Three – Order – Group 2 (#3 Shaken), Jack (shaken, 1 wound), Boss, Mary Alice, Pete

Thug 3: Goes for a knockout on Jack and does a Wild Attack hoping to get a critical hit even though it’s going to make him easier to hit.
Mechanically: By doing a Wild Attack thug 3 gains +2 Fighting and continues to get the Unarmed Defender bonus and Gang Up bonus.  Rolls Fighting a total of 9 versus Jack’s Parry of 6.  Success.  Damage is Strength d6+d6 for a total of 7 versus Jack’s toughness 7.  Success.  Jack’s Shaken so he takes a wound and is out of bennies to try and soak them.

GM: “He’s going to town on you Jack, take another one for the team.”

Thug 4: Follows his buddies lead and tries to put Jack down for the count.
Mechanically: Rolls his Fighting with the Unarmed Defender, Gang Up and Wild Attack bonuses (+2,+1,+2) for a total of 7 versus Jack’s Parry of 7.  Since Jack’s shaken this is another wound, putting Jack at 2 Wounds.

Jack: “Damn, what is it?  Someone tie a pork chop around my neck?  I put two rounds into Mongo here.”
Mechanically: Rolls his Shooting and Wild and gets snake eyes 1,1.

GM: “Only as you pull the trigger do you realize that one of the cartridges from the last shot has stove piped Jack.  You’ll need to spend a moment to clear the jam on your next round. If you make an Agility roll you’ll be able to act normally but clearing it will count as an action.

Jack: “Son of… I tilt my head back and expose my jugular to make it easier on them.”

Boss: “Snarls at you, ‘Hard way it is then!’ and then his pistol bellows forth its owner’s anger in a orange red flame of death.”
Mechanically: The boss has taken Aim at Pete which gives him a +2, double taps for an additional +1 and shoots for the head which is a -4. He rolls a 3 and 4 for a total of 3.  The GM spends a benny for him and tries again and gets a 5,5 for a 4 total which is a hit.  He rolls damage 2d6+1 with +1 for the double tap and +4 for the called shot to the head for a total of 18 damage… (3+6+3+1+1+4).  18 damage versus Pete’s Toughness of 7 yields a success and two raises.  (18-7 = 11/4 = 2).

GM: “Pete the 45 careens off your skull.”
Mechanically: Unless Pete soaks the damage he’s going to be Shaken and take 2 wounds.

Pete: “I try and soak it.”
Mechanically: Pete spends a benny to try to make a Vigor roll to soak the wound.   He rolls a d6 and a d6 for a 5 and a 1 which would reduce it to Shaken and 1 wound.  He decides to reserve his last Benny and take this result and hope he goes first in the next initiative order.

GM: “Okay you take one wound and are going to be Shaken.”

Mary Alice: “I look behind the thug and scream ‘Come over here and help us!’ and then I put a 44 calibre lead filled invitation to die into one of the thugs.”
Mechanically: She’s attempting a Smarts trick to try and make it easier to hit the thug. Although this costs her a multi action penalty of -2 if it succeeds it’ll cost the thug a -2 to his Parry until the thug can go again. That might help the others out and there’s a chance she might go before the thug in the next round and get the benefit herself.  She rolls Smarts d8 and d6 for a 2,5 versus the thugs d4 for a 3.  Success, the thug now has -2 Parry.  She rolls her Shooting with a -2 penalty for the MAP versus the Thugs 4 Parry (6-2 from the Trick) and gets a 3,3 and misses.

Pete: “I put a bullet into the thug fighting Mary since he’s not adjacent and I get to shoot at a 4.”
Mechanically: Pete has 1 wound so he’s at -1.  He rolls his shooting die d8 and d6 for a 4 , 6 which aces to a 8 total versus the TN of 4.  Success and raise.  Thug #4 is Shaken and takes a wound and expires.

GM: “Let’s see where we are, Pete has a wound, Jack has two, Mary Alice is still unscratched, the thugs are down to #3 who’s Shaken and the Boss. Pete and Mary Alice both have a Benny.  And next round we end up with…”
Mechanically: Everyone is dealt a card [NOTE: This is being written at a different time and the deck has been reshuffled as a result.].  Jack 6C, Mary QS, Pete QC, Group 2 4D, Boss 3C.  The Boss has the Quick edge and pulls the 4S, 3S, 4H and finally a 6D as a result.

Round Four – Order – Mary, Pete, Boss, Jack, Group 2

Mary Alice: “I put my last bullet into the guy attacking Jack.”

GM: “Before you do that I’m going to spend a Benny and he’s going to get rid of his Shaken status.”

Mary Alice: “Ass.  I drop prone here which should give me cover from the head monkey and then I put a slug into his chest, he’s going down and then we deal with monkey boy.”
Mechanically: She rolls Shooting d6 and d6 for a 3,6 which aces for a 9 total versus a 4.  Success and a raise.  Damage is 2d6+1+1d6 for a total of 8 damage versus the thugs toughness of 6.  Success and he’s re-Shaken.

Pete: “I finish him off before he can hit Jack again.”
Mechanically: Rolls shooting d8 and d6 and gets an 8,6.  After acing the total is 11 versus 4.  Success and a raise.  Damage is 2d6+1+1d6 for a total of 9 vs 6.  Success and since the thug was already Shaken he goes down.

GM: “I’m going to spend a GM Benny to have him try and soak.”
Mechanically: GM spends one of his ‘anyone’ Bennies to try and keep the Thug up.  Rolls Vigor d8 for a 3 versus 4.  Thug doesn’t make it…

Jack: “Boooyah!  Your turn next fatso!”

Boss: “He drops back behind the car and you can hear him swearing and the rustle of movement before his head and pistol pop out by the front of the car.  His pistol belches fire once, twice at Jack.”
Mechanically: He moved his pace at a crouch to get around the front of the car where he has a better shot at Jack.  Shooting yields a 1,2.  He spends a WC Benny and tries again, 2,2.  +1 for the double tap for a 3 total is a miss.  The GM has one last Benny and decides to save it for a soak roll.

GM: “Round recap puts pretty much the same except we’re a thug shorter.  Jack has 2 wounds, Pete has 1, Mary Alice and the Boss are doing well. Let’s draw cards.”
Mechanically: Jack 2D, Mary Alice Red Joker, Pete 5C, Boss AS.

Round Five – Order – Mary Alice, Boss, Pete, Jack

Mary Alice: “Sweeet, I go in front of the monkey.  I need to reload my pistol, how does that work?”

GM: “Since your pistol has essentially a speed loader it’s an action for you.  Speed loaders, clips, magazines etc are one action.  A single round is a free action or you can reload half your agility die in single rounds as an action.”

Mary Alice: “I reload and then shoot him.  He’s still go cover right?”

GM: “Yes, from your prone position you can go for his legs/feet where you can see them under the car.  You actually have a better shot than someone standing up since it’s only medium cover for you.”

Mary Alice: “Cool, I put a bullet into whatever I can see.”
Mechanically: Shooting d6 and d6 for a 6,5.  Total after acing and penalties is 6.  Success vs 4.  Damage is 2d6+1 for a total of 8 versus the Bosses 8.  Success and the boss is Shaken.

Boss: “He tries to recover the bullet that just burned a hole through his calf.”
Mechanically: The boss is Shaken so he makes a Spirit d6 and d6 to try and recover for a 3,4.  Success but he loses this round.

Pete: “I drop my pistol, grab one of the many melee weapons laying around and move to the car and slid over the hood and smash it into his skull.”

GM: “Cool, pull this off and you got a Benny.  So dropping pistol is free, grab is an action, make an Agility roll and it’ll be a free action, the move is within your pace so that’s free.  So, make an Agility roll and you can make the attack without penalty, get a 1 and you end your turn there trying to grab it.”
Mechanically: In the interests of Cool the GM is rewarding the player with a chance to make the attack without a multi action penalty but with the downside that if he fails with a 1 on his trait roll he was just too clumsy and actually knocked the weapon to the side and has to scramble for it costing him his turn.

Pete: “I’m going to put a General Lee style slide to it.”
Mechanically: Rolls Agility d8 and d6 for a 4,1.  Success! (since the 1 was the wild die and not the trait).  He reaches the car and makes an Fighting attack d10 and d6 for a 10,3.  The 10 aces for a total of 16.  Success and a raise against the boss.  Damage is strength d8+d4+d6 for a 8, 4, 1.  The 8 and 4 ace for 7,4.  The four aces again for a 2.  Total is 8+4+7+4+2+1 or 26 damage versus 8 toughness.  Success and 4 raises.  (26-8 = 18/4 = 4)

GM: “You scoop up a club as you dart across the garage and hop up on the hood of the car, sliding on your ass you drop down next to the boss and bring the club around in a 2 handed swing!  The boss tries to block some of the blow….”
Mechanically: GM spends his last benny for the boss.  Vigor d8 and d6 for a 4,5.  He soaks one wound but that leaves 3 wounds to go…

GM: “With a hollow thunking noise the bosses head snaps to the side and his eyes roll up as he slumps to the floor.”

Aftermath:
The GM rolls Vigor rolls for the Thugs and 2 of them have died from their wounds but 2 are alive although unconscious.  The boss rolls a success with a raise thanks to an aced vigor check and recovers consciousness fairly quickly.

GM: “This guy and this one have seen their last sunset.  These two, although they’re unconscious will probably survive the fight especially if they get some medical care.  The boss very quickly rouses even though the side of his face is already turning interesting shades of purple and he doesn’t seem to be tracking very well.”

Players: [Typical player babble as they survey the wreckage, bullet holes, dead bodies, bleeding bodies and gunsmoke...]

Image Credits

Pulp Noir

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks going over the rules and running ‘test drive’ encounters where I run both sides of the combat and add in additional rules as I uncover them.   I plan on doing something with the system in the next month or so, something that starts off as Pulp Noir and descends into Supernatural Horror set in the roaring 20′s where there was no gun control, crime and corruption were rampant and the mafia was just hitting it’s stride along with union bosses.

The version I’m working off of is the Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition, Third Printing available for $9.95 from Amazon or some ridiculously low price like that.  I picked up a deck of cards and some Cthulhu tokens by Fantasy Flight Games for their Arkham Horror game to use as Bennies at the same time so I could get free shipping.  And as I have Arkham Horror I can use them for their intended things like Doom tracking for that game.   The book is the size of a large format paperback, not sure what the technical term is but about halfway between paperback and manuscript and is in full color and quite well done. A terrific value for the price and I’d recommend picking up a couple if you actually plan on running Savage Worlds.

I would like to reiterate, I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it, that I do NOT like cutesy page backgrounds in game manuals.  Ripped edges, stains, textured vellum, whatever the design, I just want plain black text on plain white paper.  If you absolutely must have nifty graphics then keep it on the periphery and not under the text.

After going through the rules and reading them in a casual kind of way, at this point I’d like to say that it could use some editing and proofing by people unfamiliar with the system.  I spotted a typo or two without going into copy edit mode which is more than acceptable for a blogger but in a printed product it comes off as a little sloppy.  But then any update is bound to include its own typos even when all the existing ones are fixed and I’m fully aware of that, I mention them here only in passing and wouldn’t downgrade them for it.

As far as the understandability of the rules as currently written, I’ve had to resort to searching the forums to get clarifications and all modesty aside, I have a fairly decent general knowledge skill on gaming systems.  Certain things simply aren’t clear in the wording of the edition I have or appear to be something that’s so basic to the system that the writer(s) didn’t even think it might not be known.

With that said I must say their forum and moderators are insanely good.  Every point of minutiae that I didn’t pick up from the core book I was able to find easily and quickly through their forum search.   Which leads me back to my comment about the book not being clear.  Every question I had, had already been asked time and time again on the forums.   Taking all those frequently asked questions and adding in the extremely clear and concise explanations by the moderator Clint would resolve every complaint I have about the rules as written.

I don’t want to give a bad impression of the system or the printing I have, for the most part it’s clear enough, there are just a few places where a simple example or an expanded example or another sentence or two would alleviate the few confusions or omissions.

The system itself purports to be Fast, Furious and Fun which is their slogan.  As a newcomer to the system I can see where this could be quite true.   Combats are both completely open and fairly simplistic.   The rules are few, elegant for the most part and at the same time keep a skies the limit option open.

Combat comes down to the Player deciding what their character is going to do and then breaking that down into separate actions with the caveat that each additional action over the first one adds a penalty to ALL the actions taken and that a character can only perform one action per ‘type’ per round with the exception that they can make two attacks if they have two weapons which includes bare knuckles.

For example: Biff Strange could on his turn say “I’m going to throw this chair at the thug fighting Nancy to give her a better chance to hit him as he ducks it, punch this guy in the throat,  reload my .45, double tap the third thug and scream insults at that guy to try and taunt him to come after me instead of ganging up on Nancy with the first guy while I run around the room like a Loon.”

This breaks down in game mechanics as an Agility Trick, Reload, Fighting, Shooting, Taunt, and a Run action.  That’s six actions though and that adds up to a -12 on EACH of them to succeed and an additional -2 on the off hand assuming the character doesn’t have some edges that allow them to attack with both hands without penalties.  With the exception of the Run, that action doesn’t require a roll, barring some unusual circumstance.

It’s open ended in that it encourages players to have their characters do things outside the box through the inclusion of Tricks and Will Tests, Ganging Up on someone, making a Wild Attack or taking Aim while giving them realistic gamist limits to prevent them from getting goofy like the above sequence of events would be.  Sure a player could try that but they’re going to fail 95% of the time to perform any of them much less all of them.

This also though limits the player, especially those coming from say 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons with all the specific powers those characters have.  Those powers in 4th are a bit of a straight jacket in their own right of course.   In Savage Worlds a player in combat, which is the biggest part of any mechanics because honestly mechanics to define roleplaying should be simple and behind the scenes for the most part, anyway in combat in a Savage World, a character can essentially Shoot someone, Fight (melee) them or Blast (spells/psychic/supernatural etc) them.   The system doesn’t have a lot of conditions, in fact it has only a couple, a character can be Normal, Shaken, Incapacitated.

Normal is obviously that, they can act normally.  Shaken means they can only walk slowly no other real actions allowed.  Incapacitated means just that, they’re unconscious.   There is no Dazed, Immobilized, Stunned, Restrained, Bloodied, Blind, Deaf, Ongoing Damage, etc and so on.

Wounded I suppose might be another condition but it only has one effect, the more wounds you have (up to a max of 3) the more penalties you take on all your rolls and movement.   Again a simple, elegant system.

Combat and especially the wounding/incapacitation rules overall, while a bit slippery to get your head around at the first read through is pretty Fast.  The Furious and the Fun part are too GM/Player dependent to say it’s always going to be that way but Fast definitely fits the bill.

Much like old school 1st and 2nd Edition Dungeons and Dragons was Fast.

oDnD: “I roll to hit with my sword.  I hit?  I roll damage.”

SW: “I roll to shoot with my gun. I hit?  I roll damage.”

That’s not necessarily a bad thing at all, nor is it necessarily a good thing at all, it just is what it is.

After playing some trial combats I can see though where the combats can lend themselves to more narrative/story style easier than something like 4th Edition.  But the proof of that will indeed be in the pudding and obviously is fairly group dependent.  But I believe that it might lead those that tend to go, “I use Righteous Brand on him.” to be a little more descriptive in their actions because by their very nature the actions in SW are very generic.

The magic system which can be used for everything from fireball casting wizards to mind blasting psychics to ego blasting super heroes is much like everything else with the system, simple and broad in scope.   It uses Power Points that the player spends to use each power with subsequent effects.  The basic core rules in the Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition are fairly… well basic.  They include things like the Armour and Blast and Telekinesis and is a pretty similar list to other universal systems.

Savage Worlds has an Extra’s and Wild Cards system, much like 4th Edition has Minions and Elites to make it as close an approximation.  Extra’s/Minions go down once they take damage regardless of the amount.  Whether you call them Extra’s, Minions, Mooks or Redshirts, they’re there for cinematic effect to make the players feel powerful as they mow down the thugs to get to the boss.

But where there’s a difference is that in Savage Worlds, dice can ‘ace’ or ‘explode’.  If you roll the highest number on a die, you get to keep that number and roll again and add it to the first.  You can in theory continue to do this for infinity but odds are you won’t do it more than a once or twice most times, odds being what they are.   This means that unlike 4th Edition, in Savage Worlds its quite possible for an Extra to take down a healthy Wild card (Minion kill a PC) in one attack.    Which is inherently impossible in 4th edition.  Now it has a low percentage chance to happen.  But the risk is there and something to be considered.

As an offset to making bad dice rolls or one shotted by an Extra players and GM’s both have Bennies that they can use to reroll or buy a roll to avoid that one shot.  Similar to Luck points,  Fate chips, Destiny perks and the like they allow the player and GM to dial the difficulty of an encounter one way or another.  If the GM has misjudged the relative toughness of an encounter he can spend Bennies to save his bad guys or give them a Mulligan on that big attack roll.  If he’s kicking the group’s ass then he can hand out some extra Bennies for good roleplay, playing in character, making a joke or whatever and ease the players troubles.

Savage Worlds has a ton of campaign settings although I’ve not looked at them all that much.  I’d have to be really interested before I bought one.  But you can get all kinds of things that a lot of people really seem to like a lot.   Zombies, Apocalyptic, Supers, Victorian Age, World Wars, Westerns,  Steam Punk, InterDimensional, High Fantasy, Low Fantasy, Modern Day, all kinds of source books are out there and because they all use the same core rules you can mix and match them as you want for the most part.

Savage worlds uses a unique, at least to my knowledge, system for dice.  Typically a game system seems to use one basic die for skill checks or combat tasks  with the variable dice pool being used to denote different degrees of damage probability.   A Savage Worlds character might have a d4 in Strength and a d10 for Smarts and a d8 for Fighting.  And those are the dice you roll to see if you succeed or fail at something.

In a way I don’t like this system as it’s a slow way to roll and determine things.  Player/GM has to check what die they need to roll, pick it out of the pile, roll it and read it, determine if they succeed or not and then roll any axillary dice as needed.   One of the simple things that really helped out with 4th Edition for us in terms of combat speed was the player only needs one die, a d20.  They do average damage on regular hits and max damage on critical hits.  No digging out and rolling 3d8 or 2d12+1d6+2d8  for damage.   It seems like a little thing but it really adds up over the length of a combat.   Especially for the GM who might be rolling 5, 10, 20 attacks and for each successful attack another 2 to 4 dice rolls to roll, count up and add bonuses to on their turn depending on how many bad guys there are.

But everyone who plays it and proselytizes says it’s Fast Furious Fun so we’ll see. Once I present it to a group of players and have them doing things with it I’ll report back.  Actually you’ll be able to listen to it first hand as I’ll most likely be podcasting it just like the 4th Edition sessions.

Like other universal systems Savage Worlds can handle any genre but unlike most it does it with simplicity and sleekness of rules rather than needing a Hero Builder or coming up with an archaic formula in a spreadsheet cell to compute things.  It’s simple enough and cheap enough and in my opinion elegant enough that any GM should at least give it a look.  If you don’t want to spend the $10 on the printed copy you can pick up the Test Drive rules, a subset that allows for decent experience of the system for free.  Hard to argue with that kind of pricing.

I will offer though that you really do need to read the system before you scoff and toss it aside.  I know at first glance, and second for that matter, I didn’t give it a real chance to catch my attention, the wacky dice set up, the simplicity of it, the overall broad scope didn’t catch my interest.  Indeed it is only with my 4E campaign going on hiatus for the summer that I picked it up again to give it a serious read through as I was looking for a new system that I’ve not used before.

Time will tell if it’s right for me and my group and I’ll post an update once we get to the dice rolling.

Until next time, as they’re so fond of saying, Stay Savage….

Image Credits

Edit: A special thanks to Magnus on the Pinnacle forums for taking the time to read through this and point out where I made mistakes in the rules.

NOTE: If you’re familiar with Savage Worlds:

Scene:

Mary Alice, Jack and Pete , agents of  the detective agency Danger Inc “Danger is our middle name.” have gotten a tip from one of their stoolies that the girl they’ve been hired to recover was taken by a couple of thugs for the O’Toole gang and they have her in an old office building in an industrial park down by the river.  If the cops show up or get involved they’re going to kill her.   The group knows the reputation of the O’Toole’s and know she’s likely to be killed as soon as they get the ransom if she’s not already dead.

Characters (Pertinent for this scene stats only):

Jack: Agility d8, Smarts d6, Fighting d8, Perception d6, Shooting d6, Streetwise d8, (Think Tony DiNozzo from NCIS)

Pete: Agility d8, Strength d8, Vigor d6, Toughness 5, Fighting d10, Perception d8, Shooting d8, Stealth d4 (Think Pete of BCjr)

Mary Alice: Smarts d8, Spirit d8, Agility d6, Perception d6, Investigation d8, Shooting d6, Edge: Common Bond (Think Evie from the Mummy)

Shank: Agility d8, Driving d10 (Think Mel Gibson from Payback but more henchmany)

Preparation:

Jack: “I’m going to see if I can find any more information on what’s going on.  I’m going to make a few calls.”
Mechanically: Player is going to use Streetwise.  Rolls a d8 for his skill and a d6 for his ‘wild’ die.  Rolls a 1 for the d8 and and a 6 on the d6.  The 6 ‘explodes’ since it’s a ‘ace’ and he rolls it again and gets a 1 for a total of 7.  This beats a 4, the average Target Number so the player gets a success but would have needed an 8 to get a success and a ‘raise’.

GM: “You confirm the story but don’t find out much more information about it.  You did learn that one of the O’Toole brothers is running the caper and are supposed to be holed up in the top of the joint. [Note the clever use of historical vernacular].”

Pete: “I’ll see what I can dig up on the O’Tooles.” 
Mechanically: Player uses Streetwise but doesn’t have any skill at it so will roll a d4-2 as the base skill dice and a d6-2 as the wild die and ends up with a total of 3 (a 1 on the d4 and a 5 on the d6.  5-2 is 3, the 1 rolled on the d4 is discarded since it’s lower than 3).

GM: “No one you contact really seems to have any more information than what you know in general, it’s a sizable gang of irish immigrants, local crime lords of their area, run by three brothers at the top of the gang.  Kidnapping and ransom is right in line with their activities, they also run prostitution and gambling.  They’re not known for their pleasant outlook on life.”

Mary Alice: “I’m going to hit up the hall of records and get a floor plan of the area where they’re supposed to be keeping the girl.”
Mechanically: Mary has a d8 skill in Investigation and of course gets a d6 as a wild die.  She rolls a 4 and a 6.  Another exploding dice on the d6 which explodes again with another 6.  The third roll is a 3 so she has a total of 6+6+3 or 15.  This is a success (4) and two raises (4 and 4) and almost a third raise.  She was able to find all the information available and cut her research time in half thanks to the excess raises.

GM: “You have no trouble finding the blueprints, both original drawings as well as drawings showing every modification to the building and in record time, almost as if Fate stepped in to help you save this girl.  You’re back at the office before the boys finish making their calls and had time to get lunch.
The three of you go over the blueprints.  It has three entrances on the ground floor, a main door that opens to the street, one that opens into an side alley and another in the back that opens up into an alley that runs between it and the backing building. A building next to it, the one that forms the alley way is of the same height according to the area plans. You also find on the older plans a steam tunnel that looks like it might connect the boiler rooms of this building and the building that butts up against it on the back side.”

Players: “Yack yack yack, go in through the roof, the side, the back, the basement yack yack yack.”

GM: “Sounds like you’re going to go in through the adjacent building which as you found out is a chinese laundry.  You head downstairs and get Shank [an Ally character] to drive you over.  Per your plan it’s ten in the evening when you arrive and as you suspected the laundry is closed.

Jack: “Shank, circle the block, normal speed.  Let’s see if there’s anyone outside the office.”

GM: “Shank smoothly wheels the car around and you drive past the office.  The building is dark except for the top or fifth floor which has lights on.  There’s a guy sitting on the front steps to the building, he gives you the eye as you drive past and you spot his right hand is under the left side of his jacket.  Give me a perception check.”

Mary Alice: “I didn’t see anything.”
Mechanically: d6 for the skill and a d6 wild yields a 1 and a 3 so a total of 3 versus 4 is a failure.

Jack: “I’m too busy polishing my shotgun to look around.”
Mechanically: d6 and d6 yields a 3 and 2 so a total of 3 or a failure.

Mary Alice: “Is that what you’re calling it these days?”

Pete: “I see something.”
Mechanically: d8 skill and d6 wild yields a 6 and a 4 so a total of 6 which is a success against a TN 4.

GM: “Pete you spot the flare of a cigarette ember in one of the cars parked across the street from the office building and catch a glimpse of two guys in the front seat.”
Mechanically: Mary Alice and Jack both failed their perception checks as the Target Number assigned by the GM is a 4 but Pete got a success.  If Pete had gotten a raise the GM would have also told him about the two men in the back seat.  As an alternative the GM was going to give them that information if two of them got a success.

Pete: “Eyes front everyone, don’t look too curious. There’s at least three torpedoes out there, one on the steps and two in the lizzie across the street.  Shank go ahead and head straight for a few blocks and then turn and head back and find a parking spot within view of the laundry but not too close.”

Shank (NPC): “Roger boss.  Want I should keep it running?”

Pete: “Yeah, we may need to leave in a hurry.”

Mary Alice: “Hey does this place have a fire escape?”

GM: “Yes the office building has a fire escape on the side that doesn’t have the side door, it drops into an alleyway that runs the length of the two buildings.”

Mary Alice: “Shank park where you can see that fire escape, I want to keep our options open.”

Shank: “You got it boss.”

GM: “Shank pulls the car into an open spot on the street, there aren’t a lot of cars parked here, what vehicles there are tend to be delivery trucks for the various businesses.  You pause a minute but the streets are clear.  There’s only one functioning streetlight and one flickering the others are dark.  The shadows provide lots of cover for movement or to conceal yourselves in.”

Mary Alice: “And anyone else I’m sure.”

Pete: “Don’t sweat it toots.  Okay we head over to the laundry, casual, just three mugs out for an evening stroll to pick up their laundry.”

Jack: “Anyone know how to pick locks?”

Pete: “Nope.  But it’s 1922, no alarm system.  I pull my pry-bar out of my coat and jimmy the door open. After making sure the street’s clear of course.”
Mechanically: Makes a perception roll using a d8 and a d6 and gets a 12 (d6 was a 4, d8 exploded with an 8 and a 4).  That would be a success and two raises for a typical roll.

GM: “Looks clear.  Make an attack on the door lock for me, you can use the higher of your Fighting or Strength die.  It’s a surprisingly good lock, although given the neighborhood maybe not so surprising.”

Pete: “Okay, this should be easy enough.”
Mechanically: Pete rolls his Fighting die which is a d10 and wild d6.  Gets a 10 on the d10, it explodes and he ends up with a 16 total -2 for the difficulty of the lock for a 14 total.  That’s 10 over the target number so a success and two raises.

GM: “With your first wrench of the pry-bar the door pops open.  It happened so fast anyone looking would think you had a key.  Inside the room smells heavily of soaps and cleaning liquids overlaid with the smell of musty clothing. It’s dark in there though, the single working street light doesn’t go very far through the dirty windows.”

Mary Alice: “I slip a torch out of my pocketbook and flick it on.  I cover the lens with my hand to keep the light to a minimum.”

GM: “The place looks like every other laundry you’ve been to, a counter dividing the room from the equipment in the back.  Rows and racks of clothing and bags of dirty laundry fill most of the area with little aisles allowing movement through the room.  A door in the back leads deeper into the building.”

Jack: “Off to the back then.  Mary Alice can I borrow your flashlight?”

Mary Alice: “I knew you wouldn’t be prepared.  Here, I brought one for each of you.”

GM: “Weaving your way through the room you open the door into the back finding more cleaning equipment. In a corner of the room you find a set of steps leading down to the boiler room.  It’s hot and crowded and noisy but it’s only a few moments before you uncover the door to the steam tunnel behind a set of shelves holding soaps.  You shove it out of the way and the door opens into a tunnel filled with pipes running along the walls.  A couple of leaks keep the area hot and humid but not dangerously so.”

Jack: “I take a quick peek up and down the tunnel and if I don’t see anything I shine the light up and down it.”
Mechanically: Rolls a d6 and a d6 for Perception for a 2 and a 3, giving him a total of 3 aka Failed.

GM: “You don’t see anything unusual and shining your light around you see the tunnel heads much like it showed on the plans.  About sixty feet  south it ends with the pipes running upwards into a shaft.  Advancing down the tunnel you find a shaft leading up into the office building.  A rusted ladder is attached to one wall and at each of the four floors above is a ledge and a door where the pipes split and branch out to bring steam to the building.  The blueprints showed all this and each door opens up into a maintenance closet on the various floors.”

Jack: “Okay let’s get going, I’ll go first, Mary Alice you’re next and Pete is last.”

Mary Alice: “Think again buster, this mug isn’t going to be staring up my dress, you two go up first, I’m going last.”

[Edit: As pointed out to me, this would be a possible place to award a Benny to Mary Alice for playing in character as a prim and proper lady..]

Jack: “Fine.  Me, Pete and then her highness.  We hit the top floor.  I figure they’re going to be in that big office at the end of the hall.  If they have anyone in the hall it’s going to get hot fast.  We’ll need to hit anyone there quick like, Pete that’s where you and those pistols of yours come in, those silencing things Shank came up with make you point.  If things go to hell, we rush the office and shoot anything that’s not blonde, female and goes by the name of Rose.”

Trivia Note: Silencers or more accurately, suppressors were commercially available in 1902 for those flinching and shouting “Historically inaccurate!”  Also this is an alternate earth with a modified timeline as fits my needs.  So nyahhh!

GM: “The climb isn’t particularly arduous and the way the pipes knock and ping from the steam you don’t have to worry about stealth too much.  With a little effort you make it to the top.  The access panel leading into the maintenance closet has swollen a bit from the steam and takes some force to open.  You put your shoulder into it and knock it free but as it does a mop leaning against it starts to fall toward a metal bucket.”

Jack: “I grab for it!”
Mechanically: Makes an Agility roll, a d8 and the wild d6.  Gets a 5 and a 1.  That’s a success and he grabs the mop before it can crash into the bucket.

[Edit: As pointed out to me, this would be a possible place to award a Benny to Jack for bypassing a Complication .]

GM: “Good work!  With that out of the way you get the door opened without any more trouble.  The room is filled with cleaning tools, mops, brooms and soaps and the like.  The door to the hall is to the right.”

Pete: “Which way does it open?”

GM: “You’ll be able to see down the hall toward the big offices at the end without having to look around the door.”

Jack: “Wait a minute, I unlimber my sawed off and check the loads.”

Mary Alice: “Yes, I get my 38 out.”

Pete: “I screw on the silencers to both of my 45′s then put the left one back in the holster.  I ease the door open slowly and quietly trying to get the smallest gap I can to see down the hall.”
Mechanically: Player makes a Stealth roll.  A d4 and a d6 results in a 2 and a 5 for a 5 roll.  GM makes a Perception roll for the guard he knows is at the end of the hall.  Since it’s a mook it does not get a wild die and rolls a basic d4 getting an 1.  The player got a success and a raise as a result – 5 vs 1.

GM: “Without a sound you ease the door open, spotting a thug sitting in a chair at the end of the hall next to a closed door.  He’s reading something, a racing form it looks like.  The distance is about ten squares so it’s short range for your pistols.”

Pete: “I take a two handed grip and aim at the thug.  I’m going to put one in his heart, one in the head.”

GM: “Are you actually calling your shots, that would be two actions at -2 each and the called shots would add another -4 to each shot?“

Pete: “No, it just sounded good.  I am taking an Aim action though and going to Double Tap him.”
Mechanically: Pete spends one round to take Aim. This gives him a +2 to hit.  The GM rolls another Perception check for the thug with a d4 and gets a 2, failure.
The double tap is going to grant Pete a +1 to hit and +1 damage but will of course use two bullets from the 7 shot 45.  He rolls his Shooting die of d8 and the wild d6 and gets a 3 and a 6.  The wild die explodes and he ends up with 10 + 2 for the aim + 1 for the double tap for a total of 13 versus a TN of 4. 
This is a success and two raises.  The raise adds 1d6 to his damage total.  The equivalent of a critical hit in other game systems.   He rolls 2d6+1 for the 45′s base damage and adds another 1d6 for the critical hit and 1 for the double tap getting a total of 11 damage.  
The thug has a Toughness of 6.  11 versus 6 results in a success and a raise.  The success causes the thug to be Shaken and the raise causes a wound.  As this thug is an Extra or as they’re known in 4th Edition, a Minion, any wound incapacitates him. Be default in Savage Worlds it appears that Extras only really die in the Aftermath part of the encounter but it feels more ‘right’ to me that a character shot and incapped to be dead or dying unless the shooter specifically tells me they’re not going for a kill shot.  At which point I’d assign some modifiers to the shot most likely.

GM: “Your two bullets punch through his chest directly over his heart.  The thug, a big bruiser jerks, his racing form flipping up to float to the ground as the body slumps and then slowly slides out of the chair with a quiet noise and a spreading stain of blood starts to mar the carpeting.”

Pete: “How loud was it?  Does it sound like anyone heard anything?”

GM: “You barely heard it, mostly because you were watching it.  You pause a moment or three but there’s no outcry from inside the office.”
Mechanically: The GM knows that there’s an electric fan running inside the office, and the doors are thick and solid wood.  He assigns the noise of the body falling and the silenced shot a modifier of -2 to be heard.  He rolls a group Perception check for speed’s sake using the average inside with a +2 because there are multiple people who might hear. He rolls a d6 and gets a 3, 3+2-2 for a 3 total versus the TN of 4 which results in a failure.

Jack: “Get a move on then.  We’re going to move down the hall way, me and Pete in front, Mary Alice behind watching behind us.  When we get to the door I’m going to listen and see what I can hear and if there’s any cracks I could look through around the door I’m going to try that as well.”

Pete: “I swap my clip out for a full one and pull my other pistol.”
Mechancially: Since bullets are ‘real’ rather than abstracted in Savage Worlds it makes sense for the player to keep full clips in his gun and for any character to reload when they have the chance. As a general rule I’ll probably limit clips to avoid players clanking when they walk to something that makes sense based on the situation.   But for a person who carries two pistols, having a spare clip for each would make sense.

Mary Alice: “I’m going to walk forward but keep glancing back every few seconds.”

GM: “Cool. The hall is lined with a couple of doors on each side, mostly with frosted glass doors and various company logos on them.  At the opposite end from where the thug is is an elevator, a thick carpet runner goes down the length of the all.  Without any real issue, you get to the end of the hall, being quiet isn’t hard, the carpet although worn is still thick and padded and you ghost down that way like cats on a sofa cushion.  Pete you don’t spot any gaps but the lock is one of the old style, or would that be new style and the keyhole goes all the way through.”

Pete: “I listen and then peek through the keyhole.”
Mechanically: Pete needs to roll a Perception check for hearing at a -2 due to the thick wood and another Perception check to look through keyhole, again at a -2 due to the tiny opening. He rolls a d8 and d6 and gets a 5 and a 4.  The 5-2 is a 3 so a failure on hearing.  Peeking through the hole gives him slightly better results, a 6 and a 5.  6-2 is a 4 so a success.

GM: “You can’t hear much, there’s a faint humming sound, maybe a fan of some kind?  Through the keyhole you have a narrow view of the room but directly across the room you can see two thugs playing cards of some kind.  You can spot a revolver on the corner of the table by one of them and a Thompson leans up against the wall next to the other guy. You can just make out a closed door to the left and can see a sliver of light on under the door.”

Pete: “Two guys huh, even on my best day…”

Mary Alice: “Shut up Inigo.  What’s the door look like again?”

GM: “A big pair of heavy double doors, solid oak that swing outwards toward you. They have big brass handles with thumb locks.”

Mary Alice: “Are they locked?  I very carefully try them.”

GM: “The thumb press goes down easily and you can feel the door give just slightly.  They don’t appear to be locked.”
Mechanically: Some require a Stealth roll here but unless the doors were trapped to make noise it’s unlikely even if they were paying attention they’d hear a slowly pressed knob and they’re also not ‘alert’ as they have a guy outside, one downstairs and 4 more in a car across the street. They’re feeling fat and sassy to say the least.

Mary Alice: “Okay what about this.  You two stand right back there just out of the door’s arc.  Pete give Jack one of your pistols.  I pull the doors open and drop to the floor and you two nail the thugs, do it quick and quiet and don’t raise any alarm.”

Pete: “You know how I feel about people touching my piece…”

Mary Alice: “Shut up Briscoe.  Sounds like a workable plan?”

Jack: “It might work.  And if it doesn’t we get to blame you.  I’m all for this plan.”

Pete: “Here, treat her nice or we’re going to have words later. I give Jack my off pistol.”

GM: “You move into position with Mary Alice by the doors and the two of you about five feet back from them.  You two are going to Hold your actions until Mary Alice pulls the doors open and drops and then shoot the two thugs.  That cover it?”

Pete: “Right.  Can we get an Aim action if we kneel down?”

GM: “Sure if you want to spend a round after the doors are open.”

Jack: “Right no aim bonus.  Okay I’m still going to double tap them.”

Pete: “Yeah me as well.  Jack you go for the guy on the far side of the table, he’ll be looking at you and just left of the other guy. I’ll take the close one. Wait a minute the far guy has the Thompson, you take the close one, I’m a better shot and I don’t want that Thompson opening up on us.”

Mary Alice: “Say can I drop and roll?”

GM: “Hmm sure, you can pull the doors open and dive off to the side as an action.  I’ll ask for a basic Agility test with a +2 from you to avoid opening the doors too hard and they bounce closed or not opening them enough.”

Jack: “Okay I like this plan, we can do this.”

GM: “Mary Alice you grip the brass handles, they’re cold to the touch and carefully you depress the latches and then step back swinging the doors open and then drop and roll off to the side.”
Mechanically: Mary Alice rolls her Agility d6 + d6 wild and gets a 4 and a 4. At +2 that’s a 6 versus 4 so she’s able to swing the doors open without them getting in the way of the others.  The GM has decided to just give the group a surprise round to reward their plan and it makes sense in the situation.  He’s not going to let them get the Drop on the thugs though.  He’s nice but not that nice.

Pete: “I put two into the Thompson guy as soon as the door opens wide enough.”
Mechanically: Pete rolls a d8 and a d6 and gets a 4 and a 2.  +1 for the double tap for a 5 against a TN of 4 and gets a hit.  He rolls (2d6+1)+1 (base plus 1 more for the double tap) and gets a 4 and a 6 which explodes and gets another 4 for a total of 16 damage (4+6+4+1+1).  The thug has a Toughness of 6 so he does 10 damage.  The success shakes the target and the 2 raises for the excess damage adds two wounds to the target.

GM: “One bullet rips through his upper chest, pushing him back and the second catches him under the chin and bores a hole through his skull splattering the wall behind him with a reddish gray gore. He falls backwards still in the chair and thuds to the ground.”

Jack: “Nice shooting Tex!  I put two into the close guy.”

Mechanically: Jack has a d6 shooting so rolls a d6 and a d6 wild and gets a 6 and a 1.  The six explodes and he gets a total of 12 (6+5 and +1 for the double tap) on his attack roll.  That’s worth a success and a raise so he gets an additional 1d6 on his damage roll.   For damage he’s going to roll (2d6+1)+1+1d6.  Base of 2d6+1 for the pistol, +1 for the double tap and +1d6 for the critical hit.  He rolls a 3, 1, 2 for a total of 6+1 or 7.  The 7 versus the Toughness of 6 will only result in the Thug being Shaken.  If the thug had already been Shaken it would have been a wound of course.

Jack: “Ugh, horrible damage.  Can I spend a benny to re-roll the damage?”

GM: “No, you can only spend bennies on skill tests, not damage.”

Jack: “Crap. Okay what happened?”

GM: “You hit him twice but both bullets are only grazing hits and while you’ve scared him, especially since he got a front row seat to his buddy spray painting the wall with his cortex he’s not down although shaken up.  When someone is Shaken the only action they get to make is move up to half their base movement. We’ll need to draw for initiative.”
Mechanically: The three players and the one thug draw cards from a deck.  They get the following results – Mary Alice – 4D, Pete 5C, Jack JH, Thug 4C.   This puts their initiative order as Jack, Pete, Mary Alice, Thug. The GM pulls a fifth card though as there’s a third thug in an easy chair in a corner of the room that they don’t know about yet. Thug #2 gets a 6D so he goes right after Jack and before Pete.

Jack: “Two more into him before he can move.”
Mechanically: Jack rolls his d6 and d6 and gets a 3 and a 6.  Another exploding shot.  He ends up with a 6 and a 4 for a total of 6+4+1 or 11.  Again a success and raise yields a critical hit so he gets another (2d6+1)+1+1d6 as his damage and gets a 5,3,5 or 15 total damage which is a success and two raises against a Toughness of 6.  The two raises causes two wounds, the success doesn’t add an extra wound although if there hadn’t been a raise then he would have still taken a wound from the success.  This was a difficult concept to ‘get’ for me based on the wording of the SW:EX edition and I had to check their forums where it’s a VERY common question.  A better example, the same one that the forum admin Clint uses each time in the forums put in the manual would have forestalled most of those.

GM: “As the thug’s head whips around to stare at you, you put two 45 slugs into his open mouth as he starts to yell.  His head snaps back and falls dead to the floor in a spray of blood.”

Pete: “Nice shooting yourself.  What do I see or hear?”
Mechanically: Rolls perception dice d6 and d6 and gets a 1 and a 2. He fails to hear the other thug in the room as he draws a pistol and Holds an action waiting for someone to come in.

GM: “A large reception area, finely appointed but worn down now.  The two thugs appear to be the rooms only occupants from where you stand.  A closed door is on the left hand side of the wall opposite.  A partially open door leading to a dark room is on the right hand side.”

Pete: “No one heard anything?”

GM: “Not that you know about.”

Pete: “Crap.  I’m going to Hold my action, aiming at the door across the way.  Can I get the Drop on it?”

GM: “Sure if the door moves you can shoot it at +4.”

Jack: “I switch the pistol to my left hand and pull out my sawed off.  Does it count as a pistol since it’s so small?”

GM: “Actually it does so you can use it in close combat although like all close combat you’re attacking the target’s Parry value instead of the base 4.”

Mary Alice: “I move to where I have cover from the wall but can see into the room, my .38 aimed at the door.”

GM: “You shuffle weapons and positions without interruption.  Nothing seems to be happening for moment then you hear a voice with an Irish brogue call out from the direction of the closed, “Tommy?  Everything okay?”

Pete: “Can I tell where it’s coming from?”

GM: “Sure in the direction of the closed door.”

Pete: “Gee thanks.  Jack, Mary Alice get ready to cover me.  I empty both pistols into the door and walls on either side aiming up at an angle from the floor so that they should miss anyone sitting and probably miss anyone standing unless they’re right by the wall.”

GM: “Okay you only get one attack per weapon per turn but you could double tap from each gun and put four bullets through the walls. You’ll take a -2 to both attack rolls since you’re doing two actions in one turn.”

Pete: “Oh.  How long would it take me to get to the tommy gun over there?”

GM: “Move action to get to it and pick it up.”

Pete: “I couldn’t run over, grab it then run back?”

GM: “Sure a run would get you over and back, make an Agility test at -2 to grab it on the fly since you’re doing essentially two actions.”

Pete: “Okay Jack, Mary Alice, you to blow the hell out of that door if opens. Here I go.”
Mechanically: Since Pete is going to run and make a grab for the weapon that’s going to count as two actions so he’ll take a -2 on his Agility roll to grab it on the fly.  He rolls a d8 for his Agility and d6 wild and gets an 8 and a 2.  The 8 explodes for a total of 13-2 versus 4.
Unfortunately for Pete the thug has a Held action and is waiting to shoot at the first person who actually enters the room.  He has a Shooting of d8 and rolls a 8.  It explodes for a total of 11.  A running target is harder to hit [Established SW House Rule] so he has a -1 to hit.  But a 11-1=10 vs a 4 is a success and a raise.  The thug hits Pete and gets a critical. The thug is also using a standard revolver so there’s a big Bang.
The GM rules that Pete gets halfway to the Thompson when he gets shot.  The thug rolls (2d6-1) base +1d6 for the critical for a total of 3+3+5-1 or 10 damage.  Pete has a Toughness of 5.  10 vs 5 = success and raise so Pete is Shaken and takes a Wound unless he tries to Soak the damage.

GM: “As you run across the room there’s a loud gunshot from your left and pain burns across your shoulder.  You stumble and fall prone from the impact.”
Mechanically: There’s nothing that says the target actually falls prone from getting shot, this was a GM ruling for cinematic sake.  Others might not do it, and having the player make an Agility test might be an option for some with perhaps a modifier for each success and raise of damage done to them.

Mary Alice: “Nice going banana heels.  Next time look around the room before you charge across it.”

Pete: “Well son of a [bleep]!  I roll to soak the wound.”
Mechanically: Pete spends a benny and makes a Vigor roll d6  and a wild die of d6 and rolls a 3 and 1.  3 Vs 4 is a failure.  The player opts to spend another Benny and tries again and gets a 4 and 5.  This eliminates the wound but he’s still Shaken. [Edit: This is wrong, if you soak an attack and eliminate all wounds then you are not shaken.]

GM: “The wound isn’t as bad as you thought it was but you’re still shaken up.  To make it easy we’ll just use the existing initiative order and grant Jack and Mary Alice Held Actions.  That puts Jack up.”

Jack: “I really don’t want to wake the neighbors if we haven’t woken them yet, I’m going to drop the shotgun and draw my .38 and lean around the doorway and shoot whoever shot Pete.”
Mechanically: Dropping the shotgun is a free action, drawing the 38 is an action as is shooting so he’ll take a -2 penalty.  In addition the thug has light cover from a side table against the wall for another -1.  Jack rolls his Shooting die of d6 and wild d6 and gets a 6 and a 1.  The 6 explodes for a 11.  -1 for the cover and -2 for the multiple actions and he has an 8.  A success and a raise.  He rolls his damage 2d6-1+1d6 and ends up with a 1, 6, 3.  The 6 explodes and adds another 4 for 14 damage.  The thug has a toughness of 6 so it’s a success and two raises.

GM: “You lean around the edge of the door frame, pulling your pistol and put a bullet into a thug’s left eye as he’s peeking around a table with a smoking pistol in his hand.  The head snaps back and the thug drops bonelessly to the ground.  You hear a loud voice a little hysterical, “ [bleep]ammit, what the [bleep] is going on out there!?  Tommy if you guys are [bleep] ing around Shay is going to [bleep] ing kill you!  If I don’t do it first!”

Pete: When I can go again, I’m going to try and shake off the Shaken status.”

GM: “Mary Alice?”

Mary Alice: “I’m good, I switch back to covering the door.”

GM: “Okay Pete go ahead.”

Pete: “I tell myself it’s only a scratch.”
Mechanically: Pete rolls a spirit check using a d4 and wild d6 and gets a 4 and 4.  The d4 explodes with another 4 and then a 3.  For a total of 11 vs 4.  This is a success and a raise so he easily gathers his courage and can act normally on his turn.  With only a success he would have eliminated the Shaken condition but would have had to spend the whole turn doing it.

GM: “Great roll. You can act normally, what are you going to do?”

Pete: “Grab the tommy gun and head back to the doorway.”
Mechanically: Pete is going to Run and grab the tommy gun during his run.  This is an Agility test at -2 for the multiple action.  He rolls a d8 Agility and d6 wild and gets a 6 and 3.  6-2 or 4 vs 4 and grabs the gun without slowing down and makes it back to the door.

GM: “The voice is getting louder, ‘What in the [bleep] is going on?!’. What are you going to do?”

Pete: “I’m going to unload the tommy gun in a line across the wall, same way I was going to with the pistols.”

GM: “Okay you have a couple of options.  You can use the weapons rate of fire of 3 to shoot three times which uses 9 bullets as actual attack options.  The automatic fire incurs a -2 penalty.  Or you can go with suppressive fire which shoots 5 bullets per shot so you’d burn 15 bullets.  The suppressive fire will make anyone inside have to roll to avoid being shaken.   With the aimed bursts you’ll get to make 3 shooting rolls to hit where you want.  With suppressive fire you only roll once.”

Pete: “Suppressive fire it is then.  Rat-ta-ta-ta-tat!”
Mechanically: Rolls a d8 and a d6 for shooting at -2 for automatic fire and gets a 2 and a 1.

Pete: “Oh that sucks.  I can use a Benny to re-roll that right?”

GM: “Sure.”

Pete: “Cool, here’s the chip. Let’s try this again.”
Mechanically: Rolls a d8 and a d6 and gets a 1 and a 6.  The six explodes and he gets another 2 for a total of 8 on his to hit roll.  -2 for automatic fire and he ends up with a 6 versus 4.

GM: “You stitch a line of bullets about head high angled up across the wall, splinters and wood go flying as gun smoke clouds the room and shells tinkle to the floor.  From inside the room you hear two voices screaming, “ [bleeeeeep] !” and the clatter of light furniture.  Can you roll damage for me?”

Mechanically: The GM rolls a Spirit test for the two thugs he knows are in the room.  They both get a +4 for being in the equivalent of pitch darkness or heavy cover since the player can’t see them but the walls provide little physical cover and the spray of bullets and wood and debris is bound to be a little unnerving.  The thugs roll a 3 and a 1 between them.  The three is enough to not be shaken but the 1 unfortunately means one of the thugs is actually hit by a bullet.

Edit: Just to clarify, Rose doesn’t make the same Spirit check as Pete was carefully shooting an angle to avoid killing anyone, unfortunately for the thug, a slug ricocheted and ripped through his carotid artery.  Also I didn’t want Rose to die as long as the player made their attack roll. It’s one of those Fudge things that GM’s do to keep a story moving with the intent rather than the reality.

Pete: “That would be the same as my pistol right since they use the same ammo?  Do I get anything extra for the automatic fire?”

GM: “Right, 2d6+1-3 for the wall you’re shooting through absorbing some of the damage and no on the extra .  Automatic weapons let you shoot more things per turn than semi-automatics or revolvers, that’s their schtick.”

Pete: “Cool.”
Mechanically: Rolls 2d6+1 and gets a 6 and a 2.  The 6 explodes and gets a 4 so 6+2+4+1 -3 = 10 damage.  Against the thug’s toughness of 6 so a success and a raise and the thug takes one wound.

GM: “You hear an exclamation from inside the room, ‘O [bleep] , Will you okay, Will!?’ and no one responds back. The first voice screams out, ‘Whoever the [bleep]you are, I got a dame in here!  You’re gonna let me walk outta here or I put one right between her pretty brown eyes!  Tell him sister!’ and you hear the sound of a loud slap and a female cry from inside. ‘What’s it gonna be, I walk or she dies!”

Mary Alice: “We gotta move quick, sub machine gun Charlie there probably has the thugs downstairs running this way right now.”

Jack: “Danger Inc. doesn’t negotiate with terrorists.”

Pete: “There a receptionist desk?”

GM: “Yes, dark wood, probably oak or cherry that makes a semi circle to the right of the door you’re standing in front of.  There’s another door behind it that’s partially open although dark, only some light from the outside coming in through a window.”

Pete: “Great, I shoot over to it and duck behind it.  You two let him walk, as soon as he goes past me I rise up and put one in his brain pan, he drops, we save the girl and escape down the fire escape.”

GM: “Ding!  The elevator at the far end of the hall dings and you see the needle heading backwards from 5 down.  Someone’s obviously called it down.”

Pete: “That tears it.  On the plans or when we were outside were there ledges running around the building?

GM: “Yes, maybe a foot wide below each window.”

Pete: “Okay we have a plan.  You take the hand cannon and set up in front of the elevator, doors open you pull both triggers and lay waste to everything in the elevator.   Mary Alice you keep this mug talking.  I go through that room and around the ledge and nail the creep from the window.  We save the girl and save the world. Or at least this little part of it.  Easy peezy.”

[Edit: As pointed out to me, this would be a possible place to award a Benny to Pete for coming up with a fairly good idea.  Bennies are the life blood of Wild Cards apparently and the reason they manage to stay alive against insane odds.]

Mary Alice: “Ummm.”

Pete: “No it’ll work, I got an angle.”

Jack: “Okay big shot, I break open the shotgun just to double check and head down the hall, I’m going to set up in doorway close to the elevator and when the doors open if who ever’s in there has hardware in their hands I’m blowing them away.”

Pete: “I’m off.  Mary Alice, here.  I toss her the Thompson and pull out one 45 and swap in my last full clip for the one with three shots left.  What’s that leave me, a 5 and a 7  in the guns and a 5 and a 3 in my pocket.  I move over to the room and check the windows.  If they open I give her the high sign and go out on the ledge and down to the other room.”

Mary Alice: “I call out, ‘Let the girl go now and you can walk away.  No harm no foul.’”

Thug: The voice inside sounds surprised, “A [bleep]ing dame?  What the [bleep]?”

GM: “Mary Alice you see Pete wave and then step out through the window.”

Mary Alice: “Watch the language boyo, there’s a lady present!  I’ll make the offer one more time.  Let the girl go, step out of the room without a gat in your hand and you can walk away from this.  Make us come in there after you and you’ll be dancing in the wind before you know it.”

Thug: “No [bleep]ing way.  You cops?!”

Mary Alice: “Boyo you done brought down the  might of the U.S. government on you.  You really don’t want us coming in there.  I can guarantee you, you’ll leave this place feet first if we do.”

GM: “Jack the elevator has stopped on the bottom floor. It took about 60 seconds to reach the bottom.”

Jack: “I tell Mary Alice to hurry it up.”

GM: “Pete give me a Agility check at +2, there’s plenty of carvings and stonework to hold onto.  You make it out on the ledge and need to work your way around to the other window.”

Pete: “Trying to be as careful as I can I edge down that way.”
Mechanically: Rolls a d8 and d6 for agility and gets a 7 and a 3.  For a total of 7+2 or 9.  Success and a raise.

GM: “You swiftly and smoothly move down the ledge and make it to the window.  You see a body on the floor with a spreading pool of blood coming out of it.  A thug is standing next to a desk chair that has a woman tied to it.  He’s facing the door and has a gun aimed in her general direction.”

Pete: “I give it a moment, taking aim through the glass at him.  I’ll give him two rounds watching the gun if it points away from the girl I’ll take the shot.  If two rounds go by I’ll take it anyway.”

GM: “Cool, okay you’ve got your pistol aimed at his back and are holding your action.  Mary Alice?”

Mary Alice: “I keep him talking, I want him focused on me.”

GM: “Excellent!  Jack, after a few moments stopped the elevator starts to climb up toward you.  It’ll be here in maybe a minute or a little longer, it’s not an express elevator by any stretch.”

Jack: “I’m ready, kneeling down in the doorway with the sawed off aimed at the elevator.  I’ve got two more rounds set up on the floor next to me ready to grab and reload.”

GM: “Pete as Mary Alice talks with the thug and he replies back he points his gun toward the wall with his head cocked.  Looks like he’s trying to figure out where she is so he can make a shot of his own.”

Pete: “I nail the  [bleep].  Double tap him in the center of the back.” 
Mechanically: Rolls a d8 and a d6 at a +1 for the double tap and +2 for the Aim and gets a 6 and a 5.  6+1+2 is a 9 so a success and raise.  2d6+1+1+1d6 for the damage. 2+5+3+1+1 or 12 damage versus 6 Toughness.  A success and a Raise.

GM: “You put two into his back, he jerks and his pistol goes off sending a round through the wall as he falls.   Mary Alice a bullet explodes through the wall and embeds itself in the floor in front of you followed by a loud thump.”

Mary Alice: “I swear. Loudly. Then call out, ‘Pete?!’”

Pete: “‘Got him M.A.!  Get in here!’  I go through the window and get out my knife, rule number 9 you know and cut the girl loose.”

GM: “Mary Alice you open the door to spot a pretty but terrified girl in a chair and Pete cutting her free of her ropes.”

Mary Alice: “Come on, we’ve got to move, elevators on it’s way!”

Pete: “Right, come on toots, we’re getting you out of here.”

GM: “The girl rises or tries to rise and would have fallen if you hadn’t caught her.  She’s been tied so long she’s not very mobile and has stiffened up.”

Pete: “No problem.  I toss her over my shoulder and we move out.”

GM: “You get to the hall, the elevator is about halfway up and should be here in about 30 seconds.”

Pete: “Change in plans, we go back down the tunnel and escape through the laundry.”

Mary Alice: “Do I think the girl can make it?”

GM: “Climbing down five stories of slimy ladder?  Doubtful without time to recover.”

Pete: “Okay back to the original plan. Wait a minute.  I toss the girl off to Mary Alice and run down the hall to the elevator and pry the doors open.”

GM: “Okay, Jack you see Pete race past you as the elevator signals it’s approaching floor 4.  Pete give me a straight strength check.”

Pete: “I jam my prybar into the gap in the doors and pry hard.”
Mechanically: d8 for strength and d6 for wild yields a 2 and a 1.

GM: “The door’s safety latch defies you and it doesn’t open.”

Mary Alice: “What was your plan there braniac?”

Pete: “Doors open should kick off the safety system and cause the elevator to stop.  We should have wedged the doors open from the start.  Hindsight and all that. Okay let’s go back to Plan A and just kill the bastards.  I motion Mary Alice to move the girl back into the office and I find a spot.  Hey are there any tables in the hall?”

GM: “There’s a little wooden table, the kind they put flowers or a vase on near the elevator doors.”

Pete: “I grab that and get in a door way.  As soon as the door opens I’m going to throw it as hard as I can into the elevator, should buy us some reaction time.”

GM: “Okay that would be an opposed Agility combat trick but that only effects their Parry defense, won’t make any difference in your ability to shoot them.”

Pete: “Oh.  Okay let’s just stick with Plan A.”

Jack: “I like it, simple, direct, no complications.”

GM: “The elevator dings and the door opens.  Perception checks please?”

Pete: “Got a 7.”

Jack: “A 5.”

GM: “Okay as the door opens you both see it has one male in it.  He has a 45 in his fist.  He spots you and starts to duck. Everyone including the thug had a Held action so let’s draw initiative.”
Mechanically: Three cards are shuffled out and Jack gets a 10C, Pete gets a 4H and the Thug gets a 8H so the order is Jack, Thug, Pete.

Jack: “I give him both barrels. BLAM BLAM!”

GM: “Okay with a double barred shotgun you can actually give him both barrels as a single shooting roll and both hit or miss together or you can give him two shots with two rolls.  That would incur a -2 penalty for two actions but the shotgun gives you a +2 bonus.

Jack: “Both barrels at once.  I don’t take kindly to thugs that manhandle women.”
Mechanically: Shooting dice of d6 and d6 at a +2 due to the shotgun bonus and rolls a 5 and a 4 for a total of 7.  Both barrels hit the thug.  Close range damage is 3d6 per hit or 6d6 in this case.  Jack gets a 3, 2, 1, 3, 2, 3 or 14 damage versus toughness of 6.  A success and two raises.  [Edit: This is wrong.  The target takes two attacks of 3d6.  In this instance the first 3+2+1 or 6 would Shake the thug and the second 3+2+3 or 8 would in fact cause a wound and kill him since he's an Extra.  Same results but incorrectly figured in the original text]

GM: “The thug is literally cut in half as both loads of buckshot rip through his torso spraying the back of the elevator in gore.  The body parts waver for a moment before hitting the floor of the elevator with a wet squicky noise.”

Pete: “Ewwww.”

Mary Alice: “There’s at least two more downstairs somewhere, the ones from the car maybe. Unless this guy was too stupid to signal them?”

Jack: “Do we take that chance?”

Pete: “Momma said never take a chance you didn’t have to.”

Mary Alice: “I ask the girl how she’s doing.  Can she walk?”

Girl: “I think I can make it.  Oh my god why is this happening.”

Pete: “Don’t you worry your pretty little head sugar pie.  If we think she can make it, we go back down the ladder?”

GM: “With someone sticking close to her she can probably make it.”

Jack: “I call shotgun! Literally…”

GM: “Okay you exit the floor back through the maintenance tunnel, Jack you hang close to the girl going down right below her keeping her steady and secure.  You make it back through the laundry and the street appears to be clear.”

Jack: “I stick close to the girl as we run across the street and down to the car. I sling the shotgun back under my coat and keep my 38 handy.”

Pete: “Crap, I forgot the Thompson.”

Mary Alice: “You mean this one?”

Pete: “Good girl!”

GM: “You make it to your car, Shank’s sitting in the drivers seat with the engine revving. Jack you pile in beside him and Pete, Mary Alice and Rose squeeze into the back seat with the girl in the middle. As he pulls out and heads down the street there’s a flash of headlights behind you as a car comes around the corner.”

Shank: “Maybe trouble boss. Let me try some things.”

GM: “Shank takes a few turns but the headlights stay behind you and then fire rips through the night as someone unloads a machine gun on you from the car behind.”

Pete: “Step on it!”

Shank: “You got it boss! He floors the gas and the car leaps ahead with a roar of the mighty straight six engine.”

GM: “You’re at medium range from the car behind this puts you at a range of 3.  If you get more than 10 away from the pursuit you escape. We pull cards for initiative and Shank gets a 10H and the bad guys get a JD.”

Thugs: “They step on the gas themselves and close the distance to 2 (10 squares, 50′).  A guy leaning out the window opens fire again and the bullets rip through the air around the car but don’t hit anything.”
Mechanically: Driver rolls a d8 for Driving and gets a 4 or a Success and closes the distance by one increment.  The passenger opens fire with a shooting die of d6 taking one burst rather than going full auto, -2 for an unstable platform and rolls a 4 for a total of 2.

Shank: “Whips the car around a corner, trying to cost them some ground but the thugs keep right on their tail.”
Mechanically: Rolls a d10 for Driving and gets a 2 which fails and there’s no change.

Pete: “‘Mary Alice if I may?’  I take the tommy gun and shoot back full auto.”
Mechanically: The tommy gun has a rate of fire of 3 on fully auto so Pete rolls his shooting die three times and one wild die.  He’s going to be at -2 for the unstable platform and -2 for full auto.  Rolls a 7, 6, 5 and 2.  At -4 he misses with all three bursts.

Pete: “Not good.  I’m going to spend a Benny to re-roll my attack.”

GM: “You’ve already spent three bennies, you’re out.”

Mary Alice: “I yell at him to make his shots count, that last shot came too close! I give him a Benny to try again.”
Mechanically: Mary Alice has the Common Bond Edge which allows her to give her Bennies to another member of the group.

Pete: “Sweet, I remember to take careful aim, not wanting to see Mary Alice get shot.”
Mechanically: He rolls again, a d8 for each shot and a d6 wild with much better results.  5, 8, 8, 4.  Two of the shots aced or exploded and he ends up with attack rolls of 5, 14, 13, 4.  At -4 he has a 1, 10, 9 as his three attack rolls.  1 miss and 2 critical hits.  He rolls damage rolls of 2d6+1+1d6 (base plus critical bonus) twice. First burst nets him a 6, 6, 5.  The two sixes explode for a 5 and a 1 for a total of 6+6+5+5+1+1 or 24 damage.  The second attack also starts with a 2d6+1+1d6 and yields a 1, 2, 4 +1 for 8 damage.
The bad guys’ vehicle has a toughness of 10. The Thompson negates 1 point of armour so it has a functional toughness of 9.  The second shot at 8 damage has no effect.  The first shot at 24 damage gets a success and 3 raises. 
The driver of the other car has to make a driving skill roll at -3 due to the 3 wounds the car has taken and the car has to roll on the critical hits chart three times, once for each wound.  The driver rolls a d8 and gets a 3 for a total of negative one and the car goes Out of Control.  The out of control result is a 7 and the skids 1 square to the side but otherwise takes no ill effects.  The critical hit results are 8,8 and 9.  Two hits to the chassis with no special effects.  The 9 indicates one of the passengers is hit. The damage is rerolled and yields a total of 18 damage, (2d6+1+1d6) 6+5+1+4+2.  A d6 to randomly determine who is hit results in the guy leaning out the window.

GM: “You stitch a line of holes across the front of the car chasing you and sparks fly. A burst of bullets punch through the throat and head of the guy leaning out the window shooting at you and the gun drops to the ground.  As the driver jinks the car to the right it tosses the body out through the door and goes flying into a plate glass window.  The car is shooting steam or smoke from under the hood where your bullets punched through the body.”

Jack: “I stick the double barrel out the other side and blast him with both barrels.”
Mechanically: +2 to Shooting for the shotgun, -2 for unstable platform.  The range is 2 with an increment of 5 so 10 squares away putting it in the Medium range for the shotgun for -2 to hit.   Jack rolls a d6 and a d6 and gets a 2 and a 1 or 2+2-2-2 or 0.  Missed.

Jack: “I spend a benny and try it again.”
Mechanically: Rolls d6 and d6 and gets a 1 and a 6, explosion to 8 on the attack roll with a total penalty of -2 for a 6 attack roll versus a 4.  He gets a hit.  He rolls damage of 2d6 + 2d6 (both barrels at medium range) and gets a 1, 1, 6, 5.  The 6 explodes and totals 7.  1+1+7+5 = 14 damage.  That’s a success and a raise on damage.  This causes the car to take a wound putting it at 4.  This wrecks the car and the driver has to make an out of control check at -4 and the car takes a critical hit as well.  The driver rolls a d8-4 and gets an 8 which explodes to a total of 12.  He gets a success and a raise and easily manages to drive the car to a safe stop.  The critical hit roll is a 3 and indicates the engine is severely damaged  not that it matters since the car’s been Wrecked at this point from taking four wounds. [Edit: This is wrong like the guy in the elevator.  The damage would have been one attack of 2 against the cars defense and another one of 12 against the cars defense of 10.  As a result the car chase would have continued on for at least another round or three.]

GM: “Two barrels of buckshot blow through the radiator of the car and destroy several portions of the engine and the car shudders and clanks as the engine eats itself.  The driver is good though and pulls the car to stop without wrecking it.  He steps out and stares at you as you recede off into the distance.”

Mary Alice: “Great they have our tag.”

Shank: “No boss, seems it fell off while we was out for a drive this evening.  Sorry ’bout that, I’ll get them screws fixed real soon like.”

Mary Alice: “For shame!  But I guess we can let it slip this time.”

Pete: “I check on the girl, ‘hey how you doing?’”

GM: “She’s shaken up as you can imagine but isn’t physically harmed. She seems ready to fall asleep she’s so tired and worn out.”

Jack: “Shank, pull over and get the plate back on, we don’t want to get stopped by the cops, I don’t want anyone noticing us tonight then let’s swing out to Woodville and deliver the package to her family.”

Pete: “When we stop to put on the plate, I get the ammo box out of the back and make sure everyone’s topped off including the Thompson.”

GM: “Okay, Shank finds an alley to pull into and puts the license plate back on the car and checks it for damage finding one bullet hole in the back of one of the quarter panels.  He tells you there’s not much he can do about it now but back at the office garage he can hammer it back out and put a bit of paint over it and it won’t be obvious.  Pete refills his clips and the thompson and hands a few shells to Jack for his shotgun.  Mary Alice provides a shoulder for the girl who quickly is out like a light.
The drive out to exclusive suburb of Woodville is uneventful, traffic is light and no one seems to pay you any attention.  Arriving at the house, even at this late hour, a valet exits the house as you pull up into the roundabout.  Spotting the girl he hurries forward and helps you with her and ushers you into the house where she’s whisked away by the housekeeper and a maid even as Reginald Granger, your client is roused from bed.
You’re taken to the study, a lavish affair of dark woods and over stuffed leather arm chairs with bookcases filled with tomes that are probably more window dressing than anything where you meet with your client.
Mr. Granger is overjoyed to have his daughter back safe and sound and promises to have an agent at your doorstep first thing in the morning to settle your accounts.”

The case of the Missing Heiress can be considered closed successfully.

Of course the repercussions of taking down several of the O’Toole gang if the group is fingered in the rescue might make for an interesting time of it in the future.

Bodies, hundreds of them, most long dead it looked like from their appearance lay scattered, ripped and torn on grounds around the city walls. The walls of the city beyond were breached in several places but the holes were filled and blocked with everything handy from what he could see.  Wagons, push carts, crates, timbers and the rubble of the walls themselves were piled high in the breaches.   The main gates lay twisted and shattered but what looked like ship timbers filled the opening.  There was a sudden pop of light and sigils flared along the walls, twisting red arcane symbols floating above the walls that reminded him of the barrier wardings that Utha had cast in her lair.

The others joined him atop the hill each pausing to stare at the battlefield in silence for several moments.  The bodies lay sprawled, filled with arrows, blasted and burnt by fire or other forces.  They covered a wide spectrum, what were obviously farmers and peasants mixed with hobgoblins and goblins and even larger creatures as here and there a hill giant formed a large mound of dead flesh. 

Most appeared to have been dead for days even weeks, at odds with the time of length the group had been out of the city, obviously foul magics were at work here and the undead army they’d feared for such a long time had materialized, only in their absence.

“What do you make of those?” Torel asked Biminey as the strange symbols flickered into visibility atop the walls of the city. 

The artificer narrowed his senses, reaching out toward the city with that inner force that gave his creations life. His voice was uncertain when he finally spoke, “They’re wardings and artificer origin but they’re… odd.  I get a sense of great age about them but they’re weak, weakening even, running down.”

Stak spoke up, “Those figures on the walls, they’re townies.  I can see the Watch and the Anvil mercs up there along with normal folk.  They’re armed but just barely, a lot of fishing spears and table legs by the look of it.”

Everyone glanced at Stak and then at the minuscule forms, little more than dots in the distance. Visra said, a little incredulously, “You can tell that?”

In answer Stak held up his left hand, the stylized eagle beak running up his forearm from the swirled red patterns across his hand.

T’Balktu grunted, “So we won.”

The avenger shrugged, “Looks like.  Let’s get down there and find out what’s going on.”

The group picked their way through the corpses, the stench even worse close up and it was obvious that all the combatants had already been dead by the time they dropped on this battlefield at least.  The wounds were mostly dry or oozed a black ichor rather than the vats of blood that should have been covering the ground.

A crowd gathered on the walls as they approached and Torel made sure the city standard was unfurled and visible.  A small cheer went up from inside as they made their way closer.

The Captain, his left arm held in a sling next to his body along with Sargent Driskul met them atop the barricade filling the gap where the main gates had been. 

Stak nodded at the upraised eyebrow of the grizzled warrior, holding up his left hand, displaying the red tattoo of the Soul Eaters.  The Sergeant blinked then slowly nodded back.

“Hope we get a better reception than these got, Captain.” Biminey joked as they stopped at the base of the rubble.

“Depends on what news you have to give me.  Come on, Council wants you.  Sergent!”

Driskul glanced behind, “Pyotr and Jenna, get that ladder up here and over the side.  The rest of you lot, get back to your gods damned posts.  Move it or you’ll be defending this wall from outside!”

A long wood ladder came clattering down and quickly the group went up it and over the barricade.  The scene inside was grim, the citizens mixing with Watch and Anvil mercenaries alike atop the wall.   The large courtyard inside, that typically held all manner of carts and vendors was torn up, the cobblestones ripped and torn in a huge circle that encompassed easily a 30 yards across.  Biminey and Visra both flinched at the magic residue lingering over the circle, magic twisted and broken in feeling.

“What happened?” Visra asked holding out a hand, feeling the energies that lay in fragments over the courtyard.

The Captain shot her a look, “Funnel cloud sprung up, ripped up the cobblestones in that circle.  Priests say that let them use it as a summoning circle and creatures poured into the city.  We beat’em but it cost us.  It costs us a lot.  Bodies are piling up in a couple of warehouses on the docks waiting burial.  Same thing happened in four different spots around the city at roughly the same time, same day you left.  That night, an army of undead showed up.  We almost went under but then those showed up” he said jerking a thumb at the flickering wardings, “and the bodies all dropped like someone had cut their strings.”

“Where’d the wardings come from?” Biminey asked.

Captain shrugged, “Not sure on that one, Eris folk weren’t too clear, all I got out of it was they disrupt whatever powers the enemy is using to power the undead.  Surprised you made it through, every time I sent a squad out to try to destroy the bodies they roused long enough to drag them down or force them to retreat.”

Torel glanced up at the standard he held in his left hand and pursed his lips in contemplation.

“We’ll go over everything at the Temple, the Eris priests say we shouldn’t talk in the open, the rain can act as an extension of the enemy they say.  Temple’s supposed to be shielded from it.”

Image Credits

The campaign is/was designed to end at level 10 as our doughty heroes enter the Paragon tier of play after having faced the regional Big Bad.  I have some thoughts on season two that should be entertaining for the players and take the play in a new direction.

In the interim I’m going to be taking a look at Savage Worlds with a, as usual, home brew setting.  It’ll be a horror campaign with crazed asylum escapees, dark deeds and strange symbols inscribed on the victims although with the usual goat skin leggings crew making an appearance.

Savage Worlds is a ‘light’ game system with a decided different take on things.  The fans (dare I say fanbois?) are pretty rabid about the system but then so are [insert game system here] fans typically.  Myself I like to think I look at the good points of a system and modify the points I don’t like to something I do.  Rarely do I just hate on a system, if you’re having fun with it, then it’s a good system, it just might not be good for me.  Also rarely do I take any game system as written as a System From On High and the rules are sacrosanct and never to be trifled with.  Any reasonably complex system can always (with)stand change.

Anyway, one thing I’m not thrilled with in Savage Worlds is the mandatory need for multiple dice.  With a blind player, dice can be an issue.  Right now since we only use a d20 I wrote a audible dice roller for the player such that he just presses a button and rolls a dice and the results are spoken out loud.  But with Savage Worlds, we’re looking at sequences like “Okay to shoot him, roll a d8 and a d6.  Okay the d8 got an 8 so roll it again.  Okay you ended up with 13 total.  That’s a hit plus a raise so your pistol is going to do 2d6-1 damage and an extra 1d6 for the raise.  One of the dice got a 6, roll it again and add the total.”

That kind of sequence is far from unusual with this system.  It’s only when you can’t see the dice that it becomes a significant issue. Not a game breaker but significant.

Another thing with Savage worlds is it falls back to the “My turn?  I hit him with my bat / shoot him with my pistol.” as the basic go-to option for combat.  Not good or bad in and of itself but it will be interesting in seeing how things go after having a laundry list of things you can do combat with 4th Edition.  Yes I know there are “Trick Maneuvers” you can do in Savage Worlds but those really only add one option, “Opposed check to get a +2 to hit” basically.

On the plus side you have a natural combat speed up since the possible options are a…bit… less to choose from mechanically.

One thing that sticks out to me at first glance as I go over character creation  about Savage Worlds RAW is that Agility is King with a huge effing  K.   Agility influences the most skills, determines your skill at hitting with every possible attack as well as determines how hard you are to hit.  Strength’s only function is to add damage to melee hits and let you carry more.  There’s but a single skill associated with it, Agility has something like 10 skills and Smarts 9′ish.* (see below)  which makes the ‘dex monkey’ or ‘wizard’ cock of the walk in combat by far.

Vigor, the semi equivalent of constitution has no skills.  With this system the strong hero pretty much sucks as a character concept.  He either has to spend double the points to keep his Agility high compared to the Agile or Smart character or he has a huge skill cost penalty, has trouble hitting things and is easily hit.  Strength doesn’t even let him absorb damage better, that’s the demesne of Vigor.  So a melee fighter has to raise three skills, Agility, Vigor, and Strength, where as a ranged fighter only needs Agility and Vigor and a caster typically only Smarts and Vigor or Spirit and Vigor.  All three of them can be equally tough but to be equally effective the melee fighter has to spend 33% more resources than the others.

The biggest source of the problem is that perhaps too much is tied in with Agility.   It heavily influences a characters ability to hit with Melee, Ranged and Thrown weapons by making those with low agility have to spend more points in those skills (double the cost) as well as making them take more damage.

In 4th Edition they avoid the problem by strictly tying Strength to Melee and Agility(Dexterity) to Ranged attacks.  Perhaps it might sense to try it here as well by simply moving Fighting over under Strength?   But then we screw with the swashbuckler character concept.  4th Edition avoids that issue by simply using Str or Dex as attack modifiers by class power, only the basic attacks are strictly Str and Dex based per Melee and Ranged.   A rogue could be using Dex to stab you with a knife.

Ahh tis a conundrum.

* – House Rule Changes (so far) –

• Combined Swimming, Climbing into Athletics under Strength
• Combined Survival and Tracking into Nature
• Changed Notice to Perception
• Changed Persuasion to Diplomacy
• Changed Lockpicking into Thievery and move Pickpockets from Stealth into it.
• Added Insight Skill

With the blood of one of his shaman’s staining his rugs, Nightwalker bids the group good night and they sleep in one of the hobgoblin tents.  Rousing in the morning they set off on a hunting / bait trip taking a small hunting party of hobgoblins with them.

A herd of Dark Horns or One Horns attacks them, 5 of the beasts sweeping over a rise and charging into the middle of them.  The creatures focus on the hobgoblins during the initial wave but swiftly engage the players as it’s painfully obvious that they, the dark horns, are suddenly vulnerable to the blade and edge of their foes unlike the past.

The hobgoblins are killed but the party emerges victorious.  With incredible skills at combat they manage to prevent not one but two of the dark horns from fleeing the combat at the last possible second with an amazing throw of a tanglefoot bag by T’Balktu and a foot race performed by Visra and Biminey after the last one.  [Actions points for the win here, without them at least one if not both of the one horns would have escaped and then been in the battle with the Hunter]

The group cuts the three foot dark horns from the creature’s and stows them away as proof of the encounter and collects the personal effects of the hobgoblins that fell in battle and then burn the corpses.

Stak goes ahead to determine the tracks and see where they lead.  He overhears two voices, hard to pinpoint speaking the toungue of the dragons.  The voices refer to each other as sister and from the snippet of conversation Stak comes away with the thought that they do not like the Spirithunter, referring to him as a trespasser on their domain.  They also reference the group, “they bear that which can give us the true death sister.” before he catches a glimpse of a shrouded shape, seen more by displaced air than sight.  A dragon like shape although with two heads.

They do not travel far before they find themselves in a clearing, dimly lit, dimmer than the day’s light would make it seem.

[Although no one remarked on the coincidence of without searching they ran into the Hunter, it was because he was twisting reality to bring the two of them together.]

Diplomatic talks fail rather quickly and the battle is joined.  The hunter unleashes his deadly bow shots on the party, never missing while his flayed bulls and a single dark horn engage them in melee.  The bulls although formidable proved to be a mere roadblock in the group’s path as they engage the hunter.

The hunter, although he could have fled the battle, elected to stay.  His chaotic nature or a lust for vengeance against the group that has killed his ‘children’ or a sense of invincibility may have driven him to his death.  Or perhaps something else entirely.

The group recovers the Hunter’s bow, Fatebringer.  A gleaming black greatbow with strange properties.  As well as the hunter’s cloak which blends one in with the surroundings as well as for a momentary time can render one invisible completely.

[This encounter could have actually ended without a fight if the party had taken the right tack with the hunter and they could have steered to other pastures.  But "Enough talk!" and the fight was on.]

They head back with their trophies to the Soul Eater tribe and there was much rejoicing, well as much as a on the brink of starving group can rejoice.  NIghtwalker brings them into his sacred tent and totems are set up around the edges.  He tells the group that for their deeds they are being made honorary members of the tribe and can elect to take a totem creature.   Each member does and as they touch one of the totems the red dye on the wood smoothly curls up and out over their left hands and halfway up their forearm, then recedes leaving behind a abstract tattoo that twines about their skin.    The tattoos lend a minor touch of the creatures power to the members of the group.  T’balktu gains the strength of the ox which lets him ignore the hindering weight of his armour, Stak gains the vision of the eagle allowing him to see that which might be missed, Visra gains the silent stealth of the hunting owl that glides on soundless wings before grabbnig its prey, Torel gains the wolves ability to recover from damage that would kill most creatures and Biminey gains the slyness of the fox that lets it slip through a pack of dogs without getting bitten.

[The players did not know the effects of the tattoo's before making their choices.  Mechanically they gained the following - T'balktu isn't subject to armour penalties to skill checks or movement, Stak makes two perception rolls and keeps the highest any time he needs to make one, Visra can make two stealth checks and keep the highest, Torel recovers +2 hit points when he spends a surge and Biminey can dodge one opportunity attack that he might incur during his movement.   These were intended as cool features for the players as well as make them stand out a little more.]

After the ceremony they talk with Nightwalker about their next steps and the Soul Eaters are going to send out messengers to cease hostilities against the town and outlying settlements while the group seeks the missing knowledge that holds the ka or soul of the Strongest Foe.  Biminey translates that as a Book that holds Hash’Kar’s true name.  He mistakenly assumes it’s the amulet he’s been holding onto these long months and hauls it out of its warded and protecting spot in his heavy flail.  Nightwalker looks puzzled, “Why would you give me this?” and then all the shamans keeping watch in the spiritworld start having siezers, muttering or crying out that “He’s coming!”

Three of the spiritwatchers manage to rally but one of them is possessed and Nightwalker is forced to kill him before the Strongest Foe can take over and manifest. But not before the Strongest Foe, King Hash’Kar, chaosborn again, knows what it is that Biminey was hiding, knows that the group has the key that could unlock his doom.

[It was missed during this session by everyone but the Hobgoblins kind of ate the group's horses after they left on the hunting trip.  I completely forgot to mention it an no one else made any note of the fact that they were missing.]

They pack up and rapid travel back to the city of Larkson.  Nightwalker doesn’t seem to happy with them, he’s lost two of his shaman brothers because of the party although he does realize that he’d of likely lost them all if the party hadn’t of shown up and killed the hunter. [Or did they?] After two days travel they run into Liloth in her travel form who unleashes a prince of the abyss on them, a minor one admittedly but still.  The beast almost destroys T’Balktu several times but the persevering healing of Biminey keeps the goliath alive and they destroy the deamon prince’s corporeal form sending its essence back to the abyss there to spend 66 years pulling its tattered form back together.

[This was a triggered encounter that's been pending for a long time awaiting the bad guys finding out the group has the amulet.  mechanically it's leveled up with the party as it waits its turn in the limelight]

The group arrives back at Larkson to find it has been under attack, the walls have been breached in several places as well as the main gates.  Bodies of animated corpses litter the grounds in front of the walls but the city still holds.   The gaps have been blocked with makeshift barricades and strange wardings flicker along the walls.

The group makes it way down through the grisly battlefield, the stench of long dead flesh strong and harsh, something finally able to overthrow the smell of fish that lay about the town.

As they clamber over the rubble and littler that block the main gate we leave our heroes to find out exactly what happened in future sessions.

[Overall this was a little collapses as I want to get to the season ender in the next two sessions as Torel is going to be unavailable for awhile after that so I'm going to compress my kind of planned out 3 or 4 sessions worth of gaming into the next two but I think it'll still be coherent and logical progression.

For the curious Fatebringer has the following stats:  Greatbow - Properties: On critical hit the target is restrained.  Critical damage: 3d8.  On a miss the wielder gains +1 to hit to a maximum of +4.  The bonus goes away once the wielder hits the target or switches to a new target.

Hunter's Cloak - Property: +3 to Stealth skill.  Power - Daily - Minor action: Gain invisibility until the end of your next turn.  The invisibility is lost if you attack or are hit by an attack. ]

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So with that said, the party was  going to need to seek out the hobgoblins in the region last week, who have banded together.  On the way there I’d come up with a minor POI or Point of Interest that could be engaged or bypassed as the party wished.  These always start out as ‘filler’ material to lend verisimilitude to the world that things happen in spite of the players, not because of them.

There have been several such incidents during this campaign.  What might appear to be a minor encounter just for an encounter’s sake branches the world as the player’s react to it.  The rescue of the people kidnapped when the airship touched down in Darkmith, the rescue of the slaves from hobgoblins, the encounter with the Hill Giant (Rest in peace big fella you had so much ahead of you), the bandit encounter, the woman and child who entered the town bleeding to name a few off the top of my head.  These were all Important Moments In Time and helped determine future events.

This most recent PoI was of a similar nature.  This little encounter started out in my planning as a small little tactical combat opportunity as they searched around the countryside looking for a tribe of hobs to parlay with.  Nothing special, the kind of thing that every DM pencils into his flow chart to make sure he has enough ‘stuff’ on hand to fill the session.

But over the course of the week this little minor side point grew and evolved and here is how it happened.

As the week went by the generic “Necromonger” as it was, your basic necromancer encounter, a creature shunned from town for his stereotypical fetish for the dead.  My initial envisioning was of a necromancer taking advantage of the bodies of a hobogoblin intra warfare site.   The initial single encounter broadened into two encounters and the scenery was filled in.   The generic aka without much interest antagonist turned into the Steppes Hag as I found time to consider the upcoming weeks events.   I envisioned this creature as a minor legend in the area, one that fed on the dead and made them serve her and the encounter grew into three ‘minicounters’.  A kind of minor delve.

Then as I was working on my Rogue’s Gallery of villains on the opposing forces a little note I’d penciled many weeks ago about one of the creatures working for the BBEG back in the day, Utha Plaguebringer now escaped from her prison like so many others of the dark days, caught my eye and the Steppes Hag became Utha and a new plot branching was brought into being.

I’d already set the stage for Utha to make an appearance, her pet, a kind of liche like dragon creature had already been spotted searching the countryside (looking for bodies for his mistress truth be known now after the fact as a kind of foreshadowing but it also had the side benefit of increasing the paranoia of the players).

As I dressed up the encounter a bit more I realized that Utha wasn’t doing her job very well.  So the encounter grew more legs and stretched out.  Instead of just sending out Bonegnasher to spot battle sites, she set up a ritual, a powerful summoning magic that subtly leads people toward her lair and drives them to their natural tendencies to fight.  It was aimed primarily at hobgoblins who enjoy fighting other tribes.  This way she doesn’t have to go looking for bodies, they come to her.  Naturally though as the players traversed the countryside they would be caught in this ritual.  Although they discovered it before walking into the trap as heroes tend to do.  But what makes a hero is what he does with such knowledge.

In addition she’s still bitter about her sister, Liloth gaining the favor of the Dark One and is always scheming ways to curry favor and throw down her bitch of a sister as she sees her.  So she’s concocted a plan to infect the corpses with plague and give them back the semblance of healthy flesh.  These hobgoblins she’ll send back into the tribes where they’ll pass on the infections.

The underlying reason for her actions are many as I inked her into being.  She along with all the others of the Darkmith bunch hate the hobgoblins as they were part of the forces that locked them away and to date still guard against any creature that escapes the wardings of the ancient prisons.  By decimating the tribes she hopes to win the ‘love’ of the Dark One.  In addition committing genocide by disease is just a joy of hers anyway.  She’s not a very nice creature.

In the end the encounter grew from a simple time filler into what I think was a fairly interesting encounter (even if there was no loot ) and the players’ actions or inactions yet again have a direct and major impact on the world.  If they’d not followed up on the encounter, if they’d of not killed her or if they’d of taken too long to kill her she would have escaped and continued on with her plans and the players would have had to deal with the consequences of the hobgoblin tribes, a major if unknown factor in the fight against Darkmith sickening and dying.

As it was they performed a service for all hobgoblin kind, the same hobgoblins by the way who have ransacked and destroyed several farming villages of Larkson and taken the people they didn’t kill into slavery.  Just because hobgoblins have a common enemy with the group, doesn’t make them nice people either.  Not everything is black and white, in fact few things are.

So there you have it, the evolution of an encounter from a generic combat fight into something with interest and ties to the world and the story line and it was simply by spending a little time each day thinking about the planned encounters and past encounters and the forces at work in the world.

Hopefully this will inspire you to turn that next random wandering encounter into something with deeper roots than as a portable bag of experience and gold for your players.

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As the group prepares to depart the city looking for the Soul Eater tribe they’re stopped at the gate by a messenger who delivers a note from Councilor Teagon along with a small pouch.  The note is innocuous enough, wishes them well on their journey and mentions he’d like to discuss the town’s leadership with them when they get back.

The pouch contains a months supply of elvish trail mix and delicacies for 5 people.  It’s a minor bag of holding with a 8 cubic feet of storage space and roughly a 50lb limit on goods.

The group heads south in search of the soul eaters.  On their second day Stak notices a pack of wolves lead by a huge wolf with bony spikes and vertically slit yellow eyes pacing them.  The alpha wolf goes out of it’s way to let Stak see it and appears to be mocking them.   After a couple of hours of this the wolves disappear to not be seen again.

Toward the end of day 2 they realize that they’ve been pulled off their course by a very subtle magic, one that’s pulled them eastward and they arrive at the site of a battle.  Hobgoblins a few mostly whole, others torn to bits litter a large swatch of dry riverbed.  A large tunnel leads into the opposite cliff side.  As they look the area over, two large hobgoblins, bearing the full length tattoos of hands of bane plod out of the cave entrance and each grabs the ankle of a hobgoblin body and drags it back into the cave.

Torel’s avenger senses kick off and he realizes that the two have no aura of life about them.

They devise a plan to ambush the hobgoblins and barely get into position when the two re-emerge and move out gather more bodies.  They’re swiftly and quietly downed by the group.

Stak sneaks into the cave and spots a larger chamber littered with hobgoblin bodies of multiple tribes.  At the far end a female figure is crooning and cackling over the body of a hobgoblin, magical energies flowing from strange crystals in the cave walls through her and into the body and the body is slowly repaired of all damage.

She’s muttering to herself, about how her little pretties will go forth and spread disease and sickness among the guardians and how her beloved will throw down his current favorite and take her up instead.

Stak retreats and informs the others and they move into the caves.  The creature, Utha Plaguebringer, senses their life force and flees, triggering the bodies to rise up as well as locking the chamber behind wardings preventing exit and bringing into life blaster sigil’s that fire flaming rays of energy at the party.

They cut a swath through the zombies, none of which are very strong and Biminey disables the sigils that are flash frying the goliath barbarian.

Together they work on dropping the wardings after dealing with all the hostile threats in the room.   As they destroy the warding there’s a rumble from deeper within the earth and the cavern shakes and dirt and rocks fall free of the ceilings.  There’s also a piercing cry of pain and surprise from where Utha fled.

They proceed deeper and find Utha clawing her way out of rocks near where a large dragon like creature lays buried under new rubble.  The same creature they spotted flying in a search pattern on their way back from the hobgoblin raid.

Utha screams and locks burst from cages holding the last two of her plaguedogs which leap out after the party.

They work well to contain the threat, Stak pouring massive damage into Utha while the rest manuever around the room tying up the others.

Bonegnasher, Utha’s pet flying creature emerges from the rubble only moments before his mistress dies.  Although as usual T’balktu takes the brunt of the damage the fight is of no match for the strength of the party and they down all four of the creatures.

[Note: This battle had four level 7-10 elites.   Bonegnasher's main attack was an 'overkill' which did the trope'ic claw claw bite attack old school style which T'balktu felt the brunt of more than once.  This is another example of where player actions impact the world.  The group could have ignored or retreated from this battle at any time. In that event Utha's plan would have continued on and the party would have run into plagues sweeping through the hobgoblin tribes later on which would have created another situational branching of world events.]

They clean up after the fight, disposing of the bodies with fire and light, dragging them outside.  T’balktu laments the last of his smoking jacket and tosses it on the pyre.

Finding a place to hole up they rest the remainder of the night.  On Visra’s watch she comes awake as temperatures plummet and spots a pair of yellow glowing eyes with vertical slits in the face of a human male staring at her.  As she screams the eyes blink and deep laughter fades away into the distance.

They move on the next day crossing the trail of hobgoblin war party heading in the direction they’d come from after moving west to get back on their original trail.  They elect to not pursue.

They run into two skinless bears, huge dire creatures that rip T’Balktu and Stak into catfood before they’re put down hard.  The city banner reacts to these creatures and Torel, the apparently holder of the banner plants it and feels the flare of powers interacting between the banner and the creatures.  Biminey and Visra vivisect the creatures and uncover powerful components for the making of unique magic items.

That night Torel is surprised by a band of what turn out to be Soul Eaters who enter the camp and give them guest rights for two days and invite them to come talk to the elder of the tribe. The band seems very nervous and twitchy and constantly stare out into the darkness.   The leader of the band Seoul tells the group of the Hunter that is plaguing them and his foul Furies, hairless beasts that are killing them.

The group follows the band to the Soul Eaters camp, a fortified encampment.  There they meet with He Who Walks The Night, an ancient hobgoblin shaman with tattoos down to at least his waist.

They palaver and Nightwalker tells the group of the black Hunter who kills them during the day with arrows that strike and kill them without any sign of the attacker and his creatures which hunt them at night.  How their blades and magic do nothing against the creatures and how they’re dying slowing in small numbers trying to stay alive.

Biminey recalls some lore on this creature, that it was a force of Chaos, called to the chaos that the creatures of Darkmith created, that fed off the energies and occasionally did tasks for the Darkmith king, mostly as the tasks would generate more chaos.

The group and Nightwalker speak long into the day, sharing tales of their exploits, explaining the trophies they bear.  They learn that the hobgoblin tribes were set to guard against creatures escaping Darkmith but over the decades the tribes ‘lost their way’.  Much like the Keepers of Secrets apparently have as he refers to the city of Larkson.  That the Keepers have lost the knowledge that was their sacred trust and Nightwalker now fears that the Darkmith King will find his way to freedom without the means to put him back down again.

The group hears the tales and decide they’re going to help the Soul Eaters with their issue and they share the goodies that Tegaon gave them with the tribe, all of which are starting to show signs of lack of food and the next day they’re going to head out and see if they can get the Hunter to come after them.  They believe that the banner that the priests of Eris made for them will let their own weapons work against the Hunter, a creature of chaos that is allied with the powers of Darkmith.

[DM's Note: The banner does work this way actually.  Merely having it out allows the players to deal normal damage against the Darkmithian's. Planting it and setting up the draining zone actually allows the players to truly kill one of the Darkmith's.   They're a tough breed and hard to give a true death to...

The magic items they’ll get out the Furies are as follows for the curious, they’re not intended to be perfectly balanced for 4th edition but are balanced for my campaign and the finances of the party –

• 3,400 residium – Bear Skull Helm – Property: Critical attacks deal 1d12 additional damage. Daily Power – Demoralizing Roar Blast 3; Wis vs Will; target takes 1d8+4 psychic damage and is weakened and slowed until the end of its next turn.
  “A transparent roaring bears head appears over your head and blasts out a crushing roar at nearby opponents daring them to attack you.”
• 4,000 residium – Bears Heart Amulet – Property: +2 on saving throws versus Fear or Psychic.  Daily Power – Bear’s Fury – Immediate Reaction when first bloodied – Make a melee basic attack, Str vs AC; 1d8+4 damage close burst 1; target’s enemies only.
  “The ghostly image of a bear appears overlaid upon you and spins, clawing everything within range.”
• 5,000 residium – Bear Claw Amulet – Property:    Daily Power – Spend a healing surge and deal 4 damage to any enemy creature that successfully attacks you with a melee attack until the end of the encounter.
  “Ghostly images of bear paws lash out at anyone foolish enough to attack you.”

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We join our group in the aftermath of the hobgoblin raid.  For the curious the hobgoblins in my world are a cross between feudal japan and American Indian.  Highly martial ideology but formed into large tribes that stake out territories and have a lot of intra-tribal warfare as well as fighting anything that invades their territories.

The group has just wiped out a force of the Throatcutter’s tribe.  A sizable force of their better warriors according to Sgt. Driskull afterward as the Throatcutters sent a lot of more well trained than normal fighters on this raid.  For someone familiar with the hobgoblin ways it’s easy to tell a warriors relative skill by the tattoos they bear.  They did lose over half their forces in mercenaries and city watch in the doing though as a result.  A good thing the city sent a well trained force instead of mixing in neophytes and raw recruits.

[DM's Note: The relative 'worth' of a hobgoblin warrior can be judged by the tattoos they wear.  It starts with a tribal identifying tattoo in the palm of their main hand.  As they rise in skill and respect the tattos grow up their arm across their shoulders and down the other arm.  A warrior who has 'gone the distance' becomes a Hand of Bane in the tribes, one of the most feared and respected warrior the hobgoblins have.   Shaman's, warcasters, fleshcarvers, spiritspeakers, etc. have tattoo's that grow out from the top of their heads.  A Speaker Of the Dead, the shamanistic equivalent of a Hand of Bane tattoos will have covered their entire head down to the base of their neck.]

They rescue 31 captives, farmers and crafters that were taken by the hobgoblins out of about 60 and get them bundled up to head back.  The trip back is slower, taking 12 hours rather than 8 due to the infirm from the fighting or the general condition of the farmers.

While hiding in a dense copse of trees lookouts spot a bat winged dragon like creature flying high overhead in figure eights, obviously a search pattern but they go undetected or at least unmolested by the creature who’s search pattern takes it out of sight to the south east.

They’re welcomed back in town as heroes and as it’s well past evening they head off to the Temple of Eris to take a break while Driskull and his aid Baen head off to report and others see to the welfare of the farmers and the wounded.

At the council meeting the next day, which includes the entire group, Captain Werrick, Sgt Driskull, Councilors Teagon, Lerik and Garon and their aids.  Lerik has a new aid, a non-descript human who’s gaze rarely leaves that of the group and who says nothing or even moves much during the meeting.

While the group is reporting Lerik makes outbursts, primarily to himself it seems that they’ve doomed them all, the whole town will now suffer the wrath of the tribes and be destroyed.

Finally Garon has enough of his comments, rants and snide remarks and dismisses him, requesting Driskull to escort the man out of the building.   As Lerik passes the group they recoil a bit at the rank body odor of the man, although appearing up kept and clean he reeks of old sweat.   Lerik’s aide follows his boss out staring at the group the entire while.

Garon presents the group with an award, Dragonshard Daggers, obtained for them by Teagon from a crafter back in the Feywild.  Each dagger gleams of highest quality craftsmanship, the pommels set with a strange quartz like crystal that has a sheen like an opal.  Teagon tells them they are a gift from him and he relieves them of the eladrin custom of a return gift.   *hint hint*

The daggers have the ability that if they are infused with life force (healing surge) they can be used to communicate with a holder of the other daggers.  In addition they have the ability to allow two wielders who are adjacent to the same target to get combat advantage once per encounter as the wielders will be able to time their strikes just so to open a target up for attack.

Biminey wonders out loud where Lerik’s house might be after his rant against them and Garon is a little suspicious of his reasons.  Teagon though gives them a bit of a high sign and a shake of the head and Biminey drops it.

Later that day a commoner arrives at the temple with a note that has directions to a house on it but without any identifying marks.

Torel goes and talks to Captain Werrick and Driskull about their next steps and learns that Driskull wanted to leave to seek out a tribe of hobgoblins that the other hobgoblin tribes hold in high respect.  They are known as the Easters of Souls and their tats are in red rather than black like the other tribes.  Their home ground is far south near Darkmith although with the recent upheavals in the tribes wanderings they may no longer be there.

Meanwhile Biminey and T’balktu follow the directions and reach Lerik’s house.  There Biminey detects strong arcanic energies around the place.   He sends for the others of the group who eventually arrive and he also detains a 2 man patrol of the Watch.

A strong smell of incense hangs over the area near the house.

He tries to open the door, it’s a good lock though and T’Balktu in his barbarian impatience simply scales the wall to see if he can figure out what the problem is.  He notes that the inner vegetation is all dead of the courtyard gardens.   Inside he undoes a couple of bolts and lifts a heavy bar away from the door.

They knock on the house door, taking one of the guards with them, leaving the other outside.  This door yields to Biminey’s artificisistic touch and swings open. Billows of incense waft out, a chaotic melange of all possible flavors.

Inside they find the house empty and Biminey follows the arcane energies to the back of the large residence and into a bedroom, obviously a master bedroom.  A quick search uncovers a trapdoor cleverly hidden under a rug so that it can be opened and closed again from underneath leaving the rug over it.

Stak hears voices from below, a raspy voice demanding Lerik move faster at getting ‘them’ out of the city or he’ll find another tool and Lerik whining that he’s working as fast as he can.

T’balktu tries to head down the shaft but one of the ladder rungs is trapped to slide easily under any weight and he ends up as a noisy thud at the bottom of the shaft.

Down a corridor he spots Lerik talking with a large winged humanoid that appears leprous in Lerik’s hidden church of Bane a very human-o-centric god.  A fight ensues and undead, Lerik’s servants appear and join the fray.  The party is unfortunately tied up in a narrow hallway without much room to maneuver but they eventually get the battle opened up a bit and take out the winged creature which cuts the power ties with the undead.   Lerik is killed during the fight, electrocuted by Lightning Sphere from Biminey which dropped him into a dying state.   Then Visra finishes him off with an AOE invoker power that catches him in it.

[DM's Note: I completely fubarred this encounter in terms of mechanics.  For those not familiar with my house rules I remove the +1/2 level on tohit bonuses and defenses.  This makes it a wash in terms of accuracy but opens the playability range of creatures tremendously.  But this fails if you include the wrong version of the monsters you've made, ones without the -1/2 level modification.  So the players were trying to hit things with essentially a +5 to all defenses for the entire fight.  This resulted in their hit ratio shifting from around 70-75% where I like them to be to roughly 45% or less than half the time.  On top of that they're level 8's fighting level 10 standard soldiers and a level 10 elite controller, typically this is a non-issue with my HR but that shifts the chance to hit down another 10-15% or so and now they're hitting on about 1 in three attacks.  This was my first fight involving creatures this high and I was thinking I was going to have re-visit my numbers.  I didn't want to change the defenses midstride so I put an exit plan in that if the boss was killed the undead would drop as well.  Unfortunately the players didn't kill the boss all that fast.  As a result the fight dragged on.  At the time I was worried I'd hit this whole 'grindfest' that some people complain about but as it turns out it was just a dumbass mistake on my part.

In regards to Lerik, a major NPC dying, I let the chips fall where they would.  I had two possible endings, he dies, he doesn't die.  This way the party got the satisfaction of killing someone they really didn't like.  And that's the sign of a good NPC.]

The watch shows up, brought in by the guard the party sent for reinforcements.  The guard they’d kept specifically to watch what they did ends up being a good witness in on their behalf and by the time the events are reported on, believes he saw everything the party did first hand and he keeps their name clear.  Torel has a nudging suspicion in the back of his mind about the winged figure and it suddenly dawns on him that the facial features look like Lerik’s new aide.  The others don’t see it but are willing to give the avenger the benefit of the doubt.

They head back to their bed and breakfast after reporting on the events.

Reporting to the council after they’re cleaned up they find Garon more than suspicious as to their motives for happening to be there but secretly Garon is also more than relieved to be free of Lerik and his poisonous impact on the town from his position of power as a non-human hater.

Teagon encourages Garon to give them Lerik’s house, a fine residence as befits the leader of the merchants guilds of the town under the ‘rationale’ that they would be best suited to ensure that no further evil influences come through the place.

[DM's Note:  Teagon knows that the party 'suspects' he had something to do with the missing gold shipments.  Much like the bandit leader Warrick, it wasn't anything personal, just business.  Eladrin's in my world are businessmen first and foremost in their cultural outlook.  But he also knows that other races can take things personally so he's making obvious gestures to balance things out as he sees it.]

The party splits up briefly with some visiting the airship and others hanging out in their new house.  T’Balktu arranges for a clean up crew for the blood and gore of the church below.   His leisure time with bottle and a pipe is broken up by screams from the underground area and still in Lerik’s smoking jacket he rushes in to find the commoners fleeing one of their own, the man in a fit of all consuming rage.  T’Balktu drops him with one punch and questions the others.  The one guy was trying to clean the arcane sigil in one corner of the room and went berserk and tried to kill the others.

T’Balktu gets a new cleaning crew and has them move an easy chair down into the underground chamber and continues his enjoyment of Lerik’s goods as he keeps an eye on the new group.

Biminey and Torel wander back and Biminey tries to destroy the sigil.  He’s not paying attention as he counts the empty wine bottles around T’Balktu’s comfy chair and seriously flubs up the disruption.

He spins on the others and attacks.   Torel and T’Balktu eventually get him down and dying.  Only to have him flare up again after they stuff a healing potion down his throat.  T’Balktu proceeds to sit on the lanky artificer while Torel invokes the power of Kord to break the evil force possessing Biminey.

Then they proceed a little more carefully and a lot more cautiously to dismantle the arcanic devices in the underground chamber.

They get the place clean and arrange for Spar to move into their new abode to repeat a warding ritual on the place in their abscence with the hope of making it permanent.  It only takes a year.

[DM's Note: I like such optimism.  That they're going to keep the house, that it's going to be around in a year and that they'll be alive to enjoy it.]

Torel tries to get Captain Warrick to let them take Driskull with them on a hunt for the Souleater tribe but he refuses.  He’s lost too many of his better warriors and Driskull is his best.  He’s not going to risk him on an endeavor that he’s not sure will have any impact on the outcome of the future of the town.  He will give them whatever help he can though as long as it doesn’t weaken the city.  At least without a good chance of results.

[DM's Note: This is both a realistic reason, the city is weakened and Werrick is as I've pictured him a pretty conservative leader.  Giving up what is literally the best fighter the city has right now or his protege in Corporal Baen doesn't sit well with him.  He was willing to send the bulk of his well trained forces on a lightning raid as the reward/risk ratio was good. The fact that they lost over half the force if anything has now made him ultra conservative.    But this isn't as clear cut to him.  There's also a pure game play mechanic reason.  I don't really use DMNPC's unless I have to, they detract from the 'heroes' of the stories and they can end up being sacrificed by players.  Doubt if it would be an issue with this group, they sacrificed one of their own in their quest to help Torn.]

The party gathers supplies for their trip and we’ll embark on it at the next session.

We will not be having a session this upcoming week, we try to do a 3 on, 1 off schedule so that everyone has an off Saturday night they spend without missing a session.

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In attendance for this session are Biminey, Stak, Torel, Visra with T’Balktu being played by Visra as well.

Sushanna is brought out to the airship and started down the path of the Artificer by Biminey.  This after a couple of days and Biminey attuning the master control to her and giving her a artificer familiar grants her rudimentary control of the airship.  In that she can take it down to the ocean’s surface or up above the clouds.

While the rest of them are in town Biminey has crafted a mount for one of the ballistae that was purchased giving it the ability to aim downwards at a 45 degree angle from the bow of the ship.  He also devised mounts for the longboat attaching it to the stern of the ship.

In town Torel and Stak meet with Garon, Werrick the Watch Captain and a new face to them that of Sargent Driskull, a fighter of middle aged years which tells them a lot about his skill levels.

Captain Werrick and Garon have obviously reached something of agreement as to how they should proceed and the group talks with Driskull primarily.  It’s his firm belief and he’s convinced the others that the city needs a show of force or they risk the hobgoblins thinking they’re weak and that would result in the tribes swarming over the city, an attack they cannot hope to repulse.   It’s his plan to strike at one of the villages and wipe out one of the tribes, allowing a few to spread the word.  If they don’t succeed he believes the town is doomed to fall to the hobs.

This makes sense to Torel and Stak and they defer to the old warrior, expert killer that he is, and agree.  The city is going to send 50 men on the mission, 6 heavy squads of 8 men along with Sargent Driskul and a corporal Bael.   They make arrangements to get the mission underway and start picking the men and getting them equipped and arranged and agree to meet back 2 or 3 days for a review to acquaint the troops with the party.

They head back to the ship and pick up Biminey who’s now got Sushanna trained enough to raise and lower the boat.   The group united once again head back to town and head to the Temple of Eris to gather their goods and such and are going to send them to the boat.  Biminey also brought one of his new hirelings, Visra’s old retinue and is having her shop around for a suitable home for them all assuming that real estate given the future of the city and the exodus that is going on will find them a suitable place cheap.

At the temple Biminey finds a beggar child waiting for them with a tale woe.  A man, an elf in his words wants to meet with the group to talk and the man has taken his sisters and threatens them with harm if the group doesn’t show up.  Biminey rallies the troops and they head to a tavern in the dock district.

There they meet with Warrick the leader of the bandits that were raiding gold shipments, that captured them and tried to sell them to slavers and fought with them in the warehouse during a meeting with slavers and Meri, one of Shuk’s seconds, in an upstairs room.  Warrick tosses Torel a scalplock and tells him it will grant them passage to a hobgoblin tribe that he’d dealt with and that he was doing this as a final job for his employer.  He offers them the same general information that Driskull gave them. That hobgoblins respect martial ability.   He tells them how to reach the tribe the trophy will grant them access to, the Jagged Maw tribe.  He doesn’t know why he was tasked with meeting with the party but the money was good.   He comes off to the group while cold blooded, he’s willing to have children killed if the party causes any trouble at this meeting but honorable in his own way, in that he’ll fulfill his side of a bargain.   Meri’s presence is a bit of a puzzle and she’s not forthcoming with much information.

The group backs out of the room and leaves the tavern to be attacked by hobgoblin assassin’s, three of them in the street outside.  The hob’s paralyze the party with poisoned bolts from crossbows and then attack them with garrotes in the street.  The fight carries on for a bit and with two of the hobgoblins down, the third tries to flee.  Biminey knocks him through a tavern window with his thundering armour power and Stak is waiting at the tavern door with his deadly accurate bow as the assassin tries to flee through the tavern.

They recover a pair of gloves that can be form and color shifted at will and that produce small bladed weapons at the wearer’s need.  In addition they recover coup sticks from each of the assassins, one bearing 68 notches, the other two 18 and 19 notches.  Obviously a master and his apprentices.  They strip the bodies claiming valuables and wait for the watch to show up.  They send for Driskull who wonders what the party has done that hobs would send assassin’s after them but the group isn’t very forthcoming with the information.

On one of the bodies they find a note from Warrick wishing them the best if they managed to defeat the assassins and admitting that he’d set them up for the attack after he had his meeting with them. He also pointed suspcion at Teagon one of the three councilors of the city, the one in charge of shipping goods inland by river and wagon.  Mostly river.

They head back to the Temple and find Lerik waiting for them.  Lerik has dug up some ancient law on the books granting the city the ability to tax adventurer’s 10% of their goods although in times of extreme duress the city can raise the cost up to 50%.   Lerik’s aide lets slip the information that the group would have 24 hours to arrange for their goods to be appraised.  Lerik has also hired two body guards that the group reads as being highly skilled, easily their own abilities and probably higher.  On top of that he’s arranged for the Sargent Major of the watch along with Torn and several watchmen to be present as the party is served their notice.

As the group threatens to leave the city they’re given advice to talk to the other councilors and see what can be done about the laws.

They talk to Garon and reiterate their threats to simply leave the city to their fate and Garon swears to deal with the issue, passing along the information that Lerik is just not acting rationally these days and that he seems to have a very personal hatred of the group.

They pass the rest of the day in preparing for their trek in the morning to meet with the soldiers that are going on the hobgoblin raid.  Biminey retrieves the high priests crystal and hides it in the heavy flail he carries for his Dancing Weapon power.

They meet with the soldiers and get introduced all around.  Most of the troops are middle tier, in fact they’re probably stripping the watch and mercenaries of the bulk of their middle experience troops leaving only the young and the old so to speak left in the city.

Lerik finds them later that day, he’s furious and almost insane with rage that they’ve bypassed his attempts to get their goods or them to leave whichever he was going for.  Visra, an impartial observer believes it’s not so much rage as fear is the primary emotion driving Lerik.

Early in the week hours the next morning they head south toward a farming commune on the coastline.  They’re able to stealth their way through the countryside and reach a vantage point.  Stak and a couple of scouts from the Watch kill an observer and they’re able to view the commune.  They make plans, the bulk of the force will attack the commune and wipe out the rank and file of the hobs and rescue the visible captives kept in corrals.   The party will go after the command structure that is set up in tents outside the commune.

A fight ensues and goes well, the group defeating mixed forces of hobgoblin warriors, casters, summoned undead, hill giant mercenaries and a Hand of Bane.  The fight went well for the group, they’re able to take down the hobgoblin forces although one of the hill giant flees toward the end of the battle as it goes badly for them and the warcaster surrenders assuming he’ll be dealt with as other hobgoblins do.  The group turns him over to Driskull to be tortured for information and makes sure he dies.   A few of the grunts are set free to spread word of the deed in typical hobgoblin fashion and the group takes trophies included the Hand of Bane’s flail and the battle standard of the tribe which were known as the Throatcutters.

As the survivors of the battle are patched up and seen to and the captives counted and gathered we bring this session to a close as the group starts packing up the leader’s tent and stuffing it into their bag of holding along with assorted weapons and the like that will come in handy for a town under siege.

[Notes: This was a long session with a lot of non-combat interaction and we got a bit of a late start as the application I wrote for Temple (Biminey) didn't want to work right for me.  Basically it's a dot net app that lets Temple press a mouse button to roll a d20 which is then announced audibly.   But in the end we got going.

I was also using MasterPlan 'for real' for this session.  It has a lot of good features but there are things I would have done differently to speed up usage of the app but overall I was happy with it.  There are some basics that need to be addressed, the ability to add effects that boost defenses for a turn or two, attack boosters and that kind of thing.  But its a very much supported and constantly updated application so there's a pretty good chance it'll continue to be developed.]

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Elisssa has decided to retire for awhile from the adventuring life [Laura wanted to try something else]. The reason that I made up for this was a fairly obvious one, the group (characters) keeps getting on Elisssa’s case about killing the hill giant, not being able to pitch a tent or sail a boat.  For a dragonborn such insults and snide comments are hard to take.  Them not letting her kill the captured slavers was the final straw and furious with the group she stalks off to see her friends and family as soon as they enter Larkson.  She takes with her a couple thousand in gold and Krag’s Axe and Bracers and some assorted trinkets and souvenirs.

Later discourse over the course of the session might reveal that Elisssa may come back as the floating crew of available NPC’s for use by players (Torn, Dash, Sushanna, Kane)

The action starts immediately with the first of three encounters for the night.  Screams are heard echoing through the temple and grabbing their arms the group rushes to see what’s going on.  T’Balktu, Torel, Visra and Stak are joined along the way by a visiting Cleric of Kord from Anvil here to do research at the temple by the name of Spar.  [Played by Biminey's owner Temple]

THe five of them find the room that contains the temple’s main ritual circle filled with a vortex of energies.  People located in the room are being sucked into the vortex and being… reformed as something else.  As the energies die away the group catches a glimpse of Liloth and Phy’el Fleshwalker through a rent in space causing the effects.

An abomination of flesh, humanoid, composed of merged persons in the room roars out a challenge.  It’s back bursts and hunks of flesh drop free to create little humanoid creatures dripping flaming slime. The monkeys immediately start flinging their slime around the room and where the gobs hit, invisible before now runes flare and burn out, a few seconds later the bricks blow outwards in blasts of energies and shrapnel.

The group attacks of course, taking down the big creature and then mopping up the smaller ones but not before they cut a wide swatch through the walls, floor and celing of the room destroying  large sections of the bricks and subsequently the wardings inlaid upon them.

As they stop and catch their breath they hear more screams, deducing (correctly) that this was a diversion while another attack was going on.  They rush through the temple to find the forbidden archives under attack by rats.  A section of the floor has fallen away down into the sewers that run under the town and rats are streaming in, each grabbing a scroll or parchement or tome to flee down the hole with it.

They follow, smashing rats as they go.  In the dank large sewers they run into Krag’s animus which has formed a temporary body out of rats along with other rat swarms.  Due to their positioning Krag has to reveal early on that he can absorb the rat swarms to recover his mass (i.e. recover health) and the group destroys the swarms before working on Krag.  (this made the encounter easier on the group by a considerable amount thanks to their smart thinking).

As the mass of rats that is Krag collapses to stream away a red mist shoots off down the sewers. (Krag’s animus).

They follow the animus (and trail of parchment fragments) to Krag’s lair where he’s been feeding the blood of those he’s slain through one of Liloth’s warps.  A large chamber has been damned up at the doorway forming a pool of blood like liquid several inches deep.   The room is filled with rats each holding a parchment.  Right now the rats are being lifted through the portal bearing the parchments. They turn on the group as Torel and Spar both try to bless the portal to destroy it.  (A whole hella lot of very low rolls).

Eventually the group gets the warp closed and triggers a trap laid into the room turning the blood into a blood elemental.  It’s not designed to be able to stand up against a full group but is aimed to destroy single intruders and the group makes short work of it.

Spar had the idea during the fight to break the dam holding in the blood and if they’d of done that before the fight they could have destroyed the warp and prevented the elemental from spawning but hind sight and all that.

They recovered a bracer and axe that Krag’s been slowly enchanting to replace his lost axe and bracer.  He’s a very good enchanter, at odds with his brutal nature but has a knack for things that deal with blood.  It’s just hard to enchant things when you’re a ghost.   The bracers are similar to Iron Armbands of Power but require a healing surge to activate, after activated they boost edged weapons damage by 2 for the rest of the encounter.   The axe gives its wielder a Immediate Reaction ability that grants them a basic melee attack with the axe when an adjacent target is bloodied for the first time and it deals an extra +2 damage when the wielder is bloodied.

The group retreats from the chamber and heads back to the temple.  They rest and recover and then work on plans.  They talk to the captain of the watch and Garon of the council.  Garon is floundering.  He’s out of his league with the things that are going on and doesn’t know which way to stumble much less lead.  People have been leaving the city out of fear, this is obviously a bad thing for the city’s protection and the party points it out and want him to lock the city down.  He’s reluctant to do that, he doesn’t want to be the ‘bad guy’ or institute the martial law that this requires.  Larkson has always been a free city and preventing the poeple from leaving strikes him too much like slavery, an act that really runs against his core values especially after having lost his children to slavers.  He’s also loath to go against the agreement with the Watch in terms of disbursement of the mercenaries.

He asks Torel and Stak to hire on advisors, a task they reluctantly agree to consider.   The group considers their actions and decide to send a fetch out to Biminey asking him to meet them early.

They purchase a longboat and row out to sea, successfully navigating to their general meeting area.  They discuss things with Biminey and the others.

Biminey asks them to ask Sushanna to come visit him for multiple reasons, the primary one he wants to teach her the ways of the artificer so that she can at times take control of the airship allowing him freedom to leave the ship.

After discussion they’re going to try and lead a band of mercenaries out of the town to gather information on the hobgoblins who are taking small villages and farmsteads captive as a threat for the town to give them some book, a book they believe holds power over the creatures loosed from Darkmith.

We end our session there.

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The party will be dining in the Temple of Eris when they’ll hear the ubiquitous screams in the distance.  Assuming they don’t ignore it and let’s face it they’re heroes and screams are what they dream of, they’ll come down the passage way to the left to behold a swirling vortex of energies pulling priests of Eris into it where they’re swiftly ‘disassembled’ and reshaped into a hulking monstrosity of an abomination comprised of multiple priests and priestesses.  Uh, ew.

It’s body will ripple and bulge and moments after it shapes it’s hunchback will burst forth and small mounds of flesh will fall out to the floor shaping into small monkey like creatures with arms like an octopus although instead of suckers it has small teeth lined ovals that open and close constantly while a thick slime oozes from them dropping away to the floor where it flares up into flame.

All in all that should be enough to bring the drool to any adventurer and a scream of terror from any bystander.

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“I strongly protest your decision Lord Kotar!” the slaver mage said, indignation and fury apparent in his voice.

“Do you really Bokka?  You think we should continue to lose resources to these people?  We have the ship, I’ve sent teams inland after suitable… resources to let us recover its functionality and hopefully build more of them.  I don’t see any purpose in paying any more attention to them.  Lady Sethra has warned against our involvement in their activities any longer as it could prove… costly.”

“So we let them get away with what they’ve done?  I’ve given you the report that they killed most of our people in Larkson and caused our contact with the bandits and the tribes to disappear.  We don’t know what’s become of him, only that he wasn’t in the warehouse.  And what about my brother?  You’ve read the report, these people killed him and destroyed his ship.”

“Your scheme to take over that city doesn’t sit well with most of the Nine Bokka.  We don’t belong inland, we belong on the seas. And I really don’t care about your brother, he ruined more cargo than any other captain I’ve known. If you have an razor to hone for them, you do it on your time but I am not spending more men or gold to go after them.”

Bokka, a thin ascetic man of average height, swore softly and his hand slid toward the blade sheathed at his side, the green glowing gem in the pommel pulsing in time with his heartbeat.  The stocky figure in robes on the ornate large chair arched an eyebrow at the motion. 

“Really Bokka?” Lord Kotar’s voice held traces of amusement.  The shadowy figures swirling around the room fluttered close in anticipation, hunger apparent in their motions.

The room was a frozen tabluea for a long moment then Bokka’s shoulders slumped “I obey your wishes in all things Lord.” he said through gritted teeth, hands disappearing into the sleeves of his robes, away from his soulblade.

“Then please return to Safe Harbor and guard the airship for me.  I would be very… perturbed were anything to happen to it.  Send a fetch when the teams arrive with the artificers and keep me updated on their research.”

“Aye m’lord.”

“And Bokka, if anything happens to that ship, you’ll be a long time dying.”

“Aye m’lord.”

Bokka fled the room, one of the shadows silently closing the door behind him.  From behind an ornate tapestry a beautiful woman stepped, hair the color of night and skin so pale veins formed a pale blue web under it.

“Love, you should deal with that one now.  I’ve read the strands of the weave and in very few of them does he not covet your position.”

Kotar reached out and gently grasped the woman’s hand and pulled her close.  “And in all those possible strands does he ever succeed dear?”

Sethra’s mouth twitched in a slight smile, “Only in a very very few of them does he manage to take your place love.  I believe the phrase, ‘pigs are flying’ is appropriate for him.”

“As I thought, he is weak, tied to petty feuds, born of a weak strain.  I think before long the line of Jothan should be erased.  Only which of the minor captains to replace him?  Such a quandary…”

“What of the ‘heroes’ love?  In many strands, they oppose you and their fates are entwined in your downfall in many more.” she asked, running her head over his face, using her fingers to ‘see’ him as the dark sockets where her eyes had once been looked into the distance.

“We shall wait and see. They’ve lost one already to mischance.  I think we shall simply wait and see what else chance brings to them.  Send a fetch to Robear in Larkson, have him work on our contact there, I need a schism opened so we can operate more freely.”

“As you ask so shall it be love.”

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[DM: I want to point out that I rolled like utter [bleep] this session.  My miss ratio was pretty far on the wrong side of the standard deviation on a d20. I only had one natural 20, on T’Balktu of course, and a bunch of 1′s, 2′s, 3′s. ]

The tower taken from the forces defending it our band of heroes takes stock of the situation.  And the phat lewt.  They recover a magic staff, set of robes, some fire arrows and bolts, a couple of healing potions, a stack of what they’ll eventually discover are alchemical bombs and a set of signal flares.

Based on Keri’s notes they know the cave trolls are sent around the island around dawn to help with the construction efforts.  This gives them about 6 hours before then so leaving Biminey to begun work on repairing and re-tuning the airship.  A couple of hours into it he realizes he’s going to have to replace the broken boards of the ship before it’ll be flyable again.

He wakes the others and gives them the bad news.  They decide to go back to sleep and deal with it later.  Biminey joins them in sleeping leaving Torn, Kane and Dash on watch.  Hirelings work well for that.

As the sun peeks up Torel and Stak go look at the avenues of approach to the tower.  On the far side of the chasm separating the tower side from the rest of the island is a extending bridge.  They crank it over and investigate the far side. A couple of smaller buildings are under construction on that side.  Torel preps the area by liberally splashing gallons of oil in the places where attackers might take cover.   
A couple of hours after dawn, the compound forces start wondering where the cave trolls are and send a couple of sailors up to find out what’s going on.  They holler and hullabaloo for awhile but the good guys don’t respond.  One of the sailors twists a rod like the ones that are in the tower and a flare of light flies way up in the air, sparking and sputtering, visible for miles in all directions and then head back to the compound at a jog.

[DM's Comments: I'd planned out a number of scenarios, even had maps ready but the group's actions as happens quite frequently took a turn that I hadn't planned.  Their scheme for the lumber was sneaky and scheming and my possible scenario's didn't quite get that sneaky on their behalf.  I'd envisioned them possibly ambushing the first people up to see what was going on by either setting up in the partially built houses on the far side of the bridge or leaving the bridge down and luring them over to the tower.  But it just really proves yet again one person will never be able to accurately predict what other people will do, 100% of the time no matter how long they've known them.]

Now that the bad guys know something is up, although not what, the group decides to hunker down and prepare to repel an attack trying to come across the chasm and wait in vain for rest of the day with nothing happening although they do spot a sneaky person scouting them out.

[Torel rolled a natural 20 on a perception check or they'd of not spotted him.  After the slavers knew something was up they sent up an assassin who wisely decided not to try anything during the day.  The slavers are expecting another ship of reinforcements which would include at least an overmage if not another ubermage. They also have some high level captives that they've been lead to believe will be highly ransomable. The captives lied by the way to gain time, there's no one left to ransom them.  Hence they're not going to try to frontal attack a tower that they have to try to cross a 25' gap with a 50' fall into jagged rocks.  They're going to wait for nightfall and sneak across under the cover of darkness.]

As the day continues to wind down the group decides to send Stak and Dash, both fairly sneaky bastards over to scout the compound.  They know from Keri’s notes that there is a building under construction over there which should mean there’s lumber.  The two are supposed to try and steal the lumber.  And rather than going around the island they cut across the harbor, using a small cask to carry their gear and to rest with on the mile or so swim.  They’re given two signal flares to use if they need help.

Stak and Dash get over and find no way to get to the lumber, the slavers over there are scattered, hiding in nooks and crannies while several are guarding a building that Keri marked as holding slaves.  Discretion prevails and they return the way they came.  Stak unfortunately failed in his attempt to climb the cliff so they shout for help and then are pulled up the cliff.

They report their findings to the rest.

Our five leave Kane, Dash and Torn to watch the tower as they’ve come up with a plan to not go after the lumber at the compound but instead take the ship and de-construct part of it for the lumber they need.  They get ready and slither down the rope and into the warm salt water and start dog paddling.

[It's about this time that the assassin makes it across and starts scouting the tower section of the island.  He's not sure what to make of the three men that he can find, assuming they must be tougher than they are if they were able to take the tower and goes back retrieves most of the quality forces from the compound and they assualt the tower while our group is slowly swimming across the harbor.  The attack on the harbor kicks off about the time that the group gets to the ship.  The three hirelings immediately know they're heavily screwed and set off two flares.  They three are all level 6 though and they do cut a swath through the attackers but are eventually taken.]

The group reach the ship, Stak going further to steal the longboats from the shore.   Elisssa hits the deck of the ship first due to bad timing on their part but has no trouble killing both slavers on board.  One swing of her axe at the end of a charge cuts the slaver’s arm off which is holding a signal flare.  She spins and takes the head off the other one in the same motion.

The rest climb on board to find the ship is theirs and Stak comes up with the longboats.

The signal flares go up from the tower but there’s just not much they can do for them except continue with the plan.  They wait till down though which isn’t far off and use the ballistae on the ship to let the forces on the shore know they’re there.  Keeping the slavers on the shore occupied, they strip lumber off the non-visible side of the boat.

Lumber in head they set the ship afire and start rowing back to the tower.  The tower forces are waiting for them but aren’t too concerned as the cliffs are almost impossible to climb and it would be very easy to just drop rocks on anyone trying to climb them and knock them off.

Unfortunately for the slavers they don’t know about Biminey’s Ladder ritual. As the ladder springs up and Torel starts climbing his butt off the two at the top realize that things may not be going as planned and start yelling.  They drop rocks but they miss and Torel is able to reach the top of the cliff, Biminey right behind him.

A fight breaks out and both sides are reinforced as forces rush in from the tower and up the ladder but when Torel uses the Deamon Heart to walk the assassin off the cliff and Biminey drops the ladder as he’s trying to climb back up.  Battered, bruised, ribs cracked and leg broken the assassin limps off vowing to come back and kill them all in nasty ways.  Right as Biminey’s firebolt, charged with lightning enters his skull from above.

The fights just clean up this point between the guys the hirelings killed, the loss of the ‘boss’ of the island forces and the fact that the slavers can’t seem to hit a damn thing it’s quickly over.

They capture one of the slaver alchemists and get information from him.  They go back and strike a bargain, one sided, with the remaining neophytes in the tower (all minions) and make them leave.  They recover their battered and beaten hirelings.

Hauling up their construction supplies Biminey and a couple of others get to work repairing the airship while the rest traipse across the island and intimidate or kill the remaining slavers.

In the captive hut they rescue a dwarf noble woman and her retinue.  She has a tale of her city being overrun by hobgoblins and her father putting her and the rest on a boat with a few guards while they stayed to defend the city.  They were picked up by slavers not long after setting sail and brought to the island.  To buy time and preferential treatment they let on to the slavers that a huge ransom would be possible.  The other slaver ship on the island went off to collect said ransom.

Air ship repaired and drivable they take a minor detour to burn the slaver compound to the ground from the air and head back.  They try to investigate one of the small farming villages on their way back, one of the ones that has lost contact with the city and Biminey has a test of wills as something tries to take over control of him through the airship control amulet, forcing him to land the ship.  He breaks free and they flee back to the coast.

Leaving biminey and most of the noble woman’s following on the ship the rest are dropped off outside of town walk in.  They get inside and learn news of the hobgoblin threat and get information from Sushanna of good news.  The Eris researchers are constructing a battle standard that will duplicate the weakening effect of the Larkson wardings for a small area.  They also find out from Sushanna that the wardings of the city are powered  by the life force of people born in the city.  This was uncovered in the research into the standard which after use requires a ritual and life force to recharge to enable it to work again.

We leave our group getting cleaned up in the temple’s sauna’s and breaking the fast.  They have plans for to meet up with  Biminey in two days time, who’s currently flying the ship out of sight of land and above the clouds and making offers of employment to Visra’s, the noble dwarf’s retinue since she obviously won’t be able to pay them.  On the flip side, Visra is going to try and find them employment in the town.

Elisssa, getting a little tired of the group’s actions preventing her from killing who she wants to when she wants is going to depart the group for at least awhile, taking the gold and valuables she’s garnered from their adventures.  She has thoughts of packing up her relatives adn friends on a ship and sailing away from this danger zone now that she knows there are cities to the south, albeit under the threat of hobgoblin attack but at least she won’t have to worry about her mind being consumed and her body used to kill innocents.

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“Kord’s balls, what the hell?” the guard exclaimed looking out at the east road. A naked figure was stumbling down the road, covered in blood.  As it dropped in the packed dirt in front of the gate she could see it was not only naked but most of the skin of it’s arms and upper chest had been removed.  In the distance at the top of the first rise of the road she spied what could only be a warband of hobgoblins.

A shout, the gruff voice of her sergeant barked up from below, “What is it trooper!?”

“There’s a man, I think it’s a man, he’s hurt, hurt bad in the road below and I shit you not sarge there’s a full hob warband no more than 200 yards up the road.”

“Awww shit.  Coleson, Donal, Tig spread the alarm, I want every square foot of this gods damn wall manned and I want it done NOW!”

Pounding feet sped off behind her and the brazen clanging of the alarm bell started to sound.  The halberd in her hand didn’t seem nearly as impressive as the dim light glinted off the naked steel arrayed among the hobgoblins.  The ladder behind her creaked under the massive form of the dragonborn sergeant.

“Well fuck me sideways…” Sergeant Drakotta said softly.

“What do you want to do about him Sarge?” she said pointing out the bleeding figure below.

“Shit, can’t leave him there.  And they’re held up far enough way for someone fast to get out and get him.  I remember you’re speedy Bawndi.  Get down that ladder, grab Hork and get out there and get him.”

“Crap Sarge, why…”

“Cut it trooper, get your ass down there now or you’ll be safer out there than here!”

Bawndi grimaced and nodded.  She slid down the ladder dropping lightly to the ground below. “Hork!  Get your skinny ass front and center, Sarge has a job for us.  Tally, you and Peete open the gate, we’re going to run out there and grab that guy.  If the hobgoblins charge you slam the gate you make gods damn sure that there’s no way I can make it back before they get to the gate or I swear to all hells I’ll have your ass no matter what it takes.”

As two of the guard turned the winches that pulled the massive bars back from the gate, Bawndi and Hork, a thin almost scrawny human but with surprising strength, stood poised as the thick iron bound wooden gates parted sideways.  As soon as the gap was big enough to squeeze through they did so, sprinting down the road toward the bloodied figure.

Bawndi slid to a halt next the man, eyes taking in the ruin, the skin was gone from his shoulders in long strips that ran halfway down his back.  She knelt, not sure where to grab the man as Hork retched next to her.  “Suck it up!  You toss on me and I’ll make you pay for a long time.” she hissed glancing up at the other watchman, tossing a glance toward the hobgoblins that remained motionless in the distance. “Grab the hands, I’ll get the feet.  Hurry up gods damnit!”

Together they picked the man up, carefully but quickly rolling him over and then moved back to the gate at an awkward shuffle, Hork moving backwards to keep an eye on the hobgoblins. Â  With release of held breath they passed through the gate again, multiple watch including the Anvil mercenaries were gathered around, weapons ready.  A stretcher appeared and they laid the man on it.  A watch healer stepped up and laid a hand on the man’s forehead and a glow appeared around her fingers and sank into the man’s flesh, the flesh knitting and healing.

The man screamed sitting bolt upright then trying to lunge away, troopers grabbing him and pressing him back down.  His struggles died as his terror filled eyes took in his surroundings.  Sargeant Drakotta pushed through the crowd, squatted by the man, “What’s going on?  Who are you?”

The man shook his head, stammered, “Stanal, my names Stanal.  They destroyed the village, killed everyone!  They kept me alive to deliver a message.”

“What’s the message?  What village?”

“My home, Greenoak village.”

One of the watch spoke up, “I know the place Sarge, maybe ten buildings, about thirty or forty people.”

Without looking back, Drakotta rasped out, “Next man that speaks is going to regret being birthed.  Now, you, Stanal, what do they want?”

“They want some book they say is here, some book with a name in it.  They’ll give you a week to come up with it.  Every week they don’t get it, another village dies. When they run out of villages then they’ll march on the city.”

“What the fuck? A book?”

“Yes, that’s what they said. Said someone would know what they’re talking about.”

A voice called down, “Sarge, they’re moving out, heading south.”

Drakotta rocked back on his heels, shook his head.  “Well someone sure as shit ain’t me.”  He rose, yanking the man up with him, hand locked like a bear trap on his wrist.  Bawndi, you’re with me.  We’re taking this one to the captain.  Frost, take over here.  Keep them on their toes and keep everyone’s eyes open.  This could be a feint of some kind.  Send runners, make sure the east gate is covered and send someone to Joncel and make sure he’s got the river side sewn up.”

“Aye sarge.” replied a hardbitten trooper, “I’ll get’em moving.”

“Come on you, let’s go.  And someone get these people moving, show’s over!”

Drakotta lead the way down the road at a swift pace, the farmer behind him and Bawndi trailing, naked steel in her hand and mistrust on her face.

Our group starts off in the warehouse littered with dead bodies, the bodies they’ve slain.  Deciding that the’d be better off if they got the hell out they do so and retreat back to their tavern.  The next day Biminey vists the temple of Eris where he talks with Sushanna and the new high priest and finds out information on their possible foes. Â  King Hesh’tar, his queen Liloth, his adviser Phy’el Fleshwalker and their enforce Krag the Butcher.  Tales of their powers are legendary only surpassed by the tales of their evil.

After telling the high priest they’d already killed Krag, Biminey was a bit taken aback at the priests quesiton, “did you burn the body and scatter the ashes?”  Which they didn’t do.

Other information learned is that the town is a mystical anchor point that keeps Larkson’s curse alive and well on the city of Darkmith.  That the prince’s True Name is located in the city of Larkson and that the very stones of the city are warded against the powers of Darkmith and for one of the creatures of Darkmith to enter the town would render it significantly weaker than it wold be outside the town.

Torel meets with the Captain of the Watch and discusses events.

Shuk meets up with Stak in their tavern and gives him a device that she’d had created in Anvil by an high level artificer there to help with Soozin.  She seems distant to the Stak and doesn’t wish to talk much. It’s obvious that the loss of Dra’kin has hit her fairly hard.

They meet up and compare notes and Biminey leads them to the temple of Eris where they stashed Soozin while they went out to the temple of healing to cure Torn.

Biminey activates the device and it enters Soozin’s throat to go after the parasite.  It warps out and something goes wrong and the parasite splits up the way it’s created to do but lightning flares and the several small parasites swell to the size of large dogs.

The group defeats the giant slugs and Soozin is now healed. [Note: Wasn't planned to be a hard fight unless for some reason not everone in the group happened to be there but as it turned out they were.]

After everything that’s happened to them they pressure the high priest of Eris to allow them to stay on the grounds and he doesn’t take much persuading.  The group has proved formidable to hostile creatures and having them around he can’t see as a bad thing.

Elissa finds Keri waiting for her in her new room in the temple.  Keri has a tale of having been on a boat for three weeks scouting the charts that she lifted from the slaver ship while it was in the harbor.  She reports finding the stronghold listed on the charts and reports that there is an airship attached to a keep on the island.  She also tells Elisssa that the free ride is over now with Dra’kin dead and any future services will be cash in hand.

They discuss further the murders taking place and finally [after DM prodding] determine that the murders are taking place in houses/buildings that are newly constructed, not part of the original town’s construction, wooden.  With the new knowledge of the warded stones and construction it’s not a big leap of deduction to figure out that the wardings are keeping the murderer out. Â  Which they have determined is possibly Krag in spirit form trying to recover his lost corpse.

They take their findings to the Captain of the watch and lead him to make the deductions on his own.  He takes them to the Council who decrees that it would be prudent for citizen’s that are in new construction to find a place to stay that’s part of the original stone construction.  As the group determines that people aren’t yet for the most part taking the warnings seriously they decide to head out after their air ship after making plans for their assault.

They arrange for passage, their money is rapidly depleting.

Arriving at the island, to everyone’s astonishment their plan works, they get on the island and defeat the forces at the keep which is where we leave them.  They have several hours most likely before someone might question why no one has come down from the keep with the cave trolls but they still have the air ship to repair, the master override amulet to tune and unfortunately Biminey is only one man.

[Note: I had a timeline of the coming's and goings of the forces on the island and by chance or luck they hit the island when it had minimal forces.  Also their plan bypassed the forces on the keep and made what might have been a fight that could have seen the loss of some of the group into a fight that while knuckle biting wasn't white knuckle.  At least yet.  But rather than a fairly large fight they managed to defeat the forces in waves due to their actions and negated some of their firepower by a pretty plan and good reaction to the situation at hand.]

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Also available through iTunes.

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Also available through iTunes.

I don’t really have a reason to cut them up at all, my initial thought was release them over time to give people something to look forward to but really the post work necessary means I end up getting each of the sessions cleaned up and have my wife (Elisssa) record the intro that delaying publishing any of them would be pointless.

Honestly who wouldn’t prefer to download the entire Penny Arcade podcasts at one time rather than 30 minutes  a week?

Another reason to keep them chopped in blocks is to make it easier for people to skip ahead without missing a lot.  If they want to jump to the end of the current battle, it’s not a hard thing to do.  If the recrding was 5 hours long with 4 battles in it, then it might be a little more difficult to skip the parts you in particular didn’t want to listen to.

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Subscribe to the feed – http://www.keyourcars.com/feed/podcast/

Also available through iTunes.

Subscribe to the feed – http://www.keyourcars.com/feed/podcast/

Also available through iTunes.

At any rate the net result is T’Balktu has joined the group.  He’s a younger goliath barbarian.  Think of the goliath in my world more as a Hill People than some half elemental race.  Lots of muscles, outdoor types with a hunger for living as large as their view of the world from atop their mountain fortresses.

He was made in a hurry Saturday and I’ve since cleaned it up a little, swapping a couple of things out that didn’t work for a 2handed great axe wielder.

The end result is a veritable damage machine.  If he crits his Ragestrike power he’ll be doing 60 damage.  Not half bad at all.  And with multiple ways to get temporary hit points he should make up a little for his lower defenses.   With low reflex and willpower he’s going to get whacked a lot by critters that attack those defenses.  And unfortunately as I happen to know, more than one of the bosses of this campaign have powers against those.

Against masses of mobs his total damage output should go through the roof and he should be a minion killer from hell.  An at-will that has a blast 3 component if he hits with it?  I’ll have to seriously ramp up the minion count just to break even.

I’ve started him out with Bleeder, his father’s greataxe, that spurs him onward to greater displays of glory as well as an Ironskin belt made by his grandfather out of materials no one in the family likes to talk about.  And I think he may be a good candidate for the Cape of the Red Path they recently found as mobility for him would be a good thing so he can get to the best position on the field to unleash his burst/blast attacks against swarms of bad guys.

Too bad though about Dra’kin.  But failing 3 out of 4 death saves and the healer failing 2 out of 2 stabilization checks?  His death was meant to be.

But T’Balktu should be able to pick up the slack and then some.  And as a front line striker it should help keep the others alive and in better shape a little more.

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