lategaming

Skycrane and Psiren arrived safely on the rooftop of WatchTower and were greeted by a concerned INDIGO and the team Paramedic, Robert. Nothing could be done about Skycrane’s smouldering flesh and Robert quipped that it might “clear up in a day or so”. With them, of course, was a bundle wrapped in a red fore blanket which was revealed to be Stephanie Butler, a marketing Exec from Manhattan. She claimed to have been snatched from the street by this red blanket and that left INDIGO looking puzzled at Skycrane. Psiren, at this point, was still unconscious and could add no testimony. Stephanie Butler was detained under the Dangerous Superhuman Felons Act for 24 hours of observation.

Meanwhile, across town, Balance and Yellowfist were flitting over the rooftops and touched down on a busy backstreet. While attracting a lot of attention, they slipped over to the building they were interested in and noticed that the padlock was missing. Entering the warehouse they found boxes, racks of more boxes and a lift shaft leading down…they investigate the lift and Yellowfirst takes a liking to a mini-forklift and starts to wonde rout loud about whether he should have large heavy, forklift-sized , bladed weapons. Forklift in one hand and superpowered priest in the other, Yellowfist starts to descend the lift shaft into darkness.

Meanwhile across town Skycrane and INDIGO set off for the building, eager to provide backup to their companions. They arrive in a split second due to the T-Jump capabilities of INDIGO’s AMP suit and quickly start to descend into the darkness after Yellowfist and Balance.

At the bottom of the shaft, they find and start to explore the tunnel with a special shield composed of steel, made from the very air by Balance’s unearthly abilities. Along that tunnel they find a passage, smooth surfaced, made by man’s hand which leads them deeper into the ground. INDIGO scouting ahead finds that the tunnel opens into a roughly hewn chamber and inside are four superhumans and nearly thirty of these rag-tag denizens of the darkness.

Yellowfist and Skycrane enter quickly and begin to subdue the superhumans who they identify as Sewer, Killerwatt, Gridlock and Asphalt. These superhumans are subdued easily but the denizens start to attack and only stopped by the quick judgement of Balance who steps in and burns them with his searing, invisible Penance Blessing. The team then set about securing the supervillains. Gridlock was slain by the denizens and Sewer escaped by they have KillerWatt and Asphalt in custody. Not a bad innings!

Once this is done, the team start to investigate the remaining roughly carved tunnels. There’s something else out there, an oppressive psychic presence, but try as they might, they cannot track it down…

The scene ends with the team returning to WatchTower with much to think about and some new captives. They’ll have to put them somewhere….

[Above is a true and accurate recollection of everything that you remember.]

SXSW covers “Confessions of Superhero” which shows the strange and seedy world of superhero lookalikes…

We see Joe McQueen demolished by the heat inside his colossal Hulk costume — on a record 106-degree day, it’s a brutal 130 degrees inside the emerald-tinged mass of foam … Superman chugs milk right from the jug; Wonder Woman roots in her glove box through the open window of her car as valet parking guys check out her ass; Batman takes a smoke break.

Here’s the link at SXSW’s site and a review at WIRED DOT COM.

Lastly, here’s the web site of the film. Wonder Woman is kinda hot!

A posting on RPGnet asks us to describe our homebrew systems. I ended up describing mine thusly.

• Maths-easy 2d6 comedy with either a manga/anime/mecha or zombie holocaust backdrop
• Qualitative success using 0-3d10 to create a crunchy yet narrative system which can be considered both rules-lite and “a gun game” with a backdrop of psychic powers and government conspiracies dating back to the start of the 20th Century.
• Card-based Blackjack-inspired mechanics with backdrop of both Stage Magic and Real Magic. Yes, that game. The one I’m infamous for not finishing…
• [EDIT: Rules light, coarse skilled d6 mechanic - happy now?]

It’s a fun thread, some inspiring stuff in there.

It’s always been a frustration to me that I can’t draw.

Jared and I have debated this a few times during my forays to Paris. Nightfall had the advantage of having DavA, Chippy and Stuart. Lucky bastards.

I need artists for WotW, I need an artist to help me with the imagery for Viride and I think we could do with a concept genius for Status: Refugee. The vision thing is easy but translating that vision into the brain of another who has not been there for the inception is very difficult.

My friend Paul, a graphic designer and branding specialist of some note, suggests I:

start hanging out in the art college.. without looking too pervy..lol

Hm, that’s not going to work.

He also says:

is it better to write around images or should images come from story?.. better to team up with a artist and work together.

That’s the problem. I don’t know many artists. And without hanging out at the Art College with a bag of sweeties, I’m not likely to find any. There’s certainly none in TTN that I can see.

Back to the scribing board for me, I guess.

On Monday last I was accosted by a small ginger elf who enquired not what TTN could do for me, but what I could do for TTN in terms of running games.

I’m going to run a horror game, a superhero game and a sci-fi game.

Things started off innoculously enough as Donna the receptionist watched the rank and file of WatchTower New York file into the conference room. Jack introduced a new staffmember, Yellowfist, a Sioux warrior who embodies the totems of both Eagle and Bear providing him with superhuman strength and the power of flight.

Red greeted him warmly as did Psiren and Balance though there was some palpable resentment as Skycrane realised that there was a contendor for “mightiest man in the universe”.

The subject moved from the contentious “Sanction Zero” to the events at Liberty Island three days earlier and how the latter might relate to the recent advisory about Smog, Sewer, Asphalt, KillerWatt and Gridlock. What was Squall doing on Liberty Island?

RedShift was dispatched north to the site of a reported fish kill, something he wasn’t thrilled about while the remainder of the team moved to the roof of the building where Balance fashioned a sturdy two-metre wide silver plate from the air, much to the amazement of the rest of the team. Though it was a little unsteady at first, Skycrane effortlessly lifted the plate into the air and the team stepped onto it before winging their way across the city to Liberty Island. Much more dignified than being carried or suspended in mid-air by SkyCrane’s TK.

As they landed safely on the grass, Balance evaporated the silver plate, secure in the knowledge he would be able to summon it up again should they need it.

They spent the next couple of hours interviewing the security staff at the Island until a chance comment caught Skycrane’s trained ear. There were TWO ways to get off the island other than through self-powered flight? The boat was obvious but on further investigation it was revealed that there was a cargo lift and train that tunnelled under the Hudson. At last, a lead…

The team descended in the lift, inspecting the rooms as they went by and checking the status of the generator room. In the cargo basement they could hear the gentle booming of the Hudson above them and a dark tunnel stretched east towards the city, unlit because the only thing to go in or come out of it was an automated train.

Skycrane, impulsive as ever, grabbed a halogen flashlight and sped off down the tunnel. As his lamp dimmed in the darkness, Psiren gasped and began to worry. There was something in the tunnel. Something….hungry…

Psiren’s screams echoed down the tunnel and Skycrane turned on a pin and began to speed through the darkness and burst out into the basement warehouse where Psiren was visibly panicking. She took a long stare down the corridor and shrieked “They’re comingggggggg”.

The next few minutes were a blur of activity as a rag-tag group of men and women burst from the darkness of the tunnel with teeth gnashing and claws raking the air. Yellowfist swatted one and Skycrane bulldozed a group of them with his TK-Ram. They were not just normal humans as they seemed to easily shake off the powerful fists and TK-Rams of Yellowfist and Skycrane.

In the midst of the panic stood Balance, who was holding back from the group as the horrors approached. He could feel something in the darkness, something reaching for him, peeling back the layers of his brain and stroking the contours of his mind with blackened hands. In an attempt to rid himself of the dark and forbidden evil, he let slip with his most devastating attack, right at his two comrades, Yellowfist and Skycrane. A pyrotechnic display of excited atoms and the inner fire from a billion molecular bonds breaking down came from the two as they were immediately assailed by this terrible death-ray effect and eventually Skycrane sagged to the ground, bleeding from every pore. Yellowfist grunted and gritted his teeth through the pain as his Bear-Totem roared within and at that moment his mind was made up. He scooped his team in his arms and summing the Eagle, flew up the lift shaft to safety. Skycrane revived seconds later, though weak from the microfractures in his cell membranes and they waited and watched as their assailants began to scale the walls of the lift shaft.

Seemingly recovered, Balance held out his hand and began to seal the top of the lift chamber with his matter molding powers but not before Skycrane grabbed one of the attackers and hoisted him above where he was bludgeoned into unconsciousness by Yellowfist. Trying to take him outside revived the thing and each time they had to beat him into submission.

To resolve this, they wrapped the unconscious form in a fire blanket and Yellowfist and Balance resolved to travel to the other end of the tunnel and seal it shut as Skycrane took the unconscious Psiren to WatchTower for medical assistance.

What to find?

Morfedel writes:
“I think its because my conservatives watch Fox news because they (and I) feel that many other news media are liberally slanted. And of course, when you do that as a retreat from “other news sources,” then your news source you do watch is attacked, it comes off as an attack against you as well.”

Only if you’re a dickhead.

Am I being harsh? Everyone else in the world knows that FOX is pro-Bush, pro-War and pro-Conservative (for those of us outside the US, a US Conservative is a extremely right wing individual. Even the liberal left in the US makes the Tories in the UK look like turnip-eating socialists).

It is bizarre that FOX provides The Simpsons.

But to take someone saying “Fox is crap” as insinuating that means “You are crap” shows some deep seated insecurities. It would be different if the individual had said:

Anyone who watches FOX is a weak minded fool with nothing but a pucker on his lips for The American Presidential Rear End

“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.”

Last Monday, a friend of mine found out they had cancer after a couple of months of complaining about an upset stomach. Five days later, she found out it was inoperable. And she died this morning, a mere 6 days later.

++++ADVANCE NOTIFICATION ++++ WATCHTOWER EYES ONLY++++

Five superhuman individuals have been contracted for operations unknown in East Coast North America, most likely New York. All operatives in the East Coast region are to collect information and relay to WatchTower Central Services Command.

Codenames

• Sewer (powers unknown)
• Gridlock (speedster)
• KillerWatt (electricity generation)
• Asphalt (solid material shaping)
• Smog (powers unknown)

KillerWatt

• Real Name: Helen Schultz
• Occupation: Burglar, hired assassin
• Citizenship: USA, has criminal record
• Known colleagues: Squall, Hellstrike
• Powers and abilities:
  KillerWatt is armed with an insulating uniform with embedded battery
  packs. She is able to control the flow of electricity in her immediate
  area and has trained extensively with this ability.

Asphalt

• Real Name: Eugene Benjamin
• Occupation: Hired assassin
• Citizenship: USA, has criminal record
• Known colleagues: None
• Powers and abilities:
  Asphalt can reform his body into an asphalt-like substance which
  affords him superhuman strength and resistance. He also has
  limited control of other surfaces and materials.

Gridlock

• Real Name: Richard Carter
• Occupation: Hired Assassin
• Citizenship: USA, has criminal record
• Known colleagues: None
• Powers and abilities:
  Gridlock can change the speed of himself or others. He usually
  uses it to make himself into a speedster and, at the same time,
  slow everyone else down.

Sewer

• No information found.

Smog

• No information found.

++++