Summer Fun Into Autumn News

I knew I hadn't posted in a while, but looking now, I didn't think it had been as far back as April! In fact, I completely missed my annual 5th of November post, breaking a long, but pointless, streak!

I learned to scuba dive over the summer and absolutely love it! It's an incredible experience, and one I've always been interested in trying, but while my brother was here, we learned together. The training dives were a bit of a challenge, obviously, as you had to demonstrate so terrifying skills, like removing your facemask underwater and putting it back on again, but we got through it. Since then, we did two fun dives in September that were a lot of fun and we got so see some amazing things, like a jellyfish completely failing to sneak up on Stephen during the rest stop, or an octopus home that had its own flipping balcony! Posh or what?!?

Stephen left to return to Ireland at the start of October, and we were all sad to see him go. Ada didn't really understand he was going, and so wasn't upset, but still asks about him regularly. Just today as I was putting her down for a nap, she interupted the story I was reading to ask where he was.

But when he left, Ada got her own bedroom. I expected a transition period, but instead, on the very first night, she brought Bear in, went to bed and went right to sleep. Since then, in the last ten weeks or so, there have only been three nights that she's come into our room, and one was Halloween on account of the fireworks.

It's nice having our own bedroom back to just ourselves again, but it's not going to last. We're expecting another baby, codenamed Podling, in early December, and are pretty much prepared for his arrival. This time we do know the sex in advance, so Claire is delighted to have the complete set, one of each. I'm just excited to have another baby in the house, but I'm sure the first week of sleepless nights will beat that out of me.

I have much to post about, so expect a few in the coming days, if not hours.

 

Why Do You Need A Testing Facility That Far Into The Desert?

Session Four: Stop That Train!!

Available: Maurice LeBec, Sir Alistair Montgomery, Chloe M, Ares Astral, Hank Scorpio
Guest Starring: Agent Smith, Agent Johnson

The morning after the events at Carnegie Hall, the group were contacted by Atlantic Philanthropies and told to meet at a building in the city. Once there, they were met by two agents from the Department Of Investigation. Someone had stolen a piece of valuable technology and the DOI requested the assistance of AP in it's recovery. The agents were "not at liberty" to discuss the details of the stolen technology, but assured the party that it was in their best interests to help.

And so, off to San Francisco!

They knew that the stolen goods were being transported by train, and the agents had leads as to which one. They arrived at the train depot and began investigating the container storage area. Chloe had to turn on the heat to help get passed the guards at the gates, one or two decided to sneak in, and soon everyone was snooping around. Maurice found a long, office-like building toward the back of the area and ducked in, just in time to see some shady characters handing a thick envelope to a plain-clothes youth. Maurice waited for the courier to leave and managed to pickpocket the envelope, open it and return it to the young man all without being seen. Inside he found and took blue-prints for a one-man jet propulsion device, a rocket-pack!

Meanwhile, the rest of the group had managed to dramatically disable all the Mafia thugs in the depot, even finding a few more on the street behind the offices and interrogating them. Learning that the container with the stolen goods was already well on it's was to Salt Lake City, they quickly decided to give chase.

This was the point where I folded my arms and listened in amazement as the players took the initiative and began a whole scene that I never expected. My notes read "Players learn where train is and race to catch it. Once at the train...", fully expecting to just say "Ok, you arrive in sight of the train as it screams down the tracks..." Instead, the players all took it upon themselves to have an elaborate race to get to the prize first. Ares and Maurice took Gir, Ares' Martian tripod, Agents Smith and Johnson took their Custom Ride, a fully kitted out Stunt, Sir Alistair took his own Stunt gadget, a one-man clockwork helicopter, and Chloe and Hank simply relied on an excellent driving stat, nabbed the mafia car and took off while the others agreed on the "rules". The spontaneous action was hilarious, as all sorts of back-stabbing and shenanigans came to a head! Sir Alistair spent a while fiddling with his copter, thinking he could make it faster, but it would "Need More Cogs". Unfortunately, without Sir Alistairs player even seeing, Maurice's player rolled to pocket a few cogs in order to slow the contraption down. Because both rolled the same, I simply negated the effect of Sir Alistairs tinkering!!

Eventually things got back on track, so to speak. Everyone arrived at the train, though some were shakier than others. Gir put a foot through a passenger window and Ares had to reign it back from zapping the screaming "fleshbags" inside. They checked the containers attached, but the one they were after was nowhere to be found. Searching the rest of the train was fruitless. I threw in the old "Runaway Train" trope here as well to give them something to do onboard, but while they were solving that, Gir detected a cargo container in the mountains. Once the train was safe, they backtracked along the tracks to a split that lead upwards into the hills. Following it, they discovered an abandoned mining facility with several storage buildings and an unusually high number of armed thugs for such a dilapidated area.

Fighting and explosions later, Maurice had explored one empty building and a second with several large cargo containers. The rest of the party arrived in and helped search the containers until they found the one they were looking for. Cracking it open, they recovered the missing technology, as well as the young man wearing it, much to the surprise of everyone involved.

At this point, I threw in more mob thugs and a leader to give the players someone to question and learn more about who was in charge. As it was getting late, we left all the questioning for the next week, but they did they did learn that the vile Doctor Eternity was somehow connected!! Dun-dun-duuuuuuuun!!

I Wee When I Get Excited

When I get all excited about something, I clench my fists, shake them side-to-side, and screech "weeeee" through a huge grin that spreads from ear to ear. Rather like Wallace I suppose. When I get really excited, the screech becomes audible to dogs and kids that can still register that annoying mosquito sound places use to disband hoards of emo and goth kids. What...? You thought the title meant something different?

At the moment, any time I think about my Spirit of the Century game, I find myself shaking and screeching. A lot. Looking back on the last few weeks, things have been going far better than I could ever have hoped (I'm a little behind in my summaries, but hope to post new ones soon), with everyone now rushing head-long towards the endgame. Looking forward, plots seem to be jumping out at me, coming together with very little effort, tying directly into player characters backgrounds. Next Tuesdays scenario was particularly fun to research. (Ack! Just now, even writing that last sentence, I let out a little screech!) Of course, I can't go in to detail now, as some of my players do read my blog occasionally, and I'd hate to spoil anything.

I Prefer Jazz Anyway

Session Three: Music To Calm The Soul
Note: This session was stolen from RPG.Net's Roleplaying Actual Play thread. As such, credit goes to the original author, walkerp. While I'm at it, I took inspiration from the excellent comic miniseries Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way for some modifications to the nefarious villains of the piece.

Available: Maurice LeBec, Sir Alistair Montgomery, Chloe M

After their adventure in Africa, the party were granted some down-time, and offered tickets to the opening performance of a symphony that has swept through Europe to high acclaim. Reluctantly accepting the tickets, the party were whisked away to New York, and the famous Carnegie Hall.

Arriving at the show, Sir Alistair spotted an old acquaintance of his, Doctor Deedes, and wandered off to join him in the parquet. Maurice and Chloe headed upwards to the first balcony area, but did not sit together. Chloe had spotted a well known adventurer, Jack Savage, and pointedly chose to ignore him.

As the music began, Maurice realised he was experiencing something wonderful. His knowledge of the Arts meant that he was aware that this was truly as great as the reports from Europe were claiming. The music was astonishing, and he soon found himself taken away by it all.

At the break, the party joined up briefly in the bar and discussed the show so far, as well as having time to chat to fellow attendees. But, with a mere fifteen minutes for the intermission, they learned little of value save that everyone seemed to be enjoying it in varying degrees.

The second half of the show was a little different. Very shortly after it began, Chloe noticed that people were staring more intently at the orchestra than usual, and some had their heads tilted slightly to one side, while a small few were even drooling. Looking around, she noticed that Maurice has seemingly fallen asleep!! Sir Alistair noticed his friend acting strangely, as well as an unusually strong sensation of calm. Using a handy Gadget he just so happened to have with him, he found that something was producing a frequency that mimicked and caused a state similar to REM sleep in the people who could hear it. It was clear someone was tampering with the audience.

Chloe woke Maurice, who proceeded to scale the walls and head along the drapes and balcony boxes towards the stage. Sir Alistair attempted to awaken Doctor Deedes and some others, but was met with resistance. The music changed and all the hypnotised people began to crowd around him chanting in a monotonous voice "Don't stop the music. Don't stop the music..." At the same time, Chloe spotted men moving through the crowd, hold large sacks. They were dressed in impeccable tuxedos and every one of them wore a small domino mask. As they passed through the zombiefied high society of New York, they simply held out the bags and people put wallets, jewelery and anything else of value willingly into them.

Despite drifting off to sleep again while clinging to some drapes, Maurice reached the stage and leaped down to attack the conductor. Sir Alistair fended off zombies, trying desperately not to hurt anyone, but pushing to get towards the men in the domino masks. Chloe raced down the back stairs to try to get to the stage, and almost ran into some more domino masks who were on the way up.

After dropping the curtains and various other items on the orchestra, Maurice managed to stop the symphony long enough to pound on the conductor. The violinists were firing bows using their instruments like bow and arrows, and the orchestra proved themselves capable of a fight. Chloe spotted someone in the rigging about the stage, and climbed the ladder to investigate, but was almost blasted away by an ear piercing sound. Sir Alistair took down one of the men in domino masks before the hypnotic effects wore off and people began to press towards the exits. He caught a brief glimpse of one of them reaching to remove his mask, and then they vanished into the crowd!

With the conductor beaten and bruised, and himself not much better, Maurice pulled the conductor through the trapdoor in the stage for questioning. Getting only babbling, incoherent phrases and the odd unexplainable apology to an unnamed someone. Heading back up to the stage, Maurice spotted Chloe dangling off the ladder and went to help. Sir Alistair was determined to examine the instruments immediately. Up on the catwalk, Chloe and Maurice confronted a shadowy figure. He was wearing a cape with a high collar, and over his mouth was a piece of grated metal. He roared at the two adventurers, sending them rolling back alone the catwalk, and Chloe almost fell. "You ruined this symphony", he said. "But our Apocalypse Suite goes on! This shall not be the last time we meet!", and with that, he seemed to drop from the far end of the catwalk.

Chloe and Maurice raced back down, but neither could see the enemy, and Sir Alistair seemed to have not noticed anyone moving. Rushing down below the stage, they discovered the body of the conductor, blood weeping from his eyes, nose and ears. Frozen on his face is a look of unnatural horror. Sir Alistair's cursory examination revealed that he was most likely killed by a sonic device bursting blood vessels in his head. Investigating the area reveals a simple pulley lift shaft that runs from the catwalk to under the stage. Going up, a skylight is open, letting in the cool New York night air.

A round of questioning the captured domino masked man, as well as a few of the orchestra, revealed some interesting facts about the symphony and it's creator, though nothing to help track him now. Sir Alistair was intrigued by the devices he found in the instruments that allowed them to be attuned to the frequencies of the human mind, putting it into a trance-like state. Naturally, he pocketed one for further study. Handing all the captives over to the police and spending some time relaying their own findings, the party then called it a night and headed back to their hotel rooms for some well deserved sleep.

Not a bad night at all this one. Everyone got to do lots, and had a ball of a time. The session ran on just enough for the night, feeling neither rushed, nor dragged out. It was interesting to put the PCs up against a non-physical threat, making them role Rapport, Resolve and Arts more than Guns, Might and Athletics. Fun, and funny, and while the original author pointed out that it ran late for him, I found it to be a nicely paced, enjoyably session with just the right mix of action and investigation for my group.

Truth And The Nile

Session Two: Welcome to the Jungle

Available: Maurice LeBec, Hank Scopio, Sir Alistair Montgomery, Chloe M

Called to the Society again, the party were brought up to speed on some missing members, two of the original founding members of AP, Reginald and Sarah, who had been searching for the True Source of the Nile. On Donald Fairfaxs information, the party were instructed to travel to the National History Museum in Cairo, retrieve an artifact, and then travel on to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, to pick up Reginald and Sarah's trail.

Arriving in Egypt the party questioned the museum curator, and noticed that some of the shadows in the exhibition hall were unexplainably "off", but the huge overhead skylight washed the room in harsh African sunlight, so further investigation proved pointless.

The following morning, the party boarded a zeppelin bound for Kigali with the required artifact, an ancient Egyptian urn. While relaxing on board, they noticed the headline on a newspaper: "History Museum Attacked. Priceless Artifacts Stolen" and discovered that robed attackers broke into the museum late last night and made off with random artifacts. Most interesting was that they came in through the skylight in the room that had contained the urn! Dun, dun, duuuuuunnnnnnn...

The discussions on the implications of this were cut short as robed assailants attacked the zeppelin, arriving on board via bi-plane. Getting up into the main body of the zeppelin, the party discovered two dead crew members on the walkway that circles the gasbags. Before they even had time to investigate, they were attacked by the robed figures, who flung knives across great distance with stunning force. One acrobatically enriched combat scene later and the attackers were defeated and revealed as (unsurprising to everyone at the table) gorillas!!

In Kigali, they spent some time investigating the disappearance of Reginald and Sarah. In fact, they spent longer than I had anticipated, but came up with lots of ways to track an impossible trail and they discovered that the missing members had been in the company of a pygmy tribe before they disappeared.

While investigating the hotel room Reginald and Sarah had been using, the group were quick to note a lack of any sign of a struggle or forced entry. Questioning the staff, they learned that the missing couple had gone to their room, but were not seen leaving. Only a single burn mark on the carpet hinted at anything unusual. Sir Alistair questioned the nature of the mark, and upon closer examination discovered it was created by a high energy electrical discharge. Stupidly, I made Ray role for this, but when he questioned it, he had the puzzle solved already, even naming his nemesis, Doctor Eternity, as being involved. I should have just thrown him one, if not two Fate Points straight away without a role and confirmed his suspicions, instead he wasted a bunch of Points on rerolls as he just kept rolling minus'!! Ah well. I learned for the future.

Resting over night, the party proceeded into the thick jungle in the morning light and followed Reginald and Sarah's trail toward the Source of the Nile. Before they knew it they were surrounded by a large tribe of pygmy's, bows and spears pointed at the adventurers. After leaving the team to sweat for a little bit, an English speaking voice told everyone to calm down.

A tall figure dressed entirely in purple, with a black domino mask stepped out into view to address the PCs. After some introductions, the Phantom admitted to having met Reginald and Sarah, as well as offering the assistance of some of the native people to safely return to Kigali. After expositing some plot, and answering all he could, regretted that he had other business to attend to for now and vanished into the jungle once more, taking the tribe with him.

Proceeding on to the temple, the party discovered evidence of movement all around the site, as well as evidence of recent movement into and out of the temple itself. Moving into the temple, they were tricked into a trap room. Behind a metal grate in the high ceiling, the imposing face of a bespectacled gorilla looked down on the group. "Give me the urn."

A Brief Tangent: This is the first, and so far only time that I have done something that I completely regret in hindsight. In my haste to wrap up the adventure for the night, as the investigating in Kigali went on far longer than I expected, I had the lead gorilla talk, and express his desire. Looking back, there was no need for him to speak. He could have grunted and groaned, pointed and flailed. The party already knew what he was after. Plus, having him talk made him just another villain, but in a primate suit. Leaving him with just the Language of the Primates would have added something unique to his character. Besides, nothing he actually ended up saying was vital or required.

The party refused to relinquish the urn, and the room began to flood quickly to drown the characters. I had planned on the Phantom showing up at the Last Possible Second to rescue the team, but instead they came up with a great escape plan of their own, and I decided to let them enjoy the fruits of their teamwork. Bursting into the upper room, the party found themselves in a cylindrical room with a domed ceiling, an unopened sarcophagus with a pedestal at the head and beyond that was a finely carved stone chair, upon which the head gorilla was awkwardly seated, surrounded by minions.

Combat wrapped up with the lead gorilla leaping for Hank, getting shot in the chest, crashing into the Unsteady Floor (a Sticky Aspect placed on the room by one of the PCs!) and falling through, into the Flooded Room below. Once things had settled, the body of the gorilla was nowhere to be found! This, of course, lead to chants of You Thought I was Dead, Not All Gorillas Are Poor Swimmers, and Hardly the Last Time We'll See Him from the players. Honestly, I was just writing him off as dead at the time. I was far too tired to be clever, but when my players did the work for me, I knew what had to be done. Oh yes! He will return!!

Only one thing remained. The urn, and the not-at-all-obviously-placed pedestal! Cracking open the sarcophagus first, they found an undisturbed Pharaoh's body, mummified in the traditional manner. Placing the urn on the pedestal, a mechanism activated, opening a small window in the ceiling allowing light to pass through some crystal directing it straight down on the pedestal. Originating from the urn, light shone out onto the cylindrical walls, showing a surprisingly detailed map of the eastern half of the African continent, the flow of the Nile, and the location of the temple. Sir Alistair took some photographs of the strange phenomenon, then, after some further investigations and questioning the GM about various factors, the urn was removed from the pedestal and the party made their way back to Kigali.

In this session, the players used Fate Points far more, and benefited from them as well. I messed up once or twice, as I pointed out above, but over all, I was once again happy with how things went. This game ran a little late, and I had to cut some content to get it done in the session, but the players had a blast, and everyone seemed pleased with the outcome. The urn is important to the overarching plot, while still being an interesting discussion point for that session. After mutated shrewmen and intelligent gorillas, I promised regular humans for session three, and almost lived up to that promise...

Should We Just Call The FF?

Session One: Adventuring 101- Thrilling Tales and Monstrous Creatures

Available: Sir Alistair, Ares Astral, Maurice LeBec

The groups contact at Atlantic Philanthropy (AP), Donald Fairfax, informed the attending members of trouble in Chicago. Reports were coming through of unusual disappearances and large holes around the city. The party was to travel to Chicago immediately and make contact with an associate of the Society, Professor Harvey Dale.

On arriving at Chicago they were greeted by a Friendly and Talkative taxi driver who filled them in on the large science labs overlooking the city, what little he knew of the Professor and the rumours that were spreading through every district about what might be really going on. Suspicions were firmly on the labs, but there was no time to think them out, as another car slammed into the side of the taxi, putting both through a shop window!

An Elephant Sized badger stood between the party and the remains of the entrance to a hospital. Obviously Bad Tempered and Out of Control, it was thrashing and causing chaos! Two Japanese tourists raced past the shop window screaming something about a mutant dinosaur. After being driven into, set on fire and generally shot at, the monstrous creature was lured up onto a building and onto the tracks of an elevated train, frying itself and shorting out the line! Ares investigated the remains, with the assistance of Sir Alistair, before both clambered down the ruins and headed toward Maurice, who had made it into the hospital.

Maurice had discovered that the creature had come up through the hospital floor with some more unnatural friends, and was seemingly lead by a small, grotesque man who, according to one hysterical nurse, referred to himself as "The Mushroomoid". The hole they came up was already filled in, and the creature dealt with.

As Chicago's finest arrived on the scene, the party chose to beat a hasty retreat instead of having to stand around answering questions. The ventured on to the labs, using a car Maurice appropriated.

Greeted warmly by the staff at the labs, the party was immediately brought down an elevator into a large, advanced lab, and was met by Prof. Dale, who showed them an interesting goo that had been discovered and delivered to his labs some months ago. Only in the last few days have they made any progress with it, as running an electrical current through the goo causes it to move, shift and reach out tiny fingers of goo. However, they discovered too late that their experiments were coinciding with the strange occurrences in the city, and fear there may be a connection.

After some brief talking, the lab began to shake and rumble, and the party, after making successful Alertness rolls, felt as though they were back in the elevator again. The lights went out, and everything and everyone was plunged into darkness. Maurice's excellent night vision allowed him to see strange creatures moving in the shadows, and over the din of the chaos, he heard a high-pitched voice command "The gir*crash*! Take *crash, bang*rl! Pretty girl. So commands the Migh*crash, bang, wallop*manoid!!"

Lights come up, and a hole leading out of the base of the lab into a cavern is found. Once in the cavern, it becomes clear that the labs have been Sunken Into the Ground, and now only the top floor of the building remains above ground. Following some tunnels leading down and towards the city, the party ended up in a huge, deep chasm with a spiral walkway leading all the way down, and several dodgy looking bridges criss-crossing the cavern. Wandering downwards they hear scratching and scraping noises from several of the tunnels leading off this central area. Below, a blue glow illuminates the floor of the cavern from a side tunnel, and strange creatures can be seen scurrying around. Reaching the floor, the creatures turn out to be blind Naked Mole Rats! Huge, blind, naked mole rats! Everyone made Stealth checks, Maurice blending seamlessly into the shadows, while Ares trips on a rock and stumbles into Sir Alistair, both falling loudly onto the cold rock floor. Some mole rats wandered over to investigate, but a quick bright flash of a torch into their faces caused them to reel back in horror and flee.

Investigating the blue glow, the party discovered a smaller cave with a Tesla Coil, a Mysterious Contraption, made of bits and pieces of various stolen things from the city, a pedestal with the goo positioned between the Tesla Coil pylons, and a badger in front of it. Just the regular kind! And finally, to one side of the cave was an impish, ugly man, siting on a rough stone throne, with a female lab technician chained to the wall, as all good Damsel In Distress' should be!

The small figure gestured dramatically, and complained loudly about surface dwellers invading his Subterranean Empire, sacred home of "The Mighty Shrewmanoid"!! Yup. Turns out, the nurse has misheard him, much to his annoyance once the party explained questioned it. This brought howls of laughter from all three players who had been quizzing everyone in the labs earlier about intelligent fungus, and discussing among themselves how to defeat a plant-based opponent!

Combat ensued, someone shot the Mysterious Contraption, Maurice used the shadows to get to behind the Shrewmanoid, Sir Alistair was horrified by a Star Faced Mole, and Ares tussled with a large, but not elephant sized badger! Once the dust cleared, Maurice had a wire around the Shrewmanoids neck and a few rounds of combat was brought to a dignified conclusion. Dragging the villain to the labs, with the rescued lab assistant in tow. Questioning him got all the answers they needed, before handing him over to the authorities.

Overall, the first session went well. Most importantly, everyone had a blast, there were lots of fun moments and laughter, and the players got right into the spirit of the game! None of us really made much use of Fate Points, and I needed to reread combat before the next week. Also, I learnt that I need to be harsher in combat. Characters can take a lot, and don't go down easily. I tend to be cautious in dealing damage as I don't want to remove players from the game. Mechanically, though, that's a rather difficult thing to do, so I need to be more ruthless with what my NPCs can do!!

Let's Get This Party Started

Session Zero: Character Generation
Note: While this first session was going to be CharGen and the start of an adventure to get everyone going, CharGen ran on longer than expected.

Spirit of the Century, for anyone reading that hasn't played it is an awesome experience in and of itself. Rather like the City of Heroes character generator, you can have tonnes and tonnes of fun just throwing up characters and playing with ideas. And that is what happened for this group. Two of the five players were familiar with the rules, while the other three's experiences of role-playing were mostly limited to White Wolf's World of Darkness. It took them a long time to wrap their heads around the freedom SotC's CharGen system gave them, particularly in relation to creating Aspects.

A brief word on the CharGen system for SotC in case you're unfamiliar with it. As it's a pulp style game, character names usually include dramatic, short descriptions, such as Doc Savage, Man of Bronze. Aspects are character traits illustrated through phrases or character quotes, like "First on the Scene", or "Where Did You Come From?" They are completely up to the player to invent. Players tag them by saying things like "Ah! But perhaps Jet arrives early and is "First on the Scene"?!?" gaining additional successes to the role, or affecting the flow of the story. Interesting Aspects should be ones that the GM can compel to put the PC in harms way, by saying "Ah! But Jet arrives early and is "First on the Scene"", before throwing him early into a conflict, now horribly outnumbered and awaiting back-up!

As well as aspects, you then get to choose from a list of Skills. You get one Superb, two Great, three Good, four Fair and five Average, with everything you didn't pick considered at Mediocre. These are things like Athletics, Drive, Pilot, Fists, Science and so on. I'll include the top three each player choose in the character descriptions below. Players then get five Stunts, special abilities related to their Skills.

One of the most interesting parts of SotC CharGen is the concept of Novels. As everyone is essentially a pulp hero, they each have their own novel, the story that outlines their background. However, they also guest star in two other PC's novels, allowing the game to start with everyone knowing some others in the group, if not all of them! This is really handy, as it eliminates the "Why are we all here?" problem most stories have to deal with. There is already a connection between the PC's, and the game starts with them all working for Atlantic Philanthropy, operating out of Boston. The novels all contribute to Aspects that the PC has.

Other than any interesting background they care to create for themselves, they're done. Sounds simple, but the freedom involved leads to hilariously difficult choices to be made and interesting co-operative character development among the group.

So, without further ado, the party as it stands is as follows:

Maurice LeBec, Retired Gentleman Thief (Gar)
Novel: The Man In The Fog
Sample Aspects: The Man in the Fog; The Style Justifies the Means; So, Your Plan Requires my Death?; Your (Chloe, see below) Sister Stole my Heart
Skills: Burglary, Stealth, Sleight of Hand
Guest Staring In: The Chrono Catastrophe; Lipstick on a Shattered Mirror

Sir Alistair Montgomery, Inventor to His Majesty King George V of England (Ray)
Novel: The Chrono Catastrophe
Sample Aspects: If Wishes Were Horses; Never Enough Cogs; Pull it out of my Hat; For King and Country; The Evil Dr. Eternity!
Skills: Engineering, Academics, Science
Guest Starring In: The Man In The Fog; Areas Astral Vs. The Ice Queen of Mars

Chloe "The Siren" M (Stephanie)
Novel: Lipstick on a Shattered Mirror
Sample Aspects: Old Flame; Exit, Stage Right; Where Did That Come From?; At the Last Possible Second
Skills: Deceit, Rapport, Alertness
Guest Starring In: The Chrono Catastrophe; Hank Scorpio in The Mystery of the Blood Medallion

Hank Scopio, P.I. (Tom)
Novel: Hank Scorpio in The Mystery of the Blood Medallion
Sample Aspects: Don't Lie to Me!; And it all went Dark; Of all the Gin Joints; Dames...
Skills: Investigation, Rapport, Drive
Guest Starring In: The Man In The Fog; Lipstick on a Shattered Mirror

Ares Astral, Prince of Mars (Brian)
Novel: Areas Astral Vs. The Ice Queen of Mars
Sample Aspects: Things Man was not Meant to Know; Stranger in a Strange Land; I Never Suspected my own Brother!; Ares, my Friend! My Camel is your Camel!; If Only we had More Time
Skills: Mysteries, Resolve, Guns
Guest Starring In: The Man In The Fog; The Chrono Catastrophe

And there we have it! An interesting bunch that have given me food for thought! They are a great group to game with, and everyone is really getting into the pulp swing of things! Hopefully I'll have some time to write about each of the adventures they've been on so far soon. I'd like to keep a record of how things go, and where I feel I could have improved on it.

For now, though, don't touch that dial! Keep watching for further updates, and more thrilling adventures!

Pulp, Fantasy & Oh So Very British

Six months ago role-playing games didn't even factor in my social calendar, either as a regular or irregular event. I hadn't played in anything for months, and my GMing experiences could be counted on one hand, despite the fact that I really wanted to let people play in some of the fantastical worlds that swam in my head!

But things have started to change in the last few months. I got in on a regular Monday night gaming session with Gar that started off as Spirit of the Century (SotC), in which I played a Gadgeteer. Once it was officially announced that Gar was writing the new edition of Traveller for Mongoose, we started play-testing the mechanics he was working on within the Firefly setting, as none of our group had much experience with Traveller, and were far more keen on playing space-cowboys anyway! In Firefly, I started off as a Rogue, before dieing, apparently completely forgettably, and returning as a Core-Worlds doctor, secretly under the employ of Blue Sun to investigate the origins or Reavers. That wrapped up all too fast before Christmas, and we moved on to something else in the New Year.

Now we're play-testing the upcoming Doctor Who RPG, which is fun, though admittedly, I'm playing it as an SotC game! I play a 1944 RAF pilot accidentally caught up in wacky time-travel shenanigans! Even though I'm not a fan of the Doctor Who series, Gar was careful to gauge our interests and play towards that! Plus, although I dislike the show, I love the concept. I love the time-travel, action adventure, the pulp-styled gadgets and over-the-top fun, the lovable ridiculousness of the TARDIS and the odd creepiness of the Daleks. What I don't like are the cheesy villains (pet hate: living plastic! Whiskey! Tango! Foxtrot!!) and the over use of low budget effects or props. There isn't an excuse for them anymore. The show has both a sizable budget and an endlessly creative crew. Episodes such as Blink, Sound of Drums and Family of Blood illustrate the inventiveness and ingenuity of the crew at all stages of an episodes production, yet despite these few shining moments, we still have to put up with living plastic and gas mask-faced zombies!! If you haven't already seen it, do yourself a favour and watch Blink. It is incredible, and due to the nature of the episode, everything you need to know about the Doctor is explained within the episode, so you could watch it without ever having seen another one!

Sorry... that got a bit rantish there. Well, I guess this is my blog, and I can talk about what interests me, but still. I've gone way off track!! Back to RPGs and the current situation I find myself in.

Um... actually, where was I? *blah, blah, blah* Play-test... *blah, blah* Doctor Who... Oh yes! Now I'm up to my own game! After months of trying to get a group together to play my own SotC game, I finally struck gold and pieced together a stunning and enthusiastic group for a Tuesday night ongoing story. As SotC is supposed to be a "pick-up-and-play" game, I've designed each episode to run within a single night, and there is very little of an over-arcing plot. It's fun, fast and pulpy. Last week was all character generation, which ran longer than expected as three of the five players were new to the system. However, while it officially starts tomorrow, I've spent the last week adjusting some of my stories to fit into characters backgrounds. Instead of Professor Bob, madman extraordinaire, they'll now fight Doctor Eternity, nemesis of Sir Alistair, inventor to His Majesty King George V. Honestly, I've never looked forward to a game more than this one!

And to top it all off, I'm now playing in Claire's D&D game on Sunday nights!! So far, there isn't much to say about this one. We're investigating the spread of a plague that doesn't kill anyone, we have no-one in the party that can heal, and I'm playing a customised version of a WarForged, essentially based exclusively off of RoboCop! This one's gonna be fun.

That brings my weekly gaming experiences up from zip, to three games a week, running Sunday, Monday and Tuesday! Not bad for someone that had lost all interest in gaming not so long ago. I'll try to add various bits of short fiction based on the games as I go along. I enjoy the three settings I'm playing in at the moment, and I love adding to the backgrounds or just general bits and pieces. Keep me bookmarked, and feel free to comment on things, or add your own ideas to my stories!

Finally, Some Me Time

It's been almost a full month since I last updated, and it's been a busy month! Preschool work kicked into overdrive in the run up to Christmas, and I've been putting in extra time at home on arts ideas for the class, as well as buying supplies in town. My other work has had me in for more hours, both in the health food store and the comic shop. This is great, because I really need the money! Rent this month is on the credit card!

And on top of all this, I got a new game for the Wii, and an Xbox 360! The Xbox was a Christmas present from Claire, and I bought the games for it myself through ebay. In fact, most of my Christmas shopping was done through ebay! Sweet!

Edit: Oops! Silly me. I almost talked about what I got people, before realising that some of them read this!! Heh. Anyway...

But tonight I have a little time to say hello to the world wide web again, and blog a little. Poor Flickr is still feeling cold. I haven't really taken any photos at all recently, even of action figures. I guess I'm allowed take a break now and then, but I really want to get back into it. Maybe in the New Year. I'm not going to make a resolution to photograph or blog more though. I feel I did a lot this year, certainly more than I expected to do, given my reputation for starting and ending things with reckless abandon! Still, hopefully I'll have time to blog a bit more before the end of 2007.

False Start

Dammit! I forgot that yesterday was the start of NaBloPoMo! Last year, Karen did a great job, and it looks like she's starting it again. I really wanted to give it a try, and so I will!

Did You Know: There is a small east-African tribe that, due to a spacial anomoly in 1913, exist one day in the past. This post is for them.

Welcome to November first!

Got out of that one...

Watch Out America!

This summer I really did do very little bar work and sit around at home bored. Oh sure, I spent three days in London with Claire and my family, which was simply awesome from start to finish. Even Spider-Man got to enjoy it! But other than that, I've spent the summer broke and bored, looking forward more and more to getting back to work in the preschool.

Worse, everyone else seemed to be travelling to far off lands in search of adventure and comic stores!! Cian spent a few weeks in Seattle (on business, but still awesome!), Jp hit the Big Apple and a variety of comic megasuperstores, Noel and Hazel visited Bob and Sinead in the gloriously futuristic city of Toronto, Colin saw NY and Boston, and Brian spent three months all over the United States. And they all seemed to get back around the same time, regaling me with their tales of wonder and mirth.

Well, I've had enough! Next year shall be my year of epic adventuring!! I shall start saving now, and embark on a journey northwards along Americas Pacific coast that will be truly legend- wait for it- dary!! Oh, and Claire is coming too.

The plan is to start just north of the Mexican border, flying in to San Diego and spending a few days seeing the sights and attending San Diego Comic Con, or SDCC for those in the know! We're not sure how long we'll have there, because we need to be in LA the following weekend to go to Blizzcon. Being a huge World Of Warcraft fan, this is one of Claire's life dreams, so I guess I have to put-up and shut-up! Heh. No. I'll have a blast there too, even if I just never leave the StarCraft 2 stands!

After that, things get really interesting, as we head further north to the great city of San Fransisco, and the bestest American we know; Karen!! Yay! We'll get to spend a week to ten days in the beautiful Bay area and hopefully get to see some of the sights.

The final leg of our journey brings us just south of the Canadian border, nicely mirroring out starting point, as we end everything in Seattle. As well as being home to our favourite comedy series, Frasier, Seattle is the location of Microsofts head office and, most importantly, PAX! Yes, Penny Arcade Expo is held close to the end of August, and next year, we intend to be there! Also, conveniently, Cian might be living there by then... hint, hint...

And as much fun as this stellar road-trip sounds, it's made all the more exciting by the friends we'll have along the way. Some, like Colin, will be meeting us for SDCC, some for PAX, like Jp, and of course we'll have Karen in SF, so while we'll have lots of time to ourselves (Blizzcon. Who would have guessed only Claire would be interested in that one?!?!), we'll also have lots of shared adventures with people we know and love!

So watch out America! Claire and Denis are on their way, and they expect a party, a celebration, a legendary five(ish) week epic adventure across three States and three conventions, over 1,292 miles, four (possibly five) important stops, two great friends that we won't have seen in such a long time, thousands upon thousands of photo opportunities, and infinite possibilities to make new and exciting friends!

It's going to be the kind of summer they make movies about, and we're the stars!

The Real Me?

So how accurate do you think online personality quizzes are? I just tried out two, and here are the results:

Which Sci-Fi crew would you best fit in?
You are Moya (Farscape) 81%

You are surrounded by muppets. But that is okay because they are your friends and have shown many times that they can be trusted. Now if only you could stop being bothered about wormholes.

Moya (Farscape)		81%
Babylon 5 (Babylon 5)		81%
Bebop (Cowboy Bebop)		75%
Deep Space Nine (Star Trek)		69%
SG-1 (Stargate)		69%
Serenity (Firefly)		69%
Enterprise D (Star Trek)		69%
Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda)		63%
Millennium Falcon (Star Wars)		63%
Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica)		56%
Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix)		56%
FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files)		31%

But I tied with Babylon5, which means that:
The universe is erupting into war and your government picks the wrong side. How much worse could things get? It doesn't matter, because no matter what you have your friends and you'll do the right thing. In the end that will be all that matters. Now if only the Psi Cops would leave you alone.

However, although I belong in Moya or onboard Babylon 5, were I to be a crew member of the FireFly-class starship Serenity, I would in fact be:

Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic)

You are good at fixing things. You are usually cheerful.
You appreciate being treated with delicacy and specialness.

Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic)		75%
Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic)		75%
Wash (Ship Pilot)		70%
Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command)		65%
Derrial Book (Shepherd)		65%
Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)		55%
River (Stowaway)		50%
Jayne Cobb (Mercenary)		45%
Inara Serra (Companion)		40%
Alliance		40%
A Reaver (Cannibal)		20%

But once again, there is a tie, so as much as I am Kaylee, I am also Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic):
Medicine and physical healing are your game,
but wooing women isn't a strong suit.
Click here to take the "Which Serenity character am I?" quiz...

Interesting results all round, I think. How do you fair? Any potential space cowboys, bounty hunters or military fly-boys out there?

My Busy Weekend

This Easter bank holiday weekend I went home to my family for a few days, as I do every Easter. I got away from the internet, friends, work, the world. Home is in the open countryside, a beautiful area in the centre of Ireland, surrounded by green fields, trees, hills and valleys. Below is the nearest town, some five miles away, and from the front of our house you can look down on it, stunningly lit at night. Above, is the Devils Bit, a mountain that has been an unforgettable part of my childhood. By day, it is a wondrous mix of colours, and by night a huge cross glows brightly at it's peak.

So over a glorious weekend I mowed both our lawns, turbo powerwashed most of the drive around the house, helped feed and play with the neighbours two Labradors, watched some movies in the evenings, went to Mass, cooked dinner for mum and my sister, spent lots of time playing with our own two dogs, shot my brother Stephen a few times, caught up with some of the cousins, and generally hung out and had a great time. I also took a few pictures over the weekend, though not nearly as many as I thought.

All in all, a great and activity packed weekend!!

Suprize!

I have found the coolest website of the week just now, and contributed to it as well. Digital Doodle is a wonderful site with a simple idea. Draw anything on the doodle-board and have it included in the vast collection. There is a "Hot Topic" kind of thing on the side that you can do, but you're not forced to. That's my entry for "Aliens" right there on the side.

And before anyone comments that I misspelled "Surprise" (I know you're out there, Mark), he's an alien, and doesn't speak our language, so it's a poor attempt at illustrating that. Be grateful, I was going to use "Supplies!!"

Contribute a doodle and I'll be happy to vote on it, and please vote on mine too!

As a matter of fact, while we're on this subject, that's the rough style of art I'm going for in my upcoming webcomic. A stick-figure with more detailed head and hands. You like?!?

Photography

While I was wandering to my morning lecture I spotted a wealth of opportunities to get some really nice photographs. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me. In future, I'm going to try to start carrying my digital camera where-ever I go, maybe just have it in my bag at all times. I'd like to get more into photography, and with Cian, Karen and Jonathon all thinking the same, it would be a good time to do so. We could compare and contrast, learning from each other.

I'm not going to buy the crazy expensive equipment the guys have. Their cameras could get me a lot of action figures!! Besides, I like my camera. It takes some great shots, and does what I want it to do.

I simply have to try harder. Put in an effort to see my surroundings. Stop photographing toys.

T-Shirt Folding

This is fairly awesome, except there are two small cuts in the footage, making it difficult to reproduce at home. Difficult be not impossible. I can do it, and once folded all my T-shirts like this. It's great fun, and amazing at parties!