(no subject)
Discussion of things happening in the post-apocalyptic game, cut for people who don't like gaming or postapocalypses.
I realized that with adults, it's hard to get a group of people to meet regularly when they have lives and jobs and kinds and stuff. So this was supposed to be a setting with characters who could show up or not whenever they chose, with each session being an enclosed story and no continuity from game to game.
We've actually done a good job making each session a one-shot, not ending on any cliffhangers or "good stopping points". But a sort of continuity has emerged and I'm posting it here to keep track of it, and because it might amuse a couple of you to read it.
I've been thinking of these games as being structurally like episodes of a cartoon show -- one of those shows that had different main characters (PCs) episode to episode like GI Joe or the Transformers.
The Regulars:
Connery, Scottish Dragonborn Paladin, worships doll heads
Sander Cade, Cowboy Warlock
Shava, Double Katana Wielding Urban Ranger
Skyla Silverthorne, Peace-loving Eladrin Artificer
The Occasionals:
Exene: Drow Bard
Ivan: Goliath Barbarian
Nguyen: Secretive Shadar-Kai
Sanchez: Ranger guided by the mysterious signs of South of the Border.
Rorsach: Fighter with antique armor
Episode 1: the PCs arrive in a wasteland outpost called Watertown, run by the froglike Boss Aqua. Aqua hopes to employ the PCs for a special mission, but when he tries to take advantage of the bard Exene, the party thrashes him and his thugs. They run Boss Aqua out of town.
Episode 2: Still in Watertown, the PCs turn on the pumps to give the desperate villagers a drink… and nothing comes out. They venture underground to discover that the source of the villagers’ water has been blocked by a clutch of eggs laid by a swarm of reptoads. The PCs exterminate the reptoads and clear the waterways.
Episode 3: Moon Elf Skyla Silverthorne, on an archaeological tour of Watertown, gets her first taste of Earthly barbarism watching a duel between cowboy warlock Sander Cade and local tough guy Crossbow Charlie. In the wilderness, the PCs fight postapocalyptic cannibals and come into possession of a mysterious, ancient box.
Episode 4: Driven into a cave to avoid an acid rain storm, the PCs encounter the ghosts of a tribe of Dragonborn. The PCs decipher from an old mural how this dragonborn tribe warred with horned humanoids and came under their curse. The PCs end the curse on the cave by breaking into two vaults where the dragonborn matriarch and patriarch were buried and reuniting their remains.
Episode 5: The PCs investigate a laboratory mostly sunken into a swamp. They realize that other looters, ahem, adventurers, had already cleaned it out - they barely escape with their lives when the lab sinks the rest of the way under. After they rescue a swamp hillbilly girl from the deadly Lobstapotamus, they meet her inbred tribe and join them for dinner. During the dinner, the swampbillies are betwitched into homicidal psychos by a swamp hag. The PCs massacre the swampbillies and, as an afterthought, the swamp hag.
Episode 6: The PCs are taking their box into a building where they believed they can get it identified or sell it. Little do they know, they have inadvertently wandered onto the set of the hit game show Get Murdered. They meet charismatic host Malagoz Maraschino and his Lovely Assistant. The PCs have to chase their mysterious box across an electromagnetic floor, climb a boobytrapped tower, and fight for their lives against a gang of motorcycle punks in a bowl-shaped arena in front of a live studio audience. In the end, they win dinner with philanthropist John White of Resurrection City.
Episode 7: When a deadly storm renders the mountains impassable, the PCs have no choice but to find their way through the mountain, inside a train tapped there eons ago. The train is haunted by the ghosts of commuters, man-bats, and a mole spider. Eventually the train, carrying thousands of pounds of valuable plastic, plunged into an underground gorge, but the PCs do get out the other end of the tunnel.
Episode 8: At a tavern on the outskirts of Resurrection City, the PCs fall under the spell of the minstrel Alan Afterwards. He hurls them back in time, onto the doomed steamship the HMS Gigantic just before it strikes the coral reef. They learn that the Gigantic was actually sunk by monsters like the algae troll that they catch destroying lifeboats. The climactic scene has the party split with Hobobear the druid fighting Alan Afterwards in the present, and the others fighting lamprey things and drowned sailor zombies in an effort to magically patch the Gigantic’s hull. The spell is broken and the party is returned to the present when Afterwards is knocked out.
Episode 9: The PCs reach Resurrection City. At the luxurious house of John White, the PCs become guests at not only dinner, but a meeting with the other shady bosses of Resurrection City. They learn that they were John White’s contribution to a joint venture. Each of these three bosses volunteered a team of adventurers to go underground: Edward Guana had sent the Homewreckers (Pacifier, the Gimp, Tiara Del Fuego, Axman, and Boomer); Wanda had managed to employ Alan Afterwards. The PCs agree after John White promises to finance a Moon Bridge trip to the Moon (Skyla Silverthorne’s homeland). They go underground and kill the eight headed Rat King, his Ratomancers, and his legions of rodent musketeers who had taken over a methane plant.
I realized that with adults, it's hard to get a group of people to meet regularly when they have lives and jobs and kinds and stuff. So this was supposed to be a setting with characters who could show up or not whenever they chose, with each session being an enclosed story and no continuity from game to game.
We've actually done a good job making each session a one-shot, not ending on any cliffhangers or "good stopping points". But a sort of continuity has emerged and I'm posting it here to keep track of it, and because it might amuse a couple of you to read it.
I've been thinking of these games as being structurally like episodes of a cartoon show -- one of those shows that had different main characters (PCs) episode to episode like GI Joe or the Transformers.
The Regulars:
Connery, Scottish Dragonborn Paladin, worships doll heads
Sander Cade, Cowboy Warlock
Shava, Double Katana Wielding Urban Ranger
Skyla Silverthorne, Peace-loving Eladrin Artificer
The Occasionals:
Exene: Drow Bard
Ivan: Goliath Barbarian
Nguyen: Secretive Shadar-Kai
Sanchez: Ranger guided by the mysterious signs of South of the Border.
Rorsach: Fighter with antique armor
Episode 1: the PCs arrive in a wasteland outpost called Watertown, run by the froglike Boss Aqua. Aqua hopes to employ the PCs for a special mission, but when he tries to take advantage of the bard Exene, the party thrashes him and his thugs. They run Boss Aqua out of town.
Episode 2: Still in Watertown, the PCs turn on the pumps to give the desperate villagers a drink… and nothing comes out. They venture underground to discover that the source of the villagers’ water has been blocked by a clutch of eggs laid by a swarm of reptoads. The PCs exterminate the reptoads and clear the waterways.
Episode 3: Moon Elf Skyla Silverthorne, on an archaeological tour of Watertown, gets her first taste of Earthly barbarism watching a duel between cowboy warlock Sander Cade and local tough guy Crossbow Charlie. In the wilderness, the PCs fight postapocalyptic cannibals and come into possession of a mysterious, ancient box.
Episode 4: Driven into a cave to avoid an acid rain storm, the PCs encounter the ghosts of a tribe of Dragonborn. The PCs decipher from an old mural how this dragonborn tribe warred with horned humanoids and came under their curse. The PCs end the curse on the cave by breaking into two vaults where the dragonborn matriarch and patriarch were buried and reuniting their remains.
Episode 5: The PCs investigate a laboratory mostly sunken into a swamp. They realize that other looters, ahem, adventurers, had already cleaned it out - they barely escape with their lives when the lab sinks the rest of the way under. After they rescue a swamp hillbilly girl from the deadly Lobstapotamus, they meet her inbred tribe and join them for dinner. During the dinner, the swampbillies are betwitched into homicidal psychos by a swamp hag. The PCs massacre the swampbillies and, as an afterthought, the swamp hag.
Episode 6: The PCs are taking their box into a building where they believed they can get it identified or sell it. Little do they know, they have inadvertently wandered onto the set of the hit game show Get Murdered. They meet charismatic host Malagoz Maraschino and his Lovely Assistant. The PCs have to chase their mysterious box across an electromagnetic floor, climb a boobytrapped tower, and fight for their lives against a gang of motorcycle punks in a bowl-shaped arena in front of a live studio audience. In the end, they win dinner with philanthropist John White of Resurrection City.
Episode 7: When a deadly storm renders the mountains impassable, the PCs have no choice but to find their way through the mountain, inside a train tapped there eons ago. The train is haunted by the ghosts of commuters, man-bats, and a mole spider. Eventually the train, carrying thousands of pounds of valuable plastic, plunged into an underground gorge, but the PCs do get out the other end of the tunnel.
Episode 8: At a tavern on the outskirts of Resurrection City, the PCs fall under the spell of the minstrel Alan Afterwards. He hurls them back in time, onto the doomed steamship the HMS Gigantic just before it strikes the coral reef. They learn that the Gigantic was actually sunk by monsters like the algae troll that they catch destroying lifeboats. The climactic scene has the party split with Hobobear the druid fighting Alan Afterwards in the present, and the others fighting lamprey things and drowned sailor zombies in an effort to magically patch the Gigantic’s hull. The spell is broken and the party is returned to the present when Afterwards is knocked out.
Episode 9: The PCs reach Resurrection City. At the luxurious house of John White, the PCs become guests at not only dinner, but a meeting with the other shady bosses of Resurrection City. They learn that they were John White’s contribution to a joint venture. Each of these three bosses volunteered a team of adventurers to go underground: Edward Guana had sent the Homewreckers (Pacifier, the Gimp, Tiara Del Fuego, Axman, and Boomer); Wanda had managed to employ Alan Afterwards. The PCs agree after John White promises to finance a Moon Bridge trip to the Moon (Skyla Silverthorne’s homeland). They go underground and kill the eight headed Rat King, his Ratomancers, and his legions of rodent musketeers who had taken over a methane plant.