All posts by jon

Temple Crusaders

Session 3 – My Friend the Bugbear

Met a new PC – Paul’s Ranger Elf – Elauthin Torgil

We enlist a former family to run the Merchant Post.

While searching the ruined moat house, we are attacked by giant ticks, lizards, and rat swarms.

We found a camp of previous raiders in Room #7. Can be bolted on the inside.

We camped, and were attacked by bugbears through. Hole in the outer wall of room 7.

We befriend a bugbear who is paid by the master, whose name is “Lareth the Beautiful,” a disciple of Lloth. 8+ gnolls are in the tribe. The master hired an ogre — they all stay away from the undead crypts.

The bugbear draws a crude map of the outpost for us.

The bugbear takes us to an entrance to the tomb that takes us right to the master. He gets the door open and we all pile into a narrow hallway. We fight nearly a dozen soldiers armed with hand weapons and crossbows. Our bugbear friend dies in the conflict.

Filarion throws a keg of oil into the group and burns several down. A second wave comes at us from the other side of the fire.

Temple Crusaders

Session 2 – The Invisible Assassins

It’s decided that we will stay here for the night and rest up. Dardenne volunteers to watch because he doesn’t need much rest. Hadrian stays up with him for the first watch but nothing happens. During the second watch, suddenly a small keg comes through the window and explodes in fire.   A group of men approach us from 2 sides and begin to attack. Hadrian stands up and rushes them, and Filarion shoots another with his bow.  Dardenne and Darius begin attacking as well. Brother Gregory takes a hit immediately and goes down.

After seeing most of his men taken down in a matter of minutes, the leader of their group turns and runs away. Filarion puts two arrows in his back. We finish off the others and regroup. Hadrian and Gregory are unconscious so we bind their wounds. We decide that we need to leave immediately and get help. We take the enemy’s crossbows, coin purses and put their leader over one of our horses. The corpses and the rest of the equipment are shoved into the rubble of the tower to hide it, and we take off.

We quickly go back to Homlett and cover up the leader’s body as we make our way through town. We go to the temple of St. Cuthbert and ask for their help. They let us in and the head priest heals Brother Gregory. Filarion goes to the Grove and starts composing a song about our adventure. He returns in the morning and Hadrian and Dardenne are healed as well. The Cuthberts ask us for money, and Hadrian & Gregory give them all of their share each. They ask Dardenne for some money as well and he promises to give them some.

Filarion asks the head druid at the Grove where to sell the other items we found on the leader, and he says to go to the merchants nearby. He does so and as he’s speaking to the shopkeeper, he is stabbed in the back. His things are left behind and he makes his way out to the street. At the temple, the priests say that they hear a scream from outside. The others burst out into the street and see that Filarion has been stabbed and someone is pulling out a dagger from his back. Hadrian and Dardenne run after the person into an alley, but they have disappeared.

Hadrian searches the area and sees two auras of evil. Dardenne calls for the city guard. Gregory heals Filarion and the priests catch up with them. Filarion explains what happened and the assistant priest goes to get the city guard and militia.

Meanwhile, Hadrian, Dardenne and Darius run through the streets and between two buildings. Suddenly Dardenne and Hadrian are stabbed from behind and are down. Darius cries for help and tries attacking and backing up from the invisible foes. One of them seems to trip and he sees some dust come up like someone has fallen. He shoots an arrow and it seems to stick in the air. Finally the others arrive and the cleric heals Dardenne. Darius is stabbed and goes down, and so does brother Gregory. Dardenne gets up and casts a sleep spell at what he thinks is the area where the assassins are, but gets a knife in the back himself and falls.

At this point the only people standing are Filarion, Zert and the cleric. Zert, being evil, thinks that this is a great opportunity to attack the cleric. The cleric casts Hold on him and he freezes, then the cleric takes him out. Filarion fires arrow after arrow at the invisible assassin but doesn’t take him down. Finally the cleric casts Hold on him and Filarion shoots a final arrow that kills him. Darius searches him and his hands start becoming invisible. Apparently they had some solution or dust on them that made them invisible. Suddenly the other assassin becomes visible — he is still alive but being held by the cleric’s spell. Darius dispatches him. The militia comes to the area and Filarion explains the whole story to them.

Hadrian and Dardenne are taken to the temple. Dardenne is healed but Hadrian is completely dead. They need to spend an entire day resurrecting him, and Brother Gregory helps.

The next day, Dardenne, Filarion and Darius go back to the shop to see if they can recover what was stolen. The head of the militia is there and lets us in. He mentions that there were two militia men who worked here but they didn’t respond to the call and didn’t come back the next day. Most likely they were working with the evil men. He gives us a description of them in case we run across them.

Inside, we see a lot of hard tack and other dry goods. The ivory box and gold chain are where Filarion dropped them when he was stabbed. They are recovered. We look for secret doors but do not see any. There are some nice looking horses in here. In the back room we find a small chest with a bunch of gold, some test tubes, a black scarab with the letters TZGY engraved on it, and other standard gear. Darius grabs a composite short bow and a composite crossbow as well.

Back at the temple, we hear chanting coming from the main area. We are not welcome there so we take a look at the two assassins’ bodies. We find armor, weapons and some riches. Zert also has a bunch of things that we will divide up.

The next morning, Hadrian is back awake, having come back from the dead. He takes everyone to the bar to celebrate. We then divvy up the goods that we found.

Temple Crusaders

Session 1 – The Moat House

The town of Homlett is bustling with adventurers looking for opportunity. Most have heard that a few years ago a great evil had risen up nearby, and it was conquered, but things have gotten more dangerous again lately.

Dardenne (Jon) and Darius (Steve) are strangers at the Welcome Wench, one of the inns in the town of Homlett. Dardenne is looking for work and tries to get in on conversations. He sees that there are some others here who seem to be well equipped and look dangerous, and sits at the next table and tries to listen in. He asks the barmaid if she knows them, but she says no. He sees one of them walking by with a sword and shield, and asks him why he’s loaded for battle. The man asks him if he’d like to find out and they exchange hostile words. The man ends up walking away as Dard calls after him. Frustrated, he calls for another ale. The barmaid expresses her pleasure that people wouldn’t be killed in the inn. Dard says that he can handle himself.

Two men, Hadrian (Bill) and Brother Gregory (Brad) enter the inn. Hadrian is a large man in chain mail carrying a shield, and Gregory looks like a cleric. They are clearly of the order of St. Cuthbert based on the color of their clothing and religious symbols they carry. They order food and sit nearby Dard and Darius, offering to buy them a round. Hadrian says that he needs to tell us about St. Cuthbert in order to get the mean, to which Dard rolls his eyes, but then Hadrian says that he’s kidding.

Another couple of men come in — Filarion (John) is a half-elf bard that seems familiar with the locals, and his friend Mord (Jeff), another elf who appears to be a druid. The Cuthberts strike up a conversation with them. Filarion says that he is from a far-off country, the Grand Duchy of Geoff. He regales us with talk of his father, who was a hero there.

A man named Zert approaches the group and introduces himself, and says that there are opportunities here. He is grizzled and his clothes are worn. Hadrian looks him over and determines that he has an evil aura about himself, but remarks quietly that St. Cuthbert is patient.

Hadrian offers to get everyone a drink, and on his way to the bar, Darius tries to pick his pocket. Hadrian catches him and asks him to apologize. Hadrian buys a round. Afterward he asks if we are all interested in adventuring together, and we all agree. He asks for us to all promise that we won’t go against the others in the group. We agree to this as well, and we decide to meet up in the morning to travel out. Dard tells Darius that he will help protect him as he is quite young.

In the morning, Dard learns his spell and does his maneuvers. Everyone meets up and we head out on foot. The way is not far but it is difficult due to the fallen branches. After a mile, things thin out. After 2 hours, we reach our destination. The road turns to the north and it becomes boggy. Here we see the Moat House.

The bog here stinks and there is a foul wind.  Suddenly we are jumped by a group of huge frogs. They attack with long tongues and Dard is entangled. Darius strikes the tongue and it retracts. One jumps up and swallows Hadrian whole. Mord is also swallowed. We are slightly damaged but manage to kill all of them and free those who were swallowed, however Hadrian noticed that Zert did not attack right away. He asks Zert about it, and Zert says that he was surprised by the attack, however it’s clear that he was not pulling his weight in the fight.  A few of us are injured, so Hadrian and Brother Gregory say prayers over us to restore our strength. They mention that they can offer no more prayers today for healing, however.  We search the bodies of the frogs and Dard finds an amethyst in one of their stomachs. There is nothing else of interest.

We continue on to the Moat House. We see a rotting drawbridge with two broken gates behind it. Darius is the lightest of us and decides to cross. We head into the courtyard and Hadrian sees some boot prints going to the building across the way. He also senses evil inside the nearby tower. We decide to go to the tower first, so the archers may have the high ground if anyone comes out of the building across the yard. We see that the tower’s  doors are broken open. We go inside and see that the inside is a ruin, and there are holes everywhere. However, something is glinting on the floor nearby . We move in to check it out and suddenly a huge spider drops on top of us. We attack, but everyone misses except for Hadrian, who cuts it in half with his sword. We find the treasure we’d been seeking, including some gold and other items, and afterward decide to rest for a bit.

Cataclysm

Session 21 – Depth Charge

GM: Brad
Players: Simon – John, JD – Bob, Alex – Jon, Zerc – Cary, Meaghan – Paul
Game Date: September 13-14, 2018

Alex reads the label on the canister that we found and he sees that it is for a nutritious plant that was edible on the Talolan planet, but it is unknown whether or not it is digestible by humans.

We continue our travel and make it to Menomonee Falls. Alex picks up all of the things that he had stored in the cave and we stay here the night. The next morning as we get up and see that it has started snowing. We figure that it is going to accumulate into a couple of inches of snow, but it’s better to get started moving. We load up everything with the horses and start off.

We stop in Franklin at the prison, though it is not a swap meet time now. The person at  the gate asks us who we are and we discuss the Templars being around here and he says that they are called “The Crusade”. He seems concerned that they are so close. He offers us a spot to stay for the night and we bed down. Before heading to sleep we look to trade. JD is interested in some grenades and we find only one. He negotiates with the man and convinces him that his .357 is the one Dirty Harry used in the movie. He is convinced and gives him the grenade. Zerc is not able to sell any of his toilet paper unfortunately.

The next day we hit the road and after a couple of hours we see a pile of bodies the road. Looking around, we see smoke off in the distance. Meaghan, Zerc and JD go off to take a look while Simon and Alex stay with the cart. After a few moments Alex and Simon hear noises north and south on the freeway. Simon jumps underneath the cart and suddenly huge mutated wolves converge on us. Alex creates a barrier around the cart just in time and the wolves bounce off of it and cannot get through. They seem momentarily confused. The others hear that something is wrong and start running back. Meaghan and Zerc start shooting and take several of them out, almost all of them with headshots. Alex struggles but manages to keep up his barrier for several more moments until the others can shoot all of the other wolves. We pile the dead wolves on the cart to keep their pelts and continue on.

We see from their tracks that the Templars are near Caledonia, but we do not pursue them now. Later that day we finally make it back to the compound. We have been gone about 4 days. Alex begins to connect up his nanotech and prepares to grow more Talolans. Meaghan skins the wolves for their pelts.

 

 

Cataclysm

Session 20 – Man Eater

GM: Brad
Players: John, Bob, Jon, Cary, Paul
Game Date: September 12, 2018

We continue moving north, on the east side of Highway 45 across from the zoo. We see more of the pink mist in that area and are looking for high ground to get a view on where it might be coming from. Alex thinks that they may be a kind of a mutated spore from Talol that can knock you out.

We come to San Camilla’s hospital as a good option. Of course it has been completely ransacked and a lot of the windows are broken. Most of the supplies have been raided as well. In one area we see some evidence of a fight. There are blood spatters, drag marks, spent casings and a makeshift barrier here. Even a bloody hatchet. We all grab a handful of the brass so that they can be refilled later.

We head to the top floor and look out toward the zoo. We don’t see any lights, movement or smoke from here. From the vetrinary center  at the zoo, we see the smoke and a bunch of pods with vines around them. They are writhing around. Zerc also sees some things that look like alien technology. He suggests that we go down there and check them out. JD and Meaghan agree, but Simon and Alex don’t want to. They are overridden and we head out.

On the way across to the zoo, we see some people approaching. Meghan recognizes them from the observatory. They see her and they greet each other. They see Alex and are surprised but Meaghan quickly explains about him and the compound that we’ve used as our base. We also talk about the Black Templars and they say that they’ve seen them as far west as Madison. We let them know about the shortwave radio as well. We show them the map, and they mention that there is an airport and also a National Guard Armory in that area. We thank them for the share and tell them to stop by the compound sometime. We bid them farewell as they are off to Milwaukee now.

We head to the fence line and cut a hole. We head in with hatchets ready for any vines that may attack us. We see bones that Alex identifies as both human and animal. They seem not to be too disturbed but there is a thin crust of dried goo on them. We find a backpack with a few items in it. While we are looking around a vine snakes its way over to Meaghan and tries to grab her. She gets away from it and we start running toward the building. Before Simon gets into the building a vine grabs him around the waist and hauls him off the ground something that looks like a venus flytrap comes down to try and eat him. JD pulls his machete and hacks the vine off, and Simon falls to the ground. Zerc fires his rifle at it. Simon pulls out his machine pistol and fires a burst into it, and it falls dead. He yells in victory, and Meaghan shouts “All right Simon!” He gets up and runs into the building along with JD.

In the building we find some oxygen gas tanks and some acid. Alex rigs up a rudimentary flamethrower and acid gun. JD and Simon take them, respectively. We head outside toward where we saw the canister. We see two more of the venus flytraps in trees nearby. JD torches one of them with his flamethrower and Simon shoots the other with acid. He tries to cover all of the vines on the ground with acid but the sprayer breaks and he gets acid all over himself. He quickly runs and jumps into the nearby flamingo pond.

Zerc finds and grabs the cannister and starts running toward the fence. Meaghan fishes Simon out of the pond and they start running as well. Alex creates a barrier in the shape of a tunnel to protect us from vines as we run.

Cataclysm

Session 19 – Air Shrimp

GM: Brad
Players: John, Bob, Jon, Cary, Paul
Game Date: September 11, 2018

Back at the compound there is a discuss regarding what to do about the Black Templars. We hear from others in Beloit and the Milwaukee hub that they’ve found dead bodies in exactly the same configuration. We decide that we are going to head up to Menomonee Falls and grab Alex’s gear. We are heading straight up Highway 45.

The air is crisp and cool here in mid-September. After a bit of travel time, we see ahead of us a pinkish cloud, like a puff of vapor, is rising through the air. We observe it and see another one come up. We move toward it and see some houses here. We see some activity at a house on the other side of a divided highway with a barrier down the middle.

As the wagon trundles up, a shot rings out and Zerc cries out in pain. He has been shot in the arm. He returns fire right away to what appears to be a sniper in the upper level of one of the houses. Alex creates a barrier to try and protect us but the bullets continue flying. We take out several guys with guns. After a few moments it is quiet again and Meaghan tries to see if anyone else is in the house. She looks into the front door of one of the houses and suddenly a man with a knife attacks her. JD runs up to the house to help her just as she jams her knife into the man’s throat. She then stabs him in the groin for good measure.

We decide to search the houses and find tons of equipment, supplies and weapons including a sniper rifle and kevlar armor. JD finds a cache underneath a loose floorboard with maps and notes outlining Milwaukee and Beloit as operation areas. Most of the information is in code, though, so not possible for us to read. There is a picture of an airplane and a picture of a handgun near West Bend. On one sheet there is a picture of a Black Templar logo. The dead guys are basically cosplayers as their dress is almost exactly like Black Templars from 40K. They have purity seals, and under their armor they have ritual scarring. Meaghan takes a machine pistol and gives it to Simon as a present.

We look through the third house but don’t find anything. As Alex is looking over the bodies he notices a psionic vibe on them. He thinks that they were being controlled by someone using psychic power. Zerc also is glowing with energy because he was just healed.

Chronicles of X

Session 2 – Ore Storage

After the previous job, X lets Varan and Chance know that one of the barrels we recovered was full of a rare and expensive ore known as Tyrite. However, he thinks that it would be suspicious if we offloaded it right after the job. Varan says that we should hide it, and X agrees.

We land at a the Bezmer Space Docks, a small outpost on Earth in what used to be South America, and the three of them go to a nearby supply area and buy sturdy sewage waste containers — a larger one for the waste and a second one to put the actual ore in.

Varan disguises himself because this is work that no Vanguard would be doing. X helps him cover his face  and dirty up, and Varan feels for a moment like X has done something to him. He looks but doesn’t see anything. He tells X to keep his hands to himself.

We load up the ore, Varan and Chance doing most of the work because X’s wounds are still healing. It is a tough job and Varan is sweating, not used to manual labor. After a while all of the ore is loaded up and surrounded by sewage in the larger container.

We will need to take the container to the storage area ourselves. We find a place nearby which seems pretty slummy but should work. The woman behind the counter is old and ugly, with a face tattoo and a vape stick. She says “15 credits a day and you can’t sleep in them, 33 a month and you CAN’T sleep in them and 500 for a year AND YOU CAN’T SLEEP IN THEM.” Without doing the math, Varan slides her 500 credits with a disgusted look on his face. She walks away and leaves a cloud of vapor. X nudges Varan and says that he overpaid — the monthly price is better. When she comes back, X asks for 6 months at the monthly rate and she refunds part of the money. She gives us a strange looking security key and leaves again.

We push the ore through a set of doors and to our small storage locker, while we are recorded by several security drones. Chance lifts the crate into the unit and is sure to slop some sewage over the side so no one gets curious. He has feces all over his gloves.

We leave, and as we do Varan notices that the security key has a recording device and GPS on it. X thinks that we should go back and get our stuff, but Varan blurts out “I could probably re-route the signal so it can’t track us, but will need some help with the hacking.” X covers his mouth so he doesn’t say more. He finds some oil and grease and covers the key so we aren’t recorded. He also takes a small audio player and turns it on so the key is recording just the music.

Varan washes up in a local restroom, getting the grime off of himself, then contacts a hacker and has the GPS signal and recordings from the key re-routed to a random server. It costs 5 credits a day to keep it from recording us.

We go back to the ship. Chance uses a blowtorch to clean off his suit and gloves of all the sewage, but the whole ship smells like burnt feces now.

X takes some painkillers to deal with his still un-healed wounds. He downs them with a beer which makes him a bit woozy. Varan notices this.

Before we go, X asks Varan to help him fix a laser rifle. Varan takes a look at it and is able to fix it as it had solid internals, however it fires blue whereas most fire red or orange. X likes the color.

Varan, disgusted with this place, says that they should leave. X suggests that we go to meet a friend of his where we can find parts for the robot and also some “companionship”. Varan asks him to lay in the location and the robot is hooked up to help with navigation, though it doesn’t have any arms or legs.

Varan asks Chance to pilot, but X asks if he’s ever piloted and he says “Once in boot camp.” Varan looks alarmed and says that he will pilot. X assures him that he can fly better than either of them even in his slightly addled state, but Varan says absolutely not and takes the helm. X, resigned, drops into the co-pilot seat. The robot also asks if he should take over since Varan seems less than skilled. Annoyed, Varan says that he will do it.

The robot gets the coordinates set. The team gets permission from ground control to leave, and Varan activates the thrusters. The robot reminds him to turn on the shielding and deactivate the docking plates, which Varan does with a loud curse. However he has bumped the stick and they are off course. X takes over piloting and rights the course. Varan relents and lets him fly.

The robot philosophically says “Remember, he may know how to fly, but he does not own his own ship. Each needs one another.” Varan loudly tells him to shut up. In response, the whole ship turns off. Varan panics but the robot says that we should remember that he is part of the ship now. Varan is spooked and says that maybe we should have left the robot on the ship we found it on. X says that he  is on the robot’s side.

The ship turns back on and we resume traveling to our destination. X has been calling the robot “B” but asks  it what its name is. It says “Norro”. X agrees to call it either that or “B”.

Within minutes we arrive at Sarris Warehouse, a massive warehouse that has been added on for over 200 years to be one of the biggest indoor markets. X says that we should not take any valuables with us when we go into the market.

Cataclysm

Session 18 – The Greenhouse

GM: Brad
Players: John, Jon, Bob, Matt, Paul, Cary
Game Date: August 26-29, 2018

We have invited some folks from Beloit to live at our compound. Some have also come from Orlando to live in Wisconsin, and others went to Orlando from our group.

Ian begins showing symptoms of some illness. Alex checks him out and finds that he has the beginnings of the Blue virus. Alarmed, Alex gives him the only dose of the antidote that he had previously synthesized. We allow him to rest.

Scotty, who is the leader of the Beloit group, suggests that we travel back to the observatory and let them know about the new compound. This will also give Meaghan a chance to get the rest of her things.

The next morning we travel to the Observatory, and arrive there at the end of the day without trouble. They welcome us and ask what has happened since we left. We fill them in.

JD calls Sean and lets him know that we are back in town. He doesn’t want to say too much as others may be listening on the channel, but Sean says that he may come down to the observatory in a couple of days.

Meaghan speaks to the observatory’s medical “doctor” for a while then returns reading a letter. She says that her previous boyfriend (Robert “Bobby” Williams) has left her a cache a few miles from here in a greenhouse.  She says that she would like to go take a look at it, and wouldn’t mind some company.

We stay the night, and Meaghan spends some time talking to the others here and reassuring them that the new compound is safe. In the morning some of them already have their things packed.

The next morning we have our things packed and move out. Meaghan says that we need to bring a shovel.

Several hours later we arrive at the Pesche’s Greenhouse north and east of the observatory, just off of Hwy 50. Zerc and JD watch the road while the rest of the group looks for the cache. Right by the wooden sign is the spot we need to dig. It takes us a while to dig deep enough, but we are rewarded with a nice hunting rifle and an extremely powerful assault rifle with an under-barrel mounted grenade launcher. There is also two pistols, a bunch of ammo, MREs, water purifying tablets, some backpacks with Camelback hydration, some multi-tools, butane lighter, and a few more things.

As we are finishing bringing things out of the cache, JD hears some crunching nearby. He looks around and doesn’t see anything. After a moment he sees through one of the nearby greenhouse windows a humanoid shape. He throws a rock at the rest of the group to get their attention. Meaghan jumps down the trench and readies the gun.

A moment later a Blue smashes through the window and starts running toward us. Meaghan pops her head up and fires at it and kills it instantly with a headshot. We breathe a sigh of relief but then over a dozen more start coming at us from several angles. We all fire weapons at them. JD tosses a grenade and Alex uses his psionics to create a 40 foot wide barrier in front of them to slow their progress.

Suddenly we see a huge Blue come out of one of the buildings toward us. Dusty’s dog and wolf begin to attack it. JD aims an assault rifle at it and fires several shots. The first takes off its leg and the other two go into its chest, killing it.

Meaghan fire grenades behind the barrier and kill a bunch of the Blues. The barrier goes down and one more Blue comes out but slips on the guts of his friends. While he is down, Alex creates a new barrier right on top of him so he is like a specimen on a slide. Alex will use him as an experiment to find a cure for the Blue disease.

Looking inside, we find a pistol and a few other items, as well as gardening supplies.

After we are done, we head back to the observatory with the Blue bound and gagged. When we get back, the people who are coming with us are all packed and ready to go. Only a few are planning to stay behind. JD gives them the pistol for self defense.

The next morning we head back to our compound. Less than a mile away, we see three bodies in the middle of the road. We investigate and Simon sees that they have a symbol from a video game, the Black Templars from Warhammer 40,000. The others don’t believe him at first but Meaghan agrees with him. Dusty suggests that they were “Nerderers”.

Chronicles of X

Session 1 – Chronicles of X

The year is 3021. The human race expanded to other planets in the solar system in the mid 2000s due to advances in metallurgy, making super solar batteries. On Earth, the further away from the equator, the poorer you are likely to be, but due to technology, nature is now making a comeback. Poorer people are in large cities. On Luna there are cities and places that are safe, but on Mars it is completely lawless.

Aliens, in particular those of the Vanguard race, have taken notice of humans now and live among them. The Vanguard are just like humans but are smarter and more technologically advanced. They achieved spaceflight capability hundreds of years before humans but only revealed themselves after the humans started traveling to other planets.

Our group is a team of independend consultants named Axaniax “X” Zadra (pilot), Chance Sol (soldier) and Varan Stel (Vanguard, mechanic and captain). We have a small ship with two shuttles that can have mining capability. We are located in what used to be London, but the city is now made up of thousands of skyscrapers built on top of what used to be called London.

A man named Captain Bannell Racket contacts us looking to retain our services. Varan looks him up to see if he is legit, but only finds references to a “Col. Banner” instead. This Captain Racket seems to somehow be associated with Banner. We decide to meet and take a shuttle. At the appointed place there is a hangar where we see a gigantic ship. There are many people working here loading items and doing maintenance on the ship. X camouflages himself and observes. He sees a lot of people among the workers who are ex-military and have cybernetics.

Captain Racket comes out with some soldiers who are casually holding weapons. He greets us warmly and invites Varan and Chance inside. Chance notices that he is older but due to his uniform’s insignias was probably a former high ranking airforce officer. Varan starts recording everything so X can see what is going on. Chance is acting as Varan’s bodyguard.

Racket tells us that they run a mining and shipping business, and recently almost $270k credits worth of copper and silver were stolen by pirates. They cut into the ship, destroying the mining pods they were in and making off with the goods. They were coming from the sun to earth, and afterwards the pirates probably went to the moon.

During the conversation, X sneaks his way onto the ship and shows up just as the group is getting the briefing. Racket is not rattled and welcomes X. He continues to say that he wants us to find the shipment and return it. He offers us one third, or $90k credits for the safe return of the cargo. X tries to negotiate the price, but Racket says that don’t have any extra funds for us on this. He seems serious so we don’t push it. They do have data on where the pirates went. When we go to the moon, we will get free docking fees if we have to dock. We take the job, and Varan says that he has made a good choice — we will do everything we can to return the cargo intact.

As we are leaving, X asks around the docks and finds out about a source named Bobcat and finds that the pirates may be orbiting the moon. Varan contacts a friend of his and he calls Bobcat, telling him that we are interested in buying. We fly up to orbit and meet with them, docking our ship with theirs. There is another ship nearby but no one else that we can detect. Varan and X go over to the ship while Chance mans the helm and weapons in case something goes south.

Varan and X board the ship and see that there are three men on board. They check on the product they have here. It seems legit, but the pirates are nervous. X notices that one barrel has chromatic copper and the other barel has silver mixed with extremely rare Tyrite ore and the third barrel has more ore. X does not say anything about the Tyrite to anyone. It doesn’t seem as thought the pirates are even aware of the Tyrite. The pirates are unwilling to negotiate, tempers flare and the trade is a bust. The pirates order us out and they open up on our ship. Chance has been waiting for this and lights them up takeing out one of their guns. A firefight starts and X shoots a pipe next to the pilot with his laser pistol which spills cooling fluid on him. Varan finishes him off with his rifle. In return X takes a shot in the chest from the other pirate. X shoots the other guy in the leg, but he spins and shoots a fuel barrel. It explodes taking out the whole room. Varan and X are seriously injured but the pirate dies in the process.

X asks Varan to secure the hallway in case there are any  more pirates. X grabs a hand full of Tyrite and hides it in his g-suit.

Meanwhile, Chance shoots the second ship straight through the center taking off its cannons and disabling it. He sees a third ship rabbit and notices that they cut their cargo before they left. It is the missing ore. The crew travels over to retrieve the three abandoned ore containers. Chance space walks to attach a teather to the ore containers and X gently manuevers everything back to the disabled pirate ships.  Once back at the ships the crew salvages as much from the pirate ships as they can. They retrieve 3 g-suits, 2 laser pistols, 1 laser rifle (not working probably easily fixable) for gear. X states that he will be taking a g-suit, laser pistol and the rifle. They top off fluids (7000 credits worth) from the ships.

Then they call their employer to come retrieve the ore containers. Racket is extremely impressed that all of the ore was retrieved and happily pays what was promised. They also run a scan on the two pirate ships and find that there are 25K and 11K credit bounties on them. Varan notifies the authorities of the the ships and retrieval vessals are dispatched. The group departs after a job well done and a bunch of extra cash in their pockets.

Cataclysm

Session 17 – Orlando

GM: Paul
Players: Brad, Cary, Jon, John, Bob, Bill, Dave Z, Dave L
Game Date: May 29 – June 1, 2018 / June 30, 2018

We are in a shipping container and a curtain opens. We see a heavily tattooed Latino man and he asks us who we are. It seems to him that we have been here for a long time. We tell him that we’ve just arrived and we are from Wisconsin. During this, Simon introduces Meghan as his “friend” which she clearly doesn’t like. Glaring at him, she introduces him as “my boyfriend Simon.” The man we met says that we are in Orlando. We smell a lot of burning wires and see some smoke.

Everyone especially Joseph bring up their guns but we agree to de-escalate. We see that their generator is completely toast.

A man they have called Dave says that it seems like alien technology. Alex asks him why he might think that, and he explains that his theory is that the meteor that was seen during the solar flare was an alien spaceship, and it crashed and spread radiation, mutating plants and animals. He thinks that either the aliens were just passengers and are friendly, or that they are evil.

Amazed at Dave’s guess, Alex reveals himself as an alien and explains his backstory and about his people. Shocked but seemingly accepting this news, the Orlando colonists explain that they had brought the shipping container here recently and just powered it up. When we came it it had blown the generator, though. We explain that we have our own compound similar to this in Wisconsin, and we could make a teleport connection between us to trade and communicate.

We are inside an old resort that used to be known as the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center, and there are around 200 people here. This is the largest colony that we have ever seen. They explain that the place is now called Lordville. They offer to give us some steaks and fresh fruit. We have not seen an orange in 5 years.

Dave goes to a council meeting and tells them about us. They come back and give us a tour of the compound. We see many young children, more than we’ve seen anywhere else. Dave explains to the people that the generator is down and it is going to get very hot in here for the time being. It is also said that they have Seekers here in Florida (they call them Blimpies) and need to be careful about major power sources.

Flaco, the latino man, stays up and drinks with us. In the morning, he comes to our room and tells us that breakfast is ready. We go downstairs to a large buffet.

Later it is decided that we should take a small boat up Bonnet Creek. From there we can get into the Magic Kingdom park and find some generators.

After we have been traveling in the boat upstream for a while, using an electric trolling motor, Ian and Simon see some large (4 foot long) iguanas in a tree ahead. Simon sounds the alarm to stop the boat and shoots at one of them, but misses. The lizards spit goo down on top of us and it paralyzes Cody. Dave falls backward into the creek.

JD, Branson, Ian, Flaco, Simon and Megan all begin shooting at the Giant Geckos. JD lets loose with a spray from his AR sending some of the Geckos fleeing.

Alex runs to the back of the boat and shuts the motor off. He tries to throw a rope to Dave to pull him up but misses. He creates a psionic barrier behind him so he can’t go downstream any further. He tries again with the rope but accidentally gets it caught in a tree and tangled in his leg. He falls out of the boat upside down into the water, hanging from the tree.

A few of the geckos jump into the boat with us, and we are able to attack and kill them. We pull Alex and Dave out of the water and clean out the boat before we continue on our way.

We get to Bay Lake, the west side of which has the Disney Contemporary resort which is adjascent to the Magic Kingdom. We hug the east shore of the lake just in case there is something in the deeper water. Flaco notices that there is a curved structure above the trees ahead.

Suddenly a huge crocodile leaps into the boat and tries to attack us. He grabs Scotty in his jaws and goes underwater. Joseph tosses Ian a grenade. Ian pulls the pin and shoves it down the croc’s throat. It explodes but the croc doesn’t immediately die. Flaco tries to pull Scotty out of its mouth. Dave throws a bag of goo that he had collected from the geckos but it goes onto Scotty. Branson shoots him with a shotgun and it finally is killed. Flaco and JD try to pull Scotty out of the alligators mouth. Branson heals him as he is a pre-med student. Ian takes a couple of teeth out of the gator before we leave.

After the altercation, Meaghan approaches Cody and expresses how impressed she is with his actions during the battle. Simon seems a bit dumbfounded and doesn’t say anything. Flaco tells Simon that he will help him win the girl back.

We bale out the boat as we troll away since it has taken on some water. We get to the north side of the lake and see some slips where boats were but they have sunk. We see ahead the structure that we saw earlier, and it appears to be a part of the Talolan ship. Underneath we see a lot of overgrown flora, some of which are Talolan.

We go to the warehouse nearby but the area is protected by a sonic field just like the compound in Wisconsin. As we are checking it out, Dave is grousing about the “aliens”. Ian confronts him and says that if he doesn’t stop verbally attacking the members of his team, he will take him out. They yell at each other for a while.

Alex and Scotty go inside the warehouse. They find the controls for the sonic security system, and also two generators, cloning vats and robot tugs that can move things for us.

We decide to add the people here to the system so they are not affected by the sonic barrier. Then we go to take some of the nearby boats in storage out so we can take a generator back to the base. It takes us a couple of days to organize everything.

We check out the other nearby warehouses and see all kinds of materials, solar panels, and lots of decorations. Simon has a field day here and takes lots of merchandise with him. Flaco sees this and advises Simon to tone it down so he can get Meaghan’s attention back. She actually does notice, and Simon invites her to take a look at the things he’s gotten. She agrees. But later, Ian, Joseph, and Simon are walking through the warehouse and see Cody and Meaghan together in one of the aisles making love. Simon does not outwardly react but is very upset.

The group spends two days referbing two more tour boats so they can bring back the plasma generator, large generator, 3 smaller generators, and the Disney trappings that Dave gathered for the residents of Lordville. Dave explains that the Disney stuff should help morale.

After a few more weeks, we have the plasma generator in place and determine how to set up trade between the colonies. Dave allows anyone who wants to go up to Wisconsin from Lordville to do so. There is still a lot to be determined.