Book Review: The Spoils of War by Alan Dean Foster

Book Review!

Alan Dean Foster's Trilogy of the Damned greatly inspired my science-fiction superhero RPG saga. Today I want to look at book two in the series: The Spoils of War...

Book Review: The Spoils of War by Alan Dean Foster...
Again, Alan Dean Foster introduced new characters to the series. But getting to know the new characters was well worth it in this read. In the huge war between the Amplitur and the Weave, it looked like the human-allied Weave was finally going to win. But what did that mean for humanity? The birdfolk alien Lalelelang had realized that human aggression could cause the humans to turn against the rest of the Weave. The exploration of this topic fascinated me because, when you look at Earth's true history, it does seem like we humans can't stay at peace.

I enjoyed the book so much that I rate it back at 8 out of 10 like the first book in the trilogy. I highly recommend this series for fans of philosophical science-fiction.

Book Review: The False Mirror by Alan Dean Foster

Book Review!

Alan Dean Foster's Trilogy of the Damned greatly inspired my science-fiction superhero RPG saga. Today I want to look at book two in the series: The False Mirror...

Book Review: The False Mirror by Alan Dean Foster...
I also really enjoyed this book. Reading this tale meant getting to know a bunch of new characters, which can be annoying in Book 2 in a series, but is standard practice for sci-fi and fantasy trilogies. I liked that the story explored the idea of alien genetic manipulation.

Overal I give this book a 7 out of 10 rating because it was good, but not quite as good as the first book in the series.

Book Review: A Call to Arms by Alan Dean Foster

Book Review!

Alan Dean Foster's Trilogy of the Damned greatly inspired my science-fiction superhero RPG saga:

Today I want to look at book one in the series: A Call to Arms...

I really enjoyed reading this book. I imagined the main character as Harry Connick, Jr. from when he was acting in the movie Independence Day since he is a cajun musician who ends up working with aliens. Alan Dean Foster stands out as one of my favorite writers because he successfully blends in philosophical elements to his sci-fi and fantasy works.

Overall I give the book an 8 out of 10 because it was good enough to inspire me to add more fun and interesting aliens/characters to my RPG adventures. My Saga's Evaew alliance was me taking the Weave alliance from this book (and spelling Weave backwards, LOL).

Logs 431-450: D&D Mirth & Melancholy

Logs 431-450: D&D Mirth & Melancholy
Homebrew Campaign
Looking back, I bet this campaign was more than 20 sessions (because it happened in two parts) but I lost my notes a long time ago. I used the lore from playing my 2E D&D character (since he ended up becoming a Dark Lord in the Domains of Dread). I was also inspired by the work of John Milton ("Mirth and Melancholy" with Mirth being an alternate version of Oerth/Merth and Melancholy representing the Abyss or the 9 Hells).

The strange story behind this campaign was that I was teaching high school and another teacher and some students asked me to DM a campaign after school once a week (for the spring semester). Initially I said no, but they eventually talked me into it. Thus SK played Jlousivy the gnome rogue, DN played Lint the half-elf bard, CR played Asoka the human druid, LS played Azriel the human sorcerer, JP played Mordrov the winged elf sorcerer, JH played Artin Blackstone the dwarf fighter, DG played Aramil the half-elf ranger, BN played "Pickle" the human fighter, JH2 played Mir Guthwine the dwarf ranger, LJ played Meandor the blood magic-user, M? as Meandor's assistant, and JG as a yuan-ti.

We ended up with too many players and that caused some problems. That was back during my "the more the merrier" phase (which has ended). Over the years I had to learn to say "No!" and to establish limits for games.

Mirth
The characters started out at low level and got some cool magic items (like the wand that fired one magic missile each round) and a magic hand mirror that could imprison a creature inside of it. They traveled around slaying monsters and ended up working as dragon slayers. I tricked them into using a magic device that destroyed all of their magic items. There was once that they got ambushed by multiple wizards and suffered from multiple surprise fireballs that killed off half the group; oops! But overall they were figuring out the mystery of a vampire working for Dark Lord MN.

I also remember some special moments: the players once came upon a group of lizardfolk and, by default killed them without realizing they were peaceful people traveling across the plains; only after winning initiative and slaying the innocent lizardfolk family did they realize what they had done. There was also a black swamp dragon that had a lightning-breath attack that upset some of the players because they were used to D&D blue dragons being lightning and black dragons being acid. Meandor had a really powerful storyline taking down evil paladins that had come after them.

The end of the campaign pitted the group against a god-being, but they won by capturing him in the magic mirror. Unfortunately, they also used 2 bags of holding to cause an explosion that sent them into the Astral Plane, where they ended up traveling through a portal into the Abyss and getting lost. So they won by defeating their foes, but at a price of no longer being on their world.

Melancholy
I narrowed down the group to just 6 players for the 2nd half of the campaign. To justify that, we said that while in the Abyss that the characters got separated and only some of them escaped back to their world. Lint, Jlousivy, Pickle, Asoka, and the yuan-ti were joined by a new character (played by SW) as they continued their adventures. They actually interacted directly with Dark Lord MN and completed some quests for him. Lint dealt with an NPC named Cash who had a magical Ring of Fire.

Logs 422-430: Dungeons & Bricks!

Logs 422-430: Dungeons & Bricks!
When AJ moved back to the area I saw an opportunity to run a short "holiday" campaign during the Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. With me as DM we got AJ, NH, LJ, and MW together as players. MW created a Doctor Who-esque wizard called "The Wizard" who had an artifact that was like the TARDIS, but it was a fat tree (with a door on it) that was "bigger on the inside than the outside" and teleported around so it would blend in easily with most environments. AJ played a wandering cleric of Olidammara (revelry, trickery, travel). NH and LJ played a rogue and fighter.

MW had been playing Pathfinder with people and suggested we use miniatures so I said, "Why not Lego?" I had a huge Lego collection, even back then. I figured out that each Lego stud could represent 1.25 feet and thus a 4x4 plate would be perfect for representing a 5'x5' D&D combat square (traditionally a 1" square on a battle map). Back then I didn't own D&D minis or a battle map.

For the first adventure, I started them off with the first "Naked Challenge" that I ever DM'd by having them all taken prisoner inside of a cave to be sacrificed by the animal cults; that was my way of turning the group into a cohesive team and giving them the common enemy of the cults.

After that, I used T1-4 The Village of Hommlet, The Moathouse, The Village of Nulb, and The Temple of Elemental Evil and modified the adventure to be about animal cults instead of elemental cults. The NPCs included "Croco-Jer" Jerrol, Lord Wemicslayer, Lady Planter (a wemic druid), Bunny the Pirate Captain, and many others.

For the finale, since the campaign wasn't really over, I set it up so the characters were duped by the god of trickery (who pretended to be Pelor the sun god) but they ended up with a Deck of Many Things. I let them draw from the deck to see what they would get (if they wanted to). And that provided at least some sense of closure after they had saved people from the pirates and ran the animal cults out of the villages.

Logs 416-421: D&D Farm Heroes

Logs 416-421: D&D Farm Heroes
When I looked back through my old planner, I noticed that there were times when I was running my RPG Saga super hero games that NH was unavailable and couldn't join us. Apparently when that happened, I would sometimes run a side D&D game.

I don't remember much from that campaign other than CW played a human ranger, AJ played a halfling or dwarf wizard named Aidan, and they were joined by characters played by LV, MW, JFP, and MR. These were actually my first D&D sessions to DM and I remember being nervous, even though I had run many super hero and Star Wars sessions at that point. D&D made me nervous because I didn't have all of the rules memorized and I knew some of the players might argue with me about the rules and such so they were simple monster-fighting sessions.

Fighting Farmers
The first session started with CW's farmer ranger defending his barn from an army of orcs. Since he was outnumbered, he had to rely on clever battle tactics; using ranged attacks, setting traps, and keeping himself up high above the enemies so he could pick them off one by one while they tried to get to him. After that, I wish I could say I focused more on story but it was mostly me figuring out how the D&D monsters worked and letting the players use standard D&D mechanics for their characters.

Logs 401-415: Random D&D Short Campaigns

Logs 401-415: Random D&D Short Campaigns
LV used to run some short campaigns. Over the years KG also ran some short campaigns. I'm placing my memories of those sessions here.

(Above: Myles)

In LV's games I played 2 different characters. In one of the campaigns I played Myles "The Messenger" (who was an angelic agent/archon sent to help solve problems, friends with Billy the Goatman). In another campaign I played Canty Curuthers, a halfling monk who liked to get drunk and explored the world with different adventurers.

(Above: Canty Curuthers)

KG had a short campaign in which I played a nixie character who was a fun fey creature. He also ran a campaign in which I played a half-orc barbarian named Flej Skullsmasher, AMC played a dwarf ranger named Oskin Kelder, NH played human cleric named Caelia Eris, and BG played a human paladin named Luniska Ballineth. I still have the logs from the half-orc adventures...

Background for Flej Skullsmasher

Flej Skullsmasher was born when his human mother found herself attracted to the powerful orc king of the Skullsmasher tribe.  After Flej was born, she realized she didn't want him growing up in the orc society so she took him and ran away.  She left him with her parents and went back to explain the situation to King Skullsmasher, who did not understand and thus killed her for her betrayal.

Flej's grandparents didn't want him to be ashamed of his heritage so they taught him a romanticized concept of the orc ideals of honor and glory in battle.  When Flej was old enough he joined the military and worked in the infantry from age 15-17, earning the rank of infantry captain. When the military dissolved, Flej knew he still wasn’t powerful enough to confront his father, the orc king about the death of his mother. He came back home to protect his grandparents. They informed him they were leaving for the new world so he went with them.

Background for Oskin Kelder

While growing up, Oskin Kelder lived in a dwarven keep and was the son of a soldier/blacksmith. As expected, Kelder was training as a fighter, but would often wander the woods and other areas close to the keep. One of the keep’s dwarven rangers noticed Kelder’s fondness for nature and secretly trained him. Kelder knew his stubborn father wouldn’t approve of the ranger training and thus he continued training as both a fighter and a ranger, with barely any time for sleep.

One day when Kelder was out exploring the mouth of a cave, the magical bombs dropped. He wasn’t killed outright, but was caught on fire and stumbled into the cave and fell unconscious in a spring. When he awoke, he found he had significant burn scars that glowed like embers (soft and with an orange-red tinge). He was done with society for the most part after that event and became a scavenger.

Kelder would sell the items he found while scavenging. Eventually he was caught when authorities raided the establishment of his fence while he was there dropping off materials. The officers gave Kelder the choice: he would either be imprisoned or he could go to scout the new world.

(Above: Caelia)

Session 1
The Coalition of Independent Nations (COIN) had sent a first wave of ships over a year before to start colonizing a new continent. The characters were in the 3rd or 4th group sent, part of a 3 ship convoy (part of the only ship from that gorup that made it to the colony location). It was a small settlement with Gov. Harador in charge, Lady Mythe as his admin, and Francis O'Dottemer as the constable. Their "3 Rules" consisted of (1) work; (2) no stealing, no murder, no leaving without permission; and (3) society works best with order. The place had mostly humans, some elves, a few dwarves, and a few gnomes.

Oskin, Flej, Caelia, and Luniska joined with 2 human NPCs (including Josephus the rogue) as a scout group working for the colony (wearing white arm bands). There were 4 total scout parties. The red arm band group tried starting a fight with the PC group. The team went on a mission for 3 days mapping the forest near the colony. They killed 15 goblins and a boar before finding blue elves with silver eyes. On the way back, they stumbled upon some ancient ruins with a hologram and magic swords.

Session 2
Flej, Oskin, Caelia, and Luniska returned to the village. Flej visited with his grandparents and romanced the basketweaver Helene. A strong storm hit so the group helped save people and supplies along the beach. The village leaders wanted the team to find new possible locations to settle so the team went out into the mountains, killed 2 ankhegs, Josephus died, killed 8 ogres, and got captured by drow. The drow tortured the team, held in individual cells, until Flej was able to escape and get some drow weapons (with the help of the mysterious moon elves).

Session 3
Flej, Oskin, Caelia, Luniska, and their 3 moon elf allies escaped from the drow and found a beautiful ancient 10-story tall magical tree in an underground cavern. Flej planted seeds from the magical tree after the moon elves teleported them out. A valley community existed, led by Alexi Arborman the bard from a ship that mutanied and left the main group. The group brought the moon elves to speak with the village leaders; they told them about dragonborn people living in the south.

An army of 300 goblins attacked the village; only 20 survived. Flej's grandmother and many other people were killed in the attack; during the chaos Oskin broke into the mayor's house and dragged him out unconscious. The group ended up in a tense confrontation with Flej and Oskin wanting to kill the mayor and Caelia and Luniska not wanting to. Soon 6 new ships arrived (with several hundred people who had come to live in the colony) and Admiral Ashford agreed to take over command since the people had lost faith in the mayor. Amongst the new people was a druid who agreed to train Flej.

Flej decided he wanted to go with Helene, his grandfather, the druid, and his friends to go protect the ancient magical tree; he was willing to allow others from the village to come live in the underground compound with them.

Logs 372-400: d20 Apocalypse 22-50

Logs 372-400: d20 Apocalypse 22-50
Homebrew

JFP Campaign
Session 22
Vanda and Aura were travelling with Toby [KG's new character] and met up with Ovrot [my new character, who worked for King Doga and was assigned to help protect Vanda]. Someone tried to steal the team's jeep. The team was investigating a drug dealer so they were buying drugs in order to capture the bad guys. A battle ensued and the team won.

Session 23
Vanda, Aura, Toby, and Ovrot investigated the drug lab base that Nerolee fled to; they killed the guards and a "junk yard mutant" beast. The team went into the underground base. After the team defeated the monster in the lab, they went up and saw a zombie army outside!

Session 24
Vanda, Aura, Toby, and Ovrot were stuck at the lab building with thousands of zombies outside. The team met up with Ebo, who revealed that Nerolee wasn't the main boss. Doga was killed. The team found Morgana and her kids and safely transported them to Alexandria. The drug "oracle" was for sale there. Wanted posters said a man named Enpu had upset the local drug dealers by acting as a vigilante crime fighter. The team ended up in a bar fight, started by Toby; Ovrot was killed.

Session 25
Vanda, Aura, and Toby met up with King Killian Oss (a.k.a. "K. Oss" pronounced "chaos") [my new, new character]. Killian was trying to find Sabbah and Giasi (twin siblings connected to the Illuminati) and joined the group because he was Aura's long lost brother. The group had another bar fight and then fought the owner of an inn. Toby made contact with Enpu. The group found a fancy compound with Sabbah and Giasi inside. During the fight with the mutants, Enpu was thrown out the window. Giasi got away. Toby sat on Sabbah.

Session 26
Vanda, Aura, Toby and Killian had Sabbah as a prisoner when three inquisitors showed up, saying the church declared the Knights of Saint Albert as heretics. Sabbah escaped during the new fight. The group found Enpu and went to a safe house. Killian tracked down Sabbah and found out she was a guard at a vault/Illuminati base in the Himalayan mountains; she explained the drug and such. The group travelled for weeks; Toby got into a fight with the Knights of Saint Albert and was captured. The team was unable to stop the Knights from executing Toby. The team tried to talk Jake, who was living with the Knights, to come with them but he refused.

Session 27
Dmitri wanted to go to South America. Vanda reminded the Catholics that Psycov took Dennis prisoner. Doga left a message for Vanda saying he was still alive and had new plans. Vanda, Aura, and Killian went to check on the brothels.

Dennis, as a brainwashed agent of Psycov, led V-Squad with agents Elda, Emilio, and Akkarin on a mission to occupy a city. V-Squad convinced the town that there was a huge army waiting outside their borders and they needed to police themselves with their own guards; they were not allowed to leave their city. The point was to keep them bottled in for two weeks until reinforcements arrived. Unfortunately, Emilio killed a child when some people tried to rebel. When the colonel arrived, he congratulated the team and said they would have a new mission...

Session 28-29
Vanda, Aura, and Killian ended up in Alexandria; Enpu said Sabbah and Giasa had disappeared, but he wanted to join the team. While investigating a murder, the team met Peter [KG's new character]. People were trying to escape a plague. Psycov was also dealing with the plague issue. Aura decided the group needed to stay and help cure people. Psycov found a cure for the plague and asked the team to leave. The team found "Stickman" and headed to North America. Vanda met up with Doga, who wanted the group to help take over the government.

Session 30-32
Vanda, Aura, Killian, Peter, and Enpu end up in Guidestone. Killian touched the actual stones and it caused a storm/problems. The local mafia followed and attacked the group; they took a mafia guy prisoner and interrogated him. The team left the city and met up with Doga, who gave the team a mission to transport him across a dangerous highway. The team was attacked by land pirates and had to kill them. The team made it to Denver. Aura got pregnant from her romance with Enpu. In Denver, Doga and Vanda infiltrated the local government while Aura, Killian, Enpu, and Peter were trying to protect a group of people traveling; they were attacked and Killian was killed.

Session 33
Killian was at peace in death, but a handsome man named Raphael resurrected him and asked him to find a woman named Madeline. Now just going by Ian, Killian met back up with the others (Vanda, Aura, Peter, and Enpu) and they found Madeline [who had a flower shop], who ran an underground network that saved people. They helped her and killed some government agents. Ian also met and started a relationship with the local tailor Andrew.

Session 34
Vanda moved to Loveland (50 miles away from Denver). The group helped her move there and brought back workers who could become nurses for the new group clinic. Ian spent time with Andrew before going to check on Madeline. The team investigated a mysterious safe house and missing woman. The team also introduced Vanda and Madeline to each other so they could work together. Raphael dropped by the tailor shop and bought a suit.

Session 35
Each of the team members had weird dreams and shared them with each other. Aura dreamed about a war battle and Sickman laughing during the chaos. Ian dreamed that everyone had to pick a side in the coming war. The next day the team rescued the missing woman Sherry. In the end, the group stayed at Vanda's place in Loveland.

Session 36
Meanwhile: V-Squad, led by Dennis, went to Guidestone to meet Joseph form the Illuminati (Psycov was only one branch of the Illuminati). Joseph sent V-Squad to the Northwest to find out what the organization JPL was up to. Dennis went to "work as a guard" for JPL while his team tried to stealthfully sneak in. They were captured and JPL detected his brain implant. A lady named Stevie took the implant out of Dennis' brain; Dennis met a man named Joth at a bar who told him about the Illuminati/Psycov, the Knights of Saint Albert, the USA government, JPL, and people in South America. Joth said they couldn't get to South America. Dennis helped V-Squad escape after causing enough havoc to JPL.

Session 37
[LJ guest-starred as Max Carlini] Doga introduced the team to Max Carlini; Madeline is missing. A wanted poster listed our team as criminals. Andrew didn't trust Ian anymore until Peter convinced him to; Raphael showed up and told the group to go into hiding. The team went on a recon mission and were attacked by raiders. Max helped the group fend off the enemies.

Session 38
In Loveland Vanda, Aura, Enpu, Peter, and Ian met up with Doga. The government agents are all around Loveland and Denver. Ian couldn't convince Andrew to leave. The team saved a dying woman. Peter met up with the Illuminati plane. Dennis Coast was in town.

V-Squad was sent to find out where the new secret US central command base was located. The team started in New Chicago and ended up in Denver. Emilio and Elda took over a house. Emilio captured the governor and the team had to kill him. The next day at a restaurant, at breakfast, Dennis saw Vanda and overheard that she was working for the government; he didn't remember who she was so he tried flirting with her to get info. Later, Vanda let him meet Aura, Ian, and Peter.

Session 39
Vanda lured Dennis to a hotel room and put him to sleep, returning his true memories to him. Dennis woke up confused and hungry (because the Psycov memories were battling with the true memories). He spoke with Peter, Enpu, and Ian. Peter and Enpu left. Dennis seduced Ian. Vanda took Dennis to Loveland, but the next day he woke back up with just the Psycov memories. Vanda and Doga captured Dennis and took him to surgery to have his new impant removed. The US was having trouble in its fight against Andrew dumped Ian. Psycov. Doga was killed. Dennis, Peter, Ian, and Enpu accidentally killed three people.

Session 40
Vanda and Dennis went to meet up with Elda in Loveland. Aura, Peter, Enpu, and Ian showed up with Henry and plans from the resistance movement (after killing the rest of V-Squad). Dennis and Ian hooked up again. The group attended a town meeting. Ian felt he was somehow being watched so he purposely didn't ask the others where they were going next and stayed behind for the mission; Dennis volunteered to stay back and protect Ian.

Session 41
Vanda, Aura, Peter, and Enpu went on their mission. Ian and Dennis followed a light up a hilltop. The team took a month of downtime to train their powers; Vanda reminded Dennis that he had a wife and kids waiting for him (living in Alexandria, protected by Dmitri's people) and suggested he should end his affair with Ian. Raphael met with the group and revealed that the vaillain Cyrus doesn't have a body. Dennis decided to go with Raphael to go after Psycov in Oregon. Meanwhile Vanda, Aura, Peter, Enpu, and Ian went to Cheyenne mountain and met with Col. Casey. Peter went into the Psycov base.

Session 42
Peter decided the team with Vanda, Aura, Peter, Enpu, Olivia, and Ian should drive to South America. The team fought off an ambush in Mexico. After the car tires were damaged, the team stole horses and continued on. The team stopped road bandits and found shelter with a woman named Penelope. Ian slept wtih her, getting her pregnant. The team made their way to the jungle in Central America. From there, they went to Brazil and found a fortress with a moat.

Session 43
Vanda, Aura, Peter, Ian, Olivia, and Enpu continued on. Aura, Olivia, and Enpu decided to go into hiding; they left a note for Ian (who was still purposely being kept out of the loop about important details in case he was still being watched by the enemy). Sofia [BG's new character] showed up and gave the team citizenship chips. Vanda, Peter, Ian, and Sofia met up with a big CEO guy named Harry Tang. The team was also learning Portugese to be able to speak with the locals.

Session 44
Meanwhile: Dennis and Raphael ended up in Oregon, but did not find Psycov; instead, they spoke with JPL. They then went through Asia and ended up at the Himalayas, where they met up with the group (Vanda, Peter, Ian, and Sophia) and surrendered to the Illuminati guys in power armor. Met with the Psycov people and found out their experiments now allowed them to pick and choose putting special powers into people. Raphael had told the group that he was one of the uber-specials (1 per continent) and his friend Grace was the North American uber-special. The South America base was sending a jet so the group could try to save their CEO.

Session 45-46
The team convinced the Illuminati to send a cyborg agent with them. They found out Psycov had abandoned the Mediterranean Sea base. Raphael split off to go find Grace. The CEO gave the team the location of the uber-specials. Dennis got Vanda to manipulate his mind and memories so that he would want to return to his wife again and no longer have the affair with Ian. The team arrived in Alexandria, but Dennis met up with his wife and found out she had been working for Dmitri and had met someone else while he had been gone; kid Al was smart and Shirley was strong. Dennis said goodbye to his family. Ian's evil father showed up and he killed him while Peter got rid of four costumed vigilantes that showed up. A Psycov transport picked up the group to go to the Middle East. The team found a city of special people partying; the uber-special there wouldn't help in the mission. When the Illuminati asked the team to kill Sabbah, they did.

Session 47-48
Vanda, Sophia, Peter, Ian, Denny, and Luo the cyborg were all in a telepathic web while at Sabbah's place. They were waiting three days for their transport to arrive. Peter went out and got arrested. Dennis closed off tunnels. Denny got Peter and they met back up with the others. Giasi attacked the team at their hotel. The team went back to the Himalayas and met up with Raphael and Grace. They went to Asia and England to try to convince more special people to join them. Ahzek was willing to come work with them. They explored an abandoned Illuminati base. After that, they went on a "spirit quest" in Africa.

Session 49
Ian and Denny went to Europe for three months and met up with Aura and Enpu (who had gotten married and had a daughter named Kilara). The rest of the team (Vanda, Sophia, Peter, Luo, Raphael, etc.) picked up Ian and Denny. Together, they all prepared to fight Uriel "the melter," Michael, and a dozen inquisitors. The team killed Uriel, Michael, and three inquisitors; the other nine enemies surrendered. The team let them go.

Session 50
For the finale: the team went back to Alexandria for a day before going to Australia. Then South America. Sofia checked in there. Ian, Peter, and Vanda found out South America had made a deal with Zarachiel and Grace in Rome. They went back to Australia and found "Voidman" (a dangerous, unpredictable, but powerful ally to have in the final fight). Ian convinced Voidman to join the team. The final battle took place at the Vatican with the team and Voidman destroying Zarachiel and Grace. Joth showed up, took away Voidman's powers, and congratulated the team. Luo took the team to different places to retire. Denny and Vanda went back to Alexandria. Ian, Aura, Enpu, and Peter went back to Denver to be with Andrew and Olivia.

Logs 351-371: d20 Apocalypse 1-21

Logs 351-371: d20 Apocalypse 1-21
Homebrew

JFP Campaign
After JFP ended his long-term D&D campaign and took some time off, we eventually brought many of us players back together to play in his new d20 Apocalypse campaign. JFP created a post-apocalypse version of the Earth and had a plot going on (which we players had to figure out and try to influence the best we could). With homebrew rules, JFP added in mutant powers and limited our HP when leveling.

From 2008-2010 we ended up playing 50 sessions. I played 3 different characters (Dennis Coast, Ovrot Layer, and Killian Oss). NH played Vanda. BG played Dantella and Aura. KG played Jake.

Session 1
Dennis Coast, under the alias of "Rabbit" had been living on the streets and working as "muscle" for a night club, but the love of his life (Gregor) had disappeared and he found himself alone. He applied for a job at a brothel, but didn't realize he was actually being interviewed to join an adventuring group. Dennis passed the tests presented by Dantella and Vanda; the ladies had their own special religion and used the brothel as a worshipping house. When Dennis went to find out about the other religion in town, Father John of the church introduced him to Jacobus "Jake" (who was being hunted down by some ruffians). The group fought off some thugs. When a man in a suit named Kadi arrived for Jake, wanting to take him to New Byzantium, the rest of the group agreed to go there along with him (to spread the brothel religion of Elua).

Session 2
Kadi led Dennis, Vanda, Dantella, and Jake to Bucharest; along the way, radiation poisoning made the group sick. They also battled strange, glowing zombie people. As the group continued traveling and were attacked by biker thugs, Kadi revealed his cyborg implants and helped the team fight back. The team arranged sea passage via a ship to New Byzantium. Dennis and Jake killed some men who tried to take Jake away; the group then created disguises, setup a new brothel, and rested.

Session 3
The city was attacked by the warlord King Doga (who wanted to take down the Psycov Corporation and take over New Byzantium). Jake found out he and Dennis were wanted men. The group went to the Omni building, met with Mr. Ajax, and made a deal with them; they cleared the group from being wanted criminals and had them spend the night at their building. The old drunk homeless guy told us to go to Alexandrai; he was freaked out by Jake. The group went there, found beautiful green farmland, and took jobs as mercenaries. The group defended a farm from 6 gunmen, but Jake was "killed" and the group realized he was a robot. To fix Jake, the group took his body back to New Byzantium.

Session 4
Dennis realized his own healing powers existed. The Omni group returned Jake to the brothel, but his memory had been wiped. The group had to agree to not tell him that he was a robot in order to get him back. In recruiting more people for the brothel's love religion, Jake and Dennis heard screams and rescued people from danger in an apartment. Dennis found Gregor, who said he had "changed" and could "sense abilities" in people (mutants). Gregor mentioned a contact in "the underground" but someone shot him in the head and killed him before he revealed more. The team travlled to Alexandria, found the Knights of Saint Albert "the underground" and let them scan each of the team members, confirming that Dennis, Vanda, and Dantella were mutants. They also tried to convince Jake that he was a robot.

Session 5
The group settled in Alexandria. Dennis dated a girl named Valerie. Vanda dated the businessman Dmitri, who had problems with the local mafia. Dennis came up with a plan to infiltrate the mafia. The others helped cause problems that allowed Dennis to overcome them in the mafia and get promoted. With the intel from Dennis, Dmitri was able to send his people in and destroy the mafia's base.

Session 6-8
Distracted by Valerie, Dennis missed out on some of the fights Vanda, Dantella, and Jake had with their enemies. An inquisitor from the Catholic church (who could actually heal people) met with Dennis and invited the group to go to the Vaticanin Rome. The team took a boat across the Mediterranean Sea, but it lost power and   ended up drifting into a strange community of ships tied together in the middle of the sea. While Vanda and Dantella setup a new brothel in the town, Dennis started dating Morgana. The admiral gave the team a submarine mission; the group went down and found an old facility with a well connected to gia energy - but it was guarded by Morgana. When she had the group pinned down, Dennis decided to "defeat" her by declaring how much he loved her and proposing that they get married. She stood down and shut down the base, thus ending the effect that had powered down all of the ships. Morgana travelled with the team as they made it to the fortified Vatican.

Session 9
The group decided to work for Inquisitor Ignatius at the Vatican. The team travelled out to Filisur, which was supposedly where Jake was from. Dantella convinced Morgana to join the Church of Elua and performed the wedding for Dennis and Morgana. The group went to Mogno and Fusio and found a hidden library, finding info about Avalon.

Session 10
When the group returned to Rome, they found out Psycov had put a bounty out and mercenaries were trying to kill them. After speaking with Cardinal Ezekial and defeating assassins, the group was captured by King Doga's man Lord Chuma (who had an army outside the city waiting for them); Chuma took the team to Turkey to speak with Doga. Doga offered an alliance with the team since they were mutual enemies of Psycov; the team agreed to help undermine and destroy the evil corporation. Using the sewers, the team returned to New Byzantium and waited for Vanda's contact there, Orhan.

Session 11
Ignatius and Dantella were falling in love. Orhan rejected our plan to plant a virus in Psycov's system, saying they had defenses for that sort of thing. Dennis and Jake kidnapped a Psycov guard and tortured him for info about their security practices. The team figured out how to get into the power plants and shut down the power with a plan to then have King Doga attack the city while the power grid was down; the team relayed the plan to the army and Dennis went in alone, taking down a power station.

Session 12
While Dennis took out a power station, the rest of the team was trying to shut down the fusion grid; Vanda, Dantella, Jake, Dmitri, Morgana, and Ignatius made their way to the fusion reactor but ended up barricaded inside. Psycov found Dennis and took him hostage when he tried getting to the others. Everyone ended up as prisoners with a big cyborg guy taunting them. A Psycov lady entered and revealed that Jake was a double-agent who had betrayed the team (notifying Psycov of the plan in time for them to stop it in exchange for letting the team live)! The team was exiled from New Byzantium and found out Doga had failed in his attack. They moved back to Alexandria, where Dennis got Morgana pregnant with twins. Dmitri gave everyone houses; Dantella and Ignatius (who went by his original name of Kasper at this point) got married.

Session 13
Dmitri let the team take a transport to try to meet up with Doga, but on the way the vehicle broke down; the team had to get solar panels to repair the vechile, but they also had to fend off some enemies that attacked. After fixing the vehicle and arriving at Doga's new encampment, the group feasted with King Doga. Doga offered to recruit the team to work for his army. Dennis agreed to join in exchange for protection for Morgana and the unborn children. Vanda, Dantella, and Jake declined the offer. Dennis became "Commander Tiger" for Doga's army while the others continued on to learn more about the Knights of Saint Albert.

Session 14
Dennis (without Vanda, Dantella, and Jake) led missions in King Doga's war against Psycov. In one particular battle, Dennis was in charge of clearing some Psycov-controlled apartment buildings. Dennis threw himself on a grenade to save his men (since he could heal the damage). In another battle, Dennis led the capture of a coastline. As a result of that battle, Dennis convinced King Doga to start integrating and training the soldiers in the use of more technology.

Session 15
On another mission for Doga, Dennis was captured by Pyscov and his men killed off. Meanwhile Vanda, Dantella, Jake, and Kasper recieved a message that Dennis had been captured and that they had to complete a mission in order to get him released. Psycov tortured Dennis by experimenting on him and his powers while the other team members were capturing some girl named Elda for Psycov. When Psycov put Dennis on a helicopter to transport him out to exchange for Elda, he escaped. He told the others to release Elda and they all met back up at the Vatican.

Session 16-17
Dennis and Vanda went back to speak with Doga. Dennis came up with "Operation Condor" which was to bring the Catholic church into the war against Psycov.  Morgana had given birth to the twins, named Alan and Shirley. Vanda seduced King Doga. Meanwhile Dantella, Jake, and Kasper searched for a missing girl. When the team met back up and discussed Operation Condor, Jake suggested that Dennis join the Catholic church and become an inquisitor for them. At dinner, the team was drugged and had to fight thugs.

Session 18
The group killed the thug leaders and went back to the Vatican, where Kasper helped Dennis to become an inquisitor. Dennis decided to use the saint name Valentine as his inquisitor name. The group took a year of downtime while Dennis was fully trained with the church since he had to also become a priest. Dennis "Valentine" recruited Vanda, Dantella, and Jake for a mission with the older Inquistor Oliver (to go to England, which had been cut off from the rest of Europe); as the group sneaked onto the island, Dennis struggled with not being allowed to lie or deceive people anymore. After gathering intel from a small town, the team headed north to a larger city.

Session 19
The team checked out the brothel in the big city and accepted a mission to deliver a package to a guy in Sherwood; ten guys with laser weapons ambushed the team and killed Oliver; Dennis took over leading the mission. The team still managed to succeed at the mission and returned to the big city. Vanda arranged for a meeting with the xenophobic city leader, Lord Hill. After hearing the story of coming from Europe onto the island, he decided to arrest the group; Dantella "performed a miracle" by lifting Dennis up in the air. The team prepared to fight or flee...

Session 20
The team decided to flee from Lord Hill and his men. The team planned to meet up 5 miles outside the city. Dennis was shot until he went unconscious and all of his stuff was stolen; he was left for dead, but regenerated and eventually rejoined the others (who got out). The team secured passage on a merchant ship that was leaving and made their way back to the Vatican. They debriefed the Vatican and Dennis got new gear. Dantella and Kaspar decided to settle down and have a family. Hearing rumors of ships disappearing again Dennis, Vanda, and Jake took a ship out to the Mediterranean Triangle. The team found ten Psycov warships with an oil rig and base. Jake pretended to turn in Dennis and Vanda as prisoners; they realized Jake was the one who had told Psycov about this place. Dennis and Vanda really ended up in cells as prisoners while Psycov trusted Jake. The Psycov agents said they were going to brainwash Dennis and Vanda. Dennis, in a desperate attempt to get out of his cell, risked shooting himself in the head.

Session 21
Dennis woke up in a medical ward, being treated by Dr. "Aura" Aurlynn; he convinced her that he and Vanda needed help and that Psycov was really an evil organization. Aura tried to get Jake to hack into the system and clear the team to leave the facility, but Jake was discovered and captured. Aura convinced Psycov to let her treat Dennis and Vanda on her ship. Some planes crashed nearby; Vanda received a secret message from Dmitri. A spy was sabotaging things. Vanda and Jake both ended up in the brig. Dennis sacrificed himself to Psycov in exchange for the rest of the team being released; Vanda, Jake, and Aura were released on a boat. Psycov put a brain implant in Dennis to alter his memories and make him loyal to them.

[The adventure logs continue with 22-50 in my next blog entry...]

Logs 348-350: d20 Future "End Stars"

Logs 348-350: d20 Future "End Stars"
Homebrew

Short Campaign
This is the story of a short 3-session campaign that ended because my players effectively "won" and defeated the situation I had come up with much faster than I thought possible. We had planned on having a longer campaign, but after 3 sessions I had to admit that the characters had defeated the challenges I had in mind for the campaign and - along the way - made themselves rich.

NH played Nova Alinari (a space elf):

AMC played "Fade" (a techie):

LJ played Jeremiah Maltex (a rich dude):

The adventures began with the characters all part of a merchant trade deal with a package that had been recovered from an alien crash. The container let out a purple mist that acted as an air-born virus infecting everyone in the area - thus linking the characters together to find a cure. Not only did they effectively find a cure, but they then used the cure as a way to get rich - by being the only ones with the cure and selling it (instead of, you know, heroically giving it away to help people).

Logs 336-347: Playtest Game

Logs 336-347: Playtest Game
Homebrew

LJ's Game System
Our buddy LJ created his own game system, wrote out an entire RPG book for his system, and had us (me, AMC, and NH) playtest the game for him. I really liked the system because it featured the "XP purchase" system like Vampire - but it was all d6 based so I was hesitant at first. Eventually I got used to the d6 system. We all had a ton of fun. We had paused my D&D game at the time and played this game for about 4 months, but we stopped so we could get back to the D&D game.

I played Gurr (a barbarian-esque character) with the initial flaws of being a feral mute. I picked those flaws not only to get extra abilities during character creation, but also for the RPG experience of not being able to talk my way through situations like most of my characters had done in the past. AMC played Garvel (who was similar to a necromancer) and NH played Akkara (who was basically an alchemist with an imaginary friend that she believed was real, Princess Shalandran).

During the first session, our characters befriended each other and the NPC Malakai. Gurr found a red magic staff that he used throughout the rest of the campaign. The group went into an ancient temple and participated in strange rituals. The campaign included the group: exploring caves, fighting wolves, fighting imperial agents, fighting undead, found old runes, joined the resistance movement, found ancient vaults and temples, travelled a lot, took downtime for weapon training, fought sewer enemies, were almost killed by a sea monster, became immigrants in the west, got hired as mercenaries, fought in an arena, were questioned by special magi police, fled south, defeated the enemies that came after us, bought some nice land at a lake, and retired.

The campaign was mostly exploration and allowed us to see different parts of LJ's campaign world. It was really interesting and I hope some day LJ officially publishes his finished product for the public.

Logs 326-335: d20 Modern Super Heroes

Logs 326-335: d20 Modern Super Heroes
Homebrew
The Adventures of Jack Dervish and Sara Smith
Back in 2013, AMC and NH made Jack and Sara as characters in a modern setting mostly based on the real world. Jack was a 21-year old who worked as a bouncer at a night club; his family had died (mom of a heart attack and sister gunned down by thugs). He often went out doing parkour at night with his buddies. Sara was a bounty hunter.

In the first adventure, Jack was bitten by a monster (and got the super power of fast healing, but it came with violent tendencies). In the second session, Dr. Jane sent Sara to help Jack by tracking him down and working to figure out his powers. As their adventures continued, they: took on army officers, dealt with Jack's friend Johnny, figured out what was going on with a mysterious island facility, Jack infected Sara, befriended tech savvy Derrick, infiltrated cults in Louisiana, investigated a secret society in New York, destroyed a chemical facility, worked with the Vatican in Europe, tracked down wizards (mutants) with stolen ancient books, faked their own deaths to escape their enemies, fought robots, defeated an army of zombies (created by chemicals), and used their enemy's robot army against them to ultimately defeat their foes.

In the end, their team was Jack, Sara, Derrick, and Murphy. They each ended up with half a trillion dollars. Murphy and Sara decided to go off traveling together. Jack and Derrick decided to go off and become vigilante crime-fighters ("Like Batman and Robin" they said).

Logs 316-325: Vampire the Masquerade

Logs 316-325: Vampire the Masquerade
I really enjoyed playing Vampire the Masquerade; as a system, the rules differed from what we were used to playing and thus they provided a breath of fresh air for our RPG tastes. At first, the idea of only using 10-sided dice made me dislike the system, but I adapted and ended up liking that element of the game. My favorite aspect of Vampire involved using XP differently; in Vampire, the players choose how to "spend" their awarded XP to "purchase" their new abilities or stat increases instead of being locked into a set leveling system with guaranteed level bonuses.

I played in at least 3 Vampire campaigns over the years. I don't really remember the first one, but I can tell you about the others...

Vampire Boy Part 1: Dark Ages
I played a little kid who was turned into a vampire around age 8 or 10: Duke Theodore "Theo" Vincent. He was technically Ravnos, but his main goal in life was to convince vampires from different clans to teach him their best abilities so he was often pretending to be a Toreador or some other clan to get people to like him and help him.

Our storyteller ran us through a short campaign of 6 sessions that mostly revolved around a group of people who were trying to raise the ancient god Set. Our characters initially had no idea what we were getting involved in (and, as players, we found trouble adapting to some of the combat rules and how to deal with different powers/abilities interacting with one another).

The first 2 sessions established the premise of the campaign. The player group included: Theo, Akio the "merchant," General Alric, Ramon, and 2 Setite sisters working for Prince Deondra. There was a war with the Ventrue and Brujah against the Assimites. A mysterious woman named Jocelyn was going to lead us to a ruby that was supposed to unite the Camarilla. We battled Gangrel that ambushed us in the forest.

In Session 3 my character burned all the ships at the harbor to create a distraction and the drama focused on deciding what to do with the ruby. We travelled to the Darklands. The gem was actually broken into pieces. Session 4 was about getting another piece of the gem. In Session 5 we dealt with a mage, explored a castle, and the Gangrel arrived to take us to their leader.

In the last session of the mini-campaign we put together all of the ruby pieces, there was a huge battle, we ended up in an Egyptian underground area, and through some weird rituals and conflicts Set was temporarily raised by then vanquished. Our characters then retired to each of our own agendas.

Vampire Boy Part 2: Modern
We later decided to continue in the campaign world, but moving time up to the modern era. Our characters ended up in Chicago, meeting up once again (because my character still had the ruby from the Dark Ages campaign and Akio wanted it). Theo had become a party boy who lived on a cruise ship with a team of - strangely enough - vampire slayers. At this point in his existence, Theo had become obsession with swapping bodies with people.

Our character went from Chicago to Dallas, where we met the local vampire prince(ss). Assassins came after us as we travelled around the world. We dodged killers, partied, and kept the ruby out of the hands of the bad evil people (as opposed to the goodish-evil people).

Aristotle
Some campaigns go unfinished; you know, where you play a session or 2 or 3 and then the game fizzles out because of scheduling issues or whatever. That happened here, even though we had a fun game going. This time I played a philosopher-vampire named after Aristotle. The main conflict came from a fancy ball/gathering where there was a battle going on.

Logs 301-315: Misc Sci-Fi Games

BattleTech
I only played two sessions of BattleTech, but I enjoyed the game. The combat involved a bit of a learning curve, but I remember using dry erase markers to keep track of the damage done to the mechs during combat, as per the picture below:

My funny story from BattleTech involved getting ready to play the game. One of the reasons I stopped playing was because of the expense of buying and putting together the mech models used as miniatures for combat on the hex grid (which I wanted nothing to do with, as I had other priorities for the little bit of money I had as a teenager). But one of my friends had a friend who had a brother who owned a bunch of BattleTech minis. My friend said he had talked to them and we could borrow their minis from their apt, but we had to go in through the patio sliding glass door and get them while they were gone at work. I was the one sent in to get the minis; mind you, I didn't even know these people and had never been in their apartment, but I hopped the fence and went in the back door as I was told to do.

Once I got inside, there was an angry dog growling at me. My buddy was yelling for me to get to the front door and unlock it so he could come in and join me (because he wasn't going to hop the fence) while I stared down the dog. Eventually, I just sat down and let the dog come up and befriend me. But I was terrified and lucked out that the guard dog ended up liking me instead of trying to kill me.

Star Wars
I probably played about 8 sessions of Star Wars (the old d6 version of the game). I ran a short campaign with a spy droid that betrayed the group of players. I also played in a game ran by my buddy MW, in which I played the "strange" jawa who wanted to leave his people and live a better life. My jawa's name was Hoot Pak and he dreamed of being a rock star. His first album was simply titled Hoot Pak, but his second one was 2Pak. My same friend who sent me into the apt with the angry dog played a privateer pilot who grew paranoid of my jawa and locked up poor Hoot Pak in a storage closet for most of an RPG session. I also remember our storyteller allowing people to bribe him with food in exchange for Force points. Those were (mostly) fun times.

Alternity
The same company that produced D&D came out with a sci-fi game called Alternity. I think we played 5 sessions or so of Alternity, but we preferred Heroes Unlimited and D&D so we never really stuck with the system. I remember playing a pilot and our ship getting boarded by space pirates. The combat was fun, but someone in our group was playing a hacker character and I remember that type of conflict being resolved differently and feeling somewhat out of place for the rest of us.

A Super RPG System Idea

An Idea

After typing up all the logs from my old superhero games, it got me thinking about the fact that I no longer play with the Rifts-based Heroes Unlimited rules system. Instead, I am a huge fan of the new Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition (5E). I also like Vampire the Masquerade system’s use of experience points to buy new elements (skill points, stat points, abilities, etc.). I think my ideal RPG system might somehow combine all three of the major systems that I like.

My life keeps me too busy to work on this project, but I want to put a challenge on there. Someone should make a system that, at its core, mostly resembled D&D 5E but also includes super powers/abilities/mutations/bionics and allows for leveling options like the Vampire XP-purchasing system. It would require someone to untangle all of the class abilities in D&D 5E and assign values to them. The person would also have to create superhero abilities to mesh with D&D 5E and assign values to them. Then a purchasing system based on XP or something would need to incorporate the values in a “balanced” way.

Impossible task? Perhaps. But that’s my thoughts for today as I prepare to transition to discussing other old RPG games that I have played.

Peace.

P.S. Here’s a look at the druid character I currently play in a campaign, transformed into a bear while fighting a hydra. Someday I hope to give you the log report from this session.

Logs 225-300: Heroes Unlimited Part 9 & 10: Dragon Secret Society, Campaign for Earth, and Final Connections

Disclaimer

I lost my detailed notes from these adventures years ago and I’m guessing for some of these details, but I want to provide a coherent story with these logs so I’m piecing it together as best as possible from my remaining notes.

Logs 225-300: Heroes Unlimited Part 9 & 10: Dragon Secret Society, Campaign for Earth, and Final Connections

I only agreed to GM again if I could scale everything back 1000%. Instead of the zany sci-fi adventures we were used to, I set our new game in the modern world with the players taking on the roles of college students who were recruited into a secret society.

Since I don’t have detailed session logs from these adventures, you’re going to get a summary log again. Our players for the first year of the secret society game included: NH, MW, LH, CF, AJ, LV, JFP, CW, AF, JP, JP’s friend Jessica, JW, and TV. The second year of the secret society game included: NH, CW, KG, LV, JFP, MR, MW, AR, JW, SD, and AJ; most of the time it was down to a core group of about 5-7 people.

JerVerse Adventure 225-263: Dragon Secret Society

The main characters included: Johnnye Morgan, Martina Jackson, Lawrence Pierce, Tristan Silver, Nathan Smith, Val MacLauren, Cami Wyrick, and several others (whose names have been lost over the years). The group’s characters were all students from “Ivy League” places like Yale or Harvard, but had been transferred to a seemingly normal state school in north Texas after joining into The Dragon Secret Society. Inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer with the Hellmouth, I made their new university a special place that attracted danger.

Their secret society sent them on missions. Sometimes they were investigating mysteries, sometimes they rescued people, and sometimes they were committing crimes. Since we used the real modern world as the basis for the setting I had fun setting up encounters in places we all knew. They were involved in car chases on the roads we use all the time; there was a shoot out at a gas station most of us used. They also went on special assignments to places like New Orleans. At one point I think they were dealing with a cult and weren’t sure if the enemies were actually vampires or just people who thought they were vampires.

Pop culture helped inspire some of the adventure sessions. I used famous people as secret members of their organization, or at least allies/assets. The bands Rage Against the Machine and Alien Ant Farm both got involved in plots. With Alien Ant Farm the group had to save a girl named Annie; they were “Smooth Criminals.” There were actual machines to rage against. I also really enjoyed using the internet and books/maps to turn real world locations into adventure encounter areas.

Through the course of the adventures, the characters developed special powers or found magic items that empowered them. They also continued making important friends and allies in the secret society and politics. Sometimes their networking resources were just as much, or more powerful, than their super powers.

JerVerse Adventure 264-300: Campaign for Earth and Final Connections

The second year of the secret society campaign turned into something much larger as the group had their characters take over global politics, deal with a threat to the entire planet, and they found out I had a twist surprise for the last part of the campaign; the secret society characters were actually connected to the larger RPG saga universe.

Johnnye Morgan, Martina Jackson, Lawrence Pierce, Nathan Smith (a.k.a. Deathstalker), Val MacLauren, and the others were joined by Luman Cross and Jack Tycho (a.k.a. Mephiston). The characters arranged to take over politics, with their secret society promoting its own people into the presidency and vice-presidency of the United States.

In their new position of global power, the group learned of an alien threat to Earth. There was an unavoidable apocalypse coming with aliens planning to destroy the world. The group managed to use their resources to find a way to magically shield Earth and swap it out with a fake placeholder Earth. It was very complicated at the time, but they managed to achieve success with each part of the plan and the magic items worked for them.

What ended up happening though, was they put Earth into stasis and fooled the rest of the universe with their plan; some of the characters were in stasis, but others ended up being petrified and later restored to themselves. Their actions linked back into our RPG saga; Mephiston turned out to be the father of Darius Jobe. Johnnye Morgan was soulmates with the little fiend Quizanel (who was really the ancient god-being Bel). Martina Jackson was Femme; Femme’s long-lost memories were actually shielding her original existence as Martina. The Femme body, it turned out, was just a disguise.

The secret society version of Earth was removed from stasis in the RPG saga timeline’s year of 7,778. The secret society characters met up with the old RPG saga characters and we continued having adventures in the larger universe. They had more Universal Council meetings, they dealt with strange alien enemies (including a return of the Keymons), and they planned out the retirement of their characters.

Al, Feli, CM, and Xedus wanted to make sure the future would be safe from Zahadoom before they fully retired from adventuring; they worked with Temptrick to trick Zah. Since Zah had an immortal-fairy-cosmosian body, they tricked him into teleporting inside of somewhere; he was unknowingly stuck in the HI cylinder that he had once used to imprison Al. They convinced Zah that he was living in his own special universe (a third universe since two already existed), but it was really an HI simulation. To make sure the HI-cylinder would never be found and used to free the supervillain, Al tucked it away in the second universe and sealed off all connections from the first universe to the second one.

The End.

Reflections

Planning and running the secret society sessions was a breath of fresh air for me as a storyteller. In creative writing classes, instructors recommend using what you know; the realistic feel of the campaign made my job easier. Sometimes planning could be as simple as me being in line at the bank thinking about how I needed an idea for an encounter and looking around going, “They could be in this bank when someone tries to rob it.” Or I might be at a concert, with hundreds of people crowded around, and I would think - this would make for a challenging place to try to follow a suspect or enemy.

I was really relieved when my players liked the surprise twist - that our secret society adventures for two years actually linked back into the main RPG saga storyline. NH was especially happy to see how Femme’s returned memories played out. Remarkably, without knowing the plan, NH had planned Martina Jackson’s personality the same way she played Femme.

The RPG saga’s last session ended in August of 2003 because I felt I needed to move on. Back then I really didn’t think I’d have the free time or energy to run a game for the foreseeable future because I felt I needed to devote myself to my new career. I had enjoyed my decade-long RPG saga with all of players who came and went throughout the years, but I had to let it go (for a while).

Logs 196-224: Heroes Unlimited Part 8: The Universal Council and Judgment Day

Disclaimer

I lost my detailed notes from these adventures years ago and I’m guessing for some of these details, but I want to provide a coherent story with these logs so I’m piecing it together as best as possible from my remaining notes.

Logs 196-224: Heroes Unlimited Part 8: The Universal Council and Judgment Day

Unfortunately, today’s log suffers from the same issues I faced yesterday. I know the number of sessions played, what days we played them, and who showed up for them, but I lack my notes about what specifically happened at each session so I’m going to provide an overview of this entire chapter of our saga. Players included: NH, AJ, BW, BD, MW, JFP, LH, MR, LV, and HJ.

JerVerse Adventure 196-224: The Universal Council and Judgment Day

The major player characters were back in action: Femme, Feli, Valas, Raven, Al, Charr, Thomas, Turlock, Nelor, Lott, Sledge, Goliath, and even Greg Haylege. The characters surveyed the environment in the year 7,777 and realized they needed to form alliances with the major ancient races and intergalactic organizations. Thus the group formed an intergalactic congress that they called the Universal Council. Essentially, they formed a one-universe UN-type assembly that tried to protect people and keep the peace.

Believe it or not, the players enjoyed spending many sessions debating intergalactic politics instead of just engaging in combat all the time. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of disputes came up that caused conflicts and combat; but when possible, the characters used diplomacy to resolve their issues. NPCs such as Mayhem, the Connected Meerkat, and Pyr were just as good at getting into trouble as helping the group solve problems. Villains attempted to bring back the Dark Ones and end the universe, but the heroes prevailed. I wish I could remember more details about the middle adventures, but I know some of the details and I have some typed files about the end events.
Along the way major threats came from Temptrick and Lady Temporanna (who had been the lover of Arcanus and mother to both Zah and his brother). With her time travelling powers, Lady Temporanna was able to go back to when The Dark Ones still existed and bring some of them into the current time to bother the players.

This is probably a good place to also mention that, somewhere along the way, the characters inadvertently created a second universe. They had dealt with dimensional counterparts from their own universe, but they ended up having to deal with universal counterparts as well. In the second universe Feli’s counterpart was Mar; Mar had a child with her version of Zahadoom named Maladoom. Lott’s counterpart was named Ttol. The universal counterparts were evil/opposites like the Mirror Universe in Star Trek.

I remember creating a long-term (though subtly introduced) plot with the concept of the 4-Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Over the course of many adventures, certain characters were brought into the plan to destroy the universe and bring about the ultimate apocalypse. Good ol’ Dr. Lane was possessed by the ancient goddess of thievery Vanesli and became Pestilence. Jinnai was brought back to life to serve as War. Dread had been calling himself Death and was the obvious choice to take on that role. Someone else represented Famine. As per the mythology, the “horsemen” arrived one at a time. If all four of them came to a world, it would be destroyed.
The end events came to a head with a predetermined “Judgment Day” (from the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse) that the characters had to prevent. After they saved the day, we concluded our story with Turlock’s wedding to his NPC love interest Lady Ashley. For his reception, Turlock hosted a tournament and promised a special reward to the winner [side note: the player LH came up with this idea, but it worked great for ending the RPG saga adventures since we liked having tournaments].
AJ’s character Valas won the tournament, but everyone was shocked (and disappointed) when LH announced that the reward Turlock was giving the winner of the tournament was the chance to face Turlock in combat. For months LH had his character quest to get an ancient Shaper body and had his soul put into it; the ancient Shaper being could steal the powers/abilities of anyone he fought. It turned out LH wanted to see who was the most powerful and then steal that person’s powers. What he didn’t realize was that AJ’s character Valas had a soul-swapping ability. AJ asked LH three times if he was sure he really wanted to have Turlock and Valas fight. When LH insisted they battle, AJ won initiative and used his soul-swapping powers to steal Turlock’s Shaper body; Valas teleported out and Turlock was stuck with a powerless body.
Turlock tried to convince his family (everyone related to Draconias) to go to war with Valas and the rest of the Vemniriscotts, but they refused his request. The rest of the main characters in the story were very happy that they had achieved peace in the universe and they were not willing to sacrifice that accomplishment for a personal vendetta.
Reflections

Ending with a wedding, a tournament, and player v. player shenanigans gave our RPG saga the special send off that it deserved. At that point in my life, I was finished with my RPG multiverse. I enjoyed wrapping up all of the storylines and ending the saga. Within a month though, I found myself running a one-off session for friends; I used the Heroes Unlimited system, but gave my friends (NH, BD, AJ, BW, and JP) character sheets to play themselves in a modern setting. We had a lot of fun with that RPG session and my friends spent months talking me into starting up a new game.

Six months later we were making RPG characters who were in college, as part of a secret society...