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 126-154: Heroes Unlimited Part 6: The Scaline Empire v. The Dark Ones
During my first year of college several more people wanted to join our RPG saga. Our story’s original characters had advanced so much over the years that I had to find ways to balance their powers and abilities with the new characters. I felt somewhat bad for people who joined us unaware of all of the previous adventures and inside jokes we had going on, but most of the new players quickly adapted. I also needed powerful threats to challenge the high-level characters, thus I continued creating new aliens and ancient foes.
We established the Scaline homeworld Posnarah as a base of operations so that teams of characters could teleport out or fly out in spaceships for missions and then regroup with whomever was available for the next RPG session. That way we didn’t have to worry as much about people coming and going from the adventures. The main threat that held this part of our saga together was that the ancient Dark Ones were angry about having their plans foiled so they were on a rampage, destroying worlds and causing problems.Players during Part 6 of our RPG saga included: BD, AJ, NH, BW, JFP, KG, SS, MW, MR, LH, BK, SO, and JS.
JerVerse Adventure 126: Home Sweet Posnarah
The active characters were recruited as members of Scaline Special Forces and provided with housing by the government of Posnarah. The characters setup homes on the Scaline Empire’s capitol planet Posnarah; Feli and Bren had twin children (a boy named Tristan and a girl named Sancha) while Al and Karcinerell had a son (named Kenshin). Charr and Rajanna were also living together. King Gemini and the High Priest were ruling the Empire, but Raven also had a claim to leadership from the past. Together, the leaders sent Scaline Special Forces on missions to protect the interests of the Scaline Empire.
JerVerse Adventure 127: The Negotiator
King Gemini didn’t want to war with Raven over leadership of the empire so he funded a massive warship for Raven called The Negotiator. When aliens threatened the Scalines all they had to do was send in The Negotiator and it deployed an entire space armada from its ship bays. Raven tested out his ship and its resources on some of the aliens that had been problems in the past. His ship and crew proved very successful at eliminating problems or forcing enemies to negotiate terms of surrender.
JerVerse Adventure 128: Introducing Lott
We worked together to help our friend MW create his character. MacLain Lott was a powerful psionicist from the world of Camaas, a world the Scaline Empire was interested in negotiating with for a treaty. When the team went to Camaas for the negotiations, they met Lott. Scaline Special Forces recruited Lott, who happily joined them on The Negotiator.
JerVerse Adventure 129: The Return of Doc Roc
When Draconias’ imprisonment dimension was threatened by the Dark Ones, Raven and Lott helped Doc Roc magically teleport Roc’s kingdom’s people to safety and hid them on a planet near Posnarah. The Scaline High Priest was able to put up special shielding so no one would be able to detect the isolationist people of Thistle. Raven and Doc Roc enjoyed one last adventure together as they fought some ancient beasts with Lott and other Scaline Special Forces members at their side. Meanwhile Draconias managed to make some sort of agreement with the Dark Ones so that they wouldn’t destroy his dimension.
JerVerse Adventure 130: Threats from the Dark Ones
The ancient beings known as The Dark Ones continued threatening and destroying worlds with their destructive powers. The team failed tried to save several worlds and realized they needed a new plan to combat the Dark Ones, who would announce to worlds that they only had a short time to evacuate before their planet would be eradicated by the Dark Ones.
JerVerse Adventure 131: Introducing Captain Sledge
MW’s friend MR also joined us. His character was quite similar to Han Solo or Capt. Reynolds from Firefly. Captain Sledge had his own ship that he used as a mercenary and smuggler in some of the less populated regions of space. When Scaline Special Forces found Sledge, they rescued him as his ship was destroyed by aliens. Sledge joined the team and decided to work with them to defeat their common alien enemies.
Our friend LH was the next person to create a character and join our game. For his backstory, I decided to link him to several of our other characters. Draconias sired several children (not just Al and Verali); one of the lost children of Draconias was a dragon named Turlock who ended up trapped in the body of a 12-year old. Turlock’s main superpower was called multiplicity and allowed him to create numerous copies of himself. Turlock’s recruitment mission for Scaline Special Forces allowed him a chance to test out his abilities fighting ancient beasts.
JerVerse Adventure 133: Team Negotiator v. the Keymons
Monkey-like men from the planet Keymon threatened the team onboard The Negotiator. Scaline Special Forces and the crew had to fight the aliens and convince them to surrender.
JerVerse Adventure 134: The Insane Psi
The ancient race known as the Psi were the original psionicists of the universe. Their mental abilities were so powerful that if one of their people went insane, that person could alter reality across an entire planet; due to interference by the Dark Ones, a Psi went insane on a world that had Feli, Nelor, Raven, and several of the others visiting. The insane Psi’s powers fed off the fears of the characters and caused their worst fears to come to life. This tragic event brought Zahadoom back to life as a result of the reality-altering powers. The team finally eliminated the threat by curing the ancient Psi’s insanity. Nelor used his sword to decapitate the resurrected Zahadoom, thus gaining the respect of the Scaline people.
JerVerse Adventure 135: Trapped in Space
Raven took a team on The Negotiator to explore a strange anomaly in space (due to a trick by the Dark Ones), but the ship was pulled in and trapped there - cut off from the rest of the universe. Femme, Turlock, Sledge, and Lott were part of the team onboard. Together, they faced several alien foes.
JerVerse Adventure 136: The Scaline Gods
Raven and his team were still missing. Back on Posnarah the High Priest alerted Feli, Nelor, and Darius that the ancient beings known as the Scaline gods (of Might, Honor, and Wisdom) had returned to wrestle control of the planet from the new aliens leading them [the player characters]; the High Priest suspected the Dark Ones had sent the ancient ones there because the Scaline gods had abandoned the world long ago.
Feli killed the ancient being calling himself the god of Honor, Nelor killed the one of Wisdom, and Darius killed the one of Might. The Scalines declared this trio their new triumvirate since they each consumed a yellow “god essence” from the beings they killed; the group had to figure out how they were going to share power with King Gemini and the High Priest.JerVerse Adventure 137: Meli & Draconias in Love
Feli had to deal with family drama when she found out her mother had fallen madly in love with the immortal Draconias (after he had fled from the destruction of his pocket dimension). Feli also found out about Cassandra and Bran’s son Charlie Fox, who had been to a temporally-altered dimension and grown up super fast.
JerVerse Adventure 138: The Great Spider One
Nelor took his son Ahrack to their homeworld when Ding (whose real name was Trevor Maxwell) revealed a quest to Nelor to recover an ancient artifact that was the necklace of “The Great Spider One.” By completing the mission, Nelor became the leader of his people and integrated them into the Scaline Empire.
JerVerse Adventure 139: More Negotiator Missions
The team on The Negotiator completed more missions while trapped in the galaxy within the space anomaly.
JerVerse Adventure 140: Escaping the Anomaly.
The Negotiator’s crew finally defeated the enemies within the anomaly that were preventing them from escaping. They returned to the Scaline Empire and had to deal with the political changes. Gemini, respecting Raven, abdicating the throne so that Raven could continue to exercise legitimate political power in the Empire as King Raven. Gemini decided to train under the High Priest.
The Dark Ones wanted a new agent that could annoy and distract their enemies in the Scaline Empire so they resurrected Zahadoom. The team of heroes came together and defeated their enemy once more, but they didn’t realize that The Dark Ones had given him the power of coming back to life each time he died; thus, when the group left his body dead in space, Zah kept coming back to life and went insane.
JerVerse Adventure 142: Introducing Starface
Charlie Fox had grown up and gone insane as well (due to his crazy parents Cassandra and Bran); Charlie took the form of a constellation that was antagonizing Al and called himself Starface (since he looked like a face made out of stars). Al sprayed out an insanity cure on that sector of space, rescuing Charlie. He agreed to adopt the young man since Cassandra and Bran were MIA.
JerVerse Adventure 143: Introducing Akira Maximus
What Al didn’t realize though was that the insane Zahadoom was also in the part of space where he cured Charlie. The insanity cure also worked on Zah, who transformed himself into Akira Maximus and donned a new costume with a mask. The Dark Ones insisted Maximus continue working for them, but he went on missions dealing with ancient beings that were a threat to his new masters.
JerVerse Adventure 144: Feli’s Family Trouble
Feli’s children and husband were always getting in trouble and in need of rescue of some kind. If not them, then her mother would be in danger. After getting her friends to help her rescue her family over and over again, Feli grew tired of the threats against them. She decided they all needed to stay at home on Posnarah. She also realized she was pregnant with another child.
JerVerse Adventure 145: Ficaria v. The Dark Ones
The Dark Ones threatened the homeworld of Al’s wife Karcinerell. Unfortunately, despite the team’s best efforts, they were unable to save the planet.
JerVerse Adventure 146: Camaas v. The Dark Ones
Lott asked the rest of Scaline Special Forces to help him when The Dark Ones threatened his homeworld Camaas. Finally, the team scored a victory over the Dark Ones when they stopped their ancient foes from destroying a world.
JerVerse Adventure 147: Maximus v. Arcanus
In helping the Dark Ones, Maximus (a.k.a. Zah) also tracked down more information about the ancient wizard Arcanus that he had feuded with back on O-H-M Earth. Arcanus claimed to be Zah’s true father and said that Zah was adopted by the parents he had back on his home planet. Unsure if Arcanus was messing with him to gain control over him, Zah decided not to ally with the ancient wizard; that meant Maximus missed out on learning how Arcanus was linked with the Dark Ones and what secret ritual that they were planning.
JerVerse Adventure 148: Children of Draconias
Draconias asked for help from his children Al, Verali, and Turlock when he found himself in danger. That meant Scaline Special Forces had to come in and save the day. Some of Turlock’s brothers were also involved in the adventure [though their names were meant as puns: Dread was Dreadlock and there was also a brother named Gladlock].
JerVerse Adventure 149: Turlock in Hell
In a quest to retrieve a powerful magic item, Turlock ventured into a Hell dimension. While inside, he located the previously-thought deceased Thomas the Leprechaun. Thomas had been trapped in the Hell Dimension ever since Raven killed him. Together, Turlock and Thomas escaped the Hell dimension with plenty of gold/treasure after they defeated a greed demon.
JerVerse Adventure 150: The Golden One
The members of Scaline Special Forces convinced Thomas not to seek vengeance against Raven, explaining that Raven was a changed man dedicated to justice in the universe. Instead, Thomas (being the greedy ancient leprechaun he was) got their help in a quest for more treasure. As a result of the success of the mission, Thomas became “The Golden One.”
JerVerse Adventure 151: Ancient Blade
Trevor Maxwell helped Linus go on a mission to retrieve the special ancient mystic sword that had been stolen from him. After Linus re-acquired the mystic sword, he found out that it could cut through the special armor of The Dark Ones; Linus successfully teamed up with ShadowAngel and fought multiple groups of Dark Ones.
JerVerse Adventure 152: Destroying the Dark Ones
The characters teamed up on a mission to retrieve a secret ancient artifact linked to powerful universal chaos energy that could be used to eliminate The Dark Ones. The heroes debated this issue, but ultimately decided to use the ancient energy to destroy the Dark Ones; some of them ended up feeling guilty about committing genocide against an entire species, but felt that the actions of the Dark Ones demanded their annihilation.
JerVerse Adventure 153: 3rd RPG Tournament: Part 1
The Arena invited the characters together to again test their skills against one another in a simulated combat tournament. The players who opted to play in the tournament competed in the preliminary elimination rounds. Darius and his sons, all of whom opted out of the tournament, were attacked by ancient beasts and killed. Raven showed up in time to slay the beasts and recover the “god essence” of Might and consume it (thus joining Feli and Nelor in the ruling Scaline Triumvirate).
JerVerse Adventure 154: 3rd RPG Tournament: Part 2
We finished up the quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals of the tournament hosted by the Arena. Feli won the competition this time. As a reward for being the Arena’s new champion, the Arena announced to Feli that he felt the universe no longer needed him, but he was giving her a special gift that included the ability to summon the Arena back into existence if a crisis demanded his attention.
Reflections
During this part of the RPG saga I played several former player characters as NPCs for various reasons - they had gone insane or been possessed or were mainly involved in downtime activities. I also struggled with the fact that several of our players were just showing up whenever they wanted and missing sessions without giving prior notice when I had planned out huge storyline possibilities that depended on them being their and getting their characters to react/make decisions.
I understood that life could get in the way with work, college, and family but I had to adapt to the changing priorities of some of the players. We also had a couple of people who showed up but seemed like they wanted to purposefully avoid the adventure hooks and/or cause problems for the group. My core group of players were still great and there most of the time, but my frustrations were growing.
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