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 96-115: Heroes Unlimited Part 5A: Alien Alliances
For most of the universe 28 years had gone by while the characters spent their 28 days in Draconias. That temporal difference allowed me to present a changed Earth Prime. While the player characters were gone, two different alien invasions had occurred and Earth Prime was conquered by the Evaew Alliance (which included the Hexagonals and several other alien races).
The Rifts Phase World book helped inspire some of the aliens and ships that we created. We also used the Cosmo-Knights from that book as a model for the Cosmic Knights we created for our multiverse. Players for part 5 of our RPG saga included: JS, AJ, SS, NH, BD, BW, RW, AC, JFP, TK, BK, and KG.
One of the funniest situations in our gaming years, for me at least, happened with the creation of the new character for JS. The new character was Androvine and we had planned for his character to be one of the Wobleese aliens (purple-skinned giants) that were occupying Earth; the character was supposed to be a human sympathizer. Our plan was for JS to have his character betray his people and help the human insurrection. Instead, when JS was playing Androvine and had a chance to torture the human prisoners for information he found he actually enjoyed making them suffer.
JerVerse Adventure 97: Welcome to Earth 2028
When the team left Draconia and ended up back on Earth, they were not happy about the temporal difference and the alien invasion. Feli, Jinnai, Jarxen, Thomas, Linus, and Raven had to adapt to the new situation. They found themselves battling the alien oppressors and on the run, just trying to survive and hide on Earth.
JerVerse Adventure 98: Introducing Felix Amos
The team found an ally in RW’s new character, Felix Amos from the planet Cassia; Felix and his brother were human-like alien members of the Intergalactic Peace Corps (IPC) that were trying to help the humans organize their rebellion. In joining the team, Felix helped them take out an alien base on Earth - but only after Androvine helped him escape from the Evaew.
JerVerse Adventure 99: The Rebellion v. Sleep-Tech
Unfortunately, the Evaew Alliance had developed weapons that used Sleep-Tech (which was a GM invention I came up to help me railroad the story via alien stun guns; these weapons allowed the aliens to overcome the team’s super powers and capture them). Taken in by the enemy, the team had to escape imprisonment. Unfortunately, by the time they escaped from their holding cells and were ready to make their way back to the rebellion, they realized they were on an alien ship orbiting Earth.
JerVerse Adventure 100: Fleeing Earth Prime
Making the classic mistake of splitting the party, the team ended up in different locations. Al had also been an alien prisoner aboard the ship. The alien ship they were on was taking them away from Earth and the group ended up leaving in different ways. They had to accept that, for now, they didn’t have the resources to save Earth.
Al had gone up to the command bridge and had success taking out enemies there, but he ended up being seduced by a “sexy elf lady” named Karcinerell (who was from the planet Ficaria). The team managed to set the ship to self destruct and evacuate on different fighters/ships/escape pods.
JerVerse Adventure 101: Murdering Thomas
When Thomas, Androvine, and Raven ended up crashed on an alien world and stuck with each other they had to overcome many environmental factors and alien monsters. Raven couldn’t stand the annoying habits of Thomas and, in rage and frustration, killed the leprechaun! At that point we paused the game and I was like, “BW, what are you doing? Why did you kill another player character?” His response was just, “He really annoyed me.”
I said we couldn’t have players killing the characters of other players. As retribution for BW having his character kill JFP’s character, I introduced NPC Cosmic Knights that came after Raven; they were Knights of Universal Balance. Raven fought them, unsuccessfully, and they killed in to avenge the death of the leprechaun. After that series of unfortunate events, both BW and JFP needed new characters.
JerVerse Adventure 102: Introducing Nelor
JFP’s new character was an alien Aracnian (spiderfolk). Nelor was a proud warrior from the world of Aracnia who joined with Feli’s team to help fight off members of the Evaew that were trying to take over Nelor’s world. Nelor realized, to help his people, he needed to travel out into space with the team.
JerVerse Adventure 103: Introducing Celeron
BW created a really interesting new character named Celeron; he was considered a god being from the planet Ravel, but had lost most of his powers when his planet was destroyed by the Evaew. Celeron’s spirit was connected to a mystic staff that could reform a humanoid avatar for him. The team retrieved Celeron’s staff from space, watched him reform, and got to know him; they helped Celeron get vengeance against some Evaew ships.
JerVerse Adventure 104: Introducing Darius Jobe
Feli, Jarxen, Felix, Nelor, Celeron, and the NPCs met up with humans that were fighting against aliens on a bug planet. Our friend KG (whom we had been playing D&D with) modeled Darius Jobe after the soldiers from Starship Troopers, thus I was happy to give him an army of evil bug aliens to fight. Darius joined the team.
Eventually the team took out the bug hive mother and put an end to the invading bug armies. At the end of their mission, the team members found themselves teleported onto a hostile alien ship...
JerVerse Adventure 105: The Navicular
The team members were trapped in a simulated reality when they were teleported onto an alien ship; a simulation of a Rakshasa alien called The Game Master had used ancient powers combined with technology to create Holographic-Intelligence (HI) cylinders [these functioned similar to the holodeck on Star Trek, but with more enhancements - such as reading the minds of the people inside]. The team had to break out of the HI simulation by killing themselves [BTW, many years later the movie Inception somehow totally stole this idea from me] and kill the alien running the program (who wasn’t The Game Master).
They found themselves on a yacht-style pleasure cruiser ship called The Navicular. Little did they know, there was still someone else onboard...
JerVerse Adventure 106: The Mee Assassin
In a horror-suspense session, the characters explored their newly acquired ship The Navicular while a cloaked alien Mee assassin killed them off one at a time (starting with the NPCs, of course). After a while the group realized that splitting into teams of 2 and searching the ship was just getting them all killed. They formed one large group, trapped the assassin, and killed him.
JerVerse Adventure 107: Bravo Squad
A mercenary team called Bravo Squad arrived in a small ship; they tried to take over the Navicular and capture the group, but they failed; Feli, Nelor, Darius, and the others successfully defended their new ship. After the rest of his team was killed, the group leader Bravo agreed to work for the player characters.
JerVerse Adventure 108: HI Zaha-Battles
Having figured out how to use the Navicular to teleport to different dimensions, the team took the ship to their former enemies/allies in the Scaline Empire. Feli came up with the plan of sharing the HI cylinder technology with the Scaline warriors to help them vent their warrior aggression. Using the HI’s mind-reading abilities, the Scalines created an HI version of Zahadoom for warriors to fight in HI combat.
Darius earned the new title “Zaha” from the Scalines after killing the HI Zah in honorable combat. Gemini found himself in an odd situation when he accidentally killed the Scaline’s new king. The Scalines declared Gemini their new king, but he realized the Scaline Empire currently lacked the resources to fight off the Evaew alliance. He used his knowledge to start manufacturing Robo-Scalines to prepare for a future assault.
JerVerse Adventure 109: Introducing Xoq poX
BK wanted to join our game so I helped him create a mysterious alien from “parts unknown” named Xoq poX; Xoq was a humanoid who could survive in space and, in fact, had been floating around in space for a long time. Xoq had the ability to mimic other people’s powers and gave off an appearance as a “reflection” of whoever was looking at him. The team on The Navicular rescued Xoq from space and he helped them to battle a group of Mee invaders.
JerVerse Adventure 110: Trouble on Buggaria
The team responded to a distress call from the peaceful little bug people of Buggaria. Several of the guys volunteered when the people of Buggaria said they needed more offspring; “Bug-Man” explained that there was a mystic cave that could temporarily turn anyone who went inside into a bug-person. Thus children were born from Nelor (his son Ahrack), Zaha-Darius (twin sons Zahaha & Zahahdee), Jarxen (sons Parxen & Vinny and daughter Sarxen), and Xoq pox (sons Sock and Pock). Note: the player characters did not name their children; the bug ladies gave them names.
JerVerse Adventure 111: Introducing Nova Kaine
Another new player, TK, joined us. He really wanted to play D&D, not Heroes Unlimited so we converted D&D wizard spells to work with the Rifts rules. That allowed TK to play the elf wizard Nova Kaine, a noble from the isolationist planet Eurtharia. The elves of that planet used special powers to make their world invisible.
Nova’s mother, the ruling queen of Eurtharia, was very upset when the team accidentally found their planet. She saw the group as a threat and wanted to destroy The Navicular (killing off the crew along with the ship), but Xoq and the others managed to befriend Nova. He used his influence to convince the rest of the elves not to kill the team.
JerVerse Adventure 112: Trouble on Eurtharia
The royal family on Eurtharia was glad they hadn’t killed off the team of heroes because the team helped deal with a civil war that erupted on the planet. Nova, Xoq, Feli, and the others saved Nova’s aunt and helped negotiate peace for the people of Eurtharia. Nova disappointed his family when he told them he wanted to go off into the universe adventuring with the team from The Navicular.
JerVerse Adventure 113: Breaking the Ancient Barrier
Long ago the Knights of Universal Balance and their allies had worked to imprison the ancient beings behind a barrier in space so that the “lesser beings” would have a chance to evolve in the universe. Their plan had worked and that was why so few ancient beings had been roaming about the universe (just the ones that escaped being captured or killed off).
Cassandra and Bran rejoined their friends when they found The Navicular. Bran Fox tricked the characters into destroying the ancient barrier; thus the team released more powerful beings/threats into the universe. Unfortunately, Celeron was killed/destroyed/lost when the team fled from the ancient enemies coming out from behind the ancient barrier.
JerVerse Adventure 114: Introducing Sir Cromwell
Raven was resurrected as a Cosmic Knight, sworn to fight for good in the universe. And he couldn’t have come back at a better time because the team was under attack by powerful ancient beasts. Raven and some of his fellow Knights of Universal Balance teleported in and helped The Navicular crew survive. In doing so, Raven reconnected with the team and decided to stick with them for awhile.
JerVerse Adventure 115: The Ruler of the Universe
The secret reason Bran wanted the Ancient Barrier destroyed had been because he had researched the lore about the ancient being known as “He” or “Him” (who was basically considered the god of the universal; a.k.a. Ao from the D&D Forgotten Realms lore). Supposedly this god being ruled the universe from a place called the Universal Throne Room by sitting on the Universal Throne. Bran thought that if he could get to the throne and sit on it, he could ascend to become the Ruler of the Universe.
The team fought Bran Fox, but failed to stop him from getting to the Universal Throne Room; Bran became the Ruler of the Universe. Cassandra begged him to step down because the ultimate power was driving him crazy; the Connected Meerkat (CM) took over the throne when Bran told them all he would step down. CM created some universe-altering changes and, for his good friend Feli, he even brought Bren back to life. And yet, as CM got to know his powers even better, he realized there were some limitations to his abilities.
Reflections
As a storyteller, I used the Universal Throne storyline to justify changing up some of our house rules for how we played the game. In my mind, the game was at a high point. My friends seemed to all be getting along and enjoying their new adventures. The alien alliances and ancient beings allowed me to continue to come up with creative surprises; new worlds, powers, and technology provided fun variety in the game.
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