Greed Gets The Better of 'Em Everytime! - HOSTILE Situation Report 001 - Ghost Ship Play Session Report

 The Hostile Technical Manual is another book that gives a very deep dive into the retro technologies of the Hostile rpg universe. That is something that I embrace by drawing PC's from previous time periods of our Stars Without Numbers rpg  campaigns. We've done this by putting the new player's PC's into less then ideal adventures this is true of the 'monster' of Hostile Situation report#1 Ghostship. 
The PC's are on a mission for the Appex megacorporation & they receive an emergency transmission from a starship in a nearby starsystem. They drop a hyperspace buoy after the Eldridge doesn't respond to transmissions from the USS Leroy & get on with their own mission. 

A chance to do a bit of salvage to bait the hook and the PC's are after the Eldridge! They burn into the system & scan the Eldridge with sensors all of the while transmitting to the Eldridge. The Leroy's crew right's the ship outta of the gas giant's atmosphere. 
 There are no crew survivors on board but there are other crew in hypersleep. The first thing the Leroy's crew does is attach umblical cords to the Eldridge via a space walk  & accesses the ship's computer. They find out about the conditions aboard the Eldridge but don't want to go aboard ship. They begin cleaning out the Eldridge's compartments  venting some of the compartments into space without losing the crew's corpses. The Leroy's crew downloads the temetry data from the Eldridge to find out where they've been. 
They send in a robot to get samples of the contents of the medical lab, the computer hub, etc. then the robot goes into decom. Yes, these players have seen Alien and dont't trust me at all as DM! The Leroy then escorts the Eldridge back to the Appex facilities they just came from. The Leroy's crew is able to get bonuses for the discovery of a new alien life form just as the bio weapon's divsion of Appex comes to claim the ship as salvage. The crew in cryosleep are marked as D.O.A. by Appex's corporate division with appropriate compensation gladly paid to the rival corporation for the loss of the starship. Needless to say the PC's are unimpessed as Appex is up to its old tricks. 

Chaos Mutants Vs Supernaturals - Night Shift Veterans of The Supernatural Campaign Play Session Report

 Deep in the heart of Mexico near the outskirts of Chapultepec Castle (Spanish: Castillo de Chapultepec) our party of supernaturals were locked in dire combat with chaos cultists. We were in a desparate bit to make it into the hotel and zip along the heart of the supernatural rail road's teleport gate back to the North Eastern United States.

Arturo Chavez - Own work

We were working our way out of Mexico to escape the wraith of an Ican lich Hellbent on taking out our party. The party was smuggling a vampire royal back to the vampire's of New York & this undead minions were out to stop us at all costs. Once again over the weekend I was joining DM  Steve's Nightshift  Veterans of the Supernatural game campaign already in action. 

Once again I had been called in last minute to replace one of his players & his 'Against The Merovingians' campaign has been something to behold. Basically this is an 'urban fantasy post apocalyptic' campaign where the Meroviginians are not what the legends talked about. Instead they are an army of dark forces that has been quietly reaching across worlds to unleash the hordes of chaos upon another Earth. 

The supernaturals rose up and began to try & take back the night. Humanity is on the extinction block & the supernatural races realize their next. 
So its been a steady stream of doing underground raids, terrorist actions, and all out war. The supernaturals are looking for any advantage against the Meroviginian's dark forces of Chaos. 
I'm playing Peter Chavocisy a werespider from Russia whose family was lost in the first wave of the war. 

So far the Merovigians have within their possession 'The black Grail' & several supernatural artifacts that could bring about the 'Apocalpyse'. 'The Doomsday Clock' organization a human organization fell allowing   the Merovigian's agents to get ahold of the artifacts. 

Meanwhile, we were tasked with grabbing one of the daughter's of the vampire king's as one of the Merovigian's agents an Incan  lich from another world (Greyhawk) was closing in. We cut & gutted our way into the fortress of the princess's in Mexico & then smuggled here across the city. But it was a bloody mess with chaos mutants & undead blocking our way at every turn. So to say this wasn't easy is an understatement. We're low on ammo, we've got zombies on our on ass, & a very nasty vampire royal with us. Can we make it to the teleport gates beneath Chapultepec Castle ?! 

Encounter With The Unknown - Play Session Recap #4 - ACK's Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu & Colonial Troopers Knight Hawks rpg

 The players in last night's game are beginning to suspect the extent of Rogar and Zeglin the two mercenary warlords plans for the planet as they came into one of the castles from   B2 'In Search of the Unknown' by Mike Carr. This is going to pick directly from this blog entry & session report here.   Our crossover campaign 'After the Fall of Man'  is in full swing. This is a part of our on going ' The Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu'  & Colonial Troopers campaign.

The Caverns of Quasqueton hold some rather dangerous magictechnologies & are filled with weird radiations. They've also detected on the far side of the planet some sort of unknown 'sky chariot that the locals referred to. 

Several of Rogar's 'eternal guardians' were activated which turned out to be security droids and the PC's were able to save two of them. Their psychic has been going crazy because of the fact that's detected that Rogar and Zeglin are still on the planet but only very faintly! The party is still itching to get to  Jeff “Bighara” Sparks 'pay what you' want adventure 'The Hidden Serpent'. This location is another of the fortresses that  Rogar and Zeglin the two mercenary warlords own. 

For the moment the party has parleyed with the local wizard guild & magic academy for far more details on the magic academy coming straight out of Skirmisher Publishing's 100 Oddities for an Arcane Academy. 

St. Albertus is an arcane academy level 4 that has been helping the local exo planet that has suffered harshly under the onslaught that was leveled at them ages ago. Sorcerers from the academy have been acting as agents healing, helping, and moving the plans of the academy along on the exo planet. Meanwhile the planet has reverted to a Thundarr The Barbarian like existence. Then there is the nanite mutations planetside. 

The player's PC's did help the school by dealing with a rather nasty slime that threatened one of the side halls of the academy. What the players don't know is that it came from the Wizarding Ways [BUNDLE] from Skirimisher that I grabbed on cyberMonday. 

The slime came as a sample from one of the academy's sorcerer agents planetside on the exoworld. The PC's have only found out in this weekend's game. What other secrets is the academy hiding?! 

Dust Up In The Cloud Giants Market - - ACK's Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu & Colonial Troopers Knight Hawks rpg - Session report Two

 There's something about the Terran Empire in Adventurer.Conqueror, King's  Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu™ (BCK). The more I read the less I like them, why?! Because the Terran Empire are lying interlopers  from another plane of existence & they're fleeing something nasty. But the Terrans are there to explore, exploit, & connive the Hell out of the players PC's.  The Terran Fleet is something that the player's PC's have run into twice while exploring & the Terrans are quickly becoming dangerous antagonist NPC's. 

The PC's were at the 'Cloud Giants market'  an alien Type II market place on a nearby planetoid that is hosted by 'The Cloud Giants'. An ancient humanoid race that hold domination over this sector of space. The cloud giants used to have dominion over a vast stretch of interstellar but that was eons ago. Now the cloud giants merely control a sector of space. They host an alien market place and have for decades now. And the PC's were in the middle of it picking up power couplers for their ship. 

And they ran into the Terran Empire's envoy & her entourage who were there to secure power crystals, sundries, and you guessed it power couplers. 

The Terran envoy's bodyguards were sporting scout armor & were scattered throughout the crowd. The PC's picked up clues about the ongoing 'bug' infestation 4 sectors away. But they decided to let the power couplers go after seeing the scout armor! The party secured several sources for space ship parts and managed to divide an assassination plot against one of the market place Cloud Giant officials!

 They stopped the sniper team  in time as one of our party's gecko men trackers made short work of said team. The snipers proved to be Gnolls from 'The Chaos Collective' a group of radical chaos worshipers who thinks that chaos should be allowed to roam free in all forms. The Cloud Giant's market offends them. They use a radical form of Chaositech to make themselves into living expressions of chaos & destruction. 

The Cloud Giant official was so grateful that he gave the PC's a map to a nearby space wreck that has an incredibly powerful weapon hidden within. That's coming up next week! 

Pyramid Scheme One Shot Session Report - Halloween Hostile rpg One Shot

 DM Steve's Hostile rpg session tonight went very well except my Ranger PC died rather badly tonight sliding into a vat of acid. We started out out of Pleaties station a rather disputable looking space station orbiting a colony world. Our team consisted of 2 Bert & Ernie Rangers, a Spacer named Roger, a rather attractive rogue named Harley, & two roughnecks named Genie & Doralie. We were contracted to a ship the SS Xi Nang. If we want to revisit the starship at a later time then we've got the option.  For tonight's game we used the  free 1970s 2D6 RETRO RULES for our Cepheus Engine fix for our game. 

 Our party were called in to do a mining survey & stumbled across one of those ubiquitous alien pyramids that have cropped up from time to time in DM Steve's games on an alien planet. We didn't know what were were in for. But the SS Xi Nang dropped us down into the mix with a shuttle trip. The planet was a sorta of low grav Hell scape that looked like it might have been the ass end of Hades. The defining point on the planet was pyramid itself.  My ranger trail blazed in with radio beacons & took soil samples. The planet is rich in rare Earth elements & I went about my business till it came time to check out the pyramid. My ranger Charlie & our rogue Harley went to the pyramid which was huge open air affair. And the second my PC got to the center of the pyramid causeway a huge trap door dropped out from under my PC. A beam  with reverse gravity  dragging him down into the depths right into a vat of acid! 

Concept art was created by Moebius and was scanned from Fantastic Films (Blake Publishing Corp./1979) & used without permission

Harley managed to dodge out of the way just in time! The pyramid was actually a huge power station. This was only the beginning as xenomorphs poured out from the inner workings of the pyramid's lower depths. The other PC's were trying to figure anyway of relaying a message back to  the SS Xi Nang in time. The pyramid was/is quite valuable. Two more PC's died delaying the xenomorphs from reaching the rest of the party who managed to get back to the shuttle & take off! That's right the players turned tale & ran! 

This isn't the first time that we've actually simply turned tale. Everything in the  Hostile rpg is filled to the brim with things, events, etc.  trying to kill you & turning tail  is a viable rpg scheme. And while its not going to nail bonuses for our group the alien pyramid has lots of potential & it will come to bite us in the ass further in the future. Is there anything that could have done to survive?! Survival isn't always the point in a Halloween themed game. Instead it was about having a good time! So mission accomplished on that end! 

The Terran Gambit - ACK's Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu & Colonial Troopers Knight Hawks rpg - Session report

 All is not as it seems with ACK's Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu! I'm speaking of the Terran Empire here who are not at all what they seem to be. Fleets of the Terran empire have ended up around the space of Kanahu & their trapped  there. The party in tonight's game ended up learning that the Terran empire isn't a Human Space Empire remanent. They are from an entirely different space time continuum. Tonight's play session picks up from today's campaign update here. 

During tonight's game the PC's came face to face with a Terran empire psionic & their party aboard a Terran starship. The PC's wanted to bargain with the Terrans for their help against the bug invasion. But things proved awkward as the Terrans  wanted to bargain for their knowledge & the PC's had little to offer. My copy of  Colonial Troopers Knight Hawks by Thomas Denmark  was in full use tonight. 

The Terrans were willing to give the PC's knowledge about the bugs in return for harvesting some power crystals from an alien wreck. All the players had to do was turn over 5 artifacts of the Terran's choice from anything the party finds. 

 

Mankind has fallen, the planar gates have almost entirely collapsed & several of the must influential humanity based planetary systems have disappeared down the hyperspecial gateways never to be seen again. And there are wrecks out among the stars that hold valuable cargo & the Terrans know it. And their not willing to risk their necks in such circumstances. Not when they have adventurers to do it for them! 
The Dwarven  representative who was visiting the Terrans to secure mineral rights for his people's upcoming season. He  didn't take kindly to the Terrans taking advantage of the party. Horm Blood Ax joined the party & fact checked them about the Terrans. 

Expedition To The Deep Session Report #3 - The Free Gamma World Adventure GW5 'Rapture From the Deep' & X6 Quagmire by Merle M. Rasmussen With The Castles & Crusades Rpg Aligned With The Star Ship Warden Rpg book

 

Billie Smith our Elven ranger has been scouting ahead with his partner & scout running across the remains of several strange spiral buildings partially submerged underwater. And they ran across one of the mecha killers of this game. Several gigantic toads of double & triple hit points able to take out monsters many times their size. They also noticed that their skin had mirror like quality to them. 

Now Billie & Co actually retreated out of the area of the dungeon & ruins! Originally this whole encounter was going to be for nine players with mechs  & power armor. Well the party has split oup with half light years away on Cha'alt. The rest of the party ran smack into a party of Deep Ones & they hid at this point. They wanted to see what they were doing?! 

Deep Ones - by Yuki Sato artwork used without permission.  The party waited in the reeds hidden as party of shark mutates surfaced near the Deep Ones. The two monsters exchanged something that the adventurers couldn't see & made strange signs to each other. The party of adventurers waited till the Deep Ones left and noted the underwater trail that the Deep Ones & the mutates made through the undergrowth of the swamp. The PC's have struck out on their own into the swamps of Florida to gather intelligence on the cryptic alliance that is featuring in the free Gamma World adventure 'Rapture of the Deep'  right over here at Wayne's Books. 

Deep in the swamps of Florida wilderness the party stumbled into a village of mutants & the missing princess living quite comfortable?! What the Hell!?! And that's when things got very interesting?! What about the other party of adventurers on Cha'alt?! Tune in tomorrow for more action this time on the desert world! The underwater  empires of  Bruce Nesmith's X7 The War Rafts of Kron perfectly. But don't forget about the fact that a crytic alliance is behind the scenes stirring the pot here.

Immortality Inc., Eldritch Wizardry, & Godbound rpg 'Its The End of Earth As You Don't Know It' Play Session Report 10

 

D&D Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry (1976), by Gary Gygax & Brian Blume, is the third of four supplements for the OD&D game. It was published in May 1976. This book represents one of the backbones of my Godbound campaign that's been on going on & off now for three or so years. The appearance of an immortal of Entropy & Chaos has signaled the possible death kneel of an Earth across space & time. 

The Hulder Corporation is offering 'immortality' to the one percent of their Earth, a chance that to live forever as a creature of the Silvan world! 'We offer you all of eternity from the hidden parts of your soul! Bring out the inner you today!'
Well yes & mostly no! The person's essence is transferred into a brand new trans elemental style body and they do become a proto Silvan creature aka an Elf or Fey. But this divinity technology is from a source of anything but divine. Welcome to the Friday night Godbound rpg session. Strap in! 

This technology is brought to our little Godbound game via a D&D BECMI immortal named Negans. An immortal of entropy & chaos whose taken it upon itself to spread this technology across the planet. And its causing all kinds of havoc. 
The old gods are not happy about this turn of events. And so they've changed the PC's with stopping this. This all goes back to September of 2019. And the appearance upon this Earth of The Mighty Servant of Leuk-o.

Ängsälvor (Swedish "Meadow Elves") by Nils Blommér (1850)

Already the pilot of ' The Mighty Servant of Leuk-o' has raised an army of undead from the corpses of those who have turned to black magick to awaken the old gods. These cultists want their bid for immortality. But in point of fact that have unleashed the forces of Hell. The night roads have vomited up other horrors from their depths at this Earth. Godbound left & right are coming into their own! The question is why?! And what does this have to do with the appearance of Tegal Manor in New York City's Central Park?

South of the Mega City - B1 In Search of the Unknown Christmas Post Apocpalytic Mash Up Session II - Rise of the Tcho-Tchoids

The last of the skeletons were dispatched by the PC's & things were heating up fast in B1 folks. The skeletons were pretty mouthy to the player's PC's & they taunted the party even as they were getting mashed. A lot of Zombierama rules from

The OSR Library here in other words those weren't ordinary skeletons. 

 

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So being bound & determined to spend Christmas with my family didn't go as planned!?! Today I got dragged unto the gaming table again!?!  Never let it be said that the players ever let us dungeon masters rest on our laurels. We picked right up from last session with the player's PC's coming face to face with another old foe. 
After dealing with the orcs & several minor goblin snipers the player's party made it into a hallway where several strange bio mechanical alien mercenaries were having slave dealings with B1's humanoids. The aliens were buying a local young lass that had been captured for nefarious purposes.
 The PC's hung back & went to identify the aliens & came straight up with a successful roll of Heretick werks blog's  Tcho-Tchoids. I believe there was a 'Oh Hell no!' from one of the players & the PC's flanked the aliens & the pig faced orcs! 
There was a Frazetta artwork  moment when one of the thieves rolled a 'one' on their check!

 There is a long standing hatred of  the Tcho-Tchoids & the players as Papa has employed them as mercs since their first encounter in 2012. The alien mercs unleashed Hell on the party with grenades, and several fire ball spells. The PC's yanked the slave away from the orcs who went down under knives, bullets, & two natural 'twenties'. The Tcho-Tchoids disappeared in a whisper of psychic powers & retreated to the shadows. The party of six is bidding its time after a morale check once two of their number went down.. 
Turns out the girl is actually a 2nd level fighter and replacement for one of the player's PC's who died last game. The rest of the player's PC's equiped her fast with crow armor salvaged from the orcs, several knives, a short sword, and a goblin bow with arrows. Countess Tara wasn't in any position to be picky folks. She also managed to kill off a goblin warrior about to pick off the party's thief. 
Now its deeper & deeper into B1's inner works & the players absolutely think they know where this is heading. Not realizing that the DM is using  the B1 Insearch of the Unknown Sourcebook available here from the Zenopus archives site.  Papa will have his due folks its gonna get worse from here. Much worse... 

South of the Mega City - B1 In Search of the Unknown Christmas Post Apocpalytic Mash Up ( !?) Session Report

 Over the Christmas holiday we got a chance to get together & the players wanted something fast & dirty to play. Now since over the Christmas holiday we've been messing around with some Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg supplements. But the players wanted something meaty & solid to sink their teeth into but short. Now there was a dog eared copy of an old campaign not  with me & we were all pretty much into the Christmas spirit. So this session was run like a Con game from the ground up. The party is called into the small Mexican town of Mesa Verda by  Father Pluatos after the appearance of a strange castle & lands one Winter morning. He had originally called in a Judge inquistor & co to investigate.  He hasn't heard from them in two weeks. Yes that's right last night I ran B1 In Search of the Unknown modified into a gonzo post apocalytic adventure. I used Swords & Wizardry to run this little debacle because it was the only thing on my hard drive at the time.  There was also the fact that we had access to the B1 Insearch of the Unknown Sourcebook available here from the Zenopus archives site 

What the players didn't know was this was the return of one of the party's most hated villains Papa Marvin Slayer. Papa is a necromancer of a really nasty disposition whose got a hulking  double hit poiny juju zombie half orge body guard named Riley. Riley has killed off four PC's in the past and he fancies himself a full on metal head/biker. Papa raised the Caverns of Quasqueton & then punched into a post apocalytic reality. Now the players wanted a mix of D&D & post apocalytic types. And then it was Mad Max style combat. Thankfully there's a few resources that I happen to know out on the internet. My buddy Dave Miller did OSR Vehicle Rules. And also  Mega-City One Vehicles (OSR) And no none of the player's PC's were going to end up with a Lawgiver!  So the party came face to face with Pig Faced orcs armed with machine guns & cars! 

Otherworld Miniatures Orks frpm here. 

The party had to think, move, & sneak by them to get into the works and then rolled a couple of grenades out into pizza. And the explosions finished most of the pork. The party ran into the corpses of the psi judges & the inquistor along with his adventurer back ups. The corpses were being fed on by trogoldytes. This time it was a bit of hand to hand with these scavengers. 

The party spent way too much time with the corpses & then it was wandering monster time. A small group of six skeletons in full armor made the party really hit bricks because they were intelligent, & fought more like Deadites then normal skeletons! 

And this fight took up a great deal of the evening! And so we have to continue this another night.
Where will things go from here?! Who knows stay tuned! 

Resources from the Osr Library

OSR Vehicle Rules (My take on them)

Mega-City One Vehicles (OSR)

The Doom That Came to Mega-City One (OSR Dredd/Cthulhu Mashup)

Gods, Orcus, & Metal - Heavy Metal Ambush Session Report

 Things have really been moving in the  Godbound /Cha'alt game  out in the middle of the California desert.  Several of the cults of elemental evil, yes that Elemental Evil have cropped up. And they've been put down as soon as the PC's learned of their true nature. 

The party is now bound & determined to get a hold of the Rod of Orcus that's been moving from one owner to another in the Nevada desert. The artifact has been animating hordes of undead & zombies into a massive army. This thing has been like magnet of negative planar energy! 

The rod itself was guarded by a champion of Orcus within an otherworldly temple that had appeared on one of the night roads. 
About ninety percent of the party is convinced that the rod was the real deal. They've already dealt with & have almost had the floor whipped out from under them by the  champion of orcus himself! It took the combined might of seven player's PC to put him down! 

The party of foo erm adventurers is going back to the Incel cantina on Cha'alt to bargain for more high technology or occult weaponry. Because of the Cha'alt wave no real world technologies work any more. They were intercepted by the undead  heavy metal band 'Dripping Force' lead by a skeletal demonic necromancer of Orcus himself! A godbound named Hans Bonehands was the lead, he packed the word of death, several spells backed up, & he eventually called in two undead horrors from  Neoplastic Press's Teratic Tome. Because the undead & horrors in that book are really the 'big guns'! 


The band's skeltal manager demon took down the party's paladin/godbound with a craft dagger between the shoulder blades! The lead gutarist came through with a sonic guitar solo that shattered two of the party's ear drums after two failed saving throws. Don't worry they were healed later on. 

It took a combined push from all of the players to destroy these bastard rockers! And yes this was a full on push to get the rod back by the band! Then the party went on a rampage destroying the band's van, undead ghoul fan groupies, and any trace that they existed! 

Then the player's PC's  went back to make sure that there wasn't a single spec of the undead around there! The party checked for about five miles in every direction of the California desert. So all together I'd say that it had been a successful run of the Metallic Tome! 

Iron Clads & Para Elemental Mages - The War 1870 Tegel Manor Session Report #5

Friday night's Victorious rpg/Castles & Crusades hybrid  game session went into the wee hours & lots got done in Tegel Manor environs. The player's seem almost a bit scared to take on the manor's mysteries. So it a case of dealing with the surrounding villages & whatnot around the manor. Their also dealing with the Germans who gated in six new ships near the manor.


The real action started when the party started to investigate some of the islands at the edge of the manor & the plane of water. They ran into a para elemental magus of some stature who temporarily created a cause way & island. Waiting for them were alien Lava Children whom I had waiting just in case the players wanted to cause trouble. No such luck though.



Russ Nicholson Lava Child Fiend Folio AD&D first edition. 

The party was there to get a wand of fire balls recharged by the paraelemental mage (who may or may not be a god). The German ships not too far off now but seem to be keeping their distance at the moment. Meanwhile a blerg of lava mephits had taken a notice of the party they were a by product of the elemental forces employed by the magus. And they started to mess with the heroes!


AD&D Fiend Folio Lava Mephit artwork AD&D first edition.

The party had a Hell of a time with the lava mephits while one of the players spoke with the magus. It was a sort of two way rope a dope with the player's having to chew gum & walk at the same time! The party spent a good portion of the evening trying to keep  the lava mephits from destroying them. Fun times! The party was after the gems & diamonds created by the elemental forces of the magus! 
The night went very well but there was the fact of the mysterious victim that the party had appear at the temple of Thor earlier in the evening. A strange wound unlike anything a vampire would make & the victim apparently had a parasite of some type under his skin. The party's bard/healer did what he could before the head priest(cleric) of Thor appear to take care of the man but is it already too late!? All of the monsters in Friday's game were from Castles & Crusades Classic Monsters book.

All in all everyone had a ton of fun & I played the paraelemental NPC magus as very friendly but very weird & alien. Someone whose been on the elemental & para elemental planes for way too long. I took a lot of his knowledge for this character from the wizards from the Lion & Dragon game.


So yes he's willing to help the PC's but there's a lot more going on here then meets the eye. Some of this material for this PC I'm going to be spinning from RPGPundit Presents: The Old School Companion 1 From  Spectre Press. But its finding the time to get all of this done & written up