Octogorilla At The Ancient Fort - Bloody Arduin mixed with classic Castles & Crusades - Session Report

 And we're back after I came down with a 24 hour illness! The cobwebs are cleared & I got a chance to run a bit of Castles & Crusades mixed with Bloody Arduin. So I took over a C&C game from DM Charles and the players were exploring an 'abandoned' fort on the edge of a frontier era. Think late Roman Empire mixed with Castles & Crusades. It's just a little past sunset & the party is getting ready to clear out the first level of this fort! 
The party awaits outside the fort to see what predators are awakening. Suddenly there is a shrill cry & the party see the shape of an octogorilla shimmy down the outside of one of the fort's towers! 

The party has zero desire to mess with this apex predator! The sound of it's heavy breathing and shrill cry echos across the field and then it speeds off into the under growth and there is the sound of a scream from a nearby elk! The fiend has brought down a buck! And it powerful tentacles wrap around it's kill and head off into it's alternative lair! 
The party skulks off into the darkness toward the ruined tower on the left & have on good information that fantastic treasure was left behind because the forces of Chaos bore down on the fort too quick. They overran the place and moved on. Thus leaving behind the guadians of Order's banner, spear of destiny, and most of all the treasury. They had this on good authority after paying a veteran soldier of the fortress for that info and a map. 
The party made it's way to the ruined tower and the gapping hole that was the side wall. They planted spikes, ropes, and immediately lowered themselves into the gloom. The smell was unbearable as the scattered bones and remains of dozens and dozens of humanoids were visible all around them. There toward the back were the chests, banner, and spear glowing in the gloom. As they made thier way too them. Two blackish rays and beams hit the party square sending the fighters balling across the carnage. 
The thing that rose in the gloom looks decayed and horrid a moster covered in eyes from a nightmare! There are few words to describe the thing but it rises from under the bones a vision of terror made real! 
The party has the advantage and needs to press it! The Eldritch Eye takes stock of it's latest victims and begins to dish out punshment. The eye rays crack the air in three places as the party's magus attacks with a fire ball! The illusionist uses a rapidly revolving light show for a distraction and there's one of the fighters making a rapid recovery. 
The beam hits the Dwarven warrior turning him instantly to stone and skins the hand of the Elven prince. Darius is able to shrug off most of the effects but his bow is rendered useless and he only aquired it three towns back! 
The thieves scramble over the rubble and quickly check the treasures and give a thumbs up in the torch light! And this is when the party's  violence brings the shrill hoot & squak of a familar octogorilla back! 
 Tentacles begin slowly lowering into the gloom of the bone choked room! The party is trapped between these two titans! This is where we ended it until next week! 

The undead  Eldritch  Eye of course comes from James Mishler Games's Expanded Monsters: Eldritch Eyes!  The Eldritch Eye was left behind by the forces of Chaos as they moved through the area as a sort of living landmine. 

Drawing the Old School Weird and Wondrous Wild West Campaign Together With Night Owl Workshop's Gunslinger Roleplaying Game Core Rules BETA EDITION By Thomas Denmark - Little Girl Lost?!

Today's blog entry draws from the otherday's blog post of Night Owl Workshop's Gunslinger rpg. Today's entry is the skeleton of a campaign using some bits of Night Owl's Warriors of the Red Planet rpg. 

 It the 1860's the modern era and Mars has swung closest to it's Earth window. Back on Mars a royal sky fleet is escorting the royal personage of the royal princess of the city state of Werg.This minor citystate was up and coming. Suddenly without warning a hyperspacial gate opens. The royal fleet is thrown into Earth's gravity and the nineth ray tanks can not compensate for the higher gravity. Instantly the fleet  crashes on a strange barren world! And only a small form crawls from the wreckage. She instantly hears the thunderous clatter of hoff beats and sees six men with long and mean faces. Daxus Paluci princess of the mighty citystate of Werg has fallen into the hands of the Hole in The Rock gang. 

 Daxus Paluci princess of the citystate of Werg is a 5th level space noble and a 7th level soundrel. The princess within 5 months blends into the background of Promises Made Gultch as a bar maid. Actually she's the head of the Hole in The Rock Gang. 
Blending into the gang at first as a prisoner it was only a small matter for her to off Bud Cranson the head of the gang. She then roped in his young second in command as her lover/mouthpiece. Daxus has been loving the freedom away from her family's stifling royal promises. 
Unfortunately for her, her father has sent a team of four royal bounty hunters too Jansoom to look for her. 

Daxus has used her position within the small town to scope out payrolls, stage shipments, and has made the Hole in The Rock gang quite profitable. The player's PC's are brought in too find out what happened with the incredible explosion and why the Hole in The Rock gang has suddenly become a major threat in the area. 
And then the curve ball, The Hole in the Rock gang has an outlaw engineer name Red Skelton. Red has been salvaging the energy cannons and power sources from the Martian fleet.  He's going to use these to fortify the lair of the Hole in Rock gang into a fortress. 

For quick NPC stats and ready to go NPC's I'm using  the Red Room's Wretched Country. And this also includes the campaign setting itself with Hellstone the town included with Wretched Country being the primary campaign setting. 

'The Girl From C.H.'A.L.T.' - A Special Mission For The Agents of W.R.E.T.C.H. Rpg Supplement By Joe Coombs, & Miguel Ribeiro Mission Report

 So about two days ago I get this email from the Red Room folks about The  Agents of W.R.E.T.C.H. Rpg  By Joe Coombs, &  Miguel Ribeiro. And The Agents of W.R.E.T.C.H. Rpg  By Joe Coombs, &  Miguel Ribeiro is pretty much wall to wall James Bond, Man from U.N.C.L.E., Our Man Flint fueled rpg run through with the Wretched rpg system.



It was the tag line that got me; "W.R.E.T.C.H. (Warrior Recon Extraction Terrorism Control Hawks) is the umbrella that saves the world from other worlds and evil secret things that get reported but covered up. Your agents are bastards, special bastards, constantly on call knowing each mission could be their last. Good luck and good hunting! A sourcebook for playing spies in Wretchploitation or other Wretched games." So let's actually put this to the test and what I mean by that is within our Cha'alt rpg setting Wretched fueled campaign Cha'alt is actually real. There are Cha'alt occult objects showing up in the black market's of Avialadad of Wretched New Flesh rpg fame. The general public has no idea that as their reaching out into outer space ancient horrors from beyond space & time are looking to crush humanity. Think of it as the opposite of Transhumanism as humanity is more of a commodity then a, no wait that is Transhumanism. Anyway, Venger Satanis's Cha'alt has in book one a rather dangerous and nasty monster the S'kbah Sirens. 

So the idea here is simple, someplace near the sands of Avialadad a conjurer has brought a S'kbah Siren over into our local space time. The players rolled up agent PC's to tackle this thing working on a contract with Zontec in Availadad. And there are number of super agents & bastard classes, adventure elements, organization details, and more within Agents of W.R.E.T.C.H.. Because the players have done the character creation before it was pretty much a snap as long as you've got Wretchploitation. And this because  The  Agents of W.R.E.T.C.H. Rpg Supplement By Joe Coombs, &  Miguel Ribeiro is designed as an add on title for Wretchploitation. 

Our agents got to the scene of carnage within an Availadad club called Neon Noir & within the club there were corpses that all pointed down to the basement. In the basement, there was an inverted pentagram with alien runes & the body of the conjurer. But no one saw an inhuman creature leaving the club. The players went down into the mutant ghettos but no one knew nothing per say. And they hit a dead end. 

Two days later the PC's were called in by Zonetec again to 'Glass city' the corporate headquarters of Availadad & another scene of drugs, parts of people, &  slaughter with an exacutive whose head & brains were missing?! The PC's went deeper into the background of the execuative's background who company Dark Light was specializing in hyperspace travel & gates. And the PC's put two & two together thinking that  the S'kbah Siren wanted to bring more of her kind into our local space time. 

The player's PC's headed back to headquarters & access the data bases on the various supernatural cults within Avalidad. And the agents met with the liason officer assigned to their case. And she was extremely helpful giving them several locations that the psionic agents had scryed out. The PC's went to a local hotel 'The Bradbury' coming face to face with a drug deal gone wrong. The PC's blasted their way out of the situation and of the agents was wounded in the line of fire! 

The agent was met a hospital by the liason officier whom had taken a liking to him.  After a brief couple of seduction rolls they had a romp in his hospital bed & it was almost his last! The liason officier was  the S'kbah Siren! After singing him off to sleep & taking his data stick the siren was confronted by the other agents who had suspected something! 

After taking several shots the Siren now named Susan ( changed shape & blended into the hospital crowd) thus escaped! The agent who was sung to sleep pulled through but is being watched by Zonsec. 

The  Agents of W.R.E.T.C.H. Rpg Supplement is a solid addition to the Wretchedverse line of books proving a real need for a secret agent rpg supplement especially for the Wretchploitation rpg.  The  Agents of W.R.E.T.C.H. Rpg Supplement connects very well with the rest of the Wretchploitation rpg line of books quite nicely! 

The  Agents of W.R.E.T.C.H. Rpg Supplement By Joe Coombs, &  Miguel Ribeiro Is Available Right Over Here

That's Entertainment - Postcards From Aviladad, Something Wretched This Way Comes , & An Encounter With 'Dr. Theophilus' Traveling Show' - Session Report

 

“Why the Egyptian, Arabic, Abyssinian, Choctaw? Well, what tongue does the wind talk? What nationality is a storm? What country do rains come from? What color is lightning? Where does thunder goe when it dies?”
― Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

This week's game picks right up where last week's left off and you can read about that here. 

The Pleatis system is a secondary colony system with Pleatis Prime being a human colony world that is starved for attention. And  it's just the kind of mining world that the Cirque Diabolique from the Wretchedverse is attracted to like any group of apex predators. The Blackguard  had booked a slow boat from Earth to Pleatis Prime after having dealt with  David Bay Miller's OSR Libary blog's  'Dr. Theophilus' Traveling Show'   last week.   Pleastis Prime is a super Earth exoplanet & almost Earth gravity normal. And we're using the  Wretched Space Rpg here. 
We figured that we'd catch up with the Cirque Diabolique in the colony world's capital city. Little did we realize that  'Dr. Theophilus' Traveling Show' was also there and this rivalry of evil had resulted in several PC's deaths last week. Dr. Alphonsus Theophilus has repaired his plane hopping device with a piece of the machinery of  the 'Device of Lum The Mad' which has moved across the multiverse ages ago. At our seedy little dive of a motel we received a visit from Brunaldi the Stongman one of the enforcers of Dr.Theophilus. The good doctor  wants to see us?! About what we've no idea. why?
Dr. Alphonsus Theophilus wants to know what we intend when we catch up to the Cirque De Diabolique and recover an occult item from them or destoy their circus in the cross fire. 
This isn't going to be as easy as it sounds. The Cirque Diabolique knows we're onto em and there have been several attempts upon our lives. And their not going to stand idly by. As we found out when several mutant assassins came after us. This led to an extended fire fight in the streets of the capital. 

This wasn't the least of it as we faced undead clowns next. This time we were better equipped with swords, knives, and stakes. 
After staking the clowns we moved on to confront the lead undead horror only for him to vaporize as mist. 
We took the lead undead horror in the desert just before sun rise. Staked the bastard & left him for sunrise. Our party watched the rising alien sun gut the undead horror. Something Wretched This Way Comes sent it's regards. 

Then the Blackguard moved on or so we thought when my PC Edmond Harnatdez got a knife right in the back! That's right, our 'love interst' NPC 

Magda Cordalena the Mistress of the Knives was the plant! Three more knives littered my PC's corpse. 

And the last sight I saw was three arrows from Jessup The Archer slamming into my teammates. Not a TPK but close enough to really hurt. So our other PC's managed to escape undercover and we've got to figure out what the Hell is going on?! We took a smoke break here. 
We're going to regroup & introduce new PC's back in the Pleatis capital city. The party psychic was getting bad vibes from the capital city interior. And we figure that this was 'The Cirque Diabolique' at work. Our psychic got the impression of children in danger. So it was time to reload, restock, & bring in some heavy hitting scum! More when we pick it up in next week's game session! 

Bread & Circuses - Postcards From Aviladad, Something Wretched This Way Comes , & An Encounter With 'Dr. Theophilus' Traveling Show' - Session Report

 “The stuff of nightmare is their plain bread. They butter it with pain. They set their clocks by deathwatch beetles, and thrive the centuries. They were the men with the leather-ribbon whips who sweated up the Pyramids seasoning it with other people's salt and other people's cracked hearts. They coursed Europe on the White Horses of the Plague. They whispered to Caesar that he was mortal, then sold daggers at half-price in the grand March sale. Some must have been lazing clowns, foot props for emperors, princes, and epileptic popes. Then out on the road, Gypsies in time, their populations grew as the world grew, spread, and there was more delicious variety of pain to thrive on. The train put wheels under them and here they run down the log road out of the Gothic and baroque; look at their wagons and coaches, the carving like medieval shrines, all of it stuff once drawn by horses, mules, or, maybe, men.”
― Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

Confession time, I'm fascinated with dark circuses, murder circuses  & supernatural circuses going back to my childhood. Last year or was it a couple of years ago I used an old friend's murder circus this coming Wednesday I'm going to do it again. David Bay Miller's OSR Libary blog has hosted 'Dr. Theophilus' Traveling Show' for years now.  
And it's been a staple of my OSR game campaigns for years now. And each & everytime it's played at my table it's escaped the PC's. And since the latter part of September the PC's in a few games have heard rumors that 'Dr. Theophilus' Traveling Show' has been near where the 'Black Guard' have been. 

Dr. Alphonsus Theophilus, has found a piece of arcane  machinery to fix his gate device allowing him to move freely between time & place. And for his circus to cause even more mayhem across the planes Prime. He's not sure where or when he aquired the mechanism but it's allowed his circus to traverse the time space continuum with easy. What  Dr. Alphonsus Theophilus, doesn't know is that his planar device is a piece of the machinery of  the 'Device of Lum The Mad' which has moved across the multiverse ages ago. He has no idea how or when he repaired the gate device but he suspects that 'Boppo The Clown King' had something to do with it. 

And the circus has continued it's murderous rampage across the cosmos & this brings Magda Cordalena the Mistress of the Knives, who has even grown more disenchanted with the murder circus & it's ways. As more murder & mayhem has become the norm  Magda increasingly finds herself in way over her head. While Magda is thrilled with the locations she has visited. She finds the casual violence & occult means far more then she signed up for.   She has had contact with the Blackguard in the past and small romantic entanglement with one of our PC's. This has only made Magda's plight even more complicated. 

     The Cirque Diabolique from the Wretchedverse stands as a rival for  'Dr. Theophilus' Traveling Show' & the two encountered each other very briefly in the far future deserts outside of Avalidad. The malevolent presence of Boppo The Clown King caused these two institutions of evil to go their separate ways. Neither propeitor willing to risk a full on wizard's duel that could damage their acts. 

Zonesec is not quite aware of the immense danger both of these vistors from outside of time and space are. The Blackguard adventurers & mercenaries in tonight's game used their leverage with both circuses to gain a powerful artifact from the clutches of Jessup The Archer. 

The Blackguard were able to put distance between themselves & Jessup by putting a fake artifact in the Archer's path. But then lost the artifact to one of the assassin/prostitutes  working for the Cirque Diabolique. One of our PC's was killed by a mutant freak working with the prostitute assassin twins. So the Blackguard approached Dr. Alphonsus Theophilus, about the recovery of some valuables in Avalidad itself. He was more then happy to employ them if they could a recover the jewels in question. And b. grab an ebon Fey from among the mutant population as a replacement act among the slums of Aviladad. 

 The Cirque Diabolique wasn't done with the party however as the NPC medium began searching for the Blackguard. He didn't count on the Blackguard's own psychic however who successfully hid our party. 

The party had a running battle with six or seven knife wielding undead maniacs that belonged to the ringmaster of Cirque Diabolique. Two of our adventurers were wounded by these monsters & our necromancer had to use a scroll of protection from evil just to save the party. The player was pissed to say the least. The Cirque Diabolique vanished leaving behind a rather nasty calling card. The head of the Blackguard's contact within the mutant ghetto of Avilidad. 
The Blackguard were more then happy to deal with an entity of the Beyond to get a bead on the Cirque Diabolique's next otherworldly destination someplace near the Pleatis system.  So now the Blackguard are calling in favors to book passage on an interstellar frieghter bound for this system for next week's game. 

OSR Commentary On The Hostile Rpg & The Shoulder of Orion Military campaign- Session Report - Hornet's Nest

 This is going to pick right up from our last blog entry here and the 'night timer squadron' were escorting our  runners in Gypsy ships tailing our explorers &  our own version of CCA scout crews. And then something fast & deadly came up out of the atmosphere of a nearby gas giant after we exited the Tanhauser Gate hyperspace way. Our party now as we learned from our mistakes the last time & let the Frontier Crawlers act as bait. 

Basically the Gypsy ships are drive systems built around weapon systems able to move & manuveur fast but are not as armored as they should be. These 'things' were part biomechanical & part drives looking like a combination of wasp & H.G. Giger's nightmare. Last game we  after exitting the hyperspace gate via Tanhauser Gate we got  getting a running battle with a cruiser near this nameless rock. After taking on surivors & getting a chance to reskill our crew dived back into the gate system. 

This game we ran into alien fighters that moved like nothing we've seen but still blew up real pretty once we applied 'c beams' to em. But we did lose one of our battle modules the mobile refueling & launch points four Gypsy ships. All of these battle stations came directly out of &  can easily be designed from Independence Games Port of Entry Starports in the Clement sector book. 

Now after doing a some burns & rolls our ships are behind a planet's dark side in low orbit to regroup after a grueling session. So right now it's a matter of run & hide till the rest of the fleet catches up with us. But will we survive?! We're low on fuel and hiding like rats. 

OSR Commentary On The Hostile Rpg & The Shoulder of Orion Military campaign- Session Report 'The Tiger or The Lady

 Last night's Shoulder of Orion game picked right up from this blog post here  & got kicked into high gear with the player's PC's facing down semi black & blue horror from beyond the depths of space. 
Our ships ended up near some nameless little rock after exitting the hyperspace gate via Tanhauser Gate & getting into a running battle with a cruiser near this nameless rock. 

Things went from bad to worse when we decended planetside to land after doing a series of controlled burns. And there was evidence of a what was left from a colony. We made contact with the colony's surviving forces & the local milita. All of which was taken directly out of Independence Games Hub Forces book. 

What came at us came at us out of the darkness and hit us hard. These things tore into our guys in a hurry and it was brutal. There was little time to call in for back up as our Gypsy ships moved in for strafing runs across the planet's atmosphere. We've located the survivors before the 'wasps' that's what we're calling em managed to take anymore. The party managed to add in about fifty survivors to our current ship's roaster. And we managed to add in at least three more minor ships for our portable battle stations. We went over the ships for the 'alien wasps' that we faced down. 
All of these battle stations came directly out of &  can easily be designed from Independence Games Port of Entry Starports in the Clement sector book. 

We hit em hard & fast then left before any other corporation merc forces came into the area. And we scorched the land behind us as well. The campaign is feeling more like a 2d6 version of Science Fiction Vietnam & this has been another thing that John Brunner talked about in his Science Fiction. The never ending wars attrition that the corporations got into. 
We're regrouping around some nameless star system & checking for signs of an alien infection or issues. We've got our own version of CCA scout crews and explorers going ahead of our party now as we learned from our mistakes the last time. 

We've already got runners in Gypsy ships going with our explorers after some weird engagments we had last game. Will we survive?! Tune in next week! 

'Alone In The Darkness' - Campaign Commentary On Colonial Troopers rpg & Adventurer,Conqueror, King Rpg Hybrid Campaign Session Report

 Being a forever DM sometimes is a great thing & sometimes frankly, 'it sucks as a friend of mine' another forever DM says. But there are lots of highlights of greatness take for example last night's Colonial Troopers & Adventurer, Conqueror, King's hybrid campaign. Which picks up from this post on the blog here. 
And this get's into last night's game session. The player's ship drops out of hyperspace after receiving a distress call. Yes you've seen this movie before or so you think?! 

The party drops out of hyperspace into a no name planetary system & finds a Trade Empire class Commerical Transport floating dead in space. They've never seen this style of starship before and its massive. Yet greed get's the better of them & they begin making preperations to go on board. And yes this starship isn't from their universe. 

Aboard ship they begin to look around & find that Engineering is baracaded from the inside. Their pilot and navigator  begin to slowly start scanning the ship with their own instruments relaying what their finding. They find that the ship's systems are being controlled from engineering & that there is a lifeform at the pilot's station. 
The party splits up ( the players decided to do this not me as the DM) and one half goes to engineering while the other goes to the pilot's station. All of the while system after system has been shut off or shut down. When the party reaches the pilot station the door swings open in zero gee and they are confronted by a humanoid with a beatle for a face! A  Khepri warlord confronts the party and all Hell breaks loose as they attempt to open up on the insectal terror. But the fangible bullets are absorbed by an alien force shield the PC's have never seen before. They retreat as the Kephri disengages from combat shuts the pillot station door.  The other group finds itself outside of engineering & tries to communicate with whomever is inside. 

They finally make contact with the  Nephilim starship engineer within who after a bout with the universal translator tells them about the Kephri warlord taking over the ship. And turning the crew into fodder for its young. 
The Warlord then began to attach strange bioorganic systems throughout the starship and the cheif engineer had hid. Then the hyperspace generators began to take the starship elsewhere but the engineer managed to maroon them both in this dead starsystem. 
And that's where we ended last night!