Knock, Knock, Deathlok Is Hunting You - - The New Marvel Phile 'The Shadowline Saga' & The Tallman - Session Report 6

 Let's pick it up as the heroes have made it back to New Ashford from back here last game.  New Ashford was quiet & snowbound but something is tracking the player's PC's! The horror is invisible & the players think that it's because of thier time travel & other dimensional hijinks. Man O Metal has returned to the party's fold & is kinda spooked out. Upon return the players found a Tallman avitar shot through the head and several dead dwarves.  But what is it?! The players are thinking supernatural. However our resident super scientist started to take a look at the corpses of two of the dwarves. They had been blasted with some sort of energy weapon that exploded the tissues from the inside out! 

What does this mean?! It means that someone or something has sent a time traveling hitman against the party. Our scientist went to the party with his findings. The party saw something making footprints across the snows of New Ashford. 
And watched as the face of what looked like an undead cyborg lit up for a moment. The players thought it was an E.D.D.I.E. unit ala Iron Maiden's 'Somewhere in Time' album. 
Now that cybernetic organism is after the party & they decided to take it away from the rest of New Ashford. And the party dived for the pylon gates! And now the party has entered into a 'cat & mouse game with the Deathlok unit.
The party has no idea who or what is hunting them. And they don't really follow this blog. In actuality it's a Deathlok unit from the Time Variance Authority from Limbo. 
The party has broken several unspecificied time laws.And it looks like more may be broken before thier done. 

The New Mavel Phile #38 Deathlok in the under the Marvel Phile category in Marvel Phile # 38 on the G Drive of the Marvel Super Heroes RPG: The Unofficial Canon Project. Once through the pylon gate the PC's found themselves on the New England coast where they were in a storm lashed sea side town! And then the zombies started to come out! Zombies from Jack O' Lantern's MSH blog with a write up on a horde of undead submariners! 

And that's where we ended. The PC's are being hunted through time by a Deathlok unit & thier up to their eyeballs in undead sailors! 

Liquid Anti Christ - The New Marvel Phile 'The Shadowline Saga' & The Tallman- Session Report 5

 Let's pick it up from last session here on the blog! The PC's along with thier team mates stepped back through what they thought was the dimensional forks onto the streets of New Ashford. And something was way off!  Within half an hour the heroes found themselves face to face with hordes of what appeared to be homeless. These things weren't however! The PC's nearly got their heads taken off by what appeared to be humans but weren't! 

Man'o Metal was attacked by the horde & his flames held them back.And then the horde started to get a bit too close for comfort. One of the homeless zombie things tried to spit green goo at one of the PC's. And things started to break down! The party took off in a South direction throwing a car in the way of the horde. 
The horde meanwhile tried & failed to drop a piano, a safe, and several cars on the party. And at various times the horde tried & failed to shoot green goo out of their mouths! 
Finally the party found the pylon gate to take them back to the real New Ashford!

One of the homeless zombie things came with them! The phantom rider had just about had it with these things & incinarated the zombie thing. Normally this would be a problem but in reality. The party had been dealing with the zombie things animated by the Liquid Satan juice from the '1987 Prince of Darkness' film. The write up for this horror can be found on Jack O' Lantern's blog here

Welcome to Project Pegasus You Won't Be Leaving - The New Marvel Phile 'The Shadowline Saga' & The Tallman- Session Report Four

 

On a snow filled  Sunday we're going to pick up right back up from last game when the player's PC's ended up face to face with the ever loving blue eyed Thing! They faded back through the Tall Man's gates & ended up in 1979 at Project Pegasus surrounded by guards & face to face with the Fantastic Four's The Thing! And they also ended up with an old friend of the team's  Man o' Metal. Actually a replacement PC from last game! 

And a flaming Shadow in the middle of the world's largest underground prison for energy using villains isn't sitting well. And the guards didn't listen & so a dust up happened?! Except that all of the attacks passed through the party?! 

According to the Thing we wouldn't be leaving until we could be studied & why the time space gates had invaded the project. We were about ready to tear the place apart until the guards attacks started to fade through the party. After a bunch of 'misunderstandings' ie the guards attacked us but were able to repel most of the attacks & then Marvel Boy showed up! And we were able to straighten out this time travelling mess. This is when the first of the Tall Man's balls came screaming through gates and it was time to leave! It only took seconds for the Sentinel Spheres to adjust their 'dimensional' viberations to start wrecking havoc on the Project Pegasus  personel. However, Mazar The Mystic's spells dragged the damned things through the portal! And we vanished back into obvilion & hopefully back to New Ashford. 

Today's game star was actually MHAC Marvel Superheroes rpg Project Pegasus revised & expanded. Combined with the the Marvel Super Heroes RPG: The Unofficial Canon Project's MA7 The Golden Age of Superheroes located in the MA folder in the Google Drive of the Marvel Super Heroes RPG: The Unofficial Canon Project on Facbook group. Provided a ton of info on the project, the timeline, personel, and more. Located under the Google Drive heading MH. This supplement has everything you need to include the project within your home Marvel Superheroes rpg campaigns. 

It's Got Balls ! Dust Up At The Alamo Museum - The New Marvel Phile 'The Shadowline Saga' & The Tallman- Session Report Three

Last night' Shadowline Saga saw the PC's in a straight up fight against the Tall man & Nazi agents! And the Sentinel spheres came in thick & fast! The Spectral rider had lead the PC's through the pylons right into the middle of a Nazi relic recovery  mission from last time! Oh did I happen to mention the Tall men's forces  as well?! Three of the Sentinel Spheres took out two of the Nazi agents! 

Things went from bad to worse as Mazar the Mystic last son of the Scions of Limbo tried to take control of the pylons only to get telekinitically blasted by the Tallman. He was down for the count. And the Spectral Rider had to keep the Tallman's undead Dwarves from taking him! He blasted two the little bastards! The Great American took on shadow form & went in for the kill on three of the Nazi agents out flanking them. 

The party was bound & determined to keep both the Tallman & the Nazi's from recovering the bullet belonging to the 'Saint of Killers'!  And then Master Man came in through the far north wall of the building. Nightbringer was nearest to him and sought to engage. Mazar the Mystic grabbed the bullet with quick spell. Master Man isn't working alone & our party of adventurers had to get the Hell out of there fast before the rest of the Battle Axis piled in. Our second stringer occultist 'Jack of The  Shadows' used one of his mytic playing cards to open a teleport gate back to New Ashford. And the party bid a hasty retreat with the bullet followed by a Tallman 'Noooo!' 

The most invaluable tool in last night's game session was the Marvel Super Heroes RPG: The Unofficial Canon Project's MA7 The Golden Age of Superheroes located in the MA folder in the Google Drive of the Marvel Super Heroes RPG: The Unofficial Canon Project on Facbook. 

Inmovable Object Meets Irresisable Force - The New Marvel Phile 'The Shadowline Saga' & The Tallman- Session Report Two

 “- Mike: I want to stop him."

"- Reggie: The Tall Man? That story about me blowing up my own house because it was infested with midgets. Mike, that wasn't real. Your doctor said that it was your own paranoid delusions caused by your brother's death.”
Phantasm II 

We pick up with our 'heroes' limping their way back to their secret lair after saving two people from the machinations of the Tall Man & his minions. 

This blog entry's action  literally picks right up from here. 

So tonignt's Marvel Super Heroes game finds our heroes deep in their secret lair beneath New Ashford's clock tower & them re equipping. Then mysteriously two silver pylons began to appear within their lair. A sound like tearing glass signaled the arrival of the Tallman & a literal horde of his undead dwarves! 
But the heroes turned the tables on the Tallman by diving for the silver pylons & jumping through time & space. They landed in a literal warzone in 1941 where a confrontation between the Tall Man & the Spectre along with Dr. Fate had the heroes having an 'Oh Crap' moment. The heroes rolled to see if they recognized The Tall Man's foes & were successful. 

The sound of leather boots on the rubble behind the heroes signalled that they were not alone. And the Nazi occultist Werner Bon Vernger a shadow himself took the heroes aback. 'You should not be here my friends', Werner incase your wondering isn't anyone's friend least of all the players. Werner is member of the inner circle of the Thule society & part of Johann Shmidt,'s peusdo Hydra organization. 

The PC's attracted the attention of the half helmed Dr. Fate. And things got messy as he wasn't impressed with the heroes. 'You are needed elsewhere' was the telepathic response from Fate & the PC's were thrown back through the pylon gateway again. Finding themselves back in their lair they began the clean up of the undead dwarves! The innocents whom they saved in last week's game were smuggled out by human agents before the action began. 

More Fun Comics May 1940

Then emerging from the plyon gateway came a white almost ghostly figure with sawed off shotgun & pistol blasting! This figure cleaned up almost half of the undead dwarves with swift & sudden violence. The air & reality around the almost cowboy like figure shimmered with strange supernatural forces! Janis Dubrois aka The Spectral Rider had come to get his revenge on the Tallman's forces from out of the Old West! 

The Tallman's minions did not get a chance to regroup as the Spectral Rider cut a swath through the horde! He was there to enlist the PC's add in recovering an artifact that the Nazi occultist meant to gain in May of 1940! Before the pylons disappeared the party joined The Spectral Rider just outside of the Almo in Texas. Waiting for the party is Mazar the Mystic last son of the Scions of Limbo & he informed the party that a single bullet belonging to the Saint of Killers was housed in the nearby Almo museum. The Nazi's intended to use the strange bullet to summon the Saint of Killers as their own personal hitman against the Spectre & Dr.Fate or even the Tallman himself. And that's when the whine of the first of the Sentinel spheres came whizzing around the corner. The Tallman wouldn't be denied his vengence against the PC's! 

Mazar the Mystic last son of the Scions of Limbo almost got killed by one of the spheres. A nearby security guard got it instead. The PC's saved the other security guard. And then as a group took out the two spheres. Having seen the Phantasm  movies they weren't that happy about spheres flying around their heads! 

Mazar teleported the party into the museum & then they came face to face with Nazi agents! And that's where we ended in tonight's game. 

The whole coming up arch on the Saint of Killer's is thanks to the Jack O' Lantern's write up on the Saint of Killers from the Preacher comics here! 

Man From Atlantis NPC Meet Up - The New Marvel Phile 'The Shadowline Saga' & The Tallman- Campaign Update

 So around 1939 as the war is heating up a special half human envoy was sent by the Atlantians to the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) pre World War II. This individual is code named Mike Harris & instrumental in several key World War II battles. Mark Harris involvement with the Navy goes much further back then that including to the bombing of Innsmouth Mass. This blog entry is using the MA series of supplements & The Golden Age of Heroes which is available when you join the Marvel Super Heroes RPG: The Unofficial Canon Project here. 

A seaside town in Essex County, Massachusetts run by the Esoteric Order of Dagon and their Deep One allies until their destruction in 1928. Mike Harris was operating in the waters around the U.S. Naval Torpedo Station which  was founded in Newport, Rhode Island on Goat Island, the site of Fort Wolcott which was built in 1702 and served as an Army fort from 1794 to 1835. Mike Harris often was used a stand in for Namor The Submariner on World War II missions. It was actually Mike Harris's rivalry with Meranno that lead to his crippling amenisia during the late Sixties into the Seventies. The circumstances have not however been  revealed. Mike Harris was key in foiling at least three key Nazi missions during World War II. 

Mike Harris is used by the Navy as a tactical asset throughout the War in various theaters and is thought lost in the Nineteen Sixties. He is a valuable NPC and will be featured in an upcoming game of ours where  Meranno features. 
Special thanks to Jack O' Latern's blog for featuring  the Seventies  cultclassic 'Man from Atlantis' television series write up here.  Now part of my own 'head canon' is that Mike Harris is from an offshoot  Atlantis/ Mu colony along the Atlantic seaboard whose been involved with the Navy since around Pre World War I. This goes back to the TV episode 'The Hawk of Mu' which aired in October 18th of 1977. Mike Harris is their representive to the surface world. He later suffers very dire injury going the way of the Sub Mariner post World War II. 

Mike Harris is an NPC & Navy agent during the pre World War II days and there's a meeting in the PC's future!  

Since the Man From Atlantis became increasingly kid fodder back in the Seventies & isn't that well known among players today. As a DM I decided to bring it back a bit with a bit of a World War II spin. Dr. Shubert has been using post World War II special project science since the late Sixties. Is Mike Harris a 'shadow'?! Nope he's an operative whose suffering from PTSD & goes back to the one place he's known as a refuge during the Seventies. This picks up events during the 'Man From Atlantis' TV show's episode 'Man From Atlantis' mini movie episode from March 1977. 

You can find the right up on Jack O' Latern's blog  featuring  the Seventies  cultclassic 'Man from Atlantis' television series write up here. 

Through the Gates of the Silver Pylons - - The New Marvel Phile 'The Shadowline Saga' & The Tallman- Session Report Two

 This session report is going to pick straight up right from here on the blog here.  And in tonight's game the player's came face to face with the Tallman & his sentinel sphere's took out two of the PC's! 

"Terrifying - Relentless - Unstoppable"

In New Ashford the Tallman didn't wait at all in 1939. He showed up at one of the PC's house for his psychic sister & with his dwarves & sentinal spheres! The spheres took out two of our heroes in tonight's game. He was going to take the PC's sister but the heroes teleported into the house before the dwarves could take Nancy a mutant psychic with a talent for prophecy. The PC's blasted the sentinel spheres apart & then got their collective behinds handed to them when  the Tallman telekinetically held them in stasis for a few key moments. He with drew from the scene without Nancy instead taking the corpses of the PC's to replace his spheres! 

He then withdrew but not before filling the house with hordes of his dwarves behind him! 
The players weren't happy at all when their dead characters were taken! 

The rest of the evening was spent battling the little bastard dwarves with gusto! And they were able to make it outta of the house when the rest of the party came in like the calvery! The players were pissed! Not only had they saved Nancy but their dead PC's are going to be turned into undead dwarves & sentinel spheres! 

They met their magic user Laveria The Blind Seer at the Shadow tribe's compound & then headed back to the funeral home! 
The new Shadows included Bill Whyman 'the Cemetary Man', Alexis Cummings (werewolf/shadow), Silvia 'the Bloodwoman' basis for the legends of the Banshee, Captain Ghost ( The transparent marvel), The Warrior's Folly (undead soldier superhero), Dyrk Wolf ( Animalistic Shadowthing who hates the Tallman), Dollbouy ( the shrinking marvel/shadow), Dark Paladin ( shadow prince from England which just awoke in 1939. He on the Tallman's tract!), & Vald Shodowmonger ( vampire like shadow hero). 

The heroes managed to get into a locked room back at the funeral home only to be confronted by several rows of the teleportation gates surrounded by 10 rows of black barrels filled with undead dwarves. Dwarves that are ready to be shipped back to the red world's plane! 

The player's PC's decided to take one or two of the gates into who knows where!? The first one they took had a time jump into Germany's past into the Berlin olympics 1936 stadium! The PC's were confronted by the Tallman & a german SS officier! The Tallman didn't get a chance to see them before they faded back through the gate! 

Then the next gate the party headed through brought them far into the future where giant sentinel spheres were wrecking havoc on a future Earth! Again they didn't stay but faded back through the gate! 

Finally they teleported through the gate into an unknown World War II battle ground where the Tallman's demon troopers & gravers were gathering the fallen! This insensed the PC's and they went into action! Blasting, teleporting, & attacking the Tallman's forces forcing the big guy himself to appear! He wanted to know why they were attacking his forces?!  

The PC's didn't stop & he summoned two golden spheres! The PC's had more of a problem with these! They teleported through the gates only to come face to face with their own Earth's Tallman! They blasted him & attacked him without a quarter given! They managed to destroy him for this week! 

But they know he'll be back soon! So their regrouping back at their hidden lair! 
And don't forget to join the Marvel Super Heroes RPG: The Unofficial Canon Project on Facebook here. 

So the Tallman & his forces come from an excellent Marvel Superheroes rpg blog by Jack O' Lantern  avaiable right here. 

What's An Alien Invasion Among Friends?! - The New Marvel Phile 'The Shadowline Saga' & The Tallman- Session Report One

 "You think that when you die, you go to Heaven? You come to us!"
The Tall Man To Mike Phantasm Two 

This blog post picks right up from this blog entry here.

The year is 1939 & it's a warm October night. The shadows have grown long on New Ashford. The town of only 200 residents has has had an influx of tourists to attend the local Fall Festival. These include supers known as 'The Blackguard' a group of supers doing their best to raise awareness of the gathering storm of the Nazi's in Europe. Who this group of supers actually is?! These are a group of shadows & deviants from several of the Mid-West's & New England tribes. They've come together after the appearance of their Earth's Doc Zero revealed himself to the world. 

The Blackguard have come to New Ashford for another reason entirely. They've been following the trail of broken towns that the Tallman has left in his wake. During tonight's game the Blackguard has come to attend the furneral of one of their own. The Violet Scorpion has been killed in Europe & a team of super agents has recovered the body. Twin funeral directors met the PC's in their civilian guises to lay their friend to rest. 

But all is not as it seems when one of our party's animal like scents notices the abscence of the corpse. The Animal let's his friends know after the ceramonies are over back at their hotel. The party wants to go back to the funeral home to check things out after they make contact with Brother Jenkins their shadow's local tribal leader. The Blackguard learned of a Knight of the Order of St.George in New Ashford. But they also learned that he was there for the Tall Man & then it was off to the funeral home! 
They ran into eight maskers  loading caskets onto hearses and it was on! The maskers were armed with chain saws & pick axes! 

The Blackguard elimated every last masker they could. And then moved into the funeral home's interior. And things got very interesting the party encountered their first set of  sentinel spheres. And it got really interesting as one of the spheres took out Lady D. Drilling deep into her skull the horrid thing didn't stop till she was dead! 
The rest of the Black Guard blasted the remaining to spheres. And then the party took care of their friend's corpse to prevent it from being reanimated by the Tall Man. In a side room they found the first of a series of dimensional forks. They ran into more gravers and blasted their way out of the funeral home. 
The party figures they need to have a magic user among their ranks before proceeding. 

All in all tonight game was very interesting to say the least . Gotta say that the Marvel Phile 'The Shadowline Saga' supplement came in really handy for tonight's Marvel Superheroes rpg session. 

So what happens next week?! The PC's are going to go before the rest of the Shadows council & ask the 'First Line' for a Shadow wizard. Let's see what that's going too look like coming up next time! 

The Funeral Is About To Begin - The New Marvel Phile 'The Shadowline Saga' & The Tallman - 1939 Halloween One Shot Session Report

 New Ashford is a small lovely little small town in 1939 but there are deep shadows in this small town & they conceil secrets. The locals have asked for help through a secret society of the shadows after several strange undead demon troops have shown up & the graveyard was cleared out. 

The order of Saint George sends in a knight & things start to get intense. And a group of shadows masquarading as super heros have come to New Ashford to stop the Tallman's machinations. And that's when the PC's found exactly how far things had gone as zombies begin to attack our heroes! 
But our heroes have also brought in two Deviants who are a part of their shadow tribe just to even the odds a bit. 

The Deviants were generated using the Marvel Super Heroes rpg 'The Eternals' book available through the Marvel Superheroes Unofficial Canon project. 

The Deviants laid waste to the zombies with eye beams but then almost bought it when a gold sential sphere blasted them. 
Things were looking grave for our heroes for a bit and the game shifted to an investigation mode. And the party moved towards the funeral home. And that's when they had to deal with six or seven gravers. Our DM used the stats for soldiers from Dragon magazine for the stand ins for the Gravers. 

We dealt with the Gravers & then have begun moving into the funeral home only to discover just how in trouble we were. The entire ceiling was literally crawling with Sentinal sphere! 

We had to end for the night here as everyone has work for tomorrow! And we're going to have to pick this up for next week. So it looks like the game continues folks. On Writeups.org there's a complete write up for the Tallman here for the DC Heroes rpg.  We did a conversion on the fly & it worked out pretty solidly.There's talk among the players about adding a magic user or psionist to the mix. But this is going to have to wait till we're done with the first part of this run of the mini campaign. 
We're playing the Shadows 'First Line' which is actually a loose alliance of tribal member shadows who have banded together to try & protect their sanctaury small town from the uncursion of the other dimensional scourage known as the Tallman.  To be Continued! 

Shadows & Undeath - The New Marvel Phile 'The Shadowline Saga' & The Tallman - 1939 Halloween One Shot

  "Because of humans' greater number, this other race lived as a shadow race among humans, sometimes as protectors, sometimes as predators, and over the centuries becoming the basis of many human legends myths, both heroic and supernaturally monstrous! "

Among the countless worlds there stands Earth 4635x which is in the grip of an incredible transformation on all fronts as World War II looms. Here in the darkness & dispair of June 1939 the shadows grow longer as horror grips America. Bodies have been going missing out of cemetaries across the United States. Everyone is far too busy talking about the emergence of so called costumed men across the planet! And that's not to mention the rise of the Nazi forces as fifth columists plagued New York City itself. And from the darkness come shadows.  On  Earth 4635x the shadows Doctor Zero emerges during the pre WWII years as the rise of America's other superheroes kicks things into high gear. Earth 4635x actually has Superman going into action about June 1939!  This same year also saw the German American Bund gaining in power & this draws the ire of certain patroitic supers. Right underneath everyone's nose something has been stealing bodies from America's small town graveyards! The Tallman has been moving across the midwestern United States! And some second string heroes have emerged from the darkness to battle this menace in their small town! 

Artwork used without permission found in a random Google image search. 

Alright none of this actually happened but I was on the Marvel Super Heroes RPG: The Unofficial Canon Project Marvel Phile section & noticed that they had covered the Epic Comics Shadowline books!  These comic books were Archie Goodwin's babies back in 1988 to 1990. And according to the Shadowline  Wiki entry; " Shadowline is an American comic book sub-imprint of the Marvel Comics imprint Epic Comics that was originally published from 1988 to 1990. " Oh the nostoglia for this series of books!  See about this time Phantasm II the horror movie  was hitting the theaters and boy was I mad for this series of films. 
Now at the time I was working in a video rental store after school to help out my family the hours were long, the store had a decent selection of horror & somehow my young brain melded the Shadowline series with Phantasm II later on in '89 when it hit the shelves. 

The most powerful of the shadows was Doctor Zero & he was one dark antihero in every sense of the word. Powerful, manipulative, & incredibly dangerous who would be incarnated from age to age as an incredibly long lived anti hero only to emerge into the late 80's as a 'super hero'. The Shadowline really did fit the late Eighties & Nineties Cold War paranoia. Believe me I lived & played throught it. On Writeups.org there's a complete write up for the Tallman here for the DC Heroes rpg. 

To me the Shadows were another tribe of Jack Kirby's Deviants because much later on Doctor Zero on another Earth would be killed by Hyperion of the Squadron Supreme. Hyperion was or is an Eternal depending upon the current Marvel comicbook canon.  I can't keep up with it. Now Doctor Zero & the Tallman could theoritically exist in the same universe. How?! Because the Tallman is ageless & so is Doctor Zero. So in 1939 Zero emerges into the light! 
 Doctor Zero has emerged because Superman has! And Zero wants to cash in. Hyperion is watching from the sidelines for the moment. 

  But back in the 90's I wrote a complete adventure in which the PC's were a group of small town heroes in 1939. The Tallman shows up in their town & things go very wrong. The PC's are all half shadows who are drawn together because of their shared heritage. One of the PC's is a full on super with psionic abilities and there was a subplot in Phantasm II about the Tallman hunting psionics. Those who survive will go on to kick Nazi ass in an upcoming campaign. 

We never found out why the Tall Man suddenly comes into Mike's small town in 1979?! My personal head canon has been because back in '39 he was beaten back at great cost to our heroes. 

The New Marvel Phile 'The Shadowline Saga' Is Available Right Here