I miss playing

I played in a few games in the past decade or so. Mostly, I GM'ed. But I played in a few games.

That I recall, I played in:

- Monteporte

- Vic's Felltower Adjacent DF game

- Tenkar's B-Team

- Gamma Terra

- Doug's Alien Menace

- GURPS Midgard

- Vlaclavs' GURPS Martial Arts: Gladiators

I don't think I missed any. I really don't get to play in a lot of games.

I enjoyed getting to play in them all to some extent or another.

This post is occasioned by the fact that I was thinking about what we left unfinished in Gamma Terra. I really enjoyed that game. Hillbilly is just a ST 17 exaggerated version of me, in so, so many ways. That made him a lot of fun to run . . . and often left me with regrets because Hillbilly did things that I would do, which aren't always the best things to do.

I'd like to play that game again, but I'm not sure andi jones is up for it at this point. He may have moved on. It's too bad.

We might get to play Vic's game again, because surely there will be days we can play but I'm not up to running game. Handsome is ready to lead whatever B-Teamers show up for those sessions.

The actual B-Team is likely over . . . but I had so much fun playing with Tenkar GMing, and usually Doug, Joe the Lawyer, and Tim "I roll 1s" Shorts playing alongside me. Such a fun, fun time. The dungeon was so goofy but Tenkar added a lot of charm to it, and the S&W rules made for simple fun.

The other games . . . I don't miss them so much. They were fun but didn't last long enough to really get a bite into. I liked my PC for Doug's Alien Menace game, because who wouldn't like to play Animal Mother? But like some other games, we didn't play that much. It's okay, I'm sure I'll get to play a game GM'ed by Doug using lots of guns.


I really would like to play more but I dedicate so many nights to non-gaming things that I can't fit too much in. But I'd enjoy getting to take Hillbilly or Mirado out for a ride again.

Year in Gaming 2021

Here we are at the end of 2021. How was it for gaming for me?


Running Dungeon Fantasy

We had only 18 sessions of DF this past year, from session 145 - session 162. That's down from 20 the previous year. We weren't as dilligent about getting sessions in, clearly.

Session 145, Felltower 111 - Yeth Hounds
Session 146, Felltower 112 - Yeth Hounds & Moonbeams
Session 147, Felltower 113 - Orichalcum and Moon Doors
Session 148, Felltower 114, Lost City 13 - Ampitheatre
Session 149, Felltower 115 - Staring at Doors
Session 150, Cold Fens 9
Session 151, Cold Fens 10
Session 152, Cold Fens 11 - Deadfalls & Defeat
Session 153, Cold Fens 12 - Scouting Sakatha's Island
Session 154, Cold Fens 13 - Hexcrawling the Cold Fens (Part I)
Session 155, Cold Fens 13 - Hexcrawling the Cold Fens (Part II)
Session 156, Cold Fens 14 - Sakatha's Lair Do-or-Die (Part I)
Session 157, Cold Fens 14 - Sakatha's Lair Do-or-Die (Part II)
Session 158, Cold Fens 14 - Sakatha's Lair Do-or-Die (Part III)
Session 159, Cold Fens 14 - Sakatha's Lair Do-or-Die (Part IV)
Session 160, Felltower 116 - Level 7? (Part I)
Session 161, Felltower 116 - Level 7? (Part II)
Session 162, Felltower 117 - Level 6?

I think we had 10 different players this year. Playing virtually kept us consistent but oddly didn't help some of the occasionals stay in the game.

In game, it was largely the Cold Fens this year, with 10 delves there, plus 1 in the Lost City, and thus only 7 in Felltower. They made a few delves down deeper but, once again, avoided some of the big things they discovered along the way - the beholder, the draugr, the dragons, the gates. It was a year of Cold Fens delves and lots and lots of nibbling on the margins of things. That's part of why I bit the bullet and went with the firmer requirements for loot for XP. I had enough of nearly 400 point guys picking up XP for loot by cashing in a few dropped weapons and some scrap bits found here and there.

Roll20 hasn't been a lot of fun to deal with, though, so we're moving to Foundry VTT as soon as reasonably possible.

Playing Dungeon Fantasy

I was able to play in a one-shot with evil characters, GMed by Marshall, who runs Aldwyn (and Varmus) and previously ran Gwenneth the Dirt Mage.

DF Suicide Squad 1: Cave of the Dark Elves

I enjoyed getting to play, as much as I complained about how overpriced Terror was for what I'd gotten.

Playing Gamma Terra

Zero sessions of Gamma Terra this year. I'm officially putting this one in the "dormant" campaign category. Our GM still plays DF when he can, so it's possible we'll get back to this, but he's a bit too busy to GM right now. Too bad.

AD&D

We went the whole year without playing AD&D. I'm bummmed. We were ready to go but had to cancel last-minute, and then the next time it came along everyone wanted to play DF Felltower. I still intend to run more.

Other Games & Gaming

I played some video games:

- a bit more of Darkest Dungeon, but stalled when one guy I need was killed off and I can't seem to find a replacement to level up to where I need him. Tiresome. Enjoyable while I've got a good party going but it's annoying to finish a quest and the next week the coach still hasn't brought the one class I need. Feh.

- I finished X-Com: Apocalypse, despite not being able to finish all of the tech trees.

- I played a lot of Battletech, finishing the core missions and getting deep into the Flashpoints before stalling out due to a mission I'm not enjoying.

- I stalled out on Ultima V, but I'm not really far from victory if I'm right about my progress. I just need to get my notes out and get to work.

- I played a bit of other games but nothing really worth mentioning. Well, maybe Borderlands 2, which I'm still playing. I finished it with another guy.

I didn't get in any board games that I can recall. Maybe Fire in the Lake will arrive in 2022 and I'll be able to play that.

Painting

I got in some mini painting right under the wire this year, finishing a few figures and speed-painting a pair.

I'm still going to sell my Bones V collection, I just need to get up and list it on eBay.

Writing

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 22: Gates came out in 2021. I'm quite pleased with it.

The Crypt of Krysuvik came out, as well. It was a hard thing to write, as it was my first adventure, Marshall LaPira's first writing for hire in the gaming field, and our first collaboration with each other and for Doug. I've written with Doug before, but not for Doug. I'm done with adventure writing as of the moment, but Marshall has more on tap I believe.

I did a little more writing. Truth be told, I've slacked off because I want to write for royalties, not flat payments. The royalties, over time, make more sense for me. SJG isn't currently doing Royalties. I threw in for another SJG project, and we'll see where that goes.

Overall, not a bad year in gaming - but not a great one, either. I'd like to get in some additional games - running AD&D, playing GT or something else - and some additional "other" gaming - writing, painting, video games . . .

2020 in Gaming

Out with the old year, in with the new. 2020 is over. How was it for gaming?

Running Dungeon Fantasy

We had 20 sessions of DF this past year, from session 125 - session 144. That's up from 12 the previous year, and it's one of the best.

Honestly, COVID-19 is what gave us the Felltower-20. It was easier to ensure we had enough people to play with a Zoom and Roll20 based game. Roll20 made it possible, but not easy, and we've had issues with that VTT the whole time. But it did make it possible to play.

We had 10 or 11 different people play this year . . . and we've had multiple sessions with 10 people. Oddly Roll20 allowed for our more casual players to make a commitment to continous play, which is why Wyatt went from "drop in" to "mainstay," for example.

The PCs fought the draugr, again, and lost, again. They had a few empty delves. But they also found the second Bell of D'Abo, and rang its luscious, globular form and penetrated the dark . . . secret of Princess Olivia . . . and had an excellent fight made worse by common delver thoroughness. They also engaged and banished the Lord of Spite in another epic battle featuring things like a "plan" and "tactics" and "staying on target." Varmus, like Porkins, was a casualty, but the job was done.

Playing Gamma Terra

One reason we had so much DF is that we had only one session of Gamma Terra. Our GM is too busy to prep for game, so no game. That sucks, because I really enjoy getting to play.

AD&D

We kept up what's now a tradition of playing some old AD&D modules, too.

We had two sessions of AD&D - two sessions finishing Part I of A2 Secret of the Slavers Stockade. This was fun, although the PCs really killed themselves with two moves - standing and fighting in bad circumstances, which might work for superior fighters vs. inferior ones in GURPS DF, but costs resources you can't afford to lose in AD&D, and trying to avoid an "obvious trap" by wasting a lot of time and resources. Still fun, but it was tough to GM at times.

I hope to get in part II of A2 very soon.

Other Games & Gaming

Not a lot. I played some video games - I started and finished Conan: The Cimmerian. I made significant progress on Ultima IV but stalled out because the final dungeon is like a day's worth of work. I finished Might & Magic I and started Might & Magic II but quickly stalled.

I didn't get any books published but I did write an article that'll see publication in the latest iteration of Pyramid. Ironically I had plenty of time to write, but SJG's change in writing policies made it less lucrative for me to do so . . . and then I started working full time and part time again, simultaneously, and that put paid to doing more writing.

I painted pretty close to 0 minis this year. I just couldn't get up the enthusiasm, and some issues with my glasses and hands meant paiting was difficult. Plus, Roll20 made painting a mini and then uploading a picture of it harder still.

I did try to get a short, weekly game going, too. But half the group seemed interested, all had different ideas of what to play, and everyone shot down the ones I could run. Someone else volunteered to run something, got busy . . . and it didn't happen. Oh well.

My goal from 2019 was more gaming and more painting. I got in a lot more gaming, but less painting. So it goes. I hope to keep up the pace of gaming in 2021! It's been enjoyable getting to spend more time gaming with my friends.

Tomorrow Men - Buy Our Playsets and Toys!

So our GURPS Gamma Terra GM put up this post about our characters:

Gammatober Day 22: Tomorrow Men

Here we are, in a very accurate depiction:





The sad part, or perhaps the awesome part, is that we look remarkably like an alternative LEGO version of The Cheat Commandos:



I'm pretty sure Hillbilly is Fightgar, and Barbie is Gunhaver. I think Oinker is Reinforcements. Princess is Silent Rip. Fatbox is Ripberger, Short Bus is Firebert. I'm really unsure on the rest. I'll need to re-watch them.

I personally can't wait for Sean Punch to break down and do Action Heroes 1: The Cheat Commandoes. Those guys need stats, dammit!

GT: Off to Ottawa

We've been talking about our inevitable downtime, and our next plan of action for Gamma Terra.

About a year back, we'd been trying to decide between these two options:

The Arsenal (Detroit)

• Amy visited it on her way to Ohio all those years ago, said it's bleak
• ruled by a humanoid chieftain called 6Mile who has a humanoid army
• there is the belief that he wants to leave the city and conquer parts of Midden
• Softie detected an "advanced energy bloom" there, seemingly higher TL than usual pre-War tech

Ottawa

• less destroyed than other big cities such as Kalamazoo, Muskegon, Detroit et al
• curiously in Softie's operational footprint
• was capital of the United North American States before the War
• Caveman has suggested that the Tomorrow Men's chips can be modified there


Back then we decided Ottawa.

Now, it looks like we'll go there next. I'm deeply tempted by The Arsenal and a lot of other things, but Ottawa is going to nag at me until we go. We'll never feel ready, so why not just say the heck with it and go soon?

Post-downtime, we'll head up to Ottawa. I suggested some possible actions when we get there:

- find out what we can about our chips;
- sell off some of our junk;
- find stuff we can buy, especially weaponry, medical tech, and information tech;
- find potential allies;
- learn as much as we can about the world, the Purists, and other groups.

Also, we'll try to catch an Ottawa Senators game. Surely the NHL survived the apocalypse, right?


We'll need to up some of our social skills before we go - Diplomacy, Fast-Talk, Leadership, Merchant . . . we'll have to set up a list and see who improves what.

Turning Purists into Tomorrow Men

The Gamma Terra crew picked up some new recruits the old fashioned way - by recruiting NPCs.

We have about 16 new folks in the group - 11 mutated humans, 4 "pure strain" humans, and 1 scientist "pure strain" human.

All of them are ex-Purists. Some very, very recently ex-Purists, although clearly they'd made some kind of decision internally that it took just our offer to get them to switch.

But it's a big issue for us. We're now outnumbered almost 2:1 by new recruits of dubious upbringing. Heh.

Also, of different rank - many of them outrank us, two of them very badly (two Majors.) We already made it clear they can keep their rank titles but it's not coming with any command authority in our group. Surely within their group it will, which is its own issue. We need to avoid parallel command structures.

We need to figure out a way to integrate them into our group and into our goals.

I have a couple of ideas.

We Do Solemnly Swear . . .

We all have an oath on our character sheets. We're O.G. 20th Homeland, as the new recruits called us. Did they take the same oath?

I think they probably did not. They should take the one we took. We know it by heart, otherwise we wouldn't be bound by it now with no one to enforce it.

Time Off Together

They've been trapped for two year with just each other. We've got a medical base with reading materials of sorts, people who aren't them, proper facilities, and plenty of time to relax.

And safety. No one will shoot at them.

It's possible that hanging around with the crew might help us all get a little more friendly and familiar. Hillbilly's already done his part by befriending Lynne.

Team Building Field Trip!

It's trust fall time. We can take them out on a mission. Non-Purist related. Maybe visiting the Citadel at Greenbay would be touchy right now, but maybe going to the Proving Grounds wouldn't be Or going somewhere none of us have been - not Angel Hill, too much temptation to split off - and seeing what we can find. That big Pyramid to the west, maybe the wandering forest, the AFB? Something where we have to work together and get to know each other. Even just some maneuvers would help. And they know the world better than we do, so it's a good chance for them to feel like they're showing us their worth and bringing something to the table.

Code Names

We might have to consider giving them nicknames. No one calls Hillbilly Arnold. Maybe we need 15-16 more nicknames? That might help with the rank issues. If we call Major Cho "Major Cho" it implies that she's, say, a Major of some kind. If we call her "Notorious" or "Hardass" or something like that, she might feel like one of us.*

Plus it's easier than remembering their full names and old rank.


Something to think about . . .


* This isn't crazy. I know a guy named John, but no one calls him that. Not even him. His nickname is Mother****er. He introduces himself that way. It's a good part of why he's a guy everyone knows. His story is here, at the 43 minute mark of the podcast.

GURPS Gamma World, 20th Homeland - Session 21 - Unknown #1 = A2O

We played Gamma Terra on Sunday, heading off to hit the last of the "Unknown" markers on our area map.

Characters:
"Barbie" - demo/EOD
"Fatbox" - demo/EOD
"Hillbilly" - medical specialist
"Love Handles" - demo/EOD
"Oinker" - demo/EOD
"Short Bus" - computer programmer

In reserve:
"Caveman" - demo/EOD
"Momma's Boy" - computer programmer
"Princess" - cryptographer/sniper

We took about a week off between our Grand Island adventure and this one - we're rapidly hitting targets before the black snows come. Then we'll decide if we want to hunker down for the winter or venture outside of the snow area. Both have strong positives and some negatives as well.

Our last target of opportunity was Unknown #1, a drilling platform out in the great lakes that seems to be drilling up rare metals. On the way, though, Hillbilly insisted we stop at Grand Island to bury the dead Purists we found. We did so. The dead VIP, too. Respect the dead.

We left Softie there, and headed out in a high-tech inflatable raft onto the oil-like waters of Lake Whatever They Call It Now, toward Unknown #1. Short Bus was worried about sinking in his armor, so we strapped a inflatable raft to his back and rigged a pulley for him.

It took about 12 hours of paddling to reach our destination, with each of us taking shifts.

What we saw ahead was this:


(The image orients with the stem of the inverted T facing north.)

We could get a solid look at it with the Bunny Scope and with a TL10 spyglass that Hillbilly owns.

The west side was overgrown, badly so. It was patrolled by birds - actually, when we got closer, fish. We'd later learn those were fleshens and terls - the former flying mola molas and the second feathered barracuda. The south central section was guarded by some humanoid figures we'd later make out to be t-shirted bullpup-gun carrying humans, and the east section was patrolled by drones. That section flew a flag:



After some quick discussion, we decided the best way to go in was right to the guarded middle. We could board a ship then climb up a scaffolding to the top. The other way up was a crane in the fish-patrolled and deserted section. We'd have to bushwhack our way from there and it would seem hostile - and the environment might be very hostile.

So we headed right for the nearest container ship. We were spotted, and waved and saluted. The sentry was joined by two more figures. We tied up our boat at the container ship, which rode very low in the oily water. We climbed up onto it and found it was full of dirt - it had been turned into a farm. We climbed up the scaffolding to the top.

There we were greeted by the three we spotted. They had 20th Homeland tattoos but we couldn't see any Purist tattoos. We saluted and they saluted back. Their leader, Major Loeb, wanted to know what the hell we were and where we came from. We said, "20th Homeland, Van Buren Bunker." He was suitably impressed. He was 20th Homeland, 5th generation. His companions included a green-skinned woman named Diedre. (I said, "She's from Orion. That's hot." Fatbox's player agreed that's how it goes.) We had a chat with them. They said they weren't Purists but were from the east. Er, Purist territory.

We spoke more and found they were actually former Purists. They had been there maybe 2 years? They were closed-mouthed about it but eventually it came out that there were four groups on the platform, which was called A2O - Advanced Alloys Operations - back in the day. They were:

- Purists, in the form of the Corvus Corporation, the science arm of the Purists. They have a suit of LEONIDAS power armor but it's in bad condition, and isn't radiation sealed. They need the Kaskium-269 for Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Station (NPS). They expected relief but it hadn't come.
- these Purist outcasts, who had become "contaminated."
- black-robed white-skinned mutants, who have unknown motives and seem non-hostile to the outcasts but hostility to the Purists.
- Frogmen over by the drilling cylinder called "the Pit."

Loeb was really reluctant to give us information. He'd come around later, but he didn't tell us a lot that we'd have to find out on our own. It was pretty clear we'd need to do that.

But it was late when we arrived, and they nicely offered to let us bunk with them in the building they were in. It was an old medical building with 11 of the outcasts in it.

Fatbox started to be very friendly to the green-skinned woman. Hillbilly picked out the most attractive one - Lynne Ren - and went right for her. He wasn't subtle about it - I rolled a 7 on a default 12 Sex Appeal. She was game to chat Hillbilly right back up but wasn't that quick about deciding.

We had a nice meal of vegetables from their floating garden and fleshen flesh. It was pretty good.

We quickly concluded that we had the armored suit to get into "the Pit," and potentially could resolve this conflict.

The next morning, bright and early, we headed out. Oinker spied on them with his scope. He saw two, marked on their white faces with painted symbols. ("Post-Apocalypic Kiss" - the Kiss Army cannot be destroyed by the apocalypse!) He reported this to us. Hillbilly joked that he should shoot at them in a friendly way, mind you, to attract their attention. Fatbox said, "Standard greeting fire." He watched them slinging something towards the Purist area. That would turn out to be Kaskium-269.

We walked over and spoke to them. One was waiting to see us - Eleventyseven. He said they were warrior-priests of the Red Death aka Friends of Entropy. They had been brought to the rig - summoned - by a group called the Radiants. Those were the frogmen. They'd been summoned to fight the Purists, who wanted the "manna" down in the Pit that the Radiants worship. The Radiants wanted the conflict won without harming anyone, if possible. So the Red Death were attacking the Purists by throwing radioactive material at them, and slowly irradiating the platform, to contaminate them and force them into exile. The Red Death see themselves as a cancer to destroy the world. And they find that glorious.

We spoke to them for a bit. They were immune to radiation and - if we're willing to come to the Citadel of Greenbay and join them - we could become so, too.

Love Handles handled the negotiations to this point.

We headed to the frogmen next, having told the Red Death we might be able to resolve this conflict.

We told the frogmen the same - one of them, we'd been told, could speak some Ancient. We asked for him - a frogman named Fracker Bravo. We spoke to him. He was a real peace-loving hippie type who worshipped radiation. But he was friendly. Hillbilly told him we could end the war. We could get rid of the Purists - and we promised to try talking first. We would want some manna in return, though. He wasn't happy but that's how he's paying the Red Death, and so he was willing. But he offered metal, instead. He showed us some - a 40-pound lump of Kaskium. Hillbilly etched an "H" in it when FB told us we could keep it.

Even better.

He let us see the Pit.

The Pit was an elevator down 20 miles. Halfway down is a Kaskium-269 storage area with the "manna." At the bottom were friendly metal monsters with lots of metal. They were "friendly." Okay.

We set up a morse code routine for Short Bus, who can't speak but can use radio in his armor. He went down 10 miles and checked out the radiation - lots of boxes of Kaskium-269, maybe 15-20? - and three open boxes.

He went down to the bottom. It was so hot he had to leave his gear behind. At the bottom it was over 200 degrees C. He met a six-legged mining robot standing in the middle of a bunch of tunnels sideways into the mantle. He asked its status.

"Standby. Doing crossword puzzles."

The robot had three full hoppers - one with osmium, one with Kaskium-269, one with Kaskium. Short Bus explored and found the tunnels had striations of non-mantle rock-material. What? He couldn't tell. He returned.

We went back to Loeb. On the way, we discussed our options.

The Purists needed to go. We could make a deal, Hillbilly suggested. Give them some of the Kaskium in return for them leaving and not coming back. But first we'd just offer them a way home, with their gear but nothing else.

Still, this was sub-optimal for us. They'd leave with excellent gear - Loeb told us they'd enchanced their armor with Kaskium-alloy known as Permium(TM). And they'd know about us. Also something Hillbilly wished to avoid. We also wanted to avoid the Purists seizing Short Bus and his armor to allow them to mine.

We met back up with Loeb and told him we had a plan to end it all. They could come home with us. Or just hitch a ride, whatever. They'd get off. We wanted to talk to the Purists. If that failed, we'd kill the hardcore resisters.

We headed out towards them, after sending a concealed Oinker to watch the negotiations. Loeb told us about a sniper. Oinker spotted him, on the platform on the connecting bridge, and aimed at his face. Hillbilly said that if he said, "So, I guess that's it then" that Oinker should kill the sniper. It was combat time.

Hillbilly handed his max-area preset torc grenade to Short Bus to put in a holster in his armor. If they threatened to take us prisoner to seize his suit, he'd pull it out and say he'd set it off with zero delay and take the suit to his grave with him. Short Bus was onboard with this plan. Short Bus ran off to the Red Death to tell them to come if they heard gunfire, because we were ending it violently in that case.

We walked over, helmets off, MOPP gear off, etc. and weapons slung or carried casually. The sniper spotted us, and people came out to meet us - a guy in a badly battered LEONIDAS suit carrying a shield padded with pillows (to deflect those radiation grenades, I opined, correctly) and a gauss cannon on a back harness mount. We faced them and saluted. He saluted back, and eventually took off his head gear. Sgt. Tauruson was impressed that were were "O.G" 20th Homeland. We talked about going home. We're here to take you HOME. This mission can be over, Sergeant. We could make a deal. He wasn't ranked high enough, so he went to get the military commander.

He did, as we waited. He instructed us to take out magazines and rounds first. Some of us complied, but Fatbox quietly did not. It didn't matter.

We'd been warned that the commander was a "total hardass" named Major Geraldine Cho, who Hillbilly mentally tagged as Maragaret. The Notorious C.H.O. came out to talk. She was equally disarmed and was a tough-looking woman with acne scars.

We spoke again about home. Hillbilly said our offer was this:

- they go home, or elsewhere if they prefer.
- they take their personal gear and weapons and such.
- That's it.

Hillbilly made it clear that this was somewhat negotiable, but that we didn't have the transport for them to take Kaskium, etc. with them. The "hardass" wasn't. She wanted to go home. The science staff and mission was headed by a Dr. Culp, and he was hardcore Purist and a diehard. She said she'd take our offer and send a trusted person to Loeb to let us know how it went.

We parted and headed back.

We ate with Loeb and company, and left Oinker in position. It got dark.

Then it got friendly - Hillbilly made another pass at Lynne. I made Sex Appeal by 7, she rolled a 17 on her Will. And we were off.

Hours later, around 3:30 am, Oinker radio'ed that four Purists were heading our way. Four messengers?

No, four defectors. Lt. Ellen Colon, Neil Dunne, Sarah Ligari, and Major Cho. The sniper didn't notice them in the dark as he was looking out for Red Death folks.

Hillbilly came down from his room pulling his shirt on and asked them to disarm. They weren't willing. We didn't press it. Loeb trusted them, and Cho offered to have them held by Loeb at gunpoint. Bah. We just let them keep their guns. But they were it. The others wanted to finish the mission.

We told them we'd kill anyone who didn't surrender pretty thoroughly.

And that's pretty much what we did. We moved out right away. Hillbilly got his torc grenade back. We moved out in a wedge, with Short Bus in the middle. As we approached, Oinker shot the sniper in the unprotected face.

We advanced to the base of the platform. We started to shoot down the drones - half of them were armed drones, half spotters, so we shot down the armed ones. They were fragile and Short Bus saw them easily with his enhanced senses. Fatbox and Hillbilly shot them down.

The Red Death sent a couple of guys running up. Love Handles met them and accompanied them, protected by a forcefield generated by one. The other had a bow. The forcefield one had a backpack full of "manna." Great, suicide bomber with a nuclear weapon.

The LEONIDAS suited Sgt. Tauruson came out with his gauss gun. Oinker had been waiting for that. He put two rounds into it, wrecking it. Tauruson instead drew an oversized auto-pistol and ran towards us. He shot at the charging Red Death who passed up. Meanwhile, Barbie climbed up to the sniper roost. Someone on the helipad shot at him. He flipped them the middle finger without looking back and kept climbing ("I climb serpentine.")

Tauruson shot at the forcefield-protected Red Death and mostly bounced rounds off, but eventually killed the longbowman with gunfire and then ditched his empty pistol. He then killed the other one with a force sword of some kind. Short Bus was going to engage with his ninja-to, but then Hillbilly handed him Hoopslayer.

That was a good move.

Short Bus ran up and the two power armored guys fought in melee. Short Bus was hit with the sword, but his duralloy-coated shield bounced it. The LEONIDAS suit on his opponent, though, didn't stop Hoopslayer. In a series of attacks, Short Bus cut his chest apart and left him a bloody, dead mess in seconds.

Oinker kept up fire on two more, killing one and keeping the other pinned.

At this point, Hillbilly had gotten out his bullhorn and told them to surrender, it was over, give up and they wouldn't die, they'd get to go home. All true, if they had. Not on the same terms - "with me before Chicago" rules apply. Not stated, but true.

Barbie reached the sniper station and found his Barrett (!) He used it to shoot one of the two guys on the helipad shooting him. He killed him. The other shot back and some of his suppressing fire raked Barbie, wounding him. Barbie rolled over and red pen'ed himself, and then rolled back. When the gunfire died down, he popped up, sighted his target - out in a well-lit area, the fool - and killed him, too.

With those guys down, we stopped asking for surrender. Short Bus went ahead and killed the other two. We'd finished the combatants off.

The three scientists had locked themselves in the main building with a device called the gamma lathe - a tool to make Permium(TM) equipment. We'd been warned Dr. Culp was a true believer. He'd been contaminated from using the lathe, but saw that as a price he paid to help the cause.

The place was shielded with big blast doors, but not on the upper levels. Love Handles climbed up and smashed out a window. Hillbilly and Fatbox followed. We found the lobby, found the location of the lab (and found we couldn't open the doors from the lobby), and headed to the lab.

At the lab we found Dr. Lennin holding a gun on us, terrified and unable to fire. Hiding behind her was Dr. Vanessa Hodges. Dr. Culp was looking crafty and trying to do something, anything, with his computer console. We told them to disarm. They didn't. We gave them directions to lay down. They didn't.

Fatbox just walked up and took away her gun. "We're done here."

Culp surrendered, too, but Hillbilly didn't trust him. He took aim. Fatbox went to duct tape his hands. Culp lashed out with a vibrodagger!

And Hillbilly fire full auto into him. Nine rounds, six hit. He died. Dr. Hodges went catatonic.

We asked questions to Dr. Lennin. She said she'd never tell us anything. Okay. Hillbilly showed her his eyes. "Do you have a problem with this?" he said, and pointed at them. She was scared but seemed firm.

We brought them back and left them outside and went to talk to Cho and Loeb. They said Lennin was a true believer. Hodges we brought inside. Hillbilly went outside to talk to Dr. Lennin. He tried to reason with her but she kept saying she'd tell us nothing. Hillbilly made it clear this was her life on the line. She got stubborn.

So Hillbilly shot her in the face.

Ugh. Not where I wanted that to go.

We did some talking - the whole group of them will come with us and try our life. A post on that tomorrow, I think. The Red Death will leave, taking their dead with them - dead? Love Handles spoke to them. "They'll be fine." "Oh, you mean their souls will be fine." "No, they'd be up and around."

Turns out the Red Death can come back from the dead. A little weaker, sure, a little "smaller," but back. Wow.

We left it there - the hard-core Purists killed, peace restored. We had a bit meal of flying mola mola and we'll resolve the way off and the resolution by email. We need to manufacture some stuff for us, and decide how to leave it. Sadly, we probably need to disable the gamma lathe so the conflict doesn't re-start. We're not strong enough to garrison it.

Notes

We had an exchange by email during which Barbie's player mentioned how attractive Barbie was. The GM pointed out he wasn't. So Barbie's player invested 5 points in Attractive. Hah.

We rolled to level up - at least most of us, who had previous played a multiple of 5 sessions. IIRC Barbie rolled +2 Striking ST, Fatbox +1 IQ to bring him into a tie with Hillbilly at 13, Oinker and Hillbilly both got +1 HT. I can't recall what Love Handles got, if he in fact leveled up. With the +1 HT Hillbilly has HT 15 and Very Fit, which helped immensely in the session to follow.

So it turns out I'm the player who wants to know if there are any cute girls in the bar to hit on. Hey, Hillbilly probably didn't get any action the day he was frozen and it's been 155 days since then. The Restorationists weren't interested for some reason, so he was going to keep trying. Momma's Boy has his porn, but Hillbilly has a solid Sex Appeal default.

Omnium is actually a cycling race term.

Kaskium, I assume, is named for Tim Kask. We need some Wardium. It's bound to be really powerful but not enough to counter the DM's machinations.

We took turns as speakers today - Love Handles did some of it, we did some as a group, and Hillbilly took over in the end for the direct negotiations. I'm most interest, and my best, when I'm focused on a goal and negotiating. Hillbilly and Love Handles had some differences about the utility of white lies. Hillbilly prefers not to lie, so people believe his facts. Love Handles likes to spin things a little differently so we don't let on what we know until we've fished out some from the others. Interesting contrast I think. He's at his best just being conversational and asking for general information, in my opinion.

We used the map above as a handout. The GM didn't have this much clearer map ready. Honestly, it makes a big difference - seeing this I have a different idea of where I was. Less Zaxxon and more habitable platform.


When the LEONIDAS suit-wearing Purist readied his force sword and attacked the Red Death warrior-priests, I asked Fatbox's player for sound effects. "A Wilhem scream?" I said yes, but I meant a light saber effect. Oinker's player jumped in with that. So every time he hit a warrior-priest they played the sound effects. Woooosh. AAAAAAAH! Fatbox's player kept up the screams with each killed Purist combatant. We don't do MVP but they were MVP.

That's just one of the funny things in game. We had so, so many. Some of us - especially including me - just kept laughing really hard for big chunks of the session. "Standard greeting fire" was a classic Fatbox line - that player is the same one who came up with "Wizard Court" and "Wizard Jury Duty" in our DF campaign.

After the session, I thought of some ways we could have potentially turned or used Dr. Lenin. Ways we could have appealed to her, and made her convince herself that helping us really helped the Purists, too. They might not have worked, but it was late and I was in a rush so I just didn't think of them. Oh well. Great game. Very satisfying, even if Hillbilly ended up doing something I'd rather not have had Hillbilly do. I'd personally have felt as bad about it if I'd just handed her over to Fatbox, who'd cheerfully have cut her into pieces with his chainsword. Not a good way to end. At least it's a new beginning - we have our first new recruits!

Gamma Pre-Summary

We played Gamma Terra today, with a good crowd - six players.

We:

- Buried the dead at our last exploration point

- traveled to Unknown #1 by rowing our inflatable Zodiacs

- saw flying fish, drones, and a habitable drilling platform

- met splitters from the Purists

- met Red Death warrior-priests

- met the Radiant - frogmen who worship radiation

- tested the rad-proofing of our LEONIDAS suit

- met hard-core Purists

- negotiated, for real

- negotiated, in the "bullet in the head" sense

- made some amazing discoveries

- and got Hillbilly some action, boo-yah.

Detailed summary tomorrow!

Notes from the Post-Apocalypse - GM info dump for Gamma Terra

We've been dealing with lots of little things from our last Gamma Terra session.

Here are andi's notes on the android we shot for booting up near firearms, because we're a little jumpy:

In one of the suites in the Echo-Tower, the PCs destroyed a female Mark VIII Bodyguard Android by shooting her in the head, and using Oinker’s “bunny scope” they found her memory modules in the torso and extracted them. Once home, the PCs were able — with Short Bus’ knowledge of computing and android engineering — to connect her to a terminal and get her online. Doing that, they learned that she was a Mark VIIIi A-Level Bodyguard Android called Nike (pronounced NEE-kay) and had been assigned to protect a man (whose corpse the PCs found in a bed in the same suite) named Manny Ferraro. Ferraro was a wealthy and influential friend (and former University of Michigan classmate) of John Morrow’s, and an “expert consultant” to the UNAS’ United Intelligence Services. He lived in a fortified brownstone in Detroit and was buying a unit in the Echo-Tower (as well as a room in the Survival City). In the year before the War, Ferraro split his time between his home in Detroit and the starport at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio. Nike was always with him, but he could turn her long-term memory circuits off when he was doing “classified” things, so she doesn’t know much about what he did, exactly.

Our additional questions told us the following:

The Mark VIIIi is "high-end human" -- better than a Bishop-from-Aliens-style Mark VIII which is basically a baseline human in terms of physical abilities.

Talking to Nike, you ask about her capabilities -- I'll just translate what she says into GURPS terms to save me saying it all in words, which would be vague and take more time than I have.

The Mark VIIIi would have ST and DX in high human range (maybe 16-18 depending on how much you spend) with above-average processing power (IQ 12-ish, lower than Mark 8's "genius grade" IQ 14+ brain) and a HT score (plus Hard to Subdue and Kill) that makes it hard to put her down short of destroying her. Her reactions are impressive; she would have a higher Basic Speed (and thus Move) than her DX and HT scores would normally come out to, as well as Combat Reflexes. She has subdermal armor plating (DR capable of deflecting up to rifle rounds, so call it 4d or 5d of DR). She doesn't eat, drink, tire, breathe and so on. Her power source is in the form of an atomic battery which lasts more or less indefinitely. She had the juice to boot up when you found her, despite having been sitting there for centuries.

And of course all the Machine Body advantages like Injury Tolerances like No Blood and so on. That's in Basic.

Skills are what you would been for VIP protection detail, all at professional (or greater, 17-18+) levels. In her case, melee and unarmed were better (Level 20?) than guns (because people were really prickly about firearms during the shadow years).

Her gear is pretty simple. Mono-edge hyperdense ninja-to with an armor divisor, a (5mm?) needler pistol like the one you found on the dead security guard in the nuclear power plant (but slightly better) and those are "shock shurikens" which have very sharp micro-barbed points that stick in flesh/clothing/armor and deliver a taser-like incapacitating jolt of electricity.

Her needler ammo?

Single magazine (22 rounds) of disintegrating (as in dissolving, not "disintegration ray") poison. One or two hits is non-lethal, more rounds deliver more poison and increase lethality (ie require multiple HT rolls, or HT rolls at penalties, that kind of thing).

And here is what she looked like - Bridgitte Nielson. I called it by email without the GM saying so . . . she sounded like Bridgitte Nielson looked in Beverly Hill Cop II sans .44 Automag.

Pictures from Gamma Terra

Here are some visuals our GM created for our Gamma Terra game:


The logo on the seed crates:



The local adventuring area:


The campaign area, updated. I'll post about some of the new features - the Earthscraper and that giant scryscraper in Sault Ste Marie - tomorrow. I wonder if the Greyhounds still play there, just in the Quebec Mutant Junior Hockey League?



My theory, which all the evidence supports, is that some of those craters that don't have any radiation, glass slicks, etc. were trek bombs that just disintegrated spheres upon detonation. You'd want a ground impact rather than an airburst for maximum damage with those, I suspect, but either way, that's my theory.

GURPS Gamma World, 20th Homeland - Session 20 - the Morrow Project?

Characters:
"Barbie" - demo/EOD
"Hillbilly" - medical specialist
"Love Handles" - demo/EOD
"Oinker" - demo/EOD
"Short Bus" - computer programmer

In reserve:
"Caveman" - demo/EOD
"Fatbox" - demo/EOD
"Momma's Boy" - computer programmer
"Princess" - cryptographer/sniper

We started off at our base, assembling a team for a trip to a construction project on Grand Island that we'd found reference to in an Autonomist's "time capsule" in Muskegeon.

We spent only a brief time at the base - enough to rest, eat, and reload - and try out the new power armor - but not to make any new grenades, do any research, etc. We did swing by 12.7 Mike Mike to pick up Love Handles's M14, which he'd repaired with a rebored barrel (at an Malf of -1).

We traveled via Softy aka Warbox aka Adjunct Captain Hopper to Grand Island, Michigan. What we found was the island itself had some moss-covered areas covering man-made structures, and a small town on the mainland with some energy sources and a radiation source. Naturally we decided to hit the town first, on the grounds that it was likely a bit less involved and interesting than the main construction project area, so we should sweep that up while we had the time and interest instead of leaving it for never (pronounced "later.")

Annoyingly as always, Warbot isn't willing to expose herself to "enemy detection" so we could only use her for insertion and extraction. (This is why you don't see me put "get ammo for warbot" high on the list of things to do - ammo to do what with?) In short order, we visited four locations, three of which had power sources detected in them and one of which had radiation detected.

- a 12 meter tall broadcast power tower. It was opened with a coded door panel - Love Handles tried 1-2-3-4-5 and it worked. Short Bus had suggested we find the building number if that didn't work. Inside we found three 75-pound portable batteries. We took them immediately. Oinker climbed up for better view with his eyes and the "Bunny Scope" - which he'd borrowed from Princess for the duration.

- the next building was a two-story squat structure with a shed and clear yard. The yard was maintained by three Mark V androids. We told them we were evacuating them and to get into warbot with their stuff. They did. The door was resilient so Hillbilly loaned Hoopslayer to Short Bus, who's power armor enhanced ST 24 (plus some additional Lifting ST) made for a better chance to force the door. He sliced up the door "latch" and in we went. This was a local sector orbital observation point. The first floor was deserted but the second floor had deliberately obscure symbols depicting satellites in orbit. Love Handles got some pictures and we counted up the objects in space - two large, several medium and upwards of a thousand small ones - all active. Some of the small ones orbited the medium and large ones. We couldn't control anything or communicate, or glean useful data from the systems, although Short Bus tried.

- the third was a pet shop. It was open to the elements and largely destroyed, but behind a closed "Staff Only" door we found a lab still functioning. The centerpiece were two "dogs" - but with strangely enlarged heads and somewhat hand-like feet (more like a possum or raccoon than a dog.) They were is suspended animation. We elected not to revive them. We also found frozen/suspended animation tissue samples of hundreds of dog breeds.

We left this all as it was and moved on.

- the radiation zone was actually around a geodesic dome, in a "trailer park" of domes (some on stilts, many on the ground, all clearly movable units.) Radiation came from one. We headed to that one, because Barbie insisted this area was "on the way" (it's the opposite direction) and "there is treasure there." He wasn't wrong.

We scanned the dome where the radiation was coming from - detected initially by Warbot and closer up by our Geiger counter watches and Short Bus's spiffy new power armor. The Bunny Scope peered through most of the walls and saw meter-long ants and a dead guy on a bed holding a basketball-sized object that was the source of the radiation.

So in we went, having no good way to lure the ants out. We fanned out across the living area, as some ants approached. They were brushed metal in color, and metal in armor, too. Hillbilly shot at one off-handed with his 9mm, holding Hoopslayer in his hand, as Short Bus moved to melee with his shield and the sword he got from 12.7 Mike Mike. Barbie came in third followed by Oinker and then Love Handles.

Barbie shot one a few times and scored the metal of its body, as did Oinker. That one rushed Short Bus but got shot in the eye by Oinker, klling it. The next used metal fangs to bite Short Bus but did no damage.
Hillbilly put away his useless pistol and drew his SCAR-H and fixed Hoopslayer as a bayonet while this was going on. Oinker aimed at the next one, Short Bus cut at it with his sword (and rolled terrible damage), Barbie shot at it. In moments it was dead.

We moved up to engage the others in the hallway. Short Bus moved forward and Hillbilly backed him up, as the others fanned out to other areas. One rushed out and Hillbilly, who was Waiting, shot at it and missed, taking an All-Out-Attack (Determined) for a +1 since Short Bus was basically blocking the hallway. This proved to be a mistake on Hillbilly's part.

The ant rushed right past Short Bus and bit Hillbilly for maximum damage, injecting radioactive venom into his leg. Short Bus turned and cracked it with his sword, and rolled very poor damage and didn't even scratch it. Hillbilly desperately stabbed at it and missed, twice, and it bit twice more. Hillbilly collapsed, rubber-legged and barely holding on to consciousness (due to massive damage - more than 12 basic damage per hit - and FP loss, and despite HT 14 and Very Fit, to give you idea of what we were up against.) Short Bus managed to kill it a moment later. Meanwhile Love Handles had to kill one in the kitchen.

After that, the ants scattered into holes and we didn't see them again. Hillbilly asked for someone to hit him with "Grey, blue, and red please." Oinker hit him with a red pen, then found Hillbilly's grey and blue and hit him with both. That helped - the grey is rad-chelating, the red heals injuries, and the blue boosts FP. Hillbilly was still a mess, and groaning about mutation risks.

While that was going on, Love Handles found a bunch of home-made pickles. Short Bus scanned them and found most of them radiation-free but a few containers had picked up some radiation (probably from the ants, given the uneven distribution by area.)

Love Handles went off to inspect the basketball. As suspected, it was a bomb. The dead man wore broken early-issue Purist armor and symbols (and had a chip, which Oinker extracted for our collection). Love Handles got right to disarming the bomb, without waiting for things like "people to get clear." He immediately rolled an 18. Lucky for us, it wasn't armed yet, just in-process, so instead of sealing it off and ending the radiation leak from it he amplified it. We all took some rads and some damage - even through our personal rad-resistance (call it +3) and suits (call them +2 or more, the better ones much more.)

Sigh.

But it could have been worse. Make-up-new-guys worse. Luckily many bombs have more failsafes than triggers, if you do them right.

In the end he got it sealed off. We gave him a purple pen to ward off the extreme FP loss he'd suffered. Love Handles through this was a great idea, even after last time. Spiked up on the purple, he ate all of the non-radiated pickles (and didn't share) along with much of Oinker's rations.

We left the bomb for now. We'd eventually come back, hook it to the outside of warbot, and bring it near (but not to) our base.

We forgot to bury that 20th Homeland/Purist guy, actually. Damn, we had a good track record of honoring the dead of 20th Homeland. If/when we go back we'll swing by and do that.

All of that done, we headed to the island. Off of the island was a manmade sunken concentric circle of concrete. We checked that out and found it was a geothermal power source. Aha.

Then, we debated where to start - the tower (on one end of the island) or a "strange object" near another buried object (on the other end.) We voted and the "strange object" won 3-2. We headed there.

We headed up to the "strange object" and warbot put us ashore nearby and we bushwacked the rest of the way. Love Handles forged ahead, hopped up on his purple pen. He soon found a crashed "space shuttle" with some boulders nearby. He got a vision of three of the "boulders" hovering up, unfurling tentacles, and attacking him. So he said that over the comms and ran forward to make sure that happened!

We all moved to keep up, Short Bus in the lead as he's got enhanced ground movement (he's like Hillbilly Mk. II.) He strove to come up with Love Handles and protect him. Oinker climbed a tree, and Barbie and Hillbilly jogged up to meet them.

As envisioned, the boulders did rise and turn into hover-squid (also dubbed cyber-squid, boulder mimics, and more) and attack. Love Handles shot away at the with his M14. They had a hard metal outer shell and a soft underbelly, which Love Handles shot for. He managed to take one out, Oinker shot one down from a tree, and the next one got shot apart as it melee'd Love Handles after he charged around the back of the ship. Hillbilly shot it twice, Oinker once, and Barbie twice, with the result that Hillbilly killed it. The others disagree, incorrectly. Be before it died it picked up Love Handles and threw him somersaulting into a tree, wounding his arm badly (5-6 hits of damage.)

We finished off the blog-squids (their proper names) and explored the ship. It turned out to be a search-and-rescue spaceplace than slammed into the ground - so the big buried object nearby was likely a landing strip (it turned out to be one.) They had been burned alive thanks to keeping their helmets off and gloves off of their suits - which were otherwise unscathed. We took their fireproof suits and again, forgot to bury the poor guys. Oh well. We might be able to use - or sell - those suits. The ship was otherwise useless.

The nearby large object was, in fact, a buried landing strip - and the roads up to it a form of clear diamond-based crystal. Damn. They were easy to clear because nothing could gain purchase. Oinker wanted to try cutting it with Hoopslayer but Hillbilly couldn't see the point of vandalizing it.

We cleared some of the landing strip and found running lights and markings.

So we left the rest and headed to the monorail station just south of it, and climbed up to the track. We walked on the track to the next stop - a trefoil-shape of three buildings. They turned out to be hydroponic farms and regular indoor farms, complete with dirt and climate control (but no lights at the moment.) We found boxes of seeds and seedlings ready to go . . . big 10 x 10 x 10 boxes of them. We checked all three and that's all we found, so we bunked down for the night. Except for Love Handles, who couldn't sleep.

The next morning we walked on the next monorail, past a second support pillar (the only one we'd found - the rest of the track is just suspended in the air) and through the actual monorail car, which was derelict up on the tracks. We made to the terminal and down - into the base of a partially built tower.

Outside the tower were seven graves - marked with office chair backs and marked in Sharpie. The only names we could still read were Angela Cho and Patrick Shay. The others had faded too much. We got inside the tower (I can't remember how) and into the first floor. We found an old Heavy Lifter Mark V with one arm and worn-out legs sitting on the floor running at minimal power. When we approach, it spoke.

It said its name was Calindra. She was one of the seven workers on site when the war happened. They lost power and basically starved to death/dehydrated to death over a few days of no water, no food, and no help. All of the workers grabbed a Mark V and talked to it as much as they could to "download" their personality into it. Calindra died somewhere in the middle, with the two we saw dying last. But the other Mark Vs just wandered off or wore out, leaving only this one "survivor." Hillbilly told her to talk away, we had plenty of cradles for androids and we'd recharge her. She told us the site was being built on behalf of the United Earth Government supporters, the Free Men League (or whatever, it's like that.) The designer? Morrow. John Brady Morrow.

Who was that? The brains behind the project to stick soldiers into the ground that led to the 20th Homeland being put into suspended animation. (I suppose you could call it the Morrow Project? Activated during the Aftermath? Which happened in Gamma World? We have the Quentin Tarantino of post-apocalyptic GMs.)

Who also was that? The guy with the bandages who Hillbilly shot up back in Session 2.

Who also was that, part two? The guy whose picture we saw shot out in the Autonomist time capsule . . . and who Barbie sees in his "dreams."

Oh, that guy.

Maybe Hillbilly was a little quick on the trigger.

In any event, we also found out a big VIP was here the morning the war started and never left. And that above us were going to be apartments for rich folks who supported the League. But below? Accessible mostly by the landing pad and through the farms - which had underground levels? Space for 5,000 more people to live. Oh, hello. Guess who has roughly 4000 people to house and feed when we bust open Van Buren bunker? We do.

So we decided to search up and then down. Up, we found a number of really swanky model apartments. No loot, but very nice places. Hillbilly kept calling places to live as we found bigger (and smaller) apartments.

In one room, though, we found a women with a severe but attractive haircut, sitting at a table. Love Handles and Hillbilly walked around her. She was totally motionless. We came around and saw she was about 6'4", wearing a sports bra and cargo pants. On the table in front of here was a longish ninja-to, a stack of six special-looking tri-point shuriken, and a pistol. Next to her was a garment bag. As we came class to the android, her eyes flickered and we heard "reboot commencing." Not wanted to deal with the downsides of a Mark VIII ninja, Hillbilly said, "Barbie, now" and nodded to her. Barbie shot her in the back of the head even as Love Handles started to say, "Wait, what if . . ."

The android's head rocked from the shot, and Barbie put three more rounds into her and Love Handles joined in. That basically took her head apart.

Hillbilly realized a moment later that maybe they could have cleared her weapons but it wasn't clear if that would have helped. Oh well, better safe than sorry.

We netted a really nice ninja-to (given to Short Bus, as it should divide armor), shock shuriken (I can't recall who took them), and a longer-barreled needler pistol like the one we'd found a little while back. One magazine of plain ammo, and one unmarked ("curare-tipped explosive" opined Hillbilly.) And a ballistic fiber dress suit.

Short Bus went to work on the android, and Oinker scope'd her to see if she had a backup "brain" or storage. She did. Good. We can interrogate her later, when she's a headless ninja.

We found her boss - a black man in his 60s (to appearance only) in a nice suit, lying dead on the bed, clearly from radiation effects. We carefully stripped him and took photos of his face and hands. He had a black ID card (nothing on it at all), a really nice Nadal-level watch, and a nice ring. We took it all.

We also found a nice pistol in the piano bench of one of the grand suits.

In the end we made our way back to warbot with our loot by way of the underground passages. The place was already ready for dwelling . . . the farms just aren't ready. We'd need to figure out how to reactivate them.

So we took Softy back to town to pick up the bomb in a sling, and headed back home.

Notes:

Hillbilly did go with IQ 13. I get to roll next time on the level up chart.

The black snows are coming, so we'll need to plan downtime soon. I'm not sure if it's between next session and the one after, or before the next session.

What is that needler ammo? Heck, maybe it's Spasm, from the Matador series by Steven Perry.

We really need to find that corpse of poor old Morrow. Another one - like the ninja - that Hillbilly shot (or had shot) out of fear/caution. She probably wasn't a threat, and would have been a great source of information and possibly a helpful ally. Or not. Maybe she would have taken out heads and stacked them in the hallway for the next group to find. Guess what shooting her in the back of the head does? It makes that not happen.

Fun game. We need to discuss MVP, not that we give out points for it that I recall. I'd say Oinker and Short Bus were very useful for their gear, Barbie for his ruthless shooting and insistence on looking into the radiation source, Love Handles for not rolling that second 18, and Hillbilly because I'll think of something.

Between sessions we need to do full medical scans on everyone, again, and give everyone chelating agents, again.

Gamma World pre-summary

We played GURPS Gamma Terra today.

We:

- went up to the Free Men construction project (I'd thought it was the Autonomists, clearly not).

- we found some more big batteries and some more androids.

- we got to see what's in orbit.

- we fought metal-armored ants and Hillbilly got really messed up.

- we found a bomb. Love Handles proved fairly inept at putting it on safe mode, but we survived.

- we fought flying squid-monsters and explored a "space shuttle."

- we found the setup for an indoor farm.

- we explored a partially built tower.

- we talked to a downloaded personality in a Mark V android, killed an android ninja, and gained some nice loot.

- we figured out who the mysterious bandage dude was. The one Hillbilly shot way back when.

- we found a potential base for the future.

All in all, a very good session. Details tomorrow.

Things to do for Gamma Terra on Sunday

This coming Sunday we'll play GURPS Gamma Terra again. We cleaned out the LEONIDAS last time, and our next stop is a small island where the Autonomists set up some kind of construction project.

Since we'll have time to stop home to our secret underground lair, we may have time to get some stuff done. Here is what I have on my list:

- make more DIY grenades. The ones we had were tactically useful even if they weren't especially lethal to the enemy we faced.

- figure out the power armor, if possible. It would be useful to get someone in it - the plan right now is Short Bus since he's our point man.

- repair our NBC suits and armor!

- see if we can get any more information on Barbie's dreams. Or on the man in Barbie's dreams. I am pondering how we can get Barbie to dream and get something from it. I wonder if we can do some MRI-style scan on him while he's sleeping and see if it's memories, he's actually awake and not dreaming, something.

- Marie Kondo some of our gear. Or at least Hillbilly will do that with his gear.

Hopefully this list will jar some memories for my fellow post-apocalyptic survivors of things they need to do.

Hillbilly's XP decision - IQ or DX?

Hillbilly has 15 points as of this session, and will have 20 as of next. +1 DX? +1 IQ? Both make a lot of sense. I'll decide right after I roll for leveling up since it'll be 20 sessions and we've been doing that every five. It's a really tough call - improved IQ would give Hillbilly +1 to his IQ-based skills, +1 to general comprehension rolls (useful for identifying odd tech), +1 Will, +1 Per. But +1 DX would push a number of his skills from the 14-16 range to the 15-17 range, improve three skills I rely on a lot (Knife, Wrestling, Guns), and generally make him better at what he's become - the main melee combatant. IQ has the slight edge here. I could just directly up his skills, but I'm right at the point of diminishing returns on that. Still, dumping 5-10 points in my medical skills would be immensely useful. Lots to consider, here.

I wrote that last session of Gamma Terra.

Next session is #20, and I'm not sure if I get to "level up" with a random increase or not.

If so, obviously I'll roll that first and see what I get.

But once that's done, unless I got some game-changing result, I'm going with +1 IQ.

As I've thought about this, I feel like I'll regret the "missing" point of DX less than the "missing" points of IQ, Will, Per, and one level of every IQ-based skill. I really want my Will and Per up, and I almost bought them up directly. I think we need better IQ-based skill rolls. And I have been without those breakpoint levels of my DX-based skills for a while. So I'm not sure I'll miss them.

Although +2 ST is really tempting, too . . . nah, not yet. IQ. Unless that roll comes up with something really decision-changing (like +1 IQ) I will go with getting Hillbilly a bit smarter. It's too useful at this juncture not to.

GURPS Gamma World, Session 19 - Postscript 2 - The Princess & the View from Orbit

At the end of last session, we took care of some loose ends. Here is the second of the two - the Princess.

The Princess, the cruise ship we'd investigated a few sessions back in Muskegeon - was repaired by members of the Army of the Bear in return for our alliance. They also chased out the teleporting cats.

We wanted an alliance, but it turned out we may have sold it cheap. Our plan was to commandeer the Princess and take it south to our base of operations, and use it as a home base for freed members of the 20th Homeland.

It turns out that it has a pretty firm permanent flight plan, which goes around to places we dare not go - like the glassy disk that was Chicago - and places within the Purists lands. We can't seem to easily force it move off of those lines. Sigh. We'll find a way eventually - we really do need some place to put the members of the 20th Homeland when we can free them and feed them.

But one thing it can do is go into a low orbit . . . and it has numerous viewscopes on the sides for observation, and we have some high-end telescopes (including a TL10 spyglass that Hillbilly carries.)

From orbit, the view was really impressive.

We could see much of the same that we could see from a lower orbit by Warbot aka Softie. In addition, we could see the glassy disk that was Chicago. Interestingly, the weather we experience - the colored snows, the constant cloud cover - is a teardrop shape of weather emanating from that glassy disk. Outside of it, the weather is much more normal. Why we don't move out like the original 20th Homeland guys from Van Buren bunker did I don't know.

(We forgot to ask about the outlines of North America. I bet they're gnawed down a bit.)

Looking up, the view was stellar.

First, Earth has a ring. A big, Saturn-like ring.

And a moon, of course. The moon is broken into several large pieces and a myriad of smaller ones, around a spherical core. Is the core of the moon solid, or is it that there is a central base station that survived when the moon did not?

Additionally, the surface is studded with structures - it was clearly extensively built up and populated.

In addition, there is a smaller, smooth and spherical "moon" near the other. It's clearly man-made. We couldn't make out any detail on it.



Notes:

So, I'm not the only person to make the moon a playable area.

Also, it's nice that the weather isn't nasty everywhere. That doesn't help us, though, as it just makes the grass seem greener outside the current campaign area.

We'll have to find a way to get to the moon, and find a way to get the Princes reprogrammed to free flight so we can bring it south. That'll be a big pain, but there we go, more long-term things to do while we adventure.

GURPS Gamma World, Session 19 - Postscript 1 - Muskegeon's Bank

At the end of last session, we took care of some loose ends. Here is the first of the two - the bank in Muskegeon.

We'd tried to crack the vault when we first found it, with no luck. Later, Caveman and Hillbilly schemed up a way to get the Army of the Bear to crack the vault for us.

They accepted our offer, and tasked their metal-shaping officer, Washagami, to come and do it for us. Washagami found the weakness in the vault and then it was just a matter of time to get the door removed.

We expected safety deposit boxes and domars.

What we got was something much less and yet much more valuable.

The vault itself was made out of Permium, a very long lasting metal that's not quite up to the level of duralloy, but still good.

Inside stood a defunct Security 'Bot (like the one at the Power Station). It was red and white. On its chest was a logo - a chevron in a circle surrounded by alternating inward and outward pointing arrows. It stood in a room decorated with propaganda posters for a group called the Autonomists and lined with shelves. It wasn't a bank vault, or hadn't been in a while - it was a "time capsule" of some kind.

On the shelves were dozens of holo bibles - but personalized ones, with people's names, images, family genealogy, etc. for the owners. Many were of relatives to each other.

Reading through those - they were sort of like diaries - we found that 20-30 years before the 3-day war was referred to at the time as the "Shadow Years." There was a United Earth Government, which by dint of strict policies and top-down control had united the earth and basically ended poverty, starvation, poor education, etc. But they'd done so in a heavy-handed manner. The Autonomists opposed them, mostly peacefully at first. But they clashed with a group called the League of Free Men, who supported the UEG.

They started with peaceful debate and ended with terrorist attacks against each other with WMDs, killing thousands.

Such explained why the Princess, for example, was a cruise ship with a death bot on it. And why we've got utopian powers but very strict rules, very well armed police, warbots with domestic patrol areas, etc. It was a utopia on the edge.

In short, it was the extremely chilling intro to 1st edition Gamma World.

This place we'd found was time capsule to the Autonomists. We also found some heirlooms, like class rings, watches, commemorative coin sets of domars encased in lucite (800 domars worth, if we need to cut them out with Hoopslayer), a desk globe hologram with chevron markers showing areas of importance to the Autonomists (including a massive project on Grand Island, which is very close to us and now on our list of "to do" places!), and some stock certificates (valueless, maybe - Hillbilly wants to barter them to the Restorationists.)

Interestingly, there was a publicity still of the guy Barbie has been dreaming about, modified to be a shooting target. Clearly, that was a League of Free Men or UEG guy. And Barbie jumped forward in time. Was the UEG or League of Free Men looking to develop time travel, either forward or backward? We debated putting the image on a board and having it pop up to surprise Barbie. He'd just shoot it to pieces, though, and spoil all of the fun.

Notes:

This was extremely valuable. First, it means my meta-knowledge (like how I've nearly memorized the intro to GW 1st edition) is now in-game knowledge. Second, it tells us a lot about the past in a way that points to things to do in the future. Third, we have some information which may allow us to predict what we'll find elsewhere - Grand Island and other places - and be less surprised by the odd mix of "peaceful utopia" and "security hell" that we've encountered. Maybe that's not so odd - flawed utopia is a whole theme - but it's not exactly what we expected and didn't have a reason why it should be so.

Now we know.

GURPS Gamma World, 20th Homeland - Session 19 - Unknown #2, Part II

We played Gamma Terra today with a short crew, determined not to cancel even in the face of that since we haven't played in more than a month. Even so, we had three people whittle down to to two people. Luckily Oinker's player was a mid-session arrival back home and joined us.

Days 142 since departure from the bunker.

Characters:
"Hillbilly" - medical specialist
"Love Handles" - demo/EOD
"Oinker" - demo/EOD


Present but on Security Detail:
"Barbie" - demo/EOD
"Short Bus" - computer programmer

In reserve:
"Caveman" - demo/EOD
"Fatbox" - demo/EOD
"Momma's Boy" - computer programmer
"Princess" - cryptographer/sniper

We picked up where we left off last session, trying to drag a suit of broken power armor out of the LEONIDAS.

We managed to get Love Handles to the "ground level." As he waited for Hillbilly - who'd then haul up the armor while Barbie guarded our rear - a nearby "door" jumped off and attacked - it was a mimic! A big mimic. It scraped along the corridor - aha, the scouring is the mimics moving around.

Love Handles backed up, shooting it with his M16 with some effect from armor-piercing ammunition. As it passed the shaft up, Hillbilly climbed up and came at it from behind with Hoopslayer. It grabbed at Love Handles and tried to crush him . . . and another "door" came at him from behind. Soon Love Handles was caught between two mimics. The big one turned its back on him as the smaller one sought to crush him. He managed to fend it off for a bit) and break free a couple times, but took a lot of crushing. Hillbilly slashed at his and dodged most of its attacks, but eventually was grabbed and crushed a bit while he slashed the mimic. In the meantime, Barbie climbed up part of the way and tried to shoot the mimic one-handed while hanging from the rings, but missed. When he had a chance he jumped up and fired at the mimic normally. Love Handles let go of his M16 and tried to cut the mimic that held him with the shortsword he claimed off of the rebel Little Thieves general, but even a solid All-Out Attack (Strong) did nothing to it. He dropped that and tried to fish out more ammo to reload his gun.

Bullets kept hurting them, but not as much as Hoopslayer did. Hillbilly and Hoopslayer managed to damage big mimic a lot, plus Barbie's bullets (and Love Handles before them) as well - and it died. With that, Hillbilly slashed at the smaller mimic that had grappled Love Handles. It eventually died, too.

Love Handles had been heavily injured, so it took a red pen to set him right. But from there we managed to get the power armor onto the surface and then into Softie, our Warbot. We hauled the smaller mimic corpse up there, too, for later study . . . somehow.

Barbie stayed behind to guard with Warbot (his player was out sick today) and Hillbilly and Love Handles headed in, intent on bring up the rest of the gear. We did that, going down into the hold and bringing up the armored suits - one damaged, one intact - and the force shield generator.Short Bus and Oinker helped, and then volunteered to stay with Barbie (their players were out.)

(We had a brief debate about if Barbie would loan Love Handles his M14, since the M16 that Love Handles was using (borrowed from Fatbox) didn't have a lot of penetrating power against the mimics. Would Barbie part with his personal firearm and stand guard with an M16? We all voted that no, that seemed really unlikely. So we didn't have that happen.)

Love Handles and Hillbilly went into the ship to explore the rest and loot the various chests we couldn't open until we'd found the cards (which we did mid-late last session.)

What followed was a slow grind (in game terms - fun exploration in reality) of moving room to room, kicking down doors, fighting mimics - who mimicked some doors and a folding screen in another room - and looting. After a level of clearing, Oinker joined the team as we needed more firepower (and his player had arrived home from a trip.)

We found some weapons that we armed ourselves with, including four M12 10mm pistols - three with normal rounds, one with AP - a trio of P90-like bullpup SMGs with 4x40mm semi-AP ammo, and two over-under double-barrel break-breach launchers called Aeromil ESA-11s. Love Handles used one of the last against a mimic. The first round he tried was one of 10 "BB" rounds - it turned out to be a beanbag. Harmless. The second was ES - Electro-shock - and it stunned a mimic that was quickly carved up into metal ribbons by Hillbilly and Hoopslayer, the MVW - Most Valuable Weapon.

Killing the mimics took a while - we ended up killing around 9-10 total including two last session and the two killed at the beginning of this one. Love Handles burned through a few magazines worth of 5.56 mm AP, Hillbilly pumped out some 7.62 mm but mostly fought with Hoopslayer. Oinker shot off a lot of 7.62 mm rounds, too.

We took a lot of damage across the various fights as we explored. Hillbilly was severely crushed - Love Handles even worse at one point, and Oinker was squeezed nearly to death at one point. It was rough going. We used up a number of red pens to heal, a pink pen on Love Handles to knit a broken arm . . . and one of the purple injector pens we found on the ship and on the Purists.

Hillbilly's theory was, hey, it's red (healing) plus blue (fatigue-away). This was not the case. Hillbilly stuck it into Love Handles. LH felt elated, with increased strength, senses, alertness, and vigor. He was raring to go kill more mimics, and couldn't patiently do anything at all. He wasn't healed so it took more pens to heal him up.

We kept moving systematically around the ship, looting the aforementioned weapons, two lower-body-only exoskeletons and one neuro-cap like cap (both put on by Oinker), lots of clothing, a couple of blood transfusion units, 2L bottles of some Midwestern soda called Faygo, around 60 meal bars (1500 kcals each, and ravenously hungry LH downed five of them and a bottle of soda, while Oinker and Hillbilly each ate one), some liquor, many TL9 medical kits (with TL10 and TL^10 being the cutting edge of stuff we've found so far), two diagnostic hoops - hula-hoop like devices that swing over a body and give a bonus to Diagnosis, more purple pens, some of the other pens, and some ID cards. We also found two "landmine" looking flat domes with buttons around the edges, but we haven't fooled around with them at all.

In the end we killed off all of the mimics and took everything we found. We also discovered three more dead Purists - one killed by knife wounds, another by gun shots, and a third by a smashed skull from something blunt. We took their chips (different from ours, the medical hoops revealed) and their bodies to the surface.

We last checked the Jetsons car we'd found. Hillbilly tried to get in but the handprint recognition panel (as he'd guessed it was) didn't recognize him. We ended up having Warbot blow open the rusted iris door and towed out the car. (At least, we said we'd do this, I can't recall if we handwaved it or the GM missed it and we left it behind, which is also possible.)

Finally we buried the Purists with some simple markers out by the ship. Respect to the fallen, misguided or not.


***

Once that was all done, we resolved some postscripts - stuff we'd had time to do but the GM didn't have time to write up. We did that after, instead of before, this expedition. One note, though - LH didn't sleep for days. He's been jittery and wired, and alcohol didn't slow him down. The medical hoops showed a foreign chemical acting on his system.

We need to be very careful with those purple pens.


I'll post about the two post scripts during the week - the bank vault, and the Princess - and the view from near-orbit on the latter.

Notes:

The mimics were really tough. Fast, strong, good HT, high HP, lots of DR (probably in the 5-6d range). With better lighting, we probably could have spotted and engaged them further out, but maybe not. We were in tight corridors and narrow bulkheads. At least we didn't have any more of those Octoshrooms to deal with.

So often in Gamma Terra we're stuck in situations where only a very few of us can engage, so having only 2-3 troopers didn't really make it harder to clear out the mimics.

We cleaned up on this expedition - we took a lot of gear home, we got some new very high-tech items including operational power armor, learned of a sneaky way into the Purist lands (maybe not - they clearly know of it too and used it to get to the LEONIDAS), and learned even more in the postscripts. This was a tremendously successful trip. We expended some resources doing so, and many more red pens than we found, so we're paying out in irreplaceable resources. We'll have to figure out a non-pen way of dealing with injury. We're too quick to just pop them in and move on, not rest and recover. Maybe the medikits and neurosurgery kit will help.

Hillbilly has 15 points as of this session, and will have 20 as of next. +1 DX? +1 IQ? Both make a lot of sense. I'll decide right after I roll for leveling up since it'll be 20 sessions and we've been doing that every five. It's a really tough call - improved IQ would give Hillbilly +1 to his IQ-based skills, +1 to general comprehension rolls (useful for identifying odd tech), +1 Will, +1 Per. But +1 DX would push a number of his skills from the 14-16 range to the 15-17 range, improve three skills I rely on a lot (Knife, Wrestling, Guns), and generally make him better at what he's become - the main melee combatant. IQ has the slight edge here. I could just directly up his skills, but I'm right at the point of diminishing returns on that. Still, dumping 5-10 points in my medical skills would be immensely useful. Lots to consider, here.

Random Gamma Terra Facts & Notes

We've learned a lot of little things in Gamma Terra.

Dates

The War was May 1st, 2322.

It's, as far as we can tell, 2562.

We don't know what day of the year it is, but we've been out of the bunker - we, the original five* - for 142 days. The additional troops have been out since a few weeks after that.**

Technology

We've hit a fairly bewildering variety of technology. It's a weird mix of 70s-vision future tech and modern visions of technology. Computers with giant disks and blades, plenty of keyboard interfaces with green-on-black displays, etc.

Some highlights:

- Duralloy, an impenetrable metal that absorbs force

- Transport gates (which means my goal of getting into orbit isn't unrealistic, there must be a gate to an orbital weapons platform somewhere!)

- Idiot-proof medical pens

- Will-powered lasers (not my favorites)

- Disintegration grenades

- Anti-grav

- neural-directed military and law enforcement equipment

And 8 generations of androids.

Languages

So far we only know that the Bal'Kree have their own language, and some of us know some of it.

We haven't found much use for our other languages; we really need a Latin speaker, based on how much we find. We're hoping one of the new guys will speak it.***

Lots of races seem to speak their own languages. We got around in Boomtown thanks to a telepath and a 20th Homeland person.

Groups

We've encountered/know of:

- Purists - former 20th Homeland, now an army with an anti-mutant bent. Hillbilly being a mutant now doesn't endear this group to him.

- Restorationists - folks dedicated to restoring the wonder of the Ancients. Sometimes helpful.

- Army of the Bear - mutant animals who follow a mutated bear.

Random Bits

There are a half-dozen or so bunkers of the 20th Homeland. Many of them are in Purist territory and are the basis of the Purists.

Midden is the current name of Michigan, which the Bal'Kree say is from "Mitten" for the shape of the land. Michigan, really.

Bear Lake is north of the great forest, and north by a bit from where that Airbus was supposedly going to take us:




I'm sure I'm missing a lot of bits, but I may have to keep up a "Gamma Gazetteer" and this will make a good start.


* Barbie, Caveman, Hillbilly, Princess, Short Bus.

** Fatbox, Love Handles, Momma's Boy, Oinker - and a mess of fools who followed Lt. Newb.

*** One of our potential players studied Latin, so he may as well take it on his PC. I regret taking Spanish and not Japanese, if only because I speak way more Japanese personally and I like using that skill.

GURPS Gamma World, 20th Homeland - Session 18 - Unknown #2, Part I

Days 142 since departure from the bunker.

Characters:
"Barbie" - demo/EOD
"Hillbilly" - medical specialist
"Love Handles" - demo/EOD
"Oinker" - demo/EOD
"Short Bus" - computer programmer

In reserve:
"Caveman" - demo/EOD
"Fatbox" - demo/EOD
"Momma's Boy" - computer programmer
"Princess" - cryptographer/sniper

When we last left, we were cleaning up in Muskegeon. We accomplished some downtime activities - mostly healing, resting, gear maintenance, etc. plus fixing loose ends like the Princess and the bank.

We'd decided to next hit "Unknown #2" - a sort of above-ground structure with significant underground elements deeper than Softie's (our warbot) ground-penetrating radar could penetrate. We gathered up the Tomorrow Men who were ready to go, and went.

We arrived at what looked like a two-story build with a mast, with one "pod" like extension on one side, and two on the other. The structure was completely grown over, with dirt piled up. We fired up the Bunny Scope - which Oinker borrowed from Princess - in X-ray mode and spotted a hatch in plus hatches into the attached pods that we dubbed "bathyscopes." We quickly cleared one of those off and forced its door open. Inside were rows of seats and an inside airlock hatch. We forced that open with some work and went inside.

It turns out we didn't have very good lights, just our helmet lamps and glowsticks. We'd clearly forgotten to loot powerful flashlights from the big superstore a few sessions back during Operation Top Hat. We had to make do. Luckily Hillybilly has some night vision, but it was still slow going exploring.

We moved through the "building" and found it barren of fixtures, mostly, and the walls and floors and ceilings were scoured of paint, etc. and the doors had their card readers scoured to the point of uselessness. The doors were flimsy, however, so Hillbilly simply kicked them down. After a few minutes and kicked doors we came to a room with a desiccated naked human corpse on the ground, a "chest" the size of a steamer trunk, and a cabinet. The group searched the room while Hillbilly checked the corpse.

It was a human with a tattoo of the 20th Homeland - a brother - but also that of the Purists - so a fallen brother. Meanwhile, Love Handles explored the far end of the room. Something slapped into him, an explosion of jam-like stuff that let off a cloud of grey "smoke." With his superior gas mask (which we all have) and top-end NBC gear (Caveman, Love Handles, Hillbilly) nothing happened. He backed off and tried to smear it off, but it didn't work, until Short Bus tried water (he's our chemist, for what it's worth). That helped clear it off.

The corpse had been killed by a neck slit and its left arm was messed up as well. Hillbilly took its chip, which Oinker scanned for with the Bunny Scope. Perhaps he's got a higher rank, and if not, we can see who he was.

We checked the chest, as well, which had a swipe card reader. Hillbilly swiped our long list of cards through it - nothing. It had a glass-like top but it had gone translucent with whatever scoured the inside of the structure.

A little bit of door-kicking, chest-we-can't-open-finding, and empty-cabinet-checking later, Love Handles got hit from the darkness with a globule of something smokey. Oinker scanned with the Bunny Scope, however, and spotted a weird mushroom-cap thing with octopus tentacles with an open end hanging in the upper corner. It flicked a globule of "stuff" at the group. Oinker shot it three times and dropped it.

We dubbed them "flingers" but later "Octoshrooms" (which coincidentally is what the GM named them.)

We continued to search the "building" and it quickly became clear it was a mostly-buried spaceship. We found a room with dead computers and a vine-obscured curved window. Aha, it's a ship.

Eventually finding the logo S.S. L.E.O.N.I.D.A.S. confirmed that. We eventually found more Octoshrooms (which Oinker shot, and one got slashed up and killed by Hillbilly left-handed.) We found one of them around a corner, and Short Bus tossed a grenade of Hillbilly's and blew it apart. They were worrisome but didn't do any harm.

We climbed up the elevator shaft in the building - actually just a shaft with rungs to climb . . . for zero G, or some kind of anti-G? Yes. We reached the top and found a bridge, with live computers. And an Octoshroom, which flung goo at Oinker. Oinker claimed he felt like he was telepathic, and could sense the Octoshroom. He thought "peace" at it, and told Hillbilly - who had a bead on it with a pistol - not to shoot. And it flung good into Hillbilly's visor.

Great.

Eventually Oinker decided to shoot it, once we groaned that it was clearly not friendly. He shot it a few times and killed it.

We split up, leaving Short Bus with Love Handles to play around with the computers, and the rest of us explored. We some rooms with dirt in them - spillage from damage from the ship crash-landing here like some piece of Stewart Cowley art.

We found aft of the ship a docking bay with an overhead iris - overgrown, based on how we couldn't see it. Under it was a three-seated UFO-looking vehicle sitting on the floor. Aha, a flying car, finally! Loot if we can get it powered up, or even if not. We'll need Softie to blast open the iris - easy with her laser batteries - and then tractor beam it out.

In any case, we found other chests we couldn't open but no more Octoshrooms and no more trouble.

Short Bus got the computers working, and found out L.E.O.N.I.D.A.S. stood for Law Enforcement Operations Neural Induction Dynamic Armor Squadron. Yeah, they strained for that one. We're on a PAG Helipad Compsite Carrier, 62' x 553' x 198', 52 crew, 20 "parasite drop capsules." Three of those left, it seems. The last log entries - system or otherwise - were May 1st 2322. That was Day 1 of the war. The war lasted only three days, so these guys didn't miss much.

We gathered back up and decided to head down as far as we could. That turned out to be a third level. We quickly explored that, and found two staircases down to a 'tween decks area. One was crushed and inaccessible, the other held two Octoshrooms up in corners. Oinker shot one, but it wasn't harmed and dirt flew around. He decided that seemed odd, and re-acquired the other one and shot that. (I think Hillbilly ran up and slashed it, and briefly got goo'ed at this point.) It died . . . and Hillbilly was briefly telepathic. He could sense the group, and that one of them was keeping a secret. (Dun-dun-DUUUUNNNNN!) Hillbilly tried thinking at Barbie but couldn't communicate. Who has a secret? Well, now Hillbilly does too.

We found another shaft down, and took it down all the way. We found a large open hold with broken catwalks. Below was a glowing hemisphere - a forcefield - with four corpses in front. Behind it was a weird electrical generator (maybe.) We left Oinker in overwatch - he likes high places - and climbed down with a mix of climbing gear and catwalks.

At the bottom we found those four corpses were skeletons clad in white plastic-like armor, three identical and one officer-type. The armor was damaged, as if by repeated combat, and inside were skeletons. They had the markings of 20th Homeland and the Purists on them (that one being a DNA helix of barbed wire.) We searched them, and Hillbilly found a hidden side compartment on the left leg of the officer type. He had a gold coin commemorating "Atlanta Triumph 128 N.E.", 13 gold chips, a white ID card with four silver dots on it, and a gravity knife. On the others we found two red ID cards with 3 black dots - all clearly high-ranking cards - and six pens - 2 red, 1 white, 3 purple. For now, Hillbilly took those, along with their chips, carefully separated so we know who was who.

In front of the force field, though, was a stand with a laptop on it. The screen still glowed green-on-black, and showed this:



Great, a puzzle. Short Bus checked under and around the laptop to see if anyone had taped the password under it. Nope. So we puzzled away at it for a good 15 minutes or so. We hit on "Infinite" or "Infinity" and "Universe" but they didn't seem to fit. Then Short Bus said, "I think it's something like Future, but it's too short. Maybe 'Tomorrow.'" As he said that, Hillbilly said, "That's it." Love Handles figured out what numbers that would be on a standard keyboard layout, and tapped that in as we backed off a safe distance.

The shield came down.

Behind the shield were three suits of power armor! Two were clearly out of service, but one was fine, and plugged in.

We also determined the force field generator was portable. Well, movable. Okay, loot. We started to take that apart as Love Handles dealt with the armor. He eventually got off his MOPP gear and helmet and pulled on one of the helmets after figuring out how to get it off. He popped it on and found it had a neural interface, but he couldn't operate it until - according to the unit (labeled a Law Enforcement Operations Neural Induction Dynamic Armor Suit) he needed to be synched up by a medical professional. Hillbilly said, "Me, I can do that." Love Handles clearly didn't believe him, so Hillbilly explained that's he's a medical specialist, knows how to operate cutting-edge medical technological devices, and we live in a subterranean medical facility with androids that Hillbilly learned that skill from. So it's not like we can't do it. We discussed the suits and decided we needed all three - one to use, two for spares - and that Short Bus probably is the one to get it as he's our point man. Probably. If not, Barbie since he doesn't have any NBC gear except a gas mask.

We moved on to the "electrical generator." Long story short, it had a screen and a swipe card, and projected a shimmering field between two poles. So Hillbilly swiped the white-with-silver-dots card. And the "field" showed a ruined train station labeled Bear Lake. A transport portal?

We tossed a glowstick in, and that was fine. So we put a stick on a rope and tossed that in - and pulled it back just fine. So we sent Oinker through with a rope around his waist. He was fine, and we could hear him muffled as if through a wall. So Hillbilly and then Barbie went through.

The place stank of death. Of corpses. We moved ahead and found a bricked-off tunnel, presumably walling off the dead, and light coming from a side area. We headed there, into a waiting area, and climbed up into sunlight.

We found a ruined town, overgrown by forest, with a smashed-up robot covered in vines and ruined buildings. One building had a picture of three men in power armor (not Law Enforcement Operations Neural Induction Dynamic Armor Suits) with one foot each on a fallen bear, with Purist logos. Ahah, Purist town or Purist victory mark. We presumed we'd find a mass grave behind the bricked up tunnel.

We also found three horses - two big, one pony-sized - with eight legs. Oinker went to talk at them, but they didn't talk back. He wanted to take them, but we reasoned with him about how it wasn't possible to get them through the portal and up through the ship.

We used Hoopslayer to get some choice bits from inside the robot, took a snapshot of the wall picture, and opened up the brick wall a bit, expecting to find victims of the Purists. Nope. We found dead Purists, with signs of disease. We bricked them right back up after taking a snapshot or two. Might help us later.

We went back through the portal.

Hillbilly buried the skeletons in the dirt on the bottom floor, with help from some of the guys, although we took their gear and armor. There wasn't much to put down as a marker, so when we come back down Hillbilly will bring something from above to put down in each place so it's clear what's been done.

From there, we hauled up one of the broken suits. Short Bus and Oinker stayed behind the guard, as we'd left five levels unexplored.

Love Handles led, Hillbilly dragged the armor, and Barbie did cleanup. As we came to one area, though, we found a door Hillbilly had kicked down was back. We'd decided the Octoshrooms had illusion powers of some sort, so Hillbilly told Love Handles to shoot into a corner. It did, but nothing happened. So he kicked down the door.

And the door morphed into liquid metal and formed a metallic silly-putty arm and grabbed him around the neck. Mimic! Oh no! (YESSSSS!)

It started to crush him between his trauma plates like PB&J. Hillbilly dropped the armor and drew Hoopslayer. Barbie shot right past Hillbilly's head and into the thing, wounding it. Love Handles tried to escape but couldn't and instead just tried to keep it from crushing him. Hillbilly tried to slash it, but it dodged, pulling Love Handles to the ground. Barbie aimed. Hillbilly jumped onto both of the fallen. Barbie shot the mimic again, and then Hillbilly slashed and stabbed it. It was hard, like metal, but Hoopslayer deals well with metal. A second or so later Hillbilly finishes slashing it up. It died, peeling back with the coloration of Love Handles's armor and NBC suit. It was heavy, and when an angry Love Handles kicked it he hurt his own foot.

We moved on.

We found another room that had just about one or two too many pieces of furniture now. So we backed up and decided to shoot them all. But wait, we couldn't all aim in the room. So Hillbilly tossed in one of the homemade frag grenades. BOOOM! Ping-ping-ping-ping. Something moved. So we threw in another. Again, BOOOM. A mimic came tumbling out. It died moments later. Love Handles shot it with his little silly M16, while Hillbilly cut it with Hoopslayer and Barbie shot it with a man's gun, an M14. It died and turned into a big metal twist. We'll take that, eventually, for analysis.

We ended at this point because there may be more mimics, and we do want to explore the rest no matter what.

Notes:

We ended early-ish because of possible bad weather rolling in to our GM's home area. Our plan is to finish up the SS L.E.O.N.I.D.A.S. next game session, then get back to DF for a bit. We plan to explore Unknown #1 after that, and then Ottawa after that.

This was a very revealing session - either a massacre or a mass burial of plague victims (and we'll need a full medical scan ASAP, now), a transport portal (!), a suit of power armor (and spare bits), a force field, Purists, a new style of ID card . . . seriously, this has been a treasure trove already. Literally in terms of valuable loot and figuratively in terms of information.

We need to figure out the date in "N.E." We have clues - if we can determine how long ago those guys died.

I'm excited by the gear we found, the cards, the info about the Purists, and also the opportunity to roleplay a bit. We've got a Soldier's Code of Honor and a Vow ("I do solemnly swear . . . "). Hillbilly will cheerfully shoot the living hell out of the Purists, but they're still brothers and you bury your fallen brothers. We'll bury that other guy on the surface - Softie can disintegrate a hole, and we'll cover him with the dirt we dug of the ship, and mark him somehow. Seems fitting.

Roleplaying note - Hillbilly has Bad Temper (15). I've never rolled that. I know when I'm mad. I don't need the dice to tell me to be mad or not to be mad.

MVP is still under discussion, but I voted Short Bus. Oinker and Barbie and Love Handles all did stuff. And my guy Hillbilly was very useful - strong enough to break down doors without a roll, killed a lot of things, carried a lot, had some useful ideas - but that Force Field was a showstopper. Not for Short Bus. And that got us the best armor we've heard of. MVP.

Next session should be fun. This one was.