Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Super Heroes at the Dinner Table

  This past Saturday I hosted my very intermittant Champions game. All of the players were introducing new characters and we were adding 2 new players. All the layers are teens or close enough, so I was prepared to have a ton of fun.

  The players (sex and age) and characters (powers) were:
  KF (M/18) - Senor Iago (A Portuguese Knight of a Holy Order placed into a cursed slumber by a witch and recently awoken. Wears enchanted armor and shield as well as a number of magic items, fights with an enchanted mace, can summon a pegasus)
  JS (M/17) - Bob Perkins, Defender of the Universe (an array of energy attacks, drains, and boosts)
  KB (F/17) - Thunderclap (Power armor user with a number of sonic attacks)
  DB (F/16) - Speedre [rhymes with the typical pronunciation of 'Dierdre'] (full-body cyborg super-speedster)
  AS (M/15) - Tombstone (Pilot of a war machine that can transform between being a 36' tall battle mecha and a large RV; he is from a parallel dimension where nuclear weapons were never developed and battles were fought in huge anthropomorphic war bots)
  JB (M/15) - ...[Ellipses] (Gadgeteer) because of his physique and his sewer base sometimes called 'sewer urchin' or 'the swole mole'
  SS (M/14) - Сжигание Молот ['Flaming Hammer'] (WWII Polish warrior who was forced to be a super-soldier for the Soviets; put in cryo-stasis after the war and only recently awoken. Super gadgets and armor as well as an enhanced body and martial arts)
  TB (M/13) - Xianke (A Shaw Brothers/Wuxia style martial artist)
  NS (M/12) - Mandible (A scientist who, post lab accident, can transform into a sort of 'were-insect' with a variety of insect powers like vast leaps, clinging, etc. Also quite tough)

  Whew!
  So, as background:
  Senor Iago and Flaming Hammer were in Atlanta because of the Temporal Displacement Research and Treatment Center at ICICLE Tower, near the CNN Center [ICICLE (Intergovernmental Committee on International Criminal Law Enforcement) is the SHIELD/UNTIL/UNCLE/etc of my campaign)], Tombstone's RV pierced the dimensional barriers near Atlanta because of events related to the last session. Mandible and Speedre came out of local high-tech labs. Ellipses and Thunderclap are from the 'local high-tech scene' in Alpharetta. Xianke won't tell anyone why he is here. Bob Perkins, who just got back from the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal, isn't really sure why he's here.

  The session started with some of the heroes learning that there was something falling from space into Atlanta. The various heroes, who had not yet met, converged on the CNN Center, the estimated impact point. Thunderclap saw the impact from a distance - whateveritwas landed in the intersection between the CNN Center and ICICLE Tower. Flaming Hammer and Iago saw the impact and donned their armor. Ellipses and the rest also heard or heard of the impact and began to close in.
  At that moment Bob Perkins appeared a few feet away from the impact crater. He asked a passerby what planet and year it was and then approached the impact - it was an alien in a Star Ranger uniform whom Bob recognized as the one assigned to the local region [No, not a Green Lantern!]. Obviously dying, the Ranger ordered his staff to find a replacement and then told Bob,
  "The Riders are coming"
  Before he died.

  The various supers are all there or almost there when everyone hears a sonic boom  and sees a vapor trail heading towards them. A moment later the Brute lands in the intersection! The only creature on Earth labeled an Omega Level threat, the various rookie supers collectively hold their breath.
  The massive, gray-skinned Brute looks at the Star Ranger and shouts,
  "Who killed my friend?!?!"
  and just then - an energy bolt fired from the ICICLE Tower strikes the Brute, which promptly triggers his Berserk and its time for combat.

  -Speedre does a move by at full speed: hit, no effect
  -Thunderclap hits with her biggest gun: hit, no effect
  -Xianke and Mandible start to close with the Brute
  -Ellipses and Flaming Hammer get to a roof for sniper work
  -Bob Perkins drains the Brutes strength: after defenses 1 point is drained, which is enough to trigger another berserk.
  Did I mention that each berserk triggers a strength boost?
  net result - Bob made the brute stronger
  -Tombstone fires his vortex cannon: hit, no effect
  -The Brute makes a short leap and grabs Thunderclap
  -Senor Iago, who has been holding his action, makes a Presence attack: he slammed his mace down to get the Brute's attention and said,
  "Sir, I do not know you, but I ask you to calm down. None of us are your enemies; none of us hurt your friend. We are good people made afraid by our anger. I beseech you to cease fighting and we will help find the people who killed your friend."
  And he rolled really well, giving the brute a chance to try to recover from one of the berserks, which he did.
  Everyone goes to post phase 12 recovery.
  Next turn Thunderclap tries to break free from the Brute's grasp, but it is like this



  Even with power armor.
  Bob Perkins also makes a Presence Attack to try to calm down the Brute, as does Iago, again. The Brute is rapidly calming down!

  Then Xianke kicks him.

  Perfectly in-character, too. He doesn't do any damage through defenses, but the Brute might have noticed. This upset Flaming Hammer who uses his maser rifle to...
  ...snipe Xianke, knocking him out with a mostly invisible beam.
  But not invisible to the sensors on Tombstone's mecha. Tombstone tracks back the point of origin, zooms in and sees...
 ...a filthy Commie! [Flaming Hammer still has red stars and the hammer and sickle on his armor) Originally a soldier in a much hotter Cold War Tombstone draws his "pistol" (a 3' long cannon) and fires on Flaming Hammer. He hits but Flaming Hammer can take it.
  The Brute then glances around before hurling Thunderclap north.
  Very, very hard.
  There is a sonic boom as she vanishes toward Dalton.
  Speedre (who has been holding her action) sprints off at her overdrive speed, hoping to catch Thunderclap on the way down.
  And the Brute leaps away to the East, also causing a sonic boom as he goes.
  At this point Mandible steps between the various PC heroes who have been (or are about to) fighting each other c\and calls for calm. The 7' tall cockroach man succeeds in reasoning with everyone and various mutual introductions and apologies are made.
  At this point Bob Perkins wants to know where the closest McDonald's is. 3 blocks down Marietta Street later and the heroes are all eating big macs and talking (Thunderclap picked up the tab; Bob had lost his wallet on a planet near the Garnet Star a few weeks before).
  After a few minutes two Icemen (ICICLE investigators) arrived and began to debrief the heroes. A few minutes after they left a young man in the uniform of a Star Ranger arrived: the staff had picked him and he was there to recover the body of his predecessor and return to the local Star Ranger base for training. The group assisted him in getting the body and he then vanished into the sky.
  The heroes exchanged various methods of contacting each other (except for Bob. He said he tends to be where he's needed). Bob vanished into thin air as he was about to bite into his 4th big mac and everyone else was soon heading home.
  I was a little pleased with how much fun this intro session went!

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