Marvel RPG - Ain't no party like a Quantum Scientist party!

 

So after the last sessions adventures in The Liminal Zones, the group had a meeting with employer Elizabeth Patricia Kyono, and she tells them that the grateful McAllister twins have invited both her and Justice Incorporated to Grandpa Manx's 86th birthday party they are throwing for him the following Saturday night. Knowing the twins a bit as both genius quantum scientists AND party girls, she says that the party is likely to be as much about them as it will be about Grandfather Manx. 

(for more info my cat hybrids in the game in my last post and the one before that)

And so it is. Not just many members of the higher science community, but also many McAllister Scientific employees both old and young, and a certain amount of B and C level celebrities who have gravitated to the charismatic and energetic McAllister sisters. 

The Bottoms is the southernmost area of New America City, and is a district of low-income neighborhoods, in large part made up of a diverse ethnic population originally started by refugees  after WW3 from places like The Caribbean and parts of South America. The Twins Maxine and Tabitha's house is part of a strand of wealthy lake front properties that you often get in otherwise poor areas. And such was the cat sister's pad.

Arriving with Kyono via stretch limo, the group headed in, and in the main hall Manx and his granddaughters were on the dance floor cutting a rug. Old man Manx still had some hip in his hop and was doing all sorts of 80's and 90's moves (the Robot, Roger Rabbit, etc).

The grand hall had a stage for live band and DJ, but also in the room were a couple of vintage teleporter pods. As a matter of fact, family heirlooms. They were the very groundbreaking experimental pods Manx's parents invented in the 70's, and the self-same ones that young Manx god stuck in as a kid and got spliced with his pet cat.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. 

In the main room the twins had their father, Manx jr., video call from a big view screen on the wall, wishing his dad a happy Bday. Manx jr. went into biology like his late grandmother, bucking the quantum science the rest specialized in. He was doing research in The Savage Land, and was sort of me planting a seed to eventually get the group to go there when I think of a good way to do it. 

 

I had not fully fleshed it out yet, but in the moment I decided that he had been down there long enough to have been a father figure or something to some younger dinos. When I plan the adventure out I will go deeper with what is going on there.  

The party was raging inside and out back in the pool area. But for those in the house Manx sr. had the music turned down and declared he is going to do a little experiment as a party trick. He explained the pods where his hybrid form was created as a kid, and he showed an old device that he said his parents copied his bio data when he was 21 years old in the course of their attempts to figure out how to separate the cat DNA from his human form. Though as 21 years old he had gotten used to who he was and did not let them continue their quest to "cure" him. But tonight he would use that info from his much younger self for a little experiment. 

At this point a man who had yelled a few things out during the video call with Manx jr. spoke up again. His name is Boris Brutorz, a Russian biochemist and former colleague of Manx jr. As a matter of fact, Boris and Manx jr. worked together to cure Boris of an affliction. The Russian scientist was complaining about how the quantum scientists in the McAllister family were dangerously playing god with their ongoing experiments, and that only his old friend Manx jr. was doing the right thing by engaging in bio science. Manx sr. bluntly asked how he got into his party, and that he was one to talk, having gotten in legal trouble in the past with chemically doping himself and others in his work of the past, and actually causing a real danger, which we will become clear in a moment, dear reader. But Manx said that since his son Manx jr. not only helped cure him of a dangerous affliction years ago, but that he also helped him with related legal issues so should shut the hell up and let everybody enjoy the party.

Note: this guy is an old NPC of mine from Champions games of yore. In a way he was my Bruce Banner, and my incredible Hulk. 

Biochemist Boris Brutorz

So old man Manx went into the pod, had assistants activate it, and teleported from one 75 years old pod to the other. 

He was the first human to ever be teleported,
and here he was doing it again all these decades later

Manx came out of the misty antique pod chamber, and as planned he had used the data his parents stored of him in the 80's, and he was reassembled in that form. A 21-year-old cat human hybrid. 

The twins Maxine and Tabitha were angry and appalled that he was going to use the ancient tech (updated with some modern addon's of course), especially since their personal research was trying to get portal technology viable rather than the breaking down and transmitting bio matter. Now they were just flabbergasted. 

"Sis, we've seen old pics of gramps, but 
they don't do justice to how foxy he was.."

The whole crowd were amazed, and many not yet really understanding what happened. Were they being punked?

Boris Brutorz was mad upset with all this, and though it was thought his old affliction was cured, it came back with a roar. He turned into his own raging alter ego, "The Brute". 

Again, he was my Hulk for my games many years ago. And if the image looks familiar, yeah, back in the day I imagined him looking like Hanover Fiste from the 1980 Heavy Metal film. 

"Don't worry, I got an angle"

First the enraged creature smashed one of the pods, while yelling and cursing in Russian. Manx cried out. These pods were precious to him. The characters jumped right in to fight Brute, with Igneous growing to his 24-foot size and knocking the raging monster across the room, out through the plate glass windows, and out to the crowded pool area where the party was still raging. 

 

As a Southern Californian who grew up near Malibu I have
been to a bunch of pool parties like this in my life. 

The others came as they were, but Amber did up a version of Seraph
with a sexy party dress special for the session. Yowsa!

Out at the pool, they managed to take down Brute after taking some lumps themselves. Brute was Rank 5 compared to them being Rank 3. But he was not exactly Hulk level power. But formidable to give them a really good fight, which is the stage of the campaign we are in now.  

But something else was going on in the house. The teleporter pods were sparking and misting, especially the big cable that connected them. The characters came in to check, and there in the haze was an odd site. A glowy eyed and pitch-black apparent clone of young Manx. 

The creature was confused, then bared fangs and popped claws as the crowd grew to gawk at him. Everybody was sort of perplexed as to what happened except for Paladin who started giving Manx shit for doing such an experiment in public, and what danger the creature might be. Manx explained that extra bio matter is included in the teleporter system to account for any dangerous glitches that could occur in a teleporting form, and that the damaged pods has caused a full copy, albeit different looking, of Manx. 

The creature ran off into the lake and swamps area, and though the party gave chase he got away. A fleet of police cars surrounded the neighborhood, as Science Police showed up and questioned Manx and the twins. Even his granddaughters were raising eyebrows at the de-aged Manx for what he did. But he was still in the glow of being a young man again. 

We had to end there. But ramifications of all this will surely appear in upcoming sessions. I mean, of course they will heh heh. 

Cheers

Do I have a thing for anime Cat Girls lately?

 

I grew up with dogs. My family always had dogs. One or two at most. But cats were not something we had as kids. I think it might be a Scottish thing. My dad, and my uncles, all seemed to hate cats. I did have a cat when I was around 18. A black tailless Manx. I don't remember how I got him. Maybe a relative (they are originally from Scotland). I named him Salem, after Sabrina the Teenage Witches cat in the comics. I got him right after a bad breakup with my high school sweetheart. Salem barely made it out of kittenhood when I got home from a weekend trip and got told by my parents he got smooshed by a car. Knowing my parents, there was probably a 50/50 chance they just didn't want a cat around the house. Or since they were Scottish, I should say "hoose."  It was a period in my life I thought the world was trying to get me to off myself. And since I was raised by European immigrant Catholics, I thought God was too. Man, we sure had it easy as teens, eh? But anyway, I never had another cat. 

I did like cat things though. I remember using Cat Lord for one campaign or another back in the day. I think as some tie in with Lovecraft's Cats of Ulthar or whatever it was. Of all the cool things in MM2 he might have been my favorite entry at one time. 

Dogs had a superpower or two, but to me cats were off the charts. The flexibility, the agility. When they got stuck in a tree I was all like "you're Spider-Man. Just climb down!"

Yeah, for most of my life I occasionally had cat things pretty much just in games. In the 80's I played in some sessions on and off of the supers rpg "Supergame" over a couple of years, being a part of initial play testing at Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica as a kid, and a couple or three years after that a few times at the home of some friends of Aero owner Gary Switzer. (look here for some tidbits on my youthful Aero days). It used Supergame as the system, since they were all friends with the creators. I remember almost nothing. Well, two things. One, when I scribbled a pic of my character (I am no artist), one of the "ladies" declared that Aimee, the co-creator and artist of the game had "nothing to worry about." 

Her work was so groundbreaking,
everybody should have worried

The other thing I remember is my character Manx. I don't think I had an origin, he was simply a young cat human hybrid. A year or two later, when we were doing V and V or Champs, one of my buddies tried his hand at some sessions, and I used Manx for them. That would be it for Manx for several decades. He left my gaming zeitgeist. 

Until summer last year, that is. I was getting in on a handful of games to learn the system. One of them was set in Marvel 1980 (two guys from this would form the beginning of my current group). It was an eager effort by the GM, who was new to it as well but giving it a go. The games were OK, but the three or so session we had only occurred every month or so. The guy had young kids and school or something. Also it was based on stuff going on in the comics, and our characters to me felt like sidekicks to existing ones. 

But what came out of it was me using Manx again after all these many years. I gave him a last name: McAllister. And a full origin. Manx had a Scottish Father and a German mother. The dad was a physicist, and she a bio-chemist. World renown, and pioneers in Quantum science. They had built prototype teleport pods in the late 1960's. As a kid Manx and his pet cat went inside a pod and it got activated. Boom, catman. 

Yep. 

At 21 years old Manx McAllister was a child of rich and famous scientists, and going to college in New York, himself a brilliant scientist. I reconsidered his look, which back in the day was a black manx (like my old cat Salem) covered in fur. For this I considered a look akin to Fritz the Cat.

Yeah. No. 

I settled on a far more human look. I yoinked the appearance of Manx from a character from another pornographic source, an old funny animal comic Omaha The Cat Dancer. 

I will post deets about those Manx related sessions of the current campaign next, but during the games last year I was already planning to use Manx, and his family, for this campaign. But its 2046, so Manx McAllister is 86 years old. 

Got a little more human looking in old age.

For me the fun was not just revisiting Manx, but was in creating his family. Manx was CEO of McAllister Scientific, a research compound that are pioneers in Quantum engineering. I conceived of his son Manx jr, who I decided would be a biologist like his grandmother. He only appeared on a view screen in the sessions at Manx's birthday party, as I had him doing research in The Savage Land (hopefully to be a place visited in future sessions), but I imagined him as a bit of a hedonist and ladies man.

"Hello, laaaaadies..."

But now we get to the Cat Girls thing I promised in the post title. I needed Manx to have grandkids. I looked back and remembered two of my first cat girl crushes from way back. The were named Una Puma and Ana Puma, from an anime called "Tank Police".

Their most iconic scene was this (NOT work safe):

They were murderous criminals. My McAllister twins would be brilliant quantum scientist outside of party-happy "woo girls" the world's foremost physicists, and actual good girls. 

Party time.

Science time. 

I just wanted interesting relatives of Manx, was not necessarily going for the sexy. But this may have been when I started realizing, though no furry I, that I might like cat chicks. 

And as the fates would have it, weeks later I discovered Chainsmoker Cat. 

She's not the sexy one on the show. 

from the Wiki:

Set in a modern-day world where cat-people, known as "beastfolks", co-exist with humans, the series follows the daily misadventures of Yaniko, a catgirl who lives in a small apartment building in Nyagamihara (based on Sagamihara), Japan, and is addicted to smoking, regardless of the damage to her environment, her psyche, or her family. As the series progresses, Yaniko's friends and other troubled catgirls with their own issues are introduced, along with their human landlord, who tolerates their antics.

That's it. I watched a ton of youtube clips before watching a couple episodes (its on Netflix, but I watched elsewhere). But the opening titles I saw on youtube had me hooked right off the jump.

Despite being about addiction, poverty, and opression, the show is funny as hell. Yaniko cares about nothing but smoking ciggies. As the title would suggest. She cannot go more than a few minutes without lighting up. It is her one true joy. 

The addiction: Yani's entire life is cigarettes. I have never seen a ciggy addict like her. Heavy smokers have stinky house from the smoke, but otherwise normal people with a life and job etc. But I think Yaniko is also chronically lazy. And very Gen Z. She gets anxious to the point of being sick from the thought of having to clean her place and take a bath so her sister can visit (which young, put together sis does. While wearing a hazmat suit). 

The poverty: Yani can't keep a job because she can't go very long without a smoke. "When I smoke I forget my worries" she says. Most of the other cat girls, addicts or now, can keep themselves together. But none of them make much money when they do work because...

Opression: Maybe the most interesting thing about the setting, a normal Japanese working class neighborhood, but apparently in this Japan there are "Beastfolk," and they are an underclass. They can have jobs, but only menial labor. They go to school with humans, live with humans, go to bars with humans, but in one scene where Yani plays soccer with some kinds (these scenes happen on the way home from a ciggy run), and a couple of cops put an end to it. And there are rules about cross marriage. 

So the beastmen, or "Anthros" which I think is the in setting scientific name for them, often dress well and try to fit in. I'm only like three sessions in, so not sure if their are different drinking fountains, bus and train sections, and race specific diners. But I don't think so. It's just sort of a part of life. The cat girls are second class like its just the nature of things. I have yet to see human on anthro violence. But there was a mention that the cats can jump 8 meters. They have fangs. So maybe the humans are just keeping them down enough to not get killed by them.

Over episodes new cat friends appear, some living in Yani's building. Most have their own addictions going on. Alcohol, drugs, video games. I assume later episodes have sex and other addictions. 

The show is super controversial right now. In Japan for sure. "Freeters" are looked down upon like the cat girls in that world, and there is fear it is glorifying a "nothing" lifestyle. In the US Netflix is getting hit by complaints about the show. Can you imagine? All the shit Netflix gets up to. 

OK, I don't think I have a cat lady thing. No more than other things. I mean, a cat girl is better than a dog girl, I love dogs, but. Sort of unclean. A couple of cat girls in an old anime, Maxine and Tabetha McAllister in the game, then discovering this show is a coinkydink. I like a lot of anime girls. Female images in real life or in art are appealing to me. Nothing wrong with that. And the thing is, looking at aime versions is where its OK to stare. 

I grew up in Los Angeles. Downtown. Hollywood. My native Venice Beach. So I have seen and know people like on this show. Folk with demons. Maybe like us.  If you live in a big town or a city then you know. I can handle it and think its funny to see how Yani fails. You prob can too. But farts, poops, vomit (oddly always rainbow colored) are the order of the day. But Ren and Stimpy prepared us for that stuff, eh?

Next post will be about the session where I introduce the group to the McAllister Family and the scientist shenanigans they get up to. My version of "The Backrooms" is involved. Its where the first real bloody combats goes down, with some characters getting severely injured. They got tested hard. Stay tooned.

Cheers