Cat People Scientists and The Backrooms Rescue Squad

 

So after the big encounter at the Metroplex Mall with the York Industries sponsored supergroup "Safeguard,' it was time for another two-session arc that would intro the group to an elderly version of an old character of mine and take them on a wild ride into my version of the backrooms, the "Liminal Zones."

So a couple of days after the events at the mall, the group met at the office for a video meeting with Ms. Kyono to go over the encounter. She explains that in the past York Industries, much like she does, tended to occasionally sponsor meta humans (often created by them) to cause all kinds of problems for characters and other NPC's alike. It seems that Safeguard is the latest version of that. 

Seraph, Paladin, Igneous, and Nova, the new member.

During the meeting, a surprise visitor showed up at the office. It was the diminutive Yuri Heisen, also known as "Heisenbrain."

They now knew Heisen as the scientist leader of the "Redeemers," a team made up of runners up to the original Justice Incorporated auditions and the "battle of the bars" sessions. He was there to tell them that the shield and Vita-Ray empowerment projection ability of the weapons used by the mall "terrorists" (prior to Safeguard showing up) had the energy signature of technology he invented (and used on himself and some of his group during the nightclub encounter with Justice Inc a couple of arcs back) and that he already believed was formerly stolen by York Industries. And he told them that the ranged teleportation tech that whisked away the supposed terrorists as they got defeated was NOT his, but they might want to reach out to McAllister Scientific, quantum science specialists who are the foremost experts in teleport and portal tech. 

Kyono, from the wall screen, said that Manx McAllister, founder of McAllister Scientific (despite the unassuming name, it has worldwide fame, at least in the scientific community, as some of the greatest minds of our time) and an accidental cat-human hybrid, was a friend of her grandfather decades ago, but that she does know Manx's granddaughters, 25 years old twins Maxine and Tabitha, and actually saw them at an event just a few days before and even has pictures with them. 

A pair of "whooo!| girls, but also two of the 
greatest scientific minds on the planet. 

So a quick phone call and the group were on their way to "The City of Industry." an area of industry and research compounds some miles south of the city along the Southern Highway.

Sim City eat your heart out

The McAllister campus was made up of a large admin building, and several blocky research bunkers with underground portions spread throughout...

The group were led to the teleportation and portal research building, and within met Manx McAllister's granddaughters, the twins Maxine and Tabitha. See my last post for some info on cat hybrids. 

When first met, the twins were in lab coats in a high ceiling room and playing tag by popping in and out of mini portals projected from units that look like those overhead track lighting things, to the delight of a small crowd of research assistants.

I planned it out like this to show both the playfulness of the cat-human hybrids, at the same time leaving no doubt that these were also brilliant scientists. As it would turn out, though the sisters' great grandparents were pioneering teleport tech in the 1960's, they were sort of activists against pure teleportation tech. Not just because an accident involving it fused their grandpa with his pet cat as a child, but the theory that teleporters actually kill you and recreate a copy at the other end. 

Though the twins don't really seem to have
complaints about being legacy hybrids.

The twins consult with the group and do believe that York Industries in the past has tried to poach their tech, and the teleport technology used in the encounter at the Metroplex Mall may well have been their older tech they are not using much since they personally have been studying quantum portal tech as an alternative to classic teleportation. 

Just an aside, but I base some of these concepts on stuff  from the old Handbooks of the Marvel Universe issues I read way back (and still have actually...they are part of my "Box of Keepers" collection I have refrained from posting on Ebay over the years). I remember the Nightcrawler entry talking about his teleportation ability, and how it essentially is Kurt swiftly hopping in and out of a pocket dimension. Portal, right?  That feels righter than a teleporter just breaking down his being and reassembling it again and again. 

During the visit the girls got a call from the Liminal Zones research building. Apparently grampy Manx and a handful of researchers who were on a standard research hike in level zero (the endless maze of yellow wallpaper) and went off the rails to go down a few levels to the "Red City" where they heard from previously found lost folk in the mazes that a small community of Backrooms victims were holed up. This is known because one of the researchers, "Jenkins." showed up near the gateway into the zones in a near state of exhaustion and stress and said that they made it to the Red City, were chased by creatures including living art dummies (and found the way they came in blocked), and he ducked into a white doorway that sent him to appear near the research vestibule. 

The Twins declare they will be going in to save Manx and the scientists, and the Justice inc gang volunteers as the rescue squad. And since researcher Jenkins left his fiancée as part of the lost group, he insists on going in as well after getting some protein bars and energy drinks. So Maxine, Jenkins (both armed with pulse rifles), and the characters enter the Zones, while sister Tabitha maintains radio contact in the command center for as long as she can. So into the Backrooms they go. 

(note: I refrained from using the term "Backrooms" and stuck mostly to "Liminal Zones." The movie had just come out, and since this was my version of the creepy pasta I did not want to stress the name it is known of in our media. Urban myth enthusiasts in the Haven setting might refer to the Backrooms, but to the McAllister's its Liminal Zones and that's that)

Aw, the Backrooms. That moist carpet. That 
moldy smell. Those odd sounds in the distance. 

The first encounter with local Fauna is "Still Life." Mockeries of humanity. If you saw the backrooms film, the creatures in that, including giant Captain Carl, are basically Still life. I gave them not much else other than Mighty 1 for a little oomph in combat. Tabitha detected them on remote cameras set up in level zero and were able to warn the group of them incoming on mass. 

One problem the party experienced in the Zones was my oddly lucky rolls for the foe attacks. Not just here, but all the way to the end of the scenario. Still life was not really all that tough, but they got a bit of damage in. 

A large, old staircase led away from the level and down towards the next territory. The Mall. 

In a narrow hall in the mall the party encountered the "Mall Maven." Basically a 10-foot-tall creature similar to Still Life, but with Mighty 2 and some Sturdy. And big claws.

This ended up being their toughest battle so far in the campaign. At one point Mall Maven was able to hit all three heroes in front of her with a single claw swipe. I got an "ultimate success" which meant a ton of damage but also put the "bleed conditions" on them. Meaning take 5 health damage per round until healed or spend a turn treating the wound. We had to end the session there with them destroying her on the next round, which gave us all time to soak in the encounter for a week. 

(just a note on "health," which is the hit points in this, you have to take double your max amount in order to be killed. But if you have a couple points above zero, and your round goes by without removing the bleed condition, I think that can kill you outright as well. 

When we returned the next week it was no big deal. Looking at the rules (yes we are all still learning as we go) it turned out that having levels of Sturdy countered bleed condition. That and being able to use focus points for some on the spot healing (especially if you have the power "I can do this all day") can save you in a pinch. So, shake it off and onwards down to the Red City

Seems big, but in reality, I had my version of the place be just a few city blocks. So with fliers like Seraph and Nova in the party, they were able to see Manx McAllister and the scientists out on the street, fighting off living, wooden art mannequins. Kind of another form of still life, and though their flame throwers and pulse rifles were pretty much depleted, they were swinging them as clubs while old man Manx was using his claws. 

He's old, but he can still claw you up.

The characters helped Manx and the researchers clean up the mannequins pretty quick, but as the gave a sigh of relief, a giant spider creature with laser eyes climbed over a building towards them.

Reseacher Jenkings knew the White Door was near and pointed it out for the others to head towards. As the team engaged the laser spider, Igneous grew to giant size to carry the exhausted scientists to the doorway.  

Paladin and Seraph engaged the big spider, but it was Nova, the newest member of Justice Inc, who flew up and tapped into his energy powers, beefing them up by basically using all of his Focus (the score you use for energy related powers) to super-blast the bug. He did a huge amount of damage, close to a couple hundred (that is a lot. Average damages for energy stuff is around 40) and blasting its head off. Everybody made it through the White Door and appeared in the level zero vestibule near the gateway. 

Everybody got medical treatment, protein bars, and coffee. The twins alternated between shaking and yelling at grampa Manx (for going off the rails in their research hike in the Zones) and showering him with kisses for being alive, then all the characters got a storm of face smooches from the grateful girls for helping save everybody. 

We can only dream.

This won't be the last time we hear from the McAllister's.  Its Manx's 86th birthday party the following week, and you just know the characters are going to get invited. With a big party thrown by quantum scientists, you just know there are going to be surprises! Stay tooned.

Cheers

"Enter - Safeguard" I start actually challenging the characters

So in this two-part session (both talked about here..most sessions I am running seem to go across a two session arc), I would finally get the chance to hit the characters with some actual power. Not just a handful of Rank 3 "terrorists" but also with a new Supergroup of Rank 4 potential foes. As a reminder, the characters are Rank 3. There is a decent difference in those numbers. But all in all, the party did not get in as big a punch-up with them as I would like. But getting the characters out to a public place to face foes with high tech weapons, and foes with strong powers, was something I was working towards. 

After the Night Clubs scenario, the PC's had a about a week to do their own thing. Which included moving out of the Justice Incorporated offices. Ultimately they had a choice between a small but luxury apartment in a Kyono owned corporate residential skyscraper.  Or a larger single building to stay at and consider a safe house. Seraph was the only one opting for a nice private studio unit.

Kind of the perfect crib for a flying girl, and better than the 
old warehouse she was crashing at before this 

Meanwhile a small shipping and receiving building in "Japan Town" (ethnic neighborhoods and tourist area), at the end of a short street between a Japanese restaurant and a tailors building, had some of its small office converted to bedrooms, and stocked with TV, fridge, and other living essentials. The Paladin player Andrew whipped up a map for it between these couple of sessions as Paladin and Igneous moved in.

I started calling him "Iggy" because
I keep calling him Ignacius rather than Igneous

At some point during the week, Seraph was flying above the city like she is want to do. I had her spot another flyer, which you don't see that often in the city (except maybe above mutie town). It was a young Japanese woman in ancient traditional dress, and she was flying on a giant white feather the size of a canoe.

The woman did not notice at first when Seraph followed, but she did at some point and used a Japanese fan to summon huge blades of wind that shot towards Seraph. She backed off as the woman disappeared among the skyscrapers. 

Kagura is from the anime Unuyasha, which I posted about last year.  She is my favorite character on that show, and I created her in Demiplane last year while I was practicing making NPC's and decided I could use her for this. She woke up in this era and fell in with Boliver York of York Industries, and his sponsored superteam "Safeguard."

I found some cosplay/AI of her and I 
may start using these for her tokens

I pushed to have this little solo encounter not take a long time (lf you have read a couple posts back then you might understand why I would be concerned about things like this taking more than 15 minutes). 

So Friday came around and Kyono asked for a meeting at the Justice Inc. offices (more often than not she showed up on a video screen conference call). She said that her data monitoring department has gotten rumor of a possible violent attack possibly occurring Friday night at the Metroplex Mall, the second largest indoor/outdoor mall (largest I guess is in Japan). 

With little other info, the group hung about in the corner of the mall where things were maybe going to go down. Yeah, I know. Easy set up. Indeterminate occurrence at so and so time. Not every set up has to be complicated in comics!

The "terrorists" who do eventually show up on the scene are using advanced tech personal weapons, either rifles of some type or melee-based weapon.

The weapons also projected a light personal force field (Sturdy 2, but dropped to 1 after first hit of more than 10 points health) and also fortified the body with Mighty 1 and some extra health. So two of each, bo staff guys, armored arms guys, and laser rifle guys. 

Also this was where we introduced a new player. He was brought in by player Will (Iggy) so unvetted by me but turned out to be a good guy. He is running a Nova corps member. Calling himself Nova, because, well he's a Nova. With all those good powers such as flight, hard skin, and some pretty heavy energy blast stuff. This battle is where he would meet the other characters. In the heat of combat. 

A little Nova in the comics background. I have no idea what goes on with Nova stuff in recent decades. As a kid I collected a comic called Nova. He could fly, was hard to hurt, and had energy blasts. 

He was basically an attempt to recreate the success of Spider Man. A teenager gets powers out of the blue and has to deal with that and his new heroic life. I remember little else. 

But this new Nova is a bit different. Same power set. Fly, energy abilities, some Sturdy. He is also kind of dances to his own beat. 

He likes to decorate his military helmet,
kind of like the marines in Aliens. 

The party dealt with the terrorists fairly well. Iggy had grown to giant size (though not full size because of the close packed stores) but managed to take a couple of heavy hits from the laser rifle guys. Paladin really mixed it up with them. 

The couple that got knocked out were teleported away somehow, along with the couple of others when "Safeguard" showed up. 

Clockwise from top left is "The Wind Sorceress," "Mastodon," "Spider-Max," "Blackwolf," and "Aegis." 

So quick history lesson. Back in the day (and in the setting currently between 12-20 years ago overall) I had two major global industrial organizations in Haven called "York Industries" and "Kyono International." 

York Industries was the company of Bolivar York. I had a great mini for him back in the day. I might still have it. It was a David Bowie Goblin king mini. Since I had Bolivar be a Hellfire Club lord much like Marvel Comics Sebastian Shaw I had painted it to look a bit like him in terms of clothing he wore behind the scenes.

Was not this, but similar

York was the evil company. Sort of a Lex Luthor thing. He used tech, and people he swayed, for all kings of mayhem. Characters in The Protectors and Justice Incorporated (and maybe the Future X-Men thing I did for a while but forget if they met him).

Patricia Kyono and her corp were the good business. She put together Justice Inc and often interacted and helped the Protectors. After some years of various campaigns (and an alien invasion that I think I am going to retcon away in this new thing) , they all managed to prove Yorks's crimes and get him a lifetime in prison. 

For this new era, I have it that York's son, Boliver jr., has taken over the company. And of course he has evil intent, especially to those who harmed his father and the corp. He is a handsome, well educated chad with charisma, and often when he says his father was framed by the Protectors, Justice Inc, Kyono, and the Science Police, some people listen. 

Business in front, party in back

 a more casual look I have yet to use

So in the 10 years or so there has not been super groups around or heroes in geneal in public, Bolivar jr. put together his own superteam that has recently been seen out and about stopping crime, and BY has had a press conference or two about them, with them in attendance. He called them "Safeguard." And of course they will be used to his evil ends. 

A yokai sorceress from feudal days
who has powers over wind.

Mastodon is part of an ancient race the remnants of live
in a city of science in the south pole. He is Mighty 3 and 
can grow up to 100 feet. I created him to go against Iggy.

I got the idea from a Red Letter Media/Noiselund video...

Spider Max is a 15-year-old with Spider Powers. And orphan. Have not
decided yet if he is a Peter parker clone, or a clone of Bolivar sr. with
Parker DNA in him. 

he is a Canadian hipster who can turn
into a large super wolf. 

Aegis. Power armor with many functions.
Secretly Boliver jr (he will be in there 
sometimes and sometimes it will be
a Life Model Replicant of him.

Tank built by Mastodon. He usually drives.

We did not a get a big fight between the group. Wind Sorceress swooped into the courtyard to attack Nova out of the blue with her Crescent Wind attack. 

Spider Max webbed up Seraph in mid air, causing her to fall from 50 feet. The kid realized she was heading for the fall, and swung in to get her to the ground gently. "Sorry lady." So maybe these are not bad guys?

Seraph has already been nabbed in a net
by her arch foe Blimpkrieg two times. So
that's three nettings in several sessions. 

I forget if any more attacks went down. I really wanted Iggy and Mastodon to grow huge and go all Kaiju fight. But Paladin was yelling at Aegis that they were not the enemy, and Aegis, who was on top of the tank, was forced (cameras and possible film crews are always around) to talk it out. 

That was it for possible violence. I did get to introduce an NPC from the old days I used for comedic value. He was a police lieutenant back then, but now he is a police captain. His name is Louie DePalma, a name you might recognize if you like old sitcoms. I had him be an asshole back in the day and hate superheroes, and now at probably 69 years old he's grumpier than ever. Characters always hated him, and I think these new ones do too. 

Back in the day I remember a player came up with a song about him. They started singing it when he showed up on the table (I think I used a hobbit mini that had a hat). It was sung to the tune of the old song "Louie Louie" and I think some it went:

Loo-ee loo-i

Oh whoa every where he goes

Soo-per-he-rows

Loo-ee loo-ay

Oh whoa every where he goes

they both-er him

Same actor in the role.

Science Police also showed up. Both groups had reason for being here. Because both Kyono and York had lawyers nearby ready to intervene when shit quieted down. 

Here's the thing. Safeguard claims to be employed officially as security for York Industries. the Kyono lawyers argue that Justice Inc, as private contractors working in security and investigative capacity for Kyono International. With some of the properties in the Metroplex Mall being owned or its product related to these companies, their security forces have a right to intervene in terrorist situations. 

So the characters finally got into a little conflict with another group. I really wanted to see more of them mixing with them. See how they do with Rank 4 foes. But Safeguard is playing at being good guys and have to watch their step. I sort of fantasize about a full fight at some point and hopefully the Rank 4 Safeguard beat the hell out of the Rank 3 Justice Inc. Then have a training montage and JI comes back Rank 4 for payback. 

Just a word on the Science Police. The concept goes back to Superhero 2044 where they primarily started as nuclear watchdogs after WW3, eventually moving in the future to overwatching strong or illegal science, and meta humans. During the heyday of my campaigns, with the Protectors, whoever was in Justice Inc, and Kyono would fight against frequent York Industries agents and schemes. Whatever it was, for those years the SP was an important agency and often involved in the meta human chaos (though usually show up after a fight). Now, with a decade or so of peace and few super powered beings causing trouble, they have less staff and agents than they used too and mostly monitor mutant issues (mutantgs have a large neighborhood of low income and HUD housing). The SP being a bit weaker these days will be a running theme in upcoming games. 

So Seraph went after Nova and invited him to the office, where he met everybody and of course got a job offer. Rather than go to the safehouse, Serapah invited him to stay at her small apartment. I would have some fun with that. But that is a story for another day! Stay tooned. Cheers.