Marvel RPG in Haven - more and more prepared to Wing It in sessions

Both my Marvel and DnD campaigns are on the weekends. Doing Friday and Saturday sessions is recipe for missing players here and there. 

My "Haven" campaign with Marvel Multiverse is on Fridays, and the DnD campaign on Saturday. And both are going better than I probably deserve. I might do another post about the makeup of each group (currently with the exception of one person the Haven campaign has come to be made up of players from my DnD night), but I will just say that Friday has tended to be a night I might most likely be missing a player or two. This is the price you pay for running on weekends. Maybe not me lately, but some of my players at least have a life. Especially if they have kids. If you are a family person you will go on vacations and such pretty much on the weekend from time to time. 

For the Haven sessions, I had early on settled into doing two sessions arcs with little story bits. It mostly just happened that way. With short sessions anything with meat on the bone should take a couple sessions at least. An encounter situation bleeding into the next. Player Amber mentioned the other week (she is smart as a whip at times) what I knew already; that I tend to run episodic sessions. Which works well for this kind of game I think, and very much how I always ran my supers campaigns going back to Villains and Vigilantes. But I have also found its useful to be prepared to do some little side encounter here and there depending entirely on who is available. If we have three players, we usually go for it. I mean, we only play for a couple hours on Friday night. I just started finding that I should be more prepared for little quick side things that can be done that night, but also these can potentially lead to more growth in the campaign and the characters. 

I do have the next couple of session arc chambered for some weeks now, but I keep tossing in quick little adventures. And I do have experience with this. Back in my Champions days we could play even if most of the group cancelled. That is how Justice Incorporated sort of started. Not enough players for The Protectors supergroup main campaign, so have a couple of JI characters stop a bank robbery or fight some gang members or something. But these little one session bites have been fun. And I tend to have players who love RP and character development. So many sessions first 45 minutes might be just the characters having a meeting. I will then have a choice of starting a little adventure arc or tossing a quick encounter at them. And I have been enjoying the little ones. Some I might have prepared way ahead of time. And some I might just whip up a half hour before the session. I have found that sort of exhilarating lately. 

And I have plenty of city images that I have been collecting since this started. Streets and rooftops. All you gotta do is make a blank page in your Roll20 pages, drag an image unto it, and you are almost there.

Endless amounts of this stuff online. The only thing is, if I don't have a foe done up in Demiplane, I need to do one up (I do have things like gang members and basic gunmen prepared at all times). But I have gotten pretty good at knocking out characters. Last year before the campaign I spent a lot of time whipping up NPC's. So I do have some chambered. But often I will need to spend a few minutes doing on up and finding and image for a token. 

Not too long ago we were down a couple of players, and the Paladin player had to miss a rare for him evening and with only about an hour and a half to play since we waited a bit (he is a valuable player in this campaign and has been very reliable, so I forgive his lack of pre-session communication), after a bit of role play and character interaction, I suggested that since they often say the characters go out to secluded areas to train, that they do a little "Danger Room" character vs. character training. I grabbed a map of a country road (from my collection of DnD session random images I often use) and let the three characters present we had; Iggy, Nova, and Seraph, go to town on each other. And not in the way you are suddenly thinking, you dirty dog. 

They actually were a bit confounded and maybe even resistant. "Uh, what do you want us to do?" I said "Train with each other. Have a fight." Just a few minutes into it, they were loving what I thought might be a rare bomb of an evening. But that is me, an experimenter. OK, not really, In past decades I did this with Champions sessions all the time. I even had a short X-Men of the future campaign as a teen so you know a danger room things happened at least once. Long time ago so don't remember details. Anyway, the point is, it was a hit. Amber said they should do it again soon. Especially funny moments include Igneous at 100 feet grabbing one of them and throwing them into the other. Also Seraph flying up to his ear and reaching in with her bo staff to beat on Iggys ear drum. I also realized I could nab a hand image from the free Roll20 marketplace and made it big and give him control of it so he could indicate where he was reaching.✋ Yeah, it was a blast and I only had to set up the map and let them have at it. 

Then the following week there was a point I gave Paladin a few minutes at night on the rooftops. I know I could count on the Paladin player to help make it quick (the player is no nonsense like the character and I think maybe former military), and it really was just a 10-minute thing. He had said he spent some nights sort of getting to know the city since he was from another country (the Mediterranean or something like that). So I had a couple members of the York Industries sponsored superteam Safeguard see him while on patrol and Blackwolf, an Alaskan who can turn into a giant supernatural wolf, engaged him in a couple rounds of combat before Wind Sorceress said that their sponsor would not like them going in on their own like that and flew them away. Before that though, Paladin gave Wind Sorceress a copy of the bible. He had yet to indicate he would have such, but he is part of some ancient religious warrior group.  So yeah, a quick little side things which I like to do for characters to give them a sense of their own life going on (he did not even mention it to the other characters for a couple sessions). 

OK, to keep this from getting too long, I will talk about the last couple of sessions that were pretty much prepared a half hour before the sessions. That this campaign has gotten really easy peasy to be prepared for is just one of the aspects I am loving. But yeah, hopefully soon get into another actual arc for them. A campaign does not live on mini encounters alone. YMMV

Cheers

Being Creative with online session Discord Calendar Invites

  

In the face-to-face days we just used emails for our game scheduling and reminders. In the mid to late 90's we only played a couples times a month at best (though we played far longer sessions then. An entire day into the evening usually), but also saw and talked to each other since we were mostly friends outside the games. But going into the 2000's and running for groups who were just "gaming friends" emails and/or Yahoo groups or whatever helped. 

But with the advent of my Roll20 online gaming several years ago, and my use of Discord for voice and text, I got the advantage of actual dedicated calendar reminders to remind the humanoids that we had a game. 

Needed? I dunno. Since going online with my campaigns the schedule is pretty set. This year since around February have done DnD every week on Saturday nights, And for a few months now have run my "Haven" campaign with Marvel Multiverse on Friday night. Dedicated regulars. So they know full well we have weekly sessions. 

But the things is, I found out early in my Discord usage that I could be kind of creative with the calendar invites/reminders. 

I mean, it's kind of what it's all about, right? Making a little magic. So any creative element you can stick in there is important to me. And for years now in campaigns, I have done what I can with the invites.

Besides indicating which voice channel you are using and the day, time and date, you can add an image and a title for the session. That alone stirred my imagination. Originally I was digging that players could "like" the calendar invite, as it would indicate to me who was planning to attend. Not always reliable though. In the latest campaigns you can count on 3 or 4 players to like it, but not everybody always does. 

But I loved that I could use an image and a title to maybe sort of foreshadow the session. Not give it all away, but maybe sort of rile up some interest in what was going to happen. Sometimes mysterious or sometimes not. 

Some things from my generation may inspire me on this. I remember on old TV shows you would get an establishing shot, and "on tonight's episode of Mannix - lonely is the hunter" or something like that. 

I have sometimes made them as simple as an image of a country road and a title like "the road goes ever every on" for DnD travel. And sometimes I made them more meaningful. To me, anyway. Sometimes a private joke. 

Since Discord does not archive past invites, here are the couple for this week's games. In my DnD campaign, I am once again using the old Pawnshop adventure from Apple Lane for Runequest. This week we are heading into part two of the Pawnshop attack. This invite was pretty easy. Just put an image of one of the foes the party is now facing in the shop, and a "part 2" indicator.   

Nothing super creative, but it gives the players a little something to maybe pique their interest in the next session. An image of the monsters they have seen but not gotten into full steam battle with yet. They know it starts right from the jump next session. 

For the Marvel rpg sessions, things are getting a little harder to figure what will happen next. I have 5 steady players, but since it's the weekend and there are not quite as many players in the pool as my DnD, a player or two might have to miss a session. I have been sort of planning out two session arcs, but honestly, we only play for two hours or so on Friday. And the players might sandbox a bit. "Can I go patrol for a few minutes?" And I have been giving players 20 minutes or so here and there to do their own thing from time to time (against my general better judgment. I mean, we are not doing very long sessions). And as of last week I am deciding kind of last minute what might be best depending on what players we have for the night. If I plan a little couple of session encounter arc, somebody I need for it might not be able to make it that night. Or maybe last session is going to bleed into the next a bit, and I might want to wait a week or two to start that for whatever reason. 

Like last week, I decided a half hour before the session that I just wanted to have a little low-combat encounter. I dreamed up a couple of floors of an office building being set ablaze by a professional arsonist. In that half hour I found a couple of office building floors to use as maps, and went into Demiplane to whip up an arsonist dude. Found an image that worked for it. And decided this would be an architectural firm being targeted by a rival. 

I will maybe briefly touch on that in the next post, but for the following session how will I start things off? Since we had to wrap it up right after the victims were rescued and the fire put out, I figured this might be the first real interaction with the characters and emergency response, and maybe reporters as well. "hmm.." I thought. Maybe I could expand on that. What if a character took the time to answer a reporter's questions? Or maybe I could have an "on the scene" start-up streamer crew looking for cred and popularity actually ask a character if they could be their "dedicated news team" (an idea I got from a card in the King of Tokyo card game). Promise them positive coverage if they give them tips on things that might go down they can report on. Since all this was on my mind, and at the very least the first few minutes of the next session being them at least being approached by reporters and later seeing a news report on the encounter, it was enough to include it in the invite for the next session. Easy peasy. 

Just a generic reporter image (who I am going to use for an NPC) and a title "More New at 11" (just happens to be one of my favorite Public Enemy songs)

This invite was not exactly high art. None of them are. Really, if anything they are a more personal thing for me. But in the case of this invite for the Marvel game, it's kind of a mystery box. The players will have no idea what it means. And the meaning will not be deep. But it lets me tap into maybe the barest of the plot for the next session, and since I have no idea yet how the majority of the session will pan out, this at least connects to it in a minor way. And if the characters kind of go with the Dedicated News Team idea, it could have greater ramifications. 

But yeah, the invite is a minor thing, but its fun for me to decide on a title and an image at the very least. And we GM's gotta get our jollies any little way we can, eh?

Cheers

Marvel RPG - "What Price Three Souls to Save?"

 

So, this couple of session arc would be of the supernatural variety. When I give people a quick description of my setting and what I like to do with it, I call it "Supers/Cyberpunk/Future Noir/Future Supernatural." The Pacific island nation of Haven was not just historically a "weirdness magnet" but the post WW3 refugee crisis brought folk from all over the globe here, along with whatever folklore and myth they brought with them. So especially in the older, lower income parts of the city, I like to imagine there are lots of supernatural goings on. Western Euro, Pacific Islander, Caribbean, etc.

And in my old Champions games, specifically for the then street level Justice Incorporated characters, I created Sister Mary Alice, or "Malice." Sister Mary Alice was a nun at the big catholic church downtown, "Our Lady of Constant Sorrow," made in part of brick and stained glass imported from an old European cathedral in the 1950's. In stands still smack dab in the Eastern District of City Center, with much of the city built around it.

Some decades before, Sister Mary was assaulted and killed by violent gang members and entombed at the church. But Sister Mary's spirit was taken over by a spirit of vengeance, turning the soul of Mary Alice into a Revenant. Every some odd years the possessed spirit of Sister Mary would invade the body of a fit, mostly random, young woman to take on the vigilante mantle and go out seeking violent men to kill. 

Mary Alice could bestow upon her vessel the ability to levitate, pass through objects and produce ancient weaponry (favoring swords, axes, and maces). The possessed woman's body would be imbued with extra strength and stamina (of the max human potential variety). She was perfect for those running battles on rainy nighttime rooftops and alleyways. 

For this recent Rank 3 Justice Inc games, I needed to upgrade her a bit, mostly adding the ability to teleport and also a level of Mighty and Sturdy for the mortal form. Made her Rank 4 as well, which makes her more than a match for any of the characters individually. 

I also brought in a bit of a protege for Sister Mary, a young Latina girl in Day of the Dead makeup who was using her grandfather's heirloom military pistols to go out and blast violent gang members at night in the form of "Devota." The urban legend of Malice and the new, mortal vigilante were out at night taking care of business. Sister Mary Alice mostly being near to help her if she got in trouble and let her do most of the killing. Still, dead criminals were being found with both sword and gunshot wounds. 

Several sessions ago I had decided to start having a 15- or 20-minute encounter a character could face solo every session or two, just so they can have their own moments. The character "Ghost" was on patrol and ran into Devota taking on a gang on a rooftop, with Malice on hand to make sure it went well. You can read the sad tale about how all that went down for me here. I will probably not be mentioning it again in the foreseeable future. 

But this encounter would finish up this little dangling plotline. I won't go into deep detail, but the two-session arc would take place essentially on two maps, the ground floor of an enclosed parking lot, and a section of the roof of Our Lady of Sorrow.

I would bring in one of the members of the group "The Redeemers" who have been around since the very first session of the campaign (the runners up for a job with Justice Incorporated) and also appeared in the "Bar Wars" arc. 

Pretty much like most of the Redeemers characters I came up with Count Carl on the spot when I was practicing creating characters in Demiplane for my hoped for eventual Marvel Multiverse campaign. I really didn't have him all that fleshed out. He was going to be a non-evil vampire who hunts evil vampires. In his first appearance I meant for him to be German or Romanian, but I somehow just started doing a Cockney accent for him when he appeared in game. By his second appearance I decided, based in large part of the image, that he became a vampire in 1960's swinging London and I would basically just do an Austin Powers impression. That stuck. Vampire hunter, monster hunter, and most of all a detective of all things supernatural. He was a chain smoker and before he appears the smell of smoke would proceed him. 

He appeared in the morning in the Safehouse Paladin is living in. Pally woke up smelling ciggy smoke and hearing the news on. Going into the living space there was Count Carl floating in front of the big wall TV, smoking and waiting for him. 

Their previous encounter having been a brief hand to hand (Paladin handled him then no problem, though Carl's heart was not really into that encounter), the blunt and no-nonsense Paladin told him to go back outside and ring the doorbell. When he reentered, Carl asked that Paladins team members be summoned. When they arrived, he told them of the Revenant influencing the spirit of Mary Alice, possessing and innocent girls' body, and at least to some degree encouraging Yanet "Devota" Inez to be a criminal killer. He said that his friend, the blind elderly Dominican priest of Our Lady of Constant Sorrow, can create an area at the church that he can trap Malice in, and that as an experienced Exorcist (in the real world the Dominican Republic seems to have big history with that) can expunge the Revenant and bring peace to the soul of Mary Alice and free the unknown girl being possessed. 

Carl says that he predicts Mary Alice and Devota will appear the next evening to attack youths who will be doing a violent teen takeover of a parking lot near a theater multiplex. He wants the characters to be there to try and stop any violence they can, but to let Devota escape. The young girl apparently goes to the church after each appearance as the vigilante to pray (and that Carl knows most of this from being in contact with her only close living relative, her grandmother who has been going to the church for decades). The father will have an area of the roof blessed and prepared with candles and incense and will eventually lead young Yanet up to the roof, where Sister Mary Alice will no doubt appear to help her. At that point they can stop Mary Alice and the father will perform the exorcism. 

Part of my philosophy when running games, whatever the genre like DnD or whatever, is to provide different locations to do action in. I think that is especially important for a genre like this, as streets and office building rooftops can get a bit repetitive. So, an indoor parking structure and a cathedral roof section seems to fit the bill of keeping things fresh. 

So once the characters staked the place out, the youths soon arrived to cause a fuss among people going to their cars after a movie or dinner. They were prepared with bats and knives, and as soon as they started fanning out to mug and menace folks, the characters dug in. Paladin and Seraph beating on some of them, Nova trapping some in an energy cage, and Igneous generally menacing them with his giant size pretty much had them in check. But then Sister Mary Alice and Devota appeared. Yanet was hesitant to kill teens, though when a couple of the gang members accidentally knocked down an old couple while fleeing from Paladin she did shoot one of the youths in the leg. But she then took off, as did Mary Alice, but not before producing a mace to smash in the head of one of the teens.

Then off to the church roof, where they met Father Dom who eventually brought up Yanet who had removed her makeup to pray. They disarmed her, and Mary Alice appeared to fight them. I don't have to go into detail, but at rank 4 she could put up a decent fight and dish out some damage with whatever weapon she produced. I even had given her the power to animate a couple of the roof gargoyles to make it more of an interesting fight. But they were finally able to put Malice down, and father Dom freed the possessed body, and Sister Mary's soul from the influence of the revenant spirit. 

Sister Mary Alice's soul was seen rising into a shaft of light, and it seemed like she was finally free. 

The unconscious Yanet was flown by Seraph to the apartment where she lives with her grandmother. With granny being a devout Catholic, she of course thought Seraph was an angel at first. 

Some thoughts: At some point during this 2-session arc, Seraph declared to the others (while on the church roof I think) that this may be the most important thing they ever do. Not sure if they agree, but strong stoic type Paladin seems to be a religious warrior (a session after this he would give an NPC a bible), but he does not advertise it. Also, Igneous' player missed the second part where the roof fight was. Iggy's player misses a session now and again. Since he can grow up to 100 feet tall, he is always conspicuous by his absence.

Anyway, that nicely wrapped up the supernatural vigilante angle. A nice detour from the more science related stuff of previous sessions. But there will be more supernatural based foes in the future. Gotta keep mixing things up. 

Cheers

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

"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.