MSHRPG Session # 1.5

As it had gotten into the wee hours of the morning I thought it best to split the introductory session in two.  Where we last left off Dolphin Ladd found himself waist deep in a fishy conspiracy while Rocco the Rockem Sockem robot found himself battling a juggernaut of twice his weight class.  Now we continue with Chameleoraptor.

Nightfalls and the morlocks emerge from a nearby manhole and track Eelman under cover of night to a large warehouse connected to a nightclub.  Wasting no time Chameleoraptor let loose a wash of acid on the bay doors eating through the steel alloy in mere moments.  The morlocks rush in to a completely flabbergasted room of henchman loading aquatic tanks onto large freighter trucks.  Not worried about impending karma loss the Morlocks immediately set into a melee and the thugs are soon reduced to melted puddles.

Meanwhile, Dolphin Ladd takes the unconscious fishy men and looks for an escape route.  Heading towards the back he hears gun fire and the screams of many below so he quickly heads back to the front where he came in.  Before heading out he has the brilliant idea to use his water manipulation to send water hurtling out of the sprinkler system.  Much to his dismay, the club owner had fake ones installed.  After all, who would want water raining down onto their electrified fighting ring.  Speaking of fighting rings..

Rocco was on the receiving end of three tons of hydraulic force battering him into the corner.  Fortunately his electricial absorption provided him a brief respite rather than shocking him into submission as his foe wanted.  Spring back into action he used his lighter frame and remarkable agility to leap onto the Crushinators shoulders, toppling him and proceeding to wail into him but due to the thick armor his blows had little effect.  The crushinator took the opportunity to throw Rocco into the spiked ceiling above but after botching the roll sending Rocco only most of the way up, Rocco decided to increase his density and crush the crushinator underfoot.  The crowd is stunned and he and his owner are compensated heavily.  Hoping to use this as the perfect time to burst the pipes Dolphin is dismayed to notice the pipes being hollow.  Before heading back in the secret laboratory to regroup and re-plan he sees a pair of thugs with Dragon Tatoos from earlier follow Rocco and his trainer out.

Dismayed Dolphin Ladd heads back to see if the fighting quieted down but doesn't hear the henchman behind him until just as their stun batons turn on.  He wakes up strapped down to an operating table with the Club Boss hovering over him tapping his diamond crusted cane onto the floor.  Looking around he sees the dissected results of failed experiments and hears the plan of the Club Boss to create a temporary superpower drug.  Before revealing who his benefactor is the door gets kicked in and the lights go out.  The vengeful morlocks storm in and wreak havoc in the place.  They grab the their fishy friends strapped to the table and that strange guy in tights too.  They quickly escape into the sewers.

Meanwhile, Rocco and his trainer Stewart on their way home talking about the fight and how Rocco had to activate his density manipulation so early in his career.  Stewart is disappointed he's having this much trouble already before they're interrupted by the Dragon tattooed thugs.  Stewart tells him to split up and run and meet back at the rendezvous point, a train station.  Hours later as dawn broke, Rocco quietly left the train station knowing that a robot cannot be unaccompanied in daylight.  He returns to the scene of the crime to see a charred corpse.  Taking the body of his presumed trainer he drops into the nearest sewer vent only to fall into the middle of a morlock raiding party.  After some tense moments they agree to discuss the particulars in the safety of their watery abode.

MSRPG Session Summary #1

Now that I've reached the tail end of my internship I've found some time to catch-up and work through my ever increasing backlog of session summaries.  I've resolved to try and put up a new post every day (M-F) to try and get back into the swing of things.  That being said the posts will hopefully be shorter and less verbose.  That's a good thing right!

Let's get started.

I did a quick intro adventure directly after character creation since everyone was itching to play.  The adventure was meant to be setting neutral and broad enough to lure everyones diverse character concepts into one story path.  Here is what I went with.

Dolphin Ladd is looking to make a quick buck to fund a new save the estuaries fund.  He decides to compete in the Superhero brawl with his newfound powers.  Alas, when he goes to the ring/club he finds out from the owner that Superhero brawl has been deemed illegal, now the new rage is robot fights which sadly he isn’t qualified for.  He spots a surprisingly small robot training with a human amidst the sea of over-sized crushinator 9000’s bots.  The owner of this seedy bar/fighting club lets him know that he is on the lookout for some ‘exotic’ aquatic species and will pay handsomely for it.  Sensing some fishy business Dolphin Ladd dons his tights and waits for nightfall for some super-sleuthing. 

Chameloraptor is exploring the remote areas of the sewers with a fellow morlock.  He comes to an abandoned station with the power mysteriously restored.  He comes to a locked utility closet and hears a pair of men arguing over a bad deal inside.  Using his innate blending ability and corrosive spit he makes it past the locked door and begins eavesdropping.  Unfortunately he botches his agility check and everyone inside is alerted to his presence.  A pair of dragon tattooed thugs emerge with flame guns and chase him out.  Choosing flight over fight Chameloraptor ran down the nearest side tunnel and loses his pursuers although slightly singed as a result.  Back at the rendevouz point he is saddened to learn that his fellow morlock Eelman has gone missing.  Following the trail he finds that Eelman has been taken to the surface and to a nearby warehouse.  Bringing the news back to the morlock colony their warmongering leader demands a night raid to spill the brazen surface dwellers blood.

Night falls and fight night begins.  Stuart offers some last minute advice to Rocco about his opponent's top heaviness.  Rocco the Robot steps into the electrified ring to face his his opponent Iron Kong fully twice his size.  The owner pulls a cord and spikes descend from the ceiling merely 10 ft from the ring.  With the odds stacked against him this was going to be an interesting fight.  The initial blows are traded and Rocco feels he may have bitten off more than he could chew.

With the patrons engrossed in the fight, Dolphin Ladd slips in unnoticed through a ceiling light onto the catwalk below where the owner's office is located.  Spotting a number of armed thugs out front he decides to take the subtler approach and makes his way towards the end of the catwalk where he sees a door labeled "Authorized personnel only".  Using his superb reasoning he quickly bypasses the electronic lock and makes his way inside.  Startled he is surprised to see numerous fish tanks holding incredibly rare aquatic life, many on the endangered species list.  Even more startling are the two humanoid fish like creatures in the last two tanks.  One a slug like man moving in a circuit from the floor to the wall to the ceiling and then back to the floor, apparently oblivious to the outside world.  The other resembles a bipedal eel that is bizarrely being electrified by his own body in the pool of water he was placed in.

Wasting no time Dolphin Ladd uses his mastery of water to remove the water from the tank at sufficient electrified risk to himself.  The eel man is free but unconscious from the ordeal.  Dolphin Ladd uses the respite to hack into the computer system and see what kind of bizarre experiments were done here.  It seems that the owner here is taking extracts from exotic aquatic specimens and more recently mutants in an attempt to create a drug granting temporary superpowers.  No stranger to this game of fishy fusion Dolphin Ladd resolves to put an end to this! 

D&D Cinema the 80's

After the recent Netflix price hike announcement I've been much more motivated to work my way through my Netflix queue, both instant and otherwise.  Today I watched both Conan the Destroyer and LadyHawke two D&D-esque films from the 80's.  They fall into a similar piecemeal genre so I felt apt to compare them.  Don't expect anything detailed this is merely a personal opinion of mine.

I was rather disappointed with Conan, it was much more lame than I remember as a youth.  Aside from the Conan-laying-waste-to-minions scenes I found it very difficult to pay attention. Much of the plot and plot reveals were largely forgettable.  LadyHawke on the other hand was actually quite impressive.  Well, when you move past the cheesy special effects, low production values and 80's synth heavy tracks.  Then again Conan's special effects weren't much better, but hey, it was the 80's.

While Conan fits the bill of the Swords and Sorcery genre that D&D draws heavily from, Lady Hawke felt more D&D to me.  Witty thieves, stoic knights on a quest of vengeance in medieval europe with a touch of supernatural provided a much more attractive milieu than mirror wizards and unicorn fish gods.

Also, that double crossbow was kickass.