Recaps

[Adminenkainen]

Re-shared from the Facebook group:

Session #6

We had a quorum with just Megan and the neighbors here. Ragar and Dr. Masque's players began making long-range plans for their Heroes, which was real exciting. They decided to look into the situation with corrupt cops in Pierre and Dr. Masque charmed the County Sheriff and made him look into it.

Returning to the Palace of the Vamp Queen, they saw their madman friend being rescued by patrol officers, but circled around back and went back inside to explore the haunted cellar. They fought some zombies, mapped some tunnels, and found a cave full of bats with a sinkhole leading into a concealed grotto where Omega Archer found -- the "buried" treasure of the Vamp Queen!
Leaving the cave complex, the Heroes returned to the haunted cellars area and found another room full of undead. A battle royale ensued and -- just like the earlier chapel battle -- it was very nearly a TPK. It all came down to Gray Condor wiping out the last of the skeletons with Omega Archer's Tommy gun, while down to his last 2 hit points.

But on the plus side, the Heroes left the hideout alive and with enough loot that they all leveled up -- Dr. Masque twice! At this point, Omega Archer is a level 5 Superhero, Ragar is a level 3/3 Fighter/Superhero, Dr. Masque is a level 4 Magic-User, and Gray Condor and Magnifica have probably leveled as well.

[Adminenkainen]

Session #7

We had all five players over. After a rousing game of Cards Against Humanity, we settled into the session with...a week of downtime! Ragar and Gray Condor flew across the Atlantic to Norway and back. When they returned, they went back down into the caves and tunnels under the Palace of the Vamp Queen and looted the crypt they almost died in last time. With some silver medallions as loot, they moved on to a familiar-looking cavern full of spiders, and then to a cavern with the last of the hoodlums holed up in it. The hoodlums were led by an evil magic-user named Eleanor, but the Heroes beat them handily. They finished mapping all but one area of the underground level, which they are determined to come back and finish off next week!

Magnifica is now a 3rd level Magic-user and Ragar reached level 3 Fighter/level 4 Superhero.

[Adminenkainen]

Session #8

It was Omega Archer, Dr. Masque, and Ragar, with Gray Condor and Magnifica hanging back in the background most of the time (since their players weren't there).

There were three more caves left to explore under the Palace of the Vamp Queen, and our Heroes wanted to be thorough! So they explored all three, killed a giant slug, and rescued some missing women. Then they stuck around and solved the mystery of how to summon the ghost of the "Vamp Queen" herself, learned what all that was about, and exorcised her by finishing off the last undead things in the place -- the ghoul cats! The ghoul cats had nearly wiped them out back at 1st level, but now they finished off the ghoul cats with ease.

During some downtime that followed, Ragar discovered that his Chicago office had lost all contact with the home office of his business in Occupied Norway -- so he convinced the other Heroes to go with him and see what the situation was there. They all flew to England together and met with the Captain of the Guard of the King-in-Exile, who arranged for them to be parachuted into Norway (which was much more occupied now up north than it had been when GC and Ragar flew in and out a week earlier).

Omega Archer and Dr. Masque fought some Nazis in the streets of Tromso, while Ragar found out that the Nazis were up this far north looking for the tomb of an 18th century wizard named Gulbrandson. The Heroes met with the Norwegian resistance, Milorg, while GC and Magnifica were sent on a side mission to find a safe way *out* of Norway for them (and a way to contact the government-in-exile).

OA, Ragar, and the Dr. found the tomb and decided to go in and find what the Nazis wanted from it. The tomb was magically guarded. They killed a giant cobra, but then Dr. Masque was almost killed by an ordinary viper. They found puzzles and traps in a false tomb guarded by gray oozes and undead skeletons. OA was paralyzed by a magic skull, but the skull told her where they should go next...

[Adminenkainen]

Session #9

It was just Omega Archer, Dr. Masque, and Ragar the Palindrome again, but that was still enough to clear out Gulbrandson's Tomb. Ragar passed out from the pain when he touched the magic dust in the room, but they still managed to foil the trap and retrieve a magic tome and a platinum urn. With Ragar revived by magic healing, they forced a manticore to surrender to them, and took on a dozen goblins, but Ragar was stabbed and went down again.

Resting back at Thunderhall Manor, the Heroes learned that something had happened back in Tromso -- the city had been magically surrounded by a curtain wall! But before they looked into that, the Heroes went back to check some dead ends in the tomb, found some secret doors, and uncovered yet more valuable treasure.

At this point, the Heroes wanted to go back to meet their underground contacts and plan the raid on the battleship -- but found Tromso had undergone a strange metamorphosis in their absence! It wasn't just the wall; half the buildings and half the people in the city seemed to be time displaced from the Norway of the Middle Ages or the Renaissance!

But it got weirder -- the modern people didn't seem to notice anything wrong with their surroundings until they were endangered by it (like the plant store owner who now had a giant carnivorous plant in his shop). The people of Tromso also now believed that they lived in a free city-state -- the City-State of the Invincible Overlord. This Overlord was supposedly Norwegian, but strangely comfortable with having Nazis occupying his city. And yet no one could remember knowing the Overlord's name, not even the Overlord's Chamberlain, who agreed to meet with the Heroes.

When the Heroes forced the Chamberlain to question everything he thought he knew, the man summoned a squad of eight medieval-esque halberdiers who tried to capture the Heroes. This led to an epic battle for the Chamberlain's Office that raged for nearly 30 minutes of game time. Omega Archer unleashed a flurry of blows that gave him 12 attacks, two turns in a row. Reinforcements arriving with a machine gun were all knocked out by a lightning bolt from Dr. Masque that slagged the machine gun. The Heroes won with everyone on their side conscious, but exhausted and with plenty of lumps. And we stopped just after midnight (4 1/4 hours, longest session yet!), with the Heroes trying to escape the palace!

Omega Archer is now a 6th level Superhero, Dr. Masque is now a 5th level Magic-User, and Ragar the Palindrome is now a 4th level Fighter/4th level Super-Hero.

[Adminenkainen]

Session #10

It began -- with Gray Condor being shot out of the sky! He and Magnifica, in their stolen plane, failed to reach British waters and crashed into the North Sea!

Sometime later, Omega Archer, Dr. Masque, and Ragar the Palindrome were escaping from the Overlord's Palace when they were joined by Gray Condor and Magnifica, who had survived days without food and water, floating on a wing of the plane after the crash, before washing up on the shores of Norway.

They all fled back to Ragar's ancestral home, Thunderhall, to find it had a new occupant. A non-human dwarf named Kalisk thought the place was his, and that there should be other dwarves here. It seemed at first that he was a refugee from whatever past the Invincible Overlord and his people had come from -- but according to Kalisk, the year was 2927. Instead of coming from the past, the Overlord seemed to be from almost 1,000 years in the future!

There was much debate about what their priorities were at this point, but it seemed that what they needed most were answers, and that the Overlord himself had them. So the Heroes decided to enter the city dressed in stolen Nazi uniforms and try to slip back into the Palace. However, the Heroes had misjudged how much cooperation there was between the Overlord's forces and the occupying Germans, and the Heroes had to fight their way in.

After beating up nearly two dozen defenders, killing one of them, and threatening to torture the stoic commander who refused to tell where the Overlord had gone, the Heroes began searching the palace top to bottom for clues. And they had to hurry, because they read a cursed scroll in the library out loud and freed an efreet who gleefully started setting fire to the place. They also had gleaned enough from the library to sort out what had really happened here -- this world's city of Tromso had somehow merged with the Tromso of an alternate Earth where the year was 2927 on a completely different calendar, magic was commonplace, and Norway was surrounded by barbarian lands.

Moving on, the Heroes tried to check out the harem, but this area was guarded by a stone golem so powerful that the Heroes, for the first time, seemed to have no chance of defeating it!

To be continued in one week!

[Adminenkainen]

Tonight was the 11th session of the Sunday Night at Home Campaign. It was a full house, and possibly our shortest session, though some important combats happened. While exploring the second floor of the Overlord's Palace, our Five Heroes rescued two trapped servants who explained that the Overlord had given up the palace and implemented the building's defenses -- which would summon undead to the palace.

Soon, they met two guards out on a parapet who surprisingly had magic powers -- one charmed Magnifica to his side and the other charmed Ragar into jumping over the side. Omega Archer and Gray Condor tried to shoot the guards with arrows, and even set them on fire, but nothing seemed to phase these two men, who seemed increasingly likely to be undead or some other kind of supernatural beings.

The rest of the Heroes managed to escape to the ground, where Ragar was still barely conscious from a 40' drop. While Dr. Masque healed Ragar, they spotted some people trying to flee out the front door of the palace, only to be attacked by a swooping green dragon man. Then two green dragon men swooped down from the same parapet at the Heroes. They tried shooting guns to no effect, but when Ragar hit one with his magic sword, that worked. In a desperate move, Omega Archer grappled one of the dragon men, leaped 500' into the air with him, and chose to crash them both into the ground a block away.

Since Gray Condor was wearing a Nazi sgt. uniform, he tried to order some Nazis outside to help in the fight, but when the remaining dragon man commanded Ragar to sleep, the Nazis only served as a distraction while the others got Ragar out. Their next goal was to find where Omega Archer landed. And that was a block away, where a pile of green goo was lying in a depression in the ground. There was no sign of Omega Archer...but the impact site was right outside a Slavemasters' Guild.

Inside, Ragar got in a fight with the main slavemaster, who also had a magic sword, while Gray Condor and Magnifica dealt with the hired help, and Dr. Masque tried to free the slaves. Ragar and Gray Condor defeated the slavemaster, everyone was rescued, and the Heroes escaped the city to recover at Thunderhall.

Two more dwarves had turned up at Thunderhall, so now there were three who thought this was their ancestral home instead of Ragar's. The Heroes ignored this for now while they healed up, found out what their new magic items could do, and then leveled up. Gray Condor and Magnifica are now 4th level. Ragar the Palindrome is a 4th level Fighter/5th level Superhero. Omega Archer is still a 6th level Superhero and Dr. Masque is almost a 6th level Magic-User.

[Adminenkainen]

((Reposted from Facebook))
Last night was the 12th session of the Sunday Nights at Home Campaign. We had four Heroes present: Omega Archer, Gray Condor, Dr. Masque, and Ragar the Palindrome (with GC's player doing double-duty on Magnifica).

A week of game time had passed with the Heroes holed up in Thunderhall, dealing with occupying dwarves and human refugees from Tromso. The plan was to return to the Overlord's palace and kick butt -- until Lady Kostbera, the dwarves' leader, arrived on Aug. 1. Kostbera said that the rest of her people were being imprisoned in a huge dungeon under the city, and that she knew a way in through the Cut-Throat Inn. The Heroes bargained for six magic arrows before they would rescue the dwarves, and the non-magic-users went on a scouting trip into the city to confirm the entrance to the dungeon was where Kostbera said it was.

On the 5th, the Heroes headed down into the dungeon. They found it was a maze, but Gray Condor diligently mapped it. They found lots of bats, lots of guano, giant centipedes, and broken statues -- but things really turned interesting when they descended a spiraling ramp to a lower level, where a glowing-red island sat surrounded by brackish water. Here, they fought a lion-headed statue that was resistant to all their attacks except magic missile spells -- thankfully Dr. Masque and Magica had sufficient magic missile spells between them to destroy the statue. It was guarding a treasure hoard that included a malfunctioning, but still usable -- helm of telepathy, and a portable hole.

Returning to the upper level, they continued to explore until they found a large chapel where a man in black robes, flanked by animated skeletons, asked them if this was the day of death. The Heroes responded by spraying bullets from sub-machine guns at him. The man in robes was nimble, dodging a lot of bullets and only being nicked by the ones he was hit by. He attacked the Heroes with magic dust that left Magnifica confused, but Omega Archer and Gray Condor proved resistant. Finally, Ragar channeled his magic powers through his weapon, creating a powerful burst that murdered the man in robes. Ragar laid claim to the military pick the man had been about to attack with.

[Adminenkainen]

((Reposted from Facebook))
Tonight was the lucky 13th session of the Sundays at Home Campaign. It was just Omega Archer, Dr. Masque, and Ragar the Palindrome and we only played for two hours -- but they were two very productive hours. It led off with the Heroes deciding, after using up most of their powers and spells in the last big battle of the previous session, to leave the dungeon. It was then that a mind flayer* showed up and told them they would not be allowed to leave -- that the Overlord knew they were down here and decided they would die here.

Now, all night long, NO ONE could miss a saving throw vs. psionic blast, so the Heroes just ignored the mind flayer and walked out of the dungeon -- and into a trap. Lady Kostbera of the dwarves, who they thought was on their side, was there with three treacherous dwarves and attacked them. Kostbera paralyzed Omega Archer, Kalisk charmed Ragar, and Gray Condor and Magnifica were swept off in a barroom brawl. It looked like Dr. Masque was going to have to face everyone alone, but she used her snake staff to constrict Kostbera and, while Kalisk was trying to free her, he couldn't stop Ragar from attacking the other dwarves. Masque paralyzed Kalisk, and the fight was over.

Kostbera was a powerful sorceress with a lot of loot on her. The Heroes returned to Thunderhall and spent two days just figuring out what all their new magic treasure did. During that time, once each night, something would happen to Magnifica and then Gray Condor that left them comatose. The theory was that they had been poisoned in the brawl -- until the following night when Dr. Masque woke up to the mind flayer standing over her.
The blood-curdling screams brought Omega and Ragar running and they arrived to find Dr. Masque seriously injured from the mind flayer's sharp tentacles. The three of them combined managed to defeat the mind flayer, though.

The campaign is now on August 8, 1941. Dr. Masque has joined Omega Archer at 6th level, and Ragar is a level 5/5 Fighter/Superhero.

[Adminenkainen]

((Reposted from Facebook))

Last night was session #14 of the Sunday Nights at Home Campaign. And we picked up, two weeks later, with the Heroes still holed up in Thunderhall, Norway, planning what to do about the Invincible Overlord who had taken over the City of Tromso. For over a month, the Heroes had been conducting raids on the city, even assaults on the Overlord’s palace, but always felt safe and secure returning to Thunderhall, even though the Illithid sent by the Overlord had attacked them in their beds in their sleep there.

Today was the day all illusions of safety and security were dispelled. Thunderhall was under assault.

The Heroes emerged from the main building to find the compound on fire from flaming arrows. Omega Archer and Dr. Masque leaped up into the air and saw that a combination of humans and monsters, numbering over 60, were massing on each side of the compound. Most of the Heroes met at the main gate on the west side to face the closest attackers.

Dr. Masque used her new Wand of Illusion to create a phantasmal force of a red dragon, which made Ragar the Palindrome angry because he planned to shoot his machine gun from the top of the curtain wall into the troops and found a dragon blocking his aim. Omega Archer went straight out the front gates to confront the big monster at the front, a troll. The dragon scared most of the western troops away, Ragar shot a lot of the rest, and Omega Archer took down the troll.

Gray Condor had his own plane in the coach house and used some trick flying to take off in the small compound without a long runway. He attacked the troops on the east side, using the wing of his plane to shear off all the ladders being raised to the top of the wall. Then he flew around to the southern troops and dropped some grenades on them.

Meanwhile, an invisible magic-user had snuck into the compound and tried to stop Dr. Masque and Magnifica by snaring them in a web spell, along with two hoodlums Magnifica had just summoned with a spell. Gray Condor flew overhead, spotted the situation, and kept the magic-user dodging bullets long enough for Dr. Masque to free herself and immobilize her foe with her Snake Staff.

All would have gone well if that was it for the invaders, but the northern and southern forces massed at the west gate at the same time. Omega Archer was overwhelmed by two trolls and went down, unconscious. Ragar stopped shooting and leapt down into the fray, to use his sword and power blasts on goblins with spears and human swordsmen. They were wearing him down and it looked like he would go down too. That’s when the magic-users arrived with their healing magic – Magnifica bringing Omega back up on his feet, and Dr. Masque giving Ragar some much needed help.

Gray Condor crashed his plane into the southern troops, then discovered that he could fly himself, from exposure to so much magic! He swooped down, shooting at the trolls, as the last of the non-troll troops fled. With everyone converging on the trolls, the battle was won.

Or so it seemed. Omega and Ragar were healed, the trolls were beheaded, and everyone rounded up weapons and armor from the fallen – but by then the trolls had regenerated and all three of them came back for a rematch! Only now did the dwarves reveal what they knew about trolls, regenerating, and stopping them with fire before running off again. The Heroes used oil, a fireball, and hard labor to take down the trolls a second time. But the cost was great. Thunderhall was damaged, the outlying buildings unsalvageable, 10 refugees had died, Ragar had finally gone down and Omega Archer nearly died. All their powers, spells, and stunts were exhausted. And yet the day was not over, and only the first part of the siege had been won…

To be continued in 3 weeks!

[Adminenkainen]

(Re-shared from the Facebook: )

Tonight was the 15th session of the Sundays at Home Campaign. Attending were Omega Archer, Dr. Masque, and Ragar the Palindrome.

The Overlord’s forces were routed and Thunderhold, albeit badly damaged, still stood. The battle ended three hours ago and the Heroes had been resting since then. The human refugees were fighting with the dwarf boarders about how they had not helped during the attack. But this was interrupted by a prisoner's arrival.

Drelorlac Kristiansen was a scout from the city and he had come with a warning for them -- that the Nazis were coming for them now that the Overlord had failed. Drelorlac wanted everyone to come with him and flee to the safety of the hills. Further, he wanted the Heroes to then come with him back to the City of Tromso, for he was part of a group of people there who also still remembered the city as it was before the Tromso's of the two worlds merged, and were working to undo it.

But the Heroes had trust issues at this point and weren't having that. They didn't even believe the part about the Nazis until the bomber dropped a bomb on the main building. It was time to grab as much as they could and run. Gray Condor and Magnifica would stay here with the dwarves and try to defend what was left of Ragar's ancestral hall while the rest of the Heroes led the refugees away.
Once the refugees were safer further inland, the Heroes hunkered down closer to the coast to rest and heal. They still weren't done, nine hours later, when a 5-ton Panzer tank rolled up to them. Eleven infantrymen following the tank were spreading out and searching the area and one of them found the concealed niche the Heroes were hiding in. A brief firefight took out the three closest Nazis, but the rest were prepared to wait out the Heroes.
Omega Archer bolted out and took some hits. He dropped two grenades under the tank and leaped into the air, taking yet more hits and landing by the others, seriously injured again. The grenades blew out a tank tread, stopping the tank. Dr. Masque jumped out and tossed a lightning bolt at the tank, roasting the occupants, but took hits herself from the infantryman and escaped back into their safe niche, seriously injured. The Palindrome then clambered up with his machine gun and mowed down the rest of the infantrymen. But, fearing that more Nazis might be coming...the Heroes were ready to believe Drelorlac now. They let him lead them back into Tromso, the City-State of the Invincible Overlord.

At the closed Singing Squid Tavern, they met some of their new fellow conspirators -- both residents of the other world's Tromso and some members of MILORG, the underground resistance that was already here in this world. After getting some more rest in the backroom, they had a big meeting together and the Heroes learned that their allies had managed to piece together a lot, while the Heroes were keeping the Overlord distracted.

What the Heroes were told was that, about 100 years ago, a wizard from their world (and they quickly surmised this was the wizard Gulbrandson whose tomb they had raided over a month ago) found a way to the Overlord's world, had an audience with the Overlord, and made an arrangement where the wizard would craft three powerful magic items that could be used to "anchor" their two cities together -- a sceptre, an orb, and a crown. The sceptre was likely in the Summerlight Palace. The orb was in the Hel- Bridge Temple. The crown was with the Overlord, wherever he was (Ragar was sure he was cowering somewhere). Even if they could find and destroy one or two of those items, there was a chance the two worlds would get un-merged.

Since the Heroes had already tried and failed twice at the Palace, they left that for the other group and chose to try for the Temple's prize. So the Palindrome asked for intel on the Temple, while Dr. Masque procured a hooded robe that matched the type worn by the priests of the temple.

Three days later, on September 1, 1941, the three Heroes burst into the temple. The Palindrome ran straight for the altar with his machine gun and set it up, chased by the temple's berserker guards.Omega Archer couldn't bring himself to shoot the guards in cold blood, so he tried to scare them off with a show of super-strength. The berserkers were loyal, though, and more Vestal Virgins ran out than guards. The Palindrome had no problem with killing, though, and he seemed to take pleasure in the ensuing slaughter of guards and clerics. Meanwhile, Dr. Masque charmed one of the clerics and had the man lead him to the orb they sought.

Dr. Masque was being escorted through an underground level of side passages and side room that might have taken days to explore, but her guide knew the way and knew the passwords. When the Palindrome tried to follow him, he didn't know the password and wound up slowed down by a fight with well-armored zombies. That fight ran long enough that Omega -- left back upstairs to hold the entrance -- decided to come down and see what was taking so long.
Dr. Masque was led to the private quarters of an old high priest. Dr. Masque tried to trick the high priest, telling him the Overlord wanted his orb back and was attacking the temple to get it. The high priest almost gave away the orb's location, but decided instead to release a djinn from a magic bottle and order it to slay his enemies. When Dr. Masque tried to quickly off the high priest and failed, Dr. Masque became that first enemy. Invisibility saved Dr. Masque from the djinn for a bit, and the djinn killed the charmed priest trying to get to him, but then Dr. Masque went back to slamming the high priest with his spells. After a lightning bolt and magic missiles, the high priest went down, dead, and the djinn surrendered to his new master.

Now, finally, Omega and Ragar managed to follow Masque's trail to this room. They looted more magical treasure, and Masque's spell found a magically concealed iron door. Ragar broke the door, but the door handle was enchanted and flew off to attack them! And that's where we ran out of time for the night!

[Adminenkainen]

The 16th session of the Sundays at Home Campaign started out with Omega Archer, Ragar the Palindrome, and Dr. Masque picking up where they left off last time (with Gray Condor showing up later). And what they were doing was -- getting conked on the head by a magic door handle that was flying around the room! But this was Omega and Ragar, so naturally their solution was to shoot it until it stopped moving. In the secret closet it had protected, they found a Potion of Healing and -- the orb they came for! Ragar broke it and the spell that linked the Tromso of the two worlds seemed to weaken for a moment, but remained.

Meanwhile, the Norwegian Underground, paired with freedom fighters from the Overlord's realm, had failed to take the Summerlight Palace. It would fall to the Heroes to make a third attempt at taking the palace. And they did, besting yet another magic-user in the process, before Dr. Masque used a spell to locate the next of the three items, the Overlord's scepter, hidden invisibly on a basement shelf. They broke this too -- and the spell of world merging was weakened enough that it was broken, without them even needing to find the Overlord and his crown.

The 17th session was attended by Omega Archer, Ragar the Palindrome, and Dr. Masque. It was Sept. 5, 1941, and time to wrap up the Norway Campaign. Intelligence said a German infantry regiment was coming up by rail to Tromso to reinforce the city, but MILORG was able to sabotage the tracks and delay them. Further intelligence told them that the British and Canadians had just recently staged a raid north of here, unrelated to their mission, but could be the Heroes' ticket home safe if they could catch up with the British destroyers. But first, there was the matter of Magnifica, still being held prisoner on the German destroyer, the Tirpitz.

That night, the four Heroes (they brought Gray Condor along) took a rowboat out to the destroyer and boarded the main deck at its aft end. They set all destroyer's depth charges to go off and set them into the water to create a diversion, but then ran into small groups of sentries on patrol right away and the firefights ensued. They then split up, sending Dr. Masque and Gray Condor to find the engine room and hold it, while Ragar and Omega went to take the bridge.

Dr. Masque and Gray Condor quickly found the aft engine room and took it over, with the help of Dr. Masque's djinn. It took longer for Ragar and Omega to find the bridge, as they spent a lot of time first searching the quad deck and contacting the British ships from the emergency radio room. Then, while Ragar fought a squad of men on the main deck until he was moderately injured, Omega took the fore deck alone, even though he was seriously hurt after having an anti-aircraft gun and a grenade used on him. Reunited, they took the bridge and captured Captain, Karl Topp. After some torture, Captain Topp yielded and ordered the crew to take the destroyer out to sea, on a rendezvous course with the British ships.

It took a day to catch up to the British and by then the Germans had figured out what was going on. Six bombers had flown out to intercept and sink the Tirpitz. Under orders from Ragar, through the captain, the crew fought and downed four bombers, but the destroyer was crippled. Luckily the British destroyers were in sight, chased off the two remaining bombers, and came over to take over the Heroes' prisoners and give them rides back to England.

In England, Dr. Masque researched what the last magic item she picked up in the Summerlight Palace could do (it was a vampire rod). Everyone was debriefed by British generals and then rewarded with an audience with the King of Norway in Exile, King Haakon VII. King Haakon thanked them personally and granted each of them a wish, to be granted as soon as the Norwegian government reasonably could. Ragar asked that his home, Thunderhall, be rebuilt. Dr. Masque asked that the brave fighters of MILORG be rewarded in her stead. And Omega asked for a magic ring...which they promised to send to him if they ever find one.

Omega Archer is still 7th level. Dr. Masque is very close to 7th level. Ragar the Palindrome went up in level as a Superhero and is now a 5th level Fighter/6th level Superhero.

[Adminenkainen]

Tonight was the 18th session of the Sundays at Home Campaign, and it began with some meta-gaming discussions. Megan asked for another vote to switch weapon damage from d6 for all non-trophies to the optional expanded weapon damage from Supplement I -- and it finally passed. We also talked about adding stuff from Supplement II. The hit locations system was shot down, but the Speedster class and the new powers and spells passed.

We picked up a few days after everyone returned from England to the states and of the five heroes, most had already gone separate ways. Omega Archer had tried to return to his job for the Chicago Tribune, but had come back from war reporting empty-handed and was switched to covering politics. He was in Washington, D.C. on the 12th -- when the Capitol Building was attacked! Strange, very fast planes tried to drop a bomb on the building and just missed. As they came around for another pass, Omega went to his car to change into his costume and whip out his guns. He managed to hit one plane with a sub-machine gun, but did only light damage to it.

Another costumed hero showed up -- he was surrounded by fire and flew! -- but he was shot down by machine gun fire from the planes and landed on a rooftop. Omega jumped up there and administered first aid to the man. But then, one of the strange craft managed to land on the roof with them. Omega waited to see what the pilot wanted, but the pilot wanted to throw a grenade at him. The roof was half-filled with smoke, or some sort of gas, from the grenade and Omega had to resist falling asleep. Omega responded by shooting and killing the pilot.

Then policemen burst up onto the roof. They wanted to take Omega prisoner, believing he might have been part of the attack, but he wasn't having that. He tried to leap away, but his powers were not working now! Forgetting about the gas, Omega assumed the police were somehow canceling out his powers and might be in on the attack. When they tried to mess with the plane, he stopped them. When they tried to handcuff him, he started mowing them down with his auto pistol. One cop escaped down the stairs, with Omega Archer in pursuit. Because Omega had lost his speed as well, the cop reached the street and more cops. But Omega blew two of them away and the remaining cops fled. Finally alone, he went back up to check out the plane parked on the roof, but accidentally set off a self-destruct sequence and the plane blew up. Omega jumped clear, but the pilot and the superhero (the cops had called him "Red Blazer") were killed.

That same day, in Elgin, Illinois, Gray Condor was back to his old job as an air chauffeur, but now had competition from a female pilot Max had hired while GC was away in Europe. The young lady felt a strong rivalry with GC, so he was surprised when she opened up to him on the 12th about witnessing a murder! An old man had been pushed in front of the tracks in front of a train, downtown, and only she saw it happen. GC leaped into action (without his aviator costume), checking the evening paper, talking to the Elgin Police Chief, and heading to the Courthouse to follow up on leads. Since it was now late, GC had to hide until after closing and sneak around the building to break into the dead man's office there. The dead man, a court investigator, had two robbers show up there after GC, looking for the same files. GC clobbered both robbers, recovered the files they wanted to steal that proved the city clerk was behind the murder and a case of political graft, and made the local news by the next morning. Which was when he heard about the attack on Washington, D.C.

That same day, in Boston, Massachusetts, Magnifica was there on tour, and between shows was shopping in Chinatown for magical paraphernalia, when she stumbled across a crime scene. A man had been critically stabbed and, while being loaded into an ambulance, muttered something about an ape. Magnifica did not see an ape, or someone with a knife, so she followed the ambulance to the hospital and eventually convinced a nurse to let her see the injured man. He was from Naval Intelligence and had plans stolen from him by a knife-throwing gorilla. When Magnifica laughed uncontrollably, she was escorted out and no longer allowed to see the patient, her only lead.

Luckily, Dr. Masque was part of the same magic show tour as her partner. Dr. Masque had received a visit from a FBI agent earlier that day and missed him, but he was back at the theater in time to run into a stumped Magnifica. They both agreed that the trail was now cold on their killer ape -- and soon had higher priorities to consider when they heard on the radio about the attack on Washington, D.C.

The next morning, everyone received telegrams from Omega, with a coded message telling them what hotel to find OA at in Washington, D.C. GC took a commercial flight to Baltimore -- the closest airport outside the temporary no-flight zone, and then a cab into the capital.

Magnifica and Dr. Masque made a detour first and met with the FBI contact in Boston. He knew of them by reputation, for they had met the FBI out in Pierre, South Dakota over a month ago. The FBI had been keeping tabs on the magicians and had a favor to ask them -- investigate a house that might be harboring foreign spies. Dr. Masque tried a subtle approach first, but when that didn't work they went in with staves swinging and magic missiles blazing. The house had five unusual guardians -- American Indian speedsters. Magnifica took a bruising while trying to avoid them, but Dr. Masque and her genie mowed them all down with spell, staff, and whirlwind killing one of them. The captured spies revealed how they had coerced the Indians into working for them. Everything was wrapped up there, so they took the next flight to Baltimore.

Once everyone met up with Omega, he brought them up to speed. He had wreckage from the plane, and a distinctive gas mask, in his trunk for GC to examine, plus a damaged matchbox that said "Virginia" on it. OA and GC spent the afternoon of the 13th compiling a list of businesses in the Washington, D.C. area that had "Virginia" in their name. It was only upon meeting with OA's FBI contact, Agent Evans, that they learned sensitive information kept from the press, that the four super-planes that escaped had fled into the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. The FBI even knew the identify of the Red Blazer now, and the Heroes were able to search the dead hero's home. There, they read up on the short and brutal history between the Red Blazer and his nemesis, Dr. Skull. Now the Heroes asked for an autogyro that could hold four that they could use to search the mountains -- for Dr. Skull.

They spent a great deal of the 14th flying over the mountains, stopping to refuel once. Finally, they got lucky and spotted an unusual, tall cliff covered in ledges, and pigeons -- some of them of giant size and 10' wingspans. This warranted investigation, so they landed on a narrow ledge and found secret hangar doors. OA pried the doors open and they hit paydirt -- the four missing super-planes! There were only three guards, easily defeated. They stole one plane, having GC land it up on top of the cliff, and then OA (who came with) leaped back down to the ledge with him (had they missed, it would have been a 1,000' drop!). Meanwhile, Mag and Masque had sabotaged the other planes. Also meanwhile, pigeons were starting to accumulate around the open hangar doors, including one of the giant pigeons, that came inside menacingly. Masque cast a Speak with Animals spell, though, and learned from the giant one that Dr. Skull had "gifted" some of the pigeons with enormous size and was working on other "advancements" for pigeons. Then, at GC's idea, they disguised themselves as pilots and headed through a door to search the rest of the hideout.

Down some stairs was a barracks, with a single sleeping man among 16 beds. After knocking him out, they searched the room, and moved on to the next room down, a dining area and kitchen. They were outnumbered in the dining room, so they tried to use their disguises to get information out of them. It was working too until Dr. Skull's henchmen got suspicious about why the pilots were not taking off their masks to eat their sandwiches. The ensuing fight was over quickly, with another heroes' victory. Then Dr. Skull himself appeared on a huge TV monitor. He was also fooled by the disguises, chastised his henchmen for fighting, and asked that sandwiches be brought down to him on the elevator.

[Adminenkainen]

The 19th session was a really short one! We picked up right where we'd left off before, with the disguised Heroes being told that they were to bring Dr. Skull a sandwich. But first, they searched the neighboring storage room. And then they searched it again. And then they searched the kitchen again. Gray Condor was really suspicious of that elevator and wanted to find another way to go down.

The time they spent doing that made Dr. Skull suspicious and he sent up four goons in the elevator to confront the Heroes. The Heroes let the goons inspect the unconscious henchmen in the room, but when one was being woken up, Magnifica acted to put the goons to sleep with a spell. One goon resisted, and he was riddled with bullets by the murderous Omega and Gray Condor, dead before he hit the floor.

At this point the Heroes all filed into the elevator to go down, but Dr. Skull was onto them and activated a trap. The elevator was going to fall 1,000 feet to the bottom of the shaft and the Heroes had 10 seconds to figure a way out. Dr. Masque was casting a Fly spell on Omega while he picked up the others -- but there wasn't enough time. Omega and Dr. Masque, resistant to falling damage, were only lightly injured. Omega cushioned the impact for Gray Condor, but Magnifica fell and was knocked unconscious. Two healing spells later, she was good to go. Still, feeling vulnerable, Magnifica cast Invisibility on herself.

The ruined elevator was open to Dr. Skull's lab now on the bottom level, and he lobbed a sleeping gas grenade at them. Because everyone's gas masks had been jarred loose in the crash, everyone fell asleep -- except for Magnifica. As Dr. Skull approached to collect them, the invisible Magnifica lifted the genie bottle off of Dr. Masque and summoned the djinn. The djinn was tasked with waking up the three other Heroes. When Dr. Skull turned and ran for an exit, Magnifica caught him in a Web spell.

The Heroes looted the lab and found a bunch of plans and formulas, including plans for Dr. Skull's super-planes. They waited until the web spell dissipated and Magnifica's second wish was for the djinn to hold Dr. Skull. Then they checked out the next room Dr. Skull had tried to flee to. It was a generator room and it had a robot in it that Dr. Skull could voice activate. The robot was immediately destroyed by a Lightning Bolt from Dr. Masque. Dr. Skull, running out of options, agreed to show them the way out on the next level up. But he had one last card to play there.

In a cave blocking the exit was a troll Dr. Skull had created with science. It lunged at the Heroes and bit Omega for light damage, but Omega and Gray Condor blasted it with automatic weapons at point blank range and obliterated it. The Heroes emerged into the light of day at the base of the cliff and Gray Condor used a remote control to summon his new super-plane. A whiny Dr. Skull was told that he was dealing with real superheroes now. Soon, they were winging their way to the nearest Army base to drop off their prisoner and the plans for the super-plane (after GC had photographed his own copies).


...And then we played Super Munchkin for the rest of our evening.

[Adminenkainen]

After two sessions off when Gray Condor's player took over running the campaign (and I'm going to let him write his own write-ups!), I was back tonight running the 22nd session of this campaign. We picked up with some downtime for the Heroes, to see what had been happening to them. Omega Blaster (what Omega is calling himself now) allowed himself to get fired from the Chicago Tribune. Dr. Masque revealed to Gandor the Great his secret history (he's royalty on their world). Gray Condor convinced the Army that he didn't have a recovered super-plane from Dr. Skull's West Virginia lair, but had the number of an Army liaison to call if he had any useful information for them. He then took off for a vacation in Brazil -- with his super-plane. Magnifica met with the Naval Intelligence officer she had saved a month earlier, who was concerned that factory saboteurs were working with a list of plants stolen from him at that time (the papers Magnifica had failed to save). Jack Halsey (that was his name) asked Magnifica to protect the Glenn L. Martin aircraft factory in Middle River, Maryland from saboteurs.

The four Heroes gathered in New York for a meeting and discussed where to live. Really, none of them now had ties to any location and could move anywhere. Almost randomly, they picked Syracuse. But then they discussed Magnifica's mission and all agreed to pursue it.

On October 16, 1941, the four Heroes (they still don't have a team name) showed up in Middle River, Maryland. The factory was under military guard, so they were going to have to be sneaky. Dr. Masque's plan was to steal a name tag from an off-duty worker at a bar in town, but he fumbled the attempt. Gray Condor decided they needed to try something less subtle, so he and Omega Blaster lured two workers into an alley and beat them up. The two men were abducted and taken to the Country Inn where they were kept tied up and under lock and key.

On the 17th, the Heroes all went in disguise into the factory (Dr. Masque made phantasmal name tags for him and Magnifica) and searched for clues. They overheard some random rumors -- that Paul Cary had come into money, Dandbridge Cole had a job waiting for him elsewhere, and George Heink hated factories because he lost his left hand at a previous one.

Gray Condor befriended and cleared Paul, who's brother-in-law was helping him afford a trip to Canada. Omega Blaster spent the day pretending to be a new worker needing Cole to show him around, and the "job" waiting for Cole was nothing more suspicious than classes at Princeton. Dr. Masque and Magnifica both tried to befriend George, but George was a jerk and turned them away.

That night, while Omega Blaster and Gray Condor guarded the main factory building, Dr. Masque and Magnifica stole invisibly into the administration building (they found unlocked windows) and looted filing cabinets (borrowing Gray Condor's portable hole, they were able to take ALL the files!). But then there was an explosion in the factory! OB and GC were luckily on the far side of the building and took no damage from the blast, but the assembly line was seriously damaged by a bomb.

It was then that Dr. M and Mag looked out a window and spotted George sneaking out of the compound in the confusion!

The Heroes stayed and searched the factory grounds, but found no more explosives. They changed into costumes now and confronted George at home. George was not a threat; they found him drunk and quickly got him to confess to planting a bomb -- that two other men had given to him. The men had approached George and recruited him -- knowing of his past with factories -- at the Country Inn.

The proprietor of the Country Inn remembered the two men from his diner many times, but they were not staying there at his inn. However, there was another placed called the Rodeway Inn, farther up the road towards Baltimore. The concierge of the Rodeway said he'd never seen the two men and it seemed like this was a dead end -- but the concierge made a suspicious phone call as soon as the Heroes left. Curious, the Heroes ducked into an unlocked room and watched. Fifteen minutes later, they saw a man with a rifle patrolling the parking lot.

Gray Condor tried to sneak up on the rifleman, but failed -- and combat ensued. The rifleman seemed tough -- he resisted a sleep spell from Mag, dodged or blocked every attack from GC and OB, but Dr. Masque killed the gunman with four magic missiles. Two more gunmen opened fire from the roof, and though OB was hit twice for superficial damage, he killed one of them with his tommy gun and knocked out the other one. The fake concierge tried to escape by car, but OB and Dr. M caught him and tied him up with his belt. Which left GC and Mag to go after the ringleader, who just turned on the light in his motel room. That was to lure them in, though, because the ringleader was prepared to take himself out with grenades if he could get them too. Mag flung GC back out of harm's way and used the door for cover, but still took some damage from the blast.

And just like that, it was wrapped up. They had two prisoners to make confess, and found evidence in the concierge's office that they were German spies. They had left all their borrowed files with George for the military to take back. OB had some healing to do, Mag had a date with Jack, and Dr. M had a date with a secretary from the plant. All was going well.

But then, on the 20th, Mag received a visitor, of sorts, by magically a projected image of her one-time mentor, Okanna the Veiled Prophet. Okanna warned Mag of Celie, a voodoo priestess in Trinidad, raising a zombie army, and asked Mag to rescue him from them. Mag got in touch with the others, and they did some research for the trip ...before we ran out of time for the night.

[Adminenkainen]

The 23rd session of the campaign was down to Gray Condor and Magnifica, plus an old friend of Gray Condor's, The Super Soldier (who had briefly once been a backup character for Omega Blaster's player). It was October 24, 1941, and they were flying by commercial plane from Baltimore to Trinidad. There, they expected to find Okanna the Veiled Prophet and rescue him from an undead army.

Only, when they got to Trinidad, everything seemed to be fine. There was no sign of an undead army. They rented a car in Port-of-Spain, spent the night in too expensive and touristy a hotel, and drove out to Toco on the northeast corner of the island. There, they found Toco was quiet...but too quiet. The people at the inn all acted suspicious. They thought they could get some help at the local church, but they found it deserted -- by humans. They were attacked by a swarm of a dozen giant rats and had to beat them off in three different combats before clearing out the place.

From the priest's abandoned journal (and corroborated by an old lady they met), they learned that the zombies only showed up at night, alongside mercenaries who abducted the men of the village and took them to work an oil rig on an old plantation outside of town. The Heroes went to drive out to the oil rig, but saw it was surrounded by armed guards. On the way back to Toco, they ran over a zombie.

Perhaps looking for more allies (or just killing time until nightfall), they checked out the lighthouse near the village. They thought the armed man inside might help them, but when he invited them in they learned that he was just one of the mercenaries and the lighthouse was full of them. Everyone leaped or flew out the window, while being shot at, but then Gray Condor dropped a bomb back through the window and blew everyone up. Well, almost everyone -- he had missed one more in the neighbor radio room. Gray Condor took the remaining mercenary prisoner and told whoever was on the other end that they were coming. From their prisoner, they learned that the mercenaries answered to another woman, named Tula, the head of their mercenary company, who in turn answered to Celie.

Everyone then camped in the church until night. Come night, more mercenaries and zombies came into the village, rounded up 50 men, and led them back to work the oil rig. Magnifica followed while invisible, and carried Gray and Super inside Gray's portable hole. Magnifica saw the oil rig and the main house on the plantation, and decided to scout the house. She looked in all the ground floor windows and saw many of the rooms were occupied. She tried the front door, but couldn't distract the guards inside enough to sneak in past them. She decided she would break a window in a sleeping quarters and crawl in. She roused the servants who were sleeping and scared them, then ran out into the hallway and let her friends out of the hole. The three of them went into the kitchen, scattered the large staff instead of silencing them, and the women ran off to go alert the rest of the house.

When we left off, the three Heroes were hiding in a side hall, watching mercenaries start to gather in the main hall, including one with a sub-machine gun...