We were like gods once... BIG UPDATE Friday Nov 5!
ledded
Herder of monkies
We were like gods once... [Moose's story]
France, somewhere near St Lo. 9:52 am.
Robert “Moose” Pressman sat in the bouncing deuce-and-a-half cradling his BAR, smiling at Hank and Smitty going on about the finer points of gunsmithing and feeling like a comfortable part of the conversation without adding anything to it.
But he rarely ever did; Moose was a quiet man for the most part, slow to move and to anger. Not that he was stupid or clumsy; he was just so big, and strong, that he was afraid that he would hurt someone or break something on accident if he acted in haste. At 6-feet, 7-inches and 265 pounds, he was a behemoth of a man, with a quiet, rumbling northern Minnesota accent on the few occasions that he chose to speak. Hence the nickname “Moose”; he suspected it was tacked on more because of his Minnesota/Canadian-influenced speech or ancestry than his size, but either way he didn’t really care. All he cared about was making his folks proud, and staying alive long enough to get home to see it. Though he seemed to always be lucky when it came to getting hurt, if luck is what you wanted to call it…
Moose lets his thoughts wander.
Several weeks earlier, England:
“Yeah, Moose here was actually one of the youngest guys to ever play in the CJFL ya know”, Frankie bragged to the 82nd Airborne guys. “Damn good, he was too.”
At their skeptical looks he added “Canadian. Junior. Football. League. Jeez guys, don’t get out much, do ya?”.
“Oh yeah, that a fact? Sheez man ya expect me ta believe dat? Whaddaya say, Bullwinkle? Rocky just pullin’ my leg or what?”, the big airborne corporal tossed at Moose in a thick Brooklyn brogue and cocky smile.
“Oh ya. Last played in ’36 for da Moose Jaw Maroons dere, dontcha know”, Moose rumbled, embarrassed.
Frankie jumped right back in, “Yeah, you remember, the ’36 Winnipeg St Johns game, they dropped it 13 ta 0 seein’ as how Moose here got hurt in the first quarter. His family moved to Minnesota right afterwards, and now *boom* he’s here. So, whaddaya think, we got a game or what? Or are ya too yellow?”
Moose thought back to that game, his last one with the Maroons; he was a kid then, but still a big one at 6-foot-4 and 200 pounds. He remembered running with the ball that day, feeling like nothing could stop him; remembered that monster linebacker, that fearsome brute that everyone was so afraid of, cutting an angle across to intercept him. He also remembered his own stark fear when he realized he was about to get nailed by this guy, this vicious guy who had ended the careers of 5 poor schmucks that season alone. Moose remembers dropping his shoulder and bunching himself as tight as possible in anticipation of the linebacker’s rage to fall on him like a hammer blow from the gods, legs driving towards the goal line.
He remembers, in distinct detail, the look of surprise on the linebacker’s face then they connected; the SNAP of the boy’s femur; the jarring shock and debris and blood from his shattered teeth; the horrible “whuuuff” noise he made as his ribs collapsed; the feeling as all 235 pounds of him rolled over Moose’s back and spun lazily, kite-like, in the air a full revolution and a half before SLAMMING into the ground like a sack of boneless meat.
And Moose also remembers how he didn’t even slow down on impact, how he felt like a loaded lumber truck hitting a deer when he slammed into the guy. How he stopped a few yards later, and then just sat down on the field in his shock and guilt.
He knew he couldn’t play anymore after seeing that boy put on a stretcher and carted off to the hospital, crying and gasping for breath and bleeding everywhere. So, guilt stricken, he acted like his shoulder was torn up from the impact and quit football forever from that moment on. Later that year his parents moved to Minnesota and the ever-growing and self-conscious Moose was more than happy to pack up and leave all of the strange looks and whispered comments behind him.
“Sheesus Moose, what are ya doin’? Go man, GOGOGO… I got 5 bucks ridin’ on ya!”, screamed Frankie, pushing him, as Moose realized that the Airborne fella was taking off down the yard, another Paratrooper pumping the ball in his hand getting ready to throw a long one.
Moose shook off his ruminations and took off after him, fast for such a big guy. He could see the Airborne fella looking back now as he gained, a look of glee on his face when he realized that he could snatch down the pass before Moose could get a hand on it. Moose could also see that the pass was overthrown, that the guy was getting close to the street. Too close. Moose pushed himself, and ran faster, huge thumping legs tearing furrows in the damp English turf as he closed on the paratrooper.
He could see the paratrooper’s foot hit the edge of the road, the look of exultation on his face as he caught the pass; he could see the speeding Lorry, fully laden with supplies begin to skid on the damp road.
Moose’s feet slipped on the wet pavement just as his hand closed on the paratrooper’s jacket. He heaved the man as hard as he could and caught the Lorry’s grill, like the teeth of some great predator, just out of the corner of his eye before everything became a bright, white light, and silence.
……
“Moose! Moose! Ah, crap, Moose! I’m sorry buddy, come on now, Moose… Jeezus…. MEDIC!!! Somebody get a freakin’ Medic over here!”, the muffled, underwater voice came to Moose.
It was Frankie, shaking him. Looking down at him from up above the sea he was gently afloat in. The sky is a nice shade of grey today, bubbled up into Moose’s mind, funny how it looks almost normal from under water.
Moose winced as he tried to get up; his head, arm, and ribs hurt bad; probably broke something, Moose slowly thought to himself with an almost sunken, surreal quality.
“I’m okay dere, eh”, Moose groaned to Frankie as he sat up. He remembered now. The airborne guy. The football. The truck. The world came into focus, and the water seemingly drained away all at once.
“Is that dere fella ok, eh?”, Moose queried as Frankie sat back, wide-eyed, while Moose shook out the last cobwebs from his head.
“Yu-yu-yeah, well, yeah man, t-t-take a look for yourself.” Frankie’s eyes were all whites around the pupils, and moving wildly in his head.
Moose looked over where Frankie pointed, and saw the big Airborne guy sitting on the grass, surrounded by a few of his buddies.
Fifteen feet *back* the way they had just been running flat out from.
Fifteen feet, wondered Moose. Must be that English food dere. Yeah, all dose potatoes, eh? “Gosh, I hope I didn’t hurt ‘im”, Moose inadvertently mused aloud.
“Hurt him? Hurt HIM? Are you nuts Moose? Jeez man you *saved* his life, I aint never seen nothin’ like that before… he… he... flew! Like, in the friggin air! Over your shoulder! And you! Are you sure you’re ok?”, rattled off a visibly shaken Frankie.
“Well, yeah dere, I’m ok, maybe some busted ribs or somethin’. Why’re ya so worried, Frankie? Da truck musta just clipped me, eh?”, Moose replied, smiling.
Frankie’s voice was a whisper, eyes wide, when he replied, “Clipped ya? Moose… lookit… look at the…”. His voice, failing him, Frankie just pointed a palsied hand.
Moose looked, and saw the Lorry. And saw how the front was crushed like it had hit a boulder, how the axle was visibly broken. He noticed, now, how the stacked supplies lay broken and scattered in the road all around them, past the truck.
“Um, he must have, well, dontcha know, uh, well I guess I got lucky dere, eh?”, Moose replied nervously, already feeling a little better.
“Yeah, Moose. Sure. Lucky”, Frankie mumbled, with that familiar look of fear and awe that Moose dreaded so badly.
Worse yet was the amazement of the doctors when his broken ribs and arm were only bruised the next day, and two days later when the bruises were but a memory.
He was almost glad when the order came to get ready to load the boats; the invasion day had finally come, and with it all thoughts of what happened faded to myth in men’s minds in the rush to take the fight to Hitler.
Though later, in retrospect, he would think that he would have rather faced that day a hundred times instead of the horrors soon to come.
Anything but Omaha...
France, somewhere near St Lo. 9:52 am.
Robert “Moose” Pressman sat in the bouncing deuce-and-a-half cradling his BAR, smiling at Hank and Smitty going on about the finer points of gunsmithing and feeling like a comfortable part of the conversation without adding anything to it.
But he rarely ever did; Moose was a quiet man for the most part, slow to move and to anger. Not that he was stupid or clumsy; he was just so big, and strong, that he was afraid that he would hurt someone or break something on accident if he acted in haste. At 6-feet, 7-inches and 265 pounds, he was a behemoth of a man, with a quiet, rumbling northern Minnesota accent on the few occasions that he chose to speak. Hence the nickname “Moose”; he suspected it was tacked on more because of his Minnesota/Canadian-influenced speech or ancestry than his size, but either way he didn’t really care. All he cared about was making his folks proud, and staying alive long enough to get home to see it. Though he seemed to always be lucky when it came to getting hurt, if luck is what you wanted to call it…
Moose lets his thoughts wander.
Several weeks earlier, England:
“Yeah, Moose here was actually one of the youngest guys to ever play in the CJFL ya know”, Frankie bragged to the 82nd Airborne guys. “Damn good, he was too.”
At their skeptical looks he added “Canadian. Junior. Football. League. Jeez guys, don’t get out much, do ya?”.
“Oh yeah, that a fact? Sheez man ya expect me ta believe dat? Whaddaya say, Bullwinkle? Rocky just pullin’ my leg or what?”, the big airborne corporal tossed at Moose in a thick Brooklyn brogue and cocky smile.
“Oh ya. Last played in ’36 for da Moose Jaw Maroons dere, dontcha know”, Moose rumbled, embarrassed.
Frankie jumped right back in, “Yeah, you remember, the ’36 Winnipeg St Johns game, they dropped it 13 ta 0 seein’ as how Moose here got hurt in the first quarter. His family moved to Minnesota right afterwards, and now *boom* he’s here. So, whaddaya think, we got a game or what? Or are ya too yellow?”
Moose thought back to that game, his last one with the Maroons; he was a kid then, but still a big one at 6-foot-4 and 200 pounds. He remembered running with the ball that day, feeling like nothing could stop him; remembered that monster linebacker, that fearsome brute that everyone was so afraid of, cutting an angle across to intercept him. He also remembered his own stark fear when he realized he was about to get nailed by this guy, this vicious guy who had ended the careers of 5 poor schmucks that season alone. Moose remembers dropping his shoulder and bunching himself as tight as possible in anticipation of the linebacker’s rage to fall on him like a hammer blow from the gods, legs driving towards the goal line.
He remembers, in distinct detail, the look of surprise on the linebacker’s face then they connected; the SNAP of the boy’s femur; the jarring shock and debris and blood from his shattered teeth; the horrible “whuuuff” noise he made as his ribs collapsed; the feeling as all 235 pounds of him rolled over Moose’s back and spun lazily, kite-like, in the air a full revolution and a half before SLAMMING into the ground like a sack of boneless meat.
And Moose also remembers how he didn’t even slow down on impact, how he felt like a loaded lumber truck hitting a deer when he slammed into the guy. How he stopped a few yards later, and then just sat down on the field in his shock and guilt.
He knew he couldn’t play anymore after seeing that boy put on a stretcher and carted off to the hospital, crying and gasping for breath and bleeding everywhere. So, guilt stricken, he acted like his shoulder was torn up from the impact and quit football forever from that moment on. Later that year his parents moved to Minnesota and the ever-growing and self-conscious Moose was more than happy to pack up and leave all of the strange looks and whispered comments behind him.
“Sheesus Moose, what are ya doin’? Go man, GOGOGO… I got 5 bucks ridin’ on ya!”, screamed Frankie, pushing him, as Moose realized that the Airborne fella was taking off down the yard, another Paratrooper pumping the ball in his hand getting ready to throw a long one.
Moose shook off his ruminations and took off after him, fast for such a big guy. He could see the Airborne fella looking back now as he gained, a look of glee on his face when he realized that he could snatch down the pass before Moose could get a hand on it. Moose could also see that the pass was overthrown, that the guy was getting close to the street. Too close. Moose pushed himself, and ran faster, huge thumping legs tearing furrows in the damp English turf as he closed on the paratrooper.
He could see the paratrooper’s foot hit the edge of the road, the look of exultation on his face as he caught the pass; he could see the speeding Lorry, fully laden with supplies begin to skid on the damp road.
Moose’s feet slipped on the wet pavement just as his hand closed on the paratrooper’s jacket. He heaved the man as hard as he could and caught the Lorry’s grill, like the teeth of some great predator, just out of the corner of his eye before everything became a bright, white light, and silence.
……
“Moose! Moose! Ah, crap, Moose! I’m sorry buddy, come on now, Moose… Jeezus…. MEDIC!!! Somebody get a freakin’ Medic over here!”, the muffled, underwater voice came to Moose.
It was Frankie, shaking him. Looking down at him from up above the sea he was gently afloat in. The sky is a nice shade of grey today, bubbled up into Moose’s mind, funny how it looks almost normal from under water.
Moose winced as he tried to get up; his head, arm, and ribs hurt bad; probably broke something, Moose slowly thought to himself with an almost sunken, surreal quality.
“I’m okay dere, eh”, Moose groaned to Frankie as he sat up. He remembered now. The airborne guy. The football. The truck. The world came into focus, and the water seemingly drained away all at once.
“Is that dere fella ok, eh?”, Moose queried as Frankie sat back, wide-eyed, while Moose shook out the last cobwebs from his head.
“Yu-yu-yeah, well, yeah man, t-t-take a look for yourself.” Frankie’s eyes were all whites around the pupils, and moving wildly in his head.
Moose looked over where Frankie pointed, and saw the big Airborne guy sitting on the grass, surrounded by a few of his buddies.
Fifteen feet *back* the way they had just been running flat out from.
Fifteen feet, wondered Moose. Must be that English food dere. Yeah, all dose potatoes, eh? “Gosh, I hope I didn’t hurt ‘im”, Moose inadvertently mused aloud.
“Hurt him? Hurt HIM? Are you nuts Moose? Jeez man you *saved* his life, I aint never seen nothin’ like that before… he… he... flew! Like, in the friggin air! Over your shoulder! And you! Are you sure you’re ok?”, rattled off a visibly shaken Frankie.
“Well, yeah dere, I’m ok, maybe some busted ribs or somethin’. Why’re ya so worried, Frankie? Da truck musta just clipped me, eh?”, Moose replied, smiling.
Frankie’s voice was a whisper, eyes wide, when he replied, “Clipped ya? Moose… lookit… look at the…”. His voice, failing him, Frankie just pointed a palsied hand.
Moose looked, and saw the Lorry. And saw how the front was crushed like it had hit a boulder, how the axle was visibly broken. He noticed, now, how the stacked supplies lay broken and scattered in the road all around them, past the truck.
“Um, he must have, well, dontcha know, uh, well I guess I got lucky dere, eh?”, Moose replied nervously, already feeling a little better.
“Yeah, Moose. Sure. Lucky”, Frankie mumbled, with that familiar look of fear and awe that Moose dreaded so badly.
Worse yet was the amazement of the doctors when his broken ribs and arm were only bruised the next day, and two days later when the bruises were but a memory.
He was almost glad when the order came to get ready to load the boats; the invasion day had finally come, and with it all thoughts of what happened faded to myth in men’s minds in the rush to take the fight to Hitler.
Though later, in retrospect, he would think that he would have rather faced that day a hundred times instead of the horrors soon to come.
Anything but Omaha...
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ledded
Herder of monkies
A quick note
Just wanted to make a couple notes for ya'll.
First, keep in mind that the melodrama and the types of imagery you see are my somewhat feeble attempts to write how a comic book/strip of this sort would read from that time period. Which in retrospect may have been a bit silly because I dont have the advantage of nice storyboard effects like thought bubbles and frame transitions
. But still, it's intended to try and instill a bit of a Sgt Rock meets Captain America and the Fantastic Four with Dick Tracy tossed in to boot.
Hence, also, the flashbacks that are intended to give a little background to our main characters. I know flashbacks can get a bit tiresome, but once through the "who are ya, and how do ya do's" the story will roll along a bit faster with some action and good old four-color BAM and KAPOWS.
Anyway, thanks for picking up the first couple of issues, and be careful not to crease the covers folks
Just wanted to make a couple notes for ya'll.
First, keep in mind that the melodrama and the types of imagery you see are my somewhat feeble attempts to write how a comic book/strip of this sort would read from that time period. Which in retrospect may have been a bit silly because I dont have the advantage of nice storyboard effects like thought bubbles and frame transitions
. But still, it's intended to try and instill a bit of a Sgt Rock meets Captain America and the Fantastic Four with Dick Tracy tossed in to boot.Hence, also, the flashbacks that are intended to give a little background to our main characters. I know flashbacks can get a bit tiresome, but once through the "who are ya, and how do ya do's" the story will roll along a bit faster with some action and good old four-color BAM and KAPOWS.
Anyway, thanks for picking up the first couple of issues, and be careful not to crease the covers folks
Salthorae
Imperial Mountain Dew Taster
nice!
I'm loving this SH so far! I don't mind the flashbacks at all, they are great characterization and that is always the best part of any story, getting to know who you're reading about.
just out of curiousity, why didn't you use the Godlike system? I've been wanting to play that system for a while now, but haven't had the chance...were there too many quirks with the system that you decided to patch together your own WWII superpower system or what? I read what you did with all those games together and I must say that if it plays like it reads I'd love to have a copy of that handout you gave your players!
I'm loving this SH so far! I don't mind the flashbacks at all, they are great characterization and that is always the best part of any story, getting to know who you're reading about.
just out of curiousity, why didn't you use the Godlike system? I've been wanting to play that system for a while now, but haven't had the chance...were there too many quirks with the system that you decided to patch together your own WWII superpower system or what? I read what you did with all those games together and I must say that if it plays like it reads I'd love to have a copy of that handout you gave your players!
ledded
Herder of monkies
Thanks.Salthorae said:I'm loving this SH so far! I don't mind the flashbacks at all, they are great characterization and that is always the best part of any story, getting to know who you're reading about.
just out of curiousity, why didn't you use the Godlike system? I've been wanting to play that system for a while now, but haven't had the chance...were there too many quirks with the system that you decided to patch together your own WWII superpower system or what? I read what you did with all those games together and I must say that if it plays like it reads I'd love to have a copy of that handout you gave your players!
To be honest, I havent had that much experience with the Godlike system, though I like what I've seen of their presentation of genre material.
We really wanted to stick close to the d20 Modern-type mechanics, with our own personal house rules attached (we use the VP/WP system and a few other little things) which we have all come to very much like. So I wanted to do WWII one day, and Supers one day, but since they would be one-off's from the main campaign of d20 Modern (see Medallions, in my sig) I wanted to:
1) Stay close to that mechanic we like so much with d20 Modern, because we liked it and were accustomed to it. We also have a very nice alternate magic system in the Medallions campaign that I'm using also.
2) There really wasnt any WWII supplement out there that I was truly satisfied with, being a little bit of a armchair historian. Plus reading all the different game stuff and research books was fun for me.
3) I wanted to try my hand at coming up with a set of mechanics, flavor, and rules to overlay on d20 Modern for WWII, kinda like designing/piecing together my own PDF add-on in a way. Our group has a rather ambitious project for the future in mind, and in a way I wanted to see if I could come up with something for a game that read well, worked in play well, was fun, and then see if I could write some kind of story out of it, sort of a little test for myself to see if I could do something truly useful to contribute to our future project idea. The Supers added into WWII was a last minute thing, so I took inspiration where I could as quick as I could; I couldnt do a better job than Chuck Rice (Vigilance) on that Supers stuff so we are pretty much using it in it's entirety with a few small add-ons that I've done.
I will probably check out Godlike in more detail later, as I like what I've seen of it so far.
I would normally be happy to post up my document for the game, unfortunately about 50% of it or more belongs to someone else; I wouldnt want to hose Chuck Rice, Bloodstone Press, the Godlike designers, Paizo publishing, etc by doing so.
Maybe one day I'll post part of it with references to other folk's work where appropriate.
ledded
Herder of monkies
We were like gods once... [Smitty's introduction to hell on earth]
Back to the present, France, late June 1944, 9:58 am
Moose shakes his head to clear the strange ponderings away, and catches back up on the conversation in the truck as they bump and trundle along.
"Dang, man, Itellyouwhat, man, that damn bunker thang lit up like a ding-ding ol cherry bomb, man, jest hisss-Boom!", Hank, gesturing wildly with his hands, finished to the laughter of Smitty and a few other GI’s as their truck roared along.
The radio began hissing static and garbled communication and Hank set to tuning it in properly.
“So dere, Smitty, how’d you do on the beach before I caught up with ya, eh? Not too many guys made it in dere from your wave, dontcha know?” asked Moose as much to keep someone else from forcing him to relive his day there as to give Smitty a chance to talk about his.
“Yeah. It was a big SNAFU, like everybody, I suspect. Don’t know what happened at first. I was comin’ outta the boats, and trying to wade ashore, when a big 88 shell or mortar or somethin’ hit near me. Lifted me plumb up in the air and dropped me out cold for a while”, started Smitty.
“Probably a good thing, too, Moose, ‘cause when I woke up there was dead fellers all around me, cut to ribbons by those damn MG42’s up in the bunkers, and they were walkin’ those mortars up-and-down the beach…”, Smitty’s voice trails off as he loses himself in his thoughts.
……
The NormandyCoast. June 6, 1944, just weeks earlier.
Omaha beach.
Phfft-Phfft-Phfft, something was making noise and tossing sand into Smitty’s face, and damn was it annoying; can’t they see he’s trying to get some rest here? Saltwater was stinging his nose and eyes.
Saltwater? Smitty snapped opened his eyes, sputtering saltwater, to a scene of near-biblical hellishness.
Men were crawling everywhere, screaming, clawing through the sand. Many were lying still. They were missing legs, arms, heads. Larry, who came off the boat next to him, lay just a few feet away. Wide-eyed and making gurgling, mewling sounds through the blood pouring out of his mouth, he weakly tries to pack sand into a gaping wound in his ribs. He meets Smitty’s eyes, breathes a bubbling, keening sigh, and lays still.
Smitty glances over his shoulder, and realizes his legs are pinned under the guy who came off the boat right behind him. Several other GI’s were screaming at him from behind the meager cover of a hedgehog; as a beach defense made of three or four steel rails cut in two meter lengths and welded together at their centers, it made poor cover, but better than none. They were motioning to him to come, get cover, and every few seconds a hail of bullets would strike the area, PINGing on the hedgehog and causing them to scramble over each other trying to get deeper behind it.
He could see their Higgins boat, stalled and starting to smoke, trying to get back into deeper water out from under the withering fire from the heights. Several men were attempting to scramble back over the sides, hoping to escape this chapter of Dante’s inferno; most were viciously cut down by fire from the Tobruks and trenches up the beach.
Phfft-Phfft-Phfft. More spraying sand, from machine gun fire, Smitty realized as the winking of muzzle flash blinked from all over the hill, and their staccato canvas-ripping sound filled his ears. THUMP-swooossshhh a mortar round striking nearby in the water line sprays sand and water all over him.
“Well hell boys, I aint one to out-stay my welcome”, Smitty mutters to himself and starts moving. Where, he isn’t sure yet, but he sure as hell isn’t staying here.
When he reaches back to push the guy off his legs, the poor man’s torso flops free of his waist and legs, stringing organs and bodily effluence over Smitty’s legs. “Oh dear God hurrkkkKKK”, Smitty reflexively vomits into the surf.
Jerking his legs free, Smitty hazards a glance at the boys motioning from behind the hedgehog; his rifle lay several yards ahead of him on the beach, and he could see pockets of men trying to move from cover to cover up the beach, but that road led to a sure death. He is frozen for a moment, indecision racking him.
That decision is taken away from him in a screaming whistle and detonation and spray of red gore-and-sand-laden rain.
Smitty, trembling hands wiping the sticky wetness from his face, looks back and sees the Higgins burning, and only a surf-swirling red hole where the guys and the hedgehog were.
“Damn. Didn’t care for another ride on them boats anyway”, he says through clenched teeth as he scrambles, running crouched over, and snatches up his 1903 Springfield, sand kicking up in his steps behind him as some happy Jerry homes in on his movement.
He moves behind a wrecked Sherman, tears the rubber off of his barrel, starts checking his rifle and getting the scope cover off. The Krauts persist in their efforts to perforate Smitty at every turn as he tries to get his rifle set up, mumbling the whole time.
“ ‘Join the Army’, they sez.”. PING-PANG.
“ ‘See the world’, they sez.”, PING-PING-KaPHWING.
“ ‘Think of how proud yer girDAMMIT WILL YOU JACKASSES STOP SHOOTING AT ME ONE MINUTE!!!”, Smitty yells, flinching, hot fragments of tank and bullets flying all around him as he scrambles to get his rifle ready.
He has to drop flat and fast-crawl as several machine gunners lay deadly sprays of lead all over the burning tank, and then mortars start walking in like a visit from unwanted relatives. WHUMP… WHUMP… WHUMP…
“Say Jerry, I’m startin’ to take this a bit personal now…”, Smitty muses sardonically through clenched teeth as he slithers into a small depression. There is a guy already there, kneeling and firing up the beach. As he turns to Smitty as if to say something, a shell hits on the opposite side of the hole and he looks at Smitty for a moment, confused, unable to talk with half his face missing. He topples almost comically and the unquenchable french sands drink yet another life.
Smitty tries to move to more cover, but the machine-gun fire intensifies and he flinches back cursing; the mortar shells seem to be aimed straight at him now. He tries again, and more MG fire erupts into the sand around him and a round creases his thigh; another mortar hits nearby and knocks his helmet off of his head and peppers his side with small burning fragments. He tries to crouch deeper into the sand, but they just keep firing, and firing, and firing, and dropping those teeth-rattling mortars all around him.
“Damn damn DAAAAMN. WHATTHEHELLDIDIEVERDOTOYOU!”, he screams as he crouches in the shallow crater, mortar shells THUMPing, men screaming and crying, machine guns RRIIIIIPPing, bullets Phfft-Phfft-Phffting, more sand and red rain spraying all around him. He instinctively curls into a ball under the unabated rain of deadly metal.
His throat is burning, raw, and after a while he realizes it’s because he’s screaming.
He knows then, in his heart, that he is about to die. Why not? Everyone else seems to be doing it; what makes him so special? Smitty goes perfectly still; his eyes stare sightless at the grey sky, and the sounds of battle fade from his ears.
He starts remembering his hunting days, the days where he was one of the best in the tri-county. How the deer never saw him, how he would stalk them and be so quiet that they never heard the shot that took 'em. And how he seemed to never miss, how he put it to them as merciful as he could. He didn’t hunt because he loved it or even enjoyed killing; he did it because they needed the game, and he was damn good at it.
Oh, how he wished he were back home, 15 years old, snaking peacefully through the quiet woods; moving from tree-to-tree, unseen, unheard, like the wind, until he came to the perfect place to set up for the shot.
Smitty opens his eyes, and nearly stumbles out of his crouching walk.
Walk?
He is further up the beach, close to the draws leading up to the bunkers and trenches and their deadly fire. He looks around incredulously. He has walked almost 100 feet without being shot at. Or even noticed.
He walks by three G.I.'s, two officers and a radioman, who are taking fire from the trenches above. They don’t notice him, even when he waves a hand at one looking at him. He wonders if he's dreaming, or dead already, when a FWING and a sharp pain hit him; a piece of shrapnel has torn superficially across his left arm, and torn through his confusion.
He looks forward, and concentrating on moving like he did when hunting back home, he carefully but with incredible swiftness picks his way up the beach face and obstacles as men behind him come under heavy and direct fire; soon he comes up to a trench with several Germans in it. Three are manning a machine gun; four have their Kar98 rifles and potato masher grenades and all are firing to great effect on the men below. He is standing up only 20 feet from them and they don’t even see me, thinks Smitty.
With a grunt of effort, Smitty sprints up the last distance in a blur of terrain, leaps over the trench like a jackrabbit and drops a grenade in the midst of the Germans, rolling into the trench intersecting the one they are in. He comes up instinctively, and immediately after the BOOM of the grenade he fires…
CRACK! One,
CRACK! Two,
CRACK! Three Germans cease their flailing in the grenade’s aftermath. He notices the last one, with an almost bizarre look of confusion on his face totally out of place with the neat hole just to the left of his temple. He never saw it coming, thought Smitty with a grim, humorless smile.
He sits quietly, concentrating on remaining unseen. He moves forward in the trench, and notices that the dead Germans had quite a view of the main draw, and the main bunker over it, from where they were. He sees men trying to place their bangalores, sees ol’ Hank Johnson screaming at the next man in line to move into place with his so they can blow a clearing and advance up the hill as the Krauts lean forward on their MG’s to rain certain on them all. He can see Germans moving in the trenches, in the bunker slits, and sees one on a radio; probably calling in coordinates to drop those deadly mortars and artillery. Smitty settles into a depression in the front of the trench, unseen from above, takes a deep breath and steadies his shooting hand.
“Welcome to the 1st annual Normandy Turkey Shoot ya Kraut bastids”, he whispers as he lines up the officer on the radio in his sights.
One by one, as fast as he can reload and cycle the bolt on his Springfield, he fires 12 more shots, kills 12 more men. Six of them at over 100 feet, through the slit of a near-dark bunker. He sees Hank creeping up unchallenged towards the bunker front with a satchel charge, as the remaining inhabitants have wisely shied away from the slits.
Suddenly he hears voices, and sees that there are reinforcements, wheeling a 20mm cannon and carrying more MG’s, heading down the trail and trenches to his location.
He swings, reloads the Springfield, and keeps half-hoping they don’t see him, half not-caring if they do.
“Gobble gobble, boys, you’re just in time”
CRACK!
Back to the present, France, late June 1944, 9:58 am
Moose shakes his head to clear the strange ponderings away, and catches back up on the conversation in the truck as they bump and trundle along.
"Dang, man, Itellyouwhat, man, that damn bunker thang lit up like a ding-ding ol cherry bomb, man, jest hisss-Boom!", Hank, gesturing wildly with his hands, finished to the laughter of Smitty and a few other GI’s as their truck roared along.
The radio began hissing static and garbled communication and Hank set to tuning it in properly.
“So dere, Smitty, how’d you do on the beach before I caught up with ya, eh? Not too many guys made it in dere from your wave, dontcha know?” asked Moose as much to keep someone else from forcing him to relive his day there as to give Smitty a chance to talk about his.
“Yeah. It was a big SNAFU, like everybody, I suspect. Don’t know what happened at first. I was comin’ outta the boats, and trying to wade ashore, when a big 88 shell or mortar or somethin’ hit near me. Lifted me plumb up in the air and dropped me out cold for a while”, started Smitty.
“Probably a good thing, too, Moose, ‘cause when I woke up there was dead fellers all around me, cut to ribbons by those damn MG42’s up in the bunkers, and they were walkin’ those mortars up-and-down the beach…”, Smitty’s voice trails off as he loses himself in his thoughts.
……
The NormandyCoast. June 6, 1944, just weeks earlier.
Omaha beach.
Phfft-Phfft-Phfft, something was making noise and tossing sand into Smitty’s face, and damn was it annoying; can’t they see he’s trying to get some rest here? Saltwater was stinging his nose and eyes.
Saltwater? Smitty snapped opened his eyes, sputtering saltwater, to a scene of near-biblical hellishness.
Men were crawling everywhere, screaming, clawing through the sand. Many were lying still. They were missing legs, arms, heads. Larry, who came off the boat next to him, lay just a few feet away. Wide-eyed and making gurgling, mewling sounds through the blood pouring out of his mouth, he weakly tries to pack sand into a gaping wound in his ribs. He meets Smitty’s eyes, breathes a bubbling, keening sigh, and lays still.
Smitty glances over his shoulder, and realizes his legs are pinned under the guy who came off the boat right behind him. Several other GI’s were screaming at him from behind the meager cover of a hedgehog; as a beach defense made of three or four steel rails cut in two meter lengths and welded together at their centers, it made poor cover, but better than none. They were motioning to him to come, get cover, and every few seconds a hail of bullets would strike the area, PINGing on the hedgehog and causing them to scramble over each other trying to get deeper behind it.
He could see their Higgins boat, stalled and starting to smoke, trying to get back into deeper water out from under the withering fire from the heights. Several men were attempting to scramble back over the sides, hoping to escape this chapter of Dante’s inferno; most were viciously cut down by fire from the Tobruks and trenches up the beach.
Phfft-Phfft-Phfft. More spraying sand, from machine gun fire, Smitty realized as the winking of muzzle flash blinked from all over the hill, and their staccato canvas-ripping sound filled his ears. THUMP-swooossshhh a mortar round striking nearby in the water line sprays sand and water all over him.
“Well hell boys, I aint one to out-stay my welcome”, Smitty mutters to himself and starts moving. Where, he isn’t sure yet, but he sure as hell isn’t staying here.
When he reaches back to push the guy off his legs, the poor man’s torso flops free of his waist and legs, stringing organs and bodily effluence over Smitty’s legs. “Oh dear God hurrkkkKKK”, Smitty reflexively vomits into the surf.
Jerking his legs free, Smitty hazards a glance at the boys motioning from behind the hedgehog; his rifle lay several yards ahead of him on the beach, and he could see pockets of men trying to move from cover to cover up the beach, but that road led to a sure death. He is frozen for a moment, indecision racking him.
That decision is taken away from him in a screaming whistle and detonation and spray of red gore-and-sand-laden rain.
Smitty, trembling hands wiping the sticky wetness from his face, looks back and sees the Higgins burning, and only a surf-swirling red hole where the guys and the hedgehog were.
“Damn. Didn’t care for another ride on them boats anyway”, he says through clenched teeth as he scrambles, running crouched over, and snatches up his 1903 Springfield, sand kicking up in his steps behind him as some happy Jerry homes in on his movement.
He moves behind a wrecked Sherman, tears the rubber off of his barrel, starts checking his rifle and getting the scope cover off. The Krauts persist in their efforts to perforate Smitty at every turn as he tries to get his rifle set up, mumbling the whole time.
“ ‘Join the Army’, they sez.”. PING-PANG.
“ ‘See the world’, they sez.”, PING-PING-KaPHWING.
“ ‘Think of how proud yer girDAMMIT WILL YOU JACKASSES STOP SHOOTING AT ME ONE MINUTE!!!”, Smitty yells, flinching, hot fragments of tank and bullets flying all around him as he scrambles to get his rifle ready.
He has to drop flat and fast-crawl as several machine gunners lay deadly sprays of lead all over the burning tank, and then mortars start walking in like a visit from unwanted relatives. WHUMP… WHUMP… WHUMP…
“Say Jerry, I’m startin’ to take this a bit personal now…”, Smitty muses sardonically through clenched teeth as he slithers into a small depression. There is a guy already there, kneeling and firing up the beach. As he turns to Smitty as if to say something, a shell hits on the opposite side of the hole and he looks at Smitty for a moment, confused, unable to talk with half his face missing. He topples almost comically and the unquenchable french sands drink yet another life.
Smitty tries to move to more cover, but the machine-gun fire intensifies and he flinches back cursing; the mortar shells seem to be aimed straight at him now. He tries again, and more MG fire erupts into the sand around him and a round creases his thigh; another mortar hits nearby and knocks his helmet off of his head and peppers his side with small burning fragments. He tries to crouch deeper into the sand, but they just keep firing, and firing, and firing, and dropping those teeth-rattling mortars all around him.
“Damn damn DAAAAMN. WHATTHEHELLDIDIEVERDOTOYOU!”, he screams as he crouches in the shallow crater, mortar shells THUMPing, men screaming and crying, machine guns RRIIIIIPPing, bullets Phfft-Phfft-Phffting, more sand and red rain spraying all around him. He instinctively curls into a ball under the unabated rain of deadly metal.
His throat is burning, raw, and after a while he realizes it’s because he’s screaming.
He knows then, in his heart, that he is about to die. Why not? Everyone else seems to be doing it; what makes him so special? Smitty goes perfectly still; his eyes stare sightless at the grey sky, and the sounds of battle fade from his ears.
He starts remembering his hunting days, the days where he was one of the best in the tri-county. How the deer never saw him, how he would stalk them and be so quiet that they never heard the shot that took 'em. And how he seemed to never miss, how he put it to them as merciful as he could. He didn’t hunt because he loved it or even enjoyed killing; he did it because they needed the game, and he was damn good at it.
Oh, how he wished he were back home, 15 years old, snaking peacefully through the quiet woods; moving from tree-to-tree, unseen, unheard, like the wind, until he came to the perfect place to set up for the shot.
Smitty opens his eyes, and nearly stumbles out of his crouching walk.
Walk?
He is further up the beach, close to the draws leading up to the bunkers and trenches and their deadly fire. He looks around incredulously. He has walked almost 100 feet without being shot at. Or even noticed.
He walks by three G.I.'s, two officers and a radioman, who are taking fire from the trenches above. They don’t notice him, even when he waves a hand at one looking at him. He wonders if he's dreaming, or dead already, when a FWING and a sharp pain hit him; a piece of shrapnel has torn superficially across his left arm, and torn through his confusion.
He looks forward, and concentrating on moving like he did when hunting back home, he carefully but with incredible swiftness picks his way up the beach face and obstacles as men behind him come under heavy and direct fire; soon he comes up to a trench with several Germans in it. Three are manning a machine gun; four have their Kar98 rifles and potato masher grenades and all are firing to great effect on the men below. He is standing up only 20 feet from them and they don’t even see me, thinks Smitty.
With a grunt of effort, Smitty sprints up the last distance in a blur of terrain, leaps over the trench like a jackrabbit and drops a grenade in the midst of the Germans, rolling into the trench intersecting the one they are in. He comes up instinctively, and immediately after the BOOM of the grenade he fires…
CRACK! One,
CRACK! Two,
CRACK! Three Germans cease their flailing in the grenade’s aftermath. He notices the last one, with an almost bizarre look of confusion on his face totally out of place with the neat hole just to the left of his temple. He never saw it coming, thought Smitty with a grim, humorless smile.
He sits quietly, concentrating on remaining unseen. He moves forward in the trench, and notices that the dead Germans had quite a view of the main draw, and the main bunker over it, from where they were. He sees men trying to place their bangalores, sees ol’ Hank Johnson screaming at the next man in line to move into place with his so they can blow a clearing and advance up the hill as the Krauts lean forward on their MG’s to rain certain on them all. He can see Germans moving in the trenches, in the bunker slits, and sees one on a radio; probably calling in coordinates to drop those deadly mortars and artillery. Smitty settles into a depression in the front of the trench, unseen from above, takes a deep breath and steadies his shooting hand.
“Welcome to the 1st annual Normandy Turkey Shoot ya Kraut bastids”, he whispers as he lines up the officer on the radio in his sights.
One by one, as fast as he can reload and cycle the bolt on his Springfield, he fires 12 more shots, kills 12 more men. Six of them at over 100 feet, through the slit of a near-dark bunker. He sees Hank creeping up unchallenged towards the bunker front with a satchel charge, as the remaining inhabitants have wisely shied away from the slits.
Suddenly he hears voices, and sees that there are reinforcements, wheeling a 20mm cannon and carrying more MG’s, heading down the trail and trenches to his location.
He swings, reloads the Springfield, and keeps half-hoping they don’t see him, half not-caring if they do.
“Gobble gobble, boys, you’re just in time”
CRACK!
Last edited:
ledded
Herder of monkies
Nope, I mostly made all the backstory up based on how they played their characters, their mannerisms/speech, and a few comments or one-liners on their background. It was/is a one-off game, one we do on occasion, and to start with there were so many new rules and powers to learn that they didnt bother with a lot of detailed backstory. The exception is OldDrewId's character, who has the most, um, creative character of the bunch, and a nicely done brief backstory to build from. He will show up soon (OldDrewId missed the first session).
As far as the full manifestation of their powers, stay tuned. Suffice it to say for now they all know they are maybe a little different, but they dont have access or knowledge of their powers.
Sorry if the Omaha beach scene was a bit graphic for ya, but I felt it needed a very gritty treatment; my first cut was a bit more kid-gloves and it just didnt feel right.
If it makes you feel any better, the part about the guy splitting in half on Smitty's legs actually happened; in 1985 I had the opportunity to interview a couple D-Day survivors for a high school ROTC project and one of them told me about that happening to him, but he described it a lot more graphic ("splittin' open like a rotten melon when ah kicked 'im off").
And thanks Fenzer for the props. Dont worry about being late, this comic shop keeps back issues.
As far as the full manifestation of their powers, stay tuned. Suffice it to say for now they all know they are maybe a little different, but they dont have access or knowledge of their powers.
Sorry if the Omaha beach scene was a bit graphic for ya, but I felt it needed a very gritty treatment; my first cut was a bit more kid-gloves and it just didnt feel right.
If it makes you feel any better, the part about the guy splitting in half on Smitty's legs actually happened; in 1985 I had the opportunity to interview a couple D-Day survivors for a high school ROTC project and one of them told me about that happening to him, but he described it a lot more graphic ("splittin' open like a rotten melon when ah kicked 'im off").
And thanks Fenzer for the props. Dont worry about being late, this comic shop keeps back issues.
