[MnM] The Incredible Years - The Final Countdown (C. Blaize and JDRakeh, input?)

[jdrakeh]

Y'know...Omega could already be in residence, and while AD tries to disable the power accumulators, Paragon has to fight him inside the rocket. And as the rocket goes higher (and closer to the EE anomaly), his powers are increasing, healing him of damage, bumping his powers up.

That sounds like a fitting (and adventure-packed) resolution!

"The MASTER OF THE MYSTIC ARTS is still present, yes!"

How often does the dis-embodied mystic encroach upon the game? The reason I ask is because I thought that it might make kind of a neat plot hook if, after the Omega arc is resolved, the mystic warns (in a garbled communique of some kind) of coming danger... and then cuts out completely. This would give WarMage a chance to take center stage in the coming story arc.

 

[C. Baize]

Sweet. Thanks.

As much as I'm trying, here... I can't think of anything...

I do think bringing Medea in to battle Warmage with Thunder Tiger is battling Doc Otaku and the power armored mooks in the tunnels would be a great idea. Possibly having her show up to blindside Warmage while he's helping Thunder Tiger...
An eldritch blast from behind, or something.

JDRakeh covered the bases almost to the tee for what I would have suggested, even going so far as to suggest American Dream's sacrificial effort with the missile ala Captain America's backstory...

 

[Jim Hague]

That sounds like a fitting (and adventure-packed) resolution!

That's the idea!

How often does the dis-embodied mystic encroach upon the game? The reason I ask is because I thought that it might make kind of a neat plot hook if, after the Omega arc is resolved, the mystic warns (in a garbled communique of some kind) of coming danger... and then cuts out completely. This would give WarMage a chance to take center stage in the coming story arc.

Not too too much - like Obi Wan, it gets old pretty quick. So yeah, that works fine...in fact, I'm really hoping that Omega gets fairly badly beat up, so you don't have an armored Centurion thundering around. I like Omega as a skull-headed freak.

 

[Nuclear Platypus]

Hopefully I'm not too late for the thread.

Act 1 - Sapphire might get a bit of a split role since she'll lead out of combat and maybe even in combat when Act 5 rolls around.

Act 2 - Tiger's shining moment leading into his confrontation with Doc Otaku and mutates into the psuedo Kaiju Kombat slobberknocker as AD tries to get an Omnidroid operational to even the odds against some sort of giant robot of Otaku's.

Act 3 - A barfight between Paragon and Behemoth using the various mooks as weapons. What if Half-life decides to jump in ?

Act 4 - Ah, lava's a many splendored thing. Hot Shot vs Undine. The odds seem to be in his favor but with Orion and Otaku around, I wouldn't count on it.

Act 5 - Who's the better leader - Orion or Sapphire?

Act 6 - Spare the rod... Warmage vs Medea. A side effect of a certain skull might be the mind control of impressionable youths.

Act 7 - Free for all! Also rematches for most of the earlier fights like having Paragon and Behemoth continue their barfight or would that be too much like a Drag On Ball Z fight, especially if they've been clobbering each other all over the island? Maybe now Half-life jumps in to raise the stakes.

Act 8 - Definitely Tempest. Again to shake things up, Maelstrom may loathe his brother but blood is still thicker than water and turns the fight into a 3 way or actually switches sides / sacrifices himself.

Act 9 - Each team member might try to stop the rocket in their own way which might have some sort of defense mechanism to prevent it from be rerouted (cheesy I know but this is Orion!) except from the inside. So will you go with the expected and have Paragon race to save AD from certain doom or are the bad guys stalling Paragon for some other reason?

Act 10 - You're on your own.

I think I just muddied the waters by suggesting support roles for other characters especially for AD. And the Omnidroid.

 

[Jim Hague]

Nope, still up and still planning. thanks for all the great suggestions so far...keep 'em coming 'til about, oh...noon CST.

 

[Nuclear Platypus]

There's also another monkeywrench you could try. The attempt to resurrect Omega instead or also summons (say it like that guy from Venture Brothers) THE UNSPEAKABLE HORROR FROM BEYOND SPACE AND TIME! It might just be from some leftover gizmo of Syndrome that got reactivated like something to do with his Zero Point gloves (the energy came from somewhere).

Enemies become allies as it decides to trash anyone, which might be when Tempest ends up getting himself together. Maybe even they can get the jump and catch some baddies monologuing.

"Remember, dahling... NO CAPES!"

Don't forget to have a kid on the tricycle at the ever lovin' end.

 

[Jim Hague]

Post-mortem for the session this weekend:

After spending a bit too long on debate, the League convinced Skelly to bring the HydroCarrier into within 20 miles of Nomanisan. A quick trip through the Polaris tubes on the Carrier, and the League found themselves underwater, with the folks who didn't have Immunity: Suffocation riding inside a force bubble created by Sapphire.

It didn't take long for the League to encounter a UNITROL patrol once they hit the beach. Ironically, it was Tiger that got spotted - ironic, considering that the bad guys needed a 20 to see him. They got it.

First round of combat, the Mediators (goons with tangle-goo guns) got taken out by WarMage, who turned the sand under them to muck. The three powered-armor thugs rolled into action - the Steel ARCHIE suit turned into a small bunker and took down AD, Paragon and Tiger with homing Density Increase projectiles (Flaw: No Protection, No Super-Strength), the Protector suit threw up Create Object barriers for cover, and the Gauntlet Grappler suit tried to wrestle Paragon (only under a Medium load) into the dirt. Hotshot gave the League some cover with his own Energy Shapes, Sapphire Disintegrated the Protector suit's comms to keep them from calling for backup, AD tried (and failed) to fire the goo gun he took via TK from a Mediator, Paragon beat on the Grappler suit, Skelly (as Beacon) blinded the ARCHIE with a critical Dazzle and WarMage dropped the Mediators into rock cocoons. A quick illusion thrown up by WarMage ensured that the team evaded immediate detection by the Vipers sent to investigate the explosions. Oy.

Unable to effectively fly above the treeline thanks to regular Viper VTOL patrols, the League made their way through the Nomanisani jungle, ultimately coming up on a large waterfall, formerly the central monocar entrance to Syndrome's base. What the League saw wasn't terribly reassuring - a few dozen robotic apes, controlled by a pair of UNITROL technicians and guarded by two powered armor squads. Hotshot forgot he had his Energy Field on and was spotted by Undine, who was swimming at the bottom of the falls. Hotshot also realized Undine as his ex-girlfriend in the Southside Cs. Undine fled to warn the Alliance, but didn't bother to inform the goon squads for reasons of her own - namely that the Alliance is planning to double-cross Unifier.

AD did the entire team a good turn here - together with Tiger, he rigged up a radio frequency jammer and seized control of the robo-apes. Woe be to the UNITROL tech that had to climb the cliff to try and deactivate one robot while it threw barrels at him. I have somewhat deranged players. The techs, suits and robo-apes taken care of - either malfunctioning or chasing the apes down - the League flew in through the waterfall and into the central mono transfer station.

Finding an abandoned nook to plan in, Sapphire outlined the basic structure of the base complex for the rest of the team, while Paragon used his penevision to search for possible entrances. Given the wrecking that the Family Incredible and later AEGIS laid out, there didn't seem to be many options that didn't involve main force...except for the bottom of the transfer terminal, which opened up into a magma pool beneath the volcano.

It was a good plan, a solid plan - take out the suits working the power taps in the magma quietly, then use a maintenance tunnel to get to KRONOS and locate the Next Gen. Easy peasy.

If only Doc Otaku and his Angels hadn't been there.

Cue a Really Big Fight. The Angels managed to lay some serious hurting on the League, while Otaku flew around blasting people. A 34 on an Intimidate roll by Paragon drove off the MOLE suits, leaving just Otaku and the Android Angels. The Angels were slowly taken out by AD, WarMage, Paragon and Tempest, while Hotshot and Sapphire disintegrated the spare power taps the MOLEs had installed in the lava pool, and Tiger got into a fistfight with Otaku. Tiger got KO'ed in the first round, gaining him a Hero Point.

The rest of the League was about to step in...then Medea showed up and Mind Controlled Paragon, necessitating that everyone standing try and either knock him out or break the control. Sapphire boosted the team with Leadership, then gave Paragon a second save, which he failed. Oops. WarMage made a handy Spot check as Medea turned the power of the Human Tank's skull on him, and with the initiative used his Air Control to TK to skull out of her hands. Hotshot gave the team some cover fire while Sapphire finished off the power taps. On his initiative, Tiger spent a Hero Point and made his consciousness roll, coming up out of his crater to clock Otaku, shattering his force field. Otaku popped the field back up on his init and retaliated with his Otaku Super Hyper Heat Laser Vision Special Attack (so named thanks to Otaku's yelling it out)...to no effect. Tempest, meanwhile, took out Medea with a Suffocate, the sorceress rolling a 3 on her Fortitude save. A quick Villain Point later, and she made a last second escape back to the Alliance, unknown to the League.

By this point, Otaku's been hit so many times that he's -8 on Damage saves...and a good thing, too, since he was ready to use lethal force of Tiger. Beacon spent a Hero Point and stunted an EMP from his Light Control power, knocking out Otaku's force field again. Tiger made quick work of the mad genius villain, KO'ing him on a critical.

WarMage, the skull of his grandfather in hand, summoned the spirit of the murdered hero in an attempt to set his soul to rest. Mentac Atom, meanwhile, Possessed one of the MOLE suits, prepatory to scouting out the maintenance tunnel. The League, bruised, a bit burned and weary, prepared to penetrate the KRONOS chamber above them...

And that's where we left off. Some really excellent roleplaying all around, and the League demonstrating why they're such a dangerous group - teamwork. By now, the bad guys know they're in the complex somewhere, and it won't be long before some extremely big super fights start up. The League hasn't figured out that the Alliance is double-crossing Unifier, though they discovered Orion's plan to have Thunder Tiger kill Otaku. And their biggest challenge yet awaits...

 

[jdrakeh]

Thanks for the update, Jim. This sounds like a really great campaign, and I appreciate you giving me and C. Baize an opportunity to help out with it! Pplease let us know how it turns out, eh?

 

[Jim Hague]

Thanks for the update, Jim. This sounds like a really great campaign, and I appreciate you giving me and C. Baize an opportunity to help out with it! Pplease let us know how it turns out, eh?

Will do. They've got a few more fights on their hands - the Alliance is busily downloading Unifier's data from KRONOS, Unifier and his flunkies'll be trying to launch the rocket, and then there's battling Wasphawk and Unity One off the island.

It's gonna be a full session.

 

[jdrakeh]

It's gonna be a full session.

I think that a full session is the only right way to bring a story arc to an end (I'm not a fan of the anti-climax), so that sounds good to me