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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nebulous" data-source="post: 4408241" data-attributes="member: 31465">Adventure #34: The Superweapon     PART 2:  ENDGAME!     The immense shoggoth flails toward the Firm Action soldiers, but their Sanity has miraculously held together.  Sticking to their (dubious) plan, the squad starts tossing packs of gasoline at the monster.  One soldier is unsure of this tactical decision, and looks back at Chang and Chad with no small amount of consternation on his face.  But Chad doesn't care, and both he and Chang start shooting at the gasoline tumbling within the membranous folds of the monster.  It ignites in a flash of light and heat, ripping holes in the shoggoth, and incinerating every last nearby soldier.  Their grenades explode as well, and shrapnel pelts Chang and Chad.   The beast roars from multiple mouths, but it is very much alive, smoking and burning and thrashing in even greater rage.     <img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/~saasha/Masks/guys2.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />     Chad and Chang run for lives; the creature will annihilate them if it gets closer.  Meanwhile, another squad of Firmies runs toward the rocket, priming their grenades to throw at the support struts. The plan is to weaken the metal and ground so that the weight tears it loose.  Lester Cobblebottom waddles to the entrance of the support tower and squeezes inside.  Spiraling stairs reach all the way to the top, so he starts clambering up.  Hans keeps an eye on the pool, but it is filled with two dozen electrocuted fishmen, and no more seem to be coming out.  Either they're all dead, or they have learned their lesson and are staying away.     <img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/~saasha/Masks/army.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />     <img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/~saasha/Masks/penhew.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />     <img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/~saasha/Masks/lady.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />     Firm Action soldiers and Penhew's cultists continue to exchange gunfire, but the cultists suffer severe losses.  Bullets drop them dead one after another, and they roll lifeless down the steps of the dais.  Penhew and the woman at his side have their arms raised and are chanting toward the ceiling, but their allies give them considerable cover from bullets.  Two cultists run at the nearest Firmie squad, trying to ignite explosives in their hands, but they gravely misjudge the distance and explode themselves into chunky pieces.     The previous squad throws their grenades at the support struts, and the metal and rock is torn asunder by roughly ten grenades.  The weight of the rocket pulls it down to one side, and hot magma wells up out of the pit.  But the rocket is still standing, although the support tower is pulled perilously from its mooring.  Lester is inside when this happens, about halfway up, and is thrown from his feet.  He starts rolling down the metal stairs until he can catch himself, and then starts climbing down before the entire tower falls.     <img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/~saasha/Masks/cave1.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />     But the shoggoth proves unstoppable.  It surges forward at incredible speed, mowing over anyone in its path.  The last Firmie squad descends the steps from the entrance tunnel and are obliterated.  The shoggoth rolls over them like a huge, fleshy wave, and uncountable mouths rip into them.  But they too were carrying gasoline packs, and Chad detonates one of these in another lethal round of chain-reactions.  Flames explode over the shoggoth again, smearing chunks of its flesh across the floor and walls.  Greasy, oily smoke roils off its body, and while the mass is smaller than before, the abomination is somehow still alive, and it rolls after fleeing targets.    [GM Note:  The first explosion of gasoline and grenades dealt roughly 150 points of damage, but this son of a bitch per the d20 rules has close to 500 hit points and regeneration, resistance to just about everything, and Damage Reduction on top of that. I didn't add it to the scenario, it's part of it, but i DID add the smaller one outside that you killed].     The Firm Action squad near the rocket readies their last grenades to destroy another support strut, but sparking flames rise from the magma pit in a curious fashion.  They have never see a Fire Vampire before, but they throw their grenades anyway.  Most of the grenades bounce true, either ripping through the metal or sending gouts of lava up.  The second support strut is damaged enough that it cannot carry the weight of the rocket, and it begins sliding into the magma pit even faster, displacing more and more magma, and leaning at a sharp angle.     <img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/~saasha/Masks/group2.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />     But one soldier fumbles his grenade. It slips from his sweaty hands, and as he desperately falls to his knees and tries to retrieve it, the bomb explodes in the middle of the group.  It kills or wounds everyone around it.     Two more suicidal cultists run screaming at another Firm Action squad, and this time they are able to gauge the distance correctly.  They explode kami-kazi style, taking a large part of the Firmie group with them.  The carnage by this point is horrendous.  There are only small handfuls of Firm Action soldiers and cultists left on either side of the fray.   Jack "Brass" Brady is alive, and Chu-Min is amazingly alive as well after the shoggoth rolls over him, but knocks him aside rather than stopping to kill him.  He staggers to his feet, covered head to toe in bloody slime and soot.     <img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/~saasha/Masks/pen.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />     Penhew raises a wall of opaque pink fog that obscures all line of sight to he and the Occidental Woman, but the investigators and other survivors are more worried about the rampaging shoggoth at this point.  It approaches to within a hair's breadth of Chang and Chad, the latter of whom chugs the last of his dynamite into the thing's mass and jumps into the support tower for cover.      "Shoot it!" screams Chang to surviving Firm Action soldiers nearby. "SHOOT IT!"      They start popping off shots at the small bundled target, and luckily hit the charge.  The dynamite explodes, sending more shoggoth splattering across the room.  The blast completely knocks the tower over and Chad Slambody is thrown into a wall.     But the goddamn shoggoth is still alive, albeit severely injured.  And the Fire Vampire is spitting sparks across the floor as it floats after horrified victims.     Penhew and his woman run out of the obscuring mist and make a beeline for a hallway. The Firm Action soldiers run for another door, one with a heavy crossbar sealing it.  Rather than wondering what might be hidden behind the door, they quickly pry the bar off and surge inside, but find that it is a dead end room.  There is a huge cage filled with nearly fifty wailing Chinese prisoners.   The bars are locked, but repeated pistol fire destroys the mechanism and prisoners start surging out, only to see the monstrous shoggoth not far away.  The shoggoth is quite pleased to see more food.     The rocket by now has slid over halfway into the lava pit, and is positioned at a precarious angle.  Even if it were to launch, it wouldn't rise straight up.  Somehow, Chang has a feeling that the Yithian Kakakatak is with him in mind or spirit, and Chang knows that the rocket is of Yithian origin, from plans stolen in Australia. There is a chance that it still might launch after it has siphoned enough energy from the lava, but Chang doesn't know if it will detonate or not.  If the warhead is primed, as the Yithian knows, the radioactive blast will destroy all of Gray  Dragon Island.     Chad, Lester, Chang and Hans grab Brady and Chu-Min, and they all rush for the exit.  They've used most of the firepower at their disposal, and the abominable shoggoth is still alive. The lightning gun is their last hope for defense, but would require someone getting suicidally close to the beast.  They elect to run instead and detonate the gasoline packs in the entrance hall.  The shoggoth starts chasing prisoners and cultists, devouring and crushing anything it can catch.     The investigators cram everything they can find into the hall, including the last two sticks of dynamite, then they climb up the steps to the exit, reconvene with the five guards garrisoned at the top, and roll their grenades down. The gas, dynamite and grenades ignite in an earth-rocking explosion, and the tunnel is collapsed.  Dust and fire billows out, but they're already running down the side of the volcanic cone for the beach.      Inside the mountain, Aubrey Penhew is still alive, and it is unknown if he has a route of escape. But they feel certain that the rocket cannot be launched; they inflicted significant damage to it, far too much damage to be repaired by the time of the eclipse on January 14th.  They rush to the beach, and are dismayed to see the Dark Mistress still puttering around several hundred yards offshore.  Using their last lightning gun, Hans electrocutes the water again, and they kill several more deep ones hiding in ambush just under the surface.  They all swim out to the remaining boat and clamber inside, knowing that they don't have a chance in hell of outrunning the Dark Mistress.  She barrels at them for a few moments, but before it gets within range of combat, the Dark Mistress veers off and races at high speed to the East, probably for Shanghai.     Where they know Ho Fong is still on the mainland, and that bastard Edward Gavigan.     <img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/~saasha/Masks/ho.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />     <img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/~saasha/Masks/ed.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />     The investigators slump to the floor while Chu-Min wordlessly starts the engines.  He is covered by blood and slime, his hands trembling so much that he can barely control the steering wheel.  He will never be the same again. Jack Brady stares into space, mumbling to himself and clutching the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan to his chest like a baby.  He will have to return in a month's time with "innocent blood" to attempt to ritual for the warding spell, assuming that they successfully managed to stop the rocket from launching.      Han's Sanity is healthy enough, but he has seen more horrors than any anthropologist should ever be exposed to.  The universe is a fouler place than he suspected. Perhaps if their obligations are done here (you know, saving the world and all that) he will return to Port Hedland, but knows there is nothing left for him there.  Perhaps his homeland of Germany beckons, to be as far from the Mythos taint as he can possibly get.  Unfortunately, Hans has the uncomfortable feeling that once he is alone his blink dingo will return, for some unseen monstrosity beyond Time and Space waits for the chance to strike, bending and folding itself from interdimensional angles to snap at him...     <img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/~saasha/Masks/chad2.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />     Chad Slambody teeters at the edge of madness.  His necrophilia is intact and permanent, a psychotic disorder that will continue to plague him for the rest of his life.  He is sexually and psychologically very confused, glaring darkly across the water and wondering how to feed his secret addiction. Maybe he'll get a job as a gravedigger.     <img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/~saasha/Masks/lester.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />     Lester Cobblebottom has been on a downward spiral ever since seeing the avatar of Nyarlathotep at the Mountain of the Black Wind. He mumbles to himself as well, and expects at any moment for fish-men to clamber up the sides of the boat and pull him into the water. He doesn't know how he will ever be able to reintroduce himself to a normal career again, for the world as he knew it is merely a convenient facade for a much darker truth.     <img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/~saasha/Masks/chang.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />     And Chang Chin, mafioso, clergyman and Karate teacher, sucks in the cool salt air and ponders how in God's name did he manage to stay alive for the past year, ever since finding Jackson Elias dead in New York City.  Would he have come on this horrible journey if he knew the price to pay?  He can't really say. And what is this alien presence he feels behind his eyes?  Kakakatak is with him, but whether this bodes good or ill remains to be seen. It was Yithian technology that nearly ended the world.     Their little boat limps toward Shanghai to refuel, and they're unsure of what exactly will be waiting for them when they arrive.  In two short days they will know if their efforts at Gray Dragon Island have fully paid off.  If the dead begin to rise from their graves and consume they living, they'll know that they failed. But they think they succeeded.  The rocket cannot launch. It must not.  They think they stopped it. They think so.     They...pray so.     THE END           GM NOTE:     Great game everyone, that was a classic campaign!   This isn't a bad place to stop, but if you want to collaborate via some email exchanges, i'm all for that.  Such as-- if you have specific plans for your characters, we can add that as an epilogue. The Dark Mistress, Ho Fong, Gavigan, Penhew, Huston, and M' Weru are dangling loose ends, but that's sort of cool too.  These are all very dangerous cultists who will continue their unabated worship of Nyarlathotep, perhaps trying to build another rocket for a future eclipse in ten years or so. You've managed to save the world at great personal self-sacrifice, but the war is not won.  These individuals will continue to stir up trouble in other, lesser ways, but maybe that is just for other heroes to worry about.     As an aside, this whole chapter would have gone differently if you had captured the Dark Mistress and tortured the Captain for answers about Penhew and the island. He was a half-breed deep one himself, Captain Saryovard.     Oh, and now is a good time to tell Brady about his girlfriend Mei-Ling. "By the way Jack, in all the excitement, we forgot to mention that..."     <img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/~saasha/Masks/girl1.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />     As for the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan, in the campaign book they were actually stolen by Brady from a guy named Lin-Tang.       <img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/~saasha/Masks/tang.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />     He was another faction trying to kill Brady, not just Ho Fong and Gavigan. He had a whole section devoted to him, but i condensed it.  And there was a red-herring with yet another demon cat scenario i chopped out.  And getting into Ho Fong's mansion to rescue Mei-Ling would have been problematic, but possible. It didn't help that Gavigan knew about your presence and all security forces were alerted.  Gavigan had deadly spell potential and could have cast Fist of Yog-Sothoth many times. And Ho Fong looks just like the villain from Big Trouble in Little China when he starts casting magic.  Again, much of the Shanghai chapter was skipped, but it was fun nonetheless.     <img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/~saasha/Masks/ho2.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />     Isoje Taro was not fully exploited, but things were getting confusing enough with Chu-Min and all the Firmies.  It is still possible to find Commander Taro if you want, although i'm not sure what you would tell him.     The only member of the party you never met was Roger Carlyle.  He is in a Hong  Kong asylum under an assumed name that Brady knows.     The warhead is in Penhew's workshop, and was going to be mounted the next day on the rocket. I was a little lenient with the grenades blowing up the support struts, they were supposed to be tougher and require cutting through them with the violet torch guns.  The warhead is still primed and is a functional radium bomb that will spread poison over a hundred square miles if it detonates (such as by dropping it in magma).  Penhew has locked himself into his private chambers, and the shoggoth will kill everyone it sees and finally return to its pool to regenerate.  Tricking the shoggoth into the tunnel when you were leaving would have killed it, the sucker was down to about 30 hit points.     I'm still astounded that none of the core party died or went crazy in there. Luck was really with you (and uh, not with 75 alternate targets). As for Star Wars, we're definitely establishing from Day 1 how much damage explosives do, how much you can carry, and how much you can afford. Fortunately, the book covers that.  [thermal detonators are probably the equivalent of dynamite; if you start lashing drums of starfighter fuel to droids and Jawas I might actually cry]     Honestly, in Star Wars terms, I think your sadistic Cthulhu characters would have amassed more Dark Side Points than Emperor Palpatine!  </blockquote>

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