Two campaigns currently, one on Thursdays face-to-face and one on Fridays over OpenRPG.
D20 Modern - Agents of PSI campaign:
The PCs have investigated scenes for a few days now where some paranormal activity has been going on, thefts and damage caused by some paranormal criminals. A few stores in downtown Phoenix were robbed, each around 3 am on a different night. The first session was entirely roleplay and introduction, with the PCs checking out the crimescenes, looking for clues, asking around, inquiring about witnesses, trying to determine exactly what happened at each store.......and driving around a pair of beaten-up old Pintos all the while, totalling one of the rolling junkheaps on their way back to headquarters.
Yeah, the Phoenix - Arizona branch of PSI in my campaign is terribly underfunded and keeps only minimal, cheap-as-humanly-possible resources on-hand for its agents. They get paid decently, and have good access to other material through government connections, but they have to somehow earn the money first, to get said material when they need it. So far the squad's done nothing but total one Pinto and seriously damage (but not detsroy) a Crown Victoria. Oh, and by crashing it into a storefront on purpose.
So, yeah, that's how the second session began. They had gotten a lead, requisitioned a pair of Ford Crown Victorias to replace the Pintos, then proceeded to rush to the next crime-scene as soon as signs of another late-night robbery began in downtown. Well, they only took one Victoria, as two agents were busy and unavailable at the time (absent players). The driver, Jesus (pronounced hey-soos, it's the Spanish version of that name; yeah, that player's wierd and just likes to have fun...
), the Mexican-American Catholic priest, crashed the Crown Victoria into the storefront after he saw the dark forms of criminals inside and going about their smashing and looting of the place. He hit two thugs while a third managed to leap aside just in time; the party proceeded to get out and start shooting the robbers. Jesus, though, just proceeded to get up close and personal, beating a few criminals unconscious with his fists, while the
other PCs just shot some thugs dead.
Eventually victorious, though Jesus was moderately bruised, shot up, and singed (but really quite alright despite it all!) while Exavier and Bingy had just been grazed by a few bullets, the group made a hurried retreat back into their damaged, shot-up Crown Victoria, and drove off before police could arrive and start asking unpleasant questions about just what the heck these yahoos were doing. Jesus and Bingy got zapped a bit by electricity beforehand, though, as a stranger ran off from across the street, having apparently slipped out before the party arrived and then looped back around to see how his goons had fared.
He zapped 'em with a Lightning Strike psionic power just before running off into the night, both to see if it'd kill them, and to just make sure it'd kill any of his thugs that may've still been alive, after the agents had beaten them down. Leaving no minions to squeal, he escaped before the PCs could catch him (he wasn't very close when he zapped 'em, and the PCs were mostly inside the store, amidst the rubble that was once the front wall; so he had a head start in giving them the slip, and none of them were really fast or good at tracking).
In the third session, the squad was rejoined by two previously-busy members, and they did some more investigating while figuring out what to do next. They noticed a call over the police band while they were waiting at night, and went to check it out. A cop on a motorcycle had seen and heard automatic gunfire nearby, and called for back-up, but what showed up first was the PCs, agents of PSI. Some fast-talking and convincing by the priest later, and the squad of agents was rushing into position to enter the alley where the gunfight raged. And soon they were in the midst of it, firing at a few goons from the alleyway while another PC sniped from a rooftop, together dropping two assault-rifle-wielding goons.
But luck was not on their side, and all but the sniper were stunned when two of the 'goons' turned their way and stared at them a moment, unleashing Mind Blasts. The next round, the sniper PC was stunned by a Mind Blast after he managed to narrowly miss with a pair of shots. The second Mind-Blasting 'goon' then managed to stun the gang members his group had been trading fire with (like the PCs, I rolled poorly for every Will save; and I roll out in the open). However, with it becoming obvious that their presence was noticed and the gang members were proving troublesome to subdue (having resisted the mental assaults beforehand, and traded gunfire with the wierdos and the few goons who served those wierdos), the psionic foes had their goons grab the stunned gang members and carry them away while the psionic folks subdued them and they all beat a hasty escape.
The PCs recovered from the stun shortly afterward (I had rolled fairly high on the dice for determining Mind Blast stun duration), and the villains knew they might not have much time, so they just cut and run rather than waste time trying to finish off their briefly-incapicated meddling foes (who numbered 5 or 6 at that point, in addition to the half-dozen or so thugs that had been fighting the psionic folks to begin with). The PCs headed back to HQ mostly unharmed besides that initial stunning, and managed to accomplish something at least by gunning down a few of the most dangerous goons first.
And tonight's game (well, sort of; technically now it's very early Friday morning for me) had the PCs confront one of the enemy leaders a second time. They received a call from another agent, who detected some psionic activity over in the parking lot of a university campus, and the PCs drove their in the second Crown Victoria (since the first was still being repaired; also, Jesus had been forbidden from driving for a while after his little stunt two nights prior; Bingy took over the wheel). This was during the afternoon, around 4:30 pm, unlike the previous incidents which were all late at night.
The PCs met with the NPC agent, who introduced himself only as Thomas (technically, they got sent out by their boss, so they knew Thomas was an agent of the Paranormal Science and Investigation Bureau, like them), and heard about what he say; a dog-sized brain with claws had been burrowing its way into some guy's head, a student from the looks of it, and Thomas had run off to call in backup after being spotted by the four goons accompanying the clawed-brain-thing (an Intellect Devourer; only one or two players recognized it by description, but were decent enough to ignore their OOC knowledge of it during play). They apparently hadn't pursued him, and had in fact been approaching a car to escape the area when the PCs arrived. They managed to interrupt the goons and the 'student' accompanying them; Bingy sniped with his Barrett Light Fifty and dropped a goon right away, shooting from the roof of a nearby building (I natural 1'd the Fort save against massive damage).
Jesus moved closer cautiously, employing total defense, while Thomas (the NPC agent) decided to charge into melee rather than stick by the burly Jesus, now that he at had some comrades nearby against the group of paranormal foes (whom he had detected psionic auras around previously, before he had called HQ; before he had been spotted). And Thomas proceeded to rock on toast for nearly the entire session. Aside from a single natural 1 attack roll in the next-to-last round of combat, Thomas the nondescript NPC Strong Hero/Battle Mind spent the rest of the session with good attack rolls, several maximum damage rolls with his Psi-Blade and otherwise near-max damage rolls, and a single near-max-damage critical hit. Thomas was never hit during the fight, except for 3 damage from getting grazed by Exavier's first attempt at using full-autofire (which only hurt Thomas and Jesus, and Jesus has DR 2/- as a Tough Hero, so he only took 1 point; the enemies all made their Reflex saves, but the unsuspecting fellow PCs got shot in the back).
While Thomas duked it out and got flanked immediately (yet never getting hit by the enemies, by some fluke; his Defense score was lower than most of the PCs and enemies' Defense scores, but somehow.....), Jesus proceeded to beat down another thug in a barefisted (well, unless you count Jesus' brass knuckles...) brawl between karate-using thug and kung-fu-using Catholic priest........
Oh, and I forgot to mention a few details about the second session's investigations and how Jesus was involved.....suffice it to say that he has an unusual past, and an uncanny number of downtown gang members attend services at his church.
He's pretty recognizeable as a 7-foot tall priest, wearing a leather jacket, steel-toed boots, brass knuckles, and a rosary.... But he's the only PC in the squad that doesn't carry weapons (and he doesn't have any psionic powers either).
Exavier and Bingy just worked at slowly gunning down the Intellect Devourer and the other thug, though first Thomas used his Psi-Blade to stab the 'student' host body that the Intellect Devourer had taken over (since he was the one who saw the brain-thing burrowing into the student's head....), causing it to topple over and the Intellect Devourer to crawl out a moment later, rather agitated (it didn't manage to stun anyone with Mind Blasts in this battle though, except in the next-to-last round when it stunned Exavier).
The gunfire had little effect most of the time, but Thomas' unprecedented bad-a$$edness with the Psi-Blade turned out to really help in putting a few permanent holes in the DR-possessing Intellect Devourer, weakening it enough for Jesus to grapple it and dish out near-maximum damage (partially overcoming the DR) and Bingy to score a critical hit and a normal hit with semi-automatic fire from his sniper rifle (thanks to his Gunslinger ability of Lightning Shot).
The critical hit pretty well finished it, but the second hit just made sure it was quite dead and not just dying or pretending. The ID had tried multiple Mind Blasts, but pretty much to no effect; Jesus and Exavier and Thomas each spent action points to boost their saving throws when needed, and only Exavier failed once, just before the others finished off the ID with a nasty round of combined attacks. It had sneaked off through Invisibility twice to heal itself with Lesser Body Adjustment, but couldn't quite manage to take down Exavier or escape by itself; Jesus and Thomas kept pursuing, and Bingy blew up the car the ID had run under for cover at one point. He shot up the gas tank and managed to ignite the fuel (Jesus and the Intellect Devourer were both caught in the explosion, and both made their saves....even though the ID was under the freakin' car; I rolled awesome on its save).
It became kind of a repeated joke around the table that Thomas kept wondering why he didn't just take on all those goons and the brain by himself, considering how unstoppably awesome he did in the fight after bothering to call for apparently-unnecessary back-up first. And to think he had been intimidated by them outnumbering him 5-to-1..... Certainly it went faster with the PCs fighting, but we're all still kinda wondering if my uncannily awesome rolls for Thomas, the random NPC agent of PSI, would've continued through a prolonged one-against-five battle. And he wasn't really strong either, just reasonably experienced, and apparently possessed of the Devil's own luck. Yeesh.
In any case, the agents were victorious and got a lot of XP for the tough battle (the second time Jesus and Bingy had suffered any harm, and not very much at that; but the enemies took a beating and were tough to drop; one failed save against the Mind Blast early in the fight would've probably done-in Jesus or Exavier or Thomas, if they weren't careful; especially since they didn't tend to move far apart to avoid being caught in the same blast....). Fun was had, everybody got some spotlight time and good hits (though Thomas did the most, somehow, and Exavier mostly did tactics and support fire and such; oh, and he upgraded Jesus' brass knuckles with a taser-like apparatus.....don't ask), action points were spent, one of the leaders of the psionic group causing trouble in the area was definitely perforated, and some real progress was finally being made on taking care of this mission.
The PCs had some explaining to do afterwards when their boss and some other agents arrived to do clean-up, since Bingy had, y'know, blown up a car in the university's parking lot and a lot of gunfire was going around during the fight. And a student had been murdered in the parking lot, his brain destroyed and replaced by a monster that should not exist as far as the public knows......so yeah, clean-up had to be done. A few players were absent that session, so only Bingy, Jesus, and Exavier took part in the fight, along with Thomas the one-use NPC. Thomas drove off to HQ with the dead brain-with-claws stashed away in his trunk, with another agent sent with him to make sure the creature was taken in and studied properly by PSI's people.
Characters ---
[sblock]PCs (last names and middle names left off, since half the players didn't bother giving them full names): Exavier, male human Smart Hero 3/Strong Hero 1/Techie 2/Battle Mind 2, the group's resident computer geek, engineer, mechanic, electrician, tinkerer, chemist, and backup gunman, also one of the few agents in the group to actually possess psionic abilities, for some reason; "Bingy", nickname, no normal PC name given, male human Fast Hero 3/Gunslinger 5, the group's driver, sniper, close-range gunman, sneak, and - did I mention he's a gun freak?; Jesus, pronounced hey-soos, Mexican-American Catholic priest, male human Tough Hero 8, unarmed brawler and extremely tough guy, the burly priest with no diplomacy and wearing brass knuckles, steel-toed boots, and a leather jacket; "Dracus", nickname, no normal PC name given (he thought we were still playing D&D on Thursdays, and just copied over his D&D character's name....), male human Charismatic Hero 2/Dedicated Hero 1/Telepath 5, the group's medic, kind of demented surgeon, investigator, occasional faceman, manipulator, mind-reader, and mind-zapper, consequently the group's only charismatic individual (PC-wise that is) and only capable psionic manifester, since Exavier has only a little psionic ability right now, and consequently he misses half the sessions; "Little Pain", nickname, no normal PC name given, female human Charismatic Hero 1/Fast Hero 4/Strong Hero 1/Battle Mind 2, the group's second sniper and gun-freak, kind of fragile but a good gunner, minor psionic ability in case she gets stuck in melee and has to cut her way out with a psi-blade[/sblock]
Rhunaria side-campaign (main one is on hiatus for now):
The PCs have begun to head northeast across the Broken-Crest Hills and the Khasidra Marshes, meandering with little direction or purpose for a while up to this point. They have finally decided to go north, into the Theocracy of Riza, and try to get an audience with the current Pharaoh, Pah-Ri-Oris, the Divine Benevolence.
After a great deal of bickering, some ranting by Kai that they should go to his homeland in the Hirotashi Empire for aid or advice from
yamabushi, and the occasional attempt by Lashu to chop off Kai's right arm (his sword-wielding arm) to remove the unnatural symbiote stuck there (thwarted only by the efforts of other PCs on watch).......the party finally decided to head into Riza to seek potential aid in removing the parasitic symbiotes. From what the party had heard, Roarn and Aederax figured that the Pharaoh might be able to remove the strange artifacts with whatever divine powers he may have, considering the Rizans worship him. Assuming he's willing to do so, of course.
The PCs had no particular destination in mind before, after they finished looting the treacherous tomb of a gnomish bandit prince. Kai, Lashu, Roarn, Gabr'el, and Gromb were sprung upon by small, insectoid, artificial symbiotes in the burial chamber of the tomb. Each symbiote looked to be an insect crafted of some rare material, and animated through magic. They had proven impossible to remove by normal means; they dug their claws, mandibles, and similar sharp protrusions even deeper into their unwilling hosts' flesh and bone when anyone attempted to damage or remove the strange magic items.
The Witch of Tabrae was able to offer some bit of advice, and remove the Orichalcum Ant from Lashu with some spells, but it was rather straining and difficult, not at all like most attempts to remove cursed items or their ilk. She couldn't do anything more for them, aside from provide what little knowledge she possessed of the Mithril Centipede on Kai's right arm, and the Sargassum Wasp clamped over Roarn's left eyebrow. Gromb left with his comrades after the PCs left their temporary NPC allies; Gromb and his friends would have to find their own way to remove the Brimstone Spider stuck to his chest.
The party at first thought to go east and check for anything the tribal folk of the Tikaminari Jungle might know regarding the old artifact-symbiotes; but internal conflict and indecision turned them northeast, and then into Riza, after a failed attempt by Kai to convince his traveling companions to seek help in the Empire. Grudgingly he follows them into Riza, though he doesn't believe a word of the Rizan 'propaganda' about the divinity and holyness of their Pharaoh. As far as he's concerned the Emperor Hirotashi is the only divine ruler in Rhunaria, kin to dragons and kami; the Pharaoh in his mind is probably just an
oni or
youkai masquerading as a powerful human.
[sblock]Lashu just wants to see the unnatural insect-things removed from her friends, thinking the occasional changes in her friends' appearance or behavior are signs of the insects controlling them. Roarn has gone murderously berserk once during battle, in a fury of stirge-stabbing and lizardman-stabbing, thanks to the Sargassum Wasp on his eyebrow. But despite that he's kinda okay with it, though worried about further overwhelming rages, since the Wasp has enhanced his senses and agility to inhuman levels once or twice, which is handy to a rogue. It didn't make him attack his friends at least, so he's not sure if it's entirely a bad thing (though the tremendous sapping of his energy after the battle was rather unpleasant and crippling for a while).
Kai doesn't like the Mithril Centipede stuck to his arm, but its occasional strength augmentation and instinct boosting has proven quite handy in more than one fight. He'll get it removed if he can, but so far it's the least dangerous-seeming (but the easiest to potentially remove; the only one not latched onto a vital area). Kai's has been fairly crippling once with its parasitic bond, but has usually been of mild drawback. Gabr'el has turned invisible once thanks to the Cloudstone Mantis, and acquired brief prowess in two-weapon fighting, even striking lethally with his bare hands that way thanks to the Mantis' power, but it's also shown a similar possibliity of control to that of Roarn's Wasp. Gabr'el was fairly well weakend and slowed down to sloth-like activity after his Mantis finally activated during a fight, though it didn't afflict him until afterwards. Gabr'el's about as uneasy as Lashu about the unnatural construct-parasites stuck to them, but more rational about it and hasn't tried too hard to remove his, especially since the Mantis is stuck to the back of his neck and skull, and dug in deeper whenever he or Lashu tried to do anything about it.
So they all have some good reasons for wanting to remove the creatures, while at the same time they've recognized the beneficial effects the artificial insects have had on them once in a while. By this point Roarn and Kai are probably the only ones who might choose to avoid getting their symbiotes removed, and only if further combats don't prove the insects to be too dangerous. Gabr'el will certainly want his removed, being a druid and a tribal fellow who has always been close to nature, though he freaks out less noticeably than Lashu about it. Kai is probably going to seek out a means of removing his symbiote, but has less of a problem with it in general (and his is the most direct of them in effect; it has shown no unusual qualities or extremely useful ones so far; just basic strength and instinct augmentation), so it's possible he may keep it (assuming Lashu ever stops trying to chop his arm off when he isn't looking/awake). Roarn is still uncertain about his, and the only problem he has with it is the 'occasional berserk rage followed by crippling weakness' deal, especially since he's fairly meek and fragile himself (only strong or tough when the symbiote has him absorbed in a state of berserk fury).
The party has learned that they are relics of the ancient Nari, but very little is known of Nari magic, since it is the primitive basis from which more modern forms of magic (like those of the wizard, wu jen, cleric, druid, and shaman) are derived. The Nari are the race who gave the world its common name amongst mortals, as the first prominant mortal race before others took their place.[/sblock]
This isn't even me railroading, since I never truly railroad; I gave the PCs an opening adventure/task of a simple nature, and not something they had to be constrained by; it was perfectly open for them to leave that task unfinished for some other cheap mercenaries or the like, but they chose to handle it all themselves and then continued to seek out their own adventures.
They ended up with the symbiotic/parasitic magic items near the end of their second adventure, and then decided to make
removing those same cursed items their next adventure. Figures, huh?
I decide they could use a bit of help surviving since they had absolutely no teamwork/tactics as a group (in-character at least), and so I spring some unique minor artifacts on them. Sure they have drawbacks, but they help out in a battle and stuff, right? And then right afterward they hurriedly decide to get rid of the strange constructs partially burrowed into their flesh, as though they were a bad thing.
Characters/notes ---
[sblock]Current PCs are: Kai Isawa, male human Samurai 5, from the Hirotashi Empire; Roarn Gladecrest, male human Rogue 5, an orphan of sorts from some town in the Majestic Kingdom of the Gilded Throne; Lashu Storm, female human Barbarian 4 (IIRC she hasn't quite reached 5th yet), an orphan raised mostly by a bear, and otherwise of tribal human descent; and Gabr'el Verda, male human Druid 4 (don't recall off-hand if he's reached 5th just yet, since folks only just started to get close to 6,000 XP recently), similar to Lashu in that he was raised by a pack of wolves, otherwise of tribal human descent and somewhat more familiar with civilization than Lashu.
Also traveling with the group just recently is a minor NPC, Aederax Estaviar, male dark elf Shaman 4 (probably 5th now, I keep forgetting to track his XP since he started helping the group out), hailing from an unspecified dark elven city; a devotee of the Spirit King from Rhunarian elven religion, former priestly rank of Zev within the Crystal Star, one of the many elven sects devoted to the faith of the Spirit King; Aederax follows the elven path of asiq'mohar, the shamanistic division of elven faith, and he's a sworn pacifist since he fled his hometown to avoid being forced to participate in humanoid sacrifices; a strict vegetarian and rather extremist follower of the Spirit King's faith, his unusual ideas and respect for non-elves makes him lawful neutral, unlike his primarily-evil brethren.
Aederax is basically the group's healer, diviner, and voice of reason, at present; he gives a bit of advice based on what his spells and the spirits reveal, provides a lot of healing and a bit of blessing for an otherwise mundanely-skilled party, manages to intervene with a bit of logic and diplomacy when needed to stem the tide of samurai-barbarian conflict, and I suppose serves as the token non-human presence in the party, since everyone (and I mean everyone, right from the start, even the folks who joined later or left after a while) chose to play human PCs in this side-campaign.
The main campaign had a few elves, half-dragons, goblins, kobolds, and an aasimar at one point, along with the usual humans of varying descent; but this one's turned out to be a very humanocentric campaign so far. Enemies in the side-campaign have ranged from humans to lizardfolk, a wyrmling green dragon, a deinonychus, stirges, wild animals, zombies, monstrous spiders, small elementals, a black-draconic-descendant orc, a tiefling goblin, a bugbear, and a bunch of typical goblins, along with probably one or two other things I'm forgetting. The main campaign has had an even broader range of stuff, but it also went to higher levels (and more places across the map) before I put it on hiatus.[/sblock]
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
