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Thursday, April 23, 2009

Another Round of Rifts

So, we left our intrepid adventurers about 3 miles south of Alliance.

They weren't trying to be quiet, and the explosion at Alliance put everything within a ten mile radius on high alert for anything. Our party was deciding on which direction they were suppose to be headed and got turned about by the confusion that ensued after their departure.

After concluding that they were headed in the wrong direction, they set off towards the way that Roger was leading them. They were traveling towards the southwest when they noticed a tree on top of a neighboring hill. One of the party noticed a humanoid figure crouched at the base of the tree. Roger noticed a glint from a scope and after telling everyone about it, noticed Ralph running towards the tree.

BLAM!

A shot rings out and everyone gets ready to fight. Dirk takes care of his horse, tying it to a nearby shrub after dismounting. Roger starts forward on his floating slab of earth and Ralph keeps running towards the tree. Thunderheart positions himself and his hovercycle in order to get a clear shot at the humanoid figure underneath the tree.

Everyone notices a large sphere of darkness encompass the area where the figure was standing. The sphere was about a five-foot radius around the base of the tree, making it very difficult to see the now standing figure.

When Ralph entered the sphere that everyone was closing in on except Thunderheart, who continued firing from his hovercycle, he knocked the big energy rifle out of the guys hands and put on his Thermal sight. Thermal didn't help at all; this guy wasn't putting out any heat whatsoever. Ralph then switched the Thermal off and got a good look at the guy. He was scary, totally made out of worms that were the size of large snakes, so Ralph took off running in the opposite direction after taking a couple laser blasts from the figure and from Thunderheart.
At this time Roger had dismounted his flying saucer of earth.

The rest of the party saw Ralph booking in the direction they had just come from; all of them thinking that there must be some kind of scary dude in the sphere, but then they all realized that Ralph is afraid of everything. Roger had moved about 40 feet while Ralph was inside the sphere, but now that Ralph was gone, got back up on his floating disc of earth and proceeded to close the gap between him and the sphere.

While Roger and Dirk were closing the distance, Thunderheart continued firing from the hovercycle. Ralph and Dirk noticed as a three simultaneous shots came from the sphere and hit the hovercycle dead on the front of it. Thunderheart somehow kept the craft in the air. Then again, a three-shot burst from the sphere, but this time it hit Thunderheart in the chest with pinpoint accuracy. Still he kept the hovercycle in the air. Agian, one last three-round burst from the sphere and again to the front of the hovercycle. Galantly, Thunderheart tried to keep the craft in the air, but the machine had taken too much damage. Thunderheart, however, had enough wits about him not to crash his cycle into the ground below him. He landed, but hard, knocking some of the components that he had attached loose and some of them completely off of the cycle.

Roger had closed in and had started hurling earth at the sphere, enough to encompass the entire sphere, making sure not to miss. Dirk had also closed in enough to get a clear shot, he took aim and fired at the tree protecting the figure. Dirk had surmised that the figure had used some sort of spell that covered him in darkness and somehow had melded with the shadow of the tree; by taking out the treetop, maybe it would make it easier to see him. Dirk was correct, now that the treetop was gone, the party could make out distinct shadows within the sphere. Roger was already within the sphere when Dirk had taken his shot. Roger was now in hand to hand with the figure and he wasn't as frightened as Ralph. Roger and the figure were now trading blows, each dealing slight M.D. to each other.

Ralph was now back and ready to fight. Thunderheart had picked up one of the guns that was attached to the hovercycle and was firing again. And with Ralph ready to go into the sphere, Thunderheart got a lucky shot and the figure dissipated, but not before one of the worms had attached itself to Roger.

Now that combat was over, Ralph pulled for his alcohol and started pouring it over the worms, which weren't moving at all, and ignited them. Roger instinctively flicked the remaining live worm onto the ground and it slithered away. Dirk approached after a few seconds and saw the remaining corpse of the figure, Ralph had missed a couple of the worms. Dirk pieced together everything that the figure had done with the physical description that his party members had told him. Dirk, after a few moments, stated that he knew what it was that they had just encountered; it was a Worm Wraith.

Afterwords, Thunderheart, Dirk, and Roger followed a trail that led to another tree about 3000 feet away and found a horse with some nice M.D.C. barding and a pack pony. On the animals, the found some nice armor and some more weapons that the Worm Wraith seemed to have collected.

Untill next time.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Rifts: Alliance destroyed

We pick up where we left our intrepid adventurers, down inside the city of Alliance.

Thunderheart focuses his attentions on the computer in front of him. He successfully turns the machine on and it displays a logon and password prompt. The group searches the room and finds a sticky note with a logon and password. It was well concealed on the side of the desk. Thunderheart enters in the logon and password and gains access to the computer's main screen. On the screen is displayed a trash symbol, a folder called Catalog and a drive named C. He tries to open the drive and it prompts for another login and password. He tries the ones he has, but with no luck. Thunderheart next opens the folder named Catalog, which turns out not to be a folder at all but an interactive screen that shows the layout of the entire floor. He clicks on one of the rooms, which then displays the room with the tree on vid-screen. The group slowly watches the tree transform into some sort of living thing. Ralph and the mayor are wierded out by this image.

(It is here that I learn something about game mechanics. Just because a person fails a horror factor check doesn't necessarily mean that they have to make a save versus insanity, so I make a house call on it at that moment. If you roll a natural 1 on the d20 versus horror factor, you then make a save vs. insanity. Luck was with me on this decision, as the mayor rolled a natural 1 and then an 11 on the DC 12 vs. Insanity save with no bonuses. He picked up another insanity, which worked out kind of well for the group.)

Anyways, they get past this and Thunderheart opens the trash icon which Roger so elegantly pointed out that it wasn't empty. Inside the trash folder lies to documents. Since Thunderheart is the only one who has Literacy: American, he reads that the two files are labeled: XYZ and Memo. He instinctively opens the one that says Memo; inside was the following:

AFT
To all AFT members, there is no immediate danger to Alliance. The Simvan army will no attack us. They know what we have however, so we do need to prepare for infiltration. They may send some complete strangers or even well-known friends to confound us. If they find out where the power is coming from, we will need to prepare for battle.
Sincerely,
Major Drew Jackson
The group then questions the mayor. The mayor beats around the bush and the group notices. They get him to tell the truth. They find out that AFT stands for: Alliance Federation of Trade. They also learn that the AFT is a group that was once based in Alliance until the leaders were recruited into the 1st Apocalyptic Cavalry (I screwed this up too, I apologize; I said Army when it is indeed Cavalry) which is based in Fort Prospect (Kearney, Nebraska), about 500 miles from Alliance. The mayor tells them that he has never heard of a Major Drew Jackson.
Meanwhile, Ralph checks out up top in Alliance and sees no guards posted anywhere on the towers. After reporting back, he continues to check for a way out that doesn't require them to go back up to the city (This is after he hears the mayor tell everyone that there is another way out on one of the floors down here). Ralph then continues his search of the two remaining floors, nothing on the ninth floor, just an empty steel room with a light in the ceiling, same exact room on the seventh floor except some wooden crates which contain the same red sauce that he had found in the mayor's house (Mmmmmm). He returns and the mayor tells him that those rooms are just storage.
The group then remembers about the caves they found when they first pressed the first button. They never searched those, maybe that's a way out. They proceed to the caves and after 20 minutes find themselves on the other side of a rotten wooden door. The hear a gun cock on the other side. Ralph issues forward and says,"Hello, may we come inside?"
A voice says to come on in. He is dressed as a preacher. The preacher then tells them about the four monsters, that once described are classified as Simvan, that came running out of down here about two days ago.
The group then decides to leave Alliance behind; with Dirk's vision and all the guards missing being a strong motivation. The group gets to the other side of the river and not an hour out, they hear this huge boom and all who sense PPE get a horrorific feeling of a huge PPE source growing and then, BOOM, nothing left. They then see the town of Alliance in flames.
The group continues onward. About three days after crossing the river, they notice a small group of Simvan, but they also notice the group. The group notice that the Simvan are hurt and have no armor, but are warry since they have never encountered the Simvan before. The Simvan are still getting closer, approximately 200 yards out when Ralph gets a hit with his weapon and the lead Simvan goes splat. 19 MDC damage to a creature that has no MDC armor, yeah, SPLAT!
Thus ends the session

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

I have two new blogs

I created two new blogs today. One is for PointCon and the other is hopefully going to work. It will show my process on creating my Worldbook: Greece.

Rifts done wrong

Since Travis was sick and Luis was off looking for a place for Trivia; I decided that Rifts would be postponed due to the lack of enthusiasm. I did however give 50 XP to Jayson, Matt and James for showing up with an interest to play. I would have ran something, but the lack of two players and the introduction of the fifth would be a little much given the party's circumstances. The following did happen however.

Dirk, after having some of the best loving he has ever known, found the party in the office. He noticed all the cells on his way to the office (Matt, remind me that you have to make one horror factor check before you activate your supress fear ability). As Dirk enters the office, he sees Ralph, Roger, Buttercup, Thunderheart, and the mayor gathered around a computer that Thunderheart is working on. Dirk begins bragging about the five hot babes he's shagged in the room 'downstairs'.

That is as far as we got. I apologize for my lack of running something, but since what I had planned was based on Luis's character making or failing his computer check I decided to hold off a little until next time.

I do feel a little pissed off from the lack of enthusiasm showed towards my Rifts game. However, this will only make next session that much better. More coming after two weeks.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

What Lies Beneath

I was going to have this week and last week's sessions combined, but then I thought that that post would be longer than the whole page; so I decided to split them, that way its easier to view a session at a time.

Perhaps I am wrong about where last session ended. I distinctly remembered ending the session soon, but I do believe there was a little more. I will continue from where I ended on the last post.

The party, minus Thunderheart, is downstairs having the mayor show them how to use the special shiny cardkey to open the big metal shiny door. Ralph had run to get Dirk. Dirk told them about his dream:

I saw a large city, an airstrip with large metal suits on it.
I see Drew's, then I see Sally crying.
I see a large number of Simvan riders (approximately 10,000).
I see the wall's of Alliance with holes in them, smoldering.
I see the buildings of Alliance are all burnt down.
I see a large metal object penetrating the center of town.

Buttercup protects the entrance to the mayor's house. Thunderheart is upstairs attaching guns to the hovercycle. Ralph, Roger, Dirk and the Mayor are headed down into the underbelly of Alliance. The first thing that they notice is that the door slides shut behind them. They use the cardkey to open it and walk back through. They proceed down on the metal catwalk that they find themselves on. They walk down about what amounts to be about 30 flights of stairs equal to 30 stories in a building. The vast expanse of the underground is chilling to most of them. It is dark, dry and very clean. Hardly any dust is settled anywhere except on some of the hard to reach piping.
Buttercup is getting worried cause they are taking to long. She goes upstairs and interups Thunderheart while he is putting the guns on the hovercycle. She asks him where the others are, he said they went downstairs to the big metal shiny door. Buttercup nods and goes down to the big metal shiny door and it doesn't open for her. She starts kicking the door.
The mayor tells them they should hurry, so as to not get noticed by them. Them being the watchers or security that the leaders of Alliance have put down here to make sure anyone who makes it down here doesn't make it out alive. It is during this time that the party starts hearing some thumping coming from above them. The mayor also says that his scent is known to these things and that they are instructed to ignore him. This gives them some leeway since almost the entire party has something with the mayor's scent on his person. They reach the bottom of the stairs and there is only one way to go. At the end of this corridor, encased in various piping and ventilation ducts, the find an elevator that the mayor has never seen before. In fact, the mayor has never been this far before; usually his meetings were held on the catwalk right outside his door and the information he received was put in the metal box outside the door as well. He checked every day. While they were waiting outside of the elevator, Roger felt a strong presence below him as well as Dirk. They both identified it as a huge PPE source. They decided to investigate further. Ralph summoned the elevator. The doors slid open. The elevator was only big enough for two people to squeeze into or just one person comfortably. Ralph entered with another ( or by himself, I can't remember). He noticed that there were no numbers, but a three by three matrix of buttons, nine in all with all kinds of different symbols on the buttons. The party devised a numbering sceam for the matrix naming the top row starting on the left with number one and proceeding to the right and down until you reach nine. He pressed one, the elvator doors closed and had a rapid descent and he could tell that the elevtor was extrememly fast. The doors slid open and he estimated that he had gone down roughly 3000 ft when they had only wanted to go down about 200 ft to the PPE source. Telling them that this place was way bigger than they anticipated. He pressed two. The doors opened. He saw a long hallway of light. He pressed three, went back to the mayor's catwalk. Told Roger that he hadn't gotten there yet. He pressed four, he saw a room full of cells. He pressed five, and went up all the way into the guard tower. Pressed six, ended up about 200 feet down. This was the place. He took the elevator back up to the mayor's catwalk and told them what button to press. They all now stood at the entrance to the floor with the huge PPE source in front of them.

This is where I think we ended session three.

They proceed to the left and take the first right, the see a long corridor of which at the end is a corridor to the left. They notice that Dirk is missing and that the elevator doors are closed, usually they stay open unless it is on a different floor. In this corridor they see a glass door. Inside, they see an Ukt Water Serpent. Horror Factor check. Ralph fails and I think someone else does to, but the make their save so no problem; Ralph not so lucky. Anyways, they are in a maze essentially, so I will just tell you what they run into, suffice it to say that Ralph walks out of here with at least 5 or 6 failed saves to horror factor and insanity. After the serpent, they encounter a tree, roots exposed tree, in the room on the right of where they came in, no horror factor check. They next see a Teepowka, followed by Man-Eagles and then they see the office through the window and across from that window they see the source of the PPE, it is a contained Rift in a sheilded box. Every ten seconds, the Rift switches to a different place, nothing can come through however, there is no room for anything to go. After the Rift, they encounter a Wendigo, and then a Black-winged Monster-man. A door to the office, unlocked, they go inside and see its an office with all kinds of technology and computers. They save this place for last. The continue on and lastly encounter a landscape with a huge tower in it that has a bunch of holes in it ( Xiticix Hive). They do not know what it is, except Roger. Ralph goes inside with the mayor, Roger closes the door and has the cardkey. Swipes the cardkey horizontally across the door. Ralph walks in and looks around, doesn't look like there is a ceiling, so he picks up a rock or stick and throws it up, it hits nothing making a loud clank and then drops back down to the dirt. When he turns around, he notices that the mayor is gone. He finds him across the stream and on the other side of the thick trees. On the other side of the trees, he sees this tower with holes in it. The mayor is standing to his right, mouth gaping, the mayor figures out what this tower is and runs towards the door. While they were staring at the tower, Roger figured out that the door wouldn't lock unless you used the card in the same direction as the door moved. Hence the door was unlocked until he ran the keycard vertically across the door since it rised up instead of slid over. Unknowingly, the mayor runs smack dab into the locked door, knocking himself unconscious. Ralph walks back to the door, looks at Roger questioningly, Roger opens the door. Ralph grabs the mayor and takes him through the door.
They head back to the office with the computers. Ralph asks Roger if he knows anything about computers. Roger says no. The mayor comes to. They ask him if he knows anything about computers, he says a little. Ralph decides that Thunderheart might know. So, Ralph runs to the elevator and gets up to the catwalk to the mayor's house and used the cardkey to unlock the door, when he does, Buttercup hits him in the face, he flys into a rage and hits Buttercup back. She asks what the hell happened, he hits her again, she trys to talk to him while he's trying to beat her. He finally realizes its her and stops. He runs upstairs and gets Thunderheart and drags him down to the elevator. On the way, he asks him if he knows computers. He answers yes. Buttercup tags along. Ralph and Thunderheart use the elevator first. Buttercup seperates herself into two pieces and gets herself into the elevator. Ralph and Thunderheart see her in two parts. She puts herself back together. They enter the computer room.

This is where we ended the fourth session.

Rifts for Two weeks

When we last left our adventurers, they were all at Drew's having some R&R. Dirk had kind of faded his vision out to catch a glimpse into the future of things. While he was in that state, the rest of the guys agreed to go and tell the Mayor of Alliance the bad news about the Simvan Army to the south. When the party, minus Dirk, arrives at the Mayor's house, they knock on the door. While standing outside, they admire the shiny surface of the mayor's house. A few moments later, the door is opened by a tall, skinny, elderly man who is dressed in a dark suit with a white undershirt. He says, "Yes, may I help you?"
The group instinctively think that this man is the mayor.
"Yes, Mr. Mayor, there is an army of Simvan coming; what do you plan to do about it?" was the first thing that the man hears. He asks a few more questions regarding the attack and then runs screaming towards the front gate.
The group shrugs as they proceed into the mayor's house. As they enter, they are amazed by the size and decor of the inside of this house. They had never seen an interior of a house quite like this one. On both sides of the entry way, which extended all the way across to the other side of the house, were stairs leading there way up towards the third floor. Each floor had two doors. They begin opening doors, they find stairs leading down to a big metal shiny door that they cannot open, a storage closet where they find some interesting items, a bathroom and an office on the first floor. In the office, they find a shiny card. They proceed up to the second floor and find a kitchen, two bedrooms and another bathroom. Nothing interesting, so they continue to the third floor. They find two locked doors on one side and a master bedroom on the other side. Thunderheart listens at one of the locked doors and hears some scampering and heavy breathing. Ralph kicks open the door (can't quite remember how they got in this room). Inside they see another office, they find a man underneath the desk whimpering.

"Don't kill me!", shouts the frightened man.
"Just take anything you want," yells the man.
"Why would we kill you, we have some questions first.", said matter of factly by a member of the party. The man whimpers more.
One of the party asks,"Who are you?"
"Are you sure your not going to kill me?", asks the man.
"Yes, we are sure, now who are you?", shouts the party back at the frightened man.
"I am the mayor of course,"says the frightened man.
"If you are the mayor, who was the man downstairs who answered the door?", asks the party.
"That was Steve, my butler, you didn't kill him did you?", asks the mayor in a frightened tone of voice.
"No, we didn't kill him." Ralph starts fiddling with the shiny card in his hands. The mayor notices and asks,"Where did you get that?"

Ralph replies,"In the office downstairs, why?"
The mayor retorts,"Its mine, can I have it?"
At this point, I do believe that Ralph says no, but asks what it does. The mayor ignores him. The party starts leaving and they remember the other door. They ask the mayor what's behind it, he says nothing. They start kicking the door. The mayor begs them to stop and tells them that the shiny card is a key and also tells them how it works.
Inside the room they find a hovercycle shop complete with a hovercycle. It appears that the mayor is an enthusiest about hovercycles. Thunderheart starts drooling, noticeably. Roger, with the mayor in tow and Ralph go downstairs to the first floor and then they go downstairs to the big metal shiny door.

I do believe that this is where we ended session three.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Rifts Continued

Continued...

When the others arrive in Alliance, Dirk and Thunderheart find the guard station and talk with Private Warder. He doesn't tell them much, except where to find Captain Smithtok. When they arrive at Betty Lou's, a massage parlour that does more than massage, they talk with the Captain through a curtain. The Captain pretty much brushes them off, trying to concentrate on his massage and Betty Lou, but tells them to file a report with Private Warder, his inept Brother-In-Law. He also says something about his sister.

Meanwhile, Roger goes to Drew's looking for Pete. He is told that Pete is down by the river. Roger than goes to find Pete. Roger pays close attention to the gate as he leaves town. He sees nothing out of the ordinary. He continues his walk until he reaches the beach where he was told he would find Pete. Roger sees Pete, he is about knee deep in the river and Roger can hear some mumbling come from Pete's general direction. Pete then notices Roger and then leaves the river and approaches Roger. Roger hears a noticeable splash after Pete was already out of the river. They talk about the oncoming doom of the Simvan Riders and Pete becomes noticeably angry when Roger tells him that the others have informed the city of Alliance. Pete brushes this off and tells Roger to contact him in two days, he will have the information Roger requires at that time, no sooner. Pete then goes back into the river and Roger leaves.

The group then reconvenes at Drew's and they all get something to drink. At this precise moment, Dirk concentrates on the events and has a glimpse of the future. Whether he tells the group what he saw is up to him. As far as the group knows, he is tired and has a blanck look on his face.

Thus concluding our second session.