You can find the nominations here.

So, I officially started my limited-run Space Race 1895 campaign today. Here are some notes about the game.  As the name would imply, it’s a steampunk game, and I’m using FATE 2nd Edition rules.  It’s at my home, and I have 7 players (!).

The first half of the game session was taken up by character creation, and then there was an initial brief encounter to help get the feel of the game.

The Players

• John Reiher played his Grandfather, Ben Reiher, a railroad engineer working for the Vanderbilts, who’s along for the ride as a trusted confidante looking out for the family’s interests
• Laura Mortensen played Shana O’Shea, a tough Pinkerton employee who’s been hired by the Edison Company to safeguard their valuable patented technology and see that the ship makes it to its destination.
• Kam White played Victoria Tebitt, a well-published science journalist who will be documenting the trip for posterity.
• Rolfe Bergstrom played Boyo, a rough-and-tumble confidence man from the Bowery who managed to strike it rich and is a minor partner in the venture.
• Sarah Bergstrom played Terry White, a genius inventor and mad-gadgeteer employed by Edison to keep the ship ship-shape.
• Cliff Hare played Lt. Smedley Butler, a Naval officer, who is to be the group’s chaperone and protector.
• Erik Hendrikson played Adam Gee, a dashing devil of derring-do, who’s along primarily for his publicity value.

The Mission

After being commissioned in the American Lunar Expedition Company, the group is to travel to a secret destination where the ship is waiting for launch!   They are to get to the moon and secure the valuable phlogiston deposits there before the other Great Powers can do so, and bring some back home.

The group met at the US Naval Observatory building in Washington City, District of Columbia and were briefed by a an august assemblage of industry captains, military and civilian officials, and noted scientists, and told to get on a train to Kansas City the very next morning, where Lt. Butler would make a secret contact who would inform them of their secret destination.

The set out for an evening of drinking at the posh Willard Hotel, but before they could get there, they were ambushed!  They easily defeated the interlopers.

They were arguing about whether it would be safe to go barhopping in Georgetown, when Lt. Butler and Shana O’Shea noticed that the carriage had stopped.  When Butler poked his head out window, he was fired upon by several assailants who had taken up defensive positions.  It was an ambush!  And their driver had jumped overboard and was running away!

Ben Reiher jumped up topside and took the reins, driving the carriage right towards the attackers, in an attempt to run one or more of them down.  Boyo lept out of the carriage to chase down the escaping driver, Adam Gee lept out and jumped on an attacker, restraining and hog-tying him (in world record regulation time).  The Lieutenant, O’Shea, and Tebitt returned fire from the carriage while White used her MacGuyver like skills to fortify the inside of the carriage, effectively giving it a bit of armor.

When all the smoke settled, the carriage was stuck on a berm, Boyo had completely dominated the driver and physically hauled him back to the carriage, Gee had captured an attacker, and the other four lay dead.

The two survivors were roughly interrogated.

They were all Southern sympathizers, and one of them had a telegram from Ottawa, which seemed to indicate the British Empire had employed them to waylay our heroes!

The surviving would-be hijackers were handed over to the local police, and Lt. Butler decided to change plans… rather than stay at the Willard as planned, they would instead head to the train station immediately and board the next train going in the direction of Kansas City!

And… that’s where we left it for the evening.

Thoughts on the System

I’m using FATE, which is the underlying system used by Spirit of the Century and Dresden Files (although there are some differences, particularly with Dresden Files).

I like the system, but I think I had the players roll the dice a bit much.  In future sessions, I’m going to reduce that a bit, I think.

It was my first FATE combat.  And, frankly, the reason I put the ambush in in the first place was to test combat out a bit, and gauge the power level of the party, so I know what to throw at them in the future.  I hadn’t intended for the fight to be all that challenging, but it was far easier for them than I had anticipated.  This is good to discover early on.

I’m not sure how “mooky” to make the mooks.  In Savage Worlds, for example, the bad guys die as soon as they take a wound.  FATE doesn’t actually have that rule, but I did that anyway, and I think that’s part of what made the combat so easy for the players.  However, if I had used the normal wound progression for them, I don’t think the outcome would have been much different, it just would have taken longer.  So I think giving them better skills would have been in order.  Also, I only made a +1 advantage for their superior position, and I think maybe it should have been a higher bonus.

I simplified character creation somewhat… instead of letting the players build skills phase by phase, I just told them they get one Great(+3), 2 at Good(+2), 3 at Fair(+1), and 4 at Average(0).  This way, they get 10 skills,  one of which is a specialty.  I think it worked out well.  Using FATE’s recommended method would have taken a while with 7 players, and I don’t think would have made the end result any better.

The players took some great Aspects, and I can’t wait to put them in situations where they’re invoked.  Some of my favorites:

• Corporate Shill
• Phlogiston of the Sierra Madre
• 9 Impossible Things Before Breakfast
• It’s the Amazing Adam Gee!
• Disturbed Loner
• Mean Streets of Boston
• Never Say Die

There was a bit of confusion about Aspects versus Skills in some situations, and I think I was a little wishy-washy about that.  There’s some overlap there.  All in all though, I think the characters are all pretty well defined,  and the party members complement each other well.

Erik pointed out that the adjectives in Spirit of the Century are different, but the progression ladder is essentially the same.   Average in SoTC is (-1) I think, and in vanilla FATE it’s a (+1).

On July 10th, the Emerald City Gamefest will hold a Gamers Garage Sale at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in Kenmore. Role playing games, board games, card games, all will be on sale from 10AM to 5PM! The proceeds from this sale will go to pay for this year’s Emerald City Gamefest in November!

Open Gaming!


Try before you buy! Or bring a game and your friends and play a game or two! We’ll have table space set aside so that you and your friends can stop on by and play a couple of games during the garage sale!

Participate in the Sale!

There are three ways that you can participate in the yard sale

• Stop by and browse!
• Bring your games by and we will sell them for you! *
• Donate your unloved and unwanted gaming items to the Gamefest!

*Just bring whatever you want to sell by or contact us to pick your lot up.  List the price you are willing to accept for each item and we will sell it for you and split the profits, 50/50.  Any unsold items will be returned to you.

When: July 10th, 2009
Where: Episcopal Church of the Redeemer
6211 NE 182nd Street
Kenmore, WA, 98028
Phone: (425) 486-3777
Time: 10am – 5pm
Email: Kedamono@yahoo.com

View Larger Map

Hollow Earth Expedition (HEX) is a game based around one of the truly classic pulp settings, a hollow Earth inhabited by dinosaurs and lost civilizations. Exile Games has a short teaser/ introduction to the game in an example of play on their website.

As such examples go, it does a very nice job of giving a little flavor of the setting and showing how combat and some combat options work. In the example a Great White Hunter character decides to go off alone to track down and kill a T Rex. He tracks the T Rex but fails to gain surprise. The hunter then makes a Called Shot trying to at least stun the animal so that he can get a second shot in before it tears him apart, but he rolls just a little too low. So the T Rex rushes him and mangles him into unconsciousness. However, in this example certain things seemed a bit off. Off enough to warrant a closer look at how good a call Called Shot is in HEX.

Mechanics

Dice in HEX are effectively d2’s. While pretty much any die, or even coins, can be used, every die has a 50% of scoring a success and a 50% chance of scoring nothing. To attempt a task the player rolls the appropriate number of dice determined by skill and circumstance and counts the number of successes.

The basic combat attack involves the attacker rolling their attack dice, which will be determined by skill, with bonuses for things like a powerful weapon and penalties for things like cover or range. The defender then rolls their defense dice pool and counts their successes, subtracting these from the attacker’s successes. The attacker’s remaining successes are the resulting damage from the attack. For example, if the attacker rolled 6 successes and the defender 3 successes the defender would take 6 – 3 = 3 points of damage. Depending on how much the damage exceeds the target’s Stun rating the target may be stunned or knocked unconscious by the attack. This is actually a rather D&D like system in that being really hard to hit or heavily armor are both represented by the same thing, a high defense rating.

The combat option being addressed here is the Called Shot. In order to make a Called Shot a character takes a penalty on their number of attack dice equal to the defense rating of their target. The target then does not get to roll their defense dice against the attack. For example, if the attacker had a dice pool of 14 dice for the attack and the defender had a defense of 5 the attacker could ignore the defense by taking a penalty of 5 to their attack, leaving them rolling 9 dice. The defender would then not get to roll any defense.

In the example of play the hunter has a special talent giving him a bonus for Called Shots. His accuracy talent reduces the normal penalty by 2. So if a target has a defense of 5 he can make a Called Shot against them and only suffer a -3 die penalty rather than the normal -5 die penalty.

HEX’s equivalent of hero points/ bennies/ FATE points are called Style Points. They can be spent for various temporary bonuses. For 2 Style Points a character can increase the effectiveness of a talent. So in the example the hunter spends 6 Style Points to increase his accuracy talent by three levels to four. As each level reduces the Called Shot penalty by 2, the result is that he reduces the penalty by 8, instead of his normal 2. Style Points can also be spent to increase a dice pool by one die per point spent. So a character rolling 5 dice to try to climb a cliff could spend 3 Style Points and roll 8 dice, 5 + 3, for the attempt.

Increasing the accuracy talent versus increasing the dice pool

In the example the hunter has a total dice pool for his attack of 14 dice. He has pumped up his talent so that he will reduce the Called Shot penalty by 8, a maneuver that cost him 6 Style Points. It turns out that the T Rex has a defense of 8. So the Called Shot penalty for our mighty hunter is reduced from 8 to 0, 8 – 8. He rolls 14 dice and manages to roll 8 successes and the T Rex doesn’t get to roll defense.

What would happen to the roll if he had not pumped his talent but instead just burned the Style Points getting extra dice? His attack pool of 14 would be increased by 6 for a total of 20. However, the Called Shot would give him an 8 penalty, reduced by 2 thanks to his accuracy talent, for a 6 die penalty. This would give him a grand total of 20 – 6 = 14. The exact same number as he got pumping his talent.

What would happen if the T Rex had a higher defense, say 10? If he pumped his accuracy talent he would suffer a penalty of 10 – 8 = 2 to his attack pool. This would give him 14 – 2 = 12 dice. If he simply increased his pool he would get 14 + 6 = 20 dice. However, the Called Shot penalty would be 10 – 2, from his base accuracy talent, = 8, for a final total of 20 – 8 = 12. Once again, the exact same number of dice.

But what if he has misjudged how tough a T Rex is and the dinosaur only has a defense of 5? If he pumps his accuracy talent, he has 14 dice reduced by a Called Shot penalty of 5 – 8 = -3. However, the penalty can’t be reduced below zero so the penalty is 0. He would roll a total of 14 – 0 = 14 dice. On the other hand, if he just adds dice to the pool he gets 14 + 6 = 20 dice. The Called Shot penalty would be 5 reduced by 2 for his accuracy talent to 3. This gives him 20 – 3 = 17 dice, a significant improvement over pumping his accuracy talent!

So pumping his accuracy talent is often just as good as increasing his dice pool. However, it is never better than increasing his pool and is sometimes worse. Therefore, he should never pump his talent, just add dice to his pool. Apparently he is not as experienced a Great White Hunter as we thought.

Called shot versus a regular attack

In comparing a Called Shot against a regular attack we should start by assuming that our hunter does not have an accuracy talent. After all, it would be misleading to compare the two for a character with a special bonus to Called Shots.

Without the talent the hunter would roll 12 dice for his Called Shot. He starts with 14 dice and adds 6 using Style Points. As shown above, adding dice via Style Points is as good or better than using them to decrease the Called Shot penalty. Without the accuracy talent he would suffer the full 8 die penalty for a total of 14 + 6 – 8 = 12 dice. Given that each die has a 50% chance of scoring a success and the T Rex can’t defend against a Called Shot, his average damage would be 6, 12/ 2.

A regular attack would use his 14 plus 6 from Style Points for a total of 20 attack dice. He would not suffer any Called Shot penalty because he wouldn’t be making a Called Shot. However, the T Rex would then get to roll its 8 dice in defense. The average success on 20 dice are 10 and on 8 dice are 4 giving an average damage from the attack of 10 – 4 = 6! The exact same average damage.

It should be noted that just because the averages are the same does not mean that the attacks are statistically identical. It is possible for all 20 attack dice to roll successes and all 8 defense dice to fail, ok the chance is about 4 in a billion but it is possible, yielding 20 damage. No matter what he rolled for the Called Shot he could never do more than 12 damage. Because so many more dice are being rolled for the regular attack it is less likely to roll completely average and more likely to roll above or below average than the Called Shot. For those of you following this series, its variance is higher. This is displayed in Figure 1.

This leads to an interesting result. If average damage or lower is good enough then a Called Shot is probably a character’s best bet. However, in the T Rex example our intrepid hunter gets munched because he needed to do 9 damage to the T Rex to stun it, and only did 8. The likelihood of rolling 9 or more damage actually goes down in this example using a Called Shot rather than a regular attack as can be seen in Figure 2.

The difference is significant, with the regular attack scoring 9 or better 17% of the time while the Called Shot only scores that 7% of the time.

Called Shots are useful when average or lower damage is good enough, while regular attacks are the best bet for hitting a tough opponent for high amounts of damage.

Accuracy talent

Our intrepid hunter isn’t a complete fool, however. His accuracy talent gives him a bonus for making Called Shots. As mentioned above, thanks to his talent he rolls 14 dice to make a Called Shot on the T Rex, average damage 7. However, he gets no bonus on a regular attack and so would roll 20 dice minus 8 dice from the T Rex’s defense for an average of 6 damage. Does this bonus make the Called Shot a good call? Yes. His chance of doing 9 or better damage with his Called Shot is 21% as opposed to 17%. He made the right choice but just didn’t roll well enough, and so may end his days as T Rex chow.

Conclusion

Why look at Called Shots in HEX? They are a good example of a specific type of combat option. Called Shots pass the big test for a viable combat option, sometimes they are better than a regular attack, and sometimes they are not. However, the actual effect of the maneuver is the exact opposite of what you would expect it to be.

When someone hears the term Called Shot they are thinking of attacking a very specific part of the target in an effort to strike at a weakness. Hitting a specific target should be more difficult than firing at the center of mass just trying to hit the target at all. So, one would expect that a Called Shot would be more likely to fail completely than a regular shot. However, as the Called Shot is specifically targeting a critical spot on the target, should the Called Shot work, it would be expected to generally be more effective than a regular shot.

Called Shots in HEX do the opposite. They produce more consistent results than normal shots. They are more likely to do some damage but less likely to do large amounts of damage. It is this kind of combat option that really throws people for a loop. Unless they have run all the numbers, they will be using the option when it is least effective and not using the option when it’s most effective.

Tricks represent those stunts we’ve all seen in movies where someone tries to distract their opponent by calling out “Look behind you!” or throwing sand in their eyes. Comparing the effectiveness of Tricks versus a regular attack turns out to be a very difficult problem. It depends on the characteristic used for the trick, the characteristic used for defense, the combat skill that would be used otherwise, the target’s defense against an attack, the damage of the attack, the target’s toughness, the target’s spirit, heck, under certain circumstances initiative affects the utility of a trick. Given this, there is no absolute answer to how useful Tricks are in Savage Worlds. However, this article will try to present a rough estimate.

Mechanics

When someone executes a Trick, they describe the trick they are pulling. “Your shoes are untied!” The GM then decides which characteristic the trick will be based on, either Smarts, “Your shoes are untied!”, or Agility, throwing sand in someone’s eyes. The character using the Trick and the defender then roll their die in the chosen characteristic. For example, an attacker using a Smarts Trick with a Smarts of d6 against a defender with Smarts d8 would roll a d6 while the defender rolled a d8. Wild cards would also get their wild die. If the attacker equals or exceeds the defender’s roll, the defender suffers a -2 penalty to their Parry defense until their next action. Note, this is not a -2 penalty to all defense, just to Parry. If the attacker exceeds the defender’s roll by 4 or more then the defender is Shaken. Well, sort of, see below.

A Trick will almost always be used in place of a regular attack. Attacks are made by rolling the appropriate skill such as Shooting for guns or Fighting for punches. The target number needed to hit is 4 for ranged attacks, potentially modified by range and cover etc, and the target’s Parry for hand-to-hand attacks or any attack, even with a gun, made by someone standing next to the target. If the attacker rolls equal to or better than the target’s defense, the attack hits. If they exceed the defense by 4 or more then they get an extra +1d6 on their damage roll. If the target is hit the attacker rolls their damage based on their weapon and any extra damage they achieved. The total damage is then compared to the target’s Toughness. If the damage equals or exceeds the target’s Toughness, the target is Shaken. For every 4 points by which the damage exceeds their Toughness, the target takes 1 wound.

When a target is Shaken or Wounded on their next action they roll Spirit against a target number of 4. If they fail the roll they cannot act except to defend themselves and can only move at half speed. They can roll to recover again on their next action. If they make the roll without a raise, they are no longer Shaken, but lose their action. If they roll an 8 or better, they are no longer Shaken, and get to act normally. If a character is Shaken and is later Shaken again then they take 1 wound instead. This mechanic allows a target to be whittled to death by many small attacks. However, the conversion of two Shaken results into a wound only occurs if the second Shaken result comes from a potentially damaging attack. Thus a target Shaken by two Tricks in a row would merely be Shaken. A target Shaken by an attack and then Shaken by a Trick would still only be Shaken. However, a target Shaken by a Trick and then Shaken by an attack would end up with 1 wound. Yeah, the system is crunchy.

Damage Comparison

Comparing the utility of reduced Parry defense to damage is less than straightforward. However, Tricks can produce a Shaken result, which, while not quite the same, is a damage result. So, how does this damage potential compare to a regular attack? Table 1 shows the probability of obtaining a Shaken result for different characteristics of the attacker and defender. It should be noted that the table is for Wild Cards as it seems unlikely that anyone will bother trying a Trick on a faceless mook. Table 2 shows the chance of getting a Shaken result or better for attack skills from d4 to d12 against a range of defense and toughness ratings. Damage was set at 2d6 +1, a mid-range choice. Higher damage will favor attacks while lower damage will favor Tricks.

Table 1. Percentage Chance of Shaking an Opponent with a Trick

Table 2. Percentage Chance of Shaking an Opponent or Better with an Attack

There are a couple of points of note. Given that Shaken from Tricks is slightly less powerful than Shaken from attacks and that Table 2 gives the chance of an attack doing Shaken or better damage, in order for a Trick to compare favorably to an attack as a possible source of damage the Trick really needs a significantly better chance of scoring at all than an attack.

To put the best face on Tricks compare the D12 attacker versus D4 defender from Table 1, 42% chance, to Table 2. It actually compares pretty well to attacks, though only at a combination of higher defense, higher toughness, and/ or lower attack skill. However, I have never seen a Savage Worlds character with a D12 characteristic.

More in keeping with actual characters would be to look at D8 versus a defense of D4, 27%. This compares favorably only at high defense and attack skills lower than D10. While a rather specific set of circumstances they may certainly come up in play, though probably not often. Going down to using a Trick on a more capable opponent, say D6 versus D8 with a chance of 18%, restricts its utility to only high defense and toughness with a low attack skill. So, it is a rare, though possible, instance when a Trick is likely to produce more damage than a regular attack.

Of course, this is all assuming that a character has a reasonable attack option, at least some skill with the attack and an actual weapon worth attacking with. What happens if a character is forced to fight at a massive penalty? For example, the classic gadgeteer character will often have no fighting skill, 1d4 strength, and at least 1d8 smarts. Deprived of their weapons they would be virtually helpless in a fight, as shown in Table 3.

Table 3. Percentage Chance of a Typical Unarmed Gadgeteer Shaking an Opponent or Better

As can be seen in Table 1, even against a very smart opponent a disarmed gadgeteer, or equivalent character such as a wizard with no spell power left, is better off trying a stunt than attacking. Of course they are pretty much done for either way but it might keep them alive long enough for another character to bail them out. However, it is unfair to compare Tricks solely on the basis of damage, as their primary effect is to make the distracted opponent easier to hit.

Parry Penalty

A successful Trick reduces the target’s Parry defense by 2 until their next action. Reducing their defense by 2 is the equivalent of increasing your attack skills by +2. Figures 2 A and B from Savage Statistics show how potent this can be. However, the penalty only applies to their Parry and only until their next action. So how useful this is depends on the number of melee range attacks that will be made on the target before their next action. If it’s zero, because everyone is firing from range or the target will go before anyone that will make a melee range attack, then it is useless. The higher the number of effected attacks, the more useful the penalty becomes.

One-On-One Duels

While exploring all the intricacies of a multiple character combat is well beyond the scope of this article, in movies tricks are almost always used in one-on-one duels. The effectiveness of incorporating Tricks into a one-on-one combat was estimated using a Monte Carlo analysis (i.e., thousands of repeated simulations) of two rounds of combat. For pure attacks, two attacks in a row were calculated to determine the average number of wounds that would be inflicted over the two rounds. This is compared to executing a Trick in the first round and then an attack in the second round. Base damage was again assigned as 2d6+1.

Initiative is also important for this comparison. Because the reduced defense only lasts until the target’s next action, in order to take advantage of the reduction the attacker has to be able to execute the Trick and follow it with an attack before the opponent gets another move. This means that in order to use the Trick the attacker has to lose the initiative, execute a successful Trick, and then win the initiative for the next round, going before the opponent’s next move. Assuming that they wait for a lost initiative before trying the Trick, unless the character has an initiative edge they will have a fifty percent chance of winning the initiative in the next round and getting to take advantage of the reduced defense. For the simulation the attacker was assumed to have lost the initiative on the first round and given a 50% chance of retaining the defense reduction for the next round. The resulting table is quite large. Those interested in the full table can find it in the Supplemental material. The highlights are presented here.

Surprisingly, for many of the attacks against high defense and toughness using a Trick increased the average number of wounds inflicted. However, the increase was very low. The largest increase was +23%. This sounds impressive, except that that is a shift from 0.22 wounds every two rounds to 0.27 wounds. Most named opponents require 4 wounds to defeat. So it is a shift from defeating the opponent in an average of 40 rounds to a mere 32 rounds. Savage Worlds combats do not last that long. In any combat that the character had any real chance of winning, Tricks at best produced negligible bonuses. On the other hand, Tricks significantly reduced average damage for higher attack skills and lower toughness and defense. So, while using Tricks in a duel isn’t generally terrible there really is little reason to try.

Note that this is about using Tricks to try to win the fight. A character might use a Trick in an effort to Shake the opponent as a defensive measure before, say, running away. However, that really falls under using Tricks for damage purposes as was discussed above.

Multiple Attackers

As mentioned above, the parry defense penalty generated from a successful Trick lasts until the target’s next action. Against one opponent, that will affect at most one attack. If there are multiple attackers the penalty can affect many attacks, the more attacks the more useful the maneuver. However, there is something of a diminishing return on the penalty because multiple attackers already generate a parry defense penalty. For every opponent adjacent to the target after the first, the target takes a -1 parry defense penalty. So, if three characters were engaged in melee combat with a target that target would already have a -2 parry. A successful Trick could increase that to a -4 until the target’s next move but at the cost of giving up a normal attack, with the defender already at a -2. This is something to think about before using a Trick in conjunction with multiple attackers. Of course, there is nothing in the rules saying that a character can’t use a trick from range. Thus a Trick from range might be a good choice to help a character’s teammates gang up on a target, though at that point the target is probably toast anyway.

Conclusion

As a combat maneuver, how well does Trick hold up? It passes the big test. It is sometimes a better choice than a regular attack and sometimes it isn’t. The mechanics are also in keeping with the maneuver’s intended style. A character in a movie or book wouldn’t use a trick against an opponent that they could handily defeat and the Trick mechanics are such that it is really only useful against opponent’s that are too tough for the character’s ordinary attacks. However, except under seriously adverse conditions, like being an unarmed gadgeteer, the advantage of using a Trick is generally pretty small. Personally, I would only use a Trick when ganging up on an opponent with extremely high defense or as an attempt to distract an opponent before fleeing a completely one-sided fight.

Supplemental Table 1.  Tricks in One-On-One Combat

Issue 6

Violence Solves Everything

With Don and the Bronze Umbrella in costume, the locals mostly clear out of the bar when the heroes walk in. The Huntress is outside watching for gang members.

Down the street, Whale-Watcher is enjoying her entrée.

The Huntress sees the entire gang coming down the street. Some go to the front of the bar, others to the back where she is hiding. Just as the Weasel orders spaghetti, one of the gang members throws open the front door, yells “It looks like you Corlione’s have started playing dress up too!”, and hurls a Molotov cocktail into the bar.

The Bronze Umbrella leaps into action catching the Molotov with an umbrella and hurling it back at the gang member. Unfortunately, they close the door and the front door is now on fire. Out back the Huntress uses her bubble gun on another Molotov wielding thug imprisoning him inside a bubble that will last an hour. He drops the Molotov and lights himself on fire.

[Finally, a traditional knock-down, drag out fight with criminals.]

The other thugs out back open fire on the Huntress, who blocks the bullets by putting a giant bubble between her and the goons.

The Weasel pulls out a pair of fire proof pants and starts trying to put out the fire. The Bronze Umbrella hits the flames with an extinguisher umbrella. The fire is pretty much put out.

Whale-Watcher is enjoying a nice meal and talks to her contact. She finds out that the Corlione family has decided to send the street gang packing, not classy enough for the neighborhood. When she mentions comas, she finds out that Jimmy “Snake Eyes” Corlione, the son of the present boss, has been in a coma for a year and is being treated at the Corlione mansion outside of town. People at the restaurant hear shots down the street.

With the fire out, the Bronze Umbrella kicks the door open and heads out into the crowd of twenty armed gang members. The Weasel quickly links his pants to the thugs he can see and does a hand stand causing them to do the same. This leaves the Bronze Umbrella with thugs on both sides of him opening fire. Remembering his father’s training starting with rubber bullets and working up to real ones, the Bronze Umbrella executes jaw dropping feats of martial skill. He pops open a bullet proof umbrella on either side of him, rolls, and then leaps into one of the groups of thugs hammering them with his bronze tipped umbrellas.

[Here is one of the things I like about description based games. The character background can be used to get mechanical bonuses, in this case by inserting a training flashback.]

A second Molotov is thrown in through the door, right were the Weasel is doing a hand stand, lighting his back on fire.

Don turns into an eagle and flies out with a pair of the Weasel’s pants, dropping it over by a fountain.

The windows are small and high up the wall but this barely slows Veronica down as she heads out to the back. Two thugs have gotten under either side of the Huntress’s huge bubble. One attacks her with a knife. The other is aiming his gun. Veronica inks the thugs on her side of the bubble while the Huntress switches from bubble gun to machete and nearly cuts the knife wielder’s hand off. She twists the knife wielder around to use him as a human shield and his buddy shoots him.

Don calls on the spirit of the black vine to bring horrific visions of their crimes to the gang members while Whale-Watcher leaves the restaurant and fires hundreds of Seahorse logo M&Ms down the street at high velocity. It is hard to tell whether these have much effect as the Weasel stops, drops, and rolls taking a third of the thugs with him and using them to bowl over the thugs that the Bronze Umbrella isn’t thrashing.

Veronica crushes the inked thugs in back with a large dumpster.

When all the thugs are down, the Huntress piles them all into a giant bubble to wait for the cops. They are a sorry lot, battered and suffering horrible visions.

[This was a clear victory for the heroes, 4 wins out of 6 rolls. They had primary narration rites and so just thrashed the thugs. The only one who might have been horribly wounded was the Weasel being hit by a Molotov and all. But he made his roll so it was just action hero damage. Looks bad but it really doesn’t mean anything.]

Still on fire, the Weasel gathers up the flames and magically sends them to the pair of pants by the fountain sending them up in a burst of fire.

People compare notes and decide that Dr. Case must be at the Corlione estate. Don turns into a motorcycle, the Bronze Umbrella rides his bronze cycle, and everyone else piles into Whale-Watcher’s car.

The heroes arrive at the Corlione estate with a cunning plan. Veronica uses her camouflage abilities to sneak past the guards and onto the grounds. Whale-Watcher stays in her discretely parked car maintaining mental communication with the sea creature Veronica. The Trouser Weasel hooks a pair of pants up to a fire hydrant and gets ready to turn the hydrant on. Don turns into an eagle and flies over to the house carrying a pair of pants. The Huntress waits in the shadows. Being a naïve, young hero, the Bronze Umbrella stands in the street in costume polishing his bronze motorcycle.

Once the pants are in the third floor of the house the Weasel magically links the pants to the ones on the fire hydrant and turns the hydrant on, flooding the house from the top down!

As expected, people flee the flooding house. An elderly man is seen panicking and pounding on one of the third story windows.

Veronica sees a man literally step out of a wall carrying the water spewing pants. Given the back pressure he really can hold onto them and ditches the pants into the grass. He disappears back into the wall. A speedster starts running around the grounds looking for the people attacking the estate but Veronica remains undiscovered.

Suddenly a shot rings out from outside the estate and the Bronze Umbrella slumps over his motorcycle!

[Starting a fight by shooting a character in the back of the head with a rifle seems pretty harsh, even if he was the only visible target thanks to his naïve problem. In most systems it would be harsh. However, this is 7 leagues so he doesn’t take serious damage unless he loses the role at the end of the fight. Now, it is simply a matter of coming up with some good descriptions for what he does after he is shot. If it’s lame like “the bullet just grazes me I’m fine” then he takes penalties rather than a bonus for his action. So it’s not terrible, it will just require some clever description.]

Don calls out to his bird friends. Veronica latches one tentacle onto a pole and uses the others to grab people and slam them into the ground. Some guards, and several normal staff members, are slammed and Veronica sneaks off.

The Bronze Umbrella is only stunned. His bronze hat is wrecked, but it saved his life. He pulls out his grapple umbrellas and starts swinging down the street looking like a bronze spiderman gleaming in the moonlight. The Huntress pulls out grappling bagh nakhs and follows suit.

[Having the bullet hit the bronze hat was pretty cheesy, like being shot in the pocket watch. However, the character sketch had a hat, he had been talking up his bronze equipment all night, and the character had a very retro style where that sort thing was pretty common. So, on him, it worked.]

Swinging down the street with no cover, the Bronze Umbrella is once again shot by the mob marksman. Hit in the shoulder he stops swinging and takes cover behind a tree and throws up a flash umbrella to try to blind his attacker. The Huntress, skilled from years in the brush and hunting poachers, spots the concealed gunman up atop a wall. She also stops swinging, heading into the brush for cover. While the marksman is used to concealing himself, he is not used to dealing with experts in stealth and loses track of the Huntress.

Don and Veronica spot Pandora and Patricia Case being hustled out of the building. Veronica relays the information to Whale-Watcher who relays it to the Weasel. Don turns into a jaguar and attacks the men guarding the Case sisters. His bird allies descend onto the estate guards.

[Here is one of the things that I liked about the system. Whale-Watcher is basically coordinating communications and acting as back up. In most systems that has little mechanical effect. Here she gets bonuses like everyone else and gets to roll at the end to see if the heroes free the hostages and beat the villains. So support characters can take part just like combat machines.]

Knowing where the Case sisters are, and that they are wearing pants, the Weasel teleports back to his apartment and then swaps places with Dr. Case, leaving the Weasel on the grounds of the Corlione estate.

Whale-Watcher calls the Weasel’s phone, which is in the pants that Dr. Case is wearing, and tells her to call the cops and tell them about how she was kidnapped.

The speedster sees the hero appear and attacks the Weasel pounding him with a sap at a hundred miles an hour. The Weasel is sent flying. He manages to teleport back to his apartment leaving Dr. Case’s pants to smash into the wall on their own. Back at his apartment the Weasel plows into his living room wall.

A man walks casually through all of the chaos playing with his lighter.

Veronica decides to climb up to the window and talk to the old man. He turns out to be the somewhat senile elder Corlione and is willing to chat. He says that his grandson is no longer in a coma but is out on the grounds. When Veronica asks if he has super speed, the old man says he can do anything! Veronica asks why they are doing all of this. The answer, power, just doesn’t make any sense to her.

As the Bronze Umbrella’s flash umbrella is about to go off in mid air, the Huntress sneaks up on the mob marksman. Not seeing her, he drops his rifle, pulls out a pair of pistols and vanishes into the wall. So much for the surprise attack.

The shooter pops out of the wall across the street, right in front of the Bronze Umbrella and opens fire. As bullets rip through him, the Bronze Umbrella triggers his grappling umbrella and hits the marksman in the head, putting him out cold.

Barely conscious the Weasel asks Dr. Case about the exact pants her sister is wearing and pulls a like pair from his extensive wardrobe. He reaches out and pulls Patricia to him. As a final gesture of defiance against the speedster he pours marbles down his pants sending them to come out of the Huntress’s. She’s nowhere near the speedster, but does manage to trip on them herself and bang her head into the wall.

The strolling man is attacked by birds, takes off his jacket and throws it in the air. Suddenly it turns into a fireball. Many birds are incinerated.

Having gotten rid of the Weasel, the speedster runs over to Don and, slowing down considerably, throws the jaguar out over the fence into the street. Rather than get slammed, Don turns into an eagle and starts flying. The speedster leaps after him, but hasn’t really coordinated with his team. He is burned by the fireball and blinded by the flash umbrella. Taking advantage of the speedster’s stunned condition, and a motorist fleeing by the scene, Don turns into a vine, wraps around the speedster, and drags him behind the car until he passes out.

Observing the chaos, the Whale-Watcher drives off, obeying all traffic laws. Veronica also sneaks off.

[Here is the climactic fight. Again it is 4 out of 6 successes. Since the heroes had narration rights they chose to take out the marksman and the speedster, and of course solidify the rescue of the hostages. Whale-Watcher also narrated that she got away clean. Once again John took a high risk route, in this case mano-a-mano against a teleporting sniper, and was betrayed by the dice. So the Bronze Umbrella is shot pretty badly. He can’t really die in 7 leagues, and it is the final fight so it doesn’t really matter. Laura also failed and decided to smack into the wall. Laura was really good about describing bad things happening to her character when she lost the combats, very cool.]

Epilogue

The Bronze Umbrella goes to the hospital and eventually recovers. There are charges associated with the assault on the estate, but he was never on the grounds and it can’t be proven that he was with the others. The bullet wounds also generate jury sympathy. With a decent lawyer he gets off. It’s trial by fire for his first mission, but he is victorious.

The Corlione’s also have legal problems, shooting people in the streets, kidnapping, and illegal human experimentation. They don’t do so well.

Speaking of illegal human experimentation, Dr. Case loses her license and disappears into federal custody.

Veronica doesn’t get all of the legal technicalities and so happily goes back to the research center, eats some fish, and continues to do what she does.

Not being wanted for questioning, Whale-Watcher and the Dung Beetle go to have the ‘day with a hero’ with the kid. He has fun and they tell him about his super powers. They put him in touch with a psychologist specializing in powered people, no, not Morko, and hopefully he will learn to control his power better. The Dung Beetle then returns home.

Don continues to walk the Earth.

The Huntress and the Trouser Weasel get some much deserved R&R.

Issue 5

More New Blood

Veronica and Caroline sit on a bench talking. Veronica tells Caroline that the police will be coming soon. Caroline says that the police are jerks and will probably blame her for all of this.

Outside the Huntress has Morko let her out of the SUV. Morko actually has an appointment for his day job and goes off to take care of that. The Bronze Umbrella pulls up on his bronze motorcycle, but has no idea what is going on. Don Manuel recovers from the fear effect and goes to talk to the SWAT commander. Given that the police are not supposed to be consorting with heroes and that Don is not exactly in tune with the mindset of American law enforcement, the SWAT commander ignores him.

Whale-Watcher finally comes around from her coma and looks at the abandoned, devastated mall. She starts walking out to talk to the police when tear gas grenades fly over her head.

Whale-Watcher rushes forward trying to warn off the police. They see someone running out of the mall after the tear gas goes in, and so open fire with tasers. Veronica, most of her body being able to taste things, does not react well to the tear gas and flees to the upper levels. Caroline starts cussing out the police.

Being made of sterner stuff than most people, Whale-Watcher shrugs off the tasers and walks out amongst the cops. They level their guns at her when suddenly everyone near the mall entrance starts chocking as if hit by powerful tear gas. Whale-Watcher stays up long enough to leave the area but the rest of the police are now convinced that she is the rogue super. A very horrible confrontation is avoided when the cops finally recognize her.

“That’s Whale-Watcher, she talked about water conservation at my kid’s school.”

[A good heart roll had the police recognize her.]

Don flies into the mall as an eagle, but is having some trouble with the gas. He spots Veronica on the upper level, lands, and becomes a motorcycle. As the gas doesn’t bother the motorcycle in the slightest the octopus rides the motorcycle out of the mall. They go to the fountain outside the mall so that Veronica can wash off the gas.

Meanwhile, Whale-Watcher tries to convince the police that violence against Caroline will not work. The Bronze Umbrella listens in and gets some idea of what has occurred.

Caroline comes walking out of the building. Thanks to Whale-Watcher, the police do not try and shoot her but rather use nets. As happened with the Trouser Weasel this fails ending up with many police officers trapped in nets.

All of the heroes try to talk to the cops and negotiate with Caroline in order to avoid disaster. The Bronze Umbrella conducts some experiments and finds out that intent to scare, annoy, or harm Caroline seems to be the trigger. The Huntress stresses that Caroline is basically a time bomb given how her powers work. She can’t be allowed to run around loose. Veronica suggests that the researchers that raised her might be able to help Caroline adjust to her new life. While this will get them in trouble with the mayor, the cops don’t have a better plan so Caroline is sent off to the research center.

Meanwhile, the Weasel has gotten a pair of pants and a shop vacuum and connected the pants to a pair in the mall. Using the vacuum he sucks most of the tear gas out of the mall. The Dung Beetle wakes up, sore in muscles he didn’t even know he had, and coughing from the gas. He staggers out of the mall and is met by the EMT’s and his wife, who insists that he go to the hospital.

Having discovered the three coma patients, the heroes want to figure out how this happened, and it all seems to point to Dr. Pandora Case. Whale-Watcher doesn’t want anything to do with breaking into Case’s house so she goes to talk to Haily Jones at the psychiatric lockup. The rest of the heroes go to Case’s house.

They break into the garage and talk to Pandora’s car. It has no useful information.

The Bronze Umbrella goes and talks to the neighbors. It being Harbor City they are not immediately freaked out by costumed heroes trying to talk to them. Besides, he has a winning smile. He finds out that Pandora left with an Italian looking man in some car that the neighbor didn’t recognize.

Obsessed with security, the security system refuses to tell Don the password, so the Weasel uses his petty criminal knowledge and circumvents the system. The Weasel performs and pants reading, ending up putting Dr. Case’s pants in the washing machine and reading them like tea leaves. The answer is “Unravel the thread like spaghetti.” Reading tea leaves is notoriously symbolic. However, combined with the Italian looking guy this points pretty firmly to little Italy, and probably the Italian mob.

Whale-Watcher and Jones talk for awhile about the city’s 50 year plan to deal with global warming and then discuss Dr. Case. Jones spent a few weeks with Dr. Case for physical therapy and while Jones doesn’t remember any unusual tests she doesn’t know what the usual tests for a recovered coma patient would be. She does mention that Dr. Case seemed nice and professional and that the doctor had a sister, Patricia.

Back at the house, the other heroes find pictures of Dr. Case with another woman and Dr. Case’s address book. Being an octopus, Veronica hadn’t thought to look for such things when she broke in before. They get Pandora’s mother’s number from the book and the Bronze Umbrella gives her a call and asks about Pandora. He doesn’t find out anything useful, but with some strange man calling and asking about Pandora, her mom calls Dr. Case. A phone rings behind the sofa. The Weasel answers the phone and pretends to be Pandora with a cold. He finds out that Dr. Case was onto something big.

[This was a good roll and some hilarious role-playing by Rolfe.]

The phone tells Don that it was thrown behind the couch by a large, hairy hand. This pretty much confirms that Dr. Case has been kidnapped.

Meanwhile, Veronica and the Huntress go to Whale-Watcher’s place to be filled in on what she has found out. The two decide to go and search Patricia Case’s apartment. They don’t find anything, but do break the door. They do find that her mail is probably pilling up, so she may have been kidnapped as well.

The Weasel takes what the heroes know and logs onto henchman.net. He finds that things are still pretty much the same in little Italy, four mob families and a street gang. He suggests that the gang may be desperate for fire power and that they should start there.

Everyone except Whale-Watcher heads to the gang’s bar hangout. From her time as an engineer for the city, Whale-Watcher knows someone in construction with mob contacts and makes a dinner appointment with them in little Italy.

New Blood

Issue 4

Berserk Button

Whale-Watcher and the Trouser Weasel approach the mall but are stopped by the police. While Whale-Watcher tries to convince them that they are heroes and should be let in, the Weasel recalls a clothing display inside from his job as a secret shopper and teleports into some leather pants. A mannequin appears in the Weasel’s pants outside by Whale-Watcher, who is not amused.

Needing a vehicle to get the mall, Morko walks into the street and terrifies a poor man driving an SUV. He careens off of the road and barely avoids hitting a tree. As the driver runs off, Morko takes the car and has the other heroes pile in. Morko sets off for the kid’s house to pick up Don Manuel.

The Weasel watches in horror as one of the cops fires at a woman who is waving her hands and screaming rants about customers and whether anybody wants a piece of her. The bullets are reflected back, leaving the cop bleeding profusely on the floor. The Weasel grabs two pairs of leather pants to use as pant-chucks. He lets a cop with a baton try to attack the woman before going in himself. The cop hits the woman’s face, which seems to do nothing but break the cop’s arm.

Whale-Watcher enters the mall as the police abandon the door to go pull out their shot coworker.

“Officer down! Officer down!”

Fear drives the streets of Harbor City. Morko and the rest of the team make great time by ignoring traffic laws and general safety while panicked drivers clear out of the way. He is followed by Don, in the form of a motorcycle with no rider.

Whale-Watcher approaches the woman carefully, noting that another woman is lying on the ground in front of a little kiosk and twitching. The Weasel entangles the screaming woman with the pants, wrapping one about each arm, but they unwind and reflect back upon him, leaving the Weasel tied up. Whale-Watcher tries a peaceful approach, floating some Seahorse logo M & M’s over towards the woman and trying to get her to calm down.

Radiating fear like the living nightmare he is, Morko drives the SUV straight into the mall in a cascade of glass. This ends the whole calm thing that Whale-Watcher was going for. Oddly, Morko feels his amazing fear powers fail. He feels more like Barney, disturbing but not actually frightening.

The Huntress and Dung Beetle bale out of the car. Veronica slides out and goes over to the mall map.

Don shines his headlight into the woman’s eyes and is immediately blinded by a bright flash. He returns to human form.

Veronica figures out where the mall security office is and heads there to take over the loudspeakers.

[One of her problems is that she can’t shout, and so can’t be heard over the chaos. This would take care of that and was definitely worth an extra bonus for a clever way to overcome a problem.]

The Huntress is at something of a loss for dealing with the woman. The infinite box of alien weapons just doesn’t seem like the right tool for the job.

Several of the team members try for a calm rational approach with the woman. Whale-Watcher tries bribing her with chocolate, Don uses his ability to call cats and holds up a cute kitten for her to pet, and Morko is just trying to ask her a few questions.

Their efforts are undermined, however, as the Weasel switches pants with the woman trying to set up a feedback loop. This works, big time. Everyone’s pants start switching, including the mannequins. It’s pant-amonium.

Meanwhile, the Dung Beetle has decided that he is going to take her out with his most devastating attack. He sends a stream of dung over to the woman and has it crawl up her pant leg. He then tries to have the dung go in the way it would normally come out. If you know what I mean. As he instigates this nasty, painful, and humiliating attack the Dung Beetle is overcome with pain. It’s as if needles where being jabbed into most of his pores. He drops to the ground screaming.

Veronica gets on the loudspeaker and calls for everyone to stop attacking.

The Weasel ends the feedback loop, dropping to the floor exhausted.

When all the attacks have ceased, the Huntress opens up with her alien medical device, including herself in the effect. Not being wounded, but being somewhat upset, the Huntress and the woman find themselves feeling no pain.

[The players didn’t roll so well here. Rolfe and Sarah both rolled 1’s on the d12 and Devon rolled poorly as well. Fortunately, the way I’ve got the multiplayer combat running someone is bound to score a victory. In this case it was Morko and the Huntress favoring the let’s talk to her approach. With only 2 of the 7 winning the round I had primary narration rights. In theory I could damage anyone that lost the roll but figured that the player’s that went for non-confrontation were basically fine. Given their actions the Weasel was exhausted and Dung Beetle was just blasted with pain.]

Unharmed, but calmer and slightly sedated the woman starts petting the cat and answering questions.

Morko asks who caused all of this and the woman points to the other woman twitching on the ground. Morko examines her for wickedness and finds that she’s selfish and arrogant and a really poor customer, but not particularly evil.

Don knocks the Dung Beetle out to spare him the pain and everyone else the screaming.

Whale-Watcher takes the woman aside and tries to keep her calm and feeds her M & M’s.

Dissatisfied with the lack of wickedness and having failed to scare the woman before, Marko figures that it’s time to use psychology. The woman’s greatest fear is being in a coma. So Marko repeatedly hints that she will probably relapse.

This works well and causes the woman to panic. Her powers send Whale-Watcher and the kitten into comas. Morko can’t really go into a coma, and so is fine.

Worried that the fight will start again, the Weasel tries to wall the woman off with a dancing wall of pants.

This only sends the woman further into panic mode and waves of fear come rushing off of her.

Morko finds this warm and refreshing, while the Huntress is still on the good drugs and Veronica is out of range. However, Don and the Weasel are hit by full blown terror. The Weasel ends up in his apartment under a pile of pants. Don turns into an eagle and flies away.

Interestingly, Morko just decides to leave and takes the Huntress with him.

[That should probably have been another combat but we had to catch the bus so I just winged it off of the results for the last combat.]

This leaves only Veronica and the woman in the mall and conscious. Veronica takes on human shape and goes and talks to the woman.

The woman says that her name is Caroline Hews and that she really regrets getting her old job at the mall back. She never really liked the job, and then that customer showed up.

“She’s always buying things and then returning them with some lame excuse. Like ‘It doesn’t fit.’ We sell jewelry. How does that even make sense?”

So, Veronica and Caroline sit and talk and eat M & M’s on a bench in the ruins of the mall between the unconscious bodies of Whale-Watcher and Dung Beetle while the annoying customer twitches on the floor. Outside, police cars pour onto the scene surrounding the mall, while police and news helicopters fly in from above.

Issue 3

Casing the Joint

After regrouping to share what Veronica found, the group splits up. Most people go home. Veronica heads back to the lab and the Dung Beetle goes to his booth at the garden show.

Morko, also known as the Boogieman, has recently set up shop as a psychologist in Harbor City. At night he scares wicked people, in theory to try to cure them of their wickedness. He notices that some weird things have been going on and that Whale-Watcher is involved. It takes little time to find out her real name as she doesn’t try to hide it, and he looks up her address in the phone book.

The Boogieman shows up on Whale-Watcher’s doorstep and knocks. She is somewhat reluctant to let him in as he is just disturbing. She finally does and Morko asks her about the strange goings on. She tries to pass him off onto the Dung Beetle, giving Morko the Beetle’s cell number. Morko sticks around awhile longer because he knows that it freaks her out.

The garden show has an outdoor area in the sports stadium. As people are packing things up for the night at the garden show, suddenly the people and equipment on the field part like the Red Sea and start getting pushed towards each end. People start fleeing and the Beetle calls the other heroes.

As an experiment, the Beetle rolls two of his huge balls of dung up towards the wall of oncoming stuff and then has it leap over the wall into the open space in the middle. Suddenly, all of the stuff stops moving.

[The kid was clearing the field to play soccer with the action figures. But when dung balls got thrown towards his face he lost interest and wandered off.]

The Beetle forms the dung into giant letters on the field asking “Who are you?”

The others arrive. Whale-Watcher talks to some fish in a display, but they don’t know anything. The Beetle convinces Veronica to make herself look like a G.I. Joe doll. The Weasel immobilizes the pants of the one guy whose leg was broken in the chaos. The Beetle turns dung into drums and commits horrible crimes against music.

Despite the various attempts to contact the kid, nothing happens.

[The G.I. Joe was brilliant, but the kid had already been driven off by dung so didn’t see it.]

Don decides to gather people into a shamanic ritual and does so. Whale-Watcher doesn’t join and instead helps people salvage their displays and tries to figure out how much force would be needed for this, turns out to be that of several bulldozers.

It takes awhile but the ritual succeeds bringing them into contact with the boy. Well, except for the Boogieman, who is looking for wickedness. Morko gets lost in the spirit world and goes about giving people horrible dreams for minor offenses like late library books. Many people around Harbor City get a terrible night’s sleep.

The conversation with the boy is short as he seems to be asleep, rather than dreaming, and Dung Beetle promises him cookies if he wakes up. He wakes up and this destroys the connection.

The team mostly packs it in for the night. Whale-Watcher figures out which reporter wrote the story on the kid coming out of a coma and decides to call the reporter tomorrow. She also orders some gear with the local team logo, The Seahorses, some M and M’s, an inflatable raft, and a screwdriver.  The Huntress spends most of the night researching the doctors at the coma ward and their publications. She finds nothing unusual but does find that there are three of them, a senior physician and two younger ones. She sends an email to one of the younger ones, Dr. Pandora Case, saying that something is odd with the former coma patients and that they need to talk but gets a bounce back saying that Dr. Case is on vacation. Huntress sends the email to the other young doctor, but at 4 am gets no immediate reply. Morko goes out and gives people bad dreams.

[Devon actually looked up Mariner's merchandise to see what you can get with a team logo on it.  Another benny worthy idea in a game with no beenies.]

The next day, Whale-Watcher calls the reporter and sets up a meeting at a bar.

Veronica goes down to the TV station and sorts the dream pictures that kids have sent in, mostly by taste.

The Huntress gets a reply from the doctor saying that all of the patients that woke up where patients of Dr. Case. Dr. Case’s vacation also seems to have been very sudden. The Huntress goes and examines Dr. Case’s house, but doesn’t go in and doesn’t find anything unusual.

Whale-Watcher lets slip at her meeting that something might actually be interesting about the coma patients. In exchange for the lead, the reporter leaves his notebook with the boy’s address on the table as he goes and gets drinks.

Everyone meets up at the TV station. Morko has found four kids whose dreams show that they are wicked and need his special “help”. Veronica has found a picture that is very likely to be from the kid. Whale-Watcher confirms that it is the kid that was in a coma. The Dung Beetle figures that the easiest way to talk to the kid is to simply go through with the “spend a day with a hero” prize.

After some discussion some of the team goes to watch the boy’s house. Don turns into a vine, Veronica blends into the grass, and Morko hides under the bed. Morko is sadly disappointed that no one in the house is particularly wicked.

[I had been worried that Morko would give the kid with super powered dreams nightmares. That would have ended very poorly.]

The next day is Friday and people decide to wait for Saturday to talk to the kid.

A new super is interviewed on TV. He just gained his amazing jumping powers last night, and now he is the Leaper!! He’s asked to demonstrate them, and leaps a fairly normal distance. He says that the powers are new and that maybe they only work at night.

Most of the team goes to check out Dr. Case’s house. Whale-Watcher wants nothing to do with breaking and entering and Don stays as a vine to watch the kid’s house. Using her camouflage and ability to fit through small holes, Veronica breaks in. She finds a security system, but doesn’t know how to shut it off. Slithering around low to the ground doesn’t seem to trigger the alarm so she searches the house.

She finds that Dr. Case may have taken some clothes, but not many, did take her toothbrush and the like, and that the computer and all of Dr. Case’s papers are missing from the study. Veronica tastes that two other people helped Dr. Case clear out the study, but not the bathroom or the closet.

[I completely forgot about this, but Veronica would have tasted it slithering about.]

Whale-Watcher is watching the news and catches a story about a disturbance at the Harbor City Mall. She heads over there and calls the Trouser Weasel to hop into the pants he gave her. He does so and they both drive up to the mall only to see six police cars in the parking lot, running civilians and a dozen cops with drawn guns heading into the mall.