The team has accepted a mission from the One Church... to recover a kidnapped senior member of the church. This being Gamma World, the kidnapped Pator Kirby was a clockwork simulacra, a one meter tall replica of a human head imbued with Synthetic Intelligence. Apparently, it was kidnapped by somewhat dilapidated cyborgs, members of the Cryptic Alliance known as the Followers of the Voice (who worship all extant examples of Artificial Intelligence as minor deities in their own right).
Hearing that at least one group of cyborg bandits was based out of the radioactive Deathlands to the north of Lex's Town, the team races to the area to investigate. Caught out by a lack of supplies, or detailed information where to look, our hapless heroes careen from one minor incident to another, until they discover a fortified stronghold in the Brawl Deathlands (one of three such strongholds in the area, apparently). They cautiously approach, hoping to confirm the presence of cyborgs (or to barter for information on where they can be found).
Unfortunately, the humanoids maintaining the ancient recycling center are sensibly protected by heavy Wastelander armor (which protects against Nuclear, Biological, or Chemical contamination), obscuring any cybernetic enhancements they might possess. None of the leading questions the team asks inadvertently trips up the spokesman they meet with into revealing where the cyborgs are located, although they do learn a few more background details about the area).
Charting a "safe" shortcut through the boundaries of two Deathlands, the team returns to Lex's Town to gather more intelligence (and possibly assistance... the fortifications at the stronghold they did find were disturbingly thorough). Asking about among the busy mercenary community in Lex's Town reveals a powerful new faction active in the town, the mercenary company known as Paladin is recruiting. The local head of operations, Charlemagne D, is only too happy to sign the team up for one year contracts, in exchange for information and assistance. Just what exacty that assistance consists of will be revealed next game session...

"Say what you like about the tenets of national socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos."


Drawing on new evidence, the author, Emmanuel Faye, argues fascist and racist ideas are so woven into the fabric of Heidegger’s theories that they no longer deserve to be called philosophy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/books/09philosophy.html?hpw

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/philosophy

Gamma World eventually (5th Ed.) had livestock prices. Helpful for the four creatures available as mounts, because the first four editions listed prices for bicycles and canoes, but not for riding animals (although each of the animals that can be ridden have vastly different environmental requirements).

So I'm adding lopers. One part velociraptor, one part turkey, one part camel, three parts bad attitude.

Which got me to thinking about animals domesticated for food. And pack animals. Originally I was going to be asking the studio audience for animals that start or end with "ad". But then I remembered this.

Add in a dash of transgenic hysteria, and whammo. Eight legged goats the size of a small bull that are at a competitive advantage in mountains, eat anything and shoot webbing out both ends (and razor sharp horns that slice right through it like butter).

Day 20 – Day 39

The team (including Friday Jones Junior) returns to Conkur to take a break from the bleak oppressiveness of Lex’s Town. They’re ambushed along the main trade route, but as they had taken the precaution of travelling with a caravan of (armed) merchants, manage to repel the bandit assault without too much damage. Arriving back in Conkur at the battered building George had purchased, they spend some time recuperating from their wounds, investigating the new technology they had discovered (psi-blades and forcebelts and vibroaxes, oh my), and working with local experts to train up some skills grown dusty with disuse. Midway through this time, Knobs returns from his personal business in Lex’s Town, and volunteers to help with the next team objective, recovering the Head of Kirby.
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1) Podogs. Giant (horse sized) dogs. Natural mimics, they can reproduce any sound they hear (include sound based mutations & attacks). As smart as a man. Or at least a Nu-man.
Do not posses a language of their own, nor is any mention made of them being able to learn one. Wha?

2) Pure Strain Humans. Normal People (technically neither, but you couldn't tell from looking). Mutated Humanoids. Several generations deep of humans "evolved" by a preponderance of mutagens, posessing physical and mental mutations. Mutated Animals. Even more generations deep of atificallly evolved non humans(intentionally or otherwise) with a short natural lifespan - possess physical and mental mutations, and are only rarely bipedal (as a matter of course).

Mutated Plants. Not currently in *my* game, faithful to the first few generations of Gamma World source material, later removed when androids became a playable race. Bug the shit out of me, generally.

That being said, I can see uplifted animal / plant hybrids as a Tech Level V aberration (mostly bipedal / sentient / limited tool using). And once that happens, a bajillion cross ferilized varieties. Essentially, Ents (well, more like woodwives). But what to call them? "Mutated Plants" is way, way too general for what I'm talking about (and there are a huge variety of mutated plants that aren't sentient at all). Wose? Green Men is already taken (low tech humans with a chorophyll producing dermis). Treemen (Drumen)? Planimals? Drood? Sylves? Virindi? Wealder? Arborn? Botanopeds? Lignigen?


Makes my brain itch. Suggestions welcome (aside from "scratch")

Whoa.

Foam bats to rattan swords to this. Makes sense to me. I mean, what's better than heavy list fighting where the other guy is kitted out... and you get a jumpsuit?

Madre de dios.

(Courtesy of my textbook editing side project)

No cut, because it's short.

I
volta spent some time discovering how the radiation sickness rules worked. Then the "advanced radiation sickness" rules. Verdict: radiation sickness sucks.

II
A grossly unfair and surprising ambush by a party of Red Death raiders on the caravan the team was travelling with. Pound for pound, the most deadly mutation isn't "Death Field Generation", or "Gamma Eye", or "Hands of Power". Nope. It's either "Quills", or whatever clockwrk has that makes his dice roll like that. *wince*

Seriously. Repeat of how he lost two characters ago. Possibly the last character, too. Ambush (that he detects with an "OWIE!"). High Stun hit to the head sends him reeling or unconscious. Follow up shot takes him out of the combat.

III
mtspace discovered that the high tech prybar he found in the Hazmat storage facility actually is an emergency extraction tool that basically includes lightsaber functionality. Much discussion of weapon upgrade paths was had. volta not only figured out that the high tech gauntlet he had was a psychic scalpel, but how to use it in combat.

IV
The team decided to put the Grendel mission on hold, and go look for the missing robotic head of Kirby. Thank you, Warren Ellis.

Good times. Still room for one more player that wants to join who's free on most Sundays. I'm just saying.

This is the story Queequeg tells you:
“I was part of an expeditionary team with the Imperial Foreign Legion, 13th Demi-Brigade*, out of Metaltown. We were scouting underground passageways that avoided the Winfell and Malverford Deathlands. Our Section was a mixture of Mutts and Muties, under Lieutenant Rembeau. We heard the sound of battle across a vast underground chasm. Hurrying across on a makeshift bridge, we arrived on a scene of carnage. Blackpowder and projectile weapons lie strewn across the battlefield, along with dozens of pilgrim bodies that looked to have been run through a meat grinder.”( Read more... )

Day 18 (Late Evening)

Having rejoined Ken in room B, the team reshuffles the loot amongst various backpacks and sacks (having avoided another chemical shower on the return trip). Back in the shaft access room (A), George tries bypassing the electronic locks on the blast door exiting north with his security systems training, but fails. He starts again in with a more thorough effort, this time expecting to take an hour in the attempt. Bored, Ken covers the pit with his autopistols as Jacob scrambles back down the rope to investigate the curious new glow from the access shaft. Jacob finds shiny new forcefields (non destructive ray/particle shields, more specifically) sealing off access to chambers #2 and #4. His technical skills exhausted, Jacob climbs back up to the shaft access room.
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"Get'em, Francis!"

Part TWO
Day 18 (Early Evening)
Making the most of the 15 meters of rope available to him, Jacob scrambles to the top of the shaft (after one or two hair raising slips), and manages to pull / assist George, Ken, and their assembled gear (save the containers liberated from various storage chambers) to the heavy machinery room that sits atop the elevator shaft. A square ten meters wide (and five tall), there is plenty of space to move around in, even considering the machinery and the 5 meter diameter shaft in the center of the room.( Read more... )

Day 18 (Morning)
After a day of rest and recovery, George, Jacob, and Ken discuss tactics and plans to raid the Obb nest. Hopefully this will net the group the Hydrogen Cells Queequeg is asking for in exchange for his knowledge about Grendel. Knobs is off on a bit of personal business to the north of town, but should only be gone for a day or two. Eventually, George suggests that Jacob stays in the rear (his homicidal rage being triggered by the presence of mutated plants), and George and Ken will lure the Obb in to melee range with their firearms. Everyone also picks up a reserve light source from local traders, having been trapped in the dark one time too many previously. Jacob and Ken will be carrying lanterns in their off hand, while George will keep his hands free for his shotgun/flamethrower combo. ( Read more... )

Zoom
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The ladder extends downwards for ten meters( Read more... )

later..

Both have typical Morlock bodies, although on a slighter scale… a stooped, skinless humanoid frame slathered with muscle and tendon and talons over flexible cartilage.( Read more... )

No, not literally. And no, I'm not talking about the Great Grape-Nuts/Honeycomb wars of 2018.

Maybe you saw my recent post, full of mappity goodness. Maybe you ignore everything with the gaming tag (which is why this doesn't have one). In either case, it's come to my attention that taking towns you know and wreaking unconscionable puns on their names can be a lot of fun for people. Even that don't game.

For instance, 250 years from now, Cambridge and Somerville is a smoking radiactive ruin called "Camberville". Concord is home to two competing idealogies, one led by militaristic psychic death mutants (called Thought Masters, who live in a vast fortified complex), one a bunch of granola eating hippies with a mastery of technologies... both live in an area known as "Conkur".'

See? That was easy. Possibly, the less said about what I did to Salisbury Plain and Quincy, the better.

Anyway, if you want to play the name game, about half the game area still needs names.. specifically the areas in about a 35 mile radius* from Lowell (Lull), Worcester (Wusta), and, uhm, Fitchburg* (those damned maniacs nuked Fitchburg!). Comment away!

Winners get their choice of being immortalized*** in the town writeups of citizens of great note, or a promise that they never will.
:)

(*Feel free to refer to the previous mentioned maps. Or not!
** Unconfirmed reports put Chief Whalom, and his pack of Moreau Wolf-Men on their mechanical Flying Comets, somewhere nearby.
*** That reminds me, I need cyborg popsicle Ted Williams)

Updates, still WIP
(it might take a while... the current explorations of the team consist of an area about 15 km wide and 20 km tall, with maybe twice that in "off camera" action)
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EDIT:
Well, damn if that didn't motivate me to make a bunch more updates. Thanks, adyan.

Also, using "fire" for radiation still bugs me, which is why I used white and green on a more recent area map, and was pretty happy with the results, even if I do want breakfast every time I see it. Everybody sticking with their answers from http://sweetbaboo.livejournal.com/629619.html ?

Black Ray Pistol: Killing Attack - Ranged 4d6, Area Of Effect Accurate (One Hex; +1/2), No Range Modifier (+1/2), Continuous (+1), No Normal Defense (Forcefields; +1), Does BODY (+1) (300 Active Points); EGO Minimum 15 (Min. Cannot Add/Subtract Damage; -1 1/4), OAF (-1), -2 Decreased STUN Multiplier (-1/2), Conditional Power only Organic Targets (-1/2), 4 Continuing Charges lasting 1 Minute each (-1/4), Limited Range (20"; -1/4), Real Weapon (-1/4)
Notes: This looks like a clear plastic gunstock holding a black crystal, 10-cm lozenge. When fired at an organic target, it causes massive damage. Its effect is entirely negated by a force field, and it has no effect on inorganic targets. Each lozenge only holds enough energy for four shots, then it turns clear.

Ahhhhh. I feel much better now. It's OK if the above is pig latin. Just know that I'm being cheap, and self satisfied.

Poll #1448206
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 23

Still reading my LJ?

Honest question, if somebody knows the answer, feel free to pipe in...

Why doesn't the president just lower the minimum age of medicare? Even if that takes an act of Congress, it's still not the new legislation/fillibuster act of congress numbers. Right?

Zombie Ted Kennedy would even show up for that vote, I should think.

Day 15, Evening
A weary team helps a battered Friday Jones out of the subterranean tunnels beneath Lex’s Town. Discussing what to do next, they stop at a shisha bar for a Kaf and a smoke. They run into Ken Brimm (who Jacob has worked with before), and include him in the deliberations. In the end, they decide to stick with the Grendel mission of the Chamberlain’s, if they can get some more help in the increasingly dangerous underground (and obtain the permission to brief everybody fully… only Jacob and Ken have the mission details, and Ken hasn’t revealed to Jacob that he’s not supposed to know.
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