Murder of Crowes (actual play)

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Because it came up in Facebook, and because James doesn't have it tagged as ICONS...

• James' writeup of our original edition essay at The Murder of Crowes is here
• My notes on the same evening copied from LiveJournal and made to live here.

Last night, the regular GM was not feeling well, so I filled in with Icons. I used the "Murder of Crowes" adventure, with some things added. Everyone played the characters they had rolled up the last session or before, so I think they're happy with them, more or less.

I'm sure James will do (has done) a write-up, but here are some things for me (as GM) to remember, if we do this again. I'm going to try not to repeat James or the original module.

It's mid-July, and the local RCMP call in the heroes to deal with a murder in a small town. The town is so small there is no Tim Horton's; that's towns away. The autopsy is about to happen at the local funeral home.

Mighty Absorbo "flies" by turning into air, or (when available) helium. He wafts where he wants to go; this won't work if the wind is blowing in the wrong direction.

We didn't name the town, so for records it's the (fictional) town of Little Anglia, by the French Road. The town has a mine—the father of the murdered boy worked there as a mechanic—and a dairy farm.

• Because it's important to Weather Witch: To get the local (barely adequate) coffee, you go to Flo's Diner.
• The murdered boy (Jacob Crowes) liked engineering and building (non-super-sciencey) gadgets. He was planning to study engineering at Dalhousie, if he was accepted.
• He had one friend—or at least one person he was close to—named Cheryl Elicott.
• The Mighty Absorbo calls the group's white panel van The Mole Van.
• From looking at James' writeup, Scorcher was sent to jail, and Mighty Absorbo was dating Princess at the end of last session. In backstory we don't have to belabour, I assume that the Princess thing didn't work out. The Clique are probably being held on what, property damage and forcible confinement? And Scorcher's brother and father have powers so presumably they have money—supervillains is the idea that comes to mind, but maybe they're heroes or Just Working Stiffs. Scorcher could easily be out on bail with a "recognized superhero" to keep her out of trouble.
• Scorcher also has a ranged fire attack now; as originally written, she didn't. Her brother and her father can fly, and she's quite put out that she didn't get the flying power. "No, turn into flame. That's all. And burn stuff. And then you know what I do? I walk away. Because I can't fly!" (No, she never said it. But that's in character.)
• In my mind, The Laughing Skull's son pawned the Ruby of Antiquity to pay for the retirement home, but that's not canon because no one talked about it.
• Mr. Mystic died in 1979; he retired in 1965, and was shot while taking his granddaughter out for a stroll. Closed by the police, who figured it was an old enemy with a grudge.
• No word on who the current mystic master of North America is. (If any; it just now occurs to me that maybe the whole idea of a mystic master for the continent might be based on a mistranslation or something.)
• The three bullies were Tommy Grinaldi (shoe size 11), Frank Cheshire (shoe size 7), and Dan McIntyre (shoe size 12). (This is important because Streamline tracked them by shoeprints.)
• No one checked to see if any of the cows were super, but the secret is the farm had only one cow in 1969, with duplication, and now they apparently have 48 cows; the chickens and pigs are unaffected.
• The Evil Eagle was looking for Mole-Man—but it turned out to tell him that he, EE, had taken a job out over on the mainland, out west, so he couldn't be an arch-nemesis any more. He'd put out the call, but got no takers for a replacement. (But it leaves me free for anyone else to claim to be the Evil Eagle. Not looking at MA's sister's ghost, not at all.
• Everybody got +1 starting Determination

A Christmas Idea (set up for ICONS)

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I'm trying to sell this to my kids. (Who are both over 20 but I'll try to get them to sit down for a couple of hours and indulge their old possibly-soon-to-be-senile father.)

• Santa Claus is a corporate commercial stooge. The Spirit of Christmas is a totally different thing.
• Just to make it more racially insensitive and as a nod to my family's Dutch heritage, Svarte Piet will be his right-hand man.
• For reasons of climate change, Santa's workshop has been moved from the North Pole to China.
• The twelve signs of the zodiac, the twelve labours of Herakles...we have the twelve days of Christmas. There are twelve rituals that have to be carried out, and then the New Year will lose its power, the Old Year will retain control, and it will be Commercial Christmas forever!

Our heroes have themselves, a tiny bit of magic from the baby New Year (once January 1st comes around), and the assistance of the Krampus, who in my version is really the Grinch, regardless of what the actual legends say.

I'm figuring that we start on January 2, the tenth day of Christmas. I might shift this around a bit, with the whole thing coming to a climax on December 31 instead and the first couple of rituals being done undetected before Christmas. Haven't decided yet.

We start in medias res and have what seem like innocent children latch onto a hero (possibly at a shopping mall appearance) and they. Will. Not. Let. Go. Binding and cumulative Stunning, I think.

Department store Santas, the minions (mind-controlled through the costume) by Evil Santa.

From there, we have the Person Who Explains, who delivers the narrative dump. (Have to play by ear whether the kids want the PWE to just drop the narrative Yule log and or be part of it.)

It's possible that everything will be explained by the Krampus, who might well be attacked in true comic book fashion because he looks like a bad guy.

From there, we try to stop the second-last ritual. Probably it'll be something to do with eleven pipers piping, which makes me think of Azathoth and the demon pipers around him. Things will be stacked against them, but if they win, hey, great. Not gonna force it to go to another scene...

And then we'll deal with Aaron, the twelfth drummer, who is also the Little Drummer Boy.

I know, it's vague, but I have to get buy-in from them first.

Notes to NPCs

Not character writeups, no.

Santa Claus

Well, he can mind-control anyone in a Santa suit. He probably has control over Coca-Cola in some way (because of the rumours that red and white are Santa's colours because they're Coke's colours). The canonical Santa can get into buildings, which is probably alternate form (fluid) for oozing down the chimney or whatever else there is. Time Control, with Duplication and Teleport as the main effects.

Flying Reindeer

Either a gadget of Santa or actual foes, depending on what I need. If a foe, they can do damage with head-butting (Slash damage from the antlers) or kicking. Have to do something gross with Rudolph's nose....perhaps it penetrates all obscurity, which is why it has been cut off and mounted on the end of a flashlight (which can also do bashing damage). Rudolph appears but with a mechanical muzzle...kind of a reindeer version of the James Bond villain Jaws.

Svarte Piet

Shunned by modern society, equipped with coal, what else can he do but throw in with Santa?

I'm a little unclear on his actual abilities, but let's say he can transform anything that you don't possess into coal. So to protect something, you have to claim it.

Old Year

(I could get really bitter and cynical here, but I'm going to try to avoid that.)

Old man with a scythe is the imagery. The old year is death, is going to death? Will get the new year's health — for him/it this is a straight immortality tale, so maybe he's avoiding the skeleton with the scythe. I just re-watched the JLU episode "This Little Piggy" so maybe there's some Charon imagery I can work in?

Idea: The Von Neumann Problem

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(at least the character write-up is)

I have no idea if this would make an interesting scenario, but here we go...

An alien space probe lands on a remote island. Its entrance into the atmosphere does not go unnotices, and our heroes are notified.

The space probe is a Von Neumann machine: it uses the available material to create copies of itself, which it then sends out to build more copies. Theoretically, it should stop when it has analyzed sufficient resources, but the meaning of the term "sufficient" is vague. One of the "top men" involved suspects that the probe will stop after it has a probe in each environment on earth, so that's actually a lot of probes.

When not busy defending itself, it builds one new probe every fifteen minutes. When busy defending itself, it takes thirty minutes to build a new probe (it uses one of the Fast Attack movements from Extra Limbs to do so).

The density (and Density) is less while it is being built; clever players could do something then.

If the players arrive after the first one is built, then they have to get rid of two. Or four. Or...

The probe has a vast library of devices that it can make prominent on the copies: because there are no useful radioactive materials on the landing island, the initial copies are solar. If there is an enforced absence of light (a day or two), new probes will be geothermal, or wind-powered, or tidal...whatever works.

I've used Transmutation here to reflect its nanites disintegrating something nearby and reconstructing it into something else. Yes, realistically the probe should have Adaptation and Gadgets but instead I've subsumed them under the "Alien probe" quality.

It's a challenge. I just don't know if it would be an interesting challenge.

Neumann (No secret ID...he's an alien space probe) — Artificial

PRW	CRD	STR	INT	AWE	WIL	STA
5	4	8	5	4	10	18
Specialties		Military (+1)
Powers:		Supreme (10) Life Support (everything) Amazing (8) Density (Innate) Supreme (10) Transmutation Limit: Source Extra: Analysis Good (5) Super-Senses (IR, UV, X-ray, tactile, one to be named as needed) Amazing (8) Extra limbs (arms)
Qualities:		Alien probe that uses the local resources to analyze and reproduce In light and resources, can reproduce every 15 minutes Reservoir of gadgets to make

"Analysis" is an extra I just made up whereby the probe can touch something as if to restructure it and discovers its chemical compound. Arguably it already has that because it does transmutation.

Random characters

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Here, have a random character while I test a generator (This is an old character; I wrote an unsuccessful story about her.).

Armageddon Grrl (Erzebet "Becky" Florica) — Transformed

PRW	CRD	STR	INT	AWR	WIL	DP	STAMINA
4	3	8	3	5	4	2	12
Specialties		Business (+1) Leadership (+1)
Powers		Amazing (8) Force Field Limit Constant Good (5) Life Support breathing, vacuum, cold, heat, pressure Good (5) Leaping
Qualities		Shy Can't really feel because of force field but wants to Mistress of collateral damage

Scuttlefish (Dana Dear) — Gimmick

PRW	CRD	STR	INT	AWR	WIL	DP	STAMINA
6	4	3	5	4	7	*	10
Specialties		Leadership (+1) Power: tentacle harness (+1)
Powers		Alien harness: Good (5) Extra Body Parts (Tentacles) Great (6) Telepathy Extra: Psychic Weapon Limit: Duration Extra: Energy Drain Fair (4) Mental Resistance
Qualities		There is no one else like me A sudden & expected betrayal Artifact of power and mystery

The Limbo Tavern

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So here's an idea I had this morning, thinking about structures for campaigns (specifically episodic campaigns).

The players have found their way into the Limbo Tavern, at a kind of nexus of dimensions. The tavern is large, with six hundred people in it, plus a number of employees. It is surrounded by the Mist (for them as likes capitalized nouns). There is day and night, but they are not equal length.

The tavern has become a kind of community. There are staff and guests, but the line is sometimes blurred; a more accurate way to say it is there are Stayers and Leavers. Those who stay have made their peace with the tavern and its stay there. Those who leave have not, but often find they have journeyed back someplace else. Those people often try to return to their home worlds.

The idea is to provide a place for player characters to congregate and to leave from, while giving them a place to return.

(Quite literally, this is "you meet in a tavern.")

To get to the tavern from a magical realm, you must be in fog and walk through a doorway. There are probably other requirements but they can be fulfilled accidentally, for that is how many people get there.

To get to the tavern from a scientific realm, you need a transdimensional portal but the power level must be set to a specific level and the destination must be set to the equivalent of "here," whatever that is.

The Population

Stayers are called "Tavvies" internally. Leavers are trans or transients or (and this is an insult among Tavvies) "customers." (If a Tavvie accedes to your request but says, "The customer is always right," you have been gravely insulted.)

The Mist is a dimensional portal, but the destination changes. You can't be sure of where or when you're going. Because some people go and come back, there has slowly developed a kind of folk wisdom about the Mist. It might or might not be true. (See Leaving the Tavern for details.)

The Limbo Tavern holds 600 people. Something enforces that rule: If there are 599 people, a pair cannot arrive, not until someone leaves. By tradition, the number of Tavvies is capped at 50.

There are good things about being in the Tavern: You don't age (though you can die by violence or wounds, but not by disease). If you don't ask what you're eating, your original payment covers it. Both magic and technology work, within limits. Time-based curses (such as lycanthropy) have no effect.

There are bad things: They take all your money. They're very good at quelling anything beyond a bar fight (the Tavern has been taken over and ruled by despots in the past).

Leaving the Tavern

Where you end up depends on when you arrived in the "day."

• Leave earlier, arrive in someplace like your past
• Leave later, arrive in someplace like your future
• Leave by the "east" exits and arrive in a place where science holds sway
• Leave by the "west" exits and arrive in a place where magic holds sway
• Leave by "north" or "south" exits and both are true

The directions are in quotation marks because anyone with a bump of direction has a constant irritation. It's like the whole north-east-west-south thing is imposed by the structure of the building.

Are these things true? Don't know. The Tavvies think they are.

More—like characters and dynamics and how do they get their food and ale?—when I think of it.