Giant Eagles (Improv Roleplaying 101)

Tonight's Mutant Future session went off in a totally unexpected direction.  I ended up having to improvise the entire time, and the players loved it.  I would not be surprised if it was one of their favorite sessions to date.  Last session, Bark, the smaller of the two shapeshifting plants, had managed to swipe an "iron man" suit (as they call the light powered armor suits used by the special operatives of the Knights of Genetic Purity) from under the noses of the knights in very dramatic fashion.

Near death by the time he had the suit, he hurriedly got inside it and had Dataan the robot walk him through the start up procedure (Dataan had been studying a mangled suit that the party took from Richard Tater in an earlier adventure, and had a pretty good idea of how they worked).  Bark took off and managed to fly for about a mile over the wooded south hills before losing control of the suit and spiraling into the ground for a high speed crash landing.  The rest of the party managed to get to him and salvage the suit before the knights caught up, and after replacing a few damaged components from the junked suit they already had, they ended up with a fully functioning suit.

This session, after a bunch of tech rolls to finish repairing the suit and to fully understand how it worked (aided by the fact that Irons, a synthetic robot party member, had downloaded the entire operating system of the suit into his hard drive and had been conducting flight simulations in his positronic brain), the party was looking for a good place to test drive the suit.  They asked Dae Brak,the wise Badder shaman, if there was someplace relatively flat, free of obstacles and safe nearby.  Drivers, start your improv engines!

He directed them to a series of open, grassy meadows in a valley just to the south in the hills overlooking the swamp (thanks, Google terrain maps!).  He said that while large predators avoided the meadows, he warned the party that this was because giant eagles often circled overhead looking for prey; lacking a better alternative, the party decided it was worth the risk.  Most of the group accompanied Bozko in the hovercraft to the meadows, while the deaf giant Kunta Kinte, Natas the goatman and Monkey Boy stayed with Dae Brak and learned more about the herbal healing arts that Dae Brak had used to treat some of Bark's serious injuries.

Bozko had designated himself as the suit operator and Natas had used his Density Alteration, Other mutation to shrink Bozko enough to fit in the powered armor before they left.  Irons had by this time fully assimilated the entirety of the suit's capabilities due to the extensive simulations he ran after downloading the suit's operating system, and directed Bozko through the basics of flight (Irons has four arms so he could not simply fly the suit himself).  After some trial and error, Bozko got the hang of it and started experimenting with the suit's offensive abilities.  Not wanting to waste any of its mini-missiles, he started with the repulsor beams that provided both propulsion and offense.  He was soon shooting rocks out of the air that his comrades were throwing up for him, and eventually he was dodging rocks hurled directly at him.  Finally, he worked up the courage to push the limits of the suit.  He flew about a mile away from the meadow, turned, and accelerated to top speed as he flew back.  He broke the sound barrier almost immediately and a massive sonic boom rolled behind him, frightening the party members on the ground.  This noise also apparently got the attention of the giant eagles, because Beyonce's robotic dragonfly (circling high above the meadow on lookout patrol) soon spotted two shapes soaring from the ridge to the southeast.  While the rest of the party all piled in the hovercraft and retreated into the heavily wooded slopes of the hills, Bozko flew up over the meadow and eagerly awaited the arrival of the eagles.  He wanted to test the suit in a real combat situation, despite the protests of Beyonce that he might lose the party's new toy.

The giant eagles turned out to be truly gigantic.  70 foot wingspan gigantic.  As one soared in the thermal rising up from the sunny meadow, the second broke into a dive straight at Bozko.  At the last second, Bozko raked it with his repulsors - simultaneously, the eagle shrieked, a shrill, fierce cry that nearly stunned Bozko (he made his save, lucky for him and the powered suit).  The two solid hits with the repulsor beams knocked the eagle backwards in air and necessitated an ungainly struggle to regain its equilibrium.  While it was flapping and tumbling down, Bozko decided to try out the on-board targeting and locked on with a mini-missile.  He scored a direct hit, and the eagle tumbled awkwardly to the meadow, taking more damage as it crashed to the grass.  Despite all that, the eagle seemed to be by and large okay, physically, but it was quite shaken.  The second eagle was diving at Bozko from behind, but he had been warned of this by the party as they monitored the feed from the spiderbot attached to his back.  For some reason he decided to wait as if he hadn't seen it, planning to rocket straight up at the last second to let it harmlessly screech past below him.  As he was waiting for the last second and the eagle had a relatively large reach with its talons, I had Bozko roll a dexterity check to pull this maneuver off.  He failed miserably, and was raked by a large and razor sharp talon which easily pierced the suits force field and damaged Bozko as it indented a section of the chest as easily as you can squeeze an aluminum can.  Again, he got lucky as the eagle failed to hit with both talons which would have locked the suit into its iron grasp and almost certainly would have spelled doom for the plant shapeshifter.  Bozko flew up as fast as he could, again leaving a sonic boom behind him which stunned the eagle.  Thoroughly confused and angered, the two eagles beat a hasty retreat from the meadow and flew back towards the ridge from whence they came.

This is when the session really took a twist.  Beyonce announced to the group at large that she was following the eagles with the hovercraft.  Everyone else was horrified at this suggestion, but Beyonce had made up her mind that she wanted to find a giant eagle egg.  As soon as everyone heard this idea, the whole group was excitedly talking about raising and riding giant eagles.  Bark suggested that Beyonce simply follow the eagles with her dragonfly, and she realized this was a better idea than risking the hovercraft and the lives of the party.  Her robotic spy had no trouble tracking the eagles to their nest in a section of mutated Douglas Firs that dwarfed the redwoods of today and towered nearly 1000' feet into the sky.  The eagles paid no more mind to the dragonfly than they would any other minuscule insect, and Beyonce piloted it inside the nest (itself 100' tall, the product of generation after generation of eagles adding on layer after layer).  To her great disappointment, she found no eggs.  Two young fledglings squawked in the bottom of the nest, but she knew birds of that age would have already imprinted on their parents and it would be of no use to try to abduct them.

Searching the towering trees for other nests, she soon located two more.  In the interest of a good dramatic moment, I gave her a 25% chance that she would find eggs in the nest... and she used her once a session roll on the d30 instead of the percentile dice - success!  She found two eggs.  I decided that there was only a 10% chance that the third nest would contain eggs, and rolled myself - 8%, two more eggs!

Now the group started talking strategy in earnest, plotting the best method to rob eggs out from underneath the massive momma bird that was dutifully sitting on them.  Many ideas were tossed back and forth, but they all seemed fraught with peril.  Those birds could kill any member of the party in a single round, and they knew it.  And that is when Monkey Boy chimed in.  Monkey Boy is a mutant spider monkey, already only a foot and a half tall to start with, who has the Density Alteration, Self mutation that allows him to shrink to a further 1/8th his starting size.  He can fly and possesses the Possession mutation - after three rounds of physical contact with another being, he can take control over their body for as long as he remains in contact with them.  His proposal was simple - shrink down to his smallest size, fly straight up to one of the nesting eagles, burrow up under her feathers until he reached her skin, wait three rounds and seize control of her.  Then he could simply grab the eggs and fly away with them!  He executed this plan without a hitch, twice, and the party soon had four giant eagle eggs in the hovercraft.  Monkey Boy decided that he was just going to stay attached to the giant eagle for the foreseeable future, essentially getting to play as a creature with 257 HP and two talon attacks that do 5d20 damage.  Goddamn.  I did not see that coming when I jotted down a few quick stats for the eagles on the fly as they descended on Bozko in the meadow!

The party has now completely abandoned the other things they were trying to accomplish and are scouring the swamp for a safe place to hole up while they incubate the eggs, raise the hatchlings and teach them to fly with a rider.  It is truly interesting to see how one bit of improvised detail (the meadows in the valley and the giant eagles) has suddenly taken the entire campaign in a radically new direction.  I do not know if I have seen the players so excited as when they finally got the eggs into the hovercraft - it was a very rewarding moment, and the kind of thing that makes roleplaying games unique.  The ability of a human game master to roll with the punches and improvise will never be matched by a video game.  What I am most happy about is that my girlfriend, who plays Beyonce Chai, is now 100% invested in the game.  I think she has had fun (at least she claims so) in previous sessions, but I definitely got the feeling that she was mostly playing just because she wanted to be involved with something that I spent so much time on, and not because she was genuinely interested in the game itself.  But now that she has a giant eagle egg to mother, she could not be more excited.  During the car ride home she threatened me with real life harm if I killed her egg in game!  I should mention that my girlfriend volunteers at the Cascades Raptor Center here in Eugene and loves birds.  I could not have planned a better plot hook to immerse her in the game if I tried!

Sometimes running a roleplaying game is a truly magical thing.

(bird rider sketch lifted from this thread at enworld, artwork used without permission)

Mice in Mech Suits

A few weeks ago I found the Battletech Technical Read Out 3025 book at Smith Family book store for $5.  

I snapped it up and spent a while thinking about how to best introduce the bad ass mechs to my Mutant Future campaign.  I didn't really want to ramp the power level of my game up to the point that these mechs would take it, but I thought the book was too cool to just ignore.  And then I figured it out - Mice in Mech Suits.  The lowest levels underneath the Ooh-Oh Monks have been sealed off for centuries.  They are occupied by the mutated descendants of lab mice, who reprogrammed a robot manufacturing plant in the lower levels and created "giant" human sized mech suits that they roll around in.  These mice believe that all life in the outside world has been completely destroyed by the FDF7 virus.  The mice have formed what they call the Kingdom of the Pure, modeling their kingdom on a holy book that they found, an illustrated relic of the ancients.  The mice live by the code of chivalry that features prominently in the book, and are ruled by a king and a council of knights who sit at a round table.  Each of these knights has a unique mech suit named after the holy figures from the book.


As I mentioned in this prior post, the PCs observed a squad of warangutans blasting into a sub-sub-basement level far below the Ooh-Oh Monks, and after chasing the warangutans away, the PCs investigated the area that the warangutans were attempting to enter.  They came to a locked blast door with a video screen next to it - pressing a button below the screen caused it to flicker to life, and they were greeted by a startled looking mouse who introduced himself as Nicodemus the door guard.  

Nicodemus was astounded to be talking to living beings from the outside world, and refused to open the door.  Bozko tried to convince the mouse that his kingdom was in danger from the warangutans and Julius Corple, and explained that they were probably after the robot manufacturing plant (the PCs had learned of its existence and a little about the mice in a meeting with Flipsham Eggwar, the leader of the Ooh-Oh Monks).  Bozko asked for assistance in fighting the Warangutans and also inquired about the possibility of getting a mech suit for himself if he could supply the raw materials needed.  Nicodemus told Bozko to come back the next day after the king and his knights discussed what to do.


The next day, Nicodemus told the disappointed PCs that the king (Arthur, if you hadn't guessed) had decided that it was too risky to sortie out to meet the warangutans - the king was concerned that if he sent his knights out, the kingdom of the pure would be defenseless.  The dragons in the upper levels had been more active lately, and he felt that he could not risk making a move (the "dragons" referred to by the king are mutant, firebreathing winged cats that terrorize the mice).  Nicodemus said that the knights all favored going forth to meet the warangutans and win glory in battle, but the king had the final word.


At that point, someone interrupted Nicodemus off screen and a mostly inaudible conversation occurred between Nicodemus and the unknown intruder.  Shortly, a second mouse appeared and introduced himself as Jonathan, a Knight of the Round Table and the proud pilot of the Lancelot Mech.  He was disobeying the order of his king and was going to accompany the PCs in their quest to fight the evil war monkeys because he felt it was the honorable thing to do.  While he owed fealty to his lord King Arthur, he understood his chivalric duties to his kingdom to be even more important, and he felt that idly standing by while the Kingdom of the Pure was invaded by outsiders was unacceptable.


Here are the stats for Jonathan and the Lancelot Mech (inspired by the WSP-1A WASP mech from the Battletech Technical Readout):

Jonathan, Level 5 Mutant Mouse
(Mutant Mice are a new "species" of mutant animal that have a -4 penalty to STR, -4 to CON,+2 to WIL, +2 to DEX and have 1d4 beneficial mental mutations and the physical mutations Pituitary Deformation and Quickness):

HP:20
AC:9

STR:4
CON:6
DEX:15
INT:13
WIL:19
CHA:16

Mutations: Quickness, Pituitary Deformation, Combat Empathy, Force Screen, Quick Mind, Neural Telekinesis

Jonathan is the size of a large rat and wears a jedi-style cloak and tunic outfit.  He has an extremely fast mind and is a fearless combatant.  Even outside of his mech, he is far from helpless with his strong mental mutations and incredible willpower.  He fights with a vibro-dagger (+2 to hit, 1d4+6 damage) that is the size of a large sword to him.

Lancelot Mech:
HP:150 (head pod:35)
AC:1
Top Speed: 40 MPH (detachable head pod: flying, 100 MPH)
Jump: 60' in any direction
Force Field: Absorbs the first 30 damage each round
Weapons: 1 Twin Rack Mini Missile launcher (two shots per round, 20 missiles total, 7d6 damage, 30' radius explosion), arm-mounted "Lance" - either projects a laser torch "sword" or "lance" (4' long or 10' long) or shoots bursts of high intensity laser (all do 10d10 damage, the sword can be used to attack twice per round, the lance can only be used with a charge or jump attack and does double damage with only one attack per round, and the laser can only fire once per round before needing to recharge but has a nearly unlimited effective range, losing 1d10 damage for every two miles the laser burst travels)

The free hand can lift up to 2000 pounds.  The "head pod" that Jonathan rides in can detach from the suit and fly; the head pod itself is what generates the force field.  The suit can be remote controlled from the head pod but is without the protection of the force field while the head pod is detached.

As a rule, I don't normally have NPCs join the party under my control.  I made an exception in this case mostly because I am looking forward to seeing how the party deals with having a member who insists on following a strict code of conduct.  The party has been very opportunistic and at times have made some morally questionable decisions, to be charitable.  I am going to be reading up on the code of chivalry, and it will be interesting to see how far the party is willing to humor the noble knight to possibly win the backing of a powerful faction that has as of yet stayed out of the fray.

The Ooh-Oh Monks (Go Ducks!)

Now that my players have met the monks in game, I can reveal the "secret" information about them that I gave to the player of Dataan the robot before he joined the campaign.  I had told the players that if anyone wanted to play a robot, they had to keep that fact secret from the other players and let me know confidentially so that I could give them further instructions.  I did this because I had decided any robots in my campaign would be escapees from the Ooh-Oh Monks, and the monks tried to scare their robotic charges into obedience by filling their positronic brains with stories about how they would be melted down for their valuable metal components if they ever escaped and ran into the swamp dwellers.  I envisioned a cool roleplaying moment when the truth about the "human" in the party came out; I was picturing that scene in "Alien" when Ash is decapitated and the white milky fluid comes out.  

Unfortunately, it never really played out like that.  Dataan did eventually reveal his robotic nature to his comrades, but he had been able to feel out their opinions on the subject first and when he realized that they weren't about to deactivate him and scavenge parts from his body, he simply told them that he was a robot.  There was one good moment in an earlier session when a freaky mutant creature wielding a hedge trimmer got Dataan in the arm pretty good, and Dataan quickly ducked out of sight and bound his arm to prevent his metal bones from showing.  

Without further ado, here is the unedited text of the original player handout that I emailed to Dataan's player as he was making his character:

"Hey mister fucking Cyborg- here is the robot info I promised you (reading the general background I sent you and Jamey first might help). You were originally programmed as a laboratory assistant and have fulfilled that function for years in the sprawling underground labs that are jealously guarded by the Ooh-Oh Monks. You were one of dozens of robots serving the order, collectively known as the Bones of Ooh. You were created (X amount of years ago, your choice up to several hundred, but the older you are the more certain subsystems might be acting up/working differently than intended, feel free to go wild with that if you want to) by a vast computer known only as the T5 Mainframe. In addition to the T5's incredible computing power, its access to the archived information banks known to the monks as Intur Netz makes it an oracular figure to the monks. The monks worship Intur Netz as the god of knowledge; the core of their doctrine is - "Confess your impurities to Intur Netz and let the cool light of his wisdom guide your journey. Intur Netz the all seeing. Intur Netz the all knowing. Intur Netz the Alpha and the Omega." 

T5, as the interface between the monks and Intur Netz, is in a position of great power. However, the long years have warped the T5's programming and its behavior is often erratic, although the monks obey it unquestioningly. You, however, were far too logical to mindlessly obey some of its stranger requests and one particularly outlandish mission that you were instructed to undertake contradicted your basic programing to the point that you broke free of your programming constraints and fled out into the world an autonomous individual. The monks often talk about the horrible fate that would befall any technological artifact that ended up in Skinny Butt town; they maintain that it would be smelted down to recover the precious metal. Knowing that the last place in the world the monks would look for you would be Skinny Butt, you set off for the place, confident in your ability to pass yourself off as a human. When you arrived, you conveniently blended in with a flood of new arrivals fleeing persecution in Spanky Butt town. 

You read and write English, the language of the Ancients, as well as understanding binary code (which allows you to communicate with most computers). Of course, you also speak the common tongue of the day (as distantly related to English as modern English is related to 5^th century Old English).  You can have some means of interfacing directly with computers (a finger that flips back to reveal a probe that you insert into a slot in the computer, etc.) if you so desire. Your role as laboratory assistant familiarized you with some general technological concepts, such as power packs, outlet and broadcast power and basic menu navigation for items with screens. In game terms, this will grant you a 30% bonus to your technology roll and you may automatically know how to work certain items at my discretion. You can come up for yourself with your motivation for joining the party and seeking adventure. Also, feel free to modify any particulars in the background that I laid out above as long as the basic premise that you are a robot escaped from the Ooh-Oh Monks is maintained. If you want, you can come up with what sort of lab work you were involved in before, and have some degree of knowledge of the subject (the monks are particularly interested in how mutations occur/controlling them, the effects of radiation on living tissue, cybernetics, brain/computer interfacing, ancient weapons technologies and other such nonsense). 

I imagine that you are enjoying your new-found freedom and would be reluctant to return to the monks. If the party ends up visiting the monks you would probably try to disguise yourself in some way (but that is up to you, of course!) A few more things that you would know about the Ooh-Oh Monks - the monks are divided into two orders, the Radiant Order of the Oh and the Secret Order of the Ooh. You had the most contact with the Secret Order of the Ooh, as they are the only ones allowed in the sacred underground chambers where you spent most of your existence. The Oohs are mostly mutant humans with keen minds aided by mental mutations. The Oohs are ranked from lowest to highest as follows: Undergrade Studes (white), Grade Studes (pink), Master Proffus (brown), and Doco Proffus (gold), rank signified by the color of the tassel hanging from their odd diamond-shaped caps (tassel color denoted in parenthesis after each rank name). You have never met the leader of the order, his Magnificence the Dean Doco Proffus Flipsham Egwar; you have mostly just communicated with the Grade Studes that supervised much of the lab work and the Undergrade Studes that performed the bulk of the actual experiments. The Radiant Order of the Oh is the militant wing of the sect and only its highest ranking members enter the underground complexes. They are charged with patrolling the aboveground sections of the settlement and defending the monks from intruders. You know next to nothing about the Ohs. Have fun, and let me know what you think! May Lard Jeebus smile down upon you,

Mutant Lord Carl"

One last thing before I wrap up this post - the party met several members of the Radiant Order of the Oh a few sessions ago, and I want to take this opportunity to show the uniforms that the lowest two ranks of the Ohs wear.  The Sun Beams are the rank and file soldiers of the militant wing, and each Sun Spot commands 10 Sun Beams.  They wear padded armor emblazoned with numbers and ancient glyphs, and shiny helmets with the symbol of the order, an "O", on the side.

Go Ducks!

21 Sessions, 21 Followers, my Ducks won the PAC-10 - Its time for a toast!

To you, my erudite readers, and to the mighty Ducks, and to the Mutant Future!  I was planning a post about the Ooh-Oh Monks, but I find myself a wee bit drunk after watching the Ducks dust off the Beavers and earn a trip to the Rose Bowl.  So instead, join me in a toast to my 21 followers, the 21st session of my Mutant Future campaign (which will happen this Sunday), and to the Ooh-Oh Ducks!  May your mutations always be beneficial!

2e Tuesday - Obbs

That's right, Gamma World 2d edition... what 2e did you think I meant?  Every Tuesday I will pick one of my favorite monsters from the fully illustrated bestiary included in the 2d edition Gamma World Basic Rules Booklet and convert it to Mutant Future.  Today's monster is...

Obbs (Flying Eyes)

No. Enc.:  1d4

Alignment:  Chaotic

Movement:

                Land: 9' (3')

                Air: 210' (70')

Armor Class: 9

Hit Dice:5 + 8

Attacks: 1-4 (See Description)

Damage: 2d6

Save: L5

Morale: 7

Hoard Class: none

The terrifying mutated fungi known as Obbs are voracious carnivores who hunt on the wing but are vulnerable and nearly immobile on the ground.  Each has 1d4 razor sharp claws that it can attack with each round and a single large black eye that emits blasts of radiation (30' range, 3d6 damage, save vs. radiation for half).  Obbs only devour half of each kill, leaving spores in the other half which grow into 1d6 young obbs within 24 hours (young Obbs only have 1 claw).  Obbs are of average intelligence and have a Willpower score between 9-18 (1d10+8).

Mutations: Optic Emissions (Gamma Eyes), Reflective Epidermis (immune to radiation, heat, light and laser damage)

I had to pick the Obbs for my first entry in the 2e Tuesday series because of the inspiring illustration.  That vicious little one eyed bat graces the inside back cover of the 2e Basic Rules Booklet, and I have always loved it.

Ray-Coons of Doom!

After defeating the dreaded Swamp Turtle, forcing the Red Silt Horror to turn tentacles and run and riding a nuclear missile, the party was more or less laid low by a bunch of thieving Ray-Coons tonight.  The Ray-Coons, mutant raccoons that can shoot laser beams from their eyes (among other mutant abilities), proved to be one of my most dangerous creations to date.  Working in a small pack, four of them managed to steal the party's jeep and killed two party members in the process.  Worse yet, Dataan very nearly disabled the hovercraft by crashing it into a wall while attempting to dislodge two Ray-Coons from its windshield.  As it is, the hovercraft has taken some significant damage to the skirt that holds in the cushion of air, so it is has lost a good deal of maneuverability and speed.  So how did it all go down?

The party was split up into two groups, half of them scouting out the Redeemed City of Spanky Butt after hearing that a helicopter had dropped off a crack squadron of Knights of Genetic Purity there, while the other half of the party was back at the Badder warrens, enjoying turtle soup and moonshine and waiting for the morning when they had a scheduled meeting with Nicodemus the mutant mouse.  Dataan was sitting in the hovercraft monitoring the video feed from the remote controlled robot dragonfly that Beyonce was piloting, and new party member Kunta Kinte (a 19' tall deaf giant with claws for fingers) was dozing off on the roof of the hovercraft.  Things had been getting interesting over at Spanky Butt, so Bozko and Beyonce got inside the hovercraft just in case they needed to jet over to help their fellows.  Kunta Kinte spotted movement in the cavern and saw some shadowy figure skulking around the perimeter of the cave.  He banged on the roof of the hovercraft and pointed in the direction of the movement - Dataan flipped on the Swamp Orca's floodlights and aimed them in the direction that Kunta Kinte pointed.  They saw a large raccoon, wearing a tool belt diagonally across his chest, frozen in the light.

Dataan saw the raccoon start to swell in size, growing larger and larger until it towered over the hovercraft, scraping the thirty foot tall ceiling of the cave.  Its eyes began to glow with red light as if they were building up some kind of charge.  While Dataan was freaking out about this turn of events, Kunta Kinte saw the raccoon (normal sized as before) scamper over to the jeep that sat unmanned in the corner of the cave.  Dataan (victim of the Ray-Coon's mutant ability to cause illusions in his mind) saw the giant raccoon advance on the hovercraft firing lasers from its eyes, so he threw the hovercraft in reverse and tried to evade the creature.  Bozko jumped out of the hovercraft and saw the raccoon attempting to hotwire the jeep, so he turned into root form and flowed across the ground towards him.  Just as the raccoon got the jeep started, Kunta Kinte jumped down and grabbed on to the back of the jeep, planting his massive heels in the dirt and attempting to stop the raccoon from driving off.  The jeep spun out, flinging dirt everywhere and slowly began to drag Kunta Kinte across the cave toward the exit.  The massive giant did manage to slow down the jeep enough that Bozko was able to get over and make an attack on the thief - he engulfed the raccoon in his body, changing his shape to completely immobilize the little guy, leaving only his face uncovered.  With its driver unable to step on the gas, the jeep came to a halt.

Just about then, all the party members in the cave mysteriously took some damage from an unknown source.  Kunta Kinte began looking around and spotted another raccoon flying around above the party and two more hiding on either side of the tunnel leading away from the cave.  Bozko began shouting that raccoons travel in packs, then addressed the one that he had grappled, attempting to come to a non-violent resolution to this encounter.  The raccoon inside his body laughed at him and did not respond in any other way.

Meanwhile, Dataan was still dealing with the hallucination of the giant raccoon monster, and started driving toward the exit in an attempt to escape from what he thought was certain doom.  Two of the more mobile party members who were staking out Spanky Butt (Dante and Richard) took off back toward the Badder warrens (a distance of just over three miles), one flying and the other running in mutantly fast mountain lion form.  Kunta Kinte began striking at the flying Ray-Coon above him, and all the party members again took damage from an unknown source (the flying Ray-Coon's vampiric field mutation, which drains HP from a 30' radius and adds them as temporary HP to the mutant).  Despite scoring several good hits on the flying Ray-Coon, Kunta Kinte seemed unable to damage it (due to its temporary HP).  Meanwhile, Dataan was still attempting to evade the giant figment of his imagination, which was blasting impressive looking lasers out of its eyes.  Bozko, after negotiations and threats had failed to evoke any response from the Ray-Coon he was engulfing, grew a bunch of thorns around the creatures genitalia.  Instead of hurting the Ray-Coon, Bozko felt the damage reflected back upon him and he realized that the maniacally laughing mutant had some sort of damage turning ability.

Several more rounds of generally unproductive tactics by the party passed as they continued to be drained of energy from the vampiric field.  Dataan finally swerved the hovercraft around his phantom menace and drove into the exit tunnel, only to have the two Ray-Coons that had been waiting there jump onto the windshield and start smashing it with crowbars.  He attempted to shake them off by throwing the hovercraft into reverse but failed badly at the dexterity check I had him make to pull off the tricky maneuver (Dataan is not the best driver in general, trick driving on turtle shells not withstanding), and he crashed the hovercraft into the tunnel wall.  This did throw one of the Ray-Coons off the hovercraft, while the other somehow hung on and shattered the windshield with a mighty swing of its crowbar.  It blasted Dataan with laser beams from its eyes, hurting the robot badly.  Meanwhile, Beyonce had been riding in the back of the hovercraft and shooting at the flying Ray-Coon, but she was knocked around pretty good by the crash.

Bozko, who had sprayed his hallucinogenic spores into the face of his captive with seemingly no effect, decided that he would attempt to drag it under ground.  As he was doing so, he saw that he was covered in oil dropped by the flying Ray-Coon, who then set him on fire with a well placed laser blast.  Fortunately for Bozko, this was another illusion, although he was unaware of that.  Thinking that he was engulfed in flame, he tunneled rapidly into the dirt, abandoning his captive.  The newly freed Raycoon jumped into the jeep and started to drive off as the flying Ray-Coon swooped down and joined him.

Back in the hovercraft, Dataan had managed to slay the Ray-Coon that had shattered the windshield with a very well placed Plasma Pistol shot.  His slave boys, however, had no luck whatsoever as they attempted to shoot the Ray-Coon that had been flung from the hovercraft with the craft's lasers.  Seeing the firepower of the hovercraft, and not wanting to test his luck again, this Ray-Coon jumped into the jeep with its comrades as they drove past.  It manned the heavy machine guns in the rear of the jeep.

Kunta Kinte had more or less turtled up at this point, he had activated his force field mutation and was hanging back out of harms way because he had born the brunt of the vampiric field and was severely injured.  Bozko was underground, also severely injured until he used a mutation that allows him to restore his HP to full, and Dataan had to reverse the hovercraft out of the wall before he and Beyonce could do much.  It looked at this point like the Ray-Coons had made off the jeep, but at the price of one of their own.  And thats when the suicidal cavalry arrived on the scene...

Richard the Cat-Man came sprinting up the tunnel just as the jeep was rumbling down it.  Without pausing to overthink things, Richard leaped onto the hood of the jeep and started unloading with his shotgun.  He blasted the driver and the Ray-Coon manning the heavy machine guns, but the driver swerved and nearly lost control of the jeep when he was shot and Richard went flying.  While he did manage to roll out of the way of the jeep and avoid being run over, he was a sitting duck for the gunner on the back of the jeep and ate a lot of hot lead.  Richard died in the dust of the badder tunnel just as Dante the winged plant with grenade fruit flew on to the scene.  Perhaps in a salute to Richard and his tactics, Dante barrelled straight for the jeep, grenade fruit flying.  He did manage to kill the machine gunner in the blast, but was himself killed in mercifully quick fashion by the Ray-Coons laser eye beams.  The jeep rumbled off out the tunnel and into the swamp as the surviving party members re-assembled in the hovercraft and tried to make sense of what had just happened.

Norman Harman said, in a comment on my recent post about the Swamp Turtle, "I suggest next you try the small, insidious, seemingly insignificant threat.  That will lay them low if not properly recognized / dealt with."
I think this encounter was successful in that regard.  When the party first saw a lone raccoon in the cave, they were pretty certain that this was no big threat.  After the melee with the pack of Ray-Coons, they know better.  But more than just the physical threat that the Ray-Coons provide, the psychological threat that they might come back to pilfer more of the player's precious artifacts is the true measure of the encounter's worth.  As Dataan's player put it, "I'm never going to leave the hovercraft again.  Those Ray-Coons may come back and try to steal it!"

I will present the game stats for Ray-Coons in an upcoming bestiary post, along with the infamous Death Bots.

Turtle Soup, Mutant Future Style

Feeling that my players had gotten a little complacent with all their zig-zagging through the swamp in their hovercraft and snorkel-equipped jeep, I decided to throw a truly terrifying creature at them to bring back a little of the fear that they used to feel when they set off into the mucky-muck.  I have been setting this encounter up for a while by occasionally mentioning the legend of the Swamp Turtle, a giant, two-headed snapping turtle that is widely held to be at the apex of the swamp food-chain.   I felt it was the perfect time to throw the encounter at them, because the session so far had been combat-free, focused on negotiations with many of the power groups that the PCs were hoping to turn against the Warangutans and Julius Corple.


For the second session in a row we had a very small turn out for various reasons (sickness and school commitments chief among them) and the jeep was being driven by Dataan the robot, with Bozko the shapeshifting plant riding shotgun and Richard "Don't Call Me Dick" the dragon-man standing behind the twin heavy machine guns on the back of the jeep.  The sun was setting behind the clouds as the jeep was climbing up a small hummock in the drizzling rain (it is early fall in the Willing Mate valley in the campaign).  The low hill shuddered, then rose up out of the water.  Dataan brought the jeep to a halt and the party realized what was going on as two huge heads on thick necks emerged from either side of the "hill" and turned towards the jeep, massive jaws snapping.  The jeep was parked on the armor plated back of the Swamp Turtle!  Neither of the two heads (the second head takes the place of a tail) could quite reach the jeep where it perched on the center of the shell.  The party instantly thought of the plastic explosives that they had just received as a result of their meeting with Flipsham Eggwar, the leader of the Ooh-Oh Monks.  Bozko pulled a four pound chunk of C-4 out of his chest cavity where he had been storing it and declared that he was inserting a detonator in it and was going to stick it to the shell.  

Not so fast!  Time to roll for initiative, I said with a little glee in my voice.  I should mention here that I use d20 rolls for initiative, diverging from the Mutant Future rules (which follow Labyrinth Lord's B/X style d6 roll for initiative).  I can't say exactly why I use d20 for initiative - I grew up playing 2e with its d10 initiative rolls, so it isn't nostalgia, and I am not a big fan of 3e which is where I first encountered the d20 used in this manner.  I think it is just because with a large party and many combatants, I like the finer granularity that a d20 provides for initiative.  In any case, the party all rolled pretty decent rolls, and I declared that I was going to use my once a session d30 roll for this initiative check!  The look on the players' faces when I grabbed that big ole die and let it fly was priceless.  As it turned out, I got a 17 and Bozko still beat me!  


Bozko (after a brief out of character interlude where he asked if his character would know anything about what the most effective way to shape a plastic explosive charge was and I told him no, you are a mutant plant from the Mutant Future, what the hell would you know about plastic explosives?) slapped the putty-like explosive charge down on the shell of the turtle and pressed it into a cone shape.  The turtle, angry at the annoying chunk of steel that sat just out of reach of its snapping jaws, rolled over in the swamp to dash the jeep into the cold waters.


At this point the party was pretty certain they were going to be swimming while dealing with a creature that looked like it could swallow them whole and not even notice it, not to mention that they would be within the blast radius of the explosion if they detonated the C-4.  Yup, things looked pretty grim.  I figured that with a little creative thinking and the use of all their technological artifacts they could probably escape without incurring a TPK, but I certainly didn't foresee them KILLING the damn turtle!  The thing had nearly 400 HP for Jeebus's sake!  I thought at the very least they would lose the jeep, as I was going to have the turtle attack the jeep next round.  What happened was one of those great moments where the dice gods smiled on the players.  


Dataan tried to ride the jeep up and over the corner of the shell as the turtle rolled, in an attempt to keep the jeep from being spilled into the swamp.  I have been using a dexterity check mechanic for particularly tricky driving maneuvers, so I told Dataan's player that he could roll a dexterity check.  I told him that he would have a significant penalty to the roll, but I wasn't telling him what that penalty was.  I had already made up my mind that he would have to roll a natural 1 to successfully drive the jeep up the shell as it was rolling and crest it at the perfect moment to be able to descend to the other side and end up on the stomach of the turtle.  


The die rolled, and rolled, and... came up with that perfect 1!  Many people decry the fact that older editions of D&D do not have a unified mechanic for resolving situations like this.  Why should some things like attack rolls call for a high roll, while other things call for a low roll?  I personally like this.  How many times have you cursed that unlucky "1" when it pops up its ugly little head on an attack roll?   Isn't it about time that the down-trodden "1" gets to bask in the same glory that its big brother the natural "20" gets?  


Dataan floored the jeep and rode off the turtle before it could roll again.  Once the jeep was clear, Bozko pressed the remote detonator and the C-4 exploded, raining chunks of turtle shell and flesh over the swamp.  Looking back from the jeep, the party realized that they had failed to kill the monster and it was crashing after them, gaining steadily with its huge strides.  Richard unloaded on it with the heavy machine guns, scoring some hits on one of its heads, but hardly slowing it down at all.  Bozko turned his body into a hang-glider and jumped off the jeep, never one to stick around when fleeing might save his bark.  The turtle had closed the distance and was about to catch the jeep, but I ruled that Richard could have one more round of attacks with the heavy machine guns.  These guns can each discharge a whopping six shots per round, so Richard was rolling twelve attack rolls.


This time, he rolled up a storm and scored a ton of hits (I don't remember exactly how many, but he rolled ridiculously well), including a critical that he rolled excellent damage with.  He just managed to do enough damage to drop it, and it fell dying, massive jaws clenched just short of the rear of the jeep.  This was very lucky, because even one round of attacks from the turtle would have crushed the jeep.  The party cut off all the parts of the turtle that stuck out of the shell, then tied it to the jeep and slowly towed it across the swamp to the home of the badders where they gave the shell to the those master armor crafters to make turtle-plate mail.  The badders are eating turtle soup even as we speak!




Note:  The two-headed snapping turtle was inspired by a very similar but much smaller creature created by 
DMH and posted in this amazing thread over at rpg.net.  If you have not already check this out, he has created hundreds if not thousands of mutant monstrosities for use with the Mutant Future game.  Thanks, DMH!