Mutants vs. Monkeys

As promised, here is the sordid tale of what my PCs have resorted to while trying to pit one faction against another in my Mutant Future campaign.

The first thing they came up with was to somehow turn the Knights of Genetic Purity against the two bands of apes.  There was talk of killing three birds in one bush, or something like that.  The Knights are the mother of all factions in my campaign world, a continent spanning organization dedicated to the complete eradication of all mutants and the restoration of pure humans to their former position of unchallenged supremacy.  The party captured two members of the Knights way back at the beginning of the campaign, and the two unfortunate bastards have been languishing in a dark hole in Skinny Butt, their only contact with anyone being the occasional visits from Chab the rattlesnake, one of the village elders and the self appointed "interrogator" (read as "torturer").  So the party takes their prized camcorder and their only tape and brings one of the captured Knights out into the swamp.

Warning:  the following paragraph may be a little disturbing, so if you are faint of heart, please skip it and go watch a family movie like Silence of the Lambs instead.

This campaign has been a campaign full of firsts for me.  First openly gay PC, first time running a session with 10 players, and... first time my players have shot a snuff film in game?  WTF?  They decided that they would stage the gruesome massacre of the captured Knight at the hands of a "warangutan" (really Bozko the shape-shifting plant assuming the general form of a great ape and covering his body with shaggy red moss).  They filmed this Blair Witch Project style, from the point of view of the other Knight who "got away" after capturing the horrible death of his comrade on film.  The party wanted to really get the Knights pissed off at the Warangutans, so they had Bozko actually rip the poor dude to shreds in front of the camera.  Interestingly, of the six players participating, only one (my girlfriend, playing Beyonce Chai) expressed any reservations about this plan and she still drove them out into the swamp so that they "didn't do anything even stupider".  The truly disturbing part is that Dataan the robot became aroused during the filming of this movie and there may or may not have been robot masturbation involved.  The party  arranged for the video to make its way into the hands of Chaplain Squaldorf, the true power behind the recent incursion of the Knights into the Willing Mate valley, and then they sat back to watch the fireworks.  However, the PCs soon grew bored waiting for a response from the regional headquarter of the Knights up in Porrit Land, so they decided to take a stab at stopping the apes themselves.

Their next plan was to ally with the War Chimps and attempt to wipe out the Warangutans once and for all.  However, when they flew an unmanned drone that they had just spent a week repairing from the parts of several nonfunctional drones they had secured many sessions earlier, they discovered that the War Chimps had posted a horrifying "keep out" message in the swamp; a roughly circular ring of cut trees marked their territory, and flayed corpses of swamp creatures and mutants alike adorned the tree trunks like bloody post-it notes.  Zooming in on one body with the drone, the party saw that it was flayed from the neck down, and its eyelids had been removed.  And thats when they realized that this poor mutant (a swamp trapper from Skinny Butt town) was still alive - it turned its bulging, dried out eyes at the drone as if it were silently begging to be put out of its considerable misery.  Dataan flew the drone in low, planning on ramming the flayed mutant in the head to put it out of its misery... and he flew the drone right into the War Chimps trap.  They had a ring of concealed blinds a ways in from the outer perimeter of stumps, and a War Chimp with a missile launcher blew the drone up with one well placed shot.

The PCs now decided that maybe they didn't want to ally with the War Chimps after all! Their next brilliant idea was to ally with the Warangutans and convince them to leave the complex and wipe out the War Chimps with the party's help.  They journeyed to the Badder warrens and made their way to the now filled in tunnels leading to the Hangar level of the military complex.  The two shapeshifting plants in the party burrowed through the dirt in root form, creating just enough of a pocket of air behind them to drag a pair of spiderbots down with them.  Once Swampy (one of the shapeshifting plants) got in to the long cross tunnel that leads from the hangar level all the way under the swamp to the sublevels of the Ooh Oh Monks (yet another faction in the swamp), he soon heard a vehicle rumbling down the tunnel at him.  He hid, and saw a jeep driven by a Warangutan pulling a covered troop transport, heading down the tunnel towards the Ooh Oh Monks.  Dataan, controlling a spiderbot, sent it down the tunnel towards the hangar while Swampy set off after the jeep.  Soon, a terrific explosion echoed down the tunnel, and the party surmised that the Warangutans were attempting to blast their way into the lowest levels of the old university complex that the Ooh Oh Monks inhabit.  Dataan's spiderbot reached the blast doors to the hangar, and attempted to use the door's control panel to access the complex's computer system - when to the parties considerable dismay, it became apparent that some true computer wizard had overridden the codes that Dataan had left in place in the complex and the party no longer had access to the still active security networks.  The door began to shut, and Dataan had his spiderbot scurry through and into a maintenance shaft in the wall (the facility is riddled with tiny shafts designed to let the spiderbots scurry around and do their job of maintaining and repairing the electrical, computer, ventilation and water systems of the base).  Peering through a small opening in the wall, Dataan saw through the spiderbot two large Warangutans wielding rocket launchers come up to the door, accompanied by a Terminator looking robot - picture the shiny metal terminators that don't have any skin covering their terrifying metal bodies.  The Warangutans covered the doorway with missile launchers while the Terminator opened it up - of course, they saw nothing.

Meanwhile, Swampy was making decent time heading down the tunnel toward the Ooh Oh Monks, a distance of several miles, with the second spider bot accompanying him.  Soon, the party heard over their comlinks (stolen from the military complex a while back) the Warangutans back at the door to the hangar level warning the Warangutan party up ahead that there was something in the tunnel.  Swampy began traveling much more carefully, in long extended vine form taking cover behind all the heaps of scrap metal that line the tunnel.  The spiderbot went up ahead, under the control of Dataan the robot, who trusted in its small size to escape detection.  The spiderbot came to a juncture, where the the jeep and troop transport were parked, guarded by a single Warangutan standing behind the twin heavy machine guns mounted on the back of the jeep.  Dataan cautiously snuck the spiderbot past this point and came into a room that had evidently once held a large door which had since been blasted away.  A squadron of Warangutans was exploring the chamber beyond, which was filled with what seemed to be massive boilers and other strange rusted out hunks of motionless machinery.

Swampy, alternating between his normal vision and gamma ray vision, continued on slowly and carefully.  He spotted the tell-tale radiation leak from the fusion cell powering a plasma rifle up ahead, and realized that two Warangutans were concealed behind the cab of car that was leaning against the side of the tunnel ahead of him.  Deciding that he could take on two of them with the help of the hypnotic fragrances he could emit, he painstakingly inched a viny protrusion of his body towards the apes and released a cloud of mind-controlling goodness into their hidey hole.  He instantly realized that they were far too powerfully built to succumb to his tricks as they burst forth, plasma rifles blasting.  Luckily for Swampy, they had not spotted him as he was concealed behind the everpresent stacks of scrap metal.  Never known for his discretion, Swampy rolled the lone grenade that he was carrying directly between the two apes who frantically hurled themselves to the ground as it exploded.  Before the smoke even cleared the apes were laying down covering fire as they called for back up.  "We've been hit!  Taking fire from unknown assailant!  Alpha Squad leader, send back up!"

A squad of five Warangutans set out to assist the two fighting Swampy - only to be grenaded themselves by Bozko who had been waiting in the collapsed tunnel to the Badder warrens.  Bozko dropped four grenades from more or less directly above the squad, and killed three of them on the spot.  Now convinced that they were experiencing a serious assault, the Warangutan leaders  called the exploratory party that was moving under the Ooh Oh Monks back.  In the meantime, Dataan had stolen their jeep with his spiderbot, ramming it into a wall and breaking the neck of the Warangutan who was manning the machine gun in the process.  Then, the spiderbot turned the machine gun down the corridor and opened fire on the exploratory party.  With the enemy now apparently coming from all sides, and not even sure what was making the machine gun fire (as the spiderbot was completely concealed behind the gun), the Warangutans broke formation and ran.

 Swampy had continued his fight, and when the two Warangutans he was engaged with started retreating to join up with the larger contingent of the exploratory party (who were now getting into a second jeep that was parked in the large room by the Ooh Oh Monks), Swampy couldn't just let them go and he popped out of cover and took another pot shot at them with his trusty shotgun.  As he dropped back down, they let him have it and I rolled a natural 20 and killed him on the spot... When his player asked if he could roll a savings throw to survive since he was a shapeshifting plant and most of his body mass had never left cover to take the shot in the first place, I decided to be a merciful overlord that night and told him to roll a save vs. energy attacks.  Of course, he still had to get a 15 or higher on a d20, so I figured he was probably toast anyway... then he goes and rolls a 15 on the dot.  I ruled that Swampy was alive but unconscious, mostly blasted to smithereens, and clinging to life only as a small globular mass of unrecognizable plant matter.  The Warangutans all retreated in their Jeep back to the hangar level and shut the blast door, not at all sure what had been attacking them from three sides.    A spiderbot was sent to check on Swampy, as he had suddenly cut off communications.  His quivering remains were retrieved, and the party beat a retreat back to Badder Town to plan their next move!

One important thing has been missed so far; the role of Julius Corple in all this.  Corple, a brilliant roboticist and all around mad genius from the year 2135, had recently been released from centuries of confinement within a massive alien computer/brain.  Exposed to the surface air, he contracted the FDF7 virus and soon grew a second brain and began exhibiting strange powers.  He was last seen, after grabbing the body of Laura Hazelton (a footsoldier from 2135 who was dying of the virus), flying over the swamp in the direction of the military complex.

Many small clues in the last session led the players to speculate that Julius Corple had become the leader of the Warangutans and was directing them as well as the strange Terminator robot the party had seen.  Are they right?  Only time will tell....

I do intend to post the full tale of Julius Corple soon, he is a tragic figure and was directly responsible for the downfall of the military complex all those long years ago.

NPC Factions (Or how to be a lazy DM)

Despite my players' often repeated claims that I am an awesome DM, I know the sad truth - I am a very lazy game master, running my games with a mixture of way too little prep work, a good dose of fly by the seat of your pants and a little bit of luck from the dice gods.  The honest truth - for the last 10 sessions (or 40-50 hours of real life time spent playing), I have spent a grand total of two hours doing preparation work!  I spend FAR more time on this blog then I do my game, and I am not a particularly prolific blogger either.

How do I do it, you might ask?  While my background in competitive extemporaneous speaking and improvisational theater certainly helps, I don't just make it all up as I go. One of my favorite lazy DM tricks is an oldie but goodie, the use of NPC factions.  The vast majority of the two hours of prep work I have done recently was statting up a few different groups that the PCs have been interacting with.  I first come up with the leaders of the group and write a sentence or two describing their personalities and motivations.  Then I stat up a sample member of the group, a tough member of the group, and make a few notes about different weapons or armor that I can use to make members of the group seem unique (for instance, one Warangutan might be wielding a plasma rifle and wearing flak armor, while another is clad in plasteel armor and is carrying a rocket launcher and a vibra-dagger).  When statting up the typical faction members, I write down a range of HP (50-80 for your average Warangutan) so that I can pick a number in the range whenever an individual is encountered.

One amazing thing about using factions is that once you place them in your campaign world, they just keep on surprising you with all the things they do.  It is very much like getting to watch your world come to life before your eyes.  Knowing what the goals of the faction are and the personality of its leaders means that you should have a good idea of what they are doing when the PCs aren't looking.  For instance, when the PCs in my campaign left the military complex in the western swamp, they for all intents and purposes forgot about the warring groups of War Chimps and Warangutans that they had inadvertently set free from the level they had been trapped in for centuries.  While the PCs spent a few weeks out in the desert trying to prevent the Knights of Genetic Purity (another faction in play) from gaining access to nuclear missiles, the War Chimps left the complex and took over a section of the swamp centered around the complex, while the Warangutans focused on seizing control of the complex itself and the tunnels that lead away from it far underground.  This brought the Warangutans into conflict with the Badders, who the PCs had left with the codes to unlock the doors into the lowest level of the complex so the Badders could scavenge scrap metal from the ruined vehicles in the hangar to offer to Glargorion.

In the middle of the PCs adventures in the desert, the now deceased Logan teleported back to the hangar level to look for material to repair the parties hovercraft with - while there, he saw a pile of Badder corpses and the door leading into the tunnel that accessed the Badder warrens standing wide open.  So when the party returned from the desert, they decided that they had to assist the Badders and somehow thwart the militaristic apes that they had unwittingly unleashed on the area.  Two sessions later, and it looks like I can mine this particular little conflict for quite a few more sessions as the PCs have been coming up with one crazy idea after another, trying trickery and diplomacy to pit the Knights of Genetic Purity against both factions of apes, attempting to ally with both factions of apes against the other and, at the end of last session, it looked like they were moving towards trying to get the Ooh Oh Monks involved in this affair as well.  This tickles me pink, because the Ooh Oh Monks are one of the original factions that I set up at the very beginning of the game, and so far the PCs have been content to completely ignore them (in part because Dataan escaped from servitude to the Monks and is more than a little afraid that they may reformat his CPU and put him back to work processing data should he ever run into them again).  My next post will detail some of the crazy antics this little set up has led the party to attempt; the last two sessions have been wild, woolly, a little disturbing and tons of fun.

Next Post:  The Party shoots a snuff movie and meets a Terminator!

Under a rock in a hard place.

We ended last session with most of the characters inside a missile silo.  After failing in a last ditch effort to hack into the silo's computer system and prevent the launch of a nuclear missile (armed and set to a target by the now deceased Richard Tater of the Knights of Genetic Purity), the party dropped a bunch of grenades down at the missile right before it launched.  We had already played a long and exciting session, and I decided that I needed a little time to think about what was going to happen next, so I told the players that their grenades had knocked the missile off its launch platform and described the sound of the missile caroming around the launch chamber below them.  End of session.  So of course my players have had a week to stew on the knowledge that they are hundreds of feet below ground, directly above an armed nuclear missile that may explode at any time.

After doing a little research in the meantime, I am pretty sure that I threw science out the window the second that I started describing the missile bouncing around the room instead of exploding when the grenades were dropped on it.  I am now armed with a good working knowledge of nuclear missiles (and I fervently hope that I did not end up on any FBI watchlists for my Google queries) and am ready to have fun with this situation.  I can't reveal what is going to happen (and of course, I can't predict what my players will do so I really don't know what will happen) but after tomorrow's session I am sure I will have an exciting post to make.

Knights of Genetic Purity

I have borrowed quite a few things from Gamma World for my Mutant Future campaign, and the Knights of Genetic Purity are one of those imports.  I originally included them as a somewhat random small encounter for the players; I lifted an encounter out of TSR's Famine in Far-Go module where a group of mounted Knights of Genetic Purity set an ambush near a pile of burning mutant bodies.  The encounter proved to be quite a doozy, involving a long fighting retreat by the players to make it back to a fortified position that they had cleared in the previous session, and it very nearly ended in a TPK.  I sprinkled in plenty of trash talking from the Knights, making it clear that they viewed all mutants as nothing more than dung to be scraped from their boots.

The players had such a strong reaction against the Knights that I realized I had to make them a recurring campaign element.  When the tide of battle turned and two Knights fled into the hills, the party tracked them down and captured them.  The session ended with the party returning the captured Knights to Skinny Butt so that they could be interrogated.

I spent some time between sessions coming up with what the Knights were doing in the area, and the players have been busy foiling their plans ever since.  The following information about the organization of the Knights of Genetic Purity and their plans in the Willing Mate valley was learned by the party when their captives were interrogated by Chab, one of the village Elders and a mutant rattlesnake who truly loved his role as interrogator.

Knights of Genetic Purity

Captured members: Darren Widom, Garr Margon

Symbol:  Red Square, or an unbalanced Scales of Justice

Organization:

Lay Members:  People that profess agreement with the code of purity but are not active members of the Knights are known as the Redeemed.  The Knights now refer to Spanky Butt as the Redeemed City of Spanky Butt.  The Redeemed can qualify for the militia that is invariably raised in a Redeemed City, and distinguished service will earn a promotion to 1st Sword.  Pure strain humans who do not agree with the code of purity are the unredeemed, but are still held in high regard for their genetic qualities and as the only hope for a mutant-free future.

Actual members:

Swords of Purity (or just Swords):  The Swords of Purity are the rank and file soldiers of the order.  Swords are divided further into three ranks, 1st Sword, 2d Sword and 3rd Sword (the highest rank of Sword).  You get a little sword pin to put on your sleeve for each rank attained.  After 3rd sword you become a

Lance of Purity (or just Lancer):  Each company of Swords is headed by two Lancers, known as the Black Lance (subordinate) and the Red Lance (superior).  They have a color coded lance pin to show their rank, and their fighting lances are likewise color-coded.  A company of swords can be up to 50 men and as few as 10.  These are always known as a Company of the Pure and can be further subdivided in half, each half led by one of the two Lancers, the Black Lance taking the 1st Swords and the Red Lance taking the 2d and 3rd swords.

Senior Lancer: There are four Senior Lancers in Porrit Land, each commanding 2-4 Companies of the Pure.

Holy Flame: The regional commander of the Knights of Genetic Purity, the Holy Flame is in contact with chapters throughout the land.  In addition to this northwest chapter that spans what used to be Oregon, Washington and Idaho, there is a California chapter, a Colorado/four corners chapter, a Southern Chapter, a Minnesota/North Dakota/Michigan/Wisconsin chapter, and an East Coast chapter.

Outside of this military structure are the Chaplains, the evangelical “priests” of the order who fervently spread the word that only through the removal of all mutants (and intelligent mutants are considered to be by far the worst, and the biggest priority) will Lard Jeebus finally restore the world to its former grandeur, rid the planet of the scourge of radiation and see the pure strain humans returned to their rightful place as sole rulers of nature.  The Chaplains elevate particularly inspired members of the Redeemed to the position of Friar, who serve as the Chaplain’s assistants.  Worthy Friars who learn the required rituals can become chaplains in their own right.

One of the reasons the Knights spread so successfully is because the Chaplains oversee a program of education and general civic improvement.  They establish schools, improve sewage and water treatment, teach agricultural techniques like crop rotation and fertilization and have a basic knowledge of the causes of disease, so they sterilize medical equipment and have high success rates in treating basic medical problems.  This is all part of the general program of returning humans to their former elevated position.

What Darren Widom revealed:

Sorath Marogot was the Black Lance, now deceased due to the actions of the party.

Garr Margon is the Red Lance.

What Garr Margon revealed:

The Hierarchy in Porrit Land:

The Holy Flame is Tobias Groman.  The four Senior Lancers are: Dex Tinto , Joran Precore, Ziven Talus and Tenal Kyle.  Dex Tinto is Garr Margon’s immediate superior.

The Hierarchy in Spanky Butt:

 A 3rd Sword named Odium Stair has been left in charge.  If successful he will shortly be promoted to Lancer and will be in charge of creating his own Company of the Pure.  In reality, however, Chaplain Squaldorf is the true leader through sheer charisma and force of will.  He is an indomitable man, 45, balding, broad shouldered and slightly pot bellied.  His piercing blue eyes and ready smile reveal his keen intelligence and quick wit, and his ministry and ministrations (he is an expert surgeon) probably explain why the Knights were so successful, so fast in their mission.

Odium has already promoted 10 militia men to 1st sword and drills them and the militia regularly, to what end no-one is sure.  The Baron is not entirely pleased with this turn of affairs, and still maintains his own guard.  However, he was paid well by the Knights and is willing to let this happen unless it becomes obvious it is no longer in Spanky Butts best interest.

The contents of the papers that were captured with Garr Margon:

A journal of his mission.  Highlights:  Company set upon by a group of mutant beavers along the Willing Mate river after the company killed some juveniles who were out fishing.  Half the company of Knights were killed, the Lancers mounts were destroyed.  They had to use all of their grenades to escape.  Arrived in Spanky Butt, received warmly by Baron Jemmas, who is sympathetic to the cause.  Chaplain Squaldorf has great success rousing the populace to a fever-pitch of excitement.  They visited the Ooh-Oh Monks who again refused to help the Knights.  Were not able to conduct any reconnaissance of the Monks because of their spider-bots and ever present security bots.  Observed the mutant community of Skinny Butt – mix of MH, MA and MP, no real organized security, good defensive position on top of hill.

After firmly establishing the local chapter and segregating the mutant community to one corner of the walled city, establishing a strict curfew and limiting trips outside of the designated zone only for businessmen, they reluctantly accepted the local mounts (giant two-headed Grodogs) for their return journey back to Porrit.  They only rode the mounts after Chaplain Squaldorf reminded them that non-intelligent mutant animals were the least offensive of all mutant-kind, and the greater good of returning safely to Porrit far outweighed the sin of riding mutant animals.

A scroll detailing his mission: Establish the Knights in Spanky Butt.  Persuade the Monks to assist in the quest for the artifact.  To conduct reconnaissance establishing what mutant populations live in the surrounding region and the valley south of Porrit.

A scroll tube, once sealed with a red wax square: it contains a message for the Ooh-Oh monks, a mixture of pleading and threatening language:

“Please reconsider your recent refusal to assist us in our search for the relic of New Clear known only as the Bom. Remember that those who do not stand with us stand against us.  While your knowledge is legendary, no amount of knowledge can turn aside the lances of the Purest of the Pure.

Signed: Tobias Groman, Holy Flame of the Knights of Genetic Purity

A scroll tube sealed with an “O” in gold wax -

Your idle threats do not concern us.  We are masters of the Bones of Ooh and can command the knowledge of the Ancients.  Any action against us would be your last.  Confess your impurities to Intur Netz and let the cool light of his wisdom guide your way.

Signed:  His Magnificence, the Dean Doco Proffus, Flipsham Egwar