Saturday, May 14, 2011

Cybernetic: Magnus Hotwiler and the Raiders of the Lost Alien Ruins

It has been generally accepted by the Thursday night group that this story arc is coming to its climactic finale. Some want to continue with this setting for another go, others want to focus solely on the imminent Wild West campaign. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

At any rate, here's what went down:

The party is looking for allies to assist in their deposing of the Emperor and finally gaining their revenge for his betrayal of their trust. Their search has taken them to the secret Genesis-3 Research Station where the 7th Fleet (Unofficial) has remained after word of the United Earth Confederation's collapse had reached Fleet Admiral Ezekiel Shamshel. Ezekiel's brother Constans Shamshel is Fleet Admiral of the 4th and had slipped off of Earth's grid after deciding to regroup and discuss a course of action with his sibling.

The party brought the two of them up to speed on the current situation and what they want to happen, they gain the support of these two very powerful players and have taken a major step toward realizing their vengeance.
There is one loose end, however, that the group decides they want to investigate further to see if it will bear fruit. The Hero of Humanity, Magnus Hotwiler (I hate my last group for naming him this) has fallen away from contact completely, though the Genesis Station's more advanced sensory equipment has found a sort of breadcrumb trail that Magnus left as he went into uncharted space.

After navigating through avenues without any sort of FTL marker and not ending up inside a star, the party arrives at the last crumb in the line. They arrive at a planet ravaged by some calamity from many eons ago, satellites choke the orbit of several worlds in the system; some still broadcast white noise endlessly as they continue to maintain their orbit, memorials to a once great civilization.
Talos recognizes this place; it's his ancestral home; the one that he completely cleansed of life and habitability.

They find the entire 1st Fleet in orbit around Talos's Creator's homeworld, the whole crew in cryostasis, and the security systems very active.
The party decides to go aboard the flagship in search of the lost Admiral or at least a definite as to his whereabouts. They go in through the hanger bays on the side of the titanically huge vessel by jumping from their ship to it. The only thing of note that happened was Fayd screwed up his landing and faceplanted on the hull of the ship. Josef was carried over by Lilith, it was pretty girly of him.
Their first stop is the medical wing of the ship where they find the chief medical officer Sergei Rachmaninoff (again, a name from the previous group; all the heroes of the original game have extremely dramatic and/or stupid names) naked as the day he was born, because freezing with clothes on seems like it could be painful and deadly. They allow him some time to get himself cleaned up and they receive information that Magnus went, by himself, planetside in search of something he obviously felt he couldn't trust his crew with.

The planet is a fire blasted wreck; the atmosphere is composed mainly of sulfur, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen. Lava flows freely across the world in vast rivers; it is a hellish nightmare where the rotting cities that are spread across its surface stand as a gravestone for an entire race of intelligent beings. The fact that their buildings still stand at all after so long in such a hostile environment is testament to their abilities as architects and a hint to the heights of learning that once soared.

The party lands near the area of Magnus's last transmission and find him almost immediately at the edge of a massive, circular building that seems to go straight down into the ground for hundreds of feet.
Lilith is every bit the hero he is and he recognizes her immediately, glad to have someone he can trust with him. They make their descent into the ruins of the building looking for some fabled weapon or something that will help them in their bloodquest, Magnus isn't telling.

The bottom of that building is rusted red and brown, the dirt is caked  thick on the floor. Despite thousands of years of neglect there is still power in this room, two generators glow with a purplish light. At the southernmost end of the corridor is a large symbol on the floor flanked by two ancient alien computers. Consult the poorly drawn diagram below for a visual.

Josef and Talos do their best and figure out a way to get rudimentary commands through the computer and somewhat understand the language displayed therein. There are two options available; power down the force barriers protecting the generators and open the secondary door. They do both because why not?
The floor symbol and some floor around it glow brightly and begins to dissipate revealing yet another tunnel that leads further into the ground, only this time eight ancient security systems come leaping out. None of them were ready for the surprise round and it showed in that the skill monkeys were caught right up front with the hit sticks and got their shit rocked for it.

Fayd leapt out of combat like Spiderman, which isn't a cute simile; he pulled out his grappling tether, hooked on to the ceiling, and away he went. He fired his gun, while dangling from the ceiling, with little effect.

Combat proceeded as normal after that, the typical "My turn? I attack until they're dead." until Fayd pulled this stunt.



I enjoy Fayd's player, he has outside the box solutions to very straightforward problems: enemies attacking? Swing across the chasm and tackle them.
It's an action hero response and for that I appreciate him and as his decisions.

We ran out of time before this dungeon crawl could come to a natural close, they made it to the dungeon bosses at the bottom of the shaft and by that time another encounter just wasn't in the cards.

Next week will be the finisher. What is Magnus looking for? Can it really help them as much as he thinks it does?

2 comments:

  1. "it is a hellish nightmare where the rotting cities stand as a gravestone for an entire race"
    ^ Okay, that's awesome.

    Hey, Josef saved 1d6 health by being carried by Lilith. For a smart hero, that's potentially lifesaving.

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  2. and it almost was. He took some hits in the encounter.

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