“It was the best of GenCons, it was the worst of GenCons…”
No, strike that last part. This year’s GenCon was my best, period. I had more fun, met more people, attended more parties, played in more tournaments (and finals), and overall did more things than I ever had at a previous GenCon, which covers seventeen GenCons in the past eighteen years.
To begin with, I needed this GenCon. Really. Ever since late January, after over eight months of unemployment, I have been working on a temporary contract basis on software testing job in South Bend (about 100 miles away from home), staying in a hotel room for the week and driving back and forth to and from Fort Wayne on weekends. The pay is very good, but ever since July they have been working us 50 hours a week (and hinting at 60, which is flat out impossible: I have to get home to pay bills and such every weekend, and they don’t have enough work to justify us remaining contract people staying anyway). I hadn’t taken time off for a serious vacation, nor had I attended a serious convention, for at least six months, and I was definitely under a considerable amount of strain. Therefore, I needed a vacation, and GenCon was it.
Unfortunately, things have not changed since I have returned from GenCon, so I am in just as great a need for another vacation!
This year I had scheduled my GenCon events and activities ahead of time, so I would have enough free time to see who and what I wanted. That meant few or no 8:00 am events, to leave the morning free to eat a leisurely breakfast and walk the dealer’s room or art show until noon.
Certain special events were scheduled ahead of time: dinner at Toys with the Hero people Wednesday night, lunch with Mike Stackpole on Thursday, and the A&E party Thursday night were not to missed. I had also signed up to play in five events and run another, and I was looking forward to a good time of roleplaying and gamemastering, meeting friends old and new, and rummaging through the dealers hall and art show.
Wednesday
I arrived in Milwaukee Wednesday afternoon, driving up from South Bend after working that morning. Travel was fairly easy along the Skyway into Chicago with no major delays, so I made pretty good time through Chicago to Milwaukee. This year, as usual, I was staying with my old gaming and GenCon travelling friend (and fellow Clobberin’ Times apa member) Rex Joyner in the Holiday Inn (formerly the Howard Johnson’s). Of all the hotels other than the Hyatt directly opposite MECCA, it is the best located: it was two blocks south and off to one side of MECCA, so you didn’t have to walk around MECCA the way you did travelling to and from the Marc Plaza. Parking was free, too, with in/out privileges, so that was helpful. Their breakfast buffet was also good, and I ate breakfast there three of the four mornings of the convention.
I did my usual investigation of the local bookstore that afternoon, (and saw a couple of the GenCon Amber people there (no big surprise)), then waited around for the dinner at Toys (the Chinese restaurant across from the Hyatt) that I was informed about by Sue Grau in her ‘zine in CT. (A large group of Hero people, Compuserve people, and others descend on the place: they had the back half of the place reserved for us.) I was also told by Laurie Curley that it would start around 7:00 pm. Well, actually it started around 8:00 pm, but a lot of Hero people arrived earlier, so I sat around and listened to upcoming plans and rumors, then hung out with the Clobberin’ Times and Hero Auxiliary Corps people until I had had enough Chinese food to last me a while. I saw a number of the Hero and Hero Auxiliary Corps people there, including Sue and Brian Grau and Brian and Laurie Curley.
Thursday
Thursday started with waiting for the dealer’s room to open. They were late (about 10 minutes) and the crowd started getting a little rowdy. To make matters worse, someone brought out a carton of the latest issue of White Wolf and started throwing issues to the crowd. Fortunately there wasn’t a tremendous crush of people, and the doors did open soon after.
I was surprised at the size of the hall! They expanded into the East Hall, where most of the roleplaying gaming had been held previously (all RP gaming was moved across the street). This gave much more room for the dealers and room for more dealers and exhibitors than previous years. I did most of my game buying in those first two hours.
At noon I had arranged to have lunch with Mike Stackpole, and we spent over an hour just having a very nice conversation on writing and gaming and the industry in general. Mike’s had a long career directly associated with the industry, and is one of its most ardent and impressive defenders. I am definitely going to have to repeat it.
Octagon Champions Tournament (Preliminary Round)
At 4:00 pm was my first event, Sue Grau’s Octagon tournament. I had some knowledge of the background from Sue’s ‘zines in CT and I wanted to play in it. Specifically, I wanted to play the character Nightstar, who has something Sue was warned never to put into a tournament character: a Cosmic Power Pool, based on Shadow Manipulation. (A true grossity, a Cosmic Power Pool allows the player to select powers on the spot. It demands someone who knows the rules to use it effectively; needless to say I used it shamelessly. For example, I would create a six-foot wide catcher’s mitt to grab and Entangle an opponent. The character’s stated favorite trick is to create a shadow hound (or several of them) with tracking and telepresense ability to conduct searches for her: her tag line is “Here puppy, here puppy puppy: you know, shadow hounds are just so easy to lose in the dark.”) I also had fun playing off another character who was Nightstar’s husband; that player and I played the ‘Nick and Nora Charles’ routine well enough that I was named the alternate to the final from that round.
The other characters were Battler, Nightstar’s husband, an eight-foot tall demon, and the team’s principal fighter; Gemstone, the leader with a magic gem that opened dimensional gates for him; Catalyst, a flying energy projector with chemical powers; Outlaw, a nervous young man with an impressive reflection ability; the Scarlet Ghost, a spooky mentalist; Quarterstaff, a martial artist with a psychic quarterstaff; and Mindweave, an ex-cop with mental powers. The Scarlet Ghost maintains a mental link between the other characters; that link also stabilizes her: without it (and every member in the link; seven is the smallest number necessary) she would eventually (and soon) go insane.
The preliminary round opened with a trip to a local fairground by the entire team in civilian garb, where we stopped at a psychic’s tent. The young woman inside showed true psychic powers (albeit limited) and made four predictions: one of us would see someone they would never have expected seeing again, a second would find something they never expected to find, another would walk the line between sanity and madness, and finally one would die. We took the predictions seriously enough, when the woman somehow knew we were linked together.
We went from there to Nightstar and Battler’s cabin in the Jersey swamps, where we started hearing about the Jersey Devil, a local legend which has apparently come to life, killing three campers. We investigated (I, thinking that shadow hounds would be a little conspicuous, what with the number of search parties in the area, created shadow ravens instead, and covered the area) and found the first prediction: a High Demon Lord, known to Battler and apparently insane from a bungled summoning. He had committed the murders and we were forced to destroy him when we couldn’t cure him nor return him to his native dimension. We tried investigating who had summoned him, but without success.
Afterward we started hearing rumors of a new gang in town, named the Demons, that had taken over a large part of the criminal activity in Philadelphia. We eventually discovered that they were, in fact, truly demons; we then confronted the gang and defeated them handily: I went “Bowling for Demons” while hanging a curtain of darkness in front of me as a force wall. That was also when I used the catcher’s mitt as an entangle on the smallest and fastest demon. Inside of a turn we had defeated and destroyed the demons we saw, when another, unseen demon, reached up from below ground and killed Quarterstaff, fulfilling the second prediction. (To be continued…)
Sue was very busy at the time and couldn’t decide on a finalist or alternate, but she posted the results in the Hero Auxiliary booth in the dealer’s room later. I was the alternate from our round, mainly (I think) for the way I played off Battler.
(I have to envy Sue’s energy: she ran events in almost every slot, then would go over the Major Goolsby’s (the sports bar across from MECCA) with a bunch of the Hero and HAC people and close the place. When she started the Octagon tournament final Sunday morning at 8:00 she was still energetic enough to bounce up and down.)
Thursday night I reserved for the A&E party, but I got sidetracked to the NVM party in the Hyatt beforehand. I actually only stayed a few minutes at the party, long enough to get their free T‑shirt, but I mostly stayed outside talking with Carol Dodd, the woman who plays Bronwyn in Erick Wujcik’s GenCon Amber campaign (cousin to my own character Damarian). This was totally unplanned but welcome.
We spent a half hour talking about the present situation, which was currently centered around a Tarot reading we had done at the close of the last session at Ambercon last April; Erick had finally sent us a description of the cards a couple of weeks before GenCon and this was the first time we had to discuss the reading. She had a notebook with several pages of notes on the meaning of the cards (primarily Amber Trumps); it was a non-standard Celtic Cross with significators crossing the column of four on the side. We discussed the general meanings at they applied to the situation, and gave each other our predictions and perspectives; as it turned out, she was far more correct than I was, but we aren’t finished by a long shot. (Probably because she is more knowedgable about the scenario, largely due to her communication with Erick and my not being able to stay awake during the previous GenCon session Sunday night/Monday morning.)
Afterward I finally made it up to the A&E party in the Marc Plaza, where I saw a lot of the usual (and some decidedly unusual) suspects: Spike Y. Jones and Mary Chriest, “Doc” Cross, Jonathan Tweet, Scott Bennie. I’ll remember more names as people sound off in A&E about the party, and after I have the pictures developed (after I finish the roll, of course).
Friday
Friday morning, after wandering the dealers room again, I made my first and only visit to the art show. It is more a combination art exhibit and dealers room, with panels in back and artists having huckster tables in the front. Art is sold through the art show staff, a cumbersome procedure that apparently ensures GenCon gets a cut of the proceeds. It was comparable to a large convention art show in overall quality, but not in volume: most of the most prominent artists only displayed a small number of pieces. A lot of former or present TSR artists were in attendance, of course, plus a good number from elsewhere in the gaming industry. There was no auction nor any bidding, either; all of the art was either Not For Sale or available for a fixed price. I wasn’t much impressed with what I could afford, and the best pieces were NFS. Needless to say I didn’t buy any art there.
I did buy some artwork, though: in the dealer’s room I bought a gorgeous S&N print from Ruth Thompson called “The Task of Heaven” of an female angel (and not your standard angel, either; with her long black hair and dark skin she more resembles an American Indian than anything else) with golden feathered wings (a friend mine who is also an art collector says Ruth does the best feathers of any artist she’s seen) and a sword standing before these ornate Grecian gates, and a print by an artist named Néné of an enchanting dancing gypsy girl. Later I would buy a couple more pieces; I don’t have room to display them all, but they’re all pretty.
Justice, Inc. Tournament (Preliminary Round)
Friday noon started a period five straight scheduled gaming sessions, beginning with the Justice, Incorporated tournament. After some years of shifting membership, this year the team went back to largely the original cast: Nick Halliday, detective and stalwart leader of Justice, Inc.; Commander Albert Ross, British aristrocrat; Roxanne (Roxie) duBois, lady reporter; Necros, Master of the Dark Magics, stage magician; Shannon McCrea, his beautiful and innocent young assistant; Geoffrey “G” Whiz, inventor; his sidekick Bandit, the Raccoon of the Future; and Johnny Fantastic, the Commander’s nephew and ward and a former circus performer (marksman). Everything takes place in the pulp era during the beginning of World War II.
We started in a fight with the villainous Dr. Hwong, who held the Weathervane of Noah’s Ark, deep in an ice-covered cavern deep in Mount Ararat. With the Weathervane he could throw lightning bolts to bring down icy stalactites down upon us. I, as Nick, returned fire with his trusty pistol amidst the many reflections of the villain in the icy cavern walls. The others ran across the ice bridge between us, except for Geoffrey who made a device out of a compass to magnetize the lightning bolts away. Bandit snatched the Weathervane as the evil Dr. Hwong dropped it as he fell into the crevice; his body was never recovered but we’re confident that we’ve defeated him again we haven’t seen the last of him.
That done, we returned to our base in Chicago, where a woman entered the offices of Justice, Inc., and asked us to investigate the murder of her father. He was an archaeologist, who had successfully found the site of the tomb of King Solomon’s architect. His backer, a mysterious figure named Gideon Ashur, was prominently involved. Just as she showed us a copy of a jubilant letter her father sent her, plus the telegram announcing his murder, a mysterious shadow of a figure appeared in the frosted glass of the office door. Suspecting foul play, the members of JI leaped to investigate, to ultimately find a Monsingor, representing the Roman Catholic Church (played by Mark Blumberg), who was very much interested in seeing the Weathervane of the Ark recovered. (It had been stolen from the local museum the previous night.) He also gave us a cryptic warning before he left. The woman herself disappeared sometime during this scene; we suspect an open window provided her an escape route.
The other members of Justice, Inc. were at the railroad station welcoming Geoffrey back from Washington, where he had been advising the government concerning the Manhattan Project, when a woman pulled a gun and appeared to aim at Geoffrey! Actually she was aiming at the man behind him, who she claimed killed her father, an archaeologist. During the scuffle a gang of men appeared to add to the confusion before everything was cleared up.
When the woman was brought back to JI headquarters she was immediately recognized as the same woman who had appeared previously, bearing the same letter and telegram. However, this woman had been at the railroad station and so could not have been the woman who appeared earlier. Another mystery for Justice, Inc.!
Our investigation lead us to one man, the archaeologist’s backer, Gideon Ashur. We learned that he had hired the men at the railroad station, and that some of those same men were involved with the robbery of the Weathervane, and we confronted him at his Chicago apartment (above the Chicago Opera House). We also suspected him of having the woman’s father murdered.
During our confrontation with Gideon, Shannon’s surreptitious investigation discovered the stolen Weathervane of the Ark in his library, as well as a tarnished lamp with a symbol on the bottom composed of two interlocking triangles. Everyone else was confronted with the hideous, hunchbacked figure who called himself Jack, dragging a bloody bag across the floor containing the body of Ashur’s maid. He was surprised to discover that we could see him as he confronted Ashur; we were surprised to find that we could not harm him by conventional means: when Geoffrey grabbed Jack, Jack shrugged out of Geoffrey’s bear hug and, leaving his own arm with Geoffrey, took another arm from the bag and replaced his own. When Jack was eventually set on fire, he jumped out of the windows into the Chicago River. In the confusion, Gideon disappeared.
The Monsignor was even more evasive concerning Gideon, but he seemed to know Gideon, at least by reputation. The Monsignor also disclosed that the tomb of Solomon’s architect contained a great power that Gideon could not face, but that Gideon wanted something in the tomb and collected various occult artifacts to aid him. He advised us to go to (Nazi-occupied) Paris to obtain another (unnamed) artifact that would aid us in our fight, before confronting Gideon and Jack once again. We members of Justice, Inc. swore to see justice done, to aid the young woman in bringing the murder of her father to justice, and to stop what dark evil was threatening the world.
Our path led us to Paris, where we were had arranged to meet with the Underground. Our contact turned out to be none other than Roxanne’s long-lost father! He led us to our rendezvous with the French Underground, who would get us into the Cathedral of Notre Dame. One sidelight: at the café‚ where we were supposed to wait for our last contact, a man approached Shannon (who was still carrying the lamp) and asked to buy it. Mark played the character holding pictures of Victor Buono (smiling and frowning) before his face to aid the scene.
After a wild goose chase at Notre Dame, we finally were led to a small chapel outside of Paris, just at sunset, where the last rays of light through the stained glass outlined a secret door. Pulling open the door we saw, in the sunlight, a crown of thorns. Just then, machine gun fire from outside the chapel shatters the stained glass, except for one last panel showing the members of Justice, Incorporated. (To be continued…)
It was a fun scenario, and I was (just) a little annoyed that I didn’t advance, but on reflection I would say that I didn’t do as good a job playing Nick as I had thought. (Or maybe its just rationalization.) Anyway, not qualifying for the final let me play in Sue’s tournament final, instead, so it all worked out. I still want to know how the final turned out, though.
Friday afternoon’s event was cancelled because the GM didn’t show up. That gave me a little more time to run through the dealers room again, help out Rex with his Street Scum event, and then get some much needed dinner at the Hyatt before the evening session: I wanted the steak fajitas (a tradition of mine at Hyatt conventions) but I got over there too late to guarantee I’d get served in time, so I chose something else. I was able to make the event in plenty of time, however.
I was originally scheduled to play in a game Friday evening, but instead turned the ticket in to assist Jeff Smith in his event. (There was an announcement at the Hero party Wednesday night that he needed some assistance, and I volunteered.) He needed the assistance as he would also be playing a major NPC, so I handled most of the players’ interaction for the event. I was given a synopsis of the event and a list of characters before hand so I was able to do the job effectively: it also gave me a warmup for GMing my event the next day. It demonstrated to me that my GMing skills, particularly my descriptive skills and my capability of thinking fast on my feet, were still very good, and I could think on my feet. I had been wondering about that since I haven’t been doing much GMing in the past year or so.
The scenario involved a vigilante named Nemesis recruiting a team of superheroes to assist him in his quest against a major local drug dealer, nicknamed “Handy Andy”. He approached the heroes after he had seen them in action; once he even initiated the situation (covertly) in order to draw the heroes out. The heroes were EM (aka Dr. Richard Rockwell) with powers over the electro-magnetic spectrum; Dr. Roberta Hawke (aka Mentat), a government researcher of paranormals who is secretly a paranormal herself; Lynx, a humanoid feline; Kamikaze, with wind powers; Khrystyne Deaver (aka Cyberdragon), a small, cute, perky cyborg with martial arts; and Andrew Sinclair (aka Blackwing), a street-hardened vigilante.
The first involved a hostage situation, involving EM, Hawke, and Sinclair; EM and Hawke were taken hostage by a group of terrorists who had placed explosives in the hotel where they were attending a dinner. Sinclair was called away by a false page while EM and Mentat were led away by one terrorist with a remote-control in hs hand with a “deadman’s” switch. They were led to the basement garage and three other terrorists, all heavily armed, followed by Sinclair and (Secretly) Nemesis. EM and Hawke eventually initiated a confrontation, aided by Nemesis and Sinclair’s covert intervention, which led to the capture of the terrorists and the introduction of Nemesis to the two heroes.
The most fun I had was the second, covert situation: Nemesis used a sniper rifle to blow out the tire of a passing car on a street in a tough neighborhood, hoping the local toughs would start to harass the driver, thus drawing the heroes who patrolled and protected the surrounding areas out. What he didn’t know was that the driver was another superhero, Cyberdragon, who proceeded to mop up the locals almost on her own, although Lynx and Kamikaze arrived shortly thereafter. It was largely a wiping-up operation, started by Cyberdragon suddenly elbowing two toughs; the picture of the petite Cyberdragon knocking the two back with two swift elbow thrusts (in the game, from a sitting position by the player against the GM and his other assistant) was definitely amusing. Lynx and Kamikaze arrived shortly thereafter to clean up, and afterward Nemesis introduced himself and obtained a promise of future assistance from the three.
The last hero, Blackwing, after seeing Nemesis approach the other two heroes while he was in his civilian ID, tried to arrange a meeting himself by leaving word on the street. I created this scenario entirely on the fly, with a small group of toughs, backed by a sniper on a rooftop nearby, who were going to send their own message to Nemesis. The sniper was taken care of by Nemesis, and Blackwing used his swing line to play Tarzan with the toughs on the ground (with a little help from Nemesis, just to speed things up.)
After he had gotten promises of assistance from everyone, he arranged a meeting between himself and “Handy Andy” at a local quarry; of course, he was not expecting “Andy” to arrive himself. He wanted the other heroes to back him up, from surprise, while he confronted the villains, whom he expected to show up in force. They all arrived in plenty of time to arrange an ambush.
One of “Handy Andy“ ‘s lieutenants, Mr. Fu (so named for his distinctive “Fu Manchu” moustache), showed up in a limousine, with three more car loads of thugs with automatic weaponry. They weren’t expecting the other heroes on the scene, and soon after the fight started only a quarter of the thugs were left standing, when second Mr. Fu stepped out of the limo, dragging a woman in a hero costume. He put a heavy pistol into her mouth, said “Hey, Paragon, remember this?”, and pulled the trigger. As I described it, the back of her head disappeared. Nemesis (played by Jeff Smith) formerly Paragon, shrieked and collapsed at the death of his former wife, the paranormal Angel, allowing the rest of the thugs to open fire and hit almost every time; fortunately, his armor prevented him from sustaining heavy injury. The heroes were able to mop up the thugs afterward. That was the end of the first round.
I don’t know what happened in the final round: I wasn’t involved with it and I was probably busy at the time, anyway, but I would like to know what happened. Considering Jeff’s performance in the Champions tournament final, plus the event writeup for the first round, I would expect that it was a very interesting event.
Saturday
Champions Tournament (Preliminary Round)
Saturday morning was my only scheduled 8:00 am event, the Champions tournament. I knew this was supposed to be the final tournament, and that a big finish was in the offing, so I wanted to be involved in the final, since it would probably be my last chance at winning it. For a character I picked Diamond, who is a female shrinking brick; I played her flirtatious with a phony ‘Southern belle’ accent, but what made my effort (I think) was the body language: I brought my right leg up over my left knee, folded my hands over my right knee, and smiled. I also sat on the shoulder of Challenger, the leader, since Diamond still weighs close to her own normal weight and he was one of the few people strong enough to support her weight naturally. I also did a few other things, like picking up and jumping with a truck to use as a makeshift barrier when a levee ruptured, and visited sick teenaged girls in a field hospital while the others were tracking down information.
The other characters were Challenger, a flying brick, Chicago city cop, and the general leader of the Confederation of Heroes; Fist, a black martial artist; Halo, a Hispanic light elemental; Oak, a sorcerously-animated tree (I got it right this time, didn’t I Sue?); Dakota, a “High Plains drifter” with wind powers; Indigo, a woman with darkness and mental powers; and Necro, Chicago special coroner with a death aura. The team is based in Chicago and has been together for about three years now.
We started by showing up to help strengthen a levee during the flooding in southern Illinois; just as we arrived to help lend a hand and to cheer up the National Guard and volunteers it started to rupture and only by fast action by everyone on the team was disaster averted. That’s when I took the truck (I was later going to apologize for using but never got the chance) and jumped to the levee and placed in the main flow. Oak had already been standing on the levee; he “rooted” and supported the piles of sandbags, preventing them from being further washed away. The rest of the team got everyone out of the way, diverting the water away from the crowd. Once the levee was stable, everyone came back to fill and pile sandbags.
When it was safe, we started investigating a series of reported paranormal occurances that lead us west into Kansas. We commandeered a jet helicopter, without which we’d never have been able to get around as quickly as we needed. Our first stop was to confront a man who had the uncontrollable power of projecting explosive blasts; he had already started a minor earthquake (which had caused the levee rupture) and an apartment house fire. I, Necro, Challenger, Dakota, and Oak helped out with the fire rescuing people: shrunken, I was the safest as I told the GM “The best place in a building fire is closest to the floor.” The others found that could not control his powers, and that they built up a charge several seconds apart that would then fire from his hands. There was very little we could for him; even Indigo could not assist him telepathically. We then got more radio reports of more paranormal occurances further westward.
Aside from the man with the blaster powers, there was a man turned everything the color green within several yards of himself; a woman who began melting uncontrollably, disfiguring her children horribly when they tried to touch her; and a baby who manifested 100′ tall images of Barney and Big Bird. Our research eventually showed a definite pattern to these occurances, which were people with no history of paranormal powers suddenly manifesting them, often without any control, all in a limited area in the Midwest. Eventually we would discover a link between the weather and the occurances.
We finally traced the apparent source of the cause of the powers to a farm in Kansas, which was actually an old Dr. Destroyer deathtrap set up for the Texas Rangers; a glass cage snapped shut around us while rocket engines roared to life, hurtling the cage down a dark shaft in the ground to certain doom. Since it was not set up to account for the powers of the members of the Confederation we were able to escape fairly easily. In its control room we discovered weather maps, indicating several storm fronts in the MidWest. At the center we found a group of paranormals, apparently seeding and directing the storms. Those we took care of fairly quickly: when one made a comment that “You’re all sterile” Diamond almost went berserk (she was sterile, which I felt was part of the trouble she was having with her husband). “What was that about sterile?” I said as I punched his lights out. That’s when we heard the weather report about several storm fronts, all leading out from this area, and one in particular heading directly for Chicago. (To be continued Sunday.)
Mike Mallonee ran the session, and afterwards he left for several minutes making the decision as to who to name as finalist and alternate for the session. I had my own event to run directly afterwards; fortunately, it was only a few booths down, so I was able to get people set up while waiting for Mike to decide. Mike eventually returned at just before noon; I don’t remember who was picked as alternate, but as soon as he made that announcement I could feel that he was going to name me as finalist. Sure enough, he did. I almost jumped for joy. (I eventually did, later.)
I was on a pretty good high starting my event. I only ran one session this year, since I was not able to commit to appearing before Saturday when I submitted the event request. I had pretty good hopes for the event, but I guess I got spoiled with the level of roleplaying from the other tournaments and was faintly dissatisfied with the players. (Or maybe it was my fault having too high of expectations: I don’t know.) Anyway, we did have fun, so I guess that was what counted.
“The Power of Gold”
The event was named “The Power of Gold”, taken from the Dan Fogelberg song. A friend got me a copy of the lyrics, which I included on the cover of the player packets: I only wish any of the players had actually heard the song. The song was the initial scenario seed: a new drug on the streets named Gold. Of course, this has been done before, but I remembered a filk song by Val Housden mentioning a drug named Gold, which was of alien origin, producing hallucinations of flight and apparently staying in the body to produce flashbacks. I incorporated those elements into the scenario, but I needed something else. Then I remembered Jack Chalker’s Well World novels, and an intelligent parasitic virus, and finalized the concept. Gold was an alien lifeform that consisted of a central mass and units in host creatures: humans (and other Terran animals) in this case. People would take Gold until a critical mass developed within them, at which point it would connect with the central mass and take over. All fully-converted Gold users were mind-linked together. In order to spread their influence, the mysterious suppliers of Gold sold it very cheaply. However, the supply method was unknown (they were using animals under the influence of Gold to deliver it.) There was one known distinguishing feature of Gold users, contracted pupils.
The characters involved were six from my Hero Games supplement proposal, in an ad hoc group named the Shadow Knights: Blackwolf, martial artist with enhanced reflexes; Mystery, stage magician turned superheroine; Nightshade, a PI with an invisibility suit; the Persuader, a hunted vigilante with a code versus killing; Shadow, a martial artist with an animated shadow; and Stormbird, with power over winds and clouds. They were involved with Gold in that most everyone knew someone involved with the drug.
The team tracked one known Gold user (a friend of Stormbird’s) and generally followed (and harassed) him until he got some Gold. That in itself made up for most of the roleplaying, especially Stormbird in her secret ID meeting the guy in his loft apartment (and for a walk afterwards) while everyone else spied on the encounter.
The next day they discovered the entrance to site of the central core, after the Stormbird, Mystery, and the Persuader followed Stormbird’s friend out into the alley where he was getting a dose of Gold. This dose proved to be the one to make the critical mass, so they discovered him during the takeover. When he awoke, it was as a member of the Gold collective mind, yet knowing everything that had happened to him previously. When the Persuader and Stormbird tried to help him, security guards from the collective used their sonic stunners on everyone in the area. When the Persuader and Stormbird awoke he was gone, yet he couldn’t have gone far. Upon investigation they discovered a secret entrance in the back of the alley. and they called in the rest of the team.
Actually, since no one really knew each other’s identity, they called the phone mail system that Blackwolf had established. Blackwolf, however, knew everyone else’s secret IDs and contacted everyone who wasn’t already at the scene, and they were able to band together quickly.
Descending into the ground through the concealed entrance into a long, dimly-lit tunnel (which looked like a scene from Alien, with organic components and piping on the walls) they were being watched by cats who had been taken over by the Gold collective mind. When they reached the bottom they could see a large container of Gold (the central core) in a glass cylinder about 10 feet high and six feet in diameter, with hoses and pipes leading into it. A group of security guards, with the same sonic stunners, were in a line between them and the central core. Unbeknownst to the guards, the Persuader had obtained a set of shooter’s earplugs for everyone, which shielded them from the sonic attack. (The guards eventually went to their pistols, which used a light attack; those that were still conscious by that time, that is.)
The guards were taken care of fairly easily, and the Persuader instead attacked the central core, shooting an electrical charge through it from his taser. It wasn’t doing any real damage, but if he rolled well or switched to his other attack he could damage it severely. The core itself was getting desperate at this point, and Blackwolf offered the core a deal; the Shadow Knights would let it survive (it had said it was stranded on the Earth and only wanted to survive and grow as any living organism would; even more so, since it could possibly be the only such core left) if it would release all of the humans it had controlled. (Note that the deal doesn’t mention animals: there will be a series of thefts from the Detroit Zoo and outlying zoos soon.) It didn’t know whether it could, but it tried and was mostly successful.
The best player was Blackwolf, who picked up on and used the specialties I wrote into the character better than the other players with their own specialties, as well as leading the others. Stormbird did a good job interacting with her friend, especially convincing him that she wanted to try Gold. Mystery had fun, appearing at Stormbird’s friend’s door (in one of a series of disguises that night), using her magician’s skill to hypnotise him and get further information, as well as get him depressed enough to want another dose of Gold as soon as possible.
I was free after this until the following morning: I wandered the dealer’s room, making my last purchases (two color prints and an original color piece of one of the characters from the Dream Park RP game), helped Rex start his last Street Scum 2 1⁄2 (“The Smell of Police Squad”) event until I had to get some dinner. By happenstance, Mike Stackpole and two friends were eating nearby and he invited me over to join them. We talked for over an hour about the gaming industry again, talking about the convention and such, and I finally had my steak fajitas, since I wasn’t under any time constraints.
When dinner was over I wandered the convention some more and watched some Japanese animation in a makeshift theater on the crosswalk between MECCA and the stadium. The program was very fitting: Lodoss Wars, which has a very strong D&D flavor with knights, clerics, magicians, elves, and dwarves. The story line concerned a young warrior and his elven love, against an evil sorcerer who plotted to sacrifice her life force to revive an evil goddess; the warrior defeats the sorcerer and his spell at the last moment, but it takes two episodes to do it. People should find it interesting, especially the parallels to D&D.
Sunday
Octagon Champions (Final)
Sunday morning early I showed up to see if I could get in as alternate in Sue’s Octagon final; otherwise I would go over to watch the JI tournament (and maybe play a bit part in it). One finalist for Octagon didn’t show up, and there were two alternates present, but the one character that was missing from the mix was Nightstar, so I was selected. (Thanks, Sue!)
We had to deal with the death of our friend Quarterstaff and the certain disintegration of the Scarlet Ghost’s mind, when another character appeared to us, at Quarterstaff’s grave. Her name was Keleren de Teserek and she was sent by Gemstone’s father to search for an evil wizard who had been tracked to the Earth. She immediately identified Battler as a demon and assumed he was summoned by the wizard she was seeking: she asked us why we were defending him and I replied that he was my husband. We eventually convinced her that Battler had been around for longer than the wizard had been on Earth and so could not be a part of his plans. Keleren was also Gemstone’s cousin, fulfilling another of the psychic woman’s prophecies. She was dressed most inappropriately for the surroundings: chain mail and wearing a sword at each side. I created a cloak out of shadow to hide her armor and weapons until we left the open.
We had to spend most of the rest of the time searching for clues and for reasons; why was Quarterstaff killed? Why were the demons searching for and stealing mystical items from around the city? Where was the wizard?
We started getting the answers one by one. Quarterstaff was apparently killed to prevent her participation in a celestial event, where a mystic balance between Good and Evil is decided by selecting several mortal individuals; apparently Quarterstaff was to have been one of those people. We were told of the event by an expert on the occult who had been robbed of a scrying stone at the same time we were fighting the demons (and when Quarterstaff was killed.) The wizard was apparently going to replace her and thus gain power (and the domination of Evil over the world for a millenium) using the mystical items to give him power to make the replacement.
Many of the items were being stolen by minor demons summoned by low-grade magician in the wizard’s employ. We paid the magician a visit, impressing him with Battler’s true form (whom he thought to be another minion of the wizard.) I provided a watcher in the form of a shadow raptor (Battler ate the shadow raven I first created) and we sat down to wait for the last demon to make a pickup. That, of course, was the next day, so I spent the night awake maintaining the watcher; I put the image I was seeing into the mind link, and if it ever started getting blurry everyone else was supposed to keep me awake. Unfortunately the Scarlet Ghost was having trouble maintaining the mental link, so I got pinched and punched a lot; (“Marcus, I’m awake; Marcus, I said I’m awake.”) I also drank a lot of Earl Grey tea (hot).
Late the following afternoon the last demon did arrive. Gemstone teleported everyone into the magician’s room (having the coordinates from me from my watcher through the mind link: another grossity of the Cosmic Power Pool plus the Mind Link) and captured the demon. Keleren could ‘see’ the link from the demon to the wizard, so we followed it on a flying platform of shadow (with the figurehead of Quarterstaff in the front) to a castle in the swamps of southern New Jersey, where our final confrontation with the wizard took place.
Initially it was touch and go: the wizard was a lot faster than us, and he had a force wall erected before him, plus the demon who had killed Quarterstaff to defend him. I was the only person capable of attacking him behind the force wall, but he deflected my attack and almost knocked me out in return. Battler, upon seeing the demon as the murderer of Quarterstaff, went berserk, and was able to defeat the demon (in the same gory manner as it killed Quarterstaff); then, still berserk, attacked the wall. Everyone that could coördinated their attack with Battler and they broke through. Still, it was a close thing until a series of attacks defeated the wizard, the last of which was me skeet shooting the falling wizard into his fire pit, where he had been sacrificing the mystical items he had obtained.
Still, that left the spell ready, and the Scarlet Ghost still in distress. We asked Keleren to join us, to join the link and stabilize the Scarlet Ghost, as well as to help us complete the spell. None of us were as good (or as Good) as Quarterstaff, so we don’t know how the balance has shifted, but it did release Quarterstaff (as the Scarlet Ghost said, “I don’t feel her dying any more.”) So Octagon lost a member but gained another.
The scenario was angst-ridden and emotional. The roleplaying was excellent. Outlaw was played very nervously and very energetic (almost frentic); the Scarlet Ghost was very spooky and convincing. I didn’t do as good a job in the final, mainly because the player who did Battler and I didn’t have the same chemistry together. Still, it was a very fun four hours, and a warm-up for the Champions tournament final afterwards.
Champions Tournament (Final)
If the Octagon tournament final was the warm-up, this was the main event: one of the most involving tournaments I have ever played in. All of the tournament finalists were present, so Rex (who was an alternate again) was left out (for the fourth time). Another player and I had played Diamond in the first round, so when it came time to chose who got the character, Mike Mallonee (the main GM) had several members of the audience be a jury, and the other guy and I had to plead our case before the ‘jury’ in our Diamond’s divorce trial! I may have made a mistake in playing to any (non-existent) female members of the jury, which is probably why I had to play the last remaining character, Halo. (This was the third time I advanced to the final round, and the third time I was unable to play the character I advanced with. I had sworn that if I ever did play that same character that I would win the tournament, but I guess it will never be, now.) At least I could fake a good Hispanic accent (courtesy of three years of Spanish in high school and Cheech Martin), and I immediately picked up on the idea of sterility: that would be about the greatest disaster for a Hispanic male, not to bear children.
We picked up directly after the fight scene in the first round, where I saw a man (played by Mark Blumberg) watching us from the next hill. Just watching us. I flew over to confront him; as I approached, I recognized him. He was the first hero, the first one to put on a mask and fight crime, after which he disappeared for twenty years. Eventually the rest of the team confronted him too, and he introduced himself as Adam Kiley and told us the following story:
Twenty years ago (he said) he was assigned to a secret military project, to create superpowered paranormals. His job was to man a fail-safe switch, in case anything went wrong. There was a test, once, and the result was far greater than anticipated. He hesitated, just a moment, and the fail-safe mechanism was ruined. He then left, knowing that everyone thought him and the rest of the project dead, and wandered the country.
But he was infected. Paranormal abilities, we had discovered, weregenetically-based, and could be transmitted like a disease. In fact (he continued) he thinks he may have spread the disease himself, but not to the scale that was now threatening the world. That was why he wanted us to help him return to the bunker where the project was located, fix the fail-safe and stop the paranormal plague that threatened to sterilize humanity, even if it possibly meant our lives.
At that point, I (Halo), being sterile, had very little to live for personally, but I also had a family back in Chicago that I would do anything to protect, so I was already convinced. Diamond, who had been (actually) massaging Adam’s back, wrapped his/her arm around Adam’s throat and warned him that the slightest false move would be very dangerous on his part. (Rapid shrinking plus enhanced strength plus an arm around throat equals possible fatality.) The others were not convinced, but were at least ready to try. We all climbed back about the helicopter and headed for New Mexico.
Unbeknownst to us, we were overheard by someone, and Adam’s words about sacrificing paranormals was broadcast to everyone. As a result we were attacked on our way to the bunker by the paranormal Corsair, who fired three missiles at our helicopter. I shot one down, Dakota diverted a second, and Challenger stopped the third with his chest and barely survived back to the helicopter; he had major wounds and needed particular medical care, which only Necro could provide. Fortunately this was a medical evac chopper, so the equipment was available, and Necro talked Indigo through the procedures. The rest watched for more paranormals, but none showed up until we arrived at our destination.
We were met there by a government ‘plumber’ named Serpent (played Jeff Smith, who is one-armed) who had been hunting Adam for twenty years (Kiley hunted by the one-armed man); his job was to ‘clean up’ after the project, and although we were prepared for a fight, he let us by. Or at least he was going to let us by, but Diamond collared him as well and brought him along too. We descended into the bunker and sealed it; outside, groups of paranormals were arriving and fighting for their survival or the world’s survival: various GMs and people from the audience played bit parts in these scenes.
We found that we could fix the fail-safe, although it would take the assistance of the device’s builder (played by Mike Mallonee), who was found cleaning the trophy room of the Texas Rangers: when we first called, all we saw was the mask of Dr. Destroyer in the video screen, which was then revealed to be in a display case. We had fixed the device and were debating whether or not to active it, when a woman’s voice from the end of the room said “You cannot move nor use your powers.”
The other survivor of the disastrous test twenty years, Evelyn (played by Sue Grau) appeared, holding Dr. Destroyer’s mind control device. We had no choice but to obey. She stood before us, putting the device on the table, and told us of her plans to use it to dominate a planet of paranormals. It was Dr. Destroyer’s dream and it would be hers. He had rescued her from the wreckage of the project, taken her ruined body and repaired it, making it better than ever; now she would see his greatest dream fulfilled herself. In a few minutes her satellites would destroy the orbitting fail-safe device, and the world would be hers.
We were given at least two chances to break free, but her control roll was very high. Challenger came the closest, but his Disadvantages included Double Effect from Mental Attacks, so he was particularly helpless. Only after Diamond sacrificed her turn to taunt Fist (whose natural abilities could possibly not be counted as powers) and Fist’s player used some freebie points that we had been given in the beginning of the round (and that most of us had promptly forgotten) to boost his Ego was he was able to break free. His line was something like “Not for a world of slaves, but for 500 years of free black men.” when he rolled, and he broke free of her control. He promptly lept forward and destroyed the device on the table.
Immediately everyone was free. Since Diamond hadn’t acted, she reacted immediately, rocketing into Evelyn and smashing her to the ground with her fists. Indigo appeared at Evelyn’s body, transporting them both into the shadow realm of her powers and returning alone. Really alone, as she left those powers behind; she was free of them, finally free of their dark burden, and could embrace Halo without fear or harm. Since Halo had been praying to every saint he could remember, he knelt and crossed himself.
Still, that left us with a decision to make, and quickly. Evelyn had set Dr. Destroyer’s hunter satellites on automatic, and they would destroy the fail-safe shortly. However, Necro had taken a vital circuit from the device and would not replace it until he knew everyone’s intent. Everyone except for Fist was ready to sacrifice themselves; Fist still thought there was a chance, a possibility that a cure could be found. One of the people we fought at the of the last round was a genetic shapeshifter, but we couldn’t depend on him nor could he control his powers enough to ensure a cure.
Fist was outvoted, and the fail-safe was activated. As we waited for the end, we all said our final good-byes, in whatever way we knew best. I shook Challenger’s hand and kneeled and crossed myself. Diamond embraced Necro, the only person present who could do so safely; (formerly) Indigo wanted to but wisely held back. Dakota expressed regret that he couldn’t tell his wife good-bye. Oak, who possibly could have survived, said “Then I will be a tree.”
And then we died.
The fail-safe device destroyed a protective layer in space that kept out a cosmic ray that was fatal to the paranormal-power carrying disease and to all who were infected. Yet humanity was saved; nine months later children were born in Chicago and around the world. Thus ends the history of the world of the Texas Rangers and the Confederation of Heroes, as it concerns superheroes.
It was a draining event. Physically, since it is always warm in the room (small room, too many bodies; it always draws an audience) but emotionally as well. (I know I was way too emotional throughout.) Hugs and handshakes were exchanged all around, players, GMs, audience. Everyone involved roleplayed excellently. The guy who played Diamond was incredible: I do not mind losing the character to him as he did some things with the character that I wouldn’t have that contributed to the plot. Challenger, played by my old friend (and now GM) Darryl Poindexter, was Challenger: commanding, knowledgeable, self-sacrificing. When the GMs left to decide on a winner, that was the first thing they said about the character. Fist was excellent: he figured out how to escape and justified it in character; later, in his insistence that a cure could be found he maintained that same intensity and drive. Oak had the best line of the day: “What is sterility?” Kudos also to the GMs and their assistants.
But the hands-down best was Necro. The guy came into the character cold and took off with it. He put on a long black leather coat (and wore it for all four hot hours!) on top of a Vampire:TM T‑shirt and a silver ankh, and spoke and acted like Lionel Atwill throughout the session.
Halo was essentially without depth; he was driven, almost suicidal. I took a back seat to many of the others largely because of that. The only things I wish I would have thought of to do would have been to compliment (and make a pass at) Indigo when she lost her powers, since her darkness powers and my light powers were largely antagonistic, and to ask Necro to hear my last confession (he’s the Angel of Death; there wasn’t a priest, but he’d be the next best thing.)
GenCon Amber Campaign
As if two four-hour gaming sessions wasn’t enough, afterwards I drove out to Erick Wujcik’s GenCon Amber game. Traditionally this has been held in a succession of hotel rooms (including mine a couple of years ago) on Sunday afternoon: this year Erick had a suite of rooms at a Residence Inn 15 minutes west of Milwaukee along I‑94. I drove out after the Champions tournament (and picking up my car from the hotel parking lot) and met up with everyone, and had dinner with a whole bunch of other Amber players before setting down to continue our predicament.
When last we played, Damarian (my character), Bronwyn (Carol Dodd), Kayen, Eleanor, Godfrey, and Harlan (all known if you read my earlier convention reports or Carol’s game writeups in Amberzine) were in a place apart from the normal Amber Pattern universe. We all have had some nasty experiences in this place, Bronwyn worst of all; we were missing Harlan, who apparently had some destiny connected with this land. We didn’t really know what to do, so we decided to try the family method of scrying, using a Tarot deck that Fiona had given Damarian. (I produced the deck at the end of the session at the last Ambercon: we needed to get some information and a Tarot spread is the traditional Amber method of prognostication. I justified having the deck of what I thought were just Tarot cards by saying that Fiona had wanted Damarian to learn how to use it, but he really hadn’t. What I didn’t expect Erick to do was to make all of the cards Trumps!)
It was a most interesting reading; most all of the cards (we felt) represented specific individuals; their position in the reading represented their effect on the present situation. There were three outcomes, only one of which were advantageous.
Harlan’s destiny, as an artist and a child of Dworkin, was apparently to create a new Pattern, using a Jewel similar to the Jewel of Judgement. Only he could do so properly; as an artist he could create it anew, and as the son of Dworkin he had the potential, untainted by the present Pattern (which he lacks.) To make matters worse, there was a mysterious woman named Isabeau involved, who was accompanied by a baboon-like creature who was passionately defensive about her (that I mentally nicknamed Navarre.)
When Bronwyn touched the Trump of the Empress reversed (one of the three outcomes and one of the two disadvantageous ones) and tried to make contact, she disappeared and Isabeau took her place. Godfrey, who was in psychic contact with Bronwyn, was possessed by Navarre. In trying to recover Bronwyn, I broke the contact with the Trump, which Erick hinted was a Very Bad Thing to do. It was, since it locked Isabeau in Bronwyn’s body without any way of getting Bronwyn back. (Harlan got her back eventually.)
Isabeau, growing more intelligent every moment, asked for a deck of Trumps. I hesitated, then compounded by problems by giving her my set. Just when she was thus distracted, Eleanor was able to rush up to Isabeau and strike her in the head with the pommel of her sword, knocking Isabeau out. I then asked Eleanor “Would you believe me if I said that I had planned it that way?” We tied the two up and tried to consider what to do next.
Upon psychic examination of Isabeau I discovered that she has several large gaps in her memory, apparently in the possession of Navarre. She also possessed a considerable Psyche and innate Pattern ability, both stronger than mine.
Harlan, who had been someplace else, caught sight of what we were doing, and managed to put Bronwyn and Godfrey back into their own bodies. As he watched, a ring of energy erupted from the Trump reading, expanding outward to encompass all five of us. We found ourselves in a stony ring, surrounded by twelve threatening figures of our uncle Osric. We formed a protective circle: Kayen, Godfrey, and Eleanor at the points of a triangle with Bronwyn and Damarian in the center, invoking the Pattern.
Our best estimate is that Isabeau is a paramour of Benedict and the mother of another character. She has disassociated parts of her memory and placed then in the keeping of Navarre, apparently in order to evade Chaos. We think she has something to do with the land we were in and that she has a mission to perform with it or for it, one that we are supposed to assist in.
I sometimes think Erick likes having me play Damarian because he can always expect him to screw something up and advance the plot. I think Damarian is so used to avoiding responsibility that he isn’t very good with it; I certainly have stumbled considerably playing the character, and it is readily apparent that he has survived only because of his Good Stuff points. He certainly proved it this round!
Aftermath
I picked up a number of interesting games: Kult, from Europe, is a RP game of dark horror, suited for reproducing any number of physical or psychological horror situations: I think it would make an interesting setting for a campaign based on the Friday the 13th TV series. On the lighter side is Pandemonium, the RP game of supermarket tabloids. I also had to replace my copy of Over the Edge, having given my original copy to a friend as a Christmas gift last year.
Not yet available in quantity was a card game named Once Upon a Time, published by Atlas Games in Britain, a fairy tale card game where everyone has a hand of standard fairy tale cliches and occurrences (like “castle” or “princess” or “wish”) and a secret card describing a classic fairy tale ending. The game is played out by someone telling a story while playing cards that appear in the story; “There once was a princess (Princess) who lived in a castle (Castle)…” Any other player can break in and play their own cards and take over the storyline at any time; “who loved a handsome prince (Prince) from a far-away land.” To win you have to play the last card of your hand and the secret ending card in such a way that makes sense. It looks like a lot of fun; I hope to get a copy soon. The printer had defaulted on the contract and only used 18-pound weight cardboard when they were supposed to use 32-pound weight for the box; the resulting box is very flimsy, and Atlas is using a new publisher.
Not quite a game, but certainly helpful in Champions, is the Heromaker software; this computerizes the Hero character creation, reducing the need to keep track of points and powers. It does have a (very) few bugs and limitations, which may be fixed in the further releases, but the result is very striking: I would have like to have used it to create the characters for my event this year, and certainly will for next year.
The game with the biggest expectant audience was Mage: The Ascension, from White Wolf. It looks very interesting, with its differing schools of Mages and its tenuous ties back to Ars Magica, and it does appear to fit in to the Vampire/Werewolf universe; it is very interesting to see their side of the issues and see how they interact with the other creatures of the night: it helps to remember that people see themselves quite differently than their opponents. It doesn’t have the doom and gloom of Vampire or Werewolf, but it does have its own dangers and joys; its a (relatively) brighter world, one that I wouldn’t mind playing in.
I did have some small complaints about GenCon this year. For one, moving events across the street to the auditorium and arena meant spending time searching for them. The program book included a map with locations, but it was difficult if not impossible to find in the beginning of the book. TSR, next year put the maps in the center of the program book please?
The Japanese animation was welcome, but the location on the walkway over the street was atrocious. Isn’t there sufficient rooms to find them a place of their own?
