The style of play appealed to David and he remembered other Lords of Gossamer adventures that he really enjoyed. But more on that at the end of the session writeup.
PS: Yes, once more writing this up waiting for medical tests. Medical tests seem to be a great time to do session writeups.
- Two months have passed since the Marindan Games. Vala has said that she will meet Grant in a place called Barter. There is a place in Barter which can be used to reach one of the closed sections of the Old Stair. She hasn’t been there in a long time but she is expecting it to be dangerous. She warns Vala that some of the rules of these realms are quite different.
- Grant and Ethan are onboard a rocketship heading for Barter. They are onboard a merchant vessel which has a passenger compartment. The rocketship flies through ‘space’ between worlds – but space which has air in it. Outside the porthole, clouds float by. There is the distant hum of the rocket motors.
- There are two dozen seats but there are only eight passengers. A mix of races. A slender fox-like creature. A bug-eyed mammal. Two ‘lionmen’ – one maned and one without. A bipedal humanoid with blue skin and four eyes all facing forward. A mechanoid. And Grant and Ethan.
- This realm is strange – their connection to the greater powers seems to be muted here.
- Ethan goes looking for a pack of cards in his dimensional cube. It malfunctions. A roll of tape falls out. Then an empty coffee cup. A pair of dice. Eventually he finds the cards he likes. The pictures move and even offer advice. The curious fox-like creature leans over to get a better look as they play the game.
- Suddenly the ship lurches. The passengers look alarmed and the cards slide off the table onto the floor. The deck returns to a level state but the Lionmen are unimpressed. The female seems to be some sort of noble with the male a bodyguard. Grumbling something about expecting better treatment, they head out into the corridor, probably to complain to the captain.
- The seconds pass. Ethan and Grant get an odd feeling that something is going on. Then suddenly there a metallic clunk against the hull of the vessel and the passengers look genuinely alarmed. Grant tries to shift Gorgorin from ring form to sword form but it hardly moves. Ethan tries to look within his cube for a blaster and all sorts of oddities fall out.
- Blaster shots are heard from the other side of the door. The passengers dive for cover, whispering about ‘pirates’. Ethan finds a sabre and decides that this will have to do.
- Grant opens the door and finds the corridor filled with smoke. Part of the corridor wall has been blown away and he spots the male Lionman on the ground with a chest wound. The female Lionman is fighting against two ruffians who are trying to make off with her through the hole in the wall and into an awaiting rocket-car.
- Grant springs into action. Weaponless, he nevertheless takes the pirates by surprise through the smoke and takes down one of them, then another, stealing a blaster and then a cutlass. The fallen Lionman doesn’t appear to be too badly hurt – stunned more than wounded. But certainly out of the fight for now.
- Grant fires a shot at the rocket car, blasting the control panel for steering the vehicle. The car slow drifts away from the rocketship with two pirates still onboard. Unfortunately there another massive explosion on the other side of the rocketship and both Grant and the female Lionman are thrown out of the hole, landing smack on top of the rocket car and the two pirates who are trying to steer the out of control vehicle.
- The battle in the rocket-car is swift and the female Lionman rakes one of the pirates with her claws before seizing a cutlass and running the poor fellow through. Grant hurls one of the other pirates over the side, sending him into freefall into the clouds below.
* Image by Magali Villeneuve from Magic The Gathering
- Having secured the rocket-car, they realise that the vehicle has drifted too far away from the rocket ship to get back and the controls for the vehicle are all but destroyed. With a sudden sparkle and flash, the controls go dead and the rocket-car starts plummeting down in a death spiral, picking up speed as it goes. (GM’s note – is this cinematic, or what?)
- Hurtling through the clouds, Grant spots a small planetoid which is relatively close to the descent. Positioning his weight on the rocket-car in a crude attempt to steer it, he manages to get the vehicle close enough for them to jump. Grant takes the brunt of the fall and it would be enough of an impact to shatter the bones of a lesser man, but Grant is a Lord of Gossamer. The female Lionman is quite astonished but says nothing.
- The planetoid is quite barren – there are stark rocky outcrops all over it though. Looking up, they see the merchant vessel far above them, a number of small pirate ships surrounding it using grappling clamps and breach bombs to board it. Grant figures that Ethan will handle it. (GM’s note – and indeed he is. He doesn’t know that Grant went out ‘the window’ so he’s busy repelling boarders)
- An attempt to be friendly with the female Lionman draws a stern frown. Grant decides to focus on changing Gorgorin into a more useful dagger form and he starts to explore the area. They quickly reach the conclusion that they are not alone here. There are many markers made out of the rock with sigils on them. The female Lionman finally speaks and tells him that they’ve landed on ground which is considered sacred to the Rock Men. The Rock Men will kill them if they are found.
- Grant and the female Lionman spot a pirate craft spinning away from the action. It is on fire and appears to be heading in the direction of the planetoid that they are standing on. The two pirates onboard desperately attempt a crash landing but the craft explodes directly over the planetoid, scattering debris widely. This wakes up the Rock Men. The ground moves in many places. The Rock Men literally come out of the rock. They are enormous bipedal hulking brutes who hunt down the pieces of debris and then crush the pieces into teeny tiny fragments.
- Grant and the female Lionman hide. They have to move more than once but are not detected. Grant feels the tingling of an Icon contact. It is Ethan. He asks where Grant is and Grant explains. Ethan is unable to bring him through the Icon contact (it just doesn’t work here) so he tells him that he’ll steer the ship down.
- The Rock Men are not at all happy about a huge rocketship coming close to their planetoid. They throw great rocks at the vessel, bashing new holes in the ship and creating new huge dents in the hull. Finally, Grant and the female Lionman make a run for the ship and get onboard. They find Ethan in charge of the vessel, cutlass in hand. The surviving pirates are trussed up.
- With the getaway complete, the female Lionman finally speaks to Grant and Ethan, introducing herself as Lady Roaora, only daughter of Pride Leader Raoor. She thanks them formally. She invites them to Simba (GM’s note – really? How corny!) to meet her father. Her father will want to thank them personally. (GM’s note – they’re off to meet ‘The Lion King’! Bwahahahaha!) She tells them that in her culture, refusal would be cause significant insult and loss of honour. Grant and Ethan politely accept. The lionmen bow respectfully and the female goes to tend to her injured bodyguard.
- Ethan turns over control of the vessel to the first mate and he goes to make repairs on the way to Barter. Bits of the vessel keep falling off but the ship makes it to Barter without further incident.
- The rocketship reaches the trading hub of Barter. It is a larger planetoid, mostly barren but it has extensive landing facilities and there are dozens of rocketships berthed here. Barter is supposedly the largest freeport in this realm.
- Grant and Ethan leave the wounded ship behind and go to explore Barter Town, the major township on Barter. Very little of it is reputable. Most of it seems to be pretty seedy. Grant and Ethan seem to be the only humans here. Everyone else is an alien. Grant jokes that they seem to have found this world’s “Mos Eisley” – a hive of scum and villainy.
- They pick a bar to sit down and have a drink and a bite to eat. The bar is called (ominously) the “Last Bullet”. They pass through a set of swing-doors and find a mechanoid behind the bar. The mechanoid wears a massive hat which seems faintly Mexican. They order drinks and pick a booth. During this time, Ethan hears something – a faint voice in his mind. The voice is panicky but it is little more than a whisper and he pays it little mind.
- They take the first mouthful of drink but that is all they get before a strange creature charges into the bar and makes a beeline straight for Ethan and Grant. It is a pale, blue-skinned barrel on legs wearing a puffy jacket. Its single eye looks pleadingly at Ethan and it begs for help (mentally – no words are spoken).
- Two figures in pursuit appear at the door to the Last Bullet. One has a dark hat, dark trenchcoat and red eyes. The other is a spindly alien with four arms and four blasters. They waste no time, drawing weapons on their prey. One of them hisses “Die, psionic scum!”
- Grant and Ethan move as one. Ethan moves to cover the Psiclops and run for cover. Grant has managed to get his wrist-blaster working and with that in one hand and a blaster in the other, he blasts the doorway forcing the hunters to duck for cover.
- Spotting that Ethan and the Psiclops are escaping together, one of the hunters protests “Oi! He’s stealing our bounty!” The spindly alien leaps into the room, blasters at the ready but Grant drills him and he shoots wildly as he falls, blasting glassware and spraying the place with random blaster bolts. Grant makes a run for the bar to ask for help from the bartender but instead the mechanoid pops up from behind the bar with an enormous blaster-shotgun. “I’ll have me some of that bounty” drones the mechanoid and Grant realizes that he intends to shoot his fleeing friends.
- Grant backs away and fires at the massive weapon. His first shot disables the shotgun and puts the weapon on overload. Beep beep beep beep! The intensity of the sound gets worse and the mechanoid sadly says “Oh dear” as the gun explodes in a mighty flash.
- By this point, Ethan and the Psiclops are out on the street, legging it. Grant has just made it out the door before the entire building shakes with the explosion. Smoke starts pluming out of the windows.
- Unfortunately, the other bounty hunter is hot on their tails. He is literally floating, running on air with anti-gravity boots, firing shots at Grant as he goes. After dodging a few bolts, Grant does a combat roll and comes up shooting, blasting one of the hunter’s boots off. There is a sudden “uh oh” moment and then the bounty hunter spins off, out of control and there is a wet splat in the distance.
- They run for it, getting as far away as they can before rounding on the Psiclops to ask what is going on. The Psiclops apologies but explains simply that he didn’t expect to find another psychic (referring to Ethan) and thought he was another of his own kind. He gives his name as Kelmellilee (Kel for short) and was once a psionic scientist before Anathraxa put a bounty on his entire race. (whoever she is, she doesn’t seem to like psionics). Kel spins a tale about a psionic-powered ship called the Nightwing, which is hidden, but it’s also the ‘fastest ship in the universe’. He begs Ethan and Grant to help him find the ship before Queen Anathraxa does.
- Grant scratches his head. He was expecting to meet Vala here, not get into another crazy quest. Ethan asks where the Nightwing is hidden and Kel explains that it’s on Psidonia (his homeworld) but they’ll need a ship to get there, and a good one because there’s a blockade. Grant groans at the thought of having to steal a ship and run a blockade. Ethan politely asks how far away Psidonia is and Kel tells them that it’s about twelve hours.
- GM’s note: And that’s where we left it. To be continued – the next session will wrap up this storyline and David will start the next.
This embodies the sort of ‘episodic feel’ that we’re trying to reintroduce. Fewer multi-session stories. And there will be more stuff happening between sessions that doesn’t need to be played through.
David also reminded me of three adventures that he enjoyed.
- Where Grant and Ethan worked together to defend Arcadia against the silver virus. Fighting the zombie army together.
- On the Sparrowhawk airship and the adventure on Crystal Mountain. There were a mix of roleplaying encounters, duels and discovering new and exciting possibilities in those sessions
That also gives me some ideas to work with as to what David likes.
And with that, the session writeups are up to date. At least the hospital visits are good for something.
Only a few weeks left before end of year and the Christmas Special for 2019.
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