So I've started a 2e campaign, as detailed at
Rather Gamey. One of the things Ark used to do when I was a player in his 4e campaign was generate "color" scenes that took place between sessions. As the GM, he had a good idea of who we thought each of our characters were, and used those scenes to make sure the rest of us understood what we were going on about. Alot of the solid roleplaying that took place in that campaign crystalized around the depictions of our characters in those interludes. So I've decided to take a page from his playbook, and I sent out a description of events to my victims... er, players, that takes place immediately following the events of the last game. They had been tracking the source of the blue lights which a bunch of mind controlled people/zombies kept insisting were the last things they remembered before zoning out. Instead of blue lights, they stumbled upon a mind flayer and his skeletal minions. Hilarity and carnage ensued, culminating in Torvalds, the triple-amputee mage destroying a psionic skeleton by punching it with his one remaining limb.
Dramatis Personae:
Torvalds: Needs no introduction. Just click on the "Rather" link above.
Chartreuse: Dual Class Ranger/Hot elf chick. Single minded, kind of violent. Has vowed revenge for the destruction of her hometown, Honlee, by persons unknown (but she's pretty sure it was Illithids)
Banebeard: Dwarven Temple Guardian Priest: Strode out of the night, determined to use this party as the means to resolving the task his Temple Elders have assigned him - to discover the source of magical energies detected at the now-defunct town of Honlee. Suspicious of any dwarf that does not use a giant axe or hammer.
Luke Daggerbeard: Of the Havershord Daggerbeards, natch. Dwarven, definintely. Fighter, technically. A little flighty, not afraid to run from a fight. Does not use a giant axe or hammer.
Towon Lee: International man of mystery/monk. No-one is actually sure when he joined the party, but it seems as though he's been there all along, and he makes a delightful chai tee, so nobody's complaining.
So without further ado:
Shaking off the effects of the dead Illithid’s mind blast, the party struggled to its feet and began rooting through the corpse, looking for something, anything that would tie it to the tragedy at Honlee. Sure enough, amongst the bloodsoaked scrolls and potions that lined the inside of the foul beast’s cloak, they found a piece of paper of a decidedly different type of parchment than the others. Unrolling it, they gathered around.
Chartreuse gasped, “It’s… it’s a map! Of this very area! And look! There is a circle around our village! This fiend must have been responsible!”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Banebeard growled, “There’s one Mind Flayer here, with a couple o' skeletons. Tough as them buggers be, how could just one of 'em have committed alla tha' carnage?”
“Maybe there’s more than one of them?” Luke Daggerbeard chimed in nervously, looking over his shoulder and ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble.
“Let’s hope so, ye milkdrinker!” Banebeard replied with a guffaw, slapping Luke on the back. Luke didn’t appreciate the sentiment or the statement, but held his tongue. Banebeard was pretty intense, and the last thing he wanted was for him to bring up the fact that Luke didn’t use an axe again.
“Hey guys! What’s going on? I can’t see! Let me see!”
With a sigh, the party parted and allowed Torvalds, the triple amputee mage, to drag himself forward with his one remaining arm.
“He’s getting pretty good at moving around with that one arm!” Luke whispered to Banebeard, who only frowned more deeply, his eyebrows gathering like a black, bushy stormcloud at the center of his face.
Towon Lee politely looked away as Torvalds swung his legless torso around and sat up on his stumps to look at the parchment. Disability made him uncomfortable – he couldn’t imagine life like that, depending as he did on the proper number of limbs to fight his battles.
“Huh. Is this a map? It sure looks like one, doesn’t it guys? Guys? Hey there’s a dead Mind Flayer right here, have you guys checked it for stuff? I bet it’s got lots of stuff! Guys? Well I’m going to look through it, guys!”
Ignoring Torvalds as he flopped back to the earth to rifle through the Illithid’s pockets one more time, they returned their attention to the map.
“Isn’t this the same language you saw on the bones of those skeletons, Banebeard?” Chartreuse inquired.
“Lemme see that,” Banebeard snatched it and pulled it close to his face, squinting fearsomely. “Aye, that be the same writing, by Moradin’s beard!”
Sure enough, there was writing on the map, in the strange, flowing text that the party had seen inscribed on the bones of the skeletons they had vanquished.
“I wonder what it says?”, Chartreuse reached out with a finger and lightly traced the lines.
Suddenly, a softly glowing blue dot appeared above the map, hovering about six inches from the page, and a hair’s breadth from Banebeard’s eye. Dropping the map with a bellow, he grabbed his axe from his shoulder, shouting, “Foul magic! To arms! We be attacked!”
Luke immediately raced for the treeline, his sword swinging wildly as he tried to look everywhere at once. Towon Lee grasped Baenbeard’s wrist, however, and intoned, “Calm yourself, my friend. There is no attack, merely a misplaced conjuration. See? A simple light spell attached to the parchment which even now drifts to the ground like petals blown from a dying flower.”
Banebeard wasn’t sure what in the Nine Hells Towon Lee was talking about, but the way he said it was calming enough that he relaxed, and replaced the axe in its shoulder holster.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Bending, Chartreuse picked up the map and stared at the light, which hovered above the page enigmatically.
“Uh, guys? Is the dead mind flayer supposed to be floating?”
Everyone had all but forgotten Torvalds, so when they turned, they were almost as surprised as he was to see the Mind Flayer rising from the ground. It still appeared to be dead, its tentacles flaccid, the massive trauma from the battle still dispensing gushes of green blood. It wasn’t quite floating either, but rather it appeared to be getting pulled up by its neck. Its head hung down, and it looked for all the world as though it had been hung, and some invisible nooseman was pulling its corpse up from the earth.
“W-what’s that glowing?” Luke stammered from the treeline.
Shuffling around to his side of the corpse, they saw a blue glow pulsing just below the skin of the Illithid, right at the lifting point. The body was now several feet off the ground, but the ascent was slowing.
“What glowing? What? What’s going on? Wait up, I’m coming over there!”
Torvalds began dragging himself towards the party, trying to simultaneously pull himself forward and look up to see what they were staring at, mouths agape.
He was almost directly under the Mind Flayer when, with a sick rip, the dead Illithid’s neck split wide, and the corpse dropped with a shower of green blood, directly onto Torvalds.
Wailing plaintively, Torvalds attempted to push the corpse from his body and wipe the massive amounts of blood from his face, “Gah! I’ve been attacked! Acid! Poison! Zombie Mind Flayers! Help! I’VE ALREADY BURNED MY SPELL FOR THE DAY!!!!”
Towon Lee couldn’t help it. Years of practicing restraint and discipline could not contain the laughter that welled up within him, and he laughed, deeply and heartily. It was a strange sound, not one heard very often, and the rest of the party looked at him oddly.
Distracted as they were, no-one noticed the small, pulsing blue sphere’s light start to dim as it sank back to the earth. Torvalds, meanwhile had finally extricated himself from the corpse and was staring, entranced by the artifact, licking his lips.
“A BLUE grape!”, he thought to himself. “How DELIGHTFUL! I MUST have it!”
Looking surreptitiously at the party, who were still confused and distracted by Towon Lee’s first laugh since joining the party, he dragged himself over to it and held it up, admiring the way it glistened. Surely this would be the most delicious grape he had ever tasted!
That very same glistening, meanwhile, attracted the notice of the Chartreuse, who, taking in the situation for a half a second, suddenly realized exactly what Torvalds intended.
“Torvalds NOOO!!!!!!!”
Time slows down as she leaps towards him, arms outstretched. Torvalds, mouth open wide and eyes alight in anticipation of the magnificent feast before him. Towon Lee, now doubled over with gut shaking laughter. Banebeard, one giant, bushy eyebrow slowly raising as he turns. Luke Daggerbeard, moving backwards, startled and preparing to flee.
The blue marble disappears into Torvalds’ meaty maw, and the jaw snaps shut with finality. There is a crunch, and Torvalds’ eyes go from delight to alarm. Blue light erupts from his mouth and engulfs the party.
These are your heroes, and they are about to get into A LOT of trouble.
Stay tuned for the further adventures of the Companions, as they race towards doom... er, ADVENTURE!
I played Savage Worlds for the first time last night, and I have to say, it was quite enjoyable. Having no idea what I was doing, I decided to keep it simple and design a specialized character based on a strong, simple concept. We were playing the Superhero variant of the game, and thus was born The Brain. The Brain began life as one Joe Smith, an average fellow who was at the wrong place at the wrong time and was struck by a bus and lapsed into a coma. His friends gathered at his bedside in the hospital, and were all affected by whatever it was that gave them superpowers. Joe Smith as a person was lost, as Joe Smith's brain became self aware as it's own organism. The Brain had the powers of Flight, Mind Control, Telekenesis and Heightened Awareness. Rising from it's bed, the Brain was disgusted to find that it was tied to a body, which it refers to as, "The Husk" and is, unfortunately, necessary to it's continued survival. So essentially the Brain floats around, dragging the body which it looks at as an unfortunately necessary life support system. Still wearing the hospital gown (open at the back, of course), and with IV tubes still dangling from its arms, the Brain set off with it's companions to rob a Seven Eleven, and then a Bank, killing and maiming as they went (yeah, so we didn't actually turn out as "superheroes" in the most literal sense of the word). The Brain's forte turned out to be controlling other people, which it did with aplomb, until it encountered a pair heroes affiliated with the local chapter of this world's equivalent to the Justice League and their psychic backup. The team of villains has retreated with several thousand dollars, or several hundred thousand dollars (we haven't counted it yet) to plan their next step towards world domination.
Much is made of the whole "Old School Renaissance", and I am greatful for its existence. I think that there is value in looking back on what came before, and not forgetting where you come from, so to speak. I think it's important to look at things as they are, though. 
I just found out over the weekend that White Wolf is dusting off it's Old World of Darkness, slapping a fresh coat of paint on it and giving the optimistically titled, "Classic World of Darkness", a fresh look just in time for the system's 20th anniversary.
Originally I was going to make the mutations in From the Ashes be primarily mental, I think I had a vague notion of there being psychic energy leaking from the brains of the PCs, and using that as an explanation for how their actions would have a direct impact on the world. I still may go that route, but I don't think I'm going to limit the mutations to mental only, but rather use a mixture, in order to NOT BE FAITHFUL TO GAMMA WORLD IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM.
