So what is everybody playing?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I'd love to see that, Slant. But you'll need a new name. There's already a HERO system out there. Call it "Be a Hero" or "Super" or something

[Slant]

It obviously isn't the Hero System.  They call their games FANTASY HERO or STAR HERO or whatnot, as opposed to just HERO.  I can't call it SUPER HERO because DC Comics owns the copyright to that phrase.  Anyhow, HERO is just a working title for the time being.  It will be a long time (if ever) before we have to worry about an official name.  Right now we are doing it more for fun than anything else.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

actually, the big main book is "Hero, 5th Edition."

[Slant]

Lord of the RIngs game, sessions 5-9

This is a bit of a hasty write up for the five sessions we did before I got hurt.  I'll probably split the text up into a few posts since there seems to be a limit of how much you are allowed to type in, buuut, here goes:

(deep breath)

Kjartan tries to avoid alerting the city that the prince is dead.  He asks for secret volunteers to go to the orc lands.  The Easterling bodyguard removes the helmet to reveal a dark, beautiful woman named Kiri Ani.  She joins the party.  THey travel to the newly created orc city and are repelled by the orc warriors.  The orcs are convinced by a female elf who is residing amongst their culture to allow the party to parley.  She shares knowledge that the uruk ungol are not natural orcs, but were bred elsewhere.  SHe says they were first encountered in Eregion.  The orc leader says that since they allowed the party access to the information, they must do a service to the orcs.  They are asked to transport several cargo wagons to a Rhunite caliph.  It is not until they are already on the way with the wagons and an orcish contigent that they discover that the cargo consists of human slaves.  Kiri ANi, the former bodyguard of a slaver, already figured it out.  There is an argument with the orcs, but the orc guard captain reminds them of their oath.  That night all sleep, but several orcs are found dead the next morning with their throats cut.  Nobody admits to it.

Days pass and bandits arise from the desert to attack the caravan.  THey attack the party as well as the orcs.  Kalis, the orc captain, saves the lives of the badly wounded Soros and Snaga.  Afterwards, the bandits are all slain and burned as the orcs rejoice.  It is not long after this that the caravan is attacked by vengeful desert spirits.  Kira Ani and Soros have magic that allows them to fight the spirits by rendering them flesh and blood, but there are far too many of them, and the party and the orcs are already sorely wounded.  Einar tells Kalis that the only chance of survival is to release and arm the slaves.  It is done, and the spirits are driven off, although many of the defenders are slain.  THat night, Einar discovers a strange leathery egg not far from where the caravan camps.  He shares the discovery with Kouglar (the other party sneak) and they decide to have it identified as soon as they can without telling anybody else.

That night, several humans die mysteriously.  Again, the killer cannot be identified.

The caravan becomes lost in the desert for several weeks.  Finally, they are discovered by outriders of the Rhunite Caliph, Arahaiz.  They are none too happy to see the slaves freed and armed.  Nontheless, Kalis demands to be taken to Arahaiz, having lived up to his end of the deal.  As they travel, several orcs accuse Snaga of being the one to have killed the sleeping orcs some weeks past.  Snaga denies it violently.  Kouglar defends the dwarf.

They finally meet Arahaiz.  Kalis comes on like a ton of bricks with his arrogance and demands.  Kiri Ani, well versed in such things, smooths things over with the Caliph.  The slaves make a deal with Arahaiz through Einar's negotiations.  They will act as sort-of janissaries for the Caliph, swearing loyalty as a first-strike military unit in exchange for a position in Easterling society (ie: we will take the risks of certain death if we can have a good life before we have to do so).  Arahaiz is interested in the idea, and accepts after discussing it with his wise men, Einar, and Soros.  

That night, Arahaiz' eldest son is slain with a cut throat.  Angrily he blames Kalis, causing the orc to rage.  Both Kes and Cyan know that he could not have been the culprit as he was with them at the time.  Snaga and Kes find themselves in the unlikely position of protecting the orc from the blades of the Caliph's soldiers.    Kalis and his orcs disappear back into the desert.  Arahaiz declares war on all orc-kind.  Soros plans to go into the desert to find the orcs, but a soldier tells him that the Old Man of the Desert will slay the evil creatures.

[Slant]

sessions 5-9, part II

They go into the desert, even though Cyan brings up that they SHOULD be headed to Eregian.  In the desert they find signs of a great battle with dozens of dead orcs, but no humans.  An orc survivor, seconds from oblivion, tells them that Kalis is headed back to the orc lands to declare a bloody vendetta against the weak and treacherous Rhunites.  The dying orc mentions that there are vast orc clans still in the northlands beyond the mountains who will seek vengeance if Kalis asks them.

They are taken by force back to the Caliph.  Arahaiz puts Kes and Snaga on trial for defending Kalis' life.  Soros bursts in and uses his powers to give him an intimidating, godly aura.  He berates the Caliph and his judges, allowing the party to escape unmolested.  Following this, the group splits:  Soros, Einar, and Cyan go to the humanlands.  Kouglar, Kiri Ani, Kes, and Snaga to Eregion.

Soros, Einar, and Cyan are caught in a desert storm of arcane origin and seek refuge in a long forgotten tomb.  Einar takes the opportunity to educate his colleages about the finer points of trap detection and removal.  They navigate their way through a deadly maze and face the wraith of an ancient king who grants them the answer to a single question.  Soros asks "why was the son of Elessar slain?"  The answer is obvious: to provoke a war between humanity and orc-kind.  He asks who wants to spark the war and why, but the wriath says he has used up his question and vanishes.

(there is more, but I am out of here for right now: will type the rest of our adventures to date later)

[Slant]

sessions 5-9, part III

Kes and company arrive at the northern capitol, exhausted and dehydrated.  They discover that Kjartan had left for Gondor over a month ago (time flies when you are lost in the desert).  The word is out that the prince has been slain.  The entire kingdom is in mourning and fearful of what the king will do.  Kiri Ani goes to the governor and warns him about the orc armies in the northlands.  Kouglar realises that if the orcs in the mountains and the orcs in the orc cities combine, they will surround and crush the northern capitol with ease.

Soros and the hobbitses (naaaassssssty hobbitses) travel through dark lands to Eregian, outwitting a troll and destroying a dark alter left over from the days of Melkor along the way.  Eregion has grown dark and dangerous over time.  Soros leads them unfailingly to the single elf bastion of Hallowglade, where they are greeted by the regent Cirion and the albino known as Pale Shadow.  They learn from the elves that there are two elf communites left in Middle Earth: Hallowglade and Rivendell.  

Pale Shadow recalls the uruk ungol from her days as a thief and assassin a thousand years past.  She recounts how they were created by Sauron (boo, hiss) in the Second Age to act as assassins, but their cruelty made them unreliable and difficult to control.  Pale Shadow herself served both sides of the war in hunting down and exterminating the majority of them.  The few hundred that remained were locked forever beneath the earth by the elves of Eregion.  She tells Soros that the uruk ungol worshipped the foul Ungoliant as their Dark Lady, forswearing Sauron, who had abandoned and sought to obliterate them.  

Kes wonders if the uruk ungol are still beneath Eregion.
Snaga hefts his axe and suggests some underground orc-bashing.  Kouglar looks at the pair of them and tells them that they are out of their minds.  They stay at Hallowglade to rest and heal.  Kes and Snaga are taught combat tricks by Cirion, once the general of Kalouran's vast armies.  Pale Shadow teaches Kpuglar much about poisons and subterfuge ("scouting tricks" she calls them, although the name is a bot of a sugar coating).  Kiri Ani has an interlude with a handsome young elf hunter that leaves her in a very agreeable mood indeed.

END OF BOOK I

Aaaand that's about where we left off; we will soon pick up again.  Just wait until you see who is behind all this!

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

my money's on Saruman

[Lieutenant Kije]

Good call on Saruman, but with all the throwback to the old campaign...

Umbar is ruled by a powerful entity known solely as Vlsotholis

And there are times where a lone wanderer has been sighted aross the land from anywhere from Bree, to Gondor, to Eregion, to the Northern Wastes: a small, dark hobbit who's eyes gleam with wisdom like the Istari of old....

my guess is she/he/it is somewhere in there also.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

oh, even better call. Guess I need to go back and re-read old Slant-posts.

[Nicadymus]

Hey everybody.  I was thinking of starting a Star Wars campaign back home and had the following plot line come to mind.  It is set in the Old Republic in a distant sector of the Outer Rim called Dryyhihtahn's Terminus, a galaxky bordering a vast nebula.  Please let me know what you think...

General Lysius is the leader of the Diyllfigan Expeditionary Forces. Under his command the Diyllfigan military has begun to invade backwater worlds and rape the conquered planets of their natural resources. Lysius is a brilliant strategist who employs blitzkrieg tactics to overrun his opponent's defenses. Given enough time and resources he could eventually conquer the entire sector.
     Lysius is being advised motivated, and supplied by a shadowy figure known as Fnilryc.
     Fnilryc (a.k.a. Feneric Kalt Tatom) is the leader of an anti-republic terrorist cell known as ARTiC. ARTiC's sole purpose is to prevent Dryyhihtahn's Terminus from joining the Republic. Fnilryc has recruited most of the members of ARTiC by convincing them that the Republic is a cancerous corpse, infected with corruption, which will soon consume itself in civil war.  Fnilryc claims that Dryyhihtahn's Terminus would be better off remaining an independent sector, free from the bureaucratic mire that is the Republic.  Many within the Terminus share Fnilryc's philosophy.
     Currently Fnilryc is using General Lysius and the Diyllfigan Expeditionary Forces to disrupt diplomatic relations between the leaders of Dryyhihtahn’s Terminus and the Republic's ambassadors.  In fact, it was Fnilryc's idea to allow General Lysius to be captured in hopes that a feud would develop over the venue where General Lysius should be tried for his crimes.  Fnilryc's plan is working perfectly thus far.
     Fnilryc's next tactical move is to attempt to aid in General Lysius's escape, or at the very least, have him assassinated.  Fnilryc has recruited Widdoc Blyyt, the most infamous assassin in the Terminus, to accomplish this task. If Widdoc Blyyt is successful in the attempt, Fnilryc will use the publicity to mar the name of the Jedi Knights, who are to be guarding General Lysius, and, thereby, the Republic to further the recruiting effort, while simultaneously attempting to disintegrate the already tentative diplomatic negotiations.
     Fnilryc and ARTiC are being secretly funded by a high-tech corporation known as Metacot Sensory, the Terminus's leader in starship sensor and droid component research and development.  The Metacot Sensory has a hidden research and development facility where illegal research and development into starship cloaking devices, modified starship hull plating, advanced starship slave circuitry, and starship weapons enhancements and augmentation is being conducted.  The products designed and constructed within this facility are sold on the black market for an extreme profit.  It is the profits from these illegal sales that go towards funding ARTiC.
     Metacot Sensory's CEO is Rene Scosy, a strikingly beautiful, charismatic, and filthy rich business woman.  She is a pillar of commerce in the Terminus, and has been using her influence as the CEO of Metacot to push for the incorporation of Dryyhihtahn's Terminus into the Republic.  Behind the scenes she is Rene-scosy Tatom, Feneric Kalt Tatom's identical twin sister, and the mastermind behind the criminal activities of Metacot Sensory's illegal research and development.
When Rene-scosy and Feneric learned that the leaders of Dryyhihtahn's Terminus were undergoing negotiations to incorporate the Terminus into the Galactic Republic, they felt that their way of life was threatened.  Neither one wanted to loose the benefit of the grossly profitable, yet highly illegal, clandestine research and development operations of Metacot Sensory.  They both realized that the incorporation of Dryyhihtahn's Terminus into the Galactic Republic would not only add the additional burden of hiding the illegal operations from the Republic's Business and Trade Regulations Department, but from the Jedi Knights and the Trade Federation as well.  This cost to the company did not out way the benefit of the increased market for starship components, thus Rene-scosy requested that Feneric create a means to prevent Dryyhihtahn's Terminus from joining the Republic.  Feneric created ARTiC, adopted the alias Fnilryc, and began supplying the Diyllfigan Expeditionary Forces.
     Through his advanced network of contacts, Lord Sidious learned of Metacot Sensory's illegal research and development operations, and ARTiC's existence and financial backing.  Only after contacting each directly did he learn who the leaders of those organizations were, and that they were both amazingly adept in the Force.  Sidious stuck a deal with these beautiful and powerful women. Should Rene-scosy and Feneric divert the Republic Senate's eye from the festering hostility over the taxation of trade routes until a conflict arouses from the issue, Sidious would ensure that Dryyhihtahn's Terminus would not join the Republic.  This was an offer that Rene-scosy and Feneric could not refuse, thus they redoubled their efforts, and the invasion of Rilladon began.


     However, there was a loop-hole in Lord Sidious's bargain.  He never said that Dryyhihtahn's Terminus would not join the Empire.

[Nicadymus]

Just as a side note...

We have started the fantasy campaign based in the world that you all offered some insight into helping create and the players ar loving what is going on.  I am working on composing the notes so that they can be posted, but it may be a bit before they are ready.

Once again...thanks for your help with that campaign.

[Spriggan]

glad to hear it.  Say hi to the gang for me.

[Slant]

LotR, Session 10

All members of the group reuinite in Hollowglade, with Soros, Einar and Cyan finally catching up some weeks later.  It is agreed that a trek to the cavernes beneath Eregion is in order.  Snaga is chomping at the bit, having been waiting several weeks (in game time) to kick orc butt.  Pale Shadow informs them that the ruins of the great forges that created the Rings of Power stand above a vast stone that is the seal to the underworld realm where the uruk ungol were imprisoned.  She warns them that they might not like what they find.  An elf named Farondil is dispatched to Gondor to inform the King and Kjartan as to their progress.  Soros detects a taint of Shadow in Farondil and draws Pale Shadow aside as the elf courier rides away.  She tells him that Farondil is seeking repentence for the terrible crimes of his youth, but will not elaborate.  

They travel to the ruins of the Eald Forges.  Cyan discovers runes that tell how a band of humans were honor bound to stand guard over the entranceway to the Lands Below and, over the centuries, became the woses.  They repeat the Words of Power spoken to them by Cirion and the ground parts.  THey find themselves in vast catacombs with walls some 100 feet high.  Countless thousands of uruk ungol are spiderwebbed to the walls from ground to ceiling in a form off suspended animation.  From far off, a sound of metal striking metal in a rhythmic pattern is heard.  Snaga suggests vehemently that they torch the cocoons containing the orcs, killing them all at once.  Kiri points out that they would all die of smoke inhalation before they could make it back to the surface.  Kouglar falls into a trance, hearing insidious voices in his head.

Suddenly, a shadow falls from nowhere.  A vast spider, ancient beyond telling and missing a leg and two eyes drops upon the group.  Einar is poisoned immediately (again).  Kiri Ani draws the creatures attention, baiting it with her torch and hacking away at the mandibles with her great blade.  The monster lashes out and bites her, driving it's mandibles through her stomach and injecting her with enough venom to kill a troll.  Kes and Snaga seize their opportunity and dive beneath the creature, slicing at the soft underbelly and ending up bathing themselves in spider guts.  He monster goes mad, shrieking and lashing in all directions, trying to escape.  Kes drives his dwarven blade throught the spider's forhead, killing it.  Soros attempts to heal Kiri ANi, but she appears to be too far gone, spewing up green mucus and blackeing blood.  Einar takes very little to restore to his former self.  As Soros tends to him, he whispers that he knows the suspicions that Soros has concerning Farondil.  He confides that he knows that Farondil was once an elf renegade who was hunted to the ends of the world by Elrond and his peers for the unforgiveable act of hunting down and exterminating other elves for money.  

The uruk ungol, all the while, have begun to awaken and are slowly creeping down to the ground, silent in the darkness.  Cyan shouts for the others to look out as the spider orcs attack, furious at the party for killing a manifestation of their god.  The sounds of smithing in the distance become audibly louder.  Cyan takes Kiri's torch and follows Snaga's advice, setting fire to the walls as the uruk ungol climb down, setting many of them aflame.  She knows that if the uruk ungol gain any sort of advantage, they will all be dead long before they have to worry about smoke inhalation.  

In the pitched battle that follows, Kouglar hears a coarse, powerful voice in his head compelling him to kill the witch-hunter. He struggles to resist, slitting his own flesh in an attempt to break control, but he cannot.  In the confusion of melee, he "accidentally" slams into Soros, sending his friend stumbling into the flames.

End of session

[Slant]

session 11:  look out below

Soros is pushed into the flames by Kouglar, who regains control at the last second and grabs Soros before he is lost forever to the fires, pulling him out.  Soros has no idea who threw him in.  The heavy smoke makes the entire catacombs unbearable.  They all lose each other in the chaos.  Cyan stumbles across the dessicated corpse of an elf, dead fof centuries, brandishing a strange short sword the kiles of which she has never seen: neither mannish, nor elvish, nor dwarvish.  She takes it ad feels a thrumming warmth.  Three uruk ungol find her, and she slices them to pieces with the blade, the weapon seemingly able to find their weak points as if it had a mind of it's own.  Three strikes, three kills.  

The sound of smithing heard in the background abruptly stops as something huge makes it's way into the smokey tunnels.  The orcs scatter as a massive armored form looms through the smoke.  It finds Kiri Ani, unconscious and left behind, and takes her.

The others press through the catacombs seperately, laying low.  Cyan slays every orc-bred that she comes across.  With each death she seems to seek even more foe to slaughter.  Kes finds that he has learned much from his training with Cirion, hamstringing a huge mutant uruk ungol that is part orc, part spider.  Kouglar keeps to the shadows and the creatures do not seem to be able to sense him.  Snaga protects the badly injured Soros, eventually standing atop a small hill of ungol that have fallen to his twin axes.  Einar, being Einar, is nowhere to be found in the thick of combat.  

Kiri Ani awakens in a scene from hell: a highly domed room sweltering with the heat of a massive forge.  The heads and carcasses of many creatures, including men, elves, and dwarves, cover the walls, all in various stages of decay.  Cruel, demonic looking weapons are everywhere.  She lays on an alter, her heartbeat slowed almost to a stop from the poison.  Towering over her is a huge figure clad in full ancient battle armor covered with wicked spikes and blades.  "What will you give me if I save your wretched life?"  She tells him "Anything but my soul."  He reaches out with a gauntleted hand, white hot from the forge.  He touches her wound and she screams.  Her cry rings out through the catacombs and the others all rush towards it.  The trail leads them to a vast antechamber that is actually a huge pit with an ornate archway on the far side.  A thin arching bridge, only 2 feet across, is the only way across the pit to the doorway.  They advance slowly (no doubt remembering the famous scene in Moria in the Fellowship).  Instead of a creature coming through the archway, the depths of the pit erupts and an immense, vast thing that is neither bird, nor insect, nor fish, yet somehow all three, smashes the bridge and sends the partt scrambling for handholds to avoid falling into it's maw.  Kes cannot keep his hold and falls in, blades extended, ready to die fighting.  Cyan leaps in after him.  Soros and Kouglar make it through the archway, Snaga staying behind to throw the hobbits a rope if they break the surface.  Kiri Ani staggers though the archway, weak and ill, but very much alive.  Strange weapons are in her hands.  Soros enters the room beyond the arches and finds an arsenal of weapons and a horrific display of mounted corpses.

Snaga hears the hobbits' cries of pain and fear from deep below.  Bellowing a dwarf war cry, he leaps.

end of session

[Slant]

Session 12: Smite Club

Snaga, in full armor and bristling with weapons, leaps into the chasm and lands atop the writing monstrosity with the impact of a cannonball.  He and the hobbits swing wildly against their unseen foe as they become covered in blood and gore yet are unaware of what they are truly fighting in the blackness of the pit.  After awhile, all is quiet and still.  From far above, Soros creates a powerful light that illuminates the bottom of the chasm, revealing a vast, titanic thing of monsterous form that flies in the logic of what should be allowed to live.  The dwarf and hobbits climb up a lowered rope, taking great pains not to look directly at the remains of the thing thet battled.  From above, only Einar takes special care to get a good look at the thing, more fascinated than repulsed.

They limp to the forge chamber, licking their wounds.  They know it is just a matter of time before the remaining uruk ungol come back.  They find a strange blade on the anvil with words written in Elvish "from the blood of two races, the death of a nation."  Kes and Einar want to load up on swag, but Soros warns them against taking anything from the accursed room.  Einar shrugs and takes a blade anyway.  Tapestries lining the walls depict scenes of torture and bloodshed.  Kouglar reads the inscription "the favored of the Light shall be lost to Darkness" in Orcish.  Cyan takes note that the blade she found is similar in style to many of the weapons that abound in this room.

Kouglar finds a secret door, deactivating a trap that would have caused a four ton slab to fall.  In a room permeated with dread, they find a locked box of gold and obsidian.  Kouglar is able to open it, but only by shedding his own blood upon the seal.  WIthin is a dessicated human head of impossible age.  Soros touches the gruesome trophy, trying to glean information as to who it might have been.  He immediately turns dead white and jerks his hand back, trembling at what he had learned.  The others see him back away in disbelief and ask him the head's identity.  He tells them:

"Isildur!"

At the mention of the name, the head's eyes pop open and all of the players shriek like schoolgirls.  

Cyan mentions that they had better be leaving ASAP.  Soros says he must take the head to his mistress at Isengard, for her magic is far more potent than his own.  They hear the muted shuffling of the uruk ungol approaching the chamber, crawing across the sides of the pit.  They make a run for it, followed by hundreds of the creatures.  Einar, small and old, falls behind and is set upon by the uruk ungol like a scooby snack.  Kiri Ani leaps in their midst, a whirlwind of iron death, carving up the orcs and rescueing Einar.  They make a mad dash for safety and escape to the surface mere seconds before the uruk ungol.  Cirion and his archers are waiting and cut down the first wave of orcs, sending the rest howling in fury back to the catacombs.  Safety at last!

The troop makes it to Hollowglade for some much needed rest and repair.  Soros shows the elves the head of Isildur.  Pale Shadow freaks and insists that it be removed from Hollowglade immediately, lest it's owner come to reclaim it.  Confused, Soros asks her if she thinks that Isildur will come seeking his head.  She replies "Not Isildur.  Goroth."  She tells the story of how the head of Isildur was taken from nobody-knows-where over 1000 years ago and stuck upon a pole, used as a personal banner for a creature called Goroth, a warlord in the service of Melkor who was the offspring of a wicked elf turned to the darkness.  

As Cirion gathers volunteers to go back into the catacombs and wipe out the remaining orcs, a black eagle arrives with a message tied around it's leg.  It informs them that Farondil has reached Elessar in Gondor, and that an orcish host marches from the icy mountains of the North.

end of session