Flash Gordon and the Sphere of Death, part 1: Black Star

It's been about fifteen years since the last Flash Gordon release and whoever controls King Features Syndicate these days hasn't licensed a new release of the brand name. I , not being one to wait, decided to do my own. That is how the mini-campaign Flash Gordon and the Sphere of Death came about. So with JerryTel, Peryton, and Iron Curtis able to jump in, I got to work on my notes.



So kind of retelling the stories from the B&W serials of the 30s, the trappings of the 1980 movie, some of the mid-Aughts Sy-Fy Channel series, and everything else that I can remember; I decided to get into some heavy science fiction as well.  Remember the floating worlds and wavy clouds of the 80's movie? Well how about a Dyson sphere around a red dwarf star, that can eat planets like Pac-Man eating dots, BUT it's not that simple. The mega structure about the radius of our sun's center to the outer reaches of our Mar's orbit, has an abundance of energy to propel itself through the intergalactic void, but a lot of its energies are spent keeping the inside habitable, meaning gravity as well as well as temperature. So Mongo is limited in its ability to play Pac-Man of worlds. Indeed its first acquisiton, the smart reptile inhabited world of Lizardo, was shattered into fragments by Ming's ill-prepared science-wizards during the process. The surviving lizard-men are causing problems for the barely stable hegemony of Mingo city over the other kingdoms around it. Still the master computer TAO (Tay-Ow) is trying to help its denizens become the rulers of the universe as they find it, but a lot gets lost in translation when it deals with organic beings.

The design notes:
The players get to play whomever they want. This can mean from Flash Gordon or Ming the Merciless to a self-created persona from the N-K system or a remote part of Mongo. The catch is that the players have to be alternated between their main characters and their secondary characters for two out of the five planned sessions.
Cut-Away scenes can lead to nine different paths that are interlaced with one another leading to about forty-five differing storylines as scripted. At the same time, I am trying to allow any divergence from the narratives as scripted. I even told my players, I can this "mini-campaign" turn into a RPG setting worthy of the comic strip itself if need be.

Session 1: The Black Star
How does Mongo see things?
So Curtis was pretty set on Ming as his alternate Character. Pery was set on Klytus, the cyborg with the great voice made of oil and shiny metal parts from the 80s-take. Jerry was randomly assigned High Priest of TAO, Zogi as he had no real idea of who to play.
The session was set during Blot Time, night among the Mongo realms. Klytus was woken up by his cyborg-awareness indicating that there was a disturbance in the N-K sector among the deep space scans. A small planet, its inhabitants called it "Earth." Right around the same time, Zogi, was awakened by visions from TAO with body-wrenching spasms and cramps accompanied with visions of this new world. Ming woke up, kicked off a shark-man pool boy, and called Klytus to tell him that he was bored.

Klytus and Ming started misusing Mongo's amazing technology, which they can't even grasp, to start to "prepare" the Earth for assimilation into the Dyson sphere. Zogi, was not so sure that this was the right way to go about things. After conferring with his one-time colleague Klytus, he knew he was right.  So the Pope of Known Mongo traveled to an isolated sky-island which he had named "Dream Island," to commune with the machines that help him better understand TAO. He then learned that Earth was indeed a prize. He also knew that Ming and Klytus would destroy the Earth using their crude ways.

He discovered a deep-space exploritory vessel from Earth within five lightyears from Mongo. Using his arcane teachings and general brilliance, he captured Professor William Gordon (Colonel William Brandt Gordon of NASA) and his copilot. These petty Earthlings seem to have an insight into gravity-control far beyond the rest of their primitive planet. The Mongo Docking Bay 56, placed them and their ship in Cell 1,047 of 2,000 for inspection later.

Zogi was interrupted by a band of pirating Hawkmen who appeared and claimed the floating mountain as territory of the Sky City. They took him and his assistant, and android named Bolt, as prisoners.  Meanwhile General Kalla of the Mingo City Security Forces detected the abduction. Klytus has dispatched five war-rockets to pursue the hawkmen and their catch. She has not bothered to mention this to her Emperor Ming, who is busy playing with gravity beams on the Earth.

Peryton and me at GenCon 2005

So some discourse on current gaming patterns
So one of our players, the one playing Ming, mentioned to me, 'Sure I am gay, I can be as heterosexual as the plot demands me to be.'
"Why would I do that?" I asked in bewilderment. "King Kalla of the Shark-Men, along with his niece, General Kalla, are tried and true supporters of Ming. If I cannot provide pool-boys with fins to my Ming, why am I running roleplaying games?"
"Ming has a daughter." He said evenly.
"I don't care about your trials." I replied. "Mongo has cloning vats if need be."

I am a libertine. I want ppl to have fun while roleplaying. I will handle the high art as I am a capable GM. My players might have to stretch but I won't lecture them. I want to see where it's going as much as they so.