A Few Times At the Table Since: the Halloween Special

 Well, I was going to summarize the Wobble mini-campaign, Wobble: Espionage on Prime Earth but Peryton has asked me to recap last Tuesday nights ICONS scenario. Iron Curtis and the gal decided between a choice of another Crawlspace session or a continuation of eight year-running superhero setting. We rekindled the four-color printer and got up to some play. Return To the Townhouse of Terrible it was.

A bit about the Terrible Townhouse in my supernatural super-heroics additions to the shared Beta City setting. It is sort of my answer to DC's House of Mystery. Instead of say time-travel and hell being the mainstay like for the TV show Legends of Tomorrow, ours is more based on Robin's first ICONS campaign about dimensional shifts and incursions from other realities. I, being a fan of the supernatural superheroes from DC, as well as Marvel and even Charleston, has worked plenty of of those elements though. So when last we met, Santo Luna, or Jay or Landshark's boyfriend err husband, as we tend to keep calling him, he was taking over stewardship of the place. It being not only a nexus to many locales in the multiverse, it is in the Archway Neighborhood of Beta City, where other nexuses are as well. He was taking over for Professor Hemm who had taken over for Doctor Philosophy before him.

Okay, Terrible Townhouse is modeled after a row house complex where Peryton lived for fifteen years in Cleveland, Ohio. I actually lived in three out of the four apartments available. So while the rooms and abodes change to the inhabitants, there are certain areas that never do though are warped due to the time and experiences shared by past residents. Many of the villains are former bad neighbors of our days in place. The locales around the residence are often running jokes made by the wife and me. On with the story...

Across the street is Ralph's Ant's House. Ralph is an NPC that is always obsessed with whatever Character Robin is playing, his aunt, whom he lives with, is The ANT a mystical termite gnawing at the Tree of Existences. In an earlier adventure, some supernatural heroes, including Santo Luna, defeated the minions of the Ant. Well new neighbors have moved in. From the chaotic dimension known as Fairy Tale. 

Jessica Jones, yes, from Marvel's Netflix saga, played by Robin, happened to be helping Jay move in. Bruce, or Landshark, was out of town visiting Jay's family. Professor Hemm was there to hand over the keys to place, then was zipped out of existence due to some trans-cosmic emergency. From next door a clan of goblins, the Garski Gobblers, have moved in. Being burglars and miscreants by nature, they of course started breaking into the Terrible Townhouse, mostly to steal its copper. Well, the man-witch now had to do something about that. For every time he and scrapper got the last couple out, others would appear elsewhere. So a mystical solve was required.

Poor Curtis, his up and coming superhero wizard was at loss. I absolutely refused to solve the problem for him, but I did overwhelm him with information about my mystical milieu of our ICONS setting. We brought in various NPCs, including Robin's Wisp character, to act as advisors. Landshark even came home to help Mz Jones whap the buggers. Still no solution. I created a Peck goblin, a variation on Pechs, named Jamboree to start acting as the Handyman around the place. He vaguely suggested "Sex Magic," I'm sure our passed on friend Charlie Wylie would've been all over that, but Iron Curtis was more embarrassed than anything. Finally a barrier portal for anything mystic was designed and constructed by Jay, Wisp, and the Peck. It would ward off anything not more powerful than the three of their Magic Skill levels combined. This thwarted the break-ins. Wisp returned to her Laboratory of Whimsy up by Greenbay, Wisconsin-- Robin did a great job with her cryptic dialog.

Oh there was some outrage in the Ant's House because no one pushed them around, or something. The Yagga, witchy den mothers to many a Gobbler goblin, what the Garskis are, clan did some conjuring to summon some trouble to help them out. The entity known as Ogre wandering around our world after being trapped here six years ago in another game session. While not particularly a villain, Ogre, looking like a very tall, buffed-up goblin, likes a good fight. With a little persuasion he'd join the ruffians in an assault on the Terrible Townhouse.
Out in the street, the Garskis and Ogre started throwing things at the magic-laden structure. Ogre was throwing chunks of street pavement no less. Mean Yagga was conjuring up a storm to assist them as well. Of course Jay, Landshark, and the visiting Jessica Jones would not let this go unanswered.
So it was working class fighting in the street with alcohol more than likely involved.Ogre and Landshark took one look at each and immediately got locked in a battle of strength, looking a lot a game of Mercy from High School.Santo Luna was really annoyed at this point. He showed the Yagga how to cast lightning without any theatrics, she was down for the count first round. Meanwhile Jessica would be trying to curtail the two, no, three, no, four Garskis popping in and up around them.
I was proud of the challenge my combat setup was for the Players. Landshark had bit off a bit more than he could. Jay had to deal with a goblin or two that were trying to get him. Jessica was frazzled by the goblin tactics but was steadily taking one of them per combat round. When all the Garskis were foiled, the two heroes piled onto Ogre to help out their buddy, in true Marvel superhero fashion.
Ogre tried to run but was stopped by Jessica leaping in front of him and punching him backwards. Jay would then sizzle the beast with another lightning strike. This left Ogre's alter-ego, Jeffry O'Garsky, a 17 y/o boy dazed, confused, and more than a little bruised.
Now the cops generally don't come to the Archway Neighborhood. More occult-dealing means govern the place. The Ant's House slipped away to the lot next the Gas Station at the corner, right next to Block House of Cacophony Every Weekend almost a mile away. Meanwhile Zodia Atrologa's (a new NPC) Duplex of Diabolical Dealings replaced it. The fortune-teller sorceress knew Jay's grandmother, indeed they studied together. She took the teenager O'Garsky into her care and promised to help return him where ever he'd like to go. Poor kid thought it was still 2017.

Meanwhile, I presented a cut away scene. Somewhere else in the depths of the Townhouse of Terrible. There the enigmatic Wandering Pimp, adorned in his golden suit and matching homburg hat, spoke to the shadows.
"They've been distracted long enough." He said. "You can come out now."
Stepping out was a rip-off of Darkseid, but red, Arkon.
He would look around him, wave his hands, and a massive collection of poles, looking like a Festivus Pole, but with branches.
"It is time for the X-MASS TREE to begin its work." He'd say in a gravelly voice.

(GM's note, Arkon was originally named Sidedark, but you know, that sucked.)

A Few Times at the Table Since: Tales of Keen Excitement (unfinsihed)

 Since GenCon, we've been some gaming online. I've been a little too distracted to recount the sessions like I normally do, so here's part of a digest of this Fall's events.

Tales of Keen Excitement: Set in the World of Keen Excitement, my little foray into politically charged allegory as a grounds for fantasy RPG, has mostly been focused on the agricultural and food distribution systems here in North America. That said, boy has the title alone triggered a lot of alt-right froggies. Though that was already expected, it's still quite satisfying.

So the story so far has been Iron Curtis and Peryton playing themselves fall into a world beyond their own after they are lured to a Renaissance Fair by a dark entity, known as a Sock Specter, imposing as me. This is done when Vankoff, the Wight-Russian, the villain, shows them a large lever with the sign "LEVER THAT MUST (BLOTCH) BE PULLED." So without a pause, any woman (Pery) just had to pull it.
At this point, I had the players develop their Characters using my TOG rules. Curtis became a Warrior, a dark-haired version of Prince Adam from He-Man, and Robin became a witchy-looking Wizard, complete with the pointy hat. They found themselves in a very hot jungle of giant cornstalks, where the corn grew in batches similar to bananas. They were in the edges of what is called The Stalks, and the flora around them called the Cob-Stalk. The corn-looking fruit of these trees are actually called "cobs" not corn. They felt that they were being watched.They made their way to Crashland.
"Landing," as it's called by locals, is a small town, or a "patch" in local parlance, where the houses from other worlds tend to land when captured by mystical tornadoes. Here humans and other creatures, mostly Green-Backs, like very racially diverse hobbits but with green torsos, dwell. Seeing newcomers, they of course broke into song. Curtis would start to join in. Seeing a music unfolding before, Robin retreated back into the Stalks where she saw what had been watching them, the Eye of Ogre. She was scooped up by one its minions and carried away.

The musical set complete, Curtis heard Robin's cries for help as she was abducted. Townspeople came around to give some expository explanation of the place and one of the Green-Backs, named Looker, (NPC Thief) came forward to help the newly arrived Warrior out.
Meanwhile our Wizard was taken into a keep of Ogs. Here piltdowners (hobbit-sized ogres), and the Og (neanderthal men and women) lived and served their master ogres because they had no choice-- they were designed that way. Robin was thrown into a bin with a couple other women. One was being force-fed Cob-meal and mutating into something that resembled a pig, the other was only being given bread and water and being sized up for bridal gown. Maw, the She-Og which basically runs the place, decided that she was "Feeding not breeding." The ogre, not The Ogre, that owned the place Khan of the Cob was returning that evening though.
The wedding night, was approaching. Of course, the pig girl was the feast and the starving chick was bride.

Robin developed her first spell. Meanwhile Curtis and Looker started their plan to free her. Robin said they had stay to save her fellow two captives of course. So using some cobb-syrup alcohol and wheat chaff they blew up a wall to announce the wedding was cancelled... .

In real life, Peryton announced that her work schedule was going to be tough for a while and our RPG sessions on Friday's would have to slow down. So one day I'll get to run my first D&D combat in 35 years. One day.