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Old 06-27-2015, 11:08 AM   #25
tshiggins
 
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Denver, Colorado
Default Re: Campaign: Facets

We held the latest session of the campaign, last Saturday. It started with some bookkeeping and included couple of serious information dumps, but we did manage to squeeze in some good role-playing and a fun little firefight.

I hadn't realized how much we got done in the session, until I started to write it all up.

Character's Present:

Deputy Diego "Danny" Torres -- Grand County Sheriff's deputy who acts as the department's community policing officer and works with 4CSAR as needed. He has an extended family with members throughout southern Utah, with cousins in Colorado and Arizona. -- Shifted back to NPC status.

Dr. Henrietta "Indiana" Johnson -- A personable, age 29-and-holding Anthropologist who specializes in the pre-Columbian indigenous people of the American Desert Southwest. A Native of Apache Junction, AZ, "Indiana" is good with people and has been fascinated by American Indian religion and folklore since she was a child. Henrietta speaks Apache fluently, and not-so-secretly wishes archaeology could be more like Raiders of the Lost Ark and less like digging in a trench with a trowel and a toothbrush -- Played by Debbie S.

Randy "Random" Shoop -- a twenty-something, semi-pro mountain-bike competitor who has trouble staying focused, but is basically a good and reliable member of the team -- Played by Gold & Appel, Inc.

Dr. Belody "Doc" Bascher -- a local veterinarian for both large and small animals, who frequently fixates on her job and uses 4CSAR as her primary social outlet. -- Normally played by Samantha H., who couldn't make it to the session, this time.

Dr. Arthur "A.J." Jamison -- a retired NASA scientist with a home in one of Moab's nicer canyon subdevelopments, who volunteers for 4CSAR because he needs to do something to get out of the house. Considers himself responsible for Sunmi Jones, who is enough of a science-geek that the two of them can actually hold a conversation. -- Played by Anten S.

Sunmi Jones -- A Korean-American prodigy and student of chemistry at Utah Valley University, who spent most of her childhood with her deceased mother's family in Korea, but has come to Utah to attend college and work with her father's petroleum exploration firm. Somewhat moe, awkward-but-cute, glasses-wearing nerd girl, who volunteers with 4CSAR because volunteer work is required for her degree. -- Played by Rebecca W.

Beatrice "B" Lawrence -- U.S. Army veteran who works for a local air charter service as a helicopter mechanic. A cynic about men, and accompanied by "Grunt," the biggest, best-trained pit-bull anybody has ever seen (purchased as an ally, and a totally badass dog, even before it was possessed by what appears to be a benign spirit) -- played by Bernetta W.

Aurelia R. Lockrin -- A young woman with a shady past who teaches History at Grand County High School (Home of the Red Devils!), and volunteers for 4CSAR because she's a bit of an adrenalin junkie, and likes the companionship. -- played once again by Bennie P.

Sixth Session

The bookkeeping began with a brief discussion of a vehicle Bernetta and Anten wanted their characters to build. Anybody who wants to follow the details of the conversation can go over to the Denver GURPS Group forum, as it took place between sessions. In the end, the characters knocked together a diesel-engine 4x4 ATV with a crank-started engine, instead of an electrical ignition system.

http://www.denvergurps.com/forum/ind...?topic=516.150

They also settled on the construction of some dune-buggies as they could afford them, equipped with steam engines that don’t require electricity. They’ll have three of those done by the time the next portal opens on Aug. 25, 2014.

We made job rolls for everybody, and a self-discipline roll for Randy. Everybody but Aurelia succeeded. Aurelia had decided to take a year off from work at Grand County High School, ostensibly to work on her master’s degree in teaching (she plans to forge the diploma), and received approval to do so. However, the school district misunderstood the situation and cut off her paycheck a month early.

Additionally, we generated birthdays for all the characters:
-Randy was born on Dec. 5, and is a Sagittarius;
-Sunmi was born on Nov. 16, and is a Scorpio;
-Beatrice was born on Feb. 18, and is an Aquarius;
-Aurelia was born on Aug. 10, and is a Leo;
-A.J. was born on March 15, and is a Pisces;
-Henrietta was born on March 2, and is also a Pisces.

We didn’t generate birth dates for Diego or Doc Bascher, since those players missed the session.

Beatrice used her money to pick up a .30-06 deer rifle, but didn’t have time to zero a scope, so she left that off. A.J. coughed up the bucks for the used 4x4 ATV he and Beatrice rebuilt.

At the party’s insistence, Henrietta spent some time at the shooting range, when she wasn’t giving talks about petroglyphs to the Anthropology departments at various colleges in the region (she did well on her jobs roll).

Randy spent a few days filming a commercial for the Southland Corporation (7-11) and Mountain Dew Code Red, which made fun of his unannounced and rapid departure from the hospital, in Moab.

(See the script on page 11 of the campaign thread, above, on the Denver GURPS Group forum. It’s pretty funny.)

Anten and Bennie also spent some points on the acquisition of a contact group for A.J. and an ally for Aurelia, based on the character backgrounds. A.J. had started to make multiple calls to old colleagues at NASA, so we agreed he should purchase a contact group. Bennie wanted a reliable off-screen ally (and possible backup character) that her PC could call for computer-hacking help and general information gathering.

In addition to helping Beatrice with the ATV conversion, A.J. made a few trips to laboratory supply places near Salt Lake City and Grand Junction, and that’s where we started the role-playing part of the session.

-----------------------------------------------------

A.J. and Sunmi set up magnetometers, Geiger-counters, and electrical field monitors, in various spots around the portal opening, out to a range of a bit more than a mile away. Sunmi helped during what little free time she had available, between learning to meditate and working at her father’s office, and the two managed to complete the work the afternoon of June 26, 2014, just as the rest of the group arrived and pitched near the portal entrance.

During the month, Henrietta had asked the rangers in Dark Canyon to put up a chain-link fence with a sturdy gate, to help preserve her “archeological find,” and the group pitched their tents down the slope about 20 yards away, and kept an eye on it. The new moon was scheduled to rise at 10:42 p.m., that night, and they had a lot to do.

Their new teacher of the magical arts, JoBeth Catherine McShane, had sent with them more than 100 lbs. of what she called “spell components.” This included various bits of gems, incense, clay, polished marbles, and other items mostly divided into several different plastic bins – except for several trays of living flowers. The whole pile probably comprised about $12,000 to $15,000 worth of "stuff."

The group had stacked everything carefully in the two-wheeled trailer hooked to their new 4x4 ATV, with its modified engine. They’d left the access road awhile back, which meant they could get a ticket if caught driving the motorized vehicle on the hiking trail, but so far the rangers hadn’t come around.

The group heard a whistle from outside the camp, shortly after nightfall, and Beatrice, Diego and Randy went to check it out. They found Jeb and Don Reyes waiting; Jeb with a fully kitted-out assault weapon and Seņor Reyes with his own .30-06. After a very tense discussion, Diego decided he wouldn’t arrest either man, so long as they agreed to go through the portal to Reyes’ 1918 world, and never return.

Jeb readily agreed, because the exile allowed him to escape the oppression of the modern U.S. government. They joined the rest of the group and, once there, Jeb said he might welcome the occasional visit. However, he declared that anybody from the modern world had best make sure they came with peaceful intentions.

With that, the group held a brief conversation with Don Reyes, who explained a few things about magic, but declined to go into detail – much to Sunmi’s frustration. He also expressed disdain for the culture of the 21st century United States, declaring it a decadent near-anarchy doomed to failure, because it refused to follow the prudent leadership of a superior noble class.

The party mostly let that slide, and settled in for the night, except for A.J. and Sunmi. Don Reyes advised against trying to go through the portal until the next morning.

Sunmi and A.J. went out to check the equipment one last time, before moonrise, which came as scheduled. As the dark moon crested the horizon, the equipment began to misbehave. The cell-phones and other devices with minimal voltage experienced a static burst, and then rebooted themselves (in the case of the cell phones) or otherwise cleared up. Higher voltage equipment either shorted out or, for the those items with 10 or more volts, burst into flames.

A.J. and Sunmi scampered around frantically, trying to look at all of the equipment in the immediate vicinity of the camp. They also got the rest of the group to help them shovel dirt on the blazing devices – nobody wanted to start a grass-fire, accidentally.

As they jotted down their notes and observations, Sunmi said she’d seen an energy wave unfamiliar to her, in a couple of the devices just before they failed. A.J. remarked he may have seen something similar in the cell-phone static, on his first trip.

(Continued...)
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MXLP:9 [JD=1, DK=1, DM-M=1, M(FAW)=1, SS=2, Nym=1 (nose coffee), sj=1 (nose cocoa), Maz=1]
"Some days, I just don't know what to think." -Daryl Dixon.

Last edited by tshiggins; 06-29-2015 at 07:29 PM. Reason: Fixed Aurelia's birthdate
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