GURPS WWII: Their Finest Hour

[Michele]

GURPS WWII: THEIR FINEST HOUR

More than a year ago, this campaign finished. It had started as a one-off adventure, a playtest of (of course) GURPS WWII: Their Finest Hour (this). After some time, it was turned into a campaign, and it continued desultorily as occasional short adventures.
While it had been initially designed as a cross-over between a realistic GURPS WWII: Their Finest Hour and a limited-power GURPS WWII: Weird War Two, two of the players were seduced by the GURPS Monster Hunters concept, and the final adventures were definitely in that vein, only that the monsters to be hunted were allies of the Nazis and, one way or another, a threat to the Royal Air Force.

The basic assumptions is that all sort of weird things and people have always existed, but ordinary people were kept in the dark both for their own good - and for the good of the weirdos, who didn't want to be witch-hunted. There is a Cabal (as per GURPS Cabal). The war that erupts in 1939 is part of an eternal war of which normal humans have always been pawns... maybe. Or, perhaps, these supernatural parasites are not in the least as powerful as they purport to be, and exploit legitimate human warfare to carry out their own agendas.

In any case, the RAF has its own secret unit. Its official name is the Inter-Command Liaison Committee, but those in the know call it "Independent Squadron #0". It operates both on the battlefield and behind the lines, both friendly and otherwise. In the summer of 1940, its first task is to make sure that no supernatural factor helps the Luftwaffe in the aerial combat, and, if anything, they must help the conventional Fighter Command Squadrons. But these gifted servicemen and servicewomen must also fight espionage and sabotage, and will alter bring the fight to the enemy airfields.

THE CHARACTERS
The character write-ups had always been in English first, which is our policy. The characters' background descriptions were in Italian, but I began translating them after the campaign was over. I think I will post them as time permits. The adventures would require much more work, I'm afraid.

I'd be happy to hear comments. Even if by now the campaign is over and the players will not be able to act upon any suggestions, I think we'd appreciate opinions and... post-mortems. Thank you in advance,

[Michele]

DAVID EVANS
Fighter Pilot and Half-Fae Changeling

(c) copyright 2011 Michele Armellini

Base Setting: GURPS WWII: Weird War II, GURPS WWII: Their Finest Hour

Total Points: 300

Age: 25 Height: 5'11" Weight: 145 lbs. Description: a graceful, attractive, slim albino, with short silvery hair, pale blue eyes, very pale skin.

ST 11 [10] HP 11 [0]
DX 13 [60] Will 15 [0]
IQ 15 [100] Per 15 [0]
HT 11 [10] FP 11 [0]

Basic Speed: 6 Move: 6
Basic Damage: Thrust 1d-1, Swing 1d+1
Basic Lift: 24
[Total Attributes: 180]

DR: 0 Dodge: 9 Parry: 10 (Brawling), 9 (Knife) Block: 0


ADVANTAGES AND PERKS: Appearance (Attractive) [4]; Blessed (Heroic Feats (ST)) [10]; Charisma 1 [5]; Illuminated [15]; Language Talent [10]; Longevity [2]; Magery 0 [5]; Military Rank 2 (Flight Sergeant) [10]; Night Vision 4 [4]; Obscure (Vision) (Defensive, +50%; Area Effect, 16 Yards, +200%; Costs Fatigue 3, -15%) [27]; Patron (Powerful Organization, Special Abilities (Magical Powers in a Nonmagical World), on 6 or less) [15]; Signature Gear (Ancient Dirk) [1]; Social Regard 2 (Feared; Preparation Required (10 minutes), -30%) [7].
Autotrance [1]; Pistol Fist (Guns/TL6 (Pistol)) [1]; Shtick (SOP: On Alert) [1].
[Total Advantages and Perks: 118]

DISADVANTAGES AND QUIRKS: Duty (RAF, Extremely Hazardous, on 15 or less) [-20]; Enemy (Large Powerful Group, Unknown, on 6 or less) [-17]; Post-Combat Shakes (on 12 or less) [-5]; Reputation -1 (Knife-armed Eccentric, Those Who saw his Knife, All the Time) [-2]; Secret (Imprisonment or Exile) [-20]; Sense of Duty (His Human Family and His Other Family) [-10]; Social Stigma -1 (Unexplainably Unsettling, Accessibility (Humans Who Have Special Insight (Empathy etc.) [-3].
Distinctive Features (Albino) [-1]; Likes Pranks [-1]; Loves Flying [-1]; Susceptible to Sun Burns [-1].
[Total Disadvantages and Quirks: -81]

SKILLS AND TECHNIQUES:
Acting-14 [1]; Administration-14 [1]; Archaeology-13 [1]; Area Knowledge (London)-15 [1]; Armoury/TL6 (Small Arms)-15 [2]; Aviation/TL6-14 [1]; Brawling-14 [2]; Detect Lies-14 [2]; Diplomacy-15 [4]; Dreaming-13 [1]; Driving/TL6 (Motorcycle)-12 [1]; Electronics Operation/TL6 (Communications)-14 [1]; Fast-Draw (Knife)-13 [1]; Fast-Draw (Pistol)-13 [1]; First Aid/TL6-15 [1]; Gunner/TL6 (Machine Gun)-14 [2]; Guns/TL6 (Pistol)-16 [8]; Hidden Lore (Faerie Lore)-14 [1]; History (Middle Ages)-13 [1]; Hobby Skill (Welsh Folklore)-15 [1]; Holdout-14 [1]; Knife-15 [4]; Literature (English)-14 [2]; Mechanic/TL6 (Propeller Plane Engine)-14 [1]; Meditation-13 [1]; Meteorology/TL6 (Earthlike)-14 [1]; Navigation/TL6 (Air)-14 [1]; Occultism-14 [1]; Piloting/TL6 (High-Performance Airplane)-14 [4]; Research/TL6-14 [1]; Savoir-Faire (Military)-15 [1]; Smith/TL6 (Iron)-14 [1]; Tactics-13 [1]; Teaching-15 [2]; Thaumatology-13 [2]; Writing-14 [1].
Fast-Firing (Guns/TL6 (Pistol))-14 [3]; Kicking (Brawling)-13 [2]; Knee Strike (Brawling)-14 [1]; Off-Hand Weapon Training (Knife)-15 [5].
[Total Skills and Techniques: 70]

TL: 6 Cultural Familiarities: Western [0]; Faerie (Alien) [2].
LANGUAGES: English (native) [0]; Faerie (accented) [2*]; French (native) [4*]; Gaelic (accented) [2*]; German (accented) [2*]; Latin (written, accented) [1*].
(*) Includes bonus from Language Talent.
[Total Cultural Familiarities and Languages: 13]

BACKGROUND:
Many pilots serving with the RAF in 1940 are two persons in one: a dashing flyer and an otherwise unremarkable ex-civilian who had a passion for flying. That’s David Evans, too. Back in Civvy Street, he stands out for his looks (he’s handsome, but, being an albino, very noticeable too) but not for what he is: an unassuming teacher living in London. Yes, he graduated in the courses of the RAF Volunteer Force as a pilot because he loves flying, and he frequently takes trips back to his native Wales because its folklore is his hobby. Some say he’s got something weird about him, but they can’t put a finger on it. That’s all.
Actually it isn’t. David vividly remembers the first time he was taunted in the school yard by older boys who called him a “changeling”. Indeed he did not resemble his parents. Or grand-parents. All his relatives were dutiful but… cautious about him. At about 16, when he noticed the bullies at school had begun giving him a wider berth, he also understood that his mother spent as little time with him as decently possible. He didn’t understand any of that, and thought the changeling stories to be baseless superstition.
That is, until one evening, when he was alone in the countryside, he was kidnapped by a group of weird guys. They easily dragged him away towards the wetlands, and kept him prisoner all night, apparently waiting for something to happen. What happened wasn’t what they were waiting for, though: the one David now calls his “Guardian Angel” showed up and killed the kidnappers in a fight that was David’s first exposure to magic.
It’s since then that David left, and opted for the safer environment of the big city, London. The strange beings who hold him a grudge seem to prefer the countryside.
David actually is a changeling. He’s not a full-fledged Fae, but he’s got non-human blood in his veins. With time and training (imparted by his Guardian Angel), he was thus able to develop peculiar capabilities and powers that his ancestry granted him.
The person (or entity?) that protects him, however, bestows information and training only very niggardly. For starters, David calls her (her?) “Guardian Angel” because he doesn’t even know her true name.
But what David has learned is that he’s an unwilling participant in a Great Hunt; a blood feud among Fae lineages, begun centuries ago and involving the Cabal. His “relatives” include the Guardian Angel, who was sent by them to protect him; but the enemies (which he knows very little about) try to kill him, or better yet, to capture him in order to use him against his “family”. Since he’s not a full Fae, he’s trapped (at least for the time being) in the “real” world, and he’s not a valuable player; he might even be just a pawn. But withdrawing from combat is not an option.
David’s problems are compounded by the fact that should his true nature become known, he’d easily be considered an enemy of mankind, or an invaluable study subject (i.e. a guinea pig). And once imprisoned in a governmental lab, his enemies would easily deal with him. That’s why he has such a big Secret.
Having Faerie blood has its advantages, of course. David’s lineage must be creatures of the night and masters of the deceptive magery that kept them safe from superstitious farmers and fanatical witch hunters. Indeed, David not only sees pretty well in the dark. He is also capable of creating a wide “mist cloud” surrounding and hiding him. This is what saved him one day in late May over Dunkerque; the Bf 109 tailing him lost sight of his aircraft.
This trick is very noticeable in broad daylight. This is why David, as a Hurricane pilot, has requested and obtained to join the Fighter Interception Unit in Tangmere. This is the experimental night fighter unit of the RAF. Some of its aircraft are true night fighters, Blenheims, carrying airborne radars and a crew of three. But others, like David’s, are Hurricanes, single-seaters quite unsuitable for the very dangerous task of flying at night, relying on radioed directions first, and the pilot’s Mk I Eyeball sensor later, for the attack on the enemy bomber. There is some minimal light at night, if the sky is clear, even without the moon: star light. Aircraft tend to appear as fast-moving shadows that are blacker than the sky. Of course David is more suitable for this task than many others, and his mist cloud, at night, makes his final approach invisible to the enemy tail gunners.
David also has other special capabilities. Apparently, when in danger he can muster unexplainable strength. Also, if given time to meditate, he can somehow shroud himself in a supernatural aura that becomes apparent to anybody seeing him, making him fearsome. David himself doesn’t know whether this is just a trick, or wheter there actually is some perceptible power frightening those who see him at those times. Maybe it’s just that at those times, he sheds a sort of psychical camouflage, revealing that he’s more than a man, and this has an effect on mere humans. The downside is that people having special insight (being Sensitive, etc.) perceive this all the time, and don’t react favorably to him.
David isn’t a full-fledged mage, and his Patron isn’t training him that way; given his minimal magical aptitude and the fact that his Earth is a low-mana world, it would be a waste of time. However, between that basic Magery and being Illuminated, his eyes see much more than the average human’s.
His Skills and other Traits are those one could expect from a teacher and fighter pilot, with one important exception. His Patron has outfitted and trained him to be always ready to fight back against sudden attacks, both by extraordinary humans (people more or less like him) and by low-powered Faeries. This is why he’s exceptionally fast with his Colt M1911 (the standard issue for fighter pilots back when he joined the RAF Volunteer Force). This is also why the “Guardian Angel” gave him an ancient dirk, the blade engraved with runes, and why he trained with it; already twice the attackers that came at him couldn’t be stopped by bullets, but the knife worked. David doesn’t know what enchantments are on it, but he knows it’s magical, and blessed.
Occasionally, ordinary people notice that he wears at all times, even under a civilian jacket, a strange harness with a shoulder holster for the pistol and, on the back, a handle-down sheath for that big knife. They understandably think he’s weird.

[Michele]

(continued)

SPECIAL EQUIPMENT:
The long knife David carries is special enough to be Signature Gear, and enchanted. Details are left to the GM. However, it is likely that this is a cold-forged meteoric iron blade, which would mean its quality has to be classed as cheap; its chances of breaking are higher than for a good-quality knife. On the other hand, Faes are rumored to be vulnerable to that material.
He carries his gun at all times.
David also owns a powerful Harley Davidson Model WL built in the USA in 1938, with a second seat added.
In an emergency, he might commandeer his Hurricane Mk I. But, unless he could cover that later, there would be hell to pay, and anyway he’d need at least one ground crewman as an accomplice to get it started.

CANONICALITY:
David Evans is designed on the basis of the Fighter Pilot template found on p. 83, GURPS WWII and of the customization notes found on p. 42, GURPS WWII: Their Finest Hour, with the necessary adjustments for the Fourth Edition.
In most campaigns a character like David would have Unusual Background. Since the point value depends on the specific setting, this is left for customization.

GM’S NOTES
As far as the GM knew, there is no such thing as a template for a half-Faerie changeling available, which provided the player with considerable latitude. This character predictably became the team’s night prowler, and the group-protection specialist, given the size of his Obscure power.

[Michele]

I'll post a reference in the GURPS Community Campaign and Adventure Repository sticky.

[johndallman]

Fun! I'm playing a Weird War II campaign, which started on 225 points and has now reached about 350, so this character makes a lot of sense. I play our night prowler...

It's kind of surprising he hasn't been commissioned. He's really very smart, and having such people as officers saves embarrassment; it would also give him more freedom of action. The RAF was less stuffy than the older services about commissions for people without upper-class backgrounds. Four of the needed points could come from replacing Off-Hand-Weapon-Training technique with the corresponding perk.

A Weapon Bond for that knife would be very reasonable. Fast-Draw is missing the Combat Reflexes bonus, and Piloting for a Hurricane should be Light Aircraft.

I'm keen to see the rest of the characters.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Fun! I'm playing a Weird War II campaign, which started on 225 points and has now reached about 350, so this character makes a lot of sense. I play our night prowler...

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it, and also that there are other gaming groups out there who like this sort of campaign.

If you wish to post your character here for comparison purposes, you're welcome, I don't feel it would be hijacking this thread.

It's kind of surprising he hasn't been commissioned. He's really very smart, and having such people as officers saves embarrassment; it would also give him more freedom of action. The RAF was less stuffy than the older services about commissions for people without upper-class backgrounds.

Yes, but on the one hand that came to be true over time, on the other hand I think the player wanted to save points, at the beginning. This is the character in the early summer of 1940, and as mentioned he came in through the auxiliary courses. As I remember, Evans was later promoted. And, of course, transferred to the special RAF unit...

Four of the needed points could come from replacing Off-Hand-Weapon-Training technique with the corresponding perk.

A Weapon Bond for that knife would be very reasonable. Fast-Draw is missing the Combat Reflexes bonus, and Piloting for a Hurricane should be Light Aircraft.

Thank you for these notes.

I'm keen to see the rest of the characters.

I have the rough translations, but I'm trying to work them up to a better shape. I'll be posting the other characters as I go.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Michele

I'll be posting the other characters as I go.

Looking forward to it. I won't post my character for now - it's kind of long, and the campaign is active. The players don't know all about each other's characters. The log is here.

[Michele]

MARY HOUGHTON-THORNTON
WAAF Auxiliary Servicewoman and Psi Super

(c) copyright 2011 Michele Armellini

Base Setting: GURPS WWII: Weird War II, GURPS WWII: Their Finest Hour

Total Points: 200 (including 5 unspent points)

Age: 24 Height: 5'4" Weight: 140 lbs. Description: an ordinary-looking young woman with brown hair and eyes, wearing glasses

ST 10 [0] HP 13 [6]
DX 12 [40] Will 13 [5]
IQ 12 [40] Per 12 [0]
HT 12 [20] FP 12 [0]

Basic Speed: 6.00 Move: 6
Basic Damage: Thrust 1d-2, Swing 1d
Basic Lift: 20
[Total Attributes: 111]

DR: 0 Dodge: 11(*) Parry: 9 (Karate, **) Block: 0

(*: including +1 from Combat Reflexes, +1 from Enhanced Dodge)
(**: including +1 from Combat Reflexes)

ADVANTAGES AND PERKS: Combat Reflexes [15]; Contact Group (Upper Class in London, skill 12, on 9 or less, Somewhat Reliable) [5]; Enhanced Dodge 1 (Psionic -10%, Costs Fatigue (2) -10%) [12]; Fit [5]; Luck (Psionic -10%, Defensive -20%, Costs fatigue (2) -10%); Military Rank 1 (Leading Airwoman) [5]; Precognition (Psionic -10%, Uncontrollable -10%) [20]; Recovery [10]; Status 2 [10]; Wild Talent 1 (Retention +25%, Emergencies Only -30%, Costs Fatigue (2) -10%, Nuisance Effect * (Reaction –1) -5%) [16].
Good with (Dogs) [1].
*: when Wild Talent is activated, the character not only often does something inappropriate for a young British lady, but also acts as a woman possessed, snaps at any objection, and sweats profusely.
[Total Advantages and Perks: 108]

DISADVANTAGES AND QUIRKS: Bad Sight (Nearsighted, Mitigator: Eyeglasses -60%) [-10]; Duty (RAF, on 9 or less) [-5]; Insomniac [-15]; Pacifism (Cannot Harm Innocents) [-10]; Reputation -2 (Stubborn and hysterical girl, Upper Class, Recognized on 10 or less) [-3]; Secret (Psionic Powers, Serious Embarrassment) [-5]; Sense of Duty (King and Country) [-10].
Intolerance (Germans) [-1]; Loves Bicycling [-1]; Somewhat Stubborn [-1].
[Total Disadvantages and Quirks: -61]

SKILLS AND TECHNIQUES: Administration-12 [2]; Area Knowledge (London)-12 [1]; Autohypnosis-11 [2]; Aviation/TL6-12 [2]; Bicycling-12 [1]; Camouflage-12 [1]; Connoisseur (Visual Art)-11 [1]; Current Affairs/TL6 (Headline News)-12 [1]; Dancing-12 [2]; Driving/TL6 (Automobile)-12 [2]; Environment Suit/TL6 (NBC Suit)-11 [1]; Fast-Talk-12 [2]; First Aid/TL6-11 [1]; Housekeeping-12 [1]; Karate-10 [1]; Literature-10 [1]; Makeup/TL6-12 [1]; Meditation-10 [1]; Occultism-11 [1]; Savoir–Faire (Military)-11 [1]; Savoir–Faire-11 [1]; Scrounging-12 [1]; Strategy (Air)-10 [1]; Typing-12 [1]; Urban Survival-11 [1].
[Total Skills and Techniques: 33]

TL: 6 Cultural Familiarities: Western [0].
LANGUAGES: English (native) [0]; French (broken) [2]; Polish (broken) [2].
[Total Cultural Familiarities and Languages: 4]

[Michele]

BACKGROUND:
Leading Airwoman Houghton-Thornton was born in 1916 within a "good" family and at a fashionable London address. Unfortunately, her family could give her high Status but not much more: their fortune was gone, their Wealth was and is merely Average, and it bought her barely adequate education for a young lady of her class. Her parents relied on her marrying early and marrying well.
Which she refused to do. Mary was always quite strong-willed, and she entertained progressive ideas about women's rights, too. She also had a habit of guessing small things that had not happened yet, a peculiarity that many found unnerving. She turned down acceptable suitors, thus acquiring a less than favorable Reputation within high society. When her widowed father got a posting abroad with the Foreign Office that he couldn't afford to refuse, she jumped at the opportunity to follow him.
It was abroad that Mary found her true love: a young, dashing, and terribly foreign cavalry captain. Her father tried to discourage her, to no avail. Her being in love with the officer also brought about her involvement in his country's plight at a very inconvenient time: because this was the winter of 1938, Mary's father was posted at the British Embassy in Warsaw, and the officer's name was Jerzy.
When the situation worsened and worsened, and the time came for the Embassy to send all relatives home, Mary simply refused to. After a quarrel with her father, she moved to live alone in Warsaw. When the war broke out, her father had just fallen ill, and was unable to force her to go home, which she did not want to do; she wanted to remain with Jerzy. That is how she ended up trapped in the besieged city, while ironically the cavalry officer was serving elsewhere.
During one of the relentless German bombings, the metahuman genes that had been dormant in Mary's cells, maybe thanks to her Irish grandmother, had to be awakened. Mary had a vivid vision of the building she was in collapsing under the bombs, and she knew it was going to happen soon. She tried to warn everyone else out, with mixed success, and she was just out of the door when the first bomb fell.
When she came to in the hospital, she was another person. She still looked the same, with her plain features and small build; but she had become much tougher. She had also developed a full, although untrained, ungainly, and partially uncontrollable, array of extra-sensorial, psionic perceptions and gifts linked with her awareness of the future. Her metahuman capabilities evidently rely on mental flexibility for survival, too, so she also has an unexplainable ability to suddenly do things she never learned to do, if that's what it takes to survive. This is how she acquired some unlikely Skills.
Thanks to her new Advantages, she reached neutral Lithuania together with a diverse group of refugees; she went where she predicted the German patrols would not be, and those who chose to follow her soon learned that it was a good idea. While she was waiting for a passage in Riga, she found herself in another dangerous situation. A pair of drunken sailors were molesting a girl. Mary intervened, and suddenly she had to fight against two men, albeit drunk. She won the fight, used her first Wild-Talent Karate move, and learned that she was good at instinctively moving out of harm's way: probably because she precognitively knew when and where an opponent would strike.
When she finally reached London in January 1940, she was full of longing for Jerzy (whose fate she doesn't know to date), of loathing for the Germans and of bad recollections. That is why she still finds it difficult to sleep well, and why she volunteered for the WAAF. The service was still quite picky, but Mary's origin was the right one, and she still had a Contact Group in the right circles. She could probably have had a quick career already, but this was not to be.
In June 1940, just as the Germans were winning once again in France, she was assigned to the Biggin Hill Sector Station, right halfway between Dover and London. And there, as the Germans began attacking convoys in the Channel, she began trying to tell the officers where a given radar signal was going. Of course she could not explain how she knew, since she didn't want to be taken for a nutcase. Given that she was already known as a headstrong, weird girl, her Reputation got worse. And at this time, most of the senior officers in both the RAF and the WAAF also belong to that Upper Class where her Reputation applies. Her chances of promotion dwindled, and currently she's being considered for transfer to a less sensitive post. This is happening exactly as the Battle of Britain is beginning, and Mary is having very serious misgivings about threats to the very control room she works in.
She has correctly foreseen, more than once, the enemy intentions, and one of these cases was stressful enough (when a flight of hapless RAF novices was ambushed over Dungeness) to give her a grasp of air warfare. Yet, her superiors put those cases down to mere coincidences. This is why she's getting clever at delivering her privileged information through Fast-Talk: twice already she succeeded in manipulating the officer involved into thinking that it was entirely his own "right forecast", even if based on incomplete data. This is risky, of course; should she incur in a serious failure, her Reputation is going to take another hit. Right now, her colleagues and subordinates are also beginning to dislike Mary, seeing her as an arrogant, pushy upstart.
Mary is still experimenting with her new gifts and trying to learn more about them, as well as attempting at gaining more control. She's been reading occult texts, which she's now beginning to consider the dead end that they are. She's also learning meditation techniques that she hopes will improve her chances. But what she'd really love is to put her special abilities at the service of the British war effort.

SPECIAL EQUIPMENT:
The unusual items Mary owns are an expensive racing bicycle in perfect condition, and a small Browning Baby .25 ACP pistol. The WAAFs are not issued guns, but after what she has seen in Poland, Mary decided on procuring something for self-defense.

CANONICALITY:
Mary Houghton-Thornton is designed on the basis of the British Auxiliary Servicewoman template found on p. 45, GURPS WWII: Their Finest Hour, with the necessary adjustments for the Fourth Edition.
Five unspent points are set aside, specifically because she has the Wild Talent Advantage.
In many campaigns, being a super, like Mary, would require an Unusual Background. Since the point value depends on the specific setting, this is left for customization.

GM’S NOTES
Mary was designed by a lady who was a novice gamer and GURPS user. The player wanted to start with a relatively simple character, but giving her scope for quick growth. Thus the choice was made to begin with a lower point total than that of other characters in the group, but also with the Wild Talent Advantage.

[Michele]

OK, I'm pretty proud about this one, not so much because I helped the player designing Mary, but because she made use of the WAAF template. No other GURPS WWII book had provided a template for a servicewoman until GURPS WWII: Their Finest Hour was released.
The British servicewomen were not allowed to fire at the enemy, but that doesn't mean the enemy wasn't allowed to fire at them... and the ones on duty at Biggin Hill were noted for their remarkable coolness under bombing. Some of them received awards for that, one in particular for remaining at her post not only during the attacks but in the presence of unexploded ordnance far too close for comfort.
Mary, here, is portrayed as she was about to do her duty and more through those days at Biggin Hill before joining the RAF's special unit.