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terryclothYesterday we had a session of the GURPS game. The two new people (Jesse and Nancy) had other plans, but that was okay because we didn't need them anyway. Nya.
Anyway, I'd been thinking about how to finish off the campaign once and for all since the last session, and had a plan that was only *sort* of railroading, as if they decided not to cooperate they'd just lose. But they did cooperate, and managed to more or less save the day.
And yes, we're done, and I'm not GMing the next game for this group. I don't think I want to GM GURPS again ever; it's too complicated and I don't know it well enough.
Lela didn't quite manage to sneak away in the middle of the night; the party woke up to the sound of her leaving, but was too late to stop her and decided not to try to follow in the middle of the night. Instead, they'd just go to the same place she was headed in the morning.
John, on his watch, was contacted by Remiel, his personal demon, who he didn't remember since he'd only ever met him on another world. There's nothing more frustrating than someone who doesn't remember they owe you a favor! Remiel warned John that the totems needed to be kept away from Charlie at all costs, and cajoled him into giving up following Lela in favor of chasing down a second team Charlie had sent to get the other remaining set. Since John didn't completely trust him, this took a lot of nagging.
Kitten: "So we're heading south because the voices in your head told you you needed to go that way."
John: "Basically."
Kitten (listening in): "Well, as long as they don't tell you to kill people."
Voice: "Okay, now hide at the next crossroads and kill the next people who come along."
So he did. Well, actually, he hid, and Kitten malfunctioned the car so that he'd have an excuse to stay, since Don had said that he wasn't about to be party to this foolishness. So when the carful of Charlie's agents drove up, they were forced to stop as the party's car was forming an improptu roadblock, with Kitten standing next to it and Don concealed under it trying to find something actually broken to fix. And John hiding in a ditch by the side of the road.
John attacked, of course, leaping out of his ditch and slashing the shotgun-wielding guard in the rumble seat with enough force to take off his head! Not that it actually took off his head, though -- in fact, it didn't seem to slow him down much at all, despite all the blood. Kitten cast a malfunction and stench spell on their car to chase them all out, and all four of the enemy shifted and changed into large half-wolf forms. The werewolves they'd heard rumors about! And one of them had the totems in a big sack!
Since it didn't seem possible to do permanent damage to the werewolves with non-silver weapons, John kept poking them in the eyes and cutting up their hands to keep them ineffective, while Kitten blasted the one attacking him over and over in the face with a shotgun. Don... well, Don spent the whole fight loading the 'hand-cannon' (a pistol that magically expanded its bullets to cannon-shell size in the barrel) with silver bullets. Even allowing gadgeteering to let him load the thing up twice as fast as normal, that was still only one bullet per round.
Of course, once he *did* have it loaded, he made short work of the remaining werewolves. Remaining, because enough physical trauma did knock them unconscious, at which point John went around unloading bullets from his magical unlimited-ammunition pistol as fast as he could pull the trigger until they died. In the end, all the werewolves were dead and the party mostly unhurt, and while there had been several close calls, none of the totems had been broken.
The voice told John that the totems could be broken safely in a null-magic zone, so Kitten made one -- a nice big one, thanks to a wild surge. While Kitten and John examined the totems and prepared to destroy them, Don noticed that the car was now running and started it up, driving it to a 'safe distance'... except that it malfunctioned again as soon as it got outside the no-mana zone, of course.
Unfortunately, at about the same time as Don was leaving the no-mana zone, John decided to be cute and toss one of the totems up into the air and shoot it. Not realizing that the no mana zone was only about six feet high, meaning that (a) the totem was outside it, (b) his gun was outside it and therefore could fire, and (c) his gun was outside it and therefore blessed so that it basically couldn't miss. And (d) that Don was outside and therefore exposed to the effects of the explosion, which in this case (these were totems from the mind-control barrier) was catatonia (damage IQ to 0) and amnesia.
After the rest of the totems were *safely* crushed, Kitten tried to cure Don temporarily using a Wisdom spell, but had a wild surge which cast 'animate object' instead. "This summons a spirit (IQ 9) to animate the target object, which must be human or animal-shaped."
Well, there was one class of spirits in no short supply in the area (and a luck die turned up 'worst possible result'), so it was one of the hunter scythe-angel spirits that possessed Don, gaining access to his memories and skills and (because his spirit was present and had no willpower to resist with) magical powers. It proceeded to impersonate him (made easier by the amnesia) as it schemed to try to get the surviving totems (the ones Lela had gone after) to the church where Charlie had set up the other two arrays.
The first step was to find Lela, which was what the party was going to do anyway. She tried to run away, but Kitten was able to cast Seeker to find her and Animate Plant to stop her without hurting her. Once she realized who they were (or perhaps, once she was caught) she relaxed and agreed to go back to Athens with them. "No, I'm not giving them to Charlie, don't worry. I'm giving them to Patch to keep safe. I trust him." She was not open to the suggestion that they'd be better off just destroying the totems -- they were relics of her precious Thunderbird!
They passed the military operation on the way in. Charlie himself was leading it! Or at least, participating. He had some other mysterious mage-figure with him. Kitten cursed them both just in case, but Don just kept driving... right into town, right to the church where the other totems were located, and he would have driven right through the front doors of the church if John hadn't grabbed the wheel!
Kitten charmed Lela to grab the totems and run, while he and John leapt out of the car for some reason. Don whirled around and tried to run them all down, but they managed to jump out of the way... and when Don stopped the car to make a leap of his own after Lela, John was in position to sprint ater him and knock him off taret... then pin him to the ground and hold him helpless for thirty seconds or so.
Which was all the time Kitten needed to go inside the church, find the totems, gather them all up (using a dozen air golems), and teleport away to somewhere *near* the no-magic zone's he'd made earlier in the day, where he crushed them... and then vanished.
Vanished because Charlie, thinking that his control was secure as it could get with three sets of totems, had set the monster under Athens free. If he'd been able to control it, or if his companion had been alive to try to control it, things might have gone differently, but as it was the creature woke up and found nothing to control it... so it banished all extradimensional entities, sealed the world of from further extradimensional travellers (because it didn't want to be chained down in its sleep again), and then went back to sleep.
With the spirits and werewolves and everything gone, the world was able to slowly return to normal. White men had survived in Europe, thanks to more developed supernatural defenses, and the US was eventually re-colonized, although not before the women had beaten back the barbarian hordes and set up a matriarchal society.
As for Kitten, he didn't like his homeworld, but his next attempt at dimensional travel went wild and left him brainless and drooling in a monastary on some distant world, where he was bound as a 'demon child' and kept for reeducation.
last session
I got home to find that the patch download had crapped out somewhere around lunchtime, so there was 17 hours left to download. It finished in the middle of the day Saturday. Sigh.
Anyway, I'd been thinking about how to finish off the campaign once and for all since the last session, and had a plan that was only *sort* of railroading, as if they decided not to cooperate they'd just lose. But they did cooperate, and managed to more or less save the day.
And yes, we're done, and I'm not GMing the next game for this group. I don't think I want to GM GURPS again ever; it's too complicated and I don't know it well enough.
Lela didn't quite manage to sneak away in the middle of the night; the party woke up to the sound of her leaving, but was too late to stop her and decided not to try to follow in the middle of the night. Instead, they'd just go to the same place she was headed in the morning.
John, on his watch, was contacted by Remiel, his personal demon, who he didn't remember since he'd only ever met him on another world. There's nothing more frustrating than someone who doesn't remember they owe you a favor! Remiel warned John that the totems needed to be kept away from Charlie at all costs, and cajoled him into giving up following Lela in favor of chasing down a second team Charlie had sent to get the other remaining set. Since John didn't completely trust him, this took a lot of nagging.
Kitten: "So we're heading south because the voices in your head told you you needed to go that way."
John: "Basically."
Kitten (listening in): "Well, as long as they don't tell you to kill people."
Voice: "Okay, now hide at the next crossroads and kill the next people who come along."
So he did. Well, actually, he hid, and Kitten malfunctioned the car so that he'd have an excuse to stay, since Don had said that he wasn't about to be party to this foolishness. So when the carful of Charlie's agents drove up, they were forced to stop as the party's car was forming an improptu roadblock, with Kitten standing next to it and Don concealed under it trying to find something actually broken to fix. And John hiding in a ditch by the side of the road.
John attacked, of course, leaping out of his ditch and slashing the shotgun-wielding guard in the rumble seat with enough force to take off his head! Not that it actually took off his head, though -- in fact, it didn't seem to slow him down much at all, despite all the blood. Kitten cast a malfunction and stench spell on their car to chase them all out, and all four of the enemy shifted and changed into large half-wolf forms. The werewolves they'd heard rumors about! And one of them had the totems in a big sack!
Since it didn't seem possible to do permanent damage to the werewolves with non-silver weapons, John kept poking them in the eyes and cutting up their hands to keep them ineffective, while Kitten blasted the one attacking him over and over in the face with a shotgun. Don... well, Don spent the whole fight loading the 'hand-cannon' (a pistol that magically expanded its bullets to cannon-shell size in the barrel) with silver bullets. Even allowing gadgeteering to let him load the thing up twice as fast as normal, that was still only one bullet per round.
Of course, once he *did* have it loaded, he made short work of the remaining werewolves. Remaining, because enough physical trauma did knock them unconscious, at which point John went around unloading bullets from his magical unlimited-ammunition pistol as fast as he could pull the trigger until they died. In the end, all the werewolves were dead and the party mostly unhurt, and while there had been several close calls, none of the totems had been broken.
The voice told John that the totems could be broken safely in a null-magic zone, so Kitten made one -- a nice big one, thanks to a wild surge. While Kitten and John examined the totems and prepared to destroy them, Don noticed that the car was now running and started it up, driving it to a 'safe distance'... except that it malfunctioned again as soon as it got outside the no-mana zone, of course.
Unfortunately, at about the same time as Don was leaving the no-mana zone, John decided to be cute and toss one of the totems up into the air and shoot it. Not realizing that the no mana zone was only about six feet high, meaning that (a) the totem was outside it, (b) his gun was outside it and therefore could fire, and (c) his gun was outside it and therefore blessed so that it basically couldn't miss. And (d) that Don was outside and therefore exposed to the effects of the explosion, which in this case (these were totems from the mind-control barrier) was catatonia (damage IQ to 0) and amnesia.
After the rest of the totems were *safely* crushed, Kitten tried to cure Don temporarily using a Wisdom spell, but had a wild surge which cast 'animate object' instead. "This summons a spirit (IQ 9) to animate the target object, which must be human or animal-shaped."
Well, there was one class of spirits in no short supply in the area (and a luck die turned up 'worst possible result'), so it was one of the hunter scythe-angel spirits that possessed Don, gaining access to his memories and skills and (because his spirit was present and had no willpower to resist with) magical powers. It proceeded to impersonate him (made easier by the amnesia) as it schemed to try to get the surviving totems (the ones Lela had gone after) to the church where Charlie had set up the other two arrays.
The first step was to find Lela, which was what the party was going to do anyway. She tried to run away, but Kitten was able to cast Seeker to find her and Animate Plant to stop her without hurting her. Once she realized who they were (or perhaps, once she was caught) she relaxed and agreed to go back to Athens with them. "No, I'm not giving them to Charlie, don't worry. I'm giving them to Patch to keep safe. I trust him." She was not open to the suggestion that they'd be better off just destroying the totems -- they were relics of her precious Thunderbird!
They passed the military operation on the way in. Charlie himself was leading it! Or at least, participating. He had some other mysterious mage-figure with him. Kitten cursed them both just in case, but Don just kept driving... right into town, right to the church where the other totems were located, and he would have driven right through the front doors of the church if John hadn't grabbed the wheel!
Kitten charmed Lela to grab the totems and run, while he and John leapt out of the car for some reason. Don whirled around and tried to run them all down, but they managed to jump out of the way... and when Don stopped the car to make a leap of his own after Lela, John was in position to sprint ater him and knock him off taret... then pin him to the ground and hold him helpless for thirty seconds or so.
Which was all the time Kitten needed to go inside the church, find the totems, gather them all up (using a dozen air golems), and teleport away to somewhere *near* the no-magic zone's he'd made earlier in the day, where he crushed them... and then vanished.
Vanished because Charlie, thinking that his control was secure as it could get with three sets of totems, had set the monster under Athens free. If he'd been able to control it, or if his companion had been alive to try to control it, things might have gone differently, but as it was the creature woke up and found nothing to control it... so it banished all extradimensional entities, sealed the world of from further extradimensional travellers (because it didn't want to be chained down in its sleep again), and then went back to sleep.
With the spirits and werewolves and everything gone, the world was able to slowly return to normal. White men had survived in Europe, thanks to more developed supernatural defenses, and the US was eventually re-colonized, although not before the women had beaten back the barbarian hordes and set up a matriarchal society.
As for Kitten, he didn't like his homeworld, but his next attempt at dimensional travel went wild and left him brainless and drooling in a monastary on some distant world, where he was bound as a 'demon child' and kept for reeducation.
last session
I got home to find that the patch download had crapped out somewhere around lunchtime, so there was 17 hours left to download. It finished in the middle of the day Saturday. Sigh.
