#table tales

[theultrablog]

Pulp Storytime #72: The Palladium Peril! By Paul "Wiggy" Wade-Williams.

In 1938, Austria was invaded. In 1940, London was not. Was a statue to blame?

We open in Verona. Journalist Trudy Truman has an inkling of the story… a Greek artifact that was said to be lost to time. To help her get it, she teamed up with an all-new adventurer, Dr. Hemet Hazoul. He’s a genius with a doctorate in engineering and history… and has all the humility of a Hollywood publicist at award time. He had been "encouraged" by the rest of the staff of his Turkish university to go on permanent sabbatical, and submit his research via correspondence. Rounding out the posse was Tacito Uriel Velasco, lawyer, boxer, and wielder of a Mexican panther spirit, and stuntwoman Lala Santinella. She and her adopted daughter Devika (millionaire, mystic, etc.) were visiting her homeland to work out a few glitches in their relationship. They brought a lawyer because of a little business that was… What’s the word? Elective? "Compulsory," corrected Tacito. Trudy was contacted by a member of British Intelligence. He was being followed, so the best place to talk would be during a local performance of Macbeth. Someone must’ve said the play’s name outloud too much, though. All the agent could divulge was "Minerva, at the pantheon" before being shot. The killer timed it during the witches’ lightning, and despite the lawyer's best effort, the killer got away. Hemet explained, with no degree of humility, the Pantheon was a famous structure in Rome. Lala went under protest, in disguise. She wasn’t popular in Mussolini’s Italy after publicly leaving a Germany/Italy film collaboration. Unfortunately, that very same movie was shooting at the Pantheon! Lala’s old pal and rival, Elena Altieri, was starring in the movie Santinella turned down. The stuntwoman tried to hide in her car, while Trudy used her gift for blathering to distract Director Leni Riefenstahl. The statue itself weighed hundreds of pounds, but with Hemet’s advice, the lawyer moved it aside and looked underneath. There was a gem and a scroll, which claimed a secret would be revealed at the sun’s zenith in the Flavian Auditorium. Wait, what did they call the building nowadays? The Colosseum! The stadium was 30 minutes away and it was 11:40. The group was blessed to have an Italian leadfoot! The group got to the Colosseum with seconds to spare, barely noticing the new platforms and fresh sand. At noon, Hemet directed the sunlight onto a brick on the emperor’s box, burning up a Nazi flag…And springing the trap! Herr Strauss, a Nazi commander with delusions of grandeur, told our heroes the score. They could live with the knowledge they acquired… if they could beat him and his unit in gladiatorial combat. He presented a range of ancient weaponry… And the battle was on! Trudy had always been blessed with a strong nose. Instead of immediately joining the fight, she observed her surroundings… and could smell a very unfamiliar scent. LIONS. The “fair” Nazi challenge was a deathtrap! The professor was used to brawls and ancient weaponry. He held off the brown shirts… but the lions had the opposite effect on him and Tacito that Trudy might’ve expected. Hemet had the world’s greatest ego. The lawyer had the instinct of a panther, and there was no way he’d surrender to another large cat. Lala, brimming with common sense, snuck off to open an escape hatch. Tacito and Hemet kept the lion away from Trudy. After choking the beast unconscious, Tacito flung blood onto his opponents… Making them all the more appealing for the other Pantero leos. Egos assuaged, Trudy led a retreat.

After fleeing, the group laid low at a much less historic venue… Their local library. The Palladium, the object of their search, prevented cities from falling, so there was no way it was still in Rome. But some dusty tomes suggested it’d been moved to Constantinople! It was an awkward homecoming for Professor Hazoul. His rival, Cleric Marduk, had charged him with violating the school's decorum code… By fighting animals in a world wonder. But Hemet had an ace up his sleeve. It was his new friend, one of Earth’s greatest lawyers. Tacito emphasized that the lion fighting had been done in self-defense, and in pursuit of an archaeological treasure. This set Hemet up for some self-serving lies… and the honor committee was completely, 100% on board. The cleric shook his fist as the other panel members suggested that HH could teach ancient weaponry as an elective next semester. Trudy got to the telegraph office to send in her story. Nazis digging up the Colosseum was front-page stuff. She had another contact in town, Stavros “The Bull” Papadopoulos, a merchant mastermind with an interest in antiquities. He agreed to meet her and her cohort at the Turkish baths. Suggested wardrobe: a towel. Papadopoulos, (when not interrupted by Hazoul), explained that the Palladium they saw was in a monastery 70 miles out of town. And completely coincidentally, he had a delivery truck headed in that direction. A spare ride at a reasonable price. Trudy’s astounding senses paid off again… As she heard footsteps down the hallway. Assassins! The fez-wearing killers had the group at a disadvantage, but no sword can defeat the human mind. Especially when that mind belongs to a dirty-fighting professor. He soaked one end of his towel in water, and set the other on fire. The hashish-eaters caused problems, slashing Trudy’s arm badly, but the crew was clever. Tossed braziers set their foe’s robes on fire. Tacito held a goon’s head under the bath. Lala soaped the floor and smashed people in the face with water buckets. Soon, there was gap in the flow of hired killers. The group rushed to the changing rooms, and from there to Papadopoulos’s cousins’s truck. Kristos let Lala drive, but the cabin was cramped. A few people would have to ride in the back. Devika, feeling useless, gave Trudy one of the many crates. Trudy, playing along, opened it up, asking what it was. Devika read the label.

"Nitrog…nitro gly…" "Nitroglycerin."

Yep, Kristos was hauling enough explosive fluid to send the truck into orbit. Not a problem, until a Nazi half-track came around the bend. The party had very little in terms of ranged combat skill. They did have a maniac behind the wheel, so when the Ahnenerbe machine gun opened up, Lala hit the gas like she was driving a Ferrari. And although they needed to cover miles and miles of ground, and couldn’t dodge bullets forever... the group had a mechanical genius on board. His idea was rebellious. It was dangerous. And it was perfect. They had a truck bed full of explosives? Why not just detach the truck bed? Instead of throwing crates one at a time, they unleashed a huge trail of explosive ordinance. Far behind, a commandant demanded his troops check what was in these mysterious crates… And then proceeded, very slowly, to remove them. By the time the nitro was safely disposed of, the players had gotten away. The monastery was a bust. But it could’ve been much deadlier if the group didn’t travel with a design historian. Trudy detected a trap, and Hemet was able to keep the hidden wall blades recessed. Tacito and Hemet examined the corpses of less careful Crusader tomb robbers… skeletons with coins from 14th-century Vienna. Could Austria be the place?! It turns out it was. And after an ambush in Europe’s second-largest graveyard, the group found a gigantic statue of the Pallas Athena! While the antiquarians examined the device, Devika and Lala had some one one-on-one time. Devi was concerned that Lala had gone off the deep end after the failed wedding and Devi’s time in a coma. Lala admitted that things had gotten drastic, but moms were allowed to get a little crazy. Just the way things go. The group hurried. Austria wasn’t a Nazi state yet, but brown-shirts had free reign there. The statue opened a nearby fountain, which led to a cavern containing the Palladium, and a weird electrical grid pattern. Lala was about to unplug it… When Professor HH had a better idea. The group rewired the trap. The fascists might have outnumbered our heroes, but hatred can do very little against electricity. Herr Strauss’s dueling saber was nothing more than a lightning rod. Lala, Tacito and Hemet mopped up the rest. The only thing left to do: figure out where to move the statue! Trudy was loyal to the British crown. Tacito argued that they should honor the sacrifice of the agent who told them about the thing in the first place. Hemet was fine with any option as long as he got to write the archaeological report. The Palladium was stored securely in the tower of London.

Towel Fight by JORDAN PEACOCK!

[theultrablog]

Starting now: PULP STORYTIME, #1!

I’ve been running one of the best games of my life over the last few years. I’ve been writing them up over at SA, but that site is gated and I wanted to share those stories with a larger audience. I’m gonna be posting some tales of pulp adventure from my table, weekly. Enjoy!

The Park-North Snipe Hunt!

“You don’t have a piece,” laughed the gangster, “and now you won’t see your 14th birthday.” “Bang,” said Devika, pointing a finger gun. Kulfi obliged from a block away. The mook wouldn’t see the sunrise. In this game, we play a collection of pulp gentlemen thieves, grabbing & nabbing in 1930s New York. And an errant detail changed the course of the entire session. The session started with us trying to steal the Doomsday Clock, a pastiche of the Antikythera mechanism. Someone beat us to the punch, forcing us to investigate…which led us to the local Syndicate. While looting a safe in a mafia speakeasy, I decided to forge a note, taking credit, signed “the Gray Gargoyle”. Who’s that? Well, it’s a costumed adventurer who smashes crime, especially art crime! Total ass-pull, but it fit the setting. We didn’t think much more about it, until our adventures led us to an upstate airfield, where mafiosos were trying to smuggle the Clock out of the country. I spent a fate point to declare that they were already being stopped… by the Gray Gargoyle! Yes, he dove off the air control tower and with his Gliding Cape, intercepted the plane! We rescued him from airfield security, but we had a plan. Since we were gentlemen, it wouldn’t make sense to just kill the guy and take the artifact. After all, that’s not thievery, that’s mugging. So we engineered a plan where we gathered the mob boss who was after the artifact, killed him with a sniper rifle, and escaped in the confusion. Unfortunately, the Gargoyle didn’t take the bait and get himself killed in the fracas, instead watching our escape from the valet stand.

Running the circus from the monkey cage!

The campaign continues, with a rotating GM. This week and last, we were joined by Evelyn St. Cloud, insecure Circus Aerialist*. This week was a flashback featuring her and mystic orphan Devika Velyapur, trying to pull some scams at the Hagenbeck–Wallace circus. And while we prevented an accident, saved the circus and altered history, most notable were three things: —Evelyn only agreeing to help prevent a train crash because of Devika goading her, targeting her aspect “Anything you can do…”. —In order to chase the villain, we convinced the circus strongman to bend the frames of two penny farthings together to create an ersatz duo bicycle. —We discovered the villain of the adventure, Mabel Smith Douglass, was someone we met last week. And since this was a flashback, that limited our options. Highwire-walker Evie jumped onto Mabel's escape plane. But Evie couldn’t open the door, all she could do was force a landing. And without suitable evidence, there was no way to convince airport officials that the villain had stolen property. So after some fisticuffs, we swore revenge on someone who died at the end of last week's session. *There was a brief cameo by Smuggler "Typhoon" Mike McGinnity, but he had to leave after the first hour. He discovered a tiger sleeping on his boat and used his connections to try and sell it to a buyer in Canada.

For reference, Devika, Lord Simon, and Javid, our initial trio:

[theultrablog]

Pulp Storytime #59: Gallery of Souls! by Magnus Seter and Petter Nallo

The best art is visceral. Here’s an extremely suspicious phrase: “I didn’t spend a lot on your Christmas present. Now get packed.” Devika gave Florence a mailbox shaped like a treasure chest… That was assigned to a hut in Rura Tonga, a remote tropical island northeast of Australia. She could share it with Trudy (no house of the future, but what is?), while Aldous got one of his own. There’s nothing funnier than giving a fastidious butler a dirt floor hut; It was an hour before Devika revealed that there was actually fitted stone flooring waiting at the dock. The mailbox said Ziegler Security: South Seas, and promised tons of adventure! The final two members of the team, inventor Professor Callahan and wandering Martial artist Xiao Yun, were eager to solve some crimes and set things right.* Any day now.

Surely there was -some- action on an island with a population of 105? ——— So after a very, very relaxed holiday season, the gang was eager to return to Los Angeles for an actual case. Outsider artist Christian Stark wasn’t answering his phone, and San Diego mobster Samuel Stone wanted him for a meeting. The team's only lead was a letter where Stark promised to meet in an LA park at 9 PM that night.

Trudy Truman’s journalism skills got a huge workout this session. She contacted the arts desk at the LA Times and got the address of Stark's Gallery. Bingen the Butler was suspicious though; fearing the worst, he circled the block and found out the suburban gallery was under surveillance. It was time to get in the back way. The gang hopped a fence and examined the backyard. TT’s sensitive nose paid off… She found a trail of smelly detritus leading from the unlocked back door of the gallery across the lawn, and down into the sewer. She also smelled blood...and human flesh.

Only Yun and Trudy had the fortitude to make their way inside. The smell was a mixture of sewage and the stuff bodies are made of. Trudy opened the windows, and the gang explored the remains of an art opening-turned-massacre. Who could’ve done this? A babbling psycho in the downstairs bathroom tried to assault the team with a butcher knife; Xiao disarmed the maniac and smashed him into a nearby sculpture. Back in the grasp of sanity, all he could talk about was his torment and his fear of “the great devourer.” Weird!

The investigation continued, with the group splitting off. The professor and the Australian girls headed to Stark’s Apartment. The butler and martial artist made their way to the 9PM rendezvous. Instead of Christian Stark, they were ambushed by… an ancient Roman soldier?! Meanwhile, the Commonwealth trio arrived at Stark’s downtown digs. The lobby sign said it was on the eighth floor... Rather than walking all the way up, the professor got out his tool kit and fixed the creaky elevator. Good as new!

——— Yun greeted the man in Latin. He asked if they were the artist. Hearing “no”, he decided to take out a gladius and attack! Yun, a master of both wuxia and acupuncture, gave Aldous a chance to disarm the man, sending the roman's blade into the park lake. The soldier still fought furiously, prompting Aldous to shoot him in the leg. A wonderful idea, except that they were trespassing…and to park security, it looked like they were attacking an unarmed man! Back in the apartment, the players discovered the elusive artist wasn’t there…but he was being stalked by a jealous collector called Howart, who was obsessed with Roman history. Trudy sniffed… something horrific was coming up the stairs. Rounding the fourth floor and moving swiftly was a gelatinous mass of faces and limbs. A cairith, personally sent by whoever was trying to put a kibosh on their investigation. It was the entire width of the stairs, and they weren’t going to escape out an eighth-floor window… Quick, to the elevator! At the park, the ever-prepared Bingen produced his firearms license and retrieved the Gladius. He would be happy to be booked for misdemeanor trespassing… but maybe the assault charge should go to the weirdo who didn’t speak a word of English? Downtown, Callahan Ziegler and Truman crowded into the elevator. Luckily, they could take it full speed to the bottom, moving past the oozing mass. If they hadn’t fixed it, they would’ve had to deal with the creature, which could’ve easily gotten into the elevator cage… A horrifying death, avoided thanks to engineering! Reconvening, Trudy once again used her research skills. Howart was an art collector and a Rome aficionado. He had a secured compound in Beverly Hills… but how were they going to get in without rousing the police? The Hollywood Butler had an idea. They could schmooze with the local fire department, say that his old boss Maude was doing a movie, and enter the premises disguised as firemen. Professor Callahan created a smoke grenade cannon and fired it from an adjacent Beverly Hill. The guards were utterly baffled. So was the group when they found out Howart’s library had a gateway to a much hotter place…Hell.

The art collector had gone mad from sorcery. Drawing from dark forces, he called damned Romans to fight for him. And now, in an ancient Church beyond time, he prepared to sacrifice a mystically gifted artist to the goddess Morta. Howart was to be the new Roman emperor, a Caesar to rule over the living and the dead. That would be bad enough, except the Cairith Monstrosity was bound to his will as well. Several tons of undulating gelatinous corpses, standing between the Ziegler Agency and the man they needed to rescue. The wuxia master sprinted into action, jumping over rows of soldiers and interposing between the Emperor and Christian. If he wanted to kill the artist, he was going to have to defeat her hand-to-hand… Not likely. Meanwhile, Trudy ignored the thousands of black candles, using her journalistic sensibilities to find something awry…and noticed a small box on a pedestal. It seemed to have a piece of flesh floating above it, and she theorized that it was a reliquary, controlling the abomination. If Florence could just shoot the thing… but surviving a roman hit squad isn't easy! The party could handle itself in a brawl, but these were crack troopers in formation. Between that and the creature bearing down on them, it wasn’t a matter of if they would lose, but when. To make things worse, the emperor tried to dominate Xiao’s mind! Dozens of horrified voices cascaded into her skull, but the Chinese patriot knew Rome was inferior. She fought back with a series of bone-breaking strikes… Florence finally got clear of the retentii, exploding the reliquary with her pistol. The monster attacked the Romans, who tried to stab it back. With the enemies fighting each other, the investigators had a shot at survival.

The Emperor decided to take drastic action. If he couldn't sacrifice his captive, he would sacrifice someone more important… Himself! He slit his own throat and fell on the altar, his blood rising towards the ceiling and summoning an angel of death. That got the players panicked. Xiao used some of her healing skill to re-balance Stark’s Chi, allowing him to limp towards the exit. Aldous carried him even further, trying to help him hobble back to the library. The swirling chaos threatened to engulf all the characters, but Florence called upon the emotions that had led her to sell her soul in the first place, confusing the angel long enough for everyone to escape the underworld. Back in Beverly Hills, all the characters had to deal with was a swarm of pissed-off guards and a confused fire captain. Aldous’s stealth and Trudy’s charm let the group weasel out of things; Callahan asked if all the thugs wanted to be held on suspicion of kidnapping and satanism. Uhhhh... Not willing to trust their mob employer, the Ziegler Security Services team had a quandary. Where could they hide this famous artist where the mob couldn’t get him? Maybe on a remote island in another hemisphere? Xiao Yun

[theultrablog]

Table Tales #9: The Best Bad Man

Someone asked me how to do good villains.

A key to get players involved in the game is recurring enemies. Now, they can be innocuous (an old high school friend who works at a museum, and swears revenge when the players smash the museum and get her fired). They may be incidental (the slumlord the players see once at a party and absolutely loathe.) But they should be recurring. In my Dungeon World game, the players entered a tournament. Their chief competition were dark mirrors of themselves, most competently The Professor. The Professor opposed our storm/star mage, Andromeda. He wore an armored raincoat, a plague mask, and attacked with syringes. He was also near-impossible to kill. During a spectator event, he slid up behind Andromeda and stuck her with a syringe. The paladin tried to interpose but almost fell unconscious. The ranger tried to defend her but was intercepted by another of his allies. When Andromeda regained her footing, he was gone.

He appeared again and again; in magical disguise to arrest the party, as the trainer of a "Containment" team, and on a pirate ship raid.

Now, the pirate ship was different; Andromeda was holding her own. Unfortunately, she decided to use a Forceful blast, dropping him to 1 HP...and sending him into the cannonade of the enemy ship. He begged the kind Ranger for help, and she (not knowing who he was) came closer. He stabbed her with a poison of friendship; she healed him and he slipped the noose again. A few sessions later, the mage got a love letter. It told her to meet at The Frozen Kipper, an iced-cream parlor in town. When she got there, the city guard were fighting off a Deader infestation that would leave most of the party crippled. There was also one person, sitting shyly at a table, waving to her. While she knocked the undead through the restaurant, she found herself with a syringe in her chest. The Professor knocked her across the room, into a smoothie machine (which, combined with the attacks of the unliving, left her on the brink of death). Despite the party's efforts to defend her, the Professor stepped...slowly...over. He had been stabbed. He was on fire. He was unstoppable. In her last desperate action, Andromeda summoned him into a black hole, banishing him from the known universe. Then she fainted from exertion. A key to good villains is having good characters.

[theultrablog]

Pulp Storytime #149: Island of the Blood Brothers!

“You’re asking a guy named Typhoon if we should head through the dangerous storm. You know that right?”

New readers may ask: Who are you people?! Or Where did this start?

On November 15, the Philippines became a Commonwealth of the United States. They hadn’t been independent since the middle of the 16th century, and were the first non-white colony to gain independence from a Western colonial power. And someone had to do the paperwork.

Bureaucrat Kabir Rupert, detective Zelda Saeki and detective JP Diamond spent weeks in a sweaty British embassy (only taking breaks for a round of municipal golf on Thursdays). But on the eve of independence, they had updated all the documentation and were free to party. They did. The next morning, battling a hangover, JP got a call from his old war buddy, Herbert “Red” Mason. Red needed bailing out, and since JP had been avoiding him during his entire time in Manila, a favor was owed. But there was a strange scene at the prison. The morning after a legendary night of debauchery, Herbert was the only one in the holding cell. Everyone else had been bailed out by two large, burly twins, but they refused to pay his fine when he said his buddy JP’d cover it. Josiah knew exactly who the twins were: His nemesi, Mr. Black and Mr. Blue. And if they were recruiting thugs in Manila, then the Sinister Skull was up to something. He clued in Zelda and Kabir, then the investigators split up. Zelda found out that the twins had commandeered a steamer and were sailing east towards Micronesia. JP learned about a mercenary crew also headed in that direction, run by an enormously strong Greek. (He also spent a fate point to declare a story detail: Captain Mike McGinty was in Manila between jobs and was ready for an adventure!) “Typhoon” Mike was happy to do it, but since last night was the biggest celebration in Philippine history, he needed someone to search

“every flophouse, cat house and outhouse for my staff. Get their hung-over hides to the boat and tell them they're gonna be earning paychecks again.” JP told him not to speak so loud.

While Zelda and JP handled that, Rupert hit the library. Dockside rumors speculated everyone was after the mirror of Yata-no-Kagami, the heavenly object crafted by the mirror god Ishikoridome for the Sun Goddess. As one of the sacred treasures of Japan, it would give tremendous cachet to whoever held it. And it could only be damaged by another godly artifact, perhaps one by the Sun goddess’s brother Susanoo. With the help of a dodgy treasure map, they'd hopefully cover their bases and get both. Zelda managed to find her sailor easily. Winifred (disguised as merely Fred) needed extrication from a highfalutin’ opium den. The Japanese Hipster, who always wears suits, confused the sailor, but soon lured her back to work with the promise of more spending money. JP Diamond had a harder case. It turned out the “donkey-man” (head of the coal stokers) was being extorted by a one-eared pimp. JP battled both his hangover and the panderer, knocking the man out with an objectively awful punch that the guy stepped into. The lady-of-the-mid-afternoon gathered her clothes, then her pimp’s wallet, and headed out. That’s Manila for you. There was one more wrinkle: Kabir Rupert, OBE, was to be honored for all his bureaucratic work. His only job was to sit near a parade and be photographed by fawning stringers. Not willing to delay the ship, he begged off, telling the technical truth that he was needed for a voyage. A great way to dodge a promotion. *** The ship had an unexpected passenger: millionaire orphan Devika Velyapur. JP had casually promised Typhoon Mike money from the ZSS account, which led to a phone call to her bank, which led to her personally inspecting the expedition. Red Mason, feeling left out, was happy to come too. McGinty had a suspicion about where to head, but the group was hours behind both of the opposing ships. The solution? Take a shorter route, through a possible squall, and outrace their foes by being bolder. But as Kabir argued, you know what you’re getting when you hire a guy named Typhoon. The storm was fierce; a yard arm came loose, nearly knocking Red unconscious before he was rescued by JP. Zelda, pelted with rain, used a bullhorn to keep the crew focused. Kabir pointedly insisted that the captain take a break after seven hours at the wheel, instead of relying on dulled determination. The trio even mechanically repaired the anchor rig, allowing them to hold position and let the rest of the storm pass by. After a calm dawn, the three-oh-trio examined their map and triangulated the likely position of a treasure-bearing shipwreck. There was an argument between JP and Zelda over who should go down in the diving suit and investigate, with Zelda “winning”. The old galleon was rotten, and nearly disintegrated under the weight of the suit. Which drew the focus of the shark… Above the water, Kabir spotted a problem. An incoming speedboat named, embarrassingly, "Daddy's Favorite.”

“Ugh.” Said the Brit.

He told the crew to open the weapons locker. Below, Zelda took aim at the mast, hitting it with a spear gun. It started to creak, and drew the shark’s attention, allowing her to slowly slip down to the captain’s quarters. In a small bag in a rotten foot locker: 10 smooth stones from an ancient necklace. Above, the pirates threatened to cut the oxygen line. Kabir, master of intimidation, responded by aiming the flare gun at their ship. Detente, until JP jumped on board The Favorite and started throwing hands! Zelda tugged the line, and the sailors began winching her out of the ocean. On the waves, bottles, blades and boat hooks came out, with one poor sod getting gouged and sent into the water… Attracting the shark! In the gore bath that followed, the pirates fled, leaving behind some clues. One of them had a telephoto shot of the Greek… Who was JP's old rival, Elodie Grigorios! She had humiliated the detective years ago in a bar, beating him and his squadmates in arm wrestling. But he knew one thing about her: she was utterly mercenary. So it was time to let gold solve a problem. The heroic trio headed to the radio room, where with a combination of willpower, panache and bribery, they convinced the misthios to tell them the location of the treasure island. The Rupert fortune was further expended. But if it meant not having to deal with a 6’5 Greek powerhouse and her handpicked sailors, the transfer was money well sent. The investigators had made good, not great, time getting to the island, so there were signs of archaeology when they arrived. More shocking: the beginnings of a solar eclipse. They, along with Devika, snuck onto shore via rowboat. Zelda (in jeans and a black turtleneck) kept the group concealed, even as they passed the radio room and got a shock.

“We've almost got the artifact. Everything is as planned, General Saeki.”

The Sinister Skull wasn't behind it at all! The group kept skulking, but the vast magic ritual made Devi sicker and sicker. The ZSSers snuck up to the hidden chamber, where two Louisiana voices were chanting together in Japanese. As Zelda, JP and Kabir planned their ambush…Devi threw up! [The players were dithering so I gave them all fate points and started combat.] The battle was swift. All five adults played keep away with the mystic mirror. Kabir confused the brothers by calling out to one of them with "Hey ugly!” Mr Black, seeing the squeamish Indian girl, asked JP why his boss was all sick. Devi smashed the mirror, giving the group a victory. Zelda was about to put a bullet through Mr. Blue, when she blocked a shovel attack with her skull. The scuffling had alerted the remaining pirates, who sent our heroes to the blissful land of unconsciousness. *** When they awoke, they were tied up on the beach. Based on the snippets of conversation they could understand, Black and Blue were making up for their failure by releasing Zelda to her father as a hostage. JP chewed a hole in his gag and tried a desperate lie: the twins had destroyed the artifact because they were using its power for themselves! The general thought about this for a second, and then without a word, decapitated Blue. Mr. Black grabbed the general's wakizashi…and, unwilling to be without his brother, killed himself! The general dismissed the confused pirates, freed only Zelda, and told her that the two of them would discuss this “at home”. Everyone was shocked. Devi began bawling. The twins were Mafia jerks, but they were hardly much worse than some of the people the group had teamed up with. Zelda had never seen such violence from her father… and now she was bidden to be in his castle, alone with him. With the crisis averted and the artifacts inert, it was time to leave. Kabir, who had known the girl all thirteen years of her life, helped Devi clean up and cry it out. JP wanted to reach out, but he was a war vet and her employee. Not to mention that his lie had caused the mess. Back in New Orleans, Devi contemplated firing Zelda, keeping her family trauma away from the detective agency. Miss Saeki looked up Lorna Geary, her friendly local Kempeitai agent. Turns out Lorna had been the go-between, with the twins unaware of their true boss until too late. She flirted with Zelda and disappeared into a crowd. JP headed home, where there were unfamiliar sedans on his block. He met his wife, who wanted the full story, and explained that “he only wants to talk”. JP opened the door. Dropped his suitcase. Sitting on his couch, hands folded neatly in his lap, was THE SINISTER SKULL!

[theultrablog]

Pulp Storytime #144: I don’t practice Santorini

New readers may ask: Who are you people?! Or Where did this start?

When the mob asks a favor, expect fireworks. And firefights.

When Greece became a military dictatorship, criminals took notice. Gia CM was "asked" by the family to bail out a particularly talkative mob daughter from the island of Santorini. Luckily, the island had a great cover: an annual fireworks festival. It celebrated the volcanic founding of the island, and prevented any pesky air forces from coming around. Rafe Lancaster and Zelda Saeki were invited along, the former getting them onto the island in his racing sailboat, and getting the best transportation available: mopeds. The trio arrived a half hour before the fireworks, but Zelda's excellent skills got them to the mountainside villa in no time flat. There was a misunderstanding at the door: their target, Agrippa Petrakis, was expecting extraction from the O'Rourke gang. Gia threw on an Irish accent and began warming up their target and her gorgeous bodyguard, Socrates.

Rafe and Zelda lost focus, astounded by the Rembrandt in the hallway… Was this the original, or did Rafe have it? Before he could put his art history classes to use, the fireworks started… And the Japanese special forces came over the wall! Gia has one true magic trick: the ability to vanish herself and another person. So as the troops stormed the living room… they found only a very confused bodyguard! Before they could start their "formal interrogation” (the kind that involves cigarette burns), Zelda volunteered to help search for the missing person. Which was awkward, because she wasn't good at lying… and didn't want to catch Gia! Socrates, free to go, took the Rembrandt and fled into the night. Rafe slinked out of the house and took his moped to the biggest villa on the island. Just his luck: it was being rented by his fellow Century Club member, Mack Silver! Always ready to help a friend, he offered Rafe the keys to the loudest, smelliest, only truck on the island. In case he needed a distraction. Back at the villa, Gia struggled to find an escape opportunity. She got one when the police (or the “police”?) knocked on the door and started questioning the Japanese commandos. Gunfire! The fireworks stopped momentarily, long enough for Rafe to SCREAM down the hill, intentionally hitting trash cans, his horn blaring La Cucaracha. Gia and Agrippa, now well acquainted, were able to slink out in the chaos. Their escape was slowed down, however, by the fact neither of them were any good at driving. Zelda tried to escape, only to have an ancient vase explode next to her. Sniper! She dove for a fallen rifle, followed the line of fire, and squeezed off a shot toward a nearby basilica… Blowing up the scope of the assassin. She didn't have time to gloat though, as shards of glass from her own scope cut her face. Still, a sniper without a scope wasn't a threat, and she was able to meet the other three at the sailboat for extraction. Rafe had abandoned the car (sorry to Mack for all the tickets!). There was nothing to do but pop the ouzo and sail away.

[theultrablog]

Pulp Storytime #143: Upstate and down the stairs!

“I’m so embarrassed, I have a zit on my nose!” The woman looked, but saw only Devi’s swirling eyes… The Ziegler Security Service team was used to working vacations, but this was ridiculous. They (mobbed-up magician Gia CM, hipster detective Zelda Saeki, gearhead/bad boy Professor Winston Callahan, and millionaire mystic Devika Velyapur) hadn't even arrived at Saratoga Springs when they heard about an attempted murder. Their friend Najah had allegedly tried to kill their other friend, her baby daddy Andy Lancaster. (This news was delivered by their daughter Anizah, who had hopped on the back of a milk truck to meet them in Schenectady!) The story: after a late night fight, Nadja had woken up early to throw her wheelchair-bound beau down the stairs. Of course, this didn't make sense. Nadja was an educated archaeologist, and knew her staffs’ schedule. If she was going to kill her wheelchair-bound husband, there is no way she would've been caught. The scene of the crime matched the description (Andy had been hurled down into the basement). There were only two other suspects: the housekeeper and the live-in manservant. The group hired Najah an expensive lawyer, who allowed them to question her privately. (Callahan, seeing a fellow academic chained up like an ax murderer, made sure to voice his opinion to the "lapdogs of capital" operating the sergeant's desk, and nearly got decked.) According to Najah, she and Andy had argued, but she had woken up late, same as her daughter… they had eaten a new dessert the night before, while Andy hadn't. Who made the dessert? The housekeeper! Mrs. Duval was prim and proper, which made her no match for four scurrilous investigators. After a go-nowhere conversation, Devi followed her to a health spa. During a massage, she kept repeating the same story about her morning… Almost as if it was rehearsed. A whiny matron was no match for the former goddess of the Red Jasmine Cult, and Devi blasted the hypnosis right out of the woman's head. Mrs. Duval confessed to pushing her employer nearly to his death! But who had given her such a suggestion and why? The other servant was quickly exonerated (and excoriated for his obvious crush on Najah). Gia suggested that she and Devika team up, putting Mrs. Duval into a state of cryptomnesia. They had never done it before, but the mystic synergy was successful. In an unused hotel conference room, they sent the caretaker back into the past, back to the moment she was strapped into a dentist chair and hypnotized by a weird eyed man with a German accent!

“Or an Austrian accent,” she admitted. “Don't make me do the voice.”

The spa’s hidden room had a secret tunnel, leading to the Yaddo artist’s colony! After a brief fracas with hypnotized gardeners, the group headed to the main house… Where they were dismayed to find a half dozen weirdos with walleyes, cross eyes, amblyopia, but not one with a German accent. Zelda gathered the cops, the witnesses, and all the suspects into the dining room. The artists found this ridiculous, but Gia warmed up the crowd with some Borscht belt humor, Devi explained the financials, and the Japanese PI pointed out the exact right person as she walked slowly around… pointing at a fake Italian! Devi taunted the man, who lunged across the table at her and was swarmed by dozens of adults. (The rest of the detectives were not that impressed by this buffoonery.) Still, Dr. Johann Kopfschmidt bragged that he would simply sneak away for any punishment. He was well connected… Outside, Devika asked the officers for a few minutes alone with the suspect. He was strong-willed, but the Red Jasmine Cult had schooled the Goddess on man’s fear. By the time she was done, the crook begged for a jail cell, anything to keep him away from those eyes! Devi herself turned away, almost sobbing from the power she had channeled. But dinner had cupcakes and you can’t be ruled by the past. At the hospital, Callahan was in a puckish mood.

“Hey,” he whispered to Devi. “Ask Andy if he can feel his legs.”

Although Andy was hurt, the family was reunited. Unfortunately, this attack wasn't random… It was all part of a larger puzzle, as the spa had been built by the group's nemesis, Aloria Midas. When they got to New York, it would be time for revenge.

[theultrablog]

Pulp Storytime #141: The Emperor Who Never Sleeps.

The mechanic scratched her head. “Weird, you look just like that painting in the lobby.” “He must be handsome!” said Lancaster.

New readers may ask: Who are you people?! Or Where did this start?

‘Twas a normal Fourth of July in New York City. Rafe Lancaster hosted a Marshall College alumni function. Ivo Kochev crashed it (and ate plate after plate). A few blocks away, at 30 Rock, “Lala” Santinella prepared for the latest episode of the Grey Gargoyle radio show. There was a problem, though: this episode was clearly based on the time the Gargoyle crashed her wedding. She talked to him, he blamed the writers. They said they'd be happy to rewrite it if she could score them some quality jazz cigarettes. She agreed, and they told her about some new ad copy that came in, asking for mechanically skilled people who wanted immediate work. In the ballroom, Rafe stopped a would-be brawl between local bigot Jarrett Owen and one of Marshall College’s latest engineering PhDs: Afro-supremacist Professor Paradox.

Rafe turned on the radio eager to distract everyone, pursing his lips quizzically at the ad. Soon, Lala came over, noting that the traffic was heinous, even considering the holiday. The group went to investigate, but found the police were forbidding anyone from entering the subway. Smuggler Ivo bribed a security guard at a construction site, reaching the tunnels that way… and found one of Baron Korga’s undying automatons! The mechanical marvel was bulletproof and wielded a flame cannon. But oddly enough, it only responded to threats: it didn't seem to be actively conquering.

Lala called the mysterious number, and got an address: the Lancaster Industries airplane factory in the Bronx! Rafe, thinking back, realized that he had a dangerous robot of his own: unfortunately, it was in NYPD lockup. With the subway shut down and traffic at a standstill, the group took a powerboat down to the Battery and snuck in. Sneaking out was harder: the group got away with the damaged half robot, but only after crashing a police squadcar through the gate. Hopefully nobody saw! Somebody saw. The trio slipped into the aircraft factory, only to be caught by Maja Malgorzo and Drew, detectives of the League of Nations Police Force. After a narrow escape and some minor burn wounds, the group convinced the officers that they weren't behind the mechanical invasion. In fact, with some help, they could stop it! The aircraft factory was controlled by Ulyana Demedov (Korga’s lover and ex of Captain Ivanova, last seen in Emperor of Tomorrow) with some O'Rourke mafia thugs. While Lala was proud to see so many women working in a technical field, it was less than auspicious, considering they were building evil robots. Not wanting to be caught, our beloved heroes headed to Lancaster's Manhattan automobile factory. There, they palavered with Oleg, Baron Korga’s second in command. The Baron wanted to express his apologies for taking over Lancaster's facilities without asking: there simply wasn't time, considering 'civilian opposition to progress'. Rafe played it cool, earning the right to rebuild his own robot. Meanwhile, Lala used a payphone to gather up some heavy hitters, and Ivo puzzled out the plan. The Baron was using radio control, and probably from somewhere private where he couldn't easily be arrested. The best option: the Statue of Liberty. Oleg "escorted" the group to Liberty Island on his sailboat, but wasn't watching the boom and got knocked overboard in the middle of the harbor. Rafe contacted his aircraft factory and had the workers turn the radio to Korga's frequency: then, it was easy to see that their innocent project was actually traitorous villainy! Soon, they were on Liberty Island. Knowing the robots’ weakness, Lancaster sacrificed his own automaton to distract the Baron’s. Lala’s hired brawlers got the group to the base of the statue. The three heroes ascended.

Things rapidly went sideways. Korga was far more charming and insightful than a typical villain. He convinced Lancaster that a team-up would let them both rule the Eastern Seaboard. Lala, who meant to distract him while the millionaire destroyed the machines, ended up making out with the Baron on the statue’s torch. (There's something romantic about all that rushing air and fireworks over the city!)

Ivo, already in lousy shape, was harried by the demonic luchador, El Principe del Inframundo! Luckily, Steel Eagle arrived. The All-American Tibetan heard Lancaster ranting about his new, evil plans…

"Rafe, you're being a bad man.” “Yes, but I'm being an excellent God.”

…and punched him in the face! Rafe snapped out of it just in time to be caught by Korga. Lala smashed the radio, Ivo dodged the Baron, and Rafe pried open the elevator. Messing with the speed limiter, the group nearly shattered their ankles plunging to the base of the statue. As they hobbled outside, they saw a black parachute vanish off the tower and into the night…

Back in Manhattan, Ivo looked for some free food, a guilt-stricken Lala called her girlfriend Penny, and Rafe returned to his penthouse. His girlfriend Lillian and his mentee Devika were there. He sent Lil out to make some hot dogs, and confessed his "temporary megalomania”. If it was a few months ago, he would've probably gone along with Korga. Being a good person was hard! His bestie explained that everyone got tempted sometimes. And while she would never ask him to keep secrets, she especially wouldn't want him to keep them from his girlfriend. She explained that he should march into the other room, and come back with some beer and hotdogs.