This past weekend the magehammer's Irregular Gamers got together for a weekend of gaming fun. The roll call for this event was:
magehammer
StormBringer
IMStuds
Beowulf
KarmaSeeker
After fussing around with the fun that is Rock Band, we descended to the comforting embrace of StormBringer's basement to play the first game of the weekend: a rousing game of Risk--Nuclear War version.
IMStuds was doomed from the start while StormBringer and KarmaSeeker seemed poised to take things. KarmaSeeker overextended himself and left himself vulnerable to the crushing and opportunistic armies of Yours Truly, magehammer. I managed to steal Australia away from him and hunker down until I was squashed...but not before I caused StormBringer some consternation through the mechanism of a forgotten and lone freedom fighter who had won an uprising in Argentina.
Nuclear wastelands littered the world brought about by the folly of man, and a champion arose, striding the world like a Colossus, Beowulf swooped out of the Americas to crush StormBringer's reeling forces. Beowulf was triumphant.
Day 2:
The next day after a run by StormBringer and Beowulf and a scrumptious breakfast of frozen waffles and out-of-date syrup, we once again delved into the basement for a game of Adventure Realm.Download the Mission Briefing: HERE
The team sent on the above mission was as follows:
Willard C. Meilander PhD. Professor of every discipline (and inexplicably, immortal).
Guillermo, Mayan culture specialist
Hans Gruber, Ex-Patriot German Soldier Spy
Ax Drummond, U.S. Army demolitions and small arms fire specialist.
The team made it to a secret Spanish air base near the Temple with no complications. They were greeted by the base commander, Colonel Sandinista who introduced them to their guide, Tikal.
Tikal and Guillermo discussed the family heirloom jade, feathered serpent medallion that Guillermo wore; a pendant that had been in his family for generations. Tikal was a bit worried about the Chupacabra that was said to haunt the jungles in this area. The team took note of his fear and pledged to be extra careful in the jungle on their way to the Temple.
After the first 3 days of the trek to the Temple, they were attacked at a stream by the lizard-like, canine-headed, blood sucker that is El Chupacabra! The battle was furious, and in the end, a Meilander bullet to the head, but not after the Soldier muscle did their thing. Tikal was frozen with fear. And Guillermo couldn't find anything in his notebook about El Chupacabra.
After gathering their wits and breath, they continued on their trek. Eleven days later, they arrived at the Temple only to find that the Nazis had beaten them to it. Four SS Troopers and a rather large Sergeant were standing guard outside the steps to the ziggurat among some wooden barrels. In addition, the corpses of natives and Nazis lay strewn about the area as well. Their zeppelin was tethered to a tree a couple hundred meters away.
The team decided upon sending Hans to capture one of them for intelligence-gathering purposes while Meilander was to create a diversion. Ax would stay back and protect Guillermo. Tikal waited well away from the danger.
Dr. Meilander's diversion was to mimic perfectly the call of El Chupacabra. The Sergeant sent two of his men to check into the sound while Hans grabbed a third when they were distracted and dragged the Nazi into the jungle, rendering the soldier unconscious with a sleeper hold. The fourth trooper faded into the jungle of his own volition. The team code named him Canteen Boy.
The Sergeant realized something was up and found two of his men gone. He ordered the remaining two to open fire. They fired blindly at Meilander's position. They missed. Ax rushed forward and Meilander brought the Sergeant into his sights. Ax lobbed a grenade at the soldiers, Meilander let loose with his WWI Pattern 14. One shot! One kill! All three Nazis bit the dust.
Guillermo noticed that the native guardians of this Temple whose bodies lay dead around them bore the markings of a guardian sect of Mayans who were thought to have faded into history along with the ruins they were set to guard. More mysteriously, he found that each of the guardians also wore a medallion exactly like his...
Hans revived and questioned his prisoner. He discovered there were more inside the Temple. Two more Sergeants, three Stormtroopers, and their leader: Markus Von Richtenstein. The Nazi revealed that they were sent to bring back water from a fountain that would make those who drank it impervious to harm and granting them great strength in battle (with regards to Dave Blewer). Hans also spied a special pin on the soldier's uniform marking him as a member Der Suchende, the Nazi counterpart to F(u)BARR. Der Suchende recruited only the toughest and smartest soldiers for their ranks.
Meilander became increasingly intrigued with the Nazis' zeppelin. He realized the pilot was still in it and saw said pilot's silhouette in the under cabin. He brought his rifle to bear, he knew it was going to be a tough shot. He squeezed the trigger, and the pilot's silhouette slumped forward; it was a titanic shot.
The team also heard the cry of El Chupacabra that was not Meilander. There was more than one! As the team discussed their strategy for entering the Temple, Meilander spied an El Chupacabra climbing the chain tether up to the zeppelin. Meilander took a few shots at it, but it managed to make its way into the cabin. Soon after, the zeppelin began to descend rapidly nose first.
The team decided upon a plan and made their way up to the ziggurat. Guillermo read the pictograms at the entrance to the Temple. They told of a great war chieftain who was buried here with his battle power. Meilander concurred and said that he had been to a dinner party here once (a comment his team deigned to ignore). They made their way into the maze that protected the inner sanctum from intrusion. Guillermo consulted his notebook and found no path through the maze. Hans was the pathfinder, and he easily guided the team through the maze while marking their path should they need to make a hasty exit.
Upon reaching the steps that lead into the inner sanctum of the Temple, they heard a voice barking orders and discovered the Nazis were in the Fountain Room. The leader, who they correctly assumed was Von Richtenstein, was standing over the pool next to a statue of a feathered serpent that held a curious, glowing blue stone in its mouth. The serpent looked strangely like the medallion that Guillermo wore about his neck. He checked his notebook and could find no record of the serpent there.
As the team decided upon a course of action, Von Richtenstein injected water from the Fountain directly into his veins. When the team decided to make their move, they found that Von Richtenstein had transformed into a hulking monster of a man. Meilander took a shot. The bullet hit the monster's forehead, dead center and fell harmlessly to the ground. Then what used to be Von Richtenstein began to walk slowly toward his enemies. His men opened fire on the team and took cover behind pillars and walls.
A fierce fire fight broke out as Von Richtenstein advanced. Guillermo searched his notebook feverishly for any reference to this Fountain he could. Finally, he found a brief account from a Victorian British explorer who hypothesized that the water in the Fountain was empowered by the "The Stone That Fell From The Sky" as the Mayans called it. Ax lobbed a grenade at the monster. It caused him to briefly stop, but didn't even come close to hurting him. That did buy Meilander enough time to fire at the blue stone. Meilander changed targets, taking the opportunity to remove a Nazi Stormtrooper's head with a sniper's bullet, then as Von Richtenstein was about to continue his advance, Meilander squeezed off another shot, taking out the crystal completely. It shattered. The water in the Fountain bubbled and steamed away into nothing, and the monster that had been Von Richtenstein began to pour steam from out of his eyes, nose, and mouth. He melted from the inside out into a steaming pile of liquid and skin scraps.
The Der Suchende Stormtroopers didn't give up without a fight, but the skilled and mighty members of F(u)BARR defeated the evil treasure seekers and won the day. Unfortunately, the team realized that whatever power the stone granted was lost with its destruction. No water remained in the basin either. The team consoled themselves by realizing that they had kept a potent weapon out of the hands of a madman.
After making their way out of the Temple and a quick reconnaissance of the downed zeppelin that only yielded the discovery of the remains of Canteen Boy, the team made their way back to the air base and then to the United States of America, unsung heroes who knew that any respite they may have waiting for them in their own country would be short lived as the threats to the nation's security--both mundane and arcane--were steadily increasing. They knew soon they would be back out in the world in the ruins of the ancient world trying to save the freedom of the modern one. Such is the task of F(u)BAARR. One they embrace with courage, intelligence, and unceasing tenacity.
Stay tuned! In my next post I will chronicle the exploits of magehammer's Irregular Gamers as they play a game of Dungeon Realm and discover the secrets of The Dungeon on the Borderlands.
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