I’ve now run a further 3 sessions since my two-part opener, and as I’ve said previously the whole thing as my first GM role has been incredibly eye opening and a big learning curve. Still forgetting to make sure that conditions affect roll modifiers and such, and constantly battling to try and make sure that a group of 7 players doesn’t just overwhelm whatever foe I put infront of them!
Since my players ended the “first issue” with a bit of a split one team went off in search of some answers about the Outsider’s cryptic message from home, befriending a one handed bar landlady-cum-information broker and infiltrating without being detected a technology company that deals in creating life model decoy style androids for supers who wish to protect their secret identity.
After finding out what they could they headed to the route of a protest march that had been going on after getting news of a bomb going off, but thankfully not seriously injuring anyone thanks to the Legacy’s earlier precaution of having a hunch and asking some of her Legacy pals to go and keep an eye on things.
When there they noticed a shady figure scoping buildings out from the roof tops…
Meanwhile the other group went on a treasure hunt (which was poorly structured by myself so they spent a lot of time just not getting anywhere!), however eventually they got where they needed to be, a warehouse on the docks where a cultist ritual was taking place. The treasure they were hunting was a cultist himself, the Doomed in our game is seriously dark and is intrinsically tied to an inter-dimensional being of great power, who the Doomed has trapped in his sanctuary, and who unfortunately also provides this Doomed with his powers.
With cultist eventually in tow they were stopped by an AEGIS detainment team, interested less in their exploits that evening and more on the Nova that was with them, for undisclosed reasons. A brief skirmish ensued in which the commander of the detainment units was left writhing in agony on the floor as the Doomed lost his cool and wanted to find a way out of the situation.
Having taken the cultist to his sanctuary, and allowed him to be sacrificed to this inter-dimensional being… with Nova watching on shocked but unsure whether to judge Doomed if this was for the greater good or not (yes, our Masks story has an inherently more grey perspective on life and death in this situation… I am keeping an eye on it to try to make it something that is redeemed rather than spirals out of the sense of heroic duty)… information was found on a number of old relics that were once used by the great threat of the Legacy’s past, who will come again, including the “Marionette stone” that they had retrieved from their fight with the Golden age pirate-like “Captain Slaybeard” in the two-parter before.
And so, the team rejoined in the latest session, as team A confronted the sneaky guy on the roof and decided that with their powers seemingly failing them they needed backup and called in team B to come and help.
A fight ensued between this balaclava clad assassin like man, who frequently frustrated the team with their powers just fizzling as they attempted to take him down or stop his attacks. Eventually though the Outsider transformed into a silverback gorilla from a height and dropped on their shady foe, ending his struggle against them.
They learned that he was scoping out a job, a contract found on the dark web to assassinate the Mayor (who happens to be the Meryl Streep in our little universe). Forcing him to decline the job, and give them information on who he found the contract from, the team handed him over to the authorities… first the super-powered international emergency response force, the SPEARS, who rejected the notion that the guy was under their jurisdiction, and then eventually the local police who were happy to take in suspects that they could question about the bombing.
Heading back to base the Outsider managed to get back in touch with her parents on her homeworld, having feared that they may be dead or her planet destroyed. Instead she learned that there had been a major deception, and a break out of their prison.. specifically her as yet unknown of eldest sibling, a source of family shame kept secret to our hero, had escaped.
Meanwhile the Legacy was getting frustrated with how much the SPEARS, who she feels could be a great ally, don’t seem to respect her and the Legacy, and gets some advice from her sect leader, Justice, to find a specific contact and gain their trust to get an “in” to the SPEARS.
And lastly, “Team B” along with a confused but relieved Outsider head to the pub, the “Golden Compass”, where Ted… an ally of the Doomed runs a small bar/cafe in a quaint part of town. However when they get there they find the place trashed, entering the back room an automatic holo-projection set by Ted plays into the room, showing that AEGIS, specifically the team that were thwarted earlier that evening, have come and forcefully taken Ted and all his equipment.
And so now here we are, thinking about the route forward to the next session. Everyone is at the Protege’s base, and they’ll have a decision to make. There is a contract out to assassinate the Mayor, and there is a threat headed to this planet from Outsider’s planet in the form of her newly-learned-of older brother. There is also a desire to find allies in the SPEARS, and also to go and save Ted and put a stop to AEGIS targeting them. Which will get priority? And will their decision have consequences to those objectives that they can’t meet?