Superheroes – Once upon a Time in 1968 – Issue 6 – Continuing Oodness

Several months after Issue 5 (but shortly after the 1967 Holiday Special).

Cover:  Our heroes back to back surrounded by thugs with elctro-blasters.

Opening page:  The team observing Blue Lotus Import/Export in New York’s Chinatown. “So, tonight is when it goes down?” asks Roboto.

A page detailing what has been going on: Shadowfist and 808 have confirmed that Miss Ood is working with the Black Dragon Triad and they think that a new shipment of out of dimension materials are coming through this Wednesday night.  Vulpix has been studying the every expanding number of paranormals, especially supervillains, active in the New York area.  Roboto was investigated by a Diamond Industries team for possible use in improving industrial robotics.   Horizon keeps practicing his control, learning more about what he can do but still feeling unsure about his control over them.

Step into April, Leaving March behind

April begins tomorrow with its usual day of tricks and misdirections, deception not being my specialty, do not expect anything clever from me.  But I hope to enjoy cheerful cleverness from others.

While April is comes to us from the name of the Roman month Aprilis however it is unclear where the Roman name comes from, it may refer to the opening (aperire) of buds and flowers as Spring arrives or in some unexplained way to the goddess Venus, to whom it is a sacred month, or something else entirely.  We simply do not know, such is the way of history.

I am again doing the the Blogging from A to Z Challenge for April, the theme will be “People and Organizations of the Sea of Stars” so if you have questions about my setting or anyone you wish to meet from it, please ask.

March, 2021, saw the following posts here:

PinkCat: Running in the Shade “Jailbreaker” (A different sort of SR campaign report)

To understand what is going on here, you had best read the first PinkCat: Running in the Shade post, but short summary, this is a campaign report for our Shadowrun campaign set in NorCal through the filter of a cartoon made by one of the team members.

Episode Forty Seven: Jailbreaker

Guest Starring: Clawz, DoubleUp, Gimmick and Tora.

Pink and the crew are asked to help some local families of some of the poorer students, they comms keep getting cut off by greedy corporation (“GreedLink, it is all about the money.”) and their commlinks stop working.  They need them for school so . . . Time to jailbreak some comlinks!  Includes a PSA about how comlinks work, contracts and jailbreaking comlinks.  The team has to work out how to break the phones free from GreedLink, which involves sneakinginto one of their branch offices and disconnecting the comlinks . . . and then finding a fair service (“Connect Coop”). A big party with food follow now that everyone has working comlinks again.

What really happened:

Review – Shadowrun: Collapsing Now

Shadowrun: Collapsing Now is a sourcebook, specifically a “Runners Resource Book” for the Sixth World Edition of Shadowrun covering a variety of groups that shadowrunner might work for or against. It suffers from a lack of direction and uncertainty if it is a player or GM facing work. For the lore and background information, worth picking up for Shadowrun Games Masters, but not an immediate must have unless you are featuring one of the highlighted groups in your campaign.

Shadowrun: Collapsing Now, is a Runner Resource Book for Shadowrun, Sixth World Edition, providing a look at some of the groups that shadowrunners might work with, for or against.

February and the RPG Blog Carnival Ends

Thanks toall who help out with this month’s RPG Blog Carnival!  It was fun and I hope to host again soon.

With the start of March, the Equinox and Spring draw ever nearer.  The name of March is drawn from the Roman month Martius which in turn gains its name from Mars, as you would expect.  Mars being the Roman god of war (and more a soldier’s god than a warrior as contrasted with his Greek counterpart Ares)

The theme for March will again be the military and things martial.  If there is anything in particular you would like to see, please let me know.  I will try to do something, spell or item, for the Equinox as well.

February, 2021, saw the following post in the journal:

Gifts of the Gods, divine artifacts, ending the RPG Blog Carnival

February comes to an end and with it, my time as host of the RPG Blog Carnival, though I am sure that I will host again soon.

The framework for Gifts of the Gods, divine artifacts, is here.

Firstly, Roleplay-Geek provided thoughtful advice on handing out A Gift from the Gods.

Moving through time and space to Campaign Mastery who presents the Forbidden Weapons of the Omega Archive, a very Whovian trove of items but with suggestions to adapt them to other settings.

Out of the mists comes Owlbear Games with a look at how divine gifts might be twisted in the realm of Ravenloft.

A silver flame leads us to Codex Anathema exploration of the Relics of Old, with a focus on Eberron.

The gentle flow of water is the core of Full Moon Storytelling‘s tale of how the Everflow became a central point of their campaign world.

At Five Foot Square we are introduced to the mysteries of the Hidden Queen in A Gift or a Curse?  The Cult of the Hidden Queen.

Cruel Trinkets of the Mad Gods are presented by Rising Phoenix Games as their contribution to the Carnival.

My contributions were: the Third Celestial Armory, where the gods used to keep their weapons and now the Draconic Imperium does.  Divine Artifacts in the Sea of Stars, where to look for them and where the few new ones come from.

Thanks to everyone who participated and spread the word!

Notes:  March’s RPG Blog Carnival is “Say yes to your players“, hosted by the Roll4 Network, hope to see you there as well.

Image “Keith Haring – The Marriage of Heaven and Hell [1985]” by Andrea Sartorati is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Superheroes – Once upon a Time in 1967 – Holiday Special – White Christmas

Several months after Issue 5:

Cover:  One corner of the 1967 Holiday Special featuring the Freedom Five shows the team waving with a Christmas tree in the background.

Opening page:  “It is Christmas time in New York”  Showing the team walking down Fifth Avenue in their secret identities.  “I like your festival of lights,” says Bob.

Shadowfist has been teaching 808 Mandarin Chinese so that he can work on the investigation in Chinatown and try to track down Miss Ood with some success and some frustration.  Vulpix continues her training, works with her uncle and the charities her family is associated with and continues avoiding her cousin.  While Roboto has been helping the Professor trying to work out what went wrong with the project to create Computo.   Horizon cautiously works to master his powers, as away from people as he can get in NYC, as he is still worried about accidentally causing destruction and injury.

Gifts of the Gods, divine artifacts, beginning the RPG Blog Carnival

Welcome to the RPG Blog Carnival for the Month of February, 2021, on the theme of Gifts of the Gods, divine artifacts,

Such items figure in highly legends such as:

• The Aegis of Athena, the shield that protects her (and indirectly the Olympians).
• Mjölnir, the hammer of Thor, popularized in the Marvel comics and movies.
• The Yata no Kagami (the sacred mirror) of Japanese legend.
  
• And in fiction with such items as Stormbringer, the soul-drinking demonic sword and tool of the gods of Chaos.

A small number of such items, the thunderbolts used by Zeus, are mass produced.

So, let your imagination run wild!  Make up new items or stat up those from myth, describe places where lost items can be found or quests set by the gods for those who wish to “borrow” item for an important task, what artifacts would your campaign villain seek?  What is the craftsman of the gods working on?

I hope you find inspiration.  Please leave a comment on this post with a link to your submission.  As people post link, please take a look as the idea is to share, inspire and bounce of one another’s ideas.  At the end of the month, all of the links will be collected in a wrap up post.

If you are not a blogger hopefully you will be still be inspired.  If you start a relevant thread on Reddit or Discord or a forum or whatever, then please post a link to it in the comments so that can be shared too.  The more people involved, the merrier!  Let us create some wondrous things together!

My first contribution, the Third Celestial Armory.

Notes:  This will be the third time the Sea of Stars has hosted the RPG Blog Carnival, the first time back in May, 2017 with the theme of Occult Mysteries, and the second time in February, 2019 with the theme of Making Magic Wondrous.

Image Royal Armory at Leeds by Lofty found on Wikimedia Commons and used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Into February and a new Blog Carnival

January is quickly ending as the year moves ever onward.   February gets its name from Latin term februum, which means purification, via the purification ritual Februa performed at this time of year.  The Romans considered February an ill-omened month which is why it is only twenty-eight days long. 

Normally, I use the theme of curses for February but as I am hosting the RPG Blog Carnival on the theme of Gifts of the Gods, divine artifacts, I will be focusing on that.  I do hope you can join in on the RPG Blog Carnival, it is good fun and good inspiration.

What was published on the journal in January, 2021, was:

Shadowrun Campaign News for the start of 2021/2078 and a new Seattle Scream Prop (#69)

We are continuing to play Shadowrun via the wonders of the proto-Matrix  (supported by Tyche’s Games our local game store) but not as often or as long as our in-person sessions.  I deeply miss in person play and it looks like the odd of getting back to that are improving, day by day.

Here are the current state of the House Rules we are using for the 6th World Edition, they likely to be modified as we continue to play.

Our NorCal set campaign in still using 5th Ed rules, we have played another game which I hope to have written up shortly

Time for the first screamsheet of ’21/’78: Seattle Scream 69, the insect nest and go-gangs running rampant are after effects of various adventures.  Turns out the Spikes get violent when they feel they have been disrespected.

Notes: Photo from piqsels.com and is listed as being in the Pubic Domain.