Sunday, November 8, 2009

Campaign Two, session 1

First a little background: The Metal Earth has been cooking for years under a variety of names. I finally settled on this name because I was reading a lot of old Richard Corben (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Corben) comics in Heavy Metal (which lead to me watching the movie again- especially the Den and Taarna sequences) when I started to work on this version in 2006. Also I liked the pun.
So anyway, the world has seen some use with at least three different sets of rules: in it's earliest form I used a homebrew, later we tried to adapt Earthdawn to it, but I can't look at those rules without thinking of the setting that is built into them (maybe because it's mentioned about once every five words). The longest game, which took place in the setting pretty much as it stands now, used True20. We'll call that Campaign 1. What we're doing now is Campaign 2 and I'm using Swords and Wizardry, white box.
I'm playing with my two sons who are six and eight years of age. Kids, as it turns out, have no trouble with settings like this one (obviously I'm toning down the Corben influence a little- no weird giant penis bugs, or over-endowed nude pseudo-Aztec princesses, which kind of hurts, really).
The two pc's are an "Army Man" named Sergent Jack, and an amphibian mutant guy known as "The Unknown Warrior" (TUW). They both work for the 21st century US government, and TUW is a product of government experiments. The two of them have been sent into the future to capture something known as the Sonic Cyborg Arm.
By the way, I'm doing a couple of things that are new to me here , I'm playing with kids- which means no chemical enhancement and not so much description of the splatter, obviously; I'm using S&W; and we're playing Jeff Rient's megadungeon Under Xylarthen's Tower- marking the first time I've ever (in 30+ years of gaming) used an adventure I didn't write myself.

So here we go.

After leaving their time machine, Jack and TUW find themselves on a bleak and blasted plain under a darkening sky. A ruin-covered low hilltop looms in the near distance and the black line of a mountain range can be seen on the eastern horizon. Reports from other Temporal agents have placed the Sonic Cyborg Arm in an underground complex beneath a ruined tower. The adventures decide to climb the hill and check out the ruins.
Searching around in the ruins they find a staircase leading down. The stair ends in a dusty old corridor. Turning on their flashlights they set out to explore the place. walking down the corridor they pass through a t- intersection, but keep on in their original direction.
The corridor ends in a door; TUW opens it, and together, the warriors enter a half collapsed room. Suddenly a giant snake rears up from the rubble- and strikes! A fierce battle takes ensues. Sgt. Jack is caught up in the snakes coils, but TUW draws his vibroblade (which does, 1d6 damage just like everything else, btw) and hacks at the snake. Jack draws a pocket knife and attacks it as well. In no time at all the snake is defeated.
The victors search the rubble.
They find some gold and silver pieces which TUW puts into his bag
The room has several doors, but they pass these up to go back out the way they came in. Once back out in the corridor, they return to the t- intersection. This time they go left and come to another door. TUW pushes this one open. Entering into the room the pair is confronted by a huge ogre. He shouts something unintelligible at them, and- they attack! They both get banged up this time, but are ultimately victorious. The room has two doors besides the one which they came in, one to the north and another to the south. They select the southern door. It has staircase leading down, and that's where we'll leave them for now.

1 comment:

  1. I am just going through and reading some of your older posts. Cool to see you playing this with kids!

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