[Author’s Note: This is the log for the 10th session. Note that the order of the events in this record may not be in the exact order that they occurred during play. The narrator is shown in italics.]

In this hair-raising adventure of Tesla’s Power Corp you can follow the exploits of the following heroes:

The Great Wall Standoff

As the sun sets the members of Tesla’s Power Corp prepare to meet with Lo-Peng and hopefully free Mike’s Army buddy Eddie Chang. Miles and Mike approach via the walkway on the main wall while Tommy sneaks along the side. After walking for a bit they see Lo-Peng holding Eddie with a sharpened fingernail on his throat. While Miles gets Lo-Peng talking Tommy uses the opportunity to creep around behind. When the situation comes to a head Lo-Peng magically grabs the jade amulet pieces from Miles then transports himself on top of a nearby tower. Once on the top of the tower Lo-Peng summons ghostly warriors then opens a magical portal and jumps in! While finishing off Lo-Peng’s ghostly warrior minions Mike rescues Eddie. Tommy climbs up the tower the dives into the magical portal after Lo-Peng! Quickly the others dive in after the immortal wizard and the kid thief.

Nor Iron Bars A Cage

When the swirling lights fade the members of the Corp find themselves in a large domed chamber. In the center of the room is a jade sarcophagus that is being watched by four wooden warrior statues. Around the room is a river of mercury with several small bridges crossing it at various points. Lo-Peng is floating towards the center of the room and gloating that soon his immortality will be restored and nothing will be able to stop him! As soon as the Corp members regain their senses they rush into action. Miles starts cutting loose with lightning bolts while Mike opens up with his Tommy Gun. Tommy rushes towards the coffin and calls his spiders. Once at the coffin Tommy finds it partially open. Inside he sees a skeleton with its wrists shackled. Resting along side he finds a jade spear. Lo-Peng then transforms into his true form, a gigantic Chinese dragon! He then starts clawing at a magical barrier which is protecting the sarcophagus. Acting fast Tommy throws the jade spear to Mike who plunges it into a glowing jade amulet which is sinking into Lo-Peng’s dragon heart. Lo-Peng lets out a terrible scream and recoils. Miles cuts loose with a deadly blast on the amulet that stuns the dragon! With a final blow from the jade spear Lo-Peng turns into mist. The mist and spear then float into the coffin where it magically seals.

While Miles examines the chamber more closely Tommy and Mike decide to return to the Great Wall to make sure Eddie is ok. Mike finds Eddie poisoned and gets him medical attention at a nearby village. Miles discovers that the entire chamber is actually an elaborate and powerful magical prison. He returns confident that Lo-Peng is now safely confined.

Session #10 – Daring Tale #6 – The Palladium Peril

In Thunder, Lightning, Or In Rain

After returning from China and the affair with the nearly immortal wizard Lo-Peng, Miles is met by his butler who presents him with a strange letter. Miles replies to the letter then a week later receives a response. The contents of this second missive prompt the wealthy magician to assemble the team. At a fancy restaurant Miles explains that there is a Greek artifact known as the Palladium that may have recently been located. This item is reported to have the power to sway the fate of nations! Miles wants it found before it falls into the hands of the Nazi’s who he believes are also on the trail of the Palladium.

In London Tommy, Mike, and Miles are at a performance of Macbeth when a contact from the British Intelligence Service meets with them. As the play begins a man with slicked back hair takes a seat next to them. He says that his name is Reginald Forsythe and that he has something important to convey regarding a matter that involves the safety of the realm. In the middle of the next sentence in the play the three witches raise their voices and stage lights flash representing mock lightning. In a flash of REAL lightning Reginald is nothing but a charred husk! Quickly exiting from stage left the team spots a blonde haired man with a black trench coat leaving the scene. Tommy races to the front of the building while Miles and Mike chase the magician backstage.

Outside the blonde haired mage is met by a black sedan which races off. After grabbing the only method of transportation the group can find, a double-decker tour bus, the group races off in pursuit. Mike takes the wheel while Tommy hangs on nearby. Miles goes to the second deck hoping to get some clear shots at the mage. While going under a bridge a group of thugs jump onto the roof of the bus! As Miles cuts loose on the men with bolts of electricity Tommy runs up to give his aid. While Mike closes ground on the sedan three motorcycles approach from the rear! Mike pulls one of his Colts and belches lead at the sedan while Tommy hits one of the back tires with a masterful knife throw. As the sedan starts to roll over Mike skids the bus into one of the cyclists sending it flying. With gas leaking from the sedan Miles starts blasting at the blonde mage who has extracted himself from the wreckage. Mike starts taking out the thugs in the sedan while smoke starts to emerge from the engine. Tommy yells to Mike telling him to dive clear seconds before the sedan erupts in a ball of flame!

New friends and old enemies await our courageous team as they continue their search for the mysterious Palladium. Don’t turn that dial or you may miss some of this gut wrenching action!

A friend of mine, Alex Sheikman, is finishing up work on a new graphic novel that tells the story of the Count Of Monte Cristo but in Stalinist Russia. The working title of the project is Kristo. Alex and the writer, Sam Roads, funded the project using Kickstarter. As part of that effort I pledged to get a page from it. Here is the page that I chose and some sketches that Alex gave me for being such an ardent supporter. If you want to check out more of Alex’s work here is a link to his blogspot account.

Dual Page Spread From Kristo – Shows his time in prison. (Click on the image to get a larger version.)

Sketch Used In Kristo – Sketch that was used as a replacement for one of the pages. (Click on the image to get a larger version.)

Sketch Not Used In Kristo – Family portrait that needed to be redone for the book. (Click on the image to get a larger version.)

A couple of months ago I was contacted by my cousin Paul. He wanted to have me teach his two sons, Dave and Andrew, how to play role-playing games. I was delighted to get chance to bring a second generation of gamers into the hobby. When I was very young I actually taught several advanced placement students how to play Champions. Over the years I have taken many people into the fold but it had been a while since I worked with teenagers.

The Prep

My first question was what system I would use for the session. After much thought I decided on Savage Worlds from Pinnacle Entertainment Group. To folks who know me this selection may be a surprise. Aren’t you a Hero junkie? 🙂 I decided that Savage Worlds’ ultra-fast learning curve would be perfect. It also uses the funny sided dice and cards which add to the fun for new gamers. I used the free Wizards & Warriors material from Pinnacle as the adventure. (Here is a link to that free material.) This made things easy as they provide sample characters, figure flats, and nearly everything I would need to run the session. Another advantage to Savage Worlds is the price of entry. The Explorer’s Editions are extremely inexpensive at a $10 cover price.

Now that I had the system, adventure, and all of the characters done I started thinking about how I wanted to run the actual session. To this end I created an outline of what I would discuss. Before I started the actual adventure I wanted to discuss a bit about the hobby to give them a feel for where it has been and where it is now. I wanted to make sure this introduction was short and sweet so we could get to the fun stuff (aka the adventure). I also thought my cousin Paul might be interested as he has not gamed in many years.

The Session

When I arrived they has setup a nice table with plenty of food and snacks. To my surprise two of Dave and Andrew’s friends turned them down at the last minute. The good news was that my cousin Paul and his wife Shahrzad decided to play. This gave us a nice number of players (i.e. 4). In the long run I think having Paul in the session really helped. Having role-played in the past he could take the lead at times to show the other how things work.

I started by talking very briefly about the history of the hobby. I made sure to hit only the highlights so I could go quickly through the material. After that I went over the main companies in the market (WOTC, Paizo, White Wolf, etc) and the new indie games that are hitting the market. I ended the intro by going over some basic terms. For example, player, NPC, PC, GM, dice abbreviations, etc.

Having gone through the introduction I briefly reviewed the characters then handed them out. Paul played a necromancer and the thief. Andrew and Dave played a barbarian and an archer. Shahrzad played a dwarven priest. After giving out the PC I went over the various parts of the character sheets carefully. As I went I asked if people had questions on the various sections or on specifics on their sheets. I also highlighted various parts of the sheet and how they pertained to each characters. For example, Agility is how quick the character reacts and represents hand eye coordination. The elven archer has a very high Agility. I also intentionally asked Paul to play one of the characters with magic as they are a bit more involved than the other characters.

At this point I started the session. The opening scene involved the PC returning to a small village after saving it from a hoard of goblins. After entering the town they head towards the inn. Once entering the characters are acknowledged by the bartender. Not being sure where to start the players paused. That is when Paul took the lead and in character as the necromancer talked to the bartender about getting rooms and some food. It worked out really nice having Paul take the lead and throw out advice during the run. Often he might give the other minor advice on different things that they might do. It really helped having him play that inside angle during the session. I definitely plan to keep that in mind if I ever conduct sessions like this in the future. One really great scene happened when a small girl comes into the bar looking for help. When she became scared of the necromancer one of the other players stepped up and did a great job talking with her. I actually changed this lead from one of the junior priests in the village to a little girl to make it more approachable and really drive the PC to help. Who can resist a scared little girl who is looking for help?!? It ended up being a good change.

Initially there is a tiny mystery for the PC to figure out revolving around the little girl’s guardian, a local priest. It is up to the PC to gather clues about what might have happened to him. This worked out really well as it let the characters use some of their skills and helped ease them into the role-playing.

At this point the adventure started rolling until the first fight scene. The adventure has a great opening fight to get the players warmed up. It was against some zombies. Although it started kind of slow it quickly picked up speed. It was not a surprise when Andrew playing the barbarian started flying all over the place with his axe. Leave it to teenage boys to get into the hack-and-slash.

It ended with a climactic fight against a large skeleton and the corrupted priest. The battle was climactic and turned several times. Everyone had fun in the spotlight during this scene.

The adventure closed with the little girl asking the PC who will take care of her. The conversations were great with various players throwing out their thoughts. It allowed me to highlight how it might play out over a longer campaign where one adventure might affect the next.

Overall I consider the afternoon a resounding success. I had tons of fun and I know they did as well. Hec…that is what this amazing hobby is all about…having fun with your friends. 😀