Kapow! Preludes and Knockouts

We had another good playtest session on Sunday (2/21/10).  I distributed some combat cheat-sheets, which the players found helpful, and Doug, as usual, spotted a cheap exploit that needs to be plugged.

During the session proper, the group decided to hire a PR firm to announce their formation as the Beacon City Watch, and Harbinger’s alter-ego got in touch with his former agent to arrange that.

Namaste was menaced by steroid using thugs outside her Yoga studio, and got in a fight with the monstrous dealer and leader of the gang, Beef.  She polished off the minions with one leg-sweep, but actually got Knocked Out by Beef throwing her through the plate glass window and into the back wall of the studio.  Fortunately she’d called for backup before throwing down with him, and Akela the Jungle Gal, Harbinger, and Public Defender swooped in.  After some amusing banter with Harbinger, whose intangibility frustrated Beef no end, Akela KO’ed him with her trusty spear, and the police hauled him off.

Later that week, on her way back from a society party, Akela’s Heightened Senses detected a blood-curdling scream from far off in the distance; racing to the location she found a semi-secluded park in one of the ritzier sections of Beacon City, mysteriously shrouded in unseasonal fog.  In the park, to her horror, she discovered a young woman, who had been staked out and had her heart cut out and burned on a makeshift stone altar.  The air was filled (at least to her senses) with the cloying scent of flowers from her native jungle.  As she was contemplating this grisly scene, a ghostly Anaconda, at least twenty feet long, slithered out of the fog and attacked.  It proved to be intangible as far as her attacks were concerned, though it didn’t seem to have any problems affecting the physical world, and her Animal Empathy revealed it to be a demon in snake form…so no hope there.  Fortunately her holy jungle potions caused it to unravel into ghastly worms of light that faded away leaving only the scent of rotted flesh and jungle flowers.  When the other heroes showed up they found no trace or trail of whatever had killed the girl, but Akela was able to determine that the wounds had been caused by an obsidian knife just like her own.  At this point, she decided that it would be best if she didn’t hang out until the police showed up…

The next day she went to consult an acquaintance of hers, Professor Potter of the Sherman Museum of Anthropology at the New Towne College (Potter had been on the expedition that brought Jungle Gal back to Beacon City, through the magic of instant back-story).  Before she could subtly pump him for info, Potter showed her the exciting story from that morning’s paper about a genuine Incan sacrifice; as near as he could tell from the pictures and reports the ritual had been performed precisely correctly in every detail, even down to the correct orientation of the sacrificial altar for the latitude Beacon City occupies.  He was amazed that anybody on the continent could have come up with such an accurate hoax, other than himself and “that hack Carruthers of Whitney University in Connecticut.”  Akela made a mental note to investigate Carruthers, and to get Public Defender to suggest to the BCPD that they consult with Professor Potter if it hadn’t already occurred to them.

Meanwhile, that morning as he was shaving Public Defender was startled to find the word REVENGE VENGEANCE written in blood on his shaving mirror, as well as a shaving cut on his cheek and blood on the fingers of his right hand, but no memory of cutting himself.

And there we broke for the evening.