TORG Eternity, Living Lands Game 1 Part 1
ACT 1: “Go in and get the guys who went in to get the guys.”
A Torg Eternity Story, using the Gameplay of my group.
Scene 1: The Mission
The PCs find themselves in a cargo vessel that is a few hours off the coast of New York. This massive liner ship has been co-opted by the Delphi Council as an ocean-going command center. Though it is on its way to a small airbase in Greenland. It has swung close to New York, which over the last 90 days has been over taken with jungles, in order to allow various groups to be dropped into the war against the Living Lands, Tekta Ker.
The PCs are in a meeting as we start. Sasha, the Russian psychic street urchin; Carlisle, monster hunter and biologist; and Kimiko, J-pop star, psychic, and scion of an ancient line of Samurai; are joined by Jack Random, a realm runner, and a 4-man Bravo team. MARSOC Marines lead by Col. Moore. Quinn Sebastian is leading the meeting.
The Meeting
The Manhattan missions have been experiencing a bunch of ups and downs. The discovery of a hardpoint in Brooklyn has created a stable forward base. Recently a group of Delphi Storm Knights discovered a major relic and called for extraction. But they disappeared before the second time could arrive. The secondary team then came under heavy contact from the enemy and silence reigned for the last week.
As of 48 hours ago a message has some in from the hard point. A lone survivor has put up the SOS and has supplied some information for the Council. Quinn has gathered those in the room to form two teams. One to secure the hardpoint and one to find the lost storm knights. An extra man enters the room, call name “Wild Bill,” he is one of a handful of reality-rated pilots that Quinn can call down on. He’ll be bringing the teams in via helicopter.
Some time is spent discussing which team will do which task but the three PCs decide they want the field work. Besides the Marines better suited refortify the hardpoint that was attacked by an Edeinos, lizard man, army.
There are two debates.
The first is about whether all parties should be dropped at the hardpoint or whether the PC team should be dropped into Manhattan at a massive alien crystal tower that was the last known position of Team 2. It is decided that all will go to secure the hardpoint and then divide up after gathering intel from Doc Garret, the lone survivor.
The second point of contention is Jack Random who tries to attach himself to the party with girls in it. [Jack was supposed to be a 4th PC but the player’s wife refused to allow him to go out on Saturday nights]. Rebuffed he joins the other team.
Teams sorted and mission objectives accepted:
- Secure Base
- Gather Intel
- Find lost Storm Knights, alive or dead
- Find the relic Team 1 had.
- Make allies.
Sasha has one final question before they depart: “Do we have allies in the Living Lands?”
Quinn: “Besides Doc Garret and the lost Storm Knights, there are many tribes of Edeinos and even primitive men who do not follow Baruk Kaah, the High Lord of Tekta Ker.”
A Final Surprise:
They all file from the room and in the hallway Carlisle and Sasha are both surprised when they run into two women from their respective pasts.
Alex is a tough Russian woman, who helped Sasha escape from the Asylum/ Jail that the psychics found themselves in, and she is wearing the same tactical outfit that the Marines had on. The automatic shotgun on her back also shows she means business.
Fairuza Hakimi, a Pakistani woman who worked with Carlisle when he just a science attaché in Calcutta and she was a Chemist on his team. She only survived her ordeal in India due to Carlisle and both of them became Storm Knights.
Both women are heading to help set up the Greenland base and have heard that they might be sent into Aysle, the Cosm that has taken over the UK and northern Europe. Pleasantries exchanged the groups part awkwardly and head their own ways.
Scene 2: Brooklyn PD
The PCs arrive on the upper deck of the cargo ship, which is mostly cleared and has several large helicopters on it. They see that the Marines have arrived first and they feel slightly under dressed. The Marines and Jack random are all wearing tactical clothes, body armor, and have P90’s across their chests.
Carlisle is in Victorian garb and wears the heavy duster of the monster hunters while Sasha wears jeans, a faded t-shirt, and a very old leather jacket covered in scars, studs, and old band logos.
Sasha quips about how Russians “can do more with less.” When Kimiko arrives in a suit of powered samurai armor. The joke falls flat. And there is little conversation as the helicopter takes the journey toward the massive Reality Storm raging across the northeast coast of America.
NEW New York
The skim along long island and then enter the storm at an oblique angle. Their hot shot pilot whooping it up like a rodeo cowboy. They break through to the other side and the borough of Queens flashes by as they head toward Brooklyn. The whole area has transformed to deep jungles and vines. While the skeletons of some of the buildings are still visible in some areas the entire landscape is a new and alien world.
Off in the distance, around Manhattan large flying shapes can be seen, ancient pterodactyls, called the Lakten. The PCs keep their eyes glued on Manhattan, it was the first place attacked on Day 1 of the invasion and there are no structures towering in the air there anymore, other than a tall red and blue crystal tower. It is also the place they will be exploring.
The Hardpoint:
A squat concrete building, three stories high has a walled impound lot on one side and an underground motor-pool entrance on the other. There is also a helipad on the roof. Once a Police Station the building also held historical value. All around the building the houses and neighborhoods seem to be holding the jungle at bay.
Walls of brunt out cars block off the roads leading to the station and Wild Bill lands the heli on the roof as a door opens and a disheveled and overly caffeinated Doc Garret welcomes the teams.
Skinny, rumpled, and unshaved; Doc Garret is existing purely on nervous energy and coffee. He leads the teams down to a conference room and informs that many of the people living in the area have fled into the jungles. He’s hoping to bring them back but he needs help with cleaning up the aftermath of the massive attack on the base.
There are still bodies in the courtyard and in the streets around the building. Garret has managed to bar windows, rehang doors, and remove the bodies from the PD itself but he hasn’t gone out into the streets.
The base has odd properties, despite the powerlines disappearing into vines in the jungle the street lights and buildings still have power. But the power of the hardpoint seems to only stay constant with the number of people living in the area. Also, they have been able to use a Sat-Phone to make calls out to other places in America and to Quinn.
The PCs become glad that they talked the Marines into securing the base. Handling bodies that have been decaying in jungle warmth for two days doesn’t sound like fun.
Carlisle: SO what was this relic that was recovered and what happened to Team 1?
Sasha’s Power:
Garret doesn’t really know. He was part of the team that was sent in to help Team 1 before they disappeared and while he recovered notes and pictures from a cache left behind, he barely made it back to the base ahead of a massive army of Edeinos.
Sasha asks for the notes and is handed a battered spiral notebook. The pages are distressed and the last few are covered in blood. But there are legible notes and drawings describing a 9-inch-long, 1 inch wide faceted red crystal rod. It holds a large amount of raw power and early testing has shown that it could be used to recharge devices, run generators, and even power the lights in a house that hadn’t yet succumbed to the Cosm.
Sasha handles the notebook, closes her eyes and her psychic powers come to the fore. Using psychometry, the past of the notebook is revealed to her, and she learns that the relic was found in Connecticut and that in Team 1’s journey they managed to anger rival warlords, who then came after them.
These rivals were further incensed by Team Two and they set aside their differences to attack the Hardpoint.
END PART 1, the rest of the ACT will be in NEXT week’s post.
