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Hello players who have the entire wardrobe of their D&D character.
And DMs who are so lost in the plot that they have no idea when the timeline started.
Welcome back to Table Talk. I'm Maddie.
And I'm Robert.
What are we talking about today, Robert?
Several, several, several, several, several.
I think technically like seasons ago, season ago, we talked about, I don't know when happened, when it happened.
Again, this is a perfect example.
We talked about Capes and Crooks, specifically the campaign that we're playing right now.
That's mine, dog.
Oh, I'm trying to, sorry.
Sorry, continue.
You were love as shit.
Madison doesn't usually mix the stuff.
No.
So she's learning how to do that now.
This is our agreement.
You do editing and mixing and I do everything else.
Not like everything else.
Just like a lot else.
Social media, graphics.
Yeah, just like a lot else.
Marketing.
Yeah.
Research.
Well, that's the job part of it.
Outreach.
And I have a job, so.
I want this to be my job.
Please.
I would love if it could be.
Please listen.
By the way, we have a Patreon.
We have a Patreon.
We post a lot of behind the scenes stuff.
Season two, session eight.
We have a Patreon.
Yeah, way late.
But we post a lot of behind the scenes stuff.
Information for DMs, players, custom character sheets, graphics, all that fun stuff.
Please, please, please check it out.
It's free.
Eventually we'll probably have like,
but we're not there yet.
Please check it out.
We only have two members, and that's myself and then one of our friends.
Hell yeah.
So.
It's the only way to do it though, right?
A personal thank you message to whoever,
whoever joins, please.
Personal thank you message to literally anybody who wants to join.
I'll send you our address.
You will not.
Respectfully, no, she will not.
I will move.
I refuse to have my.
I'm not doxxing us.
I'm not putting my shed on the internet like that.
Anyways, today we're talking about our current campaign.
The Sapphire Prodigies.
I've mentioned it a handful of times before.
We did a brief episode about biggest fuck ups.
We've ever seen happen at the table.
And my number one is literally in this campaign.
It is the reason why it has taken twice as long to reach the natural conclusion that should have been the end of chapter one.
We were doing a little fancy camp thing the other day together and somebody was giving a PowerPoint presentation on storytelling.
And it was like, what was it like the traditional hero's journey where it's like, you know, like they need a reason to go adventuring and then they make friends and then they get a mentor.
And then about halfway through, there's what's called like, like a rebirth or a reset or something like that.
It's basically like a dramatic change.
Something.
Yep. And then they go on and they finish the story about another halfway through, right?
I realized the reason why it's taken us a fucking long to reach the natural conclusion of chapter one is because we got about halfway through and then hard reset back basically to step two.
Yeah. And then I feel like we've done that again.
We've done it several times because a lot of our characters have gone through soft and hard reboots.
Oh, yeah.
People trying to figure out who their characters were.
Anyways, today's basically talking about that campaign because eventually we're going to do a one shot in a couple of sessions after this one set in that world.
So just to kind of give you all a little bit of background also just to kind of talk about our campaign currently, which we've done a couple of different times, but in a more formal way.
And the characters that you might see.
And the characters you might see and also trying to figure out a timeline because having it be cut in the middle and then reset back to not a super specific point means that mapping this motherfucker out is impossible.
It is the amount of set at which this is not for the for people who don't play D&D who listen to our podcast.
This is not a common thing to do.
I don't think.
No, I don't think a lot of people reset their whole campaigns.
Yeah, I think that we as as people and as players got ourselves to a point where we were like, this is not the world that we wanted to play in.
This is not the world we want.
Like we got it.
We got to take a lap and we did.
But it has led to a lot of.
Yeah, we did.
We're like after a session being like, wait, I just realized that like something that happened, like that we completely forgot about that completely makes everything that just happened today irrelevant.
Like, yep, I accidentally like I already did that character.
Yeah, this person was doing this thing and the whole session was about someone discovering that that person was doing that thing or something like that.
So it's this is really a puzzle episode where that it is a recap because this is figuring out in real time that is what Robert is doing on his laptop.
That is why I write it down to kind of gauge and map the time line is my vote was just to try and go through the timeline and then talk about the reset at the end.
But now we're dragging all of you through the same confusion.
We have break next week, by the way, because we don't have that much time.
Yeah.
So do you want to start since you're like the UDF?
Yeah, I'll do a little bit of a world intro and kind of the setup for session one, because technically we had a session zero and then I didn't really like the way I did it.
Everyone else did though.
And then we had a session one.
So yeah.
Go back and listen to previous episode specifically about capes and crooks and that'll give you a little bit of world intro.
Please.
Please and write.
Please, please go back.
Please go back and listen.
The world is kind of cyberpunky inspired.
I wanted to play in a more modern setting, but something that was a little bit ahead of modern like I didn't want to just play like in 2024.
It's boring.
So I did superhero setting using the capes and crooks example timeline that they provide in their TT RPG fifth edition sourcebook sort of overarching themes and idea in world setup.
So in 2099, which is the time I have it set at, I'm pretty sure in the sourcebook, it's a little bit before that superheroes exist.
Superpowered beings exist.
They're called deviants because there is a deviation somewhere within their genes that allows them to do superhuman things.
But it extends past people.
Plants and animals alike have also been affected by the shift that happens right around like the 20s.
I want to say around the 2030s.
And then all of a sudden everything goes to shit.
World governments collapsed.
Countries don't know what the fuck to do because now they have to handle their own superhero being or superpowered beings that don't know how to handle themselves.
After many, many years of turmoil in the world being absolute chaos, eventually using with the sort of bankroll of a company called vein, which is like the ultimate capitalist company comes in and partners with what's left of the world governments and says,
What if we made cities that were designed specifically for deviants and non deviants to live together so that we stop like killing each other in the waste?
So that's what they do.
Basically mad max outside of the city.
Yeah, more or less.
We haven't really explored a whole lot of what's out there yet either.
So I mean, that's we'll get there eventually, I'm sure.
But we're very much focused on what's inside the cities that are called gem cities.
There are probably anywhere from 30 to 40 of them around the world.
Each of them again is kind of run by vein and slash the remainder of the good of the world governments that are sort of operating as one.
And basically the promise of the the gem cities is that as long as you act right and you abide by the law, you regardless of whether or not you have a deviation or not get to live here and kind of work together in harmony.
There's no discrimination.
There's no poverty.
There's no homelessness, which very quickly turns out to be bullshit or at least the version of the world that I played in because that doesn't exist.
So then this campaign in particular takes place and one of those Jim cities called sapphire city, which is one of the first cities to allow deviants to go beyond vigilante ism and actually take on the sort of hero status.
So being professional, being registered in a sense being given like legal precedent to do things that vigilantes would do like bring in villains or like bring in thugs or stop crime or assist the city using their deviations behind a mask without having to publicly identify themselves.
Up until this point in the story, like even before we get to day one, there are a handful of pre established heroes. I mean, they're quite a few, but just kind of a broad overview.
There are a handful of organizations like dark, which is sort of like a underground spy network that exists within sapphire city.
Their whole thing is basically being sort of in the shadows and then trading information.
There are the cod fathers gang. I forget. I think they're called the guppies or some shit. I'm pretty sure that's what they're called. I think that's what they're called.
In any ways, those guys are basically all of the animal deviants sort of working together in sort of a shady underground situation under cod fathers rule who's a half man half shark with like water manipulation. He's also just fucking huge and kind of provides this like safe haven for those that are animal powered who kind of receive more discrimination than others because they look different.
Again, there's no utopia. It doesn't exist. But they certainly try to get close to one.
Super. Super.
I think of other like criminal. There's a spy circle. So spy circle is kind of like the the what is it the doom squad. Yeah, basically. Yeah, I can like doom squad where it's I mean they're not they're not as nefarious is the doom squad is where it's like oh we're trying to take over the world. I mean it's literally just a city.
It's definitely still like fucked up crime.
Cod fathers gang is the more cartoonishly evil group because it's like other gangsters and they use Tommy guns and they like transport goods in and out of the city illegally.
They beat the shit out of people. They run like protection rackets and they're just like traditional mobsters that just so happen to look like animals.
The spy circle is much more professional about the whole thing. Their form of crime is sort of like high end businesses are running casinos taking over businesses running a lot of fronts sort of sabotaging the government and politics and getting involved in DRT.
So I've never talked about DRT yet. It's a great segue. So then one of our other non villain factions is the deviant response team, although they get pretty fucking close. So because there's a world government setup but there's no like formal formal government in every city with something that veins
slash the world government has implemented in every gym city is something called the deviant response team. It's exactly what it sounds like. It's basically just SWAT FBI special forces blah blah blah blah blah. But their only sort of goal and job is managing managing deviance, whether that is developing new technologies for them to safely exist within the city.
If someone's powers or deviations are sort of too volatile for them to handle. Also, they're the ones that come in and like arrest deviance and their technology and the weapons that they use are sort of designed to neutralize any deviation across the spectrum.
They're like full time job around the clock 24 hours a day is literally developing new technologies for each sort of new kind of deviant that exists within the city. Be below them. There is the SAFIRE city police department run by Commissioner slain is basically just Jim Gordon but a woman.
And they're kind of the shitty end of the stick. So if you have DRT who shows up in like 30 minutes to an hour when they're called you have the SCPD and they have to be there immediately but what the fuck is a guy with a gun going to do against somebody who can literally fire lightning bolts out of their hands.
It's kind of comical that the two exist within the same city. But it does according to the source book and I thought that's kind of a funny contradiction to have right you have like the cops who are in today's society seen as the corrupt ones and yet like the step above them DRT are the ones that are often seen and sort of thought of as like these really shitty people.
So the cops are novel in this one they're just trying to survive like everybody else. Everyone else does. So they're kind of there for the more small stuff breaking up gangs and that kind of fun stuff. But again what's a guy with a gun going to do against somebody who has bulletproof skin.
Or a giant shark or a giant shark. Yeah. Nothing. So that's sort of where the natural rise then for heroes comes right because DRT isn't really trusted. Also they because their equipment is so specialized and because they operate out of the heart of the city.
It takes them fucking forever to get anything done. Well it would be like calling the FBI anytime that there was like a crime. Yeah. It's like that is not going to happen. Yeah it's just they have one central location as a police officer.
Yeah. Well they have like departments and stations. Yeah. So then that's kind of where the natural rise for superheroes comes in because I mean right we have people that are obviously going to use their deviations to either get a one up in life or commit crimes.
Rob places take things they shouldn't you know why people do crime. So then you have the opposite of them people that are interested in using their deviations to stop those people and sort of further that ideal that mission of like living in a utopia or living in harmony with one another.
And because the cops can't do anything about that and DRT is too few for the many people that live in their cities. We allow superheroes to call themselves superheroes. And that's kind of where like the setting for the campaign really comes in.
The positive factions outside of the police. We have the every man brigade which is basically like. Oh my God what's that service online where you can hire people for just random jobs. Task rabbit. Yeah. Task rabbit.
Shit like that. But for heroes. So it's you know if some billionaire needs a team to I don't know go fetch a fucking artifact from gang number one two and three then he can just instead of having to go and find one through adventuring he can just pay somebody.
Yeah. He can go to every man brigade say hey I need a team of five. This is the kind of mission. This is the like the level of difficulty or the amount of risk and then you can hire heroes.
And also just gives heroes the chance to actually get paid for what they do. So that's kind of the other positive. Yeah. The positive side.
To like the every man brigade beyond them. There aren't really a lot of other hero factions. There are. There's the furnace which is run by the second most powerful hero in the city called inferno.
It's basically like a full time training complex and like hero mill if you will. Very exclusive very hard to get into turns out a lot of really powerful heroes that all kind of work within this network and then aside from them you have the only successful hero team that it has existed within
SAFRA setting in the last 60 70 years the millennial group don't ask me why they're called that I stole that name from a book that I read forever ago. Yeah couldn't tell you. They are old so it is kind of funny because you know millennial group but
yeah beyond that I think it was just kind of like turn of the century things so they it's a team of five it's basically just the traditional like Avengers you have like a Captain America knockoff rebellion you have a vision kind of character name processor
Holy shit I'm forgetting the people in the team there are a few unique ones there's fistful there's a kind of a Scarlet Witch Scarlet Witch character named Black Magic named Black Magic who uses like magic
there's fistful who's basically just the Hulk but if he was white spray tan from Jersey had blonde hair and basically did superpowers steroids and then you have Monk who is like a
or diva as well. Yep and you have Monk who's basically just like a monk who has telepathy who has incredibly strong telepathy and doesn't speak to people and then diva who has like supersonic voice powers and that's kind of like her whole thing
so not a huge setup for the world honestly I mean you have all these factions there's a lot of heroes there's also the number one here in the city which I would be yelled at if I didn't mention incredibly integral to somebody's back story named Serge
she's like light Superman she's not quite as invincible but in this setting she basically is so some more background about the powers in the way that they exist in this universe you're called with or there's a name for people that have more than one set of powers and they're called a gene hazard
and the reason for that is it's already incredibly difficult for someone's body to balance one deviation when you start introducing more deviations like the rate of that person making it past birth is incredibly low if they do then you have a significantly more dangerous person
but also just infinitely more potential and Serge is one of the only I mean pretty much the only successful gene hazard person with two sets of powers to exist within Sapphire City she has basically gravity manipulation and then also incredibly strong energy projection so she's
there's not much can't do she's very solo in the sense that she doesn't interact with a lot of people she doesn't really do a lot of social media she's very just kind of like I'm here to protect the city because that's what my powers allow me to do
she's very stoic she's not nearly as friendly as some of her like other hero counterparts are but that's kind of because the job doesn't really require that so a slightly different take on Superman is more like if Superman had Batman's like
a little bit of a stoicism and outlook on people but still had to be Superman with all of the power and responsibility that comes with that it's like no I don't want to talk to any of you I don't want to have to take care of you but I have not
but not Brody but I have the power set and I like helping people so I'm here and I'm doing it yeah also I know that none of you are better than me so like let's calm the fuck down correct we're trying to step to me 24 seven I have I don't have no idea who the number three hero is in the city if you ask me couldn't tell you probably rebellion but
I'm gross yeah that is what it is so not a blonde man that's the very long winded setup for the universe we pick up I guess we'll just start with session one right we pick up with five people four people five people five four people introduce one later we introduce the fifth person several more sessions
and I'm just the fact checker here yeah pretty much my role this episode is like actually no yeah we're gonna try and speed run to the
to the flash my episode where everything gets reset but it starts with our four heroes for main heroes I guess I should say all conveniently meeting and cod fathers main warehouse where a spider man ask hero called static who operates in the eastern fringes which is basically like the
brogues is being held captive and then an NPC gets introduced in this first episode named jury who is basically just a frat boy asshole who has like be lister status because he has a lot of money and he can pay for social media and he's very conventionally attractive he has very conventional powers he can fly he has super strength and he can see through the eyes of other people so as
opposed to somebody who has like a tentacle for an arm he has significantly safer to go with is like an example a hero like a poster child and he has the money to bag it so he basically joins nightlight who's one of our other heroes that Madison plays right in the beginning very conveniently
yes I don't know how much of every episode we want to recap because if like we're gonna get bogged down I can do really quick I could just gloss over who the heroes are and like sure yeah if you want to do that so I guess starting with my character because we just mentioned her I've already talked about her in the first capes and crooks one so this will be really fast
her name is nightlight she's 21 years old she's college student she's a huge comic book super fan search is her absolute idol and when she was younger she got powers in a freak accident from another one of the heroes in the world that hero was not aware that she has powers but she decides okay I'm gonna become like my comic books in the way she's able to use her powers as she's able to copy the things that she reads about in her comic books and copy people's power sets
yeah so she's kind of like trying to make a name for herself she's like very cartoonishly like sitting on a rooftop just being like crime I'm looking for you and that's where Jerry shows up and she's like yeah I'd track down static we can go there now and he's like great
so that's why they had there and then there's another character named cause who 18 years old he's also days he's also from the eastern fringes kind of she's but for intents and purposes from the eastern fringes which is the poorer part of town which is where most of our story takes place
yep he is a mechanic at his family's garage he has wind powers he's not a superhero he doesn't have a superhero identity at this point he's he's he's Dick Grayson he's a guy he's a guy that looks like Dick Grayson
and he has a younger sister who's Annie powered so he's kind of tapped into that world we know that he doesn't live with his parents he lives with his aunt and his sister there then someone drops off a car to him if you want to
yeah uh is it like that one NPC actually interacted with literally every single person yeah so that one NPC jury actually ends up interacting with Sebastian earlier that day unbeknownst to Sebastian in two jury that they would literally meet less than 24 hours later he drops off a car
to Sebastian's family mechanic to get it worked on it is a very expensive car it is very out of place for him to have brought this to the one of the shittiest parts of town right like you're not taking a several hundred thousand they're called credits in this universe
credit car to literally the place where cars get jacked in bright daylight and yet he does and then see the car yeah and he finds a somebody's ID and a gun and blood and he's like cool this is bad we got to get rid of this so he calls his friend Ricky
who's questionable but Ricky gets shit done so he's like yeah I know who we can sell this to to get it off our hands because literally the only person in town who will buy this car who can afford this car is going to be this guy cod father so let's go to cod father so they head off there
super convenient setup and then I don't know what the fuck shadow was doing to be shadow was I think Jesus Christ so then we have another character called the shadow Jesus Christ sorry his character is just a lot to think of he's gone through some of the more
drastic changes out of all of our other characters but he is kind of like a bit Batman had powers like actual powers he manipulates the dark and like darkness and hence the name shadows he can kind of turn shadows and darkness into physical objects and use them as such
he can kind of swing around a little bit likes better man it's not quite that fluid use them as weapons he also has a very strong like I think his classes literally psychic so on top of using shadows to sort of be a little bit more stealthy and move around in the dark and create very quick sharp agile weapons he uses his psychic abilities to essentially terrorize the people that he's fighting
he's just like a straight up terrorist to a lot of people
kind of crazy he's also a full time doctor so I think when he's introduced if I remember correctly he was tracking down static who shadow has worked with many times like they're basically
static is shadows only real friend and that's because static is the only person understands that like shadow doesn't his intention isn't to inflict harm but that's the only way he knows how to do the job so that's what he does
and he tracks down a lead last minute to essentially rescue his friend
and ends up heading to Godfather's warehouse on the exact same night that everybody else does
so we meet at Godfather's warehouse there's some like fun little moments there that I won't get into much detail of like jury nightlight breaking in in the most convoluted way possible
password to get in was the word fish and then also like thousand credits on somebody's card
and so they're all kind of going in completely different directions
and then we meet inside there's another character called chip who was a this bot called an Atlas bot which were designed by DRT basically to be able to stop deviants
if you yeah you could figure out what that means
and like he's basically one of the sentinels from the X X men line of comics if you know what those are that's kind of the touchstone for his character so at the time when everybody meets him and even when he's introduced nobody knows what he is
androids androids exist in this world contrary to what he himself may believe
they do exist so this is a world right where you have talking dogs you have flying cactus plants you have lightning wielding people
it is so not out of the realm of possibility that robots are walking around as autonomous human beings
but chip is a little bit unique in the sense that his sort of backstory up until this point which is to sort of reveal later
he was basically he was in a like a shipping container from DRT to be disposed outside of the city
con father's guys basically jack the container take all the technology they find inside of because DRT's got nice stuff
and just so happened to find a little robot sitting in the back of the shipping container
it's basically you know in Star Wars where C3PO was working for job of the hut for that period of time
yeah it was that yeah like fully they somehow managed to turn on this incredibly advanced piece of technology
it does not immediately go into a deviant killing mode or they all would have died
instead it's basically just like a child it's just like a baby that got turned on that's ready to take orders
because they just tinkered with an enough until it it fucked up and turned on
it was never even designed to be turned on
so over the next handful of months he's basically just like the personal butler for cod father
and because he literally does anything you tell him to do because that's the only software he has running
cod father never tells him to like keep anything to himself because he never leaves the warehouse
he doesn't really interact with people he's raised by gangsters
he's just kind of a guy
he's just like a little little but if anyone's seen the movie Chappy it's also kind of a touchstone for his character as well
it's very Baymax it's like yeah yeah it's it's it goes arrive very quickly for jury and for nightlight
they get in jury starts shit somebody says jury's government last name out loud
because the car was being returned because the car was being sold there and somebody basically ran the Venn number
and they go cool it's registered to somebody with the last name Umbra which is also the last name of the mayor of Sapphire City
so then confidant loses his shit and is basically like cool so not only did you bring me a really expensive car
that's going to be hard for me to get rid of but you brought me the car potentially of the mayor like to my warehouse
yeah jury hears that shit goes uh it's time to bail and nightlight goes well why but no we've got to like do the superhero thing
that's the whole reason we came
so then everyone fights um chip doesn't really know what side to take because his orders are basically just to keep things safe
um his whole interaction through that entire combat encounter was so weird
because if one of the heroes said hey please don't hurt me he wouldn't but if con father said hey don't let that car get away
he's gonna shoot a fucking rocket at it
yeah so it was just it was it was funny it was a great um intro episode but it was very fun so they
gives you an idea of how that goes
the fight happens it goes great they find static they rescue static I say rescue he's in a coma
but they they get him and then shadow calls his fucking car over and is like everyone who we know what has interacted with each other
in this fight by the way there we've all just been fighting nightlight and jury and chip interacted um but that was about it
shadow and Sebastian who is not called cause at the time interact a little bit in that shadow steps into trying to save him and his friend Ricky's life
um it was a decision to shadow deeply regrets because shortly thereafter Ricky picks up again and starts shooting people
because Ricky unlike everybody else who is a player character is it gives zero fuck about the preservation of life
he's basically just like a very low level gangster who was just here to make like a car deal and I'll be damned if he's gonna die in a fucking warehouse
Ricky's like this is my last stand and there's a moment where cause is literally about to get shot and potentially go down to zero HP
and Ricky pulls out a fucking gun and puts it to the guys temple and pulls the trigger yeah and Sebastian slack jawed is like what the fuck is happening
Ricky then pulls him into the room shoves packets of drugs and guns in a duffel bag and is like cool we're shooting our way out
yeah it was it was a lot crazy as combat and so fun little combat they all happen to be like outside at the same time
and uh nightlight is dragging uh the statics body basically um and he shadow pulls up and is like I'm a doctor we need to get this man to the hospital
get in my car and for some reason everyone listens we listened and we all got in the car and we all go to the hospital we're at the hospital
this is where things get fucking Jerry doesn't go with by the way um Jerry saves a civilian who also happens to be Sebastian's sister who stowed away in the
trunk of the car because she thought the car was cool saves her and is like cool I'm done this is so much more than I bargained for you all have fun see a never
yeah so that's why he doesn't go with them he also at this point if you can't tell this is an NPC that basically became a player character
because of some life reasons box that's my box the reason he wasn't there is that it didn't matter at the time um so they all go to the hospital everyone's getting treated for their wounds
um some people are a little bit more experienced with being shot than others um and during this shadow fully reveals to the group uh my alter ego is Damien I'm a doctor I'm taking over this operation
fronts the hospital bill for uh Sebastian and Daisy who are both broke and live in the eastern fringes and do not have a dollar to their name
and he goes no no no I got you I'm a rich doctor and then uh as the cops come in and start asking questions and nightlight has a panic attack and tells the cops everything because
yeah that's what you do um then she talks to Chip and is like can you give me any more information on cod father and he decides to in a wild move um put every single piece of information that he's gathered since he's been turned on
uh public on the internet like on twitter um one of the cops chose up to talk to the heroes that were brought into the hospital because that's kind of her fucking job um is commissioners lane the head of the uh scpd
she comes in and is like because before this drt guys are in there questioning and as shadows like don't say a fucking word nightlights about to crack slain comes in and goes cool how will she fuck heads get out of the room
and they leave because slain's a very intimidating person she bounces from person to person doesn't get a whole lot of information and then finds chip and goes hey chip what can you tell me about cod father and he goes
you have a computer nearby and you know this is a world full of technologies just like I was sure what you have to laptop if that's you need just you know drop the files and like a folder
well our player thought it'd be absolutely fucking fucking hilarious if um shipped it and understand the difference between just putting the information on a computer and then making it public knowledge
like setting up a twitter account to post it
yep so in literally the blink of an eye he basically plugs himself into a computer makes a twitter account post everything and I mean everything that he has on confidler names addresses shipments weapons fucking car vent numbers you name it
it's out there why because cod father never thought he was gonna lose the fucking robot
yeah
why would he the thing basically does what it's told
yeah so as soon as that goes public there's a fun little phone call over at d r t headquarters and we meet a character named Oliver who is one of the head scientists for d r t and his boss this guy named Henry is like hey man remember that robot that went
that that that that that went missing that we were trying to get rid of and he goes yeah I remember that he goes well it just turned on how the fuck did it turn on also it's loose
it just doxxed cod father maybe you get off your ass and go get it I'll give you a literal army
if you can go retrieve the million experiment yeah
so Oliver who's another one of the player characters who we later find out is a hero named vault with lightning powers like a sea lister
heads off to the hospital there's a brief moment in the hospital where it's like at the d r t has taken static into their custody and he's like being treated and everyone's like great yeah that's what we came to do except from one character named shadow
and he goes hey kids you stay in this room because at this point it's just yep nightlight and Sebastian he goes stay in this room I'm gonna go crawl through the vents because I don't trust d r t and they're like okay strange grown ass man that we don't know
and he does that and then he decides that the best course of action is to kidnap static and break him out of the hospital at the same time that d r t is rolling up to try and retrieve chip
at some point briefly jury shows up to talk to night lighting is like hey don't talk to the cops and also maybe don't hang out with these people just putting that out there
and then he's like hey dog bad vibes from everyone here I better than that I respect what you're doing you're kind of bad at it but like maybe you could be good word of professional friendly advice
and then he drops them as soon as humanly possible never interacted them ever again and like maybe maybe you could be somebody that's not what happens d r t shows up with Oliver slash vault undercover is Oliver sort of part of his whole personality is that he's an incredibly intelligent person who essentially is trying to work through the system so he works d r t during the day
and his vault sort of during the evening and he's also the head of the experimental experimental technologies department so he actually has quite a bit of leeway turns out that would be my fucking downfall I was giving my my players a little bit too much power before they were ready for it
but he can kind of do it every once to because he's the head of one of their most like sacred departments I mean half of 75% of what d r t does is make experimental technology and he's literally the executive director of that he's also crazy
he's also batshit that's just part of his personality that none of us know until much later yeah so he shows up with an army tank he shows up with an army tank and pushing it back okay he shows up with a bunch of shit basically everything that d r t has available locks down the entire hospital sets up snipers walks in and is like cool everybody that's in this building
point us in the direction of the robot that's been walking around he gets looped several times chip runs chip hides basically on command shadow disappears in the vents like Madison mentioned in goes to rescue static who's also being held by d r t for some reason nobody knows why they're doing that they don't know why they did that today actually
because we haven't had the time to get to that piece of information but anyways all of that happens chip knocks out volt in the first interaction we find out that vault slash Oliver is actually chips creator he literally is that like he pioneered their experimental sort of atlas bot program
and intentionally fucked him up so that way he could never be turned on and then he was so it was both a shock that his boss was yelling at him to go get a million chip a million credit piece of technology and also a shock because his Frankensteins monster that was basically built with zero on switch turned on turned on and was in a hospital full of innocent civilians
and it didn't go well none of it goes well so long story short the rest of the team grabs chip they bail out of the hospital to stolen ambulance because cars fly they fly the fuck out
and all the cars in this universe by the way are like a very propulsion propelled like anti gravity stuff so there's like a little bit of a combat and the fuck out everyone's like where do we go what do we do work criminals now are we criminals now why are we doing this
I can't believe you forgot who showed up in the middle of all that
as you all were literally flying away oh yeah I was just doing a quick gloss over version I thought that was important
anyway search shows up in the middle of this after she has a stern talking to the vault on the ground it basically goes hey dog I need you to do your job because right now you're looking mad fucking incompetent and this is kind of embarrassing for all of us
so what does Oliver do makes a bunch of shitty ass smart alec remarks and then goes fuck you I'll do what I want and Serge goes okay we can that's fine we can keep that energy and then flips all his vehicles and then leaves
in the process of them leaving she stops all of them Oliver included and is basically tells Oliver hey you need to find them and you need to keep them safe some shit's going down I can't tell you what it is please do your job
I know who you are please do your job flies away also stops the car as it's like mid flight across the city and goes hey guys what are we doing
only to know the reason I didn't mention it because it was only to fucking Sebastian oh yeah he then established that we had crank windows
well I'm like cool your car suddenly stops moving midair and doesn't begin to fall or go forward or backwards or anything because she has fucking gravity powers
she basically sits on top of the car sits in the front of the car is like hey you wrote on the windows we can talk for a second he goes yeah I crank down the window excuse me
you do what
it's a flying car it has crank every car is basically it's an ambulance it's basically a mini jet oh yeah they also steal a fucking jet or not a jet sorry an ambulance they fight on the
no the ambulance is what has crank windows yeah they they all has crank windows so now cannot canonically every vehicle we have in this universe has crank windows
so they go to Ricky's Sebastian's like y'all could stay the night here night lights kind of goes like respectfully I'm going to go back to my place
but everyone else kind of stays the night and the only reason I mentioned that night light goes off is she goes to meet up with her very best friend
Parker who absolutely hates heroes and has no idea that she is one at their favorite comic book shop and as she's picking up her new issues
she's like oh look I made a little appearance in the jury comic and she's like buying all of her other ones stay up to date and she finds a comic book
that looks like it was homemade and has her on the cover and it's and it's like titled night light and it's her first comic book and she's so excited
and she takes that and she buys it and she cannot wait to show all of her new friends tomorrow
and so the next day they've all decided that they're going to meet at Sebastian's family's garage
they all go there and increasingly like everyone else shows up like in full costume except for Sebastian who is not a superhero at this point
night light shows up in like a fucking hoodie and sunglasses and a hat as to not like the very Captain America like incognito fit on the way there
and so the shadow is also walking down the street and then Oliver rolls up unprompted
Oliver and night light had a brief interaction in the hospital in which he came in locked the door behind him and said some cryptic ass shit
and she wasn't about that energy and he starts getting weird and she clocks this she pulls out a pepper spray and sprays it at him
it's like that spider-man meme but it's like two men in their thirties and then like a fucking college girl in a sweatshirt with pepper spray
and his solution was to step up and push her finger down on the pepper spray and pepper spray himself in the eyes
and that should have been a red flag for all of us at the table but it wasn't
no I think it was it just you can't do much about that
see it's still like that he was that level of crazy
yeah I didn't know he was going to be that level of crazy either if it does you just how
oh my god I'm going to hurt myself
you work on that
yeah
so they go into the garage
one second
they meet in the back they start kind of like updating and touching base on everything
um Oliver's in tow he
everyone's like hey man what the fuck are you doing here it's another tense moment
nightlight at this point pulls out her Glock
because she stays strapped and everyone's like why the fuck do you have a gun and then he puts it in his mouth
like he steps forward
and it kind of gives the gun a blow job and that was another moment where it should have clicked for some of us at the table
oh he's crazy and it didn't
um so there's that fun little interaction
um Oliver reveals to all of them nah I'm actually a double agent I'm vault the superhero
um you all are in some shit I'm just I'm just I'm trying to help the team I'm trying to help y'all
can I do it
also that robot in the corner is mine
yeah
and is incredibly dangerous please step away from the robot
and everybody goes if I remember correctly I knocked you the fuck out I'm not going anywhere
and everyone's like no this robot's our new friend actually we're not going to give him up
so Ted standoff then Inferno you know the second hero that uh
Robert mentioned before uh walks into the garage
um it says hey Sebastian can I talk to you when he goes yeah and we go what's up why is he here
and he goes oh that's my dad
just doesn't like attempt to withhold information he goes yeah that's my father
off bat they have a conversation he's like I'm glad you're like gonna become a hero now
he's like I
Sebastian's like no dog not really toxic dad of all time I don't live with you
definitely he's up there with shitty dads in the universe we have two that are competing right now
for the number one shitty spot you have to introduce a good dad
yeah I will eventually I don't think there are many p I mean we haven't talked about vaults dad at all
so I guess there's an opportunity to do it there
yeah I don't have a dad I haven't introduced a single mom yet they're all dead
I don't have either
Sebastian's is dead shadows is dead I think I think they're all dead
vaults part of vaults backstory is that his mother dies when he gets his powers
yeah I was fucked up everyone's mom is dead
maybe I'll kill a dad next time I have my moms but they live in a different city
yeah not only your biological mother though no I'm saying everyone else is like bio family immediate family members are all fucking dead
nah she's a foster baby
just kind of tells you what kind of backstory is our characters players sorry like to make
yeah anyway yeah so that happens as they're still kind of having this tense conversation
an envelope shows up addressed at nightlight and she opens it and oh my gosh it's another comic book but why does
someone know that I'm here okay guess it's time to read through this comic book oh and like the first comic book like followed her
and she's like that's kind of weird because like how did somebody know but like everything that I did is in public so like I guess it could
have been someone who saw or it also could have been like maybe like Jerry did this because she was in like the back of his last comic
and he's very tuned into like he has like invisibles like an invisible assistant that follows him and like gets the information and everything
so she didn't think much of it now the second one has her like apartment it has her alter ego it has her best friend it has like all of
her personal information it was basically everything she's done over the last 24 hours yeah like to simplify to a T and to her opening up this
comic and she's like oh I'm not about that actually and then she flips the page and sees this drawing of a woman in a black superhero costume
or like I guess not hero costume in a costume with like a red stripe down and she's and like holding hands with her and she's
like this isn't like fun anymore and she kind of shows it to the gang she's like hey guys I think I might have a stalker this started
off as fun and now this doesn't seem fun anymore and everyone's like that's concerning and then she gets a phone call
she wanted to be famous not in this way she wanted to be famous then she gets a phone call from officer slain saying hey commissioner
my bad commissioner slain different title my bad I made a mistake correct forgive me just to know okay shoot me what happens with
the third one continue she hands out by the way business cards to like everyone she meets because she's like trying to network as a
hero and she was like you gave me your business card you seemed like a good kid there's this case at this guy named Rexford
chillers place he needs help finding this like artifact that went missing if you want to go ahead and like take that case and like
you can bring people or a team or whatever and nightlight is like this is my fucking moment and tells everyone there she's
like all of you are coming with me we're going to Rexford chillers we're going to solve this case we're going to be a team
let's be a team because I get to put together a team for this it'll be exciting and fun to be a little bit more evenly
evenly spread because Madison is very much nightlight other things are happening other characters at the same time believe it or not
shadow is also trying to raise up Sebastian's aunt at this point and is basically living full time with them he very quickly moves in
he goes hey aunt Susie here's a fat stack of credits what if I just like a hundred thousand temporarily
because I don't really want to go home right now which I feel like maybe I should like protect the youngsters also a terrible person
but you don't know that some doctor and she goes that happens you are welcome
yeah Sebastian is very much somebody from the street yeah Sebastian is trying to run away from being a superhero at breaking
speed he's like guys I really I didn't want to be there in the first place I have so many other now you're living with me now my
my house my home my family business is your base man's is not in for but he has to because unless they resolve everything that is
happening like getting rid of the robot fingering out what to do with static is a one in criminal now who's also in his home
he really can't get away from it so bit of a forced obligation to interact Oliver's there to be Oliver to be vault he's got a robot that he's
gonna take care of in some superheroes that he was basically told to watch over by Superman so he's doing that yeah
anybody else is oh chip is just Pinocchio he's just walking around going wow what's that wow what's that wow what's that and then somebody pulls out a gun and he turns into Atlas he goes from chip to Atlas which is like this whole like a morphing process like an exosuit thing and then he fucking shoots people yeah
chips a fun character to try and write story points for because truly I could throw anything at him and he'd be like wow you know his whole arc is becoming a real boy believe it or not
yeah 100% Pinocchio but it's fun he's a very adorable character so Rexford is Bruce Wayne without the Batman he is a hot dumb loaded and pretty much it that's like his whole character stick there's nothing else there fun fact on a nat one we find out
slash discover slash write into existence that nightlight has a massive crush on potentially one of the dumbest people to exist in the city because he's hot I tried to do a lore check and it was a nat one and
you know everything there is to know about him including who he's dated in the past what his line of fragrances is like what vehicles he drives how many magazines he's appeared in yeah each number on those magazines that he was
like is he's your celebrity crush so that was a so her individual investigation went off track so fast which is funny because she's like the only person in the party that has any like real pluses to
investigation she a very quick right out the window very quickly learned she's just like the detective super she's the she's Batman detective
and that level of like preparedness like investigation and all that stuff yeah just immediately none of that mattered yeah so the lead with Rexford is that he he has a lot of money and with that money he likes to collect basically odds and ends
in the form of magical items in the form of dangerous items because this is a world and those exist he showcases them he hosts really big galas and basically just buys a bunch of really dangerous shit and puts it in his home because that's he can do that
and then one of them goes missing he puts out basically a bounty if you will anybody any team is willing is welcome to come to his home investigate the scene if they can find the staff great here's a fat stack credits if you can't sucks to suck
there's a lot of money is going to be there on time to deal with us and of course that's when commissioner sling it's a whole that lead and goes hey maybe you can do this because you're not have that they show up to do a lot of investigating they realize that his personal assistant might be
personal assistance also he's a total tool
and there's a piece of the staff that's gone missing called the gravitas which
is basically a staff that's sort of like rumored because people are really like
turn them on
uh... to have like gravity powers
of shocker later much later they find out it does exactly that
uh... so they be detectives they find things out they get a bunch of
information nightlight shadow and rexford almost have a threesome it's
bad
uh... i like it's a retired tuition covered by shadow if so that you won't
sleep with him sleep with rexford
rexford goes
a hey man if you want to sleep with me you can go down to my garage and take
any car you want
and shadow goes what if i paid for your tuition
and then knocks him out
it was reverse prostitution and that she was actively being paid to not sleep
with someone
but she got her tuition covered
uh... yeah
that was that was so fun was such
and it was a really fun investigation all things considered they hop in the car
they go back
i gave them a bone because i felt bad because none of them passed one check
on the way in and on the way out the person that took all their weapons in
the beginning like the door
man
was the red stripe chick
fucking with him basically also
who would have thought that maybe the secretary person is also a red stripe lady
so most like she's gonna be the main villain for a while or something
not to be a little bit of anything
so they
they go back
i was talking about the base because we added that in
wouldn't that happen
that happened after
it was
in the timeline alteration thing right now which is where it's going to be
i didn't think that the base thing happened until after
prodigal did her
until red stripe lady did her thing first
are we doing that
no the first one the first one okay
yeah because the first so
in the first one says where it gets confusing because this is where a lot
of the changes happen because a lot of things happen that i was in a fan of
and nobody else was so we reckon a lot
they go back from rexford's they show up to uh... the garage
their impromptu base all the lights are out
uh... aunt susie and clloe sebastian's younger any powered sister they're gone
there's a comic book
it's all bad
uh...
nightlight goes on the roof to read the comic book reand finds one of the
comic books
uh... it says duck on the last page
shocker she didn't duck fast enough in gets shot
uh...
hardest fuck like fully snipe
yeah like snipe from the like the top of the skyscraper kind of
on death saving
yep at like the beginning of combat uh...
she fires or somebody fires another bullet sebastian going for the two
youngest party members
and uh... he catches that shit
with a wrench
yeah it is the bullet with a wrench and that's when we learn that these
bullets are not just bullets these bullets have
neuro toxin in them
like a whole half of the bullet just got a fun poison cocktail
it is trying to
but it
not people that
yeah make it so they cannot get back up
uh...
presumably for kidnapping
so then at the same time d r t shows up
and then everybody fits it makes a fighting d r t things it's a mix of
the shadow goes and you did not just shoot the two youngest people in the
party i actually love them like children now
and then proceeds to fall sprint up the side of the site skyscraper
to essentially rush the person with the sniper rifle assuming it is red stripe
lighting
not it not
he he's like he's like the whole combat
doing this like the entire combat encounter is finished by the time that
he gets up there and has his one v one with this person
if that tells you how dedicated he was to this goal
garage gets destroyed at the most of the walls in the garage get destroyed a
bunch of d r t people are knocked out yet a car gets driven into the house at
one point or in the garage
is bananas
uh... nobody dies
uh... oh
one of the things in the only thing actually in front of gave sepastian we
saw was a pen
came up in and a box with a costume in it that he doesn't open for many many
sessions but anyways he has a pen and it's very much like a percy jackson pen
uh... he says inferno in the middle of combat encounter it turns into a giant
fire lance because what else is the man that does fire things give a son
and then he stabs somebody and burns them alive because he's angry
and we have never addressed that in the campaign since it happened
i mean we literally have not addressed that since it happened
he is eighteen years old he burned a man alive it is only been mentioned in a
throwaway line by his father who basically said next time
so sweep up the ashes so that i don't have to do that for you
you're not that great at what you like you know you don't have you're not a
great job
that crazy thing that happens
nothing comes of it
uh... really the only thing significant that happens in this combat is that uh...
shadow runs the one v ones with red stripe lady
gets his ass kicked immediately
uh... fun fact he has a huge weakness to light which is funny because there's a
light based character in the campaign
uh... which means she fact we can't really heal him
uh... many ways he gets up there and gets hit with like six different
spotlights all at the same time and then proceeds to to get
manhandled
uh... but not before he invades her mind and realizes that she's so crazy
that she has created a mental construct of every party member
including chip
uh... and that helps her basically plan for what they're going to do because
she's bad shit
so what does he do
he rips out his personality
in her in her mind
because that's how metal he is and then he also gets like shot point blank in
oh yeah and then he gets shot
several times they end up tumbling off the side at this point i'm thinking cool
he's gonna let her fall off the edge and that's gonna be it
no he jumps off of the skyscraper
after her in a nosedive to catch her
she turns around three sixty midair spins at the waist levels the sniper i
feel as justin goes
hot jokes on you
and bulls a trigger
uh... and then they end up back in the fucking building she says some really
sexual things to him and is like a dog
you're kind of cool i fuck with everything you got going on right now
but we'll talk later
and then skin at all i'm going to kill you like the dog you are yep
uh... he's put in a coma
because he took a bullet to the chest
uh...
they take it from there and crew drives up uh... nightlight put them in the car
just like a dog
what's up
he's like i'm fine
and she's like there's a i can't heal you we've like over kind of have established
that but
she cannot heal him
they go back they find at this point everything's bad
uh... they
takes static
yeah we never
we never can
static
never
we got he existed
so in the first time line static is also kidnapped along with susie
alright so that's where he is
he's often wherever
uh... so
we're like we need a new base because this one's just got blown the fuck up
so chips like i found an old how to out the cod father used to use
they go there it's like underwater it's it's super sick but i'm not gonna and
swanky you'll probably hear more about it uh... in the one shot that we do
yep um...
super swing
and they go to the base they start setting up the base
uh... and this is what this is literally how fast things
when yeah it was literally the session so uh... or cell service down there
cuz it's you a little bit of baxter before we get to this moment it's a
little bit important
oliver has been basically harassed by his bosses whole time because at this
point i have been playing his boss henry
like a mega asshole
uh... it's like texting all the time where are you you can't just disappear
you have a really important job i've since relaxed that
because that's just a lot for him as a person to handle
and a lot for me as a person and i'm not gonna put that fully on him
and is like hey
you can just disappear and he goes i haven't disappeared i'm actually
tailing the people that have the pro-bot
and he's at this point blowing off his boss multiple times who is the director
of d r t
he is the director of the f b i he is going to disappear you if you do not
appear yourself
at work with evidence that his
probably several hundred thousand
credit venture into rating the hospital which failed
came of something
and is like cool if you're really on the trail of somebody
give me proof because at this point i'm calling bullshit
and it's at this moment uh... that they realize that the cell the
base that they're in doesn't have cell service and nightly none of its turn on
it's to text her very best friend the world parker and make sure that he's
okay
uh... so she goes alright i'm gonna take the pretty long track back up
uh... but it's like a three and a half minute elf
and everyone's like hey
you have a stalker that just
jumped the fuck out of us and shot you immediately
we don't want to leave you a supervised so what goes out go with her
all chaperone
she's like
okay
which in a fucked up way
is immediately what he did when you got back to the original timeline percent
uh... so she's like grown woman don't need a chaperone but whatever
so she's up there she's trying to text and call her best friend literally just
it my new business
just trying to text her bestie
and he goes hey
superhero pose and she's never gonna pass up an opportunity for super hero
post because she's been all about selfies and like hanging out in group
team things
at this point
and so she poses and he takes that picture and he sends it to his boss
henry and goes
she's behind it all
yeah
he takes it a step further than that and goes not only is she behind it all
she's also working with like the biggest terrorist organization in the city
the spy circle
all unprompted
yeah he gets
while he's up there he's also checking his phone because again he has a full
time very important job and that's when he gets the tax it says hey man i need
proof
you're fired
you're beyond fired
uh... he goes
uh...
okay
and then says
hero pose
takes a picture since it's a henry and then that's when things go fully off the
fucking rails
henry goes sick i'm gonna put out a warrant for her rest
we're gonna find out who she is where she lives
uh... and we'll go from there
uh... great job
keep up the good work
she goes back to her apartment that night and invite sebastian to come with
her and stay the night because his house just got blown up
uh... and that evening she gets a knock on the door
and it is uh...
commissioner
commissioner slain and she goes
uh... open the door and she goes now without a warrant and she goes open the
door nightlight and she goes
uh... and she goes yeah
things are bad
you need to get the fuck out of town daisy needs to die
uh... and she went what
you disappear daisy dog
and she was like you you have to be gone
until you gotta figure out how to solve this problem
and figure out
why suddenly d r t i you were there number one most wanted
and uh... you are linked with the spice circle
and you're linked with static disappearance and you're linked with the
atlas spot
and all of these other like crazy things that happened
uh... and she's like okay i guess my life's over now
uh... so she packs up
it's like sebastian we gotta go i don't have a home either now
she moves into the base with sebastian
uh...
yeah if you wanna
of jesus uh... yet just got it this is where things started to get like muddy
with the chaos of what was happening you know i'm so hard so into what we were
doing
i'd like to remind you
of a couple of important events that have happened at this point
number one
sebastian's family has been kidnapped presumably by red stripe lady
number two
static is also presumably been kidnapped by a red stripe lady
uh... number three
they have a case that they've accepted
have a lead on have
essentially
open and put their name and ring in the hat for that one
that that's also out there
eat yet the look really those three main things from here on out until we reset
the timeline do not get addressed
do not get tackled
get zero interaction because
now it's character now has to go into full uh... hiding mode completely does a
night in a reset and i want to talk about that uh...
how my god i'm trying to think of even were things go from there so he takes
the picture in then from there it's cool
nightlights of the issue if we're switching identities
uh... beyond that shadow goes sick so we're just fucking d r t fully now
were doing i mean i've been doing that but now we're doing doing that
i'm i got what even happens
uh... it
i'm telling you things got messy so i don't even remember what happens post
all goes to work he doubles down
all shit yeah what goes to work doubles down accuses her of more crimes
all yeah yeah yeah so henry goes cool so you're still tracking this nightly a
person right like you provide me with like any actual information on other
than you think she's related he goes i mean she's not like everything
she's
the mastermind she is
the big bad
she's the bbg for all intents and purposes that's so cool man
uh... you still have a robotics pro program to finish
but if we did that
but if we worked on that for a little bit and vocals okay
uh... so henry takes him down to the lab and goes cool if you can turn on one
of these things for me i will extend your deadline of rest not rescuing but
basically reclaiming chip
uh... by a handful of time week month whatever he's like we need these bots
to kill this night like that's at this point yes so we that powerful apparently
turns on one
and henry's like cool deadline extended
and then if you want to talk about night lights identity thing that happens in
the middle of all this so at this point night lights identity is compromised
is daisy
uh... it's like
kinda kind of just like that yeah is nightlight
it's kind of public but not like super public that nightline and days you're the
same
person it's kind of like if you look on to news channels you can find it but like
it's not the top build story
nightlight being a criminal is definitely very public information
so she's like cool i guess i have to give up on that so she be uh... dons the
identity of blackout
uh... where she basically
it's
very similar to like the spider man uh...
uh... suit that he wears in in the second one
the black one
and the tom holland ones
uh... she's no longer using her powers and said she's using guns
she goes to uh... uh... black
like black market shop and me and to get some more guns because she's like i
can't use my powers because they're gonna realize it's me
she meets this guy
name at the the the deal is going bad
it's just it's bad she like i guess so what do you want to go for is like what
can i buy a gun he goes yeah what for though is like you are so very clearly
out of your depth in that basically happens until eventually he pulls out a
shotgun and goes cool you're gonna buy the gun
and the ammo for full price and you're gonna leave
and then it just continues to go off the rails from there it just gets bad and
worse and then uh... someone comes up from behind and just clocks him in the
fucking head
uh... and she ends up fighting with him
uh... like alongside the guy who punched him uh...
his name is morphe is a anti-powered uh... shape shifter
uh... they become buddies
uh...
it's just it's a nice little like one kind of happy thing that happened
uh... in in the midst of all of this fuckery
and she also gets a cat named wink
uh... that morphe uh... named with morphe's cat that attaches itself to her
uh... he it's a hawk all shape shifters at that like has hawk wings
and talons and can do fun things
uh... so she gets news that there's now some fuck shit happening in uh... outside
drt headquarters
as uh... one of these bots has
uh... jesus christ yeah so everything's happening with that as you can tell just
uh... on our body language loan this is where it started to get to a point where
it was like we weren't happy with what we were doing
but we were trucking on yeah uh...
the plot with all the other characters also at this point gets lost chip
is
making friends with the local bodega man
and learning how to be a real boy and that's basically his only mission at this
point
uh... shadow is
is it's just started clinic in the eastern fringes and very quickly takes
that back because it is too stressful trying to run an entire many hospital on
his own
after he was fired from his last doctor job because he just stopped coming in
uh... you know because he was there and then all the sudden wasn't because that
was the hospital they broke static out of
they're all going to the bucket trenches
shadows like all i'm trying to find people i have no idea where to look
causes just like my life fucking sucks i'm so depressed this is awful
yeah it's all fucking bad my neighborhood is trashed my family's been
kidnapped my home has been destroyed
my friends are nuts
i don't want anything to do with it
he may let's going to identity crisis
he may as a basket make friends parker who's been running some likes working at
some soup kitchens and volunteers for uh... any people in the fringes yep uh...
and in a very sad way like nightlight dressed up as black up basically sets up
like a little camp across the street from where parker normally volunteers
to keep an eye on him make sure that he's okay
yep so things things are going well
things are things are starting to get back on track at this point i say
starting in a very loose way
i have plans for more than others i have plans to resolve the identity crisis
that's happening nightlight are happy with nightlight i know what's going on
with cause a i'm i'm starting to make them circle back around to
rescuing his fucking family that's been gone for a month at this point
shadow is
figuring out his personal life and then
vault who is at the heart of all of these problems
uh... goes back to henry again and henry's like cool
uh... how do we turn them all on
you turned one of them somebody turned one of them on in they are literally a
fucking goon
if a gun can do it
you can do it
vault has been purposely sabotaging these bots up to this point by the way so
that they would never be able to get turned on
so he cracks seeing zero way out of the situation goes fine i'll show you how to
turn them on for like an hour
right after this happens
henry goes cool so
i've had you
tailed
and i've had your phone bugged
since you made basically the first
screenshot phone call
whatever the fuck about nightlight since you've been coming and going from your
little base in the fringes
i know who you are and know your superhero identity
i like you enough as a person and i appreciate the work that you do enough
as an employee that if you just agree to hang up the cape
right now
i'll let you just keep living your life
just stopping a fucking superhero
just stop it
so he goes
now
not actually i'm a farmer find a way out
there is a fully functional
atlas bot
the chip by the way has done uh... in the person that plays him has have been
absolutely wonderful example of what one of these bots capable of like he is a
everyman
maximum health maximum head points spell for everything kind of character
because he's a
spot that has nano technology means like the front of technology in this world
it's a shenny was yeah
uh...
in he turns one of them on so keep in mind there's one of these bots when he's
atlas bots that is designed to handle any deviation it encounters that has just
been turned on less than ten feet away from him
henry goes i'll give you one chance he's in a room full of guards
we've also established at this point that people
use guns in guns fucking suck
like you a lot of damage they hit you multiple times their guns their guns
that's the idea
so as well to
because you'll fight my way out
so henry then i'll find a way to never mention that i don't get affected with a
parasite
all yeah
he has been a it he's now batman
but he has never when he got shot in the chest
so the neuro toxin basically mixes with his his nervous system in his shadow
powers essentially circulated through his body to keep him alive and to put him
back like iron man style basically live with the magnet
to keep him alive
well
he just took an extended trip inside uh... red stripe ladies minds who's now
prodigal
and prodigal's minds
is fucked
uh... is fucked so this
neuro toxin that's basically designed to debilitate people and having taken a fun
extended stay in prodigal's mind will also basically missing three quarters of
his heart
makes for a really nasty mix
the shadows basically form an entire personality of their own to keep him alive
that is basically like venom
is like cool
kill people
now that's also happening side to go back to where it were killed him and he's
like i have so many new powers now also i can't go out in the sunlight because
now i'm incredibly weak to anything that has light
so that's all happening with him at the same time and i have no idea what to do
with that
so
we'll back to fucking volt
he's like cool my fight my way out henry goes that's so disappointing
i can't let you leave you know too much
henry then demonstrates that he has some kind of powers before he even gets
chance to use them all fucking ten guards in the room turn their guns on and fire
volt goes basically last initiative order for talking about combat mechanics
the bot one tabs him
he comes back to life using one of our fun little mechanics for you can spend
these things called stamina died basically like hero surge yourself back
to life
i let him come back from death saving throws three fucking times
three times in a combat
twice is the maximum number you're allowed before you perm a guy by the way
i was nice enough at this point to go cool
all you made a decision certainly you didn't know how bad it was going to be
let's get you out of the building
he gets out of the building this bot is
fully locked on to him because their only prerogative is to detain
deviants that have shown hostility
he's going around tason people transcribe right so it's like cool
um...
picking you up dog
cuffs the whole nine yards i'm doing what i do to put you down
they make it to the front steps of the rt there at this point in broad fucking
daylight
and he is fighting for his life
absolutely fruitlessly
he's about to get curb stomped into the ground by atlas two point now because of
this point recalling chip atlas one point now
uh... and then surge who he speaks to literally half hour before he goes into
the into this meeting
he named drops that he knows that surges girlfriend is his best friend whose
name is jenny that's also a thing that happens it's only relevant because it's
the only thing that saves his life
in this conversation with surge he basically stops in midair and goes
hey dog i gave you two jobs and you have done zero of them
and you know what he says
he says
all that sucks also tell your girlfriend i said hi
haa
you said what to who
he told superman he knew lewis lane and to tell her he said hi
after he had already
basically told her that he had done none of what he was supposed to do
turns on the deviant murder bots
immediately after so he's about to die in the front steps surge
literally only because she knows that he is a friend
of her girlfriends
shows up
and saves his life
in goes i want you to understand that it's it's for no other reason you have
a connection to me
uh... and it's gonna look real bad if i let you down these front steps right now
i'm gonna save your life basically picks them up sets them down i don't want to
be the dog house of my girlfriend right now and that is the only reason i'm
saving your picture and then proceeds to one v one the fucking atlas bot in
public
uh... for reference when i was designing mechanics and combat steps in
stat blocks i was like how do i make this character beyond busted i have
written down how much damage he did in that she's like level
twenty five for reference
she is
if if i had to put a c r on her she would be up there with a terrasque
if not higher she is supposed to be untouchable
these bots are designed to adapt any deviation almost certainly with people
like surgeon inferno in mind
she almost fucking dies
one of these things there are ten of them by the way in stock that henry now
has the basically the keys to
we've also found out previous to this that somebody has a manual override
button installed in every one of these bots
so
even if henry's
mind and harder in the right place it doesn't matter because apparently if
somebody wants to turn them on sicko mode all they have to do is flip a switch
yeah
so
one of these things almost chaos the most powerful hero in the city in front
of everybody in public
uh... that's how that combat counter ends the millennium group shows up is
basically doing damage control
rebellion walks off with surge a very fun moment happens where black magic and
rebellion basically corner volt put him in a bubble where nobody can see or talk
to him
and rebellion goes i want you to know
that i would literally put you in the ground right now if we were anywhere
other than public you are a garbage person you're a shit hero
why are you even doing this job in the proceeds to slap him
across the face
in that moment is like yeah fuck you i really care
insane
literally insane you just almost cause superman to die
in just the arrogance in the face of everything was just nuts i mean that's
the character that's not even the player i mean did we talked about that
during character creation we just let him reach a point where he had too many
options to be that person
uh... i did not humble him enough up until this point i waited way too late
and by then
we were on a state of many i didn't matter
it the many at this table with
is like
because i read that what happens next with things get if you think things
cannot get more fuck it so things get more fuck shit superman search right is
on death's door nobody know the medical analysis that everyone is able to
perform at the scene is that she may never be able to physically recover from
the fight
i designed a mechanic for her that allows her to basically burn the
equivalent of several ninth level spells
on a single turn
she does that barely edges out the wind
and that ability was only meant to be used if she was going to die
she reaches that point uses that ability basically
fucks herself is bleeding profusely from the face and from the nose and
everyone's like yeah dog
i don't know if she's getting back up
i don't know if a little healing coma to thing is going to do it i think she
might just be fucked
uh...
all of that happens everyone goes back to hq
now it's a conversation of what we do about the box
bolt is feeling very bad
bolt is feeling remorseful
he's thinking
well i i just thought that that's entirely right in his apartment and
prodigal
beats the shit out of him and go
hey
why'd you snitch mother fucker
and wide-eyed things i forget why did you dot snite light and he went i don't
know when she went you've got to play by the rules bitch laps him and leaves him
a comic book and it once again follows the traditional there were another
couple comic books that night like i thought that i
didn't mention
uh... and it like follows nightlight up until the point where uh... vault
decides to do the superhero pose thing and then it takes over and switches to
vaults perspective
yet follows his life bolts become the new hyper-facetation
yeah
and uh...
another copy of this exact comic was left on uh...
yeah when we say follows vaults perspective this is a panel by panel of
every decision volt has made
literally since he went up and took a picture of nightlight which means his
crime
which is doxing one of their team members and then turning on the bots is
documented in a
pretty faithful series of fucked up comic books like prodigal's crazy don't
get me wrong she's been fairly faithful in her adaptions of the comic books
because she's a fucking psycho
so there's no reason not to believe that
shadow by the way who's our batman does not know how to be batman at this point
and has not made the decision to be batman so he is
a bucket blabbermouth
he and i like it homegirl he's like immediately several times everything
announces to several people that jury
the review of the mpc that wasn't that important that was just there in the
beginning to
you know be a guy and helps move the story along their fucking brothers
mentions that several times their sons of the mayor were like you gotta stop
say it he just keeps telling people things about himself
he gets a copy of this comic as well
uh... they all go meet at the base nightlight tells everyone about the
identity league thing blabla blabla
shadow hands her the comic
uh... entails a degree that
he has i'm not keeping secrets from anybody he doesn't read it before he
hands it to her on instinct went
she was like this has your name on it he was like
so she reads it she sees that
and this moment at the table at the dentist based on his head you're not
even going to read it
he goes what give it to her anyways
i said
want to read it first
so he reads it
and then he goes yeah i'm still gonna give it to her
and so she reads the page and she sees that volt is the one that rats are out
in this is a moment where me as a player is still trying to fight against
because i'm playing just
good character like one thing about nightlight
is that she's just good to the fucking core and she forgives everyone and she
believes there's good in everyone
and it's very infuriating for me as a player
to play a character that good sometimes because i'm like this is bullshit i want
to be mad at people
doesn't make sense for nightlight
the fucking ray of god damn sunshine that she is
to like like to to hold grudges
yeah
that is changed in the reset time i'm a dog
better than me she rips out the page and just puts it in her pocket
and doesn't say anything
at some point but realizes that she knows
uh... but she's just choosing not to say anything
uh... things are bad they go back to the base
every week
i've written down that like there was a moment where volt goes up to her
breaks his phone in half in front of her
and just drops it at her feet doesn't say a fucking word
there is no dialogue
does that and walks away
and then chip goes up and goes do you like your room i'm sorry you're homeless
do you like your room and it's just this
it was bad it was awkward
we're finally starting to get things on track there's a moment where like
nightlight finally gets through in texturing goes and meets him as black
out they have like a full screen fight in a park
uh... just in public where he's like i told you not fucking hang out with those
people she was like i made a mistake because i i literally told you to hang
out with anybody else
and she's like cool dot can you help me out now
they're on your own i'm not touching this with ten-foot pole that's the you
fuck your reputation i'm not fucking mind you
yes that's the last time this timeline
uh... he fucking skedaddle
literally which is now we see me later but yeah but like the very end
seeming a little better
bone for you i was putting that interaction out there
uh... so they
back at base
they go on like a cute little patrol is a group and it's finally the first
nice thing they were in the car father again
uh... nightlight being all my man everyone's like hey dog what's up you
kid you could have done that the whole time she's father cannot catch a
fucking break by the way he is at this point uh... he doesn't have a home he
doesn't have uh... goons he doesn't have minions there's no
uh... business he's running he's now taken to essentially fucked up vigilante
is a minute eating people that are terrorizing the anti-powered people
that are now homeless because his operation is no longer business yeah
state finance stop him from doing that
as a little little fight to see what you do lady and uh...
shoulda let him do it things are sphanily starting to like
chill a little bit
because you know i felt really bad earlier about leaking night lights i
think we're at this point now
that's i think i think i know
what can fix this
by the way there's at some point in this uh... when there's the whole thing
that happens
now it ends up talking to processor is like the robot lady is like
are you able to like hack into any security camera and like prove basically
that i have committed these crimes
uh... and she goes yeah i got you in hinder usb it does not have any of the
information she asked for on it's just a photo of like surge in the mayor
and uh...
henry from d r t
having dinner together
and she's like that's not what i asked for but okay i'm sure this is important
uh...
so at this point i like has all the evidence that both was the one that like
that none of these claims are true and that night and that vote made them all
up but she's refusing to put that out there because she's like i'm not going
to drag his name down and don't even though he did do this really fucked up
thing
i'm a good person
and vote goes
i'm just gonna go on live television
and hack into it i'm gonna have chip hack into every single camera like screen
yeah in the city
he pulls a ridler
this message and he goes
hey
uh... night lights fully innocent
i lied
and commit and like accused of all these things also accuses d r t of having
kidnapped
spassion's family
yeah i asked him when he was doing this i said hey so i i get confessing on
live television that like uh... it wasn't nightlight it was like it was me
you're like it was really nightlight or i was just trying to do whatever
i said how much do you tell them
because you also have all this information now about d r t and if
you're going on live television doing this to yourself and you're already
you've already lost your job with d r t
uh... and i've
shouldn't have even mentioned this i think i'm the one that gave me idea
how much of their dirty laundry would you like to air now that you have
every one
screen he says all of it
uh... so you know that all of it all of it like you tell them about the the
parts in the family and he go yeah
every bit
uh... fun fact
just give you a little a little bit inside our knowledge here d r t did not
kidnapped spassion's family
as prodigal
prodigal did that shit to fuck with them and they were never able to
investigate that figure out if that was the case
so had bigger fish that was unequivocally fucking false
so he uses the r t the standing militaries less f b i have kidnapping
civilians
and of um... designing and turning on
bots that will kill people
a lot of people
so was the r t do i roll for this
they shut down power in the city your t goes martial law
they said okay
uh...
we are going to turn off everything i think your character and also jumps in
on this and is like a here's also shit to back up i asked the place at the
table i said okay guys i'm about to throw up right now we are going balls to
the wall correct that everyone went
and that's about how we sounded
uh... and i said cool she tweets out which she's had a strong social media
presence is whole time that's a big part of her character
she tweets out the pictures the processor center
uh... she gets fucking wiped for the internet there is no trace that night
light or blackout have ever exist nightlight blackout
or daisy dents have ever fucking existed
come here
that all the information the processor gives her which is basically a bunch of
shit that nobody should have had
uh... and yet d r t hops on that shit immediately
takes that offer social media removes any presence she has ever had from the
internet and basically blacklist her from all of the social media sites
this is the this is at the point where i'm like cool d r t just continues to
take a laughter at what we do i roll for it
is marshal off
they shut off power to the city
they remove
wifi access they uh... basically institute a curfew they say
this is gonna last until we find the people that are responsible for this
because this is terrorism
this is just straight up terrorism this is an attack on the city government
uh...
terrorism terrorism more terrorism if you are caught eating a betting said
terrorist you're also a terrorist
and then turns on all the bots
and then uh... the party
splits up
and they do not see each other for several years so we took a hiatus
and uh... went on a fun field trip to florida first
for winter break
uh... and i talk to literally everybody that entire time and said what the fuck
you i do this
uh...
and then we uh... we talked about the two part of the we talked about the
time skip in the other if we want to gloss over
yeah i'll hit
i'll hit uh... top points so
i decide that what i'm gonna go with
if you haven't listened to it i won't spoil entirely i'll do the natural
progression uh... i follow this through
i follow this through
i said cool
uh...
what happens to this world
uh... not good not great uh... d r t is bad ten used to put out more bots
shocked
uh... continues to put out more and more bots
uh... they kill a lot of people they get back at this one point oh slash chip
uh... chip d arms nightlight in a conflict which was
a moment that literally had several
players in tears
uh... right about it again the other day
we're downstairs talk about it yeah like that is a moment deeply affected
every book
here's my reasoning i that was a deeply traumatic
session for all of us me included
i wanted i'm a huge consequences to your action dm because i think that is
one of the more fun ways to have a world and to make it more realistic which is
everything you do has a equal and opposite reaction
i decided that the only real way to teach my players a lesson
was to go full consequences to your actions
uh... this is the world that you all left it in this is the world that we're
gonna finish in before we reset
uh... i open the session with in none of your characters are expected to live
i want you all understand that what's gonna happen for the rest of the session
is not gonna be fun for anybody including myself but this is where we're at
now
was one of the most fun games ever played i was
fucking phenomenal i don't think i can ever top it
uh...
high notes
uh... they get a bomb
volt comes back teams up with prodigal
nightlight leads all the superheroes
searches guys
surges in a nightly dies whatever uh... we fix their death
surges in a wheelchair
more or less in a coma for effort trying to recover her strength d r t takes
over the entire city
it's villains and heroes team and up together it's raining you know
it was dogs the the whole nine yards so much
they make a final plan with all of the remaining members of the superheroes and
supervillains to basically push d r t one last time take out the like control
center for all the bots
everybody lives
they're in a lot of it pretty much all the mpc's died but all of our player
characters actually make it to the very ends they get the bomb up to the top
uh...
they get chip back
that was really just sad and fun awful and great to watch wildest fire
uh... nightlight and ship have a uh... one v one in that shit was fucking
nuts
uh... absolutely insane
we had somebody role-lawyering on the side and that is truly the only reason
that the combat encounter did not go more poorly
long long long story short super long depressing session short uh... the bomb
goes off at the top of d r t's tower
uh... whatever player characters dies fault
who made all of the wonderful city decisions
did chiple
yeah chiple out building and watch it explode chip i mean chiple's
okay chip up into the ethereal plane basically and then watched
and then face back in a little way
wildest
yet she goes i actually want to watch henry burn
pops of the ethereal and watches henry burn
uh...
and that's how that timeline ends
volt goes to volt heaven
where all of the people that have had his power before him because his
character
sort of like his classes uh... inherited so he's like a thwart type he basically
goes and meets all the other like
lightning slash electricity wielders that have had his power before him and
they go hey
uh... we thought
that was it and you are just gonna suck forever but you did maybe kind of a
cool thing here
so we're gonna give you one chance
one chance we're gonna drop you back
way back
right before you made the worst mistake in your life
and we're gonna give you a second chance we pop back in right before he goes
superhero box
says we're gonna in today's session because it is
one in the morning
yeah i have working about seven hours which part is a bonus episode yeah
bonus episode something uh... so what's gonna happen over the next couple
of the services will do some character creation where myself and madison will
make two more characters to play in this universe and then episode ten will be
another sort of every five episode one shot will do the first half of a a long
ish one shot kind of like we did with the the first one in kids on bikes
inside sapphire city
uh... where i will not probably hopefully if i can manage it mention a
single fucking character from the original campaign because i would love to
not
so
they exist don't get me wrong but we're not interacting with any of them
yeah why they do a bonus episode or uh...
or down on a
but i don't part two at some point but that is the original
first half
essentially of the campaign
it starts fine and cool and superhero and then it just fucking
so that's
literally
that's an
our basis also built on a bomb that's just a side note
the person who plays jep got really into minecraft
and how to do chemistry and physics
through minecraft
and i let him make a couple of tech checks which is a new religion jack in
this universe and
he built a hydrogen bomb
well hydrogen reactor but you know you can turn anything that makes electricity
or generates power into a bomb
so that's what everyone calls it now the hydrogen bomb that's actually what
uh... that's their plan b in the alternative timeline is to set off the
bomb in the base and take out as many bots with them as humanly possible
which doesn't happen
because they actually have a
separate easy to all of the other mpc's happy to be clear shadow turned into a
uh... literal monster money for the people demon at the end of this like in
the in this world of presumably goes on he had to be put down by his teammates
in a really fucked up way of like we've got to kill the dog
because the dog has rabies he goes full terrorist in between the end of the one
session in the beginning of the flashpoint session like
full terrorist he is executing d r t members on live television he is
consuming them like their energy not like their physical body
he basically turned himself into an energy vampire and goes full
yeah fucking oh my god what's that one movie v from indetta
yeah like full that but way worse yeah
way worse
shows up to the to the full team meeting and everyone pulls out a gun is like
hey
we're bad guys don't get me wrong you eat mother fuckers we're not
like their members of the splice circle who run
prostitution rings they pull out guns and go hey you're a bad guy
i don't really know what's here
you look at the other extremes of the team and i like it become
the hero
shadow is the terrorist
sebastian
the sebastian
he's not like now he he's a bastion goes fully in the opposite direction the guy
he drops the hero thing fully and he's just like i'm gonna be a person that
helps my neighborhood
yeah both shack it up a prodigal chip is now atlas
uh he's a part of the millennial group
yeah
inferno turncoats never found out why that happened
yeah
it was all bad
it was truly
all bad
i think parker lived every single person at the table cried
over the course of that session more than once
you live jury lived at any other in pcs live
uh...
parker lived jury live
i didn't
i never really decided what happened with surgeon for no and rebelling when
he
or when she took off the two i assume that was three people killing each other
in the sky
yeah in my mind that's the only way that that was going to end
i don't know they probably died
no
no all the villains by the way uh... all my god the moment they got me
i've talked about this beforehand cod father dies
in
the saddest way fucking possible
and it that's what got me everyone else cried up to this point and i was just
trying to keep it together for the session and then cod father goes out and
i'm like well fuck the fish died
and that's really fucked up so i'm gonna take this moment to cry
is i narrate him being ripped apart by robots
yeah nobody fucking live with the exception of parker and uh... in jury
i'm pretty sure on the mpc list all the villains died all the heroes died
step for the player characters
one of which did not want to live two of them didn't want to live actually
yeah and in the shadow are just over life another one we went i don't give a
shit
fucking kill me
do it
yeah it was it was
yeah
so that's the first half the staff are prodigies and give you a little bit
inside into the world will put out a part two will do a let's wear a
actual play in one shot in the universe were hopefully we we uh... we don't do
that
we don't do that at all actually don't want to play
and do that even a little
we don't want to do that nope
i'm taking this is challenge rather nope
i will not let you i know i have no desire to i would rather shoot you as an
enemy
like in real life now like in the game
i let you do that
i don't want to do that i don't know
i wouldn't put it past you just despite me
i mean
listen
if it's a
she's a
anyways
uh... it's gonna be
end of session
eight
season two jesus christ guys forget that i think you are for listening to another
episode of table talk we will see you next thursday
night