Post date: Aug 06, 2012 11:33:9 PM
Session started with a recap by ACE and finished by Wayne.
7/30
After saying their farewells in Thorn, and promising to return, on 8/15 the Gotham Knights drove to Eugene.
Enroute they found not just Thorns signal fading, but also found Corey's signal and a new Signal from a lady named Ella who is broadcasting from Railyard. Both had news to share.
Greetings Everyone, this is Ella Muse of the News
Word has come up the I-5, the massive army of super mutants that had besieged Thorn has been turned aside, through the efforts of many, but most notably, the Gotham Knights. Rumors speak that due to their confrontation the region around Medford is a bio-hazard zone thanks to the dead-mutant switch their leader had. Fortunately many slaves were rescued.
Bee-deep-bee-deep this is Corey Vegas with the News:
Greetings Wasted West, lock up your daughters, run for the hills if you are a raider or slaver or other ner' do well. If the word on the wind is to be believed, the Gotham Knights are back in central valley. Gone now for nearly a month in a half, fighting the super mutant threat to the south, and, returning victorious. You can be sure if you had high hopes of their demise, you are out of luck. To top it off they are now super mobile, though the method of their transportation is up to speculation. But next time you see a blur on the horizon, or in the sky, it may not be a mirage, but the Gotham Knights on their way to save the day.
After a minor detour they arrived in the ruins of Eugene with their first stop being Things for Things, but when they got there they found the structure apparently had suffered a massive fire.
Seeking answers they went to Skinners Butte, arriving near its base they found Things for Things (TFT) had actually relocated and that everyone was fine and were reorganizing into a strip mall of many shops. The crowd was amazed at the sight of the Doom Bus.
Tom lets them know that everything is going well and life is getting better in these ruins, raiders are either moving north to Salem (skirting around Railyard) or accepting Coal’s rule. At that point one of Coal’s guards staggered into parking lot, clearly in very bad shape and collapsed.
Doc rushed to his aid and after some care was able to revive the man while Pea ran up the road to get Coal. “Chemist…took…ICE…Iron…Dragon” It was not until Coal arrived that they were able to get a full picture of what was going on, while Doc further investigated the sickened man (discovered he had been poisoned).
Scouts had seen lights near old MedTek Facility about a ten days ago, so ICE/ Dr. Jessica Wendell, took a team of 8 guards to investigate. Two came back saying they encountered a group of scavengers lead by a chemist, and decided to work together to excavate the Medtek facility.
Once he regained consciousness and the ability to speak he explained that 2 nights ago (so 7/28) the chemist drugged their food, shot the guards ( he escaped notice by passing out, out of sight), then manya “great metal dragons” landed, took the chemist and his guards and ICE along with all sorts of holotapes about some numbers, like 912.
Coal is most distressed, that she had just found their wedding rings along with Grim’s but he was not sure if she had them with her or not.
This lines up with something that has been spotted in the region on an increasing frequency, lights in the sky, some have been sighted to the west, to the north, and then two days ago to the south.
Coal nearly loses his cool, but ACE distracts him with a persistent request for some Nuka-freeze. So off they went while the rest took care of some business with TFT, aside from Ammo , they purchased a strange helmet that looked like a metal beach ball with a sports grill welded to the front and several antennae protruding out the back.
Upon ACE’s return she quizzes Tom on where he got it. He explains that a man who calls himself the disciple of Isaiah sold it to him, sans all the insides. She deduces that it was a variant of a item called an Eyebot though it lacked a certain antennae she recalled.
From here the group travels to Vault 33/Gotham and, after approaching with caution, they are pleased to see that all is well and learn that indeed the Sentries at V33 have seen the lights at night to the north and east but have focused on making sure they are inside at night. Meanwhile the trailer they have been hauling around finally gave up the ghost and deposited the 4 trees before collapsing into scrap, just outside of V33.
Here they catch up on many things.
1. Steve has been keeping things clean and orderly, but is glad they are back. His focus has been building defenses, the wall on the south end and building a watch tower.
2. John has been focusing on making sure the Railyard returnees are fine. Power is online, water is good, he has finished the repair on the food processors and water recyclers. The robots are doing well in keeping people feeling safe. He is proud of Smitty and Nancy for the work they did in getting all those Brahmin here from McMinnville.
3. Smitty (the hunter) he and Nancy w/ another dozen vault dwellers made the trek up north to McMinnville and rounded up many Brahmin from the herd up there and did a cattle drive south to Gotham. They did stop in Corvallis on the way up, but avoided contact on the way south. Smitty will note they could really use someone who was good with leather if they are to open a tannery to use all that Brahmin hide they will have from the ranches. (This should make a connection to the tanner they left in Thorn named Black-Fist formerly of the Night-Watch tribe).
4. Nancy: is now over Wayne, has a thing for Gary (Railyard Metalworker) and has befriended the other teens in the vault. They are attending school for 4 hrs/ day with a teach rotation being handled by the various others in the vault. She also is responsible for bringing back some packages for Grim that are in her room (The one with the doll heads and teddy bears hanging from the ceiling)
5. Mockingbird – though his happy whistling can be heard through the halls, finding him is a challenge, but is found with Dr. Lenny Davis in the terrarium. He explains that Dr. Lenny believes music is good for plants and the two get along rather well. Dr. Lenny makes him whisper-laugh with stories about the “before times.” He goes to school, but is just learning to read, he is very happy to see Grim and is responsible for her room decorations (dim light, dangerous furniture, etc)
6. Dr. Lenny Davis: Been busy cultivating many different plants in the arboretum inside and transplanting them outside to make initial crops, has taken over ACE’s lab to help keep things going. Mentions contact with a smoothskin trader named Mandy who seemed to sense the truth of what was going on in the valley, but winked and promised to keep it a secret. For some reason he believed her and decided not to kill her and her guard then and there and take their Brahmin.
7. Dr. Howell – One armed, one eyed doctor rescued from the slavers has been working with Patricia (nurse from Amity) in keeping people as healthy as possible.
8. Spike is a good doggy and loves Wayne and gets along well with Callisto and the bear cub.
9. Grim finds packages in her room (transported by Nancy when she stopped in Corvallis on her way to rustle up some Brahmin). One contains ashes from the burnt down church they will be wed in. One contains black candles they will light when they are next together, lastly is a pool of water with a water soaked note that said “Asked ICE to get some ICE for us. P.S. Hope she realizes the hand I sent her is not my real one, but it was the same size).
10. At this point the community resources now available are:
· Vault (full power now)
· Ranch x2
· Farm x2
· Watch Tower
· Walls on S, E, and W side
· Graveyard OR Memorial
· Well
· 12 BP
To which after a rousing dinner speech the Knights meet with the rest (John, Steve, Howell, Davis, and Smitty) and lay down how they want things to be handled here, it is time to make things a bit better known and take the risk to expose Gotham to the outside world. This process takes the better part of two days.
<Link to Community building rules>
After much animated debate, with ACE casting the deciding vote they go with being a Lawful Good society.
Next they decide that a Council rule is better than an overseer and included all their allies to the council (John, Steve, Howell, Davis, and Smitty) that also included themselves. From here they took on various crucial roles to handle things.
Grand Diplomat – Doc
Councilor – Wayne
Educator – ACE
Spymaster - Grim
Warden – BW
Treasuer - Dr. Howell (d10 Sm)
Set forth the following Edicts: Moderate Taxation, No community promotion, and 1 festival/year.
Having settled on these they handled the processing of their wishes.
During this time ACE focused on building an Improvomatic 2000 - generic 1 use. (took her 1.5 days)
The only surprising things was during a tour of the walls, John was showing Grim around with his Mr. Handy and Mr. Gutsy in tow, when both of their pipboys went all over the spectrum and then suddenly the Mr. Gutsy beserks and nearly kills John with a Plasma Shot, but Grims save him, as the Mr Handy sacrifices itself to Gutsy's plasma fire. Before John can shut down the Mr. Gutsy.
ACE determined this was some kind of assassination attempt, that used old military signals to tell robots to use lethal force on anyone with a pipboy. Grim knows it was lucky to be stopped.
8/3
After getting things going the group heads toward Railyard and after parking the Doom Bus (and again dealing with the many intrigued stares)
1. Town has obviously grown in length as well as the amount of farm land around it. As peace in Eugene has enabled them to bring more rail cars up to Railyard in exchange for food, ammo and armor for Lord Coal and his forces. Most of the cars have been used for housing , storage, or walls. The water tower now sports a few new antennae. Around the town are fields of crops being harvest by people who live in tents and Brahmin are milling around the area in increased numbers than before.
2. Bill Terra (Yard boss) is well and reports the population increase is due to a combination of Amnesty programs to ex-raiders from Eugene and several tribal groups being pushed out of the mountains by claw beasts. All are good people who work hard for their share of food, water and caps.
3. Greg Crane (Bulls) was curious to hear how things went for the boys in Thorn, but will report little else. Other than the fact he has made it clear he is not to be woken up for anything less than 5 “sightings”, for a while there they were, every few nights, being alerted by Corvallis of “vertibird” flights crossing the mountains.
4. Die Cast (trader) is doing good business with his new partner Wynn Chester and is up here picking up an order of armor for Coal. He gives Grim a bag of 44 ammo from Dr. Preacher (1 clip worth) Party trades for ammo and discovers 5mm ammo is going to be hard to find as long as Railyard is stockpiling.
5. Shane Smith is busy wiring up all the new buildings. His son, Peter, is fine as is the dog Scrappy.
6. Fast Gary (Golden Spike Owner) has finally milled a scope to work with the railway rifle using a periscope. Makes it a bit bulkier and to use the scope imposes a snapfire penalty and costs 200 caps to make and install.
7. Dashing Dan and the girls are doing well.
8. Ella Radio Operator is a funny, goth/punk ex-raider/minion of Shadowman who is here to help improve things by keeping communications open between Eugene , Railyard, and Corvallis. Has a thing for Corey but won’t admit it to him. “I always grew up listening to his dreamy voice over the radio, he was the voice of sanity and humor on even the darkest days of my life.” She has black hair, wears a leather jacket with offensive buttons, a leather kilt and striped stockings.
Worked with Pendelton (the cook who invents) who has gruel machine autofeeding the "toaster-cake" maker. Wayne works with him to improve his skills and inventions and seasonings. Learned sugar is harvested from the ant farm at Corvallis.
Grim, Doc, and BW find Shadowman tech left in the railcar that had been converted to women’s shower and was the reason why Ella was feeling creeped out in the showers.
After a meal of Gecko Steak and Gruel Bicuits and water the Knights board their doom bus tha late afternoon and drove to Corvallis, arriving just in time for dinner at B.A.C.
Afetr startling the stable handler who insists they have to park the doom bus out of town in a shed filled with machine parts, due to the Deans paranoia that they are being “watched” by spy satellites.
On their way to town they meet Bill (one of the interns they rescued from Vault 35 who tells them they are cleaning out the vault of radioactive material and dumping it north of town and they are busy raising ants down there. They go at night so as not be spotted by Spy Satellites the Dean suspects is watching their town.
Grim heads into town right away, the rest go visit with Jake, Mike, Corey, and Jim at the B.A.C. which is supposedly under new management.
Jake greets them with beer - he has a black chocolate stout called Grim's Dark, a thick wheat beer called B.W.'s Wheat, Wayne Smile a Pilsner, Doc's Pale Ale, and ACE Fire (a pure grain alcohol which is lit on fire and sprinkled with magnesium shavings to give it sparkles).
1. Their Apt is dusty but still theirs (Matthew is still in charge)
2. Corey and Jim are happy to see them, Jake is doing really well and Mike Fleer is happy to have made him a part owner (once he heard rumors of the Knights trying to lure him away).
3. Jake will inform them a slaver with a fancy sniper rifle has been around town off and on. He is the one who “captured/found” Red Hawk and turned him in for a reward and Bounty.
4. Corey and Jill will share how they have been working with Ella, in Railyard, to get their radio up and running w/ some excitement (Corey has a thing for Ella and it is fairly obvious)
5. Jim will note that Dr. Preacher has had some odd visitors lately, a female ghoul from “somewhere” up north.
6. Corey will note that not too long ago a group of ex-slaves lead by that “Girl with spunk- Nancy” were in town and stayed the night out back before leaving the next day. Jim mentioned she took some packages for Grim and inquires that they were delivered or not.
Meet with Jim who gets them caught up and provides flight counts and dates.
Data from Tesla (which really came from Smoke but Jim doesn't know):
7/10/84 21:30 4 contacts W to E 02:30 4 contacts E to W
7/14/84 22:45 4 contacts W to E 03:10 4 contacts E to W
7/19/84 22:33 4 contacts W to E 02:10 4 contacts E to W
7/22/84 22:45 3 contacts W to E 03:05 3 contacts E to W
7/26/84 22:22 4 contacts W to E 02:11 4 contacts E to W
7/28/84 23:17 8 contacts W to E 01:03 8 contacts E to W
Afterwards the Knights, sans Grim, provide a lengthy interview for Corey and they suggest to him that he does a big build up for the interview.
During this time Grim goes into town and while it is clear things have been reinforced and further "hunkered down" life seems normal for this town until a sudden commotion from the lab entrance draws her attention as two combat armor clad guards toss a ghoul out onto the square, he stands up shaking his peeling flesh hand and yells in a hoarse voice "I will kill you Dr. Preacher!"
Players will get 2XP and 2 Fame.