ICONS Issue 4

GANGWAR!!

Lord Genovasis - The father of Meta-humans
Automaton - The Mechanical Marvel
Nate Brown - Lowly janitor (AKA The Sponge)
The Scarlet Hood - The bane of organized crime and political corruption
Prophylactica - The woman wonder of rubber!
King Cobra

Col.  Francis "Popeye" Sanders 

With crime and violence rising in Shore City due to a turf war between rival gangs Vanguard 13 leaps into action!

The Scarlet Hood, following a lead first discovered in the abandoned lab of Mr. Roboto* (see issue 2 – Bashful Bliss), breaks into the upper floors of ACE Enterprises.  There he finds files revealing that ACE is buying up and smuggling arms to Europe.  He also discovers that someone called Dyna is resisting the pressure from ACE.

Suddenly, the door bursts open and in rush four gangster thugs lead by a costumed figure carrying a unique rifle from which sweeps a green ray around the room.
“You cannot escape from Radar!” as the green ray outlines the Hood's invisible form.

Realizing he is discovered and dodging gunfire, he lunges at Radar and smashes the radar-weapon but he is quickly wrapped up by the thugs.

On a rooftop across the street, the mysterious Col. Francis “Popeye” Sanders is keeping a watchful eye on the Scarlet Hood and seeing as the Red Avenger is in trouble, leaps across the wide gap and bursts through the window.  That gives the Hood just the distraction he needed to break free from his captors and pummels the thugs.  As Col. Sanders finishes off the other thug, Radar runs out of the room and shouts; “Do not cross the Mogul!”

Wanted by the police and hearing approaching sirens, the Scarlet Hood turns invisible and leaps out the window leaving Sanders and the defeated hoods.

Later, back at Vanguard 13's headquarters on the Fort Maudlin Army Base, Lord Genovasis is being interviewed by Penelope Kirt when Col. Sanders bursts into the room seeking the Scarlet Hood.  Genovasis covers for his teammate, defending him.  The Hood finally shows up to defend himself against this military backed new-comer.  Suddenly a call comes in.  Lord Genovasis' factory lab is being robbed!

So Genovasis, the Hood, Col. Sanders, and Prophylactica leap into their new e-Vaul van and high tail it to the lab.  At the loading dock they find a bunch of hoods lead by Little Augie Ceaser, the gun-totting gangster monkey!  They open fire on Vanguard 13 as they pile out of the van but Prophylactica expands her body to deflect the bullets and protect her team-mates.

The Hood leaps into action and tries to take out the gun sub-machine gun wielding gangsters, while Col Sanders leaps over to Ceaser and begins pummeling him with his feet.  The Giant Genovasis moves into attack but is stopped by a mysterious beautiful woman, The Mol, whom he instantly falls in love with.  Meanwhile, sneaking out from the back of the e-Vaul van is the reporter Penelope Kirt!

While the battle on the ground turns in favor of Vanguard 13, suddenly from a window burst a flaming figure who swoops down and captures the reporter.  From that same window, drips down an oozing black mass which takes a  humanoid form - Tarpit!  Prophylactica tries to punch Tarpit from a distance but nearly gets her arm caught in his sticky body.  As the flaming figure flies off with the reporter, Tarpit grabs the hood's truck and scales the wall of the building with it and escapes, as does the wounded Little Augie Ceaser!

Col. Sanders tries to leap after the escaping foes but misses and crashes through one of the lab's windows.  The Mol quietly escapes.

After the Hood questions the captured mobsters, they find their next clue at the Night Owl Club.  Disguised as gangster thugs Genovasis, Hood and Sanders enter the club later that night.  There performing on stage is The Mol whom Genovasis once again helplessly falls in love with.  The Hood, not wanting to play any games, spies the Octofather sitting in the corner with his henchmen and brazenly confronts him.  The Octofather is none too pleased but the Hood strikes up a deal.  He'll leave the operations of the Octofather alone for now for information on who the Mogul is and why is he cutting in on the Octofather's territory.  Octofather reluctantly agrees and gives the Hood the address to someone called Dyna.

Following that lead, they meet the elderly, hard of hearing Bernhard Von Kapivar, former member of the Tesla League (Corey was brilliant tying our unfinished 1920's Savage World campaign with our Icons campaign to unify an entire gaming universe.  Now, how can I fit our Swords and Wizardry campaign into this, hmmm.).

They get from Kapivar that the Mogul was trying to hire him and purchase his explosive weapons. He declined and has since faced trouble from the Mogul's henchmen.  He informs the Vanguard of a warehouse on the docks where the weapons are being delivered to.

Genovasis, The Scarlet Hood and Col. Sanders fly off in their gyro-copter to the warehouse.  There they find a number of trucks making deliveries of stolen weapons.  Invisible, the Hood knocks out two of the delivery men and Genovasis and Sanders disguise themselves and the three infiltrate the warehouse.

The weapons were being loaded aboard a high-speed airship with Nazi insignia!  Suddenly, everyone hurries aboard the airship as it takes off from the waterfront warehouse.

Leading the workers is none other than Baron Zero* (last seen in issue 1 - Bliss), guarded by Radar with a repaired radar gun and the flaming foe Firebrand holding Penelope hostage.  Radar scans the loading dock and discovers that the Hood is hiding!  The alarm goes out and the Vanguard leaps into action but so do the villains!  Tarpit traps Col. Sanders in his sticky grip while The Hood takes out some of the gun-men. Suddenly a speeding blur zips past the hood!  Blitzkrieg is back having escaped from the military prison* (introduced in issue 1 and 2 - Bliss).   The battle results in Radar's gun being destroyed, and Sanders and the Hood almost being defeated.  Baron Zero holds a gun to the reporters head but the Hood makes a desperate effort to put Zero out of commission but pays a price for his determined action.  Genovasis talks Tarpit into joining their cause. While the rest of the villains escape to another part of the ship.

Vanguard 13 is victorious though wounded for now but they are trapped within an airship headed who-knows-where, surrounded by enemies!

To Be Continued Next Issue!

Session Thoughts

This was the third session run by Corey and it was a doosey!  This was out usual three hour session but as you can see a heck of a lot went on.  Rules lite games such as Icons (S&W and others) makes this type of game play possible.  Corey had the general concept together but had to improvise some of the situations which came across flawlessly.  A great example of players not knowing what a GM has already planned compared to what the GM improvises.  Again, Icons makes improvising quite easy.  This session had it's ups and downs for the characters which created quite a bit of drama.  He ended the session with a cliff hanger but instead of continuing his story he's passing the duties to someone else.  That's great because the original concept for the campaign was to alternate GM building upon previous session storylines.  This will be a great experiment continuing an actual storyline with a different GM.  I think I'm picking up the next session so I've got some things planned....