Sword & Planet Adventure on the Highlands of Mars

[mazirian]

[I'm not generally prone to these "let me tell you about my character" type AP reports, but I'm going to give it a go this one time]

We kicked off a ZeFRS game with two players this past weekend set on the "Highlands of Mars." Yes, that's right, it's a psuedo-celtic flavored sword & planet adventure--think Rob Roy and the Highland Clearances, except instead of sheep we have giant caterpillars that the oppressors raise for silk to make fancy hats.

Mark, who maintains these boards, is the GM. Here's a bit of the color text he used to pitch the game for us:

The ancestors of the Highlanders came to this land in a dim and
legendary past. From their homeland they sailed across one of the Red Planet's vast oceans until they made landfall at what was then an archipelago of volcanic islands, so many they were almost beyond counting.They displaced the original inhabitants of the islands, a mysterious people known today only by the cryptic markings they left in standing stones.

As the years wore on and the Martian seas dwindled away, the islands became mountains and the shallower seas became plains. Nations that had once been separated by impassable waters became first neighbors, then commingled as their boundaries vanished. The Highlanders came down from the increasingly cold mountaintops to live on the slopes, some going so far as to make their homes in the glens and dales that were once undersea trenches.

Then out of the east came new arrivals. The Flatlanders' tradition
taught that the lands left behind by the departing water were a gift to their nation by the gods, and they saw it as their right and duty to bring their civilization to any patch of ground they could
reach. Whether the current inhabitants wanted it or not. Because they came marching out of the dawn, many Mountain Men believe that the invasion is a punishment from Luga the Sun God for some offense.

Our heroes are bold Martian Highlanders, fighting to preserve their way of life from the invading Flatlanders and exploring the ruins left behind by the vanished Stonescribes.

Chargen

Chargen went quickly considering neither of us players had ever played a session of ZeFRS before or even read the rules for the most part. What emerged from the process was a pair of brothers:

Galbraith The Most Excellent -- Take a look at the ZeFRS character sheet, it's about 15% devoted to mechanical concerns and 85% to "The Story So Far." Taking a lead from that emphasis I created a short and perhaps overly dramatic back story that involved my mother dying at the hands of a cruel flatlander captain. I decided Galbraith's mother had mind control magic, an aptitude she passed on to Galbraith. The flatlander captain used his own mind control magic to rip her spells from her head, leaving only one minor spell which she passed on to Galbraith in her dying moments. Not only has this villain stolen Galbraith's mother's life, but also all of the spells she would have taught him in time. Madness (as in, mechanically speaking, the weakness) seemed a natural consequence of the grief and sudden initiation into magic he experienced. Galbraith's father is weak-kneed (and possibly a Flatlander collaborator).

Brann of Ogma -- The other player chose information magic to build his character around, and created a sort of mystic who wandered off into the mountains to seek the wisdom of one of the clan gods, Ogma. Ogma sought fit to grant Brann the ability to see the unseen, but at the expense of one of his eyes (the weakness of disfigurement). He has only recently returned from the mountains (where he developed an array of survival skills) to find his mother dead, his brother intermittently insane and his father capitulating to the invaders.

I've never seen the original Zeb Cook game, so I don't know how it differs, but the character sheet certainly gives the players a lot of space to develop bangs and flags and hooks for the GM to pull from. It seems well ahead of its time in this way. I also love the simplicity of equipping one's character: pick three items, one from each of three columns listing simple bits of equipment. This really established a lot about this game for me--it's about pulpy, awesome deeds; gadgetry and equipment is for weaklings!

First Session

The local flatlander lord who has claimed dominion over Brann and Galbraith's people is sympathetic to the highlander folk in his domain. He's even affected some of the highlanders' fashion sense. Through an emissary, he sends word to Brann that a flatlander Earl who governs a nearby expanse of land is hunting down a young highlander boy recently escaped from prison. It is suggested that were the brothers able to find the boy and deliver him to safety, the Earl would be vexed. Vexing a flatlander is enough for the brothers, even if they are just being used as pawns in some inter-flatlander politics. Now we have a story.

It is here we first engage the system. I opt to have Galbraith hypnotize the emissary in order to probe his mind for further information. To wear down his mental defenses, the brothers first ply him with a few rounds of the local spirit. This goes badly as the emissary cannot hold his liquor and is unconscious before any effort may be made to plant a suggestion in his head.

The following day the brothers set off in search of the escaped boy, ultimately finding him (and his older ward) ensnared in a hidden web spun by some sinister spider-like creature. Battle ensues and we soon discover how precarious our place in the world is. The spider very nearly overcomes the brothers. Indeed, Brann is poisoned by the thing, though to what end we still do not know as the session ended immediately after the fall of the creature.

First Impressions

I really like the simple uniformity of the system a lot: you use the same methods to determine whether a character falls prey to powerful drink, whether he hypnotizes a lackey or whether he stabs a spider between the mandibles. In spite of the big multicolored chart (and at least there is only one of them), this isn't OD&D at all.

Looking forward to the next session when hopefully, I'll get to use the luck points part of the system, which I think is just a brilliant piece of design work.

[markkrawec]

Highlanders of Mars: Episode the Second

Brann soon realized that he had been poisoned by the spider when he broke out in cold sweat and chills. He trudged stoically along until he could no longer walk, at which point Tain gave up his seat on the pack lizard and the stricken sorceror was loaded along with the still unconscious uncle.

Following the road back to Banfuar didn't sound like a very good idea; Tain insisted there had been dozens of Flatlander soldiers on the trail of him and his uncle. The party therefore made for the higher slopes of the mountain. When they broke through the treeline to the scrubby slopes of gravel above, they spotted a castle on a high promontory above. Intriguing as it was, Brann's dire condition demanded they find a cure before they go dungeon crawling, so the four carried on.

But where to go for help? They had heard rumors of a mad hermit named Cuween Mossbeard of Tynron Doon who lived in the forest. He was reputed to be an alchemist; maybe he could help. Brann used his clairvoyance to search a spooky area of forest that Galbraith remembered from hunting expeditions. (To do which he covered his remaining eye and looked with the one he had gouged out. A dim red light shone through the sealed lid of the lost eye as he did.) Sure enough, there was a gigantic creepy tree with a hut either built into or growing from its base. As Brann looked closer, a shape appeared in the window silhouetted in the eerie green light from within - staring back at him.

Unnerved, the boys decided they had to press on to Cuween's hut anyway. When they arrived the next day, they found the branches festooned with metal and glass decorations - possibly religious, possibly the remains of previous visitors. They knocked at the door and were admitted to Cuween's house. Cuween examined the uncle and diagnosed an "addled brain". He fed the old man a concoction of his own design. It would either work or they would have to trepan him. Lucky for Uncle Roal, it worked.

Now it was Brann's turn. Cuween went back to work and returned with not one potion but three. "So," said he, "You claim to be a servant of our gods. If that's true, you should have no trouble telling which of these potions will cure you." Brann deployed his magic sight again. Two of the potions were magical; one was mundane. Brann figured the mundane one must be the cure, and downed it. He was right; the poison was neutralized.

It was getting on toward nightfall. Galbraith and Brann were worried that the Flatlanders might attack Cuween's house if they knew the Highlanders were inside. That wasn't a far-fetched notion either, considering what they knew about the Flatlander sorceror. So they decided to make camp a short distance away in the woods.

Of course that didn't go well either.

During Galbraith's night watch, he heard the sound of something approaching their lightless camp. It proved to be a pair of deadly tortoise eaters: meter-long, eight-limbed, red-furred killing machines. Combat ensued, and once again Brann's two-weapon fighting talent was invaluable in saving his bacon. Galbraith's bacon on the other hand got well cooked as his foe latched on and clawed away at his vitals.

Just as Galbraith looked like he was going down for the dirt nap, a high pitched war cry was heard. Tain had come to join the fray! As much as fortune (which is to say the dice) had hated Galbraith, it favored Tain. He lay into the tortoise eater with a rock and between the two of them they dispatched it as Brann slew his.

Morning came without further incident. It was time to get the hell out of Dodge. Galbraith received some medical treatment and the party moved on to a nameless lake in a glen near the town of Midhowe. Brann, Tain and Uncle Roal set up camp by the lake while Galbraith headed into town in search of ... information or ... something. (It was a while ago. His exact motivation escapes me now.)

Galbraith discovered that the town was lousy with Flatlanders. Troops were billeted in every inn in town, and were hanging around every tavern. His attempt at eavesdropping on soldiers didn't pan out, so he decided to see the commander and dispense a little false information. The Captain made no attempt to hide his disdain for the "hairy-legged savages" of the Highlands & paid little attention to Galbraith's story of seeing the runaway boy headed for a mysterious castle. He shooed Galbraith away with a couple of coppers for his trouble.

Galbraith smelled trouble & took the long way around back to the glen. He was right. Two Flatlanders were trailing him, just in case. Galbraith drew them farther & farther off the path until night fell & it was time to make camp. Galbraith spent an uneventful night; the Flatlanders, not so much. There were a few screams, a couple of shots from the soldiers' anbaric bolt throwers, then silence. They seemed to have fallen foul of some tortoise eaters themselves...

The next morning, Galbraith returned to the glen to find the other three safe & sound. There was no time to waste. There would be vengeful Flatlanders after them soon, so they had best high tail it for Rannoch.

[markkrawec]

Highlanders of Mars: Episodes the Third and Fourth

Highlights from these two sessions include 1) a hard-won massacre carried out by our heroes and their charges, and 2) an episode Brann's player later summarized with "I have never run away so extensively in a game before."

Episode the Third

After reuniting lochside, Galbraith, Brann, Tain and Roal set out through the woods once more. After a while they decided to climb higher upslope, hoping to make better time in the clear. It wasn't long before they were all overcome with a strange sense of unease. Brann probed ahead with his clairvoyance. Nearby was a mysterious ring of poles from which banners flapped in the wind. In the center of the ring was a wide, rounded structure something like a barrow. Galbraith was eager to explore, but Brann didn't like the look of the place. The boy and his uncle were deeply disturbed by the weird aura. It was three to one; with a sigh of regret from Galbraith, the party carried on.

Back into the forest and a few more hours march brought them toward another clearing. Once again Brann used clairvoyance to look ahead and spotted a man's leg sticking out of a bush. They weren't sure it wasn't just a stray leg left behind by another murderous tortoise eater until it moved, at which point it became clear someone was lying in ambush. The group skirted the clearing and drew out the foresters who had laid the trap for a parley. They were fellow highlanders who had fallen foul of Flatlander authority and retreated to a life of outlawry in the woods.

The outlaws weren't happy to see the lads. Bad enough that Flatlanders patrolled the roads, but wanted men in their midst was asking for trouble. The men gave Brann and Galbraith directions to the Bruachburn, a mighty river than runs down the Holy Mountain to the distant sea.

The party makes their way to the Bruachburn and follows it downstream to the bridge at Skabbost. The river is so old that it has carven a deep canyon, making it impossible to climb down and swim across even if Brann would agree to immerse himself in water.

(It should be pointed out here that somewhere along the line Brann's player decided that the Highlander religion considers the sea, and water in general, demonic and unclean. The receding oceans are proof that the Highlander gods are demonstrating their might by repelling their enemies. Later on we decided that their prohibition against water is so complete that Brann, a priest, never drinks the stuff straight. Only after it has been purified by being distilled into uskibaya - whisky, that is - is it safe to take internally.)

Skabbost is the only place to cross the Bruachburn. Here lie the decaying hulks of several ships that have sunk over the years, along with some peculiar ancient effigies of ships. The things are made entirely out of metal, after all - how could they ever have actually floated? These immobile iron hulls serve as anchor points for bridge segments.

As Galbraith and Brann had feared, the bridge is guarded by Flatlanders. Two men stand guard while four maintain a small campsite nearby. Taking them all at once doesn't sound plausible, so they decide to wait for nightfall and attempt stealth or ambush. When dark falls, two men sleep while two eat and two others guard the bridge. It's decided that Brann and Galbraith will take on the two men at the bridge, then attack the other two who are awake while Tain and Roal kill the sleepers.

Night comes and they put the plan in motion. Our two heroes approach the pair on guard and make a little conversation to put them at their ease. Then all hell breaks loose.

It's been a while so I'm a bit fuzzy on how the fight actually broke out, but the two at the bridge each fire their bolt throwers. Both miss, luckily for our heroes. Tain and Roal commence beating the sleeping men with sticks. So far so good. Trouble is, only one of the other two men (remember that third pair?) fires at the heroes. The other goes after the boy Galbraith and Brann are supposed to be escorting.

The dice are with Galbraith this evening. He escapes harm altogether. Brann meanwhile manages to have epic bad and good luck at the same time. In the course of this fight, he scores no fewer than three specific wounds on his opponents. They're mere enemies, so that puts each of them down. However, he also takes so many bayonet wounds, plus a bolt to the forehead, that he's down to 0 damage resistance. If he were to take another hit, he would have to make a check against his resulting damage resistance (a negative number after that). If he failed - he would die.

Incredibly, Tain and Roal have pretty much the same luck. The young Skullcracker scores a specific wound on a Flatlander and kills the man with a crushing blow to the throat. Roal takes a bayonet thrust to the guts and falls 0 damage. Stabs and blows rain down on Tain, and soon he's down to 0 damage as well. Now Galbraith and Brann come running to their aid. (The whole fight has taken maybe six or eight combat rounds, so less than one minute of in-game time).

By now only one Flatlander is left standing. Galbraith freezes him in place with his paralyzing glare (the one spell his mother left him). Brann shows no mercy, cutting the man down with a blow from each ax. The only sound is that of the blades biting into him, the immobilized soldier unable even to scream as he dies.

The boys are simultaneously elated and queasy, relieved to have lived through the fight but more than a little horrified at how it ended for that last poor Flatlander bastard. Final tally: six invading soldiers hacked and bludgeoned to death, three heroes at 0 damage. The clean up after themselves by appropriating the guards' supplies and bolt throwers, then fling the bodies into the Bruachburn. They're only really paying attention to what happens to the last two. One vanishes abruptly beneath the surface. The other goes down just slowly enough for them to glimpse the pasty, decaying hand that reaches up to pull the dead man down.

"Told you water was evil," says Brann. There's general agreement.

[markkrawec]

Episode the Fourth

A rules observation - I had started out a little concerned about PC fragility, what with starting characters having at most 5 damage and weapon damage topping out at 4 points (more, if the weapon has a damage bonus). But the healing rules are more generous than they appear at first glance, and a couple of days of wandering in the woods has even the worst off character back in fighting trim.

With the fight at the bridge cleaned up, the party sets off to cross the river. When they reach the last iron "boat" in the series, they pause to take a look at what's going on on the other side. Sure enough, it's guarded by Flatlanders as well. Galbraith decides to go ahead alone and talk to the pair of soldiers on duty, partly because he might be able to magically cloud their minds and partly because he's the only one who hasn't been stabbed nearly to death in the past (game time) half hour.

He intends to approach them stealthily, but fails his stealth check. The metal door through which the bridge runs moves for the first time in centuries and the guards wheel around. He's only one man and not obviously a threat - besides, the guards on the other side must have let him pass, right? - so they don't object to his approaching. There's a little talk, some racist insults from the soldiers, and they wave him through. The exchange has given Brann, Tain and Roal time to clean themselves up as best they can, and they and the pack lizard with which they've been traveling hobble along after Galbraith and on down the road.

Once they're out of sight of the soldiers, the party heads back into the woods. They make slow progress over the next couple of days, staying out of sight of Flatlander patrols and letting the wounded recover. On the afternoon of the third day they come to a perfectly circular clearing in the wood, in the center of which is a well. Its stones are covered with deeply carven runes, and although the outside is festooned with moss and lichen the interior is clean and dry. Galbraith and Brann both have the arcane languages talent and attempt to read the carvings after clearing away some of the overgrowth. Brann can make nothing of them, but Galbraith gets a few lines about the well of sacrifice and divine power. "Aha!" he declares. "This is a source of magical wisdom!" He begins trying to figure a way to get down the well. Brann doesn't like the sound of that and scans the area with his clairvoyance. Sure enough, four robed figures are headed their way. Brann warns the party and they take cover to watch the well.

In a few minutes the four figures Brann saw emerge from a forest path and fan out around the clearing. Their faces are hidden by hoods, but it's clear they know something is up. Galbraith suddenly repents of cleaning off that moss, but that ship has sailed. The four figures ring the well and each raises a hand to it. The brothers note with some concern that each of the figures is missing a finger or two from that hand, and that it has pretty clearly been burnt off. They aren't reassured by the column of thick black smoke that begins to rise from the well, or the twining flames that follow. Our heroes crouch lower and hold their collective breath, hoping the situation will blow over. No good. The flame pulls itself into a cohesive trunk and begins arcing around over the heads of the (it's suddenly obvious) cultists like a snake searching for prey, and they realize it's time to get the hell out of Dodge.

Three rounds of running for their lives ensue. The cultists cast a spell that causes the earth to quake and sunder beneath their feet. It "attacks" them every round, and if it scores a hit something bad happens. On the first round, the victim just falls down (Roal is the only one to be "hit" on this round). On the second, the victim suffers a minor injury by falling on broken rocks or twisting an ankle (Tain again!). On the third, the victim drops into a chasm and is heard from no more. All the Highlanders avoid this sad fate, but the pack lizard that's carrying all their gear plummets into a crevasse. Galbraith attempts to run to the rescue. The poor creature is trapped on a ledge some way down, but nobody has any rope to try to help it back up. He bids the lizard a teary farewell and the group keeps running. (Brann meanwhile has scored a heroic success on his movement check and is flying down the mountainside like some kind of Martian parkour expert.)

At long last they outrun the tremors. Another day of walking brings them at last to Rannoch, where Roal's brother receives them with a great feast and plenty of uskibaya. The wounded rest, the grateful villagers provide the two brothers with another pack beast, and they set off back toward Banfuar.

Now that they aren't traveling with a fugitive, they feel free to follow the road. At least, that is until they come to the first gibbet. A dead Highlander is splayed on a great wheel atop a post by the side of the road. On the post is a notice in the Highlander and Flatlander languages declaring that the punishment for the treacherous ambush of troops at Midhowe has only begun. Disgusted, guilty and wrathful, the brothers take down the dead man's body and lay him to rest in a proper cairn of stones the scrape together. The road is obviously still dangerous; it's back into the woods.

Now, Galbraith's Obsession had begun to fixate on the Ghost Ring back when they first encountered it. It was only strengthened by the tale the woodsmen told him of it being the cursed tomb of a long dead Highlander king. Galbraith has the lore talent, and a successful check told him that part of the mountain had never been under the control of any king. It had instead been a no-man's land throughout history. This seemed like the perfect time to go and check it out. After all, they had to be wandering about the hills rather than following the road anyway, right?

Brann isn't very happy with that idea - the well hadn't exactly turned out swimmingly - but goes along with it. The brothers return to the ghost ring and succeed at a magic resistance check to force their way past the feeling of dread and antipathy it generates. At the center of the ring is a squat cylindrical building with a hemispherical roof. There's a door with no handle or hinges, oddly formed, as if it were meant for something not the shape of a man. They can't break it down, but in the end they manage to smash a small hole through it, introduce a spear and lever it open.

Within is a ramp of metal mesh that leads down into a space lit by a faint green glow. The brothers follow it down and are astonished to see a bizarre tree. Its trunk and branches are perfectly straight, and at the end of each branch, sitting in a perfectly flat leaf, is a fist-sized green fruit. It's these fruit that are giving off the light. The ramp winds around the tree down to the very lowest branches. Galbraith wonders what it could be growing in and jumps down to check it out, but finds only a smooth bowl of stone floor.

The obvious if possibly suicidal thing to do is to pick a fruit. The brothers gingerly pull one loose. It comes free from the grasp of a bunch of little suckers, like a vine uses to cling to a wall, with no ill effect. The brothers start breathing again and pick a few more.

The crucial question at this point is, of course, is there any way to get these things to explode? Only one way to find out. The brothers take their harvest up to ground level and fling a few. Nothing. Brann commences smashing one on the floor of the chamber. Nothing. (The players started questioning whether I was stalling because I didn't know what was in there either, but it was just that I had set the difficulty for cracking the stupid things too high.)

At last Brann flings one against the ramp with all his might. His player succeeds on this check and the fruit splits open - and vanishes in a burst of eye searing light. It's pure luck that Brann isn't incinerated in the blast of energy released, which disintegrates a swath of the ramp.

("There's two things you really don't want to hear the GM say," says his player. "'Ewwwh', then 'So, uh ... what's your movement rating?'")

Once they've recovered from the shock, the brothers realize that what they've got here is a bunch of incredibly dangerous explosives. Things may be about to start going very wrong for the Flatlanders.

[markkrawec]

Episode the Fifth


Some quick notes on the final session of the story. It was a roller coaster ride for characters & players both, with several cycles of alternating epic victory & epic disaster. The highlights:

• Galbraith finally goes insane for a few hours
  
• Brann gets talked into investigating another dangerous ruin
  
• Galbraith loses another lizard
  
• our heroes find a flying boat
  
• they recover an armory of deadly weapons of the Ancients and raise a rebel army
  
• half of whom turn out to be under the sway of a Flatland wizard's mind control magic
  
• they rain explosive fruit down on the Flatland army
  
• who shoot the boat up with their bolt throwers
  
• the wizard casts a spell on Galbraith that makes him suicidal
  
• so he makes a kamikaze dive into the midst of the troop column, inflicting hideous casualties
  
• Galbraith gets shot over & over
  
• but still manages to kick one explosive into the wizard's arms & set it off with a shot from an Ancient weapon
  
• they recover their father, who was in chains beside the now bisected wizard, load him aboard the boat, soar into the air & set off the rest of the explosives, cutting the Flatlander platoon to smoking chunks
  

All in all a suitably dramatic end with plenty of reverses for the heroes & the villains. A preposterous jump in cinematicity (?) from a death struggle to kill six conscripts in episode 3 to an aerial bombardment & running gunfight, complete with 80s action movie Main Badguy kill. Brann even rappelled from the air skiff at one point.

[mazirian]

Oh shoot, I didn't realize you were posting these updates. The forum didn't notify my by email.

This was a truly excellent game. Mark is one of those great GMs that makes everything come alive. Things that would have been so commonplace with another GM, like a mad hermit in the woods, were sources of nail biting tension for us in this game (do we venture under the animated tentacle tree decorated with ghastly ornaments?). The fire god erupting from the well was another epic moment that might not have been very memorable in another's hands. I'm GM'ing next in the game group and the bar has been set quite high now.

The last session was so satisfying. It wrapped up as well as it possibly could have. We missed a few obvious clues that would have led to a quicker resolution, but the GM accommodated our nutty plan in the end. Galbraith's nemesis made a show, which made it all that much more satisfying. So, again, the "Story So Far" section of the character sheet paid dividends in game.

The game system held up remarkably well under all manner of weird conflicts. I sometimes found myself wishing I had a few more skill points and magical abilities, but we were playing beginning characters so I have no real cause for complaint there. I regret not getting into the progression mechanics, but maybe we'll take up this story line again some time given that both character's miraculously survived (I tried to martyr Galbraith at least twice in the last session).

[markkrawec]

That's one other thing I forgot to mention. If you go by the last two stories, our group's motto is evidently "when in doubt, crash a vehicle into it."

[mazirian]

Heh, I'm that guy.

Also, I just remembered the lizard's name: Mungo.

[markkrawec]

Highlanders of Mars: Episode the Fifth

In which it is driven home once again that trying to predict how PCs will react is a sucker's bet.

The last session ended with Brann miraculously avoiding being disintegrated by the burst from a broken energy fruit. The brothers' response to this is the obvious one: they run back into the bunker and collect as many of them as they can. When the tree is stripped bare and all the fruit have been lobbed outside the circle of repulsion - a precaution against not being able to make it back through to get more - the two step out. All would have been well if it hadn't been just after midnight. It's a new day & a new chance for Galbraith to go mad. This is day 10, so there's a 10% chance of a fit. Galbraith's player rolls ...

And beats the odds. Galbraith goes off the deep end. In moments he's stripped down to his skivvies and runs off into the woods, a boom pod in each hand. Brann takes off in pursuit and has his usual success with Movement checks - he sails over root and under branch like a bird while Galbraith stumbles & falls. Brann quickly overtakes his runaway brother & restrains him, but as he does so the woods fill with the sound of fluttering wings.

Out of nowhere, an enormous insect flies down & lands on one of the fruit. The fruit's green glow almost immediately begins to fade. Brann realizes the bug is draining the energy from the thing & takes a shot at it with an ax. Luck is with him again: he cuts the bug neatly in two without cracking the pod & setting off another deadly blast. Mad Galbraith is overwrought with horror at the tragic death of the creature, who he has decided was his first follower, & insists on giving both its halves a decent burial. Fortunately this eats up enough time that the fit of madness doesn't last too much longer & they can go on their way.

This is where the sucker's bet part comes in.

I had expected the sight of the Highlander on the gibbet to drive our heroes to seek vengeance on the Flatlanders. Instead, they're reluctant to show their faces around Banfuar out of a (not unreasonable) concern that the villagers will blame them for their suffering. Galbraith has never forgotten the glimpse they got of the castle on the mountainside as they first set out with Tain & Roal; he suggests the two investigate it now, since they've got no other pressing appointments just then. Brann argues that it's another chance at a hideous death with no guarantee of reward. Galbraith insists the hoard of explosive fruit is a sign that ancient ruins are bound to be full of good stuff.

In the end Brann agrees. They cache the fruit in a small cave & set out for the high castle. Once again Brann uses his clairvoyance to scout ahead. The path to the castle is a scene of strange devastation. The rocks are scorched, it looks like there has been at least one enormous fire, & there are bits of Flatlander equipment lying scattered. At least there's no sign of anything going on right now, so the two forge ahead.

It's a hard scrabble up to the castle, but eventually they reach it. This must be an old fortress indeed, because it's fronted by a wharf. High above them stands an ancient pier, now 100 feet above the mountain slope, with one of those metal boat-like things still dangling from it. They find the mountainside as Brann saw it in his vision & note a couple more odd things: the scorch marks are bolt fire, all aimed up at the castle; & the slope is entirely devoid of plant life, not so much as a blade of grass or patch of lichen left.

The brothers make their way up to the entrance to the castle. A variety of doors present themselves, all fronted by a wide paved area from which the pier projects. A couple look big enough to drive a hay wagon through; some are wide but low; the one in the center is about the right size for a man to pass through. They try that one. A voice from nowhere speaks in a language they don't understand & a band of light passes over Galbraith from head to toe & back. He's carrying a couple of the explosive fruit & the light lingers on the area where he's got them packed away.

After a moment the door opens onto a long, dark hallway. The brothers cautiously enter. Suddenly a circle of six blue lights appears at about head height appears and begins to come closer. These prove to be the eyes of a pack-beast sized beetle whose shell seems to be made of burnished green metal. It stops before Galbraith & extends two manipulators from the underside of its head. Galbraith places the explosive fruit into the manipulators & the beetle tucks it away into its abdomen. The beetle turns away & heads back down the hall. Excellent! think the brothers, we're in!

Unfortunately there's another giant beetle right behind the other one, which walks up the wall & goes back the way it came on the ceiling. Galbraith offers up his other fruit, only to be confronted by yet another beetle. Brann gives up one of his, then another. This is getting them nowhere fast. Galbraith tries to hitch a ride on one of the beetles, but it scrapes him off & leaves him behind.

Now they're out of fruit but the beetles are still coming. The brothers try to convey with sign language that they're bust. The beetles don't take this well. Galbraith gets pinned again & this time the beetle opens a hatch that's full of hooks & blades. They reach for Galbraith in a way that makes it clear that if there's no fruit on the menu the beetle will be happy to make a meal of him! Luckily he's able to work his way free. He & Brann make a run for it, but there's nowhere to go but out the pier. A swarm of giant metal beetles pursues, slowed down for a moment when they overrun the pack lizard.

The brothers have nowhere else to go but down the rope to the dangling boat below. Brann makes the descent, but Galbraith loses his grip and plummets. The hundred-foot fall would have been certain death if Brann hadn't managed to grab his arm on the way by. Brann makes his strength check, but Galbraith fails his; the holy man keeps his grip, but the Most Excellent arm gets badly dislocated. Brann pops the hatch on the vessel and goes in. Galbraith follows, groaning in agony.

[gt8595b]

that was frackin AWESOME X0.

Mark, did you improvise this game?

-mike

[markkrawec]

Thanks mike! I had some notes about key personalities - Tain, Roal, the Intelligencer, Cuween Mossbeard - & locations on a sketched map. Plus some river monsters the boys avoided. The ambush manqué was an improv & so was the volcano god. If I didn't keep a list of names handy I wouldn't even have had one for him.

Which reminds me, the story isn't even finished. What happened was this ...

(continued in next post)

[markkrawec]

Highlanders of Mars: Episode the Fifth

Part Two

Safe inside the mysterious boat, Brann & Galbraith examine the cabin. In a small receptacle in the rear is one of those explosive fruit! Up front, the controls are marked with a script that our heroes, thanks to their Arcane Languages talents, can sort of read. One switch is marked "unleash". Or something. It might mean "release the power of the boat", or it might mean "release the rope & let them fall to their death". No way to know without trying. Click!

Lucky for them it does mean turn on the engine. Little by little the boat rises until it's floating at the end of its tether. Use of the medicine talent gets Galbraith's dislocated shoulder reduced, so he's the one to climb out on the hull and cast off. Brann experiments with the controls until he can steer the vehicle.

Now, what to do with a flying boat? Why, reconnoitre the city of robot beetles of course. Over the wall they fly and search the vacant city within until they spot what looks like a barracks. Galbraith takes the wheel and Brann rappels down to search. Within he finds a whole rack of what look like a variation on Flatlander rifles. There's just time to grab one before more of those d**n beetles show up. Brann retreats.

Back on the boat, he takes a few pot shots at the beetles. The effect of the rifle is devastating. Plainly they need to collect them all. But how to get around the beetles? Of course! Aerial bombardment.

In an hour they've flown back to the ghost ring. They collect their stash of boom pods, load them aboard the boat and return to the city. After some bombing and sniping from above, during which they destroy a giant metal centipede that comes to attempt to repair the damage they're causing, Brann returns to the barracks and collects the rest of the weapons.

As they leave for the last time, they spot what's left of the pack lizard on the pier: some pieces of metal from its harness fittings. Whatever those beetles are, they've consumed every scrap of organic material on the lizard, including its teeth, bones, & leather straps.

Now the revolution is on. They set up camp in the woods outside Banfuar and begin recruiting fighters. Little by little they build a guerrilla army that will attack the Flatlander troops as they move through a segment of road between two wooded hills. The day for the attack comes. All is in readiness. The Flatlanders appear and Galbraith gives the signal!

Their men start shooting each other. Unbeknownst to them, a powerful Flatlander magician has been ensorcelling their recruits. Half of them are under his control and can only fire on their comrades.

The battle goes as described above, ending with the Flatlander troops in chunks and the evil magician dead. Now that he's dead, his control over the Highlanders is broken. The battle is over. The invaders are routed - for now - Brann and Galbraith's father repents of his collaboration with them, and the village celebrates its victory.