Sentinel Comics RPG – Kaiju Hunters, Collection 6 – “A Place To Call Home”

Welcome to the sixth and final collection of us playing the Sentinel Comics RPG with our Aussie family of Kaiju hunters. This collection revolves around finally finding our wayward relative The Umbral and stopping his villainy one way or the other – and The Yowie’s love life!

Follow along with our exploits!

Thirty-first Session – “Dark Side of the Moon”
Kaiju Defenders International (KDI) is doing well. Our sidekick team the Bondi Beach Brawlers are doing well, El Genio has an evil infiltrator girlfriend, and Golden Key, Overwatch, and Dynamo Joe have upgraded themselves. The Yowie is torn by his love for both social media maven Dr. Broussard and the giant queen of the Endlings, Jansa Vi Dero. However it is marred by our missing family member Haskell Marston, aka The Abyssal, aka The Umbral who has turned to evil and is lurking in some dimension or another. Sure enough, The Harpy shows up to tell us he’s abducted the Argent Adept. We have to go to the Moon to save him and then back to the Harpy’s manor to try to save a MacGuffin, but the Umbral is ahead of us at every turn.

Thirty-second Session – “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina”
We save the Sydney Harbor Bridge from “The Kookaburra” but then all our love lives go nuclear. The Yowie’s love triangle with Dr. Broussard and Jansa Vi Dero… El Genio’s torrid affair with an evil infiltrator… Golden Key’s dalliance with a chick who likes to cosplay as his ex-wife.. Dynamo Joe and the secretary based on “Roz” from Monsters Inc… Overwatch and Feral Juggernaut from the Brawlers… But evil does not rest and we have to to back to Argentina and deal with Guarani demigods to fend off Ivana Romanat, aka Baroness Blade, and her goon squad.

Thirty-third Session – “Around The World In About Eight Hours”
We are drawn too far into the land of the telenovela and go back to our home in Australia to decompress. Except for The Yowie, whose layover in El Salvador is interrupted by a summons from Jansa Vi Dero for a DTR talk. Meanwhile Sulimar the Magnificent is abducted from his magic shop leading the KDI crew to Hesse, Germany to fight some Aryan villains. “But no one who speaks German could be evil,” we lament!

Thirty-fourth Session – “They Snowblinded Me With Science”
After more love triangle drama we are off to Longyearbyen, Svalbard (home of the Global Seed Vault!) in Norway, which is having dinosaur attack problems. No one bothers to mention that cats are banned there, which is good because we’d probably leave them to their Eurotrash fate if we heard. We fend off the dinos and go to the EISCAT scatter radar station (it’s not Ikeas up there, they got lots of science). The Umbral is behind it but his plot is foiled by Yan-Gannoth the Nadir King and we have to pound on him and some rando villains. Then at the end a troll(?) appears from somewhere(?) to be seduced by El Genio(?). Your guess is as good as mine.

Thirty-fifth Session – “Neighbors”
Our grand opening of the Singapore branch of KDI is full of conflict – everyone’s women (including both Dr. Broussard and Jansa Vi Dero, which is a problem) but then also the Bondi Beach Brawlers don’t want to just be sidekicks any more. We set up a giant fight in the simulator with Yowie as a kaiju that needs subduing against the Brawlers and the other Marsden clan as sub-villans. We pound the Brawlers but they learn a valuable lesson. Then we go to the Dreamtime and fight the most dangerous enemy – Australian wildlife!

Thirty-sixth Session – “Wake in Fright”
The grand finale of our Sentinels campaign! We go to our final showdown with wayward family member The Umbral. Some are willing to kill him to end the threat! To others, blood is thicker than water! Atlantis! Cthulhu! Time travel! Dimensional travel! And most importantly, which woman (and personal fate) will The Yowie choose? Read on, true believers!!!

Sentinel Comics RPG – Kaiju Hunters, Collection 5 – “The Heart of Egg-celeration”

Welcome to the fifth collection of us playing the Sentinel Comics RPG with our Aussie family of Kaiju hunters. This collection revolves around Golden Key, his roguish ex-wife Ermine, their baby Rain, and alien weirdos wanting to get the “Heart of Acceleration” from him (well, probably from his limp body).

Follow along with our exploits!

Twenty-fifth Session – “My China Girl”
We did so well in Shanghai at the end of last issue that we have a secondary HQ there now. Our second string team, the Bondi Beach Brawlers, is getting pretty butch and star in their own cartoon show. And Golden Key’s villainous ex-wife (aren’t they all) and baby get kidnapped again! Talk about fridging! They want the Heart of Acceleration, which I guess is like the Speed Force from the Flash. We save her but I (The Yowie) get my ass well and truly kicked in the process. After recovering with lots of hot-pot, we decide rather than let the space baddies come after us again, we’re going to proactively hunt them down – IN SPACE!!!

Twenty-sixth Session – “Snarfhockers”
Super space battle! We use our new attack ship the McTits to attack General Stryken’s Domination. Pretty much one big fight scene, from ship combat to boarding to hand to hand on the enemy ship. Remember, even though “In space, no one can hear you scream,” your copilot will still turn around and tell your bitch ass to shut up. (Yes, this is a Star Thugs reference. RIP Mark Argyle.)

Twenty-seventh Session – “Battle of the Bands”
Splitting time between stalking Golden Key’s ex-wife and looting the Domination of alien tech somehow ends up with us forming a rock band to take on an evil rock band, Helfyre. Our band ends up consisting of Ermine on vocals, 4 entirely different genres of drums, and El Genio stripped to the waist and playing the saxophone like the guy in The Lost Boys. Then, a big ass battle. It has something to do with the Heart of Acceleration somehow since we need a theme.

Twenty-eighth Session – “Bung on a Blue”
A very short session, mostly spent on forcing the Bondi Beach Bruisers to fight Fright Train by themselves. But hey get the home field advantage since we do it at Bondi Beach! It was on for the young and the old, a real barney. There is a perhaps unsurprisingly large number of Australian slang terms for a brawl.

Twenty-ninth Session – “Stowaway”
We take the Domination to planet Vollax and infiltrate Kronus Station in orbit around it with El Genio posing as the captured General Stryken. We disguise and sneak and sabotage and then break out into a good old fashioned melee. We capture Scientist Karna and plan on how to take the fight to the Unspeakable Wave! (To be honest, we’re not really sure what the Unspeakable Wave is – sounds like it might be weirder than some alien in Spandex but I guess we’ll find out.)

Thirtieth Session – “You Can’t Make An Omelet…”
If you haven’t noticed yet, Sentinels is organized into six “issues” of a “collection”, comic style, so this was inevitably a climax. We discover a giant Cosmic Egg and a priest-attended, Unspeakable Wave-infused – kaiju! Our specialty. We take it down, the Wave comes out, the scientist zaps it – all to plan, but then the Cosmic Egg starts hatching, which will apparently be a Neverending Story level negative event. The Yowie considers sacrificing himself somehow (getting in the egg?) but luckily enough violence solves all problems. And he gets to see the giant Jansa Vi Dero again and lay some mack down on her.

Sentinel Comics RPG – Kaiju Hunters, Collection 4 – “The Semi-Secret Invasion”

Our fourth collection of the Sentinels RPG with our Aussie family of Kaiju hunters. The Umbral turns into a villain and then the rest of us turn into pretend villains and see the world. Meet the Yowie’s new alter ego, “Creepy Uncle!”

Follow along with our exploits!

Nineteenth Session – “The Savage and Confusing Land”
We take the Argent Adept who wields the Zither of Zarathorpe on an ekranoplan to the island of Insula Primalis to find the Nexus of the Void because… The Heretic is being controlled by the spirit Song of the Swarm… Or something… Jesus, I don’t even know any more. We do fight dinosaurs though.

Twentieth Session – “Inception”
From Insula Primalis, we go into the Void, which is remarkably like everywhere else, but then from there we go on a ganja-fueled vision quest and fight the Song of the Swarm. But the main villain as usual turns out to be our player-comrade Bruce, as his character Umbral goes full villain!

Twenty-first Session – “Rock Me, Dr. Chaos”
We “welcome” Bruce’s new character, the Argentinian two-fisted super-scientist El Genio. And we finally get to do more stuff back home in Australia instead of the less weird super-dimensions we keep going to! Sure enough, we go out to Woop Woop Station in the Outback where a “Razorbeast” has stomped the town flat. We go out to the aurichalcite mine and it is inhabited by Dr. Chaos!!! Chaos ensues.

Twenty-second Session – “Eat This Kitten!”
We had loads of fun in this one – Golden Key has been going undercover as a villain, “Black Clavis,” and since his ex-wife and baby momma gets abducted we all join him in a place inspired by the Evil Eye Cafe from The Tick. We took great glee in coming up with supervillain identities. Kanga-Crime! El Rato de Piedra! And I take on the identity of “Creepy Uncle,” whose Grunkle Slam attack gives him the proportional strength of ten uncles. Many of my creepiest lines were omitted from the session summary by our delicate WASP session scribe. And then we go shoot up Kuala Lumpur.

Twenty-third Session – “Clones a-poppin’!”
We go to the Biomancer’s island and fight all manner of freakydeaks from antibody bots to radioactive shrubberies to cloned versions of Malaysian superheroes to cloned versions of ourselves! And we rescue Golden Key’s ex-wife and daughter.

Twenty-fourth Session – “Are Those Tentacles Or Are You Just Happy To See Me”
A giant Vibravore from the planet Vollax attacks Shanghai! We go there to beat it into submission and shoot it with N-rays and/or Q-rays but are then confronted with the dual threats of alien goons and wealthy Communists. The Oriental Pearl Tower and the Qingpu Loop Waterside Park may never be the same again, but we save Shanghai Disneyland at least.

Sentinel Comics RPG – Kaiju Hunters, Collection 3 – “Kaiju World Tour”

Our third collection of the Sentinels RPG with our Aussie family of Kaiju hunters went swimmingly. I (The Yowie) got bone cursed and had to go to the Dreamtime to fix that up, that was fun.

Follow along with our exploits!

Thirteenth Session – “New Charleston Incursion”
The Abyssal is now The Umbral, sinking even deeper into dark magic depravity. We go pub crawling until we are interrupted with a call for help fighting kaiju off from New Charleston Island. If the Samoans can’t handle it, it must be bad! Sure enough, it’s basically Starship Troopers except most of us don’t have guns, or look good naked. And Yowie gets a death curse put on him for appropriating Aboriginal magic. Fair enough.

Fourteenth Session – “The Beginning of the Endlings”
We get to meet the Endlings, which is some Jack Kirby on crack shit. Yowie likes the Terminarch, Jansa Vi Dero, because she’s huge! We then go to catch a kaiju for her, but of course way more dangerous than a giant monster is some rich one percenter bastard.

Fifteenth Session – “The Dreamtime”
The Aboriginal sorcerer Merricumana refuses to lift the bone curse from Yowie, which means we have to venture into the Dreamtime to try to fix the problem! We go to Ayers Rock and smoke it up and sure enough we end up in the Dreamtime. We then have to intervene in various Very Symbolic Activities, hoping that we are intervening in a way that will help and not hurt. And then we get to fight dark versions of ourselves! Except for Umbral, who fights a jolly shining elf version of himself (I’m kidding).

Sixteenth Session – “Fear the Bunyip”
After enjoying some finger limes, we have to fight some weirdo carrying a giant black rock and protect a giant white rock who has two cute lil’ whale and koala pals. We are traumatized by having to fight the cute guys. We fight the Bunyip, the Yowie dies but is brought back to life by the Rainbow Serpent, and defeats the Bunyip with the help of his friends… We return successful to the waking world, to be confronted with a plague of spore-bearing pterodactyls.

Seventeenth Session – “What To Expect When You’re Expecting”
First we have to save Sydney from a rampaging Kangasaurus Rex (or, as we like to call it, “Tuesday”) when Golden Key’s daughter from the future comes back! She tells us we must fight the future and so we go to Zurich and fight a Tatzylwyrm and eat Strudel and look for magical instruments.

Eighteenth Session – “Sleepless in Seattle”
We have to join up with the Argent Adept, who Umbral hates, to fight Heretic, who we all hate, in Seattle, which we all also hate. A random environment generated dude, Stan the Battalion Mechanic, a gruff blue-collar maintenance man who keeps fixing the battle platform we’re trying to invate, becomes a favorite of ours during the fight so we recruit him once we win.

Sentinel Comics RPG – Kaiju Hunters, Collection 2 – “Atlantean Memories”

Our second collection of six issues (game sessions) of the Sentinel Comics RPG hits newsstands! In a desperate bid from alliteration, we go from Australia to Argentina to Atlantis over the course of the arc. We ally with El Genio, fight The Heretic, and then alternately ally with and fight the Luminary/Baron Blade.

You don’t really “level up” in Sentinels RPG, you just can do anything from swap little things to rebuild at the end of a collection. I (The Yowie) don’t change much but others do.

We’ve gotten used to the rules and the “ticking clock” of each combat. I do wish there was a little more texture to the rules – you really need to min-max those dice to get successes, and there’s not much to do with them if you don’t have a power other than the basic moves, so we have started doing the same moves a lot.

Follow along with our exploits!

Seventh Session – “We Come From A Land Down Under”
We travel from Australia to Argentina to earn our “international Kaiju hunter” certification from GLOBAL. There a giant hydra is molesting both the livestock and the gauchos. We fend it off with the help of El Genio (think El Santo), who is laid low in the process.

Eighth Session – “The Serpent and the Rainbow”
The heroes take on an Argentinian black site with a super-scientist in residence. Then things get really weird and we go deal with a bunch of gods of the Guarani people, including a set of challenges from Jasy Jatere and a wrestling match with Teju Jagua to get some juice from the infinita fruit to heal El Genio.

Ninth Session – “American Serpent”
The Heretic demands 300 billion pesos or else he’ll destroy the Los Caracoles Dam and flood a lot of San Juan. We defeat the hydra and head out to find the Heretic, who has taken refuge in a vineyard and winery. Little does he realize that we are Australian and drinking plonk is one of our superpowers!

Tenth Session – “Armenian Vodka”
We get our own rooms back at Kaiju Defence Inc. headquarters until we are interrupted by a host of giant tentacles. Then we go sit down for a lovely Mordengradian lunch with what turns out to be the deposed Baron Blade aka the Luminary aka Ivan Romanat! Well obviously we have to team up with him to go to Atlantis…

Eleventh Session – “The Inevitable Betrayal”
Baron Blade turns on us and sics Cthulhu on us. We try to look surprised. He bails after we grind his forces to cornmeal and smack Space Cthulhu around. Piece of piss.

Twelfth Session – “Reality Discontinuity”
The Abyssal freaks out and goes dark magic crazy. But we need to go to a super hero convention, Freedom Con! More chaos than usual ensues.

Sentinel Comics RPG – Kaiju Hunters, Collection 1 – “Kaiju Defenders: Next Gen”

We’ve finished our first collection of six issues (game sessions) of the Sentinel Comics RPG, as our brave Aussies fend off all kinds of kaiju from the Australian shores. You can read all the individual session summaries in depth on our session summaries page (including some kaiju pics!).

Paul’s doing a great job running the game. I’m playing a Magnum P.I. inspired PI who can grow into a giant Australian yeti monster (the Yowie). Bruce is playing the arcane weirdo The Abyssal, Chris is playing speedster X-Celerate, Patrick is playing the gyrocopter-flying Overwatch, and Tim the killer robot Dynamo Joe.

One of my favorite parts has been researching Australian slang terms and phrases and inflicting them on the group. I worked with some Aussies at a startup once so I have some bonus ones to pull out on them. I enjoy the reaction when we pulled up to a trailer park being ravaged by a kaiju and I get to say “Well let’s get started, we didn’t just come here to fuck spiders!” (Do it in a strong Australian accent for best results.)

We’re playing semi-remote. Bruce is in Dallas and the rest of us are in Austin, so we’re using Google Meet and Roll20, though Chris, Patrick, and I have taken to getting together for fellowship and booze.

Follow along with our exploits!

First Session – “Fire on the Deep”
Giant sea serpents and pretty darn big fleas attack an oil rig of the Australian coast and need fending off! It’s hard yakka!

Second Session – “Scared Heart Hospital”
The fleas have infected everyone with chest-bursting fleas and we have to go flea stomping yet again, and end up fighting a giant mutated dog in a trailer park with many bogans looking on.

Third Session – “Between the Tasmanian Devil and the Deep Blue Sea”
The heroes have to go defend a supervillain transport barge from the attack of a giant mutated kaiju. You’d think the yobbos would be grateful, but of course not.

Fourth Session – “Melbourne Nights”
The Vegemite factory in Melbourne is at risk from not one but two kaiju! The heroes must overcome their greatest hurdle yet – getting to Melbourne from Sydney.

Fifth Session – “Basic Cthulhus and Catwomen”
The Dijkstra Museum of History in Sydney is threatened both by a giant sea kaiju called “Squidface” from without and from Ermine and the Gentleman (think Catwoman/Black Cat and Gentleman Ghost before he dies and becomes a ghost) inside. And our emo bro Nightwalker gets sucked into some bad dimension.

Sixth Session – “Advanced Cthulhus and Catwomen”
X-Celerate hooks up with villainess Ermine and gets to know her intimately and impregnates her. At the same time, the Nexus of the Void gets to know Nightwalker intimately and impregnates him. We rescue one of the two of them. Finally we go to a big spooky mansion to have it out with Cthulhu (aka the Herald of xxtz’Hulissh).

Kaiju Defenders, a Sentinel Comics Campaign

A new campaign begins! We have played a lot of the Sentinels of the Multiverse co-op card game, and they came out with a RPG version, Sentinel Comics.

So Paul decided to run a campaign of it! We ran some one-shots of it when we were short players for Reavers. I played a succubus cop and Patrick played a “The Question” type character.

For this campaign, Kaiju Defenders, we’re all playing a “family” (for a version of family that includes killbots) whose family business is defending Australia against the depredations of kaiju! (That’s “giant monsters” for the untutored.)

Character generation for Sentinels is guided randomness. I like this as it is a fun challenge to come up with a concept that fits the mechanics. In fact, check out this totally random Sentinels character generator – I love making a completely random character and then spinning a story that makes it all make sense!

My character’s normal identity is Hugh Sullivan Marston. Hugh was in the Royal Australian Navy and become an Australian Defence Force Investigative Service officer. He was shot and tossed off a sea cliff by Spite in the midst of an investigation, washed up in a sea cave, and found an ancient dead aboriginal shaman with a magical spear that gave him the power of the Yowie! 

He then left the Navy and joined the family business to live a carefree Magnum P.I. style life.

Although since he’s Australian maybe it’s more of a Quigley Down Under kind of thing. I’m feeling it out with the help of various Australian slang dictionaries.

The Yowie is an Australian bigfoot type of creature. I can grow really large, have a mystical spear, can control plants a little… All kinds of fun. And of course has investigation abilities to fall back on.

We’re running the game via Roll20 so our out of town compatriots can still play, so we have 5 players, at least for now! Stay tuned and follow along on our campaign page for session summaries (two are already posted)!

P.S. This new WordPress editor is trash, I have no idea why everyone feels compelled to make their editors worse over time.

Ty & That Guy Podcast

I just got turned on to the video podcast by Ty Franck (one half of James S.A. Corey, author of The Expanse), and Wes Chatham (Amos Burton on The Expanse). It’s fascinating, and in the first episode Ty talks about how he basically used a D&D game to develop the plot – in fact, the core characters like Holden were named by their initial players!

It’s a great podcast about the Expanse, other classic sci-fi we all know and love, and more – check it out on YouTube!

Reavers on the Seas of Fate, Season Five, Twentieth Session

Coral Golem

Twentieth Session (14 page pdf) – “Devil’s Arches, Part IV” – The PCs brave an abandoned secret base full of traps and undead and terrain and other such impediments.

There’s a brutal fight with a coral golem that ends up being an exercise in escape and evasion. Then more elite Chelaxian undead water marines! And a chimera! And traps!

Best quote: Sindawe asks no one in particular, “When will authoritarian regimes realize that aquatic warriors are not the solution to their problems?!?”

Reavers on the Seas of Fate, Season Five, Nineteenth Session

Treasure of Chimera Cove

Nineteenth Session (8 page pdf) – “Devil’s Arches, Part III” – The shore team heads out into Chimera Cove and a secret Chelish naval base. It’s not as abandoned as you’d hope.

So they finally have reached the Treasure of Chimera Cove and delve into it looking for the undead dragon turtle war machine called the Terraken.

They have some fights – giant poison octopus, elite sea zombies – but the trap with the gas and mimics is the most dangerous. PCs hate mimics! They refused to touch anything on the grounds “it could be a mimic” for the rest of the session.

Reavers on the Seas of Fate, Season Five, Eighteenth Session

Devil’s Arch

Eighteenth Session (8 page pdf) – “Devil’s Arches, Part II” – A shore team strikes out across Devil’s Arches to find the resting place of a Chelish naval superweapon. Sindawe has his usual amount of luck with the ladies.

So I did some quick research and decided from geography to base the island on the real world Bissagos Islands. I also had a problem in that I didn’t know where they were going to go necessarily. So here’s my session prep; I looked up some perhaps relevant monsters.

Devil’s Arches (Bissagos islands)
Palm products, coconut, timber, slave trade

The people – animal masks (ox, stingray, shark), 
Ox wars http://www.africanamerica.org/topic/bijago-people-guinea-bissau-african-matriarchal-tribe
river banks are coated in mangroves, blue mud/slime, decay – malaria (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/afflictions/diseases/malaria-jungle-fever) is prevalent, dysentery, yellow fever
Gholdako if investigate arch in city of bleeding stones, duppies maybe
native village 
Soucoyants (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/monstrous-humanoids/soucouyant/) near the cove.  They know to lower a holy symbol of Aroden on 5 fathoms of silver line. But of course they want blood.

That’s all I need to prep sessions nowadays. So I describe the island as they head across it, where they meet some natives I base on the Bijago people. Sindawe gets another visit from Mama Watanna, who doesn’t want them to keep the undead dragon turtle they seek as a weapon, but to set Turtle’s spirit free. Conflict!!!

They don’t bother to go to the City of Bleeding Stones, and then they decide to give their native guides to the soucouyant for their blood to find out how to get into the Terraken base. (The soucouyant is reminiscent of the witch that tries to get Conan and then flies off as a fireball in Conan the Barbarian, I wonder if there was a relation there.)

Reavers on the Seas of Fate, Season Five, Seventeenth Session

Seventeenth Session (12 page pdf) – “Devil’s Arches” – Another naval encounter sets the pirates to flight. They decide to visit Medruzbal on Devil’s Arches, and ply the town for all it’s worth.

The Teeth of Araska, fresh from taking the Solution, is suckered in and ambushed by the Omen, a larger ship with 18 pound guns. They take some shots and decide to break contact, which they manage to do with some quick thinking spell work.

Then they sneak ashore on the island of the Devil’s Arches, where they want to go to Hell Harbor but don’t want to approach it by sea. So they go ashore on Medruzbal and plan to go overland. Luckily my copious collection of Golarion lore gives me some starting points and I improvise from there.

Our session scribe must have been hitting the sauce this time because the jokes roll hard. One of my favorites is “A hungry guard trips the trap while searching for the warthog. He squeals and yells and flops around like a Spanish soccer player.” There’s meme references, like “The torturer is dragged off to the gibbet. ‘You got knocked the fuck out!’ exclaim his soon-to-be-ex-comrades.” There’s inside jokes. Festive!