One-Shot: Feng Shui 2nd Ed: Tomb-Rollers!

Yesterday we played a one-shot of Feng Shui 2nd Ed. I have, of course, run this game before - we played a campaign that last just about a year and a half, ending almost nine years ago. 

Anyway, for this game, I ignored the Chi War entirely and was very happy to have done so. We open our story in Los Angeles, at an abandoned lazer tag arena, now the hideout of the notorious street gang known as the Neon Death Monkeys! 

(If you've seen Batman Forever, imagine the gang Robin's fighting when he steals the Batmobile.)

These Monkeys don't know their days are numbered, however, as a group of unrelated warriors are converging on them...

The skylight (lazer tag arenas have skylights, right?) explodes downward and a man carrying a bow and multiple quivers descends! He is Zhou Yu, the Archer! He is a warrior from the Han dynasty, presently possessing the body of his great-great-etc grandson, Zhou Hu, an Olympic archer. Brought forward in time to rectifying a spiritual imbalance - bringing Zhou Lu, his evil, time-traveling mother, to justice, he looses an arrow and pins a Monkey to a wall! 

The Monkeys respond and one of them, wearing a black suit and a string tie, points at Yu and yells "SHOOT HIM!" (Tactical brilliance, right here.) Some of the Monkeys do, but then a window bursts inwards on the other side of the building and a man in a skull mask appears - Skruller, the Masked Avenger! He shoots one of the Monkeys, and a bunch more run for the exits!

The loading bay doors open, revealing the lean, imposing figure of Reanu Keeves, the Killer! He's been hired to kill the three leaders of the Monkeys - Sneaky Luco, Magenta Marmoset, and Benny the Bite - on behalf of some mysterious employer. All he knows is that they stole something from said employer, an ancient sarcophagus. He just wants to finish this job and go home to feed his beloved pet tortoise. He shoots down a Death Monkey and strides quietly into the room. 

He is followed, however by Wombat Leonard, the Bounty Hunter! Wombat is on the hunt for Magenta Marmoset - they have history (Magenta cut off her ear and stole her koala jacket in a previous encounter). Brandishing her shotgun, Lucille, she calls out Magenta...and Magenta answers, slipping on her brass knuckles and heading for Wombat. 

One final hero enters the fray - Bruce, the Big Bruiser. Bruce is a simple man, a bartender and a roustabout...but was recently diagnosed with a terminal disease. Figuring that his time on Earth is limited, he's decided to do some good for community, and what better way than to fuck up the Neon Death Monkeys? He wades into the fray swinging a bat. 

The Monkeys respond! Some of them shoot at Yu, wounding him, and he drops to the ground. A few pull bats and try to beat on Skruller, but his body armor absorbs it. A couple of have switchblades and poke at Bruce, but he laughs as such trivial injures. Magenta runs along the tops of the thin arena walls and lands in front of Wombat, attempting to punch, but misses, and Wombat and Reanu shoot her! Luco unloads an Uzi at Yu, but Yu rolls and pins him to the wall with a pair of arrows.

The final leader, Benny the Bite draws a machete and closes on Skruller, but again, Skruller is too well-armored. Luco fires wildly at Yu and misses, but hits the sarcophagus (which Yu had landed near). There comes a crack, and evil magic starts to escape. Yu looks on, worried, but continues planting arrows it mooks.

Reanu calmly walks through the carnage, capping off Monkeys, and sees that both Luco and Magenta have been dispatched. He climbs up on a raised vantage point and aims a rifle at Benny, shooting him in the back as Skruller battles him (Benny tries to bite through Skruller's armor with his metal teeth, but that doesn't work, either). Yu leaps up and lands next to Reanu, informing him about the danger of the sarcophagus, but Reanu has a job to do. CRACK.

Benny falls dead, and the last of the Death Monkeys follow a moment later. But the sarcophagus cracks open and disgorges a stream of huge, white moths with skull-like markings on their wings. They flow out of the arena and fly next door...into the Golden Wheels Roller Rink! 

The heroes watch this helplessly, and take a moment to reload and reconnoiter (Yu pokes himself a few times and closes up some bullet wounds). But a moment is all they can afford as people start running from the rink, screaming in terror! More trouble is in the offing, and the five of them head across the street (Reanu perhaps reluctantly, as no one's paying him for this...and yet, a childhood incident involving moths spurs him on). 

The heroes enter the rink to chaos! The patrons have been changed into tomb-walkers...only they're on skates, so more like tomb-rollers! Their skin has gone white and papery, their eyes pure black, and they are covered in thin layers of dust! "We can't let them escape," mutters Skruller. 

"All right, then," says Wombat. She leaps the counter and blasts the Skate Rental guy. He picks up a pair of skates and lashes out! Reanu vaults the half-wall leading to the rink and guns down a few more, while Bruce picks up a goddamn Coke machine and smashes four of the tomb-rollers with it! Skruller steps on a pair of loose skates and rides them all the way down a corridor, shoot tomb-rollers along the way. The Concession Stand guy hisses and runs towards Skruller, a fire extinguisher conspicuously on his back, and claws at the avenger's mask.

An old man (now a tomb-roller) with ill-fitting dentures leaps at Yu, and Yu kicks a cart laden with disinfectant cans at him. He shoots the cans and a cloud of pine-smelling mist erupts in the face of Dentures McGee, but he emerges from the smoke and coughs up a gout of tomb dust at Yu! Meanwhile, an old lady moves with surprisingly speed and claws at Reanu. He leaps up into the lighting and shoots at her, but Old Crazy Mildred scuttles up the wall like a spider at him! He fires again, and she lands on her ass.

The DJ booth erupts to life! The musical stylings of DJ Geritol are bad enough to sap the energy from the heroes! Wombat, having won her battle with Skate Rental Paulie, leaps into the DJ booth and switches the music. Skruller takes down Concession Stand Joey, but his fire extinguisher explodes, injuring Skruller but dropping more tomb-rollers. Reanu leaps down and finishes off Old Crazy Mildred, and Bruce smashes up the last couple of tomb-rollers. 

A hush falls over the roller rink and the heroes regroup. Yu pokes a bunch of them, healing their wounds, and Wombat heads back to the lazer tag arena to find her damn jacket. She does...but also realizes that the sarcophagus is missing! 

Reanu reflects that this only makes sense; he was hired by one Amon Villius to kill the thieves that stole it in the first place. Yu notes that the relief on the side of sarcophagus depicted a death god - a Roman death god named Orcus. Wombat does a bit of detective work and finds a phrases associated with Orcus: cum Orco rationem habere - to reason with Orcus, or to face death. But she's seen that phrase before! It lines a stone archway in an old building in the city!

The heroes head out for their final battle, and find the archway, covered in tomb moths and glowing with purple energy. Skruller rigs up a makeshift flamethrower and torches the moths, but the glow remains. The heroes step through into a strange realm of black stone. A host of undead Roman soldiers await them, and seated on a dais, flanked by an immense warrior with a maul and a skinny emo twink with a mop of black hair sits Orcus himself. "Which of you is Villius?" he booms. "He promised me a tribute." 

The heroes ready their weapons. 

"Oh, you are the tribute!" Orcus stands. "Excellent! Warriors! Kill the tribute!" And the battle is joined!

Orcus charges off the dais and runs into battle with his greatsword, squaring off against Bruce, the obvious warrior of the five. Reanu leaps to a huge stone slab for a better vantage point, but the emo guy scampers up next to him and slashes at him with twin daggers! Skruller torches one of the warriors with his flamethrower and a bunch more run off into the Underworld, and Wombat names Orcus as her quarry and fires Lucille. Bruce battles Orcus, while Yu backs up and hits Orcus with arrows, and Maximus, the big guy, charges into battle and clocks Skruller with his hammer! 

Orcus spins with this sword and knocks Wombat, Bruce, and Skruller back, and Emotus slashes open Reanu's shirt. Blood flows, and Reanu stumbles - will he ever see his tortoise again!? But the sustained assault on Orcus wears him down, and Yu fires what should be the fatal arrow at the death god...but one of his warriors leaps in the way!

Realizing that they cannot kill Orcus while his minions still fight, Skruller torches more of them, sending the survivors running. Reanu kicks Emotus to the stone slab, lands with a foot on his abdomen, and shoots in him the head. He falls, gracefully, landing on the cold, black ground, blood forming the shape of a dove around him. 

The remaining minions gone, Wombat turns Lucille on Orcus, and shoots him down. The god of death falls dead, and his throne goes black and starts to suck in everything around it.

The heroes run...but Bruce picks up Orcus' sword. He feels a pull to the throne, and realizes that if he goes back, he is only going back to die. He takes the sword up, and sits on the throne as Bruce, God of Death! 

The others node respectfully as they leave the death realm. Yu is the last one out, and sees a woman appear from somewhere in the dark and take Bruce's hand - his mother, Zhou Lu, still trying to become a goddess. 

The four of them emerge into the Los Angeles night, and go their separate ways. Reanu heads home to stitch up his wounds and feed Speedster, his tortoise. Wombat goes to get some taquitos and find her next quarry. The Skruller heads back to his hunting grounds to find the Neon Death Monkeys who escaped their first battle. 

And Yu heads back to his apartment, where his venerated ancestor spirit leaves his body...but informs him that the imbalance is not yet corrected. (dramatic music sting) 

Feng Shui: The End

Last night was the final session of our Feng Shui 2nd Ed game that started waaaaaaay back here. Before we get to the finale, some thoughts on the game.

I have said this before, but if I had my druthers, I think I'd have ditched the metaplot and the Chi War setting of the game. Or, at the very least, I'd have kept the central conceit of the Chi War but ditched the existing factions. The best parts of this campaign were the sessions where I was improvising (the splinter juncture in the Old West, the Ladies of Jade & Ivory) and the most draggy parts were where we wound up in the Netherrealm or otherwise dealt with leftovers from the first edition of the game.

That's not a knock on the material, either. It just goes to highlight a central truth of my gaming life right now: The players don't read the book. (In this case, exactly one player read the book, and in fairness he really tried to bring the Chi War into the game for his characters.) If I'm gonna run something with a big elaborate backstory, I need to know it cold because no one else will...and I'm not interested in doing that, for the most part.

I really wish I'd read the book more thoroughly and more than once, because there's a lot of good info in there about running Feng Shui and populating fights. There's also a lot of doodads and apps and whatnot that I don't use because gaming happens at a table with dice and pencils, goddammit. But really, it's a well-written book and it knows exactly what it wants to be, and that's helpful.

I disagree pretty hard about using maps, though. Feng Shui tells us that maps are not our friends, but that's not so. Feng Shui doesn't have a tactical element as far as position minis, that's true, but it very much has tactical elements as far as using the system, using boosts, using Schticks, deciding what kinds of attacks to make, and so forth. That kind of decision is easier to make with a clear picture of the battlefield, and besides which, I tried running this game without a map and it don't fuckin' work. If you populate fights the way the book advises (one Feature Foe plus three mooks per PC), then you have, in a four-player game, 16 NPCs to keep track of, plus any allies or noncombatants or whatever.

So, it's not like you need to count squares, but just having figs on map helps the action move along quickly because I don't have to take the extra brain juice to remember who all is in the fight and where they are.

All in all, though, I had a good time running this game. I think character death is a little more brutal and random than I like, but then, a lot of the game's narrative on predicated on working backwards from your desired outcome (that is, here's the situation, make yourself into it), which also means it's putting a lot of the narrative load on the players, which I like. That maps to death, too - your character died, now make that make sense within the flow of the game. I can dig that.

Right, enough blather. And now, the finale of Feng Shui.

Last time, the Dragons pulled themselves through a crypt and emerged in a huge room done up for a ritual. Bai noticed, however, that the room's feng shui was completely wrong, better suited to invite in dark energy than anything else. The Dragons saw hordes of robed sorcerers, and at the end of the room, a tub filled with sweet-smelling liquid and a human body. They watched as a minion poured blood ("Our blood," murmured Bai) into it...

...and then a blast of magic forced them backwards. They reappeared in the Netherrealm at the foot of some mountains, rocks blocking the way. A woman appeared from the dust - the sorceress that they'd fought while infiltrating the Mountain of Storms, called Ghost Tears. She screeched a challenge, and horrible stunted crawler-people emerged from the rocks. The battle was joined!

The Dragons fought bravely, of course, driving off or killing the crawlers and destroying Ghost Tears. Melody tried to magic the rocks out of the way, but could not ("My magic doesn't seem to work here"). Chrys, knowing the history (and future?) of the Chi War as she does, found the site of a massive battle from the Future juncture that had spilled into the Netherrealm. She got a huge truck working and smashed into the rocks blocking the gate, allowing the dragons ingress.

But where to? They found themselves walking through time, unable to get anywhere. Bai leaped, trying to make it forward, and disappeared. He found himself back when the spirits had torn his sister asunder (say that five times fast) and noticed something he hadn't seen when it had really happened...the Eternal Chameleon lurking in the background.

Bai pulled time back a bit and talked with Mai, his sister. Mai said that Bai was in a place out of time, and the only way forward was to stop perceiving it, and thus to transcend it. Bai considered this wisdom, and then found himself back in the tunnel with his fellow Dragons. He shut his eyes, sat down, and meditated...and vanished.

Chrys, never one for meditation, put her gun up and charged forward, in rage, and in that rage found she was able to block everything else out. Fang (remember him? The mook that wouldn't die?) nocked an arrow and told Lord Smoke that he must be faster than the arrow, and fired. Smoke surged forward and vanished into time (with Fang, though, so that's good). Celeste and Melody practiced their katas, and that allowed them to move forward.

Now that they had escaped the tunnel, they found themselves in the ritual room again...but it was empty. Celeste popped into detective mode (and rolled BOXCARS!), and found the little shifts in time that had happened when the Chameleon and his followers had left. She guided the others through, and they wound up back in the Contemporary juncture, right outside the storefront...just as five cars zoomed by. One of them had a plate reading RED YIN. Bai recognized that name: Red Yin was a notorious mercenary from her time.

They jumped into Chrys' car, and the chase was on! Bai leaped above, from rooftop to rooftop, while Smoke rode on the roof of the car firing arrows. He took out several of the cars, while Chrys tried (and largely failed) to keep up with Yin. And then zoop, they rounded a bend and they were in the Past juncture!

Celeste, thinking quickly, shot down a banner onto Yin's car to slow him down. Bai jumped on that car and tied a rope around Yin's neck, all the while smacking a mook who came out of the wind to shoot him. Finally, Chrys caught up, and with another zoop the Dragons were in the Future juncture.

Smoke shot out the back windshield and shattered the rear-view mirror. Yin's car skidded and crashed, and time caught up with everyone. The Dragons, collectively willed the fight back to the Ancient juncture - yes, the Chameleon would be more powerful, but he would also be vulnerable (because remember, they had to prevent him from resurrecting).

They all appeared in Smoke's village. The villagers were gone or hiding, and the Chameleon pulled himself from the wreckage and floated over to the heroes. He summoned up a small army of robed sorcerers, and as the heroes fought, they realized that the Chameleon could jump into any of these bodies. Celeste counter-ritualed that, to make it more difficult, and Smoke focused on shooting down the soldiers (since they realized that when they attacked Chameleon, he just sucked a mook towards him and that mook vanished).

Slowly, they wore down his forces. Chameleon felled Melody with a ball of magic, and Chrys couldn't seem to land a shot. Finally, though, the Chameleon weakened from arrows, magic, and kung fu, Chrys cocked her pistol and fired.

"This is for Johnny."

The Chameleon staggered forward, gasped out "but...I'm eternal..." and fell, finally dead. But Celeste lay face down in the mud, next to her sister. Were they fated to die here in Ancient China?

No! They got back up, Bai used his healing magic on Melody to help her, and they looked about. Smoke wavered and coughed blood...the poison was coming due. Bai said that with the right magic and a sample of the Chameleon's blood, they might be able to prolong Smoke's life, but Smoke refused. Better to die with honor than darken his Chi. He gave his bow to Fang, naming him the new protector of the village, and then fell.

Bai stepped briefly into the future and sat to meditate with his sister's spirit. The War would, eventually, be over, but that was the nature of time in the junctures - what was "eventually" in one was "eons ago" in another. Mai promised Bai she would watch over him, and he returned. The Dragons separated, returning to their respective junctures, but understanding that they would, perhaps, need to pick up the fight once again.

FIN

Feng Shui: One Last (Prep) Time

And now we come to the last session of Feng Shui. Players, stop reading now.

Feng Shui: Penultimate

As the story winds down, we find the Dragons approaching the Mountain of Storms, which the Ladies of Jade & Ivory have told them is the stronghold of the Eternal Chameleon.

They climb into the foothills with their contingent of soldiers, staring up into the rain-slicked mountains. And then, in a flash of lightning, arrows! Soldiers and sorcerers appear and fire, accompanied by four lieutenants: A sorcerer, a martial artist, a dude in a huge suit of armor crackling with electricity, and their general, the man known as the Demon River.

Lord Smoke fires before the enemies can attack, however, felling two of the soldiers. Celeste shoots, Melody tries (and fails) to use magic (dice were not cooperating), and Bai leaps up into the foothills to engage directly. The martial artist leaps down and engages, but Bai sets them on fire. Demon River fires at Lord Smoke, declaring him to be most dangerous, but never quite hits well enough.

The dude in the armor, though...when Celeste shoots (and spends Fortune), he calls to the heavens and lightning lances down at her! She employs her counter-ritual and prevents the lightning from hitting, at least accurately, and the fight rages on. The soldiers the Dragons brought fire a volley and mostly miss (because that's what mooks do), but they do manage to take out a couple of the opponents.

Lord Smoke fires arrows at Demon River, felling him. Bai throws the martial artist down the mountain, and Chrys coldly dispatches them with a headshot ("Dodge this" counts as Blam! Blam! Epigram! because the bad guys haven't seen The Matrix). Celeste fires on the Lightning Eater and he explodes in a blast of electricity. The last one, a sorceress named Ghost Tears, knows she's beat and vanishes.

The characters enter the cave, and written on the wall is a warning: Continuing on faces four tests.

The Blade's Embrace: The Dragons and their five surviving soldiers press on through a tight, tiny hallway...and then the blades start popping out. Bai and Celeste survive unscathed, but Chrys and Smoke bleed...and behind them, they hear the screams of their soldiers. Only one survives.

The Demon's Mouth: They emerge into a rounded room, and encounter a stench of monstrous proportions. Bai and Smoke double over, retching, but Chrs and Celeste hold it together (as do Melody and the surviving soldier). The Dragons stumble forward into the next trap...

The Deluge of Pain: They stand in a huge, featureless plain and in the distance hear the distinct twip of multiple arrows. The Dragons dodge, but Smoke and...someone else (I think Celeste?) are struck. The soldier, however, manages to dodge the arrows, and Smoke acknowledges him as "Fang" (you survive all this as a mook, you get a name).

The Endless Road: Past the featureless plain is a corridor that just continues forever. The Dragons walk, and find themselves lulled into zombie-like shambling...all except Smoke, who manages to find the light within and keep his focus. The Dragons emerge into an endless cemetery.

Each of the headstones in the cemetery bears a name, but, Celeste notes, also a character meaning "Vengeful Dead." She warns them about this, and in the distance they see a mausoleum. As they approach, they see a monstrous spirit rise up...Wildfire, the spirit of vengeance. As it springs forward, the dead rise around them.

The Dragons fight valiantly, though, Smoke felling ghosts with his arrows and Chrys shooting at Wildfire (but not doing much damage to his ectoplasmic form). Melody threw magic at him and stunned him, and Celeste counter-ritual'd his "eat people for health" power (she wasn't sure if this version of him had it, but that's not the kind of luck you test).

Wildfire leaped at Melody and bit her open. Celeste jumped to her aid and Bai healed her, and Smoke shot and Chrys shot him until his form vanished. Bai patched up Melody with his Healing Petals, and the Dragons listened and heard voices from the sepulcher. Inside, they found a casket with the void inside, and heard the Eternal Chameleon's rants.

They climbed in, onward toward destiny and, perhaps, the end of the Chi War.

Feng Shui Prep

Once again into the breach, dear friends.

Last session of Feng Shui was good, though everyone (me included) was pretty tired. I used a tool called the Destiny Deck and wound up writing the scenario out of that. I'm tempted to do it again, but I dunno. We're coming to the end of this game, and I've got an idea of where I want to go with it.

But, for that, you'd need to read on, unless you're playing in the game, in which case sod off.

Feng Shui: Ladies of Jade & Ivory

Monday was Feng Shui and now it's Thursday and arrrgh. Doin' the write-up.

The Dragons fought off a bunch of Lotus Eaters at Lord Smoke's village last time, but then Smoke got poisoned and they realized their paths had converged - they needed to find the White Serpent and their Eternal Chameleon master to prevent his resurrection and find an antidote for Smoke. They traveled hard on horseback for days, until they came up on the home of the Ladies of Jade & Ivory, two noblewomen who maintained an opulent household.

They got there and the archers pointed arrows at them, but Smoke explained who they were. A young archer leapt down to talk with them, and Bai Lin recognized him at as Tao Lin, a young man from his home village. Tao seemed concerned, but before he could explain, the Lady Ivory appeared, gliding out to meet the Dragons. She welcomed them in and offered them space to wash up, care for their horses, clean clothes, and dinner.

The Dragons came together for dinner, along with the members of the household and the Ladies themselves. Chrys, herself a student of the Chi Way, knew the Lady Jade from her studies and remembered that she was a fierce and noble warrior, happy to take the field alongside her soldiers. But tonight, Lady Jade was reserved and almost subdued. As she pondered this, Chrys noticed one of the soldiers in the corner raise a dart gun to his lip and fire!).

Chrys reached forward and caught the dart handily, but she wasn't sure who the dude had fired at, and no one else had seen what happened - all the guards saw was a stranger with a dart. Chaos broke out, with some of the guards attacking each other, some attacking the Dragons, and some just trying to guard the Ladies. The Dragons were unarmed, of course, meaning that they were at something of a disadvantage.

Smoke jumped over to one of the guards, disarmed him, and started firing arrows (but sliding the arrowheads off as he did, so he didn't kill anyone, which is a real thing that totally works). One of the guards stood back to back with him. Bai jumped over next to Tao Lin, who said he could explain what was happening, but then the Lady Ivory reached into her robes and flung daggers everywhere (and missed spectacularly, but it did mean there were daggers in the walls for folks to grab).

Celeste started punching out people shooting arrows, but a door opened and a big dude with a club lumbered in. He mixed it up with Smoke, but Smoke stepped back and put an arrow in his foot to keep him in place. The Lady Ivory stood up and entered the fight, but Melody cast a spell and wrapped her up in magic bonds. The big dude saw this, yanked the arrow out of his foot, jumped at Melody and stabbed her in the stomach. Celeste charged the dude, knocking him under a table.

Meanwhile, another lieutenant with a hooked sword arrived and fought with Bai Lin, but neither of them did much damage. Chrys moved from guard to guard, punching them out, and finally Lord Smoke managed to get to the front of the room grab the Ladies, and tell everyone to put a sock in it - no one was here to hurt them (at least, none of the Dragons).

Bai went to ask Tao Lin what was happening, but he'd caught a dagger to the throat, tragically. The dude who'd actually spit the dart plunged two darts into his neck and died rather than talk. Celeste crouched down and listened to Lady Jade, who told her "find the garden."

The characters spoke to the guards, who acknowledged that something was wrong with the Ladies of late, but they weren't sure what. Melody, whom Bai had worked healing magic on, was kept in the infirmary with some of the other wounded. The Dragons decided to search the place.

Celeste did her detective routine, looking for hallways that didn't align and so on. She found one near the Ladies' room, and opened it to find a garden with a huge spiral leading to a corpse-flower in the center...but this corpse-flower was green and white.

Meanwhile, Bai and Smoke did their own searching. Bai felt the presence of the magic in the garden, and they found it soon after Celeste and Chrys did. Bai used his healing petals, but they turned black as they fell from the sky. Something was evil and powerful here.

As they thought about this, the Gardener appeared, brandishing a tool, and scattered petals on the ground. The petals sprang up into warriors, and they attacked! The Dragons made pretty short work of the Gardener, though, between Smoke putting arrows into him and Chrys firing her big gun; he exploded and the warriors with him.

But now...Bai and Smoke looked, and saw a horrible monster with a tentacle coming from its hand, and a zombie-like creature brandishing a weapon of metal and fire! They attacked these monstrosities, which, of course, turned out to be Celeste and Chrys. Celeste managed to use her ritual disruption to free Bai, but then Smoke turned around and shot all three of them with arrows. Bai managed to leap over to him and realign his energies to free him, but now the Dragons were wounded and newly aware of the threat this garden posed.

Celeste used her knowledge of ritual magic and Bai called down healing petals, and between them, they cleansed the site of its poisoned Chi. The Ladies arrived both now invigorated, and thanked them for their help. They gave Smoke a pouched of special tea that would stave off the worst effects of the poison, but warned him that the Creeping Black poison would kill him eventually if he couldn't find the antidote. They sent a contingent of soldiers with the Dragons to find and stop the Eternal Chameleon, and the Dragons left the House of Jade and Ivory to move along in their journey.

Feng Shui: Snoring Dog

Nothing to do with the game, but Leo is sacked out on the floor and snoring loudly, like he does.

Anyway! The Dragons, having attended Wu Tang's funeral, headed back to the modern juncture to regroup and rest. They gathered in their little storefront to plan their next move.

They knew that the Eternal Chameleon could reincarnate, but Melody told them that he couldn't incarnate in the same juncture twice in a row. He had to skip around, completing a "cycle" before incarnating again. He'd already reincarnated in the Past Juncture (it was a splinter, but it counts), the Contemporary (just last time!) and the Future Juncture (apes, etc.). That meant he'd head for the Ancient next. Melody also mentioned that he was able to keep doing this by keeping a living person in stasis through magic; in a sense, that person was possessed by unclean powers. They needed an exorcists...like Bai Lin.

They still needed a reference point, though, but that's where Celeste is a viking! She hit the books, and came up with a reference to a battle in a village in China many centuries ago. A painting of the events there came up with a face that looked quite similar to Chrys. Well, that was probably a good place to start. ("But why don't we remember the battle?" "Because we haven't fought it yet.")

The Dragons headed out into the Netherrealm and then out into the Ancient juncture, and found their way to a village where all the people were hiding in their homes. A lone archer stood facing the west, with riders bearing down on him in the distance. The Dragons introduced themselves, and told the archer - Master Smoke - that they'd protect the village with him. He thanked then, and shot a rider off his horse. The Dragons realized the riders were wearing robes with sigils that they recognized, and that their leader seemed to be...flying.

The riders surrounded the village and attacked with sorcery. Crys unhorsed one and grabbed his mount. Smoke rolled and dipped, firing arrows and skewering dudes. The sorceress fired magic at Chrys, nearly knocking her off her horse. Celeste whipped one into the mud, and then Melody turned to see a rider charging at her. She waved her arms and mandalas appeared.... BOXCARS.

The rider charged into the magic, and it closed around him and his horse and flew them both up into the air, where it remained. "Way to go, Sis!" called Celeste.

The battle continued! Bai leaped into the fray and cast about with a garden implement, but didn't make contact (he missed his staff). Melody tried to magic another one, but the spell fizzled and she got blasted in the back by the one of the sorcerers. "Don't get cocky," Chrys scolded her, blowing another one off his horse with her shotgun.

The sorcerers were getting picked off, though. Chrys blew the leader back into the river, and she rose up, flying, magic, and started to cackle evil things...and then Smoke put two arrows in her and dropped back into the water.

One lone sorcerer, screaming in protest, lobbed a black gob of something at Smoke. He fired an arrow at it and it burst...covering him in spores. He started to choke, but it was too late. He was poisoned. He recognized the poison. It was fatal, but slow. An antidote, if any, would rest with the White Serpents.

Melody lowered the magical cage down and they interrogated the sorcerer. He refused to talk, and then Chrys shot the ground in front of him, and he cried out "west! They're to the west!" That was easy. Smoke told the Dragons that the master of the village was Alabaster, an Ascended dragon (not dragon), but he was traveling and should be back soon. The sorcerer laughed, claiming that they had found and killed him, and soon the Eternal Chameleon would-

(At this point, Smoke put an arrow in his throat.)

The Dragons buried or burned the dead, and Smoke packed up his gear. He needed the antidote, and the Dragons needed to stop the Chameleon. The road leads west.

Feng Shui: The Ape Comes Due

Ooh, momma.

Well, last time, the Dragons got into a fight at the museum and learned that "Leon" was also known as "the Eternal Chameleon," a sorcerer with cults across the junctures dedicated to bringing him back to life if he died. And, it seemed that he and his contemporary cult, the White Serpents, wanted Melody, Celeste's sister, for some nefarious purpose! Spider Feng and her people agreed to lead the Dragons to the White Serpent hideout, but only if they agreed to give them the feng shui site there.

So! The Ascended Ones led them to a skyscraper, and they drove up to the top of the parking structure next to it. But apparently the sorcerers knew they were coming - a women with magical black wings swooped in and blew up the ramp under the Ascended Ones' van, taking them out of the fight (so I don't have to deal with a bunch of NPCS).

Chrys swung the car around facing the butterfy-woman, Celeste bailed and wrapped her whip around the woman's foot. But then windows on the skyscraper next to them opened, and a whole host of sorcerers appeared! Along with them, a man in a business suit with a big gun! One of the sorcerers, with a bladed braid in his hair, leaped down into the midst of the Dragons, while snake people crawled up from the parking garage. The battle was joined.

The fight was long and arduous, but the Dragons were victorious; highlights include:

• Chrys blowing snake-people apart with Johnny (her pistol). 
• Victor, the dude in the suit, accidentally vaporizing a bunch of mooks.
• Bai calling down healing petals to heal up his comrades.
• Black Butterfly utterly failing to harm Bai with magic.
• Jun Ji, the dude with the blade-braid, coming really close to slicing off Bai's face, only to miss when he Staved Off the Monkey.
• Black Butterfly's magic shredding Bai's staff.
• Celeste parkour-ing her way up into the building and wrapping her whip around Victor's neck, whereupon Tang appeared behind him and shoved him out the window.

They interrogated Victor, and he (eventually) revealed that Melody was in the building, but that the Eternal Chameleon would be waiting for them. Then he uncoiled the whip and fell to his death. 

The Dragons went into the elevator to the penthouse, searching for Leon, and hoo-boy, they found him. The elevator opened, and they found a horde of armed security (including a hopping vampire and a badass with two pistols), Leon casting a spell on Melody as she lay bound in a summoning pit, and Thrill Kill Mandrill! "Kill them!" shrieked Leon, and the battle was, again, joined!

Celeste charged out, gunning down mooks, and made for Leon. Thrill Kill swung on a chandelier and fired into the elevator, wounding some of the Dragons, but they eventually made it out and started fighting. Thrill Kill focused mostly on Wu Tang, predictably, and the two pounded on each other with parking meters and huge ape-fists. Chrys suffered a bite from the vampire, but eventually blew a big hole in it with Johnny and Bai smashed his fist into it and ripped out its spine. Bai also set Leon's robes on fire (after pretty much everyone got at least one good hit in), and then Celeste shot him, downing him...but is Leon immortal? Are his methods supernatural?

NO TIME TO WORRY ABOUT THAT! Thrill Kill was still in the room, the mooks were around and occasionally dangerous, and Linda, the security op, was taking shot (and mostly missing). Tang finally teleported over the ape and dropped the hammer on him (by "hammer" I mean "parking meter"), and wounded him. Thrill Kill charged, and pounded the ground. BOXCARS.

He pounded the ground, and his missed, but he hit the summoning circle. Magic flared up, and dragged Linda (on the edge of the circle) down into the Netherrealm. He traded blows with Tang, and then turned to attack the others. Tang, behind him, used Push to throw him out of the window, and Thrill Kill fell many stories, landing on the pavement like a sack of chunk beef soup, and the parking meter landed next to him, ticking over to EXPIRED. 

Back in the room, the mooks gave up. Celeste was bloodied, but unbowed, and Melody was safe. She's joined up with these idiots because they'd promised to teach her magic. "Welcome to the Chi War," said Chrys.

Wu Tang looked out the window at his fallen foe...and then collapsed, dead, his skull crushed by Thrill Kill's relentless assault. 

The Dragons took his body back to the Future juncture for a funeral pyre, and of course Chrys had to stay in bed a few weeks eating sticky rice to clear out the contagion from the vampire. The Dragons are resting. The end of their journey is near, and with the magical knowledge they've gained from Melody about the White Serpents, they can, perhaps, find the final vision in the Ancient juncture and end this war.

We shall see.

Game Prep: Something New

Fun fact: The words "something new" conjure up either a line from the Amazing Stories episode "Family Dog" ("something new!" "What's that?" "A recipe I found in Suburban Paradise magazine! Tater pops and cheese whip!") or this song by Hozier. But anyway, I'm gonna take some game notes and you should stay out if you're playing in these games!

Feng Shui: Fight at the Museum!

Last time, the Dragons mixed it up with some Jade Wheel types, but it was all just a wacky misunderstanding. This time, they started off searching for Spider Feng. Celeste found a blood trail, and followed it, she and Bai leap across buildings (and Tang just teleporting) while Chrys followed in her car and Captain Ping and his folks followed in their van.

They arrived at the museum, which was both where the blood trail led and the place the shopkeeper said he'd taken inspiration for his room setup from. Bai, Celeste, and Tang popped in through an open wind, while Chrys and the other folks (Ping, Zep, Ban Wei, and the mooks) charged in the front, dodging people streaming out

And why the panic? Because Spider Feng was fighting with a dude in robes! He crackled with sorcerous energy, and Feng fought bravely, but was clearly getting overwhelmed...but now the dude was badly outnumbered!

But alas! He threw his hands to the ceiling and magic lanced down! Celeste quickly made a gesture, disrupting the ritual, and protecting her fellow Dragons, but all the others were mind-controlled, and the fight was on.

Spider Feng leaped to the second level (where Bai, Celeste, and Tang were) and kicked Tang right in the head. She and Bai fought, and she dropped into a splits and punched Bai right in a very uncomfortable place (like the back of a Volkswagon?). Meanwhile, Celeste shot one of the mooks in the leg, dropping him and giving the other ones pause.

Big Ban Wei pushed a statue over onto Tang and Bai, and then threw a big chunk of wreckage at them. The dude in robes flew up into the air, but Tang tackled him to the ground and Celeste used her knowledge of disrupting magic to...disrupt his magic. He lost the ability to fly, but could still throw magic lightning!

Chrys, meanwhile, had a not-terrible-subtle way of getting involved. She jacked the aforementioned van and drove it right into the museum, knocking a bunch of mooks out of the way and putting Ping on her windshield. He pulled out a gun and tried to shoot her. BOXCARS. The bullet bounced off the windshield and knocked him out.

Meanwhile, Feng and Bai were still mixing it up. Feng went to spin-kick Bai in the back of the neck. BOXCARS. And Feng fell off the damn balcony, pulled a bunch of debris on top of her and knocking herself out.

Zep tossed a grenade under the van and blew it up, but Chrys jumped to safety. She pulled out Johnny (her gun) and went to fire at the dude in robes. BOXCARS. And two mooks in front of her exploded with magic energy, knocking her back.

(Seriously, we had three boxcars and they were all bad for the people rolling.)

At this point, Tang was about done with this nonsense. He jumped up into the air and landed on the dude in robes, bringing his fists down on the dude's head. That dropped him and broke the spell; the others woke up.

They realized they had to work quickly. They could already hear sirens (Tang: "I miss the future"). They found the tableau that Celeste had seen in her vision, and behind a painting she found a message from her sister: "White Serpent."

Cut to getting noodles later: Spider Feng identified "White Serpent" as a circle of sorcerers, one of several cults dedicated to a strange figure named "the Eternal Chameleon." Said Chameleon, or "Leon" for short, had cults in every juncture dedicated to resurrecting him should he die...and now, apparently, he was here in the contemporary juncture. And the Dragons are gonna go fuck him up.

Epilogue: A shadowy man on a shadowy throne turns to his shadowy lieutenant. "They're coming. Remember, I want one of them alive. Kill the rest."

The lieutenant responds: "Eek. Ook."

Feng Shui: Back to the Block

Monday was a short session of Feng Shui. Here we go!

The Dragons made it back to the contemporary juncture, and Dani (who goes by "Chrys Archer" in this juncture) headed for her apartment to get a change of clothes. From there, they headed back to the storefront, and Celeste went out to get lattes (the things you miss while you're in an ape-dominated far future).

While she was on the train headed back, she saw a woman watching her. This woman was slight, but athletic, and had a spider tattoo on her hand. Celeste thought she looked familiar, but couldn't place her. She dodged her at the bus station, and headed back to the storefront, convinced she'd lost her shadow.

The Dragons hung around at the storefront for a while; Chrys meditated to synch herself up with the Feng Shui site, and Celeste talked with Sylvan Master about the woman she'd see. He recognized her as Spider Feng, an associate of the Jade Wheel Society and someone that the Dragons had fought before (about the time that Johnny showed up and they claimed this Feng Shui site). Feng was an Ascended, an animal that had assumed human form. The Dragons wondered if, were she to assume her natural form, she'd be a normal-sized spider? They weren't sure, but knew to be wary.

Celeste then began looking for her sister, Melody. She started by sketching the room that she'd seen in her vision. Sylvan Master then flipped through some image recognition for the whole city (wah-hoo!) and found a few possibles. The closest one was an antique store, so off they went!

They arrived (and Tang yanked up a parking meter to use as a weapon, should the need arise). They went inside, and the owner did not recognize Melody from a photo. Celeste found the furniture setup that looked like the room in her vision, but the owner said that he'd taken inspiration from a museum exhibit he'd seen - and said museum was also on the list. They were about to head out, when Spider Feng walked in.

Celeste suggested they head outside, and Feng agreed. With her was Big Ban Wei, a huge pile of muscle, and nearby, a guy waiting in a car, clearly armed (his name is Zep). The Dragons were wary, of course, but then there came an explosion from the shop!

Chrys, in a clear display of the tree not being far from the fallen apple, pulled her guns and said, "OK, let's do this!" Feng leaped over and disarmed her, and the fight was on. A bunch of dudes in black uniforms, led by Captain Ping, charged around the corner and fired on the Dragons, but missed them. Celeste shot a couple (but just to wound), and Zep pulled his car out to block the Dragon's car. Tang teleported on his hood and smashed in the windshield, and Zep shot him (seemed reasonable).

Ban Wei charged in, but Bai smacked him around with his staff and took him out (BOXCARS!). Feng, having taken some shots from Chrys and Bai, Cheesed It, and vanished in a swirl of ribbons. Ping, about this point, gave up and told his men to stand down, and asked why the Dragons had attacked. Chrys retorted that Feng attacked them, and Ping said, no, you pulled guns and said "let's do this," which was a clear precursor to attack.

But the explosion! Ah, yes. Celeste went around back and talked to a kid who'd been hiding in the alley. He said that a man in a black uniform had planted the bomb on the building, and that his eyes had glowed green. Ping, told this, realized he was missing a man, and they found said man unconscious across the street, missing his uniform. Someone was playing both the Dragons and the Ascended!

Ping said that they'd come to parley with the Dragons, but Feng knew the details and she's been spooked (turns out that Bai, if he'd taken Feng out, would have knocked her back into animal form and she wasn't having that). Bai figured he could track Feng mystically, though, so that's where we're headed next time.

And the Oscar Goes to...Feng Shui!?!

No, I just have to do some game prep is all. But seriously, wouldn't a movie based on Feng Shui be amazing?

Anydangway, last time the Dragons beat up a bunch of mutants, faced off against Si Borg's reanimated flesh, attuned a new Feng Shui site, and lost Wildfire to radioactive explosions. So now they'll be headed back into the contemporary juncture to pursue Melody, Celeste's sister.

Players, stop reading....NOW!

Feng Shui: Fightin' in Caves

Ah, week got away from me. Feng Shui was Monday! Blam-balam-bam!

So! Last time the characters got into a fight with some river pirates, and lost Wildfire down a waterfall. This time, we pick up as they enter the cave system behind said waterfall...and are immediately attacked by hideous cave-crawler mutants!

Arrgh!

The Dragons fight off the creatures, and also manage to free Wildfire from the device clinging to his back that prevents him from changing into his monster form. They press on into the cave system, knowing that there's a feng shui site in here that requires them to liberate it. They come to a basin that slides down into a mud pit, and Dani slides down, heedless of danger (we see where Johnny got it).

The crawlers hiding in the mud immediately attack, because of course they do, and are joined by a horrible claw-monster on the ceiling and a mutant with a bow up in the rocks somewhere. Tang teleports up and tries to smack the archer, but misses, and then he throws Wildfire at him, who also misses. Celeste, however, manages to rope his legs with her whip and yank him down to his doom. The Dragons win, but are hurt, and they must press on.

And finally, they find a huge stone dais carved from the rock. A whole bunch of crawlers surrounded it, and also several mutants - one leaking toxic fluids, one wearing a chef's apron and carrying a cleaver, and one who looks...strangely normal. And then a huge, hulking mutant with cybernetics lumbers out. Tang and Dani recognize his face...he's made from the remains of Si Borg.

Obviously, the battle is joined. Dani shoots at false-Si, but the chef-monster whips a tongue at her and pulls her into close combat. The normal-looking one jumps at Celeste and horrible fanged mouths open all over his chest. Wildfire charges in to help Dani and takes a bite out of Cookie (who screams "NOOOO! SEASON ME FIRST!"), but things look bleak. Psycho-Si fires a grenade at the Dragons and fires guns from his hand. Dani runs up to shoot him point-blank, and he backhands her off the dais and knocks her out. Bai smacks Toxie and sets him alight, but takes acid damage in the process.

And then the tide turns! Psycho-Si marks Wildfire with a chemical that makes all the less mutants swarm him, but they can't chew through his hide. Tang throws a stalactite at Psycho-Si and punches him into next week, shutting down his cybernetics, and he falls apart. His parts start beeping ominously, and the Dragons fall back...but Wildfire, still grappling with like a dozen enemies, roars, "GO! I'll hold them off!"

Behind them, as they dive for cover in the mud-basin, they hear a boom. They go back and amidst the bodies, they find Wildfire's human body, wearing blue spurs, at peace, perhaps.

The Dragons claim the site (and get an advancement!). Dani laments that she's been sucked back into the Chi War, but it's what both Johnny and Si - the real Si - would have wanted. The Dragons head for a portal to venture into the contemporary juncture and find Celeste's sister.

Feng Shui Prep!

OMG! GOTTA PREP FENG SHUI!

Last session is here. Obviously we need to get Wildfire back, but beyond that, we must consider how long we wish this particular story to go on.

And now, time for the page break!

Feng Shui: A Trip Down the River

Monday began our new story arc in Feng Shui.

Last time, the Dragons lost another of their number: Johnny Archer was killed by ape-splosions. The Dragons trekked through the futuristic wastelands and came upon some kind of parley happening on a river's edge.

One group, the larger one, were on jet skis and a couple of boats. The other, one woman leading four men, stood around a couple of motorcycles and a souped-up car. As the Dragons walked into their midst, the folks around the bikes recognized Wu Tang and the red in Celeste's hair, and started chatting with them.

The leader of the other faction, a decked-out-in-bling pirate sort of woman, looked up, saw Wu Tang, and angrily demanded what he was doing here. The woman she was parley-ing with, wearing a faded Chili Peppers t-shirt and driving gear, didn't know.

But Tang recognized the pirate woman: She was Captain Belle Reaver, and there had been a little dispute over payment for river protection at one point. Belle, seeing Tang being all chummy with the other woman's faction, said that the "deal" needed to be revised - she'd just take the woman's car as payment, if she was running with Wu Tang.

The woman drew her pistol and cocked it - this wasn't happening. Her followers whispered to the Dragons that they ought to decide what to do when it all went down, 'cause it was about to. Wildfire took that to heart, and jumped onto Belle's boat, changing to beast form. The boats took off the down the river, and the Dragons jumped in vehicles as well. Celeste (who'd been shamelessly flirting with one of the bikers; he liked her whip) jumped on a bike, as did Bai. Tang hopped in the souped-up car belonging to the mysterious woman, and off we went!

The Dragons witnessed Belle slap something that looked like a smoke detector on Wildfire, and he shuddered and reverted to human form, dropped unconscious to the deck (+Matthew Karafa was out on Monday, so I had to sideline his character). The woman in the car kept pace with the boats, more or less, dropped behind and catching up, while the mooks on jetskis and motorcycles did...less well. Celeste whipped a dude off a jetski and took it from him, and Bai jumped from the motorcyle onto the back of a jetski, kicking the passenger off. Tang teleported to the back of Celeste's jetski (who was rolling Driving unskilled to keep up and doing a fine job of it), and then teleported to Belle's boat.

Belle, though, is a canny combatant, and dodged Tang's fists of fury. But then Bai landed on the boat and struck at Belle with his staff. BOXCARS.

The boat spun, and got lodged against the banks as the river narrowed. Wildfire was jarred off the boat and swept downstream, but Belle knew when to give up. She shrugged, and berated her minions for not doing a better job with this. "You OK, Dani?"

Dani - that is, Dani California, the leader of the other faction, was fine, and her car was undamaged, which is the important thing. She revealed that her real last name was Archer - Si's wife, Johnny's mother. She already had heard of Johnny's death, but was appreciative of the Dragons for helping her and looking after Johnny while he traveled with them.

But now the Dragons have another problem - Wildfire got swept over the falls, down to where the Psycho Siblings lurk in a cavern. That cavern is also a Feng Shui site, the one that Dani and Si had once guarded. Wildfire is in trouble.

Feng Shui Notes: Sooo Sleeeepy

Thanks a sudden burst of anxiety last night before bed, I didn't sleep well, so I'm a little zombified today. I am, however, still going to run Feng Shui tonight, at least for a bit, and then we make fuck off and watch A Good Day to Die Hard. But before that!

Feng Shui: Did It for Johnny

Last night we finished a story arc in Feng Shui. It was pretty intense. 

We begin as the characters enter the main building, what used to be Genomic Solutions in the Contemporary Juncture. The building is, of course, huge, and the big enclosures are still along the sides (though the glass has been broken out), but now there are big rocks all over the place, and a dais with a broken statue of Furious George next to it. At the other end of this huge structure is the dreaded Thrill Kill Mandrill, and an orangutan in a lab coat, standing near a big steel device, kinda like the thing they used to make Captain America. 

The Dragons enter, and Thrill Kill screams to kill them! And then came the monkeys. A bunch of soldier-apes, sure, but also foes that the Dragons had fought already: Ba-boom, holding his grenade launcher! Smilin' Bill, aiming a rifle! Silverback, roaring in rage! Albrecht, carefully choosing his strike! Sneaky Monkey, drawing her serrated sword! Drunky Monkey, swilling from his flask and screeching at Bai! And, worst of all, Ape Mask Replicant, staring down Wu Tang. 

(Cue this song for full effect.)

The battle is joined! Bai leaps into the fray (well, into a cluster of mooks) to get closer to Drunky, his nemesis. Celeste cracks her whip and yanks Ape Mask Replicant's submachine gun away, and Replicant shrugs and pulled her rifle, shooting Tang. Ba-boom fires a grenade, but Tang ducks and it flies out the door harmlessly. Tang teleports over to Ba-boom and yanks the grenade launcher away, and then teleports further into the room to confront Thrill Kill Mandrill.

This would prove to be a mistake. 

Johnny finds a silver push-cart and skateboards into the fray, knocking over monkeys (and waving to Bill). Bai sets Drunky on fire with his Fire Palm, and continues blocking the shots of the monkeys all around (they're mooks, so they miss a lot). Sneaky creeps around and attacks Celeste, but Celeste unloads on him and then kicks him across the room. 

Wildfire (who tends to suffer from low initiative) jumps up and bites into Ape Mask Replicant; she jumps away and shoots him. Ba-boom runs away for another grenade launcher, and scampers back in time to see Bai finish off Drunky with a kick to the head. Silverback punches the crap out of Johnny and Bai, and Albrecht creeps up and strikes Dragons in the head as necessary. 

Meanwhile, Tang, as mentioned, faces off against Thrill Kill. He snaps the grenade launcher two and flings it at Thrill Kill, but misses. Thrill Kill, for his part, hits a button and two machine guns pop up. They fire on Tang, wounding him, and then Thrill Kill beckons him down to fight. Tang does his best, but Thrill Kill jumps up and pile-drives him, dropping him. He holds Tang's motionless body up and howls in triumph.

Wildfire follows Ape Mask, lands on her and rends her to shreds (Tang clings to consciousness just long enough to see his friend kill his mortal enemy, and then passes the heck out). Ba-boom, horrified, fires a grenade and damages Silverback and Albrecht...but blows Johnny underneath the dais, unconscious. The three remaining Dragons know they have no chance against Bill, Ba-boom, Silverback, Albrecht, and Thrill Kill (who hasn't been touched!) and so they Cheese It. 

But they are not leaving their friends to die. Oh, no.

Celeste and Bai heal each other up a bit (neither have the Medicine skill, but they can fake it; we did joke that in a game of Monsterhearts that healing scene would have been very different). Wildfire, of course, heals on his own. They decide to climb the building and drop down near the weird regeneration-chamber thing; maybe they can get the others back.

The others, meanwhile, are alive - they've been healed a little (I had them roll for a Death Check, but instead of dying it was to see if they keep their Mark of Death from the fight; Johnny did, Tang didn't). 

They lower themselves in on Celeste's rope, and see Johnny and Tang strapped to turned-upright beds with IVs draining their blood into the regeneration chamber. Thrill Kill screams to the assembled monkeys that their Master will awaken soon!

And Bai swings on the rope and lands next to him, striking the ape in the lab coat. Celeste and Wildfire land behind the beds and untie Tang and Johnny, respectively, and Tang picks up the bed, jumps off the pedestal, and breaks the bed over Thrill Kill's head. 

(Cue this song for full effect.) 

Silverback leaps up on the pedestal to mix it up with Wildfire. Smilin' Bill jumps up on a rock and shoots Bai, and Celeste levels the gun she stole from Ape Mask and fires back. "Smile at this." 

BOXCARS. Bill goes flying off the rock, his lifeless gorilla body crashing against the dais. 

Bai strikes the ape in the lab coat and sets him on fire, but he quickly pats himself out. He then grabs the ape by the throat and demands to know how to stop the process; Dr. Zabbity says that there is no way! So Bai slams his head against the machine. 

Ba-boom fires a grenade and does some damage, but damages the chamber as well. Thrill Kill snarls at him, but Tang (having teleported clear) picks up a rock brains the Mandrill with it, and then...picks it up and hits him again. 

Meanwhile, Wildfire and Silverback are trading blows. Wildfire goes for the bite. BOXCARS. They fall off the pedestal and roll behind a rock, and Wildfire emerges, victorious, covering in gorilla blood. 

Ba-boom, seeing the writing on the wall, Cheese It. 

Thrill Kill yells to Albrecht to open the chamber, and he starts fiddling with knobs and dials, but Celeste shoots the panel and he Cheeses It, unable to complete his task and seeing Thrill Kill bleeding. 

Johnny picks up a piece of rebar and wangs Thrill Kill on the head, and Thrill Kill takes the blow and punches him back. He then jumps back to the chamber and rips off the door, just as Celeste yells "Fire in the hole!" and shoots something volatile. She sees a slim Chinese man step out, and Thrill Kill kneel before him, just before the whole thing explodes.

The dust settles, and Johnny staggers up to Tang and hands him a notebook...before collapsing dead. Tang kneels down and closes his eyes. "Shimmy ya, Johnny."

The notebook (which Johnny found in the rubble) contains a detailed account of the Chi War by Si Borg. The last page is a letter addressed to Tang, telling him that if he's reading this, Si is dead, but that he'd dedicated himself to protecting a site of power (near here, across the bridge, in fact). He also asks Tang to look in on his boy, if he ever manages to get to the Contemporary Juncture. It's signed Si "Borg" Archer. 

Johnny's mother, it seems, was from the Contemporary Juncture but wound up here, and Si Borg was his father. No wonder Thrill Kill wanted his blood for his foul science-sorcery. 

The characters bury Johnny, and strike out toward the bridge. What new adventures away in the world of...Feng Shui?

Feng Shui: Dimly Hazily Recollected Memories of Monday

Monday was Feng Shui and I really, really did intend to do the write-up on Tuesday, but then I flew to Oklahoma and spent much of my free time redlining a Beast book, so it didn't get done. So here we are.

The Dragons, having bested Errol and his Cheerful Chimps and battle, decided to join forces with them and head into the trees to take on Thrill Kill Mandrill and his peeps. Errol warns them that fortress is well-guarded, but that he and his Chimps will help. They come upon a suspicious-looking clearing and Johnny, ever the master of stealth, strides in confidently and declares his presences.

Whereupon a hail of arrows, bullets, and rocks come flying at Johnny. He isn't harmed (because mooks), but the battle is joined.

This battle is mostly mook-monkeys, but since they're all attacking at a distance, whenever they attack, they attack in a volley and someone gets hurt. Tang and Wildfire take some shots to the torso from arrows, Bai leaps up into trees and starts kicking monkeys out - and also mixes it up with Albrect, a huge gibbon with a swatch of white fur, who swings around on vines and mimics the style of who he's fighting (monkey see, monkey do!).

The characters, aided by some off-screen arrows from Errol, defeat the monkeys (though Albrecht escapes). Regrouping, Errol tells them that once they pass the second marker, the Cheerful Chimps can no longer help. He shows them a Simian Army tattoo and claims that an explosive underneath it will detonate if he crosses the second marker. Tang doesn't necessarily buy it, but they part ways (and he gives Johnny a bow and some arrows).

The Dragons approach the second marker, and now they're in the ruins of Hong Kong - they recognize this block. They're near Genomic Solutions, where they fought Thrill Kill Mandrill way back here. The Dragons, in the trees, look across to see monkeys on buildings, monkeys in the streets - man, so many monkeys. They note, in particular, a huge silverback gorilla who looks like a badass...and Drunky Monkey (Bai's lip curls with hatred).

Celeste, figuring that it's better to get the drop on them, shoots one, misses, and everything goes whack-a-ding-hoy.

The monkeys attack, launching arrows and bullets at the Dragons, and Wildfire is the only one who's healed up. The Dragons also don't have much in the way of distance attacks (Celeste has her gun, sure, but that's about it). Bai leaps into the fray and engages with Drunky Monkey, leading to this delightful back-and-forth where he stabbed Bai, Bai pulls the knife out of his own shoulder and stabs Drunky, who screeches, pulls out the knife, and stabs Bai back.

Wildfire jumps down from the tree and engages Silverback, only to take a whack to the knee from Slugger-angutan and his huge club. Meanwhile, Sneaky Monkey, a tiny colobus with a sharp sword, creeps down and stabs Wildfire, but Johnny enters the fray and locks up with monkey (and Sneaky just can't get a shot in on Johnny to save his life).

Tang teleports in to help Wildfire with the gorilla, but then the other major player in this fight show himself: Bab-BOOM! Bab-boom is a baboon with a grenade launcher and a total lack of regard for his friends, and he damages a lot of the Dragons throwing explosives around. In particular, he blows Tang through a wall and straight out of the fight (the player, playing the odds for once in his life, elected to stay down rather than risk multiple Marks of Death).

Noting that the Dragons were slowly whittling through the mooks and damaging the leaders, though, the monkeys elected to run. Silverback, Sneaky, Drunky, and Bab-boom fled successfully, but Wildfire caught Slugger and tore out his throat. The Dragons helped Tang to his feet; he was stunned, but alive.

But in the distance, over the main building, they saw a storming brewing up, and Bai sensed evil sorcery. What business are those monkeys doing!?

Feng Shui Prep

So, here's where I blather a bit I get into the meat of things. I don't honestly have much to say because I basically burned myself out making that character for that bloody awful game. Is that enough blather? I think perhaps it is.

(Seriously, I would normally talk about why the level of granularity that would lead one to make a skill called "Well-Digging" is a bad thing, but a) I think it's kind of obvious and b) I don't have the wherewithal.)

Feng Shuimmy Shimmy Ya

Monday was Feng Shui. It's been about a month since our last foray into ape-land, in which the Dragons fought off the soldiers of Thrill Kill Mandrill (whom they assumed was dead, since they watched him get vaporized by magic). This time, they were camping out in the ruins of an old factory when the monkeys attacked!

The monkeys swooped into the factory and started grabbing the humans that the Dragons were escorting. An unseen assassin shot Wildfire from the trees; Wildfire responded by changing into his monster form, of course. A knife came flying through the air and struck Bai...a knife that smell oddly boozy ("God damn you, Drunky Monkey!").

The battle was joined, with Dragons flipping between the two levels of the factory and knocking monkeys off and into the trees. Celeste used her whip to yank prisoners out of monkey hands, and Wu Tang employed his signature "hit a monkey with another monkey" method. What the Dragons missed, though, was a monkey sneaking up to the truck and letting out Smilin' Bill; both that monkey and Bill Cheesed It into the trees (carrying the parking meter that Wu Tang had used to bar the door), and soon thereafter the rest of the monkeys fled. The Dragons captured a couple of monkeys and put them in the truck, and headed on.

One of the human folks approached Wu Tang and asked what he planned to do when they reached the river. Tang asked him to elaborate, and the man explained that there was a wooden bridge that led across, but that it wasn't really sturdy and the apes might have taken it. There was another, much larger stone bridge up ahead, but that required walking along the river, which with the truck would be difficult. Tang thanked the man ("Shimmy-ya, Wu Tang," he said in respect), and then assembled the Dragons.

Celeste recognized that this was the futuristic ruins of Hong Kong, and that if her calculations were right, Genomic Solutions - wherein they'd first fought Thrill Kill Mandrill - was in the woods somewhere. The Dragons decided to let the humans crossed the river at the stone bridge and move along, while they turned into the forest to check out the remains of the lab and, perhaps, confront Thrill Kill. Thanks to careful driving from Johnny, they made it there safely, and the people headed over the bridge to a (hopefully) safer life.

The Dragons headed into the trees, and were suddenly accosted by a troop of chimps with bows and arrows. The leader, a jaunty fellow wearing green, demanded payment for traipsing through the woods. ("Robin Hood?" said Johnny. "No, robbin' you!") He said he'd take the truck, and the Dragons shrugged; they were just about done with it anyway. Wu Tang, though, just couldn't let it go without a fight. He slashed a tire as he walked by, and the leader chimp ordered the attack.

The Dragons fought them off non-lethally, knocking them into the convenient nearby pond and batting away their arrows, until finally Johnny said that if they weren't allied with Thrill Kill (the leader had earlier spat at the mention of his name), perhaps they would be willing to do a little light ninja-ing? The leader-chimp, Errol, asked Tang why he was going after Thrill Kill, and Tang explained that he'd killed his partner. "A noble quest for revenge, then!" said Errol, and ordered his monkeys to get the truck fixed.

Next time, we'll see where this insanity leads us.