Morts: Across the Quad

Our session begins the next morning. Molly tells the crew to clean out some of the spare rooms in the Hub for the kids the team brought in, at least until they figure out where they might want to be (or until they’re 16 and decide to join the Morts on their own). Edison’s put up flyers for the first official movie night (Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga!) and it’s going to be a singalong. The latest memo from the mayor’s office advertises an amnesty for anyone who’s accidentally been harboring a zombie and didn’t want to get into trouble, giving a $10 coffee gift card with each collection by the city that happens. 

After breakfast, the team decides to go investigate the crows that Charlie mentioned, and that were staring weirdly at them the other day. They head back to Randy’s cemetery and start looking around, and see traps set in various trees around the grounds. One trap fell to the ground, messed up, and upon examining it, it became clear that the traps were intended to be lethal. Upon looking around, River noted wagon tracks that led to a groundskeeper’s shed on the premises. Working off the hypothesis that there were too many traps to carry them all out one at a time (and they aren’t small), Edison suggests that a wagon may have been how they were all put in place (or at least carried while they did the work), and so they go to investigate.

The shed is locked, but that doesn’t stop Oscar from sticking his head through the wall. Inside, he sees the wagon, a bunch of landscaping tools and supplies, and a stack of crow bodies, piled up like cordwood. He quickly retreats and tells the rest of them what he saw, and then they realize they have to get in there. Bonesy gets an idea and, using some of his newly gained necromantic skills, pulls up a finger bone and reshapes it into a key, unlocking the shed door with it. The group is suitably impressed, at least until they open the door and get a whiff of the shed’s contents. The two living members cover their faces to mask the stench a little and go inside, while Bonesy and Oscar aren’t sure what all the fuss is about. As they go over to inspect the pile of bodies, one of them rises up and flaps at them, cawing. River takes out her bat and swings for the fences, (re)killing it in one blow.

Everyone takes a minute and breathes and lets their heart rates settle back down – everyone who has one, anyway. While they recover, they try to figure out what this all means. Upon reviewing what they know about Randy and the frankly icky turn this has taken, they recall that he was obsessing over the University’s failure to hire him for the Necromancy program. They touch base with Molly, who tells them to head to town and see if they can track him to the university… and to pick up some donuts while they’re there.

A bit of a walk later, the team arrives at the campus (donuts have to wait until the job’s done). They knew they were getting to the right place when they started seeing all the creepy crows around, screeching at students and occasionally divebombing them “like something out of The Birds,” as Edison notes. The students largely aren’t bothered, though, and seem more annoyed than anything. Apparently it’s not super dangerous and they’re used to weird shit happening, the sort of thing that goes along with having a Necromancy major on campus. They head over to the department building to see if they can find someone to help them locate Randy, sidestepping the odd dead crow strike. On the way, one of the students recognizes Edison from some of the commercials he’s done. He’s about to get sidetracked, when River pulls her (Not) The Boss aspect and corrals him back from the conversation to keep him on task.

Once inside, they consult the directory and start climbing stairs to find the dean’s office. Once there, they knock on the door, only to get no answer. An older woman with a cup of coffee in one hand comes up to them and introduces herself as Dr. Ramona Hughes, the department chair. She sits down on an empty chair in the hallway and asks them what they need as she sips her coffee. A little confused, River speaks up and says they’re looking for Randy, to which Dr. Hughes sighs audibly. “Oh no. He’s behind the crows, I take it.” The group says yes, and asks if she knows where he is. She dissembles a bit, and notes that she is in no way responsible for his actions, and that she in fact tried to warn him away from this course of action. She admits to helping him become a lich, but everything past that is on him.. At this point she notices Bonesy, and starts asking questions about him and his past and his talents, inviting him to come meet with her and her students.

Eager to get her back on track, Edison asks if she knows where Randy is at the moment. She admits that she might have an idea, but isn’t sure. “He was really mad at Ms. Martin over in HR, but I don’t think that’s where he is now.” When pressed, she stands up and instead offers the following deal. “So, I’m willing to help, but first I need a bit of help from you. There’s a ghost, Prof. Herman Fielding, in my office, and I need him out. Every time I try to deal with him, he just gets more agitated, which just makes the problem bigger. This used to be his office from when Linguistics was in his building. He seems stuck here, and I don’t know what to do with him. That being said, I really do need my office, so here’s the deal. You’re morticians – you get rid of him (or get him calmed enough that I can) and I’ll help you find Randy. I’m going to go get some lunch – we’ve got a canteen downstairs for the Necromancy students, since our students often take their homework around with them. I’ll be down there grading. You come find me when you’re finished, and we’ll settle up from there.” The group agrees, and she heads for the stairs, coffee cup in hand.

Edison knocks on the door and puts on his best student persona – the one who’s in film studies and interested in accents – and gets no answer. He opens the door and calls out “Professor Fielding?” which throws off the ghost enough that he answers. Edison says, “Hey there… I wasn’t sure what your office hours were, but I’m doing some research and I was hoping you could answer some questions for me about accent training?” Dr. Fielding nods and invites Edison in. Oscar comes along with, in hopes of talking Fielding down and helping him let go, since that’s something he specializes in. At first, Fielding is very resistant to the idea, but having accepted Edison into the room and at face value, it’s easy for Oscar to slip into the conversation and start noticing that the references he’s looking for aren’t around, and that’s because this isn’t Fielding’s office anymore, because he retired and then died after having a long and valued career. With Edison’s help, (and River and Bonesy for backup in case things go south), Oscar is able to talk him down, and he becomes just a little Category 1 wisp, lulled into accepting his condition and ready to pass on. The group decides that’s sufficient, so they go down to the cafeteria.

Upon arriving, it’s really clear that’s what this place is, and that it used to be some sort of meeting room or auditorium that’s been repurposed. It’s a fairly large room with a number of tables and a cart/cold bar that’s been brought in with sandwiches and snacks available, as well as pretty basic level beverages. Students are sitting around the room, a number of them with extremely still zombies sitting at their tables along with them, pointedly doing nothing. Dr. Hughes is sitting by herself. When the group walks in, everyone stops and stares at Bonesy with avid interest. Dr. Hughes turns, and notes again that she really wants Bonesy to come meet with her classes.

River and Oscar tell Hughes that Fielding is taken care of and down to a wisp, and she’s obviously relieved. “I can deal with that, no problem,” she says. She takes a deep breath. “Okay, my turn. I don’t know for certain, but I suspect that Randy is on Howard Field. There’s a couple of constructs guarding the door, and there’s some big energy coming from inside. I wasn’t sure – he’s not the only person to use Howard Field for some big ritual spells, as it’s big and empty and can be secured, but in light of you being here and all the crows, it’s probably him. He always was one for showing off needlessly.” She offers to buy you all a sandwich or something for the road, but neither Oscar nor Bonesy really need to eat and frankly there’s something unappetizing about eating in the Necromancy cafeteria. The group gets itself together, and then it’s off to Howard Field in our next adventure!

Morts: Den of Tomato Thieves

Most recent Morts game, courtesy of Michelle:

So after a couple of false starts, we finally got our little mortician ducks in a row and got another session in!

River decides to track the zombies. Oscar comes along, and River is of the understanding that Bonesy and Edison will follow the thieves from the farm. That being said, Bonesy is of the mind to put some hurt to some zombies and get to use his skills so he follows them, and Edison is on a roof doing lookout with a cute farmer’s daughter, so any sort of planning or military precision is just not happening.

A short distance from the farm, following the zombie trail, River discovers a few alpha zombies and a beta (which is a fast runner/hunter type, but not a lot tougher than normal). Oscar’s garden weasel gets put into play, River takes out her baseball bat and hits a home run, and Bonesy gets in a few licks using his favorite weapon, his arm bones. Edison sees them coming and leaps off the roof, landing with superhero-like grace, only there’s no one to see it (his Big Scene, upstaged!). He runs over to join the others, getting there just before the end of the fight. With just a few zombies, though, the rest of the team makes short work of them.

It isn’t until the end of the fight, though, that River notices everyone there and says, “Who’s tracking the thieves???” with an exasperated sigh. Her team all look at one another and shrug. Edison says, “I saw zombies headed toward you, so I came over… oh god, what is that smell??” Oscar points out the rotten meat on the ground, saying “we think it was bait.” River makes a resigned face and says, “well, we can’t just leave it here.” Oscar gets an inspiration – making his Zombie Gardener trait very literal – and buries the meat, working the dirt over and through it until it’s thoroughly disposed of. River wants to try to figure out how to proceed, but She’s (Not) The Boss, and so finally just shrugs and says “well, whoever sent the zombies is likely the same as the thieves, so we’ll come to the same point anyway, and they take off following the trail through the bushes into the twilight. Bonesy wonders if it isn’t a lich still behind it, but then River points out these aren’t animated constructs, just regular old zombies. Still, it’s a lot to be going on in one area at one time.

The team tracks the zombies for a bit, finding more bait and fighting another small group of them before the light leaves all together. They turn for home, then, and tell their station head Molly what they’ve learned and get some food. Molly encourages them not to wait until morning, but to gear up with flashlights and weapons and find the source. If there’s a hole in the Fence, they can’t afford to wait until morning.

With Miranda still in her room, Molly overseeing the base, Rory still on sentry detail, and Todd off doing lord knows what (probably feeding animals before watching movies), the team heads out, triangulating toward the path they left behind. They thought at first it would lead back to the cemetery where they met Randy the lich, but it goes past it toward the Fence. The trail leads on until they see a large group of zombies milling about at the hole in the Fence, some in and some out. They’ve brought some construction materials with them to patch the hole, but before they can do that, they have to get rid of the zombies around it.

It looks like it’s going to be a big old mess until Oscar remembers he’s a ghost, and he and Edison come up with the idea that he should go through the fence and lead the zombies away. Oscar doesn’t really like to go incorporeal, because it just feels wrong (and he can’t take his trusty Garden Weasel with him) but he can’t argue with the plan. He moves over to the other side of the fence, makes some noise, and the zombies follow him away from the breach in the Wall as he ambles slowly ahead of them.

While Oscar is leading the zombies on a nice ramble, however, he sees a light in the distance, like a cookfire and lanterns in a small window, and some quiet voices talking.. Once Ed and River and Bonesy get the hole mostly patched so the zombies won’t find their way back in (noticing as they did so that the hole isn’t torn open, it’s cut in places and pried in others), Oscar pops back inside and tells them what he saw. It seems possible it might be related to the thieves, so they decide to investigate. Oscar’s going to take point and go through the Fencel and over (since he’s very non-threatening) and Bonesy’s going over and hiding in the dark in case Oscar needs back up. In the meantime, River and Edison will undo some of the repairs they just did and make a temp “door” to get through so they can follow up.

As they work, Oscar gets closer to the camp. As he does, the voices resolve into those of a young man bossing some younger people around, telling them to eat. One of the people, a younger girl, is complaining because she doesn’t like tomatoes (the most recent thing stolen from the Patel farm). The older boy says they’ll steal something else next time, and it’s better than no food at all, to which there is much grumbling.

Oscar appears at the edge of the darkness, staying visible but incorporeal just in case, and announces himself. He starts asking if he can help, and letting them know that zombies are about and dangerous (to which the kids smirk a bit) and that he’s with the Morts, who’ve been sent out to clean it up. He tells them the Fence is being patched and they’re going to keep an eye on it now. This is met with bluster on the part of the leader (who someone else calls Charlie). When Oscar offers to bring them in, giving them shelter and food, Charlie resists at onceand refuses to let his friends/family be made into slaves. Oscar engages in a bit of social combat, though, and gets a Superb, at which point the girl who hates tomatoes came over and stood by him. “No tomatoes, right?” Oscar offers his word, and notes they have a garden at the Hub so there are lots of other options.

There’s still a bit of back and forth, but Oscar slowly makes points while keeping this from getting physical – these are just kids, for the most part, and one person who’s not much of an adult yet himself. Finally Charlie caves after the other youngest goes out and stands next to his sister. Pot and tomatoes aren’t worth dying over, and the kids need a safe place to be as long as they aren’t going to be split up and sent into the city. They promise to stop stealing from the Patels assuming they aren’t forced to it again, and agree to come inside the Fencel at least for the night.

Bonesy decides not to intrude and just get introduced inside the Fence and so makes his way back. River and Edison, making sure there aren’t any additional zombies coming up, let Oscar and the kids in, then fasten up the breach once more. Introductions are made all around, and they all start walking back to the Hub with promises of movies to watch and baked potatoes with cheese and butter and salt for a late dinner. As they pass Randy’s cemetery, though, Charlie spots a crow and notes that there’s been a lot more of them lately, and it looks like someone’s been setting traps for them too. The crow just sits in the tree and watches as they pass, then flies off into the night northward, toward the city…..

Morts: To Market, To Market

Our third session opens with a planned trip to the farmer’s market and swap meet and a look at the updated chore wheel, along with a couple of other notes. The mayor’s efforts to cut the “budget waste” in the Morts program has trickled down to an effort by the station head to conserve ammo – anyone with less than five shots used by the end of the month gets special berry pies from the market, and those who go over get nothing. In addition, Molly (the station head) has noted a lot of stress in her people and is looking to have someone take on some group activity planning once a week or something – movie nights, whatever – and placed a note to that effect on the memo board. 

Edison is really excited by the concept of being in charge of entertainment and he basically corners Molly at breakfast the next morning with barely contained excitement over being in charge of entertainment, possibly doing plays or improv games. Molly tries to gently suggest that a group movie may be all people are willing to do, at least at first, and limits him to one improv/acting evening a month. Will that matter? Who can say?

Oscar is taking the budget issues to heart and has fixated on the idea of having goats at the Hub, providing meat, milk, fiber for yarn and fabric, and an additional way to help maintain the grounds, create fertilizer for his garden, and get rid of food waste. He hasn’t brought this up yet, but he’s secretly measuring out where they could live and doing the math.Bonesey has taken some of Randy’s notebooks and is reading them assiduously, in hopes of improving his necromantic skills and getting his little bone puppets working better. No one knows quite what to do with this but offer vague encouragement, and it’s not like he goes out of the way to tell anyone else what he has going on. Todd (on Team 2) suspects something, though. Bonesey is already an object of fascination for him, given his desire to join the Republic of Davis necromancy programs. He is paired with Bonesey this week on the chore wheel, and the result is that he won’t give Bonesey a minute to himself that he isn’t required to.

River gets paired with Miranda doing maintenance, and she’s really annoyed overall and fixated on getting this pool fixed. Oscar wants to turn it into more of a pond feature, and River is amenable to at least talking about that – anything that would create a decent amount of filtration is up for discussion. Miranda doesn’t want to do anything and has, in fact, locked herself in her room, playing loud music and yelling at anyone who tries to get her to come out. She agrees to come out and do dishes AFTER everyone leaves for the trip if they will just LEAVE HER ALONE. GOD, THIS SUCKS.

Taking some of the random stuff from Randy’s, the group goes with Molly to the market leaving Miranda and Rory at the Hub. Molly, River, and Oscar buy the food for the next two weeks or so, with Oscar hovering over the produce and the goat dairy stuff like a creepy fan. Edison finds the magic stuff trader and gets a medallion he found looked at, with the end result being “let me look this up and come back next time for more info.” Bonesey buys a file to file his finger bones into spikey talons, a move that makes everyone else vaguely uneasy, and River is approached by Mr. Patel (the owner of the farm and market) who asks if the Morts would be willing to look into a situation for a little extra pay.

With Molly’s encouragement, River listens and finds out that the farm’s been having small bands of alpha zombies attack. That’s not terrible – zombie attacks happen, and it hasn’t been in such numbers that anyone was really at risk. But they’ve realized there’s a pattern and food is being stolen from the fields at the same time. If the Morts would come and take a look and see if they can figure out who’s behind it (and ideally put a stop to it) they’d be happy to cut a deal/pay the Morts in food and services.  

River and the team agree, leaving out Todd from the equation (he doesn’t care, really, because he’s got other fish to fry, as it were). They get the food back to the station and then go out to the farm. The most recent incursion was two days ago, ravaging a section of a tomato field. They figure about two big burlap bags (about what one big or two medium people could carry) in nearly ripe tomatoes are missing. At the same time this happened, further down the fence line, a bunch of zombies had gotten into the orchard, which is where the family was, out of range to hear or see what was happening to the tomato plants. The team (guided by Priya, the Patels’ oldest daughter), they climb up into the barn to look out and see nothing in particular, except for clear land to the west (co-incidentally, the same direction as the cemetery from last session). They decide that they should split into two teams, once to look for evidence of the thieves, and one to track the zombies back. Any bets on which one gets into trouble first? Check back next time!

Morts: Alphas at the Gates!

We join our characters on a typical Monday, when the new assignments on the Hub chore wheel have been doled out and everyone’s trying to get their stuff done and out of the way. River and Oscar are getting rid of trash and starting the weekly cleaning rounds, and Bonesey and Edison are handling maintenance – time to wash the solar panels so they don’t stop working. They’re just getting started with their chores when the Station Boss, Molly, rings the bell and calls them all in. The other team has been out at the gate into SE Eugene since dawn, as they’re defending against waves of super basic Alpha zombies and they need a break. The team grabs their stuff in an Edgar-Wright-worthy montage, ending with Oscar slowly picking up his Garden Weasel and trudging after them, inasmuch as a ghost can trudge.

Along the road to the wall, they notice signs of zombies having passed toward their destination. They arrive to find Miranda completely over this, Todd ready for breakfast, and Rory ready to keep going if given the slightest opportunity. The team sends the others home, much to Rory’s quiet dismay, and before long, a wave of zombies comes along. Bonesey pummels one to pieces, just tanking his way through the blows with little more than a scratch. Edison racks his shotgun (ejecting the cartridge already in there, which Oscar retrieves and hands over again, shaking his head) and takes down two of them. River effectively downs one after the other with her spiked bat, and Oscar manages to take out two with one blow of his trusty Garden Weasel! Edison puts his shotgun through Oscar and shoots the last one facing his ghost friend, a move that is effective and that looks super cool but everyone involved regrets once ectoplasm is involved. In a few moments, the minor horde is down and out and leaving little more than a mess of zombie bits behind them. It’s not long before they settle on Resthaven Memorial Park as the most likely cemetery in the area to host a necromancer – it’s the closest, it’s been used the most recently, and the trail seems to lead in that direction. It used to be a really nice place with a lot of landscaping, but it’s become this sort of overgrown garden gone to weeds and seeds throughout most of it. There’s still a little corner that’s kept up by some local families as a place to bury their loved ones’ ashes, but mostly it’s been left to grow wild.

There’s not that many structures at Resthaven – in the middle of the cemetery is the only building, which has a viewing area, restrooms, a business office, and a small chapel. Trying to find a place a necromancer might hide, they approach the building and ponder the best way in. River and Oscar are studying the building (with Oscar being quietly dismayed by the lack of plant care and gardening going on) while Bonesey and Edison realize that three groups of three zombies each are coming out of the underbrush (and the one behind them has a zombie dog, which is distinctly NOT NORMAL). Unlike most zombies, these groups are coordinated and targeting Bonesey, evidently focused on his lich energies. They’re still just alphas, though, and the group takes them down in short order.

Once that’s done, and River has pointed out the weirdness about these groups, Oscar sticks his head inside to see if there’s anyone around. He goes through and lets them in once he realizes the coast is clear. They all look around and Oscar, again sticking his head through a door, realizes that the chapel has been converted to a lab/office and there’s someone in there. Edison takes lead and knocks, and unexpectedly is answered in a relatively polite way. Turns out the person in the office is one Prof. Randy King, who’s been sending his zombies to break down the gate in hopes of “talking” to an administrator (Andrea Martin) at the University of Oregon, inside the walls. King is angry because Martin denied his application for a position in the Necromancy department, and like liches often do, he’s become obsessed with proving her wrong, a goal that’s been extended to “kill her, take any spells in the office/lab, and burn down the University” as part of his onboarding for his inevitably chairship at Republic of Davis.

Edison and River try to talk him down, but Randy is having none of it and in fact just grows more strident. He tries to talk them into either a) assisting him to get in or b) ignoring the problem, but has no luck, as evidenced by Edison sneakily letting him have it with the shotgun. Oscar phases through Randy and slimes him, Bonesey beats on him, River swings on him, and all of them manage to bring him down, but not before he lets loose with a magical scream that feels like being spiritually sandblasted. Oscar finishes him off with a well-placed blow from the Garden Weasel, leaving Randy to fall to dust. The team is happy before River reminds them that liches collapse into bones when you kill them, not dissolve into dust, and everyone feels uneasy about this unexpected turn. They go into the chapel and search through the stuff, like you do, before returning to base to file their reports and get back to doing their chores.

Mondays, am I right?

Morts! (Setup, Chargen, Session 0)

Today I (Michelle) am guest starring on Matt’s blog as I’m running a new game for us, and I don’t have a journal of my own anymore that isn’t for work! It’s been a super hot minute since I’ve run a game, but I’ve gotten the itch to take on a GM role again and so here we are. 

Trial and error has shown that I work best with games that don’t have too many GMing moving parts, so I’m going to stick with FATE Core – I also like Accelerated, but I want a little more granularity than Accelerated provides for genre emulation. That probably seems funny given that we’re talking about FATE, but no judgment, plz.

My players are Amanda, Gus, Cael, and Matt. Amanda and Gus are old veterans at the table. Matt’s going to get to take on a player role, so Cael and Matt actually get to be players at the same time for once! Gus and Matt were both players the last time I GM'd, while Cael and Amanda haven’t been in one of my games before, so overall it’s a pretty balanced table. 

I decided that I’d take a gander at the published settings. I really like to do emulation games – specific IP/settings – but those work best when everyone knows at least a little about the setting. I went from there to looking through the FATE Core Published settings, and presented a list of six – half properties I like, half published materials. The group ended up choosing Morts, a setting published by Evil Hat in 2016 and written by Lara Turner.

The elevator pitch behind Morts is basically take one part Empire Records and one part Zombieland, and swirl in a pinch of Community and a dash of The Office, and there you are. All the characters, dead or alive, are morticians, responsible for keeping Zombies out of the outskirts of Eugene, OR (or Cascadia, as the people in charge reshuffled a bit after zombies came to live and took a huge bite out of all the densely populated areas). Morticians get free room and board and keep the zombies at arm’s length from the city they're attached to. There are no qualifications and very few questions – it’s like the Peace Corps, but involves zombie killing and is open to sentient dead who manage not to try to eat people and can get through a short interview. 

Of our group of Morticians, we have the following characters: 

• Bonesey O’ Sullivan, a Black Market Lich who doesn’t remember anything prior to his time as a skeleton and isn’t entirely sure how he got this way, except that he clearly doesn’t know enough necromancy to do it himself. He is fond of taking off his arm and using it as a club with his other arm (I Am My Own Weapon). 
• River McNannis, who’s been a mortician forever and kinda likes it. She uses a Spiked Baseball Bat and generally directs the newbies in how to do their job in an unofficial sort of way, seeing as how she's (Not) The Boss.
• Oscar Blair, who’s the ghost of a florist who unwisely went to visit his sister and got jumped by zombies. He uses a G-g-arden Weasel of the cultivator variety ( https://www.gardenweasel.com/") as his weapon of choice. 
• Edison Poe, a Temporarily Inconvenienced Movie Star who wants to make it big in the entertainment industry and is just waiting for his big break. He has a Badass Pump Shotgun Like in T2 that he’s not at all good with, but it makes a great sound and he looks very impressive holding it.

We played last night, so you get the write-up later today!