When Nightmares Come Game #3: "Abandon All Hope..."

The sanitation workers’ strike is entering its third week amidst an agonizing heatwave and tempers throughout the city are running higher than the mercury in the thermometer. Disappearances among the city’s poorer working neighborhoods have drawn limited media attention, but the Webster Street Irregulars recognize that there’s something awful hiding among the heaped trash of a boiling city.

 "Obviously, Mr. Carter, I'm not at liberty to discuss the current negotiations between the mayor's office and the sanitation workers' union," the bureaucrat said nasally, looking over the tops of her glasses at Steve.

"Oh, of course, miss," Steve replied. "I mean, I know everyone is dealing with the same garbage issue we are at the apartments I maintain, and the garbage is a breeding ground for rats, which means disease. And I'm sure you've heard that the rats are getting more and more aggressive, right?"

The woman paled slightly. Steve knew he'd hit a nerve.

"Let me just go make a phone call," she said nervously. "I'll be right back."

As soon as she left, Steve lifted the manila folder that he'd spotted on her desk. Inside, a list of missing persons reports.

"Jackpot," Steve whispered, sliding the folder into his coveralls and getting up to leave.

[I only needed one narrative success, which I got, meaning the hunters can deploy one move in from any table edge, effectively gaining an extra free move.]

Each Point of Interest can yield two Clues this game; the rules are unclear so I decided each POI would stay on the table until it had been searched and yielded clues twice.  

An "Alpha Dark Spawn" is also added to what spawns on turns 1 and 2.  

Turn 1

Lisa, desperate for knowledge, bee-lined for the burning dumpster and began to investigate, discovering a pile of chewed bones, marked up by chisel-like teeth.

 "That looks like... a dog's bones..." she whispered to herself, and continued to dig.

Steve entered the Planet XXX adult bookstore, while Paul began searching the Off-Track Betting, each turning up one clue in the process.

 Carrie moved up to support Lisa, while Guy approached one of the portals, gun ready in case anything emerged. (He was on Overwatch.)

 Rats began to pour out of portals 2 and 3, while a filthy woman covered in sores and wrapped in a ragged blanket emerged from portal 4, cackling as she pulled out a rat and sank her own long, crooked teeth into its neck. Guy unloaded his pistol, scattering rats and sending them scurrying back to the sewers. The second rat swarm approached Paul but couldn't attack, and the woman entered the Planet XXX and shambled towards Steve.

 Turn 2

 Lisa frantically tossed trash around, looking for more information in the dumpster. Finally satisfied (with a successful Interact roll after two failures), she moved on to investigate the EZ Pawn.

 Paul managed to stomp enough rats to disperse the swarm, and collected his second clue.

Steve said, "Oh, hell, no" when he saw the Rat Queen, and tossed a homemade flashbang at her. While she reeled from the blast, Steve grabbed his second clue and then walked over to the gibbering, filthy woman.

"I don't have time for this," Steve said, drawing his knife. "Maybe the others would approve, maybe not, but you're gross and scary and I don't want you sneaking up behind me." He plunged the knife downwards into her back.

 On the Dark Spawn's turn, the Nexus appeared in the first quadrant, with two rat swarms spawning at each of portals 3 and 4 [this was a mistake on my part; it should have been one swarm at each] and a giant rat, as big as a Saint Bernard, red-eyed, slavering and covered in oozing postules, emerged from Portal 1. With a screech, it charged Carrie, who lost one of her action dice for the next turn due to Terror.

 Rats swarmed Steve and Paul but failed their attack rolls, while the giant rat failed to hit Carrie as well.

Turn 3

Paul dispersed the rats before they could attack him, and moved out into the street to support Carrie against the giant rat.

Lisa ignored the rats approaching her, and focused all her obsessive attention on collecting the final clues, which she did. 

Carrie managed to inflict a wound on the giant rat, but it was not enough to kill it.

Steve stomped out the rats in contact with him, moved away and tossed a bundle of Repellent at a second rat swarm, driving it back away from him.

 Guy moved into contact with Portal 2, successfully harvested Arcana, but struggled and failed to close the portal.

Rat swarms spawned from portals 1 and 2. The swarm at portal 2 attacked Guy but were stymied by his puffy coat. Lisa got swarmed and bitten by rats, and the giant rat tried to bite Carrie but she blocked the attack.

 Turn 4

Steve dashed through the back door of the Planet XXX, rolled a critical success to harvest 5 Arcana from portal 4, scoring a bonus action die that he then used to close the portal.

 Guy failed multiple rolls to hit the rats, despite melee combat being his specialty and getting to roll two dice and take the better with each attempt. Lisa, meanwhile, attempted to fight back against the rats, but every hit was blocked by the swarming rodents.

Paul swiftly dispatched a swarm of rats that was blocking his path and moved forward to support Carrie, passing his Terror test to get close to the giant rat.

 "I've got this bastard," Carrie snarled. She grabbed the giant rat by the throat, holding it at bay, its four-inch teeth inches from her face. She squeezed and twisted. Neck bones snapped, and the giant rat went limp. "Cover me while I harvest the Nexus!" 

 

Rat swarms boiled out of portals 1 and 3. Carrie, Lisa and Guy all took wounds from rat swarms, though Steve remained unharmed.

 Turn 5

 Steve tried and failed to kill the rat swarm attacking him.

Paul successfully dispersed a swarm then moved into contact with the swarm attacking Carrie (see picture above), and failed to do anything about them. 

Carrie rolled her eyes, stomped a few rats hard enough to send the rest scattering, and turned back to harvest 8 points of Arcana from the Nexus. 

Lisa chugged a Kaiju Energy Drink and then proceeded to fail repeatedly to kill the rats attacking her. 

Guy killed the rats in front of him but continued to fail at closing the portal.

Red-robed cultists spawned at portals 1 and 3, with the first charging Paul and immediately beating him to the ground.

 The rats swarming Lisa also pull her to the ground, biting and clawing.

 Turn 6

 "Christ, do I have to do everything myself?" Carrie raged, pulling her pistol and shooting the cultist in the stomach before turning back to harvest another 4 points of Arcana and then close down the Nexus.

 Guy finally managed to close the portal in front of him, while Steve failed to kill the rats in front of him again. 

Another four cultists spawned from Portal 3, but were not able to reach and attack any of the remaining hunters on the board.

 A rat swarm moved to attack Carrie and failed, and the rats in contact with Steve also failed their attack rolls, and with that, this episode draws to a close.

***

Lisa tossed and turned in bed, her limbs bandaged tightly. She'd been bitten so many times, and lost a lot of blood. She vaguely remembered a transfusion, multiple courses of antibiotics. She was sweating, feverish, in and out of consciousness.

Lisa... Liiiiiisa... a voice purred in her head. 

"Wha... Who's there?" She groaned.

You don't know me yet, Lisa. But I know you. And we're going to be grand friends. You'll see.

"Who are you?" 

Another voice broke in, one Lisa recognized. One that made the pit of her stomach drop out.

"It's okay, Lis. He's cool. We're cool."

"Muh... Melissa? But you... I saw... You're dead..."

Yes she is, Lisa. Your friend Melissa is dead, and we both know it's because of you, don't we? Melissa got torn apart at that rave. You could have been there and gotten her out safely. You know you could have. Except you were doing lines in the bathroom, weren't you, Lisa?

"God damn you... Who do you think you are?" Lisa thrashed in bed, bandages darkening as she reopened the day's injuries.

I'm the one who's giving you an opportunity to make things right, Lisa. A chance to redeem yourself after what happened to Melissa. All you have to do is say 'yes' to me...

*** 

Another game where the Webster Street Irregulars achieved a measure of victory - enough clues collected to move on to the next game, two portals and a nexus closed, plenty of dead Dark Spawn including two Alphas - at a heavy cost. 

Both Paul and Lisa developed some new emotional traumas after surviving this ordeal. Paul is now Bloodthirsty, which means he has to spend his actions approaching and attacking Dark Spawn, while Lisa is Cursed; their ultimate enemy, the Prince of Hell known as the Knight of the Black Blade, has a connection to her now, whispering seductively in her dreams and slowly corrupting her. If an antidote is not created and administered before Game 6, she may become a Dark Spawn herself under his control during the final battle. However, this connection goes both ways; she can now get flashes of insight that give her and her companions a temporary bonus to fighting Dark Spawn. 

This marks the halfway point of this campaign, and the last game that the rat swarms are going to be showing up in; narratively, the destruction of the Rat Queen and the Giant Rat break the Knight of the Black Blade's power over the sewer rats of the city. Starting next game, the cultists are going to be the lowest level enemies, with minor demons showing up in turns 5 and 6. I'm not sure the Irregulars are up to the challenge, but we'll find out!

All total, they harvested 21 points of Arcana and gained 14 points' worth of advances to be doled out before the next game.  

Looking at the calendar, I'm anticipating Game 4 on either the 24th or 25th, Game 5 on the 29th, and Game 6 on the 31st. I think I can pull off my goal of getting the entire campaign in before trick or treaters arrive on Halloween.  

Even More Ninjas!

 The remaining figures I was waiting on finally arrived from Crooked Dice!

 I was born in 1987, and as a kid my first introduction to the concept of "ninja" was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I had a whole toybox full of the original action figures in the early 90s, with some lingering in the basement or garage into the late 90s. I knew Crooked Dice had a set of "Turtle Heroes" in their catalog, and not too long ago issued figures in the likeness of classic allies Splinter, Casey Jones and April O'Neill. What I didn't realize until I went specifically looking is that I could field all of the classic villains as well; I treated myself to Shredder, his bumbling henchmen Bebop and Rocksteady (mutated rhino and warthog, respectively) and a set of ninja henchmen to represent the Foot Clan that Shredder leads. 

The Turtles, Bebop and Rocksteady were figures sculpted for another company that Crooked Dice bought, rather than commissioned themselves; each turtle is in at least 3 pieces, including separate mask-ties to glue to the backs of their heads. I dug some 3D printed urban bases out of my stash for the Turtles themselves, but everyone else is getting my normal basing.

Before the mask-ties were added.

 

I also got a package from Fenris Games - mostly some resin bits for set-dressing and terrain tokens to interact with in Fistful of Kung Fu, but I got an MDF diner as well. Whether it gets assembled before next year remains to be seen.

 

I based up some fire hydrants and propane tanks; both have rules in Fistful of Kung Fu; a damaged hydrant can knock a nearby figure off his feet with a sudden blast of water, while propane tanks can explode if shot at, injuring nearby figures. 

 

I'd already updated the tracker for these figures, but lets add that diner and these six bits of scatter terrain/tokens. 
 

Miniatures Acquired: 246

Miniatures Painted: 252

Terrain Acquired: 9

Terrain Painted: 10

Scatter Acquired: 21

Scatter Painted: 24

A Mix of Finished Figures

 I finished an assortment of figures last night - some that I have definite plans for currently, and some that were sitting primed and I was waiting for other things to arrive. Let's take a look, shall we?

First up, an assortment of Sword-and-Sorcery literary characters. Most of these are from Bronze Age Miniatures, but all are sculpted by David Soderquist.

 While I'd painted Elric previously, he's now joined by one of his longtime companions, the short yet affable Moonglum of Elwher. A thief and mercenary, Moonglum is an incarnation of the Eternal Companion, just as Elric is the Eternal Champion, two bound to fight side by side throughout the multiverse. 

 Fafhrd, a giant red-haired northerner, and his diminutive friend the Gray Mouser, were created by Fritz Leiber and his friend Otto Fischer, and are a pair of cynical but charming rogues who go through a series of picaresque adventures over a span of stories written between 1939 and 1988. There's an excellent 1991 comic adaptation of seven of the stories with art by Mike Mignola, which I used for color inspiration. 

 Conan the Barbarian and his love interest Belit, from the story "Queen of the Black Coast" by Robert E. Howard. Belit is currently sold through Dragon Bait Miniatures, rather than Bronze Age.

 An extremely Frazetta-esque barbarian painted as Conan as well. 

Next up, some more modern figures:

 Two figures from a Copplestone "Girls With Guns" pack I got the other day, painted to join my Jamaican street gang.

 "Corporate Ninjas" from Pontoonier Miniatures, armed with swords and silenced pistols. They're chunkier sculpts but I like the look of them. I painted them with greenish skin and red eyes for a change - are they undead? Possessed? Aliens? Plenty of possibilities. These will be seeing play in "A Fistful of Kung Fu."

So that's 14 more finished figures! I'm certainly pleased with that. The figures I'd ordered for next February's big Fistful of Kung Fu demo table arrived yesterday as well, though I haven't had a chance to lay them out and take photos yet, so let's update the tracker. Things are still looking good! 

 

Miniatures Acquired: 246

Miniatures Painted: 252

Terrain Acquired: 8

Terrain Painted: 10

Scatter Acquired: 15

Scatter Painted: 24

 

Oh! Too Many Ninjas!

 So I'd initially planned on waiting to post about this until all of the figures came in, but a significant chunk seem to be sitting with Royal Mail awaiting shipment out of the UK and have been for a week, which is frustrating to say the least.

Anyways, onwards and upwards.

My beloved local game convention, Running GAGG, which I've been attending for 20 years now, has announced a theme of "Pirates Vs. Ninjas" for the upcoming 2027 show. I don't have any pirates but I've got some ninjas, and I decided that I'd put on a ninja-themed game. I workshopped some ideas - a samurai-vs-ninjas game using Osprey's Ronin, for example - but ultimately decided to cram as many modern pop culture ninjas as I can into Osprey's "A Fistful of Kung Fu" for a martial arts free for all, and my wife encouraged me to splash out a bit to make it happen.

 So here's what's come in first - some "Corporate Ninjas" with silenced pistols from Pontoonier Miniatures, a Lab Mutant from Reaper (to be converted into Blanka from the Street Fighter franchise), some soldiers in berets from The Assault Group and some Copplestone "Girls With Guns." I'd hoped to find a figure I could convert into the character Cammy White as she appeared in the 1994 Street Fighter movie (which I unironically love), since I've got a Street Fighter Van Damme already. However, I'm no sculptor and my Green Stuff was well past the point where it should have been thrown out so I made an absolute hash of that conversion. At least I managed to get some hair on to Blanka. 

I've already started work on a lot of these, with everything at least based and primed. 

Also, last night I picked up the last piece of terrain I needed for my current When Nightmares Come campaign - a 3D printed bank building from Corvus Games terrain printed for me by my buddy Dave. This is going to make an appearance in Game 5, assuming I get enough clear days to prime and base coat it between now and then! 

 The interior is playable but I don't expect to have it furnished any time soon - I haven't found any "bank" scatter terrain I've liked. Everyone who offers any just offers a vault door, some gold bars, maybe some security cameras. Where's the tellers' counter? 

Anyway, that's what I'm up to currently. I should have some stuff coming off the painting desk in the next few days to keep me in the green on my tracker.

 

Miniatures Acquired: 230

Miniatures Painted: 238

Terrain Acquired: 8

Terrain Painted: 10

Scatter Acquired: 15

Scatter Painted: 24

 

When Nightmares Come Game #2: "In the Lowest Deep, a Lower Deep..."

Professor Harington’s apartment, just off-campus, has been the epicenter of strange sounds, smells and lights reported in recent weeks. These phenomena went wild for 20 minutes coinciding with the time of his death. This can’t be a coincidence.

 "Hey!" Guy shouted, waving at the gaggle of college students milling awkwardly on the sidewalk in front of the smoke shop below Harington's apartment. "Scram, all of ya! Nobody benefits from you bunch of rubberneckers!" The onlookers hesitated until Guy unlimbered his tonfa, at which point, they scattered.

*** 

"What do you want? I've had enough of people sniffing around here! A man's dead, damn it!" the sharp-faced landlady barked, the door open only as far as the chain bolt would allow.  

"I understand that, ma'am," Carried replied coolly. "The dead man was my brother, and since my ungrateful children don't speak to me any more, he's all the family I had left. I'd like to be able to retrieve his personal effects."

"Oh, you poor dear," the landlady softened. "I know how that goes, my own children don't talk to me either. Of course you can go up."

"Does Carrie even have kids?" Lisa whispered to Steve.

"I don't know, but man, she lied so easily and so smoothly to get us in..."

[With two successes in the narrative scene, the hunters can deploy one move in from any table edge, effectively gaining an extra free move.]

Turn 1: 

Sensing something extra-off about a pile of garbage next to the pizzeria, Guy sauntered over and turned over a trash bag, revealing a pile of skinned rats. "Well, that's something you don't see every day," he said, taking a few photos. 

 Lisa entered the smoke shop, took a moment to appreciate the decor, and then moved upstairs into Harington's apartment. Looking at Harington's decor, she shook her head. "This guy was neck deep in some bad mojo," she said to herself, documenting everything.

 

Paul and Carrie moved to where they could better support Lisa as she searched Harington's apartment, while Steve entered the ramen restaurant, locating some interesting papers hidden in one of the booths.

 Swarms of rats emerged into the street, one cluster working their way towards Guy, and one moving into contact with Carrie but without any actions left to attack with.

 Turn 2:

Paul moved to defend Carrie from the rats, swinging his baton but failing to inflict any damage. Carrie fell back away from the rats (successfully dodging their counterattack, and cast "Deja Vu" on Paul, allowing him to perform an extra action later in the turn. Carrie readies herself to attack the rats at range if Paul fails to kill them. 

 Guy charged the rats, swinging his tonfa, sending them scattering back to the sewer and continued on towards the portal they'd emerged from.

 Steve made his way towards the rear exit of the ramen restaurant, but got distracted by the smell of fresh-cooked ramen.

 Lisa collected Harington's laptop and some accompanying external hard drives, and retreated back downstairs.

 The collection of the laptop triggered the emergence of the Nexus, rising out of the floor of the ramen restaurant with a rumble and ominous chanting. "Hey Carrie? You should see this..." Steve said into his cell phone. 

 Rats emerged from portals 1 and 3, swarming Guy and Steve; Paul gets bitten by the rats already in front of him, and guy takes a wound from the swarm attacking him. Steve avoids being bitten, and rats reach Lisa but can't attack her. 

 Activating again thanks to the Deja Vu spell, Paul fails to kill the rats and moves away from them, taking an attack of opportunity that wounds him again. Carrie blasts the rats with an "Arcane Bolt" spell. 

 Turn 3:

Steve struggles ineffectively against the rats swarming him, the horde of rodents dancing away from his knife. Carrie scatters a swarm of rats blocking the doorway to the ramen restaurant with a well-placed pistol shot and enters the restaurant, approaching the Nexus.

 Lisa moved away from the rats (their attack failed) towards Paul, and administered a healing potion, pouring the syrupy, copper-flavored serum into his mouth and watching the bloody bites on his arms closing up. She turned and attempted to tase the rat swarm unsuccessfully. With a curse, she whipped a Repellent out of her purse and tossed the vial of salt, silver shavings, garlic and wolfsbane. The rats scattered.

 Revitalized, Paul returned to the street, working his way towards the nearest portal.

 Guy killed the rats swarming around his boots, and approached the portal in front of him, harvesting 4 Arcana. 

 More rats emerged from portals 2 and 4; the rats Lisa had repelled moved to attack Guy, one of the new swarms attacked Paul (neither succeeding to inflict a wound), Steve takes a wound from the rats attacking him. 

 Turn 4:

Paul managed to disperse the rats attacking him, approached the portal, and harvested 3 points of Arcana. Guy killed the rats attacking him and closed the portal in front of him, while Carried harvested 8 points of Arcana from the Nexus before closing it down. Lisa, exiting the smoke shop, began making her way towards the fourth portal, pausing to successfully tase a swarm of rats.

I forgot to take photos of a lot of this.

Steve finally killed the rats attacking him, and headed out the back door of the ramen restaurant to reach the last portal. He froze, however, when he saw what was emerging from it.

 

"Well, crap," Steve said.

One swarm moved to attack Steve, though he successfully resisted taking damage. Carrie, being taken by surprise by rats pouring through the walls of the building, took a Wound. 

Turn 5:

 After some fumbling, Paul closed the portal in front of him, and then moved into cover behind the police car as another rat swarm drew close. 

 Carrie killed the rats in front of her, stomping them with her boots, moved out of the ramen restaurant and killed a few more rats to assist Steve, who was also killing rats.

 Lisa chugged a Kaiju Energy Drink and buzzed in place for a moment before managing to get the shakes under control enough to move towards the portal, but failed to harvest any Arcana. Guy dashed after her to assist or provide cover. 

 

A pair of cowled cultists spawned right on top of Guy and Lisa, savagely beating Guy down to the pavement and leaving Lisa staggered, with only a single wound left to lose. Meanwhile, rats swarmed Paul, biting and clawing.

Turn 6:

Paul and Steve, despite some struggle, managed to kill the rats that were attacking them. Carrie harvested 4 points of Arcana from the portal and closed it, then blasted another swarm of rats with an Arcane Bolt.

Lisa tried to fight back against the cultists, but failed her Dodge Defense roll against the cultists' "Self Defense" trait, and slumped to the ground.  

 With police sirens drawing near, the cultists withdrew. The members of the Webster Street Irregulars still on their feet collected their comrades and made their own retreat.

***

"Well, that could have gone better," Paul said grimly, swirling beer in the bottle. Guy and Lisa were bruised and battered, but had ultimately suffered nothing worse than a few cracked ribs, and were now resting at their respective apartments after having been patched up at the ER. 

"In this business, every victory comes at a price," Carrie replied. "We're lucky it wasn't worse this time."

"At least we got something out of this, right?" Steve asked.

"Right," Carrie said. "Lisa finding Harington's laptop was a huge help to us. I've been going through the files and it seems Harington was working with the red-robed assholes, but had an attack of conscience and tried to get out of it. They killed him to keep their secrets, and were probably on their way to search his apartment themselves when we ran into them. If we'd been 20 minutes later they probably would have had everything cleaned out."

"What were they working on?" Paul leaned forward.

"They're working on summoning something called 'the Knight of the Black Blade' to Earth."

Steve shifted uncomfortably. "That sounds... bad."

"Bad's an understatement," Carrie affirmed. "The Knight of the Black Blade is a prince of Hell, a powerful demon of carnage and war."

***

 So it's a victory, but a bit of a Pyrrhic one; the Irregulars collected enough clues to advance their investigation, and harvested 19 points of Arcana that will be used to upgrade their gear. They also earned a total of 15 experience points towards skill advancements. 

Rather than let Guy and Lisa be killed by the cultists, I'm choosing to use the Dark Secret and Odd Touch optional rules. Their brushes with death have changed them. Going forward:

•  Lisa will be obsessed with finding every Clue she can. She can fight in self-defense but cannot be the aggressor; all her actions must be put towards collecting clues. She can slip into a shadow dimension briefly, allowing her to teleport up to 8" to a point within line of sight. 
• Guy is traumatized; losing 2 from his Resolve and taking a -2 to all Terror rolls. He's also experiencing a profound sense of outrage and loss, the rage and sorrow of the victims of the Dark Spawn in this campaign. He can scream this outrage out, causing every Dark Spawn on the table to flinch and lose an action die.