And here the entire team (sans Angelus, who stayed with the very injured captives at the hospital) all gangs up on Anarch.

#384 – Danger in the Depths – Sir Rathos arrives with responding F.I.S.H. agents, and together the heroes take out the soldiers and disable the weapons on their submersibles.  Aquins with broken breathing apparatus are rushed to the ocean and saved, then Halley and Spirit return with Prince Kalm, who has fallen unconscious due to exhaustion.  After questioning one of the enemy and learning they serve a Queen Shalel who was hunting the Prince, the soldiers are allowed to depart with their two craft.  A few of the vigilantes speak to the media, and Perihelion recognizes a feeling of restlessness that occurred after he spoke to the press on his first adventure.  A General Grant declares himself in charge and demands that the “fish-man” be returned, but the Guardians circumvent his instructions, contacting Majestic and getting permission to take the fugitive elsewhere.  They take Kalm (and tow his craft) to a Coast Guard base (Integrated Support Command Alameda) in the Bay Area.  Kensai returns to Japan and the rest of the team stays with the Prince as he recuperates and heals.  Three days later the local airwaves are commandeered by Queen Shalel, who demands the return of the “criminal” within 24 hours.  She promises a show of power on a nearby unproductive oil rig in one hour.  The group, joined by Kensai, meets with local dignitaries and Pioneer Oil executives and agrees to protect the rig if the refugee is not released.  Shortly after they assemble on the evacuated structure, a colossal squid attacks!

#386 – Counterstrike – The team, stymied by thick smoke, is unable to locate the intruder, who slips deeper into the hospital.  Searching for the refugee Prince, Natas uses evasive tactics to make his way to the basement, where Sir Rathos and Kensai ambush him.  Psypher uses a tank to drag the mercenary’s mini-sub onto the beach while Spirit helps his companions take him out.  Sir Rathos attempts to question Natas, but the villain mind controls the Guardians’ leader and the others swiftly dispatch him again.  Back at the aquarium, Prince Kalm finally awakens and tells the adventurers about the Aquin people.  He explains that his father was beguiled by the witch Shalel, who seduced and married him.  After his death (which she may have caused), she had Kalm, the rightful ruler, imprisoned.  He was rescued by freedom fighters and fled to the surface world for aid.  The heroes offer to help, though Kensai and Spartan decline.  Boarding the Prince’s craft and Halley, Prince Kalm, Sir Rathos, Spirit, Helios, Psypher, and Perihelion venture into the Pacific Ocean, bound for the underwater kingdom of Aquina.

#388 – The Accidental Ambush – Rune looks into the theft of the Copper Lion relic from the National Museum of Mali and determines that mercenaries Brain and Brawn likely stole the artifact for someone else.  Tarnhelm and criminologist Kimi meet Angelus, Rune, Spartan, Makeshift, Phase, and Araneae at Foundation Headquarters.  Tarnhelm’s Helmholtz Security was hired by Okita Foundation for Archaeological Studies (O.F.A.S.) as additional defense for an African digsite in Somaliland.  An alarm occurred the day before, and contact with the primary Secom security team was lost.  Tarnhelm, no longer having precognitive dreams, experienced a waking vision of an unsuccessful response by his team, where the camp’s robot defenders (possibly controlled by a technopath) wiped them all out.  Kimi teleports the party to Mogadishu, and as they take helicopters to the site he alerts the others about paranormal villain Sultan Salaad.  The eight invade the camp, and Araneae phases Tarnhelm into the command tent, where he quickly shuts down the robotic sentinels.  The scientist hostages are found to be infected and zombie-like, and the heroes dispatch them and Salaad.  A statue, revealed to be an heir of Lojack, speaks cryptically of an artifact not being present and a target which didn’t arrive before teleporting away.  The adventurers determine that everyone there was infected; the cyberpath both took over the robots and infected the humans.  Phase notes that with the Lojack heir gone the hostages slowly improve.  When the Secom team arrives, Kensai is amongst them and the group learns that he is on the board of O.F.A.S.

Makeshift uses his 'Screamer' to take out all of the technicians in the head.

Part of the reason for the attack was to free the criminal Osore from prison.

Hello

It looks like you've been at this a long time. What is your trick to keeping players interested and entertained -- and how to you keep the creative ideas coming?

#390 – Echoes of the Past – In search of possible pieces of Lojack that may have been spread through history, Araneae, Phase, Angelus, Battletron, and Kensai travel to Mount Ashigara in Japan, the location they believe to be the focal part of the chronal storm more than a millennium prior.  After they recover a piece of armor from a Japanese collector, Rune arrives and transports them all to Argentina, the site of another man who has amassed a vast storehouse.  The Guardians agree to protect his treasures and set up a successful ambush in an archive under his mansion, corralling Brain and Brawn soon after they arrive, though Intuition is able to teleport away with Spirit, Will, and Passion.  After removing an energy artifact from a Byzantine statue, the heroes realize that each piece has an additive effect on the others and secure their three sections far away from each other.  They speculate that there may be as many as three distinct Lojack heirs who successfully converted paranormals, each with different goals and abilities.  The party travels to Mexico, only to find that a Lojack heir beat them to another relic.  After some time spent researching and testing a piece, they interrogate Brain and Brawn.  In Belgium, investigating the mysterious Mr. Jones who hired them, the group realizes he is searching for an artifact there.  Using their superior technology, they find it first and Araneae carefully removes it.  The champions successfully ambush and defeat Jones, who proves to be another of Lojack’s heirs, but an artifact on their adversary is teleported away before they can acquire it.  Makeshift arrives and helps identify the relics; they prove to be a match for Kubera rather than Lojack!  They learn that Lojack, back when he battled the Time Guardian, was likely enslaved by someone else.  The team, flying in the Guardian Angel, secures another object from a remote location in Siberia, but learns that in China, the zombie-like minions of one Lojack heir defeated the robotic followers of another.  Battletron is examined, and the adventurers learn that he was preset to get involved; they also learn of alien influence in his construction and discover a message to find Kubera.  Kageryu joins them in Japan, where Kensai reveals that he built Kintetsu; together he and his robot are Tamonten/Kubera!  He was also the fabled Golden Child of legend, brought to Earth in a lightning strike, as well as a master samurai during pivotal historic battles.  The gathered artifacts are pulled into the ancient warrior, who they implore to help them in the final battle against the heir of Lojack, who has accumulated the remainder of the pieces.

Tamonten took a bunch of punishment, which destroyed (or at least nearly destroyed) the robot Kintetsu, leaving only Kensai.  Together, the group defeated the villain.

Great question, Baretta.  I've been making them for decades, so I've pretty much got it down to a science.

For years here was my method: Draw a picture (pencils and then ink), in a 1" square.  Then make a photocopy (in case of a mistake, or to make variants of different colors or looks later) and color it with colored pencils.

Here's an example of a sheet of my black and white work (pencils and inks) attached below (as a PDF), and then an example of a bunch of the counters once they're finalized.



After coloring them, I cut them out and glue comic backing board to them (which gives them a more solid feel, and they don't blow away really easily).

Now the above was how I did it for years, but in a moment I'll explain how I usually do them now (which is far easier!)

#391 – Echoes of the Future – A few days pass as Tamonten and Lojack each assimilate the artifacts into themselves.  The Guardians discover that a piece of Lojack is among the relics inside Tamonten, and the ancient hero neutralizes it, freeing himself of much pain.  The team learns that contact has been lost with islands along the southern coast of Chile, so Rune teleports Angelus, Phase, Battletron, Tamonten, Spartan, Makeshift, and Araneae to the archaeological site of Monte Verde.  Tamonten flies the group through an energy barrier to a forested area, where the Ultimate Lojack materializes along with six Enjac minions.  Their foe appears more organic than before, and it takes the combined might of all assembled to defeat him and his converted soldiers in battle.  During the fight, Tamonten is shattered, leaving only Kensai, along with Kintetsu in pieces.  They learn that only Kintetsu had the artifacts and Kubera’s memories.

A few pictures of our game last Friday.  This first one is the heroes escorting a convoy into a parking garage in D.C.

This adventure was notable here in that two regular forumites contributed greatly.  The story kernel came from DSumner (his "Guerrillas in the Midst" idea) and some of the more fleshed out parts of assassination attempts on Leo (by Rune, the assassin one can buy here) came via MHG's greycrusader!

Here's a shot where we're a bit deeper into the battle.

This last pic shows each of the villains as they usually dress.  In this one only Alexander VI and Silencer were wearing their usual costume, with the other five dressed as Knights.

In addition to Leo, a few others from Most Wanted Volume #1 made their first appearance in the campaign: Simon Shrew and Trickshot.

In the second part of the Menagerie adventure, here's what happened.

First the heroes rescued the professor's daughter, Amanda.

Here's more of an aerial shot.

#393 – The God of the Lost Valley – After a U.F.O. crashes in the Himalayas, Professor Henry Falswith is sent there to look into it.  A week later, a second object lands near N.O.R.A.D. in Colorado, but when the military investigates, an alien life form attaches to General Eli MacCaffery’s neck.  MacCaffery suggests exploring the earlier landing in Asia, but all contact with Falswith is lost.  Due to a rift between A.R.T. and China, Samson (Charles Gates) and Traveler (John Smith) ask the Guardians to check things out instead.  Once through a Traveler gateway, Spirit, Helios, Perihelion, and Kimi find a lush, tropical valley hidden in the mountains!  They soon locate and rescue the Professor’s daughter, Amanda, at the site of their plane crash.  Taking Amanda with them, they make their way north and find an ancient temple built into a hillside.  Inside they interrupt a service, where natives worship Professor Falswith as a god.  Controlled by the alien K’arr Hokum, he orders Kaela, Bengal, tribesman Mengazi, and many Ohibi warriors to attack the heroes.  The adventurers quickly defeat their opponents, but Hokum disengages and successfully flees into the jungle.  The team does what they can to keep the location secret, but notify the authorities.  Back in Colorado, the alien Msst Klar detaches from the General, revealing that he is a law enforcement agent attempting to apprehend Hokum.  He embarks to continue pursuit of the felon.

Majestic wrote on Mar 21^st, 2014 at 9:08pm:


Oh that pesky, Alexander VI!
G;ad to see you're enjoying him, Silencer, Overload and Solo! I had fun making them.

RAMBLE