Star Trek: Emergency Deep S01 E01 “The Deep End of the Pool” Here’s a new style of Star Trek Adventures session write-up. A Captain’s Log as written by Dan who plays Captain Ellison. Dramatis Personae and GM’s synopsis is posted after the log. Beginning Captain’s Log. Stardate 58457.8 USS Östergötland (NCC-72227). Captain Greg Ellison in command. Reykjavík Experimental Shipyards, Earth The day started off, well ,normal enough, with me reporting to Admiral Kathryn Janeway at Reykjavík Experimental Shipyards, Faxaflói Bay. A very straightforward encounter, with the usual pleasantries and small talk. She was much smaller than I had imagined. As she was briefing my orders, it was hard not to miss noting that she had her left hand on her hip. Perhaps it was her way of asserting authority or just a quirk of hers. I wonder what my crew would identify me with. Also present at the briefing were […]
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The Trianii, the droid and the Trandoshan
The blog tag collects all the posts related directly or sometimes tangentially to the Gamers of Kuala Lumpur, a group of friends who accepted me into their RPG-playing ranks and helped me regain my sanity when I needed it…
Blade Runner RPG: Electric Dreams
Over the course of January and February I played in the Blade Runner RPG Starter Set introductory adventure, entitled Electric Dreams. So, this write-up contains spoilers for a relatively brand new published product from Free League. Spoilers beyond this point. Read with caution. Dramatic Personae Willem Novak, Human, Inspector – me Fenna 9-2..39, Replicant, Doxie – Dan Oelsen Bakker, Human, Enforcer – Ivan-β and Ivan-α as the Game Runner. PART 1 – DEAD NEXUS 9S TELL NO TALES 15th May 2037. Morning. I am Willem Novak, Blade Runner. When the Blackout fell, I was a young LAPD cop. I remember what the Replicants did. Nexus-whatevers. I was having a steaming bowl of Indomie when an LAPD spinner set down. She introduced herself as Fenna 9-2.39, a Nexus-9 Blade Runner. She tells me we’re needed back at LAPD Tower. Sorry, steaming bowl of Indomie. We enter Deputy Chief Holden‘s office. He […]
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Delta Green: Chicago Hopeless
We began a new campaign on Discord and Foundry VTT. This time it’s Delta Green, gamemastered by Ivan. Delta Green is a game of conspiracy of Lovecraftian proportions set in the modern age, and published by Arc Dream Publishing. It uses a variation of Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying System for Call of Cthulhu. This was the second time I played it. The adventure was played over two nights and my title for it is obviously not what it really is. Dramatis Personae Jim Kurtz – Bill Mueller – Dan Palmer – Doug Sale – Hisham Part 1 Played 12th February 2021 My name is Sale. Caleb Sale. I used to be a mechanic, an Airman First Class for the United States Air Force. My speciality was rotorcraft maintenance, specifically the V-22 Osprey. One day, I saw something strange that changed my view on life and how the universe worked. I weathered […]
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Coriolis RPG: A Peaceful Drive In The Countryside
Coriolis RPG 05 A Peaceful Drive in the Countryside Last week, the crew of the Prosperous Cheetah tracked a missing archaeologist and retrieved a stolen artefact. They found the First Idol of the Dancer hidden on a bridge in the Coriolis Promenade. Suddenly, the person who hired them appeared… Dramatis Personae Omar Kayyam – captain and leader of the crew (Chang) Ramsis – the engineer (Libb Wei) Kariim the Hashinin – the former legionnaire and soldier (Ivan Lim) Alrazzi Kowalski – the pilot (me) Gamemaster (Ivan Tam) Journal of A. Kowalski (an account of what happened yesterday): Season of Glass It’s fine. We’re all stocked up to the gills with gear. Let’s do this. Ramsis is securing our new 6-wheeled crawler into the cargo bay of the Prosperous Cheetah. We’re calling it the La Cucaracha. I don’t think everyone’s aboard with that. Once everyone had stowed their gear, we gather […]
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Coriolis RPG: An Abridged Firefight
Coriolis RPG 04 An Abridged Firefight Last week, the crew of the Prosperous Cheetah tracked a missing archaeologist and retrieved a stolen artefact. They found the First Idol of the Dancer hidden on a bridge in the Coriolis Promenade. Suddenly, the person who hired them appeared… Dramatis Personae Omar Kayyam – captain and leader of the crew (Chang) Ramsis – the engineer (Libb Wei) Kariim the Hashinin – the former legionnaire and soldier (Ivan Lim) Alrazzi Kowalski – the pilot (me) Gamemaster (Ivan Tam) Journal of A. Kowalski (an account of what happened yesterday): An Unexpected Arrival It was that Coriolis smell that got to me. The spoor of the dark and the dank permeated everything. Even more so here high above the Promenade. There were uncountable bridges and gangways that connected one structure within this space station to another. The bridge that Lavim Tamm sent us to was unremarkable […]
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Coriolis RPG: A Missing Archaeologist
Coriolis RPG 03 A Missing Archaeologist Last week, we finished the Coriolis RPG published adventure entitled The Dying Ship. Last night – now reconvened on Roll20 – the crew thought they would spent the day relaxing on Coriolis station orbiting Kua. Or so they thought… Dramatis Personae Omar Kayyam – captain and leader of the crew (Chang) Ramsis – the engineer (Libb Wei) Kariim the Hashinin – the former legionnaire and soldier (Ivan Lim) Alrazzi Kowalski – the pilot (me) Back at Wahib’s The team was relaxing and enjoying drinks in Wahib’s Cantina, considering what to do with the money they earned salvaging the Orun II. This was when a middle-aged man approached them with a job in mind. To Alrazzi’s eyes, this Merez Alcan seemed sleeker, more polished than their previous client Adzem Kembouri. This new potential client wore a red fez, a monocle and wielded a cane. Alcan, […]
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Coriolis RPG: Aboard the Dying Ship
Coriolis RPG 02 Aboard the Dying Ship Yesterday we continued the Coriolis RPG campaign online with Ivan as the gamemaster. We played the published adventure entitled Coriolis: The Dying Ship which is available at the Modiphius (dead link) website. Here is the second session. Last time, on Coriolis: Hikayat Samrddhi Cheeta, the crew alongside their client Adzem Kembouri boarded the seemingly-derelict ice hauler Orun II as it drifted onwards into the Eye of Anuba whose surrounding field of ice fragments would definitely destroy the ship. Kembouri worked for the shipping company Melem Gesurra. Boarding the ice hauler, they learnt that the Captain of the Orun II might have unleashed a djinni aboard. Although a number of crew had been killed or driven insane, there were a number of survivors hiding in the nooks and crannies of the ship. Dramatis Personae Omar Kayyam – captain and leader of the crew (Chang) […]
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Coriolis RPG: Into the Dying Ship
Coriolis RPG 01 Into the Dying Ship Yesterday I played in a Coriolis RPG session online using voice comms and dice rolls via Discord and map display on Astral Tabletop. Ivan was the gamemaster. We played between 10 pm and midnight. Here is the story that was born from our first session. We played the published adventure entitled Coriolis: The Dying Ship which is available at the Modiphius (dead link) website. According to the blurb: The ice hauler Orun II has stopped responding to hails, and has changed course towards a deadly asteroid cloud. The player characters are tasked with intercepting the heavy freighter to find out what has happened onboard and bring it back to Coriolis safely. I play Alrazzi Kowalski a native of Coriolis station who is a crew member of the courier ship the Prosperous Cheetah. Dramatis Personae Omar Kayyam – captain and leader of the crew […]
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Coriolis RPG: Dark Flowers
Yesterday, I was reunited with the old GOKL crew for a one-shot RPG session of Coriolis – The Third Horizon RPG. Coriolis is a game published by Modiphius Entertainment and uses the same system as Mutant: Year Zero and Tales from the Loop role-playing games. Humanity has reached a star cluster known as the Third Horizon via a portal. But a Portal war has long isolated them from the rest of humanity. The Portal Builders are long gone and appear to be an ancient and powerful species. The space station Coriolis orbits the planet Kua, the hub of the Third Horizon. Also of note is that the civilisation of the setting takes on the trappings of the Middle East. The system is pretty elegant in its simplicity. Roll a pool of dice equalling your character’s Attributes plus Skills. Any dice turn up 6 is a success. Multiple sixes on certain […]
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A Solo Return to KL
I got a call from Shide with whom I had several work adventures with years ago who needed me to return to Kuala Lumpur for some minor business. He graciously footed the travel bill for me, so after we decided on a flight ticket. So yay! I get to ride on one of these new-fangled flying machines again. The ride was rough enough through storm clouds that some passengers exclaimed loudly. At the airport, Nia came to pick me up. (Aided by Cik Ma and Cik Su of course.) Being the month of Ramadhan, we all went to buka puasa at a Middle Eastern restaurant in Cyberjaya. I kind of like this stuff. I rarely get to sample such food. A post-meal photo was taken. Thankfully I was able to do jama’ ta’khir prayers because of travel considerations. The next morning I drew stuff for Nia while waiting for Shide […]
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All Night’s Black Agents Artwork on the Blog
The other RPG campaign I played in more-or-less regularly with the Gamers of Kuala Lumpur crew is Night’s Black Agents where we played an group of international freelance agents with contacts with various countries’ espionage network who were embroiled in a plot to take over the world. With dogs. Who might be sentient vampires. Also, an infectious hemovirus pathogen. Here are all the drawings I made for various actual play reports I wrote for the campaign on this blog.
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All Eclipse Phase Artwork on the Blog
Over the years I drew pictures for the actual play reports of Eclipse Phase that I played with the GOKL crew, I have never collected all the artwork in a single post… until now. Click on the images to expand them. So many other occurrences that I did not during various earlier GMing sessions before I started writing the play reports, such as… Cable tumbling down Olympus Mons for two sessions — at least the team breaking Hokusai out of a sushi bar driving with neo-chimpanzee trucker BJ the Bear that time Bishop was sleeved in the neo-corvid morph (a.k.a the “chicken suit”) for a reconnaissance mission at the 2309 Mr. Spock asteroid habitat in the Belt which turned into a one-man battle scenario while the others watched remotely from their ship and that one time the team travelled to a protected section at the centre of Mars, discovered […]
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EOTE: Dirge of the Nepotist Captain
Modesty Blazing 08 Dirge of the Nepotist Captain *** Previously (and 14 real time months ago) on Star Wars Modesty Blazing… Thanks to the course I was sent on gave me the opportunity to continue Modesty Blazing, the Edge of the Empire campaign I run for GOKL. I honestly never thought I’d be able to continue the story that had begun more than a year ago when I still lived in Kuala Lumpur. After a quick social media notification, the group agreed to meet at Wira Games and Hobbies. The Rancor’s Rancor Ghyel had been annexed by Captain Bullpup Barqueslayer of the Imperator-class Star Destroyer Cockchafer! The stolen Lambda-class shuttle carrying Zalo Hai the lost Prince of Ghyel and his de facto aides and protectors temporarily attached to the Ghyel Ministry of History and Archaeology, Trianii Qillian Ryn, Zeltron Darter Kel, Trandoshan John Tray’Essek and droid VAX-11/750 reverted from hyperspace […]
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Legendary Guardians
On our recent return to the city, the GOKL gang gifted upon us more fun stuff: the Guardians of the Galaxy expansion set for the Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building game. Since then, we never had the opportunity to break it out of the box to play it… until today. The Hero cards included were Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax the Destroyer, Groot and Rocket Raccoon – thrown into the limelight thanks to last year’s film no doubt. Poor Phyla Vell, Adam Warlock, Bug, Mantis and Cosmo the Space Dog. Pip the Troll was absolutely inconsolable. The Masterminds provided in the set are Thanos the Goonie and the Kree Supreme Intelligence, supported by two Villain sets: Kree and Infinity Gems – the latter able to act as either Villains or Artefacts. Irfan and I played twice, both times against the Supreme Intelligence. The first game against the Intergalactic Kree Nega-Bomb Scheme was […]
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A Return To the Tenth Floor
It’s the Labour Day/Wesak Day long weekend. We were unsure if we were able to travel 500 klicks plus change to the old house back on the Tenth Floor in Kuala Lumpur. We had planned on departing at 3AM, but because we were exhausted we awoke at six, and after gearing up were only able to push off from Kangar at seven. Twitter warned us of slow traffic on the highway ahead of us, which forced us off and into the state roads near Selama toward Taiping. Soon we decided to stop at Atok and Opah’s in Sitiawan for a brief rest and Friday prayers. We resumed our journey at 3PM and reached Kuala Lumpur by nightfall. It was a strange feeling, returning there after five months away from the city. I don’t believe we were ever away from the city anywhere near this amount of time. The strangeness was […]
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A Legendary Card Game with Marvellous Heroes
Before we left the city, the GOKL guys gifted to us Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game. We tried to play it when they brought it over the last time they visited, but it was too late for a game, we only managed one round before they had to leave. Now, after I’ve located which of the dozens of moving boxes the game was hiding in, Irfan and I finally started playing it. The concept of the game is simple: the city is in peril from a Scheme of one super-powered criminal Mastermind, aided and abetted by other super-villains and henchmen. You purchase and play a number of heroes (with their abilities) to stop this scheme from coming to fruition. Every round, you flip a card from the Villain Deck which start to occupy city locations. Newer villain cards push older cards further into the city. After being pushed five […]
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