John's Notes - The Sentinels - Session 12

Session Notes - ZCP Unnamed System - Sentinels - July 17, 2010

Robin - Tick Tock

Renzo - Kenji/Gal

Mike - Max Plastic

Anthony - Monolith

John - Bronco

So Max is having an awesome night. He's been getting drinks sent to him for a while before finding out it's an inebriated and recently fired Tori. They wake up the following morning together. Max sees a blue-grey guy.  Then he gets a zarking.

Tock's hunting for food at the HQ. Then a blue-grey guy appears. Zark.

Doc Tesla's off base and out of communication. He has a reason, but no one understands it.

Monolith's going through the lab to see what Doc Tesla's up to. Seems the Doc's into cloning. Lots. He opens the door to leave the lab after hours of snooping. And gets zarked.

Bronco's having a good time rassling. It's a good card. Better party afterwards. Lady A's there as Amanda Reese and a good time is had. Then drinks, a snack, and back to her place. Time pauses, a blue-grey guy appears. Zarkage.

Kenji's rolling around the base. Still pondering death and such. 10am rolls around and still no sigh of anyone. He searches to find an empty house. Also finds the Gal chassis missing.

The heroes wake up somewhere else. Lady A in lingirie, Bronco in a towel, Max naked, Tock clothed - holding a jar of pickles, Monolith in a lab coat. Gal chassis just standing there looking impressive.

As we discuss where we might be, the door opens. It's one of the blue-grey zarkers with a clipboard and a pair or purple reptile-men as escorts. They apparently have no sense of humour, but they do have remote control shockers for the control disks we're all wearing. He explains we're on the Arena ship of the Gamemasters. We're to fight for them, gladiator style. And here's our general - Jonathan Wilder. He doesn't seem to remember being a superhero. Doesn't remember anything after the shuttle accident. Might be a cloan.  But he does have the powers he's supposed to.

0G: "So I was cloned? So am I a clone?? How do I know you're not a clone...?"

Bronco: "We don't - that's the fun part."

Mono tries to snow Wilder on how to activate the robot. Wilder's charming, but Mono's not falling for his charms.

The Zarker comes back. Paralyzes the lot of the heroes. He takes Tock out to see if he knows anything about the robot. The interrogation is a big zarkfest. He breaks and tells them about Kenji.

Meanwhile, back at the HQ... Kenji finds Garrison. They confer. Garrison 'aw-hell's it and goes for a look-see. Kenji goes looking in the system for Eve. Finds her. Ahem, he senses something behind him. Blue-grey dudes. They zark him.

Tock's brought back to the hero barracks. He's in rough shape. He talked. Kenji's brought in, unconscious. Mister Zark is upset with all the delays. Mono hacks into the base to provide long-distance radio life control for Kenji though some tech stuff. Eve answers the phone at the base. Tock freezes time, keeps Mono out of time, and blipverts the whole story and how to help to Eve. Then 2 scifi soldiers start coming out of the shadows. It's Time Rangers, on the hunt for Tock. Tock pops them back into regular time.

Eve links Kenji virtually with Galvanos. And Eve is still in Kenji's head.

Then Wilder comes in. Gal hugs him. Oops, says the massive robot.

Monolith fills Wilder in on what we know as history. Eve shows footage of aliens retrieving the bodies from the moon. Gal holos the dataa. Mono shares the aliens making supers subplot. He then asks Tock about the Time Rangers and gets no good answer.

Into the arena we go... We get a nice big intro. Seems we're the underdogs. They kind of imply Lady A's a clone. Our opponents are being lead by Guardsman/Lord Sovereign. And his team.

U, F, and O come out first with Guardsman. Then Gyro and Starbird. And Garrison, in his Champion costume.

A horn sounds and the fray is on. Lady A begins with a kick sprung from Max at Guardsman. He takes it. Bronco runs into Obelisk. The shockwave sends Flora flying. Flora is caught by Monolith. Aww. The fray rages everywhere. Max one-shots Flora, again, as soon as she's back on the ground again. Gal ricochets a rocket fist off Gyro and into Obelisk, knocking the big man down. 0G drops Obelisk onto Uranium, taking down the radioactive madman. Monolith slaps Gyro out of the sky. Tock takes Starbird surprisingly out of the air.  Leaving Guardsman standing. Just ready to take hits, as the only villain standing.

Lady A is still down. Max tries to talk to Guardsman. He shatters Max's illusions of friendship. He then sonic slaps everyone out of his way. Tock slows down the big man's hands so lessen the impact of the slap. As the dust settles most of the villains get back up again.

Starbird frees herself from her shock disk, gives Tock a prophecy about control to Tock, then bails. Garrison finally rips off his control disk. He then grabs the 60' foot tall Monolith and swings him mightily around. The dust of the fray clears, Max and Bronco combo hit Guardsman into the wall.

Lady A gets back up and tries to kick Guardsman for all she's worth. She lands it. Garrison stops Kenji from frying the Guardsman. So the aliens fry the lot of us for having no desire to kill everyone. We almost all pop our control disks. Guardsman take the lead with the assembly (setting the fray aside for the time being). Max and Bronco take on the incoming guards. Champion and Guardsman fight together for the first time in decades and do quite well for themselves. Then the aliens gas us all. Leaving Galvanos. Kenji (with Eve's help) reverses the air flow from the arena into the rest of the ship, and gasses the lot of everyone else. Everyone makes it back up. Guardsman dispatches Tock to go get Kenji so they can all leave.

-In this meantime, Tock has a four-issue miniseries about the quest to get Kenji while dodging the Time Rangers-

Gal hacks a hole down out of the arena. We get to a ship, next to another ship that Tock crashed in his miniseries. We escape back to Earth.

Wilder heads off to find Starbird and Gyro. And U.F.O. as well. Detente is reached.

Guardsman doesn't really want to come in to be arrested for killing the president just yet. He still has an agenda he plans to follow. Max turns his back on Guardsman and walks away.

Everyone else, really juiced on the idea of fighting Guardsman, jumps into a new fray, lead by Champion and Lady A...

-END OF ISSUE-

Fast And Dirty Summertime Update!

Hey everyone.

Just stopping in to let you know I am not dead and work continues.

The writing for "Zenith Comics Presents: Public Enemies" is done, and now comes the editing and layout process.

The art is all but done, only the cover remains to be done.

I don't think I will make a July release, but August looks more than good.

The Podcast continues to do well and the line-up of guests continues to be strong.

Last but not least, work on "Zenith Comics Presents: The Roleplaying Game" moves along at a very nice pace.  No predictions as to when the product will be ready, it will just come out when it does.

I will try to make more updates here as the dog days of summer approach.

Cheers!

Oh and say hi in the comments, it can only encourage me. ;)

John's Notes - The Sentinels - Session 11

Session Notes - Sentinels (New System) - July 3, 2010 - Session 11

Anthony - Monolith
Mike - Max Plastic
Robin - Tick Tock
Renzo - Kenji/Galvanos
Pat - Doc Tesla
John - Bronco

So here we are on the field of battle at the White House - what's left of it.

0G is dead. Lord Sovereign/Guardsman, too.

Lasseter King arrives. He's upset at us again. The Veep wants to put us all in jail.

He likes the 'We've got the strength to stand up to more clones' thing as an angle to keep us free.

"If you mention cloning again; I will eat you. I will grow to a larger size and actually eat you." Monolith to Doc Tesla

Elsewhere the recently released Tick Tock is watching the heroes on tv. Sees this Max Plastic dude he used to hang with. Decides to go to Washington to join in with the exciting world of heroics. Steals a car, slows time and is almost instantly (to everyone else's perspective) in DC. He strolls into the secure area where the heroes are awaiting their fate. Then resumes time. The Sentinels are more than a little surprised by a Mad Hatter-looking dude with a clock cane coming in.

He's recognized by Monolith and Doc Tesla. Doc Tesla knows what his powers can do, also knows he's out of jail from good behaviour.

He can't reverse time, sorry Mr. President. Monolith is the only one really troubled by Tick Tock's appearance.

Lady A comes in. Hilarity ensues. He wants to join the team. Then Champion (Garrison) and Galvanos arrive.

Doc Tesla 'ports us all to the not-so-secret HQ.

We search for Kenji, find him on the floor of the control room in bad shape. He seems catatonic. Max wakes him up, Garrison kicks everyone out. He tries to make Kenji feel good about killing Uberman. Kenji still feels bad about it. Garrison goes on a mini-rant about Uberman's atrocities to try and bring Kenji around.

Garrison gives him a talking to about the reality of life and death with a giant sword. Kenji kicks Garrison out. Garrison points out the choice Kenji needs to make about being on board with the deal or getting off now. He then leaves and instructs the team not to disturb Kenji until he's ready.

Meanwhile in the bar with Tick Tock and Monolith...

"Oh, you're the urrrrrr (a la Frankenstein) Monolith!" says Tock in a brilliant realization of having a drink with a fellow ex-criminal.

The rest of the team coalesces. Monolith grills him on the source of his powers. Bronco moots the point and interrogation by sponsoring Tock for membership. Doc Tesla wants to kidnap Tick Tock for study. Nicolai agrees in Doc Tesla's head. Tock leaves the team to discuss matters. He liberates a hotel room for the night, planning to be back at the HQ the next day at noon.

And then Marbles, the retarded rock guy is there. And he's upset. Little Princess asks Marbles to put Tock down. They've broken out of jail. And they're putting the old gang back together specifically to kill Max Plastic.

Tock calms Little Princess down as they sit down for a tea party. Apparently Marble is immune to the power nuillifiers. Tock calls the base with Monolith's borrowed comlink. Conveniently Max is on the monitors. Tock fills him in. Then he's spotted by Mr. Bearkins, Princess' animated teddy-bear companion. Tock boots him down a laundry chute. Marbles tags Tock hard into the wall. Tock runs for it and gets away.

Time doesn't seem to work for him, as he slows down he spots a sniper from his rogue's gallery taking a bead on him.

Tock bails on stopped time and runs like hell. Then Marble catches up. The team, meanwhile is homing in on the comlink.

Doc Tesla gets Marbles' attention. He charges. Bronco takes the freight train hit. As the full bore fray begins, Doc Tesla is much distracted by Mr. Bearkins flinging itself on Doc Tesla's face. Doc Tesla in surprise and disgust fries the stuffed companion. Little Princess screams. Marbles is distracted from hitting Bronco for a moment. Bronco lays a massive hit in, causing Marble to bawl.

Tock finds Princess hiding and hits her with a rolling dumpster. She sends it right back at Tock. Marbles misses Bronco as Doc Tesla fries Little Princess. She is lifted off the ground by the zarking and lands unceremoniously in the now-ubiquitous dumpster. Bronco catches Marble in a sleeper hold and puts him down.

Belle Isle sends a retrieval team. Doc Tesla informs them of the nullifier issue with Marbles. He explains a new way to adjust the gear, which is spectacular and well received by the retrieval team.

Doc Tesla and Monolith convince Tick Tock to come back to the base.

Monolith to Max Plastic: "Keep an eye on Tesla..."

Max Plastic back to Monolith: "Keep an eye on Tick..."

Back at the base...

Lady A's back. She makes fun of us for fighting the Odd Squad. She then has a private meeting with Monolith and quits the team, again. This time for good, again. They discuss the exciting field of cloning. Lady A shuts that door hard before any real discussion can be had.

In the lab Tock refuses to use his power. Doc Tesla finally relents.

Monolith tries to console Kenji, who replies: "Thanks, Monolith, but the only person I can talk to is dead..."

Ouch.

Kenji then reveals he killed Uberman. He calls it a day and leaves Monolith to ponder that.

Cut to Belle Isle... As Marbles and Little Princess are being lead through the halls they head past a door marked Brain Flex. Van Jove is intrigued by hearing Max Plastic's name. He calls the guard over, mutters a control word and expedites his own release by casually walking out the front door...

-END OF ISSUE-

The Announcement

Happy Canada Day all!

As promised it is the 1st of July and I have an announcement to make!

I am making my own superhero role-playing game.

That's right.

Staring my 40th birthday (July 3rd) in the face I knew this was my year to move.  The recent boom of superheroes once again also let me know the time was right.

Now there may be some who feel I am jumping on a bandwagon, but those who know me know that this has been coming for the past 20 years.

I have assembled a dynamic team of contributors/consultants who are helping me develop the system, including James O'Rance proposing a fantastic dice mechanic that just sings to me!

The name of the game, for now, is "Zenith Comics Presents: The Role-Playing Game!"  Now this could stay as the title or just be a working title.  Only time will tell, though to be sure it's hard to get a name that hasn't already been taken by one of the numerous amazing superhero rpgs already on the market... but I digress.

I have also assembled (notice a theme of assembling here?) a team of outstanding artists.  Some published, others on their way to being published, to design and create the "look" of the art.  These dudes know their stuff and I am very excited to see how it will all turn out!

And last (never start a sentence with "and"), but by no means least, I have a publishing partner which means this will see actual dead-tree status!  Right now we are talking digest sized and... wait for it.... BOXED SET!  Oh hell yeah!

Of course any of the above information could change at a moments notice, so don't hold my feet to the flames on any of it.  We shall do our best and try our hardest to bring you this fantastic (at least in our opinion) game!

What does this mean for Zenith Comics other project, Public Enemies?

Public Enemies continues on track and will be released towards the end of the summer for BASH (the hopefully ICONS and M&M3rd Edition... also once again trying to secure permission to make a V&V 2.1 version) and based on sales and demand, there may be more issues.

Though that said, every copy of "Zenith Comics Presents: Public Enemies" that is sold will add to the coffers for the role-playing game's production (a.k.a. art costs) so if you are inclined, feel free to pick up a copy and support this project!

Keep watching this space for news and updates as the project continues and I won't be so arrogant as to give a release date, since we all know those are slipperier than ... well... something really slippery!

Cheers!