Freud would normally just have +1 weird, but he's the only person in the holding -- and maybe in the world we know -- who speaks with that weird accent.

"I sink I know vaht vee kin doo about ze raiders."

"Dude, what? Sink? You're weird."

I'm crying tears over here.

Saif laughed so hard he was sore afterward. He had to get up and leave the room.

That's nuts, and I don't care what Wilson says.

I heard Vincent got the idea for the psychic maelstrom from the BSG finale.

Going aggro would probably have worked better than seizing by force, yes: if they're out of range, they aren't effectively fighting back, right? And on a 7-9, you can have them back down but not really submit.

I'm picturing, in hindsight, that it would have worked better. "I shoot them, which means I'm going aggro on everyone who lives."

Weird that i'm typing this while listening to Vx and Clyde. It makes me expect that Vincent is right there waiting for me to type this so he can respond.

I want a pony.

I'm going to forget some things. A lot happened.

Um, so it's morning. Kobe's out in the tent city, in the hospital with Fauna. The hospital he says is this old gymnasium. He's woken up by Bowdy, who's in charge of the fishing fleet. Bowdy says, "you've seen how Uncle is running things. We have to start thinking about ourselves. I have an idea I want you to back me on. It will make sure we have plenty of food for a long time." Kobe says he'll meet Bowdy down at the docks later to talk about it.

Brick is cleaning blood out of the back of his ambulance, when Beacon, his current main squeeze (also part of Kobe's crew) knocks on the door. She's all enzyte smiley and has two of those other people from the night before with him. "Hey Brick, everything's so great now. You should meet my new friends Foster and Mill. They extend their hands, and Brick is all get the fuck away from me. They start to try and climb into the ambulance with him, so he scrambles to close the back door. That works, but then he turns around to see them getting in the driver's seat. "Nobody touches my cars!" shouts Brick and tries to force Mill out. Mill just grabs Brick on the forearm, and next thing you know, Brick has his Brain open to the maelstrom, and something else is there.

There's a sweet but malicious presence, and it says, "the Purpose needs you. Why don't you come join us." But Brick resists its temptation. He calls up Uncle and Fifi for help. When Uncle comes up to the ambulance, Mill gets out and touches Uncle. Uncle feels the will of the purpose telling him to come to the tent city and see Clarion. Uncle tries to resist what the Purpose says (act under fire) and fails miserably. I tell Uncle's player, just sit back for a minute or two and I'll tell you what you do.

Uncle starts peacefully walking out into the tent city, and Fifi, bewildered, follows him. He gets really deep into the place, and I tell Fifi that the tent city feels weird, like there's something out of the corner of your eye that you can't quite see. They come up to a large tent with two smiley enzyte guys standing outside, and Uncle is about to go in, so Fifi tackles him and drags him away. This causes a whole bunch of these smiley people to start coming out of the tent, slowly surrounding them.

Then this other guy comes out of the tent. He's all white hair and wiry, wearing a robe. His eyes are all pupil. He looks at Uncle and Fifi and says, "I'm so glad you could join us!"

TO BE CONTINUED

Well now, last night was our first real full frontal session.

This is the first non-D&D-ish kind of game I've GM'ed in a long long time, but I had fun. As the MC I was pleasantly surprised by the direction the game took. I created fronts and followed up on a few additional things from the first session, and the game just took off on its own.

In session 1, Uncle got a mixed result on his wealth roll and chose "savagery" from his gang, "the Hyenas." They got a little bloodthirsty and started wandering around with their machetes and clubs looking for people to savage-ify. Oops, there's Brick, down at the docks. Brick says he wants to humiliate them so they won't attack her, by spraying water from the boat motor. I figure that making them feel uncool is a cool move, like acting under fire. Right? He has to keep his own cool. So Brick gets a 7-9. I decide that a bystander laughs at them, successfully diverting their attention.

Just before they're able to hack this poor NPC apart, Fifi nails the hyena (Rum) with her silent AP sniper rifle. With one of her gunlugger moves, it does 4 harm. Damn. So Rum? Well, he dies. I look at Uncle. "Your gang is now 59 fucking hyenas."

Last night began in the middle of the night. Fifi wakes up in her bed in the tower to find 10 hyenas standing around the bed with their clubs. Sniper rifle is over in the corner, and they're saying shit like, "you think you can just kill us whenever you want? We're going to make sure you never do that again."

Fifi reads them and sees that Dog is the momentary leader of this particular group. She quietly and quickly reaches under her pillow, pulls out the 9mm and shoots Dog in the face (acting under fire). Dog doesn't die right away.

The rest of them step back, in horror. "Fifi's got a fucking gun! I thought she was sleeping?" This gives Fifi the opportunity to wave the gun around and say get the fuck out (aggro), which fuck yes they do. So there's Dog gurgling on the floor and Fifi says, "I don't want to further disturb Uncle, so I'll just club Dog to death."

What I particularly love about the above is that Fifi's player Donna is 7 months pregnant. I also tell Uncle that his gang of hyenas is now 58.

So, Uncle, he's all freaked out about these Hyenas being out of control, so he calls up Brick to go get Kobe and come back to the tower. He wants Kobe to help him suss out what the deal is and how he can get order. On the way there Brick passes by some very peaceful, happy types, out in the tent city. They smile and say "everything's going to be so great now. Clarion said so." They have big smiles like that guy in the Enzyte commercials.

While the group are all together talking, they hear screams coming from the hyena quarters. A few of the hyenas have rounded up two children from the tent city, and they're all shouting, "yay! Toys!"

Kobe tries to reason with them, and he just ends up pulled into the crowd as a third toy.

Then Uncle gets mad. He tells them goddamn he'll make them behave and unloads on them with his shotgun. It's seize control (vs this large gang, holy crap), which leaves him in firm control afterward, and them fucking terrified. Of course, he's lying in a pool of blood, mostly his own, with someone's knife sticking out of his shoulder, and I tell the others they better find medical attention for him really fucking quick. The gang of hyenas is now 57. A few of the survivors are hurt bad.

Brick races through the factory complex in the ambulance to get Uncle to safety, with no trouble. Their resident medical expert is Norvell, who looks like Malcolm McDowell. Of course he does, right? He tells Uncle how much it's going to cost him. Uncle tries to bargain with him but of course that goes South. Norvell says, look, you're in no position to negotiate with me, so I'm going to tell you how it's going to work out. You're going to pay me the barter I specified, and you're also going to find out what happened to my assistant Pierre who hasn't shown up for work in two days.

More in just a minute...

JW, google around for maps that reflect melted icecaps. That's what got me going. Some estimates say sea level could rise by 50-70 meters.