Musings about the world, life, and everything in it.
Monday, September 21, 2026
Morgan's Pelicon 2026 Excellent Adventures
An online convention featuring the GUMSHOE system, trying to show case GUMSHOE 2e. My two favorite games were Fire From Heaven and The Collector (but only if you're ok with body horror). Of the two, I'd give The Collector the edge due to the ick factor.
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Sat Sept 19, 7-11am (4 hrs)
Fire From Heaven
System: Fall of Delta Green
GM: SamuraiHaiku (section9)
5 Players: Casper D (as Cpl Joe "Coyote" Wiley), GrayShire (Gemma as Bill Chance - CIA), Joe L (as Cpt Carter), Morgan Hua (as Buchanan - RAND/Linguist)
Operation HUCKLEBERRY: Locate and destroy an ancient temple in the "Riverless Land" of Vietnam. A previous team was assigned and failed. The few survivors reported the presence of a suspected sorcerer. It's up to you now. Recover traces of the first mission, eliminate the sorcerer, destroy the temple.
I play tested a scenario in the core book a long time ago, but it didn't have that much shooting in it. I also played in a convention scenario, but I think the GM didn't do Lethality properly, automatic weapons were weak sauce. We did this time and it worked very well. 1L weapons means roll 1d6 for damage, if you roll a 1, the target is dead; if you 2 or more, it's the die roll +5 damage. 2L weapons means roll 1d6 for damage, if you roll a 1 or 2, the target is dead; if you roll a 3 or more, it's the die roll +10 for damage which will probably kill whatever you're shooting at.
Excellent GM who was very good with succinct descriptions of Vietnam War era details. Good table of Players. Scenario was a lot of fun which tied in to our back stories.
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A previously failed OPERATION TOM SAWYER. Some survivors, some new meat for the grinder. Add time travel fluctuations, NVA, and Tcho-Tcho, stir in PCs.
We go in-country via helicopters. A long flight, outside of Vietnam and into Laos. When we land, we get incoming fire. Once safe, we follow our given path to the Riverless Land. On the way, we run into a Tcho-Tcho village. Find a survivor from the previous operation, but now a grandfather (after only 6 months). We recruit local guides.
At some point we get ambushed by the NVA Col Tran Fu we're supposed to kill (secondary objective). Him and other copies of him, old and young, attack us. We kill a number of him and drive the rest away.
On the way, we get flashes of the past and future. We get to standing stones, cross over, get more time flashes, then see the ziggurat with a blue flame on top. We make a plan, get to the top and kill the uber-NVA Col Fu. Things didn't go according to plan, shooting him just killed other versions of him, I dropped a C4 charge into the blue flame, the explosion got sucked into the past and blasted the TOM SAWYER team, Bill in a last ditch effort grabbed Fu and vanished. Coyote demolished the temple with explosives (our primary objective).
In the end, the Tcho-Tcho are waiting for us, the celestial meat. Fade to black. (In one of the flash forwards, my PC is helping them hunt down Coyote. Some of the flash forwards show that all the PCs survived.)
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Sat Sept 19, 12-4pm (4 hrs)
The Gadget
System: TimeWatch
GM: markk
5 Players: Theo R (as Kelfala a starship captain), Martin E (as Skegg a psychic dinosaur), Morgan Hua (as Vidvhansaka-5 a T-1000)
When TimeWatch agents are sent back to 1945 New Mexico contain a rogue woolly mammoth, a seemingly routine mission uncovers stakes far higher than any of them expected.
Safety Tools: Lines & Veils; X-Card
Content Warnings: None specified
I rarely get to play TimeWatch, so it was great to get a chance to play. It was only at the very end that I realized I had run this scenario before. But I still had fun. The other two players had never played TimeWatch before.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
Dressed up as a carnival barker, I waved at the mammoth and called it Dumbo. The other PCs drove our stolen car, and taunted the mammoth, so it'd follow us out of town. We tired it out, healed it, and led it back through the time rift it came from.
Once in town, we told the local paper to print up a full page ad, telling the locals to apply for damages and we'd make them whole as our circus had insurance. We'd make sure to fund the fake insurance later, so no one would be out of pocket.
We also noted another connected area with the same chrono-instability. A military base where the Trinity A-Bomb was tested. It and Don Hornig was missing. Chrono-tons pointed back to where the mammoth had come from.
We found a fortified base there running a time tunnel. We infiltrated and found Dr Elaine Bree running the base, selling various WMDs and forwarding them to a rich future guy who was a brain in a box. We convinced Dr Bree to help us; making a tape of herself telling her past self to help us. Instead of stealing the A-Bomb, we got her to steal a fake A-Bomb from our fake movie set (super preparedness). Then we snuck into the fake A-Bomb which was then sent to the rich guy.
Once in the future, we were going to ambush the rich guy and his body guard, but giant cockroaches from the future came to steal the A-Bomb (this was when I realized I had run this scenario before). We had a 3-way fight. In the end, we prevailed. Mind-wiped the brain, made him not want to collect WMDs. Took his WMDs. Shutdown the time tunnel. Done.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Sat Sept 19, 5-9pm (4 hrs)
Hammer of the Gods
System: Trail of Cthulhu 2e
GM: Zack H
5 Players: Joe L (as Lenfield - archaeologist), Casper D (as Dashwood - PI), Jason (as Tobbet - parapsychologist), Thomas B (as Witzenger - scientist), Morgan Hua (as Morrow - journalist)
Stop the Nazis from reaching a primordial artifact in this Pulp scenario.
Safety Tools: X-Card; Lines & Veils
Content Warnings: None specified
PCs started off in Boston 1937.
We had a good GM and table. The scenario was a bit difficult for a 4 hr slot. We ended in a TPK at the very end. I enjoyed this. We had that one Player who never played ToC and thought this was CoC 2e. I don't think he ever really got it, even though we explained ToC to him.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
A professor's daughter asks us for help. He's gotten progressively paranoid. He's also gotten an invitation to a seminar in Germany, but doesn't intend to go. She also tells us she thinks someone has been following her.
We go to the professor's house, note a car staking his house out. We approach, but the car speeds off. We try to get inside, but he refuses to let us in. His daughter heads towards his house with groceries, but the car drives by and kidnaps her. Some PCs still try to get into the house; Others go after the kidnappers.
PCs follow the kidnappers to a pub, full of Nazis. My journalist and Tobbet try to get past the bouncer, but succeed in distracting them as Dashwood sneaks in the back and rescues her. While inside, Dashwood sneaks into the basement and finds travel plans to Iceland. PCs leave the pub.
Meanwhile, other PCs can't convince the professor to let them in. Cops arrive trying to arrest the PCs, PCs notice the cops have German names, the PCs flee. When they return, they find the front door blasted in, the house ransacked, and the professor dying in slow motion. Someone pulls the professor out of the slow-mo electrocution, I apply First Aid. It's enough for him to tell his daughter that he loved her and to give us a clue.
We race to Iceland, but the Nazis get to the artifact location first, but can't unlock the mystic door. They're doing a ritual with the wrong pitch. I wanted to just wait them out, but Lenfield convinced us to open the door. The doorway opens and the Nazis enter. We blow up the snow and bury the entrance. Something horribly goes wrong inside the location, eldritch things come out and kill us and the whole world. The End.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Sun Sept 20, 7-11am (4 hrs)
The Collector
System: Fear Itself 2e
GM: Scott Carss
5 Players: Martin E (as Terrence Kennedy - retired cop), Gareth A (as Marcus Bradley - unemployed), Morgan Hua (as Megan Kwan - air traffic controller)
In the wrong place at the wrong time. The investigators must decipher the desires of an inhuman force if they want any hope of survival. In a race against time they must dig up secrets long hidden and decide what they're willing to do for freedom.
Safety Tools: X-Card; Lines & Veils discussion
Content Warnings: Body horror; gore; violence
Excellent GM, good table of Players. The details in the clue trails were pretty amazing. The scenario is from The Ocean Game, very creepy, highly recommended. Some extreme body horror that sqwicked me out, but in a good way. I watch a lot of horror movies and it takes a lot to make me squeamish. GM did this without pictures and without long graphic descriptions. As I said, Excellent!
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
PCs and one NPC are on a train. Then a strange conductor shows up and demands a Tic-x from the NPC. NPC says she doesn't have anything more to give. PCs are frozen in time. PCs each experience a vision. The conductor reaches into her and pulls her lungs out, they dissolve into small pieces of meat and dust. The conductor asks us for tickets.
Each one of us fall into a fugue state and have visions. When we unfreeze, my PC keeps on hearing a boxing bell ring. One PC woke up with his face all battered. Another with the knuckles on his fists all damaged.
Police are called. Terrence goes through the dead girl's purse and finds her ID. There's no visible wound on her. CCTV doesn't show the conductor and only that the girl just slumped into her seat.
PCs gather at the train platform and talk about their odd experience and share contact info. Boxing seemed to be a common theme in our visions. When we didn't have a ticket, the conductor took an item from each of us.
We investigate the dead girls place, urban legends about the conductor who we now know is "The Collector," a dead boxer, stolen boxing gloves, old apprentices, mob connections, lawyers, dead thieves, other people with missing body parts, etc. All the clues were very detailed. We got all manner of specific information about boxing events which I didn't expect.
Meanwhile, The Collector shows up asking for Tickets, and taking our valued possessions or pieces of us. I lost all my toes from a foot. Terrence his mother (while he was hugging her, she turned into a swirl of shredded meat and dust, totally devastating). Marcus, his upper lip (this was totally horrible as we went to a bar and realized Marcus couldn't eat or drink, not even with a straw; we gave him a N95 mask to hide his deformity).
We stole boxing gloves (crashing a car into a bar and smashing a display case) and found they weren't what The Collector wanted (I lost an eye and Terrence lost his femur, punishment for offering the wrong item.) Soon, Marcus got a call from his sister complaining that their mother wasn't answering the door.
In the end, we chopped off the hands of a retired boxer, a murderer who had beaten someone to death. I in turn had beaten his head in with an iron concealed in a purse (I had a bout of madness).
The game ended with cops arriving at a retirement home, car crashed into the front, orderlies hurt and battered, and three blood splattered strangers gathered around a body. We're going for the insanity defense.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Sun Sept 20, 12-4pm (4 hrs)
Kill the Dead
System: Night's Black Agents
GM: Zack H
5 Players: David J (as Nazar the Gorilla - wetworker), Kitty (as Dr Lena Meyhew), Morgan Hua (as Orizio Stolo - Vatican Banker)
You're professional assassins, specialising in an obscure but extremely profitable niche of that grisly business. You kill the targets who can't be killed, the one who shrug off sniper bullets and smile as they swallow poison. You're vampire slayers for hire - have stake, will travel.
And it's time to go to work.
Safety Tools: X-Card; Lines & Veils
Content Warnings: None specified
Good GM and good table of Players. Scenario was interesting with a new variant of Vampire. Zack ran Hammer of the Gods earlier, but this time, his pacing during the final fight was a bit lacking, somehow I felt the final fight ran at the pace of molasses. The clue gatherings scenes were all excellent.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
We're hired to kill a Vampire. Our contact seemed a bit sketchy, but I didn't care. We did research and surveillance. Found his hotel and bugged it. Found out the target was associated with bio-engineered plants. Previous attempts to kill him (sniper and grenade) didn't. He was also interested in an auction the next day.
Auction items of interest were books from an abandoned house. PCs got access to the books, but they didn't seem to be of note, though we weren't allowed to touch them. So, we visited the house, found strange plants downstairs (took samples of them and the dirt), checked out the burnt out upstairs and got attacked by an animated gargoyle (Golem? as the house was Jewish). We fled.
Outside was a gardener's truck with traces of the same plant, but no gardener. Most likely the body found in the burned out upstairs was his, though the body was attributed to the owner of the house.
After the auction, we follow the Vampire and his entourage to the house, he sends in a kill team, there's automatic gun fire, and remnants of the kill team flee.
With some science, we figured out an extract of the plant fed to a human reduces the toxicity, so a Vampire can safely feed. The human will die. We figure out the toxin mixed with cancerous cells (we picked blood cancer from a research lab) could be put into special bullets.
While on the way to the research lab, neo-Nazis skinheads chase us, we lose two of the cars, but windup in a shoot out with the last car. One of the skinheads was a Vampire. We finally knocked him down (0 HP) and I staked him. Dr Meyhew took blood samples, so we could test our toxin.
The process for making the mutagenic toxin take 24 hrs. We tested it out and it worked. We also learned that the plant-Vampires would regenerate even if 5% of their bodies remained.
Our plan, load our guns with the toxic bullets. Nazar would be in the church tower overlooking the Vampire's hotel. Dr Meyhew and I would be on the ground in a car as backup. Nazar was able to also plant a car bomb with a remote detonator.
As the Vampire is leaving with his entourage, Nazar shoots him in the head, but he doesn't go down. The Vampire and his bodyguard proceed to climb the church tower. Meyhew shoots the Vampire. I shoot the bodyguard, but he's wearing body armor and my shot doesn't go through. Meyhew gets gunned down (unconscious) by various guards. Nazar kills the Vampire who falls off the tower. I drive over a guard and stake the Vampire. Nazar kicks the bodyguard off the tower and he goes splat. I drive off and First Aid Meyhew. Nazar sets off the car bomb and meets us at the safehouse.
Mission accomplished.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Sun Sept 20, 5-9pm (4 hrs)
Blue on Blue
System: Mutant City Blues 2e
GM: David Graham
5 Players: Zack H (as Liam Hawthorne - spatial/teleport), Jerod L (as Milo Ashton - tech/cognition), patrick j (as Travis Blake - superman), Morgan Hua (as Emily Clark - touch/phasing)
When the mutant detectives of the Heightened Crimes Investigation Unit respond to a demonstration gone awry, the investigation leads them to the death of the first mutant cop in the city's history. Can the detectives solve the mystery, or will they become a killer's next victims?
Safety Tools: X/N/O Card; Luxton Technique, including DM/whisper
Content Warnings: TV-14 equivalent; mentions of suicide
GM was a bit long winded taking a bit too much time explaining things; I asked some basic questions which took the GM several paragraphs to answer instead of a single sentence. A good table of Players and a good scenario from the core book. The game did feel very much like a police procedural.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
Game starts off with a protest in front of our precinct. A young woman, Angie, is advocating for mutant rights and claims that "the man" wants mutants dead. On her t-shirt is a picture of the first mutant police officer Adrian Markovie who had died of suicide, 9 years ago. She flies up and breaks off a flag pole, trying to rally the protesters. Travis gets some coffee and flies up to her and talks her down. She gets arrested. The riot is snipped in the bud.
PCs are told to investigate the protest and figure out who's behind it. PCs agree amongst themselves to investigate the suicide of Adrian, see if it was suicide or a cover up. Travis is sent to talk to Angie. He's able to talk to her a little before a high end lawyer shows up, to Angie's surprise.
I get all the case files for Adrian's suicide and it looks like a perfunctory job was done. So, I go with Liam to the Adrian's widow. Liam's spatial skills tells us Adrian didn't commit suicide, someone else was the trigger man. An unknown liquid was also found all over Adrian's clothing (possible laundry detergent [original cop report], webbing residue [our assessement]). I get out of the widow that Adrian had an affair with Sandra Pride, another mutant who he had met through a support group. The widow also gives us some boxes of Adrian's stuff. Inside were xerox copies of case files for a series of unsolved burglaries, "The Glitch Cases."
PCs hunt down leads and figure out that members of the support group was responsible for the "Glitch" burglaries. Because Adrian figured this out, he was murdered.
We went ahead and arrested them all for the burglaries. Charged them for the murder too. Adrian's name gets cleared (he was murdered trying to solve a series of crime vs suicide). The potential riot is defused. Adrian was killed by mutants, not cops.
We later learn that we did get the right suspects for the burglaries. The murder was only committed by one of them, but on the orders of their mastermind (who orders the sacrifice of the triggerman in order to avoid being fingered). But hey, we're only supposed to get the evidence and arrest them. It's up to the DA and jury to figure out if they're guilty or not.
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