On Monday night we continued our Apocalypse World 'West Marches' style campaign called Gun Bay 12.
Our returning characters were:
• Truth (Hocus) - a cult leader who worships the ship as divine 'mother' and prays to the technology aboard, often causing more damage than good (so far as to pull shielding off major power conduits to bathe in the 'glow' from mother's energy… oh my). He uses a faulty airlock as a test of faith, offering sacrifices to 'mother' to see what she does with them.
• Razzer (Savvyhead) - a former cultist of Truth, but who is now a real 'tech wiz' having abandoned the mysticism for a more scientific approach to the technology aboard the ship. At odds mostly with Truth's mysticism and cult, but has an uneasy relationship with him. Has recently been working on some lighting devices in his workshop, and performs repairs on Trigger.
• Serene / Trigger (Battlebabe) - a murderous psychopath young female human replicant robot (think skinjob Cylon) who doesn't realise or accept that she is a droid. Truth has seen her soul and thinks she is a manifestation of 'mother ship', and Razzer helps her by maintaining her when she needs it while dancing around the fact that she isn't human. She was constructed by a woman she called 'mother' and works for a mysterious 'Architect' and as a part time job as a pit-fighter
• Kai (Brainer) - A psychic who gets along well with Razzer through their shared understanding of the psychic maelstrom as some unifying and permeating force that can affect both human minds and technology in familiar ways.
• And we had a new character join us - "Chop Shop" Huey (Maestro 'd) - a heavily scarred dwarf with a dap suit who runs the "Chop Shop" in Laundrytown (the 'entertainment district' we established last game) which is the pit-fighting bar where Trigger sometimes fights for money.
We opened at Gun Bay 12 with the hiss of escaping gases as the stasis pods opened, one by one returning the characters to the waking world - all except one. Truth's pod hadn't opened, something had malfunctioned. A crowd of his acolytes had soon gathered around the pod to hold vigil over his stasis frozen form, getting in the way of the other characters who had exited safely. Razzer, Serene, and Kai started debating if maybe this was for the best since Truth was quite dangerous, and were introduced to his 2IC - an ambitious young woman named Providence.
Over in Laundrytown, Huey had woken up to find his bar, the "Chop Shop" being poked and prodded unreasonably by a group of Truth's cultists - they were trying to dismantle some of the holographic projector technology he had incorporated into the fighting pit. Business had been bad lately for Huey, as the 'raiders' from last session had been coming more and more frequently to Laundrytown and were scaring off or harassing many of the locals and regulars. Huey got into a minor confrontation with these cultists and a 7-9 meant he lost the remainder of his local clientele - from now on, only the raiders would visit the Chop Shop. He did get a message from Tommy the cultist - if he had an issue with them, he could come to Gun Bay 12 and speak with their leader - the notorious Truth - and so Huey set off following them with a couple of the security goons who work for him.
Back at Gun Bay 12, Razzer set to work figuring out how to resolve the technical issue with Truths stasis pod, but remained oblivious when Jorgen the Hardholder of Gun Bay 12 arrived with three of his soldiers intent on ensuring that Truth (who he hated based on actions in last session) was permanently put to sleep. Huey arrived in the middle of this tense scene - Jorgen and his men waving guns around, Razzer ignorantly elbow deep in wires and pipes, and several cultists standing in the way forming a human shield around the stasis pod. Kai sidled up to one of the soldiers and took control of his mind with his psychic puppet strings, and Huey started talking to buy time. Kai and Providence (the beautiful thing with PbtA games is that it was seamless for Truth's player to switch to being Providence as their character instantly so they could keep playing) began subtly negotiating for power - Kai seemed to have a major power play on his mind. Huey got involved in that discussion offering food from his bar if people calmed down.
Unfortunately, once the soldiers realised that Huey had food back at his bar they decided he'd make a good hostage and surrounded him. Trigger faced off against Jurgen, frozen in a tense standoff waiting for one or the other to make a move. Huey ducked out from between the soldiers (and dropped his trademark cigar) as Providence and Kai came to terms on their deal to support each other in their respective grabs for power (her - the Mother cult, him - all of Gun Bay 12). Jurgen backed down from Trigger, but Kai used his puppet-soldier to blow Jurgens brains out as soon as his back was turned. Guns opened up everywhere, with Trigger hitting and killing some innocent bystander cultist children. Soon the smoke cleared and Jurgen and his three soldiers were wasted, as well as a couple of cultist children that Trigger accidentally hit. Realising that this Gun Bay 12 sh!t was crazy and wanting no part of it, Huey decided to head back to his bar (telling the group that when Truth was awake, to send him over), and his friend Trigger went with him. Kai and Providence used the cultists (now heavily armed since last session as they had been very productive in producing surplus barter in the form of weapons and ammo) to take over Gun Bay 12 and the remaining soldiers fell in line under him - the role of Hardholder has the biggest target on their back and is often killed by ambitious underlings, but they are quick to accept transitions of power. (Note - Kai used an advance here to take the Hardholder advance to get the gang from Gun Bay 12 that used to work for Jorgen).
Razzer figured out that it was highly likely that it was Providence who had tampered with the stasis pod that Truth was now in, but also figured out how to fix the issue she had caused and unlock his comrade. Rather than do it now, he decided to wait until the coast was clear and the crowds had dispersed. Kai used his mental powers to instruct Razzer not to open the pod containing Truth as he did not want this to happen.
Razzer took the injured Trigger (with wounds from last session) back to his workshop where he worked to repair Trigger with the local Angel from Gun Bay 12. A curious Providence sent some of the cultists to pry and Razzer stopped them at the door to the workshop - however they did manage to see Trigger getting worked on.
Huey and Trigger made their way back to Laundrytown through the network of corridors separating the two areas of the ship, where trigger saw that the entire town now was almost completely overrun with the raiders she had recently fought.
Razzer went back to the stasis pod later and released Truth (at which point the GM took over control of Providence - Truth had not been used as a character for like 2.5 hours of the session while in stasis!!). Poor Razz felt a small 'pop' as an aneurism inside his brain exploded thanks to the mental command from Kai instructing him NOT to open the pod, causing him some minor damage. On explaining that it was Providence who had tampered with his pod, Truth decided to seek her out at the Hardholder compound where Kai now ruled. They made their way in the front gate without issue and found the soldiers under Kai and the cultists under Providence loading up some hand carts and wagons with a bunch of the weapons that the cultists had accumulated - prepping for an expedition to Laundrytown to deal with the raiders. Providence had been informed that Truth was awake thanks to Kai's mental feedback, but was nonetheless surprised to be confronted by him. Truth stepped up to his one-time favourite, and embraced her telling her that she could control the cult here in Gun Bay 12 while he was off on an important mission to Laundrytown. She was surprised at his, thinking he would surely kill her - but quickly accepted her place back by her masters side. The convoy to Laundrytown set off - with several cultists and soldiers accompanying Kai, Razzer, and Truth.
Over in Laundrytown, Huey and Trigger entered the Chop Shop and aside from Hueys usual handful of bouncers there were only two patrons, sitting at the bar with their backs to the pair. Trigger quickly recognised the leader of the raiding party that she had fought against but did not recognise the young lady as she glanced her way - but did note that there were no whites in her eyes - they were all a consistent shade of powder blue. Sensing trouble, Huey ducked behind the bar to his usual position and downed a shot of the nastiest spirit he could lay hands on. Trigger attempted to taunt the raiders by fingering a dagger she had taken from one of his men and asked him who he works for. He quickly advised that the young lady with him was his boss, and that she might perhaps deal with the agitated Trigger. The blue eyed woman calmly turned around and pierced Trigger with her unsettling stare - "Go shoot yourself in the f*&!king head, B*@!ch" she stated as if it were a command. The psychic energy washed over Trigger as she fought to the very core of her being to NOT follow this deadly command from the enemy psychic. Realising the situation had turned murderous, Huey reached for his shotgun under the bar, but the raider captain grabbed him in the act - Huey stabbed the man clean through the hand pinning him to the bar (revealing the guy had cyborg hands too!) and the raider followed up by clobbering Huey in the head with his other metal hand. The psychic woman commanded Hueys bouncers to "kill everyone" so they started a gunfight amongst themselves, while Trigger unleashed on the raider leader with her machine gun arm causing Huey to dive for cover once more. Huey had the brilliant idea to turn on the holographic (yet deadly) system he used to make the pit fights "more interesting", altering the machines field to envelope the psychic woman and the cyborg Trigger. Trigger was of course used to this, but the enemy was not - the blue eyed woman was shocked to find herself in a barren desert wasteland, and was quickly swarmed by a group of deadly scarab beetles which began biting her. This distraction was all Trigger needed to shoot the woman dead and deactivate the hologram.
Back out in the bar Huey and his bouncers had killed the raider leader, leaving Huey wounded behind the bar and several of his bouncers on the floor groaning in pain filled with buckshot, but otherwise the victory was theirs. Trigger scooped out the woman's blue eyes as a trophy and they both dragged the corpses of the enemies out and down the front steps of the Chop Shop - just as Truth, Kai, and Razz arrived in Laundrytown with the caravan of soldiers and cultists from Gun Bay 12. The group noticed that many of the raiders in Laundrytown had noticed the murder of their leaders and had made a hasty retreat to other parts of the town and to relative safety.
At this point, all aboard felt the familiar 'bottom of the stomach' feeling that meant the ship was about to make a warp-jump. Current plans and schemes forgotten - every living soul aboard 'Mother' abandoned whatever they were doing and made haste towards the nearest stasis pod to sleep safely while the ship jumped to a new destination.
Thanks again Peter, Rowan, Shaun, Tamara, & Mac for an awesome game! So much fun!
This episode was totally character driven - I didn’t really inject much in the way of "GM Plot" you amazing people brought this all to life on your own! So awesome!
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