Ida Fell is pregnant and her dad, the so-called Reverend Thaddeus Fell, has anger issues. The only thing he loves more than doing violent crimes for cash is his own daughter. Getting her free from her dad might be the only way to actually get access to the panic room in The Opal of Ishtar's basement, but Sarge is not even sure if Ida actually wants to leave. What's a stressed out man to do?
No, You Are Not Having Deja Vu
For reasons, the original version of Episode 1's Act 1 & 2 are no longer considered canon and I'll be going back through and playing them out with different parameters to help punch up the intended vibe, etc. Some of the art will remain, more will change.
Previously, on The Four Generals
The Generals have arrived in Las Azaleas, only to learn that Maddy Dwyer is more than she seems. Now joining in as Major, the fourth of the new Four Generals, she has a plan to keep herself alive using The Opal of Ishtar's safe room. Only Clo Mirza, future owner of The Opal, is having a panic attack.
Content Warning: Language, Smoking, Violence [lots], Gambling, and a tinge of cosmic horror. I will also ignore history, technology, and common sense here or there but no slight is ever intended about the real history, people, or events referenced.
More info, attribution for the tools and materials used— including the splash art — can be found in the About & Credits, below.
The Four Generals Episode 1, Act 1: Come Fell or High Water
The Mythic Toolkit for Four Generals
Mythic has a lot of tools and variations/ideas that can be mixed-and-matched to create flows that fit a game. In this case, I'll be using the following changes from the "base" assumptions:
- Low Chaos Fate Chart {MM148)
- Chaos Factor will start at 5 and only increase at milestones/checkpoints. It will not decrease [a variation on Mythic Variation's Horror variation {12}].
- from Mythic Variations Action-Adventure variation {13}:
- The Adventure Focus Table
- The "Adventure!" Focus Event
- All Doubles trigger a Random Event
- "Remote Events" will involve Threads & Characters marked as REMOTE
- "Ambiguous Events" will involve Threads & Characters marked as MINOR
The full range of Meaning Tables will be used, but specific use will brought in for things like "Character, Combat Actions" to try and keep things...random.
Setting the Scene: Episode 1 | Act 1 | Scene 1.
Second verse same as the first, a little bit louder and a whole lot...better?
Chaos Factor: 5
Expected Scene: The Four Generals are outside of the Opal's panic room, assessing the situation.
Scene Test: None for the "true" opening scene.
Actual Scene: As expected.
Above, I link to an article about why I am replaying this scene. In general, though, there are going to be a number of tweaks. After this scene the story should have enough differences that propagate to a new place. The first bit will be roughly the same, but it will quickly diverge.
A lot of these details were already decided before I started this, and I won't repeat or pretend at new rolls, so it will be very nearly a "lore" type scene.
TRIGGER: THE FIRST ASSASINS WILL ATTACK MADDY ON THE THIRD "EVEN" ROLL OF A SCENE TEST.
Date: Saturday, August 15, 1998.
Time: 19:45
Place: The Flood Tunnels underneath The Opal of Ishtar
Of Mice and Men
"Heeyyy, buddy, you should open up the door, ok? We can all go and find Ida, together...," Myrrh says in a overly sweet voice. Belying her voice, she is chewing on her thumb-nail. Maddy said that nail-chewing is Myrrh's version of smoking. Myrrh's version of drinking is to go for a jog at speeds most people would identify as outright sprinting.
"This is some sci-fi shit, Sarge," LT calls from a few meters back, poking at the metal grill of one of the vents in the tunnel they have found themselves in.
Equidistant in front of Sarge is Maddy, now calling herself Major with some insistence, and Myrrh. In front of them is an orange door which leads to the panic room which is much less a "room" and much more a full-on bunker stocked to outlive the planet earth. In theory.
The two young women have been knocking on the door and pushing the intercom button for several minutes.
Behind Sarge, in the direction where LT and The Colonel are standing, is a hundred-meter-long concrete tunnel with side vents every couple of meters. The faint glow of lighting from them combines with the moisture dripping in the place gives the whole place the feel of a 1970s depiction of a space colony. A doomed one.
"Major," it is the Colonel who asks, "What the hell is this?"
Myrrh answers. "My dad, before he disappeared, was convinced that nuclear catastrophe was imminent. He had this built. The tunnel. The bunker at the end. The storage.
"In the event of global catastrophe you get inside the bunker and then trigger the switch and...WOOSH!," and as she says this does this big, dramatic gesture with her hands like something pushing down with crushing force and speed, "the water tanks that run all the toilets and showers and stuff upstairs flush out and fill these tunnels up, sealing folks on the other side and using the water to help protect from radiation, EMP, heat blasts, all that."
"Would that actually work?," Sarge asks.
Myrrh shrugs and then hits the intercom again before banging on the door when Clo Mirza, her younger brother, refuses to acknowledge them. He hasn't talked the whole time they have been down here but according to Myrrh he had been a chatty-cathy about an hour ago before going radio silent.
"Wait," LT pipes back up, "What if he triggers the WOOSH!," making the same gesture as Myrrh, "while our asses are out here?"
Myrrh gives it some thought and then shakes her head. "Nah, Clo is a LITTLE BITCH who is just CRYING FOR HELP! MAN UP, GODDAMNIT! Your woman NEEDS YOU!"
"That feel sexist to anyone else?," LT asks, "Or is it just..." Trailing off as Myrrh whips around and glares at him.
"Why do we need this panic room instead of a cave in the desert?," Sarge cuts in through the shrill shouts.
"Because," Major says, fiddling with a cigarette but not lighting it as she once again eyes the strange fire detectors dotted around the ceiling, "the plan had been for Myrrh and me to dump as much money as we could against the bet that I would die and then Myrrh and I were going to hole up with three cartons of booze, two cartons of smokes, enough snacks to fat up four elephants, and then flood the tunnels until September."
"Shit," LT says, "That might actually work." He is nodding, appreciatively.
"ONLY," Myrrh is back to shouting her perhaps problematic spiel, "SOME JAG-OFF IS HIDING FROM HIS FATHERLY DUTIES!"
Clo, it turns out, has gotten Ida Fell pregnant. And Ida Fell is Reverend Thaddeus Fell's daughter. And that's a whole thing.
The Reverend Thaddeus Fell and His Two Daughters: Ida and Olive
Thaddeus "Teddy" Fell came up in the world doing a complicated thing which can be explained in a simple way: "Bad shit to help protect the Almighty Dollar." His job across a couple different agencies was to disrupt any international community which threatened to disrupt American business interests in the growing world economy. He used violence and bribes pretty equally, but his specialty was using local religious flavors as agitprop to out legitimate local concerns as Actually Dangerous Talk®
Then, during a stint in Peru, he met Tania Vargas and fell in love. This did not soften him. Tania was hard woman who liked her hard husband who liked the fact he was gone most of the year. She was faithful, and loyal to the Fell brand, but also enjoyed her independence. She eventually had Ida — named after Teddy's mother who absolutely despised her Peruvian daughter in law — and Olive — Tania had a love of old Popeye cartoons and yes, Olive's middle name is "Oyl." Not long after the birth of Olive in 1980, Tania died from complications likely related to the birth itself.
This prompted Teddy to retire and move back with his daughters near to his mom. The elder Ida Fell feelings about Peruvians was greatly set aside when it came to her grandbabies and she was such a doting grandmother that she practically ignored Teddy's emotional downfall.
Teddy first founded a gang of bikers enlisted from various ex-soldiers and ex-operatives he knew: men who had been used by a system to prey off their penchant of violence.
Then, when Teddy's mom died, he found himself religion. He kept the jacket. Had the tattoos. Had the attitude, but he tried a stint at being a good man.
Slowly but surely the three lives of Teddy Fell met up. He became an ordained minister around the time he reformed his biker gang and the two spheres melded into the Church of High Water. A pun of sorts. Trafficking in weed and alcohol within very thin auspices of a church.
As his power grew, so did the outreach efforts of his church which melded nicely into a city like Las Azaleas: a place where casinos, mega-churches, company offices taking advantage of lax tax laws, and interstate traffic all combined. Teddy, now the Reverend Thaddeus Fell, lived in that intersection. One moment hijacking trainyards to steal DVD players and the next using cash from those sales to help out a local charity.
During a charity to send books to troops, Ida met Clo and the two hit it off. Ida was eighteen and well aware of her dad's less savory side even though he had worked hard to shelter her from it. Clo was nineteen a spoiled kid who had never gotten over his dad's abandonment or his mom's insistence that he, and not Myrrh, was the future leader of the family. Their rebellion against parents trying to give them a better life turned into a romance kept hidden from both clans. Then Ida realized she was pregnant with Clo's baby.
Ida and Clo made a plan to escape to the bunker and hide out. Only she didn't show up and Clo panicked and locked himself in.
With the idea that it has to be "extreme" enough to prompt this whole thing, let's find out why Clo + Ida's plan fell through. In the [REDACTED] version, we found out that Ida loves her dad and wants to help but is ready to get out with an absolute passion. I'll leave this in place.
- Does Fell know that Ida is pregnant? (Unlikely) >> 79 No = he knows something is up though because she never showed up to the panic room.
- Does Olive know? (50/50) >> 59 No.
- If Fell finds out, what will his reaction be? (Meaning: Actions) >> 03 Activate 84 Strength + 40 Energize 08 Benefits.
- Does Fell himself want to stop Ida from leaving? (50/50) >> 41 Yes.
- Why? Let's use the "Maidenstead Mystery" icons for this >> 1,1 Ambulance + 5,3 Jigsaw Piece = I don't want it to be simply, "he's scared for her health," since that won't justify going in guns blazing. Instead I'll say, "she's the puzzle piece that makes the business continue to be healthy."
Ida is good at keeping track of the numbers and data, logging them in computers and keeping track of details. One he found out she was leaving, he [{panicked | got angry | both } >> 2] got angry that she was leaving. He caught her sneaking out and has trapped [somewhere] and has brought in several of his foot soldiers to guard her.
- How is he justifying this to his people? Let's pull a GMA Basic card or two and look at the catalysts: {GMAB80} "Save a newbie from themselves" + {GMAB114} "A rival issues a dare."
He's convinced his people that Frankie Mirza, through Clo, is trying to snipe Ida to take over High Water. He's pitching it to them as her being young and inexperienced [true] but he's also put some of his rougher folks on guard duty. Not nice people. At least some think it would be better to just shoot Ida and then maybe burn down the Opal.
- On a scale of 1-10, how much are the more violent voices taking over? {1d10} >> 8 = a whole lot. High Water is about to blow, seeing Fell's tolerance to his daughter to be a weakness, even if they only think this because he has lied to them.
Ok, I think I have a much more Outgunned plot this time.
Sarge knows most of the story because Clo told Myrrh all this before she decided "just a little joke" from her was in order. The "little joke" being: "Hey, maybe they already shot her and are on their way to shoot you, you should open up so they can get shooting you over with." Clo apparently wailed, shut off the intercom, and then hasn't responded, since.
Ah, siblings.
According to Myrrh, the story she was told prior to that was that Clo and Ida had pretty much the exact same idea as her and Major. Must run in the family. Clo and Ida were going to hide out in the "panic room" for a couple of weeks after Ida "accidentally" dropped off an Amtrack ticket to LA outside of her bedroom and then, once the "coast was clear" they were going to decamp for parts easterly and in no way Los Angeles shaped, preferable without a gang of violent bikers on their tail.
It's a dumb plan, dumber than Major's version in some ways, but youth, right? Then it got worse when she didn't show up to enjoy the lunch he had packed for her, or the dinner, and around then he hit the full "lost his shit" moment and slammed the close button because...who knows...maybe he was afraid that Fell's goons were going to toss in her severed head or something.
So not only is he is panicking and Ida might be dead but now Romeo Sans Juliet is potentially about to fuck up a good way to keep Major alive.
Sarge does not think much about what he does next. He is rarely paid to think. All he knows is that Ida and Major both have a clock over their head and further delays only brings that clock backwards to zero.
He pushes the intercom button and just assumes it works.
"Hey, Clo. You have one minute to get your ass out here or I'm going to tell your mom you knocked up the preacher's daughter and then planned to run off without saying goodbye. You are going to come out, you are going to help us go save Ida, and then we are going to take care of you both."
Then, he stops and waits.
- Does it work? (Likely, because it's more fun if it does) >> 13 Exceptional Yes.
In about forty-five- of those sixty-seconds, they hear the mechanism release and the door slowly starts to open. Once it has, a young man steps out. He's attractive, looks like the sort of person that would make an excellent perpetual student, and also looks understandably scared.
He looks to the people who are standing there and then says, "We promised to keep each other safe...I think I messed up."
Myrrh grabs her brother in a hug and LT strides forward and pats the young man on the back. "Boy, your kid is going to be bragging about how you saved both their lives for the next century!"
Sarge manages to not say the quiet part out loud. What he does say is, "Major, do you know anyone that can protect them? Can't have all four of you in the bunker. That's pushing luck."
She smiles and finally lights the cigarette, having seemly forgot about the whole GIANT TUNNEL THAT FLOODS WITH PREJUDICE and Sarge winces before being absolutely fucking delighted to not be drowned by overly enthusiastic smoke detectors.
"I know just who to call," she says, winking, "Hitomi is going to be pissed but she owes me after I helped Eu with the haunted lumber mill."
"Me? Wait, never mind. Just call whomever. Clo, you got a gun?"
And beside him, Clo chokes back a sob.
[DESIGN] Making Clo Mirza
In the original version of Episode 1, one of the several problems was that Maddy "Major" Dwyer got drug along on the mission versus Fell and it makes very little sense that she would be involved in such a mission. I realized that Clo and Ida need to be their own thing and so step one of that is making Clo [whose full first name is "Clove" because that's the damned joke but don't call the poor boy that].
What I want from him is someone that is either
- The Nobody, or
- The Brain.
{1d2} >> Brain. He's a thinker. This gives him a point for Focus. There are six feats associated with The Brain, so let's roll {1d6} twice: (1) 2, High Culture & (2) 1, Hacker. He's used to the area and knows quite a few folks and he's pretty cutting edge with a computer. I like both of those.
For his Trope, let's go for
- Cheater
- Neurotic Geek
- Trusty Sidekick
{1d3} >> Cheater. He's good at lying and tricking folks. Or well, will be if he survives. For his second attribute we have {Smooth | Crime} >> Even, Crime. There are four Feats so {1d4} = 3, Shadow.
This essentially makes him smart and a bit shady. Good at computers, good at sneaking around, and good at people. He is almost exactly what I pictured for Myrrh when I was starting, so that's nice. Also explains why he is not going in guns-a-blazing. He's much better at faking zoning laws to curry favor with a city council member than any sort of violence.
If they get Ida free and there's reason, I will probably go ahead and make a character sheet for her. Not yet, though. A glimpse of the artwork because I wanted to make her a Clo's at the same time. To contrast but also find two who might be a couple:
[DESIGN] Making The "Church" of High Water
This time around, rather than a industrial plant that I just tried to just will into being from the feelz department, want to try and actually do a little dice rolling mapping. Going to take 4 colors of six-sided dice — three purple [fights], three dark greenish [stealth], two light green [points of interest, positive], and one yellow [point of interest, negative] — and two d12s and roll them on a big ole sheet of paper.
Doug's Note: And then, it turned out, I had to get my disabled ass down on the floor and retrieve one of the dice that went on walkabout. Sorry, sorry...people first language: my ass which has a disability.
1s are nothing, just dust/fluff. 2s & 3s = Basic, with 3s being more of a gamble. 4s can be Double Basic challenges. 5s and 6s are Critical, again with 6s having a bigger gamble. For the d12s, it works to show the relative control between Fell and his daughter.
After rolling the dice [around 3 times to get all of them on the board at the same time] we get this...
No 1s. One of the "positive landmarks" is a 2. One of the combat spots is a 2, near Fell's die, maybe because he's the young guy sent to take out Fell by the others plotting mutiny. Only one combat spot that's a 5 and another near Ida's die.
Thinking about it, I started to feel like there were two lines, here. Something like a natural break could make sense. Church has a hill or ridge nearby that naturally cuts it away from the terrain on the south-side.
Putting in a church, an outbuilding where Ida is being kept, and then working out some logic for the other dice...
Church is a bit funky. It should be reversed with the side rooms smaller and the nave being the main portion, though it's no longer a fully functioning church so the insides are a bit in disarray.
Then going with the flow suggested by dice and tossing a quick overlay on the buildings to show more their true shape even if not to scale, we get something like this...
I'll say there's a very old graveyard to the north-east, just for flavor.
There's a guy on the roof of the church. Starting at a spot where there's a minor chance of being spotted you can either go East, towards the church, or South, around the ridge. You have a moment where you are more visible if you go South. If you go East, though, you either have to enter the church and confront Fell and a minor guard planning on shooting Fell. Olive is somewhere in their near the pews. Or you can bypass the church is pretty safe.
If you get to the yard behind the church without already alerting guards galore, you are in clear view of the man on the roof. Dangerous Critical type thing, where failure means you get shot. Something is there which is a pretty significant boon and something is there which is a fairly minor problem, maybe something that makes noise that can bring attention? No clue.
Continuing this path you get around to the out-building with Ida and the one guard left standing. Since that's a minor guard and she is matched evenly with her dad, she has somehow disposed of two other guards.
However, if you keep going South from the start, there is some sort of minor-ish boon down there. At this point you can go back up into the garden by climbing the now decent sized ridge [bonus Critical check]. OR, you can continue around to a group of sheds and trailers where the main business arm of the church is hidden. This will be a pretty major fight.
If these guys aren't taken out then you end up probably having to fight them anyhow.
That way, you can go up the back-side of the ridge where it is easier to ascend and come around to the outbuilding on the side with a door.
The Guard on the Roof is Mr. Bad Times. He might be loyal to Fell and what's keeping the others at bay. Sure, I like that.
Ok, with Clo and the "Church" made, I think this is a good time to wrap up and prepare for Act 2 to be more of an actual play session...again.
Also time to ice up my damned leg that is now mad that I had to get on the floor to get the dice.
Doug's Commentary
It's kind of fun to get a "session" like this where you spend a couple of hours deep in design and have little time to actually play. In a lot of ways, this is only half of it since part of it was the whole retraction thing, as well. Tossing out stuff and then going back and figuring out what I needed to reset took a slight moment.
I'm, so far, a lot happier with this one. It also gave me more time to hone the artwork style and that's nice. I'm still learning more about picking out images and pre-/post-processing to help really hit the vibe I want but it's been fun growing a bit in the digital-manipulation sphere that I've used for a while on this blog.
I'll included more-in-the-new-style photos for Major and The Colonel just as a way to check-in...after this commentary block.
The "no damsels in distress" rule for this campaign is going to cause some fun moments realllly soon.
Being the two that have witnessed the most horrors in their life, playing at ways to bring that out. The Colonel's face is a bit more shadowed on the one side, Maddy/Major is more in darkness, the color scheme drifting more to sunset.
About The Four Generals
BigBetty.com has placed a bet on Maddy Dwyer's life. People stand to make millions if she is dead within the next two weeks. Maddy's dad, Thomas "Cap" Dwyer has asked three old friends to travel to Las Azaleas and protect his daughter. The group went as The Four Generals in high school but have long since gone their separate ways. Now, the three friends — and Maddy, calling herself Major — have reformed The Four Generals. Their task: to keep Maddy alive. Also, some cults and crazy mega-church leaders are involved.
Credits
The Four Generals is played using Outgunned. Mythic, Gamemaster's Apprentice: Base 2e, and Gamemaster's Apprentice: Weird Horror are used as game oracles. Other tools have been added in.
Art is modified from stock photos and images by myself from various sources, given below. GIMP + G'MIC are used to create the effects. Unsplash is the most common source of stock art.
References to source materials use the following codes [BOLD = Main Sources for campaign]:
- {BRTM} Book of Random Tables: Modern
- {BRTN} Book of Random Tables: 1980s - 1990s
- {GMAB} Gamemaster's Apprentice: Base 2e Deck
- {GMAWH} Gamemaster's Apprentice: Weird Horror Deck
- {MM} "Maidenstead Mysteries" [Tricube Tales] Image Oracle
- {MY} Mythic, 2nd Edition
- {OG} Outgunned
- {OGAD} Outgunned Assistant Director
- {RR} Random Realities
- {TBM} Table Fables, Modern
- {UNE} Universal NPC Emulator
When page or card numbers are given, they will be in the {curly brackets}. {RR1,6} = Random Realities for die roll 1,6.
Part of the Alabama Weird world, though not geographically located in Alabama.
This post is in the standard Doug Alone post style. See Anatomy of a Post for more details.
ART CREDIT AND EXPLANATION
Those not below are already credited on the [REDACTED] posts.
Clo Mirza is from a photo Photo by Zanyar Ibrahim on Unsplash. That photographer has some fun photos that play with lightning and colors in a lot of neat ways.
Ida Fell (the new version) is from a photo by amin naderloei on Unsplash. I picked this one because I wanted someone who looked like they could take care of themselves but also someone who might look like a comic book version of the character I'm thinking about. This model was *perfect* for both, and the framing is great for the photo-to-comic-book process I am currently using.