Session/Game: Savage Worlds Orion 12
Date: 4/8/2006
Episode 12: Since when do Grundorians have guns?
Campaign Date: Royal Orion Year 313, Day 340-341
Characters:
Sir Hollis Dupont, human, seasoned (Andrew Smith)
Squad of three science interns ("Stick", "Test Tube", and "Newbie") (NPC)
Sir Bloodblade, Kong, veteran (Marlon Kirton)
Squad of two apeman gunmen and a kong heavy weapon gunner (NPC)
Sir Ashon 'Ka 'Linor, human, seasoned (Mike Miller)
Squad of six jackal-men laser gunners, 1 medic specialist (NPC)
Sir Buford Culpepper, human, veteran (Dave Nelson)
Squad of six human troopers with shotguns (NPC)
Sir Henry "Machinegun Hank" Poole, seasoned (Charles Fleurie)
6 human troopers w/ assault rifles (NPC)
GM: James Gallgher
Log:
Day 340
The heroes are enjoying a few days of peace and quiet when they are each aroused from their various revelries by squires delivering messages from a new Knight Commander, Sir Winston Wellington Alexander Robertson III. They are directed to report to his office ASAP. Each knight, except the anti-social Sir Bloodblade, arrives at Robertson’s office and is warmly greeted by this strange new knight commander. He quickly briefs the assembled knights on their new mission. King Henry II himself has requested these particular knights to find the royal courier ship Divine Grace that has gone missing near the colony of Seraphim III. It seems that the Divine Grace was carrying an experimental recombinant DNA from a research station back to Orion when contact was lost. Robertson is unable to tell the heroes what the DNA was for, but assures them that it is very important to the kingdom. After a brief Q & A, in which they learn that their contacts on the planet will be an offshoot of the Wampler clan, the knights send Stick off to Bloodblade’s warehouse to convince the Kong knight to accompany them to Seraphim III. After insulting Serge, and trying to lure the Kong with a banana, Stick finally gives up, leaving Hollis and Buford to collect their wayward companion. With Bloodblade finally along for the trip, the heroes open three Marvel portals, and depart for Seraphim.
Day 340 : Seraphim III
The knights and their troop accompaniment arrive in a wide prairie, where they check for the location of the nearest Knight’s Lodge. Finding that there is no KoO presence on the planet, they then contact Paul Wampler, owner of Wampler’s Cantina. He informs the knights that he will dispatch two wagons to pick them up and bring them to the town of Gabriel. The heroes and their troops set off on foot, eventually meeting up with the two wagons being manned by four Frodians in strange military uniforms and armed with scoped laser rifles. The party is told that they are members of the Wampler Rifles, what passes for law on Seraphim. The hour ride into town passes uneventfully. When the party arrives in Gabriel, they find a town of about a half dozen buildings, all very small. The Wampler’s tell the group that the majority of the inhabitants of Seraphim are Frodian and Dwarves. The party (except for Bloodblade) enters the low ceiled cantina and settle into a feast provided by Paul Wampler and his kin. Filled with good Frodian cuisine in the cantina, and even outside (as the Frodians bring a matching feast to the Kongs), the knights attempt to get their bearings when a uniformed Frodian runs into the cantina to alert his Uncle Paul of trouble.
The trouble is three severely injured humans wearing flight suits being brought into town in a wagon. Ashon’s medic sees to one, while Ashon himself heals the other two. The roused crewmen have no idea where they are, but tell the knights that they were onboard the Divine Grace when the ship was attacked approaching Seraphim. They were forced down, and managed to escape, but were hunted down by their unknown assailants before they awoke in Gabriel. Ashon, Bloodblade, and Machinegun Hank assemble their troops, and with the help of the Wampler Rifles head out of town to the area where they injured crew was found. After several hours of travel by wagon, they arrive at a river fording where they are told that the crewmen were found nearly dead. With night fast approaching, the three knights decide to make a dark encampment, radio back to town to Buford and Hollis to apprise them of the situation and schedule a rendezvous in the morning. The party sets perimeter guards and beds down for the night.
Day 341: Seraphim III Prairie
Shortly after midnight the guards detect movement across the river closing fast on the camp. As the knights and the troopers rouse themselves they see a large band of grundorians nearing the water’s edge on the opposite bank. In a small flurry of arrows, and much spitting and snarling, the grundorians begin their attack on the camp. However, their primitive weapons are no match for the assembled firepower of the knights and their troopers, and the grundorians are soundly beaten with only a couple shorties surviving to escape. The rest of the night passes uneventfully, and in the morning the main body of the party is joined by Sir Buford and Sir Hollis. The newly assembled heroes and their troops, joined by six of the Wampler Rifles, head off tracking the Grundorians that attacked the previous night. During the day, the knights discover strange tracks from a heavy wheeled vehicle heading in the same direction that the grundorian attackers came from. Later the tracks are joined by strange cross shaped tracks, like those of a robot. Late in the afternoon, the party comes across several craters, made by explosives, surrounded by the strange tire tracks and a great number of booted foot prints. Following the tracks back to their source, the party comes to a ridgeline where they spot a line of grundorian shorties along with a large grundorian wearing armor similar to that issued to royal troops and brandishing a large pistol. The large greenskin steps down behind the rise then reappears. The knights open fire on the grundorian line cutting down several of the shorties to no losses of their own. As they begin closing, a loud rumble comes over the ridge and a heavy wheeled vehicle armed with a multiple rocket launcher pulls into the right flank of the grundorian line. Ashon’s plasma gunner fires at the rocket wagon, but the shot dissipates harmlessly on the heavy front armor. Bloodblade’s apemen open fire on the rocket launcher, disabling one of the tubes, but otherwise appearing to do no harm to it. As the grundorian gunner applies his flaming brand to one of the rocket touch holes, he notices that the launcher has indeed taken more damage then previously thought, and the vehicle withdraws from the fight. During the heated exchange of fire, Sir Buford teleports into close range, knowing that the lesser shorties are no threat to an scout armored knight, and in a blaze of laspistol fire, guns down the big grundorian. As the boss falls, nearly a dozen and a half grundorian warriors, armed with heavy pistols, industrially manufactured blades, and wearing battle vests and helmets crest the ridge. The grundorians open fire on the knights and their entourage, but to little avail. In the end, the knights mop up the resistance, and upon cresting the ridge, they see a large scar in the earth on the next ridge a half royal kilometer away.
The knights make for the scar, and when they crest that ridge, they see the wreck of the Divine Grace half buried in the rise opposite. The crash site has been fortified by more grundorians armed with pistols, and armored in modern armor along with numerous shorties. The knights, their troops, and the Wamplers set of a firing line on the ridge and begin to pour fire into the grundorian defenses dropping a couple of the greenskined menace. Sir Hollis teleports on top of the grundorian defenses and engages several on close combat. As this occurs, and large robotic figure, looking like a large can with a huge claw and rocket launchers, emerges from the wreckage of the ship. It fire a rocket into the middle of the heroes line, wounding Ashon’s heavy trooper and healer, while the returned fire of the troopers patters off it’s armored bulk. Sir Buford closes on the grundorian defenses, as several of the gun toting greenies jump down to meet him. Sir Hollis manages to defeat the armored grundorian he is fighting, but is quickly confronted by another. Da Stompa fires another rocket into the knight’s line, wounding Bloodblade’s apemen manning the heavy machinegun. Having freed himself of grundorian attackers, Buford sends two psionic bursts into Da Stompa, but is unable to damage it. Ashon summons magical force to try to force the machine to turn tail and flee, succeeding in making the machine turn and lumber off, leaving it shaken. Sir Hollis then teleports on top of the machine, and readies himself to attempt to take over the mind of the pilot. As he does, one of Ashon’s troopers mans the heavy MG, fires a burst at the fleeing machine, but hits Hollis, wounding him and causing him to fall from the top. Buford, in the mean time, finds himself surrounded by the annoying shorties with a pistol a pair of the pistol wielding grundorians closing fast. He drops a grenade at his feet, stunning all the grundorians, breaks free, and drops the two larger foes with well placed shots to their knees. With the grundorians defeated, Bloodblade teleports himself onto the top of Da Stompa, works the hatch open and rips the pilot from the inside. He finds that the pilot was only a torso and head that has been implanted into the mechanical behemoth. With the grundorians defeated, Bloodblade sees a very large grundorian and a human in knight’s armor fleeing over the next rise.
The party enters the wreck of the Divine Grace to find a holo-throne. As it activates, they are confronted by their old nemesis Sir Sylvester LeRoi, who smugly informs them that he has stolen the experimental DNA and turned it over to the grundorians whom he has made a treaty with. The DNA was to be implanted in Royal Marines, enhancing their strength, stamina, and intelligence. This DNA will now be used to make a race of super-grundorians that he hopes to use against the “false king”. The party then rests, and when able, they Marvel back to Orion. There Sir Winston, though disappointed by the failure to secure the DNA tells the knights that the king is pleased with the vital intelligence that they have brought back, and each knight is granted a boon by the king.