Monday, February 8
Unit 23: Part 3 – The Thing in the Van
Archive, Hammer, and Jim-Bean stood uncertainly at the entryway to Unit 23, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
Amidst the swirling smoke and occasional spurts of blood, black figures darted in and out. Hammer kept his pistols trained on the entrance, waiting to see what came coughing out of it. Archive stood beside him, muttering an incantation.
Jim-Bean wandered into the melee, firing grenades at random. more
Labels: d20 modern
posted by talien at
6:24 AM
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Saturday, February 6
Paper & Pixels: Done!
The final draft is complete at 90,000 words. A couple of more edits, a couple more interviews (if anyone else bothers to get back to me before the end of next week...yes that means you), and this sucker's done.Labels: author news
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10:09 PM
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Friday, February 5
Unit 23: Part 2 – Those Darn Ninjas
Caprice, pistol out, made his way through the smoke and the screaming towards the van. All around them, Satan's Sadist bikers engaged with White Shadows.
A throwing star whistled past Guppy's ear, skewering the big biker near the flipchart in the forehead. He foamed at the mouth and fell over.
"We've got to get out of here!" wailed Guppy.
"Chill." Caprice threw open the door. Milliard was slumped over the wheel.
Caprice unceremoniously dumped Milliard. There weren't any keys on the body.
Caprice shoved Guppy in ahead of him and jumped into the cab of the panel van.
"Can you hotwire it?" asked Caprice.
"S-sure!" said Guppy. He wiggled under the steering column.
There was a thump on the hood of the car, thin blade drawn for a strike. Caprice fired his pistol three times, instantly cracking the glass. The safety glass was a spider web of cracks, making it difficult to see anything.
"Almost there…" said Guppy.
A blade shrieked through the top of the cab, just missing Caprice's head. He pointed his pistol upwards and fired the remaining bullets in his Beretta.
Another thump and a body bounced off the hood.
"Got it!" The van hummed to life. more
Labels: d20 modern
posted by talien at
11:12 PM
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Thursday, February 4
10 Places You Can't Go in the World
Just in case you thought there were no mysteries left in the world. moreLabels: weird news
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8:57 PM
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Tuesday, February 2
Unit 23: Part 1 – Twenty Three
Snowdog and his Indian accountant stepped out of the limo in front of a warehouse.
"Are you sure this is the place?" Guppy asked nervously. It'd been awhile since he'd been out in the field. He had been running tech support from behind a desk, recognition from Majestic that he wasn't really up to the kind of stress demanded by a field op.
Located in Chicago's 23rd District, they stood before a disused warehouse amongst an entire wasteland of abandoned and run down industrial units. It was exactly what it is intended to be – a quiet makeshift spot away from traffic where illegitimate business could be conducted.
"Unit 23, 2323 E. Schiller Street," said Snowdog, actually Caprice in his street rapper persona. "Dis is it, yo."
Guppy nodded and, taking a deep breath, they sauntered their way into the warehouse. more
Labels: d20 modern
posted by talien at
9:39 PM
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Wednesday, January 27
Unit 23: Prologue
Chicago police and SWAT swarmed the checkpoint, boxing in a perimeter around the warehouse where the White Shadows were supposedly storing rare artifacts and crates filled with Coca Loco.
"You sure it's in there?" asked Jim-Bean, peering through binoculars at their target, a warehouse.
Hammer glared at him. "You're girlfriend gave us the info—"
"She's not my girlfriend," snapped Jim-Bean. "She's…"
"Oh, I'm sorry. Is "mother of your children" better?" asked Hammer sarcastically. more
Labels: d20 modern
posted by talien at
6:32 AM
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Tuesday, January 26
Unit 23 Story Hour: Introduction
This story hour is a combination of the latest Delta Green Mailing List contest entry, "Unit 23," by Graham Kinniburgh, "Two Minutes On High" by Michael P. Nagel from Unspeakable Oath #11, and "Righteous Triad Fists" by Allan T. Grohe from The Triad Sourcebook. You can read more about Delta Green at Delta Green. Please note: This story hour contains spoilers!The odds of someone posting a scenario that perfectly fit the window when I needed something involving tcho-tchos are incredibly small. As fate would have it, Graham posted a scenario that was just perfect. It's not that surprising, given that my tastes in Delta Green action run similar to Graham's. I ended up using his scenario as the glue between At Your Door and what I like to call "Cthulhu Must Die."
This scenario actually draws on a third scenario, Righteous Triad Fists. Instead of having the battle be over The Seventh Scroll of Hsan, we have a Portuguese translation in book form. The goal is simply this: get the book, stop the cultists. Of course, it's much more complicated than that…
I had no idea I would end up with a full host of players that day. Because d20 is level-based, Caprice and Guppy have fallen behind in levels, so I was careful to separate them from the combat initially. What I didn't want was to have a bloodbath where the low level characters get knocked flat while the high level characters pound away on the opposition.
I pretty much butchered Graham's entry – I completely tossed the items he had listed as a homage to Marc McFadden, who recently passed away, along with the allusions to "The Lizard King." I replaced the Banzai 23 with Satan's Sadists, from At Your Door. And most importantly, I wanted to role-play some bidding, which gave our two weaker characters a chance to shine. Since Caprice is involved, that means our favorite cover is back: SNOWDOG!
I've also learned that, although it's fun to place 20 ninjas and 20 thugs on a warehouse map and have them duke it out, it's really not practical to make all those rolls. I learned my lesson running a massive D&D scenario with a similar number of opponents and skipped the boring parts. Narrative combat is key, rather than what miniature is on what part of the page. more
Labels: d20 modern
posted by talien at
7:08 AM
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