The Children of the Sea Serpent: Chapter 1

The good guys.

The bad guys. One of them quite impatient.

My name is  Dr. Oscar Webb. My irrational fear of the sea and any other large body of water, for that matter, has not always accompanied me.

It was not until an interesting incident back in the twenties that I started shivering at the sheer tought of the water. For...you see...something lurks in the darkness of the depth. Something so terrifying, I risk fainting just by writing about it...as you can probably see from my shaky handwriting.

It is best I start at the beginning. Years ago, I was recruited into a top secret governmental agency, called Threshold. I would imagine you have not yet heard of it. Agency has been working in the shadows for hundreds of years, some say its roots go back to the mad emperor Nero of Rome, but I digress.

I was with the agency for a long time and have grown accustomed to dealing with queer things and beings, yes, beings, that do not belong to this world. But nothing could have prepared me for what I have encountered in those days of Autumn 1924.

It was me, my  good friend Stan Hastings and a scholar Artemis Seaton (who possesses certain...gifts) that were sent on a mission in a scarcely populated coastal area in New England. Reports of blood-freezing chanting and daemonic rituals were coming to the Agency more and more frequently. It was a routine mission, find out more about the possible cult and its practice and break it...little did we know, that we were already late.

It was a cold, misty morning, when we went on a foot patrol around the area and we closed in on a worm eaten old barn in the middle of the forest. We heard human voices - or so we thought - and closed in with weapons drawn.

We tried to remain unnoticed for as long as possible and took cover behind the barn. We could heard human sounds...no doubt of that, but there were also sounds that you would not be expecting to hear on the shores. What are we to deal with on this god forsaken place?

There was no time to think - it was time to act! Helped by Artemis, Stan climbed in the barn to outflank the godless worshipers, while I rushed around the corner, putting my faith in Diana, my family shot gun. I emptied both barrels in the direction of a villain and made sure he would see another day. Artemis was following closely behind me.

Inside the barn, Stan was under light pistol fire, but managed to keep his skin whole. I would be worried about Stan more, hadn't I been approach by a being of such a repulsive look, even horror writers would faint! The slippery scaly humanoid rushed at me and I did my best to protect myself - the rest is lost to my memory as I was bested in the fight.

This story continues as it was told by trusty Artemis and Stan. Stan was of quick wits and charged the imposing figure he thought was a leader of the group. He was locked in a fight with the cultist, but was unable to secure a definite victory against the evil doer.  In the mean time, that awful fish-man hybrid shambled towards Artemis, whose wits were so strained, he missed the creature at point blank with his pistol and then fell tho his attack in close combat.

Stan could still not overpower the leader of the party and henchman decided to intervene. Afraid he might hit his leader, he joined in the brawl and did not fire from the distance. This decision turned out to be his undoing, as Stan hacked through him with ease. This small victory apparently motivated Stan to focus and he finally settled the dispute with the cultist.  He wasted no time and rushed around the corner to meet the devil that dealt such a great amount of pain to his friends. He emptied a clip, but did not manage to hit the shambling young man, who turned towards Stan but failed to reach him and engage in a close combat. While Stan always preferred to dance to the song of swords than orchestra of powder, a rusty old cleaver that that pitied creature dragged behind it made him think twice and he instead decided to keep some distance and rather fill the abnormality with lead.

After two carefully aimed shots, the being dropped dead on the spot and Stan rushed to get me and Artemis to hospital, where is it I woke up.

The mission was costly for our little team, as poor Artemis lost all his trust in the fire arms and pledged never to use them again - they are inaccurate and not worth the bother, he claims! As for me...oh god...that forsaken beast has swung its blade all over my face and the result is beyond imaginable. I dread seeing myself in mirror - how can I ever let my loved ones see me like this?


Post-game thoughts:

While it has its cons (First version at least), Strange Aeons is by far the most fun I have playing games. Fast and simple and if I play alone nobody hears me adding the sound effects!

To be completely fair, I replayed the scenario, as after first game all three agents were removed from play without causing any damage whatsoever. Henchman with the Tommy gun was killing them without too much trouble - the profile is strong by itself and it had all the best rolls! According to the injury roles, one died and the other one was horribly crippled, so I decided to cheat a bit and call it a practice game, as I haven't played in months.

Artemis suffers from Ballistophobia and will need to preform a test before he can fire a weapon, while Oscar is now hideous, which means every human that comes into base to base contact with him, will have to throw a resolve check.

Meet the hybrids

In Lovecraft's story, Shadow over Innsmouth, Deep ones (that I've shown in my last post) eventually made an agreement with people of Innsmouth, for an abundance of fish and jewelry, they have demanded human worship, and later, mating. Offspring from those mixed couples were born as humans and eventually transformed into full scale Deep ones. At that time, they went to live their immortal lives under the sea.

Those miniatures represent three elderly representatives of this peculiar mixture. Miniatures are from Black Cat bases and are amazing. I have painted them with patches of human flesh and deep one tones.

Black Cat bases have quite a variety of hybrids and I would buy all of them, they're honestly all that nice. In the end, I've settled for those three because of the weapons they carry.

 On the left, we got a guy armed with a pistol. His transformation seems to go really fast, as he has lost his ears (only  has little holes remaining, not outer structure), both his eyes are "fishy". I have painted his hands normal, but would prefer some kind of a mixture in paint. Also, lower part of his mouth would perhaps look better with white (as Deep ones' bellies), but I thought it would look like a beard in the end.

Guy in the middle has nice 18th century beard that you can't see all that good. I've painted his scally hand green and other normally. He has both eyes fishy, but I've painted his face patchy, to represent unfinished transformation.

Third guy seems really old and can't even stand up normally anymore. He, compared to previous two, is the least transformed. As you can see, he only has one "fishy" eye, other still normal.

I must say again, I really like the idea of hybrids, the miniatures and painting them. Not that they're anything special rules-wise, but they're just so...sickly, weirdly, interesting in a way. Repulsive. True creatures of horror!


Oh, I might hijack this nice short post to brag a little, as my Salute ticket has arrived. The good thing is, I actually have it, the bad - I am prepared for 2 months of worries that I might forget, or lost it somewhere!

Thanks for looking,
got more Strange Aeons stuff to show in next posts as I am trying to paint all I have in one big swing!

Mathyoo

Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten AAR

Today, my brother and I finally got together and played some Strange Aeons. Because we haven't played for a while, we decided we'd rather start new campaigns. Because that would take so much time and we had cults already made (but never played with), we decided that we should play a game of Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten (VUK) instead. It is a beta-testing version of game that derives from Strange Aeons, but it is a lurker vs. lurker type. You can get your copy here.

His Death cult has met my Dagonites on a graveyard.

His cult was made of:

Magus
Cult leader, with light vest, .22 pistol, bowie knife, meat cleaver and a double barreled shotgun.

Congregants:
Cult leader, with .22 pistol, bowie knife, light vest and a double barreled shotgun
Conglomerate
Conglomerate

Cultist:
Maniac, with meat cleaver

Two cult leaders give him the ability to nominate all of his cult at once (Cult leader nominates other leader and a maniac, other leader nominates conglomerates)

I went for a different approach. I had:

Magus
Fishman Demagogue, rainment (a thing that gives 6+ save that I forgot to use!)

Congregants:
Fishman
Fishman
Hybrid, with a club and bolt action rifle
Hybrid, with a club and a shotgun
Hybrid, with a club
Cultist, with a torch
Henchman, with bowie knife and a double barreled shotgun


We've rolled for "Chained coffin" scenario. We set up the graveyard, placed the 7 graves we rolled for and deployed. He won the first turn and moved forward, 2 conglomerates made it in base to base with 1 grave. In my turn, I could only nominate demagogue and 2 others. I've moved demagogue to one grave and one fishman to other.

In their next turn, Death cult's conglomerate manged to dig out a chainned coffin already! He started dragging it down towards his deployment zone for safe opening. On my turn, I also rolled 6 (would have found a coffin), but was auto changed to 5. A restless spirit emerged from grave and haunted my poor cultist with a torch, scaring the living hell out of him!
My brother spent next turns to open the coffin (found the scrolls) and massacring my cult. I used my turns searching 2 more graves and removing casualties... In one grave, there was another spirit (again, after I rolled 6 -.-), in the second, I found some valuables that I traded for money (Resource points).

I think it is useless to fully describe how we played, as I got no pictures.The game ended after he massacred my team. All 8 of my cultists were removed as a major injury (needs to roll on major injury table which can end up in death, phobias, injuries or even gives you a free skill or makes you hate the one who did the injury!). In his cult, his magus and one of the conglomerates survived. Maniac was removed as a minor injury (comes to play next game unchanged) and the rest were major.

He rolled injuries first. Conglomerate rolled full recovery, so he will play next game normaly. Cult leader rolled and after recovery, he now hates fishmen that gave him such a horrible scars!
When my turn to roll came, I started with my Magus. If he'd die, I would have 2 options. Another model with command could become a new magus, or if I'd have enough RP, I could buy another model with a command skill, to be new magus. Well, with my luck, I rolled and old immortal fishman demagogue died. I had no other models with command in my cult and not enough RP to afford another such model, so my club scattered and Innsmouth people no longer treathen Death cult's exsistence.

For fun, we rolled some more and I got two cultists with leg wounds, two cripples (one action instead of 2), one fishman would now be scared of being touched, henchmen would fear everyone in enemy's cult and little cultist got a full recovery.

Quite unexpecting turn of events on my side! Maniac and conglomerates literally cut trough my team. Fishmen had some chances, the rest were just there to feed the wretched madman and undeads!

Now I'll have to make a new cult and he will just keep on playing with his. I will go with Dagonites again. The reason is, I still got trust in them and well, I just got my fishmen and hybrids to play with!

Cheers,
Mathyoo

I was about to take some pictures, but decided against it, as we dont have any models painted :P. The game ended so badly, as you could see, that I've decided to write about it!