accomplishedCHARACTERS
Dr. Timothy Carson (SteveR) - Geologist
Gwendolyn Thorpe (Tammy) - Tour Guide
Dr. Jennifer Dorchester (GM/NPC) - Palaeontologist
Alexander Valentine (GM/NPC) - Media Specialist
Saturday, June 16th, 2007
While Gwendolyn Thorpe, Dr. Jennifer Dorchester and Sgt. Denby and his two soldiers head for the Gavigan Tours office, Timothy Carson makes his way to the Cheatham church. He finds that it is old, somewhat run-down, but functional. He enters the church, and sees several townsfolk sitting in prayer. Timothy is approached by the Father [Peter Flanagan], who inquires as to how he can help him. Timothy tells him that he'd like to search through the church's archives for what he can find on will 'o wisps and how they relate to some natural phenomena. He alienates the priest with his words, and Father Flanagan escorts him out of the church to talk. They talk and Timothy admits that he believes the will 'o wisps sightings may relate to the death of the young boy, Mark Levy. He tells the priest somewhat of the creatures that he and his friends have encountered. When the priest asks, "Dinosaurs?", Timothy doesn't deny it. [1 Exposure Point] Timothy hasn't realised they might have been overheard, and discovers that reporter Robert Horvath is nearby, and may have heard every word [1 Exposure point]. Horvath comes over and he and Timothy talk, the reporter making a surreptitious audio recording of their conversation. [1 Exposure Point] Timothy doesn't deny working for the Home Office when Horvath confronts him with some evidence. Horvath departs, and Father Flanagan grants him access to the church records, but says the church was founded in 1750 AD, and the records are...not organised.
Around 9:00 am, Gwen, Jennifer, Denby, and the two SAS soldiers (David Wilcox and Stefanie Grange) meet up with Abigail McGregor outside Gavigan Tours. There are a pair of heavy duty jeeps with the Gavigan logo outside the small shoppe. Abigail introduces her assistant, Howard Jenkins, and Gwen introduces her people to them. It turns out Howard and Gwen have something in common, as Howard also worked for Kensington Tours and her former boss, Thomas Jeeves. Abigail tells the Home Office people that she brought some SCUBA gear, just in case. It's decided that they'll take the Gavigan jeeps, and Denby and his people store the tranq weapons in the first jeep (which will have Abigail, Gwen, and Jennifer), while the SAS personnel will accompany Howard in the second jeep. Jennifer says she won't use the tranq weapons under any circumstances [gains 1 Story Point], pointing out, "I don't need a gun, we've got the soldiers to protect us, right?" Abigail asks if everyone's ready, and they pile into the jeeps and set off.
Having agreed to let Timothy access the church's records, Father Flanagan takes him down to the storeroom. It is dirty and somewhat dusty, full of boxes and dusty tomes, scrolls, books, records, more boxes, and newspapers, etc.. Timothy searches for material on unnatural creatures, then narrows the search for will 'o wisps. After four hours, he finally puts the materials aside to look at in detail. Father Flanagan comes down, and says that he's going for lunch at the pub and asks Timothy if he'd like to come with him. He decides to do so. [After Timothy leaves, Robert Horvath shows up, takes the materials Timothy had put separated out, and leaves the church with them.]
The player characters and the various NPCs head into the swamp in the two jeeps, Abigail driving one of the vehicles and Howard the other. The trip goes relatively smoothly to start, but about twenty-five minutes in, Howard is unable to negotiate the terrain [he fails the Transport roll, and all characters get a Story Point]. The jeep with Denby, Howard, and the two SAS soldiers overturns and flips on its side, the personnel aboard bailing out with great alacrity. Wilcox suffers an injury as he hits the muddy ground [and takes 2 points of damage].
Abigail, Jennifer, and Gwen, having brought their vehicle to a stop, inquire how the others are doing. Howard shouts that they're all right, a fact that Denby confirms. Seeing that the jeep is sinking into the muck, Denby orders Wilcox and Grange to get the weapons locker open and the assault weapons out before they are sucked into the muck; neither of them can obey, as they both keep losing their footing and slipping in the muck, much to Howard's annoyance. The now muck and mud splattered Howard, Denby, Wilcox, and Grange make their way over to the other characters. Abigail says that they can't take the vehicles any further now, as the rain has made the swamp too difficult to navigate. They'll have to walk the rest of the way.
The various characters decide how to apportion the various equipment. Jennifer refuses to carry one of the tranq weapons (as that's all the characters have left other than the service pistols [damage 2/5/7] and knives the SAS men have), and so Denby takes one of the tranq pistols with the higher dose of the drug, while Gwen has the other tranq weapons with the lighter doses. The characters set off into the bog/fen proper, Abigail advising them to exercise some caution. Gwen spots another wake or two that seem to be moving through the mud, but Abigail assures her the area is bog/swamp, and not just mud.
Some 20 minutes later, after slogging wearily through the fen [and spending some Story Points to help out with fatigue and exhaustion rolls], the characters reach the place where Abigail says the body of Mark Levy was found. Abigail adds that in addition to leading the police and government to the body with Old Tom as she told them earlier, she was one of those who helped take the body back into Cheatham. Gwen is able to make out several more of the wakes, and also spots a pair of the Roman limestone ruins looming out of the rotten vegetation of the swamp. She spots the footprint left embedded in some of the vegetation, and identifies it as smaller. Abigail tells her that Mark Levy was an excellent climber. Gwen spots a larger, partial footprint and Abigail tells her that's one of hers from when they had to retrieve the boy's body.
Having recovered somewhat, the others wander around the area a bit, and Jennifer gets too close to the area of the ruins (some 2 metres ahead of Gwen). Gwen shouts a warning to Jennifer, seeing a wake moving directly towards the palaeontologist, who tries to back away, but too late - a massive, 0.8 metre-long head with greenish scales and covered in muck rises out of the muck and water with incredible speed, and bites her inflicting a nasty wound to Jennifer's leg [she suffers 5 points of damage, to Coordination and Resolve, and spent a Story Point to try to avoid the attack to no avail]. With a huge splash, the creature re-enters the water, but not before both Gwen and Jennifer get a good look at it.
Gwen drags Jennifer away from the edge, and Jennifer (somewhat in shock) conveys to Gwen that there's a medical kit in her bag. She gets the bag off, and Gwen treats her using the kit [Gwen spends a Story Point, and is able to heal her of 3 points of the damage], and is able to alleviate the wounds somewhat, but is worried about infection. The somewhat recovered Jennifer confers with Gwen, and she tells her friend that the creature is definitely an amphibious temnospondyl from the Permian; she can check her database on the mobile computer she left in Cheatham, and give them a better idea of what they're playing with. Gwen examines the second set of Roman limestone ruins barely visible, but comes to no conclusions about them.
The characters turn their attention to heading back to Cheatham, though they have to figure out a means for getting Jennifer back there, as there's no way she can walk on the injured leg.
Sunday afternoon's game session of the Primeval RPG was a pretty decent one for the most part, and I had a good deal of enjoyment with it. Parts of the game session slogged along (no pun intended), and
spross's character got little game time (though SteveR played the soldiers during the sequences with Tammy, so he was happy with that). The hardest part of the session for me was playing the four central NPCs in the session, and by the time we finished for the afternoon, I was feeling schizophrenic and somewhat exhausted. Both players seemed to enjoy the afternoon's game, though, so I'm not complaining.Overall, it was a decent game session of the Primeval RPG, and I'm mostly looking forward to next weekend's session.