Session Recap: Planet Mages Session 7

This happened. He all-out attacked and
fell over, how could I not?

A wrestling match and a lot of exposition!

Cast

• Players
• Henry Poe (Myself) - A shapeshifting wannabe actor who does stunt work. Has big confidence issues holding him back.
• Sasha Ivanova - an ex member of a coven. She rejected the groups traditions when her mentor died, and took on a cowboy persona.
• Nathaniel Stone - Born around the turn of the century, an incident during World War II turned him nigh immortal. The events he in which he participated in said war have sparked a long running deadly feud with a wicked man similarly gifted.
• NPCS
• Sergeant Johnson - Someone from another dimension who is working with the "Spiritual Society"
• Xiao Zhu - A friend of Nicholas Cage who knows a lot about the spiritual society.
• Anton Belyakov - Deceased, the man who tried to kill Nicholas Cage. Has connections to the "Accelerators."
• Julia Mendez - Henry's agent.
• Adriano Malini - an old Italian man who knows fire magic, even though it is theoretically impossible.
• Jose Vasquez - An aging professional wrestler, apparently knows something important about the warheads and the Accelerators group.

Summary

 I drive Sasha and Nate down to San Francisco, and do a bit of refreshing on Jose's moves before the match, before which I go to relax at a zoo taking pictures of my favorite animal, eagles. [Hey, worked in two backstory elements, go me!] We have time to spare so why not. [Sasha in the meanwhile gets into an argument about smelting tungsten.]

Thinking the gym might be a setup, even after calming myself down, I psych myself out, but it works out ok. When I announce myself to the reception, they tell me that Jose has been waiting for me, and escort me to the back. I enter the ring and the fight starts silently. Nate and Sasha followed behind me, worried that I can't take care of myself. Hey, even though it don't look like it, I'm a professional fighter, or at least, I play one on tv and several movies, or at least I play the parts for the other guys that require fighting in movies and on tv. Anyway, Remembering his signature moves from earlier [and because I had the Style Familiarity perk for Professional Wrestling] I am able to barely defend myself against Swift Hammer's two signature attacks.

It occurs to me that I should have realized, knowing that he is an accelerator, that he would be supernaturally fast, but it didn't, so before I know it, he is behind me, recognizing the pattern as a piledriver [giving me +1 to active defense with my perk] I am able to break out.

This is when I realize he is not playing fair, so neither will I. I use an ability I just developed to tremendously enhance my muscle mass, and begin to fight back.

Taking it careful with Evaluates instead of rushing in and getting myself bloodied up, a golden opportunity opens up as I dodge his other signature move: The drop kick. He falls to the floor, and I give him an elbow drop he can't resist.

That had to hurt, I could almost feel it myself. But he immediately gets back into action and pins me as I am in the perfect position for it. Worried I try to put him to sleep, but realize he is too strong. [A big mistake happens here, but I only thought about it after the fact... using this power might have precluded me from continuing to use my super ST boost, but the GM either let it slide, or also didn't realize until too late.]

When that seemed a lost cause, I reverted to the brute force strategy, defeating his pin attack. When Swift Hammer realized this was a lost cause, he disengaged, and ran to get a chair while I evaluated him [+3 to attack, yay.] He threw a chair at me that almost caught me full in the body [Thanks, Luck.] And I finished it off with an all-out determined punch to the neck. [2d crushing is sick.]

After the fight, Swift Hammer tells us a bit about the Accelerators and how they worked with NASA to destroy Pluto to remove its influence and make it so that there would be no more death power magic or whatever. It is revealed that Adriano is a bad guy and he is teamed up with Onyx and is probably looking for a secret book somewhere that will tell the location of unused demolition missiles of the same variety that decimated Pluto.

Then he lets us know where to find the book: The Vatican.

Knowing that Adriano and Onyx are coming this way, Sasha, Nate, and myself volunteer to stick around a little bit to keep Swift Hammer safe. If Adriano betrays the kindness I did to him, I don't know what I'll do.

Thoughts and Self Reflection

• Things I did Well
• I knew most of my techniques I needed, though I did forget a few grappling mechanics. Now that I've dealt with them a bit, it'll probably be a lesson engrained forever.
• I think I really played Henry's personality right this session, if not a smidge more confident, but meh, there's some wiggle room here; he may be shy, but he is a professional entertainer, right?
• Things I need to do eventually.
• I have 11 points, my first goal is to get Luck at least to the 15 point level.
• bought!
• After that, Brawling and Wrestling at DX+2 for the sweet bonuses.
• Got Wrestling to DX+1, but can't afford that sweet +2.  I got 5 points now though, so I could do that.
• After that, need to start buying off backlashes for my beneficial afflictions. The drawbacks on regeneration are pretty bad.
• The combat shakes at CR 6 is pretty disruptive, I probably want to get that to at least a 12, and I probably want to remove Bad Self-Image altogether eventually, but I'm hoping to buy it off after some "character growth."
• I've been in enough fights to buy up post-combat shakes to 12.
• Might want to start getting some talent, or developing some infiltration skills to carve out a niche for myself that my abilities already support well.

The temporary ST+9 was a critical life saving ability. That's a lot of ST, though, of course. Glad I chose it over reinforcing the sleep ability.