31 Days / 31 Characters - KEI OKAMI

When I was in my early years of college I had an on again off again romantic relationship with a girl named Liza. We used to joke that if we weren't seeing anyone it meant we were seeing each other.

I really liked her. It could have turned into something more but for various reasons it didn't and I had to break it off. That sucked as those things often do. When I was thinking about old characters from old campaigns I started thinking about her and her character Kei Okami and decided she needed to be included in this year's 31/31 Challenge.

The character that is, not the player. Well sure, the player too but well, you know what I mean. 

This character is rather unusual and stands out on this list as a great PC from a great campaign that I had absolutely nothing to do with. I'll explain...

Character: Kei (Pronounced Kay) Okami

AKA: Kei the Wolf Girl, Wolf-Spirit Kei

Player: Liza Rodriguez 

System: Hero System, 3rd and 4th Edition
 
Campaign: The River of Dreams

Gamemaster: Unknown. Never met the guy. 

Circa: 1989-1991

Origins: I wish I knew. Liza was clearly ahead of her time when creating this character as nowadays every Video Game, Manga, and Anime are chock full of tough, sexy, feral wolf-girls. Was she the first? Probably not and I'm sure Liza's love of Japanese Anime played a part in the creation of this character. 

Anime and RPGs were among the many interests Liza and I shared but I never actually got to game with her. As I recall she had her groups and I had mine and she played in this campaign in Brooklyn on the same day I ran one of my Star Trek or Star Wars games in Manhattan. We would update each other on the various characters and goings on in each others campaigns, which is how I have this story to tell.

Backstory: At some point during Japan's late Meiji or early Taisho Periods (roughly 1888 to 1912), many of the land's ancient spirit clans found their numbers dwindling; resources grew scarce, and their magic waned with an influx of foreigners and the expanded industrialization of the islands. It was during this time that a young, female Wolf-Spirit Bushi (Warrior) - orphaned in a past war with Humans long ago - found herself on the run from a demon known as the Spirit-Eater. Doomed to fade from the world like all the other supernatural beings, the demon discovered his power and lifespan could be extended by consuming other paranormal creatures. 

The Wolf-Spirit Girl, Kei, had been alternating between fighting and running from the demon for the better part of a day. When night fell she seized her chance to escape by making her way to a Human city along a river and disguising herself as a common Mortal. This was no easy task given her wolf ears, bushy tail, dark tan complexion (very different from the locals), and lack of knowledge of basic Human customs or manners. 

While moving along the river's edge she saw a man from the West in colorful garb performing magic tricks for applause and a few coins. He smiled at her and winked over his glasses, subtly gesturing towards a passing Steamboat. It was a large ship of Western design with lantern lights and music coming from onboard. Just then the demon - also in disguise though Kei could easily smell him - burst from a crowd of people. He was bearing down on her like a charging bull! Kei ran and believing the street magician may have been trying to help her, leapt over the railings and on to the ship. 

The demon seethed and stared daggers as the boat pulled away, disappearing into the evening mist. 

Overview: The campaign focused on this very 'New-Orleans-Turn-of-The-Century' steam powered riverboat as it traveled along 'The River' from one world to the next. Yes, you read that right. Kei met some of the boat's other passengers, all of whom were from different places and times (though all roughly within the era when Steamboats regularly traveled on rivers for the most part). 

The other PCs I can recall include:

A Cowboy Gunslinger type who was extraordinarily lucky, with both the good and bad kind being equally in play. 

A Fortune Teller/Medium who could see the future using tarot cards, speak with the dead through a seance, and had other such mystical abilities.

A Masked Superhero similar to DC Comics' Hour Man. A secret formula gave him Super Strength, Speed, and Toughness for a short time. Too much of the elixir made him go mad, giving him a slight Jekyll and Hyde vibe. 

A Mechanical Person, an advanced steam-powered automaton resembling a butler or maid (I forget which) that claimed to have been Human at one time. 

The Steamboat was owned by the Street Magician fellow whom Kei had met and who Liza described as a Willy Wonka-esque figure. The ship essentially ran itself, with no Captain or Crew aboard beyond the PCs and the Magician. 

Every few sessions the Steamboat would run a low on supplies or need repairs for some reason and dock at a port on 'The River' that could be literally anywhere. From what I can recall they once stopped at a medieval fishing town that thought they were circus performers of some kind. Another adventure had them at a late 16th century Pirate Cove. They encountered such adversaries as Unseelie Court Faeries, bloodthirsty Pirates, a Ghost Ship of Undead Sailors (late Age of Sail), and more. There was a Big Bad, a central menace behind it all that wanted the Steamboat and possibly the Magician but it wasn't a person; more like an abstract concept focused on crushing one's dreams. 

The Highlights:

The two tales I remember the best are:

Stopping at a Napoleonic Era French port, the Gunslinger met a very lovely and charming 'Lady of the Evening' and invited her onto 'his' boat, claiming he won it in a card game. She turned out to be a powerful Vampire and the PCs were pretty outclassed. Thanks to excellent teamwork and the players' own knowledge of the Steamboat's layout (including the way each PC had defined their private staterooms), the heroes were able to beat her. 

Another story involved needing to travel down the river to get a medicine to heal one of the PCs. Kei covered their escape, holding off a dozen Spanish Inquisitor Zombies pretty much by herself. She got the job done with clever moves, great rolls, and a little help from a pack of Iberian Wolves. 

Game Info:

I never saw Kei's Character Sheet and Liza and I didn't talk rules, so I can't give you much solid information on Kei's attributes and the like but there are some things I do recall. 

The system used was initially Champions 3rd Edition, later updated to 4th. All the PCs started out as 200 Point Characters, with 150 Base Points and up to 50 points of Disadvantages. I believe Attribute Limits were enforced. 

Liza described Kei as twice as strong as a normal Human (Strength 20?), able to outrun turn of the century soldiers on horseback, capable of Anime leaps of 20-25 ft. or so, and tough enough to take very limited small arms fire. She would get hurt and bleed but would likely survive. Possibly more Justice, Inc. than Champions?

Her Powers and Skills included a Heightened Sense of Smell and Hearing, the ability to See in the Dark, Regeneration (amusingly she could regenerate faster if she could lick the wound), and the ability to Detect the Presence of Supernatural Entities such as ghosts, demons, and other spirits. Kei could 'smell' an Oni or similar creature even if she could not see it. 

The Wolf Girl was highly skilled at Hunting and Tracking, Stealth, Swordsmanship, and Martial Arts. Her fighting style involved a lot of launching herself at enemies from a crouched position and leaping down on enemies from above. 

In combat she initially wielded a Wakizashi of poor quality but was later gifted with a paired Katana and Wakizashi of superior, possibly supernatural quality. She could also scratch with her clawed fingernails or bite someone with her very sharp teeth. 

Her Disadvantages included a noted lack of proper Human etiquette, being baffled by many Human devices and tools, a very short temper (though her anger was just as quickly forgotten), and a need to howl at the full moon. 

Notes:

Okami means 'Wolf' in Japanese.

Kei - pronounced Kay - is the name of one half of the famous Japanese Science Fiction duo The Dirty Pair; the other being Yuri. Kei's hair is often referred to as a 'Wolf Cut'. 

I based the illustrations of Kei on the work of Japanese Manga Writer and Artist Kunihiko Tanaka, best known for the Anime and Manga 'Fam and Ihrie: The Ruin Explorers' and the Xenogears and Xenosaga series of video games. 

Liza's group preferred Fantasy over Superheroes but preferred the Hero System over other Fantasy games. That was likely a contributing factor to the creation of this campaign. 

What's next? A trip to the 25th Century aboard the starship Relativity and a visit with its reluctant captain, LANCE GRAVITY! Hyperwarp to Maximum!

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Barking Alien

31 Days / 31 Characters - The CAT'S MEOW

Listen up ya' mugs. Put on yer cheaters and take a gander at this so's ya know your onions. There's a dame on the loose and she's darb! She's berries I tell you and I ain't telling it to sweeny. A real hotsy-totsy, a live wire, and an Oliver Twist to boot, but don't let that fool ya. This Jane is full of moxie! She's as hard-boiled as any baby brand and she knows her way around a bean-shooter. 

Get this, she's got ginger hair, green eyes, these cat ears - no, not real cat ears ya rummy - and she purrs when she talks. No, I'm not spiffed. It's on the up and up. Seriously, she's...

I've fallen behind a day and I apologize but it couldn't be avoided. A mad, mad weekend and a big of stress, thankfully relieved by gaming and good conversation.

I originally wanted to put a different character in the third slot as the player of the PC in the next entry considers the number 4 unlucky. I am not working to see if I can make that character number 5. Silly? Perhaps to you but the character and their player are pretty special so I am willing to honor this particular superstition. 

Another thing that slowed the posting of this character here is that I've written the entry half a dozen times already and I can't seem to capture this PC quite the way I want to. I remember enough to make her stand out in my mind but not enough to fill a post the way I can with others.

Still and all, I hope you enjoy it...

Character: The Cat's Meow

AKA: Catherine Callister, Kitty Kalloway, and other aliases. 

Player: Sadly, I do not remember. t's been over 35 years.

System: Gangbusters, 1st Edition  - Heavily Modified, House-ruled Variant.

 
Campaign: The Big City

Gamemasters: One of my camp counselors. 

Circa: 1983

Backstory: 'The Cat's Meow', aka Catherine Callister, aka Kitty Kalloway, was a clever and cunning flapper femme fatale whose origins are unknown and that's the way she likes it. 

There were tales of a murder, an inheritance, a misunderstanding of how that story played out, and a string of alternate identities giving new meaning to a cat having nine lives. Is she popular gin joint dancer Catherine Callister, night club jazz singer Kitty Kalloway, gangster moll Karla 'Kicks' Kassidy, or someone else entirely? She's all that and more.

She's The Cat's Meow. 

Overview: While investigating liquor smuggling and organized crime in 1920s New York City, Private Eye Donovan Penn and Investigative Reporter Paul 'Paperboy' Potts (the famous crime solving duo known as 'Penn and Paper') often ran afoot and afoul of the mysterious ginger-haired woman known only as 'The Cat's Meow'. Some called her a criminal, though she only stole from and cheated other crooks. Some said she was a hero, although it was clear this gal was no saint. The truth was likely somewhere in-between. 

The Highlights: 

I really loved this character because she is one of the earliest I can recall that both embraced and elevated the genre and setting she was introduced in. How do you play an action packed, attractive, pro-active femme character in Prohibition Era America? You take charge of the narrative whenever you appear and while you don't make the game 'about you', you make it so the campaign wouldn't be the same without you. 

The Cat's Meow also pulled in elements of the 1920s and 30s the rest of us wouldn't have explored. The flapper lifestyle and look, the role of women and the major changes brought about by Suffragette's like Susan B. Anthony, Allison Park, and Molly Dewson (just to name a few), and - strangely enough - Pulp Era heroes like the Shadow, The Green Hornet, and The Spider (all products of the mid-to-late 1930s). While the guys in the group tried to stay true to film noir and gangster pictures, The Cat's Meow's' player was willing to push into this more pulp-y genre in order to create something that felt both appropriate and fresh. Just awesome.

Legacy: I haven't actually thought about this character in ages. I had all but forgotten her when I decided to do this challenge and needed a post while waiting for some friends to weigh in on their characters before doing those entries. 

I am very happy to have recalled her and would very much like to bright her back somehow. 

Game Info: I haven't looked at, let alone played Gangbusters in over 35 years. I have no clue what her stats were or what they would be. That said...

I imagine her stats were Muscle: 60, Agility: 85, and Observation: 70. I'd give her an 8 Presence. Gangbusters had a very odd system for rolling up stats. A percentile roll gave you a modifier on a chart that was then added to the die roll. For example: Cat rolled a 45 for Muscle, which has a Modifier of +15. Her final Muscle score is 60. Rolling a 60 on the percentile naturally gives you a +10, resulting in a score of 70. Ah, the old days. So much unnecessary math. 

As will most classic TSR games, we had to modify Gangbusters to make it playable to our liking. I think our GM modified the skill system a bit but it's been so long I don't remember all the details. The Cat's Meow would have skills related to Acrobatics, Climbing/Scaling Walls, Dancing and Singing, Disguise, Hand-to-Hand Combat, Thievery, Slight of Head/Stage Magic, and Stealth. She was knowledgeable in the fields of Fashion, Fine Food and Beverages, the geography of New York City, Jazz Music, and Organized Crime.

***

Next up, we're East Bound and Down as only the 1970s can be. We've got eighteen wheels, a full tank of gas, and possibly an orangutan. That's right, we're paying a visit to CB RAMBLE and The Ramble Rig!

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Barking Alien

The Golden Age of Pulp...Is About 10

With a new school year comes a new session of the Sunday program at the tutoring center where I teach. This semester, so far, Sundays are pretty light, with only four students signed up and attending regularly.

Saturdays are much busier, and I have been covering for a teacher who is on vacation. So, yeah, worked seven days a week for two weeks, plus working this week at the regular job. Saturday, Oct. 4th will be my first day off since Sept. 13th.

Be that as it may, I love it and the kids are awesome.

As part of what I do at the center, I run an RPG session each week, connected to a writing lesson and/or creative writing assignment. With both the game and the lessons, we try to encourage the students to think and be creative, as well as practice their writing skills.

Many of these kids are in ESL classes (English as a Second Language), and either have difficulty with English because they moved to the USA fairly recently, or because English isn't regularly spoken by their family at home.

For this 'semester', I started with two girls, each in 4th grade, and a boy in 2nd. Another girl has now joined them, also in 4th grade.

I initially had this idea I thought was amazing, combining a modified version of the game Psi-Run with creative writing, learning how to search for clues and information in text, and other elements that would have been both really helpful to the students, and incredibly fun. Unfortunately, with so few kids, the basic premise of project (each student learning about his or her character from questions created/asked by the other students) wasn't going to live up to its full potential. I decided to shelve the concept for now, and do something else.

I asked the original three students what they wanted to play. One girl said Fantasy, the boy said Superheroes, and the other girl didn't care as long as it had fighting and action.

I asked them when it should take place. The answer was discussed between them and they voted for the present, modern day. I asked where it should take place. I got 'the Ocean', 'the Sky', a 'Far Away Land'.

Pouring all these ingredients into my mental blender, I came up with an oddly Pulp Era-like supers game. Basically, HEROES meets Indiana Jones, or something akin to the game I mentioned not long ago called Double Cross. The only difference was the feel was much more 'Dime Store Novel' then I intended once we started playing.

What we ended up with is called, 'The Crime-Fighters' (named by one of the girls and winning the unanimous vote). The Crime-Fighters (we learn in Episode #3) are a team of international secret agents fighting against evil, and using either special skills, high tech gadgets or superhuman abilities.

Our first session found the team fighting a bunch of pirates who had stolen a priceless treasure, recently excavated from the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. The treasure was lost hundreds of years ago when a storm sank the boat carrying it.

Defeating the criminals, they loaded the treasure onto the team jet (a small craft owned by one of the PCs), and headed back to Washington, D.C. to hand the treasure over to a museum. Low and behold, it would not be so easy, as the pirates were working for a mysterious fellow known only as 'The Boss Man', who immediately gave chase in his own plane (a massive, modified B-52 Bomber looking flying fortress). The pirate ship was originally supposed to meet the plane anyway to transfer the stolen treasure.

The heroes had a head start but the enemy plane used 'turbo boost' style rockets to catch up. Eventually, one of the players (the boy), handed the controls of his plane over to a teammate so he could fly over to the enemy plane with his special suit...

Oh yeah, The Crime-Fighters are:

'Lucky', a girl with the power to give herself and others Good Luck or Bad Luck. It is sometimes hard to believe this young lady is only in the 4th grade. She came up with the idea that if she raises her right hand (or touches someone with it) it's Good Luck but her left hand is Bad Luck. At one point, she hands the controls of the plane to the 'Fighting Girl' who said she didn't know how to pilot the craft. Without missing a beat or giving any other signal, the player put her right hand on her friend's shoulder and said, "Well, Good Luck flying the plane." Brilliant.

'Fighting Girl' is a modern day Hua Mulan, apparently replacing her aging father who was a member of the Crime-Fighters but retired. She has no supernatural or superhuman powers but is an extremely skilled fighter. She is a master of numerous martial arts techniques, an expert archer, and an incredible swordswoman (Swords are her main weapon). She also carries various grenades (flash, smoke, etc.), and a grapnel gun (made for her by the male member of the group).

Referred to as 'The Pilot' and 'The Flying Hero', the male member of the team is an inventor with a host of nifty gadgets. Largely inspired by the Falcon from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the Flying Hero wears a winged suit that lets him fly and turn invisible (though he can still be heard, smelled, etc.). He wears goggles that enable him to see himself when he's invisible (Very clever on this kids part), see in the dark (as night vision goggles), and shoot lasers from the sides (the beams are not very powerful but he can weld things, burn you, cut ropes, etc.).

Coolest thing? He gave a spare pair of his googles (sans lasers) to each of his fellow Crime-Fighters so they too can see him when he's invisible. Teamwork! I was so proud and impressed by that idea.

Their assignment for next week is to come up with actual names for their characters, and give a little background as to where they are from and why they are members of the Crime-Fighters.

After getting over to the enemy craft (eventually accompanied by Lucky, who travels over by grapnel gun line), the Pilot manages to get into a fight with a few of 'The Boss Man's specially gifted henchmen. So far, the team has fought a super strong man with tough (although not invulnerable) skin, a samurai girl who is also very good with a sword, a man who can disappear and reappear in a puff of black smoke (a mystic), and a teenager who is either a cyborg or a robot.

'The Boss Man', originally seated in the front area, ran to the back of the plane, and locked the cabin door behind him after sending the cyborg/robot kid out to engage the PCs.

The team was aided in the last episode by a new member, another female character who can shape change into a variety of frightening monsters. She can not duplicate people and her size is limited to roughly the same as her true form but she has the most overtly noticeable supernatural ability in the group. The rest of the group is saying it's likely magic. I am curious to see what the player says in the writing assignment.

We've had three sessions so far, and yet, there are a lot more details I could tell you about. The kids are awesome and they're having a ball with this. It's so odd how the genre is feeling very Pulp as I mentioned, even though these kids are way too young to have any clue what Pulp even is. Not unlike that time I ran Superheroes with the older kids and it felt very Silver Age even though none of them read comics, let alone ones from the 70s.

Anyway, going to stop here and get back to other projects. A lot going on lately.

Talk to you soon.

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Barking Alien

ReBoot Hill

One idea that keeps popping into my head lately is a return to the genre of the Western.

In a manner of speaking, a reboot of Boot Hill.

In the 37 years I've been gaming, I've only run a single Wild West campaign.

It was in 1979 I believe, I was about 10, and it's still one of my best campaigns I have ever done to this day.

The campaign featured a Masked Cowboy, a Native American Mystic, a Half-Black/Half-Mexican Gunslinger, a Yankee Dandy who was a Gambler, Swindler, and Snake Oil Salesman, and a honest-to-goodness Singing Cowboy (who sang and played guitar, giving various buffs to the team and debuffs to their enemies).

It featured ghosts, native spirits of the land, The Red Rider, coal burning steam machinery, and deal a with the devil.

In a discussion with one of my current players about my old 'Legend of Boot Hill' game, I listed a number of influences and inspirations for the campaign that would still apply if I ran it again today. As a matter of fact, I can think of very little I would add. My 'Wild West Appendix N' from 35 years ago would be pretty much identical to my 'Wild West Appendix N' now.

While there might be others, these are my primary inspirations for running a Wild West campaign:

All-Star Western and Western Comics from DC Comics
(Featuring Batlash, Cinnamon Star, Johnny Thunder, Nighthawk, 'Pow Wow' Smith, etc.)
Blazing Saddles (Motion Picture) (You can't NOT be influenced by Blazing Saddles)
Bonanza (Television Series)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Motion Picture)
Fistful of Dollars (Motion Picture)
Gunsmoke (Television Series)
Lone Ranger (Radio and Television)
Rawhide (Television Series)
The Magnificent Seven (Motion Picture)

The Wild West comic books are of particular note, since at the age of 10, they were my most accessible window into the genre and the period.

In addition to the DC Comics Western heroes, Marvel's Wild West characters were popular with my friends and I as well. Kid Colt, The Phantom Rider, Rawhide Kid, and the Two-Gun Kid, all played a part in helping me develop the kinds of NPC allies and enemies the PCs would face.

I remember reading a book with a number of ghost stories and local legends from the period that had a major impact on the kind of game I wanted to run. I wanted to infuse the setting with just enough strange and unexplained elements to separate it from a normal Western story, but not make it so obvious that the players felt they were playing a Fantasy RPG.

Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, a favorite, little known resource of mine, originally published in 1910, was another book that saw some use in the aforementioned campaign. The book is a bestiary of fantastic critters supposedly dwelling in the United States and Canada. It is a tome of American folklore and myth at it's finest and well worth a look. 

In the end, what is the final result of this post? Why am I really bringing it up? Am I just reminiscing, or has the time finally come to revisit this campaign setting?

Is this my online game, to be run over Google Hangouts?

Tarnation! You got me Hoss. Got to do some thinkin'.

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Barking Alien