STRANGEWAYS CHRONICLES, vol.1, no.5 (August 3, 1990)
Written by Robert Dagnall.  Copyright 1990.  All rights reserved.

********** Current Subscribers


    As of 6 August 1990, the mailing list is:

           Address                    Name

72010.292@compuserve.com        Jon Sloan
f35437c@saha.hut.fi             Brother Tasukine
luther@mps.ohio-state.edu       Bryan A. Luther
ag3c+@andrew.cmu.edu            Adam Glass
moconnor@vela.acs.oakland.edu   Michael O'Connor
gfink@iris.ucdavis.edu          George Fink
lord_zar@ucrmath.ucr.edu        Wayne Wallace
goldfarb@ocf.berkeley.edu       David Goldfarb
cohen@tramp.colorado.edu        ??
cerebus@ucrmath.ucr.edu         Edward Tyrrill
garyt@ios.convergent.com        Gary Tse
dave@wpi.wpi.edu                David R. Gosselin
bchoeh@unix.cis.pitt.edu        Brian C. Hogue
sherm@watcsc.waterloo.edu       ??
driskill@cs.utah.edu            Hank Driskill
esti@tank.uchicago.edu          Paul A. Estin
cks@white.toronto.edu           Chris Siebermann
cdr@amdcad.amd.com              Carl Rigney
rkr103@psuvm.psu.edu            Ricky Rechowicz
pearlman@cis.ohio-state.edu     Andy Pearlman
anthony@cs.pitt.edu             Anthony Kapolka
jkindon@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca   John Kingdon
tsang@ocf.berkeley.edu          Donald Tsang


********** News

     The campaign is chugging along steadily  now,  even  if
this  my  newsletter  isn't.  I haven't sent out any further
information for a few weeks, being occupied with  a  job(!),
my girlfriend, and miscellania.

     A new character has been added to the cast.   Its  name
is  Sparrow,  and  it's  your basic master-ninja type with a
background in organized crime (the Yakuza, to be  specific).
He  was  a  professional assassin working for a local Yakuza
clan, but the clan fell into disfavor and was later  annihi-
lated by competitors, leaving Sparrow without a job or 'fam-
ily'.  There were several other survivors of  the  purge:  a
young  trainee whom Sparrow has taken under his wing, teach-
ing the ways of Ninja, and one other member of the  band  of
assassins,  who  acts  as  a Rival to Sparrow.  They're in a
competition to see who can destroy  the  Yakuza  first,  and









                           - 2 -


they're not above using each other in the process.

     I usually don't like ninja characters, as they're  gen-
erally  constructed  and  played as though they were stamped
out of a mold.  I joked that there  should  be  a  Champions
organization  dedicated  to  exterminating Ninja in all cam-
paigns, wherever they may be.   Kind  of  like  Ghostbusters
with  throwing stars.  I might go ahead and run this as part
of a silly or surreal  run:  a  band  of  people  (concerned
parents?)  aggrieved  by the prevalence of Ninja iconography
in popular culture, who are gunning for anyone answering the
following description:

     Dressed in a white/red/black  gi,  wearing  split-
     toed  slippers,  acts  honorable, lips move out of
     sync with speech, habit of crouching  over  anyone
     who is dying and saying "Master?"...

********** What has gone before

     Link Larson, Zephyr, Seven, and Memorex mulled over the
mysterious  fight with Daiton (mysterious because nobody had
any idea why they'd been fighting this guy,  or  why  Daiton
acted spooky to begin with) and returned to the Sentinels of
Liberty base, which occupies the Old Mint  building  in  San
Francisco.   This  was  the players' first look at the base,
which had been mentioned in passing  but  hadn't  come  into
play.   The  Old Mint was suggested by one of the players as
an afterthought, and I did some research  to  discover  more
about  it.  As it turns out, it's the perfect building for a
headquarters.  The walls are crafted from *huge*  blocks  of
sandstone,  making them nearly impregnable.  During the 1906
earthquake and the fires that followed, the  Old  Mint  suf-
fered only cosmetic damage (the outside was blackened by the
soot from burning buildings all around).  I decided that the
government  gave  the  Old  Mint  to  the Sentinels with the
agreement  that  they  leave  the  exterior  walls   intact,
preserving  the  Mint's value and status as a historic land-
mark.  Further, the Sentinels base is designed to be easy to
enter;  city  officials  were  concerned about the potential
property damage and loss of life that would  result  from  a
running  battle through the streets of San Francisco, so the
base is  built  to  *contain*  fights,  not  necessarily  to
prevent them.  Much like a Roach Motel: villains get in, but
they don't get out...  The Old Mint is about 30" on a  side,
Champions scale, and three stories tall.  Plenty of room for
the players to build in, using modular room  dividers,  etc.
This  way  they can change the base's floorplan from time to
time.

     Anyway, Link and company approached the  base,  checked
in with the police out front who were guarding the place (in
the loosest sense of the word.  They're more likely to  call
for  help  than confront someone wielding paranormal powers,









                           - 3 -


and besides, they know  something  Link  doesn't  about  the
base,  yet..),  and approached the door lock.  It recognized
Link's ID and retina pattern,  greeted  him  with  a  cheery
"Welcome, Link!", and opened the door.

     The first thing that the assembled  characters  noticed
was  how  spartan  the  reception  area seemed.  There was a
desk, but it was stripped of all the personal touches  desks
acquire  through use. Link noticed that the security systems
hatches were open, with wires hanging  out  in  places.   On
closer  inspection,  there  was  no  sign  of a fight having
occurred.  The paint and carpeting were in  pristine  condi-
tion.

     Everyone became somewhat nervous, wondering if the base
had  been  invaded,  and  if the invaders were still lurking
within.  They braced for an ambush  and  advanced  into  the
main meeting hall. When the lights flicked on, they saw that
it too was bare of every bit of equipment that  hadn't  been
nailed down, and even some of those were gone.  The computer
core was still intact, however.  Link used it to  check  the
security  status  of  the  base, and found that the computer
recorded no breach of security.  Link then headed outside to
ask  the  officers  if they knew what had become of the Sen-
tinels' property.  The others  listened  to  the  Sentinels'
answering  machine  messages,  hoping  for a clue.  Everyone
found out at about the same time that the base  was  in  the
process  of  being  decomissioned  by AESOP, pursuant to the
Sentinels' disappearance.   The  police  mentioned  that  an
AESOP  technician  team would be out the next day to tap the
Sentinels' database and remove its contents;  this  was  the
final step in clearing the facility for whatever purpose the
government could find for it.

     The characters fanned out through  the  base  to  check
everything, and found that only a few items of furniture had
survived.  Link was anguished  to  discover  that  the  Sen-
tinels'  personal  possessions  had  been  removed  with the
government-issue items; however, his own certificate of Sen-
tinels  membership  had  fallen  behind  a  bedframe  and so
escaped the moving crews.

     Regrouping in the meeting hall and sitting  around  the
edges  of  the  table,  they  discussed their next course of
action.  Seven left to bring his girlfriend to the base; she
would love an opportunity to tour Sentinels HQ, even when it
was stripped bare.  One of the answering machine's  messages
was from the Oakland Privateers, a group which had long been
in the shadow of the Sentinels.  Their reputation  is  some-
what  shady  as  well, and so they lacked the popularity and
public  support  the  Sentinels  enjoyed.   The  Privateers'
leader,  Mentor, assumed a mock-apologetic tone as he pulled
Link's chain about the Sentinels' absence, and  promised  to
take up where they'd left off.









                           - 4 -


     Another message related to the decommissioning  of  the
base;  the  characters contacted the person responsible, one
Major Adams of AESOP, who was duty officer at  the  time  of
their call.  They demanded the return of the Sentinels' per-
sonal property, and Adams informed them that it  could  take
some  time  to sort everything out.  Adams promised to begin
the paperwork necessary right away.  After this  call,  Link
contacted  attorney Alex Roberts to ask about the Sentinels'
charter.  Without the Sentinels, the base can be closed  and
its   equipment   (meaning   everything  inside  its  walls)
impounded by AESOP.  However, there was  a  legal  loophole:
Link, as the last Sentinel of Liberty, has full jurisdiction
over Sentinels membership.  With this information  in  mind,
he  inducted Zephyr, Seven, Sparrow (who had appeared on the
doorstep looking to apply to the Sentinels), and Memorex  as
the  Sentinels  of  Liberty; now the contract was reinstated
and they had legal title to the base and the  items  removed
from it once more.

     Celebrating this bit of  legal  acrobatics,  they  were
surprised to hear the computer announce "Welcome, Link!" for
no apparent reason.  A scan  of  the  premises  by  computer
showed  the Sentinels in the meeting room, and another group
of Sentinels, one of whom was  designated  as  Link  Larson,
entering  the rear vehicle bay.  "What?!" they chorused, and
charged off to the bay doors.  Seven's  girlfriend  operated
the  computer,  opening the vehicle bay.  Therein they saw a
group of six men and two women dressed in severely cut busi-
ness  suits; one of them stood next to the computer terminal
in the bay, electricity arcing  from  the  terminal  to  his
fist.   The  newcomers  seemed  surprised  by the Sentinels'
appearance, but recovered  quickly.   Brandishing  rings  on
their  hands,  they attacked.  One of them clenched his fist
and underwent a transformation into  a  metallic  form,  not
unlike  Colossus;  he  struck Zephyr, who flew backward into
the table.  Another exhibited incredible speed  and  charged
Link and Sparrow, but missed them both.

     Curiously, several of these 'businesspeople'  refrained
from acting, focusing their attention on the computer termi-
nal.  Zephyr guessed that this would be a good thing to dis-
rupt,  and threw the armored gentleman into the group.  How-
ever, her action was countered by another man,  who  brought
his  hurtling comrade to a halt in midair with a bluish pro-
jection, lowering him gently to the floor.  This same person
set  up a force field across the vehicle bay entrance, keep-
ing the Sentinels out.  Or so he  thought;  moments  before,
Memorex  had  acquired  a  telepathic  lock on this man, and
shocked his mind into unconsciousness.  The  wall  collapsed
and  the Sentinels poured through, quickly subduing the last
of the intruders through clever teamwork.

     Actually, serendipity, not teamwork, won  the  day  for
the  players.   I  designed  these  agents to be a match for









                           - 5 -


them; the Sentinels would have had a much harder time of  it
if  I  hadn't rolled badly. Further, they managed to hit the
agents in just the right order, quickly countering any stra-
tagem  they  could  evolve.  They were just plain lucky, and
more power to them!

     As AESOP arrived,  the  players  discovered  that  each
agent  wore  two rings, one on the ring finger of each hand.
Link analyzed them and found that each possessed a suite  of
powers,  though  he couldn't make them function.  An inquiry
into the computer showed that 75% of the files were missing;
presumably, they were stored in the ring which the agent had
held to the terminal during  the  fighting.   The  Sentinels
turned  their  assailants  over  to the AESOP team, but kept
their rings for the moment.   Lastly,  Memorex  performed  a
telepathic  exam  of the prisoners, and discovered that they
were affiliated with an organization named Signet.

     Side notes: the decommissioning of  the  base  and  the
loss  of  3/4  of  the  computer's  files were handy ways to
enable the players to craft the Sentinels team in their  own
image.   When they get around to drawing up the specs of the
base, they can effectively build from the ground  up  within
the  sandstone  walls, reconfiguring things as they see fit.
The same holds true  for  the  computer.   This  is  a  good
rationale  for  the players inheriting the legacy and equip-
ment of a long-established team, yet having to  spend  their
own points (and imagination) on resources.  It has the bene-
fit of saving me a lot of work, too; more on this next time.



**********  Endnotes

     That's all I can think of at this time; I have prepared
another, longer installment that should be along in three or
four days.

     As a bit of foreshadowing: the next session is tomorrow
evening.  They're off to grab Phillip Stump to see what he's
about, and all Hell's going to break loose!


                              Until next time,
                              Robert Dagnall
                              dagnall@ocf.berkeley.edu