(Gamma World) This is Not a Test #55 - Leave it to Lathar

Our heroes, the De Facto Explorers,  are at the KIA Academy, successfully rescuing Charley Onyxhoof, and trying to figure out how to restore those affected by the Children's Alchemical Laser (CAL) 

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Sneaky Pete: A mutated weasel scout.  Pete's telepathy and night vision take a backseat when he whips out his electrical powers.  

Sonny Helianthus: a sentient sunflower artifact examiner with trusted Restorationist ties. Knowledgeable,  but not a good one with device repairs or upgrades.  Very interested in a "Children's Alchemical Laser" he recently acquired.

Slitheran Wurmtail (aka Squiggles): a mutated earthworm scout, in impromptu power armor, looking for trouble, and finding it often.  Previously "gave birth" to a litter of sentient earthworm babies, but recently has been subject to genetic testing and developed super-human strength, a more human body, and a thick coat of shaggy white hair.

Lathar Bracken: A pure-strain human from River Bend.  He's got the muscle, the face, and a mount for most encounters.  Lathar's trusty beast of burden, No Name, travels wherever he does.  No Name has recently been fitted for a artillery device of the Ancients that chucks spears further than any human.  Looking for trouble in all the right places.  Former jousting champion of Fair-Town and has been awarded... a peacock he has named Chambray.  He's recently been struck by a weapon by a strange race of people and transformed into... something else.

RHA-9: A lab assistant piece of "Living Metal" that seems to have befriended the group... for now!  Currently getting repairs done by the Restorationists.

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Staring at the re-transformed Lathar, Sonny was at a loss for words.  

"I'm leaving things to Lathar... if it eventually works, it works, but there's a chance for a devastating explosion."

"I like those odds," Squiggles quipped.

Lathar agreed, at least one more attempt before he would be resigned to live in whatever form he had been transformed into.

Sonny took the CAL back the TMS for a third look-over.  This time, the techs requested a two-day hold, as their work failed on the previous two attempts.  The sunflower agreed to the terms.

Sonny wandered KIA Academy before reuniting with his comrades.  Despite a very futuristic high-tech facade, the bars still served grog out of barrels, the lesser classes are still poorly dressed, and beyond the equipment used for road-building and the news channel on the monitors, things weren't much better than Riverbend.

Two days later, Sonny returned to the TMS.  A considerable amount of work had been done to the CAL, including removing the main 250+ selection dial and placing it in a clear bag, taped to the device.  The techs reassured him that the five settings he had requested, plus the return to normal/reset button.

The techs still had Sonny confused as a dandelion, but the sunflower left to find Lathar and an open field.  

With the first flakes of winter descending from the sky, a shivering Sonny aimed and fired.  A flash of light, followed by a blast knocked Lathar off his feet.  With steam coming off of his body, the barbarian sat-up.... revealing not his human form, but his green stone/mineral he had been..  The was a new crack, coming from under his right armpit, following under his right press, then stretching up towards his collarbone.

"It's kinda worked, although if I change Charley, I guess I can revert to a rampaging stone horse again."

Everyone decided to stay in the lower levels of KIA Academy, frequent the bars, and keep the wandering to a minimum.  

All, except Sonny.  Sonny couldn't access the true upper levels of the Academy itself, but he did wander the sectors with the well to-do, all the way down to the dregs of society no one wanted to talk about.  

He did find the source of the e-carts. "Wasteland  Wheels" was found on the first sub-level.  He only got to speak to "Tom" a pure-strain female who worked there, but it appears most of the personal transportation that's not completely under KIA's jurisdiction has come out of the shop, between their scavengers and tech guys.  

Sneaky Pete was true to his word, taking up all his time waiting while trying to not just read minds, but find people with abilities similar to his.  There were quite a few minds that Pete who couldn't penetrate, but no one obviously had a poor reaction.   Most mutations seemed to be physical, rather than mental. 

Sonny's first foray in the sub-levels motivated Pete to delve further in the sub-levels, looking for other weasels.  He didn't find any, but a number of smaller, smellier, unwanted cousins: an entire underground market run by ferrets. 

The Ferret Underground Market

Pete wanted little to do with his undeveloped relatives, but his adventure inspired Squiggles to venture down there the next day for an odd request:  a haircut.

The furry earthworm was definitely an interesting fellow walking into a barber/groomer on sub-level two.  

He had three barbers/groomers to choose from:

Felix, a polyamorously  confused snow cat with a lisp and an appreciated for Squiggles' body coif. 

Evelyn, a pure-strain human whose only oddity of note was a large pink bouffant hairdo

The third haircutter was behind a divider, the sounds of multiple scissors, and some general discomfort from possibly the recipient of the services.  With a name like Grizzle, Squiggles decided on the flamboyant cat.

Squiggles quickly learned that with no monitors below level 1, news from the outside rarely trickled down to here.  He quickly told the story of Charley, and other tales he caught on the monitors.  Intrigued by these stories, the patrons and barbers shared their own.

Their biggest fears seemed to big something they coined "The Big Three" :  Wizards, Sentient Living Metal, and Beings from Another Dimension, like the Blue People.  

"The Blue People are from another world?"  Squiggles asked incredulously.

"Obviously, they're blue!"  Felix quipped.  "We even had a few come down here.  Traded jewelry for food.  Pretty fabulous pieces if you ask me.  Didn't have a quibble or a quarrel with them, but I guess the folks upstairs do... and that's a problem for us."

The people in the sub-level did not want the fighting to escalate any further between KIA and the mysterious blue people.   Warfare meant that the agents of the academy would sweep down here and impress any able bodied person to fight.  KIA Academy wasn't a fighting place, so they simply sent the conscripts out to fight, wave after wave.   Veterans of these previous wars were a rare find in the sublevels, although a severely mangled.  The barber shop did have one in the crowd, a mutant wolf named Razorback missing an arm and most of his back paw.  Worse yet, he complained that he had left a place called the Walls due to fearing for his life, and he ended at KIA and nearly died in the process.

"And I've got nothing against Living Metal, we even have one of our one,"  Felix quipped while a small bot emerged from the back and tried to vacuum up the hair on the floor.    "It just can't have a soul."

In turn, Squiggles regaled them with the stories of the Living Metal they've encountered, deadly and benign.  They hadn't checked for souls, though...

A very deep voice came from the back of the shop, "Felix, he's not a wizard is he?"

"Do I look like a wizard?" Squiggles fired back.

"I don't know, boy. Let me get a good at you."   

With that an 8-foot tall mountain of a man with four arms emerged from behind the privacy screen, wielding razors and knives.

Grizzle + Two Arms...

Felix:  "Squiggles, meet Grizzle"

Squiggles:  "Okay, certainly not a wizard..."

Grizzle:  "You guys from the Hinterlands down come down the Academy, much less the underground."

Squiggles:  "Some of us prefer to be underground."

Grizzle harrumphed and returned to his chair.

The shop crew then descended on their hatred of the ferret posse, including chasing one away from the front door with a broom.  

After paying and tipping for his massive haircut, Squiggles got a few reputable locations to check out.  

The first place on the list was the "Time-Travelers Relic Gallery... and Saloon."   The walls of the establishment resembled that of the Restorationist's Aspiration Hall in Riverbend.    The bar had a number musical instrumets for sale, fewer flintlocks, but sitting above the hearth with a Ancient rifle:  

"How much for that?"  Squiggles asked, pointing at the rifle. 

"Out of towner?  8,000 Domars.   6,000 Academy Credits."  

Zara admits that she should work down to 4,000 domars with enough trade.   Squiggles promised to bring back friends with a lot of junk to trade. 

Squiggles did managed to acquire two thin books for Sonny,  The sunflower was delighted by this new knowledge, especially since it seemed related to mutant animals, and the entire group went back into the sublevels to look at the weapon.  

There was minimal haggling once Pete dumped the gold bars on the table, and despite the fact that they brought RHA-9 down with them (a very sentient looking living metal), they acquired the weapon.  Pete even made arrangements with vendors to hunt down four more piranha-bird feathers.  

In no time flat the energy cells were going to be completed, and the group needed to figure out what to do.

Winter was coming....

Next: #56 - Rumors and Razorback 

Fall-In! 2024 After Action Report

 Ah, time for Fall-In!  The crisp autumn weather, the leisurely drive right after work on Thursday to hang out with the guys and play a game.  Heck, even my phone's brightness was set for scanning my QR code to print out my badge

None of that happened

Each day was excessively, the drive down Thursday was filled with statues of deer than neither moved nor flinched to oncoming traffic, and when I did get to the convention, the badges were printed and organized in plastic shoeboxes in alphabetical order. 

Innovation!  

But after a lead in with much delay, questions, and tut-tutting Fall-in!  was actually here and we could play games. 

Oh yeah, that whole travel day being Halloween meant my daughter Maja and I couldn't leave until she completed sorting her spoils from trick-or-treating... and finish packing.  But soon enough we were on our way to Lancaster!  

We checked into our room and I headed off to the bar to grab a drink and play... Crokinole?

This odd mixture of bocce, darts, and shuffleboard brought a number of out-of-state attendees to play in a sanctioned Crokinole tournament on Saturday morning.  I had promised to learn and play for the tournament, so Thursday night was flicking a wooden puck and getting used to the rules.

Friday:  This was the first Friday in quite a bit where I didn't have a morning game to run, and it was nice to sleep grab some IHOP, and casually unload the car where games would be run in the afternoon. 

Yes the Crokinole boards were everywhere, and I practiced more...

The afternoon game was Gnome Wars, conceived, organized and run my Maja, age 15.  As the only Gnome Wars game up on the registration, it quickly sold out all ten slots on day one.  

It was a basic Swiss/Scots raid a German brewery for some wintertime supplies.  After helping her set back and welcoming everyone, I got to sit back and relax as Maja orchestrated the chaos. 

Me?  I got play a greased pick the Swiss discovered in the field... and it was glorious.

Maja unleashed her latest idea and painting project: Irish ghosts haunting the brewery and its surroundings.

RIP Irish King Stanton

Maja had a rough first half hour getting things started, but quickly controlled initiative and the zany results a traditional Gnome Wars game has.  

No, the pig didn't kill the Swiss, just a lot of slipping and falling. 

I finally got to see the debut of the French Escargot Cav.  

We don't talk about what happened to the French surgeon... no war crimes here.

In the end, the Germans made a truce with the ghosts, while the Swiss had difficulty stopping a magical convoy.  Maja ended up with 11 players, had 14 roll dice at some point, ran a three-hour slot in 3:05 with a lot of happy players, ages 9 to 59.  

Thanks to my own scheduling snafu, we had an hour to break down the game, so I could set up for another annual installment of The Joust!

Even with charity chariot races happening upstairs, we got 20 players for the joust.  Like a groundhog and his shadow, a young child unhorsing an adult in the rules example set the tone.  

I was quickly unhorsed in the first round, but valiantly fought through the loser's bracket until I reached the finals against.... my own daughter.    Rumors of collusion aside, I simply ran out of gas and Maja was named champion.  

The chariot races had sponsors (for Toys for Tots) and were very fashion forward, despite all the death and destruction.

The event ended perfectly, allowing me the last 15 minutes to run over to Wally's Basement and actually pick up the first of increasingly better deals for the weekend.

We then hung out, played more Crokinole, and tried to visit Waffle House late, only to meet over convention goers already there, telling us to leave as fast as possible.    We ended up and Wawa and slept hard after we ate. 

SATURDAY:   Saturday was divide and conquer.  I was out the door earlier to grab Starbucks and fulfill my friendly obligation to play Crokinole in the tournament.  With people coming from as far away as Wisconsin, it did bring in some fresh faces to the con, even if they were largely flicking disks for most of their stay.  

Lampeter, with Crokinole, Wally's, and the usual tournament scene

More Lampeter

The tournament structure starts round-robin, consisting of four games with one opponent within 8 minutes.  It's doable, but it was all business as folks focused from casual play the last two nights to serious National Crokinole Association sanctioned play and points.  

I'd like to proudly state I only stunk up the joint twice, to two of the top players.  Each game is based on a point system for the pucks (discs) remaining at the end.  Winner earns two points, loser zero, and each get one for a tie.  In addition in players keep track of how many "20s" (pucks that fall in the center) that they have.   

The good news is, beyond those two games, I performed admirably, although when round robin was completed, I still found myself in the play-in game.  I almost gave that up, and had the honor of playing the top seed in the knockout round.

Knockout rounds are first to 8 using the 2/1/0 point system, with no time limit.  Surprisingly, I played extremely well against him, staying on offense longer than before, keeping things close in most games.  In a shocking turn of events, I actually one a game 35-30, before he ground me into the dirt to kick me out. 

I'll say this, Crokinole is certainly not a wargame, much less a historical wargame, but it did draw a few extra registrations, those folks were extremely nice, and it did not appear to impact on space for the tournaments in Lampeter,   Any attempt to draw more attendees, expose the community to wargaming (historical), and not significantly impact convention resources, I'm all for.  In an alternate universe, the Crokinole could have easily become wargamers, and many of our regular convention attendees were quite familiar with the game.  Many folks dropped in to play a game or two over the weekend, and quite a few asked questions and played for the first time.   It seemed like a win-win situation all around.

While I was flicking discs, Maja was living her best life as a teenager: judging people. She had already been a judge for the PELAs last Fall-In, and then at Historicon, so she was easily approved for two sessions on Saturday.  

While I played Crokinole, she wandered around with the other judges, observing events, debating criteria and presenting the awards.  

She might not have the resume of the other judges, nor have the historical acumen yet, but she has technically been to HMGS cons for the last 13 years and played in at least a half dozen award winning games.  Plus it's fun to sit with her afterwards now and get her feedback and provide my own personal  interpretation, which like everything else dear old Dad says to her, she takes as she pleases. 

This one is from HMGS social media empire....

The later afternoon was a flurry of mostly father-daughter activity.  We hit the tail end of the afternoon session of Wally's, went across the street to fulfill her demand for Golden Corral, finally got to the Vendor Hall to discover she left her headphones on the table at the buffet, ran back over to pick them up, drop her off at Hobby U to paint. while I perused the last 15 minutes of the Vendor Hall.  

I will say this, despite missing her headphones, I didn't know anything about it until she asked for my car keys, and already called the restaurant to confirm they were there.   No fuss no muss, just an extra task for a full afternoon. 

Hobby U Paint-and-Take

I finally wandered over to the Toys for Tots in the main lobby for the raffle drawing (I won!) and the auction.

Raffle Action

Some of the auction items

Auction Items

We ended the evening with some hardcore Scrabble action from the boardgames library (Maja also played Don't Break the Ice and Don't Spill the Beans with some younger congoers who attached to her).  We didn't have our normal Saturday night Gnome game, due to scheduling and logistics issues, we still had an appearance by the Kaiser himself.  

Hotel:  The Wyndham is still a half-million-times better than the Host, but i's now a few years since the renovations.  The Honeymoon phase is over.  Most things are holding their own, a few outlets don't work for one reason or another, and there's a non-gamer smell here and there that can only be equated as "Not New Anymore Hotel Smell."  Still, the beds were comfy, housekeeping was tidy and consistent.   The bar could still use one other person, and from numerous opinions the food ranged from better than adequate meals  to less than stellar hot dogs and sausages.  The Starbucks girl needs a promotion, so long as it doesn't effect the line for coffee.

Parking:  My normal bugbear was a non-issue.  We always got a primo spot near our room, and we even got prime loading/unloading spaces near the dealer hall.  Of course this makes me question attendance, but even the Distelfink was pretty full after dinner on Saturday, a rarity in recent years.  

Vendor Hall: Sorry guys, with my schedule, I got to visit the vendors twice in two 15-minute increments on Saturday.  A double sorry to everyone lamenting the vendor selection today versus a decade over.  It's not coming back, your favorites who are back are running a different business model than before, and in many cases a shopping list is mandatory to guarantee 

Wallys:  The flea market seemed pretty great to me (more to come).  The sessions seemed full, the variety diverse, and only a few oversized loads complicating the flow of people.  

Toys for Tots:  Fall-In! is always the Toys for Tots fundraiser, with toy donations, a double raffle for donated items, and an auction for more donated painted figures and terrain.   It was a blast, although I recommend someone donate a microphone and speaker for the announcements 

Tabletop Events:  I have despised Tabletop Events for the past five years, the set-up, the registration, the encroachment of fees.  This isn't my first rodeo with it, and this first attempt for HMGS felt like a slow-motion fall into the mud, face first.  Now, being able to see open and filled games, plus the GM seeing his players' names is a convenient plus, but watching registration and adding Tabletop Event registration on top of basic attendee demographic info before registering brought out a number of dissatisfied faces, and others the sweet look of relief.  

Swag: 

• 146 West End Game Star Wars Figures 
• A number of micromachine-esque Star Wars vehicles
• Bigger Battles for Fistful of Lead.

And for once, Maja started accumulating swag of her own:

Cold Wars is February 28th - March 2nd, 2025.  We will not be attending