Day 4 of the #CharacterCreationChallenge, and I'm already shifting gears. I had planned on using some minis I painted over the last year as inspiration, and had this dude ready to be statted out for Savage Worlds.
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| Kerenga Vai |
The crew of the Pretio risking their lives in This Week's Episode
Abel initially teased him about missing the opportunity to go on another rich guy safari for the Ivory Gazelle Safari. He then admitted that he just hired a new crew, since the old one, save his pilot, the Yazirian Yast Rin-Blank, had been trampled to death in an Ivory Gazelee stampede.
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| Abel Norrum |
"We're training monkey butlers."
"Monkey Say-What-Now?"
"We acquired a few monkeys that were extra for some medical experiments or something. We discovered they're quite adapt at learning basic skills. We've got one reloading ammo."
"A weapons tech, interesting. What do they eat?"
"Chicken wings."
Abel was concerned, "Are they supposed to eat flesh?"
"Probably not, but they can stay busy working while we're at the bar."
Abel was somehow satisfied with that answer, "The economy is doing well, we're allowed to have custom monkeys. How's the crew?"
"We lost Tarrie, then Wookie. He even took one of the monkeys."
Abel agreed to look for leads on a co-pilot, "A competent one. Tarrie was pretty competent. He didn't get sucked out the cockpit like the other one you had."
"Abel, you called a few weeks back about your sister."
"Not my sistah, Tarrie's sistah. Have you checked the news?"
"That was her???"
"Thousands dead. She's one bad girl. She doesn't know where you guys live, does she."
"Okay Abel, gotta run!"
Ne'vets caught the rest of the crew up to speed with the Prolek/Savvn family drama and recommended a distant safari on the fringes of the galaxy.
"I'm still not confident that Tarrie was actually dead," Duk'k protested, "and anyway, what sort of bounty does the Empire have on her."
Ne'vets didn't worry about a bounty, "Knowing our luck, she's already hiding in our cellar without us even knowing."
Duk'k was incredulous, "Now it's bad enough five minutes ago I didn't know Tarrie had a sister, but who was going to tell me we have a cellar?"
Evus popped his head into the room, "I heard Latorna's name, is she here?"
"Evus, were you in contact with Latorna at all?"
"A couple times... After I left the group."
"Evus!!!! Did you help her blow up the shipyard?"
"I knew she was up to something big, but I didn't know it was going to the shipyard."
"Does anyone know who you were when you were with her."
"Some guys from her organization saw me. If she needs to lay low, this would be a great place for her to hide."
"IT CERTAINLY WOULD NOT! And don't contact her anymore... from here. Evus....Have you had carnal relations with Tarrie's sister?"
"I don't feel comfortable answering that question."
"I'm just ensuring that if we take a three, four year long safari on the fringes of the galaxy, that you won't leave in the middle and bring her back."
"Okay, I would like to see her again."
Ne'vets decided the conversation had run its course, and decided recruitment for new crew members on Takodana would be his next priority. He set up flyers at Maz's Castle for a pilots/mechanics/field medics and to set up inquiries to visit the ranch.
A day or two later, Ne'vets poured through his leads trying to ensure some distance from Latorna. It may have been too soon to contact the Lisani Corporation so soon, but he did recall his earlier message from a Mark Oberlates.
It took a day or two to reach out to him. Oberlates had been a basic client years ago, to get his boy a pet. His boy, Sergei was all grown up and was taking a gap year before starting up in the family business. Sergei had travelled to a recently re-discovered world of Ruie. Ruie had fractured into multiple nations and it appeared that he had run afoul with one of them and had been imprisoned. He had already sent an advisor and a substantial bribe to one of the other countries, but there had been zero progress. The senior Oberlates mentioned some ancient alien ruins that had interested Sergei, but the crew was far more interested in the 20k to rescue him, dead or alive.
Ne'vets pushed for more details and uncovered some preliminary agreements Sergei had reached with one of the countries before he went the Neevlethorn, the nation with the alien ruins, and who ultimately imprisoned him.
Ne'vets agreed to the terms, updated the team, and awaited the necessary forms.
A few days later, Ne'vets was up in the loft office, pouring through data, when Poonk, the ranch hand / servant came stumbling up the stairs.
"Boss, boss, boss, boss, there's a whole lotta people outside."
Ne'vets ran over the window, apparently their were a number of speeder bikes peeling off back down the access road, and dozens of individuals scrambling into the woods. The blaster fire that was chasing them off was coming from the porch.
Poonk climbed up to see out the window, "That's new. All those guys just showed up for the job."
Ne'vets ran down stairs to hear a rap at the front door, and Duk'k answering it, blaster in hand.
On the porch was a single woman in body armor, resting a blaster rifle on her hip
"Where's my karking brother!"
Duk'k felt inquisitive, "And you are?"
"Latorna Savvn, and you are???"
"Let me go get the boss... Ne'vets it's for you!!!"
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| Generated using NightCafe |
Time to clean up the some end-of-year holiday excitement, as everything goes into full swing for January 2023.
Local Rec League: Uniforms distributed, and by the time this posts, a playoff structure will be submitted to start 1/28/2023. For such a small group of volunteers either everyone has an agenda... or wants to avoid any sort of agenda when something is needed.
Maja: Maja's Freshmen team had one last opponent to close out the year, focusing on holiday practices rather than holiday tournaments. Probably better in the end, but as I'll mention later, it would have been a fun mixture of running the table and playing new quality teams, no matter where they could have gone.
Last year, Wyoming Valley West Freshmen was one of the three teams they split their regular season home/away games with. Those eight graders from last year are currently wrecking havoc on the JV and Varsity levels. The new batch of 7th/8th graders have wrecked havoc on the junior high league at the tech school, and playing up to 9th, they're still a dangerous opponent.
Maja got to start, and after a sputtering opening, the A team got up to a 16 point lead in lightning speed. Once the B and C teams came in, the lead quickly shrank to 5, as the starters were subbed in for the end of the half and effortlessly boosted it up to 12.
In the end, they won by 16 or 17 against the team whose arguably the 3rd or 4th best team in the 10-team conference. Running with the big dogs all game, Maja's points and rebounds dropped (let's not even start with the missed assists from missed lay-ups.), but she had her season high in steals and blocks. The she has two away games this week until the first game-of-the-year against the only other threat to first place.
Of course, we couldn't have 10 days of holidays and practice without drama. Maja came out of the final practice of the year with the big announcement that three of the four actual Freshmen on the tream turned in their jerseys and quit. Granted all four Freshmen who didn't make at least JV had only played 8th grade the year before... and needed to be bailed out by the 7th grader in league tournament, but all three wanted to focus on track in the spring. At least one of them medaled during the varsity Cross-Country season, but the other two did not want to be part of a successful program (especially as they were both slower than Maja last year).
To trump that, at small holiday soiree for the 8th graders hosted by one of the parents, I discovered that not only did those three quit, but two Varsity STARTERS, who felt slighted in overall playing time versus the new Freshmen guards, who were averaging double digit points and only generating a quarter of the turnovers.
Millie: Her Wolfpack crew ended the season with a home win against North Lebanon. It's AAU vs school, reality, but most importantly, the girls get to play between AAU seasons, and one last time before school leagues start up.... in TEN months.
Her school team is nowhere as good as her Wolfpack crew... or are they? The school team started strong and won convincingly over a local Catholic school feeder program, then ended their league season play for the year against... the Wolfpack, sans Millie.
To say your local 6th grade team fought to the wire 26-23 against a team with four AAU caliber player should be a badge of courage. To be more upset that they should have won that game might be what the girls needed, because their year wasn't quite over.
Millie's coach had signed them up for the Back Mountain Holiday tournament over the break. The team finally found their groove in the Back Mountain March tournament, and with the Wolfpack technically not a "School or Township (Rec) team), the competition was similar in March, without the epic finals game.
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| No matter the opponent, Millie will end up on the ground, fighting for a ball. |
7th-8th Grade Girls: The Junior High teams ended the season with three total loses and some of their own unnecessary drama.
Both teams (which are essentially the same team, plus three extra girls in 8th grade). Lost to the local Catholic powerhouse 27-17 (7th) and 47-17 (8th). I'll point out the 7th graders last year beat that same team by thirty...but all those players are exclusively playing Freshmen ball now.
For the last weekend, it was just the 7th graders against Nanticoke. A 34-24 loss was a dignified loss, but a few girls, it was oddly personal. In the waning days of the school year, it was reported that some of the girls sent TikToks, Snapchats, or whatever social media they used, to Nanticoke players, involving a lot of gesturing, gesticulation, and profanities. Maja and Millie got most of the story, and it appears that no one is quite off the team yet, but it oddly came out the five girls in the videos are benchwarmers. Specifically, three late-game entries who had asked me after that game how to earn more playing team. I can assure you, flipping off the other team, was not one of my suggestions.
On to new, exciting, and sometimes streamlined b-ball opportunities in 2023!
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| Created by Nightcafe |
I start the #CharacterCreationChallenge, and I'm indulging myself into a pet project which may never see the light of day any other way.
There's enough cool stuff art and cosplay-wise on social media (IG and Pinterest specifically) and some low-quality AI generated art I've played with, that I'm going to assemble a group of pre-gens for the Ghosts of Saltmarsh 5e campaign. I'll try to cite the cosplayer or artist that I'm using for inspiration, as well as note the AI program (if the eight fingers on a hand, blurred faces or missing ears aren't immediate tells)
