Here's a recap of the latest session of my Sentinels RPG campaign "The Alternates"! As per usual, there's a narrative recap (written as if it was in-metaverse) and then I go over the actual running of the game, and any lessons I learned as the GM.
If you're lost, you can catch up with the previous Game Recaps! You can find links to the first "Season" (the first 12 episodes) in the Recap for Game12, and here is the Recap for Episode 13, Episode 14, Episode 15, Episode 16, Episode 17 and Episode 18.
Brief Description of the Game: In the meta-verse (where Sentinel comics is a published comic book multimedia empire), there is a premium cable computer-animated (in a style similar to “Into the Spider-Verse”) television series (which itself is based on a comic series called "The Alternates"). This RPG campaign represents that show, with each game session (ideally) representing one hour-long Episode of the show. The recap below is written in-metaverse as if it was an article on a popular website that posts recaps of episodes.
Player Characters:
- Cytoblast: Dr. Douglas Hemlocke can control plants, including transforming himself into a plant form, all thanks to his mystical knowledge and his ancient magical staff.
- Dr. Comet: Possessed by a demon that travelled to earth inside a comet, Dr. Diana Aster can magically control fire and ice, though her powers often go often out of control when her emotions flare up.
- Jersey Devil: A barely human cryptid of mysterious origins, "Mr. Leeds" is both man and monster, able to teleport by way of a parallel dimension.
- Kid Radical: A highly skilled autodidact with a strict code of behavior, Kid Radical has a superhuman ability for following trends and learning new skills, although it often seems like he can't quite connect with modern society.
- Quasar Kid: A superhero teen from the far future, Quasar Kid has a cosmic metabolism, super strength, and the power of flight, but he hasn't yet adjusted to being in "the past."
Recurring allied NPCs:
- Starshadow: A retired intergalactic adventurer, Starshadow wields mighty cosmic powers, but he is now reluctant to use them.
- Bouncer: An invulnerable action movie star, Bouncer is also super-strong and capable of mighty leaps (hence the name "Bouncer"), but he hasn't been the same since the Oblivaeon Crisis.
A Very Quick Story Synopsis: In an alternate timeline where Baron Blade was killed decades earlier (causing countless changes to the world of Sentinel Comics), the heroes of the Multiverse are almost all killed in the "Oblivaeon Crisis." The few remaining heroes, especially the Alternates, are left to deal with the villains and interstellar threats that still endanger the Earth!
Also, some important villain stuff going on - Unbeknownst to the heroes, Baron Blade has reappeared (after being presumed dead), and was secretly striking at the heroes during the last season. He has assembled a Vengeful Seven team, which is being lead by Hippocampus (the Hippo, except now he's super-smart). They are working behind the scenes on some sort of revenge plot
I've also done some very amateur sketches for the game! You can see them in this Google Photos album.
And now, an imaginary recap of an imaginary episode of an imaginary television show about an imaginary superhero team!
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The Alternates Episode #19 Recap:
“A Taste of Rook City”
By Eddie Jaczerkowski
This week, the Alternates go to Rook City and find a few surprises! Let’s get right into my Recap of Episode #19!
Episode Recap
The episode opens with Benchmark (or - more likely - someone other than Randal Butler in a Benchmark suit) flying over a city at night. The suit looks more advanced than before, and the person inside is covered head to toe (so we can’t see if it’s Randal Butler or not). They land in a dirty alley, walk past rubbish and rats, and knock on a door.
A window in the door slides open, and a voice on the other side says, “Ah! You’re here.” The door opens and we see Hippocampus. “We’ve been expecting you,” he adds.
“Benchmark” walks past rows of blinking computer banks and advanced electronics equipment to what appears to be a central control room. Hippocampus follows behind him.
“Where is he?” Benchmark asks in a distorted electronic voice.
“He’ll be along in just a moment,” Hippocampus responds.
Suddenly, a huge viewscreen in the control room comes to life. The face of Baron Blade appears on it, his image slightly broken up by static.
“Ah, welcome!” the Baron says. “You have taken up my invitation. Good, good. I hope that means you’ve agreed to join me in my efforts.”
“You didn’t leave me much choice,” says “Benchmark.”
“No, I suppose I didn’t. You owe me quite a lot, after all. And I can take it all away,” the Baron tells him.
“So what now?” asks Benchmark.
“Now, you are the final member of my Vengeful Seven,” says Baron Blade. “You will be taking your orders from Hippocampus, the leader of my team. He can direct you on what steps are next. I have important matters to attend to. For now, farewell.”
Hippocampus clicks his tongue and says, “Well, he is very busy these days. Now, what shall we call you? Benchmark?”
The person in the Benchmark suit seems to glare at Hippocampus. “You can call me Recursor.”
The episode moves to The Alternates Headquarters, where we see the team coming back from their trip and entering the main office for the first time. When they left, the room was still in shambles from the struggle with Unity-X, but we see that now, the office is spotless, and all things in the office have been repaired or replaced.
The Alternates look around in wonder, surprised by what they see. Then, a beam of light erupts from a bowl of plastic fruit on a central counter in the room. The beam of light creates a holograph of Unity (not the robotic Unity that previously existed in this universe, nor Unity-X, but rather the original, flesh-and-blood Unity). She greets the heroes happily, with her old bubbly personality in place. “I’m sorry to say this,” she says to the team, “But there’s no time to rest. You received an urgent message while you were away. I’ll play it for you now.”
Unity disappears, and we hear the voice of Night Knight. The voice message greets the heroes and says, “Your new assistant tells me you’re in space. I’ve been to space. I wouldn’t recommend it.” He tells the team that he needs their help in Rook City, and asks them to give him and time and place where they can meet once they return.
Reappearing, the holographic Unity says, “Well, I guess you’ll be off then! I can’t come with you, exactly, but I made a device that you can carry with you so you can communicate with me here at home base! It works with Kid Radical’s wrist computer.” She points out the device on a nearby table, and Kid Radical picks it up.
Very excited to see that Unity’s device is, indeed, a slap bracelet, Kid Radical slaps the device onto his left wrist and checks it out.
He thanks Unity, and tells her, “I can see that there’s a whole new thing going on here, and I want to acknowledge it, and I would love to hear about it, but there seems to be an urgent thing going on in Rook City right now, so we’ll talk about it as soon as we get back.” Unity cocks her head and looks at him curiously, then nods.
“By the way, where’s Starshadow?” Unity asks.
“Back at Jupiter,” Quasar Kid explains. “He said he had some important things to take care of.” With that, the Alternates go out the door they just came in.
The episode then takes us to Starshadow’s Jupiter Space Station. We see Starshadow is now in a bathrobe, boxer shorts and a t-shirt (the way we saw him when the Alternates surprised him in Season 1). He steps over to a drawer, takes out a spoon with a smile, and walks over to his refrigerator. He opens it to find the pints of ice cream are all ripped open, empty, and strewn about inside (thanks to Jersey Devil during Season 1).
“Oh, right…” he says, frowning. Disappointed, he walks back and puts his hands on the counter of the kitchen and exhales sadly. He looks over at a small device laying on the counter, strolls over to it, and picks it up. He punches at the keys, and walks across the room. We hear the ringing of a phone line.
Starshadow walks to stand in front of the huge window that looks out over Jupiter. Finally, someone answers the phone, and Starshadow says, “Pesto Pizza? Do you still have that ‘30 minutes or it’s free’ promotion?”
The episode then rejoins the Alternates, who are landing in their “Alternajet” in the parking lot of the Rook City branch of Blackleaf Laboratories (which we saw earlier this season). The Alternates disembark, and we see them walking through the streets of Rook City at night, finally arriving in a wide alley.
Night Knight appears from out of nowhere, causing Jersey Devil to leap and yelp in surprise. Greeting them, Night Knight beckons them further into the alley.
“I’m glad your here, Alternates. I need your help,” he says in his signature deep and gravelly voice. “Rook City has developed an infestation, and I need your help cleaning it up. We’ve got a bad case of…”
We hear a screech and a hiss, and the Alternates and Night Knight turn to look up. From above, we see a man in a trenchcoat leaping down from the rooftops. Somehow, his fall slows as he reaches the ground, and he seems to levitate the last few inches until he is down on the ground. He is extremely pale, dressed in black, and wearing sunglasses. Suddenly, he opens his mouth wide to reveal fangs, and he shows us that his fingers end in claws.
“...vampires,” Night Knight says, finishing his thought.
Four more vampires appear from the darkness, all of them appearing almost like a parody of a different stereotype of vampires - a woman with spiked red hair and a beaten leather jacket, a man dressed very much like Dracula, a woman in a a wispy witch dress, and a woman wearing a corset and a lacey shirt. Alongside them is one final vampire - a husky man with a big white beard wearing an Aloha shirt, board shirts, and sandals (not a vampire stereotype I'm aware of, but definitely confirming that the whole arrangement of vampires was a tongue-in-cheek joke).
The vampire in the trench coat moves to attack Night Knight, and Night Knight reacts swiftly, punching the vampire in the jaw.
“Well, I guess I was followed,” says Night Knight.
The vampires rush down the alley, and Quasar Kid asks aloud, “Do we have a treaty with the vampires?” His teammates look at him oddly, and Night Knight shouts, “What in the Hell are you talking about?”
“Right,” Quasar Kid says, rushing an oncoming vampire. “Go back to Venus, sucker!” he yells as he punches ones of the vampires.
During the fight, the vampires show a variety of “vampire” abilities, such as claws and teeth. The vampire in the Aloha shirt cuts himself to cast blood magic at the Alternates, and the Dracula-looking guy seems to have some sort of hypnosis ability.
However, the real pivotal moment in this fight scene happens pretty early on, when the vampire in the leather jacket bites Dr. Comet on the neck. This bite triggers a distinct change in Dr. Comet - her eyes glow green, and magical power pours out of her. In moments, the alley is covered in ice, with both the Alternates and the vampires being harmed by the cold.
The Alternates fight on, but the vampires are formidable foes. Night Knight gets cut deeply by their claws, and his armor is damaged. When he fights back, we can see that the suit itself is made with extremely advanced technology, as a series of very small metal plates move to cover and repair the damaged area.
Cytoblast, in his plant monster form, smashes their vampire enemies with his massive fists. Finally, he turns his arm into a giant wooden stake and drives it through the vampire with the Aloha shirt. The vampire falls to the ground, looking like a corpse (but not turning to dust, or anything like that).
Nearby, Dr. Comet regains control of herself, and fires her ice powers at the enemies. We can see two dark red spots growing on her neck, originating where the vampire bit her.
Jersey Devil attacks the red-haired vampire who bit Dr. Comet, and the vampire climbs one of the walls in the alley. She gathers shadows around her, gaining power from the darkness. In response, Jersey Devil surrounds himself with darkness, his eyes glowing red. Suddenly, he appears behind the vampire, and attacks her in some way we cannot quite see due to the darkness.
The vampires are getting the best of Night Knight and the Alternates, and despite having dispatched one of their number, the others prove difficult to defeat. Quasar Kid eventually knocks out the vampire in the corset, but - while the Alternates are catching their breath - more vampires appear in the shadows at the rear of the alley.
Night Knight spots the additional vampires and suggests they should retreat.
Then, Kid Radical steps to the front of the group, raising his devil sticks in the sign of the cross. He speaks in a rousing voice, saying, “Stop this! All of you are still human, even if just a little bit! Obviously, there’s something tormenting you, causing you pain. But self-harm is not the answer!” The vampires pause momentarily, as Kid Radical’s words obviously carry some conviction, and the vampires are supernaturally put off by anyone of “faith” and conviction.
However, elsewhere in the alley, we see that Dr. Comet is not herself. Her eyes glow green again, and a wide, evil grin crosses her face. She raises her arms to her sides and floats into the air. Otherworldly laughter echoes from within her, bouncing off the walls and increasing in volume until a devilish cackle is all anyone can hear. Everyone on both sides look up to her, as she floats up dozens of feet into the air.
She suddenly looks skyward, and everyone’s eyes follow her gaze. In the sky, coming down from the stars, is a gigantic green fireball. We see the faces of all the vampires and the heroes look up in horror - except Jersey Devil, who has a gleeful smile when he sees the fireball coming down. Finally, the giant ball of green fire strikes the alley and explodes, throwing explosive fire through the entire alley.
The fire rips through the badly injured Quasar Kid, and he screams as his body explodes with cosmic energy. The chain reaction of fireball and cosmic explosion throws everyone in opposite directions, seeming to blast the vampires down the alley while Night Knight and the Alternates are blown into the street.
Night Knight picks up the now-unconscious Dr. Comet and yells for the others to follow him. Cytoblast throws Quasar Kid, who is also out, over his shoulder, and the team runs down the dark and empty streets of Rook City.
Finally, they dart down a dark alley and collapse. Cytoblast moves to the unconscious Dr. Comet and examines her. The back of his left arm seems to grow a moss or herb, and he pulls it off in a clump. He looks at the green clump of vegetation in his hand and mumbles to himself, “No, no, this won’t work. Think, Douglas! Think!”
The camera zooms out on the scene, with Night Knight and Kid Radical laying prone against the walls of the alley, exhausted. Dr. Comet and Quasar Kid are laying unconscious, with Cytoblast, now mostly human again, trying to treat their injuries (and probably Dr. Comet’s curse). Jersey Devil stands nearby, staring down at the ground, perhaps lost in thought.
The credits roll, with the song “Fireball” by Deep Purple playing over them.
Final Thoughts
The Alternates don’t have a perfect record, but this fight is probably their worst loss of all time. There remain an unknown quantity of vampires running around Rook City, and Dr. Comet’s space demon seems to be on the loose. What do they do next episode? Do they try to track down vampires with an out-of-control Dr. Comet? Do they leave Rook City to the bloodsuckers while they seek a remedy for their teammate? Yikes. We’ll have to find out next week.
Now, on to some nerdy notes!
- First up, who is Recursor? Most of the internet thinks it’s Mark Benedetto (President of Revocorp, a corporation with strong connections to Baron Blade, which is also the corporation that made Benchmark’s suit), but if it was Mark Benedetto, why did the show runners make it a mystery?
- Okay, what’s going on with Unity? Remember, in this alternate universe, the Unity on the “Freedom Seven” wasn’t human, but was rather a robotic combination of Unity and Omnitron-X. Now, we see a holograph (hologram?) of original human Unity, so what’s up with that? So many questions!
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Starshadow just wants to sit on a space station and eat ice cream? I get that he’s reluctant to flex his cosmic powers, since he can’t quite decide if (at the end of Season 1) he killed all of this universe’s heroes or actually saved millions of innocent lives… but seriously, he needs to get to Earth and do some superheroing. It’s just irresponsible!
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Vampires? Vampires! Wow. There’s another question I have here, but it’s definitely a spoiler (if you haven’t read the original “Alternates” comic series), so I’ll wait to see if it comes up in the next few episodes before I bring it up.
- Oh, “A Taste of Rook City.” Get it? Ha!
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Night Knight’s suit isn’t just some high tech armor - there’s something much more “super” going on. Is his suit made up of small autonomous robots, perhaps? Is he… Nanite Night Knight? Well, at any rate, this is a character who didn’t get much attention in the original comics, and they’re slowly feeding us more Night Knight details as the show goes on.
- The song “Fireball” is really great for Dr. Comet. Lines like “They wonder where you're from, oh yeah, they wonder where I found you,” and “You're Gemini and I don't know which one I like the most,” can be heard as referring to Dr. Comet’s dual nature and the extrastellar origins of her demon “companion.” Plus, the song is called “Fireball” and she ends the fight by summoning a giant fireball from space. Or her demon does - I’m not sure.
- Remember, folks, Dr. Comet is, in fact, possessed by a space demon. She’s always kind of been borderline “heroic,” and one wonders if she wouldn’t be more of a villain if left to her own devices. So don’t be surprised when “possessed by a space demon” doesn’t work out for her exactly the way she hoped.
We’ll see you next week for Episode #20, titled, “A Voice That Told Her Where And When to Act.” Wow, that doesn’t sound good for Dr. Comet...
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Running the Game
Back to the action, including a fight scene that went badly for the heroes. Really, they probably could have beaten the first six vampires, mechanically, but the fight dragged on and I suggested we narrate the end as it got late. They all agreed, so that's when I pulled down the fireball from the sky (which had always been the plan).
During the fight, I let Dr. Comet's player keep playing her, and (instead of treating her like an NPC or something), I made the Environment "Dr. Comet Has Lost Control," and so on the Environment turn, something bad would happen in the alley as a result of Dr. Comet's demon gaining some control over her body.
On that topic, "Dr. Comet loses control, and/or the demon takes over" has been a story I wanted to tell with Dr. Comet's player since about the day she was created. We've worked on it behind the scenes, so the other players had no idea what was unfolding as I told them she was summoning ice and hurting them all, and Dr. Comet's player just played on like it was a normal day. it worked out well!
FUN FACT: Dr. Comet is the only character in the Alternates who was created randomly! All the other players had a concept and used "The Constructed Method" of character creation to fill out the concept. But Dr. Comet's player had no idea what she wanted to do, so she rolled on all the tables and then we tried to figure it all out. She got "Cursed" and then the fire and ice powers, and I suggested to the player (who is a big fan of science, including astronomy) that comets were basically made of fire and ice, and we went from there with this crazy story that she was an astrophysicist who was possessed by a demon that was in a comet that flew by Earth. (It sounded to me like something that would be in a kind of "Weird Tales" pulp comic from way-back-when, so that's the basic publishing history of the character.) The character has the Science Quality, but no Magical Knowledge, so Dr. Comet became this very rational woman who is easily frustrated and angered, especially by the fact that she has to accept that magic is real and she's chock full of it. Really, this random character ended up being one of the meatiest characters I've seen at my gaming table, so her player deserves a lot of credit for bringing her to life.
That's all for this week! The Alternates are in a real pinch! Let's see where they go from here!
Thanks for reading!