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 Game 12. "Season 2" will encompass Episodes #13 through #30. Here is the Recap for Episode 13, Episode 14, Episode 15, Episode 16, Episode 17, Episode 18, Episode 19, Episode 20, Episode 21, Episode 22, Episode 23, Episode 24, Episode 25, Episode 26, and Episode 27.
Brief Description of the Game: In the meta-verse (where Sentinel comics is a published comic book multimedia empire), there is a premium cable animated television series (in a style similar to “Into the Spider-Verse”), 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/Protagonists:
- 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/Supporting characters:
- 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.
- Night Knight: A costumed, armored vigilante who has taken over the protection of Rook City, despite the country legislating against super vigilantism. With a gravelly voice and endless gadgets, Night Knight has sort of picked up where the Wraith left off.
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 #28 Recap:
“The Third Law of Thermodynamics”
By Eddie Jaczerkowski
As we close in on the end of Season 2, some things are resolved, but many questions still remain! Let’s dig into the Recap of Episode #28!
Episode Recap
The show’s cold open features the backstory of Atomic Dawn.
In a deep, underground bunker, a woman is being pushed down narrow, fluorescent-lit hallways in a wheelchair. Her face and head are badly scarred, with half of her hair completely missing and only scar tissue present. The other half of her head has patches of very short black hair. Her skin is slightly olive in places, but mostly red where scars have healed.
In addition to the scars, she has a large bandage on the back of her neck, and both her hands are heavily bandaged as well. Her face is neutral and expressionless, and it seems as if she may be sedated.
Finally, she is wheeled into a sterile examination room. Three people in full surgical scrubs await her as she is set in place in the room.
“Project Dawn, Subject 31,” says one of the staff, a woman with a British accent. “Sorcha Kelly, alias Sunny Kildare. Trained as an Irish republican paramilitary, then recruited by the CIA for contract work. Exposure to an extradimensional substance during the Oblivaeon Crisis resulted in photokinetic abilities. However, she shows little to no resistance to these powers herself, which has resulted in repeated injuries and burns over most of her body.”
“Interesting,” says a voice off-screen, in a thick Eastern European accent.
“Yes, the similarities in parasyllogistic abilities piqued our interest. She had been placed in a medical coma to prevent further injury due to her abilities. We extracted her Tuesday from the facility at Fort Wainwright. We’ve been slowly bringing her out from the coma. She will obviously need to be conscious for the next step.”
“Of course. Bring her to my office. I want to get her consent,” says the voice.
“Consent, sir?” a man’s voice asks.
“Oh yes, Dr. De La Paz. Consent is essential.”
The woman in the wheelchair awakens in an office with no windows and many bookshelves. She looks down and sees her bandaged hands, strapped to the wheelchair. She blinks her eyes as the room spins around her.
“Don’t try too hard to wake up all at once,” says the same Eastern European voice from before. “The drugs you’ve been on will take a while to shake off.”
The man behind the voice has wild, curly gray hair and a heavy gray mustache - the infamous Dr. Vitruvius. He is reading papers in a manila folder. “What do you prefer, Ms. Kelly or Ms. Kildare?”
“Sunny,” the woman says, still struggling with her sedation.
“Sunny. Good. Again, do not try too hard to overcome the sedatives all at once. It will take time. Tell me, Sunny, how do you feel about your… abilities?”
“I can set myself on fire. It doesn’t seem like a bonus,” Sunny says.
“Of course! Blessing and curse are two sides of the same coin. And when we lose the coin flip, we only see one side. But what if I could flip the coin for you - tails to heads?”
“I always picked tails,” Sunny replies.
“Well, heads to tails then. It doesn’t matter to me. I want to make you into something truly super. I have access to some genetic material that we could use to rebuild you into someone who could not only wield light and fire as weapons, but someone without the physical damage and superficial scarring that you bear as a result.”
“I’m listening,” she replies.
“Well… that’s the whole pitch,” Dr. Vitruvius says. “I fix you. You become a superhuman powerhouse.”
“What’s the price?” Sunny asks.
“No price,” Dr. Vitruvius says. “Not in the way you’re thinking. I just want to introduce you to some people after we make you whole again. They will happily pay you for some work using your new powers. Assuming this works, the benefit to my research will be worth more to me than any amount of money or favors you could owe me.”
“I don’t believe you,” Sunny responds.
“Ah! You shouldn’t. You’re not in a place in your life or in this world where you can believe or trust anyone. You should absolutely trust me least of all. If you refuse, we put you back into your coma. If you accept, there will be pain, and you may die. You don’t have to believe me, but I think you would rather accept and take the risk than refuse and sleep forever.”
“So you’re not really leaving me a choice, are you?”
“Oh, yes. It’s a choice. You must choose to embrace the process. You must want it to work. Your willpower will be a vital component to the success of the surgeries and the genetic recombination. It’s not a very appealing choice, I will admit. But you do have a choice.”
Sunny sighs deeply, still struggling to sit up. She looks down at her hands again, and the bandages that cover them.
“Fine. I’ll take whatever you got for me,” Sunny finally says.
“Excellent. Then we begin tonight.” Dr. Vitruvius stands up. “Dr. De La Paz!” he shouts out his door. “Please ready the patient for our first procedure.”
As Sunny is wheeled out of the office, Dr. Vitruvius steps over to a bookshelf and pulls down a hefty leatherbound volume. The spine of the book reads, “Liber Biologia.” He sets the book down on his desk and opens its cover, revealing its antique parchment pages written in a flowing script.
Dr. Vitruvius smiles as his fingers trace over the tome’s pages.
The episode opens with the Alternates questioning DJ Doctor Dancefloor in the brig inside Alternates HQ. We can see that Night Terror is being held in the adjacent cell, where mystical sigils have been drawn around the cell door.
DJ Doctor Dancefloor is willing to answer any of their questions - Baron Blade’s plan is already in motion and it’s too late for the Alternates to interfere. DJDD tells them that the Baron has captured Starshadow, although he doesn’t know what the Baron’s ultimate plan is. The job of the Vengeful Seven, he says, was to distract the Alternates for as long as possible - according to DJDD, the distraction has gone on long enough.
During the interrogation, the Alternates tell DJ Doctor Dancefloor that his family misses him (last episode, Kid Radical mentioned that he spoke to New Wave and Honky Tonk). They also inform him that Starshadow is a Duke in a stellar Empire, so (according to them) DJ Doctor Dancefloor has committed “space crimes” and they could send him to “space jail.” The DJ insists he’s told them everything he knows.
Then, Unity appears to them (holographically) and tells them she’s found a way to track Starshadow!
Meanwhile, the episode cuts to Baron Blade taunting Starshadow onace again.
“Murdering me did not sit well with you, did it, Blackmoore?” asks Baron Blade.
“I never regretted the act. Not really. It was not necessarily ethically correct, or legally correct. One person should not decide and enact punishment for the crimes of another. It should be an act of society to punish one of its transgressors. The people of Megalopolis should have decided Baron Blade’s fate. It was wrong for me to kill him. But under the circumstances, I think my action was still right. It was not the best decision, but it was one of many possible correct decisions.”
“Bah!” the Baron scoffs. “You equivocate. How can there be many correct decisions? There is only the optimal decision. Any decision other than the best decision is the wrong decision. Killing me was the wrong decision. It didn’t even work. And now, here you are, about to die. If you had not attacked me, I would have never even paid attention to you. If you had not attacked me, according to what I’ve read of your own journals, the heroes of Earth would still be alive! You have failed them and you have failed yourself.”
Starshadow shrugs. “I’ve learned to understand that the consequences of any decision spiral out well beyond anyone’s ability to foresee them. I made a decision at the time based on what I knew. It was a good decision. Whether or not Baron Blade deserved to die… well, I can’t speak to that. I don’t know what he deserved. That’s an impossible calculation. There is no way to know it. But eliminating him as a threat to the people of Earth… that was a good decision.”
“Him? He? You speak as if I were not standing in front of you, Dr. Blackmoore.”
“You are not Baron Blade,” Starshadow responds.
“What foolish attempt at trickery is this?” Baron Blade responds. “Do you deny what your eyes see? Your cosmic senses - can they not tell you the truth? Are you driven mad by seeing me here, alive? Why do you speak such nonsense?”
Starshadow sighs. “I don't know what you are, exactly. Or who you are, if that word applies. But you're not Baron Blade.”
“Pah!” Baron Blade interjects. “Your attempt at mind games will not work, nor will it delay your destruction.” The Baron steps over to a dramatically large lever. “And now, Dr. Beverly Blackmoore, you may say goodbye. You will feel a painful sting as I unravel your quantum field polyattributes and reconstitute the superimposition of your wave-particle patterns. But it will all be over in a few hours.”
Baron Blade pulls the switch, and Starshadow stands up straight and stiff, his mouth twisted into a scream. A high-pitched whine erupts from the machine, and Baron Blade smiles wickedly.
Meanwhile, the Alternajet is flying over Megalopolis with the Alternates inside.
“I’ve focused in on Starshadow’s energy signature,” Quasar Kid says, flying the Alternajet. “I’m detecting gamma rays, from the island, so that’s either a black hole dying, or Starshadow is doing it.”
“Wait, wait, wait. He’s doing WHAT?” asks Dr. Comet.
“It’s alright,” Quasar Kid says. “It’s not the bad kind.”
The Alternajet lands on the ruins of the origins Freedom Four island base. (In this universe, this base was destroyed during the Mad Bomber event, right before Baron Blade was killed.) They enter the base only to find the energy signature is being generated by a big machine inside the base.
Suddenly, Atomic Dawn appears, remarking, “Hey, the machine worked! Now that Baron Blade is done with you, I get to fry you to a crisp!”
As Atomic Dawn attacks, the machine in the middle of the room starts to hum loudly. Quasar Kid shouts to the Alternates, “That thing is going to collapse into a microsingularity!”
Jersey Devil looks at Quasar Kid, confused.
“That’s bad!” Quasar Kid tells him.
The fight is joined, with Atomic Dawn unleashing unmatched blasts of heat and radiation at the Alternates.
Jersey Devil teleports “through” the machine, appearing on the other side and saying, “Starshadow’s not in the machine, in case you were wondering!” Jersey Devil throws down his Tech Deck skateboard and lays down on his back on top of it, rolling under the machine to disarm it.
Meanwhile, Cytoblast faces off against Atomic Dawn, striking her with his mighty arboreal fists. He tries his hand at bantering with the villain, blurting out, “You shouldn’t get too much light, unless you’re a plant!” Atomic Dawn cocks at eyebrow at the quip.
While Atomic Dawn is distracted, Cytoblast’s plantlife grows up around the machine, absorbing the radiation which has started to leak out of it. Together with Jersey Devil and Kid Radical’s efforts, the Alternates disable the machine.
However, Atomic Dawn’s powers are cutting through the Alternates defenses. Even Bouncer’s invulnerable skin is singed by her radiation powers!
Just as things look bad against Atomic Dawn, a flash of light appears in the center of the room. When the light dissipates, Citizen Anvil and Citizen Hammer stand in the room. The Alternates are concerned at first, but the duo quickly turn on Atomic Dawn and attack her.
“Are you guys defending your trademark or something?” Kid Radical asks them.
“Yeah, something like that,” Citizen Hammer responds.
With Hammer and Anvil, the fight turns against Atomic Dawn, and the Alternates get back on their feet and mount a counteroffensive.
Finally, Jersey Devil summons his “little devils” once again, and while they mob Atomic Dawn, Quasar Kid catches her unaware with a punch that explodes with cosmic power, and knocks Atomic Dawn on her back.
Slowly, Atomic Dawn staggers back to her feet, her eyes blazing with energy. She wipes blood from her lips and stares down the Alternates. But then, Citizen Anvil grabs her by the wrist, and there’s another flash of light as Hammer and Anvil and Atomic Dawn all disappear from the room.
The Alternates stand up and catch their breath, but there’s a voice from the entrance of the room.
“Can we talk?” Hippocampus says, entering the room. He is holding up a vial of glowing green liquid, resembling the blood he took from Quasar Kid last season.
“And I mean really talk. I don’t mean talk metaphorically with our fists.”
The credits roll as “We Will Become Silhouettes” by Postal Service plays.
In the middle of the credits, we get a small scene. Back at the Alternates HQ, Grosshak and Gommesh (Starshadow’s alien allies from a distant galaxy) are standing in front of DJ Doctor Dancefloor’s cell.
“Please! Don’t take me to space jail!” DJ Doctor Dancefloor is shouting.
Grosshak (the reptilian one) and Gommesh (the fishy-looking one) stare at him, confused.
Final Thoughts
A lot of fans were confused about the cold open, specifically how the timeline works, so let me break that down first.
After Baron Blade dies, Dr. Vitruvius left Mordengrad and became involved in Operation Pipeclamp. “Project Dawn” preceded the Oblivaeon Event but eventually (after Oblivaeon) a subject of Project Dawn named Sunny Kildare became Atomic Dawn. It seems like she was the ultimate “success” of Project Dawn, but recall that - for some reason - she was frozen in a cryotube and the scientists of Project Dawn abandoned her at that complex in the woods. She wasn't there too long before being retrieved by Hippocampus and Safe Bet, at which point she joins the Vengeful Seven.
There is a lot going on there, and some of it is still mysterious, which is why I assume Dr. Vitruvius is going to reappear in Season 3 (or thereafter). I think there’s a lot more going on with Dr. Vitruvius than we might think.
As for Citizens Hammer and Anvil’s surprise appearance, we all suspect that Atomic Dawn is somehow connected to Citizen Dawn, and we haven’t gotten any hints about Citizen Dawn’s circumstances in this universe. We did see that the Citizens of the Sun had a Mobile Defense Platform, and it may have been blown up by Atomic Dawn, so that might be how Citizens Hammer and Anvil got on her trail.
But we are left to wonder what they might do with Atomic Dawn now that they’ve captured her.
In the scene with Baron Blade, Starshadow makes it clear he does not believe this person is really Baron Blade. But the Baron doesn’t seem to agree. The mystery remains - who is this Baron Blade?
Well, maybe we’ll find out next week! Be sure to check back for my Recap of Episode #29, titled, “Less Is Moore’s Law.”
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Running the Game!
One aspect of running a game like it's a TV show is that, sometimes, it just makes sense that some things happen outside of the players' control. That's my right and responsibility as a GM, of course, but I do want this game to be collaborative as much as possible, and I want the players to feel agency, too. But sometimes, for the sake of "cool" (as judged by me), I just narrate events, like "Hammer and Anvil abscond with Atomic Dawn."
I guess the key to keeping the players from getting frustrated with stuff like that is to make they feel agency a lot of the rest of the time, so that by the time I pull some bullcrap like, "And then this just happens and there's not much you can do about it" they don't really mind too much.
I'm hoping to catch up and post Recap #29 tomorrow, so we'll see if that works!
Thanks for reading!