Sector 55 Blues - Prog 15 - What the flute?

Sector 55 Blues is a Judge Dredd Campaign using the Savage Dredd unnofficial Savage Worlds Expansion.  This is an online only game with members from Dragons Keep Roleplay Club.

The Mesa

The Judges ride the construction elevator to an entrance cave carved out by natural forces millenia ago.  Judging by the attempted oppulance of marble floors and abundant synthetic plants, this is clearly the lair of Muldoon.  The unmistakeable "salon aesthetic" harkens back to his previous life and is a way of distancing himself from the unclean realities of live in the Cursed Earth.

4 corridors lead off this grand reception chamber.  To the left a communications centre, to the right a guardroom and kitchen.  The corridor dead ahead ends in a pair of oppulent wooden doors.

The Judges deal swiftly with the mulgoons who defend the comms centre and a platoon of guards.

The Throne Room

Entering through the double doors the Judges come face to face with the two men, Nesbitt, who sits at the foot of a small dais and the other, Muldoon, sitting on an ornate gold painted throne.

Hammer tells them they are under arrest and that they are to be taken back to Mega City One.Muldoon cries "At last.  You don't know how long I've waited to hear those words".

Puzzled the Judges listen to the harrowing tale of how Vidal Muldoon, celebrity hairdresser to the stars, through no fault of his own became tragically marooned in the Cursed Earth and presumed dead.  He spares no details including how Dapper John, one of his more talented stylists rose up in the wake of his dissapearance and assumed control of all his business assets.  He goes on to explain how he discovered and learned to tame the Cursed Earth Hair Beasts with the help of a local named Cross-eyed Jethro and assumed the mantle of Lord Muldoon bringing law and order to the desperate citizens of the cursed Earth. 

Hammer explains that Nesbitt is wanted for heinous crimes that have endangered the lives of millions of citizens and resulted in many deaths.  Muldoon is an accessory to that manslaughter and will face trial.  Muldoon seems unphased and profers his hands awaiting arrest.  

"Perhaps the Chief Justice will be lenient with me once I have dealt with your infestation?" says muldoon brandishing a silver flute.

"Above my paygrade!" says Hammer and slaps him in cuffs.

Nesbitt pulls a stub gun and grabs Muldoon shouting "You aint gonna take me in Mr Polis".  Cully drops to her knees and fires a well aimed GP round through Nesbitt's arm knocking the gun from his hand.

"One more word out of you and it will be your last" she orders.

Escape from the Cursed Earth

Escorting the pair back to the elevator they survey the scenes of chaos below.  Hair beasts of all sizes run amok slaughtering mulgoons and oil rig workers with impunity.  

"That ways a nogo" says Uthred we'll have to go up.

The elevator clunks to a stop and the gate swings open onto the top of the mesa.  A barren windswept plateau from which they can see for at least a hundred miles.

The familiar shape of an enormous flapping black cloud of Rad Birds approaches from the south.  

"Drokk, I hate Rad Birds!" exclaims Teal as the swarm approaches.

Suddenly a pair of piercing lights emerges from the centre of the cloud bursting through like an angelic messenger.  An H-Wagon thunders towards the cliff edge and slews itself in a neat 180 as the cargo ramp descends.

"Judge Ezquerra sent us, Get in!!" shouts the H-Wagon crew member over the howling scream of the turbolifters.

They bundle safely inside and strap themselves into the flight chairs.  The pilot guns the throttles and the ship tears into the sky to safety.

The Aftermath

Muldoon is warmly received by Chief Judge and ably assists the Justice department in rounding up all the hair beasts with recordings from his flute.  Never one to let an opportunity of boutiful protein go to waste the beasts are hurded into Resyk facilities in every sector.  After a week the menace is dealt with and a city wide day of celebration is held.

The centrepiece of that celebration is an elaborate citizenship ceremony in which Vidal Muldoon is formally reintroduced as a full citizen of Mega City One conveying all rights and responsibilities upon him.

Before the synthi-ink is dry on his paperwork, the Chief Judge arrests Muldoon and charges him with willfull endangerment of the city and the mass slaughter of thousands of innocent civilians in the Cursed Earth.  He is summarily stripped of his citizenship and marched off to the East Wall to be evicted back into the Cursed Earth.

"Let that be a lesson to anyone who thinks that The Law doesn't reach beyond the Great East Wall!!"   

Sector 55 Blues - Prog 14 - Black Gold Mesa

Sector 55 Blues is a Judge Dredd Campaign using the Savage Dredd unnofficial Savage Worlds Expansion.  This is an online only game with members from Dragons Keep Roleplay Club.

The tunnel north is wide enough to comfortably ride in pairs and the judges have a relatively uneventful journey for a bout 50 miles until they reach a tick steel bulkead with a large synthisteel barred gate which is locked.  The tunnel beyond seems roughly hewn from the rock and after a short break whilst they unbar the gates they are once again travelling north but now in single file.  

The powerful lights of the Lawmasters illuminate the tunnel giving them just enough warning when a giant hairbeast rears up and blocks the tunnel.  Hammer blasts a hole through the giant hairy mound and they ride through the gaping wound unimpeded.

Several hours later they near the mouth of the tunnel and look out onto a blasted hellscape.

The Mesa dominates the skyline in the distance surrounded by hundreds of oil pumps and derricks which nod up and down in unison as though they are praying to a giant God.

To the east of the mesa lies some kind of refinery installation nestled up to the side of the huge mound of rock like a suckling child.  The Judges stay hidden in the tunnel and recce the scene as the night starts to draw in.

Their patience pays off and they establish that there are three groups of mulgoons which appear to be patrolling in a pattern.  A small window of opportunity exists where the eastern most one group is far enough away that they could isolate them and take them out without raising the alarm.  They successfully subdue the guards and strip them of their overalls, tying them up in one of the shacks that sits beside an oil well.  Suitably attired they plan their attack.

Running up the South wall of the Mesa appears to be a construction elevator.  This is their way in, but they need a diversion which will allow them to get across to the elvator.  After much discussion the team finally agree that they will sacrifice one of the lawmasters and send it on a suicide mission to attack the refinery.  A few well placed cyclops blasts should blow the place sky high.  Whilst the mulgoons deal with the inferno the Judges will cross the oil field and ascend the elevator.

The team approach the edge of the oil field and remote pilot the bike in a wide sweeping curve towards the refinery.  The plan goes off without a hitch and the brave little lawmaster dutifuly attacks the refinery blasting left and right until it's batteries are almost drained.  With an almighty roar the refinery explodes into an inferno, a mushroom cloud rising up in the desert like an atomic bomb test.  The lawmaster continues to wheel around like a rodeo horse shooting its cannon at the whitless mulgoons as they rush to put out the refinery fire. Eventually with it's ammo spent it initiates its self destruct sequence making a large crater in the dirt.

The diversion enables the Judges to cross the desert floor dodging one group of panicked mulgoons after another.  As they ascend the elevator they marvel at the destructive capabilities of just one little lawmaster. 

Next Prog ->

Back Issues

Prog 1 - Suits You Sir - Mosh 55 rob Zlooty Slute's Suits You and a body is discovered.

Prog 2 - Hair Today Gone Tomorrow - Rock Dwayneson's apartment and carnage at the Yes-A-Bout

Prog 3 - It's Ugly Out There - Fun and Games at the Ugly Pageant 

Prog 4 - Down, Down, Deeper and Down - Entering the sewers under RESYK

Prog 5 - The Big Wig - Confronting the beast below the city

Prog 6 - Last Orders at The Two Ways Pub - A shootout in Sector 163

Prog 7 - Into the Cursed Earth - Judge Ezquerra orders a manhunt 

Prog 8 - Avast Me Hearties It's the Easter Pirate Kangaroo - Black Ice Kanga 

Prog 9 - Scav City and the Pirate King - A Deal is Made

Prog 10 - On a Road to Nowhere - A mutie farmstead is attacked by Mulgoons.

Prog 11 - Just Some Good Ole Boys - A Gas Station called Nowhere 

Prog 12 - Rad Birds, I Hate Rad Birds! - Absolutely not Stirges, honestly.

Prog 13 - The Lawman Outpost - What secrets await in Outpost 12? 

Sector 55 Blues - Prog 13 - The Lawman Outpost

Sector 55 Blues is a Judge Dredd Campaign using the Savage Dredd unnofficial Savage Worlds Expansion.  This is an online only game with members from Dragons Keep Roleplay Club.

No Plan Survives Contact With The Enemy

The Judges spend some time observing the mulgoons in the valley below and decide that the best plan of attack is to divide and conquer in a pincer movement.  

Sweeping down from the valley walls they thunder towards the two in two formations catching the mulgoons by surprise.  Judge Teal with Uthred riding pillion fires his cyclops laser at the front of a saloon.  The white hot beam carves the vehicle neatly in two halves like a hot knife through butter.  As the two halves peel away from each other Teal expertly guides his bike through the middle and the Judges pick off the passengers with their lawgivers.  Cully approaches the East side and deals summary justice to a van as it is accelerates towards them.  The Mulgoons are no match for well trained judges and the remaining vehicles are taken out of commission swiftly.

Rounding the 30ft high structure reveals a large 20 foot high blast door in the north wall with a sand scoured and faded number 12 painted in a familiar justice department font.  On the right hand door a small metal panel is etched with an outstretched palm print.  Placing her hand on the panel Judge Cully notices a thin green laser beam shoot out and read the barcode on the underside of her wrist.

A confirmatory bleep and then a few moments later the sounds of whirring and clanking machinery issue from the structure.  Large Synthisteel bolts are withdrawn and the doors begin to crack open.

The interior of the structure is bare with the exception of the large square cargo elevator and numerous gantry cranes and walkways which crisscross the ceiling.  A control podium stands in one corner of the elevator.  Wiping its dusty fascia clean reveals a small cross section map and three subterranean levels:

• S1: Administration, Medical and Communications
• S2: Armory, Barracks and Motor Pool
  
• S3: Power Room    
  

Sub Level 1 - The Judges search the floor and find a well stocked medical center but without the customary autodocs and sleeppods that would be a staple feature of a sector house med centre.  In fact this facility looks like it has been abandoned for decades.  They patch themselves up as best they can after their recent encounter with the Rad Birds.

Sub Level 2 - It is clear that this floor has been stripped clean of the most useful pieces of Equipment.  The judges hopes are lifted when in one corner of the motor pool they discover the familiar silhouette of an H-Wagon.  On closer ispection this is but a shell of its former glory having been stripped of all its engines avionics and comms gear.  The Judges find an array of old stub guns and ammunition several bazookas and two flight cases containing mint condition MK1 Lawmasters. Cully takes a shine to one of the bazookas and packs 10 rounds just in case.

Searching the Barracks they discover a series of lockers each assigned to a previous owner going by the array of names etched into their magnetic ID plates.  Inside are vacuum packed bags containing vintage  Judge uniforms.  Noone has been seen wearing the "Ol' bubble dome" helmets in years but their current outfits have seen better days.

Sub Level 3 - The Power Room is filled with a mass of machinery, boilers, generators and water treatment tanks.  A dark service tunnel dominates the north wall and is filled with many pipes and conduits.  It clearly leads somewhere.

Cully and Hammer return to Level 1 to see if they can't ressurect the ancient communications array and get a signal out to someone back home.  The outpost seems to be running on back up power and all non essential systems are off.  

Teal and Uthred descend to Level 3 to see if they can get the power back on.  Uthred's affinity with machines pays off and he determines that the outpost has run low on fuel, in fact the tanks are almost empty.  Despite several attempts to fill the tanks using the control panel, it appears there is a malfunction in a valve.  They trace the pipes that feed the fuel tanks back into the mouth of the tunnel.  proceeding about a hundred metres into the tunnel they discover the valve whose servo appears to have burnt out.  Manually turning the valve gets the gas flowing.  Flush with success they don't notice the three hair beasts creep up on them and attack.

Meanwhile on Level 1, Cully and Hammer have realised that the transmitter power is weak.  The outposts antenna must have been damaged and they resolve to climb up the service shaft onto the roof and see if it can be fixed. Grabbing some basic electrical repair tools they begin the climb.

On the roof is a storm battered antenna mast and a broken satellite dish.  The cables from the comms room enter a junction box at the base of the mast.  The cover is loose and it looks like some small rodent got in here and chewed the cables.  An easy repair for Judge Hammer, but Judge Cully spies a dark cloud approaching from the south.  A flock of angry rad birds, approaching fast.

Teal and Uthred deal with the hairbeasts in short order and return to the relative safety of the power room.  The fuel tank fills to above its minimum mark quickly and they restore the outpost to operational power levels.

On the roof Judge Hammer frantically splices cables as the rad birds approach.  Cully fires a bazooka round into their midst and a firey ball erupts diminishing their number but not enough to deter them and they begin to swoop down.  As Cully begins firing grenade rounds at the swarm, Hammer finishes his repairs and reaches round with an incendiary round.  A white hot ball of phosphor flame catches the leading edge of the swarm and the birds wheel away giving the pair of Judges just enough time to ext the roof and slam the iron access door down as the birds slam into it.  A close call. 

Contact

Reassembling in the comms room the Judges finally manage to get a strong enough signal out to Mega City One using an old morse code unit that probably hasn't seen action in 100 years.  They punch in a request for an H-Wagon and that they have located the suspect at Black Gold Mesa.

A message comes back

 +++ ALERT CODE BLACK ALPHA CITY IN QUARANTINE NO REINFORCEMENTS COMPLETE YOUR MISSION GOOD LUCK +++

The team know that Black Alpha is a city wide threat event and that they are on their own from here.

The only thing they can do is see where that tunnel leads and maybe, just maybe they can get to Black Gold Mesa and find Nesbitt.

Next Prog ->

Back Issues

Prog 1 - Suits You Sir - Mosh 55 rob Zlooty Slute's Suits You and a body is discovered.

Prog 2 - Hair Today Gone Tomorrow - Rock Dwayneson's apartment and carnage at the Yes-A-Bout

Prog 3 - It's Ugly Out There - Fun and Games at the Ugly Pageant 

Prog 4 - Down, Down, Deeper and Down - Entering the sewers under RESYK

Prog 5 - The Big Wig - Confronting the beast below the city

Prog 6 - Last Orders at The Two Ways Pub - A shootout in Sector 163

Prog 7 - Into the Cursed Earth - Judge Ezquerra orders a manhunt 

Prog 8 - Avast Me Hearties It's the Easter Pirate Kangaroo - Black Ice Kanga 

Prog 9 - Scav City and the Pirate King - A Deal is Made

Prog 10 - On a Road to Nowhere - A mutie farmstead is attacked by Mulgoons.

Prog 11 - Just Some Good Ole Boys - A Gas Station called Nowhere 

Prog 12 - Rad Birds, I Hate Rad Birds! - Absolutely not Stirges, honestly.

 

Sector 55 Blues - Prog 12 - Rad Birds, I Hate Rad Birds!

Sector 55 Blues is a Judge Dredd Campaign using the Savage Dredd unnofficial Savage Worlds Expansion.  This is an online only game with members from Dragons Keep Roleplay Club.

The judges are faced with 4 choices stay at Nowhere and wait for the Ships, Go back to the ships or go to bartertown or to go on their own to the lawman outpost.

Judges decide to leave the mulgoons at Nowhere and head out to the Lawman Outpost.  Against the advice of Uncle Jessie they choose to ride through the night.

Rad Bird Attack

As they thuder northwards in an arrow head formation through the radioactive desert they are suddenly attacked by a swarm of four winged bird like creatures with long beak like proboscis.

A Cursed Earth Rad Bird (Absolutely not a Stirge)

A bird swoops down out of the black sky stabs Judge Hammer in the shoulder.  As he wrestles with the creature he loses control of his lawmaster which veers violently right and crests a small sand dune launching it into the darkeness.  Heading up the formation Judge Uthred is hit in the head by one of the leathery winged creatures which frantically claws at his face.

"Bike Auto!" he shouts as he desperately tries to wrestle with the avian monstrosity.  Judge Teal shoots at the creature and misses planting 3 GP rounds into Uthred's lawmaster.  One bullet hits his bike computer causing the whole machine to grind to a halt.  Judge Cully rides alongside the slowing Lawmaster and clubs the creature with her daystick.

They stop their bikes and for the first time hear the leathery flapping of wings above them and realise that Hammer is missing.  Revving the two remaining bikes into life they U-turn back down the desert road with Uthred riding pillion on Teal's bike.  The wheeltracks of Hammer's bike are easy to find in and they crest the roadside berm to discover Hammer's bike embedded in a sand dune.  Judge Hammer is lying face down in the sand and they can hear a big swarm of rad birds heading in their direction.  Teal and Uthred wrestle the bike out of the dune.  It is pretty beaten up but it starts and is rideable.  Cully administers some first aid and Hammer is revived and immediately grabs his lawgiver.

"Incendiary" he shouts and fires a single round over Cully's shoulder into the night sky.  

A huge fireball erupts illuminating the swarm of rad birds which were circling overhead.  Bits of bird carcasse fall from the sky as the fireball expands.  The birds fly off.

The Judges leave Uthred's bike at the roadside and carry on through the night as best they can.  Hammer's bike would be considered unserviceable in Sector 55, but in the Cursed Earth you have to make do with what you've got.

The Lawman Outpost

By early morning the desert road fades into tarmac and they soon realise that they are riding on a pre-atomic highway.  It is not long before the road comes to an abrubt end on a broken bridge spanning a wide valley.  On the valley floor is their destination, a squat octagonal concrete building with a telecommunications array on its roof.

Surrounding the building are 4 black vehicles emblazoned with the Skull & Scissor motif of Muldoon.

 Next Prog -->

Back Issues

Prog 1 - Suits You Sir - Mosh 55 rob Zlooty Slute's Suits You and a body is discovered.

Prog 2 - Hair Today Gone Tomorrow - Rock Dwayneson's apartment and carnage at the Yes-A-Bout

Prog 3 - It's Ugly Out There - Fun and Games at the Ugly Pageant 

Prog 4 - Down, Down, Deeper and Down - Entering the sewers under RESYK

Prog 5 - The Big Wig - Confronting the beast below the city

Prog 6 - Last Orders at The Two Ways Pub - A shootout in Sector 163

Prog 7 - Into the Cursed Earth - Judge Ezquerra orders a manhunt 

Prog 8 - Avast Me Hearties It's the Easter Pirate Kangaroo - Black Ice Kanga 

Prog 9 - Scav City and the Pirate King - A Deal is Made

Prog 10 - On a Road to Nowhere - A mutie farmstead is attacked by Mulgoons.

Prog 11 - Just Some Good Ole Boys - A Gas Station called Nowhere

Why a Canonical D&D is the Only Way Forward for WotC

ComicBook.com reported recently that Principal D&D designer Jeremy Crawford offered clarity on the subject of what is canon in the Dungeons and Dragons RPG world.

Crawford said.

"Basically, our stance is that if it has not appeared in a book since 2014 [the year that Dungeons & Dragons' Fifth Edition core rulebooks came out], we don’t consider it canonical for the games."

Typically this got a fractured response from the RPG community who are typically divided into two camps, those who slavishly follow the product/story lines of D&D and everybody else.

Why a D&D Canon is Important to WotC

Wizards of the Coast is a business owned by toy making giant Hasbro.  Dungeons & Dragons is just one of its properties, not the most profitable one but it is the most recognised brand in the Tabletop Role Playing Game (TTRPG) sector.  Each edition of D&D has its own life span.  At the time of writing 5th edition is 7 years old and as with any games system the bulk of its sales will always come initially from the sale of its core rulebooks and as the edition ages these are overtaken by supplemental materials such as adventures, settings, campaigns and other entertainment properties.  

Older gamers like myself have seen this pattern repeat itself over many editions of many games systems.  It's similar to the way that movie and tv franchises like Doctor Who, Star Wars, Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica have been rebooted multiple times over many decades.

The rise in popularity of streamed D&D game channels such as Critical Role or Acquisitions Incorporated has changed the audience dynamic,  For some their only experience of D&D is watching it being played by people on Twitch, YouTube etc.  They passively consume the content in exactly the same way as you would a movie.  It is a story from beginning to end and a history of play emerges which becomes canonized episode by episode.

When this audience wants to begin playing their own sessions their desire is to emulate what they have watched, after all it is their only frame of reference.  WotC needs to take this into account and provide a world and a shared canonical history which they can control in order to feed the various different projects that they have planned for this edition of D&D such as movies, books, TV series and merch, merch, merch. 

It's not personal it's just business - The Godfather

If WotC D&D is to make more money then they have to sell more than just rule books.  They have to control their universe to make other properties easy to write and to enable their consumption as passive entertainment.  Good luck to them I say.

So why are some people getting upset about this?

Older players might view this as just one more betrayal in a long list where WotC is taking their beloved franchise and turning it into something else entirely.  We've seen this happen across all of the rebooted movie and TV franchises in recent times but I don't think we are going to see the same voracity or backlash in D&D.

But stop, calm down, put down the keyboard and step away from the monitor...

Everyone's D&D Experience is Different.

Playing D&D is not like watching a movie, reading a book or watching a twitch stream of internet celebrities playing a game of D&D.

When we play D&D we do not play the same game, the choices we make during the game change the story and our experience becomes unique.   How the Dungeon Master brings the story to the table, the characters in the adventure, how the rolls go, how players react to events, everything becomes a unique experience.

With the best will in the world, once those books leave the store, WotC has lost all control of how they are used, interpreted, played, written about, podcasted and most importantly experienced.  Your D&D experience is a product of all the choices and decisions made around your table regardless of what the author, designer, WotC or Hasbro might say.

The D&D Expanded Universe (DDEU) vs My Exapanded Universe (MEU)

WotC is carving out it's DDEU so that it can continue to make products for the coming years.  To me this signals that 5e is here to stay for many years.  It wants to homologate these products into a framework of historical canon which helps its many writers and designers to navigate the confusing and inconsistent waters of a property that has existed across many different editions over the last 5 decades. 

Good for them.

My Epanded Universe will continue to beg, borrow and steal it's material from anything which I have read or watched in my 5 decades.  WotC can't police what I'm doing with it's product, it doesn't dictate what can happen in my games, my players do. 

Good for them.

The Only Thing that Matters is Having Fun

The concept of control strikes at the heart of the recent "Culture Wars" that are ongoing in every hobby and every social or political structure at the moment.  The incessant labelling of ist, ism and phobe being bandied about on the cesspool of social justice that is social media (mostly twitter) is a mask worn by those without imagination and creativity. 

These people play the person and not the ball because they cannot win (control) the argument.  The only way to win the argument is to not play the game by their rules.  The recent debacle with the relaunched TSR is a case in point.

What happens in your game, what rules you specify for the alignment or moral choices made by orcs and dark elves or what frameworks you implement to ensure that your games are internally consistent (or wheelchair accessible) are for you and your players to decide.        

WotC and the horde of blue check mark allies can shout all they want and try to define what is and what isn't D&D.  I am not forced to use what WotC is selling to still play D&D, those books walked out of the store many years ago.  If they sell something I like I might buy it.  If they don't I won't.

In summary the only voices I hear are the ones around my table.  If they don't like something they'll tell me.  If they like something, they will be laughing and having fun.

And that my friends, is all that matters.