Date: February 20, 2015
Characters in attendance: Lady Paladin, 99, Quantum, Shimmer
Experience awarded: 1

After the last game, the young woman that Quantum rescued, Cheryl, stops by the headquarters a couple times a week, usually dropping off some homemade treats. She's really friendly, but not coming on to Quantum (too much). Her grandfather, Ralph, agreed to hold a seminar for Lady Paladin's support meetings, and gave a good presentation on avoiding collateral damage. He mentioned later that it was his granddaughter who convinced him to do it.

On the Saturday afternoon, there was a giant celebration in Providence Park. It was a public celebration of the 80th birthday of Portman, the legendary Portland superhero. His entire family, children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren will all be there, as will the members of his original superhero team, the Rip City Raiders: * Portman - Tom Packer, the leader, and a renowned strongman * Tek-man - Al Bronson, the wiry gadgeteer * Lumber Jack - Jack Cavenaugh, the famed fighter with an axe * Rose - Jill Packer (Tom's wife), a mentalist

The Rose City Five was invited to the celebration, to present Tom with a giant birthday cake and say a few words. The stage in the center of the field at Providence Park was filled with people, and there were many others on the field and in the stands. Portman stood there next to his wife, Rose, and seemed quiet and slow. There was a flyover with a military C130, and the cake was wheeled out as everyone started singing “Happy Birthday”. In the middle of the song, the PA cut out and everyone heard an old raspy voice from it:

“Oh, the mighty Portman and his friends are still alive, living into retirement, acclaimed as heroes. I cannot let this stand, not the great Baron Von Blast. The last images of him will be of his defeat at the hands of my army of robots, the Disco Destructors. It's been forty years, but my army can still lay waste to you pathetic old people, and your families and friends as well.”

At this point, dozens of figures start falling from the C130, and they appear to be robots from the 70's. They land all over the field and start attacking people, bystanders and heroes alike. The robots use old technology and are somewhat fragile, but their attacks are still devastating to the normals. Our team starts taking out the robots, one by one, but there are a lot of them. The older heroes seem confused, but in a moment of clarity, Portman comes to his senses, and takes command just like he had done many times in his past, directing his team and the citizens, and doing what he could to fight the robots. Tek-man doesn't have a handle on the latest technology, but the robots he understands, and works with Lady Paladin to create a device to take several of them out at once. Lumber Jack starts tearing through robots, and Rose uses her TK to move injured civilians off the field so that they can get treatment. There are sixty robots, but eventually they are all taken out, the older heroes and the new team working together.

During the fight, there is a teenage girl on the stage who is attacked by a robot, and a young man on the field who steps up to defend her. It becomes clear that the girl is Tina, Portman and Rose's granddaughter, and the boy is Roland, angry at the robots and Baron Von Blast, who is apparently the Baron's grandson. During the fight, Tek-man creates a gadget that interferes with the C130's controls, making it seem that it had lost power, and the Baron bails out of the plane. He lands in the field, encased in a large, old powered suit. Several of the heroes try attacking the Baron, but Portman warns them off: this is his fight. The two old men fight, and the Baron's suit is torn off and is defeated at Portman's hand. The last great combat of a legendary hero.

Later that week, the team is informed that Portman died peacefully in his sleep, and Rose tells them that he went the way he wanted to.

At the end, the team hears from the girl, Tina, who is worried that Roland (her boyfriend) had disappeared, and she thinks that he was kidnapped.

I had an idea to have an old superhero's birthday party, and have old heroes and villains fighting. That kind of morphed into this fight, using sixty low-powered robots. The robots were pretty weak, and couldn't damage the heroes, but could hurt the normals. I didn't kill off any normals, so the conflict wasn't as tense as I had wanted, but the players took it pretty seriously.

I've been trying to introduce more NPCs into the game, to make up for the fact that the heroes have very few DNPCs. I'm slowly building up the roster.

Disco Destructoid

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