Pirates of the Mesozoic:Main

A team of cryptid hunters are transported into a world of Aztecs, dinosaurs, pirates, and UFOs.

Setting

A team of cryptid hunters are transported into a strange alien world, where they encounter Aztecs, cowboys, dinosaurs, pirates, and UFOs. Along the way, they are merged with alternate versions of themselves from other times, other places. How will they survive in this weird new world? And will they ever get home?

Bulletproof Blues RPG

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  Doctor Anna Lanteigne (Atalanta the Huntress)
   PDF Character Sheet
   
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  Captain John Harrows (Harold "Little" John, Spark of Albia)
   PDF Character Sheet
   
• 

  Francisco (Iskolander the Ifrit)
   PDF Character Sheet
   
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  John Erlang (Erlang Shen the True Lord and Illustrious Sage)
   PDF Character Sheet
   
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  Michael McLoughlin (Mac Lochlainn the Viking Sage From Outer Space)
   PDF Character Sheet
   

Game Sessions

2019-05-28

A team of cryptid hunters in their outside broadcast vehicle are transported to a strange new world, inhabited by pirates, dinosaurs, murderous machines, and cowboys.

After narrowly escaping being killed by a prehistoric crinoid and a genuine dinosaur, they meet Sam Winston, who invites them to accompany him to Tranquility -- the closest thing to civilization within a day's travel. Leaving the broadcast truck behind (it's sitting in about eight feet of water), they start the trek to Tranquility.

YouTube recording of game session

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  Sam Winston, helpful cowboy

2019-06-04

The gang reaches the town of Tranquility, where they meet Barthan the provisioner, Tandy the bartender, Doctor Su, and Sheriff Hood. They start making themselves at home, while becoming aware that their memories are more complicated than they used to be. They attract the attention of Jakob, one of Edgelord's gang, but they embarass him and then send him on his way...

YouTube recording of game session

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  Rose Hood, sheriff of Tranquility
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  Tandy Schatzman, bartender at the Red Dog Saloon
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  Doctor Su, medical doctor of Tranquility
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  Sam Winston, editor of the Tranquility Tribune

2019-06-11

The gang heads out into the wilds to try and find Emmet, who has gone missing. They discover that he has been abducted by ant people. Along the way, John Erlang gets in touch with his inner Chinese deity, and Michael is nearly eaten by crocobats.

YouTube recording of game session

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  Miss Veronica, proprietor of the Bittersweet Tea Room
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  Randall Coburn, mayor of Tranquility

2019-06-18

The gang rescues Emmet -- along with two Aztecs and a Roman legionary named Marcus -- from the ant people. The Aztecs take off as soon as the group is safely away from the ant people nest, but Marcus accompanies therm back to Tranquility. They are hailed as heroes!

Later that day, they interrupt a "trial" -- Edgelord and his gang have tied Sam Winston to a post outside the newspaper office, and intend to whip him for "trading with the enemy" -- the Zhou Dynasty Chinese town of Wangguo. A brief scuffle ensues, as the good guys take down Edgelord's gang with ease. Edgelord himself proves to be more of a problem, but eventually they deal with him, and are hailed as heroes (again).

YouTube recording of game session

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  Randall Coburn, mayor of Tranquility
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  Cyril Frank, aka "Edgelord"
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  Rose Hood, sheriff of Tranquility
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  Marcus, Stoic former Roman legionary
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  Tandy Schatzman, bartender at the Red Dog Saloon
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  Emmet Wayne, prospector
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  Sam Winston, editor of the Tranquility Tribune

2019-06-25

The Smith Gang (which is how the townsfolk have started referring to the PCs) settle into their lives in Tranquility. Captain Harrows builds a couple of robots, which then start building better robots. Doctor Anna kills and drags back a Parasaurolophus and uses it to make soap. Isko plays piano at the Red Dog Saloon. Michael works on making bullets, while teaching his new apprentice Jack the basics of blacksmithing. John Erlang flies on his cloud to reconnoiter the local area, finding cities of Aztecs, robots, and pirates. John Erlang also introduces himself to the Zhou city of Wangguo. He has tea with General Hu, the governor of Wangguo, and Moshu Shi, a Taoist magician.

Later, Sheriff Hood asks them to look over the belongings that Edgelord left behind: a phone and a tablet (both solar powered), a chest full of gold and silver, a pistol, and a small vial of blue liquid that they eventually identify as a nanite swarm that can temporarily make someone invisible.

While investigating the phone, they discover that Edgelord had been corresponding with someone calling themselves the Black Spider. It appears that the Black Spider has sinister designs on the town of Tranquility.

YouTube recording of game session

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  Jack Black, former gunslinger, apprentice blacksmith
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  General Hu, military governor of Wangguo
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  Moshu Shi, Taoist magician, Wangguo

2019-07-02

The Smith Gang makes contact with the Black Spider, and learns that the Black Spider works for someone called the Hag of Crag Keep. The Hag of Crag Keep apparently has designs on the town of Tranquility -- she wants the Thinking Machine. This may be connected to black knights which attempted to take control of the town's main source of fresh water. The Black Spider does not have a description of the Thinking Machine -- all they have is a riddle.

I can be played but I'm not a game
I have keys but I don't have any locks
I have hammers but I don't have any nails
I have pedals but I'm not a bicycle
I can be tuned but I'm not a radio

The gang finds the Thinking Machine, which is a player piano (constructed in the Martian city of Schiaparelli in 2417) located in the Red Dog Saloon. They name it Georgie and promise to play it.

Later, a Tyrannosaurus rex attacks the town, but the Smith Gang drives it away.

YouTube recording of game session

Fun facts about Tranquility!

The town of Tranquility, New Mexico was once located mid-way between El Paso and Tuscon. It was home to over a thousand good people, and a handful of people who were not quite so good. In 1873, during a freak storm, the town was transported to the Outland. That was nearly ten years ago. The town now has around 300 residents -- most of the original population died during the first few months after the town's appearance in Outland.

Tranquility has a relatively diverse population:

• around 60% (~180) white Americans (some of whom can speak Spanish, and a handful of whom can speak Athabascan)
• around 15% (~45) black Americans (some of whom can speak Spanish, and a handful of whom can speak Athabascan)
• around 15% (~45) Mexicans (all of whom can speak English in addition to Spanish, and a handful of whom can speak Athabascan)
• around 5% (~15) Native Americans (primarily Apache, most of whom can speak English in addition to Athabascan -- the native language of most of the town's Native American inhabitants)
• around 5% (~15) Chinese people (most of whom can speak English in addition to the Taishanese dialect of Chinese)

2019-07-09

General Hu arrives at Tranquility with a platoon of soldiers. The Smith Gang is asked by General Hu to find and retrieve an item that was stolen from Wongguo by some criminals from Tranquility. They track down Carlos and Jakob, destroying a stone golem the thieves had somehow summoned and killing Carlos in the gunfight. Jakob is taken back to Wongguo, where he will face one of the Five Punishments.

YouTube recording of game session

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  Jakob Esparza, gunslinger
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  General Hu, military governor of Wangguo
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  Moshu Shi, Taoist magician, Wangguo

2019-07-16

The Smith Gang heads back to Tranquility. Captain Harrows is making progress. His first generation robots have built second generation robots, which have completed the water purification plant. This is good news, because there are now dozens of dread guards blocking access to the town's well (which is located about five miles west of town), and they are lead by a dread guard commander. Captain Harrows constructs an explosive device which takes out all of the dread guard, and Isko makes short work of the dread guard commander.

In the sky far above the town, the Hag of Crag Keep uses her vroom broom for some skywriting... SURRENDER THE THINKING MACHINE. John Erlang flies up and attacks the vroom broom, damaging it and causing the Hag of Crag Keep to lose control momentarily. However, she regains control and flies away (discretion being the better part of valor).

YouTube recording of game session

2019-07-23

The Smith Gang heads north to find and rescue townsfolk who have been kidnapped by the Tenochca (the Aztecs of Chicomoztoc). Will the gang reach the townsfolk before the Tenochca sacrifice them?

YouTube recording of game session

2019-07-30

The Smith Gang returns to Tranquility with their rescued friends, only to discover that the Hag Of Crag Keep has poisoned the town's grain with ergot! Hundreds of people are desperately ill. Fortunately, Isko (with the aid of Doctor Su) is able to heal them, and no one dies.

The Smith Gang has had enough -- it's time to take the fight to the Hag Of Crag Keep. Captain Harrows and his automata construct a land vehicle out of the remains of the mobile broadcast van, and the team heads north. They pass the Valley Of The Floating Mesas, see many strange sights, and reach the edge of the Haunted Forest. Far in the distance, they can see their destination: Crag Keep.

The land machine can't make it through the Haunted Forest, and the harpies circling Crag Keep would make flying there unwise. They decide to stop at a small inn: the House Of The Dragon. The wreaths of garlic in the windows give them some pause -- and then they are attacked by scores of Utahraptors! The battle is a pitched one, and the land machine is damaged, but they make it inside the inn to safety. The innkeeper welcomes them warmly.

"Welcome to my house! Enter freely. Go safely, and leave something of the happiness you bring."

YouTube recording of game session

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  Doctor Su, medical doctor of Tranquility
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  Harrows Automaton, Mk2
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  Vlad, Innkeeper at the House Of The Dragon

2019-09-10

As the innkeeper's staff cleans up the mess from the battle, and Isko treats the gang's wounds, they notice something strange. The dead dinosaurs are not dinosaurs at all: they are horseflies, each about the size of a loaf of bread. More than that, they have a brain-like growth where their eyes should be. Michael does a quick dissection, and determines that the insects have been taken over by some kind of fungal parasite.

A group of people from a futuristic frontier settlement take refuge in the inn, and ask the gang for help. A band of cyber-orcs ("cyborcs!" exclaims Captain Harrows) has been attacking the settlement's livestock. The gang mounts up on the land machine and heads to the nearby settlement, Northwood's Rest.

The gang quickly determines that the livestock raids are the work of the same fungal-infected horseflies that attacked them at the House Of The Dragon -- and that everyone who has come in contact with them is infected!

YouTube recording of game session

2019-09-17

The Smith Gang tracks down the source of the psychotropic parasitic fungus-infected horseflies. It's a crashed spaceship! And it appears to have been in a collision with a different spaceship. They deal with the fungus, but first they have to destroy a fungal giant, which may have once been Joshua MacGregor.

They also make diplomatic overtures to a band of cyborg orcs.

YouTube recording of game session

2019-09-24

The Smith Gang arranges a truce between the cyber-orcs and the futuristic settlers (with the support of the respected settler Olaf MacGregor), then heads into the Haunted Forest. They encounter some strange apparitions (including some friendly but immobile mushrooms), but manage to avoid any real danger until they encounter Gutwrench, a four meter tall abomination made out of corpses and toxic alchemy. Gutwrench is no match for our heroes, however, and they reach the edge of the Haunted Forest. Ahead of them stretches a winding stone causeway. Far beyond rises the spectre of Crag Keep....

YouTube recording of game session

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  Olaf MacGregor, futuristic settler

2019-10-01

The Smith Gang moves forward onto the causeway to Crag Keep. Along the way, they encounter several patrols of dread guard, but dispatch them without much difficulty. They encounter a few squads of dread guard commanders, as well, but even those are no match for the gang.

Halfway to the keep, they find a town in which everyone has been turned to stone. Investigation reveals a metal-and-crystal obelisk at the edge of the town, which pulses with a strange energy. Erring on the side of caution, they destroy it, ending the threat it poses to anyone else who enters the town. For the townsfolk already turned to stone, alas, nothing can be done.

At last, they reach the drawbridge to Crag Keep. It is a huge structure, built to resemble a fanged mouth, windows like malevolent eyes above it. On guard are two more of the hag's skeleton guards: the dread guard doorkeepers! Fast talking by Captain Harrows sends them to retrieve the Hag Of Crag Keep, and the gang enters uncontested.

However, Crag Keep is enormous. Since they know which room Georgie the player piano is being held in (from the outside), the decide to fly up to it, instead of trying to find a way to it from the inside. They land, where they find Georgie -- and a trap! Orson the Vulture is prepared for them, and cancels all of their powers!

... except those of Michael, who uses a Viking Jedi mind trick to get Orson to release them. He does. Michael then compels Orson to tell them if he can be trusted. He can't. So Isko kills him (narrowly beating out Erlang, who was planning to do the same thing).

The question now is... how do they get Georgie, who is chained to the floor with massive chains, out of here?

YouTube recording of game session

2019-10-15

At long last, the Smith gang faces the Hag Of Crag Keep! After a brief battle, the Hag herself sues for parley, and the Smith Gang accedes. They negotiate for a bit, but eventually she agrees to release Georgie the AI player piano if the Smith Gang retrieves the Eye Of Odin for her.

Map and drawing of the Eye of Odin in hand, they head back to Tranquility to return Georgie, and then head into the Madlands to seek the Eye Of Odin.

After traveling for a few days, they find the Eye Of Odin in a ruined hospital. They discover that the Eye Of Odin is actually an ultra-advanced holographic display unit. The gang proceeds to disassemble it and prepare it for transport --if they can get it out of the hospital.

YouTube recording of game session

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  Hag Of Crag Keep
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  Orson the Vulture, duplicitous henchman
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  Sharon the Bat, mentally deficient henchman

2019-10-23

(This game takes place in the middle of the 2019-10-15 game, before the gang left Tranquility to find the Eye Of Odin.)

The Smith gang packs up their hovercraft and heads into the mountains to rescue an ankylosaur from lizard people. Along the way, they meet a goblin inventor named Grimbles Cogknob, destroy a crop of mind-controlling flowers, kill a few lizard people, trap the lizard people (at least temporarily) in a hidden valley, and foil the plans of an evil wizard.

Captain Harrows gets a spunky teenage assistant tinkerer named Tye (a nickname; her name is Ottilie Harrington). Michael gets several samples of a plant which has tubers that are high in sucrose and flowers that produce a pollen which enslaves the will.

YouTube recording of game session

• 

  Izaxar the Ice Wizard
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  Ottilie "Tye" Harrington

Useful Links

• 10 Special North American Dinosaurs
• 23 Exceptional Prehistoric Creatures
• China, 500–1000 A.D.
• Chinese name generator
• Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period
• Mandarin Chinese Pinyin Pronunciation Guide

• Character page template -- "View source", copy the code, and paste it in your own character page
• Secure Dice
• The simplest possible guide to writing Mediawiki

{{#vardefine:campaignname|Pirates of the Mesozoic}} {{#vardefine:campaigncategory|Fantasy}} {{#vardefine:campaignmoderator|bblackmoor}}

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