Season of the Witch: Episode 1

Episode 1: Semi-Charmed Life

Episode 1: Semi-Charmed Life by ~WebWarlock on deviantART

Semi-Charmed Life
Summer 2004

Overview: Willow and Tara join forces with the Charmed Ones to stop D’hoffryn from becoming the new Source.

Synopsis: Willow and Tara are on vacation in San Francisco when they decide to stop in an auction house selling items from the Victorian Occult revival. While there they notice many demons and witches passing as normal humans. A book catches Tara’s eye and the director of the auction tells her she should buy it. The book is “The Journal of Tamara Swift”. The girls also notice another item up for a bid, a talisman believed to be owned by Madame Blavatsky, but Willow notices it as the Heart of Belial, a potent demonic artifact.
They bid on the items and win the Journal, but the Heart goes to a very attractive woman (who reminds them of Cordelia). The auction director tells the girls that the Heart has fallen into the hands of evil and they have to stop it. She says she could not do anything herself, but tells Willow and Tara that they need to find her sisters, The Charmed Ones. She tells them her name is Prue Halliwell.

At the same time at the Halliwell Manor Piper is frantic about trying to juggle new baby Chris and still dealing with P3 scheduling nightmares (she is trying to get Michelle Branch back), Phoebe is rushing off to work and Paige is reading the want ads. In the middle of all this chaos, Prue appears and tells them that the “Charmed Ones” (but not “you” or “my sisters”) are in danger. Everyone panics, and Leo says he wants to talk to the only other witch he knows that has come back from the dead.

Leo finds Willow and Tara and takes them to the Halliwell manor. Leo knew Tara when she was in Heaven and she asks him about Kara. Willow wants to know why she does not have a Whitelighter and Leo tells her it was because she was using magic for personal gain and on a tract towards evil.

Meantime the demon (Kira the Seer) who purchased the Heart of Belial shimmers into the underworld. Where she meets with D’Hoffryn. She give the Heart to him commenting that every demon from the source on down that has fought the Charmed Ones has gotten a bad case of being dead. D’hoffryn replies that is why he is not going to fight them, he has something more subtle in mind. Kira also lets him know that Willow and Tara are also in town. D’Hoffryn comments that this must mean that the Awakening is about to occur. He take the Heart and begins to chant his spell.

At the Halliwell Manor the five witches discuss what this all must mean. They look up the Heart in the both The Book of Shadows and in the Journal of Tamara Swift. They discover that it is the actual heart of the demon Belial and it had been in the possession of the former Protector of Albion, John Dee and assumed to be destroyed by later Protector Tamara Swift. The Heart allows it’s possessor to manipulate time. The Halliwells immediately trust Tara and Willow when they go to the Book of Shadows and can open it.
Suddenly Phoebe and Willow disappear and are replaced by Paradox Sisters. Everyone believes that everything is completely normal, including the fact that Paradox Phoebe and Paradox Willow do not have magic (and thus no Charmed Ones power of three or Willow and Tara’s combined Anamchara magic). Tara attempts to hold Willow’s hand and going in a kiss, which causes Willow to pull back in shock. Paradox Willow is straight. At the same time the Book of Shadows refuses to be around Phoebe. Leo orbs out to consult with the underworld (he still does not trust the other Elders). The witches have no time to figure out why though, they are attacked by the warlocks Hannah and Rex.

Taking advantage of Leo's absence the warlocks attack. As in Season 1 of Charmed they try to steal the Charmed Ones powers. The battle goes badly given the depowered nature of the cast and it looks like they are about to gain their quarry, Wyatt’s vast untapped power, when Hannah is hit by an arc of Elder lighting. Thinking is it Leo the Cast is surprised (as are the Players) when it is revealed to be Prue. A wounded Hannah and Rex shimmer out.

In the Underworld Leo find real Willow and real Phoebe, but they are in a temporal bubble and their powers are being drained. Once he sees them Leo remembers who they are. He attacks D’Hoffryn who tosses him around like a rag doll. He hits him with lighting of his own and he disappears. D’Hoffryn tells Phoebe that he was removed from all time. Rex and Hannah shimmer in and D’Hoffryn kills them by tossing them across the room. Willow and Phoebe tell D’Hoffryn it is only a matter of time before they are found by their loved ones. D’Hoffryn tells them that they are not even looking.

At the manor everyone knows there something wrong. Tara feels a loss she can’t explain and is getting very concerned and Paradox Willow is depressed. Paradox Phoebe is angry because she is only here because her flight back to New York was delayed and she hates being involve in all this “magic stuff”. But everyone is more concerned with Prue returning. Thinking that the Heart of Belial must be at the root of this, the witches try to scry for it, but no success.

Phoebe, an empath, combines her magic with Willow to try to get a message out. Phoebe tries to get it Piper, but Willow’s thoughts are too strong on Tara. Tara, also an empath, gets the message.

The three witches and the paradox sisters are orbed to the underworld by Prue. D’Hoffryn is in the middle of some spells surrounded by demons in robes. Everyone sees real Phoebe and real Willow in the bubble, but can’t reach them. The Charmed Ones and Prue attack the demons, Tara tries to get to Willow and Phoebe. Paradox Willow and Paradox Phoebe remain in the background, mostly forgotten.

The Demons are fought and killed and Tara and Phoebe figure out a way to break the time bubble. Once that is done the Charmed Ones power back up, as do Willow and Tara. The remaining priest demons are then easily vanquished. Paige hurls a vanquishing potion at D’Hoffryn but it has no effect. He has become the new Source of All Evil. He throws a fireball at Prue but Paradox Phoebe pushes her out of the way and takes the full blast, exploding into ashes. Prue attacks D’Hoffryn with her lighting. This leaves the cast (and the players) to figure out what to do next. They decide to try a modified version of the Power of Three spell, only this one is a Power of Five. All five witches link hands, even Paradox Willow puts her hands on top of Tara’s and Willow’s linked hands, and they summon the power of the witches in their family line. The spell takes hold and strikes down D’Hoffryn, destroying him and the Heart of Belial. Leo reappears, but Paradox Willow remains.

At the end of the episode the cast, with Prue and Paradox Willow, are at P3. Michelle Branch is back.
The women toast to their new friends and family and promise to always help each other in the future. Paradox Willow wonders why she is still here and all they can think of is there must be some magic left over from the Heart. Willow discovers that Paradox Phoebe has an apartment still in New York so Paradox Willows figure she will go there since she has always wanted to sing on stage. They raise a toast to their “lost sister” Phoebe Bennet and Prue gets ready to leave. Prue does tell Willow that her case was “reviewed” again by the other Elders and they have decided to give her and Tara a Whitelighter on a “probationary” basis. Prue orbs out and Cordelia Chase orbs in with a “You have got to be kidding me!”

Tara, laughing, opens up the Journal of Tamara Swift and a letter falls out. It is address to “Misses Tara Maclay and Willow Rosenberg”. It was written by Tamara in 1889.

Epiloge
Kira is on her knees picking through the dust that was D’Hoffryn till she finds a small rock. Saying “that will do” she holds it and concentrates. Cole half shimmers in. She hands him the rock, all that is left of the Heart of Belial, and tells him she kept up her side of the deal now he was going to tell her how she can come back from the wasteland after Zankou kills her in a few months.

Notes and Comments

Well as the first official episode I had a lot of setup I wanted to do here, but not beat people over the head with it. I mention the Awakening only once and we learn that Tara’s mother was named Megan and her Grandmother Deidre.

I wanted a “witchier” feel to this season than Buffy, so there are lots of elements from various witch shows to guide the players in; Buffy, Charmed, Hex, Ghosts of Albion even little bits of Practical Magic. Then there is the letter to the girls from Tamara, big stuff is in store. Plus I also touch on the theme of nothing is more important than the people you love.

In many ways Charmed is seen as the antithesis of Buffy. So what better way to seperate "Willow & Tara the Series" from Buffy than to have a Charmed crossover.  And not just a crossover, but show Buffy characters aspiring to becoming more Charmed-like. D'Hoffryn becoming The Source, Willow wanting a Whitelighter, Cordy becoming a Whitelighter.

I used Andrew Pergine’s Charmed netbook for the Girls stats, even if I am not 100% sold on his point breakdowns for Whitelighters.

I brought in some Charmed bad guys, Rex and Hannah, and Buffy bad guy D’Hoffryn making a claim to Source. In truth D’Hoffryn would make a bad ass Source, too bad he did the one thing you should never, ever do in my games; piss of a witch.  Here is D'Hoffryn's entry in the Halliwell Book of Shadows.  It mentions that there is no known vanquishing potion for him (Willow would have been able to figure one out back in the old series) but that does not stop the cast from trying one.

Charisma Carpenter gets double duty here both as Cordy the new Whitelighter and as Kira the Seer. I wanted to bring back Cordy because I felt her character got shafted in the show. Not as bad as Tara, but still. Plus she also makes a good foil for Willow, I bring in Tara’s foil later. And let’s be totally honest here, Charima Carpenter is hot.

Of course Paradox Phoebe and Paradox Willow are from my Sisters of Paradox post. They were developed for this adventure. http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2009/11/sisters-of-paradox.html

Paradox Willow living at the end was homage by us to our friend and fellow Kitten Bob Black who came up with the idea originally and he had Paradox Willow live. Paradox Phoebe dies to save Prue which I felt was good because it should that even though that Paradox Phoebe hated Prue they were still sisters and you do anything to help a family member or loved one.

Plus it also became something of an in-joke in my group. If you are playing the Buffy RPG and your Willow is straight then it obviously means you are using the "Riff Reagan" version.

The playable characters were Phoebe (and Paradox Phobe, same player), Piper, Paige, Willow (and Paradox Willow, same player) and Tara. Originally Prue was also going to be a playable character, but it never really worked out. I also had a sub-plot with Andy returning, but it was too much.

This was also the only episode where I made a "cover" image.  You will note that the "Buffy RPG" logo is dropped and a "Willow & Tara RPG" logo is in it's place.  I figure that if you run a modern supernatural game using Ghosts of Albion as the source and the Buffy books as the splats, then what you have is the "Willow & Tara Roleplaying Game".  Made sense to me.

Here is the back cover:

Kara was of course Tara's "Sister" from the Dragon and the Phoenix, Megan was her mother and Deidre her Grandmother.  Originally it was the other way around, but Lisa had Megan as Tara's mother in all her work, so I switched them.  Pru was not a Player-Character at the time, so I felt it was not right to have her there to defeat the bad guy.

The rest of this season was not as finished as "The Dragon and the Phoenix", often times all I had were some rough notes.  Plus my regular group of players was getting less regular.  I was also moving to a new group and running more Ghosts of Albion.  Some of these adventures then had their origin as something that could be run under Buffy or Ghosts.

Originally these were to follow right after "Dragon" but there was a lot of time inbetween, so there is a break of one year game time between the last episode of Dragon ("No Other Troy") and "Semi-Charmed Life".

Next up the girls go to London to confront their past and future. Plus one more guest star makes a surprising appearance.

Willow and Tara: Season of the Witch

So what is "Willow and Tara: Season of the Witch"?

Well for starters Season of the Witch had three major purposes. First was to show that Willow and Tara could hold a series on their own. I think I showed that well enough in "The Dragon and the Phoenix", but I really wanted to emphasize that here. So to that end there was a format change from the Original Series. To force our hand I decided that we could not even say the words "Buffy" or "Vampire", though vampires I was not so successful with. I have a cut scene near the end of the series when a witch hunter comes to town. She is surrounded by a pack of vampires, then with out a word at all she cuts them all down. I figured in that case I was also further distancing myself from the Original Series since I showed that slaying vampires was no big deal. The other was one I just couldn't help doing and that was Vampire Tara. More on those two though when the time is right.

The second major purpose of this series was to have no big bad.

That's right, none. The Big Bad formula was getting old. Every season on the Original Series was a Big Bad that had to up the ante on the last one. What was next? Galactus? So instead I came up with this idea of the Awakening. Now I kept the Awakening vague for most of the series simply because I also didn't know what it was! I knew it was something that all the magical factions in the world were looking upon with fear, uncertainty and doubt. I knew that Tara's parents discovered the most recent clues about it in 1976. And I knew it dealt with Willow and Tara directly.

In the end, like some of these kinds of things it was a convergence of many ideas into a whole. Which gets to my third major purpose.

The third thing I wanted to do with the series, and this is mostly tangential, is I wanted to work in features from other games. You saw this as my big conversion efforts. Season of the Witch began with elements from WitchCraft and Ghosts of Albion, but I began working in the concepts from other, mostly supernatural horror, games into it. This was not part of the plot, only as a means to give a fuller experience of a much larger world. The Original Series was very narrow in it's focus, something I did not realize till I started to take the series apart. Like in The Dragon and the Phoenix, I wanted the players to feel they were part of a larger world and they did not live in a vacuum. In Season of the Witch there are other things going on, there are other factions, other players and other threats and allies. To help me out I borrowed from other games. There are factions from Mage the Awakening, SAVE from Chill. The Bureau is loosely based on various government bodies found in Conspiracy X, DarkMatter, Bureau 13 and Delta Green. This helped shape the world they lived in, not just some small corner of Southern California.

But this got me thinking, how is that all these games where "magic is real but hidden" work? How is it that magic can stay hidden when there are so many vampire related killings? Are all cops on the take? What is happening? How can this keep going on? And then the answer became clear. It can't. If you read Chill and WitchCraft you get the idea that long ago magic was more common. Then something happened that caused it to be less common. Now something is happening again to make more common. Both Chill and WitchCraft say supernatural occurrences are on the rise. But even the average 2-3 games of WitchCraft have more supernatural things going on than an entire campaign of Chill. Which is fine IF you consider there is 20 years separating them. Then look at Armageddon, 2018 magic and the supernatural are out and in the open. I had my answer.

The Awakening is the falling of the Veil between our world and the magical one. After the awakening we will be living in a world were magic is real and everyone knows about it.

The characters have to decide whether or not this is a good thing and which of the factions working for/against them they can trust if any.

But I also needed to stay true to my first major purpose; Willow and Tara. So if the world was going to go full on magic, or not, something needs to happen to these two as well. Given the research I was doing, and again taking an idea from my contributor and playtester Lisa Countryman, I decided that Willow and Tara were also going to become the first Mages.

Exactly what a Mage is will detailed soon.

Characters

Obviously Willow and Tara, but that is almost too small of a group. But still all I had them in was Bob's '67 Ford Thunderbird. I needed to be very clever or lucky. I was both.

The other main character was Robert Maclay, Tara's father. He was a ghost ala Ghosts of Albion (I'll post his stats soon). He had been the team leader back in '76 so his insight was needed. He also had the whole repentant thing going, he needed to prove to his daughter that he was not really a heartless bastard. Well. He was, but he had his reasons, and those reasons are the same ones why he did not want Tara in Sunnydale, that he lied to her for years and inventiblly why her mother died.

Plus if you were a young lesbian on a road trip with your girlfriend who is the last person you want tagging along? That's right the ghost of your strict and very conservative father! He made it in on comedy alone!

I also needed another character. For this I needed someone with fighting ability. I love Willow and Tara, but in physical combat they suck. Bob is fine, as long as whomever he is hitting is also a supernatural creature. A mundane can't be hit by him, hell they can't even see him. So I needed some one with some firepower, some physical ability to fight, and someone that could fit in a convertible with two other people.

I considered using Ms. Kitty as High Bast, but truth be told, I dismissed it as soon as came up with it. No good reason, and even while typing this now I can't think of a reason not to do it. But it wasn't what I wanted really.

In the end I went with another character I felt got shafted, Cordelia, as a Charmed style White Lighter. It fit really. I had a Charmed crossover coming up. I had already used her once in "Will We Burn in Heaven?" and the Ascension quality I gave her was not very different than the White Lighter one. She could pop in and out as needed and then didn't have to be in the car the whole time. I gave Cordy other "charges" to explain why she could not get them out of every mess. And the girls needed to drive to recreate Bob and Megan's (Tara's mother) original mission. Plus, and lets be really honest here, Charisma Carpenter is hot.

Willow and Tara get Bob's car and Megan's journal/Book of Shadows (things that can help them or be stolen if I need them to be) and the adventure is ready to begin!

Here is my original outline for the season:

Main plot is witchcraft and magic. With seasonal issues of family.

Season of the Witch - Cinematic game set in 2003-2005. Set in the same universe as "The Dragon and the Phoenix". Heavy WitchCraft RPG elements (with many elements from "Ghosts of Albion").

Willow and Tara travel back to Tara's home town for the funereal of her father. While there they discover that Robert and Megan Mclay (Tara's parents) were involved with a secret society of hunters of the supernatural. Visited by Robert's ghost, Willow and Tara retrace the steps of Robert and Megan's failed 1976-1980 mission. Tara's mom had a vision of the world in Chaos, magic open and running amok. Thousand's kill themselves in crises of faith, others began to hunt down and kill witches.

Watching them are the Government (the Bureau), SAVE, the Daughters of the Flame, the Witches Committee and Lilith. All know about the "Awakening", or a fundamental change in the nature of magic. Most believe it means magic will be exposed (it has already begun).

The Awakening: Magic is going to be exposed. The various groups, Cleaners, Guardians, Protectors all know this and there is nothing they can do to stop it. But Willow and Tara are going to give it a try.

This will certainly throw society into chaos. To stop it the girls need to shut down several key portals. Willow & Tara stumble on this reality and learn that Tara's mother and father, while working for a small team of psychic investigators discovered this in 1976. Now 30 years later the prophecies are coming true.

FACTIONS:

The Witches' Committee wants this to happen and are poised to take control in the ensuing chaos. Human witches.

Lillith wants to keep the status quo since she knows that the mundanes will turn on witches and slaughter them. Lillith runs "L Enterprises". (have a report of how W&H were destroyed by her). She is running the auction in San Francisco. Approached by Lillith. Anya is there, she is now divorced and working for Lillith. Lillith does not reveal all her plans yet.

Governmental Bodies. The Bureau (introduced last season) is working on a "final solution" for the problems with magic and demons. Bob knew of them, but never trusted them. Of course they want to stop the awakening as well, but have other plans too.

Daughters of the Flame. This group of witches has a different view on what the Awakening means and they are convinced it has to do with Willow and Tara specifically.

RESOURCES: Cordy, Bob Mclay, Megan's journal.

NOTE: I do not remember who originally did that image above. It was a desktop image that I most certainly downloaded from the Kitten Board. I added the text myself later. If the creator sees this then please contact me for your proper credit or removal of the pic.

The Dragon and the Phoenix: wrap-up

The Dragon and the Phoenix ran for 13 episodes and it was great fun.

We set out to show we could tell a great story and even a better one than the source material and I think we succeeded.
Here are some random things we learned while writing and playing these episodes.

Their first semester living together Willow and Tara arranged their schedules to always be near each other.

They also rearranged classes so they could both come home during the day to watch "Jerry Springer" though they told everyone else it was so they could watch PBS.

Tara's first meal back as a human? Chicago style deep dish pizza. She tried crawfish etouffee but discovered she was in fact still allergic to shellfish.

Tara does not drink at all. She has smoked some pot in the past (mostly highschool) but no longer.

While Willow was in high school she discovered some old journals of Jenny Calendar where she talked about being "outrageously bisexual" with her roommate in college. It made her feel more comfortable about her own questioning sexuality.

Dawn has walked in on Willow and Tara having sex 4 times. Xander has walked in on them 0 times.

Willow can disco. It is not something she is proud of or even talks about, but her father (a HUGE Saturday Night Fever fan) taught Willow how to dance when she was little, she remembers it all to this day.

Willow is ambidextrous, she can write equally well with either hand.

Tara hates ponies. She loves to ride horses but thinks ponies are evil.

Tara has a set of witchcraft ritual tools. She prefers to cast rituals with her athame when she can. Tara discovered that Willow is also capable of using Tara's ritual tools (not something that is normally done).

The Cast has both memories of Tara and memories of her sister Kara. Generally there is no conflict with these.

Tara's mother was named Megan, her grandmother Deidre. Her father's name was Robert. Tara's middle name in Ann. Her brother would tease her and call her "Annie", to this day she hates the name and will not use it.

Dawn knew she was psychic as early as Episode 1. In the finale she was given a glimpse of her futures as well. One where she was a doctor and another where she becomes a physicist.

Anya and Xander split up after a couple of months. They do not get divorced until some time later. I toyed with the idea of Anya also being pregnant and might still do that.

Buffy begins dating the police officer Tony Foster. In one possible future shown by the Mouth of Leviathan she and Tony are married.

Spike is not seen or heard from again. He is rumored to be "alive" somewhere.

Clem the Demon can do complex mathematical calculations in his head.

Giles had a religious upbringing. While his mother was a duty-bound English Watcher, his father was a Irish Catholic. Giles was brought up in both the Catholic and Angelican churches. No wonder he rebelled.

Luna the Seraphim was one of my D&D characters from back in the day. Her original character sheet says she was rolled up in 1982.

Charmed influences abounded. Rack was a "Charmed" style Warlock and had no soul. He was in fact stealing powers from the magical kids in his thrall. Cordy had become a Whitelighter.

The plane of Leviathan was taken from the Monster Smackdown book, it was augmented based on the old Dragon Magazine adventure "Nogard", the demonic wasteland from Charmed and the last planet in the Heavy Metal movie. Leviathan himself is Leviathan from Armageddon. He is demonic as well as a mad god due to all the demonic "souls" he has been feeding on over the millennia.

We took a break and then went into the next season of episodes, Season of the Witch,  those were not as playtested as much.

I'll post the Season of the Witch reports starting next year I think.  Holidays coming and all.

The Dragon and the Phoenix: Episode 12

Episode 12: No Other Troy

Yoln: You brought an army to stop me Slayer?
Buffy: No. I brought two.
- Willow and Tara: The Dragon and the Phoenix, Episode 12 “No Other Troy”

Episode 12: No Other Troy by ~WebWarlock on deviantART

Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great.
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?

- William Butler Yeats, No Second Troy

Oh, I love you
God, I love you
I'd kill a dragon for you
I'll die
But I will rise
And I will return
The Phoenix from the flame
I have learned
I will rise
And you'll see me return
Being what I am
There is no other Troy
For me to burn
- Sinéad O'Connor, Troy

No time, no date (Cast returns on May 19, 2003. Monday)

The cast leads an army of demons and an army of angels to Leviathan’s plane, but they discover it may require the death of one of their own to seal the portal forever. Release the souls of all the Slayer’s Leviathan has been feeding on for years. Buffy must defeat Yoln, but Willow and Tara must find a way to stop a God on his home realm.

Story Arc Elements: Willow and Tara are shown their pasts and futures by the Mouth of Leviathan, how everything they have done was constructed to bring them to this point to allow Leviathan to enter this realm. Leviathan had meant for Willow to be his instrument to be powerful enough to allow him to enter this realm. Tara was the factor he did not count on, her influence was turning Willow away from the path she was on to one more in balance with magic. Without Tara, Leviathan will enter the realm through Willow at anytime he chooses.

Game Mechanics: Stats for various Slayers from the past. Dragons.
Soundtrack: Sinead O’Connor “Drink Before the War” and "Troy".  Megadeth “A Tout Le Monde”, Sarah Maclachlan “Elsewhere”

Notes and Comments:
This is the big one. The finale. Designed to be both the series finale for “Buffy” and the start of a new spin-off series “Willow & Tara” and there is a lot going on.

Let’s start with the big stuff. The Cast comes through Dawn’s rift using the Spear as a guide. It takes them to a cave in an outcropping overlooking a valley. A valley filled with demons (40,000 to be exact), when they see Buffy they all begin to shout “Slayer! Slayer!” It was quite a visual.

The first act of course is to get a grip on this new demonic army. The leaders are the Mormo demons from before. The cast is also joined by a smaller, but no less effective, army of angels. Among them is Kara, who has taken Tara’s place in the armies of Heaven. In fact she has surpassed even Tara’s previous achievements. Once the cast can convince the demons and angels to fight together against the forces of Leviathan then the action begins.

For the battles I used the Army of Darkness mass combat rules with Buffy as the general, but I made sure everyone had a chance to shine.
Upon entering the realm of Leviathan the cast notices that their Con and Wills are being drained. So, we have a time limit here. Both Faith and Buffy know that the realm is draining the source of their power, though they can’t figure out why.

Dawn has to hold the portal open, so she is given a group of angels to protect her. Spike has the Hand of Yoln as a weapon and Buffy has the spear.
We spend some time battling the armies of Leviathan. His creatures combine the worse aspects of dragon, snake and demon, for lack of a better word I called them Draconians.

The cast enters Leviathan himself, anyone with a soul takes another hit to Will. Anyone without a soul is absorbed into the walls, floor, everything. Thus newly re-re-ensouled Anya and recently souled Spike are fine. Well, fine as can be. I struggled with this for a bit, do angels have souls? In the end I decided no, they have spirits like demons. So the angels that went in with the cast are lost. This is done for the obvious reasons; the cast needs to shine here, not the armies.

Buffy fights Yoln. Until next season she is the star and the big guy is going after her. Now I don’t know how many of you all use the Original Slayer in games, but she is one deadly character. I had to up Yoln to obscene levels just to deal with her. Faith and Spike are fighting at her sides (I am sure there is metaphor here, but I am not going there) and these three can quickly mow down (and did) most opponents. Spike gets his arm chopped of by Yoln (yeah I did that first too) and dumps the ash out of the glove and puts it back on.

“You think you came here to stop me and my lord. You can’t. Everything is in motion, everything had been planned before you were even born. This is not my defeat, this is my apotheosis. You are not heroes.
You are sacrifices.”
- Yoln, the Shadowreaper

Yoln becomes fully human again (or at least as human as he was before), he tells them it is a trap and the attack start anew. Yoln is stronger now, but can be killed. Buffy does kill him, which just starts the whole place to start exploding.

There is truth in Yoln’s quote since this was an adventure I had planned to do for AD&D 1st ed back in 1987. It took place during the same battle as the “flashback” from Episode 5. Then, as in now, the story focused on a battle with Yoln and his Master, then known only as “The Whispering God”, and two lovers; Morganne (the Slayer from episode 5) and a young swordsman. So this adventure had been in the works long before Buffy and crew were ever “born”. Yoln was then a demonic-human that became a death knight.

Anya and Xander meanwhile are off to discover the reason why their “souls” are being drained. They discover that the spirits all of the Slayers that have died before are stuck on Leviathan’s plane. Literally. They are stuck in the wall of the dead god’s flesh and are slowly being consumed. Anya and Xander work to free them while fighting lesser minions (giant white blood cell things). They manage to free some of the Slayers who can fight (but are still dead, but at least now they can move on) till Spike come running up telling them it is a trap.

Willow and Tara confront Leviathan “himself” in the form of The Mouth of Leviathan played by Malcolm McDowell at his evil best.

From the Mouth of Leviathan we learn Leviathan worked through Set and other gods and demons to get things done. He empowered Willow when she first gave Angel back his soul. Willow was supposed to be his instrument, a force strong enough to bring Leviathan into this world, then he would feed on Willow. In a way she was working like another one of my old AD&D influences (or rather my DM’s), Raven from the Teen Titans. Though Willow is not Leviathan’s daughter, he does need her to enter the world.

What Leviathan never worked into his plans was how much of an influence Tara was having. Tara was pulling Willow away from the self-destructive forms of witchcraft (Sorcery) and too the more “natural” Magic. At first he worked on Glory and her minions to redirect Glory to a vulnerable Tara, but that was short lived. The Mouth shows the girls thousands of alternate realities where they are together, but in each one Leviathan manages to kill Tara (or somehow turn Willow) and consume the world. So Leviathan through his agents stopped the bullet from hitting Willow and instead redirected to Tara. The various realities shown are all various fan-fictions of my playtesters and our friends on the Kitten Board. There are also scenes of various alternate versions of Willow and Tara. Lots of ones on their past lives, including one where they both die in Atlantis; a pair of Chinese sorceresses; Liath and Bodhmal from Episode 5 and “The Dark Druid” and others. There are also alternate versions of Tara, the Tara that really was part demon, the nature sprite Tara that Whedon talked about doing, vampire Tara, even the “original” plan for Tara to make her what the Amy character eventually became; the dark magic junkie. The outcome for any alternate though is the same, the destruction of the world.

The mouth offers Willow a choice now, they can leave together, all she needs to do is drain all of her’s and Tara’s magic into Dawn. Then Leviathan will enter the world via Dawn. They can then live on Faith’s old magic dead world. Of course everyone they know or love will die.
Now at this point we had planned to go in a bunch of different directions, but the winning one, the plan that made the most sense won out.

Standing on spires (really his spine) of Leviathan’s plane Willow and Tara see their friends running back to the portal, being perused by devilish, dragon monsters, the armies still fighting. They see torn and battered Slayers limping to attack Leviathan’s creatures, even though they stand no hope of even slowing them down. Meanwhile with Yoln’s death the conduit to the mortal realm is breaking up. Dawn is fighting to keep the portal open and the land (which is really Leviathan himself) is reacting violently with “earth quakes” and volcanoes. The Earth can be seen (blocking out the sun) and rising. The Mouth tells the girls that all Leviathan needs now is enter the world through the gate, either through Willow now or Dawn (since she is holding it open) and then drain his “hosts” magic to manifest fully.

Seeing the death and destruction they realize there is only one way to keep it from getting worse. Grabbing hands, they jump into the gapping maw of Leviathan’s plane. Yup. I went for the “Thelma and Louise” ending.
Now everything goes berserk. Demons are running amok, trying to get out of the place. Angels find they are fighting the hordes of Leviathan AND retreating demons, the land is throwing fits more than ever, and then silence.
From the maw that Willow and Tara threw themselves in comes the reborn Leviathan. He was “force feed” all of Willow’s and Tara’s combined magic. Given the Anamchara rules that is quite a bit. He now stands over 200 feet tall and getting taller by the second, seven heads and full of anger. There is no way he can go through the portal now, so he is going to settle for killing everyone and everything on his plane. Time for the cast to run.

Of course I gave them the chance to get to the portal. Leviathan is chasing them down, roaring in anger. Then I need to decide what I should do with the characters. Leviathan is not a stated out monster, he is pure plot device. But I want the surviving characters to well, survive. Yeah I really, really wanted to off Spike. I felt he was representative of everything that I considered wrong with the show. The plan was that he was going to take the remote detonator for his chip and wait till the armies got on top of him then he was going to blow his own head off. But Garner convinced me otherwise. Plus I was already working on “Season of the Witch” at this point and he never showed there, but I figured I’d need him later. I did in fact for a Ghosts of Albion/Buffy crossover. I wanted to make him into a ghost and said as much very early on, but he ended up being a ghost in Angel, so I figured I could do better than that. So his player and I agreed that Spike was going to buy the rest of the cast time. He stood and fought the on coming demons and draconians to keep them a little bit at bay. That way if I needed him back I could, or if I needed him evil again then I can say Leviathan had been whispering in his ear all this time, the same thing he did to Yoln. At this point anyway I was borrowing heavily from Charmed so Leviathan’s plan was the same as the Demonic Wasteland. There were plenty of powers laying around there for someone with the will to use them. Spike could have come back (and still might who knows) like Cole did in Charmed.

The remaining cast get through the portal. Beaten, broken, but alive. They leave the ruins of the High School (they are shot out of the Hellmouth) and Dawn says the mouth is closed completely.

Cut back to a grey void where Willow and Tara are. Luna, the Seraphim, returns and offers them a choice. They can go to Heaven together as their reward, or the Summerlands if they prefer, or they can be sent back to Earth. Tara will loose some of her divine power she had before (the aura around her that induced fear in demons), but they will let her keep the ability to heal by touch.

They come back and we wrap up the game. Scenes of Xander’s and Anya’s wedding (this time a small private ceremony), Giles ends up catching the bouquet. Buffy’s martial arts class is still a big hit, we see her going on dates with Tony, the cop from Episodes 6 and 7. There are a few demons left in town, but most have cleared off. The last scene is Willow and Tara enjoying themselves (not like that!) at home. I don’t have it my notes, but they talked about how their lives are theirs to do with as they please. At that point Dawn comes in to tell Tara the phone is for her, it is her brother.

Covers
This may be one of my most favorite cover of the series. The idea was to only going to get Willow and Tara fans to write the episodes, play test and do the covers, and in particular only members of the Kitten Board. This one was done by Chris Cook who runs a website devoted to Willow and Tara in every universe. Called “Through the Looking Glass” it has tons of art, stories, and even games for the Willow and Tara fan base. The premise really mirrors that of this episode. I showed the multiverse where Willow and Tara are together in every reality. I also showed that in realities that they are not together are doomed to destruction. Chris shows us the realities where they are together. Have a look, http://www.uberwillowtara.com/ there is even some Dragon and the Phoenix art there as well. The various realities are all from various W/T fan fiction.  The sources for them were stories from the Kitten Board, Different Color Pens fiction board and the old Willow and Tara fiction site, Extra Flamey.


And of note. This is my 100th post tagged "witch".

Next time, DS al Coda.

Willow & Tara: Cartoon Action Hour Season 2

I have covered a lot of this ground already, but I am surprised I had not actually posted this yet.
To follow-up on my review and write-ups of Cartoon Action Hour 2 I wanted to present my two witches.  The power scale here is a bit different than say the Hex Girls, but it is still very do-able in CAH:2.  In fact the power scalability here maybe one of Cartoon Action Hour's greatest strength.

Keeping with the 80's vibe of the game, I'll use pictures of action figures.

So I am obviously going to start with my versions of Willow and Tara from BESM 3.0 and OVA.  I think they both do a good job of capturing an "animated universe" version of the girls.  CAH should actually do a bit of a better job really since it is so flexible.

With BESM 2r I was going more for a different universe deal. Same characters, different situations.  With this I think I am more likely to go with the characters as they are in the Dragon and the Phoenix/Season of the Witch time lines.  Just different viewpoint on the same characters and events.  Plus it makes filling out the sheets easier since I have a very clear idea of who these characters are and what their motives are.

So going with Season 3 here there are somethings that are new to the world.  Like for example everyone knows magic is real.  While they don't hide they are witches they do hide how powerful they really are.
(For details on this world, you will have to wait till I post all of "Season of the Witch".)


Willow Rosenberg

Series: Willow and Tara, Season 3
Group: Willow and Tara
Appearance: Attractive 20-something woman with red hair.

Factoids
- Is off-the-charts smart
- Fantastic computer hacker
- Is a witch and can do magic
- Is in love with Tara
- Sold her computer company at age 25 so is very rich
- Can still be a bit insecure

Subplots
- Has anger issues
- Secret: Brought down the veil between worlds (outed magic)
- Fears loosing Tara and loosing control of her powers
- has made a number of enemies

Traits
Witch (Spell Caster Cluster), 8 (24 points)
 - TK (manipulate)
 -  Arcane Blast (attack)
 - Shield (defend)
 - Magical Sight (can see magical creatures, magical forces in the earth) (misc.)
Attractive 2
Computer Expert/Hacker, AF 6
Monster Hunter 2
Occult Scholar 5

Anger issues x1
Secrets x2

Base Oomph 5
Threshold 18
Battle Rating 8


Tara Mclay

Series: Willow and Tara, Season 3
Group: Willow and Tara
Appearance: Attractive 20-something woman with blonde hair.

Factoids
- Is empathic
- Artist
- Is a witch and can do magic
- Is in love with Willow
- Is a councilor
- Can heal by touch

Subplots
- Secret: Brought down the veil between worlds (outed magic)
- Fears Willow loosing control of her powers
- has made a number of enemies

Traits
Witch (Spell Caster Cluster), 7 (22 points)
 - TK (manipulate)
 -  Arcane Blast (attack)
 - Shield (defend)
 - Magical Sight (can see magical creatures, magical forces in the earth) (misc.)
Attractive 1
Books of Spells
- Albus Codex 2
- Journals of Tamara Swift 2
- Journals of Megan Mclay 2
Familar (MKF, adds +2 to Oomph), 4
Healing Touch (revives), AF 3
Monster Hunter 2
Occult Scholar 5

Secrets x2

Base Oomph 5+2 (7)
Threshold 19
Battle Rating 7

D&D4 Essentials: Druids and Rangers

So long time readers here know of my struggles with finding a good druid in D&D4.  When the Player's Handbook 2 came out I was thrilled.  I was getting a Druid and Bard class.  Well the druid class was very disappointing to me.  Concept wise it was more of a shaman than the shaman was i thought.

You can read the details of my search here:
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2009/07/hybrid-class-playtest-and-character_28.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2009/08/few-updates.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2009/08/bodhmall-druidess-er-nature-priestess.html

In particular that last link where I attempt to re-build a character I have played in the past.  Bodhmall is a druidess from the Fenian Cycle of Irish myth.  She was one of the fosters of Fionn MacCumhail. Fionn, Bodhmall and Liath all feature rather prominently in the myths of my modern-era Unisystem games.  So I have a pretty clear idea of who Bodhmall and Liath are and D&D4 didn't cut it.  I was ok with Liath as a Ranger, and I'll admit I opted to change a few things about the character to fit the Ranger idea more.

Well now I have "Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms" and all of that has now changed.

The new Druid class, the Sentinel, is almost EXACTLY what I wanted a druid to be.  No more shape-shifting half-bestial attacks, the new Druid has an animal companion and no sight of any shape change.  The powers do reflect what I want in a druid, though still not a perfect fit for Bodhmall.  Though there is a simple fix for that.  I can take some of the powers from PHB2's druid that I want.  Things like "Primal Storm" come to mind and the Paragon Path "Keeper of the Hidden Flame" which is almost exactly what I had in mind for Bodhmall.
So not a 100% fit, but certainly 95%.
Her animal companion is a wolf; something that I did for a slightly different version of Bodhmall back in 3e.  So I am pleased with that.  Her wolf companion is named Cú Chulainn after the legendary hero.

Liath, her trusted companion and body guard (not that see will need this later on),  is one of the new Scout sub-classes of Ranger.  She takes the two weapon fighting and the wilderness tracker knack.

Bodhmall nic Tadg

1st Level Druid (Sentinel)
Human Female, Good Alignment, Deity: Brigit

Abilities	Defenses
	AC: 14
STR: 10	Fort: 15
CON: 14
DEX: 10	Ref: 13
INT: 14
WIS: 18	Will: 15
CHA: 11

HP: 26, Surges: 9
Initiative: +0  Speed: +6

Skills: Arcana +7, Heal +11, Insight +9, Nature +9, History +7
Languages: Common, Draconic, Elven, Giant, Goblin, Primordial
Feats: Linguist, Jack-of-All Trades  (both fit with my concept that Tadg, Bodhmall's father was a Druid of great learning and passed this down to his daughter).

Acolyte of the Natural Cycle: Druid of Spring
Prof: Staffs, Totems, Scimitar.
+1 Scimitars, spears, daggers and sickles
Animal companion: Wolf
Combined Attack
Healing Word
Reap the Harvest
Shillelagh
Herb Lore

Weapons: Staff (+2, 1d8), Scimitar (+3, 1d8)
Leather Armor (+2)

Liath Luchara

1st Level Ranger (Scout)

Half-Elf Female, Good Alignment, Deity: Brigit

Abilities	Defenses
	AC: 16
STR: 10	Fort: 11
CON: 10
DEX: 18	Ref: 14
INT: 10
WIS: 16	Will: 14
CHA: 11

HP: 22, Surges: 7

Initiative: +4  Speed: +6

Skills: Endurance +5, Stealth +9, Heal +8, Insight +5, Nature +7, Perception +10, Diplomacy +2

Languages: Common, Elven, Giant,

Feats: Alertness

Knack for Success 

Flashing Blade Mastery

Dual Weapon Attack (Dex vs. AC)

Prof: Simple Melee and Ranged,Military Melee and Ranged

Attack finesse (dex instead of str)

Power Strike

Aspect of the Cunning Fox

Wilderness Tracker

Weapons: Spear (+6, 1d8), Short Sword (+7, 1d6)

Leather Armor (+2)

Now how does this Bodhmal compare to the one I had done before?  Well the "Nature Priest" from Advanced Player’s Guide is still rather close.  But this new Sentinel Druid is much better now.  I could for my own games see Druid as a Parent Class and have three sub-classes, Beast Master, Nature Priest and Sentinel.  Sorta like we did back in the AD&D 2nd ed days.

All in all I am very pleased with the changes to the classes in Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms.  I have some Warlocks I want to do next.

The Dragon and the Phoenix: Episode 11

Episode 11: Shadows in the Rain

Dark Willow/Nox: Are you going to kill me lover?
Tara: Not if I don’t have to.
Dark Willow/Nox: That’s why you are going to fail.
- Willow and Tara: The Dragon and the Phoenix, Episode 11 “Shadows in the Rain”

Episode 11: Shadows in the Rain by ~WebWarlock on deviantART

May 7, 2003. Wednesday

Willow becomes physically ill on the anniversary of Tara’s murder. Her magic has an effect on the weather. The Cast finds the weapon they need, but it is in the hands of the last person they expected. Tara, Willow and Dawn combine their power for the first time to retrieve it, but their attempt pulls the cast into a magically-dead (no magic for Willow or Tara) world where Dark Magic Willow (now called "Nox") was not defeated. Willow discovers the wages of her sins. Dawn gets a nasty surprise when she sees herself as a vampire.
Story Arc Elements: Show why the stupid “crayon speech” never could have worked. The cast finds the Spear of Destiny, the weapon they need to kill Yoln.
Game Mechanics: Push the “magic boost” rules to an illogical point and never use them again.
Note: This episode had an unintentional side effect in creating the prototype for my new Mutants & Masterminds villain, Nox.
Soundtrack: The Police “Shadows in the Rain”

Notes and Comments:
The basic idea of this episode, Dark Willow having to face Tara, is actually one from my WitchCraft based Willow & Tara game from the Summer of 2001. Yeah, I had Dark Willow two years before anyone else. But no magic-as-drugs metaphor here, this was pure desire to control the things around her. In Shadows in the Rain, I get my cake and eat it too by pulling the Cast into an alternate world were DMW went on unchecked, or as AU-Faith tells us, that after getting talked down by Xander, Willow just bides her time till she can power up again and this time control the world rather than destroy it. In the original it was Tara and Faith as the only survivors in a bleak future where Dark Willow (then called “The Queen of Darkness”) rules. Here in this adventure, Tara is replaced by Xander, who is nothing more than a puppet of “Nox” aka Dark Willow.

I sat this on the anniversary of Tara’s (though now Kara’s) murder for symbolic reasons and to make a point. You don’t get over something like your lover being killed and then hop into bed with the next person that looks at you. I worry about anyone that can honestly think that is true. Ok, sure, random sex I understand, but not “love” by any means. So on this day Willow is violently ill. Her grief, even though Tara is alive again, is causing her to be physically sick. In the AU the same thing is happening to Nox, only there Nox has enough power to make the whole world feel her pain. The other issue with this one is Willow needed to come to terms with what she had done. It’s like that old saying, “you can’t shake the devil’s hand and say you are only kidding.” Tara forgave Warren, now it was time for Willow to forgive herself.
The battle is complicated by the fact that no one can approach Nox’s fortress and AU Xander is actually working for Nox and not the cast. AU Faith is happy to see Buffy, whose death at the hands of Nox she took particularly hard (yeah AU Faith is bisexual). Matters are made worse when the Cast learns that the Government is going to nuke Sunnydale as a way to deal with Nox.

We also wanted to showcase Dawn’s power one more time. This episode takes us to Nox’s world which is magically dead. So Willow and Tara have no powers here. Their magic is gone (more symbolism since it was magic that brought them together). But Dawn’s powers do work. Speaking of Dawn, the cast gets a nasty surprise in the form of “Dusk”, the AU Dawn turned into a vampire by Nox. Dusk is still stuck in “whiny little kid” mode, the same place she was when she was killed. Dawn on the other hand gets to show her maturity and growth here. She is not the helpless kid sister anymore, she has a part to play.

The vampire Dawn pic was made by a guy named Zahir that used to hang out over at the Kitten Board and was into Willow and Tara based role-playing games of all sorts.

So. Why are they even here? Well the back in episode 5 we saw the spear fall into the same astral portal as Yoln, his sword and a bunch of other items. The spear ended up here. The cast tries to retrieve it with magic, but instead of pulling it to them, it pulls them to it. Why are they going for this weapon? Well the cast is convinced they need a weapon that can kill a god, the spear is one of four weapons in my myths that qualify.
In my other games this is also the Spear of Cú Ċulainn. He obtained it in the 1st Century and it was later lost after his death but before Fionn Macumhail was born.

The deal was at this point I less and less interested in what Buffy, Spike and Xander and all had to do or were doing, becoming primarily focused on the “stars” of the story, Willow and Tara.

The Cast fights the bad guys, and girls. My Spike player gets to kill Dusk because he really hated Dawn. And Willow and Tara have to face off against Nox. Willow finally gives Nox her Ankh charm from Isis. Since it’s job is to drain off dark magic it kills Nox, but she finds peace. She asks Tara if she could forgive her and then asks Willow if she can forgive herself.   All the magic in the world is gone though too and Willow and Tara are still powerless. Dawn opens a portal using the Spear and AU Faith comes with them since there is nothing left for her to do in this world.

The Cast walks out of the portal and not into Sunnydale, but a desolate landscape. In front of them in a valley below an outcropping of rock are thousands (40,000 in fact) demons. They notice the cast’s arrival and begin to shout “Slayer! Slayer!”

There are other issues too.
Willow and Tara both independently discover passages referring to the death of “Returned One”, which they both interpret as Tara. Anya (an NPC) keeps throwing out that after this is all done Tara may have to go back to Heaven still. (side note, at one point we even considered this to be true and tried to figure out how we could do it).

Then there are the two important questions.

1. Why kill Faith only to bring her back?
Honestly I felt the character of Faith was broken beyond repair, nothing the writers had her doing made any sense. It’s part of the “bad girl fetish” as my writing partner Garner put it. They were so in love with Evil!Faith and could only keep upping the ante on her behavior. Now I happen to like bad girls and I liked Faith (once upon a time), but the only way to fix the character was to start over. Yes there was the added benefit of having a new Slayer that Yoln could kill, but that was an afterthought in the “Faith Dies” plot. This Faith is based on the WitchCraft version of her I did long ago. While the stats are the same as the Buffy book, this Faith is different. She has done some bad things sure, but she has atoned and feels guilt and remorse.

2. Why kill Dawn, I thought you liked her?
I do, but the rest of my writing team did not. Plus, and let’s face it, the show writers had no clue what to do with her. I gave her psychic powers to represent her new maturity while vampire Dawn (“Dusk”) was still stuck in the mentality of a whiny high-schooler. Now personally I would have rather had Dawn kill Dusk with a snappy quip of “will you shut the hell up!”, but my Spike player got to kill her instead. Sometimes that’s just the way it goes I guess.

In my original WitchCraft AU (and remember Buffy was still dead at this point) Faith had taken on the role of raising Dawn. It was hard for both of them, but it seemed to work well in the game.  In the original WitchCraft version of this game it was Faith and Tara alone fighing against Nox and Xander was the vampire. In the end Faith and Dawn lived and were still "sisters" 

The cover here is a fantastic bit of art by Div, the same artist that gave us Episode 5’s cover. I felt it was symbolic to feature only Willow instead of Willow and Tara. In the original series Episode 19 was always a Willow centric one, here we felt the second to the last one of our series would be the Willow centric one.  We did that again in "Season of the Witch".

Next time. Nothing left to burn…

Dragon and the Phoenix preview

Ok. So this totally self-indulgent but this may very well be the only time this will ever see the light of day.

Back when we were working on the game I wanted to do a "comming soon" video for the "Sweeps Week" episodes. So there was one for Episodes 4 and 5 and then another for 11 and 12.
I never got the one for 4 and 5 started in time, but for 11 and 12 I did write the outline and even gathered up a couple people who's voices sounded like the casts enough for voice overs. I had the whole Macromedia suite at the time so I figured I'd do a video. Trouble was, never could find the scenes I wanted from external media and I discovered I also had no desire to watch Buffy anymore to even mine it for scenes. Plus life was getting REALLY busy again since we had a new baby in the house again (that was Connor).

So. Like role-playing you are just going to have to use your imagination on this one. ;)

--


Everything you know is about to end...

Tara (Voice over, Sinéad O’Connor’s “Drink Before the War” plays in the background throughout): I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became as blood… (fade out)

Buffy (talking to her friends): This ends. We sit here and wait for these maniacs to come to our homes to end the world (Flashbacks of the Master, Angeleus, the Mayor, and Glory). They threaten me, they threaten to kill my family (Buffy holding Dawn at the end of “The Gift”) my friends (Tara/Kara getting shot, Spike getting burned in “Will We Burn in Heaven?”). No more.
I am taking this fight to their ground, I am going to stop this before it starts. I am going to get that Spear (scene of Faith wielding the Spear of Destiny to kill a pack of vampires) and I am going to Leviathan’s plane (the Cast standing in a desolate gray plane, emptiness as far as the eye can see).

Dawn: What do you plan to do?

Buffy (after a beat): I’m going to kill a God.

Scene: An army of demons led by Buffy attacks Yoln’s army. Yoln swings his Hellforged blade but it is stopped by Buffy’s spear.

Yoln: So Slayer. You brought an army to defeat me? (another swing)
Buffy: No. (a parry. Then wielding the spear with both hands she swings and knocks Yoln back.) I brought two.
The army of demons continues running while a legion of angels flies up an over them to join in the attack.

An armored angel swoops down with a flaming sword, she removes her helmet to reveal Tara’s face.

A younger Willow looks up with the black magic eyes.

Yoln’s voice over while the following scenes playout in rapid succession.
Yoln: This has all been planned. You are not heroes. You are sacrifices.

Tara standing in a cemetery waiting while vampires attack her.

Yoln lifting off his helm with two hands.

Dawn’s eye’s glowing with green fire as she holds a portal open.

Spike (carrying an injured Anya): It’s a trap!

Willow and Tara holding hands jump into a gapping maw.

Silence. Then a titanic seven headed dragon approaches the cast and roars.

Darkness, then back to Buffy’s home.

Xander: So I guess the revolution won’t be televised? (laughs to himself)
Spike laughs with him and they fall silent realizing they just “shared a moment”. They uncomfortably move apart.

Coming soon…
Episode 11: Shadows in the Rain and double sized series finale Episode 12: No Other Troy

Soon. There will be nothing left to burn.

--

Excited yet? I am!

The Dragon and the Phoenix: Episode 10

Episode 10: The Enemy Within

Jerome: "Come on dere Oz. Lets all do this one more agin'."
- Willow and Tara: The Dragon and the Phoenix, Episode 10 “The Enemy Within”

Episode 10: The Enemy Within by ~WebWarlock on deviantART

April 30, 2003. Wednesday

Buffy and Spike quest for a weapon to stop Yoln and Leviathan. While they are gone a group of werewolf bikers come to town to cause trouble and Oz is with them. S
tory Arc elements: The return of Oz. The coda to New Moon Rising. The rebuilding of the trust between Buffy and Spike and the reveal of Spike’s roll in the upcoming battle. The discovery is not a weapon, but rather the one item that Yoln still needs for himself, his missing hand.
Guest Stars: Oz, Kit (a Japanese werefox), Jerome LeCoeur and his band of werewolves, Angelique (a witch knight), The Dealer.
Game Design Elements: Introduce Werefoxes. Provide a cure for lycanthropy.
Soundtrack: Rush “The Enemy Within”, Nick Drake “Pink Moon”

Notes and Comments:
This one is really two adventures in one. The “A” Plot features Giles discovering the location of a weapon they could use to defeat Yoln, who apparently can’t be killed. Weapons has no effect, since he has no body, and magic bounces off of him. Giles only knows it is an item of great power and it has something to do with Yoln’s previous defeat. Figuring he already has his sword, they should get this. The weapon though is in France. They determine the location and Willow works out a teleport spell for them both to get their and back. The rest of the cast with Giles remain behind to do further research. Besides, the Order protecting the weapon does not want a bunch of people popping in. Contrived? A little, but I need to separate the cast.
So Buffy and Spike search for this weapon in France. They discover a weapon connected with Yoln, his severed hand, it possession of a cult of witch-guardians (a mix Christian and Pagan beliefs). The gauntlet is not the weapon they were looking for, but witch-knights do tell them it is vital in the final confrontation, though they are not sure how. Buffy tries it on and it begins to drain her life force. Spike wears it and discovers that he is immune. He also discovers that he can withstand sunlight, is much stronger and can’t remove it.
Back at home a gang of werewolf bikers show up. These guys are straight out of Abomination Codex so that was fun. Their leader is this big Cajun guy, Jerome Le Coeur. Shortly afterwards Oz comes into town with his new wife, a Japanese girl named Kitsune. They have been following Jerome for weeks, looking for the chance to kill him, which will cure Oz. Long story short, the cast works out a spell to stop the bikers, Oz fights Jerome. To keep the action going the Spike-player got to play Oz. Likewise, Buffy’s player played Kit. Yes, Kit was a werefox, but she had complete control over her form and was helping Oz with his. In the end Jerome is killed, Oz and the rest of the werewolves turn back to normal. Oz and Willow have nice conversation as do Kit and Tara. This was a coda to “New Moon Rising” and had originally been called “Under a Cajun Moon” under the “Road Stories” outline. I later re-used it in it’s original format, minus the Oz stuff, for “Season of the Witch”.

This episode also featured a rather snarky cut-scene where a new Slayer, some spoiled dark-haired girl from a rich family, was sent by the Watchers to infiltrate the Cast. Her job was divide the cast and seduce Willow, Spike and anyone else to get them on the Watcher’s agenda. Of course she gets into town she confronts Yoln and before she can say “I am Ken-”, Yoln cuts her off, literally. Petty of us? Yeah. So what.
I introduced Japanese werefoxes, Kitsune, in this adventure as well as slightly modified werewolves. These both appear in Ghosts of Albion.

I also introduced a reoccurring character in this episode, the Dealer and his bar Halfway.

Up next. The Cast gets their weapon and a suprise (or three). Then the final battle.
In the meantime here is a teaser,

The Dragon and the Phoenix: Episode 9

Episode 9: Rainbow in the Dark


Willow: I know spells Tara. I need you to teach me magic.
- Willow and Tara: The Dragon and the Phoenix, Episode 9 “Rainbow in the Dark”

Episode 9: Rainbow in the Dark by ~WebWarlock on deviantART

April 9, 2003. Friday


Dawn’s new powers are strong and out of control. She becomes the target of every occult faction left in town. All the while Hank Summers sues for custody of Dawn. Social Worker Marion “Cobra” Bubbles is sent in to evaluate her home life. Learn Hank is engaged to his blonde secretary named “Serenity”.
One of Dawn’s friends is killed by a vamp in the end of the last episode. Dawn blames Buffy (friend ends up being Strawberry Switchblade).


Story Arc elements: Return of the Vampire Chicas with new member Strawberry Switchblade. More cults. Willow, Dawn and Tara come to an agreement on magic and their individual journeys of power (Dawn with her new psychic abilities, Willow’s return as the magical powerhouse and Tara’s return to life). Willow and Tara talk about the “the Day of Silence”.

We had some scenes where Dawn was training, Slayer-style only not touching the weapons, but using here TK powers.  Good test of the TK-without-magic rules.  There was also a scene where Dawn gets upset and knocks out all the other PCs (I needed them out so she could run away).  After this episode my mandate was she was not supposed to act immature ever again.  I wanted growth, not lazy writing.

Quotes:
Te above quote came from the end of the game.  Where Willow and Tara are discussing their futures, not just as witches, but lovers as well.  You can have angst and moving plots without resorting to killing or addiction.

Other good quotes from this episode:
Cobra: “It seems that man responsible for your birth has no interest in your future.”
Buffy: “No, not now that he has his new blonde bimbo Serenity.”
Dawn: “Why would anyone name something after old lady diapers anyway?”
(yes, we still some snark left in us).

Runner up:
Buffy: “Oh don’t be a baby, I have been dead more times than you have had a bloody nose.”

Soundtrack: Dio “Rainbow in the Dark”


Notes and Comments:
Ok here is the big Dawn episode. I wanted to show the character as growing and maturing. Though she does do some very typical immature Dawn things, like lashing out at the cast and knocking them all out for a while. The deal here is the final scene for Willow in the shadows of magic. Here she comes back to her own. In the end Dawn's power opens up a tiny hole in reality and she and Willow, without Tara, have to close it up. After ths we talked about what would Dawn's future be. One of my players, Lisa (Tara) thought she should be a doctor, another (sorry forgot who) thought she would end up studing physics. Either way we knew she was going to have the life she felt her sister never could.

Strawberry Switchblade was Dawn's friend who was killed by the Chicas. She became a reoccuring threat in my games regardless of system for a while after that. Her death was to show the Cast that they do not live in a vacuum. The Chicas of course leave town after all of this.

I also wanted to bring back Hank in this one. Everyone seemed to have forgotten him so I figured he was shacking up with some bimbo named Serenity. Anyway he sues which brings in my all time favorite CIA-Agent turned Social Worker, Marion "Cobra" Bubbles. He manages to allow Dawn to stay, garnishes Hank's checks for Child support and kills a vamp in the process.

Strawberry Switchblade
Name: Strawberry Switchblade
Motivation: To make the cast pay for letting her die. Kill anyone else that gets into the way and have fun doing it.
Creature Type: Vampire
Quote: “What do you mean? You MADE me like this. Now I get to return the favor.”

Sex: F
Age: 16 (when killed)
Height: 5'1"
Weight: 105 lbs
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Red

Attributes: Strength 6, Dexterity 6, Constitution 5, Intelligence 4, Perception 3, Willpower 3

Life Points: 69
Drama Points: 5

Qualities: Attractiveness +3, Fast Reaction Time, Hard to Kill 7, Vampire (Murderous)
Drawbacks: Adversary 2, Cruel 3, Delusion (blames the cast for her death) 2, Obsession (kill the cast), Reckless

Skills
Acrobatics +4
Art +1
Computers +2
Crime +3
Getting Medieval +5
Gun Fu +1
Knowledge +2
Kung Fu +5
Languages +1
Notice +3
Occultism +1
Science +1
Sports +1
Wild Card (Seduction) +3

Combat Decapitation +6 S Successes X5, Armor Negated
Dodge +11 N Defense Move
Grapple +11 N Impairment Varies
Kick +8 14 Bash
Punch +9 12 Bash
Knives (2) +11 12 Slash/Stab

Marion "Cobra" Bubbles

“Let me illuminate to you the precarious situation in which you have found yourself. I am the one they call when things go wrong, and things have indeed gone wrong.”

Kids have it rough. Their parents or guardians die or just leave. Then to top everything off they adopt and dangerous alien creature or find out they are glowing balls of energy. It’s enough to make them want to go on a six state killing spree. Fortunately for them (and us) there is the last line of defense, Marion “Cobra” Bubbles.

Cobra Bubbles is a social worker, a special classification (maybe Division 6). He deals with the cases that send most other social works screaming in terror or crying like babies. He also tends to deal with cases of a rather unusual nature.

Cobra from “Lilo and Stich”
The Disney movie, Lilo and Stich is a riot. I won’t get into the details here, but this movie introduces Cobra as Lilo’s social worker. We find out that he is ex-CIA and help broker a deal to keep Earth protected from aliens back in 1973. We learn that Cobra (don’t call him “Mr. Bubbles”) is very serious about his work, cares for children and is really damn strong. You would not want to piss this guy off...
In "animated" episodes he is a cartoon above, voiced by Ving Rhames.

Cobra in “The Dragon and the Phoenix”

Cobra is pissed off. Headquarters has sent him to Sunnydale, a place he hates. There is a case, that of Dawn Summers, that needs his attention. Her last few social workers have been either too scared or too disturbed to go back to the Summer’s home. The case is a special one. The child’s guardian was completely missing on computer files for the Summer of 2001, no paychecks, no classes, nothing. Then one year later the murder of Kara Mclay occurred in the home. The minor in question, Dawn, found the body along with the murdered woman’s sister, Tara.
There is also a claim that the guardian is living with a much older English man that does not appear on any INS database.
To make matters more urgent the minor’s father is now suing for custody.

It should be no surprise that evil-cultists choose now to kidnap Dawn to extract her Key energy.
In my series here he is played by Ving Rhames.

Cobra Bubbles
Character Type: Experience Hero
Life Points 46
Drama Points 20
Quote: “Thus far you have been adrift in the sheltered harbor of my patience.”
and after he surpise kills a vamp in front of the cast "I hate this town."

Attributes: Strength 5, Dexterity 3, Constitution 4, Intelligence 4, Perception 5, Willpower 5

Qualities: *Cop (Ex), Fast Reaction Time, Iron Mind, Nerves Of Steel, Photographic Memory, Resistance-Pain 3, Resources Level 3, Situational Awareness

Drawbacks: Conspicuous 2 (6'5" tall bald black man in $1000 dollar suit), Honorable 2, Humorless, Obligation 3, Obsession (protect children), Secret 1

Skills
Acrobatics 2
Computers 3
Crime 3
Doctor 2
Driving 4
Getting Medieval 2
Gun Fu 6
Influence 4
Knowledge 4
Knowledge, Aliens and the Supernatural 4
Kung Fu 5
Languages 1
Mr. Fix-It 3
Notice 4
Occultism 2
Science 3
Sports 4
Wild Card, Government Contacts 4

Combat
Maneuver Bonus Base Damage Notes
Dodge +8 — Defense action
Grapple +10 — Varies
Kick +7 12 Bash
Punch +8 10 Bash
Big Pistol +9 15 Bullet
Pistol +9 12 Bullet

Next up. Buffy and Spike look for a weapon to deal with Yoln. Oz returns with a few suprises.

The Dragon and the Phoenix: Episode 8

Episode 8: Silent Lucidity

Tara: Wow. Who knew Miss Kitty could quote Shakespeare?
Willow: I am still having trouble getting past “Who knew Ms. Kitty could talk.”
- Willow and Tara: The Dragon and the Phoenix, Episode 8 "Silent Lucidity"

Episode 8: Silent Lucidity by ~WebWarlock on deviantART

March 24, 2003. 
Monday

Dawn’s emergent psychic powers traps the cast in her nightmare.
More than a week later and things have cooled down, a but only a little. At least everyone is agreeing to watch a movie together. It’s a Japanese-monster horror film and Xander has to remind Buffy that it is not a training video. Dawn begins to emerge as a powerful telepath and psychic, but not before she traps the cast and herself in the Dreamlands. The Cast must work through there own subconscious issues before they can escape. Willow and Tara’s issues with each other (loss and power), Buffy and Spike’s issues (trust and obsession) and Anya and Xander’s (fears of commitment and rejection). Dawn is dealing with the issues of constantly worried that she nothing more than Buffy’s shadow or even less. All the while Glory taunts her in her dreams.
Story Arc elements: Dawn focused, but also focused on the interplay of the cast.
Game Design elements: Non-magic psychic powers, rules for play in the Dreamlands, Bast for Cinematic games. Introduce Miss Kitty Fantastico II as a Bast. Have the Vampire Chicas come back to town. While the Cast is “sleeping” Dawn’s friend is killed and Faith dies in the hospital.

Notes and Comments:
Given that I was going to college in the 80’s and 90’s I am allowed to name one adventure ever my entire life after a Queensrÿche song. This is it.  I am also allowed to do one "dream" episode.  This is also it.

Ok. So. I killed Faith here.

Of course I have her appear in Buffy’s dreams and up the bi-sexual attraction she has for her. Mind you YEARS before it ever showed up in any comic. But I was careful not to repeat the cliché of a girl showing interest in another girl and have end her up dead (see “The Celluloid Closet” and the "Evil/Dead Lesbian Cliché"). I have Dawn watching all of this in her dreams, but unable to hear anything. She is taunted in her dream by Glory (really just the manifestation of her own fear) with the fact that she is no more real than Kara was and it is only a matter of time before Willow screws up something and undoes the magic holding her together.
I’ll be honest here, I liked Dawn. I always did. So she gets a chance here to shine (figuratively and literally) in the next few episodes.  We had built up her power slowly over the course of the season and this was the episode we let it cut loose.
This episode was very interpersonal. Very little in the way of combat. Most of the creature in the dream lands were Bast (which you have seen some of those in the past here). For the others I used some creatures that later would go on to be in Ghosts of Albion.  I used my old copy of Call of Cthulhu for ideas, but we never really ran into any mythos creatures other than seeing them in background or "through the veil of other dreams".

For the confrontations in the dreams, the cast were paired of (though I was still having trouble getting and keeping a regular Anya player) to deal with their issues.   For Willow and Tara's case, Willow agreed to basically "re-learn" magic from Tara.  If this had been earlier in the season then I would have dropped her back down to Sorcery/Magic 0 and work back up. But we didn't have that benefit.  Plus the next episode I needed a magically potent, if wounded, Willow.  Tara forgave Willow for her dabbling in "dark magics" and agreed that learning magic together would be the best for them both.

The cast finds out Faith died while they were sleeping.  I have a cut scene at the end where a coroner played by Zach Galifianakis performs Faith’s autopsy while Angel waits. Thought it was appropriate if morbid.

The cover of this does not quite represent the agnst of the episode, but my mandate was Willow and Tara on every cover and this was the one I liked the best.


Next up: The New Marvel Girl