EPISODE SEVEN: 'Relaxing Cruise' Ends In Cretaceous Chaos

SS Endeavour

After escaping the sinking of Atlantis, Onyx's seaplane - The Wave Hopper - needed serious repairs and so we headed for Bermuda for a rendezvous with our old friend, The Governor (who we'd previously rescued from Nazis and dinosaurs... it's a long story).

We also sought some much needed rest-and-recuperation at The Explorers Club, although they had other ideas.

Oynx decided to stay in Bermuda to oversee the repairs [as Mark, her player, is currently unable to join us for our monthly games] and so, after some socialising with the muckety-mucks of the British colony, we took a supposedly easy job from our sponsors at The Club.

Our task - which was described to us as "taking a relaxing cruise" - was simply to sail to Mexico to collect some Mayan artifacts from the Yucatan Peninsula and then transport them back to New York.

We'd been booked passage on an old tramp steamer, the SS Endeavour, under the auspices of one Captain Redgrave, a most amenable fellow.

Captain Redgrave

Unfortunately - and yet not wholly unexpectedly - not long after we set sail a mysterious swell started buffeting the ship, rising to a violent storm that tossed the Endeavour about so much that eventually all the crew and passengers were knocked unconscious... leaving the ship to drift.

When we all awoke the next day, it was about noon, the sun was directly overhead and everything seemed to have calmed down.

Conversing with Redgrave, though, we soon discovered that the ship's compass wasn't working, and when Buck (my explorer) checked his own that wasn't working either. We even went to the effort of making a third, basic, compass... but to no avail.

After a considerable time passed, we all realised that the sun hadn't moved, meaning navigation was going to be a major issue. [NB. This is a phenomenon, I believe, we first encountered when we travelled through a portal to an alien world in our July, 2021, game].

Further consultations with Redgrave led to a decision to head nominally west (or where we thought west was), with Buck stationed at the prow using his binoculars to sight land.

There was definitely something - small - on the horizon, but it was blurred by a heat haze.

But, at least, it gave us something to head for.

What no one expected was the sudden arrival of a vicious and hungry plesiosaur!

[NB. This was not our first plesiosaur. Earlier in the campaign, Tessie, Lake Tahoe's lake monster, turned out to be one. We met her in our April 2021 game, when we were in an apocalyptic, 1950s story arc].

It's big rubbery neck and terrifying teeth were tearing crew members apart, even while Dick (Kevin's crackshot ex-G-man) was riddling it with bullets... and I was not. Freya (Clare's photojournalist) was getting some excellent pictures but when a couple of seamen went overboard, she led the rescue efforts.

Buck ran back to his cabin to retrieve his hunting rifle, as Freya threw a line to the surviving sailor in the drink, Bob, and - assisted by a couple of other crewmen - pulled him up onto the deck and away from the dinosaur's wrath.

I think Bob has taken quite a shine to Freya. Let's see how that develops.

By the time Buck returned, Dead-Eye Dick had managed to put a bullet in the beast's brain, causing the dinosaur's corpse to slide back into the water.

The Endeavour had taken a lot of damage, but Redgrave was determined to get it to the island ahead of us that had now come into view.

He powered the engines as best he could, but things were not looking - or sounding - good.

To add to our troubles, a couple of smaller plesiosaurs had scented blood in the water and were swimming towards our sinking ship.

When the engines finally gave up the ghost, Redgrave ordered everyone to abandon ship in the two lifeboats.

Bob and another sailor, Smudge, joined us in one, while the Captain and the remaining crew took the other.

Bob and Smudge rowed for their lives as Dick and I tried to provide covering fire for the Captain's boat as the plesiosaurs targeted it.

The second lifeboat was lost with all hands

Sadly there was little we could do and that lifeboat - and all aboard - were lost to the monsters, but their sacrifice allowed us time to make it to the tropical island.

And what a beautiful island it was. White beaches, palm trees, and noisy wildlife in the tree tops.

Buck spotted a trail through the jungle - and then a line of smoke rising in the distance. We were not alone. 

But for all this death and carnage, Buck was buzzing with excitement as he was putting the clues together. Had his lifetime obsession with finding the "Hollow Earth" finally come true? The compasses, the dinosaurs, the static sun, the Bermuda Triangle.

However, as he led the group down the trail, his sixth sense alerted him to some danger... sadly, too late, to avoid the two pair of [Jurassic Park-style] velociraptors that targeted the weakest links in our party: the two battered seamen.

[NB. We first met velociraptors on a mysterious island in our April 2022 game when the plane we were travelling in was forced to land after a tussle with German agents]

We made short work of these escapees from the Cretaceous Era, but Smudge was a goner. Bob, however, earned the nickname 'Lucky Bob' after he fended one off in unarmed combat and escaped without injury.

The trail led to an ancient wall, behind which we could hear the familiar tones of orders being barked in German.

Peering through a crack, we saw Nazi troopers, a submarine (sporting a peculiar dish on its conning tower) in a lagoon, ancient ruins, native huts, and enslaved local "ape-people" being forced to dig for "something".

"We never seem to get a break, do we?"

- Marion Ravenwood, Raiders of The Lost Ark

TO BE CONTINUED...

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - NPC

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

If you want to keep abreast of the action in our current season of Pete's Weird Science campaign (currently using the OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES system from Two Little Mice)
then visit this page to find links to all our previous episodes.

When Science Meets Fiction, Reality Sinks Atlantis

Photo by Paolo Resteghini on Unsplash

In homage to Pete's recent OUTGUNNED Adventures campaign, in which  our characters found - then sank - Atlantis, I thought I'd share these two videos from geek architect Dami Lee.

Here she uses mathematics and physics to investigate Plato's description of the fictious city, and, unsurprisingly, the numbers don't add up.

But remember, gentle reader, to never let facts get in the way of a good story...

EPISODE SIX: Atlantis Found and Lost Again

Professor Kasper Wieloch, the magical trident of Poseidon, and the scary tentacles

PREVIOUSLY ON OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES: Having found the lost city of Atlantis, our heroes pick their way through the abandoned houses and temples, dodge traps and eventually find themselves in an underground amphitheatre. There they come face-to-face with their old nemesis Kasper Wieloch, a unit of Nazi soldiers, and mass of giant, squirming tentacles.

And that's when the shooting started. We were on one side of the amphitheatre, the soldiers and Wieloch - dressed in some strange (Atlantean?) robes and chanting in a language we didn't recognise - on the other.

Rising out of the water in the basin of the amphitheatre was an altar bearing a clearly supernatural trident.

Our heroes (at the bottom) face off against a unit of Nazis and a wannabe wizard

As bullets zipped to and fro, and we were able to pick the Nazis off one-by-one, Wieloch strode forward and grabbed the trident. Much to his obvious shock, he found himself bathed in a crackling electrical field that was clearly causing him incredible pain. 

Freya (Clare's photojournalist) took a pot shot at him, but the field encasing the professor also acted as some kind of shield, deflecting Freya's attack.

Buck (my explorer) and Dick (Kevin's ex G-man) continued to pepper the soldiers with well-aimed shots, but then Wieloch suddenly underwent some otherworldly transformation as his eyes turned white and his facial expression contorted into something demonic.

Hollering in an alien tongue, he appeared to command the monstrous tentacles to destroy the structure we were all in - oblivious of his former allies.

As the ceiling began to fall, the soldiers scattered... heading our way (the only exit now).

Using my keen, hunter's observation [and a Luck point], Buck quickly studied Wieloch and the "force field" around him, and realised that the electrical screen didn't extend to the trident itself.

Taking a deep breath, Buck remembered the killer shot he had taken in Antarctica many months ago [during Pete's previous Hollow Earth Expedition iteration of this game, back in February 2024] to blow up an Elder God, exhaled and pulled the trigger.

The trident exploded into many splinters, the tines fell apart and the shaft cracked, and almost simultaneously - as Wieloch's power waned and disappeared - the tentacles wrapped themselves around the possessed professor and, with sickening rending, popping and crunching sounds rent his body into a million pieces.

My colleagues traded a few more shots with the soldiers, then I barked over the sounds of gunfight and falling masonry that we might as well make a break for it as there was nothing more we could do here.

Pursued by the Germans we raced back over the star bridge - Buck carefully guiding his friends where to safely step - and headed towards the exit.

The Nazis, of course, weren't aware of the animated statue trap on the bridge and we heard their screams as they discovered its lethality. 

Further on and almost out, we tried to jump the open pit trap that was blocking our escape, but we were all tired by then and only Freya got out of the six foot hole with her dignity intact. Both Dick and I managed to hurt ourselves in the fall, but mainly it was our pride that took the most damage.

As we pulled ourselves out, the remaining two Nazis came barrelling into the room. One went straight into the pit and so Dick shot the other.

As the violent shaking of Atlantis - probably caused by the monster that had eaten Wieloch - increased, the sea levels rose, and tremendous cracks appeared in the roads and buildings.

We raced to our waiting sea plane, where Oynx (our NPC pilot) was struggling a bit to get the engines started.

Climbing into the plane, we said: "Oynx, take us home." And with assistance from Dick and Freya, she was able to fire up the twin engines and get the plane into the air.

Behind us, the ruins of Atlantis sank beneath the waves. Leaving no evidence that it had ever been there!

No evidence... except the plain, wooden cup Freya had picked up during our initial exploration of the island.

We had otherwise escaped largely unscathed, but Dick had taken a bullet in the shoulder during that final gunbattle that would leave a nasty scar.

Little did I realise, at the time, that that last Nazi had somehow survived and, of all our group, he had sworn a blood oath against Buck Hannigan to seek revenge for his fallen comrades.

TO BE CONTINUED...

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - NPC

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

If you want to keep abreast of the action in our current season of Pete's Weird Science campaign (currently using the OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES system from Two Little Mice)
then visit this page to find links to all our previous episodes.

Backers Can Now Explore The World of Twilight Sword

Radiosa Castle by Wild Blue Studios

The Lands of Radia, the default setting for the upcoming Twilight Sword anime-inspired RPG from Two Little Mice, has been released as a BETA PDF to backers of the its crowdfunding campaign.

The already lavishly illustrated game now includes art by Wild Blue Studios and the latest update on the project explains:

"These amazing artists have created dedicated landscape art for every region of Radia, from the Valley of Aramilla to the Fortress of Evil."

This new book details the eight regions of Radia, atmospheric background lore, key NPCs, area-specific random encounters, and more than 20 new, fully-statted out monsters for the player-characters to face.

I remain enamoured by the brevity (and seeming simplicity) with which this whole system has been created and written, although - obviously - I am still unsure of how this will transfer to the table once dice start to be slung.

The team at Two Little Mice currently seem to be deeply engrossed in their latest crowdfunding campaign, for a huge expansion to their wildly popular and pulpy Outgunned action-adventure roleplaying game.

This runs for about another week and a half, and then I'm guessing their thoughts will return to getting Twilight Sword ready to ship by the end of next month (July).

CURSED ARMOUR: The former attire of fallen heroes, now enchanted to serve the Big Bad

EPISODE FIVE: All Roads Lead To Doom

Atlantis

PREVIOUSLY ON OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES: When we last saw our heroes their aircraft was just emerging from a supernatural storm and in front of them lay the lost island of Atlantis!

As Onyx (our currently NPC pilot) banked the seaplane towards the island, we heard, aft, a loud cracking sound in the air. Looking back we realised the zeppelin had been struck by lightning, but - even more terrifying - it was now in the grasp of indescribably large tentacles that had arisen from the water and were squeezing the life out of the German craft.

Piercing the 'energy shield' over the island, we inspected the ruined and abandoned Greco-Roman city as we came in to land in the calming sea on the far side of Atlantis, parking the plane up on the beach so we could go exploring.

Onyx stayed with the plane - just in case we needed to make a hasty exit.

It soon became clear that the city had been abandoned by its populace - suddenly - a long time ago. The houses were falling down, furniture turning to dust, nature slowly reclaiming it all with encroaching vines.

Freya (Clare's photojournalist) was absorbed by the archaeology, while Buck (my explorer) and Dick (Kevin's former G-man) listened out for German survivors and any remaining natives.

Eventually we made our way up a main thoroughfare to the giant bronze gate barring the sturdy entrance to the central temple.

The door of four faces

As we approached, a poem was seen, carved into a wall, which Freya was able to translate:

"To face the sea, you must
catch the rising wind
follow the lesser stars
fear the darkened depths"

This sparked much discussion as to its meaning. We suspected it was a series of clues to solving any challenges we would have to face, But even the first four words took us a while to get our heads round - until Dick suggested it was "face" as in "confront" rather than "look at".

"Catch the rising wind" was clearly connected to the brass door, which was cast with four identical faces, their lips pursed in a blowing fashion (see picture above).

Using my lighter I detected a breeze from the left mouth and the bottom one, then Dick accidentally set off a pit trap when he probed one of the orifices with a rolled-up leaf. Thankfully, the only thing bruised was his dignity. 

After a lot of mental gymnastics, together with our vast selection of skills and feats, we eventually cracked the code and Freya had to suffer the minor embarrassment of putting her lips to one of the mouths and inhaling until there was an audible click and the door dropped down into the ground.

Beyond the vast bronze door was a flight of stairs heading down under the temple. As it was the only way we could go, we descended.

We quickly realised that the wall-mounted crystals were emitting light, some even set in small brass cages that we could lift off the wall and use as torches.

The further we went, we noticed a panorama of bas-reliefs on one side were telling a story: a boy finds a trident in the sea that grants him magical powers; he attracts a following, but as he older he gets corrupted by the enormous power; his followers rebel against him; the rebels kill the prophet and take the glowing trident to the temple; unfortunately calamity strikes and the temple is attacked by giant tentacles.

If this was a true record of the fate of Atlantis, we were very impressed that someone was so dedicated to their work that they stayed on to record the destruction of the city in stone as it fell down around them!

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, so that we were now at sea level, we found ourselves in an enormous cavern, bisected by a bottomless chasm, and crossed by a single stone bridge - that was adorned by three pairs of armed mermen statues.

The pathway across bridge itself (pictured right) was decorated with a panoply of star-shaped crystals, small, medium and large.

Buck thought he'd understood the "follow the lesser stars" clue, but treading on one of the small stars just woke the nearest merman statue. It swivelled round on its plinth to face Buck and tried to jab him.

Eventually, after another lengthy discussion, Buck and Freya were able to figure out what the patterns were (again drawing on their particular fields of knowledge).

Buck was then tasked with guiding his two companions across the cunning trap.

This was very tense [a LOT of dice rolling for me, with my colleagues' lives in my hands], but eventually everyone made it across - although I did stumble at the last moment and had to be pulled to safety by Dick and Freya.

On the far side of the bridge we realised there were no more crystals, but as we continued down the slope it actually began to get lighter.

Soon we entered a partially-flooded amphitheatre. We were just admiring the clear sparkling water when a massive explosion filled the room with dust and debris.

Emerging from the haze came a unit of Nazi soldiers (about 10 at a quick estimate), just as an altar rose up in the middle of the flooded stage - bearing on it a strangely familiar trident.

However, things escalated rapidly, for behind the soldiers came our nemesis, Professor Kasper Wieloch, no longer dressed in his military uniform but wearing arcane robes instead. 

Framing our vision of this vile man, the horrific tentacles from earlier were flailing around... presumably under his control!!!

It's not looking good for our heroes!

TO BE CONTINUED...

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - NPC*

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

*Unfortunately it appears that Mark will be unable to join us for the foreseeable future. We all wish him the best and look forward to his return to our table as soon as possible.

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

If you want to keep abreast of the action in our current season of Pete's Weird Science campaign (currently using the OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES system from Two Little Mice)
then visit this page to find links to all our previous episodes.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: When We Got A Games Table!

At last, my chance to go full Eddie!

Thanks to my amazing, hard-working and supportive wife, Rachel, we acquired a games table in December, 2022.

It's something I'd yearned for ever since learning they were a real 'thing; and finally it was mine... er... ours.

Rachel has long said we needed a new dining table and I managed to persuade her that she should spend her bonus on a games table, which would then double as both dining table and venue for the Tuesday Knights and I to sling dice.

I did a ton of research, we measured a lot, drew up plans, found a UK company that specialised in games tables (Geeknson), asked a lot of questions, and finally pulled the trigger on a bespoke design back in late July/early August of that year.

The table arrived, and was unwrapped, just before Christmas, but I'd kept shtum on my "secret weapon" so that the Tuesday Knights would be the first to see it, in person, at that January's session of Pete's Hollow Earth  Expedition campaign (see below).

However, that didn't stop me 'playing' with it beforehand, for an Eddie Munson-esque "photoshoot" of an imaginary game of Dungeons & Dragons featuring the characters from the '80s cartoon as the protagonists, caught between a demonic flying creature and a warband of orcs.

I have such dreams for this new addition to the house that will justify the expenditure of Rachel's hard-earned cash on my geeky dream.

Presto the magician blasts the demon, as the evil gnome sorcerer cackles

Eddie does it much better than me, but you get what I was going for!

Gamesmaster Pete goes high-tech, flipping his tablet screen over the wooden GM screen
attachment to present us with a slideshow introduction to the adventure

A lot happened as always in that night's episode of Pete's pulp Hollow Earth Expedition campaign (which, by 2026, has morphed into an OUTGUNNED game), but here's a "picture special" of The Tuesday Knights enjoying their first meeting around the new games table.

Afterwards, Clare wrote the following about the table in her daily blog (now a Substack) of positive moments, Three Beautiful Things:

"I am so astonished by Tim's new gaming table -- which he has been keeping a secret since it was ordered in the summer -- that I gasp at each new revelation. First the top lifts off; next there's a green baize playing surface... that could be lifted off to reveal a map table... and then there are extra little tables to attach for your drink and your notebook; and a special desk for the GM, too. The whole smells pleasantly of new wood and polish."

Me using the "player's side table attachment" feature for my dice and notebook

Pete, at the head of the table, liked having a wooden screen and his own tray for dice, notes etc

An impromptu shoot-out in the back streets of 1930's Rio puts Oynx (Mark's character)
and Freya (Clare's character) in the firing line.

Here's me making full use of the "cup holder" feature

The morning after and the table had transformed back into a dining table

The Twilight Sword Will Be Drawn on April 7

Way of The Blade, art by Daniela Giubellini

A beta PDF of the Twilight Sword roleplaying game, along with the starter set, will be released - to those of us who backed the crowdfunding campaign last year - on April 7, according to a recent update from publisher Two Little Mice.

The update added that the:

"...BETA will be pretty advanced, with maybe some typos left to find, and some artwork missing. But you can expect the full Twilight Sword experience, including an introductory mini-campaign ready to play."

Work is also proceeding at a pace on the Lands of Radia supplement, detailing the default setting for the game, so that is also expected to be finished soon.

The company - which is also responsible for the ever-expanding OUTGUNNED catalogue of action movie-themed games, Household, Memento Mori etc - calls Twilight Sword its "most ambitious project to date", which has me even more excited than ever for the game's arrival.

The print edition of the anime and video game-inspired, sword-and-sorcery ttrpg Twilight Sword is still on track to be shipped to backers at the beginning of August.

Lumino Inn, art by Donata Poli

EPISODE FOUR: Plane Sailing

Our heroes in their seaplane

[Unfortunately, Mark was unable to attend last night's game; his one request was that his character, our pilot Onyx, stay with our plane. However, what we couldn't have known was that almost the entire episode took place within the seaplane... and Onyx - run by committee - turned out to be our MVP!]

Picking up from the end of the previous episode, our heroes - Buck (my explorer), Freya (Clare's photojournalist), Dick (Kevin's ex-G-man), and Onyx (Mark's pilot) - launched our seaplane in pursuit of the giant Nazi zeppelin.

The Hindenburg-sized airship was heading towards the co-ordinates we had discovered that we believed revealed the location of the mythical island-state of Atlantis!

Our foes didn't know that we had the location as well - thanks to some clever thinking by Freya - and so I advised veering off to refuel at an airbase of Oynx's choosing, then beating the enemy to the secret location.

However, that option was quickly taken off the board when two Luftwaffe planes (launched from under the airship) came diving towards us, intent on shooting us down.

As our plane was unarmed, Buck leaned out of one of the rear doors - secured by a seat belt  and with Dick helping him steady his aim - and started to open fire with his hunting rifle.

Our plane took some hits in the attack, but I managed to take out one of the pilots so that he crashed his plane into the ground. 

The zeppelin

Evading the other, Oynx - assisted by eagle-eyed Freya - then spectacularly flew our plane up and into the aircraft hanger underneath the zeppelin... surprising the two mechanics working in there.

Still secured at the back door of our plane, Buck shot one of the technicians in the knee, taking him out of action, while Dick and Freya rushed out and assaulted the other. Dick delivered an impressive uppercut, K.O.ing the man instantly.

Pete's hasty map of the hangar underneath the zeppelin

Convinced the Nazis were unaware of our presence, we secured the hangar, tying up the two unconscious men and hiding them behind some crates. Dick barricaded the portals at either end of the large room, so no one could get in, then we set to work manoeuvring our plane so that it was ready to eject when the moment was right.

Several hours passed and we saw that the zeppelin was now sailing over the Mediterranean at night, heading towards a mysterious bank of clouds.

At this point, we could hear people banging on the doors - trying to get in - and so it was clearly time, as the airship entered the fog bank, to drop out of the hanger and see where we were.

I'm not sure we really expected to see the ancient city of Atlantis floating on the stormy sea in front of us!

ATLANTIS! ATLANTIS! ATLANTIS! (it's only a model)

TO BE CONTINUED...

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - Mark (absent)

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

If you want to keep abreast of the action in our current season of Pete's Weird Science campaign (currently using the OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES system from Two Little Mice)
then visit this page to find links to all our previous episodes.

Twilight Sword Update

All the crowdfunded shiny goodness of Twilight Sword is on track to be shipped to backers around the beginning of August, however the PDFs of the two main books and starter set could be sent out as early as the end of March.

These nuggets dropped during the first livestream of the year, yesterday, by two of the founders of the game's Italian production company, Two Little Mice, Riccardo “Rico” Sirignano and Simone Formicola.

The game, the company's biggest project to date, is currently going through extensive playtesting to hone the mechanics.

While the land of Radia remains central to the default campaign included in Twilight Sword, the core book has been rewritten to make the game more setting agnostic, so gamemasters can easily use their own settings with the system.

The bulk of the livestream concerned the production of other current Two Little Mice projects, such as Outgunned Superheroes, the latest variant of their action movie-styled roleplaying game.

Without going into too much detail, it was revealed that the company's next crowdfunding campaign, taking place in May, would be another addition to Outgunned.

EPISODE THREE: "Curse Your Sudden But Inevitable Betrayal!"

Pete modelling this year's bold shirt choice for turning the tables on our player-characters

After their successful treasure hunt last time, our heroes - Buck (my explorer), Freya (Clare's photojournalist), Dick (Kevin's former G-man), and Onyx (Mark's aviatrix) - are gathered in the ornate office of their paymaster, Professor Kasper Wieloch.

We are in Austria, in a very stately home on the banks of Lake Wolfgang (which is a real lake).

The professor was delighted that we'd found the cypher and shares with us a copy of the document he believes is the necessary element to crack it and find the co-ordinates of the lost island of Atlantis.

It's a word puzzle that eventually Onyx and Freya solve, allowing Kasper to correctly jiggle the dials on the ancient cypher we'd brought back from Greenland, revealing to him just what he wanted to know.

[Of course, we - as players - had seen massive red flags, since the start of this session, about this gathering, This started with Pete setting up miniatures on the table to show where we all were for what should have been a simple debriefing. Secondly, he dropped in that we'd all been made to surrender our weapons - by the professor's staff - on the way in, much to Mark/Onyx's chagrin].

Wieloch's lakeside mansion

Wieloch's understated office

With a manic grin on his face, Wieloch shrugged off his lab coat to reveal a Nazi uniform underneath as he spoke into a microphone on the desk - dictating the co-ordinates.

Behind us, his butler, Hans (who Onyx had failed to seduce to persuade him to fetch her weapon back) drew a pistol, as doors on both sides of the room swung open and eight Nazi thugs burst into the room, pointing guns at us.

Buck charged the nearest thug to him, barrelling him over and subsequently hoisting him up and using his body as a shield to absorb the bullets fired in his direction. He then threw the corpse at two of the others, bringing them down and dived at the final minion on his side of the room and engaged him in a drawn-out slugfest.

Professor Kasper Wieloch (left) and Hans The Butler

Onyx dived over Wieloch's desk and proceeded to stick her fingers in his eyes, in an attempt to blind him and bring him to heel. Unfortunately their bloody tussle ended with the Nazi scientist staggering blindly out of one of the doors and clattering down stairs to find the rest of his men.

Freya and Dick took on the other four Nazis - as well as Hans the nefarious butler - in a surprisingly one-sided fight, as the thugs seemed as accurate in their shooting as Star Wars stormtroopers. 

Once we were victorious, we saw out the window that the wounded Wieloch was being helped into a small zeppelin that had docked in his garden; his escape being covered by a number of rifle-bearing soldiers who kept us pinned down as they got away.

Freya was able to get an impression of the co-ordinates off of Wieloch's desktop notepad, then we bolted down to our seaplane... only to discover it had (unsurprisingly) been sabotaged by the villains.

Onyx was quite confident her aircraft would be quicker than that of the bad guys, but we had to trust that her legendary repair skills were up to the task of undoing whatever damage the Nazis had done.

TO BE CONTINUED...

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - Mark 

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

MY NOTES: While it was great to have Mark back at the table again, the first time we'd all been together for the better part of nine months, Outgunned Adventures is currently reinforcing my long-held dislike of dice pool systems.

I know we're still getting to grips with a new system, and trying to grasp all its nuances, but for what - at first glance - appears to be a simple system (much like Hollow Earth Expedition's Ubiquity mechanics before it), seems almost randomly fiddly.

Dice pools also make everything slow - as was demonstrated by the fact that almost the entirety of this session was our fight against the bad guys.

Conversely, I would point out that I appreciated the fact that the thugs we were fighting were incredibly lousy shots. It's not exactly cinematic (and that's the style the game is seeking to emulate) for a larger-than-life pulp hero to be offed by a random goon!

THROWBACK THURSDAY: And So It Began (Again)

The first meeting of the Tuesday Knights (our gaming group) took place on August 19, 2008, when I ran the debut session of a new Castles & Crusades campaign for Nick, Pete, and Clare.

This was the first role-playing game I'd actually run for over a decade. I'd bottled out of running games several times since I'd come out of hospital in 2005 and was still very anxious about whether my health (both physically and mentally) would be up to the challenge.

In retrospect, one of the biggest mistakes I made in those early days was getting distracted by the "new shiny", switching systems to Labyrinth Lord and then grinding the game into the ground, so someone else had to run something instead.

If I could travel back to 2008, I'd tell my younger self to have faith and stick with Castles & Crusades. Who knows, if that had been the case, we could still be playing that campaign now? How incredible would that be?

In the 17 years since that fateful day in the dining room of our old house, our pool of potential players has blossomed, while Pete, Clare and I remain the consistent core. We were joined by Kevin, who has become another constant around the table, Steve, Simon, Meredith, Erica, Mark and, most recently, Mark's daughter, Rebecca.

While other demands on their time have seen Nick, Steve, Simon, Meredith, and Erica step away from the group, we still manage to corral a solid four or five people for our monthly sessions.

Despite the collapse of that original campaign, I did manage to run a three year fantasy campaign using Heroes and Other Worlds (a modern reworking of the classic GURPS-adjacent Fantasy Trip system), which ended with the destruction of the world.

Pete ran a number of Top Secret espionage games, Meredith presented us with a wholly homemade World of Warcraft adventure, Simon saw us right up to the gates of Castle Ravenloft in his 5e D&D Curse of Strahd campaign (which went 'online' during the COVID pandemic), Clare's run some memorable indie one-shots, and the other year Mark scared the bejeebers out of us with his self-penned Call of Cthulhu rural horror adventure.

In between these I've tried to run some other games, but they've invariably crashed-and-burned because of my insecurities, self-doubt, and limited attention span.

I'm hoping that, after my two recent debacles (with Shadowdark and Villains & Vigilantes) I've finally learned enough that when I'm next allowed to sit behind the gamesmaster's screen I'll be able to keep the train on the tracks.

However, our most enduring game has been Pete's "weird science" pulp adventure campaign that started as a 1950's "Atomic Horror" campaign using GURPS, then time-slipped to the 1930s for an epic Hollow Earth Expedition run, before, at the end of last year, switching systems again to Outgunned Adventures for more Indiana Jones-style shenanigans.

And through all this, my rock and number one cheerleader has been my wonderful non-geeky wife, Rachel, who may not get the delights of roleplaying games, but understands how important they are to me.

Every month she cooks our group pizza, serves up drinks, and joins in the pre-game banter as we all catch-up on whatever is going on in our lives.

Last year's gaming plans were largely scuppered by my back problems (osteoarthritis), but hopefully that's behind me now (see what I did there?) and 2026 will be a return to regular gaming for the foreseeable future.

TWILIGHT SWORD: One Of 2026's Most Anticipated Games

Two Little Mice's Twilight Sword has ranked tenth in EN World's recent annual community vote to find the most eagerly-awaited games of the coming year.

The Italian games company is also responsible for the Outgunned range of action film roleplaying games, of which the Tuesday Knights are currently playing the pulp iteration Outgunned Adventures.

However, Twilight Sword is a game system I have a financial interest in, having backed its crowdsourcing campaign almost entirely on vibes.

To be honest very little has been revealed about the game, besides the fact that the original games engine (the Created at Twilight system) revolves around a central mechanic involving a 1d12 "roll under" check.

During the fundraising campaign, the designers shared glimpses of  monsters, character sheets, and gaming sub-systems - all of which seemed to optimise simplicity and gorgeous design.

There's a gorgeous, free introductory PDF as well, which is primarily about evoking the desired atmosphere of Twilight Sword with a broad overview of the rules mechanics, setting and the role of player-characters (Champions) in overcoming Despair and bringing Hope back to the conquered lands of Radia.

While this alone might not have been enough to lure me in, my experience with Outgunned told me these people know how to design games, so I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt.

At the end of last year I was toying with some ideas for an anime-inspired fantasy setting for my next campaign - having realised that I work best as a gamesmaster when running a fantasy campaign - and was looking at Break!! and Twilight Sword.

Both are beautifully-designed games, but while Break!! feels akin with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (or even Third Edition), Twilight Sword is giving off more BECMI or B/X "vibes" with its seeming simplicity. This better suits where I am at the moment with my approach to gaming and desire to run something where the rules aren't tripping everyone up every other round.

The EN World post points out that Twilight Sword "is inspired by classic video games like The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy", which makes my interest slightly perverse as I've only played Zelda once and have never played Final Fantasy. I'm just not a video gamer, but I find the worlds and mythologies created for these games fascinating.

I also love the fact that Twilight Sword is set on a world - seemingly - without humans, instead elf-like creatures are the dominant species along with anthropomorphic animals (you know I'll be bringing the ducks) and other fantastical races.

This is a million miles away from the human-centric fantasy world I have been pushing in recent years and I'm more than okay with that. I've definitely loosened up my ideas what makes a dynamic roleplaying game setting in the last 12 months or so... thanks, in large, part to watching a lot of Dungeons & Dragons-inspired anime.

Twilight Sword isn't released until the middle of 2026 (at the earliest), so that's when I'll be making my final decision on whether this is the new system I bring to the Tuesday Knights. But I'm very optimistic that this is a shoo-in.

I have a collection of ideas, names, atmospheric suggestions etc stored as notes on my phone for my, as yet undefined, Twilight Sword campaign but I won't know how applicable they are until more information about the game and its setting (the lands of Radia) comes out.

That also means I probably won't be talking much about Twilight Sword - as it is largely a mystery - either here or "in real life" until closer to the actual time it's likely to be in my hands.