Trailblazers Season 2

The following sums up the story from Season 2 of the podcast Trailblazers. These are only short and incomplete synopsis, complete information can be found on the relevant pages of the wiki. Summaries are only added after a chapter has been completely published.

THEME: The theme is Loss. Despite life often not giving us time to cope with loss and other major events in our lives, we manage to find ways to honor them and live with ourselves and circumstances even if we can't ultimately change them in any significant way. We have to manage the only things we can control even when life does all it can to prevent us from dealing with things the way we want to or think we should, and ultimately the coping and honoring that results from that is the true way we can do those very things.

Chapter 1 - Grim Happenings

The party is working security for a shipping company when their cargo is attacked. They are the sole survivors and escape with a strange canister that was being shipped. They are picked up by the A.A.A. and offered a position. They attempt to learn more about the canister and in their fumbling suffer from bouts of insanity. The party find themselves constantly hunted by a man known as Baron Samedi, and eventually capture him. They are falsely accused of all his crimes and are unable to learn much from him. The base is attacked by Comet who is trying to get the canister, but they fail. A comet strikes the ground, and the party find a Nekojin in it's core. They learn she is from the Homeworld and that it is in danger, and she made a wish to stop it's source and the wish brought her to them. She then recognizes that Baron is her father.

Gameplay Features

World Exploration

• learned the basics about the world, and it's government
• hub-based missions
• limited access to world
• focused environment and NPC interactions

Conflict

• falsely accused of crimes
• hunted & ambushed

Combat

• defend the objective
• survive number of rounds

Player Characters

• Party 19

Chapter 2 - The Upside Down Tree

The party learn that while Hope and Baron are both from the homeworld, they are from different times. Baron strikes a deal to help the party cure their insanity and learn more about this conspiracy they find themselves in exchange for his freedom. He leads them to a hidden structure from the homeworld hidden underneath the sea. The party enter it with Coba and Tar and after encountering several horrors find the source of their mania - Slenderman (the Upside Down Tree). They release him from his stasis prison and traverse an alien forest collecting pages until they're able to confront and defeat Slenderman. They are returned to Coba and Tar, free of their mania however a Shoggoth begins growing and they have to escape the structure with the aid of a government vessel that had entered the structure to extract the party. Coba is killed by the Shoggoth, but the rest of the party escapes. Along with the vessel and the A.A.A. the party defeats the Shoggoth and the captain of the vessel, Elson, agrees to let them go and investigate their claims of conspiracy. The party return to shore where Booker receives word that his work papers have gone through and he leaves for Upper Kadesh, only for the party to learn too late that Booker betrayed them having let Comet into their base earlier, and now steals the canister. They investigate a lead for a prototype of Project Dark, and discover a cybernetic soldier prototype. They destroy it, collect evidence, and return to the vessel. They find Hope and Baron have vanished, right before SWAT along with Psycho Squad raid the A.A.A. base and arrest them. Only Kintaro, Lanris, and Victor survive the raid. They are brought before a high-ranking policeman unsure of their fate.

Gameplay Features

World Exploration

• learned about homeworld
• moved from land to sea
• focused on one interesting location

Conflict

• sanity
• conspiracy

Combat

• dungeon
• traps
• single-boss encounters
• overwhelming

Player Characters

• Party 19

Chapter 3 - Psycho Squad

The party is pressed into Psycho Squad where they must do suicide missions for the police. They are implanted with cerebral bombs to ensure their cooperation and are released on their own cognizance. They take shelter with Lanris' sister but are soon visited by Baron who tells them not to pursue him, and says he will stop pursuing them, but not before magically compelling Lanris to cut off and eat his own ear.

Gameplay Features

World Exploration

• no longer restricted to a 'home base'
• freedom to choose living spaces
• still limited by legal restraints to their freedom
• respite from norm by introducing a limited-time distraction (Magical Mystery Tour)

Conflict

• legal system
• forced missions whether want to do them or not or have a moral objection
• personal attacks
• crescendo of attacks against them from main enemy
• their own bodies falling apart / killing them (corruptions)
• investigation/detective

Combat

• fight way to boss
• discreet 'tournament' style battles treated with a sense of gaming
• super boss
• fight equal amount of pc-power-level enemies

Player Characters

• Party 19