GURPS Eternal Champions

I played in two games. The first was Bob Dushay's The Fisher of Souls for Everway, which I'll write up for a later zine. The second game was Andrew Dawson's GURPS Eternal Champions. I got into this one with the gm of the event I'd signed up for, as we were the only ones there, and Andrew only had three players. Each of us played an incarnation of Moorcock's Eternal Champion. Tara, the other gm, played Kinrowan, a lady knight from an alternate Europe. I'd thought about taking that pc, but settled on a Roman centurion named Aquinus, who came from a world where the apostate Julian (or is it Justinian? Someone who is stronger in history than I will have to say) was successful and Mithraism replaced Christianity.

Tara's husband, Kris(?), played a man from a post-apocalyptic world where machine men were covering the world with metal. Another man played a very primitive nomad who was given what struck me as contradictory instructions by Andrew. First, he really didn't like technology or magic, and should probably have gone berserk a few times. Second, Andrew kept assuring the player that the pc did not have to do this because the folks doing the Weird Stuff were the other pcs, and we all instinctively trusted each other. I dunno; maybe it's just that the player was the least outspoken of us all. Then there was Dave Herrold, who played Frank Cornelius, Child of the 70s with skills including Science! (spelled exactly that way) and Fashion Sense -- 70s fashion sense, alas. (I think Dave had just run In Media Res for CoC.)

Frank was wandering because he wasn't sure what else to do, and he'd just killed his brother and sister again. (This happens a lot -- the 2 brothers and sister love each other, make love to each other, kill each other, and do it all over again. I think one of Frank's goals was: Don't die. It's not fun.) The rest of us were looking for some magical artifact to keep our world from being overrun by the local forces of Chaos.

We met in a cave, all dressed differently, all understanding each other, and all somehow sensing a common bond.

Frank (to Asquinus): Hey, Et tu, Brute!

Asquinus (confused): Ave?

Frank also kept talking about cool cats, and Kinrowan got very annoyed because there weren't any cats around. Her armor wasn't especially feminine, but as soon as we heard her voice, we knew she was a woman.

Asquinus: Are you an Amazon?

Kinrowan: What is an Amazon?

Asquinus: A woman who fights.

Kinrowan: Yes.

Eventually, she told him to stop calling her "Amazon", since her name was Kinrowan, so he called her "Amazon Kinrowan" instead.

We all arrived at the cave by different tunnels, Frank coming from a subway tunnel. Asquinus tried to explain where the Franks came from, while Frank tried to explain what a train was. Kinrowan and Asquinus thought they knew what he meant, as they'd seen baggage trains and suchlike before. Frank lit a joint and shone a flashlight, which bothered the nomad, who tried to leave, but all the exits were gone. Then, Frank examined an odd pillar with seven holes, one of which had a stone in it.

Frank (trying to get our attention): Hey! Rock. Hot.

Warm, actually. Kinrowan had a stone which fit in another hole, and a hunchbacked man called Jervaise appeared and led us through mists to another place. Aquinus thought that this was Frank's father, as Frank kept calling him "Daddy-O."

I wasn't sure what Aquinus would think of Frank. At first, I figured, given the very outlandish -- painful -- garb, combined with the cologne, he'd assume Frank was some type of temple prostitute. (I don't know if this is at all a likely hypothesis for Aquinus.) After watching Frank for a while, however, Aquinus decided that he must be either a madman or a magician, possibly both.

Jervaise told us we had to search for something and we would know it when we found it. So, we headed off to an outpost of the empire of the metal men from Kris's pc's place. There was a bunch of metal buildings which Kinrowan and Asquinus saw as a waste of metal, the nomad and post-apocalypse men saw as evil, and Frank saw as a metal building. Frank opened the door, and inside were a bunch of big computer banks and a child floating in a tank with a third stone in his forehead, curled in a foetal position, with lots of wires coming out of his head.

Kinrowan wanted to shatter the glass. Frank said that would kill the child. She said that she'd pray for his soul, and hit the glass with her sword as Aquinus tried to stop her. The glass was starred, but not broken. Then, Frank kicked through the glass with his platform shoes, and Aquinus mentally threw up his hands, since he'd been basing his course of action on what Frank, who seemed to be the local authority, was saying. And when all these metal bits came out of the kid's brain, Aquinus decided that the post-apocalypse man was probably right about death being preferable to what the child was going through. Kinrowan began praying for the child's soul as alarms went off. Someone grabbed the stone, and we fled, meeting not Jervaise, but another of the Eternal Champion's Companions.

He led us to a village in Kinrowan's world, where she instinctively led us to a Jewish moneylender (She had some power that let her know where we had to go). Leaving her sword with us, she paid him a visit, spotting another of the stones on his desk.

Moneylender: Yes, lady? How may I help you?

Kinrowan (pointing to the stone): I have come to relieve you of that.

Moneylender: Excuse me?

Lisa (ruefully): Yes, that's about right.

I'm not sure exactly how I felt about this part of the game. I'm Jewish. I wasn't offended -- the moneylender was not an Awful Stereotype. And Kinrowan's attitude was very period. But there was sort of a not quite pain. I'm not doing a very good job of describing this, but I've filed my reaction away for further investigation.

In any case, Kinrowan tried explaining about our quest, and the moneylender invited the rest of us in. He was fascinated to learn that there were other stones -- he had thought his was unique, although it had a plural name, implying the existence of others. He wanted to know why we wanted the stone, which was an old family heirloom, and we did try to explain, but it did sound rather fishy.

Moneylender: Perhaps if one of you stays behind -- not as a hostage, of course; that would be rude, but as a guarantee of the stone's safe return.

One of us: Ah, that's the problem. We can't guarantee that the stone will be returned.

He allowed as how that was a problem, and we tried to see if we had anything to give him of comparable value. Frank suggested his smart pills.

Aquinus (meaning every word): I can assure you that he has great and unusal knowledge.

Moneylender: I can well believe the unusal part.

Frank handed him two demerol, and took a pill himself. The moneylender took his pills with wine, intrigued. A half hour later, he was snoring. We took the stone and told his apprentice that he had fallen asleep after too much wine. The apprentice, reading our minds, decided to take a holiday, and we beat a hasty retreat.

Our next stop was a city under attack by bombs and suchlike. We were warned that it would fall within a day. Two sentries saw our stones and were ecstatic. They had one powering the defense of the city, but it was growing weak.

Asquinus: Well, take us to it at once!

One sentry obliged, and Kinrowan grabbed the stone. The sentry went berserk, but was cut down by Asquinus and the post-apocalypse man.

Andrew: This is butchery. You don't need to roll.

Next, we were led to a burial mound, and our guide was troubled, for we were in Dorian Hawkmoon's world. He said that we must not meet Hawkmoon, yet another version of the Eternal Champion. Then, we had an odd vision, and were told that somehow we had turned against ourself, but gotten a new stone, so it must be all right.

We went into the mound, and found Hawkmoon's body, though the pcs didn't know who it was. He had the stone in his skull, of course, and woke up when we tried to take it. Unfortunately, he mindless, and when we fought him, we felt every blow we dealt him. Considering that we chopped him up pretty good, you'll understand why most of us were unconscious by the time it was all over.

When Frank came to, he lit a marijuana joint. Asquinus asked for smart pills, understanding only that they put some people to sleep, which had to be better than all the pain he was feeling. Frank, friendly fellow, handed him the joint, which Dave mimed passing to me. I, thinking it was a pill, mimed swallowing it.

Dave: Oh no!

Andrew: You realize, too late, that you shouldn't swallow burning smart pills.

Asquinus was in a lot of pain. So was I -- I was laughing too hard to draw breath as Dave mimed futilely trying, in slow motion, to stop Asquinus. Still, once the initial pain was over, Asquinus felt pretty good. He even understood what Frank meant about being able to fly.

Eventually, another guide led us back to the cave, where we put all our stones in their sockets, and found that another had been retrieved while we were gone. Then, we all went back home, and, except for Kinrowan and Frank, beat the tar out of our enemies. Kinrowan's world was doomed for some reason -- I'm not sure why -- but she led a good last battle. Frank, meanwhile, felt a great sense of peace and turned into a hermaphrodite.

So, we saved the multiverse by, let's see:

-- Killing a child

-- Drugging a Jewish moneylender and stealing his family heirloom

-- Removing the device powering a city's defense, and thus dooming everyone in the city

-- Desecrating a corpse.

All this was quite in keeping with Moorcock's works, and a good time was had by all, I think. We rolled dice twice during the entire run; once for breaking the glass, and once for fighting the corpse. Dave took first prize for best roleplaying and Kris took second, which is how my vote went.