Perilous Island: The Temple Of Futility

After an unplanned but predictable hiatus, Bryan and I returned to Perilous Island this weekend. We played at Bryan's house and took the game in a slightly different direction than previously: this time, we set up a huge dungeon using Bryan's Dwarven Forge sets and fought it out in there.

We chose the Jungle Trail scenario, which seemed appropriate to appropriate for this setting. The scenario has the leagues chasing "Native Youths" around the table, trying to catch them and question them. It looked like it was going to be easy for us to corner the youths in the dungeon, with the limited paths available, so we decided that the youths knew secret passages and tunnels that let them travel freely. More on this later...

The initial layout. The She-Wolves of the SS entered the table at south center, and The Shadow entered from the northeast. The Native Youths started in the northwest and southeast corners of the temple.

Black Sascha and the She-Wolves approach the entrance with optimism. Native youths? Easy!

A few of the She-Wolves head off to catch the Youth in the northwest. "Hey, I thought this temple was abandoned? What's with the raging fires?"

The Shadow heads for the Youth in the southeast, easily avoiding the perils of the fire. The Youth cowers, Blair-Witch-style, with his head in the corner.

Black Sascha and her lieutenant, meanwhile, head off The Shadow's two lieutenants and some of his mooks at a central doorway. It will soon prove to be a black day for the various junior members of the two leagues...

The Youth in the northwest has just popped through a hidden passage and landed quite close to Emma and Inge. They get ready to leap into action and subdue him!

The Shadow is less lucky, as his quarry actually climbs out of the temple altogether and starts running around on the lawn outside. Damn kids!

Things begin heating up in the center! Black Sascha and Gertie jump on Andre, while two German troopers exchange fire with Mr. Wu and The Shadow's less-glamorous hangers-on. The dead cultist with the dagger was a hostile bystander who suddenly appeared from the shadows and interfered with Mr. Wu just long enough for the She-Wolves to set up a blockade in the doorway.

In the northwest, what looked like a fairly ordinary perilous fire suddenly exploded, thanks to a card played by Bryan, applying the fire's peril to everyone within 3 inches, and rendering that area extremely perilous for the rest of the game. Despite some heroic, escapes and even more heroic returns into the inferno, none of the people you see here ended up surviving. Half of the She-Wolves team, felled with one card!

In the north, the Youth pops through another wall, leaving him just inches as the crow flies from the burning She-Wolves, but several long turns of running through the corridors, even if the She-Wolves still had their skins and eyes and a desire to run. Still, one German trooper gamely runs north, trying to head him off.

When a team catches a Youth, a new one spawns nearby. When one team has caught three Youths, they win the scenario. At this point, maybe six turns in, neither team has even come close to catching one of the Youths.

Mookageddon has come in the center - Andre lies wounded next to a dead German trooper, more mooks are bleeding out in the corridor, while Gertie faces off against a wounded Shadow. Mr. Wu takes off, making a play for one of the Youths, but BS runs him down and begins flogging him mercilessly with her whip.

The Shadow tries to beat up on Gertie, but...

...he is not particularly successful.

Gertie returns the favor, landing a solid blow! When The Shadow tries to shrug it off...

...he is not particularly successful.

Meanwhile, outside the temple to the north, Boy Tarzan (a temporary recruit to The Shadow's team) tries to reason with the Native Youth. This is the first and only time one of the characters manages to make contact! This could be the game winning play!

Unfortunately, he is not particularly successful.

The game ended with everyone on The Shadow's team dead or dying, and just Black Sascha, Gertie, and an irrelevant German trooper left standing on the She-Wolves' side. The leagues managed to capture zero Plot Points between them, and retreated shame-faced from the Temple of Futility.

Perilous Island: Blood Sacrifice!

With their feet finally on dry land, the Okkulten Forschungabteilung and The Shadow moved inland, both groups intent on discovering the secret of Perilous Island for themselves. After only a few days of exploring, cries from the jungle brought Black Sascha and The Shadow to a clearing, where a shipwrecked sailor was about to be sacrificed to the dark gods of the islanders! Both teams sprang into action, hoping to snatch the sailor for their own purposes.

Irma, with an okkultentrooper and a friendly native guide, stake out the left flank.

Black Sascha, with two more troopers, gets ready to go ask the witch doctor in the center some questions. Gertie and two of the she-wolves get ready to run up the right flank towards some Perilium they spotted there.

In the middle of the clearing stands the strange altar, with the shipwrecked sailor surrounded by fire!

The Shadow and his men get ready to rush the altar.

One of The Shadow's mooks tries to climb up the roots of a giant jungle tree and get to the crate stowed there, but falls to his death in the attempt.

Irma and her boys rush for the altar, but The Shadow is too quick - he leaps over the flames and grabs the sailor.

Meanwhile, Black Sascha and Emma have words with the witch doctor.

The Okkultentroopers exchange fire with The Shadow and his men, while Gertie and Inge dig Perilium rocks out of the ground.

Irma and the native guide move up to where they can annoy Andre as he wrestles with the mysterious remains, while their trooper runs up to the edge of the fire to shoot at The Shadow.

With the sailor and the mysterious remains in hand, The Shadow's team regroups at the giant tree.

Sascha, Gertie, and the rest of the F.A. move in cautiously, but nothing they do seems to faze The Shadow or his men.

A giant scrum develops around Andre, but he shrugs off every attempt by the three She-Wolves attacking him.

At the end of the day, The Shadow remains in possession of the main prize, turning his back in contempt on everyone who tries to shoot him off his perch!

Another fun session of Pulp Alley. Bryan had terrible dice luck in the first half, but the tables turned in the latter half and I wasn't able to do any damage to his people. I had a card in reserve that would have allowed me to snatch the Mysterious Remains from Andre if I could have just knocked him down, but it wasn't happening. Bryan played well and nabbed the Major Plot Point right away, so fair play to him: dice aside, he had the better strategy!

We didn't end the game with any new pages of the Professor's journal, so we are no closer to moving on to the next stage, but maybe that's best - the scenarios in this section are harder than previous, so more experience wouldn't be amiss!

Perilous Island: Landfall in the Lagoon Of Terror!

This weekend Bryan and I were finally able to get our Pulp Alley leagues to set foot on Perilous Island! Having fought across the world to get here, we decided to call a truce and just sat back with coconut drinks and the beach and relaxed and nothing horrible or violent happened at all...

Meanwhile, back Pulp Alley reality, we landed on Perilous Island in a shipwreck, and had to brave the dangers of the island and the Terror of the Lagoon, not to mention each other.

Perilous Island boasts certain special hazards, and special rewards:

The Lagoon Terror, with some Perilium deposits and some lost journal pages.

The Lagoon of Terror scenario has us at the edge of a (wait for it...) lagoon following the wreck of our ship. The Major Plot Point, the journal pages, are on the ship wreck, while the others are placed by the players. A jug of special juice is lost in the cave, the rocks just left of centre contain a Perilium deposit, a native fisherman stands on the outcropping in the centre of the board, and a set of Mysterious Remains lie out in the open on the right.

The Table, pre-deployment.

My Okkulten Forschungabteilung won initiative, so I deployed the first character and had the first turn. I placed Black Sascha, my leader, and Gertie, my sidekick, near to the shipwreck, with most of the others near the middle of the table, except for two Allies near the cave. Bryan had The Shadow on the beach and Mr. Wu in the lagoon, with Andre and his Allies and Followers close to the centre.

Black Sascha was able to snap up the lost journal pages in the first turn, while Gertie ran interference with Mr. Wu and The Shadow. Both teams' mooks mixed it up in the middle of the table, with two of my German troopers going down under gunfire from Bryan's follower. Andre was able to beat off Irma and another of the German troops in the middle of the table to grab the Native Fisherman. My two she-wolves at the back of the table moved in on the jug of Paganga Juice in the cave, but had a hard time picking it up.

We had four turns of respite before the Lagoon Terror appeared. There were several candidates for the Terror to attack, but everybody scattered before it, leaving only poor Gertie to feel its wrath! Despite the Terror's unstoppable attacks, Gertie was able to stay on her feet until the very end of the last turn.

"I got (some of) my eyes on you! But I think I'll go beat up Gertie instead."

Schlorp, schlorp, squelch

Meanwhile, fighting continued throughout the rest of the island. Black Sascha was cut off by Andre as she tried to leave the lagoon and they fought for a few rounds, but BS was at last able to push him away and activate her experimental jetpack, flying to safety with the journal pages.

Most of my mooks were taken out by some fine shooting by one of The Shadow's low-level henchmen. I had one native follower, though, who managed to run around him, snatch up the Mysterious Remains, and take off. These two characters spent the rest of the game running across the board, with The Shadow's mook taking shots at the native every turn, and the native managing to dodge away or shrug off the damage every time. The native was still in possession of the remains at the end of the game!

The Shadow was able to extend the scenario by one turn, which gave him time to pick up the Perilium from the rock outcropping nearby - with a little help from Andre.

There is a list of three or four generic Perilous Island adventures to do next, which (unlike the scenarios previous to this one) can be played multiple times. When any league has four pages from the lost journal in their possession, we proceed from the generic scenarios to the three finale scenarios. At the end of this scenario, the Okkulten Forschungabteilung holds 2 pages, so I better not collect any more for a while if we want to be able to play all of the generic scenarios!

The Road To Perilous Island: Soerabaja!

For this week's tale of adventure, Bryan and I were joined by my wife Grace and our friend Jenn. Grace was in charge of The Rocketeam, a band of jetpack-wearing daredevils, and Jenn had a rough-and-ready group of Western types called the Bill Hillies, named for their leader, Banjo Bill. Rather than a free-for-all, we decided to create informal teams: the Rocketeam joined the Okkulten Forschungabteilung, while the Bill Hillies teamed up with The Shadow and his cronies.

Grace, Jenn and Bryan preparing to explore the (much more ruinous than you might have thought) city of Soerabaja.

The scenario takes place in Soerabaja, Indonesia, and is the final step in our quest to find the location of Perilous Island. Our main objective was to find an old sailor who could tell us where the island lies, but before we could find him, we had to do some legwork around the town and collect other clues.

Deployment had our characters scattered all over the board, which meant we were getting into fights right from the first turn.

The Extremely Perilous Bridge. I started with 3 figures on the bridge; one died right away (you can see him on the ground at the far end), one spent the game getting knocked down and getting back up again, never moving from her starting position, and the third managed to reach the plot point in the center of the bridge, but could never pass the challenge.

The Shadow, with Elyssia of the Bill Hillies, fight for possession of one of the plot points against two rocketeers.

In the far corner, Mr. Wu and one of the Shadow's mooks race towards another plot point, while Gertie from the She-Wolves chases them to try and beat them up.

We each placed one plot point at the start of the game, and I was the only person who decided to put their plot point in perilous terrain, while everybody else opted to just have them in the middle of the street. Here we see Bertie (no relation to Gertie) picking up a plot point, while a rocketeer lands to punch her up.

Ilse of the She-Wolves continues getting up and falling down, the German trooper continues to try and get the plot point, and Shabby from the Bill Hillies stumbles his way to the top of bridge, while a rocketeer hovers over all of them.

Black Sascha, the leader of the Okkulten Forschungabteilung, rushes Banjo Bill for what she hopes will be an old-fashioned, down-home ass kicking, but despite wielding Weapon X against the banjoist, the combat is inconclusive, with nobody injured on either side.

Gertie manages to brain one of The Shadow's minions and traps Mr. Wu in an alley, with one of the She-Wolves and a German trooper at the other end!

Unfortunately, Gertie was never able to give Mr. Wu the fate that was approaching from both directions, because we had to call the game at the end of that turn - it was past 10:30, and Jenn and I both had to work the next (Sunday) morning.

The Shadow was the overall winner, with 2 plot points. We never did find The Old Sailor, so the Reputation rewards were minimal for everyone.

This scenario felt quite a bit more chaotic (not in a good way) and lacking in focus than the other ones we have done in the campaign. I don't think it's a function of the scenario design, but probably entirely attributable to the fact that we had 4 people playing this time, two of whom had never played the rules before.

Also, there was a Red Herring mechanic built in, where you never knew if the Plot Point you were collecting was real or a decoy until you drew the reward card for it, but the Red Herring card never came out of the deck. It might have made things a bit better if we were chasing plot points around the board a bit more. As it was, everybody (except me) put their PPs out where they were easy to grab, so the PPs were in peoples' possession basically from the first turn, which turned the game into a "kill the other guy" scenario rather than an objective-based scenario.

All that said, we had fun, and we finally know where to find Perilous Island. To the ships!