War's End Review: Act Four

Okay, grab a bottle of Pepto-Bismol and prepare to descend into the truly stomach-churning finale of War's End!

The Act opens with a word of warning to GMs - not that this Act is likely to kill off each and every PC before the final Scene but that there's a chance the PCs will end up sitting on the sidelines watching the battles rage around them.

Well DUH! That's usually what happens when you throw a few characters into the midst of several hundred combatants, there's only so much each individual character can do in situations like that. If this is such a bad thing why are there so many of these situations in this Act? And if the PCs aren't supposed to sit on the sidelines why does the module relegate them to that position in two of the main battles fought during this Act (Ayroa vs Kurst, Sidon vs Jezrael)? Oh, I forgot, the PCs have already been in that position at the end of every preceeding Act, why should this one be any different?

Okay, our PCs learned in the last Act that Apeiros cannot write poetry. Wait, they learned via Apeiros' bad poetry that the Gaunt Man will be doing Bad Things in Los Angeles, so naturally they head to Los Angeles. Thus starts Scene One, the PCs heading into Los Angeles.

Much like Act Two , the module sticks with WEG's "the world is still normal" view of the Possibility Wars - commercial flights, trains or whatever are still scheduled into Los Angeles despite the presence of an invading reality. Given the nature of the invaders in LA I would hesitate to say that there's any amount of normal traffic into the city, certainly there can't be enough lunatics or Storm Knights to warrant it. Yet the module glosses over this, the plane/train is only "half empty" due to LA being the center of Tharkold's presence on Core Earth. Yeah, sure, whatever.

Like much of the module and the majority of this Act there's only one purpose for Scene One, to get the PCs involved in combat. There's an NPC that they can talk to after the battle but she doesn't really provide the PCs with anything they don't already know and the one useful piece of advice she gives them is made blatently apparent in the next Scene but cheerfully forgotten after that point.

In this Scene the PCs flight into LA is boarded by two Alpha Tharkoldu, out looking to kill Storm Knights. Hmm, maybe these two demons know that only Storm Knights would be stupid enough to fly into Los Angeles after a few years of the Tharkoldu presence, or maybe they just got lucky and picked the right plane to rip open.

Either way, the demons apparently forget that their mission is to kill Storm Knights because the Scene contradicts itself by changing their goal to killing off the pilots and making the plane crash. Or maybe these two demons want to avoid combat and crashing the plane is an easier way to do the job; it's not like the Tharkoldu are bloodthirsty sadists, they wouldn't engage in fierce, bloody combat when there's a much simpler way of wiping out lots of people, right?

Anyway, the NPC the PCs can talk to is an air marshal, supposedly on the plane for dealing with just such situations. But if that's her job, why is she equipped with a handgun that techno-demons won't even notice? Heck, she's P-Rated and transformed to Tharkold reality, why doesn't she have a laser pistol or something that'll actually affect a t-d?

The one bit of useful advice she gives the PCs after the fight is "trust no one unless they've really proven themselves." The Act then goes on to drive this point home in Scene Two by having the party ambushed by NPCs they think are the resistance members they're supposed to meet at the airport.

But what if the PCs take the marshal's advice to heart and don't immediately trust the NPCs they meet at the airport? The module doesn't address this point, the PCs are pretty much stuck with accepting the NPCs for who they say they are and waltzing into the ambush. So why bother telling the PCs this in the first place, especially since in Scene Three we have Tharkold NPCs accepting the PCs as who they say they are without question?

Speaking of meeting those resistance members in LA, what if the players never made those arrangements with the Tharkold technomage they might have met in Act Three ? If they didn't do that, then this entire Act falls apart, there's no way to go through Scenes Two and Three, and without the support of the NPCs you meet in Scene Three there's no way you'll live through Scene Four much less the remaining Scenes after that point. Sorry, the module doesn't even consider the possibility that the PCs won't have made the arrangements. If they didn't I guess you'll just have to shoehorn something in to lead them to Scene Three.

Why Scene Three instead of Scene Two? Because Scene Two is even more unnecessary than Scene One, it contains a fight (aren't we surprised) and sets up...another fight at the end of Scene Three.

So, what happens is our PCs get off the plane and are met by a couple of punks dressed all in black who say they're with the resistance and will take the PCs to meet Sidon (Jezrael's son). They take the PCs to two limos (hey, let's drive through Tharkold advertising that we're important people!) and drive them off to a deserted part of Bellflower where the party gets ambushed by...vampyre gangbangers with Big Guns.

Yes, as if there weren't enough bloodsuckers in the preceeding Act we get more of them in this Act. Fortunately though, these vampyres had to be written up from scratch and so the vampyre writeup in the Orrorsh SB was not reprinted verbatim, these vampyres are actually less fearsome than Sabathina.

Why did these vampyres have to be written up from scratch? Because they're not Orrorshan. Yet they have the Power of Fear and everything that goes with being a Horror. Now isn't Los Angeles a Tharkold pure zone? Then how are these people of Tharkold reality able to support the contradiction of their Orrorshan abilities? They are P-Rated (all of the NPCs in this Act are P-Rated except for the gospog armies) but there's no mention of them using reality bubbles (even so, the use of their Horror abilities would be a 4-case contradiction for them so it should be mentioned.)

Perhaps one good point is that there's no mention of the vampyre gangers using the Power of Fear against the PCs, so maybe Terra actually knew that they wouldn't be able to use their Horror abilities. But if so, why make them vampyres in the first place?

The vampyres are not entirely Terra's fault however, the LA Citybook actually set the precedence for this kind of stupidity by having entire gangs of bad guys (including vampyres) from just about every reality in the game operating in the Tharkold pure zone without the benefit of talismans, hardpoints or even being P-Rated in some cases.

As with Scene One, the bad guys have conflicting purposes in this Scene; a tracer is planted on one of the PCs and then the NPCs will no longer attack that character, implying they want that character to escape and lead them to the resistance. But only one sentence later the module says the gang's purpose is to completely wipe out the PCs, which probably means the guy with the tracer too. Must be the Law of Ferocity affecting their ability to coordinate their plans....

Oh, and regardless of circumstances the gangers will succeed in planting the tracer; you gotta love those NPCs who can pull off things like that in the middle of a raging battle.

Assuming the PCs manage to win without killing off every gang member, they can interrogate them and discover that Jezrael herself knew the PCs were coming and planned this attack. Man, with tactical planning skills like this no wonder she's High Lord....

Right now you might be thinking that the next Scene will involve the PCs trying to figure out how Jezrael knew the PCs were coming in on that flight and could set up the ambush - perhaps a traitor in the resistance that needs to be discovered and exposed?

Close, but no cigar. Scene Two ends with the real resistance members showing up and informing the PCs that there was a traitor in their organization who told the Tharkoldu the PCs were coming. One would assume that the traitor also sabotaged everyone's watches, otherwise why weren't there any real resistance members also at the airport? The module gives the impression that the resistance just didn't send someone in time and the gangers got there first. Y'know, I'm sure everyone in LA sleeps better at night knowing these are the people leading the fight against the Tharkoldu. Maybe someone should teach them how to tell time or something....

Now that the Mulderism "trust no one" has been drilled into the PCs, they're taken to meet the real resistance in Scene Three and everyone there accepts them immediately. Maybe that air marshal should pay a visit and talk to these people, especially since the resistance reps don't show up until after the fight is finished in Scene Two (in other words, they just find the PCs surrounded by a lot of dead bodies; how do they know the PCs aren't the gangers who have just killed off the Storm Knights and are now posing as them to find the resistance?)

But ignoring that for the moment, the PCs are introduced to Sidon, who tells the PCs that he's been having visions about the Gaunt Man's "end of the world rumble" and knows where and when it's going to occur. Once again the PCs don't have to figure out what to do next, the precognitive NPCs tell them! Damn, wouldn't it be nice to have these guys around all the time, then every adventure could be nothing but combat since the precognitive NPC will always be there to tell you where to go or what to do next!

The final battle will occur the next day at Devil's Playground, an area about 200 km northeast of LA. If I remember correctly, Devil's Playground is a rocky desert location that Hollywood has used in countless movies and tv shows (such as Captain Kirk's battle with the Gorn on the original Star Trek) so setting the final showdown of Torg in this venerable Hollywood establishment is actually a nice touch. If only there'd been some mention of this in the module so most people could appreciate it. (Or maybe I'm wrong, in which case Terra missed out on a good opportunity.)

The PCs are allowed to rest overnight with the resistance if they elect to join Sidon at the battle the next day. If the PCs refuse then they're kicked out and have to fend for themselves. The module assumes that they won't refuse which I suppose is the reasonable thing to assume, but since the rest of the Scene is nothing but another pointless battle I don't think it matters.

This pointless battle is described as "a chance to kick some major Tharkoldu tail". So what was Scene One, minor Tharkoldu tail? This fight is three dozen techno-demons against the PCs, Sidon and three dozen resistance and Race warriors. Given that the good guys actually have a slight numerical advantage, the supposed power level of the PCs (if they've made it this far they have to be pretty scary) and Sidon's near-HL power level this fight probably will devolve into an exercise in kicking Tharkoldu butt but I don't think I'd call it "major" in any way except quantity.

Oh, the techno-demons are led here by the tracer hidden on one of the PCs. Sidon of course will immediately discover it after the fight and now the PCs' loyalty is questioned by the resistance. I suppose later is better than never....

The module assumes that the PCs can explain the situation easily enough that it doesn't even address the possibility that they won't or how they should explain it. Though given the difficulty in persuading Sidon of anything (a willpower of 28) maybe it's a good thing that they gloss over it.

So the next morning everyone mounts up (on something, the module doesn't say how the PCs and Sidon's group are going to cover the 200 km to Devil's Playground) and enters Scene Four, the last Standard Scene of the module. The PCs are given just enough time to look at the scenery ("Hey, that's where Kirk fought the Gorn!") when an army of Orrorshan gospog erupt out of the ground and attack.

Bad Guys: six dozen first planting gospogs, three dozen second planting gospogs, eighteen third plantings, one fifth planting gospog for each PC (128 plus PCs)

Now you might think, "But Jim, gospogs are Ords, they can't negate the P-Points any one of the good guys can spend in this fight, it shouldn't be much of a contest." And you would be right except for one thing - the text description mentions the PCs feeling the Power of Fear as the gospogs pop out of the ground. Since the Gaunt Man is the main Horror this Act, the Perseverance DN is 27. The group has a Perseverance of 8 so they're probably going to fail. Among the gospogs the fifth plantings have the highest Fear Rating, a 2. That's 170+ fear points for the Horrors to apply to the PCs and everyone else. No matter how the gamemaster spreads that out, it's going to seriously screw with how well the good guys do in this fight.

Now it's true that compared to PCs who have made it this far and the weaponry carried by the NPC good guys, the first and second planting gospogs are cannon fodder and would be vaporized within a few rounds of combat. This may not comfort the PCs much though since each one of them is going to be busy with the fifth planting gospog that's after them, but if they can survive for a few rounds the gamemaster can presumably have some NPCs assist them if necessary, though that might be construed as the players sitting on the sidelines watching the action so maybe not....

Once every gospog has been destroyed, the Gaunt Man arrives. He gloats, tells the players they're doomed, and unleashes another army of gospog identical in number to the ones they just destroyed. The module does at this point call for a Perseverance check so perhaps one was not called for the first time the gospogs appeared. Of course with the Gaunt Man actually present his Fear Rating of 5 is used this time around so now they're really screwed.

But the PCs may be in luck - the Scene ends right after the Perseverance Check is made so if their gamemaster is feeling generous he'll stick them with all the effects that only last for a Scene, in which case they'll be gone as soon as they appear. At the very least the gamemaster could take away all their cards since they'll get to refill their hands right away.

Scene Five is the first of four Dramatic Scenes yet there's absolutely no reason for it to be Dramatic, things will be tough enough that there's no need to weigh things in favor of the bad guys here, especially since nothing dramatic actually happens in the Scene.

Before the Gaunt Man can command his gospog to attack the PCs and the surviving Tharkold grunts (Sidon has mysteriously vanished) he's interrupted by a maelstrom bridge crashing down into the middle of things. Ayroa, High Lord of Kantovia and the improbable head of the Storm Guild on Core Earth, launches an invasion from Kantovia in a desperate attempt to get her revenge against the Gaunt Man. A couple hundred P-Rated Dire Wolves manage to make it down the maelstrom bridge before the Gaunt Man exercises his "Whatever I Want To Do" power to destroy it.

Before Ayroa can launch herself at the Gaunt Man, Kurst is materialized out of thin air by the Gaunt Man and commanded to kill Ayroa. Gee, it's nice to finally see Kurst again but this "mindless slave of the Gaunt Man" bit is kind of what he spent the entire original trilogy overcoming, having it re-established so simply and undramatically off-screen is just unfair to the character and his history.

So now in addition to facing the same gospog army they just faced in the previous Scene the PCs have to deal with an army of Dire Wolves, who for no reason are attacking the good guys rather than the Gaunt Man and his gospog, and the Gaunt Man. If any of the PCs feel like it they can get involved in the Ayroa/Kurst battle but really, who's going to care? Are any of the PCs even going to know who Ayroa is? The module says that if Kurst wins the PCs will be in better shape but is that really the case? Kurst is a puppet of the Gaunt Man while Ayroa wants to kill the Gaunt Man, who sounds like a better ally for the PCs in this fight?

The module seems to assume that the PCs are going to get involved in the Ayroa/Kurst fight though because it doesn't tell you how the fight will proceed otherwise. I suppose industrious gamemasters could roll the dice and see how the fight progresses, it's not like he's actually going to be busy keeping track of several hundred other NPCs.... The module makes no mention of what happens to the victor and you would think that in either case they're going to want a piece of the Gaunt Man, so I guess each gamemaster is on his own with this one.

During this Scene, the Gaunt Man will toy with the PCs in true master villain fashion, assuming I suppose that the PCs aren't going to be busy enough with everything else. At one point the module says that if there are any characters with Corruption or who have been "wretched and uncooperative" this adventure, the Gaunt Man will kill them in this Scene. Is this supposed to be some kind of veiled lesson to the players of those characters, that if you don't play nice and sweet characters you don't deserve to survive through the end of the adventure? Then again, it might actually be a reward, now those players don't have to go through the remaining Scenes, they can go home early and avoid more unpleasantness!

Scene Five ends when the Gaunt Man corners the PCs, which I suppose means that it occurs when the GM feels enough time has passed since it should be rather difficult to corner a group of characters on an open battlefield like this one.

Having cornered the PCs, the Gaunt Man starts Scene Six by telling them that it's time for them to die. Suddenly, the Gaunt Man is knocked clear into Scene Seven by the sudden arrival of Sidon and Jezrael, who fall out of the sky and crash into the Gaunt Man. That's right, the Gaunt Man gets body-slammed clear off the battlefield somehow and the PCs have a chance to...fight some Tharkoldu! Oh boy, just what they were hoping for I'm sure!

Jezrael of course did not show up alone, she brought four dozen techno-demons and a number of Alphas equal to the number of PCs (how convenient) and she commands the Alphas to kill the PCs because it will unsettle Sidon to see them die. I'm sure Sidon is really concerned about the PCs' fate, he just met them the night before and on top of that probably knows that mere Alphas aren't any concern for anyone who's survived to this point in the module. Then again, the party has to be getting pretty worn out and it is a Dramatic Scene.... Not that it does matter to Sidon, he seems pretty single-minded about killing his mom, if all the PCs die he probably wouldn't even notice.

One really has to wonder how Jezrael ever got into position to become High Lord if this is an example of her tactics; according to the module she knows what the Gaunt Man is up to, knows that Sidon and the resistance are going to be here, knows these badass PCs are going to be present, and what kind of force does she bring with her? A couple dozen grunt t-ds and a few Alphas, none of which are even armed for heavy combat (the t-ds have laser pistols, the Alphas only have pain batons!) I mean c'mon, if you're going to try and take away the position of Torg from the Gaunt Man wouldn't you bring along some Big Guns or at least some Big Demons for something this important? Heck, where's Sterret, Los Angeles is his demense after all! Geez, I'm actually complaining that the horde of bad guys who show up in this Scene aren't excessively powerful enough....

If the PCs don't get involved in the Jezrael/Sidon fight the two combatants fly off into the distance and after passing behind a mesa in the distance there's a "huge flash of light" and neither is ever seen again. Huh? What's the point of this? Why the mystery, why not just tell us what happened? C'mon, given what's happened to every other High Lord we know Jezrael has to die, why should this one be kept a secret while all the others got shown directly to the PCs by Apeiros?

Scene Six is supposed to end once the Jezrael/Sidon fight is resolved, which I guess means either the PCs are supposed to get involved or the GM just keeps throwing bad guys at them until he gets bored and decides it's time to introduce the next bit of inanity...

And that inanity is the sudden appearance of Baruk Kaah, aka GodKaah after becoming an amalgamation of all realities in a rather ridiculous story development a few years back (I guess as far as WEG material goes everything is a few years back, huh?) Just to drive home how inane GodKaah is, the artwork accompanying this Scene is just ridiculous, showing it to the players is guaranteed to leave them laughing instead of having them worried for their lives.

What we see is Kaah, with a rather unedeinos-like head, sitting astride a small motorcycle (complete with flames painted on the gas tank!) with a katana in one hand and an Uzi in the other. It's so stupid looking it's almost pitiful.

Kaah has been summoned here by the Gaunt Man, who plans on using Kaah's nature as the trigger that makes him Torg. Of course we can't have things progress that quickly so the PCs get to fight with Kaah for a while first. But after a while the Gaunt Man will summon Kaah to his side, presumably the PCs won't follow. The module says that the PCs should not kill Kaah before this point, though it won't really affect things if they do since after this brief respite the Scene ends with the PCs once again fighting Kaah, this time to the death.

During this period while Kaah is getting his instructions from the Gaunt Man (or whatever), there's a bright flash of light near the PCs and the Avatar of Apeiros, aka Jeff Mills, designer of the "Five Realms" roleplaying game, finally puts in an appearance. The artwork depicting the Avatar is a close runner-up to the Kaah motorcycle artwork as the silliest looking thing in the module. I'm sorry but he just looks goofy, a stereotypical-looking gamer type trying to look serious while wearing a "Five Realms" t-shirt and holding a big sword.

I should note that Jeff Mills bears a strong resemblance to Greg Gorden (the original designer of Torg) though I would hope that Greg wouldn't appear as goofy holding a sword and trying to look grim, but I do have to say that the picture I've seen of Greg does make him look like a stereotypical gamer type. 8-)

Anyway, Jeff Mills comes up to the players, introduces himself as the Avatar of Apeiros and tells them that the Gaunt Man is going to use Kaah as a trigger to set off the San Andreas fault, which will provide him with the physical energy he needs to become Torg. The PCs have to stop Kaah from reaching ground zero. While they're doing that, the Avatar will confront the Gaunt Man with the deus ex machina, er, the Gaunt Man's True Death, the eternity shard sword he's carrying.

So for the remainder of this Scene the PCs have to wade through the battlefield, find Kaah, and kill him before he reaches wherever he's supposed to go. Or until the gamemaster gets tired of running combat and decides it's time to move on to Scene Eight, the final Scene of the module and the conclusion of WEG's run on the Possibility Wars.

Scene Eight opens with the PCs and the Gaunt Man being the only living beings left on the battlefield (and Kaah if the gamemaster got bored and started this Scene before the PCs killed him.) Jeff Mills lies dead before the Gaunt Man, apparently not even getting close enough to use the eternity shard sword which lies about six meters away from the PCs (which presumably means that Kaah's ground zero wasn't all that far away from the Gaunt Man's position.)

If the PCs haven't killed Kaah yet, the Gaunt Man does it for them with another use of his "Whatever I Want To Do" power. Turns out that Kaah didn't have to reach some location to be used as a trigger, he doesn't even have to be alive, the Gaunt Man just sucks up his life energy and the life energies of everyone else who died on the battlefield and is going to use that as the trigger to set off the faultline. So what was the point of the preceeding Scene? Simple, same as nearly every other Scene in this entire module, another pointless combat encounter. Aargh!

As the Gaunt Man starts to gloat again, Godinay aka the Avatar of The Nameless One appears a short distance away in the air above the Gaunt Man but does nothing, she's just there to observe. I guess they ran out of space and couldn't include another Scene in which the PCs get to fight her too. Oh, and the eternity shard sword vanishes from sight.

While the Gaunt Man gloats the PCs hear the voice of the Avatar (Apeiros, not Godinay) tell them to find the sword. They are then instantly healed and given a +5 increase to their Dexterity and a +10 increase to their Strength. The sword is only concealed from "the wicked" which I suppose is why the module instructed the GM to kill off the PCs that might fit that description....

Here the module makes a blindingly stupid statement - it says that the PCs will need a distraction so that one of them can get to the sword and engage the Gaunt Man in combat and it suggests the use of a Martyr card to provide the distraction.

Hey, how about this: I use the Martyr card to run over, grab the sword and impale the Gaunt Man with it. It'd save a lot of time, don't you think? Oh no, I'll use my Martyr card and die heinously so that my friend Bob can jog six meters to pick up the sword, and then still have to try and kill the Gaunt Man in melee combat!

Anyway, once a PC has the sword it reshapes itself into a bladed weapon from the character's reality and the Gaunt Man will oblige them by turning his walking cane into a sword and fighting them with it. I suppose his overconfidence is the Gaunt Man's only real fault and this is something he would do but it seems, well, dumb for the Gaunt Man to go down in a swordfight.

Unlike every previous occurance in this module where a character is involved in combat in more than one Scene the Gaunt Man's writeup is not repeated from Scene Four. Oh well, why should I expect consistency at this point?

With the +5 DEX and +10 STR bonus from the Avatar, the PC who engages the Gaunt Man in combat will have some chance of killing him if it's a straight swordfight; the Gaunt Man's melee weapons skill is 'only' 20 and while his Toughness is 28, the eternity shard sword has a STR+10 damage rating, so the PC is effectively STR+20 for his damage value, which should at least let him do some damage when (if?) he hits. The Gaunt Man has a severe weakness to the sword (I don't remember what a severe weakness does to Horrors, Stymies them or something like that? Can't use the Power of Fear?) and he cannot use Possibilities to negate damage caused by the sword so theoretically it should just be a matter of time before the PC can kill him.

Of course the Gaunt Man should have more Possibilities on hand than the PC does, which will swing things in his favor. While the PC can tap the shard for Possibilities (or the shard may give the PC Possibilities since it's purpose is to kill the Gaunt Man) the Gaunt Man can negate them with his own, meaning the only use the PC will get from his P-Points is negating damage that he takes in the fight. And while the module doesn't mention it, presumably the Gaunt Man can still get Possibilities from Heketon and with Heketon merged with every other Darkness Device on Core Earth the Gaunt Man will have in essence an unlimited supply of P-Points available.

On top of that, the Avatar did not provide the PC with a bonus to his Toughness, which means the Gaunt Man can cause serious injury to the PC with his sword (Damage Value 27) unless the PC is wearing some pretty heavy armor. Then again, to have survived this long the PC is probably wearing a battleship for armor....

And this is assuming that the Gaunt Man will fight fairly - unless his severe weakness to the shard affects his skills he's got interaction skills that should screw over most Storm Knights with little difficulty (like an intimidation skill of 38).
So IMO it's not a given that the PCs will win this final battle, at least not if the Gaunt Man is run as anything other than a man with a sword. But the module doesn't even consider that the PCs will lose, the only ending provided is the Gaunt Man being destroyed. I suppose that in true cinematic tradition we know the good guys are going to win so there's no need to provide an alternate ending, but it's an omission that bugs me anyway. Oh, and when the Gaunt Man is destroyed Ardinay is transformed back into the person she used to be. Isn't that special? I'm all aglow in happiness at the thought of it. So that's it, the Possibility Wars are over.

Torg, West End Games, and WEG are trademarks of Purgatory Publishing. You can find out more about Torg at www.westendgames.com.