Justice, Inc. Tournament (Preliminary Round)
Friday noon started a period five straight scheduled gaming sessions, beginning with the Justice, Incorporated tournament. After some years of shifting membership, this year the team went back to largely the original cast: Nick Halliday, detective and stalwart leader of Justice, Inc.; Commander Albert Ross, British aristrocrat; Roxanne (Roxie) duBois, lady reporter; Necros, Master of the Dark Magics, stage magician; Shannon McCrea, his beautiful and innocent young assistant; Geoffrey “G” Whiz, inventor; his sidekick Bandit, the Raccoon of the Future; and Johnny Fantastic, the Commander’s nephew and ward and a former circus performer (marksman). Everything takes place in the pulp era during the beginning of World War II.
We started in a fight with the villainous Dr. Hwong, who held the Weathervane of Noah’s Ark, deep in an ice-covered cavern deep in Mount Ararat. With the Weathervane he could throw lightning bolts to bring down icy stalactites down upon us. I, as Nick, returned fire with his trusty pistol amidst the many reflections of the villain in the icy cavern walls. The others ran across the ice bridge between us, except for Geoffrey who made a device out of a compass to magnetize the lightning bolts away. Bandit snatched the Weathervane as the evil Dr. Hwong dropped it as he fell into the crevice; his body was never recovered but we’re confident that we’ve defeated him again we haven’t seen the last of him.
That done, we returned to our base in Chicago, where a woman entered the offices of Justice, Inc., and asked us to investigate the murder of her father. He was an archaeologist, who had successfully found the site of the tomb of King Solomon’s architect. His backer, a mysterious figure named Gideon Ashur, was prominently involved. Just as she showed us a copy of a jubilant letter her father sent her, plus the telegram announcing his murder, a mysterious shadow of a figure appeared in the frosted glass of the office door. Suspecting foul play, the members of JI leaped to investigate, to ultimately find a Monsingor, representing the Roman Catholic Church (played by Mark Blumberg), who was very much interested in seeing the Weathervane of the Ark recovered. (It had been stolen from the local museum the previous night.) He also gave us a cryptic warning before he left. The woman herself disappeared sometime during this scene; we suspect an open window provided her an escape route.
The other members of Justice, Inc. were at the railroad station welcoming Geoffrey back from Washington, where he had been advising the government concerning the Manhattan Project, when a woman pulled a gun and appeared to aim at Geoffrey! Actually she was aiming at the man behind him, who she claimed killed her father, an archaeologist. During the scuffle a gang of men appeared to add to the confusion before everything was cleared up.
When the woman was brought back to JI headquarters she was immediately recognized as the same woman who had appeared previously, bearing the same letter and telegram. However, this woman had been at the railroad station and so could not have been the woman who appeared earlier. Another mystery for Justice, Inc.!
Our investigation lead us to one man, the archaeologist’s backer, Gideon Ashur. We learned that he had hired the men at the railroad station, and that some of those same men were involved with the robbery of the Weathervane, and we confronted him at his Chicago apartment (above the Chicago Opera House). We also suspected him of having the woman’s father murdered.
During our confrontation with Gideon, Shannon’s surreptitious investigation discovered the stolen Weathervane of the Ark in his library, as well as a tarnished lamp with a symbol on the bottom composed of two interlocking triangles. Everyone else was confronted with the hideous, hunchbacked figure who called himself Jack, dragging a bloody bag across the floor containing the body of Ashur’s maid. He was surprised to discover that we could see him as he confronted Ashur; we were surprised to find that we could not harm him by conventional means: when Geoffrey grabbed Jack, Jack shrugged out of Geoffrey’s bear hug and, leaving his own arm with Geoffrey, took another arm from the bag and replaced his own. When Jack was eventually set on fire, he jumped out of the windows into the Chicago River. In the confusion, Gideon disappeared.
The Monsignor was even more evasive concerning Gideon, but he seemed to know Gideon, at least by reputation. The Monsignor also disclosed that the tomb of Solomon’s architect contained a great power that Gideon could not face, but that Gideon wanted something in the tomb and collected various occult artifacts to aid him. He advised us to go to (Nazi-occupied) Paris to obtain another (unnamed) artifact that would aid us in our fight, before confronting Gideon and Jack once again. We members of Justice, Inc. swore to see justice done, to aid the young woman in bringing the murder of her father to justice, and to stop what dark evil was threatening the world.
Our path led us to Paris, where we were had arranged to meet with the Underground. Our contact turned out to be none other than Roxanne’s long-lost father! He led us to our rendezvous with the French Underground, who would get us into the Cathedral of Notre Dame. One sidelight: at the café‚ where we were supposed to wait for our last contact, a man approached Shannon (who was still carrying the lamp) and asked to buy it. Mark played the character holding pictures of Victor Buono (smiling and frowning) before his face to aid the scene.
After a wild goose chase at Notre Dame, we finally were led to a small chapel outside of Paris, just at sunset, where the last rays of light through the stained glass outlined a secret door. Pulling open the door we saw, in the sunlight, a crown of thorns. Just then, machine gun fire from outside the chapel shatters the stained glass, except for one last panel showing the members of Justice, Incorporated. (To be continued…)
It was a fun scenario, and I was (just) a little annoyed that I didn’t advance, but on reflection I would say that I didn’t do as good a job playing Nick as I had thought. (Or maybe its just rationalization.) Anyway, not qualifying for the final let me play in Sue’s tournament final, instead, so it all worked out. I still want to know how the final turned out, though.
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