Magical Kitties Save the Day (Kids)

Urban fantasy for all ages. Monster of the Week (Evil Hat Productions), Magical Kitties Save the Day (Atlas Games)

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nemarsde
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Magical Kitties Save the Day (Kids)

Post by nemarsde »

I bought the boxed set for Hobbit-I for Christmas. The first session was played on New Year's Eve Day, 2021, and took about 3 hours including random character creation. A shorter follow-up session was run on Mon, 3 Jan 2022.

What magical kitties were created?

Black-patch (aka Battle Kitty)
Played by Hobbit-W (6 YO)

A white cat with a black eye patch who turns rainbow colours when using his magic power: the ability to cancel out other magic powers. Never gets lost but afraid of heights.

Magic (aka Fang)
Played by Hobbit-T (8 YO)

A black cat with white throat, very small and nervous, but with the magical ability to mimick any animal sound or sound of nature.

Dave (aka Ginger, aka Mango, aka Ghost)
Played by Hobbit-I (11 YO)

A ginger tom, reckless but with a fine sense of balance and the magical ability to breathe underwater and swim like an otter. Something of a knight errant who goes by many other names, he's currently called "Dave".

Biter Wylie
Played by Hobbit-H (8 YO)

A patchwork alley cat, intensely curious, fast, dexterous paws and the magical ability to teleport across the room. Hobbit-H who created this cat launched into quite a lengthy backstory about how Biter is actually a Franken-kitty, stitched together from other kitties and resurrected by lightning.
nemarsde
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Magical Kitties Save the Orphans

Post by nemarsde »

Part 1

The story started with the kitties taking shelter in the attic of a London orphanage, one New Year's Eve.

(The orphanage is a big, creepy old Victorian building made from red brick.)

The orphaned babies were all asleep and the kitties decided to sneak down to the kitchen for supper.

Coming down the stairs, they heard the nightwatchman doing his rounds. A nasty fellow who strangles cats, the kitties were keen to avoid him. As they slunk along the wall, Dave knocked over the umbrella stand, bringing the nightwatchman their way.

Magic distracted the nightwatchman by mimicking chickens, and whilst he searched for the little cluckers, Dave balanced on an umbrella and rolled it into position across the corridor.

When the nightwatchman returned, his foot slipped on the umbrella and he did a double backflip. Biter paid a Kitty Treat to ensure the man fell on his face, broke his nose and had to go to hospital!!

With him out of the way, the kitties tackled the kitchen. Chicken pizza was put in the microwave, fishfingers in the oven, and Biter tipped over the bin to eat some discarded bones.

While they waited for pings, they played a game of hide-and-seek. Magic hid under the fridge-freezer and twas then she heard voices emanating from a drain-tile.

Sinister voices plotting to invade the orphanage that night, whilst the adults were letting off fireworks and celebrating the New Year. At the stroke of twelve, the invaders would sneak in to eat the orphan babies' lips, noses and eyelids as they slept!

Magic's first instinct was to eat her pizza and then leave the orphans to their grisly fate, but one of the laws of being a magical kitty is you have to protect humans.

After some debate, they decided to sneak into the drain and find out who the villains were, following the sound of weird music.

They would have got lost in the freshwater sewer without Black-patch's unerring sense of direction.

Then they reached a sluice gate. Dave leapt into the water and swam under the gate to the other side but couldn't reach the mechanism, so Biter teleported through a gap at the top of the gate and let Dave stand on his shoulders.

Soon enough they were overlooking a wide chamber, filled with thousands of black rats with red eyes. Some were body-popping to music from a ghetto blaster, others were chittering away evilly, and drawn in chalk on the wall was a diagram showing the orphanage, the drain in the kitchen and the orphan babies without any faces. It was an invasion plan!

Dun-dun-duuun!

Part 2

So the chamber in which the black rats were gathered gained some mesh doors, used by maintenance men, but only lockable by a key. The key was on the boss rat's belt, who I named Ratz al Ghul (after Batman's nemesis).

Ratz al Ghul also demonstrated magical control of the rats, allowing them to act with precise co-ordination.

The kitties planned to steal the keys, lock the doors, then flood the chamber by opening a sluice gate. The rats would be trapped and drown!

After some dramatic rolls, Biter teleported behind Ratz al Ghul, swiped his key and teleported back out. Dave dived down into a cistern to activate the mechanism for the sluice gate. When the chamber started to flood, Ratz al Ghul commanded the rats to form into a mega-rat to smash the doors down, but his power was cancelled by Black-patch (who needed to spend a Kitty Treat on a re-roll---very exciting!).

But the tunnels all started to flood and the kitties had to escape. They got trapped under a manhole cover but Magic squeezed through a hole in the cover and found herself in the orphanage gardens. She spent a Kitty Treat to create a spade left lying around, jammed it under the manhole cover, then jumped off a tree branch onto it and popped the cover off. So the kitties and the orphan-babies were saved!

Just as it looked like the game was over, with a jingling of bells and snorting of reindeer, Santa's sleigh came swooping out of the sky, driven by an elf and pulled up next to the kitties.

He told them that Santa had been kidnapped by the Bear-Trolls of the Frozen Wastes and only the Magical Kitties can save him. The elf needed the kitties to hop onto the sleigh and go with him to the North Pole to save Santa!

The End

Magical Kitties Save the Day turned out to be a surprisingly good, playable RPG, truly for all ages from 5 to probably as old as 12-13. Although the theme seems childish at first, it only really requires a love of cats to sell a player on it.
nemarsde
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Legend of 'The Salty Puss'

Post by nemarsde »

The players had recently spent a week on the Isle of Wight in a holiday home with a grand piano in it. This next adventure referenced many things from their holiday. We played two sessions, 1 and 4 Aug.

Part 1

The magical kitties were gathered in a village in England for a summer festival, enjoying a well-earned rest from their adventures.

As they sat on a fence listening to cats singing, the goddess Hecate came down from the Moon and gave them an urgent mission like she sometimes did.

Dark deeds were afoot on the Isle of Wight. For many years the island had been protected from supernatural evil by Hecate's champion, Blackmane, a large black magical kitty.

But weeks ago Blackmane went missing. A magical kitty called Misty who was staying with a family at the Wight Mouse Inn reported that soon after Blackmane disappeared the inn had been raided by ghosts from the coast, and all the beer stolen.

Unless the beer was recovered, the Wight Mouse Inn wouldn't have any to sell tourists over the summer and they wouldn't be able to afford to send their boy, Michael, to music school next year. (Which would be a shame because Michael was a talented pianist.)

The magical kitties must go to the Isle of Wight, meet Misty, find Blackmane and save the beer!

For this new mission, Dave adopted a new codename: Mango.

So the kitties caught a ride on a furry white luck dragon called Falkor, flying south over the countryside and London. They waved to a toddler on the London Eye, who smiled and waved back. They were served in flight snacks by a small troll dressed as an air stewardess and Biter threatened to eat the dragon if it didn't behave.

Until only hours later they landed in the beer garden of the Wight Mouse Inn.

Misty turned out to be a fluffy, wide-eyed little kitten. She told the kitties that the ghosts looked like glowing green zombies, dressed in strange old clothes.

The kitties took Misty under their wing, although Mango didn't trust her. Their first job was to find Blackmane so together they decided to ask the local colony of seagulls. Biter led the talks, where he very politely threatened to eat them unless they co-operated. This resulted in the seagulls getting angry but they did let slip that the Beast of Brighstone hung around the nearby village, raiding the bins of holiday homes. Biter promised to return later and eat the seagulls.

Convinced the Beast of Brighstone must be Blackmane, the kitties tabbed across a field to the nearby village, stopping to chat with some Jersey cows who recommended the kitties hide in the bins at the Old Mill House.

Biter threatened to eat the cows if they were lying, but the kitties took their advice and soon Blackmane came whistling along the street, too fat to even jump up onto a wall.

Blackmane squeezed through the front gate and flipped the lid on the wheelie bin and was surprised by five magical kitties staring back at him disapprovingly.

Blackmane explained that he'd retired from protecting the island, preferring the easy life, roaming from bin to bin eating all the junk food the tourists threw away.

He did see the ghosts raiding the Wight Mouse Inn and carrying beer barrels away to Chuggers Chine. He considered intervening but was in the middle of his second curry.

After calling Blackmane a "fat, lazy old cat" with some relish the magical kitties set off for Chuggers Chine.

Hobbit-H insisted on a post-credit scene: The seagulls are all dozing on the clifftop when Biter rises up behind them licking his lips. Cut to black.

Part 2

Chuggers Chine was a steep ravine overgrown with lush vegetation, very much like Shanklin Chine.

Although it was night, the moon was high and cats can see in the dark.

Black-patch led the way with his unerring sense of direction. He was on high alert so when he accidentally tripped a booby trap he was able to dodge it and warn the other kitties.

Spikes whipped past harmlessly but then ghoulish ghosts lept from the undergrowth with an ectoplasmic net.

The ghosts looked like rotting corpses, with their eyes hanging out, teeth loose and rattling in their gums and worms riggling under their skin and crawling out of their noses.

They wore old doublets and sailor's hats. When the net was tossed, Black-patch escaped up a tree and was scared stiff by the height (his flaw). Biter teleported into the same tree, and Magic squeezed through the mesh using his talent. Being rather reckless, Mango was captured in the net along with Misty and taken by the ghosts.... Down to the bottom of the chine to the beach where a ghost ship was moored called The Salty Puss.

Carried up the gangway to the poop deck, Mango noticed the Wight Mouse's beer barrels in the hold, below the open cargo hatch. Mango's paws were tied and he was freed from the net.

He and Misty were then introduced to Captain Slit-neck and monologuing like a villain he explained that over 400 years ago, the Spanish Armada tried to invade England. He and his crew were pirates, hired by the Spanish to sneak barrels of gunpowder onto the island and blow up Carisbrooke Castle.

But the men were caught by the local militia in Chuggers Chine and because they were greedy, no-good pirates and traitors, they were executed on the spot and sunk along with their ship.

With Blackmane gone, Captain Slit-neck had returned from the dead to retrieve his barrels of gunpowder and take revenge on the locals. (He didn't seem to realise he'd stolen barrels of beer not gunpowder.)

Unbeknowest to the pirates, Biter had teleported into the hold, Black-patch was now lurking in a coil of rope and Magic had squeezed into the barrel of a swivel gun.

Mimicking the Captain's voice, Magic yelled out that someone was in the hold trying to steal the barrels. This was twice as convincing because it was true!

Whilst the pirates charged down into the hold to capture Biter, Black-patch chewed through Mango's bonds and together they confronted Captain Slit-neck who stood alone.

But Captain Slit-neck informed them he was not outnumbered and did not stand alone. Misty steepled her paws and declared in an evil mastermind voice "The Captain is quite right, he doesn't stand alone."

(At this the hobbits all simultaneously cried "NOOOOOO!" for about a minute.)

Now Misty explained that she'd gotten Blackmane addicted to junk food and brought the pirates back from the dead, because she was going to take over the Isle of Wight and then the whole of England.

At this a big brawl ensued on the ship!

In the hold, Biter violently and verbosely dismembered swathes of pirates with his fast claws.

On deck, Misty tried trapping Black-patch in an illusion of standing on the ledge at the top of a skyscraper. Black-patch bravely called her bluff though and stepped boldly forwards to prove it was just an illusion.

Mango fought with Captain Slip-neck in the topsails, until the pirate got the upperhand and was about the cut the kitty in half with his cutlass.

Then Magic spent a kitty treat to create a sonic boom from her cat-butt, firing herself out of the swivel gun at the Captain's head. Magic knocked the Captain's head off like flipping the lid on a water bottle, but Magic went cartwheeling out to sea.

Above, Misty tried to use her second, super-secret magical power but then Black-patch kicked her over the side.

Mango used his fabulous sense of balance to slide down a rope into the hold, and started to lash the Wight Mouse barrels together, shouting to the other kitties that they should sink the ship.

Then Blackmane landed on the deck, carrying Magic in his paws. He'd been ashamed by what the magical kitties had said and decided to help after all.

Using his enormous belly, Blackmane jumped onto the muzzle of a cannon and pointed it into the deck. Before he could pull the trigger, Captain Slit-neck dropped from above and stabbed Blackmane between the shoulders. Gasp!!

The Captain had flipped his head back onto his neck and was back in action! As a team, Black-patch, Magic and then Biter attacked the Captain, knocking him flat, right under the cannon.

Blackmane shouted for the kitties to get clear and save themselves then pulled the trigger. BOOM! Fire and smoke and the cannon shot straight through Captain Slip-neck, through the deck and out of the keel.

Holed under the water line, the ship quickly flooded with rushing seawater.

Black-patch, Biter and Magic watched from the shore as The Salty Puss sank, taking all souls with it.

But then bubbles... and the barrels bobbed to the surface, all lashed together and towed by Mango the Fishcat!

The magical kitties had saved the day again.

The next morning Michael awoke, still so upset about not going to music school that he cried into his cornflakes. Until his mum barged in:

"I can't believe it! Michael, come see, all the beer's back in the cellar! Summer is saved; you will go to music school next year!"

"I don't know how it happened," said the dad, "it's a miracle!"

Sat on the fence outside, looking in through the window, the magical kitties wondered about their next adventure.

Hobbit-H insisted on a post-credit scene: Misty crawls out of the sea onto the beach and declares "I'll get you next time, Magical Kitties!". Biter rises up behind her, licking his lips. Cut to black.

The End

The hobbits enjoyed the second session more than the first, clearly more motivated by immediate action. Investigation and more complex decision-making they found unappealing.

I think this will be the last Magical Kitties that we play. Although the youngest hobbit seems quite smitten with the Magical Kitty theme, it is difficult to incorporate the interests of the other hobbits. A more conventional fantasy setting work better all-round.
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