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Philosopher's Fist 3.J/2: Unchainable

Philosopher's Fist 3.J/2: Unchainable is a non-canon one-shot in which an elderly would-be mentor and her dim, indestructible alien ward save a werewolf president from a former tournament champion, at a cost of $125,000 in property damage.
Arc None: a standalone one-shot, played between Appalachia 01 and Appalachia 02
Canon status Non-canon. In the fiction of the show it is an OVA seen on a hotel television in October 1992
Setting A small, low-gravity planet that is all one country: the tournament athletes' village, the capital and Wisukonshin
Timespan About two days
System A Masks-style Powered by the Apocalypse game, not Monster of the Week
Players present Rita (Mirabeth), Dante (Derk), Andre (GM), Matt (guest, no character)
Previous Appalachia 01
Next Appalachia 02

Non-canon

Nothing on this page happens in the main campaign. None of the task force's agents appear, and the session never mentions the FBI or the task force. The people, places and objects below exist only inside the OVA.

Synopsis

Mirabeth, 72, has adopted the alien prince Derk as her mentee and entered him in the World Martial Arts Tournament, whose grand prize is a few minutes with the Philosopher's Stone. Derk wants it to resurrect his friend Fatty Gibbs. When the tournament is suspended over a doping scandal, the unstable champion Ovain flies off to kill the werewolf president. Mirabeth sees publicity in it and gets Derk into a children's flag contest so that he is standing under the skylight when Ovain arrives. Derk carries Ovain into space, Ovain salutes him and leaves the planet, and Derk comes down in the ocean and ends up lost in Wisukonshin.

Plot

The mentor and the prince

Mirabeth is a widow who lives thin on Social Security, with two grown daughters who keep the grandchildren away from her. She believed the hero "legacy" had to pass down in the family, but her daughter Anna wanted to be a ballerina, and Mirabeth was thrown out of Anna's ninth birthday party. Her attempts to recruit elsewhere have had her asked to leave a lot of places. Derk is one of several princes of a human-like alien race. His father left him at about age five on a high-gravity planet "for a few months" that became 14 years, during which he ate scorpions. He escaped by accidentally jumping to escape velocity and landed among hillfolk farmers, who fed him horse feed and used him as earth-moving equipment. Mirabeth found him hauling a hill to make room for bean fields. Fatty Gibbs, a kind sumo wrestler who showed him how to buy food that was not horse feed, died of a coronary last year.

The world is one planet and one country, about half the size of the continental United States, with roughly half of Earth's gravity. Aliens or androids attack once or twice a decade, so the tournament is held to cultivate a supply of useful superhumans. Twice in the last 40 years a champion has taken over the world and killed the president, and the current president would not veto a ban.

The safety briefing

In a tent of four or five hundred sweaty entrants, Mirabeth has been handing out business cards, and a weasel-man trainer steers his lizard-man protege away from her. Ovain, the winner of last year's tournament, sits with his arms crossed muttering "This year, this year, this year, it's gonna be okay." He took over the world about ten years ago, broke down and was institutionalized, and the tournament is part of his rehabilitation. Derk gives a piggyback to Delta, a small psychic alien who cannot see the stage. Colonel Sparago, the safety officer, has to explain to Derk at length that the audience is not invulnerable, then leads a chant of the two rules (don't kill the audience, don't kill the judges). Derk's version is "Kill the audience. Don't kill the judgers," and Sparago settles for "Close enough."

An official then announces that the tournament is suspended over a doping scandal: one of the judges has been found to be on steroids. Ovain begins to levitate out of his chair. Mirabeth sends Derk over to say hi, and Derk tells him "Hi! Mirabeth says you're weird!" Sparago asks the crowd for marijuana or Xanax, too late. Ovain screams "You did this!" and fires a jet of white fire at Sparago. Derk leaps in front of it. His Defend roll is a bare 7 and he chooses to escalate: the blast scatters back into Ovain's many eyes, and Ovain rockets out through the tent roof.

Sparago's aide Mr. Cartwright explains that Ovain was put into online dating as part of his treatment, that it has gone badly, and that he has been journaling about killing the president again. Mirabeth tries to slap Cartwright, rolls a 4, is ignored and marks Insecure. Sparago remarks that champions usually wait until they have won, which is why sedatives now go in the victory punch.

Defending a dog

Mirabeth decides that she and Derk will "defend a dog" as advertising for Derk. She eavesdrops on the pure human martial artists, who plan to work with the police and the Secret Service and expect "all of these other freaks" to be shot; caught, she claims to have lost an earring. The alien faction under Moraniel takes Derk for a lost child and sends him back to his guardian.

Mirabeth learns that children from disadvantaged communities will present logo flags for the tournament to the president, and that a bridge-club friend on the committee owes her a favor. To reach a video phone outside the guarded compound, Derk jumps the wall with Mirabeth on his shoulders and twists an ankle (1 harm). They land by the stand of Miguel, where Derk hands over $100 by mistake and receives 98 hot dog tacos and $2 change. On the call Mirabeth claims Derk is 14, since the age limit is 15, but her roll is a 3: she gets the wait list and the address of a social in the capital, 400 miles south. Derk jumps there in about 15 minutes. Mirabeth speed-walks down the shoulder of I-95 in pumps behind her parasol, which takes a couple of hours.

The library and the social

Derk waits in the children's room of the public library, speaking with his hand over his mouth because he has been told to use his "inside voice." He eats just under half the snack table and draws his flag on the butcher paper rolled out over the floor: scorpions, stars and a dog. The staff call child services and Animal Control, who arrive asking about "some kind of shaved baboon." Mirabeth sends Derk out along the emergency exit signs and tears the cape-sized flag off the floor.

At the community-center social a girl named Sarah befriends Derk. Mirabeth picks out the exhausted Addison and her miserable teenage son as the most vulnerable family. While Derk tells the boy that Ovain is coming to kill the president, Mirabeth sells Addison on the oil pyramid, an essential-oil scheme she invents on the spot (Provoke Someone, 10). Addison pays $400 down and leaves with her sobbing son. A spot opens that night. Derk adds hot dog tacos to the flag. At a Motel 6, the news shows Ovain fighting the military at the edge of the capital.

The presidential event

At security Derk explains the beep of the detector wand with a metal plate in his head, Mirabeth assists with her godlike beauty, and the sweating guard waves them through without scanning her. The human martial artists have been deputized alongside the Secret Service; one of them, a monk, recognizes Mirabeth and lets it pass (Pierce the Mask, 12). The president praises the flag's hot dogs and taco shells, asks about the giant scorpions, learns that the dog is him, and agrees off the record that turning into a dog is pretty cool. He gives Derk a sticker of the presidential seal and promises the flag "real serious consideration."

Mirabeth identifies the one weak point of the event hall, a glass skylight over a roped-off marble floor. She borrows the guard's wand, tells the rope guards that the president wants some heroes who are "a little less hero-looking," freezes them with Symbol of Authority (8) and stations Derk underneath. Asked to show his kung fu, Derk puts a ninety-degree twist in a quarter.

The fight and the aftermath

Ovain comes through the skylight. Derk slams him into the floor by the tail (12), then bear-hugs him so that his ki blast goes into the floor (15), and both fall into the basement. An attempt to bond over fathers misses on a 6, and Ovain's punch to the groin makes "an alarmingly metal sound" (12). As Ovain charges an attack that shakes the building, Derk jumps him back out through the skylight. The roll is a 7, so he panics and ends up in space. Ovain asks telepathically what he is. Derk thinks "I like hot dogs!" as hard as he can and springboards home (10). Ovain calls him a worthy adversary and leaves the planet.

Mirabeth throws a force field around herself and the president and holds it for half an hour; the Secret Service moves them to a safe room. About 18 hours of debriefing follow. Sparago itemizes the damage: $125,000, mostly impact craters, a ruptured gas line, four blocks of West City's financial district evacuated, and permanent harm to the ozone layer. He tells her that Derk needs a sponsor and must learn to bend his knees when he lands, and throws her out. At 2 a.m. Derk, who came down in the ocean, spends his last $2 on a video call from outside a McDonald's in Wisukonshin. Mirabeth takes out her curlers, does her makeup and sets out with the umbrella.

Cold open and framing

The session has no cold open, "previously on" or credits; it begins with character creation. During the setup Andre asks Rita for a dub voice, and she replies that she has only "the one old person voice." Midway through the presidential event Andre shows the table "the title of the anime that we are in," which Dante reads out as "Three Point J over Two." The session closes on "that is where we leave off this one-shot." The placement of the story inside the main series came afterwards: see The 1992 OVA framing and the section below.

Anime conventions and the main campaign

What it parodies

The one-shot runs on the furniture of fighting anime. Andre later called it "the stupid fucking shonen arc," and Matt greeted Derk's backstory with "That's just the plot of Hunter x Hunter."

  • The tournament arc. There are entrants, judges, sponsors and a grand prize, and the tournament is suspended before a single bout.
  • Ki blasts. Ovain's white fire and charge-up attack are the real thing. When Sparago asks who can channel ki into blasts, Mirabeth tells Derk he can: "It's called a punch."
  • The unstable rival. Ovain is a former world conqueror who blurts "It's just like Father," undone by online dating.
  • The training mentor. The table fielded an elderly mentor and her ward (see Game system).
  • The alien prince raised under high gravity. Derk's strength has the standard origin. He came out of it with a five-year-old's education.
  • The hero's corrupted name. His birth name is "Dirk Half Scion of Cantus," which he remembers as "Derk Sauce."
  • Jumps into space. Derk reaches the capital by jumping and takes the final fight into orbit.
  • The numbered title and the dub. The title is "3.J/2," and Andre asks for dub voices.

How it relates to PITF

The connection was made in the recap at the top of the next main-campaign session. Describing the team's night at the Smith Hotel in Dahlonega, which has cable television, Andre said: "I decided, right, retroactively, that the stupid fucking shonen arc we did was an OVA that Huell watched on the hotel's cable TV as he was falling asleep." Zack, who plays Huell Kendrick, pointed out that he had not listened to the one-shot and suggested giving the memory to someone who had been there. Andre agreed that "maybe Andrew could have been watching it," and settled on Andrew Howard half remembering it "from just, like, turning the TV on to help him fall asleep." (Appalachia 02)

That exchange is the whole connection. The one-shot itself contains no link to the main campaign, and no year is given in either session; "1992" comes from the date of the Appalachia case during which the OVA is on television.

The cast overlaps in players only: Rita and Dante play new characters, and Zack and Ezra are absent.

Player characters

Non-player characters

Groups

Monsters

  • None in the main campaign's sense. Ovain and the president are both treated as people.

Locations

Items

Revelations

  • Ovain's breakdown followed failed online dating, prescribed as part of his treatment, and he had been journaling about killing the president again.
  • Champions usually go rogue only after winning, which is why sedatives go in the victory punch.
  • The human martial artists hoped to cement themselves as "the stable, responsible heroes" the government could depend on, and were deputized.
  • Mirabeth suspects that "Derk" is a fragment of the name his parents gave him. Sparago shares the suspicion and grants only that her ward "has a nickname."
  • Derk's jumps into space do permanent damage to the ozone layer.

Open threads

  • The tournament is suspended, and the human martial artists fear it will be cancelled.
  • Derk still wants the Philosopher's Stone for Fatty Gibbs.
  • Ovain has gone "back home." Where that is, and what his father did, are never said.
  • Derk needs a sponsor and insurance. Mirabeth's mentor insurance has lapsed.
  • Mirabeth and Sparago expect to meet at the next tournament.
  • The flag is under "real serious consideration."
  • Mirabeth's old rival in the retirement home is never seen.
  • The Animal Control call to the library "ended in a riot"; the detective knows only that Animal Control "was sick of prank calls."
  • Derk is stranded in Wisukonshin.

Memorable quotes

Quote

"Get down, Mr. Doggy!"

Dante (as Derk), leaping in front of the blast

Quote

"You can definitely do that, dear. It's called a punch."

Rita (as Mirabeth), when Sparago asks who can fire ki blasts

Quote

"Dating is hard, but you can't take it out on dogs."

Dante (as Derk), after the tail slam

Quote

"You have been a strange but worthy adversary. I salute you. I am leaving this planet and its Tinder. I'm going back home."

Andre (as Ovain)

Quote

"A natural disaster with legs and a mouth."

Andre (as Colonel Sparago), describing Derk

Quote

"Grandpa, I need you to go pick me up. I don't know where I am. And I'm scared."

Dante (as Derk), the 2 a.m. call

Table notes

  • Andre observed that "it's amazing how Derk being fucking stupid has dominated the tone of this one-shot." Dante admitted that he "pushed all the onus of, like, actual thinking, planning onto Rita."
  • "Mr. Doggy" began as Dante's own confusion about which character was the werewolf; the table made it Derk's, with Rita suggesting that he believes all people in charge are werewolves.
  • "Asteroid" for "steroid" recurs through the briefing.
  • Hot dogs become a unit of account: 98 of them for $100, and an $86 motel room that Derk asks to have converted into hot dogs.
  • Mirabeth's lies accumulate: the earring, the child-psychology credentials, the oil pyramid, Derk's age. Dante puts Derk at "like twenty-one"; Mirabeth makes him 14 or 21 as convenient.
  • Dice: Dante's fight rolls ran 12, 15, 12 and 10, with a 6 on the attempt to talk and a 7 on the jump that put Derk in space. Rita rolled 12 on the monk and 11 on the wall jump after her −1. Her two misses were the slap, which cost her Insecure, and the 3 on the call to her bridge-club friend.
  • Andre looked up rules live ("this is a really wordy game document") and renamed Mr. Briggs to Mr. Cartwright on the spot when nobody had caught the name. He also gave two age limits, 15 for the children's event and 17 for tournament entry.
  • Matt heckled throughout and drew flags of his own for the table, a corgi among them.
  • Noise suppression made Dante and Andre cut out at times, and two passages of the last scene are choppy in the recording.

Continuity

  • Mirabeth and Derk already have protocols (jump straight up as a signal flare, follow the arrows "until you get to a door"). Andre asks Dante to introduce his character "again," and Dante says "there's a reason I was stupid this whole campaign"; no other Philosopher's Fist session is known.
  • The one-shot is retconned into the main series as hotel television in Appalachia 02.
  • Nothing from it carries into the main campaign.

Trivia

  • Mirabeth's name is also heard as "Meribeth" (Andre checks the pronunciation with Rita late in the session) and "Mirabel," and Derk's as "Dirk." Dante says the name is "canonically spelled with an E."
  • Dante refers to Derk's playbook as "the Bull," and Rita mentions a "Legacy" move. The game itself is never named at the table; Andre says only that "this is Powered by the Apocalypse, but it's a little bit different."
  • Andre describes the planet as "somewhere between Japan and the US." At the table it is also simply called Earth, its capital is called DC, and its Wisconsin is Wisukonshin.
  • The tournament's schedule is inconsistent: Andre first says it is run every five years, but Ovain is "the winner of last year's tournament" and Mirabeth looks forward to "next year at the tournament."
  • Sparago's aide is first called Mr. Briggs and then Mr. Cartwright. Both surnames also turn up in the main campaign, with Briggs in The Summer Service and Gene Cartwright in The Things in Appalachia; nothing at the table connects them.