This is the campaign journal for the After Sundown game I am currently running. The game takes place in early 19th Romania, and the plot is an adaptation of The Red Hand of Doom.
The Lost Boys:
Costin. A Bagheera. He was born in Romania, where he spent most of his life working for the mob and crime organizations there. He is truly masterful in combat, where he wields a custom designed boltaction rifle. His social skills are close to nonexistent, though, and he is found eerie by really everyone in general, but especially animals and children. His mental faculties are also nothing to be proud of. He works for the Black Hand, a fearsome cult of assassins.
Moorgon. A Deep One hailing from North America. He is from what is now New Jersey, but he left the continent soon after the arrival of European colonists. He spent many decades as a pirate, working for the nihilistic organization known as the Wreckers. His strategy was to feign being stranded in the sea and thus be taken onboard unsuspecting ships seeking refuge. He would then use his inherent Deep One abilities to drive to madness his rescuers, allowing his pirates to jump in and pillage like crazy. He left the pirates when his aura of madness caused a few too many of his own to jump overboard. He can also call lightning down from the sky in a pinch.
Aleister Spencer. An Android created for an English noblewoman. Her husband was paralyzed from the waist down in the Napoleonic Wars, but she still wished to regularly engage in coitus. So Lady Spatterly commissioned a clockmaker to fashion for her a new lover. By some chance, he managed to create a true artificial life. Aleister eventually left Spatterly and came to London, where he joined the new Church of Set. He takes it as his goal to explore "unabashed hedonism and personal empowerment through the actualization of the rejection of hindering moral frameworks and their replacement with goal oriented perfection." Aleister is incredibly strong; he can grow to become 3.5 meters in height. He more or less looks like Fabio.
Frederick von Rom ("Fred"). A wererat born to a well-off German family in Romania. He left his home to go to University, where he was bitten by a Nezumi and became a lycanthrope. He specializes in biological warfare, especially the spreading of disease and poison. His goal is to get as many people in life hooked on drugs as possible, which suits his membership in the Hashashin. Very skilled in the making of devices that slowly harm others, especially throwable ones. However, he generally refrains from using drugs himself. He has a custom air rifle that can shoot glass globes filled with deadly bacteria.
Reiterpallasch. A Danish nobleman who left his country and his status to seek the love of a Romanian gypsy woman. In Transylvania, they were attacked by a vampire. R-P survived and indeed became one of the undead himself, but Esmerelda (working name) tragically did not. Since then, he's been wandering Europe. He has spent much of his time in France, where he helped fight in the Revolution. During his many travels, he has acquired a great loathing for those born in style and wealth. Reiterpallasch has trained himself in the art of fire magic. His preferred weapon is a gunblade, and he can fly. Like a superhero. None of us could remember his name, so we generally called him things like "Ricken-Backer", "Chicken Goulasch", and the like. He styles himself as the leader of the Lost Boys, something of a doomed romantic even.
Together, they fight crime.
The Setting.
Paris, 1818. Late Spring.
The Plot.
We open one night, as the Lost Boys are walking through the streets of France's capital. They come from seeing a production of Hamlet. It may or may not have been an operatic interpretation of Will's famous work, as the players weren't quite sure what they wanted. While near the Louvre, Moorgon's Deep One senses perk up, and he suspects that all is not right. Investigation reveals that three black-clothed men have broken into the museum.
We now discover that, of the entire group, only Moorgon can see in the dark. This is unfortunate, until Reiterpallasch just sets his hands on fire to give everyone else a lightsource. They follow the men into the Louvre, and then, horror of all horrors, split up!
Rules Interlude: Everyone in the group (with the notable exception of Aleister) is quite skilled in stealth and Veil. We rule that torches held by invisible people provide illumination visible only to the holder. Which seems to work.
Fred and Costin go look through an Egyptian exhibition, but find nothing. Aleister and Moorgon walk over to the main foyer, where they also find nothing. Since Aleister is more or less blind in the darkness, he just decides to just keep his hands on Moorgon's shoulders as he clanks about. Reiterpallasch ventures by himself into a recent exhibit about Dacian artifacts recovered from Wallachia. He hears some commotion, and decides that the men must be here. Thankfully, Moorgon is telepathic, so the gang is able to regroup fairly quickly.
Listening to the intruders reveals that they speak Romanian, with a slightly obscure accent. Fred throws his torch toward the voices, and he manages to totally illuminate them. Since everyone else is invisible, the intruders see only Aleister. They demand for him to identify himself, and instead he activates his Giant Size power. Unfortunately, he forgets that the ceiling is only about 7 feet tall, so he ends up smashing against it. I let him make a Strength test to break through with minimal harm to himself, but he epically flubbed it, even with like 15 dice. So he bounced off the ceiling and took a mild injury. The three intruders then fired upon the Android, but their weak pistols couldn't penetrate his mighty physical defenses.
In the ensuing condition, the hidden party members are able to quickly and efficiently take out the three intruders. Two are killed outright, and the last is reduced to unconsciousness. Costin manages to revive him, whereupon Reiterpallasch turns on the charm with his Attract power, and the wounded prisoner cannot help but be affected. They learn he is from a village in the Oltenia region of Wallachia called Filiasi's Ferry. With the help of Aleister's Contradiction power, they convince the prisoner to say more. He was recruited by someone named Voivode Aurelia to retrieve from this exhibition a Dacian calendar believed to refer to this upcoming summer, a wolf's head carved from stone, and an untranslated tablet rumored to contain information about the Dacian conception of fate. They recognize the word Voivode as an old Slavic title meaning Warlord. Having learned all this, Reiterpallasch feeds upon the unfortunate peasant.
We then have a search-montage, and Aleister, with his backgrounds in Classical Languages, is able to identify the tablet in question. The band decides they had best investigate Filliasi's Ferry and try to arrange a meeting with this Aurelia to see what she intends.
They go see Jean-Claude, their Demagogue in the Communes and inform him of their plans. Jean-Claude agrees that an investigation seems warranted, and furnishes them with a bit more information about the region. He also tells them an agent of the Communes, Petr Krysa, is currently believed to be living near Filiasi's Ferry, and that he can probably help with regional knowledge. They go to a library and get some general books on Romania and Dacia to take with them, and then acquire horses from Jean-Claude and begin their journey. We fade to black.
The Balkans After Sundown
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The Balkans After Sundown
Last edited by Blicero on Sun Sep 16, 2012 5:00 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Out beyond the hull, mucoid strings of non-baryonic matter streamed past like Christ's blood in the firmament.
MC's Reaction.
This is my first time running After Sundown. I briefly did aWoD, though, with Aleister's player.
The game went pretty well. This session was a bit shorter than I would have preferred ( < 3 hrs), and there was confusion as everyone got used to the system's rules. Everyone has a lot of Disciplines, almost to an overwhelming extent. But all the characters appear to be fairly viable. I'm slightly concerned that Fred might be kind of overshadowed in many respects by Costin, but I don't know yet. We're rather Infernal-heavy, which has lead to a bit of overlapping, but I don't think it's all that worth worrying about.
I didn't want to accidentally kill everyone in the first session, so we went pretty easy. Six In Media Res characters versus three Extras is absurdly one-sided. Next session they're going to run into at least one werewolf, probably, so we'll see how that goes.
For what it's worth, early 19th century Romania maps really quite well to the base setting in Red Hand of Doom. I'm really quite pleased with the setting conversion. After Sundown characters tend to perform in situations rather differently than D&D ones do, so I'm curious to see how they deal with situations like Vraath Keep and Rhest.
The only real rules question that came up was whether or not torches held by Hide from Notice'd characters provide illumination to everyone, no one, or just the holder. Our interpretation certainly helps the players, but I'm not sure if I like it philosophically.
Also, as regards Telepathy: Can someone who has touched the Telepath and whose name the Telepath knows contact the telepath of his own accord? Or does he need to wait for the telepath to "check in" or whatever? Is the communication more or less instantaneous?
This is my first time running After Sundown. I briefly did aWoD, though, with Aleister's player.
The game went pretty well. This session was a bit shorter than I would have preferred ( < 3 hrs), and there was confusion as everyone got used to the system's rules. Everyone has a lot of Disciplines, almost to an overwhelming extent. But all the characters appear to be fairly viable. I'm slightly concerned that Fred might be kind of overshadowed in many respects by Costin, but I don't know yet. We're rather Infernal-heavy, which has lead to a bit of overlapping, but I don't think it's all that worth worrying about.
I didn't want to accidentally kill everyone in the first session, so we went pretty easy. Six In Media Res characters versus three Extras is absurdly one-sided. Next session they're going to run into at least one werewolf, probably, so we'll see how that goes.
For what it's worth, early 19th century Romania maps really quite well to the base setting in Red Hand of Doom. I'm really quite pleased with the setting conversion. After Sundown characters tend to perform in situations rather differently than D&D ones do, so I'm curious to see how they deal with situations like Vraath Keep and Rhest.
The only real rules question that came up was whether or not torches held by Hide from Notice'd characters provide illumination to everyone, no one, or just the holder. Our interpretation certainly helps the players, but I'm not sure if I like it philosophically.
Also, as regards Telepathy: Can someone who has touched the Telepath and whose name the Telepath knows contact the telepath of his own accord? Or does he need to wait for the telepath to "check in" or whatever? Is the communication more or less instantaneous?
Out beyond the hull, mucoid strings of non-baryonic matter streamed past like Christ's blood in the firmament.
Session II: Trouble
So we pretty much gloss over the trip to Wallachia. I tell them they had some minor problems with the Covenant while traveling through Hungary, but nothing to worry about. I have each player tell everyone one thing his character did during the trip, which gets pretty amusing.
As they approach Filiasi's Ferry, I run the Marauder Attack encounter from RHoD, which consists of six Extra bandits and one werewolf lieutenant. Eschewing any sort of stealthy approach, the players just walk up to the bandits and start talking. Reiterpallasch tries to mitigate the situation with Attract, and Moorgon helps with a Command, but violence still ensues.
And this is where the problems begin. This was our first real combat, and so we broke out roll20. Our intentions had been to use roll20 just as a mapping and positioning system, since we're all still close by in the meatspace. This was everyone's first time with roll20. It's by no means an unintuitive program, but just learning the ropes took an annoyingly long time. This was partially my fault: I probably should have been more familiar with it before we started. I had prepped the map and such, but using the system proved to be more cumbersome than I had anticipated.
This unfamiliarity cascaded with some other factors to create a mildly unenjoyable combat that lasted more than an hour, despite only having one opponent of note in it.
But, eventually, it was over. All of the Extras were dead, the werewolf had fled, and Moorgon had been knocked out. Everyone gave him some first aid, and they proceeded into town.
By this point, everyone was pretty frazzled. Even so, we were all rather surprised when Freddy walked up to one of the three guards at the town's border and gave him Chud. Which rapidly induced death. This led to an understandably hectic situation which was eventually overcome by Contradicting one of the survivors and murdering another.
Having gained entrance to the town, they went over to one of the town's taverns, where they discovered that bandits are reputed to be hiding out in Soutzos Keep, a few days into the woods north of town. They theorize that these bandits may be connected to Voivode Aurelia, and decide to investigate.
But first, they have some things to do. Aleister chats it up with the ugliest girl he can find in the tavern, where he learns that the town's Mayor is not super well-liked by most people in the town. Freddy breaks into the town blacksmith's, where he forges some silver bullets. And Reiterpallasch and Costin break into the warehouse of the wealthiest man in town, which, for some reason, involves murdering another person. They steal all the silver they can find there, and bring it to Freddy. What follows is one of the least-thought-out player discourses in recent memory.
[Freddy, R-P, and Costin have all made their way back to the inn, where there are still a fair number of people drinking.]
COSTIN: Here Freddy, we got you some silver.
FREDDY: I don't want it. You have it.
COSTIN: No, you take it.
INNKEEPER: [walks up] What seems to be the problem here?
FREDDY: Oh, we were just...deciding who had to pay for a round for everyone in the inn! Here have this silver! [to me] But, first, I sneeze on the silver to infect it with Chud.
Seeing that the collective attention had reached approximately zero, we called it for the night. Next time, they will have to deal with the fact that any survivors from the inn are pretty much guaranteed to know that the Band stole a bunch of silver and then tried to infect people with a deadly disease. I'm genuinely curious to see how they get out of this one.
So this combat was more or less total padded sumo. The Extras' dicepools were too small to consistently threaten the Band, but the players kept rolling total shit, which kept them from killing anything. The werewolf primarily fought with Aleister, and their insanely large soak dicepools meant they might as well have been slapping each other with water weenies.
And, given that everyone in the party is stealthy up to the wazoo, I was expecting them to sneak up and probably stealth kill most of the bandits before a general melee could even be joined. I think they might still be playing this a bit too much like D&D, which is troublesome. But everyone is still enthusiastic about the campaign and story, so I'm confident that we'll keep playing and hopefully get a bit more efficient.
So we pretty much gloss over the trip to Wallachia. I tell them they had some minor problems with the Covenant while traveling through Hungary, but nothing to worry about. I have each player tell everyone one thing his character did during the trip, which gets pretty amusing.
As they approach Filiasi's Ferry, I run the Marauder Attack encounter from RHoD, which consists of six Extra bandits and one werewolf lieutenant. Eschewing any sort of stealthy approach, the players just walk up to the bandits and start talking. Reiterpallasch tries to mitigate the situation with Attract, and Moorgon helps with a Command, but violence still ensues.
And this is where the problems begin. This was our first real combat, and so we broke out roll20. Our intentions had been to use roll20 just as a mapping and positioning system, since we're all still close by in the meatspace. This was everyone's first time with roll20. It's by no means an unintuitive program, but just learning the ropes took an annoyingly long time. This was partially my fault: I probably should have been more familiar with it before we started. I had prepped the map and such, but using the system proved to be more cumbersome than I had anticipated.
This unfamiliarity cascaded with some other factors to create a mildly unenjoyable combat that lasted more than an hour, despite only having one opponent of note in it.
But, eventually, it was over. All of the Extras were dead, the werewolf had fled, and Moorgon had been knocked out. Everyone gave him some first aid, and they proceeded into town.
By this point, everyone was pretty frazzled. Even so, we were all rather surprised when Freddy walked up to one of the three guards at the town's border and gave him Chud. Which rapidly induced death. This led to an understandably hectic situation which was eventually overcome by Contradicting one of the survivors and murdering another.
Having gained entrance to the town, they went over to one of the town's taverns, where they discovered that bandits are reputed to be hiding out in Soutzos Keep, a few days into the woods north of town. They theorize that these bandits may be connected to Voivode Aurelia, and decide to investigate.
But first, they have some things to do. Aleister chats it up with the ugliest girl he can find in the tavern, where he learns that the town's Mayor is not super well-liked by most people in the town. Freddy breaks into the town blacksmith's, where he forges some silver bullets. And Reiterpallasch and Costin break into the warehouse of the wealthiest man in town, which, for some reason, involves murdering another person. They steal all the silver they can find there, and bring it to Freddy. What follows is one of the least-thought-out player discourses in recent memory.
[Freddy, R-P, and Costin have all made their way back to the inn, where there are still a fair number of people drinking.]
COSTIN: Here Freddy, we got you some silver.
FREDDY: I don't want it. You have it.
COSTIN: No, you take it.
INNKEEPER: [walks up] What seems to be the problem here?
FREDDY: Oh, we were just...deciding who had to pay for a round for everyone in the inn! Here have this silver! [to me] But, first, I sneeze on the silver to infect it with Chud.
Seeing that the collective attention had reached approximately zero, we called it for the night. Next time, they will have to deal with the fact that any survivors from the inn are pretty much guaranteed to know that the Band stole a bunch of silver and then tried to infect people with a deadly disease. I'm genuinely curious to see how they get out of this one.
So this combat was more or less total padded sumo. The Extras' dicepools were too small to consistently threaten the Band, but the players kept rolling total shit, which kept them from killing anything. The werewolf primarily fought with Aleister, and their insanely large soak dicepools meant they might as well have been slapping each other with water weenies.
And, given that everyone in the party is stealthy up to the wazoo, I was expecting them to sneak up and probably stealth kill most of the bandits before a general melee could even be joined. I think they might still be playing this a bit too much like D&D, which is troublesome. But everyone is still enthusiastic about the campaign and story, so I'm confident that we'll keep playing and hopefully get a bit more efficient.
Last edited by Blicero on Sat Sep 08, 2012 5:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
Out beyond the hull, mucoid strings of non-baryonic matter streamed past like Christ's blood in the firmament.
Week III: Shit Gets Cray
When we left off, one of our heroes had just infected a bunch of silver with chud, and then had proceeded to give said silver to a number of townsfolk. Which is cool, I guess?
So the band quickly beats it from the tavern, and they're all "Well what do we do next?" Moorgon and Reiterpallasch both want to try and end or contain the plague, but everyone else seems to just want to leave town. So they, once again, split up.
Freddy goes to an abandoned farmhouse, where he tries to brew up some cures to chud, with limited success.
Costin walks all the way out to the hut of Petr Krysa, the Communes agent Jean-Claude told them about. The meeting does not go well. Petr's hut is guarded by three extremely large rats, and Costin has Offensive to Animals, in addition to being generally bereft of social skills. He finally makes it inside, only to be met at gunpoint by Petr. Since Costin has only 1 dot in Charisma, none in Persuasion, and no potentially helpful backgrounds, he is able to do absolutely nothing other than not get shot as he leaves. Scratch one potential ally.
I was kind of saddened by this. Petr is my version of Jorr, the halfling ranger in RHoD. The first time I tried to run RHoD, he proved wildly popular with the players. And I think this group could have used an ally.
Moorgon and Reiterpallasch decide to visit the house of the town's mayor, in hopes of getting his assistance in fighting the plague. Moorgon uses Dream Vision to get the mayor to come out of his house and to generally imply a divine original for himself and his companion. This meeting actually goes quite well. They convince the mayor of the severity of the situation and they get him to try and impose a quarantine of sorts.
Aleister hides in the woods.
Eventually, they all meet back up. For some reason, Freddy refuses to tell anyone else that he has fashioned antidotes. But they manage to come up with a plan of sorts: They'll try and round up the infected townsfolk, turn some of them into Vampire Spawn, and kill the rest. They reason they can use the Spawn if they end up having to assault Soutzos Keep.
So Moorgon and Reiterpallasch do a Search Montage to look through the town and convince the afflicted to come with them to a nearby field. Meanwhile, Aleister and Costin just decide to start walking toward where they think the Keep must be. And Freddy goes and looks for the owner of the tavern whom he infected. He finds him, gives him a cure, and then starts proselytizing for something called The Church of Snorri, which I'm assuming he just made up on the spot.
With everyone rounded up, Freddy goes from mildly psychotic to flatout murderous. He addresses the 100-odd townsfolk and claims that this plague was sent by the Church of Snorri's most hated enemy, Kyle. He tells them that he only has about 20 cures (true). So his conclusion is that the townsfolk must fight amongst themselves until only 20 survive.
He actually gets like 4 or 5 hits on his Persuasion test, so I rule that a nonzero number of people start fighting on the spot. About 15, though, recognize him from the tavern as the bearer of the silver, and so they rush him. One of them is about to smash Freddy's head in with a rock when the nezumi manages to fire off a quick Poison Heart. And everything goes to shit.
Eventually, only about 5 are left. Freddy takes them back to the tavern, where he antidotes them and begins to indoctrinate them in the religion he made up 3 minutes ago. Meanwhile, Reiterpallasch makes some Spawn. But they he and Moorgon see about 20 armed guards coming toward them.
Now, keep in mind that this is daylight, so neither the vampire nor the leviathan have any of their powers. That being said, they decide that the best course of action would be to try and talk to the guards. They totally flub their Persuasion test and end up getting tied up while someone goes to get the mayor.
Meanwhile, Aleister, Costin, and now Freddy have all just left town and are walking toward the Keep.
So the mayor arrives at the scene, and he's begins publicly grandstandstanding about whether or not R-P and Moorgon are angelic messengers or satantic servants. Despite their best efforts to the contrary, the two end up being sentenced to be burned at the stake later that day. Things are not looking good.
At this point, I have them roll d% to see if the weather changes suddenly: If it clouds over noticeably, they can use their powers to get the hell out of dodge. I also use the results to determine if the mayor wants to start the burning. They do this throughout the afternoon, but with no results.
And, in one of those moments you don't think is at all possible but still happens, I get both the result of "freak storm" and of "burning begins." So the town prepares to burn our two heroes at the stake for their crimes neither of them committed. A few people have thrown the first torches, when, suddenly, and out of completely nowhere, a freak thunderstorm appears and begins pouring down sheets of rain. This terrifies the villages, and they all go fleeing. So R-P and Moorgon fly away, searching for Freddy. At this point, I realize they intend to kill him.
They spot him trudging through the storm. Moorgon first lets loose a great bolt of lightning, and misses completely. Then R-P uses Firestarter. He gets like 7 hits, against a threshold of 2 for the ranger. For his Soak test, Freddy gets zero.
Head explode.
Curtain.
When we left off, one of our heroes had just infected a bunch of silver with chud, and then had proceeded to give said silver to a number of townsfolk. Which is cool, I guess?
So the band quickly beats it from the tavern, and they're all "Well what do we do next?" Moorgon and Reiterpallasch both want to try and end or contain the plague, but everyone else seems to just want to leave town. So they, once again, split up.
Freddy goes to an abandoned farmhouse, where he tries to brew up some cures to chud, with limited success.
Costin walks all the way out to the hut of Petr Krysa, the Communes agent Jean-Claude told them about. The meeting does not go well. Petr's hut is guarded by three extremely large rats, and Costin has Offensive to Animals, in addition to being generally bereft of social skills. He finally makes it inside, only to be met at gunpoint by Petr. Since Costin has only 1 dot in Charisma, none in Persuasion, and no potentially helpful backgrounds, he is able to do absolutely nothing other than not get shot as he leaves. Scratch one potential ally.
I was kind of saddened by this. Petr is my version of Jorr, the halfling ranger in RHoD. The first time I tried to run RHoD, he proved wildly popular with the players. And I think this group could have used an ally.
Moorgon and Reiterpallasch decide to visit the house of the town's mayor, in hopes of getting his assistance in fighting the plague. Moorgon uses Dream Vision to get the mayor to come out of his house and to generally imply a divine original for himself and his companion. This meeting actually goes quite well. They convince the mayor of the severity of the situation and they get him to try and impose a quarantine of sorts.
Aleister hides in the woods.
Eventually, they all meet back up. For some reason, Freddy refuses to tell anyone else that he has fashioned antidotes. But they manage to come up with a plan of sorts: They'll try and round up the infected townsfolk, turn some of them into Vampire Spawn, and kill the rest. They reason they can use the Spawn if they end up having to assault Soutzos Keep.
So Moorgon and Reiterpallasch do a Search Montage to look through the town and convince the afflicted to come with them to a nearby field. Meanwhile, Aleister and Costin just decide to start walking toward where they think the Keep must be. And Freddy goes and looks for the owner of the tavern whom he infected. He finds him, gives him a cure, and then starts proselytizing for something called The Church of Snorri, which I'm assuming he just made up on the spot.
With everyone rounded up, Freddy goes from mildly psychotic to flatout murderous. He addresses the 100-odd townsfolk and claims that this plague was sent by the Church of Snorri's most hated enemy, Kyle. He tells them that he only has about 20 cures (true). So his conclusion is that the townsfolk must fight amongst themselves until only 20 survive.
He actually gets like 4 or 5 hits on his Persuasion test, so I rule that a nonzero number of people start fighting on the spot. About 15, though, recognize him from the tavern as the bearer of the silver, and so they rush him. One of them is about to smash Freddy's head in with a rock when the nezumi manages to fire off a quick Poison Heart. And everything goes to shit.
Eventually, only about 5 are left. Freddy takes them back to the tavern, where he antidotes them and begins to indoctrinate them in the religion he made up 3 minutes ago. Meanwhile, Reiterpallasch makes some Spawn. But they he and Moorgon see about 20 armed guards coming toward them.
Now, keep in mind that this is daylight, so neither the vampire nor the leviathan have any of their powers. That being said, they decide that the best course of action would be to try and talk to the guards. They totally flub their Persuasion test and end up getting tied up while someone goes to get the mayor.
Meanwhile, Aleister, Costin, and now Freddy have all just left town and are walking toward the Keep.
So the mayor arrives at the scene, and he's begins publicly grandstandstanding about whether or not R-P and Moorgon are angelic messengers or satantic servants. Despite their best efforts to the contrary, the two end up being sentenced to be burned at the stake later that day. Things are not looking good.
At this point, I have them roll d% to see if the weather changes suddenly: If it clouds over noticeably, they can use their powers to get the hell out of dodge. I also use the results to determine if the mayor wants to start the burning. They do this throughout the afternoon, but with no results.
And, in one of those moments you don't think is at all possible but still happens, I get both the result of "freak storm" and of "burning begins." So the town prepares to burn our two heroes at the stake for their crimes neither of them committed. A few people have thrown the first torches, when, suddenly, and out of completely nowhere, a freak thunderstorm appears and begins pouring down sheets of rain. This terrifies the villages, and they all go fleeing. So R-P and Moorgon fly away, searching for Freddy. At this point, I realize they intend to kill him.
They spot him trudging through the storm. Moorgon first lets loose a great bolt of lightning, and misses completely. Then R-P uses Firestarter. He gets like 7 hits, against a threshold of 2 for the ranger. For his Soak test, Freddy gets zero.
Head explode.
Curtain.
Last edited by Blicero on Sun Sep 16, 2012 4:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Out beyond the hull, mucoid strings of non-baryonic matter streamed past like Christ's blood in the firmament.
WEEK IV: Forged in a Crucible
Freddy's player had not yet made a new character. And he primarily wanted to spend the night playing Borderlands 2. So he did not join us today.
Curtain Opens.
Costin and Aleister are wandering through the woods, when they finally stumble upon Soutzos Keep. Aleister recommends heading back and trying to find everyone else, but Costin boldly strides in.
Aleister hides behind a tree.
So Costin Veils himself and enters the main wall of the keep. He sees many many bandits wandering throughout the keep, including three who are playing cards at a table. He walks over the table, ends his Veil, and asks if he can join them. (Collective reaction: "What?") Because he has no social skills to speak of, he is unable to assuage their totally justified concern, and he ends up getting put in prison. He offers no resistance.
Aleister decides something must be wrong, so he goes running off. Meanwhile, Moorgon and R-P have started flying over the woods. Moorgon's telepathy detects Aleister, and so they reunite.
In his cell, Costin is unable to make any sort of distraction that would let him escape. However, a bandit walks up to him and uses Aura Perception to discern that he is a supernatural. Costin gets a bit worried.
The three return to the Keep, where they decide to sneak in, do some reconnaissance, and maybe find Costin. R-P and Aleister Stealth it up, and Moorgon uses Veil. Good plan, right?
Except that it fails miserably. As soon as they are inside the keep, Aleister climbs on top of a wall and tries to stealth-kill a bandit. The bandit sees him, calls out an alarm, shit hits the fan. R-P is immediately detected, and there are like 16 bandits nearby. In addition, a werewolf and a tremendously muscular Russian with a giant shotgun are spotted coming toward them.
Quick telepathy: New plan. R-P and Aleister will pretend to surrender, Moorgon will follow, and they'll find Costin that way. Good plan, right?
Except that it fails almost miserably. Aleister refuses to surrender. Instead, he smashes one of the bandits with his maul and then runs off into the forest. R-P has surrendered. And then the werewolf uses his Discernment and detects Moorgon. So they both surrender, are disarmed, and are put in a prison cell. Things are going poorly, and R-P and Moorgon state their intention to kill Aleister when next they see him.
In the woods, Aleister has a massive emotional breakdown as he wonders whether he made the right decision.
After stewing in their cells for a bit, the three prisoners are taken in front of Warlord Aurelia, the leader of these bandits. Costin tries to charm her and offers the group's services, but she points out how completely incompetent they've been so far. She has no reason to desire their (seemingly nonexistent) talents. Finally, Moorgon comes up with an offer: The group will hunt down and kill Aleister. If they do this, then Aurelia will let them live and possibly even extend an offer of employment. He succeeds magnificently on his Persuasion test, and so Aurelia agrees, on the condition that one of her werewolves and one of her Russians accompany them.
At this point, I was genuinely not sure if they intended to actually kill Aleister. He had completely fucked up their plans and put everyone else's lives in serious danger.
So R-P, Costin, Moorgon are walking through the woods, escorted by the Russian (Boris) and the werewolf (Nicolai).
Nicolai: "I bet that some really bad things might happen to you guys while you're hunting down that Android. You all might die."
Moorgon: "I think he's threatening us."
R-P: "I bet some really bad things might happen to you." OoC: We should probably kill them once we're a safe distance away from the Keep.
A good plan, right?
Except that it failed. The players waited too long to strike, and so Boris whipped out his axe and buried it in Costin's face, dealing an Incapacitating wound. This leads to a general melee, in which R-P ends up scorching both the werewolf and the Russian to death. They then shout out "Aleister! Are you nearby?"
A few minutes later, the Android comes bounding through the brush, and everyone reunites, again. The interparty tensions have seemingly disappeared, and they all collectively decide to return to the Keep and kill people.
Their plan: Stay outside of the Keep, and let Costin, R-P, and Moorgon pick off as many bandits as possible from a distance.
A good plan, right?
And it works. They kill the 6 or 7 bandits visible on the walls in less than a round. R-P starts flying around and shooting fire wildly at everyone he can see.
It goes to shit, though, when Ivan (the other Russian) manages to sneak up on them. He majorly shotguns Costin, Aleister, and Moorgon, Incapacitating all three. Costin gets by with his Indomitability, but Moorgon and Aleister are pretty much out for the fight.
The battle continues for a bit longer, but eventually R-P and Costin are able to kill Ivan, the other werewolf, and enough bandits to cause a general retreat. In the confusion, Aurelia dashes out of a room and tries to escape. R-P gives chase.
We do chase mechanics for a bit, with R-P's maneuverability slowly beating Aurelia's Celerity. Eventually, they get close enough to be in fighting range. So Aurelia whips out a pair of pistols and fires at the Daeva. She get 7 hits on her attack.
R-P: "Oh, I'll be fine. I have my Fortitude bonus, and my Invulnerability is up, and-"
Me: "The bullets are wood."
R-P: "Fuck."
R-P takes a Terminal Wound while in midair and crashes to the ground. His general toughness, though, is somehow enough to let him survive. We rule his descent leaves a huge trench in the ground several feet deep. Costin catches up to him and manages to apply medical attention, though, so everybody's happy.
With the battle won, everyone spends a while licking and healing their wounds. They decide to take a day just to recover and to search the Keep. They discover some sort of enchanted dagger in Aurelia's possessions, as well as a letter. It is from a Voivode Suratralis, and it mentions two other warlords: Voivode Gaidres and Voivode Rhaskos. Aleister uses his knowledge of classical languages to identify these as Dacian names.
The players: "I think that these are the bad guys."
They also discover a map detailing a general invasion plan of the region. The map features a nearby Ashen Bridge, which is noted as being integral to the movement. The Horde's ultimate goal is Craiova, the largest city in the region. They speculate that, since Craiova is built upon Dacian ruins, perhaps it contains something that the Horde seeks.
The group decides now to return to Petr Krysa and seek his advice. With R-P talking, Petr is actually kind of sociable, and they become allies. Petr notes that, if the Horde is able to absorb Filiasi's Ferry, it will very likely be able to turn much of the town into zombies and swell its ranks. The group finds this distressing, and so they decide to try and induce a general evacuation. Petr offers to investigate Ashen Bridge, and they go their separate ways.
Curtain Closes.
This session actually went quite well. The group seems to have slightly more cohesiveness now, which is exciting. And everyone is become intrigued now that the main plot is taking shape. By this point, pretty much everyone but Aleister's player has a pretty good grasp on the rules. The session's combat also went quite smoothly. With three IP's and two Attack Action, even a single round takes a really long time to resolve.
Freddy's player had not yet made a new character. And he primarily wanted to spend the night playing Borderlands 2. So he did not join us today.
Curtain Opens.
Costin and Aleister are wandering through the woods, when they finally stumble upon Soutzos Keep. Aleister recommends heading back and trying to find everyone else, but Costin boldly strides in.
Aleister hides behind a tree.
So Costin Veils himself and enters the main wall of the keep. He sees many many bandits wandering throughout the keep, including three who are playing cards at a table. He walks over the table, ends his Veil, and asks if he can join them. (Collective reaction: "What?") Because he has no social skills to speak of, he is unable to assuage their totally justified concern, and he ends up getting put in prison. He offers no resistance.
Aleister decides something must be wrong, so he goes running off. Meanwhile, Moorgon and R-P have started flying over the woods. Moorgon's telepathy detects Aleister, and so they reunite.
In his cell, Costin is unable to make any sort of distraction that would let him escape. However, a bandit walks up to him and uses Aura Perception to discern that he is a supernatural. Costin gets a bit worried.
The three return to the Keep, where they decide to sneak in, do some reconnaissance, and maybe find Costin. R-P and Aleister Stealth it up, and Moorgon uses Veil. Good plan, right?
Except that it fails miserably. As soon as they are inside the keep, Aleister climbs on top of a wall and tries to stealth-kill a bandit. The bandit sees him, calls out an alarm, shit hits the fan. R-P is immediately detected, and there are like 16 bandits nearby. In addition, a werewolf and a tremendously muscular Russian with a giant shotgun are spotted coming toward them.
Quick telepathy: New plan. R-P and Aleister will pretend to surrender, Moorgon will follow, and they'll find Costin that way. Good plan, right?
Except that it fails almost miserably. Aleister refuses to surrender. Instead, he smashes one of the bandits with his maul and then runs off into the forest. R-P has surrendered. And then the werewolf uses his Discernment and detects Moorgon. So they both surrender, are disarmed, and are put in a prison cell. Things are going poorly, and R-P and Moorgon state their intention to kill Aleister when next they see him.
In the woods, Aleister has a massive emotional breakdown as he wonders whether he made the right decision.
After stewing in their cells for a bit, the three prisoners are taken in front of Warlord Aurelia, the leader of these bandits. Costin tries to charm her and offers the group's services, but she points out how completely incompetent they've been so far. She has no reason to desire their (seemingly nonexistent) talents. Finally, Moorgon comes up with an offer: The group will hunt down and kill Aleister. If they do this, then Aurelia will let them live and possibly even extend an offer of employment. He succeeds magnificently on his Persuasion test, and so Aurelia agrees, on the condition that one of her werewolves and one of her Russians accompany them.
At this point, I was genuinely not sure if they intended to actually kill Aleister. He had completely fucked up their plans and put everyone else's lives in serious danger.
So R-P, Costin, Moorgon are walking through the woods, escorted by the Russian (Boris) and the werewolf (Nicolai).
Nicolai: "I bet that some really bad things might happen to you guys while you're hunting down that Android. You all might die."
Moorgon: "I think he's threatening us."
R-P: "I bet some really bad things might happen to you." OoC: We should probably kill them once we're a safe distance away from the Keep.
A good plan, right?
Except that it failed. The players waited too long to strike, and so Boris whipped out his axe and buried it in Costin's face, dealing an Incapacitating wound. This leads to a general melee, in which R-P ends up scorching both the werewolf and the Russian to death. They then shout out "Aleister! Are you nearby?"
A few minutes later, the Android comes bounding through the brush, and everyone reunites, again. The interparty tensions have seemingly disappeared, and they all collectively decide to return to the Keep and kill people.
Their plan: Stay outside of the Keep, and let Costin, R-P, and Moorgon pick off as many bandits as possible from a distance.
A good plan, right?
And it works. They kill the 6 or 7 bandits visible on the walls in less than a round. R-P starts flying around and shooting fire wildly at everyone he can see.
It goes to shit, though, when Ivan (the other Russian) manages to sneak up on them. He majorly shotguns Costin, Aleister, and Moorgon, Incapacitating all three. Costin gets by with his Indomitability, but Moorgon and Aleister are pretty much out for the fight.
The battle continues for a bit longer, but eventually R-P and Costin are able to kill Ivan, the other werewolf, and enough bandits to cause a general retreat. In the confusion, Aurelia dashes out of a room and tries to escape. R-P gives chase.
We do chase mechanics for a bit, with R-P's maneuverability slowly beating Aurelia's Celerity. Eventually, they get close enough to be in fighting range. So Aurelia whips out a pair of pistols and fires at the Daeva. She get 7 hits on her attack.
R-P: "Oh, I'll be fine. I have my Fortitude bonus, and my Invulnerability is up, and-"
Me: "The bullets are wood."
R-P: "Fuck."
R-P takes a Terminal Wound while in midair and crashes to the ground. His general toughness, though, is somehow enough to let him survive. We rule his descent leaves a huge trench in the ground several feet deep. Costin catches up to him and manages to apply medical attention, though, so everybody's happy.
With the battle won, everyone spends a while licking and healing their wounds. They decide to take a day just to recover and to search the Keep. They discover some sort of enchanted dagger in Aurelia's possessions, as well as a letter. It is from a Voivode Suratralis, and it mentions two other warlords: Voivode Gaidres and Voivode Rhaskos. Aleister uses his knowledge of classical languages to identify these as Dacian names.
The players: "I think that these are the bad guys."
They also discover a map detailing a general invasion plan of the region. The map features a nearby Ashen Bridge, which is noted as being integral to the movement. The Horde's ultimate goal is Craiova, the largest city in the region. They speculate that, since Craiova is built upon Dacian ruins, perhaps it contains something that the Horde seeks.
The group decides now to return to Petr Krysa and seek his advice. With R-P talking, Petr is actually kind of sociable, and they become allies. Petr notes that, if the Horde is able to absorb Filiasi's Ferry, it will very likely be able to turn much of the town into zombies and swell its ranks. The group finds this distressing, and so they decide to try and induce a general evacuation. Petr offers to investigate Ashen Bridge, and they go their separate ways.
Curtain Closes.
This session actually went quite well. The group seems to have slightly more cohesiveness now, which is exciting. And everyone is become intrigued now that the main plot is taking shape. By this point, pretty much everyone but Aleister's player has a pretty good grasp on the rules. The session's combat also went quite smoothly. With three IP's and two Attack Action, even a single round takes a really long time to resolve.
Last edited by Blicero on Sat Sep 22, 2012 6:51 am, edited 4 times in total.
Out beyond the hull, mucoid strings of non-baryonic matter streamed past like Christ's blood in the firmament.
Freddy's player was still in the process of making his new character, a Khaibit. So he did not join us today.
This session was quite possibly the biggest clusterfuck I have ever MC'd.
WEEK V: A Death in the Family
Curtain open.
The group returns to Filiasi's Ferry. Their plan is to talk to the mayor, try and rouse the town, and organize a general evacuation. It is still late at night.
For reference: R-P has Mask of a Thousand Face-d into a new appearance. Moorgon plans to stay invisible the entire time. And no one in the town has ever really seen Costin or Aleister. So they don't think they're in danger of being recognized from before.
R-P charms the town's guards and convinces them to take him to the mayor. On the way over, he tells the guards that a giant army of Dacians is coming for the town, and they need to evacuate immediately. Thanks to his excellent Persuasion, they're initially convinced, but his insistence that the invaders are Dacians makes him lose some credibility. Even with a sorcerously augmented tongue, claiming that a 2000 year old civilization has somehow survived and is about to attack your town is pretty hard to convince people of.
They make it to the mayor's house, and R-P and Aleister begin talking to the mayor. Meanwhile, Costin decides to murder someone, and draws a wolf with the blood. (The wolf being the symbol of the Dacians, he figures this will lend credit to the claim that the Dacians have returned.) The mayor is unwilling to believe that Dacians are invading. So he tells them to come back in the morning and goes back inside.
And here's where everything goes to shit, in a hilariously familiar pattern. R-P decides that the town needs to be shaken up. He's turns on Invulnerability and kicks in the door. Aleister activates Giant Size. (because, why not I guess?) R-P starts running through the mayor's house, until he bumbles into the mayor's bedroom, where the mayor shoots him. The mayor rolls passingly well on his attack. My thoughts are that R-P will easily soak this bullet and this judicious breakage of the Masquerade will give him the momentum he needs. He rolls his 13 soak dice.
And gets 1 hit. Terminal wound. Oops.
Aleister decides to grab the member of the militia guarding the mayor's house. He tosses him into the river. (because, why not I guess?) Moorgon goes inside the mayor's house to help R-P. He crossbows the mayor, Incapacitating him. Unfortunately, the mayor's wife was in the room. She fires pretty much at random, and actually manages to Terminal Moorgon as well.
Aleister runs over to where Costin is, and the two of them together return to the mayor's house. By this point, four more miltia have showed up. They take these four out easily. Then Aleister reaches through the house's window and pulls the mayor's wife out, while Costin goes inside and First Aids Moorgon and R-P. Aleister threatens the mayor's wife for a bit, and then he sets her down and goes inside. (She's pretty much in shock by this point.)
Having First Aided everyone back to reasonable health, the group begins to plan their next course of action. They still need a way to evacuate the town. Costin begins drawing wolves everywhere. (because, why not I guess) Before they can formulate anything coherent, more miltia show up and surround the house. Everyone hurriedly escapes, by various means.
Time for a new plan: R-P, Aleister, and Costin don uniforms of dead town guardsmen. They gather the guardsmen together. The guardsmen are perturbed enough to consider that something really fucked up is happening. Maybe, as crazy as it sounds, the Dacians are still out there? R-P is actually close to maybe organizing a general evacuation. But first the miltia decide to get the town's priest.
When the town's priest arrives, he and R-P begin debating whether or not an evacuation is called for, and, if everyone needs to leave, when the general departure should begin. Initially everything goes quite swimmingly.
Unfortunately, the priest has in his possession an amulet that gives him a weak version of Supernatural Senses. (Had the plot progressed in a different manner, this item would have been important.) When the priest gets a good look at the (disguised) R-P, the amulet reveals that R-P is one of the two witches that were nearly burned at the stake a few days ago.
Instantly, the accumulated goodwill of the guards pretty much vanishes. Costin and Aleister make a hasty escape, but R-P remains. He's all "I can still talk my way out of this, guys."
He can't. He is taken out to be burned at the stake. Again. He's still not worried. He's immune to fire, so he figures his inability to burn will merely add power to his cause. He is tied to a stake and set on fire, but he remains unharmed. Unfortunately, the guards then decide to shoot him. He is still unworried, and he turns on Invulnerability. Seven miltia fire.
Tragically, he continues his trend of rolling really poorly for resistance tests. Halfway through the volley, his wound penalties overwhelm his sorcery, and Reiter-pallasch achieve the state of death.
Curtain close.
This session was quite possibly the biggest clusterfuck I have ever MC'd.
WEEK V: A Death in the Family
Curtain open.
The group returns to Filiasi's Ferry. Their plan is to talk to the mayor, try and rouse the town, and organize a general evacuation. It is still late at night.
For reference: R-P has Mask of a Thousand Face-d into a new appearance. Moorgon plans to stay invisible the entire time. And no one in the town has ever really seen Costin or Aleister. So they don't think they're in danger of being recognized from before.
R-P charms the town's guards and convinces them to take him to the mayor. On the way over, he tells the guards that a giant army of Dacians is coming for the town, and they need to evacuate immediately. Thanks to his excellent Persuasion, they're initially convinced, but his insistence that the invaders are Dacians makes him lose some credibility. Even with a sorcerously augmented tongue, claiming that a 2000 year old civilization has somehow survived and is about to attack your town is pretty hard to convince people of.
They make it to the mayor's house, and R-P and Aleister begin talking to the mayor. Meanwhile, Costin decides to murder someone, and draws a wolf with the blood. (The wolf being the symbol of the Dacians, he figures this will lend credit to the claim that the Dacians have returned.) The mayor is unwilling to believe that Dacians are invading. So he tells them to come back in the morning and goes back inside.
And here's where everything goes to shit, in a hilariously familiar pattern. R-P decides that the town needs to be shaken up. He's turns on Invulnerability and kicks in the door. Aleister activates Giant Size. (because, why not I guess?) R-P starts running through the mayor's house, until he bumbles into the mayor's bedroom, where the mayor shoots him. The mayor rolls passingly well on his attack. My thoughts are that R-P will easily soak this bullet and this judicious breakage of the Masquerade will give him the momentum he needs. He rolls his 13 soak dice.
And gets 1 hit. Terminal wound. Oops.
Aleister decides to grab the member of the militia guarding the mayor's house. He tosses him into the river. (because, why not I guess?) Moorgon goes inside the mayor's house to help R-P. He crossbows the mayor, Incapacitating him. Unfortunately, the mayor's wife was in the room. She fires pretty much at random, and actually manages to Terminal Moorgon as well.
Aleister runs over to where Costin is, and the two of them together return to the mayor's house. By this point, four more miltia have showed up. They take these four out easily. Then Aleister reaches through the house's window and pulls the mayor's wife out, while Costin goes inside and First Aids Moorgon and R-P. Aleister threatens the mayor's wife for a bit, and then he sets her down and goes inside. (She's pretty much in shock by this point.)
Having First Aided everyone back to reasonable health, the group begins to plan their next course of action. They still need a way to evacuate the town. Costin begins drawing wolves everywhere. (because, why not I guess) Before they can formulate anything coherent, more miltia show up and surround the house. Everyone hurriedly escapes, by various means.
Time for a new plan: R-P, Aleister, and Costin don uniforms of dead town guardsmen. They gather the guardsmen together. The guardsmen are perturbed enough to consider that something really fucked up is happening. Maybe, as crazy as it sounds, the Dacians are still out there? R-P is actually close to maybe organizing a general evacuation. But first the miltia decide to get the town's priest.
When the town's priest arrives, he and R-P begin debating whether or not an evacuation is called for, and, if everyone needs to leave, when the general departure should begin. Initially everything goes quite swimmingly.
Unfortunately, the priest has in his possession an amulet that gives him a weak version of Supernatural Senses. (Had the plot progressed in a different manner, this item would have been important.) When the priest gets a good look at the (disguised) R-P, the amulet reveals that R-P is one of the two witches that were nearly burned at the stake a few days ago.
Instantly, the accumulated goodwill of the guards pretty much vanishes. Costin and Aleister make a hasty escape, but R-P remains. He's all "I can still talk my way out of this, guys."
He can't. He is taken out to be burned at the stake. Again. He's still not worried. He's immune to fire, so he figures his inability to burn will merely add power to his cause. He is tied to a stake and set on fire, but he remains unharmed. Unfortunately, the guards then decide to shoot him. He is still unworried, and he turns on Invulnerability. Seven miltia fire.
Tragically, he continues his trend of rolling really poorly for resistance tests. Halfway through the volley, his wound penalties overwhelm his sorcery, and Reiter-pallasch achieve the state of death.
Curtain close.
Last edited by Blicero on Sun Oct 07, 2012 6:07 am, edited 3 times in total.
Out beyond the hull, mucoid strings of non-baryonic matter streamed past like Christ's blood in the firmament.