Welcome back to my vaguely-semi-regular-ish gaming post coverage here at this blog. For those of you who've missed it, a while back I finished up my W20 game and have moved on to a Chronicles of Darkness game in the 'Woodburn Chronicles' setting in which my various fictions, my earlier Promethean game, and my Vampire game from a couple of years ago take place. This will specifically follow up on what happened with Derrick and the Strix.
This particular story itself is called 'Digestif.' As a bit of an experiment, I'm going with a mixed group of characters, whom we'll meet below the cut!
First off, Zac is returning as Derrick Ashton, the Khaibit vampire who got declared Regent of Morgantown under Prince Flavius the Wise of Charleston and then managed to solidify and then diablerize a Strix. Since the events of the last game, he's turned away from the Ordo Dracul and thrown in with the Invictus (which has caused tension between him and his apprentice, who is still associated with the Order), and has officially stepped away from being Prince Flavius' vassal to be the Prince of Morgantown instead (effectively making Morgantown an independent Invictus-run city). And while he isn't aware of it at the beginning of the session, the essence of the Strix still inside of him has not only been corrupting his shadow abilities but it's also marked him as the Apex of the local Hive.[0]
Sean is playing Otis Lamb, a beast -- specifically, an Eshmaki Predator, a creature reflecting the ancient deity Camazotz who comes out of the shadows to terrify and feast. He's bonded with Stephanie Hart, a vampire maintaining an identity as a doctor at the local hospital, and where we come in, the two of them have been talking about bringing him to meet the Prince.
Bryan is playing a mage calling himself Weaver, a Mastigos with the Mysterium who was asked to come to town a couple of years ago when a disturbance (Derrick eating the strix) put the entire supernatural community on edge. The trail has since gone cold and he's been working on trying to pick it back up.
John will be joining us next time with a demon, as he didn't have a character ready yet as of the beginning of the session.[1]
So we pick up about a year and a half after the events of the last game, on May 14th, 2016, the day before one of Derrick's monthly Elysium meetings. Howard approaches him through Leland Chase's club with some important news for him: The next night, Howard will speak words of prophecy, and feels that Derrick should be on-hand for that, partially because Howard will need help with it in the coming nights.
According to Howard, he's found a way to receive important missives from the Angel of Death. But it's not something he can entirely control -- with only a single night's warning, he will receive the answer to a question he has yet to ask. And he will have to figure out the question that goes with that answer. And this is going to cause a lot of havoc with certain electronic and electrical devices. Normally, according to Howard, he would go to others who also know of the Radio Sickness (as he calls it), but as there aren't any in town he feels the appropriate course of action is to go to the local authorities. In this case, the Prince.
Derrick, obviously skeptical, uses Auspex to try and determine if Howard is completely full of shit. His vitae-enhanced perceptions pick up the tinge of radio static on Howard's voice suggesting that at the very least Howard believes what he's saying, and that's good enough for his purposes. He tells Howard to come back the next night and they'll sort it out.
Meanwhile, at the same time, Weaver the mage is toying with a seismograph he acquired from one of the locals shortly after it came to town. It's one of a handful that have turned up at the university that seem to respond to disturbances that aren't physical in nature, and written off as just a problem with the equipment. The last time they seriously went off was December 2014. But now, this one has begun buzzing, building up to something that Weaver predicts will hit its peak in the next day or so.
And Otis is going to be finally meeting the Prince the next night, coming along to Elysium as Stephanie's guest.[2] This is a big deal, as Derrick is not only the Prince of the local vampires, which Otis understands is a big deal, but the Prince is also the Apex. So this will be his first face-to-face with the being whose very presence has been sending smoky, shadowy feathers into the local beasts' Lairs. But on top of that, he's been... 'hearing' something coming through the Primordial Dream, something I've described as being like the buzzing of a cloud of locusts just over the horizon that you can hear but can't quite see yet.
So with that particular bit of stage dressing, we jump ahead to the next night. It's the 15th, the date of Derrick's monthly Elysium meetings for those vampires who have new business to discuss, grievances to air, etc. This all takes place on the exclusive second floor of Leland Chase's nightclub, "Chemical Reactions." This is where the local vampires have their official gatherings. While they don't generally do the 'blood bath' thing or anything like that, it's generally acknowledged that unless they're a ghoul or a special guest or something, any human who is brought onto the second floor is extremely unlikely to leave with all -- or even most -- of their blood.
Howard has shown up as early as he can, right after sunset, so he can find a spot off to the side. But he's already bringing electronic phenomena with him, as the lights and noises in the club intermittently cut in and out. Not enough to tip the kine off to anything more than an eccentric DJ working the club, but it gets noticed. Stephanie and Otis show up, and Otis has wrapped himself in a shroud of vampirism to pass as one of them.
Below, in the club, Weaver has begun sniffing around. He's triangulated the source of whatever the seismograph has picked up and followed that trail to the club. He's also aware that the electrical phenomena isn't natural.
As Derrick is getting ready to start the meeting, Leland informs him that Stephanie and her guest have shown up. Also, the weird blind vampires in the tunnels under the campus have sent a ghoul as "an envoy from the darkness below," in their words. Derrick rolls his eyes and wonders why vampires have to be so stupid with their naming conventions and the like. Leland says he has a theory but it would be best discussed later. Derrick decides to start with getting the ghoul's business out of the way before he deals with the rest. He calls a man dressed like he ripped off a Goodwill donation box forward and asks what his masters want of Derrick.
"Die," the man yells, pulling a stake and lunging at Derrick. His coat flies open and Derrick can see that the guy has a bomb vest on underneath. And then everything, for him, goes black.
Derrick finds himself in a void -- not merely darkness, but nothingness -- and a voice tells him "Give me shape, give me a legend, give me form. Make me a monster, and you will be my champion."
Meanwhile, back in the physical world, Derrick dissolves into a shadowy blob in front of everyone's eyes. The ghoul passes through him but as he comes out the other side a bunch of shadow-stuff is wrapped around his head, still connected to the blob that was Derrick. The blob regains humanoid shape, with that connecting tendril going up his sleeve. The shadow-stuff releases the man and he falls to the ground, dead and drained (his body pale even above and beyond what someone looks like when a vampire has drunk them to death).
In the moments where all this is happening, Otis can sense that what just happened is the thing he's been 'hearing' in the Primordial Dream, just arrived. Below, in the club, Weaver can feel that somehow, for a few seconds, something up on the second floor has connected with something beneath the city, and for a brief moment those two places overlapped -- or became one thing existing in two places at once, it's tough to tell.
Derrick comes to at this point, standing over the body, having no clue what just happened other than that he's completely full of blood now and everyone's freaking out.[3] Leland asks how he did 'that,' and on pure reflex and instinct Derrick says "Wouldn't you like to know?" to cover his tracks.
And, because this is the worst possible time, Howard steps forward. The prophecy is coming. The electrical disturbances increase, and as the power goes out everyone's cell phones start ringing -- but instead of their normal tones, they produce the noise of a modem dialing up. And then, whether they're picked up or not, as one they all blast from their speakers: "When he reshapes the owl clutching his soul." And then Howard collapses to the floor in something like a seizure.
During the brief moments of darkness, Weaver takes advantage of the moment to teleport past the bouncer watching the steps to the second floor.
So the lights come on, and Weaver is basically standing in the doorway, looking at a room full of people -- with a bloodless corpse on the floor, mind you -- and his first thought is to ask "Are you all vampires?" and begin taking notes in his notebook.
Derrick immediately informs him that if he's going to leave the room alive, he's going to have to turn over that notebook. There's some back and forth but with everything going on, Weaver agrees to wait in a side room to be dealt with later and -- for reasons I as a Storyteller have trouble fathoming -- magically zaps himself into that room.
So to finally get it out of the way before tackling the more troubling stuff, Derrick calls Stephanie over to introduce Otis while Howard is slowly recovering from the initial shock. Otis, upon meeting Derrick, goes out of his way to show him a glimpse of his Horror (the term for a beast's inhuman soul), which takes the form of the Mayan bat-god Camazotz. Derrick asks if anyone has any other surprises -- Leland looks like he's about to make a joke but wisely stops himself. Derrick, in a moment of frustration, starts recounting all of the weirdness that's happened in one night, and Otis chimes in to make sure Derrick knows that Weaver is some sort of wizard (because as a beast, he knows these things). Derrick takes a second to check in with the few Nosferatu present, particularly a rather unstable one in the college library named Doris, and informs them that the weird eye-less Nosferatu in the tunnels under the campus are to be dealt with if discovered and he'll be sorting them out in due time.
Just as Derrick is going to go deal with the stranger in the other room, Otis goes ahead and walks in first to get a crack at him. Derrick gives him a minute and has Leland show him the security footage of what happened, presumably just to see what the cameras caught. He then orders Leland to delete the footage, insisting that what they saw was a trick he hasn't perfected yet, and that when "When done, it will be faster."
Meanwhile, in the side room, Otis is talking to Weaver, explaining what he knows (Weaver corrects him on use of the term "wizard," arguing that his people prefer "mage") and asking what brought him here. Weaver, scribbling down details in a notebook the entire time, explains that he was following some strange phenomena to the club. And just as he's asking if Howard is okay, Derrick comes into the room and immediately says that he'll be fine, and he closes the door behind him. Then we go through formal introductions, the usual dance that characters of different types in these games go through sorting out what everyone is, and what have you.
Weaver explains that what brought him up there specifically was the moment where someone was briefly in two places at once. Derrick informs him he thinks he knows where that other place is. Derrick explains that the place is also the territory of the people who sent that assassin after him, and that reminds them that there's a dead guy still wearing a bomb vest in the next room. Derrick immediately gets Leland and asks him to do something about it, and Leland immediately -- but respectfully enough -- asks how the hell he's supposed to do that. Otis offers to drop the bomb down a bottomless pit, as he apparently somehow has access to one.
Derrick says to give him a minute and texts Jenna, the leader of the local werewolf pack, just in case. He gets a jokey response about not throwing it at any nuns or baby ducks. But then she says she might have another idea, but a moment later he gets another text saying that that wasn't Jenna, it was her sister, but Jenna has the phone now and might know a guy. Derrick thinks a moment tells her he'll get back to her since Otis' suggestion seems more immediate.
Otis reiterates that he can drop it down a bottomless pit, but nobody else should be in the room for safety's sake and it needs to be pitch-black. Derrick has no problem sending everyone else home for the night, and Leland offers to go downstairs and shut off all the lights to the second floor in about five minutes, and then turn them back on a few minutes later. Derrick and Weaver insist on staying in the room, and Otis just warns them to grab onto a fixture of some sort, like the bar in the room, and not try to leave until he says so.
Right on cue, the power goes out. The darkness lets Otis call upon his Lair and opens a Primordial Pathway to overlap his Lair onto the room -- particularly a chamber that has a bottomless pit.[4] It becomes extremely cold, cold enough that Weaver's going to have some problems if he has to be there more than a few minutes. The body vanishes into the void, and a few moments later everything else fades and they're simply in a dark room until Leland turns the lights back on.
So that leads into a conversation about everything thats happened, and by necessity segues into a discussion about Derrick's encounters with the Strix, and the fact that he ate the Strix (which, in turn, requires a brief description of diablerie). This leads into Bryan realizing that this is why he's here, that it was this whole mess with the Strix that led to his being called to Morgantown in the first place.
And that leads into Derrick really coming to realize that what he thought was a simple act -- permanently ending one of the Strix -- is going to have broader, weirder complications than he could have imagined. And this leads back into more legends about the Strix and how old they are, and Derrick is just done. He doesn't want the Strix to come back, but isn't sure how he can stop it. And he especially doesn't want to have to deal with the tunnel Nosferatu who apparently want to kill him to get back to the point in the tunnels where he can try and sort it out.
Weaver offers to teleport them all down there, it'll just take a while. They decide to give that a try, and Weaver prepares a brief-ish ritual casting to get them all down there, during which this conversation happens:
Derrick: "What happens if it fails?"
Otis: (without missing a beat, all excited) "You're splinched!"
Weaver: (simultaneously) "Nothing happens unless I want it to."
Derrick: (worried) "What is 'splinched?'"
(Otis proceeds to explain the word.)
Derrick: "Don't splinch me!"
So Weaver teleports them into the tunnels and turns on the flashlight on his phone. There's the broken arch, and the spike. Derrick looks at the arch and he can see it as if it were complete. He can also see that the spike, which he 'glued' in place with his shadowy blood, is starting to come loose. Weaver uses Mage Sight to examine it and sees a portal of obsidian in the archway, and proceeds to scrutinize it to try and get an idea of what it is. He determines, with time and effort, that it's a portal to one of the Lower Reaches[5] and there's some sort of connecting tendril snaking through it, connecting Derrick to something on the other side. Derrick immediately tries to restabilize the spike, and that partially closes the doorway, but not all the way -- that tendril is holding it open, like a hose in a doorway.
And on that "What now" moment, we leave off.
[0]--For those of you unfamiliar with Beast: The Primordial, the short version is that as far as the local beasts are concerned Derrick is in some way the scariest thing in town.
[1]-- I'm aware this doesn't exactly match up with my earlier post regarding the group's lineup. All I can say is that plans change, and sometimes that change is at the last possible minute.
[2]-- Stephanie has given Derrick a heads-up about her association with Otis, noting that he is 'vampiric, but not an actual vampire.'
[3]-- I actually took Zac out of the room to describe his vision, and then made him wait while I narrated what happened to the attack to everyone else and brought him back in, ignorant of what just happened.
[4]-- An interpretation of existing traits and such, and we roll with it.
[5]-- Which is really sort of a Mage catch-all for all the weird extra-dimensional realms that don't quite overlap with the Fallen World.
No comments:
Post a Comment