Alrighty, so I've got a bit of free time waiting on something I need for an errand I have to run, so let's see if I can knock one of these out. (This intro is mostly to entertain me as I type, because it'll probably be long after I run said errand when this actually gets on the site. Oh well.)
Though that said, this session was the first one in a few where I actually had the entire group at the table together. I feel that noteworthy, given the likely-noticeable absence of certain characters in the last couple of write-ups.
Speaking of which, unless something happens my group should have an Exalted session on Sunday, so that's something to look forward to (both for me running it and for you, when the write-up gets posted).
And now, on with the show!
(Minor content warning for a joke about self-harm)
So where we left off, Jack had 'gothed' himself out and was at a club in town to learn more about the cult likely responsible for his creation. What he didn't know is that everyone else is that everyone else was also on their way to "The most goth club in town" in the hopes of tracking down someone who could help them unload their staked vampires. Rudolf's plan was to bring in one of the 'comatose' vampires, having fed him some of his blood to 'uncurl' him enough to "Weekend at Bernie's" him into the bar and hope any vampires there would notice.
Which is how everyone just happened to wind up on their way to "Zanzibar's."[0]
On the way, the non-Jack members of the throng get some eyeliner to help Father John fit in. Hell, a priest's outfit complete with collar would hardly turn a head in a gothy nightclub. Rudolf gives him some basic coaching, telling him that if anyone asks he should tell them he cuts himself, to help complete the disguise.[1] This actually leads to an exchange when they get to the club and walk up to the bouncers...
Father John: "I cut myself. May I go in?"
Rudolf, half-hissing/half-whispering in his ear: "After! After we go in!"
Steve opts to remain out in the van just in case, but the others go in and mingle with the crowd. Ander winds up asking one of the club kids about this "My Chemical Romance" thing he keeps hearing about, and becomes very upset and offended to learn that it's 'just a band.' To someone who grew up among the ruins of what was probably one of the most advanced scientific labs of the 20th century, the phrase "chemical romance" applied to just a music group drove him nuts. Fortunately, the rest of the group manages to talk him down before he starts a fight and gets them thrown out of the club.
Rudolf then takes his torpid vampire 'companion' up to the bar and gets a drink, so far playing it up like he's just helping to keep a drunk friend upright. Ander and Father John stand off to the side, keeping an eye on things. At the same time, Jack (who's been putting some effort into making sure the others don't notice him and potentially draw attention to him) finds the kids he met at school and starts talking to them in their booth. They say they were part of a 'club' for kids who were abandoned, orphans, come from broken homes, stuff like that. And apparently they're waiting on someone.
A vampire calling himself Steve approaches Rudolf at the bar and tries to figure out his deal. They get into negotiations about what Rudolf has to trade[2] and what the vampires are willing to offer him for it. Father John and Ander watch from afar and notice two other people, one of whom is all 'gothed out,' separately observing them working out the deal. Steve says he'll make a few calls and get back to him. He also comments that one of 'his' people are keeping an eye on the whole thing for security reasons. He goes off to make his calls and Ander subtly makes Rudolf aware of the watchers.
At about this point, elsewhere in the club, a guy wearing a cloak comes in and heads over to the table where Jack and his new friends are sitting, and he introduces himself as Derek. He makes a big deal about talking about how the kids who've been cast out by society and rejected by their families need to band together. It really evokes -- and openly cribs from -- bits of the speech that the Shredder gives in the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.
And then Derek starts getting into the weirder stuff, about how the entities out there that understand the kids and he's been making deals on their behalf. While he's spinning this spiel, Jack suddenly feels a sensation wash over him something making him feel lonely and needing a friend. He's aware that something's been done to him,[3] but manages all the same to appear sympathetic enough to get invited to a get-together they're having later that night.[4]
Father John, getting a little bored with things, switches on his ephemeral sight and spots a couple of interesting things... First off, there's a spirit perched on the edge of the booth where the cult is meeting (in the process, drawing his attention to Jack). Second, there's a small spirit that looks like a bat on the shoulder of one of the guys (specifically, the non-goth) watching Rudolf and Steve the Vampire. He gets Ander's attention and tries to get him to get Jack out of the booth before something unpleasant happens.
Father John heads over to the guy with the bat-spirit, who looks to be in his mid-30's and wearing a leather jacket. Once he gets up close he realizes his recognizes him. He hasn't seen him in years, though... because it's his creator, the one that abandoned him. Except he's human now.
So this begins a very long and uncomfortable (for both of them) conversation. Father John's creator, who goes by Joseph Smith now, explains that he'd abandoned Father John in a moment of panic when he realized he wasn't ready to take care of what he'd created.[5] He acknowledges that over his Pilgrimage he made his share of mistakes, and he's been trying to reconcile those over the last few years since achieving the state of humanity. Aside from Father John, there's one other abandoned Promethean he's trying to track down and reconnect with (though it's a coincidence that he happened to find Father John here).
He explains that after becoming human, Joseph realized he wasn't content to settle into a normal human life and he missed the larger supernatural world. He undertook study in magics and now he roams the country as something of an urban shaman, saving people from problems with spirits.[6] He's been trying to track the Neverborn Shadow cult because he's sure it's being controlled by a spirit. This is the closest he's physically gotten to them without being spotted. He offers to work with the throng on this, since it's obvious their fellow Promethean Jack has been pulled into their orbit. Father John quickly waves Ander away from the booth to keep from interfering with whatever Jack's going on, not wanting to scare them away now.
Outside, a couple of blocks away, Steve Rogers picks up on an Azothic radiance, meaning another Promethean is in the area. He looks around and spots a Black man with markings distinctive of the Ulgan lineage walking down the street. He watches the guy pause for a few moments and make a phone call before walking away. Steve tails him for a little bit but doesn't want to stay away from the van for too long in case the others need him. So instead he files away what he saw and goes back and waits.
At about the same time this is going on inside, Derek gets a phone call. After he hangs up he tells everyone there's a problem with the campground they've rented for the night's party and they have to go now. Jack discreetly lets Father John and Ander know he's going somewhere and warns them not to do anything stupid.
Meanwhile, up at the bar, Rudolf is finalizing his deal with Steve the vampire[7]. In exchange for the torpid vampires, Rudolf's going to get some cash, and some favors from Steve's contemporaries in New Orleans (among them, some protection for his lair to make sure the Baron doesn't burn it down or anything like that). The vampires bring in some cash, and Rudolf takes them out to the VW Bus to give them the remaining vampire.
Father John, Joseph, and Ander try to keep up with the cult as they leave, and everyone conveniently gets back to the van at the same time. Rudolf finishes his transaction (and makes a Humanity[8] check because, y'know, he sold a person) and stays behind at the bar[9] while the rest of the throng (minus Jack, of course) piles into the VW Bus to follow the cult out to the meeting place.
The cultists in the truck spot the throng, though, and try to take off. They're able to outpace the van, but the last anyone saw, Joseph seems to be keeping up on his motorcycle as they speed of...
And that's where we left off with a "to be continued." Feel free to stick around for way too goddamn many footnotes, though I actually do think the first one is worth a read.
[0]-- Zanzibar's is one of the favorite things I've come up with for 'my' CofD setting. As originally envisioned here, it started off as a one-off riff on an old website called "BJ Zanzibar's World of Darkness," a fansite that was a repository for all sorts of fan-made classic WoD content, most of it ridiculous (with varying degrees of intentionality). I needed a name for the bar and just thought it'd be a fun gag to use that, because this particular bar is where all of the supernatural factions in town wound up. Over time, though, I expanded the concept -- I turned Zanzibar's into a chain run by a cabal of different supernatural investors representing various factions. Each bar is a little different on the inside, but all of them are maintained as neutral ground spaces where members of the various factions can unwind and interact with each other peacefully (or at least as peacefully as they can, given the nature of things like Prometheans). I haven't had as much opportunity to use it as I'd like, but it has been established as an element in my setting.
[1]-- Honestly, not a joke that's aged well. But as with many things, I'm resisting the urge to use these posts to retcon things out of my own canon.
[2]-- Which, as a reminder, is a pair of torpid vampires (one of whom is there in the club) who are flunkies of Baron Cimitiere, one of the three vampires who runs New Orleans.
[3]-- Short version, some sort of weird emotion-influencing spirit magic. Obviously it would have been hitting everyone there, but only Jack would have been likely to notice. My notes don't say, but I might not have attached mechanics to it -- either he made his roll to resist, which would have at least made him cognizant of the effect whether it did anything to him or not, or I just handwaved it.
[4]-- This was a Milestone for Jack: "Create and use a false identity." I believe the condition I set for him getting it was actually maintaining this persona for a scene.
[5]-- Milestone for Father John: "Find out the circumstances behind his creation and abandonment."
[6]-- This is really kind of two footnotes in one. First off, most Prometheans forget what they once were when they become human, but Joseph obviously is one of the few who held onto everything. In terms of his exact 'deal,' he's one of the thaumaturges (the Shaman initiation) from the 1st edition book Second Sight.
[7]-- I really wish I'd given this character a different name, or at least I wish I knew why I gave him the same name as one of the PCs. Odds are I realized at the last moment I hadn't named him and just came up with something on the fly and chose badly. It happens.
[8]-- I may have mentioned this before, but in 1e, Prometheans had Humanity tracks like vampires do. If I may say so myself, one of the best things 2e CofD did was rework a lot of assumptions regarding the 'morality' stats, replacing most of them with more appropriate mechanics, like Prometheans' shiny new Pilgrimage rating.
[9]-- I'm actually not sure why Rudolf stayed behind, and when it came up at the next session Sean actually couldn't remember either.
No comments:
Post a Comment