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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:I picked this up as reading material, seems fun enough There's a lot to like about the new Scion, from top to bottom. Hero and Demigod are both worth it too, if you want to take that plunge. I've got Dragon but haven't read it yet but am sure it's probably also good.
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Jan 12, 2023 20:37
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Dragon's super cool and does enough with what on paper reads like an illegible, bullshit premise (dragons are real but you have to be super secret spies for them because reality rejects their primacy over the gods, because of the gods) to sell it. Also of the two books that ran at the same time, it at least had a manuscript with the rules you needed to play it, unlike Masks of the Mythos. Which is also cool now! But in more straightforward, get-what-you-paid-for ways (if you wanted a cosmic horror skin over your Scion game, you can. Done!).
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Jan 12, 2023 20:51
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I just finished The Menu, this is a stealth CoD movie. What a great film. So I was planning on posting about it anyways, saying it could have been a blue book mortals game. No overt supernatural elements or anything, but then that ending. How she used the rules of the scenario to escape, just gave me huge changeling vibes. Anyways, it's on HBOMAX, go watch it if you can. Soonmot fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Jan 13, 2023 |
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Jan 13, 2023 01:37
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It’s really excellent. Also, surprisingly restrained. It would have been a much worse film if they’d done what I assumed they would, going in, and had a cannibalism scene.
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Jan 13, 2023 01:46
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Soonmot posted:So I was planning on posting about it anyways, saying it could have been a blue book mortals game. No overt supernatural elements or anything, but then that ending. How she used the rules of the scenario to escape, just gave me huge changeling vibes. oh wow, yeah
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Jan 13, 2023 10:33
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Nessus posted:Is that why it’s a World of Darkness? No dog souls? Dogs don't have ghosts because all dogs go to heaven* * Except the class traitors in The Paw Patrol
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Jan 13, 2023 12:07
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CottonWolf posted:It’s really excellent. Also, surprisingly restrained. It would have been a much worse film if they’d done what I assumed they would, going in, and had a cannibalism scene. That's what I thought The Mess was going to be, that they were going to cart the body back to the kitchen and start butchering him.
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Jan 13, 2023 15:24
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worm girl posted:This would be a pretty amusing curveball in a Wraith game, though I'm sure it's been done a million times. You are just moping around watching the mortals live their lives and you see your body walking around killing people. Yeah, it's canon in Geist that a sufficiently traumatic experience can cause someone to leave behind a ghost even if it doesn't kill them, and there's no particular limit on how many times this can happen except how hosed up a life you've lead. Presumably it's possible, albeit very unlikely, for someone to have enough problems in their life to leave behind multiple ghosts which devour each other in the Underworld, gaining strength until they become a geist. That person then dies, and strikes the Bargain with their own geist...
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Jan 13, 2023 15:38
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A really cool Vampire movie is 1972's Sleuth, starring Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier (and only them- no other characters appear onscreen). Features what happens to the mind of a vampire elder, an on-screen Embrace, and how the vampiric mindset reproduces itself. Pretty fun!
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Jan 13, 2023 15:43
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Dammit Who? posted:Yeah, it's canon in Geist that a sufficiently traumatic experience can cause someone to leave behind a ghost even if it doesn't kill them, and there's no particular limit on how many times this can happen except how hosed up a life you've lead. Presumably it's possible, albeit very unlikely, for someone to have enough problems in their life to leave behind multiple ghosts which devour each other in the Underworld, gaining strength until they become a geist. That person then dies, and strikes the Bargain with their own geist... A beast's favored feeding target who gets cratered down to 1 integrity repeatedly with a loving battlefleet of ghosts following him around.
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Jan 13, 2023 15:45
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I'm reading through Kith & Kin, the new C:tL 2E supplement, after catching up on this thread and finding out it actually came out. I might have something to say in a few days but can't imagine having enough of an opinion to even qualify as a take. Still, got me thinking about C:tL in general. Running a Lost game has been kinda my white whale-- like how some people dream of one day having a good Promethean game or something. I'm still a little unsettled on my opinion of 2E in general. Has anyone played, or known someone who has played, or knows someone who has written about, an actual second edition Lost game? I really wonder how some of the mechanics work in practice. There seem to be a ton of specific systems that read as pretty fiddly, but I wonder how they work in actually play-- better than I feared? Worse? Also, as the game got "bigger" (I'm assuming K&K is the final supplement, and it's first was fairly slight) some of the systems got broader in a way that might solve some of the issues I had with them on a first read. Like, Hedgespinning seemed fairly niche and unwieldy but now there are a number of circumstances where the rules say "You can use Hedgespinning in the real world as long as it invokes this theme or whatever" and turning Hedgespinning into like, Changeling Creative Thaumaturgy is a pretty cool idea. I wonder how that affects some of these systems-- do the rules work better with a broader purview, or do bad rules recycled result in more bad rules?
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Jan 13, 2023 17:56
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Digital Osmosis posted:I'm reading through Kith & Kin, the new C:tL 2E supplement, after catching up on this thread and finding out it actually came out. I might have something to say in a few days but can't imagine having enough of an opinion to even qualify as a take. Still, got me thinking about C:tL in general. Running a Lost game has been kinda my white whale-- like how some people dream of one day having a good Promethean game or something. I'm still a little unsettled on my opinion of 2E in general. We specifically avoided hedgespinning and oreinomancy. Someone in this thread has gone in depth on wht 2e hedgespinning is bad. Overall, I like 2E better than 1E
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Jan 13, 2023 18:19
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Digital Osmosis posted:I'm reading through Kith & Kin, the new C:tL 2E supplement, after catching up on this thread and finding out it actually came out. I might have something to say in a few days but can't imagine having enough of an opinion to even qualify as a take. Still, got me thinking about C:tL in general. Running a Lost game has been kinda my white whale-- like how some people dream of one day having a good Promethean game or something. I'm still a little unsettled on my opinion of 2E in general. Hedgespinning: The game wants the ST to basically roll for the hedge to gently caress with you every time you do anything, Anything, in the hedge, and doing your own PC hedgespinning wrecks your dicepools so bad you'll be lucky to do one thing right let alone two. So if you want the hedge to be "late game you can do a bunch of poo poo but until then lmao gently caress off" run it RAW. If not: Ignore big chunks, to taste. Oneiromancy: Is based on hedgespinning but with additional gates to entry. See above. Token creation: It owns! The fun part is negotiating with Hedge denizens to give you a spot to bury crap in the deep hedge and come back a few weeks later and see what magical gacha gave you. The less fun part is, even with the expanded token creation rules in Oak Ash and Thorn, you're going to be filling in a lot of gaps, mechanically. Like, 5-dot token, strong as gently caress, right? Maybe if it's giving you rote on a combat roll. Otherwise good luck figuring out a baseline for 3 vs 4 vs 5. Kenning: Useless. What if mage sight was playing Marco Polo with the vague concept of "some weirdness." Have your ST either handwave this poo poo or rewrite it. Combat pre-buffs: If people took any of them, your ST should hopefully get in the habit of telling people, ok you've got (0/1/2) turns for buff contracts before the encounter proper, otherwise you're going to have a lot of "I activate Elemental Weapon. Turn." and such. Overall though: Great game very fun, hobs are truly the lord's own little guys.
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Jan 13, 2023 18:55
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So just use Kenning like Dreaming Kenning where you roll a pool and if you succeed the better you detect Fae-related stuff?
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Jan 13, 2023 19:10
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Dawgstar posted:So just use Kenning like Dreaming Kenning where you roll a pool and if you succeed the better you detect Fae-related stuff? I also have not seen Bedlam ever used in a multi-year campaign. It just seems bad, compared to "literally doing nothing."
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Jan 13, 2023 19:29
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Time for another recap! This time we wrap up the pre-written adventure Family from Trails of Ash and Bone. Unfortunately one of the players is taking a hiatus from the game, so this time it’s just Thomas the Triad Tremere and Augustus the Amish Banu Haqim, with Benedict mutely providing access to his skills. Where we last left off, the coterie had entered the domain of Lubango, a Hecata known to be involved in drug-trafficking and gang activities. The coterie had done so without any subtlety and had been ambushed as a result. So now we rejoin our player characters as they are hiding in the sewers, waiting for heat to die down. Once it was safe to move, the coterie didn’t abandon their plan and still wanted to find Lubango. So they tried again, and this time they successfully avoided attention and managed to interrogate locals to learn the exact house where Lubango made his haven. The coterie politely knocked on his door, and Lubango invited them inside before hefting a massive axe and trying to kill the intruders. The coterie was in no shape to fight a massive Samedi with clear orders to kill them, but they managed to utilize a weakness and dominated him to disarm and calm down, before persuading some important information out of him. Lubango was part of the local Bahari cult, but didn’t consider the players enlightened enough for him to talk about his faith. When an information leak was mentioned and that the trail pointed either to Ornella Giovanni, who Lubango was extremely loyal to, or Baron Blumenau, Lubango wanted to lead the players directly to Ornella to ask questions. This meant that the players had successfully skipped the scenes to find out where Ornella was and getting inside, since Ornella was in a women’s shelter called Luxemburg House. Inside the house, they first were led to another Bahari, known as the Sleeper, who was overseeing the initiation. Sleeper in turn led them to a garden, where he spilled some of his vitae down a well, before Ornella Giovanni emerged from the well, covered in blood, groggy and in a dreamlike state, but thanks to the fresh blood not on the verge of frenzy. The coterie starts discussing the state of affairs with Ornella, who has no idea about a leak, but does reveal that giving up secrets is required for enlightenment and she had revealed many things to Baron Blumenau in confidence, as part of this process. Dots are getting connected and it is absolutely clear that Baron Blumenau, a fellow Bahari, had abused Ornella’s confidence for her own goals, and the truth crushes Ornella, who withdraws back into the well to be alone. So now the players are fully aware of the situation and are left to decide what to do about it. Their task is to eliminate the information leak, and it’s quite clear that Ornella won’t be leaking anymore secrets to Blumenau, but it could also be argued that someone has to die, if only the coterie was in any condition to fight. The discussion about this takes quite a while, and I even give them input from the local kindred to help them make an informed decision. Thomas is especially conflicted, since his perfectionism demands that the task be carried out to the letter and that Blumenau must die, but there is no way they can attack a Baron and her Anarch allies and survive. Most of the locals are Anarchs who are happy to let Ornella be, since they approve of a Kindred finding a way to break their chains, whatever that means. Considering the local Hecata, Lubango is loyal to Ornella, Mrs. Strand would be delighted if a Giovanni dies (she is Cappadocian) and Lia Milliner doesn’t want to disrupt the status quo, that’s bad for business. In the end the coterie let’s things be as they are and return to New York and Donatello Giovanni, who had originally given them this task. He is displeased with a lack of a corpse, but respects the local decision and considers the task completed. And that’s it for The Family. In the after game discussion I explained to the players some aspects of the story that didn’t come up in the game (and some details I’m not even sure how they could come up organically during play), as well as give an epilogue of how Ornella eventually completes her process, and how Atlantic City eventually transforms from an Anarch domain into a Bahari one, nicknamed New Budapest. This writeup was also written several weeks after the game and I’ve probably forgotten some stuff, so it’s not as detailed as I’d like. Luckily running a pre-written adventure gave me time to prepare some plots and story ideas so I'm good to go for the next few months at least and won’t have to struggle for ideas for upcoming sessions.
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Jan 20, 2023 21:43
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Big sale on a bunch of OPP stuff today: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/4261/Onyx-Path-Publishing
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Jan 25, 2023 16:40
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Lord Hypnostache posted:Time for another recap! Thank you for these, I've enjoyed them! How did your players feel after the adventure ended? Its tough to walk away from what might feel like the "intended" climactic fight but I can see how it was the right call.
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Jan 25, 2023 18:45
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Dammit Who? posted:Yeah, it's canon in Geist that a sufficiently traumatic experience can cause someone to leave behind a ghost even if it doesn't kill them, and there's no particular limit on how many times this can happen except how hosed up a life you've lead. Presumably it's possible, albeit very unlikely, for someone to have enough problems in their life to leave behind multiple ghosts which devour each other in the Underworld, gaining strength until they become a geist. That person then dies, and strikes the Bargain with their own geist... There's a character in Kraken by China Miéville that's haunted by multiple, extremely angry ghosts of himself because he created a magical teleporter based on Star Trek that duplicates the user at the destination and kills the original. So every time he uses it, he dies and joins the ghosts haunting the new copy
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Jan 25, 2023 18:59
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Dawgstar posted:Big sale on a bunch of OPP stuff today: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/4261/Onyx-Path-Publishing Not print, huh.
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Jan 25, 2023 21:16
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MonsieurChoc posted:Not print, huh. Never is.
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Jan 25, 2023 21:47
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Podima posted:Thank you for these, I've enjoyed them! How did your players feel after the adventure ended? Its tough to walk away from what might feel like the "intended" climactic fight but I can see how it was the right call. There was quite a long conversation which was going nowhere before I stepped in and called it in favor of not engaging the Anarchs and the players were fine with this, even if the characters weren't. Fighting the Anarchs was not the only intended climactic fight, they could have also fought Ornella if things had gone differently. I did let the players know what dangerous situations they managed to avoid by being clever and good at talking. And the most important thing was that narratively their quest giver was pleased with the conclusion, it's important to not punish players for choices they did not make. So overall everyone at the table had a good time 
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Jan 26, 2023 08:17
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Kenning can be really fun if your Storyteller is good at description.
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Jan 26, 2023 10:25
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Was thinking about M:tAw's Merlin and his whole schtick of loving up his own utopia before the Exarch's could to put them in a double-bind, and that got me thinking about the nature of symbols, the Supernal, and history. It's mentioned, I think in the 2e core most explicitly, that the the Atlantean orders (the Diamond and the Seers) are basically enacting a giant shadow name / cabal theme but for the entirety of the Awakened "nation." So what I'm thinking is-- isn't this a terrible loving idea if we assume the Diamond actually wants to achieve their stated goals? If you're a Seer being able to say "yeah we serve these badass mages who stormed heaven and then stopped the plebs from getting up behind them, that's why Atlantis fell" is pretty powerful, and strengthening that Supernal symbolism is going to make you stronger. On the other hand, if you're a member of the Diamond orders, why the gently caress would you want the story you've spent millennia reaffirming to explicitly include "and then we hosed up and the exarchs won?" Like, take the idea that Atlantis isn't in the past but the future. Okay, sure, that rules and is something we should be working towards. Except the "don't give yourself the shadow name of Odin if you want to keep both of your eyes" would kick in and any hypothetical utopia the Diamond might make would almost inevitably fall to the exarchs and then, idk, be flung backwards in time so it was always will have fallen to the exarchs (time travel makes tenses weird.) Why not model the perfect society you're striving towards after, say, Shangri-La? If it's believed to be entirely historical and the Atlantis myth fits because that's a good explanation for why the Exarchs are in charge, why would the folks fighting them wrap themselves in the symbolism of failure and ruin? Why not tell stories of Atlantis as a cautionary tale and model your society on something else, or try and develop an entirely new symbol for the Awakened Utopia to come? I understand the idea of building a group identity by pointing to lost and fallen glory, and that people will fight for something they think they've lost harder than for something they stand to gain. It makes sense from a human perspective. But the Diamond orders are mages and should understand that the Supernal might take them at their word and decide that they want to forever be the guys who lost. The idea of the Diamond being like "our explanation for why the Exarchs are around is Atlantis and also we're going to model ourselves specifically after Atlantis" seems extremely self-defeating.
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Jan 28, 2023 05:42
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There's some in-character speculation in some 1e supplement that in the days of old Atlantis, the Seers were like a fifth Order of tax collectors or something, but I don't see why we shouldn't assume that the mages who would go on to become the Exarchs weren't members of the Wings, Talon, etc. of the dragon same as the mages who would go on to lose to the Exarchs and get kicked back down to earth. The dragon Orders really did succeed - their members mastered magic, breached the vault of Heaven, and installed themselves as (at least effectively) gods. Those gods no longer exemplify the Atlantean archetype because they've got the tiger by the tail and are now working full-time as humanity's jailors. The Seers, in turn, aren't patterning themselves after "the mages so powerful they conquered heaven" but rather things like "the chilling effect of knowing you're being watched" or "the primacy of the value form". It's certainly a Free Council position that taking up the mantle of Atlantis means you're dooming yourself, but that doom would be something like "win too hard, betray each other in the process, and destroy everything" rather than "discover that you're outmatched and just lose".
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Jan 28, 2023 12:29
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Individual ministries have more specific forms of oppressions sure but the Pyramid as a whole is tied together by a common Atlantean cause, no? I mean obviously in practice various ministries fight each other-- I mean, mages in the same ministry fight each other-- but in theory don't the Seers all believe they were descended from Atlantis? It'd be like how the main symbol a Mysterium mage goes after is "Magic is alive" but every interaction they have with another member of the Diamond, and therefore an important secondary symbol, would be "we're from Atlantis." And I was conflating the two but yeah, I see two reasons not to take on Atlantean symbolism. One is what you said-- that even if the Diamond wins they'll lose because Atlantis falls. That's what got me thinking about the whole thing, Merlin's whole Camelot gambit. It does seem though that a second reason to not use Atlantis symbolism is that you're explicitly patterning yourself after the guys who ended up without power. If you seriously want to contest the Seers, why make your entire movement's shadow name mean "opposition party?"
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Jan 28, 2023 19:11
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The Seers are bound together by a precisely anti-Atlantean cause, which is to say preventing magic from ever falling into anyone's hands. The 1e Seers book made it clear that this actually makes Seers weaker and worse at magic than Pentacle mages on average, because they're organizing themselves around various suffocating aspects of the fallen world rather than ancient dragon secrets or similar. You join the Seers if you're a responsible adult who knows what's best for everyone; you join the Pentacle if you want to be able to block bullets with your katana. I just don't think it's correct to understand the Atlantean tradition as the opposition party to other, stronger mages rather than the opposition party to mortality and humility and so on. The Atlanteans won! It's just that the first ones up there didn't take that victory where anyone wanted to. On the other hand, the actual kings of Atlantis created and/or became the Watchtowers themselves, so continuing the tradition of the Atlantean civil service that advised and fought for those kings means taking up the cause of awakening people.
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Jan 28, 2023 19:19
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Silver Ladder says no gods no masters! (except for us as the vanguard party)
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Jan 28, 2023 19:55
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Ferrinus posted:I just don't think it's correct to understand the Atlantean tradition as the opposition party to other, stronger mages rather than the opposition party to mortality and humility and so on. The Atlanteans won! It's just that the first ones up there didn't take that victory where anyone wanted to. On the other hand, the actual kings of Atlantis created and/or became the Watchtowers themselves, so continuing the tradition of the Atlantean civil service that advised and fought for those kings means taking up the cause of awakening people. If Atlantean symbolism includes both stuff the Diamond champions (liberation, etc.) and stuff the Seers champion (oppressions, etc.) then yeah, I can see how just invoking that tradition doesn't turn you necessarily into the "opposition party," good point. OTOH, I can't see how it would help in invoking the cause of liberation or anything. Same with invoking specific Atlantean proto-orders-- if you're calling yourself the Voice of the Dragon and some of those dudes went Exarch, I can't see how it would necessarily help the cause of liberation. It seems like the Atlantis shadow-name should maybe only invoke magical power without political valiance and uh, I guess it does since High Speech works for any mage. On the other hand, aiming to create a perfected magical society and calling that goal "Atlantis" does seem like an empirically terrible idea. If this is explicitly part of the Free Council's rejection of the Diamond's traditions, does anyone know if the Diamond has ever expressed a riposte to that argument? I know DaveB said somewhere that Merlin is considered a Silver Ladder hero to those who know because he managed to created a Supernaly perfect society in the fallen world even if it fell-- would the Diamond argue that creating an Atlantis that's doomed to fall is the best they can achieve?
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Jan 28, 2023 21:09
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It's also worth mentioning that... well, what other established symbology for an enlightened wizard society are you going to use instead? Because you're going to need some kind of symbol to keep everyone together, either magically or socially. If you don't, the Pentacle would have split into at minimum five independent factions that never talk to each other by now. And you could make your own history-agnostic new thing, like Merlin did once and the Free Council would like to do again, but you have no existing symbols to help you push against the current. (And also, it's very hard and it's already failed once.) To put it another way, let's say the first non-Seer mages to come together after the Fall were perfectly logical. They could still come to the conclusion that, even if Atlantis' symbology means it's going to trend towards falling at some point, it would be worth using it as the basis of their new society because it's an established symbol of a mage society and massaging that symbol's meaning is easier than completely making something up.
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Jan 28, 2023 21:32
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Sounds like a chronicle hook tbf.
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Jan 28, 2023 21:42
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"But they failed" seems like a pretty simplistic refutation to an extremely complex conundrum. I think it's arguable how comprehensive and fundamental the symbols of failure would be within the Atlantean myth, and there would necessarily be elements of those symbols in everything the Exarchs do too, because they did not win perfectly and are constantly fighting to ensure their win doesn't turn into the next loss. If losing a fight, even an incredibly important one, is enough to completely discard an idea, then I'm not sure what any mage is expected to do about anything unless they delude themselves into thinking they can become wholly original.
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Jan 28, 2023 21:55
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Digital Osmosis posted:If Atlantean symbolism includes both stuff the Diamond champions (liberation, etc.) and stuff the Seers champion (oppressions, etc.) then yeah, I can see how just invoking that tradition doesn't turn you necessarily into the "opposition party," good point. OTOH, I can't see how it would help in invoking the cause of liberation or anything. Same with invoking specific Atlantean proto-orders-- if you're calling yourself the Voice of the Dragon and some of those dudes went Exarch, I can't see how it would necessarily help the cause of liberation. It seems like the Atlantis shadow-name should maybe only invoke magical power without political valiance and uh, I guess it does since High Speech works for any mage. If I recall correctly, the name the Ladder puts forward for its hypothetical good ending is Hieraconis, not Atlantis. Both the dragons (or "dragons") and the Ocean Spire precede the specific political entity "Atlantis", even though the latter founded itself on the former two. That means that when you're part of the wings of the dragon, you're not just drawing on the magical city but on the primordial source of gnosis and its roost. In general I don't think there's actually a formal drive to recreate Atlantis as such among the mages of the Atlantean diamond, just to put its secrets and legacy to better use. The new plan is to awaken everyone, after all, which is very much out of line with how the original star ladder was used.
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Jan 28, 2023 22:11
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That Old Tree posted:"But they failed" seems like a pretty simplistic refutation to an extremely complex conundrum. I think it's arguable how comprehensive and fundamental the symbols of failure would be within the Atlantean myth, and there would necessarily be elements of those symbols in everything the Exarchs do too, because they did not win perfectly and are constantly fighting to ensure their win doesn't turn into the next loss. If losing a fight, even an incredibly important one, is enough to completely discard an idea, then I'm not sure what any mage is expected to do about anything unless they delude themselves into thinking they can become wholly original. Now you have me thinking of there being an Exarch of failure, no one knows exactly why but it's absolutely vital that he exists. Also he fails at everything he tries, it's a mystery as to how they ascended.
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Jan 28, 2023 22:24
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Ascended by being a different splat entirely and really, really beefing another kind of splat transcendence.
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Jan 28, 2023 22:27
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Kurieg posted:Now you have me thinking of there being an Exarch of failure, no one knows exactly why but it's absolutely vital that he exists. Also he fails at everything he tries, it's a mystery as to how they ascended. He's the one who didn't really want to Ascend but joined up with the Exarchs to try and talk them down from the whole Ascension plan and "reform the system from the inside" and got assimilated into another part of a system of oppression as an Exarch of Failure
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Jan 28, 2023 23:20
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Kurieg posted:Now you have me thinking of there being an Exarch of failure, no one knows exactly why but it's absolutely vital that he exists. Also he fails at everything he tries, it's a mystery as to how they ascended.
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Jan 28, 2023 23:42
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Asterite34 posted:He's the one who didn't really want to Ascend but joined up with the Exarchs to try and talk them down from the whole Ascension plan and "reform the system from the inside" and got assimilated into another part of a system of oppression as an Exarch of Failure
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Jan 28, 2023 23:42
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There's some almost ridiculously on the nose political satire there.
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Jan 30, 2023 04:53
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We played again and here’s how it went. Thomas from Clan Tremere and Augustus from Clan Banu Haqim have returned home to New York and are about to encounter new plot hooks and some consequences of previous actions. The night starts in a basement warehouse filled with old furniture, where the coterie has a meeting with Banu Haqim Primogen, Samira. She politely asks how the characters are doing and inquires about recent activities, before explaining why she invited them. The young vampires have shown themselves capable of following orders without question, obedient dogs who won’t even need scraps from the table to stay loyal. Perfect pawns to be sacrificed without a second thought. Samira prefers that young Kindred make something of themselves, instead of spending their short unlives obeying the whims of others. So she wants to give them a chance and resources to show what they are capable of. Samira has recently acquired this warehouse and gives the players a suitcase filled with money and a task to turn the place into something useful for the Camarilla. No further instructions. The players try to inquire about some suggestions from Samira, who kindly points out that if she were to provide guidance that would be proof that the coterie are mere pawns. She leaves and the coterie start brainstorming ideas. I think they ended up on either a nightclub for hunting or a clinic for extracting blood bags, with Thomas using his Triad connections to take care of security. This is a very open-ended task with a lenient timetable, so at a suitable moment I interrupted them with the next plot hook. A biker messenger came carrying a letter for them. They were being invited by the Malkavian Primogen, Carter Vanderweyden, for another meeting. The letter was written in a yuppie style and jargon which made it unclear whether this meeting was business or pleasure, but apparently there was a task which required the coteries specific skills and abilities. So the coterie traveled to Carter’s Manhattan apartment, which was much nicer than theirs. Carter greeted them as friends and offered them some very expensive champagne. I laid thick references to American Psycho in this encounter, but I guess my players haven’t seen the movie. Carter explained the dilemma he had. Some urban explorer had investigated an abandoned house and filmed it for his Youtube page. Unfortunately this house is where Carter sleeps during the day, so the information can’t be spread online. Carter had to grease some palms to ensure that the police would arrest this explorer for trespassing, raid their home and during the raid, “accidentally” destroy their computer containing the footage. Now, what was even more unfortunate was that someone had already stolen the computer and tried to pin on the Giovanni. (This was done by the players several sessions ago to repay their debt to Kaiser.) Now Carter knows that he has no beef with the Hecata, so clearly this was the work of Kaiser or one of his agents. So Carter had to bribe Kaiser to stop his personal information from spreading as well as reveal who had done the robbery. All in all this had cost him, as you say, an arm and a leg. As Carter sees it, the coterie owes him and, brandishing a meat cleaver, asks which one will give an arm and which one a leg. The players did not want to lose limbs and unsuccessfully tried to negotiate their way out of the situation, explaining that they only did what they were told and tried to bribe him with boons. All the while Carter is using Dementation to damage their psyche. Eventually the players flee the scene, their limbs intact but suffering a compulsion of paranoia. The crew splits, Thomas failing to find any safety during the night and eventually sleeping in a shipyard container. Meanwhile Augustus manages to calm down and returns to their haven. The apartment complex where their haven is has been curtailed by the police, entry is impossible. A random passerby explains that apparently there is a bomb threat, firebombs were found in the basement and parking hall. The passerby muses that fire is a very specific method, refers to Augustus by his name, gives a scrap paper with an address, before suggesting that Augustus should find safety for the day. So the next night arrives and the coterie decides to check the address they’ve been given. Clearly whoever this passerby was, he knows a bit too much. The address leads them to St. Peter’s Cathedral. The passerby from last night approaches them, now dressed up as a priest and introduces himself as Padre Mateo. Before he answers any of the coteries’ questions, he asks if Augustus would like to confess his sins. Augustus explains that he is a protestant and politely refuses. Padre asks Thomas the same, who is an atheist and refuses. Padre asks Augustus again is he sure he wouldn’t like to confess his sins, and I let the players roll insight to figure out that Padre is asking to converse with them in a place where they won’t be spied on, and Augustus agrees. The Padre explains that he represents an old and powerful organization, but refuses to elaborate. He also apparently knows a lot about vampire affairs, although has misidentified Augustus as a Gangrel. He explains that he is here to talk about Josephine Habermann, the local leader of Night’s Cross, a paramilitary group of hunters the players have met and fought with a few times in the past. Habermann is behind the attempted bomb attack on the coteries’ haven and she is clearly on a self-destructive warpath against the coterie. He considers the group as a whole a bunch of amateurs, but Habermann is actually skilled and he wants Habermann to train the next generation of hunters. What he asks of the players is to bring Josephine Habermann unharmed, before she gets herself killed or arrested. While Night’s Cross are not professionals, a previous adventure ended with them knowing how to find and identify the characters. This information has been shared with Padre Mateo and if the characters do as he asks, he will make that information disappear and guarantee that his organization will not operate in North Williamsburg (where the coterie holds domain). To mix up the situation, I did not give Augustus a chance to consult Thomas on this, Padre demanded an answer immediately. Augustus agrees to this. He does not enjoy being blackmailed, but is eager to find a non-lethal solution to their hunter problem. Meanwhile Thomas has received a text message from his touchstone Horatio, with just the words “I want out.” Thomas has called him back and arranged a meeting to find out what’s going on. Thomas does not want Augustus present in this meeting, so Augustus goes hunting while Thomas tries to find out what’s bothering his touchstone. Horatio is a boss in the local triad and aware of vampires. He explains to Thomas that while he is all-in for the Triad, even though the crew has taken losses and the Russian mob is pushing in on their territories. But he didn’t sign up for whatever this night creature business is. So far his arm has been broken, he’s been stabbed, his workplace was burned down, the police have been questioning him, some right-wing gang is harassing him and he is sure that someone is stalking him. Thomas figures out that the right-wing gang is Night’s Cross and assures him that they will be dealt with shortly. He tries to inquire about a potential stalker, but either Horatio is paranoid and has imagined the whole thing, or the stalker is Kindred who knows how not to be seen. Unfortunately for future Thomas, he missed the part about police questioning Horatio, since behind-the-scenes FBI’s Special Affairs Division has approached Horatio to get him to turn. This scene is Horatio giving Thomas a chance to make things right, or he will give him to the federal agents. Thomas does not know this and admits that Horatio has been through a lot of stuff, and he is genuinely sorry about all of it. But a character who is not specialized in social rolls, with Obvious Predator Flaw and low Humanity is not successful in conciliation. Horatio says he will call Thomas at a later date probably, he needs some time to think things through. And that was it for this session! I might have to read what happens when a character loses their only touchstone!
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Jan 30, 2023 12:54
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