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I mostly lurk here, but I’ll share the VtM campaign I’ve been running for my friends online since January. It’s set in New York in 2018 (I was very, very inspired by Coteries & Shadows). None of us has played VtM before, but most of us are at least vaguely familiar with the setting through video games. I had ran the two quickstart stories (Beast(s) and The In-Crowd) to get the players familiar with the setting, the rules and the themes. I should also note that we’re all Finns, so don’t be confused if it’s not the most accurate depiction of the Big Apple. Our coterie consists of three young fledglings, Camarilla associated but not actual members yet, with no more than several years of unlife behind them. Benedict Montresor, Ventrue, old school Republican from Louisiana, who still maintains some GOP connections. Connected to Fiorenza Saviona and sired by the local Ventrue Clan Whip, still very much in the game of politics. Very good at making connections and talking through problems, mostly useless in any other situation. Thomas Kang, Tremere, born in Hong Kong, used to work as a doctor for the local triads involved in organ trafficking. After Embrace relocated to NYC, and still works for the triad, but also works for Circulatory System. Considers disobedience to be dishonour, so I as a GM enjoy a character who is inclined to obey everything any NPC with any authority tells him to do. Augustus Stolze, Banu Haqim, member of the Amish Community, had come to New York to reconnect with his son, who had left the community previously. Unfortunately he was Embraced just as he had arrived, and his sire disappeared. Sheriff Qadir al-Asmai taught him the basics of unlife before ditching him onto the other two characters to take care of Augustus. Player with the least knowledge of the setting, so it’s suitable to play a character with minimal knowledge of the setting. We started with Power Prey from Let the Streets Run Red, so spoilers for that I guess. The following covers three sessions of playtime, so apologies for the length. The night started with touchstones being harassed and Benedict’s sire assigning the coterie to take care of a boon owed to someone else. The boon in question was owed to one Walter Nash, a Ventrue talking like a 1920’s gangster. He was also a pariah to the larger kindred community of NYC, Nash explains it’s due to him opposing the current Prince decades ago, but it’s mostly because he’s a creep . Nash had become the victim of blackmailing and wanted the coterie to make his blackmailer disappear. He had fed on a young girl (Nash claims she looked a lot older) at a bar called Honored Drinks and this incident had been caught on film, and now the blackmailers wanted Nash to confess everything vampires had ever done and name all the names. Which would be bad for the Masquerade as well as Nash’s continued existence. After sharing all the details, Nash decided that now that they had bonded over troubles they should bond more by hunting together, and invited the coterie to a college dorm party. All the player characters felt out of place at the party, being way too old to be students. Nash on the other hand was very much in his element, constantly surrounded by young women. Then at some point the coterie lost sight of Nash, before he returned, bloated and wiping blood from his mouth, informing the coterie that it was time to leave. The players hadn’t quite picked up on all the red flags, so I had Thomas roll medicine to realize that Nash had drunk way too much for it to be safe for the victim. So Thomas took a quick detour to find a young woman, unconscious and in desperate need of medical aid. Taking her to a hospital felt like a possible Masquerade breach, so Thomas gave her plenty of vitae to help her recover. (I decided that since this was Tremere blood, she would recover without issues, but wouldn’t be bloodbound or a ghoul. Possibly feel some sort of connection to Thomas when they meet again, but that hasn’t happened yet.) Thomas’ touchstone, Horatio, a friend and a triad boss, had been threatened with vague blackmail, by someone who clearly had very little idea of the line of work he or Thomas were in, but with too much information about Thomas’ vampiric nature. Horatio had also been pushed down and landed awkwardly breaking his wrist. Horatio gave a description of a nervous teenage girl, and asked Thomas to keep this downlow since it wouldn’t be good for his gangster image to get his hand broken by a tiny teenager. Augustus received a distressed call from his son and touchstone, who had been assaulted and threatened in the basement of his apartment building. The assaulter had also threatened to reveal Augustus’ vampiric nature to the world. Later investigation of the crime scene found a laminated ID card, revealing the culprit to be a Steve Jensen from Darkhour Security, and a business card for a website called verumdetenebris.com (The book doesn’t tell you this, but it means truth from darkness, I hadn’t realised one of the player characters knew latin so I had to quickly refresh my high school latin studies) The coterie now had three clues to begin investigating. - Honored Drinks Bar on Coney Island, where Nash had been filmed - Darkhour Security, where one of the touchstones’ attacker worked - verumdetenebris.com, also possibly linked to the attack - (They also could have tried to learn more about Walter Nash, but like I said, hadn’t quite picked up on all the red flags. Also since it’s a new campaign, there’s a certain element of doing what’s told without questions, which they’ll eventually unlearn) Researching the website brought up a fancy geocities page with all your favorite spinning gifs, dedicated to fringe conspiracy theories and most of the posts by just one user. Darkhour Security’s website seemed to use the same template. Unfortunately, none of the characters is particularly skilled at technology, so trailing the internet trail had to be outsourced to the local information master Kaiser (yes, that Kaiser from CoNY and SoNY). The players hadn’t yet come to the conclusion that the people blackmailing Walter Nash and the people blackmailing them through their touchstones might be connected or the same people, so the choice of where to next was based on geographical convenience. The first stop was a nondescript warehouse in the Bronx, which supposedly was the location of Darkhour Security. Approaching the warehouse, they saw three goons in a car, spying on them. The coterie decided to investigate them and two of the goons got out of the car and beat the coterie with baseball bats. These guys were from Darkhour Security, but didn’t believe in vampires, at least until it became obvious that they were unable to harm their opponents, at which point they jumped back in their car and bailed, scared but mostly unharmed. The Darkhour Security office had very clearly been empty until recently, and the interior had only the barest of furniture: one table, one computer, a few chairs and a minifridge. There were also surveillance notes on the touchstones who had been assaulted, as well as printed emails from someone called Redwood, who had hired the security company for some PI work. Redwood was clearly aware that the players were vampires, was paying good money, and disappointed that the touchstones had come to harm, warning that the player characters were on their way. They also found a jacket with the logo of Honored Drinks Bar. They were then ambushed by the fourth member of Darkhour security, one Steve Jensen, the only one who believed Redwood’s ramblings about vampires. Jensen attacked with a teargas grenade, which did nothing since vampires don’t need to breathe, and was quickly subdued. He was interrogated, and after learning some more details and flavor, Augustus drained him. Now Augustus’ conviction is to never kill, but this was in revenge against someone who had harmed his touchstone, so the number of stains was reduced. Next up was the Honored Drinks Bar on Coney Island. Some domination was required to get past the bouncers and into this apartment-turned-heavy metal bar. The place was full of tough looking folks proudly wearing patches with a sword through a skull, and everyone was armed. Knives, handguns… Even some stakes. Turns out this bar was the favored drinking hole of a group of hunters, called the Night’s Cross. And none of the locals were feeling like talking to some unknown faces. They were pointed towards Josephine Habermann, owner of the bar and leader of the group. Unfortunately she was surrounded by fans and the first challenge was getting her attention. Thomas, having the obvious predator flaw, was guided to stay away from this situation. Benedict took the lead and just randomly blurted “Hey, my Amish friend here knows some really cool occult stories, you should listen to them!” Unbeknownst to the other players, Augustus actually did have some points in occult and could tell interesting anecdotes for as long as required. At first Habermann didn’t seem to know anything about Nash or any attack around here, but after providing some details she suddenly remembers that Nash used to come here, and attacked a girl nearby, before clouding Habermann’s memory. She’s about to organize a vampire hunt, when the players get galaxy brains. Deciding that this is a risk to the Masquerade and that the coterie needs to fix it, Benedict dominates Habermann, ordering her to follow them to an alley. Unfortunately I can’t remember what they told the other hunters, to explain why their leader is blankly following these three strangers outside, but many successes were rolled and no one stopped them. Then things dramatically stopped going according to plan. Having been told to follow to “an alley” Habermann stops at the nearest corner, and having previously been dominated by Nash, figures out immediately what’s going on. Then she pulled out her pistol which they had previously failed to spot, and started praying for divine vengeance. At this point both the characters and the players learned that True Faith is a thing, and couldn’t do anything except get shot at point blank range, before fleeing. They were mostly uninjured, except Benedict who took most of the hits and was hindered. I loved the exclamation of “The WHAT?!” as a bunch of dice with the words True Faith appeared in the game log. After this, Kaiser’s ghoul approached and gave the coterie a folder containing information on Redwood online, as well as informing the coterie that they now own a minor boon to Kaiser. The folder contained flavor about a datamining company he had founded and how little information there is online about him, description of his family (wife, 15yo daughter and 13yo son), and most importantly, his address. And shortly thereafter they received an untraceable and distorted call from Redwood, letting the coterie know that he too had been busy working, and taken something important from them. So, let’s move onto the finale! Just as they enter Redwood's house, they get ambushed by the Night’s Cross hunters! This was a pretty rough fight, even though I decided that because the players had antagonized them earlier, the hunters wouldn’t patiently wait for the most opportune moment but strike as soon as they saw the player characters. Some hunters assumed that stakes and holy symbols would be suitable weapons and were dealt with easily, but other trusted good ol’ assault rifles and caused a lot more damage. Two out of three characters ended up with just one superficial damage away from torpor. The players believe that this is the Second Inquisition. I’m eager to see how they’ll react when they encounter actual government agents. Searching the house, they learn about Redwood and figure out what’s going on. Redwood is a conspiracy buff and liked to hang out with vampire hunters, to learn more. Nash also liked to hang out with hunters, excited by the danger and feeling of superiority. Eventually Nash meets Redwood, and more importantly, his daughter, who he then proceeds to groom and drain so much blood that the daughter ends up in a coma. Redwood figures out what happened, and starts to blackmail Nash and eventually other Kindred. Also Redwood kidnapped a player’s touchstone, who manages to get stabbed before the coterie stops Redwood. Who at this point is completely broken and ready to die. I gave the players plenty of time to think what they would do with Redwood and his family. I also allowed them to roll some politics rolls to be given basically all the choices (though not the consequences). Their choice would have plenty of consequences down the line, and I wanted them to really think about it and make an educated decision. Basically their options were as follows: - Killing Redwood, the easiest choice, just requiring them to commit murder and live with the stains - Ghouling Redwood, gaining his resources but having to take resposibility of him (Redwood would have not been a loyal ghoul) - Delivering Redwood to the Prince (this would have led to a bloodhunt being called on Nash for breaking the masquerade) - And finally delivering Redwood to Nash, which the players did. Nash then gave the characters a Major Boon and as soon as they had left, murdered Redwood. Didn’t even bother to hide the body. And in the epilogue, I informed the players that Redwood had set up a dead man’s switch which released all the blackmail material he had on his website. Now the good thing is that it’s a fringe website barely seen by anybody. The downside is that it’s very likely that whoever sees it knows exactly what to do with the information. Other consequences I didn’t mention to the players. Redwood’s surviving wife and son will start hunter training and will return eventually. Also, the mortal side of the investigation has been moved from the local police to the FBI, specifically the Special Affairs Division. One of the characters is a known blankbody and Redwood’s home surveillance system has just provided some very juicy evidence. Finally, Nash is trying to get back to Kindred society and as part of his redemption tour, he is very vocal about the coterie’s support. Other kindred will judge the coterie for this association. And that was an abridged retelling of our run of Power Prey. I felt it was a neat little story for my needs, mainly I don’t know how to start a campaign. It gave plenty of interesting situations and future plot hooks. I also thought it was great for starting a new campaign, since its themes include a reversed prey-predator relationship and the dangers of not knowing enough of what you’re up against. The next recap will be shorter and cover just one session, this one covered three!
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Jun 27, 2022 18:32
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Fuzz posted:This ruled and you should make them as long as you want, because this campaign sounds rad and fun. Glad your players are enjoying it! We're using Discord for talking, music bot, some flavor handouts and communication between games, Roll20 for everything else. Oh and kumu.io for the relationship map.
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Jun 28, 2022 18:02
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Our adventures in New York continue. We had a period of three sessions, where a different player had to skip and we got to experience how the group dynamic changes when certain characters are absent. Augustus, the Amish Banu Haqim, had to skip (in-universe he was chilling with sheriff Qadir al-Asmai, learning the ropes). So we had a small session studying some aspects of Benedict, the GOP Ventrue, and Thomas, the Triad Tremere, backstories. Benedict was asked to visit his sire, Leonard Tarasov, the Clan Whip of Ventrue. Benedict works for him as a glorified messenger and the two had a small discussion on the nature of power and ambition. But Leonard also had an actual issue he wanted to bring to Benedict’s attention. There was a possibility that Benedict had a problem, which meant that Leonard had a problem. After the previous session, Leonard had been pulling strings and calling favors to make sure that police investigation into the Redwood case wouldn’t find anything. After all, there were several dead hunters at Redwood’s house (some nigh unrecognizable due to messy critical in melee) and Redwood himself had also been found dead. Surprisingly, Leonard had found out that the NYPD was no longer investigating the case. Now why would that be? Benedict’s player was quite stumped by this, so a successful politics roll revealed that the most likely causes were that someone else had shut down the investigation (if so, who?) or that the investigation had been transferred to a federal agency. Clearly someone was following the coterie’s trail. Leonard advised caution and also asked a personal favor. Should Fiorenza Savona be in contact with Benedict, his sire Leonard would like to. In Benedict’s backstory, we decided that he personally knew and had impressed Fiorenza Savona while still mortal, and had been sired by Leonard in an attempt to gain influence on Fiorenza. Benedict is quite aware that he is a pawn between those two, but doesn’t know what their plans are. Meanwhile, Thomas was visiting his touchstone Horatio in the hospital. In the previous adventure Horatio had had his wrist broken and gotten stabbed in the gut, so he was not feeling too well. On the way to his friend, Thomas happened to pass by a room where a young student was sleeping. This was the very same young woman who Walter Nash had assaulted and Thomas had saved. She seemed to be recovering just fine, and Thomas decided to leave her alone. Horatio on the other hand was not just fine. Not only the physical injuries, but he had heard a rumor that one of his underlings was planning something. Edison, a capable second-in-command with too much ambition and not enough understanding of how things work, was planning a heist. The target was a van, which Edison believed contained something valuable for the Russian Mafia, actually belonged to Circulatory System. This was an issue. Not only would this risk gang warfare between the Russian and Chinese mafias, it would disrupt the blood infrastructure of the city. Thomas and Benedict met up and started searching for ways to stop Edison’s plans. They learned the route the van was taking, what the van looked like and a vague timetable, but couldn’t find Edison or his crew of loyal goons. They did receive a tip, that they should pay a visit to a Kindred both involved in Circulatory System’s blood trade and connected to the Russian mafia: Ivan Kuthka, the Caitiff Primogen. I explained this concept with a clumsy metaphor, that what if the government had a minister who no one voted for, represented no political parties, and hangs around criminals, that’s probably someone powerful. The players took a cab to Little Odessa, but just as they reached the outskirts, their cab was stopped by Ivan Kuthka himself. Ivan played up to the stereotype of a Russian gopnik, with a thick accent, prison tattoos, Adidas tracksuit, the whole shebang. He gave the cab driver a stack of cash and told them to leave, this was now Ivan’s car. Then, Ivan took the players for a drive and informed them Little Odessa was home to several independent Kindred who don’t like outsiders, probably shouldn’t enter uninvited. The characters informed Ivan of Edison’s plan to rob the van. Ivan was not surprised nor concerned. In fact, he already knew of the plan. Some Kindred he hadn’t recognised had told him that the coterie was going to rob him (“Some young fledgling who introduced themselves by listing their ancestors all the way to Czar’s time, so probably Ventrue”). Ivan has no reason to trust the unknown kindred, nor has he any reason to trust the coterie. To him, it all sounds like some Ventrue pissing contest, and he does not care. But he gives the coterie a chance to prove themselves. They shall meet at JFK Airport and transport the van together. Now who is this mysterious Ventrue who had spoken to Ivan earlier? Thomas’ player assumes it must have been Walter Nash, since he is a Ventrue and a piece of poo poo (I mean, true, but Nash likes the coterie). Benedict’s player has an idea, but doesn’t share it out loud. He has the enemy flaw, and created a rival Ventrue of a similar age, Valerie Bachman. It was she who spoke to Ivan. Also a fun twist, Benedict’s player had miscalculated how powerful an enemy should be based on the dots taken, but instead of correcting him on this, I decided that Valerie is a much older and stronger Kindred (probably not even Ventrue) pretending to be a younger vampire. The coterie meets Ivan at JFK airport. Thomas and Benedict have stocked up, they’re carrying assault rifles and wearing kevlar vests. Ivan is basically shirtless and laughs at the overdressed fledglings. They start driving and are eventually ambushed by Edison and his three goons, all armed with handguns. They demand that the van is handed over. While Thomas and Benedict are considering their options, wondering if the situation could be solved with violence, Ivan has stepped out of the vehicle and with a combination of Celerity and Potence, moves faster than eye can follow and punches the opposing gangsters into red mist. Ivan tells the players to take care of the bodies and drives off. Thomas further mutilates the corpses to send a clear message to anyone else in the Triad getting big ideas, and takes the bodies to base so that all gangers see them. We ended the session there and the players were very intrigued how violent and brutal things became immediately when Augustus and his vow of never killing weren’t there to keep the coterie in check.
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Jun 29, 2022 16:29
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Hi, I'm back for more stories about my game. This session we started Styx & Stones from Cults of the Blood Gods. Not really any spoilers in this session, I did a lot of work transforming the adventure about Hecata in Munich to Tremere in New York. This time Benedict couldn’t make it, but in-universe was present in all the situations, just didn’t have anything to say. The night begins in a Tremere clan symposium. All schisms are to be set aside for the next few days and everyone will work and share ideas for the good of the clan. Aisling Sturbridge, High Regent of the Five Boroughs, holds a speech to that effect and gives an in-universe summary of how clan Tremere is doing. The symposium also has a special guest Asano Hiromitsu, an independent Tremere who had recently relocated from Tokio to NYC. Thomas’ sire, Leila Badr, approaches Asano. The two exchange gifts and make formal apologies and vows to work for the betterment of the whole clan. Turns out that Asano’s sire had been part of the Sabbat, and had been killed by Leila Badr during the Battle of New York. But that’s in the past. As the evening continues Thomas’ sire Leila Badr and her grandsire Aisling Sturbridge approach the coterie with a business proposal. A Quebecuois Autark is holding an auction for an item known as the Venetian Jar. Supposedly this item dates back to the Roman Republic and was owned by Augustus Giovanni. They say that it has the power to recall a soul from the Underworld. Leila has learned a ritual to resurrect the dead, and they want to bring back the ancient vampire Viorica, the Scarlet Witch and Regent of Tours. In addition to the urn, the ritual requires a vessel, and luckily Leila knows a suitable subject, being “young, virile and deserving death.” The coterie is to acquire these two things. The first stop is the auction. There are several ghouls representing minor actors, and a few Kindred, the most relevant for this story being Terrence Rusk, Perses of the Cult of Mithras, who eventually outbids everyone else for the jar. Thomas and Augustus had a long discussion of just how much resources they were willing to spend (the winning bid was something like 4 major boons and 3 dots of resources). Surprisingly, the Triad member Thomas was all in on paying for the jar, while the pious Augustus wanted an alternative solution. Which was to just steal the jar, which they accomplished quite easily after I subtly reminded the players that Augustus has Obfuscation and can just disappear. The next step was acquiring the vessel. The coterie had been handed a dossier on one Trevor Calhoun, a hunter with a few confirmed kills. They were told to keep the body intact, no missing limbs and no damage to the face. Finding him was easy, since the dossier included his movements. Trevor was in a local bar and several drinks deep, so getting him to follow the characters was also easy. Thomas has poisonous blood which knocks out mortals, and the unconscious Trevor was delivered. Turning him into a corpse was outsourced to ghouls off-screen. I don’t know if anyone else knows players like this, but my group has a peculiar habit of overthinking things. When presented with a problem, they usually figure out a perfect solution immediately, but then they don’t stop brainstorming and start adding unnecessary elements and new problems for themselves. I love it, though occasionally I need to rein it in to keep the game moving. Like in this instance I had to remind the players that they are powerful creatures who can just do stuff. They were forming an elaborate plan to convince Trevor to wear a blindfold so they could take him to their haven without him knowing where the haven is, and maybe get some more alcohol to really cloud his memory, and how to then transport the body to Barnard College without raising suspicion… Finally the coterie had brought both the Venetian Jar and Trevor Calhoun to a ritual chamber in Barnard College, where Leila Badr performed the ritual. The ritual included Leila and all the player characters filling the Venetian Jar with their vitae and pouring it down the corpse’s throat. There was naturally more to the scene, but it was just flavor/mood text. The ritual was a success and they had bound the spirit of an elder vampire to this body! And that ends this session. There was a lot of worldbuilding and plot dumping in this game, so we will have to wait for the consequences of actions later.
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Jun 30, 2022 20:43
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After the last session and a resurrection ritual, there was a few nights of downtime before Styx & Stones properly resumes. Thomas was absent this session, so we focus on Augustus and Benedict. Augustus had received an invitation to visit the local Banu Haqim primogen, while Benedict had received a task from Fiorenza Savona. She had been informed of three characters who may be useful, and Benedict’s task was to find out if these people were useful to the Ivory Tower and if so, make them receptive to further contact from the Camarilla. The first of these three was Robert “Big Flex” Montana, a local event organizer and entertainment business mogul. He was found at a local club, though a meeting was arranged for a later time, since he wasn’t sober. The actual meeting was at a café, and Big Flex was eager to work with Benedict, over some vague hints that he served some very big wigs. Searching his social media presence revealed that while Big Flex was connected to many celebrities, he had also been a major funder of Fyre Fest and nowadays was all in on cryptocurrency. Benedict’s player assumed that this meant that Big Flex was very resourceful. I meant it as a hint that Big Flex was very bad with money and in huge financial troubles, but the players haven’t found that out. They only had the slightest of suspicion that anyone who gets involved with such vague promises must be in a desperate situation. The second person of interest was John Piraeus, a now retired Republican politician, Benedict’s political mentor and touchstone. I wanted to see how Benedict would react when an older vampire would ask for his touchstone and to my surprise, he complied with the request. Piraeus was looking forward to quiet retirement, but when his protégé asks him to help in some project for Fiorenza Savona, a political genius he knows and very much admires, he is immediately on board and ready to do whatever is needed of him. Third contact was Cristina Sabotelli, former Italian diplomat and now an UN administrator, having risen quickly through the ranks. She was too smart to be swayed by vague promises of having the support of very powerful people, and Benedict couldn’t or wouldn’t promise anything concrete. So unfortunately the negotiation was at an impasse and Cristina wouldn’t get on board. I planned these three to be on a scale of usefulness/cooperativeness. Big Flex was easy to get on board, but his usefulness is questionable and his financial troubles might spill over to his benefactors. John Piraeus is useful in some political circles, but this brings a touchstone closer to the world of darkness. Cristina Sabotelli would have been very useful, but she knows her worth and won’t be a pawn. Also in this session Augustus met Samira, Clan Banu Haqim Primogen. She asked some questions about Augustus and his morals, trying to get to know her new clanmate, as well as explaining what the Children of Haqim are about and their recent history. They also discussed Augustus’ unknown sire and the issue this was. For Augustus had been sired without permission from the Prince, but Samira would make some political maneuvers to prevent Augustus’ execution (Samira has cordial relations with the Prince and they wouldn’t want to offend Camarilla’s newest member clan). They still would need to find his sire to make sure Camarilla’s laws and traditions are upheld. I was about to make a small investigation to find the right culprit, but decided against it and made the issue have more emotional weight. Through a process of elimination, Samira quickly figured out who Augustus’ sire was, since there aren’t many Banu Haqim in the city and they knew the generation. Augustus’ sire was one Douglas Freeman, who Samira didn’t know too well, except that he had kept to himself and stayed out of trouble. Samira requested that she be informed when Douglas is found, but otherwise lets the players conduct the investigation on their own. The first part was finding an address, and instead of trying their own skill at it, or hiring a mortal PI, they decided to become more indebted to Kaiser, who did promptly provide an address. The address led to an apartment in Queens, where they found Douglas’ distressed mortal family, his wife and child. Talking with the wife revealed that Douglas had returned from a tour in Iraq six months ago, and since then been very pale, sleeping all day and being out at night, who knows where and doing what. And Douglas had been completely missing for almost four weeks (since the day of Augustus’ Embrace, in fact). The wife assumes that Douglas is suffering from severe PTSD and feels powerless to help her husband. Unfortunately the players don’t learn about Douglas’ whereabouts, but they do learn he’s a veteran and decide to find one of Augustus’ touchstones, a homeless veteran called Jamal. They find Jamal and after a description, he recognizes Douglas. They didn’t serve together but they met a few times at a veterans support group, but he hasn’t been there in a while (again, since Augustus’ Embrace). Jamal describes Douglas as being distressed and on edge, clearly something bad had happened overseas but Jamal doesn’t know what, he doesn’t pry about that sort of stuff. He does say that they brought flowers together to Cypress Hills Military Cemetery and Douglas had seemed calmer there. With this in mind, they head to the Cemetery and find Douglas quite easily, even though at first he yells at the coterie to stay away, because he doesn’t want to harm them. When the player characters don’t stop approaching, he turns invisible using Cloak of Shadows. Augustus also has this power and knows its limits, so he just pokes around the general area where Douglas disappears until he knocks his sire over and reveals him. Douglas immediately breaks down. He is sorry for killing Augustus, but even more sorry for cursing him to undeath. He tries to explain that he was just so hungry and lost control. He is very scared, not for himself but for his family and what he might do to them. He has no idea what a Camarilla is or really anything else about the undead society. It’s clear that with just a few weeks of undeath under him, Augustus knows more than his sire. Samira is called over and the situation is explained to her. Samira admits that she was told that Douglas had been taught everything necessary when he returned from service, which is obviously not true and that she should have been diligent. Augustus is merciful and forgives his sire for murdering him. Samira feels that the Laws of Camarilla must be followed, but she feels sorry for Douglas, who did not do anything to deserve this fate, nor does he understand why this is happening. Samira asks if Augustus would want to deliver justice, which offends him and he walks off, with Benedict following close behind. We end the session and it is assumed that Samira has killed Augustus’ sire. So anyways, the coterie now owes Kaiser two minor boons. Does anyone have any fun suggestions of what he might demand?
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Jul 3, 2022 13:08
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Time for another recap! We continue with Styx & Stones from Cults of the Blood Gods, and this session kicks off with a bang. The coterie has a shared nightmare (or daymare?) of them seeing through the eyes of someone or something stalking prey amid art installations, before very brutally murdering some dude. Then they are woken up by Sheriff Qadir kicking down the door of their Haven and informing the coterie that they are invited to meet Prince Panhard and refusing is not an option. The players kindly obey and are taken to a room in the basement of Empire State Building. Prince Panhard asks the coterie to introduce themselves, before explaining to them that once there was a time, when vampires ruled the lands and did as they pleased, but that was before Second Inquisition butchered Kindred in many cities. But New York remains untouched thanks to caution and restraint. “That’s why I will not tolerate acts like this” she says and hands the players a folder of crime scene photos, matching the shared nightmare they had. There is also the Tremere symbol painted in the victim's blood. Prince Panhard doesn’t believe that the coterie are responsible, if she did they would already be on a bonfire. But clearly the culprit is some Tremere, or someone wanting her to believe so. So the situation is officially the coterie’s problem, solve the case and Prince Panhard will continue to tolerate Tremere presence in her city and council. The coterie investigates the crime scene at MoMA PS1, but can’t find anything. This was also one of those times where I question myself how I prepare for sessions, but the coterie had a chance to admire some art pieces I had researched to have been at the art museum at the time period of the adventure. They also researched the victim, learning that he was a public prosecutor with a pretty alright career, but was overall quite unremarkable. Asking their Tremere contacts also proved fruitless. Aisling Sturbridge suggested some avenues of questions, but mainly focuses on setting up an exit plan, in case Prince Panhard decides to exile Tremere from her domain. Leila Badr, Thomas’ sire, revealed that she also had the same nightmare as the coterie. Clearly the ritual had somehow connected them. Asano was absent. Viorica, now inhabiting the body of Trevor Calhoun, was still learning about the modern day, as well as trying to remember how to speak, move and have a body. The coterie’s touchstones had received threatening messages. Benedict’s father had received a bouquet of dead flowers. Thomas’ Triad friend and colleague had found four bullets in front of his door. Someone had been stalking the homeless veteran, who Augustus was fond of. But the night was over and the day brought another shared dream. This time they were transported to a cemetery where they saw the grisly murder of a young couple. After waking up, they talked with their Tremere contacts again. Asano was still absent. Viorica found the idea of obeying orders from a Prince to solve a bit of bloodshed absolutely ludicrous, (she was from a time before Camarilla after all). Aisling and Leila recognized the murdersite as Evergreens Cemetery, with Leila pondering that the crimes take place in the early hours, but they experience them during the day, which leaves them at least 12 hours behind. The players arrive at the crime scene and find several ghoul and Terrence Rusk already investigating the site. The players had previously stolen the Venetian Jar used to resurrect Viorica from Terrence Rusk of the Cult of Mithras, but he didn’t seem to hold a grudge. Terrence made clear that eventually they would have to pay for the theft, but eternity is too long to let awkward first impressions spoil a relationship. Rusk encouraged the coterie to investigate the scene and then they could compare notes. The crime scene had the Tremere symbol painted with blood, like in the previous murder. The victims were two young adults, a music teacher and his student, and like in the previous case, quite unremarkable. There was nothing to obviously link the victims of the two cases. At this point Terrence informed the coterie that his people can’t keep the police from the scene any more and they should follow him where they can discuss in peace. Terrence Rusk takes the coterie to his mansion, where they learn what the Cult of Mithras is and his theories on these killings. He had learned about the murder by having his people observe all the cemeteries in the area, the Venetian Jar is used to resurrect the dead so it seemed logical. At first he assumed the players were responsible for the murders and he’s still not quite sure this isn’t the case, but he believes that when the Venetian Jar was used in a ritual, some ghost or evil spirit was unleashed. And now, Terrence Rusk is willing to help with notable resources and networks, in exchange for the Venetian Jar. The coterie agrees. To close things out, the touchstones had been bothered again. Benedict’s father had been arrested, the homeless veteran had been beaten badly and hospitalized, and the Triad’s warehouse had burned down. Finally, Fiorenza Savona called Benedict and demanded a report on the task she had given. We did a bit of social combat (I haven’t quite figured out how that works, so this was a sort of practice run). Fiorenza asked about all three candidates and wanted to know who they were, does Benedict consider them useful and were they on board. Benedict hadn’t completed the task perfectly, but thanks to some skillful rolls, Fiorenza was only slightly disappointed. Fiorenza trusted Benedict to do as he wished with these contacts and blamed any shortcomings on lack of training from Benedict’s sire (who will be quite miffed about getting thrown under the bus). And that’s it for that session. One of the players started to get the right idea that the murders are connected by location, but to keep the mystery going I had all the NPCs suggest that there must be a connection between the victims. We’re also caught up in these recaps so more will come once we play more.
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Jul 7, 2022 15:30
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This time we wrapped up with Styx & Stones. The night was kicked off with another round of nightmares, actually two separate nightmares this time, and when the coterie woke up they once again learned that their nightmares matched two brutal murders that had happened the previous night. By now there had been four separate incidents and the FBI had mobilized and curtained the crime scenes and taken the bodies. This meant that the coterie would have to use all their resources, skills and contacts to infiltrate the FBI. In practice they did their best to avoid going to the feds. First they went back to clan Tremere in order to acquire the Venetian Jar that they had promised to return to Terrence Rusk of the Cult of Mithras. We had a bit of miscommunication where I intended this to be a “two skill checks at max and done” kind of scene and the players were prepared to spend the whole evening in this scene. So they first tried negotiating for the return of the Jar and failed. Then the other option was to steal it, which led to an interesting and a bit frustrating scene about the group dynamics. Thomas, a member of Triad and Tremere, was the only one in the group with any stealing skills. Thomas was also absolutely loyal to his clan and to his sire, Leila Badr, who currently had the Venetian Jar. Thomas refused to steal it, and the group had to deal with conflicting loyalties. Thomas’ player was absolutely on board with theft, and was begging for the other players to force him. Unfortunately Benedict the Ventrue didn’t want to use Dominate on a fellow coterie member but was willing to claim he did so, should Thomas be blamed for the theft. I eventually ruled that the two players would roll persuasion against each other, with Thomas taking willpower damage and doing the crime, but not gaining stains for breaking his convictions. Then they returned the Jar to Terrence Rusk, who pledged the coterie his support when needed. Next the players came up with other ideas to avoid going to the FBI. They searched the crime scenes and I briefly described that the scenes were being canvassed by several agents and they couldn’t learn anything. Then they wanted to study Thomas’ touchstone’s warehouse which had burned down at the end of the last session, and I briefly described that the area was curtained off by the fire department and they couldn’t learn anything. Then they started planning on interrogating field agents working the crime scenes and since they had so far ignored my gentle nudging I had to politely railroad them and tell them that they need to get to the FBI's morgue for the story to progress. But I did let them decide how they would go about it, and Benedict’s player succeeded in a difficulty 7 check to pretend to be from the DOJ and talk his way in, later letting the rest of the coterie in through a backdoor. They found the morgue easily. The coroner had already investigated the victims, so the coterie received details on the victims and their injuries, but there was nothing really linking them. The FBI hadn’t found anything connecting the victims, except “an occult symbol” at each site (Tremere symbol) and time of death between 3 and 4 am. Thomas the Tremere and Augustus the Banu Haqim had points in Occult and recognised that 3 to 4 am is the classical “Witching Hour.” There was nothing more to learn, but as they were leaving they happened to walk past a basement office of something called the Special Affairs Division. The door was ajar and they spotted the following whiteboard:  Having been properly unnerved by the revelation that they’re under federal investigation, their next stop was the hospital, to check on Jamal Randolph, Augustus’ touchstone, who had been beaten at the end of the last session. Now this was yet another red herring that had nothing to do with the story at large, but (un)fortunately they were ambushed by Asano, the independent Tremere, and his two goons. Asano was shouting through bloody tears about how the coterie had killed Trevor and now he had nothing, so he would kill the coterie. The fight was swift and in the end both Asano and Augustus were too injured and fell into torpor, while Thomas succumbed to hunger frenzy, tried and failed to bite Benedict, and then started sipping on the dead goons. I decided to be flexible with the rules to let Augustus roll three rouse checks immediately to recover one point of aggravated damage and regain consciousness, so the player could still participate in the game. But now Augustus was too hungry to properly function, so he decided to take a sip of vitae from the torpored Asano. While the players were wondering if this would lead to blood binding, I dug up the rules for diablerie and said “Hey Augustus, you’re Banu Haqim, right? Mmm, this stuff is kind of your clan weakness.” So Augustus failed his clan bane/hunger frenzy roll and would keep draining Asano, unless someone stopped him. Benedict tried Dominate, and failed (Augustus has very high resolve). Thomas tried shooting him back to torpor, but got a messy critical, so I told the players to make a call. Either Augustus is killed by gunshots or he is allowed to drain Asano. The players chose the latter, Augustus drained Asano and was successful in the required rolls, so now the group has a diablerist among them. There was a fun little conversation, where despite having just witnessed Augustus commit diablerie, Benedict questioned Thomas’ loyalties, since he had been very reluctant to do anything that might harm his clan and even made up theories to deflect blame from Tremere. I also gave some guided questions to help the players understand why Asano had attacked them. Trevor Calhoun, who the coterie had killed to be used in a blood ritual, was Asano’s touchstone. Leila Badr had ordered the coterie to bring Trevor’s body for the ritual, despite Leila and Asano having pledged an end to hostilities in the beginning of this adventure. And having lost his only touchstone, Asano went on a deathwish rampage, first threatening and harming the coterie’s touchstones and finally ambushing the coterie. Next stop for the coterie was to return to clan Tremere in Barnard college to find out what was going on. Unfortunately, Leila Badr was missing, as was Viorica, the ancient vampire they had resurrected in the body of Trevor. High Regent Aisling Sturbridge was there, and after being told the situation, grew concerned and allowed the coterie to search Leila’s room. The room was a mess, with stuff scattered everywhere, and there were maps and research notes detailing Leila’s plan. The murders were linked by geography, when connected they formed a cross on the map, with a fifth location where a murder hadn’t yet happened. Apparently Leila planned to perform a city wide ritual, allowing Tremere to monitor every creature in the city, and turning NYC from a Camarilla city to a Tremere city. So the coterie stocked up on combat gear and called Terrence Rusk to assist them before traveling to the fifth location, a small catholic church. Augustus was one superficial damage away from falling into torpor again, so he stayed out of this one and I gave his player control of Terrence Rusk for the scene. Viorica, or maybe a vengeful ghost posing as her, appeared at 3am and stood completely still, not reacting to anything (and giving the players chance to act first, which they passed) until one of Rusk’s ghouls entered the church. Viorica attacked the first mortal she saw, covered the place in supernatural darkness and we entered combat. The asphyxiating darkness made Rusk’s goons useless except as meat shields. Benedict was also useless, as he could not see in the unnatural darkness. Rusk couldn’t see in the darkness either, but had high enough stats to successfully swing an axe at Viorica. Thomas could see and act without penalties, but chose to stand by and see how the situation develops, until I not so gently suggested against inaction. In hindsight I shouldn’t have done that, but I had miscalculated how strong Viorica was and assumed the coterie would get ripped to shreds if one player decided to skip turn. Turns out they didn’t have that much difficulties at all, mostly because Rusk’s goons were there to soak up damage and die. So the battle was won. Trevor’s dead body collapsed to the ground while shadowy strains left the corpse, before turning into ash and disappearing in the wind. They brought the body to the Prince, to prove that the situation was dealt with, and received a cold yet polite thanks for their service. A few days later Thomas received a letter from his sire, Leila Badr, escaping that she had left the city and was sorry for the inconvenience she had caused, but didn’t regret trying to strengthen clan Tremere and would continue to do so in exile. Should their paths ever meet again, she would greet Thomas as family and hope he would understand her actions. And that’s it for the session and our version of Styx & Stones. Next time the coterie will be introduced to the court!
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Jul 19, 2022 17:21
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Time for another recap, this time our coterie was finally introduced to the court of Prince Panhard. Benedict’s Ventrue sire had been busy getting the coterie added to the Elysium’s agenda and negotiating with everyone’s respective clans. Thomas’ sire had left town and was missing and Augustus’ sire was presumably dead. I gave the players a description of Elysium functions, rules and etiquette, and a specific description of NYC’s Elysium, Art Hole. I had a lucky coincidence while prepping the session, having googled a suitable picture of a moody art gallery interior, and later when checking out the name of the artist I have used, I had picked one who is active in New York City. When the players arrived, I made it clear that the Elysium hadn’t been called for them and that they were a last minute addition to the agenda; they arrive in the middle of a discussion and nobody pays attention to them. They hear the ending of the discussion about the Agreement of 1528 (this is setting up an eventual adventure about someone leaking Hecata secrets) and a question about hunters on Coney Island. The players had previously encountered these hunters and were the ones to inform Sheriff Qadir al-Asmai about them. But on this occasion Qadir assured the court that there was no such group on Coney Island. Clearly something was going on and the players would have to ask later. Then it was time to introduce the coterie. This was done as a social combat, with each round having a different theme, the players getting to brag about different aspects of their exploits and members of the court asking different questions. The first theme was introductions. The players hadn’t been very successful on their etiquette rolls, so I didn’t tell them what was expected of them, but through insight rolls I let them know when they had done a faux-pas. Benedict the Ventrue was first, introducing himself, giving a short list of his exploits and a general overview of his lineage, but importantly forgetting to name any names. I let him know that forgetting to mention your sire was considered very rude, especially in Ventrue circles. Next up was Thomas the Tremere, who gave a very polite introduction, remembered to name his sire and then blurted out that his sire Leila Badr was currently in exile due. High Regent Aisling Sturbridge was very unpleased that Thomas had spilled the beans about the clan’s inner politics and stepped in. She explained to the Prince that Thomas’s sire couldn’t be here today, but both Leila and Aisling approved of Thomas’ induction into Camamarilla. Aisling’s forceful tone made it clear that the matter was not up for discussion. Finally Augustus the Banu Haqim was up. Augustus started to introduce himself but didn’t mention his sire, so the Prince interrupted him and asked who the sire was. Augustus tried to explain that he didn’t know his sire but Prince Panhard cut him off again, clearly baffled that a neonate wouldn’t name his sire and tried to explain something completely irrelevant. Thomas Arturo, the Herald, picked up on this and inquired about rumors that Augustus’ embrace wasn’t in accordance with Camarilla’s traditions. Banu Haqim’s Primogen Samira answered vaguely, explaining that Camarilla’s traditions and laws have been followed, and if that hasn’t been the case then the guilty have been punished accordingly. The players haven’t realized this yet, but it’s technically true, the best kind of true. Augustus’ sire wasn’t a member of Camarilla, and thus wasn’t bound or protected by their traditions. Benedict’s sire, Leonard Tarasov, asked the Ventrue Primogen Addison Payne to tell the simile of the ladder that is Camarilla, and the importance of the first step of those ladders, loyalty. (I adapted the blurb from Camarilla book’s chapter on Loyalty.) This was a subtle jab aimed at Benedict, since Benedict had snubbed his sire by failing to mention him, Leonard would publicly call for a speech on loyalty. Then the Malkavian Primogen, Carter Vanderweyden, asked Thomas a question about which house the Tremere belongs to, wanting to know more about his allegiances. Thomas was confused by the question, but answered that he belonged to House Tremere, the traditionalist faction. Carter had a follow up question: was this his own choice? Thomas replied that he didn’t understand the question, and Carter said that was informative enough, thanking him for his time. The implication is that Thomas doesn’t understand Tremere’s inner politics well enough to make an educated decision, and blindly follows his elders. Some dice were rolled and we moved on to the next theme: Skills and abilities. The characters advertised their skills, it was clear that this was a job interview. There were no real surprises in their abilities, but the crowd was split when Thomas mentioned his involvement in Circulatory System. Some were shocked that someone would brag about involvement in human trafficking, others (mostly Ventrue) didn’t mind. Carter Vanderweyden asked Benedict how he leads a coterie with conflicting clans, assuming that the Ventrue would be the leader and Benedict confirmed this position, the other players don’t seem to mind being underlings. The Caitiff Primogen, Ivan Kuthka, noted that there was a shortage of blood bags in the city. He was heavily implying that the player coterie had something to do with this, which is true, but the players decided to stonewall him and ignore the accusation. (Thomas had robbed a major hospital empty of blood bags in a messy critical, and a Triad warehouse involved in blood trade had recently burned down). Then came a sudden twist. Out of the darkest corner of the room an unknown vampire shouted “So, are we just going to ignore that these guys work with hunters?” The unknown kindred introduced herself as Valerie Bachman, and mentioned her sires to the 1800s. She is Benedict’s rival, of similar age and background, embraced around similar times. Valerie continued that the coterie had been seen at places that hunters frequent, and that both kindred and ghouls around them had disappeared. This heavy accusation caught the players off guard and they couldn’t disprove the claims, since they were mostly true though circumstantial. We moved on to the third theme of contacts and networks. The character’s networks aren’t powerful or noteworthy, but Herald Thomas Arturo recounted the list of debts and favors owed to other Kindred. Two minor boons owed to Kaiser didn’t raise eyebrows, no one wants to admit it but it’s nigh impossible to function in New York without being indebted to the Nosferatu information broker. Three minor boons owed from High Regent Sturbridge is somewhat respectable, it’s not much but clearly the coterie had impressed a member of the Primogen council. And finally a major boon owed from Walter Nash, which was not received well, Nash is widely disliked by the local Kindred society. Ivan Kuthka noted that the local Triad, which Thomas was so proud of, was not doing well lately, having lost several members and a warehouse recently. Valerie continued from this, asking “The several mortals around the coterie have recently been in hospital or arrested. In addition, police have often been seen in places the coterie previously visited. Can we trust vampires who can’t even protect their own or keep the police off their backs?” Benedict decided to answer this accusation by ignoring it, snubbing Valerie, and telling the court a story of a successful adventure. We took a short trip down memory lane, remembering all the coteries exploits, and realizing that none of it would look good to the public. The only acceptable encounter was defeating the hunters, which Sheriff Qadir had earlier claimed didn’t exist. So Benedict decided to lie, rolling high and telling an excellent story to the crowd. Unfortunately that was the only good roll of the session, other rolls ranged from mediocre to absolute garbage. But at the end Prince Panhard concluded that “No kindred is too insignificant to be denied a role in the Camarilla” and after swearing oaths, the coterie’s membership and domain were formalized and they were full-fledged members of the Ivory Tower. Next up the players had a chance to freely enjoy the Elysium and socialize with whomever they wanted. The interrogation had made it clear for Augustus how out of place he was, and he wanted to chat with his clan’s Primogen Samira, how he could be of more use to the clan. Unfortunately Samira is cryptic and answered with more questions, leaving Augustus feeling more lost than before. Benedict wanted to fix up his earlier faux-pas with his sire. Leonard Tarasov was in a heated discussion with the Caitiff Ivan Kuthka. Turns out they had both spent several decades of their unlives in St. Petersburg at the same time. Ivan was mocking that Leonard was a glorified hypeman for a wheelchair bound cripple, while Leonard accused that Ivan was a convictionless opportunist, changing sides as it benefited him. Benedict interrupted them and calmed the situation down, before apologizing for his earlier rudeness to his sire and vowing continued loyalty. The group inquired Sheriff Qadir why he had kept quiet about the hunters on Coney Island. Qadir explained that his job is to maintain peace, and if the kindred community knew about those hunters, they would try to feed them information on their enemies. I also gave the group a chart with the usual hierarchy of a Camarilla court, with information added as the players learn who occupies what position and how NYC court differs from the usual. They greedily started eyeing suitable court positions, we shall see how that develops. But that was all for this session! Next time… I don’t know yet, I haven’t written it.
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Aug 3, 2022 12:20
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Had another session and here’s how it went. Previously the coterie was introduced to the court of Prince Panhard and made proper members of Camarilla. This time we dealt with more local affairs related to their domain. Benedict the GOP Ventrue had to skip this session, so this time it’s just Augustus the Amish Banu Haqim and Thomas the Triad Tremere. I had previously told the players that I would need suggestions and ideas from them, and what they wanted to do, so this session was based on those requests. And to start things off, I didn’t give them any prompts and just let them ponder in character what they would be doing tonight. The main issue was the Hunger. Both characters preferred to drink from blood bags, but there was a shortage on bagged blood, mechanically this meant that rolls to acquire bagged blood were two points more difficult. Thomas was doing quite fine, but Augustus was feeling famished, and required more blood than the local population of rats and stray cats could provide. So naturally we started wondering, are there any large animals in New York? Someone suggested that there are horse-drawn carriages in Central Park, and I mentioned that there’s also a zoo in Central park. While googling what animals are in that zoo, one of the players mentioned that the Bronx has the biggest zoo in New York. So the coterie decided to break-and-enter the Bronx Zoo. They even had a grand plan, which included Augustus using Featherweight to become light enough for Thomas to toss him over the fence. Unfortunately all their rolls were hot garbage, and they not only failed to enter the zoo to drain a bison, they got chased off by local Anarchs for trespassing. This may have consequences. We were all very disappointed by this outcome. Earlier in the evening, the coterie had been approached by the information-broker Kaiser’s ghoul Jackie and given a task on a piece of paper. Now it was time to do it. Their task was to retrieve a hard drive from a certain apartment and drop it off at another address. Their instructions also mentioned that the contents of said hard drive are none of the coterie’s business and if someone was at the apartment, they should say that the coterie represents the Famiglia Giovanni, be loving precise in pronouncing the G. Should they do this task according to instructions, Kaiser would consider a debt of minor boon paid. They had tried to inquire further details from the ghoul, but Jackie told that his job isn’t to know what the task was, his job is to make sure the coterie memorizes the instructions. Once they confirmed that the task had been memorized, Jackie burned the piece of paper and I deleted the handout, which caught the players off guard (they in fact had not memorized the instructions). I let them panic about the relevant addresses for a while, before letting them off the hook and saying that the characters remember the addresses, since bumbling around in wrong apartments would make for a dull game. They remembered the other parts well enough, and proceeded to break-and-enter for the second time this session, this time successfully. The characters had between them a grand total of zero dots in technology, so they ended up stealing the whole computer instead of just the hard drive, and made enough noise to wake up the apartment’s occupant, a young woman who was quite irritated and wanted to know why these two guys were stealing his boyfriend’s computer. They informed that they represent the Famiglia Giovanni, to which she replied “The what? Is that a pizza place?” in confusion. This was followed by Thomas intimidating the occupant into silence, until they had left the apartment with the computer. The computer was delivered to Kaiser, who was pleased enough to consider the debt paid. He was also pleased that the players didn’t ask any questions and hadn’t investigated the hard drive, but he did consider them bumbling fools for bringing the whole computer. They still owe one minor boon to Kaiser, who now knows the coterie will do anything that’s asked without question. They also have been reported to the NYPD for their crime. Both of these things will have consequences. I was expecting the players to have some curiosity about Kaiser’s task and had detailed what was going on. Just so my work doesn’t go to waste, I’ll share the details here. The apartment and the computer belonged to an urban explorer, who had stumbled upon and filmed an abandoned building, which was actually the Malkavian Primogen’s haven. The explorer had been arrested for trespassing and this piqued Kaiser’s interest. And now Kaiser knows where the Primogen sleeps during the day, a valuable piece of information. The Famiglia Giovanni stuff was just Kaiser’s precaution to throw off scent by making clan Hecata seem involved. Final part of this eve’s session was visiting Jamal Randolph, Augustus’ touchstone and a member of the local homeless community. I realized that the coterie doesn’t have anyone who would go out of their way to inform them that something was going on, so I unsubtly just told them that there’s a quest marker above Jamal’s head, you should visit him. Visiting the homeless encampment, Thomas, being a doctor, noticed that many of them had early signs of anemia. Asking around, they learned that there was someone called the Cockroach, who the homeless considered their guardian. This Cockroach would help them by bringing in supplies and dealing with cops and gangers, in exchange for information, though strangely enough no one could quite remember what they asked. The players did get a description of a tall, pale woman, who had the presence of a cop. The players were quite miffed that clearly another Kindred was hunting in their domain. We also had a nice little scene illustrating the nature of Touchstone relationship. Augustus explained that he was quite concerned that this Cockroach would harm someone he cared so much about, to which Jamal replied “Friend, I barely know your name.” It was time for a stake out. Thomas rolled very high on an Awareness check and they saw the Cockroach before she saw them. The unknown Kindred introduced herself as Felicia Page, though everyone calls her the Cockroach (due to a swarm of said bugs living inside her and occasionally crawling out of bullet holes in her chest and abdomen), and the two parties decided to have a calm negotiation on a nearby alley. Things were not off to a good start, the coterie demanded to know why she was feeding on their territory and Felicia wanted to know why the coterie was threatening the community she protects (Thomas had earlier attempted to feed from the homeless, rolled poorly and has Natural Predator flaw). Felicia genuinely did not know that this was within the coterie’s domain, but the coterie appreciated her efforts in protecting the homeless. They also learned that Felicia had been an FBI agent, she was investigating corruption in the Bureau and still had contacts there. Felicia was also a young Kindred and not all that well-versed in Kindred society. They soon came to an agreement, where Felicia would still be allowed to dwell in the area and protect the homeless, in exchange for feeding the coterie information on FBI activities, especially those of Special Affairs Division (or as Felicia calls them, “old cellar-bound Mulders hunting bigfoots and aliens”). The peaceful meeting was violently interrupted by a small group of hunters, members of Night’s Cross the coterie had antagonized in an earlier adventure. They had some more expensive equipment than previously, but that was not enough to defeat three Kindred. I’m representing regular hunters as highly motivated but lacking in actual knowledge, and this specific group had a massive searchlight mounted on the back of a pickup truck, which did nothing except light up the area, and one of the hunters emptied a bottle of holy water over Augustus in melee, which likewise did nothing. The fight was brief. Felicia decided to leave after the fight, since this was the coterie’s domain and this did not concern her. The coterie packed the bodies and one surviving hunter and drove away from the scene, since the sounds of gunfire had definitely attracted unwanted attention. Again it turned out that the two characters had a grand total of zero dots in drive between them, but there was an alright roll to flee. There were no consequences today, but I did imply that one day someone might knock on their door, and that someone might be the FBI or Sheriff Qadir. They drove to an abandoned warehouse, where Thomas proceeded to interrogate the lone surviving hunter. Thomas used the ritual Truth of Blood to make sure that the hunter wasn’t lying, and struck him with a metal bar when he did. Thomas learned that the hunters knew exactly where the coterie lived, but because they live in a very exclusive apartment complex, they’ve been forced to lay low and wait for an opportunity. He also learned that they have been piling up weapons and have a new possible ally, another hunter group called Night Guardians. Once Thomas was done with his questions (Augustus did not want totake part in this torture and interrogation) the hunter was drained, and the four bodies were disposed of. The roll to do this was not too bad, but not great either, and hiding so many bodies is challenging. This too will have consequences in the future. And that’s it for this session. We all had a great time and the players especially enjoyed meeting Felicia Page, as someone who is generally pleasant to be around and who is likewise fairly new to this whole undead thing, unlike most other Kindred they’ve met who have decades or centuries of unlife behind them and barely consider the coterie worth their attention.
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Aug 25, 2022 19:23
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Here’s another recap from our campaign about a coterie Camarilla kindred in New York at night that is not affiliated with any streams! This time we started the pre-written adventure Family from Trails of Ash and Bones, so spoilers ahead. As usual our coterie consists of Thomas the Triad Tremere, Benedict the GOP Ventrue and Augustus the Amish Banu Haqim. We started with a brief history lesson about the Battle for New York and how even that struggle was, until a neutral party decided to back the Camarilla and help the Ivory Tower drive Sabbat from the city. This favor was not forgotten, it became a debt, and now two decades later, Donatello Giovanni of the Hecata has come to collect it. The coterie has been assigned to this task. The meeting took place at JFK airport. The characters have not met or heard of Donatello before, but I’m glad some of the players recognized that Donatello had made a brief appearance in one of the demo games I had run before the start of this campaign. The New York Hecata had a problem. Local Tremere had used clan secrets to force a deal which was not favorable to the Clan of Death. The deal itself was not an issue, the issue was that someone was leaking information and Donatello had learned that the source of the leak was in Atlantic City. A few sessions ago Thomas had asked about clan Hecata and I had given him quite an infodump, thanks to this leak. But being a loyal Tremere he kept his mouth shut about anything he might know about anything. Donatello wanted the coterie to travel to Atlantic City and plug the info leak. He mentioned Ornella Giovanni, owner of the Three Bears Casino, as the local boss and a potential first contact. The coterie did some research about AC and learned that the city has at least 15 Kindred, much more than should be sustainable with such a small population. They also learned that Atlantic City is either led by Camarilla Prince whose name no one remembers or a periphery of the New York Domain, but they knew this was false since they had already been told by Donatello that AC is a Hecata domain. Unreliable information is a theme in this adventure. After quick preparations they took a helicopter ride Donatello had provided them, with Augustus being amazed by the machine, and glad to have lived long enough to experience something like this. I noted that technically he didn’t live long enough to experience it. They arrived at the Three Bears Casino, a place that was past its heyday, much like the rest of the city. Everything was a little worn down or out of fashion, except the gambling pit, which was very modern. Clearly the intention was that when customers had gambled away their kids’ college funds they wouldn’t care about the bed they slept in. After a tour of the casino, the coterie tried to inquire about its owner, Ornella Giovanni. The staff assumed they were interested in local history and told that Ornella was a local crime boss back in the 1920’s. This was a good reminder for the coterie (and the players) that most immortals don’t use their own name. The current owner was one Frankie Zingaretti and the coterie managed to charm, persuade, threaten and finally namedrop Donatello and New York to make their way into an appointment. Frankie was clearly nervous and explained that Ornella had taken a sabbatical a year ago and left running the operations to him. He also confirms that he still sends everything as requested up to New York, with not a cent missing. He doesn’t know anything about a leak, and an insight check confirmed that he is not lying. Through the conversation Frankie revealed that Lubango and Mrs. Strand, also members of Hecata, deliver money and “other things” at the casino always on time, so he doesn’t know where their domains are, but at least the players have two new names. Frankie especially mentioned that he finds Mrs. Strand creepy, looking emaciated and constantly talking to shadows. The coterie eventually figured out that Frankie was quite probably Ornella’s ghoul and when pressed on this, he immediately crumbled and revealed that he gets his vitae from one Edith Blumenau. What was he supposed to do? He was without a source of vitae and about to rapidly age when Blumenau contacted him and offered to take over. Frankie offers them a sunproof suite and sets up a meeting with Blumenau for the next evening. During this interrogation I had to guide my players a little more than I felt comfortable with to figure out that Zingaretti was a ghoul, but figuring it out was quite critical in the opening stages of this mystery. Turns out my players are still not too familiar with some aspects of the setting, and the way the adventure is written I felt it was essential information. I’m fine with my players missing stuff, not connecting the dots and misunderstanding stuff based on their own reasoning, but I don’t want them to miss out on stuff that the player’s characters would know or not understanding common setting elements. The rest of the night was spent getting to know the scene and failing to hunt, with nothing notable happening. They did briefly meet a teenage thinblood, who did not know much about the vampiric condition but did inform the players it’s against local custom to hunt on the Boardwalk or target permanent residents. The next night came and after another round of failed hunting (and me realizing I’ve tuned hunting rolls too difficult, will adjust in future) it was time for the meeting with Edith Blumenau. It was at a nice cafe on the Boardwalk with a great view and before the meeting started I asked the players to describe their appearance. They were slightly confused, but described their physical looks and outfits and I replied “So, three corpses enter the cafe…” Maybe in the future they will remember Blush of Life, but for now one of Blumenau’s many bodyguards spotted the coterie immediately and subtly motioned at the table where Edith Blumenau was sitting, introducing herself as Baron Blumenau. Blumenau is courteous and welcomes them to Atlantic City, excitedly telling them about local activities and hotspots, while inquiring what brings the players to the domain. The coterie tries to dodge the question, revealing only that they are doing a service for the Hecata. Blumenau admits that Ornella has been missing for a year and the Anarchs have taken over since. She claims not to know where any of the local Hecata reside, but conveniently remembers where Mrs. Strand resides. A successful insight check reveals that she’s lying and does know more locations (and a few earlier failed insight checks probably gave the players indication she is being less than truthful) and when pushed on it, pretends to suddenly remember the neighborhood where Lubango holds domain. Now when it comes to the coterie, Baron Blumenau figures out immediately that they are Camarilla, since they are clearly not Hecata or Anarchs, and again tries to inquire what their purpose in AC is. The coterie still refuses to elaborate what they are doing in the city, besides doing an errand for the Hecata, and they fail to dispel Blumenau’s assumption that they are the vanguard of an invasion. The meeting ended, with Blumenau encouraging the coterie to enjoy the city but not stay too long, reminding them that the Camarilla doesn’t call the shots here any more. And that’s it for this session!
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Oct 22, 2022 12:32
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The point of the compulsion is to learn a secret, the exact nature of it is less important at that point. The GM can just say "You have learned a secret related to [person/place/faction/other]" and the exact nature of the secret can be hashed out between sessions or when dramatically suitable. In my game, the coterie found a collection of occult literature, and I can't be bothered to detail what exact information it contains. So for the time being, the books are a narrative justification-in-waiting. When the players want to learn a ritual, or study a specific occult topic; what a coincidence, that's exactly what the books are about!
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Nov 10, 2022 20:47
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After a bit of a hiatus, we’re back with more adventures of New York Camarilla coterie stuck in Atlantic City. This was our second session of the adventure Family from Trails of Ash and Bone, spoilers for that adventure ahead. As usual, our coterie consists of Benedict the GOP Ventrue, Thomas the Tremere Triad doctor and Augustus the Amish Banu Haqim. Our previous session ended with the coterie having just met the Anarch Baron of Atlantic City and being told that they were not welcome in the domain, since they had been unwilling to tell what they were doing in the domain and had failed to convince the Baron that they were not invading Camarillas. Their task was to find out who in the city had been leaking Hecata secrets. They had learned that AC had used to be Camarilla, then Hecata and now Anarch, with the previous Hecata boss Ornella Giovanni having disappeared. They also knew where two remaining Hecata could be found. But before continuing with the investigation, Jay-Z had invited them to a party and they were not going to miss it. This was mostly a distraction and the plot was not advanced in any way, but it was nice to give the players a chance to just chill and see how they would act. The players did consider the possibility of turning Jay-Z into a ghoul, but decided against it. I should also mention that the characters don’t know much about Hecata, except that they’re an independent clan. Or more specifically, two of the characters don’t know much, Thomas has a lot of information about Hecata, since it was the Tremere that the clan secrets were leaked to. And being a shady Tremere that he is, has so far chosen not to share any of that information with his coterie, no matter how helpful it might be. So the first part of actual investigation for this session was checking up on a Hecata known as Mrs. Strand, who had shacked up in an abandoned laundry. They had received the address from Baron Edith Blumenau, who had conveniently remembered the address after claiming not to know where other vampires reside (Baron Blumenau is not a trustworthy character). The laundry had clearly been abandoned for half a century, and inside it was filled with debris and abandoned industrial washing machines, which in turn were filled with corpses and body parts. Luckily none of the characters had enough of their Humanity left to be bothered by this slaughterhouse. Just as they started to go deeper into the building, the door was slammed shut and they were ambushed by three aggressive corpses and two ghosts, a poltergeist and a screamer. The pre-written adventure doesn’t address the fact that ghosts can’t be harmed by usual means, and my players don’t have any means of doing so. So what I did was describe one ghost being blue, and another being purple, and when I described the walking corpses I gave two of them glowing eyes of a matching color. The players fortunately didn’t even bother with the ghosts and focused on the corpses and the combat was over without too much draining of resources. They still hadn’t seen any sign of Mrs. Strand, but one the industrial washing machines had been shut. When they tried to open it, the coterie was greeted by Mrs. Strand screaming in terror from inside, telling them to leave her and her family alone and to take their cannibalistic Venetian predations elsewhere. The players were confused by this and needed more information, so they forced the washing machine open to find an emaciated vampire on the brink of terror frenzy. Some Ventrue domination convinced Mrs. Strand to calm down and explain the situation. Turns out that an agent of Baron Blumenau had told her that the coterie were Giovanni assassins, coming to kill her for being a Cappadocian. She knows nothing about an information leak, nor does she know much about what’s going on in the domain, preferring to keep to herself and her experiments. She says that she never trusted Ornella, but respected her position, and lost touch with her after she took up with “those Lilith types.” Seeing that she can offer no more information and that she is not a threat to the coterie, the players respect her wishes and leave her be. Some stains were gained for letting her be. Augustus’ convictions are to never kill and to never tolerate hypocrisy, so while he did not kill anyone this session, he did allow a monstrous vampire to keep killing. Now the players know the name of someone who works for Baron Blumenau and they have heard of Lilith. They were unable or unwilling to utilize Kindred contacts to learn what the name means in vampire society, but had enough of occult skills to learn the mortal perspective; name that she is a character from Jewish mythology, appearing in the Talmud as Adam’s first wife. They had over the course of this campaign learned that other mythological figures, namely Caine and Mithras, were actually vampires, so their first theory is that Lilith is an ancient vampire operating in the city. Their next plan was to break into Frank Zingaretti’s office, the owner of the casino hotel they were staying in, former ghoul of Ornella Giovanni and current ghoul of Baron Blumenau. This was a good idea and I unfortunately managed to distract my players from it. There was an event which I had timed to happen when they next returned to the hotel or met Zingaretti, namely that someone had contacted Zingaretti and asked for a business meeting with the coterie. This someone was a Darcy Lorenza, who was aware of the characters nature and status, and wanted to offer them an opportunity to invest in a resort, known as the Venetian Casino. In exchange for 40,000 dollars to bribe city planners the coterie would get a cut of the legitimate profits, as well as use the resort to run any illegal activities they desired. The coterie was intrigued, but wanted more information and wanted to meet whoever Darcy represented. They had clearly taken the hook, so a meeting was arranged. They met a vampire named Waxman in an empty parking lot, who answered any questions the players had. He explained that Ornella Giovanni was supposed to give the money, before she disappeared. And now that Camarilla vampires were in the city, especially ones with connections to organized crime, Waxman had guessed correctly that they would be interested in the offer. Well, Augustus was not interested, since he was a pious man who disapproved of gambling, and also a poor man who did not have a single dollar to his name. Thomas was very interested, since the New York Triad that he works with was trying to expand into Atlantic City, and Thomas felt certain he could get the organization to pay him back later. So they paid Waxman, even managing to negotiate a slightly better cut of the profits. Alas, despite skilled negotiating and skeptical approach, they failed to find out that this was a con. We shall see what happens when they find out that the Venetian Casino has been stuck in development purgatory for over 15 years. The players were feeling lost and confused and decided to call Donatello Giovanni, who had hired them for this mission. Donatello was interested in results, not reports, so he wasn’t very helpful. He hadn’t been aware that Ornella was missing, but mentioned that there should still be three other Hecata active in the domain. The players caught on that this was one more Hecata than they were previously aware of, and learned the name Lia Milliner. Benedict aced a roll and thanks to his knowledge of the financial sector, was aware of Lia Milliner and her operations along the East Coast, as well as her habit of staying at the Borgata hotel. Donatello told the coterie not to call this number unless they have results, but now the players have one more lead in their investigation. So the coterie travels to the Borgata hotel and with some domination learned that Lia Milliner had rented the penthouse for the week and gained a keycard to access the area. They entered the penthouse, but unfortunately Lia Milliner was not there. Instead, her servant was there, watching a movie and eating snacks, and when he realized that three completely unknown vampires had broken into his boss’s quarters, he spilled pepsi and chicken wings all over himself in shock, and was quite pissed. Instead of kindly answering any questions the coterie had, the servant wanted to know who the gently caress they are, what the gently caress they are doing here and to get the gently caress out. The servant also mentioned that he was Lia Milliner’s wallet, the coterie really shouldn’t mess with him. The players were completely failing to de-escalate the situation, but eventually the servant took the group’s contact information, just to get them to leave. This encounter left the characters with multiple stains. One of our chronicle tenets is “Respect others and demand respect.” Breaking into Milliner’s penthouse and intimidating her servant was not only disrespectful toward the servant, but also toward Lia Milliner who he served. I very rarely give more than one stain for a single scene, but I felt this was worth two. Combined with some other stains from other actions this session, all the player characters have now reached the stage where their low Humanity gives penalties with mortals. And that was it for this session. We always have a short post game discussion to share thoughts and vibes. The players reflected and noticed that they have a bad habit of letting NPCs set the tone of a conversation, which leads to trouble. In this particular session, Mrs. Strand was not threatening the player characters, so the players did not consider the implications of letting a necromancer who had just tried to kill them and whose haven is filled with bodies go free. On the other hand, Milliner’s servant was quite justifiably aggressive toward people who had broken into his quarters, but the players completely blanked out on options other than “intimidate until information drops,” which will have consequences when they meet Milliner. I’m not sure what if anything I as a storyteller should do about this, but at least the players are aware of their worst habits. Another thing that came up in our discussion that I’m not sure what to do about, is that the players are feeling overwhelmed by the investigative nature of the adventure. A part of this was due to a two month hiatus, another part was due to the investigation still being in the early phases. They don’t know this but they have gathered most of the information that has been available so far, and I’ve subtly had NPCs slip information the players hadn’t realized to ask. But I’m slightly worried that my players might feel frustrated or dumb, since I can’t really tell them how well they are doing. Any tips?
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Dec 3, 2022 20:51
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Thanks for all the tips! My players were relieved when I told them that they do not have all the pieces to figure out the plot, though they were frustrated at the end of the session when I implied that now they do have most of the information found out, they just have to connect the dots. I still need some practice in accepting players not figuring out stuff. Anyways, on the latest session we had! The night started with our coterie being very hungry. So hungry in fact that Benedict and Augustus fell into torpor instead of waking up, and Thomas had to solve the situation. Some vitae was donated to Benedict to wake him up, and making him one third of the way to being bloodbound. I described Benedict waking up with a new found appreciation of Thomas, and the player roleplayed this by agreeing with even the most galaxy-brained ideas Thomas had. They had some far-fetched ideas about sneaking into a hospital in need of medical aid to get some blood for Augustus, but to keep the session from being completely side-tracked I reminded them that they were in fact in a hotel, and I gave them a short encounter with a drunk who had lost all their money gambling. This managed to give them an easy and quick solution to their hunger problem as well as some local flavor of Atlantic City’s gambling world. During this they had received a text message setting up a meeting with Lia Milliner. They had previously learned that she was a local Hecata with connections to the business world. They had also threatened her ghoul after breaking into her hotel penthouse. On their way to the meeting, the coterie was harassed by two police officers. The duo was not wearing bodycams and were clearly looking for an excuse to beat up and arrest the coterie. Benedict used dominate to tell the officers to leave, solving the situation peacefully. This was a quick random encounter, except it wasn’t random at all. Unbeknownst to the players, the officers had been deliberately told to harass the coterie. Let’s move on to the meeting with Lia Milliner. Despite the players’ mistreatment of her ghoul, she was open to business (although all social rolls were more difficult). She explained that she didn’t care for politics, only that the cash keeps flowing, so she is willing to do business with anyone, whether Hecata, Anarch or Atlantic City’s one remaining Camarilla. Specifically she helps less financially inclined Kindred with investments and money-laundering. The players were curious about the one Camarilla Kindred, who is called Felix Lodz. I told Thomas that he actually knows of Felix, since both are from clan Tremere, but none of the players had inquired about Camarilla presence in AC. But regarding clan Hecata, Lia Milliner told the players that recently she had acted as a consultant for Lubango so he can get better quality meth and heroin and expand his drug trafficking business, bargained down the rent on Mrs. Strand’s mini-domain and collected funds from Ornella Giovanni. The coterie asked about Ornella, since they had previously learned that Ornella has been missing for over a year. Milliner explained that as far as she knows, Ornella had stepped down from running the Three Bears Casino, but is still active in the domain. Electronic payments still issue from her bank accounts and personal finances are still handled in cash at a drop point. Lia Milliner hasn’t seen Ornella in over a year, but Ornella and Lia both use intermediaries often. Milliner sets up the date and time and arrives with money, contracts and documents for signing or returns with the same after meeting with Ornella’s mortal representatives. The players also get her to share the location, but fail to convince her to set up a drop-off so they could follow Ornella’s agents. While the players have learned that name-dropping Donatello Giovanni, who hired them for this investigation, opens many doors, they also absolutely refuse to tell anyone what they are investigating, so no one really trusts them. Milliner did invite them to a local Kindred activity, hunting on a cruise ship. The coterie joined and managed to smoothe over the relationship which had been damaged by rude treatment of Milliner’s ghoul. Hunting on a cruise ship is a popular activity among the local Kindred population, and the coterie met two local Anarchs on the ship. Painite, a young thinblood Augustus had previously met briefly and who had explained some of the local customs (ie. don’t hunt locals, don’t hunt on the Boardwalk) and Douglas, Augustus’ sire, who went by the name Heat these nights. Several sessions ago the coterie had been tasked with finding Augustus’ sire, who turned out to know even less about the Kindred world than the young player characters, and who then had been implied to have been executed by the Banu-Haqim primogen for breaking Camarilla laws. The coterie was quite surprised to learn that he had been exiled instead and was now with the Anarchs. The players were invited to attend the local Anarch meeting, which they attended gladly. This was mostly for world-building and to introduce minor characters in the domain. Most notable thing the players learned, that 40 '000 dollars they had paid to invest in a casino in the previous session, was part of a domain wager, where Waxman had to con suitable targets out of money. The players accepted the con graciously. They also heard the word Bahari, and with some occult rolls the players were granted general information on the cult. When they eventually returned to their hotel room, they found it ransacked. Someone has robbed them. The players ace their investigation rolls, and find out that the burglars entered using a keycard and disguised as cleaning staff. They also find something they had missed earlier; there are hidden cameras in their room. They storm into the hotel manager Zingaretti’s office and demand answers. Zingaretti is genuinely sorry and ashamed that the coterie had been robbed, it was his hotel after all, but isn’t prepared to offer any other compensation than a flight back to their home. Regarding the security cameras, the players manage to make Zingaretti spill the beans. The room is specifically designed for vampiric guests, so Zingaretti has bugged the room for leverage. He knows he is just a mortal in a world of monsters, he needs some compromising material for protection. The coterie agrees that this is fair, and lets him keep doing it, but dominate him to get rid of any material concerning the coterie, before finding a room in a different hotel. Then it was time to finally catch up with the local Camarilla, namely Felix Lodz, who was not too popular and when Camarilla left AC it was deemed easier to leave him there rather than relocate him to another domain. Felix owns a seedy and rundown bookshop, and the players quickly learn that Felix is very religious, though not part of any organized religion, and that he constantly blinks, coughs and rambles on in an exaggerated effort to appear more mortal. At first I tried to keep talking and coughing unless the players interrupted me, but my voice couldn’t take that so we fast forwarded the dialogue. Felix had a lot to say but very little useful information, but he did mention that Baron Blumenau had talked with the previous regent a few times, something about a Promise and ghosts, and shortly after that everyone else in the Ivory Tower left. There’s still some time left, so the coterie decides to finally investigate Lubango of clan Hecata. They only know the neighborhood he lives in, but they reason that they know he’s dealing drugs and Thomas has enough underworld skills to find out details locally. I ask them how they approach, they tell me that they just grab a taxi and as they step out of it, I give them a wits test to see people scattering from the streets before they are ambushed. There are a total of ten gunmen on both sides of the streets shooting at them, they are not accurate but there’s a lot of bullets and shrapnel going around. Unfortunately I spent more time prepping to run the scene smoothly than my players spent in it, opting to flee immediately through a manhole cover. Since Thomas has high levels of streetwise, I explained to the players that clearly you were expected and you made no effort at subtlety. We ended the session there and I encouraged the players to connect the dots. I feel I was a bit too forceful and hand-holdy in this and in the future I need to remember to let the players not figure out stuff. But what they know so far is that Ornella disappearing and Blumenau taking over occurred at roughly the same time. Blumenau sold Hecata secrets to the Tremere to get Camarilla to leave the city. The players also suspect that a Bahari cult is active in the domain. And that’s it for this session!
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Dec 21, 2022 13:14
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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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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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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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Dawgstar posted:In the more recent 5E stuff does the Camarilla still hold to the whole 'no smartphone' stuff? The way I read is that Elder Camarilla have banned modern communication technology (to prevent younger Kindred using tools they are too old to understand) but the enforcement of this varies on local level. In my campaign the rule is not enforced heavily, but everyone is careful about it, because it leaves you open to abuse by the local authorities. If you use a smartphone, the Sheriff can bust you for breaking the Elders' rules, if you don't use a smartphone the Sheriff can bust you for breaking the Masquerade (if you live in a modern metropolitan city and don't have a smartphone you are not blending in).
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Feb 9, 2023 14:58
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Time for another recap, this time Thomas the Tremere and Augustus the Banu Haqim meet new friends and deal with old foes! To start the session the coterie received the following invitation from Cockroach, the Nosferatu who hangs around in their territory with the local unhoused community and who has agreed to gather information on FBI Special Affairs Division activities for them.  The coterie arrived at Bar None, located a few blocks south from their territory. Bar None is a rustic local bar, specializing in East Coast breweries as well as a surprisingly large selection of wines. As soon as they arrived Cockroach greeted them warmly, but another, very impressive looking Kindred told them to leave immediately, wait an hour and come back when they look like living people (the players had not used blush of life). Realizing they had made a major faux-pas, they spent the hour trying to hunt in what was clearly someone else’s domain. Anyways, an hour later they arrive and are introduced properly to Cockroaches coterie. Like Cockroach, these are all pre-written NPCs from several sources, adjusted to fit our campaign. We have Allicia, a mute singer who spends most of the evening tapping away at her phone. We have the Critic, formerly a multi-talented artist, now looking for another multi-talented artist to serve as the next Critic. And we have Portia, owner of this bar, who directs most of the conversation, sharing gossip and questioning the players. (Yes, it’s most likely that Portia!) I mostly introduced these characters so the players know more Kindred who are not part of the local government, but we had some enjoyable social scenes. Portia questioned Augustus’ morals as naive and Augustus had to defend his worldview (Augustus is a pious man who believes things can and should be better, just has very little idea what that means in practice). Augustus’ son also happened to visit the bar on a date, and Augustus tried to eavesdrop on this. He made it with enough finesse to not be seen by his son or his date, but he did not hear anything in particular and the other Kindred present noticed that this young man is of importance to Augustus. And finally, Cockroach revealed that she had learned the identities of the agents going after the players, agents Bigby and Crawford, and that they were about to make some sort of move soon. Cockroach also emphasized that unlike the Hunters the players had previously dealt with, these were not some amateur gangsters, these were federal agents. If you attack a federal agent, you attack the United States of America and the government will retaliate hard. No one wants that. The players pretended to be aware of this and capable of handling it, but were willing to hear suggestions. The players could lay low until heat dies down, they could make the agents their thralls, or they could discredit the agents. The players opted to discredit the agents and started to form a plan. And their plan was to contact Walter Nash, who owned them a major boon, to do it for them. They met Nash, who vowed that he had changed his ways and was proper, good Kindred nowadays. He mentioned it enough times that it should have raised some red flags. Nevertheless he agreed to take care of it and discredit the agents. The players were pleased and finally realized the worth of having boons owed to them and having other Kindred solve problems for them. Unfortunately this most likely will backfire, but I believe I had made it quite clear to them that Walter Nash is a prohibition era gangster with ties to the fire department, who had on more than one occasion drained a mortal nearly to death and left others to deal with it, and who was in the players’ debt because he had been revealing Kindred secrets to save his own skin and the players had dealt with his blackmailer. So I’m not sure why the players assume he is a good choice for anything requiring subtlety, but they have made their choice and will eventually face the consequences. After all of that, it was time to deal with a task they had been given in the previous session. Padre Mateo, a Catholic priest working for a mysterious organization had blackmailed the players to hand over one Josephine Habermann, leader of a local paramilitary group of hunters called the Night’s Cross. The players had previously scouted the area by night, and had utilized their connections to have the place observed during the day. Mostly they had learned that their target doesn’t leave the building with her apartment and the hunters’ bar. They also learned that the group had been stocking up on weapons and they were planning a trip to a farm upstate to train, so they had a deadline, unless they wanted to assault a hunter compound in the middle of the woods. This situation brought up an interesting issue, which we discussed after the game. My players are not experienced roleplayers, so they had a video game mentality of looking for solutions a game designer has provided. But that is not how I write situations, I want my players to surprise me so I just describe a situation and wait for players to create solutions. Nevertheless the knowledge of a deadline got them to act, they snuck into Habermann's apartment through a fire escape, while she was downstairs working at the bar. In the apartment they found Habermann’s laptop, and looking through recent communications and notes they learned two things. First, Habermann had been in communication with the German Catholic Church, then with the Vatican, and then the Entity Special Operations Group and Padre Mateo. So now the players know who their employer works for, and that Habermann’s personal notes refer to ESOG as “the OG inquisition”. Second, they learned more of another rumored hunter group called Night Guardians. There were notes on areas they frequented and that Night Guardians are what local rumors call the group, it is unknown what the groups actual name is. There were also Habermann’s pondering on this groups modus operandi. They seem to target people who stalk around nightclubs at closing time and follow single women. So the group clearly hunts predators, just not necessarily supernatural ones. Habermann returned to her apartment near dawn and was ambushed by the players. A dose of Scorpion’s Touch rendered her unconscious and the first part of their operation was done without issue. Second part was delivering her to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. My players had been so focused on taking out Habermann without harming her, that they had completely forgotten about exfiltration and now they quickly had to come up with a plan as dawn was approaching. With very little options, Thomas spent his last unspecified dot in contacts to know a getaway driver who was waiting for them. They delivered Habermann to the Cathedral fulfilling their end of the deal. Now ESOG has a skilled hunter to train the next generation of vampire hunters instead of getting killed or arrested. And Padre deletes all the information about the coterie and promises that his organization will not operate in North Williamsburg for the next ten years. The coterie is not pleased, they had been promised their domain would remain unharassed permanently, but are not in a position to argue. And with that done, the session was over! Without their leader, the Night’s Cross soon disbands and the players have rid themselves of a longtime antagonist group. Lord Hypnostache fucked around with this message at 10:42 on Feb 27, 2023 |
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Feb 27, 2023 10:30
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Here’s another recap! This time it’s a short one, since we played a shorter session and most of it was spent on OOC planning, specifically the players planned how to run a business. Previously the Banu Haqim primogen, Samira, had given the coterie an empty warehouse and instructions to turn it into something useful for the Camarilla. I saw no need to run the mundane work of hiring contractors, finding legal counsel, etc. in character, and instead I just let the players plan what they wanted the place to become and had them roll some skills to see how it goes, and next time we play it will have been finished off screen. So now the players have an animal hospital, that is secretly a back alley clinic, that is secretly a blood extraction facility. They also made two ghouls to run the place and I gave them homework to tell me details about the ghouls before the next session. As I told my players “I will fill the blanks for you, but I fill blanks only with problems.” Once we were done with this, Sheriff Qadir al-Asmai dropped by for a visit. He had a possible issue and wanted to find out if the coterie was about to cause issues. Specifically, he had heard that they had a problem with federal agents. The players tried to inquire where the Sheriff had heard about it, but couldn’t convince him to reveal his sources, beyond “I’m the Sheriff, it’s my job to know.” Qadir explained to them that messing with the FBI has a high risk of Masquerade breach, and his job is to eliminate those who break the Masquerade. And now he wants to know what the characters are planning. My players adopted quite different stances to authority breathing down on their neck. Thomas, a Pyramid loyalist, loves nothing more than the taste of a boot, adopted a humble approach, lowering his head and not saying anything in order to not escalate the situation and avoid any blame. Augustus attempted to stand for himself and push back, but failed and antagonized the Sheriff even further. They told the Sheriff that they had called in a boon with Walter Nash to take care of the problem. Nash would discredit the agents, making them look foolish and stripping them of their power. Qadir questioned why they would send a hundred years old gangster who can’t even use a television to do this. Thomas explained “Anyone close to a massive clown like Nash must be a pretty big clown themselves” which delighted me as a GM, since that is the impression I’ve tried to give of Nash, but it was not enough to convince the Sheriff. Now I prefer when NPCs assume that the players know more than they do. Sheriff Qadir pondered for a while and came to the conclusion that the players had tricked Nash into a situation where he would breach the Masquerade, giving the Prince a reason to call Bloodhunt on Nash and thus the coterie would gain favor with the Prince. The characters considered quite a leap of logic. Qadir said that he had assumed the characters were aware Walter Nash and Prince Panhard hate each other. Having no more questions on the matter, Qadir told the coterie that he had received complaints that they had been hunting on other Kindreds’ turf, and that they needed to knock it out. He reminded them of the Tradition of Domain and that following the traditions was a prerequisite for their continued membership in the Ivory Tower. If the coterie didn’t respect the domains of others, they shouldn’t expect others to respect their domain either, and that the Prince would soon find someone more worthy of the domain. And with that the Sheriff left and we decided it was a good point to end for the evening.
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Mar 17, 2023 11:16
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Slig posted:I think I saw in the thread that at least one other person was running a NY game so I want to pick through those posts as well for inspiration. That would be me, so you can easily go through my post history My main sources of inspiration are Coteries and Shadows, but I've perused the old New York by Night source book to fill gaps as needed.Do note that our group is not American, so we view the city through a different lens than people living in the area. I'm intrigued to hear how your game goes!
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Apr 18, 2023 08:01
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Time for another recap starring our usual suspects, Augustus the Amish Banu Haqim and Thomas the Triad Tremere. Previously the coterie had been given a task by the Banu Haqim Primogen, Samira, to turn a warehouse into “something useful for the Camarilla.” This time this project was finished and Samira arrived to inspect what the players had achieved. The players had turned this warehouse into an animal hospital, named Puppy Eyes, which was secretly a back alley clinic for the down-trodden, which secretly extracted blood bags from its patients. Samira was impressed by this multi-level diversion, but was curious how the young vampires felt about preying on vulnerable people. Thomas, being a hardened criminal, didn't really care. Augustus surprisingly gave a very prosperity gospel speech about how those using the back alley clinic were most likely criminals, homeless or otherwise sinners. This earned him a stain, since one of his tenets is to not tolerate hypocrisy, and he himself is destitute and spends a lot of time with homeless people, while considering himself righteous. Samira asked some questions about how the establishment was run, did the coterie already have clients scouted, who they were trying to gain favor with, and so on. Thomas tried to be smooth and gave some generic answers, but Samira unfortunately saw through it and knew that these things had not been considered. I run Samira as a philosopher character, who is supportive but cold, and uses pointed questions to guide others to consider their actions more. She was pleased that the players had not just taken the money and run, and that they hadn’t build yet another drinking establishment. As she put it “I swear it seems that every Toreador in the city already runs a club or two.” In the end, Samira gave the coterie a grade of B+. They had done as they had been asked, but hadn’t achieved anything special. They clearly had made this place to make their own unlives easier, but hadn’t curried favor with anyone. Samira would take the clinic and present it to the rest of the Ivory Tower, but would not mention the coterie’s names, since it could be construed as implying that Camarilla vampires are incapable of hunting for themselves. The city is full of sharks. After this, Samira shared some rumors and advice for the neonates, and the players took the opportunity to learn from someone older and more powerful than them. Augustus’ ambition is to make Camarilla adhere to pacifism and he tried to pitch this to Samira. It was not a very good pitch. Luckily Samira was polite enough to suggest that he learn more about their clan and get acquainted with other Banu Haqim in the city, before trying again. After that, Samira took over the clinic and the players went to investigate the next plot hook. During the previous scene, Thomas had received a text message from his touchstone Horatio. The message included an address and a time. When we last heard from Horatio, he wanted out from this vampire business (having suffered quite a lot of mental and physical harm) and Thomas had chosen to keep some distance, for Horatio’s sake. The address led to a small burger joint in Hudson Heights. The crew aced their awareness checks so I gave them additional information I was going to make them roll streetwise for. They noticed that there were more police cars in the area than usual, though not enough to be considered exceptional, just unusual. The choice of location was also unusual, it was not an area that the Triad operated in. This was clearly a trap of some sort, but thankfully my players decided to walk into it, curious to see how the story would go. Inside the burger joint, Horatio was waiting for them, clearly nervous and pointed at the coterie to take a seat. The coterie, thanks to some more excellent awareness checks, noticed two men nearby, with handguns and kevlar vests under their jackets, trying to act inconspicuous. As the coterie took their seats opposite Horatio, he stood up and walked away, with the two gunmen moving in and introducing themselves as agents Crawford and Bigby, FBI. The agents started doing a basic good cop-bad cop routine, offered a deal and we moved to social combat. The agents had strong evidence of the coteries’ actions, a bestial murder had been caught on camera and drained corpses had been found in Brooklyn. They assumed that the coterie were just axemen, ordered to kill without their own agency. It would be unfair that they should take the fall for someone else’s orders. (Everyone the coterie had killed so far had been to protect their own hides or due to poor choices, the agents’ assumption was incorrect.) The agents offered a deal. Give them names and the coterie would be spared. The players chose to not cooperate and refused to talk. So the agents tried a more aggressive approach, telling them that this was their only opportunity and that they would be killed. The coterie continued stonewalling, though Augustus’ willpower was rapidly draining. For the third round, the agents tried a more friendly approach, maybe they would like to ask some questions from the agents and learn something. And then, instead of asking the players for dice rolls, I introduced a twist. Walter Nash entered the burger joint, sawn-off shotgun in one hand, molotov cocktail in the other. Before anyone had a chance to react, the molotov had been thrown and flames were spreading everywhere, and Nash’s ghouls had started a shootout with the police outside. Nash told the coterie to get moving, the fire brigade wouldn’t be coming but there are more cops. Everyone quickly fled the scene and regrouped at a getaway van, where they had a chance to chat about the situation. Walter Nash had previously been recruited to discredit the agents (his method had been to spread rumors that one of the agents was gay and the other was Polish), but now that he had clearly saved the coteries’ lives, their debt was settled. We also learned that his two ghouls’ main role is to say “Good one boss” and “Nyeah boss” after everything Nash says, he used to run with Lucky Luciano’s crew back in the day, and thanks to the players continued acceptance and patronage, he has returned to the Kindred social scene and he runs with a coterie of his own nowadays. The coterie consists of Balthazar, who Nash says used to be a pirate, and Valerie, who Nash says has good heritage and values. They are called the Opposition and they are united by their desire to see someone more competent as Prince of the city. Nash considers Prince Panhard incompetent purely due to misogyny and Nash would prefer himself, or any white male to run the city. Eventually everyone goes their own ways and we end the session, everyone had a great time. My players are eager to meet the rest of Nash’s coterie and enjoy how deeply unpleasant a character he is, while also one of the friendliest they have met. I also had built up Horatio’s betrayal; while complaining about all the poo poo he had been through, being questioned by the police was one of them, and they had heard from their contacts that the FBI agents were planning a big move. Anyways, Thomas has now lost his only touchstone. The rulebook is not very clear what that means 
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Apr 25, 2023 19:25
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Anonymous Zebra posted:On that note, does anyone know of any modules that take place in a modern setting and feature PCs exploring a secret occult base of sorts? It doesn't matter what system, I'm just looking for maps, and room descriptions I can slot into my games. Finding a large supply of good modern maps is kind of a bitch, and Cthulhu Architect just had a kid, so they're not making anything new for at least several more months. Delta Green might be up your alley. It's about fighting unnatural horrors in the modern world. I can't recommend anything specific, since I'm a player in a DG campaign so I haven't personally looked at anything except the player's guide.
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May 2, 2023 16:00
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Time for another recap! This time it’s a short and sweet one, I severely underestimated how quickly the story I had written would go. As usual, our coterie consists of Augustus the Amish Banu Haqim and Thomas the Triad Tremere . It is Christmas. High Regent of the Five Boroughs, Aisling Sturbridge had invited her student Thomas and his coterie over to one of the hidden chambers of Barnard College. She had a simple task for the group. Aisling would do it herself, except the Prince has organized some sort of Midwinter shindig and requested the High Regent’s presence, even though she will hate it. The task is as follows. There is a list of names and locations, the crew will bring each of them a gift and receive another gift in return, which they will then give to the next person on the list. Aisling gives them a vial of unusually dark blood and adds some details. The recipients will assume that the gifts are from her personally, and she would prefer to keep it that way. It is also likely that instead of the person mentioned on the list, the coterie will meet a representative of theirs, most folks are busy on Christmas after all. And finally, the last gift should be delivered between 3 and 4 in the morning. The players succeeded on occult rolls to know that this is the Witching hour. Without further ado, the coterie sets off. First stop is Genie at Maupassant Room. The address on the list doesn’t lead to anything called the Maupassant Room, but a luxury hotel called The Mark. I asked the players about their appearance, and then gave them penalties on social checks since they did not look like customers at a 5-star hotel. Naturally the receptionist knew nothing about any Maupassant Room and I let the players fumble around for a moment, before Genie’s assistant Mila arrived and took them aside. She knew Thomas, but did not know Augustus, and wanted to know if Augustus was trustworthy, before discussing anything in detail. After being assured that Augustus was indeed legit, Mila took the vial of dark blood and gave them a leatherbound ledger. Mila also wanted to exchange gossip with Thomas, since there’s only her and Genie at Maupassant Room and Thomas, as a student of the High Regent, must have some valuable insight. Thomas was reluctant to engage in this conversation, until Mila dismissed Augustus so it was just two Tremere. This was basically just an opportunity to give the players some lore about the clan’s current situation, beyond just “They’re split but pretend they’re not” and to make Thomas consider his position in the Tremere schism. Afterwards Thomas and Augustus had a nice chat about Clan Tremere’s situation, and wondered aloud if Banu Haqim had any similar schism… which slightly frustrated me because they have been told of Banu Haqim’s schism and clearly forgotten about it. Luckily I had already planned on bringing it up soon-ish. The second stop was in front of some random pizza place, where they were to meet with New York’s biggest information broker Kaiser, or more accurately, his ghoul Jackie. Now Jackie doesn’t know anything because he isn’t told anything, and seeing the coterie, his first assumption was that they had some request for his master, but for now Jackie wanted them to leave him alone since he was waiting for someone. The coterie cleared the misunderstanding and handed him the ledger from Maupassant Room and Jackie gave them a nondescript USB-stick. Jackie was a bit surprised by the ledger, he had been told to expect some old school media, but had assumed that meant a CD or even a floppy disk. The third name on the list was Portia, leader of a neighboring coterie, The Culture Club, and her French House Club, Massif Bass Central. The line to the club was long and the players would have to be creative to get in, unless they wanted to wait in line for a few hours. Naturally they first approached the bouncer to get in, but folded immediately. Before I had even asked them for any rolls, both players remembered that they are absolute garbage when it comes to talking with mortals and decided to look for another way in. Downstairs from the club is the much quieter Bar None, also owned by Portia. They find another member of Culture Club there, a Malkavian known only as the Critic, who they manage to convince to let them into the club through the backrooms. The Critic does not stick around after this, as she has an ice-sculpting competition to judge. Club Massif Bass Central was full of people, smoke and strobe lights and it would have been impossible to find anyone here, except for Portia. She was in an elevated lounge, flanked by another member of her coterie, Alissa, surrounded by blood dolls and bodyguards. Seen by everyone yet unapproachable, she was like a queen surveying her domain. Now for the next part I should say that I’m trying to imply that Portia may be older than she claims to be. I’m subtle, so I don’t think the players have caught on yet. The coterie approaches her and Portia, being a gracious host, invites them to join her. She explains that the Cockroach (a Nosferatu member of her coterie, who the players have frequently dealt with previously) is not at the club, since Portia is lobbying to make this place an Elysium and does not want a potential masquerade breach on the premises. The players explain that they are bringing a gift from Aisling Sturbridge, she is delighted to receive a… well, she doesn’t mention doesn’t what it’s called, and conveniently encourages the players to explain to her companion Alissa what a USB-stick is and how it functions. The players know that Alissa is almost a century old, mute and has recently learned to use a smartphone, and she eagerly listens to the explanation. Portia hands them a golden VIP-pass to the club and says that she eagerly awaits the High Regent’s visit. As the coterie leaves, Portia encourages them to enjoy her blood dolls, and Alissa’s phone rings, which she holds over Portia’s ear so she can talk. Thomas samples the blood dolls, who are very eager to please and ask him to recommend them to Portia, so they can be the first blood dolls to receive Portia’s Kiss. Onwards to the next stop, Uncle Smelly at Grand Central.They follow some secret signs, until they arrive at some random hallway with no one in sight. An awareness check revealed that a pile of garbage was observing the coterie. They decide to greet the pile of garbage, who stands up to reveal a Nosferatu, messy, foul odorous and aggressively French. This is Uncle Smelly, who immediately tries to rope them into doing him a favor if they want to meet Calebros. It takes a moment for the players to remember that they are not here to meet Calebros, but Uncle Smelly himself and that they have a gift for him. They hand over the VIP pass and Uncle Smelly refuses, stating that he had been promised two VIP passes, this was not enough. The characters easily see through his ruse and that he was just trying to hustle them, and Uncle Smelly jovially folds his demands. In fact, he is astonished that Aisling Sturbridge has managed to convince Portia to let a Nosferatu into her exclusive club. Then he hands the coterie an early 1900’s Teddy Bear. And final drop point. There’s no name on the list, only a location: Wollman Rink at Central Park. It is late at night, so the ice-skating rink is closed, the lights are off, no one can be seen. Awareness checks reveal nothing, but a Sense the Unseen check reveals two young women skating a perfect figure eight. An Occult check gives a cliff-notes version of the legend of Van Der Voort sisters and the knowledge that even in the urban legend, the timeline doesn’t add up (because behind the scenes I had to mess with the timeline even more and the players will probably never get enough knowledge about certain characters’ and certain legends’ histories to see that timelines don’t match up but if they do I have prepared for it!) As the crew steps on the ice the ghostly sisters become visible even without supernatural senses. The ghosts turn to skate at the players, but before contact is made, the players hand over the Teddy bear. The Van Der Voort sisters accept the toy, which also turns ethereal and they say something, but no voice can be heard. But they do seem pleased, before the witching hour is over and they disappear. Finally the players decide to check in with Aisling Sturbridge to let her know that the task was complete. She is pleased to get away from the Prince’s party for a moment and that the Van Der Voort sisters seemed to appreciate the gift. She explains that this was an old promise that she hadn’t managed to fulfill while the sisters were still alive, nothing more, no don’t read any sentimentality to it. And with that the session was over!
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May 10, 2023 18:47
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Here’s another recap. This time I ran a little experiment and had not prepped much of anything to give me more time to write a bigger adventure for the next time. I also had noticed that my players have many running situations they should take care of, if only they had time, so I wanted to give them an opportunity to do whatever they want. As usual, our coterie consists of Augustus the Amish Banu Haqim and Thomas the Triad Tremere. It is New Year’s Eve and I tossed the ball immediately to the players by asking them where we are and what’s going on. The coterie is trying to find a new haven, since the current one is compromised, but we’re doing that off-screen by rolling Int+Finances once a week, since I’m not interested in running a game about apartment hunting. My players decided to check in with their neighboring coterie, the Culture Club. Luckily this was the one thing I had vaguely planned in advance, in case my players would be completely stumped by the lack of direction. Portia of Culture Club was hosting a party at her club, to introduce a new Primogen for clan Toreador and to lobby her club to become an Elysium. The coterie is of course not invited to the backroom ceremony and they learn all of this after they encounter Uncle Smelly of Clan Nosferatu, although they don’t recognize him first because he is using Mask of a Thousand Faces and looks just like any random dude in a bar. Uncle Smelly is there because his clan was not invited, and he can’t have Kindred thinking that Nosferatu can be excluded from the city’s political machine. He doesn’t know who the new Toreador Primogen is going to be (because I haven’t created that character yet), but he explains to the players how Elysiums work and what is the role of the Keeper of Elysium. Uncle Smelly doesn’t believe that this club will be made into an Elysium, since that would require the Keeper’s blessing and the current Keeper is missing. The discussion is interrupted when a bouncer informs Uncle Smelly that the owner of the club, Portia, has requested he leave the premises, or more specifically “Get that scab out of here!” The coterie recognizes that this was a deliberate choice of words, letting the Kindred know that Uncle Smelly has been recognized as a Nosferatu. Uncle Smelly decides to leave without a hassle, since he reasons that his skill are rusty if someone so young can see through his disguise. Augustus tries to defend Uncle Smelly, feeling that Uncle has done nothing to warrant such rude behavior and name calling. He is told to take his complaints up with the manager, the bouncer is just doing his job. Next up the players decided to try and solve a problem they have, since it was a social gathering and gathering information would be easy. They wanted to know whose domain a nearby hospital belonged to. The coterie owes a “debt” to the Malkavian Primogen. The coterie's actions lead to a security breach and the Primogen had to figuratively pay an arm and a leg to contain it, and feels that the players own him an actual arm and a leg. The player’s plan is to obtain these from a hospital and want to contact the local Kindred about it instead of causing trouble in someone else’s domain. I had to scramble for a bit to come up with a random vampire who rules over a random hospital, but luckily I had in my toolbox a suitable character waiting to be slotted into the story. The coterie meets Ken Vincent, childe of the Malkavian Primogen. He is willing to listen to the coterie’s proposal, but is constantly checking his watch and making it clear that he does not work overtime. They come to an agreement that Vincent will get an arm and a leg from the hospital mortuary and deliver them to the Primogen. In exchange the coterie owes him a minor boon. We shall wait and see how this goes, but I’m starting to feel that my players are treating Malkavian characters as logic puzzles to be figured out, so I’m going to have to correct that. The coterie returns to the matter of a new Toreador Primogen being crowned tonight and try to find their way into the meeting. I try to imply that a secret meeting they have not been invited to, between the highest members of a secret society, is not somewhere you can just bumble into, but they are insistent and I give in and have them find the location just as the meeting is over and everyone leaves. Which is fine, since Augustus is still miffed about how Uncle Smelly was treated earlier and confronts Portia about. A social combat ensues. Portia is not pleased that the coterie has learned about the secret passages in the club and uses them freely, while Augustus is not pleased that a friendly Kindred was removed from the establishment and called a Scab. Portia inquires if the Child of Haqim would have preferred another term, like Sewer Rat, Orlok or Leper to draw unwanted attention and risk the Masquerade. Augustus insists that there was no need for such an offensive term, “friend” would have been just as suitable and Portia explains the term Scab was used to make sure the bouncer doesn’t understand what’s going on but Uncle Smelly does. Now, a downside of playing remotely is that I didn’t see my players reactions when it was time to roll dice and Portia had all of the dice. I’ve previously said that Portia is a much older vampire pretending to be younger, but my players were too shocked by the amount of dice to comprehend any implications from it. I was going to have Augustus just roll against a fixed difficulty, but decided to actually roll the dice to make it more unpredictable. On the first roll Augustus was trounced and took a lot of Willpower damage, but on the following rolls he rolled great and I rolled poorly, resulting in two ties. And after that our session petered out. I was prepared to go longer, but I had nothing to throw at my players and my players had run out of stuff to do, so we decided to call it a night. Anyways, lesson learned, my players are not too comfortable with complete sandbox freedom and I need to give them at least something.
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Jun 1, 2023 23:52
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Hello all, time for another recap from our New York game! As usual, our coterie consists of Augustus the Amish Banu Haqim and Thomas the Triad Tremere. It is a shorter one again since we started late and had to end early (also I’m writing this more than a week later and have forgotten some details) During the coterie’s down time Augustus has been looking up the local Banu Haqim. He wants the Camarilla to become pacifistic and the first step on this path is to convince his clan and I have given the players a list of names with vague descriptions for them to pursue at their leisure. But before we get started on that, the coterie wants to check in with Carter Vanderweyden, the Malkavian Primogen, on a debt they have attempted to pay back. Previously, the coterie had provided compromising information about the Primogen to the city’s foremost information broker and Vanderweyden had to go through a lot of trouble to make sure this information wouldn’t be used against him. This all cost him an arm and a leg, and the Primogen considers the coterie owing him an actual arm and leg. The last session they had recruited the Primogen’s childe who runs a hospital to secure the bodyparts from a morgue. As they arrive at the Primogen’s apartment complex in Manhattan, they notice a post box responding to Vanderweyden’s apartment number has been recently smashed. They investigate it to find some dry droplets of blood. Thomas is good at identifying blood and has some good investigation skills over all, so it becomes clear that some post-mortem chunks of flesh have been smashed into the tiny postbox, breaking it and leaving quite a mess, though most of it has been cleaned up already. They meet Carter Vanderweyden at his apartment and he confirms as much. They also learned that Carter’s childe, as well as refusing to work overtime and not taking his time with his task, adjusts his efforts on the importance of the task. The players had promised him a minor boon, so he gave them minor effort. Naturally the Primogen is quite forgiving of his childe’s antics and less so of the player’s coterie. We move to social combat. Vanderweyden doesn’t recall asking for several pounds of dead flesh and again demands compensation from the players. The players try to make vague promises of favors, but the Primogen isn’t actually listening to their arguments, instead just wants to keep the conversation going while using Dementation to break their minds. I tried to mess with my players by sending them threatening Discord DMs while Carter was talking, unfortunately they didn’t notice these until I mentioned them after the session. In any case, the coterie resisted the attempts at mental manipulation, but Carter Vanderweyden did inform them that he would use all the resources available to him as the Malkavian Primogen to get compensation, and the coterie left the scene with Willpower tracks filled with superficial damage and a new enemy. After that scene it was time to look up the list of Banu Haqim contacts I had handed out. They first decided to seek out a florist in the East Village. Unfortunately, since it is early January in our game and it was after midnight, there weren’t any people around the supposed location, florists or otherwise. There wasn’t even any flower shops, or any information that such a business had ever existed in the area. I did a small trick, that doesn’t really translate well, but I used a Finnish word for florist which can also be translated as “weed dealer” and luckily my players were clever enough to figure out my trick and started asking around for dealers. They were guided to a small bar/theater nearby and told to ask for Aisha. They found her easily and got talking. Augustus was a bit too eager to start preaching his morals, but Aisha suggested they hang out a bit and get to know each other first. Aisha is the childe of Samira, the Banu Haqim Primogen who occasionally throws the coterie a bone. She is French of North African descent, embraced to work as a fixer for her sire. She is quite new to the world of darkness and so far she does not like what she’s seen. She tells a few anecdotes about traveling in Europe and how conservative and ruthless the old vampires there are. Eventually she suggests that they all go hunting together, so she can see what the coterie is made of. Luckily Augustus feeds only from animals and Thomas prefers blood bags, so they are on their way to making a good impression. As they are leaving Aisha spots another kindred who has just wandered into the bar. This is Shejana, known for disappearing on binges for weeks or months at a time. She also apparently works with both Camarilla and Anarchs, and Aisha asks the coterie to help her learn more about Shejana. Unfortunately my players ignored all the hooks about Shejana I threw at them. The next time we play I will have to ask my players how I can improve to get them intrigued with the material I’m giving them. Aisha introduced the coterie to Shejana. She made it quite clear that she was willing to tag along if they were able to provide new experiences for her. Augustus decided to combine the two tasks the coterie had now, hunting and new experiences. He hunted and fed on a raccoon, reasoning that they must be uncommon enough to be a curiosity. He also rolled a bestial success, and emerged from a random alley covered in raccoon blood and bits of fur, shouting “Ta-dah! Bet you’ve never seen anything like this before!” Aisha and Shejana were less than impressed. Augustus then started preaching his pacifistic ideology, and Shejana she had wasted enough of her time with the coterie and left. Aisha was willing to listen and we started rolling social combat. The base difficulty was not high, the coterie had not shown any monstrous tendencies and Aisha is young and easily swayed. However, they hadn’t helped her learn anything about Shejana and instead were quite rude to her. Also Augustus was still hindered from the encounter with the Primogen before, and I didn’t allow Thomas to help or partake in this discussion, since does not believe in non-violence. Unfortunately Augustus couldn’t roll nor roleplay his arguments well and Aisha was not convinced to adapt his philosophy. We decided to wrap up for the evening and here I revealed another trick I had pulled on the players. We do stains at the end of the session, instead of during the game. As we were going through everyone’s convictions, Thomas’ player noticed that his sole conviction, “Disobedience is dishonor” had disappeared from his character sheet. I explained to him that convictions are based on touchstones and I had deleted his touchstone from his character sheet three sessions ago without him noticing. This was due to the touchstone in question selling Thomas to the FBI and leaving the country. Since Thomas’ touchstone did not embody his conviction anymore and was not a part of his unlife, I reasoned that if the player does not care that the touchstone is gone, neither does the character. I had after all given him three sessions to do something about the situation. So now we have a character without any convictions, the rules don’t really cover what this means but we shall find out!
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Jul 12, 2023 00:48
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I’m back with another recap from our New York game. This time the digital dice were wild and like half of all successful tests were Messy Crits, to the point where towards the end of the session I just had to go “I’m letting you off the hook for this messy crit, I can’t come up with more stuff to mess up your night.” As usual, our coterie consists of Augustus the Amish Banu Haqim and Thomas the Triad Tremere. The nights in our games usually start with a round of hunting rolls, where Augustus rolls his first messy crit of the session. He prefers to eat rats for nourishment and has recently started to expand his diet to include raccoons and possums. I let him take off an extra point of hunger for finding some very juicy animals, but unfortunately someone sees him covered in rat guts and pieces of fur. And Augustus realizes he has been seen when the camera flash goes off. The random passer-by with a film camera runs off and Augustus chases after them to prevent a Masquerade breach. The chase ends suddenly as the passer-by runs onto a busy street and is immediately hit by a car. The camera is broken but the film is most likely still intact. As for the passer-by, it’s impossible to tell how they're doing without getting closer. Augustus manages to convince on-lookers that he is a medical professional and approaches without anyone noticing that he is wearing a bloody hoodie (from the rats). I tell Augustus that the passer-by is seriously wounded and will not survive without his help. The player takes a moment to ponder this ethical dilemma I’ve sprung up on him. He decides to share his vitae with the wounded person and manages to do so without anyone noticing. He also steals the camera in the process to protect the Masquerade. All of this went better than expected, except Augustus had rolled another Messy Crit and gained a compulsion to do harm. As the coterie regroups (they prefer hunting solo) they start brainstorming how to manage Augustus’ need to destroy something or someone. Naturally they start getting wild ideas and I politely remind them that Augustus can just punch the first random pedestrian he sees. I am then informed that Augustus would not find it ethically acceptable to do random violence to someone who doesn’t deserve it, so I let them keep brainstorming. They decide to find some Fight Club type of establishment to do consensual violence. Thomas rolls to find it and gets a Messy Crit, so he finds it but he too will participate. They find a street fighting circle in Off-Off-Coney Island, on a tiny island in Jamaica Bay, where a crowd has gathered in the middle of a January night to watch and participate in physical combat. The event is a multi-man brawl-for-all. The only rule is that you’re not allowed to strike someone in the head if they’re lying on the ground. Neither of the characters are especially good at fisticuffs, but they are undead creatures and punches do very little to them. Thomas focuses on using dexterity to avoid strikes, while Augustus is forced by his compulsion to use strength to damage others. Which he whiffs for a while and gets beaten up quite severely until he gets yet another Messy Crit and absolutely demolishes someone with his bare hands. Soon enough the two vampires are the only fighters standing. Augustus has gotten the need for violence out of his system and takes a dive, allowing Thomas to win the grand prize of 200$. And all of the session so far has been the result of some wild dice rolls and me having like three sentences worth of notes about someone taking dangerous pictures and getting hit by a car. The players had previously asked for some random encounters and I think I delivered. After that rollercoaster it was time to return to the previously scheduled plot. Augustus is attempting to contact the local Banu Haqim to get them to espouse pacifism. Next on the list is a private investigator named Kowalski. The players hope that knowing an investigator, especially one well-connected with local police, would help them against the Second Inquisition breathing down their necks. Unfortunately, Kowalski is a very young vampire, not well connected, and absolutely refuses to take any actions against fellow policemen when inquired about it. Most Banu Haqim follow a strict moral code and for Kowalski that code is based on the U.S. Constitution. They also learn that Kowalski’s sire is a former USMC sniper who eliminates the enemies of Camarilla and the United States (Kowalski doesn’t see these two contradicting each other). While Kowalski won’t help them against the SI, he is willing to listen to Augustus’ moral sermon if they are willing to do a favor for him. A gang of thugs is terrorizing the area and Kowalski wants the coterie to get rid of them. They can be found at a local community center and when the players go there it turns out the gang is just some black teens playing board games. To no one’s surprise the vampire cop is a racist piece of poo poo. Kowalski’s mortal daughter is also part of this group and she figures out immediately that her dad had sent the coterie to harass them. She wants nothing to do with Kowalski and the players agree with her, unfortunately it would be politically more convenient for them to make up. A successful persuasion test gets the daughter to come with them to meet Kowalski and another very successful persuasion test gets them to make up and/or resolve the situation. I realized in the middle of the scene that I really don’t want to roleplay an abusive family relationship and called it just a dice roll so we can move on. Kowalski was now ready to listen to Augustus’ sermon about pacifism. The coterie had helped Kowalski and he is a fledgling just looking for guidance, so the difficulty was not too high. Not too low either, since pacifism doesn’t fit with his career as a police officer and his love of the constitution. Augustus did let it slip that using violence in self-defense is acceptable, which he took to mean “You can shoot people if you feel threatened” which muddied the message he was trying to preach. Augustus got some average rolls and arguments and in the end Kowalski doesn’t feel comfortable accepting Augustus’ morals, but if he got more Kindred on board he’d come along then. And that’s it for this session. Off-screen the characters are still trying to find a new haven and I gave them the idea of having some sort of public front. If the players need to contact someone specific, they have a pretty good idea where to go, whereas if some NPC needs to contact the players, I as a GM have no idea how they would do that and it makes it hard for me to write plot hooks. The players started thinking about a butcher shop to suit all their feeding needs, and I’m excited about the idea. The players haven’t succeeded in any rolls to acquire this new haven yet so I nipped the conversation short, since there’s a high risk of everyone forgetting the details by the time they’re relevant.
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Jul 27, 2023 16:24
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It is a shame how little material there is about Vampire religions that are based on other religions than Christianity. There is that group of Muslim Kindred trying to find and protect vampires who were around during the time of the Prophet, and I think that's a really fun idea. It shows how a set of beliefs for humans gets changed when it has to fit the realities of being an immortal blood-sucker. I consider the myth of Caine to be a similarly syncretic. Early Christians finding their undead condition not fitting with their previously held beliefs, so they come up with new myths based on what they already believe. The myth of Caine is not more true than other vampire creation myths, but since most of the VtM media is Eurocentric, Caine gets more attention than other vampire creation myths. I'm not sure if all the published material supports this interpretation, but that's how I roll with it.
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Jul 28, 2023 10:18
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I’m here to interrupt the Werewoof chat with a recap from our latest session in the Big Apple. I’ve yet again made the mistake of waiting too long before sitting down and writing this and I’m starting to forget stuff, but future plans were interrupted in this session and I’ve been busy preparing new stuff. As usual, our coterie consists of Augustus the Amish Banu Haqim and Thomas the Triad Tremere. Previously Thomas had off-handedly mentioned that he occasionally scouts the art & entertainment scene of their domain, in order to help a neighboring Malkavian, the Critic, who is trying to find a mortal with a great talent and understanding of the arts to eventually become the next Critic. So this session started with the coterie having invited the Critic to some event and the players getting to describe that event. We came up with an avantgarde student movie premiere, threw some details about the movie itself, the Critic gave a devastating yet accurate review which changed the opinions of everyone who heard them. While this event didn’t help the Critic in their quest, they did offer the coterie a divination in return. The coterie requested a divination regarding the FBI agents who are hunting them, and I had to scramble to come up with a suitably cryptic revelation. Here’s what I came up with: “Rats are weaving patterns/The Big Bad Wolf notices the emptiness” My players then rolled insight to figure it out and got a pretty decent success. I told them that I didn’t want to just straight up reveal what it means, but I’m willing to give a tip. I gave them enough to figure out that Big Bad Wolf refers to Agent Bigby, one of the agents hunting them (yes it’s a dumb pun and/or Fables reference). What the divination actually means, is that Augustus’ habit of feeding exclusively from animals, mostly rats, is having an effect on the local vermin population. Eventually the hunters will notice a pattern of dwindling rat populations coinciding with the coterie’s area of influence. To bring the scene to a close, the Critic informed that a coterie mate of theirs, Cockroach, wanted to re-negotiate the deal they had. So the coterie meets up with Cockroach to do just that. Cockroach is a Nosferatu as well as a former FBI agent. She gathers information about the Special Affairs Division and in exchange she is allowed to feed from the unhoused population of the player coterie’s domain. When the deal was negotiated Cockroach had assumed that the Special Affairs Division was just “old Mulders” and conspiracy theorists. Instead these guys are the genuine Second Inquisition. Cockroach is willing to keep spying, but the higher risk demands a higher reward. More specifically the Bedford Avenue subway station. The players wanted to know more about the deal they were offered and a politics roll revealed that traditionally the underground was Clan Nosferatu’s domain, but this tradition is from a time when the underground meant mostly sewers and crypts. Subway stations are in a gray area, the local Nosferatu want them ceded to them and this is one of the many reasons the local clan is not participating in Camarilla activities. The coterie negotiates so that they share the ownership of the subway station, but since neither of them hunt there in practice it is Cockroach’s territory. In addition, Cockroach is willing to take more risks and gather more information, if the coterie can find somethings for her. First, they need to find her sire. Second, they need to find out who killed her (Cockroach’s abdomen is full of bullet holes, she was already dying before the Embrace). Details of this quest would be given later, since I hadn’t written any yet (in case my players would refuse it). My players have both the power and ritual to learn stuff from vitae, so they will be starting with more information than I had anticipated. Unrelated to the narrative, during this scene one of my players noted that he doesn’t think that Bedford Avenue station is in their domain. I explained that yeah, it’s kind of far away, but for narrative purposes let’s say it’s the periphery of their domain, I want to keep the borders vague. And after the scene was finished I noticed in my notes that I had pondered the same thing while preparing for this session and that there was a ferry pier right next to the player’s haven that Cockroach should ask for. Well, the mistake had been made, maybe in the future I will remember to clean up my notes before a session. After all these negotiations it was time to return to Augustus’ quest to contact the local Banu Haqim and convince them to become pacifists. This time the trail led deep into the Bronx and an occupied warehouse, which had been converted into a night cafe and mutual aid. The graffiti and a huge sign with the text “NO CAMS” revealed that this was an Anarch hideout. The local Anarch coterie did have a Banu Haqim fighting for social justice, and despite reservations was willing to listen to the coterie after they sabotaged a nearby building site to prevent gentrification. Unfortunately Augustus’ mic had cut out and we didn’t hear his spiel. When his mic started working again, we didn’t feel like he had to do the same speech again. Also he was just not feeling it, so we just had him do one quick roll to fast forward the scene and end the session. So unfortunately the session ended on a bit of a down note. Augustus’ player was having serious doubts about his character’s ambition, and felt it was rough to have the same discussion so many times. Part of this is on me, while writing this adventure I didn’t realize that this would be the third session in a row that would end in basically the same debate with only slight differences. Augustus’ ambition is to make the Camarilla adhere to pacifism, so his ambition is antithetical to being a Camarilla vampire and he will see very little success. We’ll see how this develops, but I am frantically writing stuff to give the players something else to do while we figure this out.
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Aug 17, 2023 09:47
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And here’s another recap to follow the one from last week! I had hastily written a mystery/investigation story and my players were really into it, we had one of our best sessions so far! As usual, our coterie consists of Augustus the Amish Banu Haqim and Thomas the Triad Tremere. The coterie had been contracted by a neighboring Nosferatu, Cockroach, to find out who was her sire as well as who had killed her and why. Cockroach used to be an FBI agent and before her untimely demise, had been investigating organized human trafficking linked to the Russian mafia. The players first suspect was one Ivan Kuthka who is the Caitiff Primogen and heavily involved in Circulation Inc. and the Russian organized crime. But they had a bunch of details and clues to investigate before jumping to conclusion. When it comes to Cockroach’s sire, she couldn’t remember anything, but suggested the Herald Thomas Arturo might be worth talking to. The coterie had performed the Blood Walk ritual to learn that Cockroach, real name Felicia Page, was of 10th generation so her sire would be of 9th generation and the sire’s name was Gerard Rafin. So the first order of business was traveling to the Elysium to consult Thomas Arturo. The Herald was after all responsible for bookkeeping and dealt in information, so he should know something. And Arturo was ready to share what he knew for a trade of information, making the players ponder what sort of scandalous things they knew about other Kindred, and who they were willing to throw under the bus (they mentioned that the racist cop from previous session is keeping contact with his mortal family, a potential Masquerade breach). Then they inquired about the mysterious Gerard Rafin, 9th generation, of Clan Nosferatu, who had presumably been granted the right of off-spring a little over ten years ago (when Cockroach was embraced). The name was not familiar to Arturo, so he excused himself for a few hours to check records and investigate, while the coterie was encouraged to enjoy the Elysium. The players rarely visit the Elysium, so it was a nice opportunity to chat with some friendly vampires, ask around and learn rumors. I had pre-written a bunch of rumors to handout every time the players visit an Elysium or a similar undead social hub and gave them some juicy gossip, from future plot hooks and world-building to outright lies. The players really enjoyed it and will hopefully visit the Kindred social scene more often. Eventually Herald Arturo returned and apologetically informed that he couldn’t find anything from the previous 30 years that he has been the Herald, leaving the players to wonder if the Cockroach’s embrace had been unlawful. Arturo suggests that the coterie should talk with Calebros, the previous Prince. Calebros probably would know something, since he too is a Nosferatu and it probably happened during his reign. Arturo is willing to set up a meeting, if the players do him a tiny favor and deliver a gift to Primogen Ivan Kuthka the following night. The coterie accepted and very dutifully did not open the large box before the hand-off. But that wouldn’t happen until later, the coterie had time to investigate another lead. A Federal agent getting shot and disappearing should make the news. So they break into a tiny local library to study old newspapers. It takes a while but they do find what they are looking for. The newspaper has a story about a shootout at the Evergreen Cemetery between federal agents and organized crime, with one agent missing. Now the players know where the crime scene is. The article also has a curious detail. In the photo of the crime scene, they recognize one of the Special Affairs Division agents hunting the coterie, though much younger. The players assume that the Special Affairs Division had been involved with this case, which is not what I was thinking but I might change my plans. I had planned that this investigation had convinced the agent in question to join SAD. We’ll see how this develops and what would be most intriguing. Eventually it was time to meet with Ivan. The meeting took place in a parking lot near, but very specifically not in, Little Odessa. Ivan was waiting in an ambulance that had been painted black (to remind the players of Ivan’s involvement in human trafficking). Surprisingly, Ivan was not alone, but accompanied by Shejana, who the players had briefly met previously while she was in the middle of a drug bender. This time she was quite composed and dressed up for a night on the town. Shejana was quite surprised that Ivan was associating with cults, since previously Augustus had tried to convert her. Which is not quite accurate, but not really untrue either, and Augustus doesn’t deny it. The coterie hands over Arturo’s gift and it is revealed to be a PPSh-41 submachine gun. Ivan doesn’t hide that he fought for the Red Army during WW2 and loves the weapons he used during the war. He gushes about the museum piece, and suggests to Shejana that she probably hasn’t seen one since the war… And suddenly the mood turns sour. Ivan knows he just blurted something inappropriate, and Shejana looks on with disappointment, having expected more of him. The players don’t know what is going on. Shejana replies to Ivan that her camp was liberated by the Americans and she left Europe soon after the war, so she didn’t see any Soviet soldiers. The mood is tense and I let the silence hang for several long seconds… …Before Ivan receives a pager message to interrupt the scene. There is a potential Masquerade breach nearby and he’d like some backup. Shejana excuses herself since it doesn’t concern her (she is an independent vampire) and that she has to go “kiss Yurgi’s ring.” The players accompany Ivan, assuming it would be better to do what a Primogen tells them to do. Thomas is a company man ready to do whatever he believes is required of him, while Augustus is apprehensive and believes his morals are about to be tested yet again. Both expect violence and have very different feelings about it. Ivan took the players to Coney Island, making sure to avoid Little Odessa. Not that he had any issue with the area, but he doesn’t know about the coterie and wouldn’t want to make any trouble for them. Little Odessa is home to a community of independent Kindred, who will kill any outsiders without hesitation, unless proper rites of respect are performed. As they arrive in Coney Island, they find the following scene under the pier. A group of thinbloods were trying to make their way to Brighton Beach aka Little Odessa. One of the group had unsuccessfully tried to Embrace their lover, and now there was a corpse. The thinbloods had heard a rumor that if they could get to “the sauna on Brighton Avenue and kiss Yurgi’s ring” they would be allowed to live in peace in the neighborhood. Ivan immediately shuts down their idea, telling them that it is a lie, there is nothing for them in Little Odessa and that they will be killed if they set foot there. The players do pick up that Shejana had also mentioned kissing Yurgi’s ring, so there’s probably some kernel of truth in the thinbloods’ plan. I let the players take the lead on how this should be handled. Augustus thinks that they should just be allowed to go to Little Odessa, surely they won’t really be killed (Augustus is quite naïve). Thomas is quite the opposite. He wants the thinbloods to show their worth or they will be killed on the spot. One of the thinbloods is an alchemist and is recruited by Ivan. The others are just a bunch of scared and confused fledglings. I let the situation develop until it becomes apparent that Thomas will murder them in cold blood and I, as the GM, felt that I don’t want our story to go there. So Ivan takes control of the situation and tells the thinbloods to get lost, that he won’t be so merciful if he catches them again. As players, we were all satisfied with this resolution and I gave Thomas a stain. One of our chronicle tenets is “Never kill innocents” and while Thomas didn’t kill anyone, he was ready and willing to. And with that scene done, Ivan considers their task complete, so Arturo considers their task complete and sets up a meeting with the former Prince, Calebros, for the next time.
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Aug 24, 2023 09:24
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I don’t have anything to contribute to the ongoing conversation, so here’s another recap from our nightly adventures in New York. The players are investigating two mysteries for a friendly Nosferatu called Cockroach; they need to find out who killed her and who her sire is. They have gained an audition with the former Nosferatu Prince of New York to learn more about her sire, but we didn’t get to that part yet in this session. I wanted to dole out information in a certain order and had the players investigate other clues for a few nights and they even managed to pursue avenues of investigation I had not even prepared for! Luckily I’m pretty good at thinking on my feet, so my players couldn’t differentiate between pre-planned stuff and making stuff up on the spot. As usual, our coterie consists of Augustus the Amish Banu Haqim and Thomas the Triad Tremere. First the coterie wanted to learn more about the mysterious sire, Gerard Rafin. They wanted to search the city archives and probably for the first time in our campaign, did not start the night by hunting for food and could enter an establishment during business hours. Apparently my players had just assumed that they would wake up after business hours and I was glad to inform them that many places are open in the evening, and they don’t always have to do some breaking and entering. I asked them how they would approach the investigation, noting that the archives are large and time is a factor. I let them brainstorm for a moment, trying to deduct and guess how old the records would be. One of them mentioned that Gerard Rafin sounds like a European name, maybe they are an immigrant. This was a hidden modifier that brought the difficulty of the investigation roll down enough that the coterie quite easily found immigration papers for one Gerard Rafin, a tinker who had arrived at Ellis Island from France in the early 1900’s. This doesn’t help them a lot, but it was a nice way to include some local history in our game. So now the coterie knows they are looking for a French Nosferatu. And they already know one French Nosferatu, Uncle Smelly. Now my players are not familiar with the deep lore of VtM, but some of you might know that Uncle Smelly is Gerard Rafin. My players don’t connect the dots, but they want to find Uncle Smelly to inquire if he is familiar with other French Nosferatu. They had previously met Uncle Smelly at a quiet part of Grand Central Station, so that’s where they head to next. Now I can’t have them meet Uncle Smelly yet, that would be too easy, but I don’t want them to investigate a lead and not give them anything, so I quickly come up with a scene where they encounter an actual rat working as basically a security camera. The rat, being either a familiar or directly controlled by another vampire, can’t really communicate and has other things to do besides answering questions. The players try to ask it some simple questions, to which it either nods or shakes its tiny head in response. When the coterie starts asking for information the rat is not comfortable sharing, like the location of Uncle Smelly, the rat decides it’s done answering questions and stops replying. When the players don’t take the hint and keep pestering it, the rat scurries away. The players follow it. Then the rat gently guides them to a taxi. The players get it and keep the door open for the rodent, who then scurries off and the coterie finally understands that the conversation is over. After this my players were stumped on what to do next, since they didn’t have any more clues about Gerard Rafin before the upcoming meeting with Calebros. I gently reminded them that they are not only trying to find Cockroach’s sire, but also trying to find out who killed her and they have plenty of leads on that front. Thanks to previously finding an old newspaper article about the shooting incident where Cockroach was killed, or disappeared since no body was found on the crime scene, they know exactly where it happened. The crime took place in an old crypt in Evergreens Cemetery, so that’s their next destination. They find the crypt, which has had its lock replaced after the shooting, but to their surprise the lock has been picked and the door is open. And inside they find quite the scene. They find an old bullet shell the previous investigation had missed and traces of vampiric Vitae on the shell. One of the tombs is empty and instead there is a tight and collapsed tunnel. The players spend several hours clearing the tunnel to find out it leads to a labyrinthine tunnel network, which the players decide not to investigate further since they have no light sources and would get lost (and I as GM hadn’t even prepared for them to successfully clear the tunnel, so I’m glad I didn’t have to improvise a tunnel network). But the most incriminating detail in the crypt was a massive pentagram, drawn with dried Vitae, several red wax candles, herbs, and a goat skull. This ritual circle was a recent addition, having been made after the shooting incident. Both characters are quite skilled at occult stuff, so while it was not possible to identify the ritual performed here, they learned that it was not because the ritual was obscure, but down to two possibilities. Either whoever performed the ritual was very innovative, combining several ritual traditions into a new one, or a complete novice mixing elements from several rituals without understanding any of them. In either case they could tell the ritual was unsuccessful. And after that we rolled some hunting checks in preparation for the next session and called it for the night. This was a bit shorter session, but things are getting set up and I’m excited to see what happens next time. Next session they will meet the former Prince Calebros! The ritual in the crypt has also introduced a new and unknown element in the mystery! Also, unbeknownst to the players, the FBI Special Affairs Division is about to ramp up their operations. I’ve been rolling what they do off-screen and thanks to contacts and favors the players can see when they roll and how they roll, but not why. During this session, the SAD agents finish the investigation phase and have profiles of the player characters, now they will start to discreetly hinder them.
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Sep 23, 2023 14:08
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Fuzz posted:
After reading these I was not surprised at all to see that one of the authors is Greg Stolze, who also wrote Delta Green. I'm very excited for this book!
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Oct 8, 2023 08:48
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Anyways, here’s another recap. Thanks for all the kind words regarding these! We continue our quest to help a local Nosferatu, Cockroach, to find out who killed her and who turned her into a vampire. As usual, our coterie consists of Augustus the Amish Banu Haqim and Thomas the Triad Tremere. Our night begins with an appointment with Calebros, the former Prince pro tempore of New York. Or more accurately, our night begins with some unsuccessful hunting and the coterie arrives late to their appointment. I copied the details from the old New York by Night book as I described their long trek across the sewers and tunnels under the city, before they met the old Nosferatu. I described a scene of decaying grandeur, Calebros was a monstrous figure dressed in a very sharp late 19th century suit and the players were treated to a fine dinner of roasted rat. Augustus can eat and enjoy regular food, though I reminded him that just because he can eat the rat, nothing will make the experience enjoyable. Thomas has no such advantage and got the old “Spend WP or puke” treatment. Throughout the dinner, the coterie explains to Calebros that they need to find Gerard Rafin. Calebros asks if their request has anything to do with Schrecknet, but the coterie denies this and explains that they suspect Gerard has sired offspring without permission. (The players don’t know this, but Gerard Rafin was one of Schrecknet’s pioneers, so Calebros assumes anyone looking for him is probably interested in vampire internet). Calebros explains his position. He knows who Gerard Rafin is and where he can be found, but if he were to sacrifice a member of Clan Nosferatu, he needs the coterie to perform a favor that helps the clan as a whole. There is a dispute between Clan Nosferatu and the rest of Camarilla about the ownership of New York underground, namely the Nosferatu believe that not just sewers, but metro stations, garages, basements and everything else under the streets belong to them. The Nosferatu are not attending Elysium until the dispute is solved and there are even rumors that the Nosferatu are planning to join the Anarchs. To strengthen their arguments, the Nosferatu are mapping these areas they lay claim to. This is where the players come in. There is an old and abandoned section where Calebros has already sent two Kindred to investigate and they haven’t returned. So now it’s the players turn to clear this abandoned area. Calebros doesn’t know what will await them, but that the players should be prepared for anything from a hunters’ trap to some Old Clan monstrosity or even the actual gates of hell. (This was me trying to give the players a hint that I’m about to throw them a boss battle and they should gear up. Thomas bought one pistol and Augustus believes that diplomacy is an option.) After meeting Calebros the players didn’t really decide on the next course of action, so much as I told them “Guys, could you go investigate the pathological report? Otherwise the order of things you learn gets messed up.” My players are polite and did so. Cockroach’s FBI partner was killed a few years before she was embraced and they have reason to believe this is connected to their current investigation. So the players travel to the city morgue and start brewing galaxy-brained schemes on how to infiltrate the place. Thomas has the obvious predator flaw, has low humanity and is extremely hungry so he needs to be kept away from any mortals. So Augustus sneaks into an adjoining hospital, steals a doctor's coat and a body bag, then Thomas gets in the body bag and is transported to the morgue, pretending to be a corpse while Augustus searches through the archives. So while Augustus is elsewhere, the graveyard shift mortician starts to perform an autopsy on Thomas. The mortician almost immediately notices Thomas’ fangs, and before Thomas has to do a homicide, the mortician informs Thomas that “Miss Zal is not here, there is no business for your kind tonight.” Thomas is so flabbergasted by this turn of events that he meekly obeys and leaves. Meanwhile Augustus has found the pathological report of Cockroach’s partner. They learn that the partner was killed by “four strikes with a paired needle-like weapon which drained the victim of blood.” Or clearly drained by several vampires. There was also a bullet casing containing traces of a dark, blood-like liquid. The casing is of a rare Eastern European caliber. There are also notes from the doctor conducting the autopsy, asking the kinds of questions which tend to lead one to learn that vampires are real, except the case had been turned over to the FBI Special Affairs Division. But now the players have investigated two deaths; the crime scene where Cockroach was murdered and her partner’s autopsy report. Both include bullet casings with traces of vitae, and both bullet casings are Eastern European in caliber. Had they asked around about the more rare caliber, they would have learned that it matches the submachine gun they had previously delivered to the Caitiff Primogen, Ivan Kuthka. But that doesn’t matter, since Ivan is already the coterie’s prime suspect for his involvement in Circulation Inc. and Russian Mafia, and Cockroach was investigating organized human trafficking with links to Russian organized crime prior to her and her partner’s deaths. Next up the players are going to investigate the tunnel labyrinth they found last session in the crypt where Cockroach was killed. And I note that while this would be an odd point to stop the session, end it we will. If the players are determined to investigate those tunnels, as a GM I feel I should give them something interesting to find and right now I’ve got nothing. So that’s it for this time, thank you for reading!
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Oct 8, 2023 22:18
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I’m back with another recap from our adventures in New York. The coterie is still continuing their quest to solve a murder mystery for a friendly Nosferatu, Cockroach. Namely, who killed her and why, and who embraced her. This has turned into a much longer adventure than I originally anticipated, but I’ll try to add context and discoveries from previous sessions when necessary. As usual, our coterie consists of Augustus the Amish Banu Haqim and Thomas the Triad Tremere. First thing of the session is delving into tunnels beneath Evergreens Cemetery. Previously the coterie had discovered that a certain crypt in the cemetery was where Cockroach was shot and killed, and that there was an entrance to a tunnel network hidden in one of the tombs. Previously the tunnel entrance was blocked, but I have since learned that if I give my players a blocked entrance they don’t see it as “Don’t go here, the GM hasn’t prepared any content here” and instead see it as “What mysteries could be hidden here? It must be the most important piece of the puzzle!” And now that I’ve had time to add some content here, they find a room carved into the soil, which apparently has previously functioned as a server room. Neither of my players have any skill points in Tech, but I let them use Investigation with more difficulty to deduce that all the servers have been cleaned, hard drives have been taken out and nothing that contains any data remains. They correctly reason that this must have been an old Schrecknet server room, further cementing a link between the old vampire net and Gerard Rafin (so far the players only know that Gerard is somehow linked to Schrecknet). They continue exploring the tunnels, before a large boulder is rolled ahead of them, blocking further progress. They hear a voice informing the coterie that “You have been snooping around my domain quite enough. Time for you to leave, unless you want to know what it’s like to be immortal and stuck beneath several tons of stone.” This was a demand, not a negotiation. Thomas tried to inquire about the threat's identity and in response the tunnels started to collapse, but the players managed to escape unharmed. After this expedition, the players start considering their next move and show remarkable skill in coming up with clues to follow, especially since I’ve written it so that at this point they only have one lead. I generously fast forward them through some dead ends before they graciously investigate the only actual lead they have. There’s a tunnel that needs investigating. They have a deal with the former Prince, Calebros, who is willing to give them Gerard Rafin if they do something that helps Clan Nosferatu as a whole. The Clan is mapping the underground of NYC and there’s a section where two Sewer Rats have already gone to investigate and have not returned, so it’s time for outsider assistance. This is related to a plot going on in the background about a schism between Clan Nosferatu and Camarilla, where Nosferatu demand all of the underground city should be ruled by them and secluded themselves from Kindred society until the issue is solved. Anyways, the players have a spooky little adventure down the sewers and eventually into an abandoned subway station, finding two piles of ashes (the previously sent Nosferatu) and culminating in an ambush by a Wight. There’s an intense fight, Augustus almost gets got, but they eventually prevail and Augustus diablerizes the Wight. (I couldn’t find any rules or lore to support whether Wights can be diablerized or not, so I ruled that they can be.) After the fight they find a journal, written by the Wight, before succumbing to their beast. It was quite a long handout, but it explained most of the plot. I’ll condense it to the main plot points. There is/was a decades long ritual based on the Major Arcana of the Tarot, focusing on messing with Felicia Page, or as she is nowadays known, Cockroach. It was performed by a Tremere coterie, who don’t seem to know that their victim is now one of the Kindred. The Tremere coterie was also falling apart, since it had become quite clear that the coterie’s leader and master of the ritual didn’t actually know what they were doing. The players recognize from clues that one of the previous ritualists is now in the Maupassant Room, the local Tremere Chantry focused on diplomacy, and the Wight themselves are also a former ritualist. It was getting late, so we wrapped up and will probably check back on this handout. The players should have a pretty clear idea of what’s going on, but there are also a few unanswered questions and leads to follow. That’s it for this session! The players liked the fight against the Wight and asked for more combat encounters in the future, to which I honestly replied that I’d love to give them more combat if only they didn’t eat poo poo every time there’s a fight (my players are very bad at gearing up or picking up combat abilities). Hopefully they’ll remember this in the future, at least Augustus figured out that he can use all the points spent in Craft to make stakes, so that’s something. Also, Augustus is down to just 3 Humanity and is quite likely on the way out. I'll have to reshuffle my planned future adventures around to make sure he is around for the adventures I’ve written for him.
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Nov 21, 2023 00:14
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Your Uncle Dracula posted:Sucking up the blood brain of a guy who went crazy because of his need for blood seems like a questionable decision but I’m sure Augustus knows best. Augustus actually rolled a messy critical on the strike that took the Wight out, so we decided to apply the Banu Haqim compulsion to chow down on his dying adversary. He also was feeling quite hungry and had lost a lot of health. Plus, he usually only feeds on rats and raccoons, so you can't really blame the guy for enjoying a succulent meal for once! 
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Nov 21, 2023 21:49
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I hope you’re ready for recaps from our nightly adventures in New York City. You’re getting two recaps this time, since we played just before Christmas and the day after New Year’s, so I didn’t have time to write a recap between the two sessions. As usual, our coterie consists of Augustus the Amish Banu Haqim and Thomas the Triad Tremere. These are also the last sessions with Augustus, the player had to bow out due to a busy schedule, but luckily our original third player, Benedict the GOP Ventrue, will return next time. So, the coterie is still investigating the murder and embrace a friendly Nosferatu, Cockroach. We’ve reached the part of the plot where pieces start falling into places. Having previously offed a Wight as a favor to the previous Prince, Calebros, the coterie has traveled to the former prince’s court in the sewers to report on their success. Calebros is pleased by their success and holds up his end of the bargain, introducing them to Gerard Rafin (who the coterie knew to be Cockroach’s sire), who turns out to be Uncle Smelly, a familiar and aggressively French Kindred. I will be referring to him as Uncle Smelly, I made a distinction that when meeting Kindred he respects (such as Calebros) he drops the French Nosferatu stereotype act, but with Kindred he doesn’t respect (like the players’ coterie) he is in goblin mode. Uncle Smelly confirms that he is Cockroach’s sire and as far as he is aware she is still staked in an abandoned tunnel for frenzying during her first Hunger and attacking Uncle Smelly, who will not tolerate such disrespect from his childe and staked her until she calms down and learns some manners. Likewise, he will not introduce her to the Court until he deems her ready (Cockroach has had some issues due to this). The coterie also inquire about the possibility of an unlawful embrace, but both Uncle Smelly and Calebros confirm that he had given the permission. Their facts about this permission are a bit too convenient and might have been made up on the spot, but the players have no way of knowing or proving that. Calebros has heard all he has and encourages the coterie and Uncle Smelly to leave and discuss their business privately, which they do. Uncle Smelly is quite displeased after having been summoned and considers this situation a waste of his time. The coterie wants Uncle Smelly to recognise Cockroach and introduce her to the Camarilla Court. We enter social conflict. Luckily my players are good at rolling dice, because unfortunately they are not very good at negotiations. They spout generic “Cockroach is cool and good and doesn’t afraid of anything” lines and try to appeal to the Traditions and a sire’s responsibilities. Uncle Smelly, with an increasing lack of subtlety, wants the coterie to tell him how he, Uncle Smelly, benefits from acknowledging Cockroach. For some reason, my player’s a paranoid bunch and I don’t think I’ve given them that much reason to be so, but they avoid telling Uncle Smelly that Cockroach has contacts within FBI and can get information from the agency (plus all the other skills that come with being a former investigator). I guess they think that mentioning it implies that she gathers information for the coterie which again implies that they are targeted by the Second Inquisition? Eventually they manage to convince Uncle Smelly to recognise Cockroach as his childe and the players have successfully completed the first half of their quest; find out who Cockroach’s sire is. The second part, find out who killed her and why, has some solid info and leads. From Uncle Smelly, they learn that a Tremere coterie was targeting her, back when she was alive, and systematically messing up her life and eventually murdering her. While Uncle Smelly couldn’t stop the Tremere, he embraced Cockroach to.. prevent this? As I’m writing this I realize I didn’t really have a solid answer as to why Uncle Smelly embraced her, but luckily my players didn’t question him about it. I guess messing with Tremere is always a moral good that doesn’t need explaining. They still don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle, so the coterie decides to utilize their contacts and ask the High Regent of Five Boroughs, Aisling Sturbridge, Thomas’ mawla. She doesn’t know who the Tremere coterie in question was and can’t really make sense of the notes from a previous session, describing a ritual based on Major Arcana of the Tarot, so she sends them to the library to study. Now here comes a very important learning experience for me as a GM. If you’re giving your players a puzzle, make sure they understand that it is a puzzle. Also, don’t just assume that they’re using Wikipedia etc. in the background to check up on real life information (I usually do, my players don’t). I had to explain to my players that they were facing a puzzle to figure out which variant of the Tarot was used in the ritual, based on cards mentioned in the notes. But once we were all on the same page, they managed to figure it out and afterwards told me that they enjoyed it, though I feel that in the future I need to make puzzles more obvious. They learned that the Tremere ritualists were using the Aleister Crowley variant, and were aware that this might cause some friction with Aisling Sturbridge, who has a negative history with Crowley and who couldn’t interpret this as anything but blatant disrespect. Still, she couldn’t do anything without actual names, the players only knew the pseudonyms the ritualists had used. Aisling told the coterie to find out the names and return to her so the issue could be resolved in house. There is still one more lead they hadn’t investigated. The notes had mentioned that one of the ritualists had left to join “the hotel” which the players correctly deduce meant Maupassant Room, a Tremere chantry handling the clan’s diplomatic affairs, and Mila, a Tremere working as the assistant there and who they were already familiar with. So they confronted her. She claimed ignorance, but was not a very good liar, and very soon folded under pressure. She explained that she had indeed been part of a Tremere coterie, who had performed a ritual on an innocent mortal and that each phase of the ritual was based on Major Arcana. She had left the coterie once the fall of the Pyramid severed Blood Bond to the coterie leader, since it was clear that the ritual did absolutely nothing and was purposeless. Mila was also willing to sell out her two remaining former coterie mates in exchange for the journal detailing the ritual, the only piece of evidence tying her to the act. Mila was in a desperate spot and the coterie managed to persuade a Major Boon in addition to Mila destroying the journal right here and now. Mila was not too pleased with this coercion, but had to agree and gave the names as well as the location of their haven. So now the coterie has solved the second part of the mystery, finding out who killed Cockroach and why. Before they give this information to Cockroach though, Thomas is a Clan loyalist through and through and they return Aisling Sturbridge with this information. The High Regent takes the names and informs the coterie that they will be “taking a trip to Vienna”, meaning that they will not be seen again. Thomas assumes this means they will be killed, I’ll have to remind him at some point that the elites are not in the habit of killing other elites. Aisling is also aware who the players are doing this for and asks them to find a politically suitable scapegoat, since this issue will be solved in house. Thomas is naturally fine with this and starts thinking of suitable victims. Augustus, a man of ever fading morals, is not fine with this, but Aisling is not willing to listen to the opinions of a Banu Haqim within a Tremere Chantry. So the crew returns to Cockroach to cash in the quest and Augustus immediately blurts out the names of her killers, their location and that Aisling is about to get rid of them. Cockroach is thankful and promises to hold up her end of their agreement (get even more info from the FBI Special Affairs Division) but right now she is in a hurry if she intends to confront her murderers before the High Regent’s clean up crew. We later learn that she was not successful in this, as the Tremere have access to portals across the city and Cockroach has only access to an old beat up VW minivan. Anyways, that’s it for the first session and now onto the next one! This time we returned to the task of contacting various Banu Haqim Kindred in the city. Originally this was to influence them towards Augustus’ morals and pacifism, but when the player wasn’t feeling his chosen ambition we decided to postpone it. And since this would be the last session Augustus was present, I felt it would be polite to finish running the adventure I had written specifically for him. We just changed the goal to a more generic networking, instead of pushing ideologies. Before the coterie contacts anyone the evening starts with hunting, as usual. Thomas’ player had been studying the rulebooks and had decided to expand his palette, adding skill points to hunt local criminals like a blood-scuking Batman. I was glad that a player had shown such initiative, but I was slightly concerned because I had been preparing a trap for him, based on his usual habit of buying blood bags. Lucky for me, unlucky for Thomas, he completely whiffed his hunting rolls, and I hinted that he could still try his usual method if he wanted to. Thomas took the bait, rolled to source some blood bags and whiffed again. So I gave him a devil's bargain. I informed him that the local blood supply has lowered and prices have risen, but his usual contact is willing to sell him more blood bags than usual on credit. So he would get more blood than usual, but he would be in debt to some shady undetermined people. What could go wrong? Probably a lot, but Thomas’ player thankfully understands that sensible people making sensible choices makes for a dull game and he takes the deal. Unbeknownst to the players, behind the scenes the FBI Special Affairs Division has taken control of this blood market, controlling the supply and eventually poisoning the blood they are selling. After that it was time to travel to Harlem, where they would meet an enigmatic Mr. Armstrong, who according to local legend took care of problems in the neighborhood. Or more specifically, they met with a coterie operating behind the name. These were a Nation of Islam Banu Haqim and a Black Panther Brujah. While the Banu Haqim was not willing to listen to the younger vampires coming to his neighborhood to tell him how things should be, the Brujah was more inclined to a dialogue. The players had caught on to how these meetings had gone previously and asked if there was something they could do to help them. And as usual, there was a quest available for them. A new dangerous drug, Red Mist, had been introduced to the neighborhood and the Mr. Armstrong coterie hadn’t managed to stop its spread. So they asked the players to find who was manufacturing the drug and to put an end to it. If they could do it while adhering to Augustus’ pacifist tendencies, even better. Thomas has quite a lot of points in Streetwise, so figuring out the local drug scene was easy. Red Mist was described as “You know how PCP makes you think you have superpowers? Red Mist actually gives you superpowers!” It was distributed by just one local gang, who received stock just before sunrise. These details were enough to rouse suspicion that the manufacturers were probably Kindred, or at least closely affiliated. They tracked down the manufacturers’ hideout in an apartment building and here’s what happened. The coterie knocks on the door. Dubstep blaring in the apartment is turned down, but the door doesn’t open. They knock again. They hear whispered arguments from within about who should open the door. Eventually the door is opened. “I have come to tell you about…” Augustus starts, but is cut off with “We’re not interested in Jesus, thanks” and the door is shut. They keep knocking on the door. The door stays closed, until Thomas asks loudly if the occupants would prefer dealing with them or with Sheriff Qadir. Some “oh shits” and “oh fucks” can be heard, before the door is opened again and the coterie is rushed in. Inside the apartment is a thinblood lab. Ingredients are ranging from metal shavings and Mtn Dew to stolen chemicals and two unconscious mortal blood donors. The occupants are two young thinbloods, who are openly displaying their Crescent Moon brands and exclaiming that they are registered, so the player coterie is not allowed to kill them on sight. The coterie wants the thinbloods to shut down the operation, but the thinbloods don’t have many talents or resources and need some way to pay the bills. So they try to bribe the players with vampiric Vitae in a bag. Unfortunately this “primo poo poo” raises just more questions. Thomas inspects the bag and figures out that this is Fritae, or fraudulent Vitae. It is a good fake, but still a fake. The coterie comes to the conclusion that these thinbloods are in a tough spot, have questionable morals but are unquestionably skilled. So they convince the thinbloods to come work for Mr. Armstrong. The Mr. Armstrong coterie is skeptical of the alchemists, but turns out that they knew the thinbloods’ grandparents back in the day and agree to hire them, especially after the players espoused their skills (though deciding not to mention the Fritae business, letting the thinbloods have some ace up their sleeves). Mr. Armstrong coterie thanked the players and now owe them a Boon. Finally on the list of contacts was a Lawman in Yonkers. Yonkers has been mentioned in our chronicle as a sort of grey area when it comes to Kindred governance, which is not based on municipal district lines but on city/wilderness lines. Borrowing from L.A. by Night, it’s not New York, but it’s not not New York. I had allowed the players to choose freely in which order to approach each possible contact and it is a shame they saved this one from last, since this one was the most openly hostile towards them. This Lawman was over two centuries old and his morals were dictated by the call of his clan’s blood to punish those most deserving it (ie. other Kindred). He barely tolerated the presence of Thomas from the clan of usurpers who had stolen and defiled Blood Magic. He was utterly unimpressed with Augustus apparently refusing his sacred duty as dictated by their shared heritage. Through the conversation it becomes apparent that the Lawman’s favored feeding on other Kindred, and when politely asked about it, he replied “Be mindful of your implications. If I am what you imply I am, that would make me very, very dangerous. Someone you should be careful with.” Through the conversation Thomas had also let it slip that Augustus is a diablerist, which initially scored some points with the Lawman, though he was soon disappointed that these were more chance encounters and less planned assassinations, and that Augustus hadn’t positioned himself in the Camarilla to use his talents to eliminate those most deserving of punishment. Basically, the Lawman is secretly an Ur-Shulgi cultist, though the players don’t know enough of VtM lore to know that. The meeting is ended shortly, the players didn’t even have a chance to ask if the Lawman had a quest for them (and the Lawman would have basically asked what the gently caress could some weak fledglings to do for him). And we ended the session with a brief epilogue, since this was Augustus’ last game. I revealed that I had been rolling dice for the SAD everytime Augustus was hunting, though since the players always start the night hunting these rolls looked a lot like start-of-session rolls. Earlier I had rolled for Hunting Pattern Recognition, since a Kindred feeding solely on animals in a small area has a noticeable impact on the vermin population. They had also received a vague Malkavian vision warning of this. The previous couple of sessions the SAD had moved on to surveillance devices at places Augustus frequents, which he had failed to spot. So sometime after this game session, a SWAT team working for the Special Affairs Division ambushes Augustus and despite resisting, he is eventually staked, thrown into a lead-lined coffin and shipped off to Langley for studies. Finally I’m ending this recap with a bit of behind the scenes stuff. I had originally planned to run this campaign with four players. Unfortunately one of the players dropped off after a demo game to learn the basics of the system and the setting. Benedict has been on a hiatus for a year, and while he is returning, Augustus is stepping down. So I’ve run the game with two players less than I’ve preferred for a year and seem to be doing so for the foreseeable future. Plus Thomas’ player is itching to change his character, so I would soon find myself in a situation where the player characters have nothing connecting them to the previous year’s worth of games, and we’d have to play again the phase where we get connect the characters to the world, make friends, enemies, debts and so on. After thinking over it I decided that it’s time to bring this campaign to a close. So we are about to enter VtM: Endgame and things will escalate. I informed my players of this and they were very understanding. I might start a new campaign with the same setting at a later date, since I’ve done most of the groundwork already and have many unused plot hooks. But I’ve run the game for over two years now and still have some months left, making probably the longest campaign I’ve ever run and I’m very pleased with it.
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Jan 12, 2024 19:40
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Here’s another recap from our game. This is a short one, since we had a returning player and spent most of the session recapping notable events and characters. From now on, our coterie consists of Thomas the Triad Tremere and Benedict the GOP Ventrue. We start in media res, before Benedict’s player has been given any information of what has been going on during the time he’s been away. Thomas has received a task from Benedict’s sire to investigate a certain apartment and retrieve his property and we begin our game with Thomas having found Benedict staked and dumped in a freezer in a basement, and after removing the stake Benedict is groggy, hungry, and has no idea what is going on. Turns out the rumors about him joining the Anarchs or traveling to Mexico were untrue. The coterie has no time to exchange pleasantries as they hear police sirens outside and need to escape. They swiftly escape the ambush and as the encircling police approach, a black van stops in front of the coterie. A certain Ken Vincent opens the door and encourages the coterie to get in, since they have an appointment. This is the first time they’ve heard of any appointment, but the player’s obliged. Thomas is familiar with Vincent, who introduces himself to Benedict and assumes that the Ventrue will negotiate on behalf of his coterie. Vincent explains that Benedict’s coterie has caused financial and emotional distress to his sire and client, the Malkavian Primogen, and that Vincent has been tasked with causing grievous harm to the players. To expedite this, he would like the coterie to list property, personnel and other assets they would not like to come to harm. Benedict’s player really enjoyed this scene of negotiation without any knowledge of his situation and the players handled it surprisingly well. They managed to lie and gave Vincent their old Haven (which they have very recently moved out of, because it was compromised) and two the Tremere who were the culprits of their previous investigation (and have recently been disappeared). Eventually their bluffing skills failed them and Vincent activated Dementation and filled the characters’ subconsciousness with an anxiety-inducing amount of excel sheets, contracts, accounting data, etc. (In comparison, when they previously experienced Vincent’s sire’s Dementation, their heads were filled with scenes of blood and violence.) After this, Ken Vincent checked the time and concluded the appointment, the van stopped and the coterie was dropped off in the middle of Central Park, a place where you are not supposed to drive. And that was it for this session!
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Jan 19, 2024 15:54
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Hello again, I’m back with another recap from our New York game. It’s another completely social session with plots and rumors in the Elysium. This session was split into two parts. First half is basically a cutscene with minimal player input, the second half is completely player driven. As usual, our coterie consists of Thomas the Triad Tremere and Benedict the GOP Ventrue. The night begins in the Art Hole, an art gallery and the only Camarilla Elysium in New York City. Cockroach is being formally introduced to the court and properly inducted to Camarilla. Uncle Smelly, Cockroach’s sire, tags along with the player characters, since they are the reason Uncle Smelly has recognised Cockroach as his Childe. He also provides some political commentary on the goings on of the court. This induction is quite quick and simple, especially compared to what the player coterie went through way back. The only wrinkle is that the Prince names Bedford Avenue subway station as Cockroach’s domain. Cockroach had already claimed the station under an agreement with the players, since it was in their territory, but now the Prince was subverting local agreements to create local schisms. This was on purpose. Luckily Cockroach and the players have amicable relations and this doesn’t cause any issues. After this, Portia addresses the court. She is the leader of a neighboring coterie, the same one that Cockroach is a part of, and she is a young Kindred who runs a nightclub. Portia requests that the court considers her application to become the new Keeper of Elysium, to replace the missing Katherine Weiss (who hasn’t been relevant in our game, but in the lore she is several centuries older than she claims to be and has succumbed to the Beckoning). The Prince is not keen on this request, but grants Portia the chance to address the audience. Portia refuses this chance and instead requests that the Primogen Council votes on the matter. The Primogen Council votes, and while several Primogens vote with the Prince out of loyalty, several Primogens who have traditionally been close to the Prince and supported the existing balance of power, have switched sides and voted for Portia. Majority of the Primogens back Portia, and the Prince names her as the new Keeper. The balance of power has shifted. With the assembled audience pondering what this soft-coup means for the Prince and what happens now, I have run out of prepared material and the players are free to do as they wish. The first order of business is to make contact with Benedict’s sire, Leonard Tarasov, to let him know that Benedict is back and ready to serve his clan. Tarasov asks Thomas, “Benedict’s doctor”, if he has checked Benedict’s body to make sure no tracking devices have been implanted in him. The player’s hadn’t even considered this possibility, but are immediately paranoid as gently caress, and wonder if they should leave, but Tarasov explains to them that if they have compromised the Elysium when all of the local Camarilla leadership has gathered there, the coterie will be the first ones to die. They quickly drop in the back rooms to perform an examination and find nothing. Tarasov is pleased that his asset has been returned to him uncompromised. After this there were a few shorter scenes. Congratulations were offered to Portia and her coterie, any questions as to how she managed to pull this off were answered with “You don’t wait for opportunities, you take opportunities” and a Premonition was received from a friendly Malkavian as to how to deal with that clan’s Primogen, who was actively trying to harm the players. Aisling Sturbridge also informed Thomas that he was now banned from the chantry at Barnard College, since unwelcome guests were following in his footsteps. Thomas assumed this meant the FBI Special Affairs Division, but secretly this also includes Carter Vanderweyden, the Malkavian Primogen, and his people. Speaking of Carter, Benedict decided to give diplomacy a chance and approached him. Since Benedict personally hadn’t caused any offense, he reasoned that he could make amends on behalf of his coterie. Now, this is Elysium, and in public Carter is the kindest and friendliest Kindred there is, far from the psychopath who wanted to cut off the players’ limbs. So Benedict’s efforts to negotiate some sort of peace deal was unsuccessful, but he did end up promising to bring some sort of surprise gift to Carter in six days. I love it when players create quests and add time limits for themselves, makes my task as a GM much easier! And that’s it for this session!
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Feb 12, 2024 19:05
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Hello again! It’s me, back with another recap from our New York City campaign. It’s a bit shorter this time, as a lot of time was spent on planning stuff, since I’m a kind GM who doesn’t like interrupting the players’ brainstorming (although I am also a rude GM who frequently reminds them that there will always be unknowns that make their plans useless and it is a waste of time). As usual, our coterie consists of Thomas the Triad Tremere and Benedict the GOP Ventrue. The coterie has some trouble heading their way, as well as some personal business they want to take care of. They are aware that they are being followed, but Benedict wants to reconnect with his mortal family, having been staked in a fridge for the past few months. So Benedict travels to New Jersey where his family lives, while Thomas follows him from a distance, to see if he can spot someone following Benedict. And indeed Benedict is being followed by two non-descript businessmen, one of whom Thomas recognises works for Ken Vincent. Ken Vincent is the childe of the Malkavian Primogen, and has informed the coterie that he has been tasked with causing grievous harm to them. So Thomas shoots a text message to Benedict about the situation and Benedict returns to their haven, not wanting to risk his family. The two stalkers set up a stake-out spot in a nearby cafe and the players ponder how to deal with this. As previously established, they were aware that they were being followed, but had assumed that it was the FBI Special Affairs Division and this was a grim reminder that they are on more than one shitlist. At this point one Walter Nash drops by for a visit. Nash was the focus of the very first adventure we played in the campaign and has been featured occasionally thereafter. He is in Camarilla’s periphery, a social outcast trying to reform himself, but also openly opposes the current Prince due to sexism. He is a terrible person, but also considers the player characters friendly. And with the soft-coup in the previous session, he feels that it is time for action. The Prince has clearly lost the backing of the Primogen Council, now it is to show that Prince Panhard can’t protect her assets. And what better way to do that than burn down a gallery she owns (for a vampire, Nash is quite comfortable with arson, and he has connections to the fire department to make sure firefighters don’t arrive in time). Nash assumes the players will join him in this. Which is clearly a bad idea, but it could also be an opportunity. The players promise to get back to him and spend the rest of the session figuring out a plan and visiting associates for advice. Specifically they drop by Massif Bass Central, the newest Elysium in the city and the one run personally by Portia, the new Keeper of Elysium. Portia is not there tonight personally, as she has to make sure the other Elysiums are running smoothly and to pay back debts accrued to make her the Keeper. But her coterie mates are there, who are not aware of Nash or his plans, nor are they intending to escalate any conflicts in the city. They suggest the coterie talk to Uncle Smelly, who would most likely be able to answer the player’s questions. Uncle Smelly, also at the club, is willing to talk to the players, and boasts a golden VIP pass to this club, which the player coterie gave him a few months ago. Uncle Smelly still doesn’t like or respect the player characters, but he dislikes them less than most other Kindred, so he is willing to explain to them how the game of politics is played and what moves have been made. In our campaign, there has been a conflict in the background between the Clan Nosferatu and Camarilla, with Nosfetatus demanding that all of the underground belong to their clan. There have even been rumours that the Clan is about to defect to the Anarchs. Uncle Smelly explains to them that if they defected to the Anarchs, they’d just be one defecting clan among many. Now they are the one clan who didn’t defect, and can demand frequent compensation for their loyalty. In exchange for supporting Portia’s bid, they’ve received Madison Square as an Elysium. So, for now, the conflict is resolved, the Clan has gained something they didn’t have before and it didn’t cost them anything. The player’s don’t mention Nash or his plans (since it would look bad to be associated with him) but manage to pry that Uncle Smelly has no desire to see the Prince Panhard replaced, he prefers a middling Prince who keeps most of the riff-raff in check but can’t interfere with stronger, subtler Kindred plans. The players considered if they should ask Benedict’s sire, Tarasov, for advice, but I had to inform them that it is getting late, I’d like to see this situation solved before we end this session and that they’ve asked a lot of NPC’s for advice, I’d like for them to make a decision on their own instead of indirectly asking the GM for a solution. They knew Nash’s proposition was bad, but tried to find some angle for benefit, even suggesting to lure Ken Vincent’s agents into the fire, because it would make the Malkavian Primogen look bad, if his childe’s ghouls were kind of involved in anti-Prince activities. Maybe. Eventually they decided to inform the authorities, aka Sheriff Qadir al-Asmai, that Nash was planning an attack on the Prince’s property. Qadir responded that they are not the first source he’s heard about this from (letting the player’s know that they dodged a huge bullet!), now they have enough information to act on. Prince Panhard wastes no time invoking Lex Talionis and calling a Blood Hunt for Walter Nash’s destruction. Prince Panhard thanks the players for their information and expects them to participate, but gives them nothing. And that was our previous session. I was fully prepared to let the players roll with Nash (and I let the players know this). This would have led to a lot of trouble. The players were not the only source Qadir had for Nash’s plans, Nash’s own coterie had sold him out. So instead of two coteries burning down a property, it would have been Nash and the players ambushed by Sheriff Qadir, Prince Panhard, and their goons. Bullet dodged.
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Mar 6, 2024 13:41
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Hello, here’s the final recap of our NYC campaign, which has after two years reached its conclusion. Thank you to everyone who has read and enjoyed these recaps. As usual, our coterie consists of Thomas the Triad Tremere and Benedict the GOP Ventrue. Previously, the coterie promised a vague surprise gift to the Malkavian Primogen, Carter Vanderweyden, in order to make peace between them and the deadline is fast approaching. Also a Blood Hunt was called for one Walter Nash for seditious activities against the Prince, with the player coterie having informed the Prince of Nash’s intentions. We skipped through the following night and Nash is destroyed off-screen, since we have more important matters to focus our limited playtime on. The coterie is meeting with the Nosferatu Cockroach, a frequent ally, who is providing the coterie information on the activities of the FBI's Special Affairs Division, who in turn are hunting the coterie. Cockroach has learned that they are working with local politicians to gentrify the coterie’s domain to make hunting and feeding more difficult for them. She has some documents to prove this and provide more details, but as she enters her VW minibus/mobile haven to retrieve said documents, all hell breaks loose. A large caliber incendiary round is shot into the van, fired by an unseen sniper, and the van is immediately engulfed in flames, destroying everything inside, including Cockroach. A SWAT van bursts into the scene and deploys four fully armed and armored agents. The players decide it’s best to skedaddle, but not before Benedict takes some damage from flaming Dragon’s Breath rounds from a shotgun, letting the vampires know that these are professional hunters. They manage to escape the hunters, but are followed by a robotic dog-drone as well as a helicopter with searchlights. Some tense running and hiding ensues, but eventually the players take a trip through the sewers and manage to lose their pursuers. But they are not yet in the clear. I tell Thomas to make a Sense the Unseen check, which he unfortunately fails, and does not notice the Malkavian Ken Vincent until he has sunk his meat cleaver into Thomas’ shoulder. Ken Vincent had been tasked with causing grievous harm to the players, and it’s clear that’s why he is there. As a fun little metagame detail with Ken Vincent, I specifically mentioned that since he is a dull businessman with no variables, he will be using general difficulties and never roll a die. Thomas is not very good at melee combat, and Benedict is not good at any combat, but they manage to hold their own for a while, until Ken Vincent checks his watch, mutters “I will not do overtime” and rouses to increase all difficulties. One more round of combat and Thomas finds himself impaired, at which point Ken Vincent informs them that grievous harm has been caused and his task is complete, he hopes that the coterie is satisfied with his results and is open for future business inquiries, before disappearing into the night. The coterie has survived for now, but it’s clear that their enemies are close and they will need help. They decide to visit the city’s newest Elysium to inform the local coterie, Culture Club, and Uncle Smelly of the final death of their coterie mate and childe. Since Cockroach died doing a task the players had given her and the players are quite open about this, neither Culture Club nor Uncle Smelly can be convinced that this isn’t the players’ fault. Uncle Smelly reminds them that Clan Nosferatu is known for holding grudges and even if it takes years, decades, or even centuries, there will be payback. Culture Club, and their leader Portia, the new Keeper of the Elysium, has difficulties understanding how the players are even alive if they get their asses handed to them by their dinner (since most Kindred are not aware how strong actual state-backed hunters are). The players also consider that it’s polite to inform that these hunters are monitoring the club, because they monitor places the coterie frequents. For some reason, Portia is not delighted to learn that the players have led hunters to her Elysium. Before she has a chance to further berate the players, an employee of hers informs her that the Elysium has uninvited guests. This does not concern Portia, (who may or may not be that Portia), she will take care of it and make sure the hunters become permanent guests in the secret dungeons. Though she does attempt to wipe the player character’s memory of these details (she has a lot of dice), Benedict manages to resist but Thomas leaves with no memory other than the situation is under control. They are then politely encouraged to enjoy what the Elysium has to offer but not to linger. Both of them try to feed from Blood Dolls. Thomas has the Obvious Predator Flaw and no social skills, so no one agrees to let him feed on them. Benedict managed to messy crit his roll, completely draining a Blood Doll and causing a huge mess, but with an amazing social roll managed to turn this homicide into a minor faux pas, he was even given a new set of clothes to replace those stained by blood. So, the players are in a bit of a pickle. Their enemies are closing in and their number of allies is decreasing. While pondering their next move, Thomas is still hungry has to hunt. His new habit of Batman-style assaulting local petty criminals for sustenance fails, but he still has his old habit of blood bags to fall back upon. Unfortunately the prices are rising and with some terrible rolls, he ends up in even more debt to the unknown faction currently controlling the local Blood Trade. Even more unfortunate is that afterwards he is feeling sluggish and the constant hunger is even more nagging than usual. As a doctor, Thomas manages to diagnose that he is suffering from heavy metal poisoning, caused by the suspect blood bags he drank. The players continue to ponder their next moves. They are desperate. Even leaving the city and trying to outlive their opposition is considered. But it’s clear to me that they have forgotten that they had promised to deliver something and the time is up. A black SUV parks in front of their haven and the Malkavian Primogen, Carter Vanderweyden, his childe Ken Vincent, and two armed ghouls enter. Carter asks the coterie “I believe you promised to deliver me a surprise?” And with that cliffhanger ends our session and our campaign. I hope you have enjoyed these recaps and thanks again to everyone who read them! Time for me to go back to lurking
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Mar 27, 2024 23:16
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Soonmot posted:Oh man, that is a hell of an ending! Are we to assume they lived through the malk's disappointment? We didn't actually speculate on that when we wrapped up the campaign. The disappointed Malkavian has been the major antagonist of our campaign, starting with demanding the coterie to cut off their own limbs as compensation for disrespect, and since then the coterie has continued to not offer any reparations for their rude behaviour, so Carter has not only sent his henchmen to beat up the coterie and mess up their property, he has also spread malicious rumors to socially isolate the coterie. Also a major theme of our campaign was the players characters being naïve, overwhelmed, and constantly hosed over. I'd say it's safe to assume the coterie is not seen again.
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Mar 28, 2024 19:25
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