Dramatis Personae
- Adelphin “Adel” Jean-Baptiste (played by L.A.): Godling of Werethekau and Baron Samedi. Machiavellian meddler. Power unto herself. Adelphin can kill with a glance, manipulate magic as if she were born to it (and she was), and doesn’t seem to be able to actually die. Tagline: “There is a fine line between life and death – cross me and find out.”
- Liam O’Shea (Played by Randy H.): Demigod Scion of Dagda. A huge, powerful, and deadly warrior. A druid and generally a likable guy. Taught the old ways and but is comfortable with the modern. He’s traveled much of the world and is looking to see even more. Tagline: “I told you I wouldn’t fit.”
- Mitzidu Ito (played by Rory F.): Godling of Inari and Kojin. The teams business guru, event planner, and entertainer. Tagline: “Hearth is the heart of the home, food is the soul of the community”.
- Suveer Patel (played by Christian G.): Demigod of Ganesh. Martial artist and student of a thousand styles, Suveer is one of the team’s upfront fighter with fists or his gada (mace). He can get past any obstacle put before him. Tagline: “You are in front of me and no obstacle can stop me. Find a better place to be.”
- Yannis Papadopoulos aka The Courier (Played by Chris D): Godling of Arke and Harpocrates. The team’s sneaker and postman. If you see him, it’s already too late, your package has already been delivered. Tagline: “The thirty minutes or less policy is for those that like to live dangerously.”
- Chad “The Chad” H. Ramirez (NPC): Demigod of Cupid. Surferbro. Good guy. Not really a great combatant. Guess he’ll die. Tagline: “Whoa.”
- Cosmos aka The Management (Adelphin’s Ally): Cat and hotel manager. No, really. He’s got keys to everywhere, but is still a cat. Tagline: *Forgets to cat*.
- Rui Qui (Adelphin’s Ally): Theogenic Demigod. Hacker, magician, and entrepreneur. The team’s backup fighter and sneaker. Tagline: “Reality is just another simulation to be hacked.”
- Siv (NPC): Demigod of unknown parentage. Not a big talker. Doesn’t understand modern-day and was obviously raised in another dimension. Tagline: “. . .”
Previously . . .
The morning after the party, Mitzidu and Adelphin get information from others in town that there’s a Thule Society lodge in town. Apparently Adelphin had some run-ins with them in the past during World War II. They’re one of the most powerful Black Lodge in existence, a world-wide threat but they’re also fractured. The leader is whomever is the most powerful person at the time, though if there’s a moment of weakness then there could be an easy exchange of leadership. Apparently while the party was occurring at the Karnival Resort, someone had kidnapped a few other demigods and tortured them but escaped along with Golden Hind blood and a lot of information of other demigods around. The Golden Hind blood was something horrible, the last Hind purportedly killed over a century ago and it’s one of the only things that can kill a god outside of a Great Harrowing.
Tossed Salad and Scrambled Egg Blues
Adelphin Jean-Baptiste, Liam O’Shea, Mitzidu Ito, Suveer Patel, & Yannis Papadopoulos
Karnival Resort Hotel and Casino
Saturday January 14th, 2012, 1000 hours
3500 Paradise Rd, Las Vegas, NV 89169
Adelphin moves to help Siv acclimate to her new residence, she seems to believe that she’s only there for a small time and then will be going home again. Exploring her surroundings, it seems obvious that she hasn’t been out and about in the mortal world for too long and she’s fascinated regarding the view from the penthouse room.
Mitzidu and Liam get together and practice sparring between each other since there’s a Harrowing going on soon enough, Mitzidu arranges the conditions with Adelphin and suggests some of her employees come join in or some other divine beings and wards like Suveer. They debate on where to hold the sparring, at Mitzidu’s facilities or inside the hotel, but they still set things up so that they can get others coming in if they want, in this case only one other employee shows up, a male demigod of Cupid of middling skill, Chad Ramirez. With Suveer informing the group that they’d be there later since he’s got to watch a training video at their job first.
They meet up in the lobby where they’re getting together before heading for Mitzidu’s compound, Chad being rather whoa about everything, saying that he’d heard that Mitzidu was some kind of kung fu master and was looking forwards towards learning it since the only thing he knew was a sword, wielding something that’s obviously magical. He’s not that great, claiming that he’s more of a lover than a fighter.
They take one of Mitzidu’s personal limos towards the compound. Chad is dancing along with music inside his head and Liam goes to check out to see if there’s anything on the radio that wouldn’t sync up with Chad’s dancing.
Vampire Watermelons
Suveer Patel
Sigma Mart #23
Saturday January 14th, 2012, 1030 hours
3215 S Rancho Dr #100, Las Vegas, NV 89102
Suveer gets to the job and gets stopped by his manager who tells him they need to deal with some watermelons since they’re migrating again. He manages to get all of the watermelons, including vampire watermelons, back to where they can get purchased by people, even shrink wrapping the vampire watermelons so they won’t bite people. While finishing wrangling things, one of the chickens manages to break free from its packaging and starts bouncing around like a jackalope. It’s only a few more bits of weirdness before he gets off the job and heads towards Mitzidu’s compound.
Iccccce Creammmmmmm
Adelphin Jean-Baptiste & Yannis Papadopoulos
Various
Saturday January 14th, 2012, 1130 hours
The Las Vegas Strip
Yannis, meanwhile, makes sure to contact his fixer, Jim that the job was completed successfully the previous night with flying colours, or at least without bloodshed and with discretion. Double checking the girl from the previous night, whose name is Auriol Chambliss, detecting that she hasn’t moved from her room, breaking through protective wards, she might still be asleep and there’s that awkward 24 hour thing about calling someone that gave you their number before seeming needy. With no more jobs, he gets recruited to drive around Adelphin and Siv while they go shopping, regretfully donning the chauffeur cap on top of his casual clothing.
A couple minute later, they’re speaking with Siv in Old Norse, explaining where the cats that pull the car comes from and joking with them. She’s excited to see all the clothing and the whereabouts and the stores, excited to find someone that speaks her language and picks out a large wardrobe and saddles Yannis with a large number of bags. For some reason, Siv has taken quite a shine to Yannis and is asking him questions with him responding, she knows that she’s the daughter of Odin but doesn’t know more about her mother, just that she was a warrior. Not knowing how to respond to that, he instead changes the subject and suggests getting some ice cream, they aren’t sure where she’s putting it all away, overall, they spend a couple hours to get their food.
Sparring and Kung Fu
Liam O’Shea, Mitzidu Ito, & Suveer Patel
Mitzidu’s Residence
Saturday January 14th, 2012, 1200 hours
9511 Kings Gate Ct, Las Vegas, NV 89145
Mitzidu talks to Chad and Suveer about what is going on with the Harrowing, about how duels work and how things are supposed to happen. Chad is able to recite the Compact rote from memory and is excited to show off their ability with a sword but accidently nicks their hand causing a lot of blood to shoot out, Mitzidu immediately moves to treat the demigod, immediately stopping the blood. They move into the sparring grounds and use wooden swords against each other.
Liam approaches Chad and starts trying to teach him some basic moves with the sword while Suveer tries to teach them the ways of the fist. Chad takes to the sword like a lover to the bed alongside the fist techniques, Chad is already showing amazing potential as an archer. Mitzidu is really trying to give him a good shot at staying alive, but also throwing them information about the lodges. Telling them about the Thule Society and that they’re in town, giving a bit of hyperbole that they tried to kill a group of gods the previous night. With training over, they move back into the kitchens and cooking food while Liam casts a spell to help Mitzidu’s garden grow faster. A quick sparring contest between Liam and Mitzidu results with Mitzidu coming out on top, just barely though Suveer comes out even better. Chad is improving strangely fast.
Lady In Trouble, Lady in Red
Yannis Papadopoulos
MGM Hotel and Resort
Saturday January 14th, 2012, 1300 hours
3799 S Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, NV 89109
Everything has taken about four hours total and Adelphin has spoken with Yannis about the Thule Society while the others head back towards the Karnival Hotel. Yannis checks again and Auriol still hasn’t moved according to his powers. He moves into the MGM and detects danger on the other side of the door. He moves to stealthily investigate, doing some object reading on the door investigating what’s been going on. He sees Auriol moving in the past to the other side of the door, an obfuscation shield pops up and he powers through it. He sees her open the briefcase but can’t quite witness the interior before the scent of the sea fills the air.
She gets into an argument with the men at the door, their faces blurred against his powers, something higher powered than him was shielding them, but the scent is near unmistakable. She slams the door in his face and the blurred figure breaks through, destroying the door. She’s beaten, she’s tied to a chair and beaten and interrogated. The briefcase delivered last night was loaded up and taken by the man, and as they left the door was rebuilt on the way out. Seeing nothing else, Yannis breaks into the room and dodges as his danger sense triggers, an invisible field emits itself from the door outwards into the hallway. Inside, he can see Auriol tied to the chair, he knocks on the door and announces himself with “Candygram.”
Back at the MGM, Yannis checks out for other traps, finding only a small bag with nothing else. He tosses it onto her lap and opens a rainbow tunnel towards Karnival, not even bothering to untie her from the chair, just dragging her through the tunnel with him.
Drowning in the Desert
Adelphin Jean-Baptiste, Liam O’Shea, Mitzidu Ito, Suveer Patel & Yannis Papadopoulos
Karnival Resort Hotel and Casino
Saturday January 14th, 2012, 1330 hours
3500 Paradise Rd, Las Vegas, NV 89169
Back at Karnival, Chad has been following Mitzidu and Liam around trying to imitate everything they do, seeing them as role models. Adelphin and Siv get together, eating more sugar and she gets dressed as a normal small girl and leads her around the hotel so she can see all the fun parts of the French Quarter that she’d imitated below the hotel itself, where it’s still child friendly. Thankfully the imitation Mardi Gras only gets really raunchy late at night. She starts planning dinner for the night.
Yannis, encountering the hotel management with a keycard in its mouth, obviously there to lead them to the small clinic they’ve got. He asks her to tell Adelphin what’s going on while he gets her set up. Another second later, she’s got Mitzidu and Suveer to take over dinner while she gets to the clinic. There she’s informed that it looks like Auriol’s body was just filled with sea water, not in her lungs but in her body and she’s being drained of the excess saline and salt. Adelphin checks her out, noticing that she’s obviously cursed by something or someone, using aetheric powers to curse her.
Adelphin looks over her, trying to come up with a spell against her to help rehydrate her when Yannis explains that whatever handed over was taken by Poseidon, or at least probably someone working on behalf of Poseidon. She draws the salt out of Auriol’s body via her magic, but she’s going to need a bath. The group head off towards dinner while Yannis warps back into the room, double checks for anything hidden before dropping the Do Not Disturb sign on the door and getting back into the Karnival before trying to Read Auriol, getting a vision of her talking on the phone with someone, discussing a weapon inside the briefcase, that they’d be set, and to watch out for Poseidon.
Aftermath
Liam, in the meantime, has been exploring the Strip in Las Vegas, though getting some odd looks due to his very large stature. Mitzidu is working on dinner and speaks with Chad about his teacher who lives over at the casino that’s a fake Paris, Chad offers to set up an appointment with them. They end with the group ending up having dinner, inviting Chad along who somewhat disturbs Yannis since Yannis’s empathy makes him feel that he’s a genuine, honest person. What is this man?
After Action Report (GM)
Ahhh, new campaign session report numero dos! The PCs kind of split up a bunch this session – and I was worried this would cause boredom with the PCs (whom I asked – they were not). This session was a lot of “day in the life” of the various PCs along with sharing information with C-Team (which is AWESOME) and diving in for more information on what the hell is going on (good luck finding out, B-Teamers!). So far we got a couple of plot lines:
- Siv: Who is this young girl? Is she the daughter of Odin Allfather? That’s what she has said, but is that what is? Is someone after her? Why was she raised outside of the modern world? More importantly, why did Odin come to Adelphin when he could have gone to others?
- The Chad: Surferbro and the Dude’s Dude, who is this similarly mysterious lad. Was he really taught by the Kindly One Chiron.
- The Lady in Red: The woman is in the same business as Yannis, but is she something else or more?
- The Olympians: The Olympians are obviously up to something. They have acquired some kind of glowing object from the Lady in Red and it was enough to kill for. Are they doing some housecleaning before the Harrowing or setting something up to help them before the other pantheons catch wind.
- The Thule Society: Gawd damn Nazis. C-Team is having to deal with these guys too so there is some overlap between the two current active teams. The fact that they had hind’s blood and in a dose enough to kill a god’s avatar is disturbing enough, the fact that they’ve infiltrated many facets of Las Vegas is even worse. They know enough to take out dozens of demigods and flee before it gets to hot. . . or so they stay and fight?
That’s five possible plot lines to follow and we are only on session TWO of the first season of the campaign. I have no idea how the PCs are going to go so I’m going to prepare for all instances and a few more besides. Regardless, this was a really great – if a tad slow – session and I enjoyed it a lot. This campaign setting has so much possibility and promise.
Other Notes
Bonus report here.
Soundtrack
“Ice Cream” by Sarah Mclachlan (Opening Song)
“Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor
“Danger (Been So Long)” by Mystikal ft. Nivea
“Intro” by The XX (Closing Song)