A Thousand Tiny Gods B-Team: Season 1, Session 4 – Everyday It’s Getting Closer

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 scene opens with the group heading back into the Karnival Hotel as Yannis, Suveer, and Adelphin got dumped into the street and Mitzidu and Liam getting back from their nights out, the former group informing the latter that they’d give them information at breakfast several hours hence. Mitzidu, Liam, and The Chad leave and head back to Mitzidu’s home instead. Everyone apparently has strange dreams during the night. Liam was hunted down like a dog and killed by numerous other opponents; he went down swinging but still went down. Mitzidu was in an explosion. Yannis is staring down into a hellacious portal full of screaming souls. Suveer is alone at the end of everything, without any sandwiches. It was just a weird night of weird dreams.

Candy and Zen

Liam O’Shea & Mitzidu Ito
Mitzidu’s Residence
Sunday January 15th, 2012, 0900 hours
9511 Kings Gate Ct, Las Vegas, NV 89145

To recover from their night of dreams, Mitzidu takes time to meditate and take time for himself while Liam goes to raid the kitchen for various foods that Mitzidu may have left around, stress eating over his dream. After getting some food, Liam goes into the garden and casts Divination to try to see if his dream is a true portent of the future and the answer comes that it is a true portent of the future, it’s the possibility of something that could happen versus being just a dream. Liam thinks of that for a few before going to find Mitzidu.

Once Liam finds Mitzidu, he tries to gain Mitzidu’s attention with a clearing of his throat which Mitzidu ignores. Deterred, Liam goes to find The Chad instead who is currently staring at all the candy like a small child. Given permission, The Chad admits that he thought it was a decoration at first until he smelt it. The permission given, The Chad digs in while Liam finds some stools and sits down, admitting to The Chad that he had some troubling dreams which The Chad says he had something similar, he went to the beach but there was no beach which sounds a bit anticlimactic compared to Liam’s dream. The Chad returns an Ice Cream Koan that the only thing that matters is what you do about it, strangely wise for The Chad. Mitzidu isn’t quite sure, but there’s something wrong in the air, it’s not a spiritual attack but just something wrong. It’s like the world is changed somehow and it’s hard to tell how, just wrong. With that done, Mitzidu gathers them to head back towards the Hotel, sending them ahead of him with the sedan while Mitzidu takes his motorcycle and gets caught in traffic, seeming like every time he comes to a light it turns red.

Breakfast at Spiffany’s

Adelphin Jean-Baptiste, Liam O’Shea, Mitzidu Ito, Suveer Patel, & Yannis Papadopoulos
Karnival Resort Hotel and Casino
Sunday January 15th, 2012, 1030 hours
3500 Paradise Rd, Las Vegas, NV 89169

Suveer is scrambling to find ingredients to make a Reuban after his dream, terrified that if he reached out to get one like normal then it wouldn’t be there, while Adelphin is distracting herself by trying to take care of Siv who just looks at her with clear blue eyes, giving her some hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows and making food for Suveer. Rui is sitting at the kitchen counter tapping at a computer with many bottles of soda and Red Bull sitting next to him, obviously he hasn’t been to bed yet due to the small amount of blood that is streaming through his caffeine system. It seems like he’s gathering information and putting it together in a synthesized format. Adelphin checks on Auriol, the woman in red, finding her doing better but still unconscious. Adelphin tries to figure out how much Auriol may owe her for saving her life. It’s potentially surprising that she’s survived as long as she had given what happened, if there wasn’t for the fact that she was being taken care of by a demigod. She’s still being sedated so she can work off the curse slowly.

Everyone eventually arrives at the Karnival hotel and heads up for breakfast in the penthouse. There’s just something in the air outside, it’s got a strange oppressive air outside, it’s an odd feeling to say the least. It seems to be affecting even the mortals around, it’s strangely quiet even though it’s morning time. Liam checks the news, to find nothing unusual is going on. The elevator beyond security sends them right up to the penthouse, and knocking on the door they can smell the delicious foods waiting for them beyond. Yannis is there creating crimes against the culinary world by combining various foods for quick finger foods. Rui is trying to ingest even more Red Bull that Adelphin keeps taking away.

Mitzidu, Liam, and the others share that they had strange dreams, portents of things to possibly come. Suveer shares that his dream was terrible, that he was at the end of time and his end of time sandwiches weren’t there. It was terrible. He has to change his end of time sandwich, perhaps to a Monte Cristo. Rui hasn’t managed to finish his information analysis yet since Adelphin keeps taking away his Red Bull, which she doesn’t care about and tells him to get working on it.

Rui tells them that there’s a problem, there’s at least three Black Lodges operating in Las Vegas. At least two of them aren’t being obvious, he goes into a really complicated explanation about how he got the information, including disappearance of homeless people and pets. He hasn’t unmasked the low-profile ones, but he does have the information with the Thule Society and that the Olympians are openly operating in the area but the High Council hasn’t censured them yet.

There’s been at least two people in the city that have been taken, and while the Olympians haven’t been normally low key, the fact that they’re leaving obvious holes is something unusual. Explaining that it’s probably Poseidon considering what they’ve got and explain that he abducted his own child via a proxy of a child of Thanatos. They’re given a quick rundown of what happened the previous night, including everything they need to know with no frills. The other incident is that they found a demigod in the middle of the desert that had drowned in the ocean and they don’t have any additional information but it’s obviously similar to the curse that is on Auriol.

The question comes up about whether or not Auriol is a demigod or other divine being and Adelphin gets ticked that she doesn’t get a straight answer and Yannis doesn’t care one way or another whether or not she does, and when Adelphin says she could kill Auriol and demand an answer from her spirit, Yannis says she might as well as Adelphin already screwed up the rest of Auriol’s life.

Mitzidu is more concerned about the oppressive atmosphere outside. Liam asks Adelphin if someone is trying to do a broad area ritual, but she hasn’t been outside yet to really look. He also mentions that there’s a Thule Society building barely a mile or two away from his home. Mitzidu and Adelphin sharing the information they got from their contacts about it.

Rui also mentions that there’s at least three demigods entering the city everyday along with various avatars coming into the city as well from multiple pantheons. Avatars come into a few flavors, the first being the creation of a mortal body and is more like a possession via divine, or by wholesale creating a body. During a Great Harrowing they’re forced into a single avatar, and normally when deities die it’s a result of luck, planning, and skill of the demigod killing them. Or great arrogance. Most pantheons don’t make the first move, preferring to scheme and move their pawns or move their weaker members away. The last time an all-out-war occurred was almost three Great Harrowings ago, around 1,000 BC.

They discuss weakening the lodges that have been set up, the Black Lodge and Red Lodges coming in like leeches to drain energy. There are rare demigods that set up shop with Red Lodges and there are some Demigods and Gods that will even work with Black Lodges. Mitzidu says that he’ll try to reach out to find out more information on what’s going on, especially with Lodges. It’s known that the supernatural world is getting stranger and stranger as time goes by and people flood in following The Call. Some people have already operating in the city for awhile so it’s possible that there’s someone spilling the beans.

Breakfast at Spiffany’s

Mitzidu Ito
The Strip
Sunday January 15th, 2012, 1430 hours
The Strip

Mitzidu leaves the table to go research information and while out researching, he has a telepathic thought enter his head. A woman’s voice calling for him that can’t hear back what is being said. Maki, the handmaid of Inari, has been kidnapped. She’s not sure where she is exactly, but she’s sending one of her foxfires to lead him. Mitzidu calls for Liam since he’s the best warrior that Mitzidu knows in the area and The Chad is still busy eating breakfast, he asks if Liam wants to help rescue a cute semi-divine being. Adelphin, near Liam, has stepped outside to find a city-wide spell has been cast to cause more susceptibility to fear and other downer emotions. Liam informs Adelphin and Suveer about Mitzidu’s situation and they agree to join, leaving Yannis alone at the buffet table with The Chad to watch over Siv.

It only takes some time for Maki’s foxfire to find Mitzidu and they gather together on a literal corner of the street where Mitzidu waits for the rest to show up. While waiting, he sends a message to Inari who tells him to handle his own problems, he also tells her that the Olympians are making some kind of move, and the only response is deliberate silence.

Aftermath

With Mitzidu leading them with the foxfire, Suveer drives behind, following him, pulling up front of a boxing gym. Mitzidu parks, legally, down the street from the gym with the other three, Suveer, Adelphin, and Liam coming in behind. Mitzidu tries to give them the information about what’s going on and tries to inform them about what’s going on and who they’re rescuing and what is going on.

The single-story gym itself is off the strip, off a fairly well trafficked area and currently closed to the public, it looks like a converted warehouse. They look for a back entrance, finding one but no security systems. Mitzidu changes into a fox and gets tossed onto the roof by Liam to look for an open skylight that he can use to peek inside.

After Action Report (GM)

Once again we faced split party syndrome with PCs going off and doing things on their own. It wasn’t too bad this time but I find it extremely discombobulating as a GM and I spend half my brainpower just getting everyone together to do things. This doesn’t mean that I want the PCs to stay with one another all the time, but rather when we “tune” into our heroes they stay reasonably close together metaphorically or literally. Still, it wasn’t that bad (like the previous session) and I’m hoping that a good combat will get the PCs to realize the danger they are all theoretically in. A god is gunning for them and that god is not pulling punches – and neither am I. It’s possible a player character could die next session. Combat is meant to be extremely deadly in the setting when fighting other demigods. Next combat is at least three demigods plus a small pile of mortals who know what gods are and have guns. Lots of guns. It’s going to be brutal and that’s extremely intentioned. We’ll see who comes out of it alive. It’ll be the first combat for either team and we’re going to be 9 sessions (in total) in by then.

Other Notes

Bonus report here.

Soundtrack

“Everyday” by Buddy Holly (Opening Song)
“Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor (Closing Song)

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