Dramatis Personae
- Ekaterini Tsakalidis aka The Lady of Laundry (played by Chepe): Godling of Hygieia and Minerva. Face-changing clothes-horse with history as a Mob assassin and crime-scene cover-up artist. Tagline: “Never let them see you sweat.”
- Tercallus aka Callum “Cal” Parker (played by Will): Theogenic Demigod. Thrill-seeking, jaded, time-warping high stakes gambler coalesced into existence over a decade ago in an alley outside a casino for reasons unknown. Tagline: “Time is malleable.”
- Theroikon (played by Jenn D.). Theogenic demigod. Patron of urban wildlife. Shapeshifter, naturalist, and the party’s literal though somewhat reluctant combat monster. Tagline: “Mess with my people and I’ll show you a silent spring.”
- Winfred Timotheos aka The Friend (Played by Chris D.): Demigod of Philotes. The friendliest person you could hope to meet in Las Vegas and leader of a philanthropic Society/Cult. Tagline: “You know they say that a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet, and it’s nice to meet you.”
- Julie Wilms aka The Assistant (Winfred’s Ally): Human, probably. Former covert agent turned convert. Now spends her time assisting, guarding, and herding Winfred. Tagline: “Time to go, Sir.”
Previously . . .
Things start with the group having been kidnapped and grouped up together, bound and gagged and kept against their will, everyone being a bit fuzzy. Ekaterini having escaped first, knowing that they’ve got another five minutes before the next guard check. Their powers are all nullified somehow, perhaps through a magical circle, and it looks like they’re inside a hotel room with wheelchairs, a mostly unfurnished location that has been stripped to the bare floor. The only illumination being a contractor’s light that’s been nailed to the ceiling.
In A Pickle
Ekaterini “Kate” Tsakalidis, Tercallus, Theroikon, and Winfred Timotheos
Abandoned Fontainebleau Las Vegas
Friday January 13th, 2012, 2000 hours
2777 South Las Vegas Boulevard, NV 89109
Ekaterini, removing the arm to a wheel chair. Theroikon has burst from their bonds, quite easily, while Callum manages to get out of their bonds and frees the fourth captive who is currently humming the Gilligan Island’s theme song to himself. Three quarters of the group salvages from the wheelchairs and got some weapons.
Looking at the door, they manage to notice through a gap under the door that there’s a security bar on the door. They start quickly looking at their options where Theroikon suggests that they just break down the door and gets into position while Winfred tries to investigate their surroundings. They’ve obviously in an interior room and the layout screams that they’re in a hotel room. They decide to just grab the door and rip it out of the guard’s hands once the locks are withdrawn while Ekaterini charges at them with a wheelchair. Theroikon succeeds in ripping the door completely from the hinges while Ekaterini and Callum charges in.
The two guards are already reaching for firearms when Callum swings at them with a wheelchair arm and misses. Theroikon drops the door and rips towards their throats, but the guards manage to dodge away from their claws, freaked out at their occupants fighting back. Theroikon follows their retreat into the hallway. Ekaterini charges into the hallway, intent on slamming her opponent into the wall with the wheelchair, smashing his knees tangling each other up in the wheelchair and taking each other down. Winfred gets a mental message via a charm, coming from his assistant Julie who he reassures that they’re alright as Julie mentions having hired mercenaries and shouts out that they need to stop and surrender to let them live, but they don’t seem convinced and a guard fires a shot at Theroikon but miss and hits their buddy, shattering their pelvis and making them grateful that they’ve got a wheelchair.
Callum moves out into the hallway and snatches up a shard of glass from the ground. Theroikon turns and grabs at the man with the gun, enveloping the man’s hand and his gun, keeping control in that fashion. Ekaterini and the guard scramble at each other on the ground, throwing a punch and killing the man by shoving his nose up into the man’s brain and being unhappy about the man getting spatters all over him. Winfred steps forwards and convinces the remaining guard to surrender since Chewie (Theroikon) wasn’t looking happy who immediately drops the gun.
He explains that they’re in the Fontainbleau, an abandoned hotel in Las Vegas, they’ve been injecting them every couple hours with sedatives to keep them compliant. Mr. Black was the guy that was questioning them and there’s about eight other men inside with two sitting in the lobby at the concierge desk. They loot the man that they killed, with Callum and Ekaterini taking the guns and bulletproof vests while Theroikon finds the 50 gallon rubbermaids in the next room and gets their gear. Winfred manages to haul the dead man into one of the wheelchairs and they start questioning what to do.
Ekaterini and Theroikon question possibly what to do and radio chatter interrupts them asking for a status update. They get their new friend to aver suspicion and they ask them to bring up one of them for another round of questioning, the red head this time (Ekaterini). Each questioning session has them there for at least 15-20 minutes of questioning, not enough to get the juice out of their systems. They want to fool the men upstairs by having Callum dressing up like a guard and pushing Ekaterini in, armed with a firearm with Theroikon bringing up the rear. With Julie about four minutes away, most of the group wants to charge downstairs and attack two entrenched men.
Winfred, instead, suggests that they have their new friend call up support from down below, allowing them to learn that their new friend’s name is Kevin Conrad, as Ekaterini and Theroikon cleans up the fight scene. Ekaterini sits in the wheelchair in the hallway and as the guard from below comes from the elevator and passes her, she jumps out and judos the man, disarming him. Winfred starts speaking with the new guard as Julie informs them that she’s already taken out the remaining guard down below. They get the man secured as Julie gets out of the elevator carrying a shotgun with four other men wielding submachine guns.
Callum and Ekaterini try to convince Julie to accompany them in taking down the rest of the group while she demands that Winfred stays out of the fight, preferably on a spray-painted mark on the ground where he doesn’t move. He tries to argue with Julie, rather unsuccessfully, as she plots with the rest of the group. The group splits up, with some going up the elevator with Julie’s group going up the staircase. The group seeing another guard, a rather rodent looking man with pinched features, talking to them in what sounds like German. Theroikon moves in from behind and grapples them to keep them quiet, as the rest helps cuff the man. Ekaterini finds syringes full of silvery goo in the man’s back pocket and injects the man with one of them. They watch the man die in complete agony, breaking the flex cuffs and screaming a silent scream, they discuss what to do with the body.
They hear gunfire coming from the other end of the hallway and they hear footsteps running towards the group. They see Julie stalking behind the group running away, Ekaterini holding them at gunpoint while Callum using knives. They try to get the men to tell them where Mr. Black is, but is informed that they’d left only a couple minutes ago. They’re informed by one of the men that there’s a room close by that the boss had set up as an office, full maps of Las Vegas, pushpins and yarn and files for people within Las Vegas. All the people in the files are all demigods of various rank and caliber. They find more vials of silvery goo and a vial of golden liquid. They barely manage to find a Lodge symbol that they’d barely familiar with, it looks like a stylized sun with a black disc, the Thule Society.
They decide to take all the information from the place, filling the 50 gallon tote while Julie looking at the tuts to herself as they pull the information. Going downstairs, the three don’t find Mr. Black, him being long gone. They know that the Thule Society goes for the weakest ones or unidentified ones during a Harrowing. Lady of Laundry being well identified by them alongside Winfred who isn’t exactly shying away from the public eye. They basically have the Ayran Nation as their glove muppets, trying to find divine and semi-divine beings. None of the men are tattooed up or seem like anyone from the Aryan Nation, Ekaterini is able to remember that they were around in the 50s doing some hinky things before the mob threw them out of town.
Julie offers to take them to one of their compounds while Theroikon starts speaking with the group introducing themselves.
Safe as Houses
Ekaterini “Kate” Tsakalidis, Tercallus, Theroikon, and Winfred Timotheos
The Venetian Resort Las Vegas Chairman Suite
Friday January 13th, 2012, 2200 hours
3355 S Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, NV 89109
They try to get Julie to get them to a chemist, or alchemist, who says she might be able to before letting Winfred move and gets him into the van, loading things, men, and bodies up into the vans. Winfred explains that the reason why he asked them to bring the bodies is because most of the time people are only mostly dead, and that if the magic comes back then there’s a possibility of them being brought back. On the way there, Winfred keeps talking with Kevin and Casey (Kassem), befriending them and eventually setting them up with a job since they were only hired thugs.
Winfred takes a look at the vials, identifying them as Cernyeian Hind blood, it could potentially kill a god with a bit of trouble or a man with a lot of ease. It’s a considerably rare thing, and they’ve got enough left in the bottle to kill a god and another two syringes that could disable a god’s powers. They start setting up an area to possible revivify the questioner with rat-like features before Winfred questions whether or not having the Hind blood still in the body would kill him again just as quickly.
Callum thumbs through the files they brought back while Ekaterini thinks about potential Thule safehouses. Theroikon speaks with them while shifts into human form and gets a granola bar from her backpack and starts eating. The Thule tends to conglomerate around artsy institutions, at least the higher ups, while the lowers tend to be in lower class institutions, just being Nazis. Ekaterini works with Kevin and Casey, getting an artistic rendition of Mr. Black, their leader, that is fairly accurate. She e-mails the portrait of the Thule Society leader to the owner of the Karnival Resort Hotel, Adelphin, who is a rather high up person in Vegas, while Callum sends a message to Mitzidu Ito who is another well-known person.
Going through the files, they’re rather scarily complete. About half of them are demigods that are rather young (less than twenty years old) or are very weak in Aetheric energy. If they can torture the weak over the course of several days, they can get just as much as someone stronger than them. They aren’t entirely the weakest on the list, but they were the most convenient targets. Callum uses his ability to work with time to look over the histories of the documents.
Winfred speaks with Kevin and Casey about how they were recruited, this time off of Craigslist, where Kevin was one traumatized during answering a casual encounters ad where he had to sit and pet a bunny (and that’s it) for money. It’s a surreal sight to see Winfred sitting there comforting one of his kidnappers that is crying on the sofa next to him before they move back into finding information.
Aftermath
Julie has gotten the murder board set back up they start going over it. Several are under the protection of Kindly Ones as well as the protection of Chiron the centaur. Callum’s general impression via psychometry is a lust for power, possibly for ascending. Trying psychometry on the milky gold liquid causes Callum to be stunned and receive a vision of the Hind being slowly tortured and its blood being milked.
It’s discussed and they get some digital copies to get the files onto a computer with a digital map set up. They order photocopiers and get Kevin and Casey to get working. Julie tells them that it’s likely that they’re only dealing with an arm of the Thule Society and there’s probably more coming as they haven’t gotten into a Great Harrowing. Callum is helping by projecting psychometry knowledge. They have apparently grabbed at least a year’s worth of work from the Thule Society, and with the way that they operate they don’t really have any real backups except for Mr. Black’s memories which are rather extensive. It’s likely that he’s a powerful Invoker.
Once again, Ekaterini looks into spreading the information about Mr. Black. There’s the Bluebird Society, a white lodge focused on wildlife conservation, and the Crimson Lodge, a red lodge. Theroikon had some contact with the Bluebird Society and it seems that he had gotten picked up before he could speak to them properly. The question now, is since they’re throwing out a lot chaff and disrupting operations, do they want to just keep it to that level or do they want to do something more?
After Action Report (GM)
C-Team finally got to play. C-Team hasn’t been able to play in *eight* months. Things just kept falling apart and I couldn’t get the players together to play, I had health problems, or something just popped up. Every single time. It sucked. We got five sessions in Ten Thousand Jade Petals whereas the B-Team got thirty. The players had the spirit to play, but reality had other ideas. Ah well, Today’s session was action-packed without a super ton of tactical combat. The new players (Chepe and Jenn) fit in with the other players like they’d been playing with them for years. Better yet, they fit in with my style of gamemastering just as naturally and really kept me on my toes. Unlike B-Team I didn’t immediately put the C-Teamers in a situation where they could spread out in a sandbox style immersion. I know what B-Team is capable of. I know how they think mostly and I know how they will react and act in a given situation. I don’t know this for half of the players in C-Team so the first real plot I through at them is fairly straightforward without a ton of branching off-ramps. I’m sure the players will make it more than what I have in mind – and that’s ok. That’s natural. They need to do that as part of their growing and stretching into the setting. But I didn’t want to throw a bunch of random stuff at the PCs right away just in case.
I will say I was happy with the short combat we had as it got to showcase both Jenn and Chepe’s characters (they are the main combatants). Jenn’s character performed very well against some decently good rent-a-thugs and Chepe’s character just got lucky a bunch – which is it’s own kind of magic. Chris D.’s character wisely stayed out of the way in the combat scenes as he’s just not a fighter (something that concerns me a bit, but I knew the type of character he was building when he made it). Will was similarly disadvantaged by the lack of powers, but thought on his feet and stayed active during the short combat sequence. Overall, I’m proud of the characters who seemed to perform quite well under battlefield conditions. We spent a lot of time and effort on them as a collective group and it’ll be interesting to see them use their powers next and how that works out.
Other Notes
None.
Soundtrack
“In For the Kill” by The Glitch Mob and La Roux (Opening Song)
“You Got a Friend in Me” by Randy Newman
“Burn my Shadow” by UNKLE ( Closing Song)