The Chronicles of Ceteri – A-Team – S00E09 – Given Up for Dead, Part I

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Dramatic Personae

  • Annalise “Annie” M. Murphy (played by +Ann LS): Exorcist extraordinaire, sorcerer, psychic, twice cursed and twice blessed monster hunter. Ex-Gladius Dei. The Murphy. Talks to God, sometimes He talks back.
  • Dr. Francesco “Frankie” Novella (played by +Troy Loy): Doctor and accidental hero. Surgeon with a shotgun. Unflappable. Logical. Sometimes literal. No sense of humor. Always capable.
  • Sir Al-Shams mac Lannageal aka Al MacLannageal (played by +Christian Gelacio): Man out of time. The Last Templar Knight. Warrior. Scholar. Sorcerer. Carries the Blood of Solomon and is the benighted grandchild of Brigid.
Previously…

It’s been a few months since the dust-up with the unseelie and attracting the attention of of Bradley Bradshaw (an annoying cop with a grudge against Annie’s family). Having spent a lot of time in training with Scáthach the team is learning to work together as one unit. Annie has also been training with Niallan to sharpen her sword work since by being Erin’s official guardian she’s going to get dragged into faerie politics at some point or other. Moreover, Scáthach has been helping to get Frankie into shape since while he’s an excellent marksmen, he’s lacking a bit in the melee weapons department.

What About Bob?
Al MacLannageal, Annie Murphy, & Dr. Frankie Novella
Abandoned Warehouse
Friday, October 29th, 1999, 3:00 pm
290 ES Warren Street, Roxbury, MA 02119

Annie is drawn to the warehouse where they found Erin playing some months ago and brings the others. They find a short fat man running away from two lesser demons (sometimes called “soldier demons”) and the sound of gunfire can be heard from within the warehouse. Al pulls his bow, Iarrthóir Croí1, and fires two arrows from it hitting each demon in the heart and dropped them. When he turns, they recognize him as the clerk from the convenience store that Alvin was trapped in with all the hellhounds surrounding him.

He tells them his partner is inside and then promptly faints. Ronan drags him back to the car and the rest cautiously go forward. Annie and Frankie move in and find the security guard from the museum in tactical gear and shooting a MAC-10 (and missing) at a demon with a cheap knock-off katana in the other hand. Annie banishes the demon he’s fighting as it gets sucked back into hell and Frankie moves in, locks onto the warlock that they’d been warned about and blows the guys head off with a single shot. The rest of the demons are dispatched quickly and Bob (the ex-clerk) wakes up, pronounces he isn’t cut out for monster hunting, and leaves. 
Reilly (the ex-security guard) is chastised for trying to fight so many demons on his own by Al, but Annie offers to have him come with them back to the Heights. He accepts and Annie leaves Ronan to clean up the mess after she blesses the ground. Al attaches a warding to the warehouse’s structure to keep out all demons as a secondary measure. Before leaving she notices that the warlock’s circle uses a few archaic Etruscan symbols – symbols popular by Stygian Circle summoners.

I Reilly, Reilly Do
Al MacLannageal, Annie Murphy, & Dr. Frankie Novella
The Shadowed Heights
Friday, October 29th, 1999, 5:00 pm
7 Cathaoir Road, Murphy Island, Boston, MA 02171

Back at the Heights, Reilly tells them about how two years ago he had a vision of an angel whisper to him and showed him that demons were real. That he had a place in the world and that he should seek out the minions of Hell wherever they were and send them back. Reilly, a trust fund child, donated all of it to charity except a small amount to outfit himself and live modestly in a small apartment in Dorchester. From there he began to look up everything he could find on demons and even killed quite a few successfully (somehow).

Annie scans him with her Othersight and actually sees the angel (Bathḳol) whispering prophecies into his ear. She stares at Annie in shock, but when she realizes who it is goes back to her job. Annie then offers to train him and he grudgingly accepts after she shows him his “kung fu” is . . . not so good. She further informs him that his “dreams” are not dreams, but prophecies from on High and he admits he has been writing them down because he has a terrible memory. Annie decides to warn the other members of the Pax alliance and calls Niallan and informs him that Millicent is probably in the area along with a cell of the Stygian Circle and asks him to send Erin over so they can meet Erik at his longhouse.

Bards R Us
Al MacLannageal, Annie Murphy, & Dr. Frankie Novella
Clan Kveldsongr Longhouse
Friday, October 29th, 1999, 7:00 pm
Langlee Island, Boston, MA 02171

Despite wanting to warn him of the Circle being in town, Annie and Erin have been preparing a birthday gift for Erik – a song in the style of an edda of old along with a cask of honey mead, made in the old ways. Recruiting her whole fianna2, Annie speaks in verse, while Al-Shams harmonizes behind her in his triple harmony (a gift from his grandmother), Frankie dances with a blade on the stage miming the actions of the edda, Erin strums her guitar, and Ronan whistles along. Their impromptu performance stuns the audience of over 800 werewolves and moves the Clan chief of Kveldsongr to tears as he sees his life recounted for him in his such detail. Annie introduces Erin to Erik (a mouthful!) and he offers to let her be his skald whenever she desires. 

The festivities are broken up as Markus “White-Eyes” Cosrahn of Clan Haugaldr announces his presence to the local pack and asks permission to stay for a few days. The “grave wolves” are reviled by all, but by the law they are still members of the Clans and Erik has to allow them to stay for at least a few days. Ronan, drunk on mead belligerently calls out Cosrahn in a attempt to make him break the peace so he can slaughter him outright. Cosrahn wisely leaves and the fianna smell a rat.
Mmm, Tastes Like Chicken
Al MacLannageal, Annie Murphy, & Dr. Frankie Novella
Stygian Circle Cell
Friday, October 29th, 1999, 8:30 pm
151 Milk St, Boston, MA 02109
Annie gets Ronan, Al, and Frankie head out to the streets to town over some rocks and see what crawls out while she calls out to Between for any spirits who were killed and eaten. She asks it to show her what happened and Annie confirms that a band of werewolves broke into the man’s (Samuel Hollandt) home and ate him, while leaving his little girl and wife alive later on to “snack on” and brutalize. Annie offers the spirit vengeance if it’ll but tell her where its house is.

Meanwhile, Ronan, Al, and Frankie come across Billy Joe Boone, a cowardly vampire who says something “interesting” after threatening to stake him a few times he calls a friend who did a favor for some “creepy ass necromancers” and leads them to an abandoned deli in downtown where Billy Joe’s friend brought some “supplies” (corpses). Annie leaves Ronan there watch the building and to pick apart its wards and slip inside while she hunts down the Haugaldr wolves in Brookline.

Heads Will Roll
Al MacLannageal, Annie Murphy, & Dr. Frankie Novella
Haugaldr Clan Den
Friday, October 29th, 1999, 9:00 pm
46 Oakland Rd, Brookline, MA 02445

Annie calls up Alvin and they along with Al, Frankie, Reilly, and her dog – Murchu – head to Sam’s house. Annie performs an experimental spell that empowers Sam, but at a price. He can manifest and do any number of Inbetweener tricks3, but at a terrible cost. The longer the spell lasts the more of his “soul” it eats up. Sam is willing to do anything to save his wife and little girl. 

After the spell is finished, he possesses his little girl (which she willingly allows) and discovers his wife has been eaten. He then begins to telekinetically crush the werewolves that were eating his wife as Annie launches an assault upstairs. Shrouding, she breaks the fianna in two and Frankie and Al approach the house from the parking area, while she, Murchu, and Reilly enter through the door. 
The fighting is intense and brutal and Annie and the others are literally bathed in the blood of their foes, but after nearly a minute of fighting over 77 varou lay dead and Annie presents Cosrahn’s head to Erik and tells him to warn all other Haugaldr Clan that they are no longer welcome in Boston. So angry at what happened to those under her protection she puts a $25,000 bounty on all Haugaldr from that point on. 

Aftermath
Outside, Alvin has killed over half of the werewolves with claymore mines and well-placed sniper fire. Erik offers to clean up the mess for her (which she accepts). Ronan calls to tell her that the entire cell of Stygians have gated out. He’s sure they didn’t know he was there and Annie assumes that Cosrahn had contacted them somehow. She tells him to head to the Heights where the rest of the fianna go to regroup and figure out what there next plan is.

After Action Reports/Game Notes

Bringing back the first bad guy and mixing it up with a little of the nauseating Haugaldr made for a very satisfying game. The players were entertained because they got to blow stuff up and shoot at things, I was happy because that actually advanced the plot forward in a very meaningful way. It also was the first edict that Annie’s player handed down as “the Murphy.” Overall, a great game.

Footnotes

1Iarrthóir Croí is one of the few precious treasures that Goibhniu created after the Formian-Sidhe wars, and was bid to do so by Brigid herself (who also helped in its creation, being no smith of small skill) for her grandson, Al-Shams mac Lannageal after he lost his entire family in a fire set by a roving band of vampires. Iarrthóir Croí means “Heart Seeker,” and that is one of the things it does best. Gilded in silver and glittering with jewels, the bow is a prize beyond compare in the right hands as it mystically seeks out the heart of its target with every arrow fired. More than that, it can shift its form into both a stave and spear and has a aim so true that arrows loosed from it will seek its targets out even if they try to outrun it. It can also assume the shape of a small wooden orb that only its wielder can command into one of its weapon forms.
2An Irish war band. Annie didn’t originally think of her allies like this, but Scathach’s repeated uses of the word has rubbed off.
3Telekinesis, possession, temperature control, etc.

Session Soundtrack

“Duality” by Bayside (opening song)
“That Old Black Magic” by Frank Sinatra
“Jesus Walks” by Kanye West (when Annie sees the angel whispering prophecy in Reilly’s ear)
“Burn My Shadow” by Unkle (during the assault on the Haugaldr stronghold
“My Hands” by Leona Lewis (closing song)

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