Champions...
Jun. 6th, 2005 10:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eyelessgameSaturday's adventure was a bit world-of-darkness, but hey, the PCs do have a werewolf (who kept admirable control over himself the whole time), and it's supposed to be a mystic campaign anyway.
Followup from the previous adventure: Ash gets an email from a grateful senior software engineer who was trapped by the timeslicer; he's a cyberpagan and wrote an anonymous-finder spell that went off and tracked her down. She responded cautiously, and ended up getting a server and better security for the Base. The wealthy engineer is somewhat too old for her, however, and not overly cute, so it's likely she'll continue to pretend not to be attracted to Limelight from the Bay Heroes, who really need a better team name.
Then they receive a mis-sent letter with an international postmark addressed to the guy three streets over. Recognizing a story hook when they see one, and on general principles blaming it on the mysterious snake-faced guys who never talk, after some maneuvering it's learned that the addressee (Ben Shaw) is a vampire (he never appears on-camera, although his ghouls do, and a lady who's a friend (but not a 'friend', see below) is and does) and that the letter, warning the recipient to stay away from the 'Bloodstone', is itself mis-sent, since he and his minions appear to know nothing about it.
Although it's clear somewhere in their minds that Mr. Shaw does prey upon the living, nevertheless no one actually attempts to suck the blood out of the PCs directly, so they decide these are friendly misunderstood vampires and they should act in their interest, especially since the author of the letter clearly doesn't care who he hurts with his sixteen-die explosive lightning bolts that blast from the clear sky in response to someone trying to magic out his identity. Besides, hey, you have to put out a fire when it's threatening adjacent houses, so of course you bond with the person whose house is on fire, even if she's conjuring ... blood ... to put her half of the fire out with. And when the concerned gendarmes show up, she demonstrates she's also quite canny with the bending of mortal minds.
Unfortunately, a phone call to the well-connected Mr. Shaw reveals that some other local vampires (who are apparently automatically also the PCs' allies, and they wonder why the Bay Heroes don't trust them) do know about the Bloodstone, as it's on display (or storage) at the Howard Street temporary warehouse/museum of the California Academy of Sciences, and just tonight happen to be planning to plunder it. This Aztec artifact is a relatively minor ruby pendant, but it's reputed to have magical powers over the blood (not just over blood, but 'the blood'), so vampiric interest is understandable.
The PCs of course must get involved. But how to tell friend from foe? Dental examination being hard to do in a combat zone, they solve the problem by requisitioning a ghoul with special VampyrSense powers from the helpful thaumaturgist-vampiress, are told to lean him against a Bay Mirror dispenser when done with him (all of Shaw's ghouls are early-twenties ripped young men with too-tight T-shirts, hmm), and thus equipped make their way to the warehouse. Ash does her spy-eye and observes a security guard lying unmoving behind the building, a curator or someone still working in a back room, and three people (well, "people") working their way past the insufficient security via a roof air vent.
Joshua the werewolf Umbras the PCs inside, and Sean flies up to the ceiling to greet the intruders, telekinesing the ghoul along as, basically, a translator. Unfortunately, he relies on the common misconception that the local Carpathian-American contingent, being an insular minority community, all therefore must know each other, and the vampires -- who are, after all, committing a crime and not anxious to be discovered -- leap at the ghoul and shoot a gun ineffectively at Joshua.
The other shoe drops as an elite seven-member DEMON squad teleports in at this moment, also apparently after the Bloodstone. The PCs are not initially worried, figuring they have them outnumbered, what with three vampires and a ghoul on their side. Except, of course, that they don't understand about the vampiric enthusiasm for the game of "let's you and him fight, I have a gem to rob".
One basic morbane, two basic initiates, and four demonspawn are a tiny bit more than the four PCs can handle, though if they were a bit better at tactics and a bit luckier they might just have swung it.
As it was, we got as far as the three non-invisible PCs being knocked out and the invisible one burning her last STUN for END trying to get the werewolf awake, with both initiates plus one demonspawn wobbling but still standing and the morbane just standing up woozily again, as we break for the night, just as the vampires leap from the shadows to save the PC's bacon... or at least to shout 'nyaa nyaah, we have the gem' and flee.
Followup from the previous adventure: Ash gets an email from a grateful senior software engineer who was trapped by the timeslicer; he's a cyberpagan and wrote an anonymous-finder spell that went off and tracked her down. She responded cautiously, and ended up getting a server and better security for the Base. The wealthy engineer is somewhat too old for her, however, and not overly cute, so it's likely she'll continue to pretend not to be attracted to Limelight from the Bay Heroes, who really need a better team name.
Then they receive a mis-sent letter with an international postmark addressed to the guy three streets over. Recognizing a story hook when they see one, and on general principles blaming it on the mysterious snake-faced guys who never talk, after some maneuvering it's learned that the addressee (Ben Shaw) is a vampire (he never appears on-camera, although his ghouls do, and a lady who's a friend (but not a 'friend', see below) is and does) and that the letter, warning the recipient to stay away from the 'Bloodstone', is itself mis-sent, since he and his minions appear to know nothing about it.
Although it's clear somewhere in their minds that Mr. Shaw does prey upon the living, nevertheless no one actually attempts to suck the blood out of the PCs directly, so they decide these are friendly misunderstood vampires and they should act in their interest, especially since the author of the letter clearly doesn't care who he hurts with his sixteen-die explosive lightning bolts that blast from the clear sky in response to someone trying to magic out his identity. Besides, hey, you have to put out a fire when it's threatening adjacent houses, so of course you bond with the person whose house is on fire, even if she's conjuring ... blood ... to put her half of the fire out with. And when the concerned gendarmes show up, she demonstrates she's also quite canny with the bending of mortal minds.
Unfortunately, a phone call to the well-connected Mr. Shaw reveals that some other local vampires (who are apparently automatically also the PCs' allies, and they wonder why the Bay Heroes don't trust them) do know about the Bloodstone, as it's on display (or storage) at the Howard Street temporary warehouse/museum of the California Academy of Sciences, and just tonight happen to be planning to plunder it. This Aztec artifact is a relatively minor ruby pendant, but it's reputed to have magical powers over the blood (not just over blood, but 'the blood'), so vampiric interest is understandable.
The PCs of course must get involved. But how to tell friend from foe? Dental examination being hard to do in a combat zone, they solve the problem by requisitioning a ghoul with special VampyrSense powers from the helpful thaumaturgist-vampiress, are told to lean him against a Bay Mirror dispenser when done with him (all of Shaw's ghouls are early-twenties ripped young men with too-tight T-shirts, hmm), and thus equipped make their way to the warehouse. Ash does her spy-eye and observes a security guard lying unmoving behind the building, a curator or someone still working in a back room, and three people (well, "people") working their way past the insufficient security via a roof air vent.
Joshua the werewolf Umbras the PCs inside, and Sean flies up to the ceiling to greet the intruders, telekinesing the ghoul along as, basically, a translator. Unfortunately, he relies on the common misconception that the local Carpathian-American contingent, being an insular minority community, all therefore must know each other, and the vampires -- who are, after all, committing a crime and not anxious to be discovered -- leap at the ghoul and shoot a gun ineffectively at Joshua.
The other shoe drops as an elite seven-member DEMON squad teleports in at this moment, also apparently after the Bloodstone. The PCs are not initially worried, figuring they have them outnumbered, what with three vampires and a ghoul on their side. Except, of course, that they don't understand about the vampiric enthusiasm for the game of "let's you and him fight, I have a gem to rob".
One basic morbane, two basic initiates, and four demonspawn are a tiny bit more than the four PCs can handle, though if they were a bit better at tactics and a bit luckier they might just have swung it.
As it was, we got as far as the three non-invisible PCs being knocked out and the invisible one burning her last STUN for END trying to get the werewolf awake, with both initiates plus one demonspawn wobbling but still standing and the morbane just standing up woozily again, as we break for the night, just as the vampires leap from the shadows to save the PC's bacon... or at least to shout 'nyaa nyaah, we have the gem' and flee.
Hey! The PCs aren't THAT naive...
Date: 2005-06-06 09:37 pm (UTC)I'm still disappointed that the ghoul didn't kick in with us and preferred to chat with the other undead (oooh, SUCH an exclusive club!). Although Sean did sorta put the ghoul in harms way on purpose...
We really figured on just warning the vamps away and then protecting the place ourselves. Turns out it was a 'good' thing that the vamps were around because the DEMON guys would've had us for lunch (and a doggie bag for dinner).
Joshua had his claws busy with a brick demon and an initiate. Sean took out a couple of demons and managed to do some damage to the morbane before getting knocked out by the initiate (after the morbane already got a good shot off). Luckily the fire magic didn't go after Rose (who, being a plant, doesn't shrug that kind of stuff off) much (only one shot and it went wide) and she took out the morbane before finally getting knocked out by one of the initiates after Josh was taken out.
Oooh... and Sean took it into his own head to hand-deliver the message to the exact addressie. The rest of the group seemed to be in the camp of "just shove the icky bleeding letter in the door slot and leave quickly." Bah! They're no fun! Besides, we made a mess of trying to open other people's mail so we outta be upfront about delivering it so nobody gets the wrong idea about us.
Re: Hey! The PCs aren't THAT naive...
Date: 2005-06-07 08:58 pm (UTC)The ghoul was Ethan, but yes.
Re: Hey! The PCs aren't THAT naive...
Date: 2005-06-07 10:37 pm (UTC)Hope those vamps don't find the box with the gem in it too fast. Then they could just take off and we'd have nothing but a few motorcycles to follow...
The snark was quite good. Yes, Sean is a bit naive when it comes to 'real' vampires. Joshua, being a werewolf, seems to have the best idea of how to deal with vamps. :)