Aeon C-Team S2E1: Something tells me Cindy wasn't into Hard Rock THAT much

The Team:

Lucas Nielson (PK Levine): A former vicar who lost his faith and made an enemy of the Vatican. Now he leads the AEGIS Subway team in their attempt to make sense of the supernatural.


Niklos Xanthopoulos (Kevin): Multidisciplinary genius, medical doctor, general curmudgeon. Believes Morphazine is the answer for everything.


Marsh Langston (Maverick): A blond, smiling hacker that will rip the most secure files out of your mainframe and convince you that was something YOU wanted. Marsh is a technical wunderkind and social engineer with a shadowy background in intelligence.


Mikhail Kovalenko (Alex): Measuring over 6'4'' and weighing about 230lbs, Ukrainian-born Mikhail Kovalenko was a former special agent in Eastern Europe, and is extremely competent in multiple forms of combat, piloting, field action, and weaponry. One of the nicest dudes you can probably meet, as long as you don't imply he's Russian...


Agent Veracity (Me): Agent Veracity is a highly capable investigator and field agent.  Agent Veracity is not allowed to participate in AEGIS Trivia Night.

Alex (Mikhail) was absent tonight because he was busy earning his merit badges for helping little old ladies get cats out of trees. PK was ordered by Dr. Christopher to get some rest when he wasn't feeling well.

Events:
April 11, 2012

We get back from 3 months of (relative) downtime. There's been a mix of cases that haven't required all of us to really tackle them as a single cohesive team, so most of us have been off fighting fires.

Lucas and Mikhail have left on a case when we receive a call from upstairs. The Iroquois Wildlife Refuge has been reporting strange stuff, and since Aegis doesn't know what to make of it, we get to go.

It's a four hour drive without the Ghost Train. We trade off driving duties, and our car is full of our travel gear.

Won't be seeing much of this image this session summary

A hiker found a woman melted into a boulder. We're shown over to the boulder by park rangers who are obviously concerned about such things.

A head and an arm are sticking out, preventing identification. There's a look of horror on her face. Veracity takes a look at the area, turning his investigative perceptions to bear. She was a day hiker, it's clear she wasn't out for an extended stay. She was in good shape, and likely a frequent hiker.

The bits of her sticking out are still fleshy. I succeed by 9 on Detective! to acquire her fingerprints, DNA and crud under her fingernails. Niklos determines she was diabetic, she survived inside the rock for a time before dying (slow, painful and horrifying). Niklos guesses she suffocated. There's marks on her neck, but not her wrists. That rules out restraints, but certainly suggests that she was subdued by physical force.

 Marsh attempts to check her fingerprints at 1/10th the time (from 10ish hours to 1hour) succeeding by 4 after the -7 penalty.

Niklos uses a scanner of some sort to try and analyze the specifics of how she was merged with the rock. The rock partially phased through her, as opposed to being turned to liquid and then forming around her.

Marsh's search of the database turns up results.

Cindy K. Drury

3911 Sycamore Street

San Francisco, CA 94104 Born April 29, 1977 

Cindy is a card-carrying member of the Green Party, with multiple arrests for resisting arrest and criminal trespassing as part of a eco-terrorist activities. Marsh finds out that she's a trust-fund baby and the very proud owner of an early Tesla Roadster. 

Veracity starts attempting to locate a trail. The trail loops back to the parking lot. Veracity's new  Cindy's Roadster is still in the lot. It's meticulously clean, with a tiny little trash can. The trunk is filled with clothing, hygiene, and personal items. It suggests a roadtrip. She was packed with at least three weeks of clothing. No drugs, no weapons, no signs of other passengers.

There's a distinct lack of prints on the car. It's suspicious.

We get some park rangers to chip the boulder down to a more managable size so we can get some of it and the girl's whole body back to the lab for further testing. It takes them two hours.

Marsh gets to work on the Roadster's GPS to make it sing. She's been doing a string of wildlife refuges and parks. She's bounced around various places. We get her hotel location.

"It's ALWAYS a Chevy Suburban."- Us when discussing the merits of government SUVs.

Surprisingly, Veracity's newly gained Occultism skills show that no occulty things happened here.

Her dad is an industrialist who founded a Solar Technologies company, Soltek. Marsh gets in contact to inform him that his daughter is dead. He's hopping a private jet to get up to NY ASAP.

Dad says Cindy was universally loved and adored, and did not have enemies. She'd just finished college and wanted to wander around. She refused to use a plane. Veracity is not allowed to talk to the father of the deceased.

Her father complicates getting the body back to our lab in the Subway, so we decide to commandeer the Rochester Morgue.

Cindy did not register at the hotel we see her stopped at on the GPS. Her keycard is still valid though. The hotel staff are bewildered when we arrive. James slightly sabotages Marsh's attempts at smoothing feathers by mentioning the Hollow Earth theory.

The room was registered to a guy named Lester S. Williams. Lester and Cindy left the hotel, but only Lester came back. We head up to talk to Lester.

Marsh knocks on the door. The guy inside indicates that he didn't order any room service, and Marsh states that we're police.

Lester makes a break for it. Marsh opens the door and Veracity fast-draws his Electrolaser.

Lester is raving about us being one of "them" as well as mind control. Lester draws a .22 derringer, and Veracity shoots at his gun hand with his Electrolaser. Lester has a moment to scream "DON'T TAZE ME BRO" before convulsing on the floor like a freshly caught fish.

Veracity frisks Lester and succeeds by 12, specifically citing threats such as cyanide capsules, grenades shoved up the rectum, and having a bomb sewn into his abdomen.

Lester complains about cotton mouth upon waking up. Veracity gets him some water as Marsh grills him about Cindy.

We learn more than we wanted to about Lester's pubic region as he asks for a deal to avoid prison.

Lester and Cindy were knocking boots and 'dating'. (During internet connection issues, we discuss Niklos testing out his new Brown Note gadget on Marsh to save the poor lab animals.)

Marsh has Lester very intimidated. There was a guy following Cindy and Lester. Cindy was with a group called Earth Now. Cindy indicated that the guy following her was an ex-boyfriend. 

We diagnose Lester with Affluenza. It's also decided that Gunther is largely preferable to Lester.

Marsh attempts to pwn her Facebook and Email. A dictionary attack reveals her password as 'motherearth'.

"Is Veracity going through the trash?"

       "When ISN'T Veracity going through the trash?"

Lester's trash is full of sources of DNA. Veracity dutifully catalogs it into evidence. 

Cindy's cellphone got wrecked by the transformation. Each of her cells went through the process of slowly mineralizing.  Niklos confirms that Lester did not strangle Cindy.

Cindy has a load of threatening messages from a guy named Mark Wassman. Wassman is a super annoying vegan who is big into bashing other liberal types who don't meet his unrealistic expectations. Mark is a terrible human being whose preoccupation with saving Mother Earth doesn't make up for his shit.

We're dealing with a metahuman who can phase.

Meanwhile, Mark's facebook shows a mysterious four-week gap of activity.

We decide to sic Aegis on Mark since they maintain tactical teams who are geared towards dealing with metahuman threats. Beat cops might be operating out of their weight class, and we'd prefer to avoid Mark adding a few police homicides to his rap sheet.

Marsh's request goes swimmingly, resulting in a full tactical team and a metahuman agent. Black Jack is the metahuman agent sent to us, a probability manipulator. Black Jack started off as a vigilante, and then Aegis recruited him about five years ago.

We turn the Rochester crime scene over to the local police. We meet up with the tactical team in Brooklyn to try and nab Mark.

Marsh and Veracity attempt tactics rolls to direct the team- it goes poorly with me failing and Marsh only succeeding by 1.

It turns out that Mark has a Swagellan account which allows Marsh to track his movements over his last few days. (Swagellan being Marsh's app that went super viral among the younger crowd that nobody over 30 really understands the purpose of.)

The tactical team does tactical things, with two watching the front, two watching the opposite side. Mikhail (Alex returned at this point) overhears radio chatter that the Subway requested a tac team, and tags along to support his team.

"Mikhail why are you cheating on us? I thought we were your special team?!" -Veracity

 Things go sideways. Black Jack is thrown out a fifth story window, splatting a poor dog that just happened  to be walking by.

There's no breaking glass.

Marsh tries and fails to fast-draw his Electrolaser. Mark drags a Tacteam member through a wall into the apartment. There's screams, and the guy is partially embedded in the wall.

Mikhail approaches the wall, drawing knives and taking a wait maneuver to attack Wassman when he attempts to grab him through the wall.

Veracity moves closer, fast-drawing his Electrolaser. Niklos draws something he whipped up during downtime.

Black Jack draws a gun and uses his powers to shoot through the wall where Mark just happens to be standing. There's a two-foot hole blown into the wall, but Mark looks unphased. (Blame Christopher for that pun.)

Wassman pulls a tac team member into the ground from his knees down. Hands reached up from the ground and pulled him under.

Veracity tries to slip around the side of the building to get a view inside.

Niklos takes a wait to zap Wassman anywhere within ten yards if he appears.

Marsh attempts to ridicule Mark to get him to give up or at least take pause. He succeeds by -13-.

Mark starts moving for Marsh, all angry and "WHAT DID YOU SAY ABOUT ME BRO? WANNA FIGHT?"

This triggers Niklos' wait action. Niklos zaps him with the new toy he made, landing a hit. Wassman makes his HT roll though.

Mikhail manages to stow his knives and draw his guns in a single turn, then firing three shots at Wassman. Wassman power dodges with feverish defense, avoiding the shots.

Veracity readies slip spray.

Niklos takes aim with his new gadget, firing two shots. Wassman dodges the attack.

Marsh nails Wassman with his electrolaser, and Wassman. Wassman recovers from being stunned a second later. Mikhail then goes for another round of shots at Wassman's legs.

Wassman powerdodges.

Veracity moves inside the apartment, smashing out a window and preparing to slip spray the inside.

Niklos tries to zap him again, and Wassman phases into the ground.

Wassman attacks Veracity, but an acrobatic retreat allows Veracity to avoid getting sucked inside.

From outside, Mikhail attempts to get Mark in the legs. Mikhail's shots hit. Mark goes down, hard. He screams a few frothing swears at Veracity before going unconscious.

Veracity turns his immediate attention to try and help the guy with his lower legs in the ground. Alex spends a Karma point to ensure that the guy stuffed through the wall survives. The guy in the ground manages to kick his way out after a pause.

Niklos attempts to save Mark's legs. Kevin crit fails the roll, causing Mark 2 points of injury that we're not spending Karma to fix because he'll live. Niklos' second attempt barely squeaks by with a roll of 16.

Niklos also steals some meds from the tacteam that neutralize Metahuman's ability to focus well enough to use their powers. A van transports him to a local interrogation site.

There is trash to go through at the apartment, so Veracity stays behind to do his thing. Marsh and Mikhail both stay to through the apartment as well. Niklos goes with Mark.

Niklos hears him mention MORNING TIDE (!!!!!!!!!!!).

Niklos bemoans not having a trained interrogator along. I suggest crediline which will make Mark very talkative and gullible. Niklos manages to act like he's Mark's doctor, and attempts to soothe Mark into talking about MORNING TIDE.

Mark starts gibbering about a skull.

Upstairs in the apartment, the entire tac team is miraculously alive (woo spent Karma). The place is pretty significantly trashed.

Veracity succeeds by 13 on a search check. Marsh succeeds by 13 to crack into his computer as well.

Mark's Inbox

Mark responded to a spam email, which is very strange. They corresponded back in forth, and then they invited Mark out to a meeting to 'improve his confidence'.

Veracity finds a business card for a personal health consultant- Dr. J Schultz. There's interesting vials of purple liquids which he puts into evidence bags for Niklos to examine later.

Veracity takes Mark's computer and phone. Mikhail looks through Mark's car, finding another vial of the purple liquid. Using Wheelman! Mikhail attempts to pull up the car's GPS records. The records include a stop at Iroquois Wildlife Refuge.

Niklos succeeds by 13 to save Mark's legs and allow him to actually walk again without problems in the future.

Veracity goes to work using Digital Oracle on Marks' computer, rabidly digging into it for dirt on MORNING TIDE, Blue Skies, or whatever else he can dig up for The Judge.

Nothing comes up that's interesting or worthy of sending to The Judge, but Veracity does nab Schultz' address, along with some digital leads to pass off to Marsh to hunt down. Schultz' office is located next to some empty offices that are primo eavesdropping spots.

Schultz has been talking with a Mr. Green, using draft emails to clandestinely communicate. There's a new test of some 'insecticide' going on.

Mikhail just happens to know a real estate officer (they knocked boots), and she can get us a line on touring the office around Schultz', and even allow us to buy it. We spend $8,000 to rent the place for a month.

We start bugging the shit out of the floor of our office, which is above Schultz' office.

Commentary:

We covered more ground than Christopher expected us to this session. I'm quite happy with a brisk pace of plot, given that we're currently playing on a bi-weekly basis. There were a lot less critical successes on our part this time around as well.

Overall, nothing really sticks out to me as being particularly noteworthy or awesome this session, much like the first episode of most TV shows entering a new season are laying the groundwork for what's to come. We solved the mystery of the week, introduced a thread that ties into stuff my character cares about (Blue Skies going down!), and nobody died facing Mark. I'm far more excited about the task we have coming up, which involves the promise of a lot of Tradecraft! rolls in my future. Schultz is in for a rude awakening when we can hear a gnat fart in his office and we have all of his communications to go through.

Something tells me we're looking into a satellite or subsidiary of Blue Skies, one of their research arms related to Project Icarus but working at a tangent. I could of course be proven wrong.

Veracity's Downtime: Part 1, Meeting The Judge

(Note for the B-Team: These events took place sometime in the first half of 2012, barring time travel or similar temporal disruptions. Still working out how to best get anything useful I learn to you guys over a four-year time gap.)

C-Team: Besides the explosives training and reporting any moles he finds to Lucas, Veracity doesn't share any of what he does in his free time with you.)


With the Bastille keys firmly in our grasp (IE: Sitting in a room only accessible by Ghost Train), the C-team is currently experiencing downtime between Subway missions that actually involve play. Christopher rounded up the 570ish hours of free time each character would have after allotting time for work, hygiene, eating, etc to a cool 600 hours.

#RunningGag

Here's an incomplete rundown of how Veracity spent his free time:

• 40 hours spent relaxing and catching up with his AEGIS Girlfriend
• 80 hours attempting to locate The Judge
• 200 hours undergoing intensive AEGIS Explosives (Demolition) training and filling out forms in triplicate to have AEGIS supply 5lbs of Plastex-B
• 80 hours looking into Green-sun Holdings/Blue Skies
• 80 hours checking AEGIS for moles
• 160 hours that are above your security clearance, citizen. (FRIEND COMPUTER IS YOUR FRIEND) FNORD

The Judge is a vigilante in the Aeon Universe. Widely stated to be a normal human, he's been lurking in the shadows dogging criminals and the unrighteous. He earned the moniker by hanging a child molester in a public space. 

My goal was to recruit him, bringing another agent into the fold for AEGIS.

I rolled very well to locate The Judge, with a MOS of at least 10+. Having started poking around and digging, The Judge decided to pay Veracity a visit in his apartment.

It became immediately apparent that targeting The Judge was going well above Veracity's weight class. Veracity wasn't vetting The Judge, it was the other way around.

The Judge was very nondescript, hard to pin down as being in a single spot (hazy looking), and inscrutable. I (Mr. Insidious) suspect he's got some nice optical camouflage clothing, similar to what Veracity is attempting to requisition from AEGIS over downtime.

The Judge is on a righteous (note: not self righteous) crusade against Blue Skies at the moment. He's been having trouble piercing the shroud that surrounds them. Each time he gets close to learning more about what's going on, they force him to choose between saving someone or getting the information he wants.

A selfless sucker just like Veracity, he stops them from hurting people every time.

The Judge has little interest in Veracity's doomsday theories and the conspiracy surrounding the secret of Black Swan- it's hard to focus on the meteor that's wiping out the dinosaurs and arriving in a year when your house is on fire RIGHT NOW. 

What The Judge is very interested in is MORNING TIDE and PROJECT ICARUS. Evidently Blue Skies has moved past making Steiners, and is instead creating Metahumans, hoping to give already dangerous people super-powers.

The implication seemed to be that 'dangerous people' implied the corrupt and socially powerful might soon be running around throwing fire from their hands. That might be Veracity choosing to see it that way.

Evidently, it all grew from PROJECT PROMETHEUS from the Institute, 

Veracity does his best to listen to The Judge's verbal diarrhea when asked to flesh out what he's learned about Blue Skies. Being an expert at piecing together conspiracies and Intelligence Analysis, I burn some Karma to make up for piss-poor rolls and advise The Judge how to go about making Greene-Sun Holding's day really, really bad.

Some loose ends:

• The Judge prefers Coke over Pepsi (heathen)
• The Judge is not what he calls himself (no I'm not sharing what he actually does call himself)
• The Judge has taken down occult threats before (Some Bokkor)
• Precognitives are having difficulties seeing past the year 2020 (The Wall)

Aeon C-Team S1E3: Capturing the Carpenter

The Team:

Lucas Nielson (PK Levine): A former vicar who lost his faith and made an enemy of the Vatican. Now he leads the AEGIS Subway team in their attempt to make sense of the supernatural.


Niklos Xanthopoulos (Kevin): Multidisciplinary genius, medical doctor, general curmudgeon. Believes Morphazine is the answer for everything.


Marsh Langston (Maverick): A blond, smiling hacker that will rip the most secure files out of your mainframe and convince you that was something YOU wanted. Marsh is a technical wunderkind and social engineer with a shadowy background in intelligence.


Mikhail Kovalenko (Alex): Measuring over 6'4'' and weighing about 230lbs, Ukrainian-born Mikhail Kovalenko was a former special agent in Eastern Europe, and is extremely competent in multiple forms of combat, piloting, field action, and weaponry. One of the nicest dudes you can probably meet, as long as you don't imply he's Russian...


Agent Veracity (Me): Agent Veracity is a highly capable investigator and field agent.  Agent Veracity is not allowed to participate in AEGIS Trivia Night.

Events:

We take a while to debate our approach- whether we're going to take on the Kitsune before the meeting with the Carpenter or not.

Handwaved: Binding the Kitsune via spending karma. Earning us a pissed off Kitsune that will be sure to come back to bite us in the butt.

The general plan is send Lucas, Mikhail, and Marsh inside to negotiate with the Carpenter while Veracity and Niklos take out the guards outside as quietly as possible.

PK makes a good argument that DX-based Medicine! covers using a tranq rifle to shoot sleep darts into guards. Christopher okays it.

We take a moment to assist Mikhail at hiding his ridiculously-sized wildcat pistols (Bulk -4) on his person since Mikhail's IQ-Based Gun! skill was lower than Veracity's Tradecraft! skill. Lucas assists with Mastermind! A long coat helps offset the ridiculous bulk penalty, although it might not stand up to a more traditional search.

"Can you put a silencer on an electrolaser?" (Answer: No, no you cannot.)

 Marsh attempts to build a jammer that will knock out cellphone/radio communication around the cottage. He fails and Mavrick spends a point of karma to make it a success. The jammer looks like a 1960's television remote. He hands it off to Niklos. He then succeeds by 12(!) on a Computers! check to loop the security camera footage the cottage receives.

Prep Phase

Niklos finds a vantage point from which to use the dart rifle.

The guys outside are in nice suits. They've got handguns and shotguns. They look like professionals, a cut above most mercenaries for hire. Mikhail assesses them as having guns skill roughly 14-17. Veracity uses intuition to identify which goon should be taken out first as the most dangerous.

I succeed a Stealth-5 roll to move closer to a goon without being spotted.

Inside, the Carpenter is wearing an impeccably grey tailored suit, with a red tie. He's older, perhaps mid-30's, early 40's. He looks like he could be someone's uncle. He's sitting in a very nice armchair sipping tea.

Lucas assesses the Carpenter's body language, succeeding by 9. He seems externally calm, but micro-expressions reveal that he's upset and angry. It's clear he's upset that we derailed his deal, or maybe it's that we're not French.

"We saved your butt in WW2, remember?"- What we DON'T say.

They frisk the guys inside, but somehow Mikhail does NOT have his gigantic hand cannons discovered. Marsh also avoids having his gun confiscated.

Someone who will not be named to protect the guilty (Lucas), fails a check for Overconfidence. Lucas walks in and drops his guns on the table once getting inside. He's making a statement.

There's a suitcase on the table in front of the Carpenter (Insert Pulp Fiction quotes and questions about glowing suitcases here). The Carpenter asks to see the Bastille key, and Marsh implies that Lucas is an archaeology expert. Lucas opens up the case they put the key in, showing it to the Carpenter.

Mikhail has obviously assumed a stance that most people would associated with incoming violence, but since everyone believes he has no weapons, nobody questions it.

The Carpenter reveals that the suitcase is indeed full of our payment. Marsh makes a show of riffling through it. The Carpenter really doesn't like Americans. Marsh smooths things over temporarily by speaking fluent French at the Carpenter. Mikhail ruins this by not being able to respond in French.

The exchange begins, with the Carpenter taking the key.

Guy circled in Red is the one Veracity identified as being the most dangerous. Niklos was technically off the map during the entire combat.

Outside, Niklos is making an IQ-Based Medicine! roll to use Precision Aiming, followed by a DX-Based Medicine! roll to actually hit with the shot. He succeeds on the Precision Aiming roll for a +2 bonus (limited by gun Acc and his Scope). Overall, with range penalty, it's at -1. Kevin fails the roll by 2 and spends a point of Karma to make it a hit.

Christopher rolls a 4 on the HT check to resist the Morphazine dart to the neck. *WHOMP WHOMP*

Veracity sneaks up on a guard and goes to get him around the neck with his garrote. Against a modified skill of 22, I roll a 5, which crits for double damage. I roll crappy damage. When offered a chance to spend 2 karma to make my margin of success Skill-3, I take it, killing the guy.

Veracity manages to sneak behind the dangerous goon. Attempting to shoot him in the skull I fail. I attempt to spend karma. Christopher slaps down doom points to make it a critfail. I roll a 18 and Nancy is out for the rest of the fight.

Miraculously, the goon doesn't notice this. He also doesn't notice getting hit in the neck by Niklos' tranq rifle, swatting the dart away like a mosquito bite.

Niklos hits the goon with a second Morphazine dart. The doubled-dosage overcomes the goon's mighty HT score. And he drops, falling on top of Veracity. (Thanks to another Doom point spent by Christopher.)

Veracity manages to use Tradecraft! based escape to get out from under the goon, continuin to sneak around to the corner of the cottage, while Niklos drops another goon with a dart rifle.

Sneakity Sneak, a Snake a Snake

Niklos nails the last guy not on the doors in the neck, dealing 3 damage and sending him to coma land.

With all of the exterior guards taken out except for the two manning the front door to the cottage, Niklos and Veracity plan on attempting to drop the two at the same time. Niklos shooting one, Veracity shooting the other with his Electrolaser.

Niklos drops his target by getting him in the arm with a dart, Veracity gets his in the leg and knocks him out.

Just before Mikhail makes the Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight look like Amateur hour

Mikhail springs into action at that moment, fast-drawing both of his pistols. With his left hand he pops the guy in the rear, dropping him immediately. With his right, he Quick-Shoots at the remaining 3, firing 1 shot each at the skull of each guy. In a second, Mikhail has killed all four men inside the Cottage protecting the Carpenter.

Marsh takes advantage of the chaos to fast-draw his Electrolaser and shoot the Carpenter with it. The Carpenter starts convulsing on the floor.

Veracity enters and grabs the briefcase of cash. Niklos ensures the guys he tranquilized will wake up in hours instead of days. Mikhail uses a guard's phone to call the French equivalent of 911.

We get the Carpenter into the Ghost Train and return to the base in NYC. Marsh crit fails his check to not puke out his guts- for the third or fourth time. It's clear that Marsh and the Ghost Train just do not get along. (QUIRK ACQUIRED!)

CHOO CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The Carpenter, in a glaringly bad moment of opsec, was carrying the other keys that he had acquired.

Mikhail takes a look at Nancy to get Veracity's gun fixed from the malfunction earlier in the day.

The Carpenter had fake identification on him. We toss him into one of the magical cells.

When he wakes up, The Carpenter is in for a rude awakening with Lucas looming over him. The Carpenter indicates that he won't survive the night. He seems to think that we don't know what we're dealing with. Lucas attempts to rile him up, being a bit of a dick.

Lucas starts off by trying to get him to talk about what's going to kill him.

At this point, Christopher is swearing about the spree of crappy rolls that he's suffered over numerous sessions. PK's bribes to roll20 are clearly paying off.

The Carpenter lets slip something about a demon, who is working for 'Him', who is also who the Carpenter was working for. Lucas attempts to broker a deal where he gives up his employer, and we attempt to keep him alive despite the demon out to flay him and wear his flesh as a tuxedo.

PK's threat to spend karma to negate Christopher's first good roll of the night causes Christopher to drop Doom on it. We as a group decide to negate it by collectively spending Karma.

The Carpenter has only met his employer, Marlowe, once. Lucas seems very cavalier to ambush the demon at the spot where the Carpenter was supposed to make the trade with the demon.

Lucas continues to pressure him to drop the details on the meet. The Carpenter seems legitimately concerned that he's actually going to die.

Our prisoner witch is complaining about the lack of food and wanting to be released. Veracity goes off to make her a sandwich, also dragging over a TV so she can watch Pawn Stars.

"You can't leave a TV outside her cell left on Pawn Stars, that's torture!" -Marsh

Lucas allows the Carpenter a choice between escape or cooperation, and the Carpenter runs for it. Mikhail quickly abuses him of the illusion of freedom, getting him in a prompt arm lock.

Veracity takes a moment to ask the witch about demons. Marcelle seems to know something of substance, but Veracity leaves it to Lucas to negotiate with her. Marcelle wants freedom, immunity for her past crimes, and a big payday.

We contemplate agreeing and then getting the Coven of the Black Grail to be waiting nearby to snatch her so they can deal with her.

Mikhail does some gun-based intimidation, by firing a shot directly over the top of her head.

We realize that the demon will be returning to the cottage in France near Sundown- where we just left six bodies and four unconscious guys. The entire place is likely a crime scene by this point, and a demon showing up will likely be a catastrophe.

Lucas contacts Anya, and once the topic of Marlowe comes up she immediately mentions that everyone needs light. The lights in the entire subway click off. All of us except Mikhail make our perception checks.

Niklos and Veracity are attacked by something and both fall unconscious. Niklos, who is in the lab trying to fill darts with holy water, dumps a jar of it all over himself as he falls. (Spending a Karma point to affect the scene). Marsh also can't resist what's going on, and falls unconscious as well.

Anya tells Lucas that we need light again, causing Lucas to ask Mikhail to create a fire. Mikhail attempts to create light by firing his guns, hoping that the flashes have an effect, giving Lucas time to ask. Mikhail can make out a shadowy figure moving about.

The lights click back on Subway, triggered by Lucas' foresight to rig up a backup generator in case we ever lost power. The Carpenter has been ripped to shreds, and the demon that killed him is standing in the cell, looking solidified. There's a grand total of four shadowy demons outside the cell.

Mikhail opens fire with both of his pistols, landing 4 hits on the solidified demons. It is completely unphased. Lucas fast-draws and fires his electrolaser, but the demon dodges.

The shadowy figures start smoking and fleeing for cover. The demon in the cell starts screaming and burning. Mikhail goes to get Veracity and Marsh to safety, while Lucas rushes to the medbay to check on Niklos.

The demon in the cell starts going off like a sparkler, leaving an ash trail as it tries to shamble around to escape whatever is frying it. It crumbles fully to ash, which Lucas collects.

It takes about 10-20 minutes for all of us to regain consciousness. We all show signs of frostbite and bruising. Niklos figures the demon reduced core body temps in an instant to incapacitate us all.

Veracity checks the cameras immediately. The shadows appear, unsurprisingly, as shadows.

The Subway's wards have been completely blown through, something confirmed by Anya. Marcelle was completely left untouched. Anya suggests discarding the ash left behind. She mentions "He who must not be named.", making a Harry Potter reference that Lucas completely misses. Marlowe is the Warlock's Nom De Plume. Anya says he's 4-5 centuries old, and scary.

The security footage shows that the cell likely forced the demon to solidify and take corporeal form. From the looks of it the demons completely avoided Marcelle and didn't attempt to communicate with her.

However, earlier, Marcelle totally saw shadows shifting at her feet during our conversation with her.

"We did some really fast research on Marlowe and found a reference to him - he got his start in 15th-century Europe, studied magic and witchcraft, and has popped up a few times since including work with the Nazis in the 40s, rumored work with the Russians during the Cold War, and rumored work with the CIA in the 90s."- Niklos

Veracity gets to scouring the internet with Oracle, while Lucas does the same with his occult resources. Niklos gets to doing an autopsy.

Marlowe shows up, causes all sorts of damaging waves. Goes after something specific, almost always a relic, artifact, but sometimes people, and then fucking disappears. In the 40's while he was working Thule Cult Society, he acted as a mentor for occult and magical shit to several of the people within the society.

Marsh double-checks that the cops who clean up the shootout in France didn't result in a cop massacre via demons. He also looks for collaborative reports for shadow demons, which turns up shittons of search results. No crime is reported at the cottage, and evidently no bodies were found.

Veracity strikes out on his internet search.

Marcelle offers to tell us where Marlowe is in exchange for her freedom. Niklos isn't haven't any of it.

Lucas calls Anya to arrange getting the Black Coven to take custody of Marcelle if we release her after cutting a deal. Anya is violently enthusiastic about such an arrangement. (OUT OF CHARACTER INTERRUPTION DUE TO COOL 3D PRINTED MASKS)

Lucas offers to pick them up in the train. There's dithering about the true nature of the train, with Marsh being violently opposed to it, with Lucas singing its praises. Anya and the Coven agree to make the jaunt to the Subway to grab her.

CHUGGA CHUGGA CHUGGA CHUGGA WOO WOO

Anya and two of her sisters meet up with Lucas. Niklos calls Lucas to confirm that Lucas didn't die on the train. Niklos' phone rings strangely. Niklos seems to be having a strange call from his grandfather, who is long dead. Niklos has a pleasant conversation with his Grandfather, being unfazeable. Niklos brings up Marlowe.

His grandfather has heard of him, and warns Niklos that Marlowe is dangerous. Niklos' grandfather knows of someone who can help us locate Marlowe. Niklos goes on to talk with his grandmother, inquire about the afterlife, and continue to act like all is normal.

Niklos gets a bunch of info on Marlowe, circa 1940. Marlowe was part of an elite unit called the Marauders. Daniel Legend can supposedly help us out.

Lucas eventually gets Niklos' text about talking with his dead grandparents. It's too surreal to be false.

Niklos discovers from the autopsy that the Carpenter was just brutally ripped apart- at least ST18 with claws. He's guessing that they knock people unconscious with the cold touch and then shred them like cheese.

Lucas will let Marcelle walk if she tells us what she knows about Marlowe, right into the waiting arms of the Coven of the Black Grail. She informs us that he was working with a company called Sun Green Holdings.

Marcelle is swarmed by the Black Grail, who takes her down after a messy altercation. We ended the session there.

Commentary:

Despite getting hosed by DOOM early on, the fight at the cottage was extremely one-sided in our favor. "I'm not a sniper/secret agent" Niklos managed to drop at least 4 guards outside with his tranq rifle. Mikhail also performed admirably, utterly preventing a fight inside in a flurry of lead and violence.

I made something like five stealth checks in a row vs. modified skill 13 to move undetected into position. It's nice not to be taking fire from six armed guards without an immediate backup, but it didn't really feel badass and still doesn't. Veracity is arguably the second-most capable combat character in the group after Mikhail, and Niklos doubled his bodycount while assuming less risk to do so. I think it's a fair argument that had a firefight broken out my character had the highest risk of getting gunned down without copious Karma expenditure.

After the fight, things shifted heavily towards Lucas, to the point where Marsh and Veracity in particular didn't get any opportunities to do much of anything. A large part of this is the fact that Lucas is the only PC built to handle occult matters, and too many problems have either the Coven of the Black Grail or the Occult Library in the Subway as solutions.

I have very little interest myself in the oogey boogey stuff as a player, which makes me loathe to spend points on Occultism when I'd much rather be focusing elsewhere. I feel the onus is on Christopher to blend modern and occult in a way that most of the PCs will actually have contributions they can make to the group, something that really fell apart this session.

Christopher is aware of my opinion on how this session went, and I know he's already looking into how he can better accommodate the group.

VTT Rant: Port Forwarding and my Love/Hate relationship with Roll20

A few Five years back I ran a D&D campaign using MapTool, which I'd still be using if I hadn't run into port forwarding errors. Being behind numerous routers because my roommate has unique internet use demands meant that configuring port forwarding correctly was a complete and total pain in my ass.

Nothing like pestering the roommate at 11pm because a firmware update fucks port forwarding up and your gaming group can't do jack shit until he adds it back into the router.

(In fact, I wrote about having the same port issues over two years ago- my internet situation hasn't changed in that time.)

Maptool's macros were handy, the line of sight feature was nice (although sometimes buggy), and generally the program did everything I needed it to.

Compare to Roll20. Roll20 is browser based, locks line of sight, Fog of War, and the more powerful features behind a pay gate, and has really clumsy controls (I hate reflexively using just the scroll wheel in an attempt to zoom in on the map and having the entire page scroll).

Roll 20 Pros:

• No Port Forwarding
• Everyone and their grandmother has a compatible browser

Roll 20 Cons:

• Have fun paying $100/year for macro functionality Maptool provides for free
• Browser controls are funky

Other solutions exist, like Battleground's VTT, which is ~$100 for a permanent GM license + five players, which is way more reasonable that $100/yr for me.

But then I stumbled on this looking at Battlegrounds:

I'll skip a licensing process and a cool $100 that might smack into port forwarding bullshit, thanks. Maybe it's been fixed in the last ten years of development (Update: nope), but I'm not exactly brimming with confidence. That money could also be spent on a large pizza and a hardcover copy of GURPS: High-Tech, which is far more likely to give me lasting warm fuzzy feelings inside.

So for now, I'm still looking at alternatives to Roll20. Of course, getting maps suitable for use with any VTT is also a complete and total pain in the ass, and I wish I still had the mapping objects .zip that was floating around back in 2011 that was really nifty. 

Although it's nice to see that Tiamat Mapper has resurfaced lately.

Inspiration Source: Nexus War

Back when I was just starting highschool, this whiskey-drinking, apollo-worshiping dude named Brandon Harris created a browser based game called Nexus War. (Spiritual Successor: Nexus Clash.)

Nexus War had some roots in Urban Dead- Jorm had played, and Nexus War at first glance had a lot of the same elements. Play entailed moving around a map of squares on a grid, heavy PVP elements, and that's about as far as the similarities went. Players had a limited number of Action Points to spend, and once they were gone, you were stuck waiting until they refreshed to do more.

But Urban Dead was always about zombies and humans duking it out in a ruined city- Nexus War was far more ambitious. The entire world was a conflict between beings of immense power, with the players ultimately deciding the fate of the entirety of that existence.

Nexus Clash had something like fifteen or so different character classes to spec into, with the option of becoming Angelic (Good), Demonic (Evil), or Transcendent (Neutral). Within the morality framework, you had combat monsters, spellcasters, and combat/spellcasting hybrids.

Angels ranged from the clockwork Seraphs who got badass ultratech innate weaponry to use, to the Divine Champion who could assume various cloaks and change their composition to do crazy shit. (Shoutout to the cloak of steel that allowed them to use ambulances and other vehicles as weapons.) The other classes didn't really grasp me as much, although the Lightspeaker had some kickass pets.

Demons had Infernal Behemoths, hulking masses of flesh and muscle with their own innate weaponry, as well as Void Walkers, these badass creatures capable of stepping through walls and turning invisible. Kudos to Dark Oppressors for having the Agony Curse + Defiler Poison Combo, one of THE most satisfying and evil things to slap on another human's virtual representation of themselves since the dawn of time. (Every time someone hit with the combo took an action that used Action Points, Defiler Poison would damage them, boosted by Agony Curse, which also gave the user of the curse XP every time the curse triggered.)

Angels never gained access to debuffs, and were generally stronger than an individual demonic character, although morality restrictions meant that certain behaviors were extremely counterproductive. Demons couldn't accept healing from others, and also had no built-in reasons to cooperate since killing one another gives just as much XP as killing an Angel or Neutral character running around.

I've been brainstorming pretty heavily about a game centered around mortals empowered and enhanced by an Angel to fight off Demonic hordes, and it's safe to say that the aesthetic of Nexus War will play a large part in the trappings of the campaign.

One Last Thing: I am scared to try Jorm's grilled cheese recipe.

C-Team S1E2: GUNTHER NO LIKE RELISH

The Team:

Lucas Nielson (PK Levine): A former vicar who lost his faith and made an enemy of the Vatican. Now he leads the AEGIS Subway team in their attempt to make sense of the supernatural. 

Niklos Xanthopoulos (Kevin): Multidisciplinary genius, medical doctor, general curmudgeon. Believes Morphazine is the answer for everything.

Marsh Langston (Maverick): A blond, smiling hacker that will rip the most secure files out of your mainframe and convince you that was something YOU wanted. Marsh is a technical wunderkind and social engineer with a shadowy background in intelligence.

Mikhail Kovalenko (Alex): Measuring over 6'4'' and weighing about 230lbs, Ukrainian-born Mikhail Kovalenko was a former special agent in Eastern Europe, and is extremely competent in multiple forms of combat, piloting, field action, and weaponry. One of the nicest dudes you can probably meet, as long as you don't imply he's Russian...

Agent Veracity (Me): Agent Veracity is a highly capable investigator and field agent.  Agent Veracity is not allowed to participate in AEGIS Trivia Night. 

Events:

(January 7th, 2012)

Marsh gets to work on the Witch's phone. It's a burner, purchased just around the corner from the wax museum. It's been barely used, only calling a few numbers. It called an address in Nice, France.

Niklos is using sedative drip to keep the witch knocked out.

The address is a timeshare, and the papertrail leading to it is a trail of shell companies, false identities, and all sorts of other crap.

James brings up contacting the Black Cup to get some magical backup for containing the Witch. Lucas shoots this plan down.

It's decided that Lucas will talk to her once she's allowed to wake up. Niklos gets to work making aerosolized morphazine (sleep drug) for use with flooding the room if the Witch gets all uppity. He also slips something into the drip to make her more gullible and talkative. Niklos succeeds by 12 to make the gas.

We discuss countermeasures for negating her magical powers. Lucas assures us he can wrestle her into submission if things go sideways.

I KNOW THEY REALLY EXIST

We go ahead and allow her to wake up.

Marcelle Lemaître scowls at us after waking up. Veracity grabs the mic for the speaker into the room and reminds Lucas to ask about the Kiebler elves.

The Witch is quite confused, mentions she's on great terms with the Svalarts. Lucas tells her what's up, and she hits on him.

She asks to be released so she can be more comfortable. Lucas ignores this and asks her about the Bastille. She makes a bondage-related comment.

Lucas deflects, and she answers that the blood and agony of people has increased the power of the place. She realizes she's been drugged.

Lucas gets her to answer that she's selling the keys. The last person to collect the three keys was obliterated by the power, so she's not interested in using them herself.

The Witch answers that it's Brownies enslaved by Nabisco, not Kiebler Elves, that have been making snack crackers for decades.

When asked about who her employer is, she answers. "I'm not gonna tell you that, I don't want my head to explode."

She asks for water and questions whether we're giving her her rights. Lucas legalese babbles at her until she stops. She starts singing, until Lucas brings up the sky blue 1960's Jaguar and the French Consulate.

James encourages Marsh to storm in and act like her Lawyer.

Marsh doing his best Eamon impression

"Be the bullshit artist you always wish you were." -James

Jean-Piere Reynard is the French Ambassador she names. He's located at the consulate, high enough to have his hands in 'any of the pies' according to Christopher.

Marsh walks in and bullshits about being the Witch's lawyer. Lucas and Marsh spar a bit to ham it up. Lucas leaves the room and hovers by the door in case shit goes down.

Marsh starts asking her questions from the position of someone who wants to help her, maneuvering her into cooperating to escape 'charges' that might be brought against her. She asks if Marsh is related to a guy in a white suit, with white hair. She stares above his head repeatedly, as if something is there.

James brings in milk and cookies for the witch. She threatens to kill everyone. James brushes it off, claiming that the Illuminati already wants him dead.

Marsh asks if we can unrestrain a hand so she can enjoy the milk and cookies. Niklos loudly yells "NO!" through the mic into the room. Marsh helps her eat.

"Reynard is just a fixer." She says when questioned about him. She has a bunch of contacts within the French Consulate. One individual is named 'The Carpenter', who works out of Nice. She finds the Carpenter scary, including a tale about him building and shipping a coffin to one of his victims.

She was paid 5 million to get all three. She already delivered two out of the three keys, using express mail to send them to France.

Marsh starts to press her to give more info, bringing up the severity of her crimes. She starts to suspect that Marsh isn't legit. Marsh backtracks, and she recognizes Marsh as being in the Wax museum.

Niklos hits the gas button once Marsh has left the room, and she is obviously resistant to the Morphazine this time around. She's starting to get agitated. A direct injection of Morphazine knocks her out.

James suggests zapping her with an electrolaser a few times if we need to do more interrogation. The group decides we've exhausted that avenue, and Lucas makes the call to contact the Coven of the Black Cup to see what they'd like done with her.

Niklos brings up the AEGIS policies for handling prisoners like this, and AEGIS has a serious gap for supernatural folks who can sling magic.

We opt to have Lucas' coven friend create a witch-proof box. Christopher shoots down having it accessible by the ghost train.

James has Marsh break him into the USPS so he can data mine the shit out of their info and use Digital Oracle to map the most probable path of the packages. I confirm that they were delivered to the flat in Nice. James suggests following the scent of the keys' magic using the route, if needed.

Lucas goes to Salem to pick up Anya

Lucas' coven contact, Anya is very happy to see Lucas. "Muffin!" She gives Lucas a bag of molly plants. Anya and the coven are still very much happy to help Lucas.

Marsh digs through Reynard's digital trash. Reynard is originally Belgian. Joined the French Foreign Legion for 20 years. There's no hard evidence, but Marsh STRONGLY suspects Reynard was a spy of some sort. Gut feeling is CIA/French Intelligence. He's dipped his toes in the supernatural stuff 'religiously', especially catholic artifacts.

James suggests faking a religious artifact to bring Reynard out of his cave.

Marsh also pwned Reynard's accounts. James suggests all kinds of nefarious tactics and leverage this can possibly enable. His email accounts are intentionally vague when it comes to his religious paraphernalia.

Niklos suggests using the actual Key as bait. Niklos' ARCHAEOLOGY! can totally be used to fake artifacts.

We decide to target The Carpenter more directly via Reynard, claiming that we took out Marcelle Lemaître, and will sell the final key for the $5 million he was going to pay her.

"You've created a nice mockup. It even appears magically delicious." - Christopher

 We decide to contact The Carpenter in a ballsy manner, using Reynard to do so. Marsh drops a trojan in the email, pwning Reynard with a serious backdoor. James drafts the message with help from Lucas, succeeding by 8 on Tradecraft! after a +2 boost from Lucas.

We get a quick response back. He's interested and will contact a mutual friend, but wants proof. Reynard wants to meet in person.

James suggests meeting outside wherever AEGIS' local kickass team likes to hangout, so that if shit goes down we have friendlies with a big can o' WHOOP ASS nearby. The team decides this isn't actually needed.

Christopher indicates that James' tin-foil hat behavior about an ambush, kidnapping attempt, or other such shenanigans are unlikely considering Reynard's personality.

Anya crits on creating the witch containment box, creating a permanent place to contain witches. She eventually takes the time to make two more for us.

The transaction at the meeting spot is going down at a deli in three hours. Niklos doesn't have acting, isn't good at hiding who he is, and doesn't scream "I'M A SECRET AGENT".

Anya decides to come along as she's hungry. When prompted to think about her safety, she mentions shooting lightning from her palms and make someone's balls wither.

Reynard and his personal bodyguard show up. Reynard is your generic looking average joe, his muscle entirely lacks a neck and is loudly complaining about the composition of his sandwich.

"GUNTHER NO LIKE RELISH." -Gunther, a wordsmith of our time

The Gorilla might be smarter than Gunther

Mikhail attempts to order voka and accidentally gives away Marsh's name. He tries to cover by saying that Marsh's name is April.

Reynard goes into the bathroom to contact his people after bashing out some details with Marsh. Marsh makes small talk with Reynard's goon, helping him to get his sandwich order corrected. We learn he's making peanuts working for Reynard, so Marsh gets his phone number and makes the goon a job offer. Marsh is completely shameless about poaching the goon, even once Reynard returns.

At this point we have Gunther completely about to lose his shit and quit. Reynard fires him, after handing over a phone the Carpenter will contact us with.

Lucas and James decide to bug Reynard's car. Lucas succeeds by 9, increasing James' success to 9 as well. We get a nice over-the-shoulder view with the camera bug so that we'll see whatever the driver sees.

We leave the deli. Marsh begins work tracking any calls received by the phone we were given by Reynard. He sets up shop in a pub. Reynard's goon has followed Marsh to the pub. Marsh pays him. It becomes evidently clear that Mr. Goon is like a puppy that refuses to stop following someone around.

Marsh crits on making a device to track the call from the Carpenter when it comes in. The Goon then crits on his roll to detect tails on Marsh. He spots one, rushing outside, grabbing the unfortunate tail, and tossing him at Marsh's feet. The creep is completely awed by Gunther. Creep was paid by "some guy" to follow Marsh. Marsh instructs him to tell "Some guy" to say that Marsh entered a random bar.

WHO'S A GOOD PUPPY WHO CAN FLIP OVER CARS?

Marsh makes it clear that if Creep is ever seen again he'll be in major trouble.

Evidently Goon is rocking some crazy ST, as a car outside is flipped over and the driver's side door has been completely ripped off the hinges and tossed across the parking lot when James and Lucas arrive outside.

The Carpenter calls, speaking French. The entire party groans when Maverick suggests giving the phone to Mikhail to make the deal, but Mikhail ends up with the phone anyways. The Carpenter sounds like an elitist asshole over the phone.

The Carpenter is happy to pay 5 million if we bring the key to him in person. He wants to meet us in two days at an address in Calais France. He hangs up shortly after. Marsh's tracking efforts fail (whoever was doing The Carpenter's encryption got a crit).

James knows that it's a small cottage that's currently in foreclosure.

Marsh tasks Goon with watching the bar, bribing him with a sandwich.

James makes the mistake of calling Lucas Muffin and then questioning one of Anya's threats about speaking Amphibian. She casts a spell and turns into a frog. After being turned back from a frog into human, he immediately runs off to inform his conspiracy theorist forum buddies that polymorphs can actually happen.

James knows a spot for the ghost train to arrive once he comes back from his epiphany moment.

But we're interrupted...

BAD DOG, NO SAMMICH

Christopher crit fails a roll, and Marsh receives a call from the pub. The Goon is causing quite a disturbance. He ripped a bolted down stool from the store and has threatened the cops with bodily harm if they try to enter the pub. He's indicated that Marsh is his contact info. 

Niklos and Mikhail go with Marsh. Marsh fakes some files to make it appear that his pet goon is suffering from some mental issues that make him respond badly to authority figures.

Gunther tosses a dude in a costume out into the street, injuring him badly. It's clear that Gunther is some kind of super, considering he's shrugged off bullets. Niklos does his medical wizardry, rolling a crit vs. Medicine!

Marsh and Gunther have a conversation about the merits of causing trouble instead of preventing trouble. Evidently some huckster tried to shakedown the bar, got attacked by Gunther, and then shit went down that escalated the situation.

Gunther after talking with Marsh about causing trouble

Niklos is pretty sure bullets completely pancaked off of Gunther's skin. Gunther also claims to not feel pain. Marsh pulls 'rank' by flashing Homeland security credentials, claiming that he's taking custody of Gunther.

The cops back down. Marsh eventually talks Gunther into lying low and not causing trouble for a few days.

We finally actually get to take the train to Calais, France.

CHOO CHOO CHUGGA CHUGGA CHUGGA CHUGGA

Lucas sends a report to AEGIS' supers monitoring department, pointing out that Marsh has made contact and might work as a handler. 

"Do we get an 80% cost reduction on a microfab that only makes sandwiches?" "SUDO MAKE ME SANDWICH"

We take a look at the cottage, which is a really nice place, complete with flowers. A Tradecraft! sweep at a high success tells James that something... wonky... is going on.

Lucas determines that there's a hella expensive glamour over the place, one that changes its appearance and makes people ignore the spot.

Mikhail locates a vantage point for shooting with the rifle while PK uses foresight to state that he's prepared with occult countermeasures to such a glamour. It takes pain to break the glamour, meaning that we're dealing with Japanese sorcery of some kind.

The illusion is gone for Lucas. The cottage is in still in great shape, but doesn't look nearly as amazing as before. He spots several cameras, and the urge to look away is no longer present. 

Marsh pulls up some info on the cottage. It was owned by the Lemarchand family. The last owner couldn't pay a loan related to rethatching the roof, and the bank took it after the loan repayment lapsed.

Lucas tells us all about pain being what will break the glamour. Mikhail has difficulty given his high pain threshold.

Dramatization of our stealth attempt

The house is being maintained, it's in good repair, it's not empty. We assume someone actually lives inside. The security work is average, not bad, but not amazing. Lucas can plot a path to avoid security. 

We all avoid the cameras, then break the illusion.

We decide to place some electronics gear on the cameras to allow Marsh to Pwn them. With a staggering +5 to skill with a bunch of complimentary skill checks, I roll a 17. One point of Karma later and that's a success. For placing the bug I roll a success by 11. Marsh is in their camera system.

James suggests changing the camera footage with this at a later point in time.

We leave and go to a high-end hostel. We start using the cameras to conduct surveillance, with the intention of Veracity paying a visit later to snoop around. PK crits on a Mastermind! check. With the crit from Lucas, some other complimentary skill checks, and time spent, James crits with a success of -23-. 

James finds fox fur at the house.

Lucas succeeds Occult by 9 and knows that we're dealing with a Kitsune. Kitsunes are fox/ferret type things, really good at illusions. They DO have Foxfire. A shinto priest can bless a scarf that will bind a kitsune if tied around their left ankle.

Remains to be seen how accurate this picture of a Kitsune is.

James knows of a Shinto Priest nearby via his crazy encyclopedic knowledge. At a sushi restaurant. Niklos as the only one who speaks Japanese makes the approach. Niklos spins a yarn about a sister with a wedding, and needing some scarves blessed to make her happy.

Christopher slaps down Doom points to make this interaction go poorly.

The Japanese dude is the Kitsune's uncle. He knows she lives down the lane. He flips out about the various spirits talking to him. He calls us insane for trying to kill a kitsune. Niklos tries to convince the priest to talk to Lucas. The priest begrudgingly hands us ribbons blessed with glacial spring water.

"When it taps three times, don't answer." The old man cautions us. He forces some sushi on Niklos. 

We gather up again to decide on plans and end the session there. (January 9th, 0900 in the morning start of next session.)

Commentary:

We had something like 10 critical successes over the course of the night, which seems to be a running trend. Maybe PK really did bribe Roll20. Despite being session two, the group has had very little difficulty coordinating, planning, or executing once a plan has been settled on.

Which has been awesome. 

We're killing it with complimentary skill rolls, given that all of our characters are broadly skilled, and took Wildcards that are (SURPRISE) applicable in a great deal of situations. Tradecraft! has proven to be a great investment for Veracity.

Mastermind! also deserves mention because of the special benefit Christopher has given to it- when PK makes a complimentary skill roll, a success can add more than just +1 to the assisted roll, which is huge. With Lucas at the helm, hard skill checks become vastly easier.

We spent a good amount of time deciding how to handle Reynard and his connection to The Carpenter. I'll admit, I was really hoping to kidnap Reynard, but the group decided that antagonizing him and the French Consulate wasn't worth what we'd gain. I believe we made the right call, even if a well executed kidnapping is far more fun to plan than a simple meeting at a diner.

IT'S AN AMBUSH GUYS

Much like my character, I'm probably the most overtly suspicious player in the group. I fully expected Reynard to be a double-crossing liar who'd be willing to attack us in NYC during negotiations over the London Bastille Key, and I'm going to treat future NPCs with the same level of distrust. Part of this is undoubtedly based on the fact that I've been running socially back-stabby games for the last 2-3 years.

It's good to stretch a little and cleanse the palate so to speak, even if I'm still itching to sandbox whatever I can in the future. (Such as pumping Reynard to give us dirt on the movement of artifacts with mojo, lest we blow his cover and trash his life via his pwned email account.)

I'm really not looking forward to the Kitsune fight. I'm sure all of the PCs would agree, given that Marsh and Niklos are both Scully-types who don't believe in magic, that Lucas and Veracity both likely understand that we should be afraid going into this, and Mikhail- well, Mikhail gets to shoot something, but hopefully bullets actually work.

The occult nature of what we're going up against is also a large part of why I'm not looking forward to the fight. Fleshy meatbag humans blasting at one another with guns is cut-and-dry, easy to understand, and it's what Veracity was built to do.

Asking him to take on illusion-using Japanese fox spirit with the goal of tying a silk ribbon around its LEFT ankle is just...

Have you ever tried tying something around say, a cat's tail? Especially when said cat has no interest in being nice and still and cooperating, and would much rather sink its claws into your flesh? Binding the Kitsune is going to be a gigantic pain in the ass. I fully expect blood, sweat, tears, and agony.

Christopher definitely has an appreciation for folklore and old wives' tales about things that go bump in the night that I lack. I'm pretty sure my first thought upon hearing Kitsune was 'My ex was fucking obsessed with those things'. 

The occult stuff is basically intellectual lettuce to me- it's there, it pads out the plot sandwich so that it's got some heft to it, but is flavorless and easy to ignore if you wish. Salt is a counter-measure to witches? Woo. Hopefully Lucas has some because that's his character's niche and I'll just be over here never putting points into having practical Occult skills. (Note: This is not actually ruling out putting points into practical knowledge, just showing my reluctance to actually do so.)

I'm looking forward to the next session we get to play, even foreseeing a hard confrontation ahead of us. I'm chomping at the bit to get to the meat of the plot- we're really similar to a new TV show where they're trying to put down roots and a foundation to build on later. 

Familiar Horrors:

Being polymorphed into a frog/toad

You should be checking out Johnny 3d6 (and some updates)

1: You should read Johnny3d6

Mavrick plays Sam in Prohibition Mobsters, and he's done an outrageously good job on summarizing both almost a year of play as well as the last session. Don't be surprised when he starts churning out quality blog posts about GURPS and other topics relating to RPGs.

Seriously, feel free to stop reading the rest of this post and go check it out.

2: Travel

Traveled home for my mom's birthday, which means a week gap between Prohibition Mob sessions and very little productivity when it comes to GURPS,

3: C-Team

C-team is making me regret that playing on a weekly basis likely isn't in the cards.