Dresden Files: Out in the Cold in L.A.
Last night was my first night playing in the Dresden Files campaign I've just joined. My character is Mešlamta-ea, the emissary of Nergal. I'm going to mostly give s story hour in this post, but I'll intersperse that with thoughts on play and the game.
I've played with all the people in the group before (except perhaps Andrew?) at the Strategicons. Colin has a very particular GMing style, especially in the way he hits compels (he often GMs FATE) and aims right at your character's fracture points and demands you make hard decisions. He started the play by summarising the situation each of the characters found themselves in, focusing on the decisions they'd made and the trouble it had got them into. It's a much better system than my usual attempt to get the players to do it for me. Lets face it, as the GM, I've thought about the game more over the time since the last game more than the players have.
Mešlamta-ea's prelude of sorts was set at a block party held by a popular local wizard, Ignacio... I had been send to Los Angeles on the trail of Warden Gabriel, the man who trained the State Department necromancer whose demon I destroyed at Tell Ibrahim, Iraq. We had arranged a deal when the Red Court attacked. Ignacio and I fought as best we good, but when the Red Court Vampire known as the Blood Madonna offered Ignacio the chance to come quietly and spare his family, he surrendered.
"Who are you?" she said.
"I am Mešlamta-ea. ... I serve a god."
"There is only one God. Kill him."
I was swarmed by a pack of vampires, but they couldn't stomach my dusty dead flesh and Supe, a huge infected El Salvadorian gang member, shot me in the head, my face frozen in a dead laugh.
Dead in character creation. Dead in the first session. I did know how this was going to go, which let me make some not so subtle references to my immediate fate in the conversation with Ignacio.
It was a long walk back down the 15, to the 210, to the 2, to Echo Park. I'd exchanged most of the desert sand for rubber particles and exhaust fumes by the time Zac picked me up on his Vespa on Alvarado. We arrived back at the apartment where they were staying just as Chuey, my war buddy and Ignacio's nephew, was explaining to Marcus about the Red Court house in the Hollywood hills and the ambulance loads of Skid Row homeless one of his fellow EMTs had been delivering.
Mešlamta-ea/Mike had met the rest of the PCs when he first came to Los Angeles of Gabriel's trail. That was a few days before the party massacre of his prelude.
A house in the hills which had just taken delivery of half a dozen homeless meals and which was probably also a prison for some of Chuey's family, still missing after the party. We briefly considered making a plan. Well, Marcus did.
Colin compelled the rest of us. Chuey has the aspect "Half-cocked" and Zac had something impetuous. I forget what he compelled me with. We all accepted like the good little fate point junkies were are. Marcus didn't feel like arguing.
So we rolled up into the hills in Chuey's monster hunting ride and an ambulance to bust up some El Salvadorian blood-suckers. Chuey went in disguised as a gang-banger, but he took longer than we expected, so we went in to back him up. Zac and Marcus were disguised as EMTs and I was disguised as an extra homeless snack. We discovered the house was full of guns, drugs, infected gangbangers, drained corpses, and Red Court vampires, and who should wander up, but Supe.
I declared that at the first sign that he recognised me, I'd crack him with my mace. Colin offered me a fate point: "Why wait?"
THWACK! I smack Supe in the side of the head with the Mace of Irkalla. "I'm here for the monotheists." The house is filled with Supe's gang so Zac pulls down a visual and auditory veil and Marcus pulls his Browning Hi-Power and unloads into Supe. Supe slams me against the wall trying to pin the mace, but I drop under his pin and smash his knee, putting him on floor. Zac channels the power of an earth ley line into him, fracturing his skull, and Marcus finishes him off with a stomp to the head. We hide the body before the veil lifts.
There was a cool interchange here where Colin asked James if Zac was trying to kill Supe with his magic. As I understand it, it's a violation of the laws of magic to kill a human with magic, so the question was, did Zac think Supe was a monster? Supe had been a recurring bane of the group's existence in the preceding sessions. Zac tried and failed to kill him with magic. Colin then asked Morgan if Marcus thought that Supe was a monster and what did he think of what Zac had tried to do. It made the death of this NPC a real moral issue for those two characters, and and intensified the scene by raising the issue of the justification of force and the dehumanisation of an enemy.
Chuey, veiled as a member of the gang, had continued further into the house and found members of his family in a basement - some infected, some not. The Blood Madonna had just turned of his cousins, she came after him and there was a fight. That attracted a crowd, which we followed just as the victorious Chuey encountered the crowd of infected gang members. I pulled out a cuneiform tablet and summoned the molten sand of Nurgal. Panic ensured, as the air filled with fire and a stinging sandstorm, but the Blood Madonna saw us and flitting through the chaos, confronted Chuey: "I have your family", she licked his face with her narcotic tongue and vanished into the sand. We hauled ass.
The next stop was the Muchada house, the arcane boarding house at which Marcus and Zac had stayed before they were betrayed and forced out into the cold. The current Threat of the campaign. A Warden, Michelle, was watching the house. She didn't take too kindly to me at first, but she came 'round. Intimidate. Marcus had seen the ghost of the house's owner who was missing presumed dead. He wanted to be sure, and I could do that. So with the help of Marcus and Zac who had performed a blood bonding ritual with the woman in question, I made a spell-tablet to draw her spirit from the underworld. It turns out, there was a space for her prepared, and her name was entered on the tablets of Nergal, but she wasn't where she was supposed to be. But something answered the call and earth cracked at its coming...
361
I've played with all the people in the group before (except perhaps Andrew?) at the Strategicons. Colin has a very particular GMing style, especially in the way he hits compels (he often GMs FATE) and aims right at your character's fracture points and demands you make hard decisions. He started the play by summarising the situation each of the characters found themselves in, focusing on the decisions they'd made and the trouble it had got them into. It's a much better system than my usual attempt to get the players to do it for me. Lets face it, as the GM, I've thought about the game more over the time since the last game more than the players have.
Mešlamta-ea's prelude of sorts was set at a block party held by a popular local wizard, Ignacio... I had been send to Los Angeles on the trail of Warden Gabriel, the man who trained the State Department necromancer whose demon I destroyed at Tell Ibrahim, Iraq. We had arranged a deal when the Red Court attacked. Ignacio and I fought as best we good, but when the Red Court Vampire known as the Blood Madonna offered Ignacio the chance to come quietly and spare his family, he surrendered.
"Who are you?" she said.
"I am Mešlamta-ea. ... I serve a god."
"There is only one God. Kill him."
I was swarmed by a pack of vampires, but they couldn't stomach my dusty dead flesh and Supe, a huge infected El Salvadorian gang member, shot me in the head, my face frozen in a dead laugh.
Dead in character creation. Dead in the first session. I did know how this was going to go, which let me make some not so subtle references to my immediate fate in the conversation with Ignacio.
It was a long walk back down the 15, to the 210, to the 2, to Echo Park. I'd exchanged most of the desert sand for rubber particles and exhaust fumes by the time Zac picked me up on his Vespa on Alvarado. We arrived back at the apartment where they were staying just as Chuey, my war buddy and Ignacio's nephew, was explaining to Marcus about the Red Court house in the Hollywood hills and the ambulance loads of Skid Row homeless one of his fellow EMTs had been delivering.
Mešlamta-ea/Mike had met the rest of the PCs when he first came to Los Angeles of Gabriel's trail. That was a few days before the party massacre of his prelude.
- Jesus "Chuey" Alvarado (Andrew) is a muscle-bound, clean-cut Hispanic EMT, and fellow veteran. He couldn't save Mike after the IED in Tell Ibrahim.
- Marcus Franklin (Morgan) is an ambitious African American graduate student from south of the 10, and a wizard
- Zac (James) is a hipster wizard. I guess I didn't take good notes on Zac!
A house in the hills which had just taken delivery of half a dozen homeless meals and which was probably also a prison for some of Chuey's family, still missing after the party. We briefly considered making a plan. Well, Marcus did.
Colin compelled the rest of us. Chuey has the aspect "Half-cocked" and Zac had something impetuous. I forget what he compelled me with. We all accepted like the good little fate point junkies were are. Marcus didn't feel like arguing.
So we rolled up into the hills in Chuey's monster hunting ride and an ambulance to bust up some El Salvadorian blood-suckers. Chuey went in disguised as a gang-banger, but he took longer than we expected, so we went in to back him up. Zac and Marcus were disguised as EMTs and I was disguised as an extra homeless snack. We discovered the house was full of guns, drugs, infected gangbangers, drained corpses, and Red Court vampires, and who should wander up, but Supe.
I declared that at the first sign that he recognised me, I'd crack him with my mace. Colin offered me a fate point: "Why wait?"
THWACK! I smack Supe in the side of the head with the Mace of Irkalla. "I'm here for the monotheists." The house is filled with Supe's gang so Zac pulls down a visual and auditory veil and Marcus pulls his Browning Hi-Power and unloads into Supe. Supe slams me against the wall trying to pin the mace, but I drop under his pin and smash his knee, putting him on floor. Zac channels the power of an earth ley line into him, fracturing his skull, and Marcus finishes him off with a stomp to the head. We hide the body before the veil lifts.
There was a cool interchange here where Colin asked James if Zac was trying to kill Supe with his magic. As I understand it, it's a violation of the laws of magic to kill a human with magic, so the question was, did Zac think Supe was a monster? Supe had been a recurring bane of the group's existence in the preceding sessions. Zac tried and failed to kill him with magic. Colin then asked Morgan if Marcus thought that Supe was a monster and what did he think of what Zac had tried to do. It made the death of this NPC a real moral issue for those two characters, and and intensified the scene by raising the issue of the justification of force and the dehumanisation of an enemy.
Chuey, veiled as a member of the gang, had continued further into the house and found members of his family in a basement - some infected, some not. The Blood Madonna had just turned of his cousins, she came after him and there was a fight. That attracted a crowd, which we followed just as the victorious Chuey encountered the crowd of infected gang members. I pulled out a cuneiform tablet and summoned the molten sand of Nurgal. Panic ensured, as the air filled with fire and a stinging sandstorm, but the Blood Madonna saw us and flitting through the chaos, confronted Chuey: "I have your family", she licked his face with her narcotic tongue and vanished into the sand. We hauled ass.
The next stop was the Muchada house, the arcane boarding house at which Marcus and Zac had stayed before they were betrayed and forced out into the cold. The current Threat of the campaign. A Warden, Michelle, was watching the house. She didn't take too kindly to me at first, but she came 'round. Intimidate. Marcus had seen the ghost of the house's owner who was missing presumed dead. He wanted to be sure, and I could do that. So with the help of Marcus and Zac who had performed a blood bonding ritual with the woman in question, I made a spell-tablet to draw her spirit from the underworld. It turns out, there was a space for her prepared, and her name was entered on the tablets of Nergal, but she wasn't where she was supposed to be. But something answered the call and earth cracked at its coming...
361