5/15/2011: Enter the Reaper
Showdown time!
Our players had successfully defeated the Malks, and decided that perhaps they should go get some cold-iron weapons to use against the Reaper before hand.
I educated the party as to how the wizard's accidental hexing works by compelling Alex's Warden High Concept to cause his Jeep to cough and die. With some wrangling, and Alystria turning into a Raccoon and sitting on someone's lap, they all managed to pile into Riley's Passat and head down to the Club of Fun in the Castro, in order to meet up with Fatima LaRue, the WHITE COURT DRAG QUEEN who can get anything you need, for a price.
Of Course, Riley knew about Fatima curtesy of Felix, and she was hoping that news hadn't made it to her yet that she and Felix were through, and She, Venus, and Samsura cruised into the comically stereotypical Drag Queen Bar/Club. A quick chat with the bartender and they are ushered into the back room where Fatima is entertaining several other white court vampires as well.
Negoiations begin, though I resisted immediately plunging into a social conflict. Since we were mainly haggling over price, I felt like we were still at the "stake setting" point, and thus it was premature to go to the dice.
Fatima initially offered up a dozen cold iron .45 revolver bullets in exchange for a pint of blood from our three protagonists. That received a resounding "HELL NO". Further negoiations saw a "pokin' thing" added to the PC's wish list, and they offered up in exchange one of the Summer Court Favors promised to them by Fix.
Consultation with the rest of the group that remained outside had Ted offer to throw in a second favor, in exhange for the cold-iron bullets, and an enchanted cold-iron rapier that could pierce through any defenses.
With cold-iron in hand (and gun), they set off towards the location given to them by Fix as the Reaper's next potential target. They pull up to the house, now about 11pm, and Alystria climbs up the outside of the house in raccoon form, enters through a window, smells the same "Wrong Cold Badness", utters a chitter of warning and darts into the house.
The door gets kicked open unto another scene of grotesque torture, with the Reaper in the process of removing the souls of his most recent victims. Riley step in, but is temporarily rattled by the sights she's witnessing, and hesistates. Samsura charges in, cold-iron rapier a'stabbin', however, he barely missed. Alex casts his lighting bolt at the Reaper, but because he's recently broken his vow as a Warden to not get involved with him, the energy is harmlessly absorbed by the Reaper. Ted charges in, armed with a cold-iron Fleur d'Lys from the wrought-iron fence outside, and manages to scratch the Reaper for a single stress. Venus fires a force attack at the Reaper, but her energy is also absorbed by the Reaper, since she recently betrayed one of her followers to purchase her freedom from the Reaper's Obsidian Tower.
The Reaper Lays down a massive Block 10 vs. Perception/investigation, filling the room with BLINDING SNOW. Alystria grabs some hair spray and a lighter from the bathroom and heads downstairs into the blizzard, while Riley plunges forward into the BLINDING SNOW, slams up against something big and shadowy, and Blindly pulls the trigger on the cold-iron shooting Colt Revolver. However, the bullet smushes against his magical shield, and falls to the ground, only 5 more to go. Alex slashes out with his warden sword, spending a massive amount of FATE points and manages to successfully dispel the BLINDING SNOW. Sansura attempts to stab the Reaper again, but while piercing his shield with ease, the Reaper managed to barely dodge the blow. Venus maneuvers a veil on Samsura, giving him the HIDDEN FROM SIGHT aspect, and Ted stabs at the Reaper again, forcing him to take the STABBED WITH COLD IRON concequence.
The Reaper's scythe lashes out at Sansura, who barely escapes it's deadly blade, feeling the spinning wheels of Kharmic destiny aiding him in his defense. Riley shoots at him, but again her bullet is stopped by his magical shield, while Alystria shoots a gout of hairspray fire at him, however he was unphased by her attempt to distract her. Alex attempted to counter the Reaper's magical shield, but it would not budge. Sansura swings and misses, rolling 3 negatives on his roll. Ted Browning, the IN OVER HIS HEAD, and COLLEGE JUDO CHAMPION once again manages to stab the Reaper with the Fleur d'Lys, forcing him to take the BLEEDING FROM COLD IRON concequence. Venus throws a similar veil uopon Ted as well, giving him the HIDDEN FROM SIGHT aspect as well.
At this point, I give the players the choice. I can have the Reaper conceede and flee, since he has two concequences and only one non-catch stress box left, or he can stay and go aggro. The players unanimously choose the agrro option. So the Reaper reaches out and rips the soul out of the Wife, and unleashes an Awesome Weapon 10 attack against everyone. A couple FATE points later, and some backlash stress later, he's got a 10 shift weapon with a 10 shift discipline roll. Venus spends a FATE point to reduce the attack strength by 2. However, I allow Alex to use the "reactive spellcasting" and he manages to barely cast (with the use of 3 FATE points) to successfully block all 8 shifts for the whole zone. Alystria Jumps on him for a RACCOON JUNK PUNCH, while Riley shoots him, managing to force a SHOT WITH COLD IRON concequence. Sansura manages to miss again (forcing the Reaper to FATE point it away), While Alex uses the last bit of his strength to rip down the Reaper's Magical defenses before passing out. Ted's attack is thwarted when the Reaper grabs his wrist short of landing the blow. Ted drops the fleur d'lys, and Venus catches it in the air with her spell and launches it at the Reaper. However, she barely misses, and the Fleur d'Lys ends up stabbing Riley in the Leg instead.
With his last desperate attempt, He rips out the soul of the husband, and uses it to fuel another devasting spirit attack. However, this one is only at weapon 8, with 10 shifts for the attack. Venus actually manages to "dodge" the attack with her conviction (I let athletics or conviction,whichever was higher), however... everyone one else takes between 12-16 stress of hits. Lots of Concequences are dished out all around. Alystria, who had previously failed to distract the Reaper, leaps onto him, successfully distracting him and Riley fires again, this time the slug tears through the Reaper's cowled hood, with sickly green energy blasting out the back of its head, melting into a shrieking pile of ectoplasm.
The battered players manage to get the unconcious Alex out of the house and they manage to pile once again into the car and hightail it out of dodge before the police show up. Trying to think up who could help them out with their wounds who wouldn't ask too many questions, Ted suggests Sister Visconti of the Adeptus Sororitas located at the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. However Sister Visconti said she couldn't help, and that folks needed a hospital. However, they get a call from Vesuvio's Shaun O'Shaunnessey, informing Venus that Mr. Fix is Vesuvio's and awaiting their arrival.
They pile into the car, head back to Vesuvio's, where Fix congratulates them on a job well done, and gives them all each a Pin representing the favor of the Summer Court. He also uses his Summer Magic to begin the long and arduous healing process to get folks back to being fully recovered.
What Rocked:
THE REAPER IS DEAD! Dang that was a tense and drama-filled fight. I really liked changing the Magical Immunity to Magic from those who have Broken a Vow. It worked really nicely that Alex and Venus couldn't just magically blast him to bits, and were forced to use their spell-casting the others who were armed with cold-iron.
The fight was really dramatically tense. The look on everyone's face after they decided to "finish it" and the Reaper ripped the soul out of the wife to power his spell was priceless. I only had it count mechanically as a two FATE points, but damn was it an awesome scene.
Then Alex awesomes up and sucks down the whole spell, burning almost everything he's got in order to do it. Man that was hoss!
That Ted stood toe-to-toe with the Reaper, 22 refresh villian as a pure mortal and managed to stab him three times was badass. And I felt justified in having the Reaper Swing at the Warrior of God with the Enchanted Magical Sword instead of the fireman with the broken fence post, even though I'm not sure Samsura was any "tougher" than Ted.
What could be improved:
I need to read the Warrior of God stuff, so I can assist Samsura's player better. He has no real idea how to mechanically operate his character, and I need to help him do it.
Alystria's player was a bit frusturated that since she didn't have any improvised weapon skill, she couldn't really use her hairspray flame thrower plan very well, and instead it was mechanically "better" (and funnier) to leap onto the Reaper and "GO FOR HIS NADS!".
I need to look up how concequences work again, and if you can take more than one per "attack". I also forgot to remind the players that concequences can be tagged immediately for free once, just like a maneuver aspect. Though I don't think it really changed much, since I had sufficient FATE points stored up from previous scenes that I could matched them for the 3 free tags they missed, minus the tags that they took in the last round.
I've made the executive decision that character's have a Mild, Moderate, and Severe concequence for each of the three tracks. It makes no sense to me that having SHAME would somehow mean you can't have a SPRAINED ANKLE. It also gives me potentially 6 more aspects to tag and compel on any character at any given time.
Our players had successfully defeated the Malks, and decided that perhaps they should go get some cold-iron weapons to use against the Reaper before hand.
I educated the party as to how the wizard's accidental hexing works by compelling Alex's Warden High Concept to cause his Jeep to cough and die. With some wrangling, and Alystria turning into a Raccoon and sitting on someone's lap, they all managed to pile into Riley's Passat and head down to the Club of Fun in the Castro, in order to meet up with Fatima LaRue, the WHITE COURT DRAG QUEEN who can get anything you need, for a price.
Of Course, Riley knew about Fatima curtesy of Felix, and she was hoping that news hadn't made it to her yet that she and Felix were through, and She, Venus, and Samsura cruised into the comically stereotypical Drag Queen Bar/Club. A quick chat with the bartender and they are ushered into the back room where Fatima is entertaining several other white court vampires as well.
Negoiations begin, though I resisted immediately plunging into a social conflict. Since we were mainly haggling over price, I felt like we were still at the "stake setting" point, and thus it was premature to go to the dice.
Fatima initially offered up a dozen cold iron .45 revolver bullets in exchange for a pint of blood from our three protagonists. That received a resounding "HELL NO". Further negoiations saw a "pokin' thing" added to the PC's wish list, and they offered up in exchange one of the Summer Court Favors promised to them by Fix.
Consultation with the rest of the group that remained outside had Ted offer to throw in a second favor, in exhange for the cold-iron bullets, and an enchanted cold-iron rapier that could pierce through any defenses.
With cold-iron in hand (and gun), they set off towards the location given to them by Fix as the Reaper's next potential target. They pull up to the house, now about 11pm, and Alystria climbs up the outside of the house in raccoon form, enters through a window, smells the same "Wrong Cold Badness", utters a chitter of warning and darts into the house.
The door gets kicked open unto another scene of grotesque torture, with the Reaper in the process of removing the souls of his most recent victims. Riley step in, but is temporarily rattled by the sights she's witnessing, and hesistates. Samsura charges in, cold-iron rapier a'stabbin', however, he barely missed. Alex casts his lighting bolt at the Reaper, but because he's recently broken his vow as a Warden to not get involved with him, the energy is harmlessly absorbed by the Reaper. Ted charges in, armed with a cold-iron Fleur d'Lys from the wrought-iron fence outside, and manages to scratch the Reaper for a single stress. Venus fires a force attack at the Reaper, but her energy is also absorbed by the Reaper, since she recently betrayed one of her followers to purchase her freedom from the Reaper's Obsidian Tower.
The Reaper Lays down a massive Block 10 vs. Perception/investigation, filling the room with BLINDING SNOW. Alystria grabs some hair spray and a lighter from the bathroom and heads downstairs into the blizzard, while Riley plunges forward into the BLINDING SNOW, slams up against something big and shadowy, and Blindly pulls the trigger on the cold-iron shooting Colt Revolver. However, the bullet smushes against his magical shield, and falls to the ground, only 5 more to go. Alex slashes out with his warden sword, spending a massive amount of FATE points and manages to successfully dispel the BLINDING SNOW. Sansura attempts to stab the Reaper again, but while piercing his shield with ease, the Reaper managed to barely dodge the blow. Venus maneuvers a veil on Samsura, giving him the HIDDEN FROM SIGHT aspect, and Ted stabs at the Reaper again, forcing him to take the STABBED WITH COLD IRON concequence.
The Reaper's scythe lashes out at Sansura, who barely escapes it's deadly blade, feeling the spinning wheels of Kharmic destiny aiding him in his defense. Riley shoots at him, but again her bullet is stopped by his magical shield, while Alystria shoots a gout of hairspray fire at him, however he was unphased by her attempt to distract her. Alex attempted to counter the Reaper's magical shield, but it would not budge. Sansura swings and misses, rolling 3 negatives on his roll. Ted Browning, the IN OVER HIS HEAD, and COLLEGE JUDO CHAMPION once again manages to stab the Reaper with the Fleur d'Lys, forcing him to take the BLEEDING FROM COLD IRON concequence. Venus throws a similar veil uopon Ted as well, giving him the HIDDEN FROM SIGHT aspect as well.
At this point, I give the players the choice. I can have the Reaper conceede and flee, since he has two concequences and only one non-catch stress box left, or he can stay and go aggro. The players unanimously choose the agrro option. So the Reaper reaches out and rips the soul out of the Wife, and unleashes an Awesome Weapon 10 attack against everyone. A couple FATE points later, and some backlash stress later, he's got a 10 shift weapon with a 10 shift discipline roll. Venus spends a FATE point to reduce the attack strength by 2. However, I allow Alex to use the "reactive spellcasting" and he manages to barely cast (with the use of 3 FATE points) to successfully block all 8 shifts for the whole zone. Alystria Jumps on him for a RACCOON JUNK PUNCH, while Riley shoots him, managing to force a SHOT WITH COLD IRON concequence. Sansura manages to miss again (forcing the Reaper to FATE point it away), While Alex uses the last bit of his strength to rip down the Reaper's Magical defenses before passing out. Ted's attack is thwarted when the Reaper grabs his wrist short of landing the blow. Ted drops the fleur d'lys, and Venus catches it in the air with her spell and launches it at the Reaper. However, she barely misses, and the Fleur d'Lys ends up stabbing Riley in the Leg instead.
With his last desperate attempt, He rips out the soul of the husband, and uses it to fuel another devasting spirit attack. However, this one is only at weapon 8, with 10 shifts for the attack. Venus actually manages to "dodge" the attack with her conviction (I let athletics or conviction,whichever was higher), however... everyone one else takes between 12-16 stress of hits. Lots of Concequences are dished out all around. Alystria, who had previously failed to distract the Reaper, leaps onto him, successfully distracting him and Riley fires again, this time the slug tears through the Reaper's cowled hood, with sickly green energy blasting out the back of its head, melting into a shrieking pile of ectoplasm.
The battered players manage to get the unconcious Alex out of the house and they manage to pile once again into the car and hightail it out of dodge before the police show up. Trying to think up who could help them out with their wounds who wouldn't ask too many questions, Ted suggests Sister Visconti of the Adeptus Sororitas located at the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. However Sister Visconti said she couldn't help, and that folks needed a hospital. However, they get a call from Vesuvio's Shaun O'Shaunnessey, informing Venus that Mr. Fix is Vesuvio's and awaiting their arrival.
They pile into the car, head back to Vesuvio's, where Fix congratulates them on a job well done, and gives them all each a Pin representing the favor of the Summer Court. He also uses his Summer Magic to begin the long and arduous healing process to get folks back to being fully recovered.
What Rocked:
THE REAPER IS DEAD! Dang that was a tense and drama-filled fight. I really liked changing the Magical Immunity to Magic from those who have Broken a Vow. It worked really nicely that Alex and Venus couldn't just magically blast him to bits, and were forced to use their spell-casting the others who were armed with cold-iron.
The fight was really dramatically tense. The look on everyone's face after they decided to "finish it" and the Reaper ripped the soul out of the wife to power his spell was priceless. I only had it count mechanically as a two FATE points, but damn was it an awesome scene.
Then Alex awesomes up and sucks down the whole spell, burning almost everything he's got in order to do it. Man that was hoss!
That Ted stood toe-to-toe with the Reaper, 22 refresh villian as a pure mortal and managed to stab him three times was badass. And I felt justified in having the Reaper Swing at the Warrior of God with the Enchanted Magical Sword instead of the fireman with the broken fence post, even though I'm not sure Samsura was any "tougher" than Ted.
What could be improved:
I need to read the Warrior of God stuff, so I can assist Samsura's player better. He has no real idea how to mechanically operate his character, and I need to help him do it.
Alystria's player was a bit frusturated that since she didn't have any improvised weapon skill, she couldn't really use her hairspray flame thrower plan very well, and instead it was mechanically "better" (and funnier) to leap onto the Reaper and "GO FOR HIS NADS!".
I need to look up how concequences work again, and if you can take more than one per "attack". I also forgot to remind the players that concequences can be tagged immediately for free once, just like a maneuver aspect. Though I don't think it really changed much, since I had sufficient FATE points stored up from previous scenes that I could matched them for the 3 free tags they missed, minus the tags that they took in the last round.
I've made the executive decision that character's have a Mild, Moderate, and Severe concequence for each of the three tracks. It makes no sense to me that having SHAME would somehow mean you can't have a SPRAINED ANKLE. It also gives me potentially 6 more aspects to tag and compel on any character at any given time.