1/28/12: Dresden By the Bay- Season Two
After the long Christmas hiatus in which all my time was devoured by the Dickens Christmas fair, scheduling finally permitted our group to get back together and start off our new season.
We decided to allow several months to pass in game time, where folks could do some downtime development, yet still be ahead of the events that are set in Changes, which I still haven't decided will happen off screen, or in some way in which the Players can have an impact on the outcome. Probably the latter.
We open the scene with Warden Forester flying through the air and slamming into the brick wall of a closed pub in Edinburgh, Scotland. This picked up nicely from a little mini-fiction piece the player had written up. I rolled extremely well for the Red Court vampires that he was fighting, and ended up taking him out of the conflict by having him pinned underneath a mini cooper a vampire threw at him, losing consciousness while watching his girlfriend desperately fight off the remaining vampires. He comes too with the Luccio standing over him as he's rushed to the infirmary deep within the White Council's headquarters.
Meanwhile, back in San Francisco, Venus finds herself the target of some sort of powerplay. Her club is shut down due to revocation of its liquor license, several law suits are filed against her and her businesses, while several of her highly placed followers within the city government are arrested on corruption charges. Unable to uncover who is behind the moves herself, she calls upon Ted Browning for his assistance. He's able to find out that that the money behind it all is flowing out of the Raetheon Corporation, a weapons manufacture with ties to the White Court Vampires. Of course, this investigation puts Mr. Browning on the Radar, and he notices that several of his clients of his newly formed paranet security business no longer require his services. Figuring something is awry, he tracks down a shady lawyer out of Oakland who is behind the intimation of his clients.
Calling in his favor of Venus in discovering who is behind the assaults on her resources, Venus repays by going over to Oakland and pumping the lawyer for information. It's really no contest, Sex Goddess vs. sleazy lawyer. She leaves with everything she came for, including a new devoted follower and double agent.
Cutting back to Scotland, Forester has been recouping from a DISLOCATED SHOULDER when his girlfriend strides into the Warden's Warroom and thunks down a satchel full of vampire heads. Their reunion is quite poignant, as both thought that the other must have been dead, and they quickly retire to "celebrate".
Back in SF, Riley Moore has embarcked on her quest to enlighten the people about the threats around them, launching her own newsletter named the "Neverhood Watch". Her first blog sight is hacked, and then she gets a dire threatening warning delivered to her place of residence. She moves to a new place to continue the work, so she's sent a more pointed hint, namely thugs who burn down the building and try to kill her.
She handles the thugs easily enough, but with no place to live and short on resources, she turns to Venus for assistance. Venus is able to help, but it's going to take her some time to make it happen, with her assets under assault. She couch surfs with some of her tin-foil hat friends fro her blog, but eventually calls upon Ted to crash in his spare bedroom.
Rumors swirl through the White Council Headquarters in Edinburgh that the Gatekeeper has an apprentice, which he hasn't done in the last 200 years. And while Warden Forester is summoned to a strategy meeting With Rameriez, Luccio, and Senior Council Member McCoy to discuss the white courts recent power play in SF, Rashid shows up with his hooded apprentice in tow. The gatekeeper tells everyone that his apprentice will accompany Warden Forester back to SF, and then departs. The apprentice turns out to be none other than Alystria, our nature loving were-raccoon turned time-traveling explody-boom wizardress. Alex had to scrape his jaw off the floor, and in the course of discussion discloses to those present what happened in San Bruno and that the fact that Felix Raith is dead.
McCoy goes still as Forest explains that Harry can't be allowed to become the Winter Knight, and it comes out that he's told Rameriez (who sheepishly says he was trying to figure out what to do and who to tell). McCoy orders them to not tell anyone else, and to do nothing against Dresen, as reality has a nasty habit of causing the exact thing to happen when you travel back in time to prevent it. With Glares and grunts, McCoy storms off, and the two of them plus Rameriez take the ways from Scotland to California.
Getting Desperate to deal with the attacks against her, Venus calls upon Agent Winters to try to dig up dirt on the various Raith enterprises in the area. With a mighty roll of Legendary, Winters initiates several raids that net quite a bit of eye-blackening and DISRUPTED PLANS aspects upon the Raiths operations. However, they do not take this kindly.
The evening of the wizard's return to CA, Venus is departing her club. However, Ted shows up just in time to distract her before her limo explodes in a fiery ball of destruction. Seeing the incident on the new, Riley, Alex and Alystria head to Vesuvio's to regroup. Alex and Alystria work up a divination ritual to see what happened in the past, and get the IDENTITY OF THE BOMBER. Ted begins to try to track down the sketch that is made, but is almost immediately contacted by Winters wanting to know why he's looking for an infamous bomber. He agrees to have the FBI take over the investigation, and then suggests they meet for coffee.
Alex asks if he has any pieces of the bomb left, so that he can cast a tracking spell, since "I used magic to look into the past" tends to not stand up in court. Winters and Alex head to the Federal Building, where Alex gets a glimpse into Winters' psyche with a look-see at his office, in which the walls are covered by disturbing painting depicting the Reaper. Alex clears out some space, and using a piece of the bomb begins to cast a tracking spell. However, he flubs the roll, as a stack of papers slides off the desk and lands within the circle, disrupting the ritual. After a lot of cursing and SEX ON HIS MIND consequence, alex finally gets the ritual to work, and they are off and running.
They follow the tracking spell to a warehouse near the SJC airport, and Alystria does her ninja raccoon stealth of 9 to get all the details of the place. Alex sets off an EMP spell to knock out the explosives wired to the door, Ted and Winters kick in the door. One of the thugs opens fire, hitting Winters, as ted proceeds to enter the fray with mighty thews. Riley sneaks in invisible, while Winters lights up the guy who shot him. Venus throws some LIGHT onto the scene, and Alex STUNNERS the guy fighting ted, to which Ted proceeds to take out with SHATTERED KNEE and COLLAPSED TRACHEA. When the lights come back on, there is a third shooter on the loft, and Alex potion's himself up there and DISARMS the guy, Obi-wan Kenobi style.
They secure the scene, and begin to interrogate the bomber, who was the guy Ted disabled, but fortunately didn't kill. After Venus applies her wiles, he discloses who his contact is, which they party is eventually able to trace back to the Raiths. They take the thug whom Alex disarmed, and Winters stays to clean up the scene and call in the authorities.
Alex decides to take the nevernever back to SF, to avoid having to be in close proximity to Venus while still suffering under his SEX ON HIS MIND consequence. However, one compel later, Alex finds himself dreamily waking up with a lily-white arm draped across him in bed, and as he looks over in confusion, the wicked smile asks him "now about that favor you owe me".*
*This line is retcon, as it will allow me to introduce plot threads into next session.
What could have been better:
I completely missed a perfect opportunity to introduce a plot hook about Alex's past in the opening scene. However, I can still work with what happened, and I think it will be okay.
It took a while to get the party together, and the split scenes were running a tad long. Alystria's player was showing signs of boredom, but she handled herself very respectfully in dealing with it.
What I liked:
Incorporating the mini downtime fiction into the story. Right down to opening the session In media Res with the warden flying across the road and into the building.
Month long "social conflict". I had initially wanted to run the social conflict between Venus and the Raiths as a quick deal to give her something to do during downtime. However, with pulling in other PCs, it ended up becoming the driving force behind not only the actions for the session, but to get the party back together and pulling on the same rope.
Winters' Car, Katherine, continues to rock!
We decided to allow several months to pass in game time, where folks could do some downtime development, yet still be ahead of the events that are set in Changes, which I still haven't decided will happen off screen, or in some way in which the Players can have an impact on the outcome. Probably the latter.
We open the scene with Warden Forester flying through the air and slamming into the brick wall of a closed pub in Edinburgh, Scotland. This picked up nicely from a little mini-fiction piece the player had written up. I rolled extremely well for the Red Court vampires that he was fighting, and ended up taking him out of the conflict by having him pinned underneath a mini cooper a vampire threw at him, losing consciousness while watching his girlfriend desperately fight off the remaining vampires. He comes too with the Luccio standing over him as he's rushed to the infirmary deep within the White Council's headquarters.
Meanwhile, back in San Francisco, Venus finds herself the target of some sort of powerplay. Her club is shut down due to revocation of its liquor license, several law suits are filed against her and her businesses, while several of her highly placed followers within the city government are arrested on corruption charges. Unable to uncover who is behind the moves herself, she calls upon Ted Browning for his assistance. He's able to find out that that the money behind it all is flowing out of the Raetheon Corporation, a weapons manufacture with ties to the White Court Vampires. Of course, this investigation puts Mr. Browning on the Radar, and he notices that several of his clients of his newly formed paranet security business no longer require his services. Figuring something is awry, he tracks down a shady lawyer out of Oakland who is behind the intimation of his clients.
Calling in his favor of Venus in discovering who is behind the assaults on her resources, Venus repays by going over to Oakland and pumping the lawyer for information. It's really no contest, Sex Goddess vs. sleazy lawyer. She leaves with everything she came for, including a new devoted follower and double agent.
Cutting back to Scotland, Forester has been recouping from a DISLOCATED SHOULDER when his girlfriend strides into the Warden's Warroom and thunks down a satchel full of vampire heads. Their reunion is quite poignant, as both thought that the other must have been dead, and they quickly retire to "celebrate".
Back in SF, Riley Moore has embarcked on her quest to enlighten the people about the threats around them, launching her own newsletter named the "Neverhood Watch". Her first blog sight is hacked, and then she gets a dire threatening warning delivered to her place of residence. She moves to a new place to continue the work, so she's sent a more pointed hint, namely thugs who burn down the building and try to kill her.
She handles the thugs easily enough, but with no place to live and short on resources, she turns to Venus for assistance. Venus is able to help, but it's going to take her some time to make it happen, with her assets under assault. She couch surfs with some of her tin-foil hat friends fro her blog, but eventually calls upon Ted to crash in his spare bedroom.
Rumors swirl through the White Council Headquarters in Edinburgh that the Gatekeeper has an apprentice, which he hasn't done in the last 200 years. And while Warden Forester is summoned to a strategy meeting With Rameriez, Luccio, and Senior Council Member McCoy to discuss the white courts recent power play in SF, Rashid shows up with his hooded apprentice in tow. The gatekeeper tells everyone that his apprentice will accompany Warden Forester back to SF, and then departs. The apprentice turns out to be none other than Alystria, our nature loving were-raccoon turned time-traveling explody-boom wizardress. Alex had to scrape his jaw off the floor, and in the course of discussion discloses to those present what happened in San Bruno and that the fact that Felix Raith is dead.
McCoy goes still as Forest explains that Harry can't be allowed to become the Winter Knight, and it comes out that he's told Rameriez (who sheepishly says he was trying to figure out what to do and who to tell). McCoy orders them to not tell anyone else, and to do nothing against Dresen, as reality has a nasty habit of causing the exact thing to happen when you travel back in time to prevent it. With Glares and grunts, McCoy storms off, and the two of them plus Rameriez take the ways from Scotland to California.
Getting Desperate to deal with the attacks against her, Venus calls upon Agent Winters to try to dig up dirt on the various Raith enterprises in the area. With a mighty roll of Legendary, Winters initiates several raids that net quite a bit of eye-blackening and DISRUPTED PLANS aspects upon the Raiths operations. However, they do not take this kindly.
The evening of the wizard's return to CA, Venus is departing her club. However, Ted shows up just in time to distract her before her limo explodes in a fiery ball of destruction. Seeing the incident on the new, Riley, Alex and Alystria head to Vesuvio's to regroup. Alex and Alystria work up a divination ritual to see what happened in the past, and get the IDENTITY OF THE BOMBER. Ted begins to try to track down the sketch that is made, but is almost immediately contacted by Winters wanting to know why he's looking for an infamous bomber. He agrees to have the FBI take over the investigation, and then suggests they meet for coffee.
Alex asks if he has any pieces of the bomb left, so that he can cast a tracking spell, since "I used magic to look into the past" tends to not stand up in court. Winters and Alex head to the Federal Building, where Alex gets a glimpse into Winters' psyche with a look-see at his office, in which the walls are covered by disturbing painting depicting the Reaper. Alex clears out some space, and using a piece of the bomb begins to cast a tracking spell. However, he flubs the roll, as a stack of papers slides off the desk and lands within the circle, disrupting the ritual. After a lot of cursing and SEX ON HIS MIND consequence, alex finally gets the ritual to work, and they are off and running.
They follow the tracking spell to a warehouse near the SJC airport, and Alystria does her ninja raccoon stealth of 9 to get all the details of the place. Alex sets off an EMP spell to knock out the explosives wired to the door, Ted and Winters kick in the door. One of the thugs opens fire, hitting Winters, as ted proceeds to enter the fray with mighty thews. Riley sneaks in invisible, while Winters lights up the guy who shot him. Venus throws some LIGHT onto the scene, and Alex STUNNERS the guy fighting ted, to which Ted proceeds to take out with SHATTERED KNEE and COLLAPSED TRACHEA. When the lights come back on, there is a third shooter on the loft, and Alex potion's himself up there and DISARMS the guy, Obi-wan Kenobi style.
They secure the scene, and begin to interrogate the bomber, who was the guy Ted disabled, but fortunately didn't kill. After Venus applies her wiles, he discloses who his contact is, which they party is eventually able to trace back to the Raiths. They take the thug whom Alex disarmed, and Winters stays to clean up the scene and call in the authorities.
Alex decides to take the nevernever back to SF, to avoid having to be in close proximity to Venus while still suffering under his SEX ON HIS MIND consequence. However, one compel later, Alex finds himself dreamily waking up with a lily-white arm draped across him in bed, and as he looks over in confusion, the wicked smile asks him "now about that favor you owe me".*
*This line is retcon, as it will allow me to introduce plot threads into next session.
What could have been better:
I completely missed a perfect opportunity to introduce a plot hook about Alex's past in the opening scene. However, I can still work with what happened, and I think it will be okay.
It took a while to get the party together, and the split scenes were running a tad long. Alystria's player was showing signs of boredom, but she handled herself very respectfully in dealing with it.
What I liked:
Incorporating the mini downtime fiction into the story. Right down to opening the session In media Res with the warden flying across the road and into the building.
Month long "social conflict". I had initially wanted to run the social conflict between Venus and the Raiths as a quick deal to give her something to do during downtime. However, with pulling in other PCs, it ended up becoming the driving force behind not only the actions for the session, but to get the party back together and pulling on the same rope.
Winters' Car, Katherine, continues to rock!