Memories and musings.
Memories of Dark Secrets and Revelations... aaah. 8 1/2 years of a game makes a lot of memories. I’m not sure how clear or coherent this will be, but these are some of those fond remembrances:
Jenner, the psychotic Malkavian, walked into Court after a long absence with the "A" on his hands that, in this game, indicated "Archon." He showed them to Prince-Cardinal Adolpha Capuletti and told him "yeah, I got made an archon."
The Cardinal-Prince, clearly unhappy, used Aura Perception, getting a truthful aura. Out of character, the Prince's player asked, essentially, "the fuck?"
As one, the room answered him, "Jenner has soul mask! (Duh!)"
The blood-bonding bitch, Gangrel stripper and sometimes warrior Finnia waded into a combat in the middle of Elysium. Her first action, a loud shout: "Kieran!" the Brujah warrior, who had his hands full of angry Garou. Her second action, another shout: "Jason!" the angry Garou in question.
The ST running the scene asked Jason's player, "do you have any reason to listen to her?" He snerked - the Garou (Glasswalker, I think, at that time) was blood-bound to the Gangrel, and nodded. Aah, to have an ahroun garou blood-bound to you.
Jason McIntosh's first entrance into Rochester. The Garou who would later be the scariest PC to ever exist in the 8-years-running game was, at that point, a newly-changed cub. Somehow (not wholly surprising) the Malkavians got ahold of him. By the time they were done with him, it would be years before he trusted a supernatural again.
Father Dominic. Caitlyn. K.T. Psylitar. Marek... and Bananna Split. "Scratching post."
The were-house.
Talbot Towers.
Wolf Towers!
The Wilson Foundation.
Garou in the middle of court. Vampires in the caern. Two Malkavians using a Thaumaturgic ritual to rot the lumber yard adjacent the caern.
Does anyone except Jon & I remember why the Klassy Kat became such a feature in the game for so long (until after Jylan left the city/left the game, I believe)?
The story is fairly silly, I'm afraid... 'twas the first game I brought Finnia into. She and Crea, the feline-born bastet, became bored and decided to go find someplace to make some easy cash... and garnered jobs at the local strip club. After all, where better for a nudist werecat to work than the Klassy Kat?
I remember reading ZJ's character concept for the first time... the young urban boy with Fenrir blood somewhere in there, whose first change came in an angry defense of his sister... the True Faith of the youngster slowly destroyed by the violent, vicious, non-Christian world in which he found himself.
And I remember the strong and angry Garou, the self-righteous alpha that Z.J. became, the fights with his mate, Riley, the plot tangle that Godboy and I twisted Z.J. and Riley into - the Fenrir telling Z.J. on his Adren test that they would accept his then-unborn first child as a Get of Fenris, but Pegasus later claiming as her price for a nigh-impossible cleansing that the child would be Black Fury.
"Saving Private Barley..." the impetuous young Bone Gnawer (he was "young" till the day that he died, 16 years old, an adren nigh on athro with a child on the way) dove into the mass of Black Spiral Dancers as the rest of the Garou retreated, determined to retrieve (I wish I could remember what he was retrieving... Silver_Spider? Was is Jason's gun?).
His rescue was enacted two weeks later, by the non-Garou of the septs (kinfolk and a ratkin), as a ward around Wolf Towers kept out Garou. Then began a long healing and cleansing project... which culminated in Riley and ZJ's unborn daughter being promised to Pegasus.... but the healing was not truly complete until much later, when a shy young romance with a street witch named Katydid blossomed into something that could have been marriage.
Windsong (the metis daughter of Circles Widdershins and Connal Wolfe, aah Connal)... her tumultuous romance with Fox, the... um... does anyone know what Fox was?
And back to ZJ again... one of (surprise) my favorite stories... the young cub Aislinn was shy, scared of most men and almost all garou, but the then-kinfolk Timmy and cub ZJ seemed friendly, non-threatening, and so slowly she came out of her shell. Having little to no understanding nor respect for Garou law, she convinced ZJ to ... well, to do what teenaged boys and girls often do. It was not much later that Aislinn fled the sept to live with her foster-mother Tail-on-Fire.... and six months later that she returned to the sept, heavily pregnant and utterly mortified.
The metis child was doomed to a short life. Tiny and perfect in appearance, his lungs and heart were deformed and, despite Herculean measures by the sept (and despite, or because of, a Wyrm-tainted healing by the fallen garou Case), Joshua Hunter deSarrath Johnson died not long after his birth. That scene, the moment of baby Joshua's death, remains in my mind as one of the most dramatic moments of Revelations....
...the other one being Ian, the Glasswalker (what is it with Rev and Glasswalkers)? Ahroun... his kinfolk Yasmina was close to term (a kinfolk he had never intended to claim as his own, but had done so, mostly, I believe, because she made it clear that she wanted to be left alone, and trusted him to leave her alone. Silly girl) when a severed finger - clearly hers - was delivered via wonky magic to the caern.
He waited only barely, impatient, angry, for the rest of the sept to put together a rescue party, before riding to the rescue. The scene itself fades in my memory.. what I remember most is the transformation from angry ahroun to nervous teenaged father, the cops in the hospital eyeing him warily, his rage combining with the bruises and damage on his now-laboring mate to make them distrust her, his arguing carefully with the hospital to let him in to see her....
...and the fatherly pride at the tiny little dark baby she gave him.
There's so much more that I want to post. There's so much that is someone else's story to tell, even things I've touched on here. Please, all of you who have played Rev and Dark Secrets, share your memories as well.... and there will likely be another post from me as well.
Jenner, the psychotic Malkavian, walked into Court after a long absence with the "A" on his hands that, in this game, indicated "Archon." He showed them to Prince-Cardinal Adolpha Capuletti and told him "yeah, I got made an archon."
The Cardinal-Prince, clearly unhappy, used Aura Perception, getting a truthful aura. Out of character, the Prince's player asked, essentially, "the fuck?"
As one, the room answered him, "Jenner has soul mask! (Duh!)"
The blood-bonding bitch, Gangrel stripper and sometimes warrior Finnia waded into a combat in the middle of Elysium. Her first action, a loud shout: "Kieran!" the Brujah warrior, who had his hands full of angry Garou. Her second action, another shout: "Jason!" the angry Garou in question.
The ST running the scene asked Jason's player, "do you have any reason to listen to her?" He snerked - the Garou (Glasswalker, I think, at that time) was blood-bound to the Gangrel, and nodded. Aah, to have an ahroun garou blood-bound to you.
Jason McIntosh's first entrance into Rochester. The Garou who would later be the scariest PC to ever exist in the 8-years-running game was, at that point, a newly-changed cub. Somehow (not wholly surprising) the Malkavians got ahold of him. By the time they were done with him, it would be years before he trusted a supernatural again.
Father Dominic. Caitlyn. K.T. Psylitar. Marek... and Bananna Split. "Scratching post."
The were-house.
Talbot Towers.
Wolf Towers!
The Wilson Foundation.
Garou in the middle of court. Vampires in the caern. Two Malkavians using a Thaumaturgic ritual to rot the lumber yard adjacent the caern.
Does anyone except Jon & I remember why the Klassy Kat became such a feature in the game for so long (until after Jylan left the city/left the game, I believe)?
The story is fairly silly, I'm afraid... 'twas the first game I brought Finnia into. She and Crea, the feline-born bastet, became bored and decided to go find someplace to make some easy cash... and garnered jobs at the local strip club. After all, where better for a nudist werecat to work than the Klassy Kat?
I remember reading ZJ's character concept for the first time... the young urban boy with Fenrir blood somewhere in there, whose first change came in an angry defense of his sister... the True Faith of the youngster slowly destroyed by the violent, vicious, non-Christian world in which he found himself.
And I remember the strong and angry Garou, the self-righteous alpha that Z.J. became, the fights with his mate, Riley, the plot tangle that Godboy and I twisted Z.J. and Riley into - the Fenrir telling Z.J. on his Adren test that they would accept his then-unborn first child as a Get of Fenris, but Pegasus later claiming as her price for a nigh-impossible cleansing that the child would be Black Fury.
"Saving Private Barley..." the impetuous young Bone Gnawer (he was "young" till the day that he died, 16 years old, an adren nigh on athro with a child on the way) dove into the mass of Black Spiral Dancers as the rest of the Garou retreated, determined to retrieve (I wish I could remember what he was retrieving... Silver_Spider? Was is Jason's gun?).
His rescue was enacted two weeks later, by the non-Garou of the septs (kinfolk and a ratkin), as a ward around Wolf Towers kept out Garou. Then began a long healing and cleansing project... which culminated in Riley and ZJ's unborn daughter being promised to Pegasus.... but the healing was not truly complete until much later, when a shy young romance with a street witch named Katydid blossomed into something that could have been marriage.
Windsong (the metis daughter of Circles Widdershins and Connal Wolfe, aah Connal)... her tumultuous romance with Fox, the... um... does anyone know what Fox was?
And back to ZJ again... one of (surprise) my favorite stories... the young cub Aislinn was shy, scared of most men and almost all garou, but the then-kinfolk Timmy and cub ZJ seemed friendly, non-threatening, and so slowly she came out of her shell. Having little to no understanding nor respect for Garou law, she convinced ZJ to ... well, to do what teenaged boys and girls often do. It was not much later that Aislinn fled the sept to live with her foster-mother Tail-on-Fire.... and six months later that she returned to the sept, heavily pregnant and utterly mortified.
The metis child was doomed to a short life. Tiny and perfect in appearance, his lungs and heart were deformed and, despite Herculean measures by the sept (and despite, or because of, a Wyrm-tainted healing by the fallen garou Case), Joshua Hunter deSarrath Johnson died not long after his birth. That scene, the moment of baby Joshua's death, remains in my mind as one of the most dramatic moments of Revelations....
...the other one being Ian, the Glasswalker (what is it with Rev and Glasswalkers)? Ahroun... his kinfolk Yasmina was close to term (a kinfolk he had never intended to claim as his own, but had done so, mostly, I believe, because she made it clear that she wanted to be left alone, and trusted him to leave her alone. Silly girl) when a severed finger - clearly hers - was delivered via wonky magic to the caern.
He waited only barely, impatient, angry, for the rest of the sept to put together a rescue party, before riding to the rescue. The scene itself fades in my memory.. what I remember most is the transformation from angry ahroun to nervous teenaged father, the cops in the hospital eyeing him warily, his rage combining with the bruises and damage on his now-laboring mate to make them distrust her, his arguing carefully with the hospital to let him in to see her....
...and the fatherly pride at the tiny little dark baby she gave him.
There's so much more that I want to post. There's so much that is someone else's story to tell, even things I've touched on here. Please, all of you who have played Rev and Dark Secrets, share your memories as well.... and there will likely be another post from me as well.