Game Log: Werewolf the Apocalpyse
Werewolf the Apocalypse
I've been running an old World of Darkness game for a few months now. It started out as a one-shot con game for a group of players who had never done WtA before. The setting was the Scottish Highlands, a bit of a change of scenery for a group of Irish players. The Highlands are also a great setting for an ancient and powerful Caern. The characters were 4 newly changed tribeless cubs who come together at the Sept, but are then forced out on their own when the Sept is attacked and they, as the only survivors, flee into the night.
The players enjoyed the game, and due to general lack of GMing at the games club, asked me to turn it into an ongoing chronicle.
The players wanted to keep playing their characters from the one-shot, so I told them to read some of the book and choose their tribes. This is what we ended up with:
The characters:
Luke: Get of Fenris Philodox who communes with the memory of his dead father.
Kevin: Fiann Ahroun, a rugby jock who killed his friends during his first change (not uncommon for Garou)
Michael: Fiann Galliard, rich boy who tries very hard to impress his mother, a Black Fury Athro.
Jonah: Silent Strider Ragabash, outsider and general annoyance, but very streetsmart and perceptive.
The pack was helped by the Caern's guardian, Stag, during the one-shot, and so they took Stag as their Totem.
This gave me an idea for a rite of passage that would involve something both a little crazy and interesting. The one-shot had been a journey of discovery, into the world of the Garou, Gaia, the Wyrm, and the war they were all fighting. I wanted this game to be an introduction to the rest of the world of darkness, and I wanted something shocking and horrible, to show what sort of enemy they were dealing with.
So I sent the pack to Aberdeen. I already have a very bleak view of Aberdeen, as a perpetually rainy place with a seedy underbelly and rampant knife-crime. Stag led the pack to a park and told them that they, as his children, are honour-bound to always help those he watches over. If the players had any out of character knowledge, they might have known of Stag's ties to the Fae. But my players were just as green as the characters they were playing, which made this lot more fun.
They stepped into the park in time to stop a murder. They kill two men and save a girl. The girl they apparently rescued seemed to be a little haughty and arrogant, not to mention a little eccentric. They did manage to get some information out of her. Apparently there are others held prisoner, and she escaped, although she's not sure where it was. She remembers smells and sounds. And she remembers a man with a shaved head and blue eyes, and plenty of tattoos.
Jonah decides to use his contacts while the others make sure they are in no way tied to the crime scene. Smart, but I make a note that this will still come back to haunt them. I'll just figure out the details later. It's always good to have things from past stories resurface. It makes things more real and ties them together.
Jonah's from Liverpool, but I rule his underground contacts put him in touch with a man named Jimmy in Aberdeen. Jimmy is very obviously a pimp. He invites them into his apartment and offers them drinks. He immediately recognises the girl, although she doesn't recognise him. Michael gets suspicious and decides to take the girl outside while the others find out how Jimmy knows her. Jimmy gives them a DVD, which is apparently a porn film she was in.
As Rich Boy Michael always comes prepared with Daddy's car and Daddy's Laptop, they get a hotel room. While Michael takes the girl home and stays with her for protection, the others watch the DVD. I tell them make willpower checks, which leads to one of the funniest OOC comments I've ever heard in the game: "Are we rolling not to get aroused?" Luke's player asks.
However, when I say they're rolling not to get sick, they get that this is a lot more than a porn film. It's obviously a snuff film that never got to the actual murder part.
They get a lot of info from the DVD. For starters, they see the man with the tattoos and Jonah's eye catches a glyph hidden among the tattoos that looks strange. Kevin makes drawings of the glyph so Michael can later ask his mother what they mean (Mentor 3). They see a basement, a small window which the victim might have escaped from, and a few other men involved in this horrible business.
Krystka, the girl, had mentioned she could hear running water while in captivity so the boys start to search the town for nasty areas near the river. Meanwhile, Michael gets in touch with his mother and asks about the glyphs, which turn out to be the signs and symbols of the defiler Wyrm. Using a combination of streetwise and tracking skills, Luke and Jonah narrow down the location to a few blocks. That's still a lot to go through, but Jonah patiently checks each and every one for signs of the Wyrm. The city itself is rife with both Wyrm and Weaver taint, but Jonah picks the house that is the most tainted, that has a basement, and that fits Krystka's description the most.
The pack decides they have the element of surprise. They're not sure this is the place, but it's the most likely suspect and they don't want to waste any time. Luckily, I know OOC that they do have the right place. Their research and patience pays off. They tell Krystka to go home. Secretly, I believe the pack needs some help even if they don't know it, and I keep her around.
And so begins the battle. Kevin activates the mask, sets himself on fire and bursts through the front door. A couple of men reach for guns, one grabs a knife. Probably what gives this away, however, is the young boy with a collar sitting frightened in the corner. I have the players and their characters pissed off now. They don't care if this is the right place, they're going to kill everyone in here. I give Kevin a point of rage for roleplaying this.
The men are kinfolk, immune to the delirium and ready to fight. But they're not too tough. The pack gets through them quickly enough. Michael takes the boy outside, dresses him in his jacket, and tells him to close his eyes and ears, and wait for them to come back. He aces his empathy roll, and I give him a point of wisdom for that. It's pretty gentle from a big guy like Michael.
Meanwhile, Luke and Kevin have reached the basement with Jonah not far behind. They are accosted by two kids with meathooks, and two pregnant women with shotguns. They barely hesitate before claws start slashing. Luke and Kevin push through, leaving Jonah and Michael (who has just caught up), to fend off the pregnant women and children.
This led to another funny moment where Michael's player, in full earshot of Luke's player's pregnant housemate, says loudly: "You go on ahead, we'll kill the pregnant woman."
Finally, Luke and Kevin reach the place where the rest of the prisoners are. They've lost the element of surprise. Also, the 'Boss' of this dungoen, the man with the defiler tattoos, is a rank 3 Ahroun with Spirit of the Fray and Silver Claws. The players are suddenly screwed and they know it. However, just as they roll initiative, the ground shifts and the Ahroun trips and falls on his face. A little Fae trick I devised to give the players both a fighting chance, and a small hint of what their obligation to Stag really is.
With both Kevin and Luke getting the first attacks, they get lucky and send the Ahroun into final frenzy before he can even attack. Meanwhile, Jonah is getting splattered by a twelve-year-old boy and Michael is still failing miserably to kill a pregnant woman. A couple of turns later, things are going really badly. It takes one hit and Kevin is down to incap. Luke is alone facing this frenzied Ahroun and Michael's player is so annoyed with failing, I give him a point of rage IC. Luke does his best to stay alive until the others show up, and I give them another helping hand and make the Ahroun trip again. Luke plays 'Dodge the Raging Lunatic' long enough for Michael to show up and heap fifteen dice of damage on the Ahroun. Somehow, he rolls 13 successes on fifteen dice, and the soak roll barely stops 3. The lucky boys are all alive, and I really expected at least two of them to die in that fight.
Luke performs a rite of cleansing while Michael and Jonah free the prisoners. Michael calls his mother and tells her what happened. She sends someone to take care of the abused women, and for once she actually looks like she's really proud of her son. Then they burn the place and head home, ready to be named Cliath.
Michael takes Krystka home first, since he's a chivalrous knight and all. Later, out of character, I explain to him that his character is now fae-struck.
They not only get their rank, they get 5 Glory for taking down the Adren Ahroun and a reputation for complete badassery, since of course no one, not even the characters themselves, know they got a little bit of help. Kevin gets a glorious battle scar to boot. The pack speaks to Stag finally, and understand fully their obligation to the Fae. And I, like any self-respecting GM, promise to use that against them any chance I get.
I've been running an old World of Darkness game for a few months now. It started out as a one-shot con game for a group of players who had never done WtA before. The setting was the Scottish Highlands, a bit of a change of scenery for a group of Irish players. The Highlands are also a great setting for an ancient and powerful Caern. The characters were 4 newly changed tribeless cubs who come together at the Sept, but are then forced out on their own when the Sept is attacked and they, as the only survivors, flee into the night.
The players enjoyed the game, and due to general lack of GMing at the games club, asked me to turn it into an ongoing chronicle.
The players wanted to keep playing their characters from the one-shot, so I told them to read some of the book and choose their tribes. This is what we ended up with:
The characters:
Luke: Get of Fenris Philodox who communes with the memory of his dead father.
Kevin: Fiann Ahroun, a rugby jock who killed his friends during his first change (not uncommon for Garou)
Michael: Fiann Galliard, rich boy who tries very hard to impress his mother, a Black Fury Athro.
Jonah: Silent Strider Ragabash, outsider and general annoyance, but very streetsmart and perceptive.
The pack was helped by the Caern's guardian, Stag, during the one-shot, and so they took Stag as their Totem.
This gave me an idea for a rite of passage that would involve something both a little crazy and interesting. The one-shot had been a journey of discovery, into the world of the Garou, Gaia, the Wyrm, and the war they were all fighting. I wanted this game to be an introduction to the rest of the world of darkness, and I wanted something shocking and horrible, to show what sort of enemy they were dealing with.
So I sent the pack to Aberdeen. I already have a very bleak view of Aberdeen, as a perpetually rainy place with a seedy underbelly and rampant knife-crime. Stag led the pack to a park and told them that they, as his children, are honour-bound to always help those he watches over. If the players had any out of character knowledge, they might have known of Stag's ties to the Fae. But my players were just as green as the characters they were playing, which made this lot more fun.
They stepped into the park in time to stop a murder. They kill two men and save a girl. The girl they apparently rescued seemed to be a little haughty and arrogant, not to mention a little eccentric. They did manage to get some information out of her. Apparently there are others held prisoner, and she escaped, although she's not sure where it was. She remembers smells and sounds. And she remembers a man with a shaved head and blue eyes, and plenty of tattoos.
Jonah decides to use his contacts while the others make sure they are in no way tied to the crime scene. Smart, but I make a note that this will still come back to haunt them. I'll just figure out the details later. It's always good to have things from past stories resurface. It makes things more real and ties them together.
Jonah's from Liverpool, but I rule his underground contacts put him in touch with a man named Jimmy in Aberdeen. Jimmy is very obviously a pimp. He invites them into his apartment and offers them drinks. He immediately recognises the girl, although she doesn't recognise him. Michael gets suspicious and decides to take the girl outside while the others find out how Jimmy knows her. Jimmy gives them a DVD, which is apparently a porn film she was in.
As Rich Boy Michael always comes prepared with Daddy's car and Daddy's Laptop, they get a hotel room. While Michael takes the girl home and stays with her for protection, the others watch the DVD. I tell them make willpower checks, which leads to one of the funniest OOC comments I've ever heard in the game: "Are we rolling not to get aroused?" Luke's player asks.
However, when I say they're rolling not to get sick, they get that this is a lot more than a porn film. It's obviously a snuff film that never got to the actual murder part.
They get a lot of info from the DVD. For starters, they see the man with the tattoos and Jonah's eye catches a glyph hidden among the tattoos that looks strange. Kevin makes drawings of the glyph so Michael can later ask his mother what they mean (Mentor 3). They see a basement, a small window which the victim might have escaped from, and a few other men involved in this horrible business.
Krystka, the girl, had mentioned she could hear running water while in captivity so the boys start to search the town for nasty areas near the river. Meanwhile, Michael gets in touch with his mother and asks about the glyphs, which turn out to be the signs and symbols of the defiler Wyrm. Using a combination of streetwise and tracking skills, Luke and Jonah narrow down the location to a few blocks. That's still a lot to go through, but Jonah patiently checks each and every one for signs of the Wyrm. The city itself is rife with both Wyrm and Weaver taint, but Jonah picks the house that is the most tainted, that has a basement, and that fits Krystka's description the most.
The pack decides they have the element of surprise. They're not sure this is the place, but it's the most likely suspect and they don't want to waste any time. Luckily, I know OOC that they do have the right place. Their research and patience pays off. They tell Krystka to go home. Secretly, I believe the pack needs some help even if they don't know it, and I keep her around.
And so begins the battle. Kevin activates the mask, sets himself on fire and bursts through the front door. A couple of men reach for guns, one grabs a knife. Probably what gives this away, however, is the young boy with a collar sitting frightened in the corner. I have the players and their characters pissed off now. They don't care if this is the right place, they're going to kill everyone in here. I give Kevin a point of rage for roleplaying this.
The men are kinfolk, immune to the delirium and ready to fight. But they're not too tough. The pack gets through them quickly enough. Michael takes the boy outside, dresses him in his jacket, and tells him to close his eyes and ears, and wait for them to come back. He aces his empathy roll, and I give him a point of wisdom for that. It's pretty gentle from a big guy like Michael.
Meanwhile, Luke and Kevin have reached the basement with Jonah not far behind. They are accosted by two kids with meathooks, and two pregnant women with shotguns. They barely hesitate before claws start slashing. Luke and Kevin push through, leaving Jonah and Michael (who has just caught up), to fend off the pregnant women and children.
This led to another funny moment where Michael's player, in full earshot of Luke's player's pregnant housemate, says loudly: "You go on ahead, we'll kill the pregnant woman."
Finally, Luke and Kevin reach the place where the rest of the prisoners are. They've lost the element of surprise. Also, the 'Boss' of this dungoen, the man with the defiler tattoos, is a rank 3 Ahroun with Spirit of the Fray and Silver Claws. The players are suddenly screwed and they know it. However, just as they roll initiative, the ground shifts and the Ahroun trips and falls on his face. A little Fae trick I devised to give the players both a fighting chance, and a small hint of what their obligation to Stag really is.
With both Kevin and Luke getting the first attacks, they get lucky and send the Ahroun into final frenzy before he can even attack. Meanwhile, Jonah is getting splattered by a twelve-year-old boy and Michael is still failing miserably to kill a pregnant woman. A couple of turns later, things are going really badly. It takes one hit and Kevin is down to incap. Luke is alone facing this frenzied Ahroun and Michael's player is so annoyed with failing, I give him a point of rage IC. Luke does his best to stay alive until the others show up, and I give them another helping hand and make the Ahroun trip again. Luke plays 'Dodge the Raging Lunatic' long enough for Michael to show up and heap fifteen dice of damage on the Ahroun. Somehow, he rolls 13 successes on fifteen dice, and the soak roll barely stops 3. The lucky boys are all alive, and I really expected at least two of them to die in that fight.
Luke performs a rite of cleansing while Michael and Jonah free the prisoners. Michael calls his mother and tells her what happened. She sends someone to take care of the abused women, and for once she actually looks like she's really proud of her son. Then they burn the place and head home, ready to be named Cliath.
Michael takes Krystka home first, since he's a chivalrous knight and all. Later, out of character, I explain to him that his character is now fae-struck.
They not only get their rank, they get 5 Glory for taking down the Adren Ahroun and a reputation for complete badassery, since of course no one, not even the characters themselves, know they got a little bit of help. Kevin gets a glorious battle scar to boot. The pack speaks to Stag finally, and understand fully their obligation to the Fae. And I, like any self-respecting GM, promise to use that against them any chance I get.