Chances are that I’m not the only one reading this who is currently recovering from a failed STAMINA+SURVIVAL check or two during the Thanksgiving festivities. Fortunately I blew some character creation points on the Iron Stomach and Toxin Resistance merits, which helped me to not only handle the pumpkin pie objective, but also to struggle my way through the tryptophan encounter.

Alas, neither merit will help me write something entertaining in the wake of yesterday’s events. (Apologies to the readers.)

Pretty soon I’ll be hitting the checkout button on a large portion of my Christmas shopping (no stores for me! :::shudder:::) and then settling down for a long winter’s nap… or at least a long weekend’s nap. It will be a well earned opportunity to recharge my brain as I ponder what evil things to do to my players next. As it happens I have some fairly big decisions coming up.

The Players’ Cabal is currently negotiating a prisoner exchange with a quite powerful Seer of the Throne. Complicating matters is the fact that Seers tend to let their Exarch make the big decisions for them. How important is this captive the players are holding to the Exarch’s plans? Sure, she’s important to the Seer they are negotiating with (she’s his granddaughter), but to the Exarch? Sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good. In the sight of The Eye she has already failed in her mission to ensure that Damien is brought into the fold. So when you come right down to it, how much is The Eye likely to approve of exchanging for her?

And then there is the rest of the Cabal’s “To Do” list. I have more than one player looking at various Legacies. I’d like to have that unfold naturally in the campaign, but so much of what they have been doing as of late has been secretive enough that it’s been difficult to have them be approached. Of course, certain players have been less secretive than others, and I have to decide what happens when someone places an object in the Holy Water at the Vatican and that seemingly simple coin sizzles the Holy Water right out of the font in a big steamy cloud. Surely no good can come of that. Fortunately no one brings cameras or cell phones into the Vatican. (#facepalm)

And what of the remaining coins? To date the players have one, and they suspect that they know who has another. Are more of these still floating around? (I’ll give you a hint: the answer isn’t ‘no’.)

There are, of course, other bad things going down simultaneously. New York is a big city. I would like for the players to take advantage of a little character down time in the near future, but they might wind up stumbling into some bad things during that down time. Hell, they may cause bad things to happen during that down time. Come to think of it, they may have already caused bad things to happen during that down time!

To quote a favorite web comic of mine… “Rejoice. For very bad things are about to happen.”