Let’s pretend for a moment that you’re a Mage. You’ve made a habit of acquiring “rare antiquities” for people, and somewhere along the line you had an Awakening.  Your Awakening has granted you Supernal powers over Life and Spirit, and you’ve come to realize that some of the people you were acquiring these antiquities for have the ability to impose their will over the fallen world as well. They call themselves the Silver Ladder, and they welcome you into their midst as one of the chosen leaders of the Awakened Community.

Go You!

Let’s go on to say that you have been introduced to a Cabal of Mages, and that this Cabal has become friendly with a pack of Werewolves. Furthermore, you have displeased their Guardian of the Veil by pick-pocketing him within moments of finishing introductions. Or was it during introductions? Either way, as a result he has “politely” asked you to step out while the Cabal takes care of some business. Having met their Werewolf friends, and having no other pressing business at that particular moment in time, you decide to go on a little road trip to the Spirit side of the Gauntlet with your new found furry friends and while there you manage to acquire, completely above the boards, some Werewolf fur. Being the entrepreneurial  sort you figure this has a street value and contact your retainer. Your retainer, a Sleepwalker who can’t use magic himself but has “somehow or other” recently become aware of it, dutifully lines up a deal for you. You set up an appointment with Dr Blair from Angmar Medical Holdings and meet a distinguished, grandfatherly gentleman who is very concerned that this fur was not ill-gotten, that it is indeed pure Werewolf fur, and if he artfully dodges the question of which Order he is with well, who can blame him? He certainly seems nice enough! And he’s doing important work to attempt to help people avoid the many ravages of time. Who doesn’t want that? He has offered to open up to you the mysteries of the Mind Arcanum, which clearly means that he is an ArchMaster of the Arcanum, but that is certainly no cause for alarm.

You complete the transaction in an afternoon, and leave the building thinking that this is someone you wouldn’t mind doing business with again.

Flash forward to later that very evening: your new Cabal friends (and their Werewolf BFFs) get their asses beat by Sangre Santo. Arrow is one of the last two standing. (Matteous the Werewolf is the other one.) Without any coaching from me whatsoever (honestly, I hadn’t even had time to form the idea in my mind) Arrow suggests that he take everyone to the healthcare facility of this new doctor friend of his.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?!

This was one of those moments you dream about as a GM. Here is one of the players voluntarily (and completely unwittingly) handing ALL of the players’ characters into the hands of the enemy, while most of them (except himself) are unconscious and near death. Containing my glee at this suggestion was nigh impossible, though in retrospect I think I did a reasonable job of playing it cool.  Sadly, Matteous talked him out of this brilliant plan, but I still periodically amuse myself by coming up with ways this could have ended.

So tell me, if you were me, and one of the PCs HAD INDEED handed his entire group into the hands of the Big Bad (who is at the very least an ArchMaster of the Mind Arcanum and possibly others), how would you have abused this situation?

Inquiring minds want to know!