Category Archives: World of Darkness
No Mage a l’Orange?
So now, with the Mages and Werewolves having suddenly become BFFs, it was time for them to come up with a plan. This was somewhat irksome, as the Werewolf GM and I had never anticipated this happenstance. After all, in the weeks following the announcement that there would be a campaign starting, and in the sessions leading up to this one, the Werewolves were throwin’ down! They were all over the message board wondering whether Mages tasted best with ketchup, mustard, or barbecue sauce. Perhaps they should be marinated? Broiled? Baked? Fried? What side dishes go best with Mage? Fortunately there is a large group of Mages so we can experiment with recipes! Nom nom nom.
That the Mages, after all of this, were honestly trying to warn these people of potential danger was beyond ludicrous. That after all of this talk about how they better skewer those Mages while they’re still young and squishy the Werewolves instead asked for treats and belly scratches made me want to cry.
It still does.
Despite my fondest wishes the two groups decided to work together. Argus managed to track down the NBC employee and discovered that there was to be another club night that very evening! The NBC employee had an invitation but didn’t want it. He also had a location (the club moves every night), and gave that information up. The Werewolves were also able to come up with invitations and a location, and the locations matched up. So far, so good. The groups scouted out the place, a construction site in Midtown Manhattan, and saw that there were temporary walls and such being put up inside. It all made sense for what they would expect from a temporary nightclub that moved around the city. They needed only to wait until later that evening to get some answers.
And so they waited.
As the time drew near they noticed that someone was standing near the entrance to the temporary structure. Clearly he was some sort of bouncer. Aenaiyah cast “Perfect Moment” to improve her chances of a clean entry. Argus went invisible, again (bastard!), and Werewolf Matteus laid in wait as Aenaiyah made her approach.
And a slut-tastic approach it was! She was all batting eyelashes and “Oh my, what big strong biceps you have!”
Naturally the bouncer let her in, which was really not supposed to happen. That hadn’t been part of the plan at all, which really shouldn’t have surprised me but in my defense it was only my third session. I was only just starting to see this accursed pattern.
And then Werewolf Matteus made the bouncer his bitch.
That wasn’t supposed to happen either.
Why is it that what I plan and what takes place ain’t ever exactly similar?
Dances with Werewolves:
Werewolves have a reputation for being territorial. As such, it was important for the Mages to come up with a plan, a good plan, before wandering over to Central Park for a visit. Much to my surprise they came up with one! The plan was elegant in its simplicity.
Nokoni is a Thyrsus Mage, and as such he can speak with Spirits and has knowledge of the Spirit realm. He knows that Werewolves frequently deal with Spirit matters. Aenaiyah has a cat spirit as a familiar. Now while one may not immediately see the wisdom of bringing a cat to meet wolves, the fact that it is a cat spirit and Werewolves are not full wolves and as such not prone to the same potential animosity with feline species as your average canine species makes this a different case. So Aenaiyah and Nokoni head out to the park with Noel, Aenaiyah’s familiar. Noel’s job is to wander about the park until someone notices her, and when someone does she should communicate back to Aenaiyah about how that goes. You might think that this is somewhat dangerous for Noel, but only if you are not aware that Noel is the Death Kitty!
I will rant about that at some other time. For now let’s just leave it at :::insert facepalm here:::
So Noel makes some circuits about the park, which I dutifully IM to the GM at the Werewolf table before the Mages at my table have figured out that those are the Werewolves they’re looking for. Eventually the Werewolves return from their fight with the Spider Host, somewhat the worse for wear (they had fought several before the night was through) and encounter Death Kitty. Death Kitty purrs sweetly in the hopes of getting a treat out of this. When they in fact decide not to attempt to eviscerate Death Kitty (they chose… wisely) Aenaiyah and Nokoni are given their cue to head out to the room with the other table. The rest of the players are told (with the door open so the other table can hear me) that they can “take 5” so that I can keep track of what happens at the park.
To my astonishment they all stayed in the room with the door closed so that they wouldn’t overhear!
Keep in mind, this meeting is happening in Central Park, in NYC, in the middle of the day. It is safe to assume that there will be lots of people around, especially since we had already established nice spring weather at the park. The game is being played in a public place – a game store called Ravenblood Games. If the players had decided that their characters were snooping around at the park they could have simply wandered out to the main room (where the Werewolf table was) and started looking at T-Shirts, RPG books, Munchkin paraphernalia, dice, minis, snacks, board games, or any number of other things that are on sale at this fine establishment. The Werewolf players would not have been likely to notice what they were doing, and their characters would have been even less likely to notice them wandering around the park. Yet still they restrained themselves!
Well, all except for Argus of course. He promptly declared that he was casting personal invisibility and sound mastery and went out to look at the most recently arrived batch of Necron figures.
Now I have already mentioned that the Werewolves had been up all night playing with some Spider Host, aka Azlu, and were a bit torn up. Nokoni, being a Thyrsus Mage, has healing abilities to go along with his talents in the Spirit area, and so he starts casting a few healing spells while he and Aenaiyah explain why they are there. They are afraid that someone is trying to cause trouble for the Werewolves, and while there are already people trying to keep things under wraps, that isn’t necessarily going to stop the kind of psycho lunatic who would pose a body in a van with the headlights shining on a Werewolf Territory Marker with the door open and that godawful bing-bing-bing noise going on and on and on and on and on. I mean, seriously, what kind of sicko does that sort of thing?!
Oh… errrr… I mean… clearly whoever would execute so bold and cunning a plan must be a brilliant strategist who would not likely be deterred by a lack of media coverage! Such a one as this must be strong… and courageous… and dangerous… and… good puppy?
In Other News:
Right about now you’re probably asking: “What about the people who went off to find the Werewolves in Central Park? “ If you are, you are not alone in this. Aenaiyah and Nokoni were asking that too…repeatedly… while I was attempting to stall.
You see, I knew something that they didn’t. I knew that the Werewolves didn’t happen to be in Central Park right then and there. I knew this because their GM IMed me so.
This is a parallel campaign. While my table of Mages busied themselves retrieving a grimoire in France, the table of Werewolves had problems of their own to deal with back home in NYC. A group of Azlu were operating an illegal nightclub in a “place-that isn’t”, existing only in the Spirit Realm and only being accessible for a few nights out of every month. (They were running a module called “Parlor Games”.) Nokoni, being a Thyrsus Mage, is aware that Werewolves play an important role in protecting the physical world from threats attempting to reach through the Gauntlet and tells his fellow Mages so. As a result the Mages are afraid that perhaps someone left that body at the edge of the park in an attempt to cause trouble for the Werewolves of the city. In reality the Werewolves found the body hidden in the truck, about to be disposed of by servants of the Azlu, and one of the less responsible Wolves decided that if they posed the body in the van they could draw out the murderers and deal with them. This happened early on in the second session.
As an amusing side note: at the start of the third session one of the Werewolf players asked if that particular decision made the news, and when their GM started shuffling through her papers to find a handout he knew that no good could come of it.
And so, when my Mage players asked yet again: “So, what about the folks who went to Central Park? Have we made contact with the Werewolves yet?” I had no answer for them. The Werewolves were chasing down an Azlu who had bolted from the fight last session and the combat that followed was taking longer than the conversations at the Mage table. Eventually I was forced to just own up to it. I told them “The Werewolves aren’t at the Park just yet.”
Aenaiyah: “Well, why can’t we just skip ahead until they are at the Park?”
Me: “Ummmm…”
Aenaiyah: Gives me the stink-eye
Me: “I’m not sure when they are going to get there yet. I’m trying to find out.”
Aenaiyah: “What do you mean you’re trying to find out!?”
Rex: “Wait-a-minute… these Werewolves we’re trying to make contact with… they wouldn’t happen to be…” points thumb towards the other game table, “those Werewolves, would they?”
Me: Shrugging in a non-committal manner “Maybe?”
Hilarity ensued.
Who Let the Dogs Out?
The Mages have a mystery on their hands. They have a body in a van, and it has drawn a great deal of attention from the mundane world. Not only is the well read though little believed conspiracy rag “Sick Sad World” reporting on this, major news outlets are reporting on it too. This is exactly the kind of thing that draws the attention of Hunters, which makes it precisely the type of thing the Guardians of the Veil are supposed to prevent from happening.
What follows, right after a certain purple haired Brit gets asked a few questions about who she is and why she’s in the city, is lots and lots of research.
WHO LET THE DOGS OUT
A ‘Sick Sad World’ Exclusive Story!
According to this article distributed by an anonymous press (download the PDF at the link above!) some art students from The Cooper Union were witness to the events of the previous evening. Both this article and the previous one, MONSTER IN MANHATTAN, seem to indicate the presence of Werewolves at the club. The van’s headlights were shining on a symbol carved into a tree that is consistent with a Werewolf Territory Marker. The thing is, the body that was found in the van doesn’t look like it was killed by a Werewolf. Werewolves aren’t exactly known for sucking the insides out of a body while leaving the candy shell intact.
Somebody must be trying to call out the city’s Werewolves!
The Mages decide that the best thing to do is split the party. Having noticed the sidebar about the “NBC Production Employee sent home after Wild Ravings”, one group (including resident FBI Agent on Sabbatical Argus Guille, and Moros Mage Rex) will be heading to the station’s offices to track down this employee and talk about what happened. One group: Mastigos Molly, Free Councillor Neils, and the Acanthus child Marissa, is heading off to the college to talk to the students who drew the artwork. The third and final group, Thyrsus Nokoni and the newly met Acanthus Aenaiyah, are off to Central Park to see if they can be not torn apart by the city’s Werewolf community.
At the TV station Argus abuses his FBI credentials to have a chat with the production manager who sent the employee home. She informs him that the employee was working on a story about illegal casinos operating in the city. It takes a while to get inside of one, or even track one down. They move around a lot, and don’t operate every night. He had finally gotten in, without smuggling in a camera because he knew he would be searched, when something happened that drove him totally over the edge. His manager’s suspicions involve drugs. She doesn’t believe he was deliberately taking any, but perhaps the operators of the casino were drugging the gamblers to loosen their wallets. Maybe her guy just had a bad reaction to something that they used. At any rate, she can give the FBI agent her employee’s home address, but obviously she can’t guarantee that he’ll be there. She advised him to see a doctor, but doesn’t know where he actually went after leaving the office.
At the college our intrepid Mages have little problem tracking down the artists they are looking for. Neils, being an academic, knows his way around a college campus and how to chat up the students. Molly, being a Mastigos Mage, can read minds. It’s a pretty potent combo in this situation. The fact the the law enforcement type didn’t tag along doesn’t hurt. The students are more than happy to talk about what they saw. “It was freaky man, they were like… Werewolves or somethin’. Pretty crazy. I mean… I know I was a little high… but this picture is like totally accurate…”
Sick Sad World of Darkness
The second session of the campaign closed with The Loquacious Grimoire happily in the hands of Mysterium Librarian Meijis (and for the record, it is both the book and the librarian that were happy), and our budding group of Mages starting to look like people you could come to trust the safety of the city to. This is why late that night (or early that morning, depending upon your point of view) resident Guardian of the Veil, FBI Agent Argus Guille, received a message indicating that he should go to CNN*s home page immediately. Upon confirmation that he granted the request of the ranking Guardian in the city, I handed him the following:
Clearly it was destined to be one of those days.
The text is as follows:
Gruesome Murder May be Work of Serial Killer, NYPD says
The body of a murdered woman was found near Central Park. The woman, who remains unidentified at this time, was found posed behind the steering wheel of an SUV wearing an evening dress. 5 More bodies found in a nearby alley.
Successful WITS+INVESTIGATION rolls would draw their eyes to the following headlines deftly inserted along the side of the picture among the actual headlines of the day by yours truly:
Naturally, since this was printed on a piece of paper (and since I didn’t actually create a website for any of this) the links didn’t go anywhere for them – nor will they for you. They were, and are, for the sake of a realistic effect only.
And so, Argus decides to rouse the rest of his Scooby Gang and investigate. The following Mages were at the Sanctum at the start of Session 3:
Argus: Guardian of the Veil – Obrimos
Neils: Free Council – Obrimos
Marissa: Apostate – Acanthus
Nokoni: Adamantine Arrow – Thyrsus
Rex: Free Council – Moros
They arrive on the scene to police putting up barricades and trying to get the lookie-loues out of the way. They also spy amid those lookie-loues a young woman with green hair and the aura of a Mage. The decision is made to keep her close since they don’t know who she is or how she might be involved. It is at this point that new player character Molly Carpenter – Mastigos – Apostate joins our intrepid group of adventurers!
Argus does some mad bluffing (MANIPULATION+INTIMIDATION) and amid many successes he convinces everyone that he is currently with the beaureau, and that he is in charge here. Since he is in charge he orders the NYPD officers present to just keep people out of the immediate area while his cracked team of Crime Scene Investigators begins the hunt for the killer!
The body is posed in a van, as can be seen in the “photo” on the website. What can’t be seen in the picture is that the keys are in the ignition, the headlights are on, and the door is wide open resulting in that godawful “ping ping ping” noise going on…and on… and on…
Rex and Nokoni are able to determine that there is no muscle tissue in the body, nor are there any internal organs. Only the skin and bones remain. As can be seen in the “photo”, the eyes are also completely gone. The skin is leathery, and it is difficult to pinpoint a time of death. The usual smell of decay is absolutely not present, but there is an acidic odor present. There is no blood in the body, and as such there is no bruising. “Forensic Gaze” reveals that the cause of death is a deep “V” shaped wound at the base of the sternum that is mostly hidden by the dress that the body still wears.
Neils and Argus detect no magical resonance, and so it would appear that this is not the work of a Mage. It didn’t really look like the work of a Mage, but it’s always important to rule that out! Getting his hands on a fingerprinting kit from the NYPD officers on the scene, Argus is able to determine that there are fingerprints inside the van and on the body, in all of the places you would expect to find them considering the fact that it isn’t bloody likely that this person happened to die while waving hello to someone.
Molly scans the mental state of the crowd of gawkers and doesn’t sense that anyone present is aware of what happened here. She also keeps an eye on young Marissa, who seems to have found something interesting lying in the street.
CNN isn’t the only ones reporting on this:
MONSTER IN MANHATTAN: A Sick Sad World** Exclusive!
(Yes, you can click this link!)
Argus arranges for the body to be removed by a police officer who happens to be in the confidence of the Consilium, and taken to a coroner who happens to be a Moros Mage. This taken care of the group heads to their base of operations at the New York Public Library to figure out their next move, where a young woman with a British accent, the aura of a Mage, and spikey purple hair happens to be sitting in their path.
(*GM’s Note: With all due respect to CNN! I asked myself, what would be the most frightening place for a story like this to turn up, and CNN’s solid reputation for quality reporting made it the only choice.)
(**GM’s Note: When challenged to come up with a name for my campaign’s conspiracy tabloid I could think of no finer tribute to some of the best people I’ve ever had the pleasure to work alongside than naming it “Sick Sad World”. Truth.)
Mage Mistress 