Category Archives: WtF
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.)
Death is Always an Option
As a matter of fact, not only is the death of PCs an option, it’s the one I look forward to each time I run the game. Sadly, it sometimes just isn’t very likely. Even more sadly, tomorrow’s Mage game is looking to be one of those times as it seems as though my players will actually spend some time gathering information. It’s been a while since they’ve done anything remotely resembling research, which I have to admit isn’t entirely their fault. Sometimes fans get hit, and things need to be sanitized. When that happens sooner is generally better than later.
For example, on their way back from dealing with the “crazy homeless guy” who was actually a former police officer that was about to change into a Werewolf for the very first time*, the Mages and Werewolves stumbled upon a nun that was possessed by a demon. This is the kind of thing you typically want to fix as quickly as possible. you want to take care of it even more quickly when you realize that the demon is Sangre Santo:
Sangre Santo is not much fun at parties. He does enjoy making deals though!
My co-GM and I made sure that there was at least one way to come out of the encounter unscathed. We also allowed for the possibility that they would figure out other ways to come out of this OK, though we could only think of the one, and we were reasonably certain they wouldn’t avail themselves of it.
As you may have already guessed – they didn’t.
Death was very much an option during this encounter. In fact Sangre Santo made it quite clear that he might kill them all quite by accident if he wasn’t careful! The sad truth is that this is one of those cases where simply killing them didn’t make sense. Quite frankly, that would have been way too passe for Sangre Santo. He didn’t want to kill them, he wanted to corrupt them. If he had to knock each and every one of them unconscious and then play “Let’s Make A Deal” with the first one to wake up over and over again until someone broke down and decided which one of their friends should be killed, so be it. After all, being an abyssal entity means that Sangre Santo has too much time on his hands. While this made a TPK unlikely, it did make it quite possible that one of the characters would be forced to sentence another one to death in order for the majority of them to live. Since it is unlikely that any player would make this choice, a successful “RESOLVE + COMPOSURE” roll would have been needed to not give in. The corrupted PC would have suffered some Morality loss and a possible derangement, the other PCs would be shocked and horrified (well, the ones that weren’t the dead one anyway), and my co-GM and I would have congratulated each other on a job well done.
Of course, failing that Sangre Santo would have eventually gotten bored again and just killed them all in the hopes that more entertainment would arrive soon.
The PCs actually caught a break here. It was down to final health points for several of the characters, and the big guy himself. Aenaiyah pulled a Hail Mary and managed to sever the connection between Sangre Santo and the mortal plane just before he managed to kill her.
This entertained him so much that he later sent her a gift!
Sangre Santo is nothing if not appreciative of a good time.
It’s important for death to be a very real threat in the campaign. The possibility of character death creates a sense of urgency and tension. The specter of death makes it clear to the players that the choices they make for their characters are important. The trick is that too much death, senseless death, and unavoidable death cause the same problems that no fear of death causes. If the players know that their characters are going to die anyway it takes away that very sense of urgency and tension – they are going to die no matter what they do!
Death needs to always be on the table, but it should always make sense, always be meaningful, and always be avoidable. If it isn’t it becomes cheapened. It becomes a certainty instead of a risk. Once the outcome is certain it just isn’t much of a game anymore.
*Let the record clearly state that the Mages and Werewolves actually opted to help this guy! (Let it also clearly state that previously the Gaurdian of the Veil handed him a fresh bottle of whiskey and pointed him toward the nearest subway tunnel.)
Paradox Lost
Who thinks the paradox rules for “Mage The Awakening” really suck?
(No comments from the PC’s please. I wasn’t asking you.)
Take my word for it, they suck. My Co-GM and I can spend countless hours building an impressive array of antagonists to go up against my group of Mages (and his group of Werewolves) in preparation for the big fight at the end of a chapter, and what do my thoughtless, inconsiderate Mages go and do?
I’ll tell you what they do.
They create a gravity well the size the friggin’ building under my antagonists feet (while they, of course, stand just outside the door). This not only makes it impossible for my poor Promethean and friends to move at all (you try moving in 5 times normal gravity), but literally brings the house down on them, crushing them all to death.
We hates the Mages Precious!
My one joy in all of this is the fact that the gravity well spell is horrifically vulgar. I smile happily as I point this out and we begin to calculate the Paradox pool.
Sadly the antagonist, being a Promethean, is in an isolated and unpopulated area – so there are no sleeper witnesses. It’s the first vulgar spell of the scene, so that gives me the Mage’s Base Paradox Pool to work with. At Gnosis 4 this happens to be 2 dice. It isn’t much, but I laugh with evil glee as I select my 2 dice. Mua-haa-h…
“But wait! Not so fast Story Teller! I’m using my arcane tool, and this spell is a rote! That’s -2 dice.”
And so this horrifically vulgar spell’s Paradox Pool is reduced to a chance die. A CHANCE DIE! What’s up with that? In the highly unlikely event that I manage to roll a success this pain in my butt will simply take 1 Resistant Bashing Damage and laugh it off. Bastard.
Clearly, something must be done… but what?
I have a few ideas:
- At the very least absorbing Paradox should be a difficult thing for the character to do. The character must succeed on a RESOLVE + COMPOSURE roll in order to mitigate the Paradox by taking Resistant Bashing Damage. (1 Health Point can be absorbed per success on the roll).
- You have absorbed a Paradox – this is some nasty shit. The damage is lethal. (Who’s laughing now?!)
- The Paradox is determined by the spell-casting roll. Any 1’s that are rolled as part of that roll contribute to Paradox. The more dice you have to cast the spell, the greater the chance of a Paradox.
Let’s make Paradox the nasty, scary, in your face deterrent it’s supposed to be! Who’s with me?!
Never Mind the Body Posed in the Van… It’s All Good
You will never receive such a text message from any self-respecting Guardian of the Veil.
You might, however, receive such a text message if you happen to regularly hang out with an Acanthus Mage from the Mysterium.
And if there is a crazy pack of Werewolves in your city.
Let me try to explain:
Way back in the beginning of 2009 someone thought it would be a great idea to run a multi-table campaign set in White Wolfe Publishing’s “World of Darkness”. The idea seemed simple, elegant even… at first. A table of Werewolves and a table of Mages having adventures in the same city in the same timeframe. Every so often their paths may cross. In theory, this was a great idea!
In Theory.
In reality you have a situation that no good can come of. It should have been simple. Some initial sessions for each table from modules to allow the characters to develop a bit, and then you use elements of the character’s backgrounds and current actions to build a campaign story. The Mages were reasonably cooperative with this.
The Werewolves decided to pose a body in the driver’s seat of a van to “call out” the supernatural entity that committed the murder.
They didn’t stop there though. Oh no. That wasn’t nearly obvious enough. They posed this body in the driver’s seat of the van with the keys in the ignition and the headlights on.
The headlights were shining on a tree with the Pack’s territory marker on it.
They left the driver’s door open such that the “you-left-your-key-in-the-ignition-and-your-headlights-on” tone would beep incessantly in the night.
They did this right outside of Central Park, Manhattan.
(And in the interests of complete honesty… at every single place in the module where it mentions something the players might think to do that is smart, they did the opposite. As for every single place in the module where it is pointed out the players could not possibly be dumb enough to embark on a particular course of action… well I’m sure you can see how that went.)
It wasn’t long before the Guardians of the Veil tasked a group of expendable, and well-respected, young Mages to find out what kind of sick, twisted, depraved abomination would do such a thing. The Mage players were not told it was the players at the table in the next room.
In retrospect, hilarity did ensue. (In fact, the looks on their faces at the very moment when they realized the truth is permanently etched into the pleasure centers of my brain.)
My co-GM and I thought, and had hoped to be perfectly honest, that this would lead to fighting between the two groups. It was only the third session of the campaign at this point and Mages are rather squishy when they’re young. In comparison Werewolves are, well they’re F@%#ing Werewolves! We were hoping for some good Player-on-Player violence out of this situation! Maybe even a good character death or two! FTW!
Instead they became BFF’s. #sigh
So now we’re stuck with a table of Crazy Mages and a table of Crazy Werewolves traipsing around New York City together ruining all of our glorious plans.
Why God? WHY??
Mage Mistress 