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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?
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 