Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

[Christougher]

Did you ever notice all the prehensile hair types are female? Does nobody want to see long haired men? Call him Handlebar, maybe give him a mulletpower of various tricks...

[pinecone]

On 7/1/2022 at 8:58 AM, Christougher said:

Did you ever notice all the prehensile hair types are female? Does nobody want to see long haired men? Call him Handlebar, maybe give him a mulletpower of various tricks...

Have you never heard the legend of Bo Bo BoBoBo?

[Drhoz]

Opening the session with a long conversation that started with giant river otters, detoured through the convergent evolution of dagger-faced felinoids and the Cold War’s contributions to continental drift, and ended with the mammal-like reptiles of the Permian.

 

GM: Shall we begin then?
Rajira’s player: Let us. And possibly tomato. 

 

The lower levels of the slavers’ lair is entirely flooded - fortunately we prepared some methods to deal with underwater tunnels early. Unfortunately the tunnels are inhabited.

 

Civilla’s player: We might not know what Skum are - which knowing this party is an interesting sentence. 

Civilla OoC: I believe I can speak their language - and am no doubt disappointing Terzo by knowing languages that are only spoken in dark places.
Rajira OoC: I’m probably just confirming his opinions about me.
Terzo OoC: Actually… hanging around in dark places and learning a secret language isn’t ENTIRELY unheard of for Terzo, for reasons he is keeping to himself.

GM:... You may have just skipped the entire dungeon.
Civilla: By not being murder-hoboes and actually behaving like civilised beings?

 

Civilla: If you have no ill-intentions towards the land-dwellers we have no ill-intention towards you. We have more problems with the maker of stupid laws - have you HEARD the stupid laws?

 

Since we seem agreeable and seek peace, they offer to take us their chieftain.

 

GM: There’s a lot of inscriptions you can’t read unless you know Aboleth.
Civilla: …Um. I’m sorry, but once you run out of dead languages that actually make sense you start looking into the weirder stuff. 

 

The carvings on the wall are written in the eerie language of the aboleths, relating various observations of human activity in Kintargo over the past several months—this is how the leader of the skum scouting tribe has kept notes on their observations. The name “Menotheguro” is mentioned several times in cadences of awe and respect, but the messages do not make clear what this creature is. Also, the fame of the Ghosts of Kintargo has even spread down here.

 

Terzo: I’m feeling mixed emotions about this - I’ve dreamt of this kind of fame and now I can’t even use my name. 

 

Civilla notes that among the Stupid Laws Thrune has enacted, is one that would give the Skum a lucrative opportunity to ship materials and messages from ship to shore, without risk to the ships’ various captains. The Skum seem cautiously diplomatic, despite their suspicion about overlanders.

 

Chieftain: How do you feel about.. Well, it’s probably easier to just show you.
Civilla OoC: OK, now I’m getting nervous.

 

There’s a Drowning Devil in the next chamber. Very unpleasant.

 

Shurshogot: *telepathically* Ungol-pagh! What have you brought me today?
Ungol-pagh: *in Undercommon* These adventurers may be able to help you, sir.
Rajira: *in Infernal* It’s certainly possible - if we have good enough reason.
Shurshogut: *in Infernal* Finally someone I can talk to!

 

The negotiations are even more cautious than they were earlier, not least because some of Civilla’s patrons would be annoyed with her making deals with a Devil, but Shurshogut was bound here by the Grey Spiders and he offers us some boons if we can get find that contract, destroy it, and set him free. Civilla will make sure that the new contract she negotiates includes the order that it immediately returns home as soon as our business is done. 

 

Civilla: It CLAIMS that it wants to go home, but it might be lying. 

 

Civilla actually has quite a few advantages over your average Chellaxian diabolist - for one thing she’s more flexible about where she looks for power. 

 

Shurshogut does offer some potentially interesting information - somewhere in Kintargo is a corruption in the River of Souls. A Soul Anchor. That someone could theoretically use to retain their memories after they die, and become a lingering genius loci. 

 

Rajira: Pharasma won’t like that.
Civilla: Pharasma doesn’t like immortality, period. 

Shurshogut: May I suggest ‘Not return to the Material Plane for a year and a day’? 
Civilla: Acceptable.
Shurshogut: I mean I don’t WANT to stay, but everyone always wants it in writing.

 

Civilla OoC: Under most versions of contract law, the Little Mermaid had an out on her contract. 
Ayva OoC: Hmm?
Civilla OoC: She closed her eyes and looked away when she signed. Although there’s a limited pool of arbitrators that could contest it for her. King Triton is out of the question, of course.

 

Shurshogut: The guildmaster that bound me here went into his strongroom, closed the door, and didn’t come out. 
Rajira: So he’s probably hungry.
Shurshogut: Or dead. 
Rajira: I was assuming dead, as well as hungry. 
Ayva: We have that kind of luck. 

 

After we’re well out of telepathy range of the devil, Terzo speaks his mind.

 

Terzo: We REALLY need to figure out exactly what Thrune is doing in the opera house.
Civilla: Oh, you think? But why is the Soul Anchor HERE?
Rajira: There’s a lot we don’t know about Kintargo.

 

Civilla explains where she actually gets her power - by making small deals with a wide variety of eldritch beings.

 

Civilla: I do favours for them, they do favours for me.
Terzo: *nodding approvingly* Good social networking.

 

Unfortunately the traps on the strongroom door are quite vicious, and poor Rajira nearly gets bisected like the Skum that tried earlier. 

 

Terzo: *patching her up* Watching you trying to pick that lock wasn’t doing my blood pressure any good, but it doesn’t seem to have done yours any good either.
Civilla: That is a REALLY good lock.
Ayva OoC: Just so you know, we’ll be stealing the door and taking it home. And hanging it up as a trophy.
Civilla OoC: Are you kidding? We’re going to set it up as the entrance to our base under the old livery. 
Rajira OoC: Inside a small anti-magic field. 
Civilla OoC: ‘sure you found the secret entrance, sure you come down the ladder, now you come around a corner and find a big F*** OFF door.’

 

The Grey Spider’s strongroom contains three heavy iron chests sit against the north wall of an otherwise empty room—empty, that is, save for the desiccated corpse of a human woman with eight long spidery legs protruding from her back, and the shambling, continually bleeding, skinned skeletal corpse of Guildmaster Baccus, his eyes rolling in his head as he seeks his prey. It would nice to get more opponents like Thrune's late, unlamented, rumoured-to-have-fled-the-city-i-have-no-idea-who-starts-these-rumours bodyguard. She went down with one stab. This thing is considerably more of a problem, but eventually succumbs, and indeed has the devil's contract on its person. 
 

Civilla’s player: Does Pathfinder have stats for a falx?
Terzo’s player: This isn’t D&D and Gygax listing every kind of pole-arm.
Civilla’s player: Glaive, Guisarme, Glaive-guisarme, Guisarme-voulge, Bill-guisarme -
Terzo’s player: Spam, spam, spam, spam -

 

The Drowning Demon tells us that the Soul Anchor is at the bottom of a lake. That lake with the apparent nuclear reactor on the grounds of the Victocora estate. Civilla’s letter to her family, weeks ago, to buy up the estate before anybody else can is suddenly much more important than we knew. Apparently there's been quite a bidding war over the remains of the estate, not that any of that would stop Thrune just stepping in and seizing it if he needs to. 

 

GM: And you have all that loot to carry home.
Rajira’s player: Just as well we have more hands now.
Terzo’s player: Minions are good for that. 

 

It’s nice to have a new potential lair and hideout - especially with live-in security in the form of the Skum. Unfortunately, we all also receive personal invitations from Barzillai Thrune. A very public invitation for us to join him before the Kintargo Opera House, to receive honors for their outstanding service in promoting safety on the streets of Kintargo, and for rescuing a pair of young men from a group of kidnappers!

 

Ayva: We need to decline this honour.
Civilla: We can’t.
Ayva: We need an escape plan.
Civilla: We can plan one, but we still can’t avoid this. It will also put a spotlight on Terzo for the first time in a long time. 
Terzo: True true, there is that bonus.
Civilla: It’s not a bonus. Terzo, you need to understand, you’re on the stage playing a role, and that role is ‘sneaky bastard’, not ‘flamboyant git’.

 

We dress in our best outfits - although avoiding Thrune’s Proclaimation about embroidered clothes in public - and take care to carry no more weapons then decorum insists upon. After the bells on the Church of Asmodeus toll once for each of us, Barzillai emerges into the plaza with full entourage, and studies us with an intensity that belies his political smile. He’s looking a bit more haggard than he was when he arrived in Kintargo.

 

Civilla notes that Thrune’s symptoms are those of somebody who’s been the personal blood bank of a vampire for a while. Rajira points out that those are also the symptoms of prolonged stress. 

 

Terzo: Can’t imagine what has him so stressed.
Civilla: Maybe all those rumours about his bodyguard fleeing the city.
Terzo: Or the ‘Let Dogs Beware’ graffiti on his front door.

 

Thrune: Well done, well done! Would that more of the citizenry were as keenly observant and helpful as you intrepid citizens! I’ll have my eye on you, trust in that, for I have no doubt you have great works still ahead of you. Perhaps you may again be of service to your government. Please take these gifts from the city of Kintargo as Thrune’s thanks to your services rendered, and please continue to work to ensure, as I do, this grand city’s safety and proud legacy.
Civilla’s player: … and now come the Bluff checks.
Terzo’s player: Yes, or my face will be going through some interesting contortions.
Rajira: Master Thrune, thank you for this honour. Please call on us if there is anything we can do for the city.
Thrune: Perhaps I will, but for now I must return to my other duties.

 

The gifts are stat-increasing belts and headbands. They're not cursed, and they’re not marked with any symbols of Asmodeus. What they DO have are symbols of ravens, done in silver. 

 

Civilla: IDENTIFY

 

Barzillai might have suspicions. Especially if he has access to the same kind of spells that Civilla has been using in her own activities. 

 

Terzo: Maybe he’s hoping we’ll panic.
Civilla: So let’s not. 

 

The raven sigils could certainly be used as a target in a Locate Object spell, but Civilla is confident that won’t help him find our safehouses. Locate Object is blocked by sufficient amounts of soil, rock, or metal.

 

Civilla: So we’re going to get these gold-plated. 

 

And some cloth-of-gold to use as a sash over Rajira’s new Belt of Dexterity.

 

Civilla: You know that Murder Kit I came up with? As cute as it is, I want to include Oil of Decompose Corpse. That way I can melt the flesh off Huge corpses and reduce them to a skeleton in minutes. Much easier to compact and dispose of. Although the skeletons will be a bit juicy. Although you can get everything for the basic Murder Kit is a small village. 

 

Terzo: If Thrune is so busy, we really need to know what he’s actually up to in the Opera House.
Rajira: The bigger question is ‘How Do We Find Out’?
Terzo: We still have no idea what happened to the previous Mayor or the Songbird of Kintargo.
Civilla’s player: That reminds me, GM, are you ready to cry? I have an ability called ‘Planar Contact’

 

Rajira has also recruited a team she’s calling the Dacoits. It’s unclear just what she intends to do with a gang of armed robbers. 

[Christougher]

You see a Mexican Indian dressed in historical garb including a red cape. He says, "My name is Kentlclarkl, but you may call me Super Mayan."

[Drhoz]

Hardlight has investigated the PSI-mooks equipment, and happily none of it was rigged to explode if dismantled. It includes some rather nifty autoheal stuff.

 

Hero Shrew: Smart supervillains don’t piss off the Goonion. 

 

Hero Shrew: You could always patent the Goo Gun and sell it to police departments across the country - what are the inventors going to do, complain?
Flux: Do you want to get sued by evil lawyers? Sorry, evilLER lawyers.
Magus: How much do you want to bet that they did patent it, and it got ‘stolen’. 

 

GM: The gun only worked for Scooter because he’s always thinking violent thoughts.
Flux: ‘I could murder a mealworm bar’?
GM: He’s also thinking happy thoughts, and it’s not an imbalance, just weird. 
Hero Shrew: “Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

 

GM: I don’t know where Hardlight got the idea this equipment has organic components.
Hero Shrew OoC: Well, don’t blame me.
Flux OoC: Yes, it’s not a Scooter Filter problem this time. 

 

Hero Shrew’s player: *to the cats* You two, behave yourselves!
Flux’s player: That's a perfect impersonation of Fireflash when she finds out what we have planned.

 

GM: As a reminder as to how you got involved with the clinic, that's because it's run by E-G Employment, the subdivision of Erikson-Gulsvig Logistics GmbH. The corporation you're setting Loweltech to sue so you can progress the Moreau issue. They’re providing the Moreau the suit will focus on. I’m resisting the impulse to make them a lamb. Or goat.

 

Getting the financial records of the company turns out to be more difficult than we might have anticipated - the clinic never applied for charity status so the records aren’t easily available. We eventually get the records anyway - which are sent over in hard copy. Hundreds of thousands of pages. Including huge amounts of irrelevant material. 

 

GM: At least they didn’t do the old trick of non-standard formatting as well. But it’s still three whole semi-trailers of loose paper. 
Flux: We’re going to need office space.
Hardlight: We’re going to need a warehouse. 

 

Even with a team of accountants from LowellTech and a device Flux invents to digitise it all, it’s still going to take weeks to go through it with a fine tooth comb and find anything that might interest the District Attorney. Beyond the factory that was making psi drugs instead of destroying pharmaceutical waste. 

Hero Shrew: Circular economy.
Hardlight: What?
Hero Shrew: Make powerful drugs, sell the pharmaceutical waste to this company, who make different powerful drugs. 

 

Sending over all the records in paper form isn’t an admission of guilt, but it’s certainly evidence that Erikson-Gulsvig Logistics GmbH is annoyed with us. It almost certainly means they won’t want to help with the Moreau situation anymore. We hand the investigation off to the FBI.

 

GM: They have people that get off on going through this kind of paperwork.
Fireflash: Remind me next time - don’t ask, just break into their system. 

 

At least we’ve put a major crimp in PSI operations. There’s not many places they could hide manufacturing on that scale.

 

Magus finally gets a copy of The Whispered Paths, although the person that found it for him was so annoyed by the experience they’re going to charge any future mystic customer double. Unfortunately it’s in Fucine, an extinct language once associated with witches. Someone was very upset that somebody was after the book, and increasingly upset the closer it got to Edge City. The bookhunter tells the Magus that for free, because he didn’t try to stiff her, which is apparently a problem with mystic types. 

 

GM: There’s apparently a book that can help you translate Fucine to Latin, but it’s rare, because why would anybody need to read Fucine?
Magus: Well, I’ll try Amazon first. It seems I’ve embarked on Book Hunt 2.
Hero Shrew: Now there’s a phrase you need to pronounce carefully. 

 

Although the author of the journal, P. Lanzo Geovanny Renzo Aberto Geomar Alfredo Pasquale Conti, is best known for going completely mad. 

 

Flux: That’s never a good sign. 

 

Flux: To be fair all penguins are man-eating, they just don’t often get the opportunity.

 

Magus: I have a nasty suspicion who has the journal.
Fireflash: If it’s who I’m thinking of we did deal with their local cult.

GM: You have to be a special kind of wrong when even the Descending Hierarchy of Hell wants nothing to do with you.
Flux: ‘We’re evil - but YOU are CRAZY’

 

APPARENTLY, a copy is in the possession of septuagenarian antiquarian Angilia Eleonora Dubois, who is old Monterey money. It’s highly suspicious that such a rare book is present in a city that someone wanted to keep The Whispered Paths far away from.

 

Hardlight: Are we pulling a heist? I'm all for a heist.
Fireflash: I am entirely against doing a heist! I’ll just ask her if we can borrow the book for a few days, for the public good.

 

Dubois’ entire family were killed in the disaster that turned Monterey into Edge City, so Fireflash turns her attention to the Dubois family lawyer. Said lawyer points her towards the collection’s curator, Liberty Kendra Brown. 

 

Hero Shrew OoC: You might want to assure her you’re not letting me anywhere near the collection.

 

 

 

Dubois is in her 70s, but barely looks it. Apparently she came out as a mutant 20 years ago. . She has pointed ears and a slightly lengthened lifespan. Some of us suspect elf ancestry.

 

GM: Do any of you have Architecture skills?
Hero Shrew: I do! *looks at building* Yep, that’s architecture.
Flux: He’s eaten enough of it. 

 

Her house is original Spanish, by the look of it.

 

Flux: I’m impressed it’s survived this long.
Magus: Any building over 60 years old has survived three alien invasions.
GM: Dude, this one survived a zeppelin assault!

 

Ms. Dubois: No need to be so formal, people keep forgetting I was a young woman in the 60s. 

 

She doesn’t remember the journal at first, but recalls the auction she acquired it at. And starts seeming a little concerned as Fireflash and the Magus explain their interest. She needs to make a phone call, and has Liberty take them through to the densely packed library.

 

GM: She has one of those old-fashioned phones.
Magus: One with a cord?
GM: Thanks for that, now I feel old. 

 

As Fireflash and the Magus make digital copies of the journal, Hardlight waits out in the car, since he felt weird about going in in costume. One of the staff brings out refreshments.

Fireflash: These days if you scan a demon into the internet it’s back 30 minutes later, whimpering and asking to be put back in the book.

GM: ‘I tried the worst things I could think of and they kept suggesting improvements!’

 

Flux gets a phone call on his Chris Jones phone, from Bob in accounting.

Bob: Hey, Chris, have you been making some strange friends lately? This jacked surfer-looking guy came in asking questions. Wanted to know if you’d made any new friends lately. Have you?
Flux: Not really, you know what my social life is like.
Magus: Funnily enough ‘good-looking surfing dude’ is a good description of me, when I’m not wearing other faces. 

 

When we get back to the base, we’re very glad we uploaded the images already, because the new camera we used to take the images has mysteriously vanished. 

 

Hero Shrew: Well, if the book deletes anything that it’s copied onto, we probably shouldn’t have uploaded the images to the internet. 

 

On the other hand, if somebody else wanted the contents of the book, there didn’t seem to be much actually stopping them raiding the collection directly. 

 

Flux is cautiously checking his apartment, just in case the jacked-surfer-dude is a threat.

 

Flux: It’s a bit embarrassing, I’ve been successfully kidnapped once, and we failed to get Fireflash kidnapped twice. 

 

Fortunately he doesn’t need to rely on the Mk.I Eyeball. Whoever was hanging around is magical, but not a flavour he’s familiar with. But his apartment is so small that sending more than one of us in to check is honestly difficult. There are other issues too, of course. 

 

Flux: Maybe don’t have two or three costumed superheroes STANDING AROUND OUTSIDE MY SECRET ID 

Fireflash goes in disguised as a civilian, instead of wearing her usual string bikini. She gets comfortable and uses Retrocognition.

Flux: Ah. It’s just occurred to me that this is my personal living space.
Fireflash: Fortunately it's vague and unclear and that is very small so we don’t have to worry about it. 
Flux: I really have to stop asking my friends for help. 

 

Whoever was here seemed very interested in the traces of Flux’s magic, and entered and left through the wall. 

 

Hardlight: Maybe they were just here to recruit you into some kind of magical school?
Flux: I’m allergic to owls. 

 

Magus tracks the magic back to Little Haiti, then loses him in the magical hotspot there. But it would appear from there it leads straight to, and into, Lake Effinger. 

 

Magus: Ah. I wonder if it’s whoever rang me, after I left my number there. 
Hardlight: You left your phone number on the Tesseract???
Magus: Of course not. I left it on the outside of the cave the Tesseract was in, after we sealed it. 

 

The jacked-surfer-dude is indeed at the cave, with waterproof bag and swimtrunks. He’s just ignited a torch. Underwater. 

 

Fireflash: That’s a neat trick.

GM: That’s Atlantean fire magic. 

Atlantean: *cheerfully* Magus! 

 

He surfaces to talk to us. 

 

Atlantean: My apologies for intruding on your private identity. 
Flux: In future, I have an email address, a phone number, and a doorbell. 

 

The Atlanteans didn’t MAKE the tesseract, but they do consider it their responsibility. 

 

Fireflash: *sigh* What are the odds we’re going to have to go through it before we can shut it down?
Atlantean: My people did try to sense what lay beyond it when we first discovered it. We detected only fear and death. So hopefully not?
Magus: The thing’s the drain for most of the magical energies in the city, so that can’t be good. 

Flux: Why did Magus get a phone call?
Atlantean: He left a card. 
Flux: Note to self - graffiti more walls.
Atlantean: Please don't.
Flux: ‘For a good time call’

 

The explosion that created Lake Effinger WAS intended to create a dimensional breach, although given the ‘fear and death’ aspect it might not have been the original intended destination. 

 

Hardlight: At least we don’t have to get hit by a truck if we decide to Isekai.
Magus: We could build a Dimensional Damage field into the Quadraphibious Qruiser.
GM: Please don’t. 

 

GM: Well, that went much more peacefully than I expected.
Magus OoC: ‘What, there were no misunderstandings? Bulls***, what is this comic!’ ‘And then they talked like adults about it and went home’

 

GM: There’s one thing protecting Captain Planet from a reboot is that it was created by Ted Turner.
Hero Shrew’s player: So it won’t be so much resurrected as recolourised.

 

Flux’s player: Buy Demolition as a skill.
Hero Shrew OoC: People keep telling me not to do that.

 

GM: I had this picture I was going to use a neat stadium, then realised it was from Pokemon. And I don’t want to put Hero Shrew in a pokemon arena. ‘What do you want me to do?’ ‘Beat up this cock-fighting seizure monster’ ‘ Well, OK'.
Flux OoC: ‘You weren’t supposed to eat it!’
Hero Shrew OoC: I don’t want to speculate what Scooter would evolve into.

 

The organisation that's monitoring Fireflash’s superhuman metabolism has a problem regarding the Moreau medical analysis program they are involved in with Allanah, but it's not something they want to worry her about until they’ve dealt with it themselves.

 

Fireflash: Well, that’s a sentence guaranteed to make me worry. 

 

Some of the biosamples they’ve been taking of her are going missing. The samples are all supposed to be destroyed, but the residue numbers aren’t adding up. And the security about the samples is enough that it has to be some kind of superhuman stealing them. 

 

Hardlight: Biotechnology isn’t my strong suit - what could somebody malicious do with these samples, if they had them?
Hero Shrew: Make an army of clone soldiers? We’ve already had that one. 

How can we do our own security inspection without giving the culprits time to hide the evidence?

GM: At least you know if it looks like they’re hiding evidence, it’s evidence their security organization is compromised.
Flux: ‘oh look, somebody fled the building a minute after you told security you were coming’.

 

Hero Shrew’s player: Back, what did I miss?
Flux’s player: Firelash’s player brought up Dimetrodon and broke the internet. It was probably punishment for all the puns. He didn’t SAY any but was probably thinking them.

Flux’s player: Their audio sounds like GladOS dying. I know it’s disrupting the game but it’s hilarious - like GladOS and SHODAN  having a conversation about Dimetrodon in the background. 
GM: HoWWWWs my -a—--DIO nooooooooooWWWwwwW
Flux’s player: Still GladOS having a stroke.

Hero Shrew’s Player: And now you sound like someone using a taser on a Cybertronian. 

 

Fireflash’s Retrocognition reveals the fact that a known shadow-manipulating and teleporting superhuman, Ghost Shadow of the Six Teens, messing about on the site. It looks like he’s stealing a bunch of feline samples now.

 

Magus: And now you have to go apologize to Security for being kind of a d*** when you showed up.
Fireflash: Sorry, we’ve been dealing with all sorts of aliens and psychic shapeshifters for the last few months, we've got kinda paranoid.
Head of Security: Psychic shapechangers? Now I’M going to be paranoid.
Fux: Try not to think about it too much - they’ll know.

 

Hardlight is a bit uncomfortable about the big greenhouse dome in the middle of the facility.

 

Magus: He was once stuck on a flight where the only entertainment was Biodome starring Pauly Shore, and it had a lasting effect.

 

One suggestion we have for security is blinds on the inside of the warehouse windows, to stop our teleporter friend easily getting in and out.

 

Hero Shrew: Are we going to have to go into the big glass dome they’ve been pumping mutagens into?
GM: What?
The Magus: There probably aren’t any mutagens, no.
Hero Shrew: Oh good, so I don’t have to retroactively ask for today off.
GM: How did you get the idea that the dome is full of mutagens?
Magus: He saw a suspicious biotech company with a big greenhouse. Hero Shrew is the kind of person who bases his understanding of science on Saturday Morning Cartoons.

Hardlight: Are we going to have to worry about cat-themed supervillains now?
Hero Shrew: Maybe he just wants to make a pet for his girlfriend?
Magus: The only cat-themed supervillain I can think of works for Teleios, and he wouldn’t need the help.

Although Flux does recall one Lynx, who works for the Overbrain. She’s also a huge anime nerd.

Magus: Probably explains how she knows Ghost Shadow.
GM: They probably met at a convention. ‘That’s a really good Ghost Shadow costume.’ ‘Costume? That’s a really good fursuit.’ ‘Fursuit’?

 

We determine that the samples are being stolen in-between sampling and destruction, while they’re in the queue until there’s a full load for disposal. So Ghost Shadow must have access to the full schedule on the disposal chain, since he’s going straight to the right canisters, and we already know the Six Teens have good tech savvy, since the first time we met them they were ransacking a server. Hopefully he hasn’t noticed we've been to the site yet, and we can plant some samples that Flux and the Magus can track and wait in ambush.

Ghost Shadow is well-known enough to us that we know he claims to carry his own ‘internal shadow’ as a power source. 

 

Magus: Any chance we can go beat up Black Paladin and steal his sword?
Fireflash: ‘Now you don’t HAVE a shadow, Bwahaha.’

Fireflash: Do you have any more of those tracers, like the ones they stuck into me?
Magus: We know their group has a tech expert as well as a magic user.
GM: The Black Warlock?
Magus: Hmm. Well, if we ever meet him I’ll try to refrain from any comments about being a proper warlock. 

Hero Shrew: So, this Overbrain, does he have a humanoid exosuit?
GM: No? He doesn’t need one, he has minions.
Hero Shrew: Sorry, still thinking about mutagens and Saturday Morning Cartoons.

 

Hardlight: Well, we still need to make this fake sample. Scooter, pull up your shirt.
Flux: Let’s NOT give them a sample of an actual biological superhuman, ok?
Fireflash: For one thing we don’t know what they’ll do with it.
GM: Indeed - Steiners are rare, as well as having innate psychic abilities.
Magus: Scooter is innately capable of determining what the people around him are thinking and knowing exactly the wrong thing to say. 

 

Magus: So let's set up our trap
Fireflash: And hope it doesn't turn into a cat-astrophe.
Hero Shrew: I’ve got a bad feline about this.

 

We track Ghost Shadow and a single other person, to a makeshift lab in an abandoned warehouse.

 

GM: Supervillain Hideout #3

 

And the other person is a Moreau that Scooter recognises - a Moreau that never needed to be caged back at the Genesys labs. A Moreau that helped the scientists. The one the other Moreaus called Lab Rat. Scooter is not happy about this. Of course if we are going to grab him, we have to deal with the teleporter first. Flux Flashes them, and the Magus and Hardlight try to bubble them. To the GM’s shock, this works.

 

Hardlight: Flawless Plan!
Magus: Feels wrong, doesn't it?

 

Unfortunately Lab Rat hit a panic button. More unfortunately, Scooter grabbed and shook Lab Rat, who goes limp after an audible crack. Magus hurried heals him, while Fireflash hurls much deserved abuse at Scooter.

 

Flux: World of cardboard, Scooter, world of cardboard!
Fireflash: If you keep doing this Scooter you’ll kill somebody and end up in prison.
Magus: And I’m neither fully aware how nor entirely willing to heal death.
Ghost Shadow: *hacking away ineffectually at the walls of the bubble* F***!
Flux: Oh, sorry, I forgot you were there.

 

Flux manages to stop the harddrives being overwritten, as well as stop the countdown to some other kind of precaution. We call in the ECPD, and do a quick search of the building for anybody else. We’d better be fast - it turns out that Hardlight’s bubble will be exhausted in under a minute, unless he drops everything else he’s doing, including moving around.  

Ghost Shadow: We were trying to help a friend. And the ragdoll over there was the only Moreau with the skills we needed. Your bat friend is capable, but she’s not a geneticist.

Another problem is that it’s not Lab Rat doing the bulk of the work - Lab Rat was just doing the preliminary work for Dr Steinbeck, the creator of Moraeus with superpowers. Who wasn’t in Edge City.

 

Fireflash: It would be incredibly unwise of him to be in Edge City.
Ghost Shadow: Or incredibly clever. I don’t think he’d want to be far from his children. 
Magus: I hope you don’t mean that literally.
Ghost Shadow: What? EW. EW.

Fireflash: We do know another geneticist that might help. But we still want to know why you need the help. 
Ghost Shadow: Like I said, I just want to help a friend.
Magus: Is it Lynx?
Ghost Shadow: What. How did you kn-- No, of course it isn’t!

 

He admits it’s her. Apparently the Overbrain has screwed up her enhancements, and his control of Lynx leaves something to be desired too. Fireflash offers to help, if she hands herself in.

Ghost Shadow: Why do you heroes always go this route? Why can’t you just tell me if you know another geneticist?

Fireflash: We do - it’s Allana?
Ghost Shadow: She does know genetics? Cool! See ya! *teleports out of the bubble*

 

Allana the bat moreau might well offer medical help anyway, regardless of whether they’re a hero, civilian, or villain, but that won’t stop her throwing people through walls if it becomes necessary. Lab Rat gets handed over to the authorities before Scooter glares him to death, and hopefully without any other Moraeus finding out. 

 

Duty Officer: Lab Rat? Lab Rat? Wait, THE Lab Rat?? Oh hell, Duty Detail, NOW. Get him into one of the high security cells and sit on him, and do NOT take him past the Kennels - I mean the Moreau cells. 
 

[Opal]

On 7/1/2022 at 8:58 AM, Christougher said:

Did you ever notice all the prehensile hair types are female? Does nobody want to see long haired men? Call him Handlebar, maybe give him a mulletpower of various tricks...

Well there was The Mustache and Russian Beard in /The Tick/, the 90s animated series, that is.

 

 

[Drhoz]

On 7/13/2022 at 8:45 AM, Opal said:

Well there was The Mustache and Russian Beard in /The Tick/, the 90s animated series, that is.

 

 

Weirdbeard from Empowered. And Alpha Flight has a mutant named Wyre can do this with his body hair. All of his body hair.

[Drhoz]

On 7/1/2022 at 11:58 PM, Christougher said:

Did you ever notice all the prehensile hair types are female? Does nobody want to see long haired men? Call him Handlebar, maybe give him a mulletpower of various tricks...

Trope might be older than you think too - see HP Lovecraft's story Medusa's Coils. Or rather, don't see it - it's one of his worst works, and the racism is egregious even for Lovecraft. 

[Christougher]

1 hour ago, Drhoz said:

Trope might be older than you think too - see HP Lovecraft's story Medusa's Coils. Or rather, don't see it - it's one of his worst works, and the racism is egregious even for Lovecraft. 

 

To be honest, all I was looking for was justifying the mulletpower. 

 

[csyphrett]

On 7/1/2022 at 11:58 AM, Christougher said:

Did you ever notice all the prehensile hair types are female? Does nobody want to see long haired men? Call him Handlebar, maybe give him a mulletpower of various tricks...

There's the guy from Wonder Weenies, Murray. He's as dumb as they come, but his hair takes care of business.

CES 

[Drhoz]

Weldun is winding up the Return to Edge City campaign. Alas, we will never learn the secrets of Undersconscin, or visit the Grimdark and Coffee Shop Alternate Universe versions of the city. And, of course, he was finding it quite difficult to come up with challenges that we wouldn’t either breeze through, or be curb-stomped by.

 

GM: If VIPER even shows its head anywhere in town you lot will drag it out by its tail and beat it senseless.

Hero Shrew: O whacking day, O whacking day, Our hallowed snake-skull cracking day-

[Scott Ruggels]

3 hours ago, Drhoz said:

Weldun is winding up the Return to Edge City campaign. Alas, we will never learn the secrets of Undersconscin, or visit the Grimdark and Coffee Shop Alternate Universe versions of the city. And, of course, he was finding it quite difficult to come up with challenges that we wouldn’t either breeze through, or be curb-stomped by.

 

 

Thats the mark of a well oiled team.  Good skill mix and knowing how each other work, so yeah, I’ve seen that before.  The other GM solution other than heavy artillery or nukes or eldritch horrors, is to split the party by selective kidnapping of members here and there.  A very experienced team does get difficult to GM.  The only other thing I can think of is to get the GM a copy of the second edition of Aaron Allston’s Strike Force. 

3 hours ago, Drhoz said:

 

GM: If VIPER even shows its head anywhere in town you lot will drag it out by its tail and beat it senseless.

Hero Shrew: O whacking day, O whacking day, Our hallowed snake-skull cracking day-

 

very deep reference. 😁

[Drhoz]

Horror on the Orient Express - The Dreamlands & Milan - Facts In The Case

 

February 1923, At Least In Some Dimensions

 

In Which The Investigators Investigate One Brutal Murder, Plan A Second, And Are Investigated For A Third

 

The three investigators share a compartment in what is nominally the fifth car of the Dreamlands Express, but the dimensions and layout of the train are... flexible. The dreamlands are weird. Internal walls between compartments can be removed at Henri’s whim, to suit the passengers requirements. Current passengers on the train, en route to Aphorat and beyond, are Waking World residents Huxley, Alex and Flo, the arms dealer Karakov, the government courier Mackenzie, an eyeless lunatic restrained in the baggage compartment, and the dancer Zsuzsa (who knows about the Waking World, at least, but doesn’t like talking about it). Dreamland natives on the train are delegations from Ib and Sarnath and the servants of the latter, the Sarrubian wine merchant Mironim-Mer, and several dozen cats from Ulthar.

 

The investigators don’t know who is changing bed sheets, or cooking the meals, since Henri is the only staff they’ve seen on board. 

 

Mironim-Mer and Karakov have the single compartments to the rear of the investigators, and Madam Bruja in front. Zsuzsa, Mackenzie and the Sarnathians and their servants occupy the 6th car, and the Beings inside the body of the 3rd Train Beast. 

 

Blackjack was last seen just after the train left Zar, as most of the passengers were in the banquet hall eating lunch, and was probably exploring the train as he had previously been seen to do.

 

One of the Beings of Ib had been glued to the ceiling outside their compartment for an unknown length of time (such charming people, the Sarnathians), between leaving Zar and Alex and Huxley returning to the compartment after lunch.  Florence did not return to the compartment, and instead went straight to the cat’s compartment at the end of the train. Alex heard a Meow and a thud in the next compartment, but there was nobody in that compartment when she checked, and no-one outside in the corridor. The door of the compartment was unlocked, and nothing seemed out of place at least as compared to her own.

 

Huxley had a brief conversation with Henri about the madman secured in the baggage compartment, and while that was happening noted Karakov returning to his own compartment, nursing an injured hand. Karakov refused assistance.

 

Huxley and Alex departed for their afternoon's entertainment - Zsuzsa in Huxley’s case, and the thagweed hookahs in the men’s lounge in Alex’s. Alex saw Mackenzie in the men’s salon for some portion of that time, Huxley saw quite a lot of Zsuzsa in her compartment, and Flo spent her entire post-prandial relaxation playing with the kittehs. 

 

Alex’s memories of the afternoon might not be the most reliable, as their speculations about the fluid nature of reality were being thoroughly encouraged by thagweed use. Huxley was quite thoroughly distracted, but at least he and Zsusza can be quite sure where the other was all afternoon, and indeed can itemise which items of furniture they were on. Florence could be vouched for by the cats. 

 

Blackjack had been stabbed, three times, but the wounds indicate a weapon more like a letter opener than a proper blade. The exact time of death is uncertain, as Huxley has little experience of rigor mortis in small animals. 

 

Of course, the first thing the investigators do is get all the suspects gathered in one place, under the murderous gaze of the cats. That makes the investigation so much easier, even if the Sarnathians immediately imply that the Beings of Ib must be responsible, and Karakov nearly gets himself flayed alive by the cats by refusing to explain where he got the hand wound. Huxley does, however, determine that the injury is from a serrated blade, not whatever was used on the kitten.  

 

The investigators, aided by cats, start searching the train for evidence, weapons, grappling hooks, clues, and hopefully no monsters (dreamed into existence or otherwise). They find suspicious scratches on the outside of their pavilion, and bloodstains in Mironim-Mer’s compartment, along with evidence that somebody tried to hide the blood and scrub it away with shampoo. 

 

Alex: Somebody with hair did this.

 

They start questioning people. Huxley learns how the voiceless Beings of Ib communicate, by using a small squeaking creature that translates for them. Huxley has a few questions - who do they think is responsible, and why don’t they fight back when the Sarnathians glue them to the ceiling? The diplomat personally suspects the Sarnathians, since they’re making it abundantly clear that they’re capable of anything, and the Beings are confident that if the Sarnathian delegation continues to demonstrate what scum they are, King Kuranes’ judgment will favour Ib. Especially if Huxley testifies to that effect.

 

Meanwhile, Florence has taken the misandrist Madam Brujah to the Ladies Parlor, to interview her in private. It’s not like she’ll talk to anybody else. Flo eventually gets her to open up a bit, and asks her if there’s a particular reason she distrusts men so much (apart from all the obvious reasons any woman would). 

 

Madam Brujah: I had a daughter, once.

Florence: Was this in the Dreamlands, or the Waking World?

Madam Brujah: Does it matter?

 

Her daughter married a much older sorcerer, apparently, because he wanted to satisfy his appetites. Unfortunately, he couldn’t satisfy hers, and when the sorcerer caught his new wife with her lover, he burnt them both alive. But Madam Brujah did arrange a suitable revenge that would ensure the sorcerer would never find peace in that life or afterwards - although she doesn’t specify what the revenge was. 

 

She also gives Florence a few tips on how to increase her Dreaming skill, by focusing on her dedication to the truth, and meditating on the truth of the pen her parents gave her when she went off to become a journalist. It’s also evidence that Madam Brujah is a lot older than she looks, or is from a much earlier time, since she talks about quills instead of pens. Florence doesn’t quite get the knack of it, but with practice or urgent necessity maybe she will. 

 

Huxley also notes that Mironim-Mer might LOOK relaxed, he’s actually very tense. But before he can investigate that, Alex finds a cavalry saber hidden in Karakov’s room. They confront the arms dealer about it, and he does not take it well.

 

Karakov: Does a man not have the right to defend himself? Do COUNTRIES not have the right to defend themselves?

Huxley: Please calm down, we’re all friends here.

Karakov: Friends? You think that the lands of dream are safe, even after the events of today? The war has followed me - even here I still hear those accursed guns!

 

Huxley asks some questions about these guns, and more about Karakov’s health in the Waking World, and makes a diagnosis - very serious heart disease. The thump of artillery is his own heartbeat. He attempts to be sympathetic.

 

Karakov: You think you understand me? Do they say you earned a pound for every man that died in the trenches? It was your role to put men back together - what do you think my role was?

Alex: I know at the very least you are not a cat-killer.

 

Alex goes to get a stiff drink for Karakov, and gets waylaid by Mironim-Mer, who is out of patience - he needs to know where Florence took Madam Brujah. And then climbs out the window. And turns inside-out into a giant elongate crustacean-thing when Huxley attempts to intervene. It crawls off towards the train-beast carrying the Ladies Parlor, and snips the ropes holding the bridge that connects them. 

 

Flo is rather startled when a man-sized mantis shrimp bursts into the room, but she and Brujah defend themselves with improvised weapons, and a sword that the journalist Dreamed out of a cake-slice. It seems focused entirely on Madam Brujah, and the valise she’s carrying, but Florence stabs it a few times to get its attention away from the old woman.

 

GM: I’m sure that as a journalist you’re well used to being annoying. 

 

Huxley leaps the gap between train beasts (on his second attempt) and rushes in to be all heroic and saber-waving and swashbuckling, while the creature is dropping Florence in one of the ornamental fountains. It retaliates by mangling his sword arm, and hurries off in pursuit of Madam Brujah, only to get into a massive pile-up with Henri, two of the Sarnathians, and Mac. The Sarnathians are armed, to little effect.

 

GM: These Sarnathians can’t be guilty of spearing Ib babies, they can’t hit a thing. 

 

It appears the combined weight of four men and one Australian sheepfarmer’s daughter is enough to pin the monster in place, at least long enough for Brujah to reach the dining pavilion. By the time the creatures wriggles free, every cat in the dining car is out for blood, Zsusza is screaming her head off, Karakov is backed against a wall and as white as a sheet, the Beings and servants have made themselves scarce, and Brujah is laughing her head off at the monster’s distress - at least until it snatches the heart-shaped valise off her and tears it open. 

 

It’s empty. 

 

Brujah: *laughing even harder* He’ll never find it! NEVER!

 

The red glow in the creature's eyes fades, and it backs against the wall, entirely subdued, and doesn’t struggle when Henri agrees it should be restrained with the eyeless madman until it can be handed over to the authorities. Nobody asks the madman his opinions about this. 

 

The investigators collapse in exhaustion after all the excitement, and wake up back in the train station in Milan. Huxley’s dream-mangled arm is quite sore, and his chest injury from the bullet that grazed his ribs the other night is aching, and probably infected. Huxley and Flo stretch their legs, and are heading back to the waiting room when they spot a familiar face - Max von Wurtheim, the associate of the evil Duc back in Lausanne. He’s talking to one of the Orient Express staff, sticks his head into the waiting room, visibly starts, and starts coming back up the concourse. Huxley and Flo attempt to conceal themselves, but Max spots the lieutenant trying to stuff himself behind a kiosk, and Flo trying to hide behind a handful of postcards. His expression transitions rapidly from surprise, to calculation, to a wide and clearly false smile.

 

Maximilian: Lt. Huxley! And the ravishing Miss Braxton! I am so glad to have found you!

Huxley: Ah, Mr. von Wurtheim, how very surprising to see you here. What brings you to Milan?

Maximilian: Ah, it occurred to me that I had been an absolute cad to Miss Braxton, and I had to make amends.

Florence: Apology accepted. Goodbye.

Maximilian: At the very least let me take you to lunch! Milan has many excellent restaurants!

Huxley: Ah, I’m afraid our schedule doesn’t permit it. We’re leaving for Venice soon.

Maximilian: *Taking a visible mental note of this* Ah, what a shame. Perhaps brunch?

 

Florence is rapidly approaching Stabbing Point again. Huxley changes the subject, to the fact that Maximillian has one arm in a sling, and a hand that appears to be shriveled and burnt. Huxley suspects the Duc is responsible, but even mentioning the name makes Max go quite pale. Huxley suggests medical attention, or at least something from the pharmacist, but Max just presses some cash into the lieutenant's hand, clearly intending to stay with Flo.  

 

GM: If looks could kill, you wouldn’t even make it to the chemist.

Huxley: Ah, maybe you should come with me, Mr. von Wurtheim.

 

While they’re away picking up medical supplies, any messages from Professor Smith, and some newspapers, Flo warns Alex that Max is in town, and warns the Orient Express staff not to let him in the waiting room again, on the grounds that he’s a serial harasser. Max suggests a few nice hotels in Venice (not that Huxley intends to follow any advice Max offers) but then hurries on some errand of his own.  

 

There are no messages from Prof. Smith, but there is a telegram from Remi Vangeim in Paris.

 

REGRET DELAY WITH BOOK STOP TURKISH SCHOLARS TOOK OFFENSE AT LIBRARY RULES STOP WILL WRITE TO VENICE BUREAU DE POSTE

 

There’s also a rather interesting article in the local paper, which might explain a little more about what happened at la Scala after the investigators fled back to their hotel to pack. Or perhaps not.

 

Florence: What people say and what actually gets reported in the papers are two different things.

GM: I hope that doesn’t describe your own journalism.

Florence: Oh no, mine are all of the utmost fidelity.

 

LOCAL BUSINESSMAN MURDERED

 

  Police revealed this morning that prominent Milan businessman Arturo Faccia was last night the victim in a bestial slaying, in a seemingly isolated incident.

 He had been at La Scala with friends for the opening night of Aida and had gone backstage to congratulate performers when he became separated from his companions.

 His mutilated body was discovered late yesterday by workmen on the roof of our cathedral. An official at the diocese stated, “It is impossible for anyone to get up there at night. This is the Devil’s work.”

 Milan police would not describe the wounds sustained, repeating merely that they seem the work of a deranged degenerate. Residents of the city are warned to exercise caution at night.

 Signor Faccia was a widower, without children. He had recently returned from a business trip to Turkey.

 

That’s a bit worrying, but doesn’t actually explain what happened at the Opera House after they left? Of course, it’s possible the paper is covering up the truth.

 

Florence: Would Milan WANT reports of an enraged mob of opera-lovers rending him limb from limb in their paper?

 

Maximilian has returned with flowers, and is quite put out that the staff won't let him into the waiting room - it wouldn’t be proper, after all, since he’s not a passenger.  

 

Maximilian: Very well! I’ll buy a ticket!

 

If they were trying to avoid him, it backfired badly. They might also want to avoid the police detective that’s tracked them down. It’s the same detective that was so helpful after the death of Conti. Huxley makes himself scarce, but Alex and Flo reluctantly agree to an interview in the stationmaster’s office, with one of the Orient Express staff there as a witness. It now occurs to the investigators that they didn’t get their story straight, and have no idea what happened after they left. The detective, on the other hand, is aware that the investigators were variously accused of being communists, injured in the fight with Faccia and his goons, and actually appeared on stage as an extra. He’s also heard that an old woman is claiming to be the missing Diva, and that Faccia vanished from an upstairs office at la Scala while he was waiting for his lawyers. So it’s not surprising Florence and Huxley (when he returns) give two contradictory stories about the evening, each downplaying their involvement as far as possible. 

 

Detective: I hope you sought medical assistance after you were hurt, Miss Braxton-Hicks?

Alex: Oh no, it was nothing really. 

GM: Only slightly stabbed.

Florence: Nothing more than you'd expect from a good night out in London.

 

The detective was also aware that Alex was wearing a suit at the Opera House.

 

Detective: What do you know about the political affiliations of your companions, Lt. Huxley?

Huxley: Upstanding supporters of king and country.

Detective: I see, I see - and where did your companions purchase their dresses? Milan is a city of fashion, you understand. 

 

So the detective is certain that the investigators were involved somehow, and makes some pointed hints that they report to the various authorities in Venice when they get there, but the disappearance, mutilation and death of Faccia is inexplicable enough that he’s not entirely sure he wants to dig deeper. He’ll probably kick it up the chain, and let the Fascist government take an interest in the party. 

 

The other passengers start to arrive - among them a young woman in obvious mourning, and an old man wrapped up to the eyebrows, in a wheelchair, with a young man as his caregiver. The latter, pale and anxious, requests medical assistance for his grandfather while the train travels to Venice. He explains to Huxley, in babbled and broken English, that he’s taking his grandfather (still rugged up with only his eyes showing) to the hot springs in Sofia for his health. Huxley commences a medical examination, but returns to his compartment after recommending whiskey and warm water. The old man must be more vigorous than his apparent infirmity suggests. 

 

Venice, in warmer months, is one of the most beautiful and romantic cities in Europe, but in winter the city is foggy, and wet, and frozen, with ice crackling in the canals. At night you can walk for hours and see nothing but pools of lamplight, and hear nothing but the sad slap of water on tethered boats, the clang of buoys in the lagoon, and the boom of steamers further out.  In Venice, on a foggy winter’s night, it feels like day will never come.

 

The train arrives at 5.05PM, and it is already dark.

[Drhoz]

My brother has joined the campaign. He'll be playing the Italian airman my nephew was playing in the first sessions, before he had to withdraw. It's not like I'd let him inflict Paddy McGinty on

Europe, they've just been through a World War, for God's sake.

[Drhoz]

Horror on the Orient Express - Venice - Love (and Death) in a Gondola - Pt.1

February 1923

In which the Investigators involve themselves in Fascist affairs

Huxley, Alex and Flo arrive at Venice’s Stazione di Venezia Santa Lucia, and do their best to get off the platform and onto a motor launch before Maximillian von Wurtheim can find them again. 

 

Unfortunately, they run up the back of another party who has somebody waiting for them - the bereaved young woman and her maid, that they saw boarding in Milan. There are six Blackshirts and a pudgy and unpleasant man in a suit waiting for her. The man, one Rossini, offers insincere and sweaty condolences for the woman’s loss, and is apparently trying to steer her onto a government launch. That’s when a younger, handsome man in a worker’s shirt and pants gets involved, loudly, and is promptly menaced by the Blackshirt thugs while the woman begs for this Georgio not to get involved. Huxley gets involved, and Flo gets her camera out - photographic evidence of Blackshirts roughing up an unarmed man and throwing him in the canal would probably be welcome in some paper or other.

 

Huxley OoC: I still have some left-over bravado from that Dreamlands business. Excuse me gentlemen, is there a problem?

 

Rossini and his goons are amazed that anybody would dare intervene in what is clearly Fascist business, and Flo further derails them by pointing them in the direction of von Wurtheim, who is waving at them from the other end of the crowd and trying to get their attention. She describes him as a stalker, although the Blackshirts don’t seem to care beyond a muttered comment that is probably far from complimentary. Rossini certainly takes an interest in the investigators, wanting their names and their hotels, although the party have not yet actually arranged any accommodation in Venice. Just as well it’s the off-season. Georgio slips away. 

 

The young woman - Maria Stagliani as they’ll learn soon enough - clings to Florence’s excellent Italian as though she’s a life-vest, hurried introducing her and the other PCs as friends of her late mother, so of course Signor Rossini would understand why she rather travel with them back to her home? Florence and Huxley decide to play along, and as they leave on a gondola (leaving a baffled von Wurtheim on the dock) Maria explains that the repellent Rossini has been trying to get her hand in marriage for years, but she wants nothing to do with him. Her maid, Bice, explains that the other man, Georgio Gasparetti, has also been seeking Maria’s love, but he’s a worker, and, worse, a unionist. The recently late Prof. Stagliani had denied him, as well, but since he fell in the canal and caught a fatal chill, there’s nobody to protect Maria from either man.

 

Bice gives the party directions to a rental agent who can arrange a pensione flat for them at no notice (especially if they mention the Staglianis) so at least they’ll have somewhere to stay the night before they go find their friend Capt. Antonio Masiero, the Italian airman they sent ahead to commence the Italian legwork.

 

Masiero has had very little luck in that regard - Professor Smith had told them the Leg of the Sedefkar Simulacrum had been brought to Venice by Napoleon’s soldiers at the end of the 18th Century, and that it may have ended up in the possession of the reputed sorcerer Alvise Gremanci, but all he’s found out since arriving in Venice is that Alvise was once brought in front of the Council of Ten and accused of using puppets to attack his rivals (he was acquitted) and that during the Napoleonic occupation of Venice he, some very high-ranking Catholic priests, and even a pair of rabbis, were arrested by the authorities after a day of riots. He doesn’t know what happened next. Certainly, none of the living Gremancis that he’s talked to know anything about any magical legs left to them in his will, for example. It’s all been very frustrating, which may be why he’s been relaxing with the help of some of the beautiful women of Venice. There’s two of them in his bed when Florence and Huxley come knocking at his door. 

 

Capt. Masiero: I hope it isn’t another husband

 

Masiero: Lt. Huxley! 

Huxley: Nice to see you haven’t flown into a mountainside.

Masiero: What are you doing in Venice this soon, my friend?

Huxley: Ah, we had to leave Milan in some haste. 

 

Florence: For God's sake, get some pants on. 

GM: Yes, you’re making Huxley feel inadequate.

 

Florence and Huxley don’t comment - much - about the two women in his suite. 

 

Florence: I see you’ve been enjoying the local produce.

Masiero: The local vintage is very good.

Huxley OoC: I was about to say ‘I scored too’, then I remembered it was in Dreamlands

GM: Your Canadian girlfriend.

 

Women One: He is a man of …. enormous heroism.

Florence: And great endurance too I’m guessing?

Woman Two: *purrs* Inexhaustible. 

 

GM: It’s not exactly surprising that women are interested in a dashing airman and hero of the Italian military. Also, they’re sisters

Masiero: Good! That way I only have one place to drop them off.

 

Once he’s got rid of them, Florence and Huxley can bring him up to speed on everything that’s happened since he saw them last, in London. 

 

Masiero: … Why do you bring me all these terrible stories?

 

Florence: Oh, and I forgot to mention we met the Diva Cavollaro.

Huxley: Did you read about her disappearance?

Florence:  Yes, we were involved with that. But we didn’t kidnap her. When you read about the uproar at la Scala, that was us. We may have have caused a man to get lynched, but he was a very bad man and had it coming. 

 

Among the other things they have to do today is get a doctor to make a house call for Alex and Huxley - their injuries from Milan are now keeping Alex in bed, and Huxley’s chest wound is clearly infected. And then, of course, check for messages and mail at the post office, and hit the libraries and civic records to find out everything they can about the missing Leg, and look up the Devil’s Simulare manuscript which apparently describes the Simulacrum, and Sedefkar, and the Fourth Crusade, at some length. 

 

Remi Vangeim’s promised letter is waiting for them. Apparently some ‘Turkish Scholars’ came to the Bibliotheque Nationale, seeking everything they had on the Sedefkar Simulacrum, and Remi was introduced to them as somebody who had helped with that exact request not a month previously. But these Turks didn’t have letters of introduction from another library or institute of higher education, and were politely shown the door. Less politely, they were waiting to assassinate Remi when he finished work, and he was very lucky to escape with his life. 

 

That’s a good opportunity for Huxley and Flo to list everybody that is apparently hunting the party and the Simulacrum down. Although it’s possible that the various groups involved are also targeting each other, now. On the other hand, the list now includes the authorities in at least three countries, and includes that police detective in Milan who told them to report to the authorities in Venice when they arrived.

 

Florence: He didn’t specify which authorities.

Masiero: I have been told.

Huxley: Technically we talked to the blackshirts.

Florence: And I’m sure those two young ladies consider Antonio an authority.

 

The first day at the Biblioteca Marciana is not particularly helpful - there’s a lot of stuff about the French occupation, and documents in French as well as Italian, but the only thing that might be relevant is a serious outbreak of disease in the city between May and December of 1797. The occupying troops were highly concerned by the effect it was having on the garrison. The main symptom was crippling leg pain, and the epidemic only retreated, according to at least one letter, after a special mass ordered by the Pope. 

 

Huxley enquires after the Devil’s Simulare as well, which was apparently in the collection of the church of San Maria Celeste, but the librarian at the Marciana tells them that the church burnt down - in 1569. Perhaps some of the books were rescued, and are still regarded as part of that church’s library even after they were dispersed to other collections. He’ll make some enquiries.

[Foxiekins]

On 4/25/2003 at 8:29 PM, Vondy said:

We had an extremely gritty dark champions game going with a bunch of casual killer vigilante types (the campaign could have been named "body count"). One week when the gamemaster was sick one of the players stepped up. He thought it would be cute if he whipped CLOWN out on us.

 

This was a group of players who just didn't find CLOWN funny or amusing (and this was a known fact) and the GM of the week was doing to annoy on purpose. CLOWN got wasted in an extremely succinct and bloodthirsty way. The leader of the group (Pinstripe), who'd pumped Merry Andrew full of lead from his .50 caliber hand-cannon walked up, gave him a coup de grace and said:

 

"Now thats comedy".

 

Everyone except the GM thought it was hilarious.

 

Literary Note:

 

Tragedy is when something bad happens to you

Comedy is when something bad happens to someone else

My wife states that Comedy is properly when the exact same something bad happens to someone else...

[Ragitsu]

"An execution for stealing an apple?"

"Yes."

"I'm going to need a little more context here: Granny Smith? Macbook Pro? Hesperides?"

 

--- --- ---

 

"It's for posteri, uh, posterior."

"'Posterity', you mean?"

"Uh...sure."

 

*pause*

 

"Well, in all fairness, the former usually does lead to the latter."

[Drhoz]

Civilla’s player: I grabbed a wand of Decompose Corpse.

Rajira’s player: Why? You already have instant disposal methods

Ayva’s player: cheaper than the potions

Rajira’s player : But more expensive than frogs.

Civilla’s player: The frogs cost me several pool points. It also works on Huge corpses, which I can then use the frogs to finish up.

 

The Victocora estate is indeed for sale - with the exception of the gardens which have been set aside for construction of a public park, by order of Thrune. And he’s willing to exert influence to ensure that the pool with the soul anchor inside it doesn't end up controlled by any of the local families. 

 

There’s still no news about the whereabouts of the half-elf opera star Shensen, who vanished after her shop got burnt to the ground on the Night of Ashes. The only rumour Terzo can find is that she was taken into the Opera House, now Thrune’s domicile, and murdered, but the same rumour gets said about everybody. 

 

Terzo: I wouldn’t blame her if she’d fled town, but NOBODY has heard a peep from her since, and given the opera connection and the fact that she’s a vocal critic of Chellish diabolism…Let’s just say I’m concerned that Thrune took a personal interest. 

 

Rajira has been investing heavily in a public meeting place.

 

Civilla’s player: You are going to have so much Influence…

Terzo’s player: There’s a reason so many European monarchs regarded coffeehouses with suspicion.

Civilla’s player: Well yes. They’re where the Enlightenment happened. And glaring at people who come too close to your private conversation, until they f*** off,  is normal coffeehouse etiquette.

 

Civilla’s player: And Terzo could invest in a beer garden. It’s not banned. Yet. 

 

Civilla has also initiated another arm of the rebellion, that closely fits her position as a daughter of the nobility. The Candlemark Parlour - a tea circle that are actually highly influential rumour mongers.

 

Civilla OoC: Oh, and I can Summon Planar Ally now. Which I don’t do while Terzo is around, even though they’re not REALLY demons. 

Terzo OoC: I imagine half the conversations you lot have, you don’t have when I’m nearby. My sad and hurt expression might make you feel bad.

Rajira OoC: Just like my slitting throats isn't necessarily evil.

Ayva OoC: There’s a lot of contextual variation.

 

Civilla does a bit of magical meditation, in order to ask her goddess for advice. The response she gets is one word - ‘Blosodriette’. Slightly baffling. She also seeks an answer to the question ‘Does Shensen still live?’. The answer to that is ‘Neither’.

 

Civilla: oh F***. Ah, I thank you, Redeemer Queen. Mr GM, I think I’ve done the brainchip thing again, because bits of info are coming together and we need to research how to kill vampires then resurrect them.

Ayva: *sigh* I’ll fast-track the cauldron. At least we already have the Philosopher’s Stone Elixir. 

Civilla: Also I think I know the password to read the Secret Page now. 

 

Ayva also wants to brew a potion that will make our blood unpalatable to vampires. 

 

GM: The downside is you stink of garlic. 

 

The GM is quite glad we’re finally doing something with the Secret Page that Rajira has been keeping between two slabs of lead and far away from our rebellious activities. Apparently keeping it secured has derailed a few major plot developments. Civilla does take a few precautions first, which include making a contract with that Scrivenite entity we met a while back.

 

Civilla: Yilliv the Scrivenite, I call you to aid me with the secrets of this page! Yilliv the Scrivenie, I call you to aid me with the secrets of this page!

Yilliv the Scrivenite: You only had to say that once.

 

The Secret Page is the Contract for one Blosodriette the Imp, who appears in a puff of sulfurous smoke.

 

Blosodriette: F***!

Civilla OoC: How many problems did we avoid by not having an imp hanging around our lair?

GM: At least the death of an entire rebellion team.

 

It’s quite fortunate that we kept the page nowhere near our lair. The contract also binds the Imp to the Sarini family, or in the event of the death of all the Sarinis, whoever has the contract, and she has to stay within 100 feet of the contract. At least hanging around Civilla’s apartment got more interesting when she brought that evil sentient kukri home.

 

Civilla: I could be a real prick here… by gifting the contract to Yilliv. How have you been amusing yourself before we found your contract, Imp? I don’t suppose it was YOU who opened that portal to Hell?

Blosodriette: What? No!

Civilla: You telling the truth?

Blosodriette: I have to, you hold the contract. It was Merindius Sarini who opened the portal, and he got eaten.

Civilla: Of course he did, he opened a portal to hell. 

 

Yilliv: I’d keep the contract secure in my Library.

Civilla: How would you like that, Imp?

Blosodriette: I would much rather you torched the thing.

 

Instead, Civilla offers the creature a job, that will let her thumb her nose at more powerful devils.

 

Blosodriette: Do I really have a choice?

Civilla: You’d have to pledge yourself to my Queen.

Shimza: *shows the Imp her symbol of the Redeemer Queen, the former Demon Lord*

Blosodriette: Oh S*** yeah, this changes things! OK, I’m in!

Civilla: You’ll truly pledge yourself to the Path of Redemption?

Ayva: If she DOES join us, the fairy dragon and the imp are going to get on like a house on fire.

Civilla: Probably literally.

 

Blosodriette is quite a powerful Imp, further up the Descending Hierarchy than Civilla initially thought. 

 

Civilla: I owe you an apology.

 

Civilla gets an unexpected visitor - it’s someone in the uniform of the Chellish Navy.

 

Lieutenant Elia Nones: Good afternoon! I represent the captain of the Scourge of Belial! I seek those responsible for freeing a certain group of Hellknights!

Civilla: I have no idea what you’re talking about.

GM: …. You better have a good Bluff.

Civilla’s player: I do. I’m also thinking ‘Why don’t you say that a bit louder, B****, and I’ll show the OTHER 4th Level Spell I just learned’.

 

Although she didn’t use the phrase Her Infernal Majestrix’ Warship Scourge of Belial, which is the proper pronoun for a warship of the Chellsh Navy. And rumour has it that Capt. Cassius Sargaeta is no fan of Barzillai Thrune. 

Lieutenant Elia Nones: My Captain requests your assistance in a sensitive matter. I advise you to accompany me - not many people get to see my master’s restraint. 

Civilla: As long as he doesn’t hold my family name against me. 

Lieutenant Elia Nones: My captain prefers to consider the actions of the individual.

 

Civilla agrees to get the others together, and meet this very unsubtle woman at the wharf where the Scourge is docked. She sends out a coded message in the formal invite to the other party members. Precautions include having some of our minions and relatives lurk nearby, just in case, and using various disguise options we now have. Terzo, for example, uses his new Hat of Disguise to appear as an ancient sailor with a beard down to his knees.

 

Terzo: Psst! It’s me!

Civilla: PLEASE, show up as somebody we’d actually like to be seen with!

Ayva: Use the Hat of Disguise to disguise yourself as yourself - that way if anybody is looking for illusions they’ll think somebody is pretending to be Terzo.

Civilla: Oh, that’s clever.

 

The ship is currently having the rudder replaced. Apparently that kind of damage is an ‘amusing’ signature of Civilla’s distant cousin the pirate admiral. Elia warns us that the Captain has been in a less than stellar mood lately. 

 

Capt. Sargaeta: I admit my disappointment. I expected something more - towering giants of myth. But this is what the waves bring to my shore. Something more… grandiose. Have some fruit. Still, I require your services, and your discretion. Lord-Mayor Thrune’s proclamations have, shall I say, impacted my interests in the city. I cannot venture onto land to take care of... well, let’s call it a ‘personal matter.’ I could send my crew to attend this, but I would much prefer sending someone with whom I have plausible deniability, should they fail in their task. Can you help me send a message?

Civilla: Would this message be metaphorical, or a threat?

Capt. Sargaeta: No, an actual message. Would you be interested in providing me with aid? I daresay that people in your position could stand to benefit from having a captain in the Chelish navy owe you a few favors, hmmm?

 

Captain Sargaeta’s task for the party is a covert one—he wants the PCs to deliver a message to a friend of his who lives in the Greens. This friend is one Marquel Aulorian, scion of one of Kintargo’s older noble families, and a family increasingly supportive of Thrune. Captain Sargaeta bluntly describes Marquel’s father as “a grasping little prig currying favor with the new leadership in a most unseemly manner.” He’s grown worried that his friend might be in danger, due to complicated “political views,” and the letter he needs delivered to Marquel must be delivered to his hands alone, preferably without his father’s knowledge of the delivery. Once the message is delivered, Captain Sargaeta asks the PCs to return to him and deliver the recipient’s reply—verbatim. In return, he promises his friendship and support, as best as he can give it.

 

Marquel is currently confined to his room in the Aulorian mansion. Any one of us could probably get the letter to him - Rajira and Blosodriette especially - as long as there is no actual trouble at the other end. But there’s no point assuming everything will go smoothly. Combining Rajira’s existing and new skills with Terzo’s Hat of Disguise will give her MASSIVE bonuses, even if she is playing someone of a different gender, species, or size.

 

Ayva: ‘I’m a gnome’ ‘You’re two meters tall!’ ‘I’m a grower’

 

It all devolves to a very basic plan - "dress up as a servant and walk right in". We just have to pick the best target to impersonate first, and pickpocket her keys when she goes out to the market.

 

Civilla OoC: We’re Shadowrun players, of course we’re going to case the joint first.

 

The Aulorians have a guard dog.  A skinless three-headed 300-pound hound.

 

Civilla: it’s so cute!

 

Unfortunately Cerberii are extremely good at locating and immobilizing even the magically sneaky. Unless you have some alchemical Scent Blocker. Which we can make. Pickpocketing the keys and impersonating the servant are equally simple.

 

Civilla: One last thing - here’s a thunderstone. If there’s trouble, THROW IT.

 

Staff: Miss Maudlin, did you forget something?

Rajira: Yes, yes I did -  just need to pop upstairs for a moment.

 

Marquel Aulorian: Are you here to clean my room, Miss Maudlin?

Rajira: No, I’m here to give you this message and await your reply.

 

Marquel Aulorian: Yes, yes, but how are you going to get me out?

Rajira: Ah, I wasn’t contracted to do that, but I strongly suspect I’m going to be. Just bear in mind I wasn’t given the contents of the letter.

Marquel Aulorian: It says I can trust you to escort me to safety.

Rajira: I SEE.

Civilla: I guess we’re going off script.

 

Just as well Rajira brought an invisibility potion with her. Although the scent blocker has worn off.

 

Marquel Aulorian: There’s the west gate, but I believe it’s locked.

Rajira: Just as well I still have Miss Maudlin’s keys too then.

Civilla’s player: Have we just done it again?

GM: Yes, you’re free and clear. *sigh*

Ayva’s player: The campaign gave us six invisibility potions, what did they expect us to do?

Rajira’s player: Use them ourselves?

Civilla player: Why? Potions only last a few minutes, Disguise lasts for hours.

 

Ayva: Now we get him into an alleyway and disguise him.

Rajira: Hat.

Civilla: Hat. 

 

Then we just have to get the keys back to the real Miss Maudlin before she comes back.

 

Civilla: Excuse me miss! I believe you dropped these!

 

Sargaeta sits at his desk, sipping tea and reading poetry by lamplight. He looks up as the party enters, clearly puzzled by the extra member he doesn’t recognise, but a dramatic removal of the Hat of Disguise reveals the truth. Marquel speaks first, rushing into Sargaeta’s arms. 

 

Marquel: Here’s your answer, Cassius!

 

The two embrace and exchange a tender kiss, Sargaeta actually weeping. Terzo finds it all very sweet.

 

Capt. Sargaeta: Ah, my darling! Marquel, my sweet impulsive boy!

 

Capt. Sargaeta: Well, I’m a man of my word! Drop this teacup.

Ayva: *does. It bounces, intact* 

Capt. Sargaeta: Ah. Well, I’d meant to owe you as many favours as there were pieces. Well, try again, perhaps with a little more force this time.

The teacup shatters into a much more amenable 8 fragments, this time.

Capt. Sargaeta: I will assist in any way I can, short of open treason against the queen - just write your request on a scrap of paper and wrap it around a shard of the cup. You have my gratitude and friendship!

Civilla: We value nothing more.

 

It’s interesting to note that the Poisoned Pen of Kintargo, an anonymous and prolific critic of Thrune, is suddenly producing a lot of screeds again, after we got Marquel out - we can probably make an educated guess exactly what the young man’s political views were. 

[Drhoz]

Sundog will be running a Pathfinder campaign set in Selversgard, a very small riverside logging town - so small, in fact, that it can’t afford full-time murder-hoboes and the locals have to deal with the occasional problem themselves. With any luck, these problems will only arise once a year or so, and the characters can get back to their real jobs the rest of the time. 

 

GONNO : An Oread - mortal humanoids with ancestry in the Elemental Plane of Earth - who has lived and worked in Selversgard pretty much since the town was founded, cutting timber in the logging season and turning it into furniture and housing in the off season. Taciturn to the point that people are startled when he actually speaks, but kind and a good listener.

 

ARRAM ZARDONA: The son of a local family that left town for several years to attend the Twilight Academy in Galduria and get his burgeoning magical abilities under control. Shortly after his return last year the town's aging schoolmarm took ill and passed away, Arram volunteered to keep the classes going until a proper replacement could be found, but took a liking to the work and now holds the position himself.

 

MIYA: Merchant and Part-Time Dancer. Originally coming to town as part of a Trade Caravan, she fell in love with the people of Selversgard and took it as a sign from Shelyn that it was time to settle down and set up shop here. Always happy to meet new people and make a deal, and always on the lookout for opportunity. She has a pet fox, supposedly.

 

A family of ratfolk or Ysoki have come to the town to establish a new warren, in an abandoned apothecary’s shop. The previous owner fatally gassed himself by leaving an experiment running without supervision. They raise various kinds of domesticated rat. 

 

REMILDA : Ratfolk fills the role of local healer/apothecary and wise woman. She delights in spending time in her garden or gathering fruits, nuts, berries and the other bounties of nature from the surrounding forest. She tends to be a little happy-go-lucky, preferring to see the positive things in life. 

 

SHEV : a local hunter and river rat (pun not intended), although this is supplementary to his work as a Stable Master for the warren's domestic rats.

 

SKAVE : Shev’s brother, and cousin of Remilda. Plies his trade as an alchemist, and is the closest thing the town has to a doctor. Most people just come for the drugs, though. (Polypurpose Panacea is a wonderful way to make money.)

 

The ratfolk and their rat farm might be drawing a bit of unwanted attention right now, however, since the town is having major problems with large rats and giant rats, and all the warren’s protestations that their rats are free of filth fever and are disinclined to eat your face might fall on deaf ears. 

 

Shev OoC: Giant Rats? I don’t believe they exist. 

 

Skave’s player: I had a stupid idea to be a member of the friendly Kobold tribe that runs the local mine.
GM: The mine is flooded.
Miya’s player: Well, now we know how the mine was flooded!

 

Gonno’s player: I see Selversgard has all the most important businesses - two mills, a pub, and a brothel. 
Miya’s player: Two pubs.
Shev’s player: That way you can have a pub crawl. 

Miya’s player:  I’m not braining words, no thinky today.

 

Shev’s player: I’m afraid that ratfolk are very short-lived (especially compared to Oreads)
Gonno OoC: I look forward to getting to know your great-great-grandchildren.
Miya OoC: ‘This was your Great-Uncle Skippy - we had him stuffed’

 

“You cast an area of gloom around you”
Miya OoC: Also there’s a Darkness effect.

 

Arram Zardona’s player: This is an oread
GM: And the scary thing is that is half-human.
Miya OoC: Humans f*** anything, I’m not surprised.
Shev OoC: Welcome to the Slutfolk. 

 

Miya: I dismissed the name Skull Crossing as just a bridge or town. It's a massive 10,000 year old Thassilonian dam decorated with skulls........ These guys were nuts.
Arram: Oh yeah, if that thing ever fails we will know about it, briefly, then meet our respective gods.
Skave: And so will most of southern Varisia.

 

The PCs are going about their daily business on a mid-autumn day, when they hear Old Lady Duchess screaming outside the town palisade. She was moving the straw from the collected heaps in the stubble fields and she’s now covered in rats.

 

Arram: A bold fashion choice I’m not one to criticize.

 

Arram and Gonno get the old woman out of the swarm, and Skave improvises a bomb. Which unfortunately sets the stubble on fire. 

 

Shev OoC: Congratulations, your very first action in the campaign is to set fire to the field and injure a party member. This bodes well. 

 

It probably doesn’t help the ratfolk’s reputation that Shev then runs up and flails ineffectually at the flames with his cloak. Possibly fanning the flames, if you’re feeling uncharitable. It’s more of a concern that the rats aren’t fleeing the explosion, flames, or yelling citizenry. By the time we stomp the rats and fire out, Silas of the Green, representative of the local druids, has come out of the village to investigate and offer assistance. He agrees that the rats are behaving very oddly, and notes that they’ve starving, even after they’ve destroyed the wheat inside the bales. 

 

Silas: Come to the church - I may have a job for your little group.
Arram: We’re a group?
Silas: You are now.

 

Shev: Look at the ground, brother. What do you see?
Skave: Ash?
Shev: Ash brother. Why?
Skave: … because I used the wrong kind of bomb. Again. 

 

Shev is the older brother in the ratfolk family. He’s certainly got that vibe. He and Skave dissect one of the vermin - there’s no sign of grain, but there IS an odd yellow material throughout its gut. Remilda and Skave identify it as an alchemical wax that was intended to work as an appetite suppressant and instead causes any food eaten to pass through without giving any nutrition, derived from a species of lily that only grows in dense forest and sometimes underground, and pine resin, which is much easier to acquire. Silas identifies the species as River Rats, and suspects they’ve been coming down the river until they found Selversgard and the surrounding fields. 

 

Remilda: So how much of the winter stocks have been ruined?
Silas: More than people realise. We’ve been having… incidents. 

 

Shev, as a professional rat breeder, knows that rats will starve within days without food, and agrees that somebody must be driving them in this direction if it’s an ongoing problem.

 

Silas: Now I must go talk to the Great Oak. He's not going to like this. 

Miya: I do like Wondermeal - it’s a nutritious food that you can’t eat for more than a week without being horribly sick.

 

Arram talks to the scouts and hunters, to see if anybody has seen the lilies growing anywhere - they have, in a dense copse a day’s ride north from the settlement. Nobody has actually started logging in that area yet, since the local druids haven’t assessed it yet. Getting there requires crossing a small cataract. Fortunately giant riding rats are quite agile - the rest of us, and the donkeys, are less so. Gonno faceplants into a giant web, which promptly leads to giant spider problems. 

 

Skave's player: I was going to try a bomb, but I don’t want to set another party member on fire…
Gonno OoC: Believe me we are all grateful.
Skave's player: So I’m going to use the crossbow instead.
Gonno: …

 

Arram: The spider appears to be nibbling on Gonno’s toes.
Shev OoC: No kinkshaming!

 

Skave: Uh, guys, I think we’re being watched.
Shev: *whirls around with crossbow*
Nixie: *eeps and dives back under the water*

 

Shev verbally abuses his brother for his poor choice of words.

 

Skave’s player: I’m really playing up the charisma penalty, aren’t I.
Shev’s player: So am I! I vanish into the woods for a week at a time!
Miya’s player: The loner and the nerd. 

 

We retrieve a skeletal corpse from the spider’s larder - whoever it was had leather armour and a backpack, and masterworked arrows. It might be a logging scout that vanished in spring. Skave is rather concerned it will rise as an undead and eat his donkey. A little further on we find a clearing and a dilapidated forester’s shack, which we can patch up to something approaching liveable. The three ratfolk cuddle up together on one of the bunks, leaving the other three free for the rest of us. 

 

Skave: Can’t sleep, bones will eat me.
Miya OoC: This is terrible, I usually sleep in fox form. 

 

Gonno is on watch when white lights sweep into the clearing and start forming shapes. He shakes off some kind of mental effect, and retreats into the shack to shake the others awake, and the motes of light form the shape of a woman.

 

Arram: Do you plan on trying to kill us or can I go back to bed?
Skave OoC: Well, that’s a better opener than what I was gonna go with, “Bah-weep-Graaaaagnah wheep ni ni bong”...
Miya: I don’t trust beautiful women in the middle of the forest, I’ve been one before.

 

Ironically, Miya is the only one who succumbs to the lure.

 

Miya: I’ve also had great fun with beautiful women in the middle of forests. 

 

Gonno grabs Miya by the shoulder before she goes out. More lights appear, and adopt the shape of children in a circle around the luminous figure. The woman smiles, leans back, and opens her mouth 180 degrees. Shev skewers her with a spear from 100ft away,  and the image vanishes. 

 

Skave: Right, show’s over!
Arram: I’m going back to bed.
Shev: I have to go out there for my spear!

 

When he retrieves the spear, it’s glowing.

 

Arram: Covered in ghost juice. 
 

[Drhoz]

Horror on the Orient Express - Venice - Gondola 2 - Cruise Control

 

February 1923

 

In Which The Investigators Experience Elaborate Funerals And Avoid Elaborate Murders

 

   Antonio Maseiro might well have been a celebrated airman during the Great War and afterwards, but that does not mean he’s a supporter of the increasingly militarized Italian government of 1923. Indeed, there’s a reason he spent most of the post-War period out of the country, and when he learned that his friends had been injured in a fracas in Milan his immediate assumption was that Blackshirts were responsible. Huxley and Flo quickly assured him it was some unrelated thugs, to the relief of the portineria at his hotel, but Masiero is much more a lover than a fighter. That might be why Georgio Gasperetti, one of the would-be swains of Maria Stagliani, has come to him for advice. 

 

   He wants to know the best way to prove his love, especially since, with Prof. Stagliani dead, he can’t prove his worthiness through hard work. 

 

Florence: Well, what have you tried so far? Chocolates, flowers, promises you don’t intend to keep?

 

Plighting his troth is certainly tricky, given that the Staglianis are an old family in Venice, and Georgio a mere factory worker, and the whole recent-death-of-her-father thing, and the formidable maid Bice running interference. 

 

Florence: How do you solve a problem like Maria?

 

And of course, there’s the problem of Rossini, who is prominent in the local Fascist party, and part of the Venetian government too. Georgio is also certain that the vile Rossini and his Blackshirts are somehow responsible for Prof. Stagliani’s death. Masiero is not surprised.

 

Masiero: The number of people falling into the canals has increased drastically, lately. 

 

Their advice to Georgio is to just tell her, and to make the best possible impression at the funeral the day after tomorrow. He thanks them profusely and hurries off, leaving the investigators to enjoy their evening meal and a good night's sleep, interrupted only by screams of “Murder! Murder!” in the alley outside their flat well after midnight. Huxley heads out to investigate, but then thinks better of it, because hanging around on narrow foggy streets late at night when there are killers about is probably unwise. If he waits until daylight he’ll at least see the Brothers of the Skin coming. 

 

Speaking of whom, he really should send a telegram to Professor Smith, apprising him of their progress, and notify him about all the various parties that have been making their interest in the Sedefkar Simulacrum known, with attendant mayhem.

 

IN VENICE MAKING PROGRESS STOP SECURED THE MAIN BODY OF WISHLIST STOP OVERENTHUSIASTIC INTEREST FROM LOCAL AND VISITING COLLEAGUES

 

There’s also a telegram that’s come the other way.

 

BROTHERS SENT TO MILAN STOP TREAT CITY AS ALIGHERI TREATED FLORANCE

 

Florence: Florence or Florance?

GM: Definitely Florance with an ‘A’. Dante Aligheri famously never returned to Florance, no matter how badly the city has wanted him to since then.

Huxley: Given the Keystone Kops performance at the Opera House I’m not sure the Brotherhood are that much of a threat.

 

Did the Brothers of the Skin silence Arturo Faccia, after his failure to acquire the Torso? Faccia may well have been skinned alive before he was found on the roof of the cathedral - the newspaper doesn’t specify.

 

Huxley: And after all that trouble improving his singing voice. 

Florence: It would be nice to know if his voicebox was removed and returned to its rightful owner, too.

GM: That seems unlikely.

 

Of course it’s also entirely possible the opera patrons skinned him alive for interrupting the performance. Another reason for the investigators to avoid Milan in future. 

 

Florence is feeling a bit chesty, possibly the result of the winter fogs coming off the lagoon, but fortunately she has a medical professional to hand in the form of Lt. Huxley.

 

Florence: Time to break out the asthma cigarettes. 

GM: Or heroin in alcohol. 

 

Vicks Vaporub in a bowl of hot water is also an option, surprisingly - it’s certainly been around long enough, and Florence's family probably keep sending her more from Australia.

 

Florence: The guy who invented Vaporub also invented junk mail.

GM: This is why we can’t have nice things. 

 

Florence also writes up an article about opening night at Aida, carefully leaving out the excitement offstage, but including a photo of Huxley in costume. 

 

Florence: Make copies and send to our friends. And back to Mother. And to that lead tenor.

 

The fire that burned down the Church of San Maria Celeste in 1569 supposedly started in the shipyards next door, but the investigators have their own suspicions why an Ottoman saboteur would burn down a library known to contain information on the Sedefkar Simulacrum. 

 

Although further investigation into the Simulacrum may have to be postponed - the investigators receive a formal invitation to the funeral of Prof. Stagliani, delivered by her maid Bice. Asked for advice, she sternly criticises the outfits the investigators have with them, so the entirety of the next day is spent getting suitable formalwear and accessories, arranging flowers for the service, and nearly choking on the stench coming off the canals. The smell is also one of the reasons that the dead of Venice are buried out on the smaller islands in the lagoon - Masiero might not be a native of Venice and doesn’t know how often the canals get this bad, but he is aware of Venice’s history with shipborne plague, quarantine, and supposedly haunted islands like Poveglia.

 

While they’re out they find out what all the screaming last night was - somebody was brutally impaled on iron railings ten feet off the ground. According to one description, delivered with much gesticulation, the poor man was run through like a Turkish Kebab. Still, the police will surely catch whichever maniac or weirdo is responsible.

 

Masiero: This is good news *turns to rest of party* This is bad news. There is no-one weirder in Venice than you lot.

 

Masiero: Do you have any idea how hard it is to lift a man ten feet off the ground and give him the rogering with the metal spike?

 

Masiero is now determined to go around armed - at least, as a native Italian, he doesn’t have the same issues regarding legal firearms that the rest of the party does. A few other weapons might also be in order, if there’s a superhuman killer about as well as von Wurtheim, and Rossini’s goons. Assuming those are actually three different factions.

 

Florence: Would adding extra water to Huxley’s flask make it more or less holy?

GM: Depends if you ask a homeopath.

 

There’s a second murder the next night - a gondolier torn to pieces and wrung like a dishrag. The police have failed to keep the details of this one out of the public view. Indeed, there are apparently witnesses that saw the Devil himself poling a boat down the Grand Canal. Restaurant staff excitedly muttering about ‘tears of blood’ might be a coincidence - none of the investigators seem to be having any eye problems - although Huxley wonders if there’s a connection to that chameleon back in Milan.

 

Huxley: Maybe we have a magic horned toad in Venice.

 

Masiero has other suspicions - since they don't know exactly which part of the Sedefkar Simulacrum is in Venice, a statue that is bleeding from the eyes seems a good place to start. Apparently that’s what happened at the San Marco Basilica last night.

 

But first, the funeral of the late Professor Stagliani. It does not go well - Georgio and Rossini glare daggers at each other over the casket (an elaborate affair resembling a three-tier dark chocolate cake), the stench from the canal is back, and much worse, and Georgio’s comforting of Maria at the funeral lunch only earns him attempted violence from Rossini’s minions later. Fortunately the investigators are on the same gondola, and between preventing any heroics from Georgio, brandishing Masiero’s handgun, and pushing the gondolier into the water and stealing his pole, the party escape without any immediate problems. Certainly, the Blackshirts are recipients of some choice insults from Masiero and Florence, only one of which I will repeat here.

 

Florence: Your mother buys tinned tomatoes!

 

At least there aren’t anymore murders that night, and the late professor had an impressive personal library that Huxley hopes to peruse as soon as etiquette allows. On the other hand two giant fish with human arms are spotted in the Grand Canal. It’s amazing how much stuff never gets mentioned in the guidebooks. 

[Ragitsu]

"If 'ignorance is bliss', does that make you a walking orgasm?"

[Tech]

In our last game, I wanted to show that thugs can be learned too, and give players a laugh...

 

Jimmy Dugan interviews a thug robbing a store, "Why are you robbing this store?"

Thug replies, "Why? Well, no one's ever asked that before. I think it has to do with the precarity of financial instability in a volatile market situation."

Jimmy Dugan replies, "Really?"

Thug continues, "Yes. You see; the perception of appropriation inspires the person in question to dominate his thinking on said market."

 

[Ragitsu]

7 hours ago, Tech said:

In our last game, I wanted to show that thugs can be learned too, and give players a laugh...

 

Jimmy Dugan interviews a thug robbing a store, "Why are you robbing this store?"

Thug replies, "Why? Well, no one's ever asked that before. I think it has to do with the precarity of financial instability in a volatile market situation."

Jimmy Dugan replies, "Really?"

Thug continues, "Yes. You see; the perception of appropriation inspires the person in question to dominate his thinking on said market."

 

 

I knew of "precarious" and even "privation", but not "precarity". Thanks!

[Drhoz]

Lorgar Aurelian, Primarch of the Word Bearers Space Marines, addresses the troops before battle -

 

Lorgar: Altogether now, our warcry!

Word Bearers: DADDY DOESN'T LOVE US!

Lorgar: .... the other warcry

Word Bearers: FOR CHAOS AND THE WARMASTER!

Lorgar: Much better.

[Drhoz]

Gonno OoC: It’s at this point that most villagers would put up an ad on Craigslist looking for murder-hoboes. 

 

Despite the increasingly difficult weather and terrain, we eventually find scattered yellow wax of the kind that poisoned the rats. There don’t appear to be any giant poisoned bee hives hanging from the trees overhead, but that doesn't preclude giant poisoned burrowing bees.

 

Arram: And that would just be about our luck, wouldn’t it.

 

And if there was a trail, it’s too old to follow, even for a rat as antisocial as Shev. Fortunately the plants have been there longer, and Miya can talk to plants. The shrubbery tells us that the were fuzzy things, less hairy than the ratfolk, smaller than any of the villagers, that came through about 10 brightnesses ago. Also, their noisy bits were bigger than ours. Honestly, as far as descriptive qualia go, that’s pretty good work for a vegetable. 

 

We press on looking for more clues - looking so intently that we don’t notice that the rushing torrent coming down from the hills has undercut the bank, and Arram ends up hanging from a tree branch. Fortunately the rest of us haul him back to safety without going over ourselves. And a bit further on from there, we hear words in an unpleasant barking language just over the next ridge. Unfortunately, none of us speak goblin. Fortunately Shev and his giant riding rat are both pretty stealthy, and easily identifies them as goblins, a goblin dog, and a hobgoblin. The hobgoblin is currently beating one of the mouthier gobbos about the head with a stick. Then hands out chunks of that yellow wax to each.

 

Shev and his rat might well be stealthy, and it’s true that the goblinoids don’t notice them at once or as he and his mount are sneaking away again. On the other hand the rest of the party are not so lightfooted as we sneak into position to ambush the enemy. Shev is inclined to blame Gonno, who is certainly the physically densest of the party, but Gonno is too generous to point out that it was actually the riding rat sneezing. The goblinoids, however, are generous enough to share most of their arrows with Gonno. Arram is comprehensively ventilated as well. In fact, it’s a small miracle we survive at all - it would seem murder-hoboes exist for a reason. 

 

The conscious members of the party decide to lug the unconscious Gonno back to the hut, for safety and healing. The current clearing might be suitable for a campsite, but for two factors - the enemy know about it.

 

Shev: And it’s a bit corpse-y.

 

The goblinoids are not equipped well, which isn’t unusual, but the hobgoblins are unusually clean and are all branded with a V, which is. And none of them are carrying rations, which implies they have a camp somewhere nearby. In hindsight, we should have let Shev’s rat chew on all the goblinoids, so their compatriots will blame wild animals when they come looking.  

The next day, with considerable more caution, we locate the goblin camp, at a long-ruined tower deep in the forest. One unusual feature is a set of large wooden cages, one containing a large and very unhappy boar. There’s no sign of any goblins, but there is a large hole leading into the earth. No spoil heap, which implies a collapse rather than an excavation. Or maybe there really are giant poisoned burrowing bees. Unusually, the hobgoblin has a statue of Shelyn set up in his tent - with a note underneath it that none of us can read. Written in a very neat neat hand. That might be related to the cloven-hooved prints leading in and out of the hole. 

 

Distracted into a conversation about the ‘Where’s Wally’ mythos.

 

Shev’s player: In the United States and Canada he’s known as “Waldo”, in Denmark he’s “Holger”, in France he’s “Charlie” and in German he’s “Walter”.

Gonno’s player: And Interpol has taken a keen interest. 

 

There’s a deeper chasm at the bottom of the hole, with a swinging bridge, a sleeping goblin in a running cage, and a raging cascade. Unfortunately, bridge and goblin are both on the far side of the chasm, and our attempts to snipe them from our side are a spectacular failure. We end up relying on Shev and his giant riding rat again.

 

Shev: They might not as fast as a horse but f*** they’re versatile. No! No! Get that of your mouth!

Arram: You don’t know where it’s been.

 

As suspected, the ruins had a dungeon underneath, and there’s a hooded figure doing something alchemical on a table near two caged hobgoblin females. Could be dangerous, especially if they're anything like our ratfolk alchemist.

 

Shev: Because in our experience, alchemists are very good at hitting us. 

 

Happily, not everybody thinks to put tripwires on the walls. Even in the Underdark, where practically everybody can Spiderclimb or the equivalent. We even manage to get into position to ambush the alchemist - almost. She seems quite pleased to see us, which is not good. She’s a Forlarren - corrupted fey. 

 

Forlarren: Well gentlemen, ladies? What can I do for you?

Miya: Ah… we wanted to know why goblins are poisoning the animals of the forest and causing sundry problems?

Forlarren: Oh that’s easy - I told them to. 

Miya: … OK… any particular reason?

Forlarren: I wanted to drive the rats towards Selversgard and make you all insane and dead.

Miya: …. Why?

Forlarren: Because I hate you. Obviously I won’t need these anymore *reaches for a lever next to the hobgoblin cage, and casts Heat Metal on us*

 

Fortunately not all of us are wearing armour, and she doesn’t cast it very well, so her attempted Cook and Book doesn’t go as well as she’d like and we have her surrounded before she can escape. And then she’s on fire, and very soon after that, dead. It’s quite fortunate that we stopped her pulling the lever, since it wasn’t a cage release but a mechanism to kill her extraneous test subjects. We free them, and give them food and water. 

 

Shev: I can’t just abandon them because they’re not my species.

Miya: And they’re female - you can’t just do that.

Shev: I’m usually more egalitarian than that, but still. 

 

The hobgoblins seem very grateful, despite the language barrier. Extremely grateful, at least insofar as Miya is concerned. 

 

Arram: I would help, but I’m paralysed with laughter.

Miya: Ah. No? Busy. Do you understand? Busy.

Shev: Arram, can you please do something about this? We have things to do today. 

 

It’s not ideal, but we can’t really let the two hobgoblins fend for themselves, naked and alone. We might have to take them back to Selversgard, despite the fact that goblinoids are universally despised (and for good reason). The Forlarren also had a human skull with a few citrines shoved into the nasal cavity. 

 

Gorro: *thinking* Well I don’t think it would match the decor at my place, but perhaps one of the others would like it.

Arram OoC: I hope not, because then I’ll have to write ‘nose gems’ on the treasure sheet. 

Skave: Hey, skull for the alchemy shop!

 

There’s also a preserved nymph’s head, a skinned hobgoblin and the remains of a halfling bard with a masterworked lute in the other room - nobody we recognise as a visitor to Selversgard, but it’s possible someone will come looking for him. The Maker’s Mark from Magnimar will help narrow down his identity at least. Gonno prepares the bodies for rough burial - none of us are clerics. 

 

Arram: I’m pretty sure by the time the rest of us finish arguing about it Gonno’s already dug the graves. 

Gonno: I dig.

 

The hobgoblins head off by themselves, to Shev’s relief.

 

Miya: A quick smack on the bum and off they go.

Shev: NO.

 

We also get XP for releasing the boar.

 

Miya OoC: Now we just have to rescue 10 ½ more boars and we’ll go up a level.

Shev OoC: How do we rescue half a boar?

Miya OoC: Piglet.

Arram OoC: Yeah, Young template would do it.

Piglet: Oh, bother.

Shev OoC: Did that pig just talk?

 

At least we've dealt with the crazed rat problem, and can return to Selversgard as Perfectly Adequate Substitute Adventurers. We’ll send a few letters to Magnimar with the next load of timber, and see if we can find an ID for the dead bard. And then Gonno can start carving a set of alphabet blocks for the ratfolk’s offspring - they’re not a species that put off parenting until middle age. 

 

Next Adventure : a year and a month from now!