Beast Notes

Need to take some notes about my upcoming Beast game. Players stay out.

Character Creation: Demon: The Descent

If you're just joining us, it was just shy of five and half fucking years ago when I started doing this character creation project. The idea was simple: Make a character, using the book rules, for every game I own.

The problem was that I kept accumulating more games. And then, two events occurred that basically ensured I'd never be finished. First was the emergence of bundles for charity, which let me spend $25 or so and get upwards of $1000 worth of RPGs. And then came Kickstarter.

So if you clicked that link, you know I've got a bazillion games left to do. I might never finish. But I seem to enjoy such projects, so what the heck. Figure it might be fun to do this game before the Kickstarter ends.

The Game: Demon: The Descent
The Publisher: Onyx Path Publishing
Degree of Familiarity: Very yes. I wrote about a quarter of the book (my lord, really?) and I co-developed it
Books Required: The Demon core (the text of which is on the Kickstarter page because we love you, but I have the pdf of the game in its proof state) and the World of Darkness Rulebook.

 
So! In Demon, you play an angel of the God-Machine that decided, for whatever reason, to abandon its mission and Fall. I came up with the phrase "defected to the human race" in writing the script for the Kickstarter video, and I really wish I'd thought of that earlier, because it's a good way to describe what demons do and to encapsulate the feel of the game. It's a spy story with biomechanical angels. You can go full-on Night's Black Agents with it and run with the spy story (Blowback is also good inspiration on the RPG side of things), or you can be more classical demon and have the characters making pacts and collecting souls.

It's been a good long while since I made a character for any White Wolf game. The last one was (hold on) Hunter: The Reckoning. I have a couple to do; I could make a Ghouls character and I need to do Mummy: The Curse at some point.

Anyway, Step One, as anyone experience in these games knows, is Concept. For a demon, I could start off by thinking about the Fall and what kind of angel I was, or I could start off by thinking of my demon circumstances and do history later. I think I shall do the latter.

My character wants to make sure he never gets caught without a Cover again. It isn't that he doesn't like being in his demonic form; he does, in the same way that a person might like to skinny-dip. It feels nice, even natural, but it makes him feel exposed. (This could bring up all kinds of erotic subtext to the whole "share Aether with another demon in demonic form" thing, but let's save that.) I say "again," which implies it happened once.

He was sent down to the Earth as an angel with a simple enough mission - escort a truck from Toledo to Florida. His Cover was a drug courier (fun fact: I75, which runs all the way from Detroit to the coast, is nicknamed "Cocaine Lane"). Now, whether this was the result of demonic interference or just bad luck, the truck got stopped in Tennessee and raided. In case of police interference, he was supposed to cut and run. Instead, he went loud.

The press still isn't sure what to say about the "Highway Holocaust" that claimed 44 lives, many of the police officers. There are reports that it rained fire, but no one really believes that. He fled, and eventually wound up in the fair city of Wherever This Game is Set.

(Now, do note: Angels don't go loud. That means he was already a demon when the shit hit the fan. I'll get to that).

Anyway, somewhere along the way he bought a Cover from another demon, in the form of a soul pact. He claimed the guy's soul and existence; turns out it was a pretty good one. The guy was an adjunct professor of film with very little family, so not much to trip him up.

OK, good start. Now numbers. Step Two: Attributes.

Well, this guy seems pretty Mental to me. I'll put one of my five points into each, and then the rest into Wits.

Secondary...hrm. If he's gonna convince people to sign pacts, he'd better have some chops socially. But y'know, actually, I think I'll go Physical, here, because I think all of his social stuff will be done through Skills. So, yeah, two points into Strength, one each into Dex and Stamina.

So that's social tertiary, so I'll one each, for 2 across the board.

Step Three: Skillz. I want Social first. I'll put four into Persuasion, two into Socialize and Subterfuge, and one each into Empathy, Intimidation and Streetwise.

Hrm, Mental or Physical secondary? He needs some Mental for his Cover, but nothing says he has to be especially good at it (that's what Legend is for). I'll make Physical secondary. Two each into Athletics and Firearms, and one each into Drive, Larceny and Stealth. I want more points.

Mental, finally. Two Academics, one Computer, one Occult.

Step Four: Specialties. Demons get an extra Specialty that's out of place for their Cover. I'll take a Streetwise Specialty in Drug Dealing to represent that. And then I'll take Specialties in Academics (Film), Long Con (Persuasion) and Academia (Socialize).

Step Five: Apply Demon Template. Now's the fun stuff. I know my Incarnation (Psychopomp) and Agenda (Tempter, but with Inquisitor leanings). And I have to address his real catalyst.

So, this guy was driving his truck full o' drugs (still an angel), and he was thinking about the drugs. He knew, on one level, what they were and on a chemical level what they did, and wondered what it was about humans that made them self-destruct. And the conclusion he came to was not so dissimilar to the point Don Marquis makes in "The Lesson of the Moth" - it's better to burn up and be happy than live long and be bored. And he's not sure at what point he Fell, but he knows it was sometime between realizing there was beauty in self-destruction and setting a big section of the road ablaze.

OK, now Embeds and Exploits, which is the bit I wrote. Let's see. As a Psychopomp, I have to take a Mundane Embed, so let's do that first.

Cuckoo's Egg appeals, given my character's history as a smuggler, but I think Meaningless is better for what he does not (good to use on people to show his subtle power over the mind). I'll take Merciless Gunman and hope that my ST is cool enough to use the Down and Dirty Combat rules. I think Find the Leak is also useful for what he wants to accomplish (Heart's Desire would also make sense, but I have a sense of this guy's tactics and he'd rather go the Ricky Roma route and talk people down until they sign).

And I think I'd like an Exploit, yeah? I think I'll take Possession, by way of Find the Leak - getting someone talking is getting into their head, Possession is just a more literal way to do that.

I need to decide which Embed is my first Key. I think I'll make it Merciless Gunman. Why? Not sure. I like the idea that everything about this guy that is all social and convincing is what he's made of himself - but the God-Machine had a much more brutal purpose in mind for him.

Demonic form! I get three Modifications, two Technologies, one Process and one Propulsion. I know I want to take Rain of Fire, which I believe is a Process, but let's see. Yep. OK, that's my Process down. I'll take EMP Field as a Modification. I'm feeling like this guy's demonic form is lean, slithery, and covered in coruscating lightning, but otherwise black. I'll take Inhuman Reflexes and Electrical Sight as my other Modifications. For my Technologies, I'll take Mind Reading (wisps of black ick that come from his head and attach to his target's) and Frost Aura (not sure why, just kind of sounds cool - HAW!).

Ahem. That leaves a Propulsion. I think Phasing would be fun.

Step Six: Merits. And now, a conundrum. I would sort of like to have a backup Cover for this guy; it's very much in-theme. But practically, doing that means spending six of my 10 Merit dots (5 to raise Primum and one to buy the Cover). Buying just the Primum is a better deal, slightly. But I think I'm gonna leave it, for now. My demon wants to have a bunch of Covers built up, but he's not powerful enough to use them. Yet.

That gives me 10 dots to spend on Merits. Lessee now. I'd like to take Quick Draw, but that would require a Specialty in Firearms. Hrm. Ah, crap, can't take Fast Talking, either. Should've thought that through when I did Attributes. Hrm. Well, I'll take Pusher, anyway. And definitely Sympathetic; that's just too perfect. I'll take Multiple Agendas (Tempter-Inquisitor), what the heck. If I were making this character in a group with a Storyteller, I'd ask about any local Agencies and whether taking Status or Contacts would be appropriate, but since I'm not, I'll assume he's new to the area. I will take Status (University) at one dot (basically I've got a shared office and a parking pass).

Four more dots. Well, I've never gone wrong with Fast Reflexes, so since I can't take Quick Draw, I'll take that at 2 dots. And then for my last two, I'll take take Efficient Dealer. I know, I know, it's in the Player's Guide and you haven't read it yet, and technically it requires an Academics Specialty in Law, but I think I'll have the author change that to an appropriate Specialty in any Skill (so my Specialty in Long Con would apply).

Step Seven: Advantages. Mostly these are easy; Size 5, Willpower 4, Cover 7, Primum 1, Defense 4, Speed 10, Initiative 6 (including Fast Reflexes). His Vice is Exposed - it feels good to be naked in public, but it's a bad idea. His Virtue is Self-Reliant. He's not a social creature by nature, but he's got a clear idea of what he wants to be.

I need Aspirations, two short-term, one long. For the short, I take "Become full-time faculty" (this would be long-term for a human, but he plans to cheat) and "Secure a soul-pact" so he has somewhere to go if he has to go loud again. For the long-time, I take "Become a renowned pact-dealer." He wants to be the guy that demons come to when they need pacts written or traded.

Oh, and I need a name. Hrm. He thinks of himself as "the Courier." His initial Cover wasn't given a name (which he's never really stopped to think about - what was his mission, really?). The name of the guy whose identity he stole is Jacob Grettinger.

Steps Eight and Nine are prelude related, which I'd do with a Storyteller if I had one. But for our purposes, I think we're good!

GenCon 2013! - GM Report Card

I'm a little late getting this one, and of course it's maybe a little funny I'm writing it while I'm at FanExpo (I've got some time before my first panel), but y'know, better to do it while I have a moment. So!

Early GenCon is as it often is: largely devoid of life (I mean, by comparison), and Cardhalla is still being built.

You only get a "before" picture this year because I wasn't around when it fell. 

But that isn't to say that thronging crowds of people were far off! I'm led to understand that attendance was up considerably this year.

Ah, throngs.

I wound up spending a good deal of time in the dealer's room, mostly on Sunday. But I did manage to photograph some strange and beautiful things, such as this freaking amazing cave thingie.

Admit it, you want to make a dwarf character now. 

Did some gaming, as well. I played in two games: Deadlands Noir and Better Angels. And now we get into the "GM Report Card" bit.

Deadlands Noir is, as the name suggests, the Deadlands setting but placed into a noir context, complete with detectives and grifters and femme fatales and so on. We were in New Orleans, and my character was one of the aforementioned grifters - somewhat like the hucksters of Deadlands Reloaded, but without the ability to deal with the Devil (which I missed, and would probably import if I run this). We also had an undead detective (Harrowed), a mad scientist (Michelle, talking fast) and a couple of other folks that I don't remember offhand - one was the femme fatale.

Basic plot: The Big Sleep. Maybe Chinatown, a little. Find the millionaire's missing daughter and wife. Things come to light; the wife was cheating and generally unpleasant, so maybe it's not such a big deal if she doesn't come home. Dude has a son that supposedly died in a flood on their old estate. We wound up at said estate, and the lost son had become an alligator-monster and tried to eat us.

All in all, this is fine and in-setting. The GM got into his NPCs, used a lot of different voices, and kept the names straight (which, given the number of secondary characters, is impressive)

The problem actually came with the system. Savage Worlds is a crunchy, minis-based game. It loses a lot, IMO, if you don't use it, including maps and tokens and so forth. And we just kind of winged positioning and movement during the fights, which means that some of us (the folks with spells and other wonky powers) kind of got shafted because we can't think tactically.

But the other issue is, the last fight involving the gator-dude just dragged out, because said gator-dude has a really high Vigor and armor and a high Parry, which means we can't hit him, and when we do we can't damage him. Which would be fine - we have to work for our hits - but then the GM spent bennies to soak and unshake, and now we're back to the grind. We got out by using some clever tactics, but it felt like the GM was really married to one moment and kind of shoved us into that. My grade: B+

Noir game, so kind of a dark picture. 

Food trucks! I love them, though the lines are long. But you do get to people-watch. Or rabbit-watch.

Hey, Rocky! Watch me pull a magician out of my hat!

Surrounded by severed legs. Art?

Ran afoul of a gorgon. 

Back to the dealer's room, we put some stuff up in the Cheese Weasel section. If you look carefully you'll see a copy of curse the darkness in there.

And in the dealer's room proper, you can see some of my favorite people!

Eloy's a saint. John and Kristen...aren't, but I love them both anyway. 

Friday night was the Ennies. curse the darkness was nominated for Best Electronic Product. It was really a contest for the Silver, because there was a Deadlands product in that category and I knew we wouldn't beat that, because of the way the voting is structured if nothing else (and I'm by no means upset about that - just means we need more visibility for Daedalus next year!).

The venue was really cool:

Waiting for a laser and big ball of popcorn. 

And we got to see Leonard Balsera sing "Take On Me" and completely rock it. So it was all good, even though we lost to Hobomancer and (as expected) Deadlands: The Last Sons.

Next morning (which I guess would have been Saturday), I had a game to run at Games on Demand. So!

Kira, stylin'. 

She's running Dresden Files. Note the awesome board for scene Aspects. 

I wound up running curse the darkness (it was that or Tragedy). I had three players, and they put us in Boston, following an earthquake, and were trying to get their doctor another doctor. None of them played Openers, and the Between was largely ignored. I never realized how great a source of Between Points having Openers really is; they went pretty much unnoticed by Them the whole time. The Removal Challenges came from aftershocks, and that worked just fine. 

Lined up on the wall, ready to die. 

 We finished up early, so I did a stint in the dealer's room.

Kristen, still not a saint. 

Topher and Renee, trying to fix a broken robot. 

And then it was time for Better Angels! This is a one-roll engine game in which you play supervillains possessed by demons. The demon in question (played by the person on your left) will help you out and activate your powers, but it'll ask you to do horrible things. If you're eeeeevil enough, you can avoid doing really terrible, actually evil things. It's a cool premise, and I backed the Kickstarter (and later picked up my copy).

The GM kinda got thrown into running at the last minute, and it sort of showed - pregens, but all handwritten. I personally think we should have made the characters, because the game's terms and systems aren't immediately intuitive and making characters might have helped with that. But the game was fun, the GM listened to us, and it went pretty well. My grade: A-

Also Michelle played a tennis-themed villain named "Zero Love."

And, finally, Sunday, official day of shopping.

Ballonthulhu! 

A Klingon, a Wookie, and a pirate playing in a band. I don't remember what song. 

Will, with his swag.

Game Write-Ups Before the Long Road

We're leaving tomorrow, but not on a jet plane. A jet Civic, I guess. Heading for Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Missouri, and then home. I enjoy road trips, I really do, and I'll be doing a running travelogue with pictures and everything!

But for now: Pirates.

Last time we met, we didn't really play much, because Sarah drank something she shouldn't have and got sick. So this time, we had our ambush set up. We got to the island, and found that Jack Snow's treasure was buried (supposedly) in the ruins of an old fort. We set up four cannons, armed two of them with chain shot, and angled them so as to bottleneck any incoming thieves. Then we hid and waited.

Captain Mauser and his crew came aboard, looking for the treasure of the "frosted captain," and we let fly with the chain shot, killing Mauser and several of his people. Blaine stepped around the corner (choking down bile, since he's afraid of blood) and told the survivors to stand down. Morgan rounded the cannons - and they agreed.

We tied them up, and left our captain and a couple of sailors to watch them, while we got on their boats and headed back to the Poseidon's Due. They'd left a few men behind, but we boarded and jumped them. It took some doing - one fellow in the crow's nest had a device that spat fire! But they were outnumbered, and soon enough they were incapacitated.

We discovered that the fire-spitting device was the clapper to the bell, the one that puts people to sleep. So now we have this weird artifact, and two ships...and next time (which is a while from now), we'll flip to the modern day, and find out what has become of these mystical artifacts in the ensuing centuries.

And then, last night, the exciting conclusion to our Demon: The Descent game: How An Angel Dies.

The characters, you'll recall, were in quite a pickle. Will was facing off against the demon-wolf, Marchosias, with Edgar and Luke nearby. Simon had sucker-punched Jamie, and Amy had caught her as she plummeted earthward. And Saskia was stuck in her own little reality-bubble.

Marchosias was cowed, but the characters weren't really sure what to do with him. Edgar used Interference, but instead of scattering the demon-energy around, he tried to focus it all on Marchosias. He did that, and Saskia, stuck in her bubble, saw the world around her in faint, blue-light outlines. And then a wave of...well, light started washing toward her, destroying and resetting everything in its path.

Back in the world, Edgar warned everyone to lie low. Everyone but Will (who was keeping the wolf at bay) dropped back into human form. And then the wave hit.

It filled their Aether pools, so that's good news, but it also reset everything. When the dust cleared, several of them were injured, the Aether scorching them, but it was April 21, 1962. The time-bubble had reset. Marchosias was gone. Amy looked at him with Clairvoyant Sight, and saw him back in his fire-pit. They broke into the house (now empty and not destroyed) and found the basement to be a bit warm...he was trapped again. They looked in on Simon, and he was on top of the Space Needle in present-day, looking sad. Had this reset been the Lambent's mission?

They took a cab to Fremont, hoping to use the Troll's car to get back...and found the gate closed. That left the Space Needle, but they were worried about that, seeing as how a) it's public and b) not all of them can fly. Will suggested going through the Underworld and emerging in modern day, and Luke agreed it might work. He used Rip the Gates, and the six of them trouped through the Underworld, and emerged through an Avernian Gate in the basement of a coffee shop, staffed by a barista called Charlie.

They went to the Troll, and learned that a crazy guy with a hammer had wandered down the street and smashed up the Troll's car. That, then, had been the Lambent's mission. Looking in on Simon again, they found him to be in an office at the Space Needle - apparently he works there. They went there, bluffed their way in (Authorized), and took an audience with him. Will made it quite clear he'd love to kill him, but they were willing to talk.

Simon told them his plan had been for Marchosias to wriggle through the portal into modern Seattle and burn it, but he hadn't known about the Lambent (if he had, he'd have angel-jacked the Lambent himself). The others reminded him that, y'know, they live here, but Simon acknowledged that - he just wanted to see the city burn. Will made it clear that when/if word got out about what he tried to do, it wasn't just this ring he'd have to deal with, and Simon understood that. Jamie said that, instead of trying to end the world to work through his issues, maybe he should just come down to the bar and have a drink?

Simon agreed that, in light of the day/night he'd had, that might be preferable. And so that's where we end - heading to the bar to have a drink and talk this out, like reasonable demons.

Origins 2013: General Update and GM's Report Card

I started doing GM's Report Cards for con games a few years ago, and while I've never managed to recapture the magic of the one year that I played a bunch of games at Origins that were all fantastic and all well-run (seriously, lightning in a fucking bottle), this year was pretty spiffy. Let's begin!

We left Cleveland on Wednesday morning and got to the hotel without incident, with a stop at Grandpa's Cheese Barn because duh, Grandpa's Cheese Barn. We arrived at the hotel and Michelle picked up her trusty steed.

Wait, what? Well, Michelle had a little gardening mishap last week and sprained her ankle, and the doctor recommended against walking too much. As you know, "walking too much" is an Origins staple, so she got a scooter:

Scooty-puff junior? 

Meanwhile, we had dropped Sarah off at the entrance to the Convention Center with our booth stuff, and I met her in the exhibit hall to set up the booth.

Sparse.

 The booth in its larval form. I hadn't seen the exhibit hall during set-up in a long time, and it was kind of cool to see everyone unpacking boxes and getting ready for the craziness of the weekend. Little did we know, the craziness was already in the house.

Sarah and I heard a loud boomy kind of noise, but I figured someone just dropped a big box or a pallet or something. But then we saw that the lights were out in half the exhibit hall, and then they told us to evacuate. Whoa.

We went outside, figuring it was just a blown transformer (do not Google that phrase if you value your childhood). And then came the emergency vehicles.

All of them, I think.

I apologize profusely for catching this woman in this pose, I just wanted the fire truck.

So Sarah and I sat on the grassy knoll (not gnoll) and waited. And then we got bored and walked around to the Hyatt so we could catch up with Michelle. We eventually got back into the dealer's room and completed the booth:

Note no copies of Tragedy, which John helpfully drove down later that evening.

I was scheduled to play in a game of All Flesh Must Be Eaten, but it got canceled, so we went to dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse. On the way there, we saw protesters.

Because nothing says "God's love" like "passive aggressive emo violence."

I have no idea what they were protesting. Maybe us, but that'd be a first. Maybe Pride, but that's a couple of weeks away. Maybe just immorality in general. Michelle's comment was: "I want to walk up and tell him, 'I'll listen if you let her talk.'"

Anyway, after delicious meat-face (ever been to a Brazilian steakhouse? Let's just say it's not vegan friendly) we went back to the hotel and crashed out for the evening.

Next morning, I had a Games on Demand slot to run, but there were more GMs than necessary (this would be a repeated theme), so I wound up playing in a game of Psi-Run. Now, Psi-Run is available here, and I just bought it, and you should,, too. You're playing a group of psychic folks with amnesia, chased by sinister agents who want to bring you back. What's "back?" You need to delve into your own memories to find out (you make characters by posing questions about your powers, your weaknesses, and your past).

Our game was pretty darned cool. Three players: Myself, and then a guy and his son. The kid did pretty well with it; a little excitable, but not at all age-inappropriate, and he seemed to enjoy it. He wound up captured and we broke into the prison to save him, and all wound up captured, but then teleporting to the other guy's uncle's cabin in Vermont.

The GM made it cool, but unfortunately he was also the one kind of hosting the GoD booth, so he wound up getting up and dealing with GoD-related stuff, which made it hard to build any momentum. In a game that's basically a long chase scene, momentum is pretty critical. That said, one of the reasons is was so frustrating was because the game was so much fun, so that speaks well of it (like I said, just bought it, planning to run it for some of my players).

GM's Grade: B+

The kid is lying down because his character is unconscious. 

So from there, we got some lunch, and the Michelle and I got to play in a game of Rotted Capes. This is basically Marvel Zombies: The Unlicensed RPG. Well, that's maybe not fair, because MZ has a lot of backstory and tone that Rotted Capes doesn't, but it's still a mashup of super heroes and zombies. I'd backed their Kickstarter, and wanted to try it out. I got to play Arc-Lightning (or, as the character sheet, "Arch-Lighting"), an ex-super villain archer.

This game was a lot of fun. The GM wound up being a little late, having literally just rolled out of bed, but once he was there he kept things moving and responded well to player suggestions and craziness (and considering it was his first time running the scenario, I'll forgive him reading directly from the text). He knew the game well, and since Rotted Capes has a not at all simplistic system (it's not overdone, it's just involved), that's good. I was a little frustrated that while my character could hit accurately, damaging zombies was an issue, but that's maybe something I could fix with a few tweaks. Michelle really enjoyed the game, so I might wind up running it for my folks at some point.

GM's Grade: A-

That huge pile of dice is mine. They weren't all necessary. SHUT UP.

So then we got some dinner at the food court and I had to go back to Games on Demand, where I had priority since I didn't get to run in the morning. I had folks there (a couple of whom had played in Rotted Capes) who wanted to play curse the darkness, so who am I to argue?

The game was set in Cairo, and the characters had rigged up an irrigation system...only to see the Nile stop flowing (I know, right?). They investigated, but the first Removal Challenge came after they procured camels;  the beasts stampeded, dragging one of the characters down the street and killing him, which is our first camel-related fatality in curse the darkness.

The second Removal Challenge, though, came off with no fatalities and everyone making the essential choice, and they discovered a man in the Between, comatose, apparently keeping a big enough shadow Open to let the Nile flow into it. The Opener they had with them closed the shadow, and they rescued him. The story ended with more questions (like, how long had he been there and how'd he do that?), but that's how I roll.

Everyone seemed to have fun and a couple of them came and bought the game afterwards, so I'll call that a win. :)

Watch out. They spit. And kill.

 That was Thursday, then. Friday I worked at the booth for a little while in the morning, and then got some lunch with David and Filamena and their kiddos, which was nice. We had to get back for a game of Cold Steel Wardens, which I'd also backed on Kickstarter. No pictures this time, I'd forgotten my camera.

So, Cold Steel Wardens is based on Iron Age comics; Dark Knight Rises, Watchmen, and the kind of grim, grittier superhero stories that we all know and love. Characters, therefore, are supposed to be somewhat darker and willing to, y'know, murder. And that's all fine. I enjoyed the game and I'm looking forward to seeing it finished. I have a few issues, though.

First, the system (roll a dice pool of d10s, 6+ is a "hit", 1s cancel hits) has a lot of what Michelle rightly referred to as "design remnants". Things like 1s cancelling successes, which was a bad idea in OWoD and it's a bad idea in general, because it's a) one more thing to remember and b) makes you worse at things as your pool gets bigger. And the game has a lot of that, little extra fiddly things that could probably be cut in the service of focusing the game a little more. Which leads me to...

...the system doesn't serve the game very well. As is, it's a servicable supers engines, but there's very little in it that marks it as Iron Age. That said, I don't have a suggestion right offhand, but I personally feel that a game's mechanics should reflect what it does, rather that the game engine just being a physics engine and the game's text doing the work of creating the narrative.

Also, some (not all) of the characters we had were too derivative. Michelle's characters was introduced as "basically Rorschach." Well...that's kinda lazy. I mean, "inspired by" is fine, "like," is fine, but for one thing Rorschach is a complete bastard and he's hard to play, and for another, it serves your game better to make up characters that showcase the game well.

That said, my character was pretty cool - former EMT who developed the power of phasing and fought crime as Sawbones, wearing a surgical mask and a trenchcoat. I didn't like a lot of the flaws he was given, but the concept was neat, and lent itself to some fun tactics.

The game was basically "ambush the drug dealers and kill them," so we did that. The GM obviously likes his game, so that's nice. Five demerits for not letting us keep the character sheets, though.

GM's Grade: B

So then I worked the booth for a while, and then went to Games on Demand, hoping to run Demon: The Descent or A Tragedy in Five Acts. Problem was, while there were a lot of players, there were also a lot of GMs, and I wound up without a table. I knocked around a bit trying to find something to do, but in the end decided to stay up in the room with Michelle and watch a movie on Netflix and recharge. That was a smart decision, as it happens.

So then Saturday! I spent a lot of time in the booth on Saturday, as my friends Andrea and Corey got married at Origins (like, it was in the event book and everything), and Michelle and Sarah both wanted to go. I did, however, see Daredevil wandering around (though I assume he didn't see me).

Hooray for Blindy!

During my booth-time, I Tweeted a bit about wanting to run Demon. And lo and behold, someone hit me back and said he was available. I just had a game of CthulhuTech to play first.

Well, actually, no, it got cancelled, so we played Demon: The Descent that evening at the Games on Demand room. The game was fun; the Integrator betrayed everyone and gotten ripped to shreds by the Destroyer and the Psychopomp. And then said Destroyed exploded because he bit the head off an angel right after the angel had activated self-destruct (weird game). 

We finished up fairly early, and wanted to play Pandemic with our amigo and contributor to The Road to Hell on Earth, Jonathan Lavallee. But he was stuck in a game of Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, as Rocket Raccoon.  

No, really.

Here's the thing about running Marvel: If your GM is sitting on 5d12 in the Doom Pool for an hour, it's time to fuck off and play Pandemic. So there ya go! We saved the world from disease. You're welcome. 

So then we hung out for a while, chatted about game design and our upcoming cyberpunk game, and then eventually crashed out.

And then Sunday. Sunnnnday.

I had the 9AM shift at Games on Demand again, and once again, lots of players, but lots of GMs. But I wasn't taking it lying down this time, and got a little more assertive about running, and boom! I got to run Demon: The Descent again. Four players, with very different spins on the characters than last time (they also glommed on to Agenda a bit more than the others). One player had to duck out early, so got stuck in a Solitary Confinement caused by a cell phone, but the others destroyed the Infrastructure forming on Port Angelus and then got the heck away before more angels showed up. The fellow on the right in the picture, by the way, is Peter Adkison, who was a lot of fun to play with.

Angels don't tap their feet to the music. Demons do. 

After that, it was all booth all the time until 4PM, when the booth closed and it was time to pack up and head out! We took turns doing some shopping; I picked up swag, which I will show you:

RPGs.

Board games.

Origins was good this year. Our first year with a booth, and so it was expensive. But the gaming was good, we got to hang out with some awesome people, and I'm hoping we can figure a way to get some booth space next year.

How an Angel Dies: Part 4

Wednesday, we played our fourth and probably penultimate session in How an Angel Dies, the SAS for Demon: The Dysphagia. If you want a refresher, last session is here.

So, the first thing we did was spend some experiences. Michelle bought the Fungible Knowledge Embed, and then plugged that into her Cipher (formerly known as Interlock Matrix). Her character experienced an epiphany, and achieved her first Interlock: She can convert her own Skill dots into Willpower, temporarily, to refresh her Willpower pool (so if you're going into a fight and you don't reckon you'll need to know how to whittle, you can convert Crafts to Willpower). She also gained a dot of Primum and gained a permanent glitch: her voice echoes slightly.

Edgar hung out in the lobby as the second act of the ballet progressed, and wound up missing something important (he rolled Perception, failed, took the dramatic failure for a Beat). Whatever that was, though, that let him ask the next question for his Cipher. Now he knew that the next Embed for his Cipher was a) in the Vocal category and b) used Wits. That narrowed it down to one of five. Figuring that Voice of the Machine was the most likely (or at least the most interesting), he spent some experience and bought it, and then, crossing his fingers, tried it in his Cipher.

Success! He, too, gained Primum and a glitch (tattoo of a wristwatch on his wrist; it'll start moving and ticking if he gets temporary glitches), but also his first Interlock: He can divert an angel to another target, which can give him a reprieve or make someone else's life hard. But all of this doesn't help him to figure out what he's missing.

He feels a ping of Aether, as do several of the demons in the house. Will goes out to investigate, but sees nothing. The show ends, and the characters follow the cultists out. Saskia buys the Across a Crowded Room Embed, and attempts to use it, but fails. She takes the dramatic failure for the Beat, and can only whisper for the next hour. She also notices Will's shadow detach itself and slither across the room to attach itself to one of the cultists.

The characters mean to follow the cultists, who go to the parking lot and pile into two cars, but they realize belatedly that they didn't procure a way to do that. Luke hails a cab at the taxi stand, and Jamie uses Lucky Break - it's a checker cab, and those thing seat nine. They also wind up with a cabbie who's a little on the shady side, and totally willing to play "follow those guys."

They ride through town to Bellevue, into Redmond, into a subdivision full of identical, 50s housing. They get out of the cab and follow the cultists to a house in a cul-de-sac, and Amy sneaks up to the window to peak in. Sadly, she fails the Stealth roll and (again) the player takes the DF for the Beat. She doesn't see the cultists...but she sees someone sign at her, "I'll be right out."

They figure (correctly) that he's a demon. He walks out and introduces himself as Simon Flannery. He chats with the characters for a moment, claims not to know Gordon or have any idea what he was up to, and claims that this cult is just an experiment - he wants to push the limits of the time splinters. Will mentions that he wasn't expecting such a polite confrontation, and is a little disappointed (he's a Saboteur through and through); Simon says that, since they've brought this "cult is getting more important" thing to his attention, he'd better go and make sure it doesn't get worse. Edgar asks him what would happen if he stops the ritual now, and Amy uses Freudian Slip, just to see.

Simon snaps, "Then all my hard work would be fucked."

(As an aside, I don't know that Freudian Slip should work on demons, certainly not without a resistance roll of some kind, since it technically forces an honest reaction. Since it was a PC using it on an NPC, however, and since said NPC has kind of a low Cover, I was fine with it. Context, people.)

Anyway, Simon, realizing he's fucked (the characters hadn't really been believing his line anyway), turns around, bursts into demonic form and dives into the ground, phasing into the basement. Will and Edgar both change to demonic form. Edgar crashes through the picture window and runs halfway down the stairs, where he sees the cultists performing their highly stylized ritual. Will smashes through the front door ("OH YEAH!") and gets to the top of the stairs.

Amy changes to demonic form and uses Clairvoyant Sight on Simon, since she's met him. He's surrounded by fire, apparently about to punch upwards. Amy says, "He's in a pit of fire!"

Jamie says, "A pit of fire? You mean the firepit?" and uses Play on Words. They run around to the backyard, where, indeed, Simon is standing in the barbecue pit that houses in this era almost always had, and is looking very confused.

With Blind Sense, Edgar can tell there's a stone slab in the basement, below which is a hollow. He relays this to Will. But then Simon uses Swift Resolution (which is a gamble, because while it ends the conflict, it means he loses because he's clearly outgunned). I got an exceptional success, so I stipulated that the characters couldn't kill him. But they chose to stop him. He changes to human form and holds up his hands.

This could have been the end of it...but then Will decided to get dramatic. He jumps down the stairs and smashes the stone slab in, taking most of the foundation out (using Shatter). And lo, Marchosias was released.

The demon-wolf was apparently trapped beneath the house, an immense, fire-breathing monster. The cultists are already dead, killed by the destroyed of the slab and the backblast from below, but now the beast is free.

Edgar uses his newly acquired Voice of the Machine Embed and learned that the Lambent was incoming - apparently they'd missed their chance to angel-jack.

Saskia uses Combustion to make the stones around Marchosias more flammable, figuring maybe he'd burn himself up. Luke uses Multiple Images (himself now in demonic form) to confuse the demon-wolf, which works; the wolf snaps at them. Edgar and Will get out of the basement, and Marchosias breathes fire. The whole place goes up in an inferno.

Meanwhile, Simon changes back to demon form and takes to the air, using his wings. Amy and Jamie follow, starting a chase.

Marchosias leaps out of the pit, burning and angry. Luke teleports up and tries to grab Simon, but misses. He alters his descent to land on Marchosias, and the demon-wolf yelps like a wounded dog (but otherwise, it growls like a diesel engine). Edgar tries to banish it using what he remembers from The Lesser Key of Solomon, but nothing happens. Saskia spends more experience to buy Solitary Confinement (not an Embed!), and tries to imprison the wolf in an oubliette, but again, fails and takes the dramatic failure. She vanishes into her own little prison-dimension.

Jamie catches up with Simon and grabs him, but he punches her and uses Knockout Punch. She plummets toward the earth, and Amy flies down to catch her, but now Simon is far ahead of them.

Will calls up his Intimidating Aura and roars at Marchosias, and the wolf backs off into the fire and snarls. He's cowed it for the moment, but Simon is gone, Saskia is trapped, Jamie is unconscious, Amy is carrying her, and the Lambent is apparently en route.

Tune in next time, and find out the exciting conclusion of How An Angel Dies!

How an Angel Dies, Part 3: Into the Past!

So! Last time, the characters met Comrade West, learned that they had an angel en route that they could theoretically jack, and learned that they could travel back in time.

Yeah, that last one was kind of weird for everyone.

Well, the next evening (I'm a big fan of treating games like TV series, so fading out and then fading back in when it would be most interesting, rather than tracking every minute of the characters' lives), they all got together at the bar again. Jamie called up Comrade West and asked him about the portal to the 60s. He came to the bar, rather than talk about it on the phone.

West strolled in, wearing a new Cover (he later mentioned that he goes through Covers like some people go through condoms), and talked with the characters about the portal. He told them that Seattle has a few of these "fractures," places that allowed for travel into the past - but it wasn't really time travel. These places seemed to go in cycles, and folks in these pasts can't change things in the present, because the fractures reset themselves (for example, in 1962 it's always the World's Fair). West did say, though, that some manipulation of the past is possible - a clever demon can established a generational aspect to a Cover, making the Cover harder to blow. The demons discussed the implications of all this, but it sounds very God-Machine-y to them.

But if this "Simon" character is going into the past and shoring up an apocalyptic cult (the Fellowship of the Final Awakening), that probably bears investigation, because nothing good ever comes of doomsday cults. The characters therefore spend some time hunting down vintage clothing, and then head down to the Troll.

There, they find a couple of tourists climbing on the Troll and taking pictures. Jamie and Saskia grab cameras and start taking pictures. Jamie winds up taking a dramatic failure on a roll for a Beat, and when Saskia takes her picture on her smartphone, a man in a black suit walks around the corner, wearing shades. He doesn't speak, and the characters realize that he's probably an angel (remember that Jamie has the Flagged Condition from the little incident on the bridge, last session).

Everyone else Spoofs, appearing human to the angel, but Jamie doesn't risk it (she also has to convince it that she's human without Spoofing to resolve the Condition). She takes its picture, and sees, instead of skin, a blue circuitry pattern - definitely an angel. Will, noting this, puts a hand on his gun, but Jamie is chatty and vivacious and eventually the angel leaves, apparently believing that they're all human.

During all this, Edgar notices a ticket stub on the ground. Picking it up, he sees it's from the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico, dated September 2, 1962. It's got some grime on it, looks like it's been here a while (but not 50 years). This might give the characters a starting place.

The couple leaves, and they crawl through the window of the Beetle into yesterday. Now they're in Fremont, which in 1962 is pretty unpleasant. They walk up the hill into a more civilized area and find a newspaper - it's Saturday, September 1st, 1962. The ballet is tomorrow night. Edgar uses In My Pocket to pull out some money from the era, and they hop a cab to the World's Far. Jamie uses Lucky Break as they enter a hotel lobby - someone just cancelled their reservation, allowing Edgar to book a room. With accommodations handled, they head to a bar and start drinking.

Saskia finds a rich-looking business man and chats him up. As they talk, she uses Addictive Presence on him, fascinating him (but not completely addicting him yet, because it's an extended roll). The businessman, named Roland Wright, is here from Chicago scouting new technology for his company. This, to the characters, seems like a good person to follow, since they're worried that members of the Fellowship in the 60s might wind up being influential people in the modern day.

Will talks with the bartender, and learns that a guy was in here earlier looking for a bodyguard (Will asked the bartender if he knew of anyone looking for such). The bartender produces the guy's card. It just says a name and a number.

Saskia goes upstairs with Roland, the others share their suit. The next day, they decide, they'll head to the Fair and scout around. They do that, and Saskia finds Roland talking with some other businessmen. She goes over to talk with him, and Roland is pretty mortified and doesn't speak with her (giving Saskia an unfortunate lesson in the social mores and gender roles of the day).

The demons go up to the observation deck of the Space Needle, and several of them sense something weird. Not Aether, just...odd. Trying to pinpoint it, they realize it's coming from a window on the lower deck. Amy feigns a fainting spell, and Luke (a doctor, remember) and the others draw the crowd around her. Edgar, meanwhile, opens the lock, opens the window, and sticks his head out.

He's looking out over modern-day Seattle...but only with his head through the window. The window is another portal, but not an easy on to access, apparently. Edgar can't fly, and doesn't wish to crawl out and climb down, so he closes the window, Amy "recovers," and life goes on.

Saskia had asked Roland to get them all tickets to the ballet, but when she goes back to the room (he gave her a key in the morning), he's moved his stuff out. Feeling perhaps a little salty, she rejoins the others, and they go to procure their own tickets. That's easy enough, though they wind up split, three on one side of the auditorium and three on the other, but now they need evening wear.

They head to the Bon Marche, get fitted for tuxes and gowns, and Jamie goes up to pay, and uses Lucky Break. She's only charged for her dress, which is good, as the characters don't have enough old-timey money for everything, but they also don't have a huge ethical problem with this, so they take their clothes and go.

That night, at the show, Amy, Jamie and Will sit on house left, while Edgar, Luke and Saskia sit house right. They watch the show, and Luke spends a point of Aether and sends out a "ping," looking for other demons (this is risky, because if there are angels around they might notice, but they figure it's a calculated risk). A man in the center of the house, near the front, perks up and starts looking around. Edgar activates Sense the Angelic, but doesn't sense anything, so they figure the man is either stigmatic or some other kind of sensitive. Jamie uses Across a Crowded Room to whisper to Luke "Everything OK?" Luke signs back (since demons all know sign language, as we realized yesterday) that the man in question seemed to notice the Aetheric "ping."

Intermission comes. The man gets up, and the characters notice that he's apparently talking with a half-dozen other folks sitting with him. He walks out, followed by a younger, tougher-looking guy - Will figures this is the guy that was looking for a bodyguard yesterday. They follow him out, and into the men's room, but the bodyguard is just standing watch.

Jamie talks with a couple of the other guys at the bar, and winds up Spoofing instinctively (meaning one of them has a way to check her for being non-human). They don't say anything useful, though, and then head back to their seats. Amy uses Eavesdrop on the group, and realizes that one of them is concerned that this ballet will take too long. But no, the older one reassures him, they'll have plenty of time to get to the site in time for the ritual.

Oh. This, then, would be the Fellowship of the Final Awakening. But what "ritual" are they performing? And does it have anything to do with the Lesser Key of Solomon? Will theorizes that the 35th demon, Marchosias, is the one to watch because JFK (currently in office) is the 35th president.

We shall see.

Demon: Tautology Forecast, part 2

Part one here.

So, the demons got together and realized that we have a Burned demon and a soul pact. Well, that's a match made in Hell, right there. Lucia Sparks, it seems, dies tonight (or rather, has her marker called in).

Krispie and Harriet do a little research and find that Lucia Sparks lives in Cleveland, near the Flats, in a section of town marked by some very expensive apartments. We pile into the RV and head over there, park in a vacant area (there are lots of those). Then we form a basic plan.

Lee takes demonic form and, carrying Tamar, flies up and lands on the roof. The others will enter the building, get up to the roof door, and let him in, and then we'll all go down and get entry to Lucia's place and let Tamar call in the pact. No problem.

I failed the compromise roll for Lee, though, and decided I'd take the Hunted Condition (which, if we were going to play these characters again, might come back to bite me, but it didn't tonight). But Lee assumes demonic form: He's better than 12 feet tall, with big, sheet-metal like wings. His beard gets longer and is made of thin, copper wiring that sparks like a Tesla coil, and his tattoos fade to acid-etchings on metallic skin. He takes to the air with Tamar and, as planned, lands on the roof.

The other folks enter and make their way to Lucia's place. Lee comes down with Tamar (turns out the stairway door is unlocked from the outside). They knock, she answers but doesn't undo the chain. There's a couple of minutes of trying to con our way in (which she's really too smart for, and Krispie's use of Authorized failed), and then Anton decides, screw it, we're here for her soul anyway. He kicks in the door.

Lee uses Hesitation on the poor woman, and Yuri jumps in and uses Knockout Punch. Krispie calls up her EMP Field form power, and Harriet jams the elevator so we don't get surprised from behind. And then the dog wakes up.

There's a little dog sleeping on a doggie bed, but its eyes are huge and black, like a grey alien's. It stands up...and then without moving, it's next to Yuri. Its tail brushes him, and he's across the room, full of bashing damage, feeling like he's been through a wringer.

Lee braces himself, summoning up his Blade Hand (actually a giant stone hammer), but the dog doesn't stand a chance. Yuri takes demonic form, teleports over the "dog," and drops down on it, digging his claws into it. That does aggravated damage, folks. He tears the dog in half.

We let Tamar into the room, and she touches Lucia's unconscious body and holds up the soul pact. And then the soul pact kind of digitizes...as does Lucia. And then that digitization reforms around Tamar, and now she's Lucia.

Anton uses Break to Heal to fix Yuri up (the TV shatters). The rest of us calm down a bit. We talk a little about how Lucia's memories will come back to her a bit (and she marvels in the knowledge that she has work in the morning), but this does make us wonder where the dog came from. Lee looks at it and tries to figure out if it's a Hellhound, but it doesn't seem to be. It might be just a cryptid that's been trained somehow. But then we realized that it's still got some magic in it, because when Yuri pokes it with a stick, the stick disintegrates.

We gather the body up in a blanket, take it to the roof, and Lee nods to Anton. Anton uses Hellfire on his pistol, and Lee throws the blanket out into the night. "Pull!"

Anton shoots it, and it explodes into a fireball. If that doesn't kill it, man...

Since we basically just set off a beacon, though, we decide that going out for drinks and now being here might be wise. So we hit one of the bars (Flat Iron, maybe? I don't remember) and have mojitos, and try and figure out where that dog came from.

Lucia finds some of her business cards, and hands Harriet one. There's an equation on the back. When solved, it yields a phone number and the word "Reese." Harriet calls it, and a mechanized voice answers. She asks about the dog, and "Reese" seems confused, but then says, "oh, we're in that reality?" He indicates he'd be willing to get together and explain that, but the general consensus is that that's a bit more angelic than we're comfortable with. Anyway, Lucia's a demon now, we can all help her get established (Anton especially), so that's all good, right?

Some Demon: The Malachi games end with explosions, some end with mojitos.

Demon Playtest: How An Angel Dies, part 2

Part one is here. All rules and conditions (not Conditions) still apply.

Before we started, I told the players something that their characters would have noticed last time, but that I hadn't mentioned: the George Washington Bridge is Infrastructure. All of it. That must have been a recent thing (existing structures can become Infrastructure, and in some ways the God-Machine prefers to do that because it's more efficient), but unless you're walking on the bridge, not driving across it, you wouldn't notice. But it is, and the smashed phone is a linchpin. Curious.

So, last time, you'll recall, Luke, Amy and Saskia were down by the Fremont Troll with Saskia's new addict. They decided to open a gate to the Underworld, because they'd heard that Regina (the woman who broke the phone up on the bridge, and whom they'd bailed out of jail) had a family member jump off that bridge to his death, so maybe his ghost is around?

Whew.

Anyway, Luke uses Rip the Gates to open up a gate to the Underworld, but could only keep it open for a turn (low Primum), so they all had to rush in. Saskia leaves her addict outside a lookout. In the caverns, they find a young man with a guitar over his shoulder. He introduces himself as Isaac Donahue, Regina's brother.

In talking to him, it becomes clear that he killed himself after losing a lifelong battle with depression. He's been hanging around the bridge ever since, but just recently he just appeared in the Underworld and can't get back to the surface. The characters talk with him a little about what he's seen, and he talks about a guy named Simon (who's "like you, whatever 'you' is", he's informs the demons) who comes down here sometimes at night, crawls through the window of the VW Beetle that the  Troll is holding, and disappears. He returns up to a few days later, but when he does his clothes are different - outdated.

At this point, the addict that Saskia brought with them appears next to them, looking mighty confused. He's got an exit wound in the back of his head; clearly he's been shot. This unnerves the demons to no end (but they are nice enough to inform him to keep walking into the Underworld and pass on). A guardian angel for the bridge, maybe? Isaac writes them a note to give to Regina, and Luke rips another gate, and out they jolly well go.

The addict's body is lying nearby. Saskia, investigating, realizes that someone lean over the bridge and shot him in the forehead, killing him instantly. They decide to call the police and claim to have found the body, rather than risk someone seeing them leave.

Meanwhile, back in the bar, Jamie, Will and Edgar talk with Regina. She's keen to accept whatever the characters want to do for her, including buying her dinner and beer, and she talks about Isaac and the phones (after a little social greasing from Jamie). She says that she was just pissed - the phones are an afterthought. There's no real help for people with mental health issues when they need it, which in Isaac's case would have been in his teens or earlier. She confirms that although Isaac has been dead for a couple of years, she only started smashing the phone a few months ago. She also says that she's seen Isaac on and under the bridge (and is in general not horribly upset by the notion of supernatural stuff), but not recently.

The other characters get back, and Luke uses Idle Conversation so they can talk without freaking Regina or anyone else out. A few of the characters notice that Regina's hair, done up in dreadlocks, has a few strands of what seems at first to be grey, but is actually shiny silver wire. So Regina is stigmatic, but is she in the same group as the cultists from before?

The demons talk with her a bit more, and learn that she's never heard of Gordon Reardon (who, remember, was the demon that the cultists killed, and who indirectly sent the characters to Regina). So why would Gordon care about her? The demons realize that they left that apartment pretty quickly and didn't really give it a good going-over, so they decide to go back. First, though, they give Regina the note from her brother. She breaks down crying, distraught but not terribly confused or disbelieving. Figuring that they'd better keep her here for her own protection, Edgar uses Ellipses on her to keep her rereading the note and drinking a beer until they get back.

They walk down to the apartment building and claim to be residents to the cops watching the place. They get out at Gordon's floor, and there's a cop on the floor as well. Will claims to be dating the guy across the hall, and sells it with some good Manipulation rolls (it helps that demons lie like nobody's business). They walk down to that apartment, Will knocks, and then uses Authorized to gain entry to the guy's flat. Edgar uses Ellipses on the original cop, and they walk across the hall to Gordon's place.

The demons investigate, with Will (and his Trained Observer Merit) taking lead. Jamie, as she has no Investigation, watches the door. Saskia finds a DVD in the player - It Happened at the World's Fair, starring Elvis Presley. Interesting.

Amy finds a police scanner on the floor next to the couch; Will probably knocked it over in the fight.

Edgar finds a copy of the Lesser Key of Solomon on his shelf. They know Gordon had an interest in demonology and cults, so that's maybe not so surprising, but he grabs it to look through it.

(An aside: Demons don't have any particular need to keep notes, since they don't forget. This makes investigation stories a little harder to write. Moving on.)

Luke finds a set of photographs in the bedroom, all of the Troll. Some are day shots; they have an X drawn over them. Three are night shots, one with a street person in the background (that one has an X), and the other two with the window of the Beetle circled. This would seem to tie in to what Luke and the others learned earlier.

Will finds an envelope stuck to the wall, and then painted over. In it is a name: "Priscilla Benedict", along with an address off Aurora Avenue. A contact? A safe house? Only one way to find out.

Jamie manifests her Sense the Angelic power (no need to go full demonic form, here). She senses that, yes, angelic Numina were used her recently, probably from the icy guy that melted her during the fight. But if he's an angel, did the God-Machine want Gordon dead? Where's that angel now? And why didn't Gordon change to demonic form and defend himself?

The characters head back to the bar and free Regina from her loop (she's surprised by how much time has passed). Knowing that the bridge is Infrastructure and having access to a linchpin, they decide to go look around there a bit. The other thing is, too, Luke is out of Aether, and he knows he can siphon some from active Infrastructure. That's risky, but you do what you must.

The characters head onto the bridge and Will, Jamie and Amy work on taking apart the phone. This is an extended action and it very nearly fails because they run out of rolls (by the end, it's just Will because the girls run through their dice pools). But he discovers that the phone isn't a phone, and never was. It's got weird blue wires that go straight back into the concrete - that's Infrastructure, for sure. If the phone isn't broken, it forms a circuit that builds up power until a switch flips in the receiver. Since it doesn't have power at the moment, Will flips the switch just to see what will happen. He hears a voice from the speaker say, "Connected. The Lambent has been dispatched."

Initially this is worrisome because it's obviously and angel summoning, but they realize there was no aetheric burst of energy, so this is just what will happen when the Infrastructure does what it's meant to. Luke picks up a phone and puts it to his ear, sucking up Aether, and then hangs up again, no problem. Saskia does as well. Edgar does, but stays on too long and those blue wires shoot out and lodges his head and ear. Fortunately, Luke is a surgeon, and removes them deftly.

But then poor Jamie tries it. She gets the Aether, sure, but when she tries to disengage she fails the compromise roll (the others were making them, but just taking minor glitches for successful rolls, and actually I think Luke's player got an exceptional success and got a Beat out of it). She takes the Flagged Compromise, loses a dot of Cover, and those needles are in tight. And then all the phones start ringing. Angels incoming.

Edgar uses Interference and gets something like seven successes, so any incoming angels will take a -7 to find the characters. Saskia tackles Jamie, ripping the wires out of her head and doing some lethal damage, but she's free. Luke bandages her up, and they flee back to the bar to talk this over.

They theorize that Isaac was banished to the Underworld when the bridge became Infrastructure. They also now know that the bridge is meant to summon an angel called "the Lambent," but they don't know why. And they know that the Beetle's window is a gateway to somewhere

They decide to split up, because that's the best way for exciting things to happen. Will, Edgar and Luke will go to the Troll and see if this window leads anywhere (Luke initially states it leads to the Underworld, but then realizes that he's just guessing about that). Amy, Jamie and Saskia will go to Priscilla Benedict's apartment and investigate who she is.

The boys go back down under the bridge, and one after another, they wriggle through the window. The world goes weird, and they wriggle out again...but the neighborhood is different. There's no Troll, and this car is just a burned-out husk. And on the hood, a woman is currently shooting up heroin (and so is too out of it to notice that three men just appeared from nowhere).

Based on her clothes, though, something's off - her fashions are 50 years out of date. Will finds a newspaper machine and buys one. It's August 31, 1962.

Meanwhile, back present-day Seattle, the girls take a drive up Aurora Avenue into what amounts to the red light district. They pull into the Sterling Apartments, which does appear to be something of a shithole. They walk in, and see a guy on the staircase, holding a bag with a big glass bottle, blocking their path. They say they're going up to see Priscilla. The man says she isn't here.

"These are Sterling Apartments, right?" says Jamie...and uses Play on Words.

Reality shudders a bit. Jamie's hair turns fluorescent (glitch). But now instead of being a shitty apartment building called "Sterling," these are really sterling apartments, at least for a few hours. The building gets cleaner, the doors are now freshly painted, and the man on the stairs stands up, is wearing a suit, and carrying a bottle of good vodka rather than cheap malt liquor. He still doesn't think Priscilla is home, however, but he doesn't stop them from going upstairs.

The door is locked, and none of them have especially high Larceny scores. Saskia, however, manifests her Spatial Distortion form power (we redid demonic forms, and OMG they're so much more balanced now, as unclean as I feel typing that) and slips under the door. She opens up for the others, and they get searching.

They find the same painting on the wall as they found in Gordon's place. Amy finds a dead, disemboweled dog in the fridge - apparently Priscilla had done some entrail-reading. They found an envelope on the wall, same as in Gordon's place, but this one with "Gordon Reardon" on it and his address. They found a map with routes from both apartments, routes to and from the Space Needle and the Experience Music Project...but all avoiding the bridge. And they found a book.

The book was Cults in America: The Harmless, The Hoax and the Horrors by Eric Rasoletti, PhD (anyone get that reference?). There was a section in the "Harmless" section with notes in the margins. The section was about a cult called the Fellowship of the Final Awakening, an apocalyptic cult active in the Pacific Northwest in the early 1960s. According to the book, they were largely just wealthy white guys pretending to occult significance, but the really weird thing was, according to the margin notes, this section used to be just a paragraph. Now it was five pages. Is this cult becoming retroactively more significant?

At this point, a man walks into the apartment. He asks if the girls are looking for Priscilla, and then adds "Me, too," in Serbian. Jamie follows up in Swahili, and when he responds, they know they're talking to a demon. He calls himself Comrade West, and he runs the Demon's Republic of Seattle, a kind of communistic Agency - everyone gives, everyone gets. He confirms what the characters suspected; Priscilla and Gordon are (were) the same demon, just different Covers. He's sorry to hear that she's dead (West refers to the demon as Priscilla, but pronouns are a bitch), and doesn't know who the cultists are or why. He does note, though, that stigmatics with matching marks are often created in the same incident...or by the same demon.

They tell him the rest of their story, including the bit about the Lambent. He points out something they hadn't considered.

If they know where and when an angel is going to appear (or, as in this case, they can control it)...they can jack it.