Promethean: End of Story (more or less)

Last night was the end of the story in my Promethean game. We ended with a revelation and a fight. Good times!

Last time, Avalon got out of jail free after paying some fines, and discovered the weird black orb shattering. She suddenly remembers what happened in the cell when she touched it...

...She sees the being she'd named "Milo" (here) standing before her. She talks with it, and learns that it's a strange being that wants her, and other Prometheans, to fail. It wants the Pilgrimage to go on forever, for the New Dawn to be unobtainable. It is, it says, the Principle's shadow. The Jovian. It came into the world when Enoch failed to create an Athanor (here), and was attracted by Avalon touching this failed Athanor. Avalon asks who made this, and the Jovian says it was probably Jesse, but he doesn't know what exactly Jesse was trying to do.

She asks why it wants to flummox the New Dawn, 'cause that's kind of a dick thing to do, and it tells her that it doesn't really know, that that's like asking why water freezes at a certain temperature. Avalon responds that she knows why that happens; there's a reason for it. The Jovian considers this, and says that it isn't sure about its real nature. She asks if it's an angel, and the Jovian makes her clarify - she says "a servant of the God-Machine". He tells her that he's not that, and he's not a qashmal (and draws the distinction). He's something else. And, he says in a somewhat pained way, he's being uncharacteristically honest with her.

Avalon points that out perhaps, given the right information, he could change, and not be this ongoing stumbling block on the Pilgrimage. The walls crack a little and reform, and the Jovian tells her to remember a set of coordinates (he says she'll forget this conversation, but then probably remember it if she can destroy the failed Athanor she's holding).

And then we're back at now, and Avalon remembers the conversation. She relates it to the others, and they talk about the Jovian a bit - Avalon notes that she'd been thinking of him as one of a type of being (a Jovian), but he actually referred to himself as the Jovian. So is he singular? A unique being, or anomaly? Avalon points out that, at the park in Lexington, some of them talked to qashmallim and some of them, probably including Virgil, talked to the Jovian. They need to be careful. And how, indeed, does the God-Machine figure in?

They go to the library and Avalon looks up the coordinates on an atlas - just outside of Tulsa. That's where they were talking about going next, and that's where Skip feels he needs to go, but the others are considering Detroit as well. They head to their next destination, the Noodles & Co outside Polaris mall. There, they meet Dry, and sit down to have some noodles.

Dry explains that the God-Machine creates angels for four general purposes - destroy, inform, protect, or transport. He was one of the latter, an angel meant to take data from the destroyed Infrastructure in Detroit to a destination in the southwest; he isn't sure where because he Fell along the way. But the data is still there and still part of him, and extracting it might harm him if done wrong. Avalon suggests making a copy, but Dry points out that doing that paints a target on whoever's carrying the data, and no offense, but Prometheans are easy to track if you know how.

They decide to head out to find some electricity...and that's when the lights flare brightly. A man (?) made of light appears on the table in front of them and points at Dry, while the Watchdog-angel that fought Matt and Jessa a few days ago leaps through a window (the glass immediately rewinds and fixes itself). Dry stands and tells the others that if they want to go, they can go. Time stutters, and several people with light coming out of their mouths appear, but the normal folks eating noodles are frozen in time. And then Grimm, noting that that choice seems to be "fight" or "leave," shoots the bright angel.

Skip leaps over and pummels the Watchdog into the dirt, while Brilliant points at Dry and dazzles him, dropping him back into his chair. Virgil flips the table and puts Brilliant off balance, while Feather and Matt engage the cultists. Two cultists grab the chair and start dragging it out, but Enoch transforms into Barghest form and tackles on, killing him with poison. Virgil body-checks another into a wall, and Skip finishes off the dog. Grimm shoots the Brilliant angel again for good measure, but now that the Watchdog is gone, the bystanders are free and all hell breaks loose. Matt uses Morning Star to call some nearby bystanders to his aid (achieving his Whip milestone urge a human to take a major risk), and Avalon plays on the cultists' Vices (which are pretty much "BRILLIANT IS GOOD") to get them away from her.

Outside, Dry snaps out of it and has Matt hold up his cell phone. Dry touches it and digitizes, flowing into the phone and disappearing.

The Prometheans flee as sirens approach, and head out. Matt has a text message: "C U in Tulsa."

Next time, we'll do some epilogue stuff and plan the Tulsa trip.

Promethean: Data and Torso

Last night was Promethean. We're approaching the end of a story, but we're not quite there yet.

Last time, we didn't have Feather, so this time, we start with her and Virgil in the jail as everyone's running. Virgil grabs her and notes that he felt something weird nearby, and leads her to a door that's bolted shut. Feather uses her Spagyria Alembic to shrink the door off its hinges, and immediately gets jumped by a torso with a pair of extra arms. She's too quick for it, though, and activates her Mutatus Aspiratus Alembic to give herself armor and then to give it a blast of Pyros to force it into Dormancy. She and Virgil then beat it to pieces with stuff they find in the room, and Feather takes a chunk with her (she's on Craftsman now).

The Prometheans meet up later that day. Feather shows Enoch the aforementioned chunk of Pandoran, which to analysis looks like organic material, but petrified. Feather had assumed that, when she had a vision of Jesse telling her about a thing he made, that he was talking about an Athanor, but maybe he meant the Pandoran? If he didn't, though, who made the Pandoran and how did it get locked in the jail?

Matt shows up at this point and gives them the rundown of his fight with the weird dog-angel thing and Jenna's transformation into a 12-foot-tall mirrored creature. They have a meeting set with "Dry" soon, so the throng heads over and meets him.

Dry is cautious, but a generally cool guy. He explains that Jenna had some questions for them - have they ever been to the southwest? Like, Tucson? How about Detroit? The throng confirms that they've been some of those places (though not Detroit), and Dry tells them that the God-Machine makes angels when it needs something, and sometimes those angels unplug or "Fall" (so call them demons). Angels that are still working for the Machine are dangerous and some of them hunt down demons to try and re-assimilate them. Jenna was an angel that was meant to transport data from Detroit to New Mexico, but she Fell along the way.

But now here's where it gets weird - the data she was transporting was the result of the destruction of a huge God-Machine thing, and that was destroyed because of interference from a throng of Prometheans (way back here). Dry reveals that Jenna can render herself down to data, and it might be possible to tease out the Promethean-related data. The throng notes that they've been getting dogged by "angels" and things that aren't angels but are more or less on their side (qashmallim) since this whole thing started, and learning the truth about the data Jenna is carrying might help.

Dry also reveals that in a way, he is Jenna - demons can take on different forms, and although at the moment Jenna doesn't exist, she will again. They agree to meet up at Polaris tomorrow, once they get Avalon out of jail. Dry takes off, and the Prometheans consider their next steps. Matt grants visions to Skip and Grimm, and then forces one himself.

In Skip's vision, the ectoplasm coming from the rents in his flesh because thin and solid, and spikes up into the sky like puppet strings. He looks up and sees Nergal working them, forcing him to punch, and he realizes that Nergal was there at his creation, and he needs to figure out why. That means going back to where he was created.

Grimm sees himself in the frozen wastes, monsters out in the dark, a ship behind him. He could go out into the dark...but there are monsters. He could go back to the ship...but everyone there hates him. And then he realizes that he could make them interact; he could protect people from the monsters or work with the people to mitigate their hatred. Feather, he realizes, is going to be important.

Matt, for his part, wonders about his current Role, and sees himself back at Origins in the exhibit hall, with folks fighting in the boffer weapons area...but with live steel. He encourages it, encourages them to face danger and take risk.

The next day, Avalon is led out of jail and meets with a court-appointed attorney. She has very little time for Avalon's questions and recommends just pleading out and paying a fine. Avalon is unconvinced, even more so when she sees so many people in more or less the same situation as her. She eventually winds up pleading no contest and then walking straight out of the jail. She achieves her milestone for the Deviant Role - be arrested and arraigned - and in so doing learns that when humans set so many rules for themselves, it's hard to avoid being a deviant.

She also realizes that the orb she was carrying is cracking and falling to pieces, and she can remember what she saw in the cell. But we'll talk about that next time.

Promethean: Provocations

So! Last time, the throng (most of it) was in the jailhouse now. Avalon is incarcerated, Skip was off dealing with Donnie, and the others were in the waiting area of the jail, noting that some kind of riot had occurred.

So let's rewind and talk about Skip (whose player missed last session). Skip gets a text message from Grimm telling him to look in on Donnie, as Donnie was going to get see a girl and Grimm was worried about what he might do. Skip catches up with Donnie as he's walking across the street to talk to her (she's walking out of her apartment complex). He starts talking to her, and Skip notes that he's obviously, nervously professing love, but she's somewhere between putting him off nicely and reaching for her pepper spray.

Skip, on the Provocateur Role, remember, waits until Donnie pauses and then uses the Baffle Distillation on Jenny. She stops, stunned, and Donnie hangs there in limbo for a minute, and then gets angry. He rants a bit about how she could at least respond, and then his disfigurements flare. He turns and runs off, and Skip isn't sure what he did, but Jenny slumps to the ground and sits against the building.

Skip approaches and tries to make sure she's OK, but winds up with a failure-turned-to-dramatic-failure on the Presence roll, and Jenny just starts screaming. Skip, knowing when things are going from bad to worse, fucks off. He reflects that it's really easy to push humans into negative responses, and thinks that if he ever becomes human, he'll need to watch that. He feels Vitriol flood his, and achieves his milestone for the Provocateur Role: Push another Promethean into Torment.

The others are back at the jail, and they decide that there's not a lot they can do from here. They decide to fall back, though Virgil texts Grimm and says that he and Feather are going to check something out (Feather's player was out this week on a severe case of Oklahoma). They head outside, and Skip catches up with them. He tells them what happened with Donnie, and Grimm decides they'd better go find this idiot before he hurts someone.

Meanwhile, in the jail cell, Avalon is confused. She's lost time, and looking around her cell, she sees that the second bed is disturbed - but she didn't disturb it. She decides to meditate and try and get into the zen-artist headspace that the achieved with Emil (but without mescaline this time). She manages that like whoa (she got like 7 successes on the roll), and gets fragments of her time back - someone else was in the room with her, someone she'd met before, but she doesn't remember much else. She forces an Elpis vision, and finds herself floating on a boat down a river made of...Azoth? Fire? Pyros? She drinks a bit and sees her whole Pilgrimage condensed into a few seconds. Up ahead in the river, there's a huge black space, a "nothing" around which the river is flowing. She steers close to it and reaches it, and something grabs her hand. It goes numb, and her gears stop turning, so she quickly lets it go. Whatever this space is, it's anti-Pilgrimage.

She wakes up, and finds herself holding the black orb she found in the floor. Her hand is numb.

The others track down Donnie (using Matt and Enoch's proficiency with Heed the Call), and find a house sound of campus - Donnie's upstairs. They knock on the door and Grimm informs the woman who lives there that he thinks someone's in her house, and manages to be convincing enough that she comes out to call the police. Skip and Grimm go upstairs and find Donnie, and talk him into going out the window and talking with them. He does, and Enoch goes around back and uses Glimpsing the Crasis to cure his Torment. He finds himself in a vision with Donnie, and Donnie tells him that his creator didn't really tell him much - he just made Donnie and left, and then there was an Azoth flare and he was gone. Enoch surmises that this means he achieved the New Dawn, and Donnie muses that it would have been nice if he'd left a note or something.

They come out of the vision, and Donnie says he's going to skip town for a while and try and catch up with Jesse. Grimm says that Donnie should stay in touch - he might not need a throng, but he probably needs friends. Enoch asks that he give Jesse their contact info, and Donnie agrees, and walks off.

The throng hits up a power station to recharge - except Matt, who's already headed back to the exhibit hall to help Jenna tear down her booth. Before he does, he uses the Morning Star Alembic to nudge a group of people into buying stuff at her booth, which of course boosts her Sunday sales, which is always nice. They start working and flirting...and then Matt notices something strange. Everyone around them is frozen, stopped in time...and he hears claw clicks on the floor.

Jenna notices this, too, and swears. "They've found me. Shit. Wait, why aren't you frozen?" Matt, never one for guile under pressure, reveals that he's a Promethean, and Jenna has no idea what that means, but responds to the word "Pilgrimage." She tells him, "OK, this is going to be a little weird, and I'm sorry if this changes how you feel about me."

And she changes into a biomechanical nightmare. He legs and arms lengthen, her skin becomes mirrored, and electricity flows over her body. And then the dog attacks.

The dog is built about like a mastiff, but much bigger. Its eyes are LED lights cycling between 0 and 9, and when it barks, it sounds like a corrupted digital file. It also shoots glass shards when it barks; the first time, both Matt and "Jenna" spin out of the way, but then it rears up and barks ahead, and the glass shreds Matt's shirt and flesh. Jenna smacks it and Matt shoots it, and it stumbles, and Jenna grabs part of her clothes rack and rams it through the thing's chest. It disappears in a puff of digits, and Jenna turns back into herself.

"I have to go," she says. "There are probably more coming. Can you finish here?" Matt agrees, and Jenna tells him to meet her friend "Dry" (Dreyfus) later at Hound Dog. If his friends are Prometheans, hell, bring them, too. The dog-creature isn't dead, just discorporated, and if it comes back it'll bring help.

Matt asks what it was. "An angel," she says, and kisses him before running off.

Promethean: Jailhouse Waffles

Monday was Promethean. Here we go!

Last time, Avalon got arrested and everyone else scattered. Donnie wound up tagging along with Grimm, and asked him for help in finding "Jenny". Grimm used the information that Donnie had and found the dorm where Jenny lived, and then kinda caught a weird vibe off Donnie and asked his intentions - he wasn't going to hurt this girl, right?

"No," said Donnie. "I love her." This didn't make Grimm feel any better, but he wasn't conveying his concerns to Donnie and Donnie was very grateful to him (Grimm's player bought up Repute, making the Exemplar milestone earn a third dot of Repute for Grimm). Donnie ran off toward campus, and Grimm rejoined the others. Skip, they realized, wasn't around (his player was ill), so Virgil had the idea of sending him to check on Donnie and make sure things didn't get out of hand.

(Skip is, at the moment, on Cobalus, specifically the Provocateur Role. Just sit with that for a moment.)

The others decided to go back to Origins. Enoch sprung for the corset for Avalon, figuring she'd like to have it when she got out. Matt flirted with Jessa, the woman selling corsets, a bit, and she asked if he'd like to come help her tear down her booth and then get some dinner later on. The others wandered a bit, bought Dominion, and Feather figured they should start looking for a place to stay since they'd be in town a while.

Avalon was booked and allowed a phone call. She called Emil, figuring he'd pay her bail. He said he would, but she wouldn't be arraigned until Monday anyway, so he'd find a way to get her the money. He called up Feather and explained the situation. It's good to have friends.

Feather figured she might as well find the fourth Pilgrim mark, which was near the jail. She used Heed the Call to zero in on it, and found it on a bench across from the main entrance - it said "this is the place."

So now the throng had "afraid", "jail", "this is the place", and "keep away" in a rectangle, but no idea what that meant. Enoch used Plumb the Fathoms to look into the place a bit, and realized that there was an Athanor near here, probably in the jail. Matt used his Bestowment to give Feather a vision, and she someone screaming, emitting darkness, and forcing it into a little sphere. Then the person started walking away, but turned and looked straight at Feather.

Feather talked to him, and asked if he was Jesse. He said he was, and told her that a unique quirk of him was that although she was having a dream, she was still talking to him. He told her that there was something dark and dangerous in the the jail, but as long as they stayed out cell 61A, they'd be fine.

Meanwhile, in cell 61A, Avalon got bored and analyze the cell's components with Stone. In the floor, she found a hollow, and used Transformation to open it. She found a black sphere, and picked it up...

...and then it was later, and there had been a riot, and the guard that came to check on her was injured and obviously Disquieted. What had happened?

The throng, after Feather's vision, realized that the Athanor was inside (and that meant Feather achieved her Role, Explorer, for follow the marks to the Athanor). They went into the jail to see if they could talk to Avalon and were told to sit, but then things went crazy, sirens, ambulance arrived, and Virgil said that the people running around were all infected with Disquiet. From Avalon? But how did it spread that fast?

We shall see.

Promethean: WOOP WOOP THAT'S THA SOUND OF THA POLICE

Ahem. Last night we played Promethean. We'd been out of it for a month, but it's like riding a bike.

Last time, the throng discovered that there, perhaps, more Pilgrim Marks downtown, and then they felt Azoth call to Azoth.

Skip feels the Azoth call, and then sees a Promethean pull himself over the edge of the parking garage. The Promethean is tall, lithe, muscular, and handsome, but when he stands still he looks like a store mannequin (so he's a Galateid, though Skip doesn't know that). He introduces himself as Donnie, and asks if Skip is Jesse - apparently Donnie's here looking for the same thing as the throng. He mentions that Jesse was going to help him with something. Skip calls up Enoch to let him know about this new guy, and Enoch says they're tracking down Pilgrim marks that Jesse may have left. Donnie and Skip go to join the throng, Donnie employ some pretty impressive parkour skills to do it.

They meet up, and Donnie meets everybody. He recognizes Grimm, and asks him to help him find someone; Grimm agrees, but not right now (they're hunting marks). Donnie is fine with that.

Grimm grabs a map of Columbus, thinks about his vision, maps out where they found the first mark, and then tries to extrapolate where the other three might be. They figure the next one is nearby, so they wander down the street a ways and find an intersection near Franklin University. Enoch uses Plumb the Fathoms and feels his way to a McDonalds, and Grimm finds the mark in the bathroom. It says "jail."

The first one said "afraid," but it had a slash through it. So, don't be afraid of jail? Of course, there were two more. The throng checks the map and finds probable points for the other two marks, one of which is...a city jail. Figuring that that one might be hard to get to, they head to the last one, which is in German Village.

This area is pretty dead, it being about 1:30AM. The throng finds a bookstore, a coffee roaster, and a bar, but everything's closed. They spread out and start looking (Donnie gets to a roof), but they don't find a mark outside, and then a cop car rolls up. Feather, thinking quickly, says they're looking for their cat (what the heck, it worked in another universe), and the cops tell them to leave private property alone and roll out.

Feather urges the throng to leave - they can come back during the day, after all. But then her Role catches up with her. She's an Explorer, and leaving this obvious clue behind feels wrong. She decides they should to go back and try again.

Avalon, when she's finally done flirting with Donnie, uses Soul in the Software to fly around into the bar, but then realizes this form is far too small to actually search the place. Enoch uses Plumb the Fathoms again and feels that the mark is above their heads, which means it's in the bookstore (as that has a second story). They break in (Matt picks the lock), and search the place, which takes a while due to, well, it's dark. But they find it - it's tucked behind a bookcase and it means "keep away."

Virgil, at this point, says, "uh, guys? We have a problem." And the police lights turn on.

The throng scatters. Donnie is away, over fences. Grimm activates Zephyrus and flees, while Feather and Matt slip away in the shadows. Skip runs, but Avalon gets tackled, feeling stirrings of Vitriol. The cops start to arrest her, but Skip rolls back and uses Eris to befuddle a cop and disarms another with a quick grab. Two more go to arrest Avalon, but she uses Eros to make one tackle another, and runs...but then feels herself stumble (Pilgrimage-wise). This still isn't Deviant. Does she need to get arrested?

She turns around and heads back, cuffs herself, and sits down on the curb. Skip flees, and the cops take Avalon in.

Which means that Avalon is now in police custody, her ID is going to get run, and there's at least one federal agency that's looking for her.

Game Prep: Promethean, Blades, maybe NBA?

I am now done with school for the year and I can focus on what's really important: To wit, gaming.

As always, players stay out, all others pay cash, or something.

Promethean: LARP Shenanigans

No, I'm not LARPing Promethean. What kind of madman do you think I am?

Last time, the throng arrived in Columbus and wound up going to Origins. This time, we open with Feather, Grimm, Enoch, and Virgil checking out the Pilgrim mark they found in the service hallways in the Hyatt. They don't find any more, though, and realize that these hallways let them move around the hotel easily, although that would be harder during the day with more people.

Meanwhile, Matt is at an Angel LARP. He meets up with Jenna, the woman who was selling corsets earlier and does a bit of RP with her. He also winds up engendering some Disquiet amongst some of the other LARPers.

Avalon is drinking with her new artist friends up in their room, and one of them is flipping through the program and finds that there's an Angel LARP going on. They head downstairs and Avalon buys her way in and gets a character and starts talking with Jenna and Matt, but her artist friends are just being drunk and disruptive. Things start to get tense, and Avalon considers what to do in this situation - her "programming," as it were, would be to smooth things out.

The others emerge from the hallways into the big glass hallway between the Hyatt and the convention center, and are at something of a loss for where to go. They decide to find the others (they can feel through Azoth radiance that they're nearby), so they wind up entering the LARP as well. Feather talks to the organizer, who's on the phone with someone talking about the drunk people and wondering if he should call security. Feather, ever helpful, asks who's being a problem and the guy points out the artists and Avalon (but notes that Avalon is actually being cool and just playing, not drinking).

Feather talks to Avalon and points out that this could wind up getting unpleasant. Avalon goes over to the artists and recommends that they leave...and feels herself step backwards on the Pilgrimage. She de-escalated, which is nice, but she's already learned about that, and she's not learning anything about transgression this way. She falls into Torment, and goes stock-still, robotic. The artists leave without incident.

The throng notices what's happened, though, and they get Avalon out before something goes wrong (Matt stays to LARP). They take Avalon off upstairs into a dining-hall area where no one is hanging around, and Enoch uses the Heed the Call Alembic to pull her out of Torment. Their Radiances merge, and they're standing on a mountain looking out over the snow. They talk, and Avalon says that she doesn't think she can become human - she wants to, but she isn't sure if she has the capacity. Enoch says that just in the time he's known her, she's made progress on her Pilgrimage, and maybe it's just that this Role is hard for her? Avalon eventually agrees; this Role is hard, but she needs to figure it out. They return, and her Torment melts away.

The throng decides to walk down the street and see what else is going on. When they step outside, Grimm has a vision - the city as gears, locking into place, but marks in specific places with Pilgrim marks. He can only see one clearly (the one they found in the basement), but it gives him a perspective to find the others. As the gears stop and the marks form a rectangle, the gears grind and threaten to strip.

Grimm reports this to the others, and they figure they probably ought to check this out - sounds God-Machine related.

Matt, meanwhile, finishes the LARP and talks with Jenna about corsets and so forth. A security guard approaches Matt, probably directed by someone with Disquiet, but ultimately leaves him alone. Jenna makes some potentially flirty comments, but Matt doesn't follow up, and Jenna heads off to bed. Matt rejoins the throng, realizing belatedly that he probably could have gone back to her room if he'd have asked.

The Prometheans decide to head out into the city to pursue the Pilgrim marks, but someone suggests finding Skip (his player was out, so we figured he was off doing sketch-things still). And at that point, Azoth calls to Azoth - a new Promethean in the area? Or...the Machine mimicking one again? We shall see.

Game Prep! (Promethean & Chill)

It's like Netflix and chill, except there's more body horror and less snoo-snoo.

Anyway! I'm running Promethean tomorrow and I'm running Chill next week, which means Blades and Night's Black can wait (I want to make a character today, too).

Think that's probably enough lead-in. On we go.

Promethean: New Story, New City, New Problems

Monday was Promethean. It's a trip....back in time! (Kinda.)

Recall that the throng was headed out from Lexington after witnessing Lurch achieve the New Dawn. This is humbling for all of them - they reflect, on the drive, about how that might affect them when the time comes. Grimm notes that he's feeling his time coming (his Pilgrimage score is high), while Enoch wonders if New Dawn come with redemption for the thing he's done in his life as a Promethean. Avalon muses about being "human" and what that would mean to someone who was built from gears and wax, and Matt wonders if the New Dawn is even open to him, as an Extempore.

They arrive in Columbus and Grimm finds a shady auto dealer. They trade in the RV (which was stolen, remember) for a mini-van; Avalon does the talking and the salesman does the paperwork in a shady sort of manner and she winds up with registration info as well (attached to her alternate ID!). They get in the van and head into town to get pizza, and find themselves sitting near some folks with name badges, one of whom is dressed in a cloak with pointy ears, playing a card game. Feather asks, and they tell her they're attending a gaming convention called Origins this weekend. (In game, it's June 28, 2008. I should also mention that as I'm writing this, the event grid is supposed to go live for Origins 2018, and the site won't load. So, basically, business as usual.)

The Prometheans talk about this. Grimm isn't interesting; games sound boring to him. The rest of the throng, though, is interested - Enoch points out that their interactions in Lexington were mostly with other Prometheans or were violent in nature, and they haven't had a lot of contact with normal people in a while. The other agree; besides, they don't really have any idea what they should be looking for here (the murders they learned about were over a month ago, and they aren't sure if Jesse is still in town).

They finish their pizza and head for the convention center. They buy badges and start wandering around the dealer's hall. Avalon, Matt, and Feather wind up at a corset booth where a woman fits Avalon for a brown leather corset with gears (very steampunky); it's expensive, and Avalon asks the woman to hold it for her. Matt finds some people who recognize him; rather, they point out that he looks just like James Canaday, the actor who used to be on that TV show about vampires who died in a fall shooting a movie in Pennsylvania. He chats with them a few minutes and gets his picture taken.

Skip looks at the boffer weapons a while (and is a little confused), and then winds up at the Geek Chic booth. He decides he could definitely make custom furniture to fund the group's endeavors, but he'd need materials and a place to do it.

Enoch finds a "paint and keep" minis booth and winds up winning a prize (he got an exceptional success on a Crafts roll). Grimm isn't really into any of this, but chats with Virgil, and Virgil says he wants to go play something called "Rising" tonight. Grimm agrees to go; shooting people with Nerf guns sounds fun. Feather buys a couple of board games to play with the throng.

And then we fast forward to evening. Virgil and Grimm have their game, Avalon meets some artists and goes out drinking (she's hoping to get them to fund her corset), Feather hangs out in the Big Bar, Skip and Enoch are hanging near the car (Skip is sketching out a design for a roof-rack), and Matt goes to play in a vampire-themed LARP.

(Please note: It can't be Masquerade or Requiem because that's a little too meta, so maybe Nightlife blew up in this universe and has a LARP version.)

Grimm and Virgil, during their game, notice a door ajar in the basement rooms in the Hyatt, and what looks like a Pilgrim Mark carved into the wall. When the game is over, they go and find Feather, and the three of them sneak in. It's a Pilgrim Mark, all right - "afraid," with a slash through it. So, not afraid? It doesn't look very old, Grimm guesses it was carved within a month. They bring Enoch down there and he uses Plumb the Fathoms to analyze the area, and learns that Jesse carved it - and is still alive.

Meanwhile, Avalon is out drinking. She, of course, can get drunk, but it takes some doing. She winds up dancing on a table at a bar (she's on Cobalus, remember, and is following Deviant), and they wind up getting kicked out. The cops are called, but Avalon smooths things over and suggests they all go back to the hotel to keep drinking.

All in all, the throng is enjoying the con. We'll see what happens next, probably starting with the LARP.

Preppin' the Games, part one

As one does. As usual, this is gonna include thought processes, plot spoilers, and general things-players-shouldn't-know, so if you're a player in one of my games, skip this post (or like, just don't read the stuff for the game(s) you're in, but that's easier for some than others. Plus I'm not even sure if anyone in my games reads my blog. Anyway. This is a long parenthetical. Send help. I can't find the exit.)

(Wait, there we go.)

I'm doing Blades and Promethean today, I'll do Chill and Night's Black Agents tomorrow.

Promethean: Leaving Lexington

Monday we ended a story in Promethean. I think we may actually have lit a fire under some collective asses, but I know that I'm definitely more hype to run the next story than I was, so that's good.

Last time, there was a lot of water and some sapped Pyros and some visions. This time, we had to wrap up those visions, because recall that last time Matt and Feather didn't get to have their collective vision. So!

Matt and Feather find themselves walking in a cave. They follow a light and emerge from an archway into an immense mineshaft with gigantic gears in the walls. Feather recognizes this...she punched it at one point. From behind them, they hear a voice and turn to see a searing light.

The light speaks to them, and reveals that since Feather stood up to "the Machine" and Matt is generally into angels, the Principle is showing them something a little "behind the curtain." It tells them that the beings they've talked to haven't all been qashmallim - the skull cowboy dude that they saw waaaaay back in Tuscon was an angel, a servant of the God-Machine. The light also reveals to them something that happened in the past. It shows them a throng of Prometheans walking to the edge of the pit with the gears. One Promethean is big and deformed, and they hear him called "Cancer Boy." And then they witness another one shove Cancer Boy off into the gears. "Don't shed any tears for Cancer Boy," says the voice when Feather expresses concern.

It reveals that by greasing the gears this way, the Machine changed something. The Principle isn't sure what exactly happened, but the Machine is looking for something and the throng appears to be involved somehow. Matt and Feather ask a couple of questions, and the voice says that the Machine and the Principle have a complicated relationship and that the Machine is much more rigid. The Principle wants Prometheans to complete the Great Work, and it's flexible on how that happens - it has to be, that's the nature of the Pilgrimage. The voice tells them, too, that they'll meet a rebel angel soon, and what they do to or for him will shape their path.

The two of them come back to the present. The throng reflects on their visions (and the players make the "interpret an Elpis vision" roll), and they take their various steps. Skip (whose player got a dramatic failure on that roll) sees himself with bloodied hands and decides that he needs to continue breaking things, so he resolves to learn Cobalus from Avalon. Avalon, for her part, thinks about the universal milestones and realizes that she's not really any closer to one than the other (she's only got ceratio and multiplicatio to go), it just depends what she does next.

The throng (and Lurch) talk about the God-Machine and the vision. Enoch recalls that Hank's memoir (which, remember, is the fictionalized account of a Ramble) mentions Cancer Boy, and Avalon recites the relevant bits. The throng actually threw two Prometheans into the gears, but the first one jumped willingly (and came back from the River, as Prometheans do) while Hank pushed Cancer Boy because he was angry. And, lo and behold, one of the other Prometheans present was named...Jesse. The same Promethean who'd created the Athanor at which they were presently sitting? Probably.

Matt goes into the crypt and meditates at the Athanor, trying to get back the Pyros it had taken. He winds up learning the secrets of Phosphorum, and learning that it was about risk, passion, death, and ephemerality - life is fragile, and that fragility is beautiful. He realizes he could learn more, but only by embracing the Refinement. He does, and in so doing achieves his milestone for Explorer (find the Phosphorum Athanor).

The throng talks about what they'd experienced so far, what the various ephemeral beings they'd seen might be, and the implications of what they'd read in the Ramble. They wonder if they could find Jesse, but they aren't at all sure where he might be and the Ramble didn't give a clue. Virgil mentions that one of that throng, Marty Black, at one point created an online resource for Prometheans, so Avalon gets online and finds it.

Jesse had, in fact, logged on, and not all that long ago. See, in-game, it's June 2008, and he logged in back in May, talking about how three people were killed on the same night, in the same way, in locked rooms...in three different cities. He mentions going to investigate, but the throng doesn't know if he went to Columbus, Tulsa, or Detroit.

Detroit, of course, is where all the craziness with the God-Machine went down, but Columbus is closer, so the throng decides to pack up and head out there. Lurch, though, asks a favor - could they take him to a hospice, first?

They drive him to such a place, and Enoch asks if he wants anyone to go in with him. He says no, but maybe wait around, since he isn't sure how this is going to go. He goes in, and then a while later walks out, stops, and stares up at the sky with a strange look.

Feather, feeling the stirrings of Vitriol, gets out and approaches him and asks if he's OK. He says he is, and he understands. She asks what it's like, and he says "Someday, I think you'll know," and bursts into flames.

When the fire subsides, he's a little shorter (but still very tall), and he's dressed in scrubs. He asks if Feather is there to see someone, and she says that yes, she and her family came here in the RV to visit someone. The orderly, Larry, tells her that maybe she ought to come back a little later - they just lost someone.

Feather tells Larry it was nice to meet him, and gets back in the RV, having achieved the Pilgrim Role (Witness the New Dawn). The throng watches him go back into the hospice, where he works, apparently. They head off, and decide to get Waffle House before heading north to Columbus.

(NB: Hank, Jesse, Cancer Boy, and Marty Black were from my first Promethean chronicle, The Water of Life. The "three-murders-in-one-night" thing was the inciting incident in The Key.)

Promethean: Visions and other st-

Last time, recall, the throng met up with Lurch and then found Virgil again, after he was talked into leaving by...a qashmal?

We open this time as the throng is finishing dinner. Lurch mentions that he'd like to get the throng's take on the Phosphorum Refinement, and the Athanor that taught it to him. Grimm says that his experience of it didn't have much to do with death, per se, it was just about burning the candle at both ends and being a daredevil. Lurch is pretty sure he was following a different Role, one that dealt with death and dying, but he can't put is finger on what he got wrong. Enoch suggests that maybe he was meant to witness death, not prevent it, and that maybe he should go and volunteer at a hospice. Lurch considers this, but the throng decides they should check out the Athanor. He directs them to the Bluegrass Memorial Gardens cemetery, and the walk through the grounds stealthily to a mausoleum. Lurch shoulders open the door, and he, Matt, Grimm, and Enoch go in.

The casket has intricate marks on it, which Matt notes were carved after the casket was placed in here. Enoch recognizes the symbol for Phosphorum, and some others indicating that this is a Refinement Mentor Athanor - a Promethean could meditate here and learn the truth of the Refinement (thus taking a Role). Matt looks around the back of it and finds the name "JESSE" carved on it - probably the Promethean that made the Athanor. But then Matt realizes that there's water seeping in from the corners and dripping from the ceiling...and then the floodwaters start.

The deluge pushes Lurch straight out of the mausoleum and knocks the other three off their pins. They taste the water - it's warm and salty, less like seawater and more like tears. The waters subside after a few minutes and the Prometheans feel a little drained. Enoch notes that this might have been a Firestorm (they don't always involve literal fire), but he's not sure what triggered it. Maybe Matt touching the casket, but why that? Figuring to test it, Enoch and Grimm go back in and Enoch touches it, and the same thing happens - deluge of water, water recedes, Prometheans lose some Pyros...but this time, they fall into visions...in pairs.

Avalon and Grimm wind up in a chalet in Switzerland, which Avalon recognizes as the home of her creator, Ysolde. The place is weirdly quiet; all the clocks have stopped. They find Ysolde's body in her workshop, a single bullet wound in her back...and Avalon's gun has a spent cartridge and there are bloody footprints in her size near the body.

They realize this must be a vision, but Grimm doesn't understand why he's there, too. And then a car pulls up outside and Rosa, Grimm's creator, enters with groceries, calling to Ysolde that she's home. She sees the Prometheans and screams, demanding to know why Avalon shot Ysolde, and then tells Grimm that she knew he'd bring death, he's made of killers, of course he's a killer. The clocks start ticking again and grow louder and louder...and then their vision clears and they're back in the cemetery.

Lurch and Enoch share a vision. They're in a...morgue? Hard to say, but bodies are definitely being processed. Lurch says that his workshop when he made a Promethean looked a little like this, and Enoch is surprised to know that Lurch, in addition to spawning Extempore, also created one the old-fashioned way. As they talk, a man in surgical scrubs enters, and pulls down his mask to reveal...Ollie, the young artist who got overly Disquieted by Avalon back in Colorado. He says that he was trying to make someone to fill the same need as Avalon, but now that Enoch was here, he could just take him to her. He stares at the mark on Enoch's arm, obsessing over the throng bond, but Enoch refuses, saying that getting near Avalon would be bad for him. Ollie responds by cutting open his own throat, and the Prometheans watch him die. Back in the cemetery, they come to standing far apart from the others, and Lurch tells Enoch that he thinks he's right about his interpretation of Phosphorum. This fulfills Enoch's Pilgrim Role milestone, help another Promethean approach the Pilgrimage.

Skip and Virgil share a vision. They're in a boxing ring, and Skip is pounding the crap out of Virgil. Virgil is wounded, his eyes are swollen shut, but he's not falling down and Skip isn't letting up. Skip finally clinches him to make the refs break it up and take them back to corners, and Skip's corner man tells him "you've got him! Finish him!" He recognizes Nergal's voice, but refuses to fight. Nergal responses by climbing inside him and forcing him into the ring, but Skip fights back, trying to call on his knowledge of Vitality to resist. They fade back into the cemetery, and Skip is punching the bark off a tree, which Virgil is standing behind. Skip apologizes, but Virgil smiles - he didn't know he could take that kind of punishment.

That leaves Feather and Matt...but Feather's player was feeling very ill suddenly so we had to call it there, HENCE THE INTERRUPTED SUBJECT LINE OOOOOH.

(Next time.)

Game Prep A-Go-Go

This is my last day of spring break. I had wanted to do a character a day, but then I got hit with some really shitty news on Tuesday and lost basically all of Tuesday and most of Wednesday to depression and suicidal ideation (hey, you read my blog, you take your chances). I'm much better now (I mean, I'm still depressed, I basically have been nonstop since fall), but that doesn't change the fact that I planned on making like seven characters this week and I'm gonna wind up doing four if I do one today.

But, on the other hand, I really wanted to get caught up so I could continue doing one a week all year, and as of right now I am (13 weeks into 2018, 13 characters done). So that's nice.

Anyway, today I'm doing game prep. I'm finding it's useful to do a game prep post once a month-ish. Since most of the games I run are monthly, that works out nicely (the ones that aren't are bi-weekly, which might require an additional Blades in the Dark or Promethean post on occasion, but I don't suppose that's a problem).

Right, so, the point is, if you're one of my players, maybe don't click the thing here.

Promethean: Day Two in the Parp

It's "parp" now. It'll always be parp.

Last time, the throng got stuck at the parp while Enoch worked on the RV's engine. The rest of the throng collectively discovered that something that local spirits called the "All-Bane" had followed them there, and so they were understandably concerned about that bit. They went to Enoch to include him in the conversation (now that his player was back), and Grimm took him to see the weird-ass tree with the swiped-off Pilgrim Mark. Enoch studied and noted that it contained Flux and Pyros in almost equal measure, but zeroing in on either was impossible - the signature seemed to shift. It wasn't the work of a Centimanus (which Enoch would have recognized). Maybe a mage?

The Prometheans regrouped and talked a bit about it, and about their next moves. They made the connected between the mysterious "All-Bane" and Rock, the weird not-human guy that Enoch had spoken to some time back in the hotel. Matt figured that the guy he'd seen running through the woods might be Rock, but he hadn't gotten a good look.

They realized that Virgil was not among them, but they could feel him - he was just a little ways off. Matt followed him into the woods and found Virgil standing by a creek staring into the water, but there was a second set of footprints next to him. Matt asked about it, but Virgil was standoffish and reticent, and said he needed to be alone for a bit. Matt accepted this, but then dampened his Azoth and followed at a distance. He saw Virgil talking to a man sitting on a fallen tree, and the man encouraged Virgil to leave the throng behind. "They're much farther ahead than you," said the man. When they were done talking, the man collapsed in on himself and vanished.

Matt talked to Virgil, and Virgil told him that he needed to split from the throng for a while. Matt told him he was always welcome back and to send up a flare if he needed them, and Virgil walked off. The others had felt Matt's fire dampen, and since there's a bad history with that, everyone except Avalon went off to find him. They found him, and Matt told them what had happened, but it didn't go well - Matt didn't mention the strange man he'd seen talking to Virgil and the others assumed that Matt had told Virgil that it was OK to leave, and while they understood the impetus to be alone, they were upset that Virgil hadn't said goodbye. Some harsh words were exchanged, Enoch socked Matt in the head so Avalon wouldn't have to, and the throng split up.

In the meanwhile, though, Avalon had been hanging around outside the RV. A young man walked up and asked to play with her cats, and then when he touched one, its fur poofed up - much like when Skip does it. Avalon talked to him, and he dropped some fairly cryptic hints, making her figure him to be a qashmal. He said he didn't have a name and wasn't likely to need one; he would be recycled when he was done with this little mission. She said it was important to have a name - maybe he'd remember it. He told her that she wasn't Deviant-ing very well, and she said she knew, but she was having a hard time figuring it out. He said that the laws of humans weren't really something she had a lot of familiarity or connection to, but Prometheans had their own "laws" (norms, really) and maybe transgressing against those was better? She'd been told to avoid Ollie, for instance, after that whole debacle. Avalon agreed and thanked him, calling him "Milo." Milo collapsed in upon himself and vanished, and Avalon called Ollie (she got his voicemail and left a message).

Feather got back to the RV and talked to Avalon, and told her what had happened with Virgil. They tearfully talked about their experiences with throng members leaving and coming back - Feather said she hadn't been sad about Skip flying off the mountain or the throng splitting for a time or Grimm going off alone or even her time by herself, but she was sad for Virgil because she didn't really believe he wanted to be alone. In the midst of this conversation, they felt Virgil break the throng-bond.

Skip, meantime, went over to the playground to give Avalon and Feather some space (he's not great with people or emotions) and wound up talking to a little boy with a video game...who almost immediately implied himself to be a qashmal. He asked Skip what he was going now, where he was going on his Pilgrimage next, and Skip said he was going to go out among people and try Aurum. The qashmal said that he was apparently ahead of the curve, then, and collapsed in upon himself and vanished.

Matt went walking angrily in the woods. He found a set of footprints - big ones, boots - and followed them kind of half-heartedly. He found someone (far too small to be the one leaving the prints) waiting for him, carving an angel into a tree. He watched for a minute, and then laughed, saying that this was perhaps a bit on the nose, and the man spoke to him ("Finally!"). The man had cat's eyes, and Matt guessed he was the cat from before, which the man confirmed - it became clear that the man (or qashmal?) couldn't offer information so much as confirm it. They talked and the man confirmed that the thing that had been talking to Virgil was the "All-Bane," not a qashmal - he had been the qashmal but had been disrupted, and now was in this form and limited in what he could do. He led Matt through some questions and conclusions, notably that he was different in some way than the others, and that difference might hold the key to figuring out how to beat the All-Bane. At one point he offered information and his hand burst into flame as he wept - offering information directly cost him. He reminded Matt that he hadn't told Virgil to leave - that had been the All-Bane. When they were finished talked, the qashmal burned, collapsing forward and burning to ash.

Matt walked on, following the footprints, and found a makeshift hut. Inside, he found Lurch (his Azoth also dampened). They talked momentarily, and Lurch told him that he'd followed the Refinement of Phosphorus after finding an Athanor teaching it, but had failed to understand it and was losing hope. Matt realized that although he'd looked up to Lurch - regarded him as a creator and kind of parent - Lurch was hurting, confused, and lost, and Matt was in a much better place. In that he found his projectio milestone (Confront Lurch), and brought him back to meet the throng.

Feather, meantime, we in the RV, feeding the cats, and found herself talking to a man in a yarmulke who called himself Isaac. Feather expressed distrust - she used Heed the Call to take his Measure and found that instead of a Pilgrimage, he had the opposite of that, just a cold, dark pit instead of any relation to humanity. Isaac asked if he gave her some help achieving a milestone if that would help her trust him, and she agreed (it was more than most qashmallim did). He told her to think about her experiences with faith and community and apply them.

The Prometheans regrouped, and decided to find Virgil and make sure he wanted to be alone. Grimm tracked him through the woods, and they found him in the cardboard recycling dumpster outside a local Popeye's. He agreed that he didn't really want to be apart, but the man - the All-Bane - had convinced him. The throng took him back, and they bought a bunch of food and beer and went back to the RV. Feather gave a toast and said a prayer (achieving a milestone: lead a prayer...so Isaac's advice kinda panned out), and the throng ate, reunited. They offered Lurch to join, but he said he had some things to figure out. He wanted to talk to Grimm, for one, since Grimm had achieved a Role on Phosphorum.

More to come!

Promethean: A Day at the Parp

I'm a fan of Allie Brosh and Hyperbole & a Half in general, but this is one of my favorite of her stories because it highlights something I say to/about parents a lot: listen to your kids. Know what you agreed to. Do not agree to something because it'll shut the kid up in the moment, because kids will remember that shit. Best case scenario, you have to deal with a disappointed kid, but if you say "we're not doing thing" rather than "we'll do thing if you can do other thing," the kid will make every attempt to do other thing if first thing is important.

(That sentence was fucking salad, but what do you want from me, I'm not a professional writer.)

Anyway! This is obliquely related to gaming because it dovetails nicely with my GMing philosophy of never asking for a roll if I'm not prepared for the result. And we gamed on Monday, and the game was set at a park, which is spelled "parp" at that strip I linked OMG FULL CIRCLE.

Last session, the characters rescued Virgil from TFV, stole an RV, and headed to a park that Virgil had overheard had some Lurch sightings. Please note that I had completely forgotten those last two things happened, so they weren't in the write-up, so I didn't plan based on them. But that's fine.

So, we're at the park. Avalon takes the kittens and goes to sit under a tree. Feather starts looking around for signs of Prometheans. Grimm, a tracker, looks for signs of a campsite, and Matt goes looking for Pilgrim Marks and the like. Enoch and Virgil start working on the RV's engine, which seems to have something wrong with it (Enoch's player was out, so he get sidelined).

Skip stays in the RV, not wanting anyone to recognize him. He's dropped back to Ferrum so that he can create an Athanor. He carves scars onto his body and focuses his knowledge of excellence and endurance, and makes a Refinement Furnace - he can access the Transmutations of Corporeum and Vitality without fixing them. This in turns gives him some Vitriol back, which he uses to boost his Azoth (side note, Refinement Furnace seems really broken, but that's only because it is).

Meanwhile, in the woods, Matt finds a cat! The cat has sparkly Azoth-y eyes, so Matt figures it might be leading him somewhere, but as he follows it, it vanishes mid-leap. This correlates with a pop from the RV as Skip's Azoth increases, so Matt and Grimm keep looking. Grimm finds something weird - a section of a tree where the wood has been swiped like it was wet cement. He checks it with Vitreous Humour and confirms that there was a pilgrim mark (for "leave me alone") in there, but Matt notes that Alchemicus Transmutations don't work on living matter so what the hell.

Matt sees someone in the woods and follows, and Grimm follows him. Matt sees that guy is slim with black hair, but that's as much detail as he notes. Grimm looks at spirit-stuff and notes that spirits seem to be leaving the area, not fleeing exactly, but just shunning something. They need Skip for this shit.

Out in the main areas of the park, Feather tries to suss out where Lurch might be, but can't figure it. Avalon has been joined by a couple of little girls who saw the kittens, and then the girls' mother. Avalon and the mom chat a little, and Avalon realizes that this is a perfect nice and normal conversation to be having...which is totally not in line with her current Refinement. She tries to flirt a little, but before she can really get into it, Matt and Grimm appear from the tress and kinda interrupt things.

This does seem to throw the groove off. In fact, she notes that the woman seems to jump a stage in Disquiet immediately, and she packs up her girls and heads off. Avalon is confused - it shouldn't happen that fast. Avalon heads to the playground to flirt with some hot dads, just to check and see if she still can without Disquiet flaring. Meanwhile, Matt, Grimm, and Skip head back toward the woods. Skip turns on Ephemeral Flesh and talks to a deer-spirit, which acts skittish (it is a deer-spirit), but refers to something called an "All-Bane." This worries Skip; all spirits have Banes, but this thing is repelling everything. Worse, the deer-spirit says that Skip (rather, the throng collectively) brought it.

Avalon talks to some folks at the playground and gets some fairly normal responses, so it's not like she's just engendering Disquiet like crazy. The Prometheans fall back to the RV and talk a bit. They speculate that maybe TFV might have done something or put something in Virgil that's screwing with things. Someone brings up the weird person(?) that Enoch was talking to, Rock, and asks if that's who Matt saw. Matt confirms that it looked like it could have been him.

Skip goes to where people are working out and stretching and talks to a competition-spirit (conceptual spirits tend to be smarter). It confirms that the All-Bane came with the Prometheans and it's centered on the RV. Matt uses his Bestowment to grant Feather a vision, and Feather sees herself tossing a coin into a well. The coin bounces and echoes, but then the echoes get louder and a skeletal hand appears in the well. A man (well, a skeleton) crawls out, grows flesh and blood, and turns into Rock, and sits there smiling. Feather thinks about how she'll know when she's completed her current Role (Pilgrim), and realizes she'll know when she sees the end of the Pilgrimage. That seems a bit of a tautology to her, so this is probably worthy of further consideration.

Next time, when we have everybody.

Happy President's Day! Game Prep!

Those things are unrelated, except inasmuch as I'm off work today due to the holiday so I have time to do game prep. I'm gonna let Blades go, though, as I don't have spoons to finish.

You know the drill, if you're a player, don't read. I don't actually think any of my players read my blog except maybe Michelle, anyway, so.

Promethean: House Invasion

Hell, I just remembered I hadn't done the Promethean write-up from this past Monday. I'm losing it, I think.

Anyway, last time, the throng figured out a potential way to track where Virgil was being held - by looking for signs of an incipient Wasteland. They found a storm front moving in not far from their current location (on the west side of Lexington), and started looking around for houses with FOR SALE or RENT signs, and that looked likely candidates (this kind of investigation is what Grimm is good at, so he led the attempt).

They found what they believed was the right house, and Matt verified some Pyros in the area, but it was weak. They already knew that these "Task Force VALKYRIE" folks had a way to mimic or suppress Azothic radiance. Grimm activated Vitreous Humour and looked through the walls, and saw people in the basement, but not in the rest of the house. He therefore gave the throng their orders - mass at the side entrance (where the door led to the basement stairs), Skip would kick in the door, and Grimm would go down first. Incapacitate, but don't kill.

Skip kicked in the door, but the enemy was ready. Someone at the bottom of the stairs unloaded an assault rifle at him, blowing some very large holes in him and nearly killing him (at this point I should point out that all of the characters except Matt have visited the River of Death, so if they die, they die). Grimm had stolen a grenade from these folks before, though, and tossed it down the stairs. He heard someone yell "grenade!" and then the boom.

Feather, meanwhile, went around through the front door and stomped a hole in the floor, and dropped down into the basement. She saw the TFV folks, but also Virgil, stuck and apparently unconscious in a plastic tube kind of thing. She saw an Indian man in scrubs carrying a syringe with silvery liquid, and grappled him, but one of the TFV folks snapped open a baton and whacked her in the head.

Grimm came down the stairs, followed by Enoch (in barghest form) and Matt, and found three TFV folks - the guy who'd shot Skip, the woman in charge of the op, and another guy - all armed but stunned. Enoch tackled the woman, but she let loose a barrage from her gun and wounded him pretty grievously. Matt went past them all into the other room to help Feather, while Avalon went rough to the hole in the ceiling where Feather had come through (Avalon has no great skill in combat and so prefers to stay out of the way). She called to distract a soldier, and Grimm shot the soldier and dropped her.

In the room with the tube, one of the soldiers - the guy with the baton - ran for the wall. He hit a button, and a device activated itself, and all of the Prometheans felt their Azoth turning in on itself. Several of them fell over, incapacitated, but the others were still up, including Skip, who got close to the device and used his newly acquired Oscillatus Alembic to disable it.

The Prometheans were up, most of the TFV folks were down. They took the syringe away from the doctor and freed Virgil. Matt and Grimm, having been subject to the lacuna, understood what was happening, and injected his Vitriol back into him.

One of the still-unhurt soldiers told Grimm to let him stabilize his people, and Grimm let him. The throng pointed out that this guy pulling stuff out of Prometheans wasn't good, and the soldier said that the doctor (Dr. Bahl) wasn't one of their unit, he was brought in from "Cheiron" just today. The Prometheans seemed to have a new enemy...

But for now, they were lucky to be alive. They bugged the hell out, leaving behind several wounded but no dead soldiers, and Grimm's strategy had worked. Lay out a strategy that the throng follows is his milestone for the Soldier Role, so he completed that and move on to Exemplar. Meanwhile, Skip remains on Stannum, but is considering going back to Ferrum to make an Athanor.

The throng found a substation and electrocuted the hell out of themselves to heal up. Now, they figure, they'd better find Lurch and get the hell out of the town. They're pretty sure TFV has more resources.

Promethean: SAVE THE KITTENS

Last time, Skip got into a fight, then got arrested and bound, then kicked a door off a car and took off on foot. Today, we join the chase in progress.

The other Prometheans, noting the agents leaving the convenience store quickly, follow them. Skip, meanwhile, high-tails it through a residential section to a mall with a power station nearby. He leaps headlong into said power station, knocking out the power in the immediate area but healing and replenishing himself. He charges up into the mall and steals a jacket and a hat, but he's still walking around with this hands bound (though he does manage to flip his arms around so his hands are in front) and electrical burns on his clothes. He flares his disfigurements and arcs lightning between his fingers to scare folks off, and in so doing becomes a feared urban legend (which fulfills his Savage Role).

The other Prometheans, following Skip's Azoth, show up about now and get faced down by mall security and a couple of cops. Feather activates her Vanquish Distillation and knocks one down (which, as he's suffering from Disquiet, gives him Beaten Down), and Grimm scares the others away. The Prometheans sneak out and see that their van is being loaded onto a flatbed. They consider letting it go...but then they realize that all their stuff and their kittens are in that van!

Avalon notes that an agent has put the kittens into a cat carrier. Grimm activates his Zephyrus Alembic, zips over, and grabs it. Feather runs over to the flatbed, pulls the driver out, and starts it up; Matt follows and jumps in the passenger seat, and Grimm jumps on the back. The agents shoot and hit Feather, but they can't touch Grimm. Skip kicks on of the agents' cars and pins three of them up against their other car, and Enoch uses Glimpsing the Crasis to give one of the agents a memory of when he turned from Centimani back to the Pilgrimage. "We just want to be left alone," he tells them (while they're screaming in pain).

Avalon, meanwhile, uses the Eros Alembic to force the last remaining agent to follow her off into the parking lot. Feather takes off, picks up Avalon and the agent, and they head out before the cops arrive.

Pulling in behind a football stadium, they interrogate the agent. He's sympathetic to the Prometheans up to a point, but isn't that sympathetic (Skip nearly killing his compatriots didn't help). Avalon tries to sweet-talk him into spilling his guts about the group hunting them, but isn't quite able to get there and finally just uses her Alembic to force him. This does fulfill a milestone for her (seduce a human being), and she reflects on how easily she can bend his will - much like Ollie, the agent would do anything for her.

He tells them the truth - the government group is called Task Force VALKYRIE. They hunt supernatural dangers. Avalon claims the throng isn't dangerous, but the agent is obviously unconvinced (just look what the Prometheans have done so far). He doesn't know where they're holding Virgil and knows nothing about Lurch. The throng leaves him, and heads to an RV park.

They steal an RV and ditch the van, and Grimm forces an Elpis Vision. In it, he sees himself walking in the city, searching for Virgil, but can't feel his Azoth. He realizes that Prometheans leave other footprints - perhaps a Wasteland. He rounds a corner and finds his throng, and they all salute him (perhaps a clue as to how to fulfill the Soldier Role?).

Next time, perhaps the throng can find Virgil before it's too late?

Game Prep: All The Things

I have a little time, so I'm gonna try and take some notes for the games I'm running. You've been warned, people.

Promethean: Boom-Shackle

Promethean last night. Whee-buddy.

Last time, five of the Prometheans discovered a government hidey-hole, and then started heading back to the sixth Promethean (Skip). So this time, we start off by catching up with Skip.

Skip and Virgil are in the hotel. Virgil is working on his chronicle, and Skip is applying static electricity to the kittens to make them poof up. Virgil goes out to get ice, and then a moment later, Skip feels his Azoth flare and then dim.

Worried that Virgil's managed to get himself killed again, Skip goes out and sees several people putting a now-bound Virgil into a van...a van Skip recognizes. He starts creeping over toward them, and then they see him, and he recognizes one of them as the woman he saw at the park the other day when he caused an earthquake. He starts calling up Pyros to throw lightning, but one of the other guys shoots him in the chest.

Now, Skip is hella hard to hurt, but he feels that shot. He charges forward and punches the guy, but doesn't manage to drop him. The others load Virgil into the van, jump in, and angle the van around...and Skip can see a huge cannon in the back, pointed right at his head. He runs for it, not sure what that cannon can do and not wanting to see another River of Death. The cannon blows a hole in the hotel and the squad takes off with Virgil, leaving Skip behind to save the kittens.

The others arrive (but don't see the van), and then first responders start showing up. Matt, Avalon, and Feather pack up their gear and get in the van before the police cordon off the area, but Skip, Enoch, and Grimm aren't so lucky. The first three decide they'll pick the stragglers up later and head out to the government installation, while the other three get questioned by the police. Unfortunately, Skip's "Rick Johnson" ID doesn't hold up to scrutiny (he's only got one dot of Alternate ID), and he's arrested. The people who arrest him aren't normal police, though, they're G-men in a black sedan. The things they put on his wrists, too, seem to actively resist being broken.

Meanwhile, though, the others are at the installation. They park down the block, and walk there, which turns out to be good, because another black sedan shows up. One of the people who gets out is the "nurse" they saw at the hospital the other day. The "nurse" and the government spook fellow go into the building, and Avalon activates Soul in the Software to send a "bug" in to listen.

She hears the woman saying that they need an extraction - they were prepared for one of "these things," not seven. Listening to the conversation, Avalon realizes that these folks were hunting Lurch, but haven't had any more luck finding him than the throng has. Now they've got Virgil, which the woman says should be enough, but the man says that they want the other one - Skip. The woman tells him they need more personnel and more gear, and the man says he'll pass it up the chain. Avalon heads back and tells the others, and they decide to follow the government car, but the driver of said car almost immediately notices them and peels out. They head back to the hotel.

There, they pick up Grimm and Enoch, and follow the two black cars leaving (one of which has Skip). Sadly, they pick the wrong one, and just wind up trailing agents to a gas station to get a slushy.

Meanwhile, on the highway, Skip figures he's had about enough. Unable to break the bonds he's held in, he kicks the door right off the hinges and jumps onto the berm. He runs as the car skids to a halt, and the men with the slushies get a call....