Well, here I thought sewer duty was the lowest of the low – assignment wise. Nope, there is a worst – undercover in High School!! Ok so at least it was an interesting though disturbing case, something had aged two high school students to old age. But I had no sword, no explosives and no back-up! Arrghhh. And oh yes, I forgot – HOMEWORK!!!
So here I am at Murias Public Highschool #6, in a homeroom with a few people that I actually knew, I was hoping they would not recognize me out of uniform. But there .. was Scribbles and Buck. One with a very interesting ability and the other has the terrible unlucky ability of getting into the most unbelievable trouble and for the most part surviving it.
One of the students in my ‘homeroom’, a pretty girl by the name of Terra and a young man named Tristan were interesting. Though I don’t get the impression they were friends with the two dead students, they did know them. As both of the students that had died so far died, where from this school and particularly this homeroom. So far the name of the 2nd student hasn’t been released to the public.
I listened around for the next two days, struggled through homework – gag I forgotten how much I had hated this stuff. Not that it was hard just ..it was a total waste of my time. Really now what can possibly be the purpose of writing an 1000 word essay on the different types of flowers in the city for my culture class! Now a paper on the different type of demons that I can understand. And I wont even go into my math homework – if anyone can give me a real life reason that a non-engineer type would use it for – I only hope to the Goddess that my captain doesn’t find out about the grade on that test. I will never hear the end of it!
Terra invited me to a party she was holding at her place on Saturday, I accepted. It would be a good time to see if we have some kind of demon snacking on the students and a party would be a good place for a demon to pick up someone.
A stop at General Li’s for a party size House Chow Mein and Egg Rolls was my contribution to the food for the party. Considering what happened later – I think I will take General Li’s off my list of places to get food – really now ‘Dancing Chow Mein and Not-So Mystery Meat’ -- that’s enough to put me off of Chinese food altogether. Maybe I should learn how to cook – can’t be worse then having to go back to high school again.
Back to the party, it started out ok, though Ross with his purple mist clearly a magical drug of some kind, had to be dealt with fortunately for all involved, most of them had passed out so we could get the mist burner outside where it could not do any harm. Also at the party was Autumn and Grace -- both friends of whom I had met at Redux night club. Even as we were returning to the party, we had unexpected and un-welcomed guests. Three bikers, and not the normal kind but as we later found out some kind of ‘Wild Hunt’ .. Demon things. I am going to have to look them up.
But it was a good fight, though surprising since one of the party guest turned out to be of all things an Angel --- handy ability that. And Terra turned out to be a budding Druid / Plant Mage. We got the students out of there and too safety. I called the God Squad to deal with the biker’s helmets that appear to possess people too. Unfortunately even as I waited for the God Squad, imps by the ..many .. descended and tried to take the helmets. Another fight here ensued, alas we were not as successful – one of the imps managed to make off with a helmet. Though I have to say I had a lot of fun, spearing imps on telephone pole. Unfortunately, one of the priests of the God Squad that arrived was possessed by a helmet, and we could not get it off. So the God Squad hauled him off with the other locked up helmet.
Amazingly, the only real damage was a broken window, maybe my luck with property damage is finally changing.
The rest of the weekend was quiet for me, but I would later find out that another student was drained. There is now a pattern – every 3 days. Which means the next attack would be around Tuesday night/ Wednesday morning. Unfortunately, I was able to find out who was doing the attacks by the 4th attack – which took Buck. At this point, we had literally nothing to go on. So I suggested for Terra if she could do some kind of locating spell and here we had some success, not only did we find out that the soul was ..taken .. and lost in the Ether – and that a pair of demons an incubus and a succubus.
We ended up purchasing 4 soul-gems and going to a church. There using the Angel’s ability to reach into the Ether, using the body as an anchor (having requested all the bodies to be delivered to the church that were in the morgue via Scribbles incredible drawings) and the one bodies we found). Unfortunately, as things would have it, a certain demon of some note, didn’t approve of us re-uniting the souls with their specific bodies – and attacked the church.
Meanwhile as Terra and the Angel united souls and bodies, another battle ensued, this one involved not only a horde of demons, a demon-fighting biker gang, some of the God Squad and a few others including Freeman. What a fight – I am so glad I was able via Scribbles to get my box of emergency explosive supplies from the station – with my TK I was able to strategically place my explosives to take out as many demons as possible. Until of course they scattered too much then it was hand to hand. There is nothing like the sounds of demons being blow to bits and pieces. Unfortunately, my hopes for property damage were dashed, some of the demons were a bit too closed to a few empty cars.
I know sometime during the battle Scribbles was able to find the last body, and the other traveled there unfortunately – the demon was prepared and another battle was fought there. Here the angel I heard, really revealed just how powerful they can be. Truly impressive! I will have to see if I can buy that empty building/shop, its now considered blessed. I would like to live there – knowing it will be safe from demons. I will have to move quickly before that feature becomes know. Fortunately, I have nearly 20 years of saving to tap for that purchase!!!
All and in, an excellent day, got to blow some demons up and saved 4 people.
Alas my luck didn’t hold, when I submitted my report, my captain in fact had received some kind of note from the school about my math grades and I have to take ..remedial math ARRRGGHHH
(I got this from the player, Dawn, a while back but amd just now getting around to doing something with it. I'm posting it here until I get to adding it to the Dreaming City website.)
The events of the last ..was it only 12 hours ..it certainly seemed a lot longer was to say the less very intense, and confusing all at once. Though I am not looking forward to whatever punishment I am going to get after being indirectly involved with the death of a prominent member of the Unseelie Court.
What started out as a standard bottom of the list crap assignment, sewer patrol with two other equally unlucky members of the MPD – didn’t end up as a ‘standard patrol’. We ran into gargoyles (by the names: Delilah, Samson, Dactyl, Solomon and a few others) along with a well known certain Net Troll, Big Crunch, an equally famous PI who is famous for always being in tones of black, white and gray – very odd use of magic; and a human mage named Sadarko.
From what I was able to pick up in the various conversations, these gargoyles had been the guardians of one of the four great Fey treasures – the Grail (or Cauldron for those history buffs). And 1000 years ago they were placed in some kind of ..enchanted sleep only to be awakened if the Grail was in danger. Well they awakened just not where they thought they should be, all but one of them had been ..bought in an estate sale by the mage Sadarko. And the last one – Solomon awakened for sale in Baytor’s MagicalEmporium and promptly escaped. First they were looking for each other then upon finding Solomon in the sewers (along with me), we set about finding the Grail. I at this point went along only due to the potential of having to deal with the public – hopefully the Grail was not in a private person’s hand and just lost somewhere publicly.
I had sent my partners back to report and continued on – yet another report I am going to have to write – replacing police radios.. ughh. Don’t ask, it was embaressing.
Now the fun stuff. Solomon using magic, yes it does appear that Gargoyles can in fact wield magic, cast a spell to find the Grail. And after traipsing (not uneventfully I might add – something about a possessed .. berserk gargoyle -- which I didn’t understand. At least the other gargoyles subdued him) though the sewer for a bit, we ended up by Wolf, Ram and Hart – why am I not surprised?
There we encountered exiting the elevator inside Wolf, Ram and Hart; Balthazar (rather infamous Unseelie Court member – now collector of ..magical artifacts). He apparently had purchased the Grail, I am still not certain from whom. The Gargoyles were rather tight lipped about information. At this point, I was in agreement with the Gargoyles, that he should not have it but of course had to deal with it legally. Even as I tried to get some answers from Baltazar, the building was under attack by what looked like a magical clone army of Templars. Yes Templars. I don’t know if they were the result of one of the Gargoyles calling Simon (apparently an old Templar friend of theirs or what ..), needless to say. Things got very confusing for a few minutes. I had suggested that Balthazar get back in the elevator for his safety and a few of the Gargoyles went in with him, while I and some of the other Gargoyles dealt with the Templars clone things.
The next thing I know, Baltazar is dead and the Grail in the possession of the Gargoyles. I never did get a straight answer on what happened in the elevator from the Gargoyles, I can only hope that building security tapes got something .. Yeh right, and Wolf, Ram and Hart is going to tell the police, I won’t hold my breath. Needless to say we all ended up somewhere on the 7th floor I believe along with a new arrival, someone that claimed he was Lancelot du Lac. Apparently he had been curse to not die until he a) found the Grail and b) it was safe .. not sure about that, something else to verify.
Lancelot told us that he had been sent by Merlin to find and safely retrieve the Grail – not letting it fall into the ‘wrong’ hands. At this point, I think I need a score card. I tagged along again to visit, this Merlin and maybe get some answers. As it is my report is going to read .. well pretty sad .. I am so not looking forward to another visit to my Captain’s office – there is not that many duties worse then sewer duty.
Merlin though looking like one might think Merlin looked was in fact not Merlin, I still don’t quite know what happened one moment we were all talking the next all hell broke lose. And people call me trigger happy ok so I like my explosives -- but they work real well against the nasty stuff I usually end up fighting but these gargoyles are something else. A few moments later ..and I mean moments, I picked myself up off the floor, not really certain how I got there, brushed off the worse of the gore from the exploding spells, slashing claws and I am not certain what else was used .. now ..very dead demon (I think) that was trying to be Merlin. And NO I didn’t toss explosives on Merlin in the middle of a room full of civilians!! I am not responsible for that mess. Lancelot was down and dying .. yes he had fulfilled both of his quest items – though a bitch of a way to die, since I am fairly certain someone among us shot him (more then once) I really don’t know who – or for that matter why, maybe possession –there had been a few instantance of that tonight. The room looked like one of the better splatter flicks complete with associated used weapons and the trashed furniture.
The Grail went with the Gargoyles, since technically I had no right to seize it. And I returned to the station to write the report from hell. I am so not looking forward to what my next assignment is going to be.
(re-posting this here)
The con kicked off with some very exiting news as it was announced by Edwin Voskamp that he is aquiring the rights to Amber Diceless and will be working to get new products available.
Slot 1: "Brave New Krypton"
This was the third time I ran BNK and the craziest of the three times. BNK is a superhero game where players could play almost any hero or villain from DC or Marvel comics. In previous games we've had the characters not only have to deal with the main threat (of Kryptonian rulers of Earth) but having to stop the Dark Phoenix from manifesting or mad scientists from building a device that would turn Earth's sun red (and probably kill the planet). This year, added craziness came as well. The characters were Rogue, John Constantine, Zatanna, Catwoman and Hawkwoman. Zatanna's magic was on the fritz and because of this, there was much exitement whenever she spoke backwords. There was the arrival of a man-sized chicken named Boo when she went to summon a chicken to sacrifice so Constantine could summon a prince of Hell for some answers. Yeah, powerful demons are John's Wikipedia. Even more powerful and scary was the meteor shower she summoned when she cast a spell to create kryptonite. She got it, but the magical influence also brought Krypton's dead god Rao back and the heroes got to face a pissed off sungod. Catwoman, took a really dangerous (and cool) route to get information from the Kryptonians by allowing herself to get captured and interrogated by General Zod so she could seduce him. (I have to admit I saw this coming....) Rogue ended up stealing Mary Marvel's powers after Mary was possessed by Eclipso and used the magical strength of Shazam to help in the fight against Rao. Hawkwoman hit things...with a heavy mace... a lot.
The biggest suprise of the game was the NPC demon Baytor and the love he received from the players. Baytor is a demon who tended bar at Noonan's bar. With no eyes or nose and just a mouth that comes out of his neck, he had a very limited vocabulary: "I am Baytor!" He was such a hit with the players that I had him make cameos in the next two games I ran.
Slot Two: Gargoyles and Grails in the Dreaming City
In the years since the Sidhe inhabitants of Murias opened the gates of the great city to mortals, the city has grown in ways that they could never have imagined. Modern technology and ancient magics coexist in the Dreaming City and it has become a haven for all sorts of mythical creatures. Frozen in stone for decades by a powerful spell, the latest additions to the city have been seen soaring over the skies of Murias. They are winged gargoyles from a time when superstition and the sword ruled and if they don't adapt to the new world quickly, they will never be able to keep the oath they made centuries ago: to protect the grail. They will need allies who understand the city....
I went in to this slot feeling under the weather and it only got worse as it went along as the sinus headache that plagued me at the beginning became a headache so bad I could barely think at the end. Despite that, I seemed to have pulled off a successful game from speaking to the players, although I can't even remember it that well. I do remember that I felt I was having a problem giving players equal levels of camera-time and that the game ended with a confrontation between the PCs and the demon pretending to be Merlin and that poor Lancelot got killed in the process. I also remember that the players found it hilarious when they found out that the very creepy sorceror Sydarko had aquired the frozen in stone gargoyles in an estate sale. I remember working in Baytor as the proprietor of "Baytor's Magical Emporium." Oh yeah, and the characters found out that Wolfram and Hart has an office in Murias. Is anyone suprised? I also learned that I don't ever want to make Simone angry.
Slot Three: High School and other Horrors of the Dreaming City
Of the four great Tuatha de Danaan cities, only Murias remains. The great walls of Murias have kept the city safe time and again from the nightmares that destroyed the other cities and Murias has grown in to a great Metropolis with all of the comforts of the modern world. Now, something strange is happening to the students of Murias Public #3 and you've been asked to help the authorities discover what it is. The brave men and women who have fought unfathomable horrors to keep the city safe are about to face their biggest challenge yet: High School.
Luckilly, I managed to get a nap in between the slots and some painkillers in my system. It was also a much smaller group for the High School gang, which helped. I still don't remember it as well as I usually remember the games I run. There were missing and murdered kids and Tsuki of the Murias Police SWAT team was sent undercover to Murias Public #6 to investigate. (Tsuki looks high school age, so he wouldn't require the usual glamours used by undercover works, so he was loaned out to the "21 Elm Street" team. The two other players played Tristan, the son of a Nephilim (fallen angel) and Terra, a young witch with an affinity for plants. Unaware of the dangers lurking about them, Terra and her roommates decided to throw a party. Tristan had hints that something bad would happen at the party and attended to watch out for his classmates as well as possibly hook up with a girl he had a crush on. Well, he missed out on the girl he wanted but hooked up with Autumn, "The Demon Slayer." Tsuki also showed up bringing Chow Mein from his favorite chinese restaurant, General Li's. Several continuing NPCs showed up at the party, including a cameo by Baytor, who was trying to use his best pick up line on the women, "I am...Baytor." (In his best attempt at a sexy voice.)
OK some of the details at this point are fuzzy in my swiss-cheese memory, but by the end of the game, the PCs were fighting off hordes of demons, snatching back the souls of the dead kids from the ether and resurrecting them to return to life...and high school.
Slot Four: Strawberry Jam in the Hundred Acre Woods
cochese's Amber/Pooh game was the only game I knew going in that I had to be in. The last one I played in, The Courts of Tigger, was a blast. This one was no different. Cochese is extremely good at pulling off humor and fun voices in games and these games bring out a lot of fun antics from players. As far as I know this was the only game that inspired art to be created at the con as there was a drawing of Pooh-lander Pooh holding the head of Kirgan-Pooh with stuffing falling out of the neck, holding his wooden sword high. Kirgan-Pooh was the second most disturbing version of Pooh I've seen in a roleplaying game.
Slot Five: The 4400
This was kind of an experiment for me and judging from the amount of e-mails that my co-GM and I are getting asking if we'll continue the game next year, I guess it struck a spark. My co-GM, Amber seems interested in continuing with it. I'm not as sure. There's definately more that can be done as we just barely scratched the surface of exploring all the story possibilities we had given the backgrounds players gave us for their characters.
Slot Six: Morpheus Calling
Well this game has worked better for me in the past, I believe, but still manages to be a blast every time I run it. According to one player, it was very Sparklypoo, which I take as a great compliment. Three out of the five characters I recieved for this game were from sources I wasn't terribly familiar with, so I did my best to read up on the sources in prep for the game. It seemed to pay off as the player of Cally of Blake's Seven told me he thought it was very cool that I had Cally attacked by another telepath (which I did because I read online that she had a lot of problems with that during the series). The character whose source I was very familiar with was Ash from Evil Dead, so I had a lot of fun with his character. This was the silliest of the times I've run it as I was in a very silly mood after the very serious game of 4400.
Slot Seven: Spontaneous Roleplay Fun!
It was Spontaneous! It was Roleplaying! It was fun!!!
Wrap-up Party
The best part of the con was hanging out with really cool gamer folks and this was the last chance for me to do so. There was also Ambercon NW's own "Obie Awards," a silly award ceremony organized by Clan Lightfoot. That little demonic bugger who kept appearing in my games won me an Obie award for "Oustanding Performance by an Item, Creature or Shadow in a Supporting Role."
Overall: As much as I love ACUS, if I could only afford one or the other, ACNW would be my con year after year. The location rocks. The people are awesome and both times I have attended I played a whole weekend without a single dud game. Hell, I was half-dead for my Dreaming City games and they still fired off thanks to some really cool players. I'll be doing everything I can to attend next year. There are too many cool people that I usually only see there and I want to be there even if I have to stay in the hostel to do so.