Shadows into Light

[CoreBrute]

Re: Shadows into Light

 

Baphomet's Rings

 

Timmy, the Dark God

 

7 bottles of blood on the wall...

 

How are these?

[Fireleaper]

Re: Shadows into Light

 

Baphomet's Rings

 

Timmy, the Dark God

 

7 bottles of blood on the wall...

 

How are these?

Well, I might be able to use the 7 bottles of blood on the wall.

[pinecone]

Re: Shadows into Light

 

I really like "In this issue one the (Team name ) Dies!!!" It always seems to perk people up.

[Fireleaper]

Re: Shadows into Light

 

And last night episode 1 ended. The bad guys were soundly defeated, the sacrificial victim saved and Nightwalker accepted the invitation to join the council of shadows.

 

Some points of interest:

When they attacked the evil wizards base they found that he had placed enchanted mirrors around his base. These mirrors had two functions; first to detect intruders (using a power based on no sense group special effect is it "revealed" the intruder even if they were invisible), second any energy directed at the mirror would be "bounced" onto a desired target (done as missile reflection). of course if the mirror "missed" on its deflect roll then the energy blast would hit the mirror instead.

 

The Marshall had turned into his air elemental form to act as a forward scout, the party was aware that the way down into the secret basement was under the stairs, so he went round to the far side of the staircase and punched the wall breaking a mirror and not finding the door, so he went back around to the closer side of the staircase and punched the wall this time finding the door.

 

Then Nightwalker decided to take a "shortcut" to the basement, and shot a power bolt into the floor while standing on top of a unconscious cultist. (the picture we were using was rather good looking). This had an amusing result when we worked out the DEF and Body of the floor and had him take out about half the floor including the stairs.

 

After the fight Nightwalker broke away as the group invited him to join the circle but didn't give him much in the way of information so he went to get guidence from his totem. Things went pretty much as expected from there and Nightwalker joined the circle.

 

So episode one was a success but the questions unanswered:

 

• Who arranged things for the cops to show up unexpectedly quickly?
  
• Why is the bad guy getting top notch legal protection?
  
• Who arranged for the Marshall to be called in before witchcraft (too bad he was unavailable)?
  

Episode two: Shade over Millenium City.

[Hagadorn]

Re: Shadows into Light

 

Kahn!

[Fireleaper]

Re: Shadows into Light

 

Session 1 of episode two: A shadow over Millenium City.

 

It was an overcast day when the stranger sensed something wrong in millenium city. Upon investigating he found that a person who was recovering from a spiritual "attack" that the victim was unaware of. Using his abilities he uncovered that several people in the building had been attacked.

 

Eventually they decided to inquire at the most recent victims home. This involved our local Chinese shapeshifting psychic dragon sneaking in while the monk was passing on "condolences" from the mans workmates. after a bit of fun involving a todler and a broom she managed to get a look at the most recent victim who appeared deathly ill. Whatever it was had taken a huge bite but had left already.

 

The next day the Marshals car was having difficulty - and the mechanic was unable to work out why. (as a side note the care has a spirit bound into it). taking the car to the monk to see if the monk could do anything for the spirit they manage to get the car working again. The next day the monk (who has no ability to sense supernatural stuff) starts feeling ill.

 

They contact the stranger so he can have a look and find that there is a spiritual entity that is feeding on him. After a bit of a fight it starts talking and the group finds out that it came to this world by accident and it is only feeding on people becuse its normal "food" is only located there. It has for the past bit managed to get closer to a portal that it thinks is able to get it home.

 

The group confront the magician who own the portal, who requests a favor from the marshal in exchange for the use of the portal. They then talk to the Daemon that guards the portal and requests two things from the monk (who is currently "hosting" the entity). First for a guide to the creatures home he must go to a monestary in china and collect a twig from the centre tree in a bamboo grove. Second for use of the gate he must collect something from his brother.

 

So in one session I have the person who upholds the law owing a favor to a magician and a buddist monk entered into two deals with a daemon.

[Fireleaper]

Re: Shadows into Light

 

Session 2 of A Shadow over Millenium city. (Last Fortnight)

 

Nightwalker who had been away doing a task for the master of the outer circle came back.

 

The PC's managed to find The Martial artists brother and they had a fight during which he managed to collect samples of his brothers blood and sweat.

 

They then had finished processing for various passports and stuff (It can be quite amusing when the PC's realize that they forgot to purchase stuff like passports.)

 

Then for the trip to china to acquire the twig from the center of a bamboo grove. No real problem there, quite a bit of roleplaying. Nightwalker then called a spirit to assist the rest of the team to get back to the plane while he took a shortcut through the teams base. This meant that he did not see what his spirit did.

 

One of the powers his spirits are able to do is to assist movement, but the peculiarity of how he bought the power combined with how often a spirit acts meant that the spirit was able to repeatedly use this power on the teams vehicle. We decided that 2 times the speed of sound was fast enough to get where they needed. Now when you consider that this spirit took the form of an avalanche you have a surreal scene of a car being carried by an avalanche at twice the speed of sound across China.

 

They returned to the gate in the set time, and the entity was able to go home.

[Fireleaper]

Re: Shadows into Light

 

Episode 3 of Shadows into light: To Rescue Art.

 

The Master of their circle gives them a task. In a museum there is an amulet that they need to acquire.

 

The amulet was hidden by a proxy, and it only became identifiable while its powers were active. It could do three things.

 

If a man wore it during the full moon then he would become a beast.

If a beast wore it during the full moon then he would be a beast no more.

If a woman wore it during the full moon then she would be blessed with a child that was beast and man and could choose to walk as both.

 

Just one slight problem, A small team of DEMON Cultists were attempting to steal it as well.

 

The group also recognized that there was a problem with the building that the museum was in. It was 11 stories tall, each of the rooms had 1 pillar in the center, 2 plaques on the walls, 3 mirrors, 5 walls and 7 doors, of the 13 rooms on each floor 12 of them were real. Also it seemed to attract people who read fairly well of the Cthulhu Mythos.

 

The showdown happened the DEMON Cult was defeated and they acquired the artifact.

 

A nice simple episode but what should they do with about the building?

[Drhoz]

Re: Shadows into Light

 

A nice simple episode but what should they do with about the building?

 

well, if it's Cthulhu tainted building the usual result is leave it to gather dust for centuries or longer. Property damage is surprisingly rare in Lovecraft's tales, unless you include damage by storms

[Fireleaper]

Re: Shadows into Light

 

well, if it's Cthulhu tainted building the usual result is leave it to gather dust for centuries or longer. Property damage is surprisingly rare in Lovecraft's tales, unless you include damage by storms

Some of the PC's were thinking of ways to get the building "legally" demolished.

 

Should I mention to the PC's that this could make a place of power which is no longer? I'm sure the Elder Gods could make use of that link or is that thinking too twisted?

 

Anyway next episode is 7 Bottles of blood on the wall

[Weldun]

Re: Shadows into Light

 

Some of the PC's were thinking of ways to get the building "legally" demolished.

 

Should I mention to the PC's that this could make a place of power which is no longer? I'm sure the Elder Gods could make use of that link or is that thinking too twisted?

The "legal" part is simply to draw on the metaphysical aspect of that event. If we simply destroyed it ourselves, it would have less of an impact upon the site in thaumaturgical terms. By having demolished by a court order or some other means of representative authority (the law of the land) it won't simply have been destroyed, it will have been unmade.

Anyway next episode is 7 Bottles of blood on the wall

Yay! I'm guessing Vampires. Nightwalker's got a rule about them...

[Fireleaper]

Re: Shadows into Light

 

Episode 4: 7 Bottles of blood on the wall

 

The episode starts with seven files landing on the marshals desk.

The seven victims:

 

Loisa Evelani: Housewife, married 3 kids. Husband is a mechanic came home from the pub to find victim on the floor, dialing 911. No sign of forced entry. Italian background, 5'5”, black hair, dark eyes

 

Georgia Bandanberken: Business woman, single, last seen working late to connect with Australia. Found in office, phone was not in use. No sign of forced entry. Hispanic background, 6', Gold eyes, fair hair

 

Adrian Andal: Student, single. Found in City College Library stacks by early morning maintenance staff. Stacks are open overnight on weeknights. 5'9”, blue eyes, brown hair.

 

Edvard Hauptmann: Backpacker tourist, German, single. Found in room at backpacker hostel when called for breakfast. No sign of forced entry. 5'11”, Brown eyes, black hair.

 

Simone laPlace: Receptionist, divorced, 2 children, non-custodial. Found when ex-husband brought children around for supervised visit. No sign of forced entry. 5'3”, Green eyes, brown hair.

 

Yevgeni Maturokovitch: Cafe owner, The Tsar of Coffee. Married, eight children. Last seen closing up cafe by wife. No sign of forced entry. Found by wife next morning. Russian background, 6'4”, Brown eyes, black hair.

 

Morgan “Spikes” Buettoni: Bouncer, probable “Made Man” in Castrovia crime organization. Found in Frank's Truck Stop parking lot, silenced 9mm Sig-Sauer p228 pistol, emptied, nearby. Italian background, 6', Black hair, black eyes.

 

Using forensic skills the Marshal eventually realizes that each victim died to a vampire. But there were some peculiarities with the victims.

 

Nightwalker made contact with the Marshal to see if he could help him gain certain ingredients, finding out that making orichalcum is a lost art in the champions universe, and that if he started producing the stuff some organizations would be interested.

 

The Marshal recieved a call for assistance from an officer at Big Tonies Donut Shop, when he arrived on scene there was carnage and in the centre of it was a vampire with all the blood drained out of it.

At this point the God that the Stranger is becoming awoke, this mainly caused the Stranger to have difficulty leaving a crowd which caused a few funny moments.

The investigation continued as the Marshal was able to get Nightwalker professionaly involved. He found that the blood of the victims noted above had been alchematized into a compound that not only attracted vampires but then caused all vampiric blood cells to tear themselves to pieces.

 

The Stranger then came accross another vampire who was tearing up a crowd in its death throws at St Joakams School for the Criminally Insane. He decidedly put it out of its misery, then called in the Marshal and Nightwalker.

Using the samples collected Nightwalker was able to call up a spirit to locate the largest supply of the alchematizing agent in the city.

 

The spirit led them to Saint Maribelle of Hope Clinic. The circle then prepared to for a fight including the Marshal swapping places with a fire elemental. They then discuss the best way to proceed when the fire elemental blows in the glass frontage of the clinic, causing some damage to the people inside the clinic from the half melted glass that flew in. The blink, and then confront the doctor who was making the alchematizing compound.

End result the doctor will be standing on trial for Negligent Homicide and a search will be conducted for 5 more vampires who will go on a rampage.

 

overall it was a fun session.

 

Next Episode: Dear Mr Superhero

[Weldun]

Re: Shadows into Light

 

I'll leave it to Fireleaper to recap the last couple of episodes, but I thought that I would give a few of my thoughts on the game so far, particularly the make up of our circle.

 

As mentioned earlier, there are five "roles" (Scholar, Traveler, Seeker, Champion and Speaker) that the members of a circle traditionally follow, but I'm finding that our groups various entries into each of these roles have some interesting literary/role-playing opportunities.

 

Our Scholar is a juvenile Chinese dragon who is quite naive about the world at large, so we have a character that plays not only the role of the Sage, but also the Innocent.

 

Our Traveler holds his position by virtue of a pair of possessed vehicles. A Duesenberg that, due to the Rakshasa inside it, can outrun a McLaren F1 and a C-130 Hercules that is possessed by the Dream of a Dragon, which complains about not having it's guns. What makes this character interesting is that he is a U.S. Marshal that was one of the first U.S. Marshals. The character's background includes having been the bodyguard of a previous Archmage. So while the character can be said to have no powers relating to his role within the circle, he can also be described as "uniquely qualified", as he has traveled much of the world.

 

Our Seeker (played by me) might fit his role quite well, but is a bit of a fish out of water due to coming from an alternate universe (the Shadowrun setting), but also lives by a code which being in the circle has forced forced him to violate. He is also the only spellcaster in a mystically oriented group, which I think is great, as it shows that a "mystic" background does not need to automatically mean "mage". Interestingly, in his role as seeker, he tends to rely more on conventional investigation techniques, with some assensing and astral tracking backing it up. He has only once called on a spirit to perform an astral search (mind scan).

 

For a Champion, the reflex would be to go for some form of magical knight with arcane armour and a "hoopy" sword, but our Champion is Brother Lung, a Buddhist monk of the Five Celestial Dragons temple. He's also a reincarnated Dragon, but as a Buddhist he, of course, will not take a life and will only resort to violence in the defence of others, which goes great with the ideals of the Council of Shadows, but it does create some great roleplaying opportunities.

 

And last, but certainly not least, we come to our Speaker. This character has a singular ability to extract information from people through the course of a conversation and is forgotten by anyone who is out of contact with him for more that a few minutes (Hooray for "The Circle is Never Broken"). But this character is becoming the personification of a "God of the Crowd". Much of his powers and weaknesses stem from "the Crowd" and as such he has lost a considerable amount of his individuality. So we have our interpersonal expert who is slowly becoming an impersonal personification of the huddled masses.

 

As you can see, we have some interesting characters that provide excellent role-playing opportunities not only in how they interact with each other, but in of themselves.

[Hagadorn]

Re: Shadows into Light

 

You also forgot to mention that after we discovered the alchemist who had been poisoning the vampires. The Stranger talked to him, found out everything he was thinking and then turned around annnd...

 

 

"Well, I see nothing wrong here. Can we help him refine his process?"