String Theory Recap: the Blood Opera

The eleventh session of my Night's Black Agents game, String Theory, completes the second adventure from the Zalozhniy Quartet adventure: Out of the House of Ashes.

We begin with our agents planning how to rescue Arkady Shevlenko. His granddaughter has already been whisked to safety but the vampire Simon Thronradel is not going to let the old spy escape so easily...

Blood Opera

We start by dealing with the Heat. It currently sits at Difficulty 6 due to the bodies in the river and the drugs found in Nasir’s hotel room. They decide to point the police in the direction of the van’s “owners”. Using Digital Intrusion, they lay down a fake trail to the Lisky Bratva’s doorstep. Scarlet rolls, spending 3 points, and succeeds with a 9.

Also Scarlet spends 3 points of Medic to patch up John from last session when he got sniped.

Next I set a timer. They have 5 minutes to plan their extraction. They succeed and I give them a 6 point pool to spend on the operation.

The plan is to build and install a mist machine to disperse antibiotics throughout the opera house. Guy will take care of this. Nasir will then slip in as an usher and sabotage the special effects at the end of the show to create a fire (Art History gives them the idea). Robin will use Forgery and Bureaucracy to insert John and Lynne, the CIA survivor, into Shevlenko’s security detail at the last-minute. From her history with the FSB and a Tradecraft spend, she knows this will tie up the lead handler, Volkov. Once the fire begins, they will steer Shevlenko to a side exit and escape in confusion. As a backup their escape van will have a second mist machine installed. Hopefully this will stop any vampire interference.

The team sets up a fake ownership trail for the van that ended in the Danube two nights ago hoping the authorities follow it to their enemies instead of them. Guy meanwhile checks out an old cache site only to discover that the CIA cleaned it out months ago.

As John sleeps off the bruises from the day’s excitement, Guy busies himself building a modified humidifier to disperse antibiotics through the Vienna State Opera building. Scarlet comes back as he finishes up loaded with supplies taken from a local hospital. Guy fills the device up with the stolen antibiotics and heads for the opera. In the dark hours of the night he installs it in the ventilation system.

Guy fails a Preparedness roll to establish a catch so Scarlet uses her Cover to get the antibiotics. It takes all of the remaining points in Alice White, her doctor without borders.

The construction project is a Mechanics roll to build the machine plus a second roll to install it most effectively. Guy makes the first plus the Infiltration roll to get in but fails the second. That means the block is only Difficulty 6. I decide Simon still isn’t willing to cross it and then sit in a theater for 4 hours.

The next day, Nasir slips in as an usher and makes his way backstage. As he nears the pyrotechnics, a security guard accosts him. The guard asks for his badge. The spy pats his jacket before explains he left it at home and quickly concocts a story about what he is doing back here. The guard, mollified, lets him finish his business. Alone at last, Nasir compromises the pyrotechnics and immediately vacates the building.

Nasir fails his Disguise roll plus a Preparedness roll to have a stolen badge on him. Luckily a Reassurance spend and second Disguise roll gets him past that trouble. His Explosive Devices roll yields a 7 so the fire will be quite large while not obviously sabotage. Finally Scarlet uses Digital Intrusion to get the security camera feeds. Guy uses the Driving cherry to get a new van.

As the opera house opens, Scarlet clicks through the security feeds at the team’s hotel room. Nasir and Guy wait in a freshly lifted van a few blocks from the venue. Inside Volkov receives forged orders to include John and Feinberg in the security detail. She storms off to talk to Moscow about this intrusion into her domain, leaving Popov in charge of Shevlenko. He stations the new bodyguards outside the Russian delegation’s box along with the towering Kaminski. Shevlenko simply gives them a knowing look.

Scarlet spies the vampire, Simon, attempting to enter the opera house. He sniffs the air and quickly steps back out. He calls someone and a half hour later Bratva thugs have the place surrounded. They wait and watch.

There is not much Robin action here. My son was sick and needy. This has been happening more and more (the needy part). After some discussion it looks like she will absent herself from the game for the foreseeable future.

Eventually the opera reaches its climax. After failing to obtain the required sacrifices, the villain of the piece is struck by lightning...which lights a third of the stage on fire. Luckily no one is injured but the audience quickly make their way to the exits. Scarlet helps guide the team through a tight passage where they peel off the giant bodyguard Kaminski.

Scarlet spends a point of Architecture for this effect.

As they near the exit, John turns, grabs the nerdish Popov and hurls him into Shevlenko’s nurse. Feinberg leads Arkady outside with John right behind them. Guy pulls up in front just as Popov comes sprinting out of the theater. On the street four stocky men race towards them.

John spends 2 Hand-to-Hand to Throw Popov. He succeeds.

John leans out with a machine gun and lays down suppressive fire on the goons. They scatter or fall behind as Guy drives off. A solid thump however announces that Popov managed to jumps on board.

I give Guy a Driving roll to ensure that the bodyguards will have no chance to close on them. He fails. The goons were alerted by the nurse pushing the panic button to the conspiracy. John creates a line of suppressive fire with an automatic weapon stashed in the van. It dissuades two of them, the others beat his Shooting roll with their Athletics roll. My dice were on fire that night.

Then we start the chase with the people on foot rolling Athletics to grab on. Popov also makes his Athletics roll against Guy’s second Driving roll. The goons (both on foot and in cars) fail.

As he shoots through the tight streets of Vienna, Guy glances at his mirrors. Two cheap cars race after him plus something on foot far faster than than any mortal. Ahead the road swings past the river and a flock of geese. He swerves into them, sending a swarm of feathery bodies upward to distract his pursuers.

Guy’s lead is 6 after his getaway. He has two cars behind him full of eight goons, a Russian bodyguard on the back and a vampire blurring towards him. He sees a flock of geese and decides to use them to raise everyone’s difficulties.

As bullets ping off the back of the van, Nasir and John unload their guns into the side door. Their work is rewarded with the sound of Popov falling off onto the hard cobblestone steps. Then both tires are punctured by automatic fire.

Nasir and John do a teamwork Shooting roll to dislodge Popov. Their total is an 11. Adding in the difficulty from the birds, Popov needs to make an Athletics roll of 12 to hold on. He fails and falls off van, taking 6 damage.

Then the thugs fire for tires. Despite the Hit Threshold of 7, two of them succeed! I kindly give Guy a Difficulty 6 Driving to control the crash. He succeeds. I still roll 2 damage for the group. Luckily everyone was wearing a seatbelt so only Arkady takes any damage (and only from the stress).

Guy tightens his grip on the wheel and drifts the van into a controlled collision with some metal posts. Glancing back he checks that everyone is unharmed. Arkady breathes heavily as the Bratva forces pull up behind them. Then something lands on the roof.

With a squeal of tearing metal, the side door goes flying away from the vehicle. Simon dives down and pounces into the van.

Simon beats the block difficulty of 8 and takes 5 damage from the antibiotic mist.

His face contorts with pain and anger as thin smoke wafts from his orifices and skin. In a blur, he reaches out, grabs Feinberg and hurls her thirty feet onto a muddy patch of ground. He slams John into the roof of the van before tossing him outside as well. Arkady slinks back into his seat as the monster moves forward.

Simon does a Throw on Feinberg, spending 2 Hand-to-Hand on top of his attack. Miraculously I roll minimum damage as she lands on some soft grass. He then hits John for 2 damage with his free extra attack and spends 2 Abberance to make a third attack. He does another throw but John makes an Athletics roll (difficulty 5) to hold onto the door frame.

John manages to grab the van on his way out and lands just outside. Spotting a half-dozen thugs approaching he liberally sprays the area with bullets. As they retreat to the safety of their vehicles, Nasir and Guy sneak over to a nearby jeep and hot wire it.

John uses suppressive fire again. With the vampire in action, none of the thugs decide to be a hero. Guy uses the Grand Theft Auto cherry.

As Simon reaches for the old man, Feinberg shouts “stop!” as she presses her gun against the back of the head. The vampire grabs Arkady’s sleeve.

She fires, spraying the black innards of the vampire across the interior of the van. They sizzle in squirm in the mist.

Simon takes 1 damage. He doesn’t really need his brains.

He twists around, a violent exit wound streaming dark goo down his face. He roars at her, a gory tentacle shooting from his mouth. She ducks, the black mass passing through where her head was a split second ago. As she recovers the tentacle loops down around her neck and lifts her from the ground, choking her.

Simon spends 2 Abberance to get three attacks again. I forgot to ask for Stability rolls here but when we handled them later Nasir failed and lost 6 Stability in total! The vampire fails on his first attack, hits for 1 damage on the second (but grapples her) and then deals some moderate damage with the third.

John turns and targets one of their prepared canisters of compressed gas mixed with antibiotics. A blast of medical mist shoots out, scorching the tendril. Simon hisses but holds on.

Then the car hits him.

The canisters were something discussed earlier. I gave John a Difficulty 6 Shooting test to direct a blast at the vampire. Unfortunately Simon makes his roll against the block. He holds on and takes 5 more damage.

Then Guy collides with him in the jeep. He fails a Driving roll to avoid clipping Feinberg. She drops to -5 Health. Miraculously she makes her Consciousness roll. The vampire takes another 3 damage as he is run over.

Next Guy makes a Preparedness roll to have some smoke bombs to cover their escape. Nasir deploys them.

The jeep rolls over the vampire and knocks Feinberg free. Holding in her ribs she crawls to the vehicle as Arkady slips out of the van and into the jeep. Nasir drops some smoke grenades covering the extraction. The thugs fire wildly in their direction as John gets on board. In the thick mist the bullets somehow miss everyone.

The goons do not make any lucky rolls this time. Then I remember Popov.

Suddenly shots ring out from behind the thugs as a bloody and disheveled Popov stalks up the road. As Guy throws the jeep into the gear, the surviving Bratva goons unload into the bodyguard. The agents don’t stop to save him.

Guy smashes through a fence hoping to dislodge anyone hanging on. But a few minutes later, the sound of tearing metal alerts them to trouble. Nasir unloads one of the mist canisters into the jeep. A single bloody hand claws out of the floor and grabs Nasir before a second blast sends it and Simon tumbling onto the streets.

Simon holds on, spends Abberance to rip open the floor and then grabs Nasir, dealing 3 damage. Nasir uses the last canister to drive him off (and deal 5 more damage, plus more for the fall). Simon has run out of Abberance at this point and so let's them go.

Looking back they see the battered vampire picks himself off street. He looks in their direction and then walks off.

Wincing as she props herself up, Feinberg makes the call to the embassy. Guy pulls the jeep discretely through the Vienna streets. Nasir and John breathe a little easier.

Arkady gasps and clutches his chest. As the team moves to help him, he waves them off. “No I must tell you what you need to know. What They are after.”

Harry Philby

Slowly he wheezes out the details of the plot concocted by Harry Philby, father of his friend Kim Philby. Using a binary agent Philby infected the Saudi royal family with a vampiric plague, one that would place them under his control. Something went wrong. Harry died. The first half of plague was buried with him. His son kept the activating agent in a vault at the Koernersbank in Beirut and tried to sell the plot to the Russians. Now the conspiracy wants to use it take over Saudi Arabia and its vast oil holdings. He chokes out some coordinates to a secret cache, something that may help them. Then he blacks out.

I get through the info dump. Scarlet then leads the team remotely (+2 difficulty) in an attempt to save Arkady’s life. Somehow she makes the Difficulty 12 Medic roll.

Scarlet breaks in over the comms and starts ordering John through the steps to save Shevlenko’s life. Fifteen minutes later, the team drops Feinberg and the weak but breathing defector off at the embassy before vanishing into the morning fog.

I award them some free Network contacts (Arkady and Feinberg) for that.

A day later they assemble at the coordinates Arkady gave them. A small group of Sassafras trees sit there. Amid their roots, they find a metal box with documents detailing Arkady’s Middle East work. Clues point to the Iraqi National Museum as well as a possible asset in Beirut.

Next we spend some time putting the group’s notes together, bringing everyone up to speed, and prodding Nasir to come clean.

Robin listens to the operation details and then asks the difficult question. “Nasir where did the item Shevlenko said was in the vault go? The vial filled with the activating agent?”

The Pakistani spy pauses for a moment before explaining that he has hidden it. Under pressure he says he’ll give a sample to Scarlet for analysis. Somewhat mollified, the team makes arrangements to return to Germany.

On the way, Scarlet takes a look at the sample. It seems to be a culture medium tweaked for some variety of bacteria. She tests it against samples of the black goo they obtained in Serbia. While those bacteria grow well, it is clearly not a match.

Basically using Diagnosis. Also at this point everyone’s pools refresh.

Once in Germany, they check surveillance on the castle. Everything seems the same. John contacts Colonel Drake to see what developments have occurred with Dr. Gomez. Drake says that the body they sent opened up some new insights. He invites them over to the base where he has hidden medical lab set up for her and Quist’s corpse.

Robin and Nasir opt to sit this one out, leaving John and Scarlet to conduct the meeting. The Colonel leads them into a darkened warehouse, where a single lamp illuminates a makeshift lab. A body lies beneath a white sheet. Confused about where Gomez is, Drake invites them to look at the lab while he hunts her down.

Scarlet approaches the table, a growing dread building within her. The body is female. Pulling back the sheet, she finds a very dead Dr. Gomez. Growls comes from the darkness around them as Drake’s voice echoes over the intercom.

“Sorry. You know how it is,” he explains. “I have kids.”

“No I don’t!” John shouts as the growls grow closer and yellow eyes glint in the dark.

So the conspiracy flipped Drake as they close in on the agents.

Scarlet digs in her bag, pulling out a grapple gun. As she shoots it near a high window, John moves to intercept the werewolves.

They blur out of the darkness but he weaves between them as Scarlet slowly rises upward. He stays below her warding them away as they circle him. One claws his arm while the other pounces on his leg as he is distracted. He kicks it off and grabs Scarlet. Pulling himself to safety, he begins to swing the line. Below the monsters jump and snap at them. Then the two spies smash through the high window to safety.

Scarlet makes a Preparedness check to have a grapple gun in her pack. She uses Shooting to latch it and doesn’t mess up horribly. John spends 4 Athletics to boost his Hit Threshold by 2. That helps ward off both werewolf attacks that round. The next round he boosts it by 1 but the werewolves use pack tactics to lower his Hit Threshold. They hit for 3 and 0 damage. He makes an Athletics test to climb out of reach and succeeds.

That’s it for now. Next time they storm the castle (I think).

Project Werewolf: Special Officer Steven Lynch

While Project Werewolf may be directed from Washington, the day-to-day works needs someone more hands on. Operatives need to be handled, doctors manages, security maintained. Steven Lynch was once a skilled field agent and after his injuries grounded him they gave an even tougher assignment: manage a team of werewolves.

Special Officer Steven Lynch

Career agent, asset handler, and desked badass

Description: physically powerful, limps, deep voice

Defining Quirks: likes being on his feet, fills pauses with his opinion, hates being called Steve

A hulking African American man, Steven prefers to deal with problems directly. Once this made him an excellent operative, heavily involved in the minutia of the mission. As an administrator it makes him unliked by his subordinates.

Given that those subordinates include renegade scientists and artificially enhanced soldiers, their comfort is not a major consideration by his bosses who want to make sure nothing goes wrong at the Castle.

He obtained his limp in the line of duty, suffering devastating damage from a sniper round.

Operations

Lynch handles all day-to-day operations at the Castle, Project Werewolf's secure facility a few hours away from Landstuhl, Germany. He coordinates the missions of the werewolf operatives, overseeing their operations, support staff, and any deliveries (including the rather dangerous work of sending "the rejects" to work as hunting dogs). The rest of his time is consumed making sure Dr. Gerhard and his staff are able to continue their work. New subjects must be brought in, the failures disposed of or placed in the kennel, and any new operatives trained and conditioned.

The fact that his agents are hot-tempered and could rip out his throat makes this doubly difficult.

Attributes

Investigative Abilities: Bullshit Detector 1, Bureaucracy 1, Chemistry 1, Cop Talk 1, Criminology 2, Data Recovery 1, Electronic Surveillance 1, High Society 1, Human Terrain 1, Interrogation 2, Intimidation 1, Languages 1, Military Science 1, Notice 2, Tradecraft 2

General Abilities: Athletics 6, Conceal 4, Digital Intrusion 4, Drive 8, Explosive Device 4, Hand to Hand 12, Health 12, Infiltration 8, Mechanics 4, Piloting 4, Preparedness 6, Sense Trouble 10, Shooting 10, Surveillance 6, Weapons 6

Hit Threshold: 3 (bad leg)
Alertness Modifier: +3
Stealth Modifier: +2

Damage: -2 (fist), +1 (pistol), +0 (assault rifle)
Armor: -1 (Kevlar)

The Sprawl Recap: The Black Science Woman Job

So with character creation completed and the world established, I ran the first mission for my very short The Sprawl campaign: The Black Science Woman Job. The job was simple: extract an illegal cyberware doctor from a black clinic run by the local crime family. Getting there was the hard part.

The Black Science Woman Job

Their employer introduces himself as Vadim Zhou. The clean-cut businessman explains they are to ‘rescue’ his sister Alice Zhou from local criminals. The chrome headed man cocks his head as another patron of the Pizza Shack drifts closer than he likes. Once out of earshot he explains that his sister is being held at a black clinic within the Kaleidoscope. The augmented reality system within this ruined arcology has been corrupted and navigating the maze is virtually impossible without the right codes. He explains the setup and details on her ‘employers’; the Smiths. In addition to drugs and illegal cyberware, the crime family also runs a successful garbage removal racket.

Oracle made the Get the Job move, getting a soft success. They took useful information, giving them 1 intel. This does mean someone paid attention to the meeting however.

The Smiths (and their rivals the Smithes) came from tossing the question of the local crime family’s name to the players. I didn’t quite like how it played out. I think in the future I’d ask such a question the session before (and more along the lines of what is the local criminal organization like?).

The Pizza Shack’s slogan is ‘guaranteed not dog’.

Though the team never worked it out, Vadim’s real reason for wanting Alice back was that her family’s living situation depended on her fulfilling her contract to Genewear. If she doesn’t do her job, they lose their benefits and status. Of course she didn’t really care about that.

The Mission Directives included: Accept the Mission, Locate Zhou's Clinic, Extract Zhou, End the Mission (2 Experience). My goal was to ensure an advance by the end of the second session so we could fully explore the system.

Smoke and Oracle stake 2 cred while Demon throws down 3 cred, advancing the Legwork Clock.

The Kaleidoscope is a warren, built beneath a geodesic dome and now open to the air. Sixty floors of identical rooms and halls hide all sorts of illegal activity. Demon says he’ll talk to his contact Mitch who lives there. He also dispatches one of his drones, Big Bear, to surveil the structure. Smoke heads out on foot while Oracle considers another tactic.

Demon uses his contact for the session. He gets a soft success to Hit the Streets. Mitch needs something and it draws attention.

Demon picks up Mitch at the 5 and 50. Inside the warm confines of Mama Bear, the Demon asks the jittery man how he can reach the black clinic at the Kaleidoscope. Mitch says he knows a way but he needs something first: one of the XR-12 modules. The bleeding edge VR devices were said to be better than reality. Unfortunately the government forced Viridian Dynamics to cancel the series and they were supposed to be destroyed. Rumor says that they were buried in the central park landfill. Demon reluctantly agrees to find one, grumbling that at least Mitch is off the meth.

All the while someone or something is watching...

Demon switches his focus to Big Bear. The sleet and ice from what the new channel is called Frostpocalypse was piling up. The drone’s sensors still picked up a few places where the upper surface of the Kaleidoscope rose a suspicious few millimeters. Hidden landing pads, he suspected.

Demon Assess and get a soft success, allowing him to ask “What do I notice despite an effort to conceal it?”

On the ground, Smoke stalks through the icy halls. The light sleet freezes as it hits the metal surface. She struggles keep her footing as she prowls the maze. Adding to her difficulties is a complete lack of identifying marks to distinguish one level or section from another. She decides not to connect to the local VR system, her systems alerting her to the presence of multiple viruses. Down one hall she finds the chilled remains of a former resident, his cybereye cracked and defective. She presses on.

Smoke rolls Assess and gets a soft success. she asks Who or what is my biggest threat in this situation?

A half hour later she finds three locals warming themselves by a barrel fire. She engages them in conversation. They all know the clinic is around here somewhere but not how to get there. A child shares a rumor that they pay good money for harvested organs. A man, warmed more by the tropical island he sees in virtual reality, confirms the rumor. He sold his kidney to them not long ago. But you need the route plotted for you in VR.

Demon contacts the others, interrupting Oracle as she stalks a shady figure near the Kaleidoscope. He relays that he has found a way to the clinic but that he needs to get something to pay for it first. Oracle decides his plan is better than her idea of wounding a stranger and tracking him to the clinic.

Demon arranges to pick the others up and moves into the next intersection. A hover truck nearly crushes Big Mama as a light unexpectedly turns green. Demon dives out its way, honking his horn in protest.

Something takes its first of many shots at Demon. He Acts Under Pressure and gets a hard hit.

He picks up the others and takes them to the dump. Amid the massive piles of debris that now cover the former city park, they spot a disturbed patch that looks promising.

Smoke helps unsuccessfully but Demon still makes the Assess roll. He asks What do I notice despite an effort to conceal it?

Demon stays in Big Mama while the women start digging near a wrecked car lying on its side. Oracle knocks free some broken electronics with Viridian markings.

Then the ground gives way, sucking Smoke into a hidden cave.

Making my hard move.

Oracle quickly ties a rope between herself and Big Mama then jumps into the pit. As she crashes to the cave floor, a dozen yellow eyes glow in the darkness. The feral dogs make hungry growls as they close in.

Oracle Acts Under Pressure and gets a soft success, alerting the dogs.

Smoke grabs onto the line. Demon kicks Big Mama into reverse. Oracle fires wildly as they are yanked up out of the pit. The indiscriminate gunshots collapse the lair, crushing the dogs and any remaining XR-12s. The rumbles echoes through the neighborhood.

Smoke succeeds in helping Demon Act Under Pressure. He gets a full success and gets them out of there. Oracle Mixes It Up and fails. I exchange harm. Thanks to her cybernetics and custom weapons she deals 5 harm as a gang! So the gang of dogs is dead. With her armor they can’t hurt her back so the consequence is the collapse. Also I advance the Legwork clock.

The team looks around for another likely dig spot. After much searching they find another disturbed patch of earth. As the women dig, uncovering chips of shattered electronics, an automated dump trunk enters the park. Slowly it moves closer and closer. Smoke quickly gathers pieces, looking for a module that is intact enough.

Eventually the truck hovers above them. As it begins unloading, Oracle fires at the door mechanism, jamming it and giving Smoke enough time to grab a mostly intact module.

Oracle Acts Under Pressure to break dump truck mechanism and succeeds. So no trash ends up dumped on them.

Onto the Action section.

The next day, Demon loads the VR code from Mitch into Little Bear. The tiny drone zips through the corridors and stairwells which appear as a thick jungle to its sensors. Oracle and Smoke follow behind discretely as it winds along an intricate path. Ultimately they find themselves near a metal door less than 30 meters away from where they started.

The drone spots two men toting shotguns heading to the door. Smoke and Little Bear slip in before they manage to finish their patrol.

Smoke uses Covert Entry and gets a soft success which she uses to bypass the guards.

The room they enter is quiet and dimly lit. Pop music wafts in the air from elsewhere in the clinic. Three doors lead out from the room. Little Bear uses its thermal scanners to penetrate the thin walls and scour the other rooms. The heat signatures identify the room on the right as some sort of recovery room while a group of men seem to be playing a game in the room directly across from the entrance. The drone also notices some active electronics, like a security station in that room. The left room is empty but the music sounds stronger from there.

Demon Assesses with help from Smoke. They get a hard success and ask What potential complication do I need to be wary of? The answer is the four guards in the back room. What is my best way in/way out/way past? is the next question, which is the front door.

With only one way out, Smoke decides to disable the door to the guards, sealing them in. She quietly shorts out the locking mechanism and then slips into the left side room.

Smoke Acts Under Pressure and gets a hard hit.

This room turns out to be a surgery. Another door leads further back into the clinic. Smoke spies Zhou inside, distracted by her music. She radio’s Oracle to come in.

The mercenary turns the corner with her machete already descending in an arc into the faces of the guards out front. Their blood decorates the exterior before they can react.

Oracle Mixes it up and gets a hard success. They die quickly.

The killer moves inside and draws a syringe of tranquilizers. She passes Smoke and stabs the woman but not before she gives a short choked scream.

Oracle Acts Under Pressure and gets a soft success.

The two women pull Zhou out of the clinic as the remaining guards bang uselessly on the sealed door.

I advance the Action Clock appropriately.

Smoke drags the unconscious doctor along while Oracle covers their retreat. After a few minutes however they realize that they’ve become completely lost. Just as they hit a dead-end, four men armed with needlers turn the far corner.

I use a custom move here:

Toxic Landmarks: when navigating the Kaleidoscope, roll +Mind. On a hit pick one. On a 7-9 pick another as well.

• You attract unwanted attention.
• Take -1 forward from the frustrating maze.
• Your optics/neural interface has been compromised. VR bleeds into reality.

They fail the roll.

Smoke pulls Zhou to a nearby side passage while Oracle engages the attackers. Dozens of plastic slivers strike her, turning her armor into a pin cushion. One strikes and disables Little Bear, which Smoke snatches up on her way out.

Oracle continues firing, her powerful handguns picking out her assailants and turning them into chunky salsa. As the smoke clears, she realizes that she is alone. Her friend is nowhere to be seen.

Oracle Mixes It Up and gets a soft success. She takes harm and raises some noise. The Action Clock advances again. She takes (3-harm +0 for same size gang -2 for armor) 1 harm and marks her directive (since she got hurt). She makes harm move rolling at -2 (1 minus 3 for dermal plating and flechette rounds). She gets a soft success again so I chose that she loses track of the others. Her foes take (5-harm +0 same size gang -1 armor) enough damage to kill them.

Smoke calls Demon to get her out of this maze. He eventually triangulates her position and after a frustrating half hour picks her and Zhou up.

He got a soft success and took the -1forward.

Oracle meanwhile works her way to the edge of the arcology. As daylight breaks down on her, three men with shotguns surround her.

“Give me your weapons,” she tells them.

They laugh.

Moments later, she picks her way over their bloody remains, shotgun scoring covering her battered armor.

Oracle rolls to Play Hardball. She fails and we exchange harm. This time the shotguns and a smaller gang mean she takes no damage. She also fails the harm move so there are no consequences. The other guys die.

Later on the team deliver Alice Zhou to her brother at the Pizza Shack. He pays as promised and they leave feeling like they accomplished something.

Meanwhile a traffic cam monitors their movements.

Oracle rolls Getting Paid and with the +3 from unfilled Footwork segments, she gets a hard success. They are paid in full, the meet is not an ambush, and they earn an extra experience. So that is 6 experience base plus 1 more for Oracle for getting hurt. Of course Shinja (who control the smiths) advances its corporate clock and another threat gets closer to taking on Demon.

Project Werewolf: Talbot

Finally we reach the last operative for Project Werewolf, their first successful enhanced soldier: Talbot. This nearly indestructible killing machine doesn't play well with others.

Talbot (Matthew Everett)

Werewolf Version 1.0

Description: Heavy musk, impassive face, strictly nocturnal

Defining Quirks: adrenaline addict (dilated pupils, too fast speech) (using a Pharmacy or Diagnosis spend), slurs speech, expressionless

The first of Dr. Joseph Gerhard’s successes, Talbot is unique in that he worked for the agency before his transformation. Injured in the line of duty, this hardened patriot volunteered for the operation. It not only saved his life, the procedure granted him superhuman strength and speed, a bloodhound's ability to track by scent and the stamina of an elephant.

In my game, Talbot even survived being at ground zero of the explosion that took out the Castle and the rest of Project Werewolf. But it turns out that a grenade launcher shot to the chest was one explosion too much for him.

Talbot's name has become a legend in the European espionage circuit, a boogeyman that the CIA turns loose when they want someone killed, broken, or grabbed violently. To date he has never failed.

His condition requires regular doses of refined adrenaline which he injects religiously four times a day.

Operations

Talbot handles jobs for the CIA personally: assassinations, retrieval, and other violence. He works alone and he is not discreet.

Attributes

Investigative Abilities: Intimidation 1, Languages 1, Occult Studies 1, Streetwise 2, Tradecraft 2
General Abilities: Aberrance 20, Driving 6, Hand to Hand 14, Health 16, Shooting 12, Weapons 12

Hit Threshold: 5
Alertness Modifier: +3
Stealth Modifier: +2

Armor: -2 (leathery skin and Kevlar)
Damage Modifiers: Augmented fist -1, Combat knife +0, Jericho 941 +1

Free Powers: Infravision, Regeneration (all Health refreshes the next day), Enhanced Olfactory Sense, Unfeeling
Other Powers: Inhuman Strength (spend 2 for impressive actions or to add +1 to damage), Inhuman Speed (free extra attack, spend 2 to gain +1 Hit Threshold for a scene or to Jump in), Spider Climb

Banes: Nickel Allergy (+ 2 damage), Beta-blockers (instant; Health difficulty 5 test, Minor: -5 Aberrance, Hurt, lasts until the werewolf's next injection; Severe: -10 Aberrance, +2 damage; -2 Aberrance and -1 Health every hour until treated)
Compulsions: Daily drug regime (otherwise devour freshly killed humans)

String Theory Recap: Storming the Castle

In the twelfth session of my Night's Black Agents game, String Theory, I return to home-brewed material.

The team turns its attention to Project Werewolf. Its agents have hounded them for months and every day the sinister CIA project mutilates more American soldiers. Today their operation ends.

We are down two players this session. Robin has dropped out, since my wife needs to devote her attention to the baby. Nasir’s player was in France.

Storming the Castle

As Scarlet patches up John’s bites, the team hashes out a plan. The safest route into Project Werewolf’s facility is the secret passage under the castle. If they are lucky no one has been in there in centuries. If not it is still likely to be poorly guarded. Once they sneak in, they’ll plant explosives, copy the contents of the internal servers, and then demolish the structure. They can mop up the survivors afterwards.

Scarlet compiles reports on bird die offs and then charts a course to a CIA cache site that Guy is fairly sure is intact. Luckily this time he is right. Armed with explosives, weapons, armor and night vision goggles, the team waits until dark and then heads into the woods a few miles from the castle to destroy Project Werewolf for good.

First thing is the Heat roll. Since they are in Germany and I’m tracking Heat regionally, the difficulty is only 2, boosted by the jewel theft in Switzerland. Scarlet makes the roll easily.

More troubling is the continuing zombie crow surveillance. Scarlet spends a point of Occult Studies to lower the difficulty to 4. She then makes the Surveillance test and succeeds.

Finally Guy uses Preparedness to create a cache. The team spends some more Preparedness to pick up silencers, body armor, loads of C4, night vision goggles, and smoke grenades. John uses Explosive Devices to makes up some door breakers with a bit of the C4.

In the thick undergrowth, John picks out the moss encrusted stone door hiding the tunnel. As they lift the slab a red light blinks within. Thinking quickly Scarlet rewires the motion detector to read as an equipment malfunction. With no time to spare, the agents hurry down the corridor.

Outdoor Survival spots the entrance but John fails the initial Infiltration test. An Electronic Surveillance spend by Scarlet postpones that problem.

I give John a chance to redeem himself with a much more difficult (8!) Infiltration test to make the rest of the journey. He succeeds.

John leads the way through two miles of earthen tunnel and quietly past two more motion sensors before reaching a steel trap door. Disabling the electronic lock, John slowly lifts the hatch to find himself into a darkened surgery room.

A faint line of light emanates from a doorway while another door on a different wall is visible under the enhancement of his night vision goggles. Cat-like they creep into the room. Glancing between their choices, the team move as one to the darker exit.

The door opens easily, revealing a room lit by a few LED lights and filled with the quiet beeping and wheezing of the medical equipment. Two patients lie comatose in the large room. A single door leads out of room in the same direction and perhaps into the same hallway as the door in the surgery room. Scarlet moves to the nearest patient, a woman missing much of her lower limbs. She focuses a flashlight on her chart.

The placard reveals she is Sergeant Karen Byrne, a soldier in the U.S. Army. The chart describes the extensive damage she suffered from an encounter with an IED. Karen’s only been here two days.

John asks if they can save her. Scarlet explains that her vitals are low but possibly. Then she moves to the other patient.

Much more extensive life support surrounds the man with multiple bags of saline and something else dripping into his system. His chart identifies him as Johnny Dixon, codenamed Quist, and describes his resuscitation after being poisoned and shot to death last month. This was the man they killed in Zurich. The corpse they sent to Gomez. No one has a problem leaving him behind.

Suddenly they hear the sound of someone tapping in a code for the door into this room. Scarlet ducks out of sight as John and Guy flank the door. A middle-aged man in a lab coat enters. He glances at Quist then almost before he can react John drops a garrote around his neck.

The man scrambles for something on his belt while his other hand struggles with the piano wire. John slams him into a wall, stunning him long enough for Guy to lift the small electronic device. The doctor manages to get his hand under the wire. He begs for his life, promising information about the installation and his work.

I couldn’t find the rules for garrotes at the time so I treated it as a Hand-to-Hand attack with a +0 modifier. John dealt 2 damage before Dr. Gerhardt managed to get his hand in the way (in an opposed Hand-to-Hand test). Even so the older man was completely outclassed.

Gerhardt did try a Preparedness roll to get a device to summon werewolves but the team made a Notice spend to catch it in time. Guy used Filch to get it in the struggle.

They pull him inside and close the door. Under the glare of a flashlight, they realize they’ve captured Dr. Gerhardt, Project Werewolf’s lead medical scientist. They secure and interrogate him, obtaining a rough layout of the lower levels, the location and code to the server room, the position of the werewolf pens, and who else is on base. John gags him and puts him and Karen in the surgery room, planting a remote detonation bomb on the doctor should he run.

An Interrogation spend gets the important details quickly and an Explosive Devices test ensures he won’t run off. They also learn that the second entrance to the castle, the grate just outside the wall, opens right into the werewolf pens. That would have been unpleasant.

Outside they hear the sound of people patrolling. After the footfalls recede, John and Scarlet look out the exit into the long white hall that stretches through the castle dungeons. A single camera watches the hall between them and the server room. John directs the hacker to follow her as he slips over to the door and keys in the code.

Scarlet piggybacks on John’s Infiltration test.

Once inside, Scarlet connects to the server, overpowers the security and copies the internal files. From personnel listings she find that the project is run by a Director Andrew Peirce in Washington. She also confirms that the werewolf agent Talbot is on sight, sitting in his room upstairs. Two agents are missing, presumably investigating the faulty motion sensor. She also comes across records suggesting Kessler is out hunting for them with a few men and werewolves. She loops the security cameras and prepares to lead the team in placing the charges.

Scarlet makes the difficult Digital Intrusion test (8) to hack the servers by spending most of her points. They are well spent.

John and Guy get to work while Scarlet directs them around the patrols. As they work on the last charge, her attention is drawn to the camera in Talbot’s room. The blank faced man sniffs at the air. Scarlet quickly types some commands, locking his door. The operative tugs at the handle then snarls into his comm, “We have intruders.”

Then he knocks the door off its hinges.

Scarlet shouts at the others to go as she closes her laptop and runs to the tunnel. John and Guy are only moments behind her as they hear crashing up above as the werewolf barrels through security doors.

John hoists Karen on his shoulders while the others push Dr. Gerhardt down through the tunnel. Talbot crashes down into the dungeons, quickly tracking their scent to the operating room.

Then as they clear the extent of the castle walls, John detonates the explosives.

This was one teamwork Athletics test, Difficulty 9 with a further +2 for carrying Karen. Everyone contributed, even Gerhardt and they make it to the Debris zone. John rolls damage for those in the Damage zone: 18. That kills everyone downstairs and in the kennel. Some people upstairs technically survive but then fall into the crater that was their facility. So they die as well. The team takes 1d6+2 damage after armor for the Debris zone. We roll individually. Scarlet and Guy take 4, John takes 7, the Doctor gets knocked out when his Health hits -5, and Karen unfortunately dies.

Rocks crash down on them as the tunnel fills with dust. One large stone knocks Dr. Gerhardt to the ground. Scarlet pushes off the debris and rubs her raw shoulder before checking him. His pulse is steady. John places Karen on the ground. Dust coats her blank eyes.

Guy shouts and points into the darkness. There, emerging from the wreckage, is Talbot.

Talbot spends 6 Aberrance to be blown from the Annihilation zone (where he would just die) to the Damage Zone. He survives the 18 points of damage.

The werewolf operative lurches forward, bloodied but unbroken. Scarlet and Guy raise their dart guns and fire. Then a louder thump fills the tunnel as John unloads his grenade launcher into him. The tunnel shakes as Talbot is messily removed from this world.

The team uses Shooting to hit him with beta blocker darts but then John ups the ante and fires a grenade launcher he declared with a Preparedness roll. A direct hit by a grenade at Talbot’s current low health means game over.

The agents retreat a safe distance down the tunnel where Scarlet patches up the team. Carrying Gerhardt, they head for the exit.

Some Medic spends to boost (but not completely heal) their Health.

As they approach the exit, Scarlet works out where the final guards might make their ambush. John tossed up a smoke bomb and then throws a grenade in what he considers a likely direction. As the explosion shakes the wooded terrain, the agents crawl out of the tunnel under the cover of smoke and a rain of blood.

A Military Science spend by Scarlet pinpoints where the likely ambush locations would be. John misses the Athletics roll to strike one with a grenade but only barely. Grenades are one of the places where close is good enough. He rolls damage taking out one opponent.

As automatic fire sprays from the trees, the team moves and fires back. After a fierce firefight, the gunfire stops. The smoke clears revealing the final agent face down in the mud.

There were a lot of Shooting rolls but ultimately they managed to gun the agent down. They knew where he was and he didn’t (i.e. they rolled against Hit Threshold 4 for the smoke while he had to roll against 6). He never connected.

A few hours later, Guy drives them over the border into France. Scarlet provides him an address to an old friend from her days at Overwatch.

Scarlet creates a 6 point Network contact and then establishes a Safe House with 3 of those points. the team refreshes their pools and Health.

A few days at Hank’s safe house and the agents feel hail and healthy again. Dr. Gerhardt eagerly tells them all he knows about “Them”, the plague bearing vampires that run the conspiracy. They use human and animal corpses as vehicles. The real monsters are the black goo within, a colonial slime mold of plague bacteria. He has worked under them since his time in the Soviet biowarfare program.

He tells them that the only person who never showed any fear around them was a man called Dr. Dorjiev. The short nearsighted man had worked in the program since the 60s, focused mostly on psychic research. Unfortunately Gerhardt has no idea where he is.

Even worse, the morning news includes reports of the tragic death of Director Peirce in a traffic accident. The conspiracy is cleaning up loose ends. They will undoubtedly be after Gerhardt as well.

The agents consider this new information and decide to put Gerhardt to work developing an improved antibiotic weapon against the plague bearers. They leave Robin behind to mind him and head out to collect Nasir on their way to Baghdad. Whatever the conspiracy is after there can’t be good.

Project Werewolf: Kessler

With the crazies out of the way, it is time to meet the more professional agents of Project Werewolf. This week we deal with the sniper Kessler, a survivor and loner, he finds himself in an uncomfortable position: being the only agent truly suited and trusted for team missions.

Kessler's code name comes from An American Werewolf in London.

Kessler (Marvin Kenyon)

Sniper and Lone Wolf

Description: Never blinks, keeps his distance, hates being indoors

Defining Quirks: adrenaline addict (dilated pupils, too fast speech) (using a Pharmacy or Diagnosis spend), slurs speech

The second successful werewolf agent by Dr. Joseph Gerhard, Kessler's background differed from the other "successes". His personality changes post-procedure only accentuate that difference. He served as a special forces sniper in Iraq before being wounded and pinned down in the deserts outside an insurgent stronghold. Always a loner, he withdrew even more, spending almost all of his free time alone in isolation.

The damaged he suffered included significant blood loss, dehydration and other trauma from exposure, and burns due to an incendiary device. The doctor repaired the damage but the treatment left his hair bleached white. His destroyed eyes were replaced with synthetic versions granting him superhuman vision.

Besides his aversion to human contact, Project Werewolf's psychological evaluations have concluded he is in perfect mental health. As long as he is given time in isolation on a weekly basis, he operates well within a team unlike their original agent, Talbot. His personality has been called coolly distant with a touch of warmth. Project Werewolf uses Kessler in an assassination missions and an overwatch capacity. As such he is perhaps the busiest agent, dedicated to support missions for any number of operations.

His condition requires regular doses of synthetic adrenaline which he injects carefully three times a day.

Operations

Kessler does not lead missions. He executes them personally or provides backup. Left to his own devices, he will end up attempting to do things entirely on his own.

While at the Castle, Project Werewolf's main facility, he manages surveillance for the surrounding region.

Attributes

Investigative Abilities: Electronic Surveillance 2, Photography 1, Reassurance 1, Notice 2, Tradecraft 2
General Abilities: Aberrance 18, Driving 4, Hand to Hand 12, Health 12, Shooting 16, Surveillance 8, Weapons 8

Hit Threshold: 4
Alertness Modifier: +3
Stealth Modifier: +2

Armor: -1 vs. bullets (Kevlar) or -2 vs. bullets, -1 from cutting and stabbing weapons (tactical vest)
Damage Modifiers: Augmented fist -1, Combat knife +0, M24 sniper rifle +3 (specialized)

Free Powers: Infravision, Regeneration (all Health refreshes the next day), Telescopic vision, Unfeeling
Other Powers: Inhuman Strength (spend 2 for impressive actions or to add +1 to damage), Inhuman Speed (free extra attack, spend 2 to gain +1 Hit Threshold for a scene or to Jump in), Spider Climb

Banes: Nickel Allergy (+ 2 damage), Beta-blockers (instant; Health difficulty 5 test, Minor: -5 Aberrance, Hurt, lasts until the werewolf's next injection; Severe: -10 Aberrance, +2 damage; -2 Aberrance and -1 Health every hour until treated)
Compulsions: Daily drug regime (otherwise devour freshly killed humans)

The Sprawl Recaps: Character Creation

Recently I got the chance to run another roleplaying game for my local group. This time they chose the Sprawl, a cyberpunk game using the Apocalypse World mechanics. I helped kickstart the game in October of 2014. While progress has been slow the final version of most of the rules and playbooks are available to backers and my wife got to play it at GenCon 2015.

So let's see how it plays.

Session 1: Character Creation

My local gaming group is limited to playing for 2 hour chunks of time at the moment. That night my son developed hives all over his body. So our first session of the Sprawl was truncated to character and world creation.

I began by opening up a discussion to determine our vision of cyberpunk. We talked about what aspects of society and technology interested them, whether tech was 80s style jacking in or modern-day wireless, the year the game would be set in, where the characters lived, what the weather was like and so on.

A lot of good ideas came out of that brainstorming session. We decided that the year didn't matter and that tech followed current trends (i.e. no physical jacking in). AI however remained eternally in the future in much the same way as fusion power. Other than asteroid mines and a few factories, space was empty. Though if any androids existed in the setting it would be up there.

We set the game in Indianago, the megalopolis stretching from Chicago to Indianapolis. Caught in an endless deep freeze, the city's infrastructure slowly crumbled from cheap materials and poor maintenance. Toxic smog filled the air. A similar disrepair could be found in the people, where planned obsolescence had become the standard for most cyberware. The majority of citizen suffered surgery every few years to keep their tech working. A few, like the PCs, possessed high-end gear that's for "life" (in other words for a decade or so).

"Tech is cheap" was the theme that the players decided on.

The team also discussed the idea of having to climb a frost covered skyscraper at some point.

One "bright" spot in people's lives is the omnipresence of virtual reality, allowing users to see and live in the world of their choosing. To them the city can be a tropical paradise or a warm welcoming forest or whatever pleases them. Some become addicted to the experience.

The Corporations

Next we worked on creating the megacorps that run the world.

My wife started by using one of her favorite fictional companies: Veridian Dynamics. After showing us one of their fake ads, she decided they focused on pharmaceuticals and virtual reality. They have their corporate headquarters in the EU, somewhere in Germany.

David created Unified Security, a military contractor and transportation firm. They make everything from cars and handguns to tanks and attack drones.

Genewear was Karen's creation, the dominant player in cybernetics. Eager to keep their position, they've begun working on genetic engineering to creating living implants that function better than cyberware. Their main competitor is Veridian Dynamics. They have their headquarters in Indianago.

I added Shinja, a financial and criminal powerhouse based in Singapore. I wanted big money and crime and this seemed to be the way to do it. I also added that Singapore is the world financial capitol after the crash that took out London.

Playbooks

David created a Driver named Demon. Making my life easier he also took the move Drone Jockey. That allowed him to interact with the team even if he remained encased in his huge flying car "Mama Bear". Demon himself is hugely overweight, so much so that walking is a difficult for him. His drones, Little Bear and Big Bear, are both quadcopters. One is tiny, fragile and stealthy. The other is dog-sized with a machine gun mounted on it.

Demon worked for Unified Security with a friend named Dale. They worked in R&D and later did field work in the Alaskan Territories. As time passed he began to put on a lot of weight. He arranged a deal with Dale to get him the cyberware implant he needed to run Mamma Bear full-time without ever having to leave its confines. He then left Dale holding the bill. His former friend found his ten-year contract extended to life. He understandably wants revenge on Demon.

Demon took a Directive, or a way to earn more experience, involving trouble with his past with Unified Security and another dealing with Dale. Demon wants to save his old friend and is trying to track him down!

My wife created a Killer named Oracle. A crippled soldier, Oracle had her legs removed and replaced with mechanical ones. This cyberware is cosmetic but the neural interface that allows her to control them also gives her pin point accuracy with her guns. Adding in her dermal plating she is more machine than woman. Verdian Dynamics paid for all of this and owns her. In fact some of her implants are cutting edge and haven't been cleared for export.

For weapons she picked up a pair of high-powered handguns called Artemis and Apollo. With her implants and synth of +2 she deals 5-harm with her guns. And with the move Mil Specs she fights as a small gang.

As for Directives she took one for the trouble brought on by her connections of Verdian Dynamics and Masochistic. So violence is a thing for her.

Our final character, Smoke the Infiltrator was created by Karen. A skilled cat burglar and general sneak, she has synthetic nerves and skillwires. At the moment she has chips for parkour and tactics. Smoke secretly works for Shinja but her implants came from Genewear, who remain unaware of her true allegiances. They own her for now but she may soon be on the run.

Smoke made sure she has all of her bases covered, arming herself with throwing knives for close silent work, a sniper rifle for long-range, and the ever popular monofilament whip for close messy jobs.

Her Shinja connection is one of her Directives with the other being an inclination toward violence.

Connections

Finally we worked out how the team knew each other. With three players the group was able to space out the jobs and ensure everyone had +1 Links with everyone else without bringing an entire megacorp down on them. Each increase in Link between player characters advances a Corporation clock by 1. So there can be a bit of careful calculation for larger groups.

Oracle described her job first: a simple wetwork gig against Shinja. Smoke joined in to help her get close to the target while Demon acted as the getaway driver. His real reason for tagging along however was to do some snooping in Shinja's files. He discovered Dale's contract had been sold and hoped to learn if Shinja had bought it up.

Demon's job was self funded and preceded the other job. He hired the others to break into a United Security office, which is where he learned about Dale's contract. Smoke and Oracle did the legwork on that job.

The final mission was a hit on a scientist at a subsidiary of Veridian Dynamics. Smoke didn't know the corporate connection at the time, something continues to irritate Oracle. The scientist had been conducting industrial sabotage for Genewear and feeding them information on the company's cyberware R&D. However he had begun feeding the corporation bad data. Thus they had him eliminated. Oracle handled that part while Demon again provided transport.

And that was it for session 1. Next up is mission 1: an extraction job involving a VR maze, dumpster diving and a black clinic.

Project Werewolf: Quist

Next up on the Project Werewolf roster is Quist. The second super soldier my players encountered, he fell to their hands thanks to overwhelming numbers and knowledge of his weaknesses. Project Werewolf briefly resuscitated him but he died with the rest of the organization when the team demolish it with explosives.

His codename refers to Eddie Quist, the serial killer villain of the movie the Howling. Like that character he is a bit unstable.

Quist (Johnny Dixon)

Unstable killing machine

Description: Exaggerated expressions, plays with knives, nervous laugh

Defining Quirks: adrenaline addict (dilated pupils, too fast speech) (using a Pharmacy or Diagnosis spend), slurs speech, mercurial expression

The most recent creation of Dr. Joseph Gerhard, Quist spent too long flatlined. A U.S. soldier captured by insurgents and tortured to the point of death, he slipped into a coma before being extracted to Germany. On the flight his heart stopped beating and he could not be resuscitated. His corpse was whisked to Project Werewolf where Gerhardt's team succeeded in doing the impossible. But something else came back with him. A darkness that drives him to kill and torture.

Despite his instability, he became the newest and most versatile of the werewolf operatives. Granted inhuman strength and speed, he was also the subject of some of the doctor's most radical xenotransplant enhancements. Jellyfish stingers implanted in his finger tips allow him to inflict crippling pain with a touch while highly morphic skin allows him to disguise his features as anyone of comparable size.

Unexpected developments include a natural empathy with feral werewolves, allowing him to communicate and control their fractured minds. Through simple concentration, he can summon them.

However it is only a matter of time before his mind breaks under the strain of his "gifts" and he joins the ferals. His condition requires regular doses of artificial adrenaline to hold back that eventuality. He injects it irregularly four to six times a day, supplemented with some serum sourced from the Bride's organ smuggling contacts.

Operations

Together with the Bride, Quist handles the project's organ trafficking operation. He obtains hard to source organs for the doctor's experiments as well as tissue with unusual blood types and genetic abnormalities for their mysterious patrons.

Attributes

Investigative Abilities: Cop Talk 1, Flattery 1, Flirting 1, Intimidation 1, Languages 3, Occult Studies 1, Reassurance 1, Streetwise 2, Tradecraft 2, Vampirology 1
General Abilities: Abberance 18, Conceal 8, Disguise 8, Driving 4, Filch 6, Hand to Hand 12, Health 14, Shooting 10, Weapons 12

Hit Threshold: 5
Alertness Modifier: + 2 (+ 3 in wolf form)
Stealth Modifier: +1
Armor: -1 (Kevlar skin)
Damage Modifiers: Augmented fist -1, Combat knife +0, Jericho 941 +1 (2 attacks per turn); wolf bite +1 (worry if hit same foe twice, can clamp down and no longer need to roll to hit, lower Hit Threshold by 1)

Free Powers: Infravision, Regeneration (all Health refreshes the next day), Unfeeling
Other Powers: Inhuman Strength (spend 2 for impressive actions or to add +1 to damage), Inhuman Speed (free extra attack, spend 2 to gain +1 Hit Threshold for a scene or to Jump in), Pain attack (Jellyfish venom, make a Health difficulty 6 test or suffer the effects of Hurt, delivered by finger tips), Shapeshift (Spend 2 to take any human or canine form of the same approximate mass), Spider Climb, Summoning (Spend 2 to summon Feral Werewolves)

Banes: Nickel Allergy (+ 2 damage), Beta-blockers (instant; Health difficulty 5 test, Minor: -5 Aberrance, Hurt, lasts until the werewolf's next injection; Severe: -10 Aberrance, +2 damage; -2 Aberrance and -1 Health every hour until treated)
Compulsions: Daily drug regime (otherwise devour freshly killed humans)

He is rarely far from a pack of Feral Werewolves and often has the support of other operatives of the Conspiracy.

String Theory Recap: Out of the House of Ashes

Ten sessions into my Night's Black Agents game, String Theory! Now we are in the middle of the second adventure from the Zalozhniy Quartet adventure: Out of the House of Ashes.

We begin with the agents just after a vampire slaughtered a CIA extraction team in front of them.

Out of the House of Ashes

I ran this in December which despite the holidays actually saw us run several games in succession. We were down a player with Guy being unable to join us. We joked that Guy had the flu so was not pushing himself (in other words, spending points).

We pick up as the vampire, Thronradel, tosses the remains of the CIA extraction team into a van and tears off into the night.

As the ambulance pulls away from the hotel grounds, Scarlet tags it with a tracker. She and Guy then follow from a discreet distance while the rest of the team joins the other guests inside while security figures out what just happened.

No mechanics here except a 1 point Preparedness spend for the bug since it just leads them to a core clue.

The tracker shows the van racing along the Danube before finally leaving the road and diving into the river. Guy pulls up to the twisted railing with the police sirens still many minutes away. Scarlet dives in to see what can be salvaged. among the debris and remains, she pulls out a keycard for Hotel Centrale.

She relays this to the others who realize an operation like this would normally include a fifth member, a cleaner to remove all evidence after the rest of the team was done. That person might have more information for them.

However with most of the team still trapped at the party, Scarlet and Guy go off on their own to scout the Hotel Centrale. A card reader tells them to look at room 204. Surveillance turns up no signs of life or movement inside the hotel room. Scarlet does spot a wastepaper basket on the balcony still smoldering with destroyed papers.

Here I ran into one of the two errors in this adventure. The text refers to the room as 204 and 406 in different places.

Feeling safe from enemy action, Scarlet tries the room. Inside she smells fresh antiseptic. The room has been thoroughly if quickly cleaned. A phone book has been left out and a page marked inside shows a list of financial firms. Scarlet recognizes one as CIA front: CJH Investments. Guy comments that he’s even met Selig, the contact there. They make plans to visit first thing in the morning.

Next we belatedly do the Heat roll. The Difficulty is 4 due to the recent murders, including a that of a local vagrant woman. Simon is hungry after losing half his health to ingested antibiotics. Scarlet makes the rolls add 2 points of Surveillance to avoid police dragnets. She rolls a 1, failing.

After regrouping at their hotel, the team reviews their plans for the next day. In addition to CJH Investments, Nasir has a meeting with Arady Shevlenko. Then Robin discovers Anton has reached out them. The scumbag wants to trade information on the Conspiracy for protection. They sit on that intelligence for now.

That morning they enter CJH Investments shortly after it opens. Spotting a nervous woman in the lobby, they guess she’s the one that they want. Nasir and John convince her that they want to help and can be trusted. She reveals she is a CIA agent named Lynne Feinberg, that her operation was blown and that she’ll talk more after her meeting. But the team gets their meeting first. Selig after ascertaining that John is part of the DOD, reveals that Lynne’s operation was not sanctioned. she’s been burned by Langley.

With that revelation, Lynne puts her hopes and trust with the team. without Shevlenko she has no chance of being reinstated and without help she might not last the night. She tells them that their leader Charlie Green had originally looked at grabbing Shevlenko at the opera on the last night of the conference. They have a safe house outside of the city from which they planned to escape the country. Lynne’s job was to get his granddaughter Anna to America. She has plane tickets and passport. The girl is supposed to arrive that afternoon.

The agents agree to help and split into two teams. Robin and Nasir will deal with Shevlenko. the others will join Lynne in intercepting Anna at the airport.

This bit is also tangled up. Again I feel like the editing was off. Anna’s “section” says she arrives on day 2. But Shevlenko’s section for day 2 and 3 say she arrives “tomorrow”. Either way Lynne must have the date for Anna’s arrival otherwise those tickets are useless. Presumably Shevlenko would have tried to meet her at the airport if he could, the text suggests Anna expected as much. But then for some reason no one except the bad guys are there in Anna’s section.

As they leave the building the team notice several local toughs tailing them. They duck into a shop and Nasir quickly disguises them. As they slip away, the master of disguise bumps into the leader of this gang and lifts his phone.

Nasir makes a Disguise check (Difficulty 8 since neither Lynne nor John have disguise). He makes it and then makes a Filch roll to get the phone. Scarlett uses Electronic Surveillance to get some intel from the phone.

A quick scan reveals that they were sent by the Lisky Bratva. Someone named Werner has been complaining about “Simon is hungry” and the need for a fresh shipment from Odessa. In the chat, he wishes Uncle Joe or even creepy Dorjiev was here to handle Simon. also on the phone they find a landline for an apartment block in the red light district. Robin scouts it out before the meeting. The brothel is a fortress and capable of keeping all sorts of things in the bricked up basement.

Robin makes a Surveillance roll to avoid detection. Continuing the night’s trend she rolls a 1, and failed by 1. Now they have police involvement and blowback from the Bratva.

Nasir and Robin meet with Shevlenko at 2 PM. Recalling their earlier meeting, Nasir conducts most of the conversation in Arabic under the guise of needing to use more technical terms. Shevlenko somewhat more at ease hints that there might be eavesdropping, referencing a lamp. Robin picks up the cues and turns on a jamming device.

She uses Preparedness and Electronic Surveillance to jam the listening device in such a way as to avoid suspicion.

Once able to speak freely, Shevlenko instantly warms to the idea of a second escape attempt provided his granddaughter is protected. Nasir says they’ve got it covered. Shevlenko explains he knows the Conspiracy’s plans, plans told to him by Kim Philby before his death. Kim also gave him an amulet that thus far has kept them at bay. Its power is fading however and he fears the monsters plan to get his secrets by force. Nasir outlines their plan to extract him at the opera and then tries to slip him a burner phone. As it tumbles to the floor, he covers up the slip up and in the process of picking it up, slips it into the old man’s pocket. With Shevlenko’s promise of intelligence once rescued, they move to the next step of their plans.

The burner has the number to another burner destined for Anna. Nasir fails his Filch but uses the cherry to boost the result after the failure. I give him a 3 point refresh for the entertaining description. Nasir also (successfully) makes a Cover test after leaving so that the FSB doesn’t become suspicious.

At airport, the team notices several thugs lurking by the baggage claim. They also note Shevlenko’s assistant, Zhenya Mihaylov, making his way to Anna’s gate. After some quick discussion, they decide to ambush her in the baggage area. Scarlett hacks the airport computers and flags the thugs as suspicious individuals. As airport security herd them away, Anna arrives with Zhenya. Lynne and Scarlett intercept them and convince Anna that they are really here to help her. Lynne presses the tickets and passport into her hand as Zhenya begins to raise a fuss.

Scarlett uses Digital Intrusion to flag the thugs. She then spends Reassurance to convince Anna to turn around.

Meanwhile security begins to move in on John, recognizing him from reports in Zurich. He quickly collects the others. Before disappearing into a crowd of German tourists, Scarlet presses a burner phone into anna’s hand and pushes her back to security. With Anna safe they escape the airport.

The failed Heat roll comes back to haunt them. Luckily Scarlet uses Surveillance to help them escape, aided by a Human Terrain spend by John.

That night they decide to set up a meet with Anton. While Guy and Scarlett work on an aerosol dispersal system for antibiotics, Robin rigs a local cafe with cameras and bugs. Then she messages Anton, giving him the meet site. He gives a counter offer but she replies, “Nice knowing you.” Hurriedly he agrees to the location but she gives no sign back.

Basically the plan is not to attend and instead follow him back to his hiding spot. Robin makes a Surveillance roll opposed by the other side (which she wins) to watch Anton and anyone else with him without being noticed.

The next day Robin waits in the back of a store a few blocks away, ready to pursue on foot. She watches the electronic feeds from there. John and Guy wait in a car a block in the other direction. Scarlet works remotely from their crummy hotel. Nasir meanwhile continues to attend the conference.

Notably the team’s hotel is not where Nasir’s cover is staying. Robin makes a second Surveillance roll to see if spot all the important actors in this meet. Unfortunately they fail.

As Anton arrives, they easily spot the thugs, as well as the Russian prison tattoos hidden beneath coats and long sleeves. They shadow Anton closely who looks sickly and dying. Scarlet notes the marks on his wrists and the makeup covering bruises on his face. Anton waits an hour, growing more and more anxious with each minute. When a pair of men come to collect him, his shoulders slump as he accepts his fate. They escort him to a car.

As Guy moves after him, a shot rings out. The sniper round cracks the windshield and hits John next to his heart. Only the Kevlar keeps the damage to cracked ribs. Guy goes evasive and tears out of there as another shot shatters the back window.

I give John a Sense Trouble roll but he fails by rolling a 1, The windshield and Kevlar absorb 2 damage total, dealing 6 damage to John. I probably should have dealt another 3 for a shot to the heart but I forgot. Anyway, John has 12 Health so he is only minorly wounded.

Robin meanwhile flags a cab and trails Anton, at least until it’s obvious that he is headed for the red light district and the Bratva’s brothel/fortress.

That night Nasir’s cover is burnt when the police discover a kilo of heroin in his hotel room.

And the Bratva get their revenge.