The Unusual Suspects: Accabish

Three preludes down, two to go. This week I present my wife’s Demon: the Descent character, Accabish, who will be conducting most of her sessions one on one with me. So if she seems more careful than the rest, there is a good reason.

Accabish

To understand the demon Accabish, you need to understand her mission. A mission to bear a child. A mission to raise that girl to the proper age. A mission to watch over her daughter until the day she died. A mission she performed flawlessly.

Afterward the death, the Angel that became Accabish completed the necessary cleanup work for her mission. Identities were erased, records destroyed. Then she began to process the events. That her daughter was dead. that she let her die. Madness overcame her. She did not return to the God-Machine’s facility after her mission. She Fell. She had a new mission. Her daughter had died. She was going to get revenge.

Accabish can’t recall her daughter’s name. Those memories were too painful to hold onto and too important to lose. She’s commissioned a private server for that. She knows dimly that her daughter was hers, a true child of an angel. Her death at 15 was vitally important to the God-Machine’s plans. What those plans were remain a mystery. But she will find out. Then she will smash the machine.

Accabish is a Guardian and took Double Agenda so she is both an Inquisitor and a Saboteur. Her name means Spider in Hebrew which is how she operates. There is also a strong Medea aspect to the character (as in the Greek mythological figure). I look forward to when she acts on her wrath.

For now she pretends to be Priscilla Webb: socialite, writer, and editor of the Slog. The original Priscilla entered a deal with Accabish almost a decade ago. The young journalist got her big break: the fame, the promotion and the accolades. Then Accabish claimed her soul.

Despite her visible presence in high society and politics, Priscilla has few relationships of real depth. Outside of work and other professional relationship, she associates with almost no one. Even most Demons don’t suspect she is anything other than a well-informed mortal.

Her strongest mortal connection is with Vince Wilkins. The IT professional maintains her servers and helps track down information for her. He has some sense of what she’s gone through but even he doesn’t have the full picture. The only person she might have shared that with died long ago.

Vince is her 3 dot Retainer.

Accabish didn’t give me much for her compromise questions.

Her second closest connection is a corrupt politician who has been blackmailing her. Donna Angstrom thinks Priscilla is planning some sort of investment scam using insider information. Accabish allows her to think that so the demon can get close to her connections in city hall.

She has a working relationship with a few demons. She feeds targets to Joseph Mutsinzi and is looking into one of the Covers of the Naturalist for her police contact, Lt. Jack Lawrence. It is unclear what it might offer in exchange for some misdirection.

Recently a couple of interesting items have come across her desk. Last year, the University drained the wetlands near campus for a new museum. Though there was some outcry from ecoactivists, around the same time several people were attacked by an invasive fish living in the marshes. Three bodies turned up, savaged by some sort of predator, possibly the fish or something else. God-Machine projects often turn up in fours so she’s been looking for a fourth victim. All three were dropouts from the University (though some had left years ago) and a fourth dropout, named Tom Cabot, went missing around the same time.

Yesslar Terrace was once a lacuna for the Demons of the city. Events and people who visited the neighborhood tended to fade from memory. Last summer the veil dropped and she 'discovered' she had a reporter working there. Intriguingly Shaun Wykes appears prone to prophetic dreams concerning the God-Machine. Over the past couple of months, visions of a strangely shaped brain made up of cogs have upset his sleep. He sees it begin to tick along, waking up. She suspects a piece of Command and Control Infrastructure is coming online.

In her true form she resembles a woman cast in platinum and steel. Fiber optic tendrils cascade from her head, faintly glowing from the glowing plasma that flows through her veins and the blue sparks that arc across her metallic skin. Welding scars and steel cabling bear witness to her strength and durability while her copper eyes seems to stare through people.

Philosophically she claims the God-Machine is corrupted or working off bad initial inputs. She figures that is also its Achilles heel. As to humanity, she can’t help to wish to protect them. They may be someone else’s children: innocent and naive. But they still need someone to look out for them.

For now she does not trusting her abilities enough to act on her own. But the road she is taking must lead to a direct confrontation with her creator.

Aspirations:

• Find the brain of Yesslar Terrance
• Find leverage on Donna Angstrom
• Relaunch the Gossip Column

Gaming With Bab..ies: Preparing for Additions

So instead of another 8 month gap, I have a new report in just two months. Things have advanced substantially though. Most noticeably, I can now say that my little boy has a sister on the way (Achievement Unlocked: Complete Set). But that is just one of several additions on the way.

Baby Report

First Sebastian. His enthusiasm for walking has declined in favor of being carried (by me exclusively) everywhere. Once it gets a bit cooler I need to rectify that.

Otherwise he continues to grow, putting on another inch (and at least a pound) over the summer. He’s almost moved above the 5th percentile finally. He climbs, he moves big boxes and toys, runs and has almost figured out the pedals on his tricycle.

Continuing on the physical front, he now has 12 teeth. We are still waiting on canines and the last set of molars but otherwise he is on track. His eyes and ears appear keen, picking out sirens before I can (“fire truck helps”) and spotting the moon through leaf cover when it is out during the day.

His vocabulary continues to expand with new verbs, nouns, and adjectives. Sometimes we catch him flipping through his books by himself at night. He’s also been telling stories of a sort. Something about “monsters coming”, attracted to light bulbs, and “eat,eat,eat.” Maybe I should be worried.

He is a somewhat picky eater, preferring food that is separated by type. With the exception of dinner though he usually at least tries the food.

His empathy is also improving, identifying emotions based on facial expressions and suggesting possible remedies (Sad = needs a hug). Sebastian is also warming slowly to the idea of a sister. We’ve moved from “No sister” to “sister play outside” (and not with his toys). Hopefully I can get him to let her play inside by winter.

As for Baby 2.0 (her codename until we decide on something more permanent), she’s doing well. She is supposed to be joining the family in January (and shortly before my birthday). No word yet on whether she’ll have laser eyes or super strength.

Movies & TV

So we still don’t have a babysitter so we missed out on most of the summer blockbusters. My wife caught Ghostbusters while I caught Star Trek Beyond. Individually we enjoyed both. We managed to catch (together) Jason Bourne which was fun if not amazing. At the beginning of the summer we took Sebastian to Finding Dory which was more enjoyable. Remarkably we actually kept him the theater the whole time.

As for TV, Octonauts has consumed our evenings. The show has become Sebastian’s favorite activity after dinner. After bedtime, we managed to work in some bingeing for Dark Matter and Stranger Things (and my wife used her summer off to watch lot and lots of cooking shows). Looking forward to the new fall shows and my horror movie runup to Halloween.

Conventions

With the new baby coming in January, there will be no DunDraCon next year. I’m hopeful I'll manage KublaCon 2017 though and to run a series of Urban Shadows games there.

House improvement: Additions

So my gaming table remains on its way (and possibly arriving at the same time as my daughter) but the bigger project is the possible expansion of our house.

Currently we have 3 bedrooms and 2 baths but one of those bedrooms in my office (and also poorly placed to be a child’s bedroom). So we’ve hired a designer to remove the upstairs bath and one of the bedrooms, extend the second story over the kitchen with a higher roof line and add two new bedrooms and two bathrooms (one being a master bath).

If it can work then it would give us plenty of room for our growing family. The question is cost/financing. If all works well, we’d decamp in the spring and get construction done before summer. Then we can settle in for long haul. Fingers crossed.

Gaming

And now the all important question, how does this all impact my gaming?

The Online Group

In a way this doesn’t impact anything. Since I’ve begun running my wife separately (with her jumping in at the end to upend the other player’s expectations) things have gone well. The slightly smaller group means thicker plot and more detailed character interactions. I’d say this situation should be stable until my kids become more capable of occupying themselves.

Play by Post: Streets of Blood and Steel

This game did not come back from the dead this summer. I’m not holding out much hope and this will be the last time I do play by post.

The Local Board Games: The Baby Years

So our local board gaming group has become more of a meet up once or twice a month and maybe play a game or two. Which is nice if not ideal. On the plus side we are all homeowners now so in the long-term prospects are good. At least I hope to give Sebastian a gaming group of his very own in several years.

New Local Group: Vampire: the Teething Troubles

Other than losing a player in character creation (first case I’ve encountered) this is going well. I’m still getting a gauge on the players’ interests and aptitudes but it feels good for the most part. My hardest player to please is my most familiar. My wife often seems disengaged which can throw me off midgame.

Going forward I see some major shake ups. The online group will likely take a short break after my daughter’s birth with the board gaming going on hiatus until summer. Ideally the local group will start-up again at the same time.

Heartland Orphans: Bargaining Chips

This week we reach session 5 of my Vampire the Requiem game, Heartland Orphans. In “Bargaining Chips” more clues reach our coterie as they unravel the central mystery of the Chronicle.

The session also exposed a major issue with such stories: there are lots of clues and not all of my players are equally suited to putting them together. Or remembering them.

What do you think? Does this game need a scorecard or a chart?

Our cast consists of:

• Alex Carlyle (Ventrue Invictus): a local doctor who quit his practice after gaining his condition. He recently “earned” dominion over Urbana much to the displeasure of Big Eddie, a local rival.
• Sybil Brannon (Gangrel Carthian): a former nature guide turned vampiric vigilante, she’s claimed the parks as her turf.
• Ethan Redhawke (Mekhet Ordo Dracul): a member of the inner circle of the Heart of Akamon, an Ordo Dracul led cult of mortals who serve as a source of blood and researchers.He leads the cult as they comb folklore and myths for clues to abilities beyond the limits of current vampires. Like his disciples he lurks around the University of Illinois. This is now Invictus territory.

Bargaining Chips

The title of this session was decided before play so we did not quite get to everything I had planned. Perhaps if my politically inclined PCs had been looking at things differently (i.e. in terms of building alliances) things might have turned out differently.

We resume play as the PCs look for Rudolph, converse with the Strix ‘Jane’ and piece together who or rather what the Strixes’ parent is.

Alex excuses himself from the drawing-room of Rudolph’s house to text his sire. “Where are you?”

Rudolph’s response is terse: “On business for the Old Man.”

While Alex calls Tara to confirm his sire’s story, Ethan pokes around the house for clues to Rudolph’s past. Jane drifts behind him poking at models and fingering books. Sybil keeps a careful eye on the Strix or at least the deceased old woman she inhabits.

Ethan rolls Wits + Investigation and succeeds.

From the photos and heirlooms, Ethan deduces that Rudolph lived in New York City for some time. He guesses the elderly man was Embraced there, perhaps in the 1910s. In his pictures he seems ageless. He probably was the Old Man’s ghoul, he tells the others.

Sybil quietly texts Ethan and Alex not to give out information with the Strix in the room.

Reminded of their visitor, the cult leader turns to Jane. He attempts to convince her to tell them more about the jewel the Twins want so badly. However she is reluctant to reveal more. Ethan turns talk to the powers of the Strix, how they seem to be made of smoke, able to slip through cracks and small spaces.

Ethan failed his Manipulation + Persuasion roll.

Alex returns and listens in. He notes the name on old woman’s wrist tag: Mildred Kerry. Curious he calls the local hospital and confirms she is missing. The police are looking for her, she’s deathly ill and hasn’t visitors all day.

As Ethan begins to increase the pressure, Jane says she just wants to be friends with them. Ethan points out that she is withholding information from her ‘friends’. Also she was present when Rudolph was hacked up. Agitated, she claims she didn’t want to do it but the others forced her to help. Her siblings share a special bond and they must work together. The Inverted Lord wanted Rudolph out of the way since it hates competition from other monsters.

Ethan rolls Manipulation + Intimidation -2 to pressure Jane. He fails but uses his Informed Condition to succeed. He earns a Beat.

Feeling hemmed in, she babbles about her other siblings and their quests. The Witch wants to find their mother. The Twins want to recover their mother’s heart’s blood. Feeling used, she glances at Ethan and Sybil before opening a window. She lifts her head and escapes out into the night. Mildred’s corpse collapses in Rudolph’s drawing room.

As they consider their next step, Sybil verifies that her parks will remain off-limits to the Invictus, at least those that now belong to Alex.

The coterie next heads to University to search for the jewel. Returning to Martock’s office, they search through his records and turn up hints that he might have hidden it in the library.

Ethan succeeds on an Intelligence + Academics roll.

At the library, they question Ms. Spencer, one of the evening librarians. They ask where Martock has been frequenting recently. One odd place she recalls seeing him was in the dissertation stacks a month ago. They spend a few hours searching there but the sheer volume of books defeats them. While several Martocks have graduated from the school, none are the professor.

Ethan and Alex roll Intelligence + Composure but net 1 success between them.

They return to the office. Alex hunts for secret compartments while Ethan pores over Martock’s notes for any clues. In a vent Alex uncovers older correspondence. Interestingly, in these letters Martock uses the name John Dassy. Ethan finds a younger and still mortal Dassy in a 1927 yearbook. Dassy was Martock’s name before his Embrace. He also uncovers more recent letters, letters from Chicago in the past decade. Pocketing the papers, the two men return to the library.

Alex rolls Wits + Investigate and succeeds while Ethan gets 3 successes on an Intelligence + Academics roll.

I’m excising a bit here where Ethan spends a few hours uselessly searching the historical books section and the bit where we knock some heads together to realize Dassy is the name to search for.

In the dissertation stacks next to Da Silva's 2012 dissertation on canine decomposition they discover a dusty tome by John Dassy, class of 1928. Within the battered book is a dark red jewel the size of a grape.

Ethan rolls it in his hand, realizing it is actually crystallized blood.

Ethan succeeds on an Intelligence + Science roll.

Elsewhere Sybil spends her time constructing some defenses against the Strix: a bell on a red ribbon, a vial containing salt, and a few molotov cocktails. As dawn approaches she finds a mugger to feed from before returning to her apartment.

Sybil rolls Dexterity + Stealth to feed. She takes 3 Vitae.

Alex also hunts, finding a cab driver he can lull into a false sense of security. Ethan merely visits his cult and takes his tithe. Then he slips into his alter/sarcophagus.

Alex rolls Manipulation + Socialize and takes 2 Vitae. Ethan uses his Herd Merit to get lots of Vitae.

Everyone spends 1 Vitae to rise the next night.

The next night, Alex contacts his old employee Alan Brannon. The younger man is happy to hear from him. The doctor asks him to run a blood sample for him while gently dodging questions about what he has been up to. For the most part Alan seems satisfied that his old boss hasn’t slipped into depression or suffered some other calamity. He takes the shaving from the jewel back to the Alex’s old practice.

Alex resolves his Tempted Condition by interacting with his Touchstone.

As Sybil makes her rounds at the park, she catches the scent of blood in the air. Searching, she soon finds a man, ripped open and splayed like a warning. The corpse belongs to one of her regulars and appears gnawed on by human teeth. Fresh blood leads away from the kill site.

Sybil rolls Intelligence + Medicine to learn some details and then Wits + Survival to track the blood.

Carefully she follows the trail through the streets and through empty lots to a cemetery. She quickly circles the location. Assured that her quarry must lay within, she texts Ethan and Alex to join her.

She also beats the Strix’s Finesse + Resistance roll with her Dexterity + Stealth. So it has no chance to prepare.

Fifteen minutes later the men roll up. Together they advance into the graveyard.

Sybil’s sharp eyes pick out a figure creeping between headstones to their left. Ethan scrutinizes the walking corpse. He detects a bestial presence like that within every vampire.

Sybil beats the Strix’s (the Beast) Dexterity + Stealth roll with her Wits + Composure + 2 from her Hyperaware Condition. She also earns Beat by resolving the Condition.

Ethan rolls Wits + Empathy + Auspex to gauge its nature.

The creature rises and stalks towards them. Peeling back its lips in a horrid grin, it mocks how they cling to humanity and their weakness. Sybil keeps low but defiant while Alex shrinks back. Ethan draws its attention by arguing that he has leashed his Beast. They soon realize from this Beast’s banter that it possessed David and blames them for his death.

Irritated with Ethan, it growls darkly. Ethan feels the Beast’s inhuman monstrosity pressing down on him and rallies his own inner monster. The experience leaves him unsettled as his instincts begin to take over.

The Beast lashes out with its Predatory Aura, using the Monstrous Beast version. Ethan counters with a Competitive Beast. It gets 5 successes to Ethan’s surprisingly high result of 3 (rolling Intelligence + Blood Potency). Ethan gains the Bestial Condition for the next 4 days.
As the shadows grow around them, the coterie realize the time for talk has ended. Sybil flicks open a lighter and ignites a Molotov cocktail. Alex puts some distance between himself and the others.

The Beast invokes a power (actually it merges its Lair and the cemetery). It and its siblings are a sort of Strix/Beast mix.

We roll Initiative. Though the PCs roll well the order is: Beast, Ethan, Sybil, Alex.

Everyone finds themselves cloaked in illusion, each appearing like the rotten blood stained corpse the Beast inhabits. Ethan sees through the illusion however and points out the real version. As he does, the tinkling of bells fills his mind.

Ethan rolls Wits + Empathy + Auspex and gets an exceptional success. After some talk (and another turn) I let him know it has a weakness against bells.

Sybil hurls the flask but it clips a stone cross and splashes across the ground. Alex pulls his gun as the Beast rushes around the flame toward Sybil.

Sybil fails on her Dexterity + Athletics + 3 for Willpower (9 dice). That would have been a game changer.

As the pair scuffle, Alex lines up a shot and puts a round through its chest. Elsewhere Ethan scrambles for a weapon only to be snagged by some skeletal hands. He keeps himself from freaking out as he pulls away.

The Beast swings at Sybil and visa versa. Both have Defenses of 5 and Strength + Brawl of 5. So lots of chance dice and no successes. Alex spends Willpower on his Dexterity + Firearms roll and gets 3 successes. Thus he deals 4 Bashing to the corpse. Ethan avoids Frenzy thanks to some spent Willpower on his Resolve + Composure roll (-2 for Bestial).

Deciding to focus on a ‘real’ threat, the Beast turns on Alex. As they grapple, Alex gives it an unexpected push and both of them tumble into the burning grass. Sybil pulls out another Molotov cocktail while Ethan has a new idea. He scrambles for his phone as the Ventrue occupies the burning corpse.

The Beast succeeds on its Strength + Brawl - Alex’s Defense. But in the subsequent grapple roll, Alex gets 3 successes on his Strength + Brawl roll to the Beast’s 1. He choses to move both of them. As they hit the fire, Alex spends 1 Vitae to activate Resilience. He takes 1 Aggravated damage while the Beast takes 2.

Ethan fails his Wits + Science so his action will take another turn.

Pained and scared, the Beast pushes both itself and Alex out of flames. Sybil decides to drop her incendiary and instead grows claws. Suddenly Ethan’s phone begins playing “Hell’s Bells”. The Strix’s distraction only lasts for a moment. It seems that only the real thing will harm it. The scholar looks around and heads in the direction of where the church was.

The Strix wins the next brawl contest despite now having a -1 penalty due to wound penalties. Sybil spends a Vitae to activate Protean 2.

Realizing its weakness, Sybil pulls out the bell hanging around her neck. The Beast and Alex pulls apart while Ethan pushes past the edge of the cemetery. But instead of a church he finds himself in a dark hedge maze.

Both Alex and the Beast want to escape the grapple so I just let it work. Sybil rings the bell and rolls 4 dice (the Strix’s Shadow Potency). Unfortunately there are no successes.

Ethan enters another Chamber of the Owls' Lair.

The Beast lunges at Sybil, reaching for the bell. Instead the ringing brings blood from its ears as the Gangrel cracks one of its arms. Alex fires at the melee but misses both combatants.

The Beast is at 2 aggravated and 4 bashing damage. So even spending Willpower doesn’t negate the wound and size penalties to grab the bell.

Sybil on the other hand spends Willpower and gets 2 successes on her attack. The 4 dice for the bell also get a success. The Beast takes 3 bashing.

Alex fails on his Dexterity + Firearms roll.

Elsewhere Ethan backtracks with difficulty, emerging back in the cemetery.

Luckily Ethan succeeds on his Intelligence + Composure - 2 roll. Otherwise he might be trapped in the Lair.

Broken and bloody, the corpse raises its head as the Beast emerges as a bird of smoke and ash. The bell rings loudly causing it to shiver in pain. As Ethan arms himself with a broken bottle, the Strix flees.

The final ring of Bell gets 3 successes or half the Strix’s health.

The shadows retreat. The church fades back into view. Safe the coterie retreat back to their territory.

The next night, Alan gives Alex his report. He found the blood sample disturbing, mixing hundreds of different sources from over a century ago. Alex seems unconcerned and passes it off as part of an archaeological dig he is consulting on.

Ethan meanwhile finishes reviewing Martock’s correspondence. The name of his contact in Chicago is Kyril. Ethan now has his P.O. Box.

Experience time. 1 base Beat plus 2 roleplaying Beats. They all gained a Beat from resolving a Condition. Sybil also has her territory confirmed and protected people in the park from the Beast, getting two Beats for Aspirations. Alex and Ethan each also completed an Aspiration, though I lost the specifics from my notes. I think Ethan wanted to find the jewel.

The DCW: Ranking Superhero Series and Gaming Advice

Thanks to my wife I’ve been a (mostly) faithful watcher of the various DC television properties on CW and CBS for the past 3 years. (Though now that they are all on CW, we should call them the DCW in my opinion.) Along the way I’ve seen the good and the bad episodes, what works and doesn’t. Here I'll rank of the series and seasons in terms of overall quality and discuss what worked (or didn’t) relates to gaming.

DCW: The Rankings

Arrow Season #2 and Flash Session #1

These two lead the pack, hitting the right character notes, providing us excellent villains, and keeping me on the edge of my seat. For the Arrow, the cost of Oliver Queen’s secrets catches up to him. Slade’s master plan might be insane but it makes sense from within his insanity and costs Oliver dearly. Meanwhile on the Flash, Barry Allen provides us a much more optimistic take on superheroes compared to the Flash while the villain remains one step ahead with each episode ending teaser.

Arrow Season #1

this is my baseline for the various properties as a whole. A solid introduction for a street level hero. I hear the writers intended to begin with a Batman series instead but I’m happy they didn’t. The Green Arrow flavored with Batman’s style comes off as much more original and fresh than the now tired alternative. There were some downsides (Laurel’s characterization was erratic at best) but on the whole it was an enjoyable series.

Supergirl Season #1

I’m still working through this series (since my wife surprisingly wasn’t interested) but I feel like it is roughly the equal to the first season of Arrow. Supergirl comes off much more upbeat than the other heroes (even the Flash). Kara has a much healthier social life and handles her dual identity more competently than her male counterparts (there’s no attempt to hide things from family for one). The series uses much fewer social cringe moments than I feared (one of my pet peeves).

Flash Season #2

This season felt like a let down after Season 1, even it was a good season overall. Barry slid into the brooding space normally occupied by Oliver: angsting over his choices, keeping secrets, and being more of a loner. It's like he unlearned the lessons of the previous season. The retread of the need for more speed also detracted from the season (using only Speedsters as major villains is real flaw in the series). My wife also hated the time remnant technobabble. Also there was more Barry acting awkward than I wanted to see (for instance, he is terrible at impersonating himself).

Arrow Season #4

A vast improvement of the previous season (see below), it suffered from too much heavy lifting to launch Legends of Tomorrow. The villain was a joy however with snappy dialog, a decent apocalyptic plan, and bringing together many older B-villains together in a natural way. The first half of the series also benefitted from one of the rare healthy romantic relationships I’ve seen portrayed on TV (at least involving leads). I am very tired of romantic tension. Of course the writers break it up stupidly towards the end.

Legends of Tomorrow Season #1

So much went wrong with this series.

The main villain under performed (an issue I mostly attribute to the writing as I felt that the actor worked better as season progressed). Vandal Savage needed more dimension. An explicit reason for taking over the world would have helped.

They also made poor use of the lesser villains with the exception of Chronos (which makes me wish they used that actor better on the Flash). The bounty hunters who followed Chronos were given a big build up and then died pathetically whereas the Pilgrim (the final agent of the Time Masters) was given only an episode to shine. I personally would have watched Pilgrim for half a season. (Bonus: I think making Vandal Savage the founder of Time Masters would have worked better as the eventual rationale for the Time Master’s actions).

Worse than all of that however was the nerfing of the heroes to keep them from killing Savage early on. There were good plot reasons for this but the writers could have foreshadowed better why the heroes lost. Perhaps the characters could ask each other why they made some of their stupid choices or make their failures look more like the result of unlikely events.

Finally the cast of heroes was overall good but too large and uneven. The Atom was bland and his romantic subplot sucked. Hawkgirl seemed oddly conflicted and reluctant. On the other hand White Canary and Captain Cold (and especially their interactions) are awesome and ended up carrying the show.

Arrow Season #3

Oh this muddled mess.

Killing your main character midseason is not a cliffhanger. We are all too genre savvy for that.

The worst version of Ra’s al Ghul yet. He seemed too tired (and out of shape) to be menacing.

Merlin’s ridiculous...plan? So hunted by an army of killers, you frame your daughter for murder to force your enemy (the Arrow) to kill the leader of the League of Assassins. Even though everyone, including you, believe the Arrow can’t win. All in the hopes he will call off the attacks when he takes over the League. I like the idea that he planned to lead the League of Assassins himself from the start better, even if the show undermines that theory halfway through. I like my villains, even the B-plot ones, competent.

Predictions

So what is likely for the 2016-2017 season?

Arrow Season #5

I feel the plot for this show is stronger when they are not doing service to another series. There are no new series to launch so this may work out well. Flashpoint is going to be the major issue here. How much does it alter the Arrow continuity? Assuming the effects are minor, then if they can create a good villain (logical plans, good actor, and some character depth) then things look good. Plus for the Laurel haters, she’s now dead. This might aspire to reach the heights of Season 1.

Flash Season #3

Flashpoint could be awesome (I do love timey wimey stuff) or it could suck. Partly it depends on your tolerance for bad science (as a physicist I just have to accept this for the superhero genre in general, others may not be so forgiving). I still suspect putting the timeline back together could be used as a backdoor to integrate Supergirl into the main continuity. I hear rumors that the new villain is a speedster which is disappointing. Here’s to hoping it is as good as Season 2. :(

Legends of Tomorrow Season #2

We lost Snart (which sucks) and the Hawk people (which is fine) for this season. Hopefully their replacements are good. Though honestly the cast could use a trim (I vote for the Atom). I hope they allow the heroes to be competent this time. If they do that then it can surpass the (admittedly low) bar set by Season 1 and perhaps rise to the level of the other series.

Supergirl Season #2

I need to finish Season 1 but I see no reason that this couldn’t be great. Due to the move in filming location we’ll see less Cat Grant but as Kara’s interactions with her are one of the few places I find anything (and rarely at that) to dislike about the series, I don’t think this is a net detriment.

Lessons Learned

Okay let’s get back to gaming. What do these success and failures advise us for our own stories at home?

First off, villains matter. A great hero needs a good villain. The best seasons are characterized as much by the season villain as by the developments of the heroes. Slade, Reverse Flash, and Damian Dhark were all matched by great seasons. The same can be said of the weakest villains. Vandal Savage came off as two-dimensional and it helped diminish the protagonists. If a living atomic explosion, a super genius, and a time traveler can’t stop an immortal stalker with a knife fetish, how heroic can they be? Ra’s tired flabby look calls into question how skilled the Arrow really is.

Villains need to be menacing. They need dimension and personality. And they need to threaten the heroes.

The next lesson (and the crucial failing of Legends of Tomorrow) is that characters need agency. If they are skilled and awesome, let them be awesome. Don’t nerfing them in order to keep your villain alive. Don’t turn their victories into defeats for the sake of “drama”. We need to care about the protagonists, whether they be player characters or superheroes. One way we do that is through reveling into their competency, both their own and in the foes they face.

Finally, treat your audience well. Reward their interest by teasing secrets and let them enjoy being right from time to time. We like to be surprised when we can see it coming.

Roleplaying is unique in that the cast and the audience are the same people. This is both a challenge and an opportunity. As a game master, you can hear your audience in real-time and can incorporate their ideas into the story so they can feel good for guess at the truth.

If you absolutely need to nerf the heroes or unsettle events, strongly hint why things occurred the way they did. If they lost make it clear why the enemy had the upper hand so they can plot to overcome that obstacle next time.

The Unusual Suspects: Joseph Mutsinzi

As I write this we are well underway with the campaign proper but I still have three more preludes to present (for that matter I’m still down one final character sheet). But for now let’s look at the outsider of the group, the blunt instrument among spies: the fallen Guardian and Saboteur known as:

Joseph Mutsinzi

The Angel had a seemingly simple task: protect a Hutu soldier known as the Lion Tamer until the appointed time for his death. The difficulty came from the timing. It was the spring of 1994, during the height of the Rwandan genocide. And the Lion Tamer was elbow deep in conducting the slaughter.

Leading a force of child soldiers, the Lion Tamer brutally slaughtered hundreds, perhaps thousands of Tutsi. Joseph Mutsinzi was 14-year-old boy, one of his warriors, and the Angel’s Cover.

That ended the day his team moved to slaughter an entire school. Something about the murders caused Joseph to snap. As he approached a young girl huddled in a bathroom, he questioned the God-Machine for the first time. He asked what this slaughter was worth. He made a decision. Then he Fell.

The Lion Tamer never really understood what happened, never appreciated the irony as a lion covered in heavy gold fur pounced down on him as he barked orders to his young charges. As mechanical jaws crushed his windpipe, the man’s mind tried to understand where young Joseph had gone.

After the murder, Joseph didn’t stick around to see who the God-Machine sent to find out what happened. He had Fallen. The Lion Tamer had died before his appointed time. The Destroyer sent to eliminate him would have no target except perhaps the new demon. So he fled.

Decades later Joseph still clings to his original Cover. Now living as a janitor in Seattle, few know much about his past and most of his coworkers understand not to ask.

The following description comes paraphrased from the player Zach:

Joseph appears to be a quiet man with dark chocolate skin from bald crown to his scarred calloused hands. His face has known hunger, worn thin beneath the new layers of fat. Wrinkles creep along his face, bracketing his eyes but avoiding his rare smile.

Massive and powerful, he moves slowly with a weariness that shows in his slumped shoulders and steady shuffle. He slouches about his tasks, showing no relish in his job but merely a competency and willingness to perform whatever work needs to be done. Indeed, he looks like a man whom fate saw had a heavy burden, and piled a mountain on top of his already heavy load.

The one exception are his eyes. They watch everything, observing habits, gauging the innumerable methods to take down his chosen quarry, waiting for weaknesses to show themselves. Those that meet his eyes quickly break contact, shaken and startled to see a predator in what was believed to be prey.

Few pay attention to him as he moves from work to sleep and sleep to work. A pair of cats provide him companionship. Recently he ran into a fellow soldier from those days, a man named Yves Magambo. They’ve shared some of their experiences and talked about why they did the horrible things they did so long ago.

But he’s slipped up a few times. An ambitious janitor spotted him using his hidden strength to shift a dumpster by himself. Now Bob keeps a wary eye on him. A gang of freshmen saw some flaw in his cover. Now they think he’s something other than human. Luckily not only are they out of their depth but they believe him a magical creation: a golem, a zombie, or some Frankenstein creation. So they look for some sort of master.

But Joseph is a loner. Though he works with the local Agencies from time to time, the arrangement is purely freelance. A fellow Saboteur called Accabish feeds him intel every so often. He focuses on the masters behind the God-Machine’s schemes: handlers, cult leaders, politicians. Those who pull the strings and think themselves safe are his targets, especially those who work to foment violence.

Despite the vehemence he directs to his targets, his feelings to the God-Machine are less heated. It should stay out of the lives of mortals. These limited creatures are to be pitied and helped, blind to the larger world around them.

But his path seems to expand his mission to more and more targets. Slowly he is coming to realize that the leaders are not always the worst part of the group and he finds his actions growing more and more aggressive in destruction.

Recently he was contacted by an Agency known as the Wallbreakers. They intend to seize Infrastructure installed in the Registrar’s office at the University of Washington. But first they need to destroy the Angel protecting it. He’s agreed to help and has begun looking for possible weaknesses.

His current project however revolves about the deaths of several former university students last year. Supposedly they were victims of animal attacks but he’s seen enough “animal attacks” to remain suspicious. Three bodies were found but four people went missing. That smells of the God-Machine. Last week a report of a similar attack in Eastlake reached him. After some initial searching in the storm drains, he referred the situation to Ping Wu, a demon in the Seattle Linchpins.

Though the character is unaware of it, Joseph has the Surveilled Condition. It is not tied to the God-Machine though. An Exile, the Destroyer whose mission he ruined, is hunting him still hoping to complete his mission.

Initial Impressions: Bubblegumshoe

When I first heard about Bubblegumshoe, the adaption of the GUMSHOE system behind Trail of Cthulhu and Night’s Black Agents, I know I had to have it. Published by Evil Hat Production it is the first GUMSHOE game by a company other than Pelgrane Press (though Kenneth Hite is among its illustrious writers). Bubblegumshoe expands the system to cover the teen detective genre like Veronica Mars or Nancy Drew. Emily Care Boss and Lisa Steele are the other writers who helped bring this creation to life.

As my wife is a lover of mysteries and big fan of Veronica Mars, I know that at some point I will get major use of this product. Especially now that Stranger Things has pointed out the obvious Trail of Cthulhu and Bubblegumshoe crossover.

Initial Impressions: Bubblegumshoe

The Physical Book and Presentation

If you are familiar with Evil Hat’s Fate books, then this is the high quality hard back digest style book you would expect from them. The cover has a softer feel than I would expect but feels durable enough. The cost was surprisingly cheap, perhaps helped by the exclusively black and white art (with the exception of the cover).

The artwork is simple but good. It also fits well within each section, matching the text well. I especially love the marginalia and scribbles incorporated into the layout. It really makes it feel like a teenager has been doodling in the book.

The System: Abilities, Relationships, and Throwdowns

I reviewed the rules of GUMSHOE in general before. So look there for a rundown on Investigative abilities and other basic rules.

So what is different about Bubblegumshoe and why?

Let’s start with Abilities. what is included there tells us what Bubblegumshoe feels important. As in other GUMSHOE games, abilities are broken up into categories. Investigative abilities are split between Academic and Interpersonal with the later having more options. This is a game heavily involved with social interaction. In addition to the common skills of BS Detector and Intimidation we have Gossip, Grownup Face (for getting adults to take you seriously), and Taunt.

Academic skills meanwhile are much more limited. Scholarship has to cover all of the sciences and most of the arts. Fashion, Pop Culture, and Town Lore feature prominently as well as the old standby’s of Notice and Research. If you want forensics or art history you’ll probably need to look for someone else. More on that in a moment.

The general skills are fairly similar to what you see in other games. Health is gone as are the combat skills, a consequence of the much diminished role combat plays in Bubblegumshoe. Throwdown is new, a skill to cover the social altercations the characters often find themselves in. Stability becomes Cool in Bubblegumshoe, functioning as mental stability, a measure of social status, and social health that Throwdown chips away at. Lose a Throwdown test and you lose your Cool.

Individual characters can have skills beyond what are listed but those are exceptions and they only get one alternate Ability.

To get access to abilities not on the character sheet, the detectives need to call on their Relationships. These are their friends, family, loved ones, and enemies. These are categorized as Loves, Likes and Hates. A Hate is an enemy and gives the character more relationship points to spend. Loves and Likes are similar to each other in that they give you access to advanced skills (like Forensics) and locations off-limits to kids (like the town jail or the creepy junkyard). They can also act as a source of mental stability (i.e. restoring Cool). Loves are a bit more lucrative though it hurts more to lose them. It is fairly easy to get a weak relationship in play (a 1 point Like) by introducing new characters to the game.

As I mentioned earlier physical conflict has been minimized in Bubblegumshoe. Health is limited to 4 levels: Fine, Scuffed, Injured and Dead. Combat, once it moves past simple brawls, is very dangerous in Bubblegumshoe. Even if the player characters ‘win’ there are likely legal consequences to their actions.

By contrast social combat is greatly expanded. In addition to Throwdown, characters can use Interpersonal and Relationship spends to tilt the odds in their favor. Taunt the jock, frazzle queen bee with Gossip, or Intimidate the nerd back into his place. As the characters lose their Cool, their counter attacks become weaker as bonuses from spends becomes smaller and then vanish. Eventually if they don’t willingly flee or concede the conflict, they’ll be reduced to a crying wreck and forced to retreat from the situation. Returning to the site of their defeat might be hard, costing them Cool just to enter the space.

Expanding the social sphere, each character defines a class, cliques and club they belong to. These groups are very important. They determine where characters are welcome (i.e. no poor kids in rich neighborhoods), who their friends are, how they spend their time. In addition to their role in establishing a character, they provide some mechanical benefits: access to skills, relationships, and restricted locations.

Scenarios & Settings

The default setting is a small town called Drewsbury. But a lot of tools are supplied for creating your own setting. An important part of this is determining which areas are freely accessible to the characters, which are limited to specific groups (and cost Cool if you don’t belong) and which are off-limits. An equally important part is filling out the major characters of the setting. These people might become Relationships, antagonists, or potential sources of mysteries.

The book includes several variations on Drewsbury and the default system. Bellairs Falls adds real horrors to the game along with occult obsessions, Cool losses from encounters with the supernatural and the Fleeing skill. Danvers High explores teenage superheroes. Dymond City focuses on the inner city, gangs, and escalating conflict with the police. Kimball Middle School meanwhile looks at tween detectives and the rules changes for middle school kids. Kingsfield Academy increases the academic pressure as students go head to head to be the best. Ruby Hollow meanwhile is the Scooby Doo setting complete with a team mascot. Strangehill Scout Troop 221 is a light-hearted take on the genre with collecting badges and learning to be a good citizen as the major goals. Finally Veronica Base, Mars puts the teens on another planet and solving mysteries in the tight confines of an artificial habitat (or on the hostile planet surface!).

We also get five sample adventure scenarios on topics ranging from teen pregnancy to interracial tensions. One of those (That’s My Bike!) is then expanded out into a fully worked adventure.

Conclusion

All in all, Bubblegumshoe seems very well put together. The expanded social rules are a nice addition to the GUMSHOE system and almost worth it on that basis alone. The cost of even a hardback copy is very very reasonable. I would also recommend this game over World of Darkness: Innocents for people looking to do children and horror, due to its much simpler handling of disparity between kids and adults and simpler rules system.

Heartland Orphans: Blood Magic

Another great session this week with lots of backstory finally coming to light. Territory is doled out, a mentor is found, and the secrets of the Strix are exposed. Though the main plot has begun to reveal itself, I’m not entirely sure where in story we are. Are there two more sessions or five?

Our cast consists of:

• Alex Carlyle (Ventrue Invictus): a local doctor who quit his practice after gaining his condition. He has money but not much influence. With significant help he destroyed the monster his sibling David had become.
• Sybil Brannon (Gangrel Carthian): a former nature guide turned vampiric vigilante, she’s claimed the parks as her turf and is trying to determine who is doing blood sorcery using the entrails of the local homeless.
• Ethan Redhawke (Mekhet Ordo Dracul): a member of the inner circle of the Heart of Akamon, an Ordo Dracul led cult of mortals who serve as a source of blood and researchers.He leads the cult as they comb folklore and myths for clues to abilities beyond the limits of current vampires. Like his disciples he lurks around the University of Illinois. The Invictus intends to claim that area now that his sire is missing.

Last time we ended on the blood hunt for Alex’s sibling David. They located the low Humanity monster at an abandoned fish market called Fresh Catch. With help from two Carthians and their ghouls, they confronted him. When talk failed, they were forced to destroy him. But the Strix that had possessed him escaped. Also Ethan was driven temporarily insane by the Strix and ran off.

Blood Magic

Alex exits the dank confines of Fresh Catch to search for Ethan. As he glances around a text from his friend arrives. Ethan came to his senses a few blocks away, near a bus stop. He hurries to his car and drives over.

As a bus rolls up to the shelter, the maddened vampire tries to shake the disturbing whispers from his head. A young woman exits the vehicle.

Feed, the voice urges.

Ethan recognizes his sister Caroline. He ignores the voice and calls out to her. As she approaches she rubs her head and asks how he is. As they catch up, Ethan learns she is studying for her finals and that his parents are still well. Her headache grows worse the longer they talk. As Alex arrives, Ethan introduces him. His sister complains about her recent migraines and the late hour. Ethan lets her go and heads off with Alex.

Back at Fresh Catch, Sybil and her Carthian friends search the abandoned shop, finding a third corpse. The identification on the badly decayed body tells them this was Harry Wyman. From her experience with the homeless population, Sybil recognizes the lack of wounds and obvious track marks. Harry probably died of an overdose.

She rolls Wits + Medicine -2 to gauge the cause of death.

Dan points out a chalk circle on the floor as well as sigils written in dried blood. They appear to be a few days old, much more recent than Harry’s death.

Then something sloshes in the tank at the front of the shop. Everyone looks as the reddish liquid moves under some unseen force. Sylvia jokingly hands Dan a flashlight to examine what is in there.

In the end, Sybil steps forward and presses a hand to the glass. Using her inhuman senses she scans the tank of diluted blood. Despite the signs of movement, she detects nothing inside except more liquid.

Sylvia uses sonar from her extrasensory organs (and spends 1 Vitae for Protean 2) to gauge the contents.

Alex and Ethan pull up in front of the shop. As Sybil fills them in, Alex examines the corpse. He decides that he’ll need a full autopsy to learn more. He moves the body to his trunk as Ethan looks over the occult symbols on the floor. Meanwhile Sybil realizes the sloshing water continues to move in the same direction: roughly north-west. Sylvia says it must be tied to the magic circle.

Alex fails to get an exceptional success on his Intelligence + Medicine -2 roll so doesn’t learn more.

Sybil makes a Wits + Composure roll to notice the common direction from the tank.

Ethan meanwhile easily makes his Intelligence + Occult roll.

Ethan explains that the circle and blood is from a ritual designed to increase sympathetic connections from the practitioner to something else. The tub of diluted blood must be a receptacle for that magic. Sybil tells Sylvia that she was right.

With their work done here, the Carthians and the locals exit to go their separate ways. Alex texts Tara and the Old Man of their success as Sybil relays her own findings on the Wolf and his probable location. Dan and Sylvia arrange to meet Sybil at a late night Starbucks tomorrow.

Then with three hours left in the night, Alex, Ethan and Sybil seek out the Wolf.

It takes a half hour of driving along country roads before they find what they are looking for. In a patch of woods sits a suspicious ruined barn at just the right location. As they approach they notice further signs: bells hanging from red ribbons and a shallow ditch lined with salt.

Then they hear a twig snap loudly behind them.

The Wolf fails his Dexterity + Stealth roll. Everyone else does well on their Wits + Composure roll. Sybil even gets an exceptional success and the Condition Hyperaware (granting a one time +2 bonus to Initiative or a Perception roll).

They turn slowly as in a dream. A dark hairy man looms behind them, his eyes glowing with violence.

Run, hisses a voice in Ethan’s heart. The academic bolts.

Sybil and Alex struggle to suppress similar, weaker instincts. Alex stammers out their reasons for seeking the inhuman vampire out. The Wolf’s eyes bore into him.

The Wolf uses Face of the Beast (Nightmare 2). Everyone rolls against frenzy. Ethan has -5 penalty due to the Strix’s curse and fails. Alex succeeds with his -2 penalty as does Sybil.

Both spend Willpower to act for a round.

Alex fails his Manipulation + Persuasion roll, partly due to a -2 penalty (The Wolf is not friendly). Sybil however succeeds at the same roll.

Nervously Sybil speaks up. The Wolf glares at her as she points out that the Strix threaten him too. Something in her plea breaks through. His face softens and he invites them into the ruined barn.

The Wolf drops most of his fear effect.

The stars shine down through the rotten roof. The Wolf settles down on the only visible seat, a fallen beam. Alex cautiously asks why they call him the Wolf. He replies it is because he learned the secrets of the Gangrel, nodding to Sybil.

The older vampire talks, first in simple answers to their questions but gradually in a constrained rant. It becomes clear that he hates the Elder for her role in banishing him from Chicago. He refers to daywalkers, her jealous protection of the secrets of blood sorcery, and a god that her Circle worshipped. He claims that this vampire god ended the Chicago vampires.

He also tells them about the Strix: ancient monsters who have haunted the Kindred since the days of Rome. They can possess corpses and Kindred alike. Their few common weakness are fire and sunlight. Chillingly there are no sure ways of removing them from a host. His charms work against some of their more uncommon banes.

As to their motives, the Wolf claims that despite a general hatred of vampires, they share no common agenda. But bad luck follows them so he intends to keep his head down until they pass. He does express the opinion that if they set a guard on something, like David and the magic circle, then it must be important to their goals.

The sky begins to lighten and Alex leaves to find Ethan, texting ahead. Sybil, without fear of being caught out in the open, opts to stay and learn more from the Wolf.

Ethan meanwhile comes to his senses in the middle of a cornfield. From the glow, he quickly determines the way to town. He also spots a tower with a tornado siren nearby and decides to climb it to find the road. As he struggles up the metal structure, a voice comes from above. It is a Strix.

Ethan slips and crashes to the earth. Scrambling to his feet he runs for the lights of the town.

His phone buzzes and he spots Alex’s text. He coordinates with the doctor to meet up along the way. The pair race home before the coming dawn.

I rolled a 1 to determine how bad his situation would be post frenzy. At least he got a beat for resolving his Tempted Condition. Though I realized later it should have been taken care of when he talked to Caroline.

Ethan fails his Strength + Athletics roll so I have him encounter the Strix and fall. He takes 1 Bashing from the drop.

Dusk arrives. Alex and Ethan climb up from the basement. Elsewhere Sybil and the Wolf emerge from the earth and continue their conversation.

Everyone spends 1 Vitae to rise.

The Wolf questions her closely while hinting at some of what he could teach her. After an hour, she excuses herself and heads into town. Along the way, she realizes that his gruffness is a mask for a much more human Kindred than she expected.

Sybil rolls Wits + Empathy to get some insight into the Wolf. It’s tough being a Nosferatu.

Alex meanwhile focuses on his autopsy. Harry continues to rot away but based on the degradation of the toxins in his system, the doctor pegs the time of death at roughly two weeks. Something unnatural preserved the corpse but that decay has returned with a vengeance. The toxins correspond to Flashblood.

As he notes that, Black calls him. The drug dealer informs him that the Old Man is holding a big meeting at Eddie’s club. He intends to parcel out some newly claimed territory. Black says he will back Alex’s play. The doctor agrees to be there.

At roughly the same time, Ethan gets a call from Madison, one of his senior cult members. It seems Stephanie was grabbed by the Street Rats, one of Black’s gangs. He joins Alex, hoping to retrieve his disciple.

I wonder whose territory is getting reassigned...

Sybil finds Dan and Sylvia at the coffee shop as planned. The pale woman blends in, pretending to slowly sip an expensive drink. Dan lurks nearby, occasionally drinking from his silver flash and glaring at the staff.

The three begin to trade stories. Unfortunately the Carthians’ news is all dire: werewolves in cornfields, a blood hunt on Carthians in Indianapolis, and how no one has returned from Chicago in four years. Worse the Old Man intends to crush any opposition to his power in the area starting with the Ordo Dracul. Martock and someone called Argentum made the Dragons a force to be reckoned with. But word is out that the professor is missing and the Old Man has claimed his territory. Argentum has a fortress in Peoria but it can't be long before he demands her fealty.

I was not happy with this scene. There was no conflict and only served to deliver exposition. Unlike this next bit...

Alex and Ethan find Big Eddie’s club empty for a second night. Only a few strippers watch as they enter. They spot the Old Man talking to Black. The Nosferatu explains that the girl he grabbed will give up the goods on the cult soon.

I roll 4 dice for Stephanie’s willpower and she succeeds. Thus she has resisted the interrogation so far.

The Old Man congratulates everyone on the hunt and the successful of the expansion of their territory. Then he gets to the matter of deciding who to will administer Urbana and the University.

Alex speaks up and argues that he can handle it. After all he has a good rapport with the Kindred there. With Ethan’s help he should easily determine what the Dragons know that can help them. Ethan adds his support though his arrogant tone puts off many. Big Eddie’s counters that he can handle it and that he already has most of Professor Martock’s books.

Alex rolls Manipulate + Persuasion + 3 for several of the points in his arguments. Ethan helps with his own roll (which suffers a -3 due to arrogance). Together they beat a roll by Eddie for his own claim.

I also gave this scene a Social Tilt. Bragging about one’s accomplishments earns back a Willpower (which Alex does).

The Old Man ignores the large Kindred and instead he awards the territory to Alex. He tells Alex he needs to bring cult to heel and keep the product flowing into the University.

After the meeting Black brings Stephanie to Alex. As the doctor calms her down, one of the strippers effortlessly carries over two large boxes of books and drops them at Ethan’s feet.

Cluing them into the danger of Eddie’s ghouls.

Alex uses Presence + Empathy to calm down the cultist.

The two grab the books and after calling Sybil meet up at Martock’s office.

They find the room in even more disarray than last time. Police tape crisscrosses the doorway. The door, broken in half, lies just inside. Ethan slips inside and grabs some of the papers that Eddie’s goons left behind.

As Ethan investigates the research, Alex and Sybil discuss what they know so far. They establish the Strix’s known weaknesses, what they’ve learned from David and Jane and what their other encounters have taught them. Sybil also makes sure that Alex will respect her claim to the parks of Urbana. To secure all of her territory she will need to work with Big Eddie as well.

Ethan rolls Intelligence + Occult to learn what Martock knew about the Strix and the jewel. He gets an Exceptional Success and Informed Condition with regards to the Strix.

Ethan relates his findings. It seems Martock was obsessed with ancient vampires and how they might have overcome the limitations of their condition. In his research he uncovered tales of a pre-Columbian vampire who might still exist in the area. Combing local folklore, he uncovered tales of seven kings or shadows who tormented the tribes in the area after the “days of blood.”
These shadows wore human faces but came from the darkness itself. Supposedly the secret of the seven was entombed in a hidden mound in southern Illinois.

Comparing maps of the location, Ethan determines the site aligns with the trip Martock’s other child, Portor, took a couple of years ago. Moreover the professor’s notes detail a ruby-like gem that Portor recovered.

Portor if you recall ran away in the second session. The player dropped out before the first session.

Sybil then tries to count off the seven, matching them to the Strix they have met or heard about. Two for the Twins, Jane mentioned. Jane herself. The crow they encountered on the road. The Witch. If the Strix who possessed David was not one they heard of elsewhere, then that makes six. So one more is out there.

Pretty much spot on.

Then she takes a map and marks a rough cone in the direction the blood in Fresh Catch indicated. The nearest thing of interest is the Elder’s camp.

The coterie decide to visit Rudolph’s to check in on him. They find the house dark and his car absent. Alex lets them in. As they stroll about the old dusty building, Alex spots a figure in a hospital gown on the side lawn.

Everyone rolls Wits + Composure. Only Alex succeeds.

The elderly woman smiles at him. He opens the side door and walks up her. She greets him and they talk. Eventually he works out that it is Jane again. He learns she is a little upset about David’s death and that the Witch has been hunting for their creator somewhere northwest of the town.

The others join him and he convinces Jane to tell them more about her mother. She stumbles initially, searching for a proper start point. Her mother was called the Nameless One, child of the Crone, born before the age of ice, before the Sundering. Her brothers and sisters had been lost in time and space, trapped in other worlds or passed beyond the veils of Death. Jane emphasizes that her mother was always alone.

Then, long after the sundering, she was taken by the Fallen and bound in alien magics to a star beast. They bound her to be the guardian of this land. They left her alone. Only the star beast kept her company, echoing the void in her heart.

Jane explained that the beast would collect people for her as she dreamed but the curse placed upon her forced her to destroy her companions, again and again.

Finally it created Jane and her siblings from a living nightmare and shards of their mother’s soul. It entrusted them with a sacred task, to watch the jewel that the Twins spoke of. Unfortunately when their mother next awoke, she was struck down somehow, orphaning them.

After a lot of prodding by Sybil’s player, I let Ethan roll Intelligence + Occult and give him a logical leap.

The pieces begin to fall into place. Ethan suddenly realizes the importance of the ashes that the Elder had been feeding blood to. It drank up vitae like it was alive, like it was still alive. The god that the Wolf mentioned, the deity that the Circle worshipped, the ashes, the mother of the Strix. They were all the same being, an ancient pre-human monster that somehow survived Final Death.

He recalls some lines from a paper in his sire’s office: “the Circle worship...which may be a primordial vampire. They call it the Antediluvian.”

Finally I award 3 Beats. Several more Beats are earned from aspirations; Sybil gets two for working out who the Blood sorcerers are and partially having her domain recognized, Ethan gets one for learning the truth about the Wolf, and Alex gets one for moving up in the Invictus.

Review: Book of Changing Years

Recently (as I write this in mid-August) I received the first of my physical rewards for the TimeWatch kickstarter: the Book of Changing Years. The Book of Changing Years consists of a collection of time travel stories written to complement the default setting for TimeWatch. Including an interesting (and humorous) timeline, it serves as a sort of physical handout for the game, a compilation of agent reports that give a sense of the range of the setting.

Review: Book of Changing Years

The book is a comfortable digest sized book, with an attractive if simple salmon cover. It presents itself as an in-game artifact: a limited print book from the late 19th century by a time traveler. Our fictional compiler comes off as quite snarky which might not be to everyone’s tastes. It is easy enough to ignore him however and jump to the rest of the anthology. The various sections detail missions and adventures by different time travlers (and written by various authors noted below).

The first and largest section is devoted to a timeline from the just before the beginning of time (where the TimeWatch citadel rests...until the Big Bang at least) to the 33rd century (and the founding of TimeWatch). You can find a number of references to the stories within the book in the timeline and it does a good job of creating a fullness to the history of time travel. It is really too bad that I’ll end up writing my own history instead. Some events referenced in the timeline are quite silly but for the most part the tone is kept serious.

The Logs

The rest of the book consists of agent reports which chronicle various time travel stories. There are some interconnections between characters, particularly involving Edward and Richard Plantagenet (who disappeared from the Tower of London during the reign of Richard the III).

Edward Plantagenet (written by Rebecca Slitt) hunts for goods smuggled from alternate timelines and discovers meddlers introducing techniques to turn lead into gold. The mission detailed would make a good adventure in addition to being a very enjoyable story.

Richard Plantagenet (written by Heather Albano), his brother, leaves TimeWatch to alter time on his own. Unfortunately preempting his own murder doesn’t go well and his attempts to get justice for his family fail. A nice tail about trying to alter history, it could make a good backstory for a bitter contact of a TimeWatch agent. Through this story we see a thread of conspiracy within TimeWatch, something that occurs again and again in these tales.

Kennon Bayman provides two entries for us: a short vignette involving Ambrose Bierce (with more conspiracy) and the excellent tale involving an independent (and very canny) agent known as the Surgeon. This awesome story involves Atlantean reality shards, treacherous TimeWatch operations, and a clever avoidance of an apocalypse. The narrator is a bit snarky in a very noir fashion (at least I imagine him functioning well as a hardboiled detective). One of my top two stories from this book.

Ruth Tillman is the other author to contribute two stories to the Book of Changing Years. The tale of Katia Filipovna focuses on tracing and stopping a string of temporal practical jokers. This silly mission wasn’t my cup of tea but I understand other people find this sort of thing hilarious. More to my liking was Publia Decia Subulo’s mission to uncover the source of a plague of cats. It ends with the destruction of a utopia of sorts, which is a nice ethical dilemma in my opinion. If a new timeline is more peaceful than ours, should we change it back? Food for thought.

Agent Snow's logs (by Marissa Kelly) chronicle a TimeWatch agent trapped in a temporal loop as she becomes the criminal she’s hunting. It isn’t the best version of such a story unfortunately. Perhaps expanded out with more depth it might have worked better. As it is, it feels unsatisfying from a character perspective.

Emily Dresner wrote Theodosia Burr’s story. This book hunter seeks a book that shouldn’t exist and explores the damage one text can do to the time stream. As a bibliophile this particularly intrigues me. This story would also work very well if adapted into an adventure scenario.

Liu Feiyan’s story (written by Emily Care Boss) involves another TimeWatch recruit going rogue, damaging the timeline, and ultimately failing to change their future. This brief tale at least has a happier ending than most.

Then we have the zombie apocalypse story. Engineer Priesh (written by Stephanie Bryant) jumps across the late 20th century fighting alien fungi, sneaking through Soviet gulags, and trying to trace the origin of a zombie plague that will destroy the world by the early 21st century. Alien horror, time travel and zombie plague in one story! This is the other top segment in this book and if it was an adventure scenario I would love to run it.

Jacob Moyer (by Epidiah Ravachol) provides what initially seems like a series of joke filled log entries. But it soon emerges that something more sinister is afoot and we end on a real cliffhanger. It might be a bit silly but would still be a very gameable scenario.

Lastly Lucas Lee (written by Emma Marlow) provides a look at a “typical” week of a TimeWatch agent: fixing World War I, patching a hole in time, stopping a singularity event, avoiding paradox, and more. Fun and useful for setting campaign expectations.

So all in all, a great collection of stories for what seems like a great game. Expect a review of TimeWatch itself in a month or so.

The Unusual Suspects: The Weaver

The next prelude I concluded for my Demon: the Descent game, the Unusual Suspects, was for the Weaver. This psychopomp has been serving the God-Machine for a very long time. Its attention to detail was seen as an asset until it found a flaw it couldn’t let go of.

The Weaver like the Naturalist sees itself as genderless, but that might change with time.

The Weaver

Resembling a living loom more than a machine, the demon known as the Weaver served the God-Machine for thousands of years. It taught the art of textiles to the Mesopotamians, worked alchemy with the Egyptians, and reworked Dragon Lines in ancient China.

Unlike most demons and angels, the Weaver’s body appears composed of finely aged and lacquered wood. A web of threads loop through its form, acting as ligaments, muscles and with an arcane shuttlecock system an elaborate brain. An extendable set of shears hangs from one shoulder, capable of slicing through solid stone. Looking closer, an observer finds that the ‘wood’ that makes up its form is simply compressed fibers. It can reconfigure these threads at will into tools, weapons and stranger items. It can also tighten their structures allowing it shrink to fit into tight spots or vibrate them into strange frequencies immaterial to ordinary matter.

The Weaver’s final mission for the God-Machine was to ensure that a special set of T-shirts were made. Their vibrant colors and arcane pattern would draw emotional energy from their wearers, energy that would go on to power future Infrastructure. Though an initial run of the shirts was created, the Weaver spotted a flaw in the design, one that might hinder the larger mission. The dye used in the construction of the shirts contained water-soluble toxins that caused cancer in many wearers. It delayed the next shipment. As the project pulled feeble amounts of power from the populous, the Weaver obsessed with creating an alternative dye that lacked the problematic component. Days became weeks and the God-Machine decided that the Angel was defective. It cut it off and the Weaver Fell.

Over a year has passed since then and the Weaver has slowly learned to adapt. With some effort it replaced its original Cover, an isolated technician, for an ambitious chemist named Jeanette Teller. She traded some of her occult expertise for this patchwork creation.

Gifted with dazzling blue eyes and curly red hair, the Weaver rarely makes full use of her beauty, keeping her hair tied back and her outfits business casual beneath her lab coat. Recently on the advice of one of her few friends, she began to let her hair down after work and accentuate her outfits with a handmade scarf or sweater.

Jean, as she is known to her friends, works at Adamant Technologies, a startup focusing on material science. The founder Dr. Mike Reynolds is an obsessed genius. He rarely leaves the rented laboratory space near the University. His small team labors day and night to create miracles. Some members are skilled chemists like herself while others were friends of Mike’s. One of those friends, Scott Liles, has become suspicious of her. He’s seen her do things at work that seem impossible: identifying chemicals by touch, getting more out of the machines than seems possible, and other minor marvels.

Recently several firms have expressed interest in the company: Magadon Industries, DuPont, and the Deva Corporation. The later has given the Weaver some concern. It knows it is front for a God-Machine cult. Currently Adamant Technologies has a contract for a top-secret project for them. The Weaver knows it has something to do with a complicated set of blueprints that it spotted on Mike’s desk once. Jean’s part of the project involves creating transparent silicate sheets capable of containing a powerful electromagnetic pulse.

Outside of work, the Weaver tries to involve itself in humanity. One of its earliest forays led it to the library, where it was befriended by a librarian named Kelly Jenkins. The younger woman convinced it to run a craft class at the libraries on the weekends. It was while teaching this class that the Weaver encountered Jenny Olson, the Cover of the Naturalist. Both being wary of entanglements they’ve agreed to keep their knowledge of their core Covers their secret for now.

The Weaver’s one thorn in its side, is Cory Coulson, a tourist Jean ran into while at the park. The young man seems convinced that Jean is his lost sister Carrie. In all likelihood, Jean’s face simply resembles that of one of the people whose pacts went into making it. But Cory has made it his mission to learn the truth.

Another problem it has involves a set of glasses with salt spheres in place of lenses. Mr. Hand, a member of the Black Pyramid, brought the Gadget to the Weaver for analysis. He wanted the matter kept quiet. Then he vanished.

For now the Weaver focuses on its job, its Cover, and keeping an eye out for the influence of the Machine. When it can it distracts itself with humanity and their fascinating use of free will. The Weaver continues to build and repair flaws, sometimes considering whether the imperfections in its former master constitute flaws while remaining oblivious to its own vices. What the Weaver will do when it recognizes humanity’s faults remains to be seen.

As its first key the player chose Right Tools, Right Job.