[Sorcerer] Deeper Underground
Jaakko Koivula:
We've got two more sessions played and I'm still excited. Finally after the third session I'm also getting my GMing up to gear. Demons are becoming more like active characters and other NPCs are starting to throw more wrenches into our sorcerers' plans.
We've been missing Alex's player from both of the sessions, but I'm planning on throwing a solo adventure for him, to get him to the same place in the timeline as the other characters. Alex himself was physically elsewhere, so his player being missing didn't actively cause problems for the rest of us. This play report is also a bit for him, so he can read what the other's have been up to.
Second session, highlights, etc.:
Mr. Heart has just spotted Graham and invites him cordially in. Mr. Heart is doing everything to make Willie summon up more demons. Willie decides that he can't rescue his fiancee without extra help, so he agrees. The three sorcerers gather around the computer screen and start cooking up a demon. Willie let's his instincts guide him and keep poking around the network, while Mr. Heart and Graham give hints and try to guide him. Everyone rolls crappily and no contact is made though. Willie goes deeper and deeper into a trance just following that unnatural current in the network... but suddenly something breaks the immersion and he realizes he's just been browsing wikipedia for two hours. Nothing magical about that, it happens to all of us at times.
At the same time everyone realizes, that all the lights have gone out. Only the computer screen still illuminates the room and after it realizes that there's no electricity anywhere anymore, also blinks out. Willie's demon <a> has radar sense, so Willie manages to guide everyone out of the building. Outside everything is also pitch black, many blocks around. After a while they get rescued from the darkness by a patrol, that's seeking people who got trapped in the blackout-area. Blackouts are understandably a really rare and utterly terrifying crisis in the tunnels, but luckily it was only an industrial area where this one happened. No greater panic and not that many people around.
Kevin has been trying to buy a book from Mallory, an immoral and aggressive library-worker. Some books were said to be destroyed by the head librarian Vincent, but Mallory still seems to have access to them. The deeper they go into negotiations, the more clearer it becomes that Mallory is a totally criminal and dangerous character. The price to deliver the book Kevin is searching is also hilariously high. Kevin desperately wants to get "upstairs" to research demons and ancient technology and now he's collecting data to plan for the most propably dangerous trip.
Next evening Willie decides to give the summoning another try. Mr. Heart downplays the risks involved and says they have the biggest chance of success, if they try summoning in a densely networked area, the Central Library for example. At the Library they recruit Graham to help them again. Graham grudgingly accepts to help them, to lessen the risk of something going completely wrong, like last time. This time they manage to contact the demon: a blood red entity, that favours abstract geometrical shapes and exhibits robotic-like personality: "Des-cribe de-si-red pa-rameters, de-fine ty-pe of help re-quired." etc. Willie also manages to summon and bind the demon (binding +3 to Willie!). The room goes completely black and a thud is heard. When the lights turn back, Willie has a new parasite demon < b > living in his hair, or instead of his hair, who knows.
Meanwhile, Kevin has been writing emails in his office. The network is totally ridicilously slow tonight for some reason. At one point, he hears running from outside the door: Vincent the head-librarian is running upstairs, looking totally incensed. He orders Kevin to follow and help him and starts going through the different studies. After a couple of doors he finds the three sorcerers huddling in one of them and orders everyone to get to his office right bloody now. At the office he realizes that Kevin is still tagging along and orders him to piss off. The session ends with Vincent glaring over the bunch of sorcerers and saying: "Three at the same time.. what kind of an idiot summons a demon in the middle of a goddamn city?"
Jaakko Koivula:
Third session:
Vincent the head-librarian seems satisfied with just warning the sorcerers: nothing serious has happened yet, but if there's any more blackouts, unusually slow networks or anything, he knows who are responsible and will come after them. Graham's demon Segfault uses this as an opportunity to demand his need. He wants to see evildoers (people who have lost humanity) being punished. Willie lost a whopping 2 humanity while summing, bumping him down to 1. "Come on, if you just make that guy chew on that youngster a bit, that could tide me over for a while. I don't like this at all, but this would be a good and easy opportunity..." Graham tries to shift the blame more on Mr. Heart and Willie, but Vincent isn't really interested. Graham doesn't try to press it, but decides to handle the need in some other way.
Willie is having a hard time concentrating on Vincent's lecture, because his head is being yanked all over the place. <b > seems to be bit of an OCD-case and hugely interested in the news (Desire: order, Need: facts/trivia). It seems to communicate mainly by pulling Willie's head in the direction that it wants Willie to notice. Kind of like being pulled from the hair, but the hair itself is the one pulling. Willie and Mr. Heart retreat to Heart's storage hall, where they tried summoning for the first time. Willie practices using his demons and watches the news until the splitting headache goes away (his hair stops hurting). Mr. Heart seems to have lost most interest in Willie after he managed his summoning and mostly just scribbles in his little notebook.
Graham went home earlier and bumped into a large thug wrecking the place. It's Mallory's friend, who Graham also met earlier. "You should not mess with the boss. Make sure the money is together tomorrow." etc. Graham and the thug end up wrestling for a while, but neither manages to cause any serious damage. Thug ends up slightly having the upper hand, but gets also banged up enough, that he decides to leave. "Uh, you should not mess with us, get the money."
Kevin on the other hand is out looking for trouble. He finds a hotdog-kiosk and there's a fight going on: a big guys is trashing up a drunkard. Kevin makes Segfault scorch the thug's shoe a bit to break up the fight. The big guy does stand up and leaves the drunkard alone, but also proceeds to throw Kevin (the wimpiest wimp there is, stamina 1) on the ground, pretty much busting him completely up. Then he tries to kick in Kevin's ribs, but at this point Segfault decides to interrupt and napalms the thug completely.
Nice example how the combat system works here btw. Thug kicks Kevin in the ribs, Kevin defends, demon breathes fire. Demon has best roll, thug cancels action to defend (like any sane person would do, when a fireball suddenly flies from the darkness right at you), but doesn't manage to dodge. Thug is burned to crisp and canceled his action anyways, so it doesn't matter that Kevin rolled lowest of them all at the beginning of the turn.
Segfault seems to have his need satisfied by this and helps Kevin slip in to the night, leaving the kiosk-owner wondering that the hell just happened and the thug on the ground with second and third degree burns.
Later Graham, Kevin and Willie have lunch together. They plan for a trip to the upper tunnels together. Graham heard earlier from Vincent, that you actually need some sort of official permit from him to go to the upper tunnels. Permit, which he won't admit to anyone. Graham mentions that Kevin might be going anyways and Vincent says: "Hmm, well now I at least know he might try..." Vincent really doesn't seem to like sorcerers or sorcery or anyone researching the subject at all.
Mallory and her friend also make an appearance. Kevin is going again to meet them, but Graham is stalking the meeting place in advance. He overhears that Kevin is going to be taught a lesson once he has handed over the money. Graham warns Kevin, who decides that he doesn't want to go to the meeting after all and splits. Mallory and the thug notice him running away and decide to go trash his place again, just because. After some stuff Graham and Kevin are at Kevin's apartment with cops, going around the place and giving testimonials. Graham doesn't want to give the cops all the facts and that they know who did it, but the other cop realizes that he's not being told everything. He doesn't press the issue further, but silently marks Graham as being a suspicious character and asks if he can come later to give a more detailed statement about the perps at the precinct. He also mentions about the other odd incident around this neighborhood earlier: someone used a flamethrower or something at a regular hotdog-kiosk brawl and burned a guy really badly. They have some sketchy description of a suspect and he just happens to mention this, to make sure you people take care now, put the safety latch on etc.
We ended the session when every character went to bed after this long day.
I'm clearly getting there with GMing Sorcerer. The heat is rising! The NPCs are pushing their own agendas, getting dangerously suspicious of player characters and especially the demons are starting to get more needy and demanding more attention. Graham and Willie also had to feed their demons in the last session. Most of the needs are simply enough now (watch the news, get a bag of blood for the vampire demon, feed some passed out student's dreams to the demon), but will probably get way more interesting if they end up in the uninhabited upper tunnels, with no extra blood, dreams, news or evil-doers available, or if the police start paying more attention to them...
Jaakko Koivula:
Quote from: Jaakko Koivula on September 30, 2011, 04:35:33 AM
Graham went home earlier and bumped into a large thug wrecking the place. It's Mallory's friend, who Graham also met earlier. "You should not mess with the boss. Make sure the money is together tomorrow." etc. Graham and the thug end up wrestling for a while, but neither manages to cause any serious damage. Thug ends up slightly having the upper hand, but gets also banged up enough, that he decides to leave. "Uh, you should not mess with us, get the money."
This was obviously Kevin, not Graham. Mixed up the names, sorry.
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