Dramatis Personae

Kamali Blackshear (18): Kamali is a young man in his late teens. He is healthy and is of mixed ethnicity of Caucasian South African and native South African. He is a determined youth who believes in a justice of his own, likening himself to the knight of the round table whom he has read deeply into. Just as they stood against the darkness of their age so too does Kamali seek to do the same. For his sister, for his friends, and for the world.

Tag: “A knight without a sword wielding freaking Excalibur carrying a faith nobody believes.”

Lorenzo DeModouco (18): A man with movie star looks and a voice that belongs on the radio. Slowly coming to grips with the fact that he isn’t exactly human, but a “Lupus Dei” – “Wolf of God” – otherwise known as a Benandanti. He’s still cheery and always trying to make others happy, but has become a shrewd student of human behavior, which he uses for the benefit of the rest of his team. Lorenzo’s recently joined the Boston Fire Department as a volunteer as a means to get access to places he normally shouldn’t be able to go as well as medical gear and information that might not be available to the public. He’s become a master of spear fighting and like the rest of his brothers is a highly capable combatant.

Tagline: “You can take me to the gates of Hell, but I won’t back down and I won’t be turned around.”

Amos M. Humiston (20): The Linguist and Librarian. He is the brains to the rest of the group’s brawn; but by the same token, he’s slow and cautious compared to the other Orphans, preferring not to charge forwards until he has the answers that he’s looking for. Those same answers that he more than happily provides the rest of the group when they turns to him about the more esoteric aspects that they’re working with and against. Recently Amos has nearly completed his double Masters in Library & Information Science Archives and History and has also managed to get a rather special job lined up. He has also learned from others that he hold the potential to be a Sorceror which if unlocked would be able to enhance his already considerable talent with ritualistic magic.

Tag: “True alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words.”

Gabriel MacAlister (18) – Built like the natural athlete he is, he is tall, strong, and solidly good-looking, but deeply scarred from much combat. He’s missing his lower leg, which he lost fighting zombies. It is capped by a carbon fiber prosthetic that doesn’t seem to interfere much with his activities. A quiet and hard-working man, always ready to lend a hand with any work, which he will do without complaint or obligating the other person to respond. He is an expert martial arts teacher, and has been following in the footsteps of a carpenter for some time now. Emphatically not a pushover or weak personality, but also not one to purposefully show off. Has been in many horrible places and seen many horrible things; he’s a bit of a compulsive planner as a result, as well as always feeling that most folks don’t really know how lucky they are. He was cursed to carry a magical sword for a while, and gave into its Wrath before it was parted from him magically. He’s since given it up, in exchange for unknown burdens.

Tag: “To serve others is the highest calling; to protect the meek the noblest endeavor, and our works are judged by the effort that went into them”

To the Firehouse

The group heads back to the firehouse with Amos screaming across the sky wondering why he thought it was a good idea to ride the Manticore back to the firehouse. The boys finally get some rest and wake up to the smell of food but not enough for the manticore to share. Moving immediately towards collating the information that has accumulated. Blood on the map has managed to wander around the map showing where vampires have congregated.

The boys set up an old HAM radio and reel-to-reel to work with the magical wiretap spell keeping an ear out for things and set up Carl and Imogen to listen to the broadcast. Amos steps out to interact with the manticore, accepting the shark and seagull to cook dinner with later. Bringing the big creature in, he joins the others in listening to the radio where they’re discussing the dethawing of assets. Probably unstaking vampires from previously. Cross checking with the map and finding them congregating around a specific area within Boston, Amos adding the locations of the remaining babel stones to the map and trying to narrow down things.

A history lesson occurs. Boston is an old city and it is also home to a super nexus, otherwise known as the Boston Triangle, the Babel stones being set up at each corner of the triangle. Doing some triangulation they find the center to be about 20 or 30 miles out into the harbor. The boys discuss where to get there as the chief tells them that there’s a fire barge down below.

About 8:00 am a bike courier shows up with a large amount of information from Brimstone Law. Large amount of photos, information, and informs them that they’re trying to work to gather support, get werewolves freed, conclave shifted back, and head into the Autumn Road to save someone to get more support.

Despite Lorenzo spilling coffee on the parcel, the kids jump into action and help Devin separate papers and feed them to Amos who glance at the pages and dictate where to place them. “Important, not important, paper airplane.” Striking through the entire pile in barely a half hour, they find that there is an alliance between Vampires and Unseelie Fae and things are only revealed by the sheer amount of vampires, a master vampire psychically controlling them. And an Elder Vampire is already bad news, but a Master Vampire is not something that anyone wants to be able to deal with.

Responding to the information with dossiers and a plant for later communication before sending things off and updating the map again with the new information. Trying to figure out a timeline and what is going on. The Conclave is on one of the nexuses and likely to have had a ritual worked on them right there. On top of it, several of the explosions were also along ley lines. Also in the documents was something that mentioned a planetary alignment, sun, mercury, venus. Similar to how things happened with the Orphan’s parents, complete with dead people.

The last time an alignment like this occurred was 2000 years ago, give or take three years. Devin tries to figure out when the alignment reaches its peak. It started on the 1^st, the day of the attack and culminates today. Things start clicking into place as Amos makes connections. Doors to hell, things opening. Ones in the Middle East, one in the Sarhara Desert, one in the sea far away. Hurrah, we’re sitting on a time bomb.

The boys try to debate on what is happening, deducing clues from the information available and deciding what they want to do. Eventually deciding to try to short out the ley lines to disrupt the ritual occurring that night, something huge like curing Global Warming but changes like that on that scale isn’t possible and too small won’t allow for enough energy to short things out. Instead Amos took some inspiration from one of the laws of magic: Once Whole, Always Whole. They’re going to try to reform the Tower of Babel to short out the ley lines and draw attention to what is happening down at that moment, hoping for some divine intervention.

The session ends as Amos reminds them that they’re going to need help, and the best way to get that is by also giving help. The team of sorcerers that sent a package to them has already asked for some help and the team decided to try to free the Conclave for backup if they’re able to. The Orphans decide that if they’ve got time for it, then that’s going to be the plan of action.

Christopher Commentary

We didn’t get as much done this game as I initially wanted because Doug was sort of there (he had to do some other stuff and it wasn’t something he could do elsewhen). But it was a session of mostly theorycrafting and the players came up with a BRILLIANT plan to counter some of the things they figured out. Namely, countering the flooded ley lines the String Puller is planning to use thanks to the massive planetary alignment by using the Law of Sympathy to reassemble the freaking Tower of Babel. There is a good chance that this will kill the person trying to cast the spell…but it WILL work and it won’t be something the String Puller will have considered because it’s INSANE.

Next game the PCs are going after one of the two guardians at the other Babel stone locations (C-Team will likely pick up the other this Sunday). So that’s going to be interesting. The PCs are racing against the clock and the clock is being utterly ruthless at the moment.

Session Soundtrack

“Time Has Come Today” by the Chambers Brothers (opening song)
“Planets of the Universe” by Stevie Nicks
“God’s Gonna Cut You Down” by Marilyn Manson
“One” by Metallica ()
“Set It Off” by P.O.D. (closing song)