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”

Rob Broadhurst (18) – There was a blurb here the entire time. But it disappears every time you look away from the screen.

There’s a Snake in my Boot

We return to the action with Lorenzo still down 23 HP, and this is not Monster Squad, and the werewolf (that’d be Lorenzo) will not magically pull himself together. Kamali and Myriam were beating the bushes trying to rally other hunters, who have been oddly absent. Last session, Amos and/or Yanay did spell stuff to tap a Ley Line in order to get inside the force shield and muck up the bad guys’ stuff. Amos merged with the Ley Line; kept the stone pile intact, but as soon as he wants to he can do things.

We return to the firehouse to recover. Gabe sets to try and pray over Lorenzo.

We’re pretty messed up, but Lorenzo and Amos and Devin set into the task of checking out the stats on how many vamps are being killed by Kamali’s help – and determine that someone has been unstaking vampire bricks to replenish the supply. Well, crap. Got our work cut out for us.

We know that the final confrontation is going to be in Dogtown – that’s where we’re going to trigger the babel tower. We also know we’ll probably be ambushed there. Now we just need to know what we’ll do about it.

Mike and Yannay drop by; Amos had contacted us. They arrive at about 10pm, to the scent of delicious breakfast foods. And wet manticore hair. The ghost dog takes a liking to Mike, who finds himself covered in Ectoplasm. As Gabe and Mike look at each other they can sense they’re both paragons of a virtue. We give each other a Holy Fist Bump.

We note that the best way in is a particular highway in. We think about how to channel them.

Yannay reports that the Conclave is going to come back when the alignment stops.

Amos, not the most stable these days, silently starts collecting ectoplasm off of Mike’s pants.

Mike Bastian asks “is that necessary”

Amos Humiston responds, “. . . no?”

Mike Bastian “ok, be my guest anyway”

Amos Humiston continues to scrape Mike’s pants

Amos Humiston calls over to Devin, “Yo, you want in on this?”

Devin Broadhurst says, “Yeah, I can take this back to my workshop, see if I can figure any of it out. Or… did you mean the pants?”

Mike Bastian laughs, “sorry, it tickles a little.”

Amos Humiston “Sorry. I’d suggest taking them off but there’s women here.” Gestures at Imogen.

Mike Bastian asks “Hey, Yanay, do you mind turning around?”

Yanay Servantes “I don’t mind, no. If I want to? Hm.”

Mike Bastian replies “That would make this faster, thanks”

Amos Humiston “Nope! I’m done. Got enough vials.” backs away rapidly.

Our group has a case of the odds tonight. Big time.

We also get a package from a magical house: 10 vials of Silver Shield, which imparts magical resistance to many types of magical transformations.

Library Run

We divide up into two vehicles, and spend a lot of time deciding on which person goes into which car. We head over to the shop, and Amos finds a grimoire of the Krazy Lord Elmer. He finds what he needs – something that will bind together that which was torn asunder. Also works on divorcees.

We search the store, and find a secret stash with a ridiculous store of firearms in it. Hunters need guns too, apparently. Kamali’s looking for magically enhanced weapons – silver ammo (makes guns work), a M249 SAW, and about 100 lbs (14 200-round boxes) of ammo.

As we pull away from the store, we see folks on motorcycles coming close to us. They open fire and shoot out the passenger side tires on Lorenzo’s car. Also, a giant pit opens up in the ground, and a definitely-demonic hand belonging to about a 12-foot-tall creature comes out of the pit. We screech to a halt, and the demon is emerging from a pit of fire. The motorcycle guys are driving with one hand on their bikes, the other hand on their MP5Ks.

Gabe takes a Ready to open the car door and come out. The demon comes forward and smashes into the SUV, hitting the engine. We decide that since insurance doesn’t cover force majeure, and there’s little that’s more majeure than a demon. It does 27 points of damage and stops the car.

Kamali braces his M16 on the car door, and unloads a full magazine at three bikers. One gets tagged three times, the other two dive for cover a bit panicked. Mike, another holy warrior, invokes Righteous Fury (4 to HT and DX; 2 to ST). Lorenzo slams forward with the car to give Gabe some more cover. Devin powers up his force shield.

One biker empties more bullets at the cars, but if they hit anything important, no one notices.

Yannay tries a stun spell, and crit fails. We mostly all fail our HT/Will rolls, as we’re rolling at -4. All of us are stunned, and can roll each round to snap out of it. It’s roll vs mental or physical, whichever is worse.

To the day she dies, she will claim the demon reflected the magic back at us. She was stunned too, totally surprised; that’s her story and she’s stickin’ to it. The abbatoir demon will attack the car – nope, mike runs up first. Swings at the creature, who dodges. Demon attacks him, and misses. Kamali wakes up, but that’s his whole turn. Same with Gabe. Lorenzo crits, so he gets to act. Another demon appears to our south. Amos readies the Sling of David.

Mike unloads with four attacks – three rapid strikes – against the demon. He hits twice after the dodging and parrying. Gabe invokes Righteous Fury (+4 ST; +5 DX; +2 HT). Kamali misses an aim roll. Demon flips the SUV on its side. Lorenzo detects that four more vehicles are inbound from “map North”, lets us know, and aims a spear to cast.

Devin whips together a gizmo (in one second) in order to make an EMP grenade of some sort to toss at the incoming SUVs. Amos whips two sling bullets into the demon’s head. One hits the eye (no brain, though, alas), the other . . . hits the other eye (crit success on one, crit fail on defense on the other). Demon’s not dead, but can’t be doing well.

Yannay makes her DX roll to stand up after the car was flipped. Mike goes full cuisinart again. He attacks five times, but crit fails on the second one.

“Just hope you dont’ throw your sword into hell,” says a player. He does.

Gabe attacks three times, one critical success. Two hits, good damage, but the thing is still up.

The thing blows a fart at us. Everyone is mildly impacted, but Lorenzo is nauseated for a full minute; -5 to basically everything and he can’t concentrate anymore. We just got stanked.

Kamali gets aim due to Gunslinger, and mows down another biker. Lorenzo chucks his spear at the demon. The spear sticks into it, and the fires of hell start licking across the head and shaft.

That didn’t come out as poetical as I meant.

Devin moves up searching for incoming SUVs . . . finds them. Chucks the grenade at the truck. The truck suddenly loses power and control, and swerves to the pit of hell. Bad day.

Yannay goes to town with a moonbeam, crits at least one, maybe twice, and obliterates the demon.

She danced with the Devil by the pale moon light. Jack Nicholson would be proud.

Mike is allowed to Fast-Draw (Spear from demon), and then immediately attacks five times against Skill-13. “Make it sew,” we decide. He’s a Singer. The demon gets hit four timed (due to blindness). He kills it. Now we only have to deal with the SUV. We see a flash of magic as the spear absorbs some of the hellfire.

Gabe walks up to the SUV, seeking to make them yield, when he realizes that the critters in the van are vampires. Well, then. SMITE. Three vampires burst into flame, two humans catch fire, and so does the car.

That’s a cleansing fire!

Amos flings a pepperball slingshot at the guy barfing into his helmet. He nails it in the visor, and so now he’s unconscious, incapcitated, and very messy.

Fight’s over. We decide to push all the evidence into the still-open Pits of Hell. Then we pray to the Lord to close the pits; we succeed. We have moved the gear and whatnot into Lorenzo’s car, roll it back on its wheels, and move thing so as to simulate an accident. We pile back in Lorenzo’s SUV, we grab the MP5s (full-auto!), the unconscious guy and vomit dude are bound and piled in the back (we decide we pile into the car, hang out of the windows, shouting RedSox, Red Sox, this year it’s gonna happen!” as a ruse.)

We decide we’ll drop these guys at the firehouse, then beat feat to Dogtown.

Then we end.

*************

Commentary by Doug

We had a lot more players (which was fine) but a lot more cross-talk and tangency, which was not fine. It was hard to get words in edgewise, and it’s really important when in such a crowd that that not happen.

We also had a lot of stuff happen in one second that strained the bounds of time, but since everyone else does it, I need to do it too. Was kinda crazy, plus we had at least one API problem and my headset cut out in the middle of the game (was able to restore it, but grar!).

So this game we went back to the firehouse, healed up (good), went to the bookstore (necessary), and got jumped by two demons and some thugs. Gabe got in a few chops on the demons, where I thought that he’d actually have a lot of fun with Mike going mano-a-mano successfully. Instead, our magic user (Yannay) vaporized one, and I think most of the other were sling-balls to the face. Hard to say; the rest of us did get in some pokes and slashes. I did smite some vampires, which ended that part of the confrontation quickly. I guess I’m the mook-slayer. Well, it’s a job.

I think Gabe is going to have to start doing some crazy stuff to end the season, taking some big risks. See if I can impact the game more.