The Big Easy: Ghosts of the Past, Part Two

[mroehler]

Lenny meets up with John and Temper once they realize that Lefleur is gone. Kidnapped. John isn't sure where they should go to look for the White Court Vampire, until Temper reminds him acidly about Machete Dan's cabin in the middle of nowhere. Perfect for interrogation and murder. The three saddle up (Temper reluctantly, more to protect John than help Lefleur), then sneak towards the cabin. They see a pair of thugs inside cleaning up some bloodstains. Fearing the worst (or best, in Temper's view) has passed, they bust in, John holding the thugs up at gunpoint. Lenny, in his most menacing voice, demanded to know where Lefleur was. He hit one of the thugs with the baseball bat to show he was serious. The other thug stammered that LF was in the television room. Not believing the man, Lenny that proceeded to beat the shit out of the guy with the baseball bat while John checked out the television room. Lefleur was there, drinking a beer and smoking a cigar. "Hey," he called. Lenny went "Well, isn't my face red" and left the thugs in a bruised heap.

LF was sketchy about the details of his arrangement with Raxxus, but revealed the basic truth of their new relationship. The magnificent four then figured they had to stop the vampires before they took over the whole damn city with their narcotic saliva scheme. Realizing that the MiB (who was renamed this session as the sinister sounding Rothchild) was somehow key to their scheme, Lenny arranged another meeting with Rothchild, saying he had a new shipment of antitoxin to use against vampire venom. His Deception wasn't the greatest, so Rothchild was suspicious, and stopped by after dark. Instead of antivenom, though, Lenny cooked up a fake batch made from household ingredients, trusting that Rothchild wouldn't know the difference. Rothchild also buys some universal solvent from Lenny, and compliments him on his customer service. He offers his help and the help of his 'associates' in removing Lenny's competition (Etienne Moiret), but Lenny reluctantly turns him down. He wants to beat Moiret as a businessman, not as a thug.

While he's talking to Rothchild, Lenny sends Lefleur a text: Lefleur and John are waiting in some dive nearby. Lefleur gets into a small fight with a local meathead bully over where LF chooses to sit, as I compel LF's Smartass aspect, but John solves the situation with diplomacy and cash. Pansy. Temper arrives soon enough, and the trio follows Rothchild as he walks away from Lenny's shop with a grocery bag full of alchemical goodies (Lenny cuts costs wherever he can; he steals grocery bags from the supermarket and just uses them at his store). Rothchild sends a text, an SUV pulls up, and Rothchild is about to get in. Using his favorite disguise, Lefleur 'pretends' to be a drunk, stumbles up to Rothchild and picks his pocket (do you need a stunt just to pick pocket in this game? we just let LF roll with it after some thought), stealing his phone. Temper memorizes the license plate, and Whitfield uses his air magic to blow out the car's taillight. Maybe he's hoping the cops will give Rothchild a ticket? No, he actually picks up the pieces of the taillight for tracking magic later on.

The trio is successful. However, Temper becomes convinced that she's being followed by this young couple. I throw a Compel her way, and she decides she needs to lose them as quickly as possible. So she jumps down a storm culvert and makes her escape that way. Victim initially just wanted to try to lose them in an alleyway, but I wanted something kind of extreme that would actually draw attention. When I throw Compels, I think they should be entertaining and, well, loud, not just the kind of action you'd take if you actually were a person of interest in a major investigation. Instead, the kind of action you take if you think fluoride is some kind of mind control chemical. We agreed that Temper needs her own late night radio show where she can talk about how the vampires control Washington or something.

Temper attempts to do some Investigation that ends up being fruitless, while the three guys head back to John's bachelor pad. John does his tracking spell, only to be interrupted by the cops. Evidently someone took a picture of the crazy lady jumping into the sewer on their phone's camera, and it turned out to be a major suspect. So they're hear to question all of Temper's known associates again. And this is in the middle of John's ritual.

[Victim]

I thought the Compel would be about complicating their investigation of the vampires because she had to dodge the cops, not do something crazy.

Maybe the radio guy should just be an NPC that she knows and sometimes passes information to.

[mroehler]

So the cops show up, right in the middle of John's divination ritual. Lefleur, however, answers the door, telling the cops that John can't come to the door, he's in the shower. He's definitely trying to give the impression that the two of them are gay. This really annoys John's player: it's okay that everyone thinks he's crazy (vampires are real, and I'm fighting them!) as long as they think he's straight. Heh, that's funny. Lenny listens in, but makes himself scarce once it's clear the cops are involved.

Lefleur challenges the cops' legal right to be there asking questions and detaining them, but the pair can be held for twenty four hours without officially being charged with anything (I think-LF's player is a law student, I'm sure he'd tell me if I got something wrong). They do need a warrant to search the house, however, which the lead detective Griggs gets surprisingly easily from the judge. Almost suspiciously easy. They search the house, take John's gun, and arrest both Lefleur and Whitfield, dragging them to the police station.

The police interrogate John and Lefleur, asking about their relationship with the domestic terrorist, criminal, and overall 'person of interest' Temperance Smith. Here we have a nice social conflict between Detective Griggs, who thinks that this entire situation is fishy, and the dynamic duo of Lefleur and Whitfield. Griggs has overall Good social skills, and starts off just trying to hammer John (in his mind, the weak link of the pair) with attacks, revealing all these crimes that Temper is suspected of, threatening John, etc. However, Lefleur and Whitfield, through a combination of Rapport and Deceit, change the Detective's tune. Griggs in particular is concerned by the irregularities involved in their arrest, thinking some larger game that reeks of politics is afoot.

He agrees to let them go before the twenty four hours is up, insisting that he's going to keep an eye on them. If only he had time to match the ballistics of John's rifle to some of the bullets found in Jimbo Hill's body. That would make for a much different conversation. Meanwhile, the two wild cards of the group, Lenny and Temper, make a plan to get Lefleur and John out of prison. Temper blowing up the wall with C4 was briefly considered, but the less obvious plan involved Lenny sneaking in with his chameleon cloak and passing out escape potions for the trio to escape police custody. It turns out that the first priority was to recover the tracking spell locator, and rescuing the pair was the secondary objective.

As John and Lefleur were being released, John's personal effects were given back to him. His wallet was missing all of its money, however, and his copper blasting rod was gone! Where could it be? Using his Wizard's Sight, he scanned the station, looking for anything out of the ordinary. No sign of his focus item, but it was clear that one of the police lieutenants was a vamp saliva addict. Rather than confronting him or somehow slipping him some antivenom to clear his mind, John and Lefleur left him to meet up with Temper and Lenny (preferably before they blew up the building or something), leaving his focus item behind. This really surprised me; if I thought he was just going to leave his item behind, I would have thrown him a FP or something. I guess he didn't want to attract any attention in the police station. Weird though. To ditch the detective trying to follow them, John hexes his car and they make their escape, stopping somewhere along the way to load up on there illegal weaponry (although Lenny still prefers the solid bat swing to a real weapon).

The four meet up, now able to use the tracking spell to hopefully find the sinister Rothchild, kick his ass, and find out where the rest of the vampires are. They use the tracking spell to find a small winery and bottling plant, where they bust in ready to kick ass. They find a few workers addicted to vampire saliva there, and one Red Court vampire. In exchange for his life, he agrees to tell them everything he knows. The vamps are set up like terrorists, in separate cells, to reduce the risk of being found out. The vampire only knows where a few others are, but evidently Rothchild knows where they're all at. He's key to the entire thing.

Amazingly Temperance doesn't kill the vampire, so the vampire escapes, as the Magnificent Four move to intercept Rothchild's next appointment in the middle of the night. Just as he's getting out of his car at another small local bottling plant, the kidnap van pulls right alongside him. Rothchild barely has time to call for help before he's grappled; he was trying to reach inside his pocket for some vial, but Temperance stopped him from pulling it out. Then two vampires appear at the windows with submachine guns and open up. Lefleur and John drag Rothchild into the kidnap van, Lenny takes cover, and Temper opens fire

After securing Rothchild with plenty of duct tape, John heads out of the van into cover, activating his air shield. Lenny moved up to the windows where the vampires were firing from, using a few hits from his baseball hit to disarm an attacker. Temper fired off a few bursts of suppressive fire on the other hand while Lefleur drove the van right through the doors of the bottling facility, surprising the hell out of the two vampires and getting himself stuck. John moved up to grab the disarmed vampire's gun, while the disarmed vampire, now very pissed about the whole baseball bat to the wrist thing, drops his flesh mask and grabs Lenny through the window, pissed. Lenny, now certain he was dealing with a nonhuman, responds with some of his trademarked Universal Solvent to the face. Ouch. John manages to finish off the vampire with a close range burst from its own submachine gun. A close ranged gun fight occurs between Lefleur, Temper, and the second vampire, quickly resulting in another dead vampire.

Lenny and Temper decide to exercise their core competency of Smashing Stuff to start breaking all of the bottles in the plant, to disrupt the vampire saliva distribution network. Lefleur and Whitfield, meanwhile, interrogate Rothchild, forcing antivenom down his throat. Rothchild starts telling them how horrible it was, being a slave of the vampires, but Lefleur sees through the BS and quickly elicits the real story from the vampire saliva addict. He was afflicted with a terminal illness and worked with the vampires as an expert, in exchange for a second shot at a life. Despite being addicted to their feelgood saliva, he entered into that partnership willingly. The plan was to addict most of the people in New Orleans with venom, allowing the Red Court to essentially run the entire thing. Pretty scary.

And then Rothchild tells them that one of the best ways to insure the spread of an infectious disease is to neutralize those who would treat it. John, always the self-centered one, figured this meant him, but Rothchild clarified: it was the convent affiliated with the Fellowship of St. Giles that treated the saliva addicts. Temper, now joining the conversation, pipes up that she meant to investigate them. Sure you were, Temper. And that's where it was likely you could find Maya Stevenson and her vampiric scourge of baddies. Surprisingly, John and Lefleur agree to let Rothchild go, especially since that without becoming a vampire he was dead soon anyway. They don't bother to mention to Temper and Lenny Rothchild's full complicity with the vampire plan, his involvement in the likely death of a dozen nuns, or his other sins, so they let him go as well. Where's the justice here?

The now-damaged kidnap van drives off to the convent, where they meet with a Sister outside the place, as is typical. John uses his Sight to determine that she's addicted to Saliva; Temper grabs her while the others force antivenom down her throat. Maybe they should just get a tranquilizer gun instead loaded with antivenom. She starts weeping, telling them how horrible it was, and how evil Maya is. True dat: She wrote my universe's equivalent of the Twilight books. She tells the story how the vampires used threats and lies to breach the threshold, then overcame the sisters, turned some of them and addicted the rest. A few managed to retain their humanity as just Infected, but it would only be a matter of time.

A plan was quickly devised, sticking to their strengths: BLOW SOMETHING UP! Temper and Lenny were going to climb onto the convent's roof, lace it with explosives, and at sunrise, expose all of the vampires to sunlight (and explosions, and shrapnel/falling rubble, whatever), then hit them with everything they had in one brutal assault. It was a good plan. Unfortunately, the Sister pointed out how the vampires would quickly suspect trouble if she didn't return quickly. She was clearly scared, but was willing to go back and pretend to be addicted; she did ask for a poison from Lenny (one WITH an antidote), which she took. If the plan worked, then Lenny could give her the antidote; if not, then at least she wouldn't be tortured, and any vampire who fed on her would also die. So they sent the poor sister back in, where she tried to fool the vampires. I actually tried to compel Lenny's aspect Works In Theory for some weird potion side effect to come up, but he paid me off. Jackass, ruining my fun. I guess Lenny draws the line at experimentation when poisoning nuns.

Into the nunnery she went, and I rolled her Deceit. It came up at -1. A quote from the table: "Everyone knows how good nuns are at lying." Yeah, not very. The game was up. Lenny and Temper were up on the roof, planting explosives, when Temper saw Tim the Sniper come up onto the roof, laying down and being very sneaky. Temper turned on her flashlight, clearly illuminating the sneaky vampire for all to see. Other vampires had approached the stained glass windows while Tim went to the roof. Tim's snipery ambush ruined, battle quickly opened.

It was chaos. Raven came out of the convent with his katana, ready to fight John. He used some maneuvers, including a successful untrained Intimidation to put a maneuver on him, then attacked, dealing lots of stress to poor John. Which is kind of sad, since Raven is an embarrassment to vampires everywhere. Other vampires unleashed streams of automatic fire on the two guys on the ground, mainly Lefleur, who was busy trying to line up a shot on Raven. Raven managed to throw his trenchcoat over John's face, really pissing him off, before John fried Raven with lightning. Raven was rolling exceptionally well, however, and managed to survive. As he maneuvered for another katana assault, Lefleur shot him in the back. Raven's last words were of disbelief; he couldn't believe he was killed by LEFLEUR instead of someone badass. Then more automatic weapon fire came pouring out of the convent (you know, this might be the first time in the history of the english language that the prior sentence has been written .

Meanwhile, on the roof, Temper turned herself into a monster scorpion and went after Tim the Sniper, who started using the patented Lefleur shuffle to move zones every round to give his slower attackers a -1 penalty on their attackers. He would aim at Temper, then fire, then aim, then fire...he inflicted quite a bit of stress. Lenny tried to stick him to the roof with really sticky glue, but it didn't quite work, since Tim is just too dodgy. Any time any vampire not named Tim climbs up to the roof, Lenny blows them to pieces with explosive flasks. At one point, two vampires come out onto the roof gingerly carrying holy water, which they then chuck at Temper. The burns! And Temper's Armor 2 and extra stress boxes, it does nothing! Take that, incredibly cheap Catch on your defensive powers! Temper, of course, doesn't know it's holy water; she thinks it's flesh-eating acid. Then Lenny blows up those vampires too.

Both Temper and Tim are inflicting some major damage on each other, with Tim inflicting a Grazed consequence on Temper. It's not often I get to put consequences on Temper. Then Temper finally catches up to Tim, getting a solid hit and causing the cry of "Use the clamps" to spring forth from the table. Really, that should be one of her aspects: the Clamps. Temper cuts off Tim's leg, causing him to stumble backward and fall off the roof. Goodbye Tim the Sniper.

Lefleur and John are returning fire; John, having already used his air shield ring this session, keeps throwing up powerful blocks and then spending more magical power to keep it running. It takes several of his actions, but on the other hand, he is mostly invincible for most of this fight. Evocation needs errata kind of badly, especially since that anyone with half a brain will just use one Element for just about everything, just buying up Control/Power in that one thing. Spirit works pretty well in that area, but John uses Air. His lack of a focus item is hurting him though, offensively, and he's not sure whether or not he wants to start blasting the inside of a convent with massive lightning attacks. Then four vampires jump out of the church, grab Lefleur, and pin him to the ground then smash his head against the pavement. Ouch. Lenny, ever vigilant during his own battle atop the roof, throws down some bottled sunlight, causing the vamps to escape and run shrieking back into the church. Go Lenny.

Finally, John has had enough, and throws down some Fate Points to launch a two zone evocation attack, making every vampire inside extra crispy. Seizing the advantage, Lefleur runs inside to finish off more vampires, where he gets attacked by two other vampires from another zone. They finish him off, Taking Him Out, and then drag him inside further inside the convent. Poor bastard. By now, Lenny and Temper are done on the roof, and they climb down to continue the ground assault and recover Lefleur. John follows, his evocation air shield now out of juice.

As they head deeper inside, Maya strikes from ambush, hiding in a corner and waiting for John to walk by. She's sneaky, and she's damn good with that shotgun of hers. Maya hits John for 9+ stress from ambush at close range, now giving him a minor and a moderate condition from the shotgun blast. More vampires run out into the hallway from the cells, some dressed in habits. Temper fends off the vampires with claws and tail while Lenny whips out more bottled sunlight. John responds with an absolutely devastating evocation attack against Maya, but she dodges some of the blast, ending up only horribly injured. Just like John. She fires a second shotgun blast point blank into John; many other players would simply accept being taken out at this point, but not John's. Instead. John takes the severe consequence of Punctured Lung and loses even more stress. Although he really shouldn't be able to talk, he quips "I've thought of an ending for your next book. All the vampires die, forever." Then takes a second minor mental consequence and roasts poor evil Maya (John's taunt made her roll like shit, not that it would have mattered). The other vampires flee from the sunlight and aren't seen from again. They'd like to go after them, but let's face it, the group isn't in much condition to. Except Lenny; he cheerfully points out that he's fine. Untouched, even. Thanks Lenny.

And with that we ended the session and the adventure, with a massive, massive fight against Maya and her cronies. Maya spent most of the fight finishing off and turning any nuns that she could, just to make it a completely hollow victory. The Sister they sent in: she died (but took two vampires with her b/c of the poison). I'm not going to tell if she died because of the vampires, or because of that massive two zone evocation John threw out. So the group finds Lefleur in another room (they didn't kill him b/c of professional courtesy: he is a vampire, after all) and evacuate, right before one of Maya's customary firebombs burns the convent to ruins. I know I considered having Maya run away, but she had a long invested in the plan, and she had stripped away most of the group's stress and item uses. She wasn't going to have a better chance than this, so she took it and failed.

Everyone got a skill point and a point of refresh from reaching this milestone. Lefleur increased his Intimidation to Superb, grabbed more Incite Emotion powers (now including fear, so he can attack dudes/ugly women as well as hot chicks with his mental attacks Lenny just banked the refresh, and Temper increased her Fists to Superb and got even more strength for her scorpion form.

[ScipioA]

Lenny wasn't going to use his experimental potions on a nun: He's a good Catholic, after all! 

He got lucky being the least dangerous guy on the roof at the time; Tim spent all of his time fighting Temp, and the vamps on the ground focused on John and LeFleur.  So Lenny was never really attacked. 

The interrogation with Rothchild was pretty great-He wasn't afraid of death, and he was more afraid of Maya than he was of us because of what she would do to him if he talked.  At this point, LeFleur asks him what Maya will think WHEN WE LET HIM GO.  LF then scored on his intimidate, and Rothchild freaks out.  John eventually promised him protection or something, and then he agreed to spill the beans.

[Victim]

It was pretty funny when Lefleur chased the vampires who had just been grappling him and otherwise dishing out the pain.  If he was losing outside against them, changing the venue shouldn't make much difference.  I think his player was mostly frustrated, since he kept missing everything.

I had one trick planned in the roof battle, but Lenny didn't cooperate.  When Tim the vampire sniper (stolen right from the rulebook), I was thinking of switching back to normal and then detonating the explosives we had planted there.  But Lenny never moved his ass until after Tim was down, so he would have been in the zone too.  It may have served him right though.  

I had thought about investigating the convent.  But I thought it would just be more of her paranoia (are the people John says help the victims really treating them?) than anything bad actually happening, and it seemed like there was tons of stuff going on already.  So I was like, "sounds like something to bring up next adventure." And now they're all dead.  

Temper let the vampire go because she wouldn't have been able to one shot it with a gun.  So it just would have run away, and then John would have been pissed she ruined his whole 'let's talk about this' deal.  But if she had known the full story on Rothchild...  

The holy water "acid" flasks are still funny.  No one even knew better to correct her, either.  

Regarding John's focus item, I was assuming that it had already been transferred away from the police station during the interrogation - it makes sense the vampires might want to get their hands on it or destroy it.  So trying to trick the Lt into drinking the antivenom wouldn't have helped in that case.  Obviously, that wasn't the case, so leaving it behind looks kind of dumb.  But from our PoV, it could have been anywhere, and not just in the trash right behind the station.  

Temper had never taken a consequence while monstered up before that fight.  Supernatural Toughness is pretty damn tough as long as you aren't facing serious evocation specialists.

--------------------------------------------------------

Outstanding issues/things to do:

Have someone keep an eye on Rothchild.  His knowledge is pretty dangerous if he seeks out more vampires.  Fortunately, most of them aren't as modern as Maya - her different sensibilities made her a serious long term threat (John and Temper actually prioritized her over the Count before she was a noble) - so he might have trouble finding buyers.

Try to find Jimbo's backer.  Looking into the boat he was robbing might help.  I had Temper check into any land deals going on and came up blank, so his new partner didn't seem to be using Walter's strategy.

[mroehler]

Rothchild totally deserved to die. Just to put it out there. Anyway, we played a session a few days ago, starting a new adventure. John's player couldn't make it, and Ignatius's is out of the state for some reason. So it's Lenny, Lefleur, and Temper. We start off with Lenny getting a phone call from a Professor of the Paranormal at Tulane, an Arthur Gose. He was doing a television show in New Orleans, and wanted some kind of expert from the occult community there to serve as a kind of adviser. Arty and his team were going to be exploring the Lalaurie House, one of the most haunted buildings in the country. Here's where I threw a Compel at Lenny for his Now For Something Completely Different aspect, which is kind of a stretch but pretty funny anyway. It was something totally random and out of left field. Lenny accepts, mainly so he can plug his business.

Out of curiosity, however, Lenny asks who recommended him. It turns out that Etienne Moiret (the Power Hungry Houngan, now a Freeholding Lord) was Professor Arty's first choice, but he said he was too busy. So he recommended Lenny. Lenny figures that this is some attempt to insult/distract him; actually, Etienne sent him into the Lalaurie House because he thought Lenny might die. So Lenny agrees to meet with the Professor later. It also turns out that Arty is under the impression that Lenny is some kind of voodoo practitioner. He's not, but Lenny doesn't bother to correct him, and he's got the Lore to fake it.

Temper, meanwhile, is sleeping. A nightmare. She's having dreams about a scary house. Her dad (actually Soneillon) warns her that she's under psychic assault, and then she gets a Discipline roll. She's still sleeping, but can now confront the Cauchemar, or Nightmare Hag, directly in her dream. For stats, I just used the Hecatean Hag stats in the book, but made their specialty Spirit and gave them the option of doing mental or physical damage with their spells. Temper started fighting them, manipulating her dream environment to give herself a bazooka. Unfortunately, she kept missing, while the Cauchemar kept inflicting some stress. Eventually, Lenny's player (I think it was him) just said "Look, have you ever regretted scorping out? Use the clamps!" And, finally, Temper uses the clamps and drives away the Cauchemar. Go Temperance. Temper's dad is still around, however, and says that she needs to seek out and destroy the Cauchemar who dared to attack her. Leave none alive. This is a Compel (a pretty reasonable one, but I want to get Temper used to dealing death to her enemies without mercy or hesitation-THEN she can go full evil).

Lefleur is at his new office that Raxxus bought him, chilling, when he gets a call from the boss dragon. Raxxus makes a few pleasantries, then says "There is an adolescent, Jean Baptiste Parent. I want him." Oookay. LF makes a few inquiries, perhaps hesitant to engage in human trafficking, he learns that J-B Parent attends a local private high school as a boarding student and has disappeared. Raxxus wants him on a plane to his location. So, here's a compel on Lefleur's Aspect Works for Raxxus (or whatever he calls it), and he takes it of course.

The three then meet for some lunch, after all of them have gotten their respective adventure hooks. Since John is busy with White Council business, they didn't end up going to Waffle House. Thank God for that. Temper asks Lenny about a blueish/purple hag creature that attacks your mind. Lenny is curious as to why, and Temper lies, saying that John gave her a book and she's doing some research. Not the best lie, since if Temper were actually reading the book, she's already have her answer. However, both Lenny and Lefleur begin making jokes about how Temper can't read, and she was actually just looking at the pictures. After Temper flips them both off, Lenny says it's a Cauchemar, and they eat people's souls, especially people with supernatural power. Cheery. I guess that explains why it was going after Temper then.

Lenny brags about how he's going to be on TV with Gose's Ghostbusters exploring the Lalaurie House, and the trio splits up again. Lefleur heads over to LeRoi Academy, a private boys prep school, with an adjacent dorm for the boarding students. It looks like there was recently a bad fire at the dormitory. Lefleur busts out his fake police badge, asks some questions, and gets a copy of Jean Baptiste's file. It turns out that the Parent boy was quiet and unremarkable, his parents were rich but died, and he had some rich uncle/benefactor who lived in a foreign country. LF thinks that this benefactor "might" be Mr. Raxxus. He then talks to a student, again pretending to be a cop, asking about J-B Parent. He gets the same information mostly: quiet, keeps to himself, dead parents and rich uncle. He also learns that Parent's roommate was badly burned in the fire on the night where Parent disappeared. LF already has a suspect: Lenny and the kidnap van! It all makes sense now.

LF heads to the crime scene, stepping over the tape, into the burnt dormitory. He tries to make heads and tails of the place, but his Investigation isn't quite up to code. In fact, I don't think he even has any. So LF calls up the one person who he DOES know has some Investigation. Hello Temper. Temper isn't quite keen on helping the vampire, but she wants to know what he's up to, so she shows up to help. Temper learns that the fire had multiple ignition sources, and there's no trace of any accelerant. Does that mean magic? Could the kid be a spellcaster? That's all the help Temper can muster (she didn't roll like Sherlock Holmes this time, at least). LF then heads to the hospital to talk to Parent's roommate at the dormitory, who was badly burnt. He talks about how he was having this nightmare of a scary house, and then he remembers waking up when Parent was crying out in terror during his sleep. Then Parent seemed to spontaneously combust, shooting out fire like the Human Torch, and ran out of the room in the middle of the night, presumably lighting the rest of the dormitory on fire on the way. And it also sounds like he may have been the victim of another Nightmare Hag.

Lenny, meanwhile, is meeting with Arty at his offices in Tulane: Arty is a cheerful older man in his 50s or 60s who wears a lot of tweed. He introduces his two graduate students who will be coming with him, Jake, an ex-football tackle with a busted knee and an enthusiastic attitude, and Marie, the quiet and studious one. He also meets another member of their ghost hunting expedition, the skeptic Edgar (a physics grad student who thinks everyone involved is full of BS). What's funny here is that I'm sure that all of the players in RL want to like Ed and sneer at Arty, Jake, and Marie for their made-up subject. But in the Dresdenverse, those three are right! I still don't think that Temper's conspiracy theories will EVER be right, no matter the universe (maybe Dark Matter?). He also meets their cameraman Alex, a film student willing to work cheap.

Arty mentions how they're going to have a surprise guest, but doesn't say who it is. He also mentions how they need one more person, preferably another subject matter expert. Well, Lenny mentions his buddy LF, a subject matter expert and PI who's seen some real messed-up shit. LF isn't actually a PI, but oh well. Lenny shows Arty a picture of LF, and Arty immediately agrees; evidently he wants some eye candy for possible female viewers (sorry Jake). Lenny calls up LF, asking if he wants in, and he senses the connection between the two cases. And he figures being on TV may improve his ability to chat up women. LF inquires if there's any attractive women going to be on the show; Lenny, looking at the very serious Marie (nice skin, black hair in a braid, dresses like she's going to an interview) and says "kind of." LF agrees.

Okay, now that they've got two of the party members in, they figure they might need some close in backup, IE Temper. They need an excuse. So Lefleur heads on over to talk to the cameraman, trying to scare him. He mentions how this is the third time Arty actually tried to cover the Lalaurie house, and that the third time's the charm. Alex isn't fazed much, but LF's Intimidation attempts are starting to concern him. Then LF hammers it home with one of the best lines ever, delivered so off-handedly: "I need to pick up more trash bags." Yeah, Alex isn't going to show up. So on the day of the shoot, Alex calls in sick, and Arty is desperate for another cameraman; Lenny is happy to recommend Temper. She shows up, careful not to appear in any shots herself, and the expedition heads out to the Lalaurie House. As it turns out, the surprise guest is Nicholas Cage, the owner of the haunted mansion. Jack is pissed about the star power, and mentions this to his new buddy Lenny.

So the television crew enters the spooky old manor in the French Quarter, where, according to folklore, America's first female serial killer tortured and killed dozens of her slaves in the early 19th century. It's the most haunted building in the city, and rumor has it that no one has managed to remain inside past midnight. Yes, I'm obviously stealing from an episode of Supernatural, they can sue me. Arty starts talking about the history of the house, while Nicholas Cage tries to look cool on the camera. Lenny gets asked a few questions. They then split up the crew to cover more ground, with Jake and Edgar going off in one team; Lefleur is quick to pair himself up with Marie (armed with another handheld).

Jake, showing a little more sense than some others, asks Lenny about some ghost countermeasures. Jake's heard that salt will work to disrupt them, and if you can just throw it at them. Lenny, armed with Superb Lore and his own supply of Ghost Dust, shrugs and says "Sure." Is he TRYING to get Jake killed? I guess so. Then the group splits up with a bunch of academics in the most haunted house in New Orleans. Will they even make it to midnight?

[Victim]

Eventually, Lenny's player (I think it was him) just said "Look, have you ever regretted scorping out? Use the clamps!" And, finally, Temper uses the clamps and drives away the Cauchemar. Go Temperance.

Well, she hasn't regretted it YET.  Not using it all the time seems like a good way to avoid regretting it in the future.  I really wanted to get out of that scene without using her powers at all, but the dice were not on my side.  Temper was getting decent rolls for defenses, but her attacks were coming at -3 on the dice.    Even tagging some of the maneuvers she did wouldn't have helped.  I even spent most of her Fate Points.  But the Nightmare Hag seemed to have poison (Temper's Endurance is only 1), could force her into consequences on any physical hit, and dangerous mental attacks (she ended up with a mild mental consequence) so it seemed like she was running out of time.  Naturally, the turn she uses her power she rolls +2 and the Hag rolls -2 or -3, so pretty much anything could have landed a decent hit.  But that attack hit for 11, so the Hag might think twice before going after her again.

Lenny is curious as to why, and Temper lies, saying that John gave her a book and she's doing some research. Not the best lie, since if Temper were actually reading the book, she's already have her answer. However, both Lenny and Lefleur begin making jokes about how Temper can't read, and she was actually just looking at the pictures.

Yeah, because all the texts about magic are in English.    

And Lefleur doesn't have much room to complain.  IIRC, Lenny has as much scholarship as everyone else (everyone else who matters; I don't know about Iggy, but you may have noticed he doesn't show up) combined at 3 (I figured that he should have good normal chemistry on top of his alchemy when I picked his skills).  And Temper has 2.  So yeah. 

[mroehler]

But Lefleur doesn't believe in things like the Illuminati and the Bildeberger Group running world affairs. Although Temper was spookily accurate about vampire venom being the secret ingredient of Coca Cola. I think Maya must have read Temper's blog. And Lefleur probably thinks he's smarter than he really is, since he just lies about everything. Temper should just run him over with her Schwinn. Or fall in love and then punch him to bypass his Inhuman Recovery.

I really need to put some lovebirds in there to do physical harm to Lefleur. That would be funny. I also need an NPC friend of Temper's who's some late night radio talk show host / conspiracy nut. Maybe have him stumble onto some real supernatural event going down.

[Victim]

But Lefleur doesn't believe in things like the Illuminati and the Bildeberger Group running world affairs. Although Temper was spookily accurate about vampire venom being the secret ingredient of Coca Cola. I think Maya must have read Temper's blog. And Lefleur probably thinks he's smarter than he really is, since he just lies about everything. Temper should just run him over with her Schwinn. Or fall in love and then punch him to bypass his Inhuman Recovery.

The amusing thing about playing Temper is that her conspiracy theories aren't crazy enough for the setting.    I mean, all those groups are basically people.  No one predicted economic shadow warfare between immortal vampires and the ancient order of long lived wizards...

She's been working on revising them to account for the supernatural.

And why would she put surveillance on herself with a blog?  The whole blogging and social networking fad is just a way to encourage people to spy on each other, feed information to the Echelon supercomputers, and expedite social conditioning.    But she's not above using them to help build cover IDs.

Why would Temper need to fall in love to hurt Lefleur?  She could just use The Clamps! 

[Victim]

This thread is like 4 sessions behind now.

"I survived the zombie apocalypse and all I got was one party kill"    

[mroehler]

Regarding Temper's paranoia and Victim's comments: Victim is the only person in my peer group who doesn't have a Facebook page. My mom has a Facebook page!

While the Lenny, Temper, and Lefleur spend the night in a haunted house with a Tulane professor and Nicholas Cage (and they don't even get to keep the house if they survive!), Whitfield is stuck in Atlanta doing a White Council meeting. He's still got his Severe Consequence Punctured Lung though, and probably not in much condition for real heavy fieldwork. But this is one of those talking meetings, specifically called on whether or not the White Council should temporarily suspend the Laws of Magic for their Wardens in the vampire war. Evidently the vamps have been taking some strategy from Maya and using human shields and mortal mercenaries to really put the hurt on the wizards in any open engagement.

So the wizards are taking testimony from many of the Wardens, including John (and Morgan and Ramirez). Morgan meets with John before the meeting to tell him how important this is, and how he suspects the hand of "the warlock" is behind it. Morgan hates Harry Dresden. John is also quite celebrated for his victory in the war against the vampires, killing a vampire noble, disrupting her evil scheme, and destroying most of her retinue. You'd almost think he had help or something. Ramirez gives testimony about how relaxing the Laws during the prosecution of the war would be helpful to his job, and it wouldn't really matter in the end: any time mortals show up, he just blows them up with grenades. Same thing, right?

John also gives testimony, saying how he didn't need to break the laws of Magic to defeat the vampires, and how suspending the laws would destroy everything the wizards stood for. In the end, it would kill them surer than the vampires ever could. During his testimony, however, I Compel his new Trouble Loose Lips Sink Ships to reveal that he had quite a bit of help during the big vampire fight (you can almost hear Morgan's hand slap into his forehead . White Court Vampire, Denarian, Alchemist...yeah. John quickly tries to turn this to advantage, talking about how the wizards need to build bridges and work with other members of the magical community against the Red Court. So John makes a Rapport check to determine how effective his testimony is; he gets a Good result. Here, the table brings up how maybe John should invoke his Aspect Lets Talk About This to boost his speech; John's player says he wants to save it, for something more important like a boss battle. I ask him if he thinks that testimony that might very well influence the destiny of the entire White Council (and thus humanity) is less important than whatever it is he's going to be fighting. Then John's player spends the fate point, boosting it to Superb. His speech effects a warm reception.

The Council meeting ends with the wizards agreeing not to change the laws of magic, but the Merlin does promise that the Senior Council will take efforts to curtail the effectiveness of the RC's new use of humans in their attacks. Thanks Merlin. Any guesses on what this might be? John also gets a message about how Lenny and the others are going to appear on TV exploring the Lalaurie House; John is obviously less excited about that than Lenny, and figures that they're in a bunch of danger. So he gets into his car and drives down to New Orleans in a real hurry.

The rest of the team, on the other hand, are splitting up to explore the haunted house. Lefleur and Marie head upstairs to check out the spooky attic. As they climb up the stairs of the Lalaurie Mansion, bloody writing appears on the wall. "Death Walks Among You." (Just today, Victim realized that this phrase might have been directly specifically to Lefleur) Lefleur isn't concerned, making some flippant comments. Marie is interested, and a little concerned, but she hasn't devolved into screaming fits or anything. Lefleur takes a sample of the blood; perhaps he's interested in channeling his inner Ghostbuster. I think it's about at this point that we argue who corresponds to each member of the Scooby Doo Gang: Lefleur, perhaps being the good looking "alpha male," is Fred; Marie is Daphne, I guess because LF wants to sleep with her; Temper, being the frequently portrayed in unattractive terms yet extremely capable, is Velma, and Lenny, a skinny guy who experiments with all kinds of fumes (and may be a drug addict himself), is Shaggy. Although Lenny has certainly proved himself to be fearless, and perhaps the rest of the group, by their association with the mad (or just careless) alchemist, nearly as fearless. Or maybe they just have no sense of pattern recognition. By process of elimination, that makes John Scooby Doo.

The main group, composed of Temper, Lenny, Arty, and Nick Cage, are exploring the basement. A ghost confronts them, warning them to leave, trying to frighten them away. Lenny busts out some of his homemade Ghost Dust and blows it in the ghost's face, driving it away. Then Lenny acts like it was some kind of voodoo magic. Arty continues to explain the history of the house, with Nicholas Cage chiming in trying to look smart. What a camera hog.

Then everyone hears a high-pitched girlish shriek. It doesn't come from Marie. Instead it comes from Ed, who's running away from where he and Jake were exploring. I bet he believes in ghosts now. The group reassembles (Nicholas Cage is a little slow in getting there), calms him down and learns that a group of ghosts attacked him and Jake, pulling Jake through a wall somehow. He's practically incoherent. It should have been obvious: the black guy is the first to go down. Arty is insistent that Jake might still be alive, and that they need to find him. They head to the scene of the ghostly abduction, and find Jake's dropped camcorder. Lenny reviews it, hoping for clues, and sees the ghosts attack. He also sees Jake attempt to throw salt into the ghost's faces, and it proves ineffective. Lenny then erases the footage, and any incriminating evidence of his own bad advice. What. A. Guy.

Lefleur shows off his muscles and tears down the wall, revealing a space between the walls big enough for a person to fit through. Inhuman Strength finally gets some screentime! This must be where the ghosts pulled Jake. Some quick Investigation, and they find some nail marks on the floor and one of Jake's shoes. Near a dumbwaiter! Reasoning that Jake must have been pulled up the dumbwaiter (or down it), they split up again. Marie and Lefleur head upstairs, briefing considering using the dumbwaiter before a brief flash of common sense makes them think twice, fearing a poltergeist severing the cable. So they use the stairs. LF isn't quite as eager to seduce Marie now that they're a man down; it's a side project now. So they start searching the upper floors, tearing through the walls at each likely place where the ghosts could access the dumbwaiter.

Temper and Cage head down to the basement, where Temper discovers an old, stuck, nearly invisible door. Nicholas Cage tries to bust it down, and fails his Bend Bars/Lift Gates roll. Temper offers to try and help, and as she tries to kick the door down, she sees a slight movement out of the corner of her eye. Nick Cage has grabbed an old wooden board and tries to beat up Temper. He's incredibly strong, far more than he should be; remember when Nick Cage was a little slow meeting up with the others? That's when he gets possessed.

Temper wisely decides to avoid using the clamps, instead using her superior unarmed skills to beat up Nicholas Cage. "That's for Face Off! That's for Ghost Rider! And that's for National Treasure!" "Hey, that last one was good!" I'll avoid recounting our table's trashing of Face Off and the debate of whether or not National Treasure was, in fact, good. Today we discovered that we will, in fact, argue about the color yellow. Even against a man possessed by a supernaturally strong ghost, Cage falls pretty quickly, but not before Delphine Lalaurie, the uberghost possessing Cage, throws off some insults towards Temper. Temper is, perhaps, fortunate, that she set down the camera before attempting to batter down the door and the camera only records the sounds of their skirmish.

With Lenny and Arty, Edgar is now insisting that he needs to get out of there. Arty and Lenny figure that this might be for the best. Lenny finds it quite difficult to force open the door, however, but his knack with the crowbar serves him well here. Weren't people supposed to run from this house before midnight? No, that's only the smart ones, or the ones without supernatural power. If you've got supernatural power, it's a little more difficult to leave. But Lenny does manage to pry it open, and shoves a chair between the frame and the door as Edgar runs, preventing any Final Destination-esque improbable fatalities involving the door. Edgar makes it out of the house alive, with his dignity in tatters! Then the door shuts, trapping Arty and Lenny inside once more. But they're not eager to leave, they still need to find Jake!

Upstairs, LF and Marie finally reach the attic, and find some evidence that Jake was taken up there. At the time of writing this, I forgot what; it's not important anyway. They're also menaced by a ghost, but Lefleur whips up a circle of salt and blood, protecting them from the ghost. LF tries to communicate with the ghost warning about death and murder, and he begins to think that maybe the ghost is trying to warn them away from the house, not kill them itself. Then Lefleur used his fancy new fear power to frighten the ghost away, and the duo continued their search of the attic. They eventually found Jake unconscious, on the roof, beaten up but not dead. Lefleur tried to revive Jake and hung out on the roof of the house; he called the rest of the group up to the attic.

Temper, dragging an unconscious Nick Cage, meets up with Arty and Lenny. Temper explains that, basically, a ghost beat up Nicholas Cage. Close enough, right. So they hurry upstairs, glancing at their watches to note that it's near midnight. They've almost broken the record!

Lefleur tells Marie that he's got a bad feeling about this, and that maybe she should head out onto the roof with him. He's got some pretty decent instincts, I have to admit. His great Empathy also allows him to discern that Marie is excited by all of this, and intellectually interested; she's not going to leave the house before midnight. LF also sees headlights pull up, and John run out of his car. John just knows that something bad is going to happen at midnight, and the shit is really going to hit the fan. So he hustles on up, his injured lung slowing him down, just reaching the door of the house before it becomes midnight. LF also relents to peer pressure and drags Jake inside the house as well, out from the roof. Marie is watching the house with great interest.

Then, the clock strikes twelve, and everything changes. Everyone feels different, a sudden sensation of vertigo. The house looks younger, cleaner, not as deliberately spooky. And, oh yeah, it's daylight out. Cue the "Duh Duh Duh," as Delphine Lalaurie the uberghost just shifted her entire old house to the Nevernever right at midnight.

[Victim]

White Court Vampire, Denarian, Alchemist...yeah. John quickly tries to turn this to advantage, talking about how the wizards need to build bridges and work with other members of the magical community against the Red Court.

Temper loves it when John runs his mouth and blabs about her.  She would be so mad if she ever found out.

Temper wisely decides to avoid using the clamps, instead using her superior unarmed skills to beat up Nicholas Cage. "That's for Face Off! That's for Ghost Rider! And that's for National Treasure!" "Hey, that last one was good!" I'll avoid recounting our table's trashing of Face Off and the debate of whether or not National Treasure was, in fact, good. Today we discovered that we will, in fact, argue about the color yellow. Even against a man possessed by a supernaturally strong ghost, Cage falls pretty quickly, but not before Delphine Lalaurie, the uberghost possessing Cage, throws off some insults towards Temper. Temper is, perhaps, fortunate, that she set down the camera before attempting to batter down the door and the camera only records the sounds of their skirmish.

Actually, we were saying those things as Temper beat up Cage (including a dislocated elbow from her counter attack after the possessed actor punched through the wall); she isn't a big movie watcher and had little to complain about besides his boring information on the house.

Temper, dragging an unconscious Nick Cage, meets up with Arty and Lenny. Temper explains that, basically, a ghost beat up Nicholas Cage. Close enough, right. So they hurry upstairs, glancing at their watches to note that it's near midnight. They've almost broken the record!

"A ghost possessed him and caused him to do things that injured himself..."  If only she had that Deceit stunt, but it didn't prove necessary here.

And she sent Lenny a text to get the alchemist and professor downstairs so they could help carry the KO'd man; she didn't carry him herself.

Now, our readers may be wondering, "Why the hell is Nick Cage in this adventure?"  According to mroehler's exhaustive research, the actor actually did own the real life version of the house for several years.  This detail seemed too funny not to include.

Death Walks Among You could actually apply to pretty much all of our characters, besides any NPCs of surprising dangerousness.  We're a pretty violent bunch.  Lefleur killed someone becoming a vampire (and is now a sort of crime boss); John was a soldier and has probably been involved in putting down some warlocks, Temperance is a killer.  It could have been warning the NPCs about us.

However, at the time, I suspected that Marie was a disguised Nightmare Hag, because the Lalaurie House appeared in her dream.

Conventionally, the skeptic guy will freak out and get himself or someone else killed.  So far, the escort mission is proceeding fairly well.

[ScipioA]

Death Walks Among You could actually apply to pretty much all of our characters, besides any NPCs of surprising dangerousness.  We're a pretty violent bunch.  Lefleur killed someone becoming a vampire (and is now a sort of crime boss); John was a soldier and has probably been involved in putting down some warlocks, Temperance is a killer.  It could have been warning the NPCs about us.

It seems Lenny is the only one in the party who isn't a killer 

[Victim]

It seems Lenny is the only one in the party who isn't a killer 

Oh, he never beat anyone to death with his bat?  And I'm sure it's just a matter of time, considering your use of alchemy. 

[mroehler]

The last movie Temper saw was Red Dawn, and she thought it was a documentary.