I then lept back to poor Edward, who woke up naked just after dawn, next to a cerimonial circle with a clergy man's corpse in it, a dagger sticking out of his chest. He had no memory of how he got there. He heard sirens so. He briefly considered staying to talk to the police but instead chose to turn into a wolf and sneak away (nice chance to compel to aspects which conflicted). He watched the police investigate for a while before disappearing into the night.
I then lept back to early morning when it was still dark. Vincent, Halfdan and Hanna were hunting some ghouls who'd been killing students. I figured that the three PCs had a total of 20 points in Stunts so a couple of ghoulds (-6 each) should be an interesting introductory fight. Boy, was I wrong. A short while later Vincent is 'Bleeding Heavily' with a 'Slashed Gut', Hanna is nursing a "Minor Concussion" and a "Wrenched Shoulder" and Halfdan has blown his last fate chip to turn what could have been an Extreme consequence into a "Infected Wound". Meanwhile one of the ghouls has taken a single point of physical stress and a mild consequence which it just "Shrugged it Off". I quickly reminded the players of the concession rules and agreed that the ghouls where distracted by some bright headlights and the characters escaped, but insisted that if this was the case Vincent left one of his enchanted items at the scene (he'd dropped it earlier in the fight) and that the ghouls now knew the taste of their blood and could track them all. The players agreed, and I made a note to readjust difficulty !! This fight was my first big surprise of the session.
I then took some time to introduce major plot hooks. One of Jack's old cell mates arrived asking for help, unfortunately encountering Halfdan. Both the local Warden and a church investigator turned up asking similarly awkward questions. The players discovered that the police had found wolf hair at the sight of the crime scene and were investigating. Then the players started trying to trace back the history of the books and daggers. It was at this point that Jack made his declaration that in his expert opinion the dagger was probably some dark necromantic artifact - and suddenly Heinrich Kemmler knife became a very real part of my campaign (That hadn't been part of my prep notes!!). The book which had been stolen was 'The Heart of Kemmler' and finally to really screw up any ideas I had for where this game was going the jar became Kemmler's brain stored in formaldehyde. Now this is awesome, far better than what I had planned - but its a real curve ball for the GM!
There was a bit of investigating of the ghoul problem. Jack's old cell mate was pretty much forgotten but thats not an issue - I'm sure he'll become important soon enough. Then someone realised they didn't know what had happend to the knife, so they went back to the church. Outside the church they found a couple of police cars, and documents which suggested the evidence (including the knife) was in a police lock-up. They were about to head to the police station when someone asked why the police cars appeared to be abandoned. This lead to the final scene of the session where they sneaked into the church to confront red court vampires who were searching for something.
A fight broke out. Based on my previous experience with the ghouls I figured I needed to keep the fight easy, so there were only two RCVs. This time the fight lasted a rediculously short time in the players favour. Jack openned up with a (conviction+2) blast of pure force, shattering the vampires wing and piercing its belly and before the Vampire had hit the floor our Inhuman speed werewolf had cleared a zone, tagged both the consequences the first attack had caused and ripped its throat out. The other RCV attacked but Vincent blocked cleanly. The players forcing the vampire it into a corner and Edward tried to grapple it (big mistake). The RCV threw Edward forcefully across the room (he used a few fate points to mitigate this attack, reducing it to a mild consequence), and the other players took the poor vampire apart. This second battle was abolutely no challenge to the characters. The session ended with the players walking out the front of the church straight into the search lights of arriving police.
I clearly still haven't got the hang of balancing fights. The ghoul fight should have resulted in dead PCs - the Vampire fight was no challenge. My scenario ideas need to change - Kemmler pickled brain was never part of the original plot. I really love FATE. It produces some incredible games. I'm now really looking forward to session two.
