17 September 2014 Session

So, I had a list of four Mesopotamian gods, some locations, and the PCs. And that was about it for preplanning.

I mean, okay, obviously, I need a plot for the wards on the Statue of Liberty failing and austerity politics impinging on rituals to fix that and all of it tied to one of the Mesopotamian gods rising. Oh, and a My Little Pony convention in town. But, that didn't tell me what to do for a first session, preferably self-contained.

Okay, it should involve Arthur's favorite restaurant, The Primrose Cafe. We've got a vermin and a plague god among my candidates, so, mmm, sewage backing up into the restaurant, which means that we can get Jimmy involved. Oh, and, um, the gratings he'll have to deal with are Historic, so Kelly needs to be there to make sure they don't get damaged, yeah. And maybe they come in Kara's cab.

Josh: Lisa, are you...creating a party?

Me: Um, yeah, isn't it obvious?

Josh: ... Yes. Yes, it is.

We modified Kara's reason to be there, as I recall -- she'd dated the brother of the owner of the Primrose Cafe. Calla owns it and is the sole waitress, and her brother, Ricardo, is the cook.

Jimmy may be interested in Calla. Arthur is definitely interested in Kara -- er, I mean, he has an Aspect: I think I'm finally over Kara. So, he was quite happy to see her.

Folks checked the rest of the building, and the superintendent confirmed that the sewage was backing up into the other places (I don't think we decided whether they're residences or offices).

Arthur: It could be teenagers -- the bane of New York City!

Out of character, I learned about the horrors that can happen when too much grease is poured down a drain.

Jimmy carefully removed the grate, and Arthur brought it into the Primrose Cafe to show to Kara because it was Historic! And, you know, she might want to see this Historic Sewer Grate.

A raven (well, Arthur likely thought it was a crow) flew in and perched on the sewer grate. This worried Arthur, as it was a potential health code violation, but... it wasn't in the kitchen. Arthur managed to shoo it outside, and Kara got it to talk to her, either after Arthur left or with Arthur not hearing, I forget which. It said, "Renewal is needed."

Kara asked for clarification. She got in her cab and followed the flying raven.

Jimmy prepared to enter the sewers. To his surprise, Arthur was right behind him, flashlight in hand.

Arthur: I will fight any rat for the city! With the Municipal Code in my hand, I am At the Ready!

(Avram noted that the Municipal Code is about 20 volumes.)

Kelly stayed outside the sewers, supervising.

Arthur: Ah, Kelly, you might want to come down here! It's so historic!

Kelly decided to wait until (unless?) she heard screams.

They followed the tunnel they were in a very short distance and found a huge pile of not-really-described-in-detail-by-the-GM sewage. And rats. Lots of rats. I figured these were the equivalent of one 0 Weight Class foe. They got a boost, iirc, and we defined that as Jimmy being Swarmed.

Meanwhile, a vaguely man-like figure burst from the sewage heap and attacked the terrified Arthur, who is actually really good at defending himself. (Because I am a wuss...) I think the figure got a boost on him, defined as Pummeled.

At this point, Kelly did hear the screams and did come running. Kara has one element for Evocation, Earth, and it's assigned to Clever. She decided to use it to de-rat Jimmy by using gravity tricks to make the rats sort of lose their purchase on him and slide off.

We noted that there is a strong incentive to create Stunts tied to one's magic.

The rats ran out of the tunnel, past Kelly. Jimmy attacked the figure who was attacking Arthur, getting a boost and Pinning him. The figure got a boost on Jimmy, which we figured just canceled the Pinning boost.

I'd originally intended to stat out the figure as a ghoul -- not necessarily having it be one, but just, you know, borrowing the stats and re-chroming. Of course, as someone else noted, there is no ghoul mantle. Whoops.

I -think- I used Lycanthrope instead. I don't remember if I stuck to Weight Class 1 or went for 2. Probably 1?

Kelly now used her gravity tricks on the being, succeeding with style, so there were two tags for Feels Slow and Heavy.

Arthur warned that it was Disturbing the Peace, or something to that effect. This was basically a social attack, but one for which his Mantle of True Faith in the Government of the City of New York applied. He got a boost which we first dubbed "Heretic: Disturbing the Peace" and then "Intimidated". But, given that this being was worshiping its own god and had been confronted by someone with True Faith in another, we finally settled on Doubts His Own Strength.

Jimmy's next attack, then, could take advantage of three free tags for +6. I think the total was Jimmy's 9 to the being's defense of 3, which I figured was quite enough to take the being out.

Kara, meanwhile, followed the raven. It brought her to a point on Staten Island where she could see the Statue of Liberty. She decided she needed more information. We figured an Einherjar vision could be done as a Level 1 Ritual.

The invocation could be translated as "Re previous message -- please clarify." It involved Kara cutting herself and painting runes in blood on her blade, iirc.

Josh: This is Weird. Hopefully, nobody's looking.

Me: Hm...

So, essentially, Kara was trying to get Odin, clearly a boss who expected his employees to already know what he wanted without having to explain it, to give her a temporary mantle.

Avram first framed that as Worst Boss Ever, since that could be construed as requiring Kara to do a second service in order to get the clarification she needed to do the first. But, we figured it was more like, "Yes, I will do the task you want me to do, boss. But, to do that, I need a little more information."

She looked at the Statue of Liberty. The torch seemed, for a moment, to have real flames, but those flames were slowly dying down. Something needed to be done fairly soon to renew them, metaphorically speaking.

Gaylord: Kara says we need to set the Statue of Liberty on fire.

Kara drove back as folks got the being -- a naked more-or-less man, sort of -- out of the sewers.

General reaction to the fact that the guy was naked: Ew!

The guy also seemed to be deformed, his mouth almost a snout. Arthur noted that this was clearly a problem for the Department of Mental Health and Hygiene.

Arthur (realizing): Oh, wait. That's me.

Kara (surveying the scene): So... the blockage... fought -back-?

Arthur: Yes.

Kara: Let me guess. There were beavers building a -dam-?

(At which point, I had a flashback to an Unknown Armies game from some years ago. Scary, scary beavers!)

Arthur had now recovered his equilibrium. Their prisoner was clearly A Differently Abled Man. He was entitled to help from the city, and clearly needed to be gotten into the system so that he could get the help he needed.

Folks were able to communicate with the guy with some difficulty. He understood English, but his mouth was deformed enough that speaking was hard. I think it was understood that they'd do something like "One grunt for yes, two for no".

Arthur called in some help from his bureaucratic colleagues. He got the man a Temporary ID Card. And, the fellow is now In the System. He's at Bellevue Hospital Center, around First Avenue and 27th Street or so. He called himself the Vessel of Ninkilim, so Arthur had his ID Card read Vic Nin.

Arthur: All problems are solved.

Kara: Well, actually, I could use some help.

She explained about the Statue of Liberty. Somewhere in here, we had the "so who knows about who else's weirdness, and what does Arthur believe about magic" discussion. I think everyone is at least vaguely aware of everyone else's weirdness, and that Arthur knows magic exists, but considers that to be irrelevant.

Kelly (about the Statue of Liberty): Technically, that's New Jersey's problem.

Kara: No no no! New York runs the Statue of Liberty. New Jersey just controls the island.

I gather this had originally been determined by a boat race. Really.

Jimmy, meanwhile, went down into the sewers to clean up. He hates to leave a mess, and this is, after all, his day job. He spotted A Gleaming Amulet, which he picked up.

Either Arthur or Kelly: You might need to get some shots.

Jimmy: You might be right.

Someone mentioned Bubonic Plague. (Naturally, this makes me wonder if I can work in Seanan McGuire's Black Death song. (http://seananmcguire.com/songbook.php?id=117)

Kara (after Vic Nin has been safely installed in Bellevue): You realize you guys are paying for cleaning my cab. It's amazing how many fares you can lose if your cab stinks.

Jimmy showed them the Gleaming Amulet -- gleaming as in gold, not gleaming as in mystical magical glow.

Jimmy: It's the only thing I found down there. I didn't find shoes. I didn't find any pants.

Arthur said that they should give the amulet to Vic Nin.

Arthur: It's his only property.

I think they decided

• to hold on to it to do some research into it
• and to go through the Official Procedure for lost property (I guess on the theory that it might belong to someone other than Vic?)

So, research is likely to be done on the amulet, on Vessel of Ninkilim, and on the Statue of Liberty.

Someone: What percentage of your fares wind up going to the afterlife?

Kelly: Very -low-.

After all, if she was ferrying someone to the afterlife, that probably wasn't a fare. Taxi Driver was a separate job from Psychopomp.

That didn't mean she didn't talk to the folks she brought to the afterlife.

Kelly: You know, you really shouldn't fight against muggers -- but it was very valiant.

I forget whether Fate points above one's Refresh vanish before the next session. We don't really like that rule, if it is a rule. But, Josh noted that in the only case it mattered, me tossing him one for there being a witness to Kara's ritual, that I should actually hold on to it until that witness actually did something to complicate Kara's life.

So, we're meeting today at 6. It's almost noon. Time to prep some! I want to figure out how to advance the plot. I want some idea of what the plot is, even if I change it based on player input.

I'm thinking that the PCs, particularly Arthur, are owed some good karma for their treatment of "Vic". I mean, here's Arthur, with his True Faith in the city government making sure this homeless guy who a) attacked him and b) jeopardized his favorite restaurant gets the help he needs, and arguing against looting the homeless guy's property.

(I still recall a playtest of a Call of Cthulhu scenario where, to save the day, the PCs had to crash a post-funeral everyone visits the family thing, lie convincingly to be allowed to wander around the dead man's house (where his family was receiving condolences from most of the neighborhood), steal the guy's books, and steal stuff from the man's bedroom night table. Fortunately, the published version cleans that up and has the default hook be that the PCs know the widow, and she cooperates actively with them.)