A Night at the Martian Opera
Raw Dump
I say we park it on Columbia and take the railway down from Harlem
Are you particularly unhappy with Columbia this week?
Mid Pennsylvannia
Why? There are people all over the Eastern Seaboard.
Bottom of the Atlantic?
So, gravity works faster for you
George Mace
Angelina Durless
Nina Hopkins
Deosa
Dr. Hollingsworth
You were a bad influence!
Always my dear. Those are the best sort.
I don't think that's a compliment.
Do you have an opera appropriate suit?
No!
My opera appropriate suits are really esy to pack
I am going to polish my hair
I want to fly over what will be central park to make sure no fairies
You can just telepath it -- who cares?
But letters!
Kristen gets it.
If nothing else, you can send urchins.
Urchinmail!
Everywhere's an exit when you have an alice
Giant stretches of wilderness have no business being near a city
The giant stretch of wilderness feels the same way about the city
Is he related to you? I've noticed everyone annoying is related to you.
So you are saying that we are left with the horrible choice of either allowing the New Martians to invade or damaging art?
Alice, how do you say "princess" in Martian?
It's a combination of the words ruler, beauty, and danger.
Danger is only in there as a side effect! It's a corruption!
Yes, it's a suffix. But, nevertheless, it is there.
How did he recognize you?
He's a peasant. She's a princess.
Or she can just deprive it of oxygen
That was my plan yes
Chemistry works
Actually i was planning to deprive it of air
Oxygen is more difficult?
Sorting the atoms one at a time
You have enough precision to do so?
With time, I can meditate
Barley and wheat
it was when i had more patience
It is a green crystal beacon that you could perhaps
Hulk Smash!
Are you really a full inch taller than sophronia in this form?
It's the inert remains of mutually annihilating light.
Yes!
That hurts my head so much.
Photographers club
Why the big flashing light cured his headache
So, who's the away team this time?
Shard of crystal
You want to give them harmless boring thin?gs?
Yes! Yes! That is correct! Funny that you should notice that! What is _wrong_ with you people?
Moderate consequence of concussed
You did not have to hit qute that hard. yes, you are forgiven. but you id not have to hit quite that hard
3 bulbs mirrors
I am inspired by the opera! also sneaking up on ascendant light bulbs
I really like the opera its a shaeme to do this but you know malum necessarium
I hear truth is found in the shaows....
OMG I hate these martians but that is not an aspect.
watch the thusands of pretty bridies
So we have never hd an uncon martian cultist to work on. Alice could you work on their minds.
one big and three small crystals
one old martian
two martian cultists
shard of first beacon for sidhe
Medical attention, yes.
Story Games Dump
The Kerberos Fate group went to the Manhattan of 1840 (and the session was punctuated by occasional wikipedia look ups), and I ran a very heavily modified "A Night at the Opera" from Miskatonic River Press's lovely Tales of the Sleepless City.
GM: Do you have an opera appropriate suit?
Victor (the brusque, if brilliant, detective): No!
Sophronia (the nine-inch brass clockwork faerie): My opera appropriate suits are really easy to pack.
GM: All right, so Victor's buying a suit. What's everyone else doing?
Sophronia: I am going to polish my hair.
Reginald went with Victor to make sure the suit buying went well. Alice did some research. Then, her player, Josh, asked if 1840 Manhattan had a muliple-mail-deliveries-per-day at this time. (We know that James Joyce's Dublin did, that being a very important part in his courtship of Nora. But, I digress.)
GM: You can just telepath it -- who cares?
Kristen (who plays Sophronia): But letters!
Josh: Kristen gets it.
GM: If nothing else, you can send urchins.
Someone: Urchinmail!
Alice's summation of the evening's plot: So you are saying that we are left with the horrible choice of either allowing the New Martians to invade or damaging art?
Sophronia: Alice, how do you say "princess" in Martian?
Reginald (who speaks Martian): It's a combination of the words "ruler", "beauty", and "danger".
Alice: Danger is only in there as a side effect! It's a corruption!
Reginald: Yes, it's a suffix. But, nevertheless, it is there.
One happy side effect of the evening's activities was that our heroes, who had promised to bring the sidhe three items from Mars, now had one. Sophronia was appalled by the idea of giving that particular item to the sidhe.
Victor: You want to give them harmless boring things?
Sophronia: Yes! Yes! That is correct! Funny that you should notice that! What is wrong with you people?
It is really disturbing when the 9-inch brass clockwork faerie is the voice of reason. No doubt, this is why the others intende to disregard her advice.
Write Up Attempt
Our Heroes flew their island to the USA, planning to deal with whatever Martian activity was taking place in New York City. But, where to put the island?
Someone: I say we park it on Columbia and take the railway down from Harlem.
Someone else: Are you particularly unhappy with Columbia this week?
Someone suggested mid-Pennsylvannia.
Someone else: Why? There are people all over the Eastern Seaboard.
The Bottom of the Atlantic was also vetoed. I think it was left somewhere in upstate New York, in a lake.
Reginald (trying to figure out how Victor's power works): So, gravity works faster for you.
NPCs with our heroes included Lord George Mace (Alice's fiance), Nina Hopkins (tailor and chaperone), Angelina Durless (Victor's fiance), Deosa (African woman who wanted to see the United States), and Dr. Hollingsworth (an ordinary, ethical British doctor).
I forget the context of this:
Sophronia: You were a bad influence!
Reginald: Always my dear. Those are the best sort.
Sophronia: I don't think that's a compliment.
Once in Manhattan, Our Heroes were approached by an urchin who had a message for them from Abraham Lincoln, former PC. Lincoln had been expecting them for some time, having sent a letter to tell them about the upcoming Martian opera. He thought Alice in particular would be interested. I took this plot, heavily modified, from "A Night at the Opera" from Miskatonic River Press's lovely Tales of the Sleepless City.
So, it was off to the opera to thwart the Evil Schemes of the New Martians.
GM: Do you have an opera appropriate suit?
Victor (the brusque, if brilliant, detective): No!
Sophronia (the nine-inch brass clockwork faerie): My opera appropriate suits are really easy to pack.
GM: All right, so Victor's buying a suit. What's everyone else doing?
Sophronia: I am going to polish my hair.
Reginald went with Victor to make sure the suit buying went well. Alice did some research. Then, her player, Josh, asked if 1840 Manhattan had a muliple-mail-deliveries-per-day at this time. (We know that James Joyce's Dublin did, that being a very important part in his courtship of Nora. But, I digress.)
GM: You can just telepath it -- who cares?
Kristen (who plays Sophronia): But letters!
Josh: Kristen gets it.
GM: If nothing else, you can send urchins.
Someone: Urchinmail!
Meanwhile, Sophronia decided to be paranoid, or perhaps merely cautious.
Sophronia: I want to fly over what will be Central Park to make sure there are no fairies.
I thought about this and decided that perhaps there should be some. I decided to use Delia Sherman's Changeling books, but when Sophronia's flyover revealed powerful fae presence resentful of the city, Sophronia decided to take the better part of valor and avoid the presence.
Sophronia: Giant stretches of wilderness have no business being near a city.
Someone (possibly me): The giant stretch of wilderness feels the same way about the city.
I forget the context of this: Everywhere's an exit when you have an Alice.
I forget to whom Sophronia was referring in this quote:
Sophronia (to Victor): Is he related to you? I've noticed everyone annoying is related to you.
Alice's summation of the evening's plot: So you are saying that we are left with the horrible choice of either allowing the New Martians to invade or damaging art?
Indeed. For, two of the British Martian cultists had convinced John Jacob Aster, III to build a new opera house of crystal and steel, and to approve the opera Requiem Per Marte (Requiem for Mars, which is how I translated the Requiem for Shuggai into my game).
Our Heroes were not the only ones wanted the opera stopped, for an old man railed against it to Aster before collapsing. Our Heroes tended to him as the shaken Aster took his seat. The old man recognized Alice as The Princess! For, he too was a reincarnated Martian!
Sophronia: Alice, how do you say "princess" in Martian?
Reginald (who speaks Martian): It's a combination of the words "ruler", "beauty", and "danger".
Alice: Danger is only in there as a side effect! It's a corruption!
Reginald: Yes, it's a suffix. But, nevertheless, it is there.
The man raved about the opera and passed out. He also gave them the keys to his bookstore, but given the changes I was making to the scenario, I noted that, while the PCs were welcome to visit the place, it didn't really have any more information than they were getting from the old man, studying the original manuscript (conveniently posted on the walls of gallery), Alice's memories, and their own knowledge of the occult and conspiracies.
Victor (to Alice): How did he recognize you?
Reginald: He's a peasant. She's a princess.
Actually, Josh rolled well enough that Alice did vaguely remember the man's previous incarnation as an old archivist. But, basically, yes, Martian Alice was enough of a celebrity that it was easy to recall her.
There were three acts to the opera. Our heroes needed to make sure that:
- At the end of each act, no beacons were lit. They could be lit during the act, so lonb as they were extinguished before its end.
- There were three Harbringers who needed to be neutralized.
- The flute quintet in the third act needed to be disrupted.
If the opera succeeded, a gate would open to let in the invasion fleet of New Martians! Our Heroes brought the bookseller to their box and plotted their strategy. They decided that Alice and Sophronia should go deal with the first beacon once it was lit.
Someone: Or she can just deprive it of oxygen.
Alice: That was my plan, yes.
Someone: Chemistry works.
Alice: Actually, I was planning to deprive it of air.
Someone: Oxygen is more difficult?
Alice: It's sorting the atoms one at a time.
Someone: You have enough precision to do so?
Alice: With time, I can meditate.
There was a reference to "barley and wheat", possibly the separation of the two, and something about "it was when I had more patience", though I don't know if that referred to Alice or Sophronia.
Alice and Sophronia went backstage and discovered that the beacon wasn't entirely in this world, but was also partly on Mars.
GM: It is a green crystal beacon that you could perhaps --
Someone, OOC: Hulk Smash!
The beacon was not unguarded, as there was some kind of guardian. I forget whether it was a New Martian or a beast of some kind.
Meanwhile, Victor and Reginald had spotted three beams of red light shoot from the chandelier onstage and hit three people in the audience. These people didn't seem to notice, but a woman photographer did. The gentlemen correctly guessed that these were the harbringers.
Lincoln and Mace joined the ladies backstage, and I think guarded their rear. The important detail is that the two men were out of sight for a few moments.
Everyone returned to their seats before the end of the act. Reginald, in tiny fairie form, went looking for the photographer.
Someone (after Alden gives the height as 10 inches): Are you really a full inch taller than Sophronia in this form?
I think Sophronia and Reginald had some negotiations about that at this point. Regardless, the photographer took a picture of one of the three audience members who'd been hit by a red beam of light. This freed the person from possession (although she had not yet realized she was possessed) and left a small puddle of green ooze on the floor. I tried to come up with a technobabble explanation of why this worked, as this was no longer the original scenario, and there were no insects from Shuggai.
Nunzio: It's the inert remains of mutually annihilating light.
GM (gladly latching onto this): Yes!
Alden: That hurts my head so much.
The woman was scolded by one of the ushers. Reginald tried to intervene, but the man was not impressed by the apparent faerie and brandished an iron cross. This had no real effect, as Reginald was not really a faerie, but Our Heroes discussed how they might be more subtle. Over the two intermissions, they located the other victims and had Sophronia create an illusion so that everyone except for the person having Martian influences banished by a camera flash saw -- absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.
This worked on the second person, a working class man in the upper circles, treating his family to a night at the opera, and on the third, an usher who never got headaches, yet found himself uncharacteristically with a headache. After he was freed, he resolutely Did Not think about why the big flashing light cured his headache.
Someone OOC: So, who's the away team this time?
Alice, Sophronia, George, and Abe went. Alice noted that the group could begin to fulfill its promise to the faeries. The group had promised them three items from Mars. A shard of the beacon crystal surely counted as one, as it had been retrieved from Mars.
Sophronia was appalled by the idea of giving that particular item to the sidhe.
Victor: You want to give them harmless boring things?
Sophronia: Yes! Yes! That is correct! Funny that you should notice that! What is wrong with you people?
It is really disturbing when the 9-inch brass clockwork faerie is the voice of reason. No doubt, this is why the others tend to disregard her advice.
Abe and George ambushed Alice and Sophronia backstage. Fortunately, they were defeated without too much damage to either side, but George gave his fiance, Alice, the Moderate Consequence of concussed.
Alice (once George has been freed of the Martian influence): You did not have to hit quite that hard. Yes, you are forgiven. But you did not have to hit quite that hard!
The second beacon was tougher than the first and also located partly on Mars. The quartet could not quite get back before the end of the act, so found themselves about 70 feet above the ground somewhere in Manhattan. Fortunately, Sophronia can fly, and Alice had powerful enough telekinesis to protect both herself and the gentlemen.
For the third beacon, I noted that the scenario presumed the saboteurs would stay on earth, working on the chandelier from above, even though going to Shaggai / Mars is still possible. Josh noted that staying on earth was better, as it varied the pattern, so that's what we went for. This beacon was the toughest, involving several bulbs, but also potentially thwartable with mirrors, if I recall correctly.
Sophronia (I think): I am inspired by the opera! Also sneaking up on Ascendant light bulbs.
Alice (tapping an Aspect): I really like the opera. It's a shame to do this, but, you know, Malum Necessarium.
Someone (suggesting an Aspect of Alice's): I hear truth is found in the shadows....
Nunzio: OMG, I hate these Martians, but that is not an aspect.
The third beacon was disabled. And, either Victor or Reginald dealt with the flutes, cutting off bits from each one -- differently sized bits. This made the flute quintet fall flat.
This meant that the PCs had about +14 worth of Scene / Situational Aspects to tap to prevent the opera. Unsurprisingly, they succeeded. Next, they apprehended to two Martian cultists, the British men who had been brainwashed into believing that peaceful Martians wanted to come to earth and solve all of earth's problems. Each man stood up with a crystal in his hand. Our Heroes disabled ad captured them.
Sophronia (distracting either the men or the rest of the audience, I forget which): Watch the thousands of pretty birdies!
Victor: So, we have never had an unconscious Martian cultist to work on. Alice could you work on their minds?
As the session ended, the group had:
- one big and three small crystals
- one old Martian (the bookseller)
- two Martian cultists
- A shard of the first beacon for the sidhe
- A need for medical attention for Alice, which was quickly seen to by Victor's fiance, Angelina
The opera got very mixed reviews, as it clearly aimed high, but did not quite work.
