February 11, 2016
Eighth Meeting: February 11, 2016
Agenda: 1894 Session #6
Gabriel's player and Beatrice's player couldn't make this session. So, clearly, Beatrice was sleeping a lot, and having troubled dreams, and Gabriel was arranging to move Juliette and Quentin Parton to his place of Safety, and then babysitting -- er, assisting -- Van Helsing.
When Liesl contacted Van Helsing, she'd hoped that he would just send a letter, but he came himself.
Me: Just how do you know Van Helsing, anyway?
Liesl's player: He was a case study, obviously.
That was what I'd figured. Liesl had assumed he was utterly crazy, but now that she knew vampires were real, well, maybe some of his rantings had some connection to reality. Now, just how he'd gotten out of wherever he'd been institutionalized is an interesting question, but just now, Liesl, Herman, and Sebastian were more interested in what he knew about vampires and how to destroy them.
Van Helsing explained that the vampire has the strength of twenty men.
Herman: But he only has the strength of twenty men! So, if we have twenty-one men, we've got him!
Me: I... don't think it works that way.
Van Helsing explained that a stake through the heart will immobilize a vampire, but it must be made of the right materials. Wood was not correct; it had to be made of something conductive, like iron.
Sebastian: Cold iron.
Herman: Isn't that supposed to work on the faeries?
And it's likely not a coincidence that Owen Renfield, aka "Peter Hawkins", ran a business manufacturing iron coffins. This wasn't my idea -- Roxana's player decided that that was what her brother-in-law did during initial character creation.
Killing a vampire requires that the vampire be staked and beheaded, the head stuffed with special garlic, and the body burned and the ashes scattered.
Wild roses could be used to trap a vampire. Special garlic could destroy the rejuvenating properties of the vampire's native soil, but it had to be Vanderpool's special garlic. Also, the vampire could sleep in a suicide's grave or the grave of a vampire he or she had created. And, vampires did have to be invited into private places.
Of course, Van Helsing also insisted that crosses worked, and that the Host could destroy the efficacy of a vampire's native soil, and that the other accoutrements of Catholicism -- holy water, hymns, church bells, and so on -- were effective. Liesl was convinced that any effect these had were purely psychosomatic.
A note was delivered to Liesl telling her that Dracula had accepted her invitation to meet. He suggested the meeting take place at the Great Synagogue of London. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Synagogue_of_London)
Liesl agreed and told Herman and Sebastian. They discussed how they could tell if she'd been mentally dominated by Dracula on her return.
Liesl: I'll say... something I'd never say.
Herman: Maybe "Van Helsing is the sanest man I've ever met"?
Liesl: That's it! Van Helsing is sane -- I'd never say that! The man is crazy!
She was aware of the risks, of course.
Liesl: Sager, if I don't come back --
Herman: Kill you.
Liesl: Yeah, yeah, I know that. Sager, it's been a pleasure working with you.
Herman: Likewise. You'll be fine.
Naturally, no one told Van Helsing about this. Instead, they sent him and Gabriel to neutralize the 26 boxes of dirt in Carfax Abbey so that Dracula could no longer use them.
Sebastian decided to accompany Liesl in disguise as a Jewish woman, while Herman waited outside the synagogue.
Me: How many points of Disguise are you going to use or are you using something else?
Sebastian's Player: MOS?
Me: Yeah, that's what I thought.
Liesl: You look like my Tante Masel. I'm serious -- I expect you to find me a husband.
Sebastian: Well, let's find a husband in the synagogue.
Liesl: Now _I_ need to write a letter to Sigmund...
Liesl used her MOS in Hypnosis to make herself proof against Dracula's mental domination. As Dracula hadn't planned to try to mentally dominate her, I wondered what I could do to make this use of an MOS not anti-climactic, and came up with an idea based on what I had established about how telluric vampires work.
In the Great Synagogue, Dracula met Liesl. He started the conversation in Yiddish, and she suggested they switch to French. They may have gone through a couple of other languages as well. And Sebastian, in his perfect disguise, hiding in plain sight and in earshot, understood none of those languages.
We had looked at where the free points in certain skills went and switched them around. One of the changes we made was to give everyone a free point in Languages instead of Tradecraft as being truer to the 19th Century non-USA setting. And most folks stuck with that. But, Josh decided that it made more sense for Sebastian to keep the Tradecraft point and that it was more amusing for the Hon. Lord Wimsey, Consulting Detective, to know only English.
After the session, I asked if the meeting felt anticlimactic or disappointing, and was assured that it didn't. I'm thinking "I'm not being menacing enough." Turns out they're thinking, "He's... being honest, and almost reasonable, and almost nice... that's SO CREEPY!" They were seeing someone so powerful he didn't need to be menacing to prove that he could destroy them all.
I was trying to keep to two principles in this session.
- Dracula should lie as little as possible, and preferably not at all.
- As much of Van Helsing's information as possible should be accurate.
This isn't just a character note. I mean, yes, my Dracula is proud enough that he thinks lying is beneath him, and yes, Van Helsing believes what he says. But, it's also a matter of the GM-player dynamic. If I start giving misinformation from these two sources without a very clear path showing how the players and PCs can figure out the truth, I'm basically pushing the "I win" button. That's not how I should be running the game.
From Dracula's point of view, then, Edom made him an offer. He set conditions which Edom accepted. Edom then broke its word several times over. As it turns out, this wasn't always intentional, but often, it was.
Immanuel Hildescheim / Jonathan Harker wasn't supposed to speak German or any language spoken east of the Rhine, and Edom genuinely thought he didn't. As for the Demeter, some of the crew did try to destroy Dracula, either because they were enemies of Edom who had infiltrated the ship, perhaps from MINA, or because they weren't Edom but sensed what Dracula was, or because they worked for Edom but thought what Edom was doing was far too dangerous. Those loyal to Edom probably did try to constrain Dracula's movements, which broke the agreement they'd made.
When Dracula arrived in Whitby, he was in the shape of a dog. He did tear out the throat of another dog and of Mr. Swales, who might or might not have been Edom, but he then left Whitby for London. He had nothing to do with the whole business with Carmilla, her "mama", or De Ville, whom he referred to as "the potter" or something similar, confirming that De Ville really was Ringler. As far as Dracula was concerned, they could destroy any of those three and their minions.
He was fascinated by the new science of psychology, and while he didn't ask directly, he did leave an opening for Liesl to suggest becoming his psychoanalyst. My original idea had been to have him learn about Freud and convince the innocent Freud to psychoanalyze him, but having the PC do it was a million times better.
Liesl and Dracula felt their way around the idea, as neither wanted the other to feel unsafe or to expose themselves. Dracula suggested that, as a sign of good faith, he return Liesl's cousin, Immanuel Hildescheim, to her safely. After all, the man was likely to be killed either by Edom or MINA, as he'd infiltrated Edom for MINA and then essentially defected from MINA by having a nervous breakdown. Dracula said that Hildescheim should have confided in him.
There was, of course, the question of what condition Hildescheim should be in. Dracula told Liesl to choose. If he had to decide between letting her cousin die and rescuing her cousin at the cost of the man's sanity, which course should he take?
Liesl gave the matter some thought, and concluded that she had to choose saving the man's life. As I noted, I believe that this is also the halachaly correct answer.
She was surprised that Dracula knew Yiddish and Hebrew. He responded by telling her a story I was once told, about a Christian man who had come into possession of a priceless Hebrew manuscript. He bemoaned the fact that no one could read it, for all knowledge of Hebrew had been lost. He was standing by his window as he spoke, looking out at the view of the city, including the Jewish ghetto clearly visible, but perpetually unseen by him. Dracula had decided that he would never be such a man.
In other words, we now had established some things about Dracula:
- He is proud enough that he doesn't like to lie.
- He wants to expand his knowledge.
- He has said that he doesn't consider himself a god -- yet.
Therapist and vampire said goodbye. Dracula slipped from the synagogue unseen. That is to say, Herman never saw him enter of leave. Sebastian, despite watching Dracula, never quite saw him leave. It was as if he had simply vanished. And Sebastian couldn't hold on to the memory of what Dracula looked like, which was not at all usual for the sharp-minded detective.
However, Liesl, who had mentally prepared herself, saw Dracula step back into the shadows, and saw him walk out a side door of the synagogue. She saw that he himself cast no shadow. She remembered what he looked like.
She was also tempted past the point of refusing to accept his offer.
Liesl: Lisel Rosenzweig, Psychiatrist to the Damned!
Liesl and Sebastian left the synagogue and joined Herman, and the three retired to a pub. There was a tense moment or two when Herman prompted Liesl for the phrase they'd set up to prove she wasn't being mentally dominated by Dracula and she failed to take the hint, but once she realized what was going on, she finally said that Van Helsing was the sanest man she'd ever met, clearly still not believing it.
Liesl brought Sebastian and Herman up to date, surprised that Sebastian didn't even speak French. Sebastian did, however, notice that, even though he was in a synagogue, not a church, Dracula had automatically made some kind of ritual gesture that indicated he had probably been a Roman Catholic priest of some kind in the fifteenth or sixteenth century.
He also noticed a rat studying them with unusual interest.
Sebastian: Rat.
Herman: Do you want me to shoot it?
Liesl: No, don't shoot in the middle of a pub! Are you insane?
At this point, Sebastian threw a knife and (with a total of 9) killed the rat.
Liesl: Nice grouping!
Someone, possibly me: There's only 1 dagger.
Liesl: It makes sense in translation.
Me: No, it really doesn't.
Lisel: Look, I'm a little flustered. I'm spritzing all over!
At this point, possibly with my prompting, possibly without, they realized that Van Helsing and Gabriel were en route to Carfax Abbey to render its 26 boxes of earth useless to Dracula. This was an utter disaster and had to be stopped at once!
Someone, possibly me: You could give him Van Helsing.
Someone, probably Liesl: I am surprisingly okay with that.
Someone, probably Herman: We could drive around like the mad scientists we are!
They moved at top speed to Carfax Abbey, which involved using points, but not a chase, arriving just as Gabriel and Van Helsing did. The ensuing commotion as they tried to talk the duo out of the mission with which they had recently entrusted them was loud enough that Dr. Seward and a couple of orderlies came out to remonstrate with them for upsetting the inmates of St. Ignatius. Some apologies and, I think, a Reassurance spend from Liesl mollified the good doctor.
We all agreed that there was almost certainly a fierce argument between Gabriel and Sebastian, but in the absence of Gabriel's player, we didn't play this out. Afterwards, the player listened to the summary and agreed that Gabriel would be very annoyed, but would understand "No, don't do this thing we've told you to do -- we have a truce with Dracula so that we don't have to take on all the vampires of London at once!"
Gabriel: Fine! Next time, _you_ stay with Van Helsing!
I think they explained to Van Helsing that they were setting some kind of elaborate trap for Dracula.
In the carriage ride back, Liesl and Herman found that they could converse in German without Sebastian understanding them -- but not without Van Helsing understanding them. All the languages they could switch to, including Russian, were ones he knew.
Me: Van Helsing seems to know a lot of languages. He even knows Welsh.
And, Van Helsing's ears were cropped, although he tended to try to cover that up with his hair and a hat of some kind.
He was either fobbed off on Gabriel again or drugged into a sleep accompanied by loud snoring.
Liesl remained determined to psychoanalyze Dracula.
Liesl: It would be my greatest challenge as an analyst!
Folks discussed the possibility of turning Carmilla against Dracula. My notes also say something about cats and mummies, but I've no idea what that was all about.
Herman and Liesl went to Sebastian's home and into his office. Sebastian slid out a large wall panel with slate on it and unscrewed the top part of his swordcane, revealing a large piece of chalk.
Liesl: So, which half is mightier, the pen half or the sword half?
Sebastian: I don't know.
Liesl: Okay, I can't tell if you're flirting with me.
Sebastian: I don't know. I don't generally flirt.
Herman: So, I'm going out for a paper.
Liesl: So, I can pencil you in for a therapy session between the hours of four and five, say twice a week?
Herman: _Two_ papers.
Liesl discussed the possibility of collecting blood for Dracula to drink.
Herman: Our blood?
Liesl: Not our blood -- do you know how many poor people in London there are?
Herman: But then, we'll have to --
Liesl: Lie. To the crazy man. I can live with that.
The crazy man = Van Helsing. Liesl was thinking of paying the poor of London for blood donations, not of killing them. At least, I'm pretty sure that was the case.
She also suggested a three pronged approach to the vampire problem and came up with a name for it.
Project Trident
1. Monitor Ringler and make plans to destroy him. People to do this: Herman, Van Helsing, Sebastian. Gabriel's not listed here, but probably should be.
2. Make contact with Edom. Sebastian, with Sebastian's Network.
3. The Dracula Sessions! Liesl may not have quite rubbed her hands with glee at the thought of these.
Liesl was confident that Sebastian could get in touch with Edom.
Liesl's player: You know how to do this in 19th Century Pulp Spy Style: Put an ad in paper with a Biblical verse about Edom.
Either Herman or Sebastian asked her about the odd invisible tentacled Mr. Hardcannon, who had grabbed her in an alley, bruising her before she escaped on a perfectly prompt omnibus.
Liesl: We'll burn that town when we get to it.
