May 25, 2016

Agenda: 1940 Session #1

Vito's player could not make this session, so we agreed that:

• Dexter and Isabella were on the ground in Romania, attempting to meet the Edom team when it arrived.

• Joyce was piloting a plane with Quimby and Hedy. We all understood that this plane would crash. Sometimes, being an amazing pilot means that everyone walks away from the crash.

• Vito was in a different plane, accompanied by the Edom agent who planned to brief everyone when the full team was assembled. Of course, Vito would be the lone survivor from that plane.

We worked out the details of where Joyce's plane took off from.

ANYONE REMEMBER?

And at some point, it was shot down. Joyce told her passengers to strap in.

Quimby: You realize this is our way out of here.

Joyce: _Was_.

And, as altitude diminished:

Joyce: Please extinguish all flammables!

Joyce's player rolled very well, all things considered. And folks took very little damage from the crash landing.

Joyce: Well, good news, bad news. We didn't have enough fuel to get out of here, so the plane's not going to explode. Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

The 1940 annotations in the Unredacted Dracula indicate that the default group had issues trying to orient themselves even to figure out whether they were in Hungary or Romania. They were obviously not PCs willing to spend to deal with the problem, and they didn't have a contact on the ground. I had folks do a Sense Trouble roll to see how meeting up went.

Sense Trouble totals:

• Hedy 3
• Joyce 2
• Quimby 1
• Isabella 2
• Dexter 4!

The English Edom agent clearly couldn't tell what country they were in. Joyce may have been somewhat disoriented, as her primary concern had been to create a crash landing everyone could live with. Isabella knew the ground, but hadn't expected the plane to crash away from the rendezvous point.

Hedy had a better idea of where they were, which made sense given her talent, which did not involve flying, landing, or safely crashing a plane. And, Dex, the hick American private eye, well aware he was out of his depth, was the one who spotted the folks he and Isabella were supposed to meet.

Naturally, there were passwords and counterpasswords, made up by the players on the spot for maximum absurdity.

Isabella: Do you folks need a lift to town?

Joyce (not _quite_ reciting): Thanks, we'll ride.

Isabella: Well, better than a load of potatoes.

Joyce: _Je_sus!

That last was off script, of course.

Joyce: Cigarette?

Dexter: Yes, please!

Introductions were made. If I understand correctly, Isabella was using "Isabella Havers" as her name.

Quimby: The plane -- too damaged to repair?

Joyce: I don't think it can properly be called a _plane_ any more.

Dexter brought everyone to his castle. I think I probably should have had the group attacked by patrols or something, either before or just after both parties joined up.

Dexter wanted to sell his castle, but not to Nazis or to the Iron Guard. He also wanted to do his own cooking, which made for some awkwardness with the servants. But, I think a compromise was reached allowing Dexter to work in the kitchen alongside them.

Dexter had previously been approached by a young woman looking to hold a party at his castle. He agreed, and she now arrived with another woman, this one in a green dress, and with thirteen members of the Iron Guard.

The guests performed some kind of ritual, at the end of which the woman in green professed to feel quite faint. Dexter was automatically chivalrous, and assisted her to a bedroom, where she proceeded to recover from her exertions with a different kind of exertion, one in which Dexter participated.

Meanwhile, Joyce picked a fight with one of the Iron Guard, and easily knocked the fellow out. As the rest rounded on her, the player asked if she could Intimidate them out of the fight. I'm not sure if I should have said yes, but she made a reasonable case.

I HAVE, OF COURSE, UTTERLY FORGOTTEN IT -- ANYONE REMEMBER?

The odd thing wasn't that the men backed down, but that they did so after checking to see if the other woman was around (the one Dex had first met and was not currently having sex with), and seemed quite quick to back down when they realized she wasn't there.

The others kept an eye on people.

Someone: Oh, by the way, where's Dexter?

Isabella (I think): He's indisposed.

Someone: ...Oh!

While the PCs did not, I think, all realize this until the following episode, the players understood that the woman in green was Carmilla, and her shyer companion was Iulia Hasdeu. The castle had been named after her, built by her father when she died at the young age of 19, of tuberculosis, or so history says. In this game, she was, of course, turned into a vampire by Carmilla.

Carmilla bit Dexter, but failed to hypnotize him.

The next day, the two women and the 13 Iron Guards had left, and folks made plans to take a train to Transylvannia and camp out in the Borgo Pass. I'm not sure how difficult that would have been in reality, but folks had a cover story. Dexter was a clueless American wanting to look for vampires there, and the others were either part of his entourage or cynical "guides" looking to fleece him. They paid off whoever was guarding the area. (Hungarians at this time, I think?)

Folks set up an odd machine that Quimby had brought, unsure himself what it was for, and a Chinese urn that Isabella had Dexter bring, it being part of Dexter's inheritance. She had no idea why it was needed, but Edom's higher ups insisted that it was.

There was some talk about vampires, and about telluric currents.

Joyce: Oh, excuse me -- I didn't know we were doing a meeting of the Theosophical Society.

This may have been before or after the earthquake in the small hours of the night / morning of 10 November 1940.

Isabella's Player: Was there an actual earthquake on that date in the real world?

GM: Yep!

In other words, the urn and the machine seemed to have caused an earthquake.

It was at this point that Isabella started explaining what little she knew of the mission.

Joyce: Hell, I've seen weirder than that. I call it 1937.

She demanded that the "Limeys", i. e., Isabella and Quimby, cough up the details.

Isabella: I am hardly a Limey!

Joyce: All right, Limey and Jewess.

Quimby didn't believe in vampires, so he thought that they'd been sent to recruit some local asset to pretend he was a vampire, playing on the superstitions of the locals. Isabella, however, knew better, and explained that they were trying to recruit Dracula to take Romania back from the Fascists and Nazis.

Joyce decided that this was a suicide mission. She was appalled, as no one had told her this up front.

Joyce: I do require knowing it's a suicide mission -- that requires a whole 'nother level of planning.

Isabella: It isn't a suicide mission.

Joyce asked for tactical advice as a figure started approaching. On receiving it, she readied her rifle.

Joyce: So if it falls back -- shoot to kill and hope for the best. Ironically enough, that is my usual position.

The figure approached cautiously, especially when it saw the rifle. This was, of course, Dracula.

He listened to the somewhat confused explanation for the summons-via-earthquake, and said that he needed a little more context, as he'd been asleep for some time. Folks agreed to come to his castle and explain.

Dracula did something involving a blue flame, and then led them along a path that had not previously existed. Some folks took that in stride, particularly Dex, who had no idea what the lay of the land was anyway and was well aware of his ignorance. Quimby, who had scouted the area quite carefully, lost some Stability, as he knew there had not been a path there a moment before.

Emailed overview

This session saw Joyce crashland a plane in Romania, with Hedy, Joyce, and Quimby walking, rather than limping away and meeting Dex and Isabella. After some odd shennanigans in Dex's castle, folks camped out in the Borgo Pass and got Dracula's attention. The session ended with them following him as he led them to his castle.

We figure that Vito was in a different plane, perhaps being flown in from a different place, and that the mission leader who a) knows everything and b) is fated to die before the start of the game was in that same plane. Vito can wake up somewhere suitable, perhaps even Castle Dracula itself.