[After Sundown] Magical Interlude

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Prak
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[After Sundown] Magical Interlude

Post by Prak »

So, about a month ago, one of the players in my Greyhawk game had to drop out due to personal life drama. She's got it mostly sorted, so we were hoping she'd rejoin last week. She couldn't, so we stalled the start of the next adventure because ideally she would have been able to rejoin this week.

No dice. Cat problems, more life drama, she can't make it. I'm not exactly about to do another session of putting around, but still want to do something, but definitely don't want to have to insert her into the middle of the next dungeon.

So I tell the group (Tuesday afternoon) "lemme think, I'll give you a heads up by tonight on what I want to do about tomorrow." I decide to use the opportunity to give AS a try. I had a plot a while back to start a game in a hospital, and I like mirror goblins, so I start thinking about this and stat up my players to the best of my ability and make a quiz so I can covertly prep for them to transform during the chronicle-
So, this was the quiz I wrote up- https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https% ... =RAQFqfS_A

Well, the first eight questions of that. The first four determine splat, then the next four determined power source. I figured that'd work fine. One of my players took it and wound up with a very-much-appropriate-for-him Icarid. Then my next player took it, and was clearly a Vamp (each answer for the first four questions points to a pair of splats, with the idea that four pairs will shake out into a single splat that they got most), but divided equally between Orphic and Astral. So I add three more questions for a total of seven questions on power source, and he solidly slides into Orphic. I tell player 1 that he can answer the three new questions or not, no big deal. Suddenly he's Orphic.

Player three and four are not so easily contacted. I text player three to give her a heads up, and to ask for some idea of what her beau, new player 4, is like, since I realize I know nothing about him. Half an hour before I'm to leave I suddenly get responses she sent hours ago that just didn't deliver. fuck my phone. So I bring print outs of the quiz for them.

HAHAHA.

Player 3 winds up in a tie between Vamp, Animate or Transhuman, but solidly Astral, and player 4 winds up tied between Lycanthrope, Animate or Transhuman and between Astral or Infernal. Instead of thinking up new quiz questions, I decide to just straight up give them choices between "do you become special by accident (vamp/lyc), your own actions (trans) or were you special all along (ani)?" and then for player 4 who's been determined to be slated for Transhuman "what's more likely, you create some weird impossible process and test it on yourself, or say 'huh, this is an odd puzzle box that just fell out of the sky, let's play with it!'." Oh, and this is ignoring the parts where player 1 questions the after life question, and players 3 and 4 have trouble with the biggest flaw question.
So that all shakes out eventually, and despite my trying to avoid taking up game time with character creation, we're half way through our session by the time we can play.

Our Cast-
  • E. Nuclear physics major who actually was trained to work in a nuclear reactor at his first college and used to fence. Has a world domination plan, no seriously. Also the child of Dr. Venture-esque inventors (not really, but in the game, we had to come up with something) Doesn't know they're a Reborn.
  • N. Former Boy Scout, Archaeologist, Dad. Oldest of the group, and pretty all around solid, what with that boy scouting and archaeology and all. Slated to be bitten by a Strigoi at some point.
  • A. Child educator/day care wrangler, very much a flake, but good people. Slated to be an Android.
  • J. Guy what knows computers. Determined to own a business within the reality of the game. Slated to become an Icarid.
The Scene
The cast is gathered at a hospital to visit their friend K. who has found themselves there, even if they're not sure why (because I didn't actually stat myself or anything). Their chest is heavily bandaged, and the chart mentions removal of plant matter and rock from the wound. Actually in pretty good spirits for someone who woke up in a hospital not knowing why (because I can't decide between Fallen, Baali and Dryad. And my quiz gave me Werewolf. Clearly I'm a mostly Astral Steve-witch).

A. goes off to the cafeteria because... no clue.

The rest soon notice a cluster of four doctors walking through the ward, poking their heads into patient rooms, then moving on. Three are carrying a glass of discoloured water, a petunia, a yoyo made from a rock, respectively, and the fourth has his hands shoved in his coat pockets. J sneaks up to the oblivious OBVIOUS DOCTORS and tries to listen in, but only hears gibberish. He slips back into K.'s room before they come in, and the doctors make awkward conversation and answer all questions about K.'s condition or injury with "no." But they're very nice and smiling brightly. A. comes back with a tray of food, and for some reason decides to spill it on the OBVIOUS DOCTORS. ...at which point I realize that a simple tray defeats a mirror goblin's Mask of a Thousand Faces as it reveals they are not actually average human height, but about 3' tall. So suddenly there's four mirror goblins standing in the room, only one of which is actually wearing a labcoat (because illusions don't give real pockets). On pure reactionary instinct, E. kicks one, and A. pulls the door shut with her on the other side, what with her having no combat whatsoever. The group fumble for weapons and comprehension of the combat system (I was prepping, I didn't get a chance to study up), with K. pulling the IV bag down from the stand to use it as a weapon, and E. unscrewing the top half for a makeshift baton. The mirror goblins activate celerity because of course they do and start chomping on people with the 1L bite I'm giving them based on description. E. can reliably parry attacks with his makeshift baton, but that may be because I'm doing combat wrong in different ways all throughout this, and K. seriously punches his in the face as it tries to bite him the first time (the dice dictated it, I swear), which of course really just helped it in future bites so the MC expy is literally up to his elbow in mirror goblin.

That's essentially where we end it, because I have to stop yet again to make sure I'm doing things right (I totally wasn't) and bring up stuff that can help the party like spending Edge and having Driving Passions and all that. I give the android and the reborn their first "things aren't what you thought" so that they have powers that can maybe prevent the TPK next session, and come home to make the AS combat flowchart to make sure our asses get it right next time.

You know, I had this neat little plot in mind, where four mirror goblins come into a hospital and start looking to cause trouble, when they find samples of trog blood and say "oh, we're definitely starting shit with that," and start handing it to extras as medicine (Mask of a Thousand Faces disguises them as doctors, and they can just say "take this") and dumping it in cafeteria food, so that the hospital has a giant outbreak of mutants, which I realized were literally this:
Image
I suppose I could still have that outbreak happen, just in a different way. We'll see how the mirror goblin thing goes.
Last edited by Prak on Thu Jul 24, 2014 9:00 am, edited 2 times in total.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
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