[actual play] A|State: Eye of the Needle

[DaveB]

So I got A|State.

It's very shiny.

So I presented it to my group. Five fell in love with it immediately and two were carried along by my pitch despite initially not knowing what to make of it. Which is about right for a game this dark, I think.

This is to be my first Actual Play thread, so go easy on me. I just think that a game this good needs the exposure.

If you are going "buh?" and don't know what A|State is, may I suggest Contested Ground Studios (http://www.contestedground.co.uk) - the game's designers, which includes a very nice free "lite" version as a pdf.

So.

Reading through, I have plumped for a complex tale of community leadership, conspiracies, hidden cults, steampunk technology and urban decay in a World Gone Mad.

So, my tweaks and tucks, setting-wise, are...

1) "Down" the tech level for the streets, and keep it the same for the Corps. Although the book makes the point in a couple of places, the idea that The Macrocorps should fall into the catagory of "sufficiently advanced technology" gets a little lost in a corebook which has to describe all 8 MCs, their bases and give stats for power armour and gauss rifles. So I'm choosing to place much emphasis on the idea that "normal" folks live in a state somewhere around Victorian England, technology-wise - if that. I am going to go overboard on my descriptions for high-tech, if and when it manifests. Conversely, one of my PCs is *from* a corp, so I'll spend much of the first session hammering home to her the Culture Shock of leaving the sealed, air-conditioned, clean, capteted world and going outside.

2) Similarly, the Corps (outside their central domains) are much more mysterious entities than in the game as written.

3) Although I love all of the presented Burghs to bits, I suffer as a GM from "I like that better" syndrome - no matter what I've done with an area, it will seem insufficent when put against any future supplement on that area. So I'm placing my campaign in one of the unused bits of the map. I'll do corebook-style writeups of burghs I invent on this thread, on the off-chance that anyone gives a shit. Hey - if this thread doesn't sink like a stone, I might write things up for the A|State newsletter/doodahd.

4) The Crypt aren't a myth (they might not be in the corebook, even, but it's a nebulous setting point left up to the GM to decide. I've decided.) - I'm a gonna use them.

5) One of my players is "playing" a Simil. So sue me. He doesn't have his own character sheet, will never earn any EPs, will occassionally recieve notes from me telling him what to do...

Actually, think of it as "I have an assistant GM who's job it is to do the actions/voice for a Simil, and any other NPCs that end up spending too much time with the party". Keeps things from going down the "pet npc" route.

6) Me not care what "Iron Ring" says is the truth behind the city's condition next year. I've already decided. Won't elaborate because my players *will* read this thread (and I have no hope of stopping them), but it will come out over the course of the campaign.

RULES TWEAKS

1) Allow melee fighters to NOT called-shot if they don't want to.

2) Have had to invent stats for a gas-powered harpoon gun. Long story.

3) Didn't really have to fudge in character generation. One PC didn't quite fit into the various Upbringing categories, so we applied one that gave her the right skills and happily forgot about it.

4) The Vehicle combat system gives me nightmares. I will probably junk it in favour of something else. When I can be bothered.

NEXT UP: ROUGH PC OUTLINES

[Delirium]

... not least because I would broadly opt for the same kind of tweaks and adjustments you have instituted.

Interesting decision regarding allowing a simil PC. If you could give a little treatment as to how that works in-game, particularly task resolution, I'll be grateful.

I am 60% through an Adventure! series at present, so it'll be at least some months before I have the time to run an a|state game, but I am in "early-stage mulling over one-shots mode", so I'm keen to hear of your group's experiences.

[DaveB]

ROUGH PC OUTLINES

(these are the broad-sketch type PC designs, that have yet to be "rooted" into the setting - they say things like "a Macrocorp" or "The Burgh", because I do Campaign design PCs-first: I decide the rough themes and such, the players decide what they want to play, I design the setting, Characters are tweaked, folded and melded into that setting, setting is papered over the characters again, characters are adjusted *again* and *then* we start playing. It takes much longer, but it results in a group that feels like they're part of the Burgh they live in.

So, many of these don't even have names yet. That'll come later.

1) Andrea is a player who likes intrigue, fishes-out-of-water, unearthly and ethereal women as characters and usually makes herself reliant in some way on the rest of the group as a means of integrating the party. She was born to play Vampire: The Masquerade, but as I won't run it has managed to work her particular schtick into whatever game I *do* run. She's also a talented character artist, and has already done portraits of half the party despite them not having things like names yet. Which I will scan / cartoonise in Flash and post in the near future. Her character concept is of a personal servant from the upper-middle echelons of a Macrocorp that has been witness to some kind of internal skullduggery and has fled/been booted/been booted for her own safety out into the wider city. She also requested that her character be a mute. Because she doesn't have a low enough survival chance, perhaps.

So, the Macrocorp becomes Arclight (who I was going to use as antagonists anyway), the skullduggery becomes the murder-for-internal politics of her boss, her reason for being on the outside becomes her rescue by an NPC of shady motives who will show up later and who specifically sends her to another PC as a means of bonding the party, and the whole mute thing (after reading some of Malcolm's descriptions) becomes the fact that in A|State the Leet speak in above-human frequencies, so it appears that they're silent when they're actually chatting away to one another. Being bred for her job and not needing to leave her level in the Tower, she lacks the ability to speak normally. As a means of cutting costs. ;)

2) Jemma likes snarky down-to-earth characters with a slight edge of "mad lady that lives with cats" about them - they're always slightly *cracked* in some way. She has plumped for an Antiquities Hunter, rooting around in disused tunnels for whatever's going, living in shabby apartments full to the rafters of oddities and odments and occassionally finding other things for people - the Burgh has no Lostfinder, so she's one of the people the locals go to instead.

3) Emma usually makes unsympathetic-on-the-surface with a heart of gold characters. And usually has a big social conscience thing going on which is refreshing in a roleplayer and fits right in with A|State. She wanted to explore the setting a little more than the local Burghs, and so has gone for a courier / message carrier - The City has no post to speak of, so when someone *has* to deliver a physical document, they turn to people like her character. Lots of geographical and sociological knowledge, lots of contacts spread all over the city, the potential for "the transporter" type moral crises and so on.

4) Renaud flipped back and forth between character concepts. He was *going* to play a Clockwork maker / Dinginsmith, but ended up running a similar character in another game and didn't want to be typecast. He has gone for a character who's the self-appointed guardian of the burgh (getting it back to the Hope level that's all-important in A|State) - sneaking around, finding dirt on disruptions to the local's lives, solving disputes and so on. Kind of like a cross between a Lostfinder - which he doesn't call himself - and a reporter.

5) Chris was the last to get "in" and has ended up as a Ghostfighter - something close to the duellist, flashy melee fighter characters he loves so much. He'll be the bodyguard of one of the other PCs.

6) Andy is a freak, and likes freakish characters that are always deeply unusual. He is promoted, for this campaign, to "assistant GM in charge of running Shifted and mutants".

[DaveB]

THE BURGH

I fell in love with one of the gallery images on A|State's website - the one with all the chimneys poking out from the roofs of some district. That District - when I read the corebook - turned out to be BurningFell, which wasn't *quite* what i wanted. There WAS a similar concept to my Burgh in the shape of Fogwarren, but it lacked the whole chimney thing and is frankly too central. Plus, my inner fear of using an established setting locale kicked in.

Find Burningfell on the map. It's near Luminosity Tower, on the northern edge of the Black Canal. Hangside is another "Burgh" which is actually comprised of the bridges between BurningFell and another Burgh named in the corebook (but never described - I assume it will be in Alleys and Avenues) as Sleeping Vale. From it's name, placement, mention in Burningfell's writeup and so forth, I deduce this to be some sort of entertaintment district. If it isn't meant to be, it is now.

So. Follow the second ring of the city down from the Black Canal and Hangside, towards the Serpentine. About halfway, the Victory line train track runs through it.

Welcome to Dogswarren.

Sandwiched between the 2nd Canal to it's west (and, over that Canal, the industrial Burgh of "Hammertongue" which I'll detail when I need to expand a little) and Sleeping Vale to it's North and East, Dogswarren is a little centre of production and sale - Dogswarren food market is supplier to many of the industrial zones in the centre-west of The City.

Situated on a rise in ground level (that forms, along with BurningFell's Fell, the "Vale" of Sleeping Vale), Dogswarren hill is punctuated by the chimney stacks of the mysterious Foundry that lies underneath the Burgh - the residents can hear the machinary late at night, the chimneys that poke up from the ground through the Burgh (and which many homes are built onto as a cheap means of providing heating) spew ash into the air and areostats occassionally land on a landing-pad that sinks into the ground to provide access, but noone actually knows what The Foundry produces, and noone has ever seen the workers. The public wisdom is that the workers live down there and never leave, making it the subject of many an urban myth and cautionary tale - "be good, or the Foundry'll take you".

In response to the ash being dumped all over them from their downstairs neighbour, the good citizens of Dogswarren have, neccesity being the mother of invention, enclosed their Burgh under a variety of roofs, metal sheets and enclosures. The Burgh is completely under cover, it's "streets" are more properly wide tunnels and the roof level is almost never visited - being by now ridiculously polluted.

In the northern edge of the Burgh, as it turns into Sleeping Vale, Dogswarren is all on one level, dominated by a Food Market that sells the consumables and resources Sleeping Vale swallows up daily. To the south of the Burgh, the chimneys become more prevalent, and the Burgh's buildings begin to form termite-mound like piles of homes around the warm metal tubes. Eventually, Dogswarren becomes a multi-storied pile, 3 distinct levels thick in most places, with the Victory Line running through it's middle level and then - by means of a Viaduct over the canal - onwards through Hammertongue. The ground level of this southern expanse is called "The Warren", and gives the Burgh it's name - it's dominated by a vast battery farm for dog-meat, thousands of near-immobile canines crammed into tiny cages and fed by creaking machinery. The middle level - with the twin noise problems of 5000 dogs and the train track and the overpowering smell of dog piss - houses Dogswarren's poorest families. Their slightly more affluent neighbours take up the third level, which is dotted with small shops.

The citizenry long ago realised the oppertunities that being seen as Sleeping Vale's rougher younger sister afforded, and so there is no police to speak of. Instead, the local protection gang is actually on the verge of going respectible - The Doggers, as they're known, even have a semi-uniform. In addition, the Warren is quite heavily guarded - private guards paid for by the microcorps it supplies with food.

The Foundry has one chimney stack that even the residents of the Burgh haven't built all over - The Big One, a wide fat-bellied beast of an ash-tube, that stands like a sentinal next to the aerostat landing platform. Instead, the Doggers use The Big One to dispose of unwanted elements - criminals that refuse to sign up, pederasts, that sort of thing. Down into the Foundry they go. The hard way. :D

[Malcolm Craig]

Firstly, it's great to see what individual GMs are making of the setting. I like your take on the game and its good to be able to see what bits of the setting are attractive, what bits aren't and what bits get changed to fit in with a particular campaign.

Dogswarren sounds an interesting locale. I particularly like the idea of the homes clustered around the chimmneys for warmth. An arresting image. The description of the 'security' for the burgh is also interesting, particularly the method of disposing of the more 'undesireable' elements.

The PCs are an intriguing mix as well, with the antiquities hunter, former macrocorp 'body servant', pseudo-lostfinder, courier and allied Simil. The Simil part is doubly interesting and I'd been keen to see how this actually plays out.

Anyway, thanks for posting this and it'll be great to see how it develops.

Cheers
Malcolm

[DaveB]

Originally posted by Delirium
... not least because I would broadly opt for the same kind of tweaks and adjustments you have instituted.

Interesting decision regarding allowing a simil PC. If you could give a little treatment as to how that works in-game, particularly task resolution, I'll be grateful.

I am 60% through an Adventure! series at present, so it'll be at least some months before I have the time to run an a|state game, but I am in "early-stage mulling over one-shots mode", so I'm keen to hear of your group's experiences.

On Simils...

Stat-wise, I don't see a problem. After asking malcolm (A|state's author)'s opinion on the game's introductary thread on this forum, I'm going with my instinct of "like a human, with skewed stats and skills".

So, a Simil ends up with (subject to change due to the fact that I've not tried this "live" in play yet)

Str 90
Agl 20
Dex 50
Hlt 60
Awr 80
Int 10
Wil 10
Per 2

to represent their big, slow, suprisingly good at fine manipulation (see the corebook fiction), nigh-on-indestructible, aware of almost everything around them but intelligence of a particularly alien dog description.

Skill-wise, it will have Heavy, Vehicular, Launcher, Longarm, Armed Combat and Unarmed combat at 60 each, All of the spoken languages at 70 (though it'll only *speak* Common aloud, I reckon to understand anyone. Crucially, I want it to understand Corp-girl, because translation-via-Simil is a comedy of errors that must be done if only once), Demolition, Navigation, Tracking, Orienteering, Mechanical Systems and Gas systems at 40 each.

It will count as having AV 45 all over it's body except for it's head. Malcolm kindly gave the tidbit that taking a Simil's head off "deactivates" it. (Kind of like a human!), so rather than figure out some fancy mechanic for it's mechanical body I'm just using the normal rules and treating it as armour.


As for in play, as I say, lots of note-passing to give it it's Simil-like "over there" senses ("mortar"), and a player who's willing to never have his character advance, to never really know his character's background, to play what is essentially a big walking robot and to have about a line every half hour. By agreement, If it gets out of hand, or starts to feel like it's becoming a proper character rather than a part of the setting the PCs exploit, I'll kill it.

And every adventure, they'll have to "pay" it again.

[DaveB]

So that's where we're at today. The first session is tommorow night, so I'll do the final character designs and the first session's writeup on monday night.

Actually - Malcolm, I have a question. What IS Sleeping Vale supposed to be like? I'm curious now, and as you're here...

[Malcolm Craig]

Well, here's a wee bit on Sleeping Vale:

A modest, comfortable area, Sleeping Vale is slowly being nibbled away at the edges by some of the less salubrious neighbourhoods on its borders. Sleeping Vale is primarily home to those working in service industries, mainly for the macrocorps. The burgh also has a high proportion of shops and leisure facilities per head of population when compared with the surrounding, poorer areas. It is this concentration of amenities which indirectly causes the residents most concerns. Neighbouring areas such as industrial Burningfell just across the Black Canal are poor in terms of the leisure facilities they offer to the citizenry. Consequently, many residents of the poorer areas come to Sleeping Vale for shopping, drinking or a night out. Needless to say, the good people of Sleeping Vale are often somewhat concerned over the large numbers of ‘undesirables’ (as they see it) flooding into their area."

So it fits in quite nicely with your setting ideas.

Cheers
Malcolm

[DaveB]

That's perfect, thanks. :)

Well, wish me luck everyone. Back on monday!

[Delirium]

DaveB wrote:

The first session is tommorow night, so I'll do the final character designs and the first session's writeup on monday night.

Thanks for the details on the Simil, have a good sesh. Looking forward to reading an account.

[Ryan L.]

I just got sold on a|state. Holy cow this looks awesome and the art gallery is cool too.

I'll go searching for it now.

Ryan

[DaveB]

Originally posted by Ryan L.
I just got sold on a|state. Holy cow this looks awesome and the art gallery is cool too.

I'll go searching for it now.

Ryan

Score!

[DaveB]

Not much time (on my lunch break at work), but...

:D

Really, really good session. Will go over in detail tonight, but the gang are in love with the game.

[Dan Davenport]

Originally posted by DaveB
Str 90
Agl 20
Dex 50
Hlt 60
Awr 80
Int 10
Wil 10
Per 2

to represent their big, slow, suprisingly good at fine manipulation (see the corebook fiction), nigh-on-indestructible, aware of almost everything around them but intelligence of a particularly alien dog description.

This is coming from only loose knowledge of the setting on my part at the moment, but shouldn't something like a Simil have superhuman strength, rather than just maximum human strength?

[Sammael99]

Hey Dave !

Can't wait for your first write-up. I know how much work goes in an actual play, and I thank you for intending to do one for a/state !

[Schatten]

Originally posted by Ryan L.
I just got sold on a|state. Holy cow this looks awesome and the art gallery is cool too.

I'll go searching for it now.

Ryan

Ditto. Which in my case will entail a great deal of searching. How I long for even an unfriendly but at least semi-local gaming store. Oh well I'm moving in a couple weeks so there may be hope there.

Besides it's written by Scots, that makes me grin, like this. :D

[DaveB]

2nd-stage (pre-first session) character design:

The characters by now had names, character sheets, backgrounds.. the whole enchilada. I don't declare a final lock-off on a character background until *after* the first game session, though, as sometimes unexpected things come out of the roleplaying - ya know? And sometimes things that sounded great on paper just don't work live.

But, here they are.

SYNDIL JUSTICARNO

Is the ex-body servant. Whose background actually changed the least (ie, not at all). Probably because andrea was further through char gen when I left off last week than anyone else. The actual escape, etc, I left off until the game session itself, thinking that - hey, it's as good a place to start the campaign as any.

(apologies for these stats. I can't quite decypher what Andrea's done to her character sheet - I can't tell if she'ss applied the modifiers to her skills in the numbers she's written down.)

Origin: Nomenclature (although she isn't actually, it gave the right skillset and seemed about the right thing)
Upbringing: Sheltered Life
AGL 60, DEX 40, HLT 40, STR 40, AWR 50, INT 50, PER 70, WILL 50
Act 60, Diplomacy 60, History 12, Politics 24, Economics 14, First Aid 50, Musical Instrument 5, Psychology 50, Sociology 50, Thrown Weapons 40 (Knife 10), Running 30, Hide 30, Pharmacology 40, Sign Language (new skill I added by popular demand, cause, well - hey) 50, Speak Common 90, Read Common 45, Speak Culture 30, Read Culture 25
ADV: Minor Contact, "Perceptive" mental trait, "Charming" mental trait, "Stunning" physical trait.
DISADV: Moderate Enemy, Nightmares, Major Physical Disadvantage (mute)
BIOMODS: Disease defience, Anti Toxin, Night Eyes


ALEXIS LOCKE

Who is the "courier" character. Alexis has been fleshed out quite a bit - she's the oldest female character. Daughter of two mechanics and a born explorer, she's spent the last 15 years running errands for people, gradually working her way up in importance (and monies), until now - the proud owner of a spare-parts-built Powerbik - she's a respected message-carier. Only trouble is, she's now at the level where she's starting to make enemies, and more and more burghs are unsafe for her after she gets into "incidents" with local gangs, incidents which have lost her an eye and with it most of her self-confidence, image-wise. She's retreated into her shell, and has become quite unsociable.

Origin: Lower middle class
Upbringing: Independently minded
AGL 65, DEX 45, HLT 50, STR 50, AWR 50, INT 60, PER 25, WILL 30
Pistol 55, Armed Combat 57 (knife 10), Unarmed combat 57 (punch 10), Speak Common 96, Read Common 71, Speak Commerce 46, Read Commerce 36, mechanics 56, Negotiation 33, Persuasion 53 (intimidation 15), Ground Vehicles 55 (powerbike 15), Criminal Culture 35, Navigation 75, Engineering 36
ADV: 2 minor contacts, mental adv: sense of direction. moderate Wealth
DIS: Moderate Enemy, Minor Enemy (both various gangs), Mental disadvs: Bad Sleper, Impatient. Physical disadv: One eye.

CONRAD HONEST

Is the rather improbable name of the party Ghostfighter, who long ago realised that while being a Ghostfighter is exciting, honourable and what he wants to do, it isn't exacly lucrative in the shallow end of the market, especially once one cleared the magic age of 35 and could no longer be considered a young man. So he went Corp. Using contacts gleaned from his upbringing (his family are among the hundreds of writers that crank out the trashy scripts for Sideband's TV shows), he proposed and succeeded in selling the televisual rights to his life story to sideband. And now, for only 4 schillings a week subscription to the channel it's on, the inhabitants of the city can thrill to the exciting adventures of Conrad Honest - a trashed-up,sexed-up exaggeration of his early career, with his younger self being played by a far more handsome actor. This has backfired ever-so-slightly, in that everyone who learns his name now thinks that he has named himself after the TV show for effect.

origin: low corporate
upbringing: dangerous

AGL 55, DEX 20, HLT 45, STR 50, AWR 40, INT 40, PER 40, WILL 45
Mech. Computing 20, Blacksmith 50, Persuasion 20, Armed Combat 60 (sword 30), Unarmed Combat 60, Speak Common 60 Read Common 40, Speak Commerce 20, Read Commerce 20, Thrown Weapon 50 (Knives 24), History 40, Shift Studies 14, Climbing 20, Running 20, Swimming 25, Negotiation 20, Bribery 20, hide 34, Shadow 30, Sneak 30
ADV Major Fame (name only), Pain tolerance, mental adv: Patience, Moderate wealth
DISADV Moderate enemy, minor fear of commitment, Moderate cruelty

JACQUELINE "JACQUE" SWIFT

Is our Antiquities Hunter. Jacque (pronounced "jack"), is slightly cracked, slightly addicted to Edge (an addiction that is growing, and hooking her onto harder stuff), moderately eccentric and known throughout Dogswarren as a finder of rare antiquities. She's also, on the quiet, the sponsor of Dogswarren's orphanage. Which explains where all her money goes - Jacque is perpetually broke, and takes on her commissions as a means of survival rather than out of any academic interest.

Origin: Dispossessed
Upbringing: Transient
AGL 60, DEX 60, HLT 40, STR 35, AWR 60, INT 60, PER 60, WILL 40
Archaeology 66, History 56, Folklore 58, Investigation 56, Foraging 56, Armed Combat 46, Unarmed Combat 46, Fast-talk 36, Sneak 36, First-Aid 36, Negotiation 36, Persuasion 36, Speak Common 96, Read Common 66, Sign Lang 26
ADV moderate contact, moderate Fame, Eidetic Memory, Amidex
DISADV minor Enemy, mod Physchosis Mod Addict (edge), minor Poverty

JEREMY "JEMMY" THACKERY

Jemmy is the Burgh of Dogswarren's closest equivalent to a lostfinder. He's albino, or nearly so, short, is never without a roll-up in his mouth, knows everyone in the Burgh and their business as a matter of course and is only 18. The artful dodger transposed into the City, slowly but steadily growing a consience. It started with the Doggers realising that, as Jemmy was small and excellent at climbing around those hard-to-reach vantage points, not to mention being naturally curious and often to be found snooping on conversations, he made a perfect information-gatherer. From there he branched out into primitive photography as a means of gathering "info". As time wears on, the number of times he recieves favours instead of money are steadily increasing, his civic pride in "his" burgh is growing and he becomes more and more a proper Lostfinder.

origin: Dispossessed
Upbringing: Minority Group
AGL 60, DEX 50, HLT 40, STR 30, AWR 70, INT 55, PER 65, WILL 50
Pistol 30, Sneak 60, Folklore 30, Foraging 20, Fast Talk 50, Diplomacy 30, Running 30, Hide 50, Climbing 50, Running 50, Photography 30, Criminal Culture 30, Lockpick 30, Shadow 30, Speak Common 82, Speak Commerce 30
ADV: 3 Minor Contacts, 2 Major Contacts, minor Fame, Charming, editic Memory, Perceptive, Patient, balance, Major Wealth
DIS: infamous, Arrogance, disfigured, Sunlight allergy

[DaveB]

THE FIRST SESSION (drumroll, please)

Precredits Sequence:

In the air-conditioned, brightly-lit depths of Luminosity Tower, Syndil walks in on her boss in the middle of a phone conversation. He abruptly cuts off the connection and quickly closes all his files. We are given the impression that this is not the first time. Syndil goes into another room while he phones whoever it is back, and contemplates the really quite ugly piece of corportate art he has in his bedroom.

Later (we can tell it's later, see, 'cause the lights are dimmed), Syndil wakes up to find him gone. Pushing open the door to the main room, she finds him - quite dead, blood pooling into the carpet, with 4 Brigade of Light troopers pointing weapons at the corpse. They quickly swap to pointing them at her. She runs back into the room and briefly has time to consider that there aren't any other exits before they kick the door in and drag her off.

Actual session:

In the murky, oil-lit depths of Dogswarren lies the Piper tavern (the badly-painted sign shows a man leading a herd of Scurts with a flute), the establishment of Silas Hatchett and the local of Alexis, Conrad, Jacque and Jemmy. Alexis has just returned from a big trip (almost two whole days) and is unwinding. Jacque is freshly destitute once again and has been made an offer of a job. Conrad has been offered pay for going along with Jacque as security. Jemmy is lurking, considering both the tales he's been hearing of strangers wandering through town from the train station up to Sleeping Vale in the north, and the disappearance of Honest Pete, the town bookie, after he made it unexpectedly big on Cripplecut down at the Nose.

In the very far distance, a rocket launches from Luminosity Tower. It arcs up into the dawn light, hits the upper boundary of the City and vanishes in a flash of light. Given the smog, and the fact that Dogswarren is entirely indoors, none of our characters notice.

Someone notices, though.

A lone Simil is standing out on the roof of Dogswarren, quite unconcerned by the ash raining down onto it. It is quite intent on staring out into the distance - in the direction of the Tower - and doesn't even turn around when the small aerostat lands behind it. A Man in a Suit (tm) and the pilot get out, and between them manhandle out the unconcious body of Syndil. The MiaS attracts the Simil's attention by shouting at it, and asks it if it knows who Alexis Locke is. It does. He then hires it to take the girl to Locke, and "protect her until the end of your contract". The Simil demands a finger as payment. The pilot protests to his boss that he needs all of his to fly the aerostat, and the MiaS - grimacing - cuts his own index finger off with a knife and gives it to the Simil. They all go their seperate directions.

Downstairs, a party is in full swing - Ethel, the present barmaid of the Piper, is getting married and moving to Sleeping Vale. In amongst muttered coments about buns in ovens, there is much revelry as the hearty menfolk try to get one last end away with her - the mood only being punctured by Silas' rotten mood at having to actually tend the bar himself. In all of this, Conrad is having the Job explained to him by Jacqueline, with jemmy listening intently from not far away. Her employer is after a music box - of great sentimental value, apparantly - that was stolen and traded and traded again and stolen again and so forth. Upshot is, it is presently reckoned to be (or says her employer) within a sub-basement of a factory in Burningfell. Which is not so far away from Dogswarren, as luck would have it. The money isn't great, but it's better than starvation.

At which point the Simil, holding Syndil in it's arms, walks through the door. Literally *through* the door.

This causes some panic, and Ethel's party takes a turn for the worse.

(cont)

[Delirium]

Thanks DaveB - excellent. Altogether interesting.

I'll be saving this thread; the small details like the Piper Tavern are rad.

Out of interest - do you think the A|State PC creation dynamic has 'worked', in the sense that it facilitated the creation of PCs who 'fit' your sense of where you want to take the game, or was the gritty tone of PC creation primarily informed by your own conversatios with the players or their familiarity with the setting?

[DaveB]

The Simil marches up to Alexis' table and unceremoniously - though still gently - puts Syndil down on it.

Many of the partygoers leave at speed, Ethel among them.

Alexis (with Jacques "helpfully" pitching in in the background) manages to tease out of the Simil that it is under contract, and is supposed to guard. They infer that it means it's meant to guard the still-unconcious girl. Who Alexis makes sure isn't dead, and tries to bring round. Syndil wakes up, sees Alexis and the Simil and - shrieking soundlessly - faints.

Silas offers the use of the back room, and Alexis moves Syndil before trying again. The Simil crunches along behind them and helpfully blocks the door while they're in there. Out back in the bar, Jemmy is spotted by one of the many who lost big to Pete before his disappearance. They want Pete - who they think fixed the game and did a runner - and want Jemmy to find him for them. They're willing to all chip in to pay.

Syndil comes around again and panics again. Alexis manages to get it across that she's safe, and Syndil soundlessly mouths questions at Alexis and Silas. Out in the bar, the remaining revellers start to take from the bar by themselves until Jacques shames them. A pair of Doggers enter, having heard the reports from the fleeing majority of bar-goers of a Shifted attack. Conrad manages to calm *them* down.

In the back room, Syndil and Alexis have resorted to the written word as a means of communication, while Silas frets. The basics of Syndil's background are gone over, and the consensus between the barman and the courier is "you're screwed".

back in the now-cleared bar, the entire gang (as the only ones left) consider the mystery woman's predicament. The prevailing attitude is that they're ok with helping as long as it doesn't get in the way of anything they'e doing - Jacques and Conrad, for instance, are still off to Burningfell despite Jacques figuring out that Syndil can "speak" with hand-signs. And can actually talk, it's just that they can't hear her. Noting that her clothes make her stand out like a sore thumb, Silas donates what remains in the building of Ethel's wardrobe. He also offers her the back room, if she fancies being a barmaid. because he's lacking one, see. The others tell him where to stick it.

All split off on their individual vectors - Syndil will go with Alexis (and the Simil, they presume, will go with them whether they like it or not), while the others do their business for the day. Once everyone has calmed down a bit and Syndil has had a chance to get grounded, *then* they'll decide what to do.

Jacques and Conrad start out on their expedition - down to Undertrain Square, Dogswarren's tiny quayside, where they hire a skiff-pilot named Rodriguez to take them to Burningfell the quick way. It may only be 12 miles away, but Jacques doesn't fancy walking through Hangside when the Circular Canal will do just as well.

Jemmy sets off on his nosing around. First to The Nose - an apartment building built around a tiny quadrangle of yellowing grass that is used for Fight Clubs. There he meets Toby, one of those who *won* on the match, who informs him that Pete was seen leaving with Elias, a respected ex-Cripplecut champion who still lives locally. Off to Elias' he goes, but not before Toby asks him if he's interested in a spot of public justice - a Scrape dealer has moved into the Nose, and he is shortly to be forcibly run out of town. Jemmy agrees to rustle up an angry mob and heads off to Long Street, where Elias lives.

Alexis and Syndil retreat to Alexis' tiny apartment (with it's much larger garage), where Alexis helplessly tries to make small talk (giving up after three minutes), the Simil looms in the background and Syndil tries not to touch anything.

[DaveB]

The Music-Box Hunters reach the Black Canal locks, and - once through the queue of water-traffic trying to get onto or off the hideously polluted Western Canal of the City - pull up at Burningfell Dock. Taking the cablecar (and nearly being crushed by the shift-change) they reach the factory, which is still in use. Deciding to go for a nose around, they get over the wall and try to find the outbuilding Jacques reckons the subbasement is beneath. Sneaking successfully from cover to cover (bar a minor incident where Conrad trips over) they get to the outbuilding and get inside, finding the trapdoor they're after and - considering the rotten wooden ladder inside - decide to use a rope.

jemmy is chatting with Elias - a crusty old ex-gladiator who walks with a cane due to the extensive damage to his ligaments over the years. He *was* with Pete last night, but left him at the Tassele Bar in Sleeping Vale - Pete recieved an invitation to some kind of private club called "The Cellar", or something like that, earlier in their two-man bar crawl in celebration of Pete's good fortune, and Elias isn't as young as he used to be; he had reached his limit and didn't begrudge Pete ditching him. The man who gave Pete the invitation wore a ong rubberdised black coat, liek a Fulgurator's uniform - the description of the mysterious strangers Jemmy has been hearing about for a while now. Elias also reckons that the fight wasn't fixed, in his professional opinion.

Alexis and Syndil have tried and discarded Alexis' barely-used TV as a means of occupying their time, and Alexis has started to try to learn the finger-alphabet as a means of communicating with her unintended house-guest. Alexis is paid a vsit by the Doggers, who kindly inform her that her Protection has gone up as a result of having "The Woman That Fell From The Sky" living with her. And that anything the Simil breaks in the Burgh is coming out of her. Fun.

Back in burningfell, Jacques and Conrad make their way into the Factory steam-tunnels, and from there find a staircase. *something* is coming up the stairs, though, carryign a light source. Tey both hide, and as the hideous misshapen shadow muttering to itself in barely-understandable Common about how "they" don't listen and how there's not supposed to be anyone down there, they jump...

... the janitor. Who cracked long ago and is now positivly shattered. They let the poor wretch run off, and head the way he came from, emerging into the subbasement. As Jacques loots anything she can carry - including the music box - Conrad notes worridly that the place looks in use - the junk is al cleared away into a corner, and someone has painted a big odd symbol on the wall. Having got what they came for, they head back the way they came. Only to run into the Janitor. And the guards he fetched. See what being nice gets you?

Jemmy is retracing Pete and Elias' barcrawl through Sleeping Vale, hitting brickwall after brickwall as the natives unite in their hostility towards the industrial scum like him that muck up their streets. He does, however, run into one of the Men in Coats, who stonewalls him until he goes away. A helpful off-duty stripper, however, informs him that the MiC offered pete an invitation to the private club, and that she knows about it by reputation - is a men-only club that meets underneath a house somewhere in the Burgh. Jemmy tips her handsomely and returns to Dogswarren, fuming - he was okay when it seemed like he was hunting down a crooked bookie for his mates, but now it seems that not only was the bookie not crooked, but he was kidnapped by persons from Outside The Burgh. Jemmy's Civic Duty instinct is activated, and he is spurred on in his quest.

The girls, meanwhile, have gone shopping, as Alexis has no food and no clothes that would fit Syndil - to the Dogswarren Market! Whilst buying, someone tries to pick Alexis' pocket. The Simil - who has plodded along behind the ladies all day - casually reaches out and snaps the would-be-thief's arm. When the Doggers descend upon the scene, they find out what the man was trying to do, establish that he isn't a member of their exclusive crime club and break his other arm.

From that bit of violence to another bit of violence, as Jacques climbs the rope while Conrad does what he does best. Leaving the guards and the janitor in a bleeding heap (the Janitor dying a few minutes later, as it happens) A spot of rope climbing, a bit of wall shimmying and a bit of flat-out running later, and they're home free, speeding along towards the 2nd Circular South Lock on Rodriguez' skiff.

All meet up back at the Piper, where Syndil recieves her very first bowl of Dog Stew. Mmmm. Dog. Jemmy relates his findings, and makes a public announcement - he will waive the fee for finding Pete if all Pete's creditees will take part in the lynching of the drug-dealer that evening. Silas tries to get Syndil to take up the offer of employment again, and gets shot down by Alexis again. Conrad shres the tale of the mysterious subbasement, and sketching the symbol on the wall, Syndil excitedly gestures. Eventually, they calm her down enough to spell it out to Alexis and jacques - the symbol on the basement wall is the same symbol her employer/owner had in his bedroom back in the Tower.

Hmmm.

(end of session one)

[DaveB]

RANDOM GUBBINS

quotes

"Alexis, dear, why are Shifted bringing you unconscious young ladies?" - Jacques

"Do you know how to pick a lock?" - Conrad. Notable only for Jacques' wordless reply, in which she produced a hefty pair of bolt-cutters. And grinned.

"It's Cults, I tell you" - Jemmy

"Told you it was Cults" - Jemmy, right at the end.

bits n pieces

Every time a train goes through Dogswarren, there's a precise 5 second (IC and OOC) pause before all the dogs in the kennels start howling. To the point that the native characters provide a verbal countdown. "Five.. four..three...two..."

Alexis noted, but didn't quite "get", that the Simil acted to protect her, not Syndil. And that while it's followed Syndil everywhere, it could concievably have been following *her* everywhere.

Jacques and Conrad passed a Hirplakker industrial area on their way to burningfell, and a dock on the edgeward side of the canal that had Simils working as porters

The Factory was the Happy Dog Packaging Factory from the corebook.

Jemmy has also heard that kids are playing chicken with the train-track - he thinks they might have noticed the Men In Coats arriving.

DEVELOPMENT, THE CAMPAIGN & PLAYER IMPRESSIONS

Andrea *is* intending to have Syndil take the job at the Piper, eventually.

The session, including his character's rising ire at those damned *outsiders*, convinced Renaud that Lostfinding is the way to go, but in the way of a development of his character into one rather than rewriting him to already be one. If that makes sense.

Andy professes much satisfaction at the Simil, despite having a line (I figured it out) every 37 minutes. Weird.

The general impression of A|State that the gang have come away with is "community" - the Burgh has turned out to be like a tribe, which is free to do what it likes to it's own members but woe betide anyone else that tries anything. Renaud noticed himself doing two things - Jemmy got really involved when it transpired that a fellow Dosgwarrener was in trouble ratehr than being the villain, and the plan for the lynching was - in Jemmy's words "run him out of the Burgh. <i>he only has 60 yards or so to go before he's someone else's problem</i>, so he should make it alive." (emphasis mine). Andrea also felt it - the reaction to Syndil dropping (literally) in on them from the good citizens was "what can you do to make yourself useful?" and she looks forward to playing out Syndil becoming part of the extended family that is the Burgh. Even the Doggers, in play, start to look like a Police Force that is trying to call themselves a gang rather than the other way around - as though they think they're scarier as a gang. But they're not taxes, oh no. It's protection. Honest. Dogswarren versus the City. And also Sleeping Vale versus the City. And, one presumes, Hammertongue versus the City.

The corebook has definite shades of this sort of thing, but it's interesting that it's the facet of A|State that gets amplified by my GM style. And gratifying - I have *always* wanted to run a "community leader" game, something which has led to disasterous experiements in Blue Planet and Mage - causing the collapse of both campaigns, incidentally - yet something about A|State makes it come naturally.

Anyway, for those keeping score...

DOGSWARREN FEATURED LOCATIONS

The Nose

On Dogswarren's north-west tip, right on the Canal, the Nose is a great concrete apartment complex that houses some 50 families in thee blocks arranged into a U-shape, the open end being the waterfront and the central area made up of yellowing, sickly grass. The Nose is covered to avoid the ash-fall from the Foundry's chimneys, though the grass stil gets a tiny amount of sunlight from the open fourth wall. This area - the closest the under cover burgh gets to a park - is the staging area for local Cripplecut matches.

The Market
A large rectangular construction built on the flat roofs of several smaller buildings, The Market makes up the part of Dogswarren outsiders visit the most, if at all - the central hall (packed with stalls) is ringed by a "street" (tunnel) called The Quadrangle, which is lined with the most successful shops in the Burgh. The stench of Dog-meat is ever-present, and permeates everything, tinged in the south-west corner by the acrid smoke from The Big One - which is right next to that part of the building.

The Piper Tavern
A modest bar on the third level of Dogswarren's southern termite-pile expanse, the Piper is low-ceilinged, stinks of the oil lamps used to light it and the home-brewed-in-metal-tubs drink on sale. At busy times, a barrel-organ is used to provide musical accompniment to drinking songs. There are two tiny back rooms and a large storage room, other than the bar.

Undertrain Square
The Victory line explodes out from Dogswarren's great heap of masonry and concrete on it's middle level, sailing over the canal and into Hammertongue by means of the Hammertongue Viaduct - a red-brick construction of vaulted arches. By cunning design, the area where the viaduct's supports meet the water is Dogswarren's tiny quayside - the Viaduct shelters the skiffs and small boats from the ash-fall.

[DaveB]

Out of interest - do you think the A|State PC creation dynamic has 'worked', in the sense that it facilitated the creation of PCs who 'fit' your sense of where you want to take the game, or was the gritty tone of PC creation primarily informed by your own conversatios with the players or their familiarity with the setting?

Character Generation was an unusually chaotic process, actually - we were all learning it as we went along and I have the horrible feeling that some of those characters don't add up exactly. meh. Mistakes happen. I fail to care.

My gang are old hands - this is the third rpg with this exact gaming group (Everway and a game of my own design being the other two), and individual players and me go much further back. We've learnt how to design a pc group that compliments one another, but leaves niches for individual characters. Through long, hard, bloody experience.

As for the grittiness, I think that in Syndil, Jemmy and Conrad's cases it was mostly down to the setting material (which includes both the corebook and my raving about the game), while in the other character's cases it comes from the mechanics first. But everyone is a mixture, ya know?

Speaking of A|State's mechanics, I had nightmares about them before play, I *hate* game mechanics, and rely on my players to remember things like complicated combat rules. I was very pleasantly surprised at how fluid the whole thing is. A bitch to stat things beforehand, but in play it moves like a dream and combat is over in minutes if not seconds. I will be taking the time to add to the game's selection of stock NPCs for my own use.

[Malcolm Craig]

Well, firstly Dave, thanks for taking the time to write up such an extensive set of actual play notes. Secondly: bravo!

It's absolutely fascinating to see what elements of the setting actually appeal to GMs and players, rather than what I think will appeal to GMs and players. The use of the Simil, the ex-macrocorp character, the community of Dogswarren (which is great, by the way) and quite a number of other bits and pieces.

scribbles frantic notes
Hmmm...must starting running another campaign of my own.....
scribbles more frantic notes
Must come up with an idea....
lightbulb appears above head
Eureka!

Cheers
Malcolm

[Ryan L.]

Fantastic actual play Dave. I spent a good 30 minutes reading it at work. I had to copy it all to a word document first and send it to my work email, but it was worth it. I ordered my copy of a|state about two hours ago. I can't wait to have a real clue about what you speak of.

Please do more actualy plays as your group plays all this out.

Ryan

[DaveB]

SESSION 2

After carefully considering the news that there's a pan-city network up to No Good (tm), the gang collectively decide that there's nothing they can do about it and what they need right now is sleep. (see the locations and gubbins bit in a few post's time for their various homes) - Alexis considers, and offers Syndil the use of her apartment.

Syndil has a nightmare. Waking up to the Simil looming over her doesn't help. Fortunately, only the Dogs can hear her.

The appointed time for the lynching comes around, and Jemmy makes his way to Trickle Cavern to await his horde of "concerned citizens". In ones and twos, they arrive, the other characters bringing up the rear. Jemmy takes a photograph of the 19-strong (+1 Simil) group for posterity, and makes sure that everyone knows the drill - Owen (the alleged Scrape Dealer) is not to be killed, but instead run out of the Burgh. Lucky for him he lives 60 yards from the Sleeping Vale line.

The throng make their not-so-very-quiet way up the street to The Nose, and reach Owen's door. When Alexis' attempt to do this peacefully by calling for Owen to come out quietly meets with no response, Syndil orders the Simil to remove the door to Owen's apartment from it's frame, which the Shifted does. The crowd pour into Owen's utter tip of an apartment - the man appears to have eaten Dog and Troot-Chips from the local chippie every day for months, and has never thrown any of the greasy paper away.

The lights are out of gas, Scurts dart across the floor from the noise and - from the tiny and reeking kitchen - there is the distinct sound of a window breaking. Owen is trying to climb out the back of his flat, and appears to have considered neither the fact that he lives on the third floor, nor that his escape route consists of a twenty-foot drop right into the Circular Canal, nor indeed that his bulk has no chance of getting through the tiny gap. He is grabbed and carried back into the living room.

Between wheazes and paniccing, Owen protests his innocence - crucially before anyone accuses him of anything, but again when they demand to know where the scrape is. Syndil notices he's specifically *not* looking at a particular part of the room and - soon giving up trying to attract anyone's attention, starts prodding around there. Jaques, being somewhat more experienced in looking for hidden things, goes to help and between them they turn up a small bag of waxy blue pills hidden down the very distressed sofa.

At the sight of it, one of the mob gets overexcited and strikes Owen in the paunch with a crowbar. Another gives him a swift kick in the face while he's doubled up wheezing and crying on the floor, which knocks him right out.

Alexis and three likely lads carry Owen down the street and unceremoniously dump him on the Sleeping Vale side of the border. The characters then return to check the flat, which is busily being looted for all it's worth by Owen's neighbours, all of whom had the good sense to stay in their hovels and keep their mouths shut during the attack.

Jemmy considers carefully, and throws the bag of pills into the Canal.

And that's the end of that.

No one really feels like sleeping now, so all troop to Conrad's, where Jacques "ooh"s at his Dingin-powered answerphone and the characters get steadily drunk in victory. The conversation, surrounded as they are by trophies of Conrad's career, turns to the TV show, and Conrad manages to find a repeat of an old episode on one of the more obscure Sideband channels. It features the heavily-distorted "Conrad" fighting heavily distorted Brigade of Light troopers, which doesn't make Syndil feel any better about sleeping.

Alexis agrees to take the music box to Jacques' employer (who Jacques has never actually met in person). After finding out he lives in Fogwarren, and is therefore easier to get to via the train (a mere four stations away) than the roads or canals, she asks Syndil if she wants to come along. Anything to distract her from her situation sounds good to Syndil, so Jacques agrees to drop the merchandise and expenses claim off in the morning. Eventually, the party disperses, in the pre-dawn.

In the morning, Silas opens the Piper (the door the Simil smashed in last session now replaced with the door from Owen's flat) to find Jemmy has been sitting in the tunnel outside all night. Jemmy tells Silas what he found out about Petie's disappearance, and gladly takes breakfast before heading off to The Jump, in the hope of gaining intelligence about the mysterious night-time visitors.

The Jump is a particularly notorious tunnel on Dogswarren's middle level, that is cut right through by the train track. Though a footbridge has been provided by the Dogswarren Burgess so that people can cross safely, it's still effectivly a train platform that no trains ever stop at. It's called The Jump for the pasttime of Dogswarren's bored, dispossessed children - they play chicken with the trains, swinging across the train track on a rope swing as trains approach for dares. Complex Graffiti notes both particularly narrow escapes (much prestige) and remembers those that didn't quite get out of the way in time.

Jemmy learns that yes, the kids *did* see the Men in Coats the other night, and that said MiC were carrying a large metal case. Umming over this, he decides to head north into Sleeping Vale, to scout out the address the woman gave him yesterday.

Conrad is wandering by the Piper, where a worried-looking Silas hails him - Luther, the head of the Doggers, is looking for Jemmy. Concerning the last night's adventure. Conrad finds out which way Jemmy went, and hurries to the Jump, learning (in amongst the abuse from the guttersnipes) that Jemmy went up towards the Market.

Jacques, meanwhile, has dropped the goods off and gone to settle some paperwork, while Alexis and Syndil (with IT in tow) experience the joy of the train system. Especially as the Transit Militiaman insists that they ride freight - at full price - if they want to bring the mechanical monster. Still, it's less crowded than the passenger carriages.

Conrad catches up with Jemmy (who isn't very big, after all, and nowhere near as fit as the Ghostfighter) and decides to go with the lad. They head up to the address - a huge (to them) house in a more residential area of the Vale. Lurking around, they see a gentleman enter the building and manage to overhear both the knock-code and the password. They also get a good look at the Simil that's guarding the door on the inside.

Alexis and Syndil reach the base of the towerblock in Fogwarren that mr. Janus Voronetz (the buyer) lives at the top of. They all get into the elevator, trying to ignore the smell of urine, but the Simil tips it's maximum weight. They all get out again, Syndil offers to stay below and Alexis makes to use the elevator again - but the Simil reaches out and stops her. Faced by the Simil's implacable and inexplicable refusal to allow the two women to split up, they all reluctantly face the 11 flights of stairs.

Conrad and Jemmy have discounted frontal assault or breaking and entering, and have decided to go for "act as if you own the place". They stroll up to the front door, give the correct codes and walk on in. The butler does not suprised that they are new, and just leads them downstairs, through a celler (dominated by *that* symbol again) and into a private bar, inhabited only by a bartender and an aged man constantly inhaling some noxious compound. They manage to get out of the drug abuser that petie is just down through the door over yonder, and go to have a look. Through the door over yonder is a short corridor lined on one side with jail cells. In one of which is Petie's very dead body.

Jemmy - feeling the icy grip of rage - examines the body, finding broken fingernails and bruises indicating Petie put up a fight, a blunt wound to the head and a needle-mark on the arm. Petie has overdosed. And it looks like he was made to.

Over in Fogwarren, the girls drop off the box (which to no-one's suprise turns out to have something hidden inside) and get the money for Conrad, Alexis and Jacques. Then they scarper, the obviously criminally-connected Mr Voronetz promising to remember Alexis in the future. Getting off the train on the way back, they note a Fulgurator hosing down the front of the engine - one of the kids was just a little too slow.

They head to the pub, meeting Jacques to hand over the spoils, and are told by Silas that the Doggers are *still* looking for Jemmy, and getting increasingly irate. The women (plus Simil) head off to try to find the menfolk.

Back in Sleeping Vale, Conrad and Jemmy are trying to make a fast getaway, but find rather a lot of people packed into the celler between them and the stairs. The men seem quite unconcerned with their presence, but demand that they participate in the club they have just joined. It's a duelling club, for those bored of Cripplecut. Winner takes everything the loser has. Conrad volunteers to go into the ring - knowing full well that Jemmy wouldn't survive - and faces up to a brash young thing, emerging victorious. Satisified now that the duo have been "blooded", the club members simply let them go. They even give them the prize money.

Conrad and Jemmy walk, not run, back to Dosgwarren, meeting the belated rescue party on the way. Jemmy finally learns that Luther is looking for him, and goes to face the music, insisting he doesn't need anyone to go with him. The others briefly stop at the home for disadvantaged children Jacques funds (so she can give them the funds), learning that the girl that didn't make it at the Jump was one of her charges. Jacques angrily gives the survivors a good talking to.

Luther is calmly annoyed - Owen was no Scrape dealer that he was aware of, and paid more than his fair share of protection money. It just doesn't do to have unsanctioned beatings going on. The Dogger threatens to make Alexis pay the next few month's of Owen's projected protection as per his threat the day before about "anything the Simil damages", but Jemmy throws the fact that he saved Owen's life in Luther's face - to Jemmy's argument, if he hadn't been there the inhabitants of the Nose would have just killed the man. At least this way he's alive. Luther laughs, tells Jemmy he has balls, and tells him to get out while he still has them. Jemmy legs it.

All once again spend the evening down the pub - Alexis and Syndil figure out (with much one-word answers from the Simil and a bit of guesswork) that it is considering itself hired to protect both of them. Alexis has a horrible realisation of what this means for her job, making Syndil feel even more guilty about imposing on her. To cap it all, Silas finally plucks up the courage to point out that their bodyguard is scaring the crap out the other customers, and that this cannot go on.

All go back to their relevant homes, soberly reflecting on the events of the day. Syndil digs through her few possessions and retrieves what she palmed right at the start of the session - one of Owen's Blue Pills. As she contemplates it, we END. Till next time.

[DaveB]

QUOTES

(Syndil makes a stabbing gesture while looking at Jemmy - describing what she thinks the Doggers will do to him)
Simil: "Understood"
(Syndil makes frantic "no!" gestures. The Simil stops moving toward Jemmy)
Conrad: "Syndil! From now on, no more hand signals!"
(Syndil buries her head in her hands and considers the unfairness of life)

Jemmy : "Doors, ya know, they're becoming unfashionable" (after the Simil breaks it's third one)

Jacques : "I could afford to live better, but I'm tight" (explaining why her flat isn't big enough for all of them)

Jemmy : "Ah, he's a big softie at heart" (re: Luther)

Jacques : "Ok, if it were possible, it wouldn't be on Television" (when Syndil complains that the porn is unrealistic)

Alexis : "They're a pair, it's like buy one, get one free" (re: both of her house guests)

Jemmy : "Sure, you can take on a Simil, right? You're a *hero*" (said to Conrad outside the fight club, with a heavy quirk of the eyebrow)

FEATURED LOCATIONS

The Jump - The Jump is a particularly notorious tunnel on Dogswarren's middle level, that is cut right through by the train track. Though a footbridge has been provided by the Dogswarren Burgess so that people can cross safely, it's still effectivly a train platform that no trains ever stop at. It's called The Jump for the pasttime of Dogswarren's bored, dispossessed children - they play chicken with the trains, swinging across the train track on a rope swing as trains approach for dares. Complex Graffiti notes both particularly narrow escapes (much prestige) and remembers those that didn't quite get out of the way in time.

The characters' homes were explored this time around;

JACQUES lives in a home which appears obsessivly neat but is actually the result of her never actually being there except to sleep. It's piled high with cases of oddments she's acquirred, and she uses her Sideband TV as a coffee-table. She has a bad case of damp in her bedroom, the walls of which face onto a major water pipe and grow various funghi like nobody's business.

ALEXIS' home was seen briefly last time - it's a ground-level flat attached to a garage and machine shop as big as it is. At the moment, Syndil has the tiny, single bed, the Simil looms in the door between that and the main room and Alexis has the sofa, which is so old it collapses beneath you when you sit on it. Alexis actually has quite a music collection, on vinel.

CONRAD's apartment is far larger than the others, and reflects his status with Sideband - he has the only colour TV in the group, and the only telephone. His phone has a highly elaborate answering machine, consisting of a wax cylinder-recording of a plummy actor asking for the caller's number attached to a Dingin which records the number the caller enters. It takes up an entire wall of his living room and he's very proud of it.

JEMMY lives in one of the Chimney-shanties, a Foundry Chimney that has become disused for whatever reason (as noone ever visits the foundry, noone knows - maybe it'll start up again one day and kill all the people living in it without warning) and had "floors" added by way of metal sheeting. His "home" is a cramped section of pipe, accessed by a crawlspace, and is dominated by his photography equipment and a lonely hammock. He tries to spend as little time as possible there.

RANDOM GUBBINS

* Syndil starts to ask Silas about the possibility of a job, but gets interrupted.

* The session ended before I had the chance to introduce the Burgess of Dogswarren (though he got mentioned) - Myron Marchmont will turn up next time, hopefully.

* The girl that got squashed was the one who told Jemmy about the Men in Coats. The coats being the ones that the Guild train-drivers wear. Hmm.

* Them pills aint Scrape.

RULES TYPE THINGS

* After some reconsideration, we're rebuilding the IP system to give points for the amount of sacrifice a character is willing to make in persuit of hope, not the amount of hope their actions cause.

* My, but combat in this game is QUICK. And very, very brutal. In our experience so far, melee fights are a question of "who hits first" - the combatants parry one another for about 6 combat rounds, then one of them invariably gets lucky. If that doesn't kill the opponent right out, the penalties will mean they almost always fail in the next round, and then they *will* die. Or at best be left a bleeding heap.

[Malcolm Craig]

They are getting themselves right into a whole mess of stuff there, aren't they!

Good stuff as usual, great to see how things are progressing. I like the 'Simil-as-mobile-battering-ram' theme and the dingin powered answerphone. I've got visions of a Dickensian Jim Rockford at work! The Jump is a nice, macabre little feature.

After some reconsideration, we're rebuilding the IP system to give points for the amount of sacrifice a character is willing to make in persuit of hope, not the amount of hope their actions cause.

That's a fair assumption and one that will probably work rather well given the set-up that you have going on in your campaign. Will be good to hear how this works out for you.

Cheers
Malcolm

[Syndil04]

Hi,
Syndil here

*flirtatious smile*

One of the worst things about being mute is that people assume that you're deaf, blind and stupid as well. On the other hand they tend not to watch what they're saying either which is always nice.
*rests her chin on her hands*

So I'm stuck here in this shit-hole of a city with a creature from a nightmare following my every move, fortunately for me I've fallen on my feet and been found by a group of hard bitten mercenaries with heart of gold.
So first there's Alexis, she's got a few rough edges but is taking a lot of shit for me and still hasn't kicked me out. She's not a talker but she has one of those auras, you know? Like she's an anchor in a storm. A survivor and if she likes you, your own survival rate leaps up. I would have been a very attractive corpse if not for her.
Then there's Jaque, she a bit weird but nice in her own way, I guess. She gives me the oddest stuff, just randomly like she thinks it'll make me feel better. Last time it was a bright yellow teddy and a fridge magnet, go figure. But she's all right, she wants something better to come of the kids she looks after, it's like she wants to leave some light in this dark, dank hole they call home.
*mischief twinkles in her eyes*
Conrad, what can I say, He was probably a looker when he was younger but he's aging disgracefully and it's a nice thing to see.
*winks*
He's an amazing fighter, haven't seen him yet but I've got ears. Sometimes I think he's kinda sad about the TV show like it's taken over and left him behind. There's such a sensation of power in his most casual movement it's almost frightening, but his voice is so soft.
*wide smile*
Now for my favourite, Jemmy, he's, oh what's the word? ...local, such a character. And so cute in a street urchin way, a little on the scrawny side, but I like the way he looks at me. He refuses point blank to even try to understand what I'm saying but he agrees with every movement I make, loudly in that funny accent of his. If only he didn't smoke those horrible ratty little dog-ends. He's sooo young!
Last but definitely not least is the monstrosity, for want of a better word we're calling it steel. It's like a very large ugly guard dog, it's irritating in a way I cannot describe but at the same time it's a large lump of metal that I can hide behind. It's taken up a new hobby, scrap metal percussion.
*Wrinkles her nose*
When I ask what it's doing all it says is "changing", you see this is what I have to put up with, of all the monosyllabic monsters I get the one that makes the most noise!Still he's a useful nightmare sometimes.

*glances at her watch*
hmmm, sorry but I have to go I wish I could stay but I can see that Steel's disturbing you.

*blows a kiss*

[DaveB]

Hi, Andrea.

And yeah, the Simil has picked up an odd habit - it performs modifications on itself in idle moments, panel-beating it's body with it's own hands. This makes a lot of noise, and is starting to play hell with people's nerves.


Thanks Malcolm and yeah, it's in response to the IPs working out rather... oddly in the two sessions so far (wherin Jemmy, who does all the work for the community, ends up with noticably less than he should). I'm very fuzzy with XP systems anyway, hell - I'm fuzzy with any and all game mechanics, but with this campaign I'm making the effort to actually use the rules.


And a location I've been mentioning but have forgotten to "do"

Trickle Cavern - No one's quite sure what Trickle Cavern used to be - some sort of giant Kiln is a popular theory, but most put it down to a particularly twisted architect a few hundred years ago. It's a big dome, like walking through an inverted bowl, uniformely lined with grey tiles. Something in it's construction makes it's walls waterproof. Unfortunately, 134 years ago one of the Burgh's tributory canals (a trench of water three meters across and two deep) was diverted through it, running in and out through holes cut into the walls, and something (probably the Foundry) below it generates a fair amount of heat. The end result is that the entire Cavern is slick with condensation and steams up like a bathroom after a long, hot shower. During Dogswarren's "day" (it's on the ground level, so never sees any daylight) it's used by plant-growers as a handy greenhouse-equivalent (especially for people growing various fungi in pots), while at night it makes a good meeting place for shady goings on.

[DaveB]

Session Three

It's a full three weeks after the events of the first two sessions, and the daily grind (and grime) is beginning to feel normal to Syndil. Dogswarren does not stand still when not "on camera", though, and the following has happened in the interval:

* Jemmy went to the dock in Northern Hammertongue that Jacques and COnrad saw Simils working as dockhands at - the Shifted have been hired for the strength, lack of amenities and most importantly silence by the dockmaster of a new machining factory that is being set up in that Burgh. Jemmy fails to get a look in the crates of "machine parts" that the Simils are lugging around, but does note Hirplakker logos on both the crates and the barge.

* Syndil has been visiting Ms Constance Bowers, Dogswarren's apothecary, hoping to find something to do to make herself useful before the inevitable backlash against her freeloading happens.

* Conrad - after much threats, bribes and pleading - has managed to trace the telephone number he an Jemmy found scrawled on a beer-mat in Honest Peatie's jacket when they searched said man's corpse last session. It is an address in Sleeping Vale, oddly enough, but is NOT the fight-club.

* Jacques' remonstrations seem to have paid off, and her lovable urchin charges have stopped visiting The Jump. They've taken to going into Sleeping Vale and Crouchside instead, and have started mugging people for extra cash. But at least they're not being run over by trains any more.

* The Burgh's church of God the Architect has reopened after a closure of some 6 months (the previous reverand brother found the Burgh too claustrophobic by far, and the citizenry took against him for his somewhat patronising attitude). The new preacher is Reverand Rembrandt Barnside, who has already distinguished himself by - when his church was invaded by graffiti-daubing urchins - holding the children at gunpoint, delivering a stern lecture on moral terpitude and giving them each a boiled sweet before sending them on their way. Casual observers note that he displays the flair his predeccesor lacked, and will probably be one of the extended family that is the Burgh before very long.

* Elias, (the ex-Cripplecut champion) however, has been making a lot of noise after Jemmy reported his and Conrad's discovery in Sleeping Vale last time. He's lodged a petition with Mycroft Marchmont - Dogswarren's rarely-seen Burgess and the owner of 80% of the Burgh's buildings including the Market and the Warren itself - to raise the matter of a club in Sleeping Vale murdering Dosgwarren citizens in the City Council. Everyone has signed it - some people more than once - though not many think it'll do any good.

* The Television news channels (Alexis has been adding to her package in a vain attempt to give her and Syndil something to watch rather than sit around and stare at one another all day) have been gleefully reporting that a faction of the 3rd Church has been involved in religious protests outside the Luminosity Tower against Arclight's obvious (to them) Shifted-worship. Even looking past Sideband's blatent bias, Arclight do seem to have just killed all of the priests - a case of sledgehammering an ant.

Anyways. The preamble over, we fade up on the characters who...

...are in the pub again.

The conversation among the patrons is a fluid thing, shifting focus between different people's individual rants based on tenuous links (we've all had pub-conversations like that). The annual Hammertongue-vs-Dogswarren football match is coming up in a fortnight - an all-day event in which the teams (no size limit) must get the ball by any means neccessary as long as no vehicles are used to the opposing Burgh's church. The menfolk of Dogswarren are signing up, lists of first-aiders are being taken and Reverand Barnside is enthusiastically recruiting people to stand at the base of the ziplines across the canal between the two Burghs with bolt-cutters ready to dissuade any strikers. The subject of Hammertongue starts Jemmy off on the tale of the Shifted dockworkers, which gets Syndil wondering if "her" Simil would make a good addition to the team, which gets the Reverand's opinion on Shifted solicited, which leads on to the riot outside Luminosity Tower, and so on. Mid-conversation, the Simil reaches whatever arcane internal conclusion it needs, and declairs it's contract to be over. It wants a "symbol" (or, given it's voice, possibly a "cymble". But proves frustratingly closed-mouthed as ever about what.

At that point, the distant, muffled by the Dogswarren "hive" effect but still faintly audible sound of a large explosion in the North is heard by the more perceptive characters. The Simil immediately sets off North, on some agenda of it's own, and the characters give chase.

The fight club in Sleeping Vale has been blown up. As have the dozen or so houses immediately around it. The inhabitants of Sleeping Vale are pouring over the crater trying to dig out the bodies of loved ones, and for a brief time the two Burghs come together in a gesture of harmony (the Dogswarren crowd pitch in and help). The Simil, meanwhile, stomps up to the dead body of the club's Simil, rips it's arm off, puts it into it's backpack and stomps off again.

Jemmy manages to get someone to tell him what happened - three Mikefighters flew over the Burgh, emerging out of the cover of Dogswarren's ash-plumes, dropping a rather large bomb and flying off to the North. Someone draws him a shaky sketch of the 'fighters, but they needn't bother - the distinctive whine of a Mikefighter engine is heard, and the crowd scatters in panic.

There's only one of them, but it's of the same design. It does a flyby of the bomb-site (Jemmy photos it) and then vanishes into the clouds of smoke and ash produced by Dogswarren's chimneys. The Sleeping Vale citizens start to look accusingly at the Dogswarren citizens. The gang bite back their demands that the Valers grow up out of sympathy for the bereaved, and Dogswarren's inhabitants go home.

Back in the pub, a careful half-hour with the back of one of the football posters and a pencil going over the logo of every macrocorp and religion Alexis and Jacques can think of provides the answer - the Simil wants a particular engineering logo, which Alexis goes and retrieves on the form of a Powerbike part. Satisfied, the Shifted accepts it's new contract - which Alexis and Syndil have spent a while figuring out the very precise wording of - and Alexis is suddenly free to do her job again.

The happy dance is interrupted by last orders, and it turns out to be Jacques' turn to host the usual until-their-own-lonely-beds-no-longer-seem-repellent gathering. Jacques' flat is a... surprise... to the uninitiated, being as hermetically tidy as it is, but the gang soon settle into their by now engrained habit of getting drunk, watching reruns of Conrad's show (singing tunelessly along to the theme tune and demanding to know which bits were real) until they can stand it no longer and leave. As part of their wanderings through the late-night TV schedules, they catch the fact that the Sleeping Vale Burgess is making not-very-veiled accusations that the Mikefighters came from Dosgwarren, and that Mycroft is making not-veiled-at-all invitations for the honourable councilman from Sleeping Vale to wrap his lips around a part of Mycroft's own anatomy.

And so to bed.

In the morning, Jemmy is woken by two rather sharply (for this hive of scum, anyway) dressed gentlemen who introduce themselves as Mr Morning and Mr Gentle. They don't look as friendly as their names. They tell Jemmy that Mycroft desires Jemmy's presence for a private consultation, and as Mycroft owns both the chimney Jemmy lives in and the means of production for the food Jemmy eats, Jemmy had best get dressed.

The others, meanwhile, have trundled - like the helpless cases that they are - to the Piper, where Silas has started to get up just to let them in before opening. Silas does his usual grumbling about the Simil, and Syndil finally gets around to asking about a job.

Jemmy is taken to Mycroft's carefully soundproofed apartment in the bowls of the Warren, by the most harrowing route possible. After witnessing the mincing machines and the bolt-through-the-head slaughtering method, a shaken Jemmy is shown into the blissful silence of Mycroft's domain. Mycroft is a giant of a man - hugely-built, shaven-headed and heavy to the point of creaking the furniture. He asks Jemmy for anything he knows is going on, seems particularly interested in Syndil, and tells Jemmy that the Mikefighters were no doing of his - even as rich as Mycroft is, that's way, way out of his league. The 'fighters have been identified as being a design used by Arclight. Mycroft repeats his request for information about Syndil, and lets Jemmy go, offering the friendly advice that Jemmy should always remember who his friends are.

Alexis pops home to fetch something and finds a gentleman caller waiting outside her door. He is a representitive of Janos Voronetz - the man Jacques sold the music box to last week, and who promised to remember Alexis should he need a courier. He needs a courier. For a very lengthly and (in City terms) far-travelling job. The pitch is simple - go to point A, pick up a package, take it to point B then go home. Problem is, point A is The Forest, point B is a man known only as "Prisoner 54892" in the Inferno insane asylum and both points are about as far from Dosgwarren as you can go without vanishing in a flash of light.

Back at the Piper, the Simil deflects an attempted robbery and Jemmy and Alexis return. Alexis finds out just who Voronetz IS - he's in the 3rd Syndicate. The job suddenly looks even dodgier than it was already, and Alexis ums and ahs about it while Jemmy bemoans his fate as Mycroft's pawn.

Hmm.

---

Quiet night this - we had less time to play than usual, and it ended up as an evening of metaplot advancement and blatant set-up for next week. See the plots advance. Advance, plots, advance!

The football match, played like they still do in the Cumbrian towns Andrea/Syndil is from OOC (only with the violence upped to City standards), will be in a few sessions time.

The last two of the "big fish" in the Burgh - the laconic, slightly odd 3rd Church Priest and the corpulent Burgess. My players, they all say "Kingpin" but no! For Mycroft is plainly Sabbath from Doctor Who crossed with Mycroft Holmes (hence the name), and fills the position of Victorian slum-owning factory boss. He intimidates the hell out of Jemmy.

Odds and Ends -

An amusing character interaction - Jemmy is now the only PC who can't understand even the basics of Syndil's gesticulation, and he can't be arsed to learn. Whenever she tries to "speak" to him, he just replies with nonsequiteurs.

The Simil is not long for this world. Andy took less time than I thought to crack, but was seen leaving the game clutching A|State's rulebook and muttering about character generation.

This is the start of something. Tensions are rising between the three Burghs, and there's a flashpoint a comin'.

Quotes -

"So Mycroft tells me 'that girl, that angel with no voice - what do you know about her?' and I say 'nuthin' sir' and he says 'when you do find something out, you tell me' and I say 'sure, oh yeah, definately'. I'm FUCKED." - Jemmy

"What? Can't I have a bachelor pad?"
"The technical term is 'Spinster'" - Jacques and Conrad

"That is an ESTABLISHMENT of a man. He's the sort of man that's built, not born" - Jemmy on Mycroft

(signing) I owe you some pain
"That's okay. You can have a puppy" (to the others) "What'd she say?" - Syndil and Jemmy

"Sure. We make em out of dog-meat. Watch those puppies fly." - Jacques on the laughable accusation that the Mikefighters came from the Warren

[Rhyme]

'K I'm bumping this thread 'cause it's been doing well so far and the game's bloody fantastic (I play Jemmy btw).
We've played a fourth session which hasn't gone up yet but will
- we walk between neatly stacked rows of naked corpses in the middle of the canal.
I've got work to do, but I'll try to post something constructive later on.
Take care people,
Rhyme

[Caudex]

Okay, I was umming and ahhing about whether or not to buy a|state, but this thread has convinced me.

So much for my "go easy on the book-buying" resolution.

[Malcolm Craig]

Great to see the campaign going so well. Nice to see the development of both the characters and the plot, particularly the interaction of the various burghs and the PCs involvement in this. Puts my own "I've got the plot on a Post-It note somewhere" campaigns to shame!

Caudex wrote:
Okay, I was umming and ahhing about whether or not to buy a|state, but this thread has convinced me.

Great! Hope the game meets your expectations.

Cheers
Malcolm

[DaveB]

Well, I'm still writing the long version of session 4, but in brief, it continues the Burgh tensions, has our first gunfight, sees Andy get a real character, plays up the flora and fauna of the City and has Jemmy and Marius (new character) try to decide what to do with a barge full of shaven corpses that someone has left next to the Burgh. And the campaign overplot leaps forward.

All this and the infestation of Alexis, Syndil and Jacques' apartment block with Scurts - They're coming out of the goddamn walls!

[Malcolm Craig]

Great, I look forward to reading how session 4 turns out.

Are you intending to do anything with all this stuff once you've concluded the campaign? I remember you saying that you might put the burgh stuff up on the net as a PDF or something, but I think you've got some great ideas, situations and characters here and it would be worth consolidating it all! That being said, that kind of thing always requires a lot of work, but you certainly seem to have put a whole bunch of that in already!

Cheers
Malcolm

[Chris M]

Hey man you've inspired me with this game..so much so that I want to write up a campaign detailing my PC's adventures in the City in the Canals..starting up a business running a water taxi service and courier job runs for the right amount of money. And finding that their jobs take them places that the price might be too high. I just need a cool ass title like yours.:D

I just thought of a name SplashDown Zombies coming soon.;)

[DaveB]

Session Four

'Ere we go once again...

It's Syndil's first night off for over a week, but inertia is a hard thing to overcome and she finds herself sitting in the same damn bar she spends every night in, as her friends instinctively resist change. But eventually the threat of sharp implements and the writing down of ultimatums shifts the character party from the Piper.

And where is a group of five disparate souls going to go of an evening? Why, to Sleeping Vale, where Alex leads them to a nightclub. They try to relax, but the sense of tension in the air is palpable - the trouble between the two Burghs is getting worse, and everyone knows it. On their way to the club they are pelted with pebbles by Vale children, much to Jacques' disgust.

Across the club, a gentleman who - though dressed fairly normally - screams "outsider" in everyone's carefully honed cultural radars is finding out that there is no room at the inn, and Sleeping vale is proving resistant to his attempts to find somewhere to stay. The bartender sarcastically remarks that maybe he'd have better luck with *them* (scowling at the characters) and so over he comes.

His name, he says, is Marius, and he's in this neighbourhood on a mission of science. He's a naturalist with Longshore University, and is studying the many thousands of varients of the ubiquitous bleeders and scurts that bedevil the City. Conrad and Jacques both offer their spare beds at very reasonable rates, and Syndil discovers - to her horror - that Marius can hear what she's saying when she mutters commentary about the unfairness of her existence. Horror because it identifies both him and her as being Corp-born, something she's not keen to advertise to strangers.

Over at the door, the bouncer is proving resistant to an undesirable trying to get in. Jacques recognises him as Jed - a Dogger - and goes money in hand to his rescue. One bribed bouncer later, and jed is soaking up the local spirits, complaining bitterly of Sleeping Vale's cold shoulder. Between Marius' ethusiastic recounting of his hunt for a red-backed Scurt and Jed's "night on the town" enthusiasm, the conversation gets a little cluttered.

Jed does eventually tell Jacques that Marion - one of the girls at Jacques' orphanage - is looking for her, and after a while manages to remember that it's because Marion has got a job and wants to move out. Across the table, Marius is trying to figure out what Corp Syndil is from without saying which one he's from while she does the opposite, and Jemmy pointedly asks Conrad if he - as a "bona fide hero" has ever fought any of the beasts Marius is describing. He hasn't, but as Jacques says Conrad's name a shady-looking fellow sitting a few tables back abruptly gets up and leaves. The gang notice, and start to figure that maybe they ought to leave *before* closing time.

[DaveB]

Marius broaches the subject of just why everyone around here seems to hate them, and is told of the bombing and Dogswarren's farcical blame for it. Jemmy - realising he's sitting with a Corp-born - gets his photo of the Mikefighter out, and Marius apologetically says its a design made by Trilhoven and used by at least three other Macrocorps.

Jed wanders off "looking for a good time" while the characters hurry on their way through the post-thirteen O'Clock night. Walking along Sleeping Vale's Quayside, they spot a large black barge sitting in the middle of the canal, unanchored and apparantly unpowered. Jacques idly speculates as to it's salvage value, but as they decide that the night is too old already, a shot rings out - narrowly missing Jemmy. Everyone dives for cover - some more successfully than others - and a frantic game of "spot the sniper in the middle of the night before he gets a clean shot at us" begins, culminating in Marius producing a handgun and firing at the sniper - who he, Conrad and Jemmy have spotted on top of a building. Everything goes quiet. Jemmy carefully makes his way to a fire escape and gets up on the roof. When the sniper doesn't turn at his approach, he decides to take no chances and unloads his own sparklock into the sniper's head.

Marius' shot turns out to have been the killer, but Jemmy goes through the sniper's pockets (not turning up anything) and heartily claims the sparklock rifle he was using as booty.

Not wanting to stand around in the open any more than is neccessary, the characters then hoof it back to Dogswarren. Piling into Alexis and Syndil's flat (it's the nearest to Sleeping Vale's border) they go over what just happened - and realise that the guy they just killed was teh guy who took great interest in Conrad at the club. But he shot at Jemmy, which leads to the obvious conclusion - the guy must have been a survivor of the fight club, and his reaction was because of the fake name Conrad gave when he and Jemmy went there being contradicted. Conrad soberly wonders if the would-be-assassin told any other survivors what his true identity was *before* deciding to go after them, while the others have gone for some light relief - watching yet more reruns of bad episodes of Conrad's show.

The distinctive mettallic footfalls can be heard approaching the flat, and Syndil remembers she left the Simil at the Piper before going clubbing. It has apparantly decided to come and find her, and takes up it's usual place - in the corner of the room, facing the wall, making as little noise as possible. Marius is fascinated, revealing that he has seen a few dozen Simils before but has always harboured ambitions of documenting one of the legendary rarer Shifted races.

One of the gang finally has enough of fake-Conrad's exploits and turns the TV off. In the cathode-tube silence that follows, a clear scratching sound can be heard coming from the walls, and a scurt darts across the floor. Syndil shrieks (Marius winces, noone else notices) and the Simil stomps on it, while Alexis seeks out the hole. Plugging it up, they are disturbed to hear more scurts inside the wallspaces and running along the inside of the ceiling. There's a pop, and Alexis' electric lights all go out.

Breaking the dog-fat candles and wind-up electric torches out, the sound of scurts in the walls becomes much eerier in flickering light. Another scurt breaks through into the actual flat and Marius excitedly notes it's a sub-species he hasn't yet encountered just before Alexis kills it to death. Jacques realises that her flat - which is almost directly above Alexis' - may be in danger of infestation, and goes to check on it. Her tidy sanctum of junk proves secure, though the walls sound just as scurt-filled on one side. Knocking at the door of that neighbouring flat has no response, shouting has no response, crowbarring the door open and taking a look inside has no response.

The flat next door - which is the one above Alexis - is *filled* with Scurts. Hundreds of the insectoid buggers. And it stinks of rotting meat. Jacques makes a small yelping noise (her essential core of dignity would be damaged by screaming), pulls the door shut and runs to tell the others. Marius produces protective gear - a pair of big, heavy rubber gauntlets and headgear resembling a cross between a beekeeper's hat and a riot helmet - and goes up to take a look. The scurts are swarming around a large lump in the middle of the room which turns out to be a bloated human corpse with slashed wrists.

Finding a brown paper bag full of tiny white spheres in it, Marius navigates the room while Bleeders buzz around him and the more agressive varities of scurt try to attack him with chemical spit and mandibles. Marius carefully catches the choicer specimens and returns to offer his professional opinion - the neighbour was breeding scurts, killed himself and they've been using his body as something to lay their eggs in. The packet turns out - to everyone's disgust - to be Scurt eggs. Ewww. A letter that Marius found on the body turns out to be a "dear john" - the neighbour's wife recently left him because of his obsession with breeding fighting scurts. And the whole sorry picture becomes clear.

[DaveB]

Jacques marches off to drag the landlord out of bed while Syndil orders the Simil to go upstairs and cleanse the flat. Which it does with considerable aplomb - the parts it retrieved from the Simil destroyed at the Fight Club have been added to it's own design while no-one was looking, and include a flamethrower. The neighbour's body goes into the canal, his possessions go into Jacques' hoard o artefacts, the landlord is informed of his new free tenancy (and of Jacques' and Alexis' annoyance) and everyone goes home - the menfolk to the considerably less scurt-filled climes of Conrad's flat (which Marius sleeps at) and Jemmy's chimney-shack, while Jacques spends the rest of the night all hopped up on Edge shoring up her vermin defenses, Alex grumbles about fixing the wiring and Syndil spends a terrified night listening to the scurts running inches away from her head on the other side of her bedroom wall.

Morning breaks across the Chimneys of Dogswarren and Syndil - who has barely slept - goes through the familiar ritual of wash-eat-dress-trudge to the Piper-let jemmy in and make him breakfast while Silas slowly wakes up-clean the bar. A little mind-numbing routine is good for the soul, or so the 3rd Church of God the architect says. But this morning, Silas emerges from his curtained-off bedroom sporting a massive black eye and a missing tooth. Jemmy repeatedly asks who dun it while Syndil doctors Silas, but the barkeep refuses to say. Once the bar opens for the lunchtime trade, Conrad and Marius turn up along with the tricle of regulars. To Syndil and Jemmy's increasing bemusement, Jed, Elias and Reverand Barnside all turn up sporting signs of having been in a fight.

The Reverand is the one to crack under the combo of "silent pointed stare" and "endless jabbering of questions", and says that he and Elias came to Jed and Silas' rescue late last night. As Syndil turns the evil eye onto those two, Jed says that he came to Silas' aid when - walking home from Sleeping Vale - he spotted Silas being beaten up by five strange men. Turning the evil eye onto *Silas*, he says (through the muffle-factor of holding his tooth in while Syndil's milk-n-pressure technqiue does it's work) that they were asking purient questions about Syndil, and turned out to be harder than they looked when he defended her honour. They smelt strongly of damp, and wore long coats in the Fogwarren style - which leads Jemmy to suspect the Men in Coats that have been mysteriously showing up, and Conrad to suspect it has something to do with the crime lord Syndil and Alexis visited last session.

In any case, Marius has things to do. He intends to ask Alexis to put in a good word for him about the empty apartment, and he and Jemmy set off in that direction, noting as they reach a more heavily used tunnel that everyone seems to be heading for Undertrain square. Marion Cartwright - the girl jed mentioned the night before - literally runs into them and tells them that someone's abandoned a barge just outside the burgh.

The penny drops.

Marius, Jemmy and Marion reach Dogswarren's tiny quayside to see the black barge from last night - it must have drifted with the canal's current - and to see Rodriguez the boatman (from session 1, thread-watchers) cheerfully holding an auction for the use of his skiff to get to the barge and see what's inside for the taking. Jemmy plays the lostfinder card and Rodriguez agrees to take the three of them over if he gets a share of the proceeds. One thirty-second skiff ride and one climb of a rope later, and the foursome open the hatch to the barge's hold.

It aint pretty.

Meanwhile, Jacques is scrubbing any last taint of scurt off her ex-neighbours possessions. She's particularly pleased with a large, porcelean free-standing bathtub with only one crack in it. She notes, however, that after being up all night she's now run out of Edge, and decides to go meet her usual supplier to get more.

Alexis and the Simil, meanwhile, are engaged in the great Scurt-Purge as Alexis repairs her light circuit and reinforces Syndil's bedroom walls with metal plates. For an encore, Alexis finally tackles the public telephone near her flat, managing to get it working enough to call the number she got last session and turn *down* the job she was offered. That done, Alexis goes to remonstrate with her landlord and demand a rent-break for her work as an electrician. She also tells him that Marius - who she describes as a pest exterminator - is wanting to move in, and Marius gets himself put at the top of the waiting list for housing.

Cut back to Marius, Jemmy, Marion and Rodriguez, who have found the barge's hold to be filled with neatly-stacked, naked and shaven human corpses. Jemmy inspects a few of them and reports that the cause of death is different in all cases, while Marion loses her lunch and Rodriguez voices his opinion - the barge is carrying wares to the cannibal food factories that supply the most destitute Burghs. Jemmy is more worried about why it's been left abandoned outside Dogswarren until a horrible suspicion crosses his mind - if it's publically known to be found here, the suspicion will be that *Dogswarren* (a burgh that makes it's living from food production) secretly uses human meat in it's wares. Checking the cabin out proves that this is no accident - the pilot has been killed.

So, the question is asked: What shall we do with the murdered sailor? And with the 75 corpses he was transporting?

[DaveB]

Alexis turns up at the bar, remarking that she hears the Barge of Mystery from last night has turned up in the Burgh. Conrad and she decide to go check it out and Syndil takes her break to go with them. They arrive just in time to see the barge's engine start up with a roar of diesel, and to see Jemmy waving at them while Rodriguz pilots the Barge anticlockwise down the canal towards the Serpentine. Noting that they seem to be missing out on an adventure, Conrad is somewhat surprised to be shot in the leg.

The sniper had mates.

Jacques, meanwhile, is taking afternoon tea and scones at Ms Penelope's tea shop, a quaint little business in Dogswarren's northernmost building - known only as the Tower. Penelope herself is a kindly old lady of some 70 years with blue-rinse hair and half-moon spectacles. She's also Dogswarren's drug lord, who complains to Jacques that her supplier of Escape has recently been run out of town, so she's had to reconnect with a new producer. But in order to do that, she's had to agree to stop selling the Escape that the old supplier had already sold to her, so while she gets it in the profits she's having to literally give the stuff away. Jacques gets some of the hallucinogenic freebie along with her Edge, and - recognising the pills Owen had when Dogswarrens' rent-a-lynch-mob ran him out of town, considers the similarity between the sounds of "scrape" and "'scape" when overheard casually.

Oops.

Back at the canalside, Alexis returns fire - blazing away until their attacker (who is on the other side of the canal in Hammertongue) falls off the building he's standing on. If the bullets didn't get him, the fall onto the hammertongue quay's railings did. Conrad, thankfully, has only been lightly wounded and Syndil applies yet more first aid while they retreat deeper inside Dogswarren. Back at the bar, they conclude that there is definatly someone out there that they've pissed off.

Jemmy and his fellow privateers, meanwhile, have parked the Barge in a deserted industrial area south of the Serpentine, and are awaiting nightfall so that they can dump the bodies. He produces a deck of cards, and proceeds to teach Marion and Marius how to play Railwayman's Bluff.

Freshly drugged, Jacques goes to remonstrate with her landlord (it just isn't his day) and to ask that he put Marion on the housing list. Hearing that her ex-charge has been gazumped by the Fighting Naturalist, she goes to the bar to try to find the others.

Jemmy, Marius, Rodriguez and Marion, meanwhile, have dumped the bodies in the Canal and are puttering their way back up to Dogswarren. Jemmy, you see, has had an idea. The barge was clearly some kind of attack on Dogswarren, so it shall be used to futher the cause it was set against.

He's going to sell it to Mycroft.

Arriving back at the ash-stacks of home, Jemmy makes his way to the Warren, and is suprised to find Mycroft going for a walk in the tunnels, flanked by bodyguards as he may be the sight of Mycroft outside his lair makes Jemmy pause for a few seconds, before he puts his proposition to Dogswarren's de facto ruler. Mycroft likes the idea of a new cargo barge, and sends a flunkie back to the Barge with Jemmy to assess it.

Conrad and Alexis tell jacques about the second shooting as Jemmy, Marius, Marion and Rodriguez walk in as if they own the place. Each of them is now vastly better off, Marion can afford a flat, Rodriguez a new boat and Marius his rent in Jacques and Alexis' building for the forseeable future. Jemmy tries to give his share to Alexis so that Syndil can be set up with her own place, but Alexis refuses to take it - he's earnt it, and besides, she's gotten used to having Syndil around. Hearing that the fight club have taken another pot-shot at his new friends, Marius asks for more details. Conrad describes the symbol of oddness from the first two sessions and Marius stops him - he knows it. It's the symbol of a subdepartment of Shift Studies at the University, that studies the Boundary Effect that vanishes all those trying to leave.

Later.

Conrad types up the days escapades for a future meeting with the scriptwriters.
Jacques looks over her new possessions.
Alexis and Syndil relax in their now scurtless apartment, watching the TV together.
Jemmy considers his riches as he lies in his hammock, listening to the snoring of the man in the shack above him.
Marius moves into the vacant flat.

End.

[DaveB]

Stuff.

Ahh, that's *better*. I was unthrilled with last session but this was on a par with the first one. Everything just clicked. Our theme of "community" was thick on this occasion - from the rising tensions between Burghs to Jemmy doing his pseudo-lostfinder routine. And I remembered that A|State is meant to be a horror game as well.

A Note about repetition & oppressive routine - yes, it's deliberate. The player characters are more free than the countless wage-slaves of the City, but they are still stuck in their rut. Starting and finishing every single session in the bar isn't laziness, it's meant to show that these people Have No Lives. Jemmy spends every morning sitting on the cold concrete of the tunnel outside the Piper waiting for Silas (previous sessions) or Syndil (this one) to let him in because he has nowhere else to go. Even when change comes - like Syndil arriving - it just hops them into a different track.

I was most pleased with the consequences of character actions this week - yes, Conrad HAD been avoiding the attacks because they thought he was called something else and couldnt' find out who he was. Marius moving in stopped someone else from getting the flat (though that got happily sorted out in Marion's case by the windfall, the waiting list was longer than just her), gang-jumping Owen turned out to have been a mistake.

In case it hasn't been clear, both Syndil and Marius are lying like dogs (heh). Syndil has been claiming to not know which Corp she's from and Marius claims to be from Longshore University. They're both lying. They're both from Arclight (though they haven't figured that out yet), and Marius' immediate boss has recently lost one of his fingers in an "accident". And while the symbol IS of a Boundary-Effect study, it's one internal to Arclight, not at the University. The players all know this, but while Syndil and Marius suspect each other of being spies for a rival Corp (or in Syndil's case, suspect Marius of being from Arclight and being sent to capture her) they won't ever tell IC.

Quotes

(Afer Marius jabbers a lot) "You know, Syndil, I've only just realised how much I appreciate you" - Jemmy

"Clearly, this gentleman comes form an elevated state of being" - Jemmy again.

"It's him! It's Conrad Honest! If you look closely, he has an aura!" - Jacques, taking the piss and accidentally siccing gun-happy revenge types on the party.

"And this one is technically a Furie."
"You mean?"
"Someone deliberatly made it this way."
"Who would DO that? They cause enough trouble without the spit" - Marius and Alexis discuss the acid-spitting Black-spotted Scurt

"I just figured you could use the space" - Jemmy tires to give Alexis over a hundred pounds.

And now, two questions for the A|State-savvy amongst the readers of this thread:

1) Road Armour has no stats given in the book that we can find. What armour value does anyone think it should be?

2) A question of movement rates. A combat round is a second. How far do you think a human can run in that time? Three metres?

[Epoch]

Originally posted by DaveB
2) A question of movement rates. A combat round is a second. How far do you think a human can run in that time? Three metres?

At that kind of scale, I think it's unavoidable that you have to take a certain amount of acceleration into effect. You can move a lot farther in one second if you're already sprinting than if you're starting from a standstill.

It looks like the world record from the 100 meter dash is in the general vicinity of 10 seconds. Thus, at the average rate of speed, those people were moving 10 meters per second. Even if you figure that they're twice as fast as a PC (which is probably high), that would imply a PC could move 5 meters in a second at full-out speed. But I think that it's evident from simple tests on yourself that five meters per second from a standing start is totally outside of my capacity, at least.

Three meters per second doesn't seem totall off-base to me, for a combat situation, wherein I presume that straight run-ups will be rare.

[DaveB]

Originally posted by MalcolmCGS
Great, I look forward to reading how session 4 turns out.

Are you intending to do anything with all this stuff once you've concluded the campaign? I remember you saying that you might put the burgh stuff up on the net as a PDF or something, but I think you've got some great ideas, situations and characters here and it would be worth consolidating it all! That being said, that kind of thing always requires a lot of work, but you certainly seem to have put a whole bunch of that in already!

Cheers
Malcolm

Yeah. Depending on two factors - getting the computer with my copy of Adobe Acrobat writer working again and having enough time. Time-wise, I'm running my first weekend-long boffer LARP in 9 week's time and am run slightly ragged. But I'll work on it.

There's a fair bit of material already done that hasn't reached the thread, actually. Every week I intend to put NPC descriptions up, and the characters all have portraits done by Andrea. There's also the maps of Dogswarren, Sleeping Vale and Hammertongue.

[Syndil04]

:D
There's only one problem with having someone else from the corps (other than Syndil's abject terror over discovery) and that's I keep forgetting who can hear me speak and who cant.
And so does everyone else.

But the games great and have produce a fantastic us-against-them vibe with the inhabitants of the burgh

[Mantisking]

This sounds like a great campaign, and a great game. I downloaded the lite-rules pdf and hopefully I'll get a chance to read it this weekend.

[Malcolm Craig]

Originally posted by Mantisking
This sounds like a great campaign, and a great game. I downloaded the lite-rules pdf and hopefully I'll get a chance to read it this weekend.

Well, I think this is all down to Dave for writing up such a cracking actual play thread and bringing the game alive.

One thing that has impressed me about this thread is the quality of ideas and the willingness to go beyond what is presented in the book and take the game world further. It's actually quite thrilling to see this campaign progress and, to be truthful, it's given me many ideas for running a new a/state campaign of my own.

I hope you find a/stateLite enjoyable and, even if you don't decide to purchase the full game, you'll find plenty of free stuff to download on our website.

Cheers
Malcolm

[DaveB]

Session 5

It is now 7 days later. Marion has moved into the flat that Owen was forcibly ejected from in the Nose, Rodriguez has bought a big shiny new boat (complete with mounted gatling-sparklock of which he is very proud) and Jemmy has done nothing with his money. A very handsome man named Sean has moved into the flat next to Alexis, and Jacques (whose heart is stirred from it's spinster-dom by the sight of him) has sold him numerous nick-nacks as a means of seeing him, if only briefly. Love is not just in the air for her, though, as Marion has displayed a habit of asking about Jemmy rather too much to be normal. Jemmy responds to the teasing from his friends with his usual deer-in-headlights routine. Burgh-wise, the Sleeping Vale militia have been attacking Doggers and Constance - the Burgh's apothecary - has become engaged in a battle-of-the-old-ladies with Penelope. Jacques n=knows better than to get involved in a grannymatch, and is staying well out of it.

The camera-of-the-tv-series-of-the-campaign does a repeat of the pan across the City that it did right back at the start, taking in the launch of another rocket by Luminosity Tower and the Simils unloading at the Hammertongue Docks before swooping down into Dogswarren...

...Where the characters are in the pub.

Well, most of them anyway. Alexis is off delivering a package and Conrad is at the Cathedral for a script meeting. Those who remain, however, have business this night. Jemmy has decided to become pro-active in his young age, and wants to go check out the Hammertongue operation that's using Simils as labour (see previous sessions) under cover of darkness. Over in the corner, the patron known only as "Mad Jacob", who seems to live at the bar (he sleeps in the barroom) and is tolerated as the crazy old guy by the other customers, is telling his tale of being trapped in a Lost Place to a newcomer. The characters - who have all heard it many, many times - are toasting the newcomer's bravery, though Marius notes that Crouchside - the Burgh Jacob claims to have been in when he got stuck - is also rumored to have a colony of Furies beneath it, and he'd quite like to go have a look. The others agree (with varying degrees of reluctance) to go along with both Jemmy and Marius' planned day trips. Elias and Reverand Barnside - who seem to have become friends - come in, and Elias gives Syndil a poster they saw at the nightclub the characters were at in Sleeping Vale the week before. It's a missing persons notice, offering a £50 reward. And it's about Syndil.

At which point, Mycroft walks into the bar. Flanked by his heavies, the Burgess patiently waits while Silas and Syndil go into "aristocracy drill" - Silas kicks several patrons off the table they're using, puts a tablecloth he got from somewhere on it and provides a real lamp and his own prized chair to create a slightly more upmarket effect while Syndil changes - protesting - into one of Ethel's "nicer" (ie, more revealing) outfits in the back. Most patrons go awfully quiet, Jacques in particular hiding her face, while Jemmy grimaces as Mycroft gives him a nod.

Mycroft, on the other hand, is openly observing Syndil - which worries her. Ordered by Silas to go and give the Burgess whatever he wants, she approaches the man-mountain. Mycroft is as cooly civil as ever, but tells her that he would appreciate her company at her earliest convinience. She says she's busy (with Jemmy's mission of snooping) that night, but when Mycroft reassures her that he just wants to talk - and displays a piece of technology akin to a large brick-sized amp connected to a hearing aid that allows him to hear her - she agrees to tommorow night.

The Burgess leaves, the piano goes back into major key and everyone lets out the breaths they were holding.

Later on, and night falls. The fearsome four head down to Undertrain Square, where Jemmy persuades Rodriguez to stop polishing his boat and to take them upcanal a short ways on a mission of industrial espionage.

[DaveB]

I just wrote this bit out. And the server lost it. So if this seems brief it's because I just lost half an hour's work and am impatient to finish tonight.

Coasting up to the barge, they climb on board and find that the Simils don't stop unloading when night falls. Fortunately, they don't seem to be hired to *protect* the crates, and trhe characters prise a few open to find various vehicle parts - including, to Jemmy's horror, warcrawl tracks. Finding one particularly large crate contains an engine for a mid-to-large sized ground vehicle, they declare it spoils of war (or at least, Marius does) and lower it onto Rodriguez' boat. Or try to, anyway - it proves ever-so-slightly too heavy, and one by one they let go of the rope (Jemmy getting bad rope-burns) until it crashes the final few feet onto Rodriguez' brand new boat. Which springs a leak.

High-tailing it before Rodriguez' boat sinks entirely, they are met at the quay by *their* Simil, which is covered in ash for no good reason. It obediantly takes the engine to Alexis and Syndil's house with them, and Rodriguez is left to patch up his boat alone.

Alexis comes home to find everyone in her flat - including Conrad, who has gotten back from a meeting in which his show was threatened with cancellation. Barely able to take her eyes of the very big engine (which Jemmy proudly gives her as a present), she listens to their theories about warcrawls and Hirplakker up to No Good, meets the new neighbour when he comes to complain about the noise, agrees in principle to go on the jaunt to Crouchside and then kicks everyone out so she can go to bed.

Syndil wakes up to find the Simil gone. Vanished. Absent. Fucked off. Heading to the Piper to let Jemmy in as per usual, her routine is broken yet again - it is her special privalege to change Mad Jacob's bucket in the morning, but Mad Jacob... has left the bar.

Such is her shock that she barely registers the sound of bells in the background, but Jemmy recognises the Market's alarm bell when he hears it.

Down in the Runnings, Alexis gets up to smell slightly more smoke than usual in the air. Jacques looks out of her tiny window to see flickering light down the tributary canal she lives over.

The Market is on fire.

[DaveB]

The fire is at the storerooms beneath the Market proper, on DOgswarren's ground level. Though currently confined to one large storage space, that space happens to contain all the packed-up market stalls, so it has plenty of fuel. And the room it's spreading towards has the gas-tanks for the Market's lighting in. If the flames reach the tanks, there will be an almighty explosion.

*Everyone* pitches in to help out - Conrad gets a bucket-chain going from the nearest Tributory canal, Marius and Jacques start hauling stalls out of the way to try to create a firebreak between the flames and the gas. Alexis has a brainwave and rushes off, running into the Laundrette staff - including Marion - coming the other way from their business next to Tric