[Actual Play]Buffy: Arkham Now (LONG!)

[Professor Phobos]

A little backstory: Steve D's Buffy threads were intriguing enough for me to check out the show, which, as far as I'm concerned, is the Second Coming. (Damn thing's gone and changed my perspective on the whole spectrum of existence. Gone and started a mid-life crisis. Damn you, Steve D, damn you.)

So, I figured I'd get the RPG. Which was so good it brought me out of my semi-retirement from gaming, and I just had to run a game. So, after getting two dozen applicants or so, I had a group of six players ready to start high school as Freshmen in Arkham, Massachusetts, where everyone has a Lovecraftian last name.

The cast is composed of...

Mr. Radford, our watcher, equipped with dry wit.

Mika, the slayer, whose got a twin sister, Toni.

Brian, who played Hamlet in the school play, and therefore is a bad-ass with a sword.

Ness, a nice but awkward kid who likes cartoons and stuff well out of his supposed age group. In addition, he seems to have strength, speed, and stamina far out of proportion to his size and age.

Sanz, a skateboarder just in from California. Wisecracking and women crazed.

and Chance, a kid with blessed with incredible good luck and cursed with incredible bad luck.

Our first episode, entitled "The Doom That Came to Arkham", just concluded, after three sessions of play.

We would have opened with a teaser scene, but I forgot to do it. Still, might as well et you folk see it.

We pan over an old, new england stone fence and onto a large estate, obviously both from an old and still quite wealthy family. Three figures are on the porch- a dishevelled women on a rocking chair, a well dressed middle aged man, and a much older, white haired gentlemen, also well dressed, smoking a cigar. The cigar smoker's eyes are fierce and piercing. The women is quietly muttering "a girl will be chosen, a chosen girl will come" again and again. The younger man nods and says, "Well, I'm sorry, but it looks like you'll be getting a slayer. I've got one back home- quite a pain in the neck sometimes. Then again, just a few months ago, she saved me from a bit of a headache."

The old man nods.

Opening credits, and then we see Arkham High School, bustling with students for the first day of a new year.

Our student heroes all have the same first period class, biology with Mr. Tillinghast, a very precise and organized teacher, but still pretty good. Cool enough to acknowledge that nothing gets done the first day and turns the classroom over to the students for chit-chat.

Our Watcher, whose gotten a job teaching history at the High School, is briefly met by Principal Shrewsbury, who inquires as to why Radford would come all the way from England to teach in an American high school.

There's awkward chit-chat as the antisocial types are surprised when the social types talk to them.

We move on to later class periods- Mr. Radford's history class has us calling out attendence, and I get to introduce many of the other students. Including Anthony Bishop, a typical zit-faced teenage punk, except that his eyes, like the eyes of all Bishops, have a fierce, inhuman quality to them.

After class, Radford asks Mika to stay after school for a meeting.

The characters eat lunch together, get to know one another, and break up a bully's (Billy Jenkin, and yes, he'll likely get turned into a rat) attack on a social outcast, Zeke Pickman. (Whiz in the art classes, though.)

We meet John Bishop, who moves stiffly, like he's bruised, and seemed to have had a problem with Anthony. We learn that while Anthony and his older brother (now graduated) Cedric Bishop were problem kids, made worse by the fact that the Bishop family owns Arkham and could therefore act without recourse to consequence, John Bishop isn't a bad kid.

After school, Brian, our thespian, is in the school auditorium getting to know the other theater kids. Ness, Chance and Sanz are out in the front skateboarding. Radford is giving Mika the "you're the slayer speech" in his office. She lacks
skepticism. Brian, at some point, manages to overhear this conversation.

Then, four tall, pale, dressed-like-its-the-80's men walk up to the kids skateboarding and ask if they know a Mika Morgan. First session ended there on a bit of a cliffhanger...

Our second session was one long brawl, with much terror and injury for everyone, except the slayer, oddly enough, who has remained unharmed throughout.

Sanz, Ness and Chance both resist the Four Pale Men's attempts at discerning Mika's location, so the Four Pale Men get violent. Ness fights back in defense of his new friends, and displays great strength. Sanz gets hurled through an (open) window into
Radford's office, so the slayer and the watcher take the fight outside. Two of the four vamps get dusted, and the other two run off. Now the Watcher's got to give four civilian children the "Vampires are real speech." After brief discussion, Brian freaks out a bit and stalks off. Sanz and Mika pursue, while Chance, Ness and Radford go back to Radford's office.

Now the group essentially splits into three. Brian gives Sanz and Mika the slip, and goes back to his house, which is convienently down the street from Mika's. There he sees that Mika's home is being attacked by more vampires who came with molotov
cocktails. Busting out a cross and some bravery, he manages to give Mika's family a chance to escape, but ends up captured himself.

Sanz and Mika fail to catch up with Brian, and start heading back to the school.

Those still in the school find that Radford's office has a visitor. Another Vampire, who introduces himself as Potter and speaks with a kind of mountain-hick drawl. Radford tries to use a cross, but Potter isn't frightened by it, claiming his "friends in high places" got rid of that little vulnerability for him. Potter's a talker, and mentions he and his vampires have been tasked to kill the slayer, again for "friends in high places."

Potter's backed up by a pair of giant, lumberjack sized Vampires. Potter says he's going to use Radford and co as hostages to lure the slayer into a trap, and that he'll let 'em go if they don't resist. Of course, they resist, and a fight breaks out. Ness takes one of the big vampires outside, going through another window (this one closed) and should probably have been badly injured by the head wound he took, but gets up and fights anyway. Radford and Chance are too busy dealing with the remaining lumbervamp to notice.

Mika and Sanz show up in mid-fight and manage to help them defeat the Lumbervamps. Outnumbered, Potter mentions he's got a group going after Mika's family (twin sister Toni, parents), and uses that as a means of getting away, as they all rush for
Radford's car.

They arrive to find that the Arkham FD stopped Mika's house from burning all the way down, and that her family is fine, if shaken up. The reality of being a slayer hits Mika and Toni, and there is emotion. They learn that Brian saved Mika's family, but
got captured in the process. Potter let slip that the trap for Mika was at the old boathouse by the resevoir, so they know where Brian's likely gone.

However, Mika feels like she's got to stay with her family, and Radford vetoes any attempt at rescue tonight, not wanting to walk into a trap. They'll try to rescue Brian tomorrow, if he's still alive.

The other three- Sanz, Ness, and Chance, don't take this well, and decide to, in secret, go on a nigh suicidal rescue mission anyway. Session 2 ends there.

Luck was with me in session 3, as both Mika and Radford couldn't make it. They refused to go on the midnight rescue mission, so I did not have to divide my attention between them, doing things like "finding a hotel for the night" and "sleeping", and the guys attempting the rescue.

Sanz, Ness and Chance break into Radford's office and load up on weapons, then head out to the boathouse.

Meanwhile, Brian's learned important plot information. Cedric Bishop shows up with a package from "granma" and mentions his father's greater skill with sorcery. Cedric pours a powder in a circle around Brian, whose been tied to a chair in the middle of a
creaky, rustic boathouse, talking with Potter. Potter offers to turn Brian into a vampire, which Brian declines.

Brian manages to free himself from his bonds when Potter and Cedric aren't looking, and despite their warning not to disturb the circle, disturbs the circle. Upon seeing this, they, and the other vampires, leave quickly.

Brian drags himself out of the boathouse- which is, like the ground around it, starting to shake with the roar of dirt moving, and bursts out of the door,s till tied to the chair, just as the others reach the boathouse. Brian starts yelling "run!" and
after getting freed from the chair, the four take off.

Sadly, things aren't that easy. Potter's got a roadblock- a pickup truck, with four vampires and Potter, are blocking the exit. Behind the four intrepid high schoolers, the boathouse explodes into rubble and standing there is a giant demon.

Rock and a hard place.

At some point, though I don't properly recollect how, Sanz spectacularly failed a fear test and fled into the woods, ending up behind the demon. There he spots a strange figure watching over the proceedings, but when he approaches it, it vanishes. Sanz
regains his wits and hits the demon with holy water from behind. The demon turns, and with an insanely good shot from Ness' crossbow, the demon's killed by a lucky hit to the back of the head. (I ruled a head shot would be just like a heart shot, in terms of vital organs and such. This might come back to haunt me.)

A lucky toss of Holy Water on Brian's part lands square in the face of the truck driving vampire, and a drama point (plus the weird luck power) from Chance causes that same vamp to panic and accelerate, running over another two vampires and smacking the
truck into a tree. This gives the kids a chance to make a run for it, and it's here where they learn that Potter can fly. Three of them make a dash for the woods, pursued by the one vampire left standing and Potter in the air. Brian bravely takes on that
one vampire, trying to buy time for the other three.Brian actually beats up on the vamp nicely, and proceeds to steal the truck from the now-blinded-by-holy-water driver.

The other three don't do as well, as Potter is exceedingly dangerous (and actually not as dangerous as he should be, given I misread the extra actions table). There's a brawl, and the three with many drama points, not to mention Ness' abilities, manage to hold Potter at bay- until he gets an advantage over Ness and successfully snaps his neck. Not enough to kill, but for a moment, both Chance and Sanz thing Ness is dead. Ness is up and about rather quickly, though. Sanz actually pantses Potter and burns a cross mark on his ass, which is about the point Potter loses patience and takes to the sky. It was either that or Brian driving the pickup truck into the woods straight at them.

They load the injured Ness into the truck, and Sanz looks him over- Ness is alive, he can walk, though he really should be dead or paralyzed or at least unconscious. Ness also looks...weird, as he's kind of jerking about in an unusual fasion, and his eyes are...off. They don't look particularly realistic for a while. They're all freaked out, Sanz more than the others because of the Ness weirdness, and Brian drives them home in the stolen truck.

The next day, Radford and Mika are surprised that they managed to rescue Brian, and are also quite pleased to have the Important Plot Information. Namely that the whole Bishop family, the most powerful and influential family in Arkham, is positively loaded with evil magics, and is planning on something they don't want a slayer around to interfere with. Potter, a vampire who can fly and ignore crosses, works for them. Radford does a little research and learns the Bishops were forced to flee England, came to Massachusetts, and founded Arkham.

Since Radford came to Arkham knowing that there were signs that Something Big and Very Bad was going to happen to the town in the future, this puts the Bishop family as the likely big bad of the season.

Radford gives them the "hellmouth, ancient demons, etc" speech and also a choice- if they want to help, they can help, but if they want out, there's no shame. All four, and Mika's twin sister (who really doesn't have a choice) absolutely refuse to bow out, and thus the gang is formed.

(Whew. Took me longer to write this than I thought, because I discovered that Actual Play reports are often more interesting to read than to write. Hopefully it wasn't too boring for y'all.)

[Peter LaCara]

Man... Radford's a bastard. And Mika... well, her situation is more understandable, but still, she's the Slayer... she should be the one charging off to save her friends.

If I were Brian, Ness, Sanz, or Chance, I would just go, "Uh huh. Tell you what... since we were the ones doing all the fighting and the neck risking, if you want to help, you can help, but if you want out, there's no shame."

White Hats rock.

[Professor Phobos]

Well, they really did intend on rescuing Brian. Eventually.

Still, if the trend continues, we'll have a nice resentment from the White Hats for the Heartless Watcher.

Some sub-plot notes:

Brian likes Toni, and part of the reason he so bravely defended their home was for her. Brian doesn't like Sanz, considering him a show-off and moving in on the twins. Ness is socially awkward in the extreme, blurting out embarassing comments at embarassing moments. Ness, of course, has a secret.

Sanz has begun experimenting with magic, as he has a book of magical symbols and wants to see what he can do.

Ness, Sanz and Chance have formed a pretty decent friendship, with Brian more aloof. Of course, all four of the boys pretty much owe one another their lives at this point, so there is that bond.

No word yet on which guy Mika or Toni likes, though.

Thus far, the best quote has been from Sanz, who exclaimed "Man, I wish I were back in California! No vampires there!"

Episode 1x02 "From The Dark" began and continues this week. It has yummy zombie goodness.

I know I recruited at least one person from RPG.net, so I have to avoid spoilers.

However, y'all can do me a favor. I need a better title for this campaign. "Buffy: Arkham Now" sucks. It was my working title, and I always intended to change it once I thought of something better.

Now, "HP Lovecraft's Sunnydale" would have been perfect for a game set in Sunnydale, nicely emulating the series of Chaosium books. But that's not really an option, sadly.

[Craig Oxbrow]

Well, so far the actual series (Buffy, Angel, Fray and the spinoff comics) have been lead-character-titled, so that's no real help in a group game.

Arkham in the style of Smallville sorta fits.

Arkham High stresses the youth-gone-wild in the hills-rise-wild crossover. (And Roswell was retitled Roswell High over here.)

Lovecraft puns may be the way to go though:

The Red Hook Gang maybe?

Maybe a reference to a specific important object...

Book Of The Dead if the Cast end up having to guard the Necronomicon from thieves. It's also an Evil Dead reference too!

--

Otherwise, good writeup for what sounds like a fun time. It could do with more funny line quotage though. That's the highlight of most Buffy writeups.

[urbwar]

Originally posted by Professor Phobos

However, y'all can do me a favor. I need a better title for this campaign. "Buffy: Arkham Now" sucks. It was my working title, and I always intended to change it once I thought of something better.

Now, "HP Lovecraft's Sunnydale" would have been perfect for a game set in Sunnydale, nicely emulating the series of Chaosium books. But that's not really an option, sadly.

Our short lived Arkham series was called "Sasha The Vampire Slayer: The Arkham Chronicles". Nothing fancy, but it worked for us

[Professor Phobos]

Not too many good quotes, I'm afraid.

<Sanz> "God, I want to go back home to California. No Vampires there!"

<Mika> "Yes. It's what I do now. Slay vampires."
<Chance> "Man, you are going to have fun on career day."

<Sanz> "Man, I feel like the day I found out the easter bunny wasn't real. Only in reverse."

<Brian>"Once again, I see timing is everything. And again I've got nothing."

<Radford> "I guess I have to explain a few things..."
<Sanz> "That you're a ninja girl, you're a creepy English guy, and you two can make people disintegrate?"

[Craig Oxbrow]

Originally posted by Professor Phobos
Not too many good quotes, I'm afraid.
They're good.

And due to the strangeness of HTML, are only attributed when I quote you since you used < these > brackets...

[Professor Phobos]

Book Of The Dead if the Cast end up having to guard the Necronomicon from thieves. It's also an Evil Dead reference too!

In my campaign notes, actually, I rather specifically identified the Necronomincon as "A relatively pretentious book of poems from medieval Arabia. Nothing special."

It's just too easy a plot device. I feel dirty using it.

[urbwar]

Originally posted by Professor Phobos
In my campaign notes, actually, I rather specifically identified the Necronomincon as "A relatively pretentious book of poems from medieval Arabia. Nothing special."

It's just too easy a plot device. I feel dirty using it.

ROFL!

That's funny. Maybe the Egyptian Book of the Dead is the real necronomicon, and the one every thinks of as the real deal is exactly what you say it is: A book of poetry. Sick, deluded poetry though :p

[Professor Phobos]

Our second episode, "From The Dark" just concluded. A much faster session, one that I had trouble writing up before the game and ended up improvising to less-than-ideal results, but the players seem to have had fun.

A player came up with our campaign title, and so I've settled on "Shadows Over Arkham."

I like it. Nice and simple.

Anyway, this was a quicker, monster of the week episode.

The basic premise is that Henry West, descendent of Herbert, starts raising the dead. I had a dozen or so variations on this theme- hoard of zombies, just a few zombies, West as sympathetic/unsympathetic.

I still hadn't settled come gametime, and so what I gave my players was a little...disorganized, and probably not as satisfying as it could have been. Still, I think they liked it, and there were some cool bits.

We opened with the Watcher, Mr. Radford (who seems to have become an NPC, as the player is MIA.)
discussing a recent spate of grave robbings.

The PC's all decide on staking out a graveyard with a freshly buried dead person, to see if they can catch the culprit.

Before the midnight stakeout, they gather at The Red Hook nightclub for a bit of dancing and chit chat.

Sanz dances with Toni, which just plain fills Brian with jealousy and he spends the early night a little depressed. Mika and Ness sit out, and notice chemistry geek Henry West arguing with my Cordelia analog (wealthy, self-confident, but not as cruel) Alexis Winthrop.

As they watch, West puts something in Winthrop's drink. Then he leaves.

A popular star football player and top student Dan Manning comes over, and has a brief discussion with Winthrop. They both look a little bemused, perhaps frightened. As Manning leaves the nightclub, he clutches his chest and falls to the ground.

Chaos ensues. Alexis looks truly frightened, and Mika tries to get the story out of her.

Within the next few minutes, Manning's body cools unnaturally fast, and then he gets up, a zombie. He's confused, and keeps muttering "I should be dead!"

He heads for the cemetary, knocking over anyone in his way. (My intention was for a scene where he tries to dig himself a grave, wanting to be dead. But they stopped him before he got to the cemetary.)

Alexis tells Mika that West poisoned her as well, and that if she doesn't give him a lot of money, she'll turn into a zombie.

As zombies go, Manning keeps a lot of his intelligence. He's able to relate that he was in heaven and he wanted to go back to being dead.

The scoobies follow Manning and resolve to help Alexis get the antidote from West.

(GM's note: The original plan was for there to be more legwork, where they had to find the source of a bunch of zombies who were more victims than monsters. But I just plain schucked it and had no real investigation.)

They're outside the cemetary entrance, trying to restrain the zombie, when West shows up. Manning spots him and goes into a blind rage and breaks free, charging West.

The scoobies manage to stop Manning from ripping him to shreds (thinking West can cure Alexis before she zombifies...)

Radford, the watcher, played as an NPC, ruthlessly kills Manning, who everyone else planned on trying to help. (Manning clearly retained a lot of his personality and memories, and they didn't know whether he was still reeling from resurrection madness or just permanently nuts.)

This pisses off Sanz, who can't understand why Radford did what he did.

Radford says that zombies are contagious, but West snorts and says "Not my kind of zombie."

West tries to draw a pistol while Manning was charging, but Sanz restrains him. They then force West to take the group to his house to get the antidote.

Well, actually they split up- Sanz and Brian help Radford with the body, asking him about what Manning's parents will know, and trying not to look at Manning's face, with its eyes still revealing intelligence and it's jaw clicking up and down. (Radford severed the spinal cord, so the body was motionless, but the head wasn't.)
Radford intends to destroy it completely with acid. The horror of the situation hits both boys hard, and they are more-than-a-little disturbed by the ruthlessness of Radford.

(Since he's my NPC while the player is MIA- third session in a row with no explanation given- I'm going to try to play up the Watcher/Scooby divide a bit. They all can't be Giles, after all.)

As for the others, they proceed to West's basement lab.

West says he needs his hands free to make up the antidote, and so they set him free amongst his chemicals.

Alexis asks him why, and West goes on about him having cancer, and not wanting to die, and needing to beat death and test his formulas.

This is, of course, BS. West is just too cowardly and self-absorbed to acknowledge his mortality. He uses the sympathy generated in Ness to splash his face with acid and set hte lab on fire, escaping to the next room in the smoke and confusion.

Toni (slayer's twin sister) and Alexis head outside, as does Sanz, who wants to cover the front door in case West makes a break for it. Alexis keels over and zombifies very quickly, getting up in moments and enraged, goes after West. Ness is busy trying to keep the fire under control.

Meanwhile, Mika pursues West into the next room, but in the smoke, doesn't see him waiting behind the door with a baseball bat. He smacks her through a trapdoor into a sub-basement- Full of his monstrous failures! The misshapen creatures crawl after Mika, groaning about their terrible hunger.

Sanz and West square off, and Sanz gets West to drop his baseball bat. Alexis, wielding a glass beaker, muscles past Sanz and smashes the glass into West's face, sending him into the pit with the zombies.

Ness moves in and pulls Mika out of the zombie pit, while West clutches his ruined face and screams.

The place is burning and West is moments from being shredded by his victims, but Sanz is intent on saving him. Alexis stands in front of him and stops him, though, saying "No."

She turns to West and says..."Listen to me. Tell me the real reason you did this. If I think you're telling the truth, I'll get you out of there."

West responds with a desperate pleading cry..."Dammit! I wasn't lying before! I just don't want to die! Ever!"

Alexis stares blankly into space for a moment. "I'm going to grant your wish, Henry. Your real wish. I think it's time you got over your fear of death." She kicks the trapdoor shut, sealing West off with the zombies.

So then I get busy describing the burning house and West screaming for mercy, etc, but Sanz isn't done. He makes another last ditch effort to save West, and with Ness' help, pulls his broken, shattered form out of the house, spending a drama point in the process.

Now, up until that, I planned on West dying, but Sanz made a heroic effort and had to be rewarded, so now they have a pseudovillainous recurring character to contend with. Though he may well be blind.

They escape the burning house, which collapses, crushing the zombies (presumably.)

They learn that West's parents were his first test subjects.

Earlier Brian had separated from the group as a whole and met up with some Men In Suits and a Black Van (with the name "Aeon Laboratories" on the side) very curious about happenings.

They show up and take West into custody. This was a whim decision on my part, and now I think it'd have been cooler if West had stuck around as a Amy Madison/Johnathan/Andrew style NPC. WHich is still possible, depending on what Aeon does with him.

As for what Aeon Laboratories is, and what they want with a brilliant, if mad, young chemist who raises the dead, is something that my players won't find out for a good long while.

After this, there's some discussion with Alexis, who is trying to cope w/ her newfound deadness. (and is too overwhelmed to accept the "Vampires are Real" speech, putting it off for later.)

Still, she'll be a recurring supporting cast member. Kind of an "unlockable PC" as discussed from a thread a long time ago. (Again, since we're down a player- if anyone wants to take the role of a wealthy, somewhat snooty undead heir to the richest family in Arkham...)

In fact, the real point of this episode was to get her into the campaign. And since Sanz seems to like her, it's generated a nice romantic subplot. Plus cleared up the Sanz/Brian/Toni potential love triangle.

Ness was sprayed with acid but surprisingly undamaged. He does his best to cover his face, but Brian and Sanz are persistant, getting him to admit that he has a secret and that he'll be good as new in no time.

They don't press, though, and his secret remains safe. (Any guesses?)

Probably not my best work in terms of scenario design, but I felt that as far as actual gameplay went, things were good. The PC's all said they had fun, so I'll count this one as a success.

Next week, though, I'm in kind of a tricky spot. I'd like to do a Halloween episode (which is two weeks), but I don't want to start it a week before Halloween. Problem is, I doubt any episode could be resolved in a single three hour session, given how little actually gets done in an IRC game.

I might try a subplot, treading water game, with mostly interplayer/intersupporting cast interaction. That'll work nicely, given there's some basic book keeping they should do (Meeting other students, discussing the Bishop problem, etc.)

And then hit 'em with one of about a half-dozen good Halloween scenarios I've got. Only real question is: Do I go for the more serious, or the more lighthearted?

Buffy tradition is lighthearted Halloween episodes, so I'll probably stick with that. Still, I've got a nasty idea inspired by "Hush" that'd do nicely...

[Professor Phobos]

Episode 1x03- "Jungle Gym Rumble"

Because they wanted a Halloween episode next week, I had to run something short and fast this week.

Started things up the day after the events of the previous session, at school.

Brian shows up late to the first period class and misses a lab. His lab partner is school Bully, Billy Jenkin. Jenkin had to do the lab by himself and naturally botched it badly, so he goes up to Brian and says "After school..." Chance threatens Jenkins as he leaves, so he also gets challenged.

Brian's not doing too well, and just kind of stands there, head to the floor.

We move to lunch, and the characters sit together. Chance missed the fun, so he's got to have what happened last night- including the secret behind Dan Manning's dissapearance (which is all over the school) explained to him. Alexis shows up and relates how she's doing. She's weirded out, and discovered that she's both stronger than she was and heals very very quickly.

To make her feel better, Ness finally lets his secret out- he's the product of a Government genetic engineering super-soldier program that was kidnapped by his father (a head researcher) and given a normal life. Brian is deeply upset and leaves early. Sanz pursues to console.

Move to Sanz and Brian talking outside, by a dumpster. Brian makes a few comments that allude to a more-than-friendship relationship with Dan. Sanz asks if Brian's gay. No response.

Walking through the halls between classes, Chance bumps into Anthony Bishop, who knowing that the whole scooby group will likely go to the Jenkins-Brian fight, challenges Chance to a separate fight elsewhere. He promises not to have any of his friends show up at the other fight if Chance comes. Chance agrees.

We proceed to the after school scooby meeting. Because all the PC's no longer trust Radford and fear he'd just up and kill Alexis, despite her being obviously not dangerous, they tell him they cured her in time, but they want her on the team. Radford sighs and gives her the "Vampires are real..." speech. Ness' secret is also concealed from Radford.

Chance cuts out early while the others are distracted. Brian leaves a little later, saying he'll avoid Jenkin and not fight. He's lying, and mentions he'll "avoid the bike racks, where Jenkin likes to have his fights." Of course, Jenkins really likes to fight at the Baseball diamond, so that's where Brian heads.

Alexis talks with Mika and Toni about her experiences. They console her. Radford talks with Sanz about his interest in magic. Brian spent a drama point as a plot twist to give him some time to have Jenkin to himself, so I had to come up with ways to keep everyone occupied. Ness realizes that Chance is also gone, and goes to look for him, but I have him look around at the part of the school grounds neither boy is fighting at for a while.

Chance meets Anthony and the two fight. Not wanting to get bogged down, I say that Chance wins with a drama point and ties if he doesn't spend one. Chance wins, and Anthony gets angry and starts mumbling in a strange language with a deeper voice than usual. His muscles bulge out and he moves a lot faster. Chance is in trouble.

Brian meets up with Jenkin, whose actually busy beating up Zeke Pickman, stoically refusing to defend himself. Brian goes after Jenkin, but only puts up a brief fight for show. Brian wants to get pummeled, and intentionally loses. Pickman tries to get Jenkin away from him, and fights pretty well for a scrawny kid, but still loses (Pickman apparently wouldn't fight in is own defense but did so for Brian's sake). Brian starts getting the living daylights punched and kicked out of him.

Meanwhile, Chance is busy trying to avoid Super-Anthony from annihilating him. A drama point lets him get in a few good hits, and Chances' strange luck means Anthony slips and falls twice, slamming into a wall, hitting the ground, etc. After this goes on for a bit, Anthony starts speaking in that language again- but he's stopped. Tizzy Whateley and Samantha Mason, two girls from school (Tizzy- very very friendly and smiley. Samantha- very very shy) have been watching the fight with a little bit of shock on 'em, rooting for Chance. Tizzy shouts "No fair!" and speaks in a strange tongue of her own, cancelling Anthony's spell. Chance had managed to kind of sidestep a Super-Anthony charge and he slammed into the wall, so now Chance has got him cornered. Having kicked his ass before and survived against that spell, Chance is going to lay the righteous smack-down on Anthony, and Anthony knows it. So he splits after an intimidating stare from ol' Chance.

After this, Tizzy and Samantha head over to Chance, and talk to him a bit. They were looking to keep Zeke company and Tizzy admits she's a little bit of a witch. Chance explains why he was fighting Anthony and the three decide to go look for Jenkins, just in case Brian decided to fight after all.

At some point Radford takes Mika aside and puzzles out Alexis' secret, stating that her situation is clearly different and that he won't hurt her. Mika doesn't go ahead and say "Alexis is an intelligent zombie", but it is pretty much implied.

Meanwhile, Ness finally spots Jenkins beating on Brian, and runs over, tossing Jenkins all over the baseball field. Since there's no contest in this fight, I just let Ness describe how badly Jenkins gets it. Jenkins runs off, obviously outclassed, and Ness moves to help Brian, who is a bloody mess, and Pickman, whose banged up but alright.

They get Brian, Pickman, and Chance to Radford's office for first aid. The girls leave with Pickman after a bit, taking the hint that the others want to talk about something without them there. Chance explains his fight with Anthony Bishop and Brian manages to gasp out that he wanted to get hurt.

Ness ducked out at some point and followed Jenkins home, nicely playing out the "Artists lose their temper" bit. He knocks on Jenkin's door, meets his mother and accepts a nice, cool glass of lemonade, all the while Jenkins is standing on the porch terrified and his mother thinks Ness is his nice lab partner friend. Once Jenkins' mother is gone, Ness picks up Jenkins with one hand and makes it clear to Jenkins that for his continued safety he'd better stay the hell away from Ness' friends.

Because Brian is clearly not taking Manning's death very well, Sanz decides it'd be a good idea to have a memorial in Radford's backyard, where the acid-destroyed remains of Manning were secretly buried. Brian breaks down while this goes on and Sanz consoles him.

Quote of the Game:

(After Jenkins' challenge)
Sanz: Doesn't this school have peer mediation?
Chance: It does, just very unofficial and involving socks with bricks in them.









GMs Notes (Shadows over Arkham Players, stay out):



This turned out to be a far more serious episode than I anticipated, given that I had No Idea Brian's player was going to start up this little "Is Brian gay?" subplot or take Manning's death that badly. By the time Manning was just a casualty in an episode, he had gone through some changes in my notes. Started as Alexis Winthrop's boyfriend, then later changed to just the most beloved kid in school. Initially he was going to be a recurring character, but on a foolish whim in episode 2 I killed him. Since I forgot to actually mention was going out with Alexis in that episode, I quietly crossed it out of my notes so as to aid in Brian's nascent subplot. I suppose its a good thing I'm a forgetful GM, as it gives the players room to fill in the gaps for their own purposes.

Is Brian gay? I dunno. Player hasn't given me a straight answer (no pun intended) so we'll have to see where this subplot goes, as he was also obviously infatuated with Toni earlier. The whole thing might be a Bait & Switch on the part of the player. He made statements that would lead to that conclusion, but then again, they were all pretty ambiguous.

As the watcher's player just missed his fifth session in a row with absolutely no explanation, he's been turned into a supporting cast member. I have enough trouble making sure five players have something to do in any event. I'm going to play up the Watcher/Scooby divide in that Radford is far more ruthless and cold blooded than they are.

Because this one was serious, I'm considering going light-hearted for the Halloween episode instead of the Hell I had otherwise prepared for them.

[Professor Phobos]

Aw, my poor thread gettin' no love. No love at all.

[Elemental]

Well, I'm reading it. These threads often end up sinking because people don't want to post just to say "That was great."

But I'm doing that anyway, because I'd like to see more. :)

[Craig Oxbrow]

A lighthearted Halloween episode might be a good call. Restore the balance of painful vs silly.

[Professor Phobos]

Episode 1x04- The Strange High School In the Mist

'tis a few weeks after our last episode, the day of Halloween. Arkham treats Halloween like Christmas, Thanksgiving and three or four Halloweens put together. The school has a massive dance and the whole town is decorated. (Subconscious recognition of the Hellmouth's decreased influence on Halloween? Just 'cause they like it? You be the judge.)

Anyway, we start off with a brief trailer scene- an alarm is going off in Arkham Asylum.

The gang is sitting at their lunch table discussing costume options. In the intervening weeks Tizzy Whateley, Samantha Mason and Zeke Pickman have made friends with them, though they have not been inducted into the scooby gang. Ness and Zeke find they have art in common, Sanz gets Tizzy to help him with studying magic, and otherwise, they find they've got stuff in common. Ness also makes an effort to keep Alexis company, who is still adjusting to being dead.

They decide on a group costume and Brian says that the school did the Wizard of Oz a few years back. They decide to raid the theater's closet for the costumes. They even convince a surly Mr. Radford to go as the wizard.

After school they costume up, Radford reminds everyone that Halloween is their night off and to have fun. Chance is skeptical- and, naturally, his skepticism proves on the mark. They help Shrewsbury set up decorations for a bit, and while Shrewsbury is talking with Zeke and Ness, mentions a Kingsport Arts Festival Zeke should enter, given the quality of his work. Zeke grudgingly agrees.

The dance begins- Sam and Zeke wallflower, but everyone else tries to have a good time. Brian manages to dance with Toni and Chance with Tizzy, and Sanz dances with Alexis once or twice with Ness looking on. Jealous?

Zeke and Sam walk out, and then, the weirdness begins.

The lights go out and they're plunged in darkness- and when the lights go back on, they find themselves in different places.

Chance find himself dressed in high class 1930's era garb on a boat, possibly off the coast of massachusetts. It's a party, and a slightly inebriated women is trying to pick him up. She says cryptic things about a King and how Chance is a big man in the King's organization. Chance notes the obsessively helpful servants all have a strange, indistinct mark on their hands- the same mark that adorns the flag on the boat. Later, someone taps their glass for a toast- an man with no eyes wants to speak. He makes loud proclamations about the King's victory over the "Dark Queen" in California, about the United States falling to the King and soon the entire world. The crowd, however, looks skeptical- there's an undercurrent of disbelief in them and desperation in the Eyeless man. Tizzy finds Chance at this point- confused, and wondering why she's treated like royalty. Chance wonders what they look like and checks his reflection, which is unchanged, and Tizzy's- who has none. This worries Chance. The Eyeless man is lead over to the two and politely addresses them. They make chit-chat for a bit, and the Eyeless man admits he met the Dark Queen years before she became what she was, when she was a mere child. He was visiting an 'old friend' and ran into her. This is before the Eyeless Man was enlisted into the King's service. The King doesn't like people to talk about the Queen, because he's embarassed a mere little girl could match him in power in a fraction of the time it took him to become what he was.
After this period of cryptic and freaky events, a giant horrible squid monster rises from the sea and smashes the boat, returning Chance and Tizzy to the dance floor. No time has passed for anyone else, but all the other cast members are looking might confused.

Meanwhile, Alexis, Ness and Sanz find themselves jumping out of a plane, in full military garb. They parachute down successfully and manage to follow along a group of soldiers on a recon mission to Arkham. There's talk of an 'otherspace rift' in the town, and the loss of Finn's team, and that something or someone called SANDMAN is going to destroy the town in ten hours with a 'reality quake charge'. They head into the town where they find eight other soldiers strung up, mostly dead, all eyeless. They manage to pull down two- one dies- but the last is Riley Finn, and he manages to gasp out stuff about the rise of a "King" and an army and begs them to destroy the town.

Quote:
Riley Finn: "The King......someone calling himself the King did something with the...Hellmouth, and now....he's got an army. Destroy the valley. Destroy it all before it's too late..."
Ness: "The King? And an army of what?"
Alexis: "Demons!!!!"
Ness: (looking up to see an army of demons): "Oh....crap."

They're rushed by a hoard of demons, and ripped to shreds, returning them to the dance floor. No time has passed, except that everyone else is looking mighty confused.

Finally, Brian, Toni and Mika find themselves in the woods, looking down two paths. One is grim, dark, dank and dead- it is actually a moonlit night down that path. The other is sunny, warm and full of life. It even has a cute little bunny rabbit hopping across the trail. They go down the 'good trail.' They come to a fairly open grove full of Willow trees. the Wind whistles through the trees and whispers to them that they're not welcome, that the should leave. Then, an Eyeless Girl appears and tells them to leave, that they shouldn't be in Dream and explaining that they should call to their friends, and that it is all up to the Slayer to prevent this from happening- the Eyeless Girl says "After you, I am humanity's last hope...but I am a betrayer." No appropriately worried, they call to their friends- and the Eyeless Girl cackles. 'tis a trick, and the cast's yelling awakens the "willow trees" which are, in fact, horrific monsters. Soon the forest itself- twisted and overgrown not with healthy life but with malignant cancerous growth, swallows them up. Before they do so the eyeless girl leaves, muttering "bored now..." Of course, dying sends them back to the dance floor.

Quotes:
(on arriving in the woods)
Brian: "I hate to say it, but we very well might be in Kansas."
(on coming to the fork in the woods)
Brian: "And I hate to quote Robert Frost...so I won't."

The group is now mighty confused and recognizes that Something Strange just happened to all of them. Zeke comes back inside at this point and beckons them to join him outside. Samantha's "felt something powerful", and she thinks someone cast a powerful spell. Just then, of course, a well-aged old women appears, madness in her eyes.

It is, as they learn, Keziah Mason, recently escaped from Arkham Asylum, and here for her daughter, who has great potential. Keziah worships Chaos and has some inkling of the future- she doesn't want her daughter upstaged by "that amateur from Sunnydale" and wants Samantha to take her rightful place as the Queen when the King rises. Keziah attempts to compel Samantha magically, which fails, and when she fails to convince Samantha, opens up a rift in time and space and leaves.

Quote:
Keziah Mason: "Such wonderful destinies you all had. Such a place for chaos! Oh, what fun it's been...."
Brian: "Hello- I'm sane. You?"
Sanz: "Brian!"
Brian: "Guillermo!"

They head back to Radford's office and compare notes, sharing their visions. Radford briefly resists letting Zeke in on things, but Zeke is rather forceful- apparently he loses his stutter when the adrenaline gets pumping.

Quote:
Radford: "Fine...I'll give him the speech...it isn't like the council frowns on recruiting a small army of children..."
Ness: "Maybe we should make membership cards and like an introduction letter explaining everything at this rate."
Chance: "Form letters are too impersonal."
Sanz: "I can design a flier."

Radford also explains a bit on Keziah's background. Presumed dead by the Watcher's Council, she was a human witch who worshipped chaos and was transformed in the process. Hopelessly insane, her very presence acts like a kind of mini-Hellmouth, making things more chaotic and drawing weirdness. Her being on a Hellmouth (and active- she was catatonic in asylum) will magnify this effect. Radford notes that things may "prove interesting."

GM's Notes (My players stay away):

Despite this being the best episode as far as quotes went thus far, I don't think it came off as well as I had hoped. There was no sense of danger, and I got the impression that as far as the visions went, they were more confused than anything else. However, a truly epic amount of foreshadowing happened, and I finished up the supporting cast recruitment drive. All five of my 'full time' supporting cast members (Radfrod, Alexis, Zeke, Samantha, and Tizzy) were built as plot generators, and are vital to the main plotline of the season, so it's nice to have that out of the way. I might have wanted to drag things out a bit- especially in Alexis' case, the cast didn't get to know her well before the zombification. I think that when all the various things foreshadowed occur, the episode might be looked back upon with a more favorable light, given the sheer density of the clues. I had intended to make each vision far weirder and more disturbing, using the "Hastur Mythos" section of Countdown as primary inspiration, but dividing my attention between three distinct groups of players and running out of session time forced me to accelerate things. The conclusion, also, felt so-so, arbitrary and abrupt.

For those wondering, the Eyeless Man on the boat was meant to be Ethan Rayne, the King's head prophet and spokesperson, and the Eyeless Girl in the forest was Dark Willow. The willow-tree monsters were Dark Young of Shub Niggurath. Riley Finn was explicitly named. This is the first time they've met anyone from the show, but probably not the last. After all, every Buffy game needs an obligatory Ethan Rayne episode, and I've got a use for Riley.

Mid-episode I realized how I could/should use more of the Cthulhu Mythos and reconcile it nicely with the Buffyverse, so I decided to go from just name-dropping to more explicit crossover. Things probably won't get truly Lovecraftian, though, given the emphasis on heroism and hope for humanity.

Next week will likely either be either an episode devoted to Ness or an attempt to get back to the main Bishop plotline, with much violence. It strikes me that if I decide the next episode early enough, I can do a "scenes from next week's..." and get 'em all psyched up.

[Professor Phobos]

Episode 1x05- The Rats In the Halls.

Nudity.

Violence.

Bad Puns.

Ah....glory, this episode went well.

Basic Plot: Tizzy and Sanz cast a spell that backfires, gradually turning everyone in school into a rat. Hilarity ensues.

Highlights:

Rat Mika and Rathony Bishop, demonically boosted, have a pencil duel. Brian and Sanz break the spell just as Rathony's going to win, turning everyone back into (naked) humans. Mika kicks Anthony Bishop, now armed with a pencil, in the family jewels, forcing him to put them...on mice.

Mika stakes a Vampire Rat with a pencil. Ness, who strangely never changed to a rat physically (but he got increasingly rat-like in mind), punts another Vampire Rat clear out of the school.

The rat they cast the initial spell on became hyperintelligent, and attempted to lead his newfound brethren by giving a speech in the lunchroom. He was nicknamed "Julius" by Sanz and is now a recurring character, as Sanz spent XP to buy Ratspeak after all was said and done. (He's essentially Sanz' familiar now). The content of his speech was designed such that he'd be characterized as a "ratstafarian." (It was funny at the time. I swear.)

RatSanz knows where the spell is, but leads Brian and Chance to the cafeteria instead, to get food. They get back on track and Sanz makes a flying leap from a lunch table to a bulletin board- and falls. RatBrian and RatChance barely manage to catch him in some mashed potatoes on a lunch tray.

Principal Shrewsbury actually turns into a giant rat, and fights Ness.

The whole school ends the ordeal naked and very confused. There's mass confusion. Ness is outside, at this point, and never transformed, remaining clothed. The cast manages to avoid a look at Radford, but many glances went both ways. Tizzy had been hurt in the fight, and Chance very kindly had the chance to help her up, find her clothes, etc. Brian and Sanz end up outside, freezing their asses off.

There's an unspoken agreement to Never Speak Of This amongst the whole school.

Quotes:

Chance: "This is like Nimh mixed with Lord of the Flies..."

Sanz: "Let's ... um... stock up on some provisions." (Leads Chance and Brian to the cafeteria, instead of the ritual circle.)
Brian: "Way to go, Sanz, always let your stomach make your decisions."
Chance: (Chomping on nacho cheese) "Totally irresponsible..."

Later...
Sanz: "Brian, it's this way, I'll show you!"
Brian: "Oh, sure you will- I'm sure the evil ritual circle is right next to the cheesy poofs..."
Sanz: "How do we get past our ratmates?"
Brian: "Climb. If you can do that without turning everyone into a swiss mountain brigade."

(Two vampires open the doors to the school and Ness tries to stare them down.)
Ness: "Bad timing. Scurry off now."
Vampire: "I don't think so. I think we're gonna enjoy this..."
(Both vampires enter the school and immediately turn into rats.)
Ness: (Smiling.) "Oh, I agree." (Punts one of the vampire rats.)

Ness (navigating a sea of his classmates, trying not to step on anyone): "Sheesh, I thought we weren't supposed to join the rat race until after high school..."

Julius (Beginning his speech): "Friends, Rodents, Countrymen..."

Director: Brian, Sanz, it's really cold outside. You'll freeze your asses off, but I guess for this, you'll give a rats ass?

(Ness kicks the crap out of a vampire outside of the school, and it runs away.)
Ness: "Oh sure, turn tail and run!"
Fleeing Vampire: "Good one!"

Brian and Sanz are outside when the spell's reversed, and it's cold.

Sanz: "Damn, shrinkage!
Brian: "Guillermo, You've got nothing to be ashamed of." beat pause- "Really! Ha ha ha... Whooo..."

Sanz: "You know. Do I want to freeze to death or see Radford naked?"

Brian (Re-entering the school): "Jenny Taylor? Looking Good!"
Sanz: "Choose a team, man! You're awfully fickle."
Brian: "Mind your business, Guillermo."
(Consider the double meaning of 'business' in this context.)

(Discussing the fact that Billy Jenkin doesn't seem to be changing back from rat form)
Tizzy: "Well...I guess I could try another spell to..."
Everyone: "NO!"

Tizzy: "Wow...I really screwed up. I don't know what to say."
Brian: "I'm sorry I turned you into a rat, Billy, would be a good start."
Ness: "It wasn't that bad. I didn't turn into a rat. "
Sanz: "Hey, we got to see some people naked, eat a lot of junk food, and we get a half day off from school. What's there to be sorry for?"
Chance: "When you put it like that . . . "

Subplot stuff:

Alexis is still reporting that she's more or less emotionless, distant and detatched from events. Ness wants Radford to try to find a spell to get her emotions back.

Zeke and Ness discuss the upcoming art fair in Kingsport.

Radford and Samantha determine the spell's powerful backfire was due to the influence of Keziah Mason's mini-hellmouth and her focus on the school.

The next episode is "Little Green Triangles" and is the planned Ness subplot explosion bit. Ness actually drew up a teaser...

Narrator: Next week, on the Shadows over Arkham...
The scene cuts to Brian, who screams angrily: "You LIED to
us!" to an unseen person. The scene shifts to a black helicopter,
whirring silently as it makes it's way through the skies of Arkham.

Narrator: A secret behind one of the group is revealed.
Cut to Radford walking up to the camera, saying: "No. He's
not human..."

Narrator: But when it's revealed...
Shift to a shot of Mika with a knife to her throat, looking
surprised for a moment.
Narrator: Will the group lose one of their own...
Screen blacks out completly
Narrator: ...forever?
Narrator: Next time, on Shadows over Arkham!

DVD Extras:

Interview w/ The Director, Professor Phobos: "Rats" swiftly became a fan favorite. As a light-hearted episode, it came exactly when it was needed- after a fair bit of severity and before 'stuff hit fans' later in the season. It also proved our writing staff and cast could be funny, even under the supervision of the Professor, a sad and humorless man even on a good day.

Deleted Scenes:
Zeke and Samantha were trapped in the art room when turned into rats, and woke up together, alone, and naked. They avert their eyes immediately and awkward dialogue follows, but there's plenty of tension in the air.

[Craig Oxbrow]

Cool. Like it, like it.

[Professor Phobos]

Episode 1x06- "Little Green Triangles."


Summary: Corporate goons from Aeon Laboratories: Dr. Seldon Graves (Stolen from: GURPS Cabal) and a Colonel Endicott, plus commandoes, try to retrieve what was government property- Ness.

Ness was lying about the mutant thing- he's actually a Robot, a robot made to look like Ness Coen and infused with the comatose boys' soul, built by his father before he was assassinated by Graves when they were both working for the Initiative.

This was our Thanksgiving episode, and we started things off in Radford's history class. Ness is summoned by a worried looking Shrewsbury and taken to the office, where he meets Dr. Graves and Col. Endicott, who try and coerce Principal Shrewsbury into allowing them to take Ness into custody.

Shrewsbury refuses, smelling a rat, and Ness is saved. For the time being. Graves is a Moriarty-esque figure, a decrepit, skeletal old man. Endicott is a straight backed ruthless military type, and as he passes Ness to leave, he whispers "Be seeing you."

Ness fairly freaked out at this point, and the others are worried- but again he lies to them.

'tis the day before Thanksgiving and the gang plans on assembling at Ness' house for a group dinner. Which they do, all bringing various portions of the meal.

Before dinner, Chance attempts to ask Tizzy out on a date, but is incessantly interrupted by various events- a trend I plan on continuing for comic purposes.

In any event, Radford and Ness' guardian get to talking, and he lets slip he served in the SAS. He also let slip that he'd been summoned to Arkham on short notice.

They get to eating, and there's mighty amounts of chit chat and the consumption of food when all of a sudden....

[Professor Phobos]

The lights go out.

Chances' trademark..."Oh...crap" and wham, tear gas grenades slam through the windows and commandoes burst into the place!

Commandoes wielding little stun-rods, and there's much kung fu fighting. Alexis gets it in the back of the head with a grenade, Zeke gets knocked out by stunrods, and Radford gets shot in the leg when a commando draws his pistol.

Chance evacuates Radford, Zeke, Tizzy, Toni and Samantha to the garage and hotwires the van, driving through the garage and blasting away.

Mika and Ness kick ass- Ness takes serious damage when bullet after bullet slams into his body, sending sparks everywhere and revealing that he's a robot. The attacks on his friends cause him to go into a Righteous Fury, and he becomes an unstoppable engine of destruction.

Until Endicott shows up- Ness has him by the throat, but Endicott's got men with rifles on his friends. Ness surrenders so that they may live, as Endicott only wants Ness, not his friends.

Ness is escorted into a black suburban, which drives off, leaving Mika and Sanz watching helplessly, with a badly wounded Alexis.

Things are looking grim...but unbeknownst to everyone, Brian's spent a plot twist to have snuck out the back and hidden in one of the suburbans...

[Professor Phobos]

Radford's checked into the hospital and the others talk with the Colonel about Ness.

Cellphones out, they get to talking. Ness has a lowjack-style tracker system (plot twist spent by Sanz), so they can find him, and Alexis head wound heals.

Radford's leg is sown up, and the cast coordinates. No one knows where Brian is, but a rescue attempt for Ness is organized.

Which Radford expressly orders them not to do. Radford refuses to allow Mika to risk her life for a machine.

Naturally, he's ignored, and left in the hospital.

This is another time where Radford's sheer ruthlessness distances him from the Justice League- Sanz in particularly doesn't trust him.

The others meet up elsewhere, and Ness' guardian explains the little bit about how he's got a soul. Zeke, quite worried about such, seems very, very relieved to learn that. (None of the PC's picked up on Zeke's strange behavior vis a vis the issue of Ness' soul. I foreshadow and I foreshadow....)

They arm up and track Ness down to the Aeon Laboratories corporate building, Arkham's largest employer.

Meanwhile, Brian....

[Professor Phobos]

Has knocked out a guard and taken his uniform, and manages to put his acting skills to great use as he bluffs his way all the way through the heavily guarded b uilding into the labs, where he finally spots Ness being worked on.

Ness was taken into the car and after a chat with Endicott, they deactivate him. He's got a pair of NPC's he ran, and I found it delightful to make Ness inactive for half of the Ness-focused episode. Put the spotlight on how Ness relates to everyone else rather than just Ness.

Anyway, Brian sneaks down, knocks out another guard, hides in a bathroom and *wham* bumps right into a one-eyed and mighty startled Henry West, recruited by Aeon.

Now, recall Brian *might* have been in love with Dan Manning, who West turned into a zombie and Radford killed. In any event Brian had some sort of close relationship w/ Manning, and good reason to hate West.

So West heads off to create a distraction, warning Brian that he's going to contaminate the whole place and that ten minutes after the distraction starts everything in the place needs to be gone or they'll be dead.

Brian puts his only gas mask on the unconscious guard, to give him a fighting chance, and waits in the bathroom.

Brian manages to Intimidate West, and just as he's got West about to beg for his life, forgives him!

West takes a few moments, then begins his road to redemption (maybe...) and offers to help Brian rescue Ness.

Five minutes later, alarm klaxons start blaring and all the labcoats start screaming and running for the elevator.

[Professor Phobos]

Brian heads into Ness' laboratory section and picks him up, only to find that Ness is pretty freaking heavy. Fireman's carry, heroic feat, and Brian's on his way down the corridor to the elevator.

Green gas is spilling out of a lab section at the far end of the place- a noxious looking green gas. The air gets foul.

The gas is heading towards Brian faster than Brian is heading toward the elevator, as he trudges along, Ness on his back.

Brian manages to collapse into the elevator sections before the gas reaches him, with only a few whisps making it inside the elevator- still causing Brian to choke and sputter for a while as the elevator heads up.

Meanwhile, the others have arrived at the Aeon building to see most of the employees on the outside. Looks like there's a fire drill or somesuch.

On the way, Sanz and Tizzy devised a spell they want to try- it'll make everyone their friend for a little while (they figure they just can't kick the ass out of a small army of guards and commandoes.)

So Tizzy and Sanz perform the ritual, and hoping it works, they head into the building. Just in time to see Brian crawl out of the elevator with Ness and a whole bunch of panicked guards and guys in Chemical Warfare suits.

Since everyone is friendly, they're all helping one another, except that the spell doesn't seem to work on people who have prior bias, so when Endicott shows up, he's a danger.

Alexis hurls a battle axe at him and neatly severs his arm. (and shocks the rest of the cast as to her murderous violence)

A soldier tries to shoot at them, but Mika gives him a kiss. Friendship spell prevails, and there's less violence than there would have been otherwise.

Eventually the elevator opens again, and out pours two dying chemsuit guys and a zombie from the lab section- the soldier Brian had left down there.

Chaos ensues, and the cast gets Ness and everyone else out of there.

[Professor Phobos]

Finally, wrapping things up.

Radford gets Ness' little "soul" explained, and recants his earlier position on things.

Brian talks with Sanz for a little while, and almost confesses his secret, but eventually backs out as the episode closes.

There's much friendship affirmation and bonding as Ness is reactivated. He's deeply sorry for lying, etc etc, they all forgive him. It's all good roleplaying. (I am thankful for my players.....best thing for a GM is good players, I say...)

The cast adds "Aeon Laboratories" onto their list of enemies, which has grown pretty darn long. (Keziah Mason, "the king", the Bishops, Potter...)

Hmm, lesse, that's about it. For those wondering, "Little Green Triangles" is a reference to Delta Green.

Next week, it's "The Field Trip of Unknown Kadath" and the cast is going to enjoy a visit to the Dreamlands.

[the village idiot again..]

Shadows over arkham just completed the first half of episode seven, the Field trip of Unknown Kadath. It's turned in to a two-part episode, as the group decided to spend the whole session tooling around Kingsport, and planning operation: whipped cream.

It's a unique situation in this game, where most of the players seems to enjoy just hanging out and doing stuff. no dice necessary. Until, of course, it's time to kill the vampires.

gamer known as Brian

[Mr. Analytical]

I think this thread didn't get anywhere near the love it deserved.

I thought that it was excellent.

Phobos, having looked around the various Buffy websites I think that your summaries are among the very best I've seen (basicaly yours and Steve D's with everyone else's way behind). We got a real idea of plot and character and emotion and fun. you also editorialised enough to give a real impression of how you as GM saw the game and what you thought was good and bad.

You write incredibly well and I think your campaign really kicks arse. Some of the set pieces were really excellent (particularly the Zombie-guy trapped in the burning lab... fucking groovy!) and your players seem to be very able and motivated, a couple of the Whitehats in particular do really great character development.

I got a real impression of being there and thought some of the adventures were really exciting. I think some of the summaries worked less well but as you said, they're less fun to write than they are to read so I suspect you kind of got sick of writing them when you weren't getting much feedback :( for example the whole king and queen thing was really odd and I suspect that I understood about as much of what was going on from your summary (with the spoilers) as your players did when you played it.

On the whole though your campaign sounds really really excellent and I'm amazed you had a drop-out. Keep up the good work and I'd really like to hear about what else is going on in your campaign even if you can't be bothered to write it up for us all to enjoy publically.

Kudos.

[Professor Phobos]

Well.

In that case, I'll keep it up.

Thanks! Your kind words have lifted my spirits.

[Mr. Analytical]

No problem :-)

I'd seen the thread a few times but last night I printed it off and read all of the summaries and just thought it was great. I definitely liked the elements of editorialising from you, I think that's the only fault of the Night Watch summaries, namely that they emerge fully formed... giving some insight into the creative process is definitely cool as an inspiration to other GMs and I think make you look better as a GM :-) Steve D's summaries are fully formed and add to his aura of invulnerability but you are public about the choices you make and they turn out to be right and they also show where the GM's work ends and the players take over so it makes a lot of them look really good as well.

[Professor Phobos]

Episode 1x07, "The Field Trip of Unknown Kadath", part 1.

A few episodes ago Shrewsbury mentioned the Miskatonic Valley High School Art Fair in Kingsport as something Ness and Zeke should enter into, and that day has finally arrived. AHS students who submitted something or are in an art class get to go on the overnight trip to Kingsport and see the show, not to mention enjoy scenic Kingsport's many attractions.

We begin our episode outside the bus to take these kids to Kingsport. Radford, sporting a neat Mad-Max style Leg Brace is there to see them off, along with Tizzy and Samantha, who are not going- they could have both gone, but declined for Potentially Sinister Reasons.

Ness and Radford avoid eye contact as best they can- they have not spoken since Thanksgiving, though Radford has changed his position on the whole "Does Ness deserve to live?" thing.

Onto the bus they go.

From the DVD Extras:Interview with the Director...
Interviewer: Rumor has it you were sick during the filming, care to shed any light on that?

Director: Oh yes. I was guzzling cheap safeway tea and those awful Starbucks "Double Shots" all through the shoot, barely able to function. My direction suffered as a result- the whole thing was a series of me shooting myself in the foot.

Interviewer: How so?

Director: Even the first scene, outside the busses. It didn't make sense for Tizzy or Samantha to not go- I cut them out to minimize the number of cast members I had to deal with at the same time. Of course, I've got a couple good Sinister Reasons now for them not to have come along, but at the time, it was a mistake to pass up the chance to further the Zeke/Samantha and Tizzy/Chance romantic subplots, not to mention the [spoilers redacted] plotline.

On the Bus:

They file in toward the front. Shrewsbury sits next to Zeke and converses with them for a little while. Chance and Sanz covertly discuss the necessity of playing a prank on Shrewsbury while at the hotel, and Shrewsbury groans about how Kingsport wins the art fair every year.

Quote:
-Brian:"Don't worry about it, Mr. Shrewsbury. The Gymnastic team will wipe the floor with Kingsport come spring. Creatively, too."
-Shrewsbury: "We're the only school in the area with a gymnastics team. Of course we win."
-Brian: "And win by a huge margin."

Ness is nervous and excited, but Zeke remains stoically calm. Brian reads the newspaper and is quiet and withdrawn, as usual.

Eventually, Dean Moore approaches Shrewsbury and speaks with him, and they both head to the back of the bus to sit near problem student Anthony Bishop. His brother, John, replaces Shrewsbury next to Zeke sporting a bloody nose.

This is the closest the cast has been to John- the "good Bishop", famously abused by his brother. (Anthony, as you'll note, has also tried twice now to kill various cast members.)

Brian is the only one to break the awkward silence, and leans over the seat to ask John a question about Bishop family history. A very detailed question, showing that Brian's been doing a lot of research. John doesn't know the answer- but he gets Brian's message.

On to Kingsport...

[Professor Phobos]

DVD Extras: Interview with the Director...(I'm going to drop the whole "it's a TV show" thing. 'tis silly)

Interviewer: Some have noted that nothing really happens during the first part of this episode. Care to explain the slow pace?

Director: Well, I was busy trying to keep my head from exploding and was unable to pace things very well. Since my players are quite happy to just interact naturally with the other characters, I never know when they want the roleplaying to stop and the blood spray to begin. Since I am so loathe to *make* them do anything, I end up allowing a lot of time being spent just letting them roleplay. In fact, I was barely able to reach the cliffhanger ending for this episode at all. But more on that later.

In Kingsport:

They all check into their rooms. It is four to a room so Toni and Mika are with two strangers. Directors Note: PERFECT spots for Tizzy and Samantha, compounding my mistake. Forced the creation of two additional bit SCM's...

Toni and Mika head off, with Brian tagging along, to a bookstore to meet up with Mika's out-of-town boyfriend, Chris. Brian declines to participate in the Chance/Sanz/Ness plot to raid Shrewsbury's room...

Quote:
-Brian: "Sorry, but guerilla warfare against Administrators isn't my bag."
-Chance: "Oh man. You gotta stand up. Fight. For your right. To party."
-Ness: Where's that in the student handbook?
-Chance: "The MAN took it out."
-Ness:Which man? *tilts his head*

Directors Note:Initially both Toni and Mika came into the game "taken", so to speak, but in light of Brian's infatuation w/ Toni Mika's player dropped her boyfriend so as to make for a more interesting time had by all.

The guys, however, have a problem. There are five of them- Chance volunteers to be the Odd Man Out and room with three strangers for a night. Given that Chance suffers from wildly inconsistant luck, this turns out to be a bad idea when he finds himself staying with no less than two Chess pieces...

Quote:
Chance (Walking into the room, spotting both Bishops- one of whom has tried to kill him): "Ah...hey there."
Anthony: "Un frickin' believable."
John: This is a little awkward...

Anthony barges out of the room, giving Chance the shoulder.

Chance stores his stuff in the other room for now, and heads off with the rest of the gang to pick up supplies for a prank they desire to play on Shrewsbury. Sanz also wants to hit up Kingsports local magic shop, which, while it is not nearly as good as Arkham's "The Broom Closet" (Thanks be to some #RPGNet person who came up with that name...), Sanz spends a drama point to have picked up an item that will "Come in handy later."

Chance reveals who his roommates are, and the four get into an argument. Ness immediately volunteers to take Chances' place, being both superhuman and not needing to sleep.

Chance says he'll pull an all-nighter and maintains that he can handle himself. Zeke in particular takes offense and adamantly maintains Chance should switch. In fact, at one point, it almost looks like Zeke's pissed off when Chance refuses to follow his advice. Maybe. Zeke seems especially opposed to the idea of an "all nighter." Zeke actually tries to *order* Ness and Chance to switch, but he's ignored.

Quote:
-Chance: "Yeah. I think I'll pull an all-nighter tonight."
-Ness: "You could switch with me if you wanted."
-Chance: "Hey, I can handle myself."
-Ness: "Well, yeah, but you need sleep. I don't."
-Chance: "With the help of Sir. Mountain Dew, I don't either!"

They get their silly string.

On to the art fair...

[Jimmy]

Nice read so far!

keep up the good work. ;)

[Professor Phobos]

Zeke's submissions dominate the art show. They're all your basic nature scenes, painted skillfully to be sure, but there isn't anything special about them...except they provoke a sense of calmness, serenity, in the viewer. The judges are unable to put their fingers on how Zeke's managed to capture the emotional essence of a scene so well, but it's clear he'll be the winner announced the next day.

Ness' submission is actually a group portrait- he's gone and put everyone up on canvas (even Julius, Sanz' new familiar.) It's well done, but a little cartoonish and not going to take home any prizes. Still, the connection it'll have to the rest of the gang ensures Ness' piece was far more popular amongst them than Zeke's.

After the fair, they gear up to play a prank on Shrewsbury. Namely, Ness uses his Terminator-like ability to mimic human voices to get him out of his room, they enter and begin to redecorate the place. Dean Moore catches 'em in the act, though.

Quote:
-Brian:"So, you fought the law- did the law win?"
-Ness: "The law gave us detention."
-Sanz: "Like we don't spend all our time at school anyway."
-Brian: "Ah- you fought the law, and the law won."

Director's Note: Sadly, while I enjoy frivolous merriment as much as the next guy, the session was drawing to a close and I really wanted to end on a cliffhanger, so I had to gloss over the prankage. . I've made a note to myself to ensure that they get many more opportunities for delightful practical jokes in the future. If I had done a little more railroading earlier in the session, they'd have had more time for this...

Anyway, they return to their rooms and prepare for sleep.

Chance returns to his room to find the others also preparing. Anthony's in the bathroom- using this time, John quickly heads to Chance and quietly tells him nothing will happen to him tonight. Then Anthony heads for his bed- and punches John in the stomach as he goes by. He then gives Chance a "What? Gonna do something about it?" look.

Chance is about ready to do something about it, but John intervenes. Chance is all up in arms, but Anthony says "I can wait" in a very sinister way, as if he knows something is coming. It was tense there, for a moment, and the other players (and I, frankly) were ready for some Kung Fu.

Director's Note: I had shot myself in the foot by even setting this up at all. I kind of wanted to make sure John Bishop was introduced before the next episode, which is the mid-season two parter that'll get 'em back onto the main plot, but the thing is: If Chance doesn't sleep, he misses out on all the fun. Likewise, Brian later tried to pull an all nighter just in case things went bad with Chance. Luckily both were amenable when I pointed out the episode had its title for a reason, and agreed that they'd eventually fall asleep. I managed to sidestep the Chance/Anthony rematch *and* foreshadow the excrement-hitting-fans stage of the season that's upcoming, so I gave myself a gold star for getting out of a hole I dug.

So after that, everyone goes to sleep in the last few minutes of the session. The whole point of this part of the Episode was to put them to sleep in Kingsport, so that...

They found themselves at the top of a long, dark stairway, looking at Zeke dressed like some kind of medieval, royal soldier. Zeke is also a different person...he has an aura of command and authority he lacks in the Waking World. The others are in their pajamas, except for Sanz, who apparently sleeps naked.

Quote:
Chance: "So that's what Sanz' penis looks like."

I was initially going to veto the nudity, but Chance slipped in the Family Guy reference and I was forced to let it slide. On the plus side, Sanz has the item he spent a Plot Twist on before.

Zeke sighs dramatically and says..."I'm sorry I had to do this to you...welcome to the Dreamlands.

At that, the session closed.

There was follow-up discussion for the next session. Namely, I wanted everyone to work up a "dream avatar" of their character, that would at times represent all their strengths in an exaggerated, archetypical manner, and at other times, represent their weaknesses. Weapons and items manifest as per their personality- Sanz skateboard is a flying carpet, Ness' pens became spears, the blood of his enemies his ink...and so forth. This episode is kind of based off of "Nightmares" or "Fear, Itself" only with more swordfighting in the midst of metaphorical revelation of character psychology. The idea is that injury and death in the Dreamlands will be dependent on mental, not physical factors. So at some point in the next episode they might have to face their fears or otherwise be hurt emotionally and shift into the weak dream avatar from the strong. (Brian's player intends to start as his weak self and manifest the strong version later in the episode, probably to Save The Day.)

Making up for what I thought was a slow, plodding session was the enthusiasm the various players had for this idea. With any luck, I'll be able to successfully off at least a moderate amount of awesomeness for the second part of the Episode later this week. It'll involve much stabbing of monsters.

Also contingent on their experiences in the Dreamlands will be the availability of the "Dreamer" quality afterwords. While Dreamlands scenarios might not be that common, there's an awful lot of weirdness that might ensue.

[martyrswounds]

Cool. Seems like you've got an incredible group. Is this an Internet game? If so, do you have room for another player? I've got the corebook and would be willing to play pretty much anything you need or desire. Feel free to tell me no; I wouldn't want to intrude.

Keep posting. This is very enjoyable to read.

[Professor Phobos]

Sorry, when we had the sixth player I found things a little overwhelming and so I'd prefer to keep things at five. However, I'll keep you in mind in case someone drops out.

[Mr. Analytical]

Aaah... more Lovecraftian goodness.

Seems like you've got the opposite problem to me, your players are so happy to interract with each other and NPCs that they don't necessarily drag the plot forward much but they do well as usual.

One thing I'm surprised you didn't pick up on (though you might have already/be planning to) is the school sport. you went for gymnastics rather than swimming which might allow you a slightly postmodern Buffy/Lovecraft Deep Ones cameo in the shape of something like the Kingsport swim team.

great stuff as usual though.

[Professor Phobos]

A player brought up gymnastics, actually. I haven't had the chance to work in the Innsmouth High swim team, yet.

Of course, it'll be the focus of the Innsmouth episode...

(I'm sure tempted to call it "All Fish Must Be Eaten")

[Professor Phobos]

As last session went slow, and allowed much time for roleplaying, the next went quickly and allowed much time for violence.

They continued to ask Zeke questions at the top of the Steps of Greater Slumber, but he says they have no time. Zeke tells them that they cannot die in the dreamlands but their minds can be destroyed, left hopelessly insane. He offers them a chance to back out- anyone who does not want to face unspeakable evil and terror can be cast out back into regular dreams.

The only one who hesitates is Brian, but in the end, they all go down the steps.

They are separated- each descent is a personal journey. It takes some days, others weeks, some centuries of tireless, hungerless, sleepless stepping.

Eventually, they emerge, their dream avatars having taken over their pajamas and night clothing. All are stronger, well armed except for Brian, who appears as a craven, cowardly rogue.

Mika and Toni are Arthurian knights, Sanz a sorcerer on a flying carpet, Chance a mace-wielding guy in armor, and Ness is a young boy in squires' clothing with a big spear.

To enter the Dreamlands, though, they must pass through the Gate, guarded by two Egyptians. The entry toll is a memory sacrificed to the Egyptians, who shout and mock the memory sacrificed. Zeke gives up some homework he did, Ness a time he wet the bed back when he was a human kid, Chance the memory of Tizzy naked (which he feels guilty about), Sanz something minor I don't properly recall, Mika and Toni some of their japanese experiences. Brian rather foolishly gives up a memory of mourning for Dan. Later on the deletion of the cathartis will cause him trouble. The most minor was Mika's, who gets a warning from the Egyptians that "The next time, the price will be higher."

They emerge on a field poisoned. The sun is sick and casts a pallid light, the land is parched and the forest surrounding the field is dark and dead. Corpses lay strewn around- Zeke curses, as these are his men, sent to escort them.

A twig snaps. Zeke shouts for them to be ready and wham, a hoard of nightmare monsters is on them.

I boosted everyone for Dreamlands-level combat. A drama point gave +100 to a roll. One roll determined a whole host of combat actions. Eventually, Toni fails and is badly injured by a monster- these monsters don't cause physical damage. Her wounds hemorraged personality traits like bravery and love. (Sanz took a minor wound and lost some of his sense of humor)

Sanz, the powerful sorcerer, calls down the heavens with thunder and lightning to destroy countless monsters. Most all eventually spent a drama point to go on a Sauron-style rampage against the 'nightmare figments' as Zeke later calls them. When they die, a black mist erupts that carries with it temporary personality traits. You kill one and inhale bravery or greed. Flying versions arrive and try to swamp the party, but Sanz drives them off.

When Toni is injured Mika spends a drama point and kills thousands of them, but she gets there too late. Toni is gravely hurt- her mind may not survive.

They drive off the monsters, and Zeke leads them into the forest, which obeys his commands. Eventually they reach a place untainted, full of life, and Zeke commandeers a group of giant frog-things as steeds to hop their way onwards, a wounded Toni in Mika's arms. Toni loses her bravery and love for her sister, and shouts horrible accusations and terrible things at Mika the entire trip.

[Professor Phobos]

They reach the City and enter, and are promptly swamped by people begging them for help and succor and medicines and food and money. Dirty, tired, scared looking people. They approach the central Citadel of the city- a tall, obsidian black, featureless spire.

To enter, they must think on their worst fear, and resolve to face it. All do so except Brian, who does not bother, and Toni, who is taken by Wise Women to be treated.

They end up in a Throne Room, and seated on the throne is an old, withered man who weeps blood. Blood seeps out of his hands and his side. He is introduced as Randolph Carter, King of the Dreamlands, and as the land is poisoned, so is he dying.

Carter and Zeke speak for a bit. Carter demands to know where the other five champions Zeke promised are.

Zeke explains that Toni was wounded and Brian is a coward. Carter asks about the rest.
Zeke explains that Radford's dreams are unsuitable and that some Thing very dangerous already dreams about Tizzy.
Carter asks about the last, and Zeke reluctantly admits he excluded Samantha because he has concern for her and did not want to force this on her.

Three subplots started in one conversation. :::Cracks his GMing knuckles, sits back.:::

It is explained that, essentially, the Dreamlands is mostly created by humanity but that certain Other Things also dream. One such thing, a Great Old One, is stirring in its sleep because some bad nasty is trying to wake it up. If it wakes, everyone in the Waking World that falls asleep will wake up completely, totally ,hopelessly insane.

An army of Nightmare has been destroying citadel after citadel. The citadels acted as sleep aids for the Old One. If they are all destroyed, it'll wake up. The Citadel they are tasked to defend is the last.

Carter had Zeke call the cast in as Champions, and defend that last tower.

Meanwhile, Toni's bravery is restored by the Wise Women but her Love is a far harder wound to heal. Brian offers the Wise Women his love- for parents, for Toni, etc. He sacrifices his own capacity to Love another, in any sense, to restore Toni's mind.

Then, the sky grows dark, and a rumble is heard, and Zeke, just as he mentions that before each battle the Champions all were paralyzed somehow, collapses to the floor, transforming into his weak, fearful self....

[Professor Phobos]

Now, a huge army has appeared outside of the city. Creatures of all kinds of horrible forms. Nightmare figments, giant red worms, flying things....it's not looking good. The sky is black with monsters and so is the ground for miles around.

Sanz goes on the offensive, launching miles-long fireballs at the hoard, immolating hundreds of thousands. Each one he kills is swiftly replaced- and the black mist coalesces into a giant, outstretched hand, which grabs the tower and begins to crush it.

About this time, everyone- except Brian and Toni- have horrible visions of their worst fears becoming true.

Paralyzed by fear, they sit trapped in horrible repeating visions as the army of Nightmare breaks into the city.

Around this time, Brian gets to save the day. (The idea was- as the player started out weak, the roles would later be reversed. At the most dire moment, when it was absolutely necessary, he'd redeem himself.)

He and Toni (now healed) head for the tower and break everyone out of their visions, except for Sanz, whose whereabouts are unknown. They gather their wits and pull themselves together.

Earlier, Brian had spotted the Thing Causing All The Trouble. It is a bat-winged, squid faced monstrosity riding on top of a horrific cross between an elephant, lobster and scorpion, carrying a massive sword, leading the hordes of nightmare and smashing whole city blocks.

They exit the citadel, and Sanz lands right in front of them. As he was airborne when his vision hit, he eventually fell from his flying carpet. The impact knocks the fear right out of him in a stroke of good fortune, and he too, is ready for action.

There they stand, the only thing in the way of an onrushing tide of nasties and the sanity of the entire planet.

[Professor Phobos]

Next session, I guess we'll resolve things with violence. Mmm...violence.

GMs Notes:

This was my second attempt at a "weird shit" episode. It worked better than "The Strange High School In the Mist", especially for the first half or so, but toward the end I made some mistakes.

At one point I thought I could wrap it all up quickly and so I compressed things unduly. I thought it necessary to complete the episode in this particular session, so after they reached The City I felt things got more arbitrary than I'd like. I did more railroading than I feel comfortable with, as well.

I didn't go in with a clear idea on how combat mechanics would work in the dreamlands. I mean, I had them as Exalted-level forces of destruction against thousands upon thousands of monsters...but no clear way of adjudicating this. So the Big Fight Scene was probably confusing.

On the other hand, Toni and Mika had a lot of good interaction after she was wounded, the players seemed to enjoy the sacrifice of memory scene, and Brian's sacrifice of his ability to Love was unexpected on my part and pretty neat. And I liked the fact that it was their minds that were injured by Dreamlands wounds, not anything else. I find it neat that you can be, say, gutted and spill your sense of comittment all over the floor.

I don't know for sure whether they enjoyed themselves or not.

In hindsight, I would have set this later in the season (the initial plan was, actually to start the whole dreamlands thing in the second season, not the first) and I would have allowed the episode to take as long as it needed to take. This will be my policy from now on. The faster I pace things, the worse it gets, except when it comes down to the oh-crap-combat/horror scenes, where fast is good.

A scene of "preparing for battle" in the Dreamlands would have been cool. Get to know the locals, gear up, that sort of thing. They just went from fight scene to travel scene to NPC pontification scene to fight scene, which isn't nearly as compelling.

Well, in any event, next week they'll start out in a big fight. I have some interesting ideas for after-the-battle stuff. The ongoing Dreamlands plotline will involve Zeke taking the throne after Randolph Carter and the influence of the Great Old One on things.

I think I'll avoid "weird shit acid trip" episodes for a good long while, though. Twice now they have resulted in what I feel are weaker GM performances than the games set in reality.

Subplot Notes:
-Brian's just got considerably more inhuman.
-Toni was restored to health by portions of Brian's personality and stored up bottled personality elements from the Dreamlands. She's not going to be the same person she was, and will always bear the scars of her wounds on her psychic.
-Zeke likes Samantha.
-Something dangerous dreams about Tizzy.
-Radford has unpleasant dreams. (Dark past, mmm?)
-All the cast members are now changed by exposure to the dreamlands. Weirdness may very well ensue.

[Professor Phobos]

Quotes:

-Zeke:...."Before you walk down these steps, you should know... what lies before you is...nightmare incarnate. Horrors beyond human reckoning. You cannot die in the dreamlands- not physically. But your minds....they might not survive. You could be left hopelessly insane. So if you want to back out, I will cast you out right now."
-Ness: *scratches his head, mumbling* That's not very...pep talky...

-Ness: "Well, facing possibly horrible death sounds more interesting than late night TV. "

-Chance: "You . . . you all right there, Brian? Your getting all, uh, Wormtongue . . ."

-Zeke: "Take the three thousand on the left."
-Chance: "Hey...no pressure."

(Zeke flips out, Mika slaps him.)
-Ness: "Darn it, I was gonna do that."
-Mika: "You can do it next time, I promise."

-Zeke: "Say, where did Sanz get to?"
(Sanz hits the ground right in front of them.)
-Zeke: "Nevermind."

[Shawn]

great stuff!

[Mr. Analytical]

Good Job!

I particularly like some of the mechanical work you've done on integrating the Dreamlands into the campaign like the Dreamer quality and the more powerful drama points.

I disagree that you've not really given a framework in which to run these new powers... you've made some inroads (as opposed to more easily going "yeah, you kill loads fo them") but will you give them all the dreamer quality or would being a dreamer give them additional powers?

I would have given them more of a textured power boost reflecting sdome of their supernatural qualities which you kind of seem to be doing with Brian. A bit like when Angel visited Lorn's home dimension and it liberated the demon part of him.

But excellent stuff :-)

[Professor Phobos]

I've got a clearer workup for the Dreamer quality than actual stuff in the Dreamlands. The more levels of it you buy, the more you're able to do. Go into other people's dreams, manipulate your own dreams, manipulate the dreams of others, enter the Dreamlands proper, take things into and out of the dreamlands...

Of course, not always intentionally...

[Professor Phobos]

The third session went very well, but I'll be delayed in transcribing it due to the sheer number of good quotes I must look for in the log.

Ended on a cliffhanger introduction for the next episode, had violence, character c hange, near death experiences, and most importantly, a horrible, horrible pun cascade.

[twistedbutsane]

This stuff is great, though I admit I was thrown by some of the Dreamworld stuff, largley due to my lack of knowledge when it comes to Cthulu stuff (I assume that is where The Dreamworld are from.) But the subplots that began because of it really fit the buffyverse. Especially the something strong already dreams of that npc line.

Anyway I will be looking forward to your future posts.

[Scorpio Rising]

Just another post to say that this is a great thread. I have fairly weak 'thulhu-fu, but even I can pick up on some of the Randy Carter, Kingsport, Innsmouth etc stuff. Tizzy Whateley is bothering me though. I know I've read that one but I can't recall it.

I like the caste you've got. Sounds like the players are all doing a good job. Brian is a particular favourite of mine, perhaps because he seems to be the one in the "powerless" Xander role. That means you get to be Batman, right?

One criticism (intended as constructive) is that I'd like to see a little more focus on the Slayer. I know, I know, it's a group game and you don't want too much favouritism, but I know when I GM I occasionally make a session, or even a whole story, focus on one character with the idea of really bringing them out, really putting their plot(s) in the limelight. You did it with Ness, kinda, in the Delta Green episode.

I guess that I'd really like to see more of that done with Mika. Something that I as a GM often do to make people focal is to find ways to call on them to make difficult choices. Nothing is more character defining than the choices you make, says I.

Also, there's probably a whole neat riff off of the Slayer and her twin. Are they, perchance, identical?

Anyhow. Great stuff. Keep the writeups coming. I hope the game's got a long ways yet to run.

Thanks.

- Scorpio riveted.

[Professor Phobos]

The slayer and twin are indeed identical. I have yet to exploit that. But I will.

Indeed Mika has suffered from a lack of focus- one problem is the player is perhaps our slowest typer and the character is very direct, more Kendra than Buffy, but without the "I'm Number 1" attitude. She also plays Toni at the same time, dividing her attention.

As such I've made a notch in the episode list for something focused on Mika.

[Professor Phobos]

No more procrastinating...

Episode 1x07 "The Field Trip of Unknown Kadath", conclusion.

Chance: "You think they'll break if we kill that thing?"
Brian: "No- but if we kill this, then we can certainly break them ourselves."

And lo, the seven intrepid youngsters, all that stood between a horrific monster from awakening a larger, more horrific, monster, charged.

Sanz parted the sea of nightmare with his mind and left a battlefield open to face down the Beast riding its terrible mount.

It charged.

They charged.

Brian dives to the side and plunges his sword into the joint on the Mount's front leg, twisted and snapping it clear off- the mount shudders to the stop and grounds itself.

Mika leaps up and brings her sword down on the monster's wing, slicing it clean off. It plucks her out of the air with its tentacles and begins to squeeze. Toni leaps up to help her and between the two they sever most of the tentacles

Ness, Brian and Chance dive out of the way of the massive, falling wing.

Sanz summons up a snare from the earth and wraps the beast in vines.

It swings at Zeke, but he dodges- he is stabbing the crap out of the face of the mount, digging into its eyes and brain. Chance joins him, and with his mace smashes open the skull so Zeke can get in and carve. The mount spasms in its death throws.

The beast swings its mighty sword again, at Chance and Zeke. Chance dives out of the way, barely, feeling the evil aura of the sword as it passes.

Zeke is cut neatly in half.

[Professor Phobos]

Sanz flies to his side, smashing him together with telekinesis and begins trying to help Zeke keep his mind together.

It tries to crush Mika and Toni with its mighty fist, but she manages to hold it back long enough for Toni to cut its hand off. As they are sprayed with its blood they find themselves gaining its personality traits- that of an inhuman, immortal, otherworldly horror. As Brian severs the Mounts stinger to coat his sword in poison and Chance carves his way through the Beasts chest, they all face the dissolution of their personalities. They survive, though they'll all have a little Lovecraft in them after this.

Ness hurls his spear and nails the Beat's head. Hey then leaps up, grabbing the spear, pulling himself up and it out, and plunges it into the thing's mind, being sprayed with its blood and brain fluid.

The brain fluid proved more dangerous than the blood, and Ness goes catatonic, his mind shattered.

[Professor Phobos]

Mika: "Now that you're disarmed...let me give you a hand!"

She picks up the severed hand and parries a blow from the Black Sword with it, sending her and the hand fl ying.

But she's back soon enough, pimp-slapping the monster with its own hand.

Meanwhile, Chance has dug through the beast's chest and come out the other side, to spot Brian stabbing it in the back with the poisoned blade. Brian says "Hey" and Chance gives him "the nod", all very nonchalant. Then Brian leaps away, and draws a strike from the sword. He waits, and waits, and using a great deal of courage and timing (cough...drama point...cough) severs the sword arm- the sword goes sailing.

The Beast, with a hole in its chest, no hands, no tentacles, one wing, legs crushed by the collapse of its mount, is swiftly poked, prodded, stabbed, sliced and beaten to death. (With its own hand, no less.)

It expires. As it dies, its essence washes over them, and for a moment- the barest of fractions of a second- they are as the Old Ones, timeless.

After that passes, they are left with that unpleasant memory and heartburn.

Sanz finally succeeds in talking Zeke's mind back together- he fails mentioning his duties to the dreamlands or fighting monsters, and succeeds when he reminds Zeke of Tizzy and more importantly, Samantha. Simple friendship and young love put Zeke back together.

(Well, that and a steady use of I Think I'm Okay until Zeke was all out of drama points.)

Meanwhile, Ness is battling (inside his head) his newfound alternate personality- a fraction of, well, Cthulhu's personality.
After some Fight Club style shenanigans, Ness kicks the living shit out of Nessthulhu and repairs his mind.

While he's doing that, though, they are gathered around his body, worried. They summon the King's doctor who says there is nothing he can do...

Zeke is troubled in particular, knowing it was he that brought Ness here. Brian is confident, however, certain Ness will survive.

Ness comes back, and still reeling from the effects of being, for a moment at least, part Cthulhu, asks...

Ness: "Has anyone ever wondered what sailors taste like?"

[Professor Phobos]

Finally, they return to the Citadel to find Randolph Carter restored to health. He thanks them, says he owes them one, etc etc.

They ask him some questions- he explains what he can about the vision Keziah Mason induced some three episodes back, Chance takes the opportunity to find out what else has been dreaming about Tizzy (something Big and Bad in the Waking World. )

Brian asks what Carter will do with the sword, which gives off an aura of purest destruction incarnate. Carter will have it cleaned and placed near his fireplace.

Zeke says he's taking a vacation. Carter accepts this over minimal protest.

They return to the waking world- the morning light streams through their rooms, it is soon time to get up and get ready for the art show.

Chance finds himself alone with John Bishop, whose been apparently waiting for him to wake up.

John, sporting a split lip and a black eye, looks Chance right in the face and says: "I need your help. I want to defect."

Boom, episode ends. My timing is impeccable.

The next one is the mid-season two parter, "The Student Who Came in From the Cold."

It'll cover John Bishop's attempts to get out of his family, and the Bishop retaliation that follows. Should be messy. I look forward to it eagerly. Plus, I get to re-write the Bishop family stats with stuff from Angel, and I'll be able to make John another unlockable supporting cast member.

[Professor Phobos]

I thought it went well, and the players agreed. A strong finish- and they liked the Dreamlands more than I thought, so my earlier GMing paranoia was perhaps unwarranted.

Of course, they could be lying, but I have a simple policy: If I ask my players what they think, I expect their honest answers. If they lie, they get what they deserve.

I was making stuff up as I went along- I was particularly desperate when Ness up and lost his mind. The corresponding symbolic battle to regain control was...lackluster in the extreme, I thought, but the player didn't mind because, in his words, "I made Cthulhu my bitch."

Plus it lead to the comment about sailors, which may well be the best quote of the game.

This was a pretty quotable episode, but that was mostly due to the out-of-character pun war than ensued after I told Ness he felt like he had been hit in the head with a schooner or something.

It got pretty bad. Many horrible puns. Still, there was much non-pun discussion after the game, I explained the "Dreamer" quality (which Brian purchased) and I managed to segue into the next episode at the last moment.

Long term consequences:

Everyone got exposed to the Mind of a Otherworldly Horror (In this case, for those keeping score at home, a Star Spawn).

Toni was less successful than the rest at overcoming that and Ness got hit with a much stronger dose. Likewise, Toni's dream wounds will take time to heal and she did have, effectively, an emotional transplant. So both of them will have to deal with having a little Cthulhu on the inside.

Brian lost his ability to Love anyone or anything, and picked up Dreamer.

Zeke managed to hold most of his personality together. Most.

They've been to the dreamlands, saved the day there. Now Randolph Carter, Earth's greatest dreamer, owes them a favor.

[Professor Phobos]

Oh, by the by, this was the first episode where I really ran into the "Glass Ninja" effect.

Zeke only missed his dodge roll by one but took the full brunt of the damage. Likewise with Ness.

It's not so much a flaw as it is something I'll have to look out for- damn near lost ol' Zeke. (Though I probably could have fudged things for him.)

I also made it official that I was keeping track of Life Points secretly. I describe injuries hopefully well enough so they know when to use I Think I'm Okay.

[DanB]

Originally posted by Professor Phobos
Indeed Mika has suffered from a lack of focus- one problem is the player is perhaps our slowest typer and the character is very direct, more Kendra than Buffy, but without the "I'm Number 1" attitude. She also plays Toni at the same time, dividing her attention.

As such I've made a notch in the episode list for something focused on Mika.

Indeed. He mentioned the antagonist of the Mika adventure. Since I'm not sure I should be blabbing about it, I'll just say that it made me laugh for a long time.

--Dan Byrne, also known as Chance

[Professor Phobos]

John: "I need your help. I want to defect."

Chance: "You want . . . to defect? Well, I'll, uh, I'll help you out anyway I can, but it isn't like we have an embassy to hide out in."

The very morning after they returned to the Waking World from the Dreamlands, John Bishop, abused black sheep of the Bishop family, asks for their help.

As the others get up and get ready for bed down the hall, in other rooms, John haltingly explains to Chance that he wants out of his family entirely.

If Chance refuses, John says he has no choice but to kill himself to avoid a fate worse than death.

Chance brings John down the hall to the other room, where the others are gathering.

Before Chance can open the door, John stops him.

John: "If you help me...well, you'll make enemies. I can't ask you to do that. This was a mistake..."

Chance: "Don't worry. We've got a lot of enemies all ready. We are good at picking them up."

John:"Not like these."

Chance: "Relax. We don't have any sense of self-preservation. Just ask Radford."

Brian sends John into the bathroom and tells him to turn the faucet on, full blast, so the others can talk in private. They then get to discussing whether or not to help him. Brian emphasizes the risks, and places a lot of Dramatic Severity on messing with the Bishops. He and Ness argue, sending Ness out of the room, feeling hurt. In the end, they do agree to help, but not trust, John. If only to hurt the Bishops. They contact Radford (who agrees they should help), eat breakfast, and go to the awards ceremony, which Zeke has dominated.

John explains what precipitated his decision to defect. On Christmas Day he and Anthony will be "initiated" into the family, a rite of passage. There will be a party, presents and money from distant relatives. Cedric got a new car when he was initiated- that, and four teenage girls and as much time as he wanted in the Wine Cellar. You see, in addition to the Initiation Day festivities, John and Anthony are going to have their human souls offered up to Shogo-Hogotha, the family demon.

After that, the newly soulless are given some sacrifices to play around with, test out the newfound utter lack of a conscience and delight in sadism.

John can't do it. He can't escape his powerful family alone, and...he wants the gang to help him save Anthony, as well.

That adds a complication, because Anthony sure as hell isn't going to want to be saved.

[Professor Phobos]

They head back to Arkham, Principal Shrewsbury fervantly congratulating Zeke.

Once there the whole gang gathers and meets together, with John, in Radford's office.

John begins to describe what the Bishops can do to them in retaliation, and Radford begins a rapid program of mystical warding. They ward the school, their homes, themselves, and research like mad.

There's a big montage scene, with them hitting the books, going to their final exams, getting coffee, donuts, and magic supplies from the Broom Closet.

Chance attempts to ask Tizzy out a couple times, and is interrupted at every turn.

They start whipping up spells- and Sanz hits on a idea to put in a "trick" soul into John, just in case he's captured or somesuch and offered to Shogo-Hogotha. A proxy, 'poisoned apple' soul, so to speak.

After a week of this madcap work, with no sign of Bishop counterattack, Radford pronounces them as safe as they can be and sends them home. This is Thursday night- next day, Friday, is the last day of finals.

[Professor Phobos]

They make it home without incident, and the next day, they return to school.

A huge snowstorm is headed to Arkham. I describe it as "apocalyptic", and Shrewsbury calls it "The biggest to hit in centuries."

Finals are rushed as a result, as no one wants to be trapped in Arkham High.

Nevertheless, the snowstorm hits just as school is getting out, and the sky rapidly darkens.

The group is gathered at the school's entrance, too paranoid to chance things at this stage, and notice that John is overdue.

Ness and Brian head toward the science wing, where John was last spotted, to look for him.

Ominous music plays, the sky darkens, and snow begins to obscure everything with white as the buses leave the premises.

Anthony approaches the main group, laughing and grinning. They parley for a bit, typical Villain-Hero, until Sanz loses patience and ups and tackles Anthony.

Now, I took the opportunity to take a Drama Point from Sanz, because sometimes Good Things Happen to Good People, and have Anthony knocked unconscious.

Meanwhile, Mika's vampire sense goes off the scale, and the sound of footfall can be heard all around the school in the snow, crunch crunch.

Shrewsbury, spotting Sanz tackling Anthony, heads over, shouting for them to break it up. But he's interrupted when two hands reach out of the darkness behind him and calmly snap his neck, dropping Shrewsbury like a rag doll. Potter appears out of the snow, floating and laughing.

[Professor Phobos]

They win, but at what price?

Chance flips out and charges Potter, who soars into the sky above him- and a vampire immediately behind Potter flies at Chance.

Chance, however, activates his "Strange Luck" and slips on some ice, and the Vampire goes sailing over him.

Right into Ness, who also charged Potter, enraged that he had seemingly murdered poor Principal Shrewsbury.

Ness picks up this vampire and throws him at the school doors. Toni defly stakes the stunned vampire.

Chance makes it to Shrewsbury's body and finds that he's still alive, if unconscious. Chance spends a drama point on a Doctor roll to help him.

More vampires appear out of the snow- one is jumped by Alexis, screaming, a wild animal.

Tizzy and Samantha scream and run into the school, finding Brian and telling him what has happened.

Brian has just come from Radford's office after he and Ness had failed to find John- he finds Radford who is seized by convulsions and knocked out, muttering "astral...parasite" before he slips off. Brian sends Tizzy and Sam to help Radford and grabs his Bag Full of Stakes, heading for the entrance.

Sanz eyes grow dark and he begins to cut himself, chanting.
He stabs himself and stabs Anthony, casting a spell he had looked at earlier but vowed not to use (well beyond his ability). However, in his pu re, blind rage, and given Sanz' reckless nature, he makes a pact with the darkness and rips Anthony's soul right out of his body. (I didn't make him roll. I just said that a spell of this nature, of this power, being cast by Sanz was going to have dire consequences even if he succeeded on a roll. The player agreed, happy to perhaps start a "Dark Sanz" storyline.)

Cedric appears, waving a knife, approaching Sanz.

Mika charges the incoming Vampires but Potter appears from above her, grabbing her and chucking her to the roof of the school. Potter wants a one on one match. (I gave Mika two drama points) The two begin a brutal, drag out fight, Potter winning most of the rounds.

Chance leaves Shrewsbury's side to help Sanz, who is being attacked by Cedric and barely surviving. Picking up his school bag he swings and hits Cedric on the side of his head, just in time to save Sanz' life, more or less.

Brian appears, tosses Mika's sword up onto the roof, and goes after Cedric with Potter's Knife (he'd stolen it in the first episode.)

Mika grabs her sword and evens the odds againts Potter, who is unarmed. The two keep fighting, Mika keeping him at bay with the sword.

Meanwhile, Alexis, Ness and Zeke are battling a group of vampires. Ness neck-breaks one (who is later staked by Toni, who went around taking out stunned vampires the whole fight), and slam tackles one about to kill Zeke, following it up with a deft staking. Alexis has lost herself to the violence, and is actually *eating* the vampire, who is, more or less, just trying to get away from the mad zombie chick.

Potter gets the better of Mika and disarms her of the sword, gets her in a grapple, and head butts her. Mika, using the same tactic she employed in the first episode, takes this chance to give Potter a big kiss. Potter is surprised, and changes his tactic from "strangle" to "bite on the neck". Mika takes this opportunity to answer with her own headbutt, breaking Potter's grapple.

Brian, spending a drama point, swipes at Cedric's eyes- Cedric manages to block, but Brian severs the fingers of his hand. Cedric screams and runs away- which leaves him open to a stab tackle by Brian, who turns Cedric over and puts the knife to his throat.
Brian begins to talk to Cedric, but Cedric screams "Potter!"

Potter disengages from Mika and flies to Cedric. Sanz yells for Brian to watch out, and as Brian dodges he slashes Cedric's throat wide open.

Potter flies above Cedric, shakes his head, pronounces him a lost cause, and leaves.

Cedric, being human, doesn't vanish in a pile of dust. Cedric, being the son of the most powerful man in town, isn't going to just dissapear. Dean Moore has seen most of the proceedings from inside the school and already called the police- he heads outside to talk to Brian, who doesn't wait and dashes into the darkness. Moore tries to pursue, but Ness trips him.

The end of the episode leaves the group headed to Ness' house after rudimentary first aid and statements to the police. They survived the Bishop's first attack and captured Anthony. Cedric, a dangerous enemy, is dead. On the other hand, Brian is wanted by the police for murder, Alexis has discovered the joy of eating flesh, Sanz may well have made a bargain with the darkness for magical power, and Radford, restored to health by Tizzy and Samantha, wants to call a truce with the Bishops and give up on John and Brian.

Everyone refuses to, of course, and they begin preparations for war.

[Professor Phobos]

GMing wise, I felt the episode went well. There's some neat stuff going on behind the scenes with Brian you all might be interested in that I cannot divulge as of yet.

Other than that, it was more or less by-the-numbers. This was the first half of the mid-season two parter, and I thought things have gotten appropriately serious. They're going to raid the Bishop estate, which may well be a suicide mission, to save someone who may not even still have his free will or a conscience. One of their own is on the run from the cops, and Principal Shrewsbury, a beloved NPC, is badly hurt. (Think the exact opposite of Principal Snyder, but still bald.)

Likewise, I moved forward the Radford and Alexis subplots, and Sanz got a dark side. (Reckless+Interest in Magic...)

Dean Moore prophetically says..."It'll get worse before it gets better..."

Anyway, quotes.

Toward the end of the episode...
Radford> "If at all possible, we might seek a truce with the Bishops?"
Ness> "Sure, we who stand against the tide of evil should certainly offer it to have tea and crumpets.
Sanz>"A truce! Look, we got Nevil Chamberlin's nephew as a watcher!"
Chance> "Beats Wilt Chamberlain's nephew, I guess."

I can't remember the context, actually...
Chance> "No one is as clever as Sean Connery."

Phone call to Radford from Kingsport...
Brian> "Alright. Do you have any advice until then?"
Radford> "Oh, the usual. Don't get killed, avoid reckless foolishness. All the things I have no doubt you will ignore in your carefree american manner."

Before finals...
Sanz> "Oh, man. I've got geometry today. Getting attacked by monsters is starting too look good."

When the storm hits...
Sanz> "Oh man! I've never seen so much snow. Is this a good thing?"
Chance> "Depends. Do you like ALL your toes?"

Talking to Radford...
Sanz> "Oh, none of this is a good idea, but when has that stopped us?"

After knocking Anthony out...
Sanz> "Unconscious? He didn't even get to hear my bravado!"

After the kiss...
Potter> "Dammit, gal. That just ain't right."
Mika> "You know what they say. All's fair in love and slaying"

Explaining his spell...
Sanz> "What does one get for the evil family patron that has everything?"

Arguing about helping John or not...
Zeke> "Calm down. Both of you. If we lose our heads we might just, well, lose our heads."

[Professor Phobos]

Feedback on the game is nice, but I'm kind of interested in how the Actual Play reports are reading.

Am I boring?

Seriously, you can tell me.

[Craig Oxbrow]

I'd recommend putting the quotes in where they go in the flow of the story.

But then, if you've read my reports, they're like Quote City.

Another recommendation: since these are essentially an ongoing storyline, a clearer separation of episodes (like a title in bold) would be good.

[Professor Phobos]

The Student Who Came in From the Cold, Part 2

We open with Brian, half-frozen, shivering underneath a pile of blankets in the dark of the Winthrop's pool house.

At Ness' place, Radford is pacing back and forth, furtively looking outside the window, deep in thought.

The rest are setting up sleeping bags, checking Sanz' bandages. They are quiet, until, Alexis, breaking the silence and unusually cheerful, speaks.

Alexis: "It's like a slumber party! The kind I used to go to. Only instead of fun we've got mortal terror."

Ness and Alexis talk for a while.

Alexis: "Ever since I ate part of that vampire, I've felt great!"
Ness: "Uh, tastes great, less filling?"
Alexis (Deadly Serious): "No, it was very filling."

Tizzy, Samantha and Chance reinforce the warding spells guarding the house. Radford takes Mika aside, in private, and tells her that not everyone is going to make it through the next few days alive, and that to try and keep everyone alive is just going to guarantee victory. Mika chokes up a bit, but Radford encourages her to keep a "stiff upper lip."

Sanz hits upon the idea of contacting Brian (who doesn't carry a cell phone) with Zeke via the dreamlands. Zeke says he'll try.

Samantha has to steady herself for a bit- she felt a wave of magic from her mother, who she says went active again. Radford forbids any further spell casting.

Alexis and Ness, not needing to sleep, offer to take the first watch. Everyone else, exhausted from earlier adrenaline highs, falls rapidly asleep.

While they rest, Ness uses a soul testing spell on Alexis, and discovers that she does not have her soul anymore. This worries them both, but Alexis says she still wants to help, to do good.

They get to talking about West, about what happened to Alexis...

Alexis: "Brian said West helped him."
Ness: Why would he do that?
Alexis:(shrugging): "Help? I don't know. Maybe he wanted to -make things right." (Cheerfully) "Doesn't matter, though. If I see him again, I'm going to eat him."
Ness: "Well, uh, at least you're feeling something. Even if it is kind of creepy....but that's okay! I'm creepy too!"
Alexis(Laughing): "Nah, you're not creepy. Besides, I can't eat you. You're a robot."
Ness: "Still, uh, you shouldn't eat people. I guess eating vampires is okay, though kind of ironic."
Alexis: "They have to be dead first. I just need to snack on dead things. You know, that doesn't gross me out as much as it should. It feels natural."
Ness: "Kind of like craving fried squid all of a sudden?"

(Ness had a mind meld with Cthulhu, and has been making jokes about it ever since. The best, of course, was "Has anyone ever wondered what sailors taste like?")

Meanwhile, in the dreamlands, Zeke has contacted Brian, and set up a conference dream...

[Professor Phobos]

The Student Who Came in From the Cold, Part 2 Continued

Brian stands in front of the group, a symbolic gunshot wound to his chest, looking tired and ragged. They exchange greetings- a few moments into the conversation, Zeke swears and shouts at Tizzy "WAKE UP!", which zaps her out of the dreamlands back to the waking world. He apologizes for forgetting Tizzy's got some kind of Big Nasty that notices her when she ventures into the dreamlands.

In any event, they continue. Everyone had assumed Brian had gone off against the Bishops himself (it being his habit to kick ass and take names on his own), but he's half frozen to death and scared.

Brian: "So what's the plan on getting John out?"
Chance: "I'm not sure we really have a plan..."
Mika: "Well, yes and no..."
Radford: "No plan, yet. We hope to gather some information and maybe find a way to take out Shogo-Hogotha."
Mika: "What he said."
Radford: "But those are more like ideas. Plans have things like details."

A little bit later, Zeke says he's got to close the call, and everyone returns to the Waking World.

However, in the midst of all this, Sanz asks to see Radford's dream avatar. (They appeared as they were when going to sleep-not in the dreamlands proper.) Now, Sanz hadn't bought Dreamer and I had absolutely no idea what to tell him, but I hate saying no. So in exchange for a drama point and a promise to buy Dreamer at a later date, I said that Radford's dream avatar was briefly superimposed over his usual form- that of a soldier, dusty, mudcaked, with bloodsoaked hands and a thousand yard stare from bloodshot eyes. A bloodless but gaping wound to the chest.

I made that up on the spot, and it had exactly the right effect. Sanz really doesn't like Radford and doesn't trust him- he keeps an eye on him, in fact using Julius (his familiar) to spy on Radford from time to time. He was hoping for a nail in Radford's coffin but instead got a sympathetic glimpse into his character and a greater understanding of what kind of man Radford is.

It's a good feeling as a GM who mostly improvises on the fly to manage something successfully like that when it just up and comes out of the blue. (I thought about just saying "You can't do that! You didn't take dreamer!" but it felt boring. Sanz did buy a level of dreamer later, as he promised)

In any event, everyone is awake again. Zeke tells them they can just go right back to sleep, but most get up and walk around for a little while.

Sanz goes over to Ness and Alexis...(Tizzy, woken up early, had already told them the conferance was happening but not the results)

Sanz: "Look, we talked to Brian, and he's just not himself. And Radford, he seems a little too much like himself."
Ness: It's kind of a hard time for people you know?
Sanz: "It's just... It seems that even if we win, we've already started to lose something."
Ness: "We don't have to lose something. But we will change."
Sanz: "God, and now I'm starting to sound like them. Just Ness, let me know before you start losing hope."

Mika goes over as Sanz returns to his bedroll...
Mika: "Now, I need you two to keep watch for me, okay?"
Alexis: "We never sleep."
Mika: "Don't get too...absorbed, okay?"
Alexis: (Eyes widening) "Mika!"
Ness takes a few moments, but eventually starts blushing.

Mika: "And don't be afraid to come get me if things get spooky or weird. It's my job and I don't want to lose you two"
Alexis: "Mika. You're talking to a robot with a soul and a zombie. Things are already weird and spooky."

Mika gives Alexis a hug (she hugs everyone. All the time.)
Alexis: "You're big on hugs, aren't you?"
Mika: "Yep."
Alexis: "You know I'm a corpse, right?"

Everyone eventually goes back to sleep.

Unbeknownst to them, Brian's listening to the radio- a school bus from AHS, trapped in the snow, was attacked by "deformed men" who carried off five teenage girls. The Bishops have their sacrifices.

Brian leaves a note on the refrigerator, hand-carves some stakes, and heads out into the cold.

[Professor Phobos]

The Student Who Came in From the Cold, Part 2, Continued

Tizzy, it seems, is not the bastion of cheerfulness she is in the morning. Truly epic bad hair and a dour expression.

Sanz: "Well, I know where Julius slept last night..."
Tizzy: "Bite me, Sanz."

Ness: "How come we can't have big sleepovers when we aren't about to die?"
Zeke: "Because then monopoly wouldn't have that edge to it."

They all express wonderment at the snow. Many, many feet of it- if it weren't for that life or death struggle they'd be out having a snowball fight of Homeric proportions.

Zeke (musing): "You know, in the dreamlands, when it snows like this, it's actually because of Old Man Frost."
Ness: Does that mean there's a Mother Nature? And a man in the moon?
Zeke: "Well, there is a mother nature. She's nice... But the moon's controlled by tribes of vicious monsters that kill, eat or enslave any humans they find."
Ness: "Oh."

Radford calls everyone into the living room. The TV is on..."No word yet on the identity of the kidnappers..."

Radford (Sarcastically):"I imagine Bishop is doing his christmas shopping."
Ness: Or preparing for a funeral. I mean...they do care some about that...right?
Radford: "Well, yes. If there's one thing about the Bishops that strikes me from their history, is that the certainly like to sacrifice people. Funerary sacrifices, initiation sacrifices, dark rituals, Walpurgisnacht, Easter, birthday sacrifices...I even think they kill people for Arbor Day."

As spirits drop, Sanz tries to rally the troops...

Sanz:We need to keep our eyes on victory. I mean back home I skated every competition like I was going to win. There's no other way to do it."
Radford (Sarcastically): "Yes, and with our plucky attitudes and determination we'll win for sure against the forces of darkness. Now, everyone get your white hats on and we'll go."
Chance: "We get hats?"
Mika: "I think that was a western reference"
Ness: "I think someone didn't get enough sleep."
Tizzy: "Aw, is Mr. Watcher cranky? Does he want some coffee? Oh Yes he does, yes he does..."

Radford, Chance, Sanz and Mika head out to do some recon. They look over the Bishop estate with binoculars. Radford sends Mika and Chance out on foot to take a look at the service entrance (Sanz asked to get a scene alone with Radford...)

Chance and Mika talk about Alexis. Mika's hopeful about the whole situation, and agrees that the "no soul" bit should be kept from Radford. Back at the house, Tizzy and Samantha are approached on the same issue, for help with perhaps restoring Alexis' soul. Everyone wants to keep it from Radford.

Meanwhile, Sanz gets to say his piece...
Sanz:"You know, I've been getting really angry at you. Ever since killing Dan and the other decions you've made."
Radford: "Hmm?"
Sanz: "I just thought you should know. Don't want to bottle things up. I also wanted to give you the chance to make me understand why you're... so... "
Radford: "I don't expect you to understand. Not yet."
Sanz: "That's it. Your expectations. Assume I'll understand, and then go from there."
Radford: "And, to be frank, I'm happy you don't. You're too young to become someone like me.
Sanz: "You weren't really a teacher, were you?"
Radford: "Never, though I find I have a talent for it.At least, I think I do."
Sanz: "Now you just have to believe we can succeed."
Radford: "There are degrees of success."

They're spotted by estate guards, and head back, having learned little of real importance.

Ness, online, finds that there's a virtual tour of the Bishop estate on a "rich and famous homes" website. Unusually large wine cellar, with a world-famous stock.

They pull into the driveway just as Tizzy yelps that the vampire alarm ward they set went off.

Brian's at the front door, which Samantha opens.. But Potter is also on the grounds, hovering, smiling, and waving. Mika shouts for Brian to get down, draws her stake, and runs over to him.

Potter just leaves, Mika muttering "Mind games..."

Brian, (seeing the stake in Mika's hand)..."Whoa- I was going to be polite, ask if I could come in...may I?"
Samantha: "Of course. Come on in."

Brian smiles a little, and steps inside.

[Professor Phobos]

The Student Who Came in From the Cold, Part 2, Conclusion

Brian smoothly puts his arm around Toni, "Evening, Sunshine."

Sanz stares on in a little bit of jealousy- Brian gives him a wry grin, and a wink.

Ness hugs Brian, who says..."Easy there, big fella, you're squeezing the life out of me."

Brian: "Sorry if I gave you folks the scare, but it was just a little dead over at Alexis's. Not that I didn't appreciate the company."

I hold high regard for Brian's player, who took the time to highlight the lost potential of Brian and Toni.

He has, of course, been turned into a vampire. This happened off-screen, with Brian's player as my confederate. We hatched on this plan a few days before the game, thinking it might be nice to Doyle-ize Brian.

But the others don't know this yet.

Though every player PMed me with variations on "Oh....crap!" This brought a smile to my cold, black gamemaster's heart.

Chance makes a notice roll and spots the lack of reflection, but I asked the player to hold off until it was really dramatic to notice, bribing him width a drama point. (I love Buffy for these purposes- when a drama point is more valuable than the action they give up, they're so easy to maneuver.)

Brian gives Toni a quick kiss on the cheek, "I'll be right back, Sweetie." He goes over to Mika and asks to talk to her, in private, outside, for a little bit.

Mika agrees. (Mika's player was the last one to PM me with an "Oh...crap" and by then it was far, far too late.)

As they go outside, Chance sees Mika's reflection in a window...but not Brians. He grabs a stake and sprints for the door...

Outside:
Brian: "You've got a heavy burden, being the slayer and all. I guess- I guess, I took some advice from John. He was right to come to us for help. So I took a page out of his book..."
Mika: "What advice was that?"
Brian: "I Defected."

Brian goes into Vamp face and lunges at Mika, Potter's knife instantly in his hand.

Mika fights for her life, but Brian gets too close too fast, and stabs her twice, badly, in the arm, disabling it. Brian in a sugary sweet voice says..."We hurt the ones we love...and kill the ones we hate..."

Mika recoils backwards as Chance lunges in for a tackle- which Brian deftly dodges, grabbing Chance's head, pulling him back and putting him into a hostage hold, knife to his throat.

Mika sweep kicks them both to the ground as the others rush outside, Sanz yelling "Take him alive!"

Ness freezes, the horror of the situation jolting him into a brief stupor. Tizzy and Samantha scream...Radford rushes out, stake in hand.

Brian brings the knife into Chance's throat, muttering "This seems oddly familiar", lifts Chance up and chucks him at Mika, sending them both to the ground. Chance grabs at his throat and gasps.

Ness unfreezes, and leaps into action, kicking Evil Vampire Brian's knife out of his hand just as Mika, with a kick from the ground, puts all her slayer strength into a Groin shot.

Brian doubles over as Radford moves in, raising his stake high up to finish Brian...who chokes out..."Put me next to Dan, you bastard."

Mika shouts "Save him!" and Sanz yells "Noooo!"

Quick thinking Ness kicks Radford in the ribs, knocking him to the ground, and knockout punches Brian.

Episode ends with Chance gasping for life in Ness' driveway.

GM's Notes:

I made a miscalculation on this one- about 15 minutes to our usual end time, I decided to go for broke on the Brian thing. Instead of a "oh crap!" cliffhanger, I figured we might as well wrap things up right then and there.

Forty-five minutes later and a half hour overtime, (still working out the kinks in combat, we are) we reached the end. The plan was to actually have Radford stake Brian, but Ness intervened and I'm loathe to make player action invalid in the face of The Plot.

Sanz' player (and character) was hellbent on trying to restore his soul somehow, and so I was forced to disclose certain matters with him in a postgame discussion. Brian's player envisions a glorious end to Brian, not an ensouled vampire plotline, and so Sanz is inevitably going to be dissapointed on that front. However, I'm fairly certain we reached a happy compromise. Sanz is going to try (and everyone but Radford is going to help him) to restore Brian's soul. He's going to try very, very hard, but fail. In-game he's got no real ability to pull this off. Best case he gives Brian Anthony's soul...not much of a step up. The next episode is intended to wrap up the Initiation storyline, turn Brian's player into John's player, and give Evil Vampire Brian the dramatic sendoff he deserves.

I got good feedback from this episode, and I darn well should have, as everything more or less came off perfectly. I allotted a lot of time for just general roleplaying and in a completely spontaneous way all the players seemed to foreshadow what was going to happen. They frequently remarked that "Brian'll be fine...he goes off, kicks ass, and comes back..." or "We don't have to worry about Brian, he knows what he's doing..."

They were worried about losing everyone but Brian- and it is especially prophetic since he was, at the start of this two-parter, the one worried about the lives of the others.

Hopefully you liked the dialogue snippets. Buffy might not actually be the perfect game for me, since I more or less have the "Humorless" drawback and I just can't tell what's good dialogue or not, for the most part. This aggravates my players, who accuse me of being stingy with Drama Points. I try, I really do.

I also made an effort to have my NPC's talk more. It seems to make the game "go faster" and it makes it look like we crammed a lot more into three hours than normal. Plus the PC's seem to enjoy interacting with most of them. (Samantha is still deeply redundant, however.)

[Craig Oxbrow]

Good stuff. Thumbs up.

[TrumpetDC]

Yo, boss!

Need some help updating this? I might have some time coming up.

[Professor Phobos]

No, no, I'll take care of it. Eventually. I'll also do one for the Gaslight one-shot, when that is done.

The offer, though, was nice.

[Mantisking]

This series sounds really cool. I've enjoyed reading what has been posted here. Unfortunately, this thread is a bit difficult to find with the Search function.

[Professor Phobos]

When I pick up the AP reports again I'll start a new thread, methinks.

[TrumpetDC]

What are AP reports?

[Craig Oxbrow]

Actual Play.

And not Associated Press, as you might think.

[Professor Phobos]

The Revolution Eats Its Children

Mechanics Note: This episode started with my implementing a new procedure for our game- instead of rolling, I'd simply have a huge list of randomly generated numbers and cross things off as I went, with a cheat-sheet of PC ability scores. This has sped things up immeasurably, and I highly recommend it for anyone running an online game.

The Fun Stuff:

We open with Mika, Tizzy, Samantha and Zeke in the hospital's waiting area. Mika paces back and forth, her arm in a cast while Zeke hugs Samantha and Tizz, white-knuckled, sits in a chair staring at the set of doors leading to surgery.

Soon enough, Dr. Sidney Wells comes out, with good news.

They go in to see Chance, neck in a brace, eyes glazed over from painkillers.

"Thank god you're alrights!" go back and forth, and then Zeke cuts in, with the severity.
ZEKE: "Sanz is going to try to save Brian...but I don't think he's got a chance."
CHANCE (Drugged): "Hee . . .Chance . . ."

A little while later, Chance finally manages to ask Tizzy out on a date. But before she can respond, huge crashing noises and yells come from down the hall...

Meanwhile, Ness is in the basement, pacing back and forth, looking distraught. Alexis is sitting lazily on the stairs, looking bored. Brian is chained to the floor.

Radford and Sanz are talking...

RADFORD: "This is insanity, and you know it."
SANZ: "Radford, focus here. There will be plenty of time to tell us we're wrong later. So, where in your books does it say about curing vampirism?"
RADFORD: "There. Is. No. Cure."
SANZ: "It's gotta be something with the soul. I need to find that book..."
RADFORD (grabbing Sanz around the shoulders) "You will fail. You will risk our lives and those of your friends trying. Let me put him to rest. Please."
SANZ: "I can't believe you haven't learned."

At that, Evil Vampire Brian starts making noise.

RADFORD: "That isn't your friend. That's a demon wearing his body."
SANZ: "Go tell that to soulless roboboy."

Radford gives up, grabs a crossbow, and heads for the basement.

SANZ: "Like your cynicism helps! There was only one of us here that followed your outlook on life, and he's now dead."
Sanz uses telekinesis to slam the door in Radford's face.
RADFORD: "You're a fool. That is a vampire downstairs. The enemy. What could you possibly hope to accomplish?"
SANZ: (Firmly) "Something you have neither the will nor imagination to hope for. I'm going to win."

Downstairs, Brian begins to screw with Ness.
BRIAN: "C'mon partner. I'm hungry. You know I couldn't squeeze a drop from you... just bring me the rat...
NESS: "Shut up!"
ALEXIS: "I know how you feel." (She looks at Brian) "Kind of hungry myself..."
NESS (grabbing his hair, taking a moment to calm down): "You...Brian wouldn't say that. (Turns to Alexis) "Don't say that! Don't look at him like that!"
ALEXIS: "Sorry. He just smells tasty."
BRIAN (To Alexis): "I'm kinda liking this idea...you've got some blood left in you, right? We eat each other like oroborous worms, whaddaya say?"
NESS (Screaming): "He does not smell tasty! He smells like...like..."(He backhands Brian) "SHUT UP!"
BRIAN: "Ahch! That's it! Rage within the machines!"
Ness slams Brian up against the wall.

Radford comes downstairs.
RADFORD: "Ness, Alexis, you have to listen to reason. Brian is too dangerous not to be dealt with."

NESS: "I said...shut up. You're not Brian. Brian wasn't such a...."

RADFORD: "Yes, exactly. He isn't your friend. Let me put him to rest..."

BRIAN: "Come on! I'm psyched to go ten rounds with a pointlessly strong Robot! Just unchain me! Alexis can put on a bathing suit and be the ring girl, hold up the cards each round!"

NESS: "No! We'll find the real brian!"
BRIAN (Goes Vamp Face): "Always in the last place you look!"
NESS: We'll put him back in! It's not hard! It can't be!"

Sanz comes downstairs, chanting- his eyes have gone black, again. (Uh oh, spaghetti O's?)

Ness slams Brian against the wall again, shouting for Brian to stop it- Brian drops the Vamp Face.

BRIAN: "C'mon Ness, this isn't fair, I can't even defend myself...I think you might've given me a concussion....I'm not going to appreciate that..."

Sanz stabs him with the soul knife, and Brian screams.

Cut.

[Professor Phobos]

Potter's voice echoes through the hospital. "Slaaaaayer! I'm comin' fer a rematch, darlin'!"

Chance (Woozily): "Oh...him again."
Mika turns to Toni. "Give me Tenchi."
Toni hands her Mika's favorite stake.
Zeke takes a look down the hall- "It's Potter, and all his friends."
Chance (To Mika): "You aren't going to kiss him again, are yah?"
Mika: "And throw up all night?"
Zeke: "Mika, there are too many- we've got to get out of here."

Potter: "Come on out, darlin', or I'll start up on the sick folk and the sawbones!"

Zeke draws his axe. "Mika, get out of here. I'll buy you some time."
Chance: "Aw...Zeke and I can take him. There can't be more than five or six or seven or eight or nine or ten of these vampires...Where do they get them all, anyway? I mean, you'd think they grow on trees..."

Samantha falls to the floor, unconscious.

Potter: "Slayer! I'm a gonna give ya a count o'five, then I reckon this purdy lil' nurse is a gonna die!"

Potter starts counting down. Mika and Zeke prepare for battle while Tizzy and co get Chance ready to stumble out of the hospital.

On two Mika bursts out of her room, charging Potter. He tosses the nurse aside.
Potter: "Aw, there's mah gal, let's do this, darlin'!"
Mika: "Well, at least you were man...wait, vamp...enough to come by yourself. "
(At this point, Potter's crew is gone.)

As Chance stumbles into the hall he waves to Potter.
Meanwhile, Tizzy's also helping Samantha, who is mumbling "Oh god the stars she moved the stars..." over and over again.

Potter and Mika face each other down a long hospital corridor. Potter's got an eyepatch. "Time fer a rematch."
Mika: "Well...even with this (she raises her broken arm), I'm still a match for you."
Potter points to his eye. "Same to you, darlin', Let's go."

Mika burns a Righteous Fury as she and Zeke charge.

Meanwhile, Chance and co walk outside- and are promptly grabbed by Potter's crew. Chance: "Hello there vampires!"
Lead Vamp: "Gonna go quiet?"
Chance: "Well, I can't sing very well..."

Zeke's backhanded by potter through a reception window, but Mika fairs much better, ducking Potter's levitated spin-kick.
She dives to where Zeke fell, and one-handed, grabs the axe off the floor, spins, and tosses it at Potter, whose tossing a chair at her. She ducks the chair, he ducks the axe. "Nice throw, darlin'!"

She mutters to a conscious but prone Zeke, rubbing his head. "Stay down, Zeke."
Zeke: "Okay."

Potter floats up. "Come on now, don't keep me waitin'!"
Mika tosses a filing cabinet at Potter..."Hope you like this one better!" (She tosses in a DP)

Potter takes a filing cabinet to the face and sails back, head ramming into a wall. He tosses the cabinet aside, smashed face and growling. But Mika's caught up to him, and hits him with a backflip kick that sends him skyward through the ceiling and onto the second floor. She grabs the axe and goes up.

They kung fu fight for a while- she eventually slams the axe into his chest, but he knocks her back. Pulling the axe out, he charges- and Mika kicks one of those rolling cart things into him, pinning him against the wall. This is followed by a DPed groin kick and a stake toward the heart- which Potter grabs, holding it just above his heart.
Potter: "Now, darlin', you really don' wanna get rid o' a handsome fella like myself, do yeh?"
Mika: "Wrong, you bloodsucking creep."
She headbutts him and puts the stake in.
Potter: "We'll...I'll be..."
Poof.
Mika: "You're just dust, blowin' in the wind..."

Cut.


GM's Commentary: This whole scene came from my desire to have a big fight in a hospital, a la Hard Boiled. It was only coincidence the bad guy ended up with an eyepatch, a la Mad Dog.

I also did not intend for Potter to be killed- it was certainly a possibility, but not something I expected. But he ran out of DP's and Mika kept spending them, and a Righteous Fury is not something to be underestimated. To be fair,t hough, his use was at an end- by the end of this episode, the Bishops were out of the picture, and the Big Bad far from needing a vampire hillbilly to do his bidding.

This was also probably the only combat I stuck to the rules on, though it went fast anyway. Normally I do things a little more narratively, but I figured it was an important fight,and in a hospital. And a nice, one-on-one action sequence always does a series good.

[Professor Phobos]

The Revolution Eats Its Children

Back to Ness.

Brian screams and writhes, drops in and out of vampface, and finally settles, seemingly unconscious.

Sanz removes the knife, continues chanting, and stabs him again, somewhere else. At that, Brian comes awake again, "aaaah...gah" and giving a look of geniune pain. Radford is at the top of the stairs, crossbow in hand, silently observing.

Sanz keeps stabbing Brian (and cutting himself- dark eyes, ominous music. Candles flicker. The chanting grows amplified with inhuman resonance.) Ness looks on horrified.

Brian (between stabs): "Oh...god....please, please don't stab me again Sanz, please..."
Ness: "Sanz! Stop! Stop Stop!
Sanz hesitates, but moves to stab Brian again. Ness tackles him first, though.
Brian: "Oh god, oh god I'm sorry...I'm sorry..."
Ness (To Sanz): "What are you doing?!"
Sanz: "That is Brian without a soul. This (raising the knife)...is a soul. "
Ness: "Whose soul?!"
Sanz: Antony's.

Brian (sobbing): "Alexis...why is he stabbing me...why..."
Alexis: "I think he's trying to give you a soul. At least that was the plan, I think."

Ness: "You can't put Anthony in Brian! He has to go back in Anthony! It's not your choice!"
Sanz: "Ness, I don't think you understand. It is my will I am working. It is my choice."

Alexis: "Say, aren't souls interchangeable?" (She looks to Radford, who says nothing.)

Ness: "You will not bring back a fake Brian."
Sanz: "Ness, we're screwed, big time. And some of us here would have us close our eyes and think of England."
Ness: "Take the soul back. It has to go back into Anthony."
Sanz: "I don't think it went anywhere."

Alexis: "Uh, could it be too late for this? What if it already worked?"

Brian: "Mr. Radford! I'm sorry! I didn't! It wasn't me! I didn't want to hurt anyone! I didn't want to hurt Mika! But it wasn't me! Help me!"
Ness:"What do you mean?"
Alexis: "What if he's got Anthony's soul already?"
Sanz shakes his head. "And the oscar goes to Vampire Brian. My spell didn't work."
Ness: "Brian, is that really you?"

Radford (To Sanz): "Your spell...will never work."
Sanz: "Not this one."
Alexis: "Mr. Radford, you think we should get rid of Brian, right?"
Radford nods.
Alexis (innocently): "Could I take care of that for you?"

Brian begs for his life. Ness wants to make sure it didn't work- he brings up the Soul Tester spell they used before and goes to get it.
As Ness leaves...
Brian: "Don't go! They'll kill me!"
Ness (passing Radford): "If you try and touch him before we check...I will tear you apart and feed you to Alexis."
Alexis ponders, and grins a bit at the thought, but looks at Radford looking at her and stops.

Sanz pulls a chair over and sits down to wait.
"Radford, you've lost people before, right?"
Radford: "Too many."
Sanz: "Don't you ever wish you could have done something? You know, if you'd just done the right thing, little Lenny from Liverpool might still be here."
Radford grits his teeth.
Sanz: "Go upstairs and do not return until you find some way of curing a vampire, or ensouling it."
Radford says nothing.

Ness, returns, casts the spell. Brian ain't got soul.
Brian (vampfaced): "Well, dang, ya caught me!"
Then he starts laughing. Ness starts slamming, and Radford shouts for Ness to get out of the way as he aims his crossbow.
Ness just keeps slamming until Alexis pulls him back, but Sanz stands in the way of Radford's shot.
Radford: "Get out of the way, Sanz."

Sanz turns to Ness "Take care of him, I've got Radford covered..."
Ness looks at Brian...and stakes him, behind Sanz's back.
Brian: "Brian is...taken care of..." (poof!)
Sanz turns, coughing up blood, the force of his spells having hurt him badly. "Radford, you've got a convert." He stares at Ness, betrayed and hateful. Then he passes out.

We end this scene with Radford administering first aid on Sanz, Ness just collapsed in a pile of dust w/ Alexis' doing a piss poor job of comforting him.

Then Mika comes down, bloodied, bruised, and says..."Say, where is everyone?"

Director's Commentary: I had split chat rooms- while this was going on, I was also running Chance's capture and the hospital fight. So in all honesty, I missed damn near most of it- and it still came out fine. The interaction of the three players involved was quite good and lead to far reaching consequences. I dunno if the dialogue bears it out, but this was easily the dramatic high point of our series thus far. Ness lost a good bit of his pseudochildhood, Sanz is left bitter and even more hateful of Radford, and Brian's gone, gone gone.

Throughout this game I've loved the subplots. Sanz hates Radford, but more than once he does ruthless or terrible things when he thinks it is necessary, just as Radford will. The irony is truly glorious. And the whole group pretty much distrusts Radford-except for Mika, who is staunchly loyal...and will eventually have to pick sides.

I love it!

[TrumpetDC]

El Maestro!

You are not only a good director, but a good editor. :)

This and the previous episode were great. We were all in excellent form.

[Craig Oxbrow]

Originally posted by Professor Phobos
Throughout this game I've loved the subplots. Sanz hates Radford, but more than once he does ruthless or terrible things when he thinks it is necessary, just as Radford will. The irony is truly glorious. And the whole group pretty much distrusts Radford-except for Mika, who is staunchly loyal...and will eventually have to pick sides.
Ah, the "agonising betrayals" section of the series. So much good unclean fun if the players are into the spirit of things.

[Professor Phobos]

Man, I stopped posting these...years ago. But the game has continued, and is now in the third season.

Since I am down with the flu today, and I'm reading the old chat archives anyway, I think I'll update this thread.

Keep in mind, my direct memories are very dim as of season 1. If I manage to catch all the way up to season 3, I'll have more immediate GM's thoughts.

Anyway, since AP threads are supposed to be instructive, I can at least describe my thoughts on the game thus far.

It's easily the most successful (and by far the longest running) game I've run. Three one shots, two full seasons of twenty-two "episodes" and a third, I'm even considering doing a fourth season in college if the players want it.

I've had to learn by doing in keeping a campaign on track, and I've made several mistakes. The first is: I improvise too much. Normally I'd consider this great, but if you want consistancy between scenarios you have to...

A. Take copious notes

B. Refer to those notes and your plans in game.

I can't count the number of times I've altered a course of action or a plan because I either forgot about it or thought of something "cool" mid-game. Now, I don't mean planning out individual scenarios in detail. That's a recipe for disaster. But your long term goals for a season should be prepared and you should stick to it. Admittedly, some of my spur-of-the-moment decisions have worked out, but others were quite lame.

Or, if you run things episode-by-episode, just be sure to think about the impact a given scene is going to have on *future episodes*. I kept traumatizing these poor high schoolers and they ended up with issues. Lots of issues. Players remember.

I'm also impressed at how downright cruel I can be as a director. Season 1 isn't the most cheerful series, and season 2 is downright depressing. I'm trying, very hard, to make season 3 more cheerful, but I'm not really able to keep the balance well. There were two inspirations for this game- Buffy, and Lovecraft. The "Cosmic Horror" elements have definitely overridden the Buffy ones more often than otherwise.

Also, here's a tip for people running long games: You're going to discover that you are not nearly as imaginative as you think. There's a running gag in my game now about people getting possessed. Because I used that all the time. People got possessed by ghosts. Demons. Angels. Computer viruses. More ghosts. Spirits. Gods. Be on the lookout for repetitive plot ideas.

Anyway...let's see how many episodes I can get done today...

[Professor Phobos]

Episode Eleven- At the Movies of Madness

After the last one, I felt a light-hearted episode was in order. I had thought up the title long before I thought up the premise; ultimately I just figured "Toss in Ethan Rayne and my favorite action movies, it'll be great." Things did turn out fairly entertaining, but I kicked myself for using up the title (which I still like a lot) on a fluffy episode.

I later got my spite on with "Beyond the Movies of Madness", a dour, grim episode in the second season.

It's the week before winter break ends. In between episodes, Brian's ashes were buried in Radford's yard, next to where they buried Dan Manning. Anthony's soul was restored, though this doesn't change his behavior and he returns to his father. The Bishop manor mostly burned down. I never explained where Mr. and Mrs. Bishop stayed after the Justice League burned down their house, but no one ever asked.

At the funeral:

Sanz (still bitter) turns to Radford and says: "I call that spot over there."

Toni places her heart necklace in the urn before it is buried.

Off screen, in between episodes, various task were done. Chance and Zeke worked on figuring out what was dreaming about Tizzy. Ness and John tried to find a solution to Alexis without Radford finding out. Alexis herself became more cheerful, being on the "Carrion: It's what's for dinner" diet. Chance and Tizzy, Zeke and Samantha all became items.

We open at the Red Hook. Various characters are on pseudo-dates or just hanging out.

Ness sits next to Alexis. Not too close, not too far, and awkwardly, blushing periodically.

Chance idly sings "Ness the red-cheeked robot" every so often.

Alexis: "You know what I haven't done in a while? Catch a movie. Anyone want to see a movie?"

NOTE: I'm not sure why I picked Alexis to deliver the scenario hook. She was, at this time, a soulless zombie. Tizzy would have made more sense.

Ness: "Movies? What movie?"
Chance: "Hey, that sounds good."
Tizzy: "There's that new theater on Clyde. Aren't they having some opening night thing tonight?"
Sanz: "What's playing? Anything's better than Underworld down at the Uni-Plex."
Tizzy: "I dunno..."
Chance: "You would think they would choose a name less . . . dank."
John: "Are they... um.... showing that one with Christina Ricci?"
Samantha: "I guess we should look in the paper..."

NOTE: Incidentally, shy characters are tough, because if they don't say anything, you forget about them, and if they say things, they aren't very shy, now are they?

Sanz declares he won't be the only one without a date, and goes looking for one.

Zeke: "Here we are. Ethan's Cinema in Arkham....opening tomorrow. Let's see what's playing..."

NOTE: I'm not subtle. "Ethan's Cinema" should give away our special guest star, and did.

The three movies are "Die Hard", "Aliens" and "Terminator 2." I had foolishly assumed my players would have seen all of them, but luckily the group decided to split up and see different ones, one the players had seen. If you haven't guessed that the premise is "They turn into movie characters", hand in your ID badge and gun.

Incidentally, this is a lame premise. I should have at least made up the movies. To this day, the self-kicking. To this day.

On the way out...

John: "Who's that guy dancing with the Slayer?"
Ness: "With Mika? Her boyfriend, Chris."
John (matter-of-factly): "What is he?"
Ness: Umm.....normal? Short? Smarter than your average jock? *tilts his head*
John (shocked): "So, he's just a regular guy? And he got the Slayer?"
Ness: "Rollover from when she wasn't a slayer. (whispering) And I don't think she noticed Sanz trying to hit on her."
John: "Well, Sanz I could see. Magus and all. But just a regular guy? I guess stranger things have happened."
Ness: "Like a robot and a zombie?" (grins)
John (confused): "What?"
Ness: "You know... me... and... um... Alex... we're kind of...umm..."
John: "What? You're kind of what?" (realizing) "You know never mind, I shouldn't pry. Sorry."

The nice thing about romantic subplots? You don't have to do anything! Players love 'em and will handle the legwork for you. Sanz manages to get "Sally" to come with. "Sally" becomes an Extremely Minor Recurring Character from this point on.

Now we introduce Ethan Rayne, at the theater. I tried to have him be ominous, but it came off moronic. So I ran with that, and "Ethan Rayne, Chump Wizard Extraordinaire" made recurring appearances.

Ethan: "Hope you like the shows."
Mika: "I'm sure we will."
Ethan: "Oh yes. Some of my favorites. Movies to inspire, you might say."
Ethan: "I hope you enjoy the evening...movies work so well for escaping the doldrums of normalcy, don't you think?"
Chance (muttering): "Man, I'd love to get me some of those..."

Does Ethan mean anything by what he's saying? I sure didn't know then, and I don't know now. Ethan has a "flash of recognition" at Samantha, introducing a subplot that never goes anywhere and ends up silly. Anyway, Ethan correctly guesses each person's pick, there's more "vaguely ominous dialogue" and the movies begin.

Ness makes a clumsy attempt to hold Alexis' hand.
Alexis: "Oh, Ness, you're so cute sometimes. I could just eat you up. Except I can't." (She frowns)

I had a lot of fun with Alexis' cannibalistic dialogue. I've had a lot of fun with Alexis in general- I had initially regretted introducing her as a recurring NPC, but she paid off with nurturing, attention, and evil.

I made some minor changes to each movie's famous lines, for some reason. I occasionally make efforts to be ominous and foreboding. These efforts rarely succeed. Anyway...

The Terminator: "I shall be reborn."
Ripley: "I say we take off and nuke the site from the heavens."

I have nothing for Die Hard. In hindsight, it should have been something like..."Yippey Kay Yay, Yog-Sothoth!"

Various movie monsters and/or hard-boiled cops burst through the screen before the lights go out. The magically induced paradigm shift hits, a plot device I'll use again and again. And again and again and again. But this, being the second time, it's still vaguely original.

Mika: "Oh my god."
Chance: "Ohhh boy, this can't be good."
John (breathing deeply): "Okay, just stay calm. Calm."
Chance: "Not another vision!"

Soon, all the moviegoers have transformed. Chance becomes Bruce Willis, in Die Hard, and I ask him to start calling Tizzy "Holly." Ness becomes the Terminator, in what I can only call vintage "Obvious Storytelling."

Chance: "I'm McClane! McClane gets the crap beaten out of him! Damn it!"
The rest of his theater becomes Eurotrash terrorists or hostages. A ventilation duct appears next to his seat, allowing him to make his escape.

Chaos ensues everywhere. Sally becomes Sarah Conner and saves Sanz. Aliens fight Marines. Aliens fight terminators. Aliens fight Eurotrash terrorists. Alexis becomes the T1000, and goes after Sanz, who happens to be John Conner.

Tizzy becomes Hans Gruber and goes after Chance. This is vaguely humorous.

Now, at this point, the players started having some fun. They got into character as various magical transformations occur. They started quoting the movies, employing genre tropes, and the like. Various combat scenes ensue. Eventually, they start to look for the cause of the shenanigans.

Chance and Tizzy find their way to the projection room, and encounter Ethan Rayne. Chance becomes Miles Dyson just after kicking in the door and collapses, holding the detonator. Since barrels full of explosives appear next to him, he's able to tell Rayne to stop very convincingly.

John, in the guise of Sgt. Apone, has taken control of the Marines, and revealed his encyclopedic knowledge of Apone's dialogue. With the Marines in tow, he fights back the aliens downstairs. Mika and Ness engage in one-on-one combat with the Alien Queen and the T-1000. McClane passes back to Chance, who promptly hits Ethan.

Ethan: "Now now, no need for that. Just a harmless spot of fun I've been having...nothing dangerous..."
Chance: "Either you end it, or I do."
Ethan: "It isn't that simple, you see..."
Chance (holding his gun to Rayne's head): "Make it simple."
Ethan: "End things too soon and...well....you'll find the changes more permanent that you might desire."
Chance: "The movies have to finish? How many people are going to die?"
Ethan: "Well, er, not exactly..."
Sanz: "This man his full of himself." He smashes the Janus statue and ends the spell.
Ethan: "Or...you could break the statue. But damn it, they do get expensive."

That's the result of an off-screen "Occult" roll. Sanz spent a drama point. I hadn't actually thought about how the spell was supposed to end, so I let the player decide on the cancellation. He went with the BTVS reference, which is fine, as we rarely actually referred to the show, despite technically being in the same continuity. (In fact, as the series progressed, I would stomp all over the Buffyverse)

Everyone re-sets, and they take a few moments to see if anyone is dead or injured. No one is.

Ness: "You're alright!" (hugging Alexis)
Alexis: "I'm fine. Just be glad it wasn't Night of the Living Dead."
Ness: Does that mean I might have turned back to a real person?
Alexis (brightening): "Or a zombie! We could have devoured flesh together!"
Ness: "That's...one way of looking at it."
Alexis: "I do wish we had more in common."

Ethan: "Well, then, I suppose I'll be on my way...nice meeting you."
Chance: "Not so fast there."
Sanz slams the door in Rayne's face with telekinesis.
Ethan: "Or...I suppose we can chat for a bit."

Meanwhile, John addresses the moviegoers: "Well... that was... Quite... an experience in... nouveau- uh, experimental- improvisational- theater- stuff.... Yeah."

Sanz: "So, spill it. What were you trying to do?"
Ethan: "Oh, you know, raise some trouble. Have some fun. Nothing too special. It was even a mostly non-lethal spell."
Chance: "Mostly?!

Everyone meets up in the projection room to interrogate Rayne.

John: "Hey, weren't you at my thirteenth birthday party?"
Ethan: "Sorry, don't quite remember. My memory goes all foggy when I'm detained by the hero types."

John threatens Ethan. There's back-and-forth about John's switching sides, Ethan's connections with his father. Etc. Etc.

Samantha: "Crap. Oh crap. Guys..." She faints.
Tizzy: "Uh...oh boy...whenever Samantha gets these spells..."

Now for the big, end of the episode plot twist. I was a big fan of these, and at this point I was still trying to build a stable of recurring villiains. Which turned out to be a very good idea; I've lacked one for the second and third seasons, and it has been difficult to work around.

A younger Keziah Mason steps into the room.
Ethan (lustily): "Keziah. So nice to see you again."
Keziah: "Ethan."

Ethan walks over and they kiss.
Sanz: "Please! Trying to keep the popcorn down here..."
Ethan: "How've you been, love?"
Keziah: "In a mental institution, where you left me, remember?"
Ethan: "Oh come on. I had problems of my own to deal with. You know old Ripper."

I'm not sure why I kept feeling it necessary to refer to Buffy. It pretty much stopped in the second season, with a few notable exceptions.

Samantha regains her composure. "Oh god, mom, an Englishman?"

Chance (to Tizzy): "Think we could take them?"
Tizzy: "Sure, if by 'take' you mean 'be annihilated instantly...'

Sanz: "Yo, Britman, do you think we'll just let you leave?"
Keziah: "Do you think you could stop him from leaving if I help?"
John (murmuring): "Unwise, Sanz...unwise..."
Keziah: "But since I'm not going to help him, good luck." She blows a kiss to Rayne, and vanishes.
Ethan: "Damn."
Chance: "Heh."
Rayne bolts for the stairs. He doesn't get far- Mika kicks his legs out.

Ethan: ""Well, now, hold on... have you thought this through? You can't just kill me, you know."
John: "Yeah we can."
Ness: "No we can't!"
John (taking his cue): "Oh, right. We can't." (pause) "Do we...maim...him?"

Now, as far as I'm concerned, that was a brilliant line. Maybe it only works in my head, maybe not, but it is one of my favorites.

Ethan's fate takes deciding, there is all manner of dialogue and post-session chatter. I think the session ended early and we did some side-stuff of relevance, which I'll get into next.

[Craig Oxbrow]

Good heavens. Been a while.

(I'd have gone with comedy films or period pieces - action movies let the PCs be cool, and these things seem to work best when cool characters turn uncool and vice versa.)

[Professor Phobos]

(I'd have gone with comedy films or period pieces - action movies let the PCs be cool, and these things seem to work best when cool characters turn uncool and vice versa.)

I came to a similar conclusion; "Beyond the Movies of Madness" featured a pair of haunted silent movies and was much more satisfying.

Oh well, live and learn.

[DanB]

Holy crap! My favorite AP has been updated!

[Professor Phobos]

Episode 12- A Friend on the Doorstep

This one was my biggest single-episode misstep, I think. While the villain was popular enough that every single player independently requested her return, the second half of this episode was structured, in my plans, like this...

1. Everybody switches bodies.
2. ???
3. Profit!

Notwithstanding the awkward title, the basic premise was very sound- I took "A Thing on the Doorstep" and High School-ized it. The first half of the episode went very well, but the second half caused nothing but headache. To anyone reading this darn thing, I'd advise: Keep your "Crazy magical paradigm shifts" simple. If you find yourself drawing a flow chart, you've gone too far, do something with zombies instead.

That being said, this is the second time I enlist a player as a confederate (this time, Mika) and it always works well. Players relish the opportunity to break the mold a little, and I, as a director, love it when someone does all the villainous dialogue for me.

We open up with the characters returning to school from winter break. Zeke, Sam and Tizzy are together in the lunchroom, looking sad.

Chance: "Hey. You three all right? Julius didn't poop in anything he shouldn't have?"
Tizzy: "Yeah...just got some bad news."
Sanz: "Well, what was it?"
Tizzy: "A friend of ours tried to kill herself last night."
Sanz: "Do we know her?"
Tizzy: "No, you probably didn't. We kinda had a falling out last year."
Chance (to Tizzy): "Do..do you want to talk about it?"
Tizzy: "Oh...well, you see, it's just that...I mean, we used to be really great friends. The three of us. Then she changed all of a sudden when we got to high school...."
Samantha (quietly): "It was awful..."

Incidentally, while I am aware that there are better ways to start off an episode than breaking out an "NPC Plot Dispenser" I use the technique time and time again. Something will be about to happen, or have happened, and some NPC will give an info-dump at the start and turn things over to the PCs. Tried and true. It's much less common for a PC to start up an episode on their own initiative, though I have tried to encourage it and welcome it when it does crop up. Something about the way I structured this game made the group basically reactive.

Sanz: "Was she a coveny kind of friend?"
Tizzy: "Nah, didn't really get into that stuff until last year."
Samantha: "I didn't...don't...want anything to do with that."

At this point, Mika suddenly departed the group and walked over to the "Cool Kids Table." Sudden change in behavior of a PC, in a conversation about a sudden, inexplicable change in behavior in an NPC? The two can't possibly be connected!

John (bluntly): "Why'd she try to off herself?"
Chance glares at John, who looks back, confused.
Tizzy (after a moment): "Oh...well...we don't know. She kinda started hanging out with a bad crowd, I guess... things got out of hand."
Chance: "Do you know how she is doing?"
Tizzy: "She's at St. Mary's now. Pills. In a coma."

Having a normally cheerful character giving out sad information is very useful, I must admit. Contrast, or something.

Sanz motions to Toni about Mika's strange behavior.
Toni: "We had a fight, she's not talking to me."
Sanz: "Um... Girls, I'm always here for you, but I'm going to leave you with Chance and John. I'm going to check on Mika."

Tizzy: "This wouldn't have happened if we were still friends."
Samantha: "Though...I suppose hanging out with us now isn't that good for longevity, either."
Toni: "That's not true...except..." (frowns)
Chance: "Yeah...except."
Alexis: "Technically, me too."
Toni:"But you weren't part of the group yet."
Alexis: "Right. Right. "

John (curious): "So, do we, like... Get revenge?"
Zeke: "Revenge?"
Chance: "Revenge against who?"
John: "Yeah. Somebody's hurt someone that we're friends with... This is usually where you... get revenge. Isn't it?"
Chance: "Well... this seems like more of a 'try and help them get better' situation."
John: "Oh. Oh, I see."

John's ongoing transformation into a more tactful fellow is, well...ongoing, but the player handled it wonderfully.

The reason I decided to start this episode off with suicide, other than it being so sadly appropriate to High School, was because I was still interested in doing "Very Serious" stories from time to time. I had an episode all planned out that was going to deal with an abusive parent. No supernatural horror, no easy solution, just cold, hard, human evil. But I never ended up doing it. Suicide crops up again, but I never did a strictly "mundane", realistic evil. Probably for the best. Alexis Winthorpe was originally intended as a foil for the PCs- a snooty Cordelia figure, only to reveal that she had to deal with emotionally and physically abusive parents. I thought it'd be clever, and because I thought it'd be clever, I realized it wouldn't be.

Meanwhile, Sanz is trying to join the Cool Kids Table. Present is "Greg" and "Mike", bit NPCs I lost complete track of. I played them as stereotypical High School ne'er do wells

Sanz: "Got room at this table?"
Greg: "Nope. Go away."
Mika: "Yeah. Buzz off."
Sanz: "Aww guys... I like the way you joke around." Sanz sits. Greg does the age old "knock your chair out from under you" trick and sends Sanz to the floor. Everyone, including Mika, laughs.
Mike: "Now head back to your band of losers over there."
Mika puts her arm around Greg.

Meanwhile, pointless metaphysical exposition. I ran into this a lot in the first season. For some reason I felt compelled to explain the byzantine, contradictory and pointless metaphysical rules I'd established, all the time. In hindsight, I should have just said: "Magic is magic. It doesn't make sense."

Toni: "Are there any spells... like healing spells... to bring her out of her coma?"
Tizzy(shaking her head 'no'): "Healing magic is..."
Samantha: "Insanely dangerous."
(This is, of course, borrowed from Buffy)
Chance: "Hey... if someone in a coma, are they in the dreamland?"
Zeke: "Sometimes. I can check." (He checks his watch) "Yeah, Radford's next. I can definitely check."

Mika is invited to a party. But not the wholesome kind, the kind with bit NPCs named "Greg." At this point I have completely failed to establish Greg as anything other than a jerk. He was meant to be a slimey, self destructive kind of jerk- the bad influence type that ruined lives, and dodge sexual assault charges because they have wealthy parents. Like I said before, human evil, only this time, it was going to be a young'un. Didn't really work out this way. About the worst thing Greg did was have alcohol at a house party...and everyone did that.

Sanz: "Yeah. So, who's going to crash a party with me tonight?"
Chance:"Lovely. I don't see this going horribly wrong. No, sir. More B&E? You know I'm all over that."
John: "Crash a party?"
Alexis: "Hey, do you think this'll be a death and dying party?"
Chance: "It’s probably 50-50."
Alexis: "Ooh, good. I've been wondering what human tastes like."
Sanz: "Yeah. Greg invited Mika to a party at his place tonight. I think it's going to be THE place to be."
Zeke: "Not really our crowd, Guillermo."
John: "Why are you going to crash the party? I thought this was a no-revenge thing."
Chance: "This isn't revenge. This is meddling. Very different."
Sanz: "Finally, someone understands me..."

They head to class. Chance tries to cheer Tizzy up.

Tizzy: "Oh, thanks Chance. I'm fine though. We weren't friends anymore. Nothing I could have done. She made her choice."
Chance: "Come on, Tizzy. This is bothering you. You haven't teased anyone all day."
Tizzy: "I just tried really hard to stay her friend. I mean she started, all of a sudden, doing drugs. And not just...well...she'd go to parties and get very drunk and she'd..."

(And now, on a very special episode of the Shadows Over Arkham. This prohibition stuff was completely unintentional on my part and I'm only now noticing it.)

John passes a note to Chance, in hot pink marker (I never caught the explanation for why John had one of those- he kept it up for six or seven episodes...) that read: ""We could rough up the people that did it. That might make her feel better?" Chance replies: "Odds are low. Nice Christmas spirit, though."

Chance: "You should go see her anyway. She might have changed."
Tizzy: "Coma."
Chance (winces) "Ahh, yeah... that’s right. Well, let’s find out what Zeke has to say, anyway."

Mika skips the next class. (See! Real cosmic evil! Skipping class! Just remember this was years ago. I can't believe I was so green...)

Radford: "Zeke, I trust that was somehow more important than my lecture?"
Chance: "Somehow? Zeke was looking for someone in the Dreamlands."
Radford: "Oh? And, where was Mika today?"
Chance: "That's the other thing... There was a fight and Mika's gone all sulky. I'm sure Sanz is pestering her relentlessly now."
John (proudly): "We're in the meddling phase."
Radford: "Well, slayers are known to be a little moody. Give her some space."

For a short while, "Meddling phase" became a group catchphrase. It was replaced by "Run toward the screaming" as the group motto in season two. Due to the vagaries of IRC, the conversation branches here.

Important Plot Point 1
Toni: "She won't even talk to me telepathically."
John: "What did you even get into a fight about?"
Toni: "It seemed so silly. I found her looking through my clothes. We started talking, then arguing, then just... silence."
John: "Wait- you're twins. Don't you borrow each others clothes all the time? To do that thing where you switch clothes and confuse everyone?"
Toni: "We've never done that."
John: "It sucks to have to fight with your brothers. Or your sister. Especially when they can beat you to death if they want."
Toni: "It's weird, though..."
Toni: "Ever since we became telepathic... it’s like there's this carrier wave, whenever we can see each other."
John: "Carrier wave?"
Toni: "You know, like the noise the TV makes, even when the volume is down all the way?"
John: "Like, a hum? Or a whine?"
Toni: "More like a hum. It fades away when we're out of sight. But now, when I'm around her... there's no hum. Like the TV’s off, or something"
John (nodding, then perplexed): "So, what you're saying is that you... are telepathically linked with your sister?"
Toni nods.
John:"Huh. Well, look on the bright side: it might mean nothing at all. Since it's unprecedented in the fist place, and you don’t know where this hum came from, you have no reason to be concerned that it's gone."
Toni: "But I don't want it gone! Mika and I have always been close. And, since we've become telepathic, we've been even closer. And now... it’s like losing an arm."

When Mika's player asked for the psychicness, I said: "This will cost you, one day. I will use all my powers of sadism." And it does, eventually. But until then, it proved surprisingly interesting- the player asked for it because of the roleplaying potential, and rarely used it for power.

Important Plot Point 2
Zeke: "Yeah...anyway, I didn't so much find answers but more questions."
Chance: "More questions? More questions are bad."
Zeke nods. "Yeah."
Chance: To Zeke "What happened? I mean, isn't she just there or not there? Zeke: "Uh...she's dead."
Chance: "What?"
Zeke: "I met her shade."
Tizzy is appropriately shocked.
Chance: "When did it happen?"
Zeke: "About a year and a half ago. I don't know who is in the coma, but it isn't Abigail Watts."
Chance: "Well, was she a zombie for that year? I mean, we have met our share of the breathing-challenged."
Alexis: "You can say it. I don't mind. No need to be politically correct."
Zeke: "I have no idea what is going on."
Chance: "Huh. Crashing that party is looking better and better."

Later...
Sanz: "Ahh... Just hung out with Greg, Mike and Mika. Lots of smoking and totally inappropriate language. Lung cancer aside, something's going on."

(the Very Special Episode continues- our body snatching evil is smoking! Get an axe!)

Radford: "Anyone mind filling me on what the devil is going on? And where is Mika?"
John: "Oh, she's hanging out with some new kids that may have caused a friend to overdose on pills and now Mika's going to a party, I guess, and we're all going to follow her."
Radford: "I see."
Radford: "Well, do be...oh, hell. If there's a problem, knock the bloody hell out of it and I'll cover it up for you."
Chance (to Radford, astounded): "Well, all right! Sanz, Operation Score Other People's Drinks is a go."

Planning continues as the party draws closer...
<Sanz> "Guys, I think there's something more here than just someone falling in with the bad crowd."
Chance: "Yeah. Zeke, you up for another nap?"
Sanz: "Yeah, want any help? I can fake a British accent."
Zeke: "Yeah, what do you...what?"
Sanz: "Never mind."
Chance (snorting): "Ignore the peanut gallery. Can you find Mika in there? I kinda doubt she’s out here."
Zeke (worried): "Yeah, I can try to do that."
Chance: "Is that gonna be hard?"
Zeke: "Well..."
Toni: "Please?"
Zeke: "It's just that the river of late has been...well, something's up in the dreamlands. But it won't be a problem, as long as I have an anchor." He reaches out and takes Samantha's hand. "Up for a nap?"
Samantha's eyes light up. "Oh...yeah."
Sanz: "Guys, she's not asleep. She's headed home to refresh the trashy clothing and head to Mike and Greg's for a party."
Chance: "Yeah, but the person who’s headed back to Mike and Greg's isn't telepathic. Whoever is in there, it ain't Mika."
Zeke: "I'll try to find Mika (to Samantha) This... uh... might be a while. We'll do it at my house. I hate waking up in these desks."

Zeke, Samantha and Tizzy depart. The others continue their conversation. As Tizzy leaves...
Chance (softly): "I'll... I'll let you know what we find out. I'm sorry."
"Tizzy: We'll do the same. And Chance? Thanks." She gives him a quick kiss. (Which is, to my knowledge, the first on-screen one we have between the main characters)

John:"Wait, you think that Mika has been forced out, and the real Mika is somewhere in the dreamlands, while some sort of charlatan is strutting around in her body?"
Sanz: "That's one theory."
Chance: "I'm HOPING the real Mika is in the dreamlands. That beats the hell out of the alternatives."
John: "Isn't that sort of... presumptuous? I mean, she could just be hanging out with some new people."
Toni: "Why would she do that?"
Chance: "Hey, worst case scenario, we all look like idiots. I'm comfortable with that."
Tizzy (playfully): "Yeah, you must be. So much practice."
Sanz: "We have enough evidence to think that something bad is going on. And plus, what's not to like about us?"
Chance: Looks Sanz up and down critically "Are you looking for a list?"
Alexis: "You're all still alive, for one."

And now, for Sanz' plan. When you are as dour and melancholic as I, having humorous players is vital.

Sanz: "But seriously, I have a plan."
John: "Care to share?"
Sanz: "Okay. Someone keeps Mika from the party while the others head with a slutified Toni to the party. No one knows that you're part of our crowd yet, John. You could be her date. Chance and I could distract Mika."
John (aghast): "What?!"
Toni (aghast): "What?!"
Chance: "Hmmmm. . ."
Sanz: “I think the boys want Mika. Let's keep her from them. Toni, you go in her place. Take John as your date. Chance and I will keep Mika from the party.”
John: "But, Date? Does that mean that we're supposed to like... (John visibly squirms) Kiss?"
Toni looks visibly ill.
Chance: "John, Ness is the one who is supposed to be 12."
Sanz: "You don't have to kiss in front of everyone. PDA is so 2001."
John: "So wait, do we have to like.... kiss in private?"
Toni: "No way, no way!"
Sanz: "Enough with the kissing!"
Toni: "I never kiss on the first date!"
John: "Look, Why don't you two take her, and I'll distract Mika. We'll uh... play scrabble."
Chance: "Because they know the new Mika wouldn't be caught dead with us."
Sanz: "They already know we're Mika's cronies. Go with Toni, and I promise you don't have to kiss."
John: looks to Toni. "I guess... I guess if it's for your sister... But I'm not holding your hand."
Chance: "Come on, John. Toni, you don't have to do anything. Just pretend you are there to tease him, get his hopes up, then dash them cruelly. It'll be just like a real date!"
Toni (glaring): "All right. But only ‘cause it will help us find out what's wrong with Mika."
John: So, will I have to dress up or anything?"
Sanz: Toni, you gotta really show what you have. They won't believe it otherwise."
Toni: "And you guys are gonna help me pick an outfit? Pleaaaaaze! I know how to dress slutty. I just never have, that's all"
John (desperately)"So, how do I have to dress?"

Obviously, John and Toni become a romantic subplot. And all due to the machinations of my players. I actually had Radford say things in this conversation, even presenting an alternate plan, but this was idiotic of me and it was thankfully overridden by the players. Knowing when to shut your NPCs up can be very important.

While shopping for clothes...
John: "So, have you ever don this before?"
Toni: "Never."
John: "I've never really been on a date before either. Will we have to dance?"
Toni: "I've been on dates before, but not like this...there will probably be dancing."
Sanz: "Oh, John, ever had your ear pierced..."
John: "Once, I had the cartilage in my nose pierced for this huge ritual on the feast of Anantayill."
Sanz: "Ah, this is gonna be fun. Let's go, you two."
John (To Toni): "Well, I've never done anything like this before. Will I have to defend your honor?"
Toni (unable to resist a smile)"Probably not."
John (relieved): "Good. It would probably be bad if I got into a fight."

Chance meets up with Mika for recon purposes. By this point, The Plan has reached byzantine complexity and I had lost track of it. Luckily, I just had to be evil when evil was appropriate.

Chance: "I just got off the phone with Radford. Some bad voodoo is going down. I think I heard the word 'Apocalypse' getting tossed around. We gotta get back to his office."
Mika: "Apocalypse?"
Chance: "Or maybe Ragnarok. The reception was bad. Anyway, we gotta go!"
Mika: "And what is my part in this?"
Chance: "Uh... you know. Helping to stop it? Slaying?"
Mika leans in close, her hand on Chance's shoulder. "So you need the slayer?
Chance: "Yeah, the one who can lift small cars would be pretty handy. Come on, he, uh, he said it was worse than that thing in Newport a few weeks ago."
Mika (seductively): "Have you ever kissed a slayer?"
Chance: "No, but I'd probably GET slayed if I kissed a slayer, so I'd just rather avoid the whole slayage deal."

Mika kisses Chance. Chance pushes her back- Mika lifts him up and throws him into a "stately oak." I have a proud tradition of elaborate descriptions of Things Characters Get Thrown Into.

Chance (groaning): "Love hurts..."
Mika: "See ya, loser!"

Chance calls Sanz...

Now, this was all at Mika's player's direction. In our pre-session discussions, I had played up how deeply evil Asenath Waite was (our body snatcher; from Lovecraft, naturally). Mika's player focused on how deeply pathetic she was, and it turned out better than simple villainy. So, "See ya, loser!" is the kind of taunt a wannabe villain would toss out, and Asenath turned out to be quite the wannabe bad gal.

Meanwhile, at the party, John and Toni are trying to blend. Since John is a Bishop, and everyone is afraid of them, he's given his space. Toni acts like Mika has been acting- namely, without shame. Eventually, they retire upstairs to Greg's room, ohn repeatedly saying "This isn't so bad..." John begins to search Greg's room.

Director: You find a stash of pot*, a rather epic collection of bad porn, but
nothing particularly damning.
John: Greg has a computer, right?
Director: Yeah. That's mostly porn.
Chance: (Is there a theme here?)
Director: (No.)
Chance: ('Whats in the fridge?' 'Mostly porn. Don't ask why.')

*and the very special episode continues...

Meanwhile, Chance receives a phone call from Tizzy while still on the phone with Sanz.
Tizzy: "Chance? Chance?"
Chance: "Yeah? Did Zeke find anything?"
Tizzy: “Zeke's still out. But I think there's a connection between Abby and Mika. (alarmed): "Look...oh, wait, Zeke's waking up...oh holy mother of..." The connection ends.
Chance: "This does not bode well. Sanz, you still there?"
Sanz: "I see her coming now."
Chance: "You think you can stop her? Magic-wise?"
Sanz: "There's one thing... Geb help me.."
Chance: "Look, Tizzy and Zeke think they have something, but we got cut off. You think you can take her?"
Sanz: "One way to find out."
Chance: "I love your optimism. Never change."

Chance heads toward Zeke's. Sanz prepares to deal with Mika...

Sanz tries to stop Mika with magical vines. Like that Druid spell. She rips 'em apart.

Asenath-in-Mika: "You're going to get it, little boy"
Sanz: "Um... should I be turned on now?"

Sanz is no more than a road-bump to Asenath, who enters the party.

Chance gets another call from Tizzy. "Sorry about that. Zeke found Mika. We're heading to St. Mary's."
Chance: "Do we need Mika's body?"
Tizzy: "Yes, but we'll need the other one too!"

Tizzy's statement is nonsensical. It didn't make sense then, but no one noticed. You can get away with stuff like this by typing quickly, speaking rapidly, or, if necessary, fleeing the room yelling about "the temple beetles" and moving to Ohio.

Downstairs, a fight scene eventually ensues.

Zeke (walking right up to Asenath): "Sleep."
Asenath picks up the keg and tosses it at Zeke. Zeke takes a keg to the face.
Asenath: "That's gonna leave a mark"
Zeke: "oh...man."
Chance: "'Sleep'. I like your plan. It was scientific."

For some reason, I thought it would be "kewl" if Zeke could make people fall asleep, as part of the perks of being Lord of the Dreamlands. Giving him this ability (which failed, in this case) was one reason I decided to so thoroughly wreck the poor lad later.

The fight continues; John turns into Demon Form and gives Asenath a run for her money. He tosses her through a wall. Zeke tells him to hold her down.

John eventually gets Asenath contained.

And I quote...

John's Player: While DemonJohn is holding Mika, he's.... smelling her. And he might be licking her, you can't tell.

Zeke puts his palm on Asenath's forehead, concentrates, and she falls asleep.

Zeke: "Now here's the tricky part. I'm going to try and use the dreamlands to switch 'em back. But..."
Sanz: "But?"
Zeke: "Well, uh, I don't think we'll all turn into rats... (shrugs) Ah well, those who dare, right?"

Zeke puts everyone to sleep. Then, a few moments later, his eyes open and he mutters "Oh, crap!"

That was about the part I called it, and started Stage 2 of the scenario. But since that gave me a headache when I ran it, and I am very tired now, I am going to write that up tomorrow.

[Professor Phobos]

A Friend on the Doorstep, Continued

Everyone wakes up in different bodies.

Ness finds himself in Tizzy's body at the hospital, with Radford-in-Samantha.

Radford-in-Samantha: "Sodding hellmouth!"
Ness-in-Tizzy: "Eh...this doesn't look like...um...home...where's the Colonel? Wait...does my voice sound funny?"
Radford-in-Samantha: "Ness?"
Ness in Tizzy: Yeah who else? I mean do I look...(looking down, yiping) I'm not s’pose to have those!"
Radford-in-Sam: "Neither am I. Don't panic. Body swapping is rarely permanent."
Ness in Tizzy: "Body swapping?!?! I'm s’pose to be a boy!...Hey, natural breathing!"

Mika wakes up in Ness' body, being repaired by the Colonel. The two exchange mutual bewilderment. At the party..

Toni-in-John: "Mika, is that you?"
Chance-in-Mika: "No, but you can get off me anyway..."
Toni-in-John: "Then who are you?"
Chance-in-Mika: "The easter bunny. Get up."
Toni-in-John: "Chance!"
Chance-in-Mika (getting up): "Oh, why is my neck moist? Wait... I'd rather not know..."

Phone calls are exchanged. Commentary of a comedic nature emerges.

Sanz-in-Radford: "Well, at least I don't look too bad, for an old guy." (He starts checking out his teeth in a mirror)

Radford-in-Samantha: "Sanz is in my driver's seat? Good lord!"
Ness in Tizzy: Sanz! What if one of the girls is in MY body!? That's as bad as me in one of theirs!"

Chance tries out slayer strength, and picks up an end-table.
Toni-in-John: "Put that down!"
Chance-in-Mika: "What? It's just a end table? A jerk's end table!"
Mike: "Please don't hurt the end table!"

Alexis-in-Chance immediately dives for the food, saying: "I haven't wanted anything but dead flesh for months!" A little while later, she stops. "You know, once you go zombie, you never go back. Even these cheetos fail to satisfy me."

Mika-in-Ness: "Chance?"
Chance-in-Mika: "Yeah?"
Mika-in-Ness: " You know I'm your friend, right?"
Chance-in-Mika: "Yeah, why?"
Mika-in-Ness: "So take this in the spirit of friendship. If you do anything 'exploratory' with my body I'll kick your ass from here to Kingsport."

Sanz-In-Radford: "So, um Ness, is it complete body chaos?"
Ness-in-Tizzy: "Um, I guess? Dunno, I was out and dreaming and then I woke up
and really wish this was a dream cause I have NO idea what I'm going to do if I
ever have to go to the bathroom."

John-in-Toni: To Toni-in-Sanz- "Oh, um... Hey Toni. You feel really.... well, How
do you feel?"
Toni-in-Sanz: "I feel....like Sanz does, I guess. Wow. And I thought
I knew what horror was."
John-in-Toni: "Same thing here. I mean, jebus, are you wearing
underwear or barbed wire?" (squirms)

John-in-Toni tries to walk down stairs in heels, and falls down. "These are coming right off..."

(Walking outside) Chance in Mika: "Damn, it's cold. Who the hell dresses like this? This is February! In New England!"

They agree to meet up at the hospital, and realize that Alexis' body has gone missing, presumably stolen by their body snatcher, as well as Zeke and Tizzy's minds. The group splits up into a team working on figuring out what is going on and reversing it, and a group to hunt down and capture Alexis' body, as they need everyone present in order to reverse the spell.

Investigation reveals that every couple of years, an Arkham High female student has a sudden, violent, self-destructive mood swing. By yearbook backtracking, they come to Asenath Waite and determine that she, using blasphemous magic, decided to continually relive her glory days in High School, over and over again. She'd poison her current body, swap into a new one, leaving the unfortunate person whose body she just stole in a coma or dead.

The capture team hatches a plan, spotting Alexenath at the Red Hook.

John-in-Toni: "Whatever it is inside of Alexis, it knows what Me and Chance here
look like. But Ness, you're a very attractive woman... I think you ought to go over there, proposition her, and tell her to meet you back stage, by the back door."
Chance-in-Mika: (choking back a laugh) "You sure she swings that way?"
Ness-in-Tizzy: A-are you s-serious? B-but I...she...
Chance-in-Mika: "Ahhhhh. There's no way you could make a plausible pass at
her."
John-in-Toni: "Look for yourself- She's practically grinding on Jenny Taylor. Ness, you're ten time prettier than Jenny Taylor."
Ness-in-Tizzy: B-b-but...er...um....*gulps and tugs at his collar, glancing
over back at Alexis, which doesn't help his blush*
Chance-in-Mika: "Well, I can't think of a BETTER plan, so lets go for this one.
If it doesn't work there will be plenty of time for empty recriminations later.

A fight breaks out, Chance tackles Alexenath, and they struggle...
Chance-in-Mika: "So, guys, I need guidance . . . should I be creeped out by
this? Or excited?"

Alexenath manages to get the upper hand and threatens to snap Tizzy's neck, but John-in-Toni creeps up behind and crushes her head with a cinderblock. This incapacitates the zombie. They get her restrained and take her to the hospital to switch back everyone's mind. Alexenath threatens everyone with Angry Villain Dialogue, but they gag her.

Then Sanz, deciding that "When in Radford, do as Radford does"...

Sanz in Radford: "When Ness uncovers your mouth, you are going to tell me how you do this body swapping thing, and you will tell me quickly. You will do as I say. As far as I'm concerned, you're a serial killer in a zombie's body. You wouldn't be the first Zombie I put down this year."
Mika in Ness: "The last one, he cut off his head... took several tries. You should have heard the screams."
Sanz in Radford: "Now, when I count to three, Ness will let go of your mouth. You will tell me what I want, or Ness becomes my killing machine... again."
Ness-in-Tizzy (whispering to Chance): "He's just kidding...right?"
Chance-in-Mika (whispering back): "Maybe..."
Asenath-in-Alexis: "Okay! Okay! What do you want?"
Radford-in-Samantha (To Sanz, proudly): "Not bad!"

Asenath reveals she can only make the body swap when both she and the target are asleep- it's a Dreamlands thing. Since Alexis never sleeps, this poses a problem. The group begins working on a way to put the dead to sleep, eventually succeeding by using the soul-sucking dagger.

They head to the Dreamlands, meeting up with Zeke who got trapped in the comatose girl. Various bits of dream-mojo are performed, and Asenath is trapped in a Crystal Skull which ends up in Ness' closet. Zeke says that Tizzy vanished in the Dreamlands, snatched by the entity foreshadowed in previous episodes. Upon returning her to her body...(various side-conversations occur simultaneously)

Zeke: "Uh, Tizzy, you didn't happen, to, oh, say, wake up a god or anything while you were out, did you?"
Tizzy: "Oh...well there was this one thing. But it was nice! It liked talking to me!"
Zeke: "Radford... if I told you the apocalypse was coming, do you think you might not give that history exam on Tuesday?"
Radford: "We can push it back to Wednesday."
Chance: "Ahhhh man. Monsters that start out nice always need extra ass-kicking..."
Chance (To Tizzy): "You sure your all right?"
Tizzy: "I'm fine! I got to meet a god! He was so cool!"
Zeke: "Not cool, Chance. This is the kind of god that eats the world."
Chance: "Well, yeah, but wouldn't it be cool to go out for drinks with said god, first?"
Tizzy: "Oh, no. I didn't get the evil vibe. He knew my uncle..."
Chance: "Did he give a name? Names are good."
Tizzy: "Nah. I know where he lives, though. I think I'm going to visit. Up in Dunwich."
Chance: "Visit to your uncle, or the god-guy?"
Tizzy (joyful): "The god. I'm going to have it's child! I get to bring in a new life to this world. Oh, I still like you, Chance, but this is something more."

Every other conversation stops.

Chance: "WHAT?"
John: "Uh.... I should advise you, Mortals rarely survive birthing gods...."
Chance: "I . . . wha . . ."
Sanz: "Doh!"

Notes:

Massive body swap? Obvious comedy gold, right? Wrong. It's confusing! Very confusing! It's hard to keep track of everyone and everything. The players didn't really mind, as far as I know. Ultimately, I had simply forgotten about Tizzy's destination body (somehow, the math didn't end up working; I had too many "That would not be a funny swap" restrictions), so I decided to link Asenath to the Dreamlands as I scrambled to cover up a plot hole, and figured I might as well start up the next episode at the end of this one.

One very subtle side note, which I can't give too many details about as the records were lost, was that Brian's spirit had jumped into a body with John, leaving a message in Toni's pocket. When they entered the Dreamlands, "Brian" dumped John's memory of the double possession, thereby keeping it quiet. This was a nice touch, but we were not disciplined about saving the side sessions in IM boxes during these early days and since I had almost nothing to do with that subplot, I don't recall the details.

[Professor Phobos]

Episode 13- Dumb Witch

Chance (slowly): "Tizzy...I'm not sure I understand..."
Tizzy (blushing): "Well, I was in the dreamlands, and I met this God, and you know, one thing led to another..."
Chance: "No! No I don't know!"
John: "A God? Which God?"
Tizzy: "Oh...not sure. Good question, John!"
Chance: "You... you don't KNOW?"
Tizzy (casually): "Oh, Chance. Don't worry."
John: "Wait- The... has the offspring already been conceived?"
John: "No, silly! I'm going to Dunwich after school tomorrow."
Ness: "Was he kind of... um... tentaclely?"
Tizzy (offended): "Why I think that is none of your business, Ness."
Ness: "Well...I was just asking cause I think I kind of know that guy. Did he like sailors?"
Radford: "You are under the influence of some sort of spell."
Chance: "No, probably not... Tizzy, don't you think you should, you know, give this some time?"
Tizzy: "Oh, yeah, I guess your right. Think maybe I should wait a day or so, make it sweat a bit?" (puzzled) If it even sweats... (cheerful) I guess I'll find out!"
Chance: "That’s not... agghh! Tizzy, this is probably a REALLY bad idea.”
Ness: How is all this even possible? And wasn't it all dreamy stuff?
John: "Tizzy, did it have any... Well, did it- Was there an- Could you tell us anything about it? Something like, a clue?"
Tizzy: "Chance...are you jealous? You shouldn't be!"
Zeke: "Uh, Tiz, you know this thing is like... pure evil, right?"
Tizzy (shrugging): "Oh, evil, yeah. But charming."
Chance: "Listen to Zeke! He knows about this stuff!"
Ness: "Ooo, ooo, did he like cults? Or have his own funky language?:
Tizzy: "He does like cults, Ness. He plans on introducing me to some of his worshippers. I can't wait!"
John: "Oh, Really? Well that's nice- Wait, no, that's bad!”
Ness: "Was he green? Or kind of... off green? Maybe kind of jelly like?"
Radford: "Ness, that's not helpful."
Ness: "I dunno, a big green jelly like thing is kind of memorable."
Chance "Tizzy, this will probably kill you."
Tizzy (frowning): "You really think so, Chance?"
Everyone nods.
<Director> Radford: "Horrible death, yes. Almost certainly."

The group decides to go home. Some keep watch over Tizzy, the rest hit the books.

Ness: "Is it the same thing we fought before? The thing I stabbed in the head?:
Zeke: "No, that was a whole other beasty."
Chance"As it turns out, Ness, the dreamlands hold a whole perverse cornucopia of demons."
Zeke: "I should take you people to the zoo sometime."

Research indicates that the thing in Dunwich stirred in 1928, but that Doctors Armitage, Rice and Morgan from Miskatonic University put a stop to it. Research also indicates that much of the information on this major magical upheaval is missing or lost; probably covered up. They learn that Armitage joined the Watcher's Council, and that Radford had his Watcher's diaries. Ness attempts to get a psychometric reading off of them, and collapses to the floor.

(Yes, he's a psychic robot. When the player asked to buy that quality, I said: "I will use all my powers of sadism. This will haunt you." At this stage in the game my powers of sadism were not well respected, it seems...)

Chance "Uhhh, Ness . . . is there a restart button here?"
Radford: "System crash?"
Suddenly, a plump, genteel older man appears standing over Ness, who has woken up.
Armitage: "Good evening! Sorry to give you a scare, but I'm not as spry as I used to be."
Chance: "Um, hello?"
Ness: "Hey...floor!"
Armitage: "Hello. I am Doctor Henry Armitage. Or... I was."
Chance: "It's... an honor. I don't mean to be rude, but could you tell us anything useful about a demon locked under Dunwich? We are kinda in a hurry."
Armitage (nodding): "Yes, I know. The reason I stuck around is to ensure no one wakes up the son of Yog-Sothoth."
Radford whistles. "Yog-Sothoth. Bloody hell."
Ness: You know, this book in particular you must have had a lot of headaches with...*idly tapping one of the diaries, not the last one he touched*
Chance: "Ahhh... Yog-Sothoth?"
Armitage: "Ah, let me guess- the Englishman is a Watcher, your slayer is elsewhere, and these are her intrepid companions?"
John (smiling): "Hey- I got called an intrepid companion."
Ness: How come we're always just labeled slayer groupies?
Armitage: "And indeed you are, young man. But I digress- someone intends on raising the horror of Dunwich?"
Chance: "That’s the short of it. The slayer is off watching the person this Son is... interested in."
Armitage: "I see."
John: "So, you’re familiar with Yog-Sothoth, Dr. Armitage?"
Armitage: "Hmm. How strong is the command it has over...this person, at the moment?"
Chance: "Seems pretty strong."
Ness: "Umm...how does moping girlfriend sound?"
Armitage: "Ah, now that is a pickle."
Radford: "What happens if she makes...contact?"
Armitage (deep breath): "Oh, you know, nothing too bad, actually."
John: "Are- Are you placating us?"
Armitage: "You'd think it'd be apocalyptic, but it's actually relatively benign. You'll set free a giant, invisible monster, but... well, it can only really stomp things."
Ness: "Invisible? Umm... is it punchable at least?"
Armitage: "Killing it is quite impossible, young man. But putting it back to sleep is another story."
Chance: "All right. Putting it back to sleep. How do we?"
Armitage (looking at Radford, sadly): "It would require the Eye of Light and Darkness, with the poor girl as the focus."
Radford (without hesitation): "Done."
John gulps.
Chance: "What? What do you mean?"
Ness: Wait, what's done?
Armitage(pauses, pondering): "Or we could just re-cast the binding spells I used in 1928. Wouldn't have to kill the girl, in that case."
Chance: "Well, that sounds a hell of a lot better."
John: "Uh... Mr. Radford?"
Radford (looking down): "Yes... quite better...(to John) Yes?"
<Ness: "You know, our group member homicide rate is at an unhealthy rise right now..."
John (nervous): "I I I- Don't think that we.... u-.....u-could.... Find- yeah, Find.... the, uh...an Eye of light and, uh, you know... Darkness?"
Chance: "So. The binding spells?"
Armitage (shocked at Radford): "Well, yes...the spells. Simple affairs, really. We'd just need to reinforce the sacred circle keeping it imprisoned. They must have weakened for it to have any power over the world."
Radford: "Let's just be glad we don't have to, John..."
John: "YES! uh, glad, yes. very Very Glad, you know... that we don't... yeah."
Chance: "All right. Would that break any holds he has on people?"
Armitage: "Yes, though he'll still have his cult. These things always have cults."
Ness: "It's an addiction or something."
Chance: "Well, yeah. Demons have cults, Slayers have sidekicks."
Armitage (chuckling). "Quite right, young man. Though there was a slayer who had a cult to herself, I recall..."
Ness: "I resent being compared to cult members. I can kick butt! And do stuff besides chant and die."
Armitage (still chuckling): "Now, don't have such a view of cults. Many often do the God's taxes. Those Gods that pay them, of course."
Ness: "They get paid?!

I described Armitage as a jovial, Santa Claus esque character. You know, the kindly old man, a stalwartand wise mentor, and as a clearly far more ethical alternative to Radford. This, naturally, had Dire Consequences.

John: "So, uh, Binding. Why don't we get started on that? Soon?"
Chance:"Just, uh, to move back on subject, how do we reinforce the circle? Sprinkle some more chalk down?"
John: “Yeah, Chalk?” (to himself, muttering) "No, Binding circles don't use chalk, no, it'd be blood. stupid stupid stupid.”
Armitage: "Oh, a moderate blood sacrifice on each of the standing stones. Some chanting. I can give you the ritual, if someone would write it down. I'm afraid I'm quite insubstantial."
Ness: I can remember it!
Radford: "Right, that's a plan...." He gets a pad of paper, and Armitage provides the chant, and the instructions.
Armitage: "Well, no time to waste. Best get moving, I think. I'm bound to this particular section of the school, mind, but I'll be there in spirit. Well... I guess I won't. But. Well. Still."
Chance: All right. Great. Thank you very much."
John: "The standing stones are in Dunwich, off an access road. That’s seventy miles away."
Ness: Are you going to be able to stay around often now?
Armitage (lighting up). "Certainly! I'd be happy too! I'm quite an expert on supernatural matters."
Chance: "Not surprising. You are a supernatural matter."
Armitage (guffawing): "Quite right!"

The group gathers together in Radford's new car. Winter gear. Flashlights. They even pack sandwiches.

Meanwhile, Sanz and Zeke tried to learn some things in the Dreamlands, but came up with nothing. Waking up, they find a post it note: "Went to kill a God- Chance" and meet Armitage in the school library.

Sanz: "Did I miss anything?"
Zeke (yawning) "Dunno...hey...(He picks up the post-it note)...Huh. They went to kill a god."
Sanz (seeing Armitage): "A ghost? That's a new one for us. Um... are you a friendly ghost, or are you going to.. well... try to scare us?"
Armitage: "Well.... Boo!...How was that?"

In the car...
Radford: "Is it wise for us to bring Tizzy?"
John: "NO NO! I mean, No, we should keep her safely far away. You know. For Safety."

Radford gets lost trying to find the back country roads in Dunwich. Meanwhile, Sanz hatches a plan...using the bodyjacking abilities demonstrated by Zeke in the preceding episode, he hijacks Tizzy's body, in the hope of tricking the cult. He makes his way to Dunwich, along with Alexis and Mika.

Eventually, Radford & Co reach their destination.

Radford: "Who is up for trudging through the woods in the middle of the night?"
Chance: "Isn't that what all the cool kids are doing at 4 A.M.?"

Cult sentries ambush them- a furious gun battle erupts. John is hit as the others dive for cover.

Ness: "Ack! Cults with guns?! Cults with guns?! THey get paid AND get guns?!"
Chance: "Crap. They have guns? I thought cultists stuck with knives?"

Radford extracts his rifle from the car and returns fire, letting Ness and Chance get to cultists. Ness takes down several, and Chance sneaks up on some. However, while this is going, the cult and the group are exchanging commentary...

Chance: "God. You people are supposed to be trying to sacrifice us! Not kill us!"
Cultists: "What?!"
Chance: "Uhhh . . . you know . . . cultists usually use knives and try and strap you to alters . . . not shoot people . . ."
Cultists: "What kind of psychos do you think we are!"
Chance: "Funny you should ask . . ."
Chance: "I just expected a bit more, well, respect for tradition."
John (yelling): "Look- Any self-respecting cult would be wearing their ornamental robes right now, and preparing for the arrival of their master-Now this is your last chance, you- Bohemians! Surrender!"
Cultists: "Sorry we can't give you the traditional cult experience! But we're modernists!"
Chance:"Great. Reform cultists! Look, if you are worshiping a aeons old god, shouldn't you stick with the traditional tropes?"
Cultists: "Oh, we updated a few years back! We have cellphones and everything!"
Ness: *mutters very, VERY softly to himself* Note to self: Eat cultists next time. No respect for tradition.
Cultists: "You can visit our website, if you survive, at www.worshipthesonofyogsothoth.net!"
Chance: "You live in the bondocks! You have that whole Deliverance thing going for you! And you have CELL PHONES?"
Cultists: "That's an unfair stereotype!"

The group rapidly gets the upper hand at the cultists, who are not good shots, nor particularly dangerous in close combat, and can't really stand up to Ness. But they are smart enough to call for reinforcements, who flank the group...

Chance: "More of you? Flee in panic already!"

John gets shot. Radford rushes over to examine him.
John (Weakly): "I think you may need another for the ritual...*cough*"
Radford: "Oh, please. I've been shot worse."

Mika, Alexis and Sanz (in Tizzy's body) arrive. Alexis charges, and Mika heads to Radford for instructions. But Tizzy/Sanz just stands out in the open.


Tizzy/Sanz: "I'm here now. Please stop shooting my friends. They just don't understand."
Chance (muttering): "Don't get shot, don't get shot, don't get shot, don't get shot..."
A cultist gets the drop on Chance and puts his gun up to his face, but another cultist shouts: "No, wait, she's here!"


Radford spins and points the gun at Tizzy, shouting "Everybody STOP!"
John: "NO!"
<Ness> She's here? Uh oh...
Mika (whispering to Radford): "That's not Tizzy."
Radford nods, and puts his gun down.
Tizzy/Sanz: "Come on boys. Mommy's here."
Cultists: "What do we do about your friends?"
Tizzy/Sanz: "I was hoping they could be here for support on my big day. Please take me to my beloved.”

The fighting stops. Ness was pinned down, Mika was helping John, Radford was preparing to shoot Tizzy, Chance was held at gunpoint, and Alexis was about to chow down.


Tizzy/Sanz: "Okay, guys, I'm here for my wedding." Turning to her friends. "I expect you to show some support for me today. If you can't be here for me, I want you to leave."
Cultists: "Yeah! Come on! We brought cake!"
Chance: "You . . . you have cake! What the hell is going on here?"
Cultist-Pointing-Gun-At-Chance: "Yeah. I mean, cake is what you usually have for these things, right?"
J. Random Cultist: "Come on! We've got one of you at gunpoint. Just give up, we won't kill you!"
Ness: "What will you do then, huh?"
J. Random Cultist: "Give you cake!"
Chance: "Stop trying to bribe people with cake, dammit!"
Cultist-Pointing-a-Gun-At-Chance: "Come on, kid. It was really expensive."
J. Random Cultist: "Look, just come on. It's cold, we have hot chocolate."

The group decides to surrender to the cultists, and they head to the standing stones that bind the Son of Yog-Sothoth to this Earth. Mika is dispatched to take John to the hospital, with instructions to "come back and start slaying" once he receives medical care. The standing stone area also has an obvious access road leading right up to it.

Ness: "No guards or nothing? So if I wanted to just run off I could?"
J. Random Cultist:: "What, and miss out on the cake?"

Radford: "Oh, hell. There's a road that leads here?"
Cultist: "Yeah. Easy to miss, though. You have to make a left at the juncture..."
Radford (head slapping) "Oh...a left. Of course."

Alexis (turning down a slice of cake): "Can I eat your dead buddies?"
Cultists: "What?!"
Alexis: "Radford killed a whole bunch of you. Mind if I snack on 'em?"
Chance: "This is a cultist ceremony. Not BRUNCH!"
Ness: "See?! See!? She's better at being a creepy cultist than you guys are!"
Cultists: "Uh...no...please don't...don't eat our friends."

Tizzy: "So what do I do?"
Cult Leader: "Oh, don't worry, miss! We've got a pamphlet that'll explain everything!"
Ness (sputtering): "You have a pamphlet on marriage to your masters?!?

Cultists: "Have a seat over here, folks. Want some hot chocolate? Coffee?"
Ness: "Do you have marshmellows?"
Cultist: "You bet!"
Alexis: "Are you guys SURE I can't eat your dead friends?"
Bob-the-Cultist: "Whaddaya think, Bill? Can she?"
Bill-the-Cultist: "No!"

Cult Leader gets a phone call. "Roger? Yeah? What do you mean, they're out of sheep? Look, it's got to be sheep. :beat: No I don't know why! It just does!" "Hold on." (He puts the phone in his other hand, and to the rest of the cultists...) "Do other farm animals work?"
Bob-The-Cultist: "They should. Why not?"
Bill-the-Cultist: "Sheep are traditional."
Radford (interjecting): "Gotta be sheep. Because they're innocent."
Chance: 'Around here . . . how innocent do you think the sheep are going to be?"
Tizzy/Sanz: "I've always wanted a traditional service."

Bill-the-Cultist (to Radford): "Uh, you're probably lying, right?"
Radford: "No no, I'm dead serious. You need sheep."
Cult Leader gets back on the phone. "No, no, it's gotta be sheep. Try another farm. :Pause: Yeah I know it's the middle of the damn night! Kill the farmers and take their sheep if you have to! No! Not goats! SHEEP. It has to be sheep!"
Cult Leader: "Should have just ordered online like I said. But nooooo, we had to support our local covens..."

Cult Leader: "Okay, okay. We'll get sheep. Roger always comes through."
Brad-the-Cultist: "No he doesn't. Remember that time we needed ravens, and he brought crows?"
Cult Leader (testily): "You're not helping!"

Ness: "Do you guys even have a book on what your doing?"
Brad-the-Cultist: "Yeah, hold on. He gets a book from his car entitled: "The Idiot's Guide to Worshipping the Key and the Gate."
Chance (muttering): "And I was expecting a book on tape."
Another cultist holds up his walkman. "I have a long commute."

Chance: "Uh, what happens if you can't find any sheep?"
Bob-the-Cultist: "Then we'll just have to sacrifice you."
Bill-the-Cultist: "But if it has to be sheep, Bob, why would that work? I thought you said it had to be sheep."
Bob-the-Cultist: "Because humans are a step up from sheep."
Bill-the-Cultist: "Oh, are they now? But not twenty minutes ago it was sheep this and sheep that."

Radford (sighing): "In my day no self-respecting Old One cult would be caught dead without robes."

There's a loud argument about who has the ritual dagger. The group gets worried that Tizzy will be cut, but as the Cult Leader explained, "The metal is blessed. Lay it on her skin and she'll be consecrated. In hindsight, we really didn't need to make it a dagger..." It is revealed that through this marriage, Tizzy will become the vessel for Yog-Sothoth and the world will end.

Eventually, Mika returns, and waves to Radford, who starts talking about history class. "This reminds me of that lecture I gave today. About the three centuries of Mongol rule. The first century they prepared, on the second they scouted their enemies and on the third...GET 'EM!" The cultists are bum rushed. The Cult Leader tries to shoot Mika, but forgets to take the safety off. They're quickly overpowered, knocked out, and tied to trees.

Alexis: "Would anyone object to me eating this one?"
Mika: "I don't think it would be in good taste"
Radford: "It might be hard for the rest of us to digest, Alexis."

(hey, puns. Highest form of humor...)

Radford: "Right. The reinforcing ritual. Let's get that started.
Sanz/Tizzy: "Do we have enough sheep for that?"
Chance: "We don't need sheep for this one."

The reinforcing ritual is performed.

Radford: "Just what made you think swapping bodies with Tizzy was a good idea, Sanz?
Chance (moments from embracing her): "Wait, what?"
Tizzy/Sanz: "Hello? Saved the day! Come kiss a bride’s feet."
Chance: "This will haunt my darkest nightmares."
Tizzy/Sanz: "Just think, the next time you're kissing, you'll never know for sure..."
Chance: "Yes. yes! I DID think about that! The possibility of accidentally frenching you HAD occurred to me, Sanz."

They argue about what to do with the cultists. Alexis wants to eat 'em, Radford doesn't want her getting a taste for human flesh, the kids argue against just shooting them while Radford is opposed to any plan that does not involve a dozen vigilante executions in the middle of the forest.

Chance: "So why not just let them go? What are they gonna do? Bitch about it in their blog?"

Ultimately, Radford promises not to kill them, though this is never confirmed or denied. (I can safely say that he lets them go after a stern talking to, and that they did, indeed, bitch about it on their blog.)

Sanz and Tizzy swap back.

Tizzy: "Sorry!"
Chance: "Do you promise not to try and elope with a non-euclidian god again?"

Director's Notes: I had gone into this episode intending for it to be blood and thunder, violent, tragic, and all that. About six seconds into it I decided that instead, the cultists were going to turn out to be morons who had no idea what they were doing. This worked out much better. The only reason John got shot was (if I remember correctly) because the player had to leave a little early. It was a flesh wound that isn't mentioned again. The Yog-Sothoth worshippers got nicknamed "The Keystone Cultists" and this episode single-handedly ruined my ability to ever run Call of Cthulhu for this group ever again. While I've gotten my groove back on that score, for a good year, year and a half, I couldn't bring myself to think about most "cult" scenarios seriously.

[Professor Phobos]

I intend to further update this thread while on the plane. To give me something to do for 18 hours. So stay tuned...

[Jason Anderson]

This is great! Looking forward to reading more!

Cheers,
Jason

[LivingDeadGuy]

Wow...just found this today.

And here I was, thinking I was brilliant for merging the concepts of Buffy & Cthulhu. Now, it turns out I just stole the idea from someone I didn't even know had already had it. <grin>

Although, my game was to be set at the newly-renovated Miskatonic University...

Living Dead Guy

[Professor Phobos]

Wow...just found this today.

And here I was, thinking I was brilliant for merging the concepts of Buffy & Cthulhu. Now, it turns out I just stole the idea from someone I didn't even know had already had it. <grin>

Although, my game was to be set at the newly-renovated Miskatonic University...


I was going to do the same thing, but I gave the players a choice between college and high school. They picked high school.

To make matters worse on the originality front, I stole this idea from someone else, who stole it from an unknown fourth party.