Session 01
Catherine's player missed the session, then reluctantly dropped from the game on account of a lack of leisure time.
Helen received Jackson's telegram and contacted Helen, Masha, and I think Xian Shen. If she didn't contact Father O'Connor, he got a telegram himself. Xian Shen's grandfather had received at least one telegram from Elias when Elias was in Shanghai, and had tutted worriedly to himself.
Helen dug up the initial information available on the Carlyle expedition and shared it with the others, and I showed people:
I am delighted and awed that someone did this.
And, as seems usual with my local groups, the PCs debated that most important question: Where should they eat?
Father O'Connor: Delmonico's?
Xian Shen: I know a good place near my grandfather's shop [in Chinatown].
Father O'Connor: ...So, Delmonico's?
Of course, as we are CoC players, the inevitable happened.
Josh (player, not PC): Er... it's what year?
Me: 1925.
Josh: We're not at Delmonico's. It closed in 1923.
Me: Okay, how about the Algonquin?
So, in the Algonquin, on the afternoon of Jauary 15, 1925, the group excahnged information and met wtih Col. Fawcett, who had also been contacted, but couldn't join any expedition, as he was about to leave on his own.
Helen had let Jonah Kennsington know where the group was, so Jackson called the Algonquin directly and asked for her. I played Jackson's uncharacteristic nervousness well enough that she asked him what was wrong. He told her to have everyone meet him at Room 410 of the Chelsea Hotel at 8pm. To my relief, no one tried to come earlier. I would have done the usual patch (whenever they show up is right after he's been killed), but it's good not to need to do this.
They knocked on the door, so alerted the cultists, then made Listen rolls, and heard people moving inside and felt the cold breeze of winter air coming under the door. Forewarned, tthen prepared for trouble (i.e. the folks with guns and throwing knives were ready to go), then kicked open the door.
The cultists prioritized trying to escape, although one did serious damage to Masha while the other two fell once the priest chased them out onto the fire escape. Those two got shot dead as they were trying to attack the priest (prompting his friends to shoot at them) to get past him (after all, they'd been shot at several times), while the one who stabbed the knife thrower barely survived, only to die later at the hospital, what with having only 1 hp.
I distributed all the evidence from the room, and folks reviewed it. Father O'Connor made sure to distract the cops by being injured and telling them the Whole Story for long enough for the others to conceal the evidence. (I had the player make a Luck roll. He succeeded, so at least one of the cops arriving on the scene was a fellow Irishma, quite concerned about the good father.)
Peter and Masha were taken to the hospital, but only Masha was kept overnight. Helen was shaken by Jackson's death, but, ever the professional (whatever her male co-workers might think), she combined the heavy drinking with typing up the story on it.
She also called Jonah to give him the news before it hit the papers. Shaken himself, he asked if she wanted to come over to Prospero Press and have a stiff drink.
Helen: I've already had enough.
By the next day, Sarah decided that helping the police out was a good thing, so she gave them the lecture flyer as something she'd picked up and been too distraught to remember to hand over, and the Atwright letter, claiming that Elias had sent her a book (one of his) and the letter had clearly accidentally been stuck inside it. Someone else handed over the Emerson Import cards. They made copies for themselves first and decided handing over any more might be a tad suspicious, and anyway, really, what were the cops going to do about Shanghai, Egypt, or London leads?
While the hospital would have liked Masha to stay longer, she was well enough to walk out, and did so. Peter sent a telegram to Miriam Atwright to ask about the book Jackson had tried to find at her library.
Father O'Connor and Sarah talked to Erica Carlyle, who was open to meeting with the famous opera singer. The meeting netting them a) an invitation for Sarah to Erica's party. Sarah also wrangled an invitatio for Masha, who's ex-Russian nobility (and actually higher rank than she claims), and Helen, as Sarah played on Erica's and Helen's similarities as women having to prove themselves in a man's world, b) the location of and combination to the safe, thanks to the good father's sharp eye, and c) some information about Roger and the other principles of the Carlyle expedition.
Xian Shen, Helen, and Masha went first to Emerson, whom the player of the grandson suggested might do business with the grandfather. They were utterly paranoid there, understandably, and relieved when, on figuring out they were talking about Jackson Elias, the guy wasn't a cultist and they encouraged him to call the police about what little he knew, which he did as they were leaving.
This meant they decided to push on to Ju-Ju House, before the cops got there. Xian Shen identified himself by name and told Silas that his grandfathe had an antiques shop in Chinatown. He claimed to be thinking of expanding into other antiques. The conversation was steered to the topic of Elias, whom Silas claimed never to have met or heard of.
Masha tricked Silas into letting something slip. That is, the player asked if a fast talk roll might do that, and I went with having him use Elias's full name, despite claiming never to have heard of him and only having been told the last name. Masha then said, "Oh, so you _do_ know him!", blowing the advantage they'd gotten, and the other two hustled her out.
They hoped that the police would deal with Silas, but, as I noted, the cops have no reason to invade in force or look for a basement. Certainly, that's how I'm playing it, as it feels dissatisfying to have the PCs learn that the cops busted up a cult without any real action on their part.
The next day was Jackson Elias's funeral, which the PCs attended, as did Jonah and Col. Fawcett. Folks went back to Prospero Press to drink to Jackson's memory. Jonah made it clear that he wanted the group to finish whatever Jackson had started, partly to avenge him, and partly so he wouldn't have died in vain. He turned over the Nairobi notes (and I used the Companion pack's version of these along with the summary from the book), but held back the London notes. He felt it would be disrespectful to show those around as they might call Jackson's aanity and skill as a writer into question. The group didn't press him for those, at least as of yet.
Miriam Atwright sent Father O'Connor a telegram telling him the name of the missing book, Africa's Dark Sects. Folks went to Arkham to talk to Professor Cowles. I gave them:
- --the handout from Masks 4th
- --the handout from the French Masks showing the slides
- --the handout from Terror Australis with the story version of the tale of Rainbow Snake and Sand Bat. Anyone know why that wasn't in MoN? It's told delightfully.
Xian Shen tried to find someone who could tell him about the sign carved into Elias's forehead. Maybe someone in the African Studies Department, if there was one? I asked for a Luck roll, and the player got an 01. So, it just so happened there was a professor who specialized in African Studies who could describe it as the mark of the Cult of the Bloody Tongue, supposedly originally from Egypt, but exiled from there, and most recently rumored to be active in Nairobi, though he didn't belive that himself.
We broke here, with me asking where folks thought the group would go after we finished the NYC section. To my surprise, they decided on London. I figured Cairo or Shanghai, but had no problem with London, which is, after all, en route to Cairo.
But now, Silas knows they're a threat and has almost certainly ID'd the grandson, as he said he was coming from his grandfather's store, you know, one antique dealer to another, maybe they could do business. I don't recall whether the other two ID'd themselves, but he might be able to figure it out.
I figured the trip to Arkham allowed me "fair play" time. That is, it justifies why Silas didn't instantly take action against the PCs. But, I came up with his plans for next time.
Between sessions, I rearranged a couple of dates we'd discussed, so that next session was:
- Friday, 24 January: Erica's party, last day of Chinese Year of the Rat
- Saturday, 25 January: Chinese New Year -- Year of the Ox, Solar Eclipse, New Moon
