[[Lecks Solo Adventure]]

[[Diluted Medicine]]

[[Stressing the Point]] Josh wrote this up, I think. A&E 337?

[[The Living Ship]]

[[The 151st Airborne Smugglers]]

[[Ivic Games]]

[[Keeping One's House in Order]]

[[A Minor Corporate War]]

[[A Planet Named Lauren]]

[[Racing and Rejuv]]

[[Art and Politics]]

[[Watcher of Shalaran]]

[[Three Planets]]

[[Shopping on Eli Hutt]]

[[The Grand Tour Ends]]

[[Return From the Grand Tour]]

[[Appropriate Attire]]

[[Kidnapping Passengers]]

[[A President in Peril]]

[[Space Stations and Sirens]]

[[Ivic War]]

[[Brainwashed Thieves and Third Favorite Necklaces]]

Ivic War

2008-05-05T19:36:33Z

Magister: New page: Hub is Elizabeth Bartley's campaign set in the universe of James Schmitz's Hub stories. Beth ran a couple of solo adventures for me. My PC is Marius Lecks, an empathic doctor. Josh's PC, J...

Hub is Elizabeth Bartley's campaign set in the universe of James Schmitz's Hub stories. Beth ran a couple of solo adventures for me. My PC is Marius Lecks, an empathic doctor. Josh's PC, Jealousy Jones, didn't actually participate in the adventure, though she learned about it later. When Josh was available, he played Marcus Lecks, Marius' paramilitary cousin.

------

Marius Lecks docked his ship, the Galen, in an Ivic spaceport owned by his family. He disembarked, accompanied by his brother, Curtis, and Katrina, Lauren's President Pro Tem. After an attempt on her life, she had decided to pretend that she was dead and to keep a low profile. Ivic seemed like a quiet enough place for that.

It was, therefore, something of a surprise when the trio encountered blaster fire as soon as they left the Galen. Nevertheless, Katrina and Marius soon stunned the shooters with their own blaster fire, while Curtis took cover and made a couple of calls.

"Why are people shooting at us here?" wondered Marius, no stranger to ambushes. He knew that he and his two companions had plenty of enemies. But how had any of these enemies managed to get into the Lecks family's spaceport?

Between Curtis' calls and the spaceport personnel, Marius' question was answered.

"They're from the Toturi family," explained one of the workers. "They declared war on the Lecks family."

Marius groaned.

Curtis chuckled. "It has been awhile," he said.

"An Ivic war's not a real war," said Marius, hastily, to Katrina, whose planet was only now emerging from a civil war.

"Why don't you explain it to me?" she suggested.

An Ivic war, as Marius and Curtis explained, was part duel, part sport, and part military training exercise. Killing was absolutely forbidden, and serious injuries were frowned upon. One family would challenge another, and the "war" would begin.

"So, what are you fighting for?" asked Katrina.

"An acre of land," said Marius. "Two acres, I mean. One from each side. But, that's just the excuse."

"The Toturis said they could take us," explained Curtis. "Grandfather said they couldn't. Speaking of which --" He gave his younger brother a sharp look. "Marius, Grandfather should have sent you a message informing you that there was a war."

"Ah... I'll check." Marius went back on board the Galen. After a moment, he returned. "There was a message. I -- I didn't check before we docked." Marius sighed. "Grandfather's going to rake me over the coals, isn't he?"

Curtis nodded, unsympathetically. Marius sighed and arranged to pick up an aircar.

The aircar was ambushed and disabled, but Marius was able to land it. He had a quick conference with Curtis and Katrina.

"We could make our way home on foot," he said.

"You just want to put off facing Grandfather," said Curtis.

"True, but I still think we've got the edge."

"How much do you two know about making your way through the woods?" asked Katrina.

"Ah, moss grows on the north side of the tree. Usually," said Marius. Seeing Katrina's expression, he added, "I do know how to wipe my ass in the woods. Curtis does, too. He's slept rough on some of his assignments. I've done the same -- I got involved in a planetary war once, a real one, not on Lauren. Like I told you and Jealousy, you wouldn't want me leading the troops, but I can take orders.

"Also, soft as Curtis and I are, the Toturi boys following us are probably softer." Marius looked to Curtis, who nodded in agreement, then continued, "So, you think you can lead a pair of soft aristocratic hicks through the woods?"

"I think I might," said Katrina. She gave rapid orders and was pleased to see them obeyed without fuss.

The upshot of these orders was that the dozen or so young Toturis closing in on the Lecks brothers and Katrina found themselves taken down rapidly. Marius took five down himself.

"Nice shooting," said Katrina, who had equaled his performance.

"Thanks. Been practicing. Shall we take their aircar?"

[or did they continue going through the woods? Was there a smaller wave first?]

Home

They arrived at the Lecks home with no further trouble and with three prisoners. Ancus Lecks, grandfather of Curtis and Marius Lecks, looked the brothers over sharply, and nodded to Katrina.

"Do you all wish to be present when your prisoners wake up?"

Marius and Curtis nodded.

Katrina said, "I think so. I don't know where outsiders fit into your wars"

"The Toturis shot at her when she came off the Galen," said Curtis.

"Ah," said Ancus. "In that case, it is entirely up to you, Katrina. Outsiders are not normally permitted to take part in our wars, but the Toturis fired on you. Clearly, they consider you a combatant."

"I see," said Katrina.

"But, you don't have to," said Marius hastily, hoping Katrina wouldn't find the entire thing too much of an obscenity.

"It sounds like fun," said Katrina.

A boggled Marius followed Ancus, Curtis, and Katrina to where the Toturis were being held. Marius revived, but did not unstrap, them.

All three stared at Katrina.

"You're supposed to be dead," said one of them. "We figured Curtis could use a distraction. Has he gotten around to proposing yet?"

Have I been that indiscreet? wondered Marius. Curtis, a receptive telepath, made a sign indicating that he had not. Gossip traveled, and that was all.

"He hasn't!" said the Toturi man, delighted. "Will you marry me?"

"Hey!" said Marius. "If she turns Curtis down, I'm next in line!"

"But, Curtis hasn't proposed," the prisoner said.

Marius looked at his brother.

Curtis went down on one knee.

"Katrina, will you marry me?" he asked.

Pausing briefly to wonder why the Ivic aristocracy seemed to consist of men of her generation who considered her a prize catch and their elders who agreed, Katrina said gently, "No. The current situation on Lauren doesn't permit it."

"That situation will change," said Marius, quickly. "When may he ask again?"

"No earlier than six months from now," said Katrina, as Curtis rose. Turning to her other suitor, she said, "I'm sorry, but we've only just met."

"If my grandsons have quite finished entertaining you," said Ancus, "let me know if any of you are willing to give your parole."

None of the Toturis took him up on this.

Later, Marius spoke with his grandfather, admitting that he'd neglected to check for messages before docking. Ancus did not, in fact, rake him over the coals, but it was very clear to Marius that he had better not make that mistake again.

"So," said Ancus, "how is it that my maverick grandsons are taking orders from an off worlder?"

Marius blinked. "She was the ranking officer with knowledge of the field."

Ancus nodded.

"It was odd working with her and Curtis on that station -- you got my report on that?"

"Yes. Odd how?"

"She was our strategist. She gave most of the orders. But, I checked with Curtis for details about which of my tricks to tell her about. And, when Curtis spoke, he was Ivic."

"That's good," said Ancus.

Over dinner, Curtis and Marius were brought up to date on the war. Marius asked about working with the Toturis to protect valuables, in case an offworlder decided to take advantage of the chaos.

"Maybe something to mark a thief," he said.

This met with general approval, as did Marius' suggestion of attacking the estate of Ancus' counterpart, Mika Toturi.

"After all," said Marius, they've loaned us a perfectly good aircar."

------

Marius piloted the aircar, instructing one of his younger cousins so that she could take over at need. Marius dropped off many of the Lecks troops. These were led by his cousin, Marcus Lecks, a good commando leader.

In the course of the raid, Marius "disabled" the estate's sensors, but the aircar was shot down. Later, Marcus and his unit felt a rush of ecstasy from the empathic doctor.

Marcus: He's either found another aircar or he's having sex.

Someone Else: This is Marius. He's found another aircar.

Marcus was captured, but either escaped or was rescued. Marius surprised his father by discussing how prisoners could work with either Curtis or himself to send information out mentally.

"I hadn't thought of prisoners as resources," said Ancus.

"I've had to," said Marius. "Especially when I've been the prisoner."

While Mika remained untouched, the mission was a success. The Lecks family had scored many points for style and had taken prisoners and an aircar.

"It's a very nice aircar," said Marius, wistfully. "I suppose I do have to return it after the war?"

Ancus nodded. "Unless you want to buy it from the Toturis."

As the war went on, the "body" count grew and the style points mounted. Ivic social life continued as usual. Marius took Katrina to visit the Fabians.

"They can only challenge one other family," he told her. "The rest of us wouldn't stand a chance against either. The Fabians are a strong military family."

The Fabians were delighted to see Katrina, and many of them fought bouts and exchanged techniques with her. She netted no new proposals, but only because they had discreetly assured themselves that such would be rude to Curtis.

Meanwhile, Marius asked about receiving training.

"Now?" asked one of the Fabians of his father's generation. "You know we'll charge high."

"No, not during the war. After. I'm being too careless, given my lifestyle. I need advice.

The other nodded. "Heard you're pretty good with a blaster. Show me?"

Marius obliged.

"Not bad," said the other. "Talk to us after the war, then. You may want to learn hip shooting, literally."

Marius and Katrina returned to the Lecks estate, exhausted, but satisfied. Later that night, two of the Toturi prisoners attempted an escape and nearly succeeded. Later that week, Ancus had some business with an uninvolved Ivic family.

"Do you need an escort?" asked Curtis.

"Not there," said Ancus. "That would be as disruptive as attacking me while I conducted the actual business. I do want an escort back."

Marius and others provided an aerial escort, keeping Ancus' aircar from being forced down by Toturi aircars. Marius was a little surprised to see that Ancus was actually inside the aircar, as he'd half expected the whole thing to be a decoy while Ancus secretly left in another direction.

Shortly after, there was another raid on the Toturis. Unfortunately, the Lecks family was not behind it. This had been an attack by offworlders, and they had succeeded in stealing several valuable items. They were marked, as intended, and the Toturis began tracking the them down via private detectives. The Lecks family made it clear that they were willing to provide whatever help the Toturis required to deal with the presumptuous offworlders who had invited themselves into a private game.

Meanwhile, the war continued. Marius' suggestion that Ancus' estate be booby trapped and abandoned was met with an enthusiasm that surprised him. Ancus was privately pleased by Marius' own enthusiasm and his realization that Ivic wars were not utterly frivolous, but were useful training exercises. It was good to see his grandson beginning to mature.

Marius was learning things about his homeworld that he'd never suspected. Ivic, it seemed, did mock planetary invasions as well.

"The last was when I was a little girl," said his mother. "I was a radio operator. You know, we should do another one soon."

Marius also learned things about his homeworld that disturbed him. He asked his mother about a mock biological attack. She firmly vetoed this idea, saying that it was not something one did to civilized enemies.

Marius thought about this. He thought about all of the vaccinations Ivic children received routinely, some of which were not effective if they were administered to adults. Many of the vaccines were for exotic enough illnesses that Marius had assumed Ivic as a whole was simply being paranoid.

Marius had been able to raise the question of a mock biological attack in large part because he did not think he or his family or his planet would ever condone a real biological attack. Conversations with his elders confirmed that a mock biological attack was not an option in a regular Ivic war precisely because they considered it a possible tactic against extremely uncivilized enemies, the sort prepared to commit mass atrocities against combatants and non-combatants alike.

Marius brooded about this, feeling decentered. He spoke about it with Katrina after confirming that Ivic had absolutely no objection to offworlders knowing this.

"Let me get this straight," said Katrina. "There are illnesses that one can only be vaccinated against as a very young child?"

"Yes," said Marius, and proceeded to give her the medical explanation.

She listened, and said, "So, this hypothetical invasion force would have little resistance if they were not already vaccinated against these?"

"Exactly. It would do little to no good giving them the vaccination at that point."

Katrina sat down with writing materials. "Marius," she said, "give me a list of those vaccinations. I think I need to expand my planet's medical program."

"Sure. Let's also review the most efficient ways to set up vaccination programs on Lauren."

All good things must eventually come to an end. Oh, it took a while. Ancus was "killed" when one of the younger Toturis recognized him and used a fake grenade, "dying" himself. Ancus was both annoyed and impressed. Mika was killed a little later, but the Toturis eventually won.

"Six of them were left standing when the last of us fell," Marius told his friend, Jealousy Jones.

"Sounds like you had fun," she noted.

"Hmph. I seem to have accidentally started a corporation."

"You? How?"

"Well, I commandeered an enemy aircar, and it was a lovely aircar. So, after the war, when I returned it, I asked about, um...

"Buying it?"

"It turns out that one of the Toturis had calibrated it as, well, as an aircar that anyone in the family could use. Sweet work. So, we got to talking about aircars, and how he could do work that might be better than what's on the market now, and, well, now there's a corporation. Stop laughing!"

"Why?"

As Marius was unable to think of answer to that, he changed the subject.

"Oh, and my mother said that there's also a bigger version of the war, the alien invasion one. And she thinks we're overdue for another one."

"Sounds fun. Can I play an alien?"

Hub

2008-05-05T19:35:51Z

Magister:

Space Stations and Sirens

2008-05-05T05:27:41Z

Hub is Elizabeth Bartley's campaign set in the universe of James Schmitz's Hub stories. Beth ran a couple of solo adventures for me. My PC is Marius Lecks, an empathic doctor.

Attempts on one's life can be most inconvenient. It is understandable, therefore, if one decides to avoid a repeat attempt, and one traditional way of doing this is to make it appear as if the initial attempt was successful. This is what Katrina, President Pro Tem of the planet Lauren, decided to do.

In this task, she was aided by the forces of the Federation. The Federation very much wished to add Lauren to the planets under its aegis. Katrina wished to aid them. It was, then, very much in the Federation's interest to see that Katrina remained alive. The talented Fifth Eye Detective Jealousy Jones was also aiding Katrina.

Naturally, neither Detective Jones nor the Federation was neglecting to investigate the identities of those who had made the attempt on Katrina's life and those who had sponsored it. So as not to get in the way of their good work, and so as not to allow those who sought her life another chance, and so as to make it clear to the people of Lauren that they could, indeed, function indefinitely without her, Katrina decided to leave Lauren for a time. Dr. Marius Lecks offered her passage on the Galen.

This, of course, was hardly surprising. As Dr. Lecks had recently informed her, his brother, Curtis, was madly in love with her. Curtis wanted to marry Katrina, but, so convinced he was that he had not the slightest chance of gaining Katrina's assent, he had never mentioned this to Katrina. Katrina had been aware that Curtis had feelings for her, but not that he had the slightest desire for a permanent relationship.

It made sense for Dr. Lecks to find his brother to cushion the shock of the news of Katrina's death, and this provided an excellent cover for the doctor to pilot his ship, with Katrina secretly on board, to the space station where Curtis Lecks was investigating gambling resorts. There, he could assure Curtis that the rumors of Katrina's death had been exaggerated, and Katrina could ask Curtis a few questions.

Dr. Lecks sent a message to Curtis, asking whether he might visit, and Curtis, who had not yet heard the news, returned a somewhat baffled assent. By the time the Galen was in the same system, Curtis had heard the news, and he sent a short message that, in common parlance, could be construed as, "What the hell?" Marius sent him instructions to meet his ship at the space station dock.

Curtis came on board, taking in Marius and a bird who had been Marius' companion for some time. Before he could ask questions, Katrina, satisfied by Marius' reactions that Curtis was indeed Curtis, came out from the back of the ship.

"Shall I leave you alone?" Marius asked them. Receiving a silent, but clear, assent from both, he withdrew with his bird to the part of his ship where Katrina had concealed herself.

Marius was an empath, and, while he gave the pair as much privacy as possible, he did keep a mental ear out for emotions that might indicate trouble. He soon picked up pain coming from Curtis and satisfaction coming from Katrina. As these were brief and not repeated, he did not rush out to see what was happening.

Katrina had learned that Marius was an empath. He had assured her that he had respected her privacy, and that, in any case, she was focused enough that he did not, as a rule, pick up anything leaking. Katrina, well aware that psychic talent often runs in families, asked about his brother. Marius refused to reveal his brother's secrets, but this confirmed to Katrina that Curtis had a secret.

She was, then, determined to know what Curtis could do, and what Curtis had done to her. Reasoning that he would be hard pressed to either read her mind or to perform any other mental manipulation while in pain, she had caused him some brief physical pain, and had been satisfied with his answers. Curtis, she learned, was a receptive telepath, but had no power to manipulate her thoughts with psychic powers.

After a less physically painful, but quite intense conversation, Curtis and Katrina let Marius know that he could return. He did so, surprising them by bringing his medkit. Embarrassed and relieved that it wasn't needed, he saw no need to go into explanations as to why he had thought it might be needed. As Katrina was clearly not going to cause any permanent harm to Curtis, this left Marius with two questions: How might he and Katrina be of use to Curtis, a news reporter, in his present assignment? What was Curtis going to do to him for telling Katrina about how Curtis felt?

Curtis deferred a decision on the second, although he was furious with Marius on that score. This did not stop him from accepting his younger brother's offer of assistance, and he explained his current line of investigation.

There were rumors that the gambling on the planet was manipulated so that certain people would lose and get blackmailed. This was what Curtis was investigating, and he had found evidence of gambling establishments using hypnotic screens to entrance certain clients so that they'd gamble more.

"But there's something else," he said. "These places use machines to detect the use of psychic powers."

Marius gave him a worried look. "Did you --"

"My power's passive. I don't think so. Now, it's unusual, but not unheard of, for a casino to have one of these machines. But, the casinos boast of having two."

"In case one goes down, I guess," said Marius.

Curtis and Katrina exchanged a glance.

Curtis said, "Marius, this isn't like having a backup power generator. The machines aren't cheap, and psychics aren't common. This is overkill."

Marius conceded the point, and the trio spent some time investigating. They soon learned that a couple of compartments near the outer hull of the station were being rigged to explode -- by station personnel.

This probably wouldn't killing anyone, but neither Curtis, Marius, nor Katrina saw any reason to allow it to happen. The question was: Who on the station could they trust?

Curtis and Marius used their psychic powers cautiously, hoping to avoid alerting the psychic detecting machine on the station.

"The night shift head of Medical should be all right," said Marius. "Her secretary's compromised, and so is the day shift head. I'll talk to her."

The meeting went well, despite the other doctor's insistence on pointing a blaster at a (mostly) disarmed Marius, a precaution he thought was only sensible. She wasn't pleased to learn what was happening on the station, and she wasn't surprised to learn that her secretary couldn't be trusted.

Marius put her in contact with a couple of people he and Curtis had cleared from station security. There was one unfortunate incident where a high placed security officer who might -- or might not -- have been trustworthy insisted on attempting to make a call. Marius hit him with a patch, knocking him out and administering a drug that might -- or might not -- keep him from remembering the incident. Marius left the man with the people he trusted in Medical.

"If he tries to arrest me, we'll know it didn't work," said Marius.

He was not arrested, and his victim claimed not to remember a thing.

Between medical and security contacts, matters were arranged so that the sabotage to the areas of the station that worried Curtis could not be completed. He wondered what the next move would be.

It was a move that deeply offended Marius.

"An epidemic!" he said. "A fake plague scare!"

"Clever," said Curtis. "This means everyone has to report for vaccination to a central location. There's probably a psychic detection machine there." He looked thoughtful. "Probably, the folks behind this aren't as concerned about psychics being on station as about psychics going down to the planet."

"They're wasting our time! Or worse -- they've started an epidemic for this!"

"Marius, you're going to report to medical to help vaccinate people, aren't you?" asked Katrina.

He nodded. "I have to."

"And you know what these machines look like? A lot of people don't."

"I do. I've seen them."

"Good," said Katrina "Do you think you might be able to do something about such a machine if you saw one while helping with the vaccinations?"

"I might," said Marius, smiling slowly.

"Meanwhile, I'll talk to some of the people in charge, as myself, trying to find out what's going on. Curtis can be in disguise as my assistant. They'll know I'm too important to make disappear, and while they're busy pacifying me, we'll see what Curtis can learn from their minds."

Marius and Curtis agreed. Maius not only found the psychic detection machine, but was also able to position himself near it. No one else in the room seemed to recognize it.

Marius helped vaccinate people, keeping a mental ear out for fellow psychics. After a few hours, he found a mind that was telepathic. While whoever was attached to the mind was still some distance away from the machine, Marius drew his blaster and fired twice. The first shot, unseen, though not unheard, by all, fried the circuits of the machine, rendering it useless. The second, visible to all looking in the right direction, hit the wall just outside the room.

"Get down!" Marius shouted. "Some lunatic fired a blaster!"

Most of the people within earshot complied, and no one seemed to doubt Marius' version of events. As the chaos sorted itself out, Marius made contact with the telepath, who was curious about what had just happened.

Marius explained the whole situation, then thought at the telepath, "Get the vaccination anyway, just in case. It won't hurt, and it might help. Come let the nice doctor vaccinate you."

"Ah, no thanks," thought a very nervous telepath.

"Look," thought Marius, realizing that his own curiosity was frightening the telepath, "get the vaccination. I don't care if you get it from me or from someone else. Okay?"

"Fine. I'll get the vaccination," thought the other, who then firmly cut the link with Marius.

Marius sighed, then told his coworkers that he needed a short break. They were unsurprised.

First, Marius tried to see if he could catch a glimpse of the anonymous telepath. Having no way of figuring out who it was, he was unsuccessful. He then reached out cautiously, as he'd done before, looking for any other psychics.

A faint trace seemed to be coming from a cafeteria area. Marius headed there, bought a light refreshment, and concentrated on locating the other psychic. He felt a wave of rage and was barely able to shield himself from a sudden mental attack.

When he recovered, he sent a second, more cautious query, trying to find the physical body attached to the mind.

"A plant?" asked Curtis, in disbelief. "You were psychically attacked by a plant? Twice?"

"Yes," said Marius. "That plant is very unhappy. It wants to go home. It's not sure where home is, and it hates everyone around it."

"Is it manipulating people's minds?" asked Katrina.

"I don't think so," said Marius. "It's angry and homesick, and it's not very subtle. It was brought to the station about a year ago. No one seems to know from where."

This gave Curtis a new angle of research. He learned that the plant was of a species that was illegal to import into the Federation. He also recalled seeing what might have been another plant of the same species at one of the casinos on planet. Marius managed a brief mental contact with the telepath he'd encountered earlier. The telepath had been to the same casino and left earlier than he'd intended, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. He thought Curtis was right about the plants, but wasn't sure.

"What do we do now?" asked Marius.

"Call Psychology," said Katrina, firmly.

The Federation organization in charge of dealing with matters involving psychic powers -- and keeping these matters as quiet as possible -- is perennially overworked. Nevertheless, Psychology sent someone to talk with Marius, Curtis, and Katrina as quickly as possible.

"We'll take it from here," said the Psychology rep. "The plants are called sirens. They're very dangerous. There's a reason sirens are banned from the Federation."

"What are we allowed to say and to whom?" asked Marius.

"You can tell anyone who'll listen about what sirens are and to contact us if they see any. Leave the rest to us." To Curtis, the rep said, "Run your story by us first."

Curtis nodded. He followed Marius and Katrina onto the Galen.

"Where to now?" asked Marius. "Home to Ivic?"

Curtis looked at Katrina.

"Why not?" she said. "I want to see this crazy planet of yours."

A President in Peril

2008-05-05T05:26:53Z

Hub is Elizabeth Bartley's campaign set in the universe of James Schmidt's Hub stories. Players for the session included:

1. Joshua Kronengold -- Jealousy Jones, psi resistant detective

2. Lisa Padol -- Marius Lecks, empathic doctor

3. Chien Tu -- Ryan Cutter, psychometric Space Scout Intelligence investigator with a talent for computer hacking on a par with the one known AI.

Marius and Jealousy were on Lauren, helping out Katrina, Lauren's President Pro Tem. Marius decided to ask her point blank how she felt about his brother, Curtis, who was in love with her and had decided that it was hopeless. Jealousy decided to plant a bug on Marius so that she could listen in.

Jealousy is very good at what she does, having nigh unique access to nanites. The Federation, however, had a vested interest in protecting Katrina from threats, as she was guiding her planet to join the Federation. Thus, the Federation had installed good enough equipment that, after a few minutes of conversation which confirmed that Katrina had not known that Curtis wanted to marry her, Katrina became aware of Jealousy's devices. After confirming Marius' ignorance of Jealousy's actions, Katrina had him inform the other woman that she owed Katrina a forfeiture. Marius paraphrased, and Jealousy asked for Katrina's exact words. She was relieved to know that Katrina would consider this a favor owed, rather than anything more dire.

Katrina soon had reason to call in the favor: an attempt on her life that failed due to a combination of the extremely good Federation security and her quick reflexes in dodging the explosion. She wanted Jealousy to make it appear as though the attempt had succeeded. Jealousy agreed, asking Marius for help. His help was, if anything, counterproductive, (1) but his empathy proved useful.

When he did an empathic scan, Katrina's assistant was overwhelmed by events and almost certainly trustworthy. He did pick up slightly more distant minds that felt satisfied after the rumors started to flow. He tried to track them, not bothering to explain.

Katrina contacted him, ordering him back. Caught between the desire to find the bodies attached to the minds and the instinct to obey a clearly competent commander, Marius quickly explained that he was following a hunch. Katrina accepted this for the moment.

Marius was able to track the minds to a cafeteria area, but not to narrow his search. He returned, and Katrina demanded an explanation. Marius decided that he didn't mind Katrina knowing that he was an empath, so he told her, adding that her mind was very centered and calm, so even if he were to pry into her mind, which he generally avoided, he wouldn't pick up much. She was glad to hear this, and she asked whether Curtis had similar abilities. Marius said that it was for his brother to say, but it was clear to Katrina that there was something to say.

She noted that the cafeteria area Marius had visited was near offices whose tenants rotated. Currently, the judiciary branch of the government were assigned there, and possibly interplanetary security as well. Neither branch was overly fond of Katrina, particularly interplanetary security, which would become redundant if Lauren joined the Federation.

Katrina's death was announced in a large auditorium, and Marius scanned the crowd empathically, getting a general sense of which clumps of people might not be displeased. Jealousy matched this to videos of people's reactions and basic knowledge of who knew whom and what people would find Katrina's death useful. There were three clumps of people who seemed to be worth investigating.

Marius left aboard his ship, the Galen, with Katrina secretly on board. Katrina hoped not only to give Jealousy time to catch a complacent assassin or conspiracy, but also to give the people of Lauren an opportunity to learn that they could indeed function without her.

Jealousy did eventually solve Katrina's "murder" with the help of Space Scout Ryan Cutter. (2) The group responsible was Interplanatary Security, though the people involved tried to frame a judge. (3) This was a judge that they did not like, and who had frequently disagreed with Katrina. They had sent the bomb via his personal maildrop, possibly working with someone in the judicial branch.

The conspiracy had a fairly low powered, but very persuasive telepath as one of its members. It had also been aided and encouraged by a corporation that wanted to delay Lauren's entry into the Federation for about 3 years -- long enough to do a subtle ad campaign to capture new markets, especially with native help.

------

(1) I rolled badly. Josh rolled quite well.

(2) This was a different session played after a couple of Marius solo adventures.

(3) Chen seemed a bit confused when one of the NPCs helping Ryan said that it looked like the judge had been set up, mistaking NPC helpfulness / GM clue dispensing for NPC reluctance to help.

Kidnapping Passengers

2008-05-05T05:26:17Z

Hub is Elizabeth Bartley's campaign set in the universe of James Schmidt's Hub stories. Players for the session included:

1. Joshua Kronengold -- Jealousy Jones, psi resistant detective

2. Lisa Padol -- Marius Lecks, empathic doctor

3. Stephen Tihor -- Ell Thorndyke, maiden aunt, psychic screamer, and member of the Ancient and Honorable Order of Retired Scouts

Recently, a few passenger liners had gone missing. Jealousy's sister, the artist Rae Jones, had been on one of them. Jealousy was not pleased. Neither was her mother, a woman of some rank within the Federation, nor were the aliens who regularly commissioned art from Rae.

Ell learned from her contacts in Space Scouts that it was possible that someone was kidnapping people to start an illegal colony. Marius was incredulous, but was assured by his grandfather and his older brother that this had been tried, unsuccessfully, in the past. Kidnapping was sometimes combined with unscrupulous use of psychic power, either from a human psy or from a machine.

Marius talked to his contacts in Psychology, asking if they actively wanted or actively did not want him to help Jealousy. His contacts explained that they were nervous about the idea of Marius, a projective empath, being taken over by a hostile psychic or machine. If he wished to help Jealousy, they would permit this, but they would insist that he allow them to install a mental self destruct switch in his mind. He agreed, and asked if this also applied to Jealousy or to his brother.

His contacts explained that they were not as worried about a null/anti-psy or a receptive telepath getting taken over, as either would be far less useful than a projective empath. If requested, they would give Marius' brother and / or Jealousy a mental self destruct switch, but they wouldn't insist on it, and they would charge. Marius' switch was free.

Marius, Ell, and Jealousy worked with various Federation agencies and located the planet to which the people on Rae's liner had been moved. I forget most of the details of their attack / infiltration. I do remember Ell discussing various types of small, stealthy ships she might use, and I remember Jealousy declaring a private war on the corporation involved, and Ell acquiring a subdivision of that corporation. I also remember Marius wondering if anyone had declared a private war on him, and learning that one drug dealer had actually done so.

As it turned out, no psychics were involved, and no one was trying to start a colony. Instead, there was some process draining the life force of the passengers of the hijacked ships so that about ten people could get some kind of rejuvenation treatment. It was tricky to figure out who these were, as they were posing as prisoners, but detective work identified eight in time to apprehend them, matching up voices to voice coded authorization. The other two escaped and changed their appearance.

Rae was a little weak, but quickly recovered, as did most of the other kidnapped passengers. Some of the very old passengers did need medical attention, and this was supplied.

Marius confirmed that Psychology would be just as happy if he kept the mental self destruct switch. He agreed to do this, but he keeps it off unless he has reason to do otherwise.

Hub

2008-05-05T05:25:59Z

Magister:

Appropriate Attire

2008-05-04T20:26:40Z

Hub is Elizabeth Bartley's campaign set in the universe of James Schmidt's Hub stories. Players for the session included:

1. Joshua Kronengold -- Jealousy Jones, psi resistant detective

2. Lisa Padol -- Marius Lecks, empathic doctor

3. Stephen Tihor -- Ell Thorndyke, maiden aunt, psychic screamer, and member of the Ancient and Honorable Order of Retired Scouts

Marius, Jealousy, and Ell visited Lauren, a planet moving towards becoming a federation member. Ell was accompanied by her niece, Tessa, who wanted excitement. She was not happy to get a shopping trip instead, but she cheered up when she discovered that Ell's idea of proper attire meant fashionable and functional -- whether as lightweight armor or as a place to hide weapons.

Lauren was still a dangerous planet, and we wondered aloud whether there might be an attempt to kidnap Tessa, clearly a spoiled rich tourist. Beth liked this idea, and rolled to see how well young Miss Thorndyke acquitted herself. She acquitted herself tolerably well; however, Beth rolled astonishingly high for the grabbers. This made her decide that these were no ordinary grabbers, and she invented a plot on the fly.

Tessa had gotten off only a single shot before being subdued, shooting the alarm in her hotel room to set it off. Her captors stripped her, leaving her clothes and the tracking devices implanted in them in a nearby alley. Jealousy contacted the authorities, who were quite willing to help. Between them and her own resources, Tessa was located. If I recall correctly, she'd managed to force her captors' aircar to land. She was again subdued, and her captors seemed rather pleased.

They left her in the woods, naked, accompanied only by a robot which gave her an electrical shock when she did something her captors didn't want her to do, like starting a signaling fire. It didn't object to her making shoes trom leaves and such. Jealousy took control of the robot, but was unable to track down Tessa's captors before they could flee.

Marius gave Tessa a full medical exam and found some very unusual things. He consulted a colleague. Apparently, she'd gotten quite strong and very fast. Her metabolism was odd as well.

For reasons I forget, Ell, Tessa, Marius, and Jealousy travelled to a different planet. Perhaps they'd tracked the grabbers there. Regardless, Tessa went out drinking and was sufficiently harassed by a spoiled young man that she told him to remove his arm or she would break it. He didn't. She did.

His mother contacted Ell, very annoyed at Tessa, but the entire incident had been recorded. The woman still thought that Tessa had been overly eager to break her son's arm; however, most of her annoyance was diverted to her son. He had been foolish enough to get caught on tape, which was even worse than his being in the wrong. The mother said that she would allow her son to challenge Tessa, and she wanted Tessa to demonstrate that she had not had beginner's luck. Tessa obliged. The son had to use painful quickheal to heal his arm before their fight. Tessa then broke it again.

At some point, Tessa and her escort began to learn more. I think they were openly approached by a man who explained that the people who had grabbed Tessa were, like himself, relatives of Tessa's father, who emigrated to Ivic from a system outside the Federation. The people in this system had given themselves extraordinary abilities via eugenics and genetic manipulation. These were the abilities Tessa was showing evidence of possessing, and in women, these generally manifested after the first childbirth.

There was a way to attempt to wake these abilities early, and this was what some of Tessa's relatives had done. The kidnapping was intended to be a test, with the robot making sure that Tessa either got out with only her own resources or died trying. As Marius let the visitor know what he thought of this sort of behavior, the man pointed out that not everyone agreed with the grabbers. He himself thought they had been stupid. He would have watched Tessa until at least after she'd bore her first child, as her father's abilities might never manifest on their own. If they did, he thought an open approach would make more sense than a grabbing. But there were a lot of different opinions and a lot of politics, and a general cultural idea that might made right.

He and other relatives were willing to help set a trap against the relatives who'd kidnapped Tessa. The trap involved Ell with Tessa and Jealousy with a body double, I think a drone, as Tessa's new cousins would be recognized by their less civilized rivals.

Things got amusing from here. Ell decided to take down her sheilds, in case there were hostile psis. Marius decided to do an empathic scan to pinpoint friends and foes.

Beth: So, Ell needs to time this carefully to avoid catching Marius in the blast.

Stephen: Oh, Ell doesn't know that Marius is an empath.

Lisa: And Marius doesn't know that Ell is a screamer.

Beth was highly amused by the players' decision to make their PCs' lives more difficult. Ell took down her mechanical shield for a few seconds, and Marius was caught in an intensely painful feedback loop. He blacked out, having no idea what had hit him. When Ell found him and brought him around, he was convinced he'd been attacked by a hostile psi. Ell was not surprised, as she'd been trying to catch a hostile psi by lowering her shields. Mutual ignorance prevailed.

Jealousy could have dispelled this ignorance, but she had been captured and stripped, her clothing and equipment left for the others to find.

Stephen: While it's only prudent, this business of capturing Jealousy and stripping her naked is a bit disturbing.

Monarch tracked Jealousy, displaying the results on a piece of equipment her captors had left behind. Marius knew all about Monarch and her capabilities, as did Stephen. Ell, however, did not.

Ell: Ah, how useful! Ms. Jones has an anti-kidnapping device!

Beth's email comment: Monarch is a very vehement anti-Jealousy-Jones-being-kidnapped device. Separation anxiety, unclear legal status, and all that.

Jealousy's captors were impressed by her abilities and offered to release her if she'd cease interfering. She declined. They put her in cold storage, from whence she was retrieved by her allies. I believe some of the kidnappers had been taken prisoner by now.

Jealousy listened to Ell and Marius discussing hostile psis. Ell told her privately that Ell had downed a hostile psi, although the psi had not been captured. Marius told her privately that he had been attacted by a hostile psi. Jealousy put two and two together, figured out something of what Ell was, and told the two psis of each other's abilities, though I don't recall how she learned of Ell's. Marius later asked his contacts in Psychology how one defended against screamers. Psychology sent him a chemical formula for a fast acting knock out drug.

Ell praised Jealousy's anti-kidnapping technology, and Jealousy introduced Ell to Monarch. Meanwhile, the man who originally contacted Tessa and friends said that it would be best if she competed in one of the frequent martial arts competitions, after a bit of training. She was unlikely to win, but a respectable showing would be sufficient. The man said that it would be good if Tessa competed on behalf of the Thorndykes, driving home the point that these were her relatives, and the relatives who raised her, at that.

Everyone returned to Lauren, where the president introduced them to her sifu, her martial arts instructor. He agreed to teach both Tessa and Jealousy. Tessa also practiced under the watchful eyes of representatives from both the pro- and anti-kidnapping factions of her father's relatives. Marius slipped Tessa one of his itching powder grenades, just in case.

While the martial arts competition has not yet been played out, all three PCs are invited. Jealousy impressed folks enough to be allowed to compete. Ell is a relative, and Marius is Tessa's physician.

Meanwhile, Marius and Ell updated their families about each other's psychic abilities, the fact that their own were now known to the other family, and Monarch. Monarch's status was debated at great length in the inner circles of Ivic and the Federation. That she was sentient was not in doubt; merely whether or not she was an adult.

Ell began a subtle campaign to establish Monarch legal status without upsetting the public. As Stephen explained, "Aside from the inherent fairness of establishing her legal identity Monarch would be a wonderful business partner (having complementary skills, but needing training) and thus NEEDED to legally exist."

Jealousy received several proposals from folks on Ivic who wanted to bring Monarch into their family. Marius also proposed, offering to marry Jealousy to solidify Monarch's status. Jealousy laughed in his face, which was the appropriate response. Neither was in love with the other, and Jealousy knew Marius was already in love with a medical colleague.

Return From the Grand Tour

2008-05-04T20:26:06Z

Hub is Elizabeth Bartley's campaign set in the universe of James Schmidt's Hub stories. Players for the session included:

1. Joshua Kronengold -- Jealousy Jones, psi resistant detective

2. Lisa Padol -- Marius Lecks, empathic doctor

3. Richard Reis -- Jaun, a mutant telepathic shapechanging tribble. It has several preferred forms, one of which is a crest cat, a creature from Schmidt's short story "Novice". By the end of the session he appeared in, we agreed that he wasn't connected enough to the other PCs. He may make up another PC.

4. Stephen Tihor -- Ell Thorndyke, maiden aunt, psychic screamer, and member of the Ancient and Honorable Order of Retired Scouts

===Return to Ivic===

Marius and Jealousy had completed their mission for the Federation. They now went in disguise to Ivic, Marius' home planet. Under these identities, they set up a meeting with Marius' father. Marius gave his father a video tape of part of his (mis)adventures on Eli Hutt. His father watched it and made the not-really-a-leap to figure out who Marius and Jealousy were. All three went to the Lecks estate.

Jealousy, still in disguise, decided to go mountain climbing. She was joined by Ell Thorndyke, which was not surprising, as her choice of location was on Thorndyke lands.

The two women found a cave full of people who didn't belong there and caged animals. Jealousy and Ell each called for back up, Jealousy's being a disguised Marius. Ell was able to make a pretty good guess as to who Marius was, especially when he used itching powder grenades of a type previously used by his youngest sister, Serena Lecks.

Extra back up came in the form of one of the animals which turned out to be Jaun, a sentient psychic shape shifter. Jaun tended to pick up the emotions of everyone around, so that, when they were happy, Jaun was happy, and when they were angry, Jaun was angry. Jaun took the form of a crest cat during combat, a cougar-sized feline with chameleon abilities. Everyone agreed that Jaun should contact Psychology. Then, they discovered that all of the animals in the caves were a) some kind of psychic and b) illegal to transport off their home world.

Ell did some checking and discovered that one of her nephews had been very foolish. Apparently, he'd been working with criminals who dealt in everything from drugs to smuggling. He was currently on another planet, one which was about to host a regatta.

===Revelations at the Regatta===

Ell decided she should enter the race and search for her nephew. Preferring to use trained professionals in all areas where their expertise exceeded her own, she hired Jealousy Jones, now out of disguise, to help. Marius, also out of disguise, went along as well, being an amateur racer. Where Ell specialized in stylish flying, Marius specialized in speedy flying. Ell performed much better than Marius, hardly a surprise given her experience and the focus of the regatta.

Ell and Jealousy were approached by local authorities and vigilantes. The planet disapproved of drug dealers on the whole, and there was a planetary web where concerned citizens could put information about such parasites. Of course, as Jealousy realized, the web could spread fake news as easily as real news.

According to the web, Ell's nephew was a drug pusher. He was also not on planet, and it was quite possible that he'd met with foul play from either a vigilante or the group he was allegedly selling drugs for.

Jealousy located and intercepted his ship. It had been either attacked or sabotaged -- I forget which -- by the criminals, not the vigilantes. Ell's nephew was injured, but had done something like place himself in suspended animation. He had also updated the ship's log with a full confession.

He was indeed working for criminals. I believe he had gotten addicted to some drug, and the criminals used this as leverage, but I don't recall whether he was working for the criminals before he'd gotten addicted. Regardless, what he should have done was inform his family at once. He did not, allowing himself to be used by the criminals until his ship had been attacked or sabotaged. At that point, he was at least intelligent enough to tell all in the logs. Ell was not pleased. Not only had her nephew been naughty, he had also been foolish, and Ivic is contemptuous of stupidity.

Ell called a meeting of the Thorndyke elders to discuss what to do about the foolish nephew. They agreed with Ell's suggestion: make him as comfortable as possible and try out whatever experimental techniques existed or were being developed to break the addiction to his drug. If he died in the process, it would be no more than he deserved, and if he were actually cured, and any lingering side effects of the cure dealt with, well, he might have learned his lesson.

===Refugees on Ivic===

Meanwhile, Marius' grandfather told him that Ivic now had a large population of refugees from Eli Hutt. Many of them were working longer hours than was considered usual, and the refugees tended to stick together. The elders of the ruling families of Ivic wanted to know if they should be unduly concerned. Marius agreed to see what he could learn, although, as he pointed out, it was more the field of his older brother, Curtis, a reporter and receptive telepath. His grandfather agreed, but Curtis had not yet returned to Ivic.

Marius wandered around in areas where the refugees lived and worked, and ate a few meals in a restaurant run by some of the new emigrees and patronized by many more. He picked up a certain amount of general wariness with his empathy, and he was able to spot people who were keeping an eye out for trouble. There were also many people who were tired due to the long hours, but that was hardly surprising.

Eventually Curtis did return, somewhat disgruntled at having chased Marius all over the galaxy for the promise of a story of Marius' adventures, only to discover that he could have just come home and waited. His ire was somewhat mitigated by having had opportunity to strike a blow against at least one of the people who wielded power on Eli Hutt. He investigated as well.

Eli Hutt was not a nice place to live. Many of the refugees on Ivic had left family or friends behind, and they wanted to be able to get them away from Eli Hutt as well. The most obvious way to do that was to raise enough money to pay the appropriate fees and bribes, so many people were working double or triple shifts to do just that. Sure, there might be spies among the refugees, or people hoping to import some of Eli Hutt's unsavory practices to Ivic, but Ivic could deal with that as it came up. In the meantime, the Lecks agreed that the emigrees would probably make fine citizens.

The Grand Tour Ends

2008-05-04T20:24:58Z

Hub is Elizabeth Bartley's campaign set in the universe of James Schmidt's Hub stories. Players for the session included:

1. Joshua Kronengold -- Jealousy Jones, psi resistant detective

2. Lisa Padol -- Marius Lecks, empathic doctor

Jealousy and Marius were roaming the galaxy on Jealousy's sentient spaceship, Monarch, playing bait for the Federation in an attempt to lure hostile aliens into trying to capture them. The were followed by their friendly alien backup, Gerint, whom they had met once and not seen since. They had been traveling to far points for over a year, and it was about time to return to Federation space and higher visibility.

Marius and Jealousy decided to stop on the planet that was the scene of the first adventure Beth had ever run, a solo adventure for me, where Marius found the explanation of a virus infecting many of the planet's colonists and first met Dr. Zy Blan of Thanatos Corporation. Thanatos had been one of the few corporations which had cooperated with Marius, who was far more interested in curing the epidemic than in helping anyone, including himself, be the first on the market with whatever formula was needed.

While Marius was more than a little prejudiced against corporations, he was able to work well with Thanatos' people, especially Zy, who echoed his sentiments, saying that she didn't like people who "dick around with viruses". He respected her sentiments and her competence, and found himself becoming enamoured of her, although he did not tell her this. The two of them dealt with eleven people from a different corporation who were using underhanded methods to make sure that their corporation was the first to solve the virus problem. Said corporation professed itself quite shocked to learn what its employees on the planet were doing, and hung these employees out to dry.

Zy Blan was actually on planet, and Marius and Jealousy decided to look her up. Jealousy gave Zy some pointers on her blaster technique, and at one point wondered about whether Zy was attracted to her.

Jealousy (to herself): No, it would be rude to put the moves on Lecks' girlfriend.

It was amusing that Jealous thought of Zy that way, as Marius continued to keep his feelings to himself. Zy knew that Marius seemed attracted to her sexually, but also correctly guessed that he wasn't the type who would want a roll in the hay. The two doctors confined their relationship to discussing their medical research and the medical dirty tricks they had in their bags. Zy's bodyguard, Don, and Jealousy, were both aware of how attracted the doctors were to each other, and that neither seemed to realize the other was attracted. Don and Jealousy exchanged amused looks, finding the whole thing hilarious.

The frequent attacks on the group, or on Zy and Marius whenever they met, were not so amusing. Zy wondered if the attackers were after her, given that she was involved in a very annoying legal case.

A rival corporation had declared a corporate war on Thanatos. This was perfectly legal. The corporation had obtained, via espionage, the knowledge of some of Thanatos' manufacturing details for certain formulae. This was legal if the knowledge had been obtained after the war had been declared.

Thanatos executives believed that the information had been obtained prior to the declaration of the war, and that the war had been declared in an attempt to legitimize the rival corporation's possession of the information. Thanatos wasn't absolutely sure, but was pursuing litigation aggressively, far more aggressively than investigation. After all, there was a chance that an investigation might reveal an inconvenient truth.

As Beth explained:

This was extremely annoying for Zy Blan, who had done a considerable amount of work on these procedures: she had a 2% ownership of
the patents in question, not to mention considerable knowledge of the procedures and the security used to contain them. She was
spending her work hours in court as co-plaintiff and witness, instead of either interesting medical research or entertaining
corporate sabotage.

Zy decided to hire Jealousy to find out what the facts were so she could get back to work. She did this behind Thanatos' back, as the part owner of the patents in her own right. At some point, Zy's corporation learned of this and agreed that Jealousy should keep investigating, but for Thanatos, not for Zy Blan. Zy's bosses were annoyed by what she'd done, but they had a strong enough combination of ethics and pragmatism to know that any kind of retaliation against her would be foolish. Appropriate contracts were drawn up and all parties involved were satisfied.

As it turned out, the rival corporation did obtain the information before the declaration of war, but the corporation's left hand did not know what the right was doing. The elements of the rival corporation that knew about the espionage had been set up to think it was a good idea by a third group, this one military, IIRC. This third group hoped to profit from the ensuing chaos. Zy's superiors informed their rival's counterparts. The rival corporation cleaned house and hired Jealousy, to her amusement and profit.

During all of this, the attacks continued, and it became clear that Marius was their target. Jealousy and Marius set one clever trap after another for the second rate thugs, focusing on finding their employer rather than capturing them. Then, Marius was kidnapped by an extremely professional group of kidnappers. Jealousy chased after them.

Neither Josh, Beth, nor I remember exactly what happened after so long, but I think there were at least 3 air cars involved, maybe more. Marius was being held in one, and it was apparently a very large air car. I tend to think of air cars as flying cars, and relatively small, but Josh says that they're more like small ships, and that they can have multiple rooms. Whatever Marius was being held in had multiple rooms.

There was Jealousy's air car, and there was at least one other air car belong to the kidnappers, aka grabbers. Both of the grabbers' air cars could fire an EMP, I believe. Josh says that Jealousy's air car was shot down, and Jealousy was forced to land it on an island, despite her hacking up a better weapon to shoot back with. The grabbers may have fired an EMP at the her air car, and we're all pretty sure that at some point, an EMP was fired, frying the nanites Jealousy likes to use. Josh says that Jealousy set off an EMP which zapped the weapons of the grabbers who were coming after her and had her surrounded, and that it also took out the controls of their air aircar, leaving all of them stranded. I definitely remember that 2 EMPs were fired.

Once Jealousy had stranded everyone, it was a question of whose back up arrived first, Jealousy's back up being help from Monarch. Unfortunately, it was the grabbers' back up.

Meanwhile, Marius tried to escape, with Monarch's help via nanites she controlled remotely. Despite astonishing skill akin to that just displayed by Jealousy, Marius was recaptured at about the same time she was captured. Monarch told Marius that she couldn't reach "Mom", as she called Jealousy, and that her nanites had gotten fried. Marius' captors were quite impressed by his efforts, and they asked him if he were an electrokinetic. He said, truthfully, that he wasn't. They kept him unconscious just as their compatriots kept Jealousy unconscious. Both were handed over, separately, to the grabbers' employer.

This turned out to be the alien faction they had been sent to lure in, finally taking the bait. This faction had not actually been behind the earlier attempts on Marius, but those attempts had led the aliens to Marius and Jealousy.

The prisoners were interrogated separately and not gently. Marius managed to convince his unseen captors that he knew nothing. Josh blew his roll for Jealousy and decided that she blurted out, "Oh, so -that's- what this is about!" We agreed that this was more stylish and better suited to character and campaign than simply breaking under torture.

Marius' captors eventually agreed that he really knew nothing.

Marius: Does this mean you'll release me?

His captors said that they'd have to hold him for an indefinite period of time, and they did something to make him lose consciousness. As he blacked out, Marius realized with dismay that he might actually get bored.

When Marius regained consciousness, he was no longer restrained, and the door to the room was open. He was dubious, but left the room. He passed many other rooms, and found several corpses.

In another part of the base, Jealousy had also been rendered unconscious and had also woken to find herself at liberty. She followed a similar trail of corpses and found Marius.

Jealousy: How would you sneak on board a space station?

Marius: What?

Jealousy: Prove that you're you!

Marius: Your daughter's worried sick about you.

Jealousy had been going for an answer to her question, which should have been, "With a Boys Band". However, she decided that Marius' answer was good enough.

The carnage to the base had been caused by Marius and Jealousy's backup, Gerint. All of it. He had also released the prisoners before leaving. Marius and Jealousy were duly impressed.

As Beth explained when reading an early draft of this memo, she consistently rolled too well for the opposition for Marius and Jealousy to escape, and it made no sense to have incompetent opposition. Gerint was a GM hole card, designed for exactly such a case. As her email says, Gerint let her

play the opponents as not making any mistakes without screwing the PCs too much. Gerint being able to do what he could do wasn't a
mistake on their part; it was just lack of information: they didn't know the PCs had that sort of backup (shapeshifting alien,
physically powerful, mentally equipped by Psychology, and trained and physically equipped by the Scouts). BTB, the PCs had
need-to-know clearance for seeing him operate, but at no time did they acquire any need to know any of it.

In any case, Jealousy contacted Monarch, much to Monarch's relief. Monarch was having a perfectly understandable case of separation anxiety. As she pointed out, Jealousy and Marius were the only two people who knew she existed.

After Federation forces moved into and Marius and Jealousy returned from the alien base, Marius let Zy know that he was all right, but couldn't say more. He decided to try to contact the people who grabbed him, having the oddly quioxtic urge to give them what warning he could without telling them what was going on. One of the grabbers met him, and he managed to get across that the Federation was taking something related to the grabbing quite seriously, that it wasn't something to get involved in, and that there was a reason he'd almost escaped, despite not being an electrokinetic. The grabber was a bit bemused, but recognized that Marius was sincerely trying to help. He offered to reciprocate by spreading the word that Jealousy and Marius were too much trouble to take on. Marius accepted the offer, with gratitude.

Meanwhile, Jealousy made some progress in her investigation into the incompetent attacks on Marius, finding out that there was an open contract to deliver him alive to a place to be specified when the person who put out the contract was contacted through secure channels. Marius was willing to play bait, but Jealousy vetoed this. As Monarch pointed out, the person wanting Marius alive might just want to shoot the doctor him or herself. Jealousy established an identity for herself as an opportunistic bounty hunter and Marius as her henchthug, then sent a message that Marius had been captured.

The person who had put out the contract arrived, with his own henchthugs in tow. He had been one of the people whose corporation had tried to find out the cause of the epidemic that had hit the planet independently, so that it could market the cure first, and he had made enough of the decisions about the various illegal acts employees took that he was one of the scapegoats of his corporation. It was even possible that the higher ups in this corporation disapproved of his shennanigans, and not just because he got caught.

Regardless, he bore a personal grudge against Marius. As Dr. Lecks did not work for any corporation, the man considered his interference utterly unwarranted, and he hoped to make his point by breaking every bone in Marius' body.

Beth: Including the little ones in the ear.

Marius was full of contempt once he learned this, considering the man an idiot who blamed others for his own stupidity and lack of ethics. The man also wanted Zy Blan dead, but that was nothing personal. Zy worked for a rival corporation, so she had a reason for interfering.

Marius took the man's intent towards Zy personally, and I told Beth that he was now morally outraged. This would have given him a bonus die on rolls involving empathy, but Marius settled for using his blaster to stun the man. The henchthugs fell unconscious when they opened the box that supposedly contained Marius and breathed the gas Jealousy had rigged up. Man and thugs were turned over to the authorities and eventually sentenced to rehab, aka brainwashing. Marius wondered about the family of the man. Jealousy did some research, learning that the man's wife had left him and taken the kids when she realized her husband was fixated on blaming others for his screw ups.

Hub

2008-05-04T20:22:41Z

Magister:

Shopping on Eli Hutt

2008-05-04T05:08:24Z

Three Planets

2008-05-04T05:07:48Z

Magister: New page: Hub is Elizabeth Bartley's campaign set in the universe of James H. Schmitz's Hub stories. Players for the session included: 1. Joshua Kronengold -- Jealousy Jones, psi resistant detectiv...

Hub is Elizabeth Bartley's campaign set in the universe of James H. Schmitz's Hub stories. Players for the session included:

1. Joshua Kronengold -- Jealousy Jones, psi resistant detective

2. Lisa Padol -- Marius Lecks, empathic doctor

Jealousy and Marius had been asked to disappear for a time so that aliens hostile to the Federation would look for them. Jealousy staged a "kidnapping" of Marius, and the two took off on Jealousy's ship, Monarch, which was also an AI.

After a trip outside Federation space, they re-visited a water world where they had once taken a cruise on a living ship when it had been hijacked. They had a much quieter time, but left quickly on hearing that someone from Jealousy's detective agency had landed. This person was looking for Jealousy. He always found his quarry, but he always had a long list of people to look for. It seemed quite likely that Jealousy's name might be taken off his list before it became a priority to track down her in particular.

Marius and Jealousy next re-visited the planet Lauren, where both fell victim to a friendly ambush.

Lauren had been in the throes of a civil war, with many rebel factions fighting the aristocratic government and each other. The fighting was beginning to die down as a corporation secretly backed by one of the rebel factions began negotiations to purchase the planet from the government. Marius' brother, Curtis, was working as a journalist on Lauren, attaching himself to a group of rebels led by a woman named Katrina.

Curtis had figured out that Marius and Jealousy were on Lauren. Unsure of the story behind his brother's kidnapping, he asked Katrina to help, and she agreed, taking down the formidable Jealousy Jones. Marius tried to take Katrina down, but Curtis shot him from behind. Marius' empathy picked up both the shooter's presence and an odd feeling of chagrin, as he blacked out.

When he woke up, Curtis explained what had happened, and Marius, partly from pique and partly from suspicion, decided to neutralize Curtis. He did this by offering to show his brother, a receptive telepath, his mental impressions of briefly melding with the group mind of Shalaran. As he'd expected, Curtis was accepted the offer and was quickly overwhelmed by the sensations.

Leaving Curtis unconscious in the room, Marius explored his surroundings. He found Jealousy enjoying a sparring match with Katrina. She confirmed that the situation was as it seemed. Highly embarrassed, Marius explained that he'd, ah, given Curtis something to knock him out and hastened to reverse the process. Under the watchful eyes of Katrina's people, he gave Curtis something harmless while mentally guiding Curtis back to normal consciousness.

Curtis privately told Marius not to do that to a telepath he didn't want to break. This surprised Marius. Marius knew he'd been childish, rather than strictly practical, in attacking Curtis, but he'd taken for granted that his older brother could handle anything he could. After all, Marius himself had managed to resist being pulled into the planetary group mind of Shalaran. Curtis reminded him that, in some ways, telepaths were more vulnerable to mental attacks than empaths, and explained that getting the Shalaran experience second hand meant that one was reaching for a transcendence that wasn't actually there.

Marius explained to Katrina and Jealousy that, while he could operate as a soldier and take orders, he should not be mistaken for a competent commander. Curtis noted that Jealousy and Marius should probably not continue to re-visit former haunts if they actually wanted to be difficult to find. Jealousy noted that she and Marius had standing orders to kidnap any journalists who found them. She asked if Curtis would be willing to consider himself kidnapped and catch up with them later. Curtis and Marius were highly amused, as this was the equivalent of giving parole in their home planet's equivalent of a friendly war / mass duel. Curtis agreed in exchange for Marius' promise of an exclusive interview, once Marius was cleared to give such a thing.

Curtis left Lauren a few weeks after Marius, Jealousy, and Monarch departed. He tried to catch up with them, but as he had to book passage on other ships, and circumstances forced the Monarch to keep moving, this didn't happen until the matter in question was resolved and Marius had returned to their home planet. Curtis was annoyed; after all, if Marius had wanted to meet him at home, he had but to say so. Still, Curtis had adventures of his own, some of which he found quite satisfying.

As Jealousy and Marius headed for somewhere new, Jealousy's ship, Monarch, who was also an AI, informed Jealousy that she'd picked up a plague alert.

Monarch: Should I tell Dr. Lecks? He'll want to commandeer the ship if I do.

Jealousy decided to tell Marius the news herself.

Jealousy: You know how it's been boring lately?

Marius (with alacrity): Ms. Jones, I assure you that I am not in the slightest bit bored!

Jealousy: You're going to commandeer my ship.

Marius (amused): You kidnap me, I get to commandeer your ship? Is that how it works?

Jealousy (abandoning subtlety): We're picking up a plague alert.

Marius (abandoning humor): I'm commandeering your ship.

The plague alert came from a mostly abandoned planet. The only people on it were a group of rich students who decided to camp out there, even though they weren't supposed to. Hey, a forbidden world with rumors of hidden treasure in the form of regalia belonging to their planet -- how could they resist? One of the students had sent out the plague alert. He had also disabled their ships, to everyone else's annoyance. Marius approved, though his stern lecture to the students left them unimpressed.

The plague was easily cured. It was an old plague, created by a corporation a couple of centuries earlier. It had been released when the students stumbled across a long abandoned trap, and there were other traps, more mechanical, but no less lethal. Marius cured the students while Jealousy disarmed a few of the traps and located the long lost regalia.

Marius also discovered that a couple of the students had been tampered with psychically. One tried to commit suicide, unsuccessfully. IIRC, Marius took Monarch to the system the students had come from, and he sent a message to Psychology. He then returned to the hotel where he'd been staying. A journalist awaited him there.

Marius had standing orders to kidnap any journalists who discovered him and / or Jealousy. He poured the reporter a (drugged) drink and explained that he'd already promised an exclusive to another reporter. She said she understood, and turned to go, leaving the drink untouched. Marius shot her in the back, stunning her. He brought her back to the Monarch, removed the devices she'd had implanted so that her paper could monitor her location, and sent her back to her paper, unconscious, on a ship, with an apologetic note.

Meanwhile, Jealousy dealt with a group of unscrupulous mercenaries known as Randall's Rangers. The Rangers had been hired to make sure that the students wound up dead. Jealousy captured or otherwise dealt with their forces on the ground, then proved more effective than the Rangers had expected, using Monarch's lifeboat against their ship until Marius and Monarch arrived to back her up. The Rangers agreed to withdraw and either pay a large sum of money, or, if their employer did not supply this, to reveal their employer's identity. In the meantime, Jealousy kept one of their sergeants as a hostage.

Wisely, the Rangers' employer supplied the money. They also made it clear that they had great respect for Jealousy and would gladly take her money and work for her.

Marius and Jealousy brought the students and the lost regalia home. Psychology stepped in at this point, and neither PCs nor players yet know what was going on.

Watcher of Shalaran

2008-05-04T05:07:07Z

Hub

2008-05-04T05:05:48Z

Magister:

Art and Politics

From Russia With Love

2008-04-30T18:29:24Z

GM: Erik Hanson

Players:

Beth Bartley: Liliana Scarpelli: 15 year old Genoese noble seeking to marry into the Sforza family of Florence.

Joshua Kronengold: Ipolitto Sforza, a 12 year old noble

Lisa Padol: Roggerio, a musician and ex-diabolist with an unwanted, but not entirely undeserved, reputation for intrigue, in Ipolitto's service

Lee Painton: Vincent di Giovanni, Venitian nobleman and Necromancer, spying for the Sforza while trying to take over the Florentine criminal underworld.

David Siegel: Jebril, displaced Moorish architect with a talent for geomancy, in the service of the Sforza family.

Matt Stevens: Rafael Marancini, Jewish Cabalist and advisor to Ipolitto.

Rachael Tang: Bella Ziani, midwife and visionary

Prominent NPCs:

Leo Dorvinian: Head of the Dorvinian family. Recently became immortal.

Horatio Sforza: Ipolitto's oldest brother, leading the Sforza army against Milan. Possibly to be betrothed to Liliana.

Ilya Ilanovich: Russian hero in the Sforza's service. Weilds a magical sword.

The army of Florence had besieged Milan, as the Sforzas attempted to break the power of the Dorvinians for good. This power was due in large part to the alchemical skills of the Dorvinians and to the visionary ambition of their immortal paterfamilias, Leo Dorvinian. He had created a variety of addictive wines. Those who took so much as a sip of one would die if they did not have at least a sip every couple of days.

Many nobles and powerful priests were addicted to at least one of these wines. Many were too frightened to act against the Dorvinians, although some took heart at the news that the Sforza had begun developing antidotes to the various addictive wines.

Still, the Sforza were acting largely on their own. Erik attempted to plan an adventure suitable for the assorted PCs, operating under the handicap of not knowing exactly who would show up.

If memory serves, Josh and I were caught in a torrential downpour. We arrived soaked. I think Matt arrived earlier, just missing the start of the rain, while Beth showed up just after us, missing the downpour part. Dave showed up as well.

Erik had wondered if anyone would brave the weather, but now had a quorum. We watched some anime, then decided that Lee and Rachael would probably not brave the weather, as Rachael was pregnant and not in the best of health. So, Erik set the scene, and we started playing a couple of hours after we'd arrived.

This involved asking for player advice and telling us we could each pick one thing to contribute to the war effort. This had to be specified at the start of the game, rather than decided on midgame when we knew what would be most helpful.

I probably would have allowed midgame decisions on what the PCs had prepared, but Erik's decision was both fair and logical. In an earlier session, he had ruled that each PC could have picked up one useful item in Constantinople. The item could be specified at any point in the game, subject to one limitation: It had to be related to what the player had previously said the PC was doing in Constantinople. Fr'ex, Ruggerio was pursuing wine, women, gambling, and song, so it would have been inappropriate for him to have purchased a sword or a treatise on mathematics. Eventually, we decided he had acquired a lady's scarf which was perfect for a task set him by Baba Yaga.

The pre-planned retcon fit the mood of the fairy tale structured session, where heroes are supposed to find themselves, by luck, with exactly what they need. This is a completely different from preparations made by the aggressor in a siege.

Ipolitto had a pine cone which, if planted in dirt, would call the Leishye of Russia to the spot. This gave Erik the inspiration for the title of the session.

Liliana made an inspiring banner, and Roggerio wrote a satirical song about the Dorvinians. Jebril worked to construct a tunnel under the city, with help from a Sforza spy in Milan.

Rafael created a golem. At Josh's suggestion, it was named Halukh.

Josh: Halukh smash!

Lee and Rachael called around then, saying that they were getting into a cab and would be coming. We decided to start playing and to insert their PCs into the action when they arrived.

Erik then explained that he wanted to have Liliana get captured by the Dorvinians. We suggested that what happened was this: Liliana's family had decided that they wanted her safe at home, so they sent an escort to bring her from Florence to Genoa. It was waylaid by Dorvinian forces. This allowed Liliana to be captured without the Sforzas having to be stupid or having their relationship with the Scarpellis deteriorate.

So, a group of men followed Ipolitto into Jebril's tunnel. This included Jebril, Roggerio, and Rafael, but not Horatio, as he had to stay behind to lead the siege. He warned Ipolitto not to allow harm to come to so much as the tip of one of Liliana's hairs.

As Ipolitto led the first few men out of the tunnel, including Jebril, he saw that the opening was surrounded by men with loaded crossbows. The dead body of the Sforza spy was nearby. So was Liliana, still alive, but with a knife held to her throat.

Ipolitto and his visible men surrendered, to Erik's surprise and delight. He had hoped to come up with a situation dire enough to give the PCs pause, but wasn't sure this would work, and he was prepared for the possibility that the PCs would try to fight their way out of this situation. But Ipolitto did not want to risk harm coming to Liliana, and Roggerio, Rafael, the rest of Ipolitto's men, and Halukh, inert in a cart, were able to back away into the tunnel, out of sight of the Dorvinian men. One of these men read a long list of items to be surrendered, including, but not limited to, knives, swords, bows, arrows, potions, scrolls, talismans, and various other types of weapons and magical items.

Ipolitto decided to drop the pinecone down the tunnel, so he explained to the Dorvinian men that he wanted a moment of privacy for modesty reasons. When they declined, he overawed them, as Josh decided to spend some of Ipolitto's "Didn't I Mention I Had..." points (aka DIM points) on Intimidate (Aristocrat). He rolled very well.

Ipolitto: I am your prisoner, not your servant!

The men allowed him a brief moment. Ipolitto stealthily dropped the pinecone, which rolled right to Roggerio's foot. The musician picked it up, having no idea what it was or where it had come from, but sure it was important. Ipolitto, meanwhile, stepped into sight of the Dorvinian men, surrendering several items on their list. The prisoners were taken to the keep.

The rest of the men backed down the tunnel. After much debate about sealing the tunnel, it was decided that the Sforza men would simply ambush any Dorvinians attempting to use the tunnel. About this time, Lee and Rachael arrived.

Rachael decided that Bella would create a powerful pill that would bring someone back from the very brink of death and drive out any poisons from the person's system. She had a feeling that this might necessary for Liliana, for who knew what the Dorvinians might have forced her to eat or drink?

In a cell of the Dorvinian keep, Liliana said that, as far as she knew, the Dorvinians had kept her hungry, drugging her only with something to keep her groggy. Liliana, Jebril, and Ipolitto's attempts to escape coincided nicely with the rescue party sent through the tunnel, consisting of Rafael, Roggerio, Bella, Ilya, and Vincent. Halukh had been activated and was creating much havoc in the city. His orders were, IIRC, to go after only soldiers in Dorvinian livery.

The reunited group started to head out of the city by way of one of the Dorvinian vineyards that Ipolitto had spotted when he was captured. As the group stood around asking what Ipolitto was going to do, he explained that he would be planting the pinecone. But, by now, the group had been in the vineyard for several minutes, and the vines moved to immobilize everyone. I rolled a fumble for Roggerio, and we agreed that this meant that a stray vine had grabbed his lute and lifted it out of his reach.

Ipolitto tossed the pinecone to Liliana before being immobilized. She caught it and handed it to Leo Dorvinian, who now arrived with some of his guards. For, as Erik had previously explained to Beth, and now revealed to us all, this was not truly Liliana. The real Liliana was now being held at knifepoint by Leo Dorvinian.

The Sforza party struggled with vines. Ilya was able to free himself and to use his sword to free others. I think Vincent and Bella got free as well. The real Liliana fought back as Leo Dorvinian was distracted by catching the pinecone, and got savagely knocked aside. She was later revived with Bella's pill. The fake Liliana turned out to be a weird kind of serpent person who attacked Vincent. I believe it was killed.

Ipolitto managed to retrieve the pinecone and planted. Somehow, Vincent was set on fire. This is when we discovered what Lee had specified Vincent would prepare: The necromancer had placed his lifeforce into the tip of his pinky finger and had cut it off and hidden it. Immune to the flames that burned him, painful though they were, he chased Leo Dorvinian, trying to catch him in a fatal embrace.

The Leishye came through the gate opened when the pinecone was planted. We all tried to explain at once how we would keep them from destroying the entire city. Erik explained that these forces were great enough that most of what we were saying simply didn't register. He did agree that Bella's offer of blood was something they could understand, and the midwife was told that if she sprinkled her blood around an area, the Leishye would stay out of this area. Rachael was delighted that her PC would have a chance to save many innocents by gathering them into such areas.

Ipolitto managed to convince the Leishye to allow him to guide them in their search for Leo Dorvinian. Josh had hoped to have Ipolitto make a speech much like the one Londo made to Reva in the Bab5 episode "And the Rock Cried Out No Hiding Place", but there was far too much chaos. He also wished that Leo Dorvinian had made a villain's speech, as did I, but we both agreed with Erik that the chaos factor was too great.

By the time the chaos had settled, Leo Dorvinian, dead, undead, or alive, was nowhere to be seen. The Leishye left not one stone standing atop another of the Dorvinian keep. The Sforza had won the day, although public opinion of their deeds would definitely be mixed.

In the post mortem, Josh noted that Erik was trying to be, if possible, too fair, allowing everyone in the climactic fight a chance to do something significant, at the cost of slowing things down and creating greater chaos. Instead, he suggested, different PCs should be effective in different scenes, and that it is all right if any given session features more of one PC, so long as everyone gets a chance in the limelight on a regular basis. I noted that the easiest way to do that would have been to break the session into two sessions, but, as Josh pointed out, Erik did not have this option. This was the first time in ages that the entire group could show up, and he was right to take advantage of the moment.

Thus, Bella and Vincent definitely deserved limelight moments, and both got them. If Lee showed up more often, Vincent's life force hiding trick might get obnoxious, but as it was, it lended an oddly comic-macabre tone to the session. And Bella got to be the person looking after the innocent.

Ipolitto got to use his pinecone and his aristocratic brattiness to good effect. I'm sorry Leo Dorvinian didn't reprise his threats against Roggerio and his lute, but Erik definitely made the correct call there -- it would have been out of place. Beth got a bit short shrifted, as she had to play an intelligent infiltrator for much of the session, which means keeping largely quiet and in the background. Jebril is due for a fair amount of air time in a future session, as is Rafael. Again, Erik made what was probably the best call, especially as the number of players was constantly in flux, and I think he has a few ideas in mind for the Moor and the Jew.

Ars Mystica

2008-04-30T18:28:54Z

Magister:

Dogs in the 'Verse

2008-04-30T17:17:35Z

Magister: New page: Lionel's Stats <pre> THE DOCTOR: LIONEL TSING Player: Lisa Padol Complicated History: stats 15d6 ACUITY 5d6 BODY 4d6 HEART 2d6 WILL 4d6 Traits: (4d4/2d6/2d10) (Belief) In the nam...

Lionel's Stats

<pre>
THE DOCTOR: LIONEL TSING
Player: Lisa Padol

Complicated History: stats 15d6

ACUITY 5d6
BODY 4d6
HEART 2d6
WILL 4d6

Traits: (4d4/2d6/2d10)

(Belief) In the name of Science! 2d4
Yes, I'm really a doctor. Never you mind where I got my degree from! 2d6
What? Of -course- I can shoot! 1d10
Women see me as a challenge 1d4
Now, this won't hurt a bit 1d4
Someone So Charming Deserves A Grant! 1d10

Relationships: (5d6/2d8)

Ex-wife 1d6
An old medical colleague, just as guilty, who didn't get caught 1d6
(2d8/3d6 unspent)

Belongings:

Excellent Big Medkit - 2d8
Signature Item: My missing notes - 1d6
</pre>

Lionel excelled at Doctor Stuff (tm), but took the opposite fork from Simon Tam. He conducted experiements that were highly ethically dubious, but he was and is convinced that these were vitally important for medical progress and the greater good of humanity.

He's got fairly low empathy (the non-psychic variety, if you please), but can fake it. This doesn't mean patients won't see beneath the veneer, but professionals and those who have the power to give large
monetary grants respond well to the surface charm.

Lionel's marriage broke apart maybe a year before his professional problems. His wife made it humiliatingly clear that Lionel just wasn't satisfying her needs. I suspect that any arrangements for the
divorce were handled through proxies and the like, and someone looking at the records would probably think that the couple handled this all somewhat coldly, but maturely. This someone clearly didn't
see all the shattered objects d'art and furniture and the like.

After that, Lionel probably threw himself even more into his work, and may have taken a few more risks than he should have. At some point, someone discovered exactly what he was up to, and the shit hit the fan.

Lionel thinks a lot of people were hypocrites here, from the other project members who made him their fall guy to medical colleagues who publically decried what he was doing, while conducting similar experiments, to the righeous men and women who profited from his researches.

Somehow, his notes got scattered -- probably he wasn't allowed back into his workplace -- so, he's trying to retrieve them. Without his notes, all of the work is for nothing!

Main Page

2008-04-30T17:16:44Z

Magister:

==RPG Write Ups==

[[Ars Mystica]]

[[Hub]]

==Campaigns in Progress==

[[Hearts and Constellations]]

[[Dogs in the 'Verse]]

A Splash of Wine

2008-04-29T17:13:35Z

GM: Erik Hanson

Players:

Beth Bartley: Liliana Scarpelli: 15 year old Genoese noble seeking to marry into the Sforza family of Florence.

Joshua Kronengold: Ipolitto Sforza, a 12 year old noble

Lisa Padol: Roggerio, a musician and ex-diabolist, in Ipolitto's service

Matt Stevens: Rafael Marancini, Jewish Cabalist and advisor to Ipolitto.

Note: The following write up contains much analysis, done after the session, with 20-20 hindsight, and with the GM's participation. I enjoyed both the session while playing and the analysis after.

In Renaissance Mystical Italy, it is said that men would kill for a sip of Dorvinian wine. It is accepted wisdom that men have killed with a sip of Dorvinian wine. The Sforza family discovered that the two truisms are linked, for the Dorvinians use their alchemical skills to create vintages which kill the imbibers if they fail to have at least a sip of the wine every few days.

Unfortunately, the Sforzas learned the truth about Dorvinian wine only after hosting the Dorvinians' annual wine festival. As luck or divine providence would have it, no one in the Sforza household drank the addictive wine, but many among the city's nobility and high ranked clergy had.

Young Ipolitto Sforza and his entourage, along with Liliana Scarpelli, set out to find the necessary ingredients for the antidote to the wine. They succeeded, and they also succeeded in getting an item to thwart the plans of a group of Diabolists who had acquired a griffin's feather, a lock of hair from a faerie, and one of Baba Yaga's thumbnails. With these, they planned to create a creature who could dominate the realm of mystic beasts, the realm of faerie, and the realm of the spirits of nature.

At this point, Erik had created a double bind. Our Heroes had been told that, terrible though the Dorvinian threat was, it was but a temporal threat. The Diabolists posed a spiritual threat, one which might end the temporal world altogether. As Rafael's mentor explained, if one viewed the world as an egg-like container filled with vital liquid, then the Diabolists were making cracks in the container. Each individual crack was trivial, but the more there were, the faster the fluid leaked out, and the greater the chance that the container would shatter, spoiling all of the liquid that was the world.

So, while the evening's adventure was intended to be about the Dorvinians, the PCs had good reason to fear the acts of the Diabolists more. Erik handled this by allowing a relatively quick solution to the Diabolist problem.

The item to thwart the Diabolists was the left thumbnail of Baba Yaga. The Diabolists had her right thumbnail. Roggerio had once been a member of this group of Diabolists and was still on friendly terms with its members. He knew a simple minded man named Mook. Mook was nimble enough to swap thumbnails while remaining undetected, provided he understood what was required, especially if Roggerio provided a mild distraction by talking with the Diabolists.

This worked, especially as we dealt with the problem of explaining what Mook was expected to do by having a fairy who enjoyed watching his antics do the explaining. This was the NPC's problem to solve because we didn't want the entire session to be devoted to dealing with Mook's antics. Had Erik focused on the Diabolist plot, it might have become a PC problem. Or perhaps Mook wouldn't have been involved at all.

Regardless, given that Erik wanted to focus on the Dorvinian plot, but had GMed himself into a corner by stressing the importance of the Diabolist plot, he was right to streamline the Diabolist plot. Matt was disappointed that, after all the build up, the resolution was that simple. This was a valid point. However, IMO, Erik chose the least of all evils. He can create another Diabolist plot, and this was the first time it appeared that the PCs scored a clear victory against their opponents.

While thwarting the Diabolists, it became very clear that the Dorvinians were planning to strike a decisive blow against the Sforza. What this blow was formed the central mystery of the session.

There was growing discontent in the city, and some servants of noble households had taken to spilling wine on anyone from the Sforza household. It made sense: The Sforza had campaigned hard to get the Dorvinians to hold their festival in Florence, and the other noble houses had paid the price. Rafael, who did not actually wear Sforza livery, was one of the few in the Sforza household to escape being splashed.

Erik asked what each PC was doing, and tailored his clues to that. So, Liliana, who spent time with her noble peers, sewing and embroidering, learned that the nobles who had instigated the wine flinging had been some of those most desperate for more of the addictive wine. They had received more from the Dorvinians in return for spilling a rather different vintage on the Sforza.

The Sforza alchemists analyzed samples of the flung wine. They were able to determine only that it had unusual properties. Someone, perhaps Ipolitto, went to speak to the Comte di Ceprano.

The Comte was an enemy of the Dorvinians. He had only recently recovered his magical signet ring, which the Dorvinians had given to their ally, Ciacco the Hog. Ceprano had removed Ciacco's finger, refraining from taking the whole hand out of courtesy to the Sforza. He sent the finger to the Sforza to do with as they would. Rafael advocated sending it to Ciacco, who might be able to get it reattached. Rafael deserves good karma for that.

Eventually, it was decided that the finger would be sent to Liliana's parents in Genoa, where Ciacco resided. The Scarpellis could either return it to Liliana's unwanted suitor or not, as they chose. The Comte di Ceprano had made his point.

An enemy of the Dorvinians, the Comte wished he knew more about what the wine splashing portended. He spoke of 2 stage poisons and of the Dorvinians' great alchemical skills.

The Peruzzis supplied the next clue. Although traditionally enemies of the Sforza, they had agreed to help them, both for certain considerations and because they didn't like how much power Leo Dorvinian wielded -- and weren't convinced the Dorvinians were unassailable.

The Peruzzis' power lay in its connections, noble and base, legal or otherwise. Their network of contacts stretched far, and one of the things they used it for was transporting goods. They had been transporting wine and other things for the Dorvinians and were well placed to spy on them.

The Peruzzis explained that some of their agents had recently shipped something for the Dorvinians in a crate. One agent had tried to get a look at whatever was inside, but had died mere minutes later, a small bite on his arm.

The PCs guessed that the crate contained some kind of poisonous creatures, perhaps snakes or scorpions. Erik told us out of character that the creatures were spiders. Josh and I employed different methods of dealing with this OOC knowledge. Josh bent over backwards to keep player and PC knowledge separate, having Ipolitto become convinced that the Dorvinians had scorpions. I tried to find a way for the PCs to learn what the players knew so I wouldn't have to worry about separating the knowledge. I also asked, nervously, if Erik planned on using visual aids, as I am an arachnaphobe. He assured me that he was not.

Meanwhile, Liliana and Duke Sebastiano Sforza performed a divination to learn when the Dorvinians would act against the Sforza. They discovered that the attack would be that very night.

This did not leave enough time to bathe everyone thoroughly of the wine, baths being somewhat unusual.

Erik: So, it's Bath Day at the Sforza Manor?

Another plan was to send many of the servants to spend the night elsewhere. This, too, was discarded, as such a move would be a death warrant, not salvation, for the transplanted servants, as they would not have Sforza protection from natural and supernatural horrors.

Ultimately, magical wards were set up in a few areas, there not being time to ward all places. As expected, someone managed to carry the spiders over the wards around the manor. Then, we discovered the role of the spilled wine: Something in it attracted the spiders.

As the reader may recall, the alchemists had been analyzing the wine. Erik now ruled that, as he wanted -some- kind of dramatic tension, and as we hadn't specified that the alchemists' lab was magically warded, the spiders headed there en masse.

The PCs rushed to the lab, finding some of the alchemists dead and the rest cornered, trying desperately to hold off the spiders with brooms and the like. Thinking furiously, they decided that Roggerio would use his magical lute to get the spiders to follow him into a mostly warded area. Ipolitto would then finish warding it, trapping the spiders, but not Roggerio. The musician would leave the area.

This worked, although there was a tense moment. As Erik noted, spiders, unlike scorpions, could climb on the ceiling and drop on one from above. This happened to Roggerio. Fortunately, Rafael struck the one that actually landed on the musician with a corner of a book, knocking it to the ground, while Liliana swatted at another with a length of cloth as it began to drop from the ceiling.

Once the spiders were contained, they were burned. Sforza men then marched to the Florence house of the Dorvinians.

The Dorvinians were not fools. While there were some terrified servants left, most of the household had retreated to Milan, the Dorvinians' own city. The Sforza decided to take the battle to their enemies.

Josh: Next session: The Sforza go to war.

Mystery plots are tricky to run, so, after the session, Erik and I listened to Josh's ideas of how he would have timed events with great interest. Erik had tried to drop clues based on what information would be where each PC was looking. Josh said that the better approach for this session would have been to drop clues based on the optimal order for the PCs to discover the clues.

So, with 20-20 hindsight, Josh said that, while it was correct to drop the news about the wine splashing early, the fact that the Dorvinians instigated that should not have been revealed so quickly. Instead, the next clue should have been the Peruzzi's, that some kind of poisonous creature was being shipped.

As the PCs tried to learn more about what was shipped, they should have discover that the Dorvinians were using it that very night. And, we all agreed, no general wards against poisonous critters, just specific wards against specific ones.

Only at the eleventh hour, as the attack was about to begin, should the PCs learn from whatever channel seemed most appropriate the true cause of the wine splashing. This would have allowed a much higher level of danger and tension without postulating that Duke Sebastiano and the PCs had been stupid enough not to protect the alchemists.

As I said, I enjoyed the session regardless. I know firsthand how tricky running a proper mystery can be, so I filed all the advice away.

Ars Mystica

2008-04-29T17:13:16Z

Magister:

Hearts and Constellations

2008-04-27T20:58:00Z

Magister: New page: ==Player Characters== Colin James Small Purple Cat

==Player Characters==

[[Colin James]]

[[Small Purple Cat]]