From Russia With Love
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.
