Time Watch

6 December 2014: 9am: Time Watch

This was an adventure using the Time Watch Gumshoe rules in a Lovecraftian frame. We would get stitches (bennie points) for good roleplaying and clever ideas, but not for being funny (as in normal Time Watch). My notes also say: "(sim, not Bill & Ted preparedness)" but I forget what that meant.

• GM: Kevin Kulp
• Me: Miss Calliope Hannaford
• Sara: Dr. Kate Attridge
• ???: Det. Carl Shattock
• ???: Professor
• Jason Hill: Jeremy Thorncraft
• Michael S: Gaither Hunington-Wade

The PCs were members of the Society of the Silver Key. Each of us had our own way of handling time travel when it was clear that the world was changing. The usual way, I think, was to go into a special room in the society's Lodge, but sometimes, one couldn't get there in time.

Dr. Attridge had a key to the Lodge a week before going there. The basement was a room with no corners. She rushed there when the world changed. Sure, she _could_ do the ritual from anywhere, but the Lodge was safest, as it had no corners. It kept out the Hounds of Tindalos, you know.

Right Now:

The Professor was giving a Sociology lecture on unusual cultures in South America.

Professor: ... and of course, none of you have done the reading!

I think the professor was a woman, 5 feet tall, with graying red hair and horn rimmed glasses.

Thorncraft was drinking. A Martini. In bed.

Alfred: Your breakfast, Sir.

Thorncraft: Thank you, Alfred. Please send our guest home.

GM: He or she?

Thorncraft's Player: One of both.

Alfred: I have already brought them down to the kitchen to feed them and send them on their way.

Someone, probably Thorncraft: I am _never_ mussed.

Gaither was in his antiques shop, mildly disheveled. No one else had been in there for a week. Dusting makes no difference, as the dust just moves around.

Cat: Mreow!

Gaither had frizzy gray hair, always disheveled. He was in his mid-70s, had reading glasses, and tweed pads. He was a misanthrope with a Pillar of Sanity about how nasty the world was. If anyone had been genuinely kind to him, with nothing whatsoever to gain, that might have shattered his pillar.

Calliope was dreaming about being in a grave, with bodies piled up on top of her and maggots.

The doctor was in surgery, with interns. She was prematurely grey.

Carl, the detective was sitting at his kitchen table, staring longingly at a bottle of bootlegged whiskey.

GM: You should have been at work half an hour ago.

Carl: That's why I'm sitting here.

GM: Is the cap on the bottle?

Carl: _This_ one.

He looked at the light through the bottle, then put his head down on table. He couldn't solve a series of seemingly unconnected robberies.

Carl was 6'4", starting to go bald. He had a big bushy mustache and walked with a limp, having been wounded in the Great War, in France.

Then, the Call came -- the realization that something in the past had changed and was rippling in the past. The PCs knew that they had 15-30 minutes before it affected them.

The professor hastily gathered up her papers, dismissing the class.

Student: But Professor -- you were going to tell us what's going to be on tomorrow's test!

Professor: It will be a surprise!

Thorncraft: Get me a Martini AND a Bloody Mary!

With those in hand, he headed for the Lodge.

Gaither: Again! It never ends! The world still doesn't know how <illegible -- probably something on the order of "doomed"> it could be. I can't imagine it getting any worse.

Just then, a couple came to his shop.

Woman: Oh, look, dear, an antique shop. Let's go in!

Man: You're not closed, are you?

Gaither: No -- no, I'm not.

Woman: It's a bit dusty.

Gaither: It's authentic.

I think Calliope started walking to the Lodge, as there was no bus.

Someone (I think on spotting her): Filthy flappers!

Dr. Attridge commandeered an ambulance.

Carl set out three tins of cat food.

Carl: I'll be back.

At the antique shop, I think the couple dithered, but eventually settled on a walking stick? Possibly with forceful help from Gaither. Once they left, he hastily went to his spherical carriage room, Victorian, Cinderella style. Why yes, he had a carriage in the basement, and it was what let him travel in time when he couldn't get to the Lodge.

Calliope and Jeremy Thorncraft made it to the Lodge.

Jeremy Thorncraft (to Calliope): Why we haven't had sex yet, I don't know.

Calliope's Player: I probably haven't noticed [Thorncraft's interest].

GM (to Calliope): Hey, that butler guy -- he probably thinks you're kind of cute.

GM (to Dr. Attridge): It looks as if town behind you disappears. Probably an optical illusion -- it's over a hill, but there's a sense of isolation. And the road is rutted road, though it's usually well paved.

As the doctor approached the Lodge, things changed again.

GM: As you look for the road behind, now there's nothing there -- just a trail.

The professor and the detective arrived at the Lodge. Inside were six rounded coffins. The five Lodge members who'd arrived hastily got in, while Gaither closed himself into his carriage. Everyone except Calliope's player rolled a D6.

• Gaither: 3
• Thorncraft: 1
• Professor: My notes say 3, then 5. I am not sure why. Maybe it was because we weren't supposed to get duplicates? If so, that might have been why I didn't need to roll for Calliope.
• Detective: 3 But, in that case, why didn't this player need to reroll? Or did I typo, and the player actually got a 2?
• Doctor: 4
• Calliope: No need to roll.

I am guessing that this roll was what determined which body each PC would wake up in at the crucial point in time.

GM: Detective Shattock, you open your eyes.

The detective found himself in the body of a young woman, very well dressed. He / she was in a small room with a cramped bunk and dresser. The floor and walls were made of wood, and there was a round window. There were no knickknacks in the room.

Carl walked to the window and looked out --

-- onto water. The reasonably sized waves told Carl that he / she was on a ship, not a smaller boat. Wide water. This was probably a 14th century sailing vessel, from what the detective could see and deduce, likely a French vessel.

Carl: I speak French from having served in the war.

GM: Modern French.

The body Carl was in was in her late teens. Carl found a silver brush and travel papers.

The professor and Calliope found themselves beggars, crouched behind crates, hungry, small, and looking out at the docks. The professor found herself in the body of a man in his late 20s, losing bits of hair in clumps. Calliope was in the body of an 8-year-old boy.

Professor (I think): I -- wish you'd brought the lavender.

As far as they could tell, this not having been their first trip through time, they were in the British Isles in the mid-14th century. Further cautious investigation revealed that they were in England. Specifically, they were at the harbour in Weymouth, which was on the way to Cornwall.

A ship was pulling into the port, the one with the detective on board. It also had Thorncraft, who discovered himself in the body of the ship's captain.

Woman: I want to thank you again, Captain.

Thorncraft: Oh, absolutely! Tell me more.

My notes say that there was something bulging, squirming and moving, under an eyelid. I'm not sure whose eyelid this was, the captain's, the woman's, or the teenager whose body the detective was in. That body belonged to Vivienne, who had a fiance waiting.

Gaither was in the body of an old woman, a widow with no children, who ran a bustling shop. There were 10-15 people inside, purchasing provisions for outgoing ships.

So, Calliope, the Professor, Carl, Thorncraft, and Gaither. That left Dr. Attridge, who was wearing a uniform and heard someone clanging on bars.

Prisoner: Let me out! What are you doing?

The doctor was in the body of the person who was head of the watch.

GM: The constables work for you.

Fortunately, some, perhaps all, of the time travelers knew a locator spell. Gaither, who learned that his / her name in this time was Agnes, I think was the first person to cast it, using thread and button.

Thorncraft was offered wine, I think.

Thorncraft: French wine? (realizes) This body is not yet drunk!

Vivienne / Carl made excuses to her older companion for a possible slip up.

Vivienne / Carl: It's this voyage. I'm just not myself.

Her companion, Yasmin, I think, had a French accent, but with something else in the mix as well.

Captain / Thorncraft (I think, to Yasmin and Vivienne): Every day, I wake up and I'm a new man,

My notes say that it required "Pot / Stability" to access the memories of the bodies the PCs were using. I'm guessing that meant a Stability test.

Someone (I think to Thorncraft, I think the GM): You might have been hallucinating color.

Me: Your body was sober.

Thorncraft's Player: Yes, but my _mind_ is never sober.

I think Gaither, the Doctor, the Professor, and Calliope found each other, and someone, possibly Gaither, wasn't happy with how those in beggars' bodies smelled.

Calliope: You can still get a nosegay -- we're not the only smelly things in town.

My notes are confusing at this point:

Cos Dis(?): "I was looking for some charitable work to do" (- G -) Stab test -- made it!

Charge / 1 pt for even deciding to make the test

I have no idea what was going on there or what kind of test got made.

I think Thorncraft and Carl were spending Stability, perhaps to make the equivalent of a Cthulhu Mythos Spend? Perhaps not. But, someone, at this point, at least some folks realized a little of what was going on.

Yasmin was Yug of Yug and Neb, the Twin Blasphemies, who were in a monstrous incestuous relationship with each other. Their passion was directly related to death and disease around them.

I think Thorncraft / the Captain, Carl / Vivienne, and Yasmin / Yug were having a meal together in Weymouth. And, at some point, I think Carl and Thorncraft were able to talk privately with each other.

Thorncraft: I totally understand. She's rotting, she's probably dead, please have some wine.

Carl: We need to be focused.

Thorncraft: I am totally focused on this wine.

Carl: We need to save the world.

Thorncraft: That's why we're here.

Carl: I... have some wine.

Later:

Carl: Give me that wine!

Somewhere along the line, someone realized that Neb had given gifts to humanity, deadly gifts. Neb had taught humanity to use canons to fling diseased corpses over city walls.

At some point, Carl / Vivienne was in her room in an inn, I think, and I think needed to escape, which wasn't hard, as Yasmin didn't think Vivienne was anyone other than a sick young woman coming to England from France, so didn't expect her to climb out the window. There may or may not have been some kind of minor skirmish with some kind of creature, given my notes:

Thorncraft: Do you feel strong enough to engage with the demon hell creature again?

Carl: It's the right thing to do.

Or possibly that came later. Thorncraft impressed the innkeeper.

Innkeeper: Put bread around meat like that? That's brilliant! What's your name, Captain?

Captain Weyman / Jeremy Thorncraft: Weyman.

Innkeeper: Well, then, we'll call it a Weyman.

Meanwhile, a man calling himself Nathaniel Bullein was telling beggars, such as the ones in whose bodies Calliope and the Professor were, that they could come to a prayer meeting of some kind where they would be fed. Nathaniel, folks figured out, was Neb.

All the PCs showed up at the meeting, some more openly than others, I think. And if I read my notes correctly, there was either a Rat King or an invocation to a Rat King. Certainly, there was an invocation to darkness outside and things that crawl within. Nathaniel probably was the one making the invocation, possibly getting the beggars to say it, possibly not -- they might have been too busy eating. Yasmin may or may not have been there as well. I think she was, but I'm not sure.

This was obviously the place where the time travelers needed to act, and combat broke out. Kevin explained that the initiative was that the person who acts picks the next person to act, handing the player the Chrono Lobster to signify whose turn it would be.

GM: Time Watch does not come with its own Chrono Lobster.

Ah well.

GM: Pass the Chrono Lobster first; then take your action. This lets the next person think about his action.

I don't recall most of the details, but the beggars started stampeding away. Thorndike saved Carl, who saved Thorndike in return. Thorndike decided to kiss Carl, who was, after all, in Vivienne's body.

Either Carl or Thorndike: That's the least of my troubles.

If Thorndike was the one who said it, that's because Vivienne's body had the Black Death, and it's not as if Thorndike planned on staying in the captain's body much longer. If it was Carl, it was because he was being kissed by Thorndike.

GM: Still -- take an additional point of Stability.

Thorndike's Player (to Professor's Player): See what happens when you _don't_ kill me.

I'm guessing from that line that the professor was tempted, but Thorndike had done something useful.

Calliope used Reassurance to stop the stampede and make sure the beggars got outside (I think?) without trampling each other to death.

Calliope: It's okay -- it's raining.

And the change reverted. People would be dying soon, of course, but it could have been worse.

GM (to Carl's player): It would have been so much worse if you'd been in that circle -- _so_ much worse. You [i. e., Vivienne] had Black Plague.

In this scenario, Vivienne was the one who first brought the Black Plague to England. I gather it is supposed to have started in Weymouth Harbour, in the mid-14th Century. Yug and Neb were trying to spread the plague, basically killing off all of humanity. I think that in the worst case scenario, wherever their feet touched the ground, people would die.

Carl (no doubt speaking for all of the group): I've had quite enough of this century.