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| [[Celestial Mechanic Part Two]] | | [[Celestial Mechanic Part Two]] |
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| Part Two of The Celestial Mechanic
| | [[Deadlands: Dark Man Comes]] |
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| I wasn't sure I'd make this, as I was trying to give blood. (This was a clever ploy: You give blood, doing a Worthy Deed, and you get 10 Experience for your Nexus character. You get this even if you are turned down for giving blood.) While being tested for problems, I saw Josh, who was in the process of giving. This made my stomach flop, and it didn't help to see someone else get his blood tested. But I managed to stay psyched up, figuring I was already nauseated and nervous, so it wasn't going to get any worse, and I could always ask for a blindfold.
| | [[World of Darkness: Kid Fears]] |
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| I assured Bob I already had my character worked out, and went to fill out the paperwork only to discover I was ineligible for a very odd reason: I had recently stopped taking medicine for Athlete's Foot. This meant I didn't have it with me, so I couldn't tell the people what I'd been taking. Since I'd only stopped taking it three days ago, they didn't want to risk my giving blook without knowing what it was. Feeling mildly guilty at feeling rather relieved, I went back to Bob's game and filled out a character sheet.
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| I decided to create the shaman who's turned Page Turner into a Raven. The shaman was Looks Far. (Air 3, Fire 2, Earth 2, Water 7, Water Magic 6: Talk to Spirits, Sense Stuff, things like that. Virtue: Inspiration Flaw: Summer Reversed - Exhaustion Fate: War: Great Effort vs. Effort Misspent)
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| Josh recreated his little girl Asks Many Questions who could transform things, but only into what they could become, ie, the gm had veto power. Grey Gyre and Amber were there as well. Eugene was playing Tagalong, an apparently simple farmer who was far more than he seemed, though in some ways, still quite simple. He wanted a new name, since Tagalong was a child's name, but no one in his village felt up to giving him one. (in fact, terrified by his strength, they asked him to leave.)
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| There was a woman who did fire magic, and a man called Falcon. There was King Howl, a vain, but utterly honest man. When Howl didn't know something, he said, "I haven't the faintest idea." This became a game quote, written on his character's nametag. Amber's was "Sweet Sisters, what did I do to deserve this?", something he'd asked quite frequently in the previous session. (The Sisters were the five fates, and at one point in that session, Amber decided that he must have offended all of them at once.) Finally, there was a giant who could blend into the scenery, since he looked a lot like a giant rock.
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| This made nine Heroes, and, hence, nine players, a bit much. I suspect Bob should have hardened his heart and turned some of us away. Then again, Josh pointed out that everyone seemed to have enough to do, although I don't know what happened to Falcon's player for much of the game.
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| To recap: We wanted to find out why the stars were vanishing. Six were now gone, and there was panic in Everway. We knew that there was a story of a Star Thief, who'd gotten pinned to the star he'd tried to destroy by a lad called Farmer's Son. The star thief wanted to drink the star's essence to become immortal.
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| This tale was found in the Glorious Empire, and read by one Determination Garrison, who'd returned there a year ago, hoping to see the land before he died. We instantly suspected him of being involved in the disappearing stars, again to Bob's dismay, as we were correct.
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| Garrison had also figured out that the gate leading to the stars was in the realm of Forevernight, a realm reached only from the realm known as Memory. So, we headed to Memory, and what I thought was a long digression, but it turned out that we moved more rapidly than we might have, and I think more successfully.
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| Memory is a dull place, where people trade artifacts of their ancestors, but make nothing new. Very depressing place. We hired a guide and traded some artifacts. Looks Far offered to trade his bone flute, but Amber told him not to, as that had much more value to the shaman than to the people of Memory. Amber traded some gadget that he knew would quickly break down, and he hastily gathered the others, including Looks Far who had gotten into a fascinating, if depressing, discussion about the local legends with the older folk (not played out, just background). Amber stressed that they had to leave Now.
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| Their guide lead them to a bridge which was the site of a famous battle. As in most such battles, the peasants died in huge numbers.
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| Unfortunately, the villagers did not want the Heroes to cross the bridge. It seemed that they'd recently found a valuable artifact, a sword of real iron. Now, this village, West Village, had an arrangement with the village across the bridge, East Village, to split the profits of anything found. But the sword was gone, and the two guards posted on the bridge by the west villagers were slain, and the villagers blamed the East Village, and wanted us to help them fight the East Village.
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| Looks Far suggested talking to the spirits of the dead guards, but that didn't go over well. Things got loud and chaotic - on the player level. I don't know if we were all shouting or if the acoustics were just bad. Eugene, Josh, and the guy who played the small hill decided that their characters would go off and talk to the East Villagers, something I'd rather hoped Looks Far could do. But, as Ken pointed out, once the others had left, there was no way the aged shaman could catch up to them. So, I took advantage of this to run to the bathroom and catch up on my A&E. Amber got into a rather odd and disturbing (to Looks Far) discussion with an increasingly drunken Grey Gyre about letting the villages fight as a test case for the Fate vs. Destiny thing.
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| Meanwhile, Asks Many Questions decided, for some reason, to change the shape of a tree in the East Village. The East Villagers were not pleased and wanted to chase her away, but she refused to leave, and they weren't up to killing a little girl with a Winnisome Smile (or somesuch - her 0-point power). So, Tagalong went to fetch Looks Far, for his great wisdom, and, I suspect, to get me into the action. (I sorta felt guilty about that, but I didn't want a return to total chaos just yet.)
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| Looks Far confirmed that the tree was unharmed, and tried to explain, without success, that, for whatever reason, the tree liked its new shape. The villagers decided that they'd stopped Asks Many Questions just in time. She hid behind Looks Far, who decided not to push the point.
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| Sure enough, the East Villagers had murdered guards too, and they blamed the West Villagers. They agreed to let Looks Far talk to spirits. He learned that there were old, evil, powerful spirits around, getting stronger, feeding off malice. The villagers knew at once what these were - ghuls.
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| Looks Far stayed in East Village, which the others returned to West Village to tell everyone what they'd learned.
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| Tagalong: Ghuls.
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| West Villager (correcting him): No, ghuls.
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| This lead to an amusing digression where everyone argued over the correct pronunciation.
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| Firemage: Okay, let's go! (Her head drops to the table, as she's been drinking quite a bit)
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| Bob (realizing that two characters are dead drunk): Wow. I've never had the heroes get drunk -before- the battle.
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| Amber whipped up a hangover cure, and we all headed for the bridge. The people from both villages met, and the ghuls were fought. This was our first clue that Tagalong was far more than he seemed, as he battled ferociously, not at all hampered by Looks Far on one shoulder and Asks Many Questions on the other. Asks Many Questions dubbed him Goat Guy.
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| So, the villagers made peace and the ghuls were defeated, but the sword was gone. The villagers accepted this stoically, and the spherewalkers went over the bridge and through the gate to Forevernight.
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| The people of Forevernight had glow-in-the-dark freckles, so we used phosphorescent paint to simulate this. Why? They drove out all spherewalkers, convinced they were demons. Amber and Looks Far went to the temple where the gate to the stars was, in the spot where Star Father, whom we correctly guessed to be Farmer's Son, and Star Mother, whom we incorrectly guessed to be his love (they were not contemporaries, but their legends had merged) had stepped upon the earth, or something like that. While we scouted, the others were given the simple job of finding a place to stay.
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| Alas, they botched that, and soon had a mob on their heels. We took advantage of that to rush into the temple, as everyone was rushing out of it. Tagalong held off the mob while the other heroes ran and were collected by Amber, doubling back into the temple. To Tagalong's horror, Grey Gyre stayed behind to watch him fight. Tagalong made him promise to tell no one what he'd seen, and he agreed, baffled.
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| We all rushed through the gate, forgetting that one is supposed to wait at least a week or so after going through one gate to go through another (or the same one again), so we were all in agony. Then, Bob called the players over, one by one, to another table, in the order in which their characters had come through the gate. With sadistic glee, he described what we found: A narrow, icy ledge, frigid cold, our heads pounding, our stomach in knots, a sheer drop -- and more people about to come through the gate.
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| We huddled on the ledge, shuffling down, then moving up a long long trail. Amber healed the people near him, forgetting to heal himself. Tagalong climbed up the cliff, picking up Looks Far, Asks Many Questions, and a few others. Yes, carrying them all on his shoulders, quite easily, while climbing up a sheer cliff. (Fire score of 9, I think.)
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| This was a strange place, where the sun shone up at us, and the clouds were thick. Tagalong called loudly for his father, Ares, but there was no response. King Howl laid a hand on his shoulder, while Looks Far, supposedly the sensitive guy, urged everyone to hurry.
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| (This is one of the tradeoffs of Everway. If you let the players create their own heroes, you get a lot of fun stuff you hadn't planned on. But this can drag the plot to a halt. Or, you can be trying to chew the scenery while the rest of the players insist on moving on. Eugene was lucky in that no one else had created a character with the same sort of angst and the scenario was almost designed to deal with that angst. But I could see the game being disasterous if we'd all created characters with similar slants. It's odd, but we were a very diverse group, with a fair range of abilities, despite having an utterly free hand in character creation.)
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| We reached the top, where we found a strange ship capable of sailing among the stars. Using one of the many silver poles, we pushed the ship off, and found ourselves in a part of the sky where now nine stars were wrapped in a strange web which was occupied by nine glowing golden six-limbed creatures. We also found the star to which the Star Thief had been pinned - with a silver spear that looked exactly like one of our polse - and Looks Far sensed anger, regret, and pain from him. Tagalong and King Howl wanted to free Star Thief. Looks Far was uncertain, but the others refused. Gradually, we figured out that if we pinned each of the Shining Ones to a star, the stars would be healed.
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| Tagalong didn't like this idea, since it meant the creatures would be in pain, but Looks Far sensed that this was absolutely the right thing to do, and he told Tagalong that the gods were cruel in such matters. What we didn't realize was that the Shining Ones were no mere insects or natural creatures, but humans who had transformed themselves by drinking the essence of the stars. If we'd known that, we'd have been a lot less concerned about making them suffer.
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| As it was, Looks Far was very concerned about Tagalong, since he seemed to empathize with the pain of each and every Shining One he pinnned to a star, and yes, Tagalong did do the pining. He was the only one strong enough, although as I recal, Amber and King Howl were able to wound one of the creatures long enough for Tagalong to throw a second spear at it after his first had missed. Here, Bob cut the spearthrowing short, as we were nearly an hour over schedule, and just ruled that yes, eventually, we'd get them all.
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| We went back from the stars to meet Star Father, who was greatful, but said that someone else would have to take his place to protect the stars, since he was old. We all looked at Tagalong, who had long since decided that he was not returning with us, no matter what, since he didn't think he was human. Tagalong agreed, but asked for a name.
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| Star Father: They will call you Star Father, just as they called me.
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| (Bob later said that he should have been called something else, Protector, or Care Giver.)
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| Amber asked whether Fate or Chance ruled, and Star Father said he'd seen no evidence of Destiny one way or the other. The heroes, sans Tagalong, returned to discover three things. First, their skin now glows, just like the skin of the natives of Forevernight. Second, they age at a tenth of the normal rate, a boon indeed to old Looks Far, but something that will cause great annoyance to Asks Many Questions when she gets to be 28 and is still treated as if she were 11. Third, Raven caught up with everyone to tell them he'd learned what they needed to know from Listens to Stars -- a bit late in the game!
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| Bob emailed me the scenario, and, as with The Fisher of Souls, it's a very interesting experience to read it. In both cases, Bob planned for at least one more encounter than the characters had, and in this case, there were several extra encounters we were able to skip. It's also interesting to see how the encounters we did have were described, since they were handled quite differently, giving me a good chance to see a gm adapting his plans on the spot. Specifically, the whole East-West Village plot changed once Looks Far talked to spirits, and Bob had the sense to cut short what was intended to be an Epic Battle with the Shining Ones.
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| I don't think I'll use Raven or Looks Far again soon. I'd rather revive Finder. But I'm glad I used them for these adventures, and I am still wondering if Looks Far should send Raven to the new Star Father and if Star Father would be glad of the company. Bob was curious to know why Looks Far would do this. Several reasons: Star Father might get lonely. He might need to send a message calling for help. He might turn evil. (Unlikely, but possible.) Last, but by no means least, Raven can fly back and forth, learning from Star Father and teaching Looks Far - after all, the reason Looks Far put Page Turner's spirit in a bird is that he wanted to learn new mystical lore.
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| Josh is likely to play Asks Many Questions again. She is now a glow-in-the-dark oh-so-slowly aging kid.
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| Deadlands
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| The game I really wanted to get into on Saturday evening was Dark Man Comes, a Deadlands game. This had all six slots filled, plus six alternates already signed up. I figured that I didn't have a chance.
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| Anywhere but a Dreamation or Dexcon, that would probably be true. However, at Dreamation and Dexcon, both run by the same people, it costs nothing to sign up for a game, so people will sign up for a whole bunch of things in the same slot, and only sign up for one of them. So, while I was trying to figure out if I should join Save Weird Tales or Uncle's Lodge, both CoC games, the man who was the 6th alternate for the Deadlands game found me, and said that none of the original players had shown, and he seemed to be the only Official Alternate, so if I wanted to play, I probably could. I followed him, astonished.
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| I played Virgil Cross, a member of a posse that fights the evil things of the Deadlands world. We had a Mad Scientist (of uncertain gender, played by the gm's SO, I think - I gather that a couple of players were in his regular game with the same characters), a walking dead man, a nun, an undertaker who wielded a mean shovel and who was a child of the Raven, and a somewhat pious man whose name I forget. We all headed into a small village to take shelter from the storm and soon found ourselves in charge of the saloon when the woman who ran it died after realizing that her kid sister had vanished, taken by the Dark Man.
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| After a lot of spookiness -- the gm, Jason Knizley, managed a beautiful tightrope walk on that fine line between building tension and building boredom -- we started to put the pieces together.
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| During one terrible winter, a priest lost his fath and made a deal with Dark Forces to provide food. In return, the Dark Man would take away whomever he chose. After a person vanished, there was always food. This had been going on for forty years, and the original priest was walled up in his church. I don't know why. He might have told us, and he might have repented, but the nun put her cross on him and he burned up.
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| We fought off skeletons, and, after a brief break for an annoying firealarm (confronted by players, not pcs), we cornered the Dark Man, a minor demon, on a hill, and we used faith and bullets to destroy him, or at least banish him. I was delighted to get a chance to finally see the Deadlands rules in action. I wonder how much the gm streamlined them since it was nowhere near as complicated as the game's detractors would have me believe. I'd very much like to play again.
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| Then I went up to where the card games were and got drafted by Josh into a tournament for Lunch Money. It is downright surreal to hear grown adults who are usually more or less civilized chanting children's taunts in unison as the cards are dealt out. The judge told us he wanted to hear yelling. Then, one of the hotel liason people told us to keep it down. I really don't know why the card games weren't moved down to the lobby where they wouldn't be in close proximity to people who wanted to sleep.
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| This leaves one more game write up from the con which I hope to have in my zine next month.
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