It's been a good adventure

The party decides to go to Ravenia, by way of Castor. In Castor there's a church with a partially collapsed floor. This eventually leads to us taking down the city's mayor slash undead monstrosity, and stopping a ritual to bring a lindworm through a magical portal. Deadorna kindly offered to put him out of his misery as an alternative to being sent back into some kind of hell dimension, but the lindworm took offense ... and was sent back, for possibly someone else to deal with in another couple of hundred years time.

In the woods we later came across Mother Elsana and the Night Lady. Elindra removed a cursed gem from a corpse, and as the Ordo Magica would only paw it off to someone else anyway, she buries it in an undisclosed location.

In Ravenia Valgai meets a friend, Teig, in a pub. (Teig as a character will be joining us going forward, replacing Valgai.) Murmei does a lot of research and is stopped from going to investigate a hubbub outside Ordo Magica in the middle of the night. His sister doesn't seem to think it's a smart move to get involved when people are out to potentially murder you? The hubbub turned out to be a whole family getting killed by a giant spider. Kind of like the one Elindra has as a familiar - except she was a few hours north of Ravenia at that point. Someone's setting her up?

Blame it on the fiancée

We were essentially mostly fighting in these sessions. First of all we went to a tannery, and after some long stairs there was bad magic surrounding good magic and an abomination clinging to the ceiling. There was a hole in the floor.

We later had to go interrupt a ritual in the big hole in the ground, among the subterranean crystals ... and fought some more stuff. Cultists and abominations, oh myyy!

We're pretty good at fighting. No one's died yet. Touch wood. We also had to lug an ox head out of there and reunite it with its body? Or we returned it to there. Something like that. It was months ago now. 😆

This got spicy real fast

Lottie and Frankie continue their discussion about what happened while they split the party. Lottie then explains to Angela why Frankie can't take her out on a date, and her reaction leads the players to surmise that a certain crush might actually be reciprocated. She also gives strict orders about which Kindred are allowed inside the house, i.e. definitely not Charlotte.

In this week's "ghouls acting kinda weird": Angela gives Frankie's neck a funny look.

The Commissioner of Plants and Buildings in Brooklyn is apparently excited about the Brooklyn Bridge building works, which are taking place during daylight hours and begun the same day that the three cousins were Embraced.

Frankie meets Val to discuss plans, how Val needs to talk to his police contacts to find out everything he can about the hits on Red Hook. This turned into a more personal conversation between the two cousins, where Val finds their new lifestyle to suit him very well, but he notes that Frankie might never get used to it - as highlighted by Val, who had brought them a couple of women to snack on, was busy sweet-talking his before biting, whereas Frankie apologised to his.

Val, it turns out, is worried about the situation between Lottie and Charlotte. That the air gets frosty when Charlotte is mentioned around Lottie is one thing, but it also seems to be happening the other way around ... However, if it comes down to it, he's on his cousins' side. He also kindly offered to stake Jeanine for Frankie. So thoughtful!

Meanwhile, because of the lack of a phone in the Manhattan residence, Julius says he's getting a new place, which will have a telephone. He's confident he can get that house tonight ... because he wasn't planning on paying for it. The family living there are mindwhammied into submission, will be great at answering the phone and taking messages and acting as snacks. Plus, he's just given Lottie a family, which she's never truly had. It's incredibly romantic - and sexy. They can totally take time out for a bit of bedroom fun, despite previously telling a certain cousin that there's absolutely no time for anything other than business right now.

Left brooding after Val's heart-to-heart, Frankie asks Benny to arrange a flower delivery for Angela. In a further doubling down on his humanity, backed up by dice, instead of driving to Theo, he thinks about happy childhood memories and somehow ends up outside Golconda Park. All sounds and all lights around him fade out, spooking him and making him return to the car, handing a passing drunk some spare change in the process.

So in a strange turn of events, Val might actually become a sort of bridge between two cousins who are clearly heading in opposite directions on the morality scale.

 

I love your lack of self-confidence

The gang (sans Elindra) go to see Nightpitch. They leave a message then get to meet him in person, to discuss the recent events. Valgai then speaks to Yagaba, the chief witch. Always good to speak to people.

Elindra also speaks to someone, but my notes literally only say "someone", so whatcha gonna do?

We decide the Templars need murdering, because of course they do. It's like a thing, right? Can we burn down the Winged Ladle Inn and plant a heretical book there? And some fake bronze tablets? Because that would work out pretty well, or so we think.

Valgai also gets to torture a cultist, so everyone got to have some fun. Especially as it was suggested Elindra pretends to be a hooker, but her hooker talk was along the lines of calling people "dearie" so she sounded more like a grandma than the 17-year-old she actually is. It was weird.

We go to a land down under

We descend into the big sink hole! Therein, we encounter really big creatures, and the cave floor has a lovely mosaic pattern, which is a bit unexpected of a cave system. Seems like the tiles are Symbaroum-related, so someone's clearly behind this. It's not just a coincidence.

We also come across what appears to be a mushroom plantation, guard lizards, and spirit people in the water where there's an island of crystals. It would be beautiful if it wasn't so terrifying and deadly at the same time.

The prettiest Arch Enemy in the land

The first session I forgot to note down what we were doing, but it's fair to say it contained the licking of wounds in the aftermath of fighting all the things that were coming up through that hole. Possibly even fighting more of the same.

The second session, Elsiosi turned up being very concerned about Murmei. I think it was suggested everyone should pretend he died in the attack to get her to go away, but ... that didn't happen.

We decided we wanted to be the ones to go down the hole on an expedition. We're brave heroes, right? We are clearly best suited for the job! Which is also the reason we give Ordo Magica when we go to ask them permission to go down there. They make us take some old, scary-looking wizard with us.

Funnily enough, Elsiosi didn't fancy joining us down the hole. Sucks to be her?

Rolling a double 20 is very 2020

So, there's a massive hole in the ground in Thistlehold. There are things coming out of that hole, and we fight them. They keep coming back with more friends. And then there's a wizard abomination thing, and that's not good - especially when neither Hairy Dog nor Yahana are with us. They were kept out of the city because a giant spider and a (sort of) tame kotka are a bit ... eye-catching.

In the middle of the fight, a nice double 20 (it was 2020 at the time, after all) ensured Murmei's bowstring snapped. Things continued along those lines. Deadorna very nearly died in the fight. Fortunately, it turned out that a counterspell was useful, because that wizard had a big Corruption cloud, and let's not?

Finally some Templars showed up to help, but there's still a bunch of Corruption boiling up from that hole in the ground, so things aren't exactly looking fabulous, shall we say?

Let's go find a victim!

The cousins went to Harlem to pick up Valenti from Ellie, who wanted an introduction to the Camarilla court in return? Julius said he'll mention her name, but he never said anything about the introduction being friendly. Having bagged Valenti, he now needed to be delivered to the Prince somehow.

We heard back from our contact in the city planning office and discover that the Brooklyn Bridge was entirely shut for vehicle traffic the same night the cousins were Embraced. Coincidence?

Lottie was shown by Julius how to hunt, as she hadn't actually had to hunt by herself before. It was, uh, memorable, and both of them seemed more interested in snacking on the other than on Kine ...

While the two of them were away, a weirdly expressionless and non-descript guy introducing himself as "John Smith" from the CHOMBRA Corporation came by to do a "transaction". It was not the Prince in disguise, but some aura-less part automaton. He was bundled into the boot as a bonus present for the Prince, who was very pleased. He commended the cousins on being so quick on giving him Valenti. John Smith, upon seeing the Prince, finally had a facial expression: abject terror. Which is fair.

At the Met, Theo introduced Frankie to some welcoming Brujah, and then took Lottie up on her offer of having his disgust lowered for the evening.

Val greeted his sire with a bouquet of roses, so it looked like they were planning on meeting up all along, even though she hadn't invited him to Elysium (but at least she'd been asking about him, so there is that).

Lottie and Julius spotted Jeanine on her own, looking like she was waiting for someone - and that someone obviously not being Frankie. She didn't seem too bothered about basically everyone else snubbing her (something that has been known to reduce a Harpy to tears) and she seemed ... excited?

I've been trying to get disowned for years!

The weird thing here is that my first note from this session reads: "Spider god: GTFO." I can't remember if this was us encountering a spider god, meaning we need to GTFO; or if it was a spider god telling us to GTFO; or if it was a spider god actually hiding in that hill that people were trying to dig up, and therefore that's why we should all GTFO and stop digging. I think my personal RAM is on the fritz.

People are leaving the camp now, at any rate, and we suggested the powers that be that they should go to where Erdugald was, but beware the murder hornets ...

Murmei practiced making leather armour so he can make snakeskin armour for Deadorna once he gets enough XP to get Blacksmith at Adept, because the armour will be a lot better then. His sister is considering making him fancy ink to write with as a thank you.

In the end we bricked up the bit where people had got closest to breaking through to the thing inside the hill, so we can leave the place and the barbarian tribes can ward anyone off from getting too close. A job well done, we think!

Ain't no such thing as civil Ambrians!

Well, my notes for these two sessions are ... scant. It was months ago. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There was a spirit boar the size of an elephant. It had something stuck in it. This was removed ... but maybe that was a later session?

The place (or the pub?) was called Salindra's Hope and someone wanted 200 thaler to make sure "things don't escalate". Bit steep? Unless we were the ones being offered it? Who knows, months ago. Hrm.

Murmei sort of accused the innkeeper of murder by proxy. This didn't go down well.

"Stuff?" XD

We did warn you about him

We saw an ogre stepping away from a big fire, leaving behind an alchemical parchment. Is this a thing? There were hungry wild boars and big crowds and the ogre turned out to be the sheriff.

Deadorna can turn into a kotka, and two kotkas playing meant they spilled ink. Murmei wasn't happy.

We found the elf we were looking for. There was much suspicion all around.

Descriptions are kinda difficult three months after the game. *cough*

I'll pretend I didn't just Google that

There was a lot angst, angst and more angst in this session, because of the thing we learned the previous session and how we couldn't discuss it with Julius. On the plus side, Frankie's BFF Benny got to make his first appearance!

We talked to Julius about our weird chaos dreams. Turns out Lottie is having Norse mythology dreams, Val is having Greek mythology dreams, and Frankie Egyptian mythology. We were advised to keep the dreams going as long as possible to learn as much as possible.

Lottie and Val went to place a call at a phone box, which was essentially the two of them arguing for half-hour IRL. After which, we cut to another half-hour of Julius and Frankie having a chat involving discussing if relatives of vampires are somehow protected by default - because Frankie would be very concerned about the Manganos obviously and it totally has nothing at all to do with those two ghouled relatives of Julius Charlotte showed us last session. No way, no how, no siree. #smooth Then they awkwardly had a talk about ghouls in general (because of Benny), and being in love with Angela - at which point Julius botched a roll and somehow got the impression that Lottie and Angela were lesbian lovers?!?

Why did I end up with a fucking monster as a sire?!

Val and Frankie waited for Marco, who turned up with a couple of cabaret girls ... and turned out to be very keen on blood. He ... he might have become a blood junkie already?

Julius was finally introduced to AltLottie ...

I have a note that legit says "Frankie awkwardly having The Talk with Lottie" which I think refers to how she's a big girl now, and ... well, she's a vampire now, so not like she can get pregnant.

We met up with Charlotte at a house that contained ghouls gone wrong. She introduced us to two teenage ghouls who are alleged descendants of Julius, but that Jeanine has been keeping them as bait to see if Julius would break the Masquerade - because she’s pissed off with him spurning her a century ago. We don't know if this is genuine or not, but that's the explanation we were given. Lottie was very freaked out.

So, how can we plot to get Jeanine out of the picture without triggering Julius, or killing anyone - and making sure Frankie isn't on the line considering Jeanine is his sire.

Do we have dinner coming to dinner?

We wanted to go on a raid against the White Hand warehouse, but realised we were way outgunned. Genius idea - go to a hotel and borrow their phone and call the cops on the warehouse (because that's totally how the mafia do things ... we've realised much later when we found their code of conduct on Wikipedia). Then we just had to sit back and wait for the cops to bring the numbers down to a better level.

While doing this Frankie also received relationship advice from his cousins. Lottie's advice might have been slightly better than Val's, who was very matter-of-fact and didn't actually address the problem:

"How do I talk to her? You're good with dames, what do I say to her?"
"Well, if you want a girlfriend, she's technically the only and/or logical option. So good for you."
"... Uh ... thanks?"

At least Lottie suggested getting Angela a present, maybe a really fancy bottle of wine that could be used for when she ghouls her. The fanciest bottle available was swiftly requisitioned from the restaurant where we had camped out, and it was WELL fancy.

And then we had really weird dreams again. What's up with those?

We should totally do this film

The aftermath of the shootout meant that Frankie was pretty beat up still, but on the plus side Marco (Val's ghoul) has a cousin that owns a pet shop so he provided us both with enough small animals to make sure we could heal up.

We started raiding assets from a list provided by Jeanine. Enemy assets, you might say. Our protection racket rates are much more agreeable than the ones the Irish were asking for, for instance, and we ended up talking to a Ukrainian guy that was in charge of a distillery that provided pretty good (strong) vodka. Well, they can provide pretty good (strong) vodka for us now. Also, for all his talk of his wife or girlfriend or whatever, the Ukrainian also has someone on the side. Jeanine told us so, because he was the guy in the couple she and Frankie had snacked on in a previous session. This is not at all suspicious.

At the end of it all, some creative door-smashing and dramatic entrances later, and it was time to go to bed again, there was a pearl-handled knife stuck into Frankie's bed frame at Val's, courtesy of Jeanine. Whom he had earlier asked to please enough with the games already, they're growing tiresome. Is this ... like ... some kind of truce? Or is his sire basically just shit-stirring for teh lulz?

It's up to you, New York

The cousins Mangano continue to try to get used to the idea of being vampire gangsters in 1920s New York City ...

Anybody who is anybody will soon walk through that door

It's 1922 and the Mangano crime family are keeping their part of New York, uh, safe? Going about their daily lives, three cousins run a speakeasy and a gambling den, things like that. One day they're told they're going to be Made Men (and Woman), and have the ceremony with lots of booze ... and the next thing they know they black out, and when they wake up they're in pools of blood and lack a pulse.

Huh.

It didn't go so well for little Lottie, whose mind was somewhat ... fractured in the process. At least her sire brought her a snack. Val discovered that while he might still bite the first hobo he came across, he wasn't going to eat him without first cleaning the guy's neck. Frankie decided to be cautious and not eat a cop, but instead went for a canoodling couple, because hey, dinner AND dessert! (He even offered some to his sire, who wasn't as impressed as he expected.)

This was sort of session zero, in which we get to know the characters and take them through the traumatic lovely memorable experience of being turned into vampires. Turns out the Cosa Nostra is a bit bloodier than expected ...

Starring:

• Carlotta "Lottie" Mangano, Malkavian flapper girl
• Frankie "Fatso" Mangano, Brujah speakeasy bootlegger
• Valtena (Val) "Pretty Boy" Mangano, Toreador gambling den maestro

Under the Dome was a bit different to this

We got to a town currently covered in a massive dome. Our friends are inside, and we need to get inside to talk to them. Unfortunately they're also besieged by a bunch of gnolls or related monsters. There was a big artefact, which Denethor eventually crashed his precious airship-not-a-warship into, and somehow we ended up killing Gruumsh, despite siege engines being teleported just as we were about to hit them.

It was a big battle, though, so we didn't "say" much. Hence why the session after is also included.

Fun fact: Blogger has updated and is very confusing now and you can't backdate posts. Blegh. Thankfully, the option to revert back was there so I didn't have to go through the rigmarole of migrating the whole thing to WordPress.

I need more than a Venn diagram

Gorbash went to speak to Ixchal, and managed to encounter an adult evil dragon calling himself Roka. He was clearly looking for something, such as the feathered serpent which Booker let slide to someone he shouldn't have. Apparently they're rare and super magical or something like that.

"Show me yours, I'll show you mine", Roka [insert lineage blurb here] said to Gorbash, who complied. Ixchal was less willing. Especially when the other dragon the first one rode into town with also turned out to be Splugorth-aligned. We really hate those guys.

Someone's also trying to get to Booker's head to get the information about the feathered serpent, so he's currently renting a place in downtown Stormspire, as if someone does something there, there will be hell to pay.

Just like the French

It has been a while since we did this (don't believe the posting date, it's a month later) and my notes are a bit scant, so it's anyone's guess what we did at this point.

Something about an adult dragon being a dick, teleporting 5m up into the air, almost forgetting Booker, Jayson on the ground, and "Shemarrians here?!"

For the second session, we went to Roswell and looked at Naruni weapons and the Coalition States came to blows with the Shemarrians and Splugorth.