Did we win?

So, we were faced with a number of creepy evil clowns and then a big octopus monster thing and creepy Walt Disney type dude? I may have got my notes and memories a little scrambled. We take it down, the deadland becomes ... not so bad any more?

Going back to the people we were trying to save and the town to tell them of our progress, Vince accidentally chatted up a widow by botching his pheromone roll. She was planning on dumping her kid and coming with us ... but um, we got the heck out of there. Because ain't nobody got time for that. He was very sad about it, it was touching. But at least he got laid, eh? ;)

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.

We know it's corrupted

There was an icky axe-a-mole thing in the arcade. I mean, everything about this place is icky and creepy, but ... y'know. We found a guy. We went into the Enchanted Wood, where we went past a creepy picnic (which we ignored, yay us) to find a shed in the woods.

There was an animatronic werewolf attacking us, because for some reason we were the three little piggies and we got out of the shed just before it collapsed? Being in a deadland is not recommended, by the way. You easily get damaged - as Vince can confirm.

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?

My hair pin is amazing!

Back in post-apocalyptic land, a woman threw herself in front of the van. She wanted a lift into a town that wants help help with bandits. This took us all the way to a creepy, deserted theme park - Magic Island! We had to walk along a monorail line to get there.

So, we shot at people holding townspeople hostages. We free hostages (I think). Creepy theme park is creepy. There are blood-soaked buildings, a fountain with screaming cherubs that start spluttering blood, because OH HEY THIS IS A DEADLAND. Are there evil clowns? Of course there are. And then the monorail, a.k.a. the only way on or off the island, has collapsed. Permission to freak out?

Don't look a gift knife in the mouth!

We continued our plan of taking over the Irish gangs' territory, partly because we want to and partly because they fucking tried to murder us. Seeing as how the week leading up to this session had been spent on writing pretty extensive backstories for our characters (well, two of them at least) Lottie, through Auspex, finally realised one of her cousins has a long-standing crush on her BFF and now ships them in character as well as out of character.

So, we were trying to get some info on a place that had a gambling den in the basement. It required catching one of the people used as a look-out and persuading him to talk. He was not an easily persuaded kind of a person, despite our best efforts. At this point the GM hadn't actually read the backstories we'd so painstakingly put together (with miles upon miles of rope with which to hang us later), but it was rather fitting that the guy decided to suggest he'd been busy fucking Frankie's sister and that's why he didn't fancy answering. It hit right in the backstory berserk button. The guy was slightly more talkative after a broken jaw, but he was never getting out of there alive. Cousins fed, Frankie drained the last two points of blood, punched the corpse for good measure and lost a Humanity point in the process.

Someone who didn't lose a point in Humanity this session was Val, who, after we'd raided the gambling den decided we should blow it up to avoid witnesses. Because that's totally how the mafia roll ...

Deadliest Catch: Human Slaves Edition

In the final session of Rifts, for what might be a very long time because we've complicated things for the GM now, our best laid plans involved using a warlock to create a distraction. He unleashed a water elemental that would turn the town of Moreno into a lake. A lot of people, including the vampires' human slaves that we wanted to save. Gorbash managed to save a handful, and took them to safety, but not without a body count because he had to do it very quickly, in a kind of trawler manner.

But we got the people we were sent there to save, so that's good? Mission accomplished? There were a number of vampires in storage somewhere else and they appear to not be there any more, but that's not going to be a problem, right? No, let's head back home to Blackstone Juggernauts HQ and get ready for our next adventure, I'm sure it'll be fine.

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?

We're going to Chicken Pizza!

So, ahem, I think I may have been slightly distracted here, because my notes literally say "we do a robbery?" (someone died, and we feel bad about it ... I think) and then mentions something about a pig truck and aligning with a good goddess whose name I can't remember. The interesting thing to note here is that Hecate was willing to let go of Booker, provided he do her a favour (it was finding someone and/or killing them?) and in turn he got to swear fealty to this new goddess that we had just helped.

Maria was happy to receive swords from Gorbash. He treats his professional girlfriend quite well, it seems! The second session I didn't make memory notes for, so ... someone who is not me might have a functioning memory in order to recall what we were actually doing.

Who wants to give a recap?

Well, since this session and calling ourselves out on being ungrateful players, we've provided the GM with pages upon pages of backstory, which he can screw us over with later. We're very proud.

That did not come into play in this session, though. Something else did, but I can't remember exactly what because I forgot to note down helpful reminders that I could use when trying to remember it months later.

Although I do remember why we only had a handful of quotes from the 30th (which I've included here) because while Lottie was busy having it off with Julius, Val and Frankie were followed when heading back to Val's place. It was a rival gang, and they ended up getting shot at. Frankie got shot quite severely, actually, and we were worried there for a bit. Fucking Brenda Toner.

Questions find answers

We went into an Aztec pyramid, where killed vampires and were very nearly killed in the process. At least Booker and Jayson were, had they not been pals with a dragon that turned their SDC armour into MDC armour. It was a tough fight, but we killed the vampires, removed some pillars and escaped with the target we were there to rescue. Yay us!

Girl's gotta have bubbles

Okay, I have no notes about this session, and I don't remember exactly what we did, but whatever it was it was GLORIOUS.

Other than we found a way to get in touch with Julius, because he didn't give us a number to call him on, because he's been around centuries before telephones and he's old-fashioned that way.

Was this the session where Val's car got wrecked, perhaps?