There are no safe mental spaces

Lottie and Julius take the Staten Island ferry, while being followed by the Nosferatu Primogen. Sneaky Prince. AltLottie comes out to play and she, along with Julius, agree that killing Jeanine is bad.

At Theo's, he looks as the dagger and says she's seen both Jeanine and Charlotte with it. Frankie agrees to sign a formal complaint against Jeanine. As the two Brujah leave to find their Primogen, another car T-bones them and tries to run them off the road and shoot at them. Theo gets some shots off before Frankie gets them out of the way. (This will have “interesting knock-on effects” says the GM.) After all, if the unknown assailants shoot back with the Tommy guns they're sporting? Heads probably go splat, which is bad for vampires. Failing to find Don Cerro, they end up at ... a house where we know from previous (way back near the beginning of the campaign) that Charlotte has two apartments in? And Theo has a key?!

Staten Island smells funny. Following a scent, the Malkavians find Jeanine in an inn, looking ... poorly. Tommy the Fool tries to get a room, but they take Jeanine up to the room she already has, where Julius pricks her finger. Jeanine has somehow become Thin-blooded?! How the fuck is that even possible?! This complicates things enormously. What to do? AltLottie suggests skipping town. Julius declines.

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?

We don’t need this level of fanservice!

After a two-month break, we're back in New York. The Prince's ghoul delivers a note to Lottie which confirms that the broken ghouls are indeed Abrogard relatives, and they are indeed Jeanine's. The letter is the Prince's handwriting, but it's perfumed. Is he siding with the Toreador for some reason?

Lottie and Frankie drop into Theo's to let him know maybe getting too hard on the Toreador is ill advised at this stage.

Lottie and Julius go to Angela and instruct her to get Andreas into whichever nursing home will take him at short notice. She's also instructed to (and then made to forget having done it) calling a particular phone number to say on behalf of Charlotte Hansard, "J Calloway" isn't to disembark any ship. Could Jeanine be headed for Staten Island, where the Anarchs are?

Frankie, meanwhile, goes to get both the knife and the plans from Benny. The note left by the contact in the planning office is weird. It's in English but is hard to read, and looks like a lot of nonsense? Frankie brings it to Lottie and Julius, who get weird vibes off it. They try to look at it in a mirror, in case of some kind of magic filter, but it still doesn't work. It's put in a locked drawer for later.

The three of them then go over to the Staten Island ferry. Frankie drops the two of them off and drives off. Lottie and Julius are met by Tommy the Fool, a fairly useless mook, in case they need someone to do the heavy lifting. Or maybe in case they want a snack on the way, you never know.

There's a hole in my city, dear Liza, dear Liza

We’re back in Thistlehold! Talking to the head witch, it turns out the rubbings we had of the stone tablets were nothing more than simple merchant receipts or something like that. So much for that, huh?

Murmei is told that his sister Rilia has gone missing, which he already knows - she is, after all, a full-fledged barbarian now and calls herself Deadorna ... who is shown the place where we caught the Flayer, and told the story of how that came to be.

We see Elsiosi a couple of times: first when she comes around looking for her betrothed (who hides in his bedroom, pretending not to be in), and second when she comes around sporting a corrupt basalt ring. This time Murmei isn't hiding and, after botching a roll, tells her stories of how brave they were in Davokar.

There's a message to meet with a Prios person in a bar. The big, city-wide warning bell, which has been silent for the past four years, goes off. There are Colossi coming through the forest - witches normally ride those? Deadorna talks to barbarians about a well, and we finish on what sounds like a great big explosion in Thistlehold. Not so much an explosion as a giant sink hole suddenly opening up and swallowing a considerable chunk of the city.

Damnit, I have narrative blue balls!

This is a combination of two sessions, partly because they were both short so not a lot was said, and because they both covered Elysium. The first was short because the GM had internet troubles and instead of having no game, we desperately improvised by ending up doing a group call using actual telephones. #OldSchool

So, Elysium. We were at the Met, sitting in the auditorium watching Faust: Part 1. There was a young man with Jeanine, but we didn't recognise him, nor did she introduce him to anyone, and when she did spot Frankie she didn't appear to recognise him? Don Cerro, the Brujah Primogen, talked to Jeanine who introduced the young man as Steven Maslowe. Who?

Nor did it appear the Prince knew, when he invited Lottie and Julius to speak with him. The Prince had invited the Sabbat (!) to Elysium, for a hitherto unknown reason. The Prince asked the two Malks to keep an eye on them, which they did from the Malkavian Primogen box. Lottie wasn't pleased at the Sabbat referring to her as a "morsel".

Frankie told Theo about the knife Jeanine (allegedly) gave him, as she broke into a third party's house to deliver it. Theo later invited Frankie to the Brujah Primogen box and offered to take him under his wing. Don Cerro was, perhaps understandably, a little miffed about this.

So, in front of the entire Camarilla and the Sabbat, Jeanine finally introduced Maslowe to the perplexed Prince as ... her previous Childe from Atlanta, who is hoping to make his mark on New York City. The only people happy about this were the Toreadors, who thought it was hilarious - except for Charlotte (we don't know why) and Val, because his cousin was just very publicly disowned by his Sire. The Brujah were not happy being screwed over by one of their own, but at least Frankie wasn't declared Caitiff as a result. Phew?

The Prince wanted a private word with the two newbies. Did Frankie realise how fucked he was? Sort of? Not really? (Frankie doesn't get politics.) But yeah, he's pretty fucked, as is probably everyone he cares about. (This is just about the worst thing to tell a character who is fiercely protective of his mortal family and who also isn't adjusting well to being a vampire ...)

The Prince said he could potentially offer the Mangano clan a boon of protection, but they would need to ask him the question he had granted them - specifically without Julius being there. Lottie asked about the broken twin ghouls, which the Prince was unable to answer, but said he'd look into. He then granted everyone "of Frankie's blood" the boon of protection, so that's one crisis averted - and another one created. Frankie's uncle (a.k.a. Lottie's "dad") is of course being actively harmed by another vampire's ghoul, so Angela will quickly have to stash him in some care home so he's out of the way. At least his mind is so broken now that he'll never regain proper consciousness ...

(We shouldn't worry about Charlotte being mind-controlled. We'll find out soon enough.)

Val had left with Charlotte, so Lottie and Frankie rejoined Julius and went back to the couple's Manhattan home to discuss events. Frankie went to bed early while Lottie talked about blood bonding with Julius in private, offering. Julius succeeded a Willpower roll to not throw himself at her.

And that's where we left it.

Thank you for trapping us on a ship

We found a ship to take us cruising down the river, as it would be quicker to travel. There are ginormous crab creatures that might eat the entire crew in that river, but we'll be okay, right? There are only claw marks and stuff that we can see, and maybe it would be advisable to not be trapped on a boat going down a river?

Turns out the big crabs are intelligent and can be hurt and disabled, but that they stop bleeding when they're in water. Their claws are tough as hell, but you can defeat them. The party - sans Murmei and Knightlight, who were hiding out downstairs, because water would be bad for a Flame Servant - fight off two of said crabs.

We made it safely to the town of Kurun, where we possibly dodged several side quests - and assassins? We didn't stay for very long, as we were busy trying to get back to Thistle Hold. Which we eventually did. Huzzah! Because all of this had actually been a side quest, and not part of the actual campaign! D'oh ...

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?

That tangented quickly

Things go bump in the night. Troll shadows, but we're in a Witch Circle so they don't see us. We subsequently make camp, and then six hunter wolves with some kind of weird, glowing beetles inside them show up.

FIGHT!

And because there was a big fight, there wasn't a lot said in the session or about the session, except of course that we won.

Crazy people trying to deal with things

Julius is out when Lottie and Frankie return to the Manhattan house. Lottie went to shower off the Tzimice red mist ickyness she had to walk through in Harlem, while Frankie looked out through a window and saw Julius talking to a Gangrel, who wanted him to ally himself in regards to the Gangrel primogency.

Everyone in the same place, we started catching up with what everyone had been up to. Julius had been researching Egyptian mythology. The primordial creator goddess was not a part of the cousins' dream, apparently. Neither cousins nor players have any clue what this means.

 A surprise Jeanine appeared! Lottie and Frankie went to hide in another room to avoid her. She invited Julius to tomorrow night's Elysium. With Lottie's Auspex, she saw the bond between Frankie and his sire was very thin and fragile, but in fairness she hasn't been around for about a week, and the cousins have only been vampires for about a week and a half. And she didn't even enquire about her childe either. Bitch.

Victor, the Setite in the safehouse in Harlem, came by to say Ellie has Valenti and is ready to hand him over. He wasn't looking in a great shape. Not that the cousins really care.

Can I bite it in the butt?

There's a weird abomination creature wanting to get into our witch circle. It was like a spider with too many limbs, even though spiders already have too many limbs? Or not spidery, tentacle-y. Either way, it died.

We went to go see our arch troll friend Uhux, as we were supposed to let him know what had happened to his friends.

Can I get Willpower for that?

Last time ended on a cliffhanger - things had just turned frosty between Frankie and the boxing promoter, because someone failed his Intimidation roll. (He succeeded on the first one. It was very satisfying.) Turned out that the eight weirdos around the corners of the boxing ring were staring around the room in sequence. Once the situation was defused (because Frankie thought it best not to start a fight in a room full of mindwhammied people when he's in the presence of his big brother and a number of other humans), four of them walked away.

Lottie is a much better negotiator, and got a much better deal. She should go back to the boxing promoter and re-negotiate the percentage. Ellie said she'd find Valenti for us, seeing as how her childe apparently knew where he was. After leaving Ellie's she went to see a production of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, or at least a part of it, in order to negotiate a new deal at the theatre. This was also successful, because she's the negotiator of the two!!!

Lottie then bumped into Theo Bell and offered her services in the mood changing department (to help him become the next Brujah Primogen) and asked him to please maybe keep an eye on her cousin, seeing as how Frankie's sire has been shit. Theo did this by essentially hijacking the taxi Frankie was in to get out of Harlem. Frankie, bless him, went "this is basically my boss, I should tell him what I know if asked" and told him about both the werewolves and Ecaterina at the steelworks incident in Gowanus. This apparently spooks Theo, who says Elysium is likely to be called the next night.

I'm the Aston Martin of barbarians

We met with barbarians! Deadorna and Valgai offered to heal people attacked by blight elks, but the barbarians refused. Deadorna spoke to them, because barbarians are her people after all. They mentioned a Sovereign Oath and a Blood Daughter.

Murmei made his sister a set of snake armour. It's dark green, making her look like the Green Arrow, which is excellent news.

We met with Kathman, the chief witch of the Vajvod tribe and also Deadorna's mentor. He's very knowledgable. Apparently there have been visions of an icy cold creeping into the world from Korratix Domain - that place we were stuck inside which had an opening to some kind of ice troll world ...

Elindra offered to bestow Xanatha's blessing on Deadorna, who chose to think about it.