Emissary Lost, episode 1: Missed Meetings

 Neither Tahir nor Sayah were particularly keen to leave the Aliya, both being rather attached to it - if not for exactly the same reasons.  But sometimes you didn't get a choice about these things.

Sayah had no intention of hanging around on Coriolis for any longer than necessary, but Tahir knew people, especially pilots, and managed to find a ship willing to take them on.   But before they'd actually managed to ship out again, Sayah got an unexpected message.

Sayah had always got on well with her cousin Noor, who shared her rebellious streak, but had lost touch with her after leaving home.  So she certainly wasn't expecting to get a message from Noor, needing help and asking to meet up.  Not trusting anything family-related not to be a trap, she asked her new friends to go in first to check things out.  But arriving at the tea room, there was no sign of Noor.

What there was, once everyone was settled down drinking tea and eating dates, was a woman none of them recognised, pursued by what first appeared to be station guards - except unusually well armed.  She seemed to know who she was looking for, launching herself at them, sending candied dates flying in all directions.

While Tahir, Razaq and Khalil distracted the guards, Sayah, Arin and the strange woman slipped quietly away until they were able to vanish down a side passage and get some answers.  The strange woman's name was Althea and she was a friend of Noor.  Both of them had the 'mystic's disease', as she called it.  Noor had been in contact with another mystic, Aram Yafa, and had contacted Althea a week ago, wanting her to come and meet him.

But Althea hadn't found Noor.  All she had found was Noor's communicator, where she had seen the messages Noor had exchanged with Aram, and also the final message that she'd sent to Sayah.  And then the guards had found her, and she'd had to run, dropping the communicator in her flight.

The group met up again once the coast was clear, and headed for Noor's home.  The student apartment was tiny, with barely room for the five of them.  Searching wasn't going to take long.  They soon found a pamphlet from the Samaritan Sanitorium offering help for people with the mystic's disease.  General group consensus was that being a mystic wasn't a disease.  But still.

Sayah spotted a loose floor panel, and soon had it pulled up, revealing a transactor and of all things, a paper diary.  But before anyone could get a look at it, they were interrupted by the apartment building's senior studeont, Ekvias Memoxes, who had serious opinions on the subject of all these strange people being in Noor's apartment.  Khalil swung into action, with a torrent of fast talk that soon had Ekvias on the back foot, allowing Sayah to pocket the transactor and diary and put the floor panel back in place.

Arin went a couple of doors down the corridor to talk to another student.  The girl who opened the door wasn't entirely helpful, but had seen a mysterious tattooed man recently.  She couldn't say exactly what the tattoo was of, but her description did resonate with those of the group who'd had a good look at the guards at the tea house.  Facial tattoos were no more a common sight among the station guards than those carbines had been.

A second trip to Noor's neighbour and some rather circuitous discussion managed to extract Noor's communicator from her, at the cost of a rather extortionate 'reward'.  On it they found another message in addition to the ones Althea had had time to read - one from Aram telling her to show up an hour earlier than planned for the meeting with Althea.

Back down in the more concealed parts of the station, Sayah took the lead hacking into the station security cameras.  There they saw Noor arrive at the tea house, where she was grabbed by three guards, possibly using a stun pistol, then handcuffed and dragged away.  No sign of Aram, but some street children did see what happened.

After a chat with the street children (and a bit of shopping), they headed for an address where they had found the name Yafa, if not Aram.  There they found a bakery, and some headed inside for baklava and a chat.  Tahir, waiting outside, ran into a reporter, and managed to keep her occupied when Aram himself showed up.  Gathering outside, they had just enough time to ask Aram about what was going on and what happened to Noor, when they saw the red light of a laser sight, and a moment later Aram's head had turned to red mist.

Grogmeetish 2020

I've never been to Grogmeet before, although from what I could determine from last year's Twitter chatter, it seems to consist largely of people exchanging jam, with maybe some games in between.  Obviously in 2020 the jam exchanges aren't possible, but the games are.

Game 1

When in doubt, I find a modern day Call of Cthulhu game is a safe choice.  'Restitution' (coming soon to the Miskatonic Repository, I believe) is set in the Netherlands and based on current events, specifically the de-poldering of one of the polders.  Our group of entirely normal people (the mayor of the nearby city, a journalist and a PR specialist) went to do a press thing at an archaeological dig and things went downhill from there in true Call of Cthulhu style.

I really enjoyed this scenario.  Being a modern day scenario, it's entirely possible to jump into the location in Google Streeview and take a look around.  I wasn't sure what a polder or a dyke looked like, but now I've learned something.  Also the pacing is excellent, gradually ramping things up as the horror goes from more mundane fears to full on supernatural terrors.

Game 2

I skipped the middle session, as things were pretty booked up by the time I came to look at it and I figured a break would be good for me.  But in the evening it was time for another outing of Mother Said I Never Should.  While I wasn't initially planning to run anything, when the only Liminal game on the schedule booked up entirely from GMs before player bookings opened, I thought maybe they could use another game and took up Dirk the Dice's invitation.

A few hours before the game I lost two players, due to illness and getting the wrong time zone, but soon had replacements and we dived in.  Some enthusiasm for cricket lead to the group being called Edgbaston Investigations, and through stealth, charm, and creative use of pepper spray, they solved the case.

I've run this scenario enough times now that I barely look at my notes.  Since I'm planning to write it up for publication, I actually looked at it again properly, and was surprised to find various elements from the first time I ran it that I no longer use.  It's been interesting to compare what I run now with the original version and see how I've refined it.

Reflections

I know I'm going to want to attend the real life version of Grogmeet once that's a thing again, which is annoying, because it's a long way to Manchester.  The Dutch GM in my first game mentioned flying in for it, and so long as he's not far from the airport his journey's probably quicker than mine.

There was quite a lot of additional stuff going on that might make it worth a trip next time though, including a quiz on Thursday and a Mausritter tournament on Friday, neither of which I attended because I had other regular games happening, plus the RoomZoom of Roleplay Rambling on Sunday morning which I did get to.  So maybe it'll happen.  LARP permitting.  Otherwise I'll be looking out for Virtual Grogmeet next spring.

I guess I'd better learn to make jam.

The Path to Eden, episode 9: The Prophecy Fulfilled, Whatever It Was

Venno's audience looked worried today.  Unsurprisingly, given where he'd left things last time.  But they'd all come back.  It was time for the resolution.

"The nearby building with the strange metal rings on the roof looked like a good place for Zippo to find some scrap.  A sign on the front appeared to read 'BBn', but when the last letter was poked with a spear, they realised it said 'BBC'.  After some thought, Silas revealed that this symbol represented an ancient distributor of knowledge through radio broadcasts.  Lenny remembered that the symbol also appeared on the Gardener's World magazine in the Box of Lost Prophecies.  Could this place be a library?

Quin and Ork went in to investigate, and soon learned that they were not alone.  There were people talking there, on the floor above.  This was concerning.  Last time any of them had met other people, they had been cannibals who wanted to eat them.  She headed further in, followed by Silas, with floorboards creaking under her feet, until after a particularly loud creak, the talking stopped and a door slammed.

Quin indicated to Silas that he should keep quiet, and headed up the stairs.  Silas followed, missed a step, fell back down the stairs, cursing loudly and letting an arrow fly into the ceiling.

The noise didn't bring anyone out though, and Quin continued.  There were people there, behind a door, speaking in strange voices.  She kicked open the door, which bounced off something and shut again.  Despite some strange noises, they didn't seem entirely hostile.  After some tentative words, introductions were made.  There was something different about these people.  Rather like that elf they'd found.

They were looking for a new home, and once it was established that nobody wanted to hurt people on either side, and they didn't want to eat anyone, it seemed possible..  They came from a mountain range far away.  Was it the Misty Mountains?  It seemed like it was, although they seemed confused about what goblins were.  Perhaps they were dwarves?

As a sign of good faith, they handed over a weapon which they called a shotgun.  It was like Zippo's scrap rifle, but more powerful.  The group weren't convinced yet, but the strangers then offered to deal with the Nazgul.  The Ark did have a few vacancies after some of the recent deaths, and they claimed to know how to grow crops.  It seemed like a reasonable offer.

While the strangers went to deal with the Nazgul, a task that they insisted they had to do without the team there, they went for a look around the building to see if there was anything interesting.  Lenny found an interesting object.  If you looked in one end it made things look bigger, and if you looked in the other end, things looked smaller.  It gave Lenny an excellent view of the Nazgul.  And the others, an excellent view of what was left of it after the strangers completely obliterated it.

After a thorough search of the area, which turned up a reasonable amount of grub, water and bullets, they made their way back to the Ark, with their new friends in tow.  They had also seen a building with a big red cross on it, and knew where to find it.  It turned out to be only a short distance from the Seven Sisters Ark.  The name St Ann was written on it.  Rather than visit it straight away though, they decided to get everyone home so they could all have a rest.

Quin and Silas took the lead, to warn everyone about the new arrivals, since nobody had ever seen twelve new people at once before.  Lenny, Zippo and Katin showed them around the outside area, pointing out the croplands and the sundial.  Boss Elona came out to meet them, and they told her about the slaying of the Nazgul.

Inside the Ark, Silas and Quin headed for the Dawn Vault, where Silas was forced to have a conversation with Puzzle Paul, much to his disgust.  Puzzle Paul had found one of Silas's heretical posters and he and the other chroniclers had recognised his handwriting.  They argued for a while about the relative merits of museums, until they finally got onto the subject of the new arrivals and how Silas wanted to talk to the Elder.

After a second argument, Silas was finally allowed in.  He explained to the Elder about the new people, who somehow seemed more like the Elder than the people of the Ark, and how they had defeated the Nazgul.  His arguments proved convincing, and permission was granted.

Silas returned to the Dawn Vault, where he found Quin and Ork exactly where Puzzle Paul had told them to wait.  Together they returned to the surface to share the good news.  Lenny headed in to talk to Boss Marlotte, to sort out tickets, and got sent back to ask the important questions, like whether anyone needed a family ticket, and if anyone had an oyster card.  Once Boss Marlotte's spreadsheet was properly filled in, Lenny was sent back up to hand out tickets, blow the whistle and shout 'All aboard!'

And with a cheerful chorus of 'Mind The Gap' the new arrivals were welcomed in."