The Porcelain Dolls: Session 48 (January 04 2017)
While Kamali is in Silkshore, Constance and Gears go to visit Emmet Taylor at his home in Dunslough. On the way, she asks him about the nature of his work, asking if it’s his intention to raise the dead. Gears explains that he wants to learn how the body works, and how to replace the body with metal (either in part or in whole). Constance advises him to let Kamali assist him.
At Taylor’s house, they are confronted by a Bluecoat guard at the front door. After some resistance, she convinces him to go speak to Taylor on her behalf. After a few minutes, the guard comes back and ushers them into a waiting room.
A few minutes later, Lord Taylor himself comes into the room. Constance introduces herself and Gears, and explains that they are acquaintances of Lady Drake. Taylor expresses some distaste at the mention of her name, and Constance asks for clarification. He corroborates Lady Drake’s story, that he feels she was responsible for no small amount of financial loss due to her influence over her late husband’s business decisions. He states his belief that women are over sentimental, and thus unsuited for business. Constance does a fantastic job of keeping her cool. She expresses her differing belief that what’s important in business (and governance) is the proper application of authority, looming just a bit while she does so.She and Gears manage to pique Taylor’s interest by mentioning the boxing club, as well as an offer to get in on the ground floor investing in the Skovlan shipping company, and thus secure his vote for Lady Drake.
On the afternoon of the vote, news quickly circulates that Lady Naria Drake was appointed councilor for Charterhall. In addition, Ward Kirkham was appointed councilor for Crow’s Foot, and Vincio Caserta was appointed councilor for Charhollow. The councilors who voted for Lady Drake are Ettore Rodia, Kent Hansen, Sabine Lyness, Tobias Norgaard, Kabeer Wakim, and Emmet Taylor.
Invitations are sent to Lady Drake and the councilors who voted for her to attend a private event at the boxing club that evening. Gears takes some time to make a brooch out of metal in the shape of a rose, and sends it with the invitation to Sabine.
That evening, everyone gathers at the boxing club. Lord Rodia, Lady Drake, Lady Lyness, and Lord Taylor show up. Lord Wakim sends a well-written note politely declining, Lord Hansen sends a terse note indicating simply that he’s busy, and Lord Norgaard doesn’t bother sending a note at all. Lady Drake promises to have some choice words with Arnold Beckham and Alda Monaghan at a later date.
Constance spends the majority of the evening watching the interactions between the councilors, and eventually ends up getting a good sense of which ones get along and which ones don’t. It’s made difficult by the fact that on the face of it, they are all very polite and cordial to each other.
After the scheduled roster of fights is over, Constance takes off her jacket and has Gloves announce that she is challenging all the boxers at once. The six men take to the ring, and Constance manages to take them all down (including Sam, the proprietor of Sam’s Pub, and his nephew), but not before she suffers a broken nose and collarbone.
Aftermath:
Rep: 5 (for dealing with the Doskvol City Council)
Heat: 1 (there was the barest minimum of illegal activity involved)
Coin: 0
Entanglement: Rivals. We’ll see what happens with the Ink Rakes next session.
Downtime:
Constance reduces Heat, and Stress. She also spends Coin to Heal, allowing Gears to take care of her broken nose and collarbone.
Gears: Finishes the project to mount the cannon on the cart. We also start up a couple of new projects. There’s an overarching project associated with his Vice, tentatively called “The Big Idea”. Each segment on this clock represents a smaller 6-segment clock that will cover one specific aspect of his obsession. We’ll work out exactly what those are when he gets to them, but they’ll be things like “Fashion a clockwork body that is capable of autonomous movement”, or “develop clockwork hands with sufficient dexterity to rival those of a human”, and so on. The ultimate end goal is the invention of a Hull (which don’t exist yet in my campaign, except as myths and legends from previous lost civilizations).
Kamali: Heals the psychic damage from being shot in the face by a ghostly pistol several sessions ago, and Trains Prowess.
The Moon’s Daughter and the boxing club generate a total of 12 Coin (it’s nice to be Tier 2).
Notes:
I’ve implemented the Healing house rules mentioned earlier in this community. Instead of the normal 8-segment project clock for healing Rank 2 and 3 Injuries, I use a 4-segment clock. When you take an action to Heal, completing the clock drops the Injury by one Rank. A Rank 2 Injury becomes Rank 1 (and thus will heal automatically on the next Heal action), a Rank 3 Injury becomes Rank 2 (and thus starts another 4-segement healing clock). When an Injury drops in Rank, reword it to reflect that some healing is happening (broken nose becomes bruised face, etc). The practical upshot of this is the Rank 2 Injuries take less time to heal than in the normal 7.1 rules (one 4-segment clock and an additional action vs. one 8-segment clock), and Rank 3 Injuries take slightly more time (two 4-segment clocks and an additional action vs. one 8-segment clock).
#dontmesswiththedolls