Doctors Without Mourners
or the Dead Setters do downtime
or Looking For Healer
In the aftermath of the Narcoleptic Dire Goat Caper, where the Dead Setters got the Charterhall Bank hit squad off their backs, only Raven the Hound and Rook the Cutter could make the game. Last time we broke after payoff but before entanglements, so we rolled two (the crew has Slippery), and got either 1) Show of Force or 2) Reprisals or Unquiet Dead. So three choices, really:
1. Lady Clave, who was using the Cabbies to move refined leviathan blood on the black market, would try to strongarm the Dead Setters out of their own distribution contract with the Cabbies. Clave was set up as a pressure point in this 3-way smuggling network with the Setters and Clave both using Cabbies to transport their leviathan blood, but the players didn’t want to go there yet.
2. They weren’t very enthused about a random victim of Raven’s coming back to haunt her either. Neither was I, really – it’d be a round of electroplasmic ammo and Ghost Fighter and then the entanglement would be over.
3. Raven’s physicker contact, Melvir, however, would be victim of Reprisals by none other than the Bluecoats, who were – 2 status. The cops beat up the street doc but Melvir hadn’t had much contact with Raven. I made a fortune roll to see how effective the Bluecoats’ interrogation was and they crit. I told Raven to change her up arrow to a down arrow. Melvir was intimidated into being an informant for the cops, but Raven didn’t know that yet.
On top of all that, Raven had been forced to part ways with the Path of Echoes (her vice purveyor). Her vice was basically being a serial killer, and the Path used her to eliminate certain people whose spirits were deemed important somehow. Or that were obstacles to the Path of Echoes’ goals. Raven tracked down one of the Reconciled, a possessor ghost named Nyryx, and on a gondola floating on the canals, Raven agreed to let Nyryx “ride along” in exchange for the Reconciled providing her with targets. Raven hunted down some offscreen/montage informants to reduce heat, and she had to go (her player was ill). I’m excited to see how the Reconciled will use Raven, though. She hasn’t cared much about who she kills as long as their bodies aren’t immolated correctly afterwards. Her first victim will be a priest of the Church of Ecstasy of the Flesh. More on that below.
Meanwhile, Rook had to get his burned hands looked at, and with the crew’s Leech indisposed, he had to go to his own physicker contact, Sawtooth. Rook took Sawtooth as an enemy a while back, and we hadn’t seen her appear before. A Tycherosi with jagged, awful needle teeth, she usually wore some sort of mask for hygiene as well as to hide her heritage. Rook didn’t know she hated him, and she knew Rook could easily kill her with his bare hands. She also knew Rook rarely had to use outside medical help. This was her one shot to get revenge-
– Wait, revenge for what? At this point in the session, I was racing to keep up and at the same time, I was overjoyed that something as simple as a Recover downtime action was proving so dramatic. A while back, Rook and Ulf Ironborn incited the Skovlander refugees to riot. In fact, I still had a “Martial Law” clock looming over the city, waiting for more trouble. I decided that Sawtooth’s husband was killed during the riots and she manifested her grief as a hatred for Skovs, but Rook and Ulf in particular.
And that’s why the burn ointment for Rook’s hands also came with a topical application of the poison Heartcalm. Best case scenario, Sawtooth would go about her business and several days later Rook would die, possibly during one of his pit-fighting indulgences. Noone would suspect Sawtooth.
It didn’t go that way, of course. Heartcalm is unreliable, and I rolled crap on 4 dice. Rook resisted level 3 harm, not fatal harm (he’s got 4d in Prowess and +1d for Forged in the Fire), and what’s more, also resisted (via Insight) Sawtooth’s subterfuge, so he pieced together who must have poisoned him.
Rook did end up going to the fighting pits, as those rolls nearly trauma’d him out and he needed to unwind, short of breath as he might have been. Unfortunately for Sawtooth, Rook also had Calculating, the bonus downtime action ability. He tracked her down seeking refuge at a Church of Ecstasy of the Flesh – I deemed it likely that the pious there wouldn’t look down upon Tycherosi like most regular Duskwallers might.
Rook found her. She was not a physical match for him, nor were the handful of acolytes or priests or other citizens hoping for ascension into demonhood. Rook tried to convince her to drop her vendetta, but was spectacularly unsuccessful. The acolytes intervened and asked Rook to leave. It was late, and none of these people would hold their own against Rook in a fight. I decided a choice was in order, rather than a roll:
1. Rook leaves (as blustery and savage as he likes, but he leaves) and Sawtooth stays at the Church.
2. Rook takes Sawtooth with him and I mark -1 status with the Church.
It was a hard decision, but we jump cut to the church doors slamming open and Rook dragging Sawtooth into the rainy street. One more jump cut after that, to her body hitting the water of the canal and sinking beneath.
The Dead Setters are 4 Coin away from Tier IV, but they have nearly the entire Tier IV structure of the city annoyed or actively pissed at them. The Church of Ecstasy of the Flesh is just another in a storied lineup that includes the Bluecoats, The Unseen (harboring a mild beef from literally a year ago, I just don’t know how to use them), Ironhook Prison (again, not sure how wide-ranging this is outside prison), and The Leviathan Hunters (currently with Lady Clave as the face of that enmity).
I also started a clock called Lord Scurlock is Annoyed With You. They said they’d free Setarra’s children and haven’t done dick about that yet. Scurlock misses his demon, backstabbed in highly-rational-but-cold blood after she was weakened by conflict with another demon. Considering Scurlock is their Patron, and the only way they can possibly get to Tier IV with the coin requirements being so high, I feel like they should take this seriously. We’ll see!
#heestcomplete