The Porcelain Dolls: Session 26 (July 27 2016)

The Porcelain Dolls: Session 26 (July 27 2016)

Gears is Lost, and Shade is unavailable.

Gather Info for The Churl’s Girl Burl:

Boots investigates the scene of Brock’s murder. He finds evidence of a fight, an damage to surroundings by an unusual piercing implement. He talks to Steiner, an assassin, who points him in the direction of the Billhooks.

Kamali spends some time spying on the Sashes. At the Moon’s Daughter, she overhears a report to Mylera that all members of the Sashes were accounted for at the time of the kidnapping, and no one is admitting to having anything to do with it. The next day, at another of the venues controlled by the Sashes, she overhears another report indicating the Billhooks seem to be the ones responsible.

Armed with this information, Constance goes to confront the Billhooks directly. Their HQ is in a slaughterhouse near Bellweather Crematorium in Charhollow. There’s a little bit of static with one of the gate guards before his buddy tells him who Constance is. She meets with Brynn, acting commander of the gang, and sister to Tavrul, the actual leader (who is currently serving time in Ironhook). Brynn smugly denies having anything to do with the kidnapping, and maintains that it was the Sashes that killed Brock. Constance makes a promise to Brynn before leaving (“I’ll see you again”), and on the way out, kills the uppity guard on the front door.

Gloves talks to several members of Merrill Brime’s network. They all point him toward Lillie Thomas, who runs a small gang of kids in Charhollow. He goes to meet with Lillie, who is 14, and looks like she has never had a bath in her life. One of her friends, a Tycherosi boy of about 8 named Livio, saw two of the Billhooks taking a girl back across the bridge from the Docks (he had gone over there to try and scam some lobster, to which he’s partial). He doesn’t know their names, but the tall thin one has an eyepatch, and the short fat one had a hook for a hand. Lillie fills Gloves in on the current situation with the Billhooks. They’re in the midst of a power struggle, as Tavrul’s sister Brynn and his son Derret are both looking to take over the gang when Tavrul’s gone. Gloves takes Livio back to the hideout (blindfolded), where he meets with Constance and the rest of the crew.

It’s clear to Constance that the Billhooks are taking advantage of the war between the Lampblacks and the Red Sashes to try and carve off a piece of Crow’s Foot for themselves. She takes Boots with her to go talk to Lyssa, and walks in to find Derret already there.

Notes:

Another short session. Shade’s (and Gears’) player was busy with work this time. It took all my willpower not to play Lille Thomas like Tiny Tina from Borderlands.

The question came up regarding exactly what animals the Billhooks butchered in their slaughterhouse. I decided that in addition to eels, it’s common to keep pigs, as they don’t take up anywhere near the amount of space that raising cattle or sheep would require. And like goats, they can eat just about anything.

Thinking back on the Dolls’ interactions with the Lost in Session 22, there was some question as to why, after the Dolls tried to take control of their informants, the Lost would be at all favorably disposed to them. I’ve since realized (and I’ve been playing it up) that’s kind of looking at it backwards. What happened is that the Dolls were able to negotiate an alliance of sorts, and as a result of that they’ve gained some measure of control over the informants as a shared resource (there’s very little overlap in the sort of information each group is gathering from them, so there’s no competition for resources). Now perhaps I made it a little too easy to forge that alliance, but that’s easily remedied on the back end with complications arising from such an arrangement. The Lost have a pretty solid code of honor, and some of the Dolls’ activities run the risk of bringing them into conflict over it.

#dontmesswiththedolls