HEEST COMPLETE!
Last night the three Dead Setters who showed up to play (Teatime the Whisper, Richter the Spider, and Deemo the Leech) discovered several things:
1. Being at war kind of sucks when you have downtime plans. Teatime had to indulge his vice because he’s the founding member of Trauma Club (“You’re not supposed to talk about Trauma Club!”), which meant he had to spend coin to reduce Heat (they were 8/9) that would have otherwise gone into his stash, or been used to advance his own plans. Deemo and Richter were similarly stifled. They did spend money to reduce Heat down to 3, and they considered a plan that wouldn’t involve murdering people this time.
2. Slippery (the Thieves ability) is pretty sweet. Also, claims can be easy come, easy go – the Red Sashes made a play against the gambling den the Setters claimed last session, and rather than start another war with a Tier II gang, they just let the Sashes have the den. This was better than 1) a war, and 2) the Arrest entanglement that was on the table as well.
3. Richter was a former Inspector. He was sold out by his partner/apprentice, Jennah, in his backstory. Turns out although Richter was taking money from the Hive, Jennah had been bought by the Unseen. Richter doesn’t have proof, though, although he recently completed a LTP while he was in prison so that if he does get Jennah on the hook for something that lands her in jail, her life becomes his to toy with.
To that end, and to possibly put an end to their war, the gang decides to bait a hook for the remaining Crows and let the Inspectors in on it. Pull an Enemy of the State ending.
4. I discover that when it comes to these social/deception scores, it’s pretty hard to figure out when to go to the engagement roll because so much of the plan making sense hinges on the fake story you want to sell. So the guys are working through what they want the Crows to believe, and we’re all making this shit up as we go because I had no preconceived notions about Jennah working for the Unseen or anything like that before the game started.
Anyways, the “score” (if you could call it that) comes down to Richter trying to plant rumors of a big score in the Strangford mausoleum* and failing forward all the way from Controlled to Desperate as some Crows take his disguised ass out of a bar and try to intimidate (and then torture) the truth out of him. He finally convinces them he’s the groundskeeper there and there really are valuables underneath. Meanwhile, he’s already tipped off the Inspectors that the Crows are seeking to rob a prominent member of society. This was mostly all done in flashback too.
5. When the score feels shaky, just roll on the friggin’ demon table. There certainly was something in the Strangford crypts – Ahazu, the Heart’s Desire. The Crows accidentally release a demon, a collection of mirror-silvery orbs that appear to be made entirely of cutting edges. The thing(s) cut into and then envelop some of the Crows, like when Neo takes the pill in the Matrix and quicksilver runs over his body. These attempt to pull the other Crows into loving embraces, but because whatever these things are cut whatever they touch, just end up with ribbons of meat and severed bones. The Inspectors arrive at the carnage and the few surviving Crows are more than happy to be arrested at this point. The Inspectors pull out, Teatime avoids the demon’s notice thanks to his demonbane charm and hella good resolve resistance, and Richter hides in a sarcophagus.
Ahazu’s many forms walk slowly out into Duskwall unopposed.
Did Lord Strangford even know this thing was down there? Was it how he came to power? What did it promise him? Did he somehow get the upper hand and trap it?
This was a shaky session heist-wise (the “score” was tricking Inspectors into arresting Crows for something they didn’t do, but since they ended up consorting with demons it worked out really well *), but plot-wise it was really nice to start some threads involving larger factions (Leviathan Hunters, Inspectors, the Unseen) and getting into demon stuff. Our game has felt increasingly tied into the Tier II criminal gangs as of late, and branching out felt good.
#heestcomplete
* Why would anyone have a mausoleum in Duskwall? They burn the bodies! Well, we decided that the rich and powerful have skeletons crafted (sometimes from precious materials) just so they can display their family heritage in crypts.
* For relative values of “really well”.
1. Being at war is tough! I think it’s meant to be something you just cannot ignore, which I happen to like
I like the idea that because bodies are burnt, they have mausoleums to honor their dead with personal articles. And that the living sometimes try to use them to bring back their loved ones, but this usually just upsets any wandering spirits and causes badness
Yeah, they’ve had a string of “fuck it let’s just kill them” vengeance jobs and there was definitely a Heat/Wanted/War snowball effect. Working as designed, I’d say.
Slippery is so aptly named by the way, it’s a slippery slope and double edged sword being able to avoid certain problems
Great stuff.
I’ll see if I can write some text about engagement rolls for social plans.
Thanks, John Harper! We ended up with a combination of a social plan involving some new factions we didn’t have any detailed fiction with yet, and we hit some walls when it came to framing someone as well, so I’d say we tackled a pretty rough obstacle.
Are there any guidelines on, say, what kind of behavior would be taboo enough to land an Inspector or Bluecoat in prison? If the bluecoats are generally just a sanctioned gang and the firefighters extort the owners of burning buildings, etc, etc, etc, is there enough of a moral core – real or imagined – in Duskvol to have framing a public servant be a viable option? Our baseline idea was “make your victim embarrassing to their masters and not useful”, but my player in question was wondering about actual jail time and that seems more like “disappears quietly never to be seen again”.
Public opinion matters at some point. If someone is framed for a heinous crime in a public way and there’s public outcry for their imprisonment, the government may be motivated to take action just to quell a city-wide riot.
In that case, though, a powerful or influential person might only be “put in Ironhook” as a show, and then quietly released to house arrest or sent off to another city.
If you really want to get them, you might have to sever their connections to power and influence first, then frame them.