Author: Stefan Struck (monkeyEcho)

3rd session of the 9th Eye of the Leviathan Cult (“Hail, oh Mighty Leviathan!”) saw them discussing theological questions during downtime, like “What is our holy number? 9, 25 oder 225? And why do we care?” then lots of healing and indulging vices. We have two PCs with “Weird” vice, fun is garanteed: The whisper was drumming on cooking pots and singing along to it right in the middle of a public and crowded market place. Easy to overindulge that but he managed to stay on the decent side. No agree mob (this time). Ah, nothing like a good trance to help along with reducing that stress level.

The leech made himself comfortable in the sacred pool (part of the crew’s lair) experimenting with electrical gadgets/devices to meditate about a squid hull design to build an army from (that in combination with a long term project to help with that design). I think I already mentioned that one aim of the Cult is to have a cohort/army of squids to do their bidding: First they wanted to transform living humans into squids, then it was putting ghosts into squids, now it is building squid-hulls. The design made good progress with an additional downtime action of the leech working on it.

Last time they managed to get their hands on the Hellwhisper Ring, a cool stunt to impress Ojak, Master of the Rooftop Market in Silkshore. They went to his market and after studying him for the right approach they made their offer: Get rid of these silly Silver Flame Adepts collecting money in front of the market and accept our cool 9th Eye of the Leviathan Adepts (TM) doing the same (Offertory Claim). He was already impressed by the latest story circulating the occult groups about a new crew/cult swaying a demon (see last report). Now he was even more impressed to hear that they did it for him (supporting action + 6 result for Great result). He said yes, but he let it to the crew to get rid of the other Adepts.

Coming up was the next score with a mixed Occult/Deception Plan: Using smoke bombs in combination with Slumber Essence in combination with opening the Ghost Field for the occult flavor and chaos. This all including a big visible symbol of the Silver Fire cult (Flame + Morningstar) to attract the attention of the Spirit Wardens for a nice crack down on the enemy. The engagment roll went ok but not 6, so the fun started like this:

– The spider was still in progress to arrange the drugged adepts into a circle to suggest a ritual performed when two Spirit Wardens showed up. That was definitely a lot earlier than planned!

– The slide disguised as a pregnant women run to the Wardens with two things in mind: a) make clear that an evil cult is performing heretic rituals right here on a public place and b) no, you don’t want to go there right now and you don’t see this unsuspicious guy helping this evil cult members to sit in a circle. “WOW! Look at that symbol in the sky! It must be heretic evil, right? Help me! Ahhh, the labor sets in!!!”

– The leech started to shout from the cover of the smoke bombs to bump the level of weird heresy while making some coin on the side looting the offertory box of the adepts.

Needless to say that all of the splipped effortless into desperate situations:

– The spider got hit by one of the adepts freaking out because of the gas and the light show

– The greedy leech splipped on the wet stone while trying to get away with the coin

– The slide was shocked by the awareness that the fake baby tummy was slipping to the ground right next to the Spirit Warden (I love Devil’s Bargains)

– Only the whisper managed to stay “risky” sustaining the ghostly light show releasing ghosts into the physical world

– Another complications: To help the crew with avoiding the Slumber Esscence’s effect the leech created gas masks but had not enough time: The paint to give them an inconspicuous look was not dry resulting in a kind of war paint in the crew’s faces (maybe the triangle will be the new symbol of the cult?).

The slide managed to push the Spirit Wardens into the right direction (Sway of 6!) and with the crack down in full swing the crew tried to blend away (Group Action prowl based on the spider’s blueprints of the sewers). Hidding behind a big crate they managed to find the entry but it was blocked by debris (Sorry, no 6 this time, but no longer desperate but risky now). The second try was more succesful. This time the entry was clear … all but a group of Canal Dockers doing some work down there. Lucky crew, not only do they have +1 status with them, but also an architect contact of one PC was with them (Fortune Roll coming up 6! Yes, we had lot of sixes this night). They escaped with a debt of one favor to that contact and we will continue with the downtime in the next session.

My conclusion: It was awesome again and big fun! A lot of sway and consort, no pistol or blades drawn, a lot of weirdness and cool stories… and last but not least: The crew gained its Offertory and they beat the Silver Fire (-2 status with Forgotten Gods, now)! We had three Fortune Rolls which came up all 6 except the last one where 1 was the result in favor for the crew. The Leviathan god was with them that night!

The 9th Eye of the Leviathan Cult had it’s second session last night and it was … well … suprising, weird and very cool. I will skip a looooot of weird details and give you the short version of what happend. Just one small teaser up front: Want to sway a demon? Just bring some silver-tongued friends an a lot of fire protection lotion.

The cult realized that on their way to Leviathan god’s world dominion they need a bit of support and resources. Therefor they want to be on the good side of Ojak, vice purveyer of the crew’s Leech Tinkerbello and patron of the Rooftop Market. They found out that his interest is in occult objects (suprise!) and after a chaotic visit to the university’s library of Charterhall they found not only a reference to the Hellwhisper Ring (Thanks to Andrew Shields Deck) but also a lead that this artefact may be found in the Lost District (later, we will have a lot of flashbacks to this point to get additional information about the location with the help of the Spider’s blueprints of the district).

But how to cross the lightning barriers without attracting the attention of the Spirit Wardens? Stealing another idea from Andrew they found that there’s a “ghost district” long lost to the physical world but still present in the ghost field. This district crosses the barrier and the Cult wanted to use it for their passage.

Why don’t the Spirit Wardens know about this? We’ll find out later, maybe they already know…

Why don’t the Spirts use this passage into the city? We’ll find that out too. (Great leads for future scores)

At this point the Cult got support by not only one but two new members: A Whisper from Iruvia and A Slide from Akoros. With 4 members they’re well staffed for the score and with the right skill set, too, but read on…

So, they walked into Brightstone and tried to find the ghost field gate into the Ghost District. They found a trace in a high class merchant area right next to a very stylisch jeweler. The Spider starts to sway the merchant into looking the other way while the Whisper and the Leech did the searching. Well, the Spider had some problems with it: He sent the jeweler to the storage just to make the security guard appear. The Slide tried to help and they did a group sway which went well until a Blue Coat appears to pick up his wedding rings. It was fun to see the players sweat and brought some desperate rolls 🙂

In the meantime the whisper killed time investigating the alley which turned out as the backside of a very expensive Iruvian restaurant. He spotted a crate with rare and expensive spice and feeling a bit homesick and short of coin he took it (that will turn out very important). And yes, this wasn’t a flash back.

Finally the gate was opened with full success and the group was able to go. Group Action Attune (with some stress for the leader) and they arrived on the other side. Attacked by a ghost as a welcome, the Whisper managed to control him and interrogate him. They already knew roughly where to go but didn’t want spend days to find the exact spot. A lucky fortune roll (6!) and the ghost knew a place avoided by all ghosts because demons were spotted there frequently. They went to that place to find an abondonded building left standing in an otherwise clear field of debris.

The task to enter the building was given to the Whipser (Hey, you’re the only one with demonbane, so?). Surprisingly he didn’t want to enter with (astral) guns blazing but politely knocking at the door. The physical door was gone so again it was attuning the former astral door knocking with major complication:

The fire Demon guarding this place (and the ring) showed up and was not amused but didn’t want to fight right now, either.

So the whisper tried to sway him (yes, really!) offering the iruvian spice as barter trade to get the ring. The Spider and the Slide joined this group action and after resisting extreme fire damange (the spider planned for it and everbody was covered in fire protection lotion = armor vs. fire damage) they managed to roll a critical success. Awesome! AWESOME!

So, they have the ring and went back to the city before the demon changed its mind.

Next: Will the demon take it lightly that he was swayed? Will Ojak work with this strange cult? We will find out in the next session.

It was really stressful for me as GM but oh, so much fun, too. Well played!

Had my first non-Thief crew last night and finally I arrived on the occult/obscure/weird side of Doskvol which was reeeeally cool:

The “9th Eye of Leviathan” is a new cult operating from a hidden lair in Crow’s Foot, just below the bridge crossing over to Charhollow. Half of the lair is under water which gives them a good connection to the water-demon-god who called them to Doskvol. The cult right now is a Tycherois Leech and a Spider from the Dagger Isles and they’re not happy with how Akoros is managing things around here. The third member will join the holy quest next session and I’m curious about his taste of madness.

In the first 15 minutes of creating this crew the goal of the cult was made clear: Tearing down the lightning towers / electrical barriers ASAP to let the demons into town, flooding eveything with the holiest of all elements: water! Hail, oh great Leviathan!

They’re planning to make U’Duasha a seaside town, so they won’t stop with Doskvol and they don’t bother with small plans. So cool! 🙂

Maye I mentioned from time to time that there are powers which want to preserve the status-quo or bring another bright future which may not be consistent with the plans of the cult, but hey, the cult has it’s mission and you don’t say no to your god, am I right?

So, after my first more confentional crews this is my first weird one. It was an awesome night just creating these guys and see the happy faces of my players. I’m more than curious to find out what will happen next!