Tag: heestcomplete

She protec

She attac

But most importantly

She bac

Deemo the Leech rejoins the Dead Setters after babies and basketball leagues in time to watch Duskwall burn in The Brightstone Riots Caper.

Endgame. The crew is Tier IV and Strong hold (modified to weak due to wartime), and is at war with the Bluecoats. Rook the Cutter and Ulf Ironborn (+3 status) rally the Skovlander Refugees throughout the city behind the dubious leadership of the Reconciled and Queen Tamar, the first and last Empress of Skovland.

Rook, who’s also a Skov, wants to strike against Imperial authority, but the Dead Setters have plans within plans. Richter the Spider wants to end the Bluecoats war by taking over the Bluecoats from the inside. The riot is the crew’s way into Brightstone so they can take down Commander Bowmore of the Watch and Magistrate Rolan Wott. If these notables are not there to organize a defense, there’s a chance the City Council might acquiesce to some of the mob’s demands, and between Richter and Teatime the Whisper’s social pull, the mob is convinced they want Mr. Falseworth (Richter’s fake identity) on the Council.

This score was played across two two-hour sessions. Last week, the crew led the Skovlanders and other blue-collar forces across Brightstone’s west twin bridges. A well-timed flashback involving the Setters’ cohort of pit fighters dealt with Bluecoat and military leadership, then Rook and Ulf assaulted one bridge while Raven the Hound and Teatime hit the other with sorcery. Brightstone became a war zone, with house-to-house combat, fleeing nobles, and military hulls resorting to indiscriminate grapeshot to maintain their hold on the blocks between the mob and Whitecrown.

Teatime was supposed to help Raven take down Rolan Wott, but ended up fighting heavy hulls instead. Tempest proved potent but stress-intensive, and at 3 Trauma, Teatime didn’t want go down fighting for peasants or anything foolish like that. He attempted an arcane boobytrap but it went horrible awry – the ghost bomb ripped the souls of his Skov protectors apart and left him amidst corpses while six military hulls bore down on him.

Rook, Ulf, and Richter used their Shadows’ ghost passages to bypass much of the fighting and enter Commander Bowmore’s estate unnoticed. From there, they rolled nothing but sixes. Bowmore’s personal guard were wiped out and the Commander himself killed when Richter threw dynamite at the remaining survivors. No witnesses.

During the chaos, Raven and her Reconciled friend, Nyryx, eliminated Rolan Wott’s bodyguards and his retainer whisper (who tried and sadly failed to turn Nyryx against Raven). We ended that session with Raven’s gun to Wott’s head as the magistrate begged for his life.

Come With Me If You Want to Not Die

This past session, Rook’s player couldn’t make it but Deemo’s player could! It had been a while since we had our Leech back, and because 1) Deemo’s current LTPs were building a hull body and 2) I was feeling that endgame feeling, we decided that Deemo was gone for so long because she was making herself into an immortal steampunk Terminator. I told them don’t worry about fitting into the riot – that’s why we have flashbacks.

Teatime weathered the hulls’ opening barrage, but at the cost of all his armor. 3 stress left and six hulls to contend with is textbook desperate situation. Luckily Deemo decided to spider-climb off a building wall and smash one of the ironclad-tachikoma legs clean off! She took a nasty hit in return (most of the rolls this session were 5s, not the previous foray’s streak of sixes), but hulls have integral armor. Beyond that, Deemo’s most powerful ability was perhaps the fact she was coming in with an open stress track and could feed Teatime assist dice and take protect actions. Deemo’ leapt into the fray and managed to sabotage one hull so it stumbled into its fellows, clumping them up for Teatime’s final desperate attempt. He pushed himself, took increased effect from Deemo’s setup action, and ripped the souls out of the hulls.

He got a five. Whoever made these automatons wasn’t going to leave military-grade war machines lying around dormant, so when their spirits stopped animating their bodies, the hulls detonated their powder magazines. Deemo took the protect action and snorted lethal harm for both her and Teatime. Between all her worn armor, plus Forged in the Fire, she didn’t come away too badly.

Meanwhile, Rolan Wott talked his way into serving the Dead Setters in their conspiracy to insinuate Richter into the Bluecoats. His legal expertise and council knowledge would serve his new masters well… at least until new, more powerful masters displaced them in turn.

Live Long Enough to Become the Villain

Here’s where we left the Dead Setters:

1. Richter Falseworth is Commander of the Watch, protected by a few cells of bluecoats loyal to him, the whim of the mob, and Rolan Wott’s legal webs.

2. Deemo is a hull. Destroy – Discover – Acquire. What will she create next?

3. Teatime explores Lord Scurlock’s “Dracula castle” out in the Deathlands and, with the help of Mr. Clicks, Scurlock’s former hull servant, discovers the missing secrets to becoming an immortal vampire. He holds off, though – he has time.

4. Teatime and Richter are invited to join the Circle of Flame. They’ve had some positions open up, and would rather offer peace in order to bring their missing Eye of Kotar back to the fold instead of fighting and possibly losing more artifacts.

As for Raven and Rook, and Duskwall itself, I’m hoping to have one final wrapup session where everyone can make it. I don’t think we’ll roll dice – just talk about what kind of endings everyone sees for their characters. I’m not coming back to Duskwall for a while, but if/when I do, it would be really neat to bring up a new crew with the old Dead Setters as the NPCs around the city.

#heestcomplete

The Dead Setters go to war with the Bluecoats and murder their Patron in the I Think We’re Domestic Terrorists Now Caper.

Ingredients:

1 Hidden lair inside Strangford Manor about to be discovered by the police

1 Lord Scurlock, patron of the Dead Setters, pressed back into the Inspectors by imperial decree and quasi-forced to assist in the capture of his proteges

Countless Tier VI bombs and artillery shells stolen from an Imperial Military resupply train

Leviathan blood/electroplasm supplies set to interact with the bombs to create destruction in the ghost field as well as on the physical plane

1 Leaked intel given to one of the crew’s surviving friendly contacts, Jeren the Bluecoat clerk

Season liberally with Bluecoats, Brigade, Spirit Wardens, and Inspectors.

Add pit fighter and rover cohorts to taste.

Carefully fold in the bombs and electroplasm to Strangford Manor. When Scurlock arrives, instantly bake Strangford Manor at 4000 degrees until rubble. If Scurlock isn’t visibly sublimated, confirm his presence manually while following the steps for All-Out War, below.

All-Out War

After the manor is cooked thoroughly, add the pit fighters, rovers, and PCs to the Bluecoats, Spirit Wardens, Brigade, and Inspectors. Mix well. Only roll sixes and crits during group actions because of Synchronized.

Keeping What You Kill

After the authorities have been temporarily routed but before reinforcements from the military arrive, use the Eye of Kotar aligned with spectacles crafted from mirror-demon shards to obliterate Scurlock’s broken form with arcane energy. Remember to use special armor to laugh at the otherwise terrible psychic cost for meddling with such powerful artifacts. Enjoy XP for Unstable and Vicious, then take over Scurlock Manor as your own.

Tier IV crews are no joke. The guys have Mastery now as well. This war with the cops has been brewing for a long time, as well as Lord Scurlock’s assassination. The players weren’t feeling the various “favors” he was asking of them, although they made enough progress to string him along and allay suspicions. I thought by having Scurlock rejoin the Inspectors, it might prompt some fun Departed-style inside intel/cat-and-mouse stuff, but the players were right in that at Tier IV, they didn’t need him anymore, and he was a dangerous enemy to have. Better to trick him and get him done in one (incredibly costly) fell swoop than try a half measure and miss.

We’re blowing up the setting, but there’s martial law now and we’re really in an endgame here. We want to see this war through and then we’re going to wrap the campaign.

#heestcomplete

The More Like Spark-WRONGS, amirite Caper

or

Now I Have To Deal With Tier IV PCs

The Dead Setters’ player attendance lottery continued, this time with Deemo the Leech and Raven the Hound able to attend. The Setters had a lot of irons in the fire, but decided to go after the equipment they’d need to make use of the coin minting dies they forged from Charterhall Bank. They had an expert forger, Valeris, and they had a crew workshop in which to do the work, but they needed minting equipment. Not only that, but their loftly goals were to print money that ghosts could use. The crew had the Ghost Market ability, and given recent overtures towards the Reconciled, it seemed the Dead Setters were about to corner the market on some sort of spectral economy.

Making money was one thing. Making ghost money would require Sparkwright technology. Two crits in a row after that made the score a piece of cake. Their intel was beyond exceptional, and although a poorly-timed industrial accident inside the Sparkwright factory in Coalridge made moving around the building risky, the two scoundrels pulled off the heist. I made a clock to represent the PCs’ efforts to create an opportunity to get to the large, heavy minting press they needed. Deemo basically resorted to college pranks to keep the Sparkwrights distracted, while Raven Splinter Celled the shit out of a handful of too-curious-for-their-own-good engineers. One berserk crane and industrial hull exoskeleton accident later, and our “heroes” poured Drift Oil on the minting gear and floated it out the roll doors to their Rovers cohort, waiting in their boat.

We had a boat chase then, because you can’t steal a floating industrial-strength minting press and take it out the giant open side door without being spotted. The Setters exchanged fire with the Sparkwrights, who unleashed a horrible electric net prototype which prompted a whole mess of stress and resistance rolls, then Raven critted on her Hunt roll and shot the lead Sparkwright in his volatile backpack. Flinders of boat and ropy strings of gore rained across the canal as the Dead Setters made it back to their lair.

This was a quick, simple, and honestly refreshing heist. The crew looted 5 Coin worth of precision parts and expensive-looking prototypes as well, which filled up their crew Vault. The Dead Setters were at 16 Coin. Their Rep track had been full for weeks now. They had Lord Scurlock as a Patron (for now – they also had 2/4 ticks on Lord Scurlock is Annoyed With You).

The Dead Setters went to Tier IV and I cried silent GM tears.

#heestcomplete

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

The Narcoleptic Dire Goat Caper

The Dead Setters turned the tables on the hit squad from Charterhall Bank, ambushing their would-be ambushers. The Setters had Rook the Cutter, fresh out of Ironhook (and whose player had to skip about a month due to an online class), and Deemo the Leech, fresh out of her player having a baby. Ironically, the other guys couldn’t make it so we had the inverse of our usual suspects. Charterhall Bank’s squad included Mr. Green and Mr. Veldt, both essentially former blades-turned-respectable (played by the Stabbington brothers from Tangled), leading six combat hulls in two goat-drawn carriages.

The crew had exceptional intel, and placed their ambush along an industrial boulevard in Coalridge. They paid a coin to their new Cabbie associates so they’d have a proper roadblock, but the engagement roll went south. Green and Veldt spotted the trap and one of their hulls disembarked while the carriages were still rolling. The machine slammed into the Cabbies’ roadblock, clearing a path and then stood its ground, electroplasmic emitter charging up to cover its masters’ escape.

Rook clambered out of the toppled Cabbie carriage and traded railjack hammer for electroplasmic lightning with the combat hull. Rook was still standing at the end of it. Meanwhile, the bank carriages thundered past on the cobbles… flashback!

Cut to Rook leading his pit fighters as they toil in the street, uprooting cobblestones and digging down into the packed earth. They make a trench and cover it up with tarps, dirt, and broken stone. There’s no way those heavy carriages, laden with hulls, will make it across.

And they don’t. A goat breaks its leg, loosing one of those horrible human screams. Another goes narcoleptic, tumbling to the ground. The lead carriage’s wheels break as it hits the mother of all potholes. The second carriage, pulling four heavy hulls, can’t stop in time. The goats see the gap and leap, but the carriage slams down into the trench.

Deemo releases two of her gadgets – the first is a clockwork gyro-drone, a little flying device that can drop a payload and return to its mistress. It’s carrying the second gadget – Quality VI chokedust. Not that weak-ass drown powder, we’re talking the old-school quickstart rules chokedust here. It’s been Deemo’s specialty since v4 of the rules and she missed it, so she made more during downtime and was wildly successful at it.

Green and Veldt have to escape. They’re not a hit squad of elite badasses anymore; they’re scared and can’t breathe and all their hulls just can’t seem to kill one guy with a hammer. Thanks, Battleborn and Not to Be Trifled With.

They try carjacking the last upright carriage the Cabbies brought. Deemo uses binding oil on the wheels. A crit! Green and Veldt get just enough momentum before the axles lock that they’re thrown to the street and lose their guns.

They try just legging it. Rook finishes off the last hull and uses Savage (as the two men are terrified) to Command them to stop – or else. Partial success.

“Which one stops?” I say.

“Veldt!” Deemo’s player suggests. “Green shot my drone, he’s gotta die.” And so we learned a bit about Deemo’s priorities. Rook agrees. Veldt stops short, shouting “Don’t shoot! I have a family! This was just a job, you know?!”

Green, on the other hand, meets the Dead Setters’ pit fighters coming the other way.

“Do you want him dead, or captured, or maimed, or what?” Then I look at the cohort’s flaws. Wild. Unreliable. That settles that.

Deemo helps them kick Green to death in the street.

#heestcomplete

The Dead Setters are moving away from stealing immortality as a Final Score and seem to be getting into the idea of producing a ghost economy using phantasmal coinage minted using forgeries from Charterhall Bank.

I have no idea how this is going to work, but printing money for ghosts to use is awesome.

Meanwhile, the bank has a hit squad out looking for them, while most of the heat got redirected against the crack team of Iruvian investigators when the Setters planted a second copy of the forged printing dies in the Iruvians’ base of operations. The investigators retreated to the Consulate and are probably going to be shipped back to U’Duasha in shame.

Rook the Cutter gets out of jail next week! His player had an online class conflict with the game, so we figured the gang might as well get a wanted level taken off for it!

#heestcomplete

The Charterhall Bank Caper

The Dead Setters, in what turned out to be the third session of this heist, set out to copy the printing plates/dies for Coin by accessing their vault at the Charterhall Bank. They were also trying to frame this band of “untouchables” (in the Elliot Ness sense) put together by the Iruvian consulate to catch them for all the dead young Iruvian nobles in the Red Sashes. They figured if they could finger the Untouchables for it, it’d be enough of a political mess that even the consulate would have to back down.

They got Raven the Hound into the vault, and she managed to stave off asphyxiation and make a decent copy of the dies. Then Richter the Spider and Teatime the Whisper basically got the Captain of Currency, one Beneful Camshafterbutch, to open the vault and then booked it.

The fun part is one desperate team Prowl roll while being chased by Hull bank guards toting blunderbusses is that you essentially get Matrix lobby destruction with a single roll. Good thing they all had room for armor.

Then Teatime trauma’d out resisting consequences from a blown desperate Study roll to find an escape route on their blueprints. He resisted being cut off by bank guards but was caught in a blast that blew out the floor. The Iruvians captured him in the confusion and dragged the poor Whisper into the sewers. That’s his third trauma, but he’s also at 4 ranks of Lifestyle. Will Teatime survive the Untouchables long enough to retire?

Interesting things we brainstormed about the Charterhall Bank for our game:

1. It uses hulls once you get past the lobby and front offices. Armored and armed hulls for guards, lighter-duty ones for menial tasks. They don’t make good targets for social engineering, they do their jobs well, and they’re intimidating.

2. Rumor has it it’s never been robbed. That’s not true, but the bank doesn’t want people to know that and when you mostly employ hulls you don’t have a lot of leaks.

3. It has its own lightning barrier (as some noble houses do) but the interior is inlaid with runes and patterns to create something of a building-sized spiritbane effect or faraday cage. We had them firmly on the “industrial” side of Blades’ industrial-fantasy slider.

4. They’re used to having the Coin and getting their way, much like a Broken Empire or Westerosi bank. Inside the bank, their word is law, even if you’re posing as a magistrate. And if that’s not good enough, they’re happy to detain you while they “sort out the irregularities.”

#heestcomplete

The Two Demons One Cup Caper

Teatime, my group’s Whisper, broke a Ghost Contract in order to flip on Setarra and finish off the wounded demon after she helped the Dead Setters ambush the mirror demon, Ahazu, at Tinriver House. It did not go as planned.

#heestcomplete