(This session was a side quest generally unrelated to the main story. A gaming friend from out of town was visiting and wanted to play Blades, so I ran a one-shot with some of the campaign characters, but set it up so that the regulars didn't miss anything relevant.)
• An Iruvian fixer named Imo introduced the party to a foreign stranger looking for smugglers - an Iruvian bodyguard by the name of Mithos. He needed help smuggling a large crate out of Duskvol and into Iruvia via train.
• As it turned out, the crate was actually the coffin of a young Iruvian boy who had died of the "Spirit Plague" that has begun spreading around the city since the advent of the "Ghost Torrent" the party unleashed over the waterfront.
• The boy was a member of a wealthy Iruvian family on an extended visit to the city to attend to clan business interests. His distraught mother was returning home with the body to allow for a proper Iruvian burial rites - rites that require the body and spirit remain intact. This is in direct opposition to the mandate of the Imperial Spirt Wardens - hence the need for smugglers.
• When it looked as if the child would not recover from his illness, the family managed to acquire an Iruvian "needle for the dead" - an artifact that binds the body and spirit together as long as the needle is not removed. Accordingly, the wardens were - for the moment anyway - unaware the child had died.
• The first task was to camouflage the crate with a triple bottom - meaning one layer of obviously fake goods, a second layer of actual, but minor contraband (un-taxed liquid spirits) and a third layer hiding the body.
• After some coercing and bribery Flews and Mithos opted to stand guard over the crate where it rode in the baggage car while SBD and Cricket rode in their own small compartment in one of the cheaper passenger cars. In truth, SBD and Cricket ended up spending most of their time in the bar car where SBD stole drinks and got blackout drunk while Cricket ran interference.
• While keeping SBD out of trouble, Cricket met a suspiciously engaging and observant old couple who, in the end, turned out to be much more than they seemed. The old woman introduced herself as "Granny."
• Once the train was underway, Mithos and Flews were content to leave Pocket Mouse - one of Mitho's guards - to watch over the crate, and they joined the rest of the crew in the passenger cars.
• Two of the three day trip passed, and only a hundred miles shy of the Iruvian border the train stalled, went dark and coasted to a stop when the power was apparently cut. Several things then happened all at once.
- Flews ran off for the cargo car and engaged in a fight between guards and bandits that was already underway.
- Mithos and Cricket were visited by the ghost of Obo - the little boy they were transporting. He was confused about how he had gotten on a train and wanted to see his mother. Someone had apparently removed the needle pinning his spirit to his body.
- SBD headed outside to create a distraction, but thought better of it when he found the rail bulls, in their electroplasmic armor, fighting off the waves of hungry spirits that were attacking the train.
• In the climax the crew found itself fighting a band of train robbers in the cargo car - a band lead by Granny. After some bloodshed, Cricket negotiated an deal with Granny - if they would return the needle, the crew would not interfere with Granny's team's escape. The bandits gave up the artifact and fled the train - apparently into the Deathlands.
• Mithos replaced the needle in Obo's body.
• Once the train had gotten underway again and reached the border crossing the crew was able to pass itself off as at least the foils - if not the actual heroes - of the bandit attack and so were not arrested outright for their involvement in smuggling Obo's body.
• Given the proximity to the border, the local influence of Iruvian culture and the sway of a few bribes, Mithos and his employer were able to get the body out of Akoros despite the complications, and were satisfied enough with the work of the Queer to pay the agreed upon fee.
• The party hung around the boarder town of Southport until they could catch a northbound train and returned to Duskvol.
Thursday, June 28, 2018
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
Blood Sample (Session 3)
• While the stevedores were distracted trying to rescue the drover and his cargo from the water below the collapsed dock, Parva made his way to help SBD. Using his forearm-mounted, air-powered mini-harpoon gun, Parva stuck the drover, giving SBD that chance to douse him in fire oil. Unfortunately, he also doused much of the tar-soaked dock with the combustable liquid and set the waterfront ablaze.
• Parva and SBD used the distraction of the chaos they had caused - storm, collapse and fire - to slip away into the crowd.
• Cricket and Flews made their way into the ship's main hold, and after some searching found what appeared to be a warded vault door. After bypassing the lock using a special skeleton key Cricket had bought from the cantankerous locksmith Frake, they discovered a small, secure hold containing a dozen Leviathan oil casks that glowed a strange yellow rather than the typical actinic blue.
• Back on deck, Gyr dealt with another of the ships guards by impersonating the man he had just drown, passing off his dereliction of duty as a midnight assignation.
• Cricket used an axillary valve he brought for the purpose to carefully extract a sample of the strange oil. He also filled a second, secret container, double the size of the sample they had planned to take. Despite Cricket's every effort to do so clandestinely, Flew cottoned to what he was doing.
• As Cricket extracted the oil, both he and Flews noticed the tell-tale signs of a ghost manifestation as some form of bound spirit guardian formed in the vault and attacked. With great speed but little foresight, Flews blasted the spirit with electroplasmic ammo, dispersing it's essence in an explosion that shattered the local ghost field and compromised several of the volatile, yellow barrels.
• Several kegs began to leak, spraying pressurized Leviathan oil across the room. Though Cricket dodged out of the hold unscathed, Flews was not so lucky, with some of the oil landing across the nape of her neck.
• As the two of them fled the hold, they ran afoul of two gun-toting guards. In a dramatic turn, a watchful Gyr had come aboard and, impersonating a member of the Bowermore family, he was able to order the guards to join the fire brigade on the dock. The trio hastened over the side and paddled off in their getaway gondola - Cricket and Flews arguing all the way.
• As they fled and the docks burned, a massive glowing vortex of ghost field energy began to form hight over the ship, seemingly born of a baleful, yellow light that poured from every porthole and hatch cover.
• When they bumped into the body Gyr had recently made - and he decided to steal the dead man's clothes - Flews took out her emotional trauma by beating the corpse to a pulp with her bare hands. As they came ashore, frustrated with Cricket and distraught over events, Flew disappeared into the dark city streets.
• Gyr and Cricket delivered the sample to a ruined wall tower in the worst part of Charhollow. After inspecting the goods with an enigmatic stare, Bowler Man climbed silently out the window and vanished over the wall.
• Cricket delivered half of his secret oil sample to a maimed old timer in the Skovlander ghetto in hopes that he knew something about the yellow oil and could maybe sell it to help the refugees. The oldster seemed to recognize the substance and quickly hid it from prying eyes. He told Cricket he would ask around and let him know what he learned.
• Some days later, Flews accosted Cricket in the lair, threatening him with grave bodily harm if he crossed the crew again.
• A weeks later, the glowing malstrom still engulfs the ship, turning and twisting above the Duskwall waterfront like a tornado-sized spirit well. Claims from, "It will soon burn itself out," to "The end of the world is nigh," are shouted by broad sheet headlines and street-corner doomsayers respectively. The northwest docks have been quarantined and blockaded, and the Bluecoats are hunting those responsible.
• Flews discovered a bag of coin sitting in the end of their drainpipe entrance. At the same moment, halfway across town, while sleeping off his latest beating in the pleasure pits, Gyr began to dream.
• Parva and SBD used the distraction of the chaos they had caused - storm, collapse and fire - to slip away into the crowd.
• Cricket and Flews made their way into the ship's main hold, and after some searching found what appeared to be a warded vault door. After bypassing the lock using a special skeleton key Cricket had bought from the cantankerous locksmith Frake, they discovered a small, secure hold containing a dozen Leviathan oil casks that glowed a strange yellow rather than the typical actinic blue.
• Back on deck, Gyr dealt with another of the ships guards by impersonating the man he had just drown, passing off his dereliction of duty as a midnight assignation.
• Cricket used an axillary valve he brought for the purpose to carefully extract a sample of the strange oil. He also filled a second, secret container, double the size of the sample they had planned to take. Despite Cricket's every effort to do so clandestinely, Flew cottoned to what he was doing.
• As Cricket extracted the oil, both he and Flews noticed the tell-tale signs of a ghost manifestation as some form of bound spirit guardian formed in the vault and attacked. With great speed but little foresight, Flews blasted the spirit with electroplasmic ammo, dispersing it's essence in an explosion that shattered the local ghost field and compromised several of the volatile, yellow barrels.
• Several kegs began to leak, spraying pressurized Leviathan oil across the room. Though Cricket dodged out of the hold unscathed, Flews was not so lucky, with some of the oil landing across the nape of her neck.
• As the two of them fled the hold, they ran afoul of two gun-toting guards. In a dramatic turn, a watchful Gyr had come aboard and, impersonating a member of the Bowermore family, he was able to order the guards to join the fire brigade on the dock. The trio hastened over the side and paddled off in their getaway gondola - Cricket and Flews arguing all the way.
• As they fled and the docks burned, a massive glowing vortex of ghost field energy began to form hight over the ship, seemingly born of a baleful, yellow light that poured from every porthole and hatch cover.
• When they bumped into the body Gyr had recently made - and he decided to steal the dead man's clothes - Flews took out her emotional trauma by beating the corpse to a pulp with her bare hands. As they came ashore, frustrated with Cricket and distraught over events, Flew disappeared into the dark city streets.
• Gyr and Cricket delivered the sample to a ruined wall tower in the worst part of Charhollow. After inspecting the goods with an enigmatic stare, Bowler Man climbed silently out the window and vanished over the wall.
• Cricket delivered half of his secret oil sample to a maimed old timer in the Skovlander ghetto in hopes that he knew something about the yellow oil and could maybe sell it to help the refugees. The oldster seemed to recognize the substance and quickly hid it from prying eyes. He told Cricket he would ask around and let him know what he learned.
• Some days later, Flews accosted Cricket in the lair, threatening him with grave bodily harm if he crossed the crew again.
• A weeks later, the glowing malstrom still engulfs the ship, turning and twisting above the Duskwall waterfront like a tornado-sized spirit well. Claims from, "It will soon burn itself out," to "The end of the world is nigh," are shouted by broad sheet headlines and street-corner doomsayers respectively. The northwest docks have been quarantined and blockaded, and the Bluecoats are hunting those responsible.
• Flews discovered a bag of coin sitting in the end of their drainpipe entrance. At the same moment, halfway across town, while sleeping off his latest beating in the pleasure pits, Gyr began to dream.
Thursday, June 14, 2018
Blood Sample (Session 2)
• While Gyr received cryptic instructions for an apparent job through a disturbing dream, the rest of the crew was given a large sack of coin by a strange visitor to their lair - a creepy fellow in a ragged bowler, lips held closed with a series of small rings.
• Gyr did not share the origins of the job, but apparently the Queer had been hired by an unknown benefactor to smuggle a sample of a here-to-fore unknown grade of Leviathan oil from a freighter newly-docked from the Skovland refineries.
• The freighter was owned by the Bowmore family and the unique oil was marked with a particular yellow symbol.
• They party took a two-pronged approach, with SBD and Parva the Strange creating a distraction while the rest of the team used a gondola and grappling line to sneak aboard.
• The distraction consisted of Parva summoning a thunderstorm and SBD sabotaging the dock - causing a cargo wagon, it's draft goats and driver to crash through into the water below. Things went from bad to worse when Parva over-taxed himself and SBD was attacked by another drover.
• Cricket and Flews made it aboard at the cost of tossing a guard overboard and quickly found their way into the hold. Gyr causally used the gondola pole to hold the struggling guard underwater until he stopped...struggling.
• Gyr did not share the origins of the job, but apparently the Queer had been hired by an unknown benefactor to smuggle a sample of a here-to-fore unknown grade of Leviathan oil from a freighter newly-docked from the Skovland refineries.
• The freighter was owned by the Bowmore family and the unique oil was marked with a particular yellow symbol.
• They party took a two-pronged approach, with SBD and Parva the Strange creating a distraction while the rest of the team used a gondola and grappling line to sneak aboard.
• The distraction consisted of Parva summoning a thunderstorm and SBD sabotaging the dock - causing a cargo wagon, it's draft goats and driver to crash through into the water below. Things went from bad to worse when Parva over-taxed himself and SBD was attacked by another drover.
• Cricket and Flews made it aboard at the cost of tossing a guard overboard and quickly found their way into the hold. Gyr causally used the gondola pole to hold the struggling guard underwater until he stopped...struggling.
Let Sleeping Hulls Lie (Session 1)
• In flashbacks to their original introductions, the characters fell in together through an unlikely encounter - a brawl in the library.
• They took a job brokered by a spirit trafficker associate of Parvash's named Flint, and the crew was charged with smuggling an insane spirit hull across town. By way of assistance, Flint loaned the crew an ensorcelled scarf that would supposedly subdue an hostile spirit.
• The Queer opted to use the canals and discovered the device was being redirected from a Spirit Warden warehouse by an inside man. Nothing could go wrong with that...
• The party was ambushed by thugs in a trio of other gondolas, whom appeared to be in the employ of the now-nefarious Flint.
• The somnambulant hull woke and the Queer were forced to fight it while simultaneously fending off the rival crew's attack - which they managed with only a modicum of death and commotion.
• They survived the encounter, delivered the hull and got paid. They also kept the spirt scarf and are quite sure Flint is no longer a friend.
• They took a job brokered by a spirit trafficker associate of Parvash's named Flint, and the crew was charged with smuggling an insane spirit hull across town. By way of assistance, Flint loaned the crew an ensorcelled scarf that would supposedly subdue an hostile spirit.
• The Queer opted to use the canals and discovered the device was being redirected from a Spirit Warden warehouse by an inside man. Nothing could go wrong with that...
• The party was ambushed by thugs in a trio of other gondolas, whom appeared to be in the employ of the now-nefarious Flint.
• The somnambulant hull woke and the Queer were forced to fight it while simultaneously fending off the rival crew's attack - which they managed with only a modicum of death and commotion.
• They survived the encounter, delivered the hull and got paid. They also kept the spirt scarf and are quite sure Flint is no longer a friend.
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