Werewolf the Apocalypse; Session 2
May. 25th, 2013 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brushwolfTonight was the second session of this WtA game I'm running using the Kickstarter W20 rules. I now feel like journaling the game, so at some later point I'll go back and write up the first session.
It's hard not to do the standard RPG thing of referring to characters by player name or general role, so I'll just go with that. The characters (by player name and role) are;
The pack's based out of present-day Seattle and claims Boar as a shared totem (I've thought of running a "flashback episode" in which the pack earns that totem spirit). In the last session they established themselves as basically pretty discrete for a group of werewolves.
This session opened with the characters summoned by Inja Enkulu, the Seattle sept's chatelain. As a metis and Silent Strider, Enkulu's utterly trustworthy, more loyal to the goals of Gaia than to any political power, and he actually is part of the back story I've developed for the leadership of Seattle's Garou (nearly all the leaders served in the same pack, active in fighting the Wyrm during the early 80s - events tied to the Mount St. Helens eruption).
A few days prior to the characters' involvement, during a full moon with Rage running high, something had broken loose in a Port of Seattle shipping office and killed two employees. The SPD promptly cordoned off the area and did pretty much no investigation, suggesting that someone paid them off, and Garou-friendly supernaturals in the medical examiner's office were certain that the murders were committed by a werewolf. Neither the werewolves who'd logically be in that area (Bone Gnawers) or the werewolves most likely to take out humans (Red Talons) had members in that region, so the player character pack were asked to investigate discreetly, in case the incident was linked to someone politically powerful.
The characters snuck into the office in Lupus form after figuring out the frequency of security patrols. Among the mess of blood and claw marks, they were able to conclude that whatever did the damage was a short, broad-shouldered Garou, they found six syringes (two used), a tuft of fur, and literally tore apart a computer to look through its hard drive later. Crypto discovered the area was being monitored in the Umbra by a watcher-spirit, a glowing blue winged mouse.
The pack got out of there in a big hurry and took a closer look at their finds. The syringes turned out to be full of ketamine, enough to put down a large animal for hours, and a close look at the hard drive turned up a batch of containers mostly from Africa, with specific instructions that the live animal in one of the containers was to be sedated with the provided drugs every four hours. A holdup in customs meant that the third and further doses of ketamine weren't injected as scheduled. Prancival suggested that since the fur was some sort of tan/golden color, the culprit might've been a Bastet werecat, but Crypto was able to take that with the "shorter and broader shouldered than most Garou" data and come up with the conclusion that the pack was looking for a lost Ajaba - a werehyena.
Nothing on exotic animals brought into the country legally suggested anything, but some of the Bone Gnawer information network in the University District - the Ave kids - turned up reports of a new homeless person who couldn't speak a word of English, and a new busboy at one of the Ethiopian restaurants. Going there and using Scent of the True Form located the only Changing Breed in the place - and the werehyena promptly did her best to escape the player characters. Since werehyenas can "step sideways" into the Umbra like werewolves can, she promptly ran into the Umbra, and our heros followed her into the spirit world at top speeds.
Since the PCs were stronger runners than the werehyena, they were able to basically run her to a standstill - and promptly communicate instead of attack, not an easy task since the howl-tongue of Garou was about as related to Ajaba dialect as modern Danish is to Old Norse. She gave her name as Assefa, and was able to tell the PCs that she'd been tranquilized and kidnapped from outside Harrar, though the details of murdering the security guards and escaping were mostly lost in frenzy. The characters agreed to help Assefa return home if possible - at some later point.
That's also about when they spotted, looming hugely behind the werehyena in the Umbra, apparently connected to her, was a towering, golden baobab tree, its solidity made up of hundreds or thousands of smaller spirits of northeast African wildlife. Crypto was able to figure out that this thing was a regional spirit - a landwight of sorts - which had been anchored to an Ajaba family or indvidual after the werehyenas became less tied to a specific chunk of land. (In White Wolf's background, there was a bloody war between the werelions and nearly all of Africa's native shapeshifters, a war in which the werehyenas were uprooted from their traditional homes.)
The pack dropped back out of the Umbra and found themselves somewhere in Ravenna Park. And not alone either - they faced off against a small pack of three Black Spiral Dancers, with a cloud of small, shadowy banes summoned by the BSDs' theurge. Kes was able to chase off the theurge (easily the weakest of the three in combat), and the Garou won after a long fight. But before they won, the Dancers' crazed ragabash asked them what they were tracking. It was pretty clear that the Dancers were there to track the player characters, not because they knew about or were looking for the Ajaba.
The characters also found they were being watched by another mouse-spirit and pursued it through the Umbra, south and east, towards Bellevue - this one assigned to keep tabs on the PCs.
It's hard not to do the standard RPG thing of referring to characters by player name or general role, so I'll just go with that. The characters (by player name and role) are;
- Crypto; Uktena theurge. A grad student in Native American studies, the character's been rediscovering his mostly buried First Nations roots. The team's brainpower/mage.
- Kes; Child of Gaia metis galliard. Supernatural warder turned rave kid, so the pack's social animal.
- Prancival; Get of Fenris ahroun. The muscle of the group, currently living in a loft above his day job at a boxing studio, his Wyrd is to bear the powerful rune-hammer Hagalaz.
- Andy; Silver Fang philodox. Andy's new to tabletop gaming, and his character brings further investigation and social skills to the pack.
The pack's based out of present-day Seattle and claims Boar as a shared totem (I've thought of running a "flashback episode" in which the pack earns that totem spirit). In the last session they established themselves as basically pretty discrete for a group of werewolves.
This session opened with the characters summoned by Inja Enkulu, the Seattle sept's chatelain. As a metis and Silent Strider, Enkulu's utterly trustworthy, more loyal to the goals of Gaia than to any political power, and he actually is part of the back story I've developed for the leadership of Seattle's Garou (nearly all the leaders served in the same pack, active in fighting the Wyrm during the early 80s - events tied to the Mount St. Helens eruption).
A few days prior to the characters' involvement, during a full moon with Rage running high, something had broken loose in a Port of Seattle shipping office and killed two employees. The SPD promptly cordoned off the area and did pretty much no investigation, suggesting that someone paid them off, and Garou-friendly supernaturals in the medical examiner's office were certain that the murders were committed by a werewolf. Neither the werewolves who'd logically be in that area (Bone Gnawers) or the werewolves most likely to take out humans (Red Talons) had members in that region, so the player character pack were asked to investigate discreetly, in case the incident was linked to someone politically powerful.
The characters snuck into the office in Lupus form after figuring out the frequency of security patrols. Among the mess of blood and claw marks, they were able to conclude that whatever did the damage was a short, broad-shouldered Garou, they found six syringes (two used), a tuft of fur, and literally tore apart a computer to look through its hard drive later. Crypto discovered the area was being monitored in the Umbra by a watcher-spirit, a glowing blue winged mouse.
The pack got out of there in a big hurry and took a closer look at their finds. The syringes turned out to be full of ketamine, enough to put down a large animal for hours, and a close look at the hard drive turned up a batch of containers mostly from Africa, with specific instructions that the live animal in one of the containers was to be sedated with the provided drugs every four hours. A holdup in customs meant that the third and further doses of ketamine weren't injected as scheduled. Prancival suggested that since the fur was some sort of tan/golden color, the culprit might've been a Bastet werecat, but Crypto was able to take that with the "shorter and broader shouldered than most Garou" data and come up with the conclusion that the pack was looking for a lost Ajaba - a werehyena.
Nothing on exotic animals brought into the country legally suggested anything, but some of the Bone Gnawer information network in the University District - the Ave kids - turned up reports of a new homeless person who couldn't speak a word of English, and a new busboy at one of the Ethiopian restaurants. Going there and using Scent of the True Form located the only Changing Breed in the place - and the werehyena promptly did her best to escape the player characters. Since werehyenas can "step sideways" into the Umbra like werewolves can, she promptly ran into the Umbra, and our heros followed her into the spirit world at top speeds.
Since the PCs were stronger runners than the werehyena, they were able to basically run her to a standstill - and promptly communicate instead of attack, not an easy task since the howl-tongue of Garou was about as related to Ajaba dialect as modern Danish is to Old Norse. She gave her name as Assefa, and was able to tell the PCs that she'd been tranquilized and kidnapped from outside Harrar, though the details of murdering the security guards and escaping were mostly lost in frenzy. The characters agreed to help Assefa return home if possible - at some later point.
That's also about when they spotted, looming hugely behind the werehyena in the Umbra, apparently connected to her, was a towering, golden baobab tree, its solidity made up of hundreds or thousands of smaller spirits of northeast African wildlife. Crypto was able to figure out that this thing was a regional spirit - a landwight of sorts - which had been anchored to an Ajaba family or indvidual after the werehyenas became less tied to a specific chunk of land. (In White Wolf's background, there was a bloody war between the werelions and nearly all of Africa's native shapeshifters, a war in which the werehyenas were uprooted from their traditional homes.)
The pack dropped back out of the Umbra and found themselves somewhere in Ravenna Park. And not alone either - they faced off against a small pack of three Black Spiral Dancers, with a cloud of small, shadowy banes summoned by the BSDs' theurge. Kes was able to chase off the theurge (easily the weakest of the three in combat), and the Garou won after a long fight. But before they won, the Dancers' crazed ragabash asked them what they were tracking. It was pretty clear that the Dancers were there to track the player characters, not because they knew about or were looking for the Ajaba.
The characters also found they were being watched by another mouse-spirit and pursued it through the Umbra, south and east, towards Bellevue - this one assigned to keep tabs on the PCs.