This Episode:
We started the session with a little bit of off table work-
establishing the terms and details of the group’s motley pledge, focused on
Perception and Resources as a benefit. We hadn’t dealt much with pledges in my
other Changeling campaign, so I want to present a solid sense of how they
function in my games. Pledges which bind promises or oaths with sanctions are
easy; pledges which offer benefits and boons are more difficult, twisting fate
and requiring symbolic energy or a pledge-crafter. Last session had ended with
the Wizened Smith John on the outs a little with the rest of the group. He’d
smoke bombed the Summer Court after the group met them. That had caused some
fallout for others in his motley. He was reluctant to go along with the group
when they chose to investigate the Railroad Museum. Eventually he climbed in
the back of the murder van and went along. The group was still seeking
information on the dead Smith Greyhand Grip who had fired himself in a rail car
across the night sky.
The group had several different leads: Kappachani Leather
Swan’s clearing out of Greyhand’s lab; Carpenter Husk, one of Greyhand’s ‘friends’;
and a site where he might have stolen the rail car from. They chose the Rail
Museum. (GM Note: that was by far the most direct route, with the clearest
linking core clue. I like being able to put lots of choices out there for the
players to see how they’ll jump. Each scene had some information, some more or
less vital to the bigger picture. The museum most directly lead to the final
resting place of the rail car. But the others had details which will eventually
come back to haunt them.). At the museum, they found Hob Sign, suggesting the
Hob Gang they’d heard about did use the place. They suspected the Hobs had come
across and taken over Greyhand’s old digs. The model railroad ride on the
museum grounds held a cheap fake mountain tunnel. The entrance to that opened
into the Hedge, where they found a massive launcher machine and a vertical
tower of thorns and brambles, with tracks running up it. John immediately leapt
into the machine.
Morosa could see the dark Hedge Sky at the top of the tower,
with a full moon shining down. She could also see something floating but
attached. She began climbing up to see what it was. Andi looked at the tower,
considered the science of it, and calculated in her head exactly where the
fired train car would have fallen. (GM Note: 8 Successes on a Math check). Near
the top, Morosa realized that she’d misread the scale of the thing floating
above, less weather balloon and more dirigible. It proved to be a giant
floating rotted peach, wrapped in aluminum foil. A hole at the bottom with a
rope ladder suggested that this was the vessel of the Hob Gang. The popping out
of a Hob Guard confirmed this, as Morosa climbed quickly back down. The Gang
poured out and began flinging horrible things down upon the group. Syd
activated her presence to cower them, quite successfully. After a wrestling
match, physical and verbal, the group managed to convince John to leave the
machine. (GM Note: Originally, I'd planned that the scene would require the
group to make a sighting from the base of the tower and the top. The scene at
the top would lead to a direct conflict with the Hobs or require cleverness and
sneaking around. Andi’s 8-success successfully circumvented that whole thing).
Andi had calculated the exact longitude and latitude of the
landing site, at the far western outskirts of Vegas. They drove there, but had
to park a distance away and walk the last mile. There they found a tanker car
sticking out of the ground like an arrow. It lay somewhere between Hedge and the
real world, slowly decaying back into dream. The outside of the car had
funnels, clearly designed to gather something. On the ground they found pools
of liquid which carried the full moonlight, despite the waxing moon in the sky.
They stank like spoilt milk. Syd looked around and calculated that they were in
the first act of a 50’s horror movie, where the innocents stumble on the alien
craft and accidentally release the monster. Despite that, she opened the hatch
on top of the car and peer inside, with only a lighter to illuminate the
inside. She climbed into the darkness- and then Andi followed, ignoring Syd’s
protests and illuminating the interior.
Inside they found the fever dream of a Wizened Smith. The
vessel had been built with pumps which had apparently drawn in the strange Moon
Milk. Many canisters of it had spilt and spoiled, but three remained intact. Andi
confirmed Greyhand’s corpse, dressed in a Verne-ian spacesuit, dead from the
impact. John clambered inside as well beginning to examine the device and
trying to listen to the soul of the dead machine. Outside, Morosa saw
headlights in the distance stop near their truck. She called to warn the
others. Syd and Andi quickly emerged. John, remaining in the car, discovered
sketches of Shark-Fingered Princess on the dead Smith and took them. Unfortunately
Andi, the Telluric Fairest had kept up her aura of light. Morosa saw the truck
clearly spot their light and begin to slowly drive across the mile span between
them.
The truck stopped as Syd and Morosa approached. A rugged
man, cowboy-dressed but unarmed, approached them in a strangely friendly manner.
He introduced himself as Lucas and said that he’d been following a scent, a
strange and powerful smell. Syd looked with her kenning as best she could and
saw the wolf-like form hanging behind him, not a Changeling but something else.
Lucas and the group conversed chaotically- with hurried discussions of how to
handle him. John emerged from the rail car depressed, yet another machine he’d
found this day which he would be unable to repair, or at least fix as he wanted
to. After various back and forths, the group struck an informal deal with the Born-Again
Lycanthrope. He’d offer then use of his truck and rig in the future if they
would pour him a water bottle of the Moon Milk. The group now considered how
they would deliver Greyhand’s body and the contents of the car to the Autumn
Court. (GM Note: Especially in early days, I like throwing NPCs and monkey
wrenches around to see how players react. I’ve run for groups where Lucas
showing up would have immediately led to a fight or direct confrontation. Just
as players have to figure out what a GM’s style is, I have to figure out how
the group handles twists and new situations).
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