A Foolish Errand
Nov. 6th, 2004 12:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothLast night we had a session of Lazar's Underworld GURPS game. Stacey dropped out, claiming that she'd found a job that would occupy her Friday nights for the forseeable future. The game is cursed! Or, well, maybe not so much cursed, since all the people who inevitably have to leave tend to do so for good reasons, like finding a job.
Lazar suggested I play up the possible causal relationship when trying to recruit new players.
There was a day of calm after the vicious Kits and Feral attack, that had claimed the life of another head of household. Charlie found John, or perhaps vice versa, and they spent the morning and early afternoon researching the Kits.
The librarian was very helpful, but there wasn't much information to be had -- they were able to confirm that the Kits weren't vulnerable to silver, despite being like werewolves in so many other ways. There was a legend about a Ronin surviving a trip across Kits-infested France by cutting off one of their tails, and then not pressing the attack, leading them to leave him alone, and even bury him during the daytime to protect him from the sun.
Wondering if they were a type of Fey, they found a book of drawings of a Fey dissection, and then went and dissected the Kits that had been killed recently by the heads of household of Athens. It was pretty obvious that the Kits were far more like men than Fey, even though no one was an expert in anatomy. They also discovered that the internal organs healed more slowly than the muscles and skin -- and stopped healing after death. Sufficient trauma to a sufficiently vulnerable area -- like a bullet in the brain -- would probably kill one.
Meanwhile, Don had been working on a device to shift the spectrum of light, hoping to find a way to make moonlight or his Artemisite 'shotgun' harmful to vampires (like the Ferals), and a device to track the radioactive spoor left by the pieces of Enochin, so that they could recover the head.
John also mentioned to the others that he'd had a dream in which a shaman had told him that 'the head lays under the temple, along with a place of power that Charlie has to deal with'. Knowing where the temple was, vaguely, and guessing that a place of power meant a ley line crossing, they were able to pinpoint the region where the temple and the head had to be, and with the tracker to lead them to it once they were close, they thought they were ready to set out.
It was already afternoon, but their destination wasn't far, and it was summer, so sunset wasn't for a few hours. Don and Charlie took Charlie's magic horses, JR has his own Griffon, and the Marquis -- who appeared at Don's request and offered to come along -- had a blue and white horse, so they made good time, until they had to start pushing through the tangle of wild forest to make their way up the mountain towards the ridge.
Eventually, they spotted the temple. Charlie couldn't scout it out in spirit form, because of a spirit wind -- akin to but different from the wind that had come from the mine -- pushed away his spirit as soon as he separated from his body. The Marquis was able to pop between and look around freely, though, and told them that the building was a sort of prison, with gates locked from the inside but barred from the outside, and with a wall designed to keep people in.
The locks were easy for the Marquis to pick, though, and since there were no guards (and were likely to continue to be no guards until nightfall, which was still two or three hours out) they left the horses in the courtyard, and entered the building. The tracker found a piece of Enochin outside, which Charlie used to seek out the head, getting the result that it was underneath the temple -- far, far underneath. Not terribly surprising, except for the distance down they'd have to go.
Inside, the temple was set up like a japanese dwelling, with paper walls and doors, and spartan furnishings. They snuck past a sleeping head-of-household, who was probably supposed to be on guard, and eventually figured out that the stairs down were in the closets in the corners. The second level was like a basement, with crates and barrels and such, as well as a nervous-looking man who, presumably, was the new recruit to replace the head of household who'd died fighting the Kits before they arrived.
He was disturbed at their presence, but accepted their explanation that they'd tracked the Kits here, and needed to go lower to retrieve their friend's head. He showed them to the well that he'd heard strange noises from, and they dropped a rope and descended into the darkness, with only minor injuries from their lack of rope-climbing skill.
last week | next week
Lazar suggested I play up the possible causal relationship when trying to recruit new players.
There was a day of calm after the vicious Kits and Feral attack, that had claimed the life of another head of household. Charlie found John, or perhaps vice versa, and they spent the morning and early afternoon researching the Kits.
The librarian was very helpful, but there wasn't much information to be had -- they were able to confirm that the Kits weren't vulnerable to silver, despite being like werewolves in so many other ways. There was a legend about a Ronin surviving a trip across Kits-infested France by cutting off one of their tails, and then not pressing the attack, leading them to leave him alone, and even bury him during the daytime to protect him from the sun.
Wondering if they were a type of Fey, they found a book of drawings of a Fey dissection, and then went and dissected the Kits that had been killed recently by the heads of household of Athens. It was pretty obvious that the Kits were far more like men than Fey, even though no one was an expert in anatomy. They also discovered that the internal organs healed more slowly than the muscles and skin -- and stopped healing after death. Sufficient trauma to a sufficiently vulnerable area -- like a bullet in the brain -- would probably kill one.
Meanwhile, Don had been working on a device to shift the spectrum of light, hoping to find a way to make moonlight or his Artemisite 'shotgun' harmful to vampires (like the Ferals), and a device to track the radioactive spoor left by the pieces of Enochin, so that they could recover the head.
John also mentioned to the others that he'd had a dream in which a shaman had told him that 'the head lays under the temple, along with a place of power that Charlie has to deal with'. Knowing where the temple was, vaguely, and guessing that a place of power meant a ley line crossing, they were able to pinpoint the region where the temple and the head had to be, and with the tracker to lead them to it once they were close, they thought they were ready to set out.
It was already afternoon, but their destination wasn't far, and it was summer, so sunset wasn't for a few hours. Don and Charlie took Charlie's magic horses, JR has his own Griffon, and the Marquis -- who appeared at Don's request and offered to come along -- had a blue and white horse, so they made good time, until they had to start pushing through the tangle of wild forest to make their way up the mountain towards the ridge.
Eventually, they spotted the temple. Charlie couldn't scout it out in spirit form, because of a spirit wind -- akin to but different from the wind that had come from the mine -- pushed away his spirit as soon as he separated from his body. The Marquis was able to pop between and look around freely, though, and told them that the building was a sort of prison, with gates locked from the inside but barred from the outside, and with a wall designed to keep people in.
The locks were easy for the Marquis to pick, though, and since there were no guards (and were likely to continue to be no guards until nightfall, which was still two or three hours out) they left the horses in the courtyard, and entered the building. The tracker found a piece of Enochin outside, which Charlie used to seek out the head, getting the result that it was underneath the temple -- far, far underneath. Not terribly surprising, except for the distance down they'd have to go.
Inside, the temple was set up like a japanese dwelling, with paper walls and doors, and spartan furnishings. They snuck past a sleeping head-of-household, who was probably supposed to be on guard, and eventually figured out that the stairs down were in the closets in the corners. The second level was like a basement, with crates and barrels and such, as well as a nervous-looking man who, presumably, was the new recruit to replace the head of household who'd died fighting the Kits before they arrived.
He was disturbed at their presence, but accepted their explanation that they'd tracked the Kits here, and needed to go lower to retrieve their friend's head. He showed them to the well that he'd heard strange noises from, and they dropped a rope and descended into the darkness, with only minor injuries from their lack of rope-climbing skill.
last week | next week
