((Heh, literally suggested to syv to make him a magical tinfoil helmet.))
Get up and head over to the area with the pipes, and try to force the idiot with the gun into submission. Keep my wand up to shoot him if he tries something stupid. Use an illusion on myself to try and strike the right balance, getting him to freeze instead of bolting or shooting back.Im guessing the source of power we needed was that rock. Since its now dead, go find another group of witches near another power source or something.
"Get on the ground, you arsehole, and you'd better start talking, or you'll quite literally be going through hell."
What I want to know is, in order, what "The Light" is, and how to get a sample, if it's a physical substance, and what was going on here.
If the guy bolts or is killed, skip the interrogation.
After that, free Ben and ask him to take all the guns and weapons and get back to Vince's as it'll be bad if the cops find us with them.
In general, do my best to loot whatever's worth taking, from the debris from the rock and anything magic-sight picks up. I'll leave the guns for the others. If the cops start coming in, hand my backpack with the loot, my firearm, and my wand to Bella, and ask her to take them to Vince's, as I should be able to escape from the police with the right illusion.
If Bella isn't around for that, throw the backpack with the contraband in the canal, and check in with the river spirit to recover the stuff.
The illusion to evade the cops will be to look like a fairly normal human a few years younger than Nanami, dirtied in the blast, and simply try to walk out of the area. With any luck they'll just shoo the kid away and I can get back to Vince's.
If I'm less lucky, play up being non-communicative with shock, and try to wrangle a few moments alone, where I can change the illusion to look like an officer and get further away.
If Nanami gets away from all that, she'll just head back to Vince's.
Well, a lot of stuff seems to be happening, huh?
Ben's first priority is to get free, and his second priority is to get his stuff back. He's going to check if that crazy girl used all his ammo, and probably yell at her about not touching a man's rifle without his permission. He's also not gonna accept riding her broom--flying on a cleaning implement is insane--opting to stay with Nanami instead for now.
He'll inspect whatever gun turns up, see if he's familiar with it. And then he'll collect all the available guns, and start hoofing it back to Vince's before any police show up. No stopping for snacks.
As the rock's light fades, Bella's eye immediately light up with excitement.
"Yes! Yes! I have so much power!"
Two clots into the broom, now. Give Ben his stuff back. Mount up and go loot some guns from those guys who were shooting me. Grab a pistol and make it a wand with my other clot. Grab any bits of the rock that still seem unusual in any way. Or just grab a bunch of normal-looking pieces, cause hey, free space rock. In fact, make sure to grab a whole lot of rocks even if they seem useless, because I can probably pawn them off to fools. Give Ben a lift back to Vince's. Do all this as rapidly as possible.
Bella immediately upgrades her broom, transforming it from the airborne equivalent of a mountain bike to a turbocharged Harley Davidson. Eyes gleaming with magical potential, she drops a bag of knives on the restrained and fuming Ben, then flies with Nanami to the industrial area.
The four men there are confused and demoralized, apparently having no recollection of what they were doing the past few days and why, or any knowledge of the magical world. A judicious mixture of glamour and groin kicks persuades them to disarm, as the two witches imitate government agents, but interrogation reveals nothing. Bella takes a pistol from one man, a snub nosed glock perfect for stealthy carrying. Nanami unties Ben, who picks up an FN Minimi light machine gun and another taser.
Ben starts running, having concealed his weapons, and manages to get away without being seen by the numerous police and army vehicles converging on the area. Zamenis follows him, ending up back at Vince's house. Stella just gets a handful of shards of space rock and flies directly upwards at 50 mph, returning to Vince's house far above the circling helicopters.
Nanami tosses her backpack, along with several fist-sized fragments of rock, into the canal. She then changes her appearance into a convincingly ashy and traumatized passer-by. As soldiers storm through the area towards the disoriented men still lurking among the machines, she is passed back along to the field ambulances and and police cars surrounding the crime scene. A few seconds alone, and she ditches her shock blanket, striding away as a dark-suited officer and brushing past soldiers, excited onlookers. Once past the crowds and vehicles, she drops the illusion bit by bit, and dips one finger into the canal. A minute later, her backpack rises to the surface, completely dry. The river spirit squirms onto the grass at her feet, and asks when the water will be the same again.
Okay, everybody involved gets 1 point to add to any magical or non-magical stat or skill of their choice. Basically, +1 on anything on the character sheet.
Decide last moment that this zweihander is way too fucking heavy and go back for a moment just to leave it there and just get the curved sword instead and go back, listen for footsteps, if there arent any go upstairs
You get a curved sword. It's rusty, but sharp enough. You creep past the massive alchemical equipment in the room, and into a wide, open room with a marked wooden floor, like some kind of sports hall or gym. It is completely strewn with arcane-looking objects. The walls are piled head-high with books, scrolls, tomes and blueprints. Rows of beakers, bunsen burners, flasks and vials are ranged haphazardly on rickety shelves, while skeletons, dead insects, stuffed animals and dessicated body parts are stacked on countless makeshift tables. Wine bottles containing potent, magical or just plain weird liquids stand about in every free space, and hundreds of pages of alchemical notes and diagrams cover every free bit of floor. Working experiments seem to be in progress everywhere, as furnaces blast away at evil-smelling concotions, mice scrabble at the sides of glass cages of weird gas, and sparks bounce between metal objects that defy description. In short, it's a well-equipped and ordered alchemist's laboratory.
You catch sight of an oddly familiar figure in leather apron and goggles working furiously in one corner, and slowly start to creep away.
Agility: 1+3
You step on a delicately sculpted minature crocodile, which breaks with a resounding crunch. The alchemist immediately peers, round, and calls out, "Who's there? Who let you in?". You manage to cower behind a bookshelf devoted to Sanskrit treatises on astrology and sky creatures, while the man walks over. You have a few options here. Open flight is one... you're a pretty good runner. Trying to sneak off is a possibility, he hasn't seen you yet. Or you could fight, or do something else.
"Do you know what method he used to achieve such immortality?"
"I accept your job offer."
"Who ordered you to bind the Japanese spirit to the banana tree, and why? Are you allowed to tell me?"
In addition to my previous actions, head over to the computer-necromancers and ask them about this mysterious immortal mage. Perhaps they might know how to deal with him.
"And what would this 'something' be?"
After negotiations, head back to Sen's apartment (or Vince's lair, if Sen's apartment is no longer safe/being investigated as a crime scene) and have him teach me what he knows about magic/spirit binding.
Oh, and pluck a hair from Sen's head, tie it into a knot, then burn it to see what ability I get.
"If I knew how to make someone unkillable, you think I'd be haunting a building site running a ghost mafia? And I'm not telling you anything about my other clients. Now bugger off before I change my mind about not killing you."
You leave full of confidence. Sen's hair is apparently insufficiently magical to teach you anything new about pyromancy. He also knows disappointingly little about what he did to the female bannana-tree spirit. He does however have a wide knowledge of what various types of undead are vulnerable or invulnerable to.
The necromancers at the shop scowl and roll their eyes when you mention the immortal guy, "Johnson" to them. He's extremely skilled, and as much of a smug prick as you'd expect a millenia-old human to be. Everyone him, but nobody's willing to go up against him because he bears grudges for as long as it takes and can't be permenantly stopped. He's too smart to annoy anything really powerful, because even physical immortality won't stop an elder god swatting you into the fires of the end times or a really abyssal thing from swallowing you whole. He became immortal by somehow taking an attribute of a god, but nobody knows exactly how, and the god damn well ain't saying.
They suggest that physical assault is pointless unless to slow him down, but you'll probably want several guys on him at once, as Johnson has spent literally centuries practicing martial arts. They think that if you can get a really powerful entity to focus on him, it might do the trick, but that'll be too difficult in all probability. They also are in favour of finding some kind of portal to somewhere really nasty, kicking him into it and throwing away the key, or finding some kind of completely permenant enchantment. It'll have to be strong though, this guy has literally walked out of hell a few times. Finally, they give you directions to the God he stole something from, but warns you that he doesn't like visitors, especially not humans. Then again, he probably likes Johnson even less.
Bob Howard
Puissant fettle - 1
Ritual potency - 1
Runic sight - 1
Banal combat - 0
Practicality - 3
Inventory: £50, 1d20
{Certificate from Belial; Valid for one Potent Medium}
Puissance: 5/5
Puissant Clots: 2
Name: Nanami Adachi. (Nanami)
Unnatural beauty granted by demonic contract and the adoration of mortals. Slight charisma/popularity boost.
Power from mortal media.
Conscripted into twenty-nineth legion of Amdukias.
Puissance: 2
Ritual: 0
Runic Sight: 0
Banal Combat: 0
Aim: 1
Melee: 0
Agility: 1
Praticality: 2
Inventory: £315
Backpack, expensive camera + memory cards
Quality sketching paper, art pens+pencils, charcoal, etc.
Sketches of self as main character, Amdukias, the non-mortal world, etc.
[Glass Rod Crystal Wand] - Enhanced slightly through media
Mediocre Pistol (4/6)
Large, fist-sized mind-controlling spacerock fragments.
Puissance: 9/9
Puissant Clots: 2
Goethe T. Helle
Puissant fettle - 1
Ritual potency - 2
Runic sight - 1
Banal combat - 0
Aim - 1
Melee - 0
Agility - 2
Practicality - 1
Inventory: £20, clockface minus one hand, highlighter pens, two kitchen knives, half-empty cologne bottle
From the beast: one bone,
Italian Dinner suit, stored at Vince's place.
[Dog Collar Pendant][Molasses Clockhand Wand]
[Icecream Beast Blood Fur Chalice][Beast Remains Wand]
Runes:
Isolation: you never had many friends or allies, so are used to poor odds. +1 to rolls when outnumbered and alone.
Stoicism: a rune that calms those dealing with shock, tragedy or injury.
Perseverance: despite all the odds, you managed to kill a huge beast using nothing but hot syrup. Bonus to attack and extra damage to powerful or resistant enemies after several turns of combat or aggression.
Dwarven Weapon Storage: learned from a dwarf carrying a small armoury on his back. Increases load of weapons and tools that can be borne without being hampered or slowed down, or collapsing outright.
Ruination: when written, it makes a bad situation worse, and an irretrievable one more so. Learned after the second mission.
Puissant clots: 1
Puissance: 5/6
Name: Sir Worthington the Fourth
Has a demonic leg. Old leg is in possession of monarchs of hell.
Enslaved young man under demonic contract, wields katana, wears combat pants + green sweatshirt.
Stats: Ritual Potency: 3
Practicality 3
Inventory: £25, Pint of royal blood (stored at Vince's), blood covered knife, Cursed String
Stored at Vince's place: mortal's tendons, skull and leg bones.
[Glass Eye Pendant] [Paintbrush Wand]
[Toad Demon Battery Acid Tupperware Chalice]
{Scuttle Gem}
Amateur's Pyromancy Flame - Heal Burn (1P), Create Flame (1P), Flame Claw (3P)
Puissant Clots: 0
Puissance: 5/5
Jimmy "Car bombs" Castanza
Slightly slowed by a heavy load.
Puissant fettle - 0
Ritual potency - 0
Runic sight - 3
Banal combat - 1
Aim - 1
Melee - 0
Agility - 0
Practicality - 3
Inventory: £20, very rusty saw, length of pipe stuck to block of concrete, highlighter pen
[Lightbulb Antenna Wand]
[Broom - TIER 3] - Bike handles for steering.
[Omni-tool]
Milk Bottle full of space-warping venom.
Glock 17 (7/10)
Runes:
Detonation: volatile stuff explodes or catches fire more when you're around it. You can't help it, it must be genetic. Written rune used to detonate volatile substances.
Dead Man Running: you escaped the wrath of a mafia boss. Higher chance of surviving things that should really be deadly.
Mafioso: a mafia hitman, you preferred not to let your targets know they were hunted until after they were spread over an area of three hundred metres. Bonus to carefully planned unexpected attacks.
Alchemical (definitely idiot) savant: you saw an alchemist's shop when wandering around London, and deluded yourself that you understood something of how it worked. Because of the nature of magic, this belief is now partially true. Use this rune to make substances a bit more useful or volatile when used in alchemy.
Trader: a rune that when signed signifies to people that you'd be a good guy to buy from and sell things to.
Reticence: a rune whispered to you by birds perched on phone lines, you can get information without giving away much about yourself.
Bethel: a rune that enhances and aids summoning performed where it is written.
Degeneration: you saw men turned into animals. This rune turns advanced things like steel bolts into crappy primitive things, like wooden bolts.
Entrance: a god tried to break into our world. You now have a +2 in breaking into magic places you shouldn't be messing about with.
Hiijacking: Sand crashed a summoning-party and inserted herself into the centre of the ritual. Things with this rune written on will be more central to events and will conduct more power and magical energy than they should by rights.
Hassle: a rune that allows you to deal more effectively with multiple threats, distractions and tasks at once.
Scrap-crafting: after making a wand with bicycle horns, you have improved at making stuff out of junk. And you were already great at making stuff out of junk.
Oligarchy: a rune revealed to you the first time you flew over London, spelled out in the twistings of the financial buildings and the houses of millionares. Increases your power according to how much money you have.
Punctuality: You're good at getting things done on time.
Puissant clots: 1
Puissance:5/5
Ben Breeze
Stats:
Puissant fettle - 0
Ritual potency - 0
Runic sight - 0
Banal combat - 4
Aim - 1
Melee - 1
Agility - 2
Practicality - 0
Inventory: knife, 2xtaser, handcuffs, police baton, stab vest, torch, incapacitant spray, and a first aid kit. All in sports bag.
Also a bag of athames, 2.5 legs War Bacon (Vince's Fridge), a worn face-concealing hooded coat, bin bags.
Two generous Roast Beef and Horseradish Sandwiches
£20
Set of keys and passcard
Gunfarmer P90 (0/50) (in bag)
FN Minimi light machine gun, 2 magazines
Puissant clots: 4
Puissance:5/5
Steve
Banal combat - 3
Agility - 3
Inventory: £50
Rusty, shard curved sword
Puissance: 5/5,
Clots:3
Name: Bella, the Speed Witch
Runic sight: 2
Banal Combat: 1
Melee 1
Agility 2
Inventory: £0,
Delicate Rune-engraved Machete: heavy bonus when facing multiple weaker victims. Likely to break on misshits/heavy armour.
Snub-nosed glock 9/9
Shards of mind-controlling spacerock.
[Tier Two Racing Broom]
Runes:
Speed lover: +1 to doing anything while moving faster than you need to. Does not prevent (but can negate) maluses from trying to do things while moving faster than is sensible.
Slaughter: enhances speed and efficiency of murder when facing many opponents/victims. Passive boost, but can be written on things.
Broom Dodging: makes you better at dodging things while on a broom.
Puissance: 5/5
Clots:3
Name: Aisha Kassem
Ritual - 1
Runic sight - 2
Practicality - 3
Runes
Intoxication: a rune that can be muttered over an alchemical procedure, bring out the hallucinogenic and mood-altering qualities of the product.
Improvisation: passive, improves lab work/alchemy in unusual conditions, using odd or dubious ingredients or tools.
Griffon Roar: makes something or someone more intimidating and more visible when written.
Biotechnical: passive rune, boost to integrating organics with technology.
Psychologist: a rune letting you see people's motivations, triggers, interests, personalities, etc. more clearly.
Inventory: £43, Certificate from Belial (valid for one sample of occult substance)
Cheap backpack, four bottles:
River water, crocuses, rose petals, peonies, blades of grass, stagnant pond water, sticks, charcoal, rain water.
Also three cans, six lengths of rubber tubing, two copper pipes, a broken coffee machine, a mostly empty lighter and a teapot.
One rubber tubing, copper pipe, teapot and coffee machine set up as Distillator in Vince's garage.
{Potion of fleshly regeneration - One Dose}
Puissant Clots: 2
Puissance: 5/5
Name: Zamenis Paean
Puissant fettle: 3
Agility: 2
Aim: 1
Inventory: £5, Certificate from Belial (valid for one sample of occult substance)
Duct tape, Large Knife
Surgical tools: scalpel, a first aid kit, a saw, and tweezers.
[Tier 1 Broom, knife on end]
[Human Leg Wand]
Puissant Clots: 1
Puissance: 14/14
Author
Topic: COVEN: Gulled Goldsmiths and Lost Locomotives (Read 156160 times)