"Now, hold up for just one second, mate. At least tell me what the stuff does first!"
Provides he doesn't tell me that it turns me into a zombies or steals my magic power or something, take some.
Yum, magic drugs.
Hang out for a while and then go back to the market on foot. Probably best not to Fly Under the Influence. And get ye chit!
The Chit signs itself off, then rewrites itself as a complex voucher and snuggles into your pocket.
He tells you that the stuff's completely harmless, and results in a gentle and mellow high. His name's Victor, by the way.
He talks about his aristocratic yet lonely upbringing as he prepares the batch, melting the shards of crystal in a round bottomed flash of rosé
and sprinkling in handfuls of deep red rose petals. Describing the fall of his noble father's fortunes until the family was unable to support even the meagrest of servants, he delicately measures out quantities of sugar, vanilla and cinnamon, before pouring them in over a red zircon amulet held up to his dark, golden eyes in the gloom. As his nimble fingers coax in qdrops of amber liquid that attempt to flow against gravity, he recounts how he had to bury his parents alone in the family cemetery, before sealing the creaking and ancient house in time, and working his way to London to prosper and rebuild his family fortune. As his strong cheekbones catch the flickering torchlight, he describes his steady accumulation of wealth and power in London, ceaselessly accumulating wealth and power. Finally, he tosses in a single minute golden sphere, and the murky brew in the flask clears and shines like fire.
Victor pours out the mixture into two crystal goblets, before toasting your health and swigging back his. You do likewise, and a warm glow suffuses your general being. It's mellow alright. You continue talking about Victor's monetary growth and refusal to be crushed by his desperate loneliness and need for human contact. And then you catch a movement in your peripheral vision. It seems like one of the statues changed position slightly. Ignoring it, you turn your attention back to the incredibly handsome and rich man in front of you.
The movement starts again. You break away from Victor's commanding gaze and turn.
Yup, the statues are definitely getting up and walking creakingly towards you. If they were even statues in the first place. There are about twenty of them, ten male and ten female, each perfectly formed and white as marble. And from the looks on their faces, you're in for pretty enjoyable carnal temptations.
"Yeah, it's totally normal to hallucinate stuff," Victor tells you, "I wouldn't worry about it at all, just enjoy whatever comes. It's always great. So we were talking about getting you a job, yeah?"
I'll take A Nap, eat some non-human based food, Drink some water, and generally take care of my basic needs for a bit.
Good plan. You do so cheaply.
Disarm the survivor if he still has a weapon, restrain him with my paintbrush (as mentioned before), then bottle up some blood from him, take one of his leg bones, take a sizeable number of his tendons, and finally take his skull. Try to keep him alive for all but the last bit (using my paintbrush to cover up his wounds if necessary), but if he dies, keep scavenging the remaining parts from him. Scavenge up a backpack or something to hold all this stuff; it's probably not good to be seen carrying it. See how much the blood will sell for at a necromantic shop (like, say, that necro-computermancy place). Emphasize that the victim died while in extreme pain, fear, and shock (only if that's true, of course). Inquire about how one would go about becoming a lich (or something similar). Could a demon do it? Then, store my ill-gotten gains at home and prepare myself for my next mission.
You go out and near-silently murder a homeless man, then chop a leg off and wrap it in a handy tarpaulin, then go back to Vince's for a roast. As it says in that Dating Advice book you either wrote or hallucinated, a good provider will always put food on the table.
Man, this game is the best.
EDIT: Oh yeah, also, get everyone on the team to update each other on what's happened since we split up. I might be willing to cooperate with that person that can pierce the veil between realities, for example.
You get his knife, which is good, because otherwise you were gonna have to use your fingernails to cut the guy up. Dragging the man behind the dumpster, you perform the series of bloodthirsty and illegal acts described, and buy a backpack. You're splattered with blood, by the way, which might be a problem if you see a policeman or something.
You find the shop described earlier, for the sake of brevity, and offer them the blood. They'll give you about £25 for it, to encourage you more than anything else. Becoming a lich, eh? You mean cheating death? Well, there are a number of steps.
1) The ending of your body's natural growth and regeneration. Because the cellular clock ticks inevitably towards death and ruin, as oxidants burn through mitochondria and grey matter droops and detaches. So you're going to have to
die to stop your cells renewing. And you're going to look a lot like a corpse, by the way. You can also say goodbye to any ideas about being healed too: that just won't be an option anymore.
2) You need a phylactery, an object that manipulates power, through which you channel life into yourself. You'll need to be able to ingest something you can't take from people without killing them; it doesn't matter what. Sunglasses that suck out people's minds? A drinking straw that drains their cereberal fluid? A porous ring you wear that absorbs blood when plunged deep into someone's still beating heart? Any of these would do, though keep in mind you'll be dependent on whatever they extract. You can create a phylactery with just one clot, but it will warp your nature as an undead.
3) Sacrificing a part of your magical nature. This basically means going down by one in a stat and a skill of your choosing.
Becoming a lich is difficult, but there are a lot of upsides to being immune to death, if not destruction.
Next order of business is to get a recording device and to designate some powers.
First, buy a backpack so I can carry more stuff than just what's in my hands. Second, head to a public library, (or wherever's most convienent) and write up the first of the storyline posts. List the MC as a human magic user called a witch, and list her witch powers as the following:
First, magic sight that can be toggled, and a spell that allows someone or something else to see the magical world temporarily. It's the explanation for the videos and such that will later follow. It's also the method of filming said videos. The on/off effect should be useful for filming purposes as well, as it'll lead to some good visuals.
Witch powers are generally elemental, but how they are expressed is individual to each particular witch. She has light, which allows her to create bursts of light and to cast basic illusions at short range, with no substance. Nothing that moves, although she can disguise something that does.
I'm going to need disguise abilities sooner rather than later.
The world described is similar to the real one, except with no mention of demon names or specific demons, although demons in general are okay. Do mention how humans are essentially cattle for many magical beings, creatures, gods, etc, magical users not exempt.
E-mail these posts to Dave, apologizing and saying that I'll be running around for the next few days and will keep in touch. Tell Dave this would be the start of the main plotline. Also, I'd like to kick off the storyline as if it was set at about now, and that the current plotline will be set a while before now, when the character arrived in London. It'll also allow for the old version of the character to be more amazed at the exploration aspects and the new sights than the current one.
As for the recording device, there should be a college or university campus somewhere. While using the public computer, look up the name of someone running a research group, preferably a student researcher or a project seeking student volunteers. Then proceed to the campus in question, find the A/V desk, and use that researchers name to justify borrowing a video camera with the necessary accessories. When out of sight of the desk, move the camera gear to the backpack. Then walk away.
After that, head to Vince's place and see if there's basic cooking gear there, such as a stove and a few pots, as I'd like to work on something for a wand and need something like that. If there aren't any such things, go out and buy an electric hotplate and a saucepan. Two saucepans, as at least one of them is going to contain something poisionous.
You get the backpack. Right, so your character is able to create illusions and break the boundary between the two worlds. The latter you already have, the former is doable with the following you have, though the illusions won't work on immensely powerful or perceptive magic users. You dazzle a few graduates and walk out with an expensive camera and several memory cards.
Yeah, Vince has saucepans and things like that, pans, a cooker. And a senile veteran cook that will only let you use the small pans.
Ben will obstruct this action if she goes for any of the good cookware that he uses, he doesn't want some random woman screwing it up with her harebrained culinary ideas. She gets the crappy pans, or none at all.
Edit: Ben will share some war bacon with her, and perhaps regale her with some old war stories if she stays around long enough. She still doesn't get the nice cookware.
((And yeah, this game is awesome. I made Ben as a joke character that I expected to die pretty quick, but I'm quite thoroughly enjoying playing him.))
You carve the joint generously and serve, carefully including all the components of a balanced meal: meat, crackling and sauce. Then the two of you settle down to a thrilling account of your involvement in the Franco-Prussian war.
Name: Nanami Adachi. (Nanami)
Unnatural beauty granted by demonic contract and the adoration of mortals.
Power from mortal media.
Conscripted into twenty-nineth legion of Amdukias.
Puissance: 1
Ritual: 0
Runic Sight: 0
Banal Combat: 0
Aim: 0
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.
Puissance: 5/5
Puissant Clots: 2
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
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: 6/6
Name: Ellen York
Puissant fettle: 1
Runic sight: 1
Banal combat: 1
Agility: 3
Runes:Unending Avarice: you can tell which loot is the most expensive and tradeable instantly, and can grab it as well. Pearls, money, fur coats, expensive champagne, and all things glamourous are magically attracted to your questing fingers.
Wallfish: a rune derived from snails you particularly enjoyed eating with pearls and vinegar. Better at avoiding damage when in or heading for cover.
Inventory: Duct Tape, nettles, crocuses, thorns,
Thorny and gothic katana
[Broom - Tier 2] - Roomba wrapped in rusty barbed wire.
[De-thorned Rose Wand]
Under the influence of magical substances
Puissant Clots: 0
Puissance: 6/6
Name: Sir Worthington the Fourth
Has a pretty crappy wooden broom for a leg.
Stats: Ritual Potency: 3
Practicality 3
Agility: -1 (wooden poles and plastic bristles do not a good leg make)
Inventory: £0, Pint of royal blood (stored at Vince's), blood covered knife,
Backpack: mortal's tendons, bottled blood, skull and leg bones.
[Glass Eye Pendant] [Paintbrush Wand]
[Toad Demon Battery Acid Tupperware Chalice]
Novice's Pyromancy Flame - Heal Burn (1P), Create Flame (1P)
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.
Glock 17
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: 0
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, taser, 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.
Two generous Roast Beef and Horseradish Sandwiches
Gunfarmer P90 (44/50) (in bag)
Puissant clots: 3
Puissance:5/5
Author
Topic: COVEN: Gulled Goldsmiths and Lost Locomotives (Read 153804 times)