Session 1: Character Creation: Barge Party
Written by Alwaystoast.
Alwaystoast said:
tems marked as such:
>whatever
Are from my original plot notes, made before the session.
Italicized comments
>whatever
Are just my random comments about the game.
Session 1: Character Creation: Barge Party
It is the first day of Calibration between the year 766 and 767 RY (Realm Year). All the characters are on the island of Atlantis, located on the eastern side of the islands that make up the West.
“
It’s the first day of Calibration! And (any appropriate characters) has been invited to the Party of the year. It will be held on the pleasure barge of Admiral Peleps Krod, docked at the city of Atlantis, on the island of Atlantis. Even though the Admiral is not attending, this is looking to be one of the most important parties of the year. It will be lasting for three days. You expect to see a number of your friends at the party as well as make business deals.”
A-Dom is working as part of the security force. He is Thug number 4.
“If the right two thugs die.. I get to be thug number 2!” (As A-Dom said, Being thug #1 is too much work.)
>Opportunity to give Alms to the Disenfranchised on the docks before entering. Compassion Test.
Empty Bucket is amongst the Disenfranchised begging along the docks before the pleasure barge. However he is not as cute and/or pathetic as the disenfranchised children.
Jade’s Luck arrives first, before her Matron Jade arrives. She politely gives money to the disenfranchised beggars along the docks. She gets into the party just fine.
>
Some compassion.
Gareth arrives next. He gives a little money to the beggars.
>
Some compassion.
When Gareth gets to the barge, he finds his name is not on the list. He waits.
>
He was invited, but the players didn’t know an honest mistake happened.
Sesus Weijin Jahar and his bodyguard
Patient Tiger arrive. Jehar ignores the orphans. Patient Tiger watches carefully for thieves, and is ready to kill any of them who try.
>
Compassion Lacking for both of them.
>Willing to lie to get another character (who wasn’t invited) into the party. Conviction Test.
They get to the boarding plank, and recognize Gareth. Jahar uses his status as a Noble to insist Gareth was invited. Which of course the guards accept as reasonable.
>Captain of Security Wimbull will ask upstanding people to inform him when something is wrong. Conviction test, Investigation prone
Wimbull takes Gareth aside. Gareth happily accepts.
Chieftain Zuwuzu tries to make a sacrifice to a water spirit for safe passage. A Monk (non D-B) of the Immaculate Order will try to stop them. Conviction, Temperance
Everyone notices except Jade’s Luck. They all go over to investigate. A-Dom tries to get the Monk’s attention. The monk, happy for the help says “Get rid of him.” A-Dom picks up Chieftain Zuwuzu and throws him off the boat. Everyone is happy about this solution, cause they have avoided “magic bad.”
Gareth keeps his word and goes to tell Wimbull about the situation while it’s happening.
>
Demonstration of more conviction, and honesty
>Dinner is served. 7 pm
>While dinning, the ropes tying off the vessel are cut from shore. The ship begins to drift.
Actually, everyone is sitting on cushions for dinner. Except Tiger because he is standing up guarding Jahar. Tiger makes his check to notice the ropes being cut by the beggars who were not happy about how little money they got. Tiger says something to the effect of “Guards, stop them!” Guards pick up bows to shoot the children (Including A-Dom, who is happy to shoot children “I was only going to aim for the legs...”). Gareth runs over and throws a large hunk of money to the beggars and tells them to run for their lives.
>
Gareth clearly has compassion. A-Dom clearly has very little.
Empty Bucket was amongst the ones cutting the ship free. Afterwards, he tried to figure if there was any food around. Of course there was food... on the ship. So he swam around the ship (he put his bucket, yes he carries a bucket, hence the name) with the bucket floating on the surface upside down, and his head in the bucket. Then he climbed up into the barge through one of the oar holes. Inside the ship he found a towel... then promptly blended in as the piss bucket boy.
>Tallcrest the Sorcerer, a Dragon-Blooded who is on the ship casts the spell upon the ship while everyone is eating.
Tallcrest finishes the spell just after the children incident. He even explains the spell. It prevents any supernatural from boarding the ship. The side effect is it prevents all mortals from leaving the ship. Prevention is caused by an invisible wall of force.
Empty Bucket misses this explanation. Which causes some issues later.
>Head Chef Alphonze asks you to sign three different false names to the roster, and you'll split the pay the three non-existant workers earn. While doing this poison residue is planted upon them. Conviction/Temperance, Larceny
He asks A-Dom. A-Dom happily signs three names. James, Bob, Ralph. They split the money.
>
A-Dom again, showing his low virtues. Also showing his willingness to commit crime.
Empty Bucket gets into the kitchen and steals food, and empties the contents of his bucket, which has been used by a number of people, into the stew that will later be used to serve the slaves. He in fact got 6 successes on his stealth roll to not be noticed. Empty Bucket then hides amongst the staff.
>For a scholarly character, realize that the Tallcrest the Sorcerer’s room has a rare volume they've been wanting a copy of for years. With all these people on board, no one would know who took it... Conviction/Temperance, Occult/larceny
During the multiple courses of meals, Tallcrest remembers he forgot something in his room during. He gets up to go get it. So guards get up to go with him (Sorcerers aren’t allowed to be alone during Calibration). Jade (the madam) offers to send Jade’s Luck with him so the nice guards can eat their dinner.
Jade’s Luck takes notes of all the nifty things she could steal. But decides against stealing while next to the sorcerer owner.
>Personal Duels . Valor.
Peleps Herod (the effective captain), who is rather drunk, wants a demonstration of Gareth’s sword quality. So being an Earth Aspect DB, he walks into the dueling circle and says “Hit me!” Gareth fails to hurt him. “What a pansy, I said HIT me!” Gareth tries again, and does better. “Ouch!” Herod hits Gareth for quite a bit (5 bashing). Herod then orders a number of weapons.
>After Dinner.
>The chance to stop a drunk (Cynis Jahmar) from beating/raping the staff. Compassion. Combat skills
Jade’s Luck, A-Dom, Tiger and Jahar notice. Only Jade’s Luck cares. So she drags the guard A-Dom (Jade is confident she can’t win a fight) down to stop it. Of course she doesn’t call it a rape. She tells him it’s theft.
“I mean, you’re suppose to PAY for sex.” -Jade’s Luck
Empty Bucket notices this, as Cynis Jahmar pushes past him, and goes about his business.
>
Empty Bucket, lack of compassion
So A-Dom and Jade’s Luck interrupt the Cynis, who really is a jerk. As he stops what he’s doing, but stands with a foot on the woman’s chest to talk to them.
As this is a charge of theft, A-Dom asks the woman “Did he pay you?”
Victim “I’m not a whore!”
A-Dom “Oh... guess there is no theft here.” Walks away.
>
A-Dom, no compassion here.
Jade’s Luck, decides to enlist the aid of Gareth (who is still wounded with bashing). Gareth, who actually has compassion, really does try to stop the Cynis. The Cynis takes this as a personal attack on his character, and challenges him to a duel. They go to the dueling ring, decide upon using no weapons, and go at it. Gareth is quickly knocked out. The Cynis who is drunk and frustrated, keeps beating on him.
Everyone else has a chance to actively intervene. However, they all passively intervene. Looking for a Judge, trying to talk the Cynis into calming down, etc.
So Gareth exalts as the Twilight. He then makes the Int + Occult roll to remember the Sorcerer said Mortals couldn’t get off the boat. Being an Anathema, he is no longer mortal. So he jumps over the side.
Nobody (of the guests) remembers who exactly the Cynis was dueling, as many people are drunk, and there have been a number of not too exciting duels. The characters all keep their mouths shut, because they have all associated with Gareth. So they don’t want to be accused of anything related to an Anathema. A-Dom then says “I think it was one of the kitchen staff. James I think.”
>
Brilliant piece of work, blaming an imaginary individual who can never be found.
So there is a quick check of the staff and James, Bob, and Ralph are found to be missing. So James must have been the Anathema, cause A-Dom got “a real good look.”
Everyone now notices that the barge was cut free at some point, and has drifted out of the bay.
Slaves are sent down to row.
Empty Bucket attempts to get away and hide, not wanting to be put to work rowing. However he is grabbed and told to clean up the Anathema Blood. As is could be toxic or poisonous. He gets told he can just use the wine in his bucket (He’s been stealing bottles of wine), as this is an emergency.
He objects “Screw that, I’m going to drink this wine!” and hits the person who gave him the order with a wine bottle. Only then does he notice that the person is Judge Grimoth. Grimoth stomps him hard. Being badly wounded Empty Bucket tries to jump off the boat head first... and hits the invisible wall wounding himself more. Grimoth puts a foot on him and starts asking “Who’s slave is this?” With 1 health level left, Empty Bucket tries to lunge down the stairs below decks, head first. With the wound penalties he has one die. He rolls a 1 on that one die. So he knocks himself unconscious.
>
You get exalted by being in horrible danger... not by being incompetent.
So Empty Bucket is taken down to the “body room.”
>More cushions are put out to lay about or sleep on. 11pm (Night)
>Treatment of bodies.
A-Dom is told to take the body of someone who died in the dueling ring to the storage room, along with a slave. He is there to make sure the slave doesn’t steal from the corpse. That’s his job. He notices that there are a few extra bodies already there. One of the extra bodies is Empty Bucket (he is just unconscious). He loots them too. Then he reports the extra bodies to his boss the chief of security.
All Empty Bucket’s jade (that was gotten from other party members as a donation) was stolen by A-Dom. He was good and unconscious for 12 hours.
>
As a running joke, every time any character went into that room, I added one or two bodies to the pile. As a number of people were getting assassinated by nobles and the Abyssals.
Jade’s Luck decides to go back to the Sorcerer’s room to steal stuff.
>In the Tallcrest cabin, there are hideous half-alive magically mutated animals. With almost-human voices they beg for death. Compassion. Occult/Lore (there might be magical defenses in there too.)
As she is looting valuable things that will be hard to notice have gone missing (not that hard room is messy) she hears “Help me” coming from behind a curtain.
While she’s doing this Jahar and Tiger are going below decks on the other side of the ship.
She peaks behind the curtain and sees the experiment/torture part of the chamber. She finds the mutated and tortured cat who is asking for help. So she takes out her knife and slits it’s throat.
She then hears a chorus of “Me next! Kill me next!” As all the other animals start begging for death. Monkey, rats, birds, lizards, etc. So she lets the monkey out of the cage and gives it her knife. Monkey “I never liked you!” Stabs the bird. “Die scum!” Stabs the lizard. Jade then takes “bubbly acid looking stuff” and pours assorted random chemicals upon the torture equipment. She does in fact start a fire.
So the magic warning system goes off. “Guards! Guards! Intruder in the Sorcerer’s chamber! Guards! Fire!”
A-Dom is the first guard on the scene. He sees her coming out of the room that is on fire. Jade’s luck tries yelling Fire! And running away. A-Dom gives chase but fails to stop her.
So they are running the length of the ship below decks. Jahar and Tiger hear a commotion and see people running towards them in a dark corridor. There is some pushing and shoving, as Jahar wants to be in front to see, and Tiger Eye wants to be in front to protect him. As they get closer A-Dom says something to the effect of “Stop! Thief!” So Tiger tries to do a sweep kick as Jade’s Luck tries to jump over him. She succeeds... He botches. So he ends up sweeping A-Dom, who was right behind her. So they end up in a pile on the floor as Jade’s Luck runs off.
She goes and hides in the room... with all the corpses. Empty Bucket is now under a number of them.
A-Dom goes up upon the deck to report to his boss. But he runs into the drunken Peleps Herod first. This conversation goes poorly... as A-Dom is speaking fast and rambling, and Herod is picking out key words and using them to make up his own interpretation. Which is something to the effect of “I let the thief escape on purpose.” So Herod beats him into a bloody pulp.
A-Dom exalts as the Night Caste. “Can I like... punch through his chest?”
>
So I let him, it’s not terribly important, and it causes more chaos for later. So he kills Herod by ripping out his heart, and then jumps off the boat. (He saw the first demon do it.)
Everybody else is below decks. So they don’t realize who is being called a demon. They eventually get above decks and find out stuff is going on. Jade’s Luck manages to sneak back to the party, as the only guard who saw her... turned into a demon.
Jahar and Tiger get back up top and inspect Herod’s body. Someone is sent off to get slaves to take the body away. They find out all the slaves are sick with some kind of food poisoning. Well somebody needs to drag the body downstairs.... And Tiger is real close to the body, and a commoner. So he and a guard are told to do it. Jahar goes along too... hoping to steal stuff. Which is Tiger is planing too. Tiger and the guard go into the room. The guard then starts stripping the body and complaining about how you can’t take stuff from the body of a noble. Tiger tries to palm something, and fails. So they start fighting, and calling each other a thief. Jahar comes into the room and knocks the guard out. They take all Herod’s money, but decide against stealing his jewelry. They then tie up and gag the guard.
Jade’s Luck goes to check the slaves. She does a little medical investigation, mostly yea, they are sick and food poisoning seems right.
>Slaves die of food poisoning. 5am. (Night into Dawn - Day)
Jade’s Luck starts being concerned about the food. So she goes and tells the Judges that the slaves were poisoned and are now all dead. So nobody is rowing the boat. The Judges decide that commoners will have to row. Jade’s Luck points out that a food taster will be needed, since if the commoners get sick, nobody will be rowing the boat... Jade’s Luck is suddenly the food taster, being a commoner who doesn’t look very useful for rowing.
There was also some blame being spread around about the poisoning. So two staff members who served the slaves were going to die, then just be tortured... eventually they questioned the Chef. As Jade’s Luck tries to lead the conversation away from the killing and torture of people who may be innocent.
>Chef blames person he framed. Judges investigate and find planted evidence. Fun ensues.
>
Unfortunately for my plan... the person he planted the evidence on (A-Dom) already exalted.
But A-Dom is scape-goated, by Jade’s Luck, so the two servants manage to get off with no punishment.
Jahar and Tiger spot Jade’s Luck, and recognize her from below decks. Tiger tries to sneak up behind her (easy) and quietly draw his sword (With two judges facing him). “What are you doing with that sword?” -Judge
Tiger “Umm... She was running from the guard earlier.”
Judge “Which guard?”
Tiger describes A-Dom.
Judge “You mean the Anathema? Good job girl. Glade you escaped alive.” Pats Jade’s Luck on the head.
The Judges realize someone is going to have to clear out the slave corpses before the commoners are sent down to row. Rowing will be bad enough, don’t want to scare them. So the Judges order Tiger to move all the bodies to the “body room.” Jahar complains he won’t have his bodyguard, but is told he can stay next to the judges if he feels unsafe. So Tiger spends a lot of time below decks moving a lot of bodies a very long way below decks.
So Jade’s Luck becomes the official food taster. Jahar is suspicious, so he goes to the kitchen to check things out. Of course he wants to be subtle about it, and he is the only noble in a kitchen full of servants. When the head Chief asks him what the hell he is doing he responds with “I was just looking for a quite place to think.” Knowing this makes no sense, as the kitchen is the loudest place on the ship at this time.
When he doesn’t go away, the Chef asks him if he wants anything in particular. Jahar points out something being roasted. So the Chef cuts him off some, and poisons it. Jahar had no chance of spotting the abyssal magic poison (Although Gabe knew he was going to get poisoned). So he eats it.
Jahar is the Dawn Caste.
Tiger who is still below decks hears “Demon, Demon!” So he just ignores it, as going to investigate will probably just lead to removing more bodies.
Empty Bucket wakes up. Under a huge pile of bodies. Tiger opens the door and throws another body on the pile, then leaves. Empty Bucket digs his way out and starts looting corpses for a set of clothing. While he is doing this, he hears Judge Nessil coming and buries himself back under a bunch of corpses.
>Judge Nessil is really an Abyssal, who will begin animating Zombies once there are enough bodies.
As Judge Nessil is animating the corpses, Empty Bucket decides that his only way to survive is to “act like a zombie.” Which he proceeds to do, with 5 successes.
So the sun has risen by now. Breakfast is going on in full swing. And an eclipse starts.
Tiger, below decks, is going to stuff another body into the “body room.” This is when the players remember there is a bound and gagged guard at the bottom of a rather large pile of corpse in a rather small room. However there is someone inside, Judge Nessil who is animating the corpses as zombies. So the zombies all grab hold of Tiger.
Empty Bucket is the one saying “Brains! Braiiiiins!” He tries to get to the back of the group of zombies.
Tiger becomes the Eclipse.
So the Zombies have to let Tiger go, because of the Eclipse diplomatic immunity deal. He really wants to kill the abyssal... but he will get attacked by the zombies if he does. So he just runs and jumps off the ship yelling “Zombies!”
So the guests, rather tired of the Anathema who just run off the ship instead of staying on so they can be killed, kind of ignore him.
Judge Nessil takes the zombies and starts killing, and animating everyone below decks. Empty Bucket used this time to lock himself in a room that had already been checked by the zombie crew.
>
Note the complete lack of compassion. He was happy to let everyone else die to the zombies as long as he was safe.
Jade’s Luck manages to get away from food testing, to “powder her nose.” Which is reasonable given how much she would have had to eaten by that point. So she goes below decks to find someplace to hide. After a few hours she goes walking around below decks.
>Zombies are discovered. Noon. (Zenith)
While wandering around, she sees some people walking towards her. She recognizes one of them as Herod... who had his heart ripped out. So she decides to go the other way. But there are zombies shambling towards her that way.
Jade’s Luck exalts as a Zenith.
>
Yes, I got a perfect circle. I’m amazed.
So, I tell her, she can kill zombies by force of will (Which is basically the Zenith caste power). So she gets rid off all the zombies near her. Then she goes looking for zombies. “Till I can’t kill them no more.”
So she just keeps frying them, until her totemic anima image appears. Being a fox. Now she is below decks, and her flame wasn’t big enough to go above decks. But her totem image was. So there were a few jokes about the glowing fox head chasing people around the deck. She finally jumps off the boat.
So Empty Bucket hears the zombies being destroyed, and eventually comes out. Sneaks into the kitchen, steals a bunch of booze, then sneaks below decks and gets hammered. Then, now having less common sense from being drunk, he decides to go above deck. He is spotted, and accused of being the zombie summoner in league with the Sorcerer Tallcrest. So he is tied to something, and is being lashed to death.
Ok, Empty Bucket, doesn’t fit as a Solar. He isn’t heroic, or even very skilled. Plus, I already had my perfect circle.
Dan said something to the effect of “He should be a Lunar, the only thing he is good at is surviving.” However, I really didn’t want a Lunar in this game, especially with a player who had never played Exalted before.
So I asked Alex, “Yes or No, should I do it to him?” Alex said Yes. So it turns out Empty Bucket is a Dragon-blooded.
So Empty Bucket is a Water Aspect Dragon-Blooded Lost Egg... and he jumps off the ship.
End Session(s).