Craziness in the real world - King Arthur the Vampire Slayer

[VirgilCaine]

Hehe. Lemme tell you about a Vampire character I always wanted to play, but never got a chance to...

He's about 2000 years old, but he's spent most of that time in torpor (had to be at a PC sort of power level if I were to actually play him). Likes to tell the story of how he was screwed over by his buddy, executed and buried in a cave, then embraced. A touch of the old Malkavian madness compelled him to leave his clothes behind, neatly folded. Still has a few wounds from where he was nailed up.

I mostly just wanted to see how long I could play him before people got annoyed with me saying "It's okay, my son. I forgive you."

--Impeesa--

Ah! The unforgiven thief.

 

[The Shaman]

I have something along the lines of "Arthur the Vampire Slayer,", but since all of my players are on this board... ...the secret must remain in the shadows for now...

 

[RangerWickett]

So, I'm going to ramble here and plan tonight's session in Savannah, GA.

The elements of the plot:

* Anubis, former Egyptian god, is chilling and living a casual life. In the truly ancient times (~11,000 B.C.), Anubis managed with the aid of a few fellow warriors to slay a mighty magical creature and claim its power. That creature was a type of fey that called itself an angel, and Anubis learned how to channel the power of the fey to become like a god. A great conflict that has been lost to history deposed the Egyptian pantheon, but Anubis is still immortal, and a few truly daunting fey remember the murders Anubis and his allies committed. I need to remember that his Egyptian name was Ienpw (phonetically pronounced 'Yinepu'). Oh, and the boss from the book store in New Orleans is here, trying to track down Ienpw.

* The Bureau, those who keep magic hidden from normal people, are in trouble because they have been cut off from Gaia (the parallel realm where the fey live). They've been researching getting across through a ritual, but no one among the agents on Terra (the name for the human side of Earth) has managed to sucessfully cast the ritual to plane shift. The party can plane shift, so they're going to be helping out.

* I've got to introduce Laura's new character. She's a bouncer. I could possibly have them go to a bar and get involved in some trouble. They've already had gun fights, car chases, and three bomb threats, so I'm thinking something low key, but that reinforces the current plot problems. Maybe a fey creature that cannot be hurt by weapons, or possibly an Indian ghost that possesses people and makes them fight, so you can't just kill the possessed people. And then I need to make sure Laura's character has a reason to join the party, but hopefully she can help me with that one.

* The group's going to go to Gaia. Not necessarily to get all the Bureau agents (there are 40 or so, plus thousands of people who live on Gaia), but to get in touch with the Chief and . . . I need to find out about Old Squidhead . . . and the research squad over there. The problem is more severe than just that keys don't work. If it were just that, there'd be somebody who had learned plane-shifting magic by now. Nope, it's much more complicated. They can't just go get people out. They've got to figure out what the problem is, and fix it.

Need to brush up on my Tommy Lee Jones impersonation.

To fix the problem, they've got to go into the Bureau prison, which is an excuse for me to have a dungeon crawl in thsi game. With the lack of help from Terra, some necessary functions in the Bureau were lost, like keeping the prison wards up. The place is will warded along the walls so fey can't get out, but the interiors couldn't have those wards. Basically I've got a prison where the inmates are in charge. I need some help with fey prisoners and such, but I know ooh, what's her name -- tongue-eater frogbitch fits into this.

We've got the drow chick who likes desert frogs who can steal people's tongues with crazy curses. She can also remove other body parts, but she's not really that hostile. She's more seeking a way out, and would rather use people than just kill them. But if they attack her, they're toast.

* The FBI are still after the party, but because of the cunning deception of one PC, they're going to be splitting their efforts, leaving a lot of guys behind in New Orleans looking for a guy that they managed to sneak out of the city.

* I can have a ghost hunter there. How will he play into the plot? He's trying to bond a ghost to himself, and . . . ah, he's at the bar. Which lets me work in Jenny and Laura's character. And we can bring up the Legion backstory.

* Wiji-wiji. He shows up early, goes golfing for a few days. He can fey walk, which is significant in and of itself, because right now only Terry, Wiji-wiji, and Lin can do that. He wants to free an old Japanese sorcerer and interrogate the man. The whole conversation goes on in honorific Tokugawa-era Japanese, and in the end Wiji-wiji offers to give them another divination. But they've got to buy seven Scrabble sets.



Okay, there's probably a ton more I could do, but I don't have time now to plan it. It'll come up on the fly, though. Groovy.

 

[RangerWickett]

O - Kay. Having a little trouble motivating the group. I believe the problem is that they're not feeling sufficiently active in the situation.

The situation? Well, the Bureau wants to link up its staff on Terra with its staff on Gaia so they can dispatch agents to fix the problem. They've been researching, and they suspect the problem has something to do with the world mages, or else someone ridiculously powerful managed to cast a spell to seal the worlds, or it might possibly be an environmental effect (other symptoms include an increase in hauntings and a slight weakening of non-human spellcasters).

The Bureau asks to take the bracelet, and the PCs will probably say no. In the night, Wiji-wiji gives them the ride they need. It's early November now, and the villain has sent out his agents -- five prospective world mages -- to infiltrate the US Gov't, Russia, England, China, and India. See, the thing is, the villain has spent decades learning how to use magic without getting too close to the source of magic. And that's what he's trained his operatives to do. By Christmas, they'll have at least a few charmed senators, etc.

Richard Branson contacts the PCs and lets them know he wants to acquire their bracelet or their services. He just wants his treasure, since aside from that he's content even if the worlds drift apart.

Mr. O. He wanted the world mage, not Terry. He represents the fey courts, and he needs to find a way to keep the world's together. The fey agenda will basically involve telling the party that Terry wasn't the world mage, and that there's someone else whose trail they've been thrown off of. Need to show Lin's stage magic. But how? Lots of possibilities. Have group seance with Terry, and some memories get conjured up. Need to make sure it's explained in context, though. Hmm.

The villain is very pissed that people are still planeshifting, since that could ruin everything. He doesn't have many agents in Savannah, so he sends Richard Thevenot to sabotage the Bureau prison. Then send a ton of thugs after the PCs. Doesn't care if he raises questions, since he's very much protected, but Richard knows what to do if he's caught. He's got a bomb on his chest?

I really think that in the good old days (1700s and earlier), there should have been an organization of witch hunters that incited people to kill witches, since they understood that most humans could not use magic.

The lich's name seriously needs to be O-ryo. Or at least have Wiji say, "Handu him o-ryo. Wishu miruku."

As for the agents, we have Lin Noelle (field work), Jingzhi Dai (China), Richard Thevenot (US), Vladislav Gorbatiy (Russia), and Dierdre Dixon (England). We should've had Terry too, but oh well.

 

[RangerWickett]

Vampire King Arthur, escapes and turns the Lady of the Lake so he can reclaim Excalibur. When the party finds her, she rises up out of a lake of blood.

 

[Timeboxer]

Do you have any examples of whacky reinterpretations of real world history or myths in your game?

The two definitive sources for this sort of pastiche, in my mind:

· Disney's Gargoyles
· The Almanac in the back of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Volume 2

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

I'm pretty sure one of the FR books had a "Sunblade" which blade was made of sunlight that did extra damage to vampires.

How about...

+5 Bane (Undead) Ghost Touch Sacred Sunblade Glassteel Bastard Sword?

Not only will it kick undead tail something awful (+9 enhancement bonus, double damage, and +3d6 damage too...), but the blade is made out of glowy glass, for that lightsabery goodness. Plus, it's light, and tough (Hardness 30!). The above Sunblade doesn't include the "treat bastard sword as short sword for proficiency, et al" power, so it's priced as a +2.

Brad

 

[RangerWickett]

I've really got to update my storyhour. After Ceramic DM, I promise.

So:

Episode 1 - Ren Fest
2 - Terry's party
3 - Denzel goes downtown
4 - Savannah Knights
5 - Making movies, making songs, and fightin' round the world!
6 - Farnes
7 - Climactic Showdown w/big fight

Episode 8 - Notre Dame
9 - Qantir
10 - Wellington
11 - Machu Picchu
12 - Leng
13 - Nagasaki
14 - Chicago

Episode 15 - God plot
16 - Area 51
17 - Metafiction
18 - The devil
19 - The Bureau, again
20 - Avalon
21 -



Tonight's session will likely look like this:

1. Recap. Group wakes up, prepares to Bureau. They healed the cop, then shot him again.

2. Tagin tells them that he backtracked the encrypted and deleted phone records and found the guy who called them. The number is registered under the name "Chuck Norris." Probably a fake name. If the guy calls them, he'll be able to track the number and locate him. Also mentions that he found a tap on Nathan's phone, which he removed, but he can't be sure they won't replace it.

3. They drive to the edge of the Savannah River, use a GPS, then planeshift. Jenny, Ulwelf, Balthazaar, Ian, a tech, the PCs. On the way, Trae has a vision that Laura's in trouble, so he picks her up before my unnamed ghost hunter shows up.

4. Things are peachy. Meet with Chief. He thanks them, hears of situation. Jenny even has a report written, which she hands over. Chief tells them that basically they broke the law, and explains why. They arrange a seance to learn more about the situation. See a vision of Lin performing magic at a show. She has a dazzling card-tossing performance with trained doves that catch cards, a comic contortionist "pick a card" trick which she performs while climbing a pole and pulling animals from her hat and doing a shell game, all climaxing in a lock-box performance where she is chained up, then is dangled in a sealed box over a bed of flaming swords and the flames burn slowly through the rope. And when the box hits the ground, everyone sees her rising up from the floor inside the fire, her hat tipped, a leg cocked and a smirk on her face. Except for Trae, who instead sees a coffin strike the ground and shatter to reveal the world desolate, with no life.

See flashes of landmarks in 7 cities. Eiffel Tower, Sears Tower, Shimabara Castle, desert wasteland, Machu Picchu, frozen wasteland, and what looks like Mordor. Images of the world dead.

We also need to see something that points to Terry being world mage. See images of his training, and how natural it is to him.

5. Bureau folks head back to bolster the Savannah office and track down Dick, since they suspect he's involved in the same situation that happened in New Orleans, and that was too high profile. Oh, and what happened to cause so many Bureau agents to head over to Gaia? A mercenary army of magi tried to attack and cripple the facility. There were hundreds of elves and human magi. Some were killed; many were captured. Simultaneously in New Orleans, Vincent Dio II's vampire thugs attacked the Bureau office there. Similar attacks occurred at the other world offices. That was two weeks ago.

Dick lays low for a while, giving the party time to address some of their concerns. Moment they become bored, pow, he calls them, offers a new deal, and the Bureau tracks him down.

A courier waits at the hotel for them to come back. Depending on how interested they seem in helping out the Bureau, either Branson offers them a job right away, or he'll just offer them information. He can get people off their backs by either putting the bracelet in others' hands, or paying them $400,000 a year apiece to work for him.

But hopefully they go to the Houndstone Funeral Home, and talk with Mr. Ienpw. He has a pet hound watching out for spooks. The FBI shows up here, investigating.

6. Dick calls Trae again. If Trae can keep him talking for a few minutes, the Bureau brings in Dick, having captured him at a hotel.

7. On Gaia, the Bureau tells them what's up, especially with the extra information from Branson on Merlin. To fix this, they need a world mage, and with Terry dead, that only seems to leave Merlin, trapped by some sort of magic in England. They had thought there were more world mages still around, but apparently not.

8. Wait for a lull, and bad news arrives. Chief tells them to stay put, and he leaves guards to make sure the bracelet is safe.

...More to come.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

This is in response to the original post, but:

We ran a campaign where the PCs were transported back in time to a particularly hot summer during the siege of Troy in order to track down and eliminate a Predator (of Arnold fame) who was being subtly sponsored/protected by Titans who were just bored with the whole conflict and wanted to see the Olympians embarassed.


The Olympians and Titans were, of course, also aliens.

 

[Driddle]

Look for "Dracula vs. King Arthur," the comic book. Writers: Adam and Christian Beranek. Artist: Chris Moreno.

Excellent indie material.