Tales from The Bubbling Turtle

[bowchikawowers]

I’m Fatemastering for the first time ever, and we had our first session last night. All of my players are brand new to Malifaux, and one of them is brand new to roleplaying in general. All things considered I’d say it went pretty well, and I’m hoping you guys enjoy it also.

 

My players are:

Charlotte Mae Hawthorne, a Southern Belle grave robber from a long line of necromancers who is under cover as a doctor come to Malifaux to study the Plague.

 

Benjamin Gavin Wright, Charlotte’s indentured bodyguard and former member of a powerful mercenary company earthside.

 

Liam A trapper from a major farming family in Canada. His family was murdered by some sort of cabal or crime syndicate centered breachside, Liam is looking for revenge.

 

Itzal is a scrapper hunting his uncle who fled to Malifaux after murdering his brother, Itzal’s father, who was a member of the 10 Thunders. It’s not clear whether he’s looking for revenge or answers, or something else altogether.

 

We have one other player, but he didn’t show up last night. Hopefully he’ll join us in a couple weeks when we have our next session. (I have drill next week and will be out of the state)

 

Session one. Tuesday, March 17 1903 This session we focused on Liam’s first fate “If you refuse the Hero’s Call”

 

Our party starts out by being the last ones to board the train to cross through the Breach, and the train is quite full. There is a man in a tweed jacket and bow tie with a mop of sandy blond hair who appears to be having a conversation with no one the party can see, using nonsense words and waving around a stick with a light at the end. The only spots left to sit are next to and across from a young couple towards the middle of the train. The man appears to be tall, though it is difficult to tell with him sitting down. He’s broad shouldered, and well dressed. His wispy brown hair kept calling down into his watery blue eyes. He adjusts his spectacles, says something to his companion and smiles at the party. The girl with him is petit, with curly red hair and grey green eyes. She’s light complected with freckles scattered across her cheeks and nose. She’s laughing at whatever the man has said when the party sits down.

A woman near the man in tweed is watching the happy couple wistfully, her clothing is worn and patched but clean, she has mousy brown hair and grey eyes. She smiles at the party then goes back to watching the couple.

 

The couple the party is sitting with introduce themselves as Bennett and Allison, and inform the party that they are on their way back through the Breach after a short visit earthside. Bennett offers everyone a drink. Allison and Charlotte decline, whiskey is not a ladies drink. Itzal and Benjamin also decline, Liam enthusiastically accepts, and the train starts rolling.

 

Going through the breach the party felt a tingle through their bodies and a roaring in the ears, then found themselves alone on the train, an old crone’s (Zoraida’s) disembodied cackle rolled through the air around them, then started reciting their fates.

Liam’s “If you refuse the hero’s call” Shiny white armor crumbles into dust. “You will be the uninvited” Everyone Liam has ever known turns their backs on him and walks away into shadow, leaving him standing alone. “But the people in the windows will greet you with terror” The decapitated heads of the people who turned away line a storefront window, their faces frozen in fear. “The deaf man must hear the owl’s warning” Look up to see a large full moon, an a silhouetted owl, clearly agitated. There is no sound. “And he will be paid his price.” looks down at his hands to see them full of blood covered script.

Benjamin's: “As the bell tolls for judgment” A heavy bell rings silently in front of a gallows where bodies slowly swing in a breeze. “The mud flows like a river into the sky” The dirt under his feet, grass and trees with it, slides up into the sky obscuring the stars, trees hang upside down and you stand in nothing. “For the stars will illuminate your path” The stars flee before the continually expanding earth in the sky, coming down to where he stands forming a path for him to follow. “At last you will give yourself up to the pyres.” The star path leads to a field of funeral pyres, he sees himself, battered and bruised, lying atop one. “and the willful earns his due” a woman and a boy light the pyre and watch as flames consume it.

 

Itzal’s: “As you strain to see through the high noon veil” Everything is over bright, with the light coming from in front of him instead of above him. Between him and the light is a shadowy figure, potentially humanoid, though most of it is obscured by light. “You will find the answer you cannot speak” He approaches the figure, it’s him, standing with a book open in his hands. He is looking down at the pages, he looks up, vision self’s mouth is sewn shut. “ you will be repaid thrice for the sins you have sold” around vision self’s feet blood spattered script litter the ground. “Only in death will the pilgrim be free” Mirror self points to the right, fresh graves have been dug and wooden crosses stuck into the ground. Covered wagons can be seen rolling away in a cloud of dust. “And you are a breeze unto the leaves. “Mirror self crumbles away, becoming a breath of wind sending old dry leaves into an energetic circle dance.

 

Charlotte. “As you strain to see through the high noon veil” She is standing in the middle of a ghost town, a dust storm looms on the horizon and everything is over bright and hazy. “You will refuse the call” An androgynous figure stumbles around a corner and reaches an entreating hand toward her. They crumble into dust as they get close enough to touch. “As the living wither from your grasp” Alittle boy reaches for her hand, when she takes his, his flesh withers from the hand moving up his arm until he is a shriveled husk. “Watch them fall one by one to the ground” A field of people, her companions scattered throughout, collase one at a time with an almost audible sigh. “And you will stumble upon the line of life and death.” She looks down. One hand is alive, and young, the other is skeletal and crumbling.

 

Zoraida cackles again, and everyone is temporarily blinded by a bright flash of light. Cackle fades into regular train sounds, and when their vision comes back they’re back on the train with everyone else and they’re pulling into malifaux station.

 

The station is nicely crowded, the party gets their paperwork checked and pass through easy as pie, they’re caught by the wistful lady from the train station who introduces herself as Hannah, and offers them rooms at her brother’s inn, The Bubbling Turtle, where she is going to work. She “has a feeling the party needs to be there”. She tells everyone where The Turtle is, and flutters off.

 

At this point Charlotte gets it in her head she needs a map. Right now. applying the “yes, but” rule, I added in a little stall outside the station selling maps for .5 scrip a piece. They’d have been cheaper in Malifaux proper, but she didn’t want to wait. The party then took a carriage ride to the Turtle, and got shown their rooms. They’re quite large suites, one for each player with Ben and Charlotte getting adjoining rooms. The Turtle is very big, and very nice, these rooms would ordinarily be quite expensive. Hannah tells the party they can have them for one script a week, as long as they agree to help out once in a while, odd jobs mostly. Security once in a while, maybe go collect things. Everyone agrees and stows their stuff before heading down to the common room.

 

The common room is a big, comfortably lit and furnished room, with a well stocked bar against one wall and a warm hearth against an adjacent wall. There are a few mine overseers, some off duty guild guards, a red headed woman at the bar drinking shots of whiskey, and some floofy ladies at a table in a corner.

 

Charlotte wanders around making small talk and a favorable impression on the patrons while Ben follows watchfully.

Itzal moves to a corner and just watches everyone.

 

Liam makes a beeline for the bar and the redhead, orders whatever she’s having, and asks the barkeep for rumors and work. Barkeep tells him about the Guild being all hands on deck trying to find the daughter of a guild official who was kidnapped a couple days ago, a riot in one of the slums when an arcanist lair was raided by Guild Guards, and your run of the mill Neverborn attacks, and suggests checking the Guild Enclave for wanted posters. Liam then attempts to get some information from the red head, offering to buy her a drink for whatever she knows about local fauna. Which is quite a bit, she’s been in Malifaux since the Breach first reopened. She tells him about a couple of different things. Skinwalkers, terror tots, and young and mature Nephilim. She also tells them to run if they see a mature Nephilim. Just run. He also asks about jobs, she might know of one. Heard something about a caravan going out in a few days looking for guards.

 

At this point, everyone decides its getting late, and goes to bed.

 

Wake up in the morning, I have everyone do a notice check. Benjamin and Liam noticed that their rooms had been broken into, scrapes on the window frame, stuff moved and put back *almost* the way it was before. Liam was missing a (non working) compass he’d been given by his brother. Ben isn’t missing anything. Itzal and Charlotte don’t notice anything out of place. Liam knocks on Ben’s door and barely doesn’t accuse him of breaking into his room (way to play that -2 charm! lol) after a few minutes talking he and Ben agree to ask the other two if their rooms have been gone through as well. Ben knocks on the adjoining door and asks Charlotte if she’s noticed anything, as he does so he goes to check her window. Sure enough there are scrapes. Charlotte gets a second shot at a notice check here and still doesn’t see anything (She kept flipping aces poor girl!).

 

Meanwhile Liam goes over to talk to Itzal, who is a little surly in the morning, he passes his second notice check, scrapes on the window nothing is missing. Strange. Liam is quite upset at his missing compass at this point, and seems about ready to run down and let the innkeeper have it.

They go downstairs, Hannah is in hysterics because Bennett and Allison have been kidnapped from their room. She says there was screaming, a shot may have been fired, there’s certainly what looks like a bullet hole in the wall (though nobody really examined it closely who knows if it actually was!), muddy tracks everywhere and a severed, really smelly and noticeably decomposed finger on the floor. Liam looked over the room, determined he could track these guys, and asked if everyone was ready to go. Charlotte says she wants to look at that severed finger before they do, she’s a doctor after all, maybe she can re-attach it or something. She picks it up using a kerchief that Ben hands her, and notices that not only does it smell bad, it’s also twitching. She uses a doctor test, then a Necromancy test to determine that, yep, it’s an undead finger.

 

Off they go following the tracks out a side door where they promptly trip over a poor old homeless guy trying to take a nap on the stoop. He grumps and grumbles about a rude bunch of loudly moaning smelly guys, and a screaming girl and a shouting guy all stepping on him, then these guys and come on! can’t he just get a decent nap? After some interrogating where they determined that he really didn’t see much, but was able to confirm that the two non smelly non moaners were Bennett and Allison, they continue following the tracks out to a box in a blind alley with a bullyboy standing in front of it guarding it from people apparently. He tries to persuade them to leave by shouting “you can’t be here” a few times without giving any reason why. Liam grabs his shotgun and Intimidates him so well the poor guy runs into the brick wall behind the box and knocks himself out!

 

The party figures out that the box is hinged to the ground and lifts it to reveal a ladder down into a tunnel. It's quite dark so Liam lights a candle and climbs down, as he's climbing Ben slams the lid down snuffing out Liam's candle and leaving him in a very dark tunnel on a ladder. Ben then lifts the box again and laughs “sorry, couldn't' resist” We all have a good laugh and Liam complains about how awkward it is to light a candle with flint and steel while you're hanging from a ladder. The rest of them climb down and the party then proceeds to have a 15 minute debate on light for this very dark tunnel. They got as far as suggesting Liam stick the candle to the end of his shotgun with dripped wax (cause that wouldn't hurt his night vision at all...) before Ben decided to do a notice check. There are lanterns on the wall. They take a couple of them, light them, and continue tracking the fresh footprints among much older ones in the thin layer of damp silt at the bottom of the tunnel. Liam tracks them like a boss through lots of forks and intersections to a buried chapel-like building with strange writing all over it. Everyone attempts a literacy challenge to read the weird symbols, Liam and Ben fail, and wind up scratching their heads, Charlotte and Itzal succeed, and determine that the writing has a lot to do with death and dying and doom. Charlotte then uses a necromancy test to determine that its instructions for some sort of ritual to make more intelligent undead. Charlotte immediately pulls out her journal and a pen and starts taking notes, everyone else shrugs it off and opts to worry about the chanting they can hear through the door to the chapel.

 

Itzal sneaks over to the door, and peeks in. It's a fairly large room, round with chains and lit lanterns hanging from the walls. There are three abominations (I've named them Ear Feet, Boy's Head and Red Eye), and three mindless zombies meandering around the room, and a small door off to one side where it seems the chanting is actually coming from. Liam sneaks over next, followed by Ben, then finally Charlotte (who didn't have stealth, but finally flipped a decent card!) Ben readied his rifle and aimed, I gave him a positive flip to his first shot for it. Everyone else readied weapons, or grabbed her focus object in Charlotte's case. Flip for initiative, Charlotte goes first, she Beckons one of the zombies closer. Itzal steps into the room to stab the poor squishy zom with his sabre, using two AP to turn it back into a corpse. Ben and Liam each shoot another zombie dead, leaving just the Abominations, who all converge on Itzal. Caustic Aura TN from the Abominations is met, and Itzal takes no damage. Charlotte then Mind controls Ear Feet to attack Red eye twice, killing Red Eye and leaving poor Ear Feet very confused. Itzal takes advantage of the gap in the ranks and walks out of their Caustic Aura and back toward the group. Ben took a shot at Red Eye, which goes right through his glowing namesake and leaves him twitching on the ground. Liam tries to take out Ear Feet but winds up flipping a black joker for damage on a double barrel shot. Ear Feet then went after Itzal again, ending within 2 yards of the party forcing everyone to make a defense duel against Caustic Aura again. Itzal and Charlotte fail this time, and they both take two wounds. Charlotte then mind controls Ear Feet and sends him away from them, Itzal throws one of his custom thrown weapons called a glaive at Ear Feet, slicing him up and leaving him twitching on the ground with his buddy Red Eye.

 

The party re-inspects the room, Liam grabs one of the chains off the wall to use as a flexible weapon. A quick listen determines that the chanting is still going on, albeit with more urgency. Charlotte flips very well on a necromancy check to compare the chant they're listening to to her notes of the writing outside the temple, and determines they're about half way through the ritual. She then suggests they get moving and leave searching the room for later.

 

And the whole party gets to draw another card because we've burned through the whole deck in that combat and I need to Shuffle. I then had them draw another one, because I could, and we were going into what could turn out to be a difficult mini-boss battle and they'd drained their hands as well.

 

They poked their heads through the door and saw a hooded person with their back to them and arms upraised, Liam spotted his compass hanging from one hand and swinging in time with the chanting. On the altar in front of the chanter they can see a little girl lying unconscious with a moderately large soulstone lying on her chest and glowing faintly, the girl's skin appears to be graying as they watch.

They walked into the room, and the chanter turned around revealing a surprised and angry Allison.

 

Liam looks the situation over, then walks over and shoves Allison aside to grab the Soulstone. Flip for initiative, and Itzal comes forward and stabs Allison with his sword, Liam throws the soulstone against the wall, cracking it, and readies his shotgun. Allison tries to mind control Itzal, fails, and swings wildly with her knife instead. Benjamin walked forward and grabbed hold of Allison so she'd stop trying to stab everyone. Charlotte attempted to mind control her, failed her first attempt, resulting in a fierce and ineffective glare from Allison, and succeeded on her second, making Allison go limp in his arms. Itzal stepped away from the wrestling pair to go help Liam with the soulstone. Liam focused and fired, flipped well to hit it, then flipped a black joker for damage. He clipped the edge of the stone sending it bouncing off the wall, over the altar and bounced off Charlotte's head to land at Ben's feet. Allison Mind controlled Benjamin, making him let go of her so she could back away a few steps. Benjamin kicked the 'stone over to Charlotte and walked over next to Allison. Charlotte picked up the 'stone and took that moment to bargain with the party. She'll give the stone back to Liam, if everyone agrees to let Allison live. Everyone does, so she throws it to Liam. At this moment, Allison screams in frustration and vanishes. They successfully destroy the soulstone, and the little girl wakes up with a gasp.

 

Charlotte uses her doctoring skill to check her over, she seems pretty healthy, just upset. Liam carries her back to the Guild Enclave, walks in and asks the lady at the desk there if there's a reward for finding the missing girl, she notices the girl on his shoulder, freaks out and leads them all upstairs promptly forgetting to give them the reward (don't worry guys, you'll get the script) one tearful reunion between father and daughter, the guild official offers them anything in his power to give, and agrees to give them a few days to think it over.

 

The party then heads back to the Bubbling Turtle, Liam makes a beeline for the bar again after offering Itzal a drink. Spots Anna there and buys her a shot of whiskey and tells her about the things they ran into that day.

 

Meanwhile Benjamin and Charlotte go somewhere private to come to an agreement regarding his contract and her magic.

 

That's where we ended it. These guys really get into the role play aspect of the game, and it is awesome!!

[Arli]

Great Read.   

 

More......

[bowchikawowers]

Lol glad you enjoyed it! 

[Polyclept]

It cracks me up that no one seems bothered by Charlotte's odd behavior--copying strange runes (the nature of which she did NOT disclose) and wanting to keep Allison alive. She has her reasons (misguided though they be), but I'm shocked that no one really took issue with her bargaining for a Resser's life! I suppose I should just be glad that no one killed her over a simple misunderstanding, though.

 

FM, I'll be keeping my character journal in the Fated Creations forum like you suggested: Forging a Fated: Charlotte Mae Hawthorne.

[bowchikawowers]

Awesome!

[Light_Rain]

I'm not sure about the others but it helps that I/Liam, never said or acted in any way to "kill" Allison. After all it was Allison and Bennett we were sent to find and Liam had many questions to ask her. "Where's Bennett?," for one. "Why don't you look kidnapped?," for another. As far as you copying the runes go /shrug you are an academic, at least that what Liam believes. Who knows what goes on in that head of yours. 

 

Speaking of what's going on in people's head here's Liam's "journal"

[bowchikawowers]

This week, and next week since we're having to cut this one short, we're focusing on Ben's fate; “As the Bell tolls for judgement”
Prior to the start of the game I sent an email to Benjamin's player with a “Job” from an undisclosed employer.

 

The letter said:

“Darci Martyn, Guild Witchling Handler has been sent to Hopetown to eliminate an Arcanist named Devin O’Briain, who has been working against Guild interests for some time. We expect the Handler will make their move within the week. We wish Mr. O’Briain to continue in his work.”

 

It should be noted that Benjamin knows who this employer is, but in the interest of keeping his secret secret, since a couple of my players read this, I'm not disclosing it.

Liam, Itzal and Anna finish their conversation. Benjamin and Charlotte join. They finish their conversation from the previous session, and Anna tells them she found some details on a job Liam asked about. There's a caravan of pioneers and miners leaving in two days going to Hopetown, a two day ride outside of Malifaux City. They're looking for guards, and it's paying well, but they'll be heading through... interesting territory. They're told to contact Emil Carr if they're interested.
 
Everyone goes to bed and they'll decide in the morning. Good night!
 
Good morning! Hannah slips the previously mentioned letter under Ben's door. There's no return address, nothing distinctive about the envelope or the paper or anything. Under Charlotte's door is a list of doctors, most of them are guild sponsored, though one name is scribbled at the bottom in very different handwriting, Doctor Samuel Calhoun.
 
Everyone decides that they're interested in taking the job, and go downstairs to leave to go shopping. There's a guild official there with the guild script reward for returning the girl they rescued from the Resser. The party splits it and then gleefully leaves to go spend it all.
 
When they finish their shopping they go to the gate to have a chat with Emil Carr, who they nick named Jack for some reason. The gate is teeming with new arrivals from Earth, and off to the side a bunch of miners and pioneers are loading wagons. They see a few rough looking guard types, but not all that many considering the kind of country Anna's hinted they're going to be traveling through. Emil is a tall broad-shouldered man wearing a duster with a shotgun sheathed over his shoulder, and shouting directions to people over the noise. He tries hire them for 5 script a day, but after a couple of very good flip from Charlotte he gets talked up to 10 for the fighters, and 11 for the doctors.
 
They also cash in their favor/reward with the guild official in the form of a quid pro quo kind of a relationship, and ask to borrow horses for another job. Of course they get their horses, and Benjamin spends the rest of the day teaching everyone how to ride.
 
Day two dawns bright and warm, the party heads out to join up with the caravan, after making sure Hannah knows they'll be back in a few days so she doesn't lease their rooms out.
The first day of the trip passes no problem, though Liam notices some signs that there may be something/someone watching and/or following them.
 
The caravan sets up camp on top of a fairly defensible hill for the night, and Benjamin attempts to set up a watch roster, while Liam attempts to turn the hill into a small fort. He's hampered by a couple of the stealthier party members vanishing. Our thief, Salem (who's player was absent last week) took first watch and still managed to nod off. The rest made it through their shifts well enough. Just as Liam's shift was ending, one of the other guards sounds the alarm, and Liam notices a bunch of Terror Tots charging the camp. Benjamin picks a few off with his rifle, but doesn't really make much of a difference as they swarm up the hill. A couple of the Tots manage to take down a couple pioneers, chomping them and becoming Young Nephilim. The party winds up facing four terror tots and two Young, which I attempted to make as threatening as possible without actually making them more dangerous, but I guess I made the tots more frightening or something as everyone in the party but Liam focused on the tots. Charlotte doing her usual make them sit down routine, while Liam kept the young busy, and got pretty roughed up doing it. Good thing he's got so many wounds!
Eventually they killed all the nephilim, and Charlotte lived up to her cover story and doctored like a boss using a first aid kit one of the pioneer women had in her wagon.
 
They arrived in Hopetown with no more problems and that's where we ended that session.