Big Trouble in a Town Called Pleasance: <Wrapped up>

[Brewmaster]

So I wanted to post this up to help show how I at least work on a campaign, and hopefully I can dispense some helpful hints from it. Worst case scenario, you'll see a cool story

 

The first place to start is When. Since a decent chunk of the players are new to in depth involvement with the setting, I decided that the time frame of 1788-1797 was the perfect one to go with. The players (and their Fated) will be exploring Malifaux for the first time, and since the Council is still working out "Da Rules", the players don't have the added level of "Oh you wanted a magic? Well you have to hide it." This actually helped two of the players who haven't really looked at the system beyond stories us Minis-folk told em; they could approach it from the point of view of "This is a period piece with weird Tim Burton-y stuff." The one player kinda caught the idea of a Kit Carson / Davy Crocket type at this point.

 

The second thing is What. I gave the players a vector with "Late 1700s land rush, Contract Town of Pleasance", now we needed stats.

 

Pioneer (Politician Parents): “If justice finds you guilty of the only crime, your every breath will be as your last, but welcome the song of winter. An abyss opens beneath your cradle, and the eyes in the darkness change you.”

 

Graverobber (Coachman Parents): “After you bleed the coal from the bones, the August will leave melancholy in everything after as the gathering mocks your gift. The circle will bind as well as the grave and the willful earns his due.”

 

Dabbler (Hustler Parents): “When the accounting passes you by, the peer of a thousand faces will weep, but you are safe beneath the ice. The water falls like envy, the river runs like rage and obliterations touch will be gentle.”

 

Wastrel (Farmer Parents): “After the quiet of a thousand nights falls upon your ears, an idea will betray you as the living wither from your grasp. The blood-stained cheeks will weave the grasses and the mage’s knee bends before your river.”

 

(Accountant parents): “When at last you look upon your beating heart, the wondering hour will settle upon your hearth but fear the shadow cast by no man. Watch them as they fall one by one to the ground, and the torch will sputter into darkness.”

 

(Graverobber parents) “When you are a stranger to yourself, he will know you not by your rage, but by your temperance but love was left behind. Escape is impossible, freedom is inevitable and the noose will snap like thunder.”

 

(Dabbler parents) “Once your stains have been bound within she must lurk within your joyless paradise and the lost will drag you into the depths. The halo slips around your throat like the noose and you will be maimed.

 

The big thing I wanted is for the Destinies to tie into each other; I wanted one through-story that all of the players were working towards. That way, it wasn't so much 5 mini "accept or denys" but more "figure out that players 5 session arc, then give them a big choice to make at the end of it." Took me a day, but I made it work . I started with the easier one: the Pioneer. For those of you who are Dresden savvy, this particular destiny strikes me as full bore "Sword of Damacles". The player was discussing coming from a family of money, so I was thinking that that family gave him dispensation to come over to Malifaux for "good reasons", but rumors have been circulating that his family is up to something. Looking at the destinies, the Wastrel and the Dabbler's stories also seem to tie in with each other, but I really wasn't sure at this point. A decent chunk of the Destinies have "cold" or "water" in them, so this is when I started hitting on the idea: December. That just sent me off to the races.

 

The player with the accountant parents now sounds like their Destiny is " you're a perfect host for December" ('Look upon your heart'-'no longer need your heart', 'shadow cast by no man'-'the tyrants will', 'torch sputters out'-'heat leaving'). The Pioneer could be judged based on his parents being cultists. I got SSSSSUUUPER lucky when the Graverobber's player was talking about where they wanted to take their player because they had a concept they wanted to explore of "Bitten by a creature that cursed him, wanted to chase down the creature maybe" which, once I had the December vector, lead me to that player's destiny being "You'll become the new Wendigo." ('Bleeding coal from the bones'-'getting fuel from organic sorces'). The graverobber parents destiny leads us to that player becoming the new Blessed. Which leaves us with the other three. Those were a bit tougher, so I started just writing those destinies in different words but the same meaning.

 

The player with dabbler parents seems like they're a conscience to someone; they feel beholden to guide this person. But the more they hang around this person, the more they'll get dragged down. The Dabbler seems like "Someone similar to you is going to get judged when you should have been judged as well, and that will make them irritated." That gave me a bit more of a leaning with the Wastrel's destiny, namely "to make things right with someone, the Wastrel will suggest an idea or be involved in an idea that 'makes the living wither from him' or people will hate him because of this idea." Why not tie these together? An NPC of similar life to the Dabbler could drag one or more of the players down, and is important enough that the Wastrel will be tempted to sell them out. Once I hit THAT, my stories connected AWESOMELY.

 

The big plot for this game is that December needs a new host. Malifaux finally opening gives the cultists the perfect chance to 'prison break' the tyrant out. The cultists will hunt down an NPC, one that has ties to a few of the players, as they begin the appropriate ritual to release December. They need the entire roster filled (Blessed, Wendigo, Host). They have the Wastrel and the Pioneer in as "unknowing pawns" to the game and at the right moment, the Wastrel will be given the opportunity to sell out the host. And the cultists will also discover that whatever auspicious thing that the NPC has, accountant PC will have as well so hey, useful backup. 7 stories, 7 different chunks that lead to one conclusion in 1797. Now we just gotta see how it goes from here

 

Expect further posts.

[spectrehorseman]

Awesome, can't wait for more.

[Valentine]

Cool can't wait to hear how it has started to play out!

[alemon]

This is really helpful. I sort of just want to flip fates and practice plot-making that way, now.

[Brewmaster]

Important Prep #2: "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" or "20 questions"

 

Ever since I read about the concept of collaborative world-building over in the Dresden RPG, I'm been enamored with the idea. This seemed like the perfect place to put it into action. This story's going to start in the Winter of 1789, with the town of Pleasance having a year to build up, get a little backstory behind it. The players have lived in this town, so presumably they have some stories about it. I'm going around to each player and having them each give me a place that's in the town, and an event that's happened over that first year. Stories that the players have a hand in making will arguably hold more meaning than me sititng there for 15 minutes waxing poetic on something I think is cool.

 

So far, the player that's been tagged as the new Wendigo (who essentially wants to play Andre the Giant from the Princess Bride) established that there's an open air marketplace, and after a freakout where he thought he saw the Wendigo, he's not EXACTLY on the best of terms with the people there. The dabbler parents player established that there was a general goods store, and there had been a gremlin raid within the past year, and the dabbler player established that there's construction on a train stop for this town. More information is coming, but this already gives me condensed flavor for the town, and I can start adding little nuances that make the town seem more alive.

 

The second thing I'm having players do is look at a list of 9 NPCs (Name and occupation<not pursuit>), picking 1 and telling me if this person is "Good", "Bad", or "Ugly"(neutral). Any NPCs that don't get picked I can thin from the list, NPCs that double up or more I can feature more heavily in the story. So far: 

Sheriff Gideon Hawke (No-nonsense Good Guy)

Carlyle Silverthorne, OLD money (Soooooo bad)

Natalie Maunder, representative of the Council that either stays in town, has a job there, or "something something magic stuff" ("Fey" neutral)

Sadie Reed, Apothecary (Neutral)

Terrence Bowen, Undertaker (Neutral)

 

Since Carlyle got double-tagged, I'm thinking he becomes one of the founders of Pleasance (with generous second place donations from the Pioneer and maybe the possible host's families). The town is interesting to the Council, which means mining town. I see lots of manuevering between Carlyle and Natalie. Mining town needs law, and Gideon cracks down like the best of them. The doctor in town is Sadie Reed, picking up a penchant for patching people with her cure-all health syrups. The town has grown up enough to have a more respectable casino and by all accounts is a bustling mining town with seedy political machinations bubbling under the surface. By knowing where the 'edges' of the town are, I can create a MUCH more interesting story.

 

Next up is connections, then we can get this game going!

[LordZombie]

Hmm, that is a really good idea. Let the players help with making of the story. I like that idea.

[Brewmaster]

First legit session:

 

We start the story in the winter of 1789 in the town of Pleasance. Basic info to know about the mining town is that it was founded by Mayor Carlyle Silverthorne with generous secondary donations from the Crockett family. In the year that the town's been around, Mr. Silverthorne has spent buco bucks to make the town "cosmopolitan" with varying degrees of success (the ghost train forever traveling the rails of the abandoned train station is quite the story amongst the townsfolk). As a nice counter to Mayor Silverthorne's money-spending ways, we have Natalie Maunder, member of the Council who has a permanent residence here in town "Because she lies the view" (ie: making sure Carlyle doesn't skim on the soulstone count).

 

The group knows each other because during this construction year, there was a freak aether storm during the night, and they had a communal dream (ie: Began telling them their destinies).

 

With the snow coming down hardcore, most of the players are spending time in the Lonely Bumblebee Casino. The two exceptions are players who were paid 40 Scrip a piece by Natalie to escourt a young kid named Warren who just came into town to her.

 

Players all gathered in the Casino:

Victor the Wastrel

Amelia the Criminal (Graverobber parents)

Winifred the Dabbler

Boone the Pioneer

Davis the Pioneer (Dabbler parents)

Aaron the Graverobber

 

Boone, Aaron, Amelia, and Jack Kaylock the town blacksmith are enjoying a game of Pharoah, the piano player is getting ready to leave for the evening while there's a break in the storm, and Edmnud Doyle the proprietor is off for the night, so Victor's interim in charge person. Kaylock heads out, then the piano player leaves. The piano player's at the front door when a harpoon pierces his chest, then yanks him out into the snow. Needless to say, the group reacts to this In their attempts to check what's going on, the group gets tagged by potshots from the enemies outside, they finally get smart and cover up windows.

 

After letting things sit tense for a little, the bad guys throw in a cobblestone brick with "Warren" carved into it. Back and forth ensues, Warren insists that he's here because he had good grades in school and Natalie hired him straight from school. About this time, Boone gets the idea to try and parlay with the guys outside. He goes out to talk, the mook talking to Boone says "You give us the boy, we give you your lives". Boone doesn't QUITE talk things up the way he needed to, and gets severely shot up. Meanwhile two of the mooks break into the saloon from the second floor, there was some hardcore dodging and shooting back and forth, both got dropped. It was at this point that the group noticed Warren stopping being a scared little boy and more of a conduit for raw magical power who vaporised about 3 blast tokens in front of him.

 

Little bit later, Natalie shows up, brings Doctor Reed with her, then taking Warren, Natalie offers the group a job for the next day.

 

Mechanics discussion:

 

There were two big things I wanted to do with this game; I wanted to teach the group that thinking outside the box was good, and I wanted to stress test the system. So, for the encounter I used a Freikorps Trapper, 3 Gunsmiths, and a December Acolyte at Enforcer level. Specific fiddling I did was dropped the burning stuff from the Gunsmiths, and replace it with "Brothers in Arms: This Gunsmith can use the last trigger from another Gunsmiths attack within Aura2 that has already activated this turn." I also set up this "Assault on Precinct 13" scenario because it helped play up the crazyness of "We're cut off from the rest of the world, we don't know how many are out there, and oh yeah, why dont those guys seem to be dressed for winter weather." I could also pace out how much of th encounter hit at one time, allowing me to adjust difficulty if necessary on the fly.

 

The player who went out to parlay would probably have been okay, but he didn't quite think his way out of it, and nearly ended up dying (made it up to internal bleeding over on severe because of a harpoon through the arm). A lucky teleport saved him.

 

The other mechanic I threw in was after Warren cast his fire foosh, the next spell cast near him gained the effects of using a soulstone. Waht IS this boy's deal? *music stinger*

 

TL/DR: set up the hook, showed that this world was dangerous, handed out some loot from the dead bodies. Good-ish start I'd say.

[alemon]

That's really awesome, thanks for sharing! Did you think of the scenario first and then fill in what you wanted to accomplish, or did you create a scenario to give lloot, introduce world/hook, etc.?

[Brewmaster]

The big thing I wanted to do was demonstrate "This is not DnD". I didn't pull any punches, so if the players weren't thinking they'd get dead. I also wanted to set the mood for "December's coming", give the players an idea of the fighting style of the enemy. I've been a big fan of the "intuitive learning through gameplay, not tutorials", so this session is showing them what they'll need to consider when leveling up.

 

So, I had the hook, then I looked through the books to see what models I thought would be interesting. Faction didn't matter because of my cardinal rule #3: The players only know what you tell them. Creative skinning of one NPC can give you the NPC you want with little to no effort in bookkeeping.

[Brewmaster]

Session 2: The long plot

 

After getting some book-keeping done, I started with the Prologue for this session; Natalie Maunder offering the players a job the next day that pays handsomely, but will probably put them into direct opposition with the Mayor's people (Common Public Knowledge that it's either Team Natalie or Team Carlyle). Natalie was informed by Rebecca Haddley, the leader of the miners, that there's been Soulstones getting skimmed. Agreeing to the job, Natalie introduced the group to her personal blacksmith {And person the group will probably talk to for building their equipment and whatnot} Armand, then headed the days ride to the mines.

 

As the Fated arrived, they were greeted by Rebecca, and told that a half ton of Soulstones was missing. Out in the open where everyone could hear, Rebecca said that this was a rather daring heist. In private, when the players started questioning the purposefully inaccurate timeline I gave them, Rebecca explained the truth that those in charge have been hiding for weeks now; a creature known as the Wendigo has been guerilla-attacking this mine, and stones have gone missing over the whole time (not necessarily connected.) So, exploring the mine, got to play up Aaron's "Werewolf bite acting up", then the players found a creature. I was rather proud of myself with the Wendigo dropping a "I smell such delicious hunger. You wouldn't believe how tired I've grown of the same boring desire to 'get ahead in the world'. You guys are the first fresh meals I've had in a while." Fighty in a tunnel, followed by the Wastrel practically breaking his cane through the Wendigo's leg, causing him to... fall to the ground, crack like ice, and explode, sending a shower of ice at the two players around him? That's not what Wendigo's do... Before he died though, he helped drop the big plot. "It matter's not. December comes for you all."

 

Mechanics: The big thing on this session was a reminder of the players in town, the introduction of a possible patron (Natalie), and establishing what type of relationship the players could expect with her. Natalie purposefully gave them incorrect-ish information, so their reactions when they get back will make for an interesting story. This session was also about seeding plot, give players a glimpse at what's coming. The 3 that play Malifaux will be looking for clues ERRYwhere now that they got "December, Wendigo, December Acolyte", and the others can definitely tell something bigger's dropping.

 

I ran Wendigo as a soft Enforcer during the fight, I dropped the "Casting shwoopty" in exchange for the Jakalope's "Leap" ability.

[Valentine]

Did your players maintain their previous pursuits for this session? If they changed was there anything specific you had to arrange prior to starting the session in anticipation for changing class?

 

Lovely story, btw. Keeping up with it!

[Brewmaster]

Lemme see... Amelia started branching into Gunfighter, but everyone kept to their original pursuits. Davis is looking into developing some magical power, but isn't really interested in a full pursuit, so I'll prolly work out a session for his destiny that could turn into a manifested power. Speaking of, I gave Winifred an option last game since she basically grabbed a Soulstone that she could develop a power of her own. Since she likes Teleport and setting her sword on fire, what about "teleporting" some fire at an enemy (elemental projectile).

[Brewmaster]

Just wanted to share a lil extra since the next session has some extra prep to it. Here's a behind the scenes look at a Single Important Session prep:

So, getting prepped for the next game, I've decided to do my biggest kitbashing work yet. I need a good sub villain to start bringing up the "cult of December vibe", so having the group's first Boss Fight seems like a thing to do. Looking through the stat cards, I'm kinda drawn to Vanessa's stats. Little bit of magic, little bit of fighty, and some interesting actions. But some of her things just won't work in a RPG Setting.

Beginning fixes: since I intend this boss fight to be her and a bunch of mooks running around, Fates Entwined is being changed to "May make a 1/2/3 healing flip at start of activation, must have construct within (3), construct takes that much damage." Using the flavor from the Mechanical Doves, this mini-boss sees her constructs as an expendable resource, drawing energy from them when necessary. The visual of her creating Ice Beasties, and occasionally snapping one to feed from it seems interesting. Intuition is "this model generates a card point each turn.", and Harness Ley Line I'm switching to "Amplification: when within LoS and (6) of 3 or more friendly constructs, gain +2T Ca".

Attacks can be left alone, with the Order action in the book, the Command thing can be dropped. Since I don't want to double up on healing (because drawing out fights is boring to me), the Ley Stone Tac Action can get dropped as well, to be replaced by... Something... Honestly, since I have a "Robo user", I want to give the mini-boss a 0 action that can improve robo fighty fighty. I MIGHT just yank the Mobile Toolkits 0.

Next post: the mooks and the terrain.

[Brewmaster]

One of the things I've noticed with Malifaux is that "Solo fights" are a bit tricky to manage. The Players have 10AP to my 2, and much like the skirmish game, THAT is really awkward to deal with. So... my first plan is to test "Solo with a trash mob". Thus, our Cultist boss gets some Ice Gaiman. I do need to make SOME changes since A) I don't want to start using the Frozen Heart ability yet (We'll level up to that) and 2) I can't help but constantly tinker with everything just to satisfy my building itch

 

SO: Explosive Demise, Frozen Heart, and Bite of Winter get dropped. In exchange, they pick up the Latch On ability from the Steam Arachnids.

 

Boss

4 Ice Arachnids

 

The next big discussion is terrain. I could throw up some pictures here, but I'm a lazy bum, so I'll go through set piece building.

 

The LIST (Shamelessly stolen from Order 66 podcast, starting to be modded for Malifaux):

 

A Large Area: Your fighting space should be one 50mm Marker wide by one 50mm tall for each party member.

Cover: The skirmish game likes terrain, so you should in theory as well! Easily accessible and spread out. Get creative with cover as well!

Concealment: There's a reason "The Mist" is one of the more irritating things to deal with. The more interesting fights are ones during inclement weather, ones with smoke, low lighting, etc.

Hazards: One of the more fiddly bits with Through the Breach is the fact that FMs have static numbers. This is something that can lead to just awkward situations with players trying to hit a fixed number, and getting discouraged by just flipping poopy. Hazards are an element FMs can build into a set piece where the threat level is between two levels. The big thing about hazards is they affect players and NFCs EQUALLY. They should also be adjustable, or 'Escape-able"

Skill-Users: This one's a bit more tricky, but it's still something to look at. Have an element in the game that players can manipulate with "non-combat" skills. Here's an example: Let's say I've put some 50mm 'Crowd' markers in a combat. The Crowd markers provide soft cover (you could argue Armor dependant on what the scene calls for), and if the players or the NFCs spend a (1) TN 8 Social Skill action, they can place the marker up to (margins of success) yards in a direction of their choice.  

[Brewmaster]

The Next Session:

 

SO, I ran the players through the boss fight, and I think I learned some interesting things. To set the scene, the Fated are still in the caves when they come across one human-ish person, and 3 ice creatures. The creatures are pick-axing away at the walls, and the human is busy chipping away at a sigil that's been carved into the wall... oh, and dead guy on an altar, lots of blood ritual stuff, pile of spent soulstones.

 

Mechanics:

So I used the stats for 3 Fire Gaiman, and most of the stats I set up above for my boss. The flavor adjustment I went with was the "burning" was frostbite from how cold things got. Another element I added into the game were three "Power Points". They were locations on the board that provided a 'freezing' hazard (ending your turn within them would cause would cause slow on a Df duel) and they improve the stats on the Boss. I started out using Rank 8 for the Boss, and each turn the Fated didn't destory the power points, the Boss' rank would increase by 1. When the Fated made an attack against the Boss, I flavorfully described the power points flashing brightly, the air around the boss freezes, and the damage dealt to the Boss would drop. The final element I added to the game was changeable terrain. I placed 2 50mm markers on the table and I gave them the Cover 3 characteristic. Reading through the 2nd 2E book, I REALLY like the "Ice Shield" ability on Raethford, so I applied it to the Cover concept. Each time the marker was used as cover, the number would drop by 1, then get removed once it dropped to 0. One hardcore fight later after two Fated went unconsious, the players have been collecting bigger pieces of the story.

 

The boss had a grimoire on him with super spooky Cult words in it. The spooky death altar with spent soulstones seems to be tied with breaking a container. And the boss gave another "December is coming" speech before collapsing. The Fated let Rebecca know what was going down, and were told their involvement in this case was done. The Fated managed to catch that she was afraid of something (thanks to a Red Joker), but decided to return back to Natalie with a sealed note that Rebecca wrote for her.

 

For some character background stuff, Davis was interested in branching into healer territory, so while he was getting some assistance for Amelia's wounds, the mining doctor hooked Davis up with a 3rd edition Gray's Anatomy (Grimoire, WINK).

[Brewmaster]

Bit of a double header on this one, the Halloween episode, and this week's game:

I had a bit of flavor for Halloween, giving the players a dungeon crawl, and a creepy monster to fight. At the start, the players learned that Natalie purposefully gave them bad Intel to make sure they weren't working for the mayor, and just because she was curious how they'd react. She then told them of Black Jack Cappeti, a privateer who absconded with massive treasure to Malifaux. The big thing behind the fight was to help continue to teach the players to look beyond the "punch em till they fall down" way of combat. The players got some cool gear, and learned through Black Jacks journals that December refers to a singular entity, along with another handful of spooky hooba-jooba. Tonight's game took place 3 years down the road. My plan has been to progress the game through the first breach, and really have a spanning epic. The big drop tonight is the players were framed for a crime that could spark an all-out war between the Mayors crew and the Council, and they're about to confront the framer. I definitely think this leg of the story is the moral landmine field ^-^

[Brewmaster]

Been a little quiet here, time to get caught up I guess

 

I like monkeys. I also like having a bit of humor to accent my games. Combine this with a big push forward of the plot and you get part 1 of a 2 part-ish story.

 

Natalie has hired the group once more to deal with a second symbol she's found (the first one was that Mining cave fight thing). The new twist is that Warren (who Natalie has been training) is going to close the symbol, and the group needs to bodyguard him. The group did a little shopping, got some bits done, got the intel from Natalie, then headed out.

 

The town up north they're heading to is pretty frontiers-sy (complete with log wall surrounding the city). The first thing the players find is that the population dropped by half, the second thing they notice is a rather eccentric old man tinkerer by the name of Lars (cue my incredibly bad and probably offensive Scandinavian accent). Lars and his wife Gertrude explain that the town is under the control of a talking gorilla who's been turning the town into his zombie workforce. Group consensus is that the monkey (called Temujin) is trying to find the symbol. The group did some recon, and is ready to start the next day.

 

Big thing I wanted to do for this one was a bit of creative reflavoring. I've been looking for an excuse to use my Cojo model and I MIGHT have been watching Planet of the Apes, so little bit nicodem + little bit marcus = Temujin the magic using talking monkey.

[dgraz]

But....but.....Gorillas aren't monkeys....they're apes.

 

Otherwise....let the hilarity ensue.

[Brewmaster]

Part 2:

 

After sleeping at Lars and Gertrudes, the plan was hatched. The group had a set of "party poppers" (explodey flashbangs) that they planted in one of the many sites Temujin was digging in around town. Several jokes about the thriving weasel business around town later, the group wheeled their wagon to the mayor's office, set up a one pound swivel gun they picked up from a previous session, and hoped the flashbang distraction would draw Temujin out. Aaaand it did

 

Big Things in the Combat:

 

Temujin's stats were straight Cojo, I put 3 Molemen in the fight. Threw in more breakable terrain, and ran with it. Highlights include the molemen not landing ANY hits, Temujin backhanding Davis off the cart (got a rampage trigger), and Winifred putting Burning 5 on Temujin.

 

Davis got smart and started looking for the Cerberus I hinted at earlier in Part 1, giving me the PERFECT opportunity to introduce Arlan, a SUPER obvious tinkerer who's been going around with 3 constructs that are prepped for combat.

 

Notes: I want to do a LITTLE tinkering with magic (there's some pretty good discussions over in the Discussion forum). My personal preference? Max immuto on one spell is equal to ranks in the skill used to cast that spell.

[Brewmaster]

So, I always enjoy messing with the narrative of the story. Throw in the major plot drop I've got for this session, and you have a little episode I'd like to call "Obviously not Edge of Tomorrow, cause that would be cheating."

 

You guys remember way back up the thread where the crew had to deal with a framing? The framer was trying to bring his dead fiancee back to life, and due to December's involvement and a little help from the players, there's a crazy ice lady wandering around with the well frozen head of her fiancee.

 

As the players wrapped up the fight with Temujin, I introduced Arlan, he goes wandering off, then one of the players freezes into a statue and explodes outward to reveal crazy ice lady. This was the first Master level threat I threw at the group, and they did good! And as a few of the players were dying...

 

We reset to the one player refreezing into a statue, and the players remembered the previous fight happening.

 

Meanwhile, Warren's inside the Mayor's Office trying to seal the 2nd sigil the groups found to deal with the December nonsense. 3 Resets in, Aaron finally runs inside to check on what's going on, and finds Warren caught in a severe  magic storm created by trying to shut down the sigil. Warren gave Aaron the message "Stop me from touching the sigil".

 

4th reset, The group goes about handling Winifred by putting her into a medically induced coma since as long as she isn't consious, the Fiancee doesn't breakthrough, and the group saves Warren from touching the sigil.

 

And now for the big plot: As Warren helps keep Winifred from turning, it's discovered that the Sigils only react to Tyrants. The only reason Warren wouldn't want to touch the sigil is... anyone anyone? Warren is a minimum 1/8th Tyrant. And Natalie was the one who sent him there.

[Brewmaster]

So... It's been a half year, and it's finally time to drop what I've been holding onto for a bit.

 

I've fast forwarded the game a bit, and ran the players through an ongoing challenge for sealing the 3rd seal. The game picks up in a backwater town near the edge of the bayou where they believe seal 4/13 is. After some incredibly bad cajun accents... You love em, I love em... Gremlins.

 

Highlights of the fight include a hardcore gun-kata fight between Amelia and the 'fancy' Gremlin who felt it necessary to shout BLAM BLAM BLAM when firing his pistols, Aaron backhanding an exploding piglet out of the Gemini Bar they were in, and the Gremlin Taxidermist detonating his Dead Man's Switch. The players also know there's a Ht 3 creature and a "Fancy Gun" leader wandering around. With 7 sessions to go, this should be interesting  

[Sion_Barzhad]

Love your write-ups as always. The edge of tomorrow reset is a great idea to combat hard party kills. The whole gremlins side of things sounds great!

[Brewmaster]

Alright, it's been WAAAAAY too long since I've written here, so let's get things filled in:

 

The group has reached... the final story!

 

In their exploration of the bayou, they came across an interesting lady (YAAAAH I KNOW, but I made this before it was a cliche, so THERE ). This lady talked with em and let them know that Natalie's messing with the seals was only a stop-gap measure. If they followed her instructions, the nice lady would tell them how to win. She only needed one thing in return: a year of someone's life. Victor graciously offered this (giving me the PERFECT way of connecting to his final destiny steps). This was also a perfect story break to allow me to jump to the final story year. The nice lady told the gathered group that the final fight over Pleasence would determine the fate of Malifaux itself. They would need to prepare the city, and the first thing THAT meant was gaining control of the mayorship. While Victor was helping the lady resolve some nagging swap issues in the Bayou, the group was campaigning for the new mayor (cue ongoing challenge where success or failure determines how much resources the group gets at the end).

 

This session wrapped with Victor becoming the Mayor.

 

So, the mechanical way I'm handling the final fight is I split the city into 5 abstract sections. The players got tokens based on how the ongoing challenge went, and the final result was changed based on the person they backed. Each token represented 10% control, they could place the tokens where they wanted. If an area was at 100%, they completely controlled it, that area was locked, NOTHING to worry about. If an area reached 0%, complete anarchy, and it would take a MAJOR fight to get points back (ie: someone will probably die to make it happen).

 

The generic things the group can do to raise a % in an abstract section of town:

Fighty Fight: Shoot-out = 10% Dust-up = 20% Scrap = 30%

Arcane Ritual:

Escourt:

Supply Wagon

 

I will also generate specific events that occur. The final sessions are going to be "Real time" as the Siege of Pleasance, part 1 begins.

[Brewmaster]

The Siege Part 1:

 

I wrapped up a couple of loose ends with an opening fight between the players and the catatonic form of Winifred who turned into an Aspect (Think Banshees from Mass Effect). She summoned a rather large golem to help her out. Just when the players thought they would have an easy time of it, a rather irritated Voodoo Gremlin looking to get some payback showed up and started picking a fight as well. All types of shenaniganry hit, I messed around with an Attack Action I'm calling "Murphy's Law", and fun was had by all. After resolving that fight, I gave the players the option of raising the control of the district they were in, or gaining a small bump in all the districts (they went with a single bump), then decided to split into two groups to work on the slums and markets districts seperately... should be interesting

 

Warehouse district: LOCKED

Uptown: 45%

Downtown: 80%

Markets: 5%

Slums: 5%

[Martel]

You Sir, are an awesome inspiration.  I might cherry pick a few of your ideas and use them.  Hoping to get the last two players' characters made so I can use your tie-ins from your first post.