The return to the World of Darkness Hunter storyline.
Task Force S.I.R.E.N. is back and we jump right into the middle of the action!
Knights of the Night
KOTN Actual Play Podcast 102: Chagrin - En Medias Res'
[Music] Hello and welcome to Night to the Night Actual Play podcast. This world of darkness story, chagrin, who is written and run by her storyteller Scott. [Music] And now, please enjoy episode 102, titled "Immedia Res". [Music] Alright, before we start our first session, we return to the world of darkness. We have some feedback for starting with some Facebook posts in regard to episode 100, which was our episode in which we discussed our Dresden files and the faith system. You have to be a fan of listening to that. Go to a fan, you know. Just listen to us talking about the adventure, not actually listening to an adventure, but talking about it. It's not even an answer to their questions, so. Right. Sometimes. Taylor McClure said, "Since there seems to be some confusion over my description of the previous episode as 'certainly something' and 'let me just say that being 'something' is much preferable to not being a thing, which this episode certainly wasn't." Nice. Nice. And then I have to say that I am no clearer on what the hell he's talking about than it was before. I think I followed along, actually, in the truth. Oh, please tell me. He's saying that being something is better than being nothing. And so he obviously appreciated it because he would have said nothing. Saying that being something is much preferable, not being a thing, I agree with that statement that you just said. So far, I think, I don't know, a court, you may agree. Which the episode certainly wasn't. Ooh. Right. He was referring to the last statement he made, which was certainly preferable to being nothing. Right? That was just the last part of the sentence before this sentence began. I'm not saying it was very clear. I think he was trying to make it unclear. Of truth. Yes. He was making it kind of interesting as far as that goes. And thank you, Taylor. Right. Yeah, good fun with that. We also had some feedback on episode 100 from our friend, Ari, who, by the way, had a birthday this past week. All right. Happy birthday, Ari. I did, on Facebook, go to Ari's page and saw many messages from his friends in another language. I cut that language. I'll put it in Google Translate and found out it was Finnish. Which makes sense. Cool. It comes from Finland. I have a friend who speaks Finnish. Believe it or not. I wish you had known that because I used Google Translate to wish him from the KOTN crew. Happy birthday, Ari. I also know somebody who speaks Start. Speak what now? Finish. Finish. Start. Finish. Huh. Oh. Yeah. Editing. No. We'll leave that in a minute. Oh, there is no fucking whale. That's terrible. It's not gold. Well, now you leave this in, too, and then people... How is that gold? Start. What's happening now is the gold, where you get to make fun of me, and I'm actually giving a reason for it this time. As opposed to... Instead of just the pie shots I get for general principles. Anyways, hopefully, my use of Google Translate wasn't as horrible and I wished you a happy fish or something like that, so hopefully it was happy for a fact. Anyway, Ari posted on Facebook saying, "Well, hello there." That was a very educational episode. To my ears, it was good to look at the pros and cons of the fake system and the Dresden files game. More pros there for me as it made me want to get into the game myself. And, hey, everything can be gotten at once. With that, there will be episode 101 coming up for me. Congratulations on breaking 100, and tell me, did you suit up for the occasion? No. Why don't we suit up for all your crank? Well, some people do. Right. Where? Get into the character, you know. More. Oh, okay. I could have, you know, brought a wine glass and a pinky ring or something and gone with that. Ari's been with us since World of Darkness, right? Yes. I've fairly certain he has been. I feel, and Ari may already know this, but some of the fake system obviously impacted me in a positive way. I revisited World of Darkness mirrors, which is you talking about? Yeah. They're open sandbox, basically, to change the system a little bit in ways that are, hopefully, don't break the system in general. And there were some fake-based ideas within mirrors. So if there's some things that he took from fake that he liked, he might find some of those reflected in some roles that are in. Yeah. So in combat, like we did at least the first time a little bit mushy and not quite firm enough for us, you could potentially take some of the mirror information and use it for World of Darkness if you'd like to. Well, there you go. For episode 101, which was the one in which we answered many, many questions from the fans. Richard Watts had to say nice round up. Thanks for taking the time to address the giant bag of fan mail questions. I have to say, I came for Dresden, but I'm going to give the World of Darkness a shot after this. And thanks again for keeping it coming. Well, all right. Thank you, Richard. Thank you, Richard. We appreciate you listening and giving another system a try. I know that this fan feedback is awesome, but you were the one who's kind of keeping a tab on any of the people who were part of White Wolf or part of the Dresden, would you, was anyone that was involved in those programs, do they listen in any of our stuff or hear about it? Talking about developers? Developers, creators, writers, owners. That's what I'm aware of, but it's really hard to tell. I mean, overall, our fan base is grown. Yep. And I have to believe that there are some people out there that don't listen to the Dresden file stuff that like the World of Darkness, but they're still downloading us and they're waiting for us to. I'd vice versa, probably. And it might be the opposite case, but we really don't have any way of measuring that. If someone downloads it, they download it. We don't know whether they listen to it or not, but there are active fans who respond and talk. Yeah. I think the Facebook likes and the postings are obviously a smaller subset of our overall listenership. I mean, because not everyone's going to feel like they want to go out there and correspond with us and talk to them. That was the word I was looking for, correspond. We had two posts on RPG Cross Talk that had to do with episode 100, and they are a little more lengthy than your average Facebook. So I will go into it and hopefully we can get through it and then answer rather than interrupt the posts repeatedly. So deviantemposals said, "Hi again, it's been a long time. I just thought I'd answer some of the questions you had in the episode specifically on what made me keep listening and why someone like myself might not be too keen on the fate system." I have to admit, I haven't been listening as avidly to the Dresden series as I had to the shitlock. It wasn't a quality issue since delivery certainly had some epic scenes, and the first confrontation with Constance stands out in my memory. Everybody continues to do a great job. It's just my lack of excitement over the system itself that tarnishes my viewpoint. What kept me listening, occasion, is the character interaction that you all do so well. My ambivalence to the fate system comes from a few directions, so I'll have to break it down into a few points. You'd think I'd be a fan of the Dresdenfell RPG being a big fan of the novels, but unfortunately I'm not. I don't like having a resource like fate that you can hold back and hold back until you either play it as a get out of jail free card or blow most of it in the final confrontation when it no longer matters, or worse, never use it all because you're constantly worried about you leaving it later. As hard as it can be to accept in the moment, sometimes it's best to have a character to say "die" trying to disarm a bomb so your group can joke about it for years to come rather than buying off that consequence of your actions. I'm definitely not a big fan of fate points, humanity or even sanity in Kolokotulu when it comes to failure's state of my character becoming an NPC, at least White Wolf has given options to hack the humanity rules out of the game. Unfortunately, I find coming up with aspects to be a pain in the butt. It happened to me in World of Darkness as well, coming up with character concepts, but having a lame character concept isn't a big deal as having a lame aspect. When I attempt to play Dresden, I suffer hours and hours trying to come up with an aspect that fit my character, and I wasn't satisfied with them when we started playing and I never found an opportunity to use them. Tying my role-playing to those aspects made it feel forced, but then I do a lot of dice-less role-playing so I'm not the type that needs something to hook into to role-play my character. To answer a question that wasn't asked of me, but I'll throw it in anyways, about the rules that I'd like to port to other games, I'd like to adapt this thunting system from exalted into many games as I possibly can. It's simple, if a player describes their character actions they get a bonus dice to their role, if their description is good, they get too extra dice. If it's so epic that everyone at the table agrees, it's three dice. I like it because it encourages cinematic descriptions of combat rather than throwing dice like a zombie, particularly in D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder. I usually limit this to +100/+2 on a roll, and in World of Darkness I limit it to one or two bonus dice, but it still gets the players involved in the scene, combat, or otherwise. Keep it up everyone, congratulations to the new players, and I'm waiting impatiently for the continuation of Hunter of the Vigil, but I wish I was there. That, again, was from Vivian Depassel. That was a really very well thought out response. I think his point about the holding on to the fade points, I mean I understand and I feel the same way, but it's one of those things where, you know, you want to leave everything on the field, so to speak, not have any options left over that you could have used, but at the same time, you kind of do hold on to them like their goal because I don't want to blow it opening a door in case I need it to fight something tough. When I first heard of it, I kind of thought of it as in the D&D days when you're a wizard and you've got three spells, and then you blow them all in the first comment and then you force everyone to sit around for eight hours and twelve hours while you play spells. Those cobalt are not fireball worthy, you know, they need the fireballs for the big, you know, something big. There are some similarities. A lot of it too is colored through your own lens as a role player. I think each person sees it through their own lens, and he sees it in a way that cramps his role playing style, whereas the aspects for me reveal London to me from a very early point on, but it's not going to be the way it is for everybody. I would suppose if I were earning more fade points through the course of play, I would be more tempted to spend them, but since none, but at least for me, like you said, it's all through my lens. Yeah. So if you only had one, so I kind of held onto it like it was a special, right, and it was. If Tom's dawing them out more to you, then he's dawing them out more to everybody. Well, I had just, you know, usually four or five around and aspects I felt like I really ping if I need it to, even to the point where you've got how many times can you roll fantastic or epic or legendary? You know, we get into that argument where did you need more? Sometimes it's too easy. And again, we're also learning the system, and you could make the next adventure or story more difficult. I guess my point is, if I don't know where my next fade point is coming from, I'm not spending the one I got. Right. So. But if somebody was to take, and I fully support Deviant Apostles viewpoint, but if someone wanted to play devil's app, because they could say, well, what about willpower and world of darkness? It's not the exact same mechanic because you're going to spend one. It's very, well, but you don't know when you're going to get them back. And the definitely thing that makes it definitely different and unique is the fact that you spend the will points prior to the role in the role of darkness, and that could be a total waste. That's an excellent point. I mean, it makes it not a get out of jail free card. Right. And Dresden, it's a definite plus two or whatever you want to do. You are definitely having an effect. Very interesting post. Was there anything else we wanted to address for maybe an apostle? No, I just, I think it was incredibly well thought out and appreciate the time he took to write that post and share his thoughts with us and hope he continues to listen to both stories. I think as time goes on, you're going to see incorporating a couple of the ideas that I liked with fate into the world of darkness through the mirrors supplement. And you'll probably firm up the combat a bit on your side or you'll respond to the complaints that some people had in your next story. So hopefully he'll find both systems to his liking moving forward. We have one more post from Unbound Book on the RPG podcast, Mike cringes again. Just a name made him cringe. Who says, thanks for answering my questions in one on one. I really enjoy those sorts of feedback recollection episodes. Also, as you raised some questions for the listeners, I thought I should send you my answers. Favorite scene. It has to be the scene where the hunters team entered the maze of Benjamin the beekeepers property. The feeling of paranoia and confusion just seemed to be dripping from the players or at least their characters. Well, confusion is dropped off the whole series with all sorts of scattered ventures. How did I find the podcast? What keeps me coming back? About 18 months ago, I was looking to run my own hunter campaign or at least one off. And I'm keen follower of a number of actual play podcasts. And by luck, I think I saw you being promoted over at the White Wolf forums. As for coming back, I think Tom's editing and the fact that the adventures are homemade rather than off the shelf has me coming back. Even if I get some of the players confused, especially Tom's boys, I'm also a bit of a hoarder. I download episodes in chunks of five or six at a time and listen to them while I'm doing stuff around the house or off at the supermarket shopping. What do I like or dislike about fate or world of darkness? To be honest, I'm not a big fan of either. Although, I've played and run games using both or fudge rather than fate. That said, I will pretty much play anything if the story is good. As to why, I can't really put my finger on it, perhaps it's those funky dice. No, just kidding. To be honest, it's probably because I think the plot is paramount over the character. And I think telling a good story beats up, allowing players own interest at the table. How long have I been playing and what have I been playing? I started in the early 80s, so I suppose you could say I'm from the Red Box generation. Games wise, you name it, and I'm pretty much played it. I'm a huge fan of Call of the Cthulhu, own way too much and play rather. Pretty much anything from that line. I like Stormbringer, the old Kiacium RPG based on Michael Morcox's Ulrichs novels. In Dark Conspiracy, which while outdated is the granddaddy in my humble opinion of games like Hunter. What style do I prefer? I like game systems to get out of the way of the play, and as I said, I believe plot is king. Probably why I like KOTN, the plots are excellent. Am I a game designer? As much as any gamer is, I do run a couple of websites, Unbound Publishing, UnboundBook.org, which focus on Call of the Cthulhu scenarios. Stormbringer, StormbringerRPG.com, a Stormbringer fan site, and Dark Conspiracy the RPG. Dark Conspiracy of the RPG.info, a Dark Conspiracy fan site. I've done a bit of freelance writing over the years for various companies, but my day job keeps me pretty busy. That went out longer than I hoped. Marcus. Marcus, as we just said to Stephen Apostle, we appreciate the thought that goes into your response. It is neat to learn about the people who listen to us as well. I agree. The younger boys were looking quizzically when I said the red box that was-- That was the basic D&D. Right. Back in the '80s. I remember the red box. Unfortunately. I wish I was getting a blank stare at the mansion. It just makes me feel old when there's a reference that I get and I look over it. Yeah. I don't know what the hell they're talking about. Oh, also the Michael Morecock's Ellerick novels. I am a fan. Have read them. Never tried the game. No, we want to go. His entire series with the channel champion went through all of his characters. The same guy. The same different genres and history and really loved them. I haven't read them recently. They might not hold up as well, but back when I read them they're fantastic. We were talking about how he thinks plot's better than characters in his opinion in terms of what he wants to get out of role-playing, doesn't it? Yeah. Maybe when he said it and you guys can all, you know, obviously weigh in as well as maybe he's had a couple of characters around the table that it was about winning for the character. Potentially. But yeah, I think. And so what do you say is the more the mega plot of what's going on than character interests? So it's the same thought of what you're saying. Well, I think if the story's good, then the player's interests and their histories and their back stories should be tied into the plot, you know, eventually. Which, if you ask me, fate does a wonderful job of doing it. Right. The game that I ran was, like I said, a sandbox which I set up some things there for you guys to play with. And I let you guys lead the plot where it went. Right. I definitely had things in mind that were going to happen in one way or another, whether you were going to stumble on them or chase after them. But it was pretty much driven by you guys. Right. Well, I think maybe from his standpoint, we created a really good plot. It was a communal thing, though. And again, it goes back to my point, it would be what he was, maybe what I thought he was talking about was it wasn't about London winning or Roberto winning or even the Warden winning. It was about telling a really good story and taking the back seat sometimes as someone else should. Sure. But the plot that I devised had Donovan being key and it had a child had, all those pieces were put in place by me. And none of you did anything to derail that and run off in your own direction and chase your own things. But as we stated, the character creation, the Cindy creation, all of those things were already in place for me to then say, how can I make a story here using the different parts that you guys had in your history, using your mentor, using just little pieces throw it in a pot and make a stew, that was how I designed the adventure in the first place. Right. I don't know. I think that's a thing of fate. To be honest. Although, to be honest, after playing the fate system, I'm sorry, I wasn't the center of the plot. So you didn't take some of my aspects and mix them in there. Well, no, there was an option for me to drive my story forward and it didn't detract from yours. That's true. I think it has to do with the players you were running with. Yes. Absolutely. I would agree. And if a GM came back to that. Exactly. I was going to say I'm sounding like I'm bragging if I break and bring it up. But the point is to have a GM that can take a character that says I'm going to become a good Lord of Clayland and see that that's a cool thing and allow it to happen and weave it back in and use it for the plot. We've been into the story. But it is as part of the nimbleness that you need to have as a storyteller or a GM, whatever you want to call it. And some nights are better than others. Some stories are better than others for doing that. I said at the very beginning of the present that the fate system requires both the players and the GM to have energy for the game to work and if anybody comes in flat, it's difficult. The GM can kind of push it, but the GM better be on it. But very interesting post, thank you for the feedback and that's just a really good discussion. We had one iTunes review and that is by I Am Asofa King who said this show is made of Valyrian steel and gave it five stars. I have sometimes forgotten that they are playing a game and I'm having a bit of a brainfire at this moment and I can't think of any awesome superlatives. So I'll just say it's really really good. We'll take it. We'll take that. And the five stars. I think the best part of that is that you forget that you're listening to a game. Right. Can you think you're listening to a story which is how we want to dance? Yeah. We're one of the things. That's part of the goodness. It's one of the two things that we discussed it when we were making a podcast. We wanted to make it shorter an hour or less. So that's a listenable in small chunks and also to focus more on story. There was still an argument between you and I. You wanted to go full story. I wanted some rules for people who listened to it for and I get to edit. There you go. People seem to be really enjoying it. So it's all good. Even as a player there's moments like that where you can put aside the mechanics. You can just think about what you want to do for your character. Those are the best moments I think. Like when I was, I'm going to blow up this car with those ghouls with those ghouls attacking it and the vampires and whatnot. And I was like, oh wait, I had to roll for that? As I could go. Right. No, that's too perfect. You can't possibly require a player to roll for that. It just has to be. One last thing, we had a bit of feedback from our feedback at KOTN Podcast.com email. This was from Silver Wizard who said, "I like Paranoia 2009, aka Paranoia 25th edition, aka Paranoia troubleshooters, better than I like Paranoia XP," which is what we had suggested. I do have a copy now after the suggestion of Paranoia 2009, Paranoia troubleshooters. He's got solid social combat, accusing your friends, slightly nicer death rolls, and good solid quality, and a whole new set of rolls for changing ranks in society. Also, I do enjoy your podcast, but can be quiet and you call me out. Play paranoia. Paranoia is from the computer demanded. I did have a bit of conversation with Silver Wizard, and I appreciate the suggestion, and I did actually go out and get a hold of the PDF. So, if we do play paranoia in the future, it will probably be that particular version. Alright. We'll get out to the World of Darkness adventure. Thanks everyone for the feedback, and now enjoy the episode. With the dress and delivery storyline being over, I now hand over, officially, the GM seat to Scott. So, his World of Darkness, we've got your game. Resume, I will take the dressing sheets off of the GM screen that we have here. You may officially now take over the throne. Thank you. I appreciate it, and I will delegate myself somewhere down this end of the table. Okay. Here's what we have so far. I'll print something off which is like what you guys think you know right now, because in this game, what things can do, what they're capable of, there's like a thousand different things that people think that vampires can do, and if you go into a situation with a vampire and you don't know what you're up against, like you don't know that water damages them, but they can't cross running water or govallic, or no one knows anything about the supernatural. It's very much unlike the dress and files in that sense. Your characters who are just being exposed to the supernatural for the first time, things like that exist out there, spirits and vampires and werewolves and fake creatures and stuff like that. What we have is we have a group of people who have come together to form a task force. Twelve federal agents have disappeared in Ohio City, which is of course, by the west side of the market. Three groups of four over a certain period of time, they were task force Valkyrie, which is kind of like a men in black, not in a movie sense, like in a scary, you know, they pull up and people just disappear kind of away. They're a part of the federal government that hunts supernatural beings, keeps the country safe. Twelve agents in like a very short period of time in Cleveland, Ohio. Eventually, their higher up said, "Stop sending people to Ohio City if lost twelve agents. We don't have that many agents. It's not something like we can continue to take these kind of losses." The whistleblower was a man by the name of Winston Bennett who asked for and received permission to start another task force, a secret task force, because his belief was that the fact that task force Valkyrie was government, there was a leak somewhere, and it was causing these agents to disappear. So he wanted to start a task force made up of citizens, in a sense, non-government types. People who weren't involved heavily in any kind of conspiracy, you know, their mental conspiracy, hence task force siren, which is the group that you'll be attached to. This group was deep cover, basically they were going in as Homeland Security, undercover Homeland Security. So if anyone ever discovered them, they would just flash their Homeland Security badges as they'd get out of jail free card to use in case they needed it. So their deep cover in Ohio City, they were sent here to find out what happened to these twelve agents. They were working either at the Great Lakes Brewing Company or the Market Avenue Wine Bar, which is right across from the Westside Market. Well, the long and short of it is they met an individual who was at the bar telling them I've just had the worst luck, and it shit luck lately, my wife's left me, my job is going down in a downward spiral. Some guy tried to kill me on the street the other day, he's just kind of lamenting the fact that he's had a rough life. At that moment, one of the employees at the Great Lakes Brewing Company that this task force knows drives a car through the window and tries to pin this, actually does pin this guy against the bar in an attempt to kill him. Some of they were just talking to and was conversing normally just a few moments ago. Murder or action? It looked like it was supposed to be asked, well, they didn't know at that point. At that point, they were trying to save the lives of the guy who was hit by the car when he has his shit luck, and the gentleman who was driving the car who got thrown through the windshield, a friend of theirs named Ethan, Greg being a doctor, amazingly saved both of them. In this game system, if you have five or more successes, it's an exceptional success. All you need is one success. Anyways, long story short, they saved this man, his name is Henry Jacobs. He works at a place called Vitamin B, B, like a bumblebee, and they have a new facility in Ohio City, and they're producing body mains and all kinds of stuff. So the group thinks, this is really weird, this guy just telling his body he's trying to be killed and someone tries to kill him. They say, you know what? Stick with us. We'll go back to your apartment, we'll get you to change a close or whatever, and you can just crash with us, and we'll just kind of watch you and find out what's going on. Because they're supposed to find things that are weird that are happening, and this is definitely something that qualifies as weird. Say, go to his house, he tries to escape. They're confused. They chase Henry Jacobs throughout the area, and eventually, I want to say, is it Jim? Tony, that actually tackled him. Okay. That must have been nearby or something. Yeah, you know what, guys, we're all hot pursuits. Someone slipped, you want to slip Jay on the concrete because it was raining that night, and then Jim's character did a flying tackle of him, and he turned into a swarming bunch of bees and floated away. And that freaked everybody out, because there was like a dead corpse there, but it just collapsed and all these bees came out. So that really freaked them out, and they went on a long story, basically, of how they tried to find out who was behind it, ended up being the vitamin B company, the CEO, and ended up being some spirit woman who was infested with bees, who was trying to change everyone in the radius of the building, and who was taking their vitamins into more and more to join the hive. It was like a hive-mind type situation that was occurring. They unravel it, eventually, and killing her. The task force as it stands right now, Jim's character, original character, was a Afghanistan war veteran who did some field meds, and you belong to the Chiron group, which is a medical group out of Chicago, which implants people with strange types of devices, that could be confusing. Yeah. Fortunately, I also specialized in demolitions. And Bloomsoft. I tried a disarmament, and he was really taken out of the story. Chiron puts monster bits into people? Yes. Little crispy bruise. Yes. And he is now Sister Kate, who is Malia's Melothicara, which is basically the witch-hunters of the Catholic Church. So she belongs, excuse me, to St. Patrick's down in Ohio City, and is just some healing, and she is an avid dog, razor, and a NASCAR fan. Bob is federal agent to park, he is a Korean American, who is an FBI agent who actually has some psychic ability. He belongs to... Rescue. Rescue. The... Vanguard serial crime. They use their psychic abilities, if you will, to hunt down slashers, some kind of serial killer who's super naturally imbued. That's why I signed that. Mm-hmm. Your dad is Jay Alton, who is an Iraqi war veteran young guy, African American. He's a Muslim, a black Muslim. He is part of the ascending ones, which is a conspiracy which takes drugs and injects them into certain parts of their body, which give them some sort of supernatural ability. Michael Clay is a... A just kydoru. Yes, he belongs to a just kydoru, which is an ancient, very, maybe even one of the oldest of the conspiracies based in Greece, they collect magical artifacts. A lot of them are archeologists. Or in his case, he's more of a glorified librarian. A treasure hunter? Wanna be a genius? Well, you started off in the division that was early. Oh, I was in the order of the scroll. That's right. The order of the scroll, which was cracking the movie Librarian. It's like the rip-off of Indiana Jones. No. It's like a water-down cheesy version of... Sure. That's... Okay. So he's the one who was in the scroll part of ages kydoru, who then decided to join the field operation side of things. Probably running it. He's part of this group now, Cast 4 Siren. Greg was Dr. Lucius Miles, and he was a member of Chiron, imbued with an eye which allowed him to see supernatural things, a monster eye, a lot of them see magical things, things or creatures that were of a natural nature. He may make appearances. Right now, he's in deep trouble with his conspiracy, has lost his job, is under medical review for malpractice, and is now working at a methadone clinic over on West 25th Street in Ohio City. So he's gonna be an NPC when Greg's not here, and then join up when Greg can make it. And then we had Ryan, who started off as John Beamer, who belonged to the Chiron group. He was eaten by a werewolf, which was then befriended by the entire group, including Michael Clay, who just loved that big head of that werewolf. If we could do that whole scene again, I think we're now living in their garage. I don't think that's exactly what it is. I was begging them to kill the werewolf, and they all, no, it's rang, man. He had bigger problems. The werewolf was named Side Street Billy. He was a vagrant who lived behind the wine bar that everyone worked at at that time before the wine bar was blown up due to Jim's lack of found diffusing. Oh, I had shit lock is what I had. You did have shit lock. He got it from when he tackled Henry, the disease transferred to him. Didn't help so much. It transferred to Greg. And then it transferred to Greg, who got the shit beat out of him by his own conspiracy, and lost his job and is losing his medical license and is working again as a volunteer at a methadone clinic. So things did not go well for the Chiron representatives in the group. All three of them were taken out of the story to some part or some degree. So there's just two things I want to say about this particular story. We're starting in the middle. So what I need from you guys is not a bunch of questions about what happened in three months in between the shit lock story ending and this story beginning. We're being in the middle for a reason to have flashbacks to reveal what had gone before. And so if everyone keeps going, yeah, but tonight it's just going to ruin the vibe and ruin the thing. Let me just go with it, because it will be revealed in the story what happened in three months in between as we move forward and get closer to the end of this particular story. Is it possible that there will be one on character in a flashback? There may be, and I'll announce the character's names to start the flashback. That is possible, yes. So how comfortable are we with the two new members of this part? At this point, assume they are full fledged members. They're going to have joined in different ways. Some of them will have been brought from corporate on down. Some of them will be kind of on the slide. Some of them meaning one of each, because there's two. So one's going to be kind of on the slide. One's going to be someone who was given to you to take a place from Winston Tate. So again, but just assume that they built your trust up in the three months, and you don't assume that they're going to any way undermine you or whatever. They're a teammate just as much as Tony or John Beamer were before they passed. Oh, so they're dead. Well, there's that beast. Yes, in the past, got it, got it, got it. Okay, let's get started. I heard myself today to see if I still feel I focus on the pain. The only thing that's real, the needle tears a hole in, the old familiar statement. Try to kill it all the way, but I remember everything. This is the world of darkness, story, chagrin. This is the second story in the Vanishing City storyline. The first was shitlock, and this is our first episode. And starting on my right is... My name's Jim. I'm playing Sister Katie O'Connor. She was once a NASCAR driver, not a nun, when I ask you how. My conspiracy is the shadow congression. I'm not playing FBI special agent Chew Park, a member of the Basky conspiracy. I'm Tom, playing Jay Alton, the leader of this Motley crew, and also a member of the sending ones. I'm Thomas, playing Edgard Muntace, a Haitian vaudume practitioner from the Lei mystery conspiracy. I'm John, playing Daniel Morgan, a outdoorsman, renegade from Task Force Valkyrie. Okay. As you guys know, we're starting in the middle of the story. You are far from Cleveland in the rural outskirts of Cleveland. It's a cloudy moonless night. The oppressive heat of the daytime hours lingers in the darkness, and your flesh is covered in a sheen and sweat. The thick, heavy air, it's almost claustrophobic. Your fiery moon from even the meager lights of chagrin falls. The last tiny hamlet that you drove through on your way to this desolate farmstead. You're quarter mile up an uneven dirt path from what can charitably be called a back road. A head sits a dark, rusted, chain-link fence and gate topped with coil upon coil of weathered razor wire. Beneath the gate is a tarnished cattle guard, a horizontal metal grate that prevents cows from walking over it, but can allow for vehicle passage back and forth. In seems old, decrepit, tired, except for two black range rovers, abandoned off to either side of the dirt path. They seem oddly out of place. You're here to track down the hunter legend, Danny Rocklin, hoping to discover why the missing task force Valkyrie agents were searching for him in Ohio City. Now you find yourself at this farm in the Hinterlands of Jaga County, swallowed up by the nut. You can't quite explain it, but something feels really wrong. The air somehow feels super charged, like the moment before lightning strikes, and we're alive. Do we know anything about Danny Rocklin at all? We have an information on him. Did we hear about him before? War will be revealed as we move forward. But the idea is, as he was a hunter legend in Cleveland and the missing task force Valkyrie agents that you're trying to find, we're looking for him in Ohio City, and you've tracked him to here. He's not Valkyrie, is he? No. We tracked him through information we got from him. Which would be illegal? That's right. Probably Tim. You're doing the magic hands. I thought about it. It's a whole new situation. So he's famous just around Cleveland, or is he like world renowned? I think we can say he's famous around Cleveland. Okay. Because he's known from being here. He's a hunter legend from this area. Are we coming to talk to him? Or is he fleeing from us, and we're headed down to capture him? You're trying to meet up with him. Okay. You might have some information about why these agents were looking for him. Okay. So we have two land rovers off to the side, either side of the path. They're in pristine condition. And unoccupied. Unlike anything else around here. Yes. And two, from the Google map that you were able to get the satellite, the farm does look a bit from that rundown. It doesn't look exactly as if it's... When you did the Google search, you saw some really nice farms, and this one looked more run down and kind of ragged. Yo, Danny boy. You were part of Belgrade. Is this the type of car you guys use? Yeah. Well, I don't know if that would indicate, but yeah. Well, it indicated the missing Belgrade agents. Got this one? I mean, there's two empty cars here. They look like they've been a long time ago, or do they look like they've been left here recently? Like recent tiger tracks? Or are they just... They've been probably over half a year. They've been probably over half a year now. Your leaves or anything? You guys can make investigation rolls, if you'd like? Oh, check it out. True. How did we get here? Drove separate cars? No, I'm not saying you drove in one van to get out here, run in the van because you didn't want to be traced, paid credit card, and you drove a van out here, and you are in the middle of nowhere. What about Korea? No signal. You don't get that kind of stuff. We can ask for one from Tate, but... And that was a really good point by Katie. No signal out here, at all. No bars. You forgot about that. I was satellite phone. You were the satellite phone? Just kidding. I don't have a satellite phone. You do have a really cool government satellite phone, but this is a dead spot. Dude, no satellite phone. I thought they'd cancel service from my satellite phone. Well, I gave you the new ones when I talked to Tate. I got issued a... To be true. For you guys. I also have track phones. I have about 10 track phones. We're off that phone. Just in case. We needed some more stuff. Yeah. We needed them the last time. Yeah. And what you told Tate was that someone lost one and you needed another one. Right. He doesn't know about you, Dan. Apparently. Okay. So put your dice together for your investigation role. Is it pretty dark out here? That needs some light. Yeah. It's very dark out here. Again, you're a quarter mile up, woods all around you up a trail that you can, a quarter mile up from a back road. There are no lights. The moon has been swallowed by coils of clouds. It is a starless, moonless, pitch black night. Okay. I have a couple flashlights. And the only lights from your van if you cut them on. No. Yes. You need them to look as fine. I guess I'll go out there, but do you guys want to cover me? Yeah. Sure. Do you guys want to go first? Can we see the farm from here? Are we closing up to the... On the satellite map, which our listeners will be able to see when they check out the website, where it says back to main road, you're off the map in that direction. Okay. But it's about a half mile and you're about a quarter mile up it. We're about halfway on. Our bus guys. Yeah. I climb up on top of the van. I got my sniper rifle and the night vision on it and flip it up and then zoom it as far. So I'm not sitting far away but close up. I want to get as big as field of vision and kind of just scope of their area around looking for anything moving. That's great. Do me a favor and make a WITS+ composure roll for me. I'm assuming you don't have investigation. You can use investigation if you have it. Actually, I have two investigations. So Jay steps out first. That'll just stay in the van. Glamrs on tops. You can use investigation instead of investigation in place of composure, if you wish. Nope. That's not getting any white. No success. Okay. And so you basically flip open your scope and you look around and you're getting a lot of heat because of the days have been really warm, a lot of heat off of the vegetation and the con. Yeah. Check out the heat signature on the car. Yeah. In the greater Cleveland area it's been an abnormally, like it has been this year actually, an abnormally warm summer, temperatures in the mid 90s consistently, it's just been sweltering. And dry. So you're seeing that and dry. So you're seeing a ton of residual heat. Yeah. Residual heat. And you are seeing a little bit of heat on each of the engines. Because you asked about that, correct? Well, this is good. Actually, that was cool. It was a choose idea. But I was assuming from ours was coming a little heat because we just drove in it. But I was going to check out the other two cars. I know. Good. You see a little bit of residual heat. Yes. It's still hot. To confirm this as we, as it hasn't rained recently, I'm going to take a peek at the tracks. We're driving up to the place. Right. This is the only entrance. It'll be the place they drove in and I want to check just to be sure. Correct. Do you have an investigation? I have survival tracking. Is that applicable when tracking cars? Exactly. We'll be applicable for any kind of tracking. I'm going to say go ahead and make a wits plus survival roll. Whoa, whoa, whoa. What is he doing? Tell me the same thing. How many dice you have. What is he doing? I think he's doing that. I thought you were going up to the coverage. I want to go ahead and cover you guys. I thought you were going to go ahead and make sure it's safe for me. I want you to check out the cars with Ed here and watch back up to you while he does some investigations on the cars. I'm going to go hide in the woods and cover you guys. I thought you were going to go ahead and we all car on top of just a case. That sounds safe and a good idea. Do you know how Caliber your sniper rifle is? I believe you may have the same set up as I do. It's a PSG1. Well, yeah. It's actually a thing. Oh, yeah. It's an H15, HK. HK is the case. I'll be honest. I don't remember. Oh, God. If we share a caliber, I've got these tranquilizer rounds that are left over from my TFE days and they work in snuck rifle caliber guns. That's a probably wiser choice. Thanks. Okay. So I'm up on the road and then I owe you two to go. So you both get out of opposite sides of the van. I'm assuming the van is in the middle of the dirt road right now with lights off or on. Lights are off at the moment. Okay. Unless you need some on. Do you have the dimmers on? Oh, we probably cut the lights as we crawl as soon as we notice that the fences come on and on and on and on. Okay. So each of you, would it be fair to say each of you kind of move out of the van at either side and take up covering positions with whatever weapons you might have? I should have done shooting. Yeah. All right. Pause for a moment. Pause for a moment. What do you guys do? Jay would know. But I don't. Yeah. I have a rifle on a block. I can do some guns. You shoot guns? I mean, basically. You're good at shooting guns. Yeah. It's good at shooting guns. He's a war. I'm okay. You're a Valkyrie. What did I say? I got a hunter who was fired because he stood up to a werewolf and didn't die. He's not braided guns. He's just a good tracker and had some skill with him. What would you say you do here? For people person to do. Lorsening stuff. Sneaking. Sneaking. So you're the sneaky type of guy. Yeah. And I have one point in firearms and I remember that, but I forgot to actually put a weapon down. It's okay. Thomas, you can go ahead and put a weapon down. There you go. No worries. I'm unexpected. So please do. If I'm using the rifle, I've got five dice. I'm sure you would've put it that way. He brought one. I would have. You have more than that. I told you. I'm not great. No, no. You would have more than that. Yeah. I mean, the rifle, the weapon. Sniper rifle. Oh, I didn't put the four. Yes. I didn't put that. New dexterity. And then your guns. This is just the skill, my specialty, and my attribute. Okay. Just fine. I don't know the weapon modifier. I don't remember. That's okay. You might have written it down. You might not have, but we'll get to that if it becomes important. We'll play it well. So both of-- I'm better from far back. I want you guys up front. And what I want you to do is take the corner. Each of you take a corner. And by that I mean far right and far left. And watch all directions. He'll watch South and West and he'll watch North and East. And advanced? No. Get to by the car. That's one of those. You've got to be and keep them safe. Okay. Okay. Cover me like spend. So that's what they do. Are you taking any effort to move quietly outside the van? Or are you just moving to your position? I'll try. Okay. Only because we know this is recently been accessed. Sure. Do you want us all to roll? Since we're all. These two are going out of the van first. I'm going to have them make the first rolls. And that would be a dexterity plus stealth. Oh, hell yes. Give me your dice pulls before you get started. Mine would be eight. Yours would be eight? Oh yeah. Dice. It does. Okay. And because you can't see the terrain very well and you're trying to move quietly through it. I'm going to give you minus one dice for the darkness. Okay. Go ahead and roll. Dice plus dexterity plus stealth. Yes. Seven dice. How many successes had? Two. Two successes. All right. So we're going to say that looking at the map which again our listeners will be able to eventually access. Edgard moves to the north side of the road to cover chew. And Daniel's going to move to the south side of the road. The road's running basically east west as it's moving into the area. So he's covering north and west and Daniel's covering east and south. And I'm scanning that woods repeatedly and nonstop. You know, in a 360 and you're assuming. Yeah. Not just that one time. Just the first turn you didn't see anything. Go ahead and what's your stealth plus dexterity? I have two dexterity zero stealth. Untran stealth means minus one so I've got one dice. One dice. Wow. And minus one because of the darkness. So you come out and you make a chance roll. Chance roll is one dice. Yes. And if I fail it's like spectacular. Well, it's a dramatic failure. We'll make it dramatic. Okay. Just a failure. So you do not hear Edgard moving quietly out but the door opens up and the heavy foot hits the ground. And you hear him just, he closes the door as opposed to like easing it shut. You know, just not really stealthy but moves into position and is very hard to see because it is pitch black out. Probably the whole car shifts when you get out anyway. More or less. He springs. I'm keeping more or less iron everybody here and letting everybody else keep an eye out on the woods and everywhere else. And that's fine. Although you cannot see Edgard when he moves into the undergrowth into the trees because you're really in a very dense thicket of woods. He disappears. And chances are you probably can't even see Daniel even though he failed his role just because of the distance in the dark race. Just so you know. Okay. Shoot. You're really quick. I know we usually use our phones for communication. Push the dock. I know I don't want to go back because things are going to be kind of revealed to us. We know that we're going to this area that didn't have this communication and instead bring two-way radios or something with us. I'm going to say a WITS+ composure to think of it beforehand. And you're not going to need a one here. I mean you're going to need more than one success as a group. And I'll roll for Michael Cloy. You're going to have to have come up with a total of... You had time to research and think. It is in the hinterland so that the idea might have dawned on you. I'm going to make no minuses to the roll but we need a total of seven successes among the group to come up with the idea. WITS+ composure? I'm wondering about the same thing but about Night Vision and Gaga. Well, I mean it's less common. But I say I don't think about it. Right. I'm going to say with Night Vision no unless you have on your character sheet just because you were going to the farm not thinking it was going to be completely black. Okay. Have you thought maybe there might be some garbage and talk to them? Hey, can we get in? Can we see them? Or you know what I'm saying? You didn't think like wow it's going to be like abandoned. Kind of thing. I have a camera that I have with me that has that on it but you have to hold it up. Okay, Michael Cloy true to his nature of not being here who gives zero successes to the group. Try to choose. When did successes begin? Eight, nine, ten. Well, I got two. Great. Two successes from Daniel. I got two. One, two, ten. Ten again. So, just one total two, four, five. We just need two more. Seven. Okay, so it's all nine successes. We're going to go ahead and say that you all have headsets. You do have the ability to communicate and hush combs. You can whisper that people will still hear you on their headsets. So, you are all set up for communication. So, chew. You step out of the van. Yeah. You're going to approach these two. I would say that stealth is probably not something you really want to try to do here as far as moving quietly because you're investigating. You need to give your full attention to the scene to remind you because we haven't played for a while. Investigation. There's a certain number of facts that you can find in any investigation that you do have seen. You don't know how many there are. So, if you roll your dice and you get two successes, there might be information for three, four, five, six, seven, eight more successes. But each roll is going to take you five minutes of time. So, you're on a time constraint of how much time, how many rolls do you want to make to make sure you have all the information? Or do you just need to make one quick roll, get what you got and move? Are we kind of pressed for time at this point? That's your decision. I don't think we are. Well, they just recently exited the vehicles. Take your time, chew. Give it a good look over. We're not maintaining radio silence, son. Okay. Put a whisper, you know. That doesn't make any noise at all. I would whisper at all. But the right won't pick it up. So, chew. Your roll for the scene would be... Which was investigation? Yeah. I'm just going to get a... I'm just going to use regular investigation at this point. Okay. And for the new guys and any new listeners we have, the player tells me what his total is. I then add in any pluses that might occur and any negatives. But he has to commit to his willpower. If you're going to spend willpower, you have to commit it before I tell you what the minuses are. Okay. Go. I have a flashlight that has a red filter on it. No, it's red light, so it's not as obvious. You can't spot it from far away. Nice. This is what I'm trying to say. So, I don't know if that will give me any bonuses or being dark, but I do... I'm going to give you an equipment bonus of +1 for that. So, what's your total? My total would be 9. I'm going to give you -2 for the darkness of which your red light reduces just a -1 penalty because of the fact it's not a... If it was a blazing flashlight, then I probably would have gave you a zero. I would have gave you a +2, but since it's a little more clandestine... I have some more to go with in this one. I'm rolling seven dice. One zero. For sure. One success. I'm going to roll again because it's a zero. And it's a six. One success. All right. So, five minutes passes in somewhat tense circumstances as Chew moves quietly among the vehicles with his red light flashlight. There seems to be no movement right now in the woods or on the road. That one success Chew, you were able to tell that the vehicles based on the heat given off on the hoods and the type of vehicles they are, they have been here for less than 10 minutes. When you first walked up and placed your hand on them, it had been 10 minutes or less since they arrived. Okay. Now, it's your decision as to whether there's more information to be found here and where you want to move on. I say, I don't know if you're going to go to tracking, but if they walked out of that car, I can check where they went. Yeah, if you want to assist me with that, I'm sure maybe we can put something together as to where they headed off to. When he starts switching to tracking, I concentrate more on the section that he's supposed to be watching. Okay. So, I let everyone know that it's probably been less than 10 minutes since they were in the vehicle. And if we're walking to where they went. Daniel steps out of his cover, moves over to your area, and you can either have his role assist you, or you can have your role assist him. Uh, with the minuses? Yeah. Yeah. It's plus survival. Well, potentially wasting time here with something going in and down there. How quickly can you do this? Well, we can come back to find any other clues. I can do this quickly, but... The track is not something I don't really want to do too often. It gives me a headache. He's got something going on before. Don't we need to know where they went to know where we're going? Or are we just assuming they went inside the gate? The way we came, so they're that way. Okay. Yeah, I mean, it probably takes two minutes. Could you describe the gate? I mean, the railings are there. Is there a gate across this thing? There is a ten foot chain link fence. Uh-huh. And then where the road is, which each of the land rovers are parked either side of the road. They both went off the road. The road itself is about ten foot, and there is into the chain link fence. There is a gate. It's got large, thick iron bars going across it. And on top of it as well, is coiled razor wire. And then below the gate is a cattle guard, which will keep any type of domestic animals from wandering. If the gate was open, they wouldn't be able to wander out of the area without their clothes. Is it a swing dance? One way, two ways. It's definitely swimming. You don't know if it's, which way it's swimming. And do I? Do we or I know if it's locked or unlocked? It definitely is, well, you don't know from your position. I don't imagine it's locked otherwise. I thought they were on the side of the gate. I must be confused. You're back here. So right here, there's a gate. There's a fence that goes out into the distance. And then again, for another quarter mile to a side road. You're about half a quarter mile in. We've got another quarter mile just to get pretty much onto this map. Pass the gate. So there are a great deal from the house. They parked quite a distance from the home. From the farm staff. Which probably means they're sneaking up on it. And we've got to catch up. I opened the door. I point over it. I thought we were in the yard or something. That's correct. I point over it. Check the locket if it's locked on locket. We can either sneak up behind the people or sneak up on this place or we could drive in there as fast as we can. I think at this point we're 15 minutes behind. We want to go fast. You don't have anyone watching this stuff. I'm watching everything now. Yeah, you guys see if you can find anything in the tracks while he's going to open the door and we're going to drive in. Let's go. Let's move the gate. All right. What are you doing during real quick? What are you doing while he's moving up from cover to check the gate? What are you doing to chill? I'm going to go back to the van and get my camera. Okay. Just your case making. Vision camera, right? Yes. Very vision and thermal. Yeah. All right. Are you moving up to the gate quietly or are you walking up to the gate? That's just natural mode. It is. But you want to make sure because it takes longer to move stealthily. What else is still being stealthily now? Yeah. Am I walking up with him? He's not very good at stealth. Yeah. I'm going to wait for the car to come up with you. Yeah. You walked up to help chew and then Command came in from your leader saying, "Edgar, move up, unlock the gate, chew back to the car and dangle back to the car." Oh. Well, then I'm going to do a real quick play because... Okay. Say we're still investigating. I'm now concentrating on the other side of the fence scene if I see any movement there and watching out to keep a guard safe. Can you tell me what attribute I've used to track just so I know shorthand what... You would use weights and field rate swings around if that's something you didn't know. It is my speciality. I was just wasn't sure how this would go. Tracking is an actual skill. Survival is a speciality. What kind of lock we worked with? You're looking not at one lock, but four locks. Four locks. And two of them are tumbler based. The other two, one seems to be magnetic and another seems to be a combination. Fuck, this guy was serious about keeping his privacy. Oh, I relate that information. Seriously, I don't... Can you do this? I have tumbler locked down. I think I should set for that. The magnetic spoon of the car. Thanks for listening to Knights of the Night Actual Play Podcast. Visit kotnpodcast.com for more information on this and other adventures. Where you will find character stats, photos, storytelling, props, and even a form for comments and suggestions. Or you could email us directly at feedback@kotnpodcast.com. Or contact us via Twitter or leave a message on Facebook. All music for this podcast was created and performed by Zen Audio Smith. If you'd like custom professional music created for your podcast or business, please visit ZenAudioSmith.com and please join us next episode for more mystery and adventure. [music] With Shiloh, she turned him into a girl. She was once a NASCAR driver, now a nun? Don't ask me how. What would you say you do here? [laughter] For people personally.