RetroCon 1: Silent Streets wrap-up.
Jul. 4th, 2005 12:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
morslaWell, RetroCon 1 has trampled me flat and run off into the distance, with the promise of a RetroCon 2 on the June Queen's Birthday weekend next year. Saturday was flat out (3 hrs on, 30min break, 3 hrs on, 30min break, 3 hrs on, 30min break, 3 hrs on... and then off to catch a train home), but none of the players I had registered for Sunday showed up to their sessions.
Pretty poor form, as I spent several hours getting to and from the venue (I went home & came back to discover another no-show in the afternoon) - I'll think twice about getting to a convention at 9am in future, as the same thing happened at Arcanacon this year. I saw some of the morning session's players later in the day, but none of them thought to apologise for not showing up to their game. Not amused.
On the whole, though, the convention went well. Each of the four teams on Saturday used completely different approaches to tackling the game, which made for some interesting stories. Picking people for trophies and certificates was tricky, as I felt that virtually all the players really made their characters work.
From my hazy memory, here are a few different versions of the story. I can't guarantee that it'll make sense if you haven't played the game, but I'm trying to write down what happened so I don't forget it all. (Don't read this if you intend to play the game in the immediate future...).
Characters:
Aru the Lost (last of the street kids in the Hot District, and the only one to have witnessed the kidnappings first-hand)
Joss, the Smiling Gambler (local hero, renowned for his daring exploits)
Mavess the Hyena (a filthy old man, renowned for his magical talismans and his many enemies)
Morr, the Twilight Guardian (a warden from the Onyx Hall - a temple devoted to the spirits of the dead)
Thrice-blessed Fortune (a wealthy alchemist who has lost his daughters, and brings the group together).
Session 1: James Goldfinch (Joss), Steven Abbey (Aru), Martin Ludwell (Mavess).
The group gathered in Fortune's lavish compound, and decided to begin their investigations inside the house - looking for clues regarding Fortune's own children. Aru proceeded to loot the place bare, going so far as to destroy evidence that could have led to the attackers. The others chided her for this, and set out to the warehouse where Aru had been attacked.
Aru again caused havoc here, climbing on the rooftops and knocking out the warehouse guards with dropped rocks. Joss and Mavess could do little with the only possible witnesses unconscious, so they backtracked through the city, and headed for the grand marketplace. On the way, they encountered an angry mob at the gates of the Onyx Hall, and distracted them by accusing a nearby temple of being the real villains. The mob charged down the street, attempting to vent their frustration on a small shrine devoted to the Unconquered Sun... none of the rabble were seen again :)
They tracked Aru's assailants back to an abandoned residential area - populated only by ghosts now, as superstitious locals had moved out after an outbreak of cholera a decade ago. Mavess built a lantern, and they cautiously explored many levels within the building - sending Aru to alert the local militia when they realised that there were hundreds of mechanical creatures lurking amongst great machines on the lowest level.
Aru took a message to the militia in seconds, teleporting through the streets with a charm that formed her birthright... the god-blooded girl quickly rallied the Red Turbans, and hundreds of men and women charged into the ruins to fight the automata. Mavess captured the man who controlled the constucts, and led him to the surface in an apparent act of mercy - only to throw him to the locals, declaring "this is the man who stole your children!"
Session 2:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aeduna (Mavess), shemjaza (Aru), z3nmaster (Morr), Liz Drake (Joss) and Tim Betz (Fortune).
Lots of fun to GM, coloured by the antics of a drug-addicted alchemist, a local hero who picked up the temple maiden in the closing scene, and an old man who obligingly coughed up chunks of lung whenever his health was brought into question.
In Joyous Dawn's temple, Fortune's addiction to the drug Bright Morning paid off - he spotted one of the Fair Folk masquerading as an acolyte, seeing the creature as a blue glowing form within the body of the young boy. To the surprise of his companions the large alchemist leaped upon the boy, screaming "Why won't you come out!" as he clawed at the spirit. His companions assumed the drugs had finally done for him, and dragged him loose - refusing to believe his tales until the Fae made its presence known.
Morr lead Fortune and Joss out of the temple when they discovered that the Onyx Hall was burning, leaving Aru and Mavess with the creature. Aru ran off, leaving the wily old talismonger alone with the beast. Pinning it to the floor with an iron nail, he extracted a bargain from it - gaining the answers to three questions, and learning the truth behind the disappearences - the children had been taken to an ancient ruin by Baselar, an old rival of Mavess'.
Meanwhile, the others took on the former "peacekeepers" of the city - a crowd of men in red turbans who tried to destroy the Onyx Hall. The alchemist gave his Eight God Elixir to Morr, and she became a whirling dervish of destruction - scything through the men, and clearing a path to the lodge. She assembled a group of Wardens, and they marched down the street easily quelling any further rebellion. Mavess rejoined the group and told them what he had learned.
Knowing that the children were held under the Ivory Allotment, Fortune hired every local in three city blocks and equipped them with shovels - ignoring the line of salt warding the block from spirits, they began to unearth the entirety of the ruins. With thirteen Onyx Wardens and a creature named the Alabaster Diplomat in tow, they made short work of Baselar's guards. The priestesses of death passed sentence on the facility, while the living children were taken back above ground. As the group returned to the surface to cries of joy from adoring locals, the Alabaster Diplomat reached into Baselar's corpse and pulled out the device that had prolonged his life for so long - taking it back to the underworld, where Baselar had stolen it from years earlier...
Session 3: Mark Philp (Aru), Chris Moor (Joss), Jum Vinton (Mavess),aslan42 (Morr).
Alone amongst the five versions of the story, this group based their operations in Fortune's compound for most of the game. They carefully assembled talismans (for tracking the kidnappers), a dummy (dressed in Aru's clothes, to carry her scent), and laid plans to ambush the creatures that had tried to capture Aru.
Aru snuck out into the spiritual heart of the city - the Grand Bazaar. Hiding behind market stalls she tried to contact her mother - no normal spirit, but the soul of the city itself. She drew her mother's attention back to the city she had neglected, and the spirit grew angry - first wanting to take Aru to Yu-Shan, the city of the Gods, where she would be safe. Aru convinced her mother to leave her in Gem, instead seeking help to protect the other children.
Joss ventured to Joyous Dawn's temple and found the goddess weeping. He smiled winningly and promised that he would get the children back, and returned to the compound - oblivious to the other occupants of the temple. By this time, his companions were preparing to enact their plans.
They staked out Aru's old sleeping place - a warehouse, filled with silks and treasures from the east, and waited for nightfall. Two creatures appeared shortly after midnight, and the group attacked - trying to drive one off (marked with a location-finding charm), and disable the other. Aru and Morr quickly took down one construct, as Joss galloped off on horseback to keep up with the other - eventually losing the creature near an abandoned residential block.
Inside the Ivory Allotment, they discovered the children held by Baselar Nekaru, an old rival of Mavess' - a man whom Morr had pronounced dead two years earlier. He had been sustained by his unholy machine, and the group quickly decided to incapacitate him without causing injury, while Joss tried to fend off the mad inventor's army of automatons with one hand, disabling the machine with his other. They marked Baselar's lips with salt from the Child-goddess' tears, drawing her attention to him as Aru - now possessed by her mother's rage - leaped down and tore the man's black soul apart with blazing celestial fire. The group recovered the children unharmed, and returned them to their families...
Session 4:jaquiej (Aru), Beth Richardson (Morr), Chris Webb (Mavess), caerell (Joss), marshall_1977 (Fortune).
This group played quite differently to the other full team, with a Fortune who splashed around more money (purchasing three market stalls when Aru wanted lunch) and far more cordial dealings with the Red Turbans. Aru was convinced that the Fae had stolen her companions, and the group tried to find evidence to prove this - while in the company of not one, but two of the Fair Folk...
Aru presented ehr story to the Red Turbans in their guildhouse, and the group swiftly brought the militia on side. They discovered much more about the nature of their enemy, but not a great deal regarding its location. When at last Morr suggested looking for ruins under the old quarter of the city, Fortune sought out an inventor and explorer to help them. Throwing subtlety to the wind, they purchased a great tunnelling machine and began to dig under the city - destroying the machine when it crashed into the ruins of a First Age structure deep underground. Inside, they found the children - and the many horrors that had taken them to be built into Baselar's machine.
Without attempting to disable the great machine, Fortune built a firebomb and dropped it down onto the automata - destroying the man, machine, and mechanical creatures in an immense fireball. They had not reckoned on the machine's purpose however - to regenerate Baselar, at the cost of many innocent lives. The blast had been so severe that it had destroyed the Essence Siphon, but not before a great number of the children had been drained of life - to the horror of the other characters.
This was the only group to deliberately deal with the Red Turbans, and their good reputation amongst the militia (plus their rescue of... most... of the children) mitigated the near-disaster that came of immolating the room where the lost children had been placed. After running games for twelve hours by this point, I staggered off home and collapsed in a heap.
Pretty poor form, as I spent several hours getting to and from the venue (I went home & came back to discover another no-show in the afternoon) - I'll think twice about getting to a convention at 9am in future, as the same thing happened at Arcanacon this year. I saw some of the morning session's players later in the day, but none of them thought to apologise for not showing up to their game. Not amused.
On the whole, though, the convention went well. Each of the four teams on Saturday used completely different approaches to tackling the game, which made for some interesting stories. Picking people for trophies and certificates was tricky, as I felt that virtually all the players really made their characters work.
From my hazy memory, here are a few different versions of the story. I can't guarantee that it'll make sense if you haven't played the game, but I'm trying to write down what happened so I don't forget it all. (Don't read this if you intend to play the game in the immediate future...).
Characters:
Aru the Lost (last of the street kids in the Hot District, and the only one to have witnessed the kidnappings first-hand)
Joss, the Smiling Gambler (local hero, renowned for his daring exploits)
Mavess the Hyena (a filthy old man, renowned for his magical talismans and his many enemies)
Morr, the Twilight Guardian (a warden from the Onyx Hall - a temple devoted to the spirits of the dead)
Thrice-blessed Fortune (a wealthy alchemist who has lost his daughters, and brings the group together).
Session 1: James Goldfinch (Joss), Steven Abbey (Aru), Martin Ludwell (Mavess).
The group gathered in Fortune's lavish compound, and decided to begin their investigations inside the house - looking for clues regarding Fortune's own children. Aru proceeded to loot the place bare, going so far as to destroy evidence that could have led to the attackers. The others chided her for this, and set out to the warehouse where Aru had been attacked.
Aru again caused havoc here, climbing on the rooftops and knocking out the warehouse guards with dropped rocks. Joss and Mavess could do little with the only possible witnesses unconscious, so they backtracked through the city, and headed for the grand marketplace. On the way, they encountered an angry mob at the gates of the Onyx Hall, and distracted them by accusing a nearby temple of being the real villains. The mob charged down the street, attempting to vent their frustration on a small shrine devoted to the Unconquered Sun... none of the rabble were seen again :)
They tracked Aru's assailants back to an abandoned residential area - populated only by ghosts now, as superstitious locals had moved out after an outbreak of cholera a decade ago. Mavess built a lantern, and they cautiously explored many levels within the building - sending Aru to alert the local militia when they realised that there were hundreds of mechanical creatures lurking amongst great machines on the lowest level.
Aru took a message to the militia in seconds, teleporting through the streets with a charm that formed her birthright... the god-blooded girl quickly rallied the Red Turbans, and hundreds of men and women charged into the ruins to fight the automata. Mavess captured the man who controlled the constucts, and led him to the surface in an apparent act of mercy - only to throw him to the locals, declaring "this is the man who stole your children!"
Session 2:
aeduna (Mavess), shemjaza (Aru), z3nmaster (Morr), Liz Drake (Joss) and Tim Betz (Fortune).Lots of fun to GM, coloured by the antics of a drug-addicted alchemist, a local hero who picked up the temple maiden in the closing scene, and an old man who obligingly coughed up chunks of lung whenever his health was brought into question.
In Joyous Dawn's temple, Fortune's addiction to the drug Bright Morning paid off - he spotted one of the Fair Folk masquerading as an acolyte, seeing the creature as a blue glowing form within the body of the young boy. To the surprise of his companions the large alchemist leaped upon the boy, screaming "Why won't you come out!" as he clawed at the spirit. His companions assumed the drugs had finally done for him, and dragged him loose - refusing to believe his tales until the Fae made its presence known.
Morr lead Fortune and Joss out of the temple when they discovered that the Onyx Hall was burning, leaving Aru and Mavess with the creature. Aru ran off, leaving the wily old talismonger alone with the beast. Pinning it to the floor with an iron nail, he extracted a bargain from it - gaining the answers to three questions, and learning the truth behind the disappearences - the children had been taken to an ancient ruin by Baselar, an old rival of Mavess'.
Meanwhile, the others took on the former "peacekeepers" of the city - a crowd of men in red turbans who tried to destroy the Onyx Hall. The alchemist gave his Eight God Elixir to Morr, and she became a whirling dervish of destruction - scything through the men, and clearing a path to the lodge. She assembled a group of Wardens, and they marched down the street easily quelling any further rebellion. Mavess rejoined the group and told them what he had learned.
Knowing that the children were held under the Ivory Allotment, Fortune hired every local in three city blocks and equipped them with shovels - ignoring the line of salt warding the block from spirits, they began to unearth the entirety of the ruins. With thirteen Onyx Wardens and a creature named the Alabaster Diplomat in tow, they made short work of Baselar's guards. The priestesses of death passed sentence on the facility, while the living children were taken back above ground. As the group returned to the surface to cries of joy from adoring locals, the Alabaster Diplomat reached into Baselar's corpse and pulled out the device that had prolonged his life for so long - taking it back to the underworld, where Baselar had stolen it from years earlier...
Session 3: Mark Philp (Aru), Chris Moor (Joss), Jum Vinton (Mavess),
aslan42 (Morr).Alone amongst the five versions of the story, this group based their operations in Fortune's compound for most of the game. They carefully assembled talismans (for tracking the kidnappers), a dummy (dressed in Aru's clothes, to carry her scent), and laid plans to ambush the creatures that had tried to capture Aru.
Aru snuck out into the spiritual heart of the city - the Grand Bazaar. Hiding behind market stalls she tried to contact her mother - no normal spirit, but the soul of the city itself. She drew her mother's attention back to the city she had neglected, and the spirit grew angry - first wanting to take Aru to Yu-Shan, the city of the Gods, where she would be safe. Aru convinced her mother to leave her in Gem, instead seeking help to protect the other children.
Joss ventured to Joyous Dawn's temple and found the goddess weeping. He smiled winningly and promised that he would get the children back, and returned to the compound - oblivious to the other occupants of the temple. By this time, his companions were preparing to enact their plans.
They staked out Aru's old sleeping place - a warehouse, filled with silks and treasures from the east, and waited for nightfall. Two creatures appeared shortly after midnight, and the group attacked - trying to drive one off (marked with a location-finding charm), and disable the other. Aru and Morr quickly took down one construct, as Joss galloped off on horseback to keep up with the other - eventually losing the creature near an abandoned residential block.
Inside the Ivory Allotment, they discovered the children held by Baselar Nekaru, an old rival of Mavess' - a man whom Morr had pronounced dead two years earlier. He had been sustained by his unholy machine, and the group quickly decided to incapacitate him without causing injury, while Joss tried to fend off the mad inventor's army of automatons with one hand, disabling the machine with his other. They marked Baselar's lips with salt from the Child-goddess' tears, drawing her attention to him as Aru - now possessed by her mother's rage - leaped down and tore the man's black soul apart with blazing celestial fire. The group recovered the children unharmed, and returned them to their families...
Session 4:
jaquiej (Aru), Beth Richardson (Morr), Chris Webb (Mavess), caerell (Joss), marshall_1977 (Fortune).This group played quite differently to the other full team, with a Fortune who splashed around more money (purchasing three market stalls when Aru wanted lunch) and far more cordial dealings with the Red Turbans. Aru was convinced that the Fae had stolen her companions, and the group tried to find evidence to prove this - while in the company of not one, but two of the Fair Folk...
Aru presented ehr story to the Red Turbans in their guildhouse, and the group swiftly brought the militia on side. They discovered much more about the nature of their enemy, but not a great deal regarding its location. When at last Morr suggested looking for ruins under the old quarter of the city, Fortune sought out an inventor and explorer to help them. Throwing subtlety to the wind, they purchased a great tunnelling machine and began to dig under the city - destroying the machine when it crashed into the ruins of a First Age structure deep underground. Inside, they found the children - and the many horrors that had taken them to be built into Baselar's machine.
Without attempting to disable the great machine, Fortune built a firebomb and dropped it down onto the automata - destroying the man, machine, and mechanical creatures in an immense fireball. They had not reckoned on the machine's purpose however - to regenerate Baselar, at the cost of many innocent lives. The blast had been so severe that it had destroyed the Essence Siphon, but not before a great number of the children had been drained of life - to the horror of the other characters.
This was the only group to deliberately deal with the Red Turbans, and their good reputation amongst the militia (plus their rescue of... most... of the children) mitigated the near-disaster that came of immolating the room where the lost children had been placed. After running games for twelve hours by this point, I staggered off home and collapsed in a heap.
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no subject
Date: 2005-07-04 04:52 am (UTC)Players not showing up... *sigh* Especially when they don't contact anyone, and they don't apologise, this is a major sin. I think I'd refuse to accept people into any future games on that basis, /especially/ for a 9am Sunday start.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-04 05:37 am (UTC)Glad you liked the game. The four sessions on Saturday all went fantastically, which was reassuring after all the problems I uncovered during (and after) the playtest. I guess that's what playtesting is for though, and it was nice to see that the rewriting-til-2am paid off.
I'm certainly going to be wary of accepting people into future games when they haven't arrived in sessions. I'll probably email them beforehand to double-check that they really are going to come - that way, if they still don't show up I can call in the artillery... ;)
no subject
Date: 2005-07-04 05:44 am (UTC)Well, it was a lot of fun in playtest, so I'll just assume it was awesome when the wrinkles were ironed out.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-05 12:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-05 02:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-07 02:11 am (UTC)Somewhere, plans will be derailed by the appearence of Weapons of the Gods, and I'll use it to run a sci-fi wuxia game. The Grand Bazaar (Gem part 2) has been waiting in line for longer than any of the other games, though... it ought to see daylight at some stage.