Scarlet Vampire
A Lonely Hope
Scene 6
In the last post, Hanson
was suddenly ambushed. Her attacker was a man with burning tattoos, whose
flames could have ended her. She triumphed, but is still left with more
questions than answers. Her best lead at this point is the tattoos
themselves—they are certainly unusual, and may even be unique. The prompt for
the next scene is:
Convince
an Actor ally of the foe to betray them. On a failure, face a Fight.
As of now, Hanson doesn’t know who is behind the events
that have been plaguing Dona and her the past few nights. I decided that
whomever she goes to for information next will be the ally, and that, no matter
what happens as a result of the scene, she will discover who the foe is. Which
raises the immediate question of “to whom does Hanson go regarding the
tattoos?” There’s no defined NPC in the
game yet who would be the logical source, so I instead turn to +Zach Best's Universal NPC Emulator.
The Universal NPC Emulator (U.N.E.) is a
wonderful series of tables for coming up with unique and different NPC’s for
games. I’ve used it in a number of previous games to help round out settings,
and is a tool that ever GM should have in their arsenal. It does have one,
slight, downside, however. Like many such tools, it has a slight “fantasy”
bent, and as such I occasionally need to interpret the results to better fit
the exact game I’m running. Since this is the first time using the U.N.E. in
this story, though, I’m going to go through it step by step for creating this
character.
Step 1
is to figure out who the NPC in
question is. This is two tables, one to provide a noun and the other a
modifier. Rolling on them, I get the following:
Modifier 94 Passionate
Noun 86 Lord
For a
result of Passionate Lord. “Lord” could mean a number of things, from a
literal entitled noble, a vampire “ruler” (Prince, Primogen, etc), a wealthy
and well-connected businessman, to a merely “prominent” individual.
Step 2
is to determine their power. There’s a number of categories available for
this, and I decide to go with “Chaos”—it’s the most likely to give a wide
range of results.
Power 11 Much
Weaker.
With
these result, I decide that the Ally will be a mortal, rather than a vampire
or some other supernatural.
Step 3
is to determine what it is that the NPC’s wants, their motivation. Each gets
three different motivations, in order to help form a more dynamic and
engaging character. Like in step 1, this contains two tables. One for a verb (what they want to do) and a noun (what they want to do it to).
Rolling, I get the following results.
So,
this Passionate Lord wants to Operate Ghosts, Follow Force, and Take
Laziness.
Taking
all this together, I decide on the following for the NPC. Her name is
Brittany Owens, and she is the self-styled leader of a group of New Age
Occultists. She is the only one to have any real gifts, and is unwilling to
make the effort to truly teach any of the others. Between the “church” she leads and her willingness
to abuse her gifts, she has a comfortable lifestyle (Take Laziness). She is
also semi-plugged in to the darker world, and is more than willing to help
out those more powerful than her, provided the payment is right (Follow
Force). Her magical gifts, such as they are, are focused on the spirits of
the dead (Operate Ghosts).
I don’t bother making a full sheet for her, as I doubt it will be necessary. |
Hanson
sped through the streets, her mind sorting through possibilities. Who was the
tattooed man, and how could he have possibly received those markings? What
did this have to do with Dona? How did he know where she would be? Was she
even the target? Samuel was unusually reticent with her—was he the actual
target? There was too much she still didn’t know. But she did know about the
tattoos.
She
didn’t know what they meant, of course. But she did know someone who might.
Brittany Owens, who of course went by Sophia,
was a charlatan and a grifter she had busted more than once. But the girl did
have some power. Even as a mortal, she had sensed it, and as a vampire she
had known it. Everyone knew she would work for whoever could pay her, or
promise her some secret or make her life easier in some way. Hanson figured
she could “help” her by keeping the Prince happy, or maybe cracking a few
skulls for her. If not, well, she was sure that Brittany would pay well to
not have her skull cracked.
She
pulled up into the “New Light Thought Center” parking lot. The place had been
a market of some sort years ago, before the little cult had taken it over.
She drove to the back, where a far nicer house stood—the members gave what
they could, and Brittany definitely benefitted from it. Most of the house was
dark, but a light from the rear let Hanson know that she was home, and awake.
it only took a handful of harsh knocks to get the door to open, just a crack at first, but then wider when Hanson explained she needed help and confirmed it wasn’t the police. The entire place was a chaotic mess of second hand-furniture, top-notch stereos, overflowing ash trays, and a floor that seemed to be more empty pizza boxes and liquor bottles than carpet. Brittany waved Hanson through the mess, keeping the lit joint just even enough, and guided her to the study. If the living room was a dorm roof gone wild, the study was a professor’s wet dream. The place was immaculate, with thick carpets, leather chairs and oaken furniture—desk, side tables, and bookshelves. Granted, most of the books were pop-culture “New Age” nonsense, but Hanson was sure she had some real knowledge here. Or if not here, then safely secured in an even more private place. She slouched behind her desk, took a puff, and crushed the joint out in a clean ash tray. “What do you want, Hanson?”
“Well,
Brittany, I have some photo..”
“Sophia,”
she interrupted, clearly enunciating each syllable.
“Uh huh. Anyway, I have these photographs…” |
Much
like her discussion with Samuel, Hanson will have three tries to convince
“Sophia” to aid her. The base difficultly will be 6 for appropriate skill
checks, 8 for inappropriate ones. She needs to accumulate 10 total successes.
Of course, Sophia is a secret ally of
the foe, and will attempt to dissimulate, rambling on about obscure mystical
oddities (which may or may not be entirely made up), and trying to throw her
off.
Therefore, the first question is “Can Hanson see through the bullshit?” This is a key roll, and Hanson will spend a Willpower point for this.
Perception[2]+Occult[0] 9,2 + 1
Willpower. 2 Total.
Now
that she knows something is up, she tries to get Sophia to talk.
Manipulation[3]+Investigation[4] 7,2,9,2,7,2,7 4 Total.
She has
6 successes already, but Sophia still isn’t telling her what she needs to
know. Hanson decides to get rough.
Strength[4]+Intimidate[2] 5,1,6,6,8,7 4 successes, but the 1 subtracts a
success. Fortunately, Hanson has Potence,
and her supernatural strength allows her to add 1 to the total. 10 total!
|
Hanson
was officially done with her bullshit. In a flash she reached over the table
and grabbed Brittany by the throat. She dragged Brittany over the table, then
threw her into her pretentious bookshelves. She slammed into them with a
crash, and fell to the floor as an avalanche of “forbidden” best sellers fell
on top of her.
“You don’t understand,” she tried to gasp out, “what they’ll do to me.” “What about me?” Hanson asked, as her fangs slowly extended. “Worry about what I’m going to do.” |
It’s probably not the best
way to “convince an ally to betray them,” but if it works, it works.
All
right, time for some answers. As I don’t have solid ideas, I turn to Mythic and decide to treat this as a
“complex question.”
Who is behind the harassment of Dona? (03) Neglect of (21) Messages. Well, that’s an odd answer. I at first think of rerolling, but then I think back to the original setup.
A Target aspires to advance their business or status but an Antagonist opposes them.
For all
the blood and violence, this isn’t a war. This is two people fighting over
who gets to be the most popular. I decide off the top of my head that the
person behind this a fellow spiritual seeker, like Dona. Only their method is
a bit darker, more “realistic” and never took off like Dona’s has. They
originally wanted to be a “mentor” to Dona, but when she rejected their path,
they took it very, very personally.
I turn back to the U.N.E to flesh out the character, and come up with the following:
Cultured Judge who is comparable to Hanson and who desires
to Associate with Modesty, Take Freedom, and Obtain Dissonance.
He is Adrian Clark. Scion of a wealthy family, he found his tastes drove him to the bizarre and mystical. He explored various alternative faiths, and indulged in the way that only the spoiled children of the elite can afford to. In his embrace, though, he rediscovered the conservative Catholic faith of his parents, and threw himself into it with a passion. He believes that “freedom” is exactly what is wrong with the kindred, and seeks to convert others in the city to his own “fire and brimstone” path. Unsurprisingly, Dona’s more positive and hopeful message gained the audience he never could. Rolling on my Random Vampire tables, I end up with a Toreador, so there is perhaps some “family rivalry” with Blaine as well. I go ahead and give him a full write up, as I’m sure he’s going to be an ongoing issue. |
And with that, the scene concludes. Hanson has gained 2
victory points, bringing her to a total of 4. It was an Action scene, however,
so the Foe, or Adrian, now gets to roll against the current count. He gets a 1, increasing his total to 4 as well. And now I determine what the next prompt with
be. I figure Hanson will attempt to reduce Adrian’s total with a Conflict
scene. Plus, I haven’t played around with those yet. I roll a 7 and get:
Suffer
betrayal by an Actor; face a fight as a you try to escape or avenge yourself.
Victory Points
|
Heat
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Hanson
|
4
|
Opponent
|
4
|
2
|
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Investigation & Action Scene Count
|
5
|
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Willpower (max 6)
|
2
|
Blood Pool (Max 11)
|
11
|
Health (Max 7)
|
7
|
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Scene Number
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Type
|
Description
|
Result
|
||||||
1
|
Investigation
|
Tail an Actor who might have a Clue. On
a check failure, face a Fight.
|
Failed
to Tail, succeed on Fight
|
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2
|
Action
|
Face the foe's best warrior
|
Failure
|
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3
|
Rest
|
Hanson hunts, feeds, and heals
|
N/A
|
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4
|
Investigation
|
Trick an Actor into revealing a Clue.
|
Failure
|
||||||
5
|
Investigation
|
Waylaid by hostile Actor
|
Success
|
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6
|
Action
|
Convince an ally of the foe to betray
them
|
Success
|
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7
|
Conflict
|
Suffer betrayal by an Actor.
|
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Rules and Mechanics
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