Suihkulahde: Session Eight

This was... not an easy session to pitch to the players. On the one hand the characters had quite naturally gone where they should go. And on the other was what we had kinda pitched at the beginning: a Dawn Treader sorta a campaign.

This.

Is.

NOT.

FREAKING DAWN TREADER.

I mean, I know there are some who would go "Well just play it out", and that's what's happening. But we put these two characters together and it just sorta... evolved. I'd no idea how the hell the players were going to address this problem, of Constantine's death.

But Lena did it. I've no idea how. But she came up with the answer. Go after Aloysius. Nomi and Anneli can't save Constantine directly, but what if they get Aloysius to back off? What if he's the one to break the timeline, and then is the one who suffers the wrath of the Dahaka?? Andy, of course, adored the idea. Anneli had a bad history with Aloysius and loved the idea of getting payback.

Here's what they came up with.

Anneli

B1. I can redeem myself by destroying Aloysius.

B2. I will understand how Constantine came to love Nomi and what he sees in her.

B3. Something strange has happened to Nomi's grief; I must uncover what.

I1. Never leave anything behind in this timeline.

I2. Always take command.

I3. Always give Nomi a space to speak.

Traits: Call of the Island, Righteous, Mortally Wounded in the Head | Shaky Hands | Slightly Clumsy, Haunted, Commanding Aura, Driven (Pilot)

Nomi

B1. Using Aloysious to change events and letting him take the fallout may be the best path for everyone that matters. 

B2. Constantine is my light, losing him to darkness would cement my own. He has to realize himself and stabilize with enough time.

B3. Grieving doesn’t get things done. 

I1. Always bend the truth for personal advantage

I2. When in trouble always try to talk my way out first

I3. Always avoid revealing personal information

Traits: Educated, Call of the Sea, Spite, Deceptive, Compulsive Liar, Callous, Charismatic, Memory’s Influence, Bitter, Guarded

So Constantine was screaming in despair as his brain was breaking from remembering that he was killed. There's an eldritch egg growing.

Oh wait, Andy didn't know what eldritch eggs were. If you've been reading the blog awhile you'd know, but you probably don't either. Eldritch eggs are formed when a person succumbs to despair. Rayona, the Dark Ocean, then reaches out and begins to feed off of person's despair. Once the egg fully materializes the victim is drawn into it; their consumption completes the eldritch egg. This process is supposed to happen over months, years.

This egg was forming in five minutes.

Nomi knew that. 

So I had Lena roll a Steel test at +5 hesitation (eldritch egg and it's her freaking husband and that egg is going must faster than it should), and Andy also rolled Steel at +3 hesitation (not her freaking husband! Eldritch egg!). Nomi failed by 5 heartbeats, Anneli by 1. So the Ghost Prostitute came out for a quick heartbeat, blinking stupidly at everything. And then Anneli was back.

And then Lena reminded me of The Music. Right, The Music. So, things from Rayona put off a weird discordant music, which can wipe out a person's memory and personality. Elves are rather resistant to it, taking months of constant exposure, but humans? That Music can wipe them out in a matter of minutes. Even seconds of exposure can do this to a human. Andy asked if it was merely the act of hearing it or being exposed that would wipe out Constantine, and I clarified that being in the "waves" of the song that hurt so.

Andy checked his character sheet. And asked if he could have Anneli sing and change how The Music interacted with others. Maybe, by singing, Anneli could change things just enough. Lena and I had been futzing around with The Music all throughout The Undertow... and we'd never really thought of actually trying to do this. I mean, changing the sound itself would work, right?

Welp, time for a Singing test.

Yup, Anneli passed.

Anneli joined with the dissonance, making it a sorrowful, and then even a little mirthful. I had goosebumps. There was an awe , as Lena and I tried to comprehend what was happening. 

And Constantine snapped out of it. Nomi was still lying on the ground, crying, so Constantine wrapped her up in his arms. Of course I called for another Steel test for our good friend Nomi... which she passed. Of course that was the one she passed. So Nomi, while very happy, knew they only had so much time. She asked and Constantine confirmed:  he remembered everything of his death. He asked who Anneli was. "You didn't tell me that your sister was Anneli, the savior of  Argentum Reskartum!! That's so cool!!" gushed Constantine. We all laughed about that as Nomi rolled her eyes at her husband fan-boying over Anneli. That little spark of joy, that little bit of childish glee, was enough; the eldritch egg vanished. 

Introductions were made; I played up the fanboi in Constantine, much to everyone's amusement. Constantine related his surprise that it was Aloysius who had killed him. Aloysius had been helping Constantine rebuild Argentum Reskartum for a year, quietly, hidden from view. His confrontation with Anneli had deeply changed Aloysius, something that had elevated the mythicality of Anneli in Constantine's eyes.

It was also four days before Aloysius had killed Constantine; they still had time to change things.

 Constantine asked to come along, because he wanted to look Aloysius over, see what he had missed. Nomi and Anneli, who had darker designs on Aloysius and didn't want Constantine to know, managed to convince him that his curiosity needed to wait. They couldn't tip Aloysius off, not yet. Constantine warned them not to take the same route as the Nomi of his time had taken.

What followed was like a homecoming to Andy, who had helped me flesh out Argentum Prime's culture and the magical guilds that helped run the empire in general. The last Andy had seen of the capital it had been in ruins; now there was life, rebirth. Even the rainforests, which had been completely leveled, were being regrown by the Agriculture Guild. Andy asked if Tara, the woman who had betrayed Spar, his first PC, was there, helping the process. I confirmed she was; everyone needed to be on deck if they wanted a home. Andy laughed, saying this was quite the throwback. 

I can't wait to come back, later in the campaign. This whole part of the game has been so strange, but it's good to return to a place that we had all spent some time in and to see it grow without us. The original pitch was that the second half of this campaign would be spent in the Argentum Empire. And here, right here, I felt that twinge, a nostalgia for a place that may not exist in the world around me, but is so real to me and my friends. It's a real gift, to be able to tell them "Someday we will return."

Anyway.

Aloysius had made his home next to the ruined Sabina's Castle, far away from everyone else; no one wanted to live near the castle, and it stood abandoned. Aloysius's fields and barn stood right adjacent to the castle. He was out and working when Anneli and Nomi arrived. Andy remembered him as bold, brash; Aloysius was a broken man now. Quiet, unassuming as much as an almost seven-foot tall man can be, and utterly exhausted in spirit. 

Aloysius was so unlike what he had been from before that an eerie quiet enveloped the session from here on out. 

Aloysius, after seeing it was Anneli and "another elf", offered them hospitality, if they would take it. Anneli and Nomi accepted. Nomi tried to scan his farmland as they walked, looking for any signs of growing insurrection. So I gave Lena a graduated Perception check, and she rolled three successes. I revealed that Aloysius looked thoroughly broken, but that his fields were in impeccable order, with none of the usual signs of anything being hidden or of him trying to cover up anything. A tin woman with half her face burned off came to meet them at the door of Aloysius's house; the scars were very old. Aloysius introduced the mute woman as his wife, Miriam. 

Andy asked if he could somehow suss out what Aloysius knew about the rebuilding efforts, to see if he could trip up Aloysius into revealing his intentions. I asked Andy to make an Etiquette check... which he failed pretty badly, not being trained or anything.

Aloysius knew an astonishing amount of information about the rebuilding of Argentum Reskartum, which he discussed quite freely with Anneli and Nomi.

All of a sudden Anneli was in the dark ocean again, with Leviathan. All the words that were coming out of Aloysius's mouth were coming from the darkness below Anneli that she knew to be Leviathan. She could hear Aloysius, begging Leviathan to stop, that he didn't want to know, that he didn't want to tell. "He has it, you know," taunted Leviathan in a deep voice that Anneli felt more than she heard. The atmosphere had begun almost unbearably tense. "Shut up!" wailed Aloysius. 

Anneli collapsed while experiencing this. Miriam ran into the house for water, while Aloysius helped Nomi get Anneli into the house. Anneli came to and was ushered into the master bedroom, past another room; the door of that room was shut.

Nomi, once they were alone, asked Anneli what she had seen. Anneli told Nomi that Aloysius was not in control of himself. Leviathan was the one actually manifesting in Aloysius.

Dear Readers, this is not what I had intended to communicate. But I did not correct Andy as he had Anneli tell Nomi about all this. It's a failed test. Andy (at least in theory) reads these posts, and I made some effort to correct the matter, in case it needed correction, for the players. But Anneli believes that Aloysius is being mind-controlled. And that's honestly the better story.

They resolved to move as soon as possible to stop Leviathan... whatever the hell that meant. The problem is that nobody seems to really know what Leviathan even is! When Andy and I had come up with Leviathan, we deliberately left it as open as possible. I have done very little to develop the idea since we came up with it, so when Andy and Lena asked me what anyone knew, I shrugged. The only thing I did know for a fact was that hardly anything was known, provided you even accepted that Leviathan existed!

Siamese twin girls came in, asking where mamma and papa were. Aloysius called out to them, saying to let the elves alone until they were ready to come out.