Spinward Vanguard a Multimedia Worldbuilding Project

While this was initially inspired by Stellaris, imagining what such a world would be like for the people who live in it when the player of such a game gets past the end game and hits "exit game." I know y'all hate fanfiction. This is not that. This is not me making a new Harry Potter house just for me. Stellaris is a toolbox rather than a setting, much like Dungeons and Dragons which has liches and Drow but every version is its own thing even if it has a few things in common. I wanted to make an actual setting.

The premise is a solar punk space opera centering on a group of anarchist space pirates living in the aftermath of a centuries wide galactic dark age who have found their little planet has become a doorway to a new frontier as various powers from the center of a galactic civilization want to exploit the area. The nearby sector was previously closed off because of a reality warping psionic anomaly called "the indigo" but the indigo has since cleared and where this colony of misfits and exiles used to be remote, now they are being targeted from the community they built for removal as squatters so a bunch of sophont trafficking mega corporations can pave over their farms and build a military base there.

For me, Solarpunk is the radical assertion that while we live with a broken world, bearing scars of the poor decisions of the past we don't have to live like this and it's not too late.

“We are solarpunk We and  our commune for the wayward Stormtossed is about a radical refusal of galactica dystopia, wrenching the Utopia we build from the hands of ghouls comfortable with allowing their worlds to die for the sake of control and maximizing shareholder value. It's about recognizing that the past is a big turd and while it was full of mistakes, it's not too late.

We will be mud farmers here on Breakwater. Back in the Gateway network, so called civilized space, yeah we could get greasy fried fast food kibble that shortens our lifespan and gets worse every year. We could be slaves paying off debts they conjured for breathing that they gave us for the so called service of being snatched from our homes. We could lose our lives in dark mines and irradiated old foundries building the machines that oppress us. Or we could choose differently. We can rob these tyrants and these oligarchs, snatch back our freedom. We live in the swamp, the barrens, the lands of natural beauty and wonder others turned their nose up at, called “Death World” and fight for every bite and when we get that biofarm built, we don't have to eat kibble anymore.

We will taste the fruits of our own sweat and they will fight back against the patent attorneys and Harmonium pinkertons the corpos send to assert ancient property rights they have no basis for. We can be free. We have heard the call of the ember frequencies, of those for whom living free is piracy. Carry the Ember. Keep the Lantern Lit.”

Captain David Zee, leader of the uprising, first captain of the Stormtossed, 3122.

(model from Northstar Military Figures)

Welcome to 3226. There was once a golden age, followed by a time of constant crisis from extragalactic invasions to, mad scientist bird people rewriting the laws of physics, to an attempt by cultists to delete the galaxy from existence. The United Nations of Earth that became the custodian of the galaxy and led its protectors, being a beacon of freedom an liberty for all sophonts. But then as the various extragalactic invasions and crises happened and compounded, the UNE came under the control of a fascist demagogue when the earth was destroyed by the invaders and transitioned into being “The Galactic Mandate.”

An alliance led by psychic elves called the Isilfar made a pact with a psychic God called The End of Cycles led an uprising against them and succeeded. The Mandate was destroyed. But then the bill from their patron came due. Their territory, people, and worlds were seized by a reality warping fog called The Indigo and the Isilfar using the powers granted by the End of Cycles were claimed and became part of a roving abomination. The galaxy has been in a dark age from the power vacuum for centuries. But recently, The Indigo has cleared.

At the edge of their space has been a solarpunk pirate haven for free peoples called the Stormtossed Commune. It is an anarchist society of rebellious freed slaves and misfits built by principles of shared burdens and do it yourself spirit, living on a swamp world the rest of the galaxy turned their nose up at during the golden century. Now, with the Indigo cleared, fragments of the mandate, megacorporations, cults, and sophont trafficking criminals who eye their world with envy as it sits on a chokepoint into a newly lootable grave of the Isilfar full of tech lost from before the dark age.

Carry the Ember, Keep the Lantern Lit

Lantern Icon made by Octopocto from www.flaticon.com
Sword Icon made by IYIKON from www.flaticon.com

The idea is that every possible awful thing, short of the galaxy being destroyed, that could happen happened and while they were able to fight them off, it wore away galactic civilizations down to the point where they started collapsing and galactic society went into a dark age. The Galaxy is in a dark age and is just beginning to recover. 

The protagonists are an egalitarian commune of escaped slaves who do piracy and salvage old stuff from the Galaxy's golden age. The antagonists are a bunch of colonizing corporations that traffic sophonts as slaves. A portion of the Galaxy once terrorized by a psionic demon has opened up and it's a race to claim relics of this past.

For this project, I am illustrating the world by buying and painting models. Here are some of the ones I have completed thusfar.

One such corporation is the Builders of Providence and these are some of the low level goons with lighter armor. These are the grunts of the Builders of Providence, they are a mixture of men and women, and a couple of them are non human. It is a mixture of eisenkern Stormtroopers and Eisenkern Panzerjäger. The alien heads came from the Stargrave Crew sprue. The elite ones are Valkir heavy troopers also from Wargames Atlantic.

Now in this case the grunts do not have the hazard stripes the valkir heavy troopers have. There might be a lore reason for this, but given that I am the lore, and I am writing this I decided while I was painting them that I hated painting hazard stripes on the valkir heavy troopers and I will save those for just the heavy armored ones.

David Zee was a legendary the rebel against Minamar Specialized Industries who turned pirate and turned revolutionary who founded the Stormtossed commune. She and her family were snatched up into space when she was a  teenager and separated to pay off debts MSI imposed for completely unasked for services. Her homeworld, the Gaia planet of Cornucopia was former UNE/Mandate territory that lost space travel technology during the dark age. MSI claimed that a plague made the planet unfarmable and the population needed transportation to awaiting jobs. I reality MSI needed to clear the planet for experimental crops and the planetary defense was too scattered to repel the invasion as the culture had given up on space travel and turned inward.

She met Doubt while working in a factory building alloyed parts for MSI’s great work. Even at a young age she was showing potential as a revolutionary. She had smuggled Esperanto texts of historical records about the land of America and the dreams of people who went there and saw the statue of liberty from their ship but also its hypocrisy as some of the people who came to America came on a very different kind of ship, people whose skin and hair looked like hers. They had their cultures and history stripped from them, just like MSI had done to her. The statue which embodied liberty and lit its torch beside the golden door was built as a rejection of that slavery when slavery had been abolished even if they had a long way to go.

She read Esperanto translations of Marx and Kropotkin and Martin Luther King and others. There were no truly good nations and no great men who drove history but revolutionaries who snatched utopia from dystopia. And how one had to be on guard from it being stolen back as happened with the fall of the United States of America and later the fall of the UNE to the Mandate.

She was relentlessly curious and defiant even in the face of torture. While she and others were serving aboard an executive’s personal transport, She was brought to the quarters of an MSI executive. And during a cosmic storm she and doubt executed her plan. They hijacked the ship and used that ship to hijack other ships and formed the first pirate fleet of the Stormtossed. They liberated transports and departed to the distant border of the sector, up to the edge of the reality warping phenomenon known as the indigo. The rebels having gained skills building infrastructure across the cosmos set up camp on Breakwater. As the people were from many worlds they collectively resolved to build a beacon of liberty, like the English language poem of Emma Lazarus. ““Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!””

The first settlement was named Port Lazarus and eventually, they made contact with the local starbase and habitats, meeting with the Ratchet engineers and Salvagers union, merging to form the Stormtossed commune.

 

 With the people coming together to form a democratic society David led by example rather than holding office and put her life on the line as a pirate with Doubt, slowly aiding in the liberation of others, one at a time, making operating as a slaver less profitable. She harvested the looted good of the mega corps for the people. Eventually she became old and her crew went out into the black and never came home.

Eventually she became old and her crew went out into the black and never came home.

David Zee occasionally appears in murals, not so much statues, statues are bourgeois. She doesn't necessarily just appear on murals on breakwater but appears on murals in gateway space by people who know her legend, usually unauthorized murals, and her legend is whispered among people in various kinds of bondage (chattel, debt, carceral, serfdom, company towns). She was the one who got out as a teen, robbed the corpos, she helped people. Maybe she is still out there and we can get out too. But the first thing Doubt teaches when he shows up to mentor them and give them the tools they need is not to wait for a savior. Minamar Specialized Industries paints over the images of the infamous, ungrateful deadbeat when they find her and admonish workers for celebrating a terrorist who robbed them, murdered an executive, and also never existed.

This particular character is the first speaker of an anarchist commune named Nightshade. Also they are a drummer in a punk rock band a starship engineer and a veterinary brain surgeon. There is a reason why they are a polymath. It's hard to see in the picture but I also painted the shoelaces purple since they are nonbinary. The model is a kitbash but the parts came from Wargames Atlantic. The sets were Pulp Adventure Civilians and Survivors women and the head came from Pulp Adventure Agents.

Augmented blue haired androgynous punk wearing aviator shdes. They are a polymath with an absurdly wide swath of skills who always seems to be volunteering everywhere in addition to their duties as elected governor of the Stormtossed Commune.

Their parents were scientists, and they grew up aboard the Ember, a science vessel. When she eight years old the ship surveyed an astral rift but opted not to plunge the rift sphere into the rift as it would have been too time consuming and risky.

Something happeend to Nightshade in particular that changed the course of their whole life and ensured that the child they were would not return.The ship detected, on the other side of the rift, other, almost but not quite identical copies of the science vessel. At first they thought these were reflections but the vessels were all subtly different.That night, Nightshade, and only Nightshade had a dream or a vision. In the dream, they were on one of these other vessels, living a life almost the same as their own. They had a different birth gender assignment and on impulse, that version of them stole the rift sphere and plunged into the rift, boarding Nightshade’s version. Other Nightshades did the same, swapping places with their otherselves. And Nightshade met their duplicates. Nightshade went on to grow up and live a good life. They became a rocker, started a band with their  friends, went on tour in the trailing sector but always carried the values of the commune with them. Of the course of their life the conflict between the commune and the corpos of the gate way kept escalating, the corpos spread nonsense about the commune but Nightshade wasn’t interested in politics, their passion was music, they played the drums, Nightshade got old and while living in Port Lazarus, having started a family with Bax, their tomboyish childhood friend who shared the passion for music.

One day, the planet was bombed from orbit with biological weapons. Nightshade, then in their 50s took cover and watched as their family and friends were zip tied and dragged away. The local militia was no match for Harmonium security, and then they saw him, descending down he ramp of a landing vessel, a bearded man clad heavy armor, covered with skulls, gathered the militia and Nightshade’s family who refused to submit to mandatory employment. Barnstormer recognized Nightshade and Bax as members of Spinward Rhapsody. “Communists,” “loincloths” “I am happy to end you all.”Barnstormer chained all of them up in the hydroponics dome, burned Nightshade’s mother’s garden and plants. Chained everyone up, gave them collars of rubber tires, poured volatile internal combustion liquids on them and set them on fire. Barnstormer grinned as the burned.

And then Nightshade woke up in their bunk, and was once again 8 years old. The ship had just moved on from the Astral rift. They achieved adulthood once again. And once again, o death woke up in the same bunk. Sometimes small things would be different. Sometimes she reached puberty with menstruation and breast growth, and sometimes he rached puberty with erections and wet dreams. But binary gender also no longer fit them. They dedicated each life to getting really good at something but each time, it would be ended early. In loops where they survived the destruction of the commune, the biological weapons would kill potato, survivors would be sold on the market. And the historical record would be written to say that the expanding gateway community had finally cleared out an encampment of murderous squatters, allowing harmonium or who ever it was this time to claim their rightful forward base to exploit the frontier. They would describe it as a gain for a free market and thus a free people.

Nightshade has lived the same life hundreds of times, always seeking out the golden path that would allow a universe to exist where he family and community could be safe and free.

Nightshade in this loop is the governor.

This is Captain Bax

She starts off in charge as a mentor figure but the plan is for her to step aside and for the players to take over. Her name is Captain Bax (original character, please steal CC-BY-SA) though I do not actually own the model. I actually painted her a long time ago but I decided today to do a touch up.

The plan is to use these models as art in the setting guide that I was going to get the players.

The model is "Sascha Dubois" from Reaper Miniatures

Anyway this the main villain of the first adventure and possibly the campaign. His name is Barnstormer, a ruthless mercenary who has set up a cult on a desert world inspired by the bad guy from Apocalypse Now. My plan is to paint models and use the portraits of the painted models as art for the home brewed setting book.

The head was a 3D print I got off of Etsy. The armor was from Konflikt 47 Axis Stahltruppen. And then I glued a bunch of skulls to it from games workshop. Games workshop has a set that's just a bunch of skulls. It's just called skulls.

I have other models that are work in process, such as Doubt, the shapeshifter exiled from a gestalt consciousness. Nightshade, the current first speaker of the commune, an enby punk rock drummer with a curious wide spectrum of seemingly unrelated skills who is secretly trapped in a time loop repeating the same life hundreds of times with each loop ending with the destruction of the colony. They have recruited the players to prevent this. Saul Invictus Metzger, the late fascist dictator who converted the UNE to the Mandate and because of the collapse that he caused it led to the dark age in the first place.

(model is from Northstar Military Figures "pirates)

Upon the destruction of Earth from the unbidden, voices within the UNE navy, previously considered crackpots gained momentum and the most charismatic voice of all was Saul "Invictus" Metzger. The galactic community was in a panic as the most powerful empire lost their homeworld in a surprise attack by the Unbidden. Metzger was a demagogue, his voice and image elevated to the top of the polls in a years long election in the core systems, eventually he went from the first among equals to changing the entire government structure of the UNE, claiming a Mandate for the UNE to reorganize from being the galactic custodian to being the Galactic Emperor. 

As the time of crisis wore on and Metzger became more unhinged, abusing Zro and listening to voices in the dark of the Eater of Worlds, the Isilfar Republic, previously a close ally with the Mandate rose up in rebellion. The Isilfar made a faustian bargain granting those that took the mark phenomenal power and defeated Saul's Juggernaut, the Schwarze Sonne in a black hole system, the final defeat of the emperor's fleet. 

The Mandate experienced a political collapse with the destruction of its fleet and leader. It was then that the Isilfar's faustian bargain with the End of Cycles finally came due. Shortly after, the Aeon Preisthood of Tula complered their grand project, the cosmogenesis before the Reckoning could reach them.

These are but some of the models and stories I have been working on. In coming posts I will show off more models and more stories and work on my maps. 

Advent 4: Night - Tuesday December 15th, 2020

Rather than writing a narrative about what happened, these were my prep notes for this session with edits for what decision the PCs actually did and most things happened pretty much this way. The players answered the Camarilla summons first.  

5PM – Sunset, it is Tuesday December 15th, 2020. Christmas Eve approaches

Mollie spots fliers for an art exhibit, pretentious black and white photos of nude models advertising an exhibition called “The Living Flesh.” It links to a website with a partial address. They can hack the timer on the website or research (academics) to find the partial match with a difficulty 5 extended check. (30 minutes per check)

Clova arrives – tells them about a gathering of the anarchs. Faye is called away to the succubus club as there is also a gathering of them.

The Cam - 7pm  –

Clue: As people are ready to hear announcements, amid rumours of Jackson’s disappearance, Aluc Romas de Leon, approaches Barbara, he is a fellow gallery owner and patron of the arts, though primarily 3d art. He hasn’t seen but has heard about your actions on the radio and in Elysium. He’s been curious about the exhibition. He’s only heard the buzz but not seen the poster. If asked, he thinks a war with the Anarchs is misguided. He believes in maintaining a rule of independence while still upholding the traditions. He’s close with Alexa and Damen and would be happy to take the job of Prince if something happened to Jackson. Aluc will support the PCs with toughs if he hears about the zombie attack.

Clue: Bronwyn asks Barbara why she’s not feeding on blood packs anymore. It’s just as well she’s been locked out of accessing his previous source for blood packs. There’s three long term early onset dementia patients at a Southshore nursing home, she can’t access anymore. That’s where they were getting blood. The whole home has been reserved for just these three patients. Everyone else got moved. They got toughs guarding the place. The last three licks didn’t come back. (only one patient is present, the other two are in different homes.”

Julliet assumes temporary leadership of the local camarilla to conduct her “audit.” Demands the presence of Prince Jackson and Malcom. She also is angry about the airport. Gangrel Primogen. Rosa Hernandez is livid about the werewolves breaking the truce. Wants help tracking them down and exterminating them. Balthasar suggests a war and has a few Cam on his side.  Outs Bobby as an anarch and claims to have a list of all the cities anarchs. 

Julliet announces any anarchs have one hour to leave and then the bloodhunt for the anarch center begins. Thin-bloods can gain the good grace of the Cam if they assist with the bloodhunt and are allowed license to diablerize any anarch or sabbat.

The Anarchs - 9pm - at the anarch bar, Ghengis calls for war as the Justicar is provocation. Gerard and Duncan want to go all in as well. Because of the justicar. The Anarch free state of LA has sent two heavy hitters of their own, Smiling Jack and Alexandria the “new kid” who helped take LA back from the cam in the early 2000s. If the PCs commit to helping with the war on the Cam, they will help with the zombie problem.

Clue: Abraham, now an Anarch. Wish he still had a Grimoire that went missing when the chantry was raided. He does not trust Malcolm. He knows the book is still intact and has a tracker on it. He can smell it if he's with a few blocks away. He can empower the party to do that as well. The book is mostly useless to blood magic users but it may provide insights on

Asks Barbara is she knew anything about the nursing home in south shore. He has been completely shut out of his previous sources. He dimly remembers her being a bagger. 

If the PCs don’t go to the Succubus Club, they find out from Faye that Julliet has declared war on the Anarchs and called for a bloodhunt on them. She will look the other way if diablerie is commit against any anarchs. Bobby has been killed citing Erin and Barbara as suspects. 

10pm - Ghengis announces he has the prince as a hostage, courtesy of Malcom who has been an anarch agent all along. The hostage could be leverage. This could be an opportunity for social combat. 

Midnight – Attack on the church from plant zombies, the players arrive to find their haven burning and decide to retreat.

a vampire post mortem

Nobody was *the* asshole. It was just inevitable. I planned the wrong game for the wrong group, planned a complex mystery and political intrigue for a group that needed simplicity, short sessions, and for the story to be over with sooner and the short sessions caused the game to take months and months and months so that when people's work schedules and relationship statuses inevitably changed, the game could not continue. 

TLDR: we're all poly and queer and the various break-ups and politics arguments that happened over the course of the year caused the group to break up. Also the short sessions required by two disabled players and people with unpredictable work schedules meant the original plan for the game got stretched longer than 13 sessions and the story didn't work. A mystery doesn't work if people don't remember details brought up 6 months ago that in game time happened 2 days ago.

 

Advent 3 – Night, December 14^th 2020 – Lights Out

Scene – Solasa and Damien

Despite the protestations of her beast, Solasa resists the urge to take advantage of Damien’s vulnerability to promote herself to 13^th generation Bruja. Damien briefs Solasa on what he knows. Before the incident with flopsy the clown, Damien what investigating the absence of Malenkov and did not trust the PCs, who botched the previous mission to give him a straight answer.

He was on the tail of a suspect Sabbat he remembered from the war of 1994, Scarletfang, an Aasimite and blood mage assassin. He was defeated in combat and left torpid.

 

The Day Crew – Monday Morning, eye burning light from the accursed day star, December 14^th 2020

“Ugh, what a night!” – we meet the PC’s herds/ghouls sweeping up from their master’s work. The masters have gone into topor in their respective sanctums. Solasa, the thin-blood is with them. She has the ability to function during the day albeit with some hardship.

Unlike Kindred, humans need actual food, breakfast, eggs, sausage, pancakes, bacon, and coffee. A group of ghouls comes to the door, the Uptown Brunch Club.

Our cast of characters

·         Solasa – Thin-blood, see above

·         Johnny Metal – groupie of Erin, also played by Alexandria, bit of a doofus. (weak mortal template)

·         Hank – ghoul of Barbara Anne, also played by Mollie (full character, ghoul)

·         Pissf*gg*t – human servant of Luna’s character, Faye, a washed out punk with pretentions of being a revolutionary artist. Played by Luna(weak mortal template)

The Uptown Brunch Club (all NPC)

·         Ingrid (Alan Sovereign), Camarilla

·         Karl Stott (Abraham DuSable), defacto independent

·         Francis (Anita Wainwright), Anarch

 

 

Advent 2 – Sunday, December 13^th 2020 – The Feast of the Dead

The next night, the group followed up on a clue from Malenkov and Flopsy about a cathedral in the loop. The cathedral just happened to be across the street from a power station. I do not know at all how power stations work so any fine details about their functioning is alien to me. Algernon had a note depicting a figure with black veins in its aura saying “we know” and a meeting but opted not to go to that meeting because of a time conflict with midnight mass at the cathedral.

Before going to the Cathedral, the group, along with Maldavis met with Abraham DuSable, a leader of the Tremere community who has been marginalized and isolated from the Camarilla. He is hiding out in a secret sanctum in the deep pedway, a maze of forgotten tunnels, disused storefronts, storerooms, closed CTA stations and utility tunnels. Here is his library.

DuSable was stubborn about supporting the anarchs, even as the Camarilla prince has abandoned him. He believes in the Camarilla cause and regards Prince Jackson’s recent turn towards paranoia, hostility towards the Tremere and will workers in general, and abuse as a temporary problem that will work itself out. Barbara and Erin make good cases that stir him but he was unwilling to fully commit right then.

Finally they investigate the cathedral. They speak with a suspicious cab driver they saw outside of Ray’s bar. He is evasive, appears to be fully immune to disciplines, only grinning when they try to read his aura or dominate him. “I’m just a driver. I don’t tell anyone where to go, you pick the destination. I don’t judge. I just drive you there every night.” Algernon sends his rat familiar to tail him and his car. Ultimately, the cab driver exists only to observe interesting events. He is neutral and encourages you to make choices. He’s just another vampire, on the path of humanity, existing through damnation like everyone else. He has no love for the sabbat and groans about “my ex-wife” and “idiot grand kids.”

Meanwhile, half the group is drawn to strange graffiti in the power station across the street from the cathedral. It seems to be some kind of blood magic. Barbara was investigating the inside of the cathedral. The blood magic had an unclear purpose but it damaged kindred who messed with the occult symbols. The other feature is that the shifting symbols seemed to be ticking down at a regular, shrinking interval with the rate indicating whatever was going to happen was going to happen at midnight on the following night.

Meanwhile, within the cathedral, there is potluck going on with a fairly mainline Catholic service. They speak of Father Matt O’Malley[1] as a nice guy.

At midnight, “all hell breaks loose” as the Cathedral and the nearby environs is partially transitioned to the shadowlands and ghosts are openly able to interact with the skinlands with no restrictions. The environment cycles between the two states with the ghosts being visible and tangible and invisible and selectively tangible. While the cathedral is in the shadowlands, it looks like the Silent Hill dark world. The ghosts mostly throw things and terrorize the parishioners who are horrified by the events.

One ghost is fixated on Algernon, he was a random mortal that Algernon killed during one of his murderhobo sprees for little benefit in The Sacrifice, come back to destroy the one who murdered him. Algernon is cornered and attacked by the ghost of his victim.

I don’t remember the blow by blow but the group is split between chasing Father O’malley who flees from a particularly angry ghost who calls him out by name, dealing with the witnesses and wiping the memories of the ones who they can find. Eventually they converge on the catacombs and find part of the sordid story. There are numerous partially eaten bodies down there and the ghosts are the ghosts of his victims. Not all of them know they are ghosts. Father Curio is dragged into a permanent portal to the shadowlands by victims of his cannibalism. The coterie does not stop this from happening and are not able to interview him and do not gain access to his remains.

The coterie turns towards fighting Father Curio, a sabbat necromancer who organized the whole thing, he seems to be influenced by the flies as well. Normally his foul sorcery cannot function in a Cathedral as it is a sacred place, the gauntlet strength is too high. Father O’Malley acting upon his cannibal fetish broke the gauntlet barriers. They fight, Curio loses the battle of attrition. The PCs find The Magician Card on his beat down body.

The cab driver pulls up in his cab, Algernon and Lindel get in the car, wave goodbye, and are not seen again.

The characters turn Father Curio in to the Camarilla and gain some degree of goodwill. They order their ghouls, retainers, and club staff to investigate the graffiti during the

---

[1] I actually forgot what I named him tbh

Advent 1 – Saturday, December, 12th, 2020 – Crazy Clown Time

 

The Cast of Characters

Returning from the previous pre-COVID chronicle

·         Erin Atkins, Toreador. A night club owner. Played by Alex

·         Barbara Fullerton, Tremere, owns an art gallery, occult expert, seeks knowledge of necromancy. Played by Mollie

·         Algernon, Nosferatu, drunk dealer, runs a methlab underneath the nightclub. Committed diablerie on a random nobody during The Sacrifice. Played by Mykell

New Characters

·         Faye, Bruja, played by Luna. Hound, primarily interested in protecting the kindred and queer community first and foremost from all threats irrespective of politics. Played by Luna

·         Solasa, thin-blood, blood alchemy expert, played by Inara

·         Kira, Toredor, childe of Erin Atkinson, played by Riley

·         Windel, Bruja, engineer, Algernon’s friend. Wasn’t in the story that much tbh

·         A certain problem player who was retconned out of existence, was kicked out during session zero, and never actually appeared in the story.

Advent 1 – Saturday, December, 12^th, 2020 – Crazy Clown Time

Scene – a Clandestine Meeting at O’Toileys

Barbara was contacted by Maldavis for a clandestine meeting at O’Toileys, the greasy fast-food restaurant in the Magnificent Mile that gets little traffic with her coterie. Barbara rather than bringing her coterie alone opts to go alone bringing only Algernon with her. Maldavis implored Barbara to help her convince duSable to join the anarchs given that the Prince had been cracking down on the Tremere and the Tremere were being targeted by the second inquisition. The conversation was interrupted when a group of exploding clowns started attacking people at random in the middle of Magnificent Mile during the biggest shopping week of the year. Algernon and Barbara had to jump into action and downplay the impact of the attack on the masquerade and the people. Because the party was split, they were under prepared.

The horrifying spectacle of terror wound up on the news which the other PCs could see from the club. Maldavis chased the main perpetrator, the clown at the control board. Flopsy the clown, a malkavian had mass embraced some shovelheads, drove them into becoming wights, painted their faces with clown make up and sewn bombs into their frenzied bodies. Those clowns were now diving on terrified shoppers and exploding in an orgy of blood and gore.

Abraham duSable and his caitiff childe Maldavis

Scene – The Succubus Club

Alexa Santos arrives at the Sanctuary to invite them to the Succubus club for an emergency meeting, given what happened. The prince assured everyone that the hounds would be hunting down the Anarchs responsible, rebuffed suggestions that this was the Sabbat with an insistence that the Sabbat are extinct. Either Barbara or Algernon noticed there seem to be invisible flies in the area. Balthasar, the racist former sheriff suggests terrorism against the anarchs in retaliation for the masquerade breaches, uses this as an opportunity to stir up fear against the anarchs.

The prince met with the group privately along with his new ghoul Malcom and his Senechal Alan Sovereign. Curiously, Malcom seemed to be permitted to use electronic devices. The prince made it clear he is not a fool and he strongly suspect the coterie of anarch sympathies and still wants to know where Malenkov is, who they were tasked with delivering to him. He also demanded to know the location of sheriff Damien. They wound up sacrificing Sierra instead and banishing the Lasombra from the Camarilla. Sovereign used auspex to examine the aura of Algernon and said nothing.

Alan Sovereign

Prince Jackson

Malcom Morris