Torgo's Mage the Ascension game was started to give Grimler a break from running is Dark Ages game. At first most of us looked at it as an odd system within the World of Darkness setting and treated it with much skepticism. However Torgo seemed to put a lot of time into the game so we began giving it more and more of a chance. I was also tired of serious gaming and decided to go with a more comedic laid back approach to Torgo's game. The chronicle name for Torgo's game is Interesting Times. It is set in Austin, Texas and most of Torgo's material comes from In Nomine and Cthulu sourcebooks. In the city of Austin there is a truce between the Traditions and the Technocracy due to a large Nephandic threat that must be dealt with. The Cabal consists of :
Nate - Celestial Chorus - Nate is one of the remaining members of the Knights of Solomon. Think of him as a priest with a shotgun.
Trunks - Akashic Brotherhood - Trunks has funky hair and thinks he is an anime character. He was awakened through watching his parents get murdered. He doesn't make much of an Akashic though aside from his expertise with a sword. He seems bloodthirsty and obsessed with small firearms for the most part.
Rabbi Benjamin Goldstein - Order of Hermes - He can't drive worth a damn, but he can make a hell of a kosher sandwich and is the most electrifying Jew in Austin today.
No One - Virtual Adept - I don't list his name because he gets in trouble and changes it so often that he has no set identity. Never has the World of Darkness known another character who can get into so much trouble while trying to avoid it.
Aino Minako - Orphan - Mina as her friends call her was awakened by anime. She has amnesia and due to the dreams with she occasionally has and her familiar that has shown up, she firmly believes she is the current incarnation of Sailor Venus. She plays the role to the tee too. Could she be the real thing, or just crazy like the Akashic Brother. She has the complete Sailor Scout package. Artemis and Transformation wand.
Dr. Otaku - Son of Ether - Paraplegic scientist who likes to design things in a Wild Wild West sort of way.
Overview
Day 1 : So far this game has been one fight after another for the most part. Starting with someone taking pictures of Mina and Trunks coming out of the mall. Mina actually poses for him for a few moments when she noticed him. After walking just out of his sight her curiosity got the better of her and she snuck up on him from behind. Looking into his window she noticed he was about to leave and reached in to grab is clipboard while asking him what it was. The guy was completely terrified of her and mistakenly put the van he was in into reverse instead of drive. He smashed into a parked car, then finally puts it into drive and floors it over an embankment. Mina just waved the clipboard toward his direction as he was driving away. "Hey, You forgot your clipboard!" she yelled. Later that evening everyone gets tips to go meet at Zilker park. [Which everyone forgot to do, due to running into something else.] On the way there everyone separately notices a police shootout and decides to investigate. A rogue progenitor project is tearing into the cops and the van from earlier is crashed in the ally. Everyone helps out and end up getting together as a group. We go back to the homeless shelter where Nate works and then remember that Zilker park was where we were supposed to go to in the first place. We travel back there in Nate's church van and arrive to late to find someone burned to death and another person ritually sacrificed. Some drug dealer offers us some drugs, as it was nearly 2am. (Why else would we be there was thier thinking.) Mina gets upset, Nate breaks the guys hand and his thugs come out of the woodwork. Trunks sneaks up on them and cuts on in half. Mina subdues one without killing him. Nate proceeds to shoot one of them in the face with a shotgun and critically injures the subdued one. Nate either kills the one who he crushed the hand of or the guy went into shock and died. At this point Mina pitches a fit due to the intense violence that her new found friends use and their complete and utter disregard for human life. Everyone tells Mina that they aren't bloodthirsty and that she needs to realize this is the real world, not the candy coated silver spoon one she grew up in. Everyone splits up for the night.
Day 2 : Everyone gets together. Mina gives everyone involved in killing a guilt trip again and the group decides to investigate the deaths they found in the park. (For some reason ritual killing and burning someone alive got their attention as wrong but butchering teenage drug dealers in a park was just fine.) After a little investigation they are led to Hammond's Adult Books. There they find a shopkeeper who was the father of the girl who appeared to be ritually killed. They ask him a question or two. The Virtual Adept tries to read the guys mind. He turns out to be Nephandi and freaks out and runs into the back. "Bertha! Get my Axe!" was heard. Everyone except Mina takes chase. Mina changes into Sailor Venus after everyone else is gone. Meanwhile on the stairs Mr. Hammond has changed into something out of a Lovecraft novel and is attempting to eat Trunks' face while he hacks on it. Sailor Venus runs in just in time to see Bertha (aptly named, she weighed in at least 450) charging down the stairs with a battle axe. She uses her Love and Beauty Shock on Bertha and does massive damage. This causes Bertha to trip and fall. The old thing your parents tell you about running with sharp objects could be addressed in this instance. Bertha doesn't make it. Venus runs back out of the room and changes back into Mina. Everyone comes out of the backroom all screwed up to find Mina whom had been told not to get involved in other things standing in the main store area. Some fuss was made about Mina not doing anything, but not alot due to the fact that the players knew Mina was really there. Several start wondering who Sailor Venus was. Mina is thought of at first, but Sailor V's Appearance is 6 and Mina's 4 pales in comparison. Everyone heads back to lick their wounds after calling the Technocracy and telling them of the Nephanic activity.
Day 3 : The group gets together and determines that a rogue Euthanatos needs to be dealt with in the next day or so. Mina's parents tell her not to be out to late. Decision to hunt down Euthanatos is made and Mina goes home early to appease her parents. The Virtual Adept attempts to make new ids for most of the group and tries to hack Microsoft Network to get some information. Both attempts fail miserably and draw Technocracy attention. The VA gets arrested and the Technocrats attempt some social reconditioning due to his stupidity. Nate gets him out of the situation.
Day 4 : The rogue Euthanatos is found in an underground lair with her own little cult. In a brief struggle nearly all the sleeper cult are killed, whether they had been subdued or not and the Euthanatos streaks out of the room through the back at terrific speed. The group is unable to follow underground so they track above with magic. The Euthanatos realizes she is being followed and animates a few corpses to bother the group. The van gets trashed but other than that everything is fine. Rabbi Goldstein makes his first appearance and the group decides to follow her through the sewer on foot. After about a half mile of travel the group catches her and kills her after she turns into a bat and passes the paradox off to Nate. (She had become Marauder and thought she was a Vampire) Inside the room where she was caught a great evil is sensed and everyone flees. Nate informs Agent Wilson of the NWO and his fellow Celestial Chorus member of what they found. The technocracy also finds a large thing of plutonium in the lair of the deceased Euthanatos. That evening Agent Wilson dies mysteriously as does the other Celestial Chorus member. After some investigation it is found that whatever the group ran down into in the hole killed them both for thier knowledge.
Day 5 : The group gathers at the Rabbi's house and makes plans. Marauder's send someone to talk to the group and also try to bug the house. The Rabbai is struck by lightning outside his house while trying to dispose of the bugs. The Marauder's send someone again that night to talk to Mina and give her something to take into the house. The Marauder also removes a chip from Mina's head that was apparently placed there in her youth by the rogue progenitor which was found out about on the first day. She is informed that Trunks has one too. Mina takes her familiar and the frog which was given to her into the house and tells the group what she was told. After this while the Rabbi is meditating a Cultist of Ecstasy comes and offers some advice to the group and they talk to him about the things below the reservoir. The cultist tells them that the things have been down there for a long time and have never bothered anyone and that they just want to be left alone. Dr. Otaku operates on Trunks and removes the chip from his head. Everyone splits up for the night.
Day 6 : Everyone gets together and argues over what should be done. During the argument Mina leaves and goes to the new head of the Technocracy in town to see if the truce is going to be upheld. She does this secretly. The woman she meets assures her that it will be and Mina informs her that the Marauder's plan to nuke the area below the reservoir with the plutonium that the police confiscated from the dead Euthanatos's lair. The woman thanks Mina and tells her the Technocracy will always be willing to "help" her. Mina takes her for face value and tells her that she has seen what her group does and what the Technocracy has done and that if things don't work out she will probably stay on her own away from all the blood thirsty people. Mina returns to the group and everyone decides to take a trip out to a local park named after some rock which happens to be were a lot of mages are wandering off to. When the group gets most of the way out there they hear on the radio about an evacuation of the city of Austin due to a very real terrorist threat. Mina then "remembers" what she told the Technocracy chick and informs the rest of the group. Playing with the radio Nate manages to somehow pick up police band and hears all sorts of commotion out at the rock. Nate scries on the area and sees all sorts of chaos. It seems the Technocracy have decided to make an assault on the place and its a Marauder nest. Dragons, werewolves, and all sorts of creatures and doing battle with HITmarks, Technocracy members, and ATF agents. The group decides to just turn around and go back to the Chantry.
Day 7 : The group gets a tip to go back to Zilker park. The marauder who has been visiting shows back up while they are out there and while the Rabbai senses some spirit activity around the tree. The Rabbi gets the spirits to talk with him and the marauder hears that they are upset due to the fact that the tree is almost dead and it used to be a node, she pumps a lot of Life into the tree and accidentally turns it into a treant. The treant makes demands about those that poisoned it and describes the Cultist of Ecstasy. The group say that he is probably fleeing town with everyone else and points to the traffic. The treant rips itself out of the ground and starts to rampage. The group manages to calm the tree down, but it demands that they bring the CoE to it so it may deal with them. It doesn't take long for the group to find the CoE and his flunkies. They are packing up to leave town too. An ensuing fight develops in which the Marauder shares a lot of paradox with the group. The CoE and his apprentice get subdued and the Marauder gets pushed out by reality for doing too much vulgar magic in a short period of time. They are taken back to the tree were the spirits demand someone sacrifice the Nephandi to the tree to help purify it. Mina refuses and walks off. Surprisingly the rest of the blood thirsty group get squeamish and the Rabbi ends up doing it.
Day 8 : The next day the city is under marshal law. Zombies are wandering about aimlessly, the national guard is thoroughly busy with them, so the cabal is able to wander around the city basically unhindered. There is a complete evacuation of the city so Mina goes to her parents house to get some things she may need, along with Artemis, her familiar. Upon arriving there the group discovers a white van parked out front that is apparently spying on Mina's house. The group approaches to be attacked by progenitor clones with hypo guns attempting to capture Mina. After a brief struggle all the clones are dead, but some sort of monstrosities that they had brought with them. Two new people show up and help us a little with the situation, a Cajun and a huge man on a Harley. [Two new PCs] We decide that Zorndyke has went to far and its time to pay him a visit. The cabal decides to investigate the office complex where Zorndyke has his stronghold amidst the chaos. Upon the arrival to the office complex the group is easily able to gain entrance to the apparently abandoned building. The group initially decides to use the stairs and heads up towards an area where a light was seen. We aren't in there too long before we run into a crab-like creature that attempts to eat the Cajun, but it is unceremoniously disposed of rather quickly. We find a horizon realm that has all sorts of spirits in it and decide to leave it alone, then we come upon an elevator. The group thinks the wiser than going in the elevator altogether due to an earlier snafu with everyone getting knocked unconscious when we all went to the same place together. Mina, the virtual fuckup, the Cajun stranger, and the huge biker take the elevator which ends up being activated by a card which was taken from the clones that they encountered earlier. On the elevator ride Mina and crew find out that the biker is a werewolf, but he's not looking to hurt anyone unless they hurt him. They also discover that the Cajun stranger and the werewolf biker have complete amnesia in our brief talk with them. The elevator door opens to a sub-tropical forest type setting, yet another horizon realm, and the group set out to look around. Meanwhile the other group consisting of Nate, Trunks, and Rabbi Goldstein makes their way on up the stairs. After a few flights the group encounters a huge spider which the wonderjew manages to blast to bits, along with some help from Trunks' psycho swordplay. This group takes a few moments to reassess the situation as Mina and crew come upon a cornfield in the middle of the horizon realm. There are a lot of the monstrous creatures from mina's house harvesting corn and taking it to vans on the far end of the cornfield. The creatures make no offensive moves toward the group and seem set to the task at hand. The group makes its way to get a better look at the vans and notices more progenitor clones standing guard in front of them with AK-47s. Deciding to sneak up on them the Cajun stranger and Mina make their way across to get close, while the virtual fuckup and the werewolf take aim in an attempt to snipe them. The Cajun makes it across, but Mina gets spotted right out in the open. The clones call for her to stop and put up her hands and she does, hiding her chain whip behind her arms as she puts them up. At this point all hell breaks loose. The virtual fuckup and the werewolf unload on the clones and the Cajun throws something that explodes and wounds several of them, but this basically just pisses them off. The next round more of the same follows and Mina attacks with her whip, however this time the clones open fire. Everyone mostly ends up being completely missed altogether with the exception of Mina who gets riddled with bullet holes and taken down to Incapacitated. The clones start to flee, the cajun gives chase, and the fuckup and the werewolf check on Mina and make their way with her body back to the elevator. The cajun manages to take out a clone or two, but manages to get knocked unconscious somehow in the melee and captured. Meanwhile back at the stairway Nate and the wonderjew use Correspondence magic to locate the other group and find them. The group with Mina gets back to the elevator but shortly thereafter get surrounded by progenitor clones. Nate and the wonderjew manage to rip a hole into the horizon realm where the rest of the group is and once again everyone is together... and surrounded by men with automatic weapons... Things don't look good for our heroes, but wait, Mina wasn't completely down, [Forgot about a force field, was only down 4 health levels and not to Incap] During the showdown before anyone can really act Mina attempts to heal herself with life magic and completely botches, sucking Mina, Rabbi Goldstein, Trunks, and the virtual fuckup into a life paradox realm. After a little work this group manages to figure out what happened. Mina didn't feel anything wrong, as a matter of fact she felt better so she didn't think it was her fault. She came around a few minutes after being sucked into the paradox realm and helps the group with magic. After a bit the group fashions a ship out of Forces magic and manages to get themselves expelled out of the creature they are contained within. At first the group thought they were inside of some huge creature. However after being expelled the group discovers that they were inside of a parasite inside of a creature of astronomical size. Red and white blood cells inside the creature are the size of the Superdome to them. The group makes some navigation decisions and attempts to get out of the creature, but after a day or so of travel D shows up looking for Mina and helps the group out into a horizon realm. From the horizon realm the group makes it out to some place in New York City.
May 5th : Upon coming out in New York City the group finds out that it is the fifth of May. Lots of time has passed in their absence. The crisis in Austin has been taken care of, Mina's picture is on milk cartons and on Unsolved Mysteries, and the wonderjew's house has been re-leased out to someone else. Everyone is assumed missing or dead. The group gets their bearing again while staying with a friend of the wonderjew, and Mina calls her parents to tell them that everything is alright. However her parents panic and think that the wonderjew has kidnapped her. She assures them that she will get a plane ticket home soon. Not long after that Mina's cell phone rings again. It's Nate and the Cajun stranger. They are looking for everyone too, Mina tells them where they are and they plan to meet at a jewish church in Greenwich village. That night everyone sleeps soundly but Mina completely forgets to get the plane tickets in the confusion of the day. The next morning around 4am Nate and Cajun arrive in New York. They decide to partake of a little local culture and do some study while they are waiting and go to a coffee shop/library to pass time. Nate calls Mina who gives some incoherent sleep talk to him, and he decides to worry about it later. While in there Nate notices two vampires, sitting in different places from each other. The Cajun notices them as well and walks over to talk to the gothic one. Being clueless with amnesia he asks all sorts of questions to her and she invites him to a club with her. They get on her motorcycle and head away while Nate scries on them. Midway there the Cajun asks her exactly where they are headed and she tell him she is taking him to her pack. This sounds suspicious to the cajun and when she refuses to pull over and let him off or take him back he decides to help her along with her decision. Charging her jacket with kinetic energy he rolls off the motorcycle, suffering a little damage, but basically is unscathed and her jacket explodes in a nice conflagration a few moments later sending her quickly to meet her final death. The Cajun decides he should try and get back and takes her bike [hell, she won't need it anymore right?] Having no experience at all with a motorcycle that he can remember he has several problems, but manages to eventually get back to the place without hurting himself too badly. At this point he and Nate decide to get a room and rest for awhile.
May 6th : Everyone gets up and meets at the church that was designated at 4pm. Shortly after Mina's phone rings. Her parents are hysterical because she hasn't purchased a ticket yet and want to know where she is. She tells them where she is and promises to go right to the airport and leaves. She stops by Macey's on the way and gets some new clothes as her old ones had bullet holes in them so perhaps her parents shouldn't see her in those. [She did wash them though.] Police show up at the church looking for Mina but everyone scatters and Rabbi Goldstein changes his appearance since he is probably the one wanted for kidnapping. Everyone makes their way to the airport individually and gets plane tickets back to Austin. Upon arriving home Mina is given the big hero's welcome by her parent's who are overly worried about her. She is taken to a hospital for evaluation. While she is there she tells them everything, and I do mean everything. [The rule of Shade was never thoroughly explained to Mina.] Complete down to asking two men in suits with dark glasses if they are members of the technocracy. Mina shows them the shirt and pants with the bullet holes and the police want it saying it is evidence. Mina refuses and a doctor attempts to sedate her using a big needle. Mina freaks out and dodges him, an orderly attempts to use a stun gun on her and misses hitting another orderly. At this point Mina is completely freaked out. She dives out the door and runs like hell for a door. Making her way to the fire exit she decides to go up. After reaching the top floor she makes her way to the side and using her acrobatic skills manages to make it down to the ground with no great effort. She tries to make her way through the parking lot to get away stealthily but is spotted from the roof. Two police cruisers pull up and start closing in on her but she manages to elude them. After getting a short distance away and hidden she changes into Sailor Venus figuring she looks different and will at least have something more than a bullet ridden set of clothes or paper hospital gown on. Using her cell phone she calls her parents cell phone in hysterics. They attempt to get her to return but she says she won't because they tried to stab her with a needle and shoot her with a taser. After a little argument she agrees to come home sometime that night if there is no one at home but her parents. She calls the rest of the group and they all decide to meet at The Pit later. She makes her way to that area and changes back to Mina, then changes her hair color, eye color, and complexion with life magic. After a little conversation the group waits til after dark and heads back to Mina's parents house with her. Mina drops the disguise, goes in, and talks to them, hugs them both, and tells them that she has seen that she is listed as an escaped mental patient and listed as extremely dangerous. She tells them that she isn't crazy, that she has just had an extremely rough time. They tell her that they just want her back home. She tells them that she will stay with a friend until this is all over, gathers some clothes and Artemis, and leaves with the group. They haven't much more gotten out on the road when they get tailed by a black car. Attempts to evade are made and the car stays right behind them so they make the pursuing car's engine stop with forces magic. Moments after the groups tire blows out, so they use magic to patch it and continue on. However after patching it the black car is back and it has a red flashing light in the front window of it. The group decides enough is enough figuring the people following are mages due to the coincidental tire blow out. Out of the sunroof the cajun tosses a charged tarot card into the engine block of the car disabling it. However the pursuers were not to be deterred. A helicopter spotlights the car and starts following it. Nate accelerates and the group blows the spotlight out of the copter. Nate drives under a large underpass and the group changes the car color. This finally loses their tail.
May 8th : Trunks and Mina decide to take off on their own and attempt to contact Mina's lawyer and get a new cell phone for Mina. At the mall they run into Drew who gives them the basic rundown of what seems to have happened in the city and Deidre calls Mina and fills in the rest. Between talking to the two they determine that nearly every mage and technocrat is laying very low in the city and have been for months. Most haven't been seen and the leader of the technocracy in the city has been killed. Drew tells them that he thinks that the technocracy has taken over their old mansion as a base of operations. Mina and Trunks decide to investigate this further. Mainly because Mina wishes to try and clear her name with the police and hopes the technocracy, who were friendly to her before, are there. What follows is Mina's account of the events to her cabalmates that were not there.
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Chantry has been reclaimed. Trunks and I investigated it, thinking that the Technocracy had possibly taken it over and was using it as a base of operations. However, it turns out that it was a group of vampires. We cut the power, then snuck in for a closer encounter. I went unseen, and waited for ambush while Trunks encounted the butler. Trunks nearly took out the butler quietly, but he managed to scream "MASTER!" instead of going down quietly. One of the vampires runs up the stairs by me, I follow him. He comes in the door, just as Trunks is ready to attack again. Trunks uses some sort of forces attack and kills the butler, while knocking the vampire back at my feet. [I had been reluctant to attack yet, being unsure of whether or not the guy was a real vampire as he looked normal to me.] The person had fangs bared and was hissing, so I kicked the holy living crap out of him, then proceeded to straddle his chest and give him 2 swift strikes to the throat. He stopped struggling at this point and seemed to be unconscious. At this time another vampire ran upstairs, sees Trunks, and lunges at him screaming, "How dare you violate our home!" in a scottish accent. He locks onto Trunks and starts biting him. Seeing this and figuring my creature of the night is most certainly seen much better days I leap forth and tackle both of them, sending us all three into a controlled acrobatic roll out the door into the afternoon sun. Yep, he was a vampire. He completely freaked out as he started to catch on fire, trying his darnest to get back into the house. I turn to see another person is at the top of the stairs looking over the body of the one I beat the crap out of. The person reaches down and starts to drag the body downstairs. The one that was outside darts back in and starts to turn the corner as Trunks tosses a fireball in his general direction. This makes the one that is already down turn to ash and the one that was running skittered downstairs like a scared rat. The woman who was standing over the body turns and starts to turn down the stairs but I leveled it with a prime activated forces attack. {Chris rolls 4 dice. 4 success! Rob rolls to soak. No successes! 6 levels of aggravated damage. She went into Rottschreck immediately and allowed the momentum of my blast to help her downstairs. On a side note this is were the obsession he has with Mina comes from now, I used the Love and Beauty shock thing in my mortal form and he saw it and was impressed beyond belief apparently.} Trunks makes it to the stairs and starts down it, I get to the stairs and campus security rushes through the door next to the stairs, telling me to freeze. I tried not to hurt them too badly, but they crumpled to the ground with 4 well placed kicks. I don't even think they knew what hit them. I then jumped on the rail on the stairway and slid my way down. Trunks gets into a fight with the two downstairs. He blasts them both with something, the one that went sunbathing died instantly and the other was hurt a little. The other started necking with him. Trunks tries to get her off of him, but fails, she is flailing about stabbing him with the knife as well. I used a highly focused blast of forces and life magick to her head and she turned to ash. [VENUS CRESCENT BEAM SMASH!] By this time a crowd has gathered. I think the butler fired a gun at some point in time, so Trunks fixed the memories of the campus security guards, we drug them outside, and then turns on the gas in the house. Lightly so that the police who were showing up would be cautious when they came in. The utility company was outside, so that seemed like a good thing to do to by some time and give the cover-up people an excuse to use. I managed to contact the techno people and arrange a meeting with me, Trunks, and two of them. The next day at the meeting I explained what had happened and they told me that everything had already been taken care of. Mr. Goldstein's occult library had been put into storage by them and would be returned and they would take care of getting our house back to us. They did mention that they knew the vampires were there, they even said it was some sort of bargain with them to let them have the house since they thought we were all dead. The chick that was leading the techno people isn't really dead. She apparently faked her death or something as she was at the meeting. They were very cordial and understanding and didn't break the good faith which I placed in them for the meeting. The knife was mentioned and some guy that had called us about purchasing it from us. A Ja[something]-Marak wanted to trade for it. The Marak guy confirmed that he was a vampire as well. The technos told me that they would also send information regarding the people who had been seen going in and out of the house since we vanished, and they mentioned that there were hidden cameras of theirs in the house. They also mentioned the helicopter the other night before we said anything, and they said that I was possible that it was Zorndyke. They said they had raided several of his labs and to be careful of all the hospitals and people in the medical profession in town, because the Z people had scattered. They also said they would give us more info on Zorndyke and where he might be found in New York City, if we were interested because the kids who were in the project with us have been disappearing. They think Z is picking them back up and either covering his tracks or doing something else.
Deidre also called and said they were in Morovia fighting the Z people, and the J[whatever]-Marak guy said that 3 other groups were interested in the knife that Trunks has and that some of them would not be very nice about it. Including one group of mages from Egypt who worshiped Anubis or something to that nature.
Basically what it all comes back to is that I cleared our names, got our chantry house back [free and clear legally], and made contact with the techno people again.
-Mina
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