I never did get to posting a recap from last session, and this week was sufficiently low-action enough that I'm doing both sessions in the same post.
I've decided to include some motivational information, as well as open the floor for some ideas/suggestions. I'll see how that pans out and go from there.
Session 5 starts with Eile working at the Hedge Row as a bartender/waitress. She has a new customer, "Mr. Book". (New Mage character played by FunDave) He orders several rounds of her strongest stuff. Eile is intrigued by a big spender and throws on the charm in an effort to get a bigger tip. Much chit chat and flirting goes on while Mr. Book drinks away. Eile tosses a couple back as well and goads Mr. Book on into more drinking.
TK sees the scene and becomes completely enraged with jealousy (his vice is envy). TK sits down next to Mr. Book and Eile acts in a fairly non-chalant way towards TK. [She's greedy, and working a mark for more money. Also, she feeds her Glamour pool almost entirely off emotional energy, so turmoil and conflict are very heady and she gets a major rush from them.] TK takes some offense to this and sets down a challenge with Mr. Book as to who can drink the most. Eile encourages things by putting out stronger and stronger liquor at each new round. TK succeeds in drinking Mr. Book under the table, and then stomps off in an angry huff.
Eile follows TK to his room upstairs. TK is exceptionally frustrated- angry, jealous, confused by his reactions to Eile, and to a small extent, reacting to his Geists' dislike of Eile. Eile is thrilled by this flood of emotions and moves in for more. She & TK talk for a bit, and Eile can read the desire roiling off of TK like so many waves. She's more than a little drunk from the exposure to her chosen emotion (she's a Spring Courtier) and heads in for the fnal touches.
As she & TK move towards physical consumation of the relationship, Eile asks a question that ends up being the bomb: Does TK have protection. The answer is negative. Eile avoids activity that could cause pregnancy, while still providing a measure of satisfaction to TK.
[OOC, as a rule, Changelings don't return with fertility intact. Eile is an exception to this rule; and actually has something of a mechanism to control her fertility. She's been using this mechanism quite frequently, which has made her cycle go into overdrive. She's essentially continually "in heat" at this time due to her downtime actions. She's VERY aware that she can concieve, and has NO interest in bearing pups, so has paid attention to the apparently obvious looming possibility that she may become impregnated and tried to plan accordingly.]
The romantic activities of Eile and TK are rudely interrupted by Bruce, who usually works as a bouncer and got drafted into bar duty when Eile vanished unexpectedly. Eile heads back downstairs and returns to work.
[There is a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE scene that I missed here due to dealing with some personal issues. Long story short: Werewolves see a enemy spirit nearby and try to convince the Mages (whith whom they have an alliance) to help them in a fight against said spirit. Some underhanded tactics are used and Mages reluctantly agree. Werewolves attack the big enemy spirit in another pack's territory, while several smaller spirits nearly wipe out the rest of the pack back in their own area. Mages come to the rescue with BIG HONKIN GUNS (two gun mages, ack) and other neat tricks. Spirits are subdued to some extent and chased away. The Alpha of the pack is confronted by the entirety of the other pack whose territory he violated- they proceed to KICK HIS ASS for failing to keep his pack in control and changing to Garoux in PUBLIC with WITNESSES. The other 2 of the 3 Werewolves had been TKO'd by the spirits and brought back to the bar. They are placed upstairs in TK's room. At this point I am available again and see several Mages as well as the 3rd member of the Werewolf pack for the first time. One of the Mages tries to clear everyone out of the room, there's a little talking, and then we close for the night.]
Session 6 was yesterday. I have been sick since very early Friday morning, and was not feeling great yesterday, so I was very low energy. Additionally, our group of 15 or so is down to 7, and most of the players present are lesser-knowns. Our ST asks myself, K, the Werewolf Alpha and (essentially) the Alpha Mage outside for a few minutes. He asks us to help drive storylines over to some of the "other guys" and we head in to play.
Eile starts out at home with her roommate, Bruce. She asks Bruce what he knows of Avere (the other Changeling) and how well he knows her. Bruce's reply is vague but fairly indicitave that he doesn't seem to know Avere well. Eile implies that something is "off" about her, and tries to prod Bruce into investigating her. He rebuffs gently, and Eile tries the same general tactic, with The Werewolf Alpha as the subject this time. Again, no dice seem to be rolling. Eile heads to the bar to work, hands out a drink or two to Mr. Book (a functional alcoholic), who then takes off with the Alpha Mage (Coyote Joe) for some unknown & obscure reason.
I threw a couple more lines towards Bruce, whose player is my son. Bruce rebuffs my apparent attempts to get him doing something, and I sit in the corner for the rest of the night, trying hard not to feel miserable.
Bruce gets tossed a big bone, which he shares with the Pack Alpha. The two of them confer and strategize several times over the course of the night. The ST reminds Bruce that he works with another "strange being" (Eile) but he fails to include me in the storyline. Honestly, this is sort of ok by me as I really felt crummy.
This concludes the wrap-up for Eile and her actions over the past couple sessions. Now onto the ideas/suggestions section. I could really use a kick start or two.
The other Changeling, Avere, is well established and well trusted by the majority of the group in Austin. I overheard several instances where Avere has maligned Eile or sown seeds of distrust under Eile's name among the troupe. In reality, Avere is RIGHT- there's no reason to trust Eile. She's a liar, a con artist, and a dirty rotten scoundrel. In play, Eile hasn't done anything to warrant mistrust whatsoever (except a single action thatno one else saw that made Avere mistrust and dislike her). Knowing what I know OOC- that Avere is doing her best to undermine Eile, and that Eile is not established enough to counter Avere's "good word",
What course of action would YOU pursue in my place? How would YOU play the outsider, the mistrusted, sneaky character? In theory, this shouldn't effect Eile at all. Her manipulation (3), Subterfuge (2), Persuasion (2), Socialize (3), Striking Looks (2), and Rigid Mask (2) should get her into any situation. It's overcoming a longer standing, much more "stable" character's aspersions that I'm struggling with.
My ST gave me some great ideas- I'll continue to use them, but other ideas are always welcome.
A lot depends on what Eile really knows. It sounds like so far everything you know has been OOC, which you should not act on. Now, say Eile does know that Avere has been telling others about her. Does Wile really care what anyone else thinks about her? And if she does, then what would she do about it? What could she do? I suppose she could start a campaign to discredit Avere.
ReplyDeleteTom Reed
Eile knows of at least one instance where Avere has undercut her. Does she care what others think of her- that's a good question. Her ultimate goal is to be believable to those she's trying to manipulate, so in the short term, yes. Overall, though; she's very much of the "easy come, easy go" attitude so she doesn't care long term.
ReplyDeleteWhat can she do? A couple of options presented to me were to use minions - to investigate, to instigate, and to castigate. Still working that angle to some extent.
Another was to use the ignorance of others against them. I think that will become easier next run when maybe I will feel better and have the energy for running from person to person.
There's a WoD MeetUp group near me in Orange County. They also have large gatherings of players, some 14+. They have a few storytellers at each session to facilitate. Being unfamiliar with LARP or large rpg groups, it seems in a way like an interesting fusion of LARP and tabletop. I say this because it appears as if the players have the autonomy to establish scenes and drive certain plots forward. Sounds intriguing.
ReplyDeleteTom Reed said...
ReplyDeleteOk, I can totally see Elie using others to take care of her "problems". She does seem to love to manipulate people for her own ends.
I never thought large roleplaying groups would work, at least with only one GM. But from what I understand using multiple GMs seems to work quite well.