Professor Jasmine Hadley had to step up as seneschal and help organise people's feeding grounds claims because Prince Harry Saeed was busy propping up the Rack (aka player was sick). For those who don't play vampire, there's basically a sub-system in play where various high traffic areas (CBD, North Adelaide, Port Adelaide) are better eating spots and are therefore called Racks. If vampires over feed from the area, they damage it and it can support fewer vampires and provide less of a blood bonus. If they groom the area, they can increase it's value and the number of vampires it can support.
Anyway, so we had the usual Welcome to Game speech and then I had to chase them outside so that they could re-enter in character as allowing them to remain in the same room basically just leads to a really long and blurred IC / OOC period where no one's quite sure if anyone else is roleplaying or not. I've never allowed this to happen in this campaign but I've seen it in other games.
Professor Jasmine Hadley had her speech and I (as Dr. Mirrim Hargey, prince's childe and general secretary) drew in people's feeding grounds claims onto various printed out maps. A few people grumbled, namely those who had feeding grounds in the last chronicle under other princes, but most people gained more than they had to lose so most were pretty happy with it.
The venue was behind the Tuxedo Cat, an old nightclub on North Terrace that basically opens up into an old and defunct concrete catacomb a few storeys tall. Amity Fine was the hostess and though she had no music going, I put on some warehouse ambiance from Tabletop Audio. She declared it Elysium and had Michael Novichkov, who had recently had his status stripped by the prince, perform the duty of Master of Elysium.
Michael Novichkov soon got to play the part when Seamus O'Baoill interrupted Gary Dodd's attempts to haggle with Lewis Epcott over the price of a bottle of top shelf lacrima that Epcott drank last game (under manipulations by the sheriff). Seamus O'Baoill threatened Gary Dodd for asking an exorbitant price of a fellow Ordo Dracul (as the starting requested boon was a major) and Gary Dodd told him to fuck off.
Seamus O'Baoill had been having a hard week so he frenzied on him and only Novichkov shoving him under a table and sitting on it fixed the frenzy. Why? Because they needed him to switch targets from Dodd to something else and then exhaust his frenzy tearing apart that target. Turns out that being trapped under a table makes a good target.
This all happened in the back yard which we had popped a few tables and mismatched chairs about on the little courtyard. We play during the day but funnily enough it's less immersion breaking than playing at night would be. In the new 2nd edition rules, vampires can see perfectly in anything other than pitch darkness and so having to bring something closer to the light to read it makes less sense.
Dr. Jonathon Taylor was feeling quite poorly, having had a pretty rough few weeks. You see, he was a duplicate of the arch-villain from the last campaign and had been copied a few months before a terrible ritual drove his first self evil. So he's not evil and has never been evil but many of the things that are plaguing the city are still his fault. So he gets drunk and smack talks Jonathon Williams who is currently suspected of dressing homeless people up in gimp suits shackled in his haven. And then draining them dry. Jonathon Williams just calls him a hypocrite and leaves it at that.
Amity Fine lectures a few people on damaging the Racks and tells them to stop over feeding. She doesn't really address the fact that there are a lot of fangs per location nor does she give them advice on boosting the Rack. Harpies, huh?
NOTE: A harpy is a social position whose job it is to reinforce appropriate social behaviour, humiliate those who disobey and to record the IOUs called 'boons' that are the life blood of the vampire economy.
Partway through the festivities, I headed off and changed from Dr. Mirrim Hargey's costume to Julia Dannenburg's costume. Few of the characters currently in Adelaide had met Julia Dannenburg but a number had heard of her due to her crazy text messages that she had sent over the forums. So that I could keep her appearance a surprise yet still ensure that the older players knew who she was, I made a dramatic appearance that was basically a loud: "Hello! Julia Dannenburg here!"
There was a bit of a fuss and she was quickly dragged into a private room by Seamus O'Baoill who interrogated her about where she had been and what she'd been up to. Then he allowed her to return to the main room where she poked a few people, spread her theory that the gloom walls currently dividing up the city were a form of quarantine to prevent the spread of infection. She also stated that Contrary Mary, another vampire NPC from the old chronicle, was currently trapped in the old Nosferatu catacombs beneath the city by an evil cult.
Then Julia Dannenburg went to chat with the seneschal, Professor Jasmine Hadley, about stuff and things. The harpy, Amity Fine, called out that Hadley shouldn't go into a private room with a Daeva to which Julia quietly grumbled that a Toreador can hardly talk as they have Majesty and Dominate. Amusingly enough, a few other characters came with them in Obfuscate (and spider form) and hid around the large room.
Normally there'd be a chance to spot people with basic Obfuscate as it just makes them forgettable, not invisible, but the venue involves large gaping rooms so it's not impossible to be within listening distance and remain in hiding. They got their spying on. There were a few gasps of surprise. And I got the joy of dropping a few bombs in a room load of players while playing a character who didn't know they were there.
All in all, it was a strictly part-social and part-political session but it worked out and everyone seemed busy and entertained so it worked out well. I just need to figure out something else to drop mid-session so that it's not just NPCs coming in and shaking things up. Though that's fun too. Or at least, not just previously unknown NPCs. Need some recurring NPCs causing trouble. Or other sorts of game play.
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