Session #9 - Split Session Part 2 (Gangrel Meetings)

FatherMother, Skully, Siobhan and Talitha, again from the
Cassandra session as I have no Split Session pictures,
but both Siobhan and FatherMother are Gangrel.

And then we had the Gangrel meeting…. Kindly enough, the hosts (Gustaf Freya'barn and FatherMother) allowed non-Gangrel to attend so long as they were willing to get involved in the festivities. We set up the big hall so that the little stage at one end was the fire pit, the big painted circle on the floor was the bear pit for later duels, and the cross hatched paint work to one side stood in for two cages - one cage filled with animals and the other filled with unconscious humans with nasty back stories (i.e. bad guys) who were doped with particular drugs with the name of the drug etched into their foreheads. There was also a set of chairs in a circle that people could move around.
There was no music and there really didn't have to be.

When Siobhan rocked up with Seamus and Walther, she immediately punched FatherMother under the mistaken impression that she had blood bound the human she had a crush on. FatherMother thought they were playing and gave her a painful headlock and then when Siobhan kept going in the fight, she threw her in the bar pit and leapt in as well. Soon enough Siobhan frenzied (she was hungry anyway) and after awhile of gloating and having taken some damage, Gustaf threw in a dog that Seamus had used Animalism to inspire to attack Siobhan (a poodle) and FatherMother ran up the wall of the pit to clamber out. Siobhan's frenzy redirected to the dog (she was hungry) and she ate the dog.
Then she grumpily left the cage and ate all the other dogs in the dog cage. She didn't touch the humans.

Other highlights included a series of cage matches with Peter Walsh:

• First the human, Torvald, from the Freya'barn ghoul family. Torvald found Peter Walsh's massive defence (9) annoying and also his irritating lack of interest in actually throwing a punch at a human. Torvald scored a couple good punches, took a few weak ones, and was rewarded with ghouldom from the family's vampire leader (Gustaf) for his efforts.
• Crowley entered the ring and threw some solid Vigor-backed punches but Walsh managed to get in some cheeky shots and - mostly due to an inability to hit each other - Crowley left with a few bashing damage.
• MaidenLad entered the ring with her dog and was far more successful once the dog dragged Walsh down in a grapple. MaidenLad clawed him across the face several times, damaging the Daeva's pretty face in a way that worked on him, though he healed so fast it barely lasted. Walsh hadn't fed yet kept healing. How much blood did that boy have in his system? Walsh won in two surged strikes. One involved hauling up the dog and body slamming MaidenLad into the wall (before being dragged down again) and dealing 11 bashing damage (awesome roll +5 for the surge) and then later lashed out against her ankle for an extra 8 bashing damage. She hobbled away with her dog and drank a guy spiked with all of the drugs to death.
• Finally Walsh fought with Bats (after Bats kindly told him to go and feed which he left for five minutes to do). When they entered the ring, Bats stayed in the shadow of the bear pit. The two had difficulty hitting each other until Bats got him in a grapple, damaging him a few times in spine crushing hugs, until Walsh decided enough was enough and erupted bone spurs that would have damaged Bats if not for Celerity. Bats knocked Walsh on the ground in a pin, foot planted beneath the spines, hands gripping Walsh's wrist and pulled back, demanding Walsh yield. With an inhuman snarl, Walsh twisted the bone spurs out of his back, wrapped them around Bats leg and managed to sever it with another strength surge (lethal not aggravated damage).
• At that point, a high on PCP FatherMother leapt into the cage and elbow dived onto Walsh. Bats quickly Obfuscated the two of them. Worried that one might die, Bats Obfuscated the two of them and FatherMother was left to wander the place in confusion. The two merely sat there, talking, and then they clambered out as FatherMother tried to attack Seamus who had been walking on the walkway to tell Walsh to stop and who now simply partially Obfuscated (Ignore Me) out of there.
• Gustaf jumped over the fire pit while naked (flashing off his Giant Size + Striking Looks combination) and used resilience to avoid damage. When FatherMother frenzied, Gustaf used his web ability from Protean to stop her from killing folk and Walter brought her out of it by grabbing one of the prisoners and throwing it at her (under orders from Gustaf).

Siobhan convinced FatherMother's ghoul, Daryl Whicker, to proposition Seamus O'Baoill - Gangrel Ancillae - and her sire. Daryl put a hand on Seamus' shoulder, Seamus used Auspex to figure out what kind of woogie was being put on him, and Seamus let him down gently - admitting that he had envisaged his first time being different than a random pick up and one night stand.

Walsh and Bats spoke telepathically for awhile (Bats' power) and then Seamus told Walsh to come with them to leave as Seamus had had enough of all of the Gangrel shenanigans and low Humanity hijinx. Walther Hawke and Siobhan followed the family patriarch as they left with Walsh quickly trading numbers with Bats before leaving -- thus giving Seamus that little bit more of a status boost. Like he needed it.

I'm sure I missed parts of the Gangrel meeting as I was portraying Peter Walsh so please let me know if I missed any of the other epic moments!

I waited until after the session to roll Humanity for people, querying if anyone wanted to cancel out any breaking points in exchange for banes, as I felt the vibe of a Gangrel gathering should be one where you don't really pick up on your loss of Humanity until afterward.  I did pre-warn the players that this would be how it worked.