DitV - New Riverside, Sessions 2 and 3

[Lance D. Allen]

Continuing the town begun here

Second Session, of three:

We left off the scenario at the end of the first session in the evening of the first day, after confronting and finding out what happened between the Steward and his daughter, jailing Br. David who attacked the Dog Malachi, and scheduling a flogging for the next morning.

The next day began with a few bits of color roleplay, where Raven acquires coffee (obviously not against our vers. of the Faith..) from the general store, and then drags the wounded and weary Thaddeus from his bed. Thaddeus rings the bell to summon the congregation to witness the flogging as Malachi and Raven go to fetch Br. David from the prison.

Things are not as they should be when they arrive, however; The man in the prison is only barely recognizable as the man from the previous evening. He was almost a foot shorter, skinnier, had brown eyes (rather than green) and, incidentally, no tongue. It didn't take a lot of thought to make the demon connection, so rather than a flogging, they dragged the man back to the church for an exorcism. We decided, out of character mostly, based on our traits and previous roleplay, that Malachi was the only one able to read Old 'Mer'can, the language used for the Faith's most esoteric rituals, hence led the ritual. The demon manifested, but was quickly driven under by the power of Three in Authority, and fled, leaving a sparkling trail as a result of the ritual that the Dogs could follow. Malachi and Raven gave chase as the demon fled through the milling congregation... and into Br. Andrew, Naomi's (Steward's sister) husband, and the deputy sheriff. Raven initiated a conflict to try to capture the demon, but even with Malachi joining in midway, was unable to do so.. which led into the followup conflict of trying to destroy the demon as the guns came out. Br. Thaddeus, still wounded, herded the congregation inside and set them to singing praises and praying to protect them from the demon as his brother Dogs fought it out. Massive amounts of fallout flew, before Br. Andrew seemed to leap into the bullets and die, the demon destroyed. Brs. Raven and Malachi took a good amount of fallout, but neither required medical attention.

End Session Two.

Comments: A high energy, high-supernatural session, driving the supernatural level of our game even further up. As we started late, and I was suffering the after-effects of a night's vigorous drinking, we didn't get a whole lot done, but what we did was.. something. I also continued to stand back from the action a bit, letting Raven and Malachi push it forward.

Begin Session Three.

Session three began where two left off, With a man dead in the street, and his weeping widow. Enter our new Dog, Calandra Raleigh. (will post her stats and Accomplishment when I can, or if I can convince Lx to post them) Calandra comes in, is briefed on the immediate circumstances, and tries to comfort Naomi. She's doing well enough until Naomi calls upon demons to have her faint away, thereafter to go off to see her mother. None of the Dogs noticed the demonic influence, but the gauntlet was cast. We the players knew who the sorcerer was, but our Dogs remained clueless.

Raven consecrated the body while Malachi helped Calandra settle in and filled her in on the events of the past two days. Thaddeus, in the aftermath of demonic battle, held confession, and found a few nuggets to work with; A conversation overheard between Delilah (the woman beaten by her husband, Br. David) and Naomi about getting Br. David out of the way so that Delilah could run away with the ranch-hand she'd been having an affair with, and Br. David's tongueless assertion that he never beat his wife. Thaddeus rounded up the Dogs, and they headed off to Naomi's mother's ranch.

Malachi and Calandra went inside, where they found Naomi, and brought the accusation's up, which Naomi denied. Dove and Raven looked around outside, where they found Delilah, and the mutant she'd been having an affair with. Thaddeus considered shooting the mutant on the spot, but couldn't bring himself, even for a unrepentent sinner, to shoot in cold blood. Raven confronted Delilah, and dragged most of the admission from her; She had been having an affair, but she still claimed that her husband was beating her.

Then the final confrontation. Raven and Thaddeus brought Delilah to the house, where more denials brought frustrated mutters that Raven's idea of burning it all down didn't sound like such a bad idea. At which point, Naomi said "You're not going to burn my mother's ranch".

And Raven's clothes burst into flame. Raven beat out the flames, and commanded Naomi to silence. Calandra moved to lay on hands and begin an exorcism, but was countered by Naomi turning it into a lewd contact. Thaddeus called upon his visions to read the demon's name and aided by Malachi's knowledge of binding a demon by it's name, commanded it to begone.

The demon's parting blow was to bring the house down, a blow all present had to see. Raven was knocked out the window by his dog. Calandra tried to protect Delilah. Thaddeus, believing death was imminent, thought of his father, and tried to see that Naomi would have the chance to go to judgement with a clean slate; He dove for her, using his most eloquent words and knowledge to call her to repentence before the King.

His dramatic gesture was partially spoiled by survival; He and Raven were seriously injured, but once again, Malachi (taking relationships to both brother Dogs) worked his medical magic and brought them back from the edge of death.

From there, it was denoument. Naomi was given further chances to repent, then publicly hung for the crime of Sorcery. Delilah was sent to a nearby retreat to consider her sins. Rebeccah, the Steward's daughter (who, remember, had taken over "wifely" duties after her mother died) was sent to Vineyard for the protection of the Temple Stewards for her child, who was conceived in sin. The old Steward and Br. David were to be remanded into the care of the new Steward, called from the same local retreat that Sr. Delilah was sent to, and who, incidentally, was kin to Thaddeus.

Comments: Working Calandra in was mostly seamless, though she had a few issues getting into the feel of the game.

There was a point, before the confessions, where I, at least, was feeling very frustrated. I as a player knew that there was a Sorcerer, and who, but could figure no way for any of the characters to find out, and I expressed as much to Lx. It turns out that the character intended to reveal this to us was the one Raven and Malachi killed, Br. Andrew. After we'd finished up, I also pointed out my discomfort with the fact that there were still things unresolved; We had no idea whether or not Br. David had beat his wife, either under demonic influence or otherwise. I was also left with the idea that we left issues unresolved, or badly resolved, but that's something we as players will have to work out.. It's possible that this feeling is typical, as good issues are never easily fixed.

Overall, it was an intense, surprising and painful town experience. All three of the full-session Dogs were seriously injured at least once, and sustained lesser injuries as well. Lots of fallout to go around, and good character exposition all around.

Lx, Zach, please chime in. And if you'd be so good as to cover Calandra's stats and Accomplishment, Lx, that would be good too.