[Defiance] Wrath of the Ahriman (very long first post)

[MJGraham]

This is my first ever time doing an actual play post. I hope I do it right.

A little background: it's the fifth a final session of a story set in a city which is being bankrupt by its Duke's decision to use mercenaries as watchmen. Refugees have been entering the city for the last few months to escape a war in a neighbouring country. Taxes are being raised to pay for the mercenaries and tension between the citizens and the refugees are at all time high.

Adam played an infiltrator named Adrien
Ben played a renegade ex-musketeer named Veda
I played a heretic named Lorenzo.

The game began with a recap of the last session. We discussed how Veda and Adrien rescued Lorenzo from prison after interfering with the Watch's attempt to search Lorenzo's property for seditious material. Adam spoke excitedly of the chaos Adrien caused by setting fire to the offices on the ground floor of the prison and his daring rescue of a refugee priest from the prison courtyard. Ben's summary of our last gaming session, concentrated more upon Veda bravely fighting his way through the flames that engulfed the storeroom, separating Lorenzo and himself from their escape route into the sewers. I reminded them that the Duke's Watch (a large group of mercenaries) had begun marching towards an abandoned monastery that a large number of refugees inhabited.

We all agreed that the best course of action for our players would be to try to stop the mercenaries from slaughtering the refugees. Walking towards the monastery with the priest from the Duke's prison, our characters felt deep and intense doubt that they put down to nerves. We knew that they were going to confront Ahriman in this session and it was their presence that was causing this feeling. In my opinion, Adam and Ben did a great job of separating their own knowledge from their characters knowledge. Although our characters doubted themselves, they ploughed forward anyway, drawing on their own pride or loyalty to one another for strength.

As they neared the monastery, our character could see the Duke's mercenaries stacking combustible material against its doors, trying to use ladders to climb over the outer wall, and shooting crossbow bolts at the refugees attempting to defend their new home. Adrien suggested that our characters needed a plan and devised one based upon an observation made by Lorenzo. Adrien and Veda would grab hold of the mercenary captain leading the assault and threaten to slit his throat if he didn't order his men to cease fighting. While the mercenaries were distracted, Lorenzo and the priest were going to use the mercenaries own ladders to climb into the monastery and rally together the refugees for an organized counter attack. Adam, Ben, and I knew that our character's plan it would probably never work in real life, but it was the only one our characters had and given that the game is about creating stories not representing reality, we decided to give it a shot.

Lorenzo and the priest waited while Adrien and Veda sneaked towards the captain. Because of the general noise and disarray and the fact that the captain was positioned at the back of the mercenaries ranks, I allowed them to sneak all the way to captain's personal retinue without being spotted.

Adam asked if the captain would take their threat more seriously if his character killed one of the captains own guard. Both Ben and I agreed that it would, so Adam had Adrien attempt a knifing of one of captain's guards. Adam told us that Adrien's action was derived from his defiance virtue and the objective was to prove to the captain that their threats were serious. I added two white beads to the challenge bag for the ahriman's cursed presence and one red bead because I thought that killing the guard fit Adrien's attitude statement about being ruthless and immoral. Plus, it was a very brave thing to do and I couldn't help but agree that his character's defiance would certainly come into play. Ben added two white beads to the challenge bag because Adrien was not a fighter and the captain's guard was obviously an experienced soldier.

Once all the beads had been added to the bag, Adam spent five influence points to draw four beads instead of the usual three and drew a success with no negative consequences. Adam described the blade of Adrien's dagger plunging into the side of the guard.

With the sudden and unexpected assault on his own guard, the captain was unable to organize his own men quickly enough to stop Veda from slipping through and holding his sabre to the captain's throat. Meanwhile, Adam increased his influence points by Adrien's propensity for defiance and then added one to that propensity for successfully resolving the challenge.

Next, it was Veda's turn to do his part in the plan. Ben described Veda's revulsion at Adrien's cold-hearted killing of the guard, but being the experienced fighter Veda concentrated at the task in hand, storing is own personal feelings about Adrien's actions in his memory for a more appropriate time.

Ben told us that Veda was using his conviction for the challenge to intimidate the captain. Even though Adam and I both agreed that it was an appropriate virtue to use in this situation, we nevertheless both added two white beads to the bag because Veda was a renegade and not a firebrand and the captain was a man who potentially risked his life almost every day. Then I made sure that I added in the white beads for the ahriman's cursed presence. Finally, I added two red beads for Adrien's successful killing of the guard.

Ben did a normal draw and to all our surprise drew a total success by getting three red. The captain had been subdued and was willing to give Adrien and Veda almost anything they demanded. Ben increased his influence points by Veda's propensity for conviction and then added one to that propensity for his success.

While Adrien and Veda were going through their part of the plan, I described to Adam and Ben how Lorenzo and the priest could hear screams coming not from the outer walls of the monastery, but inside the monastery itself. I also told them that Lorenzo, thought that the refugees were fighting amongst themselves and that he needed to get their priest to them to stop it from becoming any worse.

With the captain under their control, Adrien and Veda made him order his mercenaries to cease their assault of the monastery. This was my characters signal to get the priest into the monastery. Unhindered by the mercenaries, Lorenzo and the priest scaled the monastery's outer wall using the mercenaries' own ladders. I then told Adam that the ahriman were in the monastery and I asked him to describe them.

I had told him the concept of the ahriman and asked him to paint some pictures of how he thought they might look. Given that he was the one to design their look, I asked him to describe the ahriman who had infested the monastery. He said that they were sallow skinned with torso that reminded my character of pregnant women. Their limbs were thin, immensely long, and brittle in appearance. Their faces elephantine.  I asked him if he had been inspired by Hieronymus Bosch.  But my guess was completely, wrong because it was Dali who had inspired the look of the ahriman.

He then went on to describe how the ahriman were lifting up refugees in the spidery arms and embracing them. As the ahriman drew the refugees closer to them, the refugees' faces became tranquil and they died suddenly, but peacefully.

Lorenzo couldn't understand what was happening. He didn't know what the ahriman were and he had no idea that only he could see them (everyone else in the monastery only saw the refugees rise ten feet into the air, smile serenely, and peacefully die).

Before Lorenzo could respond to this situation, I reminded Ben and Adam that I would need to pass a challenge or Lorenzo would be affected by the ahrimans miasma of doubt. I don't remember the details of the challenge, but I do remember that the outcome was success with negative consequences. This meant that Lorenzo's conviction remained the same, but that he would try a futile attack against the ahriman in the mistaken belief that they were demons.

As Lorenzo rushed forward to attack the ahriman, two dozen of them scaled the monastery walls and walked towards the mercenaries waiting outside. Only Veda and Adrien could see them, because like Lorenzo they had committed themselves to fighting the city's corrupt authorities. However, the mercenaries could feel the ahrimans' miasma of doubt. Some ran but for most of them, it was much too late. Their deaths were not the swift peaceful ones of the refugees. Instead, the Ahriman twisted, contorted, and snapped the mercenaries like dry twigs.

It was now time for Ben and Adam to see if the ahrimans' miasma would effect their character's conviction. Adam succeeded with failed with a positive consequence. As a result of this draw, he told us that Adrien was going to stay and fight even though his characters conviction had dropped by three points and we all agreed that this was acceptable. Ben on the other hand drew a success with negative consequences. Although, Veda was able to resist the ahriman's miasma, he could not stop himself from dropping his sabre and giving the captain the chance to escape.

At this point Adam spoke up and suggested that the captain should make a grab for Veda's sabre at the same time as Adrien. I thought this was an excellent idea, especially as the sabre was the only blessed weapon in the scene and as result of this the only thing that could physically harm the ahriman.

Adam said that because Adrien hated the captain due to a previous encounter, he would be using his anger in this challenge. Ben and I added beads to the bag from which Adam would make his draw. We were on tenterhooks as Adam did the draw. Would Adrien reach the sword before the captain? Adam opened his hand to reveal two reds and a white. The captain lifted Veda's sword from the ground and swung it viciously, hoping that he would be able to strike the assailant that were hidden to his eyes.

Adam decreased his influence by Adrien's propensity for anger because it was a negative number and lowered it even further due to having failed the challenge. Then we all discussed what the positive outcome should be and eventually agreed that we would all spend influence points equal to the captain's significance to have him killed by one of the ahriman, but not before Veda witnessed his father's sword slicing into the flesh of one of the ahriman.

Cutting back to Lorenzo, it was now my turn to take a challenge. This one was different from the usual challenge because my character was doomed to fail. Beads were added to the bag and I drew one of them. If the bead was white, Lorenzo would be killed in the same manner as the mercenaries. But if it was red, he would dies peacefully like one of the refugees. I opened my hand to reveal a single red bead and the ahriman that Lorenzo had tried to attack began to lift him from the ground.

Before we found out if Lorenzo was able to escape the ahriman's embrace, we went back to Veda and Adrien. Reunited with his father's blessed sword, Veda bravely fought against the ahriman. Ben spent some influence points to draw more then the usual three beads and Veda won the challenge. Ben's insurrectionist was the first character in the Defiance and the only person in this particular set of stories to have ever killed an ahriman. However, more were coming and although Veda might be able to fight some of them using his blessed sword, he couldn't kill them all and he could not defend Adrien. Their only hope was Lorenzo.

As the ahriman wrapped its spindly arms around Lorenzo and he felt the tranquillity of the death that it was about to bestow upon him, Lorenzo was filled with a great sadness for all who had died so needlessly. Closing his eyes, the heretic prayed to his god for an invocation that would banish the ahriman.

Beads were added to the challenge bag as is customary in Defiance and I spent influence points to invoke a banishing and influence points to increase the amount of beads I would draw. We discussed the possible outcomes. Even though we had all made our fate rolls at the beginning of this story, we all agreed that if Lorenzo failed to banish the ahriman our characters would die and I went on to say that if he succeeded but with a negative consequence, the ahriman would be banished but not before Lorenzo died.

It all came down to this last and final draw of the story. I opened my hand to reveal three reds and a white. Success with no negative consequences! The ahriman dissipated into smoke and were scattered by the wind. All our insurrectionists (i.e. characters) had survived.

We wrapped up the story by saying that our characters housed the remaining refugees with families that were sympathetic to the insurrectionists cause. I was the only player left with an epiphany roll and I decided that my characters epiphany would relate to the sadness he felt during his prayer to banish the ahriman. I rolled and added Lorenzo's propensity for sorrow. To my delight, I was successful and my character had his first epiphany. I shaded in a square next to my character's sorrow and gave him the new attitude statement of "Life is suffering. Only by dying can we find true peace."

Finally, we discussed how the session went and Ben gave me lots of great ideas for new creatures to add to the game. Overall, it was a very satisfying experience and I can't wait to play again.