Countdown Play Log: The Gifted

[Nathan P.]

Intro

This thread is a cleaned up text log of the Countdown game I'm currently running, called The Gifted. Countdown is a specifically play-by-email game, and can be downloaded here. There's also a cast portrait here.

This log is "the story," without referance to the mechanics or the logistical shtuff. If anyone is interested in seeing the non-cleaned up log, let me know.

Questions and comments are welcome!

[Nathan P.]

8 Hours Remaining
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Session 1: Generation
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The Characters:

Brendan is playing Felix, a Doormaker who lost his left arm in a heist gone bad two years ago.  He's not a thief anymore--just a general lowlife middleman who talks his way into necessity.  He usually wears long sleeves to hide it, but his right arm is covered in protective charms, fetishes and bangles.  He chews matches.

Fighting 1, Talking 9, Thinking 6
Law 3, Team 9, Steel 2

Steven is playing Patrick, a prosecuting attorney who's not above using Magic to help him win a case. He usually wears a suit to conceal the fact that his arms and torso are partially covered in tiny tattoos, each one representing a use of Magic. Eventually, he won't be able to hide it any more, so he only uses it when he feels he absolutely has to. Patrick knows Felix because he once prosecuted him for theft and now uses him as an informant. Theirs is a shakey alliance at best.

Fighting 3, Talking 6, Thinking 9
Law 3, Team 3, Steel 6

[NOTE: Steven had to drop the game....which accounts for Patricks sudden death in Session 3]

Yoki is playing Borga Turbulenz, a bagman extraordinaire for the city's organized crime outfit. He doesn't just clean up the scene, but can take care of "left-overs"  - he is an Eradicator, and able to do away with people as completely as if by pulling up by the roots, up to and including memories of them. Borga suffers from a serious speech impediment, but mostly relies on his wits and fists. He's originally eastern European, but keeps his past to himself. Borga has more than likely cleaned up after Felix in the past (such as when he lost his arm), and may have crossed paths with Patrick on any number of occassions.  Borga helped Joe eradicate some of Joe's victims in the past, the ones that particularly disgusted him. The cost of Borga's magic is that each time he eradicates someone from history, he also eradicates someone he cares for from his own mind. He can return home to empty photo frames, and pictures of him seemingly shaking someone's hand, but nobody being on the receiving end.

Fighting 10, Talking 2, Thinking 8
Law 2, Team 2, Steel 6

Mike is playing Joe Muller, an ex-cop. Very recently ex. One too many prisoners fell down stairs that the downtown cells don't, in fact, have. Joe is a Mirrorman. He can, for moments at a time, "swap souls" with someone that he has a link to (usually a physical object that they've handled recently or that has some other strong connection to them). This gives important information such as where they are and what they're planning - but they also know where he is and what he's planning. And the souls leak across into his, so over his years in the force his original idealism has been gradually ground down. He has more in common with the criminals now than with the cops (hence his connection with the other characters). Joe likes knives - a peculiarity that he picked up from one of his "targets". He carries several concealed in various parts of his clothes.

Fighting 7, Talking 4, Thinking 7
Law 3, Team 3, Steel 6

Daniel is playing Mao Shivute, a Namibian sorcerer who channels his power through Masochism and Sadism.  He's got all manner of piercings and ritual scarring on his face and body, which is completely hairless and unhealthily thin.  Mao is a small time pimp in the city and knows Felix and Borga through criminal channels.  He's also had brushes with Joe, who brought him into the station on more than one occasion.  He's a shapeshifter and deals with the spirits of the dead.

Fighting 2, Talking 6, Thinking 7
Law 8, Team 2, Steel 5
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The Situation:
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A calculating and power-hungry Rune-Caller has figured out a way to kill the Gifted and keep all their power for himself (where normally it would flow evenly to all the remaining Gifted).  If he kills the four most powerful beings in the city, he'll be able to expel all the Gifted from its bounds and become a virtual dictator. None of you know the Rune-Caller personally, but you've all noticed that certain well-known Gifted have been disappearing, and the general feel of each of your Gifts has been changing, starting to feel stretched and thin. One of the earliest sacrificial victims, from a "test run" that the Rune-Caller did, was a friend of Mao's, and the shade has given him the lowdown on the situation. Mao reached out to the other Gifted he knew, Felix and Borga, to help him stop the Rune-Caller. Before the mystical aether became filled with lightning and unusable for scrying or clairvoyance, the three of them were able to track the Rune-Caller down to his base of operations - at the top of the Federal building in the middle of the city. Knowing that the non-Gifted federal employees and government officials would present an obstacle, the three made overtures to Patrick and Joe, both men who could use their contacts and official knowledge to ease the way.

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The Laws:
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Finite Occult Power - There is a finite amount of magical power in the world, and it's split among everyone who can use it. So every increase in the magically gifted is a decrease in everyone's power, and vice versa.

Create with the right hand, destroy with the left. - Everyone's power has both creative/positive and destructive/negative effects possible.

Magic has a cost. - Every use of magic involves some kind of sacrifice.

Magic favors the physically strong - This manifests in a total wuxia "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" kind of way. Fighting on the rooftops of Chi-town - oh yeah!

The world is a dark and gritty place. - Self-explantory

What's done to the part is done to the whole. - Ditto

[Nathan P.]

7 Hours Remaining
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Session 2: Pursuit
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The five of you are in a slummy bar in a crappy part of town. Mao, Felix and Borga arrived together, a couple of minutes before Joe and Patrick came in. There's a smattering of other down-and-outs, but none that any of you recognize. Joe was the one who suggested this bar, mainly because there was absolutely no reason any Gifted would ever come here.

The face of Mao's cousin, one of the Gifted that the man you all only know as "The Rune-Caller" sacrificed a couple of days ago, is still vaguely floating in front of his eyes, and Mao is scribbling down the poor soul's words on a scrap of paper, without looking at it. Felix and Borga are sitting across the table from each other, Borga staring intensely at Mao, and Felix trying not to be intimidated by the Eradicator's aura of menace. As Joe and Patrick arrive at the table, Mao tosses the paper he was writing on into the center of it. All of you can clearly see this written:

The Rune-Caller will sacrifice 4 Gifted in order of increasing power. The final one will be at midnight tonight. If he is successful, all of our Gifts will be as nothing compared to his.

The clock on the wall reads a little after 5 pm.

[Nathan P.]

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Session 3
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Borga is a man of few words, but he enjoys a challenge. He gestures to the fading image. "What if we go to where he got snuffed? This Rune-Caller can't erase his tracks completely, I'm sure. We can discuss who the next victim will be while getting there."

"Yah," Mao says, his eyes swimming back into focus after the emotionally draining bit of summoning he just performed at the table. "All this sitting around is making me wanna punch something in the face.  I don't feel like going through a buncha rap sheets, guessing where this fuckah is gonna hit next."

Patrick starts to shake his head....but then his eye's roll up, showing only the whites. As you look on, the shaking in his head moves to encompass his entire body, and before any of you can do more than stand up, he falls out of the chair and hits the ground with a thud. Suddenly, light flashes from all of the tattoos and images engraved on his flesh, making them show through his clothing. You all look on as smoke rises from his body - and you all feel a little bit more stretched.

"Shit! Increasing power. Big names." Felix pulls a grimy pocketwatch from inside his coat and shakes it twice.  "Full moon tonight," he says, "so if we discount the Lupiforms, who's left?  Probably Kitten Hsu or Lamorak Stein first, Duncan Macreid's out of town...  maybe the Polyboys next if he can catch them all.  I was gonna ask Patrick if Judge Worth was still in his den at that godawful hotel, but..."

"Whatever we do," says Joe, "we gotta hit 'em hard with everything we got. Get some flyers up there attackin' the tower, talk our way into the elevators, shit, go through the ventilation shafts if we can. Hit 'em with our best shot 'cause we won't get no second try." He gestures to the still-cooling body. "Looks like this clown may be on to us already."

Mao scoots his chair out and grabs his coat.  "Look, Ushindi was one-a them tantrics.  I gave him somma my girls in exchange for some juice from time to time.  One-a them might know something, and it'll be quicker than trying to sniff out my cousins deathplace.  Let's start with Montana, she was his fave.  She should be dancing down at the Candy Box tonight."

As the barkeeper looks, nonplussed, at Patrick's body, you decide to split up. Mao and Borga will track down the dancing girl Montana, while Felix and Joe will try to recruit some of the other Gifted to help them in the assault.