The Empire Club/Session 17

Interlude from Last time:
Daniel makes a dramatic speech about the origin of his new character concept. 
:"I was devastated when Cassie died. I almost decided to sit out the rest of the campaign because I didn't want to deal with the bullshit window or helping clean up Cassie's financial mess. But then I realized that Cassie would have died in vain and I should retake the battlefield with an even more annoying character. 
:But how I asked myself? What character concept could I create that would be even more annoying. And I despaired for a way to best honor Cassie's legacy.
:Adalna in her glory provided a response. She gave me not an answer to inspire me, but a question. That question…
:'Do you know who my father is?'"
—
This time:
Maybe next week he will get to do something with it. Daniel's character will remain forbidden lore. You all do not deserve to know this information.
What does the Empire Club want to do over the next month?
*Dawes proposes hiring Dwarvish mercenaries to deal with the Shantine Mafia problem. 
**The Shantine mafia are harassing our staff in a shakedown.
**The Shantine mafia are the ones that are not radical enough - or are radical in the wrong way.
**The group comes up with a plan to scare them with spooky Occult shit, but first we have to figure out if they're religious. We discover that they're trying to keep us secret from the broader organization. This is a more religious group within the mafia, so it might work.
*Farandole, leveraging the Club's status with the Aeldrum Historical Society, organizes a series of events to show off many of his artifacts. He become one-half of a tit-for-tat to control the schizophrenic artistic vision of the club.
**It is said that watching Aeldrum children handling his skulls brought him joy in his final years.
*Magda, chooses to retreat from the limelight of the Club, as she appoints a representative to the Board in her place. Magda auctions off a triptych of the tragic life of Cassie Sorothin at the opening ceremony, with a lovely painting of her colorfully clad body being carried out on a stretcher. 
**After this she does some guest pieces and builds a loyal following of club members that come to the club regularly to discover any new pieces. 
**She also uses the Club as a recruiting ground, both for criminals and new artistic talent to be recruited into pseudo-Shantaran art style.
**She argues that she should get a greater stake in the Club, to be its second, because she has spent the most of her capital to get the Club to where it is today
*Dawes 
**Is the window finished? We vacate the club so that Frank can install the window. We put in a security system so we can observe what is going on. One day, all etheric devices experience a short. When we arrive 30 minutes afterwards, we witness the majesty of a window as it is returned to a greater state than it ever was before. Frank the Basalt man is discovered 48 hours outside the spire after falling 1 km through the window.
**We find the vent lizard, but it flees while we wait for animal control to arrive. We later discover a brood of eggs that the lizard has eaten. There are still some animal remains left. The Butcher prepares the scraps of meat we find left in the eggs. 
***Farandole's device tells us that the young were not eaten by their mother in a panic, but because they were not her true children.
***Magda realizes that the young were authentic manticores. She further discovers that there was a hole in the window that has since closed up. The hole was large enough for the vent lizard to get through. 
***Magda tries to track down the lizard. Magda creates a painting of another lizard that is fantastic enough to get the lizard to emerge. Dawes manages to catch the lizard in a wire cage.
***The vent lizard appears to be a fairly normal lizard, with the exception of being possessed and riddled with cancer. It is named Noname.
***It is capable of reproducing asexually to produce manticore youth and so we decide to keep it alive long enough to lay another brood of eggs and bring back the Aeldrum National animal.
***This all creates a massive demand for Board seats and interest in the Club. Mme. Gautier proposes a pump and dump scheme
Category:Session Summaries