The Gangsters Campaign/Session 14

*We massacred Half-Orc Bob & squad, but didn’t stop the ritual; 
*The beast appears to be wearing the face and maybe memories of Slim Frank. The way has been laid for Hieranthotat to return to the world. 
Icheb has a narco-submersible
Slim Frank:
*Probably clearing hundreds of thousands of ducats in the protection racket alone
*Also likely does hits for Reddick and Reddick’s friends
*Not useful in East Fens, because there’s no law there. Pontooners probably paid him to do business in West Fens
Cilla, Icheb, Jerry, Vec, & Prektanos
*Five stages of emergence of Hieranthotat: 
**We learn them from Icheb, whose brain, upon reflection, is “gibbering with information”
**1: the promise: he will return, and the veiled people know he will return
**2: the remembrance: to learn what he wants. The cult achieved this partly using Mnimi. (may not be complete, but it has happened)
**3: the will: to do what it wants (this is its current form)
**4: the way: the way for his return
**5: the ascension of Hieranthotat, making him a true god (not corporeal form, but a deity who can draw power from his worshippers)
***There were people who tried doing this: large numbers of Mage Princes tried doing this, but it costs a lot in terms of human lives – maybe thousands
**To bring him back, they probably are looking for: Lots of power (medallions); a holy place (somewhere Hieranthotat lived); lots of artifacts
*Icheb gets some mines concealed as rescue buoys
Vec and Jerry examine Mnimi
*Signs of the bends + water pressure damage – probably was 100-200 feet underwater
*All bodily functions work, but not a single one is coordinated
*Also struggling to talk: parts of their brain that handle speech are warring with each other
*Most people’s souls vary only mildly from moment to moment
**Note, soul is a regulatory mechanism
**Mnimi has a ton of variance. Not a wave function with lots of variance, but multiple waves vying with each other
***Different parts of their intelligence get close to realizing something, and the other parts gang up on it to drown it
***The mind is choking itself – the muck is a defense against realizing … something. “Were I to step in, the brain would see me the same way” and basically zap it
**Other curator’s brain has multiple waves as well, but not as much variance
*How about some soothing music? Or, silence?
**“Autocracy of the brain” is pretty good at resisting effects of the aetheric deadener, but Curators are not so much
**The muck gets cleared away for Mnimi, who realizes whatever deep evil they were holding themselves back from realizing, and begins to scream continuously
**Then they play silence, which lets the Curators fully experience their thoughts and emotions, which neither of them are very happy about… 
*Vec shows them a mirror, and they almost reassert control, but not quite. They keep screaming until their energy gives out, at which point they go semi-catatonic
In this state, the glamor where people can’t see them flickers in and out
Criss, the elf has “aligned interests” with us against the cultists of Hieranthotat
*The head of security at Madeline Tark’s hotel & brothels
**Generally bankrolls Judge Reddick’s campaigns
**Controls the only vice activity that Prektanos doesn’t have his hands in 
**Not as well off as Prektanos or with the same power base, but is in super deep with political powers here
*Icheb mentions that Slim Frank is now an abomination
**Icheb is obviously raving mad, but he’s also not wrong
*Criss basically here to look after Tark’s business interests; Tark has probably concluded that this occult stuff is bad for business
**Maybe there’s a rift between Tark & Reddick??? If so, Criss was probably selected for his discretion (and to follow the boss’s orders to the letter, and not to get any clever ideas)
**Mentality of a bouncer
Big boat trip!
*Watson gets swapped into a deep-sea lamp where a lightbulb once was… and gets his own propulsion. He’s a little Watson-sub.
*Entire houses have been ripped from their moorings (?!) – actually apparently dynamited
**Were high-value occult stashhouses
**Icheb goes into one of these
***Whatever sub-basement where “the occult things” were stored is just entirely gone
***He falls through a broken girder and finds several cadavers, held together with rope and twine
***Later they are dredged up and interrogated – their souls have been stuck in them, and so they are still kind of alive
*Battle with pontooners who were dredging up the corpses – a couple get away, we take a couple captive, and some die
**Something something underwater
***Logan/Icheb: Someone else might be better equipped to do this than me
***Christophe: You’re in a DIVING SUIT!
Category:Session Summaries