The Gangsters Campaign/Session 1

West Fens District — split from East Fens from some accident by General Aetheric

* lots of new east fens people —> more marks, and more competition

we are all living in Upper Harp Street (nicer part of a bad part of town)
pontooners and boardwalkers gang operates in east? fens

Prektanos ['pɹɛk.tɑ.nos] — all of our boss — Shantine vet of Coalition War

* in charge of numbers games (gambling) and also all of the drugs (legal and not)
* splits power

other gangs / competition:

* Half-Orc Bob: barjacks, mostly orcs, his streets independent. competes with prektanos
* Judge Reddick: an elected judge. #2: Slim Frank, who runs racketeering (prektanos will be paying him dues)
* Madeleine Tark: runs hoteliers and service industry (wink). big financial backer of reddick

the man we all need to make happy is prektanos

Other factions:

* “Civic forces of good”: dragoons intel division; magisterial office

Intro

* A gray and dreary day. Dramatic. It’s wet.
* Near Upper Harp Street, in the premier casino Little Bishant, Prektanos turns a good profit from dice games and spinning things
* New mark for Prektanos: Aicitel (he owes Prektanos money)
* Attention on Randolph (protege & ward of Prektanos)
	+ Some new bodies have washed up: a couple days old
	+ Magistrates (?) took bodies not to the local but the higher-up place, and the area is cordoned off
	+ P wants R to make it clear P’s people were not involved
	+ Poncho, Randolph, and Aicitel, plus the Tinys are headed over that warehouse. In Aicitel’s very nice car, very quickly.
	+ Gertrude following along behind, not being noticed, making sure Randolph stays alive, followed by anyone who owes P money.
* Aicitel: got here last year; has creative ideas that will be easier with lax bldg codes
	+ How did he afford this nice-ass car?
* The water is unusually high (much more than normal high tide)
* Lenny is hungry.
	+ also, despite his lack of social graces, he’s not unintelligent
* Investigation commences
	+ Warehouse boss is not competent at his job. He’s here because Prektanos wants him here, & owes his livelihood to the don
	+ Constabulary is not super bothered, but magisterial officers don’t want to talk to Randolph
	+ Several blanche at the recollection of the bodies, and many are quite tired. One wants to gtfo asap
* Two levels of law enforcement: constabulary (police) and Magisterial office (like FBI)
* Two sinister men in body armor walk into Vec’s shop. They are not from around here. Vec figures out they are law enforcement officers (magisterial), pretending to be gangsters.
	+ Agent Johansson wants to know what happened to a torso that Milton pulls out of a cooler (lol)
	+ It’s missing its spine.
		- And yet this is not what killed the person: was done surgically (though not cleanly)
		- Harpoon / hook wounds in the front of the body that maybe killed them
		- Ritual killing, probably not a gang killing, probably not the pontooners
	+ The body is waterlogged.
	+ Icons carved into it match some Vec has seen at Harriet’s shop
	+ His professional opinion: pontooners did it, and someone else got ahold of the body
	+ Magisterial sigil is Aeldrum manticore holding a balance
* Everyone goes to Half-Orc Bob’s bar (Barjacks)
	+ Gertrude watches from the other side of the room
	+ Lenny gets six pounds of potatoes and three pints of rotgut with the chewy bits left in. Yum.
	+ Poor Randolph orders the rotgut also.
	+ Poncho gets whiskey for Molly, a new dock worker friend/informant of Randolph’s
		- She heard shooting, but also a crack/booming sound: drums. Then also, unearthly screams. Mostly at night
		- Sleep deprivation (those who heard the screams couldn’t go to sleep)
		- Some folks were unnerved enough they stopped coming into work
		- One of the five bodies was a friend of hers who had stopped coming in: Joe B (the B stands for Schmoe)
		- No screams at all the night Joe B. Schmoe III died
		- The fact that the Magistrate is involved at all (rather than leaving it to the locals, like they prefer) mean it’s a big deal
		- Part of a gang move to take over the wharfs?
			* Doesn’t make sense as pontooners or boardwalkers (both too small). Maybe some from outside the neighborhood:
				+ Upper West Trenchies (founded by Coalition war vets, kinda paramilitary, have tangled with Prektanos & others in West Fens previously)
				+ Darby Street Gang
	+ Other dock workers saw the foreman being led away in a straitjacket
	+ Some people (?) leave at the same time Molly does and go down the same alley. Maybe they’re all just headed in the same direction!
* Some sinister characters visit Harriet
	+ Impossibly thin, wiry hands
	+ They are very much not government officials.
	+ Very interested in historical artifacts that are antique Semal (pre Imperium; before Fialta means >100 years ago)
		- She offers them a Fialta sword
		- They *hold it to their skin and listen to it*
		- It doesn’t sing.
		- They want something from pre-Mage Imperium (aka >8,000 y.o.)
		- What does this singing sound like? When you are about to fall asleep, you will hear it.
	+ They give her a gold ingot with symbols Harriet does not recognize (as belonging to govts or gods)
* Then some less sinister characters arrive (the magisterial cops)
	+ Harriet’s nickname is Samantha, which she got at her sorority in correspondence school at Ohio State University (canonical; she’s got a pamphlet and everything)
	+ They want to know if Vec treats gangsters
	+ Show her a little metal disc with an icon picture of a ritual
		- Very dated -- maybe pre-mage imperium or maybe interregnum (between mage imperium and current era)
		- The ritual pictured is how to activate it. Like a prayer guide
		- The more sinister visitors’ throats puff in and out, eyes darting around... *still very creepy*
			* The fact that they’re very interested means the artifact is probably pre-mage imperium
		- Instructions: basically, what kind of blood to use, how to use it, and under what configuration of the planets
		- Harriet puts blood on it
			* Corner bois are hyperventilating
			* Musical screaming.
			* Medallion’s surface bubbles, expands, contracts, and sets her desk on fire. When the smoke clears, the medallion has disappeared.
			* Also, the gold ingot in her pocket is very hot.
	+ After agents leave, first visiting buddies are upset she didn’t tell them about having seen such items before: “I saw your thoughts. I saw you lie!” wants her to sell them the things immediately
		- They’re definitely snakes (Seth)
		- Snakes that read minds.
		- Maybe frogs? Probably snakes.
		- Can’t rule out frogs.
		- Probably due to GE pollution.
		- Very creepy, very articulate pollution snakes. Truly unfortunate.
* Econ: 10 ducats = a day’s wage for a laborer; business owners would make 2.5-10x as much, depending on how they’re doing