The Gangsters Campaign/Session 6

The whole squad is in one place!

* Townhouse in East Fens, with a newly liberated Harriet
* Lenny has some sewer-water-infused potatoes (#umami)
* Vec is hanging onto Harriet’s occult knife for now, wrapped in a cloth
* It turns out there’s a fish/frog man with us. Harriet thinks it’s a servant of the static man (the one who attacked her)
	+ The static guys sound like static at least some times, probably to everyone for whom their messages are not intended. We don’t know if they can turn it on & off. But everyone can hear this person
	+ Even when looking directly at this person, he is super non-descript
		- “You do see us – you always see us. You just don’t notice us.”
	+ What do the symbols on Harriet mean? “They mean she opened the box.”
		- The box has a lot more to teach Harriet. It’s very urgent that she return to the wharf.
	+ “In efforts to help the victims of the Usurper, sometimes we let people hear the songs of old things. Sometimes it protects them”
	+ Who was in the water chasing us? They belonged to the Usurper.
	+ Harriet can see this person better than the rest of us, but is no better at reading the face
	+ Could never recognize this face, unless it were actively talking to us. Gertie ponders how it might have been on the planet all along, throughout any of their childhoods...
		- Couldn’t disguise themselves as anyone else, because they still wouldn’t be recognizable
	+ Vec looks at it in the mirror: it’s human-ish; pallid; bluish; hair growing in weird patches all over its face. Eyes blink sideways; mouth perpetually slightly open; musculature all underdeveloped, or just alien.
		- Now that it’s been seen, it looks a little sad and ashamed
		- Why do you hide your appearance from us? Makes it easier to participate

Backstory on these nondescript guys

* Where are you from? We are from many places; we remember many things: schools and academies, battles, travels in the ether. We remember all these places, though we were not there. We remember long before – we are an amalgam of experiences; curators, preservers, inheritors.
* Inheritors of what? Our ancestors were expelled [from .. somewhere]. They left and became different, more like you. It was good for a time, and then it was not. We are what comes after. We are trying to learn more about what our forefathers became. We are heirs to -- you might call it the Mage Imperium.
	+ Note: *No one* claims inheritance from the Mage Imperium, not even Aeldrum
* Is the Usurper one of you? No. The Usurper seeks to take the place of the deity of the Mage Imperium.
* Singing artifacts? Those are from before the Imperium. Not part of the inheritance, but they are a tool that will allow us to claim it
* What is the inheritance? The Voice; the intercession of the imperial deity, Adalna
	+ Guided Mage Imperium to its apex. Classes: Seers (psychics, who heard her – mouthpieces) and Mage Princes (scholar-governors who dealt with temporal matters on behalf of the Seers, who used this lore to build the greater technological marvels in history)
	+ Modern era’s industry exceeds Mage Imperium, but a lot of distinctive tech still is Mage Imperium
	+ Imperium collapses when Adalna stops talking to the Seers; Mage Princes fell into infighting
	+ If she bargained for time, is it possible that she will return (maybe by waiting for another section of time that is hers, or maybe by bringing the universe to the state she needs it to be in)
	+ Unlike other gods, Adalna shares knowledge. Any contact with her might enable creation of a second Mage Imperium
* Motive? Creature does believe its own story
* Why Semal? Semal is the place where we will find the tools to claim our inheritance. It was once far more important than it is now: once there were more than two gates here; it was an outpost, a means of control for the empire preceding the Mage Imperium. Also the place where Adalna made one of her first covenants with her followers. The ether has changed; Semal is no longer where it used to be -- but the objects here are the same. The empire before the Mage Imperium had powers making them as gods – but was suppressed by the Great Pantheon, which is what allowed the followers of Adalna to come to the fore. We’re back to find the same tools which the predecessors of her Imperium used, to usher in her era
	+ The Usurper wants to take these tools for their own purpose. The Usurper is the shadow, the fragment of one of the god-kings of the empire that came before; that’s why they call him the Usurper
* History before the Mage Imperium is very shaky (perhaps in part because everything that isn’t Mage Imperium gets mistaken for it -- there’s no radio carbon dating) -- it’s far from public knowledge what preceded it.
* The items you’re seeking? Blood sacrifice items -- take the power of the user and draw on them to activate “certain magicks” . Like puzzles which are solved by the addition of blood
	+ Can these things be used as weapons?
		- *[static… from Matt’s mic, or the Usurper, who can tell?!?!]*
* Ok, now the Usurper is coming! Cool.
	+ Harriet barely hears it (knows the sound is there, but doesn’t perceive it)
		- Turns out she’s invisible to it!
	+ Figures in white cowls on a barge approaching… plus a tall figure, 6 feet while sitting (on a throne). Static sounds are it calling out to its dozen servants
	+ Can Harriet & frog person sneak onto the barge? No, because the servants will still see them -- don’t share the Usurper’s weaknesses.
	+ What are its powers? Few for now; they will grow
		- Gertrude shoots the Usurper real good and it turns into a lot of hexagons (like carbon molecules). splits in half, and each part is fighting for dominance to re-absorb the other…
* So those tools the fish guys needed… One of few things left in Jeff’s mind was where Harriet stashed the items
	+ The remaining ones are those that she left at the wharf, and some she hid without telling Jeff. they need all 5 to do whatever they intend to do
* The barge wasn’t coming for us, until our hostage runs downstairs yelling for their attention, at which point… they are coming for us
* Fish friend offers us medallions: it will give you the experience of drowning, but without dying. Upside? It also does this when you’re in the water.
	+ Harriet takes the offer immediately and dives in *(“leading by example”)*.
* Usurper’s guys come in with a machine gun; Victorio grabs the now-dead hostage as a human shield, but still gets dead.
	+ Vec risks life and limb to loot those nice electric gloves from his still-warm body
* Randolph takes the hint, grabs a medallion, and jumps. Gertrude takes out the machine gun and is ready to just keep fighting; Lenny drags her away & tosses out the window. Everyone else jumps. Some of us swim very well (Lenny does a swan dive)... and some don’t. Gertrude & Vec are pretty badly wounded. Somehow no one else dies down there. The crocs don’t like the smell of us – corrupted with the medallions.
	+ Everyone gets 400xp!