The Gangsters Campaign/Session 24

What’s the plan, Stan?

* We can’t blow up the dam enough to permanently damage it with the explosives we could get right now
	+ So, what else can we do?
* In 48h, there’ll be a ritual in the shadow of the dam;
	+ Slim Frank will probably be there
	+ We don’t know what the ceremony is
	+ GE superintendent said we could change the tides
	+ Curators offered a counter-ritual to actually undo Hieranthotat rather than just postpone his return / bury him
	+ Spring Jerry from jail? Team up with Milton?
	+ Get medallions for curators
	+ Pick up Griphook
	+ Stake out the dam? Boardwalk? General recon

At the boardwalk, looking for Grippy:

* No destruction there, so he definitely left immediately
* A pontoon boat with some medallions was stolen. Smells like our guy.
* Where did he go?? Maybe lying low in the marshy areas; maybe paid off revolutionaries in the swamps to let him thru, using the medallions
* Has not updated Prektanos on his activities (as far as P knows, Grippy is still recruiting)

Criss visits Jerry

* Ambient soul power affecting the medallions – particularly sensitive to those calibrated like they are, either ppl or medallions
* Could be used to navigate to where he’s resting and where he’ll come back
* Most medallions probably coming from where the waterline went down, not just up. Probably a bunch more below the dam that they’re harvesting
* Ritual will focus on using the medallions to siphon out Hieranthotat’s power. Substitute for a sarcophagus. Act like a vacuum seal – don’t break the seal fully. Get Hieranthotat to infiltrate the ??.
* Medallions are like little mouths feeding off the souls of the victims – so then sacrifice people, and medallions can be shaped for the power of hieranthotat to take form. And then he’s something that looks like a god, and basically just needs more worshippers
* Look at sarcophagus and give alternative energy source. Siphon him off into something that isn’t the medallions – trick it, maybe using Jerry’s artifacts, with regular old etheric energy; get his soul muddled up in there, and it won’t be intelligent anymore (although it’ll still have some firepower). Even out the peaks & valleys of the soul and turn them into just raw energy. All souls are basically the same.
	+ Counter-ritual might create a bomb, or might power other occult things.
	+ Effect on The Will? Maybe it’ll go insane
* Jerry has been temporarily released with Officer Milton accompanying him

At the dam

* There’s Grippy, digging away
* Dam is a concrete wall on top of metal pylons
* Structure is fairly deep; top of the dam 40-50 feet above (good view from up there probably)
	+ Not going to contain all the water when it rains; some will go into the marshes
* Walking thru marsh is ankle-deep water
* Dam has 3 major entry points, with guard towers
* Some cover nearby, but given 2 guards keeping an eye out, no way to approach unseen
* Slim frank buddy setting up some high-tech rafts – landing points, rolling ladders to climb from rafts up the dam
* Opposite side of bank, slim frank guys unloading “surveillance equipment” that’s probably occult stuff
* A barge has been beached w/ magisterial officers; they have pontooner boats to “hunt pontooners”
* Also, trenchies, who are fortifying the area
* “Radio tower” is actually a machine gun turret
* The cult might try to just seize control of the dam
* No sign of the GE superintendent; there are signs of several workers who appear to grumbling and not really working (morale problem). Supposed to be helping law enforcement, don’t really want to.
* Big hole that Grippy was digging: a Slimy Bill smuggling route?
* Control house is at the top of the dam – metal shutters kept down at all time; internal entry/exit point.
* Top of the dam is curved; at various points there are debris-rolling stations to launch floating debris to impair movement of passing vessels. Semal is a garrison planet & the dam is easily militarized
* Water bends in unusual ways, as if there were unusual space around a particular area -- on the bank closest to the beached barge
	+ Too far from upper part of dam to be reachable from the top

Grippy says, welcome to the dam!

* Developing a foxhole system for staying safe prior to the showdown (“congratulations to me; you’re welcome to you”)
* Says he’s not going to blow up the dam. (“but that’s a great idea!” … doesn’t appear to be “this is the baseline lie that Griphook usually lives.”)

Back in the West Fens

* Lots of Pontooners at the boardwalk have been arrested, rounded up by the local constabulary in the last couple of hours
* Catch up with Milton, Criss, and Jerry
* +3 plainclothes constables who come with rifles, etc. who are willing to take a potshot at Slim Frank

Back at the dam: the denouement

* Pontooner ‘arrestees’ are congregating on police boats, but are actually in handcuffs: they are the sacrifices. The Pontooners are mostly disarmed; the muscle now is a mix of constabular officers & trenchies.
* Then a whole brigade (all PCs but Iko, Jerry and Vec) go down to check out the foxholes Grippy has been digging. Criss trips, grabs a tunnel support, and pulls down enough of it to reveal a mine underneath. Griphook says they’re to cover our escape if we’re being pursued. Milton is skeptical. Griphook draws to shoot Milton, but Criss is faster. Criss shoots at Griphook and misses. The shot ricochets: everyone dodges the bullet, but it sets off an explosive, collapsing the tunnel and miring those who are slow in rising waters…
* Iko steers the sub directly into the dam. Vec asking Jerry to kill the engines, but he succeeds only in disabling the controls. Vec debates what to do, at the last moment, pulling out his cultish mirror and giving over control of his hands. He kills the engines, then pulls down Jerry, who had been opening the sub’s hatch to escape. Water rushes in, threatening to drown them, while Vec enchants a medallion to let him breathe underwater…
* The sub collides with the dam, crushing Iko, Jerry, and Vec to death. Iko had kept enough speed, and the engines explode on impact, causing the dam to buckle, then collapse.
* Hieranthotat gets re-buried, not dead, but banished for perhaps another few thousand years.
* As the sub is racing towards the dam and the squad is exiting the foxholes, Griphook shoots Milton in the face. He’s wounded, but not killed. Cilla tries to talk Griphook out of it; he ignores her and shoots again, then pushes a trigger to explode .. something. Most of the PCs are out of the foxholes, but the constable recruits and Icheb are still in the tunnels, apparently about to be exploded. However, they all have bigger problems now: with rapidly rising waters and a tidal wave approaching from the dam, they all attempt to swim for their lives. Joe, Icheb, Criss, Griphook, and Cilla all drown. Cilla, thinking of her recruits, refuses to help Griphook escape the wave. Criss’s last thought is, "These fuckers." Lenny is incredibly athletic and makes it out unscathed. In all, over a hundred lives are lost at the dam.