RQG 3 - The Simulacrum

## Content Warnings

Alcohol consumption/drunkenness, fire, explosions, injury, temporary loss of senses, mass death, mild jokes related to a character's disability

## Summary

Arsonists interrupt the auction of The Simulacrum. The party saves the ambassadors whilst Sasha chases down the arsonists.

## Synopsis

Lord Edison steps onto the stage in the mansion's music room, as two guards push a cart behind him, with a large, white cloth covering the thing on the cart. In the room, the upper eschelon of London society is sitting, watching; there’s a piano on the stage, a lectern, and the thing on the cart is brought up to the stage. There are a few waiters standing around, holding trays of empty glasses. Edison makes a rambling speech, welcoming people and explaining that he's here to sell something that will be the next huge step forward in technology. He says that it’s going to be incredibly popular, and that he’s going to be selling it to the highest bidder, although he suspects they’ll all have one soon. Dramatically, he pulls off the sheet covering it, revealing the Simulacrum. It is a ten-foot-tall humanoid, made out of burnished metals with whorls and various cables. Sasha notices white metal on the joints which she recognises, but she can’t place exactly what it is - she just knows it’s uncommon. There aren’t precious stones built into it, but there are golden wires and tendons that they can see.

Edison seems incredibly excited by it, almost giddy, and tells it to say hello. Byron drunkenly says hello to the Simulacrum, and Edison turns it on. It shudders a bit, the eyes glow a golden colour, and it starts to move. It’s movements are very smooth. Edison mentions the clockwork servants that people see around and says that they’ll pale in response to this. He tells it to say hello again, and it does, in a very mechanical, distorted voice. Edison seems very excited by this as well. He explains that this is the nearest approximation to a person ever created, and that it can perform any task, including creating more of itself, on its own. He says that by buying one of them, you’re buying all of them - that they’ll all be yours. The machine begins to walk away when Edison says that it can make more of itself, but he tells it to stop and it does. He adds that you won’t need a workforce when you have the Simulacrum, and that it’s completely brilliant.

This said, he brings up the auctioneer to initiate the bidding process. It’s a very calm and orderly proceeding, and the bidding starts at 700 White Gold from the Japanese representative, equivalent to thousands of people's yearly salary. Byron is not paying much attention to the proceedings. After a long bidding process, the final bidding is between the Japanese delegates and the deputy prime minister for England, who is bidding herself. The figures are ludicrously enormous, and it’s clear that some people were able to investigate the Simulacrum before the auction. The betting begins to wind down, and then Bertie nudges the chair in front of him, making Dr Colgate accidentally raise his arm and then immediately backtrack on the bid.

As the betting comes to an end, it is still between the Japanese contingent and the deputy PM. The auctioneer makes the final call [meta note: Alex does not say who won the bid], and then Sasha and Zolf notice the waiters begin making their way to the stage, and one of them starts to get something out of their jacket. The waiter shouts "NOW NOW NOW!" and Zolf throws an icicle, but too late.

There is a massive explosion, and the party is knocked down. They all lose vision and sound briefly, and then come to and inspect the room around them. There are craters all over the place, with bits of the floor having caved in to the cellar below, where there’s a fire. Byron has been knocked unconscious and Colgate is tending to him, and various diplomats are trapped behind a patch of fire that is almost wall height. One of them seems to be trapped beneath masonry. The ceiling is collapsing, and two waiters are by the stage facing the audience; the third is on the stage, standing over the dead auctioneer. One is holding a short sword and another is holding a flask. Edison is dead, and one of the waiters is messing with his corpse, next to a large hole in the floor. The Simulacrum is missing, with a huge hole nearby. In terms of deaths: Wellington and Chessington, the police commissioner, the ‘old crowd’, the deputy prime minister, and most of the attendees. Bertie only survived because of his armour; Hamid was near the front and Zolf and Sasha were near the back, and they all managed to avoid the worst of the blast.

Hamid stands and begins to inspect the room, then they enter combat time. Meanwhile, the man rifling through Edison's corpse finds a folder of papers and jumps down the hole. Hamid, Sasha, and Bertie all engage the waiters in a fight, and Zolf rescues the diplomats who are trapped behind the fire. He makes a floating disk for the diplomats to use to escape down into a wine cellar.

## Quotes

**Edison**: "Now, of course many of you will be aware that there are clockwork servants around. Primitive! Primitive. Horrible things. Clanky, clickety, yechh. Don’t like them. They can do the same job again and again, very boring. Who wants that? No one wants that. It’s terrible. It’s useless. But this... this is the next thing. Aren’t you? Say hello."
―Edison introduces the Simulacrum.
## Dice rolls and Mechanics

* Sasha makes a Perception check: 8
* Sasha makes a Perception check on the simulacrum: 10
* Hamid makes a Knowledge (arcana) check on the simulacrum: 9
* Bertie does a Perception check on Byron: 12
* Everyone rolls a Perception check: Zolf gets nat 20 (24), Bertie gets 5, Sasha gets 18, Hamid gets 19
* Bertie rolls to nudge Colgate: 10
* Sasha makes a Perception check on the waiters: 9
* Everyone makes a Perception check in combat: Zolf gets nat 1, Bertie gets 6, Sasha gets 22, Hamid gets 25

## Combat Breakdown

**Initiative:** Hamid (19), arsonist 1, Bertie (9), arsonist 2, arsonist 3, Zolf (5), Sasha (4), diplomats

**Round 1**

* Hamid: Rises from prone and moves 20 ft.
* Arsonist 1: The guy holding a flask tosses it at Hamid. He hits on a 21 and deals 3 fire damage.
* Bertie: Stands up and draws his own bastard sword as he moves 20ft toward the arsonist wielding a short sword.
* Arsonist 2: The guy on the stage stands up and jumps down into the hole.
* Arsonist 3: Attacks Bertie and misses.
* Zolf: Stand up, moves 10ft, and draws his trident.
* Sasha: Draws her daggers and moves in between Zolf and Bertie.
* Diplomats: Are trapped in the corner and start crying for help as the fire creeps toward them.

**Round 2**

* Hamid: Casts magic missile on the guy who attacked him, dealing 2 damage.
* Arsonist 1: Draws another flask and throws it at Hamid, dealing 1 fire damage.
* Bertie: Attacks arsonist 3, missing on a roll of 7.
* Arsonist 3: Attacks Bertie, missing on a roll of 2.
* Zolf: Moves 10ft toward the crater and screams for the diplomats to get over to him. He summons a stepping stone and waves his arms around.
* Sasha: Throws a dagger at the guy on the stage, but misses with a 4.
* Diplomats: Drag their fallen comrade toward the crater and Zolf.

## Plot Notes

* Sasha fails a Perception check to notice something about the metal that the Simulacrum is made of. This is eventually revealed to be adamantine.
* Edison's claims of inventing the Simulacrum are greatly exaggerated. The original design was done by Nikola Tesla and the Cult of Hades brought Edison in to finish the work after Tesla left the project.
* The arsonists behind the attack are lead by Augusta Leigh, Byron's half-sister, and were hired by Nikola Tesla.
* The Simulacrum's ability to self-replicate is never fully explained but some part of it eventually self-propagates in the form of the blue vein infection.
* After the explosion, Hamid sees someone escape through the hole in the stage holding a manila folder. The arsonists manage to steal a notebook with information on the Simulacrum and the actual plans for the Simulacrum. In episode 15, the party finds the notebook but are unable to retrieve the plans.