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!