The Gangsters Campaign/Session 7

* Harriet finds some medallions at the wharf
* The medallions we used to cross under the water are now corroded / expended
	+ Blood followed the labyrinth on the surface of the medallions, not always taking the optimal path… appears to have been directed by “some kind of force” within the device
	+ When frog man gave us the medallions, he “configured” them first.
	+ Human blood and the small amount of soul in it isn’t strong enough to have done the soul magic we’ve seen them do. Probably “significantly ancient and highly cursed.”
	+ Extra knowledge is needed to configure the medallions to do useful things
	+ Do gods have souls? They aren’t organic, and aren’t driving organization in a body… it’s less that they have souls and more that they are souls.
		- The gods fight over souls because they need to consume the energy derived from them to do useful things. Maybe imbued soul power in these objects, which was then expended
* East fens people – were potentially slightly associated with the boardwalk gang
	+ Boardwalk Gang: would be giving permission to (or being intimidated by) anyone dredging areas in East Fens. They used to run things in East Fens … but now have gone to ground, relatively speaking. Still could make trouble for anyone doing this dredging
	+ Pontooners: different gang in the area
* Randolph releases the de-tongued East Fens person (I think)
* Vec’s occult buddy (now played by Seth – Jerry Swanwallow)
	+ Medallions predate Imperium
	+ Thanacids (sp?) god-kings actively emulated the gods; used the souls of blood sacrificial victims to power their magicks; maybe could carry objects infused with souls of their sacrifices. The Great Pantheon gods did not love this, nor did their followers (mortals usurping their power), so they were smacked down pretty hard. Maybe the Usurper is one of them
		- Apparently these guys were powerful enough to re-route aetheric lanes with their blood magic – including to isolate some parts of their civilization for long enough to degrade / store their artifacts, rather than the more expected route of Pantheon gods re-absorbing their power
	+ The buddy can test one of these artifacts to see how much soul energy is in there, if we give him one. Then, how efficient is the use of this energy?
		- If very sophisticated (e.g. angel level), a single soul’s worth of energy could’ve powered them to keep us alive underwater
* 2-3 frog guys visit Harriet
	+ One of them is the one who gave her the medallion, and got her out of her shop to safety previously. His skin is falling off.
	+ “We were not meant to last long.” here to achieve something in particular? “We make our own purpose.”
	+ The molting one (her buddy) sticks around; two others go off to get her stash, once she’s shared the location of those remaining medallions
	+ Harriet misses her “dose” of … something, and buddy gives her a medallion to swallow to replace it.
* Disruption to Prektanos’s drug enterprise – recurring issue
	+ Strung-out person comes up to a dealer with apparently stolen money, tries to make a big purchase, then someone else beats up and robs (but not kills) the dealer
	+ Short-term harm to the business, but without damaging “the prize”, i.e. the business opportunity

Attempt to break into Harriet’s shop

* Lenny is distracting a cop who knows his dad – gets a nice lesson about not letting bad men take advantage of his strength for their bad deeds
* Gertrude tries to knock Harriet out and steal the big stash of medallions, which fails because Gertrude is not actually strong. Harriet tries to leave while holding a knife to her hand over the box, threatening to release all their power at once if Gertie makes a false move. She does it anyway, and tries to shoot Harriet in the foot, but instead blows her whole leg off. Gertie grabs the box and runs; a cop comes after her, and she tries to get him to stop and help Harriet, but he just chases Gertrude. G calls to Lenny in an unusually clear tone given the distance: "You need to go help Harriet in the shop, now." Lenny does, and scoops up Harriet and her not-at-all-cleanly-detached leg, bringing her across the street to Vec, who (along with Harriet’s unusual fortitude) saves her from the brink of death.
* Failing to shake him, Gertrude ends up killing the magisterial officer who was chasing her; his body falls in the canal and floats away. She considers leaving the medallions at Joe’s place, but wants to make sure they get where they were going – to Aeldman NatSec, in exchange for her cousin, whom she had abandoned years earlier at the scene of the crime when the cops busted one of their heists. He took the fall for that and several other crimes she and their gang had committed.
* Despite many warning signs, and despite the frog men very effectively pursuing her—and trying to sway her not to turn over the medallions, saying their whole civilization is at stake, which only fails because of her deep, long-seated resentment of outsiders telling her what to do, and because the laundry list of her assorted sins is so very long—Gertie goes all the way in: into a prison yard and a meeting with her cousin, who was on death row. After she tells him he’ll probably be released for the service she’s done for the Aeldmen, the cousin leaves, and Gertie’s left to her end: four snipers in four towers around the yard, who kill her instantly.
* When all you have is a gun, everything looks like a target. RIP Gertrude, who only knew how to do one thing.