ATTG- Season 1- B-Team Episode 11: It Gets Real

 

Casting

• Adelphin "Adel" Jean-Baptiste (Laurie) Domains (Death and Magic), child of  Werethekau and Baron Samedi. Machiavellian meddler. Power unto herself. Adelphin can kill with a glance, manipulate magic as if she were born to it (she was), and doesn't seem to be able to actually die. Tagline: "I'm not the devil, but betray me and I will show you hell".
• Siv (NPC) Child of Odin, handed to Adelphin for protection.
• Cosmos aka Management (Ally), an unusual cat that is her hotel manager.
• Rui Qui (Ally) Theogenic demigod, hacker, magician, swordmaster.
• Liam O'Shea (Randy) Domain (Strength) and child of Dagda. A huge, powerful, and deadly warrior. A druid and generally a likeable guy. Taught the old ways but is comfortable with the modern. He's traveled much of the world and is looking to see even more. Tagline: "I told you I wouldn't fit."
• Mitzidu Ito (Rory) Domains (Business, Hearth/kitchen), child of Inari and Kojin. The teams business guru, event planner and entertainer. Taglines: "Life never tasted this good before!" and "The Hearth is the heart of the home, but food is the soul of a community"
• Suveer Patel (Christian) Domain (Clearing Obstructions), child of Ganesh.  Martial artist and student of a thousand styles, Suveer is one of the teams upfront fighters with fists or his gauda (mace). He can get past any obstacle put before him. Tagline: "You are in front of me and no obstacle can stop me. Find a better place to be."
• Yannis Papadopoulos aka The Courier (Chris D.) Domains (Communication, Secrets, Rainbows), child of Harpocrates and Arke. Team sneaker and postman. If you see him, its already too late, your package has been delivered. Tagline: "The thirty minutes or less policy is for those that like to live dangerously."
• Chad (NPC), child of Cupid
• Auriol (NPC)

GMS Recap

Prepare for Battle!

Baba Yaga was scrying like crazy trying to find Poseidon and finally got a hit after Suveer suggested using the sword piece we had to look for its other parts. She assembled the party, though Yannis opted out.

We drove over to a bowling alley where her spells led us.

The group came in from the back entrance...

Faux-Poseidon

We went in armored up and charms loaded. In fact by the end of the fight we all had hit our stacking limit on buffs.

Poseidon's avatar was holding court in the center of the alley surrounded by a bunch of spartans. More were scattered around. Liam and Suveer broke off to head down a side passage to go after a bunch of spartans hanging out in the lanes, while the rest went through the middle. Adelphin supercharged a fireball and incinerated a dozen spartans surrounding Poseidon, Baba Yaga cast a protection spell to protect everyone from Poseidon's aetheric powers. Rui and Chad headed in and killed a few spartans, while Mitzadu headed straight for Poseidon.

Returning gun fire hurt Mitzadu a little, who used Second Wind multiple times to reduce damage from three gunman. Liam and Suveer took a few hits from the gunmen but caught them mostly by surprise and from behind. The fight went fast and furious and I'll skip the details, highlights were...

• Mitzadu went for a head on approach, hoping to delay Poseidon enough that the heavy hitters could take him out. He had Celerity, Safeguard, and Juggernaut buffs going. Was able to dodge most of the gunfire and poke at Poseidon but not seriously hurt him. However when he went after the mages, Mitzadu managed to block him and hold his ground.
• Liam and Suveer cleared one side of the building, making the critical effort of quickly stopping the gunmen.
• Riu and Chad with a little help from Adelphin and Auriol cleared the near side of the room.
• Baba Yaga dropped some heavy spells that while they did not hurt Poseidon, helped protect the group. A LOT.
• Adelphin cast some buffing spells, including All as One which let the fighters on Poseidon pass around feints.
• After the supporting cast were cleared out, Riu, Liam, and Suveer (in that order) joined Mitzadu in fighting Poseidon up close and personal.
• Mitzadu was able to use Extra Attack and Rapid Strike to attack, then Feint and pass the feint along to the others who could do more damage. Poseidon had a lot of DR and was shrugging off most of our damage but Ruis sword Lament was able to do significant damage when he stuck it in Poseidon's heart. The finishing blow was Suveer jumping on the sword still stuck in Poseidon's chest after he had blasted Riu away and swinging on the blade (plus burning a lot of HP to power its abilities) dealt the finishing blow.

Everyone contributed meaningfully, some in support others direct damage, but the combination is what won the day.

Hello Zeus, We Did Not Kill Your Brother!

Auriol as an Oracle was able to summon Poseidon who was breaking some rules of the Compact. Zeus showed up a second or two after we won and was quite annoyed.

Auriol convinced him (since in her Oracle role she could not lie) that this was not really Poseidon in charge of the avatar. Poseidon materialized and they had a conversation, Zeus wound up pulling Zagaras out of Poseidon leaving behind an empty skin. A bunch of gods from various pantheons showed up and an argument ensued, explanations demanded, etc. However Baba Yaga was not to be ignored and demanded her blood price. Zeus ripped off Zagaras arm and threw it to her, she accepted that as the price. Adelphin called out Mitzadu's debt and Zeus ripped out Zagaras eye and threw it to Mitzadu. Inari nodded acknowledgment and pride at her son and the party left the scene and godly debate.

Aftermath

Yannis vanished, unlikely to be seen again.

Mitzadu got a fractional increase in Divine Rank due to his actions. Everyone knows he did not win that fight alone, but he was given some credit and respect for declaring to Ares and Hades that Poseidon owed a blood debt and in the end paid it, or at least the god impersonating him did. That kind of thing can make people take notice, and that is a large part of Divine Rank in the setting. Of course making a name for yourself may have some benefits, but it also can put a target on you as people eye possible credit and recognition for taking you on. ie. the gunslinger problem.

Mitzadu now has the eye of a god (Domains Hunting, Mystery, Rebirth, and the Underworld) to work with and spends the next several months studying up on how best to use it for an enchantment. The months spent on that were not enough to make such an item but the effort did help him recover some of the magical power he lost in making his first relic and tweaking his recent war domain for a temporary enchantment on the blade (powered by his aetheric energy). Plus he gained some new knowledge in studying the issue.

Suveer gained a large amount of temporary aetheric energy from getting the killing blow.

It will be 6 months (game time) before the next session, and the spartans have been told to stand down on us. As for the rest of the group and what they did with the time (and saved character points), stay tuned.

ATTG Season 1 B-Team, Session 10: We Need to Have a Talk

 

Casting

• Adelphin "Adel" Jean-Baptiste (Laurie) Domains (Death and Magic), child of  Werethekau and Baron Samedi. Machiavellian meddler. Power unto herself. Adelphin can kill with a glance, manipulate magic as if she were born to it (she was), and doesn't seem to be able to actually die. Tagline: "I'm not the devil, but betray me and I will show you hell".
• Siv (NPC) Child of Odin, handed to Adelphin for protection.
• Cosmos aka Management (Ally), an unusual cat that is her hotel manager.
• Rui Qui (Ally) Theogenic demigod, hacker, magician.
• Liam O'Shea (Randy) Domain (Strength) and child of Dagda. A huge, powerful, and deadly warrior. A druid and generally a likeable guy. Taught the old ways but is comfortable with the modern. He's traveled much of the world and is looking to see even more. Tagline: "I told you I wouldn't fit."
• Mitzidu Ito (Rory) Domains (Business, Hearth/kitchen), child of Inari and Kojin. The teams business guru, event planner and entertainer. Taglines: "Life never tasted this good before!" and "The Hearth is the heart of the home, but food is the soul of a community"
• Suveer Patel (Christian) Domain (Clearing Obstructions), child of Ganesh.  Martial artist and student of a thousand styles, Suveer is one of the teams upfront fighters with fists or his gauda (mace). He can get past any obstacle put before him. Tagline: "You are in front of me and no obstacle can stop me. Find a better place to be."
• Yannis Papadopoulos aka The Courier (Chris D.) Domains (Communication, Secrets, Rainbows), child of Harpocrates and Arke. Team sneaker and postman. If you see him, its already too late, your package has been delivered. Tagline: "The thirty minutes or less policy is for those that like to live dangerously."
• Chad (NPC), child of Cupid
• Auriol (NPC)

Prelude

The last session ended with the party having gone to Tartarus to fetch a piece of the sword and failing to acquire it.  However they did rescue an old friend of Mitzadus and the adoptive father to Adelphin - Koschei the Deathless.

Baba Yaga, Koscheis wife was notified and arr9ived quickly at the Karnival hotel.

Setup

This was a roleplay and noncombat session, so I break down some of the conversations Mitzadu was party too.

Press Conference

Mitzadu called a press conference, it being the next day after his house was burned down.  He informed the press that he had talked with the Police Chief and offered his support for her plans should she get the Mayors approval. This will lead the press to ask her questions, but they were doing that anyhow with all the recent violence. At least now they have outside confirmation she has a plan in place so it should help her out and put some pressure on the mayor.  The mayor can either roll with it or not. If he does not he needs to come up with another plan the public really likes, but if he rolls with the plan Mitzadu made he can look like a hero if it works and blame others if it fails.

As Mitzadu is not a politician his political risk is low but having both the police chief and the mayor reap the rewards for his idea and financial backing will help him long term.

Mitzadu is a deal maker after all...

As the press conference ends Mitzadu calls out both the Thule Society and the Spartans, showing a drawing of their tattoo.  Mitzadu hopes this will cause some problems for the Spartans as people will be on the lookout and associate the mark with a terrorist group.

The Spartans should be annoyed by this as they prefer secrecy and even having their name aired publicly is at least a minor inconvenience. Since Mitzadu was already on their death list and they burned down his house he feels he has little to lose in that regard and he did warn Ares and Hades that he had plans to strike back.  Hopefully there will be meetings and discussion about such tactics as killing civilians.

The Spartans may of course figure that was his only move and nothing more will come of it, but they are very wrong.

The F.B.I and local police may want to have a talk with Mitzadu about his source but his plan is to claim attorney client privilege in the matter. The local police are unlikely to press the matter due to political influence, the F.B.I might be more aggressive but they have their own problems and hopefully do not want to add a local millionaire lawyer with extensive business and political connections to their list of problems.

A Talk with Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga spent the night nursing Koschei back to health and summoned everyone who was part of the rescue party to her rooms in the morning. She was not happy.

She questioned everyone, again - some highlights...

• Liam pulled out his divining stone and we asked numerous questions.
• Poseidon was apparently not Poseidon.
• The other pieces to the sword are in Los Vegas. A bit risky but handy if they are to be used in the harrowing as once it starts no one can leave the area.
• Liam was gutted so his entrails could be used for a divination.  He was immediately put back together but had a very sad and hurt look on his face.
• Baba Yaga later brought him special cookies? as a treat.
• Baba Yaga declared war on the Olympians.
• Mitzadu wrote up a report in Russian on everything he knew and speculated and handed it to her to help save her some time.
• Mitzadu later used a supernatural Contact in the Russian mob to let them know to be on the lookout and very helpful if an old friend of his from Russia drops by. He doubts she would be looking for serious resources or help but perhaps a local guide or a few lookouts while she is about her business.  If she does come around he'll know who she is, but its up to her to reveal her name if she wants to. However, she is in a very bad mood and they do not want on her bad side.
• Auriol had her piece of the sword magically implanted in her body and cut it out to hand to Babay Yaga when Baba Yaga insisted on seeing it. The sword was then handed off to Adelphin who said she would secure it in the hotel.
• Auriol turns out to be a Delphic Oracle, at least in line to become one when the current one dies.
• Yannis handed back her business card, declaring she was persona non grata to him.