Let's Play VtM: Wild Nights - Chapter 10

I did umm and ahh over it, but it wouldn't have been fair expecting people to come back and vote all over again in a different way, and ignoring their votes if they hadn't done so. Now if the 'three vote' rule had been instituted from the start (for next time, maybe), then fair enough...

 

THIS IS A FUCKING TRAVESTY. WHERE'S JIMMY CARTER WHEN YOU NEED HIM?!???

...

actually, Tremere sounds like it'll be entertaining. Just not as much as Bro-jah. Carry on, Grotsnik!

Also, in case I don't visit this thread again for a while, my next five votes are as follows:

A

G

R

D13

CTHULHU FHTAGN!!

 

The last option should be: "I knew it would end like this. You should've listened to me."

 

Let's see how long we can keep this guy alive !

Guy or gal, by the way ? Maybe we need a new poll !

 

A bit OT now, but that's how I always imagined Sheriff Erika Schiller looks like:



I think the picture is originally of a Vampire from another Clan, but I find it very, very fitting.

 

Yeah it's kinda how I imagined her too, just with different clothes, a bit more muscle, a bun and the scars.

 

^ lol dude you are changing everything in the picture, whats left? skull shape? is that the defining piece of characterization?

ITS SUNDAY SUNDAY FUN FUN FUN!

 

Did everyone live happily ever after?

 

Still no update?

 

+1

Come on grotsnik, you damn drug-pimp.

 

I've only played Bloodlines and read some lore but what's with the Brujah fascination?

 

The Brujah clan was probably the most boring clan to play Bloodlines with. All their disciplines were pretty much straight-up combat buffs and debuffs and they aren't particularly great with social skills. They also get the least amount of unique dialogue of all the Clans, IIRC. Playing Malk and Nosferatu gives you a ton of interesting extras, but even the "normal" clans, particularly Ventrue Domination, Tremere Thaumaturgy, or Torrie female for maximum sexiness make things a lot more interesting.

Lore wise, the Brujah are MUCH cooler. The appeal to me lies in the fact that they are a fallen Clan. They were once passionate idealists dedicated to making the world a better place, but they've become divided, rabble-rousing fools without any sense of direction or idea as to what they want to do. They weren't always punks and rebels; they used to be scholars, and one of the High Clans, to boot. Indeed, many Brujah were considered among the same in social standing as the Ventrue, Lasombra and Tzimisce clans. Playing as a Brujah would have been a great way to provide direction to the scattered Anarchs, who we don't know much about.

I also love the character description and I think that playing a character with the fiery temper and impulsive nature of the Brujah, plus their unattainable ambitions, would be a really fun combination.

An endlessly bickering clan of raging rebels, rejecting mainstream vampire society and seeking to achieve an unattainable goal of good RPG's finally a utopia; truly, is there anything more Codexian?

Ah well, perhaps another time. This will also be interesting.

EDIT: Oh, and the obligatory

 

For me, the appeal was playing a character pretty much the opposite of Anthony, involved with a different faction, but not working directly against our former agenda. I guess two out of three with the Tremere Antitribu is good too. Fucking with Eames would've been half our agenda now, anyway.

 

I liked the Brujah in VTMB, it's perfect for an Anarch run.

Only clan I found really shitty in that game was Gangrel because of how protean and animalism worked in VTMB...and that red vision, sigh. I didn't like the toreador either, male looks like a bitch and female is ugly as fuck. Also wtf is with the nosferatu S&M outfits?

anyway,

 

indeed

 

Yeah, I agree. grotsnik needs to get a move on or there's going to be trouble.

 

They didn't include special lines for the use of Presence?

Eh, I found both quite tolerable in my Tzimisce run. The mod that enabled a Tzimisce character just substituted Vicissitude with Protean. The red vision *was* a pain in the arse, that's true, but animalism was kind of cool with having birds, bats and whatnot attacking your enemies.

As for the update...

 

Well, here goes nothing. Also, I made you a woman.



Chapter 1: A Kindred Enslaved



You can’t wait any longer.

Inside the Vessel, the curving inner walls of the apprentices’ rooms are simply iron frames surrounding resistant glass, allowing any passer-by in the central corridor to peer in and immediately see what you’re up to.

Which means you have to listen.

Listen for the cheery footfalls of Argyll, the nervous tread of Father Frederick, the vicar and ghoul who keeps watch in the old pale church above the chantry itself, even the surprisingly sly, barely audible step of the Regent herself…

You’ll have to be quick. Before they come. Because you’re never alone here, not for long.

In the outer wall of your low-ceilinged, box-like room, hidden behind the leg of your bed, a brick comes loose; you pull it back, making sure none of the ancient crumbs of cement fall onto the carpet, and retrieve the little folded heap of papers. They’re well-thumbed, dirty with use, and coated in the dust and black earth of their hiding-place.

Flicking your skirt up, you shuffle the bed back into its original place and sit back at your chair, placing the papers down on top of the material you’ve been dutifully copying out for the Regent, a series of essays on the Vienna Chantry’s arcane defences against the planned siege of Suleiman the Magnificent.

Your finger tracing the page, you begin to read, mouthing the old familiar words under your breath, a trembling thrill running through you as you come to certain of the passages.

Because these are your words, and some day, you tell yourself, Kindred across the world are going to read them. Embrace them, as it were.

Damned Lies And Pyramid Selling – Upon The ‘Freedoms’ Of The Camarilla, By A Kindred Enslaved

London is a labyrinth, half of stone and half of flesh. It cannot be conceived as an entirety but only as a wilderness of alleys and passages, courts and thoroughfares, halls and lairs, in which even those who profess to love it may lose their way or become imprisoned; it is curious, too, that this labyrinth is in a continual state of change and rebirth.

‘Curiouser and curiouser’ still, that both Kine and Kindred should have conceived of the idea of ‘sanctuaries’ in this maze of a city, the former in order to escape officers of the law, and the latter to escape one’s many enemies. One presses at the right panel, finds the right switch, and a wall becomes a door, a floor a secret tunnel – but first, of course, you must know which panel to press. It seems to me an appropriate metaphor for the state of the Camarilla; the ordinary Kindred fumbles through this dark prison, forced to wander in circles, going nowhere – while the elder, the initiate into the inner circle, may walk in a straight line, remaking London all around them as they go.

We may, of course, recall that there is a beast at the heart of the labyrinth; it is not a new thing, to consider what the masters of the maze are keeping hidden from us in-

You lower the page.

Someone is coming. It’s Argyll - you can hear him whistling as he walks. Not enough time to put the thesis away; quickly, you shift the Vienna papers to the top, leaning back mock-casually in your chair. At the last second, you snatch up your pen from the desk and begin to twiddle it, as if you’ve been making notes.

And, a moment later, Argyll slips into view, and, gazing in at you, knocks mock-respectfully at the door. He’s grinning, apparently untroubled by the gloomy confinements of the Chantry. You’ve always envied that about him; he always manages to act as if he’s down here because he wants to be, not because he has to.

“Come in,” you call. Damn fool. Why does he have to come in? Why can’t he just piss off back to his own quarters and get on with his work? Why does he always have to try and make friends?

Maybe, you think, with a sudden fright, as he pushes the door open, the Regent’s got him watching you. Maybe this is all an act.

“Busy?” he asks, grinning at you. “I’ve been going through old property leaseholds for Eames in the Docklands. Boring shit.”

You look, as casually as you possibly can, at your papers – then toss them down on the desk, lifting your glasses off the bridge of your nose and pinching it.

“No,” you say, “no, not busy. Why do you ask?”

He gives you a slightly startled look.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. “You look tense.”

Fucking hell. What’s he noticed? What's showing in your face?

“Nothing,” you say, a little too urgently. “Nothing’s wrong, Argyll.”

“It’s okay,” Argyll replies, sympathetically. He closes the door behind him, and gives you a conspiratorial smile. “What’s the matter – this old Austrian crap she’s got you sifting through?”

He leans forward, and squints over your shoulder at the papers clenched between your hands. You have to stop yourself from yanking them forcefully back away from him.

His eyes run from line to line. And he snorts.

“Odds are this’ll turn out to be of no use to anyone whatsoever,” he says. “Same goes for my Docklands thing. I mean, couldn’t she just get a fucking kine contractor to look at it? I could be in the lab right now, doing something useful.”

“She’ll have her reasons,” you tell him, diplomatically.

“Yeah, sure,” Argyll says, with a little sneer. “Of course.”

He flops over onto your bed and lies there, hands behind his head, gazing up at the ceiling.

“The way I see it,” he continues, as if to himself, “if I was Regent, I’d make the apprentices research all sorts of useless bollocks. Just to keep them busy, make damn sure they know who’s in charge. Give them less time to scheme.”

You ask him, trying to tease him, trying to make him forget that he thought you were looking tense,

“Sounds like you're gunning for Eames' place.”

He wrinkles his nose at you.

“Not me,” he says. “I keep my head down, I get on with my work, and I don’t have to get involved in politics. Don’t want to end up like Fowlesworth, after all."

Fowlesworth, who lives furthest down the corridor, still looks young; but you can see the long years, the weariness, in his eyes. His fellow apprentices have risen, slowly but certainly, and gone on to better things – like Samantha Eames. Argyll’s always claimed she sets Fowlesworth the dullest and most menial tasks, out of spite. He trudges gloomily through the tunnels of the Vessel every night, searching for lost books or checking the wards, waiting for someone higher up to die, and the phone call that’ll elevate him to better things. The call, of course, will never come.

“You know,” Argyll continues, thoughtfully, “I think you’d be -”

From somewhere above, a bell begins to ring, tinny and harsh. You’ve been summoned.

“Guess her meeting’s finished,” says Argyll, raising his eyes to the ceiling. He pushes himself back up onto his feet. “Right - I’d better get back to it in case she starts prowling round down here.”

“Shit,” you mutter. You begin to snatch at your papers. “She’ll want the Viennese treatise done. Shit, shit, shit…”

Argyll gives you a pitying look.

“Don’t let her grind you down,” he tells you, laying a hand on your shoulder. “That’s what my old mum used to tell me. ‘This old life is heaven, but it can be hell for them that make it so.’ Just get on with the work they give you and cut yourself a little slack whenever you can. You’ve got to be smart enough not to care so much."


*


Eames’ quarters are above the apprentices’ rooms, close to the surface itself; modest, whitewashed and elegant, they’ve been furnished with large ferns and some slightly tacky modern art.

You turn up out of the spiral staircase, shoving Damned Lies and Pyramid Selling deep into your jacket pocket, and almost walk into another Kindred.

He gives you a sharp, slightly cold smile, and bows; he’s elegantly dressed, you note, blonde-haired, a walking-stick clutched in his hand.

Then he turns, and continues on down the corridor. Behind him, the tall, silver-haired man you recognise as Rodyon Turcov gives you a careless nod before following his companion.

As they pass out through the double doors at the far end of the corridor, you think you hear one of them saying,

“…Giovanni won’t fall for it.”

Then they’re gone.

You hesitate, at the door to Eames’ office. What was it Bishop Dubrik told you?

“Don’t fight your own blood. You Tremere are all about the head, so you think you can beat it with logic and reasoning and so on. Won’t work. So don’t try to hurt Eames – don’t think of yourself as hurting Eames. Get close to her; give in to the obsession of the blood. Notice every little detail about her, try to spend as much time with her as you can, hang on her every word. And she’ll understand that it’s the blood bond working its magic over you. She’ll think she’s in control.”

He wasn’t what you expected; a stout, bald-headed Ventrue antitribu who loitered in the shadows of Greenwich Park and spoke in a hoarse, rotten whisper.

“If you’re in danger of getting caught, if you think they’ve found you out, you’re on your own until you can get to the river. Make it to the south side of Lambeth Bridge and the London Sabbat has people there that can protect you. They’ll take you in until we can extract you back to safety in Liverpool; you’ll be given a house of your own, funds, and the freedom to work as you wish. The password is ‘meubjilat’. Can you remember that?”

That was before the war; two weeks of solid reports, relayed to you by Argyll in your quarters, that the Sabbat were being beaten back across London; that they might even be driven from the city entirely.

You were horrified, of course; what if someone in the London Sabbat knew that you were working for the Bishop? What if they were captured?

But at the same time, you couldn’t help thinking; maybe this is for the best. If they’re all wiped out, then I won’t have anywhere to run to. I won’t be able to hope for an escape from this fucking place.

You knock once. The security door clicks open.

“Enter,” Eames calls.


*


Eames leans back in her black leather chair.

“Joan,” she says, briskly. “You have the Viennese papers?”

You pass across your sheaf of papers. She takes it, tosses it down on the desk, and returns to her writing.

“You can go,” she adds, after a couple of seconds.

You turn, and leave her without a word, your gaze lingering on the heavy fireplace in the corner of the room.

Argyll always said that the fireplace was the entrance to Eames’ private sanctuary; a special sort of spell used the flames in the hearth, he added, almost certainly bullshitting, to open up the doorway.

The security door clicks shut again behind you. Eames alone, you’re certain, holds the key.


*


Tomorrow night you’ll have to contact the Bishop again, and hopefully receive new instructions. Which means, for now, and as Eames has seemingly forgotten to set you another task, you’re free to do what you wish.

You stroll back down the staircase, making for the John Dee Library.

If there’s one thing you could take with you, when you finally escape this place for good, it’d be the Library; shelves upon shelves of books, stacked across six-foot-high mechanised shelves that fill the vaulted underground hall.

Usually Blackheath, the horrid, cherub-faced gargoyle and guardian of the Chantry, keeps watch over the books; tonight, however, it’s nowhere to be seen.

Your fingers play at the controls; slowly, with a low, monstrous rumble, the shelves begin to shift across.

It seems you may have the chance to learn something genuinely useful tonight.

How do you want to spend the rest of the night?

A) Learn a ward.
B) Research further into the Path of Blood.
C) Try to find the papers on the Docklands Argyll mentioned.
D) Investigate the Lure of Flames.
E) Investigate Movement of the Mind.
F) Investigate Weather Control.
G) Try and see if there are any books on Sabbat thaumaturgy in the library.
H) Investigate the construction and layout of the Chantry itself.

 

Really are walking on the edge of a knife, aren't we. Hopefully we won't bugger up too quickly. I must say, though, that that gentleman with a cane seemed really distinguished. I'm sure he'll go far.

Anyway... there's little sense in pursuing a secondary path until some headway is made in the primary (which is likely the Path of Blood). Movement of the Mind can be a wonderful defensive/offensive power when it's high enough. Could we get an idea of where we stand Discipline-wise?

H also seems like a decent idea. Who knows what might be hidden in plain sight. I think I'm going to think on this a little. See others' arguments. The usual.

(Also, a skirt or jeans? Or did she change?)

 

Fuck! Good spot.

 

Denim skirt? (Did she hide the notes in her flesh pocket?)

 

Good stuff as usual grotsnik. I know jack shit about Tremere magic, so I'll sit back and watch some arguments for one or the other before I'll vote. H would be very useful too I guess, G too dangerous if we get caught.

 

I vote E!

Awesome, grotley!

 

I'd voted for Lure of Flames since setting things on fire is always great.
http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Thaumaturgy_(VTM)

But this http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Thaumaturgy
sound much better.

G) Try and see if there are any books on Sabbat thaumaturgy in the library.

 

I take it the Path of Blood is the only thaumaturgical path we know so far ?

Lure of Flames and Movement of the Mind could be pretty useful, but it'd certainly require some time to master them properly. G sounds like a really good way to attract unwanted attention.

I'm voting for H.