Tuesday 13 April 2010

Family Matters: Campaign Summary

Normally I would use a post like this to summarise the previous session, but saying as we've been running sessions for a while now I'll summarise all previous sessions to date. I'll try to be as brief as possible.

Opening:
The game opened with the murder, which Frank Callahan, a detective (played by Norm) was sent to investigate, a woman's body (Cecile Stallard) was lying in her living room, bludgeoned to death with a hot iron. The investigation quickly gets underway, and the police are happy pointing the finger at her blood stained husband (Shane).

Frank quickly discovers some things that don't add up. His alibi, a mistress, doesn't seem to exist at first, but further investigation does point at her trying to cover her tracks. Their 3 year old son (Scott Stallard, and Autistic child prodigy of sorts) seems to remember 2 other women at the scene of the crime, with some other witnesses confirming it. Not only that, but he was taken away for a few days by one of them. The timings are off too. The police were called in by a woman because of a disturbance, but they were called over an hour after the victim was killed.

Fast forward a few weeks, and the DA is really pushing for this case to go through as quickly as possible (against the advice of Frank who wants more time to investigate). The remaining players are on the Jury. Carly Moreno (A waitress at a local coffee shop), Sean Finnigy (a pawn shop owner), and much to the delight of the press, playboy millionaire Patrick Bateman.

Slowly the jury come to the conclusion from several prods that something is not right too, more so when there is evidence to some of the players of Jury tampering, and moreso still when Carly catches one of the women supposedly involved outside the jury room. The woman (Teris) makes a run for it, escaping past several unconscious guards.

As the plotline progresses, Shane is found not guilty and about to be set free when he kills his cellmate and hangs himself after trying to drink his blood, and things start to go wrong.

The players share a dream sequence where they are driving fast down unlit roads, with no lights. Driven by one of Frank's informants Alexandra Serris. They are bound and gagged and clearly on the run from something. They see shapes in the forest, they see cars in the back window.

Eventually the car loses control and slams into water, the players get out and try to swim to the shore, noticing eventually that the lake is blood rather than water, and that the bodies of their fellow jury members amongst others are floating in it.

When they awake, they get wind of some things that have been happening: People involved in the case have started dying, and fast. In 24 hours, the police investigating the matter, the judge, the jury, and several other peripheral members of the public are executed, leaving only a few survivors (our players and 2 other jury members). Killed by seemingly uninvolved members of the public, all of whom claim to have no memory of the night before or any events leading up to the killings.

The group is quickly put into protective custody where they have several confrontations before making it to a safehouse, including another chase of Teris who again evades them despite being shot. This is where they make there first real break into the World of Darkness.

Whilst at the safehouse the party is accosted by the girl driving the car in the dream sequence (Alexandra) who reveals she is a member of the Camarilla, a secretive Vampire society. She offers the players the choice effectively of joining them (something she has asked special permission to do, due to knowing Frank) or dying, and so the players acquiesce (all except Carly, who the players finally discover was a Vampire all along anyway). Carly is put in charge of taking care of the group.

Two weeks pass whilst the players are in an uncontrolled blood-starved frenzy. Most of the players remember little to nothing of the two weeks after they were turned, other than their first feed, and fleeting glimpses of memories of stalking prey from the rooftops. (The players didn't play this, it was all narrated).

With the exception of Sean, who managed to break away from Carly's watchful eye whilst she tended to the other two, butchering a family of 5 broken down by the side of the road. His memories are often horrific and vivid, and something he is trying to forget.

After regaining some semblance of control, they find themselves alone in a warehouse, their watcher (Carly) is nowhere to be seen. They go through papers and realize two weeks have passed since they were turned, and they don't really know what they should be doing.

They are informed by David Solomon (Alexandra's #2) that they will be helping the Camarilla with various tasks, not least of which is finding out where Teris is. They eventually track her down to the hospital Scott Stallard (the 3 year old) is currently being kept at, who she has apparently been paying visits to. The party use the boy to make contact.

They are informed via her go-between that Tala has been raising a ghoul army, something previously thought impossible in vampire society due to various restrictions. They also find that the murdered wife was one of her ghouls, whilst the husband was a ghoul belonging to Teris.

That night a thick fog sets which covers the city. Hundreds of people go missing, and they soon find out, so do several important vampires. Their focus is shifted from Teris to investigating both this, and a werewolf compound that was massacred during the fog.

They investigate to find that:
There is clearly another group within the Camarilla communicating with each other, and defending themselves against something (possibly against Tala).
There is clearly some people inside the Camarilla who helped this occur.
The Tremere Primarch is involved somehow with the first group. The party have captured a Gangrel involved in the second group.

This is where we left off last. There should be alot more I hope in player notes and whatnot, but like I said, I was trying to keep it brief.

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