Now I’ve got a few minutes to rub together, here’s the summary of Tuesday’s session of The Watch. It seemed to be a GMing-heavy session, so my notes are sketchier than normal. Other players, please chime in with all the bits I’ve forgotten and got wrong!
PCs are Ruvac, Liasa, Teka, and Meaga.
We opened with the aftermath of the mission to infiltrate the Shadow-controlled town around Dothas Spire (the tower near the middle of the map, near the original front line). Recall that most of the Dothas clan died in the early stages of the war holding back the Shadow (clan questions). During the mission, Ruvac became separated and presumed lost, and Meaga had a deeply personal loss. We decided that loss was Parda, Meaga’s aunt and Otet’s mother (Otet was the make Shadow deserter from earlier). We decided that just about at the end of the mission, Ruvac and Parda were captured while protecting the rest of the group.
The misison personal scenes were: Ruvac getting a premonition of her loss and asking Meaga to take command, but Maega pointing out that Liasa outranked her; Ruvac pushing Teka into hiding when the Shadow attacked, and Teka feeling guilty because she didn’t Watch Their Backs sufficiently; Meaga opening up to Teka briefly about her grief of losing Parda; and Liasa and Teka working together to make a ghillie suit for the mission.
After the mission, Meaga succumbed to weariness by berating Liasa to immediately set out to rescue Ruvac. Liasa stalled while she said she wanted to make a plan. The PCs met Mossuc (Sharn clan), their contact with the Resistance; Mossuc gave the PCs clothes, complete with prominent clan symbols with the explanation that everyone needed to wear them in the town. Dothas were the high-ranking clan, then Thedon, with Sharn at the bottom of the heap. The PCs were taken to a Resistance safe house and met Teaso the Thedon-clan resistance leader. Liasa ordered Teaso to follow Liasa’s military orders and go to rescue Ruvac. Teaso immediately became very angry, told Liasa she had no authority over the Resistance, and asserted that Ruvac was dead (or effectivley so). This confrontation happened in a bedroom in the safe house; Pitte, a resistance enforcer, used her unsheathed sword to emphasise that the PCs should stay there.
Meanwhile, Ruvac woke up naked in a comfortable bed. She put on some provided clothes, looked out of the window of her cell, figured she was in Dothas Spire, and the perspective out of the window was all wrong. Ruvac had almost smashed down the door with her bare hands when Reme, an impossibly-beautiful Shadow sorceress, arrived and gently interviewed Ruvac. Ruvac revealed a lot more than she wanted (for the UK crowd, it was a real “Don’t tell him, Pike!” moment). Ruvac was then left to wander the gardens in the company of a familiar-looking servant with a baby. When the baby was revealed to have blades for hands, Ruvac realised that the servant is a young version of Parda and the child is Otet. Ruvac mused that the view was pretty but she’s prefer to see a sunset. Parda just asked why Ruvac didn’t make it happen. Ruvac ducked into an outbuilding but stepped back into her cell.
(At this point, Ruvac was one Jaded box away from taking the final Jaded move and being written out!)
Back in the safe house, the PCs had an argument amongst themselves over what to do. In the end, Liasa cried out that Thedon are the strongest clan and should therefore take control. This pissed off Maegaa and Teka. Teka read Meaga’s bones, realised that Teano was very twtichy over her status in the Resistance cell. Someone (Maega?) also realised that there was Shadow influence in the Resistance cell, caused by an infiltrator.
(It’s around here that my notes ran out…)
After some to-ing and fro-ing, the PCs and the Resistance agreed to do a compromise. They’d scout out the Dothas Spire but not enter it until the main Watch attack, when the PCs would attempt to find and rescue Ruvac. During the negotiations, Teaso argued that she’d lost enough of her cell to want to risk any more; Maega turned on her saying that just about all of Clan Dothas had been wiped out in the invasion.
Over to Ruvac. She tried to bluff Reme the sorceress that Ruvac had embraced the Shadow. Reme was having none of it, and challenged Ruvac to actually change the time to sunset. Ruvac managed to resist the Shadow so didn’t turn when she actually cast the sorcery. (In the process, Ruvac got enough Experience to take the “remove a Jaded move” advance and get some more breathing room.)
We then cut to the next day. Liasa and co were heading towards Dothas Spire, taking advantage of cover of crowds gathered for the 30 Minutes Hate, where a traitor to the Shadow was condemned and lynched by the crowd. In this case, the victim was Parda and the crowd was being whipped up by Ruvac. The PCs used hand signals to communicate with Ruvac. When Parda was thrown off the platform, Liasa caught her and rushed off. Ruvac then dove into the crowd and was whisked away by the rest of the PCs.
And that’s where we left it! Final session next week.
I forgot to link in Liasa’s list of all Ruvac’s failures as a commander. It’s a list she finds many opportunities to read out.
photos.google.com – New photo by Neil Smith