Play Report for Urban Shadows: High Society Parts 1 thru 4
Play Report for Urban Shadows: High Society Parts 1 thru 4
Our Cast
Ariana Ramos as Natalie the Wolf
Aaron Merhoff as Ron the Tainted
Andy Hauge as Anthony the Aware
Beth Mitchell as Yuko the Oracle
solange simondsen as Galina the Hunter
Once upon a time there was a small hole that linked our world and the world of beings known as the Fae. Some of these Fae found their way across and discovered they were in a magical land along a western ocean. Into this land they infused their temptations, and from across the land mortals trekked to seek fame and fortune in this place. Missionaries briefly glimpsed these Fae creatures and mistakenly thought them to be angels thus they named this place Los Angeles.
Natalie is the leader of an urban pack with Inglewood as her territory, her rival/ally Castor rules the pack to the north in South Central. Ron is a struggling middle aged actor who made a deal with the devil for fame and fortune and ended up cursing his daughter Bella to a life plagued with angry spirits haunting her for his sins. Anthony is a rising star in screenwriting who has had the doors of perception opened for him after glimpsing elements of the supernatural on the set of his series Werewolves in Paris. Yuko has made her fortune on informing the Hollywood elite about which paths they should take and she has made it this long by being pragmatic and picking her battles carefully. Galina was a young immigrant lured into the world of adult films and subsequently substance abuse, saved by a veteran hunter who trained her to be tougher than she ever imagined.
These characters’ lives seemed to revolve around the presence of an artifact acquired by the Power faction but coveted by the Wild faction. It was discovered that coterie of celeb vampires indulging in their assorted vices was being recruited by demons to aid in the acquisition of the item. Even Anthony was tagged as being so insignificant that he would be unnoticed taking the item. He was offered a multi-picture deal by a hallucinatory Fae studio executive that only appeared when Anthony partook in a narcotic produced by mages.Anthony refused the deal as a result of being jerked around by the supernatural a little too much (attacked by mafioso mages, sex with a werewolf, tossed through the wall of an apartment by another mage). The Fae subsequently burnt down Anthony’s apartment complex, all his scripts and back ups destroyed, in an effort to get their message across.
Galina was hired by Yuko to track and stop the Vamp Pack, the aforementioned hedonistic celebs, who were trying to stop Yuko from outing them and ruining their careers. Galina staked out their Hollywood Hills den and got help from a pursuing Renfield-types from a vampiric plastic surgeon and her thrall Ron the Tainted. Ron and Galina’s paths crossed again when they ended up at a beach party in Venice. Alexis, Galina’s mentor, claimed to be staking out a demon possession and ended up killing Ron’s daughter Bella. This manifested a nearby demon and Ron popped up to see who hurt his little girl. Galina ended up killing her mentor to gain enough corruption of her soul to slaughter the demon and ended up Ron’s patron. Bella was resurrected and she followed Ron and Galina out only to end up in the clutches of the rest of Galina’s hunting clan who suspected Galina had betrayed Alexis.
Natalie the Wolf had Castor call in a favor to have her house a van containing a strange artifact he had helped the Fae hijack from the Mages. Natalie agreed but only ended up having a mage call in a debt to have her lure Castor over and get killed. The Mage took the artifact back and Castor’s pack started a gang war with Natalie’s group. The Mage returned and offered his people’s help if Natalie would pledge her pack to work security at a special event that night. Natalie agreed.
Ron and Galina convinced their captors to work with them to stop the vampires before settling their grudge, but not before Bella was injured and Ron asked Natalie to help his daughter. Natalie pawned the girl off on two of her soldiers who were attacked by mages who took Bella to their mob boss, The Little Mage. Ron, Galina, Yuko, and the angry hunters took on the vampire pack only to find out one of the hunters was in league with the vamps. They barely survived and returned to Yuko’s shack only to find Anthony had been their and drugged out of his mind. With these four players together they compared notes and realized what was going on:
The Fae were working to open the rift between this world and their own so that they could swarm into Los Angeles and feed on all the wild emotions, the low lows and the high highs, whether natural or drug induced. The Mages had acquired an artifact that would allow them to seal the rift for a 1,000 years but were going to need a mortal conduit that had been touched by the supernatural…poor poor Bella. These fours arrived at different times to the grand gala held in a converted warehouse. Ron tried to bum rush the party only to be subdued by wizened mages who shackled him in cold iron and made him a point of mockery for the party. Natalie hung back trying to make sure her people were protected. Even Yuko, seeing Ron, knew it was in her best interest to pretend they had no connection. Anthony and Galina arrived with a forged invitation and Anthony spied the mage who has given him a savage beating a day earlier. He opened fire sending the proceedings into chaos.
In the confusion, Yuko quickly released Ron who followed after The Little Mage, Bella, and a Golem Guardian who rushed away to avoid any further trouble. Galina intercepted Ron and managed to create confusion by claiming the artifact had been tainted while in the Fae’s possession. Surprisingly, her lie turned out to be true when the Little Mage had his scholars examine it. Ron tried to go for Bella, but Galina held him back and Ron had to watch as his daughter was taken away in the custody of the Mages. Galina falsely gave Yuko the credit for discover the taint in the artifact and The Little Mage extended a place in the Inner Circle to the oracle who accepted so that she would be close to the most vital information in her community.
Natalie tried to save Anthony by pretending that she was going to take him out back to execute him but the Mages saw through this and took them both out to the loading dock to be killed. Before the wizards could kill them a figure moving at great speed slaughtered the three magic wielders. Natalie saw this was the believed dead Castor, who died as a result of her betrayal, in all out wolf form. Upon closer examination she saw he was a reanimated werewolf corpse who informed her, “Your Abuela has words for you!”
And that is where we left our characters. At the start of November, we’ll return to them some time later in another 4 part story that will find Yuko taking part in the major decisions of the Inner Circle of Power, Natalie having to face her ancient and grand wolf alpha grandmother, Galina dealing with instability in t