We've started a new game, now that Deadlands has come to an end. The same group of players is now wading into a modern-age game using White Wolf's New World of Darkness Changeling: The Lost rules. I've taken on the task of writing the session recaps, as our GM liked it so much when S.P. did them for Deadlands.
It is definitely weird, being in the Now, with cars, and cell phones, and other lines of communication beyond telegrams, letters, and shouting, as we've been stuck in the 1870s for the past two years.
Every Thursday night at 10:00, a support group for abduction
victims meets in the basement of a church in Manhattan.
These aren’t your run of the mill abductees (if there really is such a
thing) these people have stories that are strange. Off.
A young woman named Meagan – Rule #1: no last names – runs
the group. She’s a wild child, a lone
wolf, never content to stay in one place for very long, although she’s been
heading up this group for the past several years.
Also in the group: A
young woman named Morgan who favours the Gypsy styles that go along with her
chosen profession of fortune telling.
Wallace (Wally), a Korean kid who works the over-night shift at a
24-hour CVS pharmacy and has a scary aptitude for science. Gareth, a skinny freelance artist with a
history of drug use and the track marks to show for it. New to the group are Alex, a guy who works
odd jobs, primarily in the janitorial sector, and is looking for the daughter
he left behind when he was taken, and Drake, a dark and smarmy fellow who works
as a private accountant. There’s also a
strange fellow known only as Goom, who works at the church cleaning
things. He’s quiet and suspicious,
always cautioning the others to live off the grid and under the radar so that
They won’t find them.
Meetings progress about as normally as these things do. People share stories of daily struggles and
small triumphs. Alex had a panic attack
at work and had to spend the rest of his shift cleaning toilets. Gareth just had a mildly successful art show in
the Village. Meagan shares that a former member of the group, a fellow
now known as Michael “Mickey” O’Shannahan, recently committed suicide. He had been close to Meagan, sort of a
sponsor. Diagnosed with bipolar
disorder, he’d been medicated until recently, though it was debatable whether
that was truly effective.
The group all acknowledges that they know they were replaced
in their old lives by Others. Others who look like them, who sound like
them, who have taken over whatever it was they each were doing at the time they
were taken. Others whose existence means
that they can each never go back to what they used to have, can never be who or
what they were before. Others who, it
must be admitted, are all far more successful than those that were taken might
ever have been, abduction or no.
Are they mad? Of
course, some of them are. But not all of
them are filled with the venom that Drake seems to have.
Three weeks into our story, Meagan announces that she’s
ending her time in NYC and handing over the group to Morgan, the next most
senior member. Meagan will be shipping
off with a “School at Sea” to teach photography.
The next week, the first without Meagan, the group convenes
at the church as normal. When they go
into the meeting room, however, an unsettling sight greets them: Scattered maliciously about the room are
several copies of seven photographs, all of Meagan. One of them, on the seat she usually
occupied, has had the eyes cut out and black permanent marker scribbled across
her mouth. Turning the photograph over,
they find “TOUCHED” scrawled in permanent marker. None of the other pictures have been
vandalised.
The group discusses whether or not to call the police,
ultimately deciding against it, because what
would they say? There’s also a
healthy amount of paranoia among the group, which helps sway that vote. Gareth collects one of each photo, as well as
the defaced one, and tucks them into his ever present sketch book. Others take some of the photos as well.
It is decided not to hold group tonight, as they don’t know
what might be lurking around. Everyone
makes their way out of the building and up to the street.
That’s when the bus explodes.
The #7 bus goes up like a torch, spewing scraps of white hot
metal and debris into the air. The fire
is hot, so hot, and all the bystanders in the area (including, of course, our
wayward foundlings) scatter. They notice
that it is not all entirely bus materials, some of it is biological.
With emergency sirens starting to scream in the distance,
Wally finds himself grabbed and pulled into an alley – he takes a wild swing
that misses before he realises that it is Goom.
Goom mutters something about keeping low and not letting anyone find
them before he ultimately disappears into the shadows, presumably going back to
wherever it is that Goom lives.
The group all return to their respective abodes, keeping
close watch on the news. Over the next
several hours, nothing of note is said.
The word “terrorism” is never directly stated, although the officials
suspect it is an intentional bombing, and they are closing the harbour,
bridges, and airports, and are looking for multiple suspects.
