This week we held our second live session using Savage Worlds Adventure Edition (SWADE) ruleset in a homebrew Dresden Files setting. We play our sessions once a quarter with intervening narrative play happening via play-by-post.
Characters
We have four characters:
- Gary with a G, a slovenly wizard/detective with a passionate dislike of all things Fae.
- Gregory, an amatuer monster hunter who became infected by a Red Court Vampire but hasn’t yet fully turned.
- Nyx, an old Winter Court Sidhe who deals in favours and subterfuge.
- Sammy, a half-fae and thief for hire who can transform into small animals.
Setting Info
You can view our setting info and full character sheets here.
Set-Up
The group has come together after getting individually embroiled in a problem of potentially epic proportions - two Fae, one summer one winter, have been killed and their hearts removed!
The Queens of both courts are irate and want the culprits found and the hearts recovered. Fae hearts are extremely powerful magical components and the dark magic they unleash could have far reaching consequences. The Summer Knight has given Gary 48 hours to figure it out, or he takes the blame. On the winter side, Lady Maeve has tasked Nyx with finding the culprit.
Meanwhile, Sammy and Gregory have stumbled upon the conspiracy through other avenues.
Read the lead up adventures here.
To help keep things straight I gave the players a notebook summarizing clues so far.
Opening Scene
The session opens with the characters gathered at Neutral Grounds, the accorded neutral territory in the city of Baltimore. Each of them took a turn to give an in character account of what they have seen so far. This was really well done by each of them and generated a lot of cross talk, speculation, and interaction. In the end they decide to go back to the Italian bakery where Sammy last saw the Red Court vampires and start following leads from there.
Investigation
Each character spread out to follow-up on various leads, bringing the info back to Gregory - their lead investigator - to try and piece together what is going on.
Sammy beat the streets and found a low level criminal contact. The contact was super nervous, but did say there was a high level of Russian mafia activity lately. Before he could get too much more in the way of details he got shot at by some mob enforcers and had to beat a hasty retreat.
Nyx did some magical research going to occult shops and local magic users to try and find out what kind of ritual could be done with Fae hearts. He discovered Fae hearts were powerful objects of glamor and binding meaning they could be used in massive illusions or mind control type rituals.
Gary staked out the Italian bakery watching it and asking questions of the staff and proprietors while eating an ungodly amount of their world famous cannoli. He managed to determine that the bakery is neutral grounds for the criminal underworld. It's used for meet-ups, exchanges, and other interactions between various factions of the underworld. Unfortunately, someone got wise to him and slipped something into his food, giving him a level of fatigue.
Gregory, armed with information from the others looks into the kidnapping of the woman name Aspen. Interestingly, there is no mention of it in the mainstream press. Only the local Arcane Reporter seems to be asking what has happened to the girl. This suggests someone is making an orchestrated attempt to cover their tracks, even with the media and police.
Moving on from the bakery, Gary wanted to check-in with Dr. Ralston at John Hopkins who is clued into the supernatural. He pulled his Desert Eagle and asked someone to shoot him so he could have an excuse to see the Doc in the emergency room. The others convinced him that just asking for her at the front desk would be easier. Turns out she worked with dead bodies in the morgue, so the Desert Eagle approach may not have been effective. The doctor gave Gary the lowdown on how to sustain a Fae heart in the human world to keep it from turning to ectoplasma. Keep it pumping. In this case using magic instead of blood. She also searched the hospital records and found two heart transplant boxes were missing from inventory. On his way out Gary grabbed a random pill, popping it with the hopes it would relieve his stomach pain from the cannoli incident.
Following-up on the Russian mafia angle Sammy tried to find someone he knew with ties to them. He succeeded in tracking someone down and discovered that a lot of the activity centered around the old dockside and someone big-time was pulling the strings. Of course, Sammy didn't have time to find out much more as the gangsters who were tailing him gave chase and he had to run away (again), ending up fatigued after his daring parkour get away.
Having a general sense of what the ritual was about Nyx popped into the Never Never to talk to an old Fae to try and zero in on the specific nature of this ritual, where it involved not one but two hearts. The old Fae suggested that by having hearts from the two courts the ritual was definitely about power and control rather than an illusion. Moving in and out of the Never Never to meet his contact took its toll and Nyx ended up Fatigued but informed.
Gregory used his encyclopedic knowledge of lore and inquired if the red cross markings on the box might has referred to the crusading knights of the Hospital and the mystic Templars. Everyone stared at him awkwardly for a few minutes to figure out how exactly that helped.
With the knowledge of a magical box used to sustain the heart Gary returned to the bakery and used magic to track the Red Cross box to the docks.
At the docks, Nyx beat up a homeless person to find out about any strange activity. The street person claimed he is only homeless because some hipsters and gangsters took over his home, an old abandoned dockside warehouse where he was squatting. Nyx promised the old guy he would get his house back and dropped him a dollar bill.
Knowing the building Sammy flew over the warehouse in the form of an owl, spotting a guard on the roof and some faint lights leaking out from an intentionally blacked out window. This looked like the place.
With the group's Intel confirming his research Gregory gave the okay to move in and the group prepared to breach the warehouse.
Mechanics
Warehouse ShowdownWith good evidence that the warehouse is where the Russian mafia, and maybe Red Court vampires, were holding Aspen - the magical component expert who went missing the same time as the hearts - the team decided to move in.
Sammy used his shapeshifting power to turn into a rat and confirm six suspected Red Court vampires. He located the girl and a half dozen zoned out Russian gangsters in a storage room with no additional exits. Outside, Gregory briefed the group on how to fight Red Court types. A briefing Sammy missed while on recon, which may factor in later.
Woefully unequipped to fight vampires Nyx used his connections in the faerie world to summon a pixie who agreed to go and find holy symbols for the whole group. Each person, except Gregory who is a half vampire himself, put on their symbols (Gregory did get a charm that granted +2 armor). The group decided to use the disguise power to approach the warehouse while Sammy snuck back into the storage room to free the girl. What they couldn't agree on was what to disguise themselves as. It came down to Russian gangsters or prostitutes. They took the compromise position and disguised themselves as Russian prostitutes!
With the ladies of the night knocking on the door the greedy Red Court immediately let the girls in, and Sammy made his way to the room. Without wasting any time Gregory, Nyx, and Gary started a fight with six red court vampires.
The initial round was powering up, Gary used smite on everyone's weapon so they could hurt the vampires and Nyx used boost trait on everyone's fighting to help hit the agile bloodsuckers. Meanwhile the vampires tried to grab the three prostitutes but failed their Spirit tests and were held at bay by the holy symbols. The next couple of rounds were a stand off as the holy symbols prevented the vampires from attacking in melee and their two pistol shooters were largely ineffective. Gregory, who was unprotected, took a wound from his vampire. None of the three heroes could hit or hurt the vamps.
In the room, Sammy got the girl free but had to break the grip of the gangsters who were zoned out but asking to be freed as well. Sensing the commotion in the room the lead vampire moved to block the only exit. Sammy promptly double tapped him in the chest - to no effect. Trapped in the room and with the team in a standoff it looked like Sammy might have no way out.
Seeing trouble the group tried to fight their way toward Sammy but to no effect. Gary critical failed! Remember that little pill he took for his stomach ache earlier? Well it worked. His fatigue went away but the pill made him crap his pants!
Undeterred Gary intimidated the vampire leader from across the room, making him vulnerable as he turned to see who dared speak to him that way. Seeing an opening Nyx hit the leader with a massive ice bolt, right in his stomach (the weak point of Red Court vampires). The ice froze the blood in its belly and the vampire howled in pain (3 wounds, failed two soak attempts). The vampire shed his skin suit and tried to retreat. As he did Sammy zipped by and out a window with the girl. Seeing the leader run, Gregory made a one in a million knife throw and killed him outright. With their leader down the other vamps fled leaving the group in an empty warehouse with a girl, a room full or Russian gangster cattle, and no heart boxes to be found!
More mystery and adventure awaits.
Mechanics