Mike is enjoying a family day and Ernest is preparing for his impending escape to Mexico, so they give us the miss. Everyone else shows up. Chris admits that he's already seen 28 Days Later, and recommends it tremendously. Tim, Chuck and Paul complain bitterly that he didn't invite them. He responds rather indignantly that he did, he just did it telepathically. He also points out that he very generously provided lunch today, a fact for which Bruce is tremendously grateful.
Last session, Chris' hypersniper character Christian Diable was shot through the head by a common Heer conscript. In compensation, he turns Charles Moulin into a replacement Talent with 10 Will points in powers. Moulin gains 3 regular and 1 wiggle dice in Rifle.
The scene opens on a snowy December 1942. The German Occupation forces are consolidating their control over Occupied France. Meanwhile, most of the significant Resistance groups are unifying under Gaullist control. The characters are staying close to home and alternately celebrating and bemoaning this last development when some important news reaches them: an English Lysander scout plane has crashed nearby.
Several characters investigate further. They learn that the Resistance group Franc-Tireur was expecting a drop from the English. They are a socialist group populated primarily by trade unionists. They are emphatically NOT COMMUNISTS, a point that gains them little favor with Le Troll. On the plus side, they are very, very militant.
The Smuggler cell is both closest to the site of the crash and best-equipped to deal with the problem. They consist of Jacques "Le Troll" Griveau (Bruce), Emile Bonhomme (Bruce), Jacques Taureau (Chuck), Charles Moulin (Chris), Hobert "Le Engine" Grunner (Chris), and Alain "Le Apparition" Brissard (Paul). Thanks in large part to his newly-developed Talent, Charles Moulin is carrying a Karabiner 98 rifle. The other characters are more modestly armed: Le Engine is just carrying rocks, Jacques Taureau is just carrying grenades, and Alain Brissard barely considers grenades to be weapons worth mentioning.
The Germans have already brought up a team to investigate the crash by the time the characters get to the site. The Heer forces on the scene include a Panzer II, a Volkswagen Kubel truck, and eight soldaten. Four of the soldiers are clustered around the plane, apparently pulling supplies from the wreckage. It is immediately evident that the pilot survived and that the German troops have taken him prisoner. The plane clearly hit an embankment and skidded some distance along the ground. It is still recognizable as an aircraft, but will obviously never fly again.
The characters sneak in through a gap in the hedgerow. Le Apparition moves in first with grenades, hoping to insubstantially drop the things into the Panzer II. This doesn't work out so well: he mistimes the release on the first two grenades, and they end up dropping right through the bottom of the hull. Le Engine has no patience for subtle plans like that. He simply throws a grenade right through one soldier's head, killing him instantly. Charles Moulin joins in by shooting the officer in charge through the arm, crippling him. Jacques Taureau demonstrates that you don't have to be a Talent to do senselessly foolhardy things by stepping out and slugging a soldier in the head. For his trouble, the Panzer machine gunner hits him square in the chest with an MG34 bullet. Taureau goes down fast, wondering why he bothered spending points on Endurance. Le Troll and Le Messager sneak around behind the hedgerows, hoping to flank the Heer troops and reach the Lysander.
While Le Troll and Le Messager sneak around the edge of the action, things develop very quickly. Charles Moulin shoots the Heer officer in the head, felling him instantly. Hobert Grunner notices that the Panzer machine-gunner has started firing and tosses a grenade into the fellow's lap. Then Le Apparition's first misdropped grenade goes off, injuring the already-wounded Taureau and one of the soldaten.
By now the Panzer driver has realized that a ghost is tossing grenades at him, through his armor. He throws the tank into reverse, hoping to avoid the grenades. Le Apparition runs after him fast enough to drop a third grenade inside the tank's armor.
Things have already gotten far out of control when one of the soldaten manages a very good 3x5 success, shooting the captured pilot in the chest, knocking him down. Charles Moulin takes a swift shot at the man, hitting him in the leg and knocking him down just a moment too late. Le Engine finishes the problem by throwing a rock through the crippled trooper's head. Le Troll (who had been planning on throwing a rock at the same soldier) grumbles something about someone stealing his kills. Then Le Apparition's second mistimed grenade goes off, inflicting even more shock injury (and not a little insult) upon Jacques Taureau.
Things go even worse when the Panzer commander opens fire with the Panzer gun. Le Apparition takes a hit in the chest from a 20mm shell. Even worse, he's been insubstantial long enough that he's now suffocating. He loses his cool, breaking and losing half of his remaining temporary Will. He runs. He has a grenade in his hand, which doesn't improve anybody's sense of well-being. Charles Moulin suggests, "You probably haven't pulled the string yet..." Even in the depths of panic, Le Apparition is able to shoot back, "What, it's a Speak-n-Spell grenade? The cow says BOOM!"
Things get a lot better for the characters when the grenade Le Apparition managed to get inside the tank goes off. After some confusion on how grenade attacks actually inflict area damage, it is finally determined that the entire tank crew is incapacitated with at least one arm crippled. Plus, the driver took enough damage to the other arm to cripple it as well. The tank is now incapacitated.
The truck driver decides that this would be a good time to run for it. He drives for the gap in the hedgerow, running over one of his fallen comrades on the way. Le Engine hits him with a rock and Charles Moulin shoots him in the head. The truck crashes into a hedgerow about ten meters down the road.
The characters manage to retrieve a fairly respectable quantity of equipment from the dead German troops: four Gewehr rifles, one MP40, plenty of ammunition, one salvageable uniform, a dead pilot ("He's not sending any letters back to his sweetheart"). The characters turn to inspecting the crashed Lysander. It contains materiel to arm the Resistance in Northern France:
It also includes a copy of the pilot's orders. His name was Corporal Miller, and he was to contact Franc-Tireur and organize the Resistance groups in Northern France under Franc-Tireur command.
Le Messager uses a grenade to damage the return wheels on one side of the Panzer II, hopefully damaging the tank beyond repair. Nobody wants to look inside the tank. Nobody at all. On the way out of the combat zone, both Le Engine and Le Troll fail Mental Stability rolls and become violently ill.
Upon their return to their cache, Le Engine pulls two more grenades from the cache, leaving two grenades there and nine in circulation. Other characters take the wounded Jacques Taureau to the doctor for surgery. The doctor sews him up and says that he will need three weeks of rest to recover.
Business at the Chateau de Maurice has been surprisingly good. The British recently bombed the Cherbourg Post Office. The Germans put the replacement Post Office in a warehouse near the restaurant, and the employees often eat at the Chateau. And while the Gestapo have the Post Office proper locked down awfully tight, they aren't as careful about controlling access to postal employees during their lunch breaks.
The members of the Restaurant cell, including Jeanne Verney (Paul), Sam "Slick" Smith (Chuck), Andre LaRoux (Chuck), Maurice Vilde (Chris), Guy Marchant (Paul), and Loren "Liar" Longwillow (Bruce), decide to take advantage of the situation. They make a point of chatting with postal employees. They make some friends among the deliverymen, the customs inspectors who check the mail, and the back-office personnel who sort the mail. They don't have access to the administrators or the higher-level employees. They commence spying on the Germans through the information sent to them through the public mail.
One fine morning a young boy runs in to the restaurant as the staff are preparing for lunch. He begs to be hidden. Ever the friend of fugitives and potential Resistance members, Maurice Vilde hides him in the kitchen. Moments later an Oberst and three soldaten rush in. The Oberst demands of Maurice, "Where is the boy?" Maurice stammers and very unconvincingly says, "He ran out the back?" The Oberst doesn't believe him.
Sam Smith the American expatriate approaches, apparently a man without a care in the world. He exclaims, "Herr Oberst! Would you like some coffee and a croissant? Can you believe that young hooligan? He tried to steal some bread and then ran out the back." His slick lies instantly convince the hapless German officer, who runs out the back, his soldiers behind him.
Back in the kitchen, Jeanne Verney gives the youth some soup and some mothering. She learns that his name is Etienne, and that he is a real firebrand. His parents were both killed by the Germans, and he hates all Germans with a passion. He is armed with his Papi's hunting knife and a couple of impromptu gasoline bombs. He claims that the Germans were following him because he threw a firebomb at a staff car (he missed). He is more than happy to tell Mme Verney that he is a loyal Communist just like his Papi.
Maurice Vilde heads off to buy groceries and check into Etienne's story. It takes him very little time: the attack happened about fifteen minutes ago, and the damaged staff car is still visible in the street, surrounded by German soldiers.
When Vilde returns, the characters hold a discussion on what to do with Etienne. Jeanne Verney doesn't want him to be put into any dangerous, violent situations. Andre LaRoux thinks that not only does he want to be put in these sorts of situations, but that he may go to dangerous lengths to find them. Loren Longwillow suggests, "Send him to England! DeGaulle can use him as a propaganda tool!" Nobody likes this idea: it would be difficult to pull off, and Etienne would not cooperate. Vilde suggests using him as bait. This suggestion gets tossed out even faster. Longwillow returns to a central problem: Etienne is both a hothead and a Communist, and is a risk to keep around no matter how much Vilde wants to use him for suicide missions. Longwillow's basic objection is that the Germans might manage to capture him, and that he might talk.
Maurice Vilde asks Etienne about his Communist ties. Etienne explains that his father was a unionist. Many of his father's friends are Communists, and he knows them all. The characters decide that they should hand him over to the Communists, and perhaps use him as a bridge to develop stronger connections to them. Maurice Vilde exults, "The Communists might have the balls to have him firebomb a staff car and then kill everyone who follows him." Longwillow joins in, "And then they'd be the ones to have to make Mental Stability rolls!" Jeanne Verney, disgusted, tells the two of them, "I think I'm going to have to smuggle him out of the country before you monsters get him killed."
Before the characters actually arrange the handover of Etienne to the Communists they contact the journalist Marelle Lechance. She interviews Etienne to learn about the deaths of his parents. Etienne's memories are a bit suspect: he thinks that both of his parents died valiantly fighting against the Germans. Lechance suspects that this is rather less than true, but she doesn't care too much because it does make for a better story. Etienne is not very consistent either, as he describes how each of his parents died in at least two mutually-incompatible ways. By the end of the interview, he has provided different death scenes. Lechance simply writes this up as three different children: more propaganda grist for the mill!
Sam Smith knows that there are communists in Cherbourg. Le Troll also knows that there are Communists around, because they keep on harassing him about how great Stalin is (Le Troll is more of a Leninist). Other than Le Troll, nobody has heard anything about Communist Talents. Sam Smith comments, "So there is a God."
Sam Smith offers to take Etienne to talk to the Communists. Etienne is terribly fascinating with this idea. He thinks that it will be glory and death until the end of the War, when he will personally gut Hitler and then move to the Workers' Paradise in Russia after the war with all the other French Communists. Jeanne Verney is concerned that with this sort of attitude he might be a problem at the meeting, so she gets him drunk to keep him from causing trouble. Maurice Vilde and Loren Longwillow go along with Smith and Etienne.
Actually arranging a meeting takes days, largely because the Communists are terribly suspicious. The characters all get a sense that they are dealing with people who have taken paranoia to an art form. Smith eventually manages to arrange a meeting in the sewers. The characters add Pepe "Sewer Rat" Le Main to their number. Pepe is very excited and not a little bit drunk. Etienne is all that, and more as well: he has developed an unhealthy fascination with Jeanne Verney.
The Communist representatives are Arnaud Minicone, Francis Dunnoiert and Chocolate Mousse. Minicone growls out, "So what would three upstanding non-Resistance citizens like yourselves want with the likes of us?" Maurice Vilde explains the situation: "This child, his father was a Communist and he says he wants to fight." Etienne helps bring the point home by shadow-boxing with imaginary Germans in the background. Vilde continues: "Perhaps you might view him as a member of the family and want to take care of him. We have been unable to convince him that throwing firebombs against the Germans is not a good way to spend his time." Minicone listens, but isn't willing to give up on recruiting, telling the characters, "We think you should join the Communist Party." Longwillow responds, "We think you're being a bit too hasty." Vilde joins in, "Perhaps we could fight with you later on..." Minicone becomes a bit suspicious, asking the characters, "Are you the guys who killed a tank? We'd very much like to meet them. We don't have anything that can kill a tank." Vilde hedges, "That was some other Resistance members, but we do have some heavy hitters in our group." Minicone tells the characters, "We have been engaging in guerilla tactics and sniping individual soldiers, but when the Russians land in France we will be ready to meet them. It will be the Russians who win the war." Vilde closes the conversation by offering, "That's all very interesting. In the meantime, here are two Sten guns. And a recruit." The Communists thank the characters and take Etienne and their new Sten guns away.
As the characters walk off, they hear Etienne ask, "When you attack the Germans, can I stab one with a knife?" "No. How are you with cooking." "Ohhhh..."
The characters' underground paper is predominantly a project of the Outlaw group with the help of the journalist Marelle Lechance from the Police group. They have been seeing some problems: one of the printing press workers at the Cherbourg newspaper boasted about fighting the good fight for the Resistance. The Germans responded by arresting all of the printing press workers and placing the presses under guards.
In response, Marelle Lechance researches the locations of the local Gestapo headquarters. She learns of two locations: a prison for political prisoners located in an old castle out in the end of the Cotentin, and the actual headquarters in a former bank building in a town outside of Cherbourg. In many ways, the castle prison is the heart and soul of the Gestapo in the Cotentin.
The characters spend some time reconnoitering the bank. They determine that the building includes a vault. More important it also includes a significant-sized hole in the roof that has only been temporarily patched. Three soldiers with rifles normally guard the bank building. The other staff generally includes about two police officers with Lugers and a half-dozen Gestapo administrators, supporting another thirty investigators in the field. The characters determine that the Gestapo have heard rumors there are Allied Talents operating out of either Cherbourg or St. Lo. This is very much the focus of their current interest.
The characters swiftly develop a plan to use Apparition to teleport into the bank vault and steal records. This happens so easily it is barely worth comment. The characters learn that most of the prisoners in the castle are captured English pilots and survivors from Dunkirk. The characters learn that the Germans can find these men easily because they have a Talent who can smell Englishmen. They also have a Talent who surrounds a castle with fog clouds when he occupies it; his normal station is the castle prison. There is also a third Talent in their pool, but the documents don't describe his abilities. The Talents' code names are Blitzen, Schnell, and Wolken. As an added bonus, the characters learn that there are two moles in the Communist group. This information is sent off to Minicone. Everyone is sure that he will do the right thing with it.
Vincent Mayer hatches a clever plan: lure the German Talents into a farmhouse with sewer access. Prepare the building with petrol and plastique. Set it off when the Talents show up. When the building explodes, a second assault group will attack the castle.
The "Lure Team" is composed of the Liar, the Sewer Rat, and Saucy Jack. They are joined by a demolitions expert provided by the Communists as a note of thanks. The "Castle Team" includes Slick, Robert Frenay, Hobert Grunner, Henri Villon, Charles Moulin, The Stalker, Le Troll, Jean-Pierre Foretnoire, Henri Le Guerrier, The Alchemist and The Apparition. The Castle Team will approach using the captured Opel Blitz. Slick will be disguised as a German officer, with Frenay, Grunner, Villon, Moulin and the Stalker as his soldiers. The remaining members of the Castle Team will be disguised as prisoners.
Two days later, Loren Longwillow is on station at the rigged farmhouse. He becomes aware that the Englishman-smelling Uberkraut is in the area. He also senses that the Talent is about nine feet tall. He alerts the others and they escape through the basement, lighting the fuse as they go.
It quickly becomes clear that the lead Uberkraut can smell not only Englishmen but also lots of gasoline. He is swiftly alerted to the danger and escapes the explosion almost unhurt. The Uberkraut Schnell is later in realizing the danger: he leaves the house, but he does it in five pieces. Blitzen doesn't come out at all. Almost as a side detail, three regular German soldiers are also killed.
Blitzen (Herman Blingen) was a gung-ho Nazi high-school dropout who could shoot off lightning bolts that were almost as good as a Mauser. Schnell hates the French and is equally poorly educated. He had Cool 6 and Coordination 6, and could easily fire two guns at once. He took a lot of pride in being superhuman and liked to show off. Wolken is a giant. Everyone knows that he can summon clouds and smell Englishmen, and is terribly tough besides.
The Castle Team drives up into the Castle. Slick spins a great tale of captured Resistance scum for the guards, spiriting the characters through the gate and up to the Keep tower. Charles Moulin stays upstairs to guard the Opel Blitz. The remainder of the group heads down underground with Slick in the lead, followed by Le Troll and Le Engine.
Things start to go badly at the downstairs guard post: the Germans have a Talent, and he's able to detect the presence of the characters' Talents. He doesn't even give Slick a chance to speak. Slick explodes into a whirling inferno as his skin, flesh, muscles and bones burn into greasy ash. His screams are cut off mercifully quickly, though the screams of both the surviving characters and the German Talent continue.
Le Troll and Le Engine quickly throw grenades into the guard post and slam the door closed. There is an explosion inside. Villon, Guerrier, Frenay move up to the intersection while Le Troll and Le Engine toss another grenade into the guard post, "Just to make sure."
A very dramatic firefight with the German guards ensues. Within a few minutes,
The upstairs keep is no-man's-land. It includes three doors, one on each facing, all of them rotted out. There are several arrow slits, but their defensive value is limited by the fact that they are generally next to open doors.
The characters hatch a clever plan to escape. Henri LeGuerrier will advance to the German tower door and shoot at the MG34 crew on the Rockwell tower. Le Engine and Le Troll will advance up the Rockwell tower to kill the survivors, starting their ascent when they hear rifle fire. Robert Frenay will head up behind Le Engine and Le Troll to man the MG34. The Alchemist accompanies LeGuerrier to protect him against attack from above. Charles Moulin will follow LeGuerrier's lead, but in the Brown tower, firing upon the Coke tower. Forenoire goes with Moulin to cover him. The Stalker will teleport into one of the vehicles and open fire from there. The Apparition will drop grenades through the wall into the MG34 nest in the courtyard.
The plan turns into a running firefight and another demonstration of just how lethal the Godlike rules can be. By the end of it:
The vehicles in the Motor Pool have taken some damage from the firefight. The characters are able to salvage three old trucks, but the Opel Blitz is damaged beyond immediate repair. The characters are also able to salvage three MG34's (two from the basement and one from the tower) plus a large supply of Gewehr rifles and MP40's and several German captives.
The characters drive the prisoners out 5-10 km into the countryside and release them. The hope is that this might induce German soldiers to surrender later on if they don't think they face certain death.
After examining the wreckage from the characters' assault upon the caste, the Germans almost certainly know that they are facing Talents. They probably know about the "make walls vanish" trick, the "throw things hard" trick, and the "go through walls" trick. They don't know about the teleporter, but DeGaulle does and he might brag. For their part, the characters learn from their prisoners that the combat walker in the courtyard was created by a "scary-looking gasmask-wearing motherfucker". Whenever he's around the thing stomps around and shoots paired machine guns, but when he leaves it stops running.
This session brings an end to 1942. Each character gains two experience points. Each player may give an additional experience point to a single character (presumably, the one who had the most dramatic experience). Each Talent gains +1 Base Will.
Experience for the last game should have been the same, except upon a base of one experience per character. There has been quite a bit of confusion on this. As an added detail, buying up a Talent power requires expenditure of Base Will, but Base Will cannot be reduced below what Command+Cool provides.