This session marks the beginning of Chris' new Vampire game, which is currently somewhat nameless. We resolve not to hold this against it, considering the longevity of it's predecessor. Attendance is quite good, accounting for the entire normal crew: Chris is in charge, and Tim, Paul, Chuck and Bruce are all playing.
The active characters are all former associates of the Brujah Jon Gilliard, who was probably killed some four months ago. They include:
The game starts out in Houston. Some of the characters are natives there and have some reputation (most of it useless), while others are newcomers. The current Prince of Houston is the Toreador Simon Bradford. He gained his office in 1976 after retaking the city from the Sabbat per the background information that Chris handed out. He has a reputation for messing up anybody who makes fun of the fact that he's not a Ventrue.
The characters were all at one time the clients of Jon Gilliard, a Brujah who was killed in December of 1999. It is now April 2000 and public opinion among the Houston Kindred has moved to the point that few believe he will be making a miraculous reappearance.
Each character receives an invitation instructing us to show up at an office building in downtown Houston on April 1st. The invitations are on vellum, and are handwritten in an archaic, suggesting that the author is interested in old traditions. Curiously, the actual time, location, and valet parking information associated with the meeting are typed on a small attached sheet. Even the slowest character understands that this is an invitation from Prince Simon to attend a gathering of Kindred.
As an aside, Prince Simon is very upset that some people occasionally mistake him for a Brujah with a different name.
The office building is strikingly clean and modern for a place that Kindred gather. The valets are well-dressed Hispanics who speak English. The security is polite, efficient, well-dressed, and very insistent that everyone pass through a metal detector on the way through. The characters give up their various hardware on the way in. Liam Morgan is rather ostentatious in handing over his walking stick to the security guard, insisting that it is actually a sword cane. The security guard grunts with studied disinterest.
The meeting takes place in a boardroom on the 5th floor dominated by a massive table almost thirty feet long. It looks like the tabletop was carved from a single tree trunk, possibly an ancient California redwood that had previously survived fires, disease, drought and earthquake only to be brought low by a furniture manufacturer. When the characters enter there is only one other person present, a man wearing a desperately rumpled suit. He tells the characters to sit at the foot of the table, then takes a place near the head of the table. Any attempts the characters make to converse with him he reacts to with irritated disinterest. The characters wait for some forty-five minutes, eventually falling to various stratagems to annoy each other (for example, Clayton Burrell knocks out a skittish beat upon the table).
Finally, a group of six people enter and take places near the head of the table. Jack Rowell recognizes one of them as Dmitri Meloft, the local Ventrue head of operations and one of the Primogen. The others are strangers to all, until they introduce themselves. It turns out that they are the Prince and the other local Primogen:
The characters quickly recognize the common theme among the Primogen: all of them somehow helped Prince Simon in his efforts to retake Houston.
The Prince speaks to the characters, welcoming them to his little gathering. He explains that some time ago, he made some agreements with the Brujah Jon Gilliard. In particular he wanted his property to pass to the hands of his various coterie, naming the characters (among others) among these folk. He notes that two of the characters are Caitiff, and explains that he is making an exception for them as he normally does not allow Caitiff into the city. He then tells the characters that they are to be granted fiefdom rights to the Carter Arms and the surrounding blocks. There are other folk who might also be able to place a claim upon the territory, but the Prince was unable to locate them. They may appear later on and assert their claim (this is an out to allow future characters to be included into the group). The Prince is careful to note that the Carter Arms fief is not Jon's entire territory. Some pieces of the original fief had to be chipped off to satisfy other obligations. The remaining territory belongs to the characters until either they are all dead, or they show themselves unable to rule it.
The Prince reminds the characters that in general, the various laws and traditions of the Camarilla must be obeyed within the territory. The characters do have the power to do as they see fit to anyone who attacks them in their Havens, however. The Prince promises that formal documents describing the grant and the rules the characters must follow will be delivered to Jack Rowell's residence within the city in several days.
Liam Morgan asks the Prince for the list of other people who might be showing up later on. The Prince provides a list of four names, explaining that they are future slots for other players who might show up later.
Clayton Burrell asks for permission to create some ghouls so the characters can monitor their property. The Prince grants each character permission to create a single ghoul. He grants Jack Rowell permission to create two additional ghouls, corresponding neatly to his Retainers 2 background. Prince Simon urges the characters to be quite careful about selecting their retainers, especially in particular to maintaining the Masquerade. He suggests against selecting rock stars and professional athletes.
There are still a few Sabbat in the city, probably less than 10, but they still find ways to express themselves in ways that are dangerous to us. The Prince suggests that the characters should be careful about this, especially since nobody has been watching over the territory for the last four months beyond Jeffrey Harper, the Prince's Scourge. He tells the characters that they would be well-advised to talk to him. Harper's is a familiar name to some of the characters. He is a young Ventrue and Dimitri's Childe. Jack Rowell knows that Harper has the Scourge job only because Dimitri twisted arms to get it for him. The Prince's real bagman is Glenn Tanner, a much more substantial individual.
The Prince says that Kenneth Vaughn can provide a rough map of the Carter Arms fief and the whereabouts of Scourge Harper. With this comment, the meeting is over and everyone except Vaughn leaves the room. The characters note that the rest of the Primogen contributed very little to the discussion: they were apparently there only to watch the characters. The characters also notice that the Malkavian Primogen whispers to the Brujah Primogen "I don't trust them!", in a whisper loud enough that even the dullest characters can hear. Kenneth remains behind. He produces some manila envelopes and hands them over to the characters. They prove to contain rough notes on the Carter Arms fief, as promised.
The Carter Arms fief covers a 2x2 block area in the core urban Houston area, with details per the handouts Chris provided earlier. It is centered around the Carter Arms housing development, a rather miserable pile thrown up in the 1960's with all manner of good intentions and all manner of poor planning. Jon Gilliard maintained his Haven on the 15th floor of the building, in apartment 1504B. As an added complication, Vaughn notes that the seven-person Tenant's Council has recently signed a security contract with Vigilance, a security company run by the Nation of Islam. The contract was signed less than a month ago, so Vigilance has yet to actually move into the scene.
Jon Gilliard had been on his way to a Brujah Rant when his vehicle crashed. It was blown apart with an explosive device. His body wasn't explicitly found, but elder Kindred in the city have poked viciously into his holdings hoping to provoke a response from him. They have seen nothing. Everyone assumes that the Sabbat is the most likely agent for his death. He had some enemies, but none who would have obviously wanted him dead. There has been no formal investigation into who killed him, only into whether or not he is really dead.
Several of the Brujah and the Nosferatu wanted to carve up all of Jon's territory, and the Prince had to fight to have Jon's requests honored. In particular, a Brujah holds territory neighboring the Carter Arms. Beyond that, Jon managed to get the territory underneath his fief declared as his, even though the Nosferatu almost certainly continue to wander through anyway. He managed to get an agreement from the local Nosferatu Clan, but even so his declaration of sovereignty has ensured that he and the Nosferatu never got along well.
Vaughn favors the idea that the Sabbat killed him: they were hurt badly in 1976, and tend towards subtler behaviour these days.
Vaughn also apologizes (in passing) for the way he's dressed. He was involved in some personal business last night, and some mistakes were made. He got word to be at the meeting just after he woke up. And of course, the message told him to be here much earlier than the actual Primogen meeting. OTOH, even though he's shown that he has almost no power in this organization, he claims to be willing to hear requests for help or assistance for the characters.
Kenneth gives each character one of the Scourge's business cards, explaining that the Scourge is deeply interested in making sure that others can contact him, except when you have a real problem.
Clayton Burrell calls up Jeffrey Harper, the Prince's Scourge, and arranges a meeting. Jeffrey tells him to show up at an all-night restaurant. The place turns out to be similar to Denny's, just not as upscale. The waitress is able to direct the characters to Harper, seated in a rear booth. He is a well-dressed black man and rather appalled to see the characters, given that they look like a bunch of good ole' boys.
Clayton asks Harper to tell them what has been going on with the Carter Arms area. Harper allows as how the pressures of his job have prevented him from spending too much time in the area, but he has learned some things. The most obvious problem is that Jon's old ghouls have "gone missing." There were twelve of them, and some number of them have shacked up in an old office building nearby. He suspects that they have taken to kidnapping Vampires to maintain their ghoulish powers. Whoever they took was unimportant enough to not be noticed as missing. The other possibility is that they have been "adopted" by another vampire.
Allen MaCavity suggests that the characters should abduct one and interrogate him before they attack the office. Harper seems relieved, "I'm glad to see that you all know how to handle this sort of thing."
Harper also gives over contact information for a local Nosferatu named Angie, and explains that the adjacent Brujah is a Childe of a Childe of William Dobbs, named Sticks. "Like the river?" "No, like the things you use to beat people. The river would have been clever." It appears that he got his nickname from his skill at pool.
The Scourge leaves the characters in the restaurant. The characters note that several other restaurant patrons leave along with him.
Dan shows up for a cameo appearance. The characters had already decided that a cabbie from Tiblo's would be a good thing to have as a ghoul, so Jack Rowell quickly does the deed. The cabbie turns out to be Willy Bell, a Jamaican guy who's really enthusiastic about ganja. Jack Rowell asks Willy how much he makes in a day. It turns out that Willy doesn't know, so Jack just tucks a $100 bill into his fist and tells him that he's the characters' chauffeur for the day.
Jack Rowell calls up the Nosferatu Angie and arranges a meeting with her in 15-25 minutes underneath the manhole at the end of 5th. Along the way, the characters stop by a hardware store to buy heavy flashlights with focusable, high intensity beams, hip waders, and a bag of clothespins.
Willy Bell is a bit surprised to find that he's dropping the characters off in a dead end, but he is still perfectly willing to get out a tire iron and open up the manhole. Meanwhile, the characters put on their hip waders. A nearby bum watches this process, then gets up from his grate to beg Willy for a meal. Willy doesn't give him food, but he does tell him about some great ganja he found and gives him a joint.
Underneath the manhole cover, the characters find a ladder down into the sewer, and visible liquid sewage underneath that. A faint light is visible down the tunnel. There are a series of floodlights mounted to the tunnel roof, leading about 100 feet into the tunnel. Liam Morgan takes the lead, while Clayton Burrell takes the rear, scanning ahead with a gun and behind with a flashlight. Jack Rowell stands in the middle, while Allen MaCavity turns up his Obfuscate to hide.
The group comes to a four-way intersection. A raised platform to one side provides a place to store equipment out of the damp. It is currently occupied by a small fire and a single individual dressed in an eclectic collection of rags. She sounds female, but that is the only gender-distinguishing trait she's got. Even though the characters are given lots of chances to notice, only Allen MaCavity notices the individual who unfolds himself from a small niche in the corridor behind the characters. The newcomer is more a creature than a man, with an unnaturally shrunken body and long, spindly limbs. His head is shaped like a "fucking long melon."
Allen breaks his Obfuscate to tell Clayton, who is then able to spot the guy. Clayton addresses him, but he says nothing. Clayton points a flashlight at him, at which point he throws muck onto Clayton's flashlight. It turns out that the guy's name is Spider.
Conversation ensues between Jack and Angie. He plays the Southern politico good-ole-boy role to the hilt, calling her "Ma'am" and "Little Woman" several times, to her obvious bemusement. She agrees to relay his requests to Nosferatu Primogen Martin Veroux: that the characters have sovereignty over the sewers, but the Nosferatu have permission to freely range through it if they inform the characters of any threats they find along the way. Angie notes that the Nosferatu are currently able to range freely through the area anyway. Jack nods, then asks Angie if there's been anything that's happened in the Carter Fief over the last four months. She agrees to look for anything interesting with a distinct lack of enthusiasm, then heads off down the tunnel. Spider heads down a different tunnel with surprising speed.
The characters emerge from the sewers to find Willy Bell sharing his ganja with the bum. Jack Rowell gives the bum some spare change, and Clayton tells him to get lost.
The characters have an address for a pool hall in Sticks' territory. Willy knows it as a place in a rough enough section of town that it's not likely to make most of it's money by renting out pool tables.
Liam Morgan leads the group into the place. Allen MaCavity looks around, determining that he doesn't know any of the customers. Most of the patrons are black, with the balance being Hispanic. The place has a dozen or so pool tables, some of which can still be used. Sticks is a white guy sitting in a corner, dressed in a two-piece jogging outfit and looking very much like a New Jersey mobster. He's playing pool with a few black guys. Both Allen MaCavity (with Auspex) and Liam Morgan scan the room for anyone who might be a vampire. They conclude that Sticks is probably the only one present (aside from the characters).
Allen MaCavity sets up for a game of pool. Jack Rowell and Willy join him. The hall patrons stare at them. Allen MaCavity wins the game.
Liam meets up with Sticks, interrupting his game in the process. Liam urges him to finish his game, while Sticks generally acts obnoxious ("It's really okay if I finish my game? You have some interest in what I'm doing? It might take a while? Perhaps if you'd like a refreshing drink from the bar, on my tab?"). With all the required petty posturing taken care of, Sticks finishes his game.
Sticks takes about 10 minutes to finish his game. He's good at pool, but he also likes to talk. The characters notice that even though his talking about relatively dull subjects, the other guys at the table are hanging on his every word. The characters conclude that they must be his ghouls.
When Sticks finishes, he heads over to talk to the characters. Liam Morgan takes the lead, introducing the other characters. Sticks is intrigued by the fact that half of us are Caitiff, and mentions that Rowell is wearing a really bad suit.
The conflict starts when Sticks claims that the streetwalker strip on the west side of the Carter fief is actually his territory, and that the characters will need his permission to feed there. Rowell disagrees, but Morgan is unwilling to create conflict right now and suggests that the subject of the conversation be kept to introductions.
Sticks says that he can always be contacted at his pool hall. He is interested in contact information for Morgan and Rowell, but not for the two Caitiffs (he simply drops Burrell's card on the floor). Sticks is selectively uncaring about the fate of the two Caitiff. When he learns that they've been given Simon's blessing, he proves willing to talk to them. He even suggests that Allen MaCavity can come back and play pool sometime.
The characters conclude that Sticks is a jerk.
Morgan asks if anyone has vanished recently. Sticks mentions Jon, which isn't much of a revelation to the characters. He also comments that once you get far enough from the city Camarilla law breaks down and clanless folks vanish all the time without anybody really noticing or caring.
The group leaves the pool hall around 1:30.
Allen MaCavity Obfuscates and walks around the neighborhood with the goal of learning the layout of the place. He is interested to note that there are a lot of prostitutes wandering along the Streetwalkers' Alley, and a steady stream of white folks in nice cars driving in from outside to buy drugs at several street corners. He spots a contact of his whom he notes as a known thief, buying drugs. He sees that there is obviously a lot of petty crime in the area, and that most of the local folks are fully prepared to deal with that eventuality.
Liam Morgan looks around for anyone who looks like a hunting vampire or a renegade ghoul. He doesn't find either of those, but he does manage to find four tough-looking guys in a back alley who try to take his stuff. One of them is carrying a cobra. Allen notes that this only happened after Morgan went off alone after he specifically warned Allen not to do the exact same thing.
The two sides spend some time threatening each other and posturing, until one of the toughs decides that, "It's time to show this arrogant bastard a lesson". Two of the toughs attack, one from the front and one from behind, while Morgan pulls out his sword cane. He is quickly able to disarm one tough, but the other one continues to harry him. A third tough pulls a gun and accidentally shoots one of his friends, whereupon the fourth runs off. Morgan disarms the goon with the gun (breaking his wrist in the process), whereupon all the walking survivors run away. Morgan notices that he is the center of attention, apparently because gunfights in the open are rare even in this district. Morgan chases down the would-be shooter, gives him his gun back (after removing the clip) over the tough's objections, and warns him that he'll be in the area. The tough refuses to accept the gun, assuming that as soon as he took the gun Morgan would kill him. The tough runs for the distance.
Rowell spends his time driving around the neighborhood figuring out what is and isn't inhabited. Tiblo's cabs has people around: it is a walled compound with a lot of lights and a single gate (with a speaker). There are lights on in the Colfield Plaza, plus one security guard. The building is otherwise locked. There are several cheesy motels with hourly rates across the street from the Streetwalkers' Alley, located in the adjacent territory. It is immediately obvious why there is going to be some room for territorial dispute around that region, just because it's a street: the specific language in the documents the Prince has promised to send around will be quite important. Rowell can see some room for a future territorial struggle against Sticks over jurisdiction.
Slightly before dawn, a messenger arrives at Jack Rowell's apartment bearing a package from the Prince. It contains the documents describing the Carter Fief, on old parchment and in archaic language. All of the mentions of Jon Gilliard's name have been marked out and replaced with the characters' names.
Jack Rowell arranges to get Box 100 at the MailStop shop in the strip mall, "no matter what it takes." He is successful. He also hires a random lawyer for $400 to rent him an office suite in the Colfield Plaza, under the name "Seaside Associates". Seaside Associates rents an office suite on the 8th floor and equips it with a photocopier and four freezers. Clayton Burrell modifies them all to include latches and deadbolts on the insides of the doors. Willy complains about moving four refrigerators up a building with elevators that only go to the odd floors, until he finds out that the Colfield Plaza has no working elevators, at which point he complains bitterly. In response Rowell arranges for the freezers to be delivered by delivery guys. White delivery guys. Willy becomes overjoyed. By the end of the delivery, the white guys really hate Willy.
The characters quickly discover that the local power supply is rather unreliable, and arrange for a backup power supply. They also discover that waking up inside a freezer is a psychologically uncomfortable thing, albeit something the characters are able to deal with.
Jack Rowell collects a lot of paperwork on Carter Arms (crime rates, maintenance records, etc.) and gets it all dumped into Seaside Associates' offices. He spends some time trying to find useful stuff.
Clayton Burrell announces his desire to walk around the 'Hood wearing military surplus gear and carrying an AK-47.
Angie the Nosferatu sends along some information about Jon Gilliard's old ghouls to Jack Rowell's mailbox. The documents include names for all twelve of them, but full names for only four (most are just first names). There are photos of six of them. All of them are supposed to have either lived in Jon's haven or in apartments around it. None of them are specifically listed as having gone missing.
Allen MaCavity spends time trying to learn additional information. He learns that one of them is quite old and has both Presence and Celerity (which he uses by spending Willpower instead of Blood). He also finds that most of Jon's old ghouls were either ex-cops or ex-military. The only one with a real career was David Patchmaier, who had once been fairly well-known as a skilled skip tracer. When they were working for Jon Gilliard, most of the ghouls spent their time either as bodyguards or as Haven guards. Patchmaier was the only one who was often seen out on his own. MaCavity then calls upon his Underworld Contacts and Streetwise, learning that two of the ghouls have criminal backgrounds. One guy was a gang member up until three years ago, at which point he simply vanished, as if somebody had recruited him and decided his old life didn't matter any more. The other one did some pimping, and kept his hand in it even after he ran into Jon. MaCavity gets the names of some streetwalkers who worked for him.
Willie Bell dresses as a bum and wanders around the neighborhood, looking for any of the six ghouls that he has a photograph for. He realizes quickly that as a bum he has a sort of selective invisibility. He is also able to determine that those six people don't wander into and out of the Colfield Plaza.
Liam Morgan tries watching the Colfield Plaza at night, and eventually decides that this is a pretty bad way to try and look for people. However, he does notice that somebody has mounted a camera up on the fifth floor.
During the day, Willy runs into David Patchmaier (the skip tracer) on the steps of the Colfield Plaza. Patchmaier asks if he works for the (fingers held as fangs). Willy (confident in his derelict's costume) responds, "You have some spare change?" Willy tries following Patchmaier into the building, but gets spotted on the third floor. Patchmaier tells him, "No, I don't have any spare change! Get lost!" Willy returns to his stoop. Fifteen minutes later, Patchmaier returns. Willy notices that Patchmaier doesn't have the manila envelope he had been carrying on the way in. Patchmaier again asks if he works for the (fingers held as fangs), to which Willy acts stupid. Patchmaier comments, "If you do, just let them know that I didn't do anything bad."
Around noon, a Uhaul truck shows up and a bunch of guys start bringing a lot of stuff (boxes, cameras, monitors, other stuff) down. Among the boxes are three large enough that they could hold a body. It takes Willy a little while to recognize that these are the ghouls the characters have been looking for. He notes that during the loading process there is always at least one guy watching the truck. They finish loading within a couple of hours, then drive away. Willy tails them, noting along the way that they have two additional vehicles escorting them: a recent-model Jaguar and a pickup truck (also loaded down with boxes). Willy keeps track of their route. They eventually get onto a highway heading towards Dallas. Willy follows them for a few minutes, then returns to the neighborhood. The ghouls left the area around 15:00 (after the loading), and appear to have been well-prepared for an evacuation.
Through the entire process, Willy counted a total of eight ghouls, nine counting David Patchmaier.
When Willy returns to the Seaside Associates office, he finds that someone has been by. The manila envelope David Patchmaier had carried into the building is tucked under the door. The information inside describes exactly what Jon's ghouls have been up to over the last three months. It lists specific information (including driver's license photographs) for eleven of them, specifically not including Patchmaier. For the most part, they have been watching the apartments. In the process, they've scored one Vampire, a rather feeble Caitiff, and have used it to Embrace a series of prostitutes and whatnot. They've had a few duds, but they've been able to create enough Kindred to keep themselves going. It looks like the information was collated either by one of the gang (probably David), or by god's gift to sleuths. David included a note saying that he'd really like to be a vampire, and hopes that this information will help his case.
Confident that the ghouls won't be coming back, the characters enter their old fifth floor office. They quickly determine that a frontal assault would have been a very bloody affair: the ghouls had prepared firing positions, mirrors set up to reflect light into the anteroom, external and internal cameras, and signs of some rather primitive living conditions. They also had AC, though they actually removed the air conditioners proper.
The characters end the session ready to either track down Jon Gilliard's surviving ghouls or to enter the abandoned Haven in the Carter Arms. Each character gains three experience points.