Esoteric Enterprises - Session Eight, Part One

Session Eight was a delight. It was the first one in weeks that started with an empty seat, but we picked up another player halfway through. I've consistently had a full table and I'm thinking about increasing to two weekly games to serve all the demand.

In attendance:

• Johan Cilliers, Impulsive Antiquities Dealer & Interdimensional Parasite Host (Mystic, Level 4)
• Zeke Whitaker Cunctator (Occultist, Level 3)
• Devin Skull “The Punk Bard” previously of LudiCURSED (Mystic, Level 3)
• Eileen Walter, Human shield for hire (Bodyguard, Level 2)

(The players realized that their characters were supposed to have Resource Levels equal to their character level. They could be forgiven for missing this because it's not mentioned in the character creation section, or the section on character advancement, but instead is mentioned in passing in the section on cash and downtime)

The gang debated which of the jobs and rumors they wanted to pursue. They thought about taking the Union up on dealing with the Smugglers, but decided they didn't want to make any more enemies. The Fat Buddhas were already annoyed with them, meaning that they wouldn't be taking on any NEW beefs by shooting them up, so they decided on the Red Cap job.

(J E Sawyer did a cool talk recently about reputation systems in games, where he explained how they can guide player choice by opening up new options as the player builds relationships with the game's factions. The flip side is that reputation can also close off options, if the players feel that they've "locked in" supporting one faction. One cool thing New Vegas did to mitigate this was the addition of the mixed reputation statuses (Wild Child, Soft Hearted Devil, etc) that gave explicit reinforcement to players who didn't always want to side with the same NPCs over and over again. Maybe there's a lesson there for me)

Devin wanted to make the liquid limestone he'd bottled in a previous adventure into a gas grenade. Inhaling the stuff would be like forming hundreds of tiny tumors in the victim's throat and lungs. Working together with Zeke, he prepared two improvised gas grenades that used the stuff. By now the entire team had picked up gas masks.

The barkeep at the Blood For Sex told the gang that the Fat Buddhas had a hideout in the underground. West of the Sewer Cluster next to the Blood For Sex entrance, South of the limestone cave system next to the Vinculum entrance. The Buddhas were already at war with the Red Caps and were expecting an attack from the East. Their Northern flank would be less well protected.

The target: question marks west of Blood For Sex, South of Vinculum

The group decided to enter at Vinculum, and travel South through the limestone caves, to strike at the Buddhas' (hopefully) unprotected flank.

At the bottom of the dungeon stairs, the group immediately noticed a set of tracks, left by a hand truck, leading off into the old Lithic Court caverns to the West. The Kimeras debated following the tracks, before the abandoned caves were looted by an unknown third party. They decided to complete their assigned job while they were still fresh, and scavenge in the tunnels later.

South from Vinculum, they entered the limestone caves the group had explored in session three. The climbing spikes Tristan had set were still there, allowing the group to climb over the echoing azure depths to the next chamber. The next chamber was also flooded, but the water was wine colored instead of blue. Eileen suggested moving some of Tristan's pitons and trying to climb through one of the other exits from the azure chamber. She accomplished this but, like Tristan before her, fell into the psychic blue pool once she was finished. What followed was a mirror of the previous group's encounter with the water, as the Kimeras fished Eileen out, and she tried to leap back in.

Once the group had their wits about them, they explored the new tunnel complex they had discovered. They found chambers filled with mineral ecologies and swarming insects, and a foot path they recognized from the sewers that led to the Ponda Ray hideout in the ancient tombs. They mapped out the connection between the caves and the sewer cluster they had explored previously, before doubling back to find the Northern entrance to the Buddhas' hideout. The old tunnel was marked by the dessicated corpse of a former gangster, killed in a caving accident.

The Northern approach to the Buddhas' hideout was an abandoned drug lab, with two sealed passages and a locked door. The gangsters had clearly tried to minimize the number of entrances to their lair. The Kimeras tried to pick the lock, failed, and chose to go in the loud way. The sealed passages were merely piled cinderblocks covered with boards and plaster, and Eileen smashed her way through with Devin's magic sledgehammer. Unfortunately for the Kimeras, her first swing didn't completely remove the wall, but did alert the gangsters on the other side.

Devin tossed one of his improvised gas grenades through the hole, before the gangsters could run for their guns. Eileen smashed the rest of the wall, and the Kimeras surged into the room. It was an improvised mine, with an unfinished tunnel to the surface. The gangsters lost a round to the turbo-asbestos effect of the liquid limestone in their lungs, letting the Kimeras tear through them. The survivors fled East, into a room filled with hoarded wealth. The Kimeras pursued them, and the mobsters fled South into a barricaded checkpoint. The Kimeras cleared this with their other gas grenade, killing more Buddhas and sending the survivors fleeing West. The Kimeras stopped to loot the rooms they'd cleared, letting the surviving Buddhas regroup somewhere deeper in the dungeon.

The treasury was packed with a couple thousand dollars in stolen goods, which Eileen effortlessly scooped up. The Kimeras discovered a drug lab filled with plant and fungal life - psilocybin, ergot, datura and jimsonweed. These weren't worth much in their raw form, and without Cobb present the Kimeras lacked the biological expertise to harvest the best bits.

(Most of the Esoteric Enterprises treasure tables are stingy, but gang hideouts are incredibly lucrative. On reflection, in addition to the treasury and the drugs, I was supposed to be rolling every room for descriptors that would have generated even MORE money - racks of firearms, video game consoles, fancy furniture, etc)

They pursued the mobsters to the West. Eileen took the lead, counting on her sturdy defenses to keep her safe. The group passed through a room of computers, all blue screened. The room to the West was a vestibule or antechamber of some kind. Eileen heard a "click" and looked down to see a land mine under her.

The exploding mine ripped through the Kimeras, and the surviving Buddhas opened up from the chamber they'd retreated to, firing down the widened hallway with personal weapons the heavy machine gun they'd set up on a tripod. The Kimeras took a beating and quickly broke line-of-sight, taking serious damage in the process.

(The generator for gang strongholds has an entry for a tripod mounted heavy weapon, but there's no stat line anywhere in the book for a machine gun)

With no prospect of pushing through the fortified checkpoint, the Kimeras set the drug lab on fire, took the firearms off the dead gangsters in the previous rooms, and retreated. They'd killed maybe six gangsters, fucked up their operation, stolen their stuff, and seeded terror. Mission accomplished.

The hike back to Vinculum was uneventful. The gang surfaced with a wealth of stolen goods, paid their 20 percent tithe to the Ponda Rays, and immediately opened discussion about going back down. There was still the abandoned Lithic Courts and Fat Sun camp in the caves to the West. The hand-truck tracks hadn't come back yet.