Unknown Armies Shotgun Scenario: Grand Supreme

The Entropomancers of Level Die get a letter.

To the sorcerers of Level Die

A challenge:

Come to Caesars Atlantic City and I will kill you.

I have a spectacular Roman cage cup dating approximately 100 years before the fall of the Republic. Its value is incalculable. Since I only charge using vessels I make myself, you are welcome to it. Come to the Toga Bar. I will be waiting there to take your skulls. If you survive the goblet is yours.

-Three Bear

It’s an obvious trap. That’s what makes it fun.

Husband 

 

ATLANTIC CITY

Atlantic City, NJ, on the Jersey shore. On one side, a tidal swamp. On the other, a flesh colored beach and the gray expanse of the Atlantic ocean. In between, a collection of empty lots, rough looking bars, abandoned warehouses, and the boardwalk itself. A row of fortress-like casinos punctuated by the odd T-shirt and gyro stand. Add feral cat colonies, swarms of maneating seagulls and an anachronistic carnival atmosphere.

Atlantic City boasts a 13 percent unemployment rate, mass homelessness and drug addiction. Casino promoters and the New Jersey Casino Reinvestment Development Authority insist that these never spill over into the tourism district. If the Bodybaggers want to charge before entering Caesars, they’ve come to the right place. Try:

• Dangerous street bets with drunken gamblers involving traffic, ill-advised fights with strangers or jumping off things.
• Abuse of carnival attractions (drunk tank, strength tester, shooting range) to turn rigged games into a life and death struggle.
• Crimes against tourists, committed in front of police, prompting a foot chase across the boardwalk.
• Stunts involving poisonous snakes and enormous ornery tegu lizards from the dubious exotic pet store.
• Dangerous riptides yanking swimmers out to sea, beyond where they can safely swim to shore.
• Robbery of street level fentanyl dealers, who tend to be armed, addicted to the drug themselves, and suffering poor impulse control.

Entropomancers who wander off alone risk AMBUSH by Three Bear. He knows their faces and expects them.

 

CAESARS ATLANTIC CITY

Caesars Atlantic City is a discount version of the Palace in Vegas. Despite bringing in billions of dollars, The tacky themed restaurants, shows and clubs have been gradually replaced with slick, flavorless gastropubs and endless rows of slot machines. While the exterior remains impressive in bad light, successive rounds of renovation have denuded the interior of faux Greco-Roman columns and statues outside a handful of interior spaces such as the lobby and the exterior of the Gordon Ramsay restaurant.

PATRONS
Amid the crowds

• Elderly man with an oxygen tank, seated at the slots on a chair soaked with his own urine.
• Drunken middle aged dads harassing waitresses and accusing blackjack dealer of cheating. 
• Young mother absorbed by video poker machine, two young children asleep amid pizza boxes at her feet.
• Homeless fentanyl addict, talking to himself and swearing violently at anyone who makes eye contact.
• Young pickpocket lifting credit cards and cell phones. Pretends to be a lost teenager trying to find his parents.

STAFF
In attendance

• Blackjack dealer, face peeled back into a violent rictus from smiling for 12 hours, wearing thin gloves to avoid sweatstains on the cards.
• Waiter guzzling another Monster on her way back to the kitchen. Illegal gun in her waist, a gift from her paranoid brother.
• Officious casino security. Always somewhere else when a fight breaks out, not willing to get stabbed for minimum wage.
• Atlantic City Police officers, deterring crime through their bullying swagger, daring staff to refuse them free food.
• Dancer from the troupe performing tonight, crying into her salad.

FALSE ALARMS
Amid the crowds, raising suspicions among paranoid mages expecting an ambush:

• Murmillo with shield, short sword and closed helm concealing his face, waiting for a Thracian so the floor show can begin.
• Firefighter in full turnout gear, faceplate fogged with sweat after climbing ten flights of stairs for a false alarm.
• Gunslinger from the adjacent Wild Wild West casino, face covered by a bandana, handing out coupons.
• The God Bacchus, nude except for a cloak and clay drama mask, tossing handfuls of chips and promoting drink specials at the casino’s many restaurants.

Any of them could be Three Bear.

TOGA BAR

An enclosed lounge. Wood paneling, granite floors and countertops. The place is dead, even at night when the DJ and strippers come out. On the central counter, by the reserved table tent, three cups: 

• A green goblet with an image of a man trapped in a bush
• A yellow beaker with a gold base
• A silver leaf chalice with elaborate handles.

The green goblet is a cheap replica of the Lycurgus Cup. It doesn’t turn red when the light hits it. It’s an artifact enchanted with the Hold My Beer spell, anyone who picks it up suffers Three Bear’s alcohol impairment.

The silver chalice is an exquisite replica of an original Roman piece, made by a Scottish glazier in the 1990s. It’s trapped with Do Me a Solid spell, whoever picks it up must obey the first (non-fatal) command given by Three Bear or suffer a Rank 7 Isolation hit.

The yellow beaker is the real thing.

CAGE CUP
A glass beaker with a cage of decoration around body, attached by stems, sculpted like tangled vines. The glass is gold colored, but turns purple when light shines through it.
 

On the rim of the cup, in Greek: ΠΙΕ ΖΗCΑΙC ΚΑΛѠC ΑΕΙ
Phonetically: pie zesais kalos aei
Which translates to: drink, live well forever.

The cup belonged to Dionysus and counts as a significant Dispomancy vessel. It’s more durable than you’d expect but shatters if deliberately smashed. It once had a stem. The base of gold wire is a later addition.

Three Bear used Party Like Hell and Everyone is Good Here to bind a demon to the cup. He told it to possess the first magick user to touch the cup. It’s a Horse Diver, a stunt jockey who rode horses off high platforms into the ocean. She died in a fall in 1925 and has been waiting a century for another chance to possess a body and leap from a high place.

 

AMBUSH

Three Bear is an institution at Caesars. He spent the last month drinking, tipping generously and using Dipsomancy spells to ingratiate himself among staff and patrons. He’s a fun local character and short of murder they’ll look favorably upon his antics.

He carries liquor from the minibar and two significant vessels.

• Tibetan style bronze-and-silver chalice with blood red spinel eye sockets, made from short lived godwalker MaidenMotherCrone, 
• Neolithic style skullcap drinking bowl, edges carefully sanded, made from Renunciation agent Alhambra CREATO. Fits in a coat pocket.

He can force a single reroll of lethal damage using his necklace. He can carry his magick ax (people assume it’s a harmless prop) but using it is another matter. Dipsomancy blasts are deniable, he drinks and the target suffers an unrelated pratfall.

Through theft and favor trade, Three Bear has access to the casino’s security cameras on his phone. He’s intoxicated and only one man with one screen, he focuses on the area around the bar. He tries to divide his prey by calling security on Bodybaggers who break the rules. Staff take his side and law enforcement take their cues from casino security.

The biggest logistical problem is decapitating someone and escaping with the head. If Three Bear can get a victim alone and incapacitated, he pretends to be the victim’s friend. Staff let him “take them back to their hotel room” or “wait with them for the medics to arrive”. If someone dies publicly in an accident, he’s confident he can break into a morgue and dismember the body. Or rob an ambulance en route. He doesn’t need all four heads, even one member of Level Die would counterweight the loss of the Cup and make a fine addition to the wall of skulls.