Gencon 2025 Recap: Scheduled Games

George de Forest Brush

 

Rapid fire play reports from my Gencon 2025 games. The scheduled games were reruns of old mellonbread adventures, so I'll just post what happened without digging deep into the context. Click through the links to get the full story about the scenarios.

(I'll do a little editorializing after each one).

 

Unknown Armies Play Report: The Treasure of Beaver Island Part 2

Saladin Fisher and Bella Braddock needed a way to get from Beaver Island to nearby High Island, separated by four miles of Lake Michigan. High Island wasn't inhabited and there wasn't a regular ferry service there even in good weather, let alone in October during a rainstorm. Rosalie, the AI assistant built into the Surfa platform on their phones spoke up and offered two suggestions.

• Steal a boat from a vacation home. The island had plenty of empty rental and second homes, inhabitants gone back to the mainland in anticipation of the ferry service shutting down for the winter.
• Buy a magick spell from the Surfa store that would transport them to High Island.

The Courtiers went with the magick spell. They took on a debt of six minor charges and learned the ritual Uber To Hell. If they found the treasure, Rosalie promised the debt would be immediately cleared. Per the ritual activation conditions, Bella called the phone number given and told the dispatcher on the other end she'd "Go through hell" to get to Beaver Island. Ten minutes later, a fire engine red Yugo pulled into the Burger King parking lot. 

 

 

The fat man in the front seat wore thick black coke bottle glasses, like the blob cenobite from Hellraiser. He gave no indication that he understood Bella, but the two back doors opened on their own. The Courtiers climbed inside. There was a thick plastic divider that obscured their view of the front seat. The car pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road. He turned off the paved highway and down a gravel road into the woods. The trees blocked more and more of the light until they couldn't see anything but a blue light approaching up ahead.

 

Unknown Armies Play Report: The Treasure of Beaver Island Part 1

It was October on Beaver Island. The autumn rain lashed Lake Michigan and turned the island's dirt roads into slick channels of mud. At the end of the longest paved road on the island was a Burger King. In the Burger King were two cultists of the Court of the Burger Queen. Their shift was almost over, and with it their tenure on the island. They had seven charged burgers to hand out before then, seven pieces of meat loaded with magickal energy that would, somehow, make the world a better place when fed to customers. Then they'd shut down the restaurant for the season, get on the ferry and go back to the mainland, before the lake froze and travel became impossible.

 

In attendance:

• Murbella "Bella" Braddock, Gunshot Survivor, initiated into the Court after a charged burger saved her from a botched suicide attempt
  
• Saladin Fisher, Cult Survivor, initiated into the Court after he escaped the isolated compound where his parents kept him

There were only a couple hours left in their shift, and they'd be free. Their stuff from the rental house was all boxed up in the Toyota hatchback in the parking lot. The rain hissed on the roof of the restaurant.