Thursday, May 31, 2012

Gargoyles, Guns, and Money


Last night, "Team Victory" made it to the end of the trail and brought a murderer to brutal, shotgun-blast justice--and made themselves a tidy some in the process.

They confronted Viviane Vandemaur about the murder of her husband over a continental breakfast served in her penthouse suite on the Upper Eldside. She was too tough an egg to crack easy, so they forced her into the pocket dimension bolthole accessible through the palimpsest they stole.

There, she bared her claws and went on the attack.  It took several shotgun blasts and sword cane stabs, but she finally fled through one of the openings in the floor to--well, whatever strange dimension was outside the cube.  Even there she tried to crawl across the outside surface and escape, but Boris was dogged, and Ivanka still had shells.

The thing that called itself Viviane Vandemaur eventually went flying off into otherspace.

Her gargloyle mook demanded the orb that kept him at bay in return for leaving them alone and--uncharacteristically trusting--the guys handed it over, after extracting a promise from the gargoyle to do them a solid at some point in the future.

That done, the gang headed over to Urania Vandemaur’s mansion to collect the bounty on her son’s murderer. They were surprised to find Indrid Bliss there with her.  Under the sharp eye of Urania, and with the other orb to exchange, Indrid filled in some of the missing pieces of the puzzle:  The original Viviane was the cigarette girl in the picture with John Vandemaur, whose identity and likeness his partner (the Viviane they all knew) stole.  Then, she got greedy and tried to steal Vandemaur’s identity (and his fortune) and cut Bliss out all together.  Bliss claimed to have botched the ritual that would have allowed her to steal Vandemaur's identity sufficiently to fool most magics, but she got the jump on him and put him in the coffin.

Bliss wanted the alien glass sphere back in return for this information, and Creskin (against his better judgement) was coaxed into giving it to him by Urania.  Bliss left, and no one was sorry to see him go.

The guys then collected their substantial payment, and left the games of the rich and sorcerous behind--for the moment.

9 comments:

Gothridge Manor said...

Somewhere up in heaven Mr. Zevon is slapping himself in the forehead, "That title is so much batter."

Great conclusion to a very cool mystery. And we still never discovered what her true name was. RIP Viviane or who ever you are. And if you do decide to come back, I have a bonus against undead.

Pat said...

There's just one thing I don't understand...

Chris C. said...

Very cool!

Jack Guignol said...

I hope that any biography of my life is titled Gargoyles, Guns, and Money.

Trey said...

Thanks guys.

@Pat - Just one? ;)

@Jack - To make sure, probably best to make it an autobiography.

Gus L said...

These play reports are a good read, and very helpful... Let me explain!

So I would just love to run a game set in "The City", but the pulp mystery aspect of the world is hard for me. I can string a dungeon crawl together well enough, but Weird Adventures cries out for something more in the detective vein. It's good to see how you're pulling off what to me would be very difficult task.

Trey said...

@Gibbering Mouther - Thanks. Though, I think Weird Adventures allows a lot of different playstyles including dungeoncrawls (though a city crawl would take more advantage of the resources in the book). My other game starting up soon with a different group will probably be less of a mystery set-up, so you might see a different set of inspirations there.

The Happy Whisk said...

Sounds like a good time was had by all. Very cool.

Cheers.

Trey said...

Thanks, Whisk!