Advent 2 – Sunday, December 13th
2020 – The Feast of the Dead
The next night, the group followed up on a clue from
Malenkov and Flopsy about a cathedral in the loop. The cathedral just happened
to be across the street from a power station. I do not know at all how power
stations work so any fine details about their functioning is alien to me. Algernon
had a note depicting a figure with black veins in its aura saying “we know” and
a meeting but opted not to go to that meeting because of a time conflict with
midnight mass at the cathedral.
Before going to the Cathedral, the group, along with
Maldavis met with Abraham DuSable, a leader of the Tremere community who has
been marginalized and isolated from the Camarilla. He is hiding out in a secret
sanctum in the deep pedway, a maze of forgotten tunnels, disused storefronts,
storerooms, closed CTA stations and utility tunnels. Here is his library.
DuSable was stubborn about supporting the anarchs, even as
the Camarilla prince has abandoned him. He believes in the Camarilla cause and
regards Prince Jackson’s recent turn towards paranoia, hostility towards the
Tremere and will workers in general, and abuse as a temporary problem that will
work itself out. Barbara and Erin make good cases that stir him but he was
unwilling to fully commit right then.
Finally they investigate the cathedral. They speak with a
suspicious cab driver they saw outside of Ray’s bar. He is evasive, appears to
be fully immune to disciplines, only grinning when they try to read his aura or
dominate him. “I’m just a driver. I don’t tell anyone where to go, you pick the
destination. I don’t judge. I just drive you there every night.” Algernon sends
his rat familiar to tail him and his car. Ultimately, the cab driver exists
only to observe interesting events. He is neutral and encourages you to make
choices. He’s just another vampire, on the path of humanity, existing through
damnation like everyone else. He has no love for the sabbat and groans about
“my ex-wife” and “idiot grand kids.”
Meanwhile, half the group is drawn to strange graffiti in
the power station across the street from the cathedral. It seems to be some
kind of blood magic. Barbara was investigating the inside of the cathedral. The
blood magic had an unclear purpose but it damaged kindred who messed with the
occult symbols. The other feature is that the shifting symbols seemed to be
ticking down at a regular, shrinking interval with the rate indicating whatever
was going to happen was going to happen at midnight on the following night.
Meanwhile, within the cathedral, there is potluck going on
with a fairly mainline Catholic service. They speak of Father Matt O’Malley[1]
as a nice guy.
At midnight, “all hell breaks loose” as the Cathedral and
the nearby environs is partially transitioned to the shadowlands and ghosts are
openly able to interact with the skinlands with no restrictions. The
environment cycles between the two states with the ghosts being visible and
tangible and invisible and selectively tangible. While the cathedral is in the
shadowlands, it looks like the Silent Hill dark world. The ghosts mostly throw
things and terrorize the parishioners who are horrified by the events.
One ghost is fixated on Algernon, he was a random mortal
that Algernon killed during one of his murderhobo sprees for little benefit in The Sacrifice, come back to destroy the one who
murdered him. Algernon is cornered and attacked by the ghost of his victim.
I don’t remember the blow by blow but the group is split
between chasing Father O’malley who flees from a particularly angry ghost who
calls him out by name, dealing with the witnesses and wiping the memories of
the ones who they can find. Eventually they converge on the catacombs and find
part of the sordid story. There are numerous partially eaten bodies down there
and the ghosts are the ghosts of his victims. Not all of them know they are
ghosts. Father Curio is dragged into a permanent portal to the shadowlands by
victims of his cannibalism. The coterie does not stop this from happening and
are not able to interview him and do not gain access to his remains.
The coterie turns towards fighting Father Curio, a sabbat
necromancer who organized the whole thing, he seems to be influenced by the
flies as well. Normally his foul sorcery cannot function in a Cathedral as it
is a sacred place, the gauntlet strength is too high. Father O’Malley acting
upon his cannibal fetish broke the gauntlet barriers. They fight, Curio loses
the battle of attrition. The PCs find The Magician Card on his beat down body.
The cab driver pulls up in his cab, Algernon and Lindel get
in the car, wave goodbye, and are not seen again.
The characters turn Father Curio in to the Camarilla and
gain some degree of goodwill. They order their ghouls, retainers, and club
staff to investigate the graffiti during the
