Max - I was wrong you did stat your two major contacts as follows:

Contacts ** (Dennis Dwight - Travel Broker/Agent, Constance Brimley - Grey Market Supplier)

Any occult contacts in NY would be minor, and your backing with Arkham is such that you wouldn't know of anybody through them.

The information I'm seeking, specifically:

1) Any information regarding Mr. Strakovski - it's unlikely I'll get anything, but seeing as Aeon was expecting him, someone might know something extra. He got us into this mess, any information regarding his entrance into the game is likely to be valuable.
2) Information on Rasputin in particular - Aeon has quite a few jetsetters, it's not impossible that someone might know someone who knew someone in Russia about that time.
3) Information about Rasputin's Followers in New York in specific - I've seen two of the Followers personally, someone might have seen them specifically, which would give us some clues as to where to head next.
3a) Information on any weird (well, weirder than normal) activity in New York. Obviously, connected to the previous question, but also useful just for general natter. It's an Aeon thang.
4) As a favour to Janos, I'll look for information regarding his sister. Again, a long shot, but if she is mixed up with the Followers, not impossible that there's information to be found, and likely that such information would be very useful.

As for who has the shard, I've been making the assumption that it's been in a hidden safe in the hotel room since we've arrived. (Most large suites would have one for jewelry and such). Ben would probably think it safe there; I'll leave it up to others whether they share Ben's unbridled optimism.

Also, I'll define my Contact with you via PM, of course spending 1 Inspiration to define the contact in situ.

if somebody could get me the other group's goals ... I hope to update tomorrow.

Marion plans to do the following as part of her group:

1) Check to see if she knows of any occult resources in New York City, and consult them to see what they know of Rasputin and his followers. She explicitly is not asking them about the Heart of Darkness yet...she doesn't want to start spreading rumors at this point.

2) She'll suggest checking the New York Public library as well as the university library for periodicals, especially newspapers, that mention cult activity or occult crimes. This will be part of that 8 hours of research. The idea is that some of these crimes at least will likely involve Rasputin's people, and they may have photos of the crime scenes or other mention of details that would help in figuring out their activities and perhaps how to identify them.

3) She'll suggest to Mia that she might check with the local press directly and see if she can get any dirt from the reporters, or find out who wrote the pieces that they find (in number 2) and talk to them to see if there were details that didn't get published. And of course, Mia might be able to speak to the police to see if there's any info she can rustle up that way. Perhaps explaining that she's doing a piece of a cult called "The Followers of Rasputin" and that her leads suggest they might be based out of New York?

Those are my ideas so far...anyone else have anything?

Daphne can physically track one of the followers, if we can get his trail.

FYI the Kurgan are a real people not just a cool character/villain from the Highlander played by a young Clancy Brown

Daphne's tracking roll: 8,4,1,2,3,9,9,5,5,9, = 4 sux

I'll let you guys talk and post over the weekend and hopefully update Monday

Just a double-check, because the context doesn't make it obvious - is that Kolya in the black leather, or one of Kolya's... victims? :P

the context was intentionally unclear but to answer your question for the purposes of the scene and allowing you 3 to post accordingly the person appears to be dressed the same way that the assassin from the Docks was dressed ...

Mia - examination of the safe shows that the door was literally ripped off the hinges/housing. The safe itself was very nearly ripped from the wall in the process. It would take somebody of truly massive strength to accomplish that feat, somebody more than normal/human.

crafting the assault will take some time, hopefully something will be up today but if not I'll do my best to get it out tomorrow

FYI for clarity's sake - the dead assassin was NOT the one who killed the Russian, he's dressed the same is all.

It's brilliant! I'm feeling right back into the game! Wonderful!

Archibald senses nothing from the dagger. Though Catori registers very strongly, and Ben and Kolya register moderately though now that you open yourself to it you notice that both have crystals around their necks that are rather potent magical reservoirs.



Marion gains 1 Success ... +1 soak against cold attacks

Cool. I edited my post to show her entering the house after invoking Psychic Hand for some defense.

Joani appears to be out with an extended illness so please continue forward and I will put Catori on autopilot until he returns.

updated, I'm going to give you guys a chance to discuss events before I close out the chapter and open the next. Hopefully I'll have heard from Ben but if not I'll have to NPCize him for the time being.

Folks, I'm planning the next chapter ATM but as usual PC/player input is key both for the direction you all want to go and whatever you want to do in the downtime. I'll give you all about a month which will put the date into late January. Think about it, let me know what you want to have done in the downtime and where you want to go in Chapter 3.

Also once you all have finished your discussion just give me a heads up and I'll kick off ...

Since we're at the end of the chapter I'm not going to require a roll Catori, if you want to use your power just go ahead and describe its use with auto success.

ok peeps, I think we're at a good point to end scene and chapter. IT will take Ben some time to clean up the Urn properly and then transcribe and decipher the Cueniform (which is a pictogram script and thus takes a while to translate). I'm going to start the next chapter after the new year back in Boston.

Please your PCs actions (research etc) during the downtime to me by 12 pm EST on 12/11 so that I can lay out the next update properly and in a timely fashion.

Edit: I'll leave the current post active until then so that if people want to have closing posts they can...

+5 Experience for Chapter 2 for each player.

If you want to spend any between chapters please let me know

I was thinking that Janos could spend some time with Daphne and help her learn more about melee combat, since she seems to have a mentality for it.

Mia will spend time alternating between researching the owners of the building and trying to get a lead on the metal-skeleton-man, researching the artifact, and working up the rough draft of the story so far.

Daphne will take care of Spot, work with Janos (and spend xp on Melee).

Hey folks, just a couple of things ...

Firstly Archibald and Catori are lagging a tidbit behind so I'm going to push back the start of Chapter 3 until I've heard from them.

Secondly, apparently I've got you all wondering what to do next. Fact is there's no wrong answer to that but since it was mentioned that maybe I should explain more about the kinds of options you have open to you ...

• What if anything do your parent organizations know? And whom could they possibly connect you to?
• If something is really freaking old why not look for a similarly old book? This may require finding or gaining access to a really freaking old library ...
• Or maybe you can find somebody who might have a clue ... angels and daemons are really freaking old. Likewise there are organizations out there that could be very very old (the Church, the Illuminati, the masons, etc)
• Why not stop and do some of your own research? Reading about something in a book is one thing but spending some time and mystical (or non-mystical) effort studying the actual objects you have might be well worth the effort.
• Sometimes you need divine inspiration ... sometimes you make your own - It might be costly but a little dramatic editing might get you what you want ...

gah, forgot to note one last thing. While I've setup the framework of this world and have some things set in my mind much of it is rather malleable. Does the Illuminati exist? Spend an inspiration on dramatic editing and you can make sure they do. Basically you'd be safe to assume that until you learn that X, Y, or Z is bunk it may well be for real in the world of Dark Tidings. So far you know 100% that Angels, Daemons, and Ghosts are real and while I've not confirmed it Mr. Lovecraft's little club would imply that Cthulu is as well ...

Anyways the goal here is to have fun, if I'm not making that happen just say so and I'll do my best to fix the problem.

Just to respond:

If something is really freaking old why not look for a similarly old book? This may require finding or gaining access to a really freaking old library ...

-- I sorta figured that the Magic Library would have 'freaking old' books in it. Now that we know that's not the case, we can look for alternatives.

Or maybe you can find somebody who might have a clue ... angels and daemons are really freaking old. Likewise there are organizations out there that could be very very old (the Church, the Illuminati, the masons, etc)

-- All of those organizations are reclusive secret societies that none of us have ties to, except the Church, who's documentation is generally either public...in which case we'd have already looked at it...or secret, in which case they wouldn't let us look at it. Just saying, these aren't obvious solutions here.

Magical methods of inquiry, such as summoning, are probably more workable given our resources. How would that work, rules-wise?

Why not stop and do some of your own research? Reading about something in a book is one thing but spending some time and mystical (or non-mystical) effort studying the actual objects you have might be well worth the effort.

-- I thought we did that already. There was downtime shortly after acquiring the shard where research was done. Did that not include study of the shard itself?

Edit -- I think the problem is that there's a dissonance in the assumptions we're operating under here. I, for one, tend to assume that if there are significant options that my character would be aware of, that I might not, you'd tell me. You also seem to assume that we all know the exact particulars of what we're doing, when we (or I at least) assume that there's a level of abstraction taking place.

That is, if I say "Marion researches the artifact," I'm assuming that means she researches it using all resources and techniques available to her in the situation...not that she ONLY checks the library for the most recent possible publications on the subject. Similarly, when there's a mystic library that mysteriously has books on subjects occult, I assume that means it's more or less the definitive source on the subject, and therefore checking -other- libraries is a moot point. And further, if there are additional possibilities of research that are obvious (to Marion) that she did not undertake for some reason, I assume that information would be available to me, along with why she didn't do it, so I can make an informed IC choice about whether or not to do it despite the reason not to.

Now, I don't want you to just solve the puzzle for us, despite what you might think. And I am sure that you don't REALLY expect us to somehow read your mind to find the super-special-exact-fiddly-thing-we-have-to-do-to-get-the-clue like I, in my most uncharitable and regrettable moments, sometimes grumble to myself. I think we just both need to be CLEAR on what's going on, and on what's NOT going on. As a player, I TRUST you to tell me what my character sees, knows, and does. I DEPEND on you to do that. As a GM, you trust me to communicate my intent clearly, so you can perform that function. A breakdown in that communication would seem to be the culprit here.

So tell me what you need from me to help you.

Catori will remain close to Ben and help him with his research. Her worry for him is not as great as her feelings for him which she can't quite understand herself. She tries to hide her true motives behind the excuse of wanting to make sure that his connection to the evil shard will not taint his spirit - she is worried about his well-being far more than she is willing to admit.

-- I sorta figured that the Magic Library would have 'freaking old' books in it. Now that we know that's not the case, we can look for alternatives.

**Yeah, the library is a good starter but I don't want things to be too easy for you all, having it have every book ever or relevant information about every plot point will damage the story I think.

-- All of those organizations are reclusive secret societies that none of us have ties to, except the Church, who's documentation is generally either public...in which case we'd have already looked at it...or secret, in which case they wouldn't let us look at it. Just saying, these aren't obvious solutions here.

**Fair enough, just don't be afraid to think outside the box. And remember that dramatic editing can basically "backscript" for your PC, a few points spent can posit a reasonable connection to the Illuminati for instance or provide knowledge of say a secret Vatican Archive ...

Magical methods of inquiry, such as summoning, are probably more workable given our resources. How would that work, rules-wise?

** Summoning would work much like with the Ghost/Shade/Spirit from Chapter 1 though I might put you through some adventurous hoops to get the materials or proper incantations.

-- I thought we did that already. There was downtime shortly after acquiring the shard where research was done. Did that not include study of the shard itself?

Edit -- I think the problem is that there's a dissonance in the assumptions we're operating under here. I, for one, tend to assume that if there are significant options that my character would be aware of, that I might not, you'd tell me. You also seem to assume that we all know the exact particulars of what we're doing, when we (or I at least) assume that there's a level of abstraction taking place.

-snip-

** Yeah this has been an issue, and is something I admit I need to work on. I tend to be somewhat the literalist. To clarify, when you researched the shard you basically expended all available library resources (commonly available to your PCs) to find information about the shard/The Heart of Darkness. Mystical experimentation on the object itself was not something I lumped in there in my mind. That's probably due to the differences in the way that I've always gamed vs how others have, no big deal we can remedy and move on.

One comment I can't state enough though is that I ask you folks to be specific. I know I've mentioned it before but it bears repeating. The more specific you are the less I need to interpret of your intention.

*****
For the record during the downtime I have the following:

• Janos and Daphne will train
• Mia is going to: spend time alternating between researching the owners of the building and trying to get a lead on the metal-skeleton-man, researching the artifact, and working up the rough draft of the story so far.
• Catori will remain close to Ben and help him with his research.

Mia: You said "artifact" do you mean the urn or the shard?

Janos and Daphne: Anything else you want to do with your time? It's a month's worth of downtime, plenty of time to follow other paths....

On a personal note my area was pretty hard hit by the ice storms in New England so I missed work Friday and have not had power at home for a few days. What does this mean? It means I'll be busy at work and unable to write at night until power is restored. The next update may be a little while in coming. In the meantime though I am still waiting to hear from the last few PCs.

I've already sent a message via PM, but for the sake of everyone else, Ben will work on translating runes, as well as using Harvard's resources to do a little extra research on the jar and the shard. As it's the new year, Ben will also have committments socially to deal with, and will also be working on making previous XP purchases manifest. He'll also, naturally, be enjoying Catori's company, maybe even showing her the sights of Massachusetts

Janos will be doing two other things besides his main mission of helping Daphne. First off, he will try to become more socially active in the Boston social scene. He is a Count after all.

Secondly, he will see what he can discover about the message his sister sent to him. He'll check things like stationary shops to determine what kind of paper was used and were it is available and follow down such leads. He knows he's no detective, but he is bright and perceptive and he will make an effort anyway.

Still waiting to hear from Max and Katalyst but I've posted Ben's translation and will be PMing/posting information over the next week. I may hold off on starting Chapter 3 until after the holidays, but that will depend more on my ability to get everything else out to you all and less on the actual downtime.

Yar, sorry, got delayed. I will post Marion's actions in detail today asap. Thanks for your patience.