Yellow Dawn Session Notes 17th March 2012 ¦ Horror on the Orient Express # 10

Belgrade

Yellow Dawn – The Age of Hastur, first published in 2007,  is an RPG written by sci-fi & dark fantasy author David J Rodger – it blends the Cthulhu Mythos and cyberpunk genres in a post-apocalyptic setting. Learn more…

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RESUME
6th FEB @ 5 A.M.
SUNDAY

The team have just got back to their hotel and crashed. Today is Sunday. They’ll have to kill time before going back to meet the professor at Belgrade Museum on Monday.  Josh is already gobbing off about they have to buy everything – but does come up with the smart suggestion they should convert the cash into precious metal or gems they can take back to their own true universe of Yellow Dawn – and not remain in this odd parallel universe where Yellow Dawn never happened.

Telfus has booked into a smaller, cheaper hotel and waiting to see what he does with his life now that he dealt with the killer of his sister.

The team grab some sleep then head down for a late breakfast; they agree to buy in:
() Vortek Personal Protection Fields (these are only 50,000 each rather than 500,000 as listed in Yellow Dawn rulebook, because this world is a blister reality where YD did not happen).

() Armwatch Security Cover – snapcards

() Executive quality suits with ballistic and stab resistant weave.

On news in story about assassination of Serbian minister of interior. SPARSK are mentioned. Nobody claimed responsibility but Croatian or Kosovo is picking up blame via speculation. Tensions in country are increasing.  SPARSK militia noted as mobilising across countryside.

They are hassled by a high-ranking journalist from WorldStar Media who wants to know how they bested Fargan Laslow last night – and what happened; but this appears to be more about digging for dirt on Marcus Hardman (wealthy host of last night’s party where the jewel was stolen by Countess Roskoff but recovered by characters).  Characters play silent. Journalist threatens to expose links between deaths and mayhem in Paris, Milan, Venice and Trieste and their arrival in each of those locations on the Orient Express – timescales overlap.

Team ring Marcus Hardman to warm him about journalist digging.

Marcus Hardman says thanks, repeats his promise to have minister of culture approve their paperwork for removing rare artefacts from Serbia.

Team contact Dimitri to ask about a favour. Dimitri was wanting to meet them anyway… Caterina wants to have lunch / dinner with the team before she has to head back to London for an opera.

They all meet at a posh warehouse eating place.  Dimitri arranges for a hacker called Viral 5 to contact characters – to satisfy their needs.

Heading to a cafe near bazaar later on, a car bomb goes off… dozens killed and many more injured. Dimitri hit in leg by shrapnel; everyone else blasted to ground; Paul is hit by shrapnel but it destroys his PA instead.  Then the driver of Dimitri’s SUV (who has a SPARSK tattoo) shoots the other bodyguard, shoots Dimitri and then shoots Caterina and flees.  Marcus and Paul chase after him (as does a drone) and catch him amongst tables and chairs of an indoor cafe (closed). Dimitri’s men arrive to shoo away police and take the prisoner.

Josh and Metz use magic and first aid to save Caterina’s life. Dimitri is ignored and dies from his wounds.

Police are grateful to characters and no awkward questions are asked.

Characters return to hotel to assess situation.

Barely there 30 minutes they’re summoned by a phone call with a modulated voice to meet at a sports stadium. Taxi there. They go in and meet a man in late 50′s.  A Serbian spook. Dimitri was helping internal security protect minister of interior… looks like his failure made him a target of SPARSK. Government spook says thanks for what you did and offers to grease the wheels a bit whilst they’re in Serbia: also says to be wary of SPARSK, now that they helped apprehend the assassin.

The spook leaves. The characters wait a few minutes, standing in the middle of the pitch surrounded by empty rows of stadium seats. As they’re about to leave… the lights fail. In fact, there are no lights ANYWHERE. With a chill horror they realise they’ve phased back into the world of Yellow DAwn.

There are Infected within the stadium – just visible in the moonlight.

Marcus uses his pop-gun to take a couple down. More surge in, attracted by the noise.

Metz falls victim to some kind of mesmerization, he stands there, not participating (caught within Influence of Hastur). The team try to get him out of there but more Infected are running towards them, shrieking and snarling. Marcus shoots. Paul wrestles one to the ground as it thrashes around in his desperate grip.  Josh slashes with his sword cane. Metz get’s tackled by an Infected and slammed to the ground, the Infected bites deep into Metz’s neck, tearing the flesh…

The lights snap back on.

They’ve phased out again; back into this strange blister reality where YD has not happened. And to their horror they can see Paul is still grappling an Infected; one of the things has come back through with them!!!!  It stops struggling and abruptly becomes alert. It looks at Paul and Paul sees a monstrous intelligence seeping into that rotting face… it looks around with growing delight as if sensing a whole new world to Infect. And then it disintegrates into golden glowing particles of dust and blows away. Spreading Infection or vanishing from this realm, nobody really knows. Then all attention turns to Metz who is sitting there clutching a wound to his neck and asking over and over – am I ok? Am I okay? Only a few seconds have elapsed. Josh approaches him, uses magick to heal the wound and steps back… watching cautiously.  The transformation is fast and brutal. Metz snarls, leaps up to attack… but then before anything else can happen he too disintegrates into golden particles of dust.

The team are traumatized to see a long-standing character become Infected and then to disappear like that.

They return to hotel, numb.

7th FEB
MONDAY

A government suit arrives at hotel and hands over paperwork authorising team to take artefacts from Serbia. Marcus goes to Belgrade museum and is told about the village where such artefacts may be found.

Team are driven by their new Serbian security man, Roman, in his jeep, out into the wild countryside to Oraszc.

Encounter the village. The priest and the headman.

A fertility rite takes place.

They sleep the night there.

8th FEB
TUESDAY

Team head out deeper into forest to see the old lady in the woods.
A terrifying encounter with an ancient spirit form – Baba Yaga takes place but the characters pass the test and are told where to find the RIGHT ARM of the statue.
Team head back and witness the beginning of a ceremony, a goat sacrificed on an altar stone and strange chanting.  Marcus and Paul wander down amongst the “cultists” as if to confront them when something large and monstrous emerges from the woods. A Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath.

Marcus throws down something given to him as a charm – but it’s a false gift, a trap, and TEN MORE Dark Young materialise!!!

Paul is grabbed by tentacles and hauled towards slobbering mouths.
Roman shoots dead the Headman and priestess, with the random consequences of allowing Marcus to take control of the TEN Dark Young – Marcus commands them to attack the solitary DARK YOUNG. Paul barely gets away with his life.
Marcus grabs the RIGHT ARM and everyone flees through village. They are not pursued. The TEN Dark Young chomp, grab, stamp and devour the cultists.

RESUME
8pm on 8th FEB, just leaving the area of the village in Roman’s jeep – driving like the wind, clutching the RIGHT ARM of the statue and everyone feeling very lucky to be alive. Roman’s right index finger now has a gnarly nail, since Baba Yaga bit it down to the bone and stripped the flesh from the finger (and Josh used magic to repair the finger as best he could).

As they accelerate, Roman has to brake hard and screech the jeep to a halt: a large black dog is on the road, staring back at them with intelligence that is far beyond what is normal.

The team need to get back to Belgrade and get on the next train to Sofia.

LEFT LEG, LEFT ARM, RIGHT LEG, TORSO at Excelsior hotel in Belgrade.  RIGHT ARM is with the team in the jeep as they’re blasting back towards Belgrade.

GM NOTES: all characters had Rank rolls with a +3 bonus.

DJR: thoughts for next session on local copy of these notes.

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David J Rodger – DATA

Yellow Dawn Session Notes 4th Feb 2012 ¦ Horror on the Orient Express # 9

Trieste – Belgrade

Yellow Dawn – The Age of Hastur, first published in 2007,  is an RPG written by sci-fi & dark fantasy author David J Rodger – it blends the Cthulhu Mythos and cyberpunk genres in a post-apocalyptic setting. Learn more…

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RESUME 3rd FEB @ 8PM
Josh and Telfus are in Trieste, clutching the RIGHT LEG now wrapped in a camping tarp that Telfus had in his backpack. They’re in a taxi heading to a cafe anywhere.  The Orient Express leaves in a few minutes. Next train is just after 8pm tomorrow night.  Telfus has started to show signs of the skin irritation on right leg, left leg, left arm and bad chesty cough.

Marcus, Paul and Metz are at Posthumia. Marcus is having shower in tourist facilities, washing away blood, but the wound to his head (1 HP) needs medical attention as Josh failed First Aid.

LEFT LEG and LEFT ARM at at Orient hotel in Trieste. TORSO is somewhere…?

# # #

AT THE TOURIST CENTRE: Metz and Paul can see signs of the remaining lloigor cultists regrouping, surrounding the isolated building; cutting the power and then turning on the lights of the coaches in the car park. They’ve just become trapped.

IN TRIESTE: Josh and Telfus sit in a cafe; Josh rings Marcus and then Paul – trying to persuade them to stay there until he’s able to make the 4 hour journey back to Posthumia. Both Marcus and Paul give their PA devices a WTF? look.

AT THE TOURIST CENTRE: Metz and Paul head outside; Metz gets into a fight with a cultist who has some weird tentacle appendage growing from the back of his head – wielding a knife. Metz gets a gash across his upper left arm.  Paul and Metz grapple the man to the ground and bludgeon him to death. Then Paul sneaks off and commandeers a coach.  Metz runs up to the back of it and clambers up the ladder; Marcus – who is now on the roof of the building – leaps off onto the coach before Paul manages to grind a few gears and pull away.  Dark and dangerous drive down through mountain roads. A brief chase by vehicles until Paul side-swipes one of them into crashing into the mountain side.

IN TRIESTE: Josh send Telfus back to the hotel with the RIGHT LEG. Then creates a portal into the cavern system, only to find the Lloigor are heavily active there feeding from all the power. He’s nearly unable to portal out due to the Lloigor boiling-off his magick points.  BACK IN THE HOTEL, he finds that all the statue components including the TORSO from Milan, has been placed in his room AND assembled. Eerie.

4th FEB
——–

Everyone regroups at the hotel and then camps down unwilling to risk going out. Taxi to the train station that night and abruptly into the luxury and safety of the Orient Express.

Leave Trieste with much relief.

A number of curious strangers on the train.

Marcus plays backgammon with a businessman who invites him to a party in Belgrade the following night.

5th FEB
——–

Belgrade

Arrive Belgrade. Heavy snow.  Calm atmosphere. A sense of something missing – they’re no longer being watched by Drogo? Is that possible?  There’s a lot of desperately poor people begging; scrawny kids try to take their bags. A tall teenager who’s made an effort to look presentable and who speaks good English chases them away and offers his services as a guide. The team take his number and haggle him down to 100 credits a day.

Check into Hotel Excelsior.  Then contact Belgrade Museum.  Meet the professor there.  He says he knows where the characters might find information about the strange statue – they’ve shown the professor the LEFT ARM. Baffling him. However, the professor will only reveal his source when characters come back with paperwork that authorises them to leave the country with artefacts.

THAT NIGHT:
Go to party of wealthy businessmen. Become involved in investigating a theft.  Encounter Caterine Cavelova and her boyfriend Dimitri again (very positive experience).  Marcus encounters a dangerous but beguiling jewel-thief… and cross-swords (playfully?).  They also encounter Fargan Laslow – the greatest detective in Europe?! – and he bows to the characters ability: Metz was responsible for finding the stolen jewels outside the property – although got shot by a long range taser rifle for his trouble.

Businessman provides a staggering reward; a cash value on a slice of black crystal.

Belgrade

RESUME

6th FEB @ 5 A.M.
The team have just got back to their hotel and crashed. Today is Sunday. They’ll have to kill time before going back to meet the professor at Belgrade Museum on Monday.  Josh is already gobbing off about they have to buy everything – but does come up with the smart suggestion they should convert the cash into precious metal or gems they can take back to their own true universe of Yellow Dawn – and not remain in this odd parallel universe where Yellow Dawn never happened.

Telfus has booked into a smaller, cheaper hotel and waiting to see what he does with his life now that he dealt with the killer of his sister.

GM NOTES: all c’s had rank checks after leaving Trieste – but what Hero Bonus did Marcus take? How many Karma Points did he generate?   Team have RIGHT LEG, LEFT LEG, TORSO, LEFT ARM and are all displaying signs of skin irritation and illness in those body areas.  Interestingly, since arriving in Belgrade they’ve started to feel aches in their RIGHT ARM.  Marcus is carrying the black crystal slice with LOTS OF CASH.

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David J Rodger – DATA

Yellow Dawn Session Notes 7th January 2012 ¦ Horror on the Orient Express #8

Trieste

Yellow Dawn – The Age of Hastur, first published in 2007,  is an RPG written by sci-fi & dark fantasy author David J Rodger – it blends the Cthulhu Mythos and cyberpunk genres in a post-apocalyptic setting. Learn more…

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RESUME 8pm on 1st FEB
in hotel room, having just completed séance. Local news is talking about baffling disappearance of tram driver after a mysterious breakdown in tunnel. Foul play is suspected but so far no bodies have been found.  Brief reference to Venice, along the lines of “This is Not Venice” … but another local news feed suggests that the homeless people of the city are spreading rumours about a monster stalking amongst them, eating them and throwing remains into the sea.

Characters may wish to rest or head out to fetch the ring/

# # #

-

Marcus heads downstairs to grab a drink, settle his nerves and get something on his stomach.
At dinner he is approached by Telfus Fleet – a British speaking, half-Thai character who looks slightly wired on stress and tension.  Skull sockets beneath his left ear distinguish him as involved in computing and technology.

He’s seen the team being watched and followed and thinks the same people are mixed up in the reason he’s in Trieste – hunting down the man who murdered his sister. Alfonso.

The Maitre’D is accosted by an unseen dinner guest and walks off in a strange daze – when he returns, there is something different about him; Marcus suspects this is the work of the man who killed and took the skin of their translator in Paris – perhaps the man who originally hired them to find the statue?

Later that night Telfus is driving across Trieste alone to meet with someone who says they have information on the killer.  He encounters [a man who is later recognised as Antoni Termona], in a plush house on the hill – and six other men [cultists of Lloigor] including Alfonso.  Telfus has to restrain himself: he’s warned off… told a few things… told his persistence and questions have made him an irritation but killing him is risky and they’d prefer to avoid the risk… leave Trieste and never ask about Alfonso again.  Later – Telfus is given an opportunity for ultimate and gruesome revenge… does he take it? There’s a monolith in a room with glass walls; a sense of great power and glimpses of another reality… deep underground caverns.

That same evening, Paul and Metz – having snuck out of the 5* Simplon Hotel with the others – avoiding the various tailing parties… find a new hotel and check in for the team.

THE LEFT ARM and THE LEFT LEG is back at Orient hotel; they suspect THE TORSO is on the train with them (Count Drogo?) due to the growing issues of health and irritation.

Also that same evening, Marcus and Josh – having escorted Telfus to the first rendezvous point and told to go away by the driver, find themselves in a bad part of town.  They avoid getting robbed by local kids and make their way to the location of the artefact hidden by W_____ more than 300 years ago. An abandoned house, shuttered and lost.  They break in. And after a few hours of digging around the ancient basement find the very thing Marcus saw during the séance… the ring buried under a flagstone. This is the object W____ had tried to bring to Things in the caverns at Posthumia… and the same object the cult here wanted to bring to the THings instead… and the reason W_____ was murdered all those centuries ago.  Now it is in the hands of Josh.

Everyone RV’s back at the new hotel.

2nd Feb
——-
The team want to get an early train to Posthumia… the plan is to take the ring there and hope the collection of occult artefacts supposed to reside with the Things will include a part of the statue.  However Josh demands everyone hangs around for most of the day whilst he inspects the ring, ultimately finding it is a Mythos object of minor power.

3pm – the team catch a train from Trieste to the nearest town to Posthumia… trying in vain to shake off the various tails that have caught up with them; also a brief phase back into the horror world of Yellow Dawn along with Telfus and a pickpocket.

7pm – get to the small town and half an unsettled nights sleep.

3rd Feb
——-

Team head to the caves.  Met by the tour operator, a swarthy looking man with a gold tooth; there’s a hundred or so other folks there for the tour – none of them look like tourists and many of them are missing limbs.  The team get a bad feeling about this.

A Lloiger phyiscal manifestation - click for artist link

The tour starts off nice enough but soon plunges into madness in the deepest darkest area of the cave complex; lights go off, men with torches hunt the characters down with knives and sticks; the party is split up several times; Marcus is grappled and man-handled away – only to be found a while later, unconscious with a gash to his head surrounded by a dozen shredded bodies…. it looks like the Turks have come down here and started killing the Lloigor cultists — and that something else {Drogo?} has been killing both Turks and cultists. It’s a blood bath. Meanwhile, Telfus takes the ring to THE CAVERN. Encounters The THings. Hands over the ring and is teleported – along with Josh – to the private vault of a collector – and there is the RIGHT LEG of the statue. The Things WANT the team to take the leg away because it is a blot on the energy of the area…

Josh grabs it – the alarms go off. Security guards come running. Then Telfus and Josh phase into the horror of Yellow Dawn – and have to make their way down into the centre of Trieste  (but now it’s a Dead City full of Infected).  They spend several hours by the side of a road, freezing, before phasing back.

NOTE: This is all entirely new to Telfus. He’s lost a lot of COOL points through Anxiety this session.

Marcus, Paul and Metz pick their way through the hundred or so murdered bodies in the caves and return to the surface – there to find a few survivors [Italians, Lloigor cultists] who approach them asking where the ring is… Marcus replies, “They, those things have it”.

The cultists seem battered and weary so head off. But for how long?

RESUME 3rd FEB @ 8PM
Josh and Telfus are in Trieste, clutching the RIGHT LEG now wrapped in a camping tarp that Telfus had in his backpack. They’re in a taxi heading to a cafe anywhere.  The Orient Express leaves in a few minutes. Next train is just after 8pm tomorrow night.  Telfus has started to show signs of the skin irritation on right leg, left leg, left arm and bad chesty cough.

Marcus, Paul and Metz are at Posthumia. Marcus is having shower in tourist facilities, washing away blood, but the wound to his head (1 HP) needs medical attention as Josh failed First Aid.

LEFT LEG and LEFT ARM at at Orient hotel in Trieste. TORSO is somewhere…?

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David J Rodger – DATA

YD Session Notes 26th November 2011 ¦ Horror on the Orient Express #7

Djr note. The team just arrived in Trieste. Wow, what an excellent session. Venice was completed during the big gamers weekend away in Hayling Island and was an exceptionally visceral and powerful session, but I reckon I succeeded in bring Trieste to life here and introduce a range of local colours to confuse and disturb the players.  After the session we went out to join friends for cocktails at Hausbar but all night I couldn’t shake free of the idea of the Bora, and the sense I was actually still someplace else… in my imagination.

Trieste Harbour Area

RESUME:
29th Jan @ 8pm
They’re arriving in Trieste. The wind is howling and shrieking about the station; icicles are forming in near horizontal formations.
THEY HAVE THE LEFT ARM AND THE LEFT LEG; they suspect THE TORSO is on the train with them (Count Drogo?) due to the growing issues of health and irritation.

Once off the train they are harassed by a MOCID Cultural Attaché:
- “This is not Milan, Mr Bishop”
- “Where is Rossini?”
- “I will be watching you. I will not allow another Venice to happen here in Trieste.”

They also glimpse a short, slim figure in a thick padded coat and large hat dragging a travel trunk across the platform from the train.  They wonder: is this Drogo?

Taxi to Savoie Excelsior

Crash out to sound of wind howling around windows.

Central Trieste

30th Jan
———
Josh buys a crate of zone to last him a month; has it delivered to a P.O.Box however had to use his ID to set this up.

Marcus discovers much about Johan W. And about his murder in 1768 and the diary that was sold at auction after this.

Team make contact with Antony Termona; they claim to be researchers, investigating a lost statue and the diary could be of use.  He invites them to dinner.

Down in hotel lobby, team discover several groups of watchers:
() KSK cadets, blatantly keeping an eye on them.
() Thin, wiry, east-european looking types in warm and comfortable clothing – watching the characters?  Later, this becomes a tall thin man with red hair and a shock of black streaked through it…
()  Three thuggish looking Arabic types in cheap suits and cheap leather jackets, all wearing that red hat they saw in Paris.  They seem to be watching the East Europeans… but then take notice of the characters.

Josh goes Astral and encounters something “there” all around, in the air. Scary.

Later again, the characters become aware of a partially deformed man, short, barrel chested, who seems to have his hands tucked inside sleeves of the cammo jacket he wears.

Dinner at Termona’s is a strange affair. The house is on the hill above the tunnel; wealthy and exclusive.  Termona hands them the diary for safe-keeping.  Termona is missing his right arm.

Outside, Paul discovers a KSK car is empty with a smashed passenger window. Also a car further down road with two shadowy figures watching: a brief stand-off between him and the car with its full beams on.

1st Feb
——-
Poor sleep last night.

There’s nothing on the news to indicate the same kind of insane violence is happening here as in Venice.  Venice is being discussed in detail by all the major news channels: something wrong with the water is being blamed for mass mania.

It seems only the MOCID cultural attaché knows there might be a link between characters and the Orient Ripper and What happened in Venice.

There’s a morning meeting with an associate of Termona, down in the harbour district. An academic called Montanelli.

They take a tram there; go through tunnel. Other side, lots of graffiti with a circular symbol; Josh recognises it and later discovers it is a Mythos symbol suggesting that worshippers of Lloigor are active in the area. It’s a frightening prospect.

Josh seems the East-european with the red hair following them off tram and then grabbed by one of the Arabic types… something done to him he collapses into a seat as the tram speeds off.

Montanelli is big, odd and missing a right leg.  Something about him is unpleasant.  He spends four hours giving the characters a summary translation of key sections of the diary (which is in archaic German). Montanelli says there is some kind of puzzle, perhaps revealing where W____ hid the ring.

The cafe is full of students from local university campus. There’s a strange vibe from them. Some of them are not… right.

It’s dark by time the characters leave the cafe.  They return to the tram where some kind of local seems to be planning on robbing them: only, as they enter the tunnel the tram stops, the lights go out and then [something] attacks him and drags him screaming from the train and kills him… it also kills the tram driver. The characters flee and get out of the tunnel on foot before anybody can notice them.

séance

Back at the hotel the power fails; in candlelight there are strange ghostly apparitions and experiences.  Is it W______?

Champagne is delivered by hotel staff, along with hand-written letter (in German) from the guest in the suite upstairs… it’s a letter from Drogo… a greeting, a thank-you and a warning.

Josh holds a séance to commune with W_____ and succeeds in having the ghost of W_____ draw a map of where the ring is hidden (Western quarter); Marcus also give staccato images showing the scene from 1768 when the ring was hidden!

RESUME 8pm on 1st FEB
in hotel room, having just completed séance. Local news is talking about baffling disappearance of tram driver after a mysterious breakdown in tunnel. Foul play is suspected but so far no bodies have been found.  Brief reference to Venice, along the lines of “This is Not Venice” … but another local news feed suggests that the homeless people of the city are spreading rumours about a monster stalking amongst them, eating them and throwing remains into the sea.

Characters may wish to rest or head out to fetch the ring.

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David J Rodger – DATA