Werewolf Actual Play: Eyes
The story was called Eyes. The characters:
- Alex: Bone Shadow Ithauer. Changed during his grandfather's funeral and killed the people around him, but was admittedly being tormented by ghosts at the time. Focuses his attentions on ghosts rather than natural spirits, and has never been to the Hisil.
- Reena: Ghost Wolf Elodoth. Scrubbed out of the Bone Shadows by failing her initiation. Obsessive-compulsive and somewhat paranoid; speaks First Tongue because she doesn't like not knowing what's going on around her.
- Emily: Ghost Wolf Cahalith. Studying up on the history of the Uratha and just hadn't joined a tribe yet. Comes from a family that commonly produces werewolves.
- Jason: Blood Talon Irraka. A raider and theif. Likes sneaking into people's houses and stealing shit, and good at hunting people through modern means.
- Lana: Iron Master Cahalith. A Celtic rock guitarist who performs under the name "Myth." Interestingly, her last name is "Hennessy," so there was a joke going around that she has family in Boston (you'll get it if you've seen the Mage demo characters).
So the game began on Halloween night in Albany. The characters were at a special Halloween concert, and Lana was onstage finishing her set. Alex and Emily were down in the pit getting banged around by sweaty people, while Reena and Jason were in the balcony seats watching the crowds (Reena doesn't like sweaty people, but she didn't want to be away from her pack).
Alex bumped into a guy dressed much like the Creeper in Jeepers, Creepers, but with dark shades that completely obscured his eyes and the area around them (think Johnny Depp in Once Upon a Time in Mexico, just to add another movie reference). The guy stumbled back, and sort of melted into the crowd. Meantime, Reena had noticed a few people in the crowd who didn't look like partiers - more like cops or feds. At about that second, the first shot rang out.
Of course, people panicked. Everyone starts heading for the door, the "cops" moved the sides of the room and drew weapons, Lana jumped off the stage and the guy in the shades shot her. She...flew into Death Rage and slaughtered the two people in arm's reach (clubgoers). Bad night for Lana.
Now adding Lunacy to the general mess, the crowd gets worse. Reena and Jason jumped from the balcony, both failing their rolls to jump well and taking damage (just bashing, so they're fine). Alex heads after the guy that just shot his packmate. An Italian-looking dude at the end of the room yells and points to Lana, yelling, "There it is! Shoot it!" And the cop nearest her shoots her...with a silver round. This snaps her out of Death Rage and she attacks him. Emily leaps on the Italian guy and gets a silver shot in her stomach for her trouble.
Reena, meanwhile, grabs the shades-guy's arm and feels things moving under there. Alex punches him and his shades get skewed, and instead of eyes he's got what look like lots of little points (I described it as almost like a sea-urchin). He curses Reena in First Tongue, she shoves him toward the fire exit, but loses her footing and he gets away.
Jason, meanwhile, has gone to Urshul and chomped on one of the "cops", so he drops his gun. By now the rest of the cops are arriving, so the pack bugs out, but Alex fortunately grabs the dropped gun (you know, with the silver bullets).
Finally tally: Two cops injured, two bystanders dead, four points of Harmony lost (Jason, Reena and Lana for going furry in public and Lana for needlessly killing humans. Like I said, bad night for Lana. Reena also got the fixation derangement for her trouble.)
The pack regroups. Emily and Lana are injured, and silver doesn't heal easily. Checking out the bullets, the pack notes a little symbol carved into the rounds, which Emily recognizes from a flyer she saw at a local coffeshop (gotta love Encyclopedic Knowledge). Jason and Alex grab the flyer, which turns out to belong to a local metalsmith named Neil Kimberlin. His website shows that, yes, he does work with silver, but doesn't advertise bullets.
Some talk about finding him, but the pack decides that they should tell some of the other Uratha in the area about this. They find the Neighborhood Watch, a pack of Iron Masters and Blood Talons who focus on taking down supernatural threats in the city, and explain what happened. The pack agrees to use the Rite of Healing for the wounded, but expect a favor in return (I figure that when silver comes out, though, that's likely to create some solidarity among the People). They explain what happened, and the word "Shartha" comes up. The Watch tells the pack (which, by the way, is called Road Kill) what they know about the Spider and Rat Hosts, which isn't much, and recommend they speak to the pack of nomadic Bone Shadows currently romping around Albany. They also mention a news story they heard a few weeks back, about a truckload of silver getting stolen near White Haven, PA.
Things start falling into place, obviously.
Lana calls a friend of hers at the precinct and explains that her concert got shot up and she ran, but would like to know what happened. Her friend, against his better judgment, reveals that there are all kinds of crazy stories but that a DEA agent named Gilleli is in command of the mess. Apparently, two of his men were injured in the fracas and raving about wild dogs.
Alex, meanwhile, calls said Bone Shadows and learns a bit about the Hosts. The Shadow he talks to says that she personally has never fought a Host, but that a one-time pupil of hers did and that they like to hollow out human bodies to ride around in. Also, the Hosts seem to focus on the Gauntlet, for one reason or another, so maybe he should talk to some spirits. He looks across the Gauntlet with Two-World Eyes and talks with a taxi-cab spirit (who chats with him, but runs the meter, which he forgets to pay - this becomes a running joke for the rest of the night: "You talked with a cab-spirit, but didn't pay the meter?"). It tells him that they're being watched. The pack looks around...and sees the man in the shades on a scaffolding nearby, watching them.
Alex goes charging up the scaffold at him. Reena uses Sense Malice and learns that he's not really all that malicious. Emily uses Know Name and learns, curiously, that his name is Halaku, but that would be like a werewolf calling himself "Uratha". Reena recognizes "Halaku" as a First Tongue word for "crow."
The Uratha climb the scaffold and talk to him, and he reveals that he's been following Gilleli's movements in town. He's OK with people hunting Uratha, because that means he gets to eat the carrior leftover in the battle. He understands, though, that if Gilleli's people find a way to beat the Lunacy, the People are in trouble. He therefore agrees to take the pack to Gilleli, if they'll wound him and leave him alive so that Halaku can eat his eyes. The pack agrees.
The hotel where Gilleli and his boys are staying is outside of town, in the territory of a pack of Hunters in Darkness called Howls in the Mist. The Road Kill pack makes their presence known and explains the situation, and the Hunters mention that Neil Kimberlin is uragarum - kin to one of them. ("Glad we didn't kill him.") Their totem, incidentally, is an elemental of fog, so they tend to appear shrouded in mist. This becomes important later. Anyway, the pack explains they're gonna kill some folk in the Hunters' territory, the Hunters agree, and we move along to the ambush.
Jason scouts the area but doesn't see any activity, so figures that Gilleli and crew are asleep. He also smells cocaine behind one of the doors (this is a hotel where the doors open directly outside, obviously) and wonders if they're trying to use drugs to shake off the Lunacy. Halaku meets up with the pack and leads them to the hotel, and they hide nearby and argue about what to do. Finally Reena gets annoyed and chucks a rock through one of their car windows. The alarm goes off, and one guy comes out to see what's up. The pack moves into position...and then the ambush starts.
Several other cops, Gilleli included, appeared on the upper level of the hotel and start shooting. During the ensuing fracas, several of the pack are gravely injured (Jason, in fact, tries to jump at Gilleli, misses, and gets a shotgun round in the chest at close range for his trouble, very nearly killing him). Reena quite frankly saves the day with some good tactics (jump up, grab the guys on the balcony, land on them), and Gilleli lies on the ground with a broken back. Emily, at death's door, gives a howl for help, and the fog-spirit appears. It agrees to help the pack if Emily agrees to become Meninna. She does, and the pack is healed slightly (but enough). They finish off the rest of the cops and Halaku leaps from the room, opens his mouth wide, and a murder of crows erupts from his skin and starts pecking out Gilleli's eyes. The pack limps off, victorious but hurting.
Epilogue: The cops arrive and survey the mess. One of them says to a man in a suit, "Are you injured, Mr. Gilleli?"
Gilleli adjusts his sunglasses. "No, I just got here. Didn't see a thing."