Doc, Jack, and Art in: Among the Serpent People | Spirit of the Century

Dan Maruschak

(Dan Maruschak)

United States
Eugene
Oregon

Michael, Erik, Simon, and I got together on Skype on November 20, 2009 for a 3 hour game of Spirit of the Century (although Simon couldn't join in until an hour into the session). Michael was the GM, Erik is playing “Doc” Tombstone (Wild West Monster Hunter), Simon is playing Jack Reefton (Heir to Captain Nemo), and I am playing Art Black (Stage Magician and Supernatural Debunker). Simon had a few network issues that caused him to get dropped once or twice, but it didn't impact the game too much. This session had a lot of in-character dialog, and we didn't really engage with the game mechanics as much as we normally do.

Last time, Doc was left tied up and unconscious under guard by agents of the Atlantean Conspiracy while Jack and Art found the entrance to a strange underground world. Since Simon had to join late, we had to figure out how to work with the players we had and where we left the characters at the end of last session. We decided that Art would leave Jack to guard the entrance and go back up to find Doc while Doc escaped on his own, and we would flash back and forth between Doc and Art until they joined up in the middle, hopefully around the time that Simon joined.

We start with Doc being slapped awake by the Atlantean Conspirators: Brother Pedro the leader, Brother Guillermo the muscle, and Brother Juan the... third one. Having discovered the dummies that Art and Jack had left behind when they sneaked away, they want Doc to tell them where the other prisoners have gone. Trying to resume the same ploy he had used previously, Doc rolls Intimidate to get them to believe that he is a higher-ranking member of the conspiracy than they are, and that he is working undercover against Jack and Art. Doc beats their social defense by 1, so they tentatively believe him and untie him. They agree to bring him to his guns and equipment out at the dig site, but Doc demands that they first take him to talk to Alessandra (the girlfriend of archaeologist Alex West, although she had taken a liking to a certain Wild West Monster Hunter the last time we saw her...). Using a combination of loud talking that could be overhead by the Conspirators and quietly writing in her sketchbook, Doc explains the situation to her (although, given the multiple levels of deception involved in pretending to be a double agent, there is no guarantee that she fully understands), but she has no more idea about where Jack and Art have gone than Doc does.

We cut to Art, who leaves the underground world and climbs up through the trap door. Thanks to rolling -2 on an Alertness check (bringing the result down to Average), Art runs smack into a snake person carrying a crate of fish. The snake person, startled, drops the crate and runs back to his boat, where some other snake people are gathered. Art, figuring that there's no point in stealth now that he's been seen, approaches the boat and introduces himself as Reginald Winthorp III, explorer (a callback to the alias he used when infiltrating the archaeological dig a few sessions ago, and the fact that he's still dressed in Alex West's khaki outfit instead of his normal tuxedo). One of the snake people speaks heavily accented english, and suggests that they might be willing to engage in trade (they're especially interested in acquiring guns), although that kind of thing is really best taken up with the priests. Art says he'll try that later, and goes back to the tunnel that leads up to the excavated ruins.

Cut to Doc, who notices someone skulking outside the tent. After determining that Alessandra doesn't have a gun that he can use, he starts looking for something heavy to use as an improvised weapon. After Michael and I reminded Erik that his character is far more effective with Fists than with Weapons, he just punches the guy through the canvas of the tent. Rather than do a full combat, the GM decides that Doc will be able to knock his opponent out if he can do a maneuver to put a sticky “knocked out” Aspect on him. Doc rolls a -1, bringing his attack to Fair, but the GM rolls much worse, and Brother Pedro defends at Terrible. With a difference of 4, Brother Pedro is knocked out, and Doc grabs his feet and pulls him under the canvas of the tent. They take his cloak, but it's way too small for a man of Doc's size, so Alessandra puts it on. They head out to the dig site, and Doc recovers his guns. The other Atlantean Conspirators, noticing that “Brother Pedro” is acting strangely, get another roll to resist Doc's deceptions, and become openly suspicious. Doc orders them to stay above ground, but they refuse, and start moving deeper into the dig. Since he can't stop them, Doc decides to at least lead the way, so he pushes himself to the front of the line and starts going down.

As he enters the ritual chamber, Doc sees that a horrible tentacle monster has burst through one of the walls, writhing menacingly! Doc blasts it with his shotgun, the Ebon Reaper, only to discover that it was a crude mechanical decoy, which Art left in the chamber in hopes of scaring off the superstitious workers. Seeing that the hieroglyphics that document the ritual have been smashed (by Jack, last session), Doc pockets a few of the pieces to guarantee that the Atlanteans will never learn the ritual even if they try to piece the broken shards back together. Doc and Alessandra set off down the tunnel that was hidden behind the broken wall, and run into Art.

Art leads them through the oversized buildings to the trap door that leads to the underground world. Meeting up with Jack again (Simon had joined us by this point), Doc makes a Mysteries roll to see if he recognizes the snake people that Art killed last session. He does: They're Serpent People! Upon realizing this, Doc has to defend against a sanity attack and takes a 3-stress hit to his composure. Doc informs Jack and Art that Serpent People are evil sorcerers, although both of them are skeptical since they didn't show any particular magical proclivities when they fought last time. Art, furthermore, mocks Doc's credulity for these nonsensical theories by pointing out that Doc believed in Art's tentacle monster trick. Doc garners some sympathy from Jack by reminding him that tentacle monsters are just one of the many mysterious dangers of the deep ocean.

Continuing to bicker, they all head to the Serpent People village, and then to the large Mayan-style step pyramid to find the priests. As they ascend, a Serpent Person emerges from the building at the top of the pyramid, apparently flying, and unleashes a lightning bolt that strikes near the group. Jack makes a Superb Alertness roll and notices that there is a strange shimmery effect under the Serpent Priest's feet, and that the lightning bolt came from a strange futuristic gun in his hand. The group continues to ascend the pyramid, and they are led in to the priest by an honor guard.

Inside, they see the priest, as well as a large collection of interesting technological gizmos, many of which are broken or otherwise non-functional. Art tries to negotiate with the priest (hoping to hire some muscle to take on the Atlantean Conspiracy's goons), but Doc immediately objects to the Serpent Priest's assertion that they are currently in the city of Irem, since Irem is supposedly in the Arabian desert, not the Sahara. Art shushes Doc, and suggests to the priest that they'll be able to provide guns, and may also be able to help repair some of the technology (since Jack is Great at Engineering). Doc is utterly opposed to dealing with the Serpent People, because he thinks they're all evil sorcerers, and refuses to part with any of his guns. Jack is more amenable to the plan, but doesn't have any tools with him that he can use to fix the tech. As Jack is trying to figure out what to do, Art walks past a futuristic looking knife (covered with green blood) and makes a Legendary Sleight-of-Hand roll to pocket it without anyone noticing.

Jack makes a Fantastic Engineering roll to figure out the operating principles of the invisible hoverdisc that the Serpent People use to “fly”, but flubs his roll to try to fix a broken one. Doc and Jack decide that they are more interested in just getting away before the Atlantean Conspiracy shows up rather than fighting them, so Art let them take the lead on negotiations since they kept throwing monkey wrenches into the plans he proposed. Jack uses Rapport with the Serpent Priest to negotiate a deal that will let Jack take a working hoverdisc with him, along some broken ones (so that he can figure out how to repair and maintain them once he gets to the proper facilities on the Nautilus), but the priest will only agree to this deal in exchange for some guns or repaired tech. Jack asks Art and Doc to help him find some fixable objects, but Doc objects once again. We had some more in-character bickering here (including the memorable exchange: “They can speak English. How do you explain that?” “An amazing instance of convergent evolution!”), because Doc was refusing to help the Serpent People in any way. Things were getting a bit circular, and I pointed out to Simon that he should just go ahead and have his character do what he wanted to do rather than asking Doc's permission before doing it, since Erik wasn't actually trying to stop him, he was just refusing to have his character agree that it was a good idea. We had a bit of a discussion as players here, about how we just needed to do something to move forward, because there was no way that the characters were going to agree on the best course. Erik eventually put forward the idea of Doc begrudgingly turning over his six-shooters, so Jack got the tech he wanted, and the characters all made their way up to the cavern with the lake and oversized buildings. There, Jack found a boat and sailed us out through the tunnel that led to the Mediterranean.

This essentially wrapped up this adventure arc. I am going to take over as GM for next time so that Michael can play his character, Operator X-23.

Erik expressed interest in replacing his character, Doc, because he felt that he was responsible for a lot of intra-party tension. The rest of us thought he was blaming himself too much, and pointed out that most of the tension in the group involving Doc came because his belief in magic conflicted with arch-skeptic Art, as both characters are completely close-minded on the subject and dismissive of the other's beliefs. With me taking over as GM, that tension would disappear. We had a followup on the conversation from earlier, about how we all needed to be better as players about figuring out when to say “hey, our characters aren't going to agree, so let's figure out how to move forward” and also about proposing alternative action instead of just opposing ideas. Speaking personally, the bickering between Doc and Art was fun at least 90% of the time, and only veered into problematic blocking a handful of times. I also think that some of the “blocking” that we did over the previous sessions comes from over-thinking, over-cautious play, which I am just as guilty of as anyone else (although I was making a conscious effort to counteract that and have Art do more leaping without looking, which may have contributed to the perception that the Art/Doc dynamic was the source of the problems). SOTC tends to reward charging headlong into danger rather than nitpicking plans until they are foolproof. I think we'll get better at stuff like that as we gain more experience as a group.

Aside from that, however, Erik also had other misgivings about Doc which had come up before, such as his over-specialization in Guns, and said that he wasn't especially interested in exploring Doc's character much further. For next time, Erik will be making a steampunk-inspired gadget guy. Also, since Jack's Engineering didn't really come up much during play, Simon rejiggered his skills so that he and Erik won't have to compete to be “the engineering guy”.

Last edited Sun Nov 22, 2009 5:22 pm (Total Number of Edits: 1)
Posted Sun Nov 22, 2009 3:31 am
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