Winter of Discontent - Vampiric Fraternity
So, first of all, it occurred to me I should probably title these posts based on the name of the campaign instead of the name of the system, in case I ever play another MOTW game! That's what's up with the title change.
This hunt stretched across 3 sessions due to scheduling issues, so I don't remember everything super clearly and some of these details might be a little off. Our target was a fraternity run by a vampire, although we didn't initially know this - at first, we were summoned by Death and Lucien and sent to Toronto with our only information being that several people and a cat were living past their due dates and several people had died untimely deaths, and that we were expected to fix it. Since this wasn't mentioned in my last blog post, it's worth noting that Nate is a reaper working for Death, which is why it is in contact with us. It usually doesn't talk to anyone but him, though, so this was somewhat unusual.
To investigate the situation, we had to infiltrate the university and fraternity where the murders were occurring. Therefore, we had to pose as university students. This was not enough to convince Filonyn to stop wearing their full Victorian mourning garb, which they are wearing to express their displeasure at the death of a dryad they were acquainted with, Dendra, in the previous hunt. Everyone else at least tried to wear appropriate outfits, but we still didn't blend in particularly well.
At the school, Filonyn and Marie spoke with a student, Jess, who reported that her best friend Melissa had stopped talking to her after joining a fraternity. Meanwhile, Sebastian secured an invitation to a party at said fraternity. We also investigated one of the murder sites, and discovered that the residual blood at the scene had been stripped of all its iron.
When we went to the frat party, we split up and investigated different areas of the house. Filonyn and Marie went to talk to Jess again after spotting her there - important because Francis had had a prophetic vision of her being brutally murdered, and we needed to protect her - and Nate and Sebastian poked around the house and discovered the 300 year old cat and a stake. Irene discovered the lead vampire, Callahan Saint-James, and Sebastian went to talk to him.
After seeing Irene and being frightened by her appearance, Jess decided to go home, and Filonyn offered to walk with her since it was obvious to everyone but her that she was at risk of being murdered soon. They weren't able to make it all the way to her house before a vampire attacked - and not just any vampire, but her former best friend, Melissa. Filonyn called for help and several other party members arrived to assist in fighting the vampire, killing her. Despite Filonyn's brief attempt to explain the situation, Jess ran off and definitely thinks we were responsible for all the murders since we had to start fighting Melissa in front of her to save her life.
Meanwhile, at the frat party, Sebastian got drunk on the job, upsetting Nathan. He and several other party members also tried to spy on Cal and his friend, another vampire, to determine what was going on. However, this was cut short when the vampires realized Melissa had been killed, immediately terminated the frat party, and threatened to call the cops on anyone who didn't leave. Irene stalled for time by "losing" her prosthetic arm and pretending to search the house for it, and when this stopped being effective, she, Marie, and Nathan began attacking the vampires and managed to kill one of them. Cal, however, escaped by turning into a cloud of smoke and leaving.
We stole the dead vampire's cell phone and used it to track the locations of the other vampires using Snapchat, as they were all contacts on there and had the creepy tracking service turned on. Marie, Francis, and Filonyn went after one of the lower ranking vampires while Nathan, Sebastian, and Irene continued to search for clues about how to kill Cal, who seemed immune to being staked like the other vampires. However, we didn't manage to kill either right then - Cal showed up and sent the vampire that our group was tracking to the airport to escape Vancouver, despite his complaints. Irene found out from an old vampire hunting website that Cal was a natural-born vampire and could therefore only be killed with a ritual, and also that he had been attempting to use his newly converted vampires for another ritual to resurrect a coven of ancient and powerful vampires.
Knowing the details of the ritual to kill Cal, most of the party went about setting it up in the basement and baiting Cal to come step into it while Nate went to the airport to kill the other vampire. The ritual required a significant quantity of demon blood, and we couldn't get it all from Sebastian because it was so much blood that doing so would undoubtedly kill him. So, we got some from Sebastian and bought the rest from Obscura, a magical supplies shop back in Newhaven. Irene baited Cal by texting him and telling him that if he didn't come back to the frat house, she'd kill everyone he needed for the ritual he was planning - even the humans. This was adequate to get him to come, but not to get him to surrender entirely. He first attempted to bargain for his life, and then attempted to attack Francis. However, Filonyn grabbed him with magic, and the ritual proceeded uninterrupted, killing him.
Sebastian adopted Cal's cat following his demise, but sadly, Death came for the cat later that night at the motel the party is staying in. Sebastian was at least able to convince Death to adopt the cat itself and take all of his toys as well, so he will have a good afterlife, but he couldn't convince Death to leave the cat in the mortal realm.