Hostile Takeover - Campaign Logs
What has gone before...
As the fires of the Brethren War where sparked across the country by the deaths of numerous Forsaken elders, the Rockies suffered their own personal catastrophy. A gruesomely potent idigam, known only to the local spirits as Gurdilag, arose and began to spread it's agents throughout the area.
Werewolves who stood against them where either cut down where they stood or, worse, spiritually twisted and converted to the enemy's cause. The Forsaken where forced to abandon Denver in it's entirety, spreading out into the countryside and fighting running battles aginst both Gurdilag's agents and other werewolves.
Eventually, the violence of the Brethren War subsided, leaving the Forsaken with time to catch their breath before confronting the greater local threat. It was at this time that a local Iron Master named Max Roman, who had disappeared after his pack was massacred, returned. Armed with new packmates, and the knowldge of Gurdilag's spiritual ban, he called a moot at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge, and laid out his plan to take back what had been lost.
Not all the gathered Forsaken agreed with this plan. The most vocal of these opponents, a Storm Lord by the name of Rachel Snow, was eventually convinced, however, and the rest soon fell in line behind her. Before the next full moon, Roman and Snow led as many werewolves as could follow on a furious crusade to purge Gurdilag's influence from their territory. The cost in lives and sanity was dear, but in the end, the idigam was tracked back to it's lair and torn apart by rage fueled claws.
Now that the battle is done, however, the Forsaken must take stock of the new cycle their territory is entering. With so many lost, huge swathes of the Rocky Mountains lie unclaimed, and the call has gone out for new packs to move in, and pick up the duty from their fallen bothers and sisters.
This is where the chracters come in. Gathered to form a new pack, they have been tasked to take over the territory of the fallen Meers pack. The town of Manitou Springs has been laid out before them. What happens next, only time will tell...
Andy's Notebook of the Strange...
Part of every cahalith's job is to keep track of the pack's exploits, and be able to recount the sagas of their history and achievements at a moment's noitce. Andy may be new to the job, but he's already making notes, especially about the more...unusual...events the pack experiences.
Session One - Getting Acquainted (13th November 2007)
With varying degrees of comfort, the uratha followed the instructions they had each recieved in hand-delivered letters, and made their way to an out-of the way rest stop/picnic place in the Rocky Mountains National Park. The first to turn up, Selina was pretty quick to dismiss the driver of the next vehicle to arrive as a 'city boy', but that didn't seem to apply to the man in US Army fatigues that actually got out.
After a brief chat of introduction, Selina and Andy settled back to await some idea of what this meeting was about. Before too long, they where joined by Daniel and Jack, who provided no clues whatsoever. This didn't stop Selina being a little paranoid, however, when she sensed the presence of another entity not long after Jack's arrival. Her calm was not helped by the fact that no-one else could sense it, nor could she see any possible culprit in the hisil. Since it disappeared fairly quickly, she was distracted somewhat by the various conspiracy theories being put forward as to why they had been summoned here.
The reason became apparent soon enough, when another car pulled up and the most powerful uratha they had ever seen got out. Introducing himself as Max Roman, he explained that they had been gathered to form a new pack, replacing losses sustained in the defeat of Gurdilag. Granting them ownership of a house in the town of Manitou Springs, Roman went on to explain that the town was now their territory to do with as they pleased, though he recommended not doing anything stupid.
After Roman left, the new pack-mates decided to head on off to their new home, only to be pulled up short by Selina's truck needing fuel. Conviently enough, a gas station was quickly spotted, and they pulled in, only to be greeted by the sight of some very strange behaviour by the passengers of the RV that was also pulled in. Suspicions raised, they subtly investigated, only to have the realisation dawn that these customers where no longer wholly human. Claimed by spirits, they where exactly the kind of thing the uratha are meant to prevent, and the decision was quickly made that they had to be destroyed. After Daniel's gifted awareness identified four of the prey, the pack was left with a dilemma. The creatures before them need to be destroyed, but the gas station is wired with CCTV, and the attendant is plain old human. Why is this a problem? As the Oath of the Moon states, The Herd Shall Not Know...
Session Two - Welcome to Manitou Springs (20th November 2007)
With their first bunch of targets identified, the pack decide that a little planning might be in order. Varios strategies are proposed, including killing eveyone at the gas station, stuffing a lit rag in the RV's fuel tank as it leaves, and just plain ignoring them. The discussions get quite animated for a while, until Selina starts to feel the presence of the same entity that dropped in at the picnic stop. This time, however, it speaks to her, assuring her that Jack will not be spotted as he makes his way under the RV. Cue a slightly insane plan, as Jack hangs under the RV as it leaves, and the rest of the pack follow at a discrete distance, delayed a little by Selina spotting a ghostly girl hanging around as Jack he leaves. Once clear of any witnesses, Jack employs one of his spirit-griven gifts to glitch out the RV's engine, bringing it to a halt. The rest of the uratha soon catch up, and the duguthim are subjected to that particular brand of ultra-violence that werewolves do so well...
Nicely warmed up, and with a shiny(ish) almost-new RV in their possesion, the pack head on into town. They decide to head straight for the heart of their new territory before doing anything else, and so form a casual little convoy through the streets, looking about as they go. All is not entirely without incident, however, as a few less than normal events are experienced on the way. Ranging from Daniel hearing mutterings in the first tongue over the radio, to Andy seeing a little Native- american girl with pools of water for eyes drifitng along in the RV's rear-view mirror, to Selina seeing some disturbing events in the hisil, not to mention far to many trees growing in all the wrong places in the town's spiritual reflection, these going's-on soon give the pack the hint that there is something really odd going on here.
Eventually, the pack make their way to the gates of thier new property, only to find them quite securely locked. Another brief discussion ensues, resulting in Andy and Jack hopping the fence to see if they can find the keys in the house. Safe from prying eyes, the pair take a few moments to enjoy the pristine scents and sounds of the forest with their wolfen senses before ampling off down the road. The pleasant idyll lasts only a few minutes before the stench of decay hits their keen nostrils, and they are led to a manifested disease spirit gloating over a freshly dead deer. Ill equiped to handle a free-roaming spirit on this side of the gauntlet, Andy resorts to other means, and lets loose a warning growl that causes the spirit to rapidly try and find somewhere else to be. The pair merrily give chase, following their prey straight to the house, where they sense it charging into the basement and disappearing from their senses. This disappearance, combined with the general feel of the area, leads the pair rapidly to the realisation that there is a locus nearby, probably within the house itself.
Finding the key to the gates in a plant pot by the front door, Andy leaves Jack to guard the door, whilst he heads back to let the others in. Jack takes this time to reflect on the surroundings, only to have his musings shattered by another plant pot narrowly missing his head. Since there are no signs of a culprit, this, and a couple of other similar incidents, rapidly start to test the young rahu's temper. Indeed, he is on the verge of ripping the front door off when the rest of the pack turn up with the keys. The annoying happenings only increase as they enter the house, and they decide to check out the basement first as a likely source of disruption.
This soon proves to be the correct course, as the pack do indeed find the locus in the basement. They are also, unfortunately, greeted with waves of almost incomprehensible terror that send them fleeing, except for Selina, who apppears far too composed to let a little thing like images of pain, death, and torment bother her. Indeed, it is Selina's ability to perceive ghosts that quickly reveals the source of the disturbances, a group of assorted old men, clearly dead, and very determined to chase the pack away.
Some rapid negotiations ensue, with the ghosts clearly unable to get rid of the werewolves, and the pack unable to rip the ghosts apart. It soon becomes clear that the men where set to guard this place by some otherworldy being, specifically to prevent uratha from re-claiming this place. They are talked down from this mission, mostly by Daniel, and Selina easily works out how to lay the poor souls to rest.
The men's bodies are retrieved from the bottom of the well that forms the locus, and it quickly becomes clear that these men died violent deaths, and the small shhots of greenery growing in the wounds hint at a less-than-natural cause. With due solemnity, the corpses are given a decent burial in the grounds of the house, and calm reigns once more. Well, apart from the fact that the ghostly girl from the gas station turns up again, and Selina sees her standing by the graves for a moment before stepping into Jack's body and disappearing. She is a bit surprised by this, and takes the matter up with Jack straight away, only to be asked what the girl looked like. Selina tells him, and Jack seems more than a little disturbed, as the description matches his best friend from college, the one he killed during his first change...
Session Three - Monsters Down the Road (27th November 2007)
Not played yet...
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