Our story starts with Ebba's arrival to the city of Novgorod
in a carriage driven by her brother, Nikolai, who she's turned into her ghoul.
There she is welcomed by Lassal, the primogen (that is to say, representative) of Clan Mekhet,
a man Embraced during his middle years
who is bald, somewhat hunched over, has a bit of a limp and is quite rude;
and his companion, Valen, a raven-haired girl with green eyes.
Lassal introduces her as someone he shares blood with.
If by that he meant that she was her Childe, blood-sibling or simply a member of his clan is open to interpretation.
Ebba asks Lassal about his relationship with Valen and he tells her
'No, she was orphaned after her Embrace, but she's from clan Mekhet' and that he took her as
'under his wing' so to speak - as a pupil, apprentice, as though she was his very own Childe.
He raised her into "vampiredom."
Anyway, Lassal climbs into the carriage with Ebba
and Valen climbs up with Nikolai to lead them to Elysium.
Meanwhile, Ebba asks Lassal about the city; and instead of talking to her about the vampires in it
he tells her the whole ancient history of the city, and it's a bore. Heh.
When they reach Elysium, they meet Sasha van Orlok - a Nosferatu, and the Sheriff.
Evey vampire city is ruled by a Prince
and his council, that is made of the Primogeniture (each Primogen, representative of a clan) and the Sheriff, his right hand,
the one that makes sure that the Traditions (the laws) of vampire society are followed and respected.
The fact is that the Prince that had appeared in the earlier episode (in the prologue)
Prince Ivan, who Slava had gone to when he found his brother's corpse,
was killed in the timeframe between then and now. Yes?
He was murdered, and tonight is the coronation of the third Prince in less than a year,
which just comes to show the terrible political instability in Novogord lately.
Either way, Ebba reaches Elysium and we cut to Slava.
Slava is leaving his laboratory to go to Elysium for the coronation ceremony
when he's stopped, detained, by a dishevelled man with a corpse-like appearance,
with white hair and his flesh sunken into his bones.
A man that Slava recognizes as a vampire, but not a vampire he recognizes.
It's a vampire he'd never seen before in the city.
This guy, who's sitting without a care in the world on a stairway, cutting a pear into slices
(Vampires can't eat so, who knows why - I just wanted to characterize him somehow and I thought he could be slicing up a pear, I don't know! Anyway.)
Either way, this guy stops Slava and tells him 'oh, strange to see someone in the stree at these hours.'
to which Slava is like, dude we're vampires, are you kidding me, do you want me to go outside at midday? We're vampires. (He doesn't say any of that.)
But anyway, out of respect for the masquerade, Slava tells him that he's just out for a walk.
They have a completely inconsequential conversation until the guy says to him, 'Look,'
'I know who killed your brother - I can give you information on that.'
And Slava is like, 'Whoa! How does he know? What does he know?' Well he doesn't say 'whoa' but I'm pretty sure that was his general feeling.
The fact is that Slava plays it cool,
'Well that's interesting, and what do you want in return for that information?'
'A favour. That I would tell you right now if the GM had thought it up beforehand'
'But he didn't' Well he doesn't really SAY that but I really didn't have figured out WHICH favour that was yet
because I was juggling a lot of narratives- a lot of secondary characters in my head
and he tells him, 'I'll tell you what it is later', and Slava answers, 'Well, then do give me the information later as well'
because seriously, I'm (as in Slava) not dumb enough to buy something without knowing how much I'm paying for it.
So then the guy is like, 'Sure, that's fair. Sounds fair to me'
'Whenever you wish to meet me, you'll find me at the bell tower.' Slava asks him his name, and he answers, 'Leopold.'
Now armed with a name, Slava continues to Elysium to see what he can find out.
Meanwhile, Sorin and Dettlaf reach the city from the north looking for their Sire, Andrei.
The gates were closed for them, as nobody expected them and gates are closed by night-time.
The soldiers don't want to let them inside until Dettlaf tells them that they're pilgrims, and shows them the symbol
of the Raven Queen, a goddess of death that is pretty cool, 'lemme pass I'm a pilgrim'
and the soldiers are all "Oh yeah sure", open up, and they enter the city.
Then Sorin tries to force the psychical bond that exists between Sire and Childe,
that psychic link that they share due to their blood sympathy,
something I think I explained in the introduction video to V:TR;
to learn where Andrei, his Sire, is.
And he discovers-- he has a vision of Andrei in chains
beneath the city's bell tower, and where the tower is -
as well as that Andrei cannot leave (well he's in chains) and is in great pain.
Upon reaching this place they find that the door is locked of course,
as it's midnight and people lock their doors at night.
Dettlaf goes around to see if he can find a back door and he does, though it is not only locked but barred and in disuse.
Dettlaf's player says, 'well, I could climb' but me being the annoying GM that I am say something along the lines of
'Hmm, but there's some nasty gargoyles!' and Dettlaf is all 'Well but is there something supernatural about those gargoyles? Are they vampires or some sort of monster?'
'I DON'T KNOW, MAYBE'
'Well, then I try to climb' says Dettlaf- 'NO!'
'When you start climbing you realize that the gargoyles are super spooky and the tower is haunted and this is dreadful, you can't climb.'
And Dettlaf is probably like, 'Uh, sure. Whatever.'
*clap for no reason*
Meanwhile!
Sorin is bothered by... who?
He's bothered by a man,
with a corpse-like appearance, flesh sunk into his bones and white hair, who's sitting on a window
slicing a pear -again.- Anyway. Familiar scene, huh? Yes, it's the same guy, it's Leopold (of course)
who in some inexplicable manner
made it through the whole city from where he was a couple minutes ago with Slava
to reach this place that is on the other side of the river, the other side of the city.
How'd he get there in such a short time?
It is a mystery that will be solved later.
Or not, that is up to the players.
The fact is that Leopold is there and he asks them, 'who are you' -bah, he asks Sorin, since Dettlaf is on the other side- 'Who are you, and what are you doing in my domain?'
Sorin, who's aware of vampire customs and traditions, introduces himself (as every vampire, when entering another's domain, must introduce themselves and ask for passage)
--he introduces himself and does exactly that, tells him 'hey I'm looking for my Sire, can you give me a hand- give me permission to pass'
and Leopold is like 'No. No way, get lost. You don't have my permission- nobody's Sire is here, get lost.'
Sorin -- 'Hey, not cool, well can you at least direct me towards Elysium'
And then Leopold tells him 'Sure, Elysium is that way, go introduce yourself to the Prince--see I'm not a bad guy, giving you this info in good faith.'
And Sorin -- 'Sure. Thanks. ¬¬'
is about to leave when Dettlaf comes back (who heard some of it) and asks him, 'Who is he?'
And the guy is like, 'This is my domain - you don't get to ask me who I am, it's the other way around. You're not the one asking the questions around here'
Dettlaf answers 'Oh okay then, well, I'm looking for my Sire bro, he's down there, so you better let me pass' and Leopold refuses.
'And if you don't leave, I'm kicking you out' he adds.
And Dettlaf, who's not one to chicken out, is all 'Go head bro, I'm right here'
Sorin grabs him, 'No Dettlaf, let's go before things get out of hand, this is right and does not follow our traditions' and takes him to Elysium.
At Elysium, Ebba is pacing around with her arm around Nikolai's, getting to know the different nocturnal personalities of Novgorod, yes?
There she meets the three Harpies: Aleera, Marishka and Verona.
Harpies are at the social center of Elysium, they are the ones that collect all information - or make it up, sometimes
When you want to learn something, you go to the Harpies. The problem is that the Harpies will probably want to know something about you, too.
(And tell someone else.) Anyway.
She meets the Harpies Aleera, Marishka and Verona, they try to get her in her group because they find her very interesting though Ebba will have none of that;
and she meets Viktor Voldaren, a very gallant but rather antosocial (despite his courtesy) vampire,
that suffers from the constant attention and apparent affection of the Harpies, being their current favourite.
She searches for the Prince without much success, being that he's busy getting ready for the coronation;
and sends Nikolai to talk with Valen (who's also there)
to see what he can learn while she tries to see what she can find on her own.
At that moment Slava arrives and has a brief conference with his siblings.
The brother that cared for their Herd seems very excited to tell them
that the Prince asked them to open their Sire's brothel again, which has been closed ever since she went into torpor,
to once again turn it into the city's primary Elysium.
Slava is not loving the idea, honestly, but well, he knows that rejecting it would be an insult to the Prince so what can he do?
So he says yes and his brother happily leaves to get ready,
and that's when Slava talks with Dimir (the old guardian of their Sire's territory)
and tells him 'Hey look I met this Leopold guy, rather suspicious, said he knew something about our brother's death'
and Dimir answers 'Yeah that's weird, I never heard of Leopold; I'll go do some research, you see what you can find on your own'
That's when Slava goes and talks with Valen - another vampire from clan Mekhet, they're from the same clan.
Valen was talking with Nikolai, but they simply dismiss him - he moves aside but remains nearby, listening closely.
Slava asks her about Leopold - and she knows him! Or at least has heard of him. Yes, his domain is around the bell tower...
The domain that once belonged to Ivan, the dead prince...
That's when Sorin and Dettlaf arrive to Elysium.
There, they are immediately recieved by Natalya Markov - Markov, same last name as Sorin.
Natalya Markov is the primogen of clan Daeva, which might mean a very powerful ally to Sorin.
She tells them that Andrei was there not long ago,
and Sorin confirms to her that they know and even know where he is, something she's glad to hear because she lost him - he left for the sewers
asking about a vampire she didn't know, asking about Iblikó, Idlikó, or something - a vampire she did not know and he seemed obssessed with;
he went into the sewers and disappeared.
Sorin tells her 'No, he's in the bell tower, and he's held by whatever vampire is nesting there, the ruler of that domain;
to which Natalya answers 'But there's no vampire there, that was the domain of the old prince'
And Sorin said 'No, there was a vampire there that told us it was his domain.'
'Well then the new Prince', Natalya thinks aloud,
Natalya guesses, 'gave that domain to an unknown vampire without consulting the Primogeniture or anyone'
(Not that he has to, but it's strange that nobody knew about it.)
She decides to talk about it with the Prince and to put all her resources at Dettlaf and Sorin's disposal
(or at least, so she says.)
There's some brief chatting and interaction while all wait for the Prince, who finally appears for his coronation.
Lassal takes his vows,
Natalya gives him the ring,
and Viktor, Viktor Voldaren (that gallant vampire that Ebba had met), who turns to be the Gangrel Primogen; he gives him the cape.
The Prince gives a speech then, in which he encourages all those present to leave their hostilities behind and build a new Novgorod together,
and then personally greets every vampire that goes to congratulate him, without any kind of prejudice
- giving everyone a personalized greeting. In Ebba's case, he takes her hand and kisses her
-kisses her hand-
and tells her that he expects that they can work together for the best interests of both of them, to which Ebba assures him she will be more than happy to cooperate;
he greets Slava with a very affectionate gesture, putting his hand on the back of the man's head, despite having only known from by sight;
and promises to help him with the whole thing regarding his brother;
-wait, no; not at all, sorry, that was my mistake.
What he actually does is repeat what his brother said, that he was very interested in bringing that Elysium back,
and that he hopes they'll do good business together.
As for Sorin, he tells him that he's heard a lot about him,
and that he's also heard about his Sire. Sorin explains to him that he came here looking for him,
and the Prince replies that he will do everything that's in his power to help him find him.
So I guess the Prince seems to be a pretty nice guy. Someone he didn't have the chance to greet was Dettlaf, though.
Why? Because Dettlaf left, Dettlaf did not stay at Elysium.
Tired of all the pomp and hypocrisy of vampires, Dettlaf returns to the bell tower,
to face Leopold (whose name he doesn't know) and his Sire.
As he nears the bell tower, the fog grows thicker; and he doesn't find Leopold. Instead, a ghastly child's voice calls to him from an alley.
Dettlaf goes into the alley, following that voice; and as he keeps going on and delving into the depths of the city,
the fog grows thicker and thicker, until he can't see the walls, or the sky, or even his feet anymore.
As he gets lost in the fog, we reach the end of this second issue of the Novgorod Chronicle.
That's right. It ended on a cliffhanger,
because it's cool to finish with a cliffhanger.
This isn't a dead end. There's a reason for the child in the fog, there's a reason for this Leopold guy, this vampire that is...
moving so quickly from place to place in the city, or is in two places at the same time,
it's difficult to tell, but yeah.
All these mysteries have an explanation - except the mystery of the pear. The mystery of why he was slicing pear, that was just
that was just some random thing I thought could add to the description. Eh. Well, you improvise and you come up with stuff.
Anyway. And these are mysterise that will be revealed-
in some future session that will most likely not be the next one as this is only just kicking off
-but who knows, I mean, maybe the players suddenly -boom!- burst in somehow, discover Leopold's mystery and
*gasping or something*
we'll have to see where to go from there- how that chances things.
Either way. Well, this issue was a week late
unfortunately we won't be playing this weekend so the next one will also take one or two weeks
but in the meantime I'll try to upload the second part of my V:TR introduction.
So, thank you for watching, and we'll meet again at Another Roleplaying Channel. Bye.
Music: A Gifted Man Brings Gifts Galore (The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone)
For more infomation >> MOOC Drones 2.3: Conceptos del vuelo en aeronaves de ala rotatoria - Duration: 9:05. 
For more infomation >> MOOC Drones 2.2: Conceptos del vuelo en aeronave de ala fija - Duration: 8:50. 
For more infomation >> Volkswagen Kever VW 1/11 DE LUXE RAGTOP * OVAAL * Nederland G 1303 LS VW 1/11 DE LUXE RAGTOP * OVAAL - Duration: 1:00. 
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét