Hunter Begins!

So excited! We actually got the first Hunter game done!

 

I had 3 players lined up. One couldn't make it; we discussed quickly and she would like to be involved but couldn't commit to that date. Knowing how games can be excessively delayed, I suggested the rest of us make a start and we can slide the third player in when she is free.

So, H & S came over for character generation and an intro. H has run a couple of D&D sessions but hasn't been a player, and they're using pre-genned characters so she hasn't had a go at character creation before - and of course, White Wolf works very differently to D&D!

H has put a lot of thought into her character. His name's Jim, he came to Aberrheidol 7 years ago to study Medieval Literature but dropped out and now works in a pub/nightclub (Samsons and The Villa; this is a location transplanted from our local area where, it turns out, we both worked, she starting shortly after I left!), with a second job at a bookshop (I need to talk with H about this, because I have a few ideas). He's got a few named friends: Anna, his co-worker crush, his best friend who is an Arabic history specialist (if I remember correctly), and his roommate works at the hospital.

S is playing a sort of New Age healer-type named Vasha, who lives in a mobile caravan and has a pet hedgehog, Gerald. She wears a lot of scarves and occult-esque jewellery, but is actually good at medicine, albeit from a more mystic stance. The character doesn't exactly fit the vibe I was intending for the game, but the game isn't just mine so I'm doing my best to roll with it.

I explained we were starting in Pier Pressure, a club on the Pier. I let them choose why they were there: Jim had been invited by Anna to hang out with her other friends, and Vasha was looking for Gerald who had gone missing and she'd found him there before. They individually spotted a man with a very drunk woman; Vasha spotted blood trickling down the woman's leg as she crawled looking for Gerald, while Jim was concerned by the guy's attitude towards the woman. Jim looked for a bouncer - there was one in the corner, but studying the ceiling and Jim couldn't get his attention. The players intervened, the man raced down the stairs out of the club, dragging the woman with him.

I did my best to build Pier Pressure from my vague memories of my one visit to the real world place that inspires it, the carpet that eats your shoes, the stench, the awful lighting - and the smashed mirrors on the stairs.

Vasha glimpsed the man as he ran down, and noticed that he didn't seem to have a reflection. She didn't get a good enough look to be sure, but already believed in vampires the way some people do in our reality. Jim, however, has no such predisposition and got a very clear view. He went white with shock, and told Anna he thought he was seeing things. They wondered if his drink had been spiked.

Vasha got out first, and saw her favourite scarf had got stuck on the woman's shoe as the man carried her away, so she gave chase. She was smaller than the injured woman (easily kidnappable), and more full of blood, so the vampire dropped its first victim and grabbed for her instead. Anna said she'd call the police, and Jim told her to also look after the first first victim while he ran after the vampire. He threw a punch, and in the tussle Vasha managed to get free and the two pinned the vampire down - there was no way they could mistake it for anything else this close. Jim saw that Vasha had a cross among her jewellery, and she spotted Gerald nearby. Jim shoved the cross into the vampire's mouth, and Vasha used one of Gerald's spines to pierce the heart. 

The corpse went stiff.

Jim returned to Anna, saying they had to run because he was worried he'd knocked the guy unconscious, and they went to hospital to make sure he hadn't had his drink spiked. Vasha took over looking after the injured woman, managing to stabilise her from where Anna hadn't known what she was doing. She used herbal poultices and a scarf as compress to stem the bleed, and legged it home to make sure Gerald was fed.

I let this work on the vampire although it isn't RAW, but I like the idea that Hunters aren't entirely human and things that wouldn't work if a normal human tried them will work for Hunters. They left a vampiric corpse on the seafront, along with an injured woman. Aberrheidol is a centre of weird, so I think there are people in authority engaging in a degree of cover up, but they will have questions about the strange method of dispatch, as well as where the vampire came from: it was already weak, I think recently roused from torpor. Someone unleashed it on Aberrheidol for a reason - I've got ideas what those may be...