feel it crawl
through your belly
feel it devour
as it fades
your stomach lining
Run while you can

Affairs and their Outcomes


Though not an adventure in itself, this is more of a collation of events, irregular and interspaced but grouped together for affect - as the characters in this campaign become more free-willed scenarios are taking on more event-like situations. The outcome of the previous adventure - Childhood Memories was different from the one actually contained herein. A summary follows, as it has much weight on the material following.

The Archbishop, now aware of Gleb’s escape and his ties to the characters (which are loose, but stronger than any Gleb has made with anyone else) the Lictor sets about their capture. Meanwhile, Sergei’s partner Savva returns from the Altai mountains with an alternate source of marijuana to sell without having to deal with Mafioso. He contacts Sergei and has him meet at the Kursky Train Station in the evening.

At the train station soldiers entering the city get off the train (tension) carrying weapons. They wait and Savva appears and is killed my Mafioso aware of Savva’s enquiries in the Altai mountains. The Mafiosos turn on the characters and a bloody battle ensues, the characters fleeing each other - Sergei running through the train to the baggage compartment to get Savva’s drugs. Soldiers come to the rescue and the Mafioso are driven off. The soldiers then, for no apparent reason line up the passengers and shoot them individually (they characters escape).

Then police sweep down upon them the next few days. Detectives hunting Sergei and his crew for drug dealing, smuggling and distribution. Arrested they are interrogated, beaten, and otherwise treated like shit (the penalty for their crimes is death). No lawyers are allowed and they are dragged to a cell deep in the Police Station at the end of a long corridor of the most violent inmates left to die here. Gleb is in the cell. The characters could find no escape, then servailiants of the Archbishop arrived to take the characters. Gleb panics and the Illusion begins to crumble, and he tears at the plastered walls finding a small wedge in the wall leading to a corridor. The characters flee, but Gleb is shot in the process (my characters were selfish and left him eagerly, pushing each other out of the way for escape. Gleb’s death and closeness would have passed his portfolio onto another character, but not so).

They are in the Underground, but are unaware. They flee to a large cavern where an old man helps them hide in the shadows in caves. Genetides float around monstrous alien statues which can be discerned with radioactive glow. The servailiants were caught unawares by the genetides and fled back into the tunnel.

The old man who aided them in hiding in rooms set into the walls is Jeremiah, a chemist working under Baba Yaga (the former Lictor of Malkuth corrupted by Chagidiel: upcoming) creating a drug to be made available to the youth, greatly addictive and Illusion destroying - bringing Inferno closer to Moskov (this drug has a great influence on the future setting in which the characters will be plunged many sessions from now). Jeremiah was drawn here by dreams of the Genetides (Malkuth manipulating through Chagidiel to get the characters/pawns to get the drug distributed) and brought with him the formula and test vial which he has discarded in his rapture of the Genetides, eventually wandering out to be slain by them.

The characters followed him, but lost him in the darkness. As the radioactive glow brightened and the horrific statues and genetides came into view, Dimitrii downed the drug (not knowing what it was) and this is where everything changes. The Inferno drug warps time and space and the characters are individuall sent into the past and future into realities which may or may not occur, but have bearing upon the present.

Sergei and Dimitrii are sent to the future while Anichka and Petr are plunged into the past: both of these realities will be used in alternate stories later on with the characters psyche immersed in future or past bodies - past lives, locked in a deadly struggle for power between Binah and Malkuth/Chagidiel.

THE FUTURE: BRIEF SYNOPSIS

Relating to this is the NPC Saint Princess Trakanova in Slaves of the Will Section. This is only a cursory idea - to be fully developed later.

In the future as Binah’s power grows in St. Petersberg and her oppression expands, Saint Princess Trakanova of the Novaspasskiy Monastery is driven mad by the oppression and erects a bleak rule in Moskov (this is not the purgatory - that is the desire of Binah: see below), drawing Inferno closer - a plan of Malkuth and Chagidiel all along. The Saint takes over control of those Lictors still in Moskov and the State - her power through madness growing at an expedential rate. Religion is banished from Moskov. Gleb (Binah’s manifestation of Communism is near death, hooked up to the central computer that runs most things in Moskov).

The Feodorova’s, however, have increased religion so strong that St. Petersberg starts war on Moskov and Europe is divided under these two super powers. The characters are agents of Trakanova’s just returned from interstellar journey in search of her artefacts which the Feodorova’s are desparately hunting. They are in deep sleep (some would even say the reality of the game is but a dream for this true future reality - which is the present). Dimitrii is a secret agent of the Feodorova’s who want to manipulate the Princess into killing Gleb. This murder will drive her mad and Inferno will be stopped by a purgatory which the Feodorova’s can control from outside at least, rather than letting Inferno break through the Illusion. They want to drive the Princess to create the Purgatory.

The characters have returned with the energy signature of Saint Princess Traknova’s rosary beads from beyond local space - her beads destroyed, but the force of the binding still apparent, though cast deep into space. The energy is within Dimitrii - the traitor (unwilling medium).

THE PAST: BRIEF SYNOPSIS

More information on the past can be found under Dahzbog in the Slaves of Will Section. I will deal less with the past here as it is nascent in its beginning. Prince Vladimir worships Chagidiel’s Razides and sacrifices children to them on a hill outside of Kiev. Princess Anna (who is also the Lady: Anichka), his wife is a Christian who has called a priest to help convert Vladimir from his pagan rituals - the priest is none other than the Archbishop. The characters in the past are members of Prince Vladimir’s court and know and some are friends of Princess Anna. They will take part in the destruction of Chagidiel and conversion of Prince Vladimir into a Christian. Sandolphin is imprisoned by Vladimir under the castle by magics, but he is a Seraphim of Binah here.
DUALITY

In the future the characters are driven in two ways: Dimitrii is to destroy any chance of Malkuth succeeding against Binah, the remaining characters unaware and trying their best to stop the Feodorova’s. They work for Chagidiel.

In the past the characters are driven in two ways again: To stop Chagidiel’s reign of terror and aid Binah in reigning supreme with a Christian indoctrinization into Rus(sia). The characters work for Binah against the torture Vladimir inflicts.

This duality of past/present, Binah/Malkuth(Chagidiel), is not wholly a duality because the underlying principle of triatic completion needs to be stressed. For more information see Campagin Overview. The characters in the present are the driving force of the duality around them (they are god but don’t realise it). While they live the duality surrounding them continues to push - without the characters the duality ceases as there is nothing to drive the duality forward and it will become static.