The Silo – What do you get when you put a manipulative stripper, a sex-cultist, a ponchoed killer and a lonely mind-f***er together in a nuclear facility?
The Game:Strongbif and I had a ton of fun playing AW at PAX this year and so he recruited a couple more players and we organized a game over Google+ Hangouts.
Since none of us wanted to take on the full MCing responsibility, we are running the game based on the co-MCing suggestions Vincent posted a couple months ago (
http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=2867.0).
We played our first session tonight and despite a couple minor technical hiccups it was awesome. The co-MCing worked fantastic.
The Sitch:In the Aftermath, the bitter cold is unrelenting. The landscape stretches out an endless maze of glaciers and icy chasms. An airborne shroud of ash obscures the sun and a filthy blanket of snow deadens sound. Winter never ends.
Our characters live in one of the last enclaves in the waste. A nuclear silo, its warhead already sent to long forgotten enemies has been repurposed as a shelter against the elements.
This holding is without electricity. The residents crowd in support tunnels and command rooms while the smoke from their fires rises out of the silo’s maw.
The Players: October (the Skinner) operates a popular passion parlor, preying on the proclivities of his patrons. He uses his mesmerizing presence to addle the audience of his burlesque show and feed his own appetite for attention and affection.
Lena (the Hocus) preaches a gospel of human connectedness. Her followers, the Family, forgo the pleasures of material possessions instead focusing their attention on sharing themselves through polyamory and the Maelstrom. She condemns October’s slick, glitzy productions and decries them for cluttering sex with distracting stages, costumes and baubles, ultimately subverting sensuality for materialistic aims.
Toshiro (the Battlebabe) works as an enforcer for hire. Dressed in a poncho and smoking a thin black cigarillo, he wandered from holding to holding until, by chance, he attended one of October’s shows and became infatuated, not by October’s act, but by his pianist Lavender. Toshiro, himself a musician was captivated by Lavender’s skill and has stayed in the silo to watch her play.
Valentine (the Brainer) was betrayed by the Maelstrom. In hopes of psychically wooing an unrequited love, she opened her brain but the Maelstrom withered her body and left her as a skeletal, bug-eyed freak. She still craves love but now her grotesque form and bizarre personality drive everyone away.
Session #1: The curtain opens on October’s show, to an unusually empty house. Taken aback, October dispatches a lackey to discover the reason and learns that members of Lena’s cult, led by the devout Elizabeth are protesting his performance and berating potential patrons with religious rhetoric.
Seizing the opportunity to humiliate the cultists, October moves his show out into the tunnel in full view of the protesters. Stunned, the crowd in the hall looks on as October pulls Elizabeth’s son Corey from the crown and proceeds to seduce the young man in front of the whole gathering.
As the performance ends, the cultists, Elizabeth in particular are enraged. Lena appears from the back of the crowd and begins to preach. She reminds her followers of their “truth” and manages to calm their tempers. She releases Corey from the Family.
Meanwhile, October smugly returns into his theater.
Toshiro, present in the audience, a fan of the show and a friend of October, begins to criticize Lena for her cult’s disruptive behavior. As he does this, Burrows and Gritch, two guards in the employ of the Silo’s military head (The Butcher), arrive on the scene to investigate the disturbance.
Despite their initial hostility, Lena is able to allay the guards’ anger by expounding the pleasurable possibilities implicit in the Family’s polyamorous practices. She leaves them with a kiss and an invitation to visit the Family. Toshiro’s protests are ignored.
Down in the depths of the Silo, Valentine has been using the Maelstrom to spy on the proceedings. She has developed an infatuation with October and an obsession with convincing the performer to love her. The Maelstrom reveals that while October revels in her attention, he has a twisted heart, incapable of love and intends to string her along without ever truly caring for her. Valentine is devastated by this discovery but determines that poor October needs her help in learning to love and resolves to fix him.
She goes out to the Silo’s bar, the Scabbard to drink away her sorrows.
At her entry, a wave of revulsion circles the room. A few thugs from a local gang stand up, apparently intent on bouncing her out. Panicking, Valentine brandishes a psychic weapon.
In the back corner of the bar, Toshiro springs to his feat and prepares for trouble.
The lead thug head butts Valentine and her weapon sails from her hand before she can activate it. Toshiro not knowing what Valentines device is for, scoops it off of the floor at his feet and flings it away from him.
Reflexively, Valentine grabs at her assailants face and uses her violator glove to rip his secret pains from his mind. Blood streams from his eyes and he goes berserk, drawing a pistol and firing point blank into Valentines unarmored body. She goes into shock and drops unconscious.
Toshiro, brandishing a sword in one hand and massive revolver in the other bellows a challenge to the thugs. Surprised they turn from the prone form of Valentine to face this new threat.
To be continued…
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