So, last night, important lesson learned: attacking a hardhold is suicide unless you really have an ace up your sleeve. And "we have more guys" is not that ace.

Uncle's plan was to send out his hyenas as a diversion, getting Hammer to send her forces after the hyenas. But here's the thing. Hammer doesn't want slaughter. She wants the hardhold. So one of her gang says, "Uncle's whole force is out on the water in crappy rowboats," so she says "OMG attack the Factory!"  And they roar across in their powerboats.

Except Uncle still had Fifi's special pack of dingoes (15 of them, via the get a gang and pack alpha) move, and the Factory has +2 to defense because of the heavy fortifications. Combine that with Uncle's leadership and you have sad, sad slaughter. None of the dingoes was even so much as scuffed.

Meanwhile, Brick, Fifi and Kobe infiltrate Hammer's fortress and get into a pretty intense firefight. At the close of the episode, they've pretty much managed to secure the place (Hammer has escaped with 1-2 people on a boat), but they're each at 9:00.

It was kind of a brief session, but here's what's still unresolved: there's some crazy clouds forming over Mimi's people, to the south, and people are starting to have bad dreams about being consumed in some horrible firestorm. The filtration system has been shot up, and who knows if it's working properly? Pierre is somewhere in Hammer's fortress, probably prepared to run for his life, but he has the chemicals Norvell needs to create the medicine that makes their food edible.

Last night's game I ran into some pacing issues, mostly I think because I didn't have moves that I could put right in their faces. When things start to feel slow I can sometimes start to death spiral it. Like, crap, what can I toss into the stew pot? Umm? Shit... and then I sit there slackjawed... and it's the best game ever.

led by a sentient radiation

Sweet

I felt like there were too many happy endings

Man, I dunno. I think we earned it. I didn't think Proust's life was in much danger, as PCs are pretty tough, but I worried that Amalia would die, and I think Iris worried about Norvell.

That's my takeaway for the wednesday game. Don't aim directly at the characters. Aim next to them.

Here's something I'm enjoying: the game really starts to prep itself after the first couple sessions. I spend about ten minutes looking at the stuff going on in my notes, thinking about who cares about things going on, idly considering future fronts, and that's about it.

Tonight we played a short game because John wanted to introduce us to Castle Ravenloft, which was fun.

So we agreed to have some time pass, and everyone who was hurt got to heal some harm. Uncle got all his wealth just fine, and Kobe got a 9 on his juggling move. I asked which gig he wanted catastrophe on, and he said the infiltration one. He says, "For that, I would have asked the merchant (Tao) who I persuaded to switch sides to gather more information for me." Perfect, methinks.

Brick's girlfriend, who is also part of Kobe's crew, is still wiggy about that whole temple business, so Brick is in the marketplace looking for someone who has a way with the psychic maelstrom. Wouldn't you know it but Ik the traveling merchant knows of this chick named Iris, but she recently headed south to where Mimi's people live. Brick presses Ik for info, suggesting that he'd be a good customer, and Ik shares confidentially that Iris looked like she might be caught up in that weird cult stuff, and he's worried that the cult has spies everywhere.

Kobe's in the tent city waiting to hear what Brick finds out, and all of a sudden there's people staring and pointing toward the hospital, where Fauna, Kobe's ladyfriend (and obligation gig) works. He runs over to find a weird oily black smoky fire in an oil drum, and next to it there's Tao, the merchant, all dead and crucified. And there's three guys with guns, looks like Hammer's people, waiting for Kobe. And one of them has Fauna, and she's worse for wear, you know?

Kobe tries to keep cool, but eventually he persuades this thug (Dremmer) to trade Fauna for him. He drops his gun and walks over.

This is when Brick, seeing the smoke himself, shows up in the ambulance. He tries to roar over and cause a distraction, but he almost ends up running over some innocent bystander and has to slam on the brakes. Dude on the roof opens up on the ambulance with a rifle, and a guy with a pistol comes around on the side. Brick loses his cool and can't get the ambulance moving, and shots smash through the window, showering Brick in glass, and he's down on the floor.

Right then, Uncle and Fifi show up, and Fifi sees this dick shooting at the ambulance. The magnum roars, but she misses, and the guy on the roof responds to her immediate fucking armored tank threat. She takes a bullet in the shoulder, causing serious pain even through all that armor. Shaken, she loses track of the one near the ambulance.

Uncle says she's going to sneak around and get in the hospital through a side door. Thing about Uncle, she's not much for sneaking, so the guy with the pistol catches her off guard, slams her up against the wall, barrel dug into her neck. "Now ain't this a prize? How's about you drop that shotgun really quick?:

Kobe confronts his captor, says, look, you better run now and save yourself. Now's not the time to be fucking with me. Too bad for Kobe, that tactic works. Dremmer says, yeah, I guess I don't have time for this. So he stabs Kobe with the knife and ditches out the back while Kobe's on his knees doubled over. (I <3 the harm move)

Uncle, now, she's trying to convince this guy with the gun that he could switch sides, but she just doesn't have much bargaining power, right? Uncle's too big a prize. So Uncle says, "I'm tired of this bullshit, jerks around and wrestles the pistol out of this thug's hands. The action catches him off guard, because who the fuck would try it? The pistol goes off a second too late, searing uncle's face with powder burns and nicking her ear, getting shit in her eyes. But still she doesn't fucking flinch and gets this guy in a choke hold. He wets himself he's so scared.

Uncle says, "I think you're such a harmless, pathetic piece of shit, I'm even going to give you this gun back. What's your name? No, that's not your name. Your name is Dog now."

And that's about where we left off, with Uncle wanting to catch this bastard Dremmer, Fauna telling Kobe she doesn't feel safe.

Oh, and all this other problematic shit I didn't even get around to. I'll have to tell them about it next week.

Holy crap that was fun.

I want to be harder with my hard moves so that Bret and Vincent will have some small shred of respect for me.

Well, Bret keeps bringing the epic tension to the table. Last night was once again awesome.

So anyway, Proust and Sorrow have decided to follow Ozair's critically awful advice and head to Crine's hardhold, where they hope to free Sorrow's former followers. Proust has patched things up with Amalia and Jesus, and the four manage to sneak out past Fleece's increasing patrols.

Iris wants to try and patch things up with Norvell, but Norvell isn't having any of that bullshit: "normally when I fuck someone I don't get a 6-hour nosebleed afterward! Leave me alone! I'm cleaning my guns!"

Ozair encounters the mysterious "static man" again and convinces him -- after Proust and Sorrow have left, mind you -- he convinces the static man to go and invade the people at Crine's hardhold and leave Long Neck alone.

So when Proust and Sorrow arrive at the slavers' fortress, they're besieged by three people apparently possessed by more of the static men. Proust is relieved to find that they're afraid of his big-ass magnum, and he waves them back. Sorrow opens his brain to the maelstrom, and he can see dozens of these weird beings climbing the holding walls, inhabiting other bodies, etc.

Criner, it turns out, has heard of Proust. Because you know, Proust has a reputation and stuff. It also turns out that he's heard of Sorrow and thinks maybe he should just throw Sorrow off the roof of the tower. Sorrow tries to convince Criner that these invisible static men are invading his home, and says, well, if this is true, then maybe I won't kill you.

Iris goes to try and convince Fleece that Crine's hardhold is a threat and she should attack them, but Fleece isn't having any of that. What she does want is for Iris to find out about this robot that Ozair's been building. She wants it from him.

Ozair finishes the robot and announces to the crowd that it's for sale, to which Jackabacka says I beg your fucking pardon, this is mine. Fleece's expression is unreadable.

I probably forgot a few things.