Just Outside the City: Myths Busted, Hardholds Taken

 - Baby wanted military motorcycles for her boys.
 - Dent wanted a big army truck...like the kind with a canvas top (a deuce and a half,      Barry told us, it is called).
 - Bullet wanted a crane, a working construction crane.
 - Marsh wanted...to meet Cannibals.

I don't recall the mix of misses and 7-9's but it was a nice mix and it resulted in this:

They they were, cannibals in their homemade suits, almost Amish looking but if Amish were special forces soldiers in an apocalyptic world with matching AR-15's assault rifles, gathered around the deuce and a half they had just salvaged with their shiny new crane.

Baby wasn't having it and opened fire, seizing the crane.  She took some shots but drove them off; they took cover behind the truck.

Things got nasty.  Everyone got shot but Baby kept seizing shit by force, so she got really shot up.  Everyone else I had roll their Harm right when it happened but I forgot with Baby, so when the fight was all over, after Marsh had knifed the little boy, Elijah, to keep him from revealing his stealthy position, after Bullet had been pinned down but backed Baby up, after Dent had attempted to get into melee but got shot and lost his grip on his hammer, after Baby sent them running again and I decided that they were done messing with her and they were in full retreat, numbers be damned, she collapsed with 3 damage.

The only doctors worth a damn was in Kip-town.

They stowed her in Bullet's 'vette (he went and got it) and he sprinted on up to the biggest city on the Hudson River.  The rest followed.

Ah, but I'm missing stuff, missing how Baby ended up possessed by the spirit of dead, Elijah and how Rubbin asked Baby if she should kill Bullet because he killed her entire family and a few other things.

But the important facts are there.  Baby's bleeding out and Bullet's running her up north to Kip-town.

That is the important stuff, that sets up everything else.

Dent and Marsh went to Bear to round up Baby's boys to meet up in Kip-town.

Bullet got into Kip-town and made a deal with their warlord, the Kipsie.

Yeah, I need to do dishes and to bed.  I'll start there tomorrow in Kip-town.

Bullet is stopped by a check-point that is manned by biker gangs with guns.  They are impressed with his ordinance and they know The Kipsie will want to speak with him.

When he pulls in he is ushered into a legit parking spot, with other cars there, four others: an ambulance, a police car, a baja bug (I always wanted one as a kid) and a tow truck.  Do you know any of these guys? I asked Barry.

"Yeah, the cop."

"Chase," JJ suggests for a name.  Nice.

Chase has done some work for the Kipsie and warns that he's fair but tough and likes to have people in his debt.

"Its like this, Bullet.  We've heard of ya and your fast car.  Your friend is bleeding to death.  I could call down the doc and you could haggle with him or you could do a job for me tonight and Baby will get healed on my credit."

Done deal, spit in our hands and shake on it.

The deal didn't go well and time get's shaky as we go back and forth between people.

Bullet's job was to stop a car that would be making a run from one of the Kipsie's biker hit squads ("These people were cutting deals with cannibals," he explained).  It was a fast little Nissan but when Bullet rolled up to it a guy popped out of the truck with an uzi, killing his windshield and sending him into some wreckage.

But...wait, is that Dent in the road?  How the fuck did Dent get here?  (he has a power where he can show up in a big battle).

Dent walks towards the speeding Nissan, majestically takes out his hammer and get's hit by the car, send right over the hood and into Bullet's busted windshield.  The Nissan sped away.

To his credit, Bullet didn't lie, he told The Kipsie's strong-arm, Dancer, that he lost the car.

"The Kipsie won't be happy."

The Kipsie wasn't happy.

Alright, fast forward.

Baby, Dent, Marsh and Bullet are all in Dent's shiny new deuce and a half, parked in frotn of Kip-town.  The Chopper, the Faceless, the Brainer and the Driver are screaming at one another.  Out of game, Barry, JJ, KK and Padraic are more or less screaming at one another.  I let them know that I won't let it go on for too much longer before we go to dice or something.

Ya see, Baby's boys rolled into town proud as hell of their boss, who opened fire on cannibal soldiers at West Point (their facts were fuct).  Bullet is in debt to the Kipsie and he was ready to barter for some fancy driving down to Bear to put them under Kip-town's heel but when he heard about West Point, a fine place to control the southern part of the Hudson, the Kipsie got ideas.

Bullet was ready to give his daddy's car to Kipsie as a hostage...not the gunned up Vette but his daddy's Nascar, the car that is hidden away in storage somewhere, the one that hasn't ever been driven in game yet.  In return, the Kipsie would allow Bullet to rule West Point as hardholder but under the Kipsie, in his name.  The Kipsie liked how Bullet talks about his dad; one of the Kipsie's big motivations for making Kip-town a safe place was to give his parents a place to grow old gracefully. 

Dent thought that was pretty reasonable, but then, Dent had been looking at this bridge and his hammer, back to the bridge and then at his hammer all night, wondering if he could break it...break the suspension bridge with a few swings.  Dent wasn't too worried about the Kipsie or Kip-town.  I am reminded of those lines for Dune, "He who can destroy a thing controls that thing."

Bowing down to the Kipsie stuck in Baby and Marsh's craw, hence the yelling.  Bullet just wants to start building something, to start being decent.  He is noble intentions wrapped around .30 caliber bullets and a fast car.

After yelling all night (10-15 minutes of game time), the crew went to talk to the Kipsie. 

I had described Kipsie's motorcycle gangs as not really his own.  He keeps them working through barter and smarts but they aren't particularly beholden to him so much.  Kipsie has a solid group of folks around him, including the Dancer.  They all sat down, biker gang leaders standing around the table, watching the proceedings.

The proceedings went around in circles for a while and then the Kipsie said something about no one having to bow down to him.  I tell everyone that he is fucking lying.

Baby fucking shoots him.  Seize by Force.

The king is dead, hail to the queen.

In last week's game, if you follow along, you might have noticed that Baby didn't do shit.  That is because Baby didn't do shit.  KK was exhausted and when I put situations in front of her, she'd look at me, nod and that was that.  I have gamed with KK for years, so I didn't sweat it, thinking that if it became a pattern, I'd ask if she was enjoying herself.  Tonight, KK was back and it was nice to have her at the table.

In the last few rolls of the night, Baby and Bullet got improvements; they both took their advancements from the Hardholder's book.  Bullet will be the Hardholder of West Point and Baby will be the Hardholder of Kip-town.

"Yeah, the Kipsie's dead but how long until we have to worry about this despot killing us!" Bullet said.

"But this despot's Baby; we know her."

Heh.

It was one of those nights where if I didn't have to open a library in the morning and if I didn't have a battle in my skull between my sinus infection and my antibiotics, I might've seriously thought about gaming all damned night.  We had that kind of momentum.

Other things to post about later:

 - Rubbin's arc
 - Food, food, food

Hm, I think my first post got busted up somehow.  There's something missing.

That is really odd.

When the thread starts, the players have headed to where once stood West Point, or as the river folk call it, Army Point, where reports of soldiers, tanks and ordinance exploding originate.

Shit, there's a whole lot missing.

I can't edit?

Probably a better write-up:

http://githyankidiaspora.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/the-king-is-shot-long-live-the-queen-of-kip-town/