Another session ended last night, and it was great. Session 7 resulted in Lemieux opening his brain and discovering the Truth of the Psychic Maelstrom, which I had given some thought about, and hinted at last game.
In addition, this also represented massive changes in both JC and Goldie, both of who changed their playbooks at the end of the game. There was sex, beauty, horrible violence, and hope.
It's all recorded, but I have a backlog of Actual play recording to get through, and I'm going to try to get most of them out this week. I also want to put up my relationship map, which is becoming a barely legible scribble of dense interpersonal ties.
There was one moment where JC was trying to stop the blood sport in the holding Cal's Catastrophe. He tries to reason with Goldie on this, as she rather pragmatically looks at the chanting crowd and (reading a charged situation) realizes that they'll riot if they don't get their daily intake of gladiatorial combat. JC starts to go on and on about baseball, and starts describing it. (riffing on Blast from the Past) Halfway through his description he kind of trails off, realizing how incredibly silly baseball sounds when describing it to someone, Goldie looks at him as if he's insane, and all of us at the table are almost crying from laughing.
There was this great moment involving a successful Augury move, Lemieux projecting lost images of children playing on this image of the Florida Keys, pulled from an old viewmaster. This was shown to the baying crowd to abate their bloodlust. The Augury move was intended to show some of the Maelstrom, a deep part of it, and it made the image real, the sound of the children, of the ocean, and the smell of the ocean, and even the pounding of the surf come through. As the image faded, it left behind sand, and one of the tall trees by the beach. The holding was changed by the Maelstrom's touch, and then began to worship the tree left behind.
Immediately after this beautiful moment, the gang triumphed against the Holding's forces. They were battling at the entrance to the holding, as a result of Goldie and JC's earlier efforts. Goldie bore witness to Lars, emerging triumphant from the battlefield, holding a dead guard's severed head high and tossing it at her feet, a trophy from a victorious battle. The juxtaposition of a miracle of the Maelstrom mixed with the ugly reality of this world was great, and quite horrifying.
There was a collapsing bridge in the holding, where each player acted under fire, Goldie and Lemieux helped each other to safety, and JC saved Lars, one of the Chopper gang. It was a fairly standard hard move (previously there was a failed roll, so I picked one of the landscape moves) but each decision in the Act under Fire, specifically with Goldie and JC, was a result of the gut wrenching events that happened earlier in the game.
It was great, very satisfying, and I look forward to when next we play.