by Gavin Bennett (Changeling: The Dreaming | Fiction)
The conclusion of Northern Lights.
Introduction: For the last year, Ex Libris Nocturnis has been running a small, quiet Changeling metaplot following the events in the North, in Quebec, Russia, Norway and the British Isles.
An ancient, demonic creature named the Red Lord is destined to rise. His minions, a horrific race of Dark Kin have awakened en masse, and have returned from battles in Arcadia, to earth. They have built a home deep beneath the permafrost in the Canadian arctic, and slowly, they have moved south, killing as they go. Distracted by the events of the Second Accordance War to the South, and internal politics, the response by the Sidhe lords has been muted at best. The exceptions to this have been notable the player's characters for one, some mortal mages, for another.
Finally, the Canadian Sidhe lords have decided to act. They have noted the frequent, and suspicious actions of the Duke of Montreal, and suspect him of dealing with mortal, Infernalist mages.
As the story opens, the player's characters have been asked to help depose the Duke of Montreal and take his place.
What they do not know, yet, is that a massive winter storm is blowing in out of the arctic, and that storm hides things within it.
Theme and Mood:
The essential mood of "Solstice" is brooding, cold, wintry and faintly hopeless. The first chapter is set in the snow covered, dirty, impoverished, edge-cities of Montreal. They are hunting the kidnappers of a friend, and both the characters and the kidnappers are but pawns. The second chapter is one of sheer violence, as the Sidhe meet the storm on the Plains of Abraham. The third chapter involves the desperate race by the Changelings to take Montreal from the Duke before the Red Lord is woken.
The Theme is "Hope, Waylaid." While "Northern Lights" is coming to a close, the events set in motion by this storyline have yet to be resolved. This story offers hope to Concordia and the Changeling peoples, but there will be no resolution, no dawning of the sun, just yet.
Plot:
The characters arrive at Dorval Airport in Montreal, with a contingent of Sidhe knights, and other Changeling warriors. They are to proceed to the Sept of the Royal Mountain nearby, and prepare the way for a Concordian army, which is to work as a garrison force for Montreal until the accordance war is done with, and things settle down.
Mortal hunters, who kidnap one of the fey, during the battle, ambush them. This woman, Ingrid, must survive, and the characters are amongst those dispatched to find her. In the depths of St. Henri, the characters discover that the Hunters themselves were but pawns, and that something is using them as much. The agents of the Duke of Montreal close in.
The Second chapter, the Storm Breaks, details the climatic conflict between the host of Concordia and the Foamhr. The battle is brutal, vicious and deadly.
The third chapter, the doomed city, finishes off the plot of Northern Lights. The Foamhr have been stopped, for now, and the fey now move to secure Montreal. But the Strawman has arrived, with the Black crown, and aims to wake the Red Lord.
Note: Each chapter contains a cutscene, which is a short description of things happening that the characters have no control over, and no way of knowing about. They are included as an experimental trick to add to the mood, and the pace, of the story.
Cutscene:
Bremen, Germany.
"In the darkened, cold, stone room, the man finds what he has come for. In a glass case, at the centre of the room, lies a small rude crown, made of wood and thorn. Age and blood has blackened the crown, so it appears stained, dirty, and unclean. He lingers awhile, looking at the case.
"So you thought to hide this from me, did you?"
No reply comes.
"I was not searching for it. I have known where this thing was for nigh on 5 hundred years. The stars were not right. The time was not ready for me to claim it."
Again, no reply comes.
The man looks behind him. A woman hangs, impaled, on the doorframe. The wood of the door has warped, ripped into a strange tentacled like thing, and the tip of the tentacle has ripped through the woman's body. Impossibly, she is alive, in terrible pain. Little black spines are growing out of her skin.
The woman, an attractive woman in her early 30s, bears the tattoo of a lotus, a sign of the magical Cult of Ecstasy.
The man steps into the light. He has a haughty, eternal, cruel face. It is the Strawman. He caresses the woman, almost gently. She makes a small, mewling noise.
"You know, I don't think you are hurting enough, no, I do not believe so. Magicians, so bloody clever, all of you."
He runs his fingers down her belly, and then draws his hand back. He stabs her in the gut with his hand, tears her skin open, runs his hand inside, and tears something out. It is a small foetus.
"Now," he says, throwing the little, shivering piece of meat away, "now I think you are hurting now."
He steps on the foetus.
Then, only then, does the woman scream.
"You really should have just handed it over, when I asked for it."
He smiles and kisses the woman's cheek.
"Elke," he whispers. "You know, I am certain, about what happens now. You are going to live for a very long time, hung here, in this horrible room. Now, I give you a choice. I can leave you here for the rest of your mortal life and believe me, you will survive that long, if I wish it, or you wait here until my business in Canada is done, and then you will serve me. Think about it."
The Strawman leaves the room, ascends the shallow stone stairs in the narrow, winding passageway. He gingerly, steps past the bloodied broken body of a man. Another corpse lies, torn, at the top of the stairs. He walks out into a sunlit room. Several bodies lie burnt and torn around the room. The Strawman smiles, grimly, and walks away.
Scene One:
Dorval Airport, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
The characters step off a privately owned Lear jet, having just flown straight from a private airstrip south of Bergen, in Norway.
There are twenty other changelings, mostly Sidhe knights on the plane. Snow scatters around them when they deplane. The air is bitterly cold, and a sharp wind is coming down from the north. With wind-chill, its about 16 out. The sun is setting, and getting colder by the moment.
Everyone gets out of the plane, and most of the other Changelings fan out in something akin to a security cordon. The sidhe knights, mostly British and Swedish, dressed (to mortal eyes) in trench coats and business suits scan the airport.
It is a prelude to invasion.
The subjects the security people are protecting are the characters.
Harold, of House Scathach brings up the year, watches the characters reactions.
"We don't want you dead, until the jobs done," he laughs, patting each one on the back. "Oh, I am sorry, did we not tell you. We wanted your help getting the Duke out of here. We forgot to mention that you are getting to take over in his place."
Harold walks away, laughing, the sidhe following the characters, scanning everything around them.
Three black mini-vans await them outside the airport. The drivers are told to drive to "the sept of Mount Royal" a few miles distant.
In the van, a comfortable SUV, let the characters talk, and discuss what this means. The going outside is slow, because of all the snow and slush on the roads. The journey is only about 4 miles, but after ten minutes, they still are only half way there. Let the characters wonder about what is going on.
Ingrid, the seer, says nothing, only that she is worried. There are too many powers at work to be certain of the future.
Then. BAM!
The first SUV is destroyed in a plume of fire. The second one explodes seconds later. Then the character's van is raked by machine gun fire. The drivers are killed. Their heads explode with blood all over the windscreen.
Play up the utter confusion and the noise. If you really want to piss off your players (and the neighbours) make some recordings of loud gunshots on TV and loop them, and play them at full volume. Have the players yell to over hear anything, and get them to try and work out what is going on, with all the noise and confusion. Have everyone make dex+dodge rolls, at a difficult of 7 to avoid getting hit by shrapnel.
Outside, in a series of cars left lying around the road, 12 people emerge. 5 of them look like very serious, very professional killers. These men wear trench coats, and use military grade weaponry. The rest use illegal, stolen, handguns or hunting rifles. The five men are also really well dressed, but very practically dressed. They wear Kevlar vests; have short, respectable cropped hair. While the others look on, the men slowly, methodically, pick off the survivors from the cars.
Harold, for his part, has his gun out and ready, and waits for the men to come near.
What are the characters doing?
If they wait too long, the men will shoot them. Dead. The men do not accept surrenders, either. If the characters start to surrender, have one of the Sidhe knights crawl up and offer surrender to them. They shoot him casually.
However, the hunters (for such these are) make a crucial error. They do not immediately move in on the characters. Give the players a few minutes to get their wits about them. Then Harold starts shooting. He takes out 2 of them more "professional" hunters in the first few seconds, giving the characters that extra edge.
What's going on?
The characters have been ambushed by Hunters. The Hunters who were murdered in "The Meeting Place" had friends, who were missed. This led to a series of online discussions, and then certain parties began cross-referencing data. Almost coincidentally, the Order of Uriel found out about these murders, and offered their help in catching the killers.
So the hunters of various stripes watched and waited.
And now they want to strike.
Use the stats for Dauntain in the Changeling rulebook to simulate the hunter's from the Order of Uriel (the well dressed hunters) abilities.
Use the stats for
After the "regular" hunters start taking hits, the ambushers will withdraw.
When the smoke clears, and the battle ends, all the fey that came on the plane with them, save Harold, are dead. And Ingrid, the seer who Harold has sworn his life to protect is missing.
It is dark, and cold, and the snow is falling across the empty highway.
Scene Two:
Cutscene:
In a hoky, country imitation bar in Montreal, meetings are occurring.
"The Strawman has gotten the Black Crown," one man says. His name is Lycidas.
"Which is?" the other replies, in a small, slow, whisper.
"Christ's crown, made black from his blood. It's a powerful, wrong thing. If you know what I mean. A blasphemy. Something our German friend should not have."
"Where did he get it?" the other asks, after some thought.
"Went into a mage's Chantry in Bremen, in Germany, killed everyone inside, and locked the place down. Our people can't get into it. The one guy who tried got burned to a crisp. Forget about it."
"Now what happens?"
"He puts the crown on, in some suitably dramatic place, and wakes the Red Lord, and I go and find a nice pistol, put it to my head and kill myself."
"You?"
The one named Lycidas closes his eyes, sighs.
"Yes, me," he admits. "Me, who spits in the eyes of devils and fomorians,"
"Will the wakening of the Red Lord united Concordia against it? That is a possibility, no?"
"Perhaps. Perhaps. Look, never mind. That is not our main problem."
"What then, is our main problem?"
"The Lords of Tara Nar have decreed that the Duke of Montreal has got to go. We have to get rid of him. The Lord of Tara-Nar have named him oathbreaker, and called on those loyal to the High King to go and kill him, and his pals."
"Oh," the other one whispers, "and you tell me this, why?"
"So you go and tell your boss that we are coming for him, you pathetic little fuck. Tell him, he is associating with a low class of people and being a pain in the hole, and that I'll fucking going to crucify him. Got that? Now, scoot. I have been named messenger of Tara Nar. I should have attended his palace and delivered it personally, but I don't like the little weasel much."
The Sept of Mount Royal, Dorval, Montreal, Quebec.
The characters limp into the Werewolf sept house. The land has changed much since the characters were there last. The land was bought by the City of Montreal as a potential site for a "clearance centre" of all the papers and bureaucracy that is sure to be generated by the forthcoming "One Island, One City merger." The area was landscaped by the city, and a small, library like building was built until the werewolves took it back.
In many ways, the new arrangement suits the Garou more. The parkland is easier to defend. The new library building, designed as a processing centre for all the official local government documents from all the small cities that are about to be consumed by Montreal, makes for a useful base of operations for the activities of the werewolves.
The characters wounds are attended to. Harold only wants more ammunition for his gun, and wants to take off in pursuit of the Hunters.
"No, you will not," the head of the Sept tells him. "You will wait, and we shall do our utmost to find her. Things are moving too fast for you to be running off."
If pressed, the garou do not say much more. They don't know themselves, they just know that something big and ugly is coming down.
Scene Two: Notre Dame De Grace
Cutscene: The Northern Pacific.
There are 18 ships in the mist. A cold, winter low pressure has turned the grey, northern water to smoke, and snow scythes across the waves tops. The moon and the stars are obscured. Nothing can be seen.
There is nothing there.
Unless you can see with the eyes of the dead.
In the oceans of the land of the dead, 16 warships, gray and majestic and scarred, slip through the mist.
They are arranged in a long, echelon formation. Perhaps you know their names.
On the east side of the formation, the USS Yorktown leads a flotilla, comprising the USS Arizona, Tennessee, and West Virginia. To the west, the HMS Glorious, the HMS Hermes and the HMS Sheffield lead another group.
They are the surviving ships of the Stygian navy; they alone survived the holocaust of the war on Enoch.
Their captains are ancient, and skilled. They are, however, utterly lost and despondent. There are no safe harbours. The forces of the Yellow Springs still harry them in many places, and the Pacific Ocean is ringed with Necropoli that harbour the Chinese Ghosts. The fleet thought they had reached safety away from the Atlantic, and Enoch. They were wrong.
On the Bridge of the HMS Warspite, the Admiral sits in command.
"We will make for Vancouver," the Admiral said at last, quietly, but his officers heard him, nonetheless.
"Vancouver belongs to the enemy."
"The ferrymen say that the Stygian presence there is not entirely gone, and perhaps our ships would tilt the balance," the Admiral said.
"I am merely tired of fighting," one of the officers said.
"Sir," a messenger reports, running into the Bridge room. "We have a sighting of lights ahead, in the darkness."
"Battle stations," the admiral commands, and sailors long dead report for duty.
The lights stretch across the horizon for a moment, and then fade. Then a single, flaming star seems to shimmer out of the gloom. As it draws closer, the sailors can make out the delicate lines of a clipper ship.
"Stand to," the Admiral commands. "Be prepared."
"Hola, the HMS Warspite," a voice echoes out of the gloom. The clipper slows as it approaches the Warspite.
On the prow of the ship, a man, long blond hair flowing in the wind off the sea, stands, and light plays around him.
"Admiral, I am the Seelie Duke of Anchorage, and I have a proposal for you."
The characters are told by the Prodigals that Ingrid cannot be found by their scrying magics. 36 hours have passed. It is the morning of the 19th. Lycidas suggests to Harold that they contact some of Montreal's sluagh and offer them whatever they want.
Harold agrees, and asks the characters to help him find such.
An hour later, he comes back, saying he has found one, online. A sluagh named Bergman is known through North America for being a completely non-political, non-partisan operative. As long as the price is right, he will deal with you.
He lives in a hideous, run down apartment in the largely lower-middle income, and working class, English and immigrant neighbourhood.
The journey takes about 15 minutes by car. Let the characters decide how the journey goes. They can also take a bus from Dorval to NDG. Let the players fret about security. Little action happens in this chapters, but the players do not have to know that. Make sure that they are aware that either the Duke's people or the hunters could ambush them at any moment.
Bergman's apartment.
Bergman lives in a very rundown apartment block in NDG. It is a horrific, rotten thing, a looming, ten story apartment block that towers over the older, residential streets around it. The streets around it are nice, quiet, suburban neighbourhoods, with a great deal of old-worlde charm, bare maple trees, quaint streetlights, and kids playing street hockey. The apartment block looks like a small version of Cabrini Green. The apartment block sits on a block of "green space" - which amounts to a bare, litter-strewn strip of waste ground.
The door buzzer seems not to work, but then, suddenly, they are let in.
Inside, the apartment is worse. It is filthy, ill lit, rotting. The lifts do not work; have not worked in years. The stairs are crumbling. Graffiti is everywhere. Loud TVs, shouts, screams, crying echoes out of all the apartments they pass.
The hallways stink of urine.
Young, dead eyed, Haitian kids stalk the corridor, imagining themselves to be tough, invincible gang bangers. They strut, talk in a TV-learned gang Creole, brandish their guns at anyone who passes. People in the building are scared of them - not because they are tough, not because they have authority - but rather because they are unstable, drugged up losers who can barely see straight half the time. People are afraid that one day, the kids will start shooting at them.
The place has a horrible, damp, glamour to the place. This place is not banal - rather like glamour of despair.
Finally, on the top floor, where everything is at its worst, they find Bergman's apartment.
The door is covered in slime. Someone has vomited in the corridor recently.
"Come in," Bergman says, before they knock. "Don't be strangers."
Inside, is a beautiful, sumptuously decorated apartment, with the three brand new Dell computers, a massive wall covering TV, Persian rugs, velvet drapes on the windows, lush, comfortable couches, antique tables, a fitted kitchen. The apartment is massive, a 7 1/2 - i.e. a five bedroom apartment.
He has cups of tea, steaming, waiting for them on the coffee table.
Bergman:
Bergman is a sluagh grump, a flamboyantly gay man, Francophone, but speaking a beautiful, if somewhat vaudevillian English. His movements are very graceful, but a little - staged. He doesn't so much whisper like most of his Kith, as speak softly, ornately. He is an old, old gay man who knows his best days are long past him.
"So," he says, "What might I do for you?"
Allow the players to explain their problem. As they talk, he potters around the apartment. He sips wine from a crystal decanter.
"Hmmm," he says when they are finished. "Let me think." He sits down at one of the computers.
"My sources tell me that there was a big to-do out on the highway, near Dorval. I assume that you were involved. Twelve... Dauntain. No, not Dauntain. Twelve hunters, though. Five of them well dressed, well prepared. Here we are. A group of mortals who hunt questionable people like us, have been operating from a church in St. Henri, on Atwater Avenue. These hunters have been variously described as "well dressed," "efficient," "well equipped" and "serious looking." Serious looking, eh? Blasted pooka. Anyway, I digress. There are normally three of them in Montreal. I have descriptions from eye witnesses, and amongst my people. We think that they are priests. An entry I have here, which I took from a lovely young man of House Eiluned speaks of them "radiating, not with Banality, but with the Dominion." Dominion, now there is a phrase I have not heard in many years. The presence of God on Earth. Poor boy, so beautiful. The duke executed him, you know."
He turns to them.
"I think your friend, is she is anywhere, is in St. Henri. And she is in the hands of some, shall we say, serious, people. I wish you the very best of luck finding her, I do hope you find her alive. It would be nice to see some pleasant outcome. Montreal is a little short on such things, nowadays. Now, we shall discuss my payment."
If the characters press him as to what has been going on, he says something along the lines of:
"The duke seems - changed. He was never much of a good person anyway. Too interested in what he should not have been, if you ask me. He was Unseelie, you know, like me, but he has gone long past Unseelie, now. He has locked down Montreal, tight. You pay homage to him, or you die. I mean die. Not lets pretend death. He puts a bullet in your head. A double tap, I believe the term is. If you try to flee; well maybe you get away, to Toronto, or Quebec City, or across the border. But maybe not. His knights are said to impale whoever they find fleeing. Can you imagine?"
Bergman's payment?
Make it expensive, but affordable.
As they leave, Bergman turns up the TV. The weather forecast is on.
"This is pulse news in Montreal. Batten down the hatches because the first big storm of winter is coming down off the Canadian shield. We are calling for temperatures to fall significantly, with heavy snow or frozen rain to arrive in Montreal by the 21st."
On the street, under a streetlamp, a show in the rain, a voice calls out to them.
"My time here is almost done," the voice says. "Surely you remember me. My name is Gideon. A terrible thing is about to happen. You must warn them. You must..."
And then he is gone.
Scene Three: St. Henri
Cutscene:
Necropolis, London.
A tall, pale, young man waits, by the river, for the end. He is not a ghost, but he belongs, utterly, to the land of the dead.
"Your time grow short," a voice out of the gloom says.
The young man looks up, at the hooded figure, with a scythe behind him.
"Ferryman," he says, "well met."
"Magus Gideon," the Ferryman says. "Fate has decreed that your time is now."
"Ah, then I am free, then."
"In a manner, yes."
"There is one last thing that I must do, then?"
"Yes."
"Can I slay the Strawman?"
"No, but you can prevent him getting something he wants."
"That is enough for me."
"Come with me then," the Ferryman says, " We have to meet the Stygian Navy."
The church of St. James sits on the west side of Atwater Avenue, in St. Henri. St. Henri is one of Montreal's most run down areas. It is slowly being gentrified, but the gentrification is slow. Three blocks away from Atwater Avenue in one direction, brand new condos have been built. Three blocks in another, across the Lachine canal, lie horrific slum lands. St. Henri is considered to be under the control of the "Rock Machine" Biker gang, the Quebec allies of the Banditos Motorcycle club, the infamous North American biker gang. The area is largely English speaking, and the immigrants tend to be black people from the Caribbean.
The Church is on the street, with a run down pub on one side, a condo in the process of renovations on the other.
There is a fairly high level of banality about the place (6 points). It's not Banality - its the Dominion; True Faith, if you will. (See the article on True Faith on ELN). The doors are all locked. The windows are high, stained glass windows, and offer no easy access.
There seems that there is no way in, save from breaking down the door.
Let the characters work out a way of doing such. And no, knocking doesn't work.
Inside, the church is unlit. It is bitterly cold inside. The aura of faith seems to be dispelling, though. Fading away. There is a strange smell inside. At first it is only a faint thing. But as they approach the alter, the smell gets worse.
One of the Order of Uriel hunters, lies dead in a pool of blood. His face is burned off.
Behind him, in the sacristy, something worse awaits.
The sacristy door is locked. A thin light emanates from within.
Inside, if the characters break down the door, the remaining Order of Uriel hunters lie dead, their bodies hideously mutilated.
And in the centre of the room lies Ingrid's, headless, body.
Harold breaks down into a heartrending sob of grief. He kneels before her body, weeping.
"I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry," he repeats over and over again. Eventually, he takes his pistol and holds it to his head.
"I failed you, my love," he says, and prepares to pull the trigger.
Assumably, the characters will try to stop him. He resists, forcefully. He is inconsolable, unwilling to listen to reason.
Then, when he is quiet, whether dead or otherwise, the doors burst open.
"Kill them," a voice says, in heavily accented English.
Five big, burly, armed, bikers have followed the characters into the church. These are members of a local Rock Machine hang around gang. They are also all ghouls. Two of them, however are sorcerers. These men are members of the Futhark Astratu.
The banality of the church sinks as the bikers arrive. The faith of the church is utterly sullied, and lost.
This can be a very exciting fight, both magical and mundane. Think the climactic battle in the Crow. Characters can duck behind pews, use their magics to hide in shadows, and leap out behind the goons. Unfortunately the goons are very fast, very strong, and very good with their guns. And two of them are magicians, too.
The bikers are armed with sawn off shotguns, and holdout pistols. An alive Harold would be a major asset in this confrontation. Harold is merciless and fearless in this fight.
The Futhark magicians:
Trained in Hellfire and Fascination, these magicians know enough to be dangerous to themselves and those around them. They are not serious threats to a powerful sidhe, but to a bunch of confused characters, in a dark church, supported by a bunch of drugged up thugs, they can be downright deadly. They have a level of 3 in hellfire, and 2 in fascination. (See Sorcerer Revised for more information).
The bikers stats.
Nature: Thug
Physical: Strength 5, Dexterity 4, Stamina 5 (they are ghouls after all).
Social: Charisma 2, Manipulation 2, Appearance 2.
Mental: Perception 3, Intelligence 3, Wits3.
Talents: Alertness 3, Brawl 4, Dodge 3.
Skills: Firearms3, Melee 2, Survival 4.
Knowledges: Linguistics 1.
Sorcerous paths: Hellfire 3, Fascination 2.
Disciplines: Fortitude 1.
After the bikers are dead, or have fled, the cops arrive. The characters can easily escape (unless they are particularly dumb, and let the cops catch them). Assumably, they catch a night bus to Dorval.
Scene Four. Return.
There is a lot of activity at the Sept. Many new faces seem to have arrived; these are garou warriors from around North America. They have come to honour their treaty obligations with the fey. There are perhaps 30 garou at the sept right now, members of about 5 or 6 packs. They all are busily preparing for a short, brutal battle with the Duke of Montreal's knights and wizards. Many fey are arriving. Some are Gwydion and Fiona Sidhe from Montreal, and some commoner followers; but most are knights (trolls, redcaps and sidhe) from Tara Nar and the surrounding territories.
Swords are being sharpened. Armour is being beaten; rituals are being performed over magical swords and such. St. Elmos fire shivers around everything.
Lycidas waits for them, solemnly. He has seen what happened in St. Henri. If Harold is dead, he treats the characters very coldly - Harold was something of a friend. If he is alive, he takes Harold's shoulders and hugs him.
As the characters mill around, a tall, scarred, German walks up to them.
"Guten Abend," he says to them. "You must be[insert characters names here]. It is an honour and a pleasure to meet you all. Tomorrow, we go to war, no? We shall make the heavens shake with our wrath... no?
"Allow me to introduce myself; I am Gustav, the Claw of Gere. I must speak with you."
He takes them aside.
"You have been opposing the return of the creatures your people would call the Foamhr, and my people would name the Jotuns, no?"
Allow them to respond.
"In 1993, in Brazil, my pack was massacred by a group of Pentex magicians. My sister was taken, and subjected to... horrific things." (His voice quavers at this) "They kept me alive, as a game. They tortured me... for many days. In that time, I met a magician called the Strawman. The Strawman was not as powerful then as he is now, but he was waiting... waiting for his time. I escaped. He hunted me. I met...friends. They protected me, but we crossed the Strawman again. Larael escaped. My friend Richard did not. I went to London, where I was hired as a "consor" to a covenant of human sorcerers. They took on a group of black magicians - the circle of Red. The Strawman was there - he laughed at us. And one by one, he hunted my friends down. He did not slay me, though he found me. He did not consider me important.
The Strawman is here, now, in Montreal. This is what my dreams are telling me. I think this is the moment he has been waiting for. The solstice is coming soon. Perhaps now the time is right for him to do what he has most dreamed of."
The werewolf leaves them.
"Get some sleep," Lycidas tells them, and walks away.
But at the hour before dawn, they are awoken by Lycidas, screaming:
"Get up, get up. That storm... it isn't natural. It just altered course, heading straight for us. I think it's hiding something. I think the Foamhr are in there."
They awake to a bitterly cold, dark morning. The sky is black, with huge, billowing clouds that the dawn cannot pierce. Distantly, they can hear the unnatural howl of distant, wrong things.
In the gloom, another magician walks up them time.
"We meet again. We were not introduced the last time, in Halifax. My name is M'kibo Okri. Today, we fight. Fight well." And then he walks away.
As the sky brightens a little, Lady Julia, and her 12 Sidhe knights appear at the gloom.
"The Plains of Abraham," she says. "We shall meet them there."
The thin blue line of the Fey host meets the raging storm of the Foamhr on the Plains of Abraham, to the North of Montreal.
The fey army, if such it could be called, consists of eight mages, 30 garou, and 129 changelings of various types.
The Foamhr army is unnumbered. They are inside the swirl of the storm that waits to strike Montreal.
Running the battle:
The battle is designed to be violent, vicious and bloody. A tiny Concordian army tries to hold the line, and hope for reinforcements, in the face of the Foamhr's wrath. The characters have seen what one Foamhr has done. Can you imagine what an army can do?
The battle can be as short or as long as you like. What is important is that the characters are exceptionally relevant to the outcome of the battle. There are less than 200 "good guys" on the field, and those good guys will be falling fast and furiously. The characters should be constantly aware of moments of violence around them. Friends are going to die. People they know, or have met in the course of the storyline, are going to perish.
A good suggestion is to have the opening sequences of "Saving Private Ryan" or "Gladiator" played loudly in the background (if you own a DVD player), as well as the first battle sequence of "Braveheart". Loud noise is useful. If the players are uncomfortable and off-balance, then the characters will be in the right attitude.
Setup:
The Sidhe army is aligned on an east-west axis on the North side of the St. Laurence River. Behind them, at a small, tourist viewing area, the Sidhe commanders make a command and control pavilion. The mage Okri, waits there, with Lady Julia, and a number of Sidhe strategists.
It is the morning of the 21st of December.
Scenes:
The messenger. A messenger comes to the characters, one of the pooka serving the Sidhe of Quebec City.
"The storm is surrounding the city, but they are not entering the city yet, its Montreal they want."
Jaspersen arrives. Captain Jaspersen of Bergen arrives with a group of Alfar knights. These knights remain aloof from everyone, but take up position on the left flank of the army. They all nod to the characters as they pass.
The Toronto Eiluned arrive. A group of seven Sidhe from House Eiluned arrive by Trod from Toronto. They take up position near the command pavilion. They display no emotion. They simply wait.
At around 8am, the storm advances towards them, and then mist comes up around the characters...
And then the Foamhr are upon them.
For the first while, in the grey haze of the swirling wind and snow, nothing makes sense. Black shapes of Foamhr warriors loom out of seemingly nowhere, and within seconds, almost everyone around the characters are dead. The Foamhr turn on the characters, and then our heroes are fighting for their lives.
This goes on for some time. Just as the Foamhr look as if they are about to kill a character, have the Foamhr die.
Kraft, the Technocrat yells at them; DUCK!
The Technocratic warship:
The Foamhr are suddenly under massive assault from above. Huge energy blasts tear through the storm, frying Foamhr groups, breaking the storm a little. The Sidhe host regroups, falls back a ways. The characters have a chance to take stock.
Fey reinforcements arrive. From the south, a group of Concordian reinforcements arrive from Tara-Nar, as well as knights from Caer Frost. The Eiluned magician's spells start having an effect, and then the Foamhr onslaught isn't as overwhelming.
From the east, a strange airship descends through the clouds, and the Foamhr are engaged from above again, by cannon fire.
More Garou enter the battle. Their howls seem to rise out of the fray, and the sound is awe-inspiring.
Then the storm gets worse. Massive blasts of hail and snow blinds the characters, and Foamhr reinforcements pile into the battle. The Etherite airship is swatted from the sky. It falls into the St. Laurence River, burning. The technocratic aerial assault ships follow the same fate over the next 30 minutes.
Iteration X: Iteration X HIT marks pour onto the field from someplace. They bring strange tank-like vehicles with them.
House Gwydion arrives: Sidhe and supporters of Montreal's smaller Sidhe factions arrive. These are few, ragged and desperate, but they arrive anyway. The storm has disrupted the Duke's vigilance.
The Command Pavilion is over-run. The Foamhr tear out of the right flank, and cuts a swathe through to the Command Pavilion. Lady Julia and her knights make one last stand. But they too are cut down.
Cutscene:
Alone, bloodied, her right arm hanging painfully, and useless, Julia waits for the end. The Foamhr close in.
"You fought well," it says.
"As did you," she says.
"Now you must die well." The Foamhr's grin is cold. It's claws stretch out to her neck.
Julia laughs.
"What have you and yours ever done but kill? Sneak and hurt and kill in your dark places? I have given birth to children. I have watched stars burn. I have sung the music of creation. I do not fear what comes next."
"You should," the Foamhr says, and slices her head off.
As her body falls, the Foamhr hear a click. A series of Claymore mines hidden behind the pavilion activate and the air is filled with death.
Mages:
The characters see the explosion from far off. The Tradition Mages, Elaine, Lycidas, Okri, and others, let rip their magics. In the storm, all magic is coincidental. Foamhr warriors die like chaff.
The pale afternoon:
As the afternoon wanes, the Foamhr assault slackens a little, but only a little. The Concordian army are worn down. The Claw of Gere dies at 3pm. The mages flee their position, when half are killed. Lycidas, Elaine and Okri move to the character's position. Slowly, the Sidhe are driven back to the river. The field is slick with blood.
The banshees:
When night falls, the banshees start to howl, a weird, gleeful howl. Despair seems to fall onto the host, and they retreat to the rivers edge. The technocratic agents fight their last.
It is solstice Eve and the longest night is about to begin.
The sidhe prepare for the end.
Brothers offer fare thee wells. Debts are forgiven. Old enmities are forgotten. As sidhe, Seelie and Unseelie; as fey, they face the end. There are perhaps 40 left on the field.
Then the sky lights up with streaks of fire. Massive bursts of fire explode within the Foamhr ranks. The storm seems rent asunder. This display goes on for the best part of thirty minutes.
The Stygian Fleet arrives:
Then, out of the darkness, down the river, but somehow the river is much larger, looms the ghostly navy of Stygia. They continue firing. The Foamhr fall back, but they have nowhere to fall back to.
Out of the darkness steps Magus Gideon.
"My time is near done, but I have been allowed do one last thing."
He turns to the ships.
"Marines! Dismount."
The Sidhe Ride to War:
The remaining Sidhe and fey mount the remaining faerie steeds, and for perhaps the last time, the Sidhe are revealed in all their glory. Andreas leads them charge.
"Brothers, sisters. Ride with me, though the way may be to hell. Let them see the fey in all their glory!"
Behind them, Stygian marines pour out of the Stygian navy vessels.
Cutscene:
At the town of Petit-Saguenay the Foamhr had come, killing mortals. But there were others waiting for them.
They are normal people. A hockey player. A journalist. A street cleaner. A stripper. A factory worker. The light of something shines within them, though.
They kill the Foamhr, but they too do not survive the encounter. The last amongst them, the hockey player holds his guts in, knowing he is going to die. He holds onto a street sign and walks, walks out of town, to see what is going on. He watches the bright light of the Host of the Seelie pour north, into the darkness. He realises, in those final moments that he has been wrong.
Then he sees it; four bright lights seem to swirl out of the sky. They fall upon the darkness, and for a little while they flicker and burn like suns.
"Angels," he thinks, and smiles. The darkness claims him then.
The Prince Falls:
Then, as the Foamhr army is being cut to shreds, the characters find themselves alone. Out of the darkness, and the swirling snow and haze, strides the prince of the Foamhr.
"Our lord wakes tonight. None of this matters!" he says.
He then attacks.
When he dies, the battle ends.
Scene Three: Aftermath.
The Stygian warships flicker out of this world, to Transcendence. Gideon waves farewell to them, disappears as well. The few fey left living, the three mages, Kraft, Harold and a few others, stagger around the corpse-strewn battlefield.
The Sidhe knight Elenion, his face burned away, his arm gone, kneels on the earth. "This is a cursed place now. The Foamhr's blood will stain the earth. It cannot be. I cannot allow this to happen."
He starts singing.
He sings, and the bodies fade away.
He sings and the earth is cleaned.
He sings, and his body glows.
Then he is no more.
The snow covers everything.
Then as everything grows silent, a messenger arrives, a Corax. The Corax calls to them.
"The Sept of the Mountain has been over-run." He says. He transforms to human form. He is bleeding heavily, and dying as he stands.
"Spiral Dancers came. They killed them... the Garou killed the Dancers. But when the battle was done, mortals arrived. They killed whoever was left. With silver bullets, and sorcery. I fought one, killed him... but there were...others." Then the Corax dies.
"Come on, let's go," Lycidas tells the characters. "We don't have much time."
In this chapter, the characters, broken and weary, wounded and tired, stagger into Montreal to face the Strawman, and prevent him wakening the Red Lord.
Scene One: Invasion.
Lionel Groulx Metro Station.
The storm has taken down Montreal's power supply. Emergency workers are working frantically, as the remnants of the storm plays out. The Orange Line metro line is running -slowly. Little else is.
Harold, Elaine and Lycidas figure that most effective way of getting everyone downtown, would be the mundane one: put everyone on the metro, get in, start shooting, and hopefully survive, and give Montreal back to the Concordia when they are done. Okri and Stefane wander along, staying in the background.
They also figure that the Duke will have the subway station watched.
"When the train door opens, keep your eyes open, and take down everyone who you think is a threat. There are no innocent bystanders with a fey aura out there. Do you understand me?" Harold asks. (Lycidas delivers the line, if Harold is dead.)
And there, sure enough, on the upper platform of Lionel Groulx metro station, wait three men. Fey sight reveals them to be Redcaps. The first two Redcaps charge at the characters. The other one bolts.
It takes about 3 minutes for the Redcap to run from where he waits to the doors. Unless the characters want to be up to their necks in the Duke's Thallain allies, he should be taken out.
The Redcaps know themselves to be mortal peril, so they fight to the death; but they fight desperately. They are no pushovers.
Outside, two Unseelie trolls wait for their friends downstairs. One will make a run for it, and the other is left to his fate. (They are Unseelie trolls, after all). Outside, the characters realise that they are on Atwater Avenue again. Lucky them.
The city of Montreal is in darkness. Ice crystals hang from everything. The night is suddenly clear and starry. The city seems magical; silent. It is if the city belongs to the ice. The ice spreads like a spider's web across the city.
Scene Two
The Duke's palace is about 6 blocks away. First turn north on Atwater Avenue, walk up the hill, under the overpass, and then turn right onto St. Catherine Street. And then, there it is. The old, once abandoned cinema, and closed (now converted) nightclub that belongs to the Duke of Montreal.
The door is closed. No one stops the characters entering. Inside the troll who fled points to them, and four Sidhe knights charge them. Two redcaps follow the knights, and pile on.
Both Harold and Lycidas start shooting. They could not care less about any rules, or fairness. The practicality of simply blowing the guys head off far exceeds any other concerns.
Allow the characters a short, dismissive and violent encounter in the hallway. The door to the dance area, and the Duke's Throne Room is locked and barred.
Lycidas lets the characters kick it down.
At this moment, Lycidas and all the other storyteller characters stand back a little.
The tableau opens before them:
The Duke kneels before a tall, blonde man. They should recognise him as the Strawman. Four magicians wearing red robes stand beside the Strawman, like monks. Behind the Duke, the Duke's surviving knights bow. One of the Circle of Red magicians stands behind the Strawman, holding the Black Crown. The magician's eyes are gone, from looking at the crown. The Strawman holds a sword as if he is knighting the Duke.
When the door crashes open, the Strawman looks up, grins.
With a sudden motion, the Strawman beheads the Duke. The Duke's body falls, his blood drenching the Strawman's robe and face. The blood hits the crown, and the crown starts to glow.
The magician behind the Strawman eases the crown of thorns onto the Strawman. The agony of wearing it almost knocks him from his feet.
The Strawman screams waken. His eyes are glowing; a terrible lambent aura tears around him.
"Awaken!" he screams.
Then the world turns black. All light fades from the room.
In the darkness, they hear a sound. It's an awful sound that chills the blood; like glaciers grinding against one another.
"Done, done, done, done, done," the Strawman babbles from the darkness.
The Duke's Eiluned knights realise in that terrible moment that they have been betrayed, utterly. They unsheathe their swords. One of the knights lights up the room.
This is the final, desperate battle. The characters must race against time, and kill the Strawman. The five magicians start killing, randomly. The knights are picked off one by one, if the characters do nothing.
As the alert goes out, the Duke's other servants race to see what it going on. Soon, the dance floor is filled with fey and magicians.
As the reinforcements pour in the door, Stefan turns to face them, but they overwhelm him, and kill him.
Killing the Strawman:
While Lycidas would love to be able to deal the coup de grace, he leaves it to the characters. Most likely, though Lycidas and his friends will be separated from the characters in the fray. That will probably leave the characters alone to fight their way to the Strawman.
Wearing the Black Crown is killing him. He is but a shadow of himself. But he will fight them, with all the power at his disposal.
"It doesn't matter," he whispers, before the end, "The Red Lord has awakened. It's over. He promised me a hell to rule over, you know, a hell...."
He dies, a pathetic, gibbering fool.
Scene One
In the bloodied, almost Shakespearean scene, the characters stand. The Duke of Montreal is dead, his knights are dead; the Circle of Red magicians are dead. No doubt the characters are utterly exhausted, and broken.
The Strawman's body burns away. The cross falls to the ground.
Okri quietly, picks it up, and hold it gingerly.
"This thing has been in the possession of my brothers for a millennium. We let our guard down. We shall not do so again."
Okri disappears with the crown.
Scene Two: Leaving.
They fey are leaving Montreal, leaving Quebec. Little has been resolved. The Strawman is dead, the Foamhr have been defeated, but everyone knows that this is a temporary reprieve. The Red Lord has awakened.
Lycidas, Elaine, Kraft, Andreas, and the characters say their farewells at the airport. Flights are just starting again after the storm. A small group of Sidhe from Tara-Nar, and local commoners are ruling the city until things settle down.
The airport is filled with fey. Everywhere you look you can see them, the broken, dejected faces of refugees leaving their home.
Outside it is dark. The northern lights do not shine tonight. Elaine bids the characters farewell. She takes a flight to London. Lycidas heads for San Francisco. Kraft and Andreas return to Norway. The characters plane takes them away.
The story is over.
For now.
