Baby's First Reaping, Session 2
Thank Charon it's Friday
Current missions
Try to find some local source of pathos as we've been deprived our haunts a bit more.
Figure out who killed Sir William Chadwick
Get a couple days off to enjoy roaming around our haunts in the skinlands
Report
Session Report: The Grim Education of Stygia
With no blatant outright "quest" available to us this week—as we assume investigations into Sir Chadwick's death will have to wait until we can get some leave for time in the Skinlands—my friend and I simulated some downtime to accumulate pathos while playing into the activities we'd be expected to do during a week of basic duties starting out in the Emerald Legion. We presumed I'd be doing basic clerical archivist work under the continued supervision of Steve in Occult Cryptology, while Chadwick would be alternating between physical training and basic manual labor in supply, playing into the idea that he can't be expected to be given detailed or greater duties while his status and proper placement into a legion is still in question.
We maintained our friendly work association with Brandon Walsh from the previous session, and while we don't get leave for the asking, there's still a five-day work week with two days off within the confines of Stygia. This gave us the opportunity to indulge in a little sandbox adventuring to get the lay of the land and explore the sights open to the public. With a little random oracle generation for ideas available to us and conversationally working out where our characters might go, we settled on two locations: public displays of soulforging made for recruitment purposes for Chadwick, and the bizarre open speaking forum at the Fountain of Caroline for me.
Having glazed over relics in conversation previously, Chadwick had taken an interest in their manufacturing and creation. This provided an excellent opportunity for us to expose ourselves to some of the more gruesome workings of the city's industry and operation. I improvised a kind of "job fair" for guilds that led to a public display of the art of soulforging. What occurred was potentially traumatizing for our unprepared sensibilities.
There was a procession of chained criminals escorted out onto an amphitheater with hooded figures wearing robes bearing the sigil of the guild lined up behind them. Their crimes were recited and they were allowed last words—many threw out curses, some seemed sickly and panicky, screaming their innocence. But eventually all were impaled by the fists of the forgers, causing them to burst into flames in small vortexes of concentrated energy and magic until they imploded in on themselves, transformed into a small collection of Oboli ingots. The mystery of soulsteel was made all too clear.
We both watched with mouths agape. Me, being the more modern in my sensibilities, was traumatized and horrified. Chadwick was unsettled but remained open to learning more for the sake of understanding. A second procession was brought up, this time without chains and prepared in ceremonial white robes, their faces showing various expressions of sadness and acceptance. Unrestrained, the person who had previously condemned the criminals stated these wraiths' contributions and commended them for their ability to retain the nerve to contribute their soulsteel even in their various states of anguish and long-lasting depressions or ennui. Rather than be harrowed, their contributions would continue until the end of their very days.
Two other wraiths took the stage and began working their own Arcanoi, which seemed to soothe and lift the spirits of the wraiths to great heights before the soulforging commenced. Keening and Phantasm—dream weaving, we later learned—were being worked on them. The host of the presentation, who had invited us to watch, saw our confusion and concern as the ceremonies closed and explained that there are no simple ends and no soul which can go to waste in Stygia. There is no ordinary end to this new existence.
Some speak of transcendence and nirvana on the far shores that only a handful have braved, while so many every day can be seen falling to the influence of the shadow and oblivion. If our corpus is damaged beyond simple repair, we don't just die again but are drawn into the labyrinth ever present beneath this reality—as this reality was always thinly veiled and waiting for the living in the Skinlands. There one is harrowed by the shadow to such magnitudes that few can finally resist its influence. Forging is one of the few ways to destroy our enemies completely and give mercy to the weary without surrendering them to oblivion. We must learn to accept this about our new lives and the society we find ourselves in.
My character Robert was clearly affected by this realization and would be struggling with it for some time, but Sir Chadwick, his sensibilities informed by the all-too-practical cultures of antiquity, seemed able to accept this in stride. He even seemed open to learning more about the mechanics of the Arcanoi at a later time.
That little episode over, we made our way to the fountain. I opened the fountain scene with an enormous crowd gathered around a man reciting poetry. As we looked closely, we saw that it was none other than Dante Alighieri—the famous poet and writer of the illustrious cycle of "Inferno," "Purgatorio," and "Paradiso." A very fitting titan of literature to encounter in such a place as this in the afterlife.
I improvised that he was doing a bit of a public showing as a veiled loyalist to the Fishers. I haven't decided completely on his role, but I presented him as reciting new compositions communicating his struggle with the all-too-atrocious reality of not being received by his lord, but ending on a continued hope that the shepherd awaits on the far shores. He was giving very lightly veiled hints at trying to communicate his continued devotion to Christianity while acknowledging the struggles his faith had naturally gone through in the long millennia since his death, waiting here in a very bizarre and unexpected kind of plane that doesn't necessarily qualify as a purgatory, but a continuation of the human spirit in much the same manner as it comported itself in life—with no clear signs of what may come after its continued, drawn-out existence that surely can't last forever.
I see him as a cultural figure who would have a kind of celebrity status that makes him almost untouchable, but everyone knows the depths of his devotion to Christianity in life, which associates him with the heretic sects of the Fishers. As we listened to his performance, I noticed we were being watched by a hag loyal to Sharon from the gossip corner, shaking her head in disapproval at our attendance.
Speaking to the greater Christian devotion Chadwick would have been expected to embody during his lifetime, it seemed fitting that he would take particular interest in approaching the poet and asking for his signature. We performed some history tests to see how aware we'd be of his possible heretic status, which he surprisingly passed. So he knew to get the autograph on something he could conceal. He paid his compliments to the poet and presented him with the sheath of his sword, with part of the leather wrapping undone to be able to hide the controversial token of appreciation. Dante took it as a minor insult to want to hide his faith and loyalties to the Christian ethos that he knows his name is associated with, but granted it nonetheless. The lackey of the HR administrator Sharon saw all this pass, and we noticed her watching us, but she stalked away before we could address the controversial exchange.
At this point I wanted to inject some kind of contact with a renegade element for my character Robert, but I struggled with improvisation as I was getting tired. I did, however, try to simulate the hectic and sometimes hilarious rantings and ravings—both prophetic and sometimes just complaints vented in the area—and generated some very hilarious results that we roleplayed our characters reacting to. Think of it as like the internet forum or chat room of Stygia, a place to just vent your thoughts and garner public opinion in an open setting.
Funny Rumors
The interactions I generated were as follows:
"They're going to do it, you'll see! They'll change the formula for 'Crystal Clear Cola' again! They think we don't notice the fractional decrease in carbonation and the .02% increase in artificial sweetener #4, but I DO! It's a conspiracy to make our memories of the taste fraudulent! It'll happen by winter 2026, mark my words!"
This just baffled Chadwick, but Robert vaguely reminisced about it, wondering if he too had felt some changes in soda formulas before he died.
"The ducks! The ducks in the park! They're getting too bold. They're organized. I've seen their formations. One day, they're going to unionize. They'll demand better bread. Artisanal bread! And the city will cave! The park budget will be ruined, and it will be the ducks' fault! It's all there in the quacks if you just listen!"
Chadwick presumed this was a madman, but Robert thought this was hilarious, reminding him of a meme before he died on forums about how the ducks in the park are free.
"You think those 'smart' refrigerators are for convenience? Ha! They're building a database. A flavor database! They know you like chunky peanut butter. They know you finished the milk. When the machines rise, they'll control us through our cravings! The revolution will be sponsored by oat milk and it will fail because everyone's memory of real ice cream has been systematically erased!"
Chadwick knew nothing about refrigeration, but Robert told him about how big agro treats various snacks in ways to be almost as addictive as drugs—like how the flavors in potato chips are so intense yet so fleeting as to make you need to keep snacking.
"It's not about justice. It's never been about justice. The soulforging quotas... they're based on aesthetics! I've seen the ledgers! Charon doesn't want cobblestones made from the souls of the uninspired! He's trying to build a new Stygia with an 'autumnal palette.' That's why they're targeting wraiths with lingering passions for earth tones! It's interior decorating on a mass scale!"
With so recently witnessing the ritual, this did elicit some speculation. But seeing how only a small ingot was produced by an entire soul—roughly seven pounds max, I improvised, not sure if there's any exact number in canon—it seemed like thousands would be necessary for vanity projects, and neither could imagine such waste. Nor could they discount it, however.
"They keep moving the Byways. Just a few feet, every single cycle. You think you know the route from the Necropolis of Spires to the Weeping Plaza? Wrong. It's three steps to the left now. Why? It's a loyalty test! They want to see who's just going through the motions and who is truly paying attention to the subtle shifts in underworld urban planning! It's a psychological operation to weed out the complacent!"
Fresh off Robert's loyalty test, this actually struck a note, and he addressed this wraith, asking if they could really continue such tests even with such petty details on a constant basis. The wraith smiled at our ignorance—so new to Stygia—and assured us the tests never, ever stop. We believed him.
And that was our amusing little collection of the rumor mill before we called it a night.
Thoughts and Reflections
I don't think I'm going to bother with dropping the huge prep sections this week, as I played this even more from the hip than usual. I probably should have reviewed my rules more carefully after the two-week gap between sessions this time around. I did generate some ideas beforehand, but play ended up still needing to improvise more than I expected—though I felt I did so pretty alright.
My friend and I still had fun, and the list of funny rumors I'll confess I went to AI for were pretty amusing in the moment. I think it shows something special about the system that, looking like past two sessions now that went pretty long and still no combat, me and my friend are still having fun. That could just be part of choosing the right people to play with and reading enough books to ingrain narrative flow in your head, but I'll take some credit if there's any to be had for that.
I'm curious to see what I can pull out of my head to spice the story up with some renegades and what I can improvise as their motivation. Should they be honest wraiths defiant against the social order? A splinter cell of secret spectres that prey on the newly dead? Rival legionnaires seeing what mischief they can interject into the Emerald Legion? I'll see what ends up striking my fancy.
Till then, happy rolling.