The Von Fürstenberg Schism, pt. 2: Session 1 Recap

When last we left off, the acolytes had made their way from Belani III to Trotsky V, a jungle planet. They were attempting to track the elusive Lys von Furstenberg after killing her father and his various minions, and exposing his connection to the fiendish Ars Mortalitas cult. They also have discovered that there is a new kind of sorcery in the world, or perhaps an old one: Arcane magic.

In additional the party had received a message from Her Grace Duchess Dorothea Senjak, Ferrus D'Angelus former inquisitor, from back before he was "fixed." Just as a bit of background, Ferrus had gotten a buttload of insanity from various encounters with fearful things. I allow him to do a version of therapy, where he was able to spend XP in order to reduce the amount of insanity points he'd accrued. After that, he left the service of Lady Senjak, and entered the service of a Radical Inquistor: Steffi Krueger. Despite his reconditioning, Ferrus was still on a dark path, and Krueger was just the sort of lady to encourage him to continue along it.

Session 1 Recap:

When the acolytes arrived at the spaceport, they were greeted by Senjak. Jason's character, a scum, appears to have been her informant in Krueger's organization. He told her all that he could, took her silver, and left the party. An old friend, Jason's tech priest, returned. While Senjak was talking with the acolytes, Steffi Krueger arrived with a heavy bodyguard of scum. Senjak, her old mentor and now rival, called her bluff and told her to back off. She more or less told Krueger she would no longer tolerate her heresies, and that she'd spent too much effort on Ferrus to let her ruin him again. Krueger, cowed the Her Grace's threats (and well-armed retinue), left, vowing revenge. Ferrus D'Angelus tried to leave with Krueger, but was restrained and sedated. She left without a backward glance.

Senjak brought the acolytes back to the flat in which she was staying, and read the acolytes into the program, and introduced them to her resident expert on the topic. It seems that Senjak was well aware of the sorcerers, and had begun to assemble a team to root them out. She also is very interested in taking out Steffi Krueger, her rival, for a variety of reasons, some of them personal. However, her initial aim is to run Lys von Furstenberg to ground, and use her to get to the heart of matters. She also might implicate Krueger in some way, and provide leverage to take her down once and for all.

I had planned to end it here, but improvised an investigation on a jungle-planet, Trotsky V. The planet is Earth-normal, but on the hot and humid side. It consists of two large continents and a host of small island chains. There is only one city, Tovograd. This is more or less a port city, and most of the inhabitants are involved in that in various ways. It's not a company town, necessarily, but it's difficult to live well without knowing someone who can get you "in" with an employer. There are a lot of indentured workers, a middle class built around entrepreurial pursuits (beast trade is one, but criminal underground and "entertainment" trades are prominent). It's very frontier-ish in a lot of ways, but with the robber barons already starting to take their places. The main industry is kelp farming, and development of other biotic commodities including medicinal plants, exotic woods, and a burgeoning beast trade. There is also a Cold Trade, but that's not really known to the authorities at this point. There was a large orc civilization here at one time. There are still occasional pockets of feral orcs to be found in various places. They are primitive for their type, and do not have any advanced arms or armor.

The acolytes, after a bit of investigation, were able to track down a shipping container, supposedly full of grain, which was, most likely, how Lys V-F got onto the planet. She must have confederates. The acolytes went to a seemingly abandoned warehouse, and found the container. It was empty except for a cryostasis module, rigged with an explosive device. The acolytes escaped before the device went off, but one of them (John) ended up with a door up his ass (hit with debris for significant damage).

Some investigation turned up an address for the shipper that handled the container. It was a front company in a shell scheme. Eventually they found the parent company, and were able to enter its compound. On questioning its CEO, they found that his personal assistant was a tool of Lys V-F. He also is missing. The acolytes searched for him, but he is MIA.

That's where we ended the session.