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« on: February 25, 2011, 11:02:25 AM »
My running of Divine Fire took elements from both of the early playtests, and I interspersed it with elements of a failed Demon: the Fallen game I'd never gotten to run which took place in a similar setting. I ran my group through as prisoners of war: two US Army soldiers, a captured Allied scientist, a troublesome English archaeologist, a nosy war journalist, and a torch singer who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
They hit trouble when the truck stopped. That sort of set the tone for the evening. Once they discovered that their guards were gone, the ranking Army man (a Colonel who had been in Italy with his wife when it fell) got into an argument with the scientist over the best way to proceed. In the meantime, the other Army fellow (a sergeant, I think) decided he was going to try to check the towers, and nearly broke his leg when he slipped off of the ladder. Eventually, the argument stopped when the archaeologist snidely suggested that the two weren't producing nearly enough hot air to keep them warm in the mountains and that they should go and find some shelter. The two Army folks stayed with the vehicles, and the lower-ranking one press-ganged the torch-singer as a second pair of hands to try to get the truck in working order to make the trip down, and to clear some room.
The first building they entered was the mess hall, where they encountered a mad, blind soldier, and the journalist tried to bluff his way through things - and totally blew it. So they ended up in a tense standoff between three civilians with crap all combat skill, and one crazy-train Nazi. About this time, the Army Colonel caught sight of something moving in the shadows near the compound and started out to get a look at it - without letting his subordinate know - and blew a Sneak roll. That was when Koeler made himself known from the main building and started taking potshots at both him and the flickering shape. Hearing the gunfire from the mess hell, the three civilians and the Nazi they were dealing with found themselves in a furious tussle that left the journalist and the scientist badly beaten and bloodied (the archaeologist got in some hellaciously badass rolls and kicked the mortal crap out of the Nazi, though).
The gunfire outside and the fight in the mess hall only lasted a couple of turns, leaving the civilians trying to figure out what to do with their new prisoner, as well as themselves. If memory serves, they eventually locked him in one of the freezers (which is how they discovered certain sweet meats in one of them...). Anyway, the Army Colonel had gotten tagged by Koeler because he had been trying to close with the shape that Koeler was firing at (he totally botched a Luck roll, then the player threw a fit and left the table, meh), so he was out. So the remaining characters holed up in the mess hall after the gunfire died down, came up with a plan to work up some improvised weapons and explore the main building. By this time, the civilians were really keyed up due to some failed SAN rolls when they found what was in that second freezer, and when the Army grunt tried to take charge and run the show, another argument broke out, this time between the grunt and the journalist The scientist and the archaeologist managed to cool tempers somewhat, but by then, the damage was done, and the group was more of a bunch of individuals. So the Colonel is down, holed up in the Mess Hall, the grunt storms out to try to get the truck working again (so he can leave the others to die), and the rest of them are stuck with their plan of investigating the main building. The exploration went pretty smoothly, they encountered Koeler, and struck up a tentative alliance with him, managed to arm themselves with some proper weapons from the stash he'd made himself. That was when the real fun began. The Army Grunt was outside when he realized that he didn't have some of the tools he felt he'd need to get the truck running. So he ended up going into the main building, found the others talking to Koeler. There was some tense talking, but they all ended up going up to see Dr. Kempfler. From there, the scenario ran pretty smoothly with the investigation, with odd bits of creep factor to keep things on edge.
The next little bitch came when they went down into the basement to deal with Grunfeld. He demanded to be fed, and when the PCs realized that the meat inside was meant for him, they immediately settled into an argument amongst themselves on whether or not they were going to feed him. This argument turned into inter-party violence, ended up hurting everybody even worse before they were able to calm down. By this point, they had wasted so much time on the in-fighting that the weather had worsened and night had fallen, and there was no way they were getting out of there without Grunfeld's help, so they ended up feeding him, as well as doing the back and forth between him and Kempfler to get the story of what had gone on at the installation. They weren't able to do much about the generator room because they had wasted so much time, and the corrupted creatures chose that opportunity to attack. Since the Army Colonel's player had refused to come back to the table, I simply ruled that he fell victim to the voices, sabotaged the truck, and from there, the rest of the players were stuck dealing with trying to keep the monsters out. At one point, the grunt decided he'd had enough after Kempfler was going on about his achievements, and put three bullets into his brain - pretty much keeping them from getting into the generator room. With the monsters beating down the doors to the building and their senses playing hell on them, they ended up accepting Grunfeld's offer of sanctuary, and fled into the ghoul warrens, where they had to stay until the spring thaw. Of the remaining group, only the archaeologist and the scientist had enough SAN left by Spring to leave. The others ended up staying with the ghouls, one way or the other. Grunfeld actually ended up playing a role as a recurring NPC in following CoC games. I liked him so much I started using him more as a behind-the-scenes mentor-type. Currently, he's got his eye on a group of investigators who are dealing with a little problem for one Dr. Quigley in Greenfield, MA...
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