>>27775715

The GM for our game was running late (in hindsight, I should've asked why, but that later became moot), so there we were, me and three other guys, sitting around the table of my apartment, eating Jimmy John's (think Subway or Quiznos, but a whole lot better in terms of everything), drinking some soda, going over our plans for the session. It was raining a bit outside, what with the raindrops pelting my window like bullets.

Then, there was a knock on my door. Quizzically, we all eye each other, wondering who it could be.

I get up, thinking it was the GM, and open it.

And right there, rain dripping off of her raincoat, her vibrantly red hair all wet and matted to the sides of her face and head, blue-jeans that were obviously soaked at the cuffs, outrageously loud tank-top that had some corporate logo I didn't recognize nor did I care to, and soft, nearly adorably blue eyes that asked me "Pwease lemme in mistah?", was the brand spankin' new player that our GM said was coming. She had a bright pink backpack that was now a somewhat-muted shade of pink due to it being wet, and fucking galoshes that were caked with mud and dirt and grass and whatever the hell else could hitch a ride.

The first words out of my mouth were not "Oh, dearest me, good madam! You're soaking wet! Please, come in and dry yourself off!"

They were "Oh, fuck me, boys, we've got another one."

Behind me, I could hear the rest of the group collectively groaning their disgust and muttered grunts of "Ah, fucking hell," "Goddammit," and "WELP we're boned."

(cont'd.)

>>27775744

Obviously she was confused as to my outburst, but she put on a brave smile and politely asked if she could come in. Fighting my own reluctance, I led her inside to the kitchen, where the other had set up for the session tonight.


Trying to make up for being a bad host, I helped her out of her raincoat, hung it up in my coat closet, and pulled out her chair. Her backpack was put on the chair next to her and we hear a meaty, chunky *thwunk!*

Startled, the guys and I looked at her as she, humming a jaunty little Disney tune to herself (I think it was "Be a Man" from the first and only good Mulan movie), pulled out, from her backpack, folders that appeared to be color-coded ("Red for my quick reference sheets, blue for my character sheets, green for campaign notes, and yellow for all the other stuff..."), her copies of the World of Darkness rulebook, Vampire the Requiem, Werewolf the Forsaken, Mage the Awakening, Hunter the Vigil, Promethean the Created, Geist the Sin-Eaters, Changeling the Lost, a few binders containing her copies of various print-out supplements, and her dice-bag.


She sat down, pulled out a character sheet, and said, "Alright, I think I know what character concept I'm using, but I might need some help ironing out the details. You guys wanna help me out?"

So we did. A little nudge here, a quaint suggestion there, and our new player had her character look something like this:

Lillum Dawnbreak (real name Daisy Coleman) was a former student turned stripper turned Dampyr. She was originally from Cardiff in Wales and was visiting her pen-pal stateside when she ran into the local Vampire Prince and he, being enraptured by her beauty (she was a Daeva, he Ventrue), basically made it that she couldn't leave Baltimore and if she tried she'd get shut down. She was desperate, alone, and trying just to make it home, where it was safe.

(cont'd.)

>>27775762
Sounds kind of special snowflakey...

>>27775762

>that should read "student turned stripper Dampyr," not "turned Dampyr"

>>27775781

Trust me, we thought so too. But boy, did she prove us wrong.

>>27775762

The GM finally arrived, apologized for being late, work had caught up to him, boss wanted him to stay for overtime, etc. With the group ready, the rest of us sat down and started the session.
Now, the rest of the party, in order of their role:

The Face, Julian Fensworth, a struggling stand-up comic from out of town whose career is going nowhere fast and now has all these weird looking pale-skinned people showing up to his sets, all looking at him hungrily (and not because he was easy on the eyes).

The Hacker/Professor, Dr. Archibald von Junesman, a professor over at Towson who somehow came into pieces of the original Testament of Longinus (which were actually left to him by a former student of his, now a vampire who wanted to prevent the professor's Embrace), and just wanted to know what in the fuck it was because now all these crazy right-wing fundamentalists wanted him to give it up.


The Skill-Monkey, "X-Ray" Xavier Holling, a former gang member who, after witnessing his boss get Embrace by one of the Prince's lackeys, had to put down the only man he considered to be his father like a wild, rabid animal (I was there for that session, and I bawled my eyes out, man). He then vowed to find the fucker who sired his boss, and put a couple of rounds o’ buckshot through their skulls.


And then there was my character, The Tank. Harlem Braxton, former beat cop turned hunter of all things that went bump in the night.

(cont'd.)

>>27775816

When he was a cop, he walked his beat, and became something of an icon for his neighborhood. He lent his ear to people having problems. Women wanted him. Kids wanted him to be their daddy. He never was reprimanded for police brutality because he almost always never raised his gun at anyone who wasn't breaking the law, and if they were, it would only come out when the circumstances demanded it to and even then he still tried parley. He had a strong sense of justice and a strict moral code that he never broke ever.


But then, there was The One Case. The One case where he was fired and nearly killed over.

It all started when Harlem found a body that was drained of all its blood. And then another one. Another. And yet another.

He followed the bodies, and that led him to the ghouls, his commissioner among them. He followed the ghouls and found the vampires. He followed that trail and was within inches of the vampire Prince (the very same Prince giving the Dampyr a hard time) when he was pulled aside and told to knock it off.

But he wouldn't. He *couldn't.* The victims cried out and demanded that he bring them justice and their families some degree of closure. His own morals made him keep pursuing his perp, trying to find enough string to bring him in.

And thus, he was fired, just days before bringing his case to the courts, before bringing this scandal to the light of day, before finally making good on his promise to the dead.

That day, Harlem Braxton *snapped.* Gone was the excellent cop. Gone was the pillar of his community. Gone was the man regarded as an honorable, decent human being. With his remaining salary, he bought:

A dusty-brown trench-coat,

Two Desert Eagles,

An ACR,

And nine Model 1887 shotguns.

Harlem Braxton began building THE MACHINE.

(cont'd.)

>>27775844
>desert eagles

he should've consulted /k/ first, expensive and impractical.

>>27775892

Fuck you, they were mentioned in the "Dudes of Legend" supplement and I thought that they were cool at the time.

Besides, if you want impracticality, you should've seen THE MACHINE.

>>27775844

THE MACHINE must be typed in all-caps. This is because no matter how many copies there might be out there, this is the one, the only, the original "fuck you" to the supernatural douchebags of the World of Darkness.

It had the M1887 nine barrels set-up like a rotating Hellstorm Cannon from Warhammer Fantasy. The lever rotated each "firing group" into position at the "top," it was reloaded via a "break-top" mechanism, and it had two triggers. One was the "primary fire," which fired the three barrels that were at the "top" of the gun.

The other trigger fired all nine barrels at once in a storm of hatred, anger, and pure vengeance.

The group (sans the new girl, of course) and I spent three sessions creating, play-testing, and tweaking the damn thing so it didn't break the game horrendously while still being the massive "fuck you and your grimdark creepy bullshit" to the World of Darkness that it was.


This gun was the end of many a werewolf, vampire, and other supernatural bullshit that thought that it was the shit.

Oh, yes. THE MACHINE was everything I wanted it to be and more besides.

When the group told the new girl about THE MACHINE, she was skeptical. Disbelieving, even. She thought that we were trying to bullshit her.

Then I handed her my character sheet, and gazed upon the stats for THE MACHINE. She said that she had to see it in action, but I knew that she now believed, deep down, that such a thing could exist in the World of Darkness.

(cont'd.)

File: 1381942894997.jpg-(55 KB, 224x257, protoman_hope.jpg)

55 KB JPG

>>27775964
>THE MACHINE.

File: 1381943232480.jpg-(29 KB, 512x512, woody_guthrie_this_machin(...).jpg)

29 KB JPG

>>27776039
>not THIS MACHINE
Well THIS MACHINE kills Vampires!

>Terminator 5: Rise of THE MACHINE
>In a post-Skynet world, John Connor and his lieutenants are preparing to start building new towns and all.
>Suddenly, from the rubble of NORAD rises the ancient machine, THE MACHINE, which Skynet managed to hook its consciousness to.
>Now THE MACHINE goes around hunting for humans.
>With its nine barrels of hate.

Cheesus Crust OP, don't die again.

>>27775964

The session began like any other, in a random strip-club where Lillum just so happened to be "working" at.

She was up on the stage, throwing her clothes off as part of her routine, when the rest of the party walked in and up to the bar.

Across the room, there was a vampire that we've been tailing for about a few nights, and he always seemed to gravitate to this club. Maybe it was because of all the young, impressionable, desperate girls he could seduce into becoming his blood slaves/prey, maybe it was because it was easy to get lost in, who knows.

What we did know is that he had information on the Prince's whereabouts, and that he was our only lead to putting a cap in the Prince's douchey ass.

The party spots the vamp and walk up to him, all quiet and stealthy-like. And then Harlem puts THE MACHINE up against his back and politely asks him to "accompany" the party to a rather secluded alley not too far away from the club for "a nice, hot cup of coffee and some chow. "

Coming off the stage, Lillum sees us nonchalantly man-handling this pale-looking sonuvabitch, and decides to tail us out the back.


In the alley, Harlem held the fucker up against the wall while Jules grilled him for information.

(cont'd.)

>>27776364

Sorry about that, was busy typing and the field was too long.

>>27776444

The interrogation went something like this:

Jules: "Now, y'see, my boys and I have a bone to pick with your boss. He's made all our lives miserable and has been hurting a lot of good, honest folk. You give him up, we stop. You don't, and we let you see the sun."

Vampire: "Fuck you and your boys, kine! You think I'd give him up that--OH SHIT ACKGH YOU FUCKER THAT'S MY LEG YOU'RE STABBING JESUS!"

J: "Oh, I wouldn't worry about it. You've been through worse, I'm sure."

V: "Fuck you--GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH MY ARM! MY FUCKING ARM!"

J: "Tell us where the Prince is and I'll call off my friend."

V: "Fuck---AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHH MY BALLS! MY MOTHERFUCKING BALLS! Alright, I'll talk! I'll TAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLGGGGGGGHHH!"

J: "Harlem, I think that's enough."

Turns out the Prince was attending Elysium in Annapolis and was, for all intents and purposes, out of the picture for now.

That's when we all turned and saw Lillum, who had been watching the whole thing, frantically start dialing the police on her smartphone before Harlem raised his one of his Deagles and cut her phone call short.

She saw too much, and therefore knew too much. She was given a choice: take a bullet to the brainpan now or tag along for the ride to Annapolis.

She chose to go with the group, but first she needed to get kitted out.


And that's when the session *really* took off.


We then walk over to a 24-hour pawn-shop not too far from the club. The owner, seeing our group walking in, lets out a tired sigh and in a bored, droning tone asks "Call I help you find anything?"

Jules immediately gets to work. "Yes, y'see, my friend here, the girl in the tube-top and booty shorts? She needs a gun."

"Can I interest you in a purse-gun, miss?"

"Now, I don't think that'll cut it. I think she wants something a bit..bigger."

(cont'd.)

>>27776532

Lillum decides to play along with Jules' charade. "Gimme a fucking revolver. A *big* one."

"What size caliber, miss?"

"Fuck, maybe a .44 magnum?"

"Right away, miss." Couple of moments later, the shopkeep procures her desired weapon. She also bought at least ten or fifteen boxes of ammo for it so that she always had some bullets on hand to stomp supernatural face in.

But it still wasn't enough. She needed armor, boots, and more than just that puny hand-cannon (then again, compared to THE MACHINE, everything else was just not enough).

Since the shop didn't have what we needed, we decided that it would be best to get her and her shiny new gun back to base before any ghouls and/or vamps showed up and crashed the party.

So we take her to our super-secret safe-house down near the docks (read: a rundown, abandoned, warehouse that we just happened to find in our very first session) and we get prepared to storm the castle in Annapolis and kill us some blood-sucking asswipes.

It was nearing 4:00 am game-time, so we decided to call it a night and turn in. Surprisingly, the girl asked if she could come in next week for the next session since she enjoyed the antics that we were planning.

Since it was dark out (it was nearing midnight when we wrapped up), she didn't feel safe standing out in the dark trying to hail a cab and asked if she could crash at my place.

I graciously offered my bed and then got ready for a night on the couch.

The following week rolled around, and then the game started getting interesting.

(cont'd.)

>>27775781
That's about average, if they're using Dudes of Legend. She even gets some special perks for making a stripper.

This story sounds fake but w/e.

>>27776678

Hey, I'm going off of memory, here. This shit takes time.


>>27776700

As we all met for the next session, the boys and I decided that Lillum's player was a godsend and we should try and make her feel comfortable while not necessarily bending over backwards for her.

The session was actually a just a planning session with some encounters mixed in. We decided to play it out Shadowrun style and get more information from the Prince's lackeys.

So we hit the streets of Baltimore, intent on getting as much information as possible before planning the assault.

First stop? Baltimore City Police, Deputy Ops. The commissioner's office. The one who had Harlem pulled of The One Case and had him fired.


We have X-Ray and Harlem break into his office, cold-cock him with the butt of THE MACHINE, tie him up with zip-ties and duct tape, and bring him back to the safe-house.

Lillum and Jules then go back and forth interrogating him, grilling him for every piece of information that he knows. The layout of the manor where the Elysium was taking place, the number of bodyguards each Prince had, what those bodyguards were armed with, *everything.*

The commish was non-cooperative at first, but with Harlem looming over him with THE MACHINE pointed at his face, he soon began singing like a motherfucking canary.

When he was done, we untied him, stripped him of his uniform, threw him out behind the safe-house, had him propped up against the wall, and Harlem took aim.

With THE MACHINE.

Lemme tell you, nothing was more satisfying than finally, finally being able to get some closure for Harlem. He'd been through a lot, had seen so much, and this motherfucking commissioner saw fit to have him canned just because he was too close to the truth.

All nine barrels roared in just, righteous anger and hatred, and the commissioner was reduced to a puddle of viscera and gizzards. in mere moments.

(cont'd.)

>>27776922

We then had Dr. Archibald start digging any information relating to the manor, making sure that the late commissioner's story was legit.

He found that it was, and that the bastard was withholding one key component of the place's layout:

There was a basement that had one entrance near the garden, and exited near the library, a few rooms over from the grand ballroom where everything was going down. We finally found our way in and out, provided everything went to plan.

The guys were prepared, but Lillum was still woefully under-armed with only her .44 magnum to bear. If shit hit the fan, she'd be damn near useless.

So we take her over to the weapons storage room (literally a room filled with walls and tables of guns, armor, explosives, and whatever else we could find) and get her suited up in some Kevlar.

Her final kit looked like this:

--A .45 UMP with five clips of regular ammo, three clips of armor-piercing, and three clips of what we called "anti-bloodsucker" ammo (think incendiary ammo, then douse it in napalm and pepper spray)

--Two Five seveNs and ten clips of regular ammo

--A Kevlar vest

--Combat boots

--A black trench-coat

--A SPAS-12 with five reloads worth of regular buckshot, three worth of slug rounds, and six worth of Dragon's Breath (which we found to be very effective against making vampires very uncomfortable)

--And a SCAR-H with three clips regular ammo, five clips armor piercing, and three clips anti-bloodsucker ammo.

We then started to make our final arrangements for the assault on the Estate of St. Nathaniel.

(cont'd.)

>>27777192
>clips

but carry on with your story m8
seems nice so far

>>27777192

It's the next session, and it was time to pay the Prince and his friends a little visit. Or at least, that's what *should* have happened.


We start to load up our tricked out minivan (a jet black '12 Toyota Sienna with a turbo-charger, rear spoiler, bullet-proof blacked-out windows, and armor reinforcement to the front, back, and doors) with our gear (X-Ray decided to bring along an MGL 32 grenade launcher "just in case we run into trouble," and Jules just *had* to bring his SAW along) when we start to notice that the dock workers had all stayed for overtime, which was weird, considering that they always left and went home around 8:00 PM game time.

We knew something was up, so we decide to stop what we're doing and wait around.

Surprise surprise, these "dock workers" were actually ghouls sent by the Prince. Apparently, he'd caught word that we were trying to spirit Lillum out of Baltimore so she could take part in the assault on the Estate, and he wasn't going to have any of that, even though he was at Elysium and theoretically couldn't do much.

These ghouls were all ex-spec ops, and they had us pinned down. They were good, and they gave us a run for our money.

Immediately Harlem takes cover and starts wrecking faces with his ACR while Archy is busy taking up a sniping position up on the roof. Lillum hits the deck and gets to work with her SCAR, putting rounds down-range and dropping motherfuckers with solid hits.

X-Ray grabbed his MGL and started to suppress any flanking maneuvers, but he was trying to conserve enough ammo for the assault on the manor, so he switched to a different weapon and got back to work.

And Jules? He grabs a motherfucking RPG-7 and starts taking aim at hard targets that X-Ray can't reach.

It was hectic, it was brutal, but we held off the ghouls.

We also missed our window. If we left while we were still bleeding, we would've been mauled by the Elysium security on-site within moments.

(cont'd.)

>>27777463

Next session rolls around and we're all healed up, but now our window of opportunity is rapidly getting smaller. So we either have to do the assault *now* or not do it at all and let the Prince and his friends get off Scot free.

We start loading the van up again and this time there are no ghouls to keep us from finishing.

We all pile in, X-Ray in the driver's seat (he was our best wheel-man), and we head off to the Estate of St. Nathaniel's, armed for bear and itching to turn a few vamps into dust.

Suddenly, X-Ray notices a few black sedans pulling up along-side us, as if trying to box us in.

Oh shit, more ghouls.

He immediately floors it and plows into the nearest one, spinning it out and causing it to crash into a sidewall, disabling it.

As if in an instant response, the remaining ghouls all pull up and start hailing us with small-arms fire.

X-Ray keeps the pedal down and tries to high-tail it out of there, but the ghouls are keeping pace.

So now it's a race to get the manor in one piece. The ghouls probably already alerted Elysium security that we were coming, so we had to get there before they could warmly greet us with bullets.

X-Ray, realizing that time was slowly turning against him, flips a plastic cover over and presses the button.

The button that controlled the nitrous-injection system. I must've forgotten to mention that we installed it. A glaring detail, sure, but still.

All of this sudden, the van rockets down the highway, spewing fire from its exhaust and leaving the ghouls wanting for distance. They try to keep up, but they can't compete with a minivan that's turned into a bullet on wheels.

We lose the ghouls in record time, and now we were making good time on our plans to fuck shit up at Elysium.

(cont'd.)

>>27777804

We get to the manor in record time, catching the security at the gate with their pants down and make short work of them.

Quickly we unpack the van and immediately start making our way towards the basement entrance in the garden, where we're stopped by one of the yard-workers (all normal, run-of-the-mill humans, thank god) and asked in no uncertain terms what the balls we were doing there and why were we bristling with enough guns and ammo to storm Ft. Meade.

Jules states that we were actually hired by the caterers to help clean up, and we would've been here a few weeks ago, but we were tapped for another delivery run and oh gee look at the time we're already running late so please leave us alone so we can do our jobs!

A few bluff rolls later and the worker buys into our little charade and let's us through. We all sigh in relief and continue on our way to our entry-point: the doors to the basement.

Harlem covers the door while the rest of the party files in, one by one, and then he follows them in taking rear-guard, X-Ray on point.


We make our way through the basement when we stumble upon a few open coffins. And some vampires that had just woke up and were itching for some fresh blood.


Three rounds of combat later, the vampires are dead for good, but now the entire manor has been alerted to our presence so we have to double time it to the library before we get our shit done in.

So there we are, hurrying through this dark, dank basement trying to get the jump on some bloodsuckers before they did the same to us.

We reach the door to the library, and when we open it and file out, we're greeted with the sight of at least 50 or 60 angry vampires, all hungry for blood and ready to rip in skulls.

The Prince we were hunting turned out to have bailed as was on his way back to Baltimore when her heard that we were coming.

So now we have to fight our way out of this goddamn manor and get back to Baltimore in one piece.

(cont'd.)

>>27778136

Combat starts, and Harlem begins to put THE MACHINE to work. Every vampire in his crosshairs instantly gets dusted in one three-barreled volley, but it takes time to reload the damn thing and the recoil is a bitch even in the "primary firing" mode, so he switches out to his Deagles and starts going apeshit.

Lillum meanwhile whips out her SPAS and gets to putting rounds into the nearest bloodsuckers, taking down one after another in a few shots each.

Archy grabs his MG36 and starts laying into targets, spraying down suppressing fire and keeping vampire heads down.

X-Ray gets his MGL32 out and puts some fucking awesome tunes shuffle on his iPod through his backpack's built-in speakers ("Holding Out For a Hero," "The Touch," "Danger Zone," "Kick-start My Heart," and, the big finisher, "Don't Stop Me Now") so we can rock out with our cocks out while he's blasting vampires in the face with 40mm high-explosive canisters of "fuck you and your supernatural bullshit!"

And Jules? Jules got out his SAW and started mowing motherfuckers down, cackling in- and out-of-game like the madman he truly was meant to be.

Harlem finally gets THE MACHINE ready to fire again, and just as the music hit its crescendo, he lets loose with all the barrels at once.

It was glorious, awesome, and hands-down one of the best combat encounters I've ever had.

We plow through the vampires, finally making our way to the grand ballroom where all the rest of them were.

Harlem spots an Elder trying to get away, and lines up THE MACHINE.

Nine barrels roar in anger and fury and vengeance, and the result? One thoroughly dead uber powerful vampire.

Then all the hells start to break loose again.

And we ended the session there.
~~~~~~~~~

Figure that's as good a place as any to stop for now; will probably pick up again later on Friday if I can.

Thoughts? Questions? Feedback? I'm all ears.

>>27778423
THE MACHINE

>>27778498

I remember first making the outline for what would later become THE MACHINE, and laughing my ass off when the guys said that it couldn't be done.

I showed them. I showed them ALL. NONE CAN STOP THE MACHINE.

>>27778595
Can you post its stats?

>>27778595
If I wasn't the foreverGM I'd try to craft The Machine in honor of this.

>>27778708

Seconding this request.

>>27778708

No problem.


THE MACHINE

DAMAGE: 12(primary fire)/36(secondary)

RANGES (in feet): 15/30/60

CLIP: 6+3 (primary fire)/9+0 (secondary)

STR: 4(two-handed)/6(one-handed)

SIZE: 4

COST: *****+** (noncrafted)/*** (crafted)

>>27778780

You're typing it wrong. It called THE MACHINE.

>>27778852
No, there can be only one THE MACHINE

>>27778951

And my character is in possession of it.

>its interesting because its about a GIRL

There are billions of girls

>>27779009

Not just any girl. Read the OP as to why this girl was special.

Also, archived over on sup/tg/ under the name "nWoD STORYTEIM." If you enjoyed the story so far, give it a vote for.

>>27779009
>>27779029

The girl was only special because she was willing to ride the crazy train, like about the majority of all gamers.

You just had shit luck with girls before her. The story wasn't really about her, she was, essentially, someone who came along for the ride and didn't fit your preconceptions.

>>27778423
>you will never shoot vampires in the face while You've Got the Touch blares on a stereo and you make the pewpewpew sound of optimus primes gun with your mouth

>>27779075

I actually thought about doing that OOC but decided to rein it in because that would just be too silly.

>>27779054

Maybe you're right. Still, some of our best schemes are from her deliciously psychotic mind.

>>27779111

Then hey, you got a good gamer in your group, that happens to have an innie, not an outie.

Some of my best gaming groups were about 50/50 guys and girls. Sadly, one of them had a girl who was used to being the only girl among gamers, and was not used to not having all the attention.

And then she left and the group was better.

If anyone wants to do a dramatic reading of the storyteim so far, feel free to. Would love to see what you guys come up with.

>>27775744
LOL your group sounds like a bunch of assholes

I like you guys

>>27776884
Probably because it's so detailed.

srsly OP I'm not usually one to complain when it's a good story, but there's a lot of unnecesarry bits here, wish you'd cut to the chase.

>>27779241
I read it in a sort of deep, pulp-y action-hero-ish voice in my head.
Your game sounds fun, but are all your sessions about combat?

Hiw did none of the vampires use any discipline to any decent effect on you?
FFS, 60 vampires + an Elder should render you DEAD

Can you tell us about stuff that happened BEFORE this?

Like how you did in the other characters, driving all the other girls off?

>>27782520
clearly there were mages watching who thought all this was hilarious and wanted to keep the good times rolling.

>>27782912
>clearly there were mages watching who thought all this was hilarious and wanted to keep the good times rolling.

What are the chances of Mages who spend their time that way stepping on the toes of other mages?

Damn I wish I knew how to screencap images together, curse you shitty computer!