Season 1 Recap

Last year started off strong with fairly regular game play, then we hit the mid-season slump and didn't play very often. The last game session was in August. I'm happy to report that our game got renewed for a second season, with hopefully more episodes to see actual play.

The game centers around three characters (and we always have room for a fourth...):

• A part-time Wizard of the White Council who happens to be the local TV weatherman. He hasn't had a problem with being around so much technology...yet.
• An ex-military grunt and gun-nut now working as a bodyguard. He has eyes only for his MP5 and his boss's luxury cars.
• A healer and ally to the fairy-folk who who fell through time from the future via a fairy circle. She's a dedicated physician - to both mortals and fairies.

The bodyguard and healer work for a wealthy philanthropist who happens to be a retired occult investigator. He often uses them and the local wizard as a field team to look into suspicious activity.

Here are some notes about this seasnon's episodes. The investigators were engaged in:

• Hunting down a serial killer who turned out to be a local woman possessed by the spirit of an ancient goblin shaman. This first adventure also introduced the group to a few recurring characters: the local homicide detective and a local group of amateur paranormal investigators.
• Aiding a member of the White Council in removing a cursed suit of armor from a rich wannabe wizard's collection.
• Stopping the kidnapping and torture of fairies by a crazed veterinarian who was giving the captured creatures to a mad scientist for use in his research.
• Found that said mad scientist was trying to distill the essence of fairy creatures in order to give their magical powers to normal mortals. The investigators learned that he had succeeded in duplicating Dr. Henry Jekyll's formula for instilling great strength into a person.
• The mad scientist was working for a vampire of the Red Court who seemed to be a fan of local theatre while eschewing the politics of the Red Court. He had hired the mad scientist to find a cure for his "solar allergies."
• In trying to capture and question the mad scientist, who happened to be a respected professor of historical anthropology at UVA, they triggered a booby trap and blew up his kitchen.
• In their final encounter with the mad scientist and the vampire, which also turned out to be the final episode of the season, the body count rose higher than ever. (The group had actually been careful about using extreme violence.) The episode resulted in the deaths of the mad scientist's three henchmen (who had been supernaturally enhanced with the "Hyde" formula), and the wizard being paralyzed by a dart from the scientist's concealed airgun. When the evening ended, the vampire had fled, the paranormal investigators were rescued, and the mad scientist was dead from surgically placed knife wounds at the hands of the physician.

I can't tell you how happy I was to hear how much the players fretted about that ending during our hiatus! We've started Season 2 of the game and they were happy to find themselves NOT in jail. But more on that later.