Monster Hunters, session 2

Last night we gathered, John, Mike, Dave, Jason, Ed and myself. Ed was joining us just for the one time, as he has to head back to Missouri soonish.

The gang pulls the van into the paved lot in front of the Buddhist Temple. As we'd mentioned in our last session, they could see a plume of black smoke rising from the structure. The broad stairs leading up to the temple itself were scattered with a few prone forms. As they pulled up to the base of the stairs, a large group emerged from the front doors of the temple. As the characters emerged from their vehicle, and the group from the temple moved about halfway down the broad stairs, they could see that it was a group of eastern looking people, a couple of them dragging someone down the stairs by his robes. Amidst them was also a fellow wearing the garb of a Roman-Catholic priest. John's character, Wolf, immediately recognized his mentor and father figure, Charles, the priest on the stairs. Dave's character, Langley, recognized one of the eastern fellows as being Lao, a captain in service to the Group of Wicked Sorcerers Who Killed His Clan. As Wolf stepped onto the stairs, Mike's character, Bob, opened fire on the crowd descending the stairs.

Wolf moved fastest and intercepted a couple of murderous mooks with his shotgun. Jason's character, Armande, setup and began firing, trying to take mooks out of the fight without killing them, so he was aiming for guns and hands. Bob fired a few more shots and locked down into his armored stance and fought off a few mooks, while Langley threw fireballs and steam blasts at the mooks rushing down the stairs toward him. Lao shoved the priest, Charles, angrily and threw a ball of fire toward the characters, hitting the van behind them and sending it into the sky in an explosion of glass and metal. A tall gangly fellow near Lao started more slowly down the stairs, and seemed to shrug off his skin as he grew in height, revealing an eight foot daemon with huge bone armored plates and wicked looking spines. Just then the doors of the temple practically exploded outwards as three mooks were apparently thrown from the temple. Then a small mob of mooks came running out and set up on the stairs before the doors, ready to fight whatever had dispatched their companions. A tall man walked from the temple, rolling the sleeves of his robe. It was Lu Chin. A former daemon hunter for the Wicked Sorcerers Who Killed Dave's Clan, Lu had thrown off their yoke some time ago and had been working against them ever since. Ed was playing Lu, and had gotten word that the Bad Guys were descending on this temple, so he showed up to counter them. Battle was joined!

We, the players and GM, seemed to all enjoy ourselves. Combat seemed to run a little long, when I looked up and we'd been killing mooks for an hour and a half or so. Time does get away. I'm in the process of consulting with the players to determine how time time frame of combat meets with their taste. Alot of mooks were killed. John's character, Wolf, used a Banishment on the spiked daemon, forcing it to run, which kept it out of the fight for a bit. Meanwhile the party focused on killing the mooks on the stairs, the snipers on the roof, and Lao, who shot up 20 feet into the air, and hovered there, hurling fireballs down the stairs at Lu and the other characters. The daemon returned, but the characters had done a goodly bit of harm to Lao, and so he bade the daemon to destroy the Good Guys, and he vanished in a puff of ash. The daemon waded into the Good Guys, and deprived them of more than a few bits of flesh and blood, but then was dispatched.

During the fighting, Mike's character used his Fu powers to increase his defense, making him nearly impossible to hit, while taking out mooks and shooting at Lao as he hovered in the air. Jason's character kept constant pressure on the mooks with his hail of bullets. John's character went toe to toe with the daemon and a bunch of mooks, occasionally sending a hail of slugs toward Lao. Dave's character kept a bunch of mooks busy at the base of the stairs, trading fireballs and lightning strikes. Ed's character made some fantastic leaps into the air in an attempt to knock Lao down, and cracked more than a few mook necks, and traded blows with the daemon.

After the smoke cleared, Dave's surviving clannie pulled himself to his feet and told Langley that Charles (John's mentor) was responsible for the slaughter of their clan, and that Dave should extract justice. John quizzed Charles as to his presence at the Temple. Charles told John's character that he had come to try to stop the Bad Guys from killing this last monk. He went on to explain that when he was very young, and had just entered the church, his mentor sent him to act as an intermediary with a third-party that the church was working with to stamp out heretics and Evil Sorcerers. The third party just happened to be Lao and his band of Bad Guys, and the heretics that they were stamping out were Langley's clan. Charles told Wolf that he had not known at the time that it meant the slaughter of women and children, that he thought they were fighting against Evil Heretics. Charles had been seeking absolution ever since. Wolf told Charles that he would absolve him, and so they went into the temple. Wolf (and John) weighed the decision of whether to draw out Charles' sin (remember that Wolf is a sin-eater), and either send Charles to Heaven or Hell. In the end, Wolf drew out the sin and ate it, then sent his mentor on his way to Heaven. John did a fine job weighing the decision for himself as a player and for Wolf as a character.

That's pretty much where we wrapped up. We'll see whats in store for them next week.