La Ville Lumière - Session 1
Welcome Statement
Welcome everyone, to this one-shot of Changeling: The Dreaming, 20th Anniversary Edition: La Ville Lumiere, 1889. My name is Aster, and I'll be your Storyteller this evening. Here with me are my fine motley, the Archemedians.
Introductions
Before we start I’d like to remind everyone that this is a show for mature audiences. It may have depictions of violence, body horror, suicide, sexual themes, power imbalances, forced actions, gaslighting and other taboo subjects. We urge you to watch at your own discretion and take breaks if you need to or skip parts entirely. My players have made me aware of their veils and lines and I will be adhering to them as we want to have a comfortable table as well as a comfortable audience. As always, we remind the viewers that we are playing monsters and whilst hating the character is perfectly fine. Do not hate the player. So sit back and enjoy the show.
This game is set in Paris. I'm not a native French speaker, and while I lived in Paris for some time when I was little, it's been many, many years. So please bear with my pronunciations - I - and my players - are trying our best.
Start Game
June 25, 1889
It is late June in 1889, and the Paris Exposition Universelle is in full swing. With over 41 million Francs spent in the construction and operations, there is hope that the number of visitors will be enough to not only cover but recoup the costs for this grand exposition.
One would say, normally, that the sunny days with nothing but scattered clouds would be great for tourism - and especially such an event as this - but the summer heat has driven away the public during the hottest parts of the day, leaving the streets bare. Even in Abigail Beaufoy's library, La Bibliothèque de Chansons - or the Library of Song - the mood is of restless discomfort.
Abigail, your hair and dress stick to your neck, and the doors and windows have been flung open wide to introduce some air into this atmosphere. Amara, you're also sitting in the shop with a little hand fan, but it's not enough. Even the water in a bucket by the backdoor is too warm to provide much comfort.
(allow a moment to talk - include Amara's chimerical companion, Chipi, a wooden puppet)
Eloise Barnes shows up. She has a new book with her: The Pleasure by Gabriele D'Annunzio, and is caught up in the romantic airs of the book and the nobility.
Anyways, she asks if they're still planning on going to the Paris Expo worriedly. Eloise won't be stepping foot there herself, as she doesn't want to get over excited and pass out. It's been happening to all sorts of young ladies that have gone there lately, and she would hate to see the library closed because Abigail took ill.
She doesn't know much more than that, only that her father said that it's too much for a woman's constitution, and that she won't be going there. She does, however, mention that the is insistent that it is safe for all who wish to attend.
Meanwhile, Meridian, you are with the small group of gardiens de la paix publique (Guardians of the Public Peace) - about 10 or so - that have been put under your instruction as arms master. Your fur and forehead drip with sweat, and the harsh sunlight of the noon-day sun has the few members of your guard that are not currently training keeping to the shadows of trees and buildings, looking for any sort of relief.
Dreamer Joël Ménard is not with them unless Meridian specifically had him transferred from the army to a temporary assignment here.
While out training, Charlotte Boucher is seen walking around with a cloth mask tied across her face.
If questioned, she'll talk about how there is a plague going around. It is causing the young women to become senseless, and none have yet to wake up since this started happening just a few days ago. She is resistant to the idea that it is "overexcitement" or any such nonsense, but she does also mention that there are a lot of people who have put a lot of money into this place, like the marquis (Marquis de L'Azur - Francois Barthold).
Mention Fleur Legrand (even if not by name), during this scene.
Meeting with the Marquis
After asking around a bit, you are directed towards Le Marais, the district of Parisian Nobility. It does not surprise you either when your directions lead you to a private mansion, or hôtel particulier - a type of large and elegant style of Parisian house that first appeared in the 13th and 14th centuries.
In the case of Marquis Barthold's residence, it is a large white home with a front courtyard, two wings of the building coming forward as if to hug the residents close to the cavity - the front entryway, a cavernous "porch" (if it could be called that, flanked with white pillars through which you could reach the front door. The windows on each of the three floors are lined by a railing and a faux balcony - only about six inches at its largest depth.
The inside is just as austere and imposing, with black-and-white-diamond tiles and Corinthian columns holding up a gold-gilded ceiling, carved with expansive pieces of cherubs, women and men in amorous parties, and animals at play in the woods.
Francois is able to be sussed out as a changeling through a Perception + Kenning check (diff 7). He has the beautiful countenance of a sidhe (though his voile is a shocking shade of aquamarine blue, and his hair/beard match), and takes Amara's hand and kisses it. He's polite - even warm (on the surface). He introduces them to the man he is speaking with: President Carnot.
He listens to their requests and gives them what he can (though this is all a front), but refuses to close the expo, citing that he has too much invested in it to let it close down.
Make sure it's clear that he is quite interested in Amara. Also have him greet Meridian as Odysseus.
Visiting the Afflicted
You find your way into the Hôtel-Dieu, a public hospital located on the Île de la Cité in the 4th arrondissement of Paris, on the parvis of Notre-Dame. People are bustling back and forth, and the heat is oppressive within the walls, despite all the windows being thrown open.
(whoever they talk to has a V of sweat on the front and back of their gown/apron/shirt and trousers)
Directed to the appropriate room, they find eight beds, where there are seven young, beautiful women comatose. They have sheets pulled up to their shoulders, tucked in under the mattresses. The material is stretched so tight that if one were even to turn onto their side, the sheets would come undone.
Here's what they can find out:
- One of the woman, Karine Abadie, was released after a week in a coma. She claimed to have had a horrible dream (if pressed, the nurse will say that Karine dreamed that she was beheaded by some terrible blue monster, but does not say it without prompting), but the doctors could find nothing wrong with her.
- The women are all (physically) fine, but will not wake up. It has stumped doctors.
- All of them visited the expo before becoming ill.
- Fleur Legrand, who was introduced earlier, will be brought in as the eight victim.
Confronting Bluebeard (aka the Marquis)
This will be a matter of cornering him in his own corner of the Dreaming.
If they try to apprehend him anywhere else, he will disappear around a corner, where there is no door. BUT, there is a door across the street, and if you reach out to grasp the knob in the reflection, it lets you into his home in the Dreaming.
If they go back to his home, they find the freehold a labyrinth of strange and perverse attractions:
- An aviary of bone-birds (skeletal birds animated that attack them). This is standard combat (three seconds per turn).
- A hall of mirrors, like Versailles, where the mirrors suddenly change into glass windows, through which horrific mermaids can be seen. They begin to try to break in and drown the motley. This is dramatically faster, with thirty seconds being devoted to a turn just so there's actually a chance for someone to get close to drowning.
- A bedroom of laces and silks, with porcelain dolls hung by their necks by silk scarves around the canopy bed's posts that clatter against one another with a racket (upon closer inspection, they look like the women in the hospital). The sound, then the wailing and the sobbing, requires a Willpower check or else they lose two points of temp Willpower.
- The final room is the ballroom, where the Marquis awaits. The eight women's bodies (including Fluer) hang from the ceiling, their throats cut, and their wrists and limbs puppetted by ribbons strung into the rafters.
They can also discover he is not a sidhe, but a sevartal. He will attempt to tempt Amara with the chance to be his bride, as he is quite taken with her.
The other women, he claimed, failed his tests of loyalty, but they were not of "our" kind, and he has faith in her ability to be a devoted wife to him. They'll go back to the Autumn, and the Archemedians are free to continue on their way.
If she refuses, he'll attempt to kill her (chimerically) like he did the others. The dead women are also puppetted around to keep the others busy (they don't do much damage and are out of the fight if they cut down, but are an annoyance).
As you stumble your way back out onto the street, the sun has begun to set in vibrant oranges, pinks, and purples. The heat has somewhat abated, particularly in the long purple shadows of the Parisian city streets.
In the distance, you can hear a clatter of churchbells and the flutter of wings as a startled bird flock takes flight into the cooling evening air.
You take in a clean, clear breath of air. You're alive. And the City of Light continues to shine brightly with the promise of a better tomorrow.
Thank you all for watching, and.... "keep it scary"
Remember your quests and bans!
Quests are behaviors that model a changeling’s archetype. Whenever he accomplishes his primary Legacy’s Quest, he receives a point of Willpower at the Storyteller’s discretion.
Bans are actions that run counter to the Legacy’s archetype. If a character violates his primary Legacy’s Ban, he forfeits a point of Willpower.
A changeling can go against his primary Legacy’s Ban without penalty if he can justify it using his secondary Legacy. However, if the changeling invokes his secondary Legacy too frequently, he might be on the verge of trading Courts.
Amara Ade
Knave
Quest: Regain Willpower when you convince others to do something they oppose and they enjoy it.
Ban: Never shelter anyone from the harsh truths of life.
Wayfarer
Quest: When you survive a truly dangerous situation by your own wits, regain Willpower.
Ban: Never plan for the future.
Abigail Beaufoy
Panderer
Quest: When someone achieves hap - piness due to your efforts but is unaware of the part you played in it, regain Willpower.
Ban: Never purposefully do anything to make someone unhappy.
Pandora
Quest: When you overcome a situation you created by doing what you were warned against, regain Willpower.
Ban: Never keep a secret.
Meridian
Fatalist
Quest: Regain Willpower when your warnings of doom come to pass.
Ban: Never laugh except in bitterness, sarcasm, or schadenfreude.
Hermit
Quest: When you discover the solution to a problem through thoughtful introspection, regain Willpower.
Ban: Never chat idly. Assert yourself only if you have unique insight and the situation is dire.
Who's Around?
Fleur Legrand, a French Romani violinist and dancer.
Charlotte Boucher, the young cousin (23) of the owner of the Goût de Paris (Taste of Paris) bakery, who is out selling the little pastries to the visitors in the park.
Raul D'aubert, a day laborer who helped with the History of Habitation exhibit by Charles Garnier (architect of the Garnier opera house). He specifically worked on the Greek, Egyptian, Chinese, and Aztec exhibits.
Vermont Granger, a horse-and-buggy taxi driver to take people to and from the park.
Names of the Guardians (or anyone else who needs names)
- Paul Durand
- Florence Fortier
- Everard Fabien
- Romain Palomer
- Horace Lucas
- Denis Tremble
Suffocation & Drowning
Normally, changelings can hold their breath for an amount of time based on their Stamina trait.
| Stamina | Time |
|---|---|
| 1 | 30 seconds |
| 2 | One minute |
| 3 | Two minutes |
| 4 | Five minutes |
| 5 | Eight minutes |
A character may hold her breath for an additional 30 seconds beyond that time with the expenditure of a point of Willpower, and may continue to do so for as long as she has Willpower to spend.
After that time, if she has not reached breathable air, she begins to suffocate. Suffocation damage cannot be resisted or soaked, and is not rolled. Each turn, the character takes one level of bashing damage.
Water or particularly caustic gases may cause lethal damage, at Storyteller discretion. If the character reaches Incapacitated due to suffocation damage, she dies one turn later.
A changeling may ignore a chimerical suffocation hazard for a scene by Invoking the Autumn.
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