Session 57

From Gothpoodle

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Summer 2008

• Jess proposes to Lee who, after long and hard consideration, agrees, ruining any further chance of a military career. Later that summer, Penny marries Lee's friend Mark.
• Lee organizes a mass wedding celebration.
• The East Bay packs work to contain Worm Hosts from spreading beyond the region, a side effect of Zmai's defeat.
• The kids establish themselves in Outer Richmond, taking over the old Russian church as their primary locus. They call themselves the 'Wolf Brats' and Jesse emerges as their leader (by consensus) with Rita as his beta. They are fairly egalitarian, though, and share ritemaster duties among them. Rita and Christina both graduate high school, Jesse drops out. Rita has applied to college for the fall and secured an internship last year with the SFPD. They convinced Laptop (a greater gaffling of portable computers) to serve as their pack totem.
• In early July, Christoval attends the quarterly Brotherhood meeting in L.A., where Don Aguirre surprises him by declaring him his successor, to the general approval of the membership. Machete seems to have no problem with this (being a Beta sort), but Aguirre's daughter Gabriela is cool towards Christoval afterwards.
• In August, Lee's brother Reggie shows up at your door and says that he's willing to listen. The gist is that the Predator King defeat at the hands of the Blood Talons in the war made him reconsider who was the stronger totem. The corruption within his own pack decided the matter. Lee's lodge takes him in and leads him through his defection. He joins Chen Zhang (who leaves the Sons of Heaven) and Tomas (the Predator King you captured) to form a new pack that claims the "spine" in the middle of the city (Mt. Sutro, Twin Peaks, Mt. Davidson). In September, they are joined by Chucho Zappetillo (Christoval's uncle, Carlos' father) and his newly changed daughter, Angelina, who defected from the Keepers of the First Flame mid-way through Angelina's Rite of Initiation (for reasons not hard to imagine, her father decided enough was enough). Fenris won't have Chucho back, so he and his daughter become Bone Shadows.
• On September 18th, Janice gives birth to a son whom she names Ben. This gets out in the open the affair she's been having with Benjamin McShane (Jeff's son, Jess's little brother). Benjamin ends up divorcing his wife and going to live with Janice (ten years his senior) and she is very happy. Jess spends a lot of time consoling her former sister-in-law. Tensions in the Phelan family are a bit high.

Fall 2008

• Starting in Late September, DeAndre begins to find observers in his dreams, regular looking people who are there, watching him, with a posture of hatred and menace. They prove difficult to get rid of, even with the lucid dreaming techniques taught to him by Solomon.
• As it gets into October, DeAndre is also stalked in the material world by people who seem to be sleep-walking. If confronted, they appear to wake up and have no idea how they got to where they are. Some of them have come a great distance.
• The ritual to keep Kinugal shackled goes without incident, though when the pack wakes from the task, the house is surrounded by two dozen of these sleep-walkers. They are whispering Kinugal's name in unison until one is approached and wakens, which seems to break them all from their spell.
• The rite to keep Great Fire shackled also goes without incident, which many speculate has to do with Chucho's defection. He will confirm that the girl, Polly Floyd, is a burn victim whom his pack is grooming to act as a vessal for the Great Fire when it is released, but isn't sure of his former Alpha's plan to accomplish this other than to say that he seemed to take the previous year's failure to heart.
• The pledge with Mad Martin ends in late October and the pack loses Ensorcellment. He enters in a new bargain with Lee, trading his medical skills for her promise not to interfere further in Changeling affairs (including spreading knowledge of them outside the pack). The Spring Court has relocated from the Grind, which Tabitha now owns but has no intention of running and Grace was only bound there by Richard. Martin seems to be the only Changeling interested in the place and ends up staying on there. Tabitha hires a manager to run it and most of the mortal staff remains.
• Kevin completes his tour of duty in Iraq early in November and returns to San Francisco, settling back into the family locus and picking up his lodge's work on his own. He politely declines any offers to join a pack, but seems willing to work with others on a strictly temporary arrangement, particularly if they are Blood Talons.
• The Tree-Speakers gain a new omega when Michelle's fifteen-year-old daughter Amanda goes through her First Change as a Cahalith in mid-November. Their pack, with Lee's encouragement, also begins to work with the NIA and the Caretakers (Ronnie's family) to start to get a handle on the underage homeless problem. Twilight, of course, proves vital to his effort. A fake "abandoned house" is set up with spirit guardians and protections and hands-off from the police which Twilight funnels a lot of the kids to and makes sure they get food, medication, and other things they need.
• Significant effort is expended by the Rainbow Guard, probably with your assistance, to keep Castro, Gay Pride, and the rest of the "Queer Brood" from pushing the gay population of the city into another "White Night" riot with the passage of Proposition 8. Liberal Anxiety also finds a lot to feed off of during the campaigning and election and his brood grows and expands in power. He seems to be less focused on the Haight and more on establishing his own power bloc in the Phoenix Court.
• The pack finally beats Vandalism and Decent People into submission and gets a handle on the spirit problem in the Haight. In early December, they also deal with a car-claimed sports car that can drive between the real world and the Shadow which is causing a massive amount of havoc (it tends to lure in people and take them on terrorizing joy rides to reap Essence).

Winter 2009

• January and February are relatively uneventful. The pack continues to train and assist the Wolf Brats, gets involved with weird urban legend stuff with the Night Stalkers, and occasionally coordinates with neighboring packs with cross-border problems.
• In early March, there is a fire on a cargo vessel carrying illegal arms being shipped by Aguirre to South America in exchange for a large drug shipment. This results in a massive explosion that cripples him and kills two other members of the Brotherhood. Christoval leads his family's efforts to find the cause, tracing the device which started the fire back to Roman Miranda (the arsonist the pack consulted when trying to clear the Fire-Touched clinic). Enhanced interrogation techniques reveal that it was Jag who commissioned the device. Jag, though Lodge of Silence channels, informs DeAndre that he didn't know anyone was on board the ship, nor that the weapons had been loaded. His intent was to destroy the drugs with a fire contained in the cargo hold. By late March, Christoval and the Brotherhood's Bay packs track down Jag and his new packmates in an Oakland suburb. Christoval has the place wired with explosives and lets Aguirre remote detonate it.
• DeAndre retrieves what's left of Jag's remains using his face and his dead brother's name and gives him a proper burial in the Bone Orchard, with Christoval's knowledge but not his attendance.

Spring 2009

• In the beginning of April, DeAndre learns that, thanks to California's budget crisis, his two former pack mates have received early parole. They urge him to re-form their old pack with the addition of one's recently changed daughter.
• By mid-April, conversations between the three of you come to the agreement to split and form a new protectorate. Lee challenges Jeff for leadership of the Castro pack and handily defeats him. She and DeAndre come to a tentative agreement for a north-south split of the Haight while DeAndre and his new pack mates (possibly including Angel, who he can't seem to get rid of) take over the spur of unclaimed territory to the east that was once Scum Fuck stomping grounds by the end of the month. Christoval formally accepts alphaship of the Caballeros de los Dolores and begins taking over his uncle's duties. He also gets Aguirre's fetish sabre. One of his first tasks is renegotiating with Dolores as she hasn't spoken to the pack since Jag's assassination.
• Throughout May, the protectorate forms. The Wolf Brats and Night Stalkers agree to join and Christoval insists on keeping up his ties to the rest of his family packs as an equally binding obligation. Lines are drawn, borders are solidified through friendly skirmishes, and spirits are informed of the new arrangement and beaten into submission if they have any objections. There is some definite nervousness from the other packs in the city, since you've instantly become the biggest power bloc in the city. Nobody seems interested in picking a fight with the pack that took down the Warlord, though.
• Angel renounces her membership in the Iron Masters and prepares to attempt the Rite of Initiation for the Blood Talons at the Summer Gathering.
• Lee opens a second Joe's Garage in the Castro focusing more on art cars and customization.

Thursday, June 18, 2009 (Waning Crescent)

• Lee hears a dog howling when she gets ready to jog, finds Wanderers' Friend barking at Kevin's body on the road outside her house.
• Lee goes into Primal Form and howls her rage, tracks them back to Alamo Square.
• Junkie spirit manifests to DeAndre and tells him Lee is coming.
• DeAndre goes to meet Lee, calls up Christoval, they meet in the Shadow in front of Prescott House.
• DeAndre bribes Urban Hunter to go in to the house, he reports a "human activity tasting" locus.
• Lee and Christoval go in and find an art locus in the recital room on the second floor.
• Lee looks across the Gauntlet and sees a guard and boarded up window.
• Return to Lee's house and move the body inside, argue about what to do.
• Sean calls DeAndre to tell him he's found a wailing sniper rifle atop the Ida B. Wells school.
• DeAndre sends his pack to fetch the gun.
• DeAndre calls Okasan and asks for the heart, she agrees to present it to him at the restaurant two hours after sunset.
• Christoval calls Machete and apprises him of the situation, he tells them about Okasan selling out Calun.
• DeAndre starts the Blood Talon phone tree to tell them about the funeral tonight.
• Summon Silent Owl and questions him, he informs them he's roosting in the Emanuel Baptist Church, which is a Murder Locus.
• DeAndre summons White Willow, asks for other members of the Lodge to come and retrieve his weapon.

Experience: 3/204