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Chronicle's Outline
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Chronicle's Outline
Skin of Indianapolis
The tablet turned out to be one of several. It was a table of contents, of sorts. It listed the
topics of the other tablets (topics such at time travel and eternal youth), as well as
information on how to perserve and later read the tablets. By breaking the tablet into dust
and feeding it to a human, forever that human (and his or her first born) will have the
words of the tablet written in their skin. One must remove the skin and magicly read it to
find the ancient words. The characters realize that the Nephandi was doing this to Isis,
and rush to the hospital to guard her. Since she wasn't killed, then the complete tablet was
not taken from her. She was still in danger.
In the hospital the characters face a new enemy. Uriel, another Fallen Angel, was visiting
Isis, and with him was the little girl Nephandi. Uriel introduced himself, then picked up
Isis and disappeared. The Nephandi fought the characters and beat the shit out of them
before fleeing on foot into the streets on Indianapolis. Isis's bed was bloodstained from
her missing skin.
The characters learned from this brief encounter with Uriel that there were two artifacts
on earth, one that can lead you to a Tablet Person and another that can read the skin
without killing a person. Uriel was going to kill Isis because he didn't have either of the artifacts.
He was just 'following his brother around the world.' The characters remember Michael
and figure he was the brother angel who had the artifacts. Then they remembered Michael
visited a cultist outside of Chicago and began to search for the cultist's remains.
It turned out that the cultist, named David Yeager, was shot by the police, but rescued
before the compound fire, and was now in jail in Chicago. The characters liberated the
man from the prison, then took him back to Static Headquarters in Indianapolis.
According to the tablet instructions, they removed most of the man's skin, killing him.
From his skin they recreated the ancient tablet. On it were a series of spells
concerning communication. It listed relics that allowed communication with Heaven, Hell,
and the Shadowlands. There were lists of names of major personas in magic communication
in Earth's past, including European kings, Popes, and even Muslims and Africans. Most
important was the artifact that allowed direct communication with Heaven and the Lord's
Angels. Well, those who haven't Fallen.
The members of Static (as well as several other factions in the world, predicting it's end)
are looking for a way to escape the end of the world. The tablets, now written in human
skin, give the very instructions for a way out. Now Static and the characters have clues to
find the remaining tablets. They formulate a plan to use the artifact listed in David
Yeager's skin to communicate with Heaven and find out how to find Michael, what he is
doing on Earth and why. If they find Michael, they reason, then they will have the relics
that allows other Tablet People to be found. Then they will have the complete series of
tablets and be able to flee the dying earth. It is too bad that the artifact that they have to
get in order to talk to the Angels is so hard to obtain.
They All Float Down Here
Static members were angered by the loss of Isis. A few thought of her as dead and began plans for a funeral. Others thought she was still alive and began to search for her. The characters mostly agreed to try to find her. Searching the hospital allowed the characters (using Auspices from helping Static Mages) to find and follow the cruel Resonance of the Nephandi girl. She fled that night and (oddly enough) went north from Indanapolis to Chicago. The characters followed the trail, still warm, until they find her again in the hole beneath the subway station. The recent rains flooded most of the cave, up to a foot, but sometimes three or four feet deep. The rotting bodies of the children vampires and Elucid still litter the cave. There was also the body of Richardson, Anita Wainwright's lover and bodyguard.
While the characters search the underground complex again they come upon Uriel and the Nephandi deep in conversation. It seems that the girl mage is reporting something to Uriel. The Fallen Angel nods and disappears. The Nephandi then notices the characters and another batlle begins. This time the girl is weak and can't fight as well, so she brings out her secret weapon: The Vapor Creature. It had been hunting Anarchs in Chicago and Gary for weeks and was coming to it's creater's aid. One of the Static mages with the characters paralyzes the Nephandi in some sort of extra-dimensional pocket of space-time and the protagonists flee. With the Nephandi in stasis like that, she cannot heal or flee while the characters look for a way to get pasted the vampire-killing Vapor Creature.
On the Chicago surface they find the Anarch leader, Anita Wainwright, and tell her about Richardson's demise. Anita was saddened and enraged. She sent Richardson and a few neonate Anarchs with what she believed to be the weapon that could kill the Vapor Monster. It was a wooden box containing a dust that, when sprinkled on the Creature, would destroy it. The characters note that only Richardson's body was in the cave, besides the ones killed earlier by the characters. There were no neonate Anarchs. Anita grew furious and ran from her Haven in search of the Kindred that betrayed her lover.
The neonates were found in Gary and were quickly destroyed in a small battle in a car dealership (the players had fun using their Vampiric strength to lift small foreign cars and crush some police officers that showed up to find out what was going on). The box of dust was found and the character, Static members (minus one, crushed under a car the Anarchs threw at the characters), and Anita Wainwright left to the subway station mound. Underground they destroyed the Vapor Creature and Anita spent time (turned out to be days) with her lover's remains. The characters brought the Nephandi out of stasis and questioned her about Isis.
Before dying, the Nephandi told very disturbing information. First of all, Isis, dying, was in the underground cave complex somewhere, deep under the city of Chicago's many sewers, subways, and rat tunnels. Uriel was with her. She told of a group of Nephandi that were organized in North America and were among the ones fortold to bring about the world's destruction. Of this group, the little Nephandi girl was just a junior member. This was horrific, because the Nephandi never organized. They always traveled alone. A group of them would be a terrible force of evil. The two remaining Static mages returned to the surface and traveled south to Indianapolis to be with their cabal. The characters waded through the water, passed by the mourning Anita, and journeyed deeper into the tunnel system.
Crimson Drain
The characters were hurting. Their attack on the Vapor Creature had weakened them a great deal. They didn't go to the surface first to get more blood before going deeper into the caves. The could not heal many of their wounds or perform their most powerful Disiciplines. That is, until their first encounter with the more common inhabitants: rats. In a sewer tunnel, long abandoned, there was a huge colony of rats. They were everywhere, and the characters had their fill of blood.
It was a good thing they got that blood, too, because later on they encountered a Ratkin, a type of wererat, and his pet alligator. That battle was short, and the characters soon found themselves in a smelly room with artifical light coming in from a hole in the ceiling. That light illuminated Uriel sitting on the floor. He pointed up to the hole and told the characters that Isis was up there. Tears of blood ran down his face. He confessed that he was upset because he was hurting God's creatures, but was comforted because it was His will. The beautiful angel told the characters that the End was nearly upon them and gave them a sealed envelope. A nearly invisible shield came up to protect the angel as he knelt down and prayed in a whispered voice. The characters couldn't get any more from him and began to climb to the light.
The hole turned out to be a drain in the floor of a subway men's room. They burst through the tiled floor and found the skinned body of Isis lying dead in a corner, beneath a dirty and broken unrinal. Her lidless eyes and skinless face stared at the characters. Haunted, they left her there and walked out of the subway bathroom to the surface of Chicago. The envelope contained a key and directions to a church in Gary. The next night the characters went to that church.
Inside was a tablet, formed from the late Isis's skin. The characters took it to Indianapolis for Static members to read. While in Indianapolis they healed and replenished their supply of blood. The world was in a very bad time. Michael, Uriel, and it is assumed at leat two other angels, are walking around the world looking for people that have the tablets in common among them. A group of Nephandi wizards are somehow plotting the destruction of the world, but no one knows how or where. All of this, and the Sabbat have regrouped and attacked Milwaukee, forcing the Justicar to return to Chicago and find a new Prince to lead the Camarilla. Several cities in the world have changed hands in the past few months, with the Sabbat generally gaining ground.
The characters were told that while they searched for the relic to communicate with Heaven they should also watch out for the Nephandi cabal and learn of ways to destroy them, if possible. Now completely convinced that the world was going to end, the characters set out to find the Relic, whatever it was. The only clues they had now were on the tablet made from Isis's skin, which contained information on Correspondence and Time magic.
Indianapolis Jones
The tablet further identified the Relic as nothing other than the Ark of the Covenant! This, at first, made the characters frustrated. They had no idea how to find this 'radio' to communicate with God. But the Isis Tablet, as it was now called, gave information about where the Ark was laid to rest. This story worked on the character's individual pasts and contacts. Some enjoyed their vampiric powers in Anarch joy rides through the city at night. One found a tutor among the Static mages and learned a few Thaumaturgy spells. While they pursued their own affairs for a week or two, one character stayed with the mages and searched for the location of the Ark. They had free time until that one character got enough successes to say that he found enough clues. That took almost two weeks of study.
The clues told that the Ark was in one city, then another, then lost for time, then found, information like that. Every success gave them one more location that the Ark was once located. It was finally figured that it could be found in Egypt, east of Cairo. Egypt was a dark place, even for Vampires. A horrible fate awaited any Kindred who trespassed on the Settites' (an African clan in the Sabbat) land were quickly destroyed. The Static wizards had no such worries. The could walk around during the day and genearlly get away from trouble. The characters were rewarded for their help in finding the relic, and told to wait for it's arrival. If the attempt to retrieve the Ark fails, then the characters go after it.
The attempt into Egypt did fail, but not because the Followers of Set defeated the Mages. The Ark was in some sort of suspended animation and the Mages couldn't break it. A Christian mage, using a stasis spell similar to the one used to hold the Nephandi paralyzed, protected the Ark in 1191. Every renowned mage consulted around the world agreed that, unless a key was found, the only way to get to the Ark would be to see it before it entered stasis. Lucky for the characters, the Isis Tablet contained spells and artifacts about Time magic.
More research ensued and the ultimate Deadline was approaching. The End was estimated to begin with the first snowfall in the north. Weather experts are baffled at why there is no snow or rain expected anywhere north of the equator for several weeks. It seemed that God was witholding the world's water until the begining of the End. Soon a time travel spell was worked out and the characters were going to be zapped back in time to 1191 Egypt, before the flood erases the Ark in stasis. Only a dozen individuals could go, so this was not an effective way to escape the End. The four characters and six Static mages, each with a different field of magic, such as Life magic or Entropic magic, went back in time. No one knew for sure, but it was thought that the characters would automaticly be returned to the present after they were in the past for some amount of time (Reality, they said, didn't like having parts of itself where it shouldn't be and would work to get itself back to normal, i.e. bring the characters back from a past they didn't belong in). This wasn't known for sure, so the characters were informed to try and find another way back, if possible.
The Land of Silt and Sand
The characters emerged at night in the middle of a sandstorm. Nothing could be seen anywhere but blinding sand. They found a cave (luckily) and rested for the next day. The storm ended and the characters started their journey for the Ark. Modern maps, walkie-talkies, compasses, and astronomical gear guided the characters true, and they found the location of the Ark easily. Sadly, they found the Ark, but the Christian mage already put it in stasis. They could not touch it. They sat for an entire night looking at the encased Ark, trying everything the could to physically break the stasis field.
Nothing they tried worked. The Ark was beyond their reach, for the time being. The Resonance created by the time travel spell attracted the attention of nearby mages. A local cabal of Christian mages entered Ethiopia, to the south, to find the Ark. When they did, they moved it to its current resting place in Egypt. They vowed to guard it, and now sense the characters trying to steal it. They arrive, and to their suprise, find six mages and four vampires were surrounding the Ark.
A short battle occured before the Christians and the characters agreed to talk. They sat in the Ark cave and the characters learned about the local conditions, such as where not to go and who not to fight. The Christians learned about the future, such as the Fall of Michael and Uriel, and the end of the world. It is also found that the characters are unable to return to their own time because of some 'thickening' of the barrier between the Mortal world and the Shadowlands. The Static mages noticed this when they tried to fight the Christians. For some reason, magic was being hampered by this Thickening. To see why this was occuring, go to the Hidden Truth section.
The characters, with their new allies, seal the Ark off (because none of them could open it at this time) and begin the walk to Cairo. The Christians tell the characters that there is another way to get to the Ark. Every four hundred years (or so) the stasis field surrounding the Ark would fall for a day. The next day this would happen, they are told, would be in the Year of Our Lord 1519. The characters decide not to wait around for that to happen and try to find a way to either 'thin' the barrier and allow magic to return them home or find some other time travel spell to send them home.
Their travel through the arid desert of Egypt attracted the attention of another Creature. Mentu-hepet, a ruler of Egypt more than three thousand years before the characters were Embraced, lies mummified in his tomb beneath an undiscovered pyramid. His undead eyes watch them cross the well worn roads as he sends his minions to bring them to his lair. The characters encounter skeletal soldiers that move fast and are surrounded. Disarmed, the are staked through the heart (or drugged, in the case of the Mages) and carried to the tomb.
Mentu-hepet seeks a way out of his imprisonment. There is a spell locking him inside of the tomb. This powerful creature knows that the characters want a way to return to their own time, and is willing to thin the local barrier (he calls it the Shroud) to the Shadowlands and send the characters wherever they want to go. What he asks for in return is for the characters to bring him a host body. He needs a mortal to inhabit, and not just any mortal. There is only one person that can handle his life force, a Muslim that is currently fighting Richard the Lion Heart in Jerusalem. If the characters bring this Muslim back to the Mummy, then they may return back to their own time (or 1919, so they can get to the Ark when the field drops again). The characters, seeing no other option, set of for Jerusalem with the Christian and Static mages to look for the Muslim, Adeed.
Prince of Thieves
One character didn't know much about the history of the Holy Land. It was a surprise, then, to see the Third Crusade going on all around him when they reached Jerusalem. The Muslims, under Saladin, conquered the city and the European Pope started the Crusade to recapture it. Christian soldiers fight Islamic troops in battle after bloody battle. Mentu-hepet gave them an amulet that would lead them to Adeed and the group (now numbering eleven Mages and four Vampires) followed the directions it gave. After a battle (the characters were all white Americans, so the natives only saw Europeans) or two, they found that Adeed was in jail, awaiting execution. He was a Muslim thief and Jerusalem's occupiers didn't like thieves.
Some mages tried to get a boat to take them back to Egypt while the characters entered the prison to rescue Adeed. They found that Adeed and a few Christian prisoners were in the process of escaping. Not knowing what else to do, they aided the prisoners get out of jail and to the river. They boarded the boat and set sail for Egypt. It was almost too easy.
Stephen Trevanus was the Christian that started the prsioner escape before the characters arrived. They didn't know it, but this man was not any ordinary Englishman. When the call to arms came to England, this man was one of the first to set off with King Richard. Richard was captured before reaching the Holy Land, and Stephen was captured when he got there. This nobleman killed several Muslims in the battle (and a few when he escaped) because he was not a man at all, but a Werewolf. And he wasn't just any werewolf, he was a Fianna. These Lupines were strong in the Pagan arts, but Stephen converted to Christ while a boy. He knows that fairies and elves exist in the forests of Ireland and Scotland, but God rules above them all.
The characters learned that Trevanus was a werewolf when he, single-handedly, killed two Static Mages, a Christian mage, paralyzed the characters and remaining mages, and forced the boat's crew to sail passed Egypt to England. Several of his fellow prisoners cheered him on, but Adeed was nervous about sailing so far from his Islamic homeland.
The characters are left in the boat, still paralyzed. They use their Auspices to learn what is going on and their other powers to get help while they are slowly sinking (Trevanus tore a large hole in the ship's hull). A squad of the King's Men, now Dominated, rescued the characters before the sun rose. Those soldiers became loyal ghouls when the characters fed them blood. They fled into a nearby forest and found shelter in a small village (of about seven people, who were killed for their blood and food). The Christian mages were horrified at the character's evilness and cold blooded killing. It was at this point they plotted revenge.
Prince John, ruling England while his brother King Richard is away fighting the Crusades, welcomes Trevanus and the returning Christians back. In the castle in Nottingham, they had a great dinner. But they had a fight and Prince John sent Stephen out of the castle, telling him to never return. Stephen, a nobleman and werewolf, was not about to be shamed like that. He fled into the same forest the characters slept in to plot his revenge against Prince John.
The characters entered Nottingham one night and confronted Prince John. They knew of the fight and offered to find Trevanus if they were given a ship and the Muslim, Adeed. Prince John agreed, and named one character the Sheriff of Nottingham. Using money that the Prince had already plundered from the common people, they raised a small police force based on modern tactics and training (one character had a background in law enforcement). This 'elite' police force hunted Stephen (they couldn't use the amulet given to them by Mentu-hepet because it sank with the boat), who spent his time robbing nobles of their gold and giving some to the people, earning their turst.
The final battle took place when Prince John married a noblelady named Miriam in a midnight ceremony. During the wedding, the bandit Stephen raided the church, intent on robbing the guests and killing John. The Christian mages switched sides, and allied with Trevanus, and the wedding turned into a bloodbath. All but one Static mage was killed, most of the characters were Mauled or Incapacitated, and several wedding guests died in grotesque ways. But, in the end, the powerful werewolf Stephen Trevanus died, as did all but one of the Christian mages. Adeed was handed over to the characters with an old ship to take them back to Egypt.
Wars of the Covenant
Some of the ghoulish King's Men, the sole surviving Static mage, and the four characters set sail with their prisoner, Adeed, for Egypt. They arrived in Egypt and made their way across the desert, passed the pyramids and the sphinx, to the lost tomb of Mentu-hetep. The ancient Mummy was overjoyed, to say the least, about seeing Adeed. The characters talked it over, and demanded to be sent to the time when the stasis field around the Ark would first fall, around 1519. Mentu-hetep agreed and the deal was struck. What the Mummy didn't realize was that the characters and Static Mage had not wanted him to escape into the Mortal world. They poisoned Adeed while on the ship. Mentu-hetep's mortal form would die in a few days, so they had no reason to fear him bringing destruction to the world while they were time traveling.
Poisoned Adeed in a cell behind him, Mentu-hetep weakened the Shroud around his lost tomb and opened a mystical gateway into the future (well, his future, but actually 1519). He said something that the characters found to be very important. As they were leaving, he told them that it was a shame so many people in Europe were dying. So many deaths at one time had created a Maelstrom in the Shadowlands. That Maelstrom was what was thickening the Shroud. It weakened his magic a great deal.
The characters were zapped into the sixteenth century Egypt. When they walked out of the time travel vortex-tunnel thing they were attacked by what the Static Mage called a Paradox Demon. It seemed that Mentu-hetep wasn't too careful about his magic and didn't try to prevent any sort of backlash. All of the magic the characters have been using created so much Paradox that preternatural demons were created to destroy them. The battle was freakish, with lightning turning sand into glass, salt rain falling from the night sky, and quicksand bringing down one of the ghouls. In the end, the Demon was destroyed. I'm making this battle sound easy, too. It wasn't.
The journey to the Ark was brief, but guarding it were the descendants of the Christian Mages. They knew the characters would be coming when the stasis field was down, and have spent years preparing. The characters, having fed on a traveling caravan on the way over, were ready for a fight. This was another tough battle (this story was just a bunch of big fights) that took place, cave to cave, in the Ark cavern. The characters long ago ran out of ammunition for their modern pistols and shotguns, but the Christian Mages had cannons, flintlock rifles, and even grenades. So it was the characters' brute strength and cunning against 'high tech' weapons.
Midway in the battle, the stasis field failed in a spectacular light show. The characters made their way to the Ark and surrounded it. The battle was going badly for them. With no other option, the Static Mage gathered everyone around the Ark and raised the stasis field back up. For the characters, the effect was something of a let down. The field went up, with the Christian Mages just outside, then the field went down, with nothing but darkness. For the Christian Mages, they saw the field raise, and could no longer touch the vampires. They were suspended in time, along with the Ark. I know, it is kind of confusing.
The stasis field dropped, a second time, and that was when the characters pulled the Ark free from it's magical prison. They began to look around to find where (and when) they were. As luck would have it, they were in the 20th century. The year was 1942, and there was a world war going on in Egypt. The characters moved the Ark by night north across the desert to reach the ocean. But, on their way there, a battle between British and German armies swept by them. The characters figured out how to use the Ark as a weapon, and used it's Holy Wrath of God Ray Gun (a term invented by one of the players) to destroy both armies in an attempt to flee the coming dawn. Soon, they were on a ship steaming towards WWII-era America.