GM Sappy's Infiltrators - Dirty War

Game Master Sapiens

Decided to hold on Tomasz after all; that other character idea wasn't coming together well.

All: I have a doubt about language: With the system I have in place, there's no way you can learn Czech well enough to infiltrate Prague, but I wouldn't want to trivialize the language problems.

My idea would be to grant a bonus according to the Slavic languages you already know: So Tomasz, who speaks Native Polish, could get free Proficient Czech, and Sam, knowing School Russian, could get free School Czech.
In addition or in alternative, I could let you retrain a number of Linguistic ranks.

It may be better for Tomasz to 'pretend' to be Austrian (because, y'know, he kinda is) and just speak German.

One downside of spheres of power, 'illusory disguise' is significantly inferior to 'disguise self', but that's why I've got the skill, too. I've got my rebuild of Sam done.

Two quick things, first, Sam was going to send a letter to her family after the end of the last mission under the pretense of being in Washington D.C., a simple checking-in, maybe not wise but her Wisdom damage hadn't healed yet. Second, what happened with the Laundry crew in the castle? That one's just curiosity as to what the consequences of that choice were.

I'll write you the response to the letter in a couple of hours.

As for the castle, the troops were OK, facing only a few soldiers, one officers and several traps; however, the SS managed to destroy several documents and rituals that could have been reverse-engineered as items in future missions.
Had you gone there, the commandos would have faced losses, but you would have had the possibility to do a stealth infiltration, leading to lighter combat and a chance to retrieve those diagrams.

Are we stumped? Maybe I didn't describe your options clearly enough, so:

Leo: you have a full day before your rendez-vous, so if you want to look around, tell me what you'd like to investigate.

The others: you are about 80 km from Prague: you can walk, but in order to make it for the rendez-vous it would be a forced march and you'd arrive fatigued at least. Or you can look for horses, which would take a couple of hours, but be impractical and stand out in the town. Otherwise, you can look for a car, with all its advantages, but risking to face German forces.

And as always, you can try out all of your crazy ideas.

I don't suppose we can look for bicycles?

I think I will start poking at the Golem and see what I get. While Leo might know about where to ask questions, my knowledge of the jewish underground of WW2-era Prague is a bit lacking. Can you give me some options?

I vote walking, but that is just me.

Ah, yes, bicycles are fine, and you can probably buy or swipe a few of them in the city. Folding ones are quite rare, though, even nowadays.

As for Leo, your best contact for the underground (about which I have pretty much the same level of knowledge, after all) is through Samuel and Veronika, the Jewish couple in your hideout. While if you are looking for for lore, you can hit the Municipal Library or look for Bishop Goraz.

Let's start with Samuel and Veronika and see where that takes us.

Oh, and it is worth noting Leo is unarmed save for a knife, he typically does not go armed in civilian centers.

I'm not 100% sure how to proceed

It's a bit of sandbox time, with its ups and downs. I haven't prepared specific, "rail-roady" encounters until the 9th, but there are several useful bits of information scattered in a few locations around Prague.
Of course, remember that you are in enemy territory.

So, Leo has finished his side activity and you are in Prague, unless you want to do anything else I'd switch to the meeting.

Yeah, I'm down.

So everyone knows, I'm graduating from college next month and finishing up my research / finding a job is taking up a lot of my time. My apologies if my posting rate slows down; if you need to bot me to keep up the pace please do.

Yay for graduating! Best of luck to you!

Sorry, forgot I hadn't replied here. I'm ready to move on to the meeting too.

Are you waiting for my input? I was leaving you to get to know each other and move somewhere to plot, but I can always have something horrible happen.

Sorry, no school has me really busy lately
Finals.....

I was giving the others a chance to react but if needed I can post something to get us moving again.

I was at least awaiting a continuance from Leo.

Yes, basically this is your moment to get to know each other; afterwards, Leo knows of two sources of information (Melchisedec and the two agents) while Tomasz has dug up a few rumors, and there are some more to be found.

Do you need something from me to go on?

Give me a bit to collect all the important points from the private stuff.

Let's see:
-We need more solid information on Heydrich, particularly the any occult capacities or affiliations.
-Our Czech lads have a rather direct plan of attack, intending to hit the target's car on a relatively isolated road. Route needs our particular brand of scouting and investigation.
-The Jewish underground has at least one, potentially two practitioners, one of whom is Rabbi Melchisedec, a prominent figure. They have promised to turn their network of informants to our cause in return for whatever aid we can provide and general harm we can do to the nazis. Leo is adamant about making good on this deal.
-The Rabbi's son, Elias, might be trying to construct a golem using the Rabbi Loew's methods. We may want to see what we can find there as the chaos of a monster loose in the city might be useful.

Ok, would you want me to railroad you more? I'll try to streamline the adventure so that we don't get this hung up again.
Meanwhile, everyone still here?

here

Still here, I was waiting on Sam and L to weigh in on the situation before hammering us forward.

Still here, now with a little more free time. During finals I was just checking my notifications.

Here!

I'm here

I'll get a post up tomorrow when my head is a little more in order for a solid post, a little bit of writer's block these days.

Will post tomorrow; holiday got away from me and I need to sleep now.

I'll get a reply up tomorrow when I'm on the road with nothing better to do. I need to sit down and put some thought into this response. Leo is about to try and sink some psychological barbs into Elias in order to either obtain a modicum of control over the looney or bait him into rash action.

.....Meanwhile.......

@L: It takes a while to navigate a theater. I'll have you arrive in a couple of turns. Also, you didn't tell me if you were going towards the central box (I misspelled it and called it balcony) or the gallery. As you didn't look behind the curtain and the main area is acoustically insulated, it's a bit of a shot in the dark.

Oh yes, I figured so. Sorry if my post sounded impatient. L heads for the voice, toward wherever he can hear it the best.

Sorry folks, my phone is convinced that the wifi at my hotel is trying to conduct a man in the middle attack and service sucks. I may need to delay posting until I'm home on Sunday.

So what’s everyone’s intentions vis a vis the clearly corrupted lad?

Leo hopes to salvage the situation into something useable and maneuver the lost cause into a position where he can be sacrificed. Despite rather callously using the lad’s father as a method of manipulation, he has some fondness for the old rabbi and does not want the old man to witness what his son has become. It would be easier to simply return with a report that the lad died fighting the good fight rather than becoming what he had fought against.

Agent L is working on sneaking up behind. He is adept at grapple-->non-lethal damage

Alright, that's my gambit laid out in the open.

So, I've got one level of artifice stripped down for everyone. Ga'ahar is likely not the sort to help out of the goodness of their heart analogous organ. Leo has some not inconsiderable scorn for creatures like it for various reasons.

Word of warning: I'll be travelling and moving for the next few days, so my presence here will likely be spotty.
Have faith that I'll come back :)

I'm pretty much back, I'll get to full speed next week but I'm taking back my games little at a time. Anyone else wants to act? Or do you want to wait and see if Sam's counterspell works?

I mean, I've already acted for this round so it is up to the others.

Will post tomorrow; recovering from a friend's wedding.

The boards are back! As I assume most of us were thrown out of sync, I'll wait until Monday evening (Central Europe time) for Pierce and L to post.

Back, but still going up and down a bit

Indeed it is. Then I'll wait until Saturday, just to be safe.