Original Thread

The Oblivion City Files
Rocketing towards implosion, the Ancients struggle on many fronts trying to emerge as a full fledged syndicate of world wide connections. Sting continues pouring resources into the Chicago Training camps, Green Lucifer works to subvert more repressed and rejected members, and the world keeps turning.

Stalled in December 2060, my game is waiting in New Orleans where the players dabble in the sights of La Dame de Morte in search of her kidnapped protégée. They have with them an Ancient (hither to called Si'Am) who himself is needed in Chicago to quell a rift between cult like fanatics of the gang -who follow very much to the beck and call of the Chicago Chapter's unofficial leader Klinten Beck and the members sent by Sting to seize Chicago's chaotic smuggling operations.

Si'Am, a rather recent Green and Council member (Firewalker), has just begun to suspect that Beck is manipulating the situation to eliminate the Seattle contingent inside Chicago and somehow advance from that. He has no evidence, and has more pressing issues at the moment, but the moment he begins this thought process he will also be forced to return to Chicago and complete his real mission.

Beck, for his part, sabotaged recent negotiations with a warlord, claiming that the Seattle delegates were coming to assassinate said warlord. The delegates were ambushed and holed-up in a building, largely waiting reinforcements that never came. Beck had a logical reason for the latter, a bug raid that killed two Seattle trainees kept them busy and the gang couldn't locate the delegation. He certainly wants to move forward in the gang, and giving up control of Chicago to Seattle isn't part of his plan. If he kills off the delegation completely and is able to complete Sting's stated goals, he hopes to get what he wants: official Authority position over Chicago.

Beck's main problem is that he was never really an Ancient, just a failed tester, stuck behind the wall. When the Chicago Chapter bit the bullet, he started a small cult named after the Ancients. Sting saw no reason not to use someone familiar with Chicago's "political" situation, and with most of the training bases in Milwaukee, Beck saw it as a promotion. Beck managed to increase the cult by recruiting trainees with his fanatical ravings about the Ancient's Divinity and skilled bug hunting prowess. Now, with Seattle's increasing intervention (meddling as he says) and the possibility of replacement...

Beck also doesn't know Sting's real plan for the city, just the one she and now Si'Am have told him: rebuilding Ancient's operations of smuggling and eliminating the bug threat.

During the long isolation, Beck built up good relations with most of the warlords by returning to Ancient's roots (those he learned during his training) and had the cult acting as mercenaries. He knows securing agreements with the warlords will be easy, and once he has real Ancient's weapons, enforcing the agreement should be to.

He also has bug connections, probably a small group of survivors. Is he offering them bodies, survival, a way out of the city? Maybe all three, though he has no intention of keeping his word to them. He's not a bug lover at all.

The failure his last attempt to eliminate the Seattle delegation has him worried, and he plans on finishing them before suspicion mounts. He needs Si'Am back in Chicago to take out the group all at once, and a few of the Milwaukee leaders could go to.

Luring Si'Am back, he will set up one of the smaller gangs by giving them the location of a training camp inside the city and some grenades. Then telling them how to sneak into the camp, and to wipe it out, and that reprisals will not happen as the camp is full of traitors. Si'Am, as acting Ambassador, will have to return and "punish" the gang by Ancient's law.

Then Beck need only have the previous warlord attack, followed by the bugs if need be.

You can spot a Chicago Ancient by ritual scarring that run from the outside corner of their eyes to the jaw line like tear channels. In Becks mythology, these represent the tears cried by all Ancients over the lost Chicago Chapter. Note, too, that some, including Si'Am, also have these scars -if just to appease the often raving mad Beck.

Sting, Si'Am, Green Lucifer, and a few others know that Beck is a fake. If Si'Am can "prove" that Beck is betraying Ancients most of the cult will fall apart. If he just kills Beck, everything will get bad for him.

Si'Am doesn't trust Beck, the Milwaukee leaders don't trust Si'Am, and Beck doesn't trust either.

I've been waiting for you to pick this up again.

Yuppers. K-10 at it again.

More?