My friend John recently lead a (Skype!) role playing session with a new game (new to the gaming group anyways) called Unhallowed Metropolis. I wasn’t able to join but it sounded like fun, and I thought I’d share his report of the gaming session. You can see the review of the game and mechanics here on RPG.net. It’s sort of a turn-of-the-century-zombie-apocalypse in a Victorian setting role-playing game. What follows is the game session report and notes of a session as it unfolded.
Where we last left our fearless adventurers, mourner Elspeth Deveraux and
Exorcist Father Raymond had been hired by a high ranking member of the
aristocracy. A portion of Shadwell had been quarantined due to a plague
outbreak, and his son was in the area receiving a medical treatment at a
clinic. The noble had used his contacts to delay the purge of this block,
buying the party time to locate and rescue his son. The party departed via
carriage to the Thames, and took a boat to Shadwell. A thick, toxic fog
moved in, cutting off visibility. Making their way through Shadwell, the
party came across three animates (zombies). Father Raymond experienced a
momentary crisis of faith, and fled. Elspeth dispatched the foul
creatures. Regrouping, Elspeth and Father Raymond continued toward the
clinic, and ended up in the middle of a swarm of animates.
Picking it up last night, Elspeth and Father Raymond were set upon on all
sides by animates. Elspeth was an engine of destruction, cleaving animates
at every turn, suffering only a minor flesh wound to her arm in response.
Father Raymond fought on with sword and knife, but was repeatedly grappled
and sustained multiple bites! Most were minor in nature, but he sustained
several serious injuries to his body. Fortunately, the good Father
possesses an immunity to the plague, otherwise that many animate bites
would almost certainly be fatal. Hearing even more encroaching animates,
Elspeth ran towards the clinic. On the way, she spotted a young girl,
seemingly in shock, hiding in the bushes. Elspeth grabbed her, and after
pausing briefly to slay a lumbering animate, made her way to the clinic.
Father Raymond became severely addled by his injuries, and was lost in the
fog. Staggering on, he released his injuries were slowing him, and he was
in danger of being overrun. He kept trying to get to the clinic, even
dragging an animate that had ceased his leg! Elspeth contemplated
abandoning the good Father to his fate, but then elected to go back into
the fog to assist. After leaving the girl behind at the clinic door, she
moved back into the fog, dispatching animates on her way to the wounded
priest.
Aid unlocked for soon arrived, as emerging from the clinic came an obvious
man of science, equipped with a variety of arcane devices. He utilized
aethertech googles to see through the fog, easily locating the animates due
to their corrupted auras. Unslinging his syringe rifle, he took aim and
began to fire on the animates blocking Elspeth and Father Raymond from
returning to the clinic. He proved to be deadly accurate with the strange
rifle, and each shot imparted alchemical fire into the target! One of his
shots resulted in the huge syringe penetrating an animate’s eye, sending
the lethal payload directly into its brain! The animate’s head exploded in
a burst of flames!
Elspeth arrived at Father Raymond’s side, and quickly dispatched the
remaining animates and assisted him back to the clinic. Greetings and
introductions were saved until inside the clinic’s reception area, with the
exterior door firmly shut and locked! The man of science introduced
himself as a doctor, who had come to the clinic on the request of a
colleague to salvage equipment after the quarantine had been announced.
Inside the reception, the party saw a horrific scene, there was a body
behind the reception desk with its throat torn out, and blood stained the
corpse’s clothing so heavily that it appeared black. The body was the
doctor’s contact. Searching the room, the party found nothing, but then
the doctor searched the body. He discovered that, even taking into
consideration the heavy blood stains, a substantial amount of blood was
missing from the body. He also located a set of keys, and a revolver with
1 shot missing. Fearing the possibility of vampirism, the good doctor
donned his goggles, and viewed the party and the girl, none of them had the
aura signs of being a vampire. The party decided the first priority was to
locate medical equipment to patch up Father Raymond, then they would find
the noble’s son.
