Adventure Edition - Babes in London: Little Girls Lost Act Two Scene 4B

You can find the introduction to the Babes in London adventure sequence HERE, the background to Act One HERE, the Overview for Act One HERE., Act One Scenes 1-2 HERE and Act One Scene 3 HERE.

Act Two Preparation and Scene 1 can be found HERE, Act Two Scene 2 can be found HERE, Act Two Scene 3A can be found HERE, Act Two Scene 3B can be found HERE, Act Two Scene 3C can be found HERE, Act Two Scene 3 Finalization can be found HERE, and Act Two Scene 4A can be found HERE.

To play or run this game you will need the following:

PLAYERS: Fireborn Player's Handbook;
GAME MASTERS: Fireborn Gamemaster's Handbook;

This is a piece of fan fiction. It is NOT endorsed or acknowledged by Fantasy Flight Games; it is IN NO WAY official; it DOES NOT indicate any form of relationship between myself and Fantasy Flight Games; and I DO NOT CLAIM any of the setting specific material or setting specific concepts as my own.

GMs, please note that this scene is a cut-scene interlinked with Scene 4A, and that there is a final scene following it. You should not run this scene until you have all the parts belonging to it. Also, please note that these scenes have not been playtested, so you may need to adjust them on the fly. If you do, I would be grateful for any feedback.

PLAYERS SHOULD NOT READ BEYOND THIS POINT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SCENE FOUR B: KEHEBITE DANCER

Drums beat and flickering torches join the glow of three-meter tall braziers. The smell of incense hangs heavily in the air. You are standing on the ground floor gallery in what appears to be the inside of a church. On second thoughts, you realize it is a temple of some kind and that you are barely dressed!

Before you can react to this, there is a clash of symbols, and a beam of reflected light hits the centre of the open space before the gallery. A dancer stands there. You did not see or hear her enter – a seeming impossibility as she raises her head causing a myriad of bells to come to life. Like you, she is barely covered. Like her audience her clothes are of the lightest fabric. Unlike her audience, she is covered in a dusting of gold. Somewhere in the shadows a flute begins to play, tambourines and lutes join the drums and the woman begins to move. Everyone around you seems to be holding their breath. Every eye is on the dancer.

Give the players time to respond. A successful Knowledge: Mythic Culture or Knowledge: Mythic Religion test will reveal the following:

·         TH3 The apparent lack of clothing and the fact that no one around you appears to be embarrassed by it, the warmth that can be felt radiating from the wall at your back, and the sandstone pillars separating the gallery from the dance floor – these things point to you being in the Land of Keheb, a desert country south of Atlantis.

·         TH4 You’re not absolutely certain, but there was an entire pantheon of gods, and temple dancers were part of certain ceremonies.

·         TH5 While temple dancers were to be found in most temples, only a few priesthoods gave them the status of a single performance to a packed house like this one. You catch a shimmer of gold at the end of the room and realize that there is another member of the audience carefully screened from the rest. Royalty? You feel like you’ve come in half way through a conversation – that you missed something really important. Now, if only you could remember which gods gave the dancers such prominence!

·         TH6 Of all the deities in Keheb, there were only two that gave dancers so high a place. The most famous of these was Het in charge of revelation and the dancers were a form of seer. To be dancing alone like this meant the dancer before you must be one of the elite of this elite group – A Dancer of Prophecy. Her dance is a reply to someone’s question regarding the future and will be interpreted by the priests at its completion.

PCs making a successful opposed Senses (Air) test against the Set assassins Stealth (Air) to notice one or more of them moving through the crowd on the ground floor. Those that succeed by 2 or more see the assassin in the upper gallery. (NOTE: There is +2 TH modifier to the PCs test due to the dim light and musicians). When (or if) they succeed read, or paraphrase, the following:

A movement in the crowd catches your attention. One shadow amidst all the rest is gliding forward. A shadow, or someone who’s overdressed for the occasion? Now that you’ve noted it, you can see other shadows on the move, all taking routes that will bring them closer to the dancer’s path. As you watch, the shadow nearest you takes something out of what can only be robes and crouches. It looks like it is taking aim at the dancer and you realize, as your brain screams CROSSBOW! that it and its companions cannot be allowed to succeed.

These shadows are Set assassins. Their mission is to kill the temple dancer before her dance is complete and to force the city’s ruler into a position where he can no longer check the advice he’s been receiving from the vizier they control. If he takes the vizier’s advice, the result will be chaos and, hopefully, for them, a civil war that will draw attention away from their operations in the area. If the dancer completes her performance, the vizier will be revealed and their operations will be in danger of collapse. There are three assassins altogether. The PCs need to act quickly or the temple guards will take the glory.

Notes: Allow the PCs to act. The dancer continues to dance and their goal should be to allow her to do so – if they try to intervene, she raises her hand in a command for them to stop and allow her to dance. Describe how strongly they feel the importance for her to finish the dance. Don’t forget the sudden tension from the dais and other audience. Describe the way the temple guards begin moving through the crowd towards them. (Once the assassins are revealed – either through a foiled attempt on the dancer’s life, or through PC actions; the guards will change target to the assassins.) Once the action is over, go to Aftermath below.

SETITE ASSASSIN

Era Mythic; Race Natural being; APL 4; Init ; Aspects Fire 4, Water 4, Air 3, Earth 3; Health 4m; <3 / 6+ / 9+ / 12+ / 15+ / 18+ / 21+ / 24+; Size/Reach 0 / 2; Armor 0; Karma 15; Stride 20 ft. (Moderate)

Combat

Gauntlet Bow 2/L + poison (6/H), Throwing Dagger 4/L, Punching Dagger 5/L, Throwing Dart 4/L, Scimitar 9/M, Fist (2) 3/L, Kick (2) 4/M, Sequences Knife Fighter

Abilities

Skills Athletics 4, Knowledge: Geography 2, Melee 4, Ranged 4, Senses 4, Stealth 4; Edges Deft 3, Network: Cult of Set 1, Stealthy

AFTERMATH:

Once the Setite assassins have been defeated, read or paraphrase the following: The dancer completes the last step and bows gracefully to the dais before shaking the bells at her wrists and striding swiftly towards you. “You have saved my life,” she says. “You have my friendship in this and other eras to come.” With her smile of gratitude still foremost in your mind, the scene fades, and you find yourselves back in Leyila’s room, looking down at the picture in the child’s Book of Songs.

NOTES: Go to Scene 4C: Setite Attack below:

END OF ACT TWO SCENE 4B

Next week, I will post Act Two Scene 4C.