And then, last night, the exciting conclusion to our Demon: The Descent game: How An Angel Dies.
The characters, you’ll recall, were in quite a pickle. Will was facing off against the demon-wolf, Marchosias, with Edgar and Luke nearby. Simon had sucker-punched Jamie, and Amy had caught her as she plummeted earthward. And Saskia was stuck in her own little reality-bubble.
Marchosias was cowed, but the characters weren’t really sure what to do with him. Edgar used Interference, but instead of scattering the demon-energy around, he tried to focus it all on Marchosias. He did that, and Saskia, stuck in her bubble, saw the world around her in faint, blue-light outlines. And then a wave of…well, light started washing toward her, destroying and resetting everything in its path.
Back in the world, Edgar warned everyone to lie low. Everyone but Will (who was keeping the wolf at bay) dropped back into human form. And then the wave hit.
It filled their Aether pools, so that’s good news, but it also reset everything. When the dust cleared, several of them were injured, the Aether scorching them, but it was April 21, 1962. The time-bubble had reset. Marchosias was gone. Amy looked at him with Clairvoyant Sight, and saw him back in his fire-pit. They broke into the house (now empty and not destroyed) and found the basement to be a bit warm…he was trapped again. They looked in on Simon, and he was on top of the Space Needle in present-day, looking sad. Had this reset been the Lambent’s mission?
They took a cab to Fremont, hoping to use the Troll’s car to get back…and found the gate closed. That left the Space Needle, but they were worried about that, seeing as how a) it’s public and b) not all of them can fly. Will suggested going through the Underworld and emerging in modern day, and Luke agreed it might work. He used Rip the Gates, and the six of them trouped through the Underworld, and emerged through an Avernian Gate in the basement of a coffee shop, staffed by a barista called Charlie.
They went to the Troll, and learned that a crazy guy with a hammer had wandered down the street and smashed up the Troll’s car. That, then, had been the Lambent’s mission. Looking in on Simon again, they found him to be in an office at the Space Needle – apparently he works there. They went there, bluffed their way in (Authorized), and took an audience with him. Will made it quite clear he’d love to kill him, but they were willing to talk.
Simon told them his plan had been for Marchosias to wriggle through the portal into modern Seattle and burn it, but he hadn’t known about the Lambent (if he had, he’d have angel-jacked the Lambent himself). The others reminded him that, y’know, they live here, but Simon acknowledged that – he just wanted to see the city burn. Will made it clear that when/if word got out about what he tried to do, it wasn’t just this ring he’d have to deal with, and Simon understood that. Jamie said that, instead of trying to end the world to work through his issues, maybe he should just come down to the bar and have a drink?
Simon agreed that, in light of the day/night he’d had, that might be preferable. And so that’s where we end – heading to the bar to have a drink and talk this out, like reasonable demons.
Seems like there’s easier ways to destory Seattle. Good thing Simon didn’t go for anything more direct.
A pretty cool adventure, over all. I like the surprisingly calm ending.
Simon has his reasons. There’s more context in the actual text of the SAS.
I find I do that kind of thing all the time, actually, in my own games as well as games I write. I want my antagonists to have understandable motivations and contexts for what they do, but (here’s the thing) the PCs probably never know about it, though I’m happy to explain it after the fact.
I cannot believe I missed this! Very happy to see the conclusion, though there really hasn’t been much else Demon going on it seems.
Now I’m going to have my characters try to end every adventure like that.
“Hey there, Mr. Mad Necromancer. I know the world has you down and sometimes the only thing you can do is raise up an army of the undead to try to conquer. I get it. Still, I’m not sure that’s a really constructive response. How about if we all go down to the Drunken Dragon, have a few mugs of grog and just talk this thing out, okay?”
Now I’m going to have my characters try to end every adventure like that.
“Hey there, Mr. Mad Necromancer. I know the world has you down and sometimes the only thing you can do is raise up an army of the undead to try to conquer it. I get it. Still, I’m not sure that’s a really constructive response. How about if we all go down to the Drunken Dragon, have a few mugs of grog and just talk this thing out, okay?”