Resources 1!

"I have a crummy apartment that eats 50-60% of my income (yay Austin!) and a six-year old Nissan that my brother keeps running. And if I don't abuse it too much I can get day-old conchas at my uncle's bakery. Sometimes a cake somebody didn't pick up that was already custom decorated.

  Ghost also has Resources 1, albeit from a stipend rather than from holding down a human job. She doesn't routinely need it as a lupus, but it's there to cover 'incidental expenses'. Which, in all likelihood, translates to 'the pack is in a jam'. ;)

Resources 2

Resources 1. And much like Ghost, it's more of a stipend than anything else.

In reply to Ghost-of-Silver (msg # 156):

I am going to be moving forward with the Homid Uktena Ahroun.

The basics regarding the sept's Totem Powers:

• You can communicate with your packmates telepathically, even over great distances.
• The totem can always find pack members.
• Standard totem powers: gain Stealth 2, the Gift Blissful Ignorance, and can survive without breathing for one scene, but only once per story. (i.e., not every day) You guys are considered a pack to yourselves when determining how many people get to use a power at one time.

  And thus all was silent...

  Always a danger when you've got a group of telepaths, I suppose!
This message was last edited by the player at 08:42, Sat 14 Dec 2019.

'Tis a busy time of year...

  I hereby claim the color aqua for Ghost's speech!


  I'm also writing on the assumption that Ghost is the pack alpha (zedakh) at this point per the earlier talk about it - and the fact that this would be a really awkward spot to realize that the pack never worked out who is in charge. :P
This message was last edited by the player at 06:42, Sun 15 Dec 2019.

I AM THE PURPLE SCOURGE!

..of trashcans and leftovers.

*Glares at Fahrenheit*

  We should probably settle on a standard format for telepathy vs speech. I'm currently using the italicized -- -- quotes for it.

I'm not sure BS would use telepathy here. It draws from the spirits, maybe even has one pass literally on the messages, rather then going at it Xavier style. As a metis she is super-respectful of the spirits and believes in a 'don't bother them unless it's important' mentality. So for times when the pack is out of verbal reach it's totally fine, but here, with no enemies nearby, she feels free to use her own tongue.

Plus it's weird, y'know, voices in your head? :p

  Voices in your head? Ghost doesn't see anything strange about that!

  But it's our pack totem mystically linking us just like it does with everything else, so it shouldn't be any more of a burden than having to deal with the lot of us generally is. Although now that I say it...

  Our handler was tele-speaking though, so Ghost carried on the pattern (albeit only to the pack members present).
This message was last edited by the player at 13:39, Sun 15 Dec 2019.

  There's got to be more than three of us on site...

Exam week. I'd say something like "tell my students to stop turning in work," but I kinda want them to graduate... I'm also functionally read-only at work. I'll try to get something up tonight (U.S. time).

  What kind of fencing/gate are we dealing with? Since it isn't clear from the post, I'm mainly wondering whether it's something we could easily slip through or would have to climb (or pull up/dig under), and how much trouble that would be.

  Also, do we have anything plausibly reflective to use to cross into the penumbra and follow that way? (W20 does require a reflective surface, IIRC.)

In reply to Ghost-of-Silver (msg # 175):

Aha, yes. The fencing. It's typical Texan ranch fencing: Two lines of minimalist barbed wire held up by steel posts. Just enough to keep cattle in. You don't see nor hear any cameras, but you can definitely smell something plastic in the area. Best to assume they're there.

  Okay, so the general idea is to slip under the fence at least a little ways clear of the gate/road area and tail the thing from there. I'm guessing that the space inside the ranch is mostly flat and open, but if there *is* any usable cover, we'll take advantage of that as best we can.

  If the ranch is the final destination then we don't have to worry too much about the truck driving off so we can keep some distance, and even if it DOES drive right though, then the ranch itself is still implicated and worth having a look at.

  Yea/Nay?

  Also, if anyone has gifts/fetishes that would help with this, please speak up!

Just because there is ranch style fencing doesn't mean there is a ranch.  Before the mission started were we given any time at all to research the area?  Do we know what areas are around the cemetery, specifically the area the truck entered?

The only fetish I have are a pair of mirrored shades which make passing into the Umbra easier.  Not sure if we want to go that route if there is a cemetery and toxic waste being disposed nearby.  Unless, we do a quick in and out to avoid cameras.

  Just to avoid the fence/cameras (and any attached hazards), yes. It should be relatively clear unless they're being really bold and dumping/burying stuff in plain view at the fence line.

  Even if we don't do that, it good to know that we have a portable (and relatively inconspicuous) method of slipping across in case we need it later.


  Looking back, it was called a ranch in a PM to me, but you're right that it isn't described that way in any public post. Given the ranch fencing, it probably is or was one, though there might not be much ranching going on there right now...

In reply to Ghost-of-Silver & White Shadow:

Unfortunately, Jennifer kind of rounded you guys up and dragged you out here without really telling you anything about what she was getting you into. That just seems to be her style. From what the elders told you beforehand, you know you're here to investigate a truck that's supposedly dumping chemicals, and that they don't expect you to engage but only to report back what you see.

Happy Christmas, if you're so inclined! I hope the season is treating all of you well. :)
In honour of the holiday, you get two dots in Backgrounds from one or two of the following choices:

• Allies
• Contacts
• Fetish
• Alternately, Favor from the Merits list

You can split the points between two options or take them both in one, as you like.

(BTW, does it seem outrageous to anybody else that for a character that lives half hir life as a wolf, of all creatures, Anosmia is a flaw that's only worth 1 point, while Blindness gives you a whopping 6 points? I'm not sure the game designers really thought that one through...)

Blindness does rule out combat almost completely though and instantly makes you a burden on the tribe, so I guess they were coming from that angle.

  The point cost of some of those may have originally been set in other WoD systems (Vampire/Mage/etc) where the relative value would be different.

  Either way, White Wolf's developers made it clear over and over that they didn't really care about minor details like balance and thought that deliberately badly-written rules were a great design innovation. The Onyx Path/20th Anniversary versions are a cleanup/consolidation, not a complete overhaul, so I don't expect too much on that front.

  **

  The general IC plan for the pack was to shadow the truck well to one side of the road - sound/smell ought to be enough to gauge where it is even without Big Sister providing telepathic GPS - using the trees as cover. With all of the layers of security around the place, I'm not sure that the trees themselves are safe, but the alternative of openly moving along the road sounds like an increasingly terrible idea.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:56, Wed 25 Dec 2019.