TOPIC: [R3] Timezero / The One Black Stain

Sorry guy's can't make it tomorrow - on baby duty. mommy's on a late shift!

No worries Andy #3, have fun babysitting.

Ok, so I did a write-up after all.

TimeZero – Session One (30/04/2015)

Andy #2 as Matt Finish: roadie for the ‘Agents of Camelot’, recruited to Time Guard for his ability to jury rig almost anything from the crap in his pockets. He loves meat pies and is often in trouble for smuggling a hip flask of anomalous liquid (Scrumpy Jack) into the timeline. He was recruited from 1970’s Britain.

Andy #4 as Mordecai Johansson: refined American gentleman and wanted cat burglar from the year 2040. He is always immaculately dressed and perfectly well mannered. He doesn’t much care for being labelled a ‘thief’, preferring to introduce himself as a ‘relocation expert’.

Doug as Red Davy Bonney: The history books record Captain David Bonney as the “scourge of Morocco”, but for a pirate he’s not really that bad. He always wears something red, hence his nickname. Recruited from the late 17th century, Red still believes his new life with Time Guard is nothing more than a dream, likely the result of too much cheap grog.

(Andy #1 & Andy #3 were absent this week and will create their characters next time.)

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Frank Tavistock briefs the team on their latest mission. In 1911, the Mona Lisa is stolen from the Louvre, Paris by an employee of the gallery. Two years later, the painting is supposed to resurface in Italy – and yet the synth Watcher placed in the era has reported that the painting has disappeared. The tactical office believes that the Mona Lisa has been removed from the timeline by a group of art thieves called the Uffizi. This organisation is affiliated with the Triad and the team are charged with finding the leader of the Uffizi and bringing him back to TimeZero for interrogation.

The team select their cover identities and undergo hypno-training to ensure their unobtrusive integration into the timeline. Matt and Red stick to the basic identities prepared by the costume department (lower class labourers) while Mordecai crafts his own persona from scratch, that of the wealthy art enthusiast; Monsieur Francois de’Cuvier. The team spend their budget points stocking up on lethe serum and energy bracers, then pass through the timegate to emerge in Paris, 1911.

The first order of business is to find lodgings in the city. Mordecai locates a hotel not far from the Louvre and pays for a single room with a view of the river. Lacking Monsieur de’Cuvier’s fantastic wealth, Matt and Red must make do with sleeping on the floor of a riverfront tavern. Mordecai takes advantage of his elevation to survey the gallery and its grounds, meticulously noting the placement of guards and regularity of their patrols. Meanwhile, Matt and Red take advantage of two buxom tavern wenches. Mordecai yanks the comlink from his ear in disgust.

The next morning, Mordecai rises early and visits the Louvre. He examines the Mona Lisa and establishes to his satisfaction that it is the original painting. He discretely sprays the piece with a tachyon aerosol designed to allow an object or person to be tracked across the timeline. Turning away from the painting, Mordecai almost collides with a surly Italian in the uniform of a porter. The man’s name tag reads ‘Vincenzo’ and Mordecai concludes that this must be Vincenzo Peruggia, the employee planning to steal the Mona Lisa.

Meanwhile, Matt and Red are shambling around the docks, nursing their sore heads and scratching their itchy loins. Despite being told during the briefing that the Richelieu Wing of the Louvre was under renovation and they should seek work there, the two men have instead decided to trawl the riverfront for rumours of suspicious Italians. Unsurprisingly, they don’t uncover anything of consequence and by noon, both men have quite wearied of the whole endeavour. While the other labourers break for their midday baguette, Matt and Red abscond with a large, empty crate.

They haul their burden through the city and up to the rear entrance of the Louvre. A fat gendarme obstructs the entrance, asking unfortunate questions about their imaginary cargo. Red hits him over the head with a rock and Matt steals his (ill fitting) uniform. With nowhere to hide the fat, naked man, they cram him into the crate that he had been so curious about a few moments before and head inside to rendezvous with Mordecai.

Mordecai points out Vincenzo Peruggia and Matt approaches him in the guise of a gendarme, ushering the man into a dark corner to answer some questions. Peruggia panics and runs away. Matt tackles him on the stairs and drags him into a storeroom for questioning. At this point, the team realise that none of them have any natural ability/hypno-training in Intimidate or Persuasion. They fall back on Taunt and mock Peruggia until he lets something slip. Mordecai injects a dose of lethe serum into the man’s neck and he slumps forward, insensible for the next six hours. Going through Peruggia’s pockets, Mordecai finds a letter from the man’s lover/collaborator; Marana Clemente.

The team carry Peruggia from the Louvre, telling the curator that the man is a suspected art thief. Six hours later, Peruggia wakes up at the bar of a seedy tavern. He is surrounded by three unfamiliar men, but they know Marana and speak Italian so he tells them about his part in the plot to steal the Mona Lisa. Mordecai stabs another syringe full of lethe serum into his neck and the team carry him home.

The next day, Peruggia wakes up with no recollection of the last 24 hours and heads into work as normal. The curator recalls the last 24 hours with greater clarity and has the man ejected from the gallery. Peruggia panics and rushes to meet with Marana, just as Mordecai planned. The cat burglar follows at a discrete distance and observes Peruggia enter a dilapidated warehouse on the riverfront. Mordecai scales the building and peers inside through a grimy skylight. Marana Clemente is an attractive, dusky skinned woman in her mid 30’s. She - and all her goons - are dressed in unflattering, brown monk’s robes. Peruggia tells her that he has lost his job at the Louvre and can no longer steal the Mona Lisa as planned. Marana produces a 21st century sidearm from her robes and shoots Peruggia in the head. Her men dump his body in the Seine.

Observing that the Uffizi are using a comlink system similar to their own, Mordecai has Matt tap into the channel they are using for their communications. By eavesdropping on their chatter, the team learn that the bad guys are planning to enter the sewers via the catacombs beneath Notre Dame and come up inside the Louvre. Matt jury rigs a device that will enable him to track the tachyon signature emitted by the aerosol Mordecai sprayed onto the painting. They allow the Uffizi to break into the gallery and steal the Mona Lisa themselves, then follow them back through the sewers. When they reach the catacombs, Marana secretes the painting in a false tomb, along with any other anachronistic equipment that they happen to be carrying (including their 21st century guns). Her men brick up the tomb and leave. Red correctly assumes that Marana must be reluctant to risk moving the painting via timegate and has hidden it here to be collected by another group of Uffizi operating later in the timeline (much how the Message in a Bottle edge works).

The team follow Marana and her men back to the warehouse where she eliminated Peruggia. Having witnessed them disarming themselves, the team feel pretty confident about taking them on and bust their way in, energy bracers all lit up like Christmas. The team make short work of the Uffizi goons and apprehend Marana Clemente, extracting her to TimeZero in the hope that she can be coerced into identifying her boss.

To be continued....

My character is Waverley Goldstein, an ex professional wrestler who used to play a variety of heels including The Knackerer, King Dong and the regrettably named The Menstruator - so a master of disguise and suplexes.

He became a Time Zero agent after getting involved with some shady characters who wanted him to throw matches - or in the case of professional wrestling actually try to win.

He enjoys the whole time travelling malarkey but the early 90s is where it's really at.

Ha! You, Red and Matt Finish should get on well.

With Mordecai, maybe not so much.

If you can fill in a character sheet (or at least have a draft to hand) for Thursday, that would be greatly appreciated. That goes for Andy #3 also.

Here's something interesting. The folks over at Pinnacle have rewritten some of the core rules for rerelease in the near future. They have posted on their forum...

www.peginc.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=429469#429469

... that now you only need a success to remove the shaken condition during combat. No more of this "unshaken but cannot act" malarkey. I will be introducing this new rule with immediate effect.