Welcome back as we continue a SPOILER HEAVY recap of Heart of Glass for Street Wolves. If you missed part 1, check it out here!
This session was pretty intense. The team got to one of the key moments in the campaign!
As a reminder, here are the characters:
- Doc a medic
- Crash a con artist (and stunt man)
- Hornet a driver
- Cobra a thief
Starting the Session
Okay folks, this one was an odd session, because it was mostly a debate about what to do (which is fine, but doesn't make for as compelling as a recap). To briefly go over how we got here: The Street Wolves discovered that there’s a serial killer in Keysville. They were missing a lot of whys, but there was solid evidence pointing to the local high school science teacher as being the murderer.
They got in their car, headed to his cabin in the woods, had a show down. Instead of killing him, they went out of their way to capture him, which was very much made in part thanks to Street Wolf Doc who is a surgeon.
We started the session with Jonah strapped to a table in his basement, the same table he used on some of his victims. He was out of it for a bit, so the players too the time to do two things:
The first was to search for more evidence. Jonah has a lot of boxes with names on it all containing little trophies he’s collected, including a sample body part. They played the tape they found in Stacy’s box and got some huge clues: That there’s a safe in the police chief’s hourse that has a bunch of evidence. Including a blackmail tape that would bring the whole house of cards down on their evil operation.
The other thing they did was debate. There was a ton of back and forth about what to do. Crash wanted to kill Jonah, while the others weren’t so hot on the idea. They really wanted him to go to jail to face his crimes and potentially give his victim’s families closure.
And after that debate, they wondered how the heck they would get Jonah arrested. They decided they needed to turn over evidence to the FBI. They needed to bypass local PD. They figured they could potentially call the FBI, tell them about the creepy murder cabin full of evidence, and leave Jonah tied up to his table to be found.
Developer’s Note 1: The players didn’t seem to react much to the fact that Stacy aka the person that “started” them on this journey is dead. They didn’t seem sad at all? This moment hit a bit harder with the other groups. I guess this one had a lot more to deal with what with the serial killer being alive and not knowing what to do.
In between all the debate Jonah had woken up and they started asking him questions. The way I worked it is there was nothing they could to do get Jonah to “talk”, except if they were successful in role playing and/or skill checks some of the truth would come through. Jonah told a number of half truths with one of the biggest lies being: The safe where the evidence was cleared out and Brandon Marks had it in his compound. (they knew this guy’s name, but not what his deal was (see Developer’s note 3)
Now the players did eventually get Jonah to say his brother, a rising political figure, covered up his murders as the Keysville Slasher at the very end after a long interrogation. The one that asked “why the cover up” was Doc who was the character who had most connected with him. Meanwhile, Crash who had been antagonistic and had slapped Jonah a few tiems had stealthy recorded Jonah saying this.
Developers Note 2: I decided to play Jonah a bit like Dennis from Always Sunny. I facilitated a bit between creepy and over the top weirdo (I’m a golden god!). I’m not a strong actor at all and I don’t 100% commit to the bit, but I think I did a good job. I think it’s a good way to approach Jonah though: once the mask is off he’s nuts.
Developer’s Note 3: The lie with Marks was a good one. Jonah wants the Street Wolves to go after Brandon, who is the leader of a local hate group/malitia where they would most assuredly would get killed… at least this group would because they really aren’t built for combat.
The team made an anonymous tip to the FBI and left Jonah in his basement to drive back to Keysvile.
When they got back to Keysville Doc approached Elmer, the old man who lives at the motel who they’ve talked to a few times. They had learned last session that Elmer was not a fan of the Crusaders and the Tate family. Doc asked him about Brendan Marks to which Elmer gave them the lowdown that Marks basically has a military compound and it would be suicide to attack him.
Elmer revealed that he had some weapons from World War 2 that might help them out. He showed Doc his footlocker which had a pistol, a tommy gun, and two grenades. While it’s not a lot, the tommy gun and the grenades are more than what they have (now if they’re in working order is another question).
Developers Note 4: I laid Elmer’s warning about the compound on pretty thick. I didn’t want to have them going into that situation thinking it was going to be a breeze. It’s pretty difficult fight if they go in guns blazing or get caught. I feel like they got the message.
We left the session with the players knowing they have limited time. It’s Sunday afternoon. By Monday people will notice that Jonah is missing. I’ll detail my plan for all that and what happens with it next recap, but I believe the FBI/police response is going to be a little bit complicated and I may want to do some random dice rolls to decide what happens…
With little time remaining (it's Sunday at 2pm and they figure they may have until Monday afternoon before the crap hits the fan), the Street Wolves may split to pursue a couple of lines of investigation at once. Crash wants to visit the East Lake Mental Health facility where the remaining survivor of the Keysville Three is being held. Cobra was thinking of meeting up with Pastor Werther to try to dig up a little dirt. I think Hornet and Crash are going to act as back up. And at some point they’re planning on breaking into the chief of police’s house to get to the safe.