Down In Smoke (Spire - City of a Thousand Gods - Session 0)

    Spire is an urban fantasy RPG about a mile high city divided between drow (dark elves) and aelfir (high elves). Spire was the capital city of the drow nation, but about 200 years prior to the game's action, the aelfir successfully invaded and established themselves as a brutal ruling class within the city. They are trying to systematically control the city and stamp out drow culture, which includes banning the worship of many traditional drow gods.

    One of these gods is Lombre, the aspect of the dark side of the moon and the drow goddess of wisdom and subtle discretion. She is the figurehead/patron of a movement within the city dedicated to stealthy and subversive resistance with the aim of eventually bucking the yoke of aelfir ofppression. This highly organized and secretive conspiracy is known as The Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress, or simply "The Ministry".

    The PCs are agents of this organization, fighting and lying for a cause that will likely get them killed and their family made an example of. In fact, the game explicitly states that if your family found our you were part of The Ministry they would probably sell you out to the city guard out of fear of the consequences for them if they did not. It's a dark game about defeat, resistance, hope, trust, betrayal, and things worth sacrificing for. It's by Rowan, Rook, and Decard and you can get it here.

Recently, I've started running a biweekly drop in/out Spire campaign through StartPlaying.Games. This series of session reports comes from those sessions.

Worldbuilding note:

In my campaigns, Spire is located on the Nightside of Indigo and functions as a sort of dark sister city to Satyrine, the cultural capital of Indigo and arguably the Actuality as a whole. Thus, Spire exists in the same setting as Suns Apart and I have left the door open for crossovers between campaigns. I may do a whole post about the Nightside Path at some point, but for the moment the important thing to know is that what the text of Spire calls "Destera" I treat as simply the drow word for what vislae would call the Nightside of Indigo, and what the text calls "elves" I treat as the most populous race native to the Nightside Path. Any humans in my version of Spire came from the dayside Path, or their ancestors did.

PCs:

Zak - Bound, former duelist, defending his lord’s honor from petty slights

Indigo - Vermissian Sage, real name Merrithin, used to be an occultist for an aelfir lord

Felix - Masked, former information broker tasked with digging up dirt on his master’s enemies… and friends

After character creation and session zero checklist items, we had time for a short mission:

• the cell is tasked with stopping an arms deal from going down between a weapons trader the Ministry is tracking with an eye towards recruiting or eliminating, and an aelfir noble upstart who would cause problems ™️ if they suddenly had a bunch of experimental weapons
• the deal is supposed to go down at a masquerade ball hosted in a Silver Quarter mansion, and according to the PCs’ legwork the signal for the meet is supposed to be the kitchen bringing out plates of fried mushrooms. At that point their target should show themself and try to make contact with the aelfir noble, and the PCs will have a window to intercept them
• Indigo is circling among the guests in the main hall as an opera singer makes the crowd feel sophisticated
• Felix is embedded among the house staff in the tense bustle of the overworked kitchens
• Zak is ducking guard patrols on the rooftop, providing overwatch and keeping an eye on the others through a large central skylight/moon window

• Felix becomes aware of an issue: panic is sweeping the kitchen because the shipment of mushrooms from the garden district downspire has not appeared and they are late getting that dish out
• Felix manages to signal Zak to check what’s up
• Zak moves towards a vantage point that overlooks the rear of the house and the servants’ entrance, where he spots the issue: some house security staff are holding up the mushroom shipment and hassling the trader for some reason. Several rooftop guards have congregated to watch and are betting on whether there will be a fight.
• Zak uses a hand mirror to signal Indigo through the skylight and ask him to intervene since he’s their man on the ground and the only PC attending the party “legitimately” (as in he actually has an invite)
• Indigo steps outside to intervene in the altercation, pretending like he just popped out for a smoke
• He finds that the trader is protesting against an “import gratuity on catering services” fee that the guards have just pulled out of thin air, and they are threatening him with a beating. Indigo manages to pull rank and diffuse the situation.
• The mushrooms reach the kitchen and the staff descends on them like a whirlwind, rushing to get them prepped and served ASAP to make up for lost time
• Felix is about to take the finished platter out into the hall when another servant swoops in first and whisks them out, apparently hoping to gain favor with the host by being the one to take credit for saving the evening
• Felix tails them through the crowd and manages to signal Indigo that things are in motion and their intercept window is closing
• Indigo spots the target: a somewhat short individual wearing a white rabbit mask, headed through the crowd a trajectory towards the mushroom tray
• An aelfir noble (the buyer) is headed toward the tray to meet them.
• Indigo manages to obstruct the servant carrying the tray long enough for Felix to catch up to the target and whisper in their ear that they’ve been made.
• “Please step outside sir. The deal is off.”
• The target calmly follows Felix and exits through the servant’s entrance but then breaks into a dead sprint away from the house and towards a blind alley
• Zak pursues from the rooftops, moving into position for a takedown, and is almost thrown off the trail by the sudden launch of a hot air balloon from the courtyard which breaks his line of sight with the target and requires some last second parkour to navigate
• The PCs corner the target in an alley but fail a final roll to capture them
• Zak swings down on his rope towards the target, who just looks directly up at him at the last moment and then dissolves into smoke, flowing down through a sewer grate they were standing on and leaving only the porcelain white rabbit mask behind

End of session!