[UA] Upcoming Game

[Chris Williams]

It seems like the list has been a little quiet lately, and I'm a little 
bored right now, so I thought I'd just mention the game I'm preparing to run 
for my group in hopes that it might generate a little discussion. I also 
just got off work and have yet to sleep, so apologies if this doesn't come 
out well.

I've mentioned the game on the list before, back in September, but haven't 
got a chance to actually start it yet. It's set to take place in Terminus, 
Georgia, a fictional city that was made years ago to exist alongside/instead 
of Atlanta. Terminus has grown tired of its quasi-real existence and is 
beginning to dream of its own death. There's a possibility that it may begin 
to do something about it.

The game is starting off at street level, but I have no intention of trying 
to keep it there. My goal is to bring the characters together and kind of 
let them just experience the weirdness UA has to offer while familiarizing 
them with the setting and the occult underground. I'm hoping to introduce 
things like demons, screwed up ritual magick, terrible proxies and the like 
one step at a time, with of course the occasional drunkenly hap-hazard, near 
fatal tumble that takes about four steps all at once. If I'm lucky/good 
enough, hopefully I can drop enough hints that the characters will want to 
know what's actually going on with the city and deal with it accordingly. 
(It should be noted that I don't know what counts as "accordingly." I think 
half the fun of this idea is watching the players slowly realize what's 
going on and what they're going to do about it.)

It looks right now like the game will have four PCs, which have already been 
made by the players. The first character is a journalist who's obsessed with 
collecting people's stories in an effort to make them feel more "real" to 
her. She's a very likely candidate for learning to walk the path of the 
Chronicler later in the game, as the players learn about things like the 
archetypes. As it is, she just wants to take care of her cat, mother and 
co-worker, get close to the silent, non-emotive man who hangs out at the 
post office all day, and of course, record the living histories of as many 
people as she can.

Next we have an EMT who gets his kicks by going unnoticed. He likes to stick 
to the shadows and margins as much as he can, doing his job and not getting 
any special recognition for it, perhaps playing the judge and deciding just 
how much effort is required to save some people. His rookie partner seems to 
be more bent (naively, I'm sure he would say) on saving as many lives as 
possible and certainly seems to enjoy recognition when he gets it. It'll be 
interesting seeing how that plays out.

Of course there's a cop, too. He's been put on suspension for chasing after 
things things from a weird angle ever since the car he was chasing 
co-located and managed to slip away by driving away on the other side of an 
unbroken fence. He seems, mostly, to be a good guy, but his obsession lies 
in the separation of citizen and officer, with a focus on the firearm as the 
ultimate expression of this authority and division of power.

Finally, we've got the apprentice of a rogue clergy (not Clergy, for the 
record) member who's been excommunicated for his rather... unique, yet 
effective methods of exorcism. Now, without the sanction of the Church, they 
have resorted to bootlegging holy water and performing non-sanctioned and 
unorthodox procedures. They are ignorant of the true nature of demons, 
largely due to the way the mentor's zeal and high Soul stat force demons to 
act the part that the Little Exorcists That Could expect biblical demons to 
behave. However, should the apprentice have to deal with demons on his own, 
on their terms, I'm sure he'd be likely to learn a thing or two. I'm quite 
interested in seeing how that'd make him feel.

I'm considering starting the game off with the mentor getting shot and 
hospitalized in an exorcism-gone-wrong. It should let me start the game off 
with a bang (no pun intended, honestly) and give the characters an excuse to 
be in the same place at the same time, as the EMT would have to take the 
mentor-type to the hospital, there'd be police reports to file, and it might 
be worth reporting on. Also, I've got a couple plothooks planned for the 
hospital, and if they characters snoop around at all they might stumble 
across them.

Mainly, I wanted to just try and generate some discussion, but thinking 
about it now, does that sound like a decent way to start the game? I've 
always heard that UA can be a tough game to get the PCs together in, and 
that it can be even tougher to keep them together. I usually don't have 
problems with the latter, but I have to admit that the former has never been 
my strong suit. Any advice?

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