Downtime Plots

Mage: The Ascension

For discovering and coordinating collective adventures.

All Chantry

Keep Vancouver Weird

Involved: Liz, Proteus, Mari?, Yu Lan (All Syndics Must Die), Cara (Helped to make the truce, want to be there to break it), Kana (maybe), others?
Timeframe:  ??
Goals: Eject the Technocracy (particularly the Syndicate) from Vancouver

Fortress Prima

We have pissed off a demon prince. We should be expecting trouble.

Set up layered defenses at the entrances

Spirit Mages => Spirit Guardians

Recruit and train guards - we have TONS of weaponry and expert instructors.

We have instructors?

Work to purify and enhance Lake Taihu - this strengthens our Dragon.

Prolly'll work best after Shanghai.

Etherfleet dock / station (Get Dory a ship?)

We don't have the Spirit 5 to punch a docking port in the pericarp.

Vancouver is Ours

We are Vancouver's Chantry. It's time to take ownership

Get some real-world amenities, like a classy nightclub/bar and a nice place (condo? nice old house?) for guests that is not a node or other vital asset.

Kana's willing to do that maybe.

Establish some front companies or other financial assets to keep us from running out of money

Plan for Chicago-style techno attacks - get safehouses and storage/warehouses so we can keep the Chantry Realm off the radar. Safehouses can have hidden compartments to make Matter/Corr coincidental for getting gear.

Get some consors / guards, if only to keep people from robbing us blind

Reach out to other mages in the area

Work on outreach to win people over toward our side of the War.

Westin

Final Westination

Involved: Westin, Liz
Timeframe:  ??
Goals: Avert Westin's Dark Fate

"We're past the worst of the traffic. Should be clear driving from here."

"Good, because I think the next pursuit car is full of HITMarks."

"...switch seats?"

"Switch seats."

The Westin Identity

Involved: Westin, ???
Timeframe: ???
Goals: Explore/make up Westin's backstory after he gets amnesia (because all good spies end up floating in a river with a bullet wound and/or getting amnesia)

"An unknown man was found floating in a river today..."

"He is to be considered armed and extremely dangerous..."

"You are trained! You are equipped! How the fuck did you let him disappear? He's just one man for fuck's sake!"

S5 Preferences

Lower scale, more covert action with lower stakes and fewer whiz-bang high-power players.
Vampires or Technocrats or rogue Traditions are all fine antagonists
Moral quandaries!

Cara

Cara and the Rainy Sabat

Involved: Cara, Proteus, Westin
Timeframe: Early
Goals: Convince the Sabat of Seattle to stay the fuck away from Vancouver, get loot, get Cara some Vampire-hunting cred

"This is my ghoul, Christopher. He's terribly well behaved, don't you think? I've trained him well."

Vienna Darkly Dreaming

Involved: Cara, ???
Timeframe:
Goals: Our allies desired to involve themselves in the Second Massassa War. Therefore let us cut the head off of the Vampire threat; the vampire hermetics...

Cara wants to work on building a life-battery for herself
Perhaps look up her secret dossier at the Dolmen of Silence

Proteus

Proteus and GENOVA Prime

Involved: Proteus, Yu Lan
Timeframe: Immediate
Goals: Salvage anything of value in the web realm, try to find what's left of Jane, reformat GENOVA Prime

"So what's the difference between virtual and haptic?"

"Haptic lets you punch things."

. . . the gleaming corporate structure of GENOVA Prime was ahead, a cluster of cybernetic skyscrapers shot through with black tentacles of twisted cogwork and metal. Surfaces shimmered irregularly, growing pixelated and crawling eerily before recovering. Occasional chunks of Wicked City intrusion dropped to the cracked ground, shattering into nothingness. Above, lightning flashed to illuminate the dark clouds with circuit board patterns. Disturbingly, there was movement. Technocratic programs, now feral and twisted.

Kana

Timeskip Plots

C77

see below

Shanghai

Preparations

Retrieve the fucker's toy and seek guidance, possibly with one master or another.

Case the location. Determine target's condition if possible.

Case 1: Target is still a kid for some reason.

Case 2: Target is some guy in a business suit utterly unaware of who he is.

Case 3: Target is a decrepit ancient man connected to life support tubes.

Case 4: Target is highly portable, eg. a brain in a jar.

Case 5: Target is a difficult to manage progenitor/nephandic monster.

Subcase a: Target needs to be restrained.

Subcase b: Target will cooperate, with 5b being a particularly unlikely yet hilarious prospect.

Gearing

Retrieve the ARC from collapsed cavern? At least see if it's possible.

Examine the possibility of stealing an ARC from the location with prepared spells to help steal a secure Technocratic device.

What if we could find Tamra and just do the place with the satellite cannon? That'd be pretty cool.

What if there were trads willing to provide big firepower for the chance to strike big at the Technocracy's system? That'd help too.

Careful not to let on how many economic lives this will destroy.

Extraction Options

Ten Enlai: He's a bad egg, but it's closer than the lake and guaranteed to want the fucker badly. Won't require airpower (though a helo would be fast) but would require legal counsel to affirm that this constitutes a 'rescue'.

Lake Tai => Arcus Prima: Will require air power that can survive 100km+ flight.

Sea => Wherever: Will require a submarine capable of evading Technocratic pursuit.

Hollow Earth: An old trick. Would probably need a new twist to work again. Needs a big spell, possibly having to cast it inside of a construct.

Sea => Hollow Earth: Not a bad option. Would require a submarine and a prepared site underwater.

Air => Hollow Earth: Same as above except extract via aircraft before landing at a prepared site and into Hollow Earth.

Umbra: Probably too difficult to penetrate the gauntlet where relevant.

Space: Theoretical possibility. May as well be listed for completion. Requires spaceship that can evade whatever the Technocracy have to shoot down escaping spacecraft.

Going to Ground: No extraction at all but hiding may not be practical in Shanghai.

Vancouver

Kana will run the Maid Cafe, Vancouver's first shopping arcade, and provide force. Will have to decide as situations unfold (or as we look through time) who exactly to strike. Would be nice to draw out the Technos and weaken them instead of fight vampires but Ozu is our ally in the city.

Syndicate
Will support Liz if we're planning to be rid of them.

Sabbat
Everyone hates them so we can limiter remove without consequence on this one if we need to.

Vampires

Rolling around in Europe with Cara and Mari as supporting firepower would be fun for a random action adventure session or three.

Admin Points

• Build up Organization
  • Fight off Technos and Undead

Tokyo/Osaka/Japan in General

Hokkaido

Lake Tai Area

Vancouver

Leverage vampire war in Europe to get something there?

• Giant Robot Manufacture
• Run the show on the otaku world

Post Time Plots

Lake Tai

The time has come to secure Lake Tai against Pentex and the Technocracy.

Pentex
Apparently the Pentex isn't the Technocracy which is great. Nuclear option enabled. Identify sites and destroy them, possibly with giant robots. The Technocracy can thank us later. Watch for fail-deadly systems and other unpleasant surprises. Remember, whatever the factory produces is only a secondary goal - Pentex exists to pollute.

Experiment with consensus. If necessary, mark giant robots with rising suns. The only time robots are coincidental in China is when they're Evil Militant Japanese Terrorists.

Other Polluters
Softer tactics. Try to convince them to stop polluting and adopt filtration and shit so we can coincidentally start to clear the lake.

Eli can offer to install consensus-pushing cleaning technology. Factories could then recover useful materials from waste, making their process more efficient and profitable. We could also collect toxic waste and Matter 2 it into useful rare materials. Forget gold or cash, sell pure rare elements or industrial chemicals

Option 1 is to use words, rouse up local protests. Will stop working if the government and the technocracy respond with secrecy and force.

Option 2 is kill local officials and management staff until they get the message or until they escalate. If they escalate, move to Option 3.

Option 3 (the MJ plan) is to rally locals in a major demonstration and then arrange for ten or twenty thousand to be killed Tiananmen style. A bit of a bloodbath, but would draw a response from around the world.

Future Game Preferences

• Expand Secret Organization. Resources 6 to 7 etc.

• Ignore what I said about stakes. Mix of stakes. Have places where we can afford to fail without literally the world being swallowed by darkness.

• At least a few scenarios involving strategery and complicated setups as opposed to kicking the door down.

• Varied enemies; things we can cheese and mages who we can't. Bickering trad mages and paranoid technocracy both cool. Adventures are okay too but only as support to whoever is leading the expedition.

• Split the party like any chantry splits into cabals. We're starting to get cases where PC mages are starting to step on each others' toes anyway.

FGSC

C77

Involved: Liz, Kana, FGSC, ????
Timeframe: Immediate
Goals:

• Make sure C77 happens.
• Put FGSC circle on the map.
• Put Artaria/Yakuza on the map and set the tone for its place in Japan.
• Restore Liz's groove.
• Participate the fuck out of C77.
• Build a talisman.
• Repel all challenges to our ownership of the Gundam node.

This is of particular concern because we don't know wtf we're dealing with.

• Money?
• ????

"Ladies, our targets today are as shown in East Halls 1, 3 and 5. Stay on target and should anyone obstruct you, eliminate them without mercy. Operation start!

"Okay, our booth is ka, ki, ku... wait, who's that in the Inuyasha line?"

"...it can't be."

"...it is."

<together> "Tsurara!?"

Mal Note: If we're confirmed for this as a general epilogue, then our relationship with the post-disaster Japanese technocracy should be addressed. Also set the tone of what we do with reality in Japan. Real robots need to be promulgated. Epilogue mentions of the newly minted Artaria-linked Yakuza.

Mari

Take stock of what Caldwell left her (and his mystery)

Become a master of prime (find a teacher?)

Support Ozu's court when the Technocracy comes a knocking

Gain more cosmic power

Deal with the menagerie of supernatural pets she has picked up

Reward that gypsy that helped her

Yu Lan

Hired Gun for Everyone else

Fight for Justice with the Knight Sabers

Build Kung Fu Red Faction Terrorists in China, Japan, Vancover and China

Series Preferences

Travel > Fight Technos > Intrigue between mages

Basically Yu Lan never got to do a real wandering hero thing so I'd like to do that.

Shu

Plots

Restore Sasayama to its former glory- retrieve the spirits, and begin bringing in other Akashics to teach and study, to train new students and help in the upkeep of the realm.

Make a contract with Claidmell!

Master Archery, and learn the fifth level of Do through the creation of a new technique designed for ranged weapons/combat.

Arete 5, Prime 3, learn a crafting sphere and make magic items for the party.

Knowledge. Learn some.

Find out more about the omnipotent omniscient TPK death curse sword.

Playstyle Preferences

More exploration, lore finding, less super high lethality/fate of the world fights. Go strange new places, learn interesting things. Travel. Chance to show off skills, learn new ones, get into Shu's history.

Mix of combat and social and learning, but less super genius strategy stuff that I as a player don't have a head for, or ultra long planning sessions.

More 'quest for X' that are relatively short (three to five sessions) and don't explode into massive world ending plots.

Liz

Liz and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat

Involved: Liz, ????
Timeframe: ??
Goals: Find some stout young spirits to make fetishes out of.

S5 Preferences

• Variety - some archmage politics, some techno spy games, some outlandish quests
• Shorter quests for lower stakes for a period and between the worldshaking
• ????

Eli

I'm a busy man...

Continuum Watch

Get out of the panic room, and RESTOCK IT

Report my successful mission in defense of the timeline to Lin Siegen

Defend Crossdown from any Tokyo fallout

Work with him to learn some tricks, get some Zols, and refresh the Boswell

Keep in touch with Lin over the time skip period

Q Branch

Get Prime 3 and crafting skills

Start making awesome gear - at least one piece of gear per chantry member.

Health Kits!

Possibly make an artifact for doing healing / better body

Repair damaged artifacts from Tokyo ("Really, 007?")

Team (Evil) Player

Work with Mari and Cara on the Ozu Project (weapons, blood substitute, SPF 1000)

Work with Mari on Caldwell stuff, possibly get adopted

Train with Westin in the art of combat. Get Dex 4 if possible.

Help Proteus or Liz if I can

Check back in with the Knight Sabres, especially the gal Eli healed

Love and Science!

Marry Nat if she's interested.

Work with Nat to upgrade our science labs

Better facilities

Animal helpers - time to expand on my thesis project

Grad Students - College students are available en masse and they are desperate for work

Upgrade Archy to cyber-ninja-roach

Work with Nat on her projects. Possibly see about publishing a joint article in Paradigma