Monday, August 27, 2012

[Leveraged Serenity] Wretches on The Provenance, Session 4

Session 4: August 3, 2012

The fourth session continued with the character generation (using the Leverage rules and mixing in the Serenity rules as necessary).
  • S played Marcus Devereaux, The Road Warrior (Wheelman/Hitter)
  • X played Lance Fielding, The Confidence Man (Grifter/Mastermind)
  • C played Shannon “Mandy” Fielding, The Gadgeteer (Hacker/Thief)
  • P played Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest XII, The Director (Mastermind/Grifter)
  • J played Thomas Harding, The Ninja (Hitter/Thief)
  • D played Herr Heufensteaffer aka “The Hoff”, The Safecracker (Thief/Hacker)
Planet: Hera
System: Georgia
Year: 2515

While the crew were at the Serenity Valley cemetery, Marcus spotted Heufensteafer, “The Hoff,” standing in front of a grave in the 11th Londinium section of the graveyard and called out to him. Marcus knew “The Hoff” during the war, when Marcus was a wheeler-dealer of “goods of questionable provenance.” During those exchanges, “The Hoff” used his (current fake) name.

The grave, unbeknownst to Marcus, turns out to be “The Hoff’s” “official” grave, listing his real name. “The Hoff” spent the war in the 11th Londinium as a scout and recognized Colonel Nathan Forrest, as the enemy (Independent) commander of the 1188th Lift Brigade, standing with the rest of the crew a few yards away.

Marcus called the rest of the crew over and introduced them to “The Hoff” and offered him a ride off Hera. They all returned to Medford and their ship and Lance, Nathan and Thomas went off to gamble with the crew of the Free Wheelin’.

While they were gambling, Marcus and “The Hoff” went looking for work. Using his UFM Membership card, Marcus managed to get a shipment of grain to go to Newhall. While Marcus was making the deal, “The Hoff” noticed that the guy giving them the job was looking at him strangely. As they left the office, he saw the guy pick up a comm, call someone and say “Yeah, he was here. With that Devereaux guy. Yeah. OK. They’re shipping grain to Newhall.”

After playing poker with the crew of the Free Wheelin’ and agreeing to take the shipping containers that belonged to the crime lord Ho Van Tian, Nathan and Thomas went looking for work as well, while Shannon went back to the ship to see what she could do about changing the history/electronic tracking info on the shipping containers.

Nathan found two prospectors and their families who were interested in travelling to New Kasmir and arranged passage for them, their families and their equipment on The Provenance. Thomas looked up an old buddy (who turned out to be a fence) and got a job delivering a small wooden box to New Hope. “Don’t open it. Just deliver it.” Thomas promised not to open it.

Back on the ship, “The Hoff” called one of his army contacts, a fellow over at the Custer Alliance Base. He described the man in the grain office and wanted to know if he was right about knowing him. The contact recognized the man and told him he’d give a wave back in 5 minutes. Twenty-five minutes later, he got a call back. Before the line went dead, he saw his friend, bleeding profusely from his mouth and eyes, look at him and say “Arcanis” before expiring.

“The Hoff” was immediately concerned and asked when they could leave Hera. The grain silo wasn’t ready for them to pick up the grain yet but The Provenance received the shipping containers from the Free Wheelin’.

Shannon proceeded to change the electronic tracker on the shipping containers and repainted them, one for Zarconium Products Incorporated (a company that recently went bankrupt) and the other for United Spaceship Shipping.

Nathan included the shipping containers in with the deal for the prospectors and gathered them and their gear on board while Thomas tried to figure out what was in the small wooden box.

Shannon rigged up a detection machine and got a good view of the contents of the box - turns out to be a solid block of something, about the same consistency as C4 explosives. The package in the small wooden box was vacuum sealed and there are some explosives in the Verse that do explode when exposed to air.

With all that in mind, Thomas stenciled “Emergency Foodstuffs” on the wooden box and hid it in plain sight in the ship’s galley.

The Provenance picked up the grain and took off, with Marcus talking to Hera’s starport ground control. Starport ground control asked for the flight plan. Marcus decided to lie and said that the ship was heading to Meridian. As he’s signing off, he hears a woman’s voice in the background of starport ground control say “They’re lying.”

"The Hoff" was about to check on the Cortex about "Arcanis" but remembered it was a bio-weapons program during the war and knew that if he actually tried to search for it, it would probably be flagged and he'd be linked. He did check the local news feeds and found out two bits of info: there was a small outbreak of influenza that killed two people in Custer (one of them, presumably, his army contact, and this was the news cover-up) and a grave had been emptied at the Serenity Valley cemetery, the grave that "The Hoff" was visiting.

As they leave the gravity well of Hera, they spot the I.A.V. Dortmunder, an Alliance cruiser, in orbit and they move to put the planet in between them and the cruiser. Once out of sight, Marcus deployed a starship decoy to Meridian to throw off any pursuers and then plotted a course to New Hope.

Jobs defined:
Deliver package to New Hope, Georgia System (Thomas) D4
Deliver grain to Newhall, Kalidasa System (Crew) D8
Deliver Prospectors to New Kasmir, Kalidasa System (Crew) D8

Assets defined:
Old buddy (a Fence, Thomas) D6
UFM Membership (Marcus) D6
Parts Kit (Shannon, permanent for the job) D6
Spot something hinky (Hoff, permanent for the job) D6
Spaceship Decoy D6
Detection Machine (permanent for the job) D6
Military Remembrance (Hoff) D6

Complications defined:
Disturbed Grave D6, raised to D8

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