Episode 4: The Invisible City
Yemen, 1884. Lord Ulysses Ashworth leads an expedition through the Rub-al Khali desert, in search of the fabled City of Irem, the Atlantis of the Sands – unaware that he is walking into a trap designed to seal the fate of the Ashworth bloodline. A tale of illusions and whispers, of lost cities and broken dreams, featuring Arthur Rimbaud, cursed poet and historical enigma.
This episode mixed typical Haggardian (Haggardesque?) elements with an almost poetic take on the lore regarding the fabled lost city of Iram / Irem of the Pillars; one of its most important elements was the elusive character of Arthur Rimbaud - a former poet prodigy turned into a strangely soulless merchant adventurer, completely unaware of his future literary glory. From a GMing perspective, he was a very tricky character to portray - the taciturn, world-weary shadow of the enfant terrible he once had been - a bit like a WoD Changeling overcome by Banality.
With Penelope's neutralization of this fourth Vishklar machination, her mortal family's timeline seems safe from further historical disruptions... or are the nefarious nightmare entities about to up their game? Stay tuned for the final two episodes of our miniseries!
I admire the evocative brevity of your write-ups. I wish I had the willpower to be this succinct in my post-game summaries ;-)
ReplyDeleteWell, it can be quite tricky at times - but it's far less time-consuming than full writeups. :)
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