Convergence, Session 8

General Summary

Dealing with the Boy Car

The Convergence Player Characters deliberate over what to do with the red sports car that they found in the Convergent Woods - it seems sentient, so they investigate. Trace disables its engine so that it can't escape. The group realise that it can speak - a discussion ensues. It asks to be cooled down, so they help it reach a stream. As it cools in the water, it transforms (hideously) into a teenage boy.
Dvorak-46 is impressed that the boy has achieved a more perfect form - they and others try to convince him to remain as a car. He refuses for practicality - the woods are difficult to navigate as a car and he doesn't have direct control over his transformation. He becomes a car when hot and a boy when cold. He wants to return to Perpetual Bernville - the group agree to escort him after they have finished their business in the woods. He hangs at the back of the group as he is not a fighter.
When questioned, he reflects that he is a sort of overlap of two "beings" - him and his car - except the car is not sentient. His personality alone rules the dual, converged forms. Dvorak asks about the machine spirit of the car, but the boy doesn't understand - the car has no spirit, soul, mind, desires, etc.

Finding the Ruins with the Black Stone

Heading west, the group enter The Unburied City - an area of the woods that seems to be from a different reality. Massive chunks of a long-ruined modern-day earth city are here, much of it overgrown by the coniferous forest (with slightly different flora from the rest of the woods). They investigate the ruined buildings. Toho "Ultrathem" Tanaka deduces that the city as a whole has been ruined for decades, long-since scavenged, etc., but that there are also more recent tracks - some people are still around. They find lots of small pieces of black stone, scattered in such a pattern that they seem to have been cast from the west - some are embedded in west-facing walls. Taxi tries to learn the history of the rock but can't summon her power.
As the group move on, Dvorak is hit with a primitive spear flung from a nearby ruin. Leofe notices that it was telekinetically projected by a human with all-black eyes and shards of black stone in their flesh. They quickly escaped shortly after the attack, before Dvorak destroyed the ruin with plasma fire.
The magically-attuned in the group (initiated by Cyprian Kernow) notice that the black rock that is scattered around is magically inert, but at one point held some significant power. The black rock in the body of the attacker still held some magic, with a flavour of reality / spacetime alteration - this magic had fused with the person's being, connecting them with the source of the power. A strong source of this magical power can be sensed at the centre of these ruins, likely fuelling the abilities of the people with the stone in their flesh.

Encountering the Broken Door

The group arrive at the edge of the slight crater that forms the middle of the ruins. At the very centre, they see a black shape (The Broken Door), surrounded by many of the black-stone-people. Most of the buildings here have been levelled, as if by an explosion with the black shape at the centre. The distribution of the shards of black stone implies that they were forcefully scattered by the same explosion. A party of the black-stone-people stands between the group and the centre, as if expecting them. They don't initially react to the group's presence, despite clearly seeing them.

Altered Cultist of The Door by Ché Wilbraham

Leofe reads the mind of one of the black-stone-people and is bombarded by thousands of voices, speaking simultaneously. The form of the mind is overwhelming and alien, but she understands that they seek to protect "The Door", and that all of these people seem to be networked, somehow - at some level, they share a mind with each other, as well as The Door itself. It is revealed that they are what remains of The Cult of The Door, but altered, though few in the group understand this. The group perceive that the centre of the area contains the remains of some black stone obelisk - mostly a shattered base and a pile of rubble, but with one fist-sized chunk of black stone floating at about chest height above the centre of the base. This chunk seems to vibrate - its form is impossible to truly determine as it flickers between countless similar shapes and substances.
Cyprian approaches the cultists, claiming that he is here to join them in their worship of the door. They are convinced by his words - one of them leads him by hand through the crowd, to the remains of The Door. Dvorak, Taxi and Leofe try to follow but aren't as convincing - Dvorak is allowed a little closer but Taxi and Leofe are kept under watch at the edge of the area around The Door.
In front of The Broken Door, Cyprian is offered shards of black rock by the cultists - they suggest that he should put them in his flesh, like them. He understands that doing so won't confer any powers or magic on him - the rock outside of the cultists bodies and the one remaining Piece of The Door is inert. He takes some anyway and uses magic to feign implanting it. They seem to try to telekinetically talk to him, but are unable to do so because he hasn't actually joined their magical connection. He uses his obsidian mirror to scry into the nature of The Door:
Cyprian receives visions that show that The Door was a shifting black obelisk, in another reality. When it was brought here, along with some of its worshippers and parts of its home reality, it exploded, casting shards of itself across these ruins. Those that landed in the cultists conferred some of the essence of The Door into them (its relationship with reality and spacetime), while connecting them together due to the shards all being part of one source. They became a sort of fusion of the two - the human and The Door. They are no longer quite either thing, but are also both. Their human sides died and merged with the power of The Door in that moment. He understands that the one floating piece of The Door is the final part of its original form, in its original place - if it is removed, The Door will properly resolve into this reality and disconnect from the cultists, bringing all of the distributed essence back into its centre.
Cyprian leaps to snatch the floating piece of The Door. The cultists try to stop him but aren't fast enough. As he pulls it from its place in the air, the cultists all drop to the ground, inert. Cyprian holds the piece of The Door as it still shifts and vibrates. Taxi sees the history of this piece and understands that it is the same rock that she touched as a child (during Adventure: The Door in Reality), before being sent to another reality. She is saddened by the implication that its home reality has been devastated.

Back to Perpetual Bernville

The group head back to Perpetual Bernville. The Comte de Saint-Germain meets them on the outskirts, this time in the form of a slender fantasy elf. This is a very strange occurrence - The Comte is the archetypal human and has never taken the form of a non-human before. He thinks that his role / powers / purpose are changing to reflect this reality - perhaps "personhood" is more appropriate than strictly "humanity" here. He congratulates the group on recovering the piece of The Door - he thinks it will act as a key of sorts.
Taxi retires to reflect on the fate of The Overgrown Wilds. Dvorak establishes a well-equipped workshop in an abandoned church. Rainy Day reports that the fire to the west of town has been mostly dealt with, but there's a strange item at the centre that the group might like to recover. Trace heads back to his safehouse to look into the group that look like the Adeptus Mechanicus - he finds CCTV footage of a resident of Perpetual Bernville wearing one of their robes as outerwear, so he forwards the details on to Dvorak.
Dvorak tracks down the person that Trace highlighted, confronting her in the street. She states that she was an ITech-Priest intern, but she fled her reality when she realised escape was a possibility. She's from an institution that is related to, but separate from, the Chancery of Man - the ITech-Priests of her group would perform technical support for the Chancery at large. She implies that her reality was ruled over by a totalitarian regime that sounds very similar to Dvorak's home, but also very different in many ways. Dvorak takes her to Inquisitor Gallia Euphrati for interrogation, but Euphrati has already had a run-in with this group and understands that they are from a different reality, outside of her jurisdiction. Ultimately, she agrees to question the woman as Dvorak leaves. While Dvorak is doing this, Trace sets up well-hidden surveillance in their new workshop.

Recovering the Terrible Flaming Sword

The group go to investigate the source of the fire to the west, finding The Terrible Flaming Sword at its centre. It is a long sword with a blade that is literally always magically burning. It's dangerous to approach it due to the relentless heat, so the group deliberate for a while over what to do with it. Ultimately, they carefully drag it back to town so that Dvorak can use it as a perpetual power source for their workshop.

Heading to the Building in the Sea

The group depart on another expedition to investigate the home of the Molepeople, where fighting robots are rumoured. They head to the building in the middle of the sea, discovering that its the hollow ruins of the top of a skyscraper. Toho dives into it to find out more, discovering that there is a whole Underwater Desert, in a sort of gigantic bubble of breathable air. The group establish a safe method of descending, using their boat's winch, and drop carefully into the intact top floors of the Convergent Source Tower.
At the top of this tower, they see Lagann disused, off to the side, while groups of molepeople are lazily hanging about. To the east, in the distance, they see the signs of a great battle. To the south, they see a rugged landscape, also with signs of fighting, and a great, white cube beyond that.

Rewards Granted

• A Piece of The Door
• Dvorak-46's Workshop (Dvorak-46 spent 3 XP on this)
• The Terrible Flaming Sword
• 1 GM Intrusion XP for Dvorak, with the other given to Taxi Varlik
• 4 post-session XP for all

Missions/Quests Completed

• Resolving the threat to Perpetual Bernville from the altered The Cult of The Door
• Recovering A Piece of The Door
• Dealing with the fire caused by The Terrible Flaming Sword

Character(s) interacted with

Turbo Teen, The Cult of The Door, Rainy Day, an unnamed ex-ITech-Priest intern, Inquisitor Gallia Euphrati

Created Content

I had to adlib most of the detail about the The Cult of The Door and The Broken Door, in response to player action and questions. The sort of similarities between Turbo Teen and converging realities in general were nice coincidences.
I wasn't expecting to go into much detail about the Chancery of Man yet, so wasn't prepared to flesh that out, but I wanted to allow a player to pull at the threads they wanted to. The adlibbing was a bit rough, but I think it helped a bit and was appreciated for the most part.

Notes

Hard Work

I'm still struggling with tiredness and easy distraction during the sessions. I'm hoping that this will subside, but I have to accept that GMing is pretty hard work to do properly. I love doing it, though I do get a bit stressed when I feel it hasn't gone as well as I would like. I'm not sure what actions I can take to mitigate this problem when the causes of it are either "just life" or beyond my control.

Related Adventure

Campaign: Convergence, Chapter: On The Way To The Broken Door

Report Date

04 May 2021

Primary Location

The Unburied City

Secondary Location

Perpetual Bernville