Casting Shadows

Today’s prompt is a particularly fun one as it gives us the opportunity to share a story from our actual play of a game that we love that stands out in our memory. Whether we have stored many of these from decades of play or have just begun doesn’t matter. The joy in the remembering and the retelling remains the same.

#RPGaDAY2023 Day 29: What is one of your most memorable encounters?

I do not remember what story I shared ten years ago, but I get the feeling it was one that had occurred not long before that first RPGaDAY event. I could be wrong on that, but that is my sense of it.

This year, the story that I want to share is simple and chosen mainly because I was talking about the influence of dice recently and this encounter became this encounter because dice did what dice do – and it was perfect.

We were playing with a new arrangement of players familiar to me who were not all familiar with each other. We were playing a Lovecraftian horror campaign, but using Mythras instead of any particular edition of Call of Cthulhu. The setting at that point in the campaign was Shanghai, and while there had been a lot of strangeness in the campaign so far, the characters were still quite grounded in their perception of the real world.

As this post is about an encounter and not the campaign, suffice it to say that at an early point in Shanghai, the characters ran afoul of some gangsters over an issue of artifact retrieval. One thing led to another, shots were fired, an escape from a rundown basement bar was attempted, and a chase ensued down the rainslick streets in and around the foreign districts of the city.

Most of the characters were in the car, but it was a convertible with the top down for maximum stylishness. The more physical characters rode the running boards. At the wheel was a noted driver with several race wins under his belt and a desire to prove himself.

Fate intervened in the form of a stray shot which struck the lantern on the passenger side of the car, dousing the man on the running board in flaming lamp oil.

Imagine the moment for a moment…

Main streets glistening with rain, catching all reflections of light in the darkness. Side streets, narrow and uninviting, winding away in all directions. Vicious pursuit and open gunfire catching up behind you, but the wild exhilaration of doing something crazy and getting away with it as a powerful engine responded to pull you farther away from danger and closer to safety… until…

The reflections on the streets take on an orange hue as the light of flames engulfing your friend wash out the soft palette of streetlights and windows with thin, colorful shades.

The battle not yet joined, the war not yet recognized, and already one soldier lost to the uncaring and seemingly immutable laws of physics, which would soon enough prove to be a lie~