Session 1 Summary
Prelude
So those things happened that were promised to happen. Dante (whose player is Rana) had his character created first. In the prelude, 9-year-old Dante awakens to find a feathered woman in his room. She asks him if he wants to come to Fairyland. Of course, the answer is Yes. Away out the window they fly.He lands in a tree, so large he can't see the ground through the cloudcover below, or the crown through the cloudcover above. He starts climbing.
The tree resembles the tree of life, except the wood appears almost stony. There are no fresh leaves, though yellow, long-dead foliage clots the hollows of the branches.
Redcaps living in the tree attack Dante, and he merrily scuffles with them. Dante, now a redcap himself, progresses upward to a large round pavilion set among the tree branches.
The pavilion is open to the elements. Outside is the gray sky, and inside a stone table adorned with patterns of three interlocking triangles has food and drink set out.
The crow-woman returns and tells Dante her name is Delphine. She offers him his favorite foods, especially chai latte, steak and chocolate. He eats and drinks.
Once he's well into his cups (the chai makes everything happen slowly and takes away all sense of urgency) a man shows up. He's about 50 years old, with a long beard and one blind eye. He looks like the god Odin, but he doesn't inspire the total awe that a god might do.
He tells Dante that the boy is a fairy and is welcome to stay with him on Axle (the tree) and be his messenger and spy. He can spend his days doing his favorite things (fighting his fellow Redcaps, eating and drinking) and never go back to school.
Dante retorts that his dad will miss him. He succumbs to another drink and the joys of throwing Redcaps around, but after a while the effect wears off. The old man and Delphine are gone. The room is empty and he has no way home.
He reasons that he may be dreaming, and, if so, he cannot really die. He throws himself off the pavilion and falls down through the clouds ...
Scene 1
Back in Chattanooga, our heroes, David (name to be determined) and Lydia (name to be determined) are at David's club/freehold, where a rock band is playing. Lydia, a plump goth teen girl, is there to admire her boyfriend, the guitar player. David is just watching the crowd. His club is one of the few places it's safe for changelings to associate freely in Chattanooga.They sense a Chrysalis and hurry to Dante's house, drawn by the influx of glamour. On their way up 23rd street to Missionary Ridge, they spy a car of skinheads (a black Crown Vic) roaring by the other direction, toward downtown.
At Dante's house, Lydia breaks in but trips over her feet, awakening Dante's dad. David talks them both into the house, convincing the dad they they're here to rescue his kidnapped son.
They discover Delphine's feather in the bedroom, and after a little experimentation, they find that it can guide them to the Dreaming.
They head off, slamming headfirst into Axle.
Climbing up, they meet a Boggan junk-seller and a lot of Redcaps. They also encounter Delphine, who is waiting on the empty pavilion. After some angry words (but no combat) Delphine flies away, presumably to report them to the old man with the beard, the Raven King.
As they debate what to do, they hear a scream. A Redcap with long orange hair is falling past them (in fact there are numerous identical pavilions in Axle, or else Dante keeps falling past the same pavilion? The Dreaming is very confusing ... )
David reaches out and catches Dante by his hair. He hauls him back in.
Dante is now conflicted. Does he want to go back to his dad, or stay in Fairyland? He protests and throws a temper tantrum, but not seriously. He's just expressing himself.
Our heroes take their newest companion back to his dad, using a magic ribbon to get back from the Dreaming to Dante's house. (One-use items that go to one spot in the Dreaming or back home are fairly common chimera.)
Scene 2
Late that night, all three receive a message from Kate, Duchess of SE Tennessee and North Georgia. She's rewarding David and Lydia for rescuing a new Changeling. She tells them, "Do whatever it takes to make your life worth living ... anything at all, my darlings! Just don't be mean." With this guidance, she leaves them a chimerical "get out of hell free" card. They have no idea what it does, but it seems magical.Postlude
In a flash of Sight, our characters are with the black Crown Vic they saw earlier. The cars pull up under a bridge near the river. The young men lie in wait for another man, an office-worker type walking home late. Though it's dark and shadowy, they hoods see him and assault him. Another late-night worker, a librarian-looking woman of about 50, is coming along and intervenes to stop the beat-down. The toughs turn their attention to her and are beating on her when a green Duesenberg roadster pulls up. Her Grace (otherwise known as "Auntie") steps out and a flash of light from her body throws all the hoods back on their asses. As they regroup, Kate and the young man help the lady into the car and the three of them speed away ...Discussing the game, our heroes came up with initial goals for their characters. Dante needs to learn to control his Redcap urges to fight everyone he meets and eat everything he sees. David is resolved to clean the skinheads out of Chattanooga. And Lydia wants to learn more about being a Changeling and the Dreaming.
