Session 2.1: Family Matters
Emma explains herself. Aldo and Rian see a show.
Last session, we followed the Jesseks on their first major job — the burglary of a valuable ruby, one of the seven Emperor’s Tears, from the stately manner of one Roland Molino, a wealthy director of the North Hook Trading Company. The job went off without a hitch, until the very end, when a rogue specter — one of the many that haunts Duskwall — attacked Aldo as he made off with the gem. He was saved by an unexpected ally: The Jesseks’ long-lost sister, Emma, who seems to have learned a few tricks in her absence, and is seemingly held captive by “Madame,” who commands Mr. Seek, a fearsome hunter. After failing to rescue Emma, Aldo returned to his brothers, who went about business as usual as low-level thieves in Crow’s Foot.
After fencing the jewel, the Jesseks were faced with a few opportunities for new scores, and we put it up to a reader poll to decide where they’d focus their efforts next. Here are the results!
Roric is looking to test Aldo and the Jesseks’ mettle, and Laroze is looking for help going after some dirty Bluecoats. We’ll focus on these two scores for the next session — since the Laroze job took the most votes, that’ll probably be the bulk of the session time, while the favor for Boss Roric will be a little more zoomed-out. Before we begin the next session loop, we’ll have a quick interlude with Emma, which will cover her downtime actions. For her, I chose Train and Indulge Vice — similar to Carver’s lineup. We’ll set a scene that envisions both of those activities and gives a glimpse into what she’s going through to kick off the session.
Interlude: Dalmore House
The world beyond the gilded gates of the Dalmore School for Young Ladies is a far cry from the grinding machinery and choking soot of Duskwall’s tangled cityscape. The stately manor that houses the orphanage is an imposing edifice of pale, weather-worn stone adorned with climbing red ivy.
Emma’s chambers reside in the east wing of the building, overlooking the rose gardens that bloom in a riot of color within a carefully tended greenhouse lit by electroplasm grow lamps. Her quarters are compact but well-appointed - velvet drapes frame the windows, a soft rug of deep blue covers the polished wood floors, and against the wall is a sumptuous four-poster bed, where Emma Dalmore sits, her heart pounding like a kettle drum in her chest.
She stares at the door to her room — a heavy, incongruous thing of rough iron that locks from within and without. She has been confined to her chambers since Mr. Seek returned her to the house, with nary a word from Madame.
She flinches as a knock on the door sounds. Composing herself before answering, she takes a deep breath. “Come.”
The lock clanks and clicks, and then the door slides open. A familiar face greets her, one she could do without - Mikaela1, her face full of sweetly sugared spite.
“Emma,” she says in a honeyed tone, “such a stir you caused with your absence. I’m so glad to see you returned safely to your sisters.”
Emma gives a strained smile back — Madame always chided her for wearing her heart too plainly upon her sleeve. “I’m so glad to be back, Mikaela. Mr. Seek was kind to come looking for me.”
“We have all been abuzz about what could’ve possessed you to leave the grounds. Madame was beside herself — she had such high hopes for you,” Mikaela continues, her eyes narrowing. Emma feels the ghost field thicken around her as her classmate tries to worm her way into her mind. She takes a deep breath, willing her emotions to blank stillness2.
“Tell our sisters I’m sorry for my foolishness, Mikaela. I can barely remember that night myself. His Grace calls to us in strange ways.”
Mikaela’s mask slips when she finds no purchase in Emma’s mind. “Liar. The Throne does not speak to you. You can try all you want to take my place, but it won’t work: You’re gutter trash, Emma Ridley, and you always will be.”
“You don’t know anything about me, Mikaela,” Emma says, still carefully guarding herself. The ghost field is still trembling around them — she can feel Mikaela pressing recklessly against it, inviting restless spirits into this world as she tries to reach into Emma’s mind. “Why are you here?”
“Madame sent me to fetch you. She wishes to speak to you at once.”
“Why didn’t you say so at once? Take me to her. Or I will tell her why she was kept waiting.”
Mikaela sneers and turns on her heel, storming down the hallway towards the west wing. Emma follows quickly after her, smoothing her black frock and composing her pale hair. Mikaela stops at the entrance to Madame’s private study, where double doors of intricately carved wood depict the grand coronation of the Immortal Emperor, surrounded by high ministers and attended by angelic figures above. Before she knocks, Madame speaks, her quiet voice still carrying through the door: “Enter.”
Mikaela opens the door, and Madame speaks again. “Emma, only. You may go, Mikaela.”
Mikaela bows, her face a mask of mild sweetness. “As you please, Madame.” She glares a moment at Emma and disappears down the darkened hallway. Emma takes one last deep breath, and enters the study.
The air is thick with a mingling of potent fragrances as she steps into the dimly lit study, the smell of rosewater from Madame’s perfume mingling uneasily with the charred spice of burnt oud incense. Antique rugs of deep crimson and royal blue lay soft beneath her feet, muffling her footsteps as she crosses to the center of the room, where there is a small sitting area, a pair of overstuffed, high-winged chairs, and a low table with a tea service for two.
Madame sits with her back to Emma at her enormous writing desk. Her pen, a sleek black feather quill, scratches languidly across the parchment in an elegant script.
Emma waits and waits until her calves ache from standing. Motion in the shadowed corner of the study draws her eye — there, she sees a wrought-iron bird’s cage. The cage bars are fashioned with barbs on the inside, and within is a sleek blackshrike, hopping from perch to perch. Its hooked beak dips down, worrying at the broken body of a brown sparrow that hangs from one of the cage’s barbs. Then it rises, turning one black eye towards Emma. She swallows and holds the creature’s gaze — the other daughters of the house whisper that Madame can see through its eyes.
“You tried Mr. Seek’s patience greatly with this recent foolishness, Emma,” Madame says, not looking up from her writing. “Explain yourself, and do not dissemble.” She needs no words to convey her disappointment — the ghost field surrounding them pulsates with it, a chill aura that seems to seep into Emma’s very bones. There’s only the sound of her pen scratching across parchment for a few more moments before the quill slows and stops, and Madame finally turns to face Emma. Her pale features are lit in relief by the dim candlelight that flickers on her desk.
“I had to save my brother, Madame,” Emma replies, her voice steady despite the cold feeling creeping up her spine.
“Yes. Mr. Seek told me what you said. Remember this: You do not have a brother. Your old life is dead, Emma Dalmore. Burnt and scattered by the wind, like His ashes,” she says, but her eyes narrow. “This is not an explanation, however. How did you learn of your brother’s peril?”
“He showed me, Madame. His Grace.”
Now, she has Madame’s full attention. Her voice rises archly. “Did He?”
Emma nods wordlessly.
“There are many nameless things that whisper promises in the night, Emma. How can you be sure it was Him?”
“I cannot, Madame,” Emma says evasively. She still can smell the smoke of his breath from her dream. “I only felt it, as you said I might.”
Madame rises and approaches her, her features softening. “Sit, Emma.” She gestures to one of the chairs and sits across from her, pouring a steaming cup of tea from the service. Emma obeys, quickly and quietly composing herself in the high, winged chair.
Madame watches her, fingers steepled under her chin. “There is much in the long night that we cannot understand. The shapeless things that call to us are not always friends; they can lead us astray, lure us with the things we want most dearly.”
She pauses as if contemplating a bitter memory. Her dark eyes flicker over the contents of the room, resting briefly on the blackshrike in its cage. It continues to tear at the sparrow carcass, feathers drifting down to collect on the bottom bars.
“You are on the threshold of your great purpose, Emma. I am very close to securing a position for you in the Marchioness Bowmore’s household. There, you will be ideally placed to enact His will.”
“Yes, Madame.”
“Until further notice, you will be confined to your quarters, save for meals.”
“Yes, Madame,” Emma says demurely. She thinks of the ash-stained skeleton key she found in the cinders of the reliquary pyre, still warm from His fire. After the night of her escape, she hid it away in her chambers, and though Mr. Seek searched high and low, somehow it evaded his gaze3.
“And you will not be allowed to commune4 with Him again until you have proven your obedience,” Madame continues, her voice a bleak echo in the room.
Emma’s eyes widen. That night’s adventures, when she called upon His power, left her strained and exhausted. Every night of her confinement, she has dreamt glimpses of the pyre, and of His burning eyes and regal tone. “Are you sure that is wise, Madame? We must heed His voice.”
“We cannot be certain it was Him that showed you the vision that lured you from the grounds. This city is a charnel house of rotting gods, all of them grasping for our faith.”
“But if it was? I need His guiding hand if I am to become His instrument, Madame.” Now she meets Madame’s eyes directly, her deferential manner replaced by quiet intensity. “And I fear what he might do to me — us — if he is denied.”
Emma can see Madame’s eagerness—a hunger to use the strange skills she has begun to master. There is a long pause. “Perhaps you are right. But if you receive another of these visions, I expect you to come to me directly. No more of this foolishness.”
“Yes, Madame.”
“You may go. Return to your quarters.”
Emma bows and withdraws hastily, leaving her tea cooling on the low table. Behind her, she hears Madame ring a delicate silver bell, and the study door opens, revealing Mr. Seek, his baleful orange eyepiece clicking as it focuses on her face. Emma slips past him, and he closes the door behind her. Quickly, she presses her ear against the carved wood.
“Reach out to our contacts among the Inspectors and find out everything you can about Aldo and Rian Ridley. Discretely.”
“As you say, Madame,” Mr. Seek rasps. Before he opens the door, Emma is gone, hurrying down the hall towards the east wing.
We’ll briefly resolve Emma’s Indulge Vice action:
Emma rolls Resolve (Indulge Vice)
Dice Pool: 2d (Attribute Rating)Result: 6 (Overindulge)
The Jessek family has not had good luck in dealing with their vices. One of the options when overindulging is "Lost. Your character vanishes for a few weeks. Play a different character until this one returns from their bender. When your character returns, they’ve also healed any harm they had.”
This is a convenient one for Emma, and it aligns nicely with her continued fictional absence. Now, we’ll jump over to Aldo and Rian, who have arranged a meeting with Detective Laroze to learn what she wants from them, in exchange for investigating Emma’s disappearence.
Scene 1: The Harlequin Theater
“Meeting with a bluecoat — a detective, no less. If Roric ever finds out, he’ll feed us to the bloody hagfish, no mistake,” Rian mutters under his breath.
Even though Aldo sits shoulder-to-shoulder with him in the back rows of the Harlequin Theater, Rian can barely be heard over the peals of laughter that thunder from the crowd as the clown, Mr. Punchinello, struts back and forth across the stage, waving his bludgeon wildly.
The actor, his face concealed by a grotesque clown mask, chases his fellow performers, dressed in shoddy bluecoat costumes, around the stage. All the while, he shrieks in a high-pitched voice. “Constable, oh constable!” he wails, “I think you’d look much more fetching in red!”
When the crowd quiets, Aldo whispers back. “It’s a risk,” he admits. “But it’s one Carver and I’d take if you were in danger—held captive somewhere by the dead gods-know-who.”
Rian swallows whatever objection he had marshaled. “You’re making me nervous, brother — usually, it’s you holding me back from doing something colossally foolish.”
Aldo smiles. “If it had been you with that wraith sucking the breath out of you, and you who Emma saved, most like it would be. But I was the lucky one.”
The two of them are quiet again as the show goes on. Punchinello gleefully lays into one of the mock bluecoats with his cudgel, and Aldo winces — there’s not much acting in the man’s cries of pain — but the crowd loves it and roars with appreciation.
Aldo shifts in his seat as he feels someone moving in the row behind them. Rian glances back and then quickly faces forward as Laroze slides into the row behind them.
“A fine show you picked,” she whispers.
“No one will be looking for bluecoats here,” Aldo whispers back.
Laroze smirks. “Fair enough.”
“This is a very nice reunion, of course, but it would behoove us to finish our business and go our separate ways. What do you need?” Rian hisses urgently.
“More than I can tell you between Mr. Punch’s beatings. Come with me.” Behind them, she rises, and slides into the aisle. After a discreet interval, Aldo and Rian rise and follow her out of the house doors and onto the dark street. Harlequin Street is near-deserted, save for hawkers waiting for the intermission crowds, thirsty and too sober to properly enjoy the shows.
Laroze is out of uniform but dressed too finely for the neighborhood. Her dark wool long coat is clean and well-kept, and her hair is neatly pinned beneath a hat with a shiny crow’s feather in the band. Rian spots it and snatches it away, throwing it to the ground. “I wouldn’t wear that unless you happened to have joined the Crows without telling us,” he chides. “You’re in a bit over your head in the Foot, aren’t you?”
Laroze studiously ignores his prod. “I have four names for you: Lewitt, Jol, Myra, and Reyf. Know them?”
“They’re on the North Crow’s Foot Watch. Don’t tangle with them much,” Aldo replies.
“Crooked as the Six Towers, every man jack. They’ve been collecting protection money from all the hard-working yeomen on Hulliver Lane and Candle Street.”
“If you know that, why can’t you just arrest them?” Rian asks.
“It’s not so simple. I can bring the case to the Magistrate, but I’ll still have to ask the constables to take their brothers-in-blue to Ironhook. They’ll only do that if their hand is forced — if the evidence is so plain that they’ll look like fools for ignoring it.”
“So what do you need from us?” says Aldo, carefully watching that the hawkers are minding their own stalls.
“I need you to find where they’re keeping the money. Once you have, tell me where it is, and I’ll catch them with it, bloody-handed.”
“And if we do, you’ll look into our family matter?”
“That’s right, Aldo. You help me, I help you.”
Aldo frowns, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “They’ll have their stash house sewed up tight. Getting in and out undetected will be tricky. We’ll need time to watch their movements, learn their routines.”
“These are their duty schedules for the next week,” Laroze says, handing Aldo a folded sheet of paper. “But we have a limited window - I overheard Lewitt and Jos talking about dividing the spoils soon.”
Aldo silently mulls over the proposition, while Rian studies Laroze’s face intently. “What’s your cut of all this? Since when do the inspectors care about dirty bluecoats? They’ve been squeezing us since we were old enough to cut purses on Cinder Street, with nary a look from the powers-that-be.”
Rian’s attempting to gather a bit of information from Laroze about her motives here — this is a Gather Information roll rather than an Action Roll, with no consequences for failure.
Rian rolls Sway: Risky position, Standard effect
Dice Pool: 2d = 2d (Action Rating)Result: 4, 5: Partial success
“It’s a new day,” Laroze deflects. “Lord Strangford and the City Council want the constabulary to reflect the high honor and dignity of the Imperium.”
Aldo and Rian exchange quick glances. Lord Strangford is a name that’s known to them — one of Duskwall’s lords and masters, whose hilltop manor house in Charhollow can be seen from all the neighboring districts when it’s not shrouded by the choking smoke from his factories in the slum below.
“Who would have thought the humble Jesseks would be of service to Lord Strangford himself? The very thought fills me with civic pride,” Rian says, his voice heavy with irony.
“If it’s all the same to you, I won’t be mentioning your involvement to his lordship,” Laroze says, matching Rian’s tone.
Aldo turns up his collar. “Suits us. We’ll look into your four wayward brethren and be in touch, Laroze.” He nods to Rian, who falls in behind him, and the two of them hurry down the street as the theater doors open, spilling their raucous crowds onto the street.
We’ll close out the session here! It was on the shorter side, but this week (and the rest of this month) promises to be a little hairy for me — my day job is at high tide, and my family is moving house this month, so lots of fun stuff to occupy my ‘free’ time. Hope you enjoyed the episode, and I’ll see you in your inbox next week!
Recall that Mikaela is one of the NPCs we envisioned for Emma’s background — a rival in the cult of the Burnt King. You can review that worldbuilding back in the Pilot episode, right here.
This dynamic — the frequent assaults on Emma’s mental sanctity at the hands of the other girls, who are trained to attune themselves to the ghost field, thus allowing them to sense emotions and intentions — represents the Train action. Being back at Dalmore House keeps Emma on her toes, constantly alert to the presence of the ghost field and the spirits and ghosts that inhabit it, just beyond the living world.
This is a detail we’re establishing about Emma’s relationship with her cult’s god that can be called upon for score preparation in the future — when the Burnt King wants something, He can offer his agents tangible assistance in overcoming the barriers in their path. At the table, it might arise in response to a GM question to Emma’s player like “So, Emma, how did you escape Dalmore House in the first place?”
This communion is the manner in which Emma Indulges her Vice — closeness to their dead god restores her strength and resolve. Madame Dalmore controls that closeness, for now, but there’s no mechanical reason to deny Emma the option to indulge her vice, so Madame will relent when Emma presses her.
I wonder what the Burned King wants with the Jessek bros! Looking forward to finding out :)