The city is all around you, a hungry, embracing darkness, it is an insatiable machine that draws in lives and grinds them to ruin. We dress it up with parks, with developments, with fucking shopping malls, but that doesn't change what it is. Beneath the glitz and glamor, behind the broad defensive walls of the suburbs, beneath the feeble glare of streetlights, the city is a relentless monstrous beast, gorging itself on a cornucopia of flesh and corruption. And that is just the humans.

Beneath the streets dark forces are at play. Coven's of vampires move through the night, stalking their next victims. Strange fae courts dance to music no mortal can hear, granting gifts to humans that twist in their hands to destroy their very souls. Dark things from the infernal realm ride behind the eyes of inconspicuous business men and leering insane wizards plunge daggers into the hearts of their sacrificial victims. Worse yet these forces move against each other, grinding mortal and magical alike between their titanic metaphysical mass.

A storm is coming.

If you want to survive the storm, you had best get busy...

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Welcome to my very ill advised attempt to run an Urban Shadows game.

I'm planning to accept no more than 4 players.

October 25 2023

The chill of Autumn crisped the air. In the skies the crows circled, wheeling and playing on updrafts born on sun warmed ashpalt cooling in the twilight. They watched. They waited.

@XxFellsingxX
You feel the knife go into your eyes, the sharp steel blade scrapping on the back of your orbit, twisting down to cut through the optic nerve. The pain is so bad you almost vomit, almost cant feel the bonds that keep you from moving, it distracts you from the taste of your own burned tongue in your mouth...

You awaken in a cold sweat. It takes you a minute to realise that the pounding isn't in your head. Someone is knocking at your door. What do you do?

GM prompt: What is your appartment like?
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@Guardian Angel Haruki

It has been a long day at the office. There have been alot of them lately. Since the Mayoral elections it seems like everyone wants everything yesterday. The cases have been getting increasingly convulted. Who ever heard of money being passed through Maltese banks, bouncing through credit unions in St Kitts only to be spent on utterly innocous office supplies by a law firm in Corvus Bay?

As you leave the office you notice the crows. They caw and cackle above you. At first you pay no attention. This is Corvus Bay afterall but as you approach your car one flutterd down and lands on the roof. It drops a laurel twig from its beak and cocks its head.

"Zeke," it caws. Or you think it does, maybe its just your mind giving meaning to random bird noise.

"Zeke, zeke!" it screams, fluttering it's wings and swooping away down a nearby alleyway. What do you do?

GM Prompt: What is your work like? Have you used your job to search for Zeke?

Returned to the Nest: You are a native daughter. Take +1 ongoing for Appeal to Old King Crow.

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@POOHEAD189

You are in your workshop, labouring away to the exacting standard of your kind. You have been working tirelessly to restore this ancient human armor to its former... well glory might be a strong word, no dwarf would ever forge something like this, but you are working to make it stronger. There is a sudden crash and a beam of blinding light as a woman materializes in a column of pure radiance. For a moment she is luminous and golden, a darkness at the heart of a supernova. Then the light gutters and she falls to her knees. She falls to the floor, clattering in a heap of gleaming plate armor disfigured by a huge dished in dent in the curiass. Her dark hair is up in braids under her helmet and a fearsome sword is strapped across her back. A P-90 sub machine gun, clatters to the ground, discharge smoke still wafting from the barrel. You recognise the Valkyrie Sayeeda from long association, her face drawn in a ricktus.

"Mother fucker," she comments, lifting a bloodied hand from the wound in her side and staring at it in wonderment before collapsing on your workshop floor. What do you do?

GM Prompt - Describe your workshop

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@rush99999

You are hungry. It has been too long since you last fed. You haven't quite decided what you are going to do about that when there is a knock on your door. A young man in an expensive suit with a rolex watch is standing on your doorstep. He swats absently at a crow that swoops in to pluck at his black hair.

"Fucking, birds," he mutters in surprsingly musical falsetto before pounding on your door again.

"Mr January," he calls out. "It really is most important I meet with you." What do you do?

GM Prompt: Is your home the physical center of your web?

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@Candykane

The humans seem to think its getting cold. Humans are so strange about that. You are in the park downtown, watching that clock that you love turn and turn. Crows periodically land on you, as though they can see your statue form through your human disguise. They caw and flutter then take to wing. As you ponder you notice a pair of humans eying you. This isn't new either, your maker wrought you in an attractive form and the greek clothing you wear isn't exactly inconspicous. They being to come towards you, one of them slipping something from his jacket pocket as he comes. What do you do?

GM Prompt: Why do you frequent this park?

The days have been getting longer indeed....

There was so much to do and not enough time in the world for them. At least that's what it seemed like to Kimi.

Somehow, it's not a surprise to her that the cases are becoming much more convoluted than before. It's like a reflection on her life now that she knew that the supernatural actually existed.

Money being passed through Maltese banks, bouncing through credit unions in St Kitts only to be spent on utterly innocous office supplies by a law firm in Corvus Bay. This is the kind of thing she's heard in cases of embezzlement and fraud. This sort of thing often led to more questions and warranted investigations. This law office was spending on that money on office supplies? She doubted that was truly the case. She focused her investigation on this case on the law firm and their public records/financial statements in question.

With her days at the office being this busy, and with everyone wanting everything yesterday, she doesn't really have the time to use her occupation to help her find Zeke. Plus, she didn't want to risk losing her career over using her position for selfish means. Her office does have internal controls to make sure that nothing unethical was done. She needed to focus on the investigations at hand. She could continue her own search during lunch breaks and after work in the evenings.

Speaking of the time of day, work had quickly ended before she even knew it. The first thing she noticed as she left the office were the crows, cawing and cackling above her.

From what she knew, crows were intelligent birds and capable of mimicry. The number of them wasn't surprising, Corvus Bay was named for the crows after all. She simply gives a nod to the birds of simple greeting as she makes her way to the car, not paying much attention to them. Before she enters the car though, one of them landed on the car.

She was surprised to see the crow drop a laurel twig and immediately cry out Zeke's name. Her eyes were wide as she watched the crow flies to the alleyway.

If she hadn't experienced the supernatural before, she would've shrugged this off.

But knowing what she knows now, she couldn't help but think that maybe the crows were helping her right now? It would be a waste to disregard this potential lead!

She quickly snatched the twig off of the top of her car and followed after the crow, after making sure the car was still locked.

As she hurried after the crow, she quickly got out her smartphone so she could have the video recording on, and have a flashlight on hand if she needs it.

@Guardian Angel Haruki

The crow preceedes you, flapping from perch to perch to perch. It's caws grow more feral, Zeke now interspersed with zarwk and zac. It moves down an alley and onto the parkinglot of a strip mall. The mall is nearly deserted, though a few customers are coming in and out of a Bed Bath and Beyond. The crow flutters to the ground and picks up something shiny, perhaps a penny, then flys up into the sky vanishing into the night.

Across the strip mall, between a Dollar Tree and a domino's pizza, you see a man in a red baseball cap half carrying, half dragging, a middle aged woman into another alley.

Vicky watched the clock hands turn with childlike wonder. How happy it must be to know its purpose and turn to tell people the time. She wished she had tha kind of clarity. The men were getting close before she noticed them. She turned her head, fascinated to find new people in the park. She liked it because there were other statues here, the fountain had three beautiful nymphs who Vicky hoped would wake up one day soon. THey would have such fun playing in the fountain.

"Can I help you?" she asked the men, remembering to speak English.

Kim kept following the crow until the caws became less articulated and the crow itself seemed more interested in something shiny on the ground than in her. After it flew away, she took in her surroundings.

If there was a clue about Zeke here, she had to find it.

At first it seemed like an ordinary abandoned strip mall, but then...she noticed a figure in the red baseball cap half carrying, half dragging a woman.

Well that doesn't look right! Kim thought to herself.

She moved quietly to the alleyway, hiding behind walls and keeping a distance to snoop on this figure and what they were doing with the woman...

---

Ǫlni watched the suit of armor in an almost trance-like state. To the untrained eye, he was merely gazing at it, but in truth he was working. One needed to know the next step before they continued with a work of art, and whilst usually it was instinctive for a dwarf like he, this was a suit of armor he was attempting to refurbish for the current times. Mail had been replaced with nanotubes and the steel plate had been reforged with stronger material, increasing its hardness to 55 rockwell. Now he needed to find the attachments with it, and perhaps armor that reached the legs. He stroked his beard thoughtfully, until a bright light and a familiar face suddenly appeared before him.

"Grimnir's oath!" He barked, hustling over to her. His face was ever grim, but ones who knew him and were used to his perpetually sullen features could spot the change of his demeanor. He did not have anything to aid Sayeeda here, and he owed the Valkyrie. Cursing, Ǫlni passed through his workshop to get his keys. He left the small section of the warehouse set aside for the armor, passing by his automatic repair section of the large room, where he kept various tools on the wall like extension bars and impact wrenches. He stepped over the rise that led up to a ruined, stripped car and stomped passed the chamber where he kept a more traditional forge, with tongs, hammers, chisels, and sandpaper, and all the rest. An iron symbol of Odin was above the forge room's door. He passed the bathroom and the diminutive kitchen was to the far right, across the spacious room. He reached the office at the front and grabbed his keys hanging by the door, stepping passed the counter and out the door, now outside and climbing up into his old pick up.

He revved the engine, planting himself atop a slab of stone he kept as a booster on the front seat. He knew a doctor he could trust. A Harald Osberg, a first generation immigrant from norway, completing his residency in the United States. Just a few miles down the road to his place, he was going to hit the streets.

---

Within the confines of his secluded apartment, January reclined on his couch while watching a surprisingly accurate documentary about the Roman Empire. After a moment though, he turned off the TV and sighed as he felt the demands of his Eternal Hunger grow evermore insistent. There could be no further delays. He needed blood and he needed it soon. But where to get it from? He considered going to Lucas Ryder like he usually did, but then he recalled what he had heard about Quincy from his agents. If his old friend had secured his own private reserve, then perhaps January would be better off seeing if he could get in on that rather than running the risk of indebting himself further to Ryder.

Before he could truly decide on a course of action though, a knock at the door caught January's attention. January heaved a sigh yet again as he pulled out his smartphone and opened his Ring app to see who was outside. He chuckled at the sight of Mathias Colby being divebombed by a crow before sighing a third time as the Tainted lawyer declared he had an important matter to discuss. January hated it when people came to his apartment for things like this. It was a place of residence, not a place of business. There was a reason he had his agents ensure the address of his favorite diner reached people in need rather than the address of his apartment. But even so, people would come and bang on his apartment door all the same.

After taking a moment to regain his composure, January activated the speaker on his doorbell camera and addressed the man outside. "Most important you say, Mr. Colby?" January asked. "And what would make it so important for a lawyer of EC&D to meet with me?"

When Kendra awakes, the first thing they do is bring their hand to the side of their face before waving it in the their line of sight, just to make sure they hadn't actually lost an eye. "Wow, okay," Kendra mutters flatly as she pushes herself out of bed. "Absolutely hated that." That's definitely one of the more graphic visions they've had in a while, and its very much rattled them. She can't deal with people at the best of times, so the thought of answering the door to (what they can only to assume to be) salespeople when she's still processing what she just experienced doesn't exactly excite her. However, as the knocking continues unhindered, they spare a glance towards the other side of the room, where Aliss' bed is. It's empty. This, combined with the general lack of noise outside her room, hint that Kendra's roommates are either out or otherwise indisposed. With a sigh, Kendra gets up.

They stumble over to their bedroom door, nearly tripping over a pile of discarded clothing they have on the floor on the way. She opens the door, looks from one end of the hallway to the other. One end leads to the living room and kitchen, the other to the front door. Kendra waits a couple of seconds, hoping that either someone else will answer the door or that the knocking will stop altogether. When neither of these things happen, they head towards the front door, running their hands through their hair as they walk so they don't look like a total mess when to whatever stranger is standing outside their door.

Kendra opens the door, tilting their head to the side and responding with a disinterested and incredibly tired sounding, "Yeah?"

Vicky blinked in surprise as she recognized the two men. Both were wearing jackets and jeans but as they closed she could see the lanyards around thier necks. Corvus Bay Museum of Natural History. Being a living statue gave one a complicated relationship with museums. CBMNH was a bit of an exception because it was under the domination of an ancient mummy named Nephren-Ka who was the pride of the Ancient Egypt collection. Vicky had done the ancient pharoah a favor by standing watch while her minions had brought bags of white powder from the harbor to the museum.

"Dashel," she greeted, reading the name on the badge.

@Guardian Angel Haruki

The alley appears fairly typical, flanked with dumpsters and empty shipping palettes. The end of the alley is blocked by the rear of a u-haul, metal ramp shining in the moonlight, rear door dark and in shadow. The man is dragging the woman up the ramp, an arm around her neck clearly demonstrating that she has been choked out. Her heels clatter on the courgations of the ramp as she vanishes into the back of the truck. A moment later the man reappears, jumping down and pulling the roller shutter down with him.

@POOHEAD189

You reach Harald Osberg's house in good time. It is a handsome house from the mid century, now a little run down. Harald shares it with three other doctors, all slowly fighting to turn the tide of student loan debt. There are half a dozen cars in the driveway and music and laughter from inside suggest some kind of get together is going on inside. You can smell meat cooking on a grill. Lights are on and you can see the silhouettes of people moving back and forth.

GM Prompt: With your +1 in mortality you actually have a ten which means Osberg is available and has what you need.

@rush99999

Colby swats at a final crow, baring perfect white teeth as he finally succeeds in driving the bird away. He straightens his tie and adjusts his grip on his briefcase, looking up towards where he imagines the pickup is for your speaker.

"Something important enough that it should be discussed while standing in the street," he snaps, clearly irritated. He checks his rolex and arches an eyebrow at your camera.

@XxFellsingxX

An attractive woman with asian features in the uniform of a local chinese reasturant stands in your dorway, a paper sack filled with greasy smelling food in her hand. She looks back and forth down the corridor, clearly nervous. She blinks as though surprised that that the door has opened and momentarily unsure of what to do.

"K...Kendra?" she asks in a nervous stammer.

"My Grandmother said that if I got in trouble I should find you. Can I... can I come in?" she asks.

@Candykane

"Ushapti," Dashel says with a bow. Nephren-ka and her people always call you that, refering to the statues with which the ancient Egyptian dead were burried with.

"The boss would like a word," he informs you, looking around nervously. As he does so you notice a police cruiser pulling in to a parking spot on the far side of the park. Two officers hop out and look around. You feel their eyes fall on you and they begin walking purposely through the crowd towards you and the two Natural History Museum employees.

There is a long pause as Kendra's still half-asleep brain tries to process what she just heard. "Your... grandmother?" they eventually respond as they start going through a mental list of every old lady they've ever encountered... which, given they work at a coffee shop, is not a short list. Memories of some pleasant elderly customers flash through their mind, followed by memories of far less pleasant customers. Screaming customers, shouting customers, 'I Would Like to Talk to your Manager' customers. Really, it was surprising how angry people could get over as something as simple a cup of coffee.

Realising there was no way she could tell which of these people could be this woman's grandmother just from speculation alone, Kendra decided a more direct approach. "Err, sorry, what is your name?" they say, hoping that at least might ring some kind of bell.

Kim watched what happened take place. Upon looking over the man, she came to realize that he was a Red Cap! A malicious winter faerie that murders and kidnaps. She clenched her jaw.

She wanted to save that woman, but she can't do much against the fae. She only managed to escape the last time she encountered them, so there was no way she could fight one head on. She's just lucky that she has a taser on her for self-defense. At the very least, the woman was alive, so that was some sort of relief.

Kim decided the best she could do right now to help the woman was to make sure that her smartphone recording caught the Red Cap's face, what he did, and the license plate number. Of course, she made sure to remain hidden from the Red Cap's sight so that she didn't get caught herself. She had to make sure that she would be able to send this video to the police...or someone supernatural who can help with this kind of situation.

@XxFellsingxX

The woman grows increasingly agitated. She takes a half step forward, realizes you are still blocking the door, then steps back, wringing the takeaway bag between her hands.

"My name is Lian, Lian Chang," she stammers.

"My grandmother is Madam Chang," she adds desperately, eyes still cutting left and right as though afraid a threat will materialize at any moment.

@Guardian Angel Haruki

The red cap looks around but fails to spot you. He tugs his cap down and shoves his hands in his pockets and trudges around to the front of the u-haul, suddenly as non-descript as anyone else in the city. He climbs up into the cab and drives off into the night, leaving a tinge of exhaust fumes in the air.

Suppressing a chuckle as Colby finally shoos away the crow, January picks up one of many remotes on a small table beside the couch he reclined on. With the press of a button, the lock on the apartment door clicked open. "The door is unlocked." January invited. "Come on in. Feel free to help yourself to a soda from the mini-fridge in the hallway if you are so inclined."