Mark has hailed this as my best House Game from a ong time ago. I brought it out and dusted it off for a Christmas Eve spectacular reunion:
Gwynn - Heron Mazzie - Heiress and Seeker of Enigmas
Dan - Corporal Hawkins - Marine Sniper (AKA: Stealthy Bastard)
John - ? - International Thief
Pete - ? - Zen Monk Physicist
J.T. - ? - Hardened PI
The characters are sent by the Clever Prince on a wild goose chase to find the Old Man. They were nearly poisoned when meeting their contact who died as they met him. The bar's proprietor (a fellow who was rather reminiscent of a certain Army-going dwarf) tried to flee after it is revealed that he was the poisoner. The characters narrowly escaped the bouncers by utilizing a flash grenade. the proprietor revealed that he was bribed by cultists to slip the guy something. Pursuing the contact's address to find his mother's house from a clue left by the Clever Prince. They find an animated mouse skeleton which they nearly destroyed. Following another cluethey located a cave under Ostuary Hill. Assisted by the skeleton creature that left the mouse for a human frame, they find nothing in the secret Ostuary under the hill. Finally, discovering the Old Man's name from the skeleton (who calls himself Harry and who smokes like a chimney) using his academic contacts, Pete's Monk called the Old Man and his "Funkytown" ringtone could be heard ringing beneath the loosened earth in the center of the room…
The players discovered some interesting new ways to blunder (briefly considered feeding the Ba of an evil Glaaki skeleton to the late contact's corpse which would have returned to them in a grizzly fashion as soon as it got to the autopsy table) but ultimately made all the right choices, deciphered all of the critical clues and even failed a roll that would have left them with no way to win had they succeeded (almost shot the good skeleton's Ba bone).
Thanks everybody for participating!
