The Golden Bands
Event Background (for the Watcher)
Jason Grey is a fairly successful business man and, as of today, sole owner of the Valdez Import/Export Company. He’s also an avid collector of antiquities. Particularly mystical artifacts, of which he owns three already that confer actual magical properties to those that possess them. To him, in fact.
Having long since come to appreciate the power these artifacts bestow upon him, he’s always interested in procuring more. Hence his recent acquisition of the Golden Bands, a pair of solid gold wrist bands recently retrieved from an underwater salvage site off the coast of North Africa.
Of interest to Grey was the fact that a few recovered slabs of stone, depicting ancient writings and pictographs displaying similar bands, suggesting they confer immortality on their owners. In addition to that a catastrophic explosion on the ship overseeing the salvage operation, through which one of the workers in possession of the bands at the time miraculously survived unscathed, sharply piqued his interest.
Grey moved immediately to acquire the bands through the use of mercenaries he keeps on the payroll for just instances. After his mercs robbed the armored vehicle transporting the bands a weeks ago and delivered them to him, Grey stored them in his company’s secure vault while he prepared to test their supposed mystical properties.
However, Grey’s partner at the time, majority owner Carlo Valdez, happened across the bands in the company vault while Grey made his preparations. He promptly took them for himself, storing them in his daughter’s rental storage unit downtown. He naturally pretended to know nothing about their disappearance when Grey inevitably discovered their absence.
But Grey wasn’t fooled and Valdez wasn’t very clever. He was clearly seen entering the vault and taking the bands on the vault’s security cameras. Grey immediately dispatched his mercenaries against Valdez to torture him for information on their whereabouts…and to arrange a convenient accident by which he could justify seizing full control of the company while they were at it. Grey had already planned to arrange such an accident for Valdez when the time was right. As far as he was concerned this incident simply moved the timetable up a bit.
Now Grey’s mercenaries head to the storage site to recover the bands, while Grey himself is busy preparing to take over the company once Valdez’s unfortunate death is discovered. With the powers he expects the bands to bestow upon him, in addition to those he already possesses, Grey is already planning for the future. He envisions a series of lucrative criminal enterprises for which the import/export company will serve as a perfect front. Criminal enterprises made possible by the assortment of artifacts he possesses and the powers they grant him.
But there’s a hitch in Grey’s plans he hasn’t yet discovered. Valdez's daughter, Consuela, unaware of anything that’s gone on yet, visited the storage unit she rents that very morning, immediately prior to Grey’s mercenaries breaking into it. Discovering the bands there, she removed them in order to confront her father about using her rental unit to store artifacts without her permission. Something her father has done in the past, much to her irritation.
Distracted at the last moment by a social event she’d forgotten she was to attend, Consuela opted to wear the bands to the party and confront her father later. They were solid gold, after all. Elegantly designed and beautifully bejeweled. Even cleaned and polished already by Grey in preparation for the in-depth examination he‘d intended.
She could hardly resist. And when Grey discovers the bands are not in the storage unit as Valdez claimed…and that his daughter visited the unit that morning…Grey will naturally put two and two together and send his mercs after her.
What no one knows however is that the bands don’t simply confer invulnerability and limited immortality to those that wear them. They also house a particular evil spirit who uses the bands to possess those that wear them. The bands were created for precisely that purpose in fact and are not native to Atlantis at all. They were crafted by those same extra-dimensional creatures both as a vehicle to possess human beings and a means to make them formidable overlords. The invasion and total domination of the earth being nothing less than the original intention there.
At present the creature is smart enough to bide its time until it’s sure it understands the nature of the world as it exists today. Much time has passed since last it interacted with humans after all and much has changed. Though eager to wreak havoc and seek its own goals, it’s in no hurry to ruin things by moving too quickly. It’s prepared to wait a while until it‘s sure it‘s ready to make its move.
But when it becomes obvious that several different agencies have come into conflict over possession of the bands…then that will present an opportunity to have some fun that our evil spirit won‘t be able to pass up.
Event Synopsis (for the Watcher)
Responding to a shootout between police and armed criminals at a local rental storage site, the Heroes soon discover the presumably valuable artifact stored there is already gone. With a little research the owner of the storage unit is identified and our Heroes go to warn them of the incident, since the mercenaries’ mysterious employer can be expected to make another attempt to secure the artifact.
Tracking Consuela to the company party she’s attending, the Heroes arrive just as Jason Grey, who’s hosting the party, is about to deliver the terrible news to Consuela concerning her father. At which point Grey immediately changes his plans, seeing she’s actually wearing the bands. He attempts instead to lead her aside, out of sight of the partygoers, to get the bands back from her. Before he can make the attempt our Heroes arrive…and on their heels comes the mysterious White Mind, who crashes the party with the intent to seize both Consuela and the bands.
As the Heroes move to rescue her, Grey’s mercenaries arrive to report to him. Seeing The White Mind attempting to kidnap Consuela, who they now know has the bands, they move to intervene. In the confusion that erupts The White Mind makes his escape with Consuela, leaving the Heroes to deal with the mercenaries.
Once they’re dealt with Grey moves quickly to introduce himself before the Heroes have the chance to discover his connection to the mercenaries. His private security guards “secure them” for the police as he takes the heroes aside to beg their aid in retrieving Consuela. As it happens her father was found murdered only hours ago and he’d yet to have the chance to break the news to her. Sure that some terrible conspiracy must be afoot, he’s willing to offer whatever aid is necessary to help them in rescuing her.
The White Mind, however, wastes no time either. Once Consuela is secured he returns quickly to Grey’s estate to put an end to him. Not expecting to find the Heroes still on the scene he retreats once it’s clear they‘re in collusion with Grey, but his parting warning to Grey clues the Heroes in on the fact that there’s much they’re not being told.
After they’ve drive The White Mind off a second time, Grey comes clean with the Heroes…or pretends to at least. He admits that the bands likely have some magical properties that would make them very valuable to someone like The White Mind and that his interest is as much in keeping them out of that villain’s hands as it is in rescuing his deceased business partner’s daughter. The Heroes may already have had the opportunity to discover Grey possesses artifacts that give him some measure of power. If not, he’s likely to admit this now in order to justify his tagging along with them to confront The White Mind.
With Grey’s help the Heroes track down The White Mind’s current location and make their move to rescue Consuela. There they immediately come into conflict with The White Mind again, even as Grey’s mercenaries show up soon after to ensure he gains possession of the bands. In the course of the battle Grey’s mercenary captain manages to get Consuela clear of the action…and it’s immediately obvious that Grey commands the mercenaries when he orders their captain to seize the bands from Consuela.
Now the Heroes learn Grey’s true motives, even as they learn the White Mind’s intentions were to protect Consuela and destroy the bands. But when the mercenary captain seizes the chance to claim the bands for himself, things get a lot worse. Because now the evil spirit in the bands is tempted to reveal himself in order to take advantage of the chaos. He takes control of the mercenary captain the moment he dons the bands.
Event Milestones
Milestone Title
1 XP when you
3 XP when you
10 XP when you
Milestone Title
1 XP when you
3 XP when you
10 XP when you
Event Background (for the Watcher)
Jason Grey is a fairly successful business man and, as of today, sole owner of the Valdez Import/Export Company. He’s also an avid collector of antiquities. Particularly mystical artifacts, of which he owns three already that confer actual magical properties to those that possess them. To him, in fact.
Having long since come to appreciate the power these artifacts bestow upon him, he’s always interested in procuring more. Hence his recent acquisition of the Golden Bands, a pair of solid gold wrist bands recently retrieved from an underwater salvage site off the coast of North Africa.
Of interest to Grey was the fact that a few recovered slabs of stone, depicting ancient writings and pictographs displaying similar bands, suggesting they confer immortality on their owners. In addition to that a catastrophic explosion on the ship overseeing the salvage operation, through which one of the workers in possession of the bands at the time miraculously survived unscathed, sharply piqued his interest.
Grey moved immediately to acquire the bands through the use of mercenaries he keeps on the payroll for just instances. After his mercs robbed the armored vehicle transporting the bands a weeks ago and delivered them to him, Grey stored them in his company’s secure vault while he prepared to test their supposed mystical properties.
However, Grey’s partner at the time, majority owner Carlo Valdez, happened across the bands in the company vault while Grey made his preparations. He promptly took them for himself, storing them in his daughter’s rental storage unit downtown. He naturally pretended to know nothing about their disappearance when Grey inevitably discovered their absence.
But Grey wasn’t fooled and Valdez wasn’t very clever. He was clearly seen entering the vault and taking the bands on the vault’s security cameras. Grey immediately dispatched his mercenaries against Valdez to torture him for information on their whereabouts…and to arrange a convenient accident by which he could justify seizing full control of the company while they were at it. Grey had already planned to arrange such an accident for Valdez when the time was right. As far as he was concerned this incident simply moved the timetable up a bit.
Now Grey’s mercenaries head to the storage site to recover the bands, while Grey himself is busy preparing to take over the company once Valdez’s unfortunate death is discovered. With the powers he expects the bands to bestow upon him, in addition to those he already possesses, Grey is already planning for the future. He envisions a series of lucrative criminal enterprises for which the import/export company will serve as a perfect front. Criminal enterprises made possible by the assortment of artifacts he possesses and the powers they grant him.
But there’s a hitch in Grey’s plans he hasn’t yet discovered. Valdez's daughter, Consuela, unaware of anything that’s gone on yet, visited the storage unit she rents that very morning, immediately prior to Grey’s mercenaries breaking into it. Discovering the bands there, she removed them in order to confront her father about using her rental unit to store artifacts without her permission. Something her father has done in the past, much to her irritation.
Distracted at the last moment by a social event she’d forgotten she was to attend, Consuela opted to wear the bands to the party and confront her father later. They were solid gold, after all. Elegantly designed and beautifully bejeweled. Even cleaned and polished already by Grey in preparation for the in-depth examination he‘d intended.
She could hardly resist. And when Grey discovers the bands are not in the storage unit as Valdez claimed…and that his daughter visited the unit that morning…Grey will naturally put two and two together and send his mercs after her.
What no one knows however is that the bands don’t simply confer invulnerability and limited immortality to those that wear them. They also house a particular evil spirit who uses the bands to possess those that wear them. The bands were created for precisely that purpose in fact and are not native to Atlantis at all. They were crafted by those same extra-dimensional creatures both as a vehicle to possess human beings and a means to make them formidable overlords. The invasion and total domination of the earth being nothing less than the original intention there.
At present the creature is smart enough to bide its time until it’s sure it understands the nature of the world as it exists today. Much time has passed since last it interacted with humans after all and much has changed. Though eager to wreak havoc and seek its own goals, it’s in no hurry to ruin things by moving too quickly. It’s prepared to wait a while until it‘s sure it‘s ready to make its move.
But when it becomes obvious that several different agencies have come into conflict over possession of the bands…then that will present an opportunity to have some fun that our evil spirit won‘t be able to pass up.
Event Synopsis (for the Watcher)
Responding to a shootout between police and armed criminals at a local rental storage site, the Heroes soon discover the presumably valuable artifact stored there is already gone. With a little research the owner of the storage unit is identified and our Heroes go to warn them of the incident, since the mercenaries’ mysterious employer can be expected to make another attempt to secure the artifact.
Tracking Consuela to the company party she’s attending, the Heroes arrive just as Jason Grey, who’s hosting the party, is about to deliver the terrible news to Consuela concerning her father. At which point Grey immediately changes his plans, seeing she’s actually wearing the bands. He attempts instead to lead her aside, out of sight of the partygoers, to get the bands back from her. Before he can make the attempt our Heroes arrive…and on their heels comes the mysterious White Mind, who crashes the party with the intent to seize both Consuela and the bands.
As the Heroes move to rescue her, Grey’s mercenaries arrive to report to him. Seeing The White Mind attempting to kidnap Consuela, who they now know has the bands, they move to intervene. In the confusion that erupts The White Mind makes his escape with Consuela, leaving the Heroes to deal with the mercenaries.
Once they’re dealt with Grey moves quickly to introduce himself before the Heroes have the chance to discover his connection to the mercenaries. His private security guards “secure them” for the police as he takes the heroes aside to beg their aid in retrieving Consuela. As it happens her father was found murdered only hours ago and he’d yet to have the chance to break the news to her. Sure that some terrible conspiracy must be afoot, he’s willing to offer whatever aid is necessary to help them in rescuing her.
The White Mind, however, wastes no time either. Once Consuela is secured he returns quickly to Grey’s estate to put an end to him. Not expecting to find the Heroes still on the scene he retreats once it’s clear they‘re in collusion with Grey, but his parting warning to Grey clues the Heroes in on the fact that there’s much they’re not being told.
After they’ve drive The White Mind off a second time, Grey comes clean with the Heroes…or pretends to at least. He admits that the bands likely have some magical properties that would make them very valuable to someone like The White Mind and that his interest is as much in keeping them out of that villain’s hands as it is in rescuing his deceased business partner’s daughter. The Heroes may already have had the opportunity to discover Grey possesses artifacts that give him some measure of power. If not, he’s likely to admit this now in order to justify his tagging along with them to confront The White Mind.
With Grey’s help the Heroes track down The White Mind’s current location and make their move to rescue Consuela. There they immediately come into conflict with The White Mind again, even as Grey’s mercenaries show up soon after to ensure he gains possession of the bands. In the course of the battle Grey’s mercenary captain manages to get Consuela clear of the action…and it’s immediately obvious that Grey commands the mercenaries when he orders their captain to seize the bands from Consuela.
Now the Heroes learn Grey’s true motives, even as they learn the White Mind’s intentions were to protect Consuela and destroy the bands. But when the mercenary captain seizes the chance to claim the bands for himself, things get a lot worse. Because now the evil spirit in the bands is tempted to reveal himself in order to take advantage of the chaos. He takes control of the mercenary captain the moment he dons the bands.
Event Milestones
Milestone Title
1 XP when you
3 XP when you
10 XP when you
Milestone Title
1 XP when you
3 XP when you
10 XP when you