Just Another Day

Slayers and demons and alternate dimensions and total ridiculous soap-opera drama, oh my! This was a campaign of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG published by Eden Studios. Supposedly I ran this game, but really I spent most of it having no idea what would happen next as my players dragged me into whatever ridiculous disasters they had dreamed up all by themselves. It was wonderful.

Just Another Day ran from September 2004 through November 2006. The GM was Beth with support from Humbleminion (seasons 2-6).

PCs

 * Fritzie Berg, a webcomic artist and the manager of the Art-Mental art supply store, who became a powerful witch. Fritzie had a complicated romantic life (understatement of the century), in which a juvenile crush on Jake was supplanted by deeper feelings for Chris at the precise moment that Chris became unavailable. Her strategy for coping with this began with "unhealthy" and went from there. (seasons 1-5, recurring season 6)
 * Angela Davis, a spoiled rich girl who eventually grew a conscience. (seasons 1-3)
 * Ally Preator, a high school English teacher who jumped into the supernatural life with both feet, becoming a summoner and occult investigator, and ultimately a de facto leader of the group. Her single-minded drive to achieve her goals sometimes brought her into conflict with her friends.
 * Joey Rister, the first baseman of the Teffelsburg Tigers minor league baseball team, with aspirations of making it to the major leagues. He flirted with many different magical styles and disciplines, but his forays into technomagic were simultaneously most productive and most problematic. (recurring season 1, main cast seasons 2-6)
 * Chris Rossi, Jake's younger brother and the assistant manager of the Joppler's Jungle pet store. A half-werewolf and latent psychic, he had a close relationship with all the various supernatural forces vying for the Slayer fragments' souls, and learned to channel them all and embrace their unique qualities. He sacrificed himself to save the world. (seasons 1-5)
 * Jake Rossi, Chris's "golden child" older brother. After a series of events too weird to explain, he decided to work toward true enlightenment as a martial artist and monk. This process did not always go smoothly.
 * Teresa, a half-demon employee of Art-Mental with teleportation powers. Though she was the only non-Slayer-fragment main cast member, her shared enmity with Alerion made her a natural ally. Late in the campaign, she became a vengeance demon. (recurring seasons 4-5, main cast season 6)
 * Dr. Tran, an enigmatic Tibetan monk who came to Teffelsburg to avenge Jake's death at the hands of Alerion. He had a backstory full of plot holes and a mildly sadistic streak, and was revealed to have actually been Jake all along. (recurring season 6)

Allied NPCs

 * Simon Blue, a charismatic and apparently immortal demon hunter who followed a prophecy to Teffelsburg. Things went poorly for him there.
 * Owen Briggs, a werewolf and Chris's biological father.
 * Tyler Briggs, a werewolf, Owen's son, and Chris's half-brother.
 * The Faeries, who lived under a hill in a local park and enjoyed watching the Slayer fragments' adventures in a magical scrying pool.
 * Jay Fenn, the lead singer and guitarist of the local band Sweet Nothings. Ally's crush and later her boyfriend, he turned out to be a massive fuckboy.
 * Emma Flynn, a very inexperienced and naive teenage Watcher sent to assist the Slayer fragments.
 * Jack Hemlock, a vampire who acquired a Slayer fragment, and Sabrina's ex.
 * Louie (LU-E), a local bum who turned out to be a robot from an alternate dimension.
 * The P'flug, a species of tiny goblin-like demons who worshiped Jake as a god.
 * Norma Rossi, Chris and Jake's mother.
 * Lindsay Springfield, a werewolf, Chris's girlfriend, and a victim of Fritzie's misuse of magic.
 * Neil Velasquez, a tacomancer (he told the future by reading the insides of tacos).
 * Kirsten Wheelock, Joey's girlfriend.
 * Sabrina Winter, the Butcher of Chandlers Brook, a witch who had a hand in the original summoning of Alerion.

Antagonists

 * Alerion, True Demon Lord of Self-Loathing and the campaign's central villain.
 * The Bizarroverse Slayer Fragments, the PCs' doubles from a mirror universe.
 * Cerberath, the Patchwork King, a powerful necromancer trying to acquire ultimate power by collecting a piece of every supernatural creature in existence.
 * G'hanakh, the Devourer, the Void from Which There Is No Escaping, exactly what it sounds like.
 * Iris, a vampire and Jack's sire.
 * LUX, a killer robot from the mirror universe.
 * Antonio "Tony the Slugger" Marciano, a baseball-playing mafioso from the 1920s who possessed Joey (with Joey's permission!).
 * Nokia aka Hessrina aka Sharsein, a powerful demon living in Joey's cell phone.
 * Alfred Pius O'Connell, a demon hunter and Simon's biological father, who had secretly involved Simon in a dark ritual.
 * Whisper, a Phobica demon and a local crime lord.

Plot Summary
The campaign took place in Teffelsburg, Connecticut, a (fictional) small city. Four of the starting PCs - Ally, Angela, Fritzie, and Jake - had all graduated from the local high school together, and were seated at the same table during their five-year high school reunion. The remaining PC, Chris, was Jake's little brother who had been dragged along to the reunion as Jake's plus-one.

Season One: Boys Will Be Boys
The PCs' class reunion was disrupted by the sudden appearance of a tentacle monster bursting out of the floor in the middle of the banquet hall. Tracy Bradley, one of their former classmates, showed up wielding a sword in the company of an older British gentleman and fought the tentacle monster. The PCs joined the battle, but were sucked down into the hole by the tentacles. They woke up on a houseboat many miles away in the company of two strangers, Jack and Sabrina, and several other people dressed as pirates who claimed the PCs now all had pieces of a demon inside them. A journal found at the scene contained notes taken by Tracy (who had been the Slayer) and her Watcher Henry, and detailed their efforts to banish a powerful entity called Alerion, True Demon Lord of Self-Loathing.

Using information in the journal, the PCs contacted the Watchers' Council. The Watchers sent them Emma Flynn, a trainee Watcher on her first mission who was in way over her head. However, Emma helped the PCs establish that Tracy had died in her failed attempt to defeat Alerion, but that the spell Henry was casting at the same time had partially succeeded and split Alerion into many fragments, some of which had entered the PCs during the fight. The backlash from the interrupted spell had also split the Slayer energy into pieces and sent it into the PCs as well. If the PCs behaved in ways that fed the demon inside them, they would gradually take on demonic features (as Jake found out when he grew horns after some questionable friendship decisions), and risk ultimately having Alerion control them entirely. However, if they fought against the forces of evil in a manner befitting the Slayer, the pieces of the Slayer inside them would grow and hopefully overtake the demon entirely someday.

Sabrina and Jack had apparently had previous dealings with Alerion, and had both been drawn to the site of the reunion when they felt the demon being summoned. Jack had also acquired both a fragment of Alerion and a fragment of the Slayer during the fight, which was especially interesting given that he was also a vampire. Sabrina admitted to having a fragment of Alerion inside her already, but for some reason she had not received a corresponding Slayer fragment. It was clear that Jack and Sabrina knew each other well and loathed each other, though both of them were tight-lipped as to why.

Not wanting to become demons, the PCs leaned into their newfound Slayer duties and started learning about the various supernatural forces active in Teffelsburg, of which there were a surprising amount. When Jake threw a house party he also met Joey, another reunion attendee who had also received both a Slayer fragment and a fragment of Alerion, and brought him into the group. The Slayer fragments then faced off against the pirates they had met after the reunion, who turned out to be part of a group of people being puppeteered by one of Alerion's followers in a twisted reenactment of Peter Pan. When the Slayer fragments defeated the puppeteer and freed the pirates from her spell, the Slayer fragments within them got stronger as the fragments of Alerion shrank, giving them greater access to the Slayer's powers.

Outside of monster hunting, the Slayer fragments spent this season making a wide array of questionable romantic decisions. Fritzie was hanging on to an unrequited crush on Jake that dated back to their high school days, but the more time she spent around him, the less she liked him - particularly as she realized how he wasn't above exploiting his own attractiveness and charisma to get what he wanted out of all the women around him. Chris, in turn, had always had a crush on Fritzie, who had only ever thought of him as a friend. There was no obvious resolution for this issue and it was only getting worse as the Slayer fragments' interpersonal entanglements deepened.

Season Two: Storytelling
In a very self-referential turn of events, the Slayer fragments confronted what they thought was a group of ancient vampires who had come to Teffelsburg in search of a set of powerful artifacts called the Orbs of Har-Rahman, which Alerion also desired. However, the supposed vampires were actually a group of vampire role-playing gamers whose gamemaster, under the influence of Alerion, had trapped them in their characters, not wanting the story to end when interpersonal tensions threatened to fracture the group. The Slayer fragments coaxed the gamers back into their everyday personalities and convinced them to stand up to their gamemaster, then retrieved the Orbs and sent them to the Watchers' Council for safekeeping, thwarting another one of Alerion's schemes and strengthening the Slayer even further.

The Slayer fragments also learned some disturbing truths about Sabrina when they found one of the Orbs of Har-Rahman in her possession. Ten years prior, when Sabrina was a teenager, she had been involved with a coven called the Nameless Sisterhood, who had tried to control Alerion by summoning the demon into Sabrina's body. Sabrina swore off magic after this event and has been fighting Alerion's control to the best of her ability ever since. Jack was the one to tell the rest of the Slayer fragments about this, since the Nameless Sisterhood had placed Sabrina under a geas that prevented her from speaking about her past (which is why she hadn't told them sooner). Jack also admitted that he and Sabrina were on-again, off-again lovers - currently very much in an "off-again" state. It was implied that Jack had allowed himself to be vampirized in a failed attempt to get over Sabrina.

Perhaps most importantly, a number of the Slayer fragments began to dabble in magic. Wanting to learn more about Teffelsburg's supernatural underworld, Ally took a part-time job at a local bowling alley frequented by demons. Fritzie started to learn witchcraft and soon became quite reliant on it both when fighting Alerion and in her day-to-day life. When Jake tried to get information by seducing a member of the Order of the Star, he discovered he could write himself into their story too, and briefly turned himself into a ninja with all the associated chi mastery; he badly missed these abilities when they went away. Joey went online to find ways to combine magic with technology, and ended up summoning an entity into his cell phone who called herself Nokia; though the power she provided him was formidable, the other Slayer fragments found her presence quite disturbing.

Another prominent subplot involved Chris meeting Lindsay, a young woman who worked with Fritzie at a local department store. Lindsay was a werewolf, and introduced Chris to her pack, who lived together on a farm on the outskirts of Teffelsburg. The leader of the pack, Owen Briggs, turned out to be Chris's biological father, a secret his mother Norma had never previously shared with Chris or Jake. Another one of Owen's children, Tyler Briggs, looked up to Chris and to the other Slayer fragments with a fervor bordering on hero worship. Chris was also beginning to have strange visions and prophetic dreams, some of them involving the First Slayer, and worked to develop his apparent psychic powers further.

Season Three: Nightmares by the Sea
When ghostly activity began to target Angela, she discovered that she was being haunted by the restless souls of 372 people who had died as a consequence of the dirty business dealings of her wealthy father, Donald Davis. Their anger centered on a new factory Mr. Davis was opening in the nearby town of Stoneport, which had been built to generate magical energy for Alerion and was turning the locals into fish-people as a side effect. Angela confronted the demon who was secretly controlling her family's business, and with the help of the other Slayer fragments shut down the factory, defeated the demon, and laid the ghosts to rest. (Notably, Sabrina used her magic for the first time in many years during this fight, giving the Slayer fragments a glimpse of how powerful she really was.) Mr. Davis went to prison for his financial crimes, and Angela left town in the company of her new love interest Jonah, a millionaire determined to use his resources for good in the fight against supernatural evils. She left the other Slayer fragments with a gift: a custom-built house in Teffelsburg, dubbed the "Slayer house," which all of the Slayer fragments moved into.

A major subplot this season concerned Fritzie, Chris, Lindsay, and the werewolf pack. By now, Fritzie had fully transferred her crush from Jake to Chris, but she was afraid of damaging her long-standing friendship with Chris and couldn't work up the nerve to tell him how she felt. Chris grew tired of waiting for Fritzie to make up her mind and pursued a relationship with Lindsay instead. At the same time, Joey was teaching the young werewolf Tyler about monster hunting, but Tyler's overconfidence proved to be his downfall. Tyler assaulted Mr. Davis at his home, not realizing that Mr. Davis was only a normal human and not the real culprit, and was sent to jail.

Season Four: Home Again
The (supposedly) main plot thread of this season involved the Slayer fragments being recurrently blipped in and out of a mirror universe under the control of authoritarian magic users and their robot army. Some of the Slayer fragments' mirror universe doubles worked for the evil regime, while others were a part of the resistance against it. After a few trips back and forth, the Slayer fragments learned that their mirror universe jaunts were the consequence of a spell performed in an earlier season to save Emma from a magical poison. Emma felt responsible, and her self-loathing opened the door for Alerion to possess her and try to take over the mirror universe. The Slayer fragments repelled Alerion's intrusion, helped overthrow the evil empire, and cured Emma's possession by having Chris channel the Slayer (who had previously been eliminated from the mirror universe) into her. Emma chose to remain in the mirror universe as its new Slayer, which resolved the spell and returned the Slayer fragments to their original world. However, almost anything that happened in the mirror universe was by far the least consequential part of the season because my players would not quit making other problems for themselves outside of this plot (and it was wonderful).

After struggling through a few thorny demon-related problems at her side gig, Ally decided that she needed to increase her magical firepower and began to dabble in demon summoning after discovering that her mirror universe duplicate (a dominatrix-esque figure named Mistress Alex) was skilled in it. Mistress Alex's summoning skills were enhanced by a magical tattoo on the back of her neck. Ally made nice with her until she let her guard down, at which point Ally literally backstabbed her and cut the tattoo out of her. The other Slayer fragments were appalled by this development, but Ally certainly liked her new powers. Her relationship with Jay also ended after Jay's band became famous and he cheated on her with his new manager. Jake, nostalgic for his former life as a ninja, learned of the existence of "chi mastery" techniques that could give him access to potent kung fu abilities. Maintaining them required him to adhere to various taboos (such as vegetarian eating, abstaining from sex, speaking only when necessary, and others), which did not come naturally to him.

Even as Nokia's power and influence grew at an alarming rate, Joey felt frustrated in his baseball career, the one thing Nokia couldn't help him with. The Teffelsburg Tigers drafted a talented young first baseman, Felipe, who challenged Joey for his spot in the starting line-up. Joey did numerous spiteful things to Felipe and eventually caused him a serious injury, but even this was not enough to get him called up. In desperation, Joey turned to Whisper, a local demon drug lord with whom the Slayer fragments had previously tangled on many occasions. Whisper sold Joey a magical pill that gave him the edge he needed, but warned him that he would pay a price for it later. Joey played one unforgettable game with the Yankees before a drug investigation (and Joey suspiciously disappearing to the mirror universe in the middle of it) brought his baseball career to an end. The pill contained the soul of Antonio "the Slugger" Marciano, a 1920s baseball player and mobster who had been one of Whisper's enforcers back in the day. The Slugger periodically took control of Joey's body, causing many problems that the Slayer fragments did not yet know how to solve.

And then there was Fritzie. Bitter and jealous at having missed her chance with Chris, she made the fateful decision to cast a spell that would cause everyone around her to forget that Chris and Lindsay had ever been in a relationship - including Chris, but NOT including Lindsay. The Slayer fragments soon ostracized Lindsay due to what they viewed as her creepy behavior. Fritzie took advantage of her second chance and soon won Chris's heart, but the spell was getting harder to maintain (she initially forgot to include Jay in it; Jake inadvertently lifted it from himself while practicing his kung fu techniques and she had to cast it on him again). Ultimately, in the mirror universe, the Slayer fragments needed to pass through an anti-magic field, which dispelled the spell on everyone (in the middle of a delicate covert operation during which they absolutely had to not break character). The Slayer fragments were too reliant on Fritzie's magical prowess to turn their back on her, but relations between her and the rest of the group became very strained after this (except with Joey, who could relate). After returning from the mirror universe, a heartbroken Chris ran after Lindsay, but found she had left town along with the rest of the werewolf pack. Chris still truly loved both Fritzie and Lindsay in spite of everything, but he didn't know if his love could ever overcome such a grievous breach of trust.

Season Five: First We Take Manhattan
A demon hunter named Simon Blue arrived in Teffelsburg with a large entourage in tow, apparently having been led there by a prophecy. Realizing how useful such an army could be in the fight against Alerion, the Slayer fragments invited Simon and his people to camp in the backyard of the Slayer house, and started cooperating to eliminate various supernatural threats. Simon's people took an extremely hard line against any form of magical abilities; in fact, many of them were "reformed" witches who had chosen to stop using magic. This caused friction with the Slayer fragments' more liberal sensibilities, though Simon tolerated their differing opinions because he believed that the Slayer's presence would not allow them to fall completely to the dark side (LOL). It also helped that he and Ally were immediately strongly attracted to each other.

Angela returned briefly to entrust the others with the Edge of Twilight, a powerful artifact that could cut through literally anything (people, demons, concrete, the Earth's crust, abstract concepts...). Shortly thereafter, it was stolen. Chris sold a piece of his skin to a demon to learn that the culprit was Joey, who had been possessed by the Slugger and made to deliver the Edge to Whisper. In the meantime, various apocalyptic things began happening in Teffelsburg, which made the Slayer fragments think there might have been something to Simon's prophecy after all. Zombies started rising in large numbers, the moon turned red, and it became incredibly difficult for Chris to channel his fragment of the Slayer (but incredibly easy to channel his fragment of Alerion). Chris's last contact with the Slayer left him with only an enigmatic message: "It cuts both ways."

Getting rid of Whisper was something both the Slayer fragments and Simon's people could agree on, and they teamed up to first exorcise the Slugger from Joey's mind and then wipe out Whisper's operations. In the middle of the battle, Whisper apparently killed Simon, only for Simon to immediately get back up as if nothing had happened. Perplexingly, he did not think this counted as magic, believing instead that it came from the Powers That Be. The two groups prevailed over Whisper, burning his base to the ground and literally salting the earth where it had been once the flames were out (PCs are nothing if not thorough).

The Slayer fragments thought Whisper might have been the subject of Simon's prophecy, but the omens only got worse and a more potent enemy soon appeared. Cerberath, the Patchwork King, was a powerful necromancer on a mission to attain ultimate power by collecting a piece of every type of magical creature (using the Edge of Twilight, which he had acquired from Whisper) and sewing it into his cloak. The Slayer fragments tried to stop the Patchwork King before he could reach Teffelsburg, only to get absolutely spanked by him. As they researched the Patchwork King they realized that it was likely he was only missing two types of supernatural beings in his collection: the Slayer, and a true demon such as Alerion. Once he had them, he would be unstoppable. They began to call in favors from their friends to get them to join the fight against him, a group which included a half-demon sorceress named Teresa, who specialized in teleportation magic.

As if things weren't bad enough already, Sabrina (who had been out of town since before Simon arrived, on tour as part of the opening act for Jay's band) returned, eager to help out. However, as soon as Simon saw her, he lost his mind, referring to her as "the Butcher of Chandlers Brook" and saying that he could never ally himself with anyone who collaborated with her. Sabrina believably claimed to have never seen Simon before in her life, but Simon wasn't having it. He took his people to a state park on the outskirts of Teffelsburg and washed his hands of anything to do with the Patchwork King, saying it had never been his fight. Ally, finding this reaction completely disproportionate, went after him to try to get to the bottom of it. Simon couldn't clearly explain himself, but told Ally that if she betrayed Sabrina and brought her to him, he would help the Slayer fragments defeat the Patchwork King. Ally neither jumped at this offer nor ruled it out, and resolved to investigate further.

Unable to rely upon Simon's people for aid, the Slayer fragments sought alternate methods of defeating the Patchwork King. Something called "G'Hanakh, the Devourer, the Void from Which There Is No Escaping" initially sounded promising, but the Slayer fragments abandoned this plan when they learned that G'Hanakh was a powerful demon who, once freed from its prison, would eat the Patchwork King but then eat everything else in existence once it was finished. Ally went to New York City alone to look into Simon's somewhat nebulous background, and learned that he was the biological son of a fanatical demon hunter named Alfred Pius O'Connell. O'Connell had once tried and failed to kill Alerion while the demon was possessing Sabrina, and he never got over his failure. When he found out he was dying, he performed a dark ritual to meld his soul with Simon's, giving Simon his powers of resurrection as well as his driving goal. Shortly after Ally learns this, the Patchwork King and his zombie horde rolled into Teffelsburg uncontested, driving the Slayer fragments from their house, causing massive destruction, and killing Lindsay, who had returned in an attempt to reconcile with Chris, as collateral damage.

With that, some of the Slayer fragments took matters into their own hands. Sabrina, feeling that she was now the only one who could prevent further death, went to Simon's camp alone and drained the reformed witches of their magic in an attempt to become powerful enough to face the Patchwork King alone. At the same time, Ally browbeat an illusionist she had met into creating an illusion of a captured Sabrina to get Simon to meet with her. When he arrived, she immobilized him and used her summoning abilities to separate O'Connell's soul from Simon's, hoping it would banish O'Connell and make Simon come to his senses. This did not work entirely as intended and led to O'Connnell taking over Ally's body instead and displacing her soul into a temporary vessel. Fritzie discovered what Sabrina was doing and got Teresa to teleport Ally to the state park to help out, not realizing she was really teleporting O'Connell there instead. This went as well as you can imagine.

The Slayer fragments, Sabrina, O'Connell-in-Ally, Simon, and the Patchwork King all converged upon a farmhouse in the town of Chandlers Brook where the Nameless Sisterhood had once convened (and where Sabrina had slaughtered the rest of her coven, hence the "Butcher of Chandlers Brook" moniker). An overwhelmed Sabrina, falling under Alerion's sway, released G'Hanakh with instructions to eat O'Connell first. All hope seemed lost until Chris recognized the piece of his skin he had sold sewn into the Patchwork King's cloak, and realized that "It cuts both ways" meant that he could now use his channeling abilities to counteract the Patchwork King's powers. Chris channeled Alerion, the Slayer, his werewolf side, and ultimately his human side into the Patchwork King, killing both of them in the process. The remaining Slayer fragments forced G'Hanakh back into its prison, leaving only the Alerion-possessed Sabrina. Bravely and foolishly, Jake attacked her alone, but was immediately struck with a killing blow. Jake's dying words were a laugh and "You just signed your death warrant" - after which Sabrina screamed and abruptly disappeared. The death of a third Slayer fragment was only narrowly averted by Simon giving up his immortality to reunite Ally's soul with her body. After the Rossi brothers' funeral, Ally, Fritzie, Jack, Joey, Simon, and Teresa returned to the Slayer house to pick up the pieces and figure out how they were ever going to save Sabrina from herself.

Season Six: Those Final Feet
Coming soon

Memorable Moments
Coming soon

Quotes
See Just Another Day/Quotes.