>Her shouts might have cause undo attention.
Undo attention? Quick, hit ctrl+Z and see if we can't handle that attack with a little more panache the second time around.

Seriously, we need landmines, gasmasks and sarin gas for a properly effective trap, just stating that as an objective. Anyone else have ideas how we should go about making/acquiring these in NYC?

So 4 is coming to New York? Could mean the city, could mean the state. Either way it seems 4 may be our first encounter of the game.

This presents some interesting possibilities.

In any case, I have some ideas. This book recording other's actions and our own could be very useful. Especially if we provide it with...misleading information. For instance, it seems it records when players purchase weapons or gain certain resources. We could potentially give other players a completely warped idea of our situation and abilities. Lure them into a trap maybe...

>>547734
>Seriously, we need landmines, gasmasks and sarin gas for a properly effective trap, just stating that as an objective.

Already covered.

The Black Book:

25 July 1928

Four meets with Timothy Right, and Jon Carval.

Three buys several creates of firearms and explosives.

One gathers his followers.

-----------

Its break time at work, and you are reading the paper. It would seem last night was full of excitement. A gangland shootout had claimed the lives of three men, Jimmy Wright, Dale Fosner, and Jeffrey McDonald. The work of Five. While your own killings were prominently displayed on the front page of the New York Times.

"Serial Killer Strikes Again!" the headlines read. Nice that your work is appreciated. According to the Black Book it would also seem that Three is buying weapons in large amounts. The voices suggested buying some yourself and laying a trap. Your attempts at writing in the book yourself had proven less then useful. The ink had simply faded away moments after writing. Which leaves you unsure as to if the message was being relayed to the others.

On doing some research at town hall later in the day you discover that Salvator Luciano is also known as Charlie "Lucky" Luciano. If the rumors and stories hold true, the man is one of the biggest Mob Bosses in town. His home base is apparently the Lower East Side, maybe you should set up a meeting? It would seem Five works for him, or at the very least they know each other.

Then again perhaps Four is the larger threat, you have yet to discover who these men are that he is meeting with.

Perhaps the voices hold some helpful insight?

Meeting with Luciano on his terms is dangerous. Mob bosses have power, protection, influence. Trying to approach him to get to five could result in him giving you to five, either as a gesture of friendship or professional courtesy. (There's also the possibility he'd be glad to see five dead, but relying on chance is dubious). Meeting Luciano on your terms would be safer, but it's a lot harder to get a mob boss to yourself. Might be doable, but it would take time and planning and spying on him.

Four might be the bigger threat, or not. The lack of real information is problematic. (Did he come to town hunting you, or five? Perhaps there's a chance for a twofer- to pounce on the weakened survivor of a confrontation of your rivals).

I note you haven't seen any messages about yourself appear in the book. I suppose this means it doesn't provide you the courtesy of knowing what about yourself is being relayed to the others.

...that might be an advantage for whoever first eliminates another participant. If you can claim someone else's book, you might be able to see what they books tell the others about you. Knowing what your competition knows is an edge.

Is the book completely empty except for the information that appears about the contestants? There's no title, page of publisher's information in the front, an index or about the author in the back? Nothing stuck in the intermediate pages if you flip through it?

We've also yet to see any information about two, eight, nine, or eleven.

Nc4

>>547789
pawn e5 to e4.

You think that perhaps setting a trap is best, you wait until late that night to leave home while mother slept in her rocking chair. Being sure not to wake her you plant a gentle kiss on her forehead and silently leave the apartment.

You are unsure of where to find explosives so you start simple. You find a pawn shop and perches several large bear traps, as well as several buckets worth of nails. The owner doesn't ask many questions.

---

- 130 dollars for 8 Bear Traps
- 70 dollars for 4 buckets of nails.

---

This still leaves you without something that goes "BOOM", it doesn't take you long to find a construction site on the edge of the city. More then likely some dynamite can be obtained here. There is the added boon of seemingly only a single nightwatchmen being present.

Getting in will mean the man has to die, but this will be the first time you have killed someone without the "urge" being upon you....

Hmmm.....

I wonder how long it will be before one of the others tries to get at you through your mother. She's obviously the only thing you really care about. (Although, with luck, she'll never be mentioned in the book. None of your 'important' actions have involved her, and the book hasn't mentioned anyone else's casual interactions with friends and family).

>this will be the first time you have killed someone without the "urge" being upon you
You'll likely have to do that eventually, if you intend to survive this contest. The others won't conveniently appear only when you're ready.

Is it really necessary to kill the guard though? We have pretty good ranks in hiding and sneaking and such.

Heck, with your skills with your fist (10 points about expert!) knocking him out is an option, too. Disable and tie him up. No real reason he needs to die, unless you're sloppy enough to let him see your face.

Nh3

Yes, sneaking up on the man and knocking him out should be good enough. You move to accomplish the task. Its no challenge at all, as the man is engrossed in a novel and music is pouring from the radio in the guardhouse. The door is propped open to let in the cool night air, and you silently slip in.

Your fist comes around catching the man on the side of the head, and he falls from the chair. His surprise last only a second before he lashes out with a kick which hits you in the chest. Luckily your armor, made to stop bullets, protects you. You wade back in punching again. Unfortunately he manages to roll out of the way. He stands up and lunges for you attempting to grab you. He fails miserably as you swing a right hook around catching him in the jaw. He is obviously dazed, and another blow sends him to the ground. You quickly tie him up with some rope and retrieve a set of keys from his belt.

A quick search of the construction site, and you find the explosives you were looking for. A large box of dynamite locked in a shed, you grab it and quickly move to your Model T several streets away.

Now to plan the trap....

I was specifically thinking that the gas weapons were the more important part of that because with the right ones, a well set-up killing ground and a good gasmask we can use them to disable/kill opposition without risk. Explosives are also prone to attracting more attention than gas attacks, which is a factor for getting away from the cops.
Explosives work very nicely for making car bombs though, if you can figure out what vehicles belong to your targets.

Well, with the bear traps we have a triggering mechanism, the nails can be used as construction supplies or sharpnel, and the dynamite makes the boom.

Problem is we need a location. Either someplace a target, or where we can reliably lure one.

What do you mean by

> basically graduated High School and not much more.

Does that mean

> basically graduated High School and got an associates degree in accounting

Because anything beyond that means he's due a little more credit. An accountant is a bit more than a respectful name for 'bookkeeper'.

(Queen's Knight to c6)

We don't know what has been shown in others books about us, but we can hope to keep things ambiguous until we can set confrontations to our liking. the primary research methods we and the others have is newspapers and word of mouth, be hat gossip or some form of contacts. We know we are an exceptionally sneaky character, so we should play of of that by just hanging out and going about our business as usual. While we are at a great disadvantage without any sources of information or armament other than the book,we can deprive the others of as much info as possible, becoming a background element for the time being.

>>547954
"Let's hide from this one paranormal source of information gathering by doing nothing about the fact we have a dozen murderers that are eventually coming for us with various organizations, weapons and tools that are probably adequate for murdering people."

I dunno, this seems like a bad plan somehow. I'm worried that maybe that mob boss sends Vinnie and Pauly to tail us for a week and then they snap us up the moment we walk out of the office one day, never to be seen again. Or a lot of other things could work too, really. Have you really never Googled yourself or searched Facebook for all the pictures of you other fools have put up? Do we own a personal-tracking-device (AKA cellphone)?

>googled
>Facebook
>cellphone
It's July 1928. Please adjust chronometers, expectations, and your plans accordingly.

>>547963
Adjusting, adjusting...
"$4,500 in bank"
HOLY FUCK WE'RE RICH.

Someone can still lean on the police or the city archives to figure out who we are and where we live though. This is the era of high, rampant corruption and people doing many illegal things just to unwind on a Friday night, yes?

>>547970
To be precise, $4,500 in 1928 is equivalent to $59,722.80 today.

Yes, you do have a good amount of money in your bank account. Your mom and pop had saved up a good sized nest egg in there years, and your pop had gotten you your job at the Office. You made a fair amount of money. Of course you didn't really mess with it except to pay bills and buy food. Your mom only allowed you 300 dollars a month for spending cash. Maybe when you win you can ask for an allowance increase?

In any case you flip through the Black Book again. To see what the others have been up to.

----

Two burns down the Doctors Office on 128th and St. Nicolas Ave in Harlem.
Nine buys a firearm.
Seven goes into hiding.
Eleven robs the Library of Congress.
Four sends Timothy Right, and Jon Carval out to find Five and Thirteen.

----

It would seem that Four is making the first move. Sending men out to find you and five. You ponder briefly if Four has made the connection between Five and the Mob Boss, or if he is flying blind. In any case you should probably take steps to safeguard yourself.

Maybe you should move apartments? Of course it will be hard to convince mom to move. She has lived here for years, its where dad died. No it won't be easy at all to convince her....

It's 1928, the time of high corruption and bootleggers openly battling with each other. The simplest story to give mom (that's even sort-of true) is that gangsters have decided they don't like you because of their stupid turf war nonsense and now you have to protect yourself. Anyone who stays where we're listed as officially living is likely to end up beaten by mobsters trying to get information about us, and we have to either go hiding or fortify ourselves against who-knows-how-many gangsters (not gonna work).

Black Book:

26 July 1928

Two murders Donny Glasgo at Hoffman Island.
Five sends men out to find Four and Thirteen.

---

You close the book and place it withing your jacket. Then open the newspaper sitting in your lap. You pretend to read it while waiting at the bus stop, all the while watching the building across the street, and the people going in and out.

The building belonged to Salvator Luciano, Lower East Side Mob Boss. You were spying on it as it was one of the few leads you had as to the possible identity of Five, whose latest Black Book entry had you worried. It had said "Men" were looking for you, but gave no specific names.

Could it be that there were so many of them that the Book didn't attempt to write each name? Or was it that the Book didn't know? In any case it seemed a confrontation in New York was inevitable. During the course of you few hours at the bus stop, you couldn't help but notice some things.

Fist you have the usual assortment of toughs moving in and out of the building. Probably thugs and enforcers for the higher ups of the criminal organization. Parked across the street in a nondescript Model-T were a couple of obvious undercover Police Officers. On the other side of the road was another Model-T, in it was a single man watching a homeless man in an alleyway intently. He didn't seem the cop sort, but he was obviously here for a reason. The next most interesting bit was the homeless man himself. At first glance he seemed the usual type seen in the Lower East Side. Unkempt and dirty. However on closer inspection he seemed just a tad to healthy, and was watching the Mob building a bit to closely.

You gently pat the small box beside you, filled with dynamite and nails. Maybe now was the time the voices talked about? Or perhaps its to early?

Homeless guy is a player. Kill him before he notices you, if you can. The guy in the car is probably a player, too. Be cautious above all else. Your primary goal is to survive.

>Eleven robs the Library of Congress.
Huh. That's interesting. Makes me wonder what they took. And that was their first move, too.

>move apartments?
The problem is, as we've seen from the black book, that kind of action will probably be reported. Meaning the others will know to look for a recent move. And it'll take time, and you'll be vulnerable while moving.

>It had said "Men" were looking for you, but gave no specific names.
Maybe the book is being deliberately vague. It doesn't give you the advantage of knowing exactly who or how many are coming after you.

>>>548043
...there's the possibility he's one of the others who came hunting to new york, yes. But it's equally possible he's an agent of one of the others. Until we get too close, it's going to be hard to tell players from their pawns. And we know some of the players have pawns.

(And speaking of pawns. a3).

Attacking in the middle of street, with all these people around is dangerous. But with all these pieces in play, a well set trap could do a lot of damage. I think perhaps it is time.

We should buy a plane ticket to some distant place but never get on the plane. Maybe it will throw these goons off our trail?

As for attacking the man, Not yet. doing something so conspicuous this early in the game may reveal our identity, we want to fly under the radar for as long as possible.

You twitch impatiently, the voices were arguing. Kill them or not, kill them or not, kill them or not... It was digging into your brain over and over. Then just as quickly as it had started it stopped. The bomb had a timer, you could set it and simply leave it nearby, then walk away.

Finally the voices calling for violence win out, and you stand up folding your newspaper and calmly walk down the sidewalk, discretely dropping the box into a garbage bin. You are fairly certain that the explosion will catch the homeless man, possible the man in the Model-T, and any nearby bystanders.

You smile to yourself as you open the door to your car and drive off with the sounds of an explosion echoing in the background.

Black Book:

Thirteen kills Timothy Right, Hank Stern, and Dale Davidson.

Seven is killed by Thirteen in an explosion.

Three hires Ang Qi and sends him to New York.

So we got Seven, one of Four's lackeys, and two bystanders. Not bad.

We got the first kill of the contest! Pity we can't try and grab Seven's book. We can't afford to got back to the site of the explosion, and there's a chance it was destroyed anyways.

Three's sending an assassin or something, looks like. That's annoying.

Are we sure Ang Qi is an assassin? Just knowing what your opponent looks like and where they live is an important part of trying to get the drop on them instead of being ambushed. If we were really rich I'd propose hiring a retainer to bring a message to one of our foes and bring back a description of what they look like and where they live.

>>548247
>Are we sure Ang Qi is an assassin?
Well, no. Not at all. That's just a worst case presumption. It may be our rival hired someone who is not a threat to us, but it's probably safer to assume dangerous until proven otherwise.

While this Ang Qi is worrying, we mustn't forget that five has sent men to find us.

Once more you have been transported against your will. One second you were getting into your car after work, the next you were sitting in a comfortable chair next to a warm fireplace. The Game Master sat across from you.

"Well done my good sir, well done" he says with a smile. "It would seem First Blood goes to you, and as such I believe a small reward is in order" he continues.

"A reward? What kind of reward? you ask hesitantly? The Game Master leans back in his chair, and a coffee table suddenly exist between you. On the table lay a Shield, Scroll, and Sword. "They are all metaphorical of course, but you may pick one. Whichever you want" he says leaning forward and taping his fingers together.

Should this "reward" be taken? And if so, which one?

Shield.

I don't suppose I can ask what the metaphors represent ahead of time?

Guessing here: the sword if offensive. Some kind of weapon or means to do damage. The shield is a defense, protection. The scroll is likely knowledge or information of some kind.

...the shield is probably the best bet. There are a lot of ways to kill people, and information is only useful if we're able to play it right. But with so many players all after each other, our biggest difficultly is protecting ourself from the others.

Shield- Book's already good, and we're good offensively, just need more defense.

I'm not at all convinced there are other players to this thing if they go down so easily.

>>548316
get the scroll, it's an obvious euphemism for more information--knowledge is power AND the best defense.

Anybody can die in a foot of water or while stabbed in their sleep: The best shield OR sword at our disposal is more information.

Their are indeed other players (and Seven was pissed he died), The average HP of a Human is around 12 points. Most decent guns do around 1d10 + 2 points of damage. The explosion did 4d6+2 points. It is very, very, very easy to die.

>It is very, very, very easy to die.
Which is why we should take the shield. We could be attacked by any of the others at any time, with no warning.

You reach toward the shield, and pull your hand back in surprise as the three items disintegrate and in their place lay a beautiful gold necklace. It sports a gold chain and a complex pentagram like symbol.

"The Sha'kar necklace" the Game Master says. "It can provide you with safety for a limited time, just be careful as it can only provide you with so much protection" He leans back.

You pick up the necklace and place it around your neck. Everything goes black and suddenly you are back at your car. You drive home to catch some sleep.

---

The Black Book:

27 July 1928

Eleven robs a graveyard.

Twelve gets on a train to Boston.

---

Given what we know, Five sent someone after Four. But we can find out who Four is simply by interrogating Jon Carval; too bad we have no torture skill.

Look his name up in the phonebook and then do a drive by to have a look at his house.

Huh. Eleven really intrigues me. First a library, then a graveyard. I wonder what he's collecting, and how it will help him.

So far as we know, four and five should still be somewhere in new york. We need to determine a means for locating them before they locate us.

...what does the news say about your explosion? Might be some useful detail about your dead competition the book left out. (Like if his book was recovered by the police. Or if they have leads, or who they think did it).

Library of Congress+Graveyard=Necromancer.

Does it sound crazy-ier than normal for us? Well how's a necklace supposed to protect you? How does The Game Master do HALF of what he does?
Now the question becomes what sort of powers this guy has, and how extensive they are. And I highly recommend doing it publicly or catching him where there are no bystanders-living or dead.

We don't know what, let alone who, this gamemaster is besides being a source of deus ex machina.
I'm not ruling out necromancy but there are other things in graveyards besides human remains to take: Notably there's masonry, dirt, landscaping and digging tools, funeral clothes, and all the stuff various people had buried with them.
Apparently being a mad bomber works for us, do we have more dynamite or is it time to get more? If we have enough let's do some research and go bombing.

So 7 is just one guy? Huhn, that doesn't add up.
Maybe HH01 mean "those people of that platform."
Maybe it's on that alt history forum. (quick guys lets make telepathic deals with the other players)

>>548213
wait, you didn't take 7's book?!

The cops probably have it now... and that's not good. It also may be an opportunity to introduce another player (or console a pissed off one.)

>>548459
no, sounds like the guy stole the book of secrets and stole a particular item of value, perhaps magical.

The Black Book:

28 July 1928

Three talks to Ang Qi.
Four meets with Jon Carval.
Six arrives at London.
One sends followers to Boston.
Ten gets on a train for New York.

---

After checking the Black Book for the latest entries you start going through the several newspapers on your coffee table.

The Headlines are abuzz with the continued "Gangland" violence which resulted in a bombing in the Lower East side yesterday. Their are four men listed as dead, the police have yet to release their names. In addition to the dead it would seem that at least eight others were injured, including at least two police officers. The Mayor has responded with the statement "Efforts are underway to route out the organized crime of the city, and insure these outbreaks of violence are stopped".

Meanwhile the unknown Serial Killer has continued to stalk the city. Famed Detective Johnny Broderick, and his partner Barney Ruditsky have been reassigned to the investigation.

You fold the papers up, and think to the Voices advice about searching for Jon Carval. He could lead you right to Four. Of course, you have more urgent matters to attend, the call is upon you once more. You just need to choose a hunting ground....

>necromancy?
...yeah, that occurred to me as well, but we don't have any evidence that supernatural resources outside those introduced by the game are available.

>Johnny Broderick and Barney Ruditsky
Memorize their faces, if there were photos in the paper. You'll want to know if they get close.

>Time to hunt
Hmm. We're not prepared to set a trap, this time round. Let's pick a less obvious hunting ground. Make it hard on anyone who tries to follow us.

>wait, you didn't take 7's book?!
That's the disadvantage of killing with remote explosives. We lose the opportunity to loot bodies. Can't afford to be too close to the boom, and the crowds and investigation afterwards get in the way.

Well, how else are we supposed to be sure that we're the winner in a confrontation with someone that is expecting people to try to kill them, and has some idea who and where they might be? Seriously, explosives are fun and once we have some experience with it we can learn to profit from collateral damage.

I'm seriously considering the possibility we hunt the police motor pool with dynamite: If the cops can't be where they need to be to stop us that's almost as good as them not existing. One bomb only, every time we use a tactic they'll start watching out for it and our end game is to leave them so paranoid and fortified they can't effectively investigate anything.

Let's go hunt some stray immigrants to feed our appetite though.

Find Jon Carval, then, once you interrogate him...

Don't immediately pounce on Four. You see, Five sent out men to find Four-maybe even talk to Jon Carval first. Watch and wait. Nab one of the men going after Four and find out who Five is straight after.

Then you can nail them both.

Obviously, you'll have to kill Jon. Don't want anyone knowing what you look like!

>>548669
This seems like a workable plan.