[CLOSED] The Biten Streets - Chicago - Vampire/Mage [12/10/25]
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Dante - Moros Detective - Dylan
Dice Pools:
- Investigation Check = 4 Wits + 4 Investigation + 3 Library (Investigation) = 11 d10 (9-again from Asset Skill). Researching the recent attacks and cross referencing with the criminal history in the area. Verifying information with Police Contacts and gathering rumors from Informant Contacts.
- Perception Check = 4 Wits + 3 Composure = 7 d10 (8-again with Trained Observer). Stakeout.
Health: 7 - B B L L L A A
Mana/Vitae: 6
Willpower: 1
Conditions: Informed"Stakeout Where Fate Meets the Grave"
The South Side never slept. It just closed one eye and kept the other on you.
I watched it from the front seat of an unmarked Crown Vic that’d seen better decades, parked half a block off Jackson Park where the streetlights thinned and the trees started swallowing the pavement. Engine cold. Windows cracked. Coffee going stale in the cup holder like a confession nobody wanted to hear. The kind of place where you didn’t loiter unless you had a reason, or you were waiting for something to come to you.
Stakeouts were honest work. You waited. The city lied to itself around you. Eventually, the truth got tired.
Chance stood out there in the gloom like he belonged to it. Didn’t look like muscle. Didn’t look like a cop. Didn’t look like prey neither. He moved the way people did when the streets talked back to them and they listened. I’d clocked him an hour ago, threading conversations together without pulling on them too hard. Fate work if I had to put money on it. Subtle. Surgical. The kind of magic that made you wonder afterward if you’d said anything at all.
Smart. I didn’t join him. Not yet. Stakeouts worked better when you let the dust settle into place on its own.
I lit a cigarette I didn’t need and didn’t want to smoke, just watched the rings curl and vanish. Jackson Park loomed ahead. Way too much dark for the amount of city around it. Parks were supposed to be lungs. This one felt like a bruise.
Animal attacks, they said. That was the line every time. Dogs. Coyotes. Rabies warnings on the evening news like a lullaby for people who wanted to sleep through the night. But I’d seen this song and dance before, and it never ended with just a vet bill.
A few weeks back, I’d tracked something similar to a fleabag hotel off Cicero. Filthy carpets, flickering neon, the kind of place where hope checked in and never checked out. The thing wearing the man’s skin hadn’t bothered pretending very hard. Wrong posture. Wrong eyes. Like someone had climbed into a body without reading the instructions.
Claimed, I figured. Filthy spirits riding people the way a junkie rides a high, burning them out, pushing them harder than flesh was meant to go. Claws where there should be hands. Rows of teeth better suited for a maw than a mouth because the idea of biting means something completely different to whatever was holding the reins.
These attacks felt the same.
I rubbed my temples as the city’s hum slipped sideways, magic misbehaving like a drunk off his meds. It wasn’t loud, no spells going off, no flashy vulgarity, but the background noise was wrong. Sympathetic links fraying. Resonance smearing where it should’ve been clean. The Lie wasn’t just stretched, it was warped.
That wasn’t spirits alone. That was ley lines gone bad.
Chicago’s veins had been poisoned for months now. You could trace it if you knew how to look, nodes souring, flows bending where nothing should’ve been strong enough to bend them. Something upstream was fouling the water, and everything supernatural downstream was drinking it whether it wanted to or not.
Spirits didn’t just happen to be here. They were drawn.
And every scene like this, the alleys, the park, the strip mall Chance had circled back to twice without realizing it had the same sick echo underneath the spellwork. Magic slipping its leash. Effects refusing to behave. Coincidences stacking too neatly, then falling apart when you tried to pin them down.
The Abyss loved that kind of mess.
I flicked the cigarette out the window and finally opened the door. The hinges complained softly. Even the car knew better than to be loud here.
Chance noticed me right away. Of course he did. He didn’t jump, just turned, his eyes sharp, posture easy like he’d expected company eventually.
“Ever notice,” I said, voice low, “how ‘animal attacks’ is code for ‘nobody wants to admit something smarter is chewing on the city?’”
I leaned against the hood, long coat collar up, the brim of my fedora low enough to keep my thoughts to myself. The parking brake breathed in and out behind me.
“I think I’ve seen this pattern before,” I went on. “People claimed by …something, learning ‘new tricks’. They hit harder, fight sloppier, and leave witnesses on purpose.” My gaze slid toward the dark paths. “Only difference now is the magic’s wrong everywhere they go. Like reality’s tripping over its own feet.”
I let that hang. Noir worked best when you trusted the silence.
“The ley lines are sick,” I added. “Spirits are following the rot. And every time they dig in, the Abyss gets another foothold. Doesn’t matter if that’s the plan or just collateral damage. End result’s the same.”
Somewhere deeper in the trees, something shifted. Not close. Not far enough.
I smiled without humor.
“I say we do this the old way,” I said. “We wait. We watch. Let whatever it is get comfortable enough to show itself.” A glance back at Chance. “You read the city. I read what crawls out of it. Between the two of us, we might keep this from turning into tomorrow’s headline.”
Then, quieter, the real thought slipping out.
“And if we’re going to keep crossing paths, it might be time we stop pretending we’re freelancers. Guardians are scattered. Disorganized. City like this doesn’t forgive that forever.” I adjusted my coat, eyes never leaving the park. “Cabal might be the only way we keep the Veil stitched shut.”
The streetlight flickered.
I offered Chance a cold McDouble and waited.
Stakeouts were honest work. Eventually, something always broke the silence.
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Chance took the McDouble without ceremony. No hesitation, no joke about cholesterol or trusting food from a man who looked like he lived out of a glove compartment. Just a nod, fingers closing around the waxy paper like it mattered. In this line of work, accepting the sandwich was as close as you got to signing paperwork.
“Thanks,” he said, unwrapping it halfway and taking a bite. He chewed, eyes still on the park, on the places where the dark felt thicker than it ought to. “Guess that makes us… coordinated.”
He swallowed and let the silence stretch a beat, long enough to be honest.
“I’ll admit,” Chance went on, “Claimed aren’t my specialty. Spirits that want to bargain, negotiate terms, understand consequences? I can work with that.” A faint, humorless smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “But once something’s wearing a person like a coat, there’s no one left to shake hands with. You can’t cut a deal with a mouth that doesn’t belong to the voice using it.”
He tilted his head slightly, listening—not with his ears, but with that deeper sense that tracked coincidence and drift. The city felt wrong in familiar ways now. Not acute pain. Chronic illness.
“You’re right about the ley lines,” he said quietly. “I’ve been walking them for weeks. They’re not snapped, not severed...but they’re polluted. Like someone dumped waste upstream and everything downstream just has to live with it.” He exhaled. “Spirits don’t cause that kind of sickness on their own. They exploit it.”
Chance finally glanced at Dante, really looked at him. Death-marked, watchful, built for waiting out ugly truths. A good complement to a man who read patterns and probabilities.
“And yeah,” he continued, “a cabal makes sense. Probably overdue.”
His gaze drifted back to the streetlight, to the way it flickered just a little too often.
“After the blackout, everyone circled the wagons. Too much fear, too much uncertainty. If you weren’t already in someone’s pocket, nobody was taking new members.” He shrugged. “I was covered. Praevidentia kept me close. No need to rock the boat.”
He paused, thumb absently pressing into the wrapper of the sandwich.
“But the city’s getting worse,” he said. “And New York’s leaning in harder every month. Power like that doesn’t knock—it just shows up and starts rearranging furniture.” A beat. “Being a lone wolf works fine until the forest catches fire.”
Chance took another bite, slower this time.
“So,” he said, voice calm, resolved, “we watch. We wait. We figure out what’s biting people and why it thinks this neighborhood is an open buffet.” His eyes flicked toward the park again. “And if that turns into something bigger—something that needs more than two sets of eyes—then we stop pretending this is coincidence.”
He wiped his hands on a napkin and held Dante’s gaze.
“Guess that’s me saying yes.”
-
Listening to the Streets:
People don't hang out on the streets like they used to. Everyday folk can tell something is off, that the streets aren't real safe anymore. As if they had been before.
Most of the usual places; bars, clubs, restaurants, where people congregated still had an audience. Chance knew the right ones that had eyes, the ones that had spirits who listened like a rabbit for danger, the ones that listened like an owl for prey. They would know.
They had some to say. There were things shaped like people stalking the streets. Like some kind of zombie from one of the 'fast runner' movies. Some of the folks Chance would know had two hands in the underworld, whether it was drugs, grift, theft, whatever. It was usually mix with folks mixed up in the other side. They saw the freaks in the parks, in the deep alleys, in places that were home to the homeless, to drug dealers and users. The places where people the country thought mattered didn't go. The places where people disappeared, and nobody noticed.
Investigation: Successful
Dante knew a lot of places that met that description. The park was definitely a big one. There were enough drug deals at night that the drug dealers could keep each other company, and they often did.
On this night, it was only a matter of time.
The wind was sharp, made you shiver even though you had a coat. It was darker than usual, like the clouds didn't want to give up the world for anyone to see. Even with a bit of the moon peeking out, and the desperate attempts of the street lamps, it was hard to see.
The shapes moved quick. They were quiet, but not impossible to see if you were looking right at them.
It happened fast. A shout, something like 'fuck you mutha' real loud before a scream. Someone was running through the light wood of the park, and someone, someones, were chasing them. There were strange hoots, hollars, and jeers coming from the chasers. It reminded Dante of a man with hounds hunting down a raccoon. He'd seen that in a movie before.
What do you want to do?
[some options if you want]
chase them,
Ambush the group
get in a better spot to observeadditional bits
better vision,
get closer
try active mage sight (needs perception check with a high difficulty. Its dark, they're in a wood, and far away.) -
Chance Meridian
Action: Cast Exceptional Luck to boost Chance and Dante before heading in.
Description:
Chance looked at Dante, and a look of understanding crossed their faces. Chance had to act, and Dante had to be cautious. So he took a couple seconds to form the Imago in his mind, reached out and grabbed Dante's shoulder, and pushed the door open.Once more into the breach, and this time following Dante's lead.
Spellcasting
Spell - Perfect Timing (Time 1)
Yantras: High Speech (+2), Concentration (+2), Dedicated Tool (+1)
Gnosis 3, Time 3
Reaches: 3 Free: Instant Casting +1, Adv Duration +1, Change Primary Factor +1
Targets: 2 within touch range.Dice Pool: 5 (3+3+2+2+1, -2 Additional Target, -4 Potency)
Potency: 5 = 3 (Prime Factor) + 2 (Dice Buy)
Paradox: None -
Dante - Moros Detective - Dylan
Action:
Ghost Gate (Death 3) - The mage creates a two-dimensional plane that acts as a gateway, converting anything that moves through it into Twilight. While in Twilight, the person can interact with and see Death attuned ephemeral objects and beings. Items can be carried through the gate, but doing so destroys their material forms, though they may be retrieved later with “Touch of the Grave.”Dice Pool: 3 Gnosis + 3 Death + 2 High Speech + 2 Concentration + Dedicated Tool (-2 paradox pool) - 2 Spell Factors (Increase Targets from 1 to 2) = 8 d10
Reaches: 1 Free: Instant Casting
+1 Reach: Advanced DurationPotency: 1
Duration: 1 Week (Primary Spell Factor Duration and Arcana 3)Paradox: +2(reach) - 2(dedicated tool) = Chance Die
Description:
I sat up in the driver's seat and rolled up the window slow, like the car might spook if I startled it. Chance was close enough, close enough to count. I rested two fingers on the dash, right above the cracked radiator that I never bothered to fix, and whispered my intention. To cross the space between states. Doors that only Death knew how to open. The kind of journey you only noticed after you’d already stepped through.Ghost Gate answered like it always did—reluctant, precise.
Cold geometry bloomed in the air, frost-thin lines snapping into place around the car, angles too clean for the night. Resonance bled through despite my care: a lattice of impossible symmetry, the world briefly aligning like a solved proof. The Vic hummed, not loud—just aware—like it understood it was about to become Chiron's ferry across the river Styx.
I reached across, caught Chance’s sleeve. “Don’t blink,” I murmured.
We opened the doors.
The park didn’t change—but we did. The sound dropped out first, like cotton shoved into the ears of the world. Color followed, leaching into gray-blue echoes. When our feet hit the ground, it was softer, like stepping onto memory instead of dirt.
Twilight.
My Nimbus lingered behind us like a bad habit. Chalk outlines ghosted the pavement where the tires had been. A flicker of numbered evidence tags winked in and out near the trees. The air carried that familiar sense of déjà vu.
The screams were clearer here. Sharper. Closer.
“Alright,” I said quietly, already moving. “Let’s see what’s hunting...and what it thinks it’s gotten away with.”
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There four of the things, and two people. The people looked like they had been sleeping in the park for at least a week, their layered clothes, the grown in facial hair. A lot of people were in it in a bad way, the way heroin had taken the flock. Hundreds, thousands, more had succumbed to the bliss and lost their way. Now these victims of a system that used them and spit them out were victims again, this time not of a system and faceless monsters, but real monsters, ones that thirsted.
The lead monster jumped an unthinkable distance, slamming into one of the two running figures. They went down in a sprawl that was quickly becoming settled, while the other three continued after the lone runner.
The four monsters looked like they were supposed to be people, but their eyes were wild and strange, and they moved more like animals than people would. They hissed and spit, and howled, and their skin, their skin was stretched thin across their flesh, their meat beneath pale and streaked with black veins. They seemed desperately hungry, desperately thirsty. They moved like a pack, and the keen eyes of the observers made it clear that an especially gaunt smaller woman was leading the four of them, another woman with vestiges of a darker tone on her skin, had jumped on the first man, and was rolling on the ground while tried to shout and she grunted like a hungry dog.
The other two were men, had been men, and were fast behind their alpha, running pace. It would occur to the perceptive sight of the mages that the beasts could run much faster, and jump enormously far, but had not yet. They were running the men deeper into the woods, into a place where they could finish their dark deeds without worrying about being bothered.
Do you want to interrupt and save the man on the ground, or wait and see where the runners lead you?
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Dante didn’t move to save the man.
Not because he didn’t care—but because monsters lied best when they thought they were alone.
I stayed in Twilight, keeping my weight light, my presence thinner than breath on glass. The park around us felt like a crime scene after the tape came down—everything quieter, heavier, soaked in aftermath before it had even happened. The four things moved ahead like a bad thought you couldn’t shake, herding the runner deeper into the trees. Predators pretending at restraint. Letting the fear cook.
“Pack behavior,” I murmured to Chance without looking at him. “They want privacy. Means they’ve done this before.”
I followed at an angle, never straight on. Trees were witnesses; I used them like cover statements. Every time they leapt, every time they didn’t run as fast as they could, I logged it. Strength held back. Hunger leashed. Discipline where there shouldn’t have been any.
That bothered me more than the teeth.
As we moved, my nimbus bled through again—faint, restrained, but there. Cold lines traced the paths between trunks, marking distances, angles, escape routes. Twilight obligingly sorted itself into usable shapes. Somewhere behind us, I felt the echo of a chalk outline that hadn’t been drawn yet.
They were leading him somewhere bad. A hollow. A maintenance clearing. One of those forgotten pockets where the city pretended nothing ever happened.
Good.
I drew my service revolver and slowed, letting them get just far enough ahead to feel safe. Letting the alpha think she was in control. Ambushes weren’t about speed. They were about timing—and monsters always rushed the ending.
I leaned close to Chance, voice barely a thought.
“When they stop running,” I said, eyes on the dark ahead, “we end the hunt.”
Spells:
Aegis (Matter ***) Primary Factor: Duration [1 reach to switch to Potency]
Matter (3) + Gnosis (3) + Yantra - Rote (3) + Yantra - Highspeech (2) + Yantra - Dedicated Magic Tool (0) - Potency 4 (2) - Potency 5 (2) - Scale 2 (2) = 5 d10Potency - 5
Duration - 1 hr [1 reach for adv duration]
Scale - 2 targets
Casting Time - Instant [1 reach]
Range - Touch1 Reach for Spell Factor - Ignore Armor Penetration
4 Total Reaches
Because casting as a Rote, Gnosis is Effective 5, Matter *** Spell => 3 Reaches allowed + 2d10 paradox dice
Paradox pool = 2 - 2 (dedicated magic tool) = chance die -
(I'm going to retcon my casting while in the car, since we've had a rule call since that it doesn't work the way I intended. Going with Acceleration instead). Went back and edited the spellcast on the previous post.
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Gnosis is Effective 5 == this is incorrect. Your main arcana for determining Reach is counted as 5, but only for Reaches. So Effective Matter for Reaches is counted as 5. Typo I assume, but important distinction.
Did you cast Perfect Timing or Exceptional Luck?
Acceleration Time 3, and Aegis are both successful.
That's a huge speed buff, and you always go first in initiative, sort of. They have go first powers too, but you'll win those with your 6 dice vs their 2 or 3 (Clash of Wills - Power Stat + Power Primary (highest arcana used to cast)).
The smallest girl, clearly the alpha, was wearing a torn up summer dress and small black jacket, her hair an absolute mess of brown twisted into a rat nest. She and two men, an extremely pale scraggly man with short white hair on his face and head, and a shriveled face showing many years on the streets, next to a brown tinted man with a small gut, bald head, and Hawaiian shirt, were harrying the last runner down and away towards the train tracks, clearly driving him and enjoying the experience. They moved back and forth, and howled and hooted at the poor man who continued to scrabble away.
The group of 3 broke from the treeline, and the poor man they were chasing tripped and fell, rolling down a small hill towards a dirt area before reaching the train tracks. The victim lay at the bottom of the short hill for long seconds, before a fresh growl from one of the monsters sent him back to his feet and racing for the train tracks.
The fourth creature had pounced on the first running man. She was now in tow of the others, running to catch up and carrying the man with her.
As the front 3 monsters were harrowing a man who can barely run, they were not going at a very fast speed. Dante could normally jog at this speed without any trouble.
With Chance's magic woven into them, they could walk slowly and keep up. The accelerated time skips froze the world so that they could pace themselves anywhere they wanted to be.
Where do you want to do your ambush?
Which of the two groups (3 together, 1 with victim a bit behind) are you going to ambush? -
Yeah, I was NOT clear AT ALL. Meant to cast Perfect Timing in the car (when Dante cast Ghost Gate) then Acceleration when Dante cast Aegis. Or Vice Versa. I scrapped the original casting of Exceptional Luck.
Perfect Timing above is accurate (5 Potency, no paradox, lasts the scene). Acceleration would have been 6 Dice, Potency 4, 2 targets, 1 Mana, lasts the scene, and chance die for Paradox.
Gives me 3 spells up (Exceptional Luck on me for my 3 Conditions, Perfect Timing on both of us, Acceleration on both of us.)
Chance Meridian
Action: Wait for the right moment, and attack the Straggler. Furthest separated and could draw the others back.Dice Pool: 11 - Strength (2) + Weaponry (1) + Perfect Timing (5) + Willpower (3) w/ 1L Knife
Health: 7 - No Damage
Mana/Vitae: 5
Willpower:65
Conditions: Charmed, Steadfast, Connected (Southsiders)Description
Chance let the moment stretch—not because he hesitated, but because this was what he was good at.In Twilight, everything felt thinner. Sound dulled, color leeched away, the park reduced to outlines and intention. The hunt played out like a diagram laid over memory: three shapes driving one man forward, and behind them the lagging knot—predator and prey tangled together, slower, heavier, more certain of its dominance. The straggler. The one that thought itself safe because it already had something in its teeth.
Chance watched the way a gambler watched cards fall, not to react but to anticipate. Every stumble of the victim, every bounding step of the creature hauling him along, fit into a pattern that was already resolving itself in his head. Fate had a rhythm when you listened closely enough. You could hear when the downbeat was coming.He glanced at Dante—not with his eyes, not really, but with a shared understanding born of standing beside the same kind of danger too many times. Not yet. The timing wasn’t right. If they crossed back too early, the thing might bolt. Too late, and the man would be dead before Chance could close the distance.
Then the strands snapped taut.
Chance moved.
Acceleration made the world feel like it had taken a breath and forgotten to let it out. The ground rolled beneath his feet in smooth, measured strides as he ghosted ahead of the trailing monster, angling through trees and shadow until he was where he needed to be—not in its path, but just off to the side, where surprise lived.
He crouched, knife already in his hand. Plain steel. Nothing dramatic. He preferred it that way. Tools didn’t need to be special if the moment was.
The creature hauled its victim closer, claws digging in, mouth working as if savoring what was to come. It hadn’t noticed Chance. It hadn’t noticed anything but the end of the chase.
Good, Chance thought. That’s how you die.
He waited for the shift—the subtle wrongness that meant Dante had opened the door back to the solid world. For weight to return. For sound to crash back in. For the Lie to settle around them again like a poorly fitted coat.
The instant it did, Chance lunged.
He didn’t shout. Didn’t grandstand. He drove forward with everything already decided, blade flashing up and in, aimed where ribs parted and leverage failed. Fate favored commitment, and Chance had never been short on that.
Somewhere behind him, the rest of the pack would realize the hunt had gone wrong.
By then, it would already be too late for this one. -
See game update https://forum.tgrpg.com/topic/233/game-5-they-a-bitin-mage-chicago-01-06-2026
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