Title: City Council of Darkness
GM: Brennan Lee Mulligan
Players: Emily Axford (she/her) as Vesper Childers (she/her). Zac Oyama (he/him) as Zaeth Bondana (he/him). Siobhan Thompson (she/her) as La Contesse Madelaine (she/her). Lou Wilson (he/him) as LaVonte Worthy (he/him). Ally Beardsley (they/them) as HJ Wingstreet (he/him). Brian Murphy (he/him) as Mitch Frederick(he/him).
Streaming Service: Dropout

If you haven’t checked them out already, you can catch up on our reviews of prior episodes – one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, and thirteen!

A mess of powers has gathered at our chaotic coterie’s Elysium. Smiling Richard Nixon, one of the five heads of the Camarilla, has arrived where Big Foot, werewolves, a leprechaun, and more have come to formalize their alliances, but with the oligarchy of vampires bearing down upon Purpee, it’s rather uncertain how much the informal ties will hold.

Richard ‘Dick’ Nixon may be young by vampire standards, but he hunted down the ancient ancestor of his clan, consuming the originator in order to gain their power. As a crooked politician, he clearly knows how to manipulate those around him, understanding how to walk the line and set up others to walk themselves into an unexpected trap. Of course, he can only do a few pointed comments. The blood hunt and Zaeth’s position as prince makes them untouchable for now.

It’s almost a fae trap. The coterie must play gracious hosts, but they need to avoid implicating themselves while being friendly. There was some discussion across the internet a while ago about what would happen if a fae invited a vampire in, battling the laws of hospitality versus the expectation of politeness. That inspired a writing prompt about what would happen if the vampire fed from the fae in that situation. The conclusion was a fae/vampire marriage, but outside of a leprechaun being around, this is a battle of vampiric politics.

In a dangerous move, the coterie encourages the Camarilla to go on ahead, taking time to unify their alliances, which ultimately gives the Douglas family a chance to absolutely turn things on them or positions Nixon to somehow get the information as LaVonte states they may need to kill the Camarilla representatives. Especially questionable to me, Herbert attends, dressed as Uncle Sam and showing clear antagonism to Koschei, but Vesper connects with him, exploring the power inside Herbert that allowed him to subdue a demon.

During their meeting, Nixon calls out Patty, making him an offer which he refuses. Right after, Bingo goes missing. Definitely petty, which feels right for a self-important politician. He’s also stabbed Koschei, but luckily, Vesper convinces Herbert to go to his aid, and recognizes a common enemy in a group of men torturing Bingo, the Russian vampire and elderly American human unite in an absolute manic moment.

In the midst of the chaos, Madelaine gets a premonition of the Douglas celebration, including ceremonial masks and chanting with a less than light film of Christianity over it. The writing is on the wall for one of the young masked figures as a Bacchanalia doesn’t often end well when a blood altar is involved. The whole group heads over, taking their new supernatural alliance with them.

LaVonte compels a non-magical looking Douglas to use as a human shield, shooting at Boyd. He also manages to convince the Reverand that the strange pagan magic is merely a guise and that all of the Douglas family is incredibly Christian and, therefore, good eating.

Madelaine drops down from above. Using her blanket, she basically grapples him, cutting off his line of sight. Unfortunately, her ex intervenes. On the plus side, we get a bit of a lore drop, learning that Madelaine was dumped, but clearly, she’s not over it. Taking advantage, Madelaine offers her blood, tricking her jealous ex with Maya’s help to bind Maria and sends her after Nixon.

In the chaos, Ermine escapes Vesper’s void. However, while she confirms to Nixon that a blood hunt wasn’t called, the fact that she’s alive means that the Purpee coterie didn’t do anything wrong. The wounded Ermine focuses her fury on Vesper. Mitch immediately comes to his protege’s aid.

Nixon attacks Big Foot, sending the cryptid into Jack of the Pines. Regurgitating the missile after figuring out how Ermine left the void, Vesper rides it toward Jack of the Pines, kicking Big Foot away to save him. The monstrous pine tree giant hits her, turning her back to human. With another hit coming to destroy her and Vesper unable to escape the missile’s explosion, there’s little to no chance of survival.

Somehow, Vesper makes it. Still human, she falls through the sky. How she survived the explosion, I still don’t know, but we’ll give this to Emily. Despite her innate chaos, she was somehow more productive this season than half the rest of the group except for Lou and maybe Murph and Siobhan, but the last two feel like an accident, so we’ll have her tie for second more productive with them.

Ally spirals a bit. Murph rejects their gameplay, and absolute chaos ensued, but eventually, they have HJ sprint, using everything to catch Vesper. Vesper and Madelaine make an agreement that the coterie would wait to turn her when she’s hot and forty.

Though the biggest of their enemies is out of the game, slowly taking the Douglas out one by one, we still have Nixon and a good number of Douglas magic users on the field, including Boyd. Mitch snaps Nixon in half, sucking him dry. Taking advantage of the distraction, Boyd shoots Vesper, forcing her to make a horrible decision.

Chaos incarnates as Vesper truly becomes a werebat. The bat that bit her was her biological father, but he didn’t bite her because the Camarilla intervened and turned her before her father could inform her of her heritage.

At this point, the whole cast lost their stuffing. Ghost and clown wars, Vesper’s mom might be a genie, and Nancy drives into Hell. Zaeth gives the Douglas’s farm to his horse. It’s absolute insanity.

Highlights

Brennan was clearly enjoying himself this episode playing the corrupt president, Richard ‘Dick’ Nixon. There has been some interesting censorship around that common diminuitive lately, which has mainly been suffered by those posting Nightwing content about Dick Grayson, but the linguistic crossover has never been more appropriate than it was in this episode, and I love to see Brennan mockingly saying the quiet parts of corrupt politician thought processes out loud.

Cody coming out as Moon Dude and planting a kiss on Darkness Man as the two completely align with their superhero mentality. With all the Nancy shipping from Emily, it felt like a Brennan victory as Cody swept our heroic trash man off his feet. Of course, Nancy also gives him a kiss on the cheek, but I’m full Team Cody now.

Final Score (3.5 out of 5 Stars)

Nothing felt more like a disowning of this season than Brennan repeating that he’s unfamiliar with the game as he gave the players chance after chance to not absolutely wreck themselves. I get the feeling that no one expected the level of chaos that happened, or if they did, it was fully them letting loose to de-stress.

Then again, we have been seeing an increase across the last few seasons when it comes to not editing out the worst of the digressions. A loss of a half-hour in the beginning of most of this season’s episodes would likely have meant only 10 episodes, and I’m sure folks would have complained about such a short season, but I think having a cut and uncut version would be better, so that those who enjoy the prolonged bits can still have them while those who are more plot-driven can have things a bit less chaotic. Of course, that could be a slippery slope, and everyone has their own feelings on where to draw the line. Let me know which you’d prefer in the comments.

This season felt like a game of Calvinball. I sincerely hope that the next season is not, but for all the crazy lows and insane peaks, I didn’t hate this roller coaster, but I wouldn’t ride it again. The cast undoubtedly realized this. Emily points out that fans of the game likely hate what’s happening, and Brennan called out that anyone who was a fan of Vampire: The Masquerade likely stopped watching way earlier in the series. At least, they’re self-aware.

Let us know what you thought in comments below or go over to our Discord channel to join the conversation.

Featured Image: Dimension 20

The Boss Rush Podcast: The Flagship Podcast of Boss Rush Media and the Boss Rush Network

The Boss Rush Podcast – The Boss Rush Podcast is the flagship podcast of Boss Rush Media and the Boss Rush Network. Each week, Corey, Stephanie, LeRon, and their friends from around the internet come together with other creators, developers, and industry veterans to talk about games they’ve been playing, discuss video game and entertainment based topics, and answer questions solicited on social media and the community Discord. 

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