Session Report: Live Free or Die!
Adults in Cars (modified Kids on Brooms), Rural New Hampshire, 1972
Previously on Live Free or Die! Our heroes chase off the Wendigo and save a precocious child.
Session 2: Our heroes seek out the advice of an ancient spirit.
Our cast of Characters
Adrienne Mongeau - a Disaffected Activist (Mary T.)
Carl Thompson - a Nosy Reporter (Mike R.)
Deputy Bobby Doyle - an Idealistic Peacekeeper (Ryan H.)
Clear Brook Fields - an Holistic Alchemist (Peg C.)
Sargent Ted Brooks - a Shell-Shocked Veteran (Ken M.)
… and not appearing in today’s episode:
Reverend Daniel Bell - a Conflicted Minister (Mark B.)
Current Events
Our session began at the Bean Pot Diner with a discussion of current events.
One local came in with a copy of the day’s Manchester Union Leader. “Have you seen this?” The headline read “MOSKOW MUSKIE QUITS”. This was a reference to Maine Senator Edmund Muskie. An influential lawmaker, he was a principal of the civil rights movement of the sixties, and the driving force behind the Clean Air Act and the brand new Clean Water Act, a strong opponent of American involvement in Vietnam, and at one time the presumed Democratic Nominee in the Presidential election against incumbent Richard Nixon.
A pair of devastating articles just before the New Hampshire primary crippled his chances - the first, the so-called “Canuck Letter, claiming Muskie was guilty of racial insensitive comments against both African Americans and Quebecois. The second, an article by Union Leader editor William Loeb deriding Muskie’s wife as smoking, drinking, and possessing a foul-mouth.
Muskie held a press conference outside the offices of the Manchester Union-Leader, in which he insisted the articles were lies, and called Loeb “a gutless coward” for having printed them. But the emotional speech in which his voice cracked led to claims that he was crying, and Loeb leveraged that even further, claiming that such an unstable man shouldn’t have his finger on the button. Adrienne, a big Muskie supporter was there and argued that it was all untrue, but the damage had been done.
(GM - history would later prove that the letter was indeed a forgery crafted by The Committee to Re-elect the President, the same cabal that broke into the Watergate Hotel, but our characters don’t know these facts yet.)
Oh well, certainly Democratic nominee George McGovern and his recently announced running mate Lawrence Eagleton would give ol’ Tricky Dick a run for his money!
Eagleton only lasted 19 days on the ticket. No, McGovern-Shriver did not win. But no, the citizen with the paper exclaimed, not the headline but the editorial - in which William Loeb specifically criticized Coos County Sheriff Bromley Judd for being lax in law enforcement, specifically citing the recent brutal death of Leonard Beausoleil as an example.
When another local came in sporting issue #1 of the brand new Ms. Magazine from Gloria Steinem, however there was less interest.
There was still quite enough excitement left from the recent total eclipse (and a handful of tourists who hadn’t left) to be a topic of discussion.
And finally, a few interested parties had a spirited discussion about the Spassky-Fischer World Chess Championship currently taking place in Reykjavik. The diner tv was even tuned in to an analysis program.
Speaking of the Soviets, there was also a spirited debate as to whether or not it had been a good idea for Nixon to sell tons and tons of grain to the USA’s chief enemy in the cold war.
After Breakfast
As the crowd thinned out Deputy Bobby pulled Adrienne, Clear, Teddy, and Carl together. The group was already aware of each other's abilities with magic and knew to keep it quiet. Bobby explained that he, too was friends with Celia Beausoleil’s friend “Jo” and was able to get further information about The Wendigo, although Jo’s ability to communicate on a human level was tenuous and vague, but that he had directed Bobby to meet with Nis Kezos.
It took Bobby some digging, but he learned that Nis Kezos was the Abenake man who Iroquois legend says became The Great Stone Face, or The Old Man of the Mountain. Jo also warned him he would need much magic with him, so that he should invite others. And he told Clear to make sure she brought some of her fresh strawberries from Somber Acres.
From Wikipedia - According to Abenaki legend, a human named Nis Kizos was born during an eclipse. He became a good leader and provider for his community. Nis Kizos was successful enough to attend a Kchi Mahadan, which was a great gathering of communities, to trade. Tarlo, a beautiful Iroquois woman, returned with him. They fell in love. Tarlo had to return to her birth village because its people had been struck by a sickness. Nis Kizos promised he would live at the top of the mountain. By day he would look out for her, and at night he would light a fire to guide her back. With winter fast approaching, the elders sent Nis Kizos's brother, Gezosa, to bring him back. He was unsuccessful because Nis Kizos maintained his promise. Tarlo died of sickness in her birth village. After the winter, Gezosa went back up the mountain to bring the news of Tarlo and retrieve Nis Kizos. He found no signs of the existence of Nis Kizos and was stricken with sadness. On his way back down the mountain he looked back and saw that Nis Kizos had become part of the mountain as a stone face to look after the land.
Road Trip!
The group piled into Deputy Doyle’s 1972 Police Interceptor and took off south on US 3 on the way to Franconia Notch and Cannon Mountain!. The trip was not uneventful. On a quiet stretch of highway Bobby was pulled over by a State Trooper suspicious of a Coos County vehicle out of jurisdiction. The stop went from bad to worse as the Trooper spotted 18-year old Clear and questioned if she was underage. When the Trooper asked “what year were you born?” and the nervous Fields answered “1972!” (the current year) the group was asked to exit the vehicle.
When the Trooper learned that Carl Thompson was a reporter from New Bedford, Massachusetts he wanted to know what he was doing in the area. This gave Carl an opening to bring up the case of Barney and Betty Hill. Two New Hampshire residents who had allegedly been abducted by aliens on this very stretch of highway twenty years earlier. Considered by many to be the first documented alien abduction in the U.S. The Trooper groaned and asked Carl to leave him out of any story or book about the incident.
Fortunately, Bobby’s badge and ability to charm won out in the end and our group was free to go.
Finally arriving at Cannon Mountain, the group debated whether it was better to hike up in secret, or ride the aerial tramway to the summit. Either way they would need to wait for evening before they could safely seek out the advice of Nis Kezos, so they decided to pose as tourists and ride the tram.
With time to kill, most of the group elected to grab a bite at the small cafe and shop for souvenirs. Teddy bought a Cannon Mountain Tramway bumper sticker. Clear decided to stay outside, and was foraging for mountain plants that she couldn’t find at home. Carl began interviewing the tourists for local legends and was very excited to find a man of Native descent who was able to share more details than he was used to finding.
Adrienne meanwhile became concerned. She spotted two men speaking French, and while she couldn’t get close enough to hear what they were saying she found them suspicious because she identified clear techniques she was taught as a member of Front de libération du Québec; the separatist group she joined and spent most of her college years, but parted ways when their methods were becoming more and more risky and violent. Finally attempting conversation with the pair flustered them, and they retreated outdoors. If these were Quebecois terrorists they were young and inexperienced and easily flustered. Adrienne put Sgt. Teddy and Deputy Bobby on their tail. Teddy was able to use his army training to discretely tail the pair into the woods.
Bobby, meanwhile developed a friendship with Niels Nielson, a New Hampshire Highway worker who considered himself the unofficial custodian of the Great Stone Face. If Niels knew that Nis Kezos was real and retained sentience, he did not let on.
Before heading into the forest Teddy checked in with Clear, who had made a solid haul of ingredients, and had set up in a secluded picnic area to begin making a potions to help protect her friends from any evil spirits. Following the suspicious pair, Teddy noted they were clearly scouting out the area around the Great Stone Face, and eventually he sniffed the familiar smell of C4 from the backpack the pair carried.
Their intent was clear. Front de libération du Québec intended to blow up the Old Man as a symbolic strike against America. Teddy radioed in to Bobby and let them know, so the Deputy and Adrienne took to the woods to help confront the terrorists.
Meanwhile, Sgt. Teddy devised a plan. He felt confident that he could use magic to sneak up on the pair undetected (this was something he did frequently in ‘Nam). His first instinct was to knock them out, but he wasn’t sure he could take out the second before he got a chance to react to the first. So instead he snuck up and quietly snipped the bag of the man’s shoulder with his knife and ran.
Unfortunately the terrorists were quick to react and were hot on Teddy’s heels. But Bobby and Adrienne were also catching up and met with the sergeant first. Adrienne used her own skills with magic to confuse the scene, making it sound like Teddy was running off in multiple directions at once. Confused, the pair split up and tried to find them, but were not able to. Before they gave up, the group heard them say they’d blame the missing C4 on the recently reported Wendigo.
As Carl and Clear caught up (and Clear distributed her potions to the group) they discussed what to do next. They briefly thought about burying the C4 in the woods somewhere … leading to a quick concern (out of game) that it would be the hidden C4 that would cause the stone face to fall in 2003, so they went with the more obvious solution, taking it home and having some C4 on hand for themselves, just in case.
Finally as the sun set and the last tram departed for the night they approached the Great Stone Face. Unsure of what to do, Bobby took the fresh strawberries and placed it in front of the stone face like an offering. After a few minutes the stones moved and a deep, rich voice of the mountain said “Strawberries? Really? What do you think I am, Jogah? I don’t eat any more. Those strawberries look delicious and you’re just teasing me.”
Finally getting to the point, the group discussed the Wendigo, what brought it here and how to be rid of it. Of note; he referred to Bobby as “The Green Knight of the North Woods”. Nis Kezos was able to tell them a bit of relevant information.
The Wendigo is the embodiment of feral hunger, and that it was likely sated on the flesh of Leonard when the group met it, and that was probably the only thing that saved them.
The barriers between worlds are very weak in the North Woods, which is probably why it was there and not elsewhere.
The Wendigo is here because of some kind of promise. What promise, and by whom and to whom was unclear, adding that something was muddling the picture. But Nis Kezos felt learning the answer to those questions would go a long way into stopping it.
And finally in parting, to Carl, that Barney and Betty Hill were abducted, just not by a flying saucer.
The group camped out for the night, and rode the first tramway down in the morning (catching a few odd looks as they did). When they got back to the parking lot the discovered someone had placed a Cannon Mountain bumper sticker on Deputy Doyle’s Police Interceptor. Sgt. Teddy was miffed that he had to pay a dollar.
Epilogue
Upon returning to Pittsburg, Teddy had a message waiting for him from Mabel Greer, local octogenarian record-store owner. She told Teddy that her grandson - the one she frequently bragged about being roadie for an up-and-coming band from New Hampshire had been in touch. The band used the money from their first ever record deal to buy a new van, and wanted to know if Teddy wanted to buy the old one for $50 since he had worked on it so many times. He said yes.
