Session 09 Wrap Up

[!info] Canon State Session 9 played on 16 April 2026, taking the Wächter combat from mid-Round 3 through the immediate aftermath of the masquerade and concluding with Adler bound and broken in the cellar of the Order’s Vienna safehouse. Every claim below is sourced either to session9_play_notes.md or to the live GM chat that ran alongside play. Where the transcript and the chat diverge, the chat is treated as authoritative because the GM issued rulings there in real time.

1. What Happened — Narrative Recap

The chaos at Palais_Lobkowitz reached a fever pitch in Round 3. A bronze-scaled Wächter rose from the headless corpse of Mikhail on the dance floor and turned its attention on Vladimir, raking its claws across his chest and shoulder in a spray of blood that splattered across Freddy’s face. Freddy dragged at the wounded officer, but Vladimir’s legs gave out and he crashed to the parquet. A second Wächter came barrelling out of a side corridor and bounced off the walls before giving chase. Adler sprinted across the dance floor and vaulted the refreshment tables with Sasha and Nikolai_Volkonsky pounding after him. Sasha’s flying tackle missed by a yard, and he crashed into an end table in a heap of silverware and tablecloths. In the same breath, Georgiana — sharp-eyed in the pandemonium — registered two critical details. Baron von Kaunitz was gone, slipped away via the balcony with the calm of a man who had simply grown bored of the evening. And at the far wall, a domino-masked man with a half-drawn pistol stood frozen, his eyes locked on Adrien: Captain Vogel, identified at once beneath the mask, there as a Kaunitz surveillance asset and caught now in a scene he had not been warned about. He held a breath, then turned and fled through the main entrance, leaving the carnage behind him.

Varrio wasted no time. He tore a strip of tablecloth, wrapped it around a salvaged chair leg, doused it in a cracked bottle of cognac bleeding across the parquet — paused to take a swig — and lit the whole thing from a still-smouldering candle stub that had fallen from the shattered chandelier. The torch erupted in a whoosh of flame, and the nearest Wächter reared back from Vladimir with an unearthly screech. Across the ballroom Katherine shouted the party toward the windows; Emma smashed a chair through the nearest one, opening a body-sized gap over the flat lead-sheeted roof of the port-cochère eight feet below. Thomas leapt through and landed in a crouch, turning to help the others — but Fräulein Lindqvist jumped too hard and sailed past him at an angle, and he lunged, caught her by the arm and the dress, and ended up flattened on the roof, half-hanging off the edge, the singer dangling above a ten-foot drop to the cobblestones of the Spiegelgasse below.

Katherine fired her pistol at the fleeing Adler, forcing him to throw himself to the ground and skid across the parquet, halting his progress just outside the withdrawing-room door. Freddy, watching Varrio’s success with fire, tore cloth from his own clothing and fashioned a second flame in a frantic motion. The effect was immediate. Both creatures recoiled from the fire with a desperation that bordered on terror, scrabbling backwards across the hardwood floor like animals fleeing a bonfire. Varrio pressed his advantage, ran up to the second Wächter as it leapt at him, and thrust his torch directly into its jaw. The creature ignited instantly and completely, going up like a Roman candle in a roar of unnatural flame, thrashing and shrieking on the ballroom floor before it was still. Nobody had expected to kill one of the horrors, let alone so dramatically. The first Wächter, unfettered by the dying commands, bounded across the dance floor and pounced on the fallen Vladimir, wrapping its tongue around his neck and gnashing at his face and jaw — his muffled screams rose through the creature’s mouth before fading. Across the ballroom, Adler — sprawled on the parquet with a viable exit still possible through the withdrawing-room window — struck his tuning fork against the floor and recalled the third remaining Wächter from the port-cochère roof. In the alleyway below, Thomas pushed Anna behind him and raised a stone; the creature shuddered, turned, and tumbled clumsily back down to the cobblestones, drawn by the fork’s summons. Georgiana met the second Wächter as it came sprinting out of the corridor, twisted aside, and raked her sword across its flank in a single fluid cut that spilled dark ichor across the dance floor.

Georgiana had been watching every move Adler made. As he scrambled to his feet and sprinted for the withdrawing-room window, she was already in position between him and every possible exit. She caught up in a single decisive stride and swept her sword low, slicing through both of his Achilles tendons in one fluid motion. Adler collapsed with a scream, fetching up against the window with blood pooling beneath him. Emma rushed forward to seize the fork; Adler, even in his agony, drove his knife up under her arm and inflicted a deep and serious wound before Nikolai and Sasha crashed into him like a wall and pummelled him into the floor. Varrio stepped on Adler’s wrist and pressed his torch to the man’s hand until the fork clattered free, and Katherine dove for it — and the moment her fingers closed around it she was struck by a brief, disorienting vision she could not quite explain. The surviving Wächter reached the broken ballroom window and clambered up. Georgiana touched the fork in Katherine’s hand and through some unknown sympathy of brass and blood saw through the creature’s eyes — an alien colour spectrum, its claws as her own limbs — and for a moment forced it to sit submissively on the cobblestones outside. The link fractured and she lost it, paying a point of sanity for the trespass. Varrio, in the courtyard below and ignorant of any of this, stepped around the corner and saw the creature sitting there. He set it on fire without hesitation. It burned. Moments later, as the party regrouped in the withdrawing room to plan their exit, Georgiana asked for the fork and Katherine handed it to her without a word. It has not left Georgiana’s person since.

The escape from the Palais was a scramble of bodies through broken windows and darkened gardens. Varrio navigated the walled rose parterres and the iron-spiked fencing to reach Charles and the carriage, waving his torch to keep any remaining Wächter at bay. Adler was bound hand and foot with strips of gold brocade rope and tassels torn from the ballroom hangings, and the entire party — with Nikolai, Sasha, and a catatonic Fräulein Lindqvist wrapped in a borrowed cape — piled into the carriage. They picked up Thomas and Anna on the Spiegelgasse as they fled, and Charles drove hard for the Josefstadt district as police whistles began to echo through the Vienna night. Ten minutes later, Thaliastraße 12 opened its door to them for the first and, by Thurner’s standing order, almost certainly the last time. Inside, Varrio found the upper garret arranged as an observation post, with a clear view of the street below and a rooftop hatch that opened onto the neighbouring rooftops — an emergency exit spanning three houses in either direction. In the cellar, behind a section of false brickwork, the hidden cache was exactly as Thurner had described: two cavalry pistols, forty rounds of ammunition, an Austrian-pattern sabre, thirty feet of rope, and several lanterns with oil.

Adler was hauled down the rickety cellar steps and tied to a rickety wooden chair. His heels were ruined, his left hand burned to a blackened claw, his face a map of bruises from the Russians’ attentions. The interrogation that followed was thorough, if unconventional — every attempt to first-aid the screaming prisoner only seemed to cause him more pain, until he was begging them to stop helping him and simply answer their questions. What he revealed was considerable. The party’s stolen occult books and Marina’s notebook were in the Polizeidirektion’s ground-floor strong room under Vogel’s authority, accessible only to officers of captain rank and above. A secret passage behind a bookcase in Professor Herzfeld’s University office led directly to the anatomical theatre below, bypassing the main guard station entirely. Anna was confirmed as the essential and irreplaceable final piece of the ritual — no backup soprano, no time to prepare one. The name Caroline Hartley, a dark-haired English music student, was mentioned as a potential future target. Adler explained the fork’s mechanics — A=432 Hz, rhythmic commands coded in the spacing of strikes — and admitted the Wächter were not crafted things but rather the unsuccessful by-products of the Brotherhood’s integration process. When Nikolai demanded to know what had happened to his missing friends, Adler’s answer was chilling: they had been integrated into the machine. They had transcended. One more dormant Wächter, he added, lay inert in his carriage, waiting. As the first grey light of dawn crept over the rooftops of Josefstadt, the party sat with a hamstrung prisoner, a traumatised soprano, two grieving Russian officers, a tuning fork of terrible power, and exactly six days until the fifteenth.

2. Branch Resolved — Branch 2 (Adler captured alive)

The Session 9 Plan’s §2 matrix resolves unambiguously on Branch 2. Adler is alive, bound, and in the party’s custody at Thaliastraße 12. Two Wächter were killed on site at the Palais. The third Wächter, dormant in Adler’s carriage and never deployed, is now unaccounted for — the carriage was almost certainly at the Palais’s carriage entrance or in the Minoritenplatz when the party fled, and is no longer in the party’s line of sight.

This is Branch 2’s highest-leverage variant. The party did not merely capture Adler — they also recovered the command fork intact, extracted Anna, kept Nikolai and Sasha as loyal witnesses, and produced a complete interrogation before dawn. The operational position is as strong as it gets. The political exposure, by contrast, is as bad as it gets (see §5).

3. PC Carry-Forward

Adrien de Montferrand (Anna)

• Still carries the civilian shooting from the end of Session 8. Vogel’s legal pretext is untouched — if anything, Vogel’s own panicked flight from the ballroom means he witnessed the shooting personally.
• Player-stated direction: Adrien is in the safehouse at dawn on the 9th. No stated plan yet for the morning’s first move; whatever he decides shapes the Ballhausplatz posture.
• Relationships shifted: Caroline is now named as a future Brotherhood target. This is no longer an abstract romance subplot — her safety is suddenly operational.

Freddy Cavendish (Jay)

• Freddy held his nerve next to a bleeding Russian officer in the middle of a monster attack, then built his own torch from Varrio’s example. The torch tactic is now canon-shared.
• Player-stated direction: Freddy brought Thomas’s stance about standing with the wounded into the safehouse. He is an obvious bridge to Nikolai and Sasha in their grief and rage.
• Carries forward: The Bauer brothers’ Black Bear address from Fischbein is untouched intelligence. Freddy is the obvious Bauer-raid lead.

Emma Wentworth (Missy)

• Took a major wound from Adler’s knife during the fork scramble — deep under the arm, serious enough that Thomas refused to leave her bedside at the safehouse. Requires Medicine / surgery within hours and a doctor discreet enough not to draw Vogel.
• Player-stated direction: Emma is incapacitated in the safehouse bedroom. Whatever Missy wants Emma to do next has to go through the convalescence window.
• Relationships shifted: Thomas’s devotion is now publicly and undeniably canon — he stayed at her side in preference to any other duty. Sternberg and the dawn duel are now operating under an entirely different set of realities.

Georgiana Wentworth (Beth)

• The defining combatant of Session 9. Hamstrung Adler in a single stroke, dropped a Wächter with her sword in the corridor, briefly linked minds with a Wächter through the fork at the cost of 1 SAN. Took possession of the command fork from Katherine in the withdrawing room — the fork is hers from dawn on 9 August forward.
• Player-stated direction: Georgiana is the closest of the party to Nikolai as a grieving comrade and will almost certainly be the one who handles the Russian delegation handoff. The fork connection is a subplot seed — the fork looked back at her, and she is the one now carrying it.
• Carries forward: Thurner’s full operational packet remains in play. Her personal bond with Nikolai has deepened from “waltz partner” to “survived the same night.” Major_Andrei_Volkonsky’s reaction to Mikhail’s death is the touchpoint still waiting for her if Beth chooses to take it.

Katherine Ward (Juel)

• Recovered the fork at the capture point and carried it through the withdrawing-room handoff. Had the first disorienting vision on contact; transferred the fork to Georgiana on her request in the withdrawing room without contest. The vision itself is still hers to follow up — first contact is a private sensory datum she has not yet shared with the rest of the party.
• Player-stated direction: Katherine ran the escape window call and dispatched Charles with the note to Honoria. She is the party’s current operational foreman.
• Relationships shifted: Nell fled independently during the combat — Katherine’s newest asset exited without instructions, and where Nell is by dawn is an open question. This is Katherine’s test of the loyalty contract she signed at the masquerade.

Varrio Harrowmont (Phil)

• Killed two Wächter with a torch made from a chair leg, a tablecloth, and a leaking bottle of cognac. Used the same torch as the restraint tool on Adler’s fork hand during capture. Fire is now doctrine.
• Player-stated direction: Varrio pushed all the way through — extraction, courtyard, carriage, safehouse, cellar. He is the party’s most physically committed operator and is carrying the heaviest composite load into Session 10.
• Relationships shifted: Liesel is still waiting for what Varrio told her about Brenner; the morning duel against Sternberg is now two convalescents ahead of him (Emma, Adler); Maria von Thun’s invitation for the evening of the 9th remains real social capital.

Thomas Wyndham (Keeper NPC)

• Survived the jump. Caught Anna. Stayed with Emma. The jump-and-catch on the port-cochère is the set-piece he’ll be remembered for.
• Status entering Session 10: At Emma’s bedside. Unwilling to leave until a doctor arrives. The dawn duel against Sternberg is the open question of Session 10 Phase 1 — Thomas cannot realistically appear at the Linienwall gates at dawn on the 9th unless someone physically extracts him from Emma’s room.

4. What Carries Forward — Unresolved at Dawn on 9 August

Adler in the cellar

Adler is bound to a chair in the cellar, both heels severed, one hand burned. He has told them everything under torture. The party now owns a living Brotherhood Oberführer with nowhere clean to put him. Every option in Session 9 Plan §2 Branch 2’s holding matrix is still in play: White Ox burns, Thaliastraße 12 is already burning, Palais Kinsky endangers the convalescing Charlotte and the Hartleys, Thurner requires transport time, the Russians want him personally, Harcourt’s embassy is sovereign soil. This is the first decision the party makes on the morning of the 9th.

The command fork

The fork is in Georgiana’s hand — Katherine grabbed it at the moment Adler was disarmed and carried it to the withdrawing room, but when Georgiana asked for it there she passed it across without comment. It is brass, A=432 Hz, etched with the Brotherhood crest, and it appears to establish a brief psychic link to any Wächter within range when handled by a living person. Katherine’s disorienting vision on first contact and Georgiana’s borrowed-sight moment both suggest the fork is not a passive controller but an active conduit. Whatever the party does with it next — keep it, destroy it, strike it in the anatomical theatre — is the single highest-stakes physical decision in the chapter.

Anna, conscious and sedated

Fräulein Lindqvist is asleep in a separate bedroom under brandy and laudanum. When she wakes, the Session 8 Plan’s Anna interrogation is fully available — Bäckerstrasse 14, Adler’s rooms, the screaming under the floor, the side entrance to the University. Her testimony corroborates everything Adler said in the cellar.

Emma’s wound

Emma is in the front bedroom with Thomas refusing to leave her side. The wound is serious — under the armpit, probably nicked a lung. Fischbein is not a doctor. Bringing a doctor to Thaliastraße 12 burns the asset further; moving Emma is dangerous. The party sent Charles with an urgent note to Honoria before dawn. Honoria’s response determines the morning’s first scene.

The third Wächter

The Wächter dormant on Adler’s carriage never deployed. The carriage was in the Palais courtyard or Minoritenplatz when the party fled. That Wächter is now loose Brotherhood inventory in the custody of whoever reaches the carriage first. Most plausibly Brotherhood retrievers dispatched by Kaunitz or Vogel retrieve it before dawn; the party does not have it, does not know exactly where it is, and may face it again.

The Brotherhood’s dawn awareness

Herzfeld learns of Adler’s capture from Kaunitz at or near dawn. He does not know what Adler has told the party, so he assumes the worst. Per Branch 2 canon: this is the most dangerous branch for the Brotherhood’s internal state, and therefore the most dangerous branch for the party going forward. Expect the University to fortify, the remaining Wächter (including the one that just came off the carriage) to be repositioned as defensive assets, and the Bauer brothers to be recalled to the building as muscle.

Kaunitz and Vogel, still in the city

Kaunitz walked off the terrace. Vogel ran through the main entrance after personally witnessing Adrien’s civilian shooting and identifying Georgiana as the woman who saw him in the mask. Both senior survivors of the night are Brotherhood-aligned, both know the party’s faces, and both have the Austrian state apparatus at their disposal.

Nikolai and Sasha, now in the safehouse

Two Russian Imperial Guard officers are in the Order’s Vienna safehouse, having helped capture a Brotherhood Oberführer and heard his cellar confession. The Russian delegation’s search for Mikhail and for Nikolai’s absence begins at first light. The Order’s exposure through the Russians is now total — Nikolai and Sasha know the safehouse, know the party’s names, and have personal grievance against the Brotherhood.

Nell, missing

Nell fled independently during the combat. Where she went is unknown. She is Katherine’s asset; Katherine has a loyalty contract to honour. The first thing Katherine does at dawn on the 9th is a find-Nell priority scene.

Caroline Hartley, named as a future target

Adler mentioned Caroline Hartley by name as a potential substitute should the Brotherhood’s primary plans be disrupted. The party’s most established romantic interest in Vienna is now on the Brotherhood’s reserve list. This is Adrien’s problem first and the party’s problem second. The Hartleys remain at Palais_Kinsky and do not yet know.

The political fallout (§5) begins in hours

Nothing from the Session 9 Plan §3 has happened yet — Metternich’s apparatus has not yet moved, Harcourt has not yet summoned, Vogel’s arrest warrant is not yet issued, the Wiener Zeitung has not yet printed the official narrative. All of that begins between now and breakfast.

The duel at dawn

Sternberg vs Thomas was scheduled for dawn on 9 August. It is now dawn on 9 August. Thomas is in the safehouse at Emma’s bedside. Whether the duel runs, is deferred, or is abandoned is a Session 10 Phase 1 question — the Session 9 Plan’s three options (runs-as-written, withdrawn-in-private, deferred) are all still on the table.

5. World State

• In-game time: Dawn, 9 August 1814. Josefstadt rooftops grey with first light.
• Ritual countdown: 6 days to midnight, 15 August — about to collapse to 5 with the new day.
• Alert Level: 3, escalating to 4 by mid-morning as the political apparatus activates.
• Primary location: Thaliastraße 12, Josefstadt district. Garret observation post confirmed, cellar cache opened, Adler in the cellar, Anna in the first-floor bedroom, Emma in the parlour bedroom with Thomas. Nikolai and Sasha present.
• Palais_Lobkowitz: Crime scene. The palace has suffered another night of damage — a second broken ballroom window, burning remains of two Wächter, one hamstrung officer-cultist bloody against the withdrawing-room window (vacated with the party), scattered silverware and shattered cognac bottles, blood on the port-cochère roof.
• Brotherhood losses to date: Brenner (killed Aug 4), Trautmannsdorff (Order custody, cooperating since Aug 7), Adler (captured Aug 9, interrogated). Three of four senior conspirators down. Herzfeld and Kaunitz remain.
• Party losses: Emma with a major wound; 1 SAN from Georgiana for the Wächter-sight trespass; unknown psychic cost from Katherine’s first-contact vision with the fork.
• NPC losses: Mikhail dead at the Palais. Vladimir badly wounded (clawed chest/shoulder, tongue-choked, mauled to the face before Varrio’s torch drove the Wächter off). Unknown Palais civilians killed in the glass, chandelier, and withdrawing-room attacks.
• Assets gained tonight: Adler alive, command fork in hand, Anna extracted, interrogation complete, Nikolai and Sasha in direct partnership, Herzfeld’s secret passage known, Polizeidirektion evidence room location known, Caroline Hartley identified as a reserve target.
• Assets spent: Thaliastraße 12 is burned (the Order’s last Vienna safehouse is in active use).

6. Keeper Checklist — Session 10 Prep

Concrete, prep-facing. This is the minimum the Keeper needs to have drafted before Session 10 runs.

• [ ] Honoria’s dawn response to Charles’s note. Decide whether she comes to Thaliastraße 12 in person, sends a doctor via courier, sends Harcourt, or does all three. Draft the note back.
• [ ] The doctor question. Decide who a discreet, safehouse-safe doctor is in Josefstadt and how they arrive. Fischbein can procure one; Honoria can send an Order physician. Write the NPC into the vault if you need one — probably an Order asset rather than a civilian.
• [ ] Adler’s holding decision (party-facing). Run the five-option matrix from Session 9 Plan §2 Branch 2 at the top of Session 10: White Ox / Thaliastraße / Palais Kinsky / hand to Thurner / hand to Harcourt at the embassy / hand to the Russians. Let the party decide, then commit the consequences.
• [ ] Vogel’s dawn report to Kaunitz. Decide the content. Vogel was ordered there for surveillance and instead personally witnessed the Adrien civilian shooting, the Georgiana identification, and his own ballroom flight. His report will compromise him with Kaunitz as much as it compromises the party with Vogel. Kaunitz’s response — cover Vogel or cut him loose — is the key Kaunitz decision of the morning.
• [ ] Metternich’s press line. The Wiener Zeitung breakfast edition for 9 August. Per Session 9 Plan §3, choose one of: fire, anarchists, malfunctioning stage machinery, mass poisoning. Draft the article in ant-voice-writer voice, in German register. This is a Phase 1 handout.
• [ ] The Ballhausplatz summons. Decide who delivers it, when, and in what form (courier, plainclothes officer, public guard). Draft in ant-voice-writer. High stakes — Metternich’s voice is the voice.
• [ ] Harcourt’s posture decision. Pre-empt Metternich, stand with the party, or distance the Order (§3 three-option matrix). The Branch-2 outcome with Adler alive and a full interrogation makes stand with the party much more plausible than it would have been with any other branch. Make a call and brief Honoria accordingly.
• [ ] The third Wächter’s recovery. Where is Adler’s carriage at dawn, and who has reached it first? Probable answer: a Brotherhood retriever dispatched by Kaunitz’s evening instructions collected it within an hour of the attack. The dormant Wächter is now at the University. Commit or adjust.
• [ ] Liesel’s conversion approach. With Adler captured and dead-to-the-Brotherhood, Liesel’s threshold is lower than Session 9 Plan anticipated. Decide her approach vector and timing — most plausibly a morning note or a second direct approach within 24 hours. Has to reconcile with what Varrio told her at the ball (player-facing question for Phil).
• [ ] Prince Lobkowitz. Decide whether he is reachable. The palace took catastrophic second-night damage; his financial situation (per Caroline) was already fragile. Decide whether the Hartley angle unlocks the introduction.
• [ ] Sternberg and the duel. The three options (runs / withdrawn / deferred) are on the table. Thomas is at Emma’s bedside. Most dramatically interesting option: Sternberg arrives at the Linienwall gates, waits, then comes to Thaliastraße looking for Thomas in person — which would expose the safehouse again. Next most interesting: Sternberg, having witnessed the Wächter, withdraws the challenge privately by note delivered to Palais_Kinsky in the morning.
• [ ] Caroline Hartley’s safety. Now a reserve Brotherhood target. Decide whether Mrs Hartley’s Herzfeld-introduction scheme activates during Session 10 (very dangerous timing), and whether the Hartleys are told or shielded. This is the Adrien moral problem.
• [ ] The Ballhausplatz office. Pre-draft Metternich’s office read-aloud. Decide whether Metternich himself or Gentz meets the party. Historical sources in Session 9 Plan §3.
• [ ] Nell’s morning location. She fled the ballroom independently. Decide where she went. Most plausible: back to her London-underworld Vienna contacts, probably near the Leopoldstadt river markets, because that is where she knows people who will not ask questions.
• [ ] Vladimir’s medical status. He took a severe claw wound and then had a Wächter tongue round his neck. Was he retrieved with the party in the carriage flight, or left for the authorities? The play notes describe a chaotic extraction and Mikhail is confirmed dead on the floor — Vladimir’s fate in the flight is the ambiguity that most needs resolving before Session 10 opens. Ruling at the top of Session 10 will determine whether the Russian delegation’s search for Nikolai is looking for him or looking for the body.

7. Quality Notes

• What worked in prep: The Vogel-at-ball hidden-guest addition landed — Georgiana spotted him instantly and the moment of recognition became a defining scene beat. The Wächter command priority callout (“Anna is prey, not kill”) played cleanly at the table — Wächter did not lunge past PCs at Anna and the mechanical reframing held through Round 3. The fork recovery scenarios in Session 9 Plan §2 covered every likely pathway and Branch 2 resolved exactly as prepped.
• What was missing: Thaliastraße 12’s top floor was a canon gap going into Session 9 — the vault file only described the ground floor and first floor. Filled in real time with the garret observation post and rooftop hatch. Now retroactively canonised in the safehouse file. Lesson: any Order safehouse description should resolve every floor before it first appears in play.
• What was missing (2): Vladimir’s extraction status was not addressed in the play notes after the Wächter pounce. This is the single ambiguity carrying into Session 10 that will need a ruling at the top of the session. A “Russian officer casualty table” would have prevented this — simple checkboxes per officer per round.
• What surprised us: Varrio’s torch went from desperate gamble to mission doctrine in two rounds. Fire turned out to be the Wächter’s hard counter. Adler’s interrogation was driven in large part by failed first-aid rolls that made his wounds worse every time a PC tried to help — the Keeper let the dice play it as accidental comedy, and it lowered Adler’s resistance faster than any intimidation check. Georgiana’s momentary psychic contact with the dying Wächter through the fork is now a live subplot seed neither the prep nor the skill-stack had anticipated.
• Adjustment for next time: The party has three medical problems at dawn (Emma, Vladimir, Adler) and is hiding all three in a single townhouse. The medical-triage scene at the top of Session 10 wants a clear set of NPC-doctor options on the prep sheet before play opens.

8. Updated Entities

The following entity files have been or will be updated in the vault to reflect Session 9 canon. Changes are summarised here for receipts; the actual vault edits are applied in this wrap-up pass.

Anton_Adler

• status changes from alive, exposed, fleeing, separated from Anna (post-Session 8) → captured alive, hamstrung (both Achilles severed), left hand burned, interrogated, in party custody at [Thaliastrasse_12_Safehouse](../../../locations/thaliastrasse-12-safehouse.html) cellar
• New section added: Session 9 Update — Capture and Interrogation — records hamstring by Georgiana, torch to the hand by Varrio, capture by Nikolai/Sasha, and the full cellar interrogation transcript
• canon_status remains AUTHORITATIVE; the “Active Pursuit” Session 8 callout is superseded by the Session 9 capture section
• Knowledge Adler has now surrendered (no longer a Keeper-Only list): Polizeidirektion strong room location and Vogel’s authority; Herzfeld office bookcase secret passage to the anatomical theatre; Anna is the irreplaceable final ritual piece; Caroline Hartley named as potential substitute; fork mechanics (432 Hz, rhythmic command spacing: 1 long = attack, 2 quick = guard, 3 short = retreat, 1 short = wait, 1 long + soft taps = pursue); Vektors are the Brotherhood’s failed integration subjects; one more dormant Wächter in his carriage; Nikolai’s missing friends “integrated into the machine”

Harmonische_Wachter

• Two Wächter killed at Palais Lobkowitz on 8–9 August 1814 — one torched by Varrio on the ballroom floor, one torched in the palace courtyard after Georgiana’s momentary fork-mediated control
• Confirmed weakness: Wächter have a hard aversion to open flame. Fire is now canon doctrine.
• New canon: The command fork appears to be a two-way conduit. Georgiana, touching the fork after capture, briefly saw through a Wächter’s eyes in an alien colour spectrum and forced the creature to sit submissively. The link fractured without apparent effort on the Wächter’s part. 1 SAN cost. Mechanic to be formalised — treat any PC holding the fork as potentially able to attempt a psychic linkage at POW-based roll with SAN cost, per Keeper discretion.
• Third Wächter (dormant, carriage) — never deployed, whereabouts now unknown. Almost certainly retrieved by Brotherhood operatives before dawn and moved to the University.

Anna_Lindqvist

• status: alive, in party custody, traumatised (post-Session 8 extraction) → alive, sedated, at [Thaliastraße 12](../../../locations/thaliastrasse-12-safehouse.html) (first-floor bedroom), shock response, laudanum + brandy administered
• New subsection: Session 9 Update — Arrival at the Safehouse — records the port-cochère catch, the shock state on arrival, the sedation protocol, the separation from the primary cellar activity
• Note: Anna’s testimony from the Session 8 Plan remains pending; she has not yet spoken in connected sentences as of dawn 9 August

Command_Tuning_Fork

• current_holder: [Anton_Adler](../../../characters/npcs/anton-adler.html) (in his coat pocket) → [Georgiana_Wentworth](../../../characters/pcs/georgiana-wentworth.html) (handed to her by [Katherine](../../../characters/pcs/katherine-ward.html) in the withdrawing room at Palais Lobkowitz upon Georgiana's request; carried by Georgiana since)
• Canon Addition: The fork appears to establish a brief psychic link between holder and nearby Wächter. Katherine experienced a disorienting vision on first contact. Georgiana, touching the fork in Katherine’s hand, saw through a Wächter’s senses and forced it to sit submissively before the link fractured. 1 SAN cost documented. The fork transferred to Georgiana’s custody in the withdrawing room before the party extracted.
• Branch Matrix section updated: Branch 2 resolved; fork now in party possession.

Ludwig_Vogel

• New section: Session 9 Update — Seen at the Masquerade (Exposed Asset)
• Canon: Vogel attended the masquerade in a domino mask on Kaunitz’s orders as surveillance, not as a ritual participant. He was not briefed on the Wächter deployment and was caught in the chaos. Georgiana identified him beneath the mask. He personally witnessed Adrien’s civilian shooting from Session 8. He fled the ballroom through the main entrance.
• Implication: Vogel enters Session 10 in an impossible position — exposed to the party (Georgiana can identify him), exposed to Kaunitz (he ran instead of containing), and now responsible for the official Geheimpolizei investigation into the incident. Expect him to compensate aggressively by pursuing Adrien on the civilian shooting charge.

Otto_von_Kaunitz

• Session 9 addendum: Kaunitz exited via the balcony without casualty, as anticipated in Session 8 canon. He is the uncontested silent winner of the masquerade. Operational lead in the city as of 9 August while Adler is in party custody and Herzfeld is isolated at the University.
• Probable first action: informing Herzfeld of Adler’s capture in person before dawn, and ordering Brotherhood retrievers to the Palais courtyard for Adler’s carriage (and its dormant Wächter).

Russian_Officers_Volkonsky_Detail and Nikolai_Volkonsky

• Mikhail: Killed at the masquerade (already canon from Session 8).
• Vladimir: Clawed across chest and shoulder (4 damage tracked in live chat), knocked down, then pounced on by the first Wächter with tongue around his neck and gnashing at his face before Varrio’s torch drove the creature off. Left behind at the Palais during the party’s flight. Found by authorities on the ballroom floor. Dead or dying — two Russian Imperial Guard officers now lost at a single Lobkowitz ball. (Keeper ruling, Session 10 reconciliation, 21 April 2026.)
• Sasha: Intact. Failed his flying tackle on Adler, recovered, joined Nikolai in tackling Adler at the end of Round 3+. Assisted in the binding and extraction. Now at Thaliastraße 12.
• Nikolai: Intact. Led the pursuit across the refreshment tables. Tackled Adler with Sasha. Was in the cellar for the interrogation and demanded the “missing friends” answer. Now in direct operational partnership with the party.

Emma_Wentworth

• Major wound: Deep stab under the right arm from Adler’s knife during the fork scramble at the withdrawing-room window. Knife went in at an angle suggesting it may have nicked a lung; confirmation pending medical examination. CoC 7e Major Wound threshold crossed; POW roll on taking the wound.
• Status: Convalescing in the parlour bedroom at Thaliastraße 12 under Thomas Wyndham’s vigil and Katherine’s first-aid.

Thaliastrasse_12_Safehouse

• canon_status promoted from DRAFT → AUTHORITATIVE (the asset has been used; its description is now fixed)
• Top floor now canonised: Garret observation post with a clear view of the street below, rooftop hatch opening onto the neighbouring rooftops, emergency exit spanning three houses in either direction. Found during Varrio’s search on 9 August.
• Occupants (end of Session 9): Adler (cellar, bound), Anna (first-floor bedroom, sedated), Emma (parlour bedroom, wounded), Thomas (at Emma’s side), Varrio, Georgiana, Katherine, Freddy, Adrien, Nikolai, Sasha, and Charles (dispatched with a note to Honoria). Charlotte remains at Palais_Kinsky, convalescing; she was not at the masquerade.
• Asset state: Activated and burning on the 10-minute timer Thurner warned about. Do not expect this location to remain usable through Session 10 without compromise.

Palais_Lobkowitz

• Added to existing Session 8 damage: second broken ballroom window (Emma’s chair), two burned Wächter corpses on the ballroom floor and in the courtyard, blood from Adler’s severed heels against the withdrawing-room window, bloodstain on the port-cochère roof from Thomas catching Anna, scattered cognac and silverware along the refreshment tables from the pursuit.
• Now a Vienna crime scene. Police whistles were echoing as the party fled at ~midnight. Expect the Geheimpolizei, then the Polizeidirektion, to have sealed the building by dawn.

Caroline_Hartley

• New section: Session 9 Canon — Named as Brotherhood Reserve Target
• Canon: Per Adler’s cellar interrogation, Caroline Hartley is named as a potential future target — a “dark-haired English music student” on the Brotherhood’s reserve list if the primary plans are disrupted. She does not know. The Hartley family remain at Palais_Kinsky and do not know.
• Implication for the Adrien arc: Adrien’s open attachment to Caroline now doubles as operational danger.

Albin_Herzfeld

• Probable state at dawn on 9 August: informed by Kaunitz of Adler’s capture; not yet informed of what Adler has said. Assumes the worst. Begins fortifying the University basement (triple guards, recalled Bauer brothers, side entrance sealed or booby-trapped). Accelerates the ritual timetable toward earlier on 15 August if possible. This is a Keeper decision to commit in Session 10 prep.

Nell_Coker

• Fled the ballroom independently during the Wächter combat. Direction: down the alleyway. Whereabouts at dawn 9 August: unknown. Katherine will pursue. Most plausible location: back to her Vienna underworld contacts, probably Leopoldstadt river market area.

Charlotte_Thorne

• Not present at the masquerade. Remained at Palais_Kinsky under Pemberton’s watch, convalescing. Status unchanged from Session 7 retirement framing. (The play transcript attributes a pistol shot to “Charlotte” — this was Katherine at the table; Charlotte was not present.)

9. New Entity Files

Two long-standing NPCs lacked vault files and have been created as part of this wrap-up pass:

• Charles — Adrien’s French coachman, present since Session 1. Drove the party from Palais_Lobkowitz to Thaliastraße 12 in Session 9 and was dispatched with the urgent note to Honoria.
• François — Adrien’s second French coachman, present since Session 1. Drove Trautmannsdorff to Palais_Modena under Adrien’s orders in Session 5. Not confirmed present at the masquerade.

All other named characters from Session 9 were already in the vault.

10. Sources

• session9_play_notes.md — machine transcript of play + GM summary
• Live cowork chat during play, 16 April 2026 — initiative order, Wächter targeting ruling, Vogel stats, fork mechanics, interrogation reveals, Thaliastraße 12 top floor, Sasha’s tackle check
• Session_9_Plan — Branch matrix (§2), political fallout framework (§3), branch × politics combinations (§4), three-phase structure (§5), handouts (§7), canon grounding (§10)
• [Session_08_Wrap_Up](…/Session 8/session-08-wrap-up.html) — Combat Snapshot, positions at end of Round 2
• Session_8_Plan — Wächter 3 deployment, 10-minute command timer, Adler interrogation reveals reference
• Brotherhood_Operations — Herzfeld, Adler, Kaunitz, Vogel profiles
• player_characters — PC roster as of Session 7 prep, active status
• Call of Cthulhu 7e Keeper’s Rulebook — Major Wound threshold, opposed DEX/STR grapple rulings, Police Officer stats (p.327) for plainclothes agents
• Sly Flourish, Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master — “What’s Changed” pattern for between-session state
• Justin Alexander, The Alexandrian — “Don’t Prep Plots, Prep Situations” (Branch 2 resolution proves the situation-prep approach)