LogFAQs > #968131866

I want to again make it very clear that the session Im about to refer to came within one week of Warpath, where a PC was killed (for the first time in two campaigns) as a direct result of me making a really bad decision that I still feel guilty about to this day. And one week later, I met La Dama for the first time. Prior to this meeting, we interacted with some of her underlings at the El Paso police station, one of whom had seemingly printed out a picture of Texan superhero El Diablo, while giving us a story that hed be captured by the Society. This stood out to us enough that, when we finally got to meet with La Dama, locked inside her limousine, the subject came up. Bloodfruit asked a question about El Diablo, which made La Dama suspicious, and this came back on Pepper with the lie of Yeah, Peppers from Texas so she knows all about El Diablo.

Again, we were locked in La Damas limousine, and we were trying at that point to get information that would allow us to rescue Traci Thirteen from La Dama siphoning away her magic; we were not the ones in control of this situation. And the second Pepper became the focus of this El Diablo discussion, La Dama did not waste any time. She immediately pulled out a knife and insisted that Pepper slice her own wrist open. In that moment, there were so many thoughts and emotions going through my head that it was almost impossible to process. One: is she telling me to kill myself? Two: Im gonna get acid blood all over the floor of her limo and thats just gonna piss her off. Three: this woman is a monstrous psychopath and we should just kill her. Four: if we just kill her, Tracis fucked and all of this, including Taliesins death will have been for nothing.

Ultimately, my brain settled on going along with what she wanted, but filing La Dama under fuck this bitch. Pepper sliced open her wrist and La Dama was IMMEDIATELY fucking investigating that shit. It wasnt for acid purposes, because Pepper was clutching that wrist like her grip was a tourniquet and focusing all her willpower of keeping her blood normal. But after a thorough investigation, La Dama determined Pepper was clean and immediately began grilling us about where wed REALLY heard El Diablos name from. In the immediate aftermath of this woman FORCING A PC TO SELF-HARM, we naturally didnt want to get anyone in trouble, but Officer Ybarras name came out all the same. There was no hesitation at that point; La Dama drove like a bat out of hell to the police station, entered, and shot Yolanda in the head, no questions asked.

Up until this point, I cannot stress enough that every action La Dama had taken since Id met her was one of a monster and a crime boss that we absolutely did not want to be involved with. We had Jaime back at Zonn Zorr and he was a good guy, and we knew La Dama was doing some truly heinous shit. No matter HOW psychotic La Llarona was, it seemed like the decision between the two women was clear. But then that light switch flipped in an instant when La Dama carved off Yolandas hand and revealed the saline solution and wiring within. Officer Yolanda Ybarra had been an OMAC the whole time, infiltrating La Damas organization as the OMACs are wont to do. Suddenly, her actions were not those purely of a mafiosa trying to flex her muscles and intimidate us, but rather those of an extremely shrewd and intelligent woman who didnt become a massive player in the drug trade by playing fast and loose with her own protection.

That whole scenario changed everything for me, because even though Pepper was terrified of this woman, and still reeling from having to slash open her own wrist, it all tracked from a logical perspective. The OMACs are clearly a massive threat, both with their offensive capabilities and their sleeper cell potential, and yet here is a non-Society crime boss who is actively working up plans to ferret out OMACs and deal with them accordingly. For someone like Pepper, for whom intelligence and rationality are often times paramount in whether or not she feels like she can work with a person, La Dama instantaneously proved herself a solid ally to have around. For the rest of the party? Not so much. Spirit and Bloodfruit were more neutral, and Brennus fucking hated her guts (in large part due to the Traci stuff, and later because it came out that La Dama had killed one of La Llaronas children). But that complexity for an interesting character and an interesting storyline.