We each rolled to find out our connections to one another, and wound up with a complicated web of engagements:
Esmeralda: A tragically beautiful artist who had turned to thieving since her patron (Roger/Grace) wasn't too good at actually patronising her.
Humphrey: A well-meaning soldier living in London and trying to get enough money to send his poor mother to some healing springs in France to cure her ovarian dropsy.
Sebastian: Humphrey's twin, separated at birth. Sebastian fell on hard times and turned to crime to make his way in the world, working as a fence for stolen goods. He has a limp and an incredibly creepy voice.
Grace/Roger: A rich woman disguised as a man in order to become a soldier. She works alongside Humphrey and (attempts to) patronise Esmeralda to fund her art.
With our characters in place (along with some rolled Needs and Objects), we took turns around the table playing out scenes and constructing our fiasco:
!ACT ONE!
Scene 1:Hanging out in a riverside grotto by the Thames, Sebastian is skulking around when Esmeralda appears and tries to sell some ill-gotten goods to him. He responds with a clumsy attempt to seduce her, which fails when she grows uncomfortable and rapidly departs.
Scene 2: Humphrey is hanging out in the barracks with his fellow soldier, Grace, who is currently disguised as a man with a fake moustache. Humphrey is worried about his mother, who has ovarian dropsy. He consults Grace about how he might be able to raise some money to send his mother to France for a cure. Grace offers to put him in touch with her artist friends to raise some money together.
Scene 3: Having heard about Humphrey's woes, Grace heads immediately to Esmeralda's studio to consult her being able to help. Unfortunately, Esmeralda is rather cross since her patron hasn't actually paid her in a long, long time - and because Grace's unfortunate phrasing makes it sound as if she wants Esmeralda to turn to prostitution. Grace leaves without having secured any help for Humphrey, but with the need to pay Esmeralda hanging over her head.
Scene 4: On the streets of Elizabethan London, Humphrey and Esmeralda run into one another. Sparks fly between them immediately and they agree to meet again soon, this time intentionally.
Scene 5: Grace is patrolling the streets of London as Roger, fighting crime and looking for hoodlums. She runs into Sebastian, who is skulking around suspiciously on a street corner and carrying a meat hook that he claims he is bringing to his cousin a butcher. Finding his behaviour suspicious, Grace tries to arrest him - but, in the ensuing tussle, Sebastian gets a grope and realises that "Roger" isn't a man at all. He blackmails her for his silence, and threatens to go public with her true gender if she doesn't pay up soon.
Scene 6: Meanwhile, Esmeralda and Humphrey have met up at Esmeralda's art studio. She shows Humphrey her paintings and the pair flirt outrageously. Feeling that he can trust her, Humphrey gives Esmeralda his dying mother's locket, and together they come up with a business plan involving Esmeralda's art talents that will hopefully raise the money Humphrey needs in order to send his mother to France.
Scene 7: In a panic about Sebastian knowing her identity, Grace readjusts her "Roger" disguise and runs to her true friend Humphrey for help. She won't specify what she's being blackmailed about, but Humphrey agrees to help her anyway. They decide that when Sebastian sends for the blackmail money, they will send Humphrey along instead - armed to the teeth and ready to arrest this scoundrel.
Scene 8: Having been given Humphrey's mother's locket, Esmeralda goes to Sebastian to try to sell it on for cash. Looking at the locket, Sebastian recognises it as belonging to his lost lost mother and flies into a rage, vowing revenge and trying to take the locket from Esmeralda until she flees from his company in alarm.
!BREAK!
Half-way through Fiasco, we took a break to get a cup of tea and some chocolate crispies, before we came back and rolled for a tilt element. This is an element added to the game to ensure that everything would go terribly, terribly wrong. We rolled up that someone has stolen the object you stole.
!ACT TWO!
Scene 1: Sebastian walks through the streets talking to himself following his discovery of his long-lost mother's locket in Esmeralda's possession. Growing gradually more unhinged (and more drunk), he ends up trying to throw himself into the Thames.
Scene 2: Taking a walking in the evening, Humphrey hears a loud splashing in the river. He runs forward and dives into the dirty, disgusting water in order to save the fallen man - only to discover that the man he has saved, Sebastian, has the exact same face as him. They are astounded to realise that they are in fact twins, and once they get to the banks of the river they embrace happily.
Scene 3: Grace is still absorbed with her blackmail problem. Dressed as Roger, she meets Humphrey in a tavern to discuss her plan for arresting Sebastian. However, following his meeting with his long-lost twin brother, Humphrey is rather drunk and delighted. He gleefully rips off Grace's fake moustache and reveals that he has known her true identity all along and he loves her. He kisses her soundly, only to have Grace slap him and flee the tavern in alarm.
Scene 4: Esmeralda has discovered that the locket has been stolen from her possession. Since only one person knew about the locket, she goes to confront Sebastian about the theft. However, Sebastian threatens to turn her into the police for all the thieving, especially as he assumes the locket had been stolen from his new-found brother Humphrey – the price of his silence is sexual favours, to which poor Esmeralda reluctantly agrees.
Scene 5: Sebastian shows the stolen locket to Humphrey in the tavern, who tells him about their sick mother. Since Sebastian has a lot of ill-gotten gold from his work as a fence, they conspire to go to France together and drink wine while curing their mum. Huzzah!
Scene 6: Humphrey confronts Esmeralda about the locket, while incredibly drunk. His confrontation does not go incredibly well, since Esmeralda manages to convince him that she is the innocent party in all of this. Confused, Humphrey stumbles away again.
Scene 7: Still shaken from Humphrey revealing her true gender, Grace visited Esmeralda without her costume as Roger. She tells Esmeralda that she has been in love with her all these years and that is why she has tried so hard to patronise her. Now she informs Esmeralda of her plan to run away and form a new life in Spain. She asks Esmeralda to come with her, and Esmeralda agrees - they kiss, and arrange to meet at the docks at midnight.
Scene 8: Preparing to leave the country, Esmeralda gives her worldly possessions to Humphrey as a thanks for all his help. While she's there she warns him about his shady brother, Sebastian, and tells him not to trust him. Humphrey ignores her advice, but gives her his mother’s locket as thanks - now that he is reunited with his brother and they have a plan to get his mother to France, he's sure he'll no longer need it.
!AFTERMATH!
After playing out our scenes, we rolled to find out the fates of our poor characters:
Esmeralda and Grace ended up tortured and killed by the Spanish Inquisition because they’re big lesbians and probably do a bit of witchcraft too.
Humphrey learned that Grace had ran off with Esmeralda, then his brother Sebastian sold him into white slavery. Ending up in Africa as a gladiator, he discovers that his mother has died from her Ovarian Dropsy.
Sebastian, meanwhile, shrugs everything off and carries on like nothing happened, living nicely off of the profits of everyone’s worldly goods.
Oh, what a Fiasco!
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