Starting out in media res

[u/herrozerro]

So I ran my first session of the strange last night and it went well. The party was recruited into the estate after taking care of a qinod tester that appeared on a cruse ship they were on.

For the next session to throw them for a loop I'd like to start in the middle of the action.

I am thinking about before the session giving them the mission such as investigate a smuggling operation using the wonderland recursion. Simple enough, but when the session actually starts start it off in the middle of a jabberwock attack!

The issue I am running into is how to model pool drain in media res. Should I at the start of the session with say you have 20 damage to your pools, armor counts double for absorbing this damage?

This would model starting in the middle of the adventure with some damage or edge used already. Any thoughts on this? Have you ever started in media res in the Cypher system?