Nibbz' BtS Campaign Log

[Captain_Nibbz]

Saturday marked the first steps for myself and my group into the wide world of the Palladium system. As such I thought that it would be interesting to document the descent into madness and the supernatural by creating a campaign log here on the forums. We are using the first edition BtS rules.

The game ended up being a bit of a session 0, with all of the players making characters and determining how they all knew each other and what the group dynamic would be. All in all, character creation took roughly 4 hours (most of which was passing the single core book around so that everyone could choose skills). We chose to create a group comprised entirely of the "regular people" P.C.C. option and determined that they were all in their early 20's, and that they all were members of the Paranormal Investigation club at their college (the University of Southern Michigan).

We used the random background generator for all of the characters, which ended up yielding some very interesting characters. The cast is as follows:

Dirk Dickerson III - A pretentious know-it-all majoring in parapsychology, lives off of a trust fund set up by rich relatives, has always been interested in the occult and his family's wealth allows him to pursue that interest professionally.
Beatrice White - A mousy-by-day/street fighter by night kind of girl, majoring in family sciences. She has had a ghostly companion with her ever since she was a small girl.
Harry Podder - A wise cracking prankster with a penchant for the medical field. He spent some not-inconsiderable time living among the aboriginal peoples of Australia, where he studied under a shaman and learned that there was more to this world that meets the eye.
Rafiki John - A budding astrophysicist with a stage magic hobby on the side. He has always had an interest in the supernatural and everything spooky. This attraction brought him into the waiting arms of his college's club.

The time period that was chosen for the game was the late 80's (as that is when the book I own was published, and it seemed kind of fitting). For the exact date, it was November 18th, 1988 and all of the characters were on vacation for Thanksgiving Break. Rather than going home, the group of them decided that they were going to pursue an urban legend regarding a supposedly haunted location known as the "Balmoral Murder House".

The legend goes that back in the 1960's in the town of Stillwater, Wisconsin a man went insane and murdered his entire family using a wood axe and drank their blood and performed odd occult rituals with their corpses. The man was caught by local authorities when neighbors grew suspicious and called in the state police. The man, Mr. Timothy Balmoral, was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death by the state. He was to be hung by the neck until dead. However, through some strange twist of fate, it took three attempts before he succumbed to his fate. His body was interred to his ancestral plot on the grounds of the house. This would not last long though, as it was subsequently exhumed, presumably by grave robbers or some other unsavory type, and was never recovered.

The events surrounding the case, as well as the subsequent disappearance of the body, led the Mr. Balmoral to be named the "Stillwater Vampire". The Balmoral House itself was sold at auction, and has since passed from person to person, with no owner laying claim to the property for mare that a few years. Currently the property is in the hands of a holding company, who have agreed to let the club set up their equipment and investigate the property for a few days around Thanksgiving.

With keys to the property in tow, the club left their cozy college campus and traveled two days to the small town of Stillwater, Wisconsin. Using some of their life savings, the group rented a pull behind camp trailer, purchased video recording equipment, some lights with motion sensors, and a few other gizmos and tools.

Upon reaching the town, they sought out the local priest, one Father Millican (who the group immediately assumed was a vampire, and was behind everything), and asked him to for a few vials of holy water. The elderly priest agreed, and also said a small prayer asking for the safety of the group. With this done, the group decided that it would be a smart idea to stay the night in town and get a feel for the house first thing the next day. That night, several members of the group had vivid and terrifying nightmares about investigating the property. The only fine detail that anyone could recall was that the dreams were dominated by the visage of owls, who were always watching them, but never interfering.

The next morning, they left for the murder house and began setting up equipment and laying out their plans and strategies.

The group as a whole say this as a good stopping point. We had already been at it for 6 or 7 hours at this point and we decided to take a break until next Friday, at which point the investigation will proceed.

[Captain_Nibbz]

Hey, thanks for taking the time to read this. Sorry if it isn't terribly interesting. This is my first attempt at writing a campaign journal and it might be a little rough. Any feedback is welcome

[Warshield73]

Thanks for sharing your adventure. I enjoy reading campaign logs and the like as you never know where your next campaign idea will come from.

[Jasper]

I like it a lot. It's well laid out and not filled with grammatical errors and typos. Using 1st edition makes sense as does setting it in 1988. I like how the group focused on the priest right away as a suspect. Hopefully they'll drop that bone at some point. Hope you keep updating your log.

[Captain_Nibbz]

The plan currently is to continue the investigation this Friday. I actually just sent out the group text to my players letting them know the time and what I'm going to be feeding them.

I'll probably update the post with their adventures on Saturday morning when I get some free time!

[Jack Burton]

Saturday marked the first steps for myself and my group into the wide world of the Palladium system. As such I thought that it would be interesting to document the descent into madness and the supernatural by creating a campaign log here on the forums. We are using the first edition BtS rules.

The game ended up being a bit of a session 0, with all of the players making characters and determining how they all knew each other and what the group dynamic would be. All in all, character creation took roughly 4 hours (most of which was passing the single core book around so that everyone could choose skills). We chose to create a group comprised entirely of the "regular people" P.C.C. option and determined that they were all in their early 20's, and that they all were members of the Paranormal Investigation club at their college (the University of Southern Michigan).

We used the random background generator for all of the characters, which ended up yielding some very interesting characters. The cast is as follows:

Dirk Dickerson III - A pretentious know-it-all majoring in parapsychology, lives off of a trust fund set up by rich relatives, has always been interested in the occult and his family's wealth allows him to pursue that interest professionally.
Beatrice White - A mousy-by-day/street fighter by night kind of girl, majoring in family sciences. She has had a ghostly companion with her ever since she was a small girl.
Harry Podder - A wise cracking prankster with a penchant for the medical field. He spent some not-inconsiderable time living among the aboriginal peoples of Australia, where he studied under a shaman and learned that there was more to this world that meets the eye.
Rafiki John - A budding astrophysicist with a stage magic hobby on the side. He has always had an interest in the supernatural and everything spooky. This attraction brought him into the waiting arms of his college's club.

The time period that was chosen for the game was the late 80's (as that is when the book I own was published, and it seemed kind of fitting). For the exact date, it was November 18th, 1988 and all of the characters were on vacation for Thanksgiving Break. Rather than going home, the group of them decided that they were going to pursue an urban legend regarding a supposedly haunted location known as the "Balmoral Murder House".

The legend goes that back in the 1960's in the town of Stillwater, Wisconsin a man went insane and murdered his entire family using a wood axe and drank their blood and performed odd occult rituals with their corpses. The man was caught by local authorities when neighbors grew suspicious and called in the state police. The man, Mr. Timothy Balmoral, was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death by the state. He was to be hung by the neck until dead. However, through some strange twist of fate, it took three attempts before he succumbed to his fate. His body was interred to his ancestral plot on the grounds of the house. This would not last long though, as it was subsequently exhumed, presumably by grave robbers or some other unsavory type, and was never recovered.

The events surrounding the case, as well as the subsequent disappearance of the body, led the Mr. Balmoral to be named the "Stillwater Vampire". The Balmoral House itself was sold at auction, and has since passed from person to person, with no owner laying claim to the property for mare that a few years. Currently the property is in the hands of a holding company, who have agreed to let the club set up their equipment and investigate the property for a few days around Thanksgiving.

With keys to the property in tow, the club left their cozy college campus and traveled two days to the small town of Stillwater, Wisconsin. Using some of their life savings, the group rented a pull behind camp trailer, purchased video recording equipment, some lights with motion sensors, and a few other gizmos and tools.

Upon reaching the town, they sought out the local priest, one Father Millican (who the group immediately assumed was a vampire, and was behind everything), and asked him to for a few vials of holy water. The elderly priest agreed, and also said a small prayer asking for the safety of the group. With this done, the group decided that it would be a smart idea to stay the night in town and get a feel for the house first thing the next day. That night, several members of the group had vivid and terrifying nightmares about investigating the property. The only fine detail that anyone could recall was that the dreams were dominated by the visage of owls, who were always watching them, but never interfering.

The next morning, they left for the murder house and began setting up equipment and laying out their plans and strategies.

The group as a whole say this as a good stopping point. We had already been at it for 6 or 7 hours at this point and we decided to take a break until next Friday, at which point the investigation will proceed.

That's a fantastic premise! It sounds like you are all having loads of fun.

[Captain_Nibbz]

A quick update: Real life got in the way on Friday (and this whole weekend to be honest) and I had to push the game off until this week. I'll update this thread after the game on Friday night, assuming real life doesn't interfere again.

[mrloucifer]

Your notes are fine... its using BTS1 that I scratch my head at. Your doing a disservice by cutting out all the great updating of the second edition.

I use my BTS1 book to this very day, but I still use the BTS2 core religiously.

Note: some of that keeping the mystery going from your other post ties into using the BTS2 book coincidentally as the supernatural is much better fleshed out.

[Captain_Nibbz]

To be honest, the main reason that I'm using the first edition is because that's what I had sitting on my game shelf I figured that I might as well use what I have on hand rather than have to justify to the wife the purchase of yet another RPG book that I may or may not use.

Though I will say one of the beautiful things about Palladium is that you can generally find books out in the wilds of the internet for fairly cheap. Looks like amazon has a couple copies for $25 that qualify for free prime shipping.

Do you think it would be worth it to pick up the second edition? What are the major differences between the two (other than updated rule mechanics)?

[mrloucifer]

Side note: I think the holding company has ulterior motives. They gave up the keys to the house way to easily by the sound of it.

A potential thread to unravel?

[Warshield73]

Side note: I think the holding company has ulterior motives. They gave up the keys to the house way to easily by the sound of it.

A potential thread to unravel?

I like it. Anything that makes the players more paranoid is a good thing.

[Captain_Nibbz]

I like it. Anything that makes the players more paranoid is a good thing.

I could not agree with this more

I have a pretty good conspiracy idea in mind right now that involves the holding company being controlled by the US government, who is working with the UFOnauts to select people with high psychic potential. I'm not sure if this is the idea that I'm going to run with, or if I'm going to spin it off into a completely separate idea of its own though.

This is what makes RPGs so fun. So many possibilities

[gaby]

I think is a good idea.

Any chance you start something at Explorers Unlimited?

[Captain_Nibbz]

I think is a good idea.

Any chance you start something at Explorers Unlimited?

If I'm being perfectly honest, I'm not sure what that is

What exactly is Explorers Unlimited?

[gaby]

Go to Gamers looking for Other Gamers.

You will find it ther.

[Warshield73]

I like it. Anything that makes the players more paranoid is a good thing.

I could not agree with this more

I have a pretty good conspiracy idea in mind right now that involves the holding company being controlled by the US government, who is working with the UFOnauts to select people with high psychic potential. I'm not sure if this is the idea that I'm going to run with, or if I'm going to spin it off into a completely separate idea of its own though.

This is what makes RPGs so fun. So many possibilities

I couldn't agree more. I posted this on Plot Threads a few months ago. If your players don't fully investigate the holding company this time then maybe in a few months the see a person at another investigation and they realize it's the manager at this holding company.

Looking forward to hearing how it goes with your players.

[Captain_Nibbz]

So real life got in the way for the majority of my players again, but I decided to go ahead and continue the game anyways with those that were able to show.

Session 2 Log:

Having gotten all of their investigative equipment set up around the infamous Balmoral Murder House, the group decided to buckle down and begin their investigation. The team drew straws to determine their placement around the house, with 1 character each taking a floor, and the remainder stationed as backup from the camper that served as their base of operations

The first night went by quietly with little to nothing happening. That morning the characters all dreamed about the house in various capacities, with Beatrice having the most vivid dream.

Her dream involved her exploring the house as it subtly shifted and changed, reflecting changes to the house and different eras of occupancy. Finally, the dream neared its conclusion with her noticing an owl perched on a branch watching her from outside the house itself. She decided that in her dream she was going to climb the tree where she spotted the owl. From the perch she was able to peer into the window overlooking the foyer of the house. Therein she saw the horrors that made the house famous. The walls were covered in gore and ichor and strange symbols and runes were painted in blood. The shock of the scene startled Beatrice awake. At which time she wrote down and recorded everything she had dreamed for future research.

The next day was spent reviewing the footage and recordings from the night before. There was nothing productive to be found, and the gang doubled down for the next night's investigation. Things started smoothly but ran into a wall around 12 pm when a black Cadillac rolled up to the house, and two tall me in black suits and dark sunglasses got out and started interrogating the members of the party about their actions at the house and whether they had seen anything. After requiring the group to turn over proof that they were allowed to be on the premises the men got back into their car and left.

Later in the night, there were some issues with rats in the walls, as well as some odd sounds coming from piping in the cellar, and a door that created an oddly accurate facsimile of a scream. However, things passed by relatively calmly with nothing more happening.

Next day, they received a visit from the town's priest who brought them some fresh bread and jam for the party, wishing them a happy thanksgiving. He also inquired after the party's health and offered them a blessing to protect them from evil. They spent the rest of the day reviewing the findings from the night before, with little to show for their endeavors.

The final night, the party determined that their best bet would be to use an Ouija board to try to contact whatever spirits they could in the house. Beatrice took the lead and made contact with her spirit friend/guide who had been with here since her childhood (part of her backstory). Her spirit, nicknamed "Figgy", responded to her questions, informing her that there was indeed something in the house. It referred to whatever it was as "ancient darkness", and that they were all in danger if they stayed much longer. However, after this the board went quiet and refused to answer with more information.

Beatrice took the opportunity after this to surround their camp trailer with a protective circle, using one of her books as a reference. The party then stayed the remainder of the night in the trailer, protected from whatever might be out there, stalking them in the darkness.

After this, the party packed up all of their gear and headed back to their university, having ran out of time. Using their free hours while not studying for finals and what not, they combed through all of the evidence that they had collected. They only had two definitive things that stood out. The first was a picture taken in the cellar that showed what looked to be an outline of a hidden door beneath the dirt of the cellar. The other was an EVP (an electronic voice phenomenon), which had a strange, inhuman voice speaking the words "leave them be, they do no shine bright enough".

After this we called the game for the night. I'll add some notes on the game with my next post.

[Captain_Nibbz]

So a note about how I run games to kind of put things into perspective. I have no issue with players missing clues and therefor missing out on large chunks of plot (or even the entire story for that matter). My players are aware of this and are generally completely fine with it. So just because nothing supernatural happened doesn't make this a dud of a game, just gives me more ammunition for later.

Another note about how I run things: I love using a lot of random encounters to determine how things go. My wife refers to it as "reading the bones". Generally it makes for very interesting games, but sometimes it means that nothing happens and things go kind of slow. This happened to be one of those instances. However, it did work in out, as it turned the whole investigation into a parallel of modern ghost investigation shows. Kind of set an interesting mood that I wasn't expecting. It was a lot of fun, and I think it tempered the expectations of everything being action packed and every ghost story being true, like it would be in a standard D&D game.

All in all everything went fairly successfully. I'm looking forward to next session.

[Captain_Nibbz]

Your notes are fine... its using BTS1 that I scratch my head at. Your doing a disservice by cutting out all the great updating of the second edition.

I use my BTS1 book to this very day, but I still use the BTS2 core religiously.

Note: some of that keeping the mystery going from your other post ties into using the BTS2 book coincidentally as the supernatural is much better fleshed out.

I took your advice and bought a PDF of the second edition book (gotta love Drivethrurpg and the sales they have). You are very right about everything being much better fleshed out. Thanks a lot for the recommendation!

[Warshield73]

I use my BTS1 book to this very day, but I still use the BTS2 core religiously.

Note: some of that keeping the mystery going from your other post ties into using the BTS2 book coincidentally as the supernatural is much better fleshed out.

Just out of curiousity what do you use BTS1 for?

[mrloucifer]

Off the top of my head: monsters that haven't shown up in the new books yet, descriptions of various psychic types/items/places, Parapsychologist equipment, spells that the Parapsychologist can cast, the "Rips of Magic" info and the places of power, and that's just what I recall.

[mrloucifer]

Your notes are fine... its using BTS1 that I scratch my head at. Your doing a disservice by cutting out all the great updating of the second edition.

I use my BTS1 book to this very day, but I still use the BTS2 core religiously.

Note: some of that keeping the mystery going from your other post ties into using the BTS2 book coincidentally as the supernatural is much better fleshed out.

I took your advice and bought a PDF of the second edition book (gotta love Drivethrurpg and the sales they have). You are very right about everything being much better fleshed out. Thanks a lot for the recommendation!

The Proximity equals power aspect of psychics makes the game much more thematic as well. Amongst other things.

[Warshield73]

Off the top of my head: monsters that haven't shown up in the new books yet, descriptions of various psychic types/items/places, Parapsychologist equipment, spells that the Parapsychologist can cast, the "Rips of Magic" info and the places of power, and that's just what I recall.

I haven't looked over BTS1 in almost 20 years. I may have to pick up the PDF from DTRPG and just rip out the parts that I want. And the up side is that as soon as I go to all the work and trouble of doing that Kevin will finally release Arcanum and Tome G. to make it all pointless.

[Jack Burton]

Curse you, Captain Nibbz, curse you! Your infernal campaign log has caused my imagination to go into overdrive!

I had to go to Los Angeles for work-related training over the last two days and while I was there, I not only read over your campaign log again, but I got to play tourist with some of my co-workers. We had about half of a day of free time to go see some sights and one of the places we went would make an incredible setting for a BtS game, so I'm lining up something with my Discord group. We normally play HU, but a few of us are also BtS fans. It'll take some work on my part (which is why I curse you! ), but it'll be fun. I can't post my idea yet since some of my group read the forum... I don't want to spoil anything. When we play, I'll post an update.

[Captain_Nibbz]

Curse you, Captain Nibbz, curse you! Your infernal campaign log has caused my imagination to go into overdrive!

I had to go to Los Angeles for work-related training over the last two days and while I was there, I not only read over your campaign log again, but I got to play tourist with some of my co-workers. We had about half of a day of free time to go see some sights and one of the places we went would make an incredible setting for a BtS game, so I'm lining up something with my Discord group. We normally play HU, but a few of us are also BtS fans. It'll take some work on my part (which is why I curse you! ), but it'll be fun. I can't post my idea yet since some of my group read the forum... I don't want to spoil anything. When we play, I'll post an update.

Always happy to be a nuisance! Just remember though, creativity is the spice of life!

You seriously should post your campaign log/notes when you've ran the game though. I would love to see what other people are doing with it.

[Captain_Nibbz]

Moving this post over from the Old Forums because it didn't get moved with the update

A lot happened this go around, so this is going to be a bit of a long entry. Here it goes:

With their previous evidence having been examined and collected, the party thought that the Balmoral Murder House was worthy of a second investigation. The team returned to town and placed their equipment strategically around the house in much the same way as they had before. Going off of their previous investigation, the party decided that they would center their efforts around using the Ouija board more heavily.

The first night, the party settled into the main foyer with their spirit board and attempted to make contact with the spirits inhabiting the house. [I rolled a random chance for them to make contact, they got lucky and did, which ended up setting the pattern for the nights game]. They asked the spirits some pretty straight forward questions, such as why are you here, were you killed in this house, were you the killer, why do you remain. The answers were fairly muddled at first, with the spirit claiming that they were "fading" and that their memories were "slipping". However, when asked the last question, the answer was always the same: "We are trapped, It Watches". After a few more questions, the board went silent.

The party then decided that they would try moving upstairs to one of the rooms where the actual murders occurred in an attempt to contact another of the many spirits they believed were in the house. As they were climbing up the stairs, the party noticed that there was a snowy white owl watching them through one of the windows overlooking the foyer. One member of the party picked up a piece of rubble and threw it at the owl, causing it to fly away.

Satisfied with having dealt with the owl, the party set up their candles and spirit board in the master bedroom of the house, located on the second floor. Again, they got extremely lucky and made contact with another spirit that was trapped in the house. This spirit answered in much the same way as before. The party chose to press this one for more information in regards to what "It" was, how it was watching them, and what it was doing there. The more they pressed for answers, the more the spirit seemed to become distressed. After a few more questions like this, with the spirit growing more and more rushed and panicked, the board burst into flames in front of the group. The group rolled vs horror factor and succeeded, managing to put out the flame on their Ouija board. Upon inspection of the now ruined board, they saw that they only letters that remained un-charred on the face spelled out the words "I WATCH".

With this, the party fled the house for the night and chose to catch some sleep and process the nights events. However, things wouldn't be that easy. Upon leaving the house they discovered that one of their motion sensors that was aimed at the main entry was continually triggering, which was causing one of the warning lamps to flash on and off. Investigation into this event however led them to believe that it was simply caused by a faulty part, and not anything supernatural.

That night, Rafiki Jones had a vivid nightmare centered around rats chewing on the wires to their equipment, and him having to run from place to place to stop them from doing so. No matter how hard he tried to stop them, there were always more, and they were always chewing.

-----------------------------------------------

Early the next afternoon, having recouped from their ordeals the night before and having eaten some food, the party continued their investigation. The previous investigation had yielded some photographic evidence of a hidden door in the cellar from their last visit. A few members of the party decided to investigate down in the cellar in an attempt to locate the hidden door. The others chose to investigate the rest of the house. Those in the basement took some time and eventually were able to uncover a hatch buried in the dirt floor of the cellar. Upon opening it, they discovered that there was a hidden room underneath the cellar. This sub-basement was filled with hundreds of rats, who upon being disturbed, rushed the party at the top of the ladder. Five of the rats managed to escape up from below before one of the party members succeeded in slamming the door shut, and holding it closed with their body weight. The other two players managed to stomp the rats out of existence. With these rats dealt with, the party reburied the door and left the cellar until the rat problem below could be dealt with.

At this point, the party decided to split up even further, with two members going back into town from some supplies (including chemical rat gas bombs), and the rest taking the chance to investigate the ground surrounding the house during the daylight hours. Nothing terribly exciting happened for those that went into town, and the only thing of note that happened to those that investigated the grounds was the discovery of an old leather-bound journal that dated back to the late 1800's when the house was built. The diary itself contained little useful information at first, but towards the end there started being large gaps between the entries, and the entries themselves were becoming less and less coherent. Finally, there was a two month gap with the final entry stating that they "The object has arrived, it has been buried beneath the cellar, may god help our souls".

The two members who returned to town arrived back at the investigation site with the rat bomb and some extra flashlights and batteries, as well as some replacement sensors for their equipment. The party promptly followed the instructions on the rat bomb and dropped it into the hidden sub-cellar they had found. After waiting a few hours, the party entered into the sub-cellar (now filled with the bodies of several dozen rats) and began poking around. The room itself was about 10' x 10' and the walls were covered in symbols that had been carved deep into the black obsidian-like stone that comprised the walls. The rat corpses were too much to move around easily, and the party feared that they would get some of the chemical poison on themselves if they handled them to much, so they snapped some pictures or the room and left. Most of the party returned to investigating the house, while Beatrice and Dirk returned to the camper to watch the live feeds of the house and study the Polaroid pictures of the sub-cellar they had found. They were able to identify they symbols as being Slavic in origin, most likely from the Russia/Siberia area. They concluded that these symbols are most often tied with the concept of geomancy and ley lines, with a focus on energy siphoning and entrapment (which was very similar to the symbols that were found in Beatrice's dream from the first investigation).

With the day light coming to an end, and night making a swift approach, the party set up a spare Ouija board in the master bedroom of the house again, as that is where they got the most activity the night before. However, with the events of the night before in mind, two members of the party chose to stay back and watch the video feeds and motion sensors just in case something more happened.

The three members who were using the Ouija board settled in upstairs and began attempting to contact the spirits again. (Due to an extremely luck roll of the dice, the spirits were again extremely active this night.) The spirits answered nearly every question in a frantic and desperate attempt to tell the party as much as they could, but the party was cut short when Beatrice's spirit guardian appeared to her in the room and pointed towards the doorway (Yet another extremely lucky roll of the dice.). In a panic she turned on her flashlight and looked to the door to see a shadowy figure staring at them from the hall just before the figure quickly fled. At this exact moment, all electronic devices in both the camper and the house died, with nothing but the walkie-talkies and the flashlights (which were ran off of batteries) working. The party pursued as fast as they could, with the figure racing down the stairs before them and knocking the doors of the house off of their hinges as it fled. One of the party had the strong sense to use their walkie-talkie to warn the rest of the party who remained in the camper of what was happening. One of the party members was able to squeeze off a couple of shots with their .38 snub nose as the figure fled. One of the shots struck the target, proving that it was corporeal, but the bullet did not cause the fleeing thing to slow.

The member of the party in the house approached the front doors but the figure was nowhere to be seen. However, at this moment another party member (Dirk) emerged from the camper, looking for the figure. In a brilliant move he chose to shine his flashlight above the main entrance to the house, where he was greeted with the horrifying visage of the monster. The creature appeared to be roughly 6 1/2 to 7 feet in height and clothed in inky shadow. Its face was a pale white oval with no discernible features outside of two glowing red eyes. It noticed Dirk the moment that he shined his light on it, and the creature focused on him to attack.

The creature launched itself off of the building at Dirk, using its momentum to strike a devastating blow, knocking Dirk ten feet away and eliminating all of his S.D.C. in one go. The rest of the party emerged from the building just in time to see this happen, and began rushing the thing with wild abandon in an effort to save their friend. Having seen that normal bullets didn't work against the creature, one intrepid party member (I believe it was Rafiki Jones) charged the creature and pressed his rosary to the thing's face, which caused it to burn and emit a horrifying shriek. When it shrieked, the creatures mouth opened, revealing two rows of sharp, shark like teeth. The creature retaliated by attempting to strike Rafiki, missing in its efforts both times (Two natty 1's in a row ). Seeing that the holy symbol had worked, another party member employed the same tactic, striking the creature in the skull with their holy symbol. Beatrice ran into the camper and quickly doused her quarterstaff in holy water that they had brought with them, and struck a devastating blow to the creature (Critical hit, and she rolled max damage for both the holy water and the quarter staff, I think she dealt like 52 points of damage or something ridiculous like that with that one hit). Dirk rushed the jug of holy water and smashed the contents onto the creature, dealing yet more damage.

The final strike from the jug of holy water brought the creature low and it melted into a mist that quickly dissipated.

Despite the time of night, the party hurriedly gathered together all of their equipment and items and fled the Balmoral Murder House and returned to town, where they parked in the Church's parking lot and surrounded their camper with a protective circle made of salt. Those that were able to get some sleep dreamed of horrible red eyes and night shrouded figures. Those that couldn't did a review of the evidence they had collected up to that point.

Most of the photographs they had taken yielded any results, though some showed strange lights and colored orbs around the house. The video footage on the other had was another matter. One of the cameras picked up something strange from the first night. Specifically, when one of the characters threw something at the owl, it showed that there was no actual owl in the tree, and that instead there were strange lights hovering in the sky that moved in an unnatural way over the house. On the second night, they were able to capture footage of the creature that had attacked them, with it showing on the camera as having watched them and followed them through the house, slinking from shadow to shadow as they set up their candles and Ouija board, and then watching them as they performed their seance.

With this evidence in hand, the party contacted the local priest and asked him if there was anything he could do to help. He stated that he would not be allowed to perform the powerful rites needed to deal with this kind of entity without first asking permission from his superiors. The party gave the priest a copy of their evidence and he set off to contact those higher than him in the church for permission to help the part.

And this is where we called the game for the night. It was a good cut off point and the energy of the group was wearing thin after the tense fight with the creature. Game should be picking up here this next Friday. I'll post more as soon as I can! Hope you all are still enjoying this.

Thanks,
Captain Nibbz

[Captain_Nibbz]

Oh man, I thought things went sideways with the events of the last game, but I was wrong. It was nothing compared to this:

After spending the night in town and trying to gain some support from the local priest and gathering some more supplies, the party decided that they didn't have enough time to wait for a response from the priest's higher authorities, and that they needed to act now before something happened. They stocked up in town on some items that thought would help them out, such as silver ball bearings from the local hardware store, some silver coated .357 magnum bullets (which are apparently fairly common according to the internet), a crossbow, and another jug of holy water.

With supplies in hand, the group returned to the Balmoral Murder House, arriving at about dusk. They began a sweep of the house from top to bottom, trying to find the creature in question. However, their search yielded no results, causing the crew to set up guard stations around the main floor and by some of the points on the property that they were suspicious of. After hanging around for a few hours, the player stationed near the entryway saw a set of headlights approaching the house. Low and behold, the strange black Cadillac from their previous investigation rolled up to the property. From the car emerged two of the strange men in black suits.

The men approached the members of the party who were outside and flashed their FBI badges at them and began asking questions in monotone voices delivered in a strange cadence (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HBwxbWVb-M). The questions pertained to whether or not the party had seen any strange lights, odd happenings, or if they had caught anything strange on their recording equipment. The party, not wanting to go against the federal government, told the agents everything and showed them the footage. Upon seeing the footage, the agents announced that they would need to seize the evidence, as well as the equipment. They also announced that they were concerned about a leak of "natural swamp gas" in the area, and that they party would need to leave as soon as possible, and that the house was going to be placed on quarantine. The party would also need to be reporting to the local medical center for treatment, as they had apparently breathed in enough of the toxic gas that they had obviously been hallucinating.

The members of the party who were in the camper showing the Men in Black agreed to this, and surrendered the tapes to the agents, while pulling a sneaky slight of hand to keep their tape that held the actual evidence. One member of the party, having only heard a part of the conversation from outside, made the decision that they had been through to much to get that evidence, and they were not going to let them just take it from them like that.

He entered into the camper, and after a moment of hot headed yelling and miscommunication, he opened fire on the two agents inside the camper, shredding one with two buck shot shells from his shotgun, right to the gut. A gun fight ensued, with the two agents opening fire on the member of the party (who took multiple gun shot wounds, most of them through and through, eliminating almost all of his S.D.C. in one round). The other two members of the party in the camper took to opportunity to flee and get into one of the vehicles. Another party member outside decided to try to help the member in the camper gunfight by starting up a chainsaw and cutting into the side of the camper (not sure on the logic here, but whatever ).

Seeing the gun fight happening, a third agent stepped out of the black Cadillac and began opening fire on the party member with the chainsaw. The party member with the chainsaw rushed the agent and began attacking with their improvised weapon. A struggle ensued where the party member was shot multiple times in the chest and gut before dying while locked in a mortal struggle, cutting the chainsaw into the agent's arm and chest. These two combatants died fairly quickly at each others hands, with their bodies laying in a massive pool of blood.

Speaking of this blood though. The vampire, having had its food source of rats eliminated by the party previously, heard the gunfight and smelled the blood. In a blood-lust frenzy, the creature attacked the camper and killed the injured agents right in front of the party member who began the fight, causing the party member to flee in terror. About this time, the three party members who were choosing to flee the scene reached their car and began pealing out of the driveway. The party member who started the fight fled to the agent's car (which was still running) and took the vehicle in hot pursuit of the other members of the party.

See this, the vampire threw the corpse of one agent at the Cadillac, shattering the windshield and slowing the car down, before quickly pursuing the other vehicle. It knew that if it wanted to remain here without arising more suspicion, it couldn't let anyone leave alive. Both vehicles opened fire on the creature using their silvered bullets and holy water. The party member driving the front car (Dirk Dickerson) decided to slam on the brakes to let the creatures momentum throw it into the car, hopefully damaging it.

The ploy worked and the creature sustained some damage. However, it also allowed the creature to grab hold of the cars bumper, and hold it into place using its massive supernatural strength. The other members of the party in the stolen agent vehicle (Harry Podder) saw the creature do this, and decided that the best course of action would be to pin the Vampire between the two vehicles by ramming them together at 45 miles an hour.

The ploy worked and the creature was pinned and the cars bound together from the accident, trapping it in place. The crash however cause all members of the party to make a saving through (that they all failed), causing trauma and whiplash in the form of 2d6 points of damage. Using this opportunity, the party exited their vehicle and pummeled the creature to death using their silver weapons and holy water. (Which, fun note here, the final blow to the Vampire was a combination of a natural 1 followed by a critical hit that did maximum damage. The screams from the players at the table were loud enough that I think the neighbors across the road might have heard us. Oddly enough, it was Beatrice who struck the final blow to the creature again.)

With the final blow being struck, the vampire dis-incorporated to mist to return to its coffin. The party unbound the cars from each other, wiped their prints from the scene, and moved around the evidence and created a cover story that their friend who died had started it all and they had fled the scene shortly there after. I made them make about a million skill checks and dice rolls to do this, to which they passed with flying colors somehow And by somehow, I mean that they rolled nothing over a 10% for skills and nothing lower than 17 on their dice rolls. They were detained for a couple of weeks by the local police while the investigation was carried out, and were eventually cleared and allowed to return to the university for their classes, having lost all of their investigatory equipment to the police.

After everything was said and done, I made all of the member make a save against Horror Factor to see if they were able to cope with the trauma of the events. Dirk passed with flying colors and came away slightly unsettled, but without lasting trauma. Beatrice managed to cope with the monstrous events of the investigation just fine, but suffered a shift in alignment to Principled as a way of coping with the guilt of lying and covering up the events and blaming them on their friend. Harry coped with the cover up just fine, but seeing the monster caused him to have a lasting and crippling fear of the dark. Finally, Rafiki came away worrying about the mental health of everyone else, and became an amateur psychologist, trying to diagnose everyone else of what they might be suffering through because of the event (though he was just fine, obviously, don't worry about him, you're all the crazy ones).

And thus wrapped up the investigation of the Balmoral Murder House for these guys. Despite knowing that the Vampire is not dead, I don't think they'll be returning. The events were just to traumatizing.

[Lord Z]

Fantastic after-action report, Captain. I enjoyed every line.

[Captain_Nibbz]

Fantastic after-action report, Captain. I enjoyed every line.

I'm very glad to hear that! We haven't been able to play the last few weeks on account of me catching a flu that decided that it wanted to last the full 10 days. I'm hoping to add more to their adventures as soon as we're able to however.

[Captain_Nibbz]

Just so that no one reads this and scratches their heads going "wonder what happened", I thought I would give an update. Must to my regret, the players decided that the game had "ran its course" and were satisfied with how things shook out. I guess they like the idea that they fought a vampire and walked away from it scarred but alive (for the most part).

If they ever pick up the characters again, I'll add more, but for now it doesn't seem to be something that is likely to happen

[Captain_Nibbz]

So in a delightful turn of events, one of my players asked if they could take over this game from me because they had some cool ideas and wanted to give me a break from running a game so that I could actually play in one for once! They also wanted to keep my continuity and the characters that we were using. So I figure I might as well start updating this forum again with the continued adventures of our intrepid characters. Just from a player's point of view this time.

For this adventure, we have some new characters:

Normal Albert Pearson - a mid-40's ex-con artist/burglar who decided to return to school because he needs a change in career, currently studying auto-mechanics
John "Schmitty" Schmitzenheimer - Computer science major who loves the outdoors
Melvin - a paranoid gun nut with an interest in cryptozoology, works at a local pawn shop and goes to classes at the university on the side.

This week's adventure begins with the characters meeting in their club room at the local university. It has been 4 months since the incident at the Balmoral Murder House, and with spring break right around the corner the club has been scouring news papers, books, articles, internet chat rooms, and other such informative locations in search of a good lead for an investigation. Lo-and-behold, Dirk was able to come across a recent newspaper article from a small town in West Virginia which recently had some excitement. According to the article an investigative news crew recently went missing without a trace while trying to do an expose involving a local dam. The news article stated that the crew left behind no evidence of foul play, struggles, or anything. They were simply gone. Stranger still the national guard had been called in to help search for the missing people, but as of yet there was no sign of the 12ish people who vanished. The current theory was that they had packed up and left, despite the other half of the production crew (who were in town when the rest vanished) claiming that there was no possible way that could be the case.

The club, thinking that this sounded interesting and strange enough, decided that they would look into the matter (if for no other reason than they needed something to do).

One part of the group started making phone calls to local authorities and people of interest to see if there was any more information that could be found out. They were able to turn up some information about the topic that the news crew was reporting on. Apparently, they were trying to do a report on a town that went missing (people, houses, stores, animals, everything) back in the early days of the state. Local legends say that the town was there one morning, and simply wasn't there the next. After the incident, the area was rumored to be cursed and haunted, and was avoided by locals and wildlife alike. Eventually, a dam was built and the area where the town was rumored to have been built was submerged beneath the reservoir. People they talked to from the town claimed that the news crew had been very pushy and on edge any time they dealt with the locals, and were pretty belligerent about prying for information.

Another part of the group began investigation into more local legends involving cryptids and other unexplained phenomena in the area. They were able to come up with several results, including creatures such as the Mothman (a creature who was tied to an incident in West Virginia that resulted in 12 people losing their lives in a bridge accident), and something called the Flatwoods Monster that was rumored to have attacked a couple of children in the backwoods near where the town disappeared. A final portion of the group began gathering supplies together, including stealing some equipment from other clubs, courtesy of Norman picking a few locks and walking off with a few things, claiming that he had a permit to use his five finger discount on the items. Once they had their research in line, and they had procured the appropriate equipment, the group piled into their vehicles and left for West Virginia to investigate the disappearance of a film crew under mysterious circumstances.

And with this the game ended for the evening. The character creation for the new people took a little longer than expected, and we were planning our own real life trip thats coming up later this month, and so gaming time was a bit more minimal than usual. We're hoping to get together again to begin our investigation this Friday, so I'll probably have more tales for you then

Hope you all are still enjoying this!
Captain Nibbz

[Captain_Nibbz]

Alright so it looks like I actually have a couple of sessions to recap here. I apologize for the delay, real life has been in the way of pretty much anything fun that I’ve wanted to do lately . . .

Our group of investigators arrives in the late evening in the town of Blue River, West Virginia in the late afternoon and quickly settled into their accommodations at a local Catholic college. The college was also on spring break, and so they were willing to rent out a few rooms to the group over the break for little to no charge. After settling in, with the women taking one room and the men another, the group decided to turn in for the night and begin their investigation into the missing news crew at the beginning of the next day.

Norman Pearson was the first to awake, at roughly 4:30 am, and he decided that he would go out, find a coffee shop, read the paper and ask the waitress if there was any gossip about the missing news crew. He was able to find a coffee shop right near campus and while reading the local news and chatting with the amiable waitress, he was able to learn that the town was no stranger to mysterious disappearances. The waitress confirmed that there was once a town that is rumored to have disappeared, but most people in town didn’t know anything about it at all, and wouldn’t speak of it. She finished the conversation with a warning to Norman that some folks in town wouldn’t take kindly to outsiders prying for that kind of information.

After leaving the coffee shop, Norman wandered the town a bit to get his bearings and to get a feel for what resources were available to the group in case they needed to resupply or find a specialty item. Once he felt that he had a good bearing on the town, he returned to the dormitory that they were staying in and settled in on a bench outside to finish reading the paper while he waited for the rest of the group to wake.

Once the rest had awoke and joined Norman out front, the laid out their plan of action for investigating the disappearances. One group (consisting of “Schmitty”, Melvin, and Beatrice) chose to head to the local library to check out their archives and old newspaper records to see if they could drum up any more information regarding local legends and information regarding any other disappearances in the area that might give the group an idea of what they might be dealing with. The other group (consisting of Norman and Harry) left to go and speak with the national guard members who had been called into the area to investigate. As the second group was leaving, Harry was suddenly struck with stomach issues and had to remain behind. (the player had to leave the game early due to work the next day, so this was how we chose to write him out).

The group heading to the library met with some very nice librarians at the main counter, and directed them to the elevator in the lobby that would take them down to the archives in the basement. Upon entering the elevator, they discovered that it was very old in make, possibly dating back as far as before the turn of the century. The archives themselves proved to be a treasure trove of information, and the group was able to draw several possible leads to follow up on, including the names of some individuals who were still alive and claimed to be from the town that had gone missing, and they were able to pin the name of the town down to “Saint Thomas”. Using this information they were able to collect more information on the town itself, most of which yielded little more than statistics on the population and the fact that there was a painting housed in the library’s art collection that depicted the town itself.

The art collection was held on display on the second floor of the library, and so the three investigators hopped onto the rickety elevator again and proceeded to go to the second floor. However, the elevator malfunctioned, placing them between floors, and revealing that there used to be an access to an old sub-basement of the library (one of our players rolled a natural 100% to see if they would fail to operate the elevator). The librarians tried their best to help from the ground floor, but eventually the group elected to break through the now sealed sublevel and use it to reach the main level. After breaking through the sealed door, they discovered that the sub-level used to house a research lab for Duke University. The lab was mostly clear, but they were able to find some older name plates belonging to J.B. Rhine, an almost legendary figure in the parapsychology world. They also found that there was a massive iron door that was sealed with heavy locks and chains. Their stay and investigation on this level was cut short by the librarian opening the doors on the other end of the sub-basement that would allow them to exit. The group resolved to return here after the library was closed and determined to see what was behind the door.

Being the other group in its entirety, Norman arrived at the National Guard base and was able to enter under the guise of volunteering to help with the investigation and search. He was informed that the search was actually wrapping up, with the Guard leaving only one or two members behind for another week or two, just in case something turned up. Otherwise, the search was listed as a failure and the group of journalists was considered lost. While at the base camp, Norman was able to pick up on two strange things. The first was that there was a confidential file sitting on the commander’s desk, and the second was that the Guard had a bunch of cameras set up around the local lake, but not in places that would seem to be helpful to locating the news crew. After using his thieving skills to lift the confidential file, Norman returned to the dorms to wait for his companions return and to look over the file he had stolen.

This ended the session, with the group agreeing to start the next session with the information found in the file, and breaking into the library and searching the sealed room beneath.

Another post should be up soon detailing the next session, where things started getting really really weird.

[Captain_Nibbz]

Norman finished reading the file that he stole from the National Guard. Turns out that it was turned in to the National Guard by a member of the Associated Press who had been working with the news crew that had gone missing. The file contained a lot of information that the group already knew, mainly concerning the missing town. However, the file also contained information on the Duke University research team, and begged for the National Guard to contact the remaining members of the research team to get the information that they needed, because it would be important if they ever wanted to find the missing news crew. There was a contact number for the member of the Associated Press, as well as one of the leading researchers from Duke.

Soon after Norman finished reading the file, the rest of the group returned. He shared the information with them, and they told him about the room in the library, as well as the information they gleaned from the archives. The group decided to wait and then head over to the library after dark where they could easily break in without getting caught.

Getting into the library proved to be easy enough, with Norman picking the lock in under a minute. They used the stairs to get into the basement and quickly located the steel door again. The locks on this door proved a little trickier, but again, Norman was able to eventually get through the locks. The door swung open slowly, revealing an observation room and a large humanoid figure standing in the middle of a circle carved into the floor of the room. The creature rushed the group, hesitating at the edge of the circle, but breaking through easily. The creature attacked as hard and as viciously as possible, grinning the whole time and slashing at the group with a gleaming knife.

Combat ensued, with Norman and Melvin scoring devastating critical hits against the creature. After laying it low, the creature split into what seemed to be thousands of rats, with the rats fleeing in every direction. Using quick thinking, Beatrice was able to quickly sketch out some protection wards around the entrance to the elevator and the stairwell, effectively trapping the creature in the basement with the characters. Norman and Melvin unloaded the remainder of their shotgun’s ammunition into the rats, killing as many as they possibly could. Their actions were not enough however, and whatever the creature was, it was able to flee into the cracks and holes in the wall and escape.

Realizing that the sound of their gun shots was going to attract attention from the locals, the group did a quick search of the room and recovered a number of cracked gemstones from the circle where the creature was held. They then fled from the library at about the time the cops pulled up and began to investigate the noise complaints. Luckily, they were able to slip away unnoticed and the only true repercussion was that there was a blurb in the local paper asking for information regarding the incident. The group resolved to research into the creature that they encountered when the library was reopened after the investigation was finished.

The next day, the group decided not to return to the local library, but instead followed up on the information in the file belonging to the National Guard. They were able to hunt down the reporter who had fed the information to the Guard, and found him to be a rambling mess. He was holed up in a local motel on the edge of town. He continued repeating himself over and over again about how time was not linear, and how he found himself repeating things day in and day out, sometimes it was three days ago, sometimes it was moments ago, sometimes it was weeks in the future. After some convincing, he turned over a file to the group that more or less matched the one that was stole from the Guard. However, this one had some information regarding the location of the missing town (which happened to be now at the bottom of the lake), and some scribbled notes and contact information from some locals that he was able to convince to talk to him about the incidents.

With this information in hand, the group went to a local hobbyist shop and rented out some scuba gear to investigate the lake to see if the town was perhaps still there, but submerged underneath the water. On their trip to the lake, they passed a van that looked remarkably similar to the one that they were driving, filled with people that looked remarkably like them. (This triggered all of us players that there was something extremely fishy going on, but we were trying to not metagame about it). Upon arriving at the lake, they set up cameras to see if they could capture anything anomalous. Upon checking the tapes before using them (to make sure there wasn’t anything important on them), the discovered that there was a loop of footage showing them arriving and setting up the cameras, and then taking out the tape over and over again. At this point the group is more or less terrified, but having spent so much money on the scuba gear, they proceeded with their original plan.

Two members of the group had the scuba skill (Norman and Melvin), and so they took the up the dive suits and breathing tanks, synced watches with the people on shore, and dove into the lake. As they swum down to the location where the town was located, they quickly realized that something was off. At the bottom of the lake, they saw what looked like trees with a van parked beneath them, and an underwater lake. As they dove further, they began to make out people matching the description of the rest of their group sitting on the shore, as well as tether lines much like those attached to themselves leading into the underwater lake. One of the members of the group who resembled Harry that was sitting on the shore turned to look and saw them swimming towards them. They began to panic, and at the same time, two figures began emerging from the underwater lake and heading towards the people on the shore. In a curious bid, Norman took off his watch and threw it to the mysterious Harry look alike, and the two divers quickly resurfaced.

Upon resurfacing, they emerged to see the events that they had just taken part in, including tossing the watch to Harry, play out, but from another perspective. The group gathered together and inspected the watch, which showed that the divers had been gone for almost two hours beneath the surface despite only being gone for a few minutes to the people on the beach. The divers also related what they had seen beneath the waves, and the group as a whole decided that they were in over their heads and deemed in necessary to leave. As they drove back to town, they saw the exact same car as theirs driving towards the lake, this time inhabited by what looked like themselves earlier in the day. The driver quickly turned around, but upon returning to the lake they discovered no other vehicles, and noted that the weather had changed significantly in the few moments that they had been gone.

This is where we ended this session. The group as a whole spend about an hour after the game itself ended spewing theories about eclipse patterns and ley line activity, and the possibility of rifts in space and time opening up and causing the anomalies. All in all it was a good time and I’m REALLY hopping that the story pans out in a satisfactory way after all this build up

I’ll post more as soon as the next game happens, which will hopefully be this Friday! I hope you all are still interested in reading this.

[Jasper]

Awesome write-up as always. Looking forward to the next one. I love missing town stories or "siege-structure" stories like The Mist where an entire town goes missing or comes under attack. It was a recurring theme in my campaign back in the day.

[Captain_Nibbz]

Three more sessions have passed since the last entry.

The first session begins with out explorers heading back into town and attempting to make sense of what they just witnessed. The extended dive time combined with the potential time anomalies have the group worried about what may or may not have happened. The group chose to turn in for the evening and regroup in the morning after getting some sleep.

Norman was the first to wake, as per usual, and he headed out to get some coffee and the local paper. He settled in outside of the dorm that served as their residence and began reading and waiting for the rest of the group to awaken. Shortly after finishing the paper and his morning coffee, Harry joined him on the bench and the two began discussing the events of the day before and their possible relevance in regards to the missing film crew. Their conversation was cut short however as a police car pulled up to the curb in front of them.

Two officers inside of the vehicle stepped out and asked if the two characters if they knew the whereabouts of one Harry Podder and one Beatrice White. The two characters, deciding that lying would not be in their best interest, informed the officers that one of them was indeed Harry, and that Beatrice was still asleep in the dorm room that she was staying in. Upon hearing this (and after Harry being fairly belligerent to the officers), Harry was immediately placed under arrest and put in the back of the squad car. Norman demanded to know what the charges were, and after a few successful charm person rolls, the officer informed him that several children had gone missing the night before, and there was sufficient evidence to point to Harry being the one who kidnapped them. Beatrice was wanted under similar suspicions, however the link there was not nearly as strong.

Beatrice was summoned from her room, and after hearing the charges and what was being leveled against her, agreed to come down to the local police station to answer some questions. Because of her compliant attitude, the officers agreed to let her travel to the station on her own rather than placing her under arrest like they had Harry. During this time, another set of officers with a search warrant for the rooms that the group was staying in arrived and headed upstairs to search the rooms.

At the police station, Harry was questioned thoroughly by the police and refused to talk to them about anything until his hot shot lawyer arrived. The police granted him one phone call, which he used to call the lawyer who made plans to leave immediately (Harry is a trust fund baby with very rich parents, the lawyer wouldn’t want to upset them). Beatrice on the other hand spilled the beans about everything that the police asked her, including admitting to not knowing anything about Harry, including whether he had violent tendencies and if she knew his whereabouts the evening before. The questioning went on for some time, and the situation began looking dimmer and dimmer for Harry as evidence stacked up against him. During this time, the officers who were searching the room found some evidence linking Harry to the scene of the crime, including a jacket with missing material that matched some cloth found at the scene of the crime, as well as some blood. The sheriff decided that there was sufficient evidence to lock Harry away for the time being, and Harry was thrown into a jail cell in the back.

Beatrice, after having been so compliant and having had a solid alibi for the night before, was released. The remaining group as decided that their best option would be to leave and let Harry’s lawyer do the talking for them rather than just haunting the police station. Upon returning to the dorms, the group attempted to go back to their rooms which had been released by the police after being searched. However, all was not well in the dormitory.

As the group traveled through the hallway, they were greeted by a woman who seemed very confused at their arrival. When confronted about the situation, the woman stated that they had checked out almost a week ago, and that there was no reason for them to be there. The group, equally confused, questioned the woman (who seemed to be a part of the maintenance staff) about the date, and what had happened in the intervening time period. The woman stated that the date was a full week after the day that the group thought that it was, and that their friend had been arrested in connection with several missing children, and that he was also tied to the murder of several members of the film crew that had gone missing (whose bodies had since turned up).

After making up an excuse about having left something in the rooms, the woman unlocked one of the doors to their rooms and then left down the hallway to continue her duties. The group found their rooms empty and devoid of any of their belongings. In a panic, Beatrice, Smitty, and Norman chased after the maintenance lady and caught a glimpse of her leaving through a door at the end of the floor. The group chased after her and as they exited through the door, they suddenly found themselves blinded by daylight and standing in the middle of a field in what appeared to be the hills nearby town.
At this point the game cut back to Harry. His lawyer had arrived about an hour before, and after some negotiating with the local police, the police agreed to give Harry his own cell in the back, and to provide him with an extra light source to help alleviate his fear of being locked in the dark. After some more brief negotiations, Harry’s lawyer left and promised to return in the morning when they would be able to get Harry in from of a judge in order to set his bail.

Harry, displeased at having been locked up, tried to settle in for the night on the hard cot in his cell. However, he was interrupted by the sound of someone talking to him from down near the end of the small jail area. The voice was raspy and came with a slight cough. The other person down the way began to taunt Harry, telling him all about how he was planning on framing him for everything that had happened, and everything that was about to happen in the town. The figure pressed its face to the bars two cells down from Harry, and stared and him with an intense, unblinking gaze and a wide, malicious smile. The creature continued pressing its face harder and harder into the metal poles that comprised the wall of the cell, with its face distorting and bending until its entire head was through the bars. The process continued with the creature distorting and sliding its way out of the cell that it was inhabiting.

Once out of the cell, the creature slinked its way over to face Harry directly, pressing its face close to the bars and grinning. It was the Bogeyman that the group had unwittingly released a couple of days prior, and it seemed that the creature had taken a particular disliking to Harry. The creature giggled madly and laid out its entire plan about what it was going to do to him. First it had fed, murdering two local children, and then it had taken scraps and blood from them and hidden them about Harry’s person. Next, it had submitted an anonymous tip to the police, pointing fingers and the Paranormal Club. Then it had gotten itself arrested as a drunken vagrant and had waited and watched for Harry to arrive.

Now it was going to kill him, eat him, and make it look like he had escaped. Then it was going to murder the film crew, and possibly a few more kids, just for good measure, and plant evidence to make it look like Harry, all the while it would be striking delicious fear into the town and strengthening its own power and position in the “Hierarchy”. During the conversation, the creature let on that it was bitter about its imprisonment, and hinted that it had been stuck in that room in the basement of the library for nearly 40 years.

Seeing this bitterness as an opportunity, Harry began attempting to bargain with the creature, using his knowledge of the location of those who imprisoned it (the researcher that they had contacted previously who had told them that there was no hope for their investigation). The creature bit after much conversing and convincing, and agreed to let go of its plan and frame someone else for the murders it had already committed, and to not kill Harry on the spot in exchange for this information. During this time, he was also able to glean some information on the film crew, with the Bogeyman stating that they were still alive “on the other side”, but that “his superiors” would see to that very soon

Harry agreed, convincing the creature that it should think about maybe committing a few more murders on its way out of town to completely cover for his innocence in the situation. With a grin, the creature agreed, and commented that maybe not all hope was lost for its plan. It walked to the end of the cell block, knocked on the door, and when one of the guards came in angry, the Bogeyman grabbed the guard by the throat and dragged him from the building. (He was the only officer on duty that night).

In the morning, the officer was discovered missing, along with some of the weapons from the evidence room. A journal was also found conveniently in the officer's desk detailing his sick obsessions, and his plan to frame some local tourists. Turns out he was also one of the officers that had searched the groups rooms, and had been the one to find the evidence that linked members of the group to the crime scenes. There had also been two more murders that fit the same M.O. of the circumstances surrounding the missing children. At the behest of his lawyer, Harry was released from jail, though until the killer/kidnapper had been caught, the officers told him that he would remain a suspect.

This is where the session ended for the night. This is a fairly long post and its getting late. I’ll try to get the next two sessions posted in the next day or two. Stay tuned!

[Captain_Nibbz]

So between work getting really busy and the summer eating up all my time with extra-curricular activities, I haven’t had a lot of time to update this thread like I was hoping. Rather than leave this on a cliffhanger, I’m going to give the cliff notes version of the events that lead to the end of the game arc.

The members of the group who were chasing after the cleaning lady found themselves on the other side of a dimensional rift that lead to an alternate time where the town they had been staying in (Blue River) was had gone missing back in the mid 1930’s, and the town of St. Franklin was still standing where it would have been had it not gone missing in their own timeline. With a little bit of investigation (as well as some rolls to avoid going insane due to an effect we called “dimensional dementia” that came about because we were not meant to be in that timeline) the group was able to locate the lead investigative journalist from the news crew that had gone missing. She had been hospitalized with a severe case of amnesia and was incoherent from her own dimensional dementia. Norman was able to convince the hospital staff that he was her caregiver and they eventually released her into his custody. The group escorted her back to the place they had been transported to, and with some luck were able to find another dimensional rift to slip back through into their own timeline.

The group reunited with Harry and took the news reporter to the police station and handed her over to the authorities. During this time, the officer that Norman had interacted with at the National Guard camp arrived and demanded some answers from the party. After some talking in a private area out back of the police station, the office let something slip that alerted the group that something was not quite right with the situation. Using some quick thinking and some dirty tactics, the group uncovered that the officer was in fact a bone devil in disguise, that he was the one behind the events in the town, and that he was working for someone. A large fight ensued. With a little bit of dumb luck and some outrageous dice rolling the party managed to trap the demon in a protective circle. Once trapped, they bargained with the demon that they would let it go, and that they wouldn’t interfere with his business so long as he left town, returned the remaining members of the missing film crew, and took care of their Boogeyman problem by killing him. The demon reluctantly agreed, fearing that they would banish the creature back to its home plane where it would possibly be destroyed for failing in its task.

With the mystery solved, the group decided to spend their last night in town investigating the lake and its odd anomalies. With the information they learned from the demon, it seemed that the area was prone to dimensional shifting and other strange anomalies naturally due to its proximity to several ley line nexuses, and that the lake where Saint Franklin once stood was the focal point of a super nexus point. On the way to the lake, there was an accident involving Norman’s vehicle, and he was forced to return to town. The rest of the group continued on and when they arrived at the lake, they decided to test what would happen if they threw something up into the air near the spot where members of the group had appeared during a previous adventure here.

Much to their surprise, anything that was thrown up continued to travel into the night sky, with the object gaining velocity until it couldn’t be seen anymore. Harry and Melvin proceeded to try to throw each other into the air to see what would happen. During this time, Schmitty got sick of watching them and tied a rope to an arrow, tied the rope around his waist, and then shot the arrow into the sky. Schmitty was immediately thrown into the night sky with shocking force, and disappeared into the night. The other three members of the group present looked on with horror and scrambled to save Schmitty but were to late, and in the process they accidentally launched their research van they had borrowed from the university, Harry, and Melvin into the strange gravitational anomaly. Beatrice was forced to walk back into town to find Norman.

When she was able to find them, they discussed their options, with Norman wanting to leave them for dead and return to their own town and university, and Beatrice agreeing. However, as they were getting ready to leave town, a parcel arrived for them ala Back to the Future II, with information from the members of the group who disappeared, stating that they had been trapped in 1938, but that they were alive and well. Seeing this as a possible opportunity to make a fortune, Norman cashed in his savings, gathered his coin collection, acquired some time period appropriate clothing, and then hotwired Harry’s muscle car. After testing to ensure that the anomaly was still active at the lake, the two used a large mound of dirt to jump the car into the anomaly, and they were soon sucked into space (accompanied by Space Oddity by David Bowie) where they lost consciousness. Upon regaining their senses, they found themselves sitting in a familiar field on the outskirts of the towns of Blue River and Saint Franklin in the year 1938.

[Captain_Nibbz]

Having found themselves in the year 1938, and the group as a whole being reunited. They decided to find out what they could about Saint Franklin and Blue River before either town went missing. After some digging, they were able to uncover some local news about a girl whose body had been found lodged into a tree known as a witch wood. The body had been burned and carved with strange runes. The group decided to investigate to see what they could learn, and were able to find the location of the Witch Wood tree. Near to the site of the tree there was a church that the group decided to investigate.

Some members of the group entered and began to question the priest inside, who gave off some seriously weird vibes, and mentioned the name of the Bone Devil they had previously encountered. Norman, being of an alignment that allowed it, chose to stay inside while the others kept watch. He pinned the priest to the ground using his weight to keep the priest down, and proceeded to slap information from him. After some mild information gathering, they were able to learn that the priest had made a deal with the demon (who we all called Phillip) to scrub the existence of the sinful town of Saint Franklin (which we had discovered was a coal mining town full of gambling and prostitution) from reality in exchange for letting Blue River prosper in righteousness. The deal had required a pure sacrifice, and thus the girl who was found in the Witch Wood tree was kidnapped and sacrificed.

While this was happening inside of the church, the group outside was ambushed and attacked by a group of dimensional ghouls. The fight grew heated and the church was set on fire in the process. The priest, overcome with guilt at the decision he had made, chose to remain inside the church to be burned as a heretic. The group used the fire as a distraction to flee from the group of ghouls.

Realizing that the deal they had made with the Bone Devil would keep them from stopping the disappearance of Saint Franklin (they couldn’t interfere with his plans after all), they group found a comfortable spot near what would eventually become the Blue River Reservoir (ironically it was the stop they had been going to time and again for investigations in the area). They watched from their vantage point as a Rift opened at midnight on the solstice and swallowed Saint Franklin whole, as if the town had never been. With morale at a low, but their need for answers fairly well satisfied, the group decided to see if they could find a way back home again.

They returned to the glade where their futuristic vehicles were parked and decided to see if the anomaly was still open above their vehicles. Much to their surprise and amusement, it was. Using some improbably tactics, the group was able to launch their vehicles into the air where they were promptly sucked into the rift that had taken them back in time. Norman chose to remain behind to use his future knowledge to get filthy rich and die happy. The rest of the group landed safely in 1989, the morning of the day after they left. All was as it had been, with one major change. Norman was standing in the field waiting for them.

Turns out that the GM rolled randomly to determine what kind of time travel rules we were using and had come up with the option that Norman wouldn’t age until he met back up with his proper place in the timeline. So he had had 60 years to plot, study, investigate, invest, rob, and loot his way through the last few decades. All in all, he had turned his life savings into several million dollars, he had funded a research organization dedicated to studying the paranormal, and he had worked closely with J.B. Rhine and had helped to set up the events of the entire story arc up until that point.

With the group reunited, they returned to their temporary dorms, gathered their supplies, and left for home, satisfied at the answers they had found in their investigation.

And that wraps up the remainder of the story arc. Sorry these last couple of entries are the cliff notes. Overall this covers about 4 total game sessions, each lasting about 6 hours. There is a lot of detail lost, but I thought it would be better to give you all a conclusion to the arc rather than letting things just hang in the air.

Hope you all have enjoyed reading this. If anyone is curious about any of the finer details, I would be more than happy to answer questions.

[WyoWyld]

That sounds like it was AWESOME. Very well done.