Beyond the dead of Night - Update Session 2

[Incriptus]

Just sent the intro to my crew

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So, I think my inspiration gland is starting to work again and I've got an idea for our next game. It will be Palladium Modern. It will be Dead Reign with a twist, before Z-Day, it was a Beyond the Supernatural setting. As such your characters will be highly skilled, potentially psychic, and not totally unprepared for the event.

While the 'play yourself' or 'normal person trying to survive' is fun to ponder, read a book about, or watch in a movie, I don't think it's the way to go in a full game campaign. Especially with how powerful Dead Reign Zombies are.

As such the character classes that will be available will be a subset of those found in BTS, Dead Reign, Nightbane [NO NIGHTBANE, just stuff like the government agent, or paranormal investigators], Ninja's & Superspies [No cybernetics], Heroes Unlimited [Hardware, Physical Training, Special Training types], ect.

It is still going to be a survival horror game, except the survival part will be more likely than a standard Dead Reign game.
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We will likely be dreaming up our characters in the next week or two; I'm going to try and keep an up to date log of how things work out. Not too dissimilar to our last nightbane campaign viewtopic.php?f=6&t=151402

Wish me luck

[brockenwitch]

Just sent the intro to my crew

----
So, I think my inspiration gland is starting to work again and I've got an idea for our next game. It will be Palladium Modern. It will be Dead Reign with a twist, before Z-Day, it was a Beyond the Supernatural setting. As such your characters will be highly skilled, potentially psychic, and not totally unprepared for the event.

While the 'play yourself' or 'normal person trying to survive' is fun to ponder, read a book about, or watch in a movie, I don't think it's the way to go in a full game campaign. Especially with how powerful Dead Reign Zombies are.

As such the character classes that will be available will be a subset of those found in BTS, Dead Reign, Nightbane [NO NIGHTBANE, just stuff like the government agent, or paranormal investigators], Ninja's & Superspies [No cybernetics], Heroes Unlimited [Hardware, Physical Training, Special Training types], ect.

It is still going to be a survival horror game, except the survival part will be more likely than a standard Dead Reign game.
---

We will likely be dreaming up our characters in the next week or two; I'm going to try and keep an up to date log of how things work out. Not too dissimilar to our last nightbane campaign https://palladium-megaverse.com/forums/ ... 6&t=151402

Wish me luck

That sounds awesome. You’ll have to tell us how it goes.

[Incriptus]

Session 0.1 was Friday

It starts with an email from the Walker's headquarters. There is a missing persons case in Louisiana. There are three set of attachments. The first one is the social media presence of one of the 4 missing peoples. A young African American woman, likely of mixed race, is that for her college project she'll be exploring her ancestry. She has so far tracked it back to an old abandoned plantation. Her, her boyfriend, her younger sister [18, just out of highschool] and another friend [the camera man] set off on a road trip.

Her journey is chronicled by a set of youtube videos. These play out similar to your average found footage movies. They have there road trip, it's pretty much a party for them. Selective editing to remove the underage drinking. Making fun of the Camera man who's obviously smitten with the younger sister, but she's just stringing him along.

They reach the abandoned dilapidated plantation. The lands have not been taken care of and the swamp has retaken the area. The roads had been washed out from hurricanes and breaking levees. The irrigation and water control were non-existent. However the main structure remained, looks like it was well elevated and secure.

They begin their exploration of the building. . . and it continues to devolve into bad found footage horror movie stuff. There is poor lighting, the rain from out side is noisy. They found an half dissolved mattress and some beer cans. Teenagers may have made it out here decades ago, but it's long abandoned now. A scream from another room. The Camera man loses focus. Shifty camera work. The kids are all panicking, images in the camera maybe something, may be nothing. Running, running. They're back at the Car; however the main girl is missing. The group are arguing about what they saw but they need to go back. When the Girl is scene walking their way. She's completely drenched from head to toe. Her hair, previously curly, is now completely straight. She looks very ill and comes to the group holding a small leather bound book. This is the final video uploaded.

The second set of attachments are the police report. It turns out the teens had made it back to the hotel and were safe. Attached is the final images from the video camera. They're in the hotel scared out of their wits. The camera man is still filming everyone. The older sister looks complete entranced by the book she's reading. The only detail that is notice appears to be a J inside of a circle. When she finally speaks she insists they go back, she has to find out if what she's reading is true.

The police report continues. It begins with some skepticsism that the group is really missing. With what they posted it does look like it could be a horror movie hoax. However when the sheriff does go down he founds the camera, and the still running jeep by the planation. They do treat the case as a missing persons and a search party is formed. They don't find anyone or any bodies. There is evidence of animals in the area, but given the nature of the ground there is little to go off of.

The third attachment is from the Walkers. It is a map of the area, and includes the reason why they believe this case is relevant to them. The Plantation is on a ley line. While they were never noted to travel that far in the past, there have been some instances of Rougarou [Cajun Werewolves] in the area back in the 80's. The team is assembled based on availability, and are to meet up in a nearby town.

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So I pretty much gave the back story for the first run
We did a little bit of character overview for each member of the crew
Finished off a few pieces of character sheet work
And set it up that the characters will start investigating the J Plantation for next session
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[Incriptus]

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Background info for the BTS portion of the game
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Walkers of the Twilight Road:

The walkers represent a loose fraternity of those who are in the know about the supernatural threats that walk the Earth. The two main tenants of the group are 1: The supernatural are real and we must defend humanity from them. 2: The world is best protected by disbelief.

Early parapsychologist found that the almost undetectably low amount of psychic energy the average person has can be harnessed to create a wide reaching Nega-Psychic Effect. This effect has banished most of the evil spirits into the dark corners of the world. However there are times when this conditioning falters. When you're left alone in the dark. When you're lost. When your mind is weakened by grief, trauma, or substance abuse. It is at these times (especially in children) that the Dwellers in the Dark can make there prescience felt. These are the times that the Walkers of the Twilight Road are needed.

Most of the Walkers are recruited when the come face to face with the supernatural and are unable to push it from their mind. A surprising number of people will except any half reasonable explanation to avoid the acceptance of the supernatural and will simply repress the event or remember events in a way to make theme seem more mundane. For others it is more of a family business and they've been trained all there life in the way.

[Fenris2020]

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Background info for the BTS portion of the game
-----

Walkers of the Twilight Road:

The walkers represent a loose fraternity of those who are in the know about the supernatural threats that walk the Earth. The two main tenants of the group are 1: The supernatural are real and we must defend humanity from them. 2: The world is best protected by disbelief.

Early parapsychologist found that the almost undetectably low amount of psychic energy the average person has can be harnessed to create a wide reaching Nega-Psychic Effect. This effect has banished most of the evil spirits into the dark corners of the world. However there are times when this conditioning falters. When you're left alone in the dark. When you're lost. When your mind is weakened by grief, trauma, or substance abuse. It is at these times (especially in children) that the Dwellers in the Dark can make there prescience felt. These are the times that the Walkers of the Twilight Road are needed.

Most of the Walkers are recruited when the come face to face with the supernatural and are unable to push it from their mind. A surprising number of people will except any half reasonable explanation to avoid the acceptance of the supernatural and will simply repress the event or remember events in a way to make theme seem more mundane. For others it is more of a family business and they've been trained all there life in the way.

1 is only a slightly dangerous way of thinking; not all supernatural stuff is by default evil or harmful. 2 is very harmful and backwards-thinking. For-warned is for-armed.

[Incriptus]

So real life did a great job of delaying my game. That said we have had a few successful sessions, but I hadn't felt compelled to share for a while. So what you'll get now is the quick and dirty updates.

Session 0.2:

The player characters go to investigate the plantation where they discover there is a hidden passage under the plantation. As they explore they come into conflict with some cultists. They discover an alter where the two guys and one of the girls [the younger of the two sisters] have been sacrificially murdered [by having their blood drained out]. Turns out the younger of the two men was still alive [they have time to drain him all the way]. The Clues they find point to the fact the girl's family was not only into slavery but using slaves (and slave parts) for occult rituals. The slaves had rebelled during the civil war and killed off all the family, however, as it turned out one part of the blood line got away. One child needed to be killed in place of desecration [ie that plantation] and the other needed to be killed in the homeland. As such the team followed the evidence and it pointed them to Haiti.

Session 0.3

Following the evidence they discovered one of the main cultist was a Haitian National and a successful medical doctor. His clinic specialized non-conventional genetic medicines. While exploring the clinic they discovered it was built on top of an older Spanish fort. Here they found a number of pseudo-science and real-science machines. Conflict with the Cultists ensued. However [because this is a dead reign game] the player characters were too late the final sacrifice had been made. However it was not a total loss. They did retrieve the notes on the ritual that was done. With this knowledge they seek out an expert on this kind of ritual magic

Session 0.4

The team bring the notes back to the states where they meet up with an expert in the Seattle Area [ie where the players and I nominally live]. The notes point to 3 phases. The Blinding of Atropus, The Rage of Atropus, The End & Beginning of Atropus. He will continue to research but first he points them towards an expert on protection spells out in Rural Enumclaw, they should be able to cook up some defense spells against blindness and emotional manipulations at least. This is how our main characters survive the to participate in Dead Reign.

The Blinding of Atropus: Z minus 1. Darkness enveloped the entire world for 24 hours. Scientists were at a loss. People locked themselves in their homes, hoping it would pass ... and it did ... but ... a new [second] moon has appeared in the sky, and along with it the Rage of Atropus.

Rage of Atropus: Day Zero, The rage of Atropus for 5 minutes every man, woman and child were compelled to kill with no concern to their own well being. The police and militaries turned their weapons on each other. Pilots crashed their planes. Drivers slammed their vehicles into each other. Doctors, Nurses, EMT's turned on their patients. Mass melees in Schools, Offices, and Stadiums. Husbands awoke from their sleep to smother their Wives. Mothers killed their children. It was the end of the world, or a new beginning.

The End and Beginning of Atropus: Those who survived had little time to deal with their guilt, most likely having killed their friend, neighbors, and loved ones. Those they killed began to rise.

[Incriptus]

Where we are now: The group is in the eastern outskirts of Enumclaw. To their east is the woodline and the cascades. To the west is Enumclaw proper, roughly 10,000 - 12,000 people. To the north is the Black Diamond then Maple Valley area 25,000 to 30,000 between the two. The south is mostly forest leading to Mt Rainer.

The good news: The group is far enough away as to not be in danger of the zombies. Secondly not all of the dead are raising at once. It appears to be cyclic with the new moon Atropus. You do have time to get in and out of town to do some raiding before the numbers become overwhelming.

The bad news: You don't have enough time to get everything you want. As such your survivor's camp will be tasked with setting up your priorities. This will be loosely inspired by the palladium agency rules.

A: Food & Water
B: Shelter
C: Weapons
D: Electricity
E: External Security
F: Medicine
G: Internal Security
H: Communications
I: Morale
J: Zombie Knowledge
K: Vehicles and Fuel

Each of the player characters can assign themselves to one of the above categories to give them an extra rank [assuming the player character has a relevant skill]. During the first week the characters are able to go on raids without much zombie threat, however for each week after it will require a 'Mission' or an 'Adventure' to get another rank.

[Incriptus]

This is before any of the characters have assigned themselves a post.

A: Food & Water - Rank 2: Immediate Food & Water security, Beginnings of agriculture and water capture
B: Shelter - Rank 1: Trailer homes turned into basically mass sleeping areas. Survivors only have the clothes on their backs
C: Weapons - Rank 1: Camp Protectors have what they have, small back up of conventional ammo
D: Electricity - Rank 0: Electronic Devices have what ever charge they had
E: External Security - Rank 2: Moat and Vehicular wall facing civilization
F: Medicine - Rank 1: Basic first aid and over the counter medications
G: Internal Security - Rank 0:
H: Communications - Rank 0:
I: Morale - Rank 0:
J: Zombie Knowledge - Rank 1: What we saw in movies. Pretty confident not spreading by bite though.
K: Vehicles and Fuel - Rank 2: Multiple used cars each with a decent amount of gas. Doubling has camp wall

[Incriptus]

Session 2: A fight and a raid on the fire station

So we begin session 2 in the camp. One of the members has been found brutally beaten. The lack of morale and internal security has seen the formation of gangs and cliques inside the camp. Both the victim and possible bystanders have been intimidated by who ever started the fight. Unfortunately two members of my RP group couldn't make it on Friday, so a decision was made that those two player characters would stay behind and do the investigation while the other 3 who did make it would go on a mission. As such the internal violence remains a problem in the camp.

As for the 3 who were free to show up, they went on a mission to further improve the medical capabilities of the camp. This lead them to the local fire station where they were going to take an ambulance and possibly a firetruck. They leave camp to go into town where they do not encounter any zombie resistance to start. They do come across and ignore a few Zombies who are still going through their day to day routines. At the fire station they find that the main fire truck has been driven off into a ditch. Investigating the Fire Station the external windows are broken. The try the main vehicular doors but they're stuck. A plan is hatched that two of them will go into the station while the last member will remain in the vehicle.

The two go in through the front which was unlocked. There is evidence that there had been a fight in the main lobby. Jeremy goes to confirm the kill on any of the bodies they go past. So far so good as they make their way to the vehicle bay they find the source of the problem. One of the vehicles has been pulled up into the door jamming it. This is when problems show up outside. The siren and lights go off on the firetruck. There were two zombies in the truck that the failed to inspect first, one of them accidently hit the switch climbing out. The commotion brings the two who were inside out.

Battle with the first two zombies begins with our driver fighting from the car. The Zombies moans attracts another group from a neighboring building. Before they know it it's now 6 on 3. Fortunately these characters are all extra capable and make short work of the attacking Zombies, the only casualty is their main vehicles front windshield. In what would have been a fairly cool scene the driver used his car as a weapon striking a group of 4 zombies. 1 of those zombies managed to grab onto the hood of the car, and when it came their turn to attack it was a natural 20 to break through. The zombie did not roll as well when the driver hit the breaks ejecting the zombie from the hood of the vehicle.

Having stopped the first two waves of zombies within 2 melee rounds the characters had time to go back into the fire station. Free up the ambulance and head home. While they managed to avoid any zombies on the way back, they became acutely aware that the zombies had been awakened in mass. In the rear view they saw what must have been 100+ zombies making their way to the fire station.

At the end of the day the team had acquired one knew vehicle (the ambulance) as well as the emergency medical equipment that was stored inside, along with a few other souvenirs from the fire department.