Name: Old Man Bridger
History: -Engaging First-person Monologue-
It was a cold gray September morning when I came outside to realize it had been taken. My entire collection of vintage lawn ornaments, stolen in the night! I knew it was those damned religious nuts over in the building down the road. Damned crazy scientologists over there were always parading about with rare lawn statues and such. They took my '97, my '86, even my '53 collectors' flamingo! I knew something had to be done. A man doesn't take another man's decorations. That's a capital crime in Florida, and this place sure is sunny. I strapped on my glove and picked up my gun, and headed down the road.
Items:
Leather Glove, Black Fedora, Gray Wifebeater, Pink Bathrobe, Gray Cargo Pants, Pink Bunny Slippers, ID Card, Wallet, '90s cell phone, Bottle of Whiskey, .357 S&W Magnum(2d6), Combat Knife(LW,1d6), Sasha, Celine, Mr. Smith, Eric Clapton, Joan, Bill Nye, Henderson, Little Joe (Combat Fitted) (Sub machine gun 1d10)
Guns: 20
Melee: 10
Agility: 35
Knowledge: 10
Charisma: 15
Abilities:
Art of Throwing
Before the fight, would you like to change your character sheet? I have decided your combat falcons act collectively as a 9mm sub machine gun, which you can duel wield, because that makes since.
=======================
Name:False: [Jane Shepard] Real: [Jade Smarke]
History: Child of two cultists, Jade was to be sacrificed to some nameless horror when she was 12. The ritual interrupted by a mysterious group, Jade saved and taken into care. Her parents riddled with bullets and bleeding behind her, Jade never looked back. Trained as a long-distance problem-solver, Jade grew up in the company of people who faced horrors for a living - she grew up silent and grim, rarely if ever cracking a smile. She spent her days on the firing range, spending high-calibre rifle rounds downrange.
She went on her first mission when she was 18. Now she's 26, and along the way she picked up a slight addiction to opiate painkillers. A guilty secret - she knows it's bad, and she has to stop, but she always takes just one more...
A tacturn, dark-skinned woman, Jade (or as she goes by, Jane Shepard) is a part of a eldritch-abomination hunting group known as the Crimson Shield. With the aid of her team, she found monsters and those who would wake them and discourage such activities. A hunt gone wrong left her alone out of the seven in one piece, the in a rest in thirty pieces between them. Technically discharged for medical leave, Jane does not seem to have left well enough alone...
Always seems to be wearing some kind of hat. No particular reason. She just likes hats.
Items: "Love Tap" OSV-96 Anti-material rifle w/ scope, bipod (folded) inside carrying case
A heavy rifle, folded inside a generic looking carrying case. The name of the rifle is written carefully on the stock in cherry red, with a lipstick style-picture of a pair of lips next to it. Cared for like an old friend, the rifle is one of the most precious things to Jade.
2d12
- carry case
A generic hard plastic case Jane keeps her rifle inside. Just a case. The rifle must be folded and the scope removed before it fits.
- Painkillers, 4 bottles of
Opiate painkillers, far in excess what any person might need.
- Casual clothing
Basic t-shirt, leather jacket and cargo trousers. Beanie hat if it's cold. Baseball cap if it's not. Generic enough to not draw undue attention.
- Wallet
A battered leather wallet. Some cash, some "work" ID in the name Jane Shepard.
- Shooting glasses
A mirrored pair of shooting glasses, designed to protect against dust and rifle discharge. Slightly scratched.
- Hidden Knife
A vicious knife, one edge serrated, hidden in the small of her back under the leather jacket. Could do someone a mischief with this, that's for sure. (Lw, 1d6)
Armor: 5
100
Guns: 50
Melee: 15 Melee was never her forte. Try as she might, she never could put on too much muscle mass.
Agility: 15
Knowledge: 20 She never bothered to learn too much - she just aimed and fired.
Charisma: 0. Quiet and unfriendly, she has a surly demeanor. She left the talking to the others.
Abilities: One shot, One kill
You exit the car to get the lump, waving away the flies (buzzing angrily once again at you stealing their meal), putting it in the sealed plastic bag. It seems to shrink even under the presence of the bag, while you see now flies a few maggots crawl around what used to be your arm. You actual arm seems to have stabilized, the wound no longer growing. The same can't be said of the poor kid, the holes look like they are about to expand to the vitals.
What do you do now?
=============
Name: Anders Lang
History: Once a bright linguistics student, Lang managed to finagle his way into an expedition to an ancient temple discovered deep in the Himalayas, and with inscriptions in an unknown script. They entered the temple and began their work, and surprisingly made great success in translating the writings, being able to largely read them within a few months. That was when they discovered a horrifying secret: that the temple was actually a seal over an ancient horror. They thought nothing of it at first, assuming that it was over a volcano or that some ancient wanderer had had a bad trip or something.
However, over the next week the expedition began suffering from mental problems. Fatigue, anxiety, eventually breakdowns. Alarmed, they decided to leave - only to find the gates sealed shut. Lang doesn't remember more than snatches of the next terrifying days, but he does remember fleeing from the final collapse into the depths of the temple, and finding a partially blocked ventilation shaft. Starting the climb. After that, nothing but waking up in the hospital. He has never found any of the others.
Lang was deeply affected by this experience, surprisingly enough; he lived in an obsessive fear of everything for some time, but then determined to end that. Decided that instead of waiting for the dark to come to him, he would go into the dark. That he would fight against that beyond understanding for both himself, and for mankind (mostly himself.) He spent years mastering those tools which would not abandon him as they had on his expedition - his hands, and his will.
Anders is driven by a fear of the Other and of powerlessness, and especially of losing his mind and identity. Not much of true death, but of effective death. He has trained in many martial arts, especially those which focus on agility and which promise the ability of punching out eldritch horrors, and of controlling his thoughts and emotions. He values knowledge, but considers it only a tool for destroying what remains unknown. His hope is to master all which humanity cannot comprehend, and if Death happens to pass that way all the better.
Items:
A close-fitting white suit, cut to allow as effective movement as possible.
A pair of cold iron gauntlets, with lots of religious, occult, and talismanic symbols written on them in silver. Lang isn't sure if any of that helps, but they sure are good for hitting things. Light melee weapons. (1d6)
A necklace with a small lens on it, which symbolizes reason and light and is also pretty cool. It always distorts light in an unusual way, which Lang has memorized exactly.
A small notebook and pencil.
Armor: 5
Guns: 0
Melee: 30
Agility: 30
Knowledge: 20
Charisma:15
Abilities: Proposal: Determinator. The character will not easily give up, whatever faces them. While not actually any tougher, they will be able to withstand more pain, more mental stress and insanity, and to see their decision clearly however confused the situation - though there is no guarantee of that choice being right.
You walk over to the other tourist boats as the yacht sails away. There are a variety of small boats, from other large yachts like the one you saw sail away, to two-person rowboats with loose diving equipment on it, with about five of intermediate design and size. All of the boats were in good shape and expensive looking-without any signs of old equipment. However, they are all empty, with nobody around.
After a few minutes of snooping around, two blue-uniformed guards come up to you. "May we ask what you are doing by the boats,
sir?" one of them asks, in a somewhat aggravated tone. The other stands next to him, blocking your way off the dock.
What do you do now?
=============
Name: Aiden Wainright
History: An Ex-English teacher who after getting fired because he mouthed of the head head of the school-board became a PMC after his entire squad was massacred by various Eldritch beings. He has since been tracking down any he can find and making sure they cease to exist.
Items:
-A Barrett M107A1 with bipod and custom carrying case labeled with Fenris in large gothic font. (2d12)
-A Beretta M9A1 (1d10)
-An ACU (Army Combat Uniform) with an Advanced Combat Helmet with goggles and balaclava.
-A large black trenchcoat with no pockets.
-And a large Malamute that follows him everywhere.
Armor: 5
Guns:35
Melee:0
Agility:10
Knowledge:25
Charisma:30
Abilities: One Shot, One Kill
Good thing I asked, because that is polar opposite to what I meant.
=============
You look down at your dog, trying to figure out what is wrong with him. You had just been taking him on a walk, to get some exercise, when all of a sudden he refused to move, bearing his large teeth and growling at nothing, fur standing on end. No matter what you do, you could not find a way to coax him into motion, any attempt at consoling him only seemed to further anger him.
As you stand there thinking what to do, you gaze upward at the sky your dog seems to be looking at. It is a buetiful day out, with several small fluffy clouds dotting the blue sky above the nearby trees. There is nothing in the sky that would cause your dog to act this way, you already checked, of course. Not even the birds seem to be singing. No helicopters, no planes, not even any tall buildings. Nothing...
Except that small dot, you notice. You shield your eyes from the sun, just to make sure it it is really there. Yes, high above you is a small, brown, dot. Not just one, but three. Why didn't you notice this earlier? They appear to be getting larger and larger, though still to small to make out....
A few seconds later, you see what they are. Free falling from the sky at terminal velocity, was something horribly inhuman. They approach incredibly swiftly, opening huge, leathery to slow their fall as if they were human skydivers, twisting in formation down to Earth where they most surly don't belong. All three hit he ground as softly as a kitten, not even stirring up a centimeter of dust. All three land together, about five yards away from you. Your dog is looking directly at them now, hair and teeth showing more then ever.
You now get a good look at them. Their wings are the size of a man each, when not folded. They are leathery like a bat's, with a shape you would expect on a prehistoric animal. There bodies were a horrid and unnatural combination of different animals, including what must be decomposing human flesh, as if an insane taxidermist was given free rain of the entirety of the animal kingdom. Their faces were shaped much like an insects, like a sideways egg, but instead of large eyes it had but a single mouth, taken from a shark, put on their face vertically. Their bony hands were something of a combination of a monkey and a hawks, with black talons at the end of each appendage. Their torso is almost human, but with bits of flesh removed or falling half off. And the smell! God, you think you should have been able to smell this monstrosity from the atmosphere, let alone your poor dog.
What do you do now?
-------------------
Name: Alfred Simmers
History:
Starting out as an atheistic scholar of theology and the myth associated along with the religions, Alfreds initial goal was to find out more about humanities culture, their roots and how it all fitted together. Piecing together the relations between gods, legends and customs, chasing the divine mono-myth from the norse to the indian gods and further - it all was bound tightly, seperated mostly by the passing of time and distance traveled by mouth.
While investigating the birthplace of the "shangrila" mythos, (an idea quite present in asia, but in scholary circles long known to be lake ural in the more european parts of russia) he was part of - yet another natural drug-utilizing - shamanistic ritual. Not his first, and certainly not his last - but... something happened to Alfred that night, and a piece of the big puzzle he was working on was pieced together. Further Investigations into that new-found sliver of truth were made, relations discovered and at some point, proof was obtained. Proof that was far more than he ever bargained for. Proof, that better had stayed hidden, but impossible to ignore and not to be acted upon.
Nowadays, Dr. Dr. Dr. Simmers (Theology, Mysticism, and Honorary Theoretical {heh} Archaeology [he normally keeps it at one "Dr." for Introductions]) travels quite less, but with more purpose, always keeping at least one armament on himself. He really doesn't want to part with them, you see - he is quite sure that sooner or later he might will need them again, if push comes to shove even for himself...
Items:
- Silenced 9mm: "Never leave the house without it. I mean it. Always leave at least one bullet untouched. Also mean that."
- Sawed-Off Shotgun: "Ah, this feeling of safety... And useful. Really useful."
- 5 Moleskine's: "The one used for accounting and lectures is the only one unencoded. And the most harmless by far. As for the other's content... you don't want to know. Trust me."
- First Aid Kit: "Always stocked with a suspicious number of sedatives, calmatives and sleeping pills. And one undescribed, lethal poison one. Go figure."
- Travelers Odds and Ends: - "Swiss Knive, Lighter, Forged Passports, Light 10m Rope, Binoculars, Pocket Flask of Absinth, Two Pack of Gums - two "kinds" of gum, at that - and a seewing kit. All in a days work."
- Souvenir Pouch: - "Algiz Rune, Visnu Stattuete, O-Mamori, Different Crosses, Talismans, Fetish-y. Not sure any of them do their job, but trying is worth it."
- Traveler Boots: "Never underestimate the quality and state of your footwear. Never."
Armor: 5 - "Luck 's been on my side.. till now that is. Still quite sure that I can't thank any good for it either."
Guns: 23 - "A man's gotta do..."
Melee: 2 - "Yeah.. tried that. Once. Once was enough."
Agility: 15 - "Keeping fit nowadays. Also sleeping way better nowadays."
Knowledge: 55 - "Dr. Dr. Dr. Simmers. Need I say more? ... Figured."
Charisma: 5 - "... long time since I was invited for tea 'cept for polite necessity. Far longer since I took up the offer."
Abilities:
Identify Supernatural: Dr.³ Simmers bread, butter and potential undoing. He knows what he is talking about. Well, almost-certainly-not-talking-about, but still.
"Well ve have attempted a variety of examination techniques, chipping off pieces and taking pictures you know of already. We have tried to remove it with a series of pulley's, fist pulled by the men and then by our trucks. Ve couldn't budge it. Ve tried to dig directly around it, into the surrounding two stones, but it broke the excavation tools that attempted it. After that, ve decided to call you and the heavy machinery. I have called in bulldozers, backhoes, and excavators to attempt to remove the stone. I have not ruled out that these have been carved into the hill itself, and have also ordered mining explosives and equipment. Ve will drill in the other side, of course, to avoid damaging the interesting wall." He states, as you continue to contemplate.
Looking at the sign again, you have a small Eureka! moment. You realize the spider-web like pattern has a strange similarity to the "Man in the Maze", a common symbol representing life, but instead of representing a man outside a maze with a single path, it shows multiple paths, all leading to the middle that commonly represents death. The blob in the middle could represent the deaths of multiple people-which would connect with the multiple paths, but you find that idea unlikely. The screaming skull is likely a warning-though to what, you already can guess.
Though the single skull could represent something else-a single person. Multiple paths for a single person, what could that mean? Multiple lives? Perhaps the blob in the middle represents ambiguity, maybe the power to change shape at will, or to have multiple shapes? Or maybe the power to switch from person to person, in order to avoid death, represented by the lines jumping from maze to maze?
What do you do now?
(Psh, you hardly rolled high enough for me to give away too much, so here is something to work with. Good luck sorting it all out. Left enough red hearings to distract you, hopefully.)
--------------
Name: Rachel Lindy Stine
History: A simple housewife with martial arts as a hobby, Rachel isn't the person that people will point to as special. Weird? yes, but special? As a wife of the normal 2.6(3 in this case) family, you can't get much more normal, barring the karate.
However, with a single phone call from her eldest son, Tim, asking for help, sends this mother off to a creepy town. The thing to note is that most horrors have never heard the term 'don't stand between a mother and her cubs.' so Rachel got a lot to overcome if she going to save her kid.
Items:White karate gi-Black belt of course
Hand bag-money, phone, makeup, etc. Also doubles as a swinging weapon.
SUV-It a car. Can't carry it, but I had to get here somehow.
Armor: 5
Guns: 10
Melee: 30
Agility: 25
Knowledge: 15
Charisma: 25
Abilities: Fist Fighting Focus
You finally arrive at the town, though it doesn't seem exceptionally creepy. Creepy, yes, but not exceptionally so. The town is rather dark, mostly due to the light fog that is currently hanging over it. You haven't seen many people since entering, but the fog would hide most of them anyway. The beginning of the town was dotted with cheap-looking trailers and small homes that might as well be trailers, but once you entered the main town it looked like any other neighborhood, with pleasant houses lining either side of the street, well mowed lawns, and cheery little gardens, though everything seems to be covered in a thin sheet of grey from the fog.
Nothing hints at the phone call you received.
You are about to start your first move, when you notice your dial is pointing toward "E". Your plans will have to wait, got to get gas first. You pull on to the main street, with various shops on either side, a few restaurants, and other stores you would expect to find in a town like this. There isn't anybody outside, but a light rain has started up among the fog. Most people would probably be inside, and there are several cars that hint human habitation. You find the store you are looking for easily enough, a gas station.
You pull up next to the closest pump, looking toward the gas station. It is rather small, with plane walls and advertisements sticking out out of the window. In front of the store is a small bench, with chipped red paint, and the first human inhabitant of this town that you have seen. He isn't a pleasant sight, an old man with a beer belly, a patchwork coat, and a bottle of cheap alcohol. One of his eyes was greyed over, starring blankly forward, the other was on the drink he was chugging. His hair was wild, with patches that look like they had been pulled out forcibly.
You keep your eye on him-but get out of the car to pump the gas. After all, the quicker you get gas, the quicker you can respond to the call. You start pumping when a voice comes from the old man on the bench behind you. "Go back! Get out of this town while you still can!" he states, in a deep, strained voice with intoxication obvious in it.
What do you do now?
Author
Topic: Death May Die- Modern Eldritch Action! Room for one more! (Read 8428 times)