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I like the possibility of the party being split between characters who are trapped in the house and characters who continue to age normally outside of the house. It reminds me of the psi-mechanic's house that Erik Wujcik designed for 1st edition BtS. Even better, a number of free floorplans are available on the web from developers' websites -- free maps!

Party's presence is requested. Receive note (how they get it is GM's choice).

"Please come to ____________________________ need your help. Understand you
dabble in the paranormal. Loved one missing, need help finding. Reports of him/her
being seen in ghostly form. I've seen him/her myself. Please come."

Signed:_________________________

When arrive at address given, it is an old southern style mansion with many rooms (39). Inside adorning the walls are old paintings of past ancestors to fresher ones of current generations. These are throughout the abode. The kind of paintings where the eyes follow all at all angles of viewing. Servants are: A butler, older gentleman maybe British origin; a downstairs maid; an upstairs maid; rather robust older lady cook; and a mysterious of indeterminate age lady head of staff.
Oh, and don't forget the chauffer in mid twenties and the creepy grounds keeper who takes care of the manor's dogs. The lady of the manor has sent the note, her husband is missing. They are in their fifties. Add any children, grandchildren, friends as you see fit to the manor. Typical grounds for the estate. Brick wall around the grounds, heavy iron gates block the drive way. Creeping (creepy?) ivy vines, low hanging Cyprus trees and weeping willows abound. And don't forget the hedge maze. Dress up the manor rooms with furniture and trappings as you see fit. I have the butler and cook married. All servants live on the grounds either in a comfortable servants and/or quartered in the manor. Could have some live in a nearby town and have 1 day off a week.

The lady of the manor explains they went to bed one night. She was awoken by a horrible sound and a rush of wind that put the bedroom in disarray. She turned to see if her husband had noticed that, thought she was dreaming, and he was gone. After a frantic search of the grounds, local police notified and even the hiring of a private eye…..nothing….well for about 6 months. Then one of the maids reported seeing a ghostly figure of the man of the manor. First sighting was about 2 months ago and have been increasing by number and duration. Been really hard to keep some of the servants employed at the manor.

She hesitates…..gets up and goes to something rather big covered in canvas leaning against the wall in the parlor. It is a painting about 10ft tall and 6 feet wide. She unveils a painting, life like as the others of her off to the left sitting. She explains. "Before the night my husband disappeared, his image was to my right it is now gone. You are the only ones who now know this."

Well, there you go now run with it possible things to find out:

1. All paintings were made by the same artist, even the ones done a century or more ago.
2. Lady head of staff is always dressed in black with hair done in tight bun. Thin tall one who seems to float across the floor.
3. Butler never smiles or shows any emotions.
4. Husband disappears on 100th anniversary of an ancestral family murder.
5. You could swear those paintings shift ever so slightly?
6. etc, etc


Oh, and don't forget to "Loose the hounds" of the manor...............sorry couldn't resist.

Shawn Merrow wrote:

Lord Z wrote:KGB psychics, possession entities, or cultists that worship Loki (or the Midgard Sepent) -- there are a lot of ways this could go. I do like the Ian Fleming vibe.

I will be using a Norse angle and most likely Loki.

Have decided to use Svartálfaheim. I 'm just not sure who to use as a villain as Loki is kind of cliche. I've been thinking of Hod or Heimdall based on an anime I'm watching.

Biggie B, that's a nice hook with the paintings that change when real people dissappear. It sort of gets lost, however, in all of the text about the house and staff.

Lord Z wrote:Biggie B, that's a nice hook with the paintings that change when real people dissappear. It sort of gets lost, however, in all of the text about the house and staff.

Yeah, got carried away with the narrative, a bit.....well....okay...alot then. You know how old GMs just raddle on and on and on....

The Saving Remnant
Adapted from a suggested GURPS campaign by Kenneth Hite

The year is 1000 AD, and Western Civilization is about to be destroyed. Western Europe is isolated and facing invasion from three sides. Eastern Europe has already fallen. Tribes of Werewolf beserkers from the north have been raiding coastal villages and becoming more aggressive each year. From the east, Gargoyle armies have obliterated all human settlements from Moscow to the Alps, and they raise packs of Hellhounds in the Reign Valley by the hundreds of thousands. From the South, the Sowki control North Africa and have pushed into souther Spain with huge Ghoul armies under their command. Internal division and fortification is the only reason that has kept the free kingdoms intact until now. It has become clear to many scholars that the Father has turned his back Christiandom. Scholars estimate that by the Year 1033, the millenial anniversary of the cruxifiction, Europe will be completely overrun by monsters.

That is how the historical sitaution might have looked to kings in real-life Europe at the time. The werwolves were Vikings, the Sowki & Ghouls were the Moors, and the Gargoyles were barbarian tribes like the Magyars. Insert your own favorite monsters for any of these factions. Hite used Orcs instead of Gargoyles. You might use Chinese Demons lead by Ghengis Kahn or Vampires spawned from Vlad Tepes. Of course, other Christian kingdoms did exist in places behind enemy lines like India and Eastern Africa, but Europeans knew almost nothing about these places.

All hope is not lost. The king of France, Charlemange, has a secret. Over the next ten years, he will order that all wooden buildings in his territory -- churches, homes, and barns -- will be torn down as building materials for a great fleet. This fleet, carrying as many refugees as possible, will sail west into the uncharted ocean. He can't save everyone, but he can save civilization. That is where you come in. Wise King Charlemange has chosen the player characters to be his agents, slowing the advance of the enemy and securing remnants to be evacuated over the ocean.

The king has left the decision of what remenant to save to each agent. Will you save a priceless work of art? Treasure? A religious book? A single child? Your decision will be your saving remnant.

The PCs may be any class, but they are limited to human characters and Dark Age-era skills. When they reach 5th level, they will be knighted -- the term 'palladin' is actually derived from Charlemange's court. The King intends to sail his grand fleet in the Year 1020, so you have twenty years to accomplish whatever you think you can do.

I recently heard this on a podcast. A host described the typical adventure scenario in an RPG as being five strangers sitting in a bar when they all agree to quest to find the princess' missing garter belt. I thought the concept was so funny, that I would try to adapt it to some other RPGs.

The Garter Belt
During another adventure or during some downtime between investigations, one of the player-characters receives a curious gift. A woman's garter belt shows up on his dinner plate, right on top of the vegetable. Alternatively, it could be found in a mail box or left in his car or almost any other way to anonymously get the item to the PCs. Any investigations into the origin of the belt quickly lead to dead ends. It could be deduced that the belt is made from the highly quality Middle Asian materials, or through psychometry that it belongs to a young man who was given it from a beautiful young woman. The belt should be treated as just an amusing event which occurs during a time when the PCs have more important worries.

One or two game sessions later, a stern older woman appears out of the blue, seeking the undergarment. She explains that she is a diplomat from the nation of Albenistan and securing the garter belt is a matter of nation security for her country. By studying of surveillance tapes or else by remote viewing, her spies have determined that the PCs were the last people to see the belt.

Here is what is happening in Albenistan. The country has a long history of division among quarrelsome tribes, but a generation ago, a single warlord was able to unite the country under his command – with the aid of considerable Soviet backing. With his Soviet allies now gone, the king is attempting to establish a royal bloodline. There are several other warlords who would prefer to claim the throne for themselves and have a heritage claim to their method of the crown going to the strongest. The king has only two living children, a son and a daughter. The elder sibling, the prince, is expected to be given the crown soon. If the prince were to become king and if he were to die before having an heir himself, the royal bloodline would flow through the princess and her children. For that reason, protecting the princess' virtue has become a major priority. The stern woman is the the royal family's Minister of Chastity. While the royal family was making a diplomatic journey, the princess did have an illicit relationship, evidenced by her giving away the garter belt. Her conspirator, suddenly afraid that he was about to be caught by the king, got rid of the belt. Perhaps the man was the cook who put the belt on the plate to get rid of it, or maybe he was a mail carrier who shoved it in a mail box rather than being caught with it. As the king has aged, he has grown obsessive about his daughter’s chastity. The Department of Chastity keeps all of her clothing on record. This would not normally be a problem, but the king has ordered a thorough and public inventory be performed. If it is found that the garter belt is missing, the king might just order his daughter's execution rather than risk civil war. The Minister understands that she has failed in her duty, but she is willing to do whatever she must to prevent the king from learning it. A wealthy prince and a lovely princess are also anxious to resolve the situation as quickly and subtly as possible. Can the PCs leverage the situation to introduce political reforms in Albenistan or simply to make bank? Is the princess really this slutty? This is a scenario in which the GM is likely to find a carrot more significant than a stick.

So where is the garter belt? The odds are that the PC who received it either did something goofy with it or forgot it. Was it used as a sling shot? Was it left behind at the last hotel room?

If it was not written down on the character sheet with all of the character's other gear, than it was lost. Where was it seen last (meaning where was it mentioned last in-character)? Was it in the laboratory of the mad scientist? Was it in that haunted casino? Somebody will have to go back there to find it.

If the garter belt is on the equipment list, then the Minister will thank the PCs, pay them a generous reward, and leave with the prize. The next day, the real Minister of Chastity arrives. The real Minister is an older man and the guy who is having a secret relationship with the princess. He did ditch the garter belt, but the stern woman is a thief who is blackmailing him. Because of the role that the PCs played in aiding the blackmailer – and possibly in causing a diplomatic incident – they should be shamed into the helping the Minister retrieve the lost garter belt.

Good idea But not really BtS.

You have a point there, G. What can we do to properly adapt the scenario to a BtS game? Is the princess a reptoid conspirator (sowki)? Was the cook an incubus (darota) or vampire who brainwashed the princess? Is a syphon entity inside the undergarment?

Backstories

One of the most memorable supernatural-themed comic book series I ever read was a DC mini-series entitled The Trenchcoat Brigade. It was memorable because in one issue, the heroes were somehow caught in a magical timewarp. In the next issues, they were each forced to relive their origin stories. The catch is that each one was forced to relive the origin of another hero. Some of the origins were actually shown in the book, and others were just implied. I was thinking that this could be a particularly fun scenario for a small group roleplaying in a BtS campaign.

Before the game (or at the very start), the GM has every player write a description of the PC's background. The description can be a short as a paragraph and no longer than a handwritten page. The description should focus on a single character-defining event in the past. Perhaps it is the story of the Night Hunter's first encounter with a supernatural monster, or it might be the first time that Fire Walker's powers manifested. The GM collects these pages and quickly reads them.

At some point during the game, reality is twisted. This can occur when the group adventures into an astral domain. It can happen when they fall into a rip in magic or a rift through time. I like the idea of the characters being trapped in the false world of a Doppleganger Entity, and that entity divides its world into separate pocket realities drawn from the memories of the PCs. At this point, the GM explains that each character will experience an event of another character's past. Each player selects one of the other players' sheets at random.

One by one, the players roleplay their own PCs who are experiencing the events of other another PC's past. At this point, the player who wrote the description becomes a temporary GM who describes in greater detail what is happening. The main GM just handles technical issues (like rules judgements) and decides when the scenario ends. Perhaps the PCs only escape by resolving the central conflict in the memory, either by taking the same actions as the original player or by doing something different. Or, there is perhaps a magic door leading out which is hidden inside each memory. The GM should take care to keep the other players busy by giving them minor NPCs to roleplay or just by keeping each memory-scene short.

When the PCs escape, they still have their adventure to resolve, but the task should be easier now. Either the Doppleganger Entity was weakened by the experience, or they pulled out artifacts from the time rift that can be used to close it, or whatever... After the adventuring is done, the PCs will have a new perspective on each others characters. What dirty secrets were learned? Does PC#1 have more or less respect for PC#2 after seeing events from her point of view? Has the stage been set for an epic PC vs PC battle? Such outcomes depend a lot on how the players unknowningly wrote the adventure.

Nice work Lordy lord!

I'm falling asleep so this is just the basics.

A man who has dabbled in the Occult his whole life, wife suddenly dies. He loved her dearly so starts searching for a way to bring her back to life. He may even hire the players to help. A ritual is eventually found that will do what he wants. The ritual is performed at the graveyard but a horrible mistake is made and all the bodies in the cemetery arise as Zombies. Even if the players have not been involved yet he may contact them in a panic seeking help to fix his mess.

Shawn Merrow wrote:I'm falling asleep so this is just the basics.

A man who has dabbled in the Occult his whole life, wife suddenly dies. He loved her dearly so starts searching for a way to bring her back to life. He may even hire the players to help. A ritual is eventually found that will do what he wants. The ritual is performed at the graveyard but a horrible mistake is made and all the bodies in the cemetery arise as Zombies. Even if the players have not been involved yet he may contact them in a panic seeking help to fix his mess.

cool

I like it, Shawn. It has a sympathetic antagonist, and a deep running theme of the inherent dangers of the supernatural. Can you give us a title?

How about "Please return my beloved." Glad you both like it, will add expanding it to my list of projects.

Invitation

This concept is completely and shamefully ripped off from the XxXHolic movie. It is particularly well suited for players who enjoy looting bodies, taking in-game trophies, or simply filling the backs of their character sheets with equipment and cool stuff. The PCs should be experienced adventurers who have encountered the supernatural before, been on at least three previous adventurers, and collected something. The GM should observe one type of item collected by each PC -- guns, spells, ancient books, treasures, classic cars, trading cards, or even scars.

The PCs each receive an unexpected invitation to a party. The address is for a large house not far from the town where they live. The mysterious host offers to help each complete his or her collection if they attend. If the PCs don't take the bait, a woman will come to them for help and say that her husband, an art collector, went to that house a month ago and vanished (for the husband is asking help to find his wife if you prefer). If the PCs still won't take the bait, don't force it, and try a different adventure.

So the PCs go the house. Use the Randolf Family Mansion map from BtS-1 or the floorplan from any large house (developers like to post these online). A handful of NPCs are there already, each a well known collector of something. If the PCs spy on the NPCs, they will see the NPCs stealing items from the house to complete their own collections.

One of two of the NPCs start vanishing. When the PCs try to search for the missing collectors, they discover that each room changes every time they re-enter it. For example, three very different versions of the same parlor might be seen if they enter the room three times -- a dusty abandoned parlor with a rainstorm out the window, a busy parlor full of phantoms with a blizzard out the window, and a parlor where every surface is covered in rare stamps. Two PCs can even be in different versions of the same parlor at the same time and not see each other if the GM likes to split up the party. The level of danger to be found in the house is entirely up to the GM. Any attempts to leave the house find the PCs only re-entering through a different door or window.

The house sits on a tear in magic which reappears from time to time. During these periods of time, the house develops its own intelligence. It can project itself into a small number of pocket dimensions (or astral domains if the GM prefers), and it can control its own features. Although intelligent, the house is completely insane. It's goal is to make a collection of collectors. It does this by tempting the greed of the collectors and then trapping them in some static form called a collector-reclic -- as painted portraits or as dolls on the mantle perhaps. With each collector trapped, the house spirit becomes stronger.

Some suggested solutions: Perform an exorcism of the house itself while someone else distracts the attention of the house in another room. Find the actual rip in magic (maybe in a hidden basement) and seal it with a close rift spell. Find the ghost of the house's true owner and return the house key he lost to him. Burn the house to ashes (which will involve the PCs killing themselves in the process unless they can make themselves immune to fire). Convince a nega-psychic to walk through every room in the house, thus breaking the house's control over each space, and have him smash each collector-relic, thus destroying the house's power sources.

Black Blizzard
During the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s, a storm called Black Sunday occurred on April 14, 1935. This particular windstorm displaced more cubic meters of dirt than the entire Panama Canal project. On that afternoon, a small group of travelers are forced off the road and seek shelter in the only building nearby, a country church.

The church is only normal on the outside. On the inside, it is a temple to a spirit of elemental earth. This spirit might be an alien intelligence or some type of new elemental entity, or the protagonists might never learn what it was. The spirit is away and demands a sacrifice. It has some control over the storm outside and will not allow anyone to leave until the price is paid in blood. If someone isn't killed quickly, the spirit will attempt to speed up the process by shaking the structure with small quakes, then animating some buried dead, and finally then sending in natural gas and oil to fill the building.

I have actually been toying with the idea of throwing it the Thule Society and or Odessa into a campaign. But then maybe I have watched Indiana Jones to many times but I think the Nazis make great villains. I know they would be trying to gain power and wealth and to build a 4th Reigth. need to figger out how to do this. The other thing is, I am not just going to come out and say this is who your fighting, I am going to leave little clues hear and there. ie a body wearing an SS ring or an SS ring being found on a body. the body of a child found sacrificed in teltoinic manner. An ss sun wheel showing up some were. maybe Swistica or Thule swisticas showing up. and of course finding a body with the Thule syble of finding one near a body or a place where a brake in happened... Brake ins and thefts of Occult items. maybe SS items or Nordic/Germanic items

tmikesecrist3 wrote:I have actually been toying with the idea of throwing it the Thule Society and or Odessa into a campaign. But then maybe I have watched Indiana Jones to many times but I think the Nazis make great villains. I know they would be trying to gain power and wealth and to build a 4th Reigth. need to figger out how to do this. The other thing is, I am not just going to come out and say this is who your fighting, I am going to leave little clues hear and there. ie a body wearing an SS ring or an SS ring being found on a body. the body of a child found sacrificed in teltoinic manner. An ss sun wheel showing up some were. maybe Swistica or Thule swisticas showing up. and of course finding a body with the Thule syble of finding one near a body or a place where a brake in happened... Brake ins and thefts of Occult items. maybe SS items or Nordic/Germanic items

Check out the 1978 movie "The Boys From Brazil". And of course, the 1974 movie "The Odessa File".

tmikesecrist3, if the goal is to gather wealth, I would suggest your bad guys are experimenting with alchemy. One of the major goals of alchemy was the ability to turn lead to gold. Exporting precious metals from a remote non-existent mine, perhaps in a Latin American country where Odessa is operating, would be an adequate cover. If you would like a more mad-science in your game, I once ran a Cthulhu game based around the legend of Die Glock (which I think translates as The Bell). The Nazi Bell is either an anti-gravity device which powered Nazi flying saucers or else a power source which was built to out-perform the atom bomb, or both depending on the version you read. I set my game in a prisoner of war camp for British pilots and French resistance fighters with a secret Nazi lab and Die Glock underneath the camp. The Bell was leaking radiation and mutating the soldiers down there into zombies and monsters.

the other thought with Alchemy there where to goals one was turning base metals into gold. and The secret of The water of life. That would also salve the problems I was running into with who would be leading it.

I was also Thinking about setting it in the Kentucky area. so I have been looking at the operation paper clip files. Some of those "former" Nazis where not vary nice people. in fact I think Werner Von Brown is about the only one I would invite to dinner.