New horror game for friends: Wolf Glen

[DtMK]

Considering the books I originally thought would be out by now aren't, I am running a new game for friends for a tabletop game. The gang have played uber powerful characters for a while, but decided a change would be good. So the inspiration for the game comes from a few sources. Warehouse 13, The Lost Room, Friday the 13'th the series, even some Xiaolin Showdown thorn in. At least, that's what they think. The gang wanted to play people who went after magical artifacts, or even things that have weird and inexplicable powers. SyFy tends to put out B and C movie crap, but one of the best inspirations has been The Lost Room. A strange event occurs in a hotel room, imbuing all the items there with strange powers. I created something for my players, with some Silent Hill thrown in. But they don't know that...yet.

The PCs are a Survivalist from Systems Failure, only their gut feelings are attuned to supernatural monsters, not bugs. Another is a Sorcerer from Nightbane, and lastly we have a Hound Master from Dead Reign. But trust me, the setting is all BTS inspired. The group were brought together to find strange artifacts by a mysterious benefactor. Lately they have noticed strange items that don't register as magic, but their probings indicate the items are indestructible, psychic and magic probes say they seem to have been frozen in time and something strange has washed over them, imbuing them with powers. The Survivalist has a toy cap gun given to him by his grandfather that when the trigger is pulled, it sounds like a real gun, and deafens anyone that it's pointed at when fired for 3D6 melees. They're currently tracking strange deaths that the time of deaths normally occur around 1 AM. Some of the victims have massive coronaries, others run out in front of traffic or down stairs seemingly out of fright, others still look like they were torn apart by wild animal attacks. The current case involves the second man in Denver Colorado to die at 9 AM on Monday morning. Probes have indicated the desk and the cap gun both come from a town in Oregon, but they haven't discovered the name yet...Wolf Glen.

I decided to pull from many sources for this game in fiction and Palladium games. Imagine a sleepy little lumber town that in 1976, something weird happened, making many townspeople sick, others disappearing, many dying. It was later brushed off as mass radon poisoning, and the town was made into a modern ghost town. The state bought the rights to the town, possibly for minerals and auctioned off many of the items in town to recoup losses. Unfortunately no one was aware of the special properties of the items, and most of the ledgers of items sold were lost when the records office in Portland caught fire mysteriously. The town itself? Cordoned off, some are unable to enter at all. Others claim they hear and see strange things around it. Others still try driving into the town only to end up on the other side of where it's supposed to be. Apparently the town only lets you in if it wants to. But for many of the items, things start to happen at 12:59 AM and 59 seconds. How are they all tied together? Only further exploration can tell.

What do you think?

[DtMK]

Any thoughts?

[DtMK]

There should be plenty of open endedness to develop characters. I'm already making NPC's as the financial backer of their organization. Originally this is a Plan C game while waiting for other books to arrive, but the gang really want to have fun with this. Mixing it up by having standard magical items and ones that defy any logic give me free reign to be creative! Other items include a flyswatter that will make every insect run away and stay away for 100 feet ever time it's used, a red pen that every time it's clicked on, it will make someone bleed that it's pointed at until the pen is clicked off or the person is dead, a soldering iron that will desiccate anyone and anything living, dead or undead it touches, and even a '71 El Camino that always has fuel, and will mysteriously take anyone to where they want to go if they fall asleep at the wheel. All these items are indestructible, but also seem to attract supernatural things, as well as other objects.

As far as character growth, it'll have opportunities to think on the fly, to develop personalities, quirks, likes and possibly delve into character pasts and fears. It's a world where these guys are waging a war that the public has no idea exists, and where hunters and scholars don't have the longest lifespans, nor grasps of sanity.

[DtMK]

Part of the hook is that these PC's were approached, and hired by a man named Mr. Chapel, the head of The Lincoln Group. He pays them to do what they're doing already, to pursue the strange and unusual, stop any threats and retrieve any bizarre objects or bodies. With this comes resources, a steady source of income, and an oath not to sell these strange and dangerous items for profit and damnation of beings that may wield them, or be cursed by them.

Any digging will find The Lincoln Group was founded after a young woman and President Lincoln had premonitions of his death, but failure to believe or act on them led to what we all know as history. To prevent further threats to the government and its people without making superstitious people think the government is engaging in black magics, The Lincoln Group was formed. Acting with organizations like the US Marshals, Secret Service and The Pinkerton Agency, their mission is to find the strange, the supernatural and the threatening, and eliminate the threats. 'Normal' magic items are easy enough. But the objects and cause for the devastation and enchantment of Wolf Glen remains a mystery. It has a local legend, but it can only be discovered if someone can get to the library of the town. Were any of its books sold in the auction? Is there an object or combination of objects that will allow people to pass into the town? And once inside, will the town let you out alive? Mr. Chapel was an experienced soldier and knowledgeable of the supernatural. That didn't keep him from losing a leg to whatever things exist in that town.

[Lord Z]

I like the concept of a haunted town which is only there when it wants to let someone inside. Outside of that, you seem to be running an excellent game, D. You don't need our feedback.

I am curious about motivations. If the Lincoln Group is paying the PCs to do the investigations they were doing already, then what was their original motivation?

[DtMK]

That's part of the hook. Imagine the mind-set of a supernatural hunter. You go after the weird, the unexplained, because your own life was turned upside-down by it. Your own job and finances may have been lost, so unless you're stealing from someone, making money for food, lodging, ammo and weapons can be hard to come by. If someone knows that there are horrors out there, has the money and resources but not the manpower to go after them and you were on your way to kick some supernatural poop chutes, wouldn't you appreciate the grant? Someone understanding your plight, and helping you to do what you've dedicated your lives to now?

Perhaps The Lincoln Group has experience, but lacking in quality manpower. So you get paid to hunt something and retrieve something else. You remember your friends and allies in this business. Maybe this is some kind of audition or proving ground. Maybe the agency wants to see how you handle yourselves and the money is a way to track and monitor you. Are you gonna load up on armor and guns, or drink yourself to death with it? Or worse? Bruce Lee once said that martial arts is one of the most honest ways of expressing yourself. How you fight, how you carry yourself in the face of living nightmares. Maybe it's a chance to make hunters into contractors, or to see if you're up to being brought further into the fold, to peek behind the curtain and seeing the full scope. Or at least wider than you currently have.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it? And nothing attracts the curious like a mystery. Who is Mr. Chapel? How did he lose his leg? What does he know about creatures, items and what lies in the shadows? He has the money, the location for warehousing things, and other than being a gruff guy he seems on the up and up. What else does he have to offer besides money? Information? A chance at a better life? Or does he know something that could fracture one's already tenuous grasp on their sanity?

[DtMK]

There is room for both subtle horror and Nightbane style horrors that are in your face and scary as hell. And the pen hasn't been discovered yet, as far as saving throws, the items are both charged with energies and removed from regular time. They are something outside the normal constraints of magic or physics as we know them, thus no saving throws. That in my opinion makes these items so much scarier. Subtle, unassuming, items whose uses are inexplicable. And their natures not only attract other supernatural creatures to them, but gives all the more reason to have them locked away so they can do no harm.

For the red pen, when you click it and point it at someone, they have a small bit of blood at first, like a nosebleed or an unhealed wound flows. This continues slowly, causing 1 point of damage per minute until the person bleeds to death. But every time you click it off then on at someone, it does 1D4 damage per additional click. Instead of a saving throw, people can make a dodge roll, like any weapon. There will be minuses for such an unassuming item faced for the first time, after that people can use all bonuses to avoid the 'invisible beam' of the pen. I'm thinking the pen was originally used either in an accountant's office or hospital, either place means the red pen can't possibly be a good thing when used. Hence, the emotional energy that empowers that specific item.

And of course, I've been working on the town itself, the malevolent force behind it and the potential for making my own version of Silent Hill for a game, but with potentially more frightening mysteries and ramifications. It's the weirdness about the items with their own rules and the threats they offer that can induce fear. Games have had some traps or attacks that no saving throw can be made for some time, I thought this could be what makes these items so memorable. And what's worse, would these items still retain their abilities once back inside the town? Are some of the strange beings that call Wolf Glen home resistant, or immune to some of the effects? Or can only the items from the town, and the right combination of items, end whatever malignant cancer it is that's infected the town and the objects?

Want me to write up the thoughts on the source of it all?

[DtMK]

In 1876, local lore, which could only be found in the town or talking to any survivors(hard to find any of those), the quiet town started to face strange animal attacks, prompting people to try and find the cause. What some people claim they found was someone practicing dark magics, speaking about their dark god called The Host, attempted to complete a ritual while on the run from the townspeople and supernatural hunters on their heels. Once completed, the person started to transform into a horrific thing with four eyes, literally like some hound out of hell. Unfortunately for the creature, its very presence warped the environment around it, including the rope bridge it was on. The bridge gave way, and the hellish beast sank into the river, drowning. But its presence was still warping the ground. For fear of contaminating the water, the body was hauled up, then carted off in the middle of the night to the town's square. One of the hunters had something passed down from their family in Norway, a seed supposedly from the tree Yggdrasil. He said that once planted, it would feed off of the darkness of the being and purify it. It was the only place safe, as local mines would also be explored and unsafe for fear of anything uncovering it. Once buried and the seed planted, the seedling sprouted by the next morning. The tree grew into an ash tree, the land was beautiful and people had forgotten about the legends. After all, who'd ever believe it?

But in April of 1976, at 12:59 AM and 59 seconds, that's when the event happened. The folklorists heard that the center of town was a crossroads of magical energies, but didn't pay any mind to it. Suddenly people became sick, claiming to see all kinds of strange things, some disappearing, others claiming monsters were sighted. Others still say the town went from hot to cold to dark, all in the span of an hour. By dawn, no one in the town would be the same. Experts came in and claimed that the entire town was exposed to radon, radioactive gases due to the breakdown of uranium. Shortly after, the town was evacuated, the state bought out the town and reparations for having to move. No one knew what the people or items had really been exposed to, or to what effect. Shortly after, there were sales of some of the items in town, but then the fire happened in the office in Portland. The complete list of items sold gone, only partial lists from a ledger taken from the town, as indestructible as everything else. Not to mention other items that people took with them as they left town, keepsakes and personal items they couldn't live without.

What no one knows is, the lore was true. The cultist had somehow gathered information of a dark race of godlike beings called The Host, and became a vessel for one at the worst possible place. The beast did die, but instead of completely dissipating, the seed and sapling of Yggdrasil did feed upon it. But in April of 1976, the tree reached its one hundredth year. Upon doing so, much like its father tree, Yggdra the sapling had pierced and grown into several dimensions simultaneously. The Mirrorwall, the Shadow Plane, the realm where the Dead Reign, a world of lava and foggy ash, another of bitter cold, yet another was the realm of the Thirteenth Hour(see Rifter #13). The entire area had been saturated with energies from a realm outside of normal time, the entire area where its eldrich roots extended covered the entire town and immediate area beyond. But the worst part was the dark force of The Host. Its essence survived, the body pierced with the roots of Yggdra. Much like Odin and receiving power by being staked to the tree, the Host somehow was empowered to exist within any of the dimensions touched by the tree, and to influence all the realities touched as well. When a Rodian discovered this tree and wished for the power to extend its reach beyond their prison, the Host answered and was taken into the beast. Now freed from the tree and empowered to manipulate the realms, the creature seeks to consolidate its dominion. Many townspeople were taken, others wishing to serve The Host and were truly evil were made into its guardsmen. Others were allowed to become Hosts, locked into each dimension the tree touches except for our own.

The items act like links to the tree and town. Wherever they are, the power of the magic tries to extend, corrupt, seduce and to make a foothold for the monsters in Wolf Glen in other towns. The most dangerous items to be found are toothpicks. Somehow imbued by the world tree's energies, if a single toothpick drops to the ground, that area becomes an ethereal root of Yggdra, and a chance to turn another town, city or area into an extension of Wolf Glen and the horrors to be unleashed.

Not bad eh?

[DtMK]

Why thank you! See? You can make the kinds of games you always dreamed of with the right creativity and Palladium books!

[DtMK]

Good news! It looks like after months of hiatus and delays with friends moving, the band is getting back together and the Wolf Glen game is back on!

[gaby]

Good idea,Hope to see more on the player characters and the magic items.

[DtMK]

I'm thinking of throwing some old favorites in the mix too, like the Dragon Talisman! Hmm, I'll need to flush out the fire dragon on that one...