Campaign Notes
Act I
Scene I: The Magic Eye Lounge
Jacques and Antonio are passing the time at an urban downtown nightclub – The Magic Eye Lounge. Dennis is performing his act onstage. It’s going well, when a pair of strangers burst in through the main entrance – and gun down the bouncer. At this, Antonio and Jacques bolt for the kitchen exit, and Dennis hides behind the raised stage.
The attackers make their way towards a hulking audience member, who takes refuge behind the nightclub’s bar. Dennis crawls to the bar to give the target some words of encouragement. The barkeep wounds one hitman with a hidden shotgun before being taken down by the other.
The hulking man – Frank – instructs Dennis to call the cops and tell them a specific code phrase, then prepares a Molotov cocktail and with it strikes the first attacker. Frank prepares 2 more cocktails, tossing one himself and handing the other to Dennis, who successfully sets on fire and kills the first attacker.
The second hitman, in a rage, picks up his dead companion’s pistol and fires both at Frank, yelling “For the order!” and injuring him slightly. Antonio reenters via the front door and shoots the second hitman, after spotting a car with tinted windows idling across the street outside. Frank rushes the attacker and grapples him successfully, and subsequently crushes him to death.
Before leaving out the back, Frank thanks Dennis and hands him his card – a card bearing only the word “FRANK” on one side, and nothing on the other.
The police arrive in response to the 911 call, and gather the facts about the incident, interviewing Dennis and Antonio. They search the corpses of the attackers before handing them over to the coroner, and one officer pockets a book off one of the corpses – seemingly surprised by it.
Meanwhile, Jacques escaped through a storm drain into the sewer system after retrieving the rifle he stashed out back in a dumpster. While running, he was surprised by three street urchins at a T-junction. They fired at & wounded him, but after a volley of autofire killed one of them instantly, they both turned and fled. Jacques killed yet another, but the last escaped through a hidden door in the wall of the sewer, which clanged shut behind him. Three hours later, Jacques found his way out of the labyrinthine sewers and back to his safehouse.
All three heroes received notices the following day to meet at the Sword & Sorcery bookstore at 3 PM – Jacques and Antonio on “FRANK” cards slipped under the doors of their residences, and Dennis on the previously blank back of the one Frank gave him.
Scene II: Sword & Sorcery Books
Jacques arrives early to scope out the location – an unassuming retail space in an urban commercial complex. From his sniper position, he watches Antonio arrive in his Mercedes, Dennis five minutes late via bus, and then enters himself, assault rifle in hand.
Several of the customers notice, and one screams. An elderly man leaves a back office and confronts Jacques, demanding he leave his guns at home, or just leave. Jacques almost does so, but not before Frank stops him, and tells the store’s owner, Alastair Broggon, that he will explain everything. The frightened customers leave the store, and Mr. Broggon locks up – and puts Jacques’ rifle behind the counter.
Frank sits everyone down in the back, and explains his reasons for calling them – the threat of Shadow. At this, Broggon opens up and starts to explain just what Shadow is to the confused heroes.
That moment, though, there’s a knock at the locked door. Broggon checks it – a FedEx man with a delivery Broggon needs to sign for. He does, and the FedEx man dollies a large wooden crate into the room, then leaves.
As Broggon inspects the unexpected crate’s return address stamped "PTC", it shakes and thumps from within – then a large, sinewy tentacle covered in spines bursts through one of the box’s sides, wrapping Broggon around the ankles and threatening to drag him inside.
The heroes rush to Broggon’s aid; Frank assists Broggon from being pulled into the crate, Antonio and Jacques (having retrieved his rifle) fire into the box hoping to injure the creature, and Dennis offers advice on a more permanent plan to secure the box.
Broggon breaks free with Frank's help, and Frank & Dennis decide to shove the box against a bookshelf, helping to block the holes in the crate’s side. The monster within continues to writhe and attempt to break out once again; during the scuffle, Antonio misses a shot and injures Broggon instead.
Broggon, still recovering from the tentacle’s attack, is dragged by Frank behind the bank of cash registers. As Broggon regains his strength, the creature bursts another hole through the crate. Broggon then orders Frank to fetch something for him from his office.
As Frank does so, the rest of the party continues to attack the box, with some success. Frank returns with the item – a laptop computer – and Broggon seizes it, typing furiously on the keyboard as blue energy courses from the keys, into his right arm, across his body and out through the fingertips of his left hand, attacking the creature inside the crate. With this, the monster inside dies, and the battle is over.
“Any questions?” asks Broggon.
Scene III: Exploring the Basement
The answer to Broggon's offer of answers comes from an unexpected place – behind the coffee bar, where a fightened bystander took refuge when Jacques entered with his assault rifle. He is obviously hungover, and introduces himself as Visage, a freelance investigator.
Broggon explains that what they just battled was an otyugh – a horrible beast from the realm of Shadow. After some additional lecturing on the subject, he explains that there may be more trouble afoot in the bookstore. A few days back, another unexpected shipment was delivered to him, which he had moved to the basement for storage until he had time to open it.
Given the violent nature of the last mysterious crate's contents, Broggon dispatches the heroes – Visage included – to investigate the basement and deal with whatever threats they find there. First though, Broggon offers what equipment he has: a longsword, a baseball bat, a revolver, flashlights, flares, and other odds & ends. He also mentions a cave system connected to the basment – useful for a man with Broggon's ties, and what initially attracted him to he site.
Broggon explains that this task will serve as a bit of an entrance exam – he wants to gauge the party's skills before passing them along to his associates at Department 7, a paranormal investigation group. "What Department 7 may lack in actual funds, it more than makes up for in access to rare... 'equipment'," Broggon says. With this, the group accepts Broggon's task.
He gives Dennis an old skeleton key that glows with a dull metallic gold sheen, and points to one of the rugs covering the floor of the store. "Roll up that," he says," and you'll find the entrance to the basement."
The heroes do so, and find the trapdoor, locked. Dennis attempts to use the key – but find no keyhole. As he lifts up on the ring of the trapdoor, he feels the key in his right hand vibrate and hum, and the door swings wide.
Entering the basement, the heroes find a number of boxes, most containing overstocked books. One, however, larger than all the others, has been broken out of. It too is stamped "PTC", and its interior coated in thin strands of webbing and what appear to be a few empty webbing cocoons.
A door in the far wall from the crate leading off into the caves had also been broken in, left in pieces on the floor. A cursory investigation showed that the door had been broken from inside the basement – something escaped into the caves.
The party makes its way through the web-choked tunnels single file, lighting a flare for light to burn some of the webs and winding their way to a larger chamber. There, Jacques notices a large mass of webbing spread across the mouth of the room. Pressing on and leaving the room within for later, they proceed farther down the shaft – where Jacques becomes entangled in another mass of floor webbing after trying to jump it.
As the party moves to help him, a human-sized spider strikes from the shadows, attacking the party. Despite the benefit of surprise, it fails to seriously wound any of the party before being slain. During the battle, Visage spots a chest partially covered in webs, which he attempts to open. Finding it locked, Antonio shoots the lock off and opens the chest: inside, one longsword wrapped in cloth, and two glowing vials – one destroyed by Antionio's bullet.
Passing the first chamber once again, the party explores the tunnels to find another broken door, this one hanging by its hinges, a menacing chittering coming from within and freshly-made and glistening webs strung across within. Returning to the first chamber to deal with the assumed smaller threat, Jacques once again becomes entangled in webbing. Though the pair of smaller monstrous spiders manage to inject Jacques with poison, they are both dispatched quickly by the party.
The party makes its way back to the room filled with the ominous insectoid noise, and within finds a spider larger than any encountered thus far hanging from the ceiling. Instantly, it sticks Jacques and Visage, the first two members in the narrow passage, to the floor with webbing. Antonio manages to tumble through without difficulty, but Dennis remains trapped. Dennis and Visage use the lit flare to help burn through the floor webbing, while Antonio and Jacues fight the spider.
As the fight proceeds, two more of the smaller spiders emerge from the shadows to attack the party. The largest spider manages to inject Jacques with more poison, while the others are soon killed without doing much damage. Shaken by its wounds, the large spider takes the battle deeper into the chamber after Antonio stumbles upon its nest of eggs. But, before it can turn its rage into destruction, it too is dead. The party members set the eggs ablaze and return upstairs.
There, Broggon listens to the tale and examines the items from the chest. The glowing vial he determines to be a potion of cure light wounds, and the longsword too to be magical, with special properties for fighting the undead. He also invites a closer inspection of Frank – whom all suddenly realize to be much more than just human. "Frank," Broggon explains, "is a bugbear. He is also a creature from Shadow, yet far less dangerous than the threats you've fought until now."
Frank gives some additional insight into the events at The Magic Eye Lounge, revealing that the club is largely a front for the The Displaced, a Shadowkind-focused charity which he oversees in this area. The attackers were members of the Fraternal Order of Vigilance, who hunt all Shadowkind indiscriminately and hoped to end Frank's efforts to acclimate displaced Shadowkind to their new home.
The test complete, Broggon confirms the group's desire to join Department 7. Upon their acceptance, he gives them a card with an address, where they are to report after one week's time, to rest up and settle any pressing business they might face, and bids them farewell – for now.
Act II
Scene I: Investigating the Abductions
The group – minus Visage – arrives at 7 Twilight Drive, a townhouse apparently operated by Department 7. An intercom sits below a "7" carved into the stone gatepost. Dennis presses the button, and before he can finish his introduction, the gate swings wide and an arch British voices cuts him off, telling the party to make their way inside.
As the heroes enter the building, they note that while the townhouse appears vacant, it seems recently tended. There is no dust to be seen anywhere, the windows are spotless, and a fresh pot of tea sits steaming on a coffee table in a room off the entryway. There is no sign of the source of the voice from the intercom, either. As the heroes settle around the coffee table, they notice a rune carved into the floor in front of the room's fireplace. Jacques attempts to activate it by standing on it, to no effect.
As quickly as Jacques steps off the sigil, it glows with life. Blue energy cycles through the strokes of the rune, and accompanied by a piercing SNAP! a hazy, blue, semi-transparent outline of a 19th-century butler springs to life from the symbol. "It works better when you keep out fo the way," the apparition says, eyeing Jacques as he speaks.
The image introduces itself as Terrence Cavendish, overseer of 7 Twilight Drive and the party's liaison with Department 7 upper management. He describes the role the townhouse and himself will play for the party, which is that of safehouse and contact. Agents are free to reside here, or elsewhere, but all department business will be funneled through Terrence for the time being.
Terrence explains that the department has three initial leads that bear investigating for a team of their experience at the moment: the earlier "PTC" information gathered by Broggon through his contacts about the mysterious crates, a series of abductions in a quarter of the city with a large Shadowkind population, and the unexplained 24-hour silence of an inside agent and the installation as a whole at the Ogdoad Research scientific testing facility outside Abattoir.
The party begins preliminary research into the Ogdoad case, gathering information about the group from their contacts and the Ogdoad Research PR website. Ogdoad takes its name from Egyptian mythology and spends a great deal funding achaeological digs in that country. The corporation itself specializes in pairings of the arcane and scientific, pointing to their success tracking down the science behind a number of folk remedies and converting that knowledge into beneficial medical techiniques and drugs. This is their public face; Department 7 knows that many in the organization are fully aware of Shadow, and are constantly trying to expand their knowledge to better exploit it.
Dennis pays city hall a visit, and, though the information is restricted, charms a secretary into parting with floorplans of the institution. Though the plans are outdated – the site last served as a sanatorium – as an official historic bulding, much of the facility's layout remains the same; rooms have simply been repurposed and remodeled to serve Ogdoad's ends.
At this point, the party decides to investigate the abductions of Shadowkind within the city, given that Ogdoad is known for testing with human volunteers – who may in fact be neither human, nor true volunteers. Terrence tells the party that the department has identified two contacts in this matter: Sister Deborah, who oversees the congregation at the Church of Good-Hearted Souls, a branch of the Church of Pelor in the neighborhood where all the abductees were members. Also, they may wish to contact the radio personality Tommy Eldritch, who has connections in the area and hosts a paranormal-themed talk show.
Scene II: Showdown with a Preacherman
After traveling to meet Sister Deborah, the party meets with Lilijune, sister to one of the kidnap victims. Revisiting the scene of the crime, interviews with nearby shopkeepers reveal the identity of the abductors: The Barrow Brothers. The decision is made to try to bait the would-be kidnappers by disguising Jacques as a creature of Shadow and patrolling the Brothers' known territory.
Soon, the brothers indeed show up to harass the costumed Jacques – only to be overpowered and bound for their trouble. The party returns to 7 Twilight Drive, whereafter Jacques assumes the responsibility of pumping the Brothers for information regarding the whereabouts of their victims.
Before long, the Brothers drop a name: Pastor Windwright, head of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King. The crew makes a plan: fake out Windwright by posing as eager acolytes, and hopefully penetrate far enough into his inner circle to break up the kidnapping ring.
After successfully making their way through an intermediary brother in Windwright's secret cult, the group meets with Windwright – whom they find highly compelling. They appear to make an excellent impression, and leave him with knowledge of their interest in joining his group (so as to double-cross him).
With hopes of gaining the cult's confidence, the team returns to the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King much later that night. Meeting Windwright's lieutenant, they are escorted into the main sanctuary of the church. The lieutenant distributes a number of firearms to the players – who seize the moment and immediately open fire with his loaned guns.
Quickly dispatching the hapless stooge, the team moves to search the church for a hidden room where the kidnapped Shadowkind are being held. Finding a mysteriously shallow janitor's closet, the team find's the opening in the false wall and proceeds cautiously down a fight of unlit stairs.
As they near the end of the stairway, ominous chanting and speech flows from the rooms beyond and below. Sneaking to the room's level, the group sees Windwright preaching to a crowd of riotous followers, expounding on the evils of the demons and magic that seem to infest Abbatoir. The group's approach does no go unnoticed by Windwright – who immediately begins to writhe with arcane energy, his flowing white beard seeming to sway as if moved by an ethereal wind.
Suddenly, the curtain of Shadow is thrown back as Windwright unleashes a psychic attack – he is an illithid mindflayer, masquerading as human and holding a cadre of humans ethralled with his dark powers.
With his psychic attacks he stops Jacques dead in his tracks, and moves in for the coup de gras: the rending of his brain by consuming it whole. Jacques, unable to resist, has his head completely grappled by the mindflayer's vicious tentacles, and narrowly misses being killed instantly.
However, luck changes and Windwright's onslaught is fortuitiously derailed by Antontio, who lets off a perfect shot that expertly pierces the sinister illithid's brain and drops him instantly. His human slaves fall motionless as well, dazed by the loss of their puppetmaster. As they stagger in varying levels of shock, the crew dispatches the lot of them, then moves on to Windwright's podium.
In the wall behind it, under a rallying banner, they find another hidden door, this one leading to the make-shift prison where Wrindwright kept his despised fellow Shadowkind. Menehune is rattled, but alive, as are a number of other Shadowkind also imprisoned. Menejune reunites with his sister Lilijune, and the kidnapping spree is finally brought to a close.
Act III
Scene I: Infiltrating Ogdoad Research
Placeholder description: the team follows up on another lead, and investigates the blackout at Ogdoad Research in the outlying industrial area miles outside of Abbatoir. There, they find massive carnage and unimaginable horrors, as a summoned being from beyond Shadow has slaughtered much of the science facility's staff, and turned them into mindless, undead slaves through its dark, twisted will.
After a protracted exploration of the facility and the location of Department 7's inside operative, Amy Heseltine, the team strikes the creature before Ogdoad's own "clean-up crew" can arrive to the scene and begin their own method of resolving matters. The beast is defeated, and the team retrieves all video records from the security cameras to leave their presence at the installation unknown to the powers that control Ogdoad.
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