A couple nights ago I first session of the new season of my Fate (Dresden Files version) campaign “Unholy Preyer,” a supernatural hunters game. This session was intended to introduce or re-introduce the players to the world and help me shake the rust off my GM skills. This session (or, as the campaign is intended to represent a TV show: episode) was titled “Modern [Un]Life.”
A Word About Ghosts
Not every death creates a ghost. It typically requires a violent or emotionally charged death. Even then, the shades of the souls can spend years, decades, even centuries lingering between the world of the afterlife and the world of the living, gathering enough power and growing in frustration and anger in order to materialize or otherwise affect the living world around them. This is why ghosts tend to be from a bygone age; the spirits of the recently deceased lack the energy.
That is, until recently.
Something odd occurred with the death of Katie Winthrop; she began to manifest a mere month after her murder. Her emotions are not as focused as typical ghosts nor does she act on a pattern or routine—hallmarks of more standard ghosts, as they fall into at least one of those categories. Instead, the ghost of Katie Winthrop is lucid, realizes she’s dead, and is more bored and annoyed than passionate.
Rushed Contrivances
Most of these intros were handled as GM narrative to quickly put the characters all in one place. Our game-time is restricted to about 4 hours and I wanted to avoid a “you all meet at the inn” scenario that is so common. That said, as the series progresses regular readers and players will likely note a string of “Arcady Suites” motels that the players spend time in.
Narsimha “Mac” Mohin was a regular character in season one. Following the demise of the villainous sorcerer Evan Sunder, Mac returned to his tribe to rest and rejuvenate. Months later, the elders had need of their hunter again, as their own magics sensed something in the world they could not understand. But they could find a location. The Native American was sent to Boston, Massachusetts with a general idea of where to look, but no idea of what to look for. It took some investigating, but a murder in Aria Apartments on 8th Ave and I Street seemed to fit the bill.
Karl Orloff had (off-screen) finished clearing the last of the were-rats from New York City. For now, at least. However, during his hunting he had learned the source of the nests came from a Rat King located in Boston. Now the native New Yorker had another reason to dislike Beantown. He drove his cab there, anyway, and discovered the location of a supposed nest had been demolished and rebuilt as a skyrise apartment complex called Aria Apartments. An apartment that had a recent murder which he believed was committed by a were-rat.
Two months ago Raven Kendrick bumped into a girl at a bar. She didn’t mean for it or want it to happen, but her power activated and she learned that the girl would die in a month, in her kitchen by a monster. More curiously, her power informed her that the girl would be active again a month later. The belligerent, unwilling psychic didn’t know much about ghosts, but even for her the timespan seemed off and she promised herself she’d investigate.
All three hunters arrived at Aria Apartments at the same time. Both Raven and Mac had a common acquaintance, thanks to Karl. After some pleasantries, each shared what little they knew. But, in the end, all the information they had was that unit 602 was haunted. It was time to investigate.
“Stealth”
The doorman to the luxury apartments was not a friendly, accommodating sort and wouldn’t let the any of the three in, suggesting that they return to their “hovel.” It wouldn’t do to make a scene at the front door so they examined the skyrise for other entrances. While locked by keyfobs, there were still a few options for entry into the building: the garage door swung open when cars were driving in or out, there was a door by the exterior trash bins, a maintenance/delivery door, and the leasing office was attached to the main building.
While Mac attempted to schmooze his way past the leasing office sales rep, Karl waited outside the trash bins as Raven slipped into the garage once a car left. Raven opened the door for the ex-cabbie while the Native American attempted to flirt and act as repairman. Knowing they still needed a keyfob to access and use the elevators, Raven began checking cars for open doors and keys. An open Jeep with its top down made easy pickings and, inside, a keyfob that granted access to the 4th floor. Mac managed to make his way past the leasing office agent and met his fellow hunters at the elevator. From there it was a quick jaunt up the stairwell from four to six.
Unit 602 was easy to find as it was close to both the elevator and the stairwell. Raven immediately set forward to picking the lock, only to discover the newly moved tenant inside. The three hunters remembered why it was so important to knock first.
The Big Nerd and Katie Winthrop
The current tenant of unit 602 was obviously shocked and angry when three randomly dressed strangers opened the door to his room. The three stumbled through excuses as to what they were doing before deciding to work with Mac’s current disguise and claiming they were there to fix the phone and call-box wires.
The line of the night probably goes to Karl’s player who tried to explain their appearance as the “new Village People, but were short on members–that’s why the Native American is wearing the hard hat.”
Henry Wu had only recently moved in but already was ready to break his lease. He knew his apartment was haunted. Breakfast would be cooking in the middle of the night, appliances would turn on and off, and he experienced cold spots. All he wanted to do was break his lease without penalty. With these strange phone line “contractors” he thought he had a chance. All he needed was the right paperwork.
The three hunters poked and prodded through the apartment, with the EMF reader spiking in the kitchen—the place of the murder. The three hunters informed the tenant that not only were they electricians they were like the “ghost hunters,” documenting ghosts in their spare times. They’d be able to either a) break Henry’s lease, b) remove the ghost, or c) both of the above. Raven used the opportunity to scam a quick hundred dollars from the work-from-home web developer by saying she’d be able to get the paperwork filed no matter what. Using their powers of persuasion (and terrible rolls on the GM’s part), they convinced the tenant to spend the night in a hotel so they could take care of the spirit in the material world.
After some coffee (or, for Raven, pilfered beers from the fridge), the ghost made herself known by taking out a mug and pouring herself some coffee. It seems she gravitated towards the apartment kitchen. It was not only her place of death, but where she spent much of her waking apartment time. She explained that her boyfriend was a literal monster who transformed and murdered her during a heated argument. She was like no ghosts the hunters had ever heard of or met. She was lucid, dispassionate… almost boring. Her closest sentiment to passion was a quip of, “If I knew I’d be a ghost wearing the clothes I died in, I’d have worn something besides my pajamas.”
The three talked to the ghost and discovered she was non-materialistic but had come into money when her father died of a heart attack. Before then, she had lived in a more “bohemian” neighborhood and met her boyfriend, Brad, at a bar called the Second Chance. Again, she eschewed the more classic hallmarks of a ghost. Besides a recent death and lack of passion, the ghost of Katie Winthrop showed no attachment to anything in particular. While curious what would happen with the rest of her money, she didn’t really care about it. The idea that she had extra money, though, set some of the more financially-minded hunters (namely Raven) into gear. After pulling out kitchen drawers and finding little, she heard a hollow sound behind the upper cabinets.
Karl, meanwhile, had examined the kitchen floor. While the refurbishers had buffed out or repaired most of the damage, the tell-tale signs of were-rat claws could not be complete removed. Katie’s boyfriend, “Brad,” was clearly part of the nest he was hunting. His attention was diverted, however, as Raven had discovered a hidden panel behind the cupboard filled with wallets, jewelry, and were-rat spit.
Not being able to ascertain any other information, but having a better view that it was a were-rat that killed Katie, the three decided to confront Brad Mertz and made their way to the Second Chance Bar.
Rat King Takedown
The Second Chance was a dive bar with a solitary pool table in the back. It was around 2 am by the time the hunters arrived so the bar was no longer packed, but with two hours before closing it was busy enough that their entrance was not conspicuous. Raven inquired if the bartender knew a regular named Brad and he pointed at a gangly, dirty twenty-something who was near the back of the bar. Brad was not alone; he was with two others who had suffered some recent injuries. Karl recognized the wounds as the damage he had done to some of the were-rats in New York who had escaped his final vengeance. Brad’s identity as a king rat had practically been revealed.
The three hunters waited until the three were-rats left the bar, at closing time, and followed them to a half-demolished building. The drunk rats curled up with each other in the doorway and almost immediately fell asleep, leaving them as easy targets for the hunters. Damage done to the were-rats woke them and they immediately transformed. A short fight ensued, but the injuries previously inflicted on the two lesser were-rats allowed them to be taken out quickly. While Raven and Mac suffered minor scratches, even the King Rat was not a match for the hunters. A good thing, too, as had Brad escaped, the scratched heroes may have also been cursed with the were-rat plague.
The death of the King Rat, Katie’s ex-boyfriend, had no effect on the ghost.
Digging Up The Body
There was only one last thing the hunters could try to release Katie from her spectral state. Salt and burn her bones. With her death so recent, it took little time to locate the cemetery that held her grave and only slightly longer to locate her grave in the sprawling graveyard. And so, on a quiet, still night, the hunters exhumed coffin of Katie Winthrop and salted and burned her still-decaying corpse.
Later, they were able to confirm that Katie’s ghost no longer appeared and the trouble of another ghost in the world was resolved. The mystery of how this ghost came into being, however, remains unsolved.
Recent Comments