diff --git a/scenarios/event-91-brp-the-night-crawler.md b/scenarios/event-91-brp-the-night-crawler.md index 040b905..870763c 100644 --- a/scenarios/event-91-brp-the-night-crawler.md +++ b/scenarios/event-91-brp-the-night-crawler.md @@ -1,15 +1,21 @@ # Event 91 – BRP: The Night Crawler +*A Basic Role-Playing Scenario for Chaosium Con UK 2026* + +--- ## Event Details - **Event Number:** 91 -- **Event Type:** RPG +- **System:** Basic Role-Playing (BRP Modern Edition — Chaosium) +- **Setting:** Neo-Ashford, 2087 — corporate dystopia / cosmic horror +- **Tone:** Urban action-horror. Blade Runner grit meets Lovecraftian dread. Slow burn into genuine terror. - **Age Range:** Adult (18+) - **Maximum Tickets:** 6 -- **Cost:** $0.00 -- **Time Zone:** Europe/London (UTC +01:00) - **When:** Day 2 – Friday, 7:00 pm to 10:50 pm -- **Location:** Table in 14B – Game Room +- **Location:** Table 14B – Game Room - **Host:** timevans666 +- **Art Style:** Ink sketch and pencil illustration — high-contrast, rain-slicked noir + +--- ## Players 1. Mateusz Sawicki @@ -19,19 +25,965 @@ 5. Ciaran McGrath 6. Elena Giordano -## Premise -A routine corporate assignment spirals into something far more disturbing in this gritty, urban action-horror scenario. As operatives tasked with neutralising a violent threat, you'll navigate decaying streets, corporate agendas, and something lurking beneath the surface of the city. Expect tension. +--- + +## Session Timing Guide + +| Section | Duration | Cumulative | GM Checkpoint | +|---------|----------|------------|---------------| +| Introduction | ~15 min | 0:15 | Characters introduced, mission briefing done | +| Act One — The Job | ~55 min | 1:10 | Team in the Undertow, Reth's squat found, map in hand | +| Act Two — The Undertow | ~65 min | 2:15 | Reth located, entity understood, ascent forced | +| Act Three — Ascent | ~50 min | 3:05 | Moral choice made, resolution locked in | +| Epilogue / Wrap-up | ~15 min | 3:20 | Coda scene played, table debrief | +| Buffer | ~10 min | 3:30 | Rules queries, unexpected player tangents | + +> **Hard rule:** At the 2:15 mark, Reth must be found — compress Act Two if needed. At 3:05, the moral choice must be made regardless of where the team is. --- -## Scenario Notes - +## GM Pre-Session Checklist +*Do this before players sit down. The scenario runs on atmosphere, and atmosphere requires preparation.* -## Characters - +### Print and Prepare +- [ ] Handout 91-H00-A: Veltris Mission Briefing (one per player, or one to pass around) +- [ ] Handout 91-H00-B: Reth Dossier with corporate headshot (one per player) +- [ ] Handout 91-H01-A: Reth's handwritten notes (one physical prop — crumple it slightly) +- [ ] Handout 91-H01-B: The photograph description (separate card — do NOT show until the moment) +- [ ] Handout 91-H02-A: Veltris internal files (printed as if from a dim terminal — low contrast) +- [ ] Pre-gen character sheets for all six archetypes, with personal hooks highlighted -## Handouts - +### Table Setup +- [ ] Six character sheets, face down until the introduction +- [ ] A printed or hand-drawn map of Sub-District 7 (rough — the kind a field team would have) +- [ ] Ambient music queued: Vangelis-style for the briefing, industrial drone for Act Two, near-silence for Act Three +- [ ] A d20, d10, d6 visible at the GM side — BRP players like seeing the GM reach for specific dice -## GM Notes - +### Pre-Session Read +- [ ] Read all six personal hooks — they change specific interaction moments +- [ ] Read the GM Notes at the end — particularly the sections on Dr Chen and the Moral Choice +- [ ] Decide which player gets the "named rhythm" in the Feed Corridor (choose before play — the player most likely to sit with it quietly, not perform it) +- [ ] Decide: include Kov and Sera? If the table runs fast, yes. If any player is new to BRP, cut them. + +### One Minute Before Play +Tell the table: *"This is a corporate horror scenario. There is nothing that can be conventionally defeated. The goal is not to win — it is to make a decision you can live with. There will be Sanity rolls. When you lose SAN, roleplay it — even just one line. That is the only rule I will ask you to hold."* + + +--- + +## Plot Summary *(GM Only)* + +Veltris Solutions, a mid-tier data and logistics corporation, purchased the derelict Sutter-Vane Water Reclamation Plant in Sub-District 9 eighteen months ago as a shell transaction through three subsidiaries. When their survey team entered Sub-Level 9, they found it already occupied — by something that had been there far longer than the city above it. + +The entity beneath the plant is a Spawn of the Lurker at the Threshold: a semi-corporeal Mythos predator that predates Neo-Ashford by centuries, possibly millennia. It does not think. It does not want in any human sense. It extends, consumes, and grows, using organic filament networks to alter its environment and condition nearby organisms toward behaviour that serves its spread. Forty-seven people have vanished from the surrounding six blocks in eighteen months. The local authorities have been paid to file these as gang violence statistics. + +Veltris, rather than destroying what they found, began studying it. Then feeding it. Then integrating it into a low-level research programme under the directorship of Dr Yava Chen, who has since spent fourteen consecutive weeks on-site and is no longer entirely herself. + +Damos Reth, a mid-level data analyst, accidentally accessed the unredacted research files six days ago. He copied what he could to a data-chip, deleted his access logs, and ran to the Undertow — the only place in Neo-Ashford where corporate surveillance has gaps. He has been hiding in the tunnels for four days. He does not know that the entity already knew he was there before he arrived. + +Sable Morn, Veltris's handler, has hired the player team as deniable assets to retrieve Reth and the chip. She expects the operatives to be silenced afterward. She has a standing arrangement with Veltris black ops for exactly this scenario. + +By the end of the night, the players will know too much — just like Reth did. + +--- + +## Player Experience *(What the table lives)* + +The operatives are sold a routine retrieval job: find a frightened data analyst, bring him back, or bring back what he was carrying. The Undertow is uncomfortable but familiar territory. The money is good. + +The world cracks open slowly. First there is an odd smell. Then a child's warning they cannot explain. Then Reth's room — the handwritten notes, the photograph that will not resolve into a recognisable shape. Then the tunnels, where the walls are warm and alive, and something moved in the drone feed that is no longer there when they look. + +By the time they find Reth, half-mad and telling them the entity already knows their names, the scenario has shifted from a corporate job to a survival question. And then it gives them a choice with no clean answer. + +--- + +## World Background — Neo-Ashford, 2087 + +### What It Looks Like +Neo-Ashford is a city of permanent twilight. Twenty arcology towers — the tallest over eight hundred metres — rise above a persistent cloud layer of industrial smog and particulate haze. Above the cloud line: climate-controlled tiers with piped sunlight, filtered water, and manicured green space for the corporate elite. Below: the rest of the city, eleven million people, operating under artificial light, acid-tinged rain, and neon. + +The architecture at street level is layered: the original twentieth-century city underneath, concrete brutalism from the 2030s over that, and the corporate construction of the 2060s and 70s bolted and cantilevered across the top. The result is a vertical geography where sub-levels, maintenance tunnels, and old drainage infrastructure form an underworld — the Undertow — that the city's official maps no longer fully acknowledge. + +Rain falls most nights. Slightly caustic — not enough to burn skin, but enough to pit uncoated surfaces and leave a faint chemical tang. Most Undertow residents wear filter scarves out of habit. + +### The Arcology System +The twenty arcology megablocks are owned by the eight dominant corporations. Living in an arcology is a condition of senior employment — corporations provide housing as leverage. Leaving corporate employment means leaving the arcology within sixty days. The remaining population lives in mid-rise and street-level zones where services are inconsistent and corporate security patrols only the commercial districts. Sub-districts are numbered by proximity to arcology access; the higher the number, the further from corporate power. + +### Technology Distribution +Advanced but radically uneven. Corporations have gene-splice clinics, orbital launch capability, and predictive AI. A street-level resident of Sub-District 7 has a black-market augment from a chop shop, a wrist-embedded transit chip, and a second-hand device for public-net access on a good signal day. + +**Black market augments** common in the Undertow: reflex-enhancing neural taps (dangerous, unstable), optical replacements with low-light imaging, subdermal armour patches (crude, painful), stimulant injectors, biometric spoofing patches. Failure rates are non-trivial. + +**Surveillance:** Sub-Districts 1–6 have corporate drone coverage on randomised schedules. Sub-Districts 7–9 have intermittent blind spots exploited by gangs — and in this scenario, by whoever has been hiding the entity's spread. + +### Law and Order +No city police force. Public security is contracted to Meridian Security Group, covering Sub-Districts 1–4. Sub-Districts 5–9 have periodic patrol only. The Undertow is unpatrolled. Crimes in Sub-Districts 7–9 are filed as statistics. Forty-seven disappearances barely rated a quarterly report. + +### The Undertow (Sub-Districts 7–9) +The decayed industrial skeleton of old Neo-Ashford: processing plants, water infrastructure, manufacturing facilities, and the maintenance tunnels connecting them. Most decommissioned in the 2050s–60s when arcology construction made centralised industrial sites obsolete. Sub-District 7 has a surface population of approximately 40,000 — shift workers, black market vendors, people who couldn't or wouldn't go further up the social ladder. Sub-Districts 8 and 9 are largely abandoned at surface level. + +### Veltris Solutions +Mid-tier corporate entity, 340,000 employees, primary focus: data logistics, supply-chain analytics, corporate intelligence. Revenue 2086: approximately 4.2 billion credits. Not powerful enough for the eight-corporation policy table, but powerful enough to operate in grey areas. Their legal team is renowned. Their black-ops division is not officially acknowledged. + +### The Smell +Players should notice the smell before they see anything. A faint organic sweetness — not unpleasant exactly, but wrong for an industrial drainage environment. Like warm rain on cut grass, but with something beneath it that does not belong. It is strongest near drain grates and maintenance access hatches. Residents of Sub-District 7 have stopped noticing it. Newcomers will. + + +--- + +## Running Neo-Ashford — GM World Texture Guide +*Reference for how to describe this world during play. Do not read aloud — use as a source of language and sensory detail.* + +### What Things Cost +Credits are the universal currency, transacted via wrist chip. Physical cash (printed credit cards) is used when anonymity matters — which is often in Sub-Districts 7–9. + +| Item | Cost | Context | +|------|------|---------| +| Cheap meal (noodles, protein pack) | 3–5 credits | Daily food for most Undertow residents | +| Drink at the Terminus Bar | 8–12 credits | Jed pours heavy | +| Night in a sub-district room | 40–60 credits | Reth paid a week upfront: 280 credits | +| Black-market augment (basic) | 800–2,000 credits | Reflex tap, optical swap | +| Corporate-grade augment | 8,000–25,000 credits | Same range as tonight's payment | +| **8,000 credits (the payment)** | — | **Three months' wages for a skilled Undertow worker. A year's rent. Enough to move up one sub-district.** | + +*The 8,000 credits is not life-changing money for corporate operatives. It is enormous money for Sub-District 7. This contrast matters when the moral choice arrives.* + +### What People Wear +**Corporate zone:** Structured coats, clean materials, no visible augments (they are subtle and flush), dry clothes — they rarely go outside. +**Undertow:** Layered, practical, worn. Filter scarves. Boots. Street augments visible and functional, not decorative. Everyone carries something in a pocket that shouldn't be visible. +**The team:** Functional, not corporate. They look like people who have been in both worlds and belong completely to neither. + +### How People Talk +The Undertow is clipped, watchful, economical. People trade information; they do not volunteer it. Jed Osler is the canonical example: everything they say is true; nothing is said that wasn't asked for. + +Corporate speech is precise, modulated, and complete. Sable Morn speaks in full sentences with considered pauses and means everything including the things she does not say. + +**Useful phrases:** +- *"Below street"* — in the tunnels or drainage infrastructure +- *"Went down and didn't come back clean"* — local idiom for someone changed by the entity +- *"Corporate side"* — working within arcology culture; implies moral compromise +- *"Chip it"* — pay digitally +- *"Run dark"* — operate without electronic trace, cash only, no transit-chip pings + +### Sensory Language by Location +Use one or two per location. More becomes a lecture. + +**Corporate briefing suite:** Processed air. Polymer carpet that absorbs footsteps. Manufactured warmth. Everything grey and precisely lit. The windows show the city like a photograph. + +**The Slab:** Noise first. Voices, pneumatic tools, something frying in oil. Orange neon catching rain-slick on the road surface. The faint, sweet wrongness rising from the drain grates. + +**The Terminus Bar:** Low-light amber. Humidity of people who have been somewhere all day. Beer and something astringent. Booths absorbing conversation. Jed's servo arm has a quiet rhythmic whine when they move. + +**The tunnels:** Warmth increasing as they descend. Water somewhere always. The organic sweetness stronger — by The Junction, inescapable. Bioluminescence not enough to see by but enough to know you can see it. + +**Sub-Level 9 / Sutter-Vane:** Industrial cold replaced by the entity's warmth. The sweetness thick enough to taste. A silence that is full — occupied by the quality of something very large, very slow, very patient. + +### What Technology Looks Like +Screens are projected, curved, surface-embedded. Hacking is tactile — the Tech's suite physically interfaces with access points. Drones are palm-sized or smaller; the Tech's is silent-running. The bio-scanner is a wrist-strap device that gives text readouts. When it reads "MEMETIC HAZARD," the text is yellow on grey. Corporate equipment uses yellow for warnings. Yellow is worse than red in some ways — it means the system knows what it is looking at and is not willing to say. + +--- + +## Pre-Generated Characters + +### The Fixer +**High Skills:** Persuade 65%, Fast Talk 60%, Insight 55%, Status 50%, Stealth 30% +STR: 11 | CON: 12 | SIZ: 11 | INT: 15 | POW: 13 | DEX: 12 | APP: 14 +HP: 12 | PP: 13 | DB: None | Move: 10 +**Equipment:** Corporate-grade encrypted comm, two burner comms, a licensed sidearm (rarely fired), three contact IDs they would rather not explain. +**Personal Hook:** Has worked Veltris contracts three times. Knows Sable Morn professionally. Knows she always smiles at the debrief and that nobody who talks afterward gets a fourth contract. They have been paid not to ask questions. Tonight they are going to have to ask them. + +--- + +### The Ghost +**High Skills:** Stealth 70%, Spot 60%, Perception 55%, Electronics 50%, Lockpick 55%, Dodge 55% +STR: 11 | CON: 13 | SIZ: 10 | INT: 14 | POW: 12 | DEX: 16 | APP: 11 +HP: 12 | PP: 12 | DB: None | Move: 12 +**Equipment:** Surveillance-countermeasure suite (jams drone ID reads within 5m), black-weave bodysuit (1-point armour), monoblade, micro-fibre grapple rig. +**Personal Hook:** Grew up in Sub-District 7. The Terminus Bar is known to them. So is Jed Osler — they owe each other one, from a decade ago. They haven't been back since going corporate-side. Coming back tonight will feel like something they cannot name. + +--- + +### The Muscle +**High Skills:** Firearms (Pistol) 65%, Firearms (Rifle) 60%, Brawl 60%, Athletics 55%, Dodge 50%, Intimidate 50% +STR: 16 | CON: 15 | SIZ: 15 | INT: 11 | POW: 11 | DEX: 13 | APP: 10 +HP: 16 | PP: 11 | DB: +1D4 | Move: 10 +**Equipment:** Military-grade sidearm (2D6+2), collapsible combat baton (1D8+DB), subdermal armour patches (2-point, occasionally causes muscle spasm), tactical rig. +**Personal Hook:** Ex-Meridian Security Group, Sub-Districts 1–4. Quit eighteen months ago — around the same time the Sub-District 7 disappearances started. Nobody made the connection. They have been quietly making it ever since. + +--- + +### The Tech +**High Skills:** Electronics 70%, Repair (Electronics) 65%, Computer Use 60%, Drone Operation 60%, Spot 50% +STR: 11 | CON: 12 | SIZ: 11 | INT: 16 | POW: 12 | DEX: 14 | APP: 12 +HP: 12 | PP: 12 | DB: None | Move: 10 +**Equipment:** Portable drone (small, silent, 20-min battery, video feed), hacking suite (1D6 minutes per encryption layer), EMP pulse device (one use, 10m radius), tool roll. +**Personal Hook:** The child on The Slab approaches this character specifically. The note: *Don't go to the plant. My dad went. He didn't come back the same.* The handwriting is a child's. The paper has a faint chemical smell the Tech will not identify until the tunnels. + +--- + +### The Medic +**High Skills:** Medicine 65%, First Aid 70%, Science (Biology) 50%, Perception 50%, Persuade 45% +STR: 11 | CON: 13 | SIZ: 12 | INT: 15 | POW: 14 | DEX: 13 | APP: 13 +HP: 13 | PP: 14 | DB: None | Move: 10 +**Equipment:** Full trauma kit, stimulants (3 doses, +10% physical skills for 1D4 hours then crash), bio-scanner (detects organic material and life signs within 5m — behaves strangely near the entity). +**Personal Hook:** A colleague at a Meridian-contracted morgue once reported unusual organic tissue found in the thoracic cavities of recovered bodies. The colleague has since moved assignment. The Medic never forgot the phrasing: *"The tissue appeared to be growing inward. We did not determine the entry point."* + +--- + +### The Analyst +**High Skills:** Research 70%, Library Use 65%, Science (various) 55%, Insight 60%, Spot 50%, Computer Use 50% +STR: 10 | CON: 11 | SIZ: 11 | INT: 17 | POW: 13 | DEX: 11 | APP: 12 +HP: 11 | PP: 13 | DB: None | Move: 10 +**Equipment:** Encrypted personal terminal (Veltris public filings accessible), signal scanner, a physical notepad and pen (unusual — old habit, or paranoia about digital records). +**Personal Hook:** Two days before this job, received an anonymous encrypted message. Breaking it took 40 minutes. Inside: coordinates in Sub-District 9 and three words: *Don't go back.* The Analyst has never been to Sub-District 9. They do not know what "back" means. They have been trying to find out. Tonight they will. + +--- + +## Pre-Game Handouts + +| ID | Description | Format | When Given | +|----|-------------|--------|------------| +| 91-H00-A | Veltris NDA and mission briefing document | Physical print, corporate aesthetic | Sable Morn hands these across the table immediately before play | +| 91-H00-B | Dossier on Damos Reth | Physical print, corporate file format | Same time as H00-A | +| 91-H01-A | Reth's handwritten notes (prop) | Crumpled paper, print to look handwritten | Found in Reth's squat, Act One | +| 91-H01-B | The photograph (description card) | Separate card — not an actual image | Found in Reth's squat, Act One — hand separately | +| 91-H02-A | Partial Veltris internal files | Low-contrast print, as if from a dim terminal | Found in The Watching Room, Act Two | + + +--- + +## Introduction *(~15 minutes)* + +### Opening — Read Aloud or Paraphrase + +> The elevator doesn't announce its floor. It just opens, and you're in a reception suite that smells of processed air and expensive polymer. The carpet absorbs sound. Everything is grey and clean. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, Neo-Ashford glitters in the acid haze forty storeys below — the Undertow's amber and red neon faint beneath you, the arcology towers rising on all sides like the walls of a machine you're standing inside. +> +> The woman waiting for you doesn't stand up. Late forties, expensive coat. Corporate augments visible as a faint ridge along her jaw — subdermal comms. She looks at the wall slightly to your left when she speaks, as if watching something you can't see. +> +> "Sit down," she says. "There's a job." + +### Player Briefing +Sable Morn provides the mission briefing verbally, supported by handouts 91-H00-A and B: + +- Damos Reth, a Veltris data analyst, has gone missing in Sub-Districts 7–9 +- He was carrying a proprietary data-chip. The chip is the priority; Reth is secondary +- Payment: 8,000 credits each on completion. Half now, half on delivery +- The NDA covers everything they see during the operation +- Their extraction window is 48 hours + +**What Sable will NOT say:** Why Reth left. That a second Veltris team is already in the tunnels. That the NDA's biological material clause means anything. That she has already authorised their termination if they surface with the full story. + +`[BRP: Research or Law 30% — notices the biological material clause in the NDA. Sable, if asked, dismisses it: "Standard boilerplate from a separate division. Don't worry about it." She does not look worried. She does not look anything.]` + +`[BRP: Insight 40% — Sable is not telling them something, and the gap where it should be is quite large. She is not lying; she is simply not offering.]` + +### Character Introductions +After the briefing, give players two minutes each: how they carry themselves in this room, what they notice about Sable Morn, and whether the money feels right. The Fixer will have the most considered response to Sable. The Ghost is already mentally back in Sub-District 7. + +### Atmosphere Notes +- Music: Vangelis-style ambient during the briefing. Shift to low industrial as they descend. +- Sable Morn: deliberate stillness. She doesn't fidget. She doesn't reassure. +- The briefing room is one notch too clean. It feels prepared — like a set dressed for this specific meeting. +- Let players ask questions. Answer factually and minimally. If asked why Reth ran: a pause, then "Company matters." + +--- + +## ACT ONE — The Job *(~55 minutes)* +> **Goal:** Establish the Undertow. Plant the seeds of wrongness. Give the team the essential tools (Reth's map, first evidence of the entity) and pull them deeper. + +### Summary +The team descends into Sub-District 7. Routine fieldwork at first — buying information, following Reth's trail, navigating the texture of the Undertow. Then they reach Reth's room and see the photograph. After that, nothing feels quite as manageable. + +--- + +### Location: The Slab + +**Description:** The main elevated transit artery into Sub-District 7. A covered road from the 2040s, now encrusted with semi-permanent stalls, wire rigging, cargo containers repurposed as storefronts. Always crowded in evening hours. Always watched. + +**Atmosphere:** Noise, heat, synthesised food and something oily. Neon from the stalls catches the rain slick on the road surface, turns it orange and pink. And underneath it all — faint, sweet, wrong — the smell. Rising from the drain grates in the walkway. Nobody else seems to notice it. + +**Key Details:** +- Information can be bought here. `[BRP: Persuade or Fast Talk — a mid-level vendor confirms Reth was spotted two nights ago, heading deeper into Sub-District 7. "Scared. Paying cash. Not talking to anyone." Costs 50 credits.]` +- The Rivet Teeth gang controls the east section. Three or four members visible. They are watching but will NOT initiate unless provoked. Leader Scratch emerges if approached. `[BRP: Insight 40% — she's cautious, not hostile. Knows something happened in the sub-levels. Won't say what unless treated as a person worth talking to.]` *(RED HERRING — not connected to the entity)* +- `[BRP: Spot or Electronics 50% — notices drone patrol routes have been rerouted, carving blind spots in a corridor pointing toward Sub-District 9. Someone with corporate clearance has been doing this for months.]` +- **The child:** Approaches The Tech specifically, presses a folded note into their hand, vanishes into the crowd. The note: *Don't go to the plant. My dad went. He didn't come back the same.* The paper has a faint chemical smell the team will later recognise. The child is approximately nine. Gone before anyone can follow. + +`[BRP: Track 40% — the child lives in a stairwell above a food vendor, 200 metres east. They will say nothing more. Their father's name is Gavrel Muss. He disappeared three weeks ago, returned for one day, then walked back below street at 3 a.m. and did not return.]` + +**[ESSENTIAL CLUE — #1]** The surveillance blind spots. Someone corporate is hiding the entity's footprint from above. + +--- + +### Location: The Terminus Bar + +**Description:** A low-ceilinged bar at the far end of Sub-District 7, accessed by a narrow staircase from the street. The sign outside is broken — just the word BAR in amber. Regulars know it. + +**Atmosphere:** Dim, warm, slightly humid. Strip lighting above a long bar. Six booths along the far wall. The clientele are shift workers, people who live upstairs, people who don't want to be found. Nobody looks up when the team walks in, which takes effort. + +**Jed Osler is behind the bar.** Prosthetic left arm (old hydraulic model — chunky segmented fingers, audible servo whine on grip and release), non-binary, 50s, the stillness of someone who has seen everything and chosen not to be bothered by most of it. + +`[BRP: Insight 40% — Jed is sizing the team up from the moment they walk in. Friendly, direct, patient, cash if appropriate — opens them up. Flash the Veltris logo or threaten — shut down entirely, permanently.]` + +**What Jed will say, if treated well:** +- Reth was here four nights ago. Nervous, paid cash, ordered two drinks and didn't finish either +- Asking about "the disappearances" from the surrounding blocks +- Paid for a week upstairs, room 4. Has not been back since. "Didn't take his bag." +- The organic smell started "maybe a year ago. Maybe longer. You stop smelling it eventually." +- The Ghost gets an automatic warm reception — the warmth is in the poured drink, not the words +- Will NOT go below street level for any price. When asked why: "People who go below street level around here don't always come back the same. And some of them come back and then go back down on their own. That's worse." + +**[ESSENTIAL CLUE — #2]** Confirms Reth's presence, points to his room, anchors the disappearances and the smell as a connected pattern. + +--- + +### Location: Reth's Squat (Room 4, Above the Bar) + +**Description:** A rented room with a pull-down cot and a single overhead light. Chaos left by someone frightened and thinking fast. Scattered data-chips (all blank — wiped). Handwritten notes on paper. A corkboard on the wall. + +**Atmosphere:** Stale air and adrenaline-sweat. The scent of someone who has been very afraid in a small space and couldn't leave it. + +`[BRP: Spot 40% — the paper notes are torn where someone pressed too hard with the pen. The handwriting starts neat and becomes erratic toward the later pages.]` + +**The handwritten notes [Handout 91-H01-A] contain:** +- A partial log beginning six days ago +- References to "SV-9 sub-level files" and "containment protocols" and "the 47" +- The phrase *it knows where the warmth is*, written once neatly, then repeated urgently three more times +- A sketched diagram of a branching organic structure (means nothing now; will mean something later) +- Near the bottom of the final page, smaller: *There is a second one. Sub-District 4. Two kilometres north. NOBODY KNOWS.* + +**The corkboard:** A hand-drawn map of Sub-District 9 with drainage tunnel routes marked. One route highlighted in red. At the end of the red route: a small X and the words *MW pod 7*. + +`[BRP: Research or Insight 40% — the map was drawn from Veltris infrastructure plans. Reth pulled this before he ran. He knew exactly where he was going.]` + +**The photograph [Handout 91-H01-B — SANITY CHECK]:** +Pinned to the bottom of the corkboard. A photograph taken in a drainage tunnel. Behind the apparent subject, something is visible. The shape is large. It does not resolve into anything recognisable regardless of how long you look. Not machinery, not debris, not an animal. The more you look, the less it resembles anything your mind has a category for. The impression that it has moved — is still moving — is very difficult to dismiss. + +`[BRP: Sanity 0/1 — seeing the photograph. The 1-point loss is the dawning certainty that the shape does not belong in the world you thought you were in.]` + +`[BRP: Photography or Art 40% — the photograph has not been altered. Whatever is in it was there when the picture was taken.]` + +**[ESSENTIAL CLUE — #3]** The corkboard map. The red route to Maintenance Wash Pod 7 is the navigational key. Without this, the team moves blind in Sub-Level 9. + +**[OPTIONAL CLUE]** The photograph. SAN trigger and physical proof. Players who take it will find it matters at The Junction. + +### Pacing Note — Act One +> If running more than 10 minutes over at 1:10, skip the Rivet Teeth interaction and move the child to the bar staircase. Essential clues that must land: surveillance blind spots, Jed's information, the corkboard map. If the team reaches the squat with 15+ minutes remaining, let them sit with the photograph. Do not rush it. + + +--- + +## ACT TWO — The Undertow *(~65 minutes)* +> **Goal:** Escalate the horror from atmospheric to visceral. Locate Reth. Reveal the entity's reality. Force the decision to ascend. + +### Summary +Following Reth's map, the team descends into Sub-Level infrastructure — old drainage channels, maintenance shafts, the buried skeleton of the original city. The organic filament network appears first as an oddity, then as something deeply wrong. The second Veltris team is a genuine threat and time cost. Reth is found alive, traumatised, and in possession of answers that the team did not want. + +--- + +### Location: The Entry Shaft + +**Description:** The access hatch — heavy industrial steel, electronic lock — is where Reth's map indicates. The lock has been forced recently and badly repaired. + +`[BRP: Electronics or Lockpick 40% — the bypassing was done with a high-grade corporate hacking suite. This was Veltris black ops. Not Reth.]` + +**Atmosphere:** Descending the access ladder, the temperature rises slightly. The organic sweetness is immediately stronger. Comms carry faint interference — rhythmic, almost like a carrier wave, but not quite. Not a signal. A pattern. + +--- + +### Location: The Junction + +**Description:** A large circular drainage hub where six tunnels converge, approximately 400 metres below street level. Old concrete, rusted iron supports, standing water at the channel edges. The walls, ceiling, and upper sections of the support columns are covered in a pale filamentous growth — organic, faintly luminescent, warm to the touch. + +**Atmosphere:** The bioluminescence gives no useful light but creates the impression of being inside something alive. The warmth is unmistakably biological. The smell is strong enough to be disorienting for the first few minutes. The silence is not empty — it has a quality, as if the space is occupied by attention. + +`[BRP: Science (Biology) or Medicine 40% — not fungal, not bacterial, not any known taxonomy. The bio-scanner reads: 'organic: living: class: unclassified.' Sustained analysis returns: 'organic: living: class: unclassified: WARNING — POSSIBLE MEMETIC HAZARD.' The yellow text is very steady.]` + +`[BRP: Sanity 1/1D6 — first sight of the filament growth. The loss comes from the quiet certainty that this is not how tunnels look, and that whatever made it has been here a very long time.]` + +If the growth is cut: it does not bleed. The cut ends contract — slowly, deliberately, like a creature reacting to pain in slow motion. +`[BRP: Sanity 0/1 — witnessing the contraction, only if a player chooses to cut it.]` + +**[ESSENTIAL CLUE — #4]** The entity is physically present. This is not an anomaly. It is something that has been growing toward the city for a very long time. + +**[OPTIONAL CLUE — MEMETIC HAZARD flag]** Veltris equipment already has a warning category for this. The programme predates the Sutter-Vane acquisition. + +--- + +### Location: The Watching Room + +**Description:** An old decommissioned maintenance control room off the east tunnel from The Junction. Reth has been here recently — a portable terminal is on, battery at 12%. Data-chips scattered nearby. The doorframe has a faint filament residue that was cleared away — in the direction of the Feed Corridor. + +**Atmosphere:** Small, closed, feels safer than the tunnels. It is not safer. The absence of growth here feels deliberate — as if the entity has chosen to leave this space clear for reasons of its own. + +**The partial data-chip contents [Handout 91-H02-A — requires** `[BRP: Electronics 35% or Computer Use 50%]` **to access]:** + +> *Month 1: Biological anomaly confirmed. Growth ~18m/month. No identifiable taxonomy. Recommend continued observation.* +> *Month 3: Reclassified as 'entity' — evidence of deliberate environmental modification. Feeding programme proposed.* +> *Month 7: Feeding programme operational. Dr Chen assigned lead. Three staff members — sleep disruption and auditory phenomena — reassigned.* +> *Month 11: Three containment events. Events 1 and 2 resolved. Event 3 ongoing. Security Team C did not return from containment response. Dr Chen requests full-time residency. Approved.* +> *Month 14: Entity appears to perceive directed observation. Growth rate in observed areas temporarily increases. Dr Chen recommends we "adjust our relationship with the concept of observation."* +> *Month 16 (six weeks prior): Employee VLT-39471-R (Reth, D.) accessed restricted SV-9 files. Files copied to personal chip. Recommend containment.* + +`[BRP: Insight 40% — "recommend containment" does not mean "keep him safe." It never did.]` + +`[BRP: Research 50% — Month 14's note about perceiving directed observation explains the drone-feed gap, the named rhythm in the comms, and the sense of being watched since The Slab. It knew they were coming because they were already directing attention toward it.]` + +**[ESSENTIAL CLUE — #5]** Corporate involvement confirmed. Reth was marked for removal, not rescue. The team's payment was already the last transaction. + +--- + +### Location: The Feed Corridor + +**Description:** A long tunnel toward Sutter-Vane's sub-basement. The filament growth is significantly thicker here — structured almost architecturally: arching buttresses of organic material, lateral formations like ribs. The shapes have a quality of intention that makes random biology seem comforting. + +**Atmosphere:** Bioluminescence brighter. The smell dense and sweet. Comms interference consistent. And underneath it: one team member's name. Tell this player privately, quietly, without drama: *"Your comm is carrying a sound. Underneath the interference. It sounds almost like your name, repeated very slowly."* This is not a transmission. It is something older than transmission. + +`[BRP: Listen or Spot 40% — to notice the name-rhythm. Other characters notice the interference but not the specific quality of it.]` +`[BRP: Sanity 1/1D4 — entering the Feed Corridor. The architecture of the growth suggests purposefulness.]` + +**Halfway down: the bodies.** +Three sets of remains in decomposed Veltris security gear. Each torso opened not from violence but from within. The ribcages are splayed outward like flowers in bloom — each rib bent outward at the joint with organic precision. No blood. The chest cavities empty and clean, with dried filament residue along the interior edges. + +`[BRP: Medicine or Science (Biology) 40% — the ribcages were not broken. They were unsealed. Something exited these bodies from the inside. The mechanism is consistent across all three. It did not hurry.]` + +`[BRP: Sanity 1D4/1D10 — seeing the opened bodies. The mechanism is deeply wrong.]` + +**[ESSENTIAL CLUE — #6]** These are Security Team C from Month 11. This tells the team what the entity does to human beings — and why Reth sealed himself in a pod. + +--- + +### Finding Reth: Maintenance Wash Pod 7 + +**Description:** A heavy maintenance pod door at the end of the Feed Corridor, sealed from inside with a metal bar. Banging produces a long pause — fifteen seconds minimum. Then, quietly: "Who sent you." Not a question. A test. + +The correct answer, from Reth's perspective, is anything that is not "Veltris." + +`[BRP: Persuade or Fast Talk 50% — Reth has been here four days and assumes anyone who found him was sent to disappear him. The Ghost's Sub-District 7 accent gets a +20% bonus. Showing Reth his own photograph from the squat, or quoting the phrase "it knows where the warmth is," will convince anyone.]` + +**Reth when the pod opens:** Male, mid-30s, thin, unshaven. Corporate data-vest over civilian clothes. Four days of emergency rations on the floor. His hands don't stop moving. He sits with his back against the far wall and recalibrates the way a person does when they were expecting to die. + +He gives the data-chip voluntarily — he wants it out of the tunnels. "It can't get into sealed steel. I think. I've been in here four days because I think." + +**What Reth tells them:** +- Veltris has been running a research programme for eighteen months. The entity was already there when they purchased Sutter-Vane. +- They started feeding it, then studying the filament network, then Dr Chen moved in permanently and stopped being entirely Dr Chen. +- "It knows you're here. It knew before you arrived. It doesn't see like we do. It feels weight, warmth — it feels intent. It knew I was frightened, and it followed the fear. Not quickly. But it followed it." +- He refuses to go back through Veltris. "Going back up means going through them. I'd rather take my chances here." He means this. +- "There is a second node. Sub-District 4, two kilometres north. I found it in the files. Nobody at Veltris talks about it. I don't think Dr Chen knows." + +**Reth's hands:** The subcutaneous filament tracery on his palms is faint but visible — pale threads beneath the skin, following the tendons. He notices the team noticing. "It gets in you. Slowly. I noticed on day two. I don't think it's deep yet. I've been trying not to touch the walls." + +`[BRP: Medicine 50% — early-stage filament integration. Possibly reversible with treatment within 72 hours. The Medic's personal hook connects here: the entry mechanism is subcutaneous and slow. The bodies in the Feed Corridor were much further along.]` + +**[OPTIONAL CLUE — "Feels intent"]** Explains the drone-feed gap, the named rhythm in the comms, and the sense of being watched since The Slab. + +--- + +### Horror Escalation Points in Act Two +*Distribute across the act. Spacing is everything.* + +1. **The Drone Feed** *(early Act Two)*: The Tech's drone shows, briefly and unmistakably, a large shape in the tunnel behind the group. When they look, nothing is there. Playing back the footage: the shape does not replay. The recording has a clean gap — not corrupted, absent. `[BRP: Sanity 0/1 — the gap is more disturbing than the shape would have been.]` + +2. **The Named Signal** *(Feed Corridor)*: As described above. Tell the player privately. Watch them decide whether to tell the group. + +3. **The Growth Contraction** *(The Junction, if triggered)*: As described above. Describe it clinically. The clinical precision is the horror. + +4. **Reth's hands**: As described above. Let the Medic have the roll. Let the table sit with what it means. + +--- + +### The Second Veltris Team (Kov and Sera) +*Optional — include if time permits, skip if running behind.* + +`[BRP: Spot or Perception 40% — movement in a side tunnel. Two heat signatures on the bio-scanner, ~30 metres ahead.]` + +Kov and Sera are Veltris black-ops contractors, ex-military, professional, and scared in a way they are hiding poorly. Their orders are to recover Reth and eliminate the players. But Kov has a broken rib (audible on fast movement) and Sera has not slept in 36 hours. + +**Negotiation is possible and preferable.** `[BRP: Persuade 50% — key leverage: (1) the team knows what Veltris's operation really is; (2) Kov and Sera have also seen the bodies; (3) nobody at Veltris is coming to get any of them out — they are also expendable.]` + +If combat occurs: costs 15–20 minutes and SAN. After gunfire, the filament growth in nearby sections contracts audibly toward the noise. The entity has noted the disturbance. + +**Kov** (broken rib: all physical rolls and Move at -2): +STR 15 | CON 14 | SIZ 14 | INT 12 | POW 11 | DEX 13 | HP 15 | PP 11 | DB +1D4 | Move 8 +Skills: Firearms (Pistol) 60%, Brawl 55%, Dodge 45%, Spot 40%, Intimidate 50% +Attacks: Sidearm (60%), 2D6+2 | Brawl (55%), 1D3+DB | Armour: Corporate body armour (4 points, torso) + +**Sera** (exhausted: all rolls at -10%): +STR 12 | CON 11 | SIZ 11 | INT 14 | POW 12 | DEX 15 | HP 12 | PP 12 | DB None | Move 10 +Skills: Firearms (Pistol) 65%, Firearms (SMG) 60%, Stealth 55%, Spot 50%, Dodge 55% +Attacks: Sidearm (65%), 2D6+2 | SMG (60%), 2D6+2 burst | Armour: Corporate body armour (4 points, torso) + +### Pacing Note — Act Two +> If more than 10 minutes over at the 2:00 mark, skip Kov and Sera. Reth must be found before 2:15. Non-negotiables: The Junction (entity established), The Watching Room files (corporate involvement), The Three Bodies (what it does), Reth (the full story). Everything else can be abbreviated. + + +--- + +## ACT THREE — Ascent *(~50 minutes)* +> **Goal:** Get out. Make the choice. Live with it. + +### Summary +The team must ascend from Sub-Level 9 through the Sutter-Vane plant and back to the surface. The plant is not abandoned — Veltris maintains it as a containment and observation site. The entity has breached two of four containment barriers. Dr Chen is in the Observation Gallery. At the top of the ascent: the moral choice. + +--- + +### Location: Sub-Level 9, Sutter-Vane — Containment Floor + +**Description:** Industrial floor space, high ceiling, overhead crane locked in position. Veltris has installed four electromagnetic pulse barriers across the lower section — heavy floor-mounted rigs. Two are dead. The other two glow amber. + +**Atmosphere:** The organic sweetness is overwhelming — dense enough to produce a faint taste at the back of the throat. The filament growth covers the lower third of the room entirely, shaped into structures with a terrible internal logic. The two failed barriers are not destroyed — they are grown through, the way a tree grows through a fence over years, except this took months. + +`[BRP: Sanity 1D4/1D10 — seeing the containment floor and the scale of the entity's physical presence.]` + +**The primary node** — visible through reinforced glass at the far end: approximately the size of a transit bus. Radially symmetrical in a way that does not map onto any familiar biology. Constantly in slow motion — moving with the quality of a tide, or a thought. It does not have eyes. The sense of being perceived is overwhelming regardless. + +`[BRP: Sanity 1D10/1D20 — seeing the primary node directly. On critical failure (maximum d20 loss), the character is paralysed with terror for 1D4 rounds and loses an additional 1D3 SAN permanently.]` + +**Power situation:** The two remaining barriers require uninterrupted power from the plant's main cell bank. If power is cut — deliberately or accidentally — both barriers fail within 30 seconds. + +--- + +### Location: The Observation Gallery + +**Description:** Reinforced glass-walled room overlooking the containment floor, accessible by internal staircase from Sub-Level 9. Dr Yava Chen is here, alone, at a terminal. She does not look up immediately when the team enters. She finishes a line of notes first. + +**Dr Chen when she turns:** Academic, early 60s. Grey hair, reading glasses. Perfectly formed sentences with slightly too much space between the words. Not frightened. Not hostile. Genuinely fascinated, the way of someone who has chosen to make a thing the centre of their existence. + +She will answer any question honestly: +- On the entity: *"It has been here since before the city. It has been patient in ways that make human patience look performative. I don't think it has goals. I think it has directions. Like a tide."* +- On containment failures: *"The barriers were always a delay, not a solution. It wasn't contained. It was being given time."* +- On the feeding programme: *"We gave it organic material. It responded. You would also respond if something offered you what you needed."* +- On herself, if asked directly: *"I've been here fourteen weeks. I feel quite well."* +- On what they should do: *"Whatever you decide, it will continue. It has been here a very long time. You have been here approximately ninety minutes."* + +`[BRP: Perception or Insight 50% — her typing rhythm, when she returns to the terminal, does not match any human keyboard cadence. Her fingers move in a pattern that is consistent and structured and is nothing she learned from any human source.]` + +`[BRP: Sanity 0/1D4 — extended conversation with Dr Chen. The wrongness accumulates quietly. She is not monstrous. She is someone who has been remade slowly, and she is not unhappy about it. That is the worst of it.]` + +`[BRP: POW resistance vs POW 16 — for any character who speaks with Dr Chen for more than 5 minutes. Failure: 1 SAN loss from subtle cognitive alignment. Make this roll secretly. Tell the affected player privately.]` + +--- + +### Location: The Ascent — Industrial Elevator and Stairwell + +**Description:** The industrial elevator connecting Sub-Level 9 to the ground floor is functional. Three minutes if uninterrupted. The stairwell, six flights beside the shaft, is the backup. + +The skeleton crew on upper floors: three Veltris researchers (non-combatant, will not interfere if the team moves quickly) and four Veltris security personnel. **Standing orders: prevent anything from leaving Sub-Level 9. Anything.** + +`[BRP: Stealth 50% — moving through upper plant floors undetected. -10% if bringing Reth without coaching him first.]` + +**Veltris Security (upper floors, 4 personnel):** +STR 13 | CON 12 | SIZ 12 | INT 11 | POW 10 | DEX 12 | HP 13 | PP 10 | DB None | Move 10 +Skills: Firearms (Pistol) 55%, Brawl 45%, Spot 40%, Dodge 40% +Attacks: Sidearm (55%), 2D6+2 | Brawl (45%), 1D3 | Armour: Corporate body armour (4 points, torso) + +--- + +### The Moral Choice +*Present this at the ascent point. Do not telegraph a preferred outcome. All three are genuinely bad.* + +**Option 1 — Walk Away** +Take the money. Sign the NDA. Return the chip to Sable Morn. Say nothing. Veltris continues the programme. The entity remains imperfectly contained — based on current growth rate, it will breach the final barriers in approximately six months. The secondary node in Sub-District 4 will have established itself by then. +*What it costs:* The team knows. They will always know. + +**Option 2 — Expose Veltris** +Use Reth's data to go public or to a rival corporation. Veltris takes the damage — the programme is shut down, the plant is raided. The containment systems, with no one maintaining them, go offline over the following weeks. The entity, with no barriers and no observation, begins its slow spread again. +*What it costs:* The corporation is damaged. The entity is released. Nobody in the new oversight structure knows what they are dealing with. + +**Option 3 — Destroy the Plant** +The Tech can trigger a catastrophic overload of the plant's power cells. Time to rig: ten minutes. During those ten minutes, power is rerouted from the remaining barriers — they fail within thirty seconds. The entity has ten minutes of freedom in Sub-Level 9. It cannot reach the upper floors in that time. The explosion destroys the primary node. The filament network withers over several weeks. The secondary node in Sub-District 4 is not affected. +*What it costs:* Power, water, heating, and medical equipment to the surrounding blocks goes out. The team can calculate the civilian casualties before they decide. Estimated between 15 and 30. Four of them will be children. + +**If players attempt to combine options:** The mathematics are the answer. Ten minutes to rig plus Reth's condition plus the firefight upstairs exceeds what any timeline permits. They can do two of the three things. Not all three. + +### Pacing Note — Act Three +> 30 minutes maximum for the ascent and choice. If unresolved at 3:05, force the choice by having the final two barriers show critical failure indicators — amber turning red. They have minutes, not ten. Choose. + +--- + +## NPC Profiles and Stat Blocks + +--- + +### Sable Morn — Veltris Handler +**Physical:** Female-presenting, late 40s. Expensive coat, precisely fitted. Subdermal comms visible as a faint ridge along the jaw. Grey-silver hair worn back. Moves without wasted motion. Her eyes rest slightly past the person she is addressing, never quite landing. +**Motivation:** Professional completion. Not ideologically committed to the entity programme — committed to Veltris's continued operation and her position within it. She has authorised worse. +**What She Knows:** Everything. The feeding schedule. The containment failures. Dr Chen's condition. The secondary node. The termination order on the player team — she authorised it before the briefing. +**Disposition:** Cold, composed, professional. Pleasant in the briefing. If the team surfaces with the data, she implements the termination order. If they surface with only the chip and nothing provable, she pays them and files the case closed. + +STR 10 | CON 12 | SIZ 10 | INT 16 | POW 14 | DEX 12 | APP 14 +HP 11 | PP 14 | DB None | Move 10 +Skills: Persuade 70%, Fast Talk 65%, Insight 70%, Intimidate 55%, Spot 50% +Attacks: Concealed sidearm (40%), 2D6 (draws only in genuine extremis) +**Special:** Panic protocol — concealed combat stims injector (+15% physical skills, 1D6 rounds) and direct line to Veltris black ops (8-minute response time). + +--- + +### Damos Reth — The Rogue Analyst +**Physical:** Male, mid-30s, thin, unshaven. Corporate data-vest over civilian clothes not changed in six days. Dark circles. Hands that don't stop moving. Subcutaneous filament tracery on both palms — pale threads beneath the skin, visible in good light. +**Motivation:** Survival first. Exposure of what Veltris has done, second — he is realistic about his odds and does not frame the situation heroically. +**What He Knows:** The full entity programme history. The feeding schedule. The containment failures. Dr Chen's condition ("She started asking about it like it was a colleague. Not a subject. A colleague."). The secondary node in Sub-District 4. The 47 disappearances and the paid-off reports. He has had four days to read the files very carefully. +**Disposition:** Frightened and intelligent in intermittent bursts. Will occasionally refer to the entity as "the shape that knows your weight" and flinch at sounds only he can hear. Does not know if the sounds are real. Will not go back through Veltris. Cannot be convinced. This is not irrational. + +STR 10 | CON 10 | SIZ 11 | INT 16 | POW 11 | DEX 11 | APP 12 +HP 11 | PP 8 (depleted from sustained stress) | DB None | Move 7 (four days in a pod) +Skills: Research 70%, Computer Use 65%, Science (Data Analysis) 60%, Insight 55% +Attacks: None. +**Special:** Early-stage filament integration in both palms. `[BRP: Medicine 50% — reversible with treatment within 72 hours. What progression means beyond that is not documented in accessible files.]` + +--- + +### Jed Osler — Terminus Bar Tender +**Physical:** Non-binary, 50s. Prosthetic left arm — old hydraulic model, chunky segmented fingers, quiet servo whine on grip and release. Medium height, broad shoulders, grey-shot hair. The stillness of someone who has seen everything and chosen not to comment. +**Motivation:** The bar. The regulars. The routine that holds everything together. +**What They Know:** Reth's movements and questions. The disappearances by name and timeframe — the cluster near the plant. The organic smell, when it started. People who came back from below street level and sat staring at the middle distance before walking back out toward the drain grates. They have not said this to anyone. They will say it once, to this team, if the conditions are right. +**Disposition:** Guarded by default. Warm when properly approached. Cannot be threatened, bribed, or panicked. + +STR 13 | CON 14 | SIZ 12 | INT 14 | POW 13 | DEX 13 | APP 12 +HP 14 | PP 13 | DB None | Move 10 +Skills: Insight 70%, Persuade 55%, Brawl 50%, Spot 55%, Streetwise 65% +Attacks: Prosthetic arm strike (50%), 1D6+1 | Baton behind bar (40%), 1D8 +**Special:** Will not go below street level under any circumstances. This is not fear — it is a decision made long ago and not revisited. + +--- + +### Dr Yava Chen — Lead Researcher (Compromised) +**Physical:** Female, early 60s. Academic bearing — clearly a professor before she was anything else. Grey hair worn practically. Reading glasses she takes off to look at things and puts back on to look at people. Speaks in perfectly formed sentences with slightly too much space between the words. +**Motivation:** The entity. She genuinely believes it is the most significant discovery in human history and is quietly sad that the containment situation has made its study complicated. She no longer thinks about her career, former colleagues, or what she was before fourteen weeks underground. +**What She Knows:** Everything documented in the programme — growth rate, sensory mechanism, feeding response, psychological effects of extended proximity, the secondary node in Sub-District 4 (she calls it "the lateral extension"), and the slow influence on the surrounding population (she calls it "the entity's environmental expression"). +**Disposition:** Not hostile, not deceptive, not disturbed. Will answer any question, including ones the team did not want answered. The wrongness is gradual — it accumulates from what she does not say: she does not ask if they are all right, does not mention the bodies in the corridor, does not suggest they should leave. + +STR 9 | CON 12 | SIZ 10 | INT 18 | POW 16 | DEX 10 | APP 11 +HP 11 | PP 16 | DB None | Move 9 +Skills: Science (Biology) 85%, Research 80%, Medicine 50%, Persuade 40%, Insight 60% +Attacks: None. +**Special:** Extended proximity contamination — 5+ minutes of close conversation requires POW resistance vs POW 16. Failure: 1 SAN loss from subtle cognitive alignment. Make this roll secretly. Tell the affected player privately. + +--- + +### Scratch — Rivet Teeth Gang Leader +**Physical:** Young woman, late teens to early twenties. Fast-twitch reflex tap in her right arm (the interface seam at her wrist is still slightly raised, still new). Optical replacement in the left eye — amber glow in low light. Quick, observant, moves like someone who calculates exit routes as a habit. +**Motivation:** Her people's safety. She has been losing gang members to the disappearances for eight months and she knows it is not other gangs. +**What She Knows:** Which residents have gone missing by name and rough date. That the disappearances cluster near drainage access points closest to the plant. That some people who came back from below street level "weren't right." That two of them walked back to the plant voluntarily at 3 a.m. three weeks ago and did not return. +**Disposition:** Territorial on first contact. Negotiable if treated as a person worth talking to. + +STR 12 | CON 12 | SIZ 10 | INT 15 | POW 13 | DEX 17 | APP 13 +HP 12 | PP 13 | DB None | Move 12 +Skills: Streetwise 70%, Dodge 65%, Brawl 55%, Spot 60%, Stealth 55%, Fast Talk 50% +Attacks: Reflex-augmented strike (55%), 1D6 | Blade (45%), 1D6+1 +**Special:** On the first round of any combat she did not initiate, her DEX counts as 20 for Strike Rank. + +--- + +### The Entity — The Night Crawler +*Not a creature. A thing that has been here since before the city.* + +**Nature:** A Spawn of the Lurker at the Threshold. Semi-corporeal Mythos predator of unknown age. Its physical expression is the filament network — distributed, slow, pervasive. The primary node is its densest concentration. Destroying the node severs the directional intelligence; the filaments remain but lose their architecture. + +**Sensory System:** Perceives through pressure differential, heat, and "intent" — the quality of directed attention in living beings. It registered the team's approach before they entered Sub-District 7. It has known their direction for hours. When the team looks at it, it perceives the looking. + +**SAN Losses:** +- Filament growth (first sight): 1/1D6 +- Primary node (viewed through glass): 1D4/1D10 +- Primary node (direct/sustained): 1D10/1D20 + +**Combat:** Cannot be conventionally killed. Primary node can be destroyed by the Tech's overload, concentrated fire (200+ HP), or equivalent explosive force. Cutting filaments: AP 2, HP 8 per metre-section — slows it but draws network attention to that location within 1D4 rounds. Does not pursue in a straight line — it anticipates through the tunnel network, redirecting toward warmth and intent. + +**Influence Mechanic:** Characters in the tunnels for 60+ cumulative minutes make POW resistance vs POW 18. Failure: a quiet pull toward the lower levels, a sense that returning is natural. Tell the failing player privately. This is deep, slow environmental conditioning — how two of Scratch's people went back. It is not mind control. It is patient. If a player asks whether their character is affected: "Your character feels fine. That is the problem." + + +--- + +## Clue Trail — Master Reference + +### Essential Clues (scenario requires these) +| # | Clue | Location | How Found | What It Reveals | +|---|------|----------|-----------|-----------------| +| 1 | Surveillance blind spots | The Slab | Spot/Electronics 50% | Corporate hands are hiding the entity's footprint | +| 2 | Jed's information | Terminus Bar | Persuade/Insight 40% | Reth was here; room 4; the smell; people who came back wrong | +| 3 | Reth's corkboard map | Room 4 | Visual | Navigation to Maintenance Wash Pod 7 | +| 4 | Filament growth / entity presence | The Junction | Visual + Bio-scanner | The entity is real, distributed, alive, and very old | +| 5 | Veltris internal files | The Watching Room | Electronics/Computer 35-50% | Corporate involvement confirmed; Reth marked for removal | +| 6 | The three opened bodies | Feed Corridor | Visual + Medicine 40% | What the entity does to human beings | +| 7 | Reth's account | Maintenance Pod | Roleplay | The full story; the secondary node; "it knows your weight" | + +### Optional Clues (reward thorough play) +| # | Clue | Location | What It Adds | +|---|------|----------|--------------| +| A | The photograph | Room 4 | Physical evidence; SAN trigger; visual proof | +| B | MEMETIC HAZARD flag | The Junction | Veltris knew before the Sutter-Vane acquisition | +| C | The named rhythm | Feed Corridor | Entity's individual awareness of the team | +| D | Reth's filament tracery | The Pod | Medical decision point; integration timeline | +| E | Dr Chen's typing rhythm | Observation Gallery | What extended proximity does to a person | +| F | Scratch's account | The Slab | Entity influence on surface population; the ones who went back | + +### Fallback Triggers +- **Missed the map?** Bio-scanner shows elevated organic readings pointing in one direction. `[BRP: Track 40% on filament density leads to the node.]` +- **Missed the Veltris files?** Reth's verbal account covers the same ground fully. +- **Reth won't open the pod?** The Ghost's Sub-District 7 accent is automatic trust. Showing the photograph or quoting "it knows where the warmth is" will convince anyone. + +--- + +## Epilogue / Conclusion *(~15 minutes)* + +**If they walked away:** +Each operative receives 8,000 credits. The transfer lands before they leave the building. Sable Morn's debrief is three minutes long and slightly too warm. She thanks them. Three weeks later, one operative receives an anonymous transmission — no message, just a photograph. The street outside the Terminus Bar. Every window in the surrounding six-storey blocks is dark. The street is empty. No people visible anywhere in the frame. + +**If they exposed Veltris:** +Reth makes the news for eighteen hours before disappearing into rival corporate protective custody. Veltris stock drops twelve percent and recovers in six weeks. A subsidiary purchases the Sutter-Vane plant assets in liquidation. The new owners file a report within sixty days: "unusual biological material in sub-level infrastructure." They describe it as "commercially promising" and initiate a new research programme. + +**If they destroyed the plant:** +The explosion is attributed to a degraded industrial gas main. The surrounding six blocks lose power, water, and heating. The official casualty count, released nine days later, is nine. The actual count, once cold exposure cases are tallied three weeks later, is twenty-three. Four of them are children. + +The Tech is paid 8,000 credits — Sable cannot prove anything and cannot afford the visibility of a legal dispute. The operative who rigged the overload dreams about tunnels for the rest of their life. Not nightmares, exactly. Tunnels, and the faint organic sweetness, and a sense of something patient below the city, waiting. + +The primary node is gone. The secondary node in Sub-District 4 has no one watching it. + +**If Reth survives (any ending):** +The filament tracery on his hands fades over six weeks with appropriate medical treatment. If untreated, what happens next is not documented. The data-chip is out there. He was a data analyst. He knows what to do with information. One week after any ending, a notification appears on the Analyst's terminal — an anonymous tip about a Veltris acquisition in Sub-District 4. The notification is deleted by an automated process before they can do more than open it. + +--- + +## Outcomes Table + +| Outcome | Trigger | Result | +|---------|---------|--------| +| Full Success | Reth + chip at surface, exposure chosen | Veltris damaged; entity temporarily contained; secondary node active | +| Partial Success | Chip recovered, Reth stays | Team paid; Reth's fate unknown; entity continues | +| Pyrrhic | Plant destroyed, team alive | 23 civilian deaths; primary node gone; secondary node active | +| Dark Success | Walked away | Team paid; entity spreads; city does not know yet | +| Failure | Team does not surface | The tunnels have them. Veltris files it as a loss. | + +--- + +## Artwork Assets + +**Art Direction:** Ink sketch and pencil illustration. High contrast. Rain-slicked urban noir above ground — neon, wet surfaces, vertical architecture. Patient organic body horror below — nothing rushed, nothing gory, everything clinical and slow. + +| Asset ID | Description | Used In | +|----------|-------------|---------| +| 91-ART-01 | Cover — aerial Neo-Ashford at night, arcology towers above smog, neon reflections on wet street below | Cover | +| 91-ART-02 | The Slab — elevated market, neon stalls, rain, a child pressing a note into an outstretched hand | Act One | +| 91-ART-03 | Reth's room — corkboard with the map, red route marked, photograph pinned at the bottom | Act One | +| 91-ART-04 | The Junction — drainage hub with filament growth on walls and ceiling, faint bioluminescence, six tunnel mouths | Act Two | +| 91-ART-05 | The three bodies — splayed ribcages on the tunnel floor, viewed from a distance. No gore. Clinical. Like flowers. | Act Two | +| 91-ART-06 | The primary node — seen through reinforced Gallery glass, radially symmetrical, slow motion, incomprehensible | Act Three | +| 91-ART-07 | Sable Morn — corporate portrait, expensive coat, eyes that rest slightly past the viewer | NPC | + +--- + +## The Tangent +The secondary node under Sub-District 4 is two kilometres north and has been developing for approximately nine months. Nobody in this scenario knows about it except Reth and, via Reth, the team. One week after any of the three endings, a construction crew excavating foundations for a new Veltris subsidiary building in Sub-District 4 breaks through into a maintenance tunnel and reports "unusual biological material." The report is flagged by a Veltris subsidiary monitoring system. The flag is noticed by exactly one person — the Analyst, if they survived — because the flag contains a data signature that matches something buried in the files from The Watching Room. + +Forty-eight hours later, the notification has been quietly deleted from their terminal by a process they did not initiate. + +The next scenario is already beginning. + + +--- + +## GM Quick Reference Card +*Keep this on a separate sheet at the table. Everything needed at a glance.* + +### Timing Checkpoints +| Clock | Checkpoint | +|-------|-----------| +| 0:15 | Briefing done, team descending into Sub-District 7 | +| 1:10 | Team at Reth's squat — map in hand, photograph seen | +| 2:00 | Team in tunnels — Junction passed, bodies found | +| **2:15** | **Reth located — HARD DEADLINE, compress if needed** | +| 2:45 | Ascending through Sutter-Vane plant | +| **3:05** | **Moral choice made — HARD DEADLINE** | +| 3:20 | Epilogue coda scene running | +| 3:30 | Done | + +### Sanity Roll Quick Reference +| Trigger | Fail / Pass Loss | +|---------|-----------------| +| The photograph | 0 / 1 | +| First sight of filament growth | 1 / 1D6 | +| Filament contraction when cut | 0 / 1 | +| Entering the Feed Corridor | 1 / 1D4 | +| The three opened bodies | 1D4 / 1D10 | +| Drone footage gap (the missing seconds) | 0 / 1 | +| Extended conversation with Dr Chen | 0 / 1D4 | +| Containment floor — scale of entity | 1D4 / 1D10 | +| Primary node (direct view) | 1D10 / 1D20 | +| Primary node (critical fail on d20) | + 1D3 permanent | + +### Key Skill Rolls at a Glance +| Where | Skill | What It Does | +|-------|-------|-------------| +| Briefing room | Research / Law 30% | Notes the NDA biological clause | +| Briefing room | Insight 40% | Sable is withholding something large | +| The Slab | Persuade / Fast Talk | Vendor confirms Reth's direction (50 credits) | +| The Slab | Spot / Electronics 50% | Corporate surveillance blind spots | +| The Slab | Track 40% | Follows the child | +| Terminus Bar | Insight 40% | Reading Jed's approach correctly | +| Reth's room | Spot 40% | Pressure marks on the notes | +| Reth's room | Research / Insight 40% | Map drawn from Veltris infrastructure plans | +| Reth's room | Photography / Art 40% | Photograph is not doctored | +| Entry shaft | Electronics / Lockpick 40% | Corporate bypass — not Reth | +| The Junction | Science (Bio) / Medicine 40% | Bio-scanner classification | +| The Watching Room | Electronics 35% / Computer 50% | Reads the Veltris files | +| Feed Corridor | Listen / Spot 40% | Named rhythm in the comms | +| Feed Corridor | Medicine / Science (Bio) 40% | Mechanism of the opened chests | +| Maintenance Pod | Persuade / Fast Talk 50% | Convincing Reth to open the door | +| Maintenance Pod | Medicine 50% | Filament integration timeline on Reth's hands | +| Observation Gallery | Perception / Insight 50% | Dr Chen's wrong typing cadence | +| Observation Gallery | POW vs POW 16 | Chen's proximity influence | +| 60+ min in tunnels | POW vs POW 18 | Entity environmental conditioning | + +### NPC Disposition at a Glance +| NPC | Default | How to Unlock | +|-----|---------|--------------| +| Sable Morn | Composed, minimal | She does not unlock. There is no hidden warmth. | +| Jed Osler | Guarded | Treat them with respect. Cash helps. | +| Scratch | Territorial | Acknowledge her knowledge as real and valuable. | +| Kov | Professional | Show him Veltris sent them both to die. | +| Sera | Professional, depleted | Show her Veltris sent them both to die. | +| Reth | Terrified | Ghost's Sub-District 7 accent, the photograph, or his own words quoted back. | +| Dr Chen | Openly honest | She always was. The problem is what she is honest about. | + +--- + +## Handout Text — In-Game Props + +### 91-H00-A — Veltris Solutions Mission Briefing *(Pre-Game — hand to players with 91-H00-B)* + +> **VELTRIS SOLUTIONS — CONTRACTOR BRIEFING DOCUMENT** +> **Classification: COMMERCIAL CONFIDENCE** +> **Issued by: Contract Services Division | Authorised Signatory: S. Morn** +> +> You have been engaged by Veltris Solutions for a time-limited retrieval operation under Standard Contractor Agreement VC-7. +> +> **Objective:** Locate and return to Company custody one (1) Company employee, Damos Reth (Employee ID VLT-39471-R), currently AWOL from assigned role. Reth is believed to be operating in Sub-Districts 7 or 9, Neo-Ashford. Last recorded transit-chip ping: Sub-District 7 Transit Terminus (Pod 7-South), 23:18, four days prior. +> +> **Secondary Objective:** Recover one (1) encrypted data-chip in Reth's possession. The chip is Company property under standing intellectual property provisions. +> +> **Timeline:** Forty-eight (48) hours from briefing. +> +> **Compensation:** Credits 8,000 per operative on completion of primary OR secondary objective. Partial completion (secondary objective only) qualifies for full payment. +> +> **Non-Disclosure:** All information encountered during this operation is covered under NDA Clause 7 (full). See Attachment B for scope. *Particular note — Clause 7(f): any biological or organic material encountered in the course of operations is deemed Company property subject to standard IP provisions. Do not remove, sample, or retain any such material without written Company authorisation.* +> +> Questions regarding scope should be directed to S. Morn directly. Do not contact Contract Services division. + +--- + +### 91-H00-B — Dossier on Damos Reth *(Pre-Game — hand with 91-H00-A)* + +> **SUBJECT: RETH, DAMOS — Employee VLT-39471-R | Data Analyst, Supply Chain Intelligence Division** +> +> [PHOTOGRAPH — corporate headshot: a man in his mid-30s, professional, looking fractionally off-camera. He looks very different from who the team will find.] +> +> Age: 34 | Resident: Arcology Level 14, Veltris-Midari Block (assigned accommodation) +> Tenure: 6 years, 4 months | Threat Classification: NON-VIOLENT +> No combat augments on record. No weapons permit. +> +> Performance history: Above-average across all review periods. No disciplinary incidents prior to current AWOL status. No known personal contacts in Sub-Districts 7–9. +> +> *The Company prefers undamaged return.* + +--- + +### 91-H01-A — Reth's Handwritten Notes *(Found in Room 4 — crumple lightly before handing out)* + +*(Handwriting starts neat and deteriorates. The later lines are written under pressure.)* + +> Day 1 — Out of the building. Paid cash. Don't use the chip. Room above a bar, Sub-7. Safe enough. +> SV-9 files are real. I have copies. Month 16 says "recommend containment." I know what that means. +> The 47 disappearances. I counted them. It's been 18 months. +> +> Day 2 — It knows where the warmth is. +> +> Day 3 — Drawn the sub-level map from SV-9 infrastructure files. If I have to go further down, I know where. MW pod 7 is sealed. They won't look there. +> It knows where the warmth is. +> It knows where the warmth is. +> It knows where the warmth is. +> +> There is a second one. +> LOOK AT THE NORTHERN FILES. Sub-District 4. Two kilometres north. +> NOBODY KNOWS. + +--- + +### 91-H01-B — The Photograph *(Found in Room 4 — hand this card separately, after other notes)* + +> A photograph taken in a drainage tunnel, framed on a section of curved wall. Whatever the photograph was intended to show is in the foreground — a drainage junction marker, perhaps, or an identification plate. +> +> Behind it, something is visible. +> +> It is large. It is not machinery. It is not debris. It does not correspond to any animal shape. It is not a trick of the light — the light is consistent across the frame. +> +> The shape has internal structure. You can see that much. But the structure does not map onto anything your mind has a category for. +> +> You have been looking at it for thirty seconds. You feel that you have been making progress in understanding it, and then you realise you have been looking at the same point in the photograph for the entire thirty seconds and have not moved your eyes. + +--- + +### 91-H02-A — Partial Veltris Internal Files *(Found in The Watching Room — print in light grey on white, as if from a dim terminal)* + +> **VELTRIS INTERNAL — CLASSIFICATION: RESTRICTED** +> **SV-9 PROGRAMME STATUS LOG — PARTIAL EXTRACT** +> *Access via portable terminal — Battery 12% — Some entries corrupted* +> +> **Month 1:** Biological anomaly confirmed, sub-level 9. Growth rate ~18m/month. No identifiable taxonomy. Feeding response confirmed when biomass introduced. Recommend continued observation. +> +> **Month 3:** Anomaly reclassified as 'entity' per Dr Chen's recommendation — evidence of deliberate environmental modification. Entity appears to exhibit directed growth toward thermal sources. +> +> **Month 7:** Feeding programme approved and operational. Dr Chen assigned programme lead. Three staff members report sleep disruption and intrusive auditory phenomena — reassigned to surface roles. +> +> **Month 11:** Three containment events recorded. Events 1 and 2 resolved. Event 3 ongoing. Security Team C *[corrupted — 3 names missing]* did not return from containment response. Dr Chen requests full-time on-site residency. Staff rotation suspended. +> +> **Month 14:** *Entity appears to perceive directed observation. Growth rate in observed sections temporarily increases during active monitoring. Nature of sensory apparatus unknown. Dr Chen recommends we "adjust our relationship with the concept of observation."* +> +> **Month 16:** Employee VLT-39471-R (Reth, D.) accessed restricted SV-9 files via Tier 4 clearance gap. Files copied to personal storage device. Recommend containment. +> +> **[END OF ACCESSIBLE ENTRIES — further content requires Tier 6 decryption: estimated 4–6 hours]** + +--- + +## GM Notes — Running The Night Crawler + +### The Tone Problem (And How To Avoid It) +This is not a monster hunt. The scenario works by slow accumulation — the smell, the photograph, the growth, Reth's hands, Dr Chen's typing rhythm. The entity should not feel like a dungeon boss. It should feel like something that has always been there, which is worse. + +The mistake to avoid: rushing the horror. Act One is the most important act for atmosphere. Spend time in the Terminus Bar. Let the Slab breathe. Let players sit with the photograph. The dread in Act Two is earned by Act One's normalcy. + +The entity never speaks, never threatens, never chases in a straight line. It is simply present. The horror is accumulative and quiet. When it moves on the drone feed, it has already gone when the players look. The rhythm in the comms sounds almost like a name, but not quite. + +### The Moral Choice — Do Not Help Them +When the team reaches the ascent and the three options are on the table, do not telegraph a preferred outcome. Present all three with equal weight and step back. Players will often try to find a fourth option — be open to creative solutions, but know that there is no clean answer. The entity has been here for centuries. Whatever they do tonight is a response to that, not a solution. + +If players attempt all three (save Reth AND expose AND destroy): the timing mathematics don't work. Ten minutes to rig the overload plus time to get Reth out plus a firefight upstairs exceeds what the remaining barriers can hold. Something has to give. + +### Sable Morn — The Delayed Threat +Sable is not a combat encounter during the session — she is a consequence in the epilogue. If the team surfaces with the data-chip and a public-exposure plan, she implements the termination order after they leave. Don't forget she exists in the briefing scene. Let players read the NDA. Let them notice she doesn't quite meet anyone's eyes. These details pay off. + +### Dr Chen — Do Not Skip Her +The Observation Gallery is technically optional (the team can bypass to the stairwell). Don't let them skip it unless very short on time. Dr Chen is the most disturbing NPC precisely because she is not monstrous. She is a brilliant scientist who has been remade slowly by something patient, and she is not unhappy about it. The horror of her is gradual and consensual. This is worse than the alternatives. + +**One practical technique for playing Dr Chen:** When speaking as her, look at the player slightly past their shoulder, not at their face. Hold it a beat longer than comfortable. Don't make it theatrical. Just hold it. + +### Pacing Across Six Players +Three acts, six players, 3.5 hours = approximately eight minutes per player per act for direct engagement. Distribute attention actively: +- The Tech's drone gives a constant thread for quieter players +- The Medic's bio-scanner provides environmental information that rewards engagement +- The Analyst should be first to attempt decryption of the Veltris files — this is their moment +- The Ghost's Sub-District 7 background matters most in the Terminus Bar and with Reth +- The Fixer's Veltris history matters most in the briefing and at the moral choice + +### The Child on The Slab +The child's father is Gavrel Muss — one of the people who went below street level, came back changed, and returned voluntarily to the plant. The child does not know their father is gone, or knows it and cannot process it. The note is their last attempt to do something useful in a situation entirely beyond them. Do not make this explicit during the session. Let it be what it is. If a player asks about the child after the session ends — that is when you tell them. + +### What Happens If the Team Fights Everyone +Full combat mode — fights Kov and Sera, kills Dr Chen, takes out security upstairs — is a valid path. The entity does not care about the violence. The tunnels fill with noise and blood and the filaments contract toward warmth, but the primary node remains patient. Killing humans is not the solution. The scenario should make this clear without punishing players for fighting. Combat costs time and SAN, but it does not derail the narrative. + +### The Three Bodies +Do not describe this graphically. The horror of the opened ribcages is in the mechanism, not the gore. They were unsealed. Something exited them from the inside. It took its time. The clinical precision of that description is worse than any amount of viscera. If players ask about the cause of death, let the Medic figure it out with the skill roll and then sit with it for a moment. + +--- + +*End of Event 91 – BRP: The Night Crawler* +*Template: ChaosiumCon26 SCENARIO-TEMPLATE v1.0*