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It’s very early in the morning in Spinethorn, MA. The sun is hours from rising and night crews are still hard at work. The stoplights blink red to accommodate the few cars on the roads. A light fog drapes over the city, diffusing the street lights and blocking out the fingernail moon hanging in the sky.
A speeding hatchback shatters the peace of an empty street in the small hours. The car blows through an intersection, driven by a young man, late teens or early twenties. His name is Jessie Winnop and he died several minutes ago.
His face is frozen in concentration as he races down the road. He breaks his focus for a moment to look down at his hand.
Before his eyes, his skin shrivels and wrinkles, his fingernails grow. Clumps of hair drop from his head as he starts to lose control of the car.
We see his POV, his vision blurring as cataracts cloud his eyes.
He turns the corner on two wheels into a residential neighborhood and the small car hops a curb, flattening the mailbox and digging a deep trench into a lawn. He rips his keys from the ignition and stumbles out of the car. The shrinking is even more pronounced now; he’s completely bald, his clothes hanging loosely off him. His hip makes a sickening crack and he falls to the ground. Unable to stand, he crawls to the door. His skeletal hands are too unsteady and stiff to select the correct key.
With all his strength he slams his frail body against the front door.
Inside the house, an older woman clad in a pink bathrobe moves tentatively toward the door. She looks out the peep hole, calling out to see who is there.
Jessie, now impossibly desiccated, weakly calls out “mom” and collapses as she throws the door open. She turns his body over and screams.
How do you learn about the strange circumstances of Jessie Winnop’s death? How do you gather the hunters?
Does anyone have a move that triggers at the start of the mystery? What are you doing before you hear from Tom?
Sunny collapses onto the park bench and loosens his tie, noticing he's lost another gold plated dollar sign cuff link. He'll have to check the pawn shop later. For now, he sets a ceramic jar on the ground next to him, where it begins to rattle gently against the cobblestones. Pulling a golf pencil and a pad of monkey-shaped sticky notes from his pocket, he writes "To: Tim, From: the best thing since sliced" He runs out of space with his crooked, barely legible handwriting, and proceeds to stick the first note on the lid of the jar before continuing on a second with "bread" and sticking it fully over the first note.
Nodding with supreme satisfaction, the little balding man adjusts the fit of the crotch of his golden slacks and leans back into the bench, waiting to see if Guanyin will show up. He was never sure if whoever came was Guanyin, or the Jade Emperor's star messenger, or even if it was just an actual kindly old person. Sunny figured anything any of the above had to say was bound to be useful... if not exactly important. Any help he could get training Tad to be a true warrior would be welcome.
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An older man sits down next to you. You’ve never seen him before, but he seems to know you.
Your charge is not developing his skills fast enough. He’s using you as a crutch. You will soon seek a great beast. Until it is defeated, you must not use violence until the chosen one has drawn blood from his foe.
He gets up and walks away. A single piece of paper rests on the bench. On it is a watercolor painting of a metal roll up door, bright orange. The number 45 is painted on the door. Squiggling black lines radiate from the door.
Tom read about the death from a short obituary in the larger local newspaper. To verify the story, and hopefully be able to add a few more details to what was turning out to be a dull issue of his own paper, Tom went to pay Jessie's family a visit.
When he got to the house, he was shocked to see a still-moving skeleton. He ran away as quickly as possible, and calls whichever ones of the group have phones in turn, until someone answers. "Hello? I just saw a skeleton at Jessie Winnop's house, and it was moving! Could I get some help here, fast?"
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it was hour 37 of not sleeping for Allison when dawn broke that day. Her living room was filled with books and papers strewn about. the old, 70's-green couch covered except for a small spot where she sat. the table beside it covered in mugs, takeout containers, and star charts. The strains of Of Lilies and Remains sound through it, as Allison throws down a pad of scratch paper in frustration. he turns to her "familiar", a small tabby she had picked up out of a box in the side alley.
So, either Tom was born somewhere in the arctic sea, or I did the calculations wrong. Again. She says Don't look at me like that. I'm fine, just need to get where the hell this whole "chose one" thing came from.
Ozzy answered with a small mew.
Fine. I'll go shower, then get some breakfast. I can sleep after I get these calculations right.
there was another Mew
You know, someday I'm going to get a proper familiar. you better be nice to it when I do.
Sean was working on his cars until about midnight. He went inside, drank two bottles of Iron Stream Reserve beer, and fell asleep on the couch listening to the Pogues' If I Should Fall From Grace With God.
He woke to a mouth that tasted like a port-o-potty looked. "Jaysis, I smell like the inside of a bum's pocket."
Sean and Allison: Tom called you and summoned you to help with a mystery. Are you going to join him?
The house is a taped off crime scene. There’s a chalk outline on the porch, the car still on the lawn. The police are bagging evidence.
Sunny stands from a crouch as if he's been squatting behind Tom's garbage can all day. The CIA and several academic sensor arrays register something weighting ten tons making landfall from outer orbit at near light speed, but the earth isn't annihilated so they figure it, like so many other of Sunny's landings throughout history, was an artifact of faulty equipment. A scientist in Laos once found a unifying theorem of physics by positing that these readings were a form of crude transportation by a hyper-dense alien, but she reached enlightenment soon after, and never published.
Rounding the corner of Tom's residence, Sunny spots a familiar vehicle coming to a stop on the street. "Oh, good. I love when things move along at a decent pace. Getting you all together can be like watching peaches grow." Sunny is a short, balding, blond man with wild mutton chops and large, crooked hands. His wild eyes and smug smile suggest he's already pantsed you with his eyes. Still, he might pass as an ordinary homeless whack job if it weren't for the gaudy golden get up.
Allison gets out of her (admittedly, obscenely long) shower to a missed call, and a number of texts. something about a mysterious death. I'll be right over she texts back, conjuring winds to dry off quickly, and putting her hair into a messy braid, and putting on a clean-ish shirt, with her jeans and jacket, athame secreted away in the interior pocket. she grabs her staff,a nd is almost out the door.
Mind the House, Ozzy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Allison arrives on the scene with a breakfast sandwich and coree in hand, her staff left in her beat-up old Prius.
Sunny, Tommy, what are we looking at here?
"So, when I came to speak with Mrs. Winnop about her son, she said she saw him come back as a skeleton and he whispered to her before they took him away," Tom begins to explain. "I stayed at her place because she was really distressed and I didn't want to leave her like that. But I'm also afraid to be alone where the skeleton was... and I think you also might want to look around for skeletons, or whatever it was that caused them to come, right?"
After making his ablutions, Sean sees the missed call and hurriedly dresses. He grabs his phone, wallet, and keys. He clips his knife into one pocket, and puts his Glock in an IWB holster, which he clips to his belt, pulling his t-shirt and Hawaiian shirt over it.
Once behind the wheel of his van, he texts Tom to say he's on his way. He pulls up a bit down the street, finishes his coffee, and walks the rest of the way.
"Morning all. Here I was about to go do some s%$@ with the orphans or something like that. What's up, Tom?" he says, grinning.
Sunny spots Sean and fumbles with his cane for a moment, patting down his pockets and fishing out a crumpled piece of paper. After smoothing it out on his chest, he presents a watercolor painting of a metal roll up door, bright orange. The number 45 is painted on the door. Squiggling black lines radiate from the door. "What's that look like to you, Mr. O'Halloran? Why does it have the lines from side to side, and why is it orange? Is this kind of door common somewhere?"
Sean looks at the picture. "Huh. Could be a storage unit, maybe? Or a garage? Loading dock? Something like that. The lines, though... got me. Not sure what they mean... well, unless maybe it's like in a comic book or a cartoon, or something? The lines could mean that something behind the door is making noise? Or hitting the door? I can make some calls, describe the door and see if it rings any bells, if you want."
Sunny grunts and nods. "No, I guess we'll know it when we see it." He stuffs the page back into his pocket without trying to fold it.
When you return from your jog, you find a package at your door. Inside is a bronze sewing needle wrapped in a post-it note. The note, written in neat but tight block letters says:
The seer said you’d need this. It’s Zebbidiah’s Needle of Mending. We could never get it to do anything useful, so let us know what it does. -L
Now is the time for investigate a mystery roll. If you want to ask questions based on any physical evidence you’ll need to bribe, convince or distract the police in some way. Mrs. Winnop can answer questions, but only about her son before he left for the night and after he came back as a hundred-year old man.
Allison walks to the corner of the street and driveway, and closes her eyes, muttering under her breath, a cheap Redsox watch clutched clutched in her hand. she opens her eyes, to the darkness of the night before.
You look back in time, seeing Jessie’s journey in reverse. You witness the rapid aging, the panicked driving. But a strange thing happens...as he drives further back, the vision becomes clouded and dark, as though something is blotting out the time. And although this is a vision into events that have already happened, you can tell that something has seen you (had already seen you) and knows you’ve seen it.
Then, suddenly the scene skips further back, several hours back, Jessie (young, happy, alive) is driving two girls and a guy. You only see them for a moment before the vision ends.
It’s similar to the lifeforce drain you might see from a Litch, but much slower. He’s alone in the car, so that’s a second strike against that theory.
It’s hard to see, in the dark of the car, but you notice when he passes under a streetlight; Jessie doesn’t cast a shadow. There are some legends that link your soul or lifeforce to your shadow. Kulo the Fleshscourger was rumored to cast three shadows, one for each of his souls.
If something stole, destroyed or ate his shadow, that COULD lead to the rapid aging.
Anyone else want to investigate a mystery or deal with the cops?
Still reeling with embarrassment from his earlier (partly) false alarm, Tom waits to hear what Allison saw before taking a chance at making another mistake.
After hearing about Allison's vision, Tom thinks about the three people Allison saw Tom riding with. He heads back towards the house, and knocks on the door. "Mrs. Winnop? Sorry I kept you waiting. I wanted to ask something else. Do you know who Jessie might have been planning to be with the day he passed away?"
It sounds like you want to know:
What happened here, what was it going to do
Through her tears, she tells you that Jessie was out with some friends, probably at the Glimmershine mini-golf and arcade fun zone or down at the Lucky Shark, a greasy spoon open late.
She wasn’t sure who he was with, but it was probably Emmit Nibbi, Karen Hall and/or Lucy Kline. Those were the three he spent most time with. She gave the cops their names, but she hasn’t heard anything about that.
From Allison’s vision, there were three passengers very shortly before he entered the dark spot in the vision. They were almost certainly there when whatever happened...and they might still be there if no other unusually aged bodies showed up overnight.
They might be other victims...or hostages.
Sunny arrives at the police station on foot and circles the building looking for the morgue entrance.
The main enterence is buzz-in. There’s a back door that’s locked, you might be able to sneak in after hours.
Your biggest threat is the police officer who works in the station next door. He’s eyeing you suspiciously.
This particular effect is an important one because what you allow here will define how powerful magic is in your game.
For a gritty game, going ‘beyond human limitations’ might include: • lifting a car just enough to free someone trapped underneath • carrying on despite a nasty injury
• resisting a mental attack from a monster.
For a more super-heroic game, going ‘beyond human limitations’ might include:
• flying up to a rooftop.
• surviving a deadly injury.
• reading the thoughts of everyone around you.
So, when a hunter wants to exceed human limitations, think care- fully about what allowing their desired effect in this case implies for your entire game. You can think of your decisions about this as a dial that determines how much power the hunters can get from everyday magic spells.
Tom thanks the bereaved woman for her help. He then tries to look for information on the names she mentioned.
Allison goes to the Lucky Shark, and takes a seat at the diner, ordering a small breakfast and then asking the cook and wait(er/ress) Were eithe rof you two working last night?
Sean will go with Allison because the Shark sounds like his kind of place.
Sean sips at some black coffee. He salts his eggs before taking a bite, then adds a bit more. "Mm. Begorrah, that's good stuff. Slainte, beautiful." he says, smiling at Allison.
The diner is a little, boxy greasy spoon on the edge of town. Alison, based on your vision, it’s roughly in the area where Jessie and friends were driving.
An older waitress named Sue is the only one on duty who was working last night. She pours Sean’s coffee and says Yeah I was working last night. Why do you ask?