James wrinkles his nose. "Ugh. No thanks. Corpses start to stink after a while."
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"I meant while it was more than a pile of junk. It's not really much more than a bunch of creepy bits now." Still, he pulls out his camera and snaps a picture of the broken fragments of the amulet. "No one is going to believe this thing used to be magic."
"I wish I could have gotten a look at that talisman. A genuine black magic artifact would have been amazing to see. Even if we had to smash it afterward."
James is happy to hand over his camera to the cops and let them shift through the pictures, both of the strange old people and the checks. "Dead for months? The hell?" James isn't really sure how far this is going to go, but he's certain that saying they were zombies is probably the wrong way to go about it. He makes sure to get his camera back before they leave. He hops onto the back of his bike, starts it up, and follows the car back into town. The first thing he does when he gets back to his dorm is saving all of the pictures to his computer and sending the photos to his friends. They definitely need to see just what he's working on. But soon enough he finds himself back at the Pizza Barn with the others again. "Grease, cheesy, and probably terrible for us. Great as always Brit. Can I call you Brit?"
"That's bullsh*t and I have the photos to prove it!" James shouts out as he and Katrina come out of the office. He waves his hand in the air, displaying his digital camera. "The owner here has been robbing and abusing these folks. Everything here is his doing."
"Alright, alright, I'm coming. Just need to document this for later." Once he's got his photos, James hurries after Katrina.
James blinks as the zombies just sort of topple over. "Wait, what just happened?" He quickly pulls out his camera again and takes a couple more pictures. The image of the possibly dead senior citizens will probably be something the cops want to look at.
"Son of a b*tch!" James snaps as he pokes his head out the window. "There are more of them coming from this way too!" Then he notices some tools leaning against the wall and reaches down to grab one. Rolls:
James hurries over and pries the window open. "Come on, we need to go."
James sets off the flash again, actually taking a picture with it this time. He might as well get as much evidence as he can while they're here. "Guys, I think we might want to book. We are really outnumbered."
I figured that attempting to blind them would be an Agility Trick. Since my Smarts and Agility are the same, it doesn't really matter though.
"Jeez, does this guy think he's a super villain or something? This is absolutely ridiculous." James flicks the flash to his camera to the highest setting and suddenly flashes it in the nearest old person's eyes. "Zombie senior citizens. I swear I saw this episode when I was a kid."
James quickly hides his camera back in his bag. "Well, do we still want to talk to the guy? He might know something useful. Or he might get pissed and kick us out." He makes sure the envelopes haven't been obviously fiddled with for a moment.
James heads inside and noses around a little when it's clear that Jimmy isn't in. "Well, well, well. What do we have here?" He checks the envelopes and confirms that they're Social Security before pulling out his camera and snapping a few pictures. "Looks like someone's been naughty."
"She's not going to respond Brit," James says, shaking his head. "Come on, let's go check the office. If Jimmy hasn't been by, maybe he knows something about what the hell is wrong with her."
"The hell?" James says, half to himself. He waves a hand in front of her eyes a couple of times and snaps his fingers twice. "Brittany, I think your MeMaw isn't in right now. Unless her condition would give her blank eyes and make her completely unresponsive." He frowns. "Wait, who's Jimmy? Did you mention him before?"
"Oh, that's not normal. Well, let's see what's wrong then." James walks over to the old woman and puts hand on her shoulder. "Ma'am? Can you hear me?" If she doesn't respond, he tries to take off her glasses. They wouldn't be on her if there wasn't a reason.
"Way too quiet and mysterious speakers set up for no discernible reason? Oh man, now I'm really starting to get interested. Let's go inside and see what's happening." He moves to open the door to the trailer and see what's inside.
As GM of several of those games, I can confirm that. His first roll in my first Deadlands game was a raise with a shotgun and about 25 damage. Second Deadlands game I GM, he raises to manifest a psionic power on his first round, then uses his second round to roll 25 to hit and 18 damage. It's like clockwork.
James stops his bike and kicks the stand down to balance it before climbing off. "Huh. Classier than you usually think a trailer park would be. Kind nice even." He hangs the helmet off the handle bars and heads toward the right trailer with the rest of the group.
"I do try not to get arrested for breaking and entering, no matter what Kat tells you. If you're willing to take us down to see her, then we might as well wait."
"That's weird," James says after Brittany finishes her story. "Doesn't really sound like just hitting her head either. She wouldn't be so militantly against going to the hospital if it was just a blow to the head. Maybe she's possessed or something. That would be right up my alley."
James finishes his snack and rolls his eyes. "You say something like that every time I want to explore something. If it's not a drug den, it's that the building is going to collapse, or that I'm going to get arrest for trespassing."
"Hey, that one wasn't my fault. Everyone was talking about the ghost in that old apartment. How was I supposed to know that some ganger guys were using it to hang out?"
"You had me at 'strange'," James says, snagging two more breadsticks before anyone else. "What's going on?"
"What?" James says through a half-full mouth. "You know that I'm addicted to garlic butter." He swallows hard to get the rest of the food down. "And yeah, nice to see you Zhi. We were partners in that stupid trust exercise thing right? The falling one?"
"I'm good with anything," James says, absently picking out a couple of breadsticks and munching on the garlicy deliciousness. He swallows and absently wipes his mouth as a couple more freshmen join them. "Don't know if that's where I know you from, but I think we met at orientation at least once. Probably at one of those rallies or something." He wipes his hands and offers one to the cowgirl. "I'm James, nice to meet you."
Alright, I added a modified version of the Journalist write-up to James's page. He's sort of a dorky guy who took to the supernatual stuff way too hard and has been exploring urban legends and that kind of thing for years. Runs a blog, has some buddies into the same stuff he is, but not really very into the supernatural angle.
Oh, a couple of ideas I have for fleshing out the backstory a little bit. James runs a small Urbex blog where he posts a lot of photos and write-ups of interesting sites that he hit while exploring New York. After the incident where he ran into a ghost, he's started a sub-section of the blog dedicated to supernatural phenomena. He's also got a couple of buddies from New York who used to explore with him that went to different schools, but he keeps in touch with. One's an engineering major at Carnegie Mellon and the other is a computer science major at New York State. They both also contribute to the blog with stuff from the cities where they're currently living.
Hey, this is kamenhero25 with the Journalist. I adapted an old alias, so I think I'm ready to go.
James is up a bit earlier than usual in the morning, and he gets a good pot of strong coffee going before he heads out for the day. He does some grocery shopping and drops everything off at his apartment before heads out. He spends a couple of hours jogging, trying to keep up with his rather basic workout routine. He gets home in the afternoon and has a late lunch. The last few hours before he needs to leave are mostly spent bouncing between browsing the internet and trying to write without much success. Once it hits six, he zips up his coat and walks to the gallery alone.
GM: James chuckles. "Well, he might need a couple trips to the doctor after his little adventure. I just need to figure out how he gets out of his last jam long enough to get there..." He nods. "That's good mom." It was when she started calling in sick to work that he started to get really worried. "Yeah, I heard about Ricky earlier today actually. I was thinking of going down to the memorial exhibit at the gallery tomorrow actually."
GM: "Hey there Snowball," James says. He drops to one knee and rubs the offered stomach, listening to the cat purr before standing up and shrugging his coat off. "Hey mom. I should be asking you that." He puts on a smile and gives her a quick hug. "Everything's been fine. Just trying to finish up my book."
The bowmanship merits are basically made for hunters.
You've got it. Should be in your email.
I can provide a copy if you'd like it. I bought it last night. Some of its merits are an absolute flood of fighting styles, some neat stuff about intimidation and violence, and a bunch of supernatural merits including things like psychic combat and technomancy. It also has some crazy ass templates for characters/NPCs. Some of them include being impossible lucky, being infected with a supernatural sentient disease, being a super soldier, being so pacifist that you can actually supernaturally prevent violence, and being a psychic vampire.
So, neat thing just happened. Onyx Path released a new CoD book that they're calling the spiritual successor to Arsenal and Arsenal Reloaded. So there's some very interesting new merits and conditions that just got added.
GM: James tucks his laptop away in his bag and slings it over his shoulder. "I'm not even surprised. I'll see you tomorrow then." He drops his empty cup in the garbage and walks out of the shop, pulling his coat around him to ward off the fall breeze. Thankfully, the walk home isn't too long and his hands are only a little cold by the time he makes it to his mother's house. He unlocks the front door steps inside. "Mom? You in?"
GM: "No problem Hollis," James says with a practiced smile. "Should be not too long after I get this..." He gestures to his computer. "Finished up." He checks the clock in the corner of the screen. "I suppose I'll see you there, assuming you're going of course." He sighs and closes his computer. "I need to get home and check on mom."
GM: "Interesting..." It was good to hear that people hadn't quite forgotten Ricky after all. "Well, I guess I owe you a thank you for passing that little tidbit along. I think I'll be attending the opening after all." He chuckles as Brown tries to get a look at what he's working on. "You'll get the press release when it's done, just like everyone else. My publisher had me sign too many contracts for me to make promises on my own." Better to stay on the media's good side, even with a hack like Hollis.
GM: James sits back in his chair, one hand absently tapping on the keyboard of his laptop. He stops and rereads a few lines, hurriedly deleting and replacing them. A frown crosses his face and he does so again before moving on. He absently sips a cup of steaming Earl Grey with his other hand. "God, I'm turning in to one of those pretentious guys who sits around drinking fancy teas and writing in public, aren't I?" He shakes his head and sets his drink down to type faster.
Unfortunately, he's interrupted by someone he'd really rather not deal with right now. "Good afternoon to you too..." He tries to smile, but it doesn't really come across as genuine. "I was thinking about it," he admits. "But what's this about Ricky? I haven't heard anything about the exhibit being connected to him." He's a little surprised that Brown even cares, considering how most of the man's coverage of the case was wild conspiracy theory garbage.
Hmmm, so one of my dots could be my publisher while the other might be media contacts that I've made giving interviews and the like?
@ Michelle: Remember that the specialties listed in the book are examples, not the only ones you can take. You can pick anything that makes sense as long as the GM agrees.
The first dot of Professional Training gives you 2 dots in Contacts related to your profession. I figured my publishing agency would be a logical place to know people through. Honestly, I might just grab the third dot of Professional Training if I have one more merit dot to spend.
I think I'm completely ready now.
I also need equipment, though I'm probably not going to have a huge amount of gear.
Okay. My stats should be up in my profile now. I still need one more skill specialty, but I'm not sure what to take yet. I'm using Expression and Socialize as the Asset Skills for my Professional Training Merit, but if that doesn't seem to fit, it can be changed.
I just bought Dishonored 2, so don't expect my stats tonight, but I'll try to do them tomorrow afternoon.
@Michelle: Yeah, he'd definitely be interested in commissioning a local artist to do cover art for his books. @Doomkitten: Interesting. He probably wouldn't quite get it, but he'd be willing to help someone else who's interested in creating stories.
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