Description
The last thing you remember is having a drink in a bar or pub, then everything seems sort of hazy, right up until now when you awaken. The characters wake up in a derelict building, laid out on mattresses and straw, heads thrumming from whatever was used to drug them. Strangely, and perhaps humiliatingly they also seem to have been dressed up in fun-fur rabbit suits, the zippers glued shut and a tough layer of fabric underneath to stop them easily cutting or tearing at the fabric.
None of them seem to know each other and there doesn't seem to be any real connection between them but they are not given long to get to know each other before a hunting horn sounds and a pursuit begins, dogs, huntsmen, they are hounded across the urban landscape, hunted down to be killed ...
Twist
The hunt takes place across the city, through the crowds and the buildings which carry on as though the people in the bunny suits do not even exist. They are ignored, no matter what they do, nobody will help them, talk to them, aid or deny them in any way and it is as though they are not even there. The hunt, however, can see them perfectly well and is in hot pursuit, tearing through the crowds and crushing anyone who gets in their way, also without being noticed.
Twist
The hunters are never seen, invisible killers that are not so much as glimpsed by the hunted though their horns can be heard blaring and the mutilated remains of those killed and dragged away by the dogs are found, evidence that they are there. Only the huge, spectral hounds of evil aspect are seen, claws scraping concrete and huge muscled bodies flexing as they pound after the 'rabbits'.
Twist
The whole town is in on the hunt, a holdover from pagan days long ago, a ritual intended to keep the town wealthy and to ensure good crops and healthy animals. The people are raised, isolated here, steeped in superstition and the fear of the influential people of the town who enjoy these hunts. People are harvested from across the country and brought to the town for the yearly hunt. The people of the town do their best to ignore the 'rabbits', interfering in the hunt is a grave affront to the hunters, however you interfere.
Epilogue
Survivors, 'winners', are kept in the town and feted by the huntsmen who reward them with everything they could desire for their ability in escaping their clutches. For a year they are wined, dined and rewarded though they are kept under a sort of 'town arrest' by the people of the town, not allowed to leave, for a year so they say. lhis is because in a year another hunt is formed and this time the survivors have earned their place in it. Their participation in the practice is intended to ensure their silence when they are allowed to leave the town since they have participated in the slaughter.
Idea
This scenario may well run best as a stand-alone with no rhyme or reason behind the hunt or the costumes. It's surreal quality only enhanced by having no explanation and creating a perfectly alien atmosphere of surrealism.
Idea
Research a little on the dress and methods of real hunts, especially hunting with dogs.
Adventure 75
Evolutionary
Description
A meteorite falls from the sky containing strange goo. It falls not so far from the homes of the characters and as it breaks free of the meteor and drools against the grass it begins to undergo a change, drawing on the genetic material of the grass and altering itself, adapting to this planet's ecosphere and growing.
Before too long incidents start to be reported of missing pets, missing people and peculiar things seen at the edge of town. The town is about to be laid siege to by altered and absorbed creatures as well as amalgams of the missing animals and people, their own familiar friends and family turned into nightmarish hybrids that seek only to wipe out any opposing organisms.
Twist
The substance was unintelligent until it absorbed a human intellect and now it acts with all the precision, cunning and vindictiveness of the human psyche. It contains the memories and thoughts of those it has absorbed but not their conscience or restraint and aspects of the creature begin to act out the petty revenges of those it has taken into it in what may well seem like random destructive behaviour. Strange mutations of man, plant and animal mixed together are spawned constantly from the meteor site, metabolising quickly, growing strong and moving outwards,
spreading the influence of the goo and bringing back new genetic samples for it to grow its knowledge.
81
Twist
The goo is capable of deliberately re-encoding the DNA of its creations, spawning new creatures adapted to whatever is thrown against it by the panicked townsfolk. Fire will lead to thick, heat-resistant hide, physical attacks to thick bone plates and leathery armour. Every attack makes the horrific mutations stronger and more capable of taking on the human race, no matter what they throw at it.
Twist
The goo is a terraformer, a tool, designed to reconfigure the earth into a more suitable habitat for whoever sent it. Having absorbed a critical mass of earthlife DNA it begins to alter it, creating plants and animals designed to alter the atmosphere and makeup of the planet. The meteor impact point becomes poisonous to earthlife and its area of effect begins to spread. Close in to the impact point strange alien creatures are being birthed to populate the 'landing site' with familiar organisms, many of which will appear horrific to humans.
Epilogue
The meteor that landed near the home of the characters needn't be the only meteor that has landed and the fight back may not have gone so well everywhere else. Using the same, or new characters the action can shift to an infested cityscape, slowly growing more alien as the extraterrestrial encrustations appear, warping the buildings, covering them like kudzu, strange and alien beings stalking the streets picking off the human survivors and whatever resistance shows itsel( Abandoned and cordoned off as a lost cause the survivors in the city are tracked and picked off one by one unless they can counterattack somehow.
Idea
The computer games
HalfLife
andHalf
Life
2 can provide some good ideas for the atmosphere of such a game as well as some effective ideas for the imagry of any alien monstrosities.Idea
Symbiotic and parasitical creatures in nature provide inspiration for some of the most alien creatures.
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Adventure 76
Vengeful Ghosts
Description
Prominent gangsters are being killed off one by one in what appear to be executions and gangland revenge murders. What makes the case unusual for the team of investigators (the players) is that there are no signs of forced entry and there is no physical evidence. Not a hair, not a skin scraping, not even a bullet or a casing though several of those executed appear to have been shot.
As the murders progress pressure is applied upon the team to get to the bottom of whatever is going on swiftly and quickly before the police department is made to look completely incompetent or the criminal fraternity gets too jumpy and out of hand.
What is really behind the murders, is it the ghosts of the dead, of past indiscretions as some of the underworld gangsters are beginning to believe?
Twist
The executioners are a small group of ghosts, the unquiet spirits of gangsters betrayed and shot dead by those they are now systematically killing. They might be wraiths, able to walk through walls and cause ghostly manifestations, but when they manifest physically they have strength and substance, albeit it pale and translucent. Their guns will fire and will kill as surely as any bullet but they are mere extensions of the vengeful spirit's soul. Any solution will not be found in the physical, only the spiritual world can t ruly hold any answers to ending the ram page.
Twist
The vengeful ghost is a possessor, taking over the host's body and struggling with them for control until they manage to force the victim to kill themselves with their own weapons or by throwing themselves to their doom. The ghost has become bitter and deeply cynical, empowered to stay by its own hatred and obsession. The spirit may well try to exact more of its revenge by taking over one of the team and using them to perform the remaining murders.
Twist
There are no ghosts, just a group of stone cold, very efficient killers who take time and pains to clean up every scrap of evidence. They are a cold hearted group of sociopaths, hired posthumously by one of the dead in their will to take revenge for them. To retain a supernatural and horrific twist you can have them have been actually hired by the spectral voice of the dead over the phone. Something that will come up as the investigation is 'concluded'.
Epilogue
Something causes at least one of the ghosts to persist in
�
is world. Its body, its link to the land of the living reta.med and controlled by one of the gang bosses who maintained an interest in the supernatural. Now that singular ghost is under his control, the perfect, undetectable hit man, operating for him against his rivals, bound by control of the corpse. The characters can be either the same police squad, brought in again to examine this fresh case or members of another criminal syndicate, suffering the attentions of the wrai thly hit man.Idea
Steeping the story in the history and culture of one of the ethnic organised crime syndicates will increase the power the story, especially if oriental or Jamaican culture is used.