Thursday, April 22, 2010

Scenario Three



Rivalries of the Gods

Madness, it was madness. This time the town was aflame, not just the church.  No one dared to stop the fires as they spread.  The streets swarmed with the freshly risen dead and the humans who vainly tried to flee the doomed town. 

Mary now knew it was no mere nightmare.  The monstrosity, the monstrosities, and that man, that horrible horrible man with the burning eyes.  He said he would be made one with it through the Union of Janus, but he would be the master, and it the slave.  That if he could not bring it to him, he would go to it, to master the darkness of death.  That thing he called a God, Glaaki.  He swore to destroy them for interfering.  She did not understand the strange blasphemies he gloatingly shouted after her, as they fled.  This couldn’t be the resurrection, it was not meant to be like this.

They fled to a new world, promising to meet again, ready to battle whatever evil was emerging there.  Jacqueline blankly stared with her vacant eyes into the air, blind to all but her vision of despair.  Her terror was palpable.

            Norman tried to explain what she had seen, for he had seen the thing as well, the absence of a thing.  In his travels through the Other Worlds it loomed immensely above him, like a malevolent galaxy teeming with shadowy creatures draped in darkness.  The regions beyond life, oozing through the gateways between all dimensions.  Forcing them wider so the greater nightmares could pass through.  An infinite army spreading outwards.  Yet this darkness was a mere drop of something greater, a greater darkness.  A speck of dust fallen from the Abyss.  An intergalactic plague that had just began to fester.

Professor Withers trembled violently from the memory, though his sight of the darkness was infinitesimal compared to Jacqueline’s.  He wished he had brought some whiskey with him through their travels.  Prohibition be damned.

            Gloria Goldberg held her tongue.  She would be silent until she better understood her situation.  She had been asked for her opinions, but she would not give them.  Her visions were one thing, but her thoughts another.  She felt like powerful entities were tearing at them from so many directions, but her vision was too weak to penetrate the mystery of their identities.  However, it was not her gift, but her writer’s instincts— her professional training— that disturbed her the most.  She felt that despite all the chaos and obscurity of recent events, some unseen but malevolent force was controlling them all as pawns in some kind of twisted and convoluted cosmic game that it alone could win.

***

            Kate Winthrop was a hollowed out shell of a person.  Even as she and Dr. Herbert West were shaping the Key, something from the Key had molded her infinitude into a vessel for a greater being.

The creature known as Hecate stirred and sent her form forth to walk through the world.  The old haunt would do well, old rites and minions would serve.  The Crawling Chaos would cooperate, as ever, though the sinister majesty of Nyarlathotep had his own designs for the cosmos.

She knew of West’s plan to conquer the Gods, and laughed, knowing what he did not, knowing that the little spider would never spin a web capable of containing infinities.

Still, knowing what she knew, she was determined to grasp at the power of the cosmos, for even in the Gods— especially in the Gods— there lives madness.  She called to the Key, and the Key called to her.  West could not control it, no mortal bounded by time, space, and matter could, but a God might.

Custom components can be found here:
http://s622.photobucket.com/albums/tt307/avi_dreader/Additional%20Components%20for%20the%20Fan%20Creation%20League/

Ancient One: Hecate
Herald: Brown Jenkins
Required Investigators: Sister Mary, Jacqueline Fine, and Norman Withers

Special Rules: If you only get one success against The Black Man, you are not devoured, draw 3 corruption instead— gain no clues.

Witches are Endless, and have an extra toughness.  Investigators moving through spaces adjacent to them— or investigators they move adjacent to— must draw a corruption.  When investigators begin combat with them, they must draw the top red corruption.  They can not be removed from the board by closing a circle gate, and are not counted towards the monster limit— if they go to the outskirts, place them on The Witch House instead.

If Hecate awakens, she gains two additional doom tokens for every corruption investigators have.

Start of game: Jacqueline Fine may take Visions instead of a spell as her random possession.  The first mythos card drawn must have a gate on it— ignore the gate location and open a gate to Yuggoth at the Witch House regardless of the gate location shown.  Reshuffle the gate deck afterwards.

Clarification: Norman Wither’s ability can remove corruptions.


Note: If you are using Revised Curse of the Dark Pharoah, use a copy of he original Visions 


http://www.arkhamhorrorwiki.com/visions



Thursday, April 8, 2010

Scenario Two

Exodus Earth 

Mary was unsure what she had fought. Was it Death itself? Some accursed demon-bat in the form of a man? Satan himself? He had spoken of himself as a man, hundreds of years old, he said that he had come for her world, for her…

They beat back the bat-beast then tore it down from the sky. Its thirst for blood seemed unslakeable but in the end they brought it down, at dreadful cost...

They defeated the creature, and though it died whole, it seemed to tear in two when it was slain. A deathly shadow fled its corpse and the endless hordes of the living dead seemed to melt away.

They returned to South Church to plan their next move and try to decipher the strange mad text of Herbert West.

The next night fell. Darkness surrounded the church, then glowing eyes of red. They were all there, all the people of the town, Sheriff Engle, Oliver Thomas, Miriam Beecher, Ma Mathison, Doyle Jefferies, and, oh God, Father Michael… So many, she couldn’t count them, she had to look away... The ravenous hordes from the night before had not retreated, they had momentarily withdrawn for reinforcements.

Zoey held Wendy to her, and rocked her back and forth, the girl realized their predicament— that this time there would be no escape— and had begun wailing in terror.

Then through the pale horde walked Jacqueline, turned as well. The other demons let her pass.

She spoke in slow dead tones, “I bring a message from our master, open the door.”

After a few moments consultation, realizing the desperation of their plight, and seeing nothing worse than the mob of vampires in the night, the newly formed group agreed to open the door and listen— knowing that the vampires could not enter— if only for further clues or the slight hope of some unimaginable opportunity arising.

Once the door was opened, Jacqueline whispered hurriedly, “I have not fully turned, and you have but one chance to save your lives. I have found the Key. Take it and flee this world. There are infinite Arkhams, but this one is doomed, this whole world is doomed. I have foreseen it. Dream of the time you desire and the place, Arkham, always Arkham, imagine the people you need, concentrate your thoughts on your task, and it will take you from world to world, universe to universe, war to war, as you try to drive back the Darkness of cataclysm.”

A strange man in a lab coat with wild hair and eyes burning with green flame shoved his way into the mob, and screamed, “Kill her! Kill her, she betrays us!”

Jacqueline threw a tiny thing into the church a moment before the vampires surged up and tore her apart. Her screams were drowned out by the noise of the mob.

The man sneered, “Vampires can not enter, but fire needs no invitation.” Green flame shot from the strange man’s eyes into the walls of the church. The flames rapidly spread. The vampire mob stood guard outside, grinning as South Church burned.

Norman Withers shouted through the billowing smoke, “We can’t flee on foot, and if we stay here we’ll be cooked alive. Find the device, we’ve no other chance!”




*** 

Though they had escaped, for the moment, Dr. Herbert West smiled. They were insignificant fools. The Psychic had not warned them well enough before her death. For all her vision, she was weak. They had taken trinkets, but left behind the book in their panic, they could not read between its lines, believing it to be mere madness, but it would unlock the greatest of gates once deciphered. He walked into the inferno to retrieve it.

*** 
Mary opened her eyes, wondering if she was in Heaven. No, Arkham. The church seemed empty and it was quiet outside. It had all turned white, and here she was again. Again— the knock on the door. Could it have all been a dream? A horrible horrible nightmare triggered by a knocking on the door? Could she really have dreamt such a terrifying vision? What might it have meant? She opened the door.

“Jacqueline!”

“Yes. But of another dimension, not your own, I have seen what you escaped from, a world in fire, quickly hollowed out by the bringer of death once he fled his host form.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Believe what you wish, but I tell you, the world you were born on is dead, though this world is much like your own. In infinity there are countless redundancies.”

“God would not destroy the world save for on the day of his return on a throne of glory. I do not know what happened, but what you speak of is impossible heresy. I am certain that somehow those things were driven back.”

“Think what you like, but I have come to warn you that you have been followed by the man with the burning eyes, Dr. Herbert West, he has unleashed a new and sinister monstrosity into this world.”

“The man who wrote that mad book?”

“Yes and no, he is one of an infinite number, and one of the more accursed. He and a few others had sought to master the secrets of death, and pierce into the regions beyond life. One believes he has, and he has mastery over the others who serve him. He has traveled through many alien worlds, bringing legions under his command, and taken a new name for himself. He seeks to become a God. They have opened gateways between countless worlds in their experiments, and in their hunt for the Key they broke the wall that kept the Darkness back. One of their number invented the Key, half hoping to stop the calamity, half hoping to join with it. He has been slain, but he was an anomaly, unique in all the cosmos, for he was the only maker of the Key. And it can not be made again.”

“Infinite worlds, infinite dimensions, mad science— I find this all somewhat incredible.”

“One would expect a little more faith from one of the faithful.”

“ I have faith for plausible things, not for far-fetched absurdities.”

“The physics of reality are a strange and mysterious thing, not for you to wonder at, but to accept, the proof of truth is that you are here and not burned to a hideous death. I don’t care if you accept what I tell you as true, you must understand that we are short of time. I shall attempt to prepare before they come, but in a day, come they shall, far more horrid than before. Do not deny this at least. I shall warn the others, but you must lead them Mary, our beliefs are different, but I know you have the courage to go on when others think the end has already arrived. I know that you will never surrender.”

Mary wondered at the weird words she had heard, and which of them if any could be true. She thought of Herbert West’s book, and wondered what might have become of it, whether it was destroyed in the fire, and why the vampires had sought it so intently.

How could the world be dead? She looked around and it was the same as before. Only her memories showed any sign of the battles, and there— that… That device. And… Could it be?





Custom components can be found here:
http://s622.photobucket.com/albums/tt307/avi_dreader/Additional%20Components%20for%20the%20Fan%20Creation%20League/

Ancient One: Glaaki
Herald: Dr. Herbert West
Required Investigators: Sister Mary and Jacqueline Fine

Special Rules: If a mythos card has a gate open or a gate burst at Devil’s Reef or Y’ha Nethlei, it opens or bursts at Marsh Refinery instead.

When a terror level rise causes the placement of a cultist and a servant of Glaaki, place them at the same spot (the spot where the servant of Glaaki would appear, do not draw a second card to place the Cultist).

Start of game: In addition to Dr. Herbert West’s start of game ability, raise the terror an additional two, placing three pairs of Servants of Glaaki and Cultists. Place the clue servant at the Science building, the skills servant at Darke’s Carnival, and the spells servant at Ma’s Boarding House. Resolve the servants' abilities before drawing the game's first Mythos card.