Dragonground 09

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Between Sin & Salvation by hive

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TTTTTable of Contentsable of Contentsable of Contentsable of Contentsable of Contents

Cover Art ............................................................................................................................................. 1Between Sin & Salvation by hive ..................................................................................................................................... 1

Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................ 2

Editorial .............................................................................................................................................. 3Never Give Up, Never Surrender! by Chris Carpenter ...................................................................................................... 31999 Origins Awards Update ............................................................................................................................................... 3

Plot Hooks .......................................................................................................................................... 4Dr. Nakami’s Quarterly Report to the Institute: The Hoffman Agenda Revealed! by Wolfgang Baur ........................... 4

Equipment ......................................................................................................................................... 12New Concealed Weapons by A. Shane Murphy ................................................................................................................ 12

Adventures ......................................................................................................................................... 13Dancing to the Wrong Tune by Marcus D. Bone ............................................................................................................... 13

Dark Races .........................................................................................................................................23Pets of Mephistopheles by A. Shane Murphy ..................................................................................................................23The Uninvited by Lee Williams .......................................................................................................................................24

Art Gallery.........................................................................................................................................25Easy Prey by Andrew Simmons .......................................................................................................................................25

House Rules .......................................................................................................................................26Generic Horror Adventure Generator by Dale Robert Thurber ......................................................................................26

Milieu ................................................................................................................................................28Living Dead Girl: A Deadworld for All Flesh Must Be Eaten by Christopher Haynes .................................................. 28Containment Zones by Lee Williams .............................................................................................................................. 41New Empathic Cells by Lee Williams .............................................................................................................................42

DarkTek ..............................................................................................................................................43Dark Devices by A. Shane Murphy ...................................................................................................................................43Necromancy Mask by Pål Wilhelmsen .............................................................................................................................44

Web Watch ..........................................................................................................................................45Which Role Playing Game is Best? ....................................................................................................................................45

Fiction ...............................................................................................................................................46AFMBE Playtest Session by Rob Beck II ...........................................................................................................................46Call To Darkness Part 2 by Mike Marchi ..........................................................................................................................53

Dark Humour .....................................................................................................................................56Overheard at the Game Master Lounge by Mike Marchi & John Noddings ..................................................................56

The Loose Ends ..................................................................................................................................57

The Back Cover ..................................................................................................................................58

Table of Contents

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Editorial

Never Give Up, Never Surrender! by Chris Carpenter

It has happened to the best ofproducts: cars, snack foods, and yes,even role playing games. Sometime in thelife of the product, the company decides,“This is no longer a profit generatingitem,” and the wheels of the productionline grind to a halt. No more Range Rover.No more Reggie bar. And no more… well,fill this blank with your favorite roleplaying game. Kult, Chill, DarkConspiracy, and now Dark*Matter. Gone,dead, kaput. There is the expectedgrieving, the cries of justice from themasses, and eventually the acceptancethat a favorite hobby will quickly bereplaced by a new one.

But times have changed. We are nolonger subject entirely to the dictates ofthe gaming industry. In fact, with themiracle of the internet, games consideredlong-dead have taken on a new life. DarkConspiracy is one of those games.Canceled with the closing of GamesDesigners Workshop, its true fanslanguished in obscurity. The ‘net gavethose fans an outlet with which to reachout and find others like them, and

eventually a whole network of websites,mail forums and chatrooms sprung up,all in support of a “dead game.” Ofcourse, the story does not end there.Revived after years of being out of print,DC is now in its second edition, with nosign of slowing down.

So, what are you doing to keep yourgame alive? Are you going to sit by andlet your passion slide? Or are you goingto do your best to keep your favorite roleplaying game in the hearts and minds ofits players, by organizing local games,writing and sharing adventures with yourfellow fans, or setting up a fan-site onthe world wide web? All of these thingswork, we know they do; this publicationis proof positive of that fact. Don’t worryabout your writing style, we can’t all beprofessional authors; the key is in yourenthusiasm, it will shine thru any workyou do to forward the cause of yourgame.

I have one last note. Most of youhave played numerous different games,some of which have most likely gone outof print. You may ask, out of all the games

that I have played and enjoyed, whichshould I put my efforts towards? Well,the answer may lie in a combination ofyour personal knowledge of the games,its entertainment value, and its “capacityfor growth.” I think, though, that writingarticles and stories to expand upon theknown boundaries of games, pushing theenvelope of what people think can andcan’t be done within the context of anRPG is the most important. This sort ofoutside-the-box approach to game designcan be the best and the most satisfying,because it throws players (and gamemasters) into situations they neverdreamed of, and can breath new life intotired cliché game settings (“You aresitting in a tavern…”)

I think Piet Hein said it best:Problems: “Problems worthy of attackprove their worth by hitting back.”

OK, I’ve said my piece, now get out thereand save that game!

Chris Carpenter - Associate Editor

Ballots will be accepted thru June 28, 2000

The online ballot can be found at:http://www.gama.org/academy/vote/vote.phtml?election=Origins00

Download the traditional print-out/mail-in ballot at:http://www.gama.org/academy/pdf_ballots/general_ballot_2000.pdf

Origins International Game Expo & FairJuly 13th - 16th, 2000 - Columbus, OH

Each year at Origins, The Academy of Adventure Gaming Artsand Design presents the Origins Awards - which are quite simply,the gaming industry equivalent of the Oscars.

Several games and supplements that fall under the scope of our magazine have been nominated for awardsthis year. For the first time this year, the Academy is allowing the public portion of the vote to be tabulated onlineas well as via the traditional mail-in ballot. Be sure to check out the ballot, and vote for your favorites!

To our loyal fans: Although DEMONGROUND is eligible for the award for “Best Amateur Gaming Magazine”, we did notreceive a nomination in this category, and do not appear on the ballot. However, you can still vote for us! The ballotallows a write-in vote for each category. To vote for DEMONGROUND in the write-in section for Category 6.1 - BestAmateur Gaming Magazine, you would need to write: Title: DEMONGROUND

Publisher: DEMONGROUND (http://www.demonground.org/)

1999 Origins Awards Update

http://www.gama.org/

http://www.gama.org/academy/academy.html

http://www.gama.org/academy/vote/vote.phtml?election=Origins00

http://www.gama.org/academy/pdf_ballots/general_ballot_2000.pdf

http://www.demonground.org/

http://www.wizards.com/origins/

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DARK MADARK MADARK MADARK MADARK MATTERTTERTTERTTERTTER

Dr. Nakami’s QuarterlyReport to the InstituteThe Hoffmann Agenda Revealed!by Wolfgang Baur

For those of you without authorized access to this document, shame on you. For thoseInstitute agents who have not read the copy of this document that you were all previouslyprovided with, shame on you as well.

For those new members of the Institute and other unfortunate souls, the tradition of theDirector’s Quarterly Report (DQR) dates to the very first days of the Institute, when thecity officials and certain other partners of the fledging Institute needed to be kept apprisedof its activities. It has always been a somewhat rambling, personal report rather than apurely corporate document. The report lists goals, highlights trouble spots, and remembersthe fallen comrades of the recent past. Under no circumstances should it be released to thepublic, except for the courtesy copies distributed to the persons and groups listed in AppendixF. These include a few well-placed government officials and highly-trusted donors to theInstitute’s cause.

Supplemental documentation and appendices of each quarter’s report may be obtained byfiling request form A53, with your supervisor’s signature. Because of its wide-rangingnature and the time required for compilation and dissemination, each report is neithercompletely up-to-date nor 100% accurate. Enterprising agents can verify relevant reportinformation through diligent fieldwork and their contacts. Corrections should be sent tomy office using the TPS cover sheet.

In addition, the DQR has always been a source of hints and innuendo that don’t alwaysadd up to those not nearly as relentlessly informed as the Good Doctor himself. To helpreaders seeking to understand his allusions to prior operations and policies, I’ve taken theliberty of adding my own remarks as footnotes.

Wolfgang BaurRed Section Cadre of 1998

Plot HooksDr. Nakami’s Quarterly Report to the Institute The Hoffman Agenda Revealed! by Wolfgang Baur

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Director’s Quarterly Report

to the

Hoffmann Institute

CCCXXXII

Prepared in Cooperation and Consultation

with the

Intelligence and Analysis Divisions

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Gentlemen:

Since my last report, our work has succeeded on two main fronts withinthe United States: in containing the Houston virus from spreadingbeyond Texas and the southwest, and in confronting the Strangers ofPoint Pleasant, West Virginia. Elsewhere, we have suffered a seriousreverse in Russia and have made an important new contact in Tibet.These events are all evaluated in greater detail elsewhere; thisreport, as always, seeks merely to keep you apprised of rapidly movingevents, and to keep you acquainted with the Institute’s options in thecase of reversals.

Yours most sincerely,

Dr. Itohiro Nakami

New Strategic GoalsAs many of you know, our efforts to form a stronger workingrelationship in Eastern Europe have failed rather spectacularly. It islikely that we were betrayed either by the go-between in Opus Dei orby those we negotiated with in good faith among the Gregorians.Attempts to minimize our losses are ongoing.

As a result of this collapse, we have made further efforts among theTibetans. This effort has been partially successful, despite Chinesenational security efforts to hinder our progress. I recommend to theInstitute’s board that we devote further resources to this effort, andif the Key is indeed where we think it is, I suggest that we follow upour initial contacts with a team of White Section preceptors andequerries (1).

HOFFMANN INSTITUTE INTERNAL DOCUMENT

CONFIDENTIALSHRED OR INCINERATE AFTER READING

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Ongoing FieldworkTemple Cascadia. The forces available here are now at full strength,fully trained, and fully equipped with biological containment andnanite suppression gear. Our contingency planners have worked outresponses for the most likely scenarios if the situation in Texas orMagnetogorsk should get out of control. To protect against the“worst-case” alternative, I’ve arranged for fast track approval fromthe Board. Any such move will require close coordination with USGovand a scorched-earth policy, including a tacnuc option if things getout of control. A “terrorist” media cover is still under fabrication(2).

Jerusalem. The archaeological work nears completion, but more fundswill need to be approved to secure cooperation from the Copts.Progress is slow (3).

Belize. The Institute has recently opened a branch office here; sofar, it has returned few new results with respect to the Lost City(4). Photo-reconnaissance may help. Volunteers are needed for thewinter survey of new territory.

Baghdad. The appearance of two “Cities of Jinn” (in central SaudiaArabia and in Kurdish-held Iraq) is interesting in that shows signs ofkinori strength but investigating may lead to political problems. Wehave no field agents in either country, and neither the House of Saudnor the Iraqi state seem willing to ask for help. Either Iraqi specialforces research is far more advanced than first suspected, or thekinori are testing a new tool against human targets, or the localgovernments have reached an accommodation with the kinori. Allpossibilities bear investigating. We need a team of agents with morethan a passing knowledge of Arabic, Assyrian neo-Aramaic, and/orKurdish. Mr. Zamfirescu and his staff have made some interesting discoveriesregarding historical precedents for some of the phenomena observed inPersia under the Shah. Advise contact through the Nestorians. SeeAppendix A (5).

Aleutians. Despite sending two teams, we have not recovered a bodyfrom the White Church of Pure Light. The reports to date indicate asuperior level of technology, either elohim or luciferan, and a greatinterest in rallying a human congregation, or at least a set of humanservitors. Our primary competitor in this arena is the Hidden Order ofSt. Gregory, which views the White Church as a heretical splintergroup of the Russian Orthodox congregations of Dutch Harbor and Attu(the leader of the White Church is a Russian monarchist and adefrocked priest). The FBI continues to be involved in investigatingthe group for firearms, fraud, and child abuse violations (6).

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New Discoveries & Promising Avenues of ResearchOccult Partnership. An agent claiming to speak on behalf of the ComteSt. Germaine has approached our station director in Jakarta, offeringa temporary exchange of information with regard to the actions of theelohim cults in Alaska and the newly-sighted ghuls of Iraq. While wewill exercise due diligence in pursuing this opportunity, be awarethat it is likely a fraud. Our independent efforts in Alaska andKuwait should continue regardless of the outcome (7).

Nanite Sterilizer. Cooperation with the CXS has proven instrumental inperfecting a basic nanite counter-measure. The treatment uses low-level radiation to destroy nanites present in a wound or in an area,much as an anti-bacterial can reduce the chances of an infected wound.This new treatment offers no clear-cut immunity to infection, butimproves resistance when exposed (8).

Leads in Prometheus Case. The renegade scientist, Dr. RegorPrometheus, is believed to be responsible for the disappearance of afamily in Omaha and another in San Jose, California. We arecooperating with local law enforcement and with the doctor’s recentemployers at CXS in bringing this fugitive to justice. Currenttheories hold that Prometheus is kidnapping aliens—or rather, ofabducting anyone he thinks might be an alien. Field Directors arerequested to remind their staff of his appearance and MO.

Significant LossesKilled In Action:

> Maria Grassl, lost when her car crashed and burned undersuspicious circumstances en route to Chiapas, Mexico. She issurvived by her husband Mark and her daughter Faith. Donationsin her name may be made to the Institute’s Advanced MedicalAssociation.

> Thomas Clarsen, of wounds suffered in Montreal whileapprehending a member of Les Treize Corbeaux. He is survived byhis mother, Angela, his brother Charles, and a sister, JenniferMurphy (an Institute member in the New York City regionaloffices) (9).

Missing In Action.> John Moore, while investigating a case in West Virginia. Blood

samples recovered from Mammoth Cave National Park match 99.98%,and the search continues (10).

> Richard Helzermann, senior computer scientist at the Institutefacility in Chicago. Believed kidnapped by hostile forces toobtain OSIRS data; investigation ongoing (11).

> Mahmud Alahyari. Failed to report for duty in Jiddah on the Red

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Sea; Freemasons and/or kinori suspected.> Tatyana Valenkova. Our St. Petersburg Special Agent in Charge

has failed us. In fact, the agent responsible for arranging theconference with the Gregorians has gone missing, along with aset of papers including talking points, a short list of Russianand Ukrainian contacts, the Eastern section budget, and a “goodfaith” analysis of the benefits of cooperation between our twoorganizations. This is a serious security breach, and allpossible efforts are being made to reverse the problem (12)

> Virginia Clements. Junior member of Archives; vanished whileshelving tomes recovered from Mission 811A (see Appendix B forthe relevant Case Report). Believed lost to paranormalphenomena.

> Gowri Poonawala, lost in snowstorm in Tibet. Presumed dead.> Roger Perkins, Agent First Class and Professor Veña

Sanchevandez, Intelligence Division. Lost in the Floridapanhandle during escort duty when an Institute plane went down.Radio contact lost 3/14; partial wreckage recovered 3/17.Presumed dead (13).

Material Losses.> Three blood samples from the Mississippi delta mission of ‘96

(see Quarterly Report #CCCIX) were lost with the car carryingMaria Grassl. See “KIA”. They cannot be replaced without anotherbreak of improbably good fortune, or a serious reconnaissance inforce in Houston. Board to consider options (14).

> A first edition of On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres(Copernicus, 1543) has been stolen from our New York Rare BookDepository—the investigation has been hampered by a remarkablelack of evidence and missing records. Another copy was stolenfrom National Vernadsky Library, Kiev; thefts from the PulkovoObservatory Library, St. Petersburg, Russia, and from anAugustinian monastic collection in Brno, Czech Republic weredetected and returned when they were put up at auction. An arsonat Pulkovo is thought to have been an attempt to simplify thetheft (destroying records of the holdings) (15).

> One Institute Lear jet. Replacement cost: $6 million.

New Procedures and Budgetary Concerns.> All administrative groups should now begin using cover sheets

for their TPS reports.> Arms and munitions costs are up sharply this last quarter. We

are not a private army. Please keep hot incidents to a minimum,and allow local law enforcement agencies to make all low-levelarrests possible.

> Genome analysis reports are to use the new form provided inAppendix E.

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1. The recent contacts between the Institute and a secretive group of Tibetan Buddhist monks (aka AscendedMasters, or Red Hats) is actually not a new contact at all, but the renewal of ties that Nakami first made as amuch younger man, before the Communist takeover in Tibet in the early 1950s. Since then, the Chinesesecret service has made communication with the lamas very difficult. Recent ties seem to rely on advancedtelecommunications gear (including a narrow-beam burst satellite uplink) smuggled in by a team of Institutetech ops (one of whom died en route when the team was caught in bad weather). In exchange, the monks aretraining Institute paranormalists. Note: A group could well be assigned to take spare parts to Tibet, toanswer a distress call from the remote monastery, or even to take part in this training (ideally, a Buddhistor mindwalker agent should be included in party—forward any nominations you may wish to make).

2. The White Section troops are being prepped for a major attack; the agents might be invited along. It won’tbe pretty—most of these operations leave absolutely no survivors. Casualties are high among the Institutestaff as well—the sandmen have a number of tricks that they use in defense, ranging from gas attacks toradiation zones to EMP pulse generators (sandmen are largely immune to all of these).

3. The Jerusalem project is an excavation of the Templar headquarters, which lie directly under and around theWailing Wall and Al-Aksa mosque. It requires massive bribery and secrecy to keep secret, but Nakamiexpects it to pay off in the long term. Note: The investigators might well be asked to escort or smuggle arelic from Jerusalem to the Archival offices of the Institute in Barcelona, especially if any of them aredevoutly Catholic, Jewish, or Moslem. The Copts referred to in the report at Coptic Christians, an offshootof the faith that dates back to the earliest days of Christianity. Their opponents might be members of theFinal Church who have gotten wind of a major find in the Holy Land.

4. The lost city in Belize is a long-term pet project of Dr. Nakami’s to find and restore a Grey station ship whichhe believes was abandoned in situ in Central America, deliberately concealed from view by the simple meansof being buried under an enormous stone pyramid. The Doctor has never provided any evidence for thisbelief of his, and most of the board takes a tolerant view of his obsession with this topic, but the costs arehigh, both in terms of cash and in terms of investigators spending time in the Central American jungle. Note:“Visiting Belize” is NOT a perk or Cancun vacation by any stretch of the imagination—most offices senda “volunteer” to take a tour of duty in Belize only as a form of punishment. Malaria, snakebite, heatexhaustion, and even attacks by drug lords are the typical result of such a trip. The most recent expeditioncould include your agents, if they are in trouble with their Field Director or if they just need to get out oftown for a while.

5. The mess in Iraq has only been reported by unofficial channels; Iraqi Republican Guards have been calledin with flamethrowers, gas, and tanks to destroy a number of old ruins and small villages. From USMilsources, some of these attacks have also involved digging apparatus. Those attacks ended quite recently.The local population of both Arabians and Iraqis has been discussing a series of goat mutilations as thework of jinn, or devils of the desert. An Institute field agent sent to Jiddah, Saudia Arabia, failed to report.Note: More agents could well be sent as a follow-up; a Combat Spec is definitely required, as both theSaudis and the Iraqis are heavily armed and extremely nervous about the threat. While any mistake herecould easily be written off as a “border war” between the two sides—if the agents are not careful, it mightactually be a border war, with them in the middle!

6. The body the Doctor refers to is believed to be a mummified or at least intact Luciferan or elohim body.Finding it would be a major discovery for the Institute, as no such body has ever been examined in any detail.Naturally, the luciferans or elohim themselves might object to such a desecration of a body—and wouldprobably arrive in time to snatch it away from any investigating team. Note that the Aleutian islands coverthousands of miles of cold, foggy, North Pacific territory—and any millennial cult that summoned up orfound such a body would probably object to uninvited visitors.

Project Annotations by Wolfgang Baur, Department Chief, Special Division

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7. The offer from the Comte seems sleazy, unlikely, and even ridiculous in its overblown language. The go-betweens that the Comte uses are amateurish New Agers and fraudulent occultists. But the offer is perfectlygenuine. Naturally, the Comte demands a show of good faith before any cooperation is possible. The heroesmay be asked to follow up this seemingly bogus offer, learn it is genuine, and then must prove the Institute’ssincerity by eliminating or humiliating on the Comte St. Germaine’s ancient rivals in order to gain access tosome of his store of information. The Comte operates through intermediaries until such time as he learns totrust the heroes.

8. The nanite sterilizer resembles a simple handheld incandescent worklight; it combines a wave of low-levelradiation (unable to penetrate the human skin for more than a millimeter) with a strong, fluctuatingelectromagnetic field that disorients and even cripples nanites. Anyone treated with it gains a +2 step bonusto a resistance check against nanite infection. Only someone with access to the engineering section of theAnalytical division will be able to obtain one of these anytime soon, though the Institute is building enoughto distribute to all its offices worldwide.

9. Died of sorcerous wounds that would not heal. Heroes may be called in to act on the information obtainedby this capture, and possibly to study the body.

10. See The Killing Jar Case Report.11. Helzermann was actually abducted by the Chicago molemen after he stumbled onto one of their meeting-

places (he was pursuing a dumpster-diver a little more aggressively than might be prudent). The heroescould well be asked to investigate.

12. The collapse of discussions with the Order of St. Gregory seems to be a result of rather too much trust on theInstitute’s part, and a failure by the Intelligence Division to discover the existence of a double agent withinthe Institute. According to this traitor’s defenders, the double agent may have been influenced by nationalism,religion, and possibly even by supernatural means to betray Institute secrets to the Order. Note: In fact,Tatyana’s “betrayal” is actually part of a carefully-orchestrated attempt to feed false information aboutthe Institute’s intentions to the Hidden Order, a so-called “poisoned well.” A group of agents might soonbe required to extract her from a Serbian stronghold of the Hidden Order (before her planting of falsedocuments is revealed).

13. See “The Kindness of Strangers,” Dragon Annual #4.14. The Mississippian blood samples are somehow related to the Southern Death Cult and voodoo activities in

New Orleans, and the Zapatistas in southern Mexico (who practice the blood magic of the SDC, in a formrelated to Aztec rituals). The relationship is murky, but the blood samples are said to show anomalousgenetic sequences (taken from voodoo practitioners while they were “possessed”). These genetic sequencesmay shed valuable light on how FX runs in families. The heroes may be asked to get replacement bloodsamples from the guerillas, without arousing suspicions from the Mexican government and without gettingshot. Naturally, a SDC member among the guerillas (the man responsible for Maria Grassl’s death) absolutelyrefuses to allow any such action.

15. The Copernican book discusses the fact that the earth circles the sun rather than vice versa, and it alsocontains (in rather cryptic codes) an Enochian spell of the GM’s choice from FX: Guide to the Paranormal.Since the Institute copy has been stolen (perhaps an inside job, perhaps a bibliophile from New York citywho discovered the Hoffmann collection and got a little greedy), the heroes might well be sent on a bookhunt. The theft might be related to the disappearance of the Institute Archivalist (likely kidnapped or thevictim of extortion—or perhaps the perpetrator of the theft).

Wolfgang Baur was a member

of the same collegiate secret

society that bred that infamous

conspirator, DEMONGROUND

editor Mike Marchi.

No, really, he was.

We’re not making this up.

http://www.42north.org/

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Dark ConspiracyDark ConspiracyDark ConspiracyDark ConspiracyDark Conspiracy

Equipment

New Concealed Weapons by A. Shane Murphy

Reduced-DetectionMelee Weapons

The weapons presented here areintended to remain hidden from standardmetal detectors.

Ceramic Katana A new weapon developed by SunTechnologies in their fight against theDark Ones. This weapon uses state-of-the-art ceramic materials to create aformidable sword. It was the company’sCEO who decided her “troops” needed aweapon that was lightweight, strong anddeadly. This sword was the result and inthe hands of a trained individual isextremely deadly. The ceramic bladenever loses it’s edge, weighs only 0.5kg,is nonconductive (more useful than youmight think), and invisible to metaldetectors.

Plastic spikeThis harmless looking plastic brush

holds a nasty surprise. The bristled headcan be removed revealing a hardenedplastic spike. As dangerous as any 5”stabbing weapon, it does have a fewobvious drawbacks. Made of plastic itnot very strong, and with the bladelacking an edge, is limited to thrustingand stabbing attacks. By the same tokenhowever plastic is almost impossible todetect with most modern sensors.

Plastic knivesThese knives were made for

concealment and quick stabbing attacks.Constructed of vulcanized plastic, theyare hard enough to do considerabledamage, yet are too brittle for anyextended combat.

Concealed pen knifeThis is a normal looking ink pen.

Under the removable cap is a 4” steelblade, built more for stabbing than cuttingit receives a -2 difficulty modifier tonotice.

Sun IndustriesHVP Crossbow Line

Sun Technologies is a weaponsmanufacturer poised on the cuttingedge. Using modern materials andtechniques they have recreated theancient crossbow. Fully redesignedthese are a new breed of “pump”reloading weapon, making them asdangerous as any hand gun whileinsuring complete silence.

Sun XXThis is a small repeating “pump” style

crossbow.Ammo: Bolts - Target: $1 each; RazorTip: $2 each; Carbon Razor $3 each (thisprice includes the shaft which can bealuminum, fiberglass, or wood)Wt: 3.0 kgMag: 6 round clipPrice: $250 (C/C)

6-bolt magazines are $30 each

Sun XLEA larger version of the XX, can also

use a large clip.Ammo: Bolts - Target: $1 each; RazorTip: $2 each; Carbon Razor $3 each (thisprice includes the shaft which can bealuminum, fiberglass, or wood)Wt: 3.5 kgMag: 6/10 round clipPrice: $350 (C/C)

10-bolt magazines are $50 each

--- Recoil --- Weapon Bolt Type ROF Dam Pen Blk M a g SS Brst Rng Sun XX Target Bolt PA 2 Nil 4 6 1 - 20*

Razor Tip PA 3 Nil 4 6 1 - 20*Carbon Razor PA 3 1-Nil 4 6 1 - 20*

Sun XLE Target Bolt PA 2 Nil 4 6/10 1 - 30*Razor Tip PA 3 Nil 4 6/10 1 - 30*Carbon Razor PA 3 1-Nil 4 6/10 1 - 30*

*Can be fitted with a scope, add +15 meters to range

Weapon Rng Hit Mod Damage Weight Price Avail Ceramic Katana L - 1d6+STR 2.0kg $3000 (S/S) Plastic Spike S +1 1d6-1 0.1kg $25 (C/S) Plastic Knife S +2 1d6 0.2kg $75 (S/S) Pen Knife S - 1d6-1 0.1kg $45 (S/S)

by A. Shane Murphy

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Call of CthulhuCall of CthulhuCall of CthulhuCall of CthulhuCall of Cthulhu

A Modern-Day Call of Cthulhu AdventureA Modern-Day Call of Cthulhu AdventureA Modern-Day Call of Cthulhu AdventureA Modern-Day Call of Cthulhu AdventureA Modern-Day Call of Cthulhu Adventureby Marcus D. Boneby Marcus D. Boneby Marcus D. Boneby Marcus D. Boneby Marcus D. Bone

This adventure was intended for either a newly createdparty of Investigators or a group that is yet to delve toodeeply into the Cthulhu Mythos. A party size of three ormore is recommended. It is not necessary that thesecharacters have adventured together (although allowingthem some sort of common interest would make theintroduction much easier.)

The game is set at the turn of this century, that is in the year 2000, althoughit would work equally as well in either a 1920s Cthulhu setting or even inthe Cthulhu by Gaslight era. The location is of little importance suffice tosay that it is based in a city setting and focuses mainly on a Cemetery andthe surrounding residential homes.

Adventures

Dancing to the Wrong Tune by Marcus D. Bone

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As stated above it is considerablysimpler for the Keeper if the charactersare part of some sort of mutualappreciation society, be it a book club,wine tasting group or even a roleplayingclub. Including a character with some sortof musical ability (Art), however small,would also be an advantage to theinvestigators. It is important that theadventure commences at night, whencommon people have the time to meet,and this will form a backdrop for theforthcoming events.

The Stranger in the NightThe adventure opens as it gets late

in the evening and the investigator’smeeting is drawing to a close, with eachplayer looking forward to little more thata good nights sleep before the rigoursof a new day. The group has slowlydwindled over the evening as othershave already headed home, so now onlythe players remain for one more chatbefore moving on.

Just as it seems there is nothing moreto do than to say their good-byes one ofthe characters will hear someone at thedoor, followed by a loud thump assomething heavy collapses against it.

When someone investigates, theydiscover a man slumped against the door.Looking as if he has been mugged andbeaten, he is bleeding profusely from anumber of cuts to his head and face. Heis an older man, graying, with a face thatis wrinkled and pale, he could beanywhere between 50 or 70 years in age.

As soon as one of the players attemptto move him, even if it is just into a morecomfortable position they will feel, ratherthan see, that his injuries are worse thanthey initially appear. His midsection hasbeen stabbed repeatedly and his clothingis drenched in blood. If the charactersdon’t attempt to help, it will still becomeapparent that the man is in a life and deathstruggle, as blood begins to puddlearound him.

Any investigator attempting to helpthe man, who is now falling in and out ofconsciousness, will be quickly coveredin blood. In one moment of clarityhowever the injured man grabs the

closest character pulling them closer withan iron like grip. His mouth full of bloodhe coughs once, spraying the characterwith blood and mucus, before gurglingin their ear…“You must play the notes…you must … before…” He coughs againas a stream of blood and spittle rolls downhis face onto his blood-drenched shirt.“before… it’s too late.” He looks thecharacter in the eyes. “Promise me …Promise me you’ll play for them… all ofyou.” He stares at the characters wideeyed and will only proceed when all theplayers agree. Coughing once more heloosens his grip slightly and with onehand pulls from his overcoat a hastilybound set of papers, which he thrustsinto the nearest character’s hands. Hesmiles weakly and then slumps once moreinto unconsciousness… a state fromwhich he never awakens.

Whether or not the characters at thispoint have rung the police, they will dulyarrive about now and take charge of thesituation. They will, of course, have somevery serious questions to ask thecharacters and will not take accept anyappreciate any attempts at vaguaries. Ifthe investigators inquire as to how thepatrol car arrived, the officer will curtlyexplain how a more caring citizen hadwitnessed the poor man entering thecurrent location.

By the time the ambulance arrives, thepoor man is dead from ‘blood losssustained from stab wounds to his chestand abdomen’. There is little theparamedics can do except cover the bodywith a plastic sheet and wait until thearriving homicide detectives allow themto remove the corpse. Also a small crowdof bystanders is starting to gather,attracted by the lights and sounds at thislate hour, and this will force one of theofficers to move the characters inside asthey continue questioning.

The ‘interrogation’ of the players isfairly straightforward. Eventually, one ofthe homicide detectives will join thequestioning. After that, it will quicklybecome apparent that the players knownothing of this ‘mugging’, and they willbe allowed to leave.

The PapersHopefully the character who was

handed the papers will have kept them,seeing as they are the only link they haveto fulfilling the victims last wishes.

The papers themselves are bundledtogether with a loose piece of string andare now covered in blood. Most of thepapers seem to be random sheets of musicrather than any set text, and will take atleast a hour to put them into order. Theinventory of papers is as follows:• The dead mans business card is the

first thing any of them will notice. Itlists his address, but no phonenumber. See handout 1

• Most of the rest of the material is justsheets and sheets of piano music.Most characters will recognize someof the titles, Holsts “The Planets”,Wagners “Ride of the Valkyries” andTchaikovskys “1812 Overture”,among others. There are a handfulhowever, that not even a skilledmusician will recongise. Althoughunauthored, each of these has aneerie title such as “The Dark ManCometh”, “Lurker on the Edge” and“The Unwitnessed”.

• The last piece of paper is actually anarticle from a newspaper dating backto 1960. See handout 2

Investigating FurtherThe next day dawns the local early

edition paper holds an article that holdmuch interest for the characters, but notin the way they were expecting. SeeHandout 3.

How the characters react to this isreally up to them, but this should promptthem to do some further investigation intoGrey and the history of the CemeteryDistrict.

The Cemetery DistrictThe Local Library has plenty of

material on the Cemetery District as it wasone of the original suburbs of the newlyformed city. A four-hour search throughbooks, journals and old papers tells muchof the area, which is renown for it’sghostly sightings and multitudes of oldhousing. The most shocking of the

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stories comes from the late 1950’s whenfive murders and as many disappearancestook place over a period of twenty-fourmonths leading into early 1960. Thepolice of the time where unable todiscover the identity of murderer and thevictims where more often than not rippedto shreds and barely identifiable.

The case was closed in 1965, four fullyears after the last disappearance, thepolice citing a lack of evidence and morepressing cases at hand. No one at thetime could shed any light on the murdersalthough for years the Cemetery districtwas a quiet, almost abandoned suburbas many locals moved out in fear for theirsafety.

Jonathon M. GreySuprisingly there is a considerable

amount of information about Jonathonespecially in the early 1950’s. Even acursory glance into his background willreveal that he was once hailed as the nextbig thing in classical music in the decadeafter the war. A more intense search,taking six hours, will uncover more aboutthe poor victim’s life.

In 1952 Grey appeared to be the risingstar of classical music matching, withsome skill, the new ‘rock and roll’movement that was sweeping the UnitedStates. He was praised by many and hadfew critics. “The new Gershwin,” wroteone reviewer, “whose music endears himto his audience, enthralling them withwillowy fingers that bring life to thepiano like no other.”

Grey gained fame and popularity andby the late 50’s was a rich and contentedman destined to be as famous as Mozartor Strauss. Late in 1959 he publiclydeclared that he was going to return tohis home (the city the characters live in),and compose his next masterpiece.

And that was the last thing anyoneever heard of Grey. If reporters cameknocking at his home in the CemeteryDistrict he refused to see them, and noamount of cajoling would draw him out.In the end the musical world moved onfocusing on new British groups like ‘TheBeatles’ and the ‘Rolling Stones’,forgetting that Grey had ever existed.

Number One Cemetery RdMaybe even more surprising than the

depth of information on Grey are thedetails of the house at 1 Cemetery Rd.Four hours of research at the Hall ofRecords provides a great deal ofinformation about the ancient house.

It seems that a local tribe of nativesgave the original owner, Barnard Grey,the deed to the land the house stands on‘until the last of their people died’ somethree hundred years ago, as reward forsaving one of the chiefs daughters fromsome sort of ‘beast’. In turn this man builta homestead that was passed on fromgeneration to generation until JonathonGrey took possession from his uncle in1960.

The most disturbing thing about thehome however is that it is located smackin the middle of the cemetery itself. TheCity council was unable to remove itwhen the surrounding land wasdesignated a cemetery. The Grey familyfought to uphold the rights granted themunder the original native deed. When iteventually came down to a court case inthe early 1800’s, the judge could find nocause for the family to be removed, asthe bloodline of the natives still remained.Descendants of the original tribe still livetoday (far removed from the city).

The Sheet MusicThis is a little harder to find anything

about, although the common works areeasily referenced and offer nothing to theinvestigators, the unauthored works willtake ten hours of hard research relyingon correspondence with known experts.It turns out, as the characters might haveguessed, that the work is reminiscent ofthe early works of Jonathon Grey,although they have now taken a darker,more sorrowful tone. These works havealso never been published and as far asthe correspondent knows have neverbeen heard in any public forum. Onecorrespondent expresses particularinterest in seeing the entire musical score.

The House in the CemeteryEventually the characters are going

to want to visit the house where Grey

lived. It is truly in the middle of thecemetery with a long driveway leadingto it, and enclosed with a sturdy wroughtiron fence. It is situated in the oldest partof the graveyard with some of the headstones dating back to the late 1700’s. Thehouse itself is a large two-story affair,which seems to have been expandedmany times, as each generation of Greysadded on what they required.

If the players think about asking thepeople who live in the neighborhoodsurrounding the cemetery, they will heara number of curious things about the oldGrey home. Probably the most disturbingare the reports of the wild parties thatseem to take place there two or threenights in succession every month. Ifquestioned further the neighbor will statethat truthfully the parties are loud affairsof shouting and an eerie piano playing.Although probably the strangest thingis that nobody can recall ever seeing therevelers, either arriving or leaving.

If asked why they have never doneanything about these ‘parties’, they willadmit shamefully that they and othershave only heard these while deep in thecemetery late at night.

The only other information anyonein the area has about the house comesfrom a little old lady whose property isone of the closest to the Grey House.She will state quite openly that there hasalways been music in the Grey House asfar back as she can remember, and evenin her grandmothers time the old folk toldof the ‘dances’ that took place withoutso much as an invitation to any of theneighbors!

If the players decide to explore thecemetery they discover nothing ofinterest except that many of theheadstones in the area have fallen andare crumbling. Considering their age, thisis of little surprise.

The house itself has twooutbuildings. The first is a tool shed,with all the modern essentials for gardenmaintenance: ride on mower, weed killersand the like. The other is a garage, whichis home to 1955 Rolls Royce. The car iscovered by a tarpaulin and hasn’t beenregistered for the last thirty years.

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Exploring the HouseSurprisingly the front door is

unlocked, and the first impression theinvestigators get is that someone hasransacked the house. Although thefurniture has been left standing, manypapers, books and contents of drawershave been strewn around the variousrooms.

With its many rooms and old décor,the house inside and out hasn’t beenrenovated in at least 70 years. It is likewalking onto a 1930’s melodrama set.Every room is large and obviously builtto accommodate more than one occupant.As such, many of the rooms upstairshave not been disturbed for some timeand most have a visible layers of dustcovering them.

The Front RoomThe Front Room looks the most lived-

in of any in the house. It has a fireplaceand a number of comfortable lookingchairs. It also has a large writing deskand a large wall filled with books.

Most notably the mess in this roomis greater than any other, papers andbooks are everywhere, many of them tornand damaged, whoever was here wassearching for something specific.

Because of the mess, the room willtake a while to explore, but after a goodhour the characters will come up with twoitems of interest. The first, located in thewriting desk, is a small leather boundjournal, which dates back to the 1950’s,although it is incomplete it covers a shortperiod of Grey’s life. The second is aLetter that is found squeezed behind theseat of one of the leather chairs, it seemsto be some sort of instructions to thefinder, as well as a last will and testament.

The JournalThe Journal was obviously written in

happier times for Jonathon, and coversthe last 2 years before he moved back tohis family home in the Cemetery Districtof the city. The journal takes only an hourto read.• The main topic in the early part of the

notebook is his music and his wishesand goals to develop it. He also tells

of his joy at bringing happiness tohis fans.

• Early in 1958 he learns of his uncle’sdeath and seems to be verydownhearted at the news. He alsomentions the ‘promises’ he madebefore his own parent’s deaths, butneglects to explain them in detail.

• Upon moving into the Grey Househe makes mention to “his Unclejoining the others” and how he alonehad to keep up the house.

• Finally he makes mention of sometasks that were left by his Uncle, butagain, never explains what thosetasks were.

The LetterThe Letter is much more help to the

investigators, but even that doesn’texplain exactly what is going on.Although there is no date on it the playerswill get the impression that it is not morethan a few days old. Although in thatshort lifespan, it has apparently seensome abuse. See Handout 4.

The Music HallOne of the largest rooms in the house,

this hosts nothing more than a Grandpiano, an ornate Grandfather Clock and anumber of box seats around the walls.One thing will strike the players is thesmell of fresh dirt and decay thatpermeates the room, even though bysight alone this looks the cleanest roomin the entire house. Closer examinationreveals that the floor is covered with smallscrapes as if a dozen or more cats havebeen running around on the highlypolished floor. The horrible smell is worseby the curtains and the windows of theroom, especially the large north facingone, as do the scrapes on the floor, onecould assume that what ever it wasentered through the window.

The Grand Piano is the key to thecharacters finding out what Grey meantfor them to do. On it is more music sheetsall of which have scores that areunfamiliar to the party. If any of thecharacters start to play any of the musicthey will hear below the house a rumblingsound, like that of a large dog or cat being

disturbed from their slumber. If thecharacters continue to play the music thegrowling whine will increase, as if more‘voices’ join the first until the noise theyproduce is deafening which will cause 0/1 Sanity for every minute it continues.This disturbing noise will ceaseimmediately the music is stopped.

The KitchenThe Kitchen is much like any other in

a large house, well equipped and lighted,with plenty of counter-space to prepareand cook food. Unlike the rest of thehouse the kitchen is in relative goodorder, clean, tidy, and well stocked.

There are three doors from thekitchen, one leading back into the house,one outside and a third that leads downa dark set of stairs into what is obviouslythe cellar.

If any of the characters examine thelarge walk in freezer in the Kitchen theywill be astonished to find that is stockedfull of animal carcasses, all of which hangfrom hooks.

The CellarThe horrible smell of dirt and decay

also hangs heavily in the air, and getsworse as the characters descend thestairs to the cellar.

The Cellar is dark and poorly lit by asingle bulb hanging from the ceiling, andthis light reveals that this room has beenused for nothing more than storage.Scattered around the floor are the remainsof old furniture and heirlooms, all in verypoor condition. It doesn’t take a scholarto realise that this room hasn’t beentouched in a very long time.

Before the characters get a chance toexamine the Cellar more thoroughly theywill hear footsteps above them. Someonehas obviously entered the house; thenas they listen, they hear the ominousmetallic ‘click’ of a pistol being cocked.

The IntrudersThree armed men have entered the

house, each armed and in a foul temper.They are agents of the Mi-Go, creaturesthat reside on Pluto and whosemachinations conflict heavily with the

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welfare of mankind. They are alsoresponsible for both the fatal beating ofJonathon Grey, and the ransackedcondition of the house. Lead by JackKramer (see sidebar below), they havereturned to the house to resume theirsearch. They are under strict orders fromtheir alien employers to return with “theItem” they require or face a fate worsethan death. Note: The irony of thissituation is that Kramer does notactually know what “the Item” is. Hehas merely been told he would know Itwhen he saw It.

The presence of the players in thehouse is a complication for Kramer andhis cohorts. They will naturally assumethat the characters possess “the Item”they are looking for.

At first the Intruders will try toconvince the characters to part with “theItem” voluntarily.

Next, Kramer will threaten that if theydon’t hand it over, they will be in ‘bigtrouble’. Any questions the players askto get Kramer to clairify what he is after

will not be successful. Kramer or one ofthe others will insinuate that thecharacters know exactly what they areafter and they had better hand it overbefore things get ugly.

Eventually one side or the other isgoing to become frustrated to the pointof attacking the other group. This shouldlead to a quick brawl, as the thugs attemptto overwhelm the players so they canget what they came for. It should be easyenough for the characters to stop thethugs from doing any real harm and assoon as the three intruders realise theplayers aren’t pushovers they will retreat.As they go, Kramer will yell , “You don’tknow who you’re dealing with. Yourdays are numbered!”

After this encounter the charactersmay feel a little conflicted. The Letter theyhave requires that they remain in thehouse until midnight, but with peoplethreatening their lives this may not seemlike a wise course of action.

Note: If the characters offer thebundle of papers to Kramer, he will just

toss them aside (he already saw thebundle when attacking Grey the othernight). The Letter might be a differentmatter, but Kramer is too single-mindedto recognized it as a clue to his goal.

If the Characters LeaveIf the character decide to abandon

their task, and leave the house, then therest of the day and night will pass withoutincident. However, the morning paperreports a very disturbing incident thatcauses the reader and the rest of the partyto lose 2/1D10 Sanity.

The paper details the disappearanceof two teenagers from the CemeteryDistrict, the night before. A local atteststhat he heard what could only bedescribed as ‘a pack of wild dogs’ aroundthe time the two kids were last seen, butno one has come forth to verify any ofhis claims.

If the characters still refuse to doanything about the promise they madeGrey then the adventure is effectivelyover, and the Keeper should severelypunish the players characters for nottrying to keep their city and communityfree of the Mythos terror.

As Midnight ApproachesIf the characters follow the

instructions left by Grey, they shouldhave no trouble preparing for the‘ceremony’ that is going to take place.The cryptic reference to the carcasses inthe Letter should make more sense oncethey find the meat locker (up until thatpoint, they may actually consider diggingup some bodies from the cemetary!). Onecarcass from the freezer must be removed,dragged into the music room, and theinternal doors in the house must beopened. Finally one of the characters isneeded to play the piano in the MusicHall throughout the ceremony. Thechoice of pianist is up to the players, butit is suggested that a character with atleast some musical (Art) skill be chosen.If this character spends a few hours goingover the music he or she must play (or ifthere is no character with Art skill) theywill receive a 50% bonus to their skillduring the ceremony.

Jack Kramer (and his associates)Kramer is a Thug and little more. Although quite bright, he is gullible

and this has led him to be involved with some very shady employers.Always out for a quick buck he has nothing against using violence toachieve his goals, but tends to keep the application of such force incheck, using only as much as necessary.

Kramer’s associates lack that level of control, but will only go asfar as Kramer will allow them. They listen to his orders carefully knowingfull well what their current employers are capable of doing if they fail intheir appointed tasks.

They are all armed with .38 Revolvers on their current assignment,which is finding “the Item” their employers desire. They in fact don’teven know what they are looking for, but have been told that they willrecongise it when they see it. As a result they are responsible forattacking Jonathon Grey, and in turn his death, even though this gotthem no closer to completing their job.

Damage Bonus +1D4Weapons: .38 Revolvers 40%, damage 1D10Club 40%, damage 1D6 + db

Str Con Siz Dex Pow HPKramer 14 12 12 11 15 17Thug 1 13 11 15 11 11 13Thug 2 12 11 12 10 11 14

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The Ceremony BeginsDuring the ceremony, the investi-

gators will be called upon to make manySanity rolls, this may lead to somecharacters becoming temporary insane,however it is important that someone isplaying the piano at all times, for theceremony to continue. Note: It is easyenough for a nearby investigator to takeover the playing if their companion isstarting to show signs of mental fatigue.

The ceremony can start anytime aftermidnight, with the designated pianiststriking the first notes of ‘Lurker on theEdge’. (on a successful Art roll). The firstfew bars of the song pass with strainednotes, as the pianist attempts to get intothe odd rhythm of the music. Still moreminutes pass before the characters startto hear the first results of the melody.

At first all is quiet… too quiet. Themusic produced by the piano is eerie andall pervading. Just listening to it sendsshivers down the listener’s spine. Thehaunting melody seems to tell a tale ofmisery and remorse. It is a disenchanting

tune that claws at the character’s souls.Any investigators succeeding a

Listen roll begins to hear noises frombelow the house, like the howls ofhounds, it grows louder until even thosethat failed the Listen roll can make it out.As the sound grows, one can begin tomake out the cries of individuals amongstcacophony of sound. All too soon thehowling reaches an ear-piercing volume,drowning out even the horrid music fromthe piano. All present lose 0/1 Sanity.

Just when it seems that they can takeno more the whole house begins to shake,rattling on its foundations. Then there isa loud crash below as if someone orsomething has entered the Cellar. Thenoises can be heard clearly now, thehowling and grunting is interspersedwith cries of creatures not of this earth.The Grey house continues to shake asthe things below move about, it seemsobvious that they are drawn towards themusic. All must lose 1/1D3 Sanity.

The rushing of hooves and clawssound out the advance of these creaturesas they make their way up the Cellar

steps. The noise gets louder as they enterthe Kitchen and then the Hall. All aroundthem the creatures can be heard drowningout the continuing chords of the Lurkeron the Edge. Suddenly one of thecreatures bursts through the doorwayinto the Music Room. It is a rubbery,loathsome humanoid, half clothed in atorn pair of ancient pants. Its claws andcanine features seem to wiggle in somesort of expectation, looking up at theinvestigators it comes to a sliding stopon the polished floors. The smell of dirtand decay again assails the investigatorsat the creature stares at them.

Such a creature is horrible to beholdbut the realisation that it actuallyunderstands that it is confronted by anew and maybe threatening situation isalmost to much for even the most hardycharacter. Sanity loses of 1/1D6 affect all.

Behind this first creature others nowarrive, crowding the doorway likedeformed school students. They sniff theair at the strangers yipping and barkingto each other in some form of rudimentarycommunication. Slowly, the sounds of

Seen as evil ugly creatures that prowl on humanityedges, waiting for the right time to strike, Greys Ghoulsseem to be slightly different than most. Jonathon, boundby oath treated this commune almost like kin, so muchso that one wonders whether the rumours of manbecoming ghoul might have some grounding.

The History of Greys Ghouls is a long and cloudedone, stretching back to the houses original owner BernardGrey and attacks on the local native tribe. Once a monththese creatures have risen from their burrows (the landthat is now the cemetery) and stalked the innocentpassers-by for food. That was until one of the Greysancestors discovered the love of music the ghoulsdisplayed, and then in turn for their own safety as well asthat of the community, began to hold dances with theaim of feeding the creatures with livestock instead ofhuman flesh. That was until Grey arrived in the 60’s andby chance discovered his talent for opening gateways toother worlds. Here he had discovered a way to insure theghouls forever remained away from the townsfolk.

Each month he would open the gateway to these‘other worlds’ to allow the ghouls to hunt the inhabitantsof those plains. Not that this didn’t have an effect onJonathon’s already fragile mind, knowing one day thatwith his passing someone would have to open the gateway

one more time and allow the ghouls leave earth onceand for all.

Greys Ghouls are a fearful sightto behold, and although they will notattempt to attack the investigatorplaying the piano they do realisethat something is amiss, andmenace the other PC’s. Theynumber is the dozens and theirgibbering and mewing will surely trythe characters nerves. Although toomany to destroy below is thecommon statistics of a Greys Ghoulif the need arises.

Sanity Loss 0 / 1D6Damage Bonus +1D4Weapons: Claws 30%, damage 1D6 + dbBite 30%, damage 1D6 + automatic worryArmour: Firearms and Projectiles half of rolled damage;round up any fraction.

Str Con Siz Dex Pow HPTypical Grey Ghoul 16 12 13 13 13 15

Also see the entry under Ghoul in the main CoC Rule Book.

The Ghouls of Cemetery Road (Greys Ghouls)

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the music straining from the pianoovercomes their original fears and theycautiously enter the Music Room.Attracted to the carcass, the firstcreatures in the room immediately attackit with vengeance.

As quickly as that is devoured theghouls, in ones and twos, begin to scoutout the familiar surroundings and withinminutes they seemly ready to dismiss thecharacters. Now that the investigatorshave also recovered their wits they areastonished to realise that some 20 or 30of these creature now occupy the room.Thankfully they seem preoccupied by themusic and have no mind anything else.Then the music stops…

The Dark ManAs the music sheets comes to an end

the pianist scrambles to find the next tune“The Dark Man Cometh”. In the suddensilence, the ghouls become more awareof their surroundings, instantly turningtheir attentions on the characters - as ifre-evaluating the player’s potential as athreat.

As the ghouls begin to close in onthe pianist and his fellows it might benecessary to impress on the players thedanger of the situation they are in.Having a small scuffle break out betweenone or more of the characters and thecreatures will bring tension to the sceneas the Musician tries to start the newsong. An Art roll at –25% (due to thepressure) is required to start “The DarkMan Cometh”. As soon as he or shesucceeds in this, the ghouls immediatelyhalt their attacks and return to their former‘preoccupied’ state.

Unlike the eerie tune of the previouspiece The Dark Man Cometh is a muchlighter composition, bringing a levity tothe evening that seems frighteninglyinappropriate. This strange joy evenseems to spread to the Ghouls. In frontof one of the characters one of thesestrange beasts starts to convulse, it’slimbs moving in strange directions, as itshuffles slightly to the left then right. Ittakes the character a few moments torealise what is going on… the ghoul isdancing!

As if a sign, this strange dancingaction starts to spread among thegathered creatures, giving the scene ahorribly comic look. In response themusic begins to change tempo, gettingfaster and faster as the creatures continueto dance around the room. Eventually itbecomes obvious to the investigatorsthat ghouls seem to be congregating nearthe large north-facing window.

At first the characters are at a loss toexplain why this is so, however momentslater a crack of light appears, not as onemight expect from outside, but rather froma spot half way up the windowpane. Asthe music gets faster and faster the lightbegins to grow, now encompassing moreand more of the window.

InterruptedAs the ghouls continue their dance

of madness around the stunnedcharacters, the gateway created by “TheDarkman Cometh ” song seems to pulsewith a life of its own, seemingly invitingthe characters and the creatures to enterits bright domain. The noises ofexcitement that comes from the ghoulsincrease until it reaches a crescendo.

Then as if mesmerized by somethingoutside the room the ghouls suddenlystop their inane stomping and as onecock their head to the roof. Even thoughthe piano continues to play, it becomesobvious that someone or somethingapproaches.

For a few dread seconds there isnothing but the strained notes of the songbeing played. Then out in the hallway,the front door is splintered in its frame.

What the players do in the short timebefore the intruders reach the Music Hallis of little relevance, as even if theyabandon their comrade at the piano, theywill still encounter the creatures that havecome to call.

These creatures are the Mi-Go,otherwise known as The Fungi fromYuggoth. They are the benefactors ofJack Kramer and his thugs and have comepersonally to finish the task he was sounable. The appearance of such aliencreatures is quite a shock to thecharacters, whose mental states have

already been strained by the night’sevents. The appearance of the Mi-Gotops off the immensely strange eventsthat have surrounded Jonathon Grey’sdeath. All take 1/1D6 Sanity loss.

At this point (or during the eventsthat follow) the character playing thepiano may wish to stop. If he or she doesso, the Gate will vanish from the windowframe with an audible ‘pop’.

As for the ghouls, the appearance ofthe Mi-Go sparks them into a frenzy thateven the music cannot control. Theyimmediately attack the Mi-Go with a furythat terrifies the characters. Sanity Lossof 0/1 for all.

As one, the ghouls leap to attack thenewly arrived Mi-Go, who are preparedfor such an event, and attempt to holdthe creatures back with the metallicwands they carry. These sticks are veryeffective weapons which emit beams ofbright light that cause anything theytouch to instantaneously burst into flame!It is one thing when the beams strike aghoul, and yet another thing altogetherwhen they strike the walls of the MusicHall. Within moments, a handful of smallfires are igniting all around the room!

As the battle continues, thecharacters must escape or they too willbecome casualties in this unworldlybattle. It is important to impress on theplayers that the old house is quickly andirreversibly going up in flames and thefire will become a threat to their health ina matter of moments.

Escaping the inferno is not toodifficult and a successful Luck Roll willensure that they can make it outside thebuilding before the fire is life-threatening.Those unlucky few that fail this roll take1d3 damage from burns and cuts as theydesperately make their way outside.

Once all the characters have managedto make their way outside the fire quicklyclaims the ancient wooden sturcture. Ina matter of minutes the Grey House willbecome an inferno that destroys allaround it. Only the two outbuildingsescape unscathed.

While the characters watch the fire,the more observant among them noticethat they are being watched by three men

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in a late model Ford sedan - the samemen that threatened the characters in thehouse earlier. If approached, they quicklymake their getaway.

ConclusionWithin quarter of an hour the local

fire department arrives, but the GreyHouse already beyond saving and thefireman can do little but ensure that thefire does not spread. Strangely there islittle sign of the combatants that foughtinside, either they too have beenconsumed by the flames, or by somemiracle escaped unseen.

If the characters remain around longenough they will be detained by theattending officers. Oddly, the policeseem uninterested in assigning blame forthe fire to the players, or even findingout why they were at the Grey House atsuch a late hour. They are simply warnedto keep their noses clean and ‘get lost!’

EpilogueThe characters have stopped two

enemies of humanity on this long nightand although their nerve has been testedon more than one occasion, they remainbloodied but unbowed. As a result thecharacters each receive a Sanity Rewardof 1D10+2 Sanity and the knowledge thattheir hometown is a little safer at night.

However this adventure may just bethe first of many, with the charactershaving a number of leads available tocontinue their investigations into theCthulhu Mythos.• Did any of the characters save the music

sheets from the fire? If so what resultsmight the ‘music’ have now the ghoulsare no more? Can the Gateway be openedonce again? And who else knows aboutthe music and its effects?

• What of Kramer and his thugs? Will theyleave the characters alone now that theirpatrons are no more? Are their benefactorsin fact ‘no more’? Are more Mi-Goroaming the Earth at this very momentplanning the destruction of humans thatslaughtered their kin?

• The Ghouls are all dead, destroyed bythe fire that consumed the number One

Cemetery Road… or did they? If moreGhouls roam the underground of the cityis anyone safe? And who is to say that isthey are the only creatures to stalk thesewers? What if a more dangerous threatlurks below?

Designers NotesDesigners NotesDesigners NotesDesigners NotesDesigners NotesThis adventure was actually created some

five years ago as an introductionary adventurefor a number of players new to the CthulhuMythos. Original created as a 1920’s game itintentional left open a number of avenues forfuture investigation allowing the players todictate the direction of a short campaign. Ihope that although updated to a modern settingit still holds the possibilities and intrigues itoriginally did. I know that played is the spiritwas intended will allow ample opportunitiesfor an interesting and exciting campaign.

I couldn’t conclude this with out addingmy inspiration for the adventure. First andforemost I can contribute most, if not, all theideas contained in the above to the Lovecraftstories The Music of Erich Zann, Pickman’sModel and The Lurking Fear, as I’m sure you’llrecongise if you read or have read these stories.However I also must say that the originalpremise of this adventure rests firmly on theintroductionary scenario presented in the 5th

Edition Rulebook, The Edge of Darkness, towhich I’m eternally grateful.

The Mi-Go are the employers of Kramer and is Thugs,as well as the Masterminds behind the attack onJonathon. This technologically advanced race is the baneof mankind and their fierce determination to keep humansa subservient race has meant that many of our greatestdiscoveries have been crushed or destroyed before therepotential has been truly realised.

This is true again in the case of Jonathon Grey,composer extraordinaire, whose ability to create musicso powerful that it summoned gateways to other worlds.Unfortunately his attempt at controlling the actions of theghouls put him in direct competition with the Mi-Go.Unknown to him the Fungi of Yuggoth have laid in wait forGreys monthly cycle to begin again, so that they can findand recover the item they believe he uses to open thegates. Of course what they do not know is that Grey usedno item at all to allow the ghouls to travel between worlds,but rather just his amazing musical talent.

The 6 Mi-Go in this adventure are all armed with FireLances weapons designed to ignite anything they touch,and only if the characters are extremely fortunate will theyavoid the wrath of these weapons. More messengers thanfighters they still pose a grave threat to the investigatorsfore filling their promise.

Sanity Loss 0 / 1D6Damage Bonus +0Weapons: Nippers 30%, damage 1D6 + grappleFire Lances 50%, damage 1D10 (1st and 2nd degreeburns)

Str Con Siz Dex Pow HPMi-Go 1 10 14 14 20 13 14Mi-Go 2 10 14 13 17 10 12Mi-Go 3 11 13 8 14 12 12Mi-Go 4 9 11 10 15 14 9Mi-Go 5 10 10 11 17 9 13Mi-Go 6 8 14 14 18 10 12

Also see the entry under Mi-Go in the main CoC Rule Book.

The Mi-Go (The Fungi from Yuggoth)

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ANOTHERCEMETERYMURDER!

The City is again victim of serialkiller lurking Cemetery District

Last night Police Officersdiscovered a third, as yetunnamed body, near the Cemetery.This new victim joins a growinglist of names that have perishedin or near our most sacredresting-place.

The Police are baffled to theperpetrator of these crimes butChief O’Brien has stated publiclythat no stone will be leftunturned until this murderer isfound and dealt with.

Jonathon M. GreyComposer & Conductor

1 Cemetery Road(City)

COUPLEVANISH FROMCEMETERY

Two Youths disappear from parked carin Cemetery District

Early this morning Officers fromthe Cemetery district were outsearching for two, as yet,unnamed youths in and around theCity Cemetery.

Although the Police are sayinglittle at this moment,information has come to lightthat the disappearances are mostdefinitely linked with foul playand are being treated with allseriousness by law enforcementagents.

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DANCING TO THE WRONG TUNE

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To Whom It may Concern,

If you are reading this, then it is certain that I am dead. I feel this must be the caseas I have been followed now for weeks. I do not know what these people want, but Ibelieve they are willing to kill for it.

If (as I fear) I am dead, then I must beseech you to continue the task that I havebeen charged with - as my Uncle carried that burden before me, and his father (mygrandfather) before him, so too must you, now perform this terrible task. The verysouls of the people of this city hang in the balance!

I know this must all come as a shock to you. I am certain that I do not know youpersonally (I have contact with so few people these days). My only hope is that I canimpress upon you how vital it is that the instructions I write be followed to the letter— or dire consequences will result. First you will need my Music — not the mundanepieces that passed for my music, but the compositions wrenched from the depths ofmy own tortured soul.

The ceremony I will describe must commence upon the stroke of midnight… nosooner… no later. There are things involved that know only of that fleeting momentof time that falls between the death of one day, and the birth of the next.

Just prior to the commencement of the ceremony, a fitting tribute must be broughtto the Music Room in my home (there are plenty of these carcasses on hand). Allinterior doors of the house should be opened, and all outside door barred! At theappointed time, the chords of ‘The Lurker at the Edge’ must be played. Do not fearthose that come. They will not harm those who play for them, those cursed melodies.Once all are present, the score of ‘The Dark Man’ must follow, until the light and thedoor arrive. They will do what they must. I beg of you, do not interfere with them!

Once they have gone, you must stop playing immediately, no matter the place it maybe. Quickly then, leave the house and bar the door so no others may stumble upon it.Better still, destroy the cursed structure. Whichever course you choose, makecertain that those hated melodies are never sung again – by instrument or man, as Iwish no other to experience the horrors that I have witnessed.

I thank you now, as I fear I will never have another chance. I am sorry to bring youinto this, but if not you then whom?

Yours,

Jonathon Grey

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Dark Races

Pets of Mephistopheles by A. Shane Murphy

The MythologyThese creatures are relatively

new and have no known historicalcounterpart.

The RealityThese alien arachnids only

recently started appearing arounddens of Insectoid ETs.

Physical AppearanceThey look similar to a large

spider, with the shell of a crab -complete with a small pair of strongpincers, and a hard exoskeletoncovering their entire body. Theirbody, including legs, is about 1 meterin diameter. The dark coloration oftheir shell helps them hide from theirprey until it is too late (in game termsthis makes them one level moredifficult to observe when in theshadows). The hardness of the shellgives the Spider Crab an ArmorValue of 1in all hit locations.

Combat AbilitiesSpider Crabs will attack en

masse from hiding, without regard fortheir own losses. Once engaged,they will never retreat from combat.One-on-one they are a nuisance, butin great numbers they can be verydangerous. Use extreme cautionwhen entering a nest of them! Beside

their poisonous bite, their only modeof attack is a small pair of very strongpincers just under their mandibles.They also spin large webs that arestrong enough to catch some animalsand even humans unlucky enough towander into one. Their web requiresan Average vs. Strength roll to breakfree.

NotesThe Dark Lord known to humans

as Mephistopholes introduced thesehorrors in just the last few months.Even though they are a prolificspecies, food supply and the lack ofreal intelligence has helped to keeptheir numbers small.

by A. Shane Murphy

Spider CrabsStrength: 4 Initiative: 3Constitution: 8 Move: 2 / 8 / 15 / 30Agility: 5 Skill / Damage: 4 / 1d6, 1p1Intelligence: 1 Hits: 20 / 40*Education: 1 # Appear: 3d6Charisma: 1Empathy: 0 * AV 1, due to hard shell.

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The Uninvited by Lee Williams

his race is one of the more mysterious of the Darklingpeoples. Much about them is still unknown, even by the otherDark races. Uncertain of their true name, since their arrival onEarth and activities in Britain and Europe they have becomeknown as the ‘Uninvited’.

Why are they here? It seems that they seek mainly to furtheraccelerate the destruction that pollution and ecological ruinhas alreadybrought to theworld. Our bestguess is that theyrequire the Earthas a colony for therest of theirspecies, and arechanging theecosphere to suittheir own prefer-ences. It iscalculated thatthis change willeventually renderthe planet un-inhabitable tohuman beings.The atmospherewill be filled withcarbon dioxide,causing the temp-erature to rise sharply and make it impossible for Earthly life tofunction properly. If let continue, the ice caps will completelymelt, acid rain will rise to an un-precedented level, and vastlyincreased amounts of background radiation will be released tomake the Earth habit-able for them in their original form.

At the current time, they are believed to be using a form ofempathic control to inhabit the cloned bodies of humans withtheir own minds and thoughts. In certain ways, they could beconsidered similar to Changelings, but in this case a copy ofthe human concerned is reconstructed after their death andthen used as a vessel for the mind of the controlling being. Thecomplete memories and attitudes of the original human aretransferred into the controlling entities’ brain, to help themblend almost seamlessly into the life path of the now deceasedoriginal.

The Uninvited are known to have certain empathic powers.Although the exact nature and strength of these are not certain,they appear to use the Psionic discipline of Empathy. They are

known to be capable of Telepathy, at least among themselves,as well as having the ability to Project Emotion on humans.

They do however have an Empathic weakness that maywell be exploited in order to defeat their machinations. If one oftheir human forms is killed the empathic link causes all theUninvited to feel extreme pain, and as a result renders themincapacitated for a few moments. and this may give minion

hunters an edge.The telltale symp-toms are that anU n i n v i t e dreconstruction willfaint and fall to thefloor, whilst bleed-ing profusely fromthe nose and earcavities. The eyesbecome pure white,with no discernibleiris or pupil. Also,they will give anextremely high-pitched scream,barely audible to thehuman ear. Theseeffects will in-capacitate thebeings for approx-imately sixty sec-

onds, after which they return to normal but with very lowreserves of strength.

The mindset of the Uninvited is somewhat odd. They allwork together to achieve their ultimate goal, and therefore it isconceivable that they share a communal mind. However,humans prize their individuality and it may be that the groupthat is active on Earth might be seen as unusual by the rest oftheir species, in that they are capable of functioning asindividuals. Among themselves, they think of the humanpersonalities held within their minds as ‘drivers’ and let thestored memories take over when necessary. They always retaincomplete control and never let the stored personality run free.

As they do not have names in the human sense, they usethe prefix ‘the’ to define themselves added to the name of thereplaced human. Thus, a replacement might think of himself as‘the John Smith’ and the original human John Smith (or at leasthis memories) would be thought of as ‘the driver’.

A New Dark Raceby Lee Williams

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The UninvitedStrength 8 Education 10Move as human Constitution 8Charisma as original human Skill/Damage 8 / 1D6Agility 6 Empathy 12Hits 30 / 60 Intelligence 10Initiative 6 # Appear varies

Special:Telepathy 8 Project Thought 6Project Emotion 6 Willpower Drain 4

Other powers from the Psionic school of Empathy may beavailable.

Note:Figures given here are for a standard Uninvited clone body.

It is possible that there are other types of clone bodies availablefor special purposes.

This article was inspired by the 1997 British TV mini-series The Uninvited.

REFEREES INFORMATIONIn human form, the Uninvited possess somewhat enhanced

physical statistics. However, in order to sustain their mentalcapacities they will use what appear to be normal ventolininhalers as used by asthma sufferers. These inhalers are filledwith a chemical mix thought to be similar to the atmosphere oftheir native proto-dimension. A good way to incapacitate themis to blast them with a jet of pure oxygen from a cylinder. Thishas the same effect as a pepper spray on a human, and in highenough concentration it can even kill them.

In fact, one of their number was unwittingly killed by aparamedic crew after a car crash, when they put him ontooxygen to keep him alive until they reached the hospital. Whenthis body was subjected to a post-mortem, the pathologist wasastonished to discover that all of the internal organs in themain body cavity were all shrivelled and burnt to cinders. Thereason for this is unclear but it may be a way of concealing anyslight internal physical differences.

Remember, they are already among us…

This feature is dedicated to the manypieces of art we receive that are trulyremarkable works, that we didn’twant to wait for a related story tocome along to use.

This time around, we are featuring“Easy Prey” by Andrew Simmons. Justlooking at this piece, one is given towonder which subject is the predator,and which is the prey - which we’repretty sure was the intent all along.

Andrew has submitted a number ofpencil sketches (both color and not),and expressed an interest in doing somemore pictures for us by request. Youcan expect to see a lot more of his workin future issues.

Art Gallery

Easy Prey by Andrew Simmons

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Dark MatterDark MatterDark MatterDark MatterDark Matter

1 - Abduction2 - Advanced Aircraft3 - Alchemy4 - Alien artifact5 - Alien captured6 - Alien colonization plan7 - Alien escapes8 - Andean mummies9 - Arcane tome found10 - Archaeological find11 - Arctic survival12 - Assassins13 - Astrology14 - Atlantis15 - Automatic writing16 - Bermuda Triangle17 - Biowarfare18 - Black helicopters19 - Blackmail20 - Blessed Virgin Mary sighting21 - Bombing22 - Cattle mutilation23 - Channeling con man24 - Chemical warfare25 - Christian cult26 - Circus freaks

27 - Code breaking28 - Computer hackers29 - Concentration camps30 - Corporate adept31 - Cover up32 - Crop circles33 - Cryogenics34 - Crystal skulls35 - Dinosaurs36 - Desert survival37 - Drugs38 - Earthquakes, unnatural39 - Easter Island40 - El Chupacabra41 - Electronic voice phenomena42 - Epidemic43 - Face on Mars44 - False memory syndrome45 - Fatima46 - Files stolen47 - Flight 40148 - Fountain of Youth49 - Frogs (falling from sky /

mutations)50 - Genetics (gene-splicing /

mutations)

House Rules

Generic Horror Adventure Generator by Dale Robert Thurber

51 - Golem52 - Government takeover53 - Haunting54 - The Horten Brothers55 - Human sacrifice56 - Immortality treatment57 - Institute attacked58 - Interdimensional doorway59 - Jersey Devil60 - JFK61 - Kidnapping62 - Lazar, Bob63 - Loch Ness64 - Lost tribe found65 - Lunar cycle madness66 - Mass insanity67 - Martial artist68 - Message from the future / past69 - Meteors / meteorites70 - Military experiment71 - Mindwalking criminal - mind

control72 - Miracle medicine73 - Missing corpse74 - Missing persons75 - Morrison, Jim

ADVENTURE TOPICS (D4 & D100)Adventure Topics have been divided into two tables. To select a topic, roll both a d4 and d100. The d4 result determineswhich table. The d100 selects the topic from that table. On d100 results of 76+, reroll.

Adventure Topic Table #1 (d4 result: 1 or 2)

ADVENTURE GENERATOR (D12)Adventure Type

1 - Artifact Chase2 - Bug Hunt3 - New Contact4 - Data Recovery5 - Paranormal Investigation6 - Extraction7 - Infiltration8 - Murder Investigation9 - Payoff10 - Quarantine11 - Search & Destroy12 - Surveillance

TYPE OF SCENES (D20)1 - 5 Challenge - basic scene type (minimum 1)6 - 8 Combat - basic scene type (minimum 1)9 - 13 Encounter- basic scene type (minimum 1)14 - Recap15 - Briefing16 - Cut-Scene17 - Forgotten Scene18 - Flashback19 - Summation20 - Cliffhanger

* Scenes shouldn’t be that random - some scenes simply must be included, based on youradventure - refer to pages 241-243 of the Dark*Matter sourcebook.

by Dale Robert ThurberThe following tables are meant to aid in generating ideas for adventures. Keep rolling on the various tables until you find acombination that appeals to you, or inspires you with an idea for an adventure of your own.

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1 - Mothmen2 - Moon secrets3 - Mountain expedition4 - Mysterious fog5 - Mysterious suicide6 - Mystery objects falling from the

sky7 - Nanotechnology8 - Nerve gas9 - New school of magic10 - New mutant11 - New species12 - New technology13 - Numerology14 - Obelisks15 - Obtain secret files16 - Occult society17 - Ooparts (out-of-place artifacts)18 - Oswald doubles19 - Pagan cult20 - Petrified man21 - Pollution22 - Possession23 - Prediction program24 - Project Mongoose25 - Project Phoenix26 - Prophesies

27 - Psychic network28 - Public miracle29 - Pyramids30 - Quarantine31 - Radiation burns32 - Rainforest survival33 - Recruiting new H. Institute staff34 - Religious artifacts35 - Retarded mindwalker36 - Revelations37 - Reverse gravity zones38 - Runes39 - Ruins40 - Satellites41 - Satanic cult42 - Scandal frame up43 - Secret lab44 - Serial killer45 - Shapechangers46 - Sinking building47 - Slave labor camps48 - Solar flare49 - Spaceship enters our solar

system50 - Spirit photography51 - Spontaneous human

combustion

1 - Alien2 - Anarchist3 - Bomb expert4 - Brute5 - “Bug”6 - Bureaucrat from within HI7 - Channeler8 - Con artist9 - Crazed animal10 - Diabolist11 - Demon / devil12 - FX-powered person13 - Gadgeteer14 - Gang member15 - Ghost tied to a certain locale16 - Hacker17 - Hemomancer18 - Hermeticist19 - Invisible man20 - Insane plotter

52 - Spring-heeled Jack53 - Stigmata54 - Stock market mindwalking55 - Stonehenge56 - Super weapon57 - Swamp survival58 - Teleportation59 - Templars return60 - Tesla61 - Time traveler62 - Trephination63 - Twenty-three64 - Undersea diving65 - Unexpected weather (natural?)66 - UFO crash67 - UFO sighting68 - Vampires69 - Villains, unusual (see chart

below)70 - Virtual reality71 - Virus72 - Visions73 - Warren Commission74 - Werewolf mutation75 - Wiccans / witchcraft

1 - Martial artist2 - Mad scientist3 - Mind controller4 - Militiaman5 - Mob Boss6 - Mutant, Animal7 - Mutant, Human8 - Possessed person9 - Pyrokinetic10 - Religious fanatic / cultist11 - Seducer / Temptress12 - Serial killer13 - Soldier14 - Street Punk / Thug15 - Terrorist16 - Thief17 - Vampire18 - Voodoo practitioner19 - Werewolf20 - Witch

VILLAIN / FOE / ENEMY ARCHETYPES (D6 & D20)No adventure is complete without a memorable Villain. The Villain / Foe / Enemy Archetypes have been divided into twotables. To select a villain, roll both a d6 and d20. The d6 result determines which table the d20 result is compared to.

Adventure Topic Table #2 (d4 result:3 or 4)

Villain Table #1 (d6 result: 1 - 3) Villain Table #2 (d6 result: 4 - 6)

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All Flesh Must Be EatenAll Flesh Must Be EatenAll Flesh Must Be EatenAll Flesh Must Be EatenAll Flesh Must Be Eaten

Milieu

Living Dead Girl: A Deadworld for All Flesh Must Be Eaten by Christopher Haynes

INTRODUCTIONINTRODUCTIONINTRODUCTIONINTRODUCTIONINTRODUCTION

“Who is this irresistible creature who has an insatiable love for the dead?”

“Living Dead Girl” is a world setting for Eden Studios’ ALL FLESH MUSTBE EATEN, a survival horror roleplaying game that allows you to play in aworld infested by the walking dead. This particular deadworld was inspired byRob Zombie’s song “Living Dead Girl,” and is based on a number of sources,including Chaos! Comics’ EVIL ERNIE, the three RETURN OF THE LIVINGDEAD films, and the AFMBE deadworld “Mein Zombie.”

The “Living Dead Girl” deadworld is set in the cosmology of two otherEden Studios roleplaying games, ARMAGEDDON and WITCHCRAFT, andZombie Masters are encouraged to purchase and explore these games (whichuse the same Unisystem as AFMBE) for more detailed information.Chroniclers of ARMAGEDDON and WITCHCRAFT are certainly invited tomake use of this material for their own campaigns as well. Likewise, severaldifferent Story Ideas have been provided for Game Masters, each withsuggestions of how they might be adapted to other RPGs.

If you have any questions or comments, please give me a piece of yourmind. The Living Dead Girl tells me that pieces from the frontal and occipitallobes are particularly tender, and make for an excellent roast, or can even bediced for a quick snack...

Christopher [email protected]

by Christopher Haynes

HISTORY PART ONE

”When once the restraining talismanof the Christian cross is broken inGermany, then the fury of the ancientwarriors, the berserk rage of which theNordic poets sang, will surge up again.The old stone gods will rise from long-forgotten ruins and rub the dust of athousand years from their eyes; and Thorwith his giant hammer will leap up andsmash the Gothic cathedrals. And whenthat crash comes, it will be like nothingheard before in history.”

- Heinrich Heine

The gods of mythology and theangels and demons of religious belief havea common origin, an origin that datesback to the time of Creation. Gods andangels are the descendants of Sephyr,the Tools of the Creator, elemental beingsthat shaped our reality. The Sephyr

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evolved into two distinct orders ofbeings: the Seraphim and the Titans. TheSeraphim were the beings of spirit, theemissaries and servants of the Creator.The Titans were embodiments of differentaspects of reality, such as War, Death andJustice, and they were the first to cometo Earth to set themselves up as deities.

The rise of monotheism was not merehappenstance; even as human mission-aries gained converts throughoutEurope, the pagan pantheons were beingbesieged and overwhelmed by theHeavenly Hosts. The Titans were forcedto stay out of the affairs of man, and mostof them became the Old Gods,remembered only in folk tales and ancientmyths. Centuries later, some Titansreturned to the world, but in utter secrecy. Margo Schreck was born in Munich,Germany in 1928. Her mother Emma diedduring childbirth, but her father, Dr.Herman Schreck, raised his daughter asbest as he could. Dr. Schreck was notonly a brilliant biologist, but also a warveteran, and his experiences as a medicduring World War I still haunted him.Fascinated with overcoming theinevitability of death, Schreck’s researchbrought him into repeated contact withother prominent German scientists of the1930s. In 1933, Dr. Schreck joined Munich’sNational Socialist party and, over thefollowing years, became a youngcolleague of other Nazi doctors, such asKarl Clauberg, Sigmund Rascher, andHorst Schumann. Both Schreck andRascher had a special hatred of theRoman Catholic Church (as did most ofthe Nazi party), but Herman becameincreasingly drawn to the growing “NewHeathen” (Neuheiden) movement andthe traditional Nordic Faith that had beenfollowed by the Vikings and, before them,the diverse Germanic of Europe and Asia.

The Norse Gods were worshipped bylarge numbers of people until as late as900 AD, when a combination of Christianmissionaries (and Christian persecution)and the Seraphim’s attack on Asgardended their existence as an activepantheon. In late 19th and early 20thCentury, however, there had been many

flourishing esoteric orders in Germanyand Austria that sought to establish areborn Germanic identity and toreconnect the people with their repressedarchetypes. One of the most significantof these Orders was founded in Germanyin 1912 - the German Order, and from thissprang the Thule Society.

Both societies - which eventuallybecame almost interchangeable in ideasand even membership - were originallycomposed of the German officer class andprofessions, who were convinced of amassive international Jewish conspiracybacked up by occult practices. To counterthis they established their own Nordicoccult-based Freemasonry, complete withelaborate rituals and robes, Vikinghelmets and swords. More importantly,the Thule Society - which took its namefrom the fabled land of Ultima Thule, asort of paradise on Earth - began to recruitnew members from the lower classes anddisseminated anti-Semitic material in itsvarious newspapers. One of these, aMunich newspaper named the VölkischerBeobachter, eventually became theofficial journal of the German Workers’Party in 1919. A year later the partybecame the National Socialist GermanWorkers’ Party (NSDAP) under theleadership of Adolf Hitler.

The Thule Society was active inefforts to overthrow the BavarianCommunist Government and journalist,poet, and occult student Dietrich Eckart,who was a major intellectual influenceon Hitler in the early years, aided theirpropaganda effort. The swastika flagadopted by the NSDAP was thebrainchild of another Thulist, Dr. FriedrichKrohn. Krohn suggested a swastika on awhite disc with a red background - redfor blood and the social ideal, white fornationalism and purity of race, and theswastika for ‘the struggle for victory ofAryan man’. Hitler was delighted but forone detail - the traditional ‘right-handed’swastika was to be reversed, forming anevocation of evil, spiritual devolutionand Black Magic.

With the victory of the NSDAP, theoccult tradition was carried on in theThird Reich mainly by the SS

(Schutzstaffel), whose Reichsführer,Heinrich Himmler, was also an avidstudent of the occult. Josef Goebbelspretended to an interest in the occult andin astrology in order to please the Führer,and Rudolf Hess may have dabbled inoccult matters, but Himmler was the onetrue ‘sorcerer’s apprentice’ in Hitler’sinner circle. Reinhard Heydrich, head ofthe Security and Intelligence Service(Sicherheitdienst - SD) reported toHimmler in 1939 that he had discoveredthe case of a witch called MargarethHimbler, burnt in Germany in 1629. Thesimilarity of names encouraged Himmler’sinterest in German witchcraft, andeventually, in 1935, an SS occult researchdepartment, the top-secret Ge-heimnisvolle Korps (Occult Corps) wasestablished as a branch of Himmler’sAhnernerbe (Ancestral Heritage Bureau). The center of the Occult Corps becameCastle Wewelsburg in Westphalia, whichwas bought as a ruin in 1934 and rebuiltover the next 11 years at a cost of 13million marks. The central banqueting hallcontained a vast round table with throne-like seats to accommodate Himmler and12 of his favorite officers, making his“Order of the Black Knights” a DarkCovenant of 13. Beneath this hall was aWalhalla, or ‘Hall of the Dead’, whereplinths stood around a stone table andthe covenant could practice theirwitchcraft in secret.

Himmler was so obsessed withwitchcraft that the Occult Corpseventually looted more than 140,000books on the subject from libraries acrossNazi-occupied Europe. He believed thatthe persecution of witches in the 17thcentury represented a kind of Holocaustof the German race carried out by theRoman Catholic Church. “The witch-hunting cost the German peoplehundreds of thousands of mothers andwomen, cruelly tortured and executed,”Himmler said. He deployed the OccultCorps to discover traces of an oldGermanic magic that survived the witch-hunts. Among their discoveries was theBlack Magic of evil seers and mediums:necromancy.

“Conquer death and we shall conquer

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the world,” Hitler instructed the OccultCorps in 1936, and Dr. Herman Schreckwas among the first scientists recruitedto do just that. Just as Valhalla’s deadwarriors would fight again when theTwilight of the Gods came, Germanywould use magic and science to createan army of immortal soldiers who couldnever be stopped. Project “Götter-dämmerung” had begun.

HISTORY PART TWO

“Herman Göring would later sayAdolf Hitler was never the same after thesuicide of his beloved niece... Curiously,shortly after her death, Hitler lookedwith disdain on a piece of ham beingserved during breakfast and refused toeat it, saying it was like eating a corpse.From that moment on, he refused to eatmeat.” - The Rise of Adolf Hitler: Success

and a Suicide

From 1938 to 1942, while Dr. Schreckand his staff experimented with gasses,chemicals, and serums while combingthrough the Himmler’s stolen texts, hisdaughter was an active member of theLeague of Young Girls (Jungmädelbund- JM). The JM was a constituentorganization of the Hitler Youth (HitlerJugend - HJ), which placed particularemphasis on pre-military training. In 1942,Margo turned 14 and joined the Leagueof German Girls (Bund Deutscher Mädel-BDM) and was outfitted with the navyskirt and white blouse that marked her asone of the future mothers of the GreaterGerman Reich. She attended weeklymeetings where she did handicrafts, sangsongs, and listened to lectures onNational Socialist ideology with aparticular emphasis on racial theory(Rassenkunde). Like all girls in the BDM,Margo joined the boys from the HJ intraining for duties in the anti-aircraftbatteries and particularly in working onthe land.

BDM girls stood waiting on theplatforms of railway stations ready to plytroops in transit with drink and food.They also worked as secretaries and

receptionists for the railway stations andthe armed forces. The girls assisted theRed Cross and served in militaryhospitals, where they provided first aidduring air raids, often at considerable riskto their lives. They acted as nursemaids,supervised kindergartens, worked in KLV(Kinderlandverschickung) camps forevacuated children, and helped in oldpeoples’ homes. They helped to look afterwar widows, refugees and the homelessby bringing them food and coal, repairingtheir homes, tending their gardens, andhelping them replace their papers andration cards. They formed choirs toentertain the sick and wounded, andproduced plays for their amusement.

During her years in the BDM Margooften visited her father in ProjectGötterdämmerung’s secret laboratory inMunich. It was there in 1944 that she firstmet the project’s liaison to the OccultCorps: a handsome SS (Schutzstaffel)officer named Walter Fuhrmann. He wasa superior physical specimen, proud ofbearing, sound in morals and ideals, andhad the mental toughness to execute themost distasteful assignments. Walterinitially served in the SD and gained agreat deal of experience in counter-intelligence before joining the OccultCorps and, in time, the secret Order ofBlack Knights.

Walter had met many BDM girls atsocial events arranged to bring SS mentogether with young women of severalNazi organizations. These get-acquaintedsessions were casual and quite proper,and for most of the men of the SS, themeetings frequently led pre- or extra-marital relationships. Walter had beengiven every encouragement andopportunity to sire children in greatnumbers, for Himmler had decided that itwas the patriotic duty of every SS man tosire at least four children; he usuallydenied promotion to childless officerssuch as SS-ObersturmbannführerFuhrmann.

The SS had other uses for the BDMas well. To mobilize all remaining strengthfor the war effort, the SS began recruitingolder BDM girls for the new SS FemaleAssistance Corps (SS-Helferinnenkorps

- SSHK). Normally when a BDM girlreached 17 she joined an organizationcalled Glaube und Schönheit (“Faith andBeauty”), in which she would receiveadvanced training in domestic scienceand preparation for marriage. In 1944,however, it was far more important forthe girls from this BDM auxiliary to freeSS men for front-line duty by working astelephone operators, telegraph clerks,radio operators, and female assistants forspecial purposes.

Efforts were made to recruit thedaughters of SS families, and Margo wasnot only related to SS BrigadeführerJulius Schreck, but her father also workedfor the SS occult research department.Eight weeks after being inducted into theSS academy (Reichsschule-SS) on thenorthern outskirts of Munich, Margo wassworn in as a member of the SSHK andattached to the Occult Corps as WalterFuhrmann’s assistant.

Himmler wished to protect the girlsof the SSHK from chauvinist abuse, andhad placed special emphasis onprofessional relationships with malemembers of the SS. His men were expectedto deal with the girls in a “clean, decent,and knightly-comradely fashion.” Withina year, however, Walter and Margo hadfallen in love. Although Margo had beenthoroughly indoctrinated in her duty tobear children for the Reich, in or out ofwedlock, Walter felt the need to solemnizetheir relationship. Of course theReichsführer-SS was hostile to the“hypocrisy” of monogamy, but hecontinued to tolerate conventionalmarriage. SSHK assistants who wishedto get married had to get permission fromHimmler and the Race and SettlementMain Office, but before Margo receivedtheir approval, disaster struck.

In 1945, Project Götterdämmerung’slaboratory was hit during the Alliedbombing raids on Munich andNuremberg, which hitherto had remainedvirtually untouched. Margo becametrapped in the rubble, and some of theproject’s gas canisters ruptured,poisoning her before she could escape.By the time Walter reached Margo’sbody, she was already dead.

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Dr. Schreck and several of his staffsurvived, but he was driven mad withgrief. Although the secret to immortalitystill eluded them, Project Götter-dämmerung had tried using magicalformulas to develop a serum that couldviolate the magical Life and Death Cycle.If such a serum was injected into thebodies of men, it would allow the dead tocontinue inhabiting their own flesh longafter they should have surrendered it. TheNazis could then conceivably create anarmy of undead beserkers, “draugar,”who could never be stopped.

Unfortunately, Project Götter-dämmerung had little success withnecromancy up until now, and the newestformula was still untested. Now Dr.Schreck was determined to make it work.He would use the new serum to raise hisdaughter’s dead body. As thepigmentation seemingly leached out ofher body and she began to stir, Hermancried out that his white-skinned daughterhad conquered death, for she was nowHel, the mythological Queen of the Deadmade flesh. Indeed, Dr. Herman Schreckwas the first to discover that Margo wasgone, and in her place was a living deadgirl named Hela… and flesh was what shehungered for.

HISTORY PART THREE

“Nothing in Germany is more alivethan our dead.”

Baldur von Schirach, Reich Leaderfor Youth Education in the NSDAP

Hela was more than just Hel’s avatar,however; she was, in a sense, herdaughter. In Norse mythology, Hel wasthe ruler of Helheim (“house of Hel”), theRealm of the Dead in Niflheim (“house ofmists”), and was the most feared andhated of the Nordic Titans. She was theyoungest child of the evil god Loki andthe giantess Angrboda, and the Norsegods had abducted Hel and her brothersfrom Angrboda’s hall and cast them intothe underworld - a place of icy fogs andmists, darkness and cold. There Hel builther a great keep with towering walls andgates, Eljudnir (“home of the dead”), and

distributed those who were send to her:the wicked and those who died ofsickness or old age. She welcomed theminto her hall (Damp-With-Sleet) andshared her provisions with them; herplate was Hunger and her knife wasFamine. The dead might even dream ofher embraces or share her Sick-Bed.

Also in Niflheim was Nidhogg (“tearerof corpses”), a monstrous serpent whichgnawed at the roots of the World TreeYggdrasil. The Dread Biter lurked inNastrond, where it ate corpses to sustainitself until the final conflict, aGötterdämmerung that would foreverchange the world. Eventually, both theSeraphim and the Titans had realized thatNidhogg was actually an aspect ofLeviathan - an entity from beyond Realitythat was seeking to enter our world andultimately destroy it. Like the angels andthe other Old Gods, Hel also had visionsof the war with Leviathan that was tocome. When Dr. Schreck reanimated hisdaughter’s body, Hel slipped out of herprison (it would not be the first time -during the Black Plague, which ravagedNorway and other parts of Scandinaviato an even greater degree than the rest ofWestern Europe, Hel was said to travelthe countryside).

Hel then created an avatar byimprinting a portion of her own soul onMargo Schreck’s, modifying it to somedegree. These modifications affectedHela’s appearance, personality andinherent powers, although Margo’soriginal soul and her rearing andenvironment also had an impact. Theresult was a strange mixture of humanand divine. As Hel’s avatar, Hela was thespiritual offspring of Hel, a human beingwhose soul was modified into a closerresemblance to the Essence matrix of theOld Goddess. The result was a womanwho shared many traits with her spiritual“parent,” from powers to personality, butwho was an independent creature withher own free will and destiny.

Margo retained some of her oldintellect, and even though she was nowa zombie, she still had a kind of animalcunning and could even talk, although itwas not a pretty sound. Nobody knows

what she said to her father, but by thetime Walter and the surviving scientistslearned what Dr. Schreck had done, it wastoo late to save him. Hela had murderedHerman and anyone else who hadencountered her since she rose from thedead, and while there wasn’t necessarilymuch left of their bodies after she hadeaten, her victims also rose to becomeher undead slaves. Walter and his menwere now facing an entire pack of zombiesunder Hela’s psychic control; monstersfueled by rage and fresh meat, and witheach casualty their numbers weregrowing. To make matters worse, theirqueen recovered from any damage thatwas done to her. No matter how manyzombies the Nazis destroyed, Hela herselfseemed unstoppable, and soon Munich’sbombed-out ruins were overrun with thewalking dead.

Munich’s top Nazi party official, PaulGiesler, was Gauleiter (district leader) ofBavaria and the holder of an honor badgein gold for his earlier service as a StormTroop leader. Giesler hoped that theproblem could be contained andeliminated before it spread any further -particularly to neighboring Dachau,which provided new material to ProjectGötterdämmerung for Dr. Schreck’sstudies. Located 12 miles north ofMunich, Dachau was one of Germany’sworst and most notorious camps, and hadbeen the scene of medical experiments

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carried out on hundreds of inmates byDr. Schreck’s old friend and colleague, SS-Untersturmführer Dr. Rascher. NeitherGiesler nor anyone else in Munichwanted to see another harrowing of hellin that place. A local organization ofGerman insurgents led by United StatesArmy captain Ruppert Gerngross,however, misunderstood Giesler’sintentions and prevented the authoritiesfrom destroying the bridges leading outof the city so that the Americans wouldhave little trouble getting into town whenthe 7th Army came.

As an ever-growing army of theundead feasted on the people of Munich,Walter wondered if the collapse ofGermany and the rise of the walking deadtallied exactly with what could beexpected of the Black Order’s pact withevil powers. Did the essence of suchmagic lie in sacrifice: an orgy of bloodand destruction? Hela’s judgment wasclouded with rage, and she somehowamplified the hate and bloodlust insideeach and every zombie. The creaturesseemed bent on destruction for its ownsake, not only killing humans, butdestroying buildings or anything elsethat got in their path. Telepathicallyconnected by Hela’s psychic powers,even the most stupid zombies showedan amazing ability to work together,especially when it came to hunting downthe living.

Finally, the surviving scientistscreated an experimental weapon: aMauser that fired a projectile that injectedliquid nitrogen into the target. If Hela’sbrain could be targeted, the gel mightrender her “unconscious” for severalminutes, which might be just enough timefor the humans to transfer her to anotherfacility for study. Also, without theirqueen to keep the lines of communicationopen, the undead would be leaderlessand much more manageable - especiallythose zombies whose brains had alreadybeen damaged or rotted away. Walterdecided that he would be the one to firethe rifle, and a single shot aimed at Hela’sforehead put her down. With no time tospare, the young officer helped thescientists place her body in a specially

prepared drum that would keep Hela insuspended animation.

In the meantime, the remainingGerman troops tried desperately to isolatethe infected residents and the dead.Giesler refused to allow anyone to leavethe city under any circumstances, forcingWalter and his fellow survivors to remainbehind as Hela’s drum (along with theremaining records of the project’sexperiments) was placed on a militarytruck headed for a nearby Occult Corpsresearch facility in Nuremberg.

What they didn’t know at the timewas that the Americans had alreadyreached Nuremberg, and were now onlydays away from Dachau and Munich. Thetruck never reached the facility; an attackby the 7th Army on the German convoykilled the soldiers before the Americanscould learn just what it was they weretransporting. It wasn’t until the Armyliberated Dachau and encountered asmall, cheering crowd in Munich that theAmericans discovered the horrifyingtruth: the ruins were filled with the walkingdead. In several neighborhoods, theGerman troops were still busy fightingfor their lives against the monsters, andthe men of the Army’s 45th Division hada long, vicious room-to-room fight withhungry zombies in Munich’s SS-Reichsschule. The Americans soonlearned what the Germans had alreadydiscovered - their guns were almostuseless against the undead.

The 7th Army fought for as long asthey could, before ultimately calling intactical air forces that dropped enoughbombs on Munich to destroy the lastremaining zombies. The War Departmentbrought Hela’s drum back to the UnitedStates, where it was eventually handedover to the Army’s Chemical, Biological,and Radiological Warfare support unit.The drum was shuffled around for yearsand finally placed in a storage dump nearNew York City. The site was forgottenuntil 1991, when a group of neo-Naziyouths secretly gained access to thedump and found what they were lookingfor. The skinheads took Hela’s drum anddelivered it to Walter Fuhrmann.

HISTORY PART FOUR

“Join hands with the heroes inAmerica, Britain, Iceland, Denmark andother White countries who have raisedthe holy Swastika banner and defendedit with their blood. It has risen from theashes of Berlin, and never shall it behauled down again.”

- George Lincoln Rockwell,founder of the American Nazi Party

Walter had made a narrow escape from

Munich in 1945, when the city’s hungryzombies had ambushed the unsuspecting7th Army. He’d hoped to reach theresearch facility in Nuremberg, but hesoon discovered that the Americans nowoccupied almost all of Bayern. There wasnothing he could do to rescue Margo andit was no longer safe to remain inGermany; the Third Reich was on theverge of collapse. Even Hitler knew thatall hope had gone, although he waited inhis bunker until April 30, 1945 beforecommitting suicide with Eva Braun, whomhe had just married. The date wassignificant: it was the day that ends inWalpurgis Night - the high feast of thepowers of darkness.

As much as Walter loved Germanyand the Reich, this was no longer a placefor him now. Every day the Allies werearresting more of his old comrades;zealous members of the Red Army hadshot many of them on sight. Husbandsand fathers, sons and brothers were beingmade to watch while whole squads ofRussian soldiers violated their women.German militiamen were doused ingasoline and set aflame. Babies with theirheads bashed in littered the floors ofravaged homes. Soviet troops were urgedon by propaganda leaflets proclaiming“The hour of revenge has struck!”

Walter knew that even if the Sovietsdidn’t kill him, the Americans wouldcertainly make him reveal secrets aboutthe Fatherland he was not prepared todivulge. Escape was the only option. Hehad to find some type of escape out ofGermany; out of Europe. He had heardrumors of a way out that could be usedto his advantage - if they were true.

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Travelling to Fusen, a small town outsideof Munich, Walter took refuge in Neu-schwannstein, the lovely picturesquecastle that dominated the region. Insidethe Nazis had hidden mountains ofartistic treasures, and the Allies had notdared to bomb the area. Compared to therest of Germany, Castle Neu-schwannstein was a virtual paradise oftranquility.

Walter soon learned of an org-anization code-named “ODESSA” whichwas equipped with three seperatetentacles reaching around the globe.Tentacle One was assembled byWehrmacht officer Reinhard Gehlen fromthe vast Nazi intelligence service - in itsnew guise it would be known as the“Gehlen Organization” or, simply, “theOrg.” Tentacle Two, the work of SS-Standartenführer Otto Skorzeny, was asystem of “ratlines” used to desert thesinking Reich and relocate prominentNazis in South and Central America,Mexico, the Middle East, and Indonesia.Tentacle Three, also the work of Skorzeny(in collaboration with his father-in-lawHjalmar Schacht, president of Hitler’sReichsbank), handled foreign transportof Third Reich assets. Once abroad,Tentacle Three established dozens offront companies. Through ODESSA,Vessler explained, escape was possible.

After making the necessaryarrangements, Walter found himself inSyria for a time before reaching theBrazilian city of Sao Paulo. Despite thefact that Brazil sent troops to fightalongside the Allies in Europe, itsgovernment had also allowed other Nazisfleeing Germany to settle in the country.In Sao Paulo, eight of them had alreadyfilled a bank vault with millions of dollarsworth of cash, gold bars and jewelrystolen from victims of the Holocaust andplundered from occupied Europe. Thehoard was deposited in the name ofAlbert Blume, a German who came toBrazil before the Second World War andacted as a banker for other Nazis whofled to South America later.

Just as ODESSA had helped Walterand his colleagues escape to Brazil, sodid the U.S. military round up Nazi

scientists and bring them to the UnitedStates. The War Department hadoriginally intended merely to debrief themand send them back to Germany, butwhen it realized the extent of thescientists’ knowledge and expertise, theAmericans decided it would be a wasteto send the scientists back home. TheWar Deparment decided to keep the Naziscientists in America and make them U.S.citizens. By September 1946, “ProjectPaperclip” was bringing even the mostardent Nazi scientists to the UnitedStates to work on America’s behalf duringthe Cold War, and the operation foreleven more years until, in 1957, the WestGerman government protested that theU.S. had stripped it of its “scientificskills.”

In the meantime, while his fellowexpatriates found jobs as “securityadvisers” in Latin America, Walterlearned a great deal from Blume. Drawingupon ODESSA’s hidden assets whileworking for a number of banking andfinancial industries in Brazil, Walteramassed a sizable fortune of his ownbefore moving to Milwaukee, Wisconsinin 1958. Shortly thereafter he became anofficial supporter of George LincolnRockwell’s newly created “American NaziParty” as well as other neo-Naziorganizations, and used his money andinfluence to gain control of them - butthese were not his only goals. Waltersecretly began recruiting Nazi scientistswho, despite their newfound positionsin the American scientific community,were still loyal to Germany. Walter knewthey could be of great use to himpersonally, for he was still obsessed withfinding Margo Schreck.

Walter continued to recruit morescientists over the years until finally, in1991, his neo-Nazi agents discovered anold Army file that had been lost in 1947.Inside was an inventory of several supplydumps in the New York area, includingthe one that Hela’s drum had been storedin. Now 78 years old, Walter would bereunited with his fiancée at last. Agathering of forensic specialists,neurologists, biologists, chemists, andtoxicologists followed Walter to

Manhattan, where they could begin workbehind the façade of a small researchcenter. Between them, these twelvescientists had devoted more than threedecades trying to unlock the secrets ofProject Götterdämmerung’s achieve-ments. Now they could finally put thatresearch to use.

HISTORY PART FIVE

“And now on foreign soil NationalSocialism has gained its first consciousmartyr - a man who did nothing save toenter the lists for Germany which is notonly his sacred right but his duty in thisworld: a man who did nothing saveremember his homeland and pledgehimself to her in loyalty. He, too, wasmurdered, just like so many others... Weunderstand the challenge to battle andwe take up the gage! My dear comrade!You have not fallen in vain!”

- Adolf Hitler

The scientists released Margo fromher drum and began a protracted seriesof tests. They reproduced Dr. Schreck’sformulas, and discovered that even theserum he’d injected into his daughter hadno effect upon their cadavers. Whencombined with the gasses that hadsaturated Margo’s corpse in 1945,however, the resulting compound didanimate lifeless tissue. Walter’s staff wasultimately able to synthesize a poisonousgas that was identical to the combinationof nerve agents that had raised Margofrom the dead, but yet the corpsesreanimated by the gas were no morepowerful than the zombies that Helaherself had created in Munich. It seemedthat the Queen of the Dead’s origin wouldremain a mystery.

Walter ordered the researchcontingent to keep Margo as comfortableas possible, but they also took manyprecautions to ensure that she couldn’tharm them. Hela craved human flesh; fromthe moment the scientists freed her, it wasall she could think of. Walter still hopedthat, if she were kept in a controlledenvironment and remained well fed,perhaps his beloved Margo could be

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reasoned with and could even return withhim to Europe someday. Accordingly, hisscientists made great progress in theirattempts to re-educate and to rehabilitateher.

During this time, Hela discovered thatshe had the power to project her soul tothe domain of the dead. Because she didnot transport herself physically, Margoappeared to be sleeping when she usedthis power, and indeed, at first it seemedlike a dream to her as well - but it was real.There she saw Nidhogg gnawingperpetually at the deepest root ofYggdrasil. There she met the monstroushound Garm, with four eyes and a chestdrenched with blood, which lived in theGnipa-cave and guarded the entrance toHelheim. In Eljudnir, she met Hel’smanservant Ganglati, the Shambling Man,and her maidservant Ganglot, theLurching Woman. Finally, she met Helherself, and learned whom she wasbeholden to.

The link between Hela and Hel wasalready very strong; even in Munich Helused her avatar as a source of informationby seeing through her eyes or sensingeverything going on around her.Likewise, Hel had even “spoken” toEarth’s new Queen of the Dead, be it tooffer advice or to give orders. But evenin Munich, when Hela was purely acreature of instinct, Hel had found it wasnot so easy to take over her mind. Ratherthan try to force Hela to do her bidding,Hel would ask for her obedience.

During her waking hours, she andWalter would often spend much timetogether, but unfortunately, Margo couldnot resist her addiction to flesh. After justa few hours without eating, the ravenoushunger would finally overcome her andHela’s instincts would take over. Whenthat happened, Hela saw no differencebetween old friends and fresh meat. Theflesh had to be living and breathing as itwas being consumed, which meant thatWalter’s neo-Nazis were responsible forfeeding Hela by finding at least two orthree victims each day. At first, thescientists had attempted to feed Hela byimmobilizing a human and allowing herto eat a particular limb or organs from the

victim, so that a single person could bekept alive from one meal to the next.Unfortunately, the scientists quicklydiscovered that Hela’s bodily fluids werejust as poisonous and effective as thegas they had synthesized: she neededonly to bite a living being and the chainreaction would begin. Over time, Walter’smen would abduct more than 10,000people from New York City and thesurrounding region.

Because the neo-Nazis were discreet,they were able to continue their work fornine years without any real trouble fromthe local authorities. Although a numberof infected corpses were either studiedor stored in suspended animation just asHela had been, most of the victims wereincinerated onsite in special crema-toriums before they could become athreat, and their ashes were carefullydisposed of. By 2000, however, agents inthe FBI’s Manhattan field office haddrawn their own conclusions from thelocal investigations into missing persons.When the connection was made to WalterFuhrmann’s research center, the FBIlearned more than enough about him andhis connections to the neo-Nazimovement to suspect that he wasinvolved in some kind of modern-daycontinuation of the Holocaust.

The FBI immediately raided Walter’sresearch center. Special agentssurrounded the facility and fought anumber of heavily armed guards andskinheads before finally closing in on theresearch contingent. Some scientiststried to fight back while others attemptedto escape, and in the confusion thecenter’s zombies were accidentallyreleased - including Hela. For the peopletrapped inside the building with them, itwas as if all Hell had broken loose.Despite his advanced age, Walter foughthis way past panic-stricken agents andhungry zombies (whose rapidly growingnumbers now included dead neo-Nazis,scientists, and FBI agents) before findingHela, who was already feasting on livingflesh. Incredibly, instead of attackingWalter, she agreed to come with him.Together they nearly escaped from thecenter, but an FBI agent confronted them

both and shot Walter in the head. Theold man was dead; his brains had literallybeen blown out.

Hela killed the terrified FBI agentbefore returning to Walter Fuhrmann’sdead body. Margo Schreck loved Walter,but Hela loved the tender taste of hisbrains even more. Hela then took theclothes from a dying skinhead while herangry, starving zombies overwhelmedthe remaining FBI agents and attackedthe reinforcements. For the first time infifty-five years, the Queen of the Deadwas free, and her thoughts were cloudedwith rage. She wanted revenge, andreawakened intelligence combined withthe powers of a goddess meant that shewould have it! STORY IDEANIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD GIRL

“This is what we thank these deadfor: in one of the worst periods of Germanhistory, they set the example.”

- Adolf Hitler

This Story is unique in that it allowsCast Members to take part in the livingdead girl’s history before the present day.Specifically, during the events of 1945,when flesh-eating zombies walked inMunich. Such an adventure could eitherbegin with the creation of Hela and hersubsequent rampage through the city’sruins, or shortly after the Queen of theDead was placed in suspended animationand transported to Nuremberg, in whichcase she would play no direct part in theadventure and her zombies would nothave the “Teamwork” capability.

Using the archetypes and charactercreation rules from the AFMBEdeadworld “Mein Zombie,” CastMembers can play either Allied orGerman soldiers. If the adventure beginswith Hela’s creation, German soldiersloyal to Walter Fuhrmann and GauleiterPaul Giesler would be responsible forprotecting the project scientists whilesimultaneously trying to destroy herzombies. The creation of the experimentalMauser (see AFMBE p166 for details)and Hela’s eventual capture would

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depend on their success. Failure to stopHela in time could even lead to thecreation of a small army of disfiguredzombies in Dachau!

Other Germans, and any Alliedsoldiers in Munich at that time, couldpossibly be insurgents like RuppertGerngross. Such player characters wouldbe at more of a disadvantage thanWalter’s men, because they would notinitially know what the zombies were orwhere they had come from. Also, theycould be in just as much danger wheneverthey encountered German soldiers. Couldsoldiers of both sides work together? Orare the differences too great?

If the adventure begins after Helawas captured, then Cast Members couldtake on the role of Allied soldiers in the7th Army who had already liberatedDachau and just arrived in Munich. Theytoo would be threatened not only byzombies, but by the last remaining Germansoldiers as well. Again, could soldiers ofboth sides work together? Because theAllied soldiers in this adventure wouldnot be responsible for guarding anyone,and an Avatar would not be among theantagonists, this adventure would be amuch more traditional “seek and destroy”zombie scenario than the previous one.Characters from the Army’s 45th Divisionmight find the room-to-room fight withhungry zombies in Munich’s SS academyespecially challenging.

STORY IDEACLEAN AND FLOSS

“He who lives the life of a criminalwants to avoid being seen as one. Hisdark behavior forces him to wear themask of the ordinary man, the mask ofthe harmless.”

- Julius Streicher,publisher of Der Stürmer

In this Story, Margo Schreck hid in

Manhattan after escaping during the raidon Walter’s research center. She soondiscovered that New York City wasindeed the city that never sleeps, packedwith more places to go, more things todo, and more people to feed on than

anywhere else in the United States ofAmerica.

Her experiences in Munich hadtaught Margo that if she alerted mankindto her presence, and made her true natureknown to them, the humans would bandtogether once more to hunt Hela and herzombies to extinction. This time, theQueen of the Dead would feed asnecessary but keep a low profile, so thatshe could remain above the law, abovesociety, and above everyone else’sjudgment but her own. She would answerto nothing but her own insatiable hunger.

Presently, Hela is careful to not useher powers where humans could seethem, and she disguises her prey’sdisappearance or cause of death so asnot to arouse the suspicions of theauthorities (a process she calls “cleaningand flossing”). Using her powers overthe undead, Hela ensures that thezombies she creates are either destroyedor learn her ways.

Zombie Masters might considerallowing Cast Members to play FBIagents who are still searching for thismuch more subtle version of Hela in theNew York City area. Alternatively,BUREAU 13: STALKING THE NIGHTFANTASTIC game masters allow theirplayers to take on the role of Bureau 13agents, while NIGHTLIFE City Plannerscan just as easily substitute Target Alphafor the FBI. CONSPIRACY X GameMasters might adapt the Living DeadGirl’s history to their own campign settingand use both The Watch (during theevents of the “Night of the Living DeadGirl” Story Idea in 1945) and Aegis (forany modern day adventures) in place ofother government agencies.

NIGHTLIFE City Planners as well asWORLD OF DARKNESS Storytellersmay also consider using this version ofthe Queen of the Dead in their owncampaigns as well, although players withundead characters might not appreciateit. For example, Hela could use herpowers to rise through the ranks of oneof NIGHTLIFE’s anti-human factions(such as The Complex), or to seize controlof The Sabbat in VAMPIRE: THEMASQUERADE. In any event, her

motives would be similar to those in “TheFinal Solution” Story Idea: the creationof a new Fourth Reich with herself as itsFührer. For game masters of super-heroRPGs, this version of the Queen of theDead might even make an interestingsuper-villainess.

STORY IDEATHE FINAL SOLUTION

“Only when the dying society stillhas enough life-energy to produce aspiritual giant, a godlike throwback tothe ancient heroism of its people who isable to shock and drive the civilizationout of its natural historical night of sleepand death, in spite of the suicidalopposition of the dying peoples wholong only for ‘peace’ and the slumber ofdeath, can a society once again rise fora while.”

-George Lincoln Rockwell,founder of the American Nazi Party

In this Story, by the time the

Department of Defense realized what hadhappened, the living throughout thenortheastern United States and Canadawere already fighting a battle just tosurvive. Hela’s zombies took everyoneby surprise and gained a great deal ofground before the authorities gatheredthe wherewithal to respond.

New York and the neighboring statesand provinces were the first to fall intochaos, partly because the undead werepulling down phone and power lines, aswell as destroying power plants andelectrical substations, leavingcommunities without power or phones.The panic among the populace onlymade matters worse. Many went outrightmad at the sight of their dead friends andrelatives eating the flesh of the living,and arson, looting and even outrightrobbery became commonplace. Flamingcities have become deathtraps formillions, caught on congested roads bythe zombies, and there seems to be noway of stopping this endless tide of thewalking dead. It simply grows larger andlarger with every passing hour.

For Hela, this is only the beginning

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of her Final Solution: every man, woman,and child on earth must die. The drivingforce behind the undead, the Avatar ofan evil goddess would also be the heartand soul of a new Fourth Reich: akingdom of zombies, with a living deadgirl as its queen and Führer.

Hela’s path of destruction has so farearned her an army of zombies 95 millionstrong and mastery of the United Stateseast of the Mississippi River. That areais dominated by zombies, although therea few pockets of humans in this region,notably in Chicago and Detroit. Hela’smission accelerated greatly after hersubjugation of Washington DC, but thenew president has set up a command postunder Davenport, Iowa, and startedseveral military and scientific operationsagainst her.

As these operations continued to fail,the Fourth Reich pushed toward MiddleAmerica. The United States governmenthastily constructed a fortified wall on thewest bank of the Mississippi River andput the remaining U.S. under martial law.Under pressure from foreign nations, theU.S. has officially ceased operationsagainst Hela, hoping to placate her. Asthings stand now, the country is a nationdivided, but it’s only a matter of timebefore the Queen of the Dead resumesher westward expansion.

Zombie Masters may allow CastMembers to play normal humansdesperately trying to survive, or possiblysurvivors dedicated to destroying Helaand stopping the slaughter.Alternatively, ZMs may allow CastMembers to play intelligent zombies orhumans who have joined Hela’s undeadarmy. Hela’s influence has become sowidespread that she even has alliesamong the living. With the Fourth Reichseeming almost inevitable, some amongthe living (particularly neo-Nazis) arebeginning to think about their lives afterdeath. Many living humans have becomethe new Führer’s supporters andinformants in exchange for preferentialtreatment after their demise!

NIGHTLIFE City Planners who wishto make use of the KINRISE supplementcould use this Story Idea as a background

for their own post-holocaust campaign.In this case, a European or Asian nationmay have decided that the spread ofzombies had to stop, and ordered a fullnuclear strike against North America forthe sake of mankind. The resulting“Spasm War” would change the face ofthe planet, but just as in KINRISE theundead would survive the nuclear winter.ZMs may adapt the AFMBE deadworld“After the Bomb” to such a campaignsetting as well.

STORY IDEAKINGDOM COME

“A horror will spread across theworld, driving into the hearts of all thosewho did not want to hear or see at atime when the misery could still havebeen halted!”

Julius Streicher, publisher of DerStürmer

This Story Idea’s premise is almostidentical to “Living Dead Girl: The FinalSolution,” but it takes a much more drasticturn. In “Kingdom Come,” Hela’s zombiesnot only spread throughout thenortheastern United States and Canada,but throughout the entire world as well.While New York and the neighboringstates and provinces were falling intochaos, intelligent and problem-solvingzombies boarded flights at John F.Kennedy International Airport andclimbed aboard ships headed for theAtlantic Ocean. Soon the dead wererising around the world, and the slaughterhad begun in earnest.

At least one European or Asian nationmust have decided that the spread ofzombies from North America had to stop,and ordered a full nuclear strike againstthe United States and Canada for the sakeof mankind. The resulting “Spasm War”changed the face of the planet, as theattack on North America started a chainreaction. The United States struck back.Fallout and stray hits brought othernations into the war, while some panic-stricken nations fired their missiles ateveryone. Before anyone knew it, World

War III had started and finished. The electromagnetic pulse (EMP)

from the first blasts had wiped out mostelectronic devices; United States citizenswho were already tuned into theEmergency Broadcast System forinformation about the zombies neverknew what hit them. All majormetropolitan centers became ragingbonfires; their inhabitants becametorches of flesh. Yet elsewhere it wasgetting very cold. The sun was gone; thecrippling cold of nuclear winter hadbegun. The mass exodus of survivors fromthe burning cities caused quite a fewproblems. The military was already tryingto quarantine the zombies and anyinfected victims, but the civilians wantednothing more than to escape the burningwreckage. The ensuing battle was ugly.The military was better armed, but notnearly as desperate as the mobs ofrefugees, or as dangerous as theradioactive zombies that had survivedand still hungered for human flesh!

Hela may or may not have survivedthe war herself, and the would-beFührer’s presence (or the lack of it) wouldmake a significant difference in the worldto come. Zombie Masters are free todecide for themselves whether she didor not, but in any event they mightconsider adapting the AFMBE deadworld“After the Bomb” and its own Story Ideasto this setting. NIGHTLIFE City Plannerswho wish to make use of the KINRISEsupplement could use “Kingdom Come”a background for their own post-holocaust campaign.

STORY IDEATWILIGHT OF THE GODS

“A priest recently asked me: “Butwhat about eternity...?” I replied: “A dayin National Socialist Germany is betterfor me than all of your Heaven.”

Dr. Robert Ley, Reich OrganizationLeader and head of the German LaborFront (DAF)

In this Story, the Time of Reckoningis at hand. Götterdämmerung has begun.

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Magic and the supernatural havebecome a factor in the lives of every livingperson. Beings of tremendous power walkthe Earth again — the Old Gods ofmythology side by side with Angels andDemons and even stranger creatures.These beings have returned to the worldto fight an enemy that threatens their veryexistence, and that of our entire universe.Leviathan has risen in the East, and hasalready seized over half of the planet.

Led by the Dark Apostle, the Believersof Leviathan want nothing less than thetotal submission of humankind. Onlywhen every living human being worshipsLeviathan will this being manifest itselfon our reality. Traitors, both human andsupernatural, lend their resources to themonstrous armies of the Dark Apostle,tilting the balance to his favor. If theBelievers triumph, the world as we knowit will cease to exist, transformed into areflection of the twisted mind ofLeviathan, the Outsider who was cast outby the Creator at the beginning of time.

The call of Leviathan is seductive,offering power and the fulfillment of one’sdarkest desires. And, slowly but surely,the number of converts is growing.

This is the setting of the ARMA-GEDDON roleplaying game, but with animportant difference. While the otherNorse gods have been especially activein their war against Dark Apostle’sChurch of Revelations, Hel knows that ifshe destroys every living man, woman,and child on Earth, Leviathan can neversucceed. Her Avatar, Hela, is responsiblefor carrying out this Final Solution. As in“The Final Solution” Story Idea, Helaenvisions a new Fourth Reich of theundead, with herself as its queen andFührer. Her zombies oppose the warmachine of the Army of Revelation andclash in battlefields around the world. Inthe Otherworlds, the war rages as well;even the Nine Worlds of the Norse godsare not exempt from invasion by thefollowers of Leviathan.

Obviously, Hela’s aspects wouldensure that The Church of Revelations’order of undead beings, the UndyingKnights of Sheol, would be much lesseffective in the “Twilight of the Gods”setting than they are in a traditional

ARMAGEDDON campaign. To makematters worse for the Knights, Hela wouldview their chief agent, the reanimatedcorpse of premier Nazi troubleshooter SS-Standartenführer Otto Skorzeny, as atraitor to the Reich and would go out ofher way to destroy him personally.Adepts of the Fifth Circle might also wishto reconsider using their powers to raisehordes of the recently dead.

Zombie Masters have several optionsin “Twilight of the Gods.” They mayeither Cast Members to play humansdesperately trying to survive in a GreatWar where souls are the ultimate prize, oras in AFMBE’s “Rebirth into Death”deadworld, they may might allow CastMembers to play neo-Nazis andintelligent zombies who have joinedHela’s undead army. ARMAGEDDONChroniclers have even more optionsavailable to them, and may also allowplayer character True Immortals,Inheritors, Nephilim, Kerubim, Seraphim,and even other Avatars to help determinethe fate of mankind.

STORY IDEATAINTED MEAT

“Our holy hate will bring us victoryand save all of mankind.”

- Ernst Heimer,Julius Streicher’s second-in-command

This Story Idea’s premise and

adventure hooks are almost identical tothose in “Twilight of the Gods,” but withone major difference. In this Story, Helcreated her Avatar to seek out anddestroy anyone who bears the Mark ofLeviathan. In Munich, Hela’s hunger wasinsatiable because it can only be satisfiedby the flesh of True Believers, and notby that of normal human beings. Herzombies crave this Tainted meat as well,and will do anything to get it!

In the “Tainted Meat” setting, WalterFuhrmann was a Gifted man who learneda great deal from the Order of the BlackKnights, and cultivated his occultpowers throughout his life. He learnedthe truth about Nidhogg long before thefuture Dark Apostle, Johann Goering,

was born, and he discovered why Helahad been created. Walter imagined that ifhe could only find his beloved Margo,perhaps she could be reasoned with andmade to understand just what it was thatshe really hungered for.

Accordingly, when Margo was finallybrought to Walter’s research center, hisscientists made great progress in theirattempts to re-educate and to rehabilitateher. But the Adversary would not allowthat to happen, and it ensured that thecenter was raided and that the men insideof it were killed. Hela, however, hadalready learned more than enough aboutLeviathan... and the Queen of the Deadhad escaped.

The rules for both Hela and herzombies in a “Tainted Meat” campaignare also slightly different. They stillpossess the “Life Sense” ability, but inthis deadworld it only senses TrueBelievers and any other beings bearingthe Mark of Leviathan. Likewise, theirhunger is only satisfied by the Taintedflesh of creatures that bear the Mark.Neither Hela nor her zombies prey onnormal human beings unless such foodis not available (such as in Munich in1945), in which case the desperate andstarving zombies will take any meaty bitof living flesh they can sink their teethinto.

Of the various “Living Dead Girl”Story Ideas, “Tainted Meat” presents themost sympathetic version of Hela and herzombies. As with “Twilight of the Gods,”Cast Members to play humansdesperately trying to survive in a GreatWar where souls are the ultimate prize, orZombie Masters may might allow CastMembers to play neo-Nazis andintelligent zombies who have joinedHela’s undead army. Again,ARMAGEDDON Chroniclers have evenmore options available to them, and mayalso allow player character TrueImmortals, Inheritors, Nephilim, Kerubim,Seraphim, and even other Avatars to helpdetermine the fate of mankind.

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Statistics:Strength: 11Dexterity: 5Constitution: 8Intelligence: 4Perception: 8Willpower: 6Dead Points: n/aSpeed: 26Endurance Points: n/aEssence Pool: 82

Known Qualities/Drawbacks:Adversary (humanity) 5Attractive 4 (+4 to any task or test that involves making an

impression on other people.)Beholden (Hel, Norse Goddess of Death, see Armageddon

pp198-199) 5Covetous (human flesh; Difficult Willpower Test must also

be made every hour with cumulative penalties) 3Cruel 2Contacts (Neo-Nazis) 4Delusion (Prejudice: rabid white supremacist) 3Fast Reaction Time (+1 on Willpower Tests to resist fear.)Hard to Kill 5 (+5 bonus to Survival Tests.)Nerves of Steel 3 (+4 bonus to Fear Tests.)Obsession (Genocide.)Situational Awareness (+2 to any Perception-based rolls to

sense trouble or danger.)Zealot (National Socialism.)

Skills:Acrobatics 2Beautician 2Brawling 5Climbing 2Dancing (Folk) 2Dodge 2Driving (Motorcycle) 3Driving (Truck) 2First Aid 2

Guns (all) 1Hand Weapon (Axe) 2Hand Weapon (Club) 1Hand Weapon (Knife) 2Humanities (German) 2Intimidation 3Language (English) 2Language (German) 5Myth & Legend (Norse) 4Notice 2

Occult Knowledge (Germanic) 1Riding (Horse) 2Running (Dash) 1Seduction 1Singing 1Stealth 4Swimming 2Thrown (Knife) 1Thrown (Javelin) 2

Attack:According to weapon type or see below

Weak Spot:None

Getting Around:The Quick Dead (base Dexterity 3, base speed 18)Burrowing (No more than a couple of feet per minute.)Leaping (Can leap up to 6' in height and forward up to 12'.)The Lunge (+2 Initiative in close combat.)Aquatic (Underwater Speed: 3.)Climbing (Climbing Speed: 3' per turn.)

Strength:Monstrous Strength (base 7)Damage Resistant (All weapons except fire and chemicals

do half damage.)Iron Grip (Strength for gripping equal to 14.)Claws (D6(3) x Strength in armor-piercing, slashing damage.)Teeth (-3 to hit in close combat, damage equals 6 per turn.)The Hug of Death (-2 to hit in close combat, Strength once

hugging equal to 14, damage equals D4(2) x 10 per turn.)Senses:

Like Nothing You’ve Ever SeenLife Sense (Range: 80 yards.)Scent Tracking (Perception 16 for purposes of smelling.)

HELA - The Living Dead Girl

Sustenance:Who Needs Food? (But see also Covetous.)All Flesh Must Be Eaten

Intelligence:LanguageLong-Term MemoryProblem Solving (Note that 15+ Dead Points inflicted to the

head will immediately reduce the Hela’s intelligence to“Dumb as Dead Wood” until the damage is regenerated.It takes 15 Dead Points to grow a new brain, or 20 DeadPoints to grow a whole new head.)

Teamwork (Range: see the aspect “Death Speech” below.Note that this feature is a does not work if Hela iscurrently inanimate or “Dumb as Dead Wood.”)

Spreading the Love:One Bite and You’re Hooked (Mixing bodily fluids or blood

with Margo Schreck affects both the living and the dead.An infected but otherwise unharmed victim usually dieswithin several hours and goes straight from living toundead. Infected corpses rise up as zombies in 3-30minutes.)

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KNOWN ASPECTS

ImmortalityHela heals 1 Dead Point per Willpower level every 5 seconds (one combat turn). If a limb is severed and not reattached, a

replacement will grow out. Even beheading is not final! Unless her body is completely destroyed, such as being burnt to ashesor dissolved in acid, she will regenerate any damage and eventually return to unlife. Being at ground zero for a large explosion(something that inflicted 300+ points of damage) would also do the trick. It takes the same number of Dead Points to grow a newlimb as it does to destroy one and 100 or more to regenerate her entire body — see “Flesh Notes” (AFMBE p147) for specificvalues. Death Sight

This is nearly identical to the aspect described in Armageddon, p191. Hela is uniquely attuned to the approach of death. Shecan sense terminal disease and imminent death among those around her (as per the “Death Sight” power in WitchCraft p240).Through those same senses, she can also see ghosts and other errant spirits wandering the Earth. Death Speech (Strength 16; Art 5)

Hela can communicate telepathically with any undead, even if they do not possess the “Language” ability. This aspect workslike the power “Mindtalk” (WitchCraft p228) except that it cannot be used with living creatures. The range of this connection is36 miles per Willpower level of Hela and, if the target does not resist, the undead being spoken to. Hela automatically establishescontact with any zombies descended from her; this forms the basis of their Teamwork ability, and their connection may beconsidered a Gestalt (see WitchCraft p226). She can also use this aspect to read both the minds of undead creatures and those of corpses whether the body is currentlyundead or not. An inanimate brain that has suffered 15 points of damage or more, however, cannot normally be read. As before,the range of this aspect is 36 miles per Hela’s Willpower level. If the target is undead and Hela has already gained lordship overit, then the individual’s Willpower level is added to the range. See the full description of the “Mindsight” power (WitchCraft p227)for more details.

Finally, Hela can use Death Speech to send a deafening psychic “scream” that can inflict (D4(2) x Death Speech Strength)points of damage on the undead, as per the “Mindkill” power in WitchCraft p234. Surviving victims lose all actions for 1 Turn, andwill be at a penalty of -4 on all Tasks and Tests for 1 additional Turn per Success Level of the attack. The range of the scream islimited to 2 yards per Strength level unless Hela has already gained Lordship over the victim(s), in which case the range is thesame as normal Death Speech. If Hela screams at zombies that are descended from her, they are automatically destroyed andcannot be reanimated. Domain of the Dead

This aspect works differently than the one listed in Armageddon p191. By concentrating for one turn, Hela can project hersoul, as per the “Soul Projection” power (WitchCraft p221), to Helheim in the Realm of the Dead known as Niflheim. Because shedoes not transport herself physically, Hela spends no Essence points and there seems to be no time limit. Hela appears to besleeping when she uses this aspect. Death Lordship (Strength 16; Art 5)

This ability combines Hela’s “Domain of the Dead” aspect with “Death Speech,” and in practice resembles two magicalpowers: “Mindrule” (WitchCraft p228) and “Death Lordship” (p239). Hela can only use this aspect against other undead,including the Restless Dead and Vampyres. She automatically rules any zombies that have descended from her; they have nodefense. Other undead may attempt to resist her commands.

To first use Death Lordship against an individual undead creature, Hela must be within 2 yards per Strength level. Victims canthen be made to follow her instructions via Death Speech at its normal range, and if necessary Hela can even replace the victim’smind with her own, taking total control. See the description of these two powers for more details.

HELA - The Living Dead Girl (continued...)

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Skills:Brawling 2+Possibly more skills depending on Intelligence (see below)

Attack:

Bite damage D4 x 2 (4) slashing or according to weapon type Weak Spot:

None Getting Around:

Varies (Ranges from “Slow and Steady” to “Life-Like” depending on the body’s physical condition.) Strength:

Varies (Ranges from “Ninety-Pound Weakling” to “Dead Joe Average” depending on the body’s physical condition.) Senses:

Varies (Ranges from “Like the Dead” to “Like the Living” depending on the physical condition of the sense organs.)Life Sense (Range: 20 to 40 yards.)

Sustenance:

Who Needs Food?All Flesh Must Be Eaten

Intelligence:

Varies (Ranges from “Dumb as Dead Wood” to “Problem Solving” depending on the brain’s physical condition, and can alsoinclude “Language” - note that 15+ Dead Points inflicted to the zombie’s head will immediately reduce its intelligence to“Dumb as Dead Wood.”)Teamwork (Hela’s zombies can communicate telepathically with her and each other. This connection is limited to within 36miles per Willpower level of Hela and the individual zombies. Zombies descended from Hela automatically establish contactwith their queen when they are within range; this forms the basis of their Teamwork ability, and the connection may beconsidered a Gestalt (see WitchCraft p226). Note that this feature does not work if Hela is currently inanimate or unable to keepthe line of communication open with her zombies.)

Spreading the Love:

One Bite and You’re Hooked (Mixing bodily fluids or blood with a zombie affects both the living and the dead. An infected butotherwise unharmed victim usually dies within several hours and goes straight from living to undead. Infected corpses rise upas zombies in 3-30 minutes.)

Special:

Varies (Possibilities include “Diseased Corpse” and “Noxious Odor.”)Regeneration (Living Dead Girl zombies regain 1 Dead Point per minute.)

Power: Varies (ranges from 25 to 62+)

LIVING DEAD GIRL ZOMBIESStatistics:

Strength: 1 to 2Dexterity: 1 to 2Constitution: 2Intelligence: -2 to level held during lifePerception: 1 to 2

Willpower: 2Dead Points: n/aSpeed: 2 to 4Endurance Points: n/aEssence Pool: 6+

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What is a conzone?Originating in the thankfully brief period of SPP rule in

Britain, the economic containment zones (or conzones) wereset up to allow the repressive government to keep the sociallydeprived people tucked away. Later, they were to be used ascamps for the accommodation of those who opposed the SPP.Out of sight, out of mind, as the saying has it. Now the SPP aregone, and yet the new Republic’s government keeps theconzones alive, albeit under a different title and for allegedlydifferent reasons. This change, as the media call it, a ‘SocialCompromise’.

Now known as Special Category Estates, these areas arefilled with those people claiming welfare benefits who are unableto find accommodation elsewhere. Indeed, it is part of theconditions placed on many welfare claimants that they arerequired to reside in the Estates, until they can find long-termemployment. This happens infrequently at best, as living in aconzone or SCE carries a stigma which itself makes it harder forthe occupants to find work. Many of these people would infact be slightly better off if they became ballotmen, selling theirvoting rights to corporations in exchange for basic food andhousing under the terms of the Voting Proxy and Private WelfareAct. However, many Britons still find this to be unpalatableand so seek welfare assistance from the vastly over-stretchednew government. In certain ways these areas are very muchlike corporate housing compounds but are instead run jointlyby the Home Office and the newly formed Department for SpecialCategory Administration.

Although the original conzones were formed temporarilyand in haste by the SPP, it looks as though they are here tostay, albeit in a modified form. What long-term effects this mayhave on the Republic are as yet unclear, but it is certain thatfuture governments will have to address the poverty and socialdeprivation that exists in these areas. Otherwise, like theunloved SPP, they may arouse the wrath of the populace atlarge, tipping the country into fresh unrest. Then again thegovernment must be careful not to over react, as they did in thetown of Exeter when a suspected political coup was quashedwith the help of the Army. Fully a quarter of the buildings in the

Exeter conzone were damaged or destroyed, with 7 civilianfatalities sustained during the indiscriminate firing. In the endthese ‘revolutionaries’ turned out to be a group of 13 formerlow level SPP officials, who combined could muster only 6assault rifles and 3 submachine guns. Planning originally torob a local bank and use the funds to flee abroad, all but twowere killed in a running battle with the soldiers. As a result theConzies around the country have become noticeably moredistrustful of the government. Indeed, this may be why thecurrent government is a little nervous when discussing theSCE issue in public.

Life in the zonesThe basic day to day rules for living in a Conzone/SCE are

relatively simple. If you want to leave the area, for example togo and exchange your food vouchers, you pass through the‘forts’ that stand at the official entry/exit points. Your ID card isscanned and logged into the police computer. Upon your return,you are checked off the list. The act of leaving a conzone,legally or otherwise, is known as going into ‘the world’. Accessto the zone is denied between 10pm and 6am, when a full curfewis in effect and armed police patrol the perimeter of the zone inan attempt to keep the area secure. If an occupant is late inreturning, they will be questioned before being allowed backin, but anyone trying to get out after 10pm is arrested on sight.Those absconding from the Conzones are usually tracked downwithin hours by Britain’s own bounty hunters, Breakers, andare brought straight back to the local authorities.

Are you living in a zone? Then you can expect to be calledconzie or dreggie when you go out into ‘the world’. Theseepithets, originally insults, have quickly become badges ofpride among some conzone youth gangs. Many of these youthgangs in the larger conzones even look strange to outsiders.Having never known anything else, they form into groups whogo all out to look completely different to all of the other groups,while also trying to alarm the other residents of the zone.Whether a ganger or not, so far as the rest of the population isconcerned as a conzie you speak differently, you smell different,your ID card is a different colour and you are subject to different

Containment Zones by Lee Williams

“Unless we are able to develop a coherent philosophy of social order, and apply it, the streets of many of our cities will bepoliced by quasi-military formations within five years. Two forms of policing will therefore emerge. One for those enclaves wherethe combination of relative poverty, social breakdown and alienation have become pronounced; the other, more benign, wherethe successful people live. The former will operate without the consent of the residents and take on repressive characteristics.The detection of crime in such areas will plummet through lack of public co-operation. These occupied zones will be the breedinggrounds of crime and will be potentially riotous.”

- John Alderson, former Chief Constable of Devon & Cornwall Police, quoted in The Observer newspaper, 1986

by Lee Williams

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laws. Whatever your age, even if you make it in the world youwill never quite shake off the label of ‘conzie’.

As might be expected, petty crime is rife in certain zones.However, serious offences such as murder are not at all common,mainly because everyone gets to know everyone else. Anythingthat would upset the somewhat quirky local moral code isgenerally dealt with internally. The police often find those whohave defied local conventions tied to the gateposts of the entry/exit stations when they come off night patrol at dawn, withcards around their necks explaining the alleged offences. Mostoften the offenders are unharmed, but have been carried awayfrom their homes in the night by mobs and subjected to a terrorcampaign before being left for the police. If there is no basis forthe allegations, then they are usually moved quickly to otherzones. Often however, they admit their offences and are tried inCourt for them. Although the official line is that the RegionalPolice Commissioners are strictly against the inhabitants takingthe law into their own hands, the local patrol officers are secretlygrateful for the assistance.

The zones are also very good places for Breakers to plytheir trade. Most Breakers have at least one contact in each ofthe major zones, and some are also adept at blending in withthe locals should it become necessary. Indeed, several are from

these areas and take a certain pride in the fact that they wereinstrumental in starting the street fighting that led to thedownfall of the SPP a few years back. As mentioned earlier, oneof the most common duties of a Breaker is the apprehensionand return of runners, usually teenaged conzies who illegallyleave the zones to look for excitement or who just like causingbother to the authorities.

The Social CompromiseSimply put, the Social Compromise is a leash on one’s

freedoms; as a bank or other financial institution would placecertain restrictions on those who borrow money from it, sodoes the government in placing certain social restrictions onthose who seek aid from them. This of course means therestrictions on movement and so on. Although the moredemocratic parties oppose this, they are as yet unable to comeup with a better solution. Therefore, the politicians argueendlessly about the future of the conzones, whilst the conziesthemselves don’t even tend to vote at all and don’t usuallycare. From where they are, it doesn’t matter in the slightest whois in charge, as they won’t change anything anyway.

Vision Things

Goals Information Brokers, TrainersMethods ShadowsEmpathic Philosophy MysticsOrganisation Anarchic groupAssets Rating FewSize 18 membersLevel of Activity MediumRelations with other Cells Cautious, but they try to

maintain good relations withany others they encounter

Headquarters ManchesterRelations with ETs None as yet

Description: The Vision Things were originally a local fanclub for a British Goth band. At one of their annual conventions, aRavager decided to join the fun. Since then, the survivors have formedinto a relatively secret cell, gathering information on weird happeningsas best they can and utilising their somewhat limited knowledge ofEmpathy to train newcomers in what they see as the mystical arts.Although their Gothic roots and ideas sometimes cause merrimentand even outright disbelief in others, they have been able to keep theManchester area reasonably clear of Darkling activity. Not to beunderestimated in the struggle against the Darkness

The Runners

Goals Gain power for the Dark racesMethods AnyEmpathic Philosophy MysticOrganisation Dictatorial unitAssets Rating AdequateSize 8 membersLevel of Activity HighRelations with ETs View ETs as tools to use for

their own purposesRelations with other Cells Good to begin with, later they

intend to lure other cells intoelaborate traps

Headquarters London

Description: The Runners are a group that is run by Igors, inthrall to a Dark Lord who intends to have the British Isles as his owndomain. They will use any method to reach their goals, but will continuethe appearance of a genuine cell until the last possible moment. Theywill hunt down any who succeed in opposing their plans, sometimeswaiting for years before striking.

by Lee Williams

New Empathic Cells by Lee Williams

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DarkTek

Dark Devices by A. Shane Murphy

Empathic ScreamersThis relatively new darkling device is best described as “a combination of an organic computer and an esperlink”. The main

component in the device is the brain tissue of neuropaths. These samples are cut into thin slices and arranged in a manner similarto an organic computer. The pain receptors in each slice is then bombarded with constant stimuli which results in the tissue“screaming” in empathetic agony. This has the effect of making all rolls using human empathy, darkling empathy, animal empathy,telepathy and all cascade skills two levels more difficult, if they are attempted within the screamers area of effect. If this puts thedifficulty past impossible, then that roll will automatically fail!

The size of the “Screamer” determines its area of effect. While the average portable Screamer can effectively block out adiameter of up to one kilometer, non-portable Screamers are much more powerful.

Wt. 4 kgPrice: N/A (-/-)

Dimensional VinersAppearing like other viners, these organisms have been bred with a new mutation: making any use of Dimension Walk (and

all cascades) 2 levels more difficult to use inside their confines. How this is accomplished is unknown. Speculation has it that oneof the Dark Lords aimed to be able to house its minions in an area free from Minion Hunter incursions. To be affected by the D-viner one must be inside its boundaries, merely being near one has no effect. It is an all or nothing process, and the roll is onlylimited if the Hunter is enclosed on all sides. Dark Elves have adopted the name D-Viners for these mutant constructs.

Wt: variablePrice: N/A (-/-)

Inferno BladesThese knives appear as black, non-reflective 8” commando knives. Though at first glance these seem completely normal, they

are, in fact, far from it. The Obsidian people make these blades in Gehenna for other dark minions who serve the same master.When the weapon is drawn, the metal blade begins to generate vast amounts of heat. Why it does so is open to speculation,

however it appears to be an inherent property of the metal itself and not the Proto-Dimension where it was forged. Measurementsof the blade itself indicate that the metal reaches temperatures as high as 600 degrees Fahrenheit. The handle and sheath of theknife are immune to this effect, remaining cool to the touch, even when the blade is drawn. Thus, it is safe to carry and use, so longas one doesn’t touch the blade.

Wt: 1.0 kg (including sheath)Price: N/A (-/-)

Rng Hit Mod Damage WeightInferno Blade S +2 3d6 0.5kg

Three new Darkling devices for Dark Conspiracyby A. Shane Murphy

“What is the one piece of equipment that is absolutely essential to a Minion Hunter?I’d say without hesitation - a good pair of running shoes.

“Because sooner or later, the shit is going to come down hard, and it’s not going to bea matter of whether you can outrun the monster, but whether you can outrun the otherpotential happy-meals-on-legs fleeing with you.”

- Zena Marley (Early 21st -century mercenary-philosopher)

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Necromancy Mask by Pål Wilhelmsen

DescriptionNecromancy Masks appear as exquisitely carved or crafted

masks, sometimes painted, but unadorned by jewels, rare metals,or other valuable materials. Masks are representative of theirorigin, and will be made of materials common to the region.Such materials include a variety of woods, bamboo, bone, stone,hide, or shell.

History and OriginThe exact origin and number of the Necromancy Masks is

not known to the Hoffman Institute, except that they seem toappear independent of culture, history or ethnicity. There aretwo known masks, The Oseberg Mask and The Lagos Mask.

Captain Neal Westward of the British army brought theLagos Mask to London from Lagos, Nigeria in 1862. The maskhad been taken from slavers in a lesson of Imperial justice. Itwas later donated to the British Museum after a few years atthe Westward estate in Surrey, England. Since 1948, BritishMuseum officials have refused to let anyone outside of themuseum staff study it. Rumors say that it may no longer be inthe possession of the museum, due to theft or by design.

The Oseberg Mask was buried with the Oseberg Queenand her longship in 838 not far from Tonsberg, Norway. Theship had been plundered sometime during the Middle Ages ofall valuables, but the thieves had missed, or not dared to take,a few occult items. The mask re-entered history again when theOseberg ship was discovered and unearthed in 1904. Most ofthe findings from the Oseberg ship were made public and evendisplayed at the Vikingskiphuset museum in Oslo, Norway. Themask’s magic abilities became apparent in 1928, six monthsafter the mask had been moved to a storehouse near a cemetery.When Hoffman Institute agents visited Oslo in 1928 toinvestigate a series of killings with occult aspects, evidencepointed toward the mask, and so it was moved to a safer location.The Oseberg mask has been missing since World War II,possibly in the possession of the Nazis or Odessa.

There have probably been even more masks. For instance,the Roman sorcerer Cornelius Agricola hinted in his journals,“…the death mask of Judas Iscariot has powers over the restlessdead.”

Necromancy MaskForm: Clothing (wooden mask)Purpose: Enhance FX (Necromancy) PowersPowers: FX battery (Good),

Heighten FX energy (Ordinary)Drawbacks: Hostile Consciousness (Slight),

Zombie Curse (Moderate, Special)

The mask stores 4 FX energy points, and renews itself at arate of one every 6 hours. If worn continuously by its master itrenews itself at a rate of 1 point per hour. The stored FX pointsmust be used for Necromancy spells. The mask also provides a-1 bonus on all necromancy spells while worn. There is a 1 in 6chance that the mask will be recalcitrant when the wearer triesto use it. If so, the mask has an intelligence of 8, and must beconvinced to function using an Interaction: charm skill check.These abilities are fully detailed in Dragon Magazine 268.

A mask cannot be used unless the wearer is skilled inNecromancy, and is its master. To become a mask’s master, thewearer must spend 1 FX point to make a complex Necromancy:animate dead skill check (5 successes.) Any failure will requirethe user to start over from scratch (and spend another FXpoint,) but will also animate a Zombie (pg. 85 Beyond Science:A Guide to FX) within 1000 meters of the mask. On a criticalfailure, the Zombie will be possessed by a Zombie Demon (seebelow.) These Zombies will try to find the hero, kill him or her,and take the mask. The mask will refuse to control the Zombies,even if the hero has become the mask’s master in the interval.

Any undead created by the mask’s master become subjectsof the mask. A mask’s master does not have to wear the mask tocommand it’s undead, but the mask must be worn to utilize itsother powers. If the mask, for any reason, gets a new master, allundead created by the former master are put under the controlof the new one.

A mask with no master animates one corpse within 100 metersevery full moon (nothing happens if there is no corpse withinrange.) The Zombie will seek out the mask by all means availableand try to use it. Any Zombie that dons the mask willautomatically become a Zombie Demon, and automaticallybecomes the mask’s master.

An FX Artifact for Dark*Matterby Pål Wilhelmsen

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Zombie DemonSTR 13 INT 13DEX 12 WIL 14CON 12 PER 3Durability: 16 / 16 / 4Action check: 14 + / 7 / 3Move: sprint: 22, run: 14, walk: 4Reaction score: 3 / goodFX energy points: 10

AttacksEnergy drain 19/9/4 d6+2s / d8+3s / d4+2f EN/OClaws 20/10/5 d4+3s / d4+2w / 1-2 m LI/OAny available hand weapon

Defenses- 2 resistance modifier vs. mental attacks- 3 resistance modifier vs. melee attacks

SkillsUnarmed (13)- brawl (20); Stealth (12) - Hide (15), Sneak(13); Stamina (12) - endurance (14), resist pain (18);Tactics (13) - Infantry (15);The Zombie Demon may also have skills the corpse had inlife, particularly weapon skills.

FX skillsNecromancy (13) - animate dead (16), energy drain (19),fortitude (16)

The Zombie Demon seems to be a physical manifestationof the mask’s spirit of independence. It will stop at nothing toretrieve and wear the mask, destroying anyone associated with

the mask, including witnesses and anyone in the generalvicinity of the mask. Its ability to interact with its surroundingsis limited by the degree of the decomposition of the body.Some are able to speak, while others are limited to growls oroften silence. After the mask is secured, the Zombie Demon willsimply flee, beginning on a master plan of the GM’s design,including raising an army of the undead, or seeking otherNecromancy artifacts. The Zombie demon will over time learnmore skills related to modern day society and possibly new FXpowers if given time to perform rituals and research.

Which Role Playing Game is best?It is the age-old question. Ask a thousand people, and you’ll get a couple hundred different answers - but

they’ll have a thousand different reasons for their decision.Well, lucky for us, there is a ready-made forum in which to hold the discussion: FreeVote.com – which,

according to their web site “is a free service for anyone to use. It allows webmasters to create virtual “votingbooths” where web surfers can come and vote for things.” It’s easy to set up, and it’s easy to use. Simply set upa booth, provide a link to it from a web page, and watch the tallies start rolling in.

Now, someone has opened up the question that burns in every gamer’s heart, and has allowed us a chance tosee the results of pure popular vote.

http://freevote.com/booth/best_rpgIn the interest of keeping the playing field as level as possible, and avoid ballot-stuffing, the booth has been

configured to allow only ‘registered users’ to vote. Each user can cast one single vote per week. You can vote fora new game each week (to suit your ever-changing interests), or you can reaffirm your commitment to a particulargame.

Either way, the die has been cast. The race is on. Get out there and vote!May the Best Game Win!

Web Watch

Which Role Playing Game is Best?

http://www.FreeVote.com/

http://www.FreeVote.com/booth/best_rpg

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A cool breeze blew acrossWashington Street that brisk Aprilafternoon. Green-gray storm clouds,which had been threatening all day,lingered overhead. The trees along theedges of Washington MemorialCemetery, which were just coming intobloom, swayed gently and brushed theirleaves against one another. Along thissection of Washington Street, nature’sserenity was quashed by the cacophonyof horns, engines, and overworkedmufflers. The largest commercial districton the East Side of the city surroundedthe once-isolated cemetery; a swell ofstrip malls, mega-stores, cineplexes andlube shops. Traffic was especially badtoday, especially around the Meijersuperstore. A long line of cars had begunto back up in its immense parking lot tomatch the lines beginning on the mainthoroughfare.

Billy Ray Hutch cursed his luck. Hehad just come into town to get some newtires for his F350. He didn’t even have togo that far into town. Lighter traffic was

only a few blocks away, and a few milesbeyond that, his trailer. He needed to getsome bug lights too, he thought tohimself, but not today. Looking at thecars streaming in and out of Meijer, hefigured he’d just try for them at the Krogerin Greenfield. “Uh-oh”, he said out loudto no one in particular. “Here cumz thedamn Nashun’ o’ Islum folks again.”While traffic was this slow, it seemed asif some people who had been standingby the cemetery’s entrance were startingto make their way amongst the cars. BillyRay naturally thought the donation crewswere out in force today.

Mike Perkins couldn’t believe it. Hewas late opening his store and all becausesome hilljacks from Greenfield wanted tocome into the city today. He couldn’t bedelayed longer or his regulars might gettired of waiting and leave. It didn’t seemappropriate to some of them, apparently,to linger too long outside of an adultbookstore. “Damn, five minutes lategetting their jerkin’ material and they’reall up in ya!” Now even worse, it seemed

someone up ahead just hit some fooltrying to cross the street. “I knew it!Gonna be late! Damn’t!” The accidentescalated as cars slammed into each other,jumped lanes, and skidded intoembankments. Soon both directions oftraffic were completely clogged.

Blake Anderson was walking toArby’s to grab some lunch before returnto his work in the sporting goods sectionof Meijer. “What the hell’s going on?”he said to Cathy, a co-worker he’d beentrying to get lucky with. “Looks like a bigpileup on Washington. Damn, don’tthese people know how to friggin’ drive?”“Oh my God”, said Cathy, “I think I sawsomeone get hit. Oh Jesus, that wasgross.” She cringed and recoiled intoBlake’s shoulder. Blake let out a little smileand put his arm around her “Yeah that’sawful. Poor guy.” He gently patted heron the back. “I’m so in,” he thought. Nowthere were screams from the woman whohad been driving the car that hit the poorbastard. “Must be pretty bloody.” Cathylooked up at Blake as he said this. He

Fiction

AFMBE Playtest Session by Rob Beck II

by Rob Beck IIRob brings us a narrative of his AFMBE playtest session

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internally sighed, knowing what she wasgoing to ask. “Shouldn’t we dosomething?” He looked at her. “Ok, yougo call for an ambulance. I’ll go up thereand see what I can do.” She flashed hima smile that let him know he’d scoredsome huge points. “What the hell,” hefigured, as he enjoyed watching herbounce away. “Maybe there’s somethingI can do.” He headed up to where a crowdwas beginning to form near the accident.“Why are so many people screaming?”he wondered. “Could the guy look thatbad?”

“That’ll be $13.25, sir.” Arno Friedmanbeamed the smile to the guy countingchange in front of him. “Jesus Christ, surecosts a lot o put a little gas in the tankand grab a soda!” Arno slurped hisYoohoo. “Yessir, certain is, but we doappreciate your business!” The man, likemost other customers who came throughArno’s Bigfoot gas station, was fairlynondescript. Most were just entering orleaving town, and needed a little gas.Arno basically ignored him as he tookhis money and made change. Thesaccharine smile stayed plastered on hisface throughout the whole transaction.“Thank you and come again.” Arnoslurped his chocolate soda again as hewatched the man leave, absent-mindedlynoting his height as he exited. He startedhis spot check of the floor and grabbed afresh Yoohoo on his way past therefrigerator. He shook the bottle as hecleaned his employee of the monthpicture. Just as he was finishing up, heheard the crash of metal on metal. He wentto the door to look, but only saw stoppedtraffic. He missed the screams, though,as he headed to check stock in the rear ofthe store. He also missed the figureslumbering out of the cemetery and intotraffic.

Billy Ray, by this point, had seen theaccident, and exited his truck to see if hecould help. He had grabbed the first aidkit from his truck and stumbled forwardthrough the stopped cars. He bumpedinto a short, leather-covered black mangetting out of his new Trans Am. “Man,watch where the hell you’re goin’!” thelittle man blurted out. “Hey mister” Billy

Ray looked a little annoyed “case youdidn’t notice, there’s some hurt peopleup there!” Noticing now that the man hebumped into resembled Lenny from “OfMice and Men”; he toned down hishostility a notch. “Sorry man, just didn’tsee ya. I was wonderin’ what in hell’sname was going on up there.” They bothlooked over at the crowd assembled inthe middle of the accident. Several peopleseemed to be leaning into cars. Somewere huddled around figures on theground. Mike and Billy Ray also noticedhow dirty and filthy these people seemedto be. The smell began to assault theirnoses at this point; a kind of sickly sweetmixed with a coppery smell.

At that point, one of the people whohad been leaning into a car windowstood up and looked at them. He certainlyappeared to be an accident victim, one,at least, who had died maybe a week ago.Gray flesh sagged on his face. His sunkeneyes were yellow and pussy, and hismouth was full of gore. The woman hehad been leaning over didn’t look toogood anymore either. She was still beltedin to her seat, but a large section of herneck, along with her ear was missing. Thatsame ear slid, chewed and bloody, out ofthe gray man’s mouth as he let out athroaty moan and reached his hands outtowards Billy Ray and Mike.

“Shit! Cannibals!” yelled Mike. BillyRay yelled “Cultists!”, stepped up, andused the medical kit as a club on the“man’s” head. It fell back a bit, butrebounded to standing. Several morefigures like that one started rising fromsimilar scenes of gore all over the area.People still in their cars and within sightof this mass raising hit the gas and triedto make a break for it. This only worsenedtheir situation and those around them.Mike’s car was among the casualties,taking a nasty side impact. “C’mon!” BillyRay shouted to Mike as he tried to makeit back to his truck.

Blake had run up to the scene only tofind mass confusion. After seeing awoman and her children scream wildly intheir car, while two “men” beat on thewindows, he decided something hadgone horribly wrong. He reached the one

banging on the passenger door and wasalmost overcome by the sickly sweetstench coming from him. The “man’s”eyes were clouded over, but he stillseemed to notice Blake. Blake nimblydodged his lunge and spun almostcompletely around to kick him in the head.Blake heard the neck snap, and watchedthe body slump towards the ground. Hethen body checked the other attacker andsent him flying several yards. “Heylady!” he yelled at the woman in the car.“Open the damn doors, grab your kidsand follow me!” After a couple of goodbangs against the glass, he got herattention. She unlocked the doors andhe grabbed two of the kids, still screaming,from inside the car. She dragged the thirdout and began to follow Blake. The childlet out an ear-piercing wail as the first“man” that Blake had kicked reached upand grabbed the poor boy’s leg and tooka fair bite out of it. Blake stopped, droppedthe two kids he was holding, and startedstomping on the thing’s (it had ceased tobe human to him) head repeatedly untilthe skull cracked and gray matter oozedout. The woman had, by this time,grabbed her three children and wasrunning for the imagined safety of theMeijer. The one boy’s screams hadobviously roused her from her shock.

Now sensing the others near him,Blake realized how precarious hissituation was. Four fresh “things” wereslowly shuffling towards him. Threelooked long dead, like they had just comeout of some morgue, but the fourth worea nice new suit and still had fresh bloodall over his white dress shirt. “Shit, thepeople they kill are getting up! No good”he thought, as he weighed his options.He roughly shoved past two of them andmade his way to…wherever he didn’t seeone of them. Not too far away now, thereappeared to be two still living men. Onewas obviously a redneck and the otherwas a black man in what Blake could onlydescribe as “really pimpin’ clothes” Theywere making their way towards a thinnerpart of the traffic jam near its everexpanding edge, specifically towards abig Ford pickup. “Well, safety innumbers”, he thought, and he bolted

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through the stopped cars and thescreaming.

“Hey!” Blake yelled to get theirattention. “Hey hell you sumbitch, I ain’tstoppin’ for nothin’.” The redneck wasobviously bright too, Blake thought. Bythis point, the two had made it to thepickup and were jumping in. Blake wasnow practically on the hick and leapinginto the bed of the truck, he yelped “Mindif I bum a ride?!” “Owww! Shit!” Blakeyelled as he landed on the big tires in thebed of the truck. “Mind the tires.” BillyRay smiled as he started the truck. Mikewas already in the passenger side andhad produced a pistol from his jacket. Hecould see more of the cannibals shufflingtowards them and methodically anypeople or cars full of people in their way.“Damn, need gas, like now.” Billy Raysighed as he watched his fuel light comeon. He had thought he had enough gasto make it home, but hadn’t counted onthe traffic or the dead people. Mike,somewhat agitated by this statement,“Well fuckin’ get gas then damn’t! Don’tjust roll it around in your inbred head!”Billy Ray slammed it in reverse andshoved the car behind him out of the way.He then shifted into drive and plowedthrough the cars between him and thegas station. “They were abandonedanyway” he smiled as he glanced over tothe almost stunned Mike. Up over themedian and over to the Bigfoot, Billy Rayleft the engine running and jumped outto fill the tank. “Damn city! Gottaprepay!” he yelled. “Well, what the hellare you waiting for, an invitation?” Blakeyelled. “Fuck it! I’ll pay!” Mike jumpedout of the car and ran for the store,reholstering his pistol.

Arno had been watching with someamusement as the pickup tore throughtraffic and over into his gas station. Thecrashing noise had brought him out fromstorage to see what was the matter. Hemoved behind the counter and placed ahand on the .357 magnum he hadstrapped beneath the counter. The otherhand remained firmly affixed on hisYoohoo. As the leather-clad black manran into his store, he slurped. “Can I helpyou?” he beamed. “We need fucking gas!

Fill it up on 5!” Mike shouted. “Will thatbe cash or charge, sir?” Arno didn’t skipa beat. “What? Ah hell, charge it. Damnworld’s comin’ to an end anyway. Won’thave to pay the damn bill nohow.” Mikefished through his wallet and handed hima credit card. Arno swiped the card andturned on the pump. “Thank you sir andhave a nice day.” Arno slurped. “What’sgoing on out there?” he asked, half-interested. “Oh, nothin’ much, just thedead risin’ from their graves and such”,Mike muttered sarcastically. Arno’s icyshell cracked. “What?!” he asked moreseriously. As if to answer that, a Hondacame ripping through the path made byBilly Ray’s truck. Two figures hung out

the passenger windows. It crossed intothe gas station’s lot, crushed two gaspumps, and then plowed through thefront of the store. Billy Ray and Blakedove for cover outside, and Mike andArno dove behind the counter on theinside.

As he ducked, Arno yelled “The cashregister only has $50 or less and thecashier does not have keys to the safe!”The car’s momentum had been primarilyabsorbed by the concrete posts in frontof the store, and had come to a rest infront of the register. The woman in thedriver’s seat had a face full of airbag, a

bag that was rapidly staining crimson.Arno slowly lifted himself off the floor.Upon seeing her, his first thought was tomove over to her and check to see if shewas still alive. His sense of smell wasoverwhelmed with the odor of gasolineand ozone from torn electrical wires. Ashe moved toward her, another figure rosefrom the passenger’s side of the car. Fromthe looks of him, he thought initially hehad been a passenger that had fairedmuch worse than the driver had. Theputrescent smell, Y-incision on the chestand low moan told him that maybe thispassenger was already beyond help. “Ohshit, it’s the inevitable zombieapocalypse!” Arno screeched as hereached behind the counter for his pistol.He’d seen the Romero films. He knewhow to put one of these things down.All they needed was one shot to thehead, and it was all over. He took aimand squeezed one off right between itseyes, or at least where its eyes wouldhave been if it hadn’t stumbled oversome rubble. His shot landed harmlesslyin the thing’s chest as it lunged towardthe counter. Arno backed up andbumped into the side of the counter. Hissecond shot went wild and missed thecreature entirely. Sweat was visiblybeading on Arno’s head as he tookcareful aim. The thing was close enoughto grab him and its one remaining eyefixed on and let out a low, gurgling moan.Arno could smell its fetid breath and feelthe strength of its vice-like grip grab athis shirt. It opened its mouth as it slowlydescended on him. Fear and desperation

accomplished what hundreds of hoursof zombie movies couldn’t. His hand,acting almost independently of the restof his body placed the pistol in thething’s mouth and squeezed the trigger.A loud clap and gooey gray-red mistspread out from the back of its head. Thecreature fell to the floor in a heap.

“Did you get it? Yeah, yeah you did.”Mike said as he cleared the debris. “Damnthing nearly got me.” Arno audiblysighed. “Always thought I was a goodshot.” “Everyone ok in there?” Billy Rayand Blake had come to check thesituation. “What? Was one of the damn

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things in the car?” Blake asked, lookingat the headless body.

As if in answer to that, the womanwith the face full of airbag whimpered.Mike and Billy Ray rushed to her side.She had been bitten, right in the shoulder.There was a lot of blood and the woundlooked like it was turning septic. “Wegotta get her to a hospital.” Billy Raysaid. “Well, whatever, let’s just get thehell outta here.” Mike seemed veryimpatient. “Don’t know how much gashas pumped by now, or if it’s stillpumpin’.” Billy Ray said. He carefullyopened the car door, unfastened thewoman and began to work the airbagdown. The air was pierced by half a dozenlow moans coming from the street. Thefour men looked up to see the creaturesheading in their general direction.“Damn’t redneck, get to pumpin’!” Blakeyelled. “I’ll get the girl.” Billy Ray ran forhis truck, followed closely by Arno andMike. As he lifted her from the wreck,Blake heard another low moan comingfrom back near the 2-liter display. Asecond thing had apparently beenhanging on to the car. The creature roseup and immediately fixed on Blake. “Holyshit!” he shouted, and with the womanin his arms, he ran for the truck. Arno andMike were unloading rounds into theapproaching creatures, but not havingthe best luck with hitting them in thehead. More of the things could be seenin the distance. Some were in the fastfood restaurants that lined the streets.Some had made it to the giant cineplex.Abandoned cars littered the road andgrass. Many had partially devouredbodies in them that were beginning tostir. Those that had lived were the oneswho abandoned their cars and fled.“We’re damn near out of ammo here!”Mike yelled. “Hell with it, let’s get. Wegot enough gas to clear this hellhole!”Bill Ray shouted back. Blake had made itto the truck. “One’s on my ass! Let’s bail!”Arno helped him load the woman in theback, and Mike jumped in the frontpassenger’s seat. Blake had heard theammo comment. “Hey, there’s a lot moreammo and tons of guns at the Meijer.”Mike dashed his hopes. *Pop* “Well

Meijer is on the other side of the trafficjam and I can see about fifteen deadfucks heading for its front doors. I thinkits safe to say it’s closed for business.”Blake protested “Damn’t it wouldn’t beso hard to get past them. This truck canmow ‘em down!” Billy Ray ripped outthe gas nozzle and left it lying on theground, still pumping. He jumped in,started the engine, and roared out of thearea.

Behind them, they could see thecreature coming out of the gas station tojoin those from the street. They allstretched out their arms longingly. Arnofired a couple of shots at the sprayinggas, hoping to spark some fumes.Whether it was that, or the small electricalfires starting in the store, somethingignited the gas covering the ground. Theexplosion immolated every one of thecreatures. “Guess I gotta find a new job.”Arno mused.

Driving through the rear access roadto the mall, Billy Ray was focused ongetting out of the city. That is, until Arnoshouted, “Wait! Pop’s Guns is rightthere! We need more guns!” Withoutlooking away from the road, Billy Rayadded, “They overcharge on ammo.”“Who gives a shit!” yelled the still mildlyhysterical Blake. “If you don’t want togo back to Meijer, we damn well can stophere!” Billy Ray relented and jumped themedian on 10th Street, screeching into thestrip mall parking lot. The brakingslammed everyone hard against thetruck. “Damn’t! Why the Hell did we haveto leave my car!” Blake was pickinghimself off the bed of the truck. Brushinghim and the woman off, Arno replied“Would you rather go back to the zombie-infested Meijer to retrieve it?” “Whynot?” Blake was persistent. “We blewaway some of those bastards with just acouple of guns. We can probably getenough guns here to clear out the rest!”“Forget it, man. Lucky we got outta therealive. Now let’s get in there, buy somedamn guns, and fuck off!” Mike leapt outof the truck and headed for the store.

Arno and Blake put the woman in thefront seat and locked the doors, then oncesure she was relatively safe, they

followed Mike and Billy Ray in. A chilledcalm floated down amongst them. OnlyBilly Ray dared to fracture the silence ofthe moment. “Well, I got plenty o’ gunsat home. I’ll just browse a bit and maybebuy some ammo.” Before going in, Mikegave him a “What planet are you fromagain?” look. Billy Ray smiled a toothygrin in reply.

“Good afternoon. Can I help you?”The middle-aged man wearing glassesand flannel stood behind the counter. Heoccasionally let his eyes drift to Mike asif checking up on him. If Mike notice, hedidn’t let on. “Yeah, we need guns. Lotsand lots of guns.” Blake saw no reasonnot to get to the point. Arno was a bitmore level headed. “Umm…yeah, we’relooking for something with goodstopping power.” Blake began pointingat weapons. “We need the two Remington870’s there, those two .30-06 Remingtons,and we’ll need scopes for those. We’llalso need…” He paused and looked backat the others. “Do we want revolvers orsemi-auto?” “As auto as we can get ‘em”was Arno and Billy Ray’s replies. “We’regoing for high capacity here”, addedArno. “Ok then.” Blake looked over thepistol case. “Gimme those two H&KUSP’s…those are .45’s right? And thosetwo Glock .45’s.” Blake looked like a kidin a candy store. “I’ll need to see a permitfor whoever’s buying” as “Pop” grabbedthe paperwork for sale. “Otherwise,you’ll have to wait on the handguns. Bythe way, who is paying for all this?”Everyone looked at Mike. Mike sighedand flipped out a VISA as well as hisconcealed carry permit. “Better check andmake sure they ain’t stolen.” An old manat the other end of the store also clad inflannel and a farm cap eyed Mikesuspiciously. Mike looked sideways athim and said, “I thought I recognized you.Don’t you buy ‘Hot Ebony Buns’ at mystore?” The man quickly put his headdown and exited. Brushing him off, Mikeadded “We’ll need plenty of ammo forthose as well.”

As Pop and his son started puttingtogether the order and paperwork, ascream echoed from outside, followed byseveral gunshots. The man who had just

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left the store was being advanced uponby something that probably wasn’t alivethat morning. A festering corpse, riddledwith bullet holes, lunged forward andlatched onto his neck. It pulled a sizeablepiece of muscle loose and then tookanother chunk out of his cheek. Hisscream turned to gurgles, as what wasleft of his throat filled with blood. Inseconds, he was a bloody heap on theground. Pop and his son appearedstunned. Arno, however, had seen toomany movies not to be ready for this.And this time, he didn’t miss. As thecreature approached the door, Arnoleveled his pistol at the thing’s head andsqueezed off a round. It dropped solidlyagainst the door. The woman in their truckwas half-heartedly screaming and crying.Arno and Blake went out to calm herdown, pushing the door open andknocking the corpse aside.

Pop finally snapped out of it. “Whatthe hell was that thing?!” Billy Ray saidvery matter-of-factly, “Near’s we canfigure, they’re former residents of thecemetery over yonder. Just can’t figurehow it got up here from WashingtonStreet so fast. That’s like a mile orsumthin’.” Mike reminded him “Well, younot being from around here hilljack, youmight not realize that the cemeteryextends all the way to 10th Street.” Hepointed to the road bordering the strip

mall. “Looks like all the dead fucks didn’tjust head for Washington. Some camethis way, and if that’s the case, they’realready in the neighborhoods out here.”“You mean” said the still recovering Pop“that there’s more of those damn thingsout there?!” Arno had come back in tohelp carry weapons and joined theconversation. “I’d guess hundreds,maybe over a thousand by now. Andthat’s just here. Doesn’t include all themortuaries, hospitals, the morgue and anymore zombies these create. Then thereare other towns and cities. Imagine whatthe coastal cities are gonna be dealingwith.” “So” Mike raised his eyebrowsand motioned towards the door. “If youdon’t mind there ‘Pop’, we’d like to getthe hell outta here with our hardware.Maybe you should think about doing thesame.” Pop nodded slowly, as if his headwas moving through molasses. “Yeah, Ithink you’re right. Look, don’t worryabout the paperwork. Just clear out andtake your stuff. John!” He looked over athis son. “We’d better get packing. Goodluck boys.” They all nodded, grabbedtheir new toys and headed out the door.

The redneck that had recently diedwas beginning to try and stand. A quickpistol shot to the head ended his troublesand the group loaded themselves backinto the truck. Blake had the womansettled down finally. They moved into

the back seat, small as it was. Arnostayed in the flatbed with one of the rifles.Blake looked over at the woman’sshoulder. She was semi-conscious andwas developing a fever. “We need to gether to a hospital soon.” Mike said,“Community’s not far west of us. We candrop her off there then get the hell out oftown.” Looking through the rear glass ather, Arno was sure she was finished. He’dseen enough movies to know thatnothing good ever happened when aperson was bitten. He didn’t share it,though, feeling that his newfound friendsmight disagree.

The hospital was confused, but notoverwhelmed. Victims had come in, butonly in small numbers. Mike suggestedto an orderly who took the woman fromthem that they might want to get somearmed people watching the doors just incase. The orderly just looked at himfunny when. “These hospitals are gonnabe meat factories. “Arno couldn’t hidehis disgust. Mike shook his head. “Justtoo stupid to listen. Hell with ‘em. We’regetting outta here.” As they were leavingthe emergency room entrance, Arnohappened to look up at the TV. One ofthe local reporters, who possessed aseemingly solid piece of hair and apracticed grin sat reading the latest reportwhile people in the background ran aboutfrantically. His steady, monotone voiceresounded in stark contrast to the chaosaround him. “Reports have been comingin for the past hour of attacks by whatauthorities are labeling as ‘an army ofassassins’. Attacks similar to what havebeen reported here are trickling in fromall across the country. Just a fewmoments ago, we were told that one ofour network affiliate crews onassignment in Beijing were attacked bysimilar individuals, so this appears tobe developing into a globalphenomenon.” He paused and put a handto his ear. “I’m just receiving word thatSt. Vincent’s hospital on the northwestside has been attacked by these killers.Casualties are said to be high, butluckily it appears that we have morepeople injured than actually killed.” Hismonotone voice never wavered.

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“Authorities have advised that you areto lock your doors and not allowentrance to any strange person. Even ifyou think you know them, authoritieswarn they might be under some kind ofcult influence. Should they appear oddor in a state of confusion, do not let theminto your home. Police are trying to setup emergency stations where people inattacked areas or unable to make it totheir homes can go. If you feel threatenedor in danger, you can flee to these sitesand receive protection. The Governor isconsidering calling out the NationalGuard to patrol the streets and rescuestations and to relieve some of thepressure on the police. He will announcehis decision within the hour. We willkeep you informed on these strangehappenings as new information becomesavailable.”Blake had been staring blankly at thescreen, but finally spoke up. “I bet thatnews anchor is an undercover zombie.Only someone who’d returned from thegrave could be that wooden.” Arnoalmost allowed himself to laugh. Withthat, the four headed back for the truck.Arno took one last look at the emergencyroom, noting all the bite victims. “Morechum for the feast” he mused to himself.Once back in the bed of the pickup, hefelt like he was escaping from Hell.

It was about an hour drive to BillyRay’s doublewide trailer, with anotherhour added in for stops at Mike, Arno,and Blake’s east-side apartments. Theyhad managed to escape the city beforeexit due to traffic congestion becameimpossible. The yard was littered withbroken appliances and bustedautomobiles. Blake thought as he got outof the pickup “Under stereotype in thedictionary, there’s a little picture of thisredneck. He smiled at Billy Ray. Everyonejumped out and looked around. His“home” was surrounded on three sidesby farm fields. The seed had just beenplanted, though, so there was a clear lineof sight for about a mile. The back of thetrailer bordered a small patch of woods.They would have to keep an eye on that,Mike thought.

Billy Ray and Blake spent the next

hour trying to put together some gearthey would need from his trailer’s vastarray of garbage. Arno and Mike amusedthemselves noting all the NASCARparaphernalia lying about. Mike finallygot bored with that and turned the TVon. The same reporter, a bit more haggardthan when they had first seen him, wastalking about the same thing. The biggestdifference was a list of schools andhospitals was scrolling across the bottomof the screen.

“The situation has been steadilydeteriorating over the last few hours.These persons have attacked severalneighborhoods. The casualty totals wehave seen coming in appear to be quitehigh. As you who have been watchingare aware, the Governor has releasedthe National Guard to take over lawenforcement duties in all metropolitanareas in the state. They should be hittingthe streets anytime now. Please, if youcan, try and make it to a rescue station.Do not try and stay in your homes. Youcan not be assured of safety if you stayin your homes.”

*Click* Arno turned off the TV. “Yes,better to get us in cattle pens first so it’seasier to be slaughtered. Why don’t theyjust have us charge the zombies in humanwaves?” Mike shook his head. “You’re abit of a doomsayer aren’t you?” “Whattipped you off?” Arno walked back tohelp Billy Ray and Blake. Mike took oneof the newly scoped rifles out into theencroaching darkness and began to scanthe horizon. He lifted the sight to his eye.Three shuffling figures could be seenlumbering in his direction from across anopen field, maybe three hundred yardsaway. The odd figures had limp posturesand blank expressions, visible even in thelow light of the early evening. Mikechambered a round, took careful aim, andfired. The northern-most one dropped.The survivors let out a moan he couldhear all the way from where he wasstanding. He reacquired and fired twicemore. Both went down in heaps.

Billy Ray, Blake, and Arno camerunning out with their weapons at theready. Mike turned to look at them. “S’Ok,just a few off in the distance. I got ‘em.”

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Arno looked at the others. “They knowwe’re here. We’d better get your stuffand go. We’ll just have to stop at a storeand get the rest.” “Now wait.” Billy Rayheld up his hand. “I know I can find thatradio and lantern if you just give me afew more minutes.” Blake was ignoringboth of them. “What the hell do you mean‘They knew’?! How can they know shit,man. They’re dead. They know they’refucking dead and I bet that’s pretty muchit.” Arno looked at him somberly. “I’mpretty sure they can smell us orsomething. It’s some predatory instinctthing, or something. They just knowwhere the food is.” Blake pointed hisshotgun north. “Well, the Burger King’sthat way. Let’s get the hell outta here.”Billy Ray resigned himself to the fact thatthey would not help him look for anymoreof his lost camping gear.

They gathered what gear and foodthey could and head north. The pickupwas again low on gas. Billy Ray unveileda large custom Chevy van he had behindhis trailer. The van had plenty of captain’schairs, wall to wall carpet, and portholeside windows. Even the perturbed Blakemuttered “pimpin’”. They passedthrough the normally quiet town ofGreenfield. U.S. 40 was clogged with carstrying to get out of the metropolitan area.Some fancy sidewalk driving and a fewside roads later, the group managed tomake it to a strip mall with a grocery store.

“First we hit the Kroger’s, then RadioShack.” Mike seemed to be the only onewith any real plan. The Kroger’s wassurprisingly quiet. Three cashiers evenstood lazily behind their registers, eachwith a distinct look of boredom on theirface. “Evenin’ y’all.” Billy Ray crowed ashe grabbed a shopping cart. Mikewhispered to Blake as he grabbed a cart,“Bet they’re more taken aback by the factthat a ne-gro is in their store more thanthe whole Hell on Earth thing.” Blakestifled a laugh and moved to follow himdown the produce aisle. Arno lookedover the three disinterested workers.“How’s the chum tonight?” he said in aquick, peppy voice. They looked at eachother with a confused gaze. “All myquestions are answered.” Arno grabbed

a third shopping cart. They spent the nextthirty minutes grabbing anything theythought would be useful. Flashlights,canned food, bottled water, and otheritems that might serve them well weretaken. They shouted back and forthacross the aisles to remind each other ofthis or that. “Don’t forget batteries!”shouted Arno. Mike quickly followedthis. “Don’t forget the Jurgens lotion.You don’t know how long we’re gonnabe stuck out in the country!” Blakesnorted.

As time passed, they became awarethat the store was beginning to fill upwith people. Billy Ray realized it was timeto go and shepherded the others forward.They were a bit rough making their wayto a register. A lady in front of them wasfishing through her purse. “If I could justfind that forty cents off coupon…” Arnolooked on in disbelief. He then shouted“Lady, fuck the coupon! It’s the zombieapocalypse. You can spare the damnchange I think!” “Well I…” she was cutoff by Billy Ray, who gently lifted her outof line and to the bagging area. Mikemanaged to get out “We’ll just pay forhers too” to the bewildered cashier. Theywere rung out in record time. Arno paidwith his ATM card. The generalconsensus was that since Mike hadbought the guns and ammo, it was theleast the rest of them could do. As theyexited, they were greeted with a quicklyfilling parking lot. They had to flash gunsto keep people away from the groceries.It was in this tense moment, that thingstook a turn for the worse.

Screams were heard from the edge ofthe grocery store’s parking lot. In theconfusion, some of the creatures hadstumbled up to the mass of cars andpeople. The agitation of the crowd turnedinto a frenzied panic as people tried toescape. Billy Ray was the first to respond.He raised his USP and took aim. Arnofollowed. People ducked and split allaround them, trying to avoid theweapons. The dead were felled withinminutes. The parking lot emptied almostas quickly save for the wounded that layhere and there. Those who had beenbitten were scattered on the fringe and

those who had been trampled werescattered through the rest of the parkinglot. Screams and moans could be heardabove the fleeing engines. “Almostdeserve to be eaten. They ain’t evenhelpin’ the wounded.” Mike was finishingloading groceries in the car. “What canyou expect from zombie chum?” Arnoadded. “Man, you really are a brokenrecord!” Blake was helping throwgroceries in the van. Billy Ray holsteredhis sidearm. “Maybe we should help…”“It’d only slow us down, and there’s toomany injured. How many of those will bezombified before we can get to them?And how many zombies will we allow tocatch up to us if we do?” Billy Ray hatedto admit it, but the convenience storeclerk had a point. “C’mon.” Mike hadfinished loading groceries. “Let’s grabsome goodies from the Radio Shack andget the fuck outta here.” Everyonenodded in silent agreement.

A good hit from a sledgehammeropened the door at the Radio Shack. Theycollected walkie-talkies, a radio, plentyof batteries, and a couple of laptopcomputers. Billy Ray kept watch as theylooted the store. He noticed that quite acrowd was gathering at the McDonaldsdown the street. That crowd, almost asone, walked up to the windows andstarted beating on them. The terrifiedpatrons screamed and tried to flee pastthe horde. Only a few made it. “Zombiesare at the McDonalds.” Billy Ray shoutedin a lazy drawl. “Well, there’s noaccounting for taste.” Blake replied. “Let’sgo!” The four of them got back in thevan and headed north, hoping to findsome safety in some form.

As they drove north along State Road9, the last vestiges of Greenfield vanishedbehind them. Ahead were nothing but thestars and endless fields of tiny plants.They had escaped, for now. “By the way”Blake said looking around at the otherthree in the van. “My name’s Blake. Whatthe hell are your names anyway?” Thevan roared off into the darkness. A silentfigure that had been walking south turnednorth to follow the van. A low, throatymoan escaped its lips…

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Call To Darkness Part 2 by Mike Marchi

Part Twoby Mike Marchi

“Wil was a Neuropath. He had latent mental abilities that wereawakened by the gunshot trauma. Sara explained that he hadtremendous potential, but lacked the training to be able to control hisabilities. In those early days, he was pretty much the psychic equivalentof a siren. He advertised his presence wherever he went.” Her eyeslost focus again as the memories returned. “Eventually he attractedthe wrong kind of attention…”

Siren SongEnise Westfield winced as the telltale precursor of pain

tickled at her left temple. Thinking about Wil always gave hera headache. The tingle of discomfort reminded her again whyshe chose not to think about him much these days. But thestraightjacket that prevented her from even rubbing her ownthrobbing skull, reminded her of how little choice she had inthe matter. Ever since she had become a resident of Ward D, itseems that people had done everything in their power toconstantly remind her of why she was there.

Now the latest in a series of shrinks was seated before her,asking the hard questions. Searching for a justification for theact…

The jolt of pain shot all the way through her head this time,like a red-hot knitting needle sliding instantly through her skull,in the left temple and out the right.

* * *Doctor Nicholas Mercer watched the madwoman curled up

and sitting in the corner floor of her cell, waiting for her tocontinue her tale. She seemed to stop and try to push past apainful memory. There’s more here than meets the eye, hethought. What is going on inside that head of yours, Enise.Tell me, and maybe I can help. That last thought struck him asodd. He had only been listening to her for a very short time,but already felt an odd connection with this haunted woman.The clinical scientist in his own head clucked in disapproval.This is most definitely not the time to start feeling anattachment to a patient. Especially not this one! But still, theunscientific side of his brain took a moment to consider thepossibility.

She was very tall, athletic, and had deep auburn hair,cropped short - most likely by the hospital staff. Her once-attractive face was now drawn and pale, her cheekbonesexposed beneath darkly ringed, sunken eyes. Yet despite theframe around them, the eyes themselves were her most strikingfeature. Even the light of madness behind them could notdisguise the beauty of those deep green eyes. As she satbefore him, rocking back and forth, He couldn’t decide how tohandle the situation.

The woman before him was a surgeon of some renown. She

had been found after-hours in the operating theatre of CountyGeneral hospital, unattended by any other hospital staff. Ajanitor had walked unannounced into the surgery, to find DoctorEnise Westfield, dressed in full surgical scrubs. The brightstainless steel scalpel held aloft by a blood-stained, latex-cladright hand dripped with gore. On the table before her was aman - ‘was’, being the operative word. He may have begunthat day as a man, but he ended it as the single most damningpiece of evidence against his own long-time friend andassociate, Doctor Enise Westfield. In his mind’s eye, Nickremembered the crime scene photos of the victim. The photosleft little to the imagination. Each slice in the victim’s flesh,each cross-section of tissue that had been deftly trimmed outof his body and tossed in the scrap bucket of OR-3 wascatalogued ad-nauseam.

He had been asked to evaluate her mental state, to see ifshe was fit to stand trial for the murder of Wil Ohmsford. Themore she spoke, the less certain he was that she was sane. Buthe felt a strong compulsion to hear her out. To follow her tale(or was it her delusion) through to the end.“Please continue, Enise. You mentioned a word I’m not familiarwith, ‘neuropath’?”

The woman raised her eyes to look at him, without movingher chin, which was clenched down against her chest. Hershort quick breaths indicated that she was in a lot of pain.Perhaps more than he had originally thought.

“It’s not my fucking word,” she snapped suddenly. “I didn’tmake it up. Sara did.”

Nick had been doing this enough to know that this firstsession had reached an end. He would get nothing more out ofher, as long as she was experiencing this pain. “All right, doctor.I think this will do for now.”

Her breathing eased up just a bit. She lowered her eyesagain and resumed the rocking motion.

Nick stood up and began scribbling something in hisnotebook. “I’ll be back later, Enise. We’ll talk again whenyou’ve gotten some rest.”

* * *“Right this way, Doctor.” Emma opened an office door with

‘Visitor’ embossed on the frosted glass window. “Make yourselfat home, and I’ll transfer Mr. Garafallo’s call when it comes.”

“Thanks, Emma,” Nick smiled at the administrative assistantfor the Psych Ward D, and stepped through the door into theguest office. The room was ten feet square, with a desk,credenza, bookcase, and two chairs - one for the lucky ‘visitor’who got to use the office, and the other for his or her ownguest. A single small window, no more than two feet square,was inlaid with a wire mesh and sat high up the painted cinder-block wall. The dim shadow of bars could be seen on the

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outside of the window. A single, dim light fixture sat flush withthe twelve-foot ceiling, casting a sick yellow glow in the room,too low to even read comfortably by. Fortunately, there was alamp on the desk, the wrought iron base painted to match theutilitarian gray walls. The lamp cast a circle of illumination onthe desktop, revealing a chunky black rotary telephone, andthe keyboard for the computer workstation on the corner of thedesk.

Nick sat down in the desk chair, noting the annoying squealthat the casters made as it rolled along the worn wood floor.He stared at the phone for a few minutes, wonderingwhen Emma would pass the District Attorney’s callthrough. The office was disturbingly quiet, the onlybackground sounds coming from the hiss of the steamradiator, and the buzz of the incandescent bulb in thedesk lamp. Even the computer terminal was silent -turned off. Don’t have a login for this system,anyway, he noted with chagrin. His inventory of theoffice supplies in the center desk drawer didn’t takenearly as long as he’d hoped, there beingall of two black stick-pens, a red Swinglinestapler, and a single pale yellow pad ofpost-it notes. He was just getting readyto see what books were on the shelves,when the shrill bell of the black telephoneshattered the silence.

He waited for the second ring beforepicking up the receiver, using the time toregain his composure after being startledby the sudden sound. “Hello?”

“Nick! Glad I could catch you.How is it going?”

“It’s going fine. How are you?”“Just peachy. But I’m not inquiring

about your health. What aboutWestfield? I need to know if she’ssane or not.”

“It’s hard to say, Rob…”“Oh for Chrissakes, Nick.

What the hell have you been doingout there all afternoon?”

“Evaluating your suspect.”There was a long pause from the

other end of the phone, followed bya sign. “Of course, Nick. I’m sorry.”

As he listened, there was a soft knock on the office door,followed by Emma slipping into the room, sliding a thick manilafile folder onto the edge of his desk, and exiting just as quietly.Nick flipped open the file folder on Enise Westfield and beganpaging through the material as the District Attorney continued.“How much more time do you need? This wouldn’t be such abig deal if the hospital had kept a lid on it. But the Mayorseems to be trying to use this case for some political leverage.I don’t pretend to understand his reasons. But he’s got toknow which way to spin this. Was she a brilliant surgeon who

cracked under the stress of an overloaded hospital, or is she acold-hearted killer who eviscerated her best friend, and wasstopped before she could cause any real public harm?”

Nick’s brow furrowed as he noted several omissions in thefile. “I’d say I’m going to need the whole weekend at a minimum,Robert. I’d like to do some bloodwork, and check out herscans. Rule out chemical imbalance.”

“Haven’t they done that stuff yet?”“Her chart says that she wouldn’t let them draw the labs.

Apparently broke three needles off by thrashing atprecisely the wrong time. The staff here is too

jaded to endure that kind of resistance. It’snot worth the trouble to them.”

“Shouldn’t they just have sedated her?”“Hey Robert, I won’t tell you how to

catch crooks if you won’t question how weshrink heads.”

“Fair enough, buddy. I think I can holdthe dogs at bay for the weekend. But Iwant that evaluation first thing Monday.”

* * *Nick stood at the door to

Enise’s cell for a long time,watching her fitful attempts atsleep. The auto-injector pounchfelt bulky and out of place on hisbelt. In the injector, a dosage ofenough sedative to bring downa rhino. It’s just a precaution.He reminded himself. It’s alsoa betrayal of trust. Hecountered. Any hope he hadof unravelling the enigma ofDoctor Enise Westfield lay in

establishing a rapportbased on trust. She wasnearly there, finally sharing

a few snippets of infor-mation in conspiratorial tones.

‘Powers of the mind’, she had said. ‘WilOhmsford was a neuropath.’ At first hehad thought that she meant to saypsychopath, and was offering it as defensefor her actions.

But after convincing Emma to give him access to thecomputer terminal in ‘his’ office, he had spent a couple hoursresearching the terms she had used. Neuropathy, as in telepathyor empathy. The powers of the mind, indeed. He had avoidedthese subjects throughout his clinical career. They were thestuff of supermarket tabloids, and flew in the face of logic.

His reverie was broken by the arrival of Rachel, along withtwo very large orderlies. The men were dressed in the traditionalwhite scrubs of their profession, and between the two of them,looked like they worked out by tossing sides of beef back andforth across. These guys are huge! And they’re just another

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precaution. Another betrayal. I hope we don’t need them.Enise was sitting upright and staring intently at him even

before he had closed the door. “Good evening, Enise. I trustyou’re feeling a little better.”

The woman’s head twitched to one side and she winced inpain. Nick had to wince himself at the sound of the tendon inher neck snapping along with the motion. She just stared athim, saying nothing.

“Enise, I was wondering if I could have your permission torun some tests…”

As soon as he said ‘tests’, her eyes widened in obviousfear. She shook her head in the negative.

“Please. I believe it is necessary – to help you.”“No.”“You are a doctor. You know many things can influence

human behavior. Something’s not right. We both know that.”“NO!”“Please, Enise. I really…”He never got a chance to finish the sentence. With a fluid

motion, Enise lept off the bed and plowed into him, throwinghim back against the side wall of the cell – no easy taskconsidering she still wore the straightjacket. The reaction fromthe hall was immediate. Rachel and the orderlies were in theroom, and all over her in a heartbeat.

The three staff members hit Enise hard, bearing her to theground. Enise strained against the straightjacket. Teethclenched, beads of perspiration standing out on her red,straining face. She was obviously trying to pull her arms freeof the constricting material. Nick stood transfixed against thewall of the cell, watching the others struggle to hold her down.The chords on her neck stood out, her face constricted in painand anger. Nick heard a series of loud popping sounds fire offin quick succession. My god, those were the seams on thejacket, he thought. Rachel and the larger orderly finallymanaged to hold the squirming madwoman down, while thesecond fought to secure the straps to her legs. Enise yowledlike a wounded cat, all semblance of the intelligent, coherentphysician stripped unceremoniously away.

The orderly lost his grip on her right ankle, and paid theprice, taking a kick to the solar-plexus that sent him flying acrossthe room. She’s stronger than she looks. Nick had seen patientsin highly agitated states often exhibit superhuman abilities, butthis was something more. Enise tried to use the now-free leg totry to dislodge Rachel. The short black woman swore an oath,“Smitty, get your ass back up here, and secure that leg!!!” Nickcould only watch in fascination as the fallen orderly, Smittydragged himself up onto all fours, and then into a shaky, semi-upright position. With amazing agility, he reached out andsnagged the edge of her foot, drawing it in close to his bodyand trapping it between his body and his beefy arm.

Finally restrained, Enise let out a bloodcurdling shriek.The sound broke Nick out of his stunned paralysis. He

knew he only had a moment before Rachel, Smitty and theother orderly were knocked free of their tenous perch. Theauto-injector found purchase against her left thigh, and forced

a stream of warm sedative into her bloodstream.“Oh god, no. Don doo tthissss...” and then she went limp.

* * *Nick sat in his borrowed desk-chair for a long time, staring

at the lab reports on Enise Westfield. He couldn’t quite wraphis brain around the results. Considering the effort it had takento get the samples, they had drawn twice the normal amount ofblood and tissue, knowing that if a test went wrong, gettinganother sample would prove very difficult. When the first setof tests had come back, Nick had immediately demanded theybe repeated. The numbers were identical in both instances.

In the hour that followed, Doctor Nicholas Mercer pickedup the receiver on the phone twice, both times with the intentionof calling Robert Garafallo. Both times he had reseated thehandset before getting past the first number on the rotary dial.

Finally, he did pick up the phone, but it wasn’t the DistrictAttorney he called. “Hello, Janice? It’s Nick. Hi.”

Nick pulled one of the pens and the post-it pad out of thedesk drawer and started drawing sharp little angular patternson the paper. “Yeah. It’s been a long time. Listen, I need afavor, Jan.”

He began subconsciously bouncing his left knee with anervous twitch. He didn’t even reallize he had started doing ituntil he rapped his kneecap against the leg of the desk.

“Do you still have full-time access to the genetics lab?”He paused again and resumed the rhythmic drumming.“No, it’s not like that, Jan. I need something checked out,

and it has to be someone I trust. Whatever else may havehappened — I still…” he trailed off.

“Really? Thanks Jan. I owe you one.”* * *

“Leave us alone, Rachel.” Nick spoke in a level voice, buthis heart was pounding in his chest. He fought to keep himselfcalm, and hoped to God, the security woman wouldn’t see thesweat on his forehead, or catch the smell of fear that radiatedoff him in waves. In his hand, he clutched a sweat-stained andcrumpled copy of the fax from Janice.

“Nobody is supposed to be alone with her, Doctor. Notafter what happened last time.”

“Rachel, look at the patient for a moment. She is wearing astraightjacket and strapped to her bed. I don’t think I’m in anydanger.” I wish I really believed that.

Nick looked directly at Rachel, praying that the expressionon his face was one of calm. Rachel bought the façade, and lefthim alone with Doctor Enise Westfield.

When the door latched shut, and he turned to face hisrestrained patient, she was already looking back at him. “Didyou find what you were looking for?” she asked.

Nick swallowed hard and took a step closer. “I…” He hadto fight off a sudden urge to stop there, and forced himself tolean closer. He stopped with his face only a foot away fromhers. Then, very quietly, he spoke so that only she could hear.

“What are you?”To be continued...

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Last night I threw a rather nasty creature at the group. It had nearly killed two partymembers and was using a third as a human shield. So they were standing there, pumpingbullets into the thing, completely ignoring the danger to their own guy! In a last ditcheffort to escape, the creature propelled itself backwards out the fifth floor window...

While still holding their friend?Nope. It used him to push off, which more or less

sent him flailing toward the guys with the guns.So it wasn’t dead?

Not at the time it leapt out the window. It’s not thefall that kills you, you know. It’s the landing.

Ah. So the landing killed it?Well, the players looked out the window, and saw it lying in acrumpled heap on the sidewalk. They wanted to be sure, so the

marksman took careful aim and put a slug through its skull.Probably prudent.

Probably. Then they thought it over, switched to fullautomatic fire, and emptied a full clip into the body.

Well, that ought to have done it.You’d think so. But they still had their doubts, so they tossed agrenade out the window. It landed in the unmoving creature’s

lap, exploded and vaporized the thing’s midsection.What a waste of firepower! Didthey get on with the game then?

Well, no. They still weren’t sure. So they grabbed a glass case full ofArmy Ants and tossed that out the window onto the body below. The ants

swarmed out, and stripped the body to bone in less than 20 seconds.Wow. Were they convinced yet?

They still weren’t quite ready to buy it. So they split into two teams andwent down there. Approaching it carefully from two different directions.

So, of course, when they got there,the creature was gone, right?

Of course it wasn’t gone! They killed it seven times over!Hell, the pavement was starting to take structural damage!

Considering how paranoid they were, theyprobably tried using a flamethrower next.

No, actually, I think they were finally getting the picture. With gunstrained on the skeleton, they approached from four different directionsto poke at the bones with the butt of a rifle. They couldn’t decide whichone of them should try that, so they agreed to all poke it simultaneously.

Did you inform them that thecreature was truly dead?

Never had a chance. They were attacked by the Army Ants. Theswarm killed the entire group in less than a minute. There was no

one left to tell. Now, if they had used that flamethrower...

Overheard at the Game Master Lounge:

Dark Humour

Overheard at the Game Master Lounge by Mike Marchi & John Noddings

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DEMONGROUND StaffDEMONGROUND StaffDEMONGROUND StaffDEMONGROUND StaffDEMONGROUND Staff

Founding EditorsMarcus Bone [email protected] Marchi [email protected] Skellams [email protected]

Associate EditorChris Carpenter [email protected]

Layout AssistantBecky Marchi [email protected]

DG9 ContributorsDG9 ContributorsDG9 ContributorsDG9 ContributorsDG9 Contributors

Article AuthorsChris CarpenterWolfgang BaurA. Shane MurphyMarcus BoneLee WilliamsDale Robert ThurberChristopher HaynesPål WilhelmsenRob Beck IIMike MarchiJohn Noddings

Cover Art“Between Sin and Salvation”

by hive ([email protected])

Banner ArtEyal Faingersh

Interior ArtEyal FaingershAndrew SimmonsBecky MarchiMike Marchi

Interior GraphicsMike Marchi

New Zena Marley QuotesMarcus Bone

Atlas Games - UNKNOWN ARMIES:“Unknown Armies, published by AtlasGames, is Copyright © 1998 Greg Stolzeand John Tynes. DEMONGROUND is notaffiliated with Atlas Games, Greg Stolze,or John Tynes.”

Chaosium, Inc. - CALL OF CTHULHU:“Chaosium Inc. - Publishing games for25 years. Call of Cthulhu is the RegisteredTrademark of Chaosium Inc., and is usedwith their permission. Nephilim is theregistered trademark of Chaosium and isused with their permission. Chaosium Inc.is the Registered Trademark of ChaosiumInc.”

Dynasty Presentations - DARKCONSPIRACY: “The Dark Conspiracygame in all forms is owned by DarkConspiracy Enterprises Copyright 1991 -2000 Dark Conspiracy Enterprises. DarkConspiracy is a trademark of DarkConspiracy Enterprises. Dark ConspiracyEnterprises permits web sites andfanzines for this game, provided itcontains this notice, that DarkConspiracy Enterprises is notified, andsubject to a withdrawal of permission on90 days notice. The contents of this siteare for personal, non-commercial use,only. Any use of Dark ConspiracyEnterprise’s copyrighted material ortrademarks anywhere on this web site andits files should not be viewed as achallenge to those copyrights ortrademarks. In addition, any programs/articles/artwork/files on this site cannotbe republished or distributed without theconsent of the author who contributedit. Contact Dark Conspiracy Enterprisesthrough Tantalus, Inc. PO Box 2310 KeyWest FL 33045.”

Eden Studios - CONSPIRACY X, ALLFLESH MUST BE EATEN, andWITCHCRAFT: “All Eden Studios, Inc.,CJ Carella and George Vasilakoscopyrights, tradedress and trademarksare used with express permission of theirowners. Applications for permission maybe addressed to:[email protected].”

Pagan Publishing - DELTA GREEN:“Delta Green is an award-winning settingof modern conspiracy and Lovecraftianhorror from Pagan Publishing. DeltaGreen ©1999-2000 The Delta GreenPartnership.”

Wizards of the Coast - DARK MATTER:“The TSR logo, Alternity, Dark*Matter,Gen Con, and RPGA are trademarks ofTSR, Inc. TSR, Inc. is a subsidiary ofWizards of the Coast, Inc.”

Origins International Game Expo & Fairis a trademark of GAMA (The GameManufacturers Association)

Living Dead Girl title block based on amovie poster for “I Walked With aZombie” © 1943 RKO Radio Pictures

Playtest Session title block based off artby Earl Geier which appeared in the DarkConspiracy 1st Edition rule book.

Next IssueNext IssueNext IssueNext IssueNext IssueYou may have already noticed that

this issue is our largest to date. That,combined with our driving desire to ‘raisethe bar’ with each subsequent release isforcing us to shift to a Quarterly releaseschedule. So Volume 10 will be our Fall2000 issue, and will be available aroundthe end of September.

We are also instituting a writingcontest. See the back cover, and checkout our web site for more details!

Legal MattersLegal MattersLegal MattersLegal MattersLegal Matters

mailto:[email protected]






The Back Cover

www.demonground.org

DEMONGROUND: Reflections of a Darker FutureThe Magazine of Modern Conspiracy/Horror

proudly announces

THE DEMONGROUND THEME-WRITING CONTESTBeginning with Issue 10, we at DEMONGROUND will be bringing you a new quarterly feature. We thoughtit would be interesting to see how each of the different game systems would address specific themes in theconspiracy/horror genre. For instance, in this issue, we presented several different articles dealing primarilywith Zombies.

As with this issue, each quarterly installment will not just contain contest-themed material. Only a specificportion of the magazine will be devoted to presenting the BEST articles on the theme. The rest of themagazine will continue to be devoted to a variety of conspiracy/horror material of any theme.

The themed articles presented in the magazine will be considered the ‘finalists’ in the contest.

The rest is up to you, the DEMONGROUND reader. Shortly after the release of Issue 10, we will presenta ballot on the DEMONGROUND web site. Only registered subscribers of Demonground will be allowedto vote for contest winners, and each registered subscriber will be able to cast one vote. At the end of thetabulation period, the winner will be declared, and will receive a PRIZE!

Keep a close watch on the DEMONGROUND web site for more details and specifics of this contest.

We know you’re all anxious to get started, so here is our first theme topic:

DEMONGROUND Issue 10 Theme

ALIENSIf it involves creatures from beyond the stars, it’s fair game for Issue 10

Please indicate at the start of each contest entry that it is intended for the Theme Contest. Remember,it may not be possible for all contest entries to appear in the magazine. Finallists will be chosen by DGstaff members. Final choice of the winner will be carried out by popular vote from among registeredDemonground subscribers ONLY. See the DEMONGROUND Web Page for further details and fullpresentation of the terms and conditions of the contest, as well as specifications of the Prize.



Documents

Dragonground 09