The Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep d20
Nebulous said:
I think all Cthulhu players go through a phase of dynamite addiction at some point. I tried running one campaign which ended horribly when the PCs all, but one, got taken captive and their captors found dozens of sticks of dynamite on them.
Which then got blown up by the remaining PC, who wanted a 'diversion' to rescue them during. Except he'd failed to notice that:
1) they were in an underground cavern under the sphinx
2) the dynamite was by a support pillar, as the animal-men didn't understand it.
Everyone died horribly, so I said 'Okay, we now go to a parallel universe where that DID NOT HAPPEN...'
Nebulous
Legend
Adventure #21: Fires, Vampires & Tea
Trudging up the slope from the decimated night platform, the group hauls a makeshift litter of ten ghoul corpses as hard evidence of the supernatural. Someone will have to pay attention to this. They're nearly out of the jungle when Silent Joe appears.
He cradles a rifle and, speaking for the first time, says: "So...you found the small demons." He seems to have known that there was SOMETHING unnatural out there, living beneath an old Boyovo burial ground. Colonel Endicott's hunting platform was built right in the middle of it.
Silent Joe seems impressed by the investigators. They are all hurt, scratched, bloodied and aching, and he suggests that they should meet his great-grandfather Old Bundari, a shaman in the tribal village of Boyova. He knows about "strange happenings" in Kenya, but Silent Joe won’t say much more. The investigators agree, but insist they need to go to the lodge first, rest and clean up, and show Endicott the corpses, the real reason behind the mysterious murders.
They meet Endicott at the top of the stairs. He is clad in striped gown-pajamas with a cap and fuzzy ball, still drunk and discombobulated from the night before; he thought that the dynamite explosions were thunder. Silent Joe is clearly apathetic toward his employer. The Colonel is about to go outside and investigate the strange "elk" that the group has killed, when he stops, and says: "Do you hear that?"
Unfortunately, Chang, Lucifer, Lester and Chad are all too familiar with the sound:
The haunting cry of fire vampires!
Flames are already licking the front porch, and they ask Endicott about a reliable water source. There is a pump-action well outside and buckets, so the group rushes that direction. Father Salvatore, new to the team, is unfamiliar with this vampiric danger, but he is a fast learner. And after a night of killing ghouls, he is not entirely surprised by the development.
Chang runs for the safety of the deeper woods, while Salvatore and Lester pump water into buckets. Chad Slambody spots movement behind a distant tree, and hears the chugging of an engine that won't quite start. He jogs in that direction, narrowly dodging a fire vampire that floats down from the porch in ambush; another drops off the roof. The vampires shoot straight toward the targets in the open: Lester and Father Salvatore. They desperately throw water at the entities, but what damage they inflict is negated by the deadly life-draining touch of the vampires. They swell and spark even brighter.
Chad finds a middle-aged Kenyan man wearing a turban trying to kickstart a motorcycle. At the last second he gets it going, spins out, and erupts through the brush, hits the dirt road and spins out toward Nairobi. Chad leaps through the brush, levels his shotgun and FIRES! The back wheel explodes, rubber and metal shredded in a bloom of flame, and the man is launched head over handlebars and rolls to a painful stop.
Meanwhile, the vampires chase Lester and Father Salvatore. The humans are much faster though, and outrun them. Lester tries to find keys in the truck while Salvatore runs inside and fills buckets from the faucet. The game lodge is already inundated with smoke and flames, and he begins coughing from smoke inhalation. Silent Joe, terrified now, begins popping off shots at the living flames, but it does no good. Colonel Endicott runs out the front door with his shotgun Mrs. Caruthers readied in his hands.
“DIE you flaming sons of bitches!”
Elsewhere, Chad begins wrestling the man he blasted off the motorcycle, and finally renders him unconscious in a brutal chokehold.
Lester can't find any car keys and tries to run inside, but the smoke forces him out. Chang and Salvatore have just filled several buckets when something NEW tears through the back door in a splintering hail of fire and wood: a man-sized living flame, swinging its fists!
They abandon all attempts to fight it and flee out the front door after Silent Joe, who has grabbed the keys to the safari truck. The hunting lodge is largely on fire now, and Colonel Endicott's gun retorts can be heard from behind the building. Everyone loads into the truck, the unconscious man in the turban is haphazardly lashed to the hood, and the wheel around back, where Chad once again makes an impressive feat of strength and manhandles Endicott as they drive by, hauling him into the vehicle. They tear down the bumpy road, leaving the lodge to burn behind them, along with the ghouls...
Ten miles later they stop, nearly halfway back to Nairobi. The smoke will be seen and fire wagons dispatched, and the party need to get their stories straight. They slap their captive awake, who they suspect summoned the demonic fire beings, probably three times now, even on the Unguandan Railway from Mombasa. But Colonel Endicott recognizes him: Tandoor Singh! Browntown's best tea-seller and owner of a small shop. He is threatened, and hisses that "M'weru will kill you all!" They recognize the name M'Weru as being the same enigmatic black woman who helped lead the Carlyle expedition five years ago, and with whom Roger Carlyle was infatuated.
Soon, the fire patrol arrives, the group points them toward the lodge, and the investigators continue to Captain Montgomery at the police station. With Colonel Endicott's help and support, they are able to pin the arson charges on Tandoor Singh. He is already babbling like a deranged man and doing a poor job of defending his reputation.
Unfortunately, in other news, Lucifer Lardlover, the French magician of dark power, has had an urgent calling from his secret circle, the Order of the Flaccid Mallard. He must depart Nairobi at once, but orders his henchman Chad Slambody to protect Lester Cobblebottom instead, and to help the investigators with their mission, as it is of utmost importance.
Thoroughly depressed, and still in his pajamas, Colonel Endicott goes to the pub to get ripped. The investigators wearily return to Natalie Smyth-Forbes, who has been very worried about her wonderful Lester Cobblebottom. She coddles him and tends his many wounds, but Chang and Chad have other plans that night. Before turning Tandoor Singh over to the authorities on trumped up evidence of arson, they found a key on him.
A key to his Tea Shop, where they arrive around midnight. Chad is customarily naked and oiled up, and they carry cans of empty gas to further incriminate Tandoor. However, before entering, they spot two Kenyan men at the back door, wearing caps with long red tassels...
...men who Chang instantly recognizes as cultists of the Bloody Tongue, many of whom they killed in New York City. Kenya is the central headquarters for the Bloody Tongue branch. The cultists wait for Tandoor, but he is in jail and won’t be coming to the door, so they soon leave. Chad and Chang sneak in, and after a thorough search, find a door to the basement. Bravely, Chang advances alone while Chad keeps watch.
The basement reeks of death. The earthen cellar floor has grave-like mounds. There is a hideous altar with handcuffs, and a disgusting squid-like statue holding four basalt scythes. Inside a cabinet Chang finds a note, a book, robes, a cleaver and incense cones, and takes them. They leave the back door open and position the gas cans as further arson evidence, and then get as far away as they can, hoping no one saw them...
The next morning they look over what they have found. The book is written in Hindi, and only Natalie can read the title: The Chthuat Aquadigen. The most interesting item is the note however:
It is a folded telegraph from Port Hedland, Australia, addressed to Tandoor, dated several days prior. It is from someone named Huston, (possibly Huston of the Carlyle Expedition) and he is trying to find Tandoor's cousin in Mombasa, after some terrible accident at a warehouse.
It seems that several of the lost (and presumed dead) members of the expedition are not so dead and lost after all: there have been references to Brady, Huston and M'Weru long after their documented fates in Kenya.
And there we stopped.
Trudging up the slope from the decimated night platform, the group hauls a makeshift litter of ten ghoul corpses as hard evidence of the supernatural. Someone will have to pay attention to this. They're nearly out of the jungle when Silent Joe appears.
He cradles a rifle and, speaking for the first time, says: "So...you found the small demons." He seems to have known that there was SOMETHING unnatural out there, living beneath an old Boyovo burial ground. Colonel Endicott's hunting platform was built right in the middle of it.
Silent Joe seems impressed by the investigators. They are all hurt, scratched, bloodied and aching, and he suggests that they should meet his great-grandfather Old Bundari, a shaman in the tribal village of Boyova. He knows about "strange happenings" in Kenya, but Silent Joe won’t say much more. The investigators agree, but insist they need to go to the lodge first, rest and clean up, and show Endicott the corpses, the real reason behind the mysterious murders.
They meet Endicott at the top of the stairs. He is clad in striped gown-pajamas with a cap and fuzzy ball, still drunk and discombobulated from the night before; he thought that the dynamite explosions were thunder. Silent Joe is clearly apathetic toward his employer. The Colonel is about to go outside and investigate the strange "elk" that the group has killed, when he stops, and says: "Do you hear that?"
Unfortunately, Chang, Lucifer, Lester and Chad are all too familiar with the sound:
The haunting cry of fire vampires!
Flames are already licking the front porch, and they ask Endicott about a reliable water source. There is a pump-action well outside and buckets, so the group rushes that direction. Father Salvatore, new to the team, is unfamiliar with this vampiric danger, but he is a fast learner. And after a night of killing ghouls, he is not entirely surprised by the development.
Chang runs for the safety of the deeper woods, while Salvatore and Lester pump water into buckets. Chad Slambody spots movement behind a distant tree, and hears the chugging of an engine that won't quite start. He jogs in that direction, narrowly dodging a fire vampire that floats down from the porch in ambush; another drops off the roof. The vampires shoot straight toward the targets in the open: Lester and Father Salvatore. They desperately throw water at the entities, but what damage they inflict is negated by the deadly life-draining touch of the vampires. They swell and spark even brighter.
Chad finds a middle-aged Kenyan man wearing a turban trying to kickstart a motorcycle. At the last second he gets it going, spins out, and erupts through the brush, hits the dirt road and spins out toward Nairobi. Chad leaps through the brush, levels his shotgun and FIRES! The back wheel explodes, rubber and metal shredded in a bloom of flame, and the man is launched head over handlebars and rolls to a painful stop.
Meanwhile, the vampires chase Lester and Father Salvatore. The humans are much faster though, and outrun them. Lester tries to find keys in the truck while Salvatore runs inside and fills buckets from the faucet. The game lodge is already inundated with smoke and flames, and he begins coughing from smoke inhalation. Silent Joe, terrified now, begins popping off shots at the living flames, but it does no good. Colonel Endicott runs out the front door with his shotgun Mrs. Caruthers readied in his hands.
“DIE you flaming sons of bitches!”
Elsewhere, Chad begins wrestling the man he blasted off the motorcycle, and finally renders him unconscious in a brutal chokehold.
Lester can't find any car keys and tries to run inside, but the smoke forces him out. Chang and Salvatore have just filled several buckets when something NEW tears through the back door in a splintering hail of fire and wood: a man-sized living flame, swinging its fists!
They abandon all attempts to fight it and flee out the front door after Silent Joe, who has grabbed the keys to the safari truck. The hunting lodge is largely on fire now, and Colonel Endicott's gun retorts can be heard from behind the building. Everyone loads into the truck, the unconscious man in the turban is haphazardly lashed to the hood, and the wheel around back, where Chad once again makes an impressive feat of strength and manhandles Endicott as they drive by, hauling him into the vehicle. They tear down the bumpy road, leaving the lodge to burn behind them, along with the ghouls...
Ten miles later they stop, nearly halfway back to Nairobi. The smoke will be seen and fire wagons dispatched, and the party need to get their stories straight. They slap their captive awake, who they suspect summoned the demonic fire beings, probably three times now, even on the Unguandan Railway from Mombasa. But Colonel Endicott recognizes him: Tandoor Singh! Browntown's best tea-seller and owner of a small shop. He is threatened, and hisses that "M'weru will kill you all!" They recognize the name M'Weru as being the same enigmatic black woman who helped lead the Carlyle expedition five years ago, and with whom Roger Carlyle was infatuated.
Soon, the fire patrol arrives, the group points them toward the lodge, and the investigators continue to Captain Montgomery at the police station. With Colonel Endicott's help and support, they are able to pin the arson charges on Tandoor Singh. He is already babbling like a deranged man and doing a poor job of defending his reputation.
Unfortunately, in other news, Lucifer Lardlover, the French magician of dark power, has had an urgent calling from his secret circle, the Order of the Flaccid Mallard. He must depart Nairobi at once, but orders his henchman Chad Slambody to protect Lester Cobblebottom instead, and to help the investigators with their mission, as it is of utmost importance.
Thoroughly depressed, and still in his pajamas, Colonel Endicott goes to the pub to get ripped. The investigators wearily return to Natalie Smyth-Forbes, who has been very worried about her wonderful Lester Cobblebottom. She coddles him and tends his many wounds, but Chang and Chad have other plans that night. Before turning Tandoor Singh over to the authorities on trumped up evidence of arson, they found a key on him.
A key to his Tea Shop, where they arrive around midnight. Chad is customarily naked and oiled up, and they carry cans of empty gas to further incriminate Tandoor. However, before entering, they spot two Kenyan men at the back door, wearing caps with long red tassels...
...men who Chang instantly recognizes as cultists of the Bloody Tongue, many of whom they killed in New York City. Kenya is the central headquarters for the Bloody Tongue branch. The cultists wait for Tandoor, but he is in jail and won’t be coming to the door, so they soon leave. Chad and Chang sneak in, and after a thorough search, find a door to the basement. Bravely, Chang advances alone while Chad keeps watch.
The basement reeks of death. The earthen cellar floor has grave-like mounds. There is a hideous altar with handcuffs, and a disgusting squid-like statue holding four basalt scythes. Inside a cabinet Chang finds a note, a book, robes, a cleaver and incense cones, and takes them. They leave the back door open and position the gas cans as further arson evidence, and then get as far away as they can, hoping no one saw them...
The next morning they look over what they have found. The book is written in Hindi, and only Natalie can read the title: The Chthuat Aquadigen. The most interesting item is the note however:
It is a folded telegraph from Port Hedland, Australia, addressed to Tandoor, dated several days prior. It is from someone named Huston, (possibly Huston of the Carlyle Expedition) and he is trying to find Tandoor's cousin in Mombasa, after some terrible accident at a warehouse.
It seems that several of the lost (and presumed dead) members of the expedition are not so dead and lost after all: there have been references to Brady, Huston and M'Weru long after their documented fates in Kenya.
And there we stopped.
GodPhoenix
First Post
Nebulous said:
This was probably the most fun I've ever had framing an NPC in a game...certainly the most satisfying.
Nebulous
Legend
Adventure #22: A Serious Problem
Adventure #22: A Serious Problem
The next morning Chad, Chang, Lester and Father Salvatore decide that even though Tandoor Singh is in jail, he just poses too much of a threat. He tried to burn them up multiple times, and now revenge is in the air.
They decide to kill him.
Lester is not too sure about this plan initially, but Chad bullies him into submission by calling him a “wimp”, a “portly busybody,” and an “academic ass****.” Their plan boils down to this: since Tandoor can’t escape from an enclosed prison room, they will funnel poisonous gas from a rare jungle concoction into the chamber. How do they make this concoction? Well, that turns out to be easier than they thought.
Silent Joe has already told them that a relative of his, an elderly shaman named Old Bundari, might be very interested in hearing about their endeavors, especially killing the ghouls. So, they ask Silent Joe to take them to Old Bundari. They load into a truck and rattle out of Nairobi, out into the verdant countryside, chasing down the occasional herds of wild elk and moose.
Once they arrive in the small town of Boyova, Silent Joe gets out and says that he will contact Old Bundari. The investigators wait in the hot car while dozens of children surround the vehicle, peering into the windows. Chad and Lester start to get nervous. Chad doesn’t like kids anyway, and these little Kenyan boys and girls are staring at them with wide, expressionless brown eyes. Small handprints are all over the windows.
Father Salvatore slowly loads shells into his shotgun. He’s getting worried too, and the expressionless gazes from these creepy kids are really starting to get under his skin. “Back off!” he shouts. “Give us some space!” They kids don’t listen, and then a few of them jump on the roof, dancing up and down. Others start rocking the truck back and forth, and the stunned investigators suddenly realize that they’ve been led straight into a trap!
“RUN FOR IT!” bellows Chad Slambody. He kicks a door open, slamming three children into the dirt, and he bullrushes three more out of the way. Small hands grapple Chad from every side, but he punches them. Father Salvatore tries to clamber out as well, but when kids plug the hole, he mercilessly blasts them apart with his shotgun. Chang isn’t taking any chances either, so he sparks a stick of dynamite and throws it into the crowd. Children are obliterated in a wave of smoke and fire, and grinning ruefully, Chang remembers how much he loves being an amoral investigator.
Chubby Lester Cobblebottom tries to fight his way out too, but he is overpowered by small lean bodies. Children start pulling his hair, biting his ears and tug his pants down around his ankles so that he trips. He clambers onward like a turtle, laden with half a dozen bodies hammering their fists on him. “You’re…hurting me!” he cries.
Silent Joe suddenly appears, laughing maniacally, and for some reason he wields deadly handaxes in each hand, and immediately throws them at Chad Slambody. Chad deflects the first, but suffers the second handaxe piercing his thigh, but then he unloads both barrels of his shotgun into Silent Joe’s face. His head erupts into a bloom of blood and spurting fluid, but he doesn’t go down!
A hissing, amorphous tentacle writhes out of Joe’s neck hole, and he staggers toward Chad, hands outstretched like a ravenous zombie.
“Kill that thing, Chang!” he shouts. But Chang is already on the ball, and after vaulting a defensive wave of kids, Chang slams another stick of dynamite down the Silent “Slimy” Joe’s neck hole. The abomination staggers and then explodes into a rich red shower of intestinal goo.
With half of the evil children destroyed, Chad, Chang and Father Salvatore beat the rest of the little bastards from Lester. Both of his ears have been chewed off by this point, but they wrap gauze around his head to stem the flow of blood. They look all around, but everyone in the village seems to have fled, and they don’t have the car keys. But they see a single plume of smoke rising from a hut, and they surmise that this must be the abode of the warlock Old Bundari. Reloading their ammunition, they advance.
The dome-shaped hut is constructed from mud and wood, and it is suitably vulnerable to dynamite. Two rounds later, all that is left is a gaping hole in the ground.
“You want some more?” screams Chad to the sky. “Huh? Huh? COME GET SOME OF MY BOOMSTICK!”
But they seem to have either driven off or killed everyone that might be a threat. They quickly ransack the rest of the village and find:
1) Joe’s car keys.
2) 5 barrels of fermented ale
3) 100 gp, 342 cp, 3 pp
4) Rare mixtures of jungle herbs, oils and brews labeled with skulls.
Piling back into the truck, they return to Nairobi, only slowing down to run over elk that get in their way. Once they arrive back at Mrs. Natalie Smyth-Forbes house she tends her wounded lover, but there’s not much to do for eaten ears. She says that she is a talented seamstress though, and might be able to stitch him some new ones.
The investigators then take the rare poisonous plants, herbs and tonics gained from the village, and start mixing them. They are careful to wear masks while they do this, and a good thing, because once they burn a practice batch, they kill every plant in Natalie’s home. Nodding grimly to each other, now they put the final phase of their plan into motion. Using the cover of night, Chad strips naked and oils himself up, and slithers like a black mamba to the jailhouse. Chang pulls up nearby with a few barrels of their concoction, and they attached a plastic tent and hoses to the ventilation system on the back of the jailhouse, and light the poisonous material with Bunsen burners.
The green gas begins pumping out, and within minutes police officers are staggering into the night, choking and rolling around and gagging. Their lips are purple and their faces hideously swollen. Chad feels a smidgen of remorse, so he cuts all of their throats with a pranga as they come out the front door. Lester, Salvator, Chang and Chad all have gas masks on, and this was also a good plan, because they gravely miscalculate how much poison they are actually using. It spills out of the jailhouse and inundates the streets of Nairobi. Animals start falling over dead. Cars bump off curbs and smash into windows. Pedestrians drop dead in their tracks. And STILL the gas keeps spreading!
By morning the streets and homes of Nairobi are quiet as death, and the investigators stand in the midst of a greenish haze. Eventually the sun burns off of the poison, and they strip their masks away.
“Do you think we got him?” asks Salvatore.
“Only one way to be sure,” says Chang, so he plants more dynamite around the jailhouse and sends it to Hell in a thunderous wave of flame and shattered granite.
“Now what?” asks Lester. “Everyone’s dead.”
This seems as a good as time as any to become the new Lords of Nairobi, and wait out the End Times rather than actually trying to confront M’Weru at the Mountain of the Black Wind. About a week later a particularly horrible storm ravages the countryside, and the investigators are pretty sure the Spawn was born and has assumed its place in the world, but that’s not really their concern anymore.
The investigators have gained control of the railway and rule Nairobi with an iron fist. Man-whores are shipped in for Chad; Chang practices his demolition skills on entire herds of farm animals; Lester moans a lot and complains that Natalie no longer finds him attractive without ears; and Father Salvatore decides to abandon his faith and become a cleric of Nyarlahotep.
Not the way I would have finished the campaign, but what the hell.
THE END
Adventure #22: A Serious Problem
The next morning Chad, Chang, Lester and Father Salvatore decide that even though Tandoor Singh is in jail, he just poses too much of a threat. He tried to burn them up multiple times, and now revenge is in the air.
They decide to kill him.
Lester is not too sure about this plan initially, but Chad bullies him into submission by calling him a “wimp”, a “portly busybody,” and an “academic ass****.” Their plan boils down to this: since Tandoor can’t escape from an enclosed prison room, they will funnel poisonous gas from a rare jungle concoction into the chamber. How do they make this concoction? Well, that turns out to be easier than they thought.
Silent Joe has already told them that a relative of his, an elderly shaman named Old Bundari, might be very interested in hearing about their endeavors, especially killing the ghouls. So, they ask Silent Joe to take them to Old Bundari. They load into a truck and rattle out of Nairobi, out into the verdant countryside, chasing down the occasional herds of wild elk and moose.
Once they arrive in the small town of Boyova, Silent Joe gets out and says that he will contact Old Bundari. The investigators wait in the hot car while dozens of children surround the vehicle, peering into the windows. Chad and Lester start to get nervous. Chad doesn’t like kids anyway, and these little Kenyan boys and girls are staring at them with wide, expressionless brown eyes. Small handprints are all over the windows.
Father Salvatore slowly loads shells into his shotgun. He’s getting worried too, and the expressionless gazes from these creepy kids are really starting to get under his skin. “Back off!” he shouts. “Give us some space!” They kids don’t listen, and then a few of them jump on the roof, dancing up and down. Others start rocking the truck back and forth, and the stunned investigators suddenly realize that they’ve been led straight into a trap!
“RUN FOR IT!” bellows Chad Slambody. He kicks a door open, slamming three children into the dirt, and he bullrushes three more out of the way. Small hands grapple Chad from every side, but he punches them. Father Salvatore tries to clamber out as well, but when kids plug the hole, he mercilessly blasts them apart with his shotgun. Chang isn’t taking any chances either, so he sparks a stick of dynamite and throws it into the crowd. Children are obliterated in a wave of smoke and fire, and grinning ruefully, Chang remembers how much he loves being an amoral investigator.
Chubby Lester Cobblebottom tries to fight his way out too, but he is overpowered by small lean bodies. Children start pulling his hair, biting his ears and tug his pants down around his ankles so that he trips. He clambers onward like a turtle, laden with half a dozen bodies hammering their fists on him. “You’re…hurting me!” he cries.
Silent Joe suddenly appears, laughing maniacally, and for some reason he wields deadly handaxes in each hand, and immediately throws them at Chad Slambody. Chad deflects the first, but suffers the second handaxe piercing his thigh, but then he unloads both barrels of his shotgun into Silent Joe’s face. His head erupts into a bloom of blood and spurting fluid, but he doesn’t go down!
A hissing, amorphous tentacle writhes out of Joe’s neck hole, and he staggers toward Chad, hands outstretched like a ravenous zombie.
“Kill that thing, Chang!” he shouts. But Chang is already on the ball, and after vaulting a defensive wave of kids, Chang slams another stick of dynamite down the Silent “Slimy” Joe’s neck hole. The abomination staggers and then explodes into a rich red shower of intestinal goo.
With half of the evil children destroyed, Chad, Chang and Father Salvatore beat the rest of the little bastards from Lester. Both of his ears have been chewed off by this point, but they wrap gauze around his head to stem the flow of blood. They look all around, but everyone in the village seems to have fled, and they don’t have the car keys. But they see a single plume of smoke rising from a hut, and they surmise that this must be the abode of the warlock Old Bundari. Reloading their ammunition, they advance.
The dome-shaped hut is constructed from mud and wood, and it is suitably vulnerable to dynamite. Two rounds later, all that is left is a gaping hole in the ground.
“You want some more?” screams Chad to the sky. “Huh? Huh? COME GET SOME OF MY BOOMSTICK!”
But they seem to have either driven off or killed everyone that might be a threat. They quickly ransack the rest of the village and find:
1) Joe’s car keys.
2) 5 barrels of fermented ale
3) 100 gp, 342 cp, 3 pp
4) Rare mixtures of jungle herbs, oils and brews labeled with skulls.
Piling back into the truck, they return to Nairobi, only slowing down to run over elk that get in their way. Once they arrive back at Mrs. Natalie Smyth-Forbes house she tends her wounded lover, but there’s not much to do for eaten ears. She says that she is a talented seamstress though, and might be able to stitch him some new ones.
The investigators then take the rare poisonous plants, herbs and tonics gained from the village, and start mixing them. They are careful to wear masks while they do this, and a good thing, because once they burn a practice batch, they kill every plant in Natalie’s home. Nodding grimly to each other, now they put the final phase of their plan into motion. Using the cover of night, Chad strips naked and oils himself up, and slithers like a black mamba to the jailhouse. Chang pulls up nearby with a few barrels of their concoction, and they attached a plastic tent and hoses to the ventilation system on the back of the jailhouse, and light the poisonous material with Bunsen burners.
The green gas begins pumping out, and within minutes police officers are staggering into the night, choking and rolling around and gagging. Their lips are purple and their faces hideously swollen. Chad feels a smidgen of remorse, so he cuts all of their throats with a pranga as they come out the front door. Lester, Salvator, Chang and Chad all have gas masks on, and this was also a good plan, because they gravely miscalculate how much poison they are actually using. It spills out of the jailhouse and inundates the streets of Nairobi. Animals start falling over dead. Cars bump off curbs and smash into windows. Pedestrians drop dead in their tracks. And STILL the gas keeps spreading!
By morning the streets and homes of Nairobi are quiet as death, and the investigators stand in the midst of a greenish haze. Eventually the sun burns off of the poison, and they strip their masks away.
“Do you think we got him?” asks Salvatore.
“Only one way to be sure,” says Chang, so he plants more dynamite around the jailhouse and sends it to Hell in a thunderous wave of flame and shattered granite.
“Now what?” asks Lester. “Everyone’s dead.”
This seems as a good as time as any to become the new Lords of Nairobi, and wait out the End Times rather than actually trying to confront M’Weru at the Mountain of the Black Wind. About a week later a particularly horrible storm ravages the countryside, and the investigators are pretty sure the Spawn was born and has assumed its place in the world, but that’s not really their concern anymore.
The investigators have gained control of the railway and rule Nairobi with an iron fist. Man-whores are shipped in for Chad; Chang practices his demolition skills on entire herds of farm animals; Lester moans a lot and complains that Natalie no longer finds him attractive without ears; and Father Salvatore decides to abandon his faith and become a cleric of Nyarlahotep.
Not the way I would have finished the campaign, but what the hell.
THE END
GodPhoenix
First Post
Nice
Nebulous
Legend
Adventure #22: Old Bundari
(What REALLY happened)
Several days after the destruction of Colonel Endicott's game lodge, the party finds themselves resting at the home of Mrs. Natalie Smyth-Forbes. She has run a full article about the arsonist Tandoor Singh, and he is still in jail. The bodies were found in his basement, as well as the cans of gasoline that Chad and Chang planted there. It is unlikely that Tandoor will be troubling them again anytime soon.
[GM Note: Luckily for the PCs, he never told M’Weru about their presence and tried to handle the “problem” by himself].
However, one night after Father Salvatore has retired to bed to read his bible, while the others drink tea outside on the veranda (except for Chang, who fears that his wife has left him, and has drunk himself into another stupor) he notices a faint breeze stirring the curtains.
The hair rises on Salvatore's neck.
The room is dim, candles burning low. On the table lies the strange book that Chang found in the basement of Tandoor's tea shop, translated from Hindi as the Chuaat Aquadigen. A corner is rippling. And then slowly, it opens. Salvatore watches, entranced, his heart beating faster. A page turns. Another page turns. Several more pages flip, and then a breeze begins to build from nowhere, and soon the pages are flipping furiously and wind WHIPS around the room! He bolts up, terrified, but composes himself and steps toward the book. Wind rattles the bookcases and slings unattended objects across the room. Something is sighing; a deep, mournful breath of stagnation, but Salvatore reaches out and simply closes the book.
The gale ceases. Paper and debris settle to the floor, and seconds later Chad, Lester and Natalie burst into the room, gazing oddly at Father Salvatore and the destruction. He tries to explain what happened, but stops upon seeing a single sheaf drifting to the floor, ripped from the binding. The page is written in Hindi, undecipherable, but the group can identify markings along the perimeter that looks like rise of the sun until it reaches a black eclipse. Disturbed, Natalie quietly asks that they clean up the mess.
The next day brings another unexpected incident: the local jailhouse catches on fire.
Plumes of smoke are seen rising up, and soon thereafter they hear the wail of sirens. It is later revealed that Tandoor Singh died in the conflagration, and it seemed to originate from his very cell block. He will not be a threat at all now, but his death raises new concerns for the party: did someone wish to silence Tandoor, or did he kill himself rather than face punishment by his superiors?
The group was told by Silent Joe (who is not as silent as he initially seemed) that they should speak with Old Bundari, a Boyovo shaman. Silent Joe even comes up to them in the marketplace the same day that Tandoor dies, and tells the group that he can take them to Old Bundari immediately. They fail to persuade him to wait, although they do manage to buy a wooden peace-pipe from a gift shop as a last minute gift. Maybe this will convince Old Bundari to like them by kissing his ass.
Not quite knowing what to expect, they pile into his truck, and Silent Joe transports them out of town, bouncing along a hot, dusty road into the verdant countryside.
An hour later they stop at a quaint village: Boyova. Silent Joe asks them to wait in the car while he goes to talk with a very tall Kenyan man dressed in ceremonial clothing and makeup. Children surround the car, peering inside and chattering. Joe finally returns and introduces the group to Okumo, assistant to Old Bundari, the tribal shaman of Boyova.
Okumo is terse, although he speaks English very well. He does not seem impressed with the group at all, and is very dismissive of their presence (after all, they were not asked to come), but when they begin dropping hints of their true purpose, such as the Carlyle Expedition, and the Cult of the Bloody Tongue and the Black Wind, Okumo's demeanor changes. They have struck a chord with him, a common ground that gains his trust almost immediately. He leads them inside a conical hut that is plastered with occult symbols of warding and protection, and leads them to the very center where Old Bundari waits in a mystical reverie.
Along the way, Okumo explains to them several important facts:
1) The Carlyle Expedition was attacked and carried away five years ago by agents of evil, and taken to the Mountain of the Black Wind. It is possible that all of them are still alive, and not torn to shreds as the reports have indicated. The Corrupted Ground, where the incident occurred, is shunned by everyone. It is cursed now.
2) Once per year the Black Wind is summoned via a brutal, bloody ritual, and a storm of pestilence is unleashed upon the land. This demonic storm is yet another Mask of Nyarlathotep, and the time has come yet again.
3) M'Weru, the black woman with whom Roger Carlyle was infatuated, is the high priestess of the dark god at the Mountain of the Black Wind.
4) The child of Nyarlathotep is soon to be born, and will help usher in the destruction of the world. The group already suspects that Hyapatia Masters has been the chosen mother for quite some time now.
It takes many hours for Old Bundari to wake from his dream trance. Chad does sit ups and stomach crunches while the others nap, quite bored and irritable in the sweltering hut, until the old man finally stirs. He swells, as if stirring to life, and flutters rheumy eyes at them.
Okumo acts as translator because Old Bundari does not speak English. During his exploration of the Dream Time and the astral worlds, Bundari has known that these foreigners would arrive. They have a great task ahead of them, as did their companions and acquaintances before, those that have perished in the battle against Evil. The Bloody Tongue has grown arrogant, and kidnapped hundreds of victims for a foul ritual.
Old Bundari offers them two important gifts: a fly whisk that can stave off evil magic and a chameleon in a cage, Who-Is-Not-What-She-Seems.
"Who" must be regularly fed a steady diet of flies, and when needed, she can be released from the cage, but she will only help once. Okomu volunteers to guide the group northward, through the dense jungle, to the Corrupted Ground and beyond to the Mountain, and the investigators convince him to bring along several (meatshield) warriors.
Old Bundari finally mentions the Eye of Light and Darkness, and if the investigators know of it. They do, but only the little that Chang and Chad heard from Dr. Ali Kafour in Cairo. For the group’s newcomers, Salvatore and Lester, they do not know of the Eye.
According to legend, Bundari says, the Eye had the power to chain the black god within his mountain for eternity. It worked similarly once, in Egypt, until the god tricked a mortal man into destroying the seal. The investigators suspect that this man was none other than eccentric millionaire Roger Carlyle.
They sincerely thank Old Bundari for his assistance, and promise him that they will do the best they can to stop the ritual at the Mountain of the Black Wind. Silent Joe takes them back to Nairobi where they begin preparations to leave in the next few days.
However, before they depart, they receive an urgent telegram from their mystical friend in Cairo: Dr. Ali Kafour!
He is doing well, and tells them that an Australian professor named Dr. Anthony Cowles and his peer, Dr. David Dodge will be heading through Mombasa--and possibly Nairobi--on their way back to Australia. These two gentlemen have been giving lectures across the world regarding what they believe to be a hidden city in the Australian desert. After attending their lecture in Cairo, Dr. Kafour spoke with them intently about their beliefs, and it has come to Dr. Kafour's knowledge that both men are marginally aware of the occult, and there is evidence of another Nyarlathotep cult forming there: the Sand Bat. Cowles and Dodge plan to mount an expedition when they return, and Dr. Kafour remembered the clues found within the Bent Pyramid.
According to that map, Australia houses one-third of a worldwide conspiracy, in roughly the vicinity of Cowle’s and Dodge’s hidden city.
In the telegram, Dr. Kafour urges the investigators to accompany them (even if just for their protection), so they all make tentative plans to meet in Nairobi once Dodge arrives in the country (assuming, of course, that anyone survives the Mountain of the Black Wind!). In addition, they will be accompanied by their old comrade Gi-Gi, the wheelchair bound psychic, who Ali Kafour has recruited to help them.
Several days later, the group heads off after stocking up on necessary equipment for the journey (including a Gas Camel, which is actually a Gas Mule now). They are walking into the jaws of death and fear that they might not return from this expedition. Ahead of them waits the deepest jungle and a country full of madmen but with Okumo’s guidance, they soon reach a village named Ndovu, but Okumo warns them to say NOTHING about the Black Wind or the Corrupted Ground. The natives here live in great fear of both.
For now, the investigators keep them mouths shut, and their eyes upon an ominous black mountain looming in the distance...
[GM Note: I knew this would be a quiet chapter with no gunfights, cultists, or explosions (hopefully) so I added the scene at the beginning with the creepy book]
(What REALLY happened)
Several days after the destruction of Colonel Endicott's game lodge, the party finds themselves resting at the home of Mrs. Natalie Smyth-Forbes. She has run a full article about the arsonist Tandoor Singh, and he is still in jail. The bodies were found in his basement, as well as the cans of gasoline that Chad and Chang planted there. It is unlikely that Tandoor will be troubling them again anytime soon.
[GM Note: Luckily for the PCs, he never told M’Weru about their presence and tried to handle the “problem” by himself].
However, one night after Father Salvatore has retired to bed to read his bible, while the others drink tea outside on the veranda (except for Chang, who fears that his wife has left him, and has drunk himself into another stupor) he notices a faint breeze stirring the curtains.
The hair rises on Salvatore's neck.
The room is dim, candles burning low. On the table lies the strange book that Chang found in the basement of Tandoor's tea shop, translated from Hindi as the Chuaat Aquadigen. A corner is rippling. And then slowly, it opens. Salvatore watches, entranced, his heart beating faster. A page turns. Another page turns. Several more pages flip, and then a breeze begins to build from nowhere, and soon the pages are flipping furiously and wind WHIPS around the room! He bolts up, terrified, but composes himself and steps toward the book. Wind rattles the bookcases and slings unattended objects across the room. Something is sighing; a deep, mournful breath of stagnation, but Salvatore reaches out and simply closes the book.
The gale ceases. Paper and debris settle to the floor, and seconds later Chad, Lester and Natalie burst into the room, gazing oddly at Father Salvatore and the destruction. He tries to explain what happened, but stops upon seeing a single sheaf drifting to the floor, ripped from the binding. The page is written in Hindi, undecipherable, but the group can identify markings along the perimeter that looks like rise of the sun until it reaches a black eclipse. Disturbed, Natalie quietly asks that they clean up the mess.
The next day brings another unexpected incident: the local jailhouse catches on fire.
Plumes of smoke are seen rising up, and soon thereafter they hear the wail of sirens. It is later revealed that Tandoor Singh died in the conflagration, and it seemed to originate from his very cell block. He will not be a threat at all now, but his death raises new concerns for the party: did someone wish to silence Tandoor, or did he kill himself rather than face punishment by his superiors?
The group was told by Silent Joe (who is not as silent as he initially seemed) that they should speak with Old Bundari, a Boyovo shaman. Silent Joe even comes up to them in the marketplace the same day that Tandoor dies, and tells the group that he can take them to Old Bundari immediately. They fail to persuade him to wait, although they do manage to buy a wooden peace-pipe from a gift shop as a last minute gift. Maybe this will convince Old Bundari to like them by kissing his ass.
Not quite knowing what to expect, they pile into his truck, and Silent Joe transports them out of town, bouncing along a hot, dusty road into the verdant countryside.
An hour later they stop at a quaint village: Boyova. Silent Joe asks them to wait in the car while he goes to talk with a very tall Kenyan man dressed in ceremonial clothing and makeup. Children surround the car, peering inside and chattering. Joe finally returns and introduces the group to Okumo, assistant to Old Bundari, the tribal shaman of Boyova.
Okumo is terse, although he speaks English very well. He does not seem impressed with the group at all, and is very dismissive of their presence (after all, they were not asked to come), but when they begin dropping hints of their true purpose, such as the Carlyle Expedition, and the Cult of the Bloody Tongue and the Black Wind, Okumo's demeanor changes. They have struck a chord with him, a common ground that gains his trust almost immediately. He leads them inside a conical hut that is plastered with occult symbols of warding and protection, and leads them to the very center where Old Bundari waits in a mystical reverie.
Along the way, Okumo explains to them several important facts:
1) The Carlyle Expedition was attacked and carried away five years ago by agents of evil, and taken to the Mountain of the Black Wind. It is possible that all of them are still alive, and not torn to shreds as the reports have indicated. The Corrupted Ground, where the incident occurred, is shunned by everyone. It is cursed now.
2) Once per year the Black Wind is summoned via a brutal, bloody ritual, and a storm of pestilence is unleashed upon the land. This demonic storm is yet another Mask of Nyarlathotep, and the time has come yet again.
3) M'Weru, the black woman with whom Roger Carlyle was infatuated, is the high priestess of the dark god at the Mountain of the Black Wind.
4) The child of Nyarlathotep is soon to be born, and will help usher in the destruction of the world. The group already suspects that Hyapatia Masters has been the chosen mother for quite some time now.
It takes many hours for Old Bundari to wake from his dream trance. Chad does sit ups and stomach crunches while the others nap, quite bored and irritable in the sweltering hut, until the old man finally stirs. He swells, as if stirring to life, and flutters rheumy eyes at them.
Okumo acts as translator because Old Bundari does not speak English. During his exploration of the Dream Time and the astral worlds, Bundari has known that these foreigners would arrive. They have a great task ahead of them, as did their companions and acquaintances before, those that have perished in the battle against Evil. The Bloody Tongue has grown arrogant, and kidnapped hundreds of victims for a foul ritual.
Old Bundari offers them two important gifts: a fly whisk that can stave off evil magic and a chameleon in a cage, Who-Is-Not-What-She-Seems.
"Who" must be regularly fed a steady diet of flies, and when needed, she can be released from the cage, but she will only help once. Okomu volunteers to guide the group northward, through the dense jungle, to the Corrupted Ground and beyond to the Mountain, and the investigators convince him to bring along several (meatshield) warriors.
Old Bundari finally mentions the Eye of Light and Darkness, and if the investigators know of it. They do, but only the little that Chang and Chad heard from Dr. Ali Kafour in Cairo. For the group’s newcomers, Salvatore and Lester, they do not know of the Eye.
According to legend, Bundari says, the Eye had the power to chain the black god within his mountain for eternity. It worked similarly once, in Egypt, until the god tricked a mortal man into destroying the seal. The investigators suspect that this man was none other than eccentric millionaire Roger Carlyle.
They sincerely thank Old Bundari for his assistance, and promise him that they will do the best they can to stop the ritual at the Mountain of the Black Wind. Silent Joe takes them back to Nairobi where they begin preparations to leave in the next few days.
However, before they depart, they receive an urgent telegram from their mystical friend in Cairo: Dr. Ali Kafour!
He is doing well, and tells them that an Australian professor named Dr. Anthony Cowles and his peer, Dr. David Dodge will be heading through Mombasa--and possibly Nairobi--on their way back to Australia. These two gentlemen have been giving lectures across the world regarding what they believe to be a hidden city in the Australian desert. After attending their lecture in Cairo, Dr. Kafour spoke with them intently about their beliefs, and it has come to Dr. Kafour's knowledge that both men are marginally aware of the occult, and there is evidence of another Nyarlathotep cult forming there: the Sand Bat. Cowles and Dodge plan to mount an expedition when they return, and Dr. Kafour remembered the clues found within the Bent Pyramid.
According to that map, Australia houses one-third of a worldwide conspiracy, in roughly the vicinity of Cowle’s and Dodge’s hidden city.
In the telegram, Dr. Kafour urges the investigators to accompany them (even if just for their protection), so they all make tentative plans to meet in Nairobi once Dodge arrives in the country (assuming, of course, that anyone survives the Mountain of the Black Wind!). In addition, they will be accompanied by their old comrade Gi-Gi, the wheelchair bound psychic, who Ali Kafour has recruited to help them.
Several days later, the group heads off after stocking up on necessary equipment for the journey (including a Gas Camel, which is actually a Gas Mule now). They are walking into the jaws of death and fear that they might not return from this expedition. Ahead of them waits the deepest jungle and a country full of madmen but with Okumo’s guidance, they soon reach a village named Ndovu, but Okumo warns them to say NOTHING about the Black Wind or the Corrupted Ground. The natives here live in great fear of both.
For now, the investigators keep them mouths shut, and their eyes upon an ominous black mountain looming in the distance...
[GM Note: I knew this would be a quiet chapter with no gunfights, cultists, or explosions (hopefully) so I added the scene at the beginning with the creepy book]
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