WORK BRINGS FREEDOM
Oswiecim was under a spiritual barrier for a number of years. Oswiecim was home to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most well known of the Nazi party’s concentration camps. During the Holocaust, 1.1 million people died within its walls. This led it to become one of the most haunted places on the planet. Ghosts of all shapes and sizes dwelled within, frightening out or murdering all residents of Oswiecim. Because of the sheer magnitude of the haunting, a great number of other things found home there.
For the inclined occult investigator, Auschwitz-Birkenau is a treasure trove. It’s also a remarkably dangerous trap. Earlier this year, an entrepreneur named Tetsuo Shuumatsu hired a cabal of sorcerers, charging them with the removal of the barrier. He’s an arms dealer, one who specializes in the weapons necessary to take down ghosts. With such an infestation of ghosts, only a silly buyer would hesitate to pay top dollar for his wares. His greed opened this treasure trove to the public, allowing those without a sense of self-preservation to have a unique opportunity to drudge for necromantic artifacts.
The town proper is effectively still a town, albeit a town inhabited by the angry and hungry dead. They don’t take kindly to the living, but aren’t necessarily hostile unless provoked. Many are simply living out echoes of their past existences as harmless villagers. The real problem comes from the concentration camps proper. The three main campuses are surrounded by about fifty smaller camps. Each of the smaller camps is a hotbed of supernatural activity, but nothing compared to the magnitude of the central collective.
In particular, Auschwitz II is remarkable. It was the source of the vast majority of deaths—it’s what most people think of when referencing Auschwitz. It’s nightmare made flesh, almost a living organism unto itself. The halls audibly scream and cry, the ghosts beg for release so much that most people couldn’t even hear themselves speak. For your average runner, Auschwitz II is suicide. Only the most enterprising groups will survive the trip. But such a trip can result in great rewards (see The Flesh finder, below).
THE FLESHFINDER
Deep within the bowels of Auschwitz II during WWII, Dr. Eduard Wirths conducted and supervised thousands of odd experiments on the human body. He tested mustard gas on innocents. He mutilated twins. He held people in tanks of ice water for hours or until dead. He exposed prisoners to malaria. He forced them to drink seawater. One particular implement from his experiments, a rusted old scalpel, was left in the labs. Over many years, it was energized by the various ghosts passing by it, feeding off their death energies. At this point, it’s taken on a life of its own.
The rusty old scalpel craves death. It only finds itself at home when flush with warm blood. Although this makes it a remarkably effective weapon, anyone holding it is subject to the sounds of its past victims. As a function of this, when the weapon is in hand, the character is considered distracted and su ffers a –4 dice pool modi fier to all Perception Tests. If she attempts to Observe in Detail as a Simple Action, she only suffers a –2 dice pool modifier.
Reach: 0, Damage: (Str/2+4)P, AP: –2, Availability: N/A (unique item), Market Value: 10,000¥
