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View Full Version : Gentlemen of Terrible Standing (Slasher Chronicle)



White_North
2011-05-27, 08:16 PM
Hey y’all. So, a while ago, I made a thread asking advice about running a Slasher game. For those who don’t know what that is, Slasher is a World of Darkness supplement which focuses on serial killers. The main intent of the book is to have the players play “darker” Hunters or to have them hunt down the Slashers. However, I found that what would be interesting would be to have the players be actual Slashers, brought together by a unifying purpose to do their grim work while trying to evade the police. And, after talking with my players, they agreed to the idea. The first session took place yesterday night and I thought that, in thanks for all the help I received from the board in planning this out, I’d write out a Campaign Journal. Now, before I start, a disclaimer: each player said what kinds of things would make him uncomfortable and we all agreed to avoid those particular topics. I will skip over whatever parts I deem to be beyond the realm of good taste. Also, let me apologize in advance for the preposterous amount of text. To me, this game serves as a sort of murder mystery, in which I see if I can actually catch my players using ordinary police resources (at first :p). So, I’ll provide as much detail so that you guys can follow the threads of investigation and maybe point out what they may have missed. With that said, let’s dive in and I hope you guys enjoy reading about this.

The Setting is San Francisco. Now, the players:

Caleb Lambman: Strongly inspired by Elijah Woods’ character in Sin City, Caleb is a recluse who lives in a small cabin in the middle of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. He is a devout Catholic, who was taken in by Father Patrick and taught to appreciate certain… unusual kinds of meals. He is mostly silent, only opening his ever-grinning mouth to sing with the voice of an angel.

Father Patrick: A Catholic priest who had his faith turned around by what he saw during a charitable expedition to Rwanda. He saw all the violence of man, and concluded that, since evil was so present in the world, it must be the will of God. Now, he lives in Saint Mary’s Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, tending to his flock and his favourite follower, Caleb.

Jeremie: Jeremie, or Jim for short, is a film enthusiast who enjoys an unusual amount of wealth, thanks to being the only beneficiary of a wealthy old lady who took him under her wing when he was a struggling filmmaker. He has a passion for horror movies, which he tries to cultivate by planning and then shooting the “perfect horror movies”, which are sometimes a little more real than they should be.

Now, the Tale:

The story start in San Francisco, at the beginning of September, on a cold night. Jim was on his way to Saint Mary’s Grace, to meet with a priest there who would help him do research about his next movie, which involves an exorcism. There, he is received by the kindly-looking man who tends to the Cathedral. They exchanged names and pleasantries, and then Father Pat led the newcomer to his office, so that they may sit down and discuss at leisure. Meanwhile, in the basement of Cathedral, Caleb was busy cleaning the store room, which Father Pat had asked him to do in order to help the other priests at least once a month. Everyone had gone to bed and Caleb was finishing tidying up when he notices a strange sound coming from the hallway. It was faint, but grew more defined over two or three minutes, rhythmically occurring every second or so. It was a strange flopping sound, of flesh against stone, like someone walking barefoot in the hallway. Now curious, Caleb crept, quiet as a shadow, towards the doorway and peered down the corridor. What he saw there, at the foot of the stairs leading to the main floor of the Cathedral, hopping up and down in the stream of light coming in from the stairway was a foot, projecting a disembodied shadow on the basement floor. As soon as he saw it, the foot slowly turned and began hopping up the stairs, one at a time. Caleb followed it onto the main floor, only to see it begin to hop up the stairs leading to the altar, where a giant sliver cross lay. Panicked, he ran for Father Pat’s office, not daring to look at the foot. He erupts into the office, shuts the door and violently motions towards it. Surprised, Father Pat get up, goes towards the door and opens it. Beyond, kneeling in the benches, he sees all his assembly. All the priests and apprentices, kneeling in prayer, their skin turned charcoal black and unblinking white eyes staring at him. After a moment, they start to rise, their eyes still fixed upon him. Father Pat screams that the devil has come to his church and admonishes them to leave, only to be overwhelmed by a will which breaks the back of his own (turns out, trying to perform an exorcism when you have terrible Morality? Not a very good idea). Then, the assembly starts moving towards them. Seeing Father Patrick beaten, Caleb kicks out a window, shoulders him and runs, Jim following a step behind him, his camera on as he frantically tries to capture everything. They manage to get onto the street and Caleb makes for his cabin, wanting a safe place for Father Patrick to recuperate. Jim decides to follow.

After a five-hour hike through backstreets, across the Bay Bridge and through the woods, they finally arrive at the cabin, lost in the middle of the Park. There, they finally sit down and discuss what they happened. Father Patrick again says that the devil had taken possession of his church. Then, a voice erupts into the air: “Looked to me like he wasn’t after your Church, Father”. The voice, high-pitched and slightly nasal, comes from a far corner of the room , by the fireside. Though it had been empty moments before, now, a hickory stump is visible, and laying against it is a small skeleton clutching a violin in its hand. But more important is the pale, golden-haired, handsome looking man in a purple suit sitting upon it, flashing a smile that could sell a bridge in Brooklyn. After the initial surprise, Caleb pounces upon the man, drives him to the ground, but is called off by Father Pat, who orders the stranger to explain himself. The man, after dusting himself off, explains that what they saw in the church wasn’t after the assembly. It was after them, or rather, what they have. You see, the devil always comes to claim his due and old Mr. Scratch (as the stranger calls him) had come to claim his. Through the life they led, the three men had imparted a certain taint upon their soul, an aroma which Mr. Scratch cannot deny. And so, he had come there to take what was his, and drag the souls of the sinful back down below the earth with him. Fortunately, while old Scratch will not be denied, he is also not the smartest of men, as the stranger explains. He had come here to claim souls of sin, and as long as he gets them, he cares little whom they belong to. Thus, the only way to satisfy him would be to concoct a peculiar offering, a perfect mixture of the seven spices of the human soul, to prepare for Mr. Scratch a meal which he would not be able to resist. The conversation goes on for a while, and Father Patrick asks the stranger why he would help them. The man answers that, just as all things must feed, so must he. Except that his nourishment of choice a little more unusual than most. He feeds on the perfect delicacy of human fear and the ideal zest of aggression. And the longer these three gentlemen of terrible standing continue their work, the happier he will be. Now, all three men, though somewhat bewildered, seem to have agreed to follow his advice. He is about to leave when Father Patrick asks him for his name. He smiles, pats the skull of the skeleton laying against the hickory stump and says “Call me Fiddler”. Flames blaze forth from the hearth and engulf him, making him disappear in a torrent of crimson fire (I like my villains extravagant sometimes. Can you tell?).

Now, the night passes and, the next morning, each of the three men returns to his residence. Caleb shadows Jim back to his studio. Meanwhile, Father Pat starts making calls and looking into the people of his congregation, looking for souls so dark as to satisfy the hunger of Mr. Scratch. One name he hears repeated a couple of times when asking about prostitution is Laura McCall, a young businesswoman turned patron of the arts. Recently, in the city, a few rumours erupted about high-end escort services, and Laura’s name was associated with them a couple of times, though it seems no clear connection was ever made. In addition, the rumour mill has it that McCall herself provides some… unusual services for the client with the means to pay. Father Pat even goes to see a regular at his church, Seamus McCullen, who serves as Chief of Police for the SFPD. From this meeting, he gleans a few more pearls of information, learning that Miss McCall was a businesswoman, and a damn good one at that. She owns a few shipping companies around San Francisco, but recently decided to live off the dividends and support the local indie film scene. Unfortunately, the Chief refuses to disclose personal information like her address or phone number to Father Patrick. However, he does learn that Miss McCall, who is active in the local charity scene, is supposed to attend a fundraiser for improving sewage treatment a week from now. Meanwhile, Jim and Caleb conduct their own investigation. Jim, being a part of the film industry, had also heard talk of Miss McCall, and had even made her acquaintance once at a party. The recluse film fanatic, however, does not know her residence, and none of his contacts do either, as the woman apparently values her privacy. And so, him and Caleb decide to sneak into City Hall, to dig into the records. They both sign in under blatantly fake names (Steven Spielberg and Jones McJones), and root around the public records for a time. After about an hour, they both go to sign out. Jim then begins to talk with the receptionist, distracting her as Caleb slinks back down the stairs to the Public Archives and hides there. He stays there until night falls and a security guard begins making his rounds. Caleb manages to sneak around him, but when he tries to lift the keys, the guard notices him and Caleb is forced to knock him unconscious. He then takes the keys, goes into the Restricted Records, lifts a few random files and photocopies Laura’s before putting it back. He then wipes the keys of prints, tries to erase as much physical evidence as possible, and then leaves. However, much of the incident had been captured by the security tapes, of which I had informed the player City Hall was riddled with.

Now, during the week leading up to the fundraiser, both Jim and Caleb try to shadow Miss McCall, though, on the second day, they are accosted by her two bodyguards who, mistaking them for run-of-the-mill stalkers, ask them to stop following her. They comply without trouble and leave. Now, fast-forward about a week later. Father Patrick, being a man of good standing in San Francisco, uses his contacts to attend the fundraiser. There, he meets Miss McCall and talks with her for a while, managing to use his Talent to make everyone in the room very friendly towards him. Meanwhile, the same night, Jim and Caleb sneak in through the back door to her building, knock out the security guard, wipe the security tapes, disable the alarms, sneak into her apartment, trash it, and lie in wait for her. A few hours later, she comes back. They hear her car pull up in the street and, a few minutes later, hear the lock on the door slide open. Miss McCall enters the apartment. Everything, however, does not go as planned. Indeed, she notices Jim hiding behind the door, and manages to avoid the needle he tries to stab her with. She then pulls out a telescopic baton and, in an awesome stroke of luck, breaks his nose before desperately running for the street. Unfortunately, Caleb manages to catch up to her and knocks her unconscious on the sidewalk. While Jim loads the body into the trunk of his car, Caleb goes back into the apartment and checks if Jim might have left any blood on the doorway and such. He manages to conduct a cursory inspection, but his investigation is cut short by the sound of a police car driving down the street. As it draws close, Jim drives off, deciding not to wait for Caleb. The police car pulls up in front of the apartment and appears to be calling for backup. Caleb manages to sneak out the back before the officers can enter the building and begins the long walk back to his cabin. This was more or less when I called an end to the session.

Now, I was pretty happy with how this first session turned out. The players role-played well and still managed to act like a semi-cohesive group and everyone had a blast. The only thing is that, I have to admit, those guys were hilariously inept. They were essentially making things up as they went along, and the lack of a plan hurt them. You could have seriously cued the Benny Hill music to their antics. The best part was after they trashed McCall’s apartment, Jim’s player said “Alright. So, now, we wait for her to come home and grab her”, to which Caleb’s player answered “Wait, we’re doing this now?”. It might not be as funny after the fact, but at the time, this cracked us up for a solid ten minutes.

All in all, though, I felt the first session was a success. Their inexperience at planning out their crimes was obvious, though, and they left several leads for the police to follow (such as, they forgot to retrieve McCall’s baton, which carries Jim’s DNA, thanks to having broken his nose). I’m confident they’ll get better, though, once they’re a little more used to actually planning things out before acting. So yeah, I hope you enjoyed reading about this. It’s the first time I’ve done a campaign journal, but I felt that this should be something worth chronicling.

Savannah
2011-05-27, 11:51 PM
Ooh, looks quite interesting. (Also, "fundraiser for improving sewage treatment"? :smallamused:)

White_North
2011-05-28, 09:24 AM
Glad you think so! And yeah, I originally had two public events McCall was attending that month. One was a fundraiser for McCall's own charity and the other was a dinner hosted by the Department of Public Health for the inauguration of a new sewage treatment plant. 'Twas getting pretty late, though, so the two mixed in my head and I said "It's a, hum, fundraiser for... sewage treatment" and decided to roll with it. :smalltongue:

comicshorse
2011-05-28, 09:58 PM
Very intresting, I look forward to reading me.