Geist Noir: Story Seeds Part II

Originally published January 8, 2014

Geist Noir was a Geist: the Sineaters Chronicle proposal that failed to win over one of my recent groups of players. In the interest of seeing some of this material used, I'll be presenting and expanding my game outline for you.

One thing I usually do when planning a new campaign is scour my game library for existing story seeds and adventures for ideas. It saves time and I find adapting adventures to the specifics of my game to be highly enjoyable. Even if the ideas are not directly helpful, they can serve as inspiration for actual games. This week we will look at a story seeds adapted from existing material for use in Geist Noir. So this week will be part review and part new material.

Buried Secrets

The characters have been hired to find a corpse and deliver a package to it. An odd request even for someone who talks to ghosts but your employers are not exactly normal. In debt to a group of vampires, they want you to make sure one of their elders is returned to them. But do they seek to rescue a lost leader? Or to finish the job that placed him in the grave?

This adventure would be a re-purposed version of the Vampire: the Requiem adventure The Resurrectionists. Starting with the characters already at the edge of the graveyard afterhours is perfectly in theme for Noir and by tying the characters to the local vampire culture you seed the chronicle with future stories.

WARNING: SPOILERS!!!

Outline

As mentioned above, the story begins in media res with the characters entering the cemetery where their quarry lies. Their mission is to find a lost vampiric elder, Raphael Pope, hidden somewhere with the grounds. Armed with a set of cryptic clues they must locate and awaken this torpored monster. To help them they have been given a large box which is said to contain the means to awaken him.

But another group is hot on their trail. This rival party, sent by vampires hostile to their employer, seeks to get to their quarry before them. Additionally this graveyard is claimed by supernatural forces that they have to avoid or defeat before reaching the crypt where the elder's form is located.

Going scene by scene, the adventure begins with them entering the cemetery, using flashbacks to cover whatever research and exposition they need. They then navigate the cemetery, avoiding the mortal security as well as the vampire and ghouls sent after them.

For action, unless they are truly stealthy, the grave robbers likely end up in at least one fight with the ghouls and their vampire master. Or possibly, they run into the Nosferatu who claim this patch of territory. It's possible for them to forge an alliance with either of these two groups. There are further opportunities for roleplaying in the form of a group of homeless squatters.

Eventually they find the clue to the tomb and open their mysterious package to reveal another torpored elder, specially prepared to awaken their quarry. The climax is a decision of whether or not to allow Pope target to murder another of his kind. And then to convince a powerful vampire to come along quietly.

Review

All in all this is a fairly solid adventure. The scene layout is pretty nice and I like the way it drops you into the action. The final moral choice of whether to stop the diablerie by Pope is wonderful.

There are a few bits that are a little silly such as the limbless vampire in a box. The pack of vampires claiming a cemetery combined with a homeless encampment seems a little illogical. These would be less problematic in the 1930s where wide spread poverty led to Hoovervilles in Central Park. The the elder in a box is unfortunately necessary for the power of the final scene.

Overall it is an excellent adventure and I would recommend it to anyone running Vampire: the Requiem or using vampiric patrons like this adaption.

Adaption

So while the original adventure would work fine as written, there is a lot of customization that can be made to make it more of a Geist and Noir story.

First some changes will be needed for the 1930s setting. The vampire elder may need to be changed. If it remains Raphael Pope as in the Resurrectionists, you will need to move back the dates so he has been out of commission for at least a few years. As for the cemetery itself you can change most of the tombstones by moving the dates back fifty to a hundred years. Remove the Glass Cemetery entirely. The industrious might research actual historical cemeteries and discover the popular gravestone styles of the time.

I particularly recall a graveyard where gravestones carved in the form of tree stumps seemed to be the dominate style for a few decades in the late 19th century.

In the introductory scene, you should definitely focus some of the flashbacks on why they are here. In theme for Noir, I suggest having them be victims of blackmail. The vampires know their dark secrets. Try devoting a short scene to each of these secrets: their origin or the revelation that someone else knows them.

Rather than use the Nosferatu from the original story, I would replace them with either a pack of potent ghosts or rival Sineaters. It makes more sense to find things that feed from death in a cemetery than vampires (given the relative lack of blood). One thing you might do is have a small Krewe (perhaps 3 members) augmented by whatever local ghosts they have cajoled or enslaved. These spectral forces can then haunt the Player Characters through the cemetery. A sample character is outlined below.

An additional scene you might add is an unattended Haunt where the characters can replenish their Plasm.

Characters

As mentioned the characters should have some sort of debt to a powerful vampire, a vampire with an interest in seeing Pope revived. This debt could be monetary, the covering up of a secret, or repayment of a past favor.

As experts on ghosts and the dead, they are already well equipped to deal with the threats within the graveyard.

Antagonists

Jackson "King Jack" Arkwright

Background: Jack was what his mother called a "good for nothing". When he wasn't sleeping on the job he was getting drunk on moonshine and gambling away his earnings. To him, the world owed him a living. When times were good, he got by. When they were bad, he'd steal and scrounge to get by. Then the Great Depression happened.

Out of work, he turned to seedier and seedier means of supporting himself. He worked for the mob but was too sloppy to be trusted with anything except driving in supplies of bootleg whiskey. One day he found himself driving up to the wrong mobsters just outside of the city.

After they torched their rival's truck, they left Jack by the side of the road with two bullets in his gut. As he lay bleeding out, a tall shadowy figure approached him. It offered him life and control of his destiny. He took it.

Under the influence of Sepulchre King, Jack returned to the city. He decided to lay low, hoping to avoid both his old employers and those who almost did him in. His Geist, a domineering spirit, set him to enslaving the local ghosts. Hiding out in the cemetery, he has taken to using his powers to terrorize the local homeless, stealing their supplies to survive.

Even so, it has been very lean times for "King" Jack and he is starting to consider seeking out richer prey.

Description: A scrawny but muscular twenty something, Jack is almost looks as dead as alive. Stringy haired and dressed in piecemeal clothing too big or small for him, he smells horrible, equal part of rot and bad hygiene. To those can see it, a towering black figure looms over Jack, a Geist known as the Sepulchre King. A crown of deep shadows adorns its head and a billowing black robe swirls in an invisible wind about its emaciated form.

Threshold: The Torn Archetype: Bonepicker

Mental Attributes: Intelligence 2, Wits 3, Resolve 2
Physical Attributes: Strength 3, Dexterity 2, Stamina 3
Social Attributes: Presence 4, Manipulation 2, Composure 2
Skills: Athletics 3, Brawl (Grappling) 3, Investigation 1, Intimidation (Surprise) 3, Larceny (Forced Entry) 2, Occult 3, Persuasion 1, Socialize 1, Stealth 4, Streetwise 2, Subterfuge 3, Survival 3, Weaponry (Improvised Weapons) 3
Merits: Fleet of Foot 2, Haunt (Size 1 (Mausoleum), Residue 3), Retainer (Poltergeist) 4
Health: 8 Willpower: 4
Synergy: 6

Virtue: Prudence, Jack may be a lazy bum but he knows better than to cross the mob twice. He has also been careful not to let any visitors to the cemetery know about his presence.
Vice: Sloth, Jack is still fairly lazy. The fact he has any sway at all is due to the hounding of Geist. Left to his own devices he would just steal booze and wait for better days.

Initiative: 4 Speed: 12
Defense: 2 (Armor 1/0 (Leather and thick wool))

Psyche: 1 (Plasm per turn: 1), Plasm: 6
Keys: Stillness, Stigmata
Manifestations: Boneyard 3, Rage 2

Jack has several weak ghosts on his control. Most of them can only try to scare or confuse people (assume they have a dice pool of 4). But he has also managed to control a potent Poltergeist named Sigmund. Use the stats for the poltergeist on page 215 of the world of Darkness core book but give it Power 5 and +2 bonus to its rolls.