Giest Noir: Story Seeds Part I

Originally published January 1, 2014

Geist Noir was a Geist: the Sineaters Chronicle proposal that failed to win over my current players. In the interest of seeing some of this material used, I'll be presenting and expanding my game outline over the next couple weeks. This week we will look at a selection of story seeds for the game.

No Way Out

David Richardson died to escape his secrets. Unfortunately as you have come to know, death is not the end. Trapped between two worlds and the two sides of his double life, David lashes out. Now those closest to him are in the line of fire. Can you find a way out for a man already dead?

No Way Out is actually an adventure from the World of Darkness book Ghost Stories. My plan was to update it to use the God Machine Chronicle rules and alter the setting to Depression era New York City. I will be light on the details for this seed and focus on the changes that need to be made.

WARNING: SPOILERS!!!

Outline

In the public eye, David Richardson was a prosperous banker with a happy family. With his wife Molly and son David Junior, he lived out on Long Island driving into the city each morning. Then one day his car crashed into a brick wall.

His story is a familiar one: mounting debts, trouble at the bank, anxious creditors, and a level of desperation. A twist is a second life he was living with a mistress in the city Catriona Staples and their two children. Faced with the unraveling of his secrets, he took his own life. Unfortunately he was still trapped.

The story begins with a funeral. As the rain comes down on the gray scene, the player characters meet David's public family and perhaps unknowingly associate with other figures from his past.

In the days that follow, strange things begin to occur: threatening messages appear at his bank as well as the accounting firm that was investigating him, documents go missing, and things mysteriously break at the homes of his families.

Soon they escalate. An accountant investigating his finances finds his brake lines cut and dies in a fiery crash. A scuffle with a friend leaves the other child unconscious with broken ribs. A rival banker is thrown through a plate-glass window and before dying of his injuries swears something pushed him.

As the characters unravel the mystery, they also uncover his secret past. If they don't stop him his actions continue to harm those around him. And if they do intervene, he attacks them as well.

Characters

This story can serve as an introduction for the characters, bringing them together for the purposes of helping a ghost move on (whether by resolving his tethers or destroying him). The character should all have some connection to Richardson or one of his families.

They might be friends of the family (either one), coworkers who begin to notice his ghostly influence, or accountants or detectives sent to unravel Richardson's tangled finances. An interesting option is if someone wants to play a criminal, then perhaps Richardson took out some loans from the Mob. In this case the player character could be here to try to collect (perhaps doing this distasteful service in an attempt to clear their own debts).

Its even possible they might play one of his family members: a child, his wife, or his mistress. This requires some restructuring of the story as Richardson is in no way powerful enough to go toe to toe with a Sineater. In this case the ghost should focus his interference on those around the player character, hopefully drawing out the plot a bit.

Antagonists

David Richardson tried to have the perfect life but ultimately took no responsibility for his choices. When he and his wife failed to have a second child, he let them drift apart. When he fell in love with another woman, he didn't concern himself with the consequences. As his second family grew, he was force to embezzle funds to support them. He used all his time to be with either side and never considered the cost to himself and to them. When the stress overwhelmed him, he tried to escape, leaving them to deal the problems he caused.

Now he is trapped between realms, tied to the things he was trying to escape. What remains of David is full of passion, switching from rage filled destroyer to love obsessed family man. While his ghostly form resembles the handsome man he once was, when he lets his anger get the better of him his form morphs to that of his mangled corpse.

Escalation

If not dealt with Richardson continues to threat those who might expose his secrets or interfere with his family. This includes rivals for his affections like new boyfriends or hard-boiled detectives unraveling his embezzling scheme. Left to his own, he will inevitably hurt and likely kill those he loves to protect his own secrets. Those who survive will be scarred for life.

In the end however he is only a single ghost and not a significant threat at that. The real worry is that he is only one of many. How many others are as desperate and how many die before finding a way out? How will they deal with the next case? Who will get hurt?

Wake the Dead

People have begun seeing the recently deceased walking around in broad daylight. While the authorities investigate local doctors for malpractice, you can see that something very wrong is happening. These are not ghosts nor are they truly living. What is behind this mass resurrection? What is going on beneath the cemetery?

This story was inspired by the similarly named story seed in the God-Machine Chronicles but takes a completely different direction. It adapts some material from Night Horrors: Wolfsbane to Geist.

Outline

The action starts when the dead begin to appear around a local cemetery. Perhaps it is a small church cemetery like Trinity Church or perhaps it is one of the larger cemeteries further out in the city. It might be the same one that David Richardson (see above) was recently buried at.

The dead rise not as zombies or ghosts but seemingly as living people. They return to their lives, scaring their families with their unexpected return. They try to pick up where they left off, returning to jobs, marriages, and the world they left behind.

Over time though it becomes clear that these are not the people they claim to be. Subtle personality changes, a fearsome hunger, and a strange longing to wander places of death point out that there is something else going on. Eventually their presence causes a spread of this resurrection fever.

Worse from the point of view of the Sineaters is that Avernian gates begin to open spontaneously at the places they visit. Old ghosts, geists, and worse begin to bubble up from the depths. Innocents become caught in the crossfire.

Then they come back again like the others.

The cause of this is a supernatural fungus. Once satisfied to feed on energy of a realm known as Shadow, a strain has mutated to feed on Plasm. Growing in the cemetery is has created fruiting bodies in the form of "resurrected" corpses. These hosts then spread its spores to new cemeteries and places of death. As a side effect, it also makes Avernian gates to spontaneously open where present. The fungus must be rooted out before the whole city is infested.

Characters

The characters should have some connections to the local area. Ideally they might even know some of the recently resurrected. If following 'Now Way Out' having David Richardson return (especially if they destroyed his ghost) should get their interest. Alternatively they could be investigators hired by a concerned relative, someone worried that grandma hasn't been the same since returning for the dead.

In terms of skills, the story focuses on the mystery of what is causing the problem. Mental skills will be key here while Social skills might allow one to interrogate the fungal hosts. If you have characters focused on combat you might include some violent types among the hosts, perhaps some former gangsters or vengeful reverents attacking from beyond the grave.

Antagonists

The source of the risen dead is a supernatural fungus living just beneath the soil of the local cemetery. The main body feeds off the Plasm generated near Avernian gates. With effort it can reanimate a corpse located within its reach, infesting it with its spores. This host retains the memories of the living creature it once was but is now animated by the intelligence of the fungus.

The character can research the creature once they have some exposure. They can engage in an Extended Intelligence + Academics roll. Specialties and Libraries related to Fungus, the Underworld, and Spirits are applicable. Some information they can learn includes (alternate skill to uncover this information shown in parentheses):

• The mushrooms in the cemetery are deadly toxic and belong to no known species. (Science)
• The fungus forming the mushrooms consists of a network of root like tubes beneath the surface. Removing them manually will require digging up much of the cemetery. (Science)
• The victims show almost no signs of the illnesses or accident that killed them. In fact they seem to heal extraordinarily fast. (Medicine)
• The victims are uniformly calm, almost preternaturally so. They seem friendly but there is something missing, some feeling of genuine warmth. (Empathy)
• The victims seem focused on some subliminal purpose. They seem drawn to places infused with death. (Empathy or Occult)
• The victims seem to require large amount of food to remain healthy (Medicine or Investigation).
• There are more ghosts than normal in the cemetery, both here and on the other side of the gate. (Occult)
• A creature known as the Namusiden or the Returned matches this description. These fungal creatures use the memories of the deceased to mimic them. They then spread the fungus to other areas. (Occult)

The main physical threat the player characters will need to deal with are the fungal hosts. These creatures use the attributes and skills of the people they once were but with the following adjustments:

• Bonus Merits: Direction Sense, Eidetic Memory, Iron Stamina 3, Quick Healer, Unseen Sense (Ghosts). The fungus gifts its hosts with enhanced cognition and impressive physical stamina.
• Inhuman Resilience: hosts never lose consciousness.
• Regeneration: Thanks to the fungus, they heal 1 Aggravated damage every 4 days even if slain. Only Aggravated damage equal to its Health will destroy a host. Otherwise they simply return weeks later.
• Attributes: Change Resolve to 3 and Composure to 5. The hosts are almost imperturbable.
• Skills: The hosts gain the follow skills (if lower than existing skills): Investigation 4, Persuasion 4, Stealth 3, Survival 5.
• The host has an Plasm pool up to their Health. They can spend 1 Plasm per turn.
• They can spend 1 Plasm to infest a new area with the fungus. If they do so they no longer regenerate.
• They may also spend 1 Plasm to open an existing Avernian gate.
• They must eat their Health in pounds of organic matter every day support their supernatural metabolism. If they fail to they suffer a point of Aggravated damage per day.

The main body of the fungus is far less dangerous but also much harder to kill. It regularly spouts small white mushrooms with Toxicity 7 poisons but this only a danger for the unwary. More dangerous are the fungal hosts it can create.

The fungus has the following stats:

• Size 2 (+1 per 5 yards circumference it covers), Health 7
• It has a maximum Plasm equal to its Health as well as Willpower 5
• It can create new hosts by spending 5 Plasm or 1 Willpower.
• It can also spend 1 Plasm/turn to heal 1 Lethal or 2 Bashing.

Killing it requires digging up its filaments in an Extended Strength + Survival or Science roll. Each roll takes one hour. Successes deal Bashing damage on the fungus (or Lethal with appropriate tools).

Escalation

Obviously if something isn't done, and done soon, this fungus will infest the entire city. The recently dead will continue to rise and ghosts and worse will be able to exit the Underworld at will.

Maybe a ghost learns to possess its fungus lined shell and induce it to violent ends. With the mob wars just recently passed, there are plenty dead folk with a grudge against the five families. Alternatively these "walking dead" might attract monster hunters who don't differentiate between the Risen and Sineaters.