Exit 23

[NecroticBanana]

Well my new group met for the first time today and i ran them thru the Exit 23 adventure in the back of the Dark Matter book. Didn't quite go as planned but not to bad for my "first time back in DM chair" in almost 3 years.

Well the cast of characters is as follows:
Abigal Lockley- teen computer geek with a dark secret.
Jack O'Malley- Irish hitman presumed dead and on the run
(name unknown)-Tow truck driver (last miniute addition to the game)

Well the game starts as its written,(i dont think re-typing the entire adventure here is needed, so i'll skip thru the standard stuff) everyone lounging in the donut shop except O'malley who is sitting alone in the McDonalds eating a 3-hour old burger. things proceed as normal until the lights go out. Once the sound of struggle are heard O'mally reaches for his briefcase and pulls out his gun, everyone else runs for the bathroom to see what the commotion is. They find the bodies, and Amed runs for a med kit and returns just in time to save the wounded but still living Sam Riley (changed the name of the hoffmen institute agent and he's a freelance shadow hunter). Abigal helps Amed to carry his body to a storeage room and lay him down on a makeshift bed and do what they can to keep him comfortable. Abigal then investigates the hallway with O'Malley when they find Danny cowering in the corner O'Malley attempts to calm him down in a not so subtle matter, but Abigal interjects and gets him to talk about what he saw. (this is were the groups D&D roots start to show and will take some careful culling, as O'malley wants to shoot everything in sight and Abigal wanted to mace the poor boy for some reason.) Eventually Abigal finds the snowglobe and the overstuffed journal of the injured shadowhunter (a thick leatherbound three ring binder style notebook jammed full of everything the old salt has learned battling the forces of evil.) From this they learn that a demon is responsible and that the snowglobe is somehow involved. Abigal attempts to go to her car for a duffel bag of gear, when the demon finally strikes again smashing the windows out of the cars on either side of her working its way closer and closer until it finally smashes down on the roof of her micro-bus as she makes a break for it, O'malley hears her screams and meets her at the door firing blindly into the snowstorm, he then taunts the demon with the snowglobe. The demon smashes into him but is unable to wrestle it away. The demon turns on Abigal and claws into her almost killing her, but she manages to scramble away with some lucky rolls. At this point Dumont sets the fire and starts to rummage through the old man's stuff looking for the snowglobe. The NPC's manage to put out the fire for a few rounds before the PCs step in. At this point O'malley belives that the snowglobe might have some mystical connection to the demon and tries to break it, first by dropping it, then by shooting it (to no avail) eventually they decide to start a fire to keep warm and add some light, they drag out the bathroom trashcan and throw in some embers from the convience store fire. On a whim they decide to throw in the snow globe at wich point the snow inside finally stops swirling about on its own. This is when Dumont relizes the PCs have the globe and begins to open fire. (the PCs had been hush hush about the snowglobe till this point.) Dumont fires on o'mally hitting him square for decent damage, O'malley returns fire then takes cover behind the trashcan. Dumont at this point takes aim at Abigal who is already seriously wounded, O'malley decided to taunt Dumont and inrages him enough to draw his fire again, Abigal holds her action, and the Tow truck driver hops in at this point missing at close range with the shot-gun (which is kinda hard to explain). O'malley opens fire again and takes Dumont below 50% of his HP, forcing dumont to take drastic measures, he grabs the convenience store cashier and uses her as cover, then attempts to parley with the PCs. O'malley instead attempts a hail mary shot and manages a critical poppin Dumont right between the eyes. We left off there.

Long winded and not very detailed i know. but if anyone is interested i'll continue to post and eventually get into more detail once i work into my own plot elements.

On a similar note, the game did get quite the dark creepyness i intended, but like i said, it's been a bit.

[Melblen_Cairn]

Keep posting them, I love reading other Campaign's session recaps. They are fun. 

[nemafow]

The creepyness can be difficult to put through to your players sometimes, are they aware that the story is a bit creepy? If they aren't aware they might not give you a chance to explain things properly instead of shooting like madmen and macing people for no reason  (I laughed at that bit)

If they are aware its going to be a bit creepy, maybe the happenings so far are not their style? Maybe they need more cliche movie happenings or creepy religious aspects to come out, talk to your players and see if they have any particular favourite scary movies that you could incorporate into the story.

Not necesscarily changing the story you have planned (including the Exit 23 adventure) but the flavour and small details could be exchanged that the players might find more creepy.

[Melblen_Cairn]

A game I was recently DMing the players were really creeped out by a room full of Dolls. You could just see them kind of shudder knowing they had to go in hehe.

[NecroticBanana]

Turns out my wife (who is playing Abigal) misunderstood my discription and thought the kid was violently hystarical and thats why she wanted to mace him. I then explained to her that no he's just crying and babbiling about some monster, to which she replies," oh then i'll just tell him to relax and tell me everything...making sure i hold him close and nonchalantly put my boobs on em, that'll calm any guy down"

I gave her a +2 for that.

On a related note. the book that they found, is (i'm hoping) going to be a major center piece for further adventures and such. And this shadow chaser is in his late 60's so he's led a long life of monster hunting and adventureing. So i'm wondering what sorta neat things would be found in this book? I'm gonna start another thread similar to those 1001 things.. blah ..blah i'd love for you all to contribute to it.

[NecroticBanana]

Ok 2nd update.

quick note-the third player wasn't able to make it due to personal reasons and so i simply wrote him out for now until further notice.

So Dumont (the evil trucker cultist guy) hits the dirt.

"At that moment the wind begins to howl, and all the remaining windows to the truck stop are blown in, the front doors blow from there hinges, emerging from the darkness is the horrid evil, a creature not entirely there, its demonic form is hard to make sense of. It's upper half has a layer of long white hair, the rest of it is a pale bone white and random shards of ice jut from its body, it's head is a bald, bony protrusion covered in a random pattern of beady smoldering red eyes. Nothing about this creature is even remotely symetrical it lunges for you with huge club-like harms that end is jagged claws of ice."

it attackes O'Malley and shreds his jacket from him. O'malley then retreats defensivly fireing shots off to no avail. (at this point i forgot that it was pitch black in there but my bad so i let it go). Abigal runs for some bottles of booze and a lighter. The Demon then lunges for the convinence store clerk who, just seconds ago had a gun to her head so she ain't doin so good mentally, it claws her twice and lays her wide open but does not kill her, then flips her on her back before focusing on O'malley again who at this point leaps over the donuts shop counter for cover and fires again, again none connect. The demon moves into the donut shop catching Amhed (the gas station clerk) and slashes into him, Amhed manages to shield himself with a busted chair and takes only a few points of damage. At this point Abigal finally returns with two moltov cocktails at the ready, she calls the demon out and he turns to face her but does not advance on account she's holding fire. O'malley again shoots and misses. (this thing's AC was pretty high) Abigal tosses the cocktail it burst at the creatures feet and burns him for a little damage, it then lets loose a volley of icicles shredding her and dropping her to 0 hp. The demon then proceeds to manhandle her, dropping her to -1, and tear her clothing to shreds. At this point O'malley finally connects with a shot...the only shot that hits and it happens to be another critical! (now the snowglobe is still in the fire, and the demon doesnt know it and thats what its searching for, but as long its immersed in fire, the demon loses his impressive damage reduction) POP! the demon hits the dirt. (barely).

"The howling wind rise to an almost hurricane pitch. the snow and ice stinging your flesh and the bone numbing cold drains the strength from your limbs. The creature seems to explode in a spray of snow and ice, it's form seems to drift away on the wind as it desperatly claws for your throat. Suddenly it's soul piercing yowls fade away. The storm outside instantly clams and all becomes quiet."

Once everything is safe the npcs start to emerge and asses the damage. Ahmed does his best to patch up the slashed girl and Abigal. O'Malley makes his way to one of the two 18-wheelers out back and tries the CB radio and manages to get ahold of the police, he says there was a hostage situation and a bear attack. Once the snow plow, paramedics, and police arrive they begin there investigation. O'malley makes his bluff check against the police officer and convinces the police that he shot the trucker out of self defense. Hs story is backed up by the npc (which is technically true cause they didnt know about any of the cultist thing, and for lack of a better excuse assume that the creature was in fact, a bear, that escaped after being injured.) Eventually everyone who needs it back to the hospital to recover. There the PCs have a chance to sit and speak with Sam Riley he decides to level with them and tell them about what they fought. He explains that he's been hunting monsters since his mid 20's and that truthfully he's just getting too damned old to keep doing it by himself and that he was on his way to Portland Oregon to consult with a firend of his, a knowledgable demonoligist and theology proffesser. The Pcs make it known that there willing, despite having to pretty much give up there old lives, to become shadow chasers. Once everyone is healed they head to see the contact in Portland who reveals that demonic possession does in fact happen but most of the stuff you hear about are just nut cases, and there are only a few actual cases of true demons no more than like 2 or 3 every few years or so, but no acctual cases of a demon physically walking the earth (except for a few mentions during biblical times) and that they are usually anchored to this plane by some physical object (snowglobe). He also reveals his theories on alternate dimensions, and that the closest one (relatively speaking) is what we would consider to be Hell. After that the Pcs decide to acctually set up a base of operations in Seattle as private investigators. Abigal decides to continue to persue her original mission to visit her great aunt Moria, her oldest living relitive, to find out more about her lycanthropic ancestors.

[NecroticBanana]

So Abigail, O'Malley, and Sam Riley decided to start up an actual private investigation firm. This game was spent pretty much setting that up. After reducing there already low wealth scores to dismal levels furnishing the operation, With a large portion going to things like E.M.F. detectorsand a small library of books on
various legends, fairy tales, etc. when:

"The door opens and in steps a young, mousy looking woman, she seems uncertain at first but eventually walks up to you O'Malley. she stammers out in a meek voice saying that she thinks her husband is cheating on her, and she'd like to know for sure, but he can't find out that she knows, and she amits that her sister forced her to come here in the first place." (I have them roll spot checks, O'Malley fails, but Abigal notices that she seems to be sporting a bit of a black eye, and that there are more brusies barely being covered by her blouse.
They take the case. Abigail decides use her impressive computer skills to investigate his credit card and phone records while O'Malley decides on a more hands-on method and decides to tail this guy. He waits outside this guy's workplace, a simple factory in a dark industrial road, poorly lit, a few cameras and a simple set of electronic gates. He waits for some time, long after the guys shift is over, until finally the man steps out of the factory flirting it up with some red headed floozy (secretary). He snaps a few photos but nothing incriminating enough so he decides to tail him some more. They end up at Rudy's bar, a dive at the far end of town, were the suspect has a few drinks for a few hours, then swerves on home. Meanwhile Abigail uncovers several charges to various sleazy hotels but non within the past few weeks deducing that there probably bangin somewere else so O'Malley decides to sneak back in the next night and install some "nanny-cams" and try to catch them in the act. He manages to wait until dark and snip his way thru the surrounding fence on the buildings "blind-spot" and make it through a loading dock bay door after shooting out the one streetlamp illuminating the back gate, so that the security cam cannot see him. He makes his way in, hides the cameras and makes his way out easy enough.

The next day O'Malley decides to sit and observe the cameras while Abigail decides to look for other cases. She notices several car accidents are occuring on a perticular stretch of road in the past few days. Nothing odd here except the road is notoriously straight, wide, and well lit with no hidden dangers to speak of, she does some research and find reports that in all the accidents people had reported being run off the road by a speeding motorist, though only one set of tire marks are visible, and no one (including a police officer) has been able to identify the car. Abigal digs deeper and uncovers a local legend that some greaser-type drag racer ran his car off the cliff at the roads end. She then comes back with an E.M.F. detector and waits.

Meanwhile back at the factory O'Malley is dozzing in his car near the factory when he is woken by the sound of a phone ringing. The video shows the secretary receiving what appears to be an urgent phone call. The secratery then gathers her things and rushes out, O'Malley follows her. He watches as she returns to her home and rushes in, several minutes pass and he sees her walking back out, much calmer, barefoot, and without her purse. She appears to be talking on a cell phone to someone. She returns to her car gets in, fumbles a bit getting it in gear then drives to the docks. O'malley watches as she enters a simple two story warhouse before he loads his gun and carefully approches the door himself. He begins to check the simple rusted steel door when he hears another car coming his way, he quickly dodges around the corner as the cheating husband pulls up and quickly slips inside the same warehouse. O'Malley again approches the door and sneaks his way inside. The interior of the warehouse is litrally choked with shipping crates and equipment, leaving, at most, a 5' path throughout the dark building in any direction. Suddenly he hears sounds of a struggle and the distinct sound of breaking glass. As he approches his penlight shines off shards of broken glass, what appear to be a simple beer bottle and a small splatter of blood. Droplets of blood lead away from here deeper into the warehouse. Att his point O'Malley begins to really take the effort to be quiet, slowing him down a bit. Eventually he comes to an open area near the back corner of the building just in time to see the cheating husband on his knees, bound and gagged with duct tape, with a shadowy figure standing over him, Just as he brings his penlight to bear the figure dashes into the shadows, the feeble light reflecting the shine from a pair of nocturnal eyes (like those of animals). The figure dashes up and across the crates and O'Malley suddenly finds himself cornered as he can hear the figure creeping around the crates all around him. He reaches down to pull the tape from the injured man, woozy and bleeding from the head, he blurts out about some fucking deformed psycho is gonna kill him, save me, and etc. etc. Just then from less than 5' over O'Malley's shoulder comes a hissing raspy voice to leave this place now! At this point O'Malley is only catching glimpses of the creature, mostly its long, pale, taloned fingers and toes as it gripped the crates. (at this time i described the creature as very gollum like albiet less sickly looking). This time O'Malley
decided to try and communicate with the creature to find out who/what it is and wants. The creature only really reveals that "she's his, he can't have her, he doesn't deserve her"("she" assuming to be the secretary lady and general floozy) etc. etc. All the while growing more and more irrate by the minute. O'Malley ask what she would see in a lothesome creature like him. the creature goes silent for a minute then says that "he will give her everything she ever desired blah blah"

Back on the isolated road Abigail is looking around for any signs or clues whatsover that could help her out. When suddenly her E.M.F. detector lets off a single feeble beep....then another...then again and again. She looks around for anything and i tell her no..its quiet, dark, isolated, and creepy. At this point she relizes she might be in trouble lol. suddenly the E.M.F. detector redlines and a mere 20' away she notices a pair of headlights (this road is several miles of flat road so having a car "sneak up" on you is unlikely.) This car seems to be going full bore and whooshes past you doing no less than 50 miles an hour, it comes within inches of you and is suddenly gone! You heard almost no engine noise and couldnt even make out the color of the damned thing. She was officially spooked. The next night (i know this seems a little out of sync) she returns to try and get more readings. this time as she is waiting in the same spot at almost the same time, when the E.M.F. detector goes immediatly to red and those same headlights come barrelling down the road, only this time they swerve right for you, you find yourself pinned against a tree with these headlights comming fast what do you do!?!? (i described this very fast and before i even gave her the chance to decide i asked for a reflex save, that she failed) i tell her you dont have time to react as the car comes crashing into the tree your standing in front of. The last thing you hear is the sounds of an engine screaming as your lifted off your feet and thrown to the ground violently you look up just in time to see a pair of red tail lights fade away several yards from were your laying, bruised, but not seriously injured. (shortly after this is when she getsa the phone call to meet O'Malley and Sam back at the couple's home)

meanwhile...

The debate goes on for several minutes until O'Malley relizes that even though this creature is obviously gonna kill this guy, it's not the biggest monster here (disgusted with the womanizing, and the beating from the very start). O'Malley holsters his gun and simply walks away. The last thing he hears is the stunned and panacked screams of the man pleading for his life, some choking cries then stone silence. O'Malley kinda shaken up from his encounter decides to take the long way home in case the creature decides to follow him, which takes him back past the secretary's home were he sees several cop cars and an ambulance parked out front, he sees her sitting on the steps with an ice pack on her head talking to the police. At this point the player relized that the creature didnt want the secretary, but wanted the man's wife instead, he's suddenly not so sure he did the right thing and decided to follow up on them. He calls Abigail and Sam in a panick and tells them to meet him at the couples home. By the time they get there it's early morning (bout 7) and knock on the door. The wife awnsers the door a bit confused and ask if everything is alright but before anybody can do anything her husband comes up and puts his arms around her waist and pulls her in close and ask if everything is ok. Taken back a bit they ask if they could speak with her husband in private for a minute (i think O'Malley was planning on killing him/it at this point). The "husband" casually invites them into the kitchen for some coffee, as they walk in they see that the entire foyer area is completly covered in roses and other assorted flowers all with "i love you" cards on them.

O'Malley talks to the "husband" trying to assess the situation and being very blunt about it. The "husband" however denies any mention of last nights events and plainly says he has no idea what he's talking about. This goes on for a a bit until they decide to leave, at which point O'Malley pulls in close to the man and says, "if i find out ye' lied ta' me beastie, i'll be back fer ye'" to which he responded "Trust me, there are no monsters here" just as his eyes shimmered in the light again. and the door closes.

The next day a body was found floating in the river with it's face smashed in and it's hands mangled too badly to positivly identify. (had they let the man live and killed the creature, i would have replaced this headline with the woman being beaten to death by her abusive husband.)

O'Malley retrives the nanny cams (and some random office supplies to stock there own business) And Abigail decides to visit her Aunt Moria in a nearby town to learn more of her Lycanthrope heritage, armed with a very old family photo that blatanly shows her great-grandfather Shamus in full Hybrid form posing with the rest of the family shortly after arriving in the country. Next up is the adventure i call "Johnny B. Dead."

[Countryborn]

I ran Exit 23 for my gaming group. It was a complete, total, and utter clusterfuck. Fun though. I can't remember if the drug dealer and his buddy started shooting up the place before or after the trust-fund brat stole a car from the parking lot and started playing bumper cars in the parking lot. I do remember that the heavily armed survivalist didn't start shooting until after Dumont went crazy and tried to kill all the potential witnesses by burning the building down. And just don't ask about the mentally handicapped PC with the heroin problem.

I don't think anyone even noticed the demon until the PCs set it on fire and and blew up Dumont's truck with its melting carcass.

[Melblen_Cairn]

Very cool recap as usual. Look forward to the next one. 

[NecroticBanana]

i'm glad you enjoyed it.

One of the first things i noticed about the Exit 23 adventure is that, except for a few small shoves, the game is really dependent on the players to do something, otherwise nothing will happen.

[NecroticBanana]

Ok played a quick pick up game tonight (the alternating d&d 1st ed. game fell thru) So they begin to investigate the "ghost car" incident. They descover that back in the 70's a young man supposidly commited suicide by drving his beloved car off the cliff at the end of a long straightaway used by all the local kids to drag race, of which Johnny is reigning champ. Well they dig into the history and find that his girlfriend at the time is now grown up and married and still living in the area, as well as his younger brother. O'Malley decides to pose as an F.B.I. agent and question the most credible witness, a police officer who was one of many people run off the road by the car. The cop tells him his story but doesnt glean much more info than what was already reported. So he then decides to go visit the brother who at the moment is out waxing his own classic car in the driveway.
As O'Malley approches he notices that the man has a garage full of hot rod and classic car memorabilia, as well as several family photos all of which have various people, but mostly Johnny posing in front of a VERY sweet 57' chevy. After some questioning he descovers that the man tended to idolize his brother and would often hang around with him while he worked on the car, typical little brother stuff, he also learns that Johnny never seemed suicidal. At the drag raceses there was always strong compitition and heavy wagers,  but Johhny never really had any major enemies so no one suspected foul play. O'Malley decides to snap a pic of the 57' chevy photo and thanks him and goes about his way.

Meanwhile Abigale decided to investigate the ex-girlfriend. She claimed to be a student at the University of Washington and is doing a report for her phsycology class dealing with the after-effects of families and friends of suicide victims, she came up with a good cover story so i allowed it, tho i think its still a bit insensitive (even IF it was legitimate) so i make her roll a diplomacy check (Natural 20) So that even tho the woman is taken back a bit she decides to talk to Abigail about the incident so many years ago. Once Abigail is inside she notices that there are several hot-rod and classic car trophies and memorabilia around (belonging to the woman's husband). She says that she recieved a suicide note from johnny one night (the details of it elude me) and as she raced to stop him she arrived just in time to see his car go careening off the cliff and into a fiery crash below. Time passed and eventually she fell in love with another man (Patrick Fitzgerald) one of Johnny's racing buddies. She brings out an old shoe box full of the love letters Johnny had written her while they dated, she chuckles and cries a bit and says she even kept the suicide note. Abigail ask for the letters as part of her assignment (i had her roll another diplomacy) she only got a 13 but i felt it was enuf (mostly because the letter is intricate to the plot). Well by this time everybody regroups back at the office and goes over everything. Abigail scans in the love letters onto her computer and cross refrences the handwritting. The suicide note fails to match the rest of Johnny's letters (as they expected it would) this confirms there belive that foul-play was involved.

This is were it pretty much leaves off. However they intend to first go and attempt to make contact with the spirit at the site of the accident and maybe find some old wreckage from the car, at this point Sam gives them a few pointers and equips them with some rock salt shells and a  VERY RARE clip of bullets blessed by the pope himself (magic items are not usually a hand out in this game). O'Malley also decides to go to church for a confession just in case he doesnt make it out alive. Otherwise they intend to go and maybe try to find the car (assuming its still exsist) in the junkyard (Abigail's reserch pulled up a newspaper artical on the story in which a tow truck can be seen in the background with the name of the junkyard on the side).

So here are my plans thus far...the original killer was gonna be Patrick Fitzgerald..but i've decided to make him a red herring only because everyone suspects him already. The real killer is gonna be the guy who attempted to woo the girlfriend and was spurned, he now owns the junkyard that used to be his daddys and HE'S the one Johhny wants (altho in his undead state of mind johnny will prolly kill them all eventually). Also the car is acctually still there buried under other cars. Turns out a large portion of the land the junkyard sits on has been sold to be developed for a new Wal-mart...this is what disturbed Johnny's spirit and is causing him to haunt. I also dont know what to make Johnny its kind of a two part ghost, the car, and the man. i want them to acctually confront Johnny himself. i was thinking a revenant or something i figured the guy chained Johnny to the steering wheel and rigged the accelerator to floor. I thought of making him a "chared one" (sp?) or a revenant armed with the chains that are still locked around his hands. In order to destroy Johnny there gonna have to destroy his spirit AND the wrecked car. What you guys think??

[Melblen_Cairn]

The chains are a cool idea. Only concern I could see is your players questioning how the ghosts original death could have been ruled an accident if he was found chained (chared though he was) to the steering wheel. If you could somehow disguise that then the chains would make for an interesting fight.

[NecroticBanana]

i was thinking of that, i dunno...maybe the car was to wrecked to really notice them. And i'm not really sure how advanced forensics were back in the 70's. Like i said, i'm kinda lost here for ideas.

[Melblen_Cairn]

If they inquire or somehow obtain whatever forensic report was done just put in that the body and vehicle was badly damaged by the fire that it was mostly melted. I would think that should be enough to suspend disbelief.

Or that the car's steering wheel was made out of chain welded together solid, so the extra chain went unnotices with the charred body fused to steering column. Give them a good graphic desciption of that and they will likely leave it alone 

[NecroticBanana]

The players are already sure he was murdered, the question is how/why didnt the police notice in the first place. i never thought it woulda came up...but in case it does i like the chain link steering wheel idea, i've laways loved those things

[Melblen_Cairn]

Any new developments yet NB

[NecroticBanana]

Sorry i havnt had time to give you guys yer fix lol. Well this week's game was a bit short as we started late and whatnot. Also I wasnt really happy with the way it turned out, and wasn't any real developments  so i'm gonna back peddle a bit. So i'll tell you what acctually happened, then i'll tell you what i'm planning this sunday.

what acctually happened:
So Abigail and O'Malley decide to head out to the scene, After getting stuck in construction traffic for about an hour. Abigail decides she wants to bring a quija board (hereafter refered to as "the board" because i'm not dealing with that damned word more than once lol) along as well and maybe try to communicate with Johnny. But first decides to surround herself in a ring of salt (as Sam stated it may keep the spirit at bay) O'Malley, not really buying the whole "witchcraft nonesense" and decides he wants no part in it. Once they arrive on the scene, Abigail parks her VW Bug in an open area, and then sets up the board and salt, while O'Malley finds a spot on the opposite side of the road and leans against the guard rail, a steep 60' drop at his back. Well i lead them on for some time, telling them its just getting later and colder...really playing down the moment, then i have Abigail roll me an INT check, she succeeds in noticing the planchette begin to move under her hands. She ask:

"Is this Johnny?"
"..yes.."
"What is it you want?"
"..edtah.."
"what is it you want??"
"...lkli.."
"Why wont you rest easy?"
"..udrmre.."

"At this point the wind begins to pick up and it becomes noticably colder when suddenly from end of the road a loud roar eminates as a dark hulking form lurches up and over the edge of the road (up from the steep canyon were Johnny sailed off) It blast through the guard rail, twisting it back into sharp metal spirals, the engine revs load as blue flames shoot from under the hood, the engine screams with hellish fury repeately filling up the quite night air.
At this point Abigial, deciding that a pile of salt wasnt gonna do much good against an obvious "solid" ghost, scrambles up a nearby tree. O'Malley says some kinda garbled irish curse "which the player does quite often" and fumbles to load the blessed rounds. At this point the '57 chevy roars past leaving trails of blue flames in its wake. (Unfortunatly the only visual refrence i could think of was the ghost rider movie with a chevy impala instead of a motercycle) Both Abigail and O'Malley scramble for the VW Bug and attempt to give chase. I have Abigail make a series of drive checks, and because i failed to look up rules on driving kinda winged it. Everyone knew there was no way in hell she was gonna catch this thing, especially with a head start, but i had her make several drive checks to keep up enough to keep Johnny in site. She managed to make em all but one, and briefly lost site of him. They managed to catch up just in time to see Johnny burning thru the outer streets of seattle (rolling for random cop encounters, there were none) The flaming ghost car suddenlly spins down a side street and heads straight for the junkyard. I have Abigail make me one last drive check to make the turn at high speeds, she fails and begins to slide, she manages to regain control and bring the car to a screeching halt in the middle of an intersection. They park the car and rush to the junkyard.
The Junkyard consist of a small clearing surrounded by a chainlink/barbwire fence with several newer cars for sale, beyond that is a tall fence made from corrigated aluminum siding and again topped with barbwire. Currently there is now a giant car shaped hole cut clean thru both fences and partially down the side of 96' geo that was too close.

This is were i decided to leave off. Now later on i thought of a few things that i really didnt like. Namely, the fact that i have been describing how Johnny has been getting stronger and stronger, well i figured that his ghost must acctually get to the remains of the car before he can fully manifest. That way the Players have a chance to defeat just Johnny in combat before he can get to the car and thereby increasing the CR drastically. So this is what i'm gonna change:

Everything happens as normal until Johnny appears. "Suddenly the ghostly apperition appears, Abigail, from your vantage point you can acctually see it in detail and it appears almost solid, the engines rev with hellish noise as a thick mist pours out from under the hood. It revs its engines again and again, You can acctualy make out the driver, a young handsome man in his ealry 20's he looks to you, with a look of anger on his face, suddenly thick chains strike out and wrap themselves around his chest and down his arms lashing themselves to the steering wheel, the once handsome face suddenly distorts into a silent, inhuman scream (ala exorsism of emily rose) The car suddenly blows past you with a hellish high pitch wail."

Now the part comes up were i have to develop the junyard setting, i need to make something interesting with several hazards and i'm thinking of the chance to acctually get lost in there. They have to stop Johnny, or find the car first. Hopefully they can figure out that they need to "purify" the carbefore Johnny can become fully powered.

[Melblen_Cairn]

Death, kill, and murder. I love it.

As for Junk yard hazards, the first thing that comes to mind is a vicious dog or two ("chopper sick balls"  ). Have the PCs encounter them a couple times through the maze of cars and tire walls and such hehe. This is their turf so they would know the territory better then the PCs.

Maybe a dangerous encounter with the Car Crusher!!! Perhaps some unstable stacks of cars teetering on the brink of falling over.

Great stuff so far, look forward to reading the next one.

[NecroticBanana]

h yea...def. putting a whole pack of dogs in there. also considered the unstable mounds of cars. And Johnny IS a ghost after all, i'm sure he can possess a crane or something. I gotta work in some construction areas too, i mean when it all boils down, thats one of the reasons Johnny has come back, the car has been disturbed by the partial de-construction of the junkyard to make way for a large parking lot for a WAL-MART.

[NecroticBanana]

Ok, game update hot off the press while it's still fresh!

So like i said i changed up the last scenerio a bit, and they continued as normal. So O'Malley and Abigail find themselves outside the junkyard, O'Malley afixes his penlight to the end of his Tompson sub-machine gun, and loads the clip of blessed rounds into his pistol while Abigial arms herself with the shotgun filled with rock-salt. They enter the dark, muddy yard ahead of them is a small clearing, off to the right is a small trailer that serves as an office and ahead of them, dimly lit by a few orange overhead lights, is an endless maze of crushed cars and parts. Abigail attempts to find some tracks...she finds lots! OK so she attempts to find fresher ones. She manages to find a set of tracks that the water has yet to seep into, they appear to be car tracks but are significantly more shallow than those around it. After searching for quite some time they begin to hear the sounds of splashing water...sounds like footsteps. They sneak back into the shadows far enough to see a large pit-bull wander by sniffing intently, however not having much luck because of the mud and water. At some point O'Malley decides that they should split up, Abigail refuses but O'Malley insist, she refuses again, so O'Malley turns off his pen-light and manages to sneak off. After Abigail is done cursing him she begins to look for him the best she can in the dim light and after several bad rolls finds herself in a dead end. Suddenly from behind her she hears the rattleing of chains, she turns, expecting the worse. She turns to face a pretty pissed off Rottweiller dragging its chain collar, it charges in and latches on to her arm and establishes a lock. She screams and attempts to fight off the dog smashing it good over the head with the butt of the shotgun and the dog releases his grip but does not back down, O'Malley hears her cries and relizeses his mistake he rushes in to help. Not wanting to hit Abigail he draws his switchblade and sticks the dog for decent damage, the dog, seriously wounded at this point attempts to limp away whining and howling pitifully. O'Malley tells Abigial she should go to the hospital and let him fight this thing alone so she doesnt get herself hurt anymore, She agrees and hands over the shotgun to him before making her way to the car. As she attempts to leave and bandage her arm at the same time she manages to get turned around again and finds herself at another dead end as she turns to leave, her path is blocked by a young, handsome man in a leather jacket, his jacket looks worn and his body sports various wounds and lashed to both arms is a tangle of chains. Before she can do anything he lashes out, the chains wrap themselves around her legs and slam her into the mud. She screams as he begins to drag her in closer. O'Malley hears her screams again as well as the rattle of chains and comes running, as he approches he can hear Abigail trying to reason with the ghost, but to no avail the spirt only wants revenge. O'Malley arrives just in time to see the ghost setting up for a brutal attack and calls to it..He says he can help him, he says he'll get rid of those that wronged him. The ghost isn't interested and rears back to smash Abgail. O'Malley totally out of ideas decides to do the one thing he's good at..piss people off and calls the ghost a "dirty wop" and fires a blessed round and misses. Enraged the ghost lashes out at O'Malley and slices him open across the chest, Abigal scrambles for the car, a chain swings inches from her head, O'Malley fires again and misses. Then he decides to make a break for it, he dials up Sam and lets him know things aint goin so well. They reach the front of the junkyard just in time to see a tow truck pull up and block them off. A scraggly old man armed with a shot gun jumps outta the truck and demands to know what the hell there doin on his property. O'Malley attempts to bluff the guy, telling him he's a F.B.I. agent tracking a terrorist thru the junkyard, the old man tells them to drop there weapons, they do (except for O'Malley's concealed pistol) O'Malley then shows the guy his "F.B.I." badge the guy isnt entirely convinced and says we'll just sit tight till the cops get here. Seemingly at a stalemate and with a pissed ghost at there heals Abigail attempts a bluff of her own, and faints. With O'Malley's help it succeeds and they convince the guy she's gotta get to a hospital quick, the guy turns to put the gun on the hood of his tow truck and when he turns back O'Malley has his pistol trained on the guys chest. Pissed and now realizing he'd been made a fool, the old guy begins to let off a string of curses, O'Malley tells Abigail to get the guy's shotgun, she gets it and turns around to see the old man....O'Malley......and Johnny! Johnny is walking fast, the chains seem to dance of there own accord. Johnny briefly fades out and pops back in slightly closer than he was. He stops about 30' away from everyone when he relizes who's there Johnny's face contorts to anger "YOU!" The old man is struck dumb with fear and O'Malley and Abigal make a run for it. They reach the VW Bug and look back just in time to see the old man run out the fence before a chain rockets out and wraps itself around his neck and face and snatches him back with neck-snapping speed. They race out fo there, O'Malley drops Abigail off at the hospital before going back to the office.

The next day O'Malley, Abigal and Sam sit and compare notes and Sam educates them alittle more on the motives of the restless dead. O'Malley decides to sneak back into the junkyard, he bluffs his way past the cops telling him he's investigating a lead that Ernie Whitmarsh (the Junkyard owner) was involved in some smuggleing operationa nd that this may have been a gang hit. He makes his way into the office and rummages around the mess and comes up with an old work order to tow a 57' chevy to the yard signed by a Bill Whitmarsh (father, original owner) and also grabs several papers with good samples of both there handwritting. On a hunch O'Malley decides to break into Ernie's house as well, and after a few hours of serching he comes across an old box of photos..near the bottom area few hand written letters, were several words or phrases have been scribbled out and re-written. Obviously the work of a smitten, yet not to eliquent writer, as well as a picture of Johnny and his girlfriend someone burned out Johnny's eyes with a cigerette. O'Malley gets these samples back to Abigail and she runs them thru the computer to analize them against the "suicide letter"  They turn out to be a match to Ernie's handwriting. O'Malley begins to look thru there library of lore for a method of comunicating with the dead..not satisfied wit the unrealiability with crystal balls, and not willing to touch necromancy, he seeks other methods (at this point i know its a stretch but the player is really trying to work in his background thing so i let it.) He decides to look at more unorthodox (even more than usual) methods of finding some information. In his search of the junkyard i mentioned he happen to find a mushroom ring, in fairy tales it is told that fey gather round these rings. So he gets an idea, he calls up the only person he thinks would know anything about the fey-folk, his grand-mother. After several bluff, and diplomacy checks he finally convinces, and calms down his poor old granny to tell him waht kind of things fairies like. He gatheres up the things he needs, gold, honey, bread, some obscure stuff etc. etc. and sits in this mushroom ring..and waits and waits and waits until he finally manages to make contact with a gremlin (i use the stats in the book except for the flying, and i describe them as they look in the Gremlins movie..the green ones not the mogwaii). Thru some long, and very tedious questioning the gremlin confirms that he intended to "play with the car" but the man did it first (sabatogeing Johnny's car). We kinda wrapped it up there.