Sawn-Off Scenarios
Four scenario prompts for the horror setting that doesn’t exist yet.
Play them as one-shots, or string them together as a series. If you follow the series approach, save SCHEMES OF THE SEWER PROPHET for last, and foreshadow that he’s behind the occult happenings of the other scenarios.
8 Group, Lesmosyne, or Intrusive Entertainment could be adversaries, allies, or quest-givers for these and future scenarios.
"The shoggoth king" from STAINED and "the lord of filth" from SCHEMES OF THE SEWER PROPHET might be the same entity. I suppose the sigils on the congressman's panoply might also invoke this entity. "The goddess" from MEADOWSWEET is probably a rival power.
SCHEMES OF THE SEWER PROPHET
A horrific crime leads to a mass arrest; the detainees identify "the sewer man" as their ringleader.
Hook: South African biotech firm 8 Group hires you to take samples from the corpse of a mysterious victim. They’ll pay an exorbitant bonus if you can connect them to the man behind it all.
The Crime: Twelve dead in a roadside diner. Three more at the rest stop nearby. A real rampage. Both scenes are still under lockdown. All the victims died on the scene from gunshot wounds, except the unidentified body riddled with cysts; these are recent, and contain some kind of larvae, but these creatures are all dead.
The Killers: Good luck getting access. There are five of them, uniformly exhausted and bleak. They confess, but insist that an old man in the sewers hypnotized them into doing his bidding, except for the tween, who claims to be the old man’s familiar, and boasts that she is “versed in spells to entice botflies and ward against angelic interference”. Authorities are baffled enough that they’ll probably send the tween back to her parents soon.
The Sewer Prophet: He really is an old man, and he really does live in the sewers. But not just these sewers; he lives in all sewers, and can slog from Beijing to Cincinnati in about two hours. The tween isn’t his familiar, just some kid he’s using to store troublesome spells that won’t fit in his grimoires. He’s willing to talk (mostly about the lord of filth), he’s willing to bargain (will trade magic for magic, or for misery), and he’s thrilled at the prospect of talking to anyone from 8 Group; he has a lot of big ideas for their business. Try to bring him to justice, and you’ll beg for death. He is wily, and absolutely deadly when cornered.
THE CONGRESSMAN'S TOMB
No-good teens break into the local representative’s mausoleum, and unwittingly unleash an eldritch horror.
Hook: You’ve been working as night-watchmen for the graveyard ever since people started breaking in to defile graves.
The Tomb: Baroque and grandiose in a way that demonstrates a man severely out of touch with the poverty-stricken community he represented. The door is smashed open, an unfashionably old car is parked on the grass outside, and unearthly screaming resonates within. A teenage girl is slumped against the stone, working herself into a full-blown panic attack.
The Teens: This was all Mindy’s idea. Craig and Alexandra are just along for the ride; everyone knows they’ve both got the hots for Mindy. Luca...well Luca is probably getting off on this. They met at Mindy’s, pounded some beers, drove over in Craig’s car, got the camcorder and sledgehammer ready, and let ‘er rip. Alexandra got cold feet, and waited outside.
The Horror Within: In the darkness beyond the door, Craig convulses on the ground, trying to pluck out his eyes. In a deeper chamber (this place must be bigger on the inside) Luca hides in an alcove, mostly blind, clutching the camcorder. At the heart of the tomb, the congressman lies in a Bronze Age panoply; the symbols inscribed on it are definitely bad news. Mindy is standing over him, her back facing you, croaking out the syllables of an unknown Semitic language. Break her trance, and you're in for a world of hurt.
STAINED
Amateur occultist turns herself in for the murder of her family, but no one believes her.
Hook: Intrusive Entertainment wants you to shoot some video inside the murderer’s house. This is B-roll, so get lots of coverage.
The House: Modest, pleasant, clean. Inside, it’s uneasily still and quiet; the roar of the lawnmower next door instantly dies off when you enter. Photographs of a happy family look staged. There is no food in the fridge. The carpet is absolutely caked in human blood.
The Crime: Everyone knows what happened. Someone broke into the house, tied up Richard Adesina and his two kids, and slit their throats on the carpet. The murderer left Nancy in peace because she’s a good Christian. Her confession to the murders and voluntary submission to police custody is just part of the grieving process.
The Amateur: Nancy has been released. The police know she’s just a traumatized widow that would never do anything like this. She refuses to return home, and has checked into a motel. She can, if pressed, give a detailed account of her contact with the shoggoth king, its promises of power bought with blood, her decision to sacrifice her family, and the events of the night of the murder. She will even share speculations as to why no one thinks she did it.
The Guardian Angel: Turns out, Nancy is a very good sorcerer. Everything went great, the shoggoth king was appeased, and it rewarded her with an aura of deflection, twisting the minds of those around her to rationalize away her crime. Needless to say, this guardian angel is getting tired of her ungrateful bullshit; soon, it’ll just start killing people who suspect her, instead of going to all the delicate trouble of rearranging their brains.
MEADOWSWEET
Horror novel drives a rash of suicides among readers hoping to meet the titular character.
Hook: You go to the controversial book signing, and a grieving mother shoots the author.
The Book: Under fifty thousand words, rendered in entrancing prose. More a sequence of weird vignettes than a story. Centers on fictional goddess Meadowsweet and her increasingly-disturbing attempts to escape an unhappy marriage to an alcoholic mortal.
The Author: Blair Gower spent years working at a children’s magazine. Then one day, her book came out. Her stoicism disguises severe shyness and agoraphobia. Took one vacation in the last decade, and decided on a whim to visit Wales.
The Deaths: Three readers attempt suicide every new moon since the book’s release. Most of them have nothing in common, save the book. Survivors recall that Meadowsweet spoke to them on the day of their attempt, and urged them to join her in the faerie kingdom; this doesn’t seem odd to them, despite most of them not being superstitious.
The Goddess: Something followed Blair Gower back from Wales. It hid itself in her head, and then spilled out her fingertips as a story. It isn’t Meadowsweet, but it’s happy to use that guise to get its way. It feeds off the misery of those left behind by the deaths. If Blair dies after being shot, it will be looking for a new host.