Morgan's Dead of Winter 2015 Adventures

Dead of Winter Horror Invitational 2015

On the way to Placerville, I saw signs for $1 bag oranges at a truck parked off the road.  Well, it was a double bait and switch.  The bag only had 4 small oranges, or you can pay $4 for a 8 lb bag (with about 20 oranges).  The sample slices she handed me tasted sweet, so I bought the bigger bag.  Well, the big bag of oranges were different from the samples -- they weren't as deep orange (more pale yellow inside) nor as sweet. Double bait and switch.

So, if you see a lady selling oranges on the side of the road for $1 a bag, skip it.  When I told my brother this story, he said, "Oranges aren't in season.  That should have been a clue."  So, I should have just drove away on the first indication of a scam.  e.g. if the person is already willing to do unethical marketing practices, what's to prevent them from doing something worse?

One of the highlights of DoW was having Monday breakfast at Sweetie Pies.  I got the smoked turkey wrapped around asparagus (diced) with extra crispy hash browns and cinnamon and walnut toast. Food was much better than Mel's and only slightly more expensive.  It's a sad thing to say that Mel's put the Carrows (across the street from the Mel's) out of business in Placerville.  It's sort of the battle of the meh.

This time, I didn't do any sight seeing before DoW, but I brought my ski equipment and went skiing for 4 days afterwards.  It snowed Sunday, so I got to ski on powder on Monday and found some powder between the trees on the other days.

Heavenly Ski Resort on Monday

Heavenly Ski Resort on Weds, mostly empty of people

Kirkwood on Thurs, it took me hours to find this powder stash.

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Saturday 11am
Game System: Call of Cthulhu 6th Ed.
Scenario Title The Phantoms of Black Knife Ridge
GM: Badger McInnes
Variations: Some house rules
Power Level: You got callouses on yer hands from workin’ the range, or a sharp eye and smooth trigger finger
Number of Players: 6
Description: It’s November, 1901 in Black Knife Ridge, Oklahoma. The west is still wild out here, but folks from the East are starting to make the pilgrimage, what with all the money comin’ in from oil stakes and the like. Normally Black Knife Ridge is on the quiet side, but on this day, a special guest is rollin’ into town; singer Daisy Nash, giving a one-night performance during her country spanning tour. The locals are all a titter about the show, the dance hall is gonna be packed, and wouldn’t you know that the sheriff is off in another county today.

Gonna be a busy night.

The Phantom of Black Knife Ridge is a Wild Weird West scenario concerning a little bit of murder, quite a bit of snake oil shenanigans, a whole lot of corruption, and a big ol’ shitstorm of danger. Slap on those smoke wagons, grab your deputy badge…oh, and ya might wanna pocket that Elder Sign, too.

I enjoyed the game, but I felt the pace was a bit slow for me and the game fell in the standard template of investigate, find big bad, and blow it up.  For me, the most enjoyable bits were the character interactions.

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Daisy Nash gets gutted in her hotel room by something nasty.  We investigate and find that it's associated with an oil man who is pumping out some alien goo from underground and that it is an elixir that can cure anything, but the side effect is that it makes you very compliant.

We kill all the miners and blow up the camp and oil derricks that are pumping out the goo.

Sort of simple, no?

My character was a Pinkerman Detective with the arrest warrant for another character (Duane's), an ex-US marshal, the body guard of Daisy Nash.  The only bit of fright I got was when it appeared that there was some sort of lawman handshake between Duane's character and the Deputy in town (Josh's).  So, I was worried that my arresting of Duane's character might run into double trouble.  But I was able to discern that it was more of a professional acknowledgement vs a personal connection.

In the end, I learned that Duane's character committed justifiable homicide and decided to let him go and report that his character was killed in the finale.  The Deputy was willing to confirm my story, so I was able to close my case.

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Saturday 7pm
Game System: Reports from the Zone (The Veil)
Scenario Title: The Electric Psychopomp F**k Brigade vs. the Deranged Discotheque of the Damned
GM: Matthew Grau
Variations: None
Power Level: Paranormal Drug Addicts
Number of Players: 6
Characters Provided: Yes
Description: In this mash-up of Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, Trainspotting, and Naked Lunch. Characters are drug fiends who have discovered the “Zone,” a place where they’re so altered that they see through reality. The world they’ve discovered is strange and dangerous, filled with existential threats, and they’re kind of the only ones who can do anything about it. However, they have to use a lot of drugs to do that, and that naturally makes them less… effective.

Fortunately, their crippling addictions have also given them new paranormal abilities to aid them in their fight – but these abilities also help drive deeper and deeper dependence. The Characters’ impaired judgment may easily lead them to make unsound choices – the horror is both external and internal.

Matt printed cards for The Veil.  The collection of cards made up your character.  For various tells for talents, you needed to write on the cards.  Too bad Matt made really high quality glossy cards; it was hard to write on them as the ink/pencil didn't quite write on the high gloss.  A matte finish would have worked better.

This was my favorite game that I played in at DoW.  We each got to play various drug addicts with each drug of choice giving us benefits.  Matt also did a great job of DJing various decades of music. Some of the music references were beyond me since I wasn't much of a pop music kind of guy -- I grew up playing the violin and listening to Mozart, Bach, and Vivaldi.

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I sort of heard about Krokodil, but never paid any attention to it.  Well, my character was a Krokodil addict.  The other addicts were Marijuana, Heroine, LSD, Speed, and Alcohol.

The fun bit was that depending on your level of addiction, you get additional skill cards.  I, of course, took the max (3 out of 3) which meant that I could die at any moment, at the GM's whim. We got to pick tells for each trait and I wound up looking like something out of a slasher horror movie. I carried a cinder block that was tied to a chain that was wrapped around my body.  I also had barbed wire strung around my arms and legs.  I also didn't know where to put my used needles, so I left them in my arm.  Things (people, animals, and plants) die in my vicinity.  I smell like something decaying, and my touch kills.  When I lay still, people think I'm dead.

In the game, the spirit of Disco (represented by the Bee Gee-sus) was trying to prevent itself from getting killed (with the help of aliens, and sometimes over zealous cops), but in effect it would prevent the rise of Michael Jackson, YMCA, Phil Collins, Biggie G, 50-Cent, etc.

So, we the heroes had to make sure Disco died.

When we got connected with the spirit of Rap, my chain and cinder block got blinged out (24k baby!).  To stop the man from intruding on our sing/dance off, I faced the man and flipped a tank that man had sent to stop us with.  Cool!

In the end, we helped Rap send the Bee Gees back in time and saved the world.

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Sunday 11am
Game System: Call of Cthulhu
Scenario Title: U-29 is Alive
GM: Gil Trevizo
Variations: Home rules
Power Level: Normal people
Number of Players: 6
Characters Provided: Yes
Description: October 1918. The war is lost for Germany, but the Kaiser continues to feed the meatgrinders of the Western Front and crew after crew is lost on the bloodied seas of the Atlantic. Now the admirals have ordered one last foolhardy mission, to venture deep into enemy waters and “recover” the missing boat U-29, an experimental submarine lost over a year ago. Aboard its sister boat, U-31, the doomed crew will sail into black and forgotten depths and learn the silent secrets hiding beneath unfathomed waters for uncounted years.

I liked that this game gave us a lot of options even though we were stuck in a submarine and had a very rigid command structure.  Gil spent a lot of time researching WWI submarines and the social structure at that time.  I appreciated that and enjoyed the mini-lecture on the those subjects, that said, we spent 1-1/2 hours covering those subjects before we got to start playing.

I think part of the flaw was Gil trying to be true to a HP Lovecraft story (which I haven't read) instead of just taking it as an inspiration.  Frank mentioned to me that it didn't really matter if it was a WWI submarine vs a modern day submarine.  I think he was right, then you don't need to explain the social structures, the drawbacks on the submarine, etc.

For me this game was a close second to Matt Grau's game.

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We were ordered to recover something from a sunken merchant ship that U-29 sunk and to find U-29 (we were it's sister ship the U-31).

The something was the body of a statue.  When we recovered it, the dead bodies on the ship animated and attacked us.  At one point we thought of killing the NPC who brought us there until he said, "We need the statue, I know how to stop this."  We had already taken the statue from him and tried to destroy it.

On the trip to the location of U-29, the ships crew slowly sank into madness as strange creatures swum along side the submarine and increased in numbers.

At the site of U-29, we found a drowned sailor clutching the head of the statue.

Strange creatures were performing a ritual underwater near a temple that had sunk underneath the waves.

Once put together, the NPC took the completed statue and jammed it into a glowing force containment field in the temple to free the trapped Ares.  Before this, the players were conflicted as to whether they wanted this or not.  Those driven insane wanted it.  Conflicting NPCs wanted to either free the entity or to enslave it.  As players, both sounded like bad ideas.

After a few torpedo shots and characters either staying or fleeing, the game ended.

What I liked was that you could: stay, help, hinder, or just flee.  All were valid choices.  In a lot of games, fleeing just takes you out of the game and the right choices were always help or hinder. In this game, all the choices were valid.  I liked that.

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Sunday 7pm
Game System: Nemesis
Scenario Title: Welcome to the Clown Motel
GM: Morgan Hua
Variations: Highly Modified (Simplified Nemesis)
Power Level: Silver Miners, Bikers, Military Personnel, and Old Folks.
Number of Players: 6
Characters Provided: Yes
Description: The Clown Motel is located next to the Tonopah Cemetery.  Tonight is the night of the Blood Moon.  Who will survive the night at the Clown Motel? Players will have multiple characters as they uncover the history and mysteries of Tonopah from 1902 to present day.

WATCH THE VIDEO: https://plus.google.com/102965936034306571485/posts/TZNgzJ7f2Eb

I wasn't able to play test this game before DoW and I was experimenting with various things.  The game ran a bit short: 4 hours.  Part of it was I had four players instead of the six I was expecting and I didn't spend any time explaining Nemesis which generally takes about 1/2 hour.  Almost all of the players knew the system except for one player and he said, "Let's just play, and tell me what to roll." I also made the bad guys too powerful and they wiped out PCs faster than I expected -- more about this in the spoiler section where I breakdown the complete scenario.

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Blood Moon

I didn't want to explain the setting, so I created a short two minute video/slide show of the Clown Motel, the Tonopah Cemetery, and the Tonopah Missile Test Site -- all key locations in the game.

The whole idea I had was what if I didn't have an insanity meter, that the horror drove the actions of the characters.  Would it work?

So, I wanted something that was terrifying that was impossible to kill and relentless -- psychotic killer clowns.  I wanted the killer clowns to hunt down the first batch of PCs and show the players that they were nigh impossible to kill or win against in a battle of strength.  The idea was to scare the crap out of the players.

My first batch of PCs would be tough bikers with firearms.  They are staying at the Clown Motel because:

In the middle of the night, during a blood moon, a car runs over their bikes which are parked outside of their rooms.  Lo and behold, a cop car ran over their bikes.  But who is inside the cop car?  My Killer Psycho Clowns.

I gave the clowns 5d with 2 wiggle dice.  That was a mistake.  They were too powerful and basically killed all the PCs in two rounds.  I wanted it to last a little bit longer.  So only one wiggle dice would have been better.  I also gave them shock and kill which is a mistake and it should have been only kill damage.

As the last biker was attacked, I had wishbones to determine 50/50 checks.  The biker won, so he lived and the clown got run over by a tour bus.

This is when I introduced the real PC heroes.  The picture on the left is what everyone sees.  The back of the character portrait is the picture on the right -- that is how the PC thinks of themselves. The whole conceit was to let old retired folks solve the mystery that tough guys can't.  I also handicapped all the PCs with canes, wheelchairs, and all manner of horrible mobility tools that old folks use.  Yeah, you can't run and you can't fight.  Go solve this mystery.



I started with the old folks at their nursing home being abused and bored. Today was their field trip to Las Vegas, freedom at last and their bus hits something on the road and they get thrown about and get stuck in Tonopah, at the Clown Motel.

I wanted the PCs to go through the Tonopah Cemetery and find the two groups of true historical burials: The 1902 Tonopah Plague and the 1911 Mine Fire.

So, the surviving clowns would drag the biker bodies through the cemetery and towards the Tonopah Missile Test Range, leaving a trail of blood and drag marks.

Once in the Tonopah Cemetery, a successful History Knowledge roll would unlock two flashbacks:  The 1902 Tonopah Plague and the 1911 Mine Fire.

The Tonopah Plague starts with a new set of characters, miners from 1902:

Their story is uncovering an underground tunnel while mining silver during a Blood Moon.  This tunnel has a weird totem/doll inside:

As the miners investigate the tunnel, they'll discover it goes very long and deep and gets hotter and more humid and almost unbearable.  Before that though, they find a pile of human skeletal remains with bones crushed and skulls bashed in from violent acts.  The remains are also mixed with pieces of native american dress.  All indications are that the bodies are all native american.

That night or if the players keep on exploring the tunnel, at that time, Natives wearing Kachina masks attack the miners and the mining town.  The natives are just as deadly as the clowns.  Here is where the overkill clowns actually become a signature and the players actually figured out that the clowns as the natives were one and the same.  During play, the players actually put up a DO NOT ENTER, DANGER sign up at the entrance to the tunnel.  I asked each player whether they have family and whether they tell them about the new tunnel.  A survivor would be the one that would write or tell someone about what really happened in 1902 and that is the story that the History Knowledge roll would have revealed.  When a miner dies, I close their coffin with a SNAP!

In 1911, it is another blood moon and a new set of miners are the new PCs.  Several have the same last names as the first set of miners and they are relatives, which gives them an excuse to know something of what really happened in 1902.  There are more deaths by mask wearing natives (players never found out that -- hey, that's not a mask) and several players entered the mine and found a better wooden barrier with a DO NOT ENTER sign to the tunnel. The players decide to collapse part of the mine with explosives and close up the tunnel which causes a mine fire.

The players now know the origin of the psychotic killer clowns and need to do something about it.

They follow the drag marks of bodies into the Tonopah Missile Test Site.

Eventually, they'll be found by Military Police and arrested for trespassing as numerous UFO kooks sneak onto the base and think it's area 52, a sister UFO site to area 51.

While being arrested, more killer clowns would show up.  Well, in the game, the PCs blew up the first ATV that showed up, so that messed up my game plan.  So, I let them find the crater where a missile test had reopened the Katchina Tunnel to the underworld.

While exploring how to get into the crater, I sent two more ATVs to capture the PCs.  Two PCs got down into the crater and found a crevasse that had old rotten timbers, remains of a mine shaft. James Bond blew his wheelchair roll and I killed him with an ejection seat that broke his neck on a malfunctioned landing.  Prof McGonagall (played excellently by Frank) got captured by GI Joe (in the movie GI Joe was played by Bruce Willis) and GI Jane (in the movie GI Jane was played by Demi Moore) -- ironic, huh?

GI Jane

GI Joe

The purpose of GI Joe and GI Jane are to have some PCs with higher fire power and a sympathetic PC that can help the PCs get into the mine and use military grade explosives in order to collapse the mine again.

In the game I ran, the PCs dug through the pile of fresh bodies:  police officers, bikers, towns people of Tonopah, dead GI Joes and Janes and found on the bottom a small Kachina figurine. With a successful Archaeology roll, you know it's an evil Kachina.  There are good and evil Kachinas and when the Red Man was here, their Kachina dances summoned the Good Kachinas to hold back the Evil Kachinas.  Now that silver was found here and all the natives were kicked off their land, nobody does the Kachina Spirit Dances anymore and nothing holds back the Evil Kachinas from leaving the underworld and making mischief  -- e.g. slaughtering innocents.  So, Elvis who found the Kachina figurine and did the Archaeology roll, decides to do a impromptu Kachina Spirit Dance and did very well, so I ruled that that would hold off the Evil Kachinas for this cycle of the blood moon.

GI Jane replaced the dead James Bond as a PC and that character was convinced by an attack at the airbase that the killer clowns did exist.  Video showed the clowns vanish after being gunned down; they seemed to lay there and then vanish after a video glitch.  The bodies only vanish when a person looks away.  So, the GI Jane arranged for explosives to collapse a portion of the underworld tunnel.

At this point the PCs can stop, but they wanted to put the Evil Kachinas down for a longer period of time.  With research, they found Good Kachinas could challenge the Evil Kachinas to contests and each win would hold the Evil Kachinas back for 100 years.  So, the players stole Good Kachina masks from various museums and waited for the next blood moon and waited for the Evil Kachinas to show up so they could challenge them.

The players picked their best skills (and used some trickery) and were able to beat the Evil Kachinas and hold them back for 400 years.

I had a lot of fun creating the characters:  Link to PC Character Sheets

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