NO SE ACEPTÓ QUE HUBIESE PERSONAL TÉCNICO DE APOYO A LOS PRODUCTORES EN CADA VENTANILLA PARA RESOLVER LOS

The tombs of Temple Hill

Overview

The PCs find that the centre of activity on the Hill is not where they expected it to be and finally confront the Butcher(s). They witness a powerful ritual taking place and begin to feel its effects before charging in, saving the day and being lauded as heroes … perhaps.

GM Aims

• Confront the PCs with the real villains about to, it appears, sacrifice a final victim.

• Prompt a rescue that leads them to face supernatural foes.

• Push the PCs to the point they feel hopelessly out- classed and out of their depth.

• Provide a final breathless opportunity for them to stop the ritual.

• Offer them an unpalatable choice.

PC Outcomes

Either through great role-playing, great skills, or the intervention of the Morgathians, the PCs have the satis- faction of saving the victim, destroying the villains and seeing the apocalyptic summoning dispersed.

Then they find themselves in debt to the Morgathians and the GM has the necessary hook to set them off on the next stage of the Peran Quartet.

Description of Events

The air is filled with bats flowing like a dark river over and around the characters, for a moment they obscure

the moonlight and caste an almost solid shadow over our heroes.

This river of darkness flows, though, not directly up the main avenue to where a glow of torchlight suggest the Morgathians are continuing with their ritual. Instead the bats are moving to a place perhaps 100 paces down- hill from the Temple site itself, and blocked from view by some mounds on which assorted tombs sit.

There the bats form a swirling black mass above the monuments and tombs. Beneath them the three appren- tices are enacting the foul ritual they have been preparing for under Eilith’s guidance. Their ritual is carefully timed to make use of the powerful energies released by the Morgathians worshipping further up the Hill.

A flat-topped tomb is serving as an ‘altar’ on which are carefully stacked the heads of the 13 victims - facing outwards. A lantern castes a wavering light over the cairn while one of the apprentices holds another aloft, illumi- nating a scroll held by the youngest boy.

The third apprentice is reading from the scroll and wields a knife above a bald man kneeling mutely at her feet. Once obviously a big, powerful, man he is now gaunt and dull-eyed, his once luxuriant beard crudely cropped. His left arm ends near the elbow. It is undoubtedly Coln Kutz.

The girls reading follows the slightly hypnotic drum beat and chants of the Morgathian service hidden from view behind her. As the PCs take in the scene the bats begin to circle more and more tightly at unnatural speed until they form a deep, dark, spinning vortex above the

THE DEEPER DARK 37

THE DEEPER DARK 38

cairn. The individual animals are a blur of black wings as the vortex descend to touches the cairn. Then it breaks apart and flows down over the stacked heads and outwards from the altar. As they spread outwards the blurring mass of bats takes on shapes reminiscent of the Butcher' victims in life, but bound together by a sickly green radiance

Every PC will feel the hairs on the back of their neck rising and any magical senses/Prescience/Sensitivity will

be passively triggered by the significant supernatural forces at work.

The shadowy form of an attractive young woman, limned in green, weaves towards the PCs and as her mouth moves they seem to hear him whispering ‘My name is

Glynsa… help me … my mistress the Queen will reward you…’;

soon they can hear other confused, dazed, frightened voic- es in their heads: ‘where is this place; who am I; it hurts; no,

no, not that’.

If the PCs act to interrupt the ritual … the Shades

that seems to be using the bats to become corporeal will all turn to face them. Their ‘faces’ into feral drooling carica- tures of their form in life. Then the Shades are among the PCs.

Each of the 13 shades has a single, collective, attack per round which hits a random exposed location, probably hands or face. Eyes are particularly vulnerable to the bats making up the creatures’ bodies …

Creature: Storm of Possessed Bats

Str 06 Agl 12 Sml 16 Aur 01 Cml • Sta 12 Eye 16 Voi • Wil 08 End 12 Dex • Hrg 16 Int 04 Mor • Mov 12 Skills: AWARENESS 80, STEALTH 60

Combat Skills: INITIATIVE 85, Bite 65, DODGE 58

Melee Wpns Wt WQ AML DML HM B E P

Bite • • 65 • • • • 2

Location B E P F

01 – 00 ‘Body’ 1 1 0 1

Notes: Each shade is made up of hundreds of bats bound by the supernat-

ural forces unleashed. They will move towards any PCs threatening the ritual, engulfing them in a roiling mass of bats. The swarm will continue to attack until the possessing spirits are distracted or the PCs are driven off or incapacitated.

The only place a victim can take damage is on exposed skin, even cloth will defeat the tiny fangs of the bats.

The PC is allowed a single melee attack prior to being ‘engulfed’ in the swarm after which time melee attacks against the swarm are 90% likely to constitute an attack on the PC.

Dodge: to avoid physical attack.

Strike/Counterstrike with unarmed combat: to brush

and throw the bats to the floor and stamp on them. The shade defends by ‘dodge’ but successful damage done by a PC acts as a penalty to mental combat during that round. Unfortunately it is impossible to kill enough

individual bats to truly disrupt the ‘shades’ so any effect is temporary for that round only.

Area attacks can destroy enough bats to send the shade screaming back to the cairn but it will be impossible to tar- get the bats without targeting the PCs they are swirling around.

If a PC succumbs to mental assault … they are not

possessed but fall unconscious with Shock.

If a PC is incapacitated … the shade departs for fresh

prey giving the unconscious character a chance to recover is described in the shock rules.

Awareness CS during the conflict will allow a PC to see

that the ritual appears to be reaching its climax as the girl is now chanting more loudly and the dagger is at Kutz’ throat. He is outlined in the same sickly light binding the bats to- gether. It appears a Shade of Bukrai may be about to pos- sess him, and the ritual said that if he is killed then the por- tal could remain open. Sacrificing a different victim would close the portal.

The PCs should be faced with the terrible choice of sav- ing Kutz, but having to replace him with another victim – one of the children – in order to seal the portal again. The GM should allow them to wrestle with this but has a fall-back if necessary. The attention of the Gurim and his followers has been attracted by the disturbance of Bukrai.