How would one find the Janus Key?

[AlgaeNymph]

So, for a campaign focusing on said reality-warping artifact; how would one track it down?

Obviously starting with the leads, of course: who last had it (Cirque Sinister); who else was involved in fighting over it (most of Vibora Bay's heroes); where it was last seen (the San Sebastien Swamp, presumably near CS's base); etc.  But what happens when the leads run dry?  e.g., divination shows someone looking like Dr. Macabre has it, and he's gone to ground.  Assuming whoever wields it is smart enough to hide, what sort of spoor would the Janus Key leave?

Edited January 18 by AlgaeNymph

[Lord Liaden]

The Janus Key appears to possess sentience and some level of intelligence, and randomly "chooses" a wielder to appear to. That's how Amnesia of the Cirque Sinister got it. You don't find it. It finds you.
 

[Gauntlet]

28 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

The Janus Key appears to possess sentience and some level of intelligence, and randomly "chooses" a wielder to appear to. That's how Amnesia of the Cirque Sinister got it. You don't find it. It finds you.
 

 

Of course you will want to remember, just because the Janus Key finds you does not mean that you will realize that it found you, many times things like that will make things look like a random encounter when they really are not.

[Lord Liaden]

Fair point. Amnesia just woke up one morning and found it in her bedroom. She didn't know what it was at first, but after some research she identified it, at which point she somehow gained the understanding of how to use it. After the heroes of Vibora Bay thwarted her plan, Dr. Carlotta Silvestri tried to seize the Key, but it burned her hand and she dropped it into the San Sebastien Swamp, but it was never found there subsequently. So, it need not be immediately apparent that the Janus Key acts of its own volition, although that can be inferred from the course of events.

[AlgaeNymph]

2 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

The Janus Key appears to possess sentience and some level of intelligence, and randomly "chooses" a wielder to appear to. That's how Amnesia of the Cirque Sinister got it. You don't find it. It finds you.
 

Technically true, but that's just deus ex machina (which was also how Cirque Sinister was beaten, I can't help but notice).  What fun is that for an investigation?

[Lord Liaden]

Fair enough. Okay, let's look at the extant leads. The Janus Key was last seen in San Sebastien Swamp. The Swamp is sapient, all the life-forms within it forming a collective intelligence, so you could try asking it if it knows where the Key went. Your best bet for contacting it would be tracking down Al, the Alligator Man who lives there. He and the Swamp can communicate telepathically. (See the Vibora Bay source book.)

 

The last two people to handle the Janus Key were Amnesia, and Dr. Carlotta Silvestri. Amnesia may have some residual memories from the Key, but tracking her down will undoubtedly force a confrontation with the whole Cirque Sinister. Dr. Silvestri should be easier to locate as she has a public identity, and had done research on the Janus Key; but following the last incident with the Key, it's probably known in the superhero community that she's of less than admirable character. Mystic heroes would likely be aware of her connection to the black-magic Silvestri clan.

 

Per Champions Universe, when the Key's first modern owner, Dr. Macabre, was imprisoned, the Janus Key was held in a secure vault by PRIMUS. However, after his death it was discovered that the Key had disappeared. PRIMUS may have retained documents or other evidence providing clues.

Edited January 18 by Lord Liaden

[AlgaeNymph]

5 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Okay, let's look at the extant leads.

Of course.  About what I figured.  But, what happens when the leads go cold and dry?

 

Suppose through investigation, and likely divination, the protag discovers the Key was taken by someone looking like the late Dr. Macabre.  Obviously one would start with the psych profile for knowing what to look for.  He was greedy for magic items, desperate for intellectual validation, and fought pretty much every Silver Age hero.  Think about what'd match motive and search there; even someone being stealthy will leave clues.

 

But, what if this one has different motives?  Now we don't know what to look for beyond what tool they're probably using.  So what traces would the Janus Key itself leave?

[Doc Democracy]

I think the only thing you can do is rely on Big Data, utilising overwhelming computer power to put together small incidents.  You look for people that have had similar incidents at similar times in similar locations, you begin to trace the nodes and see if you can determine the general direction, in the meantime, go back to the nodes and discover what was going on to see if you can find out what was happening and to help you predict what might happen next.

 

The Key may have an agenda, working towards something, it may be more like Quantum Leap, appearing where it is "needed" or it may be more random, like Kwai Chang Caine wandering and dealing with what comes up before it.  It could cme down to educated guesses putting the heroes in the right place at the right time.

 

Doc

[Rich McGee]

The Key's a Big Deal Mystic MacGuffin.  Anyone capable of doing some precognition, fortune telling, prophetic visions or other predictive trick ought to be able to get some kind of lead on where it's going be active next, or who's going to claim it.  Degree of accuracy and vagueness of whatever pointers you get is probably a combination of how talented the prognosticator is and the needs of the Plot.

 

Probably much easier to detect who's doing rituals to prophesize about the Key than it is to find the Key itself, so don't be surprised if unwanted company shows up to ask what you think you're doing, or just to follow you to the Key if you do get a good reading and then snatch it out from under you.     

[Lord Liaden]

9 hours ago, AlgaeNymph said:

Of course.  About what I figured.  But, what happens when the leads go cold and dry?

 

Suppose through investigation, and likely divination, the protag discovers the Key was taken by someone looking like the late Dr. Macabre.  Obviously one would start with the psych profile for knowing what to look for.  He was greedy for magic items, desperate for intellectual validation, and fought pretty much every Silver Age hero.  Think about what'd match motive and search there; even someone being stealthy will leave clues.

 

But, what if this one has different motives?  Now we don't know what to look for beyond what tool they're probably using.  So what traces would the Janus Key itself leave?

 

Well, there's no history of the Janus Key leaving any "breadcrumbs" for someone to locate it. If it doesn't want a particular person to use its power, it won't let them, or it will just disappear. That would also strike me as nearly as much a "deus ex machina" as having the key simply appear to someone. Which, frankly, is the likeliest origin for this new Dr. Macabre.

 

From the point of view of PCs having a trail to uncover so they feel like detectives, IMO it would be clearer and more satisfying to start with the motivation of Macabre II, and work from there. Are they trying to obtain more magical knowledge? Get revenge on certain people? Release some supernatural entity on the world? Motivation would shape the actions they take, which will reveal a pattern.

 

If you just want the Janus Key to leave traces, the thing can warp reality. It can leave any kind of clue you want.   As I indicated above, there's no reason to assume it would do to get someone to "rescue" it from its current wielder. It can rescue itself, unless the wielder is already so powerful they can force it to obey. But you could define inadvertent clues that it leaves as Dr. Macabre conducts their business. The way the Key alters the world may make a distinctive "footprint" that could be recognized by any mystic or super-scientist who encountered the original Dr. Macabre. The actions of the new Doctor could leave a trail of such footprints identifying the cause of the events as being the Janus Key. Or perhaps when it makes a large enough alteration to reality there's some kind of "echo" that mystics could detect and trace.

[DShomshak]

Mystic "echoes" of the Janus Key being used? How about Fortean events? As the Key's wielder warps reality, unintended alterations also happen. Back in the day, PCs would have needed to read the Weekly World News for sightings of Elvis (or Batboy), rains of toads, images of Jesus appearing in tortillas, and the like. Nowadays I assume there are websites for this stuff.

 

Oh, hey. Let's work more with Tortilla Jesus. There are lots of lines going hither and thither in the taco, and okay, a person with a vivid imagination could imagine some of them as forming a vaguely human outline. But someone who makes a really good Deduction roll (or applies computer analysis) finds the lines form a map. The tortilla isn't showing Jesus, it's showing the roads and rivers around Eveleth, Minnesota. What's significant about Eveleth, Minnesota? Well, the PCs don't know until they go there. But it's a breadcrumb along the trail to the Janus Key. Or at least on the trail to something the Janus Key wants done.

 

Maybe the PCs encounter other people who are follow their own similarly obscure investigative trails. Maybe they're just nuts, engaging in a more abstract form of pareidolia; maybe it's connected to the Janus Key; or maybe the world genuinely is far stranger than the PCs imagined.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

Dean, you are a creative genius, but I've never had a player who could pick up a clue that subtle unless I shoved it in their faces. Often not even then. 🙃

[Rich McGee]

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

Dean, you are a creative genius, but I've never had a player who could pick up a clue that subtle unless I shoved it in their faces. Often not even then. 🙃

That's what the "really good Deduction" roll is for.  Even the most obscure clue can be handed out with die rolls.    

[Lord Liaden]

Hmm... I've never been comfortable with a plot that depends on players making really good rolls.

[Rich McGee]

20 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

Hmm... I've never been comfortable with a plot that depends on players making really good rolls.

That is a fair point.  The Gumshoe system (from Pelgrane Press - Trails of Cthulhu uses the engine, among other games) was written specifically to address that concern.  While the mechanics would be hard to port to HERO, some of the principles of how to build a gameable investigation might be useful.  There's a bunch of reviews, podcasts and vids about Gumshoe that do a better job of explaining it than I ever could. 

 

Youtuber Seth Skrkowsky also has some vids on running investigations/mysteries outside of Gumshoe on his eponymous channel.  Also worth a look. 

Edited January 19 by Rich McGee

[AlgaeNymph]

10 hours ago, DShomshak said:

How about Fortean events? As the Key's wielder warps reality, unintended alterations also happen.

Ideal!  : )

 

Even better, it provides an in for Key seekers who don't have on-tap divinations.  Even mystics in Champions tend to be brutes and blasters, possessing the sort of investigative acumen you'd expect from bully boys.  Oh, and Contacts; they tend to have skills rather than spells.  KS: Signs, Portents, and Omens (which Fortean phenomena are a modern manifestation of) looks like a good skill to have.

 

Besides Gumshoe, I'll have to see what works of Kenneth Hite I can get.  Have his articles from Pyramid been put back together yet?

[DShomshak]

I have two volumes of Hite's columns, called Suppressed Transmission: The First Broadcast and Suppressed Transmission: The Second Broadcast. I suppose I should see if further collections were published.

 

Well, yes, the key to a good investigative scenario is that the players can be rewarded for thinking, but don't actually need to do so. It's a good idea to have something ready if the player *does* make a great Deduction roll. It lets you skip the step where the NPC posts the snarky comment that, "I don't see Jesus. I see a road map to Eveleth, Minnesota. And I should know because I live nearby in Hibbing." Then add another Fortean event or two.

 

As GM, you have also primed the pump by describing how Fortean events, both loud and subtle, followed Dr. Macabre -- and that the heroes he fought used this to track him. 

 

It's still possible that the players won't trust you to supply clues to the Janus Key even though they said they wanted an adventure built around searching for the Janus Key. Or, yeah, that they won't realize you are trying to give them what they asked for. Then you'd probably go to your Plan B. Maybe go big and have Eveleth suddenly be replaced by a swath of long-devastated land patrolled by Martian war tripods. See, the new owner's latest experiment replaced the town with a section from an alternate history where the Martians won the War of the Worlds. (In the CU, it was the Orson Wells version that really happened, and the "Martians" were actually Sirians, but whatever.)

 

As always, know your players. But at least try to give them a chance to feel smart.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Rich McGee]

5 hours ago, DShomshak said:

I suppose I should see if further collections were published.

It's just the two volumes AFAIK.  The subject of collecting the rest comes up every so often in varios RPG communities, but SJG doesn't seem interested.  No profit seen in it perhaps, or maybe they'd just prefer you buy the Pyramid pdfs instead.  It's not like Hite's articles were the only good thing in the mag by any means.   

5 hours ago, DShomshak said:

Then add another Fortean event or two.

You can never have too much angel hair. 

 

As a big fan of Atlas' old Pandemonium tabloid RPG, I'm partial to using NPC tabloid reporters for that kind of random info drop.  "Jesus?  Let me see that.  Oh, the Eveleth. MN tortilla.  Yeah, I was going to check on that one when I nail down this latest Batboy sighting."

5 hours ago, DShomshak said:

As always, know your players. But at least try to give them a chance to feel smart.

Always excellent advice to keep in mind.