Here There Be Monsters: Tears of Tierrasola adventure

[Killer Shrike]

Developed a new vignette for Here There Be Monsters, The Tears of Tierrasola

 

Set in the scenic suburb Tierrasola, the initial kick off is a sudden infestation of Revenants. The player characters will be  an experienced Hunter, and a high school kid who is more than he appears swept up in the action.

 

[Killer Shrike]

First PC: Joey Manegarm...high school student and apparently entirely normal. However the stress of encountering the supernatural will reveal his own heritage as a Demimonde descended from the get of Fenrir.

 

http://www.killershrike.com/HereThereBeMonsters/Campaigns/Tierrasola/JoeyManegarm/Joey Manegarm.HTML

 

[Killer Shrike]

Second PC: J.B. Rochefort, former Navy Corpsman, former EMT driver,  Extreme Sport aficionado, and Licensed Monster Hunter.

 

http://www.killershrike.com/HereThereBeMonsters/Campaigns/Tierrasola/JBRochefort/JB Rochefort.HTML

 

[Killer Shrike]

And, the revenants. Nothing special as bad guys go. The goal is to tee the heroes up with some slow pitch to let them get familiar / refamiliarize with 6e and learn their characters.

 

http://www.killershrike.com/HereThereBeMonsters/Characters/GMsVault/Joe Revenant.HTML

 

 

The plot is dead simple...for no obvious reason, people just start rising from their graves in the local cemetery. There's no apparent initiating incident or master villain for the first session. After the PC's get done dealing with random attacks and make their way to the cemetery, they'll find evidence of a ritual near the center of it in a necromantic circle. Disturbing / breaking  the circle will end the effect.  If the players want to play again, the second session will be about figuring out who did it / what's going on, so I'm not bothering to fill in those blanks yet. 

[grandmastergm]

6 hours ago, Killer Shrike said:

Prepped to run a one-shot later today; may or may not turn into a campaign. 

 

Set in the scenic suburb Tierrasola, the initial kick off is a sudden infestation of Revenants.

 

 

Interesting.  Are you familiar with the Monster Hunter International setting?

[Killer Shrike]

Yeah. I've read and own the MHI books, along with other urban fantasy and urban fantasy rpgs in a similar vein. The Here There Be Monsters setting is my own thing, developed collaboratively, starting back in the late 90's for Hero System 4e. When a long time player of mine got into MHI and wanted to play something like that, I resuscitated the setting and worked with a bunch of people on these forums to develop it for Hero System 6e; this was well before the MHI licenced products for the Hero System was a thing.  

 

Unfortunately, the original very long thread on these boards where the collaborative work was done has recently been eaten by the archive purge, but the finished material is all preserved on my site. Here's the main link for the setting; there is a ton of material, adventures, and characters linked to from it:

 

http://www.killershrike.com/HereThereBeMonsters/Concept.aspx

 

Here's a summary of the history of the setting:

 

History

Here There Be Monsters is an offshoot of Demon Hunter: FBI, whose original form appeared in print as a Haymaker! APAzine submission many years ago (Issue 21), and later cleaned up a bit and re-printed in EZ HERO (Issue 10). Inspired by diverse sources ranging from Beyond the Supernatural, movies like The First Power, and the X-Files, Demon Hunter: FBI was focused on super gritty street level crime and violence with a supernatural twist.

The original content was developed over a weekend by Killer Shrike and T-Rossi and then fleshed out over the course of a campaign run by T-Rossi. The two original characters were Special Agent in Charge Jeff Chen played by Killer Shrike, and the Suppressor Special Agent Jared Kole played by Shad aka Shazoey.

The campaign and setting flourished and was further detailed over a couple of long adventure arcs, but then stopped as we turned our attention to other games.

Some others used the material for their own spin off games, most notably a version Dave Mattingly published as an EZ HERO article, re-interpreting Demon Hunter: FBI into the form of a TV show pilot with characters as portrayed by real actors. A more comic turn, this approach still captured the essense of the material and was at the very least a creative and amusing riff.

Fast forward a number of years, Urban Fantasy is quite popular in media. After reading the Monster Hunter books WilyQ expressed interest in playing a campaign either based on or inspired by the books. Killer Shrike decided to take a broader approach and revive the Demon Hunter: FBI material but with a focus on the larger setting and on freelance Hunters rather than on FBI Agents.

Rather than do all the work himself, Killer Shrike instead turned to the HERO System Forums and invited interested parties to collaborate on the project. Many participated in the ongoing discussion and gave feedback, but a few stepped up with significant contributions that shaped the growth and improved the quality of the Here There Be Monsters content.

Both Manic Typist and The Rose contributed iconics, as well as insights into cool concepts and the early growth of the setting.

5lippers contributed the core of The Trouble With Banshees vignette.

Panpiper contributed a large fraction of the available iconics, somewhere around 1/3, the entirety of the Zombie Apocalypse vignette, and a tremendous amount of design feedback, error checking, errata, and critique across all the Here There Be Monsters content.

 

 

[Killer Shrike]

We had a swap out, this guy instead of JB:

 

http://www.killershrike.com/HereThereBeMonsters/Campaigns/Tierrasola/DrewAltman/Drew Altman.HTML

 

 

Game went well. Many Revenants were slain, and civilian casualties were...manageable...

[Killer Shrike]

Did  the second session of the Tierrasola adventure yesterday...Drew and Joey tracked the source of the revenant outbreak to the Tierrasola Memorial Hills cemetary up in the hills bordering the suburb, eventually finding the Black Wizard Antonio Aguilar in a many hundred year old marble crypt from the days of Spanish rule, using a powerful artifact in an attempt to resurrect long dead ancestors, powerful Black Wizards of centuries ago, in an attempt to return his diminished family to power in occult circles.

 

 

In the innermost chamber, protected by a lethally dangerous mystical circle that was proof against mundane intervention, Antonio had been chanting away for nearly an hour struggling to bring back the souls of his long dead predecessors; the necromantic emanations of the artifact radiating outward caused the less long-dead corpses in the graveyard to rise as revenants as a side effect. 

 

When the PC's arrived in the chamber, Antonio ignored them, confident that his magical dome would be sufficient to keep them out, and indeed Drew's bullets were unable to penetrate the warding circle...literally disintegrating upon contact. But the superhumanly durable Joey experimented by sticking a pinky into the barrier for a second, and while it did singe his skin his healing factor immediately erased the damage.

 

In a moment of heroism, Joey leaped thru the barrier. His clothes, hair, and carried items were evaporated and his skin was singed much like a bad sunburn, but he healed it almost immediately. Inside the circle with Antonio and the two bundles of bone the Black Wizard was attempting to resurrect, Joey tried punching Antonio several times to disrupt his casting, but Antonio continued to ignore him and chant, demonstrating personal magical protection from harm. Finally Joey shoved Antonio as hard as he could, and managed to push him out of the circle, breaking the spell and bringing down the protective dome. Though the players didn't yet know it, all the remaining revenants dropped inert at this moment, no longer animated by the necromantic energy of the necklace.

 

Drew, who had maneuvered around to get a clear line of fire, immediately snapped off a head shot that should have killed just about anything, but the bullet failed to penetrate the Black Wizards head, blocked by his mystical protection. The whiplash and impact still seemed to get his attention, and Antonio responded with a cone of black tendrils that blinded Drew for a while. Meanwhile Athyric Surges zapped out, punishing Joey with powerful mystical shocks. 

 

Joey wound up for a haymaker, and with a little bit of luck (Drew's Extreme Luck applied to his roll), clocked Antonio with a staggering slam. After that, the Black Wizard was on his back foot, forced to buy time. He tried to erect another barrier, but Joey grabbed and threw him (aided again by Drew's luck) away from it. Antonio responded with life draining energies, stealing some of Joey's essence to heal himself which bought more time. But Drew's vision returned, and he started to harass Antonio with a series of lucky shots with his pistol. Finally Joey body slammed the Black Wizard to the ground and locked in a grab. As Drew prepared to deliver a coup de grace, Antonio surrendered, offering to make a deal with Section M in return for clemency. 

 

Drew duct tape gagged, and blindfolded the Black Wizard, and took away his artifact. Joey, still naked, took Antonio's clothes as they were about the same size, and then they zip tied him for good measure.

 

About twenty minutes later the established Hunter Garrett showed up with his Hunter team to handle cleanup, Antonio was handed off, and after some blah blah blah, the PC's went their separate ways.

 

All in all it was a really good session, about 70% action 30% roleplaying, and fun was had by all.

[Killer Shrike]

I finished the vignette write up: The Tears of Tierrasola

[Scything]

On 3/2/2019 at 2:46 AM, Killer Shrike said:

First PC: Joey Manegarm...high school student and apparently entirely normal. However the stress of encountering the supernatural will reveal his own heritage as a Demimonde descended from the get of Fenrir.

 

http://www.killershrike.com/HereThereBeMonsters/Campaigns/Tierrasola/JoeyManegarm/Joey Manegarm.HTML

 

 

This is my character...here's his current version, with some hard won XP applied...

 

http://www.killershrike.com/HereThereBeMonsters/Characters/GMsVault/DaysOfTomorrowsPassed/OneShotAtEase/Joey Manegarm.HTML

 

[Killer Shrike]

FYI, the campaign details continue in the Clubs section of the forums....

 

Here There Be Monsters - Be At Ease, Hunters Campaign