When Nightmares Come Game #2: "In the Lowest Deep, a Lower Deep..."

Professor Harington’s apartment, just off-campus, has been the epicenter of strange sounds, smells and lights reported in recent weeks. These phenomena went wild for 20 minutes coinciding with the time of his death. This can’t be a coincidence.

 "Hey!" Guy shouted, waving at the gaggle of college students milling awkwardly on the sidewalk in front of the smoke shop below Harington's apartment. "Scram, all of ya! Nobody benefits from you bunch of rubberneckers!" The onlookers hesitated until Guy unlimbered his tonfa, at which point, they scattered.

*** 

"What do you want? I've had enough of people sniffing around here! A man's dead, damn it!" the sharp-faced landlady barked, the door open only as far as the chain bolt would allow.  

"I understand that, ma'am," Carried replied coolly. "The dead man was my brother, and since my ungrateful children don't speak to me any more, he's all the family I had left. I'd like to be able to retrieve his personal effects."

"Oh, you poor dear," the landlady softened. "I know how that goes, my own children don't talk to me either. Of course you can go up."

"Does Carrie even have kids?" Lisa whispered to Steve.

"I don't know, but man, she lied so easily and so smoothly to get us in..."

[With two successes in the narrative scene, the hunters can deploy one move in from any table edge, effectively gaining an extra free move.]

Turn 1: 

Sensing something extra-off about a pile of garbage next to the pizzeria, Guy sauntered over and turned over a trash bag, revealing a pile of skinned rats. "Well, that's something you don't see every day," he said, taking a few photos. 

 Lisa entered the smoke shop, took a moment to appreciate the decor, and then moved upstairs into Harington's apartment. Looking at Harington's decor, she shook her head. "This guy was neck deep in some bad mojo," she said to herself, documenting everything.

 

Paul and Carrie moved to where they could better support Lisa as she searched Harington's apartment, while Steve entered the ramen restaurant, locating some interesting papers hidden in one of the booths.

 Swarms of rats emerged into the street, one cluster working their way towards Guy, and one moving into contact with Carrie but without any actions left to attack with.

 Turn 2:

Paul moved to defend Carrie from the rats, swinging his baton but failing to inflict any damage. Carrie fell back away from the rats (successfully dodging their counterattack, and cast "Deja Vu" on Paul, allowing him to perform an extra action later in the turn. Carrie readies herself to attack the rats at range if Paul fails to kill them. 

 Guy charged the rats, swinging his tonfa, sending them scattering back to the sewer and continued on towards the portal they'd emerged from.

 Steve made his way towards the rear exit of the ramen restaurant, but got distracted by the smell of fresh-cooked ramen.

 Lisa collected Harington's laptop and some accompanying external hard drives, and retreated back downstairs.

 The collection of the laptop triggered the emergence of the Nexus, rising out of the floor of the ramen restaurant with a rumble and ominous chanting. "Hey Carrie? You should see this..." Steve said into his cell phone. 

 Rats emerged from portals 1 and 3, swarming Guy and Steve; Paul gets bitten by the rats already in front of him, and guy takes a wound from the swarm attacking him. Steve avoids being bitten, and rats reach Lisa but can't attack her. 

 Activating again thanks to the Deja Vu spell, Paul fails to kill the rats and moves away from them, taking an attack of opportunity that wounds him again. Carrie blasts the rats with an "Arcane Bolt" spell. 

 Turn 3:

Steve struggles ineffectively against the rats swarming him, the horde of rodents dancing away from his knife. Carrie scatters a swarm of rats blocking the doorway to the ramen restaurant with a well-placed pistol shot and enters the restaurant, approaching the Nexus.

 Lisa moved away from the rats (their attack failed) towards Paul, and administered a healing potion, pouring the syrupy, copper-flavored serum into his mouth and watching the bloody bites on his arms closing up. She turned and attempted to tase the rat swarm unsuccessfully. With a curse, she whipped a Repellent out of her purse and tossed the vial of salt, silver shavings, garlic and wolfsbane. The rats scattered.

 Revitalized, Paul returned to the street, working his way towards the nearest portal.

 Guy killed the rats swarming around his boots, and approached the portal in front of him, harvesting 4 Arcana. 

 More rats emerged from portals 2 and 4; the rats Lisa had repelled moved to attack Guy, one of the new swarms attacked Paul (neither succeeding to inflict a wound), Steve takes a wound from the rats attacking him. 

 Turn 4:

Paul managed to disperse the rats attacking him, approached the portal, and harvested 3 points of Arcana. Guy killed the rats attacking him and closed the portal in front of him, while Carried harvested 8 points of Arcana from the Nexus before closing it down. Lisa, exiting the smoke shop, began making her way towards the fourth portal, pausing to successfully tase a swarm of rats.

I forgot to take photos of a lot of this.

Steve finally killed the rats attacking him, and headed out the back door of the ramen restaurant to reach the last portal. He froze, however, when he saw what was emerging from it.

 

"Well, crap," Steve said.

One swarm moved to attack Steve, though he successfully resisted taking damage. Carrie, being taken by surprise by rats pouring through the walls of the building, took a Wound. 

Turn 5:

 After some fumbling, Paul closed the portal in front of him, and then moved into cover behind the police car as another rat swarm drew close. 

 Carrie killed the rats in front of her, stomping them with her boots, moved out of the ramen restaurant and killed a few more rats to assist Steve, who was also killing rats.

 Lisa chugged a Kaiju Energy Drink and buzzed in place for a moment before managing to get the shakes under control enough to move towards the portal, but failed to harvest any Arcana. Guy dashed after her to assist or provide cover. 

 

A pair of cowled cultists spawned right on top of Guy and Lisa, savagely beating Guy down to the pavement and leaving Lisa staggered, with only a single wound left to lose. Meanwhile, rats swarmed Paul, biting and clawing.

Turn 6:

Paul and Steve, despite some struggle, managed to kill the rats that were attacking them. Carrie harvested 4 points of Arcana from the portal and closed it, then blasted another swarm of rats with an Arcane Bolt.

Lisa tried to fight back against the cultists, but failed her Dodge Defense roll against the cultists' "Self Defense" trait, and slumped to the ground.  

 With police sirens drawing near, the cultists withdrew. The members of the Webster Street Irregulars still on their feet collected their comrades and made their own retreat.

***

"Well, that could have gone better," Paul said grimly, swirling beer in the bottle. Guy and Lisa were bruised and battered, but had ultimately suffered nothing worse than a few cracked ribs, and were now resting at their respective apartments after having been patched up at the ER. 

"In this business, every victory comes at a price," Carrie replied. "We're lucky it wasn't worse this time."

"At least we got something out of this, right?" Steve asked.

"Right," Carrie said. "Lisa finding Harington's laptop was a huge help to us. I've been going through the files and it seems Harington was working with the red-robed assholes, but had an attack of conscience and tried to get out of it. They killed him to keep their secrets, and were probably on their way to search his apartment themselves when we ran into them. If we'd been 20 minutes later they probably would have had everything cleaned out."

"What were they working on?" Paul leaned forward.

"They're working on summoning something called 'the Knight of the Black Blade' to Earth."

Steve shifted uncomfortably. "That sounds... bad."

"Bad's an understatement," Carrie affirmed. "The Knight of the Black Blade is a prince of Hell, a powerful demon of carnage and war."

***

 So it's a victory, but a bit of a Pyrrhic one; the Irregulars collected enough clues to advance their investigation, and harvested 19 points of Arcana that will be used to upgrade their gear. They also earned a total of 15 experience points towards skill advancements. 

Rather than let Guy and Lisa be killed by the cultists, I'm choosing to use the Dark Secret and Odd Touch optional rules. Their brushes with death have changed them. Going forward:

•  Lisa will be obsessed with finding every Clue she can. She can fight in self-defense but cannot be the aggressor; all her actions must be put towards collecting clues. She can slip into a shadow dimension briefly, allowing her to teleport up to 8" to a point within line of sight. 
• Guy is traumatized; losing 2 from his Resolve and taking a -2 to all Terror rolls. He's also experiencing a profound sense of outrage and loss, the rage and sorrow of the victims of the Dark Spawn in this campaign. He can scream this outrage out, causing every Dark Spawn on the table to flinch and lose an action die.  

Cultists Finished, and More

 I had too much going on to get the second game in my "When Nightmares Come" campaign on the table today, but I did manage to get a little time in at the workbench between other tasks and finished off some figures I'd been working on.

First up are the last five cultists I needed for WNC:

 These are, again, from Crooked Dice, and the paint jobs kept pretty basic to get them done. Once they're varnished I'll get a group shot of the entire cult - I think it's a dozen figures all total. 

Next up is a figure that's also from Crooked Dice that's been 3/4ths finished on my workbench for a couple of wee- no, months now actually. This is the fourth figure in their "Martial Artists" bundle, and is pretty clearly based on the main character Ken from the anime "Fist of the North Star." Never seen it, but my understanding is he hits people's pressure points and makes them explode. 

 And finally, an "Iron Orc" from Knightmare Miniatures - it's been a long time since I've done any work on my orcs, who are mostly in storage these days to protect them from getting dusty. My wife and I have finally come to an agreement on placing a big display cabinet for my orcs; we just need to Tetris a few other pieces of furniture to make room for it. Knowing that I'll have a place to show them off has rekindled my excitement for my orcs, and I'm hoping to get a few more units done in the coming months. 

 It was a lot of fun getting back in the saddle with him! And I've certainly missed my Goblin Green bases. 

Other than basically one building and the roofs of two more, I'm done painting for WNC. I've begun working on making sure I have a backlog of primed figures to paint through the winter, and getting myself organized for future projects.

 

Miniatures Acquired: 214

Miniatures Painted: 238

Terrain Acquired: 7

Terrain Painted: 10

Scatter Acquired: 15

Scatter Painted: 24

 

When Nightmares Come Game #1: "Hell is Other People"

Professor Harington spent an enjoyable evening at Bingo, winning $400 in the process. He never made it home afterwards – he was found dead, his throat slit, in the parking lot less than 10 minutes after leaving. According to the police officer first on the scene, Professor Harington’s winnings were still in his pocket, eliminating theft of the money as a motive. The body has been secured and removed, and the other attendees of the bingo hall that evening have been directed to the precinct for questioning. 

 

Arriving at the scene, the Webster Street Irregulars saw two immediate challenges to their investigation. 

 

"Heh, I know those guys. Lemme go talk to them," Paul Carpenter said, hitching up his pants and nodding to the two police officers standing near one of the squad cars. The retired cop called out to his former coworkers, walking over to talk shop with them. While they were distracted, the rest of the Irregulars slipped past the police cordon. 

Examining the keypad to the bingo hall's alarm system, Lisa McLaren chuckled to herself. "This will be easy," she said, selecting a set of wire cutters from her bag. "In fact, watch this, I'm going to show you how simple this is." Under the watchful eyes of her companions, she confidently snipped a wire - and tripped the alarm. 

"Well, it looked like it would be easy," she said with a shrug. 

[With one success and one failure in the narrative scene sequence, the Irregulars scored a draw, and deploy divided between opposite table edges for the beginning of the tactical sequence.] 

 Turn 1:

Paul worked his way across the parking lot, stopping to examine an unlocked trunk on one of the squad cars. Carefully looking around to ensure no one was paying attention, he popped the trunk and took some photos of the evidence collected by the crime scene investigators. 

 Steve Carter, one of the group's wrights (craftsmen and alchemists), started sneaking across the parking lot, but froze halfway across; this was his first brush with lawbreaking in the course of a paranormal investigation.

 

Lisa and Guy split up, with Guy circling the rear of the bingo hall and letting himself in the back door; Lisa rounded the front of the building, eager to talk to a trio of working girls who were potential witnesses. However, as she got close, she froze, nervous and suddenly shy. 

 Carrie Ravencroft, the leader of the Irregulars and the group's sole Weaver, darted across the parking lot, reaching the late Professor Harington's car. The portal at the lower right-hand corner of the board pulsed, disgorging two swarms of rats, which beelined menacingly towards Paul.

 Turn 2:

Spotting the rats, Steve lobbed a bundle of sage,salt and silver shavings over the squad car, sending the rats running.  "Thanks for the assist, kid," Paul grunted. Steve tipped his hat and, seeing Lisa's struggle, hustled across the parking lot.

"I can take it from here, Lisa," he said, waggling his eyebrows at the women. "Man, I know you," one of the hookers said. "You're broke, beat it!"

 Lisa rolled her eyes at Steve, but couldn't get over her own nerves and just kept tripping over her own tongue. Carrie pulled open the door to Professor Harington's car and began searching through the back seat, failing to spot anything interesting until Paul sauntered over and grabbed some papers. "Something something Babylonian cuneiform, something sacrifice... This what you're looking for?" He asked with a wink. Carried rolled her eyes and snatched the papers from him.

 Guy, meanwhile, spotted a set of keys on the floor of the bingo hall, pocketed them, and walked out the front door to see if he could talk up the hookers successfully, but didn't have enough actions available to him to try.

 Portals 1 and 3 belched out two rat swarms apiece, and with the third clue being collected, with a rumble a diabolical stone pillar rose out of the earth - the Nexus point!

 Turn 3:

Paul moved to shoot one of the rat swarms, but the hammer fell on an empty chamber [critical failure], ending his turn. Steve threw another bundle of repellents, sending the rats scurrying away, then moved closer to the Nexus and began to harvest Arcana from it, straining ectoplasm into a mason jar. 

 Giving up on the working girls, Guy made his way to one of the portals, ready to harvest and shut it down. 

 Carrie made her way to the Nexus, successfully pulling Arcana from it as well, and Lisa cut through the bingo hall to make her way towards the rear portals.

 Portal #4, right in front of Guy, belched twice, producing two more rat swarms, which immediately attacked him, though his bulky coat and funky fresh dance moves kept him from taking damage. Steve was not so lucky, as one of the swarms he'd previously scared off returned and attacked him, causing 1 Wound.

 Turn 4:

Blam! Blam! Paul cleared his gun and fired two rounds, sending two rat swarms scurrying for the safety of the sewers.  

 Lisa pulled a Mango Pineapple Punch-flavor Kaiju Energy Drink from her bag and chugged it, then zipped forward, speedily studying the portal, harvesting Arcana, and then shutting it down before the inevitable crash hit.

 Guy managed to smash and scatter one of the swarms attacking him, while Steve struggled in vain against the swarm attacking him. Carrie successfully harvested a little more Arcana from the Nexus, and then used her "Arcane Dominion" trait to shut it down with ease. 

Two rat swarms emerged from Portal 2, while a rat swarm and a red-robed cultist (I ran out of rat swarms) emerged from Portal 3. Rats moved into contact with Paul and Lisa, Guy took a wound from rat bites, and the cultist attacked Carrie, clocking her upside the head with the baton, causing one Wound. "For the glory of the Knight of the Black Blade!" the cultist frothed. 

 Turn 5:

Steve managed to kill the rats attacking him, and tossed a Dazzler (occult flashbang) into the scrum nearby; his aim was a little off, but he still managed to stun two rat swarms. 

 "You wanna see a magic trick?" Carrie snarled. She whipped a pistol out of her pocket and shot the cultist point blank in the stomach, kicking his falling body aside and twisting around. Holding her Relic high, she chanted words of power in a language kept secret for 12,000 years. Ghostly shapes swirled around her, wispy transparent arms and hands reaching and grasping. As she pronounced the final syllable, the vaporous mass exploded forward from her outstretched arm, destroying three rat swarms entirely.Paul got caught in the eldritch wave of power, thrown back against the squad car behind him.

"Easy there, Carrie! I'm not as young and flexible as I useta be!"

 "Get moving!" she called back. "We need these portals closed NOW!" Paul didn't hesitate, but took off jogging towards Portal 1.

 Guy killed the last of the rats surrounding him, and pulled some Arcana from the Portal. Lisa also wiped out the rats threatening her. 

Two cultists emerged right in front of Guy. "Aw, come on," he said. "Look at me, you know who I am! Do you really wanna hit the host of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives?" 

The cultists looked at each other. "I've always liked Alton Brown better, to be honest," and swung his club into Guy's face. 

Another two cultists emerged from Portal 3, and approached menacingly but failed to reach Steve and Carrie.

 Turn 6:

Paul successfully harvested Arcana from Portal 1 and closed it. 

Lisa, seeing the trouble Guy was in, darted in and smashed one of the cultists over the head with her purse, dropping him like a sack of potatoes.

 Guy and Steve fought back against the cultists attacking them, but without success. However, the cultists couldn't manage to land a successful hit on either of them, either. 

Carrie dodged past the cultist threatening her, made her way to Portal 3 and when she couldn't center herself enough to pull Arcana from it, she simply closed it down. 

With three of the four portals closed, no new enemies spawned. The sound of sirens was drawing near, and the Irregulars (and surviving cultists) slunk off into the darkness to lick their wounds and plan their next moves.  

***

 "Good work out there tonight, team" Carrie said as she popped the cap off a beer and raised the bottle in salute. "I'm proud of the way you looked out for each other. Closing three of the four portals is no small thing, and goddamn, we collected a lot of Arcana. Lisa, Steve, I'll be working with both of you on refining and putting that into use."

Paul put a folder of print-outs on the table. "Going over what we found, it looks like Harington was into some dark shit. We pulled Sumerian underworld hymns and curse tablet translations from his car, and the wounds in the photos the CSI team took of his body look ritualistic to me. I think our next move is going to be to check out his apartment which, thankfully, we're going to have access to. Seems the Professor dropped his keys at bingo last night, and Guy picked them up."

"Rest up, reload and get ready," Carrie said grimly. "I've got a feeling things are going to get rough for us soon."

"What was your first clue?" Guy asked sarcastically. "The red-robed chanting guys?"

"If we're facing more rats, I'm getting taller platform boots," Lisa added. 

*** 

 I'm really pleased with how that turned out! Nobody died, and the team harvested a fantastic 26 Arcana, which will go to improving their gear. I haven't calculated out XP yet or parceled rewards out. 

Kinda wish the parking lot I knocked out from some MDF, sand, paint and glue hadn't warped, but them's the breaks. I'll take the lessons from this and try another one.

It definitely seems like a game that really benefits from putting the work into crafting a good narrative for it; without that, it's just waves of enemies coming towards you while you try to hit a few points of interest. 

All in all, I'm looking forward to my next play through!