HtV Blood Drive, Podreczniki RPG, HtV (WoD 2.0)
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Ah! Well a-day! What evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
An adventure for the
using the
Written by Chuck Wendig Developed by Eddy Webb Edited by scribendi.com
Layout by Jessica Mullins Art: Avery Butterworth, Kari Christensen, Jim Dibartolo, Matt Dixon,
Cyril Van Der Hagen, Travis Ingram, Becky Jollenstein, Heather Kreiter, Brian LeBlanc and
Cathy Wilkins
stOrytelling adventure systeM
Mental OOOOO
Physical OOOOO
sOcial OOOOO
WHITE WOLF PUBLISHING, INC.
2075 WEST PARK PLACE
BLVD SUITE G
STONE MOUNTAIN, GA 30087
Ah! Well a-day! What evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
An adventure for the Hunter: The Vigil
using the Storytelling Adventure System
Written by Chuck Wendig Developed by Eddy Webb Edited by scribendi.com
Layout by Jessica Mullins Art: Avery Butterworth, Kari Christensen, Jim Dibartolo, Matt Dixon,
Cyril Van Der Hagen, Travis Ingram, Becky Jollenstein, Heather Kreiter, Brian LeBlanc and
Cathy Wilkins
stOrytelling adventure systeM
scenes
11
Mental OOOOO
Physical OOOOO
sOcial OOOOO
XP level
25-59
WHITE WOLF PUBLISHING, INC.
2075 WEST PARK PLACE
BLVD SUITE G
STONE MOUNTAIN, GA 30087
© 2009 CCP hf. All rights reserved. Reproduction without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden, except for the purposes of reviews, and one printed copy which may be reproduced for personal use only. White Wolf, Vampire and World of
Darkness are registered trademarks of CCP hf. All rights reserved. Vampire the Requiem, Werewolf the Forsaken, Mage the Awakening, Promethean the Created, Changeling the Lost, Hunter the Vigil, Storytelling System and Blood Drive are trademarks of CCP hf. All
rights reserved. All characters, names, places and text herein are copyrighted by CCP hf. CCP North America Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of CCP hf. The mention of or reference to any company or product in these pages is not a challenge to the trademark or
copyright concerned. This book uses the supernatural for settings, characters and themes. All mystical and supernatural elements are iction and intended for entertainment purposes only. This book contains mature content. Reader discretion is advised.
Check out White Wolf online at
Everything is blood. The heartland gushes. Highways like arteries. The
map darkens with spreading red. At night, it’s all a great big bloody nowhere,
a yawning mouth, a hungry shadow. And you have to cross it. You have to
take a long midnight run down those wretched veins, those sanguine chan-
nels. Tires splashing through the stuff. The sharks are circling. It feels like
a bad dream. It
is
a bad dream. This can’t be real. This can’t be what they
want you to do. Of course, you know as soon as you wake up it doesn’t
change anything. It doesn’t stop the fact that tomorrow night, this dream
you’re having right now becomes really real, and let’s face it, you’re prob-
ably going to die out there.
What’s Inside
This scenario is broken down into three sections:
In this
Introduction
you’ll get the background of the story to come, the
full write-ups of the Storyteller characters and some other general notes.
The
Scenes
of the story are the heart of the action. Because of the
way in which storytelling games can flow, these scenes are modular and
provide you with a framework upon which you can improvise, rather
than locking you into rigid patterns.
The
Scene Cards
at the end of the scenario are a quick-reference
resource for you to use as the Storyteller. If you don’t have the option
of printing up the entirety of
Blood Drive
, you can just print up the
scene cards instead and use those to get the overall gist of the story.
Introduction
For many who carry the Vigil, it’s all about putting the boot down. It’s
about jacking a shotgun shell into the chamber and filling a werewolf’s
muzzle full of silver shot. Witches can’t whisper their dark curses with
a collapsed trachea. A vampire won’t feed off the weak and transmit
their nest of infections if his body has been turned to grimy ash. Kill
‘em all, let the Devil do the math. Right?
If only
.
Some creatures can be redeemed. Others claim they can, but they
either woefully underestimate their monstrous addictions or are just
lying so they can avoid getting that face full of shotgun spray. What’s
the dividing line? How can one tell? Are those fiends that choose to
be what they are more or
less
dangerous than those who have been
dragged headlong into the dark night? Is a vampire worse than a witch
because he cannot easily turn away from his monstrous state? Is it even
reasonable to feel mercy for something that’s practically a disease?
Now, imagine being a hunter cell tasked with something that may
very well go against its members’ shared Vigils. Imagine being handed
some bloodsucker who claims he seeks redemption, and perhaps more
importantly, he’s got a head full of
verboten
information that he’s willing
to info-dump on anybody who will protect him and help usher him to
his so-called salvation. Imagine receiving orders to keep this creature
safe, a blood-hungry creature driven by a seething beast within, who’s
taken pleasure and gained life from the act of killing. Worst of all,
imagine that this fiend has a whole hoary host of enemies, both hunter
and beast, looking to make him pay for sins real and imagined.
Is reaching for another’s redemption worth it? Is it even possible?
Does the cell embrace or oppose their orders from above?
Can a creature like this be brought to redemption, or is it all one
big awful lie?
A
b o u t
t h e
S
t o r y t e l l i n g
A
d v e n t u r e
S
y S t e m
If this is your irst Storytelling Adventure System (SAS) product,
you’ve chosen a ine place to start. To keep this story kit lean and
focused, though, we haven’t included a lot of the core premises and
Storyteller suggestions that are at the heart of the SAS. Whether
you’re a new Storyteller or an old hand, be sure to read the
free
SAS Guide
, available at the SAS website:
Here are some of the features available in
Blood Drive
:
•
Interactive links.
Clicking on anything in green will take you
directly to the section referenced, or to an appropriate character
sheet or prop. It may also take you to an external website that
could be useful.
•
Scenes.
Clicking on a scene name in the scene lowchart or the
page number in the scene card will take you to the full write-up
of the scene.
•
Bookmarks.
This PDF is fully bookmarked, so you can jump to
major sections at any time when the ile is open.
Treatment
In
Blood Drive
, it sounds easy. It’s all about Point A to Point B. The
hunter cell is handed a vampire. They’re told that this bloodsucker — Dino,
that’s his name —
really
wants to change, and to prove it, he’s willing to give
up the goods on his vampire buddies, and maybe even spill some secrets he
purportedly knows about one or several hunter organizations. The only thing
Dino wants before he turns the vampiric equivalent of “state’s evidence” is
safe passage out of this city (Point A) and to another city (Point B).
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Seems easy enough. Dino claims he doesn’t have a lot of enemies.
Plus, for a fanged monstrosity, he’s actually charming — bit of a self-
deprecating jester, doesn’t want to make enemies, just wants to “get
clean.” Simple. No complications. Right?
Hardly. Dino’s got enemies, all right. Getting him through
America’s heartland will be a struggle against two of those enemies.
The first is a priest within the Malleus Maleficarum, a rogue agent
of the Brotherhood of St. Athanasius whose “scorched earth”
policy is a stone’s throw from domestic terrorism. The second is
Dino’s unholy progenitor, a vicious force-of-nature known only
as “Mother.” Plus, Dino’s not everything he claims to be. He’s
quite the monster himself, with a long trail of bodies left in his
brutal wake.
The cell’s against the wall. They’re chased by vile shadows. They
have their orders: Dino wants to be saved. He wants safe passage in
trade for major information. And the cell is going to give it to him.
Can they?
Will
they?
With
Blood Drive
, the cell is free to determine how it will
make it across the map, knowing full well that each shadow cast
across this country’s topography might as well be hidden beneath
a
Here There Be Dragons
sticker. Do they try to catch a flight? Is a
train the best way? Will they attempt to traverse the network of
midnight roads and lost highways to get Dino where he’s going?
Is any route safe?
Background and Setup
Some pieces of information should be made available to the hunters right
off the bat, with no roll necessary. We’ve framed these pieces of informa-
tion here in a “prop letter” written by whatever patron is behind the cell’s
activities. Feel free to print this letter out to use as an in-game artifact.
A Chapter in Your Chronicle
If you have a pre-existing
Hunter: The Vigil
game, this story can be
a part of that ongoing tale. The cell may very well have heard some of
the tales of Dino and Mother previously (it’s recommended you seed
your story with casual lies and truths about the two of them, while still
holding back some of the “big” information like Dino’s connection to
the string of dead blonde girls).
Moreover, it’s likely that the cell already has a patron. If the
patron is somewhat antagonistic to the characters (and therein
lies one of the great ironies of the hunter organizations — a cell’s
own organization can be both ally and enemy at the same time),
it’s quite possible that their organization is setting them up to
take a big, bloody fall on this one. If they have enemies within
the group, those enemies might be trying to send the characters
to an early grave.
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Backstory: Truth and Bullshit
The Letter
The information in that letter isn’t entirely accurate. It’s possible that
the patron knows it, depending on the angle you want to take. For one, it’d
be difficult to convince the cell to perform this task if the hunters knew
the truth. Two, it’s not completely impossible that someone in their patron
organization is setting them up, hoping the hunters will fail or perish.
What follows is an examination of certain realities regarding Dino and how
the hunters can learn some of those unfortunate truths. It’s recommended,
however, that the cell only gets a single night to prepare for this journey. In
that single night, they can maybe uncover the realities behind one or two
of the items listed below. The other tidbits should remain concealed until
you choose to reveal them throughout the course of the story.
Truth: Dino’s been in the city for 20 years.
That’s true. Easy enough to learn — hitting the streets and poking
around some vampire-frequented nightclubs or checking with some
other hunter cells can confirm this. Success on a Manipulation +
Streetwise roll does the trick.
Lie: Dino’s “young.”
While “young” is subjective, Dino’s far from it. In fact, Dino’s over
120 years old. Once a bartender and compulsive gambler in rural upstate
Pennsylvania (real name: Dean Garrity), Dino ended up owing money
to a number of mine bosses, money he couldn’t pay back. A coalition
of these so-called “coal barons” took Dino deep into the mines, stuck
a pick ax in his gut and left him to die.
And die he did, but not from the pick ax. A wretched hag from
deep within the bowels of those dark tunnels smelled the perfume of
Dino’s suffering. She pulled him deeper, fixed her mouth over his and
sucked the breath and the blood from his body. This creature, known
as “Mother,” made Dino into one of her “babies.”
Learning this information won’t be easy. The vampires in the city
know this fact, but aren’t going to be keen to share it — they think of
“Mother” the same way that medieval Christians may have thought
about the Devil (“Don’t say her name, because she can
hear
you”).
Intimidation rolls may work, though. It’s also not impossible that Dino
has let this information slip to one or two of his blood junkie thralls.
This information will likely come from Dino’s own mouth at some
point during the story.
Truth: Dino doesn’t have many friends.
That’s true, but it’s not the whole story. Dino doesn’t have friends be-
cause they know who he is. They know that he’s on Mother’s leash. They
fear her, so they fear him, so they purposefully keep him to the margins.
It sounds like he’s a fringe player because he’s weak. Really, though, it’s
because of his raw potential and his frightening progenitor. (Dino’s traits
are also not the traits of a novitiate to the blood. He’s quite powerful, a fact
that is concealed behind his sometimes self-deprecating demeanor.)
Shaking the bushes and talking up the vampires (with Intimidation,
Persuasion or Socialize coming into play) can yield this information, to
a point. It won’t reveal that Dino is powerful himself, but will reveal
that he has a truly frightening “matron” figure. Vampires, though,
whisper about her more like she’s an urban legend, a Bloody Mary
figure that they’ve never seen, nor dealt with. The cell should be left
to wonder if she’s even real, or just a bogeyman.
Truth: Dino knows things.
It’s true. He’s really been a fly on the wall and can spill the details of his
society’s hierarchy. They’ve treated him like a diaper full of radioactive
garbage, so he’s more than willing to give up what he knows. He
also
knows
some choice information about one or more hunter organizations, maybe
the organization to which the characters belong. The problem is, the cell
has no way to confirm this, because Dino isn’t giving up a single nugget of
info until he’s safely away from the city. Once he’s away from the city, he
may start to drop a few meager crumbs of information when pushed.
Lie: Dino is not a danger.
As mentioned, Dino’s not toothless, despite what the letter would have
the cell believe. Asking around (Intimidation, Persuasion or Socialize) might
earn a quick story about Dino: “I knew a guy that figured Dino for an easy
mark, a weak fish, easy to step on. Wasn’t the case at all. My buddy — big
fucker, chest like a concrete bunker — thinks to put the hammer down on
Dino. He pushed too hard, I guess. My pal earned himself two broken arms
and a mouth full of shattered chompers. All in about five, six seconds.”
Lie: No deeply aberrant behavior.
Dino has a compulsion that he doesn’t like to talk about, and that
he keeps well hidden. He likes the blood of young blonde women. He
likes their blood so much that he ends up killing them every single
time. Everybody else, he’s good to take a taste and leave them to their
night. Pretty young blonde girls? Not so lucky. He can’t stop himself,
and he’s left a trail of over two dozen corpses.
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