Resources

The resources file for this adventure (available at the Gods & Monsters web site, http://www.godsmonsters.com/) contains the following items:

1. The front cover fractured Palace of Fine Arts as a PNG and as a GIMP document.

2. The Scribus Gambling House Riddle and PDF.

3. The Inkscape Zodiac crossroads symbol and PDF.

4. The Inkscape Bird of Paradise symbol. and PDF.

5. An Inkscape and PDF of the Butterfly Hall door sigils.

6. An Inkscape Paradice Island Lounge matchbook and PDF.

7. An Inkscape Moulin Rouge tower and PDF.

8. An Inkscape Moulin Rouge matchbook and PDF

9. An Inkscape and PDF of Ebeorie temet hpiti (Ebeorie, Lord of Discord) as written in the underground script.

10. A GIMP and PNG newspaper page for August 5 and August 9 with articles about August Wey inserted (see later).

11. The Scribus character sheet and PDF for Joe Lakono, Deanna Carmen, and Joe Louis.

12. The Inkscape Red Jack image used in the riddle and this document. It is available under the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.1 or any later version, not the GNU Free Documentation License. It is based on the David Bellot cards from Wikimedia at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Jack_of_diamonds_fr.svg.

13. An Inkscape and PDF roulette betting table.

14. A PNG of the Las Vegas welcome photo. The original came from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:WelcomeToVegasNite.JPG at Wikimedia Commons.

15. A JPG of the Golden Gate bridge looking north.

16. A PNG of Alcatraz as seen from the ocean, and another PNG of an abandoned building marked by Lilies.

17. An Inkscape map and PDF of Alcatraz island and the dungeons below Alcatraz.

The software used to create these resources are all freely available and open source:

1. GIMP: http://www.gimp.org/

2. Scribus: http://www.scribus.net/

3. Inkscape: http://www.inkscape.org/

You should be able to download and install any of these software packages for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. For editing the newspaper, I’ve found that using the Noise filter “Pick” at 4% or 5% does a good job of making text match old text. I used Verdana for the caption, Futura for headlines, and Times New Roman for body copy.

Inspiration

You may wish to read Hunter Thompson’s Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas (from which come the quotes at the beginning of the San Francisco and Las Vegas chapters) and Moore & Campbell’s From Hell.

Other inspirational stories can include Ocean’s 11, the Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas movie, The Cooler, and Moulin Rouge. Albums of interest should include Billy Holiday’s Ella in Berlin, Frank Sinatra’s Live in Australia with the Red Norvo Quartet, and Sammy Davis Jr.’s Starring Sammy Davis Jr.

The mesh are inspired by Grant Morrison’s writings, The Matrix, and icky insects in general. They are a primordial evil, an ant-colony horror. They are utterly alien.

The Las Vegas Moulin Rouge is real. After searching for interesting events in “Las Vegas 1955” and discovering the story of the Moulin Rouge, it quickly took over that half of the adventure like some science fiction infestation.

We have no mercy for you

This is a fiction based around real events, some of them horrific. There is evil in the world we do not understand. We may never know who Jack the ripper was, or who the zodiac was, but we do know that they were real, and that they needed no fantasy demon to goad them into killing. The death angels didn’t need an insect mesh to tell them to hack apart a man until “his skin hung in bloody strips from his skull”. The weathermen killed and severely wounded police officers using a nail-lined pipe bomb without any help from the supernatural. No interdimensional bugs created the Manson family, nor motivated weathermen leaders to “dig” the Manson victims’ treatment and dedicate their manual on revolution to, among others, Sirhan Sirhan.

That was real. That was our world. It may still be.

San Francisco timeline

Depending on how you want to handle this adventure, there are several useful insertion points in 1969. I chose August 5 so that the headlines will read “This is the Zodiac speaking” and the deciphered message will appear a few days later. There are other important events that could be moderately related to the adventure but aren’t specifically tied to it, however.

Italicized items are fictional parts of this adventure.

Modern arms

The firearms of Vegas and San Francisco are much higher quality than the fantasy firearms in the standard rules.

If the firearm automatically replaces a bullet under the hammer (such as does a semi-automatic or a double-action revolver) warriors may fire twice on the same action and against the same target. Only one attack roll is required. It has an attack penalty of one, and damage dice are doubled. Shotguns may also fire two shots if they are appropriately-designed double barreled shotguns. Double shots cannot be performed in close combat.

It takes one action to load a single bullet or (if a semi-automatic) a fresh clip into a firearm. It takes two actions to fill a normal firearm with bullets or to refill a clip. Depending on the circumstances, an Evasion roll may be required to successfully add bullets to a firearm or a clip during combat.

Firearms can also have scopes. Depending on their quality and power, a scope can negate one to ten range penalties. However, they also require one extra fire action to use.

Fully automatic firearms

Some firearms can be fully automatic. Although this is illegal in both 1955 and 1969, criminals will sometimes carry these firearms. Fully automatic firearms will usually have 10 to 30 bullets (handguns) or 30 to 100 bullets (rifle), and 50% more bulk than a normal semi-automatic. When fired in fully-automatic mode, the firearm will use ten bullets for each attack. Warriors can take the skill automatic firearms and can then choose one of three options when firing a fully automatic weapon:

1. Maximize damage: the attack does three dice of damage, and the attack is at a penalty of one.

2. Maximize success: the attack does one die of damage as normal, and the attack is at a bonus of four.

3. An unfocussed cone attack: the attack does one die of damage to anyone in the field of fire. Targets make an Evasion roll to take half damage. The field of fire is a cone one yard in diameter for every 6 yards (handgun) or 10 yards (rifle). Defense bonuses, such as from armor, aid the Evasion roll. Range penalties and any other penalties on the attacker also aid the Evasion roll. If multiplying their roll by five would still have been a success, they take no damage.

In each case, the warrior can fire two bursts to add a damage die. “Double bursts” add an attack penalty (or Evasion bonus) of 2.

Non-warriors, warriors without the automatic firearms skill, and warriors in close combat can only fire an automatic weapon unfocussed. Many automatic firearms can be switched to semi-automatic mode, acting as normal for semi-automatic firearms.

Rifles can also sometimes be fed from a belt, which may hold a hundred, two hundred, or more bullets. When belt-fed, rifles are not generally hand-carried but rather mounted in some way.

Armor

There are two types of armor in use during this time period, and both are fairly rare. Ballistic vests and ballistic shirts are both available to the military and to law enforcement in large cities.

Ballistic vests and shirts will continue to work in Highland. However, they cannot be maintained and will eventually fall apart. Reduce their defense bonus by one for every six months of use.

Technology in the tree

Gunpowder, batteries, computers, and other such things only work well in worlds that are not unstable. Highland, on the edge of the abyss, will not support such things. Some will simply not work. Others may smoke slowly and fail.

The Insect Mesh

“The Creator, if He exists, has a special preference for beetles, and so we might be more likely to meet them than any other type of animal on a planet that would support life.”

The insect mesh are a Burroughsian infestation of mental vermin. They wish to control the Eternal City and the Crossroads, and to destroy the World Tree. The mesh is always searching for doors that lead to the crossroads or that lead to places that can be used to weaken the tree. Thus, mesh hosts are often found near doorways to other worlds and waystations to doors.

The natural form of a mesh insect is of a strange combination of human-sized ant, beetle, and centipede. A mesh insect may take control of any living, intelligent creature who consents. Their insect form “enters” the host and leaves a crossroads-shaped scar somewhere on the body. This sphincterous scar opens to let them enter or leave as they please. Note, though, that the insect is not physically inside the host: means of looking inside the host body will not reveal the insect, unless somehow it looks inside their spirit. Further, damage to a host does not damage the insect(s) inside.

An insect adds its survival to that of its host; when an insect leaves its host, it regains all of the survival it had when it entered. When an insect’s host dies, the insect will usually leave the host with full survival. Several minutes after an insect form dies, it ripples away across the dimensions, devolving into a gooey yellowish puddle.

Treat the host and the insect as separate opponents for experience purposes. If the characters defeat a host, but the insect leaves and they don’t defeat it (or it defeats them), they’ll get experience for the 5+ level host, but not (yet) for the 5^th level insect form.

Hosts must have originally had at least a five wisdom to be a host; a host can have up to one insect can be inside them for every five points of wisdom. Having multiple insects in the same host will increase the slo-time field (see below) as normal for multiple insects, but will not increase the level of the host or its survival--however, at any point before the host is killed, the insect in control can cede control to another insect, restoring the insect portion of the host’s survival. The insects in this case are considered separate opponents for experience purposes.

The Slo-Time Field

Each insect of the Mesh generates a slo-time field four yards in radius. Within this field, time moves half as fast for everyone except the insect. If more than one insect intersect each other’s field, the radius is additive. If two insects come together, the field is eight yards radius; if three come together, the field is twelve yards radius, and so on. Each doubling of the insects inside the field also increases the magic resistance in the field by 1. So two insects have magic resistance of 4; four have magic resistance of 5, eight have magic resistance of 6, and so on.

The effect of the slo-time field is that, compared to others within the field, the insects move very fast. Movement rates are all doubled. When acting against an opponent affected by the slo-time field, the insect gains a +5 to one of attack (which warriors can convert to combat bonuses), defense, or any agility or evasion roll.

Firearms, which rely almost exclusively on high speed to cause harm, are half as effective against a mesh insect or host because of the slo-time field. Firearms damage is halved.

The Mind of the Insect Mesh

The insect mesh are a fractal mind. Within each insect is the seed of the whole. Whenever an insect is within the slo-time field of another insect, they share their memories fractally. Because of this, they each generally know anything that another mesh insect knows. When a mesh insect dies, its last senses are sent in a burst to any other mesh insects within five hundred yards.

Because their mind is so alien, they are immune to telepathic powers and spells. They are also immune to sleep. They are even partially immune to spirit charms such as fear, command, spiritual hold, and spiritual torpor unless the manifestation affects all insects within the current insect meld. For example, if there are three insect mesh hosts or insects within the same slo-time field, a spiritual hold must affect all three of them for it to affect any of them.

The mind of the mesh is completely alien. I was recently at a teleconferencing demonstration, where the demo was life-size, live video over the Internet. The quality was amazing, until the bandwidth dropped. Their algorithm--which I’m guessing was fractal because of its behavior--tried to compensate. The result looked life-like with human movements, but took on the appearance of rotting flesh, exposed bone, and life-like eyes within a charred, face-like oval as the algorithm tried to take what it had and rebuild the whole. This is what the memories of the Insect Mesh are like. They work; they allow the Mesh to learn from past events. But they are utterly alien.

The mesh keep no written record; they know everything that any mesh mind they’ve come in contact with knew at the time. The only writing around a mesh hive will be instructions or notes to be given to their human minions, and will be in that language.

The Goal of the Insect Mesh

“We will make the whole universe a noise in the end.”--C.S. Lewis’s demon Screwtape

The insect mesh eats souls, sucking intelligence and memory into its own alien consciousness. When it does so, it takes over the body of its victim. This is a voluntary process: the victim must accept the mesh. An insect can be bonded with more than one host at a time, but can only be within one at a time, and must physically leave one to enter another.

A soul can attempt to maintain its individuality within the mesh, but it will eventually fail.

The mesh’s goal is chaos, not in the moral code sense but in the entropic sense, the de-evolution of order. They spread throughout the worlds by way of doors and liminal roads, and are the termites of the World Tree.

Props

The matchbooks

The matchbooks in the resource file are very cool if you have access to a color printer and can find some matte (non-glossy) white cardstock to put in it. There’s a matchbook for both the Moulin Rouge and for the Paradice Island Lounge. You can easily make a realistic prop by taking the matches from a real matchbook and attaching them to the fake matchbook. I carefully pried open the staple that held the matches into the real book, and then used a pin to poke the holes needed for that staple in the fake.

For the Paradice Island Lounge matchbook that the characters found in Highland, I left them a fully-used matchbook (one without any matches, but with the roots of matches still there). This avoided any problems with explaining that the matches don’t really work in Highland.

For the Moulin Rouge matchbook that Deanna carries in San Francisco, I also pasted a real striking strip across the printed strip so that I could have her really light a match from the Moulin Rouge book.

Obviously you’re going to want to be careful lighting matches in the paper-heavy environment of most gaming tables.

The Gambling House riddle

This riddle is also available in the resources file at the Gods & Monsters web site, suitable for printing on a 4x6 card.

You may wish to take the source file and modify the introductory text or title to match your own world.

Door sigils

Newspaper articles

The GIMP file of newspaper clippings is designed for images from the San Francisco Chronicle (sfgate.com) article “The Zodiac Killer in print” from February 25, 2007. Save the PDFs for August 2 and August 9 at 300 dpi to fit into the “original” layer if you want to make changes. The Tuesday original should be 1512 by 994 pixels. The Saturday original should be 1440 by 887 pixels.

Tuesday, August 5: Wey in Washington

Black activist August Wey met with Senator Alan Cranston in Washington today to fight for more school funding in slums and call for an end to racial discrimination.

Mr. Wey attempted to meet with President Nixon, but Nixon ignored the request on advice from Governor Reagan. Last year, Reagan pressured Berkeley against employing Wey as a guest lecturer. Wey called Reagan “the chief priest of the temple of Ares”, an allusion to the governor’s support of the war in Vietnam.

Wey returns on Saturday. A spokesperson for Wey said that he will speak “to the people” about his efforts when he returns.

Saturday, August 9: Black Nationalist March Today

August Wey, the controversial San Francisco black nationalist, will lead a protest march up Market Street this morning. He returned from Washington Friday evening, where he met with Senator Alan Cranston and other Democratic congressmen.

The march begins at noon and will culminate in a demonstration at Market Street Park.

The decoded Zodiac letter

ilikekillingpeoplebecauseitissomuchfunitismorefunthankillingwildgameintheforrestbecausemanisthemostdangerousanamalofalltokillsomethinggivesmethemostthrillingexperenceitisevenbetterthangettingyourrocksoffwithagirlthebestpartofitisthatwhenidieiwillbereborninparadiceandalltheihavekilledwillbecomemyslavesiwillnotgiveyoumynamebecauseyouwilltrytosloidownorstopmycollectingofslavesformyafterlifeebeorietemethhpiti

Soundtracks

I don’t normally use music during a game, but for both the San Francisco adventure and the Vegas adventure I wanted to use music to help evoke the spirit of the times. Because this adventure started our group looking for the Eternal City, I went for an on the road theme. You might choose a different theme to match your group’s campaign. For both sets of music, tell the players that they can assume that their characters have heard this music at some point during the adventure. Let them learn from the lyrics, and let them ask questions about the songs to better understand the world they’re in. More than just mood, they’re also icebreakers.

San Francisco, 1969

These tracks are basically in chronological order. I switched a few around to ensure variety, but I wanted the music to evolve through the adventure.

Eight Miles High(The Byrds/Fifth Dimension)

Sloop John B (The Beach Boys/Pet Sounds)

Season Of The Witch (Donovan/Sunshine Superman)

Highway 61 Revisited (Bob Dylan/Highway 61 Revisited)

The Fat Angel (Donovan/Sunshine Superman)

7 O'Clock News/Silent Night (Simon & Garfunkel/Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme)

I Know A Place (Sammy Davis Jr./The Sounds Of '66)

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (The Beatles/Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)

Easy Rider (Big Brother & the Holding Company)

Tales Of Brave Ulysses (Cream/Disraeli Gears)

House of Jansch (Donovan/Mellow Yellow)

Break On Through (To The Other Side) (The Doors)

The Golden Road (Grateful Dead/The Grateful Dead)

The Wind Cries Mary (Jimi Hendrix/Are You Experienced?)

Pride Of Man (Quicksilver Messenger Service/Classic Masters)

The Weight (The Band/The Last Waltz)

I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine (Bob Dylan/John Wesley Harding)

Rainbows are Back in Style (Dean Martin/Gentle on My Mind)

The Flesh Failures (Let the Sunshine In) (Gerome Ragni, James Rado, Galt MacDermot/Hair)

Dark as a Dungeon (Johnny Cash/At Folsom Prison)

The Times They Are a-Changin' (Bob Dylan/The Times They Are a-Changin')

Mechanical Man (Charles Manson/Lie)

Interview (Charles Manson/Lie)

Sick City (Charles Manson/Lie)

Safe in My Garden (The Mamas & the Papas/The Papas & the Mamas)

Oh Gosh (Donovan/A Gift From A Flower To A Garden)

All Along The Watchtower (Jimi Hendrix/Electric Ladyland)

The Wall (Johnny Cash/At Folsom Prison)

Midnight Voyage (The Mamas & the Papas/The Papas & the Mamas)

A Hazy Shade of Winter (Simon & Garfunkel/Bookends)

Wheel of Fortune (Arlo Guthrie/Running Down the Road)

Carry That Weight (The Beatles/Abbey Road)

Rockin' Chair (The Band)

Graveyard Train (Creedence Clearwater Revival/Bayou Country)

Western Ford Gateway (Elton John/Empty Sky)

Bad Moon Rising (Creedence Clearwater Revival/Green River)

Just Like Strange Rain (Elton John/Empty Sky)

Peace in the Valley (Johnny Cash/Johnny Cash at San Quentin)

The Circle Game (Joni Mitchell/Ladies of the Canyon)

Viva Las Vegas (Elvis Presley/Can't Help Falling in Love)

Friend Of The Devil (Grateful Dead/American Beauty)

The Hitchhikers' Song (Joan Baez/Blessed Are...)

New Speedway Boogie (Grateful Dead/Workingman's Dead)

Old Devil Time (Pete Seeger/Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon)

All Along The Watchtower (Dylan & The Dead)

Las Vegas, 1955

“Magnificent desolation”

C'est Si Bon (Eartha Kitt/Hear Them Again! The Big Entertainers)

Everyday I've the blues (B.B. King/B.B. King 20 Greatest Hits)

3 o'Clock blues (B.B. King/B.B. King 20 Greatest Hits)

My Heart Belongs to Daddy (Mary Martin/Hear Them Again! Great Moments from Broadway Musicals)

Day in, Day out (Billie Holiday/All or Nothing at All)

Stars Fell on Alabama (Billie Holiday/All or Nothing at All)

One for My Baby (Billie Holiday/All or Nothing at All)

Let's Call the Whole Thing off (Billie Holiday/All or Nothing at All)

The West's Awake (The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem/The First Hurrah!)

Will Ye Go, Lassie, Go? (The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem/The Boys Won't Leave the Girls Alone)

Preacher (Bing Crosby & Louis Armstrong/Bing & Satchmo)

’Way Down Yonder in New Orleans (Bing Crosby & Louis Armstrong/Bing & Satchmo)

Dream a Little Dream of Me (Bing Crosby/Bing With A Beat)

Down Among the Sheltering Palms (Bing Crosby/Bing With A Beat)

Heat Wave (Bing Crosby & Buddy Bregman/Bing Sings Whilst Bregman Swings)

You Came a Long Way from St. Louis (Bing Crosby & Rosemary Clooney/fancy meeting you here)

Calcutta (Bing Crosby & Rosemary Clooney/fancy meeting you here)

That Old Black Magic (Cab Calloway/Minnie The Moocher)

We The Cats Shall Help You (Cab Calloway/Minnie The Moocher)

Clinging Vine (Dean Martin/The Door is Still Open to My Heart)

I'll Buy That Dream (Dean Martin/Dream with Dean)

Hernando's Hideaway (Ella Fitzgerald/Ella Sings Broadway)

Whatever Lola Wants (Ella Fitzgerald/Ella Sings Broadway)

The Lady Is A Tramp (Ella Fitzgerald/Mack The Knife)

Love For Sale (Ella Fitzgerald/Mack The Knife)

Mack The Knife (Ella Fitzgerald/Mack The Knife)

One For My Baby (Frank Sinatra With The Red Norvo Quintet)

Let's Do It (Frank Sinatra & Shirley MacLaine/Cole Porter's Can-Can)

On The Road To Mandalay (Frank Sinatra With The Red Norvo Quintet)

When the Saints Go Marching In (Harry Belafonte/An Evening With Belafonte)

Jamaica Farewell (Harry Belafonte/Calypso)

Wake Up Jacob (Harry Belafonte/My Lord What a Mornin')

Oh Freedom (Harry Belafonte/My Lord What a Mornin')

Paris is a Lonely Town (Judy Garland/Gay Purr-ee)

Get Happy (Judy Garland/The Golden Years at MGM)

St. Louis Blues (Lena Horne/Hear Them Again! The Unforgettable Blues)

Stormy Weather (Lena Horne/Hear Them Again! The Big Popular Singers)

An Ace in the Hole (Lee Wiley, Billy Butterfield & his Orchestra/Hear Them Again! The Great Rhythm Singers)

You'd Be Surprised (Marilyn Monroe/Hear Them Again! The Movie Stars Sing Again)

La Vie en Rose (Tony Martin/Hear Them Again! They made such beautiful music)

Hallelujah (Tony Martin, Vic Damone, Debbie Reynolds, Jane Powell, Ann Miller, Kay Armen/That's Entertainment)

Lonesome Road (Sammy Davis Jr./Starring Sammy Davis Jr.)

These are not in any particular order, though I’ve tried to keep the same artist’s songs together to provide the impression of “shows” (even though many of these artists would not have performed at the Moulin Rouge).

You might also use these songs for foreshadowing. Take note of what the players talk about, and see if those pieces can’t be worked into a future adventure.