“Maria makes the mountains sound like folks was out there dyin’.”—Lerner and Lowe
Within Fork is a door to a gambling room where the gambler may gamble the world. Red Jack’s House can be part of any adventure, or used on its own. Somehow, the player characters must hear about the house with many doors. Some sage, or ancient writing, or rambling old man, may provide the rumors.
A cherry tree marks the alley that leads to Red Jack’s. Anyone who eats a cherry from the tree will be able to pass into Red Jack’s House. Others will pass into an abandoned gambling house.
The doors of Red Jack’s hall open in slums and gambling centers. For example, besides Fork in the current era, it opens into Las Vegas in 1955, San Francisco in 1969, and London’s East End in 1888. When Jack leaves through one of those doors, he takes a form appropriate to the time and place, perhaps even taking over a weak-willed evil person’s body.
Five yards around Jack’s door in Fork is a level 2 Chaotic Evil place of power.
Legends of Red Jack
The Legend of Red Jack comes in many forms. They all share a strange lanky noble dressed like a dandy with a hat, a dark alley, and a sense of hopelessness. Few come unscathed from Red Jack’s. Within Red Jack’s you can lay odds against your wealth, your name, and your friends. You can play cards for your soul, and roll the wheel of fortune for good or ill.
1. A young noble stumbles drunk into an alley after a hard night of gambling. He is broke, and the cheap port he’s been drinking wants to regurgitate. But he’s also hungry. He is afraid to return to his wife and children, so he’s eating food off of the street. He sneaks into an apartment hoping to steal something, but inside he finds Red Jack, and Jack beckons him to the table. The nobleman loses every game. The next morning he awakes to find that he lost his fortune as a child, and has lived in the streets for his entire life. He has no wife, nor children, nor friends.
2. God plays cards with Red Jack for the fate of the world. Satan joins in the hand.
3. Red Jack holds regular games for demons, and men who stumble upon these games must play carefully.
4. Ghosts play at his table and fade away. Faeries play for butterflies and mushrooms.
5. A prostitute enters Red Jack’s and returns with a child to find a life of fortune she has always lived.
Any city that opens into Red Jack’s will have tales like these in the underworld.
Red Jack’s clothing will always include a cape, cloak, or long coat; a hat; a weapon at his side. Whatever he wears, he goes overboard with style. If they come from Highland, he is the red jack from the deck of cards: a prince’s gaudy suit and white stockings, with an epée at his side and a long hat with a white feather.
If they came from San Francisco, he wears a tight-fitting lime green suit, a purple fedora, with a bright orange feather sticking out of the side, mirrored sunglasses, a gold chain and a dirk.
If they came from Vegas, he’ll wear a long black leather coat, tight leather leggings, black leather boots, a black pancake hat and green-tinted pince-nez glasses, and a huge sandalwood revolver by his side.
From London they’ll see him in a long coat, a top hat, and carrying a heavy cane with a gold tip. From Hamokera he’ll wear a white robe lined with gold, an orange turban, and a scimitar by his side tied with an orange belt.
Words of power
Red Jack cannot leave the hall of doors, but he can ride along with other minds beyond the doors. This includes the player characters once they go through the doors. Red Jack doesn’t control the killers he rides along with, but he does talk to them, cajoling them and pushing them to murder in strange and frightening ways. Red Jack prefers victims with low willpower and low perception so that they are easily manipulated.
Jack can only take one mind at a time. He will make his victim see some other people as insects with the cross on their forehead. Later, he will make his victim think that the insects are looking back. Then, he’ll make his victim think that the sign of the crossroads on their forehead will ward off the insects. First drawn, then carved.
Finally, it’s time to start fighting back against the insects.
Ebeorie temet hpiti. Strange words for a nervous time. These are the words of power that call Red Jack. Speaking this phrase in a city where Red Jack has a door will give Jack the opportunity to latch onto the character’s mind, see what the character sees, and alter the character’s perceptions. If Jack wants to try, then the player must make a Willpower roll; a failed roll means that Jack has entered the character and can see what the character sees. Once Jack has latched onto a victim, it can leave and enter them at will.
Most people are strangely uneasy about those odd letters at the end a madman’s ravings, but enough of them will try to pronounce the Zodiac’s strange words that a few of them will successfully do so. Jack will have a wide pick of people to choose from, but will prefer people with power: a player character, or someone near a player character. If any of the player characters speak the words of power, Jack will try to ride their mind.
Red Jack and the Autumnal Swarm
What is the relationship between the swarm and Jack? Who controls which killers? Red Jack thrives on discord. The swarm desires to create discord—in the short term. For that reason, he’s happy to work with them. He’ll ride along in the minds of uninfected dupes, such as the Zodiac killer, and feed off of the discord they create.
The swarm needs charismatic leaders to convince followers to accept the insect infection.
