Use the flavor text in brackets if they come to the island at night.
Its rocky crags outlined sharply against the sky [stars], the island resembles a deranged castle, [one eye blinking steadily from the left/pier]. A huge blocky structure dominates the high part of the island; stone walls towards the shoreline crumble like jagged teeth in the mouth of a monster.
Monsters in the deep
The bay is up to 350 feet deep at points around the Golden Gate. If the characters travel to Alcatraz by boat, it’ll probably be a small one, most likely a rowboat, and there are things in the vast ocean much bigger than them.
Every once in a while humpback whales will enter the bay, 12-yard-long creatures with great slowly-blinking eyes and perpetual, gigantic frowns. They can surface to blow water ten feet into the air, their huge bodies undulating above water and then descending again, their wide tail flapping upwards once behind them. They can also jump high in the air, bringing two-thirds of their body above water and landing again on their backs. An impressive site for someone who’s never been on the ocean before!
There are also ships traveling into San Francisco Bay from the ocean (or heading back into the ocean). Oil tankers, typically 180 yards long, ply the Bay day and night. Supertankers and container ships 300 yards long and 40 yards wide regularly travel through the bay, the latter loaded with towers of 20-foot boxes of many colors. These ships can make whales look like guppies, and when you’re near one in a rowboat your main concern will be to not be near one in a rowboat.
Ghosts and the restless dead
There are evils buried on Alcatraz. If the characters are carrying the broken sword of Ellesan these will rise as skeletons in the night. There can be up to twenty skeletons, though only one to six will likely appear at any one time.
Skeletons (Undead: 1; Move: 10; Attack: hands or weapon; Damage: d4 or weapon; Defense: +3; Special Defense: slashing weapons do half damage, pointed weapons do 1 pt)
Skeletons appear on a 40% roll every thirty minutes at night; roll 1d6 for number.
The defenders of Alcatraz
There are eight swarm insects in San Francisco. Six of them have hosts: two of the ambushers (one named Andy Cochino), two of Manson’s women, the leader Mark Wilford, and the assassin Jesse Hill. Unless he’s been called back specially, Jesse Hill will not be here, he’ll be at his apartment. Mark Wilford is black; the other swarm are white.
Mark Wilford: (Autumnal Swarm: 5, Human: 1; Survival: 26+6; Move: 12; Attack: 1911 pistols; Damage: d6/2d6; range: 18; Defense: +4; Special Defense: slo-time; Magic Resistance: 3)
Mark Wilford swarm insect form (Autumnal Swarm: 5; Survival: 26; Move: 16; Attack: mandible; Damage: d8; Defense: +5; Special Defense: slo-time; Magic Resistance: 3)
Free swarm insects: (Autumnal Swarm: 5; Survival: 23, 24; Move: 16; Attack: mandible; Damage: d8; Defense: +5; Special Defense: slo-time; Magic Resistance: 3)
If any of the other swarm hosts are here, copy their stats on the appropriate line:
Ambushers:
Manson’s women:
Jesse Hill:
If they’re chasing Joe Lakono (or his waxen assassin), he may be there as well, working with the swarm to bring about the order of Tawhiri.
The Zodiac might also be here.
The defenders have two motorboats on the docks on the north side of the island. They can use these to escape if they need to.
The dungeons of Alcatraz
You push upon the simple metal gate, and it squeaks loudly as it opens. Thin stone stairs lead down to a ledge. There is nothing to your left but a steeply-dropping hill and the sea.
The map of the dungeons shows a secret passage that can be used by swarm hosts (and other medium-sized creatures). There are cracks everywhere, however, that can only be used by the swarm in their insect form. Free bugs can pretty much get anywhere within the dungeons, showing up in the walls or from the ceiling.
Moisture collects on the rock walls, and old lumber stands in the corners. There are shallow cisterns, damp but empty, near the northwest wall of the room. Cracks cross the ceiling and spread down the walls like dark lightning. The wind outside echoes eerily within this large, roughly-cut space.
The laundry room is ostensibly the only part of this area, but there is one secret exit (to the secret passage) and one hidden exit (to the dungeon cells).
Inside the dungeon area, moisture drips steadily in the corners. Iron rings are embedded into the walls and ceilings. There are cracks in the walls and ceilings big enough to put your fist into. Inside the cells there are initials etched in the walls, a rough calendar dated a hundred years ago. A gust of cold wind; a moan beyond the walls; a flash of a uniformed corpse hanging from the rough damp ceiling.
The List
If they enter the back office of the dungeons of Alcatraz and defeat or bypass the swarm, they will find a list of people’s names in a simple desk, very similar to the list that Charles Manson has. These are people who the swarm wants to kill. The top of the list is:
one: trigger on August Wey… give to Jesse Hill; follow with death angels, weathermen
That’s the important line, because it will let the characters know about the assassination about to trigger race riots in San Francisco. There’s also a matchbook from the 49 Café, with an address on Market Street. By this time they should recognize a matchbook when they see one.
The list contains many politicians, activists, and movie stars. Ronald Reagan and Charlton Heston are on the list. Sinatra and Davis are on the list as well. Others include Bobby Seal, Howard Thurman, Elizabeth Burton, Muhammad Ali, Richard Burton, Tom Jones, Huey Newton, John Lennon, and Steve McQueen.
Towards the bottom of the list, if you aren’t worried about sending the player characters on a wild goose chase, is “stars… blame on panthers… choose appropriately.” These are instructions for their human minions. If the characters recognize the list as a hit list, Deanna will know that killing them all would mean massive race riots. Most of the names are prominent blacks.
The hive: Weathermen
Deanna is not aware of who the weathermen (or the death angels) are; the player characters will need to get the “word on the street” to find out. If they ask Deanna, she’ll talk about newscasters:
“Weathermen? There’s nothing special about them. They forecast the weather. Why, what did you hear about weathermen?”
If it’s 6 PM or 10 PM or a little later, she can show them.
“Here, I’ll show you.”
She walks over to an opaque glass that’s sitting in the corner of the room. She turns a knob on it to the right. A tiny eye flashes in the center of the glass. It expands outward almost faster than you can follow. Suddenly there’s a man in the glass sitting at a desk—and talking.
“Those are the headlines for San Francisco today. We now turn to Drew Borden for the weather. How’s the weekend going to treat us, Drew?”
“Still gonna be cold, Alex. There’s a good chance of rain tonight, but it should clear up on Saturday.”
Once the players realize that the weathermen are a terrorist group, the weathermen are not hard to track down. They are easier to get talking than the Death Angels. They’ll be happy to share a toke with anyone who looks like a freak or who appears ready to join them.
1. Any reason for revolution is a good reason. There is no time to create an ideological movement like those assholes at the SDS.
2. They have been chosen as the core of a white fighting force that will ally with the black liberation movement.
3. Our job is to lead white kids into armed revolution. Black kids have been fighting alone for years.
4. The blacks are going to rise up any day now; when they do, we’ll follow.
5. No price is too high to demolish the capitalist system. The United States government will fall, and with it every corrupt nation that joined it at the trough.
6. Protests and marches won’t do it. Revolutionary violence is the only way. We’re ready to go now. We’re just waiting for the sign.
7. The war and the racism in this society are too fucked up. We will never live peaceably under this system.
8. We do not fight alone. Army deserters are coming to us. They’re going to help us tear up this system from outside and inside.
9. There are Weathermen all over the United States, living in small cells and readying themselves to fight the revolution.
The Weathermen consider their swarm contact—Andy Cochino—to be a member, and are proud of his ability to make things happen. They know that he’s going to give them the sign sometime at the end of this week. It’s going to be big, it’s going to be bloody, and it’s going to rock the corrupt house down. Sometimes Andy comes to meet them up the bridge in his Cadillac. Sometimes he comes in from the bay in a motor boat.
They have some crude explosives ready to go. They use pipe bombs packed with nails. The designs were brought from Chicago by Bernardine Dohrn. The designer is her weatherman co-founder, Billy Ayers. Their nail bombs do 4d6 damage in a two-yard radius, 3d6 in a four-yard radius, 2d6 in an eight-yard radius, and 1d6 in a sixteen-yard radius. Victims can make an evasion roll for half damage.
