[NOW REDACTED]
NOTE: THIS ACT IS REDACTED AND NON-CANON
I talk about it in some details in a metagame post, but the original Acts 1 & 2 of Episode 1 are now officially [REDACTED] and non-canon. The short version is simply that I had very quickly grown wary of the whole "strange cult" and the implications of what it means with Ida and the more I pushed through to try and found a solution the worse it was getting for the overall campaign. Rather than have it derail everything, I'm just going to replay Episode 1 with some similar set-up but take it in a new direction. I am leaving this here, though, as a record. Some plot and character design might show up elsewhere in a more appropriate campaign, but only with the lessons learned in mind.
Previously, on The Four Generals
They are inside, now what? Major is downstairs keeping the guards busy by pretending to be an impressionable parishioner. Sarge and The Colonel are upstairs and they just had a run in with a very startled Olive Fell. As for LT, well...hopefully he's fine.
Content Warning: Language, Smoking, Violence [lots], Gambling, and a tinge of cosmic horror. I will also ignore history, technology, and common sense here or there but no slight is ever intended about the real history, people, or events referenced.
More info, attribution for the tools and materials used— including the splash art — can be found in the About & Credits, below.
The Four Generals: Episode 1, Act 2 >> The Rapture of Ms. Ida Fells
Setting the Scene, Episode 01 Act 2 Scene 1.
Chaos Factor: 5
Expected Scene: Sarge and The Colonel are now in Olive Fell's bedroom, trying to hide out until they can find out how to find Ida.
Scene Test: 2, Interrupt >> 33, NPC Action.
Actual Scene: Reverend Fell has woken up from the noise and is barging in...
Just to set up particulars, though actual fights will cause this to go completely nutso, Fell will be something like Critical/Critical and 6 hit boxes. I'll not work out his process thing until I have to work out his precise thing, but just to keep it in mind.
Date: Saturday, August 15, 1998.
Time: 22:49
Place: Olive Fell's bedroom on the fourth floor of the Fell House
The Fan That Shit Has Hit
The young girl has let out a few seconds of scream before Sarge has her, hand clamped over her mouth, and is pushing back through the door she just exited from.
The room beyond is...stark. White walls. Plain carpet. Black-and-white bed covering, currently un-mussed. Only splash of color is from the green lamp over her bed. A basic chair and desk with some homework is to one side. A bible lays upon it...
This will set up parameters for the rest of this scene and want to establish it, now...
- How big is the largest piece of furniture besides the bed? >> {GMAB20} 6.
- What's one surprising item on the floor that Olive wouldn't want someone to see? >> {GMAB120} "The Unknowable...eldritch truths..." = Jeebus.
I'd say a normal sized wardrobe. Big enough to maybe give a +1 to hiding.
As for the other thing...man, my solo games go crazy very fast.
...and beside the desk is a wardrobe. A fairly plain, gray number. And beside that, on the floor next to a cloth implying the whole thing was wrapped up until recently, is an object that looks kind of like a one of those interlocking ring puzzles only it's also a face it's also the retinal tear of a entity so throat the whole sky screech and what...
Let's put this as Double-damned [pun!]-Critical. This is almost definitely going to be related to the object that Fell brought back from Peru which was big enough to destroy a seasoned agent's mind for years.
- Sarge: (Nerves) 3 + (Cool) 3 >> Basic... uh oh, rerolling the 4 non-matching dice... Double Basic... All-In... Critical + Basic. Oof.
Sarge takes a point of Grit and gets "Has seen the object" in his experiences. I'll throw in a point of Adrenaline for him, though.
Sarge tears his eyes from it and resists the urge to wipe his nose which is obviously bleeding and pushes the girl down into the bed.
"Ida!?," he asks her as quietly as one can shout in these situations.
Her eyes, wide, stares at his face and then she...
Let's just full on throw this to Actions and see what we get since everything points to Sarge not being in control.
- Mythic Meaning Tables: Actions >> 25 Create 03 Agreement + 63 Neglect 21 Disadvantage
...slaps at her hand and says, "No, idiot, I'm Olive! Who the heck are you?"
Right as Sarge goes to explain who he is, a loud booming voice can be heard shouting, "OLIVE!? WHAT THE HELL, GIRL?," as the speaker is running down the hall.
Olive points to the bed and to the wardrobe and hisses, "HIDE!," as Sarge dives for the latter and The Colonel dives for the former.
The door on the wardrobe is barely closing shut when the Reverend Thaddeus Fell is entering the room...
...and from the dwindling crack in the wardrobe door, Sarge gets a glimpse of a man he'd more associate with a biker than a priest or an ex-spook. Still, even in that glimpse of a man in his bed clothes looking shocked and confused, Sarge can feel the charisma.
In the room, Olive is thinking fast. She has no idea who these two guys are but they seem to be here to get to her sister and she needs her sister gone. She needs this whole danged thing to explode. Ida. The virgin birth. Virgin her butt. Ida already knocked up at 18 to the first pretty boy she has met.
Could be worse, could be one of dad's meathead friends.
Dad is looking at her and trying to figure out why she just shouted. She thinks about the bible open her desk. It's a prop. Like, she likes Jesus and all that — real Jesus, not alien Jesus — but she'd also gladly never talk about religion again if she could just have a normal childhood. What little bits are left.
No, she goes for the big guns and let her eyes, slightly panicked, lock onto the object. When she found it the first time, it made her vomit. Also the second time. She passed out the third. She found herself addicted. Lots of addicts hang around the church. This was the first time she felt a kinship. It is so...weird. So alien. Like trying to not rub a bruise despite it hurting and not being able to stop.
Maybe dad isn't lying with the bullshit she says.
It has taken her months just to look at it long enough to try and understand it. She feels it in her brain. It's a word and she feels like she is close to pronouncing it. It physically hurts her to give it up, but sacrifices...
a chance to just date a boy...or girl... to just get ice cream... read a book about unicorns... spend some of the money that daddy and mommy are saving up...
...must be made. "Daddy...," she says, not bothering with tears but just implying that there could be tears, "...I'm sorry."
Now the dice are rolled.
He follows her eyes and sees it, and then he...
Embrace the heart of the dice, they say...
- Actions: 19 Close 90 Tension + 16 Carry 56 Mundane
...shouts, runs over and covers up the object, and shakes for a moment. Before wrapping it in his arms. Then he sits down, heavily on the bed, and looks back at her.
"Come here, girl."
She does. She was hoping he would be mad enough that she could run off for a bit and buy some time, but she senses something important happening, here.
He looks at her, reaches up with his free hand, and checks her face. Checks her eyes.
"You...ok?"
"I think so."
"It's a miracle. A goddamned miracle."
She winces at the word. It seems so wrong how foul mouthed he can be.
"What is, daddy?"
But he's now squeezing her and his next words, as he gets up and walks out of the room make her more nervous than his shouts.
"Maybe it's time..."
This won't be a horror game, I said. It's only partially connected to the Alabama Weird, I said...
- +CHARACTER: The Reverend Thaddeus Fell
- +CHARACTER: Olive Fell [minor [heh, pun]]
- +THREAD: Fell is going to share The Object
Setting the Scene, Episode 01 Act 2 Scene 2.
Chaos Factor: 5
Expected Scene: Olive takes the Generals to the Greenhouse.
Scene Test: 10
Actual Scene: That's the second "even," meaning we are one more from the first assassination attempt, but scene is as expected.
Not much needs to be done, at this point. Olive is on board. Major is wooing everyone. There are at least normally guards, but we'll let the dice decide.
Date: Saturday, August 15, 1998.
Time: 23:18
Place: Approaching "The Garden" which is a greenhouse at the back of the compound
Approaching The Garden
Olive's plan had been to go up and ask the guards to let her see her sister. Sarge pulled the "absolutely not" card. No one needed to know she was involved. He wasn't going to have a sixteen-year-old take any blame, even if she was one of the masterminds behind this whole thing.
Instead, he and The Colonel are going to run full tilt into glory and take them out. Then she can get the greenhouse open. "The Garden" they call it. It was Ida's request. She wanted a place she could be closer to God. She regularly took hours long prayer sessions, there. Though Olive noted that her sister often came back giggly and active furtive after some of them, so figured her sister was in there just goofing off.
Sarge has a suspicion that Ida and Clo's baby might have been conceived during one of those prayer sessions. That or Olive is wanting him to think that.
They approach The Garden and get ready to jump the guards...
- Are there guards? (Very Likely) >> 85 = No, they are off somewhere... discipline is lax even if fervor is high.
...and there is no one there. What the hell is up with this place?
"Um, Olive..."
She takes the hint and runs up and punches in some buttons and the three of them walk into light inside.
Setting the Scene, Episode 01 Act 1 Scene 3.
Well, that was quick. Moving on...
Chaos Factor: 5
Expected Scene: They find Ida praying inside...
Scene Test: 8 ahhhh, there it is. We'll set it up for the end of this scene, though.
Actual Scene: As expected, but someone is about to try and take out Major. We'll find out who later. Seems likely that somehow the missing guards are part of this.
Not much is needed to be said, here.
Date: Saturday, August 15, 1998.
Time: 23:22
Place: Inside the Garden
The Last Temptation of Ida Fell
She sits in the green house in greenhouse, in a state of meditation or bliss. Sarge feels, not for the first time, like he is in over his head. "What the hell am I doing here?," he asks himself. Aloud.
At his voice, the young woman opens her eyes and sits up in a shocked expression exactly mimicking her younger sister...until she sees her younger sister.
"Ida, wake up. These guys are here to take you to Clo."
Maybe it was seeing a demented, delusional man like Reverend Fell go into dad mode or maybe it's just exhaustion, but he suddenly feels very tired and can't image if someone just disappeared his daughter so she could run off with her chickenshit boyfriend without at least trying to find some common sense.
He kneels in front of her, far enough back to hopefully not be a threat.
"Ida. My name is Mr. Sargent. Clo and his family asked me to come get you," slightly fudging the truth, "but I want to know before we do that, what do you want?"
Let's avoid just outright damsel-in-distressing this by giving her way more of a choice than was currently happening.
- What does Ida want? Meaning Tables: Character Motivations >> 19 Disrupt 04 Anger + 86 Revenge 73 Path
- Is it her dad she doesn't want to be mad at her? (50/50) >> 37 = Yes.
- But she wants to be free from this? (Very Likely) >> 01 = VERY EXCEPTIONAL YES
- Does she want to go with Clo? (Likely) >> 25 Yes.
- Going with she wants revenge against the church/object itself, how does she want to bring it about {MM} >> 5,1 Pill Drop 3,6 Magnet
Ok, the last one is a bit odd but let's take "pill drop" to be "medical condition." She was actually thinking maybe using her pregnancy to try and gain some control of the church and destroy it from the inside out.
- Does she still think this is possible? (50/50) >> 42 = Yes.
But, since she is exceptionally wanting to get free, I think something has changed. She still a kid. She might be attached to her parents and to her upbringing but I think maybe she's ready to go.
"I...I think I want to go, Mr. Sargent. I'm scared."
"I know, Ida. Ok. Do you want to leave any sort of message behind?"
- Does she? (50/50) >> 45 = Yes.
She nods and then tells Olive, "Ollie, I need to go before it gets worse."
"I know, Idie."
The two sisters hug and start discussing the way to tell dad when Sarge and The Colonel lead the way out of the greenhouse and stop.
Because it wasn't obvious on the way in, but there are guards, here. Hidden from the other direction by a dark truck parked to the side of the greenhouse. Well, there are boots at least. Boots attached to men either unconscious or dead and propped up against their truck. "Ok, someone is fucking with us," Sarge says.
Then he hears the gunfire and Major starts screaming.
Doug's Commentary
Sometimes the stuff just lines up where some of the expected tension goes a bit odd. I think having the pay off with the first real fight of the "season" will be a nice trade off.
For the most part, will play the stuff with the Church in the background for an "episode" or two. It potentially will work back around to be a main focus, but it also must just be filler.
The personal stuff continues and so emotionally, it's nice to end on something like a self-fulfilling note. Let's see how Friday's outing goes.
About The Four Generals
BigBetty.com has placed a bet on Maddy Dwyer's life. People stand to make millions if she is dead within the next two weeks. Maddy's dad, Thomas "Cap" Dwyer has asked three old friends to travel to Las Azaleas and protect his daughter. The group went as The Four Generals in high school but have long since gone their separate ways. Now, the three friends — and Maddy, calling herself Major — have reformed The Four Generals. Their task: to keep Maddy alive. Also, some cults and crazy mega-church leaders are involved.
Credits
The Four Generals is played using Outgunned. Mythic, Gamemaster's Apprentice: Base 2e, and Gamemaster's Apprentice: Weird Horror are used as game oracles. Other tools have been added in.
Art is modified from stock photos and images by myself from various sources, given below. GIMP + G'MIC are used to create the effects. Unsplash is the most common source of stock art.
References to source materials use the following codes [BOLD = Main Sources for campaign]:
- {BRTM} Book of Random Tables: Modern
- {BRTN} Book of Random Tables: 1980s - 1990s
- {GMAB} Gamemaster's Apprentice: Base 2e Deck
- {GMAWH} Gamemaster's Apprentice: Weird Horror Deck
- {MM} "Maidenstead Mysteries" [Tricube Tales] Image Oracle
- {MY} Mythic, 2nd Edition
- {OG} Outgunned
- {OGAD} Outgunned Assistant Director
- {RR} Random Realities
- {TBM} Table Fables, Modern
- {UNE} Universal NPC Emulator
When page or card numbers are given, they will be in the {curly brackets}. {RR1,6} = Random Realities for die roll 1,6.
Part of the Alabama Weird world, though not geographically located in Alabama.
This post is in the standard Doug Alone post style. See Anatomy of a Post for more details.
ART CREDIT AND EXPLANATION
"Ida Fell" is from a photo by Vitaliy Shevchenko on Unsplash.
"Olive's Bedroom" is from a photo by Getty Images via Unsplash+.
"The Reverend Thaddeus Fell" is a photo from Getty Images via Unsplash+. I love the model for this one.
"The Garden" is from a photo by Viktor Talashuk on Unsplash. Fun fact, this was the same photo glitched out to form a greenhouse in another cult compound back in The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont campaign. It's a shout out, if you will.