Eight friends from the Jefferstown DP&D after-school roleplaying club are caught up in a raging "anti-Satan" campaign going around town. Everett Bauer is out around town, being pursued by the increasingly monstrous Reverend Phillips.

Modified from Getty Images photo via Unsplash+.

Back to the Grind

It's actually been several days for me due to some chronic pain issues, but I wanted to finish this up by Friday, 6th of March, 2026 so I can kick off something new next week. Something that should be a fun, out-of-nowhere diversion.

To catch up on what this is, what rules changes are in place from the source, and what has happened so far, see Satanic Panic 0 and Satanic Panic 1. I feel like, for better or worse, this will be pretty short, but let us return to the Museum and our particular version of Jeffersontown, AL.

Part 2: The Ordeal Continues

  • Paths from Museum (1d4) >> 3 [only 2 remain so +Hx1005 and +Hx0906 are now open.
  • --> Hx0906. Location (d10) >> 10. Major Obstacle (d10) >> 3. Witch's Woods. WOODS!? Um, let's just say...this is like, not a park, per se, but where you get a bunch of woods near/within a city. A...multi-hex woods(1d6) >> 3. It will spread out for three hexes around (Hx905, Hx806, and Hx906). As for this encounter, in Hx906, Combat, CR5(-1), HP8, Dmg d4+1. 2:6 chance for a Spellbook.
  • CR5-1 vs (d6+3) 6+3 = hit. (d6+3) 5 = 8. One shot the witch. (2:d6) 6 = No spellbook, but +5 points [first in the game, I think].
  • Paths from woods (1d4) >> 2. +Hx0805 and +Hx0807 just for a slightly odder path.
  • -->Hx0807. Location (d10) >> 5. My man! The one, the only....REVEREND PHILLLLLLLIPS! You know the drill...
  • CR6-1 vs (d6+3) >> 2+3. Hit. 4+3 damage. 4hp remain. 5+3. Hit. 6+3 = once again drove off the even more monstrous Reverend P.
  • LEVEL UP! (to 6). 1. +d6 HP >> 20 --> 23.
  • Paths from Hx0807 (d4) >> 2. +Hx0808, +Hx0707.
  • -->Hx0808. Location (d10) >> 3. Empty.
  • Paths from Hx0808 (d4) >> 4. Only are possible so all of them: +Hx0907, +Hx0708, +Hx0809.
  • --> Hx0907. Location...you know what, let's just say Major Obstacle (d10) 7 >> Angry Misguided Parents...a...combat? CR4. HD6. Dmg d4. Loss -Weapons and -$100. Win +$200.

I am absolutely not going to have a teenage rebel shoot a bunch of parents while trying to demonstrate to those same parents that they are being framed. Jesus, these combat encounters. In that light, we'll say my boy struggles but will absolutely not use his gun.

  • CR4-1 vs (d6) 4. Hit for d4-1 = 1-1...um, we'll say 1. 3. Gets hit for 3. 20hp remain for Everett. 5. hits for 2. That's 3hp left in the crowd. 4. Its for 2. 1hp left in crowd. 2. Gets hit for 2. 18hp for Everett. 4. Finishes beating through the crowd.
  • +$200 [$550 total] and +4 points [9 total].
  • No new paths possible so flees back to Church.
  • 3:6 for Phillips to be here >> 2. Phillips is there, now turned into a completely inhuman monster. This is likely the final fight so we'll give Phillips d10 damage and 20hp.
  • CR6-1 vs (d6+3) 1. Everett gets hit for 4 (14hp remain). 2+3 = Everett hits for 5+3 = 8. 20-8 = 12hp remain for Phillips. 3+3. Hits Phillips for 6+3. 3hp remain for Phillips. 4+3...victory, basically.

After Everett continues to flee from his yet another combat with Phillips - the preacher no longer look human at all, turning into something much worse - he runs into a street full of parents. Parents on the prowl. Faces contorted. Enraged. They see him and start screaming like beasts. Calling him a devil spawn. Demanding his blood.

"Wait!," Everett shouts. But they do not wait.

He cannot bring himself to shoot them. He never got along with the normies, but he cannot see himself shooting the parents of his classmates, people who sees walking around downtown on Saturday nights.

He starts swinging fists as more and more people try to grab him and pull him down. He feels heavy blows rain on his back and shoulders but he finally, desperately, pushes through. Running now, he knows there is only way place to go, the one place where this all began: The Church of the One True God. It is only a few blocks over.

Getting there, hearing others behind him. He stares for only a half second before getting closer. The front doors are broken open. The church is looks like it is sagging, becoming older. There is a smell of rot emanating from the place as strange red light burns from the inside.

Running inside, he finds Phillips has completed his transformation. If he had not seen the earlier stages, he would not recognize the preacher. Would think a demon had escaped from Hell.

Now over nine feet tall, the creature pretending to be human looks like a tall, gaunt shadow with a face a mass of squirming worms. The creature screeches and Everett lines up to take a shot. Only he doesn't get a chance because it flies across the space and slams into him. Throws him against the wall.

Then Everett finds the trigger and screams back as he doesn't stop firing.

As the final bullet is spent, and his gun goes click click click, the creature is dead. Only in death, does he realize that this was perhaps the Reverend Phillips all along. Not a demon, but a person who allowed a demon or some other entity inside.

Talons retract. Legs and arms shrink. The worm-tentacles pull back into a face. Until Everett is looking down at a person he just killed because the alternative would be so much more death. He does not feel guilty because even now, the face is cruel and mean and was so obviously enjoying the hunt.

Everett is blooded. Tired. Exhausted.

A cough and a shout of horror from the door causes him to look up. He sees the same people who chased him towards the church staring at him. He worries they will think that he killed a man in cold blood but the horror in their eyes lets him know they saw Phillips in his monstrous form.

They are staring at the thing they just witnessed. No longer under its spell. Everett pulls out Troy's bloodied jersey and says that Phillips had it. That Troy's murderer is dead, though Everett really does not know. What is really the Reverend? Or one of the Reverend's fanatical followers?

They turn, one by one, and fade into the night. Not saying a word to him. There is nothing they can say.

Everett wants to cry. Knowing that these people will never face justice. That they are as much victims. That deep down they might even blame the kids after all. The targets of their hate.

Right as he is near collapse, Marlon walks in and sees the body.

Without saying a word, the other teen walks over and the two friends hug tightly. Knowing it will never be the same.

Some Quick [prior to full review] Thoughts

I'm going to go back over and read my changes and play out a few things more like intended off-blog and do some tests, but I like the story as it is pretty well. Never found the hospital. Maybe it shut due to budget cuts or witches or something.

My initial impression is that it works pretty well as a general location generator [to a point] and ok as a general story generator [to a perhaps wider point] but I feel like there is a strange mismatch in the whole.

Off the top of my head, some things I'd like to see different:

  • For this one, I think a partially pre-built hex-map would have been superior. At least one with a few key locations already in place and maybe a few regions [with some impetus to different regions being visited, maybe]. One with some built in encounters and chance encounters, Trying to emulate the "analog Rogue-like" in this style of hex-crawl could work, but not quite in the way this particular module presents it.
  • I think the encounter system needs a tweak. Possibly card based. If there was a set spot for a church, mall, etc...then a d6 table of encounters for those specific spots might have gone a long way to help the other more random spots.
  • Some encounters felt silly and out of place with the hex-grid system [your mom throwing out your stuff, running into a coach, seeing the school].
  • Combat involving "concerned parents" hits a bit weird, especially considering weapons are things like shurikens and pistols. Murder hobo needs more consideration when the gist seems to be: "Prove to everyone that they are wrong about gamers, dude!". Especially since the story as written as "Parents are harshing your vibe, man!" All that added about the monstrous Phillips is 100% my own creation. He's presumably just an asshole in the original.
  • Leveling feels like it was lifted from another system and doesn't quite spark as much joy as it could, here.
  • Maybe it's just me, but there were several aspects I did not understand like...it seems silly that you would have more than one school/mall but what are you supposed to do in regards to the hex map when a second shows up? Reroll? A "if the school exists, then..." secondary column might have helped.

I absolutely misused, on purpose, the "masterclass" rule, and by creating more narrative points it likely changed the vibe but I think the alternative would have ironically doubled the time required with a more disorganized vibe. The only reason it ended here and not twice as far down the road as here is because I "lucked up" and rolled Reverend Phillips five times and then set him up as something of a boss battle. A fluke that kept things hopping. If I had lost the gun due to poor dice rolls, it would have been bad and just a drag into eventual ruin.

A fuller review is coming, no doubt. With some thought, I'll skip a fuller review and leave it mostly with the my notes above. I think 90% of my fuller review would just be repeating the above with more words. AFTER I try another Campground & Cryptids module, we'll talk about it. Maybe one where I stick to the rules as written to make sure I'm giving it a fair shake.

For now, let's hear it for the kids and here's to them having a better life.