What is Lights, Camera, Action?

Long-time SHADIS readers will recognize this feature immediately. Need an off-the-cuff storyline for your RPO campaign? Match the party's current situation to the one described in "Lights," then switch on the "Camera" and drag them into the "Action"!

We would love to see your scenarios! Send them in; there's a good chance they'll be used.

An Offer You Can't Refuse

John Wick

Lights:

On a remote space station on the fringes of colonized space, an alien recruits an intrepid band to deliver a package to his cousin on a distant world. The package is large: approxi. mately a meter cubed and very heavy. It is made of a kind of ornate wood, but is unlike any kind of terran material they have ever seen. They are offered a monstrous sum of money to deliver this thing; it's an offer they can't refuse.

Camera:

On the first day of the trip, everything goes wrong. Everyone wants what is in the box. As the journey progresses, the party discov. ers the alien who hired them is the equivalent of a mob boss who has been accused of smuggling and charged with murder in three systems. 'Me party soon learns that men are willing to lie, cheat, steal, murder, maim, torture and kill to get the box, making their journey across the solar sys. tem a perilous one. Eventually, they will grow curious about what's in the box (if they don't get curious, you can always prod them), leading them to open it up and see what's inside. There's a small, seated envelope inside, much easier to carry than a huge wooden box...

Action:

When they finally arrive at the port where the cousin is waiting for them, the party learns what is in the small envelope. It's a short note wishing him a happy birthday. At which point he will ask the party, "Where's the box?" The box is an ancient holy relic that once con. tained the Heart of Thaltali, a religious symbol of great power. So, if the party delivers the package without the box, they will be in a great deal of hot water.

Not Drowning, Waving

Tonia Walden

Lights:

This interlude could take place when the party is near a coastal town. One of the party notices a person out in the ocean who appears to be drowning. If they gallantly go to the rescue, they will have to dive underwater to retrieve the. body of a teenage boy and bring him back to shore. If the party decide not to swim out but try to take one of the small fishing boats that lie along the beach, the owner of the boat will be surprisingly reluctant to help and the party will have to simply commandeer the boat - if they waste any time arguing the boy will drown.

Cameras

When they get the boy back to shore, they notice he is dressed in white robes and looks about fifteen. The party can resuscitate the boy, but when he regains consciousness he will took surprised and then angry. Instead of the thanks the characters may be expecting, the boy will shout a torrent of abuse.

All the commotion will attract a crowd of villagers who are dressed in religious robes, and they are not at all pleased with the party. The boy had been chosen to go and join the sea god to ensure good weather and a good catch for the coming year. Every year a special boy or girl was chosen to be sacrificed in this way, however, the villagers do not see it as a sacrifice. They and the chosen victim consider it a great honor, and they believe that the drowned girl or boy will live a life of comfort in the sea god's court at the bottom of the ocean.

The head priest will tell the characters that the sea god will be angry to be cheated of the boy and that the god will take the character who rescued the boy instead.

Action:

The party may take this as a threat but the villagers will not attack or attempt to sacrifice any of the party - they will simply walk away. (Remember, they consider it an honor; to murder someone as an unwilling sacrifice is not the same). However, they have placed the sea god's curse on the character who rescued the boy - every time he or she goes near salt water, an unlucky event will occur, such as an attack from a water creature or an accident on the boat they are travelling on. The character should learn to become wary of the sea, until they get the curse removed or somehow appease the sea god's wrath.

The Hunter And The Hunted

John Wick

Lights:

A young college man is panicked beyond reason. He approaches the investigators with a desperate hope that they can save him. Every night he has terrible nightmares of a witch putting a curse on his family, and every morning he awakens covered in mud and blood. This morning he found a young cheerleader in his closet. Her throat was torn out and he had her hair and blood under his nails. He's convinced he's turning into a werewolf.

Camera:

If the party watches him, they will find that he handcuffs himself to the bed just as the sun sets. He suffers tortuous dreams, screams and howls all night long until he rips the handcuffs from the bed and from his wrists, tears off his clothes and flees out into the night, howling at the moon. If they manage to follow him, they'll find that he does not transform into a wolf, but suffers from extreme classical lycanthropy. He believes he is a wolf, running on all fours, chasing down bums and ripping out their throats, eating their flesh and drinking their blood.

Action:

The unfortunate truth of the matter is that our college friend is not a werewolf. He's a vampire. Well, almost. He was bitten by a vampire a month ago, but in the midst of the action, the vampire was attacked by a vampire hunter. The college kid escaped, but the vampire did not. Now, the poor sod is half-way between human and undead, trapped without a means of escape. Not only that, but the hunter is looking out for him. He's only a few steps behind, ready to put a hunk of sharpened wood in our little friend's heart.

Bug Powder Dust

Tonia Walden

Lights:

This is a less-than serious scenario for a modern day game. The party gets involved in a spate of robberies at exclusive restaurants or gourmet bakeries and delicatessens. The odd thing about these robberies is that only food has been stolen, but it appears as if the felons gained access from the inside rather than breaking in. The owners of the stores are furious and will pay handsomely if the felons can be brought to justice.

Camera:

Investigations reveal no fingerprints, but it looks as if the stolen goods were dragged across the floor - the robbers are obviously unhygienic. The owners might blame disgruntled staff, street people or psychos for the robberies (and feel free to make up some spurious characters for the players to investigate), but these leads come up with nothing.

The thing all the establishments have in common is they have recently been sprayed for cockroaches by WSB Exterminations Co. There is a fine powder that can be detected on surfaces within the establishments and if the party fail to pick this up, all of the restaurants have a notice in their kitchens mentioning when the company was spraying. Although none of the owners will admit it, the players can find out from the staff that there seem to be more than usual numbers of cockroaches around the area lately.

Action:

Yes, it's the cockroaches. The extermination dust the WSB company uses is illegal they got a shipload of it cheap, after it had been banned. If the players investigate the company they can find this out, and that it was banned for causing mutations. Although the powder kills most of the roaches, a couple that survived became hyper-intelligent (for a cockroach).

These super-cockroaches are telepathic and lead their cockroach armies in the war against the oppressors, the humans. At the moment they are executing this grand master plan by stealing the human's food - and eating it. They come up through the basement and by sheer weight of numbers, drag food back down to the basement and the sewers. The sight of this many cockies can be quite unsettling to anyone who is staking out a place to try and catch the thieves. If the cockies feel threatened they can quite easily suffocate (or severely traumatise) a person by covering them. The leaders can also communicate telepathically and could try and do a deal with the players or gloat to them about their megalomaniac plans.

The players better get some reputable exterminators in really quickly or the cockies could start to work out that there is a much larger world out there than just their respective basements.