Exposure Therapy

Introduction

This scenario works best if an Agent in your campaign spent one of his home pursuits on going to therapy and decided to tell the therapist the truth about the Unnatural.
In the following we will refer to this Agent as Agent X. The therapist will be referred to as Dr. Patrick Rivers, but if you have already established a name for the therapist in question, then use that one instead.

Background

After the fateful therapy session with Agent X, Dr. Rivers searched and discovered forbidden knowledge of the occult. During this search he came into contact with the Disciples of the Worm. They promised to induct him into their group, if he could do them a favour: kill Eleanor Casey.
Eleanor Casey is a witch and former assassin of The Fate. During her extensive travels she learned how to enter and navigate the Higher Plane, where she clashed with the Disciples multiple times.
The Disciples do not tolerate other humans in what they see as their domain. They assigned the task of killing Casey to Dr. Rivers, as a test for him and to get rid of a dangerous enemy at the same time. He is assisted by another recent recruit of the Disciples, Luis Barrios, and also a veteran sorcerer, Hoàng Minh.

Meeting The Doctor

Agent X and their cell have been called to New York for a DG operation. However, before the mission even starts Agent X gets visited by Dr. Rivers in their hotel room.
Rivers talks about the things he has seen and learned since they met last. Then he tries to convince the Agent to kill Eleanor Casey for him. He calls her a dangerous woman, but does not actually reveal why she has to die.
The Agent will probably refuse, in which case Rivers starts a video call on a cell phone and hands it over.

The Video Call

At the start of the call the Agent catches a glimpse of an Asian man (Hoàng Minh), before the camera is turned around. The video feed then shows the Agents closest Bond. They are gagged and tied to a chair, inside what looks to be a shipping container. A Hispanic looking man (Luis Barrios) holds a gun to their head.
With Criminology over 60% the numerous tattoos on the man’s body can be identified as gang tattoos of the Sinaloa cartel.
Medicine over 40% reveals that the gangster is under the influence of drugs, probably opiates.
With Alertness over 40% the Agent can hear the sound of a ship horn close to the location in the video. Then the call stops.
Rivers tells the Agent that they have 24 hours to kill Eleanor Casey and burn her body, otherwise the hostage is executed. The Agent is told to keep the phone to contact Rivers. Agent X will receive the location of the hostage as soon as he sends proof of Casey’s death.

The Investigation

Agent X does not have much time. They have to decide if they want to follow River’s orders or if they want to find and free the hostage themselves. In any case, they should contact the rest of their cell and ask for backup.

Finding The Hostage

There is a DEA file on Luis Barrios, which can be found with a description of his tattoos. According to the file he was an enforcer for the Sinaloa cartel until last year, when he suddenly disappeared. The file mentions that he has a cousin in New York, Carlos Secada.
Questioning Secada reveals that he met with his cousin two days ago, at a diner in Brooklyn, near the harbour. If the Agents surveil the diner for a few hours they can observe a meeting between Barrios and Minh.
Trailing Dr. Rivers can also lead the Agents to the diner, where the therapist will meet with Minh and Barrios. However, Rivers only goes there after the 24h deadline has almost passed.
The hostage is kept in an empty shipping container in a rarely used corner of the Red Hook shipping terminal. Barrios guards the container most of the time, but sometimes Minh takes over. The container is almost never unattended.

Investigating Eleanor Casey

Casey has no social media presence to speak of, but she does have a small website on which she offers her services as a photographer for events and private photo shootings. The website confirms the address that Rivers has given to Agent X.
There is no police file on Casey, but DG records reveal that in the 90s and early 2000s she was associated with a NY-based cult called The Fate. However, nothing concrete could ever be pinned on her.

Eleanor Casey’s Home

Casey lives in a secluded single-storey home in Hopewell Junction, a two-hour drive from NY. Her Familiar lurks in the overgrown front yard and will see anyone who approaches the house. Casey is at home, but no lights are on and she won’t open the door.
If the Agents break into the house, then Casey will turn herself invisible using The Veil of the Sisterhood and begin to play cruel games with the intruders:

• She or her Familiar will stab an Agent with a Dagger of Transposed Consciousness, to swap their mind with the homeless man in her basement.
• She will cast Infallible Suggestion and make an Agent eat their own fingers.
• She will stop the heart of an Agent with The Grip of the Black Pharaoh.
• Only when the Agents are starting to pose a real danger to her or her Familiar will she cast Withering to kill them.

Casey will take her time to torture the Agents, which will give them a chance to explore her home.
The ground floor has four rooms: a kitchen, a living room, a bathroom and a bedroom. The rooms are mostly mundane, but some items found in the rooms can be useful or give hints to Casey’s past:

• Many walls in the house are decorated with artful photography, presumably created by Casey.
• A kitchen drawer contains a key to the dog cage in the basement.
• Bags of flour, which could be used to reveal the invisible witch.
• A pile of clothing lies on the living room floor, where Casey disrobed when the Agents entered her home.
• There are almost no electronic devices in the living room, except for expensive camera equipment and an old discman. Caseys CD collection consists of only a few Charnel Dream albums.
• The bookshelves are filled with mundane books about witchcraft and the occult.
• There is a photo album in the bedroom, the old polaroids within show a young Casey in Club Apocalypse, together with Stephen Alzis, Robert Hubert and other members of The Fate.
• There is also an old digital camera, the SD card within contains photos of Casey in front of landmarks in different countries all around the globe. She is wearing the same clothes in all of them and the EXIF data suggests that the photos were all taken on the same day in 2003.

The basement of the building has three rooms, in which Casey hides the real horrors: the cell room, the den of the Familiar and her shrine.

The Cell Room

This small room contains only a dog cage. Inside a homeless man sits in his own filth. The man is delirious and hardly reacts, if spoken to. An ornate dagger is stuck in his left shoulder. The key to the cage is in a kitchen drawer.

The Familiar’s Den

This is a tiled room with a drain in the floor. Carcasses of dogs, cats and other small animals are hanging from hooks on the wall. Their throats have been slit with a sharp blade. The floor is littered with gore and bones. There is a pile of straw in a corner of this room.

The Shrine

This room is the largest in the basement. The walls are full of photographs, which depict the torture and killing of Caseys countless victims over the years. On one side of the room there is a pedestal on which an obsidian statue of a faceless man with goat legs stands. The statue is about 50cm tall and is adorned with human entrails, some already rotten, some seemingly fresh. In front of the statue lies a large bronze bowl, filled with a mixture of blood and feces.
On the other side of the room is a table, filled with chemical equipment (bunsen burner, flasks, etc.). A number of alchemical concoctions can be found on this table, among them the Powder of Ibn-Ghazi, and Casey’s notebook.

Resolution

If the Agents manage to kill Casey and send proof to Rivers, he will actually keep his word and release the hostage. However, he will be long gone when the Agents return to NY.
If the 24h deadline passes the hostage will be tortured and killed. A video of this is then sent to Agent X.

Stat Blocks

NPCs

Dr. Patrick Rivers
Psychotherapist who learned too much, age 41
STR 10 CON 10 DEX 10 INT 16 POW 10
HP 10 WP 12 SAN 40
SKILLS: Alertness 20%, Dodge 30%, Firearms 30%, Unarmed Combat 40%
ATTACKS: Unarmed, damage 1D4-1

Luis Barrios
Mexican gangster, age 26
STR 14 CON 15 DEX 10 INT 10 POW 8
HP 15 WP 8 SAN 20
SKILLS: Alertness 50%, Dodge 40%, Firearms 50%, Unarmed Combat 50%
ATTACKS: Unarmed, damage 1D4+1; Pistol 50%, damage 1D10; SMG 50%, lethality 10%
WORM HOST: Luis regenerates 1D6 damage every round. He cannot fall unconscious. A Called Shot to the abdomen has a 30% chance to kill the worm inside him, after which he will no longer regenerate hit points and can fall unconscious again.

Hoàng Minh
Ancient Vietnamese sorcerer, age 364
STR 8 CON 10 DEX 10 INT 12 POW 16
HP 9 WP 16 SAN 0
SKILLS: Alertness 50%, Dodge 30%, Firearms 40%, Unarmed Combat 60%
ATTACKS: Unarmed, damage 1D4-1; Pistol 40%, damage 1D10
RITUALS: Withering, Ascend to Higher Plane
WORM HOST: Hoàng regenerates 1D6 damage every round. He cannot fall unconscious. A Called Shot to the abdomen has a 30% chance to kill the worm inside him, after which he will no longer regenerate hit points and can fall unconscious again.

Eleanor Casey
Cruel witch, age 47
STR 10 CON 10 DEX 10 INT 14 POW 18
HP 10 WP 18 SAN 0
SKILLS: Alertness 60%, Dodge 40%, Melee Weapons 50%, Stealth 60%, Unarmed Combat 40%
ATTACKS: Dagger 50%, damage 1D4, Unarmed 40%, 1D4-1
RITUALS: Infallible Suggestion, The Black Veil of the Sisterhood, The Grip of the Black Pharaoh, Withering, Fascination, Prayer to the Dark Man, Withering, Ascend to Higher Plane, others at Handlers discretion

The Familiar
A large ferret with human hands and teeth
STR 4 CON 8 DEX 20 INT 12 POW 15
HP 6 WP 15
SKILLS: Alertness 80%, Dodge 85%, Melee Weapons 40%, Stealth 70%, Unnatural 50%.
ATTACKS: Bite 40%, damage 1D4 (see BITE); Dagger 40%, damage 1D6
RITUALS: Same as Eleanor Casey
BITE: Many familiars carry diseases. A single bite is enough to infect the target. A typical infection lasts 1D6 days, inflicts a -20% CON test penalty and inflicts 1D6 damage.
FAMILIAR: The Familiar can act as an assistant in any ritual that its master or mistress knows. Because it knows all languages, it can help its master or mistress learn a ritual in any language.
GIFT OF THE MASTER: If a witch’s familiar sacrifices permanent POW in a ritual, keep a note of its former POW score. It may attempt to regain spent POW once per month by killing a human and drinking the victim’s life-blood; a familiar prefers a helpless, diminutive victim like a child. That allows the familiar to attempt a POW test. If it fails, it regains 1 POW, up to its maximum score.
NIMBLE: Any attack against the familiar is at -20% due to its speed.
SANITY LOSS: 1/1D6 from the Unnatural

Rituals

The Veil of the Sisterhood

Simple ritual. Study time: hours; 1D4 SAN. Activation: one turn; 6 WP, 1D4 SAN
The operator utters a short phrase in an unknown, ancient language and becomes immediately invisible. The effect lasts 30 minutes. Casting the ritual costs 0/1d4 SAN.
Only the operator’s body becomes invisible, anything they carry is still visible, including their clothes. The operator is still visible in reflective surfaces or through cameras and they still cast a shadow.

The Grip of the Black Pharaoh

Simple ritual. Study time: days; 1D4 SAN. Activation: one turn; 9 WP, 1 HP, 1D8 SAN.
The operator has to carve a triangle into the palm of a hand, while whispering a prayer in Ancient Egyptian. The operator has 1D6 turns to touch their target, otherwise the spell fails.
A touched target has to make a CON roll. On a failure the target is overcome with a sense of doom and realizes their heart has stopped beating. The target will fall unconscious after 1D4 turns. If six minutes without a successful First Aid roll pass, the target dies.
Optional: an unsuccessful First Aid roll may still bring the target back to life, but with severe brain damage (-1D6 INT, -1D6 POW).

Artifacts and Tomes

The Daggers of Transposed Consciousness

A pair of identical daggers with silver blades. The hilt is ornate and suggests that the daggers are of ancient Indian origin.
Two different targets that are both impaled with one of the daggers swap minds for 1d6 minutes. SAN costs for the targets are 1/1d6. The daggers do 1D6 damage.

Eleanor Casey’s Notebook

In English. Study time: days. Occult +8%, Unnatural 4%, SAN loss 1D6
This thick leather-bound notebook contains notes about Eleanor Casey’s travels and the rituals she has learned during that time.
RECOMMENDED RITUALS: The Veil of the Sisterhood, The Grip of the Black Pharaoh, Ascend to Higher Plane, Prayer to the Dark Man

Credits

This was an entry to the 2021 shotgun scenario contest. Written by Hendrik