THE LORD AND HEAVEN
A kidnapped child, an ugly standoff and an unholy, hair trigger eschaton in the attic
——BRIEF
Strife between the new-wave Protestant evangelicals and the Heerenhemel, the partially modernised but obscure Memmonites of Dutch Amish is at ignition point.
Seeking an easy scapegoat, evangelicals accused the Heerenhemel with their ornate, witchy hex signs and weirdo Christianity as the cause of the local oxycodone misery. It led to violence. The last attack put Prophecy Bernaard, a 67-years-old Heerenhemel man into a medical coma but partisan town sheriff, the born-again David Bennerson, refused to investigate the crime when the Memmonites laid charges. He was valorised as a “Lion for Christ” by his church.
The Memmonites kidnapped the sheriff's youngest son, Samuel. They keep him at the Heerenhemel compound until the sheriff does his job. Unlike the Amish, the Heerdenhemel are armed with modern weapons and believe in standing their ground. Agents have to rescue the child before sheriff Bennerson causes another Waco.
ARRIVAL
Agents land at an aerodrome with a long and decently maintained concrete runway near farmland outside Uniontown, in rural Fayette County, Pennsylvania. They have yesterday’s clothes and a go bag. Aaron Lipner, a retired Air Force veteran, meets the Agents. Lipner asks for identification and provides his: Aaron Kenley Lipner, NCO Airman First Class (retired).
Note: Airman First Class is a paltry rank for a retiree. He says he worked in jet fuel logistics for his career. A Bureaucracy check discovers an army ranger who was honourably discharged in 1985 or the name on annual IRS income tax receipts. There’s nothing else. As soon as the characters get a hit, Lipner gets a call informing him of the snoop: He’s mildly annoyed – “Jesus fucking Christ, people; some professionalism, please” – but he quickly gets over it.
After introductions, Lipner drives them to a rustic B&B he says is safe – “Because I own it”. He pulls an old 1970’s double-latched, brown leather briefcase: Lipner hands over a new, blank manila envelope with photographs and a day-old military satellite printout.
INFORMATION
Agents can roll skills or Lipner can fill them in. He knows no more than this.
Anthropology: The Heerenhemel community is not officially recognised as Amish by other Amish communities, but are considered Memmonites. They are said to be too worldly – “tainted” – by other Amish because they arrived from New Amsterdam with sign writing and other new technology.
People in the Heerenhemel community possess dual identities: The simple, pastoral and Biblical Heer (Lord) identity and the Werelders (Worldly) – their rumschpringe identity. Switching between them requires a ritual that happens during Sunday church services — the prodigal child is accepted back into the fold. Hemelheerer’s can switch between Werelder and back again with no problem. Weerlder mode acts like “what happens in Vegas” pressure valve for activities and ideas not allowed by Heerehemel theology such as homosexuality, premarital sex, divorce or marriage outside the community.
Of interest is that the Heerenhemel’s have always denounced the crucifix as a symbol of faith. Instead, they show two crossed trumpets in an X as a religious brand. This is part of their convoluted, homebrewed theology called Folgort.
History: Heerenhemel were 17th century puritans who migrated from New Amsterdam after it became New York, the English city of sin, and encountered the Pennsylvania Amish. They liked the Pennsylvania Amish isolationist attitude and the Dutch bought communal farmland outside “Beesontown”, an early nickname for Uniontown.
As all insular communities, accusations of witchcraft but also incest and other abuse has spread amid the local evangelicals. The Heerenhemel members suffer from a statistically significant incidence of dementia and other early onset mental disorders which many take as evidence of a recessive genetic bottleneck from inbreeding.
HUMINT: The Heerenhemel members are notoriously stoic or gruff to Buitenstanders (Outsiders — the English) but the harassment was ignored as harmless until it turned nasty and left Prophecy Bernaard hospitalised. It’s obvious why the weird, isolationist group got targeted.
The sheriff has, thankfully, only blocked the compound gate. He called in the feds to deal with the kidnapping — perhaps admitting his own complicity in letting the situation get so out of hand.
Military Science: The printout is yesterday’s high-res military satellite photo of the Heerenhemel compound. If asked where he got it, he says: “delivered by drone.”
Occult: The Heerenhemels are known for their hex signs: simple geometric shapes hidden in intricate Celtic knotwork in a 19th century saloon style. Unlike other Amish, the hex signs are painted in frames hidden inside structures or covered by nailed-down carpets. The Heerenhemel are exceptionally secretive about their decorative art and are not for sale.
Obtaining photographs of these hex signs was incredibly difficult but over the past seven or so decades, a few high-quality, old-school black-and-white prints of the hex signs have been shot and collected over the years. Agents can roll Unnatural if they inspect the photographic prints (See Unnatural).
Unnatural: Like those magic picture stereoscopic prints, if you stare at a print and let your vision relax slightly, a permanent version of the Elder Sign pops out in 3D.
LAUNCH
Once the players have made or failed the rolls, Lipner tells them its their job to sneak into the compound from the side and retrieve the boy, Samuel Bennerson, son of Sheriff David Bennerson. He hands over a photo of a blond, skinny but athletic tween male in track gear.
Lipner says: “Your job is to drive to the compound, sneak in unobserved and get the boy out. Please, for the love of God, do not turn this into another fucking Waco. Good luck,” and he hands them the keys to his van.
It’s just past sundown.
FUCK AROUND AND FIND OUT
If the players persist in fucking around, two hours after sunset, vigilantes bust through the fence in trucks and immediately, a horrible razory wail of trumpets erupts from the compound building – a terrible blue radiance fills the sky above the compound. The light grows more intense with a buzzing wail until bolts of lightning jump out of and out of the ground into the radiance.
Science [Physics]: This is Cherenkov radiation leaking from a soliton wave caused by our antimatter twin universe pressing against our spacetime.
A crackling, brilliant sparkling static fills the air like snow on old TV sets.
Science [Physics]: This is gamma ray flux from electrons colliding with the positron bow wave extending into our universe.
The sparking causes innumerable fires to start. Everything inside and outside of the aperture suffers the same symptoms: nausea, headaches, cramps, numbness. Mechanically, everyone suffers major intensity burns (AH62) from the nanoscopic gamma ray bursts, every turn, until dead.
30 seconds after it the buzzing starts, the compound, town and everything within ten kilometres (or wherever the Agents are) is pinched out of spacetime in a burst of light.
COMPOUND
The Heerenhemel compound is an entire ring-fenced hamlet surrounded by wheat and hops fields as well as peach and apple orchards for canning. They also raise free-range pigs, chickens and eggs and fallow fields.
The boundary is protected by high-quality anti-theft fencing. At regular intervals the support struts are mounted with small LED spots. While the lights are live, the rest of the fence is not electrified. The gates are reinforced with interlocking horizontal and diagonal steel beams. Cutting with torches or angle grinders will take 30 minutes to a half-hour.
Most technology inside the fence is from the 18th century except the firearms.
SHERIFF AND THE VIGILANTES
A crowd of locals gathers at the locked front gate, milling around. Three sheriff’s vehicles are parked in an arrowhead formation with their roof floodlights blazing and set on the front of the main house.
Some volunteers are patrolling on foot around the perimeter of the fence texting their positions with their phones.
VULNERABILITY
It’s best to break in beyond the V of the trucks’ floodlights but in between the overlap over the fence spotlights. The building would provide the best cover.
SAMUEL BENNERSON
Sam’s upset in the kitchen. He’s being minded by the women and fed cookies and ginger beer. The women want the men to take him to the vigilantes – they’re rightfully worried. The men are smoking pipes and angrily muttering in the dining hall.
If the Agent’s move in to take Samuel from the women, they offer no protest. If the Agents meet the men, they try making demands and threaten the child. The men are armed and will not obey any order from the Agents but will not fire unless fired upon.
If one Heerenhemel members is fired upon and hurt, one angel attacks while the other three ready the trumpets.
ANGELS IN THE ATTIC
The four angels are Winged Servitors (HG230) named Azazel, Gabriel, Melchizedek and Michael. They have a boosted Intelligence 10. They can read, write and speak American Dutch and English at 60%. If one attacks, the other three blow on their trumpets. They have 20% per trumpet blowing of opening a gate for God to enter the world. God, in this case, is Azathoth.
APPENDIX ONE: PEOPLE, RITUALS AND ANGELS
GENERIC VIGILANTE
There are about twenty vigilantes. The average vigilante is sober and full of Christian righteousness. A minority is either slightly drunk, slightly stoned, tweaking or born nasty. Despite this, they are full of righteous fervour, Confederate flags and ready to shoot any and all enemies of Christ and America – especially weirdo, stuck up Amish people and government agents from the Deep State protecting paedophile politicians.
The vigilantes are brave when they outnumber opponents, or face non-combatants or other opponents capable of little opposition.
Most are low-effort bullies and it takes a little sadism to get them off. The worst of them are psychotic from months of tweaking or were nasty from birth. They attack because they think they’re the superior force – ram the gate and pour in.
STR 10 CON 10 DEX 10 INT 10 POW 9 (45) HP 10 WP 9
Skills: Alertness 50%, Fight 60%, Shoot 30%
Vigilantes are in groups of three to five and unsupervised. Roll 1d0 or choose but leaders get guns and others get knives and unarmed combat.
ALL Punches and kicks 40%, damage 1D4.1 - 2 Pistol 30%, damage 1D10.
3 Pump Shotgun 30% (+20% beyond short range, firing shot), damage 2D10.
4 Automatic Rifle 30%, damage 1D12, Armor Piercing 3.
6 - 7 Gas Station Knife 20%, damage 1D4.
8 - 10 Bat, Club, Crowbar or Tire Iron 40%, damage 1D6
HEERENHEMEL MEMBER
The members of the Heerenhemel congregation are generally healthy and fit from a lifetime of work and decent food. Male members aged sixty or older rapidly deteriorate – halve their DEX, INT, POW and SAN stats – they usually die of dementia symptoms and other disorders before seventy. The women do suffer the accelerated senescence the males do because only the males are taught and perform the rituals that keeps the four angels prepared.
The thirty male Heerenhemel members’ grumpy pacifism lasts only until they’re shot at. Most of the women are mostly incapable of any combat although one may brandish a knife or cleaver (20%) to threaten assailants.
STR 12 CON 12 DEX 10 INT 10 POW 12 (SAN 60) HP 12 WP 12
Skills: Alertness 70%, Athletics 70%, Shoot 50%
Heerenhemel leaders get a pistol 30%, damage 1D10. The adults get either a pump shotgun 30% (+20% beyond short range, firing shot), damage 2D10, or an automatic rifle 30%, damage 1D12, Armor Piercing 3. All get punches and kicks 40%, damage 1D4.
SHERIFF DAVID BENNERSON
Young, handsome and born again, the sheriff is the most respected man in town. He was a man of God who saw himself as a crusader bringing His righteousness to the people brought low but leading them to Jesus with a firm hand. These crazy Heerenhemel cultists, delusional heretics, were always bringing this on themselves. Even when that old man was rude to some hot heads. It was a shame but if you want to be outsiders, people will treat you as such.
When they abducted his boy Samuel, Bennerson sobered up quickly. They did wrong but he knew it was a desperate act by people he had cast aside. Now he had a mad crowd chomping at the bit to make this right with might. Only if they charge in is his boy in danger.
Bennerson called in the feds and they’ve been giving him the runaround.
STR 13 CON 13 DEX 13 INT 13 POW 12 (SAN 60) HP 13 WP 12
Skills: Alertness 70%, Athletics 70%, Shoot 60%, Persuade 60%
AARON KENLEY LIPNER
Lipner is a widower. His wife Marcy died in hospital after a car collision. He’s also a veteran of Majestic 12. He was diagnosed with an exceedingly slow stage-four cancer of the thyroid which has finally reached his lungs and lymph nodes. It does not cause him discomfort but any exertion beyond the mundane low-effort activity for more than two turns drops his blood pressure and leaves him shaking, dizzy, pale and weak. He has maybe a year of decent life before he’s bedridden. He secured a bottle of fine bourbon and a whole bag of oxycodone for that last day.
He was speaking the truth. He managed fuel logistics for black ops flights in and out of the US for Majestic 12 – and later the Program. His work took him out of the country often, away from his Marcy, so he could secure aviation fuel from the worst pieces of shit imaginable. He had to shoot his way into and out of some situations but those were on-the-job adjustments.
He heard a few things about little green men and crashed flying saucers – and other more disturbing hints on his missions — but never asked for or repeated those stories.
He didn’t work because he was a bureaucratic monster but because he was a patriot. Nevertheless, he was happy to retire and he never shook the vague guilt that followed him for the rest of his life.
STR 7 CON 3 DEX 10 INT 13 POW 17 (SAN 60) HP 2 WP 17
Skills: Alertness 70%, Athletics 50%, Shoot 70%, Stealth 50%
ANGEL (Azazel, Gabriel, Melchizedek and Michael)
Winged Servitor (Handler’s Guide 230)
STR 25 CON 25 DEX 12 INT 10 POW 10
HP 25 WP 8
ARMOUR: 3 points of furry chitin.
SKILLS: Alertness 50%, Flight 40%, History of the Herenenhemels 100%, Herald of God 20%
ATTACKS: Claw 40%, damage 2D6.
Bite 40%, Lethality 15%.
SPECIAL QUALITIES
HYPERGEOMETRY: Open Gate
NON-TERRENE
OTHERWORLDLY FLIGHT
UNNATURAL BIOLOGY
SAN LOSS: 1/1D6.
APPENDIX TWO: FOLGORT THEOLOGY
Folgort is an unknown word although it could have been Vol God or Full of God. It is a rambling collection of off-the-cuff essays and epigrams added to empty pages in pen over many decades. The Four books are treasures of Americana if not for the influence of another unnamed but unnatural source.
In Volume Three, Willam van der Wilder, an elder, started copying in from this mystery source and interspersed as best he could a new exegesis. While obviously heretical or nonsensical at times, the Folgort books detail heaven as a place where cherubim circumnavigate God, blowing trumpets to announce his glory. The writer claims to know the true name of God and writes it as ASATHOTH. This started in 1822.
In 1845, Van der Wilder wrote: “The moon, sun and other celestial objects are ASATHOTH's clock counting down the seconds until Judgment Day.” The book then details the Elder Sign as God's seal and how it can be used to call down and bind cherubim to the faith by presenting them with a trumpet each. A special room needs to be made — the Holy of Holies — where the angels rest and the elder can enter to confer with them. The Holy of Holies needs to be decorated with the holy seal, inside and out — all the buildings too. The far more untidy writing ceases at that point. The last entry is dated 1837.
A new elder, Michael Doorn, continued in 1900. He says the four cardinal angels — Azazel, Gabriel, Melchizedek and Michael — need neither sustenance nor sleep but to hear the prayers and hymns of the faithful. The writing continues saying that the angels have learnt our languages and how to converse as civilised people — they were filled with the wildness of Eden when they arrived. There is no mention when the angels were summoned.
BY 1910, there's a lot more prophecy mongering about slattern women and misbehaving children with unsettling hints there will always be more to take care of — the angels have bottomless appetite for wicked flesh.
In 1911 continues with elder Jacob Joseph commiserating on the terrible deeds committed by wayward of the flock but are now cleaned and with God.
In 1915 Joseph laments that he's been refused wives he deserves — he deserves as many as Solomon for all the wonderful visions and prophecies given to him by Asathoth.
In 1915, Elder Pieter Samson, solemnly scribes about the sudden death of Jacob Joseph and that the missing women and girl children discovered under his house have been reburied. He says it's law that the angels are off limits unless there's an emergency. The sacred name will only be spoken once in a whisper by the first elder at midnight of the start of every spring solstice — the true date of Easter.
The rest of the Volume Three and all of Volume Four are written by a succession of elders, some more rapid than others, but most of them write about the encroachment of modern values and how they've negotiated with them to cut out on first cousin marriages, introduce new technology such as antibiotics and settle feuds. Every so often there are hints of "Easing the final passage elders consumed by God and His cherubim" — a hint at involuntary euthanasia.
The last entry was written in 1952. It codifies the current interpretation of Heerenhemel rules and traditions. A combo tongue-leather strap binds "the revelation sections" shut in case no one accidentally glimpses them.
The Folgort Theology is kept under lock and key and Elder Sign in a wall-mounted box under the stairs leading up to the Holy of Holies.
NEW TOME: FOLGORT THEOLOGY
In Dutch Creole Study time: Months. Unnatural +3%, SAN loss 1d4
Topics: Azathoth, Court of the Daemon Sultan, Winged Servitors, summoning rituals, binding rituals, the Elder Sign, Trumpets of the Heralds of God
It is important to note that the source text of the unnatural is unknown and is long gone from the Heerenhemel community; perhaps stolen, perhaps destroyed.
NEW HYPERGEOMETRIC RITUAL: TRUMPETS OF THE HERALDS OF GOD
The Trumpets of the Heralds of God is a variant of Open Gate (HG 182) except that the four Winged Servitors are the four cardinal corners of the gate and its physical representation. By blowing the trumpets and spending 5 POW each, each adds an accumulating 20% to the casting pool. After a turn, roll for activation.
Once the gate opens to the Lord and Heaven (Azathoth and one of the toxic dimensions it exudes into), the winged servitors abandon their post and fly up into the hole and away. The closing trumpet-shaped wormhole cut-pastes the local spacetime into the other universe – exactly the patch of our world obliterated by the radioactive particle storm.
Seeing the aperture open or experiencing its radiance is SAN 0/1d6.
——APPENDIX THREE: DESCRIPTIONS AND MAPS OF AMISH BUILDINGS
The Heerenhemel Amish are strict traditionalists and adhere to traditionalist builds but even they have an outbuilding.
FLOORS: Traditional Amish floors are unvarnished hardwood. Modern Amish use Formica flooring.
COMMON ROOMS: Common rooms are spacious with concertina wall panels that fold away. Common rooms are built to join the common rooms of two houses together – hence common rooms.
LIGHTS: Lighting non-electric source. Surprisingly, many Amish use propane or natural gas lighting fed by tanks but conservatives keep using oil or kerosene lamps. These produce less heat and light and give off smoke and soot so ventilation may be an issue. The Heerenhemel are strict kerosene burners.
Some Amish have bought homes with electric lights but they are disconnected. Many keep battery-powered flashlights, lanterns and other emergency lights – the Heerenhemel do.
FRIDGES: Modern Amish settle for propane refrigeration appliances. Traditional Amish scorn electrical and gas appliances but buy ice made from electrical appliances which is why they keep an icebox in their basements.
BASEMENTS: Basements are also popular because they’re naturally cool and wide – often the largest single room in a house. When it gets too hot in summer, the basements are great places to sleep.
They are excellent play areas for children and exercise spaces for adults. They can also squeeze many bodies for church services. When not in use for church, basements are where meat curing and washing are done, and are also handy places to house emergency guests.
FURNISHINGS: While Amish furniture is handmade from locally-sourced woven fabric and lumber, the designs are modern. Even Amish keep up to date with furniture fashions.
PLUMBING: Hygiene trumps stoicism – Amish get around modern conveniences by back engineering running water, toilets, water heaters and baths. The Heerenhemels do have running water and flushing toilets but heating is expensive so baths are shared in shifts.
OUTBUILDING: Outbuildings are shared, off-property sheds – often electrified — where Amish keep phone and phone chargers, old-school message machines, recharge ports, electric utilities and other modern contrivances – they’re religious but not foolhardy. Buggy sheds, barns and liveries are also used for the same reason as outbuildings.
WIND POWER: Windmalls are still big in Amish communities. Some have cleverly made small wind farms alongside solar panels to passively generate electricity to recharge select devices.
For more information on Amish people and their domiciles, check out //https://amishamerica.com///
HEERENHEMEL AMISH COMMUNITY LAYOUT
——HEERENHEMEL AMISH HOUSE #1 SMALL ONE STOREY CABIN
HEERENHEMEL AMISH HOUSE #2 SMALL SINGLE STOREY CABIN
HEERENHEMEL AMISH HOUSE #3 SMALL DOUBLE STOREY
HEERENHEMEL AMISH HOUSE #4 LARGE SINGLE OR DOUBLE STOREY FARMHOUSE
Credits
Lord and Heaven was written by Mechristopheles for the 2021 Shotgun Scenario contest.
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Lr7ve-M_63SOYrHIJmQNzsv1Wi8Ia3k4gPkew70euzE/edit