The Brief
The Program picked up a possible tip from an agent embedded in the New Orleans FBI Field office. The case was diverted before it could leave the state. Washington has been caught unawares, but if you run into any trouble with the actual FBI it will raise a lot of questions. You have about 48 hours of cover if you keep your heads down. Our embedded agent indicated special attention be paid to the illicit substance involved in the case.
Handler: A-cell has determined that it’s safer to forgo a face-to-face with the embedded NoLa agent. A phone number will be provided before departure, and Agents may call it, once, if they find that additional resources are necessary.
State PD: Det. Wayne Mercer made the initial call to the NoLa field office. He is a detective for the Louisiana State Criminal Investigative Division (LACID). Mercer will brief the Agents as FBI and provide them with a dossier of the leads he has picked up so far. He is completely unaware of The Program at-large, and uninitiated to the unnatural.
The Dossier: Calvin Todd is a burnout and reformed street dealer who has recently joined a local church-plant called New Earth Revival. Calvin provided Detective Mercer with witness testimony indicating that this “church” is fronting for a criminal drug enterprise, and Det. Mercer is seeking sufficient evidence to mount a RICO case. Calvin Todd was supposed to report to Mercer yesterday morning about New Earth’s plans to begin moving their product into Texas. He never showed, and isn’t answering his phone. Mercer will indicate that he was waiting to call the Feds until they had affirmative evidence of activity in TX, but following Calvin Todd’s disappearance he pressed early. The dossier contains a few investigative “starting points” for agents.
- Calvin Todd’s home address
- The New Earth Revival’s “Temple Mount” address and history
- Test results and description from “seventh seal”, the illicit substance Calvin claims he received from New Earth Revival
The Investigation
The following scenes can occur in any such order as the Agents decide. Collectively all three leads can occupy the group for a 16-hour day.
Calvin Todd’s Home
3382 L Benoit Rd Lake Charles, Louisiana: Mr. Todd is 25, living in an RV that shares a yard with his family’s double-wide trailer. He is the oldest of several children, and 1D6 of the kids hang out around the yard. His father is entirely absent and his mother is a full-time drunk. The kids will attempt to waylay the Agent's entry onto the premises, “Ma says no cops”. The children will go as far as to threaten the Agents’ property if they get too pushy, but will stop short of personal violence. They seem too aware, for tweens, of what happens when you hit a cop. If the Agent’s make it clear that they only want to dig through Calvin’s room, the kids will cautiously allow them passage to the RV out-back. If they make too much noise, “Ma” will come out of the front trailer, drunk and demanding they come back with her Parole Officer.
Calvin’s RV is clearly a flophouse. The RV’s mattress is torn and deeply stained from years of drug-filled fever dreams. The regular light bulbs have been replaced with blacklights, providing all entrants with an intimate view of the various food and fluid stains, as well as the psychedelic posters pinned on the walls.
Clue- The Seventh Seal: Next to the un-connected sink sits a mirror with variant powdered substances in little baggies nearby. It looks like Calvin was using the corner of a New Earth Revival brochure to cut lines. The Brochure advertises the upcoming church campout at Keith Lake, TX. Next to the brochure is a dime-bag of some yellow-ish powder labeled “seventh seal”. This substance matches the description in the Dossier.
“Seventh Seal”
Heaven is a Downer: The “seventh seal” substance provided by Calvin Todd comprises expertly diluted fentanyl, and an unknown variety of Brugmansia(Angel’s Trumpet) flower. Anyone with Science(Biology, Genetics, Chemistry) over 40 realizes that this flower has been manually mutated over generations to achieve this specific use, but the amount of genetic “distance” that this flower has put between itself and a typical angel’s trumpet would take centuries to accomplish. This realization costs 0/1 SAN loss.
Consumptive Vice: Any Agent who chooses to use the seventh seal is in for a ride. The powder is meant to be ceremonially blown into the user’s face, but can be rubbed on a subject's membranous tissue or pulled in bumps and lines; how Calvin was consuming it. Consumption of the seventh seal has immediate effect:
- Roll 2d6. This is the duration (in hours) of the drug’s effect .
- The using Agent suffers violent, gory hallucinations, and cannibalistic urges for the duration. This causes 1d4/2d6 SAN loss.
- The using Agent makes a CONx5 test, suffering exhaustion for the duration if failed.
If anyone takes two doses of “seventh seal” at once, or overlaps their use at all, they will immediately suffer from fentanyl-induced cardiac arrest.
New Earth Revival “Temple Mount”
923 Tana St, Sulphur, LA: Formerly owned by the Knights of Columbus, this chapel is equipped with a kitchen, private office, and an outbuilding for storage. “New Earth Revival” is headed by an enigmatic older man, Gilbert Pascal Lone. Mr. Lone possesses verifiable ID, and legitimately registered “New Earth Revival” as a 501(c)(3) non-profit upon purchase of the property. Agents who pay the church a visit will note an inordinate number of RV/campers parked on the grounds, housing the 20-25 followers of the New Earth Revival, as well as plenty of fuel cans for all the vehicles. They are all preparing for their church camping trip to Keith Lake, TX.
Clue- The Heavenly Banquet: A historic records search will reveal that “Lone” is an Ellis Island shortening of the French, “Longpré”. The Longpré surname (literally “long meadow”) is associated with the founding of an old order of French-Catholic heretics who call themselves Le Banquet Céleste (The Heavenly Banquet). Their heretical theology is apocalyptic, and they were rumored at the time (late 17th to early 18th centuries) to practice “cannibalism and vampiric magics.”
Search/interviews: Gilbert Lone is intimately familiar with the law, and will be cordial with the agents but demand that they adhere to search and seizure warrant protocols to the letter, going as far as to cite specific case law. He will project that he has nothing to hide, while actively blocking the Agents from searching the premises any way he can. If Mr. Lone is questioned directly about Calvin’s disappearance, he will mention Detective Mercer by name, and refuse to speak further without a lawyer present. His followers are less astute, and will be willing to make small talk with Agents, though they appear either unwilling or unable to provide the details of the church’s operations. They appear to fall into a malaise if they think too hard about it.
The Truth
Le Banquet Celeste: Gilberte Pascal Lone is a ghoul. He comes from a long lineage of sorcerous ghouls, and counts himself as the last living founder of Le Banquet Céleste, putting him chronologically at nearly 270 years old. “New Earth Revival” is a front to recruit the necessary helpers needed to perform “The Earthly Feast”, a group ritual for ghoul transformation exclusive to Le Banquet Céleste. Most of Lone’s active followers are under his hypergeometric influence, unperturbed by what they are commanded to do. When Mr. Lone discovered that Calvin Todd was informing State PD of the church's activities, he decided that Calvin would bear the honor of being his final sacrifice. As such, Calvin is chained to a chair in the basement of the out-building, half-conscious and “marinating” in a grow-room with Mr. Lone’s Flowers. Even if agents manage to save Calvin, he will be terminally plagued with the flesh-urges of a ghoul.
Brugmansia Longpreum: The flowers in Mr. Lone’s basement grow-room are the centuries-long work of Le Banquet Céleste, culminating in a near perfect assistive substance for participating in “The Earthly Feast”. The ritual will take place 48 hours after the Agents begin to investigate, at a muddy campground near Keith Lake, TX, the destination of the church campout.
Gilberte’s Journal: This leather-backed tome is branded GPL on the cover, and contains a narrative recounting of Lone’s life, occult practice, and journey to America. It appears to be written as so to be shared with his cultists in sermon form. Gilberte keeps it locked in his desk in the church, or on his person at the campsite in TX. Language: French Study Time: Weeks Unnatural: +5% SAN loss: 1D6 Rituals: The Earthly Feast (Ageless Banquet variant)
The Vectors
Gilbert Pascal Lone
Stats
STR: 18 CON: 24 DEX: 15
INT: 12 POW: 20 CHA: 15*
HP: 24 WP: 20 SAN: n/a BP: n/a
Armor: Resilient(HG p.200)
Skills
Alertness (70%) Athletics (85%) Bureaucracy (40%) Foreign Language: English (60%) Foreign Language: French (80%) Law (50 %) Religion (50%) Stealth (90%) Occult (70%) Unarmed Combat (40%) Unnatural (40%) Track(Scent) (65%)
Attacks
Bony Claws 40%, 1d8, AP 3
Abilities
*Charnel Visage (HG p.199)
Gift of the Grave (HG p.199)
Inhuman Agility (HG p.199)
Life Underground (HG p.199-200)
Mephitic Memories (HG p.200)
Worry and Rip(HG p.200)
Rituals
The Earthly Feast (a variant of Ageless Banquet[HG p.174] that transforms surviving participants into ghouls, a process with a lethality rating of 20%)
Changeling Feast(HG p.175), Charnel Meditation(HG p.175), Clairvoyance(HG p.176),
Exaltation of the Flesh(HG p.179), Exchange Personalities(HG p.179), Fascination(HG p.180),
Withering(HG p.187)
New Earth Revival Cultist (Revivalists)
Stats
STR: 11 CON: 10 DEX: 9
INT: 10 POW: 12 CHA: 8
HP: 10 WP: 12 SAN: 45 BP: 36
Skills
Criminology (40%) Firearms (30%) Melee (40%) Unarmed (50%)
Attacks
Unarmed, 50%, 1d4-1
Improvised Bludgeon, 40%, 1d6
Firearm, 30%, 1d10
Credits
This was an entry to the 2021 shotgun scenario contest. Written by IntrepidT
The scenario can be seen in its original google docs form here