Handler's Brief:
Players are a squad of Soldiers during the Battle of the Somme, November 9th 1916, under a full moon their mission is to raid an enemy trench in preparations for a major push. At the same time an Entity visits the battlefield.
What is the Entity?
The Wild Hunt is a large incorporeal multidimensional Entity travelling through real space, it influences a 6km wide sphere.
What does it want?
The Wild Hunt is looking to revitalise itself before moving on, whether that means consuming the life essence of humans, simply mapping the stars to correct its course or basking in Hypergeometric energies. Most Players will never know.
How is it perceived by Humans?
The Radiation, Hypergeometric frequencies or Celestial parasites it emits is perceived by humans as an intense mind breaking episode of Apophenia and Pareidolia that increases as they near the centre of the Entity.
The Night Assault:
The Players are summoned by their CO from their dugouts to conduct a raid. The destruction or capture of the local array of Machine Guns, Fortified Bunkers are the main objectives, with intelligence gathering and reconnaissance as secondaries.
Raider Preparations:
- The Players should blackening faces, acquire suitable weaponry, tie down or abandon noisy equipment.
- The use of Bureaucracy, Search, Persuade or Luck Tests can help determine the availability of better equipment to the Squad. Extra grenades, body armour or superior weapons.
Over the Top:
Successful raiding lives and dies on stealth. The Players gain bonuses or negatives based on their Preparations. Those laden with equipment will struggle to sneak while those under equipped will find it easier. Night and the Wild Hunt are their largest assistants, however repeated failures will prompt enemy gunfire or an Illumination Flare being used to reveal them.
Night Bonus to Stealth: +30
Lightly Equipped: +15
Heavily equipped: -15
Battlefield Illumination Flares: -30
Using Bonds:
To conserve minds from the horrors to come Players can use their bonds by Writing Home. A small dictated letter contemplating or describing the horrors witnessed. Likely to be collected and distributed by those that survive the war unaware of the unnatural taint.
The First Symptoms:
Leaving their trench and entering the Wild Hunt's influence radius. The first symptoms exhibited are subtle yet persistent apophenia, visual hallucinations. Each stage progresses with exposure. First stage hallucinations induce low sanity loss: (1/D4)
- Snowflake pattern lights flicker in the ground.
- Falling stars swirling through the sky.
- Human figures and faces in the mud and debris piles.
- Clouds move strangely in the wind momentarily invoking images of feathered wings or stamping hooves.
- Small fairies scamper along the battlefield.
History, Anthropology, Occult Successes can draw a loose connection with the Folklore surrounding Yuletide and the Wild Hunt.
The earliest patterns visible should be recognizable with successful Intelligence or Alertnesstness rolls. Featuring basic symmetrical shapes and ancient runes of Germanic or Norse heritage.
No Man's Land:
- A marshy mess of craters, churned mud, a maze of barbed wire and littered with the dead and dying.
- Stealth tests shouldn't be taken to move, only when speaking or when failing a test.
- Hallucinations should hamper the Players no matter the situation, becoming progressively impossible to ignore.
No Man's Lands Obstacles:
1)A Minefield halts the Players, a successful -20 Demolition is needed to progress through. Or -10 Navigation can be used to avoid it.
2)Players encounter a series of craters filled with settled chlorine gas. Successful Athletics or Luck required to avoid accidents.
3)Determined by Stealth or Alertness tests the Players are ambushed or ambush an enemy raiding party. Disguise or Language skills can be used to avoid conflict.
4)Players encounter The Stallion, a glossy black horse entangled in barbed wire and torn to shreds. It silently fights to free itself. (Unnatural D4/D6)
The longer Players are exposed they begin to notice Fractal patterns contained within the Iris, Hair, Blood, Organs and the steamy breathing of the horse.
If freed It will jump swirling into the night sky.
5)Players encounter a crying newborn swaddled in golden spiral patterned cloth and tucked into a crevice. (Unnatural 1/D4) It will give away their position unless soothed, reaching for them with tiny limbs. A Successful Sanity test is required to break the hallucination. Revealing an undetonated Hales 10lb Bomb, ticking from within mistaken as crying. A Successful -20 Demolition Or -20 Dexterity to avoid detonation.
6)Players encounter a plump naked woman with fiery red hair striding through the battlefield. Unnaturally beautiful and perfectly symmetrical, an aura of wavy patterns distort the world around her. A Winged Helmet crowns her head, wordless otherworldly allure targets the lowest POW Player. A Half POW Test must be passed or the Player succumbs to temptation. The Player must be restrained or will be carried off to join the wild hunt. Resulting in Instant death.
The Enemy Trench
- The Enemy Trench appears abandoned; distant screams and shouts in foreign languages along with gunfire are heard. Waterlogged, countless nooks and crannies, homemade alarm systems and the occasional trap can be found.
- The Hallucinations within the Trench increase dramatically. Having driven the defenders insane. Encounters with abandoned posts or deranged soldiers become common. A deranged battle is raging across the trench line.
Further Symptoms:
Players entering the Enemy Trench develop second stage exposure. The symptoms exhibited are ever present Visual, Physical, Audio hallucinations. Second stage hallucinations induce sanity loss: (D4/D8)
- The pinprick stars twirl adhering to the golden ratio.
- Howling horns, distant drums, chanting along with the sounds of battle are heard from above and below.
- Cryptic words or full sentences can be found appearing made of anything.
- Act or move to the tempo of unheard musical tunes or rhythms.
- Radio signals on the wind.
- Delusions suffering from inexplicable understanding, random explanations and conclusions.
- Morse code messages in distant artillery.
- Mounted riders stampede through the sky and occasionally swoop down, pursuing unseen prey.
- Recognize natural patterns and symmetrical designs on their skin and hair.
Enemy Trench Goals:
The main obstacles are the persistent Hallucinations, however Wandering Mad Men should be present to engage the Players in Combat or Conversation (50/50) to spice things up.
Hallucinations increase alongside Player exposure to the Wild Hunt. Completing one goal before retreating will spare Players the Final Stage of exposure, however completing Two increases Individual chance of development to a Luck test. Players completing all objectives always develop the Final Symptoms.
If the Players separate to cover more ground, apply overexposure to the characters that visit the Command Bunker or otherwise waste time.
- Capture or Destroy Machine Guns.
A series of emplaced weapons can be found all along the frontline relatively unguarded. Heavy Weapons and Strength successful tests to dismantle and haul individual Machine Guns. Explosives can be used to destroy with Demolitions, Heavy Weapons and Firearms can be used to sabotage ammunition, feeds or firing pins.
- Destroy Fortifications.
Numerous fortified Bunkers made to hold between 7-10 men can be found behind the frontline containing rabid soldiers trying to escape the Wild Hunt. Destroying a Bunker from outside requires a successful -30 Demolitions however inside provides +10 Demolitions.
- Stealing Military Intelligence
Stealing Intelligence requires the Players to locate and reach the Enemy Command Bunker by using any combination of successful Navigation, Language, Persuade, Disguise and Stealth tests. Depending on the situation.
However inside the Command Bunker the Players encounter the Officers of the Wild Hunt. Soldiers suffering the Final Stage of exposure. Converted into inhuman monsters that bleed through reality, illogical and nonsensical in form. The Officers’ shape, while humanoid constantly shifts as flesh and terrestrial materials combine and twist. OUT OF PHASE with reality the Officers are foes that should be scaled to be beaten. However, fleeing should always be an option.
During or after combat valuable maps, officer orders, troop movements, battle and casualty reports can be found with Accounting, Bureaucracy and Spot Tests.
Retreat:
With their goals completed the Players can begin the retreat. Those failing the Luck Test or Overexposed begin to suffer the Final Symptoms while moving through No man's land. Or when dramatically most suitable.
Final Symptoms:
Overexposed Players develop the Final Stage. The symptoms are uncontrollable aggression, hallucinations, unnatural senses and hypergeometric mutations.
- Fractal Growths provide the Player with 2 Armour and OUT OF PHASE.
- Insane understanding provides the Player with inherent knowledge of the Wild Hunt.
- The Player suffers from paranoid schizophrenic assumptions about other Players.
- Overstimulated, the human body begins to bleed congealed genetic material featuring visible DNA strands and other Patterns.
Outcomes:
With the high chance of mortality outcomes should be individual character epilogues. Whether Completing one or all objectives the surviving Players must pass a Luck Roll to determine if they survive the great war and make it home.
Sudden Death: Hard Mode
The industrial hell of WW1 made Death random and spontaneous. Rolling 90-100 results in sudden and instant death, be it a sniper, stray shot or random shrapnel. Hopeless Sanity Loss (D4/D8)
Officers of the Wild Hunt
Corrupted Soldiers.
STR 15 CON 15 DEX 16 INT 10 POW 10 CHA 10 HP 20 WP 10 SAN 0
ARMOUR: Fractal Growths provide 2 Armour and OUT OF PHASE.
OUT OF PHASE: Some entities weave in and out of our physical space from moment to moment. A damage or Lethality roll with an even number inflicts damage as usual. A roll with an odd number passes harmlessly through, inflicting no damage. Unless the entity’s description says otherwise, hypergeometry always inflicts full damage upon it.
SKILLS: Alertness 60%, Athletics 40%, Demolitions 40%, Firearms 50%, Heavy Weapons 40%, Melee Weapons 70%, Navigate 40%, Search 50%, Unarmed Combat 70%.
ATTACKS: Mutated Claw (2D6+1), Hypergeometric Bolt (1d8), Officers' Pistol (1d10)
Credits
Night Terrors was written by Lovecraft's Cat Herder for the 2024 Shotgun Scenario contest.
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I2MVCSS4mQZniICUAeymVA6I5f24slH0LfxPYGFgQ40/edit