Ovoid
Penelope Hart was shot by police after taking hostages at the blood bank of a local hospital. When the police secured the body they realized that the blood from her wounds had been soaked up by a strange biological object she carried with her. The Agents are sent to investigate.
Background
The unnatural object is an egg containing a Spawn of Yog-Sothoth. It exerted psychic influence on Hart and demanded to be fed with blood.
More of these eggs exist, most in the possession of the Lord’s Quiver Assembly, a small Christian church aligned with the natalist Quiverfull movement.
Courtney Walker, founder of the church, grew up in a large Quiverfull family. But her own dreams of having a dozen children were shattered by her infertility. Desperate, she turned to obscure religious texts and stumbled upon the Book of the Redeemed Watcher.
Through a ritual in this book Walker made contact with the Redeemed Watcher, an avatar of Yog-Sothoth, which she believes to be an angel. The entity impregnated her and a few days later she gave birth to the first of these strange eggs. Feeling chosen by God, she founded the church and taught the ritual to other infertile women.
One of them was Elena Barnes. Before Barnes became a member of the church she was a regular at an infertility support group, where she befriended Penelope Hart and Maya Becker. In a desire to share her blessing, Barnes gave eggs to both of her friends.
The Agents must follow the trail to the source of the eggs and stop the Thing that has hatched from them.
The Lord’s Quiver Assembly
The name of the church hints at its alignment with the Quiverfull movement. Agents with Occult or Anthropology know about Quiverfull doctrine:
- Children are a gift from God.
- More children equate to more godly blessings.
- Birth control interferes with God’s plans.
Courtney Walker, the church’s founder and leader, has extended these beliefs with teachings from her Book of the Redeemed Watcher:
- The Redeemed Watcher is an angel-like figure, a “son of God”.
- It can make barren women fertile.
- It was this entity through which God granted children to biblical figures like Sarah and Hannah.
Only a dozen people are members of Walker’s church. Most of them women, all of them infertile.
Walker and her husband James own a dairy farm, which they turned into the church’s headquarters. Most of their followers have moved there.
The Eggs
The eggs are as big as an ostrich egg, but spherical. The “shell” is uneven, black and leathery. Incautious Agent can come under the psychic influence of the egg, triggered by any of the following:
- Skin contact
- Close proximity for more than an hour
- A failed Science (Biology) or Medicine roll when dissecting the egg
An Agent that hits one of these triggers loses 1/1D4 SAN and gains a Bond with the egg. The Bond score is 10 plus the amount of lost SAN. Each day under the egg’s influence costs an additional 1/1D4 SAN.
Agents with such a Bond have an urge to protect the egg. To resist this urge they have to fail a BONDx5 roll. Psychotherapy can reduce the Bond by 1D6 once per day.
Scientific investigation of an egg costs 1/1D4 SAN, but reveals the following:
- It absorbs human and animal blood.
- Dissection reveals a deformed humanoid fetus embedded in a gooey golden-orange crystal structure.
- It is partially made from resistant non-terrene matter, but is sensitive to cold.
Investigating Penelope Hart
Witnesses of the hostage situation can tell that she wanted access to the blood bank and that she was wearing something in a baby wrap around her chest.
Hart’s body is kept in the hospital morgue. She died from two gunshot wounds, to the neck and chest. The corpse has numerous needle marks, as if she had recently donated blood.
The egg, which was in the baby wrap, has been placed in a biohazard waste bin by first responders. So far no one had direct skin contact with it.
Hart lived alone after she and her husband divorced over their failure to conceive. Agents can find the following in the apartment:
- A newly bought crib and stroller
- IV catheters, blood bags and tubing
- A Macbook: the browser history and calendar show that Hart was active in an infertility support group and regularly attended local meet-ups.
- Call logs, text messages and photos on Hart’s phone reveal that Maya Becker and Elena Barnes were her closest contacts.
Addresses for the support group meet-up, Becker and Barnes are easy to find online and in public records.
The Support Group
Imogen Richards is the organizer of the local meet-ups. She can tell the Agents about Hart’s friendship with Becker and Barnes. None of the trio have come to the meetings lately.
Barnes was the first to stop coming after she was asked to stop proselytizing for her new church, the Lord’s Quiver Assembly. Richards still has a pamphlet for the church in her office. It lists the farm’s address in the countryside.
The Beckers
Maya and Sean Becker are noticeably anemic (pale skin, dizziness, fainting) from “donating” blood to their egg. They talk about it as if it is a real baby and keep it in a fully equipped kid’s room. They are very protective, but cooperate with law enforcement, as long as the egg isn’t threatened.
The Beckers have a Ring camera installed at their front door. Two weeks old footage shows Barnes placing a hamper with the egg on the door mat. Maya Becker knows Barnes’ address.
Elena Barnes
On a successful Luck roll Barnes is at home, otherwise she is at the farm or running errands for the church. Barnes always has her egg with her in a baby carrier.
She is unwilling to talk to law enforcement about her church. She flees to the farm if threatened and warns the others. If she is cornered, she is willing to make a deal with the Agents: she divulges all information about the church, if they let her keep her egg.
Searching Barnes’ apartment yields the following:
- A rotten smell from the trash can. Inside are blood-drained animal carcasses: hamsters, rabbits, cats, etc. (0/1 SAN from violence).
- Bottles of animal blood in the fridge and freezer.
- A staple of pamphlets for the Lord’s Quiver Assembly with the address of the Walker farm.
The Farm
Visitors to the farm are invited into the farmhouse, but steered away from the storage barn and root cellar. Courtney Walker exhaustively interviews anyone who shows interest in joining and fits the profile (Christian, open to Quiverfull ideology). Persuade allows an Agent to join the next church service. Anyone else is turned away.
If the Agents try to talk to any other church member they are politely referred back to the Walkers. With Alertness they might hear “children” mentioned but none can be seen anywhere on the farm.
Farmhouse: Where the church members live. Most women are apparently pregnant. The group does not seem to be heavily armed, but James Walker owns a shotgun and a hunting rifle.
Storage barn: Has been converted to a place of worship. Walker’s Book of the Redeemed Watcher lies on a table that serves as an altar. A church service is held daily, during which Walker reads from the book and the Opening of the Womb prayer is spoken.
Root cellar: Located next to the storage barn. This is where the church members store their eggs. They call it the [[[#h.rff8ljynfqd3 | nursery]]]. At least one church member is inside at all times to take care of the “children”. Occasionally one of the pregnant women enters the root cellar and emerges again a little later, her stomach noticeably flatter.
Cattle barn: Surprisingly empty of livestock. James Walker has started to slaughter and butcher the cows in a recently erected annex. The meat and blood is fed to the “children”. The Agents might observe him transporting blood in a milk churn to the root cellar.
The Nursery
Anyone entering the root cellar must roll POWx5. On a failure they see a lovingly furnished children’s bedroom with brightly colored walls, oversized teddy bears, etc. In the middle of the room is a large crib in which a group of adorable human babies looks curiously at the Agents. The only strange thing is the blood around the crib and the old delivery bed in a corner of the room.
Succeeding the roll reveals the truth: multiple spawns have hatched from the eggs and merged into a single Thing. The warped upper bodies of a dozen infants extrude from a fleshy blob that fills the whole crib. Numerous tentacles emerge from this mass and reach through the bars towards the Agents.
The Thing attacks anyone not under its thrall. Those under its influence are permitted another POWx5 roll anytime they witness violence against their fellow Agents. Alternatively, successful Psychotherapy or Persuade rolls can remove the psychic influence.
Stats
NPCs
Maya and Sean Becker
Alloparents
STR 10 CON 10 DEX 12 INT 10 POW 10 CHA 10
HP 10 WP 10 SAN 36 BREAKING POINT 30
SKILLS: Alertness 20%, Athletics 30%, Melee Weapons 30%, Unarmed Combat 40%
ATTACKS: Unarmed 40%, 1D4-1
Kitchen knife 30%, 1D4, AP 3
Baseball bat 30%, 1D8
DISORDERS: Obsession (Caring for the egg)
Church member
Arrows of Yog-Sothoth
STR 10 CON 10 DEX 12 INT 10 POW 10 CHA 10
HP 10 WP 10 SAN 15 BREAKING POINT 10
SKILLS: Alertness 20%, Athletics 30%, Melee Weapons 40%, Unarmed Combat 40%
ATTACKS: Unarmed 40%, 1D4-1
Blunt object 40%, 1D6
Meat cleaver 40%, 1D6, AP 3
Wood Axe 40%, 1D10
Shotgun 40%, 2D8
Hunting rifle 40%, 1D12+2, AP 5
DISORDERS: Obsession (Caring for the children), Megalomania
The Thing in the Crib
Wilbur Whateley’s siblings
STR 25 CON 20 DEX 10 INT 10 POW 10
HP 23 WP 10
ARMOR: See UNNATURAL BIOLOGY
ATTACKS: Grasping tentacles 40%, 1D10 or grappling (see SUCKLING)
Ovipositor 40%, 1D6, (see OVIPOSITOR)
AURA OF INNOCENCE: Anyone in the vicinity of the Thing must succeed on a POWx5 to perceive its true form. On a failure the victim instead perceives it as something innocent and worthy of protection, like a group of infants.
HALF-TERRENE: The Thing’s inhuman biology can withstand exposure to toxins, acid, fire and more. Any damage from those sources is halved. However, it is surprisingly sensitive to low temperatures. Exposure to sources of extreme cold like dry ice, liquid nitrogen, etc. does 1D10 damage per turn.
OVIPOSITOR: A tentacle pierces the target’s skin and flesh and begins pumping an orange-golden liquid into the target, which accumulates in the inner organs. The target has to roll CONx5. On a failure they become host to an egg in their womb or stomach.
SUCKLING: In any turn after the Thing has a victim grappled and pinned, the red, sucking mouths of its (usually concealed) tentacles greedily suck blood from the victim’s veins. This reduces the victim’s STR by 1D4 per turn without requiring an action by the spawn. Each point of STR drained heals the Thing of 1 lost HP.
(At zero STR, the victim dies. A victim who survives regains 1 STR for each day of bed rest.)
UNNATURAL BIOLOGY: The physiology of the Thing would baffle any biologist. Making a called shot for “vitals” or another apparently vulnerable area inflicts normal damage, with no special game effect. After death, the body quickly deteriorates, leaving only a sticky, golden mass of unearthly biomatter behind.
SAN LOSS: 1/1D10
Tomes
Book of the Redeemed Watcher
In English. Study time: days. Occult +3%, Unnatural +3%, SAN loss 1D4.
This ancient text was first translated from Ge’ez (Classical Ethiopic) by a Scottish missionary in the late 19th century. Even among scholars of the Biblical apocrypha it is hardly known.
The text tells of an angelic being, the Watcher, that has fallen from God’s grace for fathering a child with a human woman. However, through the child’s godly deeds the angel is redeemed and can serve God once again.
The text contains multiple verses of a prayer to this entity, in both a translated version as well as a transliteration of the original Ge’ez. An entity called “Yagosotot” appears in the prayer multiple times, without corresponding translation.
RITUALS: Opening of the Womb
Rituals
Opening of the Womb
Simple ritual. Study time: hours; 1D4 SAN. Activation: minutes; 1D4 SAN.
This ritual only works for biologically female operators. They have to recite the prayer in Classical Ethiopic. When they next sleep they have vivid dreams of an unfathomable entity beyond space and time to which they feel a deep connection. The next day they are visibly pregnant and 1D6 days later they give birth to an egg. If this egg is regularly fed with blood, a Spawn of Yog-Sothoth hatches from it after 3D6 days.
Credits
Ovoid was written by Hendrik for the 2025 Shotgun Scenario contest.
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SaypmTNyx1D27U8VuMv4bd8Ahbb5QsIn6W6fEWDYJcs/edit