SCOOP: MOTHMAN SIGHTINGS!
By Ross Payton
This scenario is designed for Phenomen-X or UFOwatch groups. Mothman has been spotted far outside his home of Point Pleasant, West Virginia and the PCs investigate the lead. It can be set in any forested area in the continental US.
(This scenario was already run as a RPPR Patreon game. Listen to it here).
Hook
Several videos showing a blurry brown winged humanoid in a forest along with hundreds of other reports have become minor viral sensations on social media. Mothman has migrated to a new forest. By default, it is Umatilla National Forest in Oregon, but any forested region away from West Virginia can work.
Phenomen-X assigns the PCs to investigate and develop as much content for the story as possible. They have expense accounts to pay for rental vehicles, hotels, and other incidental expenses.
What Really Happened
Holistic Endeavors, A health supplement company run by a cult called the Life Giver Church used teachings of “life giving angels” to create an addictive supplement to make money and recruit cult members. The cult’s teaching derive from an ancient Shub-Nigguruth sect. The new supplement contained minute amounts of Mother’s Milk and was incredibly addictive and mutagenic.
The supplement was too addictive and a cult member guarding the warehouse with the first batch consumed all of it in a single night. He transformed into an insectile humanoid creature with a moth-like appearance.
Mothman fled, flying to Vernon Clinton, a psychic who lived alone in a distant forest. Vernon still emitted a faint psychic signal that drew the creature to him.
Mothman
A human sized insect humanoid. Mothman is harmless but releases psychoactive spores that induce telepathy in humans. It cannot speak but spores allow telepathic communication. Mothman wants to rejoin with his mother and believes that being consumed by a
Haedi Nigritiae can accomplish that. He is building a stone altar in the forest to summon the entity.
Psychoactive Spores
Mothman continually emits spores in a 20 yard radius that induce telepathy in humans. They affect any human who breathes or makes skin contact. Telepathy lasts 1d10 days per hour of exposure. Once a character is affected, they are stunned for 1d6 rounds and must make a SAN check.
Success: The character loses 1 SAN after they realize they can hear Mothman even though he has no mouth. They have some control and realize they can stay in the guarded state as they are now. They can change states with a successful SAN check or by expending 2 WP.
Failure: The character loses 1d6 SAN from Unnatural and is in the open state. If the character does not panic, they can ponder their new ability and make an INTx5% check to learn how it works. Otherwise, it remains open. Characters can make a new check each day.
Telepathic States: A telepath with control can guard or open their mind.
Guarded: The character can communicate telepathically to any sapient being within its line of sight. Each link takes 1 WP to establish and lasts as long as the telepath remains within sight of the target. Non-telepaths make a 0/1 SAN check for hearing a foreign voice in their head.
Open: The telepath can communicate telepathically and read minds. They gain +20% to HUMINT and +10% to persuade and can boost this by +10% for every point of WP they spend. They can make a POWx5% roll to learn secrets from a target but this costs 0/1d6 SAN and 4 WP for each attempt. If the telepath uses their telepathy on a person with 1 or more hardened notches, a permanent mental disorder, or any points in the Unnatural skill, they must make a SAN check for 0/1d4 for seeing glimpses of their past trauma. This amount may be increased depending on the target’s mind. Using this ability on Stephen Alzis is a 1d10/1d100 SAN loss and a gentle chuckle from him.
The Capture Team
Holistic Endeavors sent a contractor and two cultists of the Life Giver Church to find and retrieve Mothman. The contractor spent the last year in Ukraine as a foreign fighter, building and flying FPV drones. He’s come back to capitalize on his skillset and found an employer in Holistic Endeavors.
The contractor operates out of a van. The two cultists have a rented box truck. They spend as much time as possible looking for Mothman. They all have radios.
The drones are equipped with thermal cameras to search for Mothman. See the stat block for other drone armaments.
Getting the Story
The PCs are given four witnesses to interview. They must shoot footage of the forest, especially at night. If they can find a local expert on cryptids, they should interview them as well.
The Witnesses
The witnesses are locals who recorded videos of Mothman and posted it to social media. All four videos show the entity in the distance at night. An expert can verify the videos are likely not AI-generated. It is impossible to tell if the subject is a person in a costume or not.
Max Caldwell - a stoner who works at a gas station. He went shroom hunting and saw Mothman building a stone altar. If interviewed, Max is happy to share his experience and point out Vernon Clinton as a ‘weirdo’ who knows more about Mothman.
Emma Richards - a believer in new age magic. She was out in the woods meditating when Mothman passed by. She only got a few seconds of footage before she tripped and dropped her phone. She distrusts Vernon.
Wanda Roberts - a hiker who went camping overnight. She had a close encounter with Mothman and breathed in his spores for hours. She developed telepathy and has stayed at home, waiting for it to subside. Reporters can talk to her but she refuses to talk to any cops. Her telepathy allows her to automatically succeed on all HUMINT checks. She answers questions before they are asked. This is a 0/1 SAN unnatural check.
Tracie Malone returned to the forest after talking to Phenomen-X producers. She wanted to get more footage of Mothman. She fell off a cliff at night and broke her neck. Mothman found her corpse and partially devoured it. Her phone was active for a day after she died so anyone who can geolocate the device can find her. She has not been reported missing yet but will be in a day.
The Local Cryptid Expert
Vernon the psychic healer is locally known as an expert in the occult and cryptids. He runs workshops on meditation and other new age topics. He has self-published books on local legends and cryptids, including Batsquatch, a creature like Sasquatch with bat wings.
Vernon used to be a high ranking member of the Life Giver Church. He escaped after a disastrous ritual killed several members and left him with partial amnesia and minor telepathic ability. He reinvented himself as a New Age guru who could heal with crystals. He received only middling success but managed to buy a cabin in the forest. Mothman picked up on his dreams and visited him.
Vernon shelters Mothman during the day in a cave near his cabin. At night, Mothman leaves to eat mushrooms and carrion and build a stone altar for the ritual. Vernon has no idea of Mothman’s plans.
Phenomen-X reporters find talking to Vernon easy. He loves attention and is eager to reach new audiences. He doesn’t reveal his personal connection to Mothman unless he can be persuaded that the PCs are trustworthy or can give him national attention. If he likes the PCs, he’ll ask them to come back at night and be prepared for a night outside.
Exploring the Forest
Mothman hides the day, so the PCs can’t find him then, but they can find other things like:
1. Drones sweeping the area: The contractor looking for Mothman
2. Vernon on a walk. He’s happy to talk.
3. Cultists posing as hikers. Inept at hiking and acting very suspiciously.
4. Tracie Malone’s corpse.
5. Trace elements of psychoactive spores. 0/1 unnatural SAN loss as the character briefly feels a connection to another nearby character.
6. Mothman’s stone altar
The Ritual
If the PCs spend enough time in the forest at night, they’ll find Mothman and his stone altar. The PCs can communicate with Mothman. It is a peaceful being and happy to explain its life story. It has muddled memories of its past but knows that the Life Giver Church created the supplement that transformed it into its current form. It describes the Black Goat as a Goddess of all life and wants to rejoin her. This is all communicated via telepathy so it cannot be recorded.
Finale
If not stopped, Mothman summons the entity at some point in the next few days and dies in its maw, happily rejoining with its god. The monster eats any humans in the vicinity. The contractor and two cultists can show up to interfere with the investigation at any time.
Stats
Mothman
A seven foot humanoid insect with moth wings. It is strong, fast, and silent, but completely peaceful. It remembers enough of its human life to understand English and human technology but is completely obsessed with rejoining the Black Goat via ritual consumption.
STR 18 CON 18 DEX 18 INT 8 POW 20 CHA 10
HP 18 WP 20
Armor: 2 points of exoskeleton.
Skills: Alertness 70%, stealth 80%, Athletics 60%, Dodge 50%
Attacks: None - the Mothman will not strike another living being, even to defend itself.
Psychoactive Spores: See the section above for the spores.
SAN loss: 1/1d6
The Contractor
STR 10 CON 10 DEX 13 INT 15 CHA 8 POW 10
HP 10 WP 10 SAN 45
Adapted to violence.
Skills: Alertness 55%, Stealth 45%, SIGINT 65%, Pilot: Drones 65%, Firearms 45%
Attacks: handgun 45% 1d10 damage and drones
Drones
HP 4
Small size: -10% on all ranged attack rolls. Don’t forget to add in range and visibility modifiers.
Skills: Drones use the skill of the operator. A drone can dodge attacks with a Pilot: Drones skill check.
Loadouts: All drones are equipped with cameras. Scout drones are unarmed but have thermal cameras, +20% to Alertness and Search checks for warm-blooded animals.
Armed drones can be equipped with any of the weapons
Experimental shock net: 35%. Inflicts stun on targets (p. 55 of agent’s handbook). A drone can only carry 1 net.
Tranq dart drone - 40% accuracy. Payload of 6 darts. Darts inflict 1 damage and require a CONx5 check for 1d4 rounds or the target passes out.
IED drones - 10% lethality attack in 1 meter radius. Attacks with the Pilot: Drone skill.
Fire bomb drones - 1d10 damage in a 2 meter radius. All targets are caught on fire. Attacks with the Pilot Drone skill.
Cultists of the Life Giver Church
Loyal members of the Church who have killed before. Both have been instructed to follow the orders of the Contractor but don’t trust him. Zealots to the cause.
STR 14 CON 14 DEX 12 INT 8 CHA 8 POW 8
HP 14 WP 8 SAN 20
Adapted to Violence and Helplessness
Obsession: True Believer in the Life Giver Church
Skills: Alertness 45%, Stealth 50%, Athletics 50%, Unarmed 60%, Firearms 40%, Melee Weapons 50%
Attacks: Knife 50% 1d4+1 damage. Handgun 40% 1d10 damage.
Vernon Clinton, local psychic
STR 8 CON 12 DEX 8 INT 12 CHA 16 POW 16
HP 10 WP 16 SAN 50
Amnesia: Does not remember the first 30 years of his life, except in his dreams.
Adapted to Helplessness
Skills: Alertness 40%, Occult 65%, HUMINT 80%, Persuade 50%, Survival 50% Unnatural 10%
Attacks: Carving Knife 30% 1d4 damage.
Minor Psychic: Vernon is not telepathic but receives no SAN check for receiving telepathic communications. He is highly attuned to the emotions of others, reflecting his high HUMINT skill. When he sleeps, his dreams can be ‘heard’ by certain psychics, including Mothman. He is immune to Mothman’s spores.
Credits
SCOOP: Mothman Sightings was written by Ross Payton for the 2025 Shotgun Scenario contest.
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wawJ8SQgQjAXLFibwYG3b914KjEq2nsHlBQ130asG44/edit