The Madness That Silence Brings
CW: Stalking, Gore, Idea of Hallucinations
Description:
Agents are tasked with taking care of a friendly gone rogue.
Setting:
This Scenario is setting agnostic, the only requirement is that it happens after the invention of the television. It can be run with both the program, and the outlaws.
Briefing:
The handler informs the agents ‘the group’ has received ‘reliable information’ that a friendly, named Graham McCormack (he/him), has gone rogue. Feel free to keep the specifics vague, but if players would like to dig deeper, feel free to come up with credible info (i.e. reports of him meeting with persons of interest to the program.)
Agents are given:
- Burner phone
- Addresses of 2 green boxes in the area:
- Easy Store it
- Ron's storage and BBQ
- Operating funds
- McCormack’s address
The Green Boxes
The green boxes will be mostly empty, only containing tools, supplies, and the most overtly unnatural artifacts will remain. Anything of high value was taken. A successful search roll (40%) will reveal that the artifacts and supplies were taken over the course of months, and most of the supplies left over are either fairly cheap or not easily sellable.
McCormack's Background:
McCormack is a lifelong civil servant, across many areas of the government. He has never been married or in a long term relationship. Roughly nine months ago he was diagnosed with stage three pancreatic cancer and two months later his savings ran out paying for treatment. That is when he began to steal from the green boxes he knew of, starting with mundane items, then moving to the unnatural items.
McCormack's House:
McCormack's house is a small single-story house with his white Toyota hatchback out front. There are two doors, both locked, one on the front, one on the side. The side door is partially obscured by tall bushes at the front corners of the house. The windows are all completely covered with black spray paint. The front door opens into a small foyer connected to the living room in front and the kitchen to the right. The side door enters into a utility room which enters into the kitchen. Behind the living room is a hallway leading to two small bedrooms and a bathroom.
All reflective surfaces in the house are covered however they can be. Pipes are ripped out, mirrors are covered in duct tape, his newer tv is smashed and covered with a blanket.
McCormack’s body is in the recliner in the middle of the living room. There is no apparent damage to his body except that his eyes and forehead have exploded (Forensics/Biology 40% the explosion originated on the inside of his head). He appears to have been dead for two days as of the first day of the scenario. Phrases written in Sharpie cover his arms and legs: “it’s coming,” “it's here,” “I see them,” “the dark is safe,” and more, getting increasingly indecipherable.
One bedroom contains his files and records including: medical records, financial records, receipts of sale for the pawn shop detailing the items sold (most recent was 5 days ago and spans back months), keys and codes for the green boxes he's stolen from, a map on the wall with circles around the green boxes he's hit, and contact information for Pajak Shipping.
The other bedroom is in complete disarray. There's a sledgehammer on the floor in front of a crt television. The television is intact and is broadcasting static regardless of if it has power or not. It is partially covered with a blanket, but the static is visible to anyone opening the door. The TV has marks on it where it was hit with the sledgehammer, but is completely invulnerable to physical damage. In the closet is a sawed-off shotgun and six buckshot shells.
Anyone who looks at the static will need to make a sanity check (0/1d4) and also makes contact with a Being in the Static (Static Creature). Regardless of the result, any player laying eyes on this TV will be affected by the static until they’re pulled in or enact the ritual. Success - players will see a floater in their vision while looking at the TV. Failure - players will see a creature, which looks like the silhouette of a human, deep in the Static as if on the edge of their vision.
The Beings in the Static:
The Beings in the Static were once humans who got trapped in a space consisting completely of static and whose minds broke as a result. Upon noticing a static creature, players’ characters will know with 100% certainty that they made direct eye contact with the creature, regardless of the distance involved. The static creatures will then begin to wade through the static towards the character, slowly and slowly getting closer. Players affected will always be able to make out their static creature.
Players affected by the static will see either the creature or a persistent floater anytime they look into a reflective surface. Periodically they will need to make a sanity check and either lose 1WP or 1 SAN on a fail. If someone who is only seeing a floater fails, they will begin to see the static creature (making eye contact) and will lose 1d4 SAN.
The static creatures will approach the players regardless of whether or not they can be seen and will make it to the character after roughly 4 hours after seeing the tv. Upon reaching the player, the player character will feel the static creature grab their shoulders (1/1d4) and place its forehead against their own as if shoving it against theirs. The player will then need to make WPx5 checks to keep the static creature away, losing 1 WP on a success. On a failure, the player will feel as if their head is being shoved underwater and will slowly be pushed into the static world. They will be completely surrounded by a viscous static as far as the eye can see. At this point they are dead and will slowly devolve into a static creature themselves. Those around them when this happens see their head explode outwards around their eye area and an almost completely transparent human shape composed of a heat haze emerge.
Any haze creature will attempt to assist in the emergence of any static creature nearby, either through physically holding victims down or keeping them from reaching the booklet containing the symbols of protection.
The static creatures will always hunt those affected, but won't be able to cross over if the player has a symbol of protection on them, but if this symbol is damaged or lost, they will continue their approach.
Protection:
Your players can protect themselves by enacting a ritual found written in the margins of an owner’s manual for the television in McCormack’s house.
Protection from those beyond: (SAN: 1/1d4; WP: 2; HP: 1d4(carving), 1d2(tattoo), 1(drawing)) - Players must put the symbol of protection on their body, buy it only works as long as it's on their body, for it to work, the player must also give up either their vision or their dreams (literally or figuratively) this may be something like: losing partial vision/vision in one eye, losing foresight, losing future plans, losing a motivation, dreaming of the static world every time they dream for the rest of their life, etc.
The Pawn Shop:
The Pawn Shop owner will act like they don't know McCormack, but isn't good at holding up under duress. They keep records of the purchases and sales to Pajak (plus the location for the local Pajak branch) in their office on their computer (the password for their computer is on a sticky note under their desk).
The Pawn Shop will contain the last months worth of green box items in its back rooms. They have a recurring monthly sale for these items to Pajak Shipping. The Pawn Shop also has two security cameras inside and two cameras outside.
Pajak Moving Company:
The Pajak Moving Company is run by a cult of Tleche-Naka which seeks to collect and use unnatural artifacts, books, etc. In this scenario, three employees who aren't part of the cult help McCormack move artifacts, and pick up the artifacts from the pawn shop and store them at a barn on their property. All of these employees saw The Static, one died from it, one carved the symbol of protection in their arm, and the last drew it on with a pen but it’s coming off as the players approach them. They'll live/do business out of a single-story farmhouse. The employee who carved the symbol into their flesh is holding onto the tv manual that has the ritual in it and will not let go of it no matter what, but can be convinced to teach the agents the ritual.
Stat Blocks:
Haze Creature
STR: 18 CON: 18 DEX: 15 INT: 6 POW: 10 HP: 18 WP: 10
Attacks: Grapple 60%, Punch: 60% 2d4
Focused Coalescence: Haze creatures are immune to damage except when physically interacting with something, and then, they can only be hit on an even roll.
SAN Loss: 1/1d6
Credits
The Madness That Silence Brings was written by AdvanceWarsSami for the 2024 Shotgun Scenario contest.
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nRaoti0SA9xLakvuQtautDE4dNxVC0kpMG5j9BeXw-Q/edit