THE PULSE OF THE MACHINE
The Agents find themselves in the seedy underbelly of the early 90s club scene in New York where the upper echelon of the Fate make their home.
THE BRIEFING
Friday May 1, 2012 - New York City. Agents receive a plain manila interdepartmental mail envelope with a small green triangle on it. Inside is an index card with handwritten coordinates 40.752655, -73.977295 and the time, 04:00PM. Their names are the first and only names on the envelope. The coordinates bring them to Grand Central Station's Beaux-Arts concourse. A man in a disheveled blue suit and brown shoes is standing alone as commuters pass around him on all sides. He is white, in his early sixties, 5ft 11in, and thin from malnutrition rather than exercise. His cold blue eyes look over you appraisingly. Your Handler tells you this:
Two weeks ago (April 20th) we deployed agents to investigate an incident brought to our attention by a nurse at Cedar-Sinai - she was treating a slew of kids who were left in their waiting room catatonic Sunday morning April 12th. When they came down from whatever the fuck they were on, they all said they'd taken something called Aklo at a Club Apocalypse pop-up, and in her report, she stated they were murmuring something about the Dreamlands. We got a ping when she put it into their database.
Which brings us to Miguel. This loser piece of shit is apparently a low level dealer with a rap sheet dating back a decade - forgery, robbery, aggravated assault - real winner here. We sicced our agents on him and they went dark. All of them were wetwork guys, I wasn't expecting not to hear from them. So now we got you here. Go find out what happened to them and why 16 year old weirdos are talking about the Dreamlands. Here.
He hands you a dossier on Miguel "MIgsy" Alvarado, a 24 year old hispanic man, 5ft 10in, 250lbs, residing in the Bowery @ 32 E 3rd St, Apartment 607. A heavy set man glares at the camera with facial piercings and facial tattoos. The report lists distinguishing marks - his arms are covered with tasteless flash tattoos of snakes and devils and on his forearm is a stylized eye with a jagged spiral around it.
THE BOWERY
In the pre-Giuliani area, the Bowery was known for destitution, vice, and crime and a hotspot for crack-cocaine. Migsy's apartment can introduce all kinds of human threats to the Agent's progress, but we'll focus on his sixth floor apartment, which is a disaster. Gaining entry won't be an issue - the lock is broken and the door only remains closed by some grace. Agents are instantly assaulted by the smell of cigarette butts, stale beer, body odor, and urine. The once beige carpet is a dark grey from foot traffic and piles of food containers, street flyers, newspapers, and miscellaneous other crap are strewn everywhere. The couch in the center of the room looks like a biohazard and the coffee table in front of it is covered with drug paraphernalia. An old tube-style TV sits on a milk crate with a VHS player connected. The VHS player is empty, as is the apartment. The single bedroom has three twin mattresses on the ground w/o sheets; the single bathroom could be worthy of a SAN check for helplessness. Here's what's important:
1. AGENTS WITH HIGH FORENSICS/ALERTNESS immediately find composited photocopied flyers that read
CLUB APOCALYPSE WAREHOUSE POP UP! ONE NIGHT ONLY SATURDAY MAY 2nd! MEET UP LOCATION 8PM - 10PM. FREE! WITH YOUR HOSTS DJs MIGSY, F-THLAG, AND AZLIS.
The Meetup Spot: 281 11th Ave
2. THE DRUG PARAPHERNALIA IS FOR DISTRIBUTION, NOT USE. Residue from a pale blue powder is all over the coffee table. Lab testing reveals it's just a street-diluted snortable hydromorphone, but this takes a week to get the results back. This isn't Aklo, but maybe the Agents believe it is.
THE MEETUP
281 Eleventh Avenue is a parking lot. Two large men in fishnet sleeveless T-shirts displaying their tattoos appear formidable, both displaying the same forearm tattoo as Migsy. Depending on the agent's approach and attire, this could be a PERSUADE scenario or a combat encounter. Either way,
If asked about the party address, it's at 220 12th Ave, a warehouse around the corner. Tonight's password is "Leng".
If asked about Aklo, the agents will eventually discover they need to talk to Miguel at the party, then Azlis.
If asked about Migsy, the two men will look at you like you have two heads, his name's on the flyer, isn't it?
THE CLUB
The long 20,000SF warehouse space sits on the Hudson River. The entrance is at the north end of the building. When the agents approach, they notice the windows are blacked out with soap and only the faint sounds of music can be heard. A diesel generator hums outside next to a 1970s era 22ft Winnebago Chieftain. Large conduits and cables are running into the building. Clubgoers are seen approaching a single metal door. A sliding plate opens, the password is given, and revelers are allowed entry. When the doors open the music, common house music, is heard loudly for a moment. The two bouncers at the door wear the same forearm tattoo and have wands for metal detection.
The club is one long tunnel focused on a DJ booth at the far end. The warehouse is filled with clubgoers of all ages - kids revolting against their parents, socialites who want to be seen. Visuals are projected on the walls, always changing but hypnotic, with flashes of foreboding landscapes flash among them meant to trigger sensitive ones. Agents should make a POW test here or become entranced with the combination of the music and the videos. If they fail the POW test, roll SAN 0/1 from unnatural - a failure results in a distinct vision of the barren landscape, monstrous creatures flying around, a purple sky, and a black sun. They quickly snap out of it and return to the mission.
Finding Migsy in the crowd is easy, he's in the DJ booth with the other DJs listed on the flyer. Every once in a while one of the men standing security near them will call him down, and an exchange is made. Cash is handed over, the patron snorts something, then another DJ comes down, says something to them, and they're escorted into a backroom with a neon sign that displays VIP. Some patrons only snort something and wander back into the crowd to dance and enjoy their narcotics.
WHAT'S HAPPENING HERE: Sensitive clubgoers are triggered by the visuals and go to find Migsy. They're given an opiate to put them in a susceptible state. Azlis whispers "Aklo" to them, triggering a mental connection to the Dreamlands.
Breaching the VIP room via STEALTH/PERSUASION finds the agents in the rear loading docks of the building with an overhead door open to the River. Clubgoers have been laid in rocklike coffins, an ethereal mist coming off of them and being drawn through conduits outside, costing 0/1 SAN from unnatural. There are approximately 10 setups here, and 3 of the patrons appear to be desiccated. A small pile of 10 black body bags weighted down with rocks are sitting outside, including the Delta Green agents who were lost. Finding them costs 1/2 SAN from helplessness. All of the bodies are dessicated and nearly unrecognizable. Two more bouncers outside plan on disposing of them in the river after a smoke break.
If confronted, the bouncers will use walkie talkies to connect with the other bouncers' earpieces, triggering a confrontation of up to 6 bouncers (cultists) on the loading docks.
Agents can follow the conduit outside and to the north, toward the Winnebago (whether they're being chased by six cultists or have avoided 2). The conduits terminate on an 8FT shipping container cube holding a slightly smaller cube made of thick acrylic. Inside is a six-chambered black heart suspended by wires and roughly 5ft tall and 4ft wide. The mist is coalescing onto the heart, and the heart is absorbing it (1/2 SAN from unnatural). As they watch, a thick black ichor drips from the heart, creating a brief oily shimmer when it lands. And then it beats.
On the first beat, roll SAN 0/2 unnatural. Those who fail experience a vision of New York displaced in the Dreamlands.
From behind, Migsy & Alzis are running up. The heart beats again. On the second beat, the vision is of New York overrun by Ghouls and Night-Gaunts (SAN 1/1d4 unnatural)
Alzis arrives and asks Lord Migsy to take care of this. The Agents can attempt to kill both, but Alzis is a powerful sorcerer with every hypergeometry available to him. If he dies, he simply disappears, only to be found in perfect health later.
In combat, let an agent with the highest POW roll per round for the group to avoid the heart's effects. Each time it does, they lose SAN 1/1d4 from unnatural and have another vision.
STAT BLOCKS
Bouncerscultists of The Fate
STR 17 CON 16 DEX 12 INT 7 POW 7 CHA 9HP 17 WP 7 SAN 0
SKILLS: Alertness 50%, Criminology 15%, Dodge 40%,Firearms 40%, HUMINT 25%, Melee Weapons 60%,Persuade 40%, Pharmacy 55%, Psychotherapy 30%,Stealth 50%, Unarmed Combat 60%.
ATTACKS:
Knives 1D6+2, Armor Piercing 3.Unarmed 60%, damage 1D4+1.Batons 1D4+2.
Migsy
STR 14 CON 16 DEX 12 INT 10 POW 7 CHA 14HP 15 WP 7 SAN 0
SKILLS: Alertness 50%, Criminology 15%, Dodge 40%,Firearms 40%, HUMINT 25%, Melee Weapons 60%,Occult 60%, Persuade 40%, Pharmacy 55%, Psychotherapy 30%,Stealth 50%, Unarmed Combat 60%.
ATTACKS: Knives 1D6+2, Armor Piercing 3.Unarmed 60%, damage 1D4+1.Batons 1D4+2.HYPERGEOMETRY: Wither
Credits
THE PULSE OF THE MACHINE was written by Trebuchet Doomsday for the 2025 Shotgun Scenario contest.
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1URpWr8l0ssq_61yV8LH3c4y-218yx22R7aFfJFGHQTQ/edit