After Sundown One-Shot - Help!

[malak]

I'm trying to get my regular D&D group interested in After Sundown. I am planning to make a one shot for our next session.

I thought about making it a shlocky 80ies horror movie kind of thing, a Slasher/Zombie crossover. We generally have long sessions, 8 hours or so with maybe 6 hours playtime. So I think I will start with the slasher killing of people, but the victims don't stay dead.


However, having never played any white wolf games or even After Sundown as a player, I have some questions.

How would I best build the slasher creature? I mean, the fluff is easy, but how to get it done in a way that the characters don't just gang up on him and take him out? (Which is probably what they would do in D&D).


I think shamblers only should be fine for zombies, maybe if the players kill the slasher, it could come back as 'zomthing better'.


Anyone here got some tips and tricks for GMing this, or maybe did something similar in the past?

[Whipstitch]

Soul Investment is definitely worth a look for your villain. Upon death it lets you take over the body of a prepared host and go right back to business. It combos pretty well with Songs in the Dark or Reanimate.

[Pixels]

Or perhaps the villain is a luminary infected with the Z-Virus that he has been spreading. When he "dies" he comes back as a Revenant, maybe with a few extra powers (War Form?) for the right dramatic effect.

[pragma]

I've only run one AS game, so take this with a grain of salt, but I think an origin story is a great way to ramp people up to the mechanics of the game while allowing a stalker with relatively few powers to remain a threat. If he's got the extra initiative pass power and the veil power he can keep the players busy for a while.

[Grek]

A real easy slasher would actually be a frenzying Nezumi, surprisingly enough. For optional powers, take Restoration, Aura of Decay and Indomitability. For the Abyss of the Body pick, take the Z-Virus. Now you have a situation where the players are forced to spend the night in a rat-infested boarded up mansion where all the rats are secretly working for the Nezumi that lives here and carry the Z-virus with their bites. The Nezumi itself lurks around the place invisibly using a combination of Veil and the fact that it can turn into a rat. If someone attacks it, it uses Aura of Decay to no-sell the attack, then flees into the endlessly moldering walls. If killed as a rat, it comes back to life as a man at moonrise, attacking with weapons instead of sorcery in a last ditch effort to drive away the intruders.

[malak]

Wow, great tips, thanks.

I like the infected with the Z-Virus idea. Abyss of the Body seems more suitable in this context than Reanimate, as I feel zombies work better when not direct, not under intelligent control, but simply as a mindless hungry herd.

The intention is indeed to have an origin story, a main advantage being that the players don't need to know anything about the world and learn everything naturally in-game.

Restoration and Indomitability are great ideas, but I'm not so sure about Nezumi/Lycantropy. Slasher and Zombies seems crossover enough for the start, not sure I want to mix it with were-whatever - it' s a good idea but I prefer something closer to what people would think when they hear 'slasher', a guy in a hockey mask or so.


So:

Core Discipline: Fortitude

Basic Powers:

- Patience of Mountains (Basic Fortitude)
- Revive the Flesh (Basic Fortitude)
- Quickness (Basic Celerity)
- Abyss of the Body: Z-Virus (Basic Descent of Entropy)
- Hide from Notice (Basic Veil)

Advanced Powers:

- Restoration (Advanced Fortitude)
- Indomitability (Advanced Fortitude)
- Hide in Plain Sight (Advanced Veil)

Unsure if too powerful:
- Alacrity (Advanced Celerity)
- Adaptive Resilience (Celerity and Fortitude)


This should make the slasher hard to kill, he is able to fight the party with the additional init passes and can vanish again after an attack. That he transmits the Z is a nice side effect, I am not sure if I even want to make him aware of it...


I think I will build him as Media Res character otherwise - is that strong enough, too strong or too weak for a party of three or four origin-story characters?

[Grek]

If you want to make him not be aware of the fact, don't give him Abyss of the Body. Give in an untreated Z-Virus infection.

Alacrity+Indomitability puts him roughly on par with 3 PCs all by himself as far as action economy goes. He probably doesn't need Adaptive Resilience, but you could just have him run out of power points/fail to use it during the final fight if it turns out that he's too tough otherwise.

[malak]

Hm, good point, thanks.

But I really like Abyss of the Body, so now he's aware of it.

[malak]

Hm - I would like to force them to make some tests to keep their stomach contents inside their bodies after seeing some especially gruesome scene.

What would be the right test for that?

Probably Strength because it's toughness, but I think it should be Attribute + Skill?

So

STR + ?

[virgil]

What would be the right test for that?

IIRC, there isn't one. Their ability to keep their cool in response to such scenes is entirely an RP matter, and it should be.

If you're dead set on having them struggle to keep their lunch down, it should work on similar mechanics to resisting a Frenzy; something like Willpower + their choice of Combat, Survival, or Medicine. Threshold 1 or 2. Even in this scenario, I wouldn't force retching, but allow them to choose a response that's roughly on that level of severity (including making sick).

[malak]

What would be the right test for that?

IIRC, there isn't one. Their ability to keep their cool in response to such scenes is entirely an RP matter, and it should be.

If you're dead set on having them struggle to keep their lunch down, it should work on the same mechanic as resisting a Fear Frenzy; which is Willpower + their choice of Combat, Tactics, or Sabotage. Threshold 1 or 2. Even in this scenario, I wouldn't force retching, but allow them to choose a response that's roughly on that level of severity (including making sick).

Sure, I would not tell them what exactly their characters do (that would be bad, they are not D&D dominated), just that they feel sick and failed the test, and they can describe how it plays out...