Hacking the Scenario: Island of the Dead (pt.4)

Savagery vs. Sadism 

or: On the Difficulty of Distinguishing between Gaia and Golab

So like, this is a passage that should've probably come much sooner
in this series, but I couldn't really find a good place to fit it in so far.
But I still feel it is important to include, so here it goes now:

Originally, the scenario revolves just around Golab (and a tiny little, dormant presence of Netzach) - and its themes reflect that. By adding the influence of Gaia to that, how do the themes change? What's the difference between them, anyways?

There is suffering and death on the island, in spades. There is agonizing torture, cannibalism, decay, horrible bodily deformations, you name it. One might be pardoned for thinking "Isn't it all the same, whether the Death Angel of Torment or the Living Wilderness gets the characters in their grasp? Will their cruel demises not be all but indistinguishable from each other?"

Well, yes and no.

See, it's a matter of perspective, and agenda. Of what are the means and what are the ends. 

The Principle of Gaia, to break down civilization, does include its fair share of torment and agony. But contrary to Golab's Principle, that suffering is not the end goal, it's just a byproduct or incidental event of the drive to tear down civilization. 

Gaia will cause torrential rain that washes away bridges and roads, and sets mouldering rot to huts and the food stored inside. She will have you digested alive over the course of weeks or even months by gargantuan flesh-eating flowers. She will make the leopards toy with you cruelly as you drag yourself bleeding through the jungle, looking in vain for help or the safety of a settlement. The bugs she sends to infest your wounds will make you scream until your vocal chords tear as their eggs spread throughout your bloodstream and their larvae hatch in your brain stem.

All this pain and despair, however, is not what she cares about. Her endgame is simply the deterioration of all that is cultured, all that is man-made.

The Lord of Screams, on the other hand, has suffering as his primary and ultimate agenda. His worshippers will also eat your dead (or living) flesh, yes - but that's almost just the windowdressing to their orgies of torment that are the central purpose of their cruel abuse. The leopards influenced by him viciously maul you even if they have no hunger to sate. They may even just ambush you once and then leave you alone, losing interest, just because they saw an opportunity to inflict pain and seized it simply because they could. Golab may utilize diseases, beasts, poisonous plants, bad weather, bodily distortions, assault and abuse, and many more tools at his disposal - but whatever he uses, it is solely aimed at making you suffer.

As such, the two Powers are inconsolably at odds with each other. Gaia would have all the native settlements on Babingepa rot and crumble to sludge, overgrown and decomposed and forgotten forever. Golab, however, requires worshippers. He wants the settlements and their inhabitants to suffer, yes, but he ultimately needs them to keep existing.
Gaia needs no worshippers, she craves only primordial chaos. Such chaos also spawns suffering, but merely incidentally and never for very long. New growth and healing always occurs in her mad cycles as well, and ultimately, there is just not enough meaning to it all, to lend any power to the suffering incurred.

The sadistic purgatories of Golab and the feral onslaught of Gaia may look very much the same to an unenlightened human being. But on a higher metaphysical level, the two Forces have to fight each other.

What does that do to the scenario's given themes, then?

Survival: What are the characters willing to do to survive? Will they help others or prioritize saving themselves?

This theme ties in with Gaia very well. The motifs of scarce resources and interleaved scenes of calm and stress employed by the scenario work great with the challenges posed by the Living Wilderness. While the forces of Golab may posit the same questions to the PCs in a sadistic and hateful manner, the influence of Gaia will force them to make the same decisions, albeit not mailciously but rather uncaring.

Violence & suffering: Will the PCs yield to the violence on Babingepa, or manage to withstand Golab's temptations?

Here the scenario directly ties this theme to Golab, and rightly so. There are no temptations from Gaia, merely the (super)natural pressures of evolution and survival. However, one may still succumb to the violence & suffering inherent in that. To descend into this mindset means to have first your cultured identity, and ultimately your entire personality gradually devolved, until only beastly instincts and primal drives are left. Is that a fate more merciful than the purgatories of Golab? (which are ultimately also designed to erase your personality, of course)
Your PCs might have to decide that for themselves, and the answers might vary between them.

Guilt: Will the PCs seek forgiveness for their sins from the dead who haunt them?

This is one theme that Gaia has very little to do with. The themes of guilt, punishment, repentance, and absolution are intimately tied to Inferno and the Death Angels. The Living Wilderness has next to no use for these concepts. The Grove of Souls presented in pt.3 of this series, however, creates a certain tie-in for this theme with Gaia. Dead souls who have been placated by sincere apologies, or had their revenge by wreaking lethal havoc upon their spiritual and moral debtors amongst the living (read: the PCs), may be more inclined to let themselves be guided there, and more likely to settle down for the specific variant of "eternal peace" that this place offers.
(The same may very well be true for PCs who have died and been drawn there by the Call of Gaia, if they can manage to forgive themselves.

Additional characters

Here I present ideas for four new characters who may have survived the plane crash on the Island of the Dead. They can be used as either PCs or NPCs.

I will not as fully develop them as the premade PCs in the original scenario text, with regards to Attributes, equipment, starting situation, etc. Rather I aim to provide ideas for the GM to flesh out and use as you see fit.

If using them as NPCs, you can use the stats for Survivors (p.152 TaOT) to represent them mechanically, and the texts below to colour their fiction.

For use as PCs, I trust you can with little effort draft up complete character sheets  for them (with or without the players' input, at your own discretion) by using the existing premades as guidance and examples.

As per the advice given on p.137 of the scenario text, each of them has been given a connection to death or the dead. Additionally, some of them are set up to have pre-existing ties to Golab, Netzach or Gaia.

How to use them:

• write short blurbs for the original characters as well as the new ones here, and let players choose freely from the eight choices thus available.
• use the new PCs (or any combination of original/new ones) as a secondary party. They got washed ashore some distance away from the first party, and they never met at the beach. This can be used to showcase different venues of exploration and survival on the island.
  Perhaps the two groups meet up in the finale, or perhaps roughly half of the characters in each party get captured by the sailors, and it will be up to the remaining characters to team up and try to save everyone in the showdown?
• Pull a twist reveal on your players by fooling them into thinking their characters could actually die on the island. When the first PC dies, give their player a "backup" character from the unused ones to continue playing with. The next PC who dies, do the same thing... until at some point, you describe one of their original characters waking back up (as described under Golab's Influence on p.140 TaOT), back at the beach or somewhere in the jungle.
  This variant requires a bit more cutting back and forth between locations and characters from you, and a firmer hand at scene framing in order to make it work - but can make for a very cinematic experience.
  

So here they are...

Whoa, hold up!

Some Trigger Warnings are in order for the Dark Secrets found below.

What you are about to read contains crisp and explicit mention of:
Murder of innocents, Psychological abuse, Depression and suicide,
Physical assault, Torture, Exposure and isolation, and Cannibalism.

Okay, now here they are:

Malcolm

An elderly black man (58), now retired after many long years in the military. He used to keep himself pretty well fit but with age has gotten a bit more out of shape than he likes, or may necessarily care to admit to himself.

Reason for travelling: Family visit in Thailand, goes back home to the States.

DARK SECRET: GUILTY OF A CRIME.

He was once made to perform exemplary executions on five civilians by a ruthless and brutal lieutenant. It may have been during the war in Afghanistan or Iraq, or in some other theatre of war. He had been dragged by the bullying officer for a while, for being a dutiful, but quiet and withdrawn member of the platoon, and things came to a head one day in a village full of non-combatant natives. Making a show of making the "reluctant and lazy" trooper "finally carry his weight in the war effort", the lieutenant jeered him on to shoot the defenseless innocents in the head. Under the psychological pressure, Malcolm did it, one after another, in front of a crowd of their peers gathered and kept there at gunpoint by his platoon mates. The deed has haunted and troubled him since, driving him into habitual drinking and a number of other self-destructive vices to cope with the nightmares caused by his trauma and guilt.

Personal Drive: Punish yourself.

Disadvantage: Alcoholic.

Advantage: Dead Shot or Ruthless.

Best Attributes: Violence, Perception, Coolness, Fortitude.

Katsuro

A young Japanese man (24) who works as a nurse. Humble and busybee-ish, he dedicates himself to his profession like usually only someone does who is driven by an oath or on the run from a dark past.

Reason for travelling: Going to a hospital in California for a semester of specialized medical training.

DARK SECRET: CULT SURVIVOR.

Pressured since childhood by his father to always excel, always compete, always succeed, so he could one day be worthy to take over the company, the lonely and  silenced boy eventually couldn't take the pressure anymore and became severely depressed. In his youth he joined a suicide cult he first discovered in a chatroom. At first it was internet-based only, but at one point the cult had accumulated enough members in his area and there were physical meetings. Katsuro felt a deep and intimate bond connected him with the other members, like what true friendship must feel like. They renewed their suicide pact at every meeting, but when the time came to go through with it, he backed out at the last moment. The others all went through with it, and left Katsuro feeling completely alone again. Deeply devastated, he luckily found good counseling, and eventually it gave him the strength to stand up to his father and take his life into his own hands for the first time. He feels he is on a much better path now, with a purpose that fulfills him. Nevertheless, bouts of survivor's guilt, regrets, and saddening memories still plague him, even as he pursues his otherwise strong drive to make something good out of his life.

Personal Drive: Dedicate your life to contrary or redeeming ideals.

Disadvantage: Guilt.

Advantage: Field Medicine or Good Samaritan.

Best Attributes: Intuition, Reason, Coolness, Willpower.

Priya

A middle-aged Indian woman (41), supermarket worker, chatty and outgoing on the surface, but with a sad look in her eyes that her smile never quite manages to wash away. Wears a number of religious talismans and superstitious trinkets but doesn't really seem to be a remarkably devout type.

Reason for travelling: Under the guise of a well-earned holiday, she is going to see an exorcist in Seattle, to help her with the voices she hears and other manifestations she suffers.

DARK SECRETS: VICTIM OF A CRIME, VISITATIONS.

Priya died alongside her children in the course of a home invasion conducted by violently insane thugs, as retribution from a brutally ruthless local crime lord against her husband for "insulting his honor" by not being able to pay off his huge gambling debts. The thugs tortured Priya in front of her husband and children in order to make her husband tell them where he kept the family's hidden valuables. There were no such valuables though, but they ended up killing the children and leaving Priya bleeding out on the floor as they took her husband away with them, never to be seen again. The doctors later said that Priya was dead for several minutes before they arrived, but they could bring her back through resuscitation. She remembers the afterlife as... a highly unpleasant place, and ever since the dead have whispered, squealed, and screamed to her from beyond the grave. Almost every night she hears their pleas, threats, and commands. They all want something from her, and she has been plagued by many different souls over the years. But never by the only two she would care to hear from... never by her own children.

Personal Drive: Find a way to silence the entities haunting you.

Disadvantage: Involuntary Medium.

Advantage: Stubborn or Desperate.

Best Attributes: Soul, Intuition, Charisma, Willpower.

Laura

A hispanic teenage girl from Australia (15), who lives a completely normal life with school, weekend job, friends, a cute boyfriend, music, movies, and all that. Habitually stuffing herself with sweet food and drinks almost constantly, one might wonder how she is still only mildly chubby, and not much bigger yet... but hey, maybe her metabolism is just pretty good that way?

Reason for travelling: Coming from Sydney, she and a handful of schoolmates, as well as two of their teachers, are going to New York for a three weeks history/cultural school excursion.

DARK SECRET: RETURNED FROM THE OTHER SIDE.

She used to have a younger brother, Paolo. In their childhood, the siblings went on a camping trip where both of them got lost in the jungle of Northern Australia. Several search details failed to recover them - but Laura suddenly reappeared on her own, over three months later. She was completely dishevelled and mentally detached from reality. Paolo was never found. Doctors wondered about how young Laura could have managed to survive in the jungle for so long, and how she was much less malnourished and generally in physically much better shape than she should have been after that long time. She herself used to have clear memories, and would tell them freely - but the adults quickly ensured her that those were impossible events, and must be nothing but fever fantasies spawned from hunger, exposure, and loneliness. They are right, of course, and Laura has repressed her 'phantom memories' long ago. Only in her dreams do they come back these days. But there are also certain facts written in her medical records, and she remembers the adults always squirming uneasily whenever these were addressed. There were what looked like old, healed-over claw marks and bite wounds on Laura's body when they found her, and the reddish brown grime under her cracked fingernails was not just dirt...

Personal Drive: Ignore the stupid fever dream phantories as best you can, and just lead a totally normal life. Paolo would have wanted you to.

Disadvantage: Gluttony
(like Greed, but with sweets, comfort food, softdrinks, cigarettes,etc).

Advantage: Survival Instincts or Death Drive.

Best Attributes: Carisma, Violence, Perception, Reflexes.

Scene Ideas

Malcolm

The ghosts of his murder victims appear to him, but apparently not to assault or chide him for his deeds. Instead, they just follow him around silently, wherever he goes. Sometimes other (living) people can see them, sometimes not.
There is only one way to get rid of them: A bullet in the head, like the first time. That will 'kill' them, whereupon they dissolve into groans and wisps of fog, and do not reappear for a while.

When Malcolm is at a tribal settlement on Babingepa, his old superior officer Ltd. Rick Jensen appears (indicating that, yes, he has died since, even though Malcolm may not be aware of that) and tries to talk him into violence against the natives.
"You know as well as I do that there's only one language these savages will understand! I taught you the way! Restore discipline, ensure compliance, all it takes is just to make a handful of examples. Do your duty, soldier! Or have you forgotten that we're at war here?!"

The victims' ghosts may appear in such a situation as well, and agree with Ltd. Jensen. "You know he is right. We really were plotting for insurrection and terrorist acts, you know - and your intervention was the only thing that kept us in line. The only thing that kept you and your comrades alive while you were stationed there with us."
They kneel down in front of him with bowed heads, as to indicate they are subdued by him, and he has their full servitude and loyalty.

If he refuses them (or otherwise angers the ghosts), they might leave... until one of them returns later, running at the PCs' campsite or wherever they are, visibly strapped with an explosive belt. [Malcolm must Keep it Together]
If only Malcolm can see the ghost, and he starts shooting at it, he may inadvertently hit other PCs, allies of theirs, or destroy important gear or equipment.
If he doesn't shoot or otherwise prevent the suicidal assault, the explosives will detonate, and their effects may be physically real, fully illusionary, or a mixture of both. [Perhaps any PCs within range must Endure Injury but rolling +Willpower instead of +Fortitude for it?]

Alternatively, the ghosts might attempt to recreate the situation of their own traumatic death - but with Malcolm and his friends in the position of the victims. They might capture the party at gunpoint and terrorize them with the threat of executing one of them (which can be Malcolm but doesn't have to be, as long as he it is someone he seems to care about and he is forced to watch)

Katsuro

His friends from the cult appear to him, visibly marked by their chosen method of death (e.g. bulging, bloodshot eyes and rope marks around their necks from hanging themselves, discolored veins and vomit drooling from their mouths if they used poison...), admonishing him for not preventing them from their suicidal plan.

"We made a terrible mistake. There is no salvation in death, only eternal pain and torment. We didn't know better, but you did, didn't you? You could have talked us out of it - but you chose to only save yourself. It's your fault we died!"

Alternately, if (when) things are going badly for Katsuro on the island, the ghosts might coax him to join them in death. They'll promise a relief from his struggles and pain, and warmly suggest to make good on his earlier betrayal of their friendship.

"We did the right thing, you know. It is nice here, quiet and warm and peaceful. We're going back to the other side, soon. Really we just came here to find you, so you can come with us... We could be together, forever, finally and for good."

Note: You can do both of the above scenes, even if it is the exact same ghosts talking to him. The dead are irrational, and the Influence of Golab directs them to say and do whatever has the greatest potential to cause suffering - and create more lost souls trapped on the island.

Alternately, perhaps there is one ghost who acts differently from the others. Perhaps his refusal wasn't just a betrayal of friendship, but one of love? Maybe there was this one girl (or boy?) he liked...

Additonally, if you want to play up the Netzach angle a bit, you could have Katsuro's dad appear as a ghost as well (which would mean that he has died at some point in the past, of course), and hassle him about acting like a weakling and a loser - instead of stepping up to the challenges on the island and taking his fate in his own hand, as his father taught him to.

"Didn't I always teach you to be a winner? Even your name means 'victory', as you are well aware. Yes I know, you think you turned your back on all that, and are living a different life now. But, think about it - you defied me. I wanted you to take over the company, but you refused. You got what you wanted, and I didn't. I died without an heir to continue my life's work, and you went on to have your [distorts face in disgust] medical career. You defeated me. Now damn well quit playing the victim, straighten your posture, and go back there and show them what your are made of!"

"If you could defeat me, you can defeat anyone."

Priya

If Priya is in play, her presence will centrally affect the entire party's gaming experience. As soon as she enters Babingepa, her Involuntary Medium Disadvantage will be activated almost constantly. (Its trigger is 'whenever you encounter spiritual entities or haunted places'... and the whole island is very much a haunted place.)
Going by the principle that you shouldn't have a player roll again for a Disadvantage while you still have Hold from it, there is no need to trigger this anew for every new region she enters or even every new supernatural creature she encounters. But, don't hoard your Holds once you got them - use them!

And pretty much as soon as you're out of Holds for it, look for an opportunity to have her roll for new ones, as soon as possible.

However, don't use all your Holds on her alone. Let the other characters have their share of the fun, too. Use the options to use her body to act in their interest and communicate through her, to make her pick up or operate items relevant to the other PCs' ghosts, write messages from them, or let Priya talk with the voices of the other PCs' dead relations.

Note: since you'll be using that a lot, make sure to start small and keep it relatively subtle and minor for some time. There will be plenty of opportunity to ramp things up later, but once you escalate it, it's hard to dial back down.
Also, share it around equally, so no player feels overwhelmed by all the attention, but one feels left out either.

Priya also has her own ghost-induced problems to deal with, however. Virtually all of the dead souls on the island can practically smell her previous exposure to the Influence of Golab. The scenario's theme of violence & suffering can be addressed very directly with her.

Ultimately, the island will be very interested in pulling Priya over to its side, and have her become a willing, even gleeful, torturer herself. Although it will also settle for using her as just another victim for the sadistic ghosts (and cultists) cruel delights.

Consider ghostly voices and apparitions scaring Priya - who has previously been subjected to horrible, horrible violence and trauma - into anxiously anticipating that others around her may exploit her easily-perceived weakness, and victimize her all over again. Perhaps the ghosts urge her to find some sort of weapon to defend herself with, and hide it on herself, "just in case..."
Maybe they 'helpfully' warn her to leave the party before the others have a chance to throw her under the bus or commit terrible violence on her. Or they try to agitate her into killing one of the other characters in their sleep, maybe because "we saw the way he is looking at you..." or similar hocus rationales.

When you want to step things up a notch, one of the thugs from the night of the home invasion might show up and come after her (perhaps alone at first, then later with a small gang of other purgatides in tow?) announcing his intent to finally finish what he started back then.
Ask the player to name which household object (kitchen utensil, home improvement tool...) the demented killers used to inflict the worst of their tortures on her - and have the thug wield just that object as he menacingly closes in on her.

If he catches her, he may play a sadistic game with her in which he presents another captive person (a native perhaps?) and forces Priya to choose whether she torments that person (under the thug's enthusiastic direction) or she herself is to be the victim of torture (at the hand of either the native or the thug).

Priya's children may also appear to her, but contrary to what she may have hoped against hope, they are not innocent souls... not anymore. They have fallen under the influence of Golab since the manner of their death was so strongly influenced by his particular Principle, and have turned into artfully tormented, and eagerly tormenting purgatides.

As Priya first beholds them, describe how she is horrified to see her children covered in gruesome yet morbidly artistic scarrings, brandings, gilded piercings that hold open gory wounds, crude needles impaling their flesh and nailing muscles to bone, as well as their scorched-out eyes weeping streaks of black tar down their gaunt little cheeks...
Twist it around by having her see the children lovingly caress each other's injuries and mutilations - and going on to inflict new ones. Before her eyes they indulgently keep on disfiguring each other and themselves.

"Why are you crying, mommy? Is it from joy? Aren't you proud of us? We were so proud of you, you know! The things you went through to protect us, to show us how to be strong and beautiful, in those last moments we had together..."

"We never wanted anything more than to be just like you. But now look how many more things we learned... we practiced so long for this... It's so much fun, mommy! And now we can all be together and make each other even more beautiful than before!"
[closing in with arms outstretched for an embrace, delicate almost toy-like torture instruments dangling from their piercings and leather straps]

Laura

The mere fact of being marooned on the island will be extremely triggering for Laura, since there is jungle, isolation, exposure... all the things she experienced as a child in the wilderness of northern Australia. She will frequently have to Keep it Together against the 'phantories' (what she calls the phantom memories in her mind) invading her thoughts when facing her present-day problems. Her Gluttony is a suitable stress response, so a failed roll may in turn trigger that Disadvantage, compelling her to stuff herself with sweet fruits or draining the last bottle of pepsi, or whatever is availabe.
(Offer her chances to steal another character's last pack of cigarettes, or ask her if she wants to leave camp alone to go collect some of those juicy red berries they saw wearlier, instead of just dried rations and stale water...)

The Influence of Gaia on the island will likewise not be lost on her. Primitive instincts she had forgotten (or at least thoroughly repressed) are welling up to the surface again, as she is forced to flee, hide, and fight for her mere survival. She will tend to "go feral" faster than the other characters, and her Best Attributes and chosen Advantage can be used to support this.
(if she gathers enough experience during the scenario to earn an advancement, perhaps consider allowing her to 'remember' her other Advantage, the one she didn't choose at character creation, and continue playing with both. Or consider offering her a choice between Escape Artist, Sneak, Parcour, Inner Power or similar advantages that might provide a hint at how she managed to survive in Gaia as a child all those years earlier...?)

Finally, at some point when she is lost, exhausted, and most importantly especially hungry - her brother Paolo's ghost may appear to her and console her that: "It's okay, you can eat from me again".
He lifts his arm in front of her, the flesh looking dead for at least a week (she can tell, perhaps without fully knowing why), in a gesture of offering.

"But don't wait too long this time. You know I'll be all wormy and full of bugs again soon, in this heat."

And with that, this series of blog post concludes... for now anyways. I may expand more on it at some point, but for now I'm all out of gruesome ideas to collect here. Hope you enjoyed them, and be glad to read any comments below or over on the Kult: Elysium discord.

Carefully mind your steps on the Island of the Dead, for the horrors it spawns do not hatch from the fetid, rotten earth underneath your feet. They grow directly out of your own dark past.

Your sins and fears, unforgotten and unforgiven.

They're all waiting for you here.

Hacking the Scenario: Island of the Dead (pt.3)

 

artwork by Rosedragon, check out her stuff and support her on

www.patreon.com/rosedragon

The Grove of Souls

As we know, the entire island of Babingepa is suffused by the essence of the Death Angel Golab. This has worn the Veil so thin here that countless of dead souls (both those of travellers marooned here, and those of their trauma-related associates, relatives, enemies, and victims) have been drawn here - and all find themselves inexplicably unable to leave.

All, that is, except for those few who at some point hear the call of Gaia, and follow it to the mysterious and unsettling place that can be seen illustrated above: The Grove of Souls.

(Illustration by the talented and incredibly prolific Rosedragon, who also did the artwork in the previous part of this series, and helped me on many aspects of the texts here with her local knowledge, since she comes from Indonesia and is thus deeply familiar with regional customs, beliefs, and other aspects of the culture. You have my endless thanks for your support, Rose!)

When you come here, you will find the place humid and foggy, the ground underneath your feet moist with decay. The stench of rot rises with the permanent mist right out of the earth. You will also notice that the trees here all seem to form oddly humanoid shapes - or are those actual human bodies, somehow getting absorbed into the plants? Some of them groan softly sometimes, and the bark of the trees is slimy to the touch and tries to stick to your fingers.

[PCs might have to Keep it Together upon coming here, although that perhaps depends on what happened before. They may have seen much more shocking and disgusting sights on the island already, and be numbed to the Grove's more subdued dread.]

[Adam's Enhanced Awareness will trigger here, and may yield the information below, or some of it.]

[Priya's (new PC, see pt.4) Involontary Medium will trigger too, and may for a change torment her with communication attempts from a different flavor of dead souls.]

The truth is that the Veil is extremely thin here, and what we see through the Illusion are not physical bodies merged with the trees, but rather the entrapped souls of once-restless ghosts.

What makes them come here?
What makes them stay and get entrapped/absorbed like this? 

PCs might find out in any one or more of three ways: 

• Adam's and Priya's extrasensory perceptions, as noted above  
• through a legend known to the Yori and Abawi tribes
• on their own during the epilogue after the game concludes
  

The natives are acutely aware of Golab's corrupting Influence on the island's dead, even though they express it in their own terms. In their legends, the tribesmembers tell of how there is but one single place on all of Babingepa where the tormenting dominion of Babi Ngepet is not overpoweringly strong on all those who have passed over to the next world. It is the Boar God's sovereign power over the island that makes the dead act so vicious and vengeful.
These tales, however, also inform the listener that if you manage to lure or trick a ghost into coming with you to this hidden Grove of Souls - which the stories alternately locate in a valley, on a hill, in a canyon-like rift in the earth, or simply in the deepest part of the forest - then they may be freed of the Vile Boar's spiritual tyranny for a short while. Just long enough for the soul to perhaps decide that it wants to stay here instead of ever going back out to the rest of the island.
It doesn't always work, the legends caution the listener, but sometimes one may get rid of the haunting souls that torment any who come to the island.

After the game's final scenes, the PCs may also find out more about the Grove of Souls namely during their own epilogues. Any character who has died on Babingepa is unable to leave the island, regardless of anything else that happened in the finale (i.e. even if Harkness is dead, the statue of Babi Ngepet is destroyed, his temple desecrated, etc).
Of these PCs, some may have had ties to the Living Wilderness already before they came to the island. Most clearly this will be Simon and, from the new PCs (see pt.4), Laura... although in the course of the game, some aspects of other characters' backstories might come to light, which could also be construed as such ties. Such a closeness of your soul to Gaia will result in the ghost eventually hearing the Call of the Wilderness - which then lures it to the Grove of Souls. 

Once there, the soul faces a choice: Rest but for a short moment, before returning to the island's permanent purgatorial torments, eventually to be dragged to Inferno into the citadel of Golab himself. Or remain here, and succumb willingly and completely to Gaia, the eroding and eradicating forces of nature incarnate.
Upon choosing the latter, the soul is trapped for many hundred years in a constant state of slow spiritual decomposition. But at least there will be peace from the cruel whippings of the Death Angel's Principle.

New NPC options and moves

Here are some new powers and abilities for the island's indigenous people, to vary up their stats and moves for when more attention falls on them during a longer game.

Leopard Champions of the Yori

As we have seen in part 1 of this series, the Yori tribe revers leopards as their spirit patrons, and use the magic of ilmu siluman macan tutul to imbue their chosen champions with the mental and spiritual ferocity of the sacred animal.

Exclusively found in the Yori tribe (as the Baluwa have abolished the practice in favor of worshipping Babi Ngepet, and the Abawi are spiritually much more closely aligned with the orang-utans than the predatorial great cats), their siluman become powerful hunters and fighters. They use the stats of Native Warriors (p.150 TaOT) but with the following additions/modifications.

Their Combat Attribute is [4] and they get an additional combat move. They also don't shoot poisonous arrows, so their combat moves are:

• call for reinforcements
• disappear into the jungle without a trace
• make an attack out of nowhere, striking first
• overwhelm [deals +1 Harm, PCs take -1 to all combat rolls against them]

Leopard champions always fight with stone knives, and the above abilities allow them to combine their normal Stab attack with their combat abilities for these additional options:

Leaping Ambush [2] [Distance: Room, victim unaware of the attacker's presence before the attack can only Avoid Harm]

Ferocious Slashes [3] [Distance: Arm, victim is at -1 to all rolls against the leopard champion]

Ferocious Ambush [3] [Distance: Room, victim unaware of the attacker's presence before the attack can only Avoid Harm, and is at -1 to all rolls against the leopard champion]

Siluman Warriors prefer not to kill their opponents outright, instead seeking to inflict crippling injuries so the defeated enemy can be captured, to be offered as a sacrifice to either Babi Ngepet or the island's jaguar spirits.

Wounds (lone champion)  O O O O X

Wounds (hunting group led by a champion)  O O O O O  O O O O O  O X

Shamanic Curses

In the original scenario text, only the Wild Boar Priests exist as spiritual leaders of the tribes. In this hack, we want to diversify that, so below you can find a variety of magical abilities that the various tribes' shamans might be able to use against the PCs (or possibly, if an alliance was forged, in favor of the PCs).

The original WIld Boar Priest has a move that is called 

Death magic: Possess a Person [-2 Stability] [Distance: Room, Keep it Together to withstand being controlled for one action].

This is the indigenous magic known as santet tali gaib, in which the priest uses a small magical trinket (stone, knife, tree branch...) wrapped in ritually knotted ropes of hair or plant fibres to focus their will into briefly domineering another person's behaviour. If the trinket can be found and destroyed, the priest loses this magical power until s/he can make a new one.

Other magical abilities potentially known to the priests (of any tribe) are:

Santet susuk konde: Curse of Pierced Entrails [Serious Wound] [the ritual makes small cutting and piercing objects appear in the victim's stomach, such as thorny vines, shards of splintered seashells, or jagged stones. Another Serious Wound is taken when the hurtful objects are eventually excreted (or vomited up). Only magical healing (or modern surgery) can remove them without further harm.]

Teluh: Curse of Venomous Vermin [*] [the shaman conjures small vicious animals of the jungle to appear everywhere the victim goes. Poisonous scorpions, vipers, and large centipedes keep digging themselves out of the ground, dropping from trees, or slither forth from narrow crags in the rocks, whenever the victim wants to rest.]

Venomous Vermin: The first little critter requires you to have Observed the Situation and asked the right questions, or be forced to Avoid Harm at -2 to the roll as you suddenly notice it at your ankles or on your sleeve, shoulder, etc., ready to strike. It only has 1 Wound, but is at -2 to hit with anything except broad, swatting paddles or the like. 

If you take too long to take care of it (and subsequently move away from the place), a swarm of them with 3 Wounds will accumulate. Their attacks inflict no Harm as such, but you must still Endure Injury (at no modifier) against their poison. On a (-9) you must choose one:

• one of your Wounds becomes infected (can't be stabilized or healed)
• one of your Serious Wounds becomes Critical
• take -2 ongoing to all rolls due to crippling pain, dizziness, and alternating bouts of fever and chills.

Tenung: Curse of Rotten Feasts [*] [this magic infests the victim's food with disgusting objects and creatures. You may find your meal suddenly crawling with bugs or intermingled with fetid mud, rotten tree sap, small bones with discolored shreds of meat still on them, or congealing into a stinking soup of slime. Alternately, you may not notice anything while eating but then feel nauseaous and throw up a gaggle of maggots (still wriggling and crawling) or several human eyes. The victim must Keep it Together every time it eats something.]

The three powers above are not used in direct confrontation (i.e. they're not to be seen as "combat spells"), but rather inflicted on a distant target the shaman or priest holds a grudge against. Reasons might include the PCs betraying the tribe's trust after forging an alliance, defeating a tribal champion by cheating or other methods considered dishonorable, or if they escaped from captivity by the tribe and the natives feel their gods would be angered if this is left to happen unpunished.

Buhul cacing abin: Transmit disease [*] [Distance: Room. Perhaps most fittingly known to Abawi shamans, this is a slight variation on a power the monstrous ape Mayas also has: The priest magically transmits a mundane or supernatural disease to someone. Use one of the example diseases in part 2 of this series, or make up your own.]

This, like santet tali gaib above, is much more of a "combat spell", and can very much be used in direct confrontations. The disease's onset may, at the GM's discretion, be supernaturally fast (read: immediate) or may follow a slightly slower course and become noticable only a little while later.

Semar mesem: Calling the Visitor [*] [this ritual involves fasting for an entire day and night in seclusion and darkness, and enables the shaman to compel anyone on the island to come to her. Victims will sense a strong compulsion to move in the shaman's direction (regardless of whether they know where she is) and must Keep it Together in order not to give in to that urge. The urge returns once every day, at sunrise, for three days.] 

The shamans of Babingepa will most likely enact this ritual - the only one of the ones presented here that isn't expressly intended to be harmful - if their tribesmembers have told them of encountering the foreign travellers and they are intrigued by their presence and consider them potential allies they might want to talk to.

artwork looted from the net
don't sue me, it's just a very cool pic

In Need of even more Gaian Goodness?

So with this, we have attained a good part of our design goals for this scenario-hack. Hopefully, the creature, plant, location, and the additional NPC options introduced above provide fertile ground for enriching your games with.

If you want even more inspiration for horrifying Gaia-based critters, I may recommend taking a look at the fanmade scenario Wind on the Leaves, by Andrew Crag. You can find it here, in the Ryan Northcott Memorial Collection

Of the monsters in there, especially the God of Thirst and the Thing-That-Stings might be of interest, and both could just as easily be encountered in the jungles and swamps of Babingepa as in the hinterlands of South America.

This concludes part 3 of my quest to hack this scenario. The 4th and final part will consist of some notes on the scenario's themes and how they change with this hack, and of course the promised additional player characters.