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

 

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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.

Hacking the Scenario: Island of the Dead (pt.2)

 

artwork by Rosedragon, check our her stuff and support her on:

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Mayas, the Terrible Grandfather of the Forest

The Abawi feel a close relationship to the "people of the forest", the orangutan man-apes, and hold them to be their spiritual cousins. They have a legend concerning their origin, it is a local variation of a tale told across several parts of Indonesia:

Once there was a family who lived in the middle of a great jungle. There were no floods or forest fires there, the animals were all living in harmony, and the people never had to starve because the forest provided fruits and vegetables aplenty. But then one day, the only son of the family, called Mayas, contracted the "good people's sickness" (local name for smallpox). His parents tried out many drugs from different shamans, but to no avail. In the end, they decided to send Mayas to the deepest part of the jungle. They intended his isolation in the forest as a wish that he would be healed. After some time, Mayas had learned to live alone in the jungle, and hair had slowly grown all over his body. He was no longer able to speak. One day he met a woman who was also isolated because of [smallpox] and had also grown a fine orange fur. Thus, the gods had destined Mayas and the girl to survive and multiply.

They gave birth to the first orang-utans, and later other types of monkeys and apes. Because the girl changed ever more, the longer she stayed in the jungle, all her children turned out a bit differently. She became more primal and animalistic over time, and so all the other apes are less intelligent and further removed from humans than the orang-utans. Mayas also changed. His disease was never cured, in fact it became worse, and the jungle gave him a number of new sicknesses on top of it. But his body transformed in reaction to the diseases, to become stronger in fighting them off. He became very large, and survived carrying the many plagues. He grew four more arms, to climb in the trees even better, and defend his wife and the children with. His teeth grew long and sharp from eating a lot of meat. One day, he found five dead crocodiles near a pond, and ate them all. Then he lost the fur on some places of his body, since his skin there had become like scales. He also developed a liking for sweet fruits and honey, and a taste for eating bees and ants.

There are numerous stories about his capers, exploits, and tribulations, such as the ones where he takes a liking to some new sort of food and gets into trouble (usually with humans, sometimes dangerous animals such as leopards or wild boars) over it. Other tales describe how one or another of his diseases got worse, and gave him a hole in his back, or made him go blind for some time.

To the Abawi, Mayas is a god and a cultural hero. They project much of themselves onto him by way of their myths. Perhaps it is this unconscious channeling of their dormant human divinity that has pulled the creature closer to the borderlands of Elysium.

The Abawi claim that Mayas would be enraged if he knew that his grandchildren (the orang-utans of Babingepa) are being tortured and killed for sport by the cruel adherents of the Vile Boar, or alternately, that he already knows and is indeed already enraged about it.

They are planning to do a great tribal ritual, an Invitation Dance to call the Terrible Ape God to the island.
(Or might they already have summoned him by the time the PCs arrive there?)

Encountering Mayas

The PCs might come face to face with the monstrous creature in several ways:

• when travelling the Gaia-infested part of the jungle, he might be freshly summoned there by the Abawi. He might attack them, or simply rummage around for food, or be seen conferring with orang-utans and/or Abawi tribesmen.
• when visiting the Abawi village, the PCs might witness their Invitation Dance ritual, and perhaps the subsequent arrival of Mayas to the village.
• when roaming the forest east of the mountains, Mayas (and the Abawi) might be heading for Harkness' wild boar cultists and cross the PCs' path.
• when fighting against (or captured by) natives of the Yori or Baluwa tribes, the monstrous ape god might indirectly come to their rescue as he attacks the Golab-worshippers seeking to enact revenge for the torment and killing of his grandchildren.
• the same also works if the PCs are captured by the sailor cultists, for example while they drag them off to their mountain stronghold.
• during a showdown fight in the City of Ruins or at the Mountain Temple of Babi Ngepet, the Terrible Grandfather Ape might suddenly appear, possibly with a dozen Abawi warriors in tow, to tip the scales of the conflict - possibly making a previously extremely foreseeable battle into a much more unpredictable affair. He might afford the PCs new opportunities (but also new challenges), for example by drawing attention away from them, smashing the prisoners' cages, destroying the sailors' weapon storage, scaring off (or killing) a critical cultist or three... or alternately by attacking the PCs, blocking their path, or destroying something important or valuable to them.

Appearance

Mayas looks like a shockingly large (easily upwards of 3m) ape with six arms, covered in patches of long fur and sickly-colored scales. He moves through the forest by climbing and swinging between the trees or hopping leaps on the ground. His gaping maw is studded with teeth that are longer and sharper than a normal ape's should be, and he has too many eyes that glitter darkly like those of a gigantic insect. Boils and pustules from unknown diseases can be seen dotting his flesh, and disgusting liquids seep from his orifices and encrust his fur.

Mayas

Home: Sweltering jungles and plague-riddled swamps in Gaia.

Creature Type: Unknown. Could be an Enwildened God, or a distorted human.

Attributes

Combat 4 [move between two range increments in swift leaps],
[attack multiple victims at once], [throw someone], [large and massive]

Influence 2 [consort with and command orang-utans],
[demand worship, sacrifices, and protection from the Abawi tribe]

Magic 1 [transfer a supernatural disease]

Abilities

Monstrous Form: PCs must Keep it Together upon first seeing the distorted
giant ape.

Huge: Cannot be thrown, pushed, knocked over, or grappled and held. 

Multi-limbed: All combat actions against Mayas are at -1 to the roll. He can grab
and pick up up to two victims before he loses this abilty.

Thick fur and scales: His unholy anatomy grants him 1 armor.

Sharp senses: Very acute senses of smell and hearing. Any attempts at hiding
from or sneaking up on him are at -2 to the roll, unless other loud noises or
strong scents are around to distract him.

Attacks

(all at Distance: Room unless otherwise noted)

Pummel and smash [3] [any armor is reduced by -1 against this attack]

Grab and pick up [1] [victim is grabbed, must Act under Pressure to escape]

Throw [2] [must be grabbed first, Avoid Harm at -2 to the roll upon impact]

Bite [4] [must be grabbed first]

Transmit disease [*] [Distance: Field. Bellowing a single word, Mayas gives a name to one of his many diseases and thereby magically transmits it to someone he is touching or has touched earlier in this scene. Use one of the example diseases below or make up your own.]

Wound Rot: One of the victim's Serious Wounds is infected with a necrotic disease that rots away the flesh. This wound cannot be stabilized or naturally healed. In the future, any time the victim's immune system is weakened or strained (e.g. from getting another Wound, or failing a Fortitude roll against starvation, poison, disease, or intoxication, there is a 50% chance that the rot gets rapidly worse. Within the day, the victim gets another Serious Wound (equally incurable as the original one) and effectively loses all use of the affected limb or body area.

Haunting Fever: The victim starts running a high fever that brings terrible headaches, joint pains, and nerve-wracking hallucinations. Every morning the victim must roll +Willpower or +Fortitude, whichever is lower.
On (10-14) the GM takes 1 Hold, on (-9) it's 3 Hold. This can be used during the day to do one of the following:

• force the player to reroll the higher dice of a roll they just made.
• reduce the victim's Stability by -2.

Once the victim's Stability drops to Critical Stress from this, they turn into a constantly nervous wreck. Their Stability can not increase above Anxious (4) anymore, until the Haunting Fever is cured. This requires magical healing or otherworldly medicine, as no known cure exists in Elysium.

Wounds O O O O O O O O O X

Harm Moves

• The attack bounces harmlessly off his scaly hide.
• He bleeds a little but ignores the wound.
• Painful hit to the face [loses his Multi-limbed Ability for a few moments].
• Injured leg [he can now be pushed and knocked over].
• Injured arm [no immediate effects (he has enough arms to spare one or two), but if this is done to him thrice he loses his Multi-limbed Ability].
• His agonized howls attract a small gang of orang-utans that come to his aid.
• A large boil or pustule bursts open and sprays foul liquid at someone nearby [makes a Transmit disease attack].
• Deep bleeding wound, he tries to escape into the trees or flees between some large nearby rocks.
• The huge monstrous ape falls over and stops moving. Is it truly dead?

Strange Plant Life

Even while still firmly within the Illusion, the tropical rainforests of Indonesia are home to many plants that are deeply unfamiliar and sometimes disturbingly alien-looking to visitors from other climates. Some of them are hauntingly beautiful, others may look and smell disgusting to us. A quick google search or three will provide the enterprising GM with ample source material to draw on when describing the plant life on Babingepa. For example, this region is home to the world's tallest, biggest, and most colourful flowers - and that's only the ones we know about. Tens of thousands of plant species exist here that have never been catalogued yet. One of them is the Kaligera Flower.

The Kaligera Flower

This strange plant is originally native in the deep jungles of Gaia, but has spread to also occasionally grow in the tropical borderlands of Elysium. The PCs could randomly come across a patch of them growing in a valley or clearing (in or near the Gaia-infested patch of Babingepa), or they might happen to observe a small group of natives carrying off a severely injured tribe member to such a place. If they manage to follow them while staying hidden, they might witness the effects of the plant on the wounded warrior. 

Or perhaps they see some Abawi gatherers picking some of the flowers and preparing them with great care and reverence - as if for a ritual offering or sacrifice... maybe the PCs might even become witnesses as the Abawi shaman offers them to Mayas himself. (Who gladly takes and ingests them, knowing they'll soothe his ailments at least temporarily)

Appearance

This alien plant is like nothing the player characters have seen before. Looking like a faintly purplish, semi-translucent mixture between a fern and an orchid of some kind, fine veins and capillaries are visible inside its soft, squishy stems and meaty leaves. The only part of the plant that isn't half transparent are the blossoms, vividly orange in color and branching into rounded tentacly ends that sway softly in a non-existent wind like a sea anemone. The flower exudes a sweetly enticing smell that is noticable from several meters away. 

Use

Anyone who comes across this flower when it's in bloom can immediately attempt to See Through the Illusion. On a result of (15+), you clearly realize the plant's healing potential (and its drawbacks), to the degree that the GM might read you the options listed below (at least the in-fiction info, if not the mechanics). On (10-14), you get a vague but convincing sense that eating this plant will not be bad for you, or at least not entirely bad. On (-9), you still sense that there is no immediate danger from the strange flower, but you also behold disturbing visions from beyond the Veil, attract the attention of the island's dead souls, or might get noticed by something that lives deeper in Gaia... [The GM makes a move]

When you eat the blossom of a Kaligera flower in bloom, you may choose one of the options below:

• a gruesome injury scabs over and starts to close, unnaturally fast
  [reduce a Critical Wound to a Serious Wound].
• your flesh knits itself together to mend a cut, stab wound or broken bone
  [heal a Serious Wound, and stabilize any other Wounds you may have].
• it strenghtens and revitalizes your metabolism [cure an infection or disease].
• it purifies your bloodstream  [cancel the effects of a poison or drug].
  

However, you must also roll +Willpower or +Soul (whichever is lower) to withstand the Influence of Gaia deteriorating your mind to a more primal state. 

On (10-14), reduce one Attribute that is not Fortitude, Reflexes, Perception, or Violence, by -1. 

On (-9), reduce two Attributes, but also regain 1 Stability. 

"He who makes a beast of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man", indeed.

Live is, in its own way, truly much simpler when embracing - or embraced by - the primordial wilderness. At the very least it is devoid of many of the anxieties and fears that a more cultured or civilized mind must endure.

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Once again this has gotten rather long already, so another split is in order.

Read more about the exciting horrors that Gaia has to offer for your game of Island of the Dead in Part 3 of this series!