[UA] Hey! Help make my game weirder!

[David M Jacobs]

On 18/10/2007, Chris Williams <lord_of_the_geeks at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> It seems pretty obvious that they found a dead videomancer who may or may
> not have had a herpemancer for a roommate up until recently. Either that, or
> the guy just REALLY liked TV and his old roommate REALLY liked reptiles, and
> more specifically snakes. There could be weird magick involved, or the guy
> could have committed suicide. Other than the number for the dealer and the
> ritual, which is practically a red herring all on it's own, even when it
> does work, there might not be anything supernatural at play. It might just
> all be a little sad and plenty weird. However, if it IS weird, what kind of
> stuff should they find in the journals, or on the computer files, or back in
> the apartment, should they want to break and enter? Red herrings and dead
> ends are just as appreciated as general, genuine UA-style weirdness.
>

Hmmm...

Most of the tapes seem to be random shows from television, unrelated to the
diary entries.  The PCs can easily work out that these random shows are
recorded on relatively new VHS tapes.  A few of the tapes have flickers of
images through them where the random shows didn't record properly, but
there's not really enough to make out what was originally on the tapes.

The hard drive on the computer is in pretty bad shape, random segments of
data erased.  If they take it to someone who can perform a hard disk
recovery, they can pull fragments of a development copy of a website
(although not much actual useful data), along with a list of names,
addresses and credit-card numbers.

The videomancer was just that.  The roommate, however, isn't a herpemancer,
but is a herpephile, and the two ran a small but flourishing niche
business.  Customers would leave their names, addresses and credit card
details on an innocuous website, and within two weeks, an unmarked videotape
would turn up in the mail.  No return address was listed on the envelopes,
and they were posted from various locations.

All very anonymous, but that's the way things are when your customers have
tastes as esoteric (and illegal) as gay snake porn.

What they didn't count on was that the ghost in the apartment block.  The
ghost in question takes a dim view of pornography (particularly that as
outre as the roommates' collection), and does what it can to erase any in
the block.  It can only affect electromagnetic media, however -- it can tape
over VHS tapes from television and blindly wipe sections of hard drives in
order to destroy the material -- but cannot affect printed works, CD-ROMs or
DVDs.  On the other hand, it can interfere with playback of the latter.

The ghost did a pretty good job of ruining the roommates' little enterprise,
but is relatively harmless, all in all.  One of their customers, however, is
a tad paranoid, an adept to boot, and began to worry about being
blackmailed.  After a great deal of effort, he tracked the roommates down,
killing the videomancer -- taking care to make it look like suicide -- and
scaring the other off.

When the surviving roommate finally returns, he finds the apartment
ransacked.  He questions his neighbours and discovers the PCs are
responsible.  He wants his stuff back.  Play him up to freak the players
out.  Although ultimately mundane, he is somewhat strange and creepy; it
goes with the territory when you make a living inserting snakes where
they're not meant to go.

The customer, meanwhile, learns (through whatever means) that the PCs
possess evidence linking him to the snake porn operation.  He doesn't know
about the ghost's shenanigans, but he still wants the list with his details
on it... and everyone who's seen it dead.

The antique dealer is a red herring.

And the ghost?  Unless they think to go through their own collections of
adult tapes they keep hidden away from prying eyes, well, the ghost just
lurks in the background, and does little to bother the PCs.

Of course, sometime down the track, when someone tells the PCs that it's
vitally important that they mind a copy of the Naked Goddess Tape for a few
days...


-- 
David M Jacobs
davidmichaeljacobs at gmail.com

"[N]ever hide a gun in a cat box. Some moron cat would manage to fire it."
-- Tim Powers.
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