Werewolf, Vampire, Zombie RPG update
Here are notes from our forth and fifth sessions of Ben’s World of Darkness Zombie Campaign. I’ve had a few people ask about what’s been happening at the Sandbaggers Game Club. There are a number of games ongoing and we’ve had six or seven new members join the club this summer. There will be a club meeting on Saturday, October 4th. A number of topics will be discussed. On October 10th and 11th there will be a bunch of Sandbaggers headed to Helena for the annual Montana Game Faire. http://www.montanagamefaire.org/ It should be a good time and we hope to see a lot of our friends from MisCon there as well.
Now on with the story. . .
Chapters IV & V: The Fellowship of Fang and Fur
The Fellowship composed of the vampires: Treblin, Kevin Wilson, Johnny Walker, and the werewolves Shad Altsoba and Tears-of-the-Northern-Star (a lupus) travel northeast around Milli Lacs to investigate a campfire in the distance.
Tears slinks off through the timber to get a closer look. On the way he discovers multiple wolf prints in the snow. In a clearing there are several vehicles and a RV parked in a defensive circle, on the roof of the RV an armed man is on the night watch. Tears walks into the clearing and tries to act non-threatening, friendly even. The humans in the camp become interested for a moment and then someone mentions wolf burgers and clicks off a safety. Tears bolts into the shadows of the woods.
A little boy (about eight years old) follows. Tears dashes through the forest, but the tike continues to follow. “Brucee, come back! Leave that wolf alone!” a female voice cries. Tears stops and menaces the child, back off, he growls. The child transforms into a horror of burnt putrid flesh and then fades from sight. Tears flies off to his friends to report his findings.
The gargoyle Erinyi descends on the forest, the boy has drawn her attention. The boy runs. Tears sees him run and the predator prey instinct takes over and he bounds after the child. The kid tosses a piece of pipe over his shoulder, the wolf ignores it and prepares to pounce, but Erinyi bends down to look - BOOM!! Tears is deafened for the moment and thrown off balance. The child retreats back to the armed camp. “Brucee are you Ok?” and “Oh Brucee don’t do that again,” are shouted by the adults in camp. Brucee tells the adults he’s tired. He should be, the sun is rising.
Treblin, Kevin, and Johnny are scrambling in the SUV under sleeping bags and tarpaulin to seek cover from the sun. Tears recovers from the blast and circles the camp in the safety of the wood, howling his anger, after awhile his howls are answered by multiple wolf voices. He follows them a few miles north and to his surprise finds a pack of eight or nine wolves all with the rouge fur markings of Red Talons. They are led by an enormous wolf named, Stands-like-a-Mountain. Tears and Mountain speak of the Apocalypse and of cleansing Milli Lacs. The Red Talon lets Tears know that there are two kinfolk within the human camp and that the pack intends to take them and kill the rest of the humans. Tears asks them to let the humans flee, but is rebuffed.
Tears returns to the SUV with the sleeping vamps and Shad. He tells Shad that he has to convince the humans to leave before nightfall. Shad goes into the camp along with Tears as “his wolf”. He pleads on deaf ears for the humans to leave immediately and make for Fargo. They don’t take the threat of wolves seriously. Tears tries to identify which humans are kinfolk and he marks the camper where the ankle-bitter day sleeps.
When Tears and Shad return to their sleeping vampires the sun is setting. Tears thinks they should defend the humans from the Red Talons, maybe they can stand them off without anyone getting killed. The vampires disagree and want to continue on to Minneapolis and their mission. They do decide to go to the camp and give them one last warning to leave.
The howls of a wolf pack are heard from the south along with the moans of hundreds of zombies. The Red Talons are herding them towards the camp. In the umbra there is a foul spirit, a nexus crawler, guiding the zombies towards their prey. The humans panic, it’s a cluster fuck. Johnny Walker grabs the RV with a couple teenage girls and the ankle-bitter Brucee. The vampire’s SUV and Johnny’s new RV flee the overwhelming tide of flesh eaters. There is a hail of gunfire, but the zombie horde wipes out the stragglers.
After a wild ride the two vehicles make it to relative safety. Tears and Shad check on the teenage girls (the kinfolk) to make sure nobody has snacked on them. They are sisters Sandra and Andrea. Andrea was knocked unconscious and something strange is happening to Sandra. Tears recognizes that she is changing into werewolf for the first time. He holds her down and tries to calm her through it. The struggle gets violent and Johnny Walker is so fascinated by it that he doesn’t notice Erinyi at the door of the RV with a sharp stick in her hand. She stakes Johnny. She says something about seeing what he had done. (He had killed one of the campers in cold blood for the thrill of it. He didn’t know Erinyi was watching.)
All hell is breaking loose outside as well. A pod of 25 or 30 zombies have found our heroes. Treblin is trapped in the SUV sans the hatchback and it won’t start. Kevin and Shad take pot-shots at the shambling fiends. The ankle-bitter is up to his old tricks and tosses a few improvised bombs at the creatures. Meanwhile, Sandra the cub has frenzied and fled the RV. She takes her wrath out on the shuffling horde. Tears tenderly places Andrea on the roof of the RV, hopefully out of the fray. He then rambles into battle; his top priority is to care for the cub and see that she comes to no harm and doesn’t hurt anybody else in her rage.
It’s a terrific fight; Erinyi is wounded and flies off for a time. Kevin and Shad drop zombie after zombie with head shots. Brucee does his part with a few explosives, but he uses too much blood and freaks out. He attacks the nearest blood source, a full crinos Tears. Tears snatches the 60lb ankle-bitter by the nap of the neck and holds him harmlessly out at arm's length. He contemplates what to do with this squirming ball of fangs - kill it or toss it. He tosses it into the woods; maybe a cold dump in a snowdrift will calm this thing down.
Treblin is near death. Three or four zombies have trapped him and ripped into him. Erinyi comes to his aid, but is too late. He is dead by the time the last clutching zombie is dispatched.
Tears calms Sandra down, she has a beautiful white coat of fur, he tells her he and Shad will help her through this. When Tears returns for Andrea he finds her missing and there are massive werewolf prints in the snow. Mountain has taken her as he said he would. Sandra is distraught and wants to go after her sister. Tears and Shad know it would be suicide to attack nine Red Talons in their territory. They try and convince her that Andrea will be OK with the werewolves. At least they will protect her from the zombies.
The still torpor Johnny Walker is placed in storage under the RV (Brucee had made a snack of him to quench his thirst while the others were preoccupied), and the troupe starts to make its way towards Minneapolis round the east shore of Milli Lacs.