Sandbagger News & a Zombie update
The Sandbaggers Game Club will be holding a meeting on October 4th at 6pm. We’ll be inducting new members and planning our annual Halloween party. Lee Shinabery will be visiting from Arkansas. He’s coming up for the meeting and to attend Montana Game Faire on the 10th&11th of October. http://www.montanagamefaire.org/ Lee, Scott Readicker (the Club’s president), and I will be running RPG’s at the Faire this year.
Here are the notes from Ben Donnelly’s World of Darkness Zombie Campaign taken last week session.
Chapter VI: The Fellowship of Fang and Fur
It’s a bumpy ride in the RV after losing their expert driver Treblin to zombies. Fuel is also an issue, soon, everyone will be tromping through slush and snow, if they don’t find some to scrounge. It wouldn’t be too hard on the werewolves, but those prissy vampires wouldn’t like it.
The gargoyle Erinyi, and the vampires, Kevin Wilson and the little boy Brucee revive Johnny Walker from his torpor state. He is brash as ever and the tension within the Fellowship is increasing. The werewolves want to know what business they are risking their lives for in zombie filled Minneapolis. The vampires keep mum about their secret.
They stop at town of Isle, MN, it’s at the southern end of Milli Lacs around 40-50 miles from the Twin Cities. The town is empty of the living and the walking dead. The ankle-bitter, Brucee, sets out to find components for bomb making. He finds a bar and decides to take all the 100 proof liquor he can carry to make Molitov Cocktails.
Tears-of-the-Northern-Star and the cub, Sammi, decide to stalk Brucee and play a trick on him. The werewolves step sideways into the umbra and as Brucee collects bottles under the bar mirror they leap back through the mirror over his head scattering and breaking a few bottles. Brucee gets a fright, maybe this is the reason vampires don’t like mirrors, they never know when a werewolf might pop out of them. The wolves have their laugh, but the tiny vampire doesn’t react so they leave him to his business.
Shad investigates the near-umbra on his own. There he is confronted by a huge metal bird like spirit. (By his description, Tears believes it may be the Thunderbird himself.) The spirit tells Shad that the green glow to the south in the umbra’s horizon is a nuclear power plant southeast of Minneapolis-Saint Paul.
At the lake, Tears speaks with the Trout Spirit and is told a pack of Wendigo Garou went to investigate the green glow weeks or months ago. Fish may not be too good at telling time, especially in winter.
No fuel could be found and after the day passes they decide to drive until they run out and then walk the rest of the way. On the outskirts of a small town they run across a recent battlefield and the participants were not zombies. It seems the humans were fighting each other. They find a defensive position at the bottom of a hill. There is a well marked trail leading to the top. Johnny Walker goes up to investigate. Tears steps sideways into the near-umbra and follows him. He wants to keep an eye on Johnny, whom he considers the Alpha Vampire.
In the umbra a plane or a giant bird circles the hill, high, high above in the umbral firmament. Tears continues to follow Johnny, but keeps an eye on the specter in the sky. Near the hill’s crest a collapsed cave entrance stops both Johnny and Tears. They dig out the entrance in both realms. In the world the vampires find a stash of guns and petrol. They also find traces that something large and heavy was removed. Tears awakens a sleeping spirit, a ghost of an ancient French trapper, but he is of no help. When Tears leaves the cave he finds the giant spirit has landed. It’s not the Thunderbird. It calls itself the American Dream and it wants a favor from the Garou. Some of his human servants have died nearby and need a proper burial. Tears agrees to help. He’s stunned to learn that the Spirit contends that, although tainted, Johnny Walker is one of his servants as well. Tears surmises that it must be the army uniform Johnny wears that marks him as an unwitting servant of the American Dream.
At the RV Shad and Kevin dispatch a lone zombie. It seems to have just thawed and it’s wearing the tattered remains of an Air Force uniform. Upon his return, Tears, informs Shad of his dealing with the great spirit. The two werewolves take the body of the airman and follow its back trail to a crashed helicopter. The dead pilots are still in their seats. They are not zombies. The Garou respectfully bury the dead they find at the crash. Shad says a few words from a human religion and Tears howls a wolf-prayer to Gaia for their souls to find peace.
The American Dream Spirit thanks them for their assistance, and then he tells them that there are Black Spiral Dancers controlling the nuclear reactor. There is also a ranch south of the reactor that they ought to investigate.
That night with a fueled up RV the fellowship continues to the Twin Cities. The vampires again refuse to tell the werewolves what they are searching for. Tears wants to leave them to the walking dead in the city. He wants to travel around it to the southeast. Shad reminds Tears of Old Man Sea’s words that Old Man River would protect the Garou if the traveled through the city. The roadways are clogged and they all travel on foot towards the Mississippi. The vampires walk slowly among the shambling dead, determined not to draw attention their persons. The werewolves trek through the umbra, noticing that a few of the zombies are possessed by bane spirits, but they don’t seem to notice their presence.
Near the river Johnny stumbles and kicks a can drawing the zombies’ attention. The vampires fight their way to the river. In the umbra a bane spirit holding many chains attacks the werewolves. Tears strikes first and rips the bane to shreds with razor claws and fangs.
The Fellowship is pressed to the waters edge ready to take the plunge to flee the advancing zombies. The river has thawed but huge chunks of ice are swept along in its mighty flow. . .