[WOTD] Season 2, Session #5: The Scrap Yard
War of the Dead Season 2, Session #5 -- Loosely Based on WOTD Chapter 2, Week 5
Overview: The survivor convoy has a brief run-in with the raiders outside the Hirschbeck Estates, then reaches the outskirts of Sanctuary. Confronted by a “wall” of zombies, they make use of a secret entrance in a scrap yard, entering an underground system of tunnels connected to the city’s sewers. The party splits, as their advance scouts run into some resistance fighters who warn that UNIMED is not all that it seems.
The Cast:
* Ashley J. Williams (JZ): S-Mart sports-goods salesman and all-around handyman, armed with a "boomstick," a modified chainsaw, and a big mouth.
* Sabrina Ford (HZ): 14-year-old high-school athlete, survivor of the SS Pinnacle, with a horribly disfigured right arm hidden in a large costume "cat-paw" glove/sleeve.
* Gary (SV): A huge man and Renaissance-fair enthusiast who fancies himself a knight, insulated from the horror of the Apocalypse by his unshakeably naive and child-like outlook.
* Fletch (R): An able and stealthy bowhunter who hunts game and zombies with equal ease.
* Father O'Shaughnessy (Digital_Rampage): Roman Catholic priest with experience in animal handling and medicine; he believes he has received visions warning of incursions by the undead.
* Daniel "DJ" McCoy (CH): Mountain man, trapper, and hunter, acting as a scout and anti-zombie sniper for the group.
(All players were in attendance for this session.)
Raider Ambush:
In the dark, chilly drizzle of the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday, April 3rd, the survivor convoy continues southward, following the west banks of Eagle Mountain Lake. The humvee, driven by Kyle Elliott (the hardware store manager) takes the lead. The soldiers radio Sanctuary for an update, warning of the groups of zombies they’ve seen migrating toward the city. The Sanctuary station confirms that zombies are indeed encircling the city, just beyond the outer defenses, doing nothing but standing and moaning, while others join their ranks. Simply driving in through one of the gates won’t work anymore; the convoy is directed to head toward an emergency evacuation route: an entrance to the old sewer system in a scrap yard outside the city.
Father O’Shaughnessy tries to persuade the soldier to evacuate the city, but doesn’t get anywhere: As far as the soldier is concerned, the UNIMED compound is humanity’s last hope, and must be defended at all costs.
A cold drizzle turns into a freezing downpour, much to the chagrin of Fletch, who is riding atop the ambulance (with his feet braced behind the light bar). Visibility quickly drops … and then the tires blow out on the lead humvee, as it spins out of control. One of the soldiers in the lead humvee calls out a warning over the radio: “Caltrops on the road!”
Sabrina spots them, and, despite the unwieldy nature of the ambulance, manages to steer a path through the caltrops, while Ash follows the ambulance’s tail lights. The radio chatter is full of shouting and competing orders from the survivors, and suddenly the ambulance comes to a screeching halt (Fletch manages not to fall off) and starts to back up, while Ash is still trying to follow it through the caltrops. Ash just barely manages to avoid crashing into the ambulance without tearing out his tires, but when he tries to bring the SUV about, the tires spin out on the rain-slicked road, and it goes into the ditch. He manages to slow the SUV down enough that it’s only a “soft” crash into the barricades, but Ash and Donnegan get faces full of talcum powder and air bag. His witty comeback to the universe lost in the mayhem, Ash punctures the air bag, pops the door, deftly grabs his chainsaw (which he rigged a special “sheath” for on the SUV roof so he could quickly access it in just such an event), and rolls out. While Cathy stops screaming and starts helping her kids get out, and DJ staggers out from where he was taking a nap in the back, Ash starts running back to the scene with the crippled humvee and the stopped ambulance, but soon realizes they’re a good distance back down the road.
Father O’Shaughnessy, who had been riding shotgun (literally) in the ambulance, bails out and dashes to the humvee, helping its passengers evacuate, and rushing the children and the still-pregnant Breena over to the tree-line at the edge, fearing that they’ll be under sniper attack as in the cannibal ambush from the other day. Down a dirt road perpendicular to the Farmer’s Market Road, there are shouts and sounds of an engine starting up, as apparently these raiders had been camped out here and waiting for prey, but apparently weren’t all ready to go in the time between spotting the approaching headlights and the humvee hitting the scrap “road caltrops.” Nonetheless, soon a pickup “technical” with a .50 caliber gun mounted over the cab comes barreling down the road, spraying the humvee with machine-gun fire. Fortunately, the occupants by this point have all evacuated it.
The rampant spraying of the crippled vehicle and lack of any commands to “surrender” prompts Father O’Shaughnessy to think that these raiders have no intention of taking any prisoners (and, based on recent incidents, he’s even inclined to think that “taken prisoner” might just mean “saved for later rations,” given the high incidence of cannibalism), so he pops up and unloads with a blast from his drum-fed assault shotgun, while the soldiers rally and concentrate fire on the approaching truck with their M-16s. The gunner is shredded, as are the occupants of the technical cab, but the truck is still barreling forward. Everyone rushes out from behind the bullet-riddled humvee (Iniguez and Vasquez grabbing a couple who didn’t seem to be reacting quickly enough) just in time, as the technical hits it, flips, and then goes up in flames as a box of Molotovs in the back spills out.
Fletch, meanwhile, has lost no time in dashing through the woods with his bow, following glimpses of headlights in the trees and confused shouts, as the crew of the other vehicle seems to debate whether to join the fight, as it seems their allies have taken on more than they can handle. Suddenly, an arrow sprouts from the throat of the driver. His comrade wastes no time in reaching over to open the door, kicking him out, and taking position; the option of “flight” has now just won out over “fight.” Just as the truck turns around, Sabrina’s dogs come bursting out of the woods. One of the raiders tries throwing a Molotov cocktail, but fumbles (GM Note: Critical Failure -- good grief), starting a fire in the back. The dogs, undeterred, leap into the truck bed and tear into the raiders. With another well-placed arrow, timed at just the right moment to catch the replacement driver with the open window facing the right way, Fletch finishes off the last raider. The truck runs into a tree at low speed, its wheels still spinning as the slumped driver falls forward on the horn and on the gas. Fletch rushes up, pulling the dead driver out, then quickly dealing with the business of making sure none of the corpses come back up as shamblers.
New Wheels, Briefly:
Fortunately, the flatbed truck has enough capacity to provide for the passengers displaced by the loss of the humvee, though some of the supplies were lost in the T-bone crash with the technical. The soldiers bring along a .50 caliber gun that had been stowed in the humvee (the ammunition had been used up while clearing the airport), salvaging what’s left of the gun belt from the technical. The surviving raider truck yields very little by way of supplies, but they pick up several hunting rifles, ammunition for each, and a few surviving Molotov cocktails.
The soldiers volunteer to ride in the pickup with Fletch and DJ, as they are better equipped for the inclement weather than most of the civilians. After all, if only they can avoid another ambush like this, it’s not much further to Sanctuary.
As they approach Sanctuary, they stop near a collapsed overpass, and observe a thick line of the undead stretching for what seems to encircle the entire city. Despite Gary’s bravado and claims that he can cut a path through them, to reach the city, it’s clear that an alternate course is in order. There is some murmuring among the civilians about whether Sanctuary is such a good idea after all (that perhaps it’s doomed to fall), but the soldiers and the visitors from Camp Holiday are determined to carry out their mission: to get Father O’Shaughnessy to UNIMED in the hopes of determining if his resistance to the infection can be translated into a vaccine or even a cure for others. Rather than taking their chances on the open road alone, the airport survivors opt to stick with the convoy.
The Scrap Yard:
At the scrap yard, the vehicles pull to a stop. It’s soon clear that they’ll have to take the rest of the way on foot; the scrap yard is surrounded not only with chain link fence, but multiple barricades. Simply driving in won’t be an option without some heavy equipment to clear the way first.
The survivors load up on what they can, with Gary actually managing to sling the .50 caliber machine-gun over his back, only slightly encumbered by the burden in addition to his armor. The soldiers lead the way, while DJ and Gary both manage to spot some cryptic graffiti scrawled on a nearby wall … but since neither of them can actually read, whatever warning was painted there is lost on them.
Dark, misshapen forms silently leap from the shadows, tearing into the soldiers. Burst fire rings out, and the soldiers cry out warnings and curses, but the dog-like beasts neither snarl nor growl as they tear into their prey. The soldiers are overwhelmed, and there are nasty, tearing sounds. Meanwhile, more of the shamblers meander down the road, some damp and bloated from treading through Lake Eagle Mountain, on their trek toward Sanctuary. Daniel Shelby panics, abandoning his girlfriend and newborn daughter as he tries to flee the mayhem. The panic is contagious, as Cathy Fimori sweeps up both her daughters and rushes after him, and even Sabrina’s “new” dog breaks away -- but Father O’Shaughnessy rallies the rest.
GM Note: I messed up on keeping track of which NPCs were caught in outright panic, and which were merely Shaken. I regret that my plan of handing out NPC cards for players to keep track of has been working out rather less than smoothly, as it’s hard to be equitable in the distribution of competent NPCs, and sometimes even then they somehow get overlooked. There are a few things I should probably just roll for myself. Having several players roll dice for 14 NPCs and then shout out the numbers they rolled … doesn’t make for a very efficient environment. I need to work on that.
Anyway, Daniel Shelby was the only NPC I could confirm who had rolled a natural “1” on the Guts check, and combined with the Yellow Hindrance, I interpreted that was “Run AWAY!” Cathy moved under player direction.
While I had taken issue before in Chapter 1 when a player had directed an NPC to take a “suicidal” action, I reasoned that “grab your kids and run away from the scrap yard where the soldiers are being torn to shreds” was a perfectly understandable response. Considering that I’m pretty sure there should have been some more Yellow NPCs screaming and running for the hills, I let that one stand.
Sabrina charges in, slashing at the mutant dogs with her bayonet, even as Gary tumbles after her, heavily burdened by all the gear and armor he’s carrying. Fletch and DJ try to make it to high ground so they can cover the area, but get ambushed by more of the dog-things lurking in the shadows. Fortunately, while the creatures are indeed vicious and dangerous, they are still living, and can be put down with a bayonet or bullet just as easily as any other mortal creature. Fletch downs one dog with an arrow, then pulls it out and fires the same arrow into another, while Ash bludgeons one of the monsters with the butt of his shotgun (as, despite all the screams and shots, Father O’Shaughnessy insists that using the chainsaw or shotgun would draw the zombie horde upon them all).
After a brief but fierce battle, they manage to rush the remaining civilians toward the main building where the sewer entrance is hidden. Daniel Shelby and the Fimoris are lost, presumed dead. Vasquez and Donnegan were torn to shreds by the mutant dogs, as was Sabrina’s second dog (despite its brave attempt to rally to help the soldiers at the last moment). Although the zombies show no sign of being able to force their way through the scrap yard barricades anytime soon in response to the noise, the group wastes no time in finding the hatch, and going underground.
Sewers of Sanctuary:
GM Note: I used some “Sewers of Malifaux” scenery for this, but I came to the quick conclusion that this stuff is NOT meant to be set up on the fly. I ended up just using the floor pieces like floor tiles, which worked well enough for my purposes, but didn’t quite evoke the “wow” factor I’d hoped for … so I didn’t bother taking any pictures. I suppose I could have set something up ahead of time, but I wasn’t entirely sure the heroes were actually going to take the sewer route, and under which conditions.
Once underground in a maintenance area, those with first aid skills tend to the wounded, while the baby cries, Sabrina’s dog makes mournful noises, and Shannon vainly argues that they should go back to find the others who ran off in the darkness. There is concern about the bites and scrapes, but DJ and Fletch are certain that those dogs, while unnatural in appearance, were still of the living and breathing variety, so they should be in no danger of the Living Dead infection. Fletch had torn a collar from one of the dead dog-things to show the others; Father O’Shaughnessy studies it and notices that it has a serial number on it very similar in structure to the serial number on the collar of Sabrina’s dog (the one she’d picked up back in Jacksonville). Could there be a connection?
Privates Iniguez and Winthrope, the only surviving members left of the Sanctuary escort squad, take Father O’Shaughnessy aside, and show him their maps. They give instructions on what to do in the perhaps-very-likely event that the group gets split off from the soldiers (or worse), instructing members of the group to demand a pass phrase from anyone they encounter in the sewers; today’s is “Hail to the King, baby.” Any of Sanctuary’s security forces should be informed to expect the arrival of Father O’Shaughnessy and the rest of the “Camp Holiday” crew by way of the sewer access, but the soldiers warn that there might be others in the sewers.
Sabrina, Fletch and DJ form an advance scout party to go ahead, while Father O’Shaughnessy and the two soldiers follow, and the rest of the group takes up the rear.
The McCurdy Brothers:
The scout team runs into a couple of strangers in the sewer, whereupon Sabrina, having only overheard mention of the pass phrase without actually understanding what it was for, promptly blurts it out by way of identification. The two men, their faces covered with bandannas against the sewer stench, obligingly repeat it -- whereupon Sabrina is about to rush back to inform the others, but the two strangers call for her to stop. They clarify that they aren’t with UNIMED at all, but rather that they’re with “the resistance.” They introduce themselves as Ian and Geoff McCurdy -- Geoff being a former accountant for the evil megacorporation that has taken over the town of Sanctuary with the help of their security forces and the military. They claim that UNIMED, in cooperation with the military, rules Sanctuary with an iron fist, subjugating the public by drugs in their food, and using survivors as human guinea pigs for unspeakable experiments.
Sabrina goes back, after giving the impression she won’t give away the two resistance fighters, and that she’ll see what she can do to ditch the soldiers. DJ and Fletch, meanwhile, opt to go off with the McCurdy brothers to their underground base, to learn more about the evils of UNIMED and what’s really going on in Sanctuary.
Consulations:
Sabrina regroups with the others, claiming that Fletch and DJ went on ahead with a couple of “soldiers,” and then she manages to pull Father O’Shaughnessy aside to relate to him what just happened. Father O’Shaughnessy, worried about this, goes to Breena and persuades her to fake going into labor pains so that they’ll have an excuse to come to a halt while he tries to sort things out -- so they can buy some time before ending up in UNIMED hands.
Breena Maclean does a fine job of it, while Father O’Shaughnessy makes his rounds and brings the rest of his group up to speed. At last, they decide to question the soldiers further, before jumping to any conclusions. So, Father O’Shaughnessy attempts to “innocently” fish some information out of them, and then eventually goes into more direct interrogation.
After some back-and-forth, the story Father O’Shaughnessy gets out of the soldiers is that Sanctuary is jointly controlled by a council of survivors, including the leadership of the UNIMED corporation, a “Commander Morrison,” and a group of local city officials and business owners. Although UNIMED, a multi-national corporation, has been involved in some headline-grabbing controversial delving into the splicing of human genetic material into lab animals (in an attempt to research ways to grow replacement organs in “host” animals, for instance), the official line is that the US division is focused on less controversial research. Nonetheless, the soldiers admit that it’s a poorly-kept secret that their trained dogs have an abnormally-high level of intelligence. When shown the collars, they indicate that it’s very likely that Sabrina’s dog is a UNIMED-engineered dog that had been lost somehow; the collars on the mutant dogs that attacked them in the scrap yard appear to be of the UNIMED standard as well, but they’re fairly certain that those dogs weren’t performing some nefarious duty for UNIMED by attacking their own people.
As for the allegations of experimentation, the soldiers confirm that there is ongoing research into a vaccine, but any experimentation with humans just involves donations of blood samples to put through screening -- not anything as crazy as sticking people in cages, and certainly not with any mind-controlling drugs involved. As for the presence of other people in the sewers, the soldiers confirm that there are some people who have rebelled against the council’s control of the city (including former UNIMED employees), either fleeing to the surrounding countryside, or into unsecured parts of the town, including the extensive sewer system.
At last, Father O’Shaughnessy is at least convinced that the soldiers aren’t trying to lead the group into some sort of strange death-trap, although he still isn’t convinced that UNIMED is entirely on the up-and-up. So, the group moves on.
The Resistance:
DJ and Fletch are led to a more bearable part of the underground system. The McCurdy brothers explain that with the moving of UNIMED’s headquarters to Sanctuary some years ago, the city underwent a period of rapid growth, and developers anticipated even further expansion. An extensive network of sewer and maintenance tunnels -- as well as some underground parking -- was built in preparation for further development, before it all took a big hit with the economic slump, and then the Apocalypse.
There are perhaps 36 or so survivors at the camp the two scouts see, residing in makeshift structures build up on scaffolding and support beams, with a focus on being up off the floor -- no doubt to make it less likely the inhabitants would be caught off guard in case of shamblers passing through. DJ notices a distinct lack of children, and asks Geoff about it; Geoff angrily explains that UNIMED sometimes raids the survivors in the sewers, taking prisoners for experiments, and that all the children have been taken away. DJ finds it a little hard to believe that they’d just let it stand at that, but Geoff takes him aside and indicates that it’s quite likely the children are either dead or turned into “more of those things,” but he doesn’t want to dispirit his comrades. They are, he says, in the midst of putting together an attack plan, but they’ve just been looking for an opening. If the soldiers are expecting a convoy of survivors to come from the outside, this just might be their opportunity to catch them off guard.
As DJ and Fletch hear more about the evils of UNIMED and its gene-splicing ways, and perhaps that it was even responsible for engineering the Apocalypse (so that it could provide its closely-guarded antidote and become all-powerful as a result), they volunteer to lend their aid to strike a blow against the evil megacorporation. Combined with the McCurdy brothers’ maps and knowledge of the area, and the two scouts’ marksmanship and stealthy abilities, they begin to piece together a morning raid at dawn.
The rest of the group is woefully under-equipped when it comes to weapons, explaining that many of the weapons are hard to maintain in this environment, and even harder to find ammunition for. The survivors do have an abundance of air breather masks and bandannas, though when asked about it, they indicate that they don’t have any spares for DJ or Fletch. While they mull over the sewer maps, one of the survivors provides some stew, which DJ hungrily chows down, while Fletch explains that he “just ate.” DJ finds the taste a bit odd, and questions the cook -- who, with some embarrassment, indicates that the stew is dog meat that the McCurdy brothers acquired during their last scouting run. DJ, who has actually eaten dog meat while surviving in the wilds and urban ruins of North Carolina, finds it to be a strange taste for “dog,” but reasons that it must be because of all that genetic engineering.
A Hasty Raid:
DJ persuades the survivors that now is the time to strike, and that he’s willing to help out. So, Fletch and he go along with a group of survivors, as they gather up their things. Something about that stew doesn’t settle right with DJ, and he keeps thinking back to it, but there are more pressing matters to attend to.
While they discuss the “monsters” that UNIMED has unleashed upon the downtown “quarantine” area, Fletch indicates that he’d like to see some proof of all these atrocities that UNIMED is guilty of. So, Ian McCurdy declares that the best opportunity is to “see for yourself, while there’s still some dark left outside.” He leads the way, as they make their way underneath the downtown area of the city. They find their way to an underground maintenance access, and then open up a hatch beside the street. At first, there is little to see, but with the nightvision goggles, they make out movement; what at first seemed like people lumbering about, far away, appears to actually be large, muscled brutes much closer (the mistake being on account of the lack of depth perception when viewing things through the goggles). One of these monsters tosses an entire car in a brawl, while another smashes through a wall.
By pure chance, it appears they’ve just missed the spectacle of some unlucky fellow being caught by these monsters, as they seem to “play” with the body, tearing at it and tossing it about like a rag doll. Something about the smells and sights cause DJ to think again upon all the horrible “folk tales” that have been passed through his family of deranged families in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and tales of such things as cannibalism. He’s never tasted human flesh, but he’s heard a bit about what it’s supposed to be like. He starts to have a rather nasty concern about the stew he ate, and this is expressed as he heads back down and … loses his lunch.
GM Note: “Survival” skill used in this respect, for this particular “insight.”
Horrified by what he’s seen, and horrified by the thought of what he might have eaten, DJ angrily turns on one of the “resistance fighters,” and demands to know what’s “going on,” and is further put off by how he can’t actually see any of their faces. In a fury, as the other survivors go for their guns, he yanks the breather mask off of one of the fighters -- and both he and Fletch observe that this fellow not only has some pretty unhealthy-looking complexion from being down in the sewers too long, but he’s got something freakish going on with his teeth.
Fletch lets loose a curse -- and an arrow, right into the mutant’s face. The jig is up; in the past few days, he’s run into far too many cannibals not to become acquainted with what seems to be a common trend among those who’ve developed a taste for human flesh despite being among the still-breathing.
GM Note: This is a point of deviation on my part from WOTD as written, from my extrapolation from the deterioration seen in the “Food For Thought” stand-alone adventure. Given the high prevalence of cannibalism in such a short span of encounters in Chapter 2, I figure it only makes sense that SOMETHING IS GOING ON HERE.
A Lot of Strange Things Happen, All at Once
-or-
At the End of the Night, Everybody Plays an Adventure Card, All at Once:
Outside, as the light of dawn breaks the sky, suddenly the hulking creatures scatter, fleeing the burning rays. In the midst of this, a large, hulking, bestial humanoid comes rushing down the maintenance access … but it’s a different sort of creature. It also happens to be carrying a motorcycle.
One of the resistance fighters, who’d just drawn a shotgun on Fletch, shoots at the creature instead, but gets a face full of motorcycle as he’s slammed against the wall. The beast-man-thing seems to have no time for all this, and barrels down the tunnel. DJ and Fletch, weighing their odds against fighting the resistance fighters behind them, the giant hulks above, or chasing the fleeing monster (and hoping they can duck down a side corridor somewhere along the way), opt to take their chances with the latter gambit.
This proves to be a pretty good move in short order. Several albino, muscle-bound, oversized monsters pile through the maintenance hatch into the tunnels. The tunnels echo with screams, roars, gunshots, and the sounds of snapping bones and rending flesh.
DJ, Fletch, and their new “friend” just … keep … RUNNING.
GM Note: DJ’s player played “New Recruit,” petitioning the GM to get one of those “big hulk monsters outside” as an ally, but I indicated that, sorry, that simply wasn’t an option. He could either have a normal survivor or -- “Oh, wait a minute, if you really want something STRANGE, pick a miniature out of HERE” -- and then I offered up a selection from my box of werewolfish things, which I had handy. The miniature he picked -- the one I think of as the “Junkyard Werewolf” -- is holding motorcycle parts in each hand; someone played “Hot Wheels,” suggesting that it was a complete motorcycle. Then someone played “Here Comes the Cavalry” (the Ragers topside attack), and someone else played “Run For It!” Hey, it was the end of the night.
And thus ends our session. Next time … Week 6! (Or something roughly resembling it.)