DESIGNER'S NOTES FOR "PRISON BREAK" by Richard Fichera "Prison Break," a tournament scenario for the KULT role-playing game, recently appeared in Shadis magazine, issue #31. While the editors printed the article nearly untouched, there were a few things that were cut presumably due to the mature nature of the material. "Stage 4 - The Slum" had its inhabitants replaced, and two of the original player characters were omitted. Nothing personal against the crew at Shadis, but for those purists who want the uncut version, here it is, along with the tournament score sheet. For further insight on the design of this scenario, check out my design notes at the end of this article. Stage 4 - the Slum "After that last encounter, you are glad to tumble into this refuse-strewn hallway. The air is musty and close compared to the thin air of the skyscraper, and smells heavily of rotting garbage, vomit, and urine, but the floor is firm and stable, and that is a welcome feeling. Most of the light bulbs are burned out, but a few dim ones light the hallway, revealing the peeling wallpaper and the mildewed carpet. An occasional rat can be seen scavenging through the garbage piled against the walls." There are door on either side of the hall at 10-foot intervals, alternating between the left and right. Some of the doors hang ajar and reveal one-room apartments littered with trash, broken glass, and smashed furniture. All of the windows are boarded up and only the night sky can be seen through the cracks. Occasionally (20 chance), the room will be occupied. The tenant will be a lone man or woman suffering from some severe skin disease similar to radiation poisoning, lying on a bare mattress or sitting in a dilapidated stuffed chair, either crying or catatonic. All of them will show severe signs of drugs use, with oozing track marks all over their arms. Scabs cover various parts of their bodies, and the players should get the general impression that these people could be highly infectious. At the end of the hallway, they will come to a stairwell headed down, which will lead to another hallway similar to the previous one. At the far end of this hallway can be seen a steel door with a spring bar. As the party travels down this hall, they will notice the growing smell of offal and feces and begin to hear the muffled sound of babies crying. The smell comes from behind the apartment doors, but the sound is coming from an indeterminate source. It continues to grow louder and more infant voices seem to be joining the chorus with each passing minute. When the group is about 40 feet from the door, a dozen of the apartment doors will fly open with considerable force and 20 maniacal toddlers suffering severe radiation poisoning and birth defects will swarm towards the characters. Their cancerous skin has numerous open wounds. They are all nude and caked in body waste. Their eyes are nearly closed with infection but their mouths are wide open, screaming, and filled with rows of pointed teeth. These mutant toddlers will attack the guards with the following statistics: Toddlers: Terror modification throw: - Movement: 4m/combat round Actions: 2 Initiative bonus: - Damage bonus: -1 Damage capacity: 3 scratches = 1 light wound 2 light wounds = 1 serious wound 2 serious wounds = 1 fatal wound Endurance: 55 Natural armor: - Attack modes: Bite 8 (scr 1-8, lw 9-14, sw 15-22, fw 23+) The toddlers are mindless; they will attack until they are all dead. It is possible for the group to escape, however. If they can reach the door, pass through, and close it behind them, the toddlers cannot follow. ******************************************************** And here are the two missing prison guards. Guard #6 Personality Profile: You're very attracted to authority figures in a very kinky way--you'd like to serve them, to be tied up and commanded by them. Your favorite sexual fantasy is about the leader of this team forcing you to commit kinky sex acts. But your intuition tells you that the leader would be appalled by your fantasies. They make you ashamed, so you block out those thoughts by showing everybody that you're the toughest one on the team. Nobody's as tough as you! You know that Guard #4 is a chronic liar, always spreading bullshit stories about Vietnam. You can always tell when people are lying. STR 14 AGL 12 CON 14 COM 11 EGO 13 PER 12 EDU 11 CHA 11 Disadvantages: Death Wish (10), Sexual Neurosis (5) Advantages: Intuition (15) Mental Balance: 0 Skills: Climb 9, Automatic Weapons 7, Rifle 10, Handgun 7, Heavy Weapons 5, Sneak 7, Dodge 7, Throw 7, Dagger 7, Throwing Weapons 5, Impact Weapons 7, Pole Arms 5, Whips and Chains 5, Axe 5, Unarmed Combat 12, Swim 10, Hide 10, Search 10, Read/Write 9, First Aid 13 Equipment: M16 Shotgun, Grenade launcher with 6 tear gas grenades Guard #7 Personality Profile: Most people just can't get past their own preconceived notions about other people. Just because you have several heavy-gauge stainless steel rings in your ear, and have both your nipples and your navel pierced doesn't mean that you're not a great person. You can't stand those stupid "white bread" idiots that think they have the world figured out. They should try living a real life. Some people admire your piercings for the same reason that you do; it shows how much pain you can take. And you can take alot. STR 8 AGL 17 CON 12 COM 8 EGO 11 PER 9 EDU 11 CHA 14 Disadvantages: Bad Reputation (10), Intolerance (10) Advantages: Endure Pain (15) Mental Balance: -5 Skills: Climb 15, Automatic Weapons 9, Rifle 12, Handgun 11, Heavy Weapons 7, Sneak 8, Dodge 9, Throw 8, Dagger 8, Throwing Weapons 8, Impact Weapons 9, Whips and Chains 5, Unarmed Combat 8, Hide 9, Search 9, Read/Write 9, Falling Technique 7 Equipment: Steyr AUG ******************************************************** And last of all, here's the score sheet from the tournament. Don't know what you'll use it for, but it completes the package. STAGE 1 Number of flying saws destroyed, not just avoided - 5 points each. Blade trap detected and disarmed - 5 points. STAGE 2 Mad butcher killed: 20 points. STAGE 3 Using methods to keep characters from falling (safety lines, etc): 5 points. Number of gargoyles killed (not driven off): 10 points each. STAGE 4 Number of babies killed: -1 point each Escaping before killing more than 5 of the babies: 15 points STAGE 5 Number of wolvens killed: 15 points each. McBane killed: 50 points. STAGE 6 Number of incorrect answers: -2 points each. Attacked Chagidiel more than once: -10 points. EPILOGUE Total endurance of surviving characters (divided by 10) TIE BREAKER - sum of final mental balances. ******************************************************** Design Notes It's important to understand that this scenario was designed to be played tournament-style. I've taken two approaches to designing tournament scenarios in the past. Either create a huge scenario with lots of options, many of which will take the party on a tangent that prevents them from reaching the final goal within the four-hour time limit (but where they'll have fun anyway), or create a more serial design that requires them to work determinedly toward a final goal. This design was one of the latter. The various stages are meant to represent dark corners of McBane's mind that the characters must overcome to continue their pursuit of him. But as they draw closer to the killer, they also draw closer to Chagidiel, and the Death Angel's influence starts to assert itself. I also incorporated an "elemental" design that has been used successfully in so many popular video games, where the player passes underground, flies through the air, swims under the ocean, and passes through a volcanic environment. I was a little more subtle with it (I hope), and also included a fifth element (spirit) to be more in line with occult philosophy. STAGE 1 - THE STEEL CORRIDOR This part of the scenario was inspired by the movie "Phantasm." Never actually saw the flick but I remember seeing an ad for it that included a flying drill chasing people through mausoleum corridors. The image remained with me, so I included it here. STAGE 2 - THE ABATTOIR The visual inspiration for this stage came from John Bergin's graphic novel "From Inside." Anyone who has read this excellent work will immediately recognize the butchered buffalo carcasses, particularly the one that contained the still-living buffalo fetus. The images were quite nightmarish and really impressed me. The butcher is actually a hybrid of the doctor and nurse from the story. The medical car where the main character gives birth (the story takes place on a train) is maintained by a doctor with a rag doll face and an extremely beefy nurse. The blending of childbirth images and horror was quite inspiring. This is also the beginning of my elemental progression. In occult thought, gross material existence is equated to the element of earth. What could more appropriate than a room full of hung and butchered carcasses? STAGE 3 - ABOVE THE CITY I have a penchant for using animated statues in my scenarios, and the living gargoyles fit perfectly with that. KULT includes a very similar being (the Erinyae), but it just didn't feel right in the final writing. Still, they're stats and habitats are very similar. I changed a few things to give them the feel of (my interpretation) of gargoyles. This is obviously the air element, incorporating flying creatures and vast heights. I also find that tapping into primal fears usually has a greater-than-anticipated impact on the players. By being very expressive when the characters first open the door, it's possible to give pause to several of the players while they imagine peering down from such an immense height. STAGE 4 - THE SLUM The visual inspiration for this stage comes from the artwork of H.R. Giger, in particular "Landscape XVIII" or "Landscape XIV." Sometimes I'll cruise through Giger's art books looking for disturbing images then asking myself, "how could I fit this into a game environment?" At one time, I was developing a new game system completely based on the inspiration I draw from Giger. Someday, maybe I'll pull "Project: Red Iron" back out of the dark... This stage is intended to be the element of fire, which is why I used radiation poisoning among the inhabitants. The hallway is standard KULT fare, but the children that appear downstairs were a very intentional design hook meant to make the scenario multidimensional. While the visual inspiration is from Giger, the actions of children are meant to invoke several things. For example, the sorts of atrocities committed during the Vietnam War, where small children were strung up with hand grenades and told to throw themselves into the foxhole among the enemy. American soldiers (so I'm told), faced a harsh moral dilemma; how do you shoot a little kid, an innocent, even if they're unknowingly packing several pounds of death? They're going to kill you if you don't shoot them. It's kill or be killed. It is the same here... or is it? In the tournament and in playtesting, the characters would balk at mowing down a bunch of little tykes. Never mind that these were deranged, mindless, radioactive carnivores with dinner on their minds some folks just couldn't do it. And there was a way out if they could think clearly enough to use it. I specifically gave extra points to those groups that could avoid killing the children. The children also tie the stage in with the approaching encounter with Chagidiel, the Blood-Stained Patriarch. As the patron Death Angel of orphanages, child abuse and neglect, these mutated babies represent the kind of psychic and physical damage that would please Chagidiel so much. STAGE 5 - SKID ROW As in the previous stage, the visuals here are standard KULT fare. Keeping in mind the idea that McBane is a Conjurer of Death, I tried to find magic that might assist him. I had seen "the Shining" only very recently, and oddly enough the phone rang at a very tense moment towards the end of the film. We hit the pause button on the VCR right at the moment that the deranged Nicholson is stepping out from behind a pillar, and since it takes a couple frames before the tape stops, we were terrified to watch his unexpected attack in slow motion come to a grinding halt just mere inches before the fire ax strikes his wife. Somebody went to answer the phone while the rest of us sat there, horrified, staring at this immanent death frozen before us on the screen. And so, McBane gets a fire ax. Make sense? When I looked at the element I had left, I realized that I had yet to cover water. It has also been my experience that most GMs and game designers often exclude the effects of weather in their scenarios. I think it can have an incredible impact, and the torrential rainstorm in this stage is meant to do just that. It makes it real easy to get under the players' skin when you describe the terrible dowsing their getting, describing how uncomfortable they are now that their clothes are drenched. And visibility is dropping just as the enemy appears. STAGE 6 - DARKNESS TO LIGHT I don't imagine that this takes place in Chagidiel's citadel, although the flaming pit is likely somewhere in Inferno. Personally, I see Inferno as being similar to the Labyrinth in Hellraiser II, but that would be too difficult to convey appropriately to the players. So... I went with the flaming pit instead. The children's faces in the Patriarch's cloak reflect the children in Stage 4. The image for Chagidiel, a cross between the judge and the British schoolmaster, came to me in some reading I was doing (can't remember where exactly) about how corporeal punishment in the British school system (caning in particular), became such a tradition over time, that both teachers and students came to fulfill a self-perpetuating sado-masochistic relationship that had deep effects on British society at large. I have no idea if there is any truth to the matter, but the idea was frightening, so I used it. This stage represents elemental spirit, although in its darkest form. Chagidiel is not truly physical; a part of his consciousness dresses up in this image purely to intimidate and torment the characters. If they can pass this stage, even those lost in combat in earlier stages are allowed a rebirth back into the Illusion (in their old, although reasonably repaired bodies). Essentially, they pass from spirit back into physical manifestation. Copyright 1995 - Veil of Madness Productions. If you wish to redistribute or repost this file, please contact the writer at fratervi@wolfenet.com.