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Author: Chris SpiveyDeveloper: Matthew McFarlandEditor: Michelle Lyons-McFarland

IN THE DOMAIN OF THE MARINER

Learning. Duty. Honor. Protecting those in need is part of the American Dream — a dream the Unknown twists for its own ends. When the truth surrounding a desiccated corpse in the morgue comes to light, the envoys are sent to a sleepy town with a dark secret, and come face-to-face with despair turned to vengeance.

Important Traits: As with most Chill scenarios, information-based skills (Research, Investigation, and Interview) are critical. Characters skilled in com-puters (hacking, computer forensics) and medicine (forensic pathology) will be useful. This case also carries a high physical risk, and so some characters with expertise in combat or Protective disciplines of the Art should be included.

Suggested Characters: Aashi Chaudhri, Reggie Laroux Cole, Anaru Kamara, Kayla Justine Proffit, Emily Montgomery, Thomas Simpson

Major Menace: Lawrence Daniel Reilly, a unique North American Vampire.

Minor Menace: The hollowed, human beings infected with the vampire’s blood.

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SETUPFounded in 1621 by Europeans on Wampanoag land, Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts has always been a small town. The colonists named it after the “buzzards,” numerous osprey found on the shore. In current times, the “town” is a Census Designated Place (CDP) with a population nearing 5,000 souls. It is tucked into the city of Bourne, which is composed of four addi-tional and smaller CPD just north of Cape Cod. The Cape Cod Canal connects it to the bay and out to the Atlantic Ocean.

Buzzards Bay is 28 miles long and 8 miles wide. The township’s main businesses are tourism, fishing and boating. Both the National Marine Life Center (NMLC) and Massachusetts Maritime Academy (MMA) call it home. The MMA was founded in 1891 and is the second oldest maritime academy in the United States.

THE DOOM THAT CAME TO BUZZARDS BAYThe town was largely untainted by the Unknown until 2003, when the Buzzards Bay Disaster destroyed the local sea life. The disaster occurred on April 27th of that year. An oil tanker, Bouchard 120, traveled down the wrong side of a navigational marker and struck rocks. The hit ripped a foot-long gash along the bottom of the vessel and spilled almost 100,000 gallons of oil that washed ashore for a fortnight. The damage destroyed the surrounding wildlife, marshes, shorelines, beaches and shellfish beds, the impact of which is still felt today.

Lawrence Daniel Reilly served in the US Navy Band for six years before returning home and working in the family fishing business for a year. He was then hired as an operations analyst at MMA and happily left the family business behind. He didn’t notice the desperation in his father’s eyes when the elder Reilly begged Lawrence to stay. The job didn’t pay well, but it kept him off the ocean and allowed him time to work with the 7th Company Band.

Lawrence stayed in touch with his family over the next two years, but didn’t intervene as it fell apart. The Buzzards Bay Disaster destroyed the busi-ness. Lawrence’s father filed for bankruptcy, reveal-ing how close to the edge the business had been for years. Lawrence’s mother then filed for divorce against his father and left the city. His younger brother Allan was arrested after snapping and holding oil company personnel at gunpoint. His father attempted suicide and wound up on life support. Lawrence, the only member of the family left alive, out of prison, and still in Buzzards Bay, found himself responsible for the shreds of his family’s legacy.

On New Year’s Eve of 2004, Lawrence was des-perate, enraged, and drunk. He snuck aboard the USTS Enterprise and made his way to the bottom of the vessel. There, in the ship’s bowels, Lawrence cursed everything: the banks, his weak father, and life itself. The town, the oil companies, and the world had sucked the life out of him; if he had his way, he’d do the same to the world. The last thing he remembered from that night was falling down a flight of stairs and hitting his head. As his consciousness faded and his blood spread over the metal floor, Lawrence promised whatever dark power was listening that if he got the chance, he’d kill everyone that had wronged him and his family. Something heard. Lawrence died that night and rose as a vampire.

Upon rising, Lawrence immediately set to work making good on his promise. His first kill, Charles Jost, was head of the bank that had foreclosed on the family business. Lawrence drained him dry, leaving the husk in bed with Jost’s husband and wiping the man’s mind of the event. From there, Lawrence went on a rampage, killing Jay Inman (a ship retailer), Ashley Washington (a local business owner), Mandy Newman (a deputy), and Richard Kent (a fisherman): all people that Lawrence felt had harmed his family or contributed to its troubles. He did not pursue the oil company employees, perhaps because they were not local.

It took almost a month for Lawrence to learn to control his hunger after his initial targets were dead. SAVE envoys from Boston looked into the rash of deaths, but couldn’t determine what caused them. Lawrence noted the attention and adjusted his tactics. He settled into a plan for power that included groom-ing MMA students and helping them ascend to posi-tions of influence. He began feeding without killing and kept control of his dark urges enough to become to Dean of MMA. While his feeding left few bodies, it did cause an epidemic of “chronic fatigue syndrome” in the community, and the hospital began keeping more detailed records.

In the few instances when Lawrence killed a victim and could not dispose of the body, he relied on one of his hollowed who worked in the morgue to quietly get rid of the report and dispose of evidence. That worked until Amanda Welsh, his most recent victim, caught him feeding on her roommate and tried to stop him. The brief incident caused too much noise and brought a crowd before he could dispose of the body, so he fled. Unfortunately, Lawrence’s hollowed was on a mandatory training when his latest kill arrived in the morgue. Instead, Faith Williams began her autopsy of the corpse and instantly noticed the unnatural state of the desiccated husk.

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SAVEFaith Williams has brushed against the Unknown a few times in her life. Her last encounter occurred in Las Vegas, five years ago. It forced her to move from her hometown after helping a SAVE agent, who pro-vided her a number to call in the future. She called the number within moments of opening up the body and left a voicemail. If she survives, Faith could be an excellent NPC contact or be taken on as a PC.

SAVE provides transportation (flights and/or rental cars) in addition to hotel accommodations at the Eastern Inn. SAVE knows that Unknown activ-ity occurred in the town about 12 years ago and that no occult groups operate out of the town. Any infor-mation related to the town can be accessed before the envoys leave their HQ. The Cape Cod office is the closest, but as Faith contacted the Las Vegas office, it’s possible that a team from anywhere could be dispatched.

TIMELINEAugust 29, 1991: Hurricane Bob inflicts massive

damage to Buzzards Bay fishing businesses. Mark Reilly takes out a large loan from the bank to keep his business afloat.

July 16, 1996: Mark Reilly purchases a new boat to replace the current one in hopes of improved revenue.

March 16, 2000: Mark pays off his youngest son Allan Reilly’s debt from the collapse of the tech bubble.

March 27, 2000: Reilly Fishery and Shells misses the first of many payments on the loan and trouble with the bank begins.

June 30, 2000: Lawrence is honorably discharged from the Navy and returns home to work at the family business. Mark keeps the family money troubles to himself; even his wife Linda doesn’t know.

February 14, 2002: Lawrence is hired on at MMA and has a blow-up with his father, who needs him to stay but doesn’t say why.

April 27, 2003: The Buzzards Bay disaster occurs when an oil tanker strikes rocks.

May 2003: Clean up of the Buzzards Bay disaster is ongoing, but the disaster decimates a number of businesses.

July 31, 2003: Mark files for bankruptcy and receives a 30-day notice to vacate his home, which he put up as collateral for one of his loans. Mark finally informs the family of their financial situation.

August 2, 2003: Linda Reilly leaves and files for divorce, unsure what other secrets her husband may be keeping.

August 4, 2003: Allan is arrested and jailed for threatening oil company personnel at gun-point after learning the bank is going to seize the family business and foreclose on the Reilly house.

August 17, 2003: Mark tries to commit suicide but fails, leaving himself in a vegetative state and dependent on a respirator. Lawrence places him under constant care by the hospital.

December 31, 2003: Lawrence becomes a vampire after dying at the bottom of MMA training vessel USTS Enterprise.

January-February, 2004: Charles Jost is found dead at home and his spouse is commit-ted to an asylum. Over the next few weeks, four other people are found dead in similar circumstances.

March 21, 2004: SAVE envoy team responds to newspaper clippings about the rash of strange deaths. After a week of unsuccessful investiga-tion, they leave town and place the area under a two-year alert.

May 7, 2004: Amanda Tobin, 25, graduate of MMA in computer science, becomes a hollowed and the head of hospital IT at the nearby medical center. She is responsible for transferring hard records into digital files. She burns all paper-work related to Lawrence’s victims and puts faked reports into the hospital system.

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December 31, 2004: Lawrence begins his annual ritual of draining a victim dry. Sam Grayson, a traveler from Ohio, 22, was driving through Buzzards Bay on his way to visit a friend. Sam’s body is never found, and his family still holds out hope he will come home someday.

February 3, 2005: Lawrence becomes dean of MMA after a recommendation from the pre-vious dean. There is gossip about blackmail or an affair, but it is quickly hushed up and never mentioned again. A few copies of the school paper in the library mention it.

December 31, 2005: Annual ritual. John Helm, 38, a local fisherman whose family believes he moved away and stopped talking to them after a massive falling out.

March 28, 2006: The SAVE alert and records are put into archives.

December 31, 2006: Annual ritual. Marilyn Olson, 33, a Bourne police officer who caught Lawrence feeding on a victim and shot him multiple times. Covering up her murder with Lawrence’s intended target, Marshall Ross, he puts Marilyn’ blood on the other man and leaves him for the police to find. Marshall is sentenced to life in prison.

December 31, 2007: Annual ritual. Devin Mitchell, 27, a tour guide. His brother Daniel believes he was killed. Daniel thinks frequently about Devin but doesn’t talk about him unless asked.

2008: MMA receives a Vestas 660-kilowatt wind turbine and continues to install solar power panels. The installation of these features forces Lawrence to move his haven to the bottom of the new MMA training vessel, USTS Kennedy.

April 17, 2008: Alex Zelmer, 24, is hired on at the morgue as the new coroner, with the task of covering up any accidents that Lawrence can’t hide.

December 31, 2008: Annual ritual. Stacy Fallon, 55, a writer that lives on her boat. No one notices when she goes missing other than her pub-lisher. The boat turns up two years later in Florida.

December 31, 2009: Annual ritual. “Old Jake,” 49, a homeless drifter.

December 31, 2010: Annual ritual. Sierra Peters, 80, was a shopkeeper in town. Her grand-kids spend the next year trying to find any evidence of what happened to her. A $1,000 reward for anyone with word and proof of her whereabouts is still on offer.

December 31, 2011: Annual ritual. Ted Moody, 19, an MMA student whose frozen, desiccated body is found in the spring. The police report it as an accidental death.

December 31, 2012: Annual ritual. Theresa Byram, 35, a traveling sales rep.

December 31, 2013: Annual ritual. For the decade celebration of his “birth,” Lawrence kidnaps a couple, Tim and Tammy Donnelly, both 44. He terrorizes them for the night in the woods before killing them.

December 31, 2014: Annual ritual. Ron Ward, 53, the town drunk. Ron was assumed to have fallen into the water and frozen to death. The body is never recovered.

December 31, 2015: Annual ritual. Kristy Murphy, 41, a photographer who was scouting the northeast for her next passion project. Her husband Mike is still looking for her.

December 31, 2016: Annual ritual. Jimmy Allen, 9, runs away from home to find out if Santa was real. His parents, Darryl and Diane, are still heartbroken. The couple moved away to try and distance themselves from the tragedy. They can be reached by phone with a little research.

December 31, 2017: Annual ritual. Fred Millar, 47, a long haul driver for J.B. Hunt Transport Services. He is reported as missing by the company when they come to reclaim the truck.

January 11, 2018: Reilly kills Amanda Welsh while feeding on her roommate, Abby Stinson. Faith Williams comes on duty and deduces the unnatural nature of the corpse.

January 12, 2018: Faith Williams leaves a voicemail for SAVE.

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START OF THE SCENARIO FOR PCS

January 14, 2018: The envoys arrive.

January 17, 2018: A hollowed attacks Faith, but she escapes and reports it to the police. Unless the envoys follow up, the report will be “lost.”

January 19, 2018: Lawrence decides that it’s time to take action against the SAVE envoys. He has a student leave a voicemail saying they have evidence about what is going on and needs to meet with them. The meeting site is an aban-doned and unused wharf. Once the envoys reach the decoy, a band of hollowed attack.

January 20, 2018: Lawrence attempts to convert one of the envoys and use them for intel.

January 22, 2018: Lawrence attacks the envoys when they are separated, using his mole (if any) to assist him.

THE CASEThe investigation begins with two entry points for the envoys, previous save files and speaking with Faith. Each of these reinforces Vital clues and provide a springboard for the case.

BUZZARDS BAY 2004 SAVE INVESTIGATION: RESEARCHThe previous case files from 2004 were zipped and pass-word protected before being sent to the envoys’ HQ. While not very detailed, they do provide a few clues. The report contains what data the SAVE team could find about the deaths of Charles Jost (bank employee), Jay Inman (a ship retailer), Ashley Washington (a local business owner), Mandy Newman (a deputy), and Richard Kent (a fisherman). The envoys from the 2004 investigation might also be available if the PCs want to reach out, but they can’t provide any insight that’s not already in the report.

• False Lead: It’s reported that three of the victims (Jay, Ashley and Richard) suffered from severe skin discoloration. The other two may have but the report is missing pages. This has nothing to do with the case and comes from helping with the disaster relief.

• Vital: The case files contain the names and professions of the five murder victims. All of the victims seemed to have suffered some severe localized bodily trauma.

• Interest: Charles Jost’s autopsy resembles the details provided by Faith’s voicemail. Nothing of interest was reported from talks with local law enforcement (the police took the cases seriously, but they weren’t equipped to investigate this kind of case. Over time, the case grew cold). Four of the five victims’ bodies appeared to have suf-fered more severe physical damage resulting in shattered bones.

• Esoteric: The force of the damage done to the bodies was estimated to equal a high-speed car crash. This explanation was dismissed, as the damage was too localized. An X-ray of Ashley Washington’s body shows a shat-tered leg, but no damage of equal force any-where else. All of the bodies show advanced decomposition to varying degrees.

FAITH WILLIAMS: INTERVIEW Faith’s a slim African-American woman in her late 30s. She’ll be helpful in her answers, if a bit short, as she wants this handled quickly and quietly for fear of losing another job because of these “incidents.” Her previous experience with SAVE grants a +10 to the target number for Interview checks.

• Vital: The body’s advanced state of decay is not that of someone who died three days ago. The usual coroner, Alex Zelmer, is out-of-town on mandatory training.

• Interest: Alex has never missed a day of work or gone on vacation. It’s kind of a running joke because it’s been almost a decade. That’s kind of surprising given the town is known for chronic fatigue over that same period of time (if the envoys ask her for more on this phenomenon, she tells them it’s widely accepted to be a side effect of the lack of sunlight in the area. A doctor named Isaiah Jackson is researching it if the envoys want to talk to him).

• Esoteric: Faith comments that Alex looks much younger than he actually is; he gets mistaken for a student often. One of the onsite technicians claimed he saw what looked like a handprint on the corpse’s broken arm, but the advanced decomposi-tion destroyed the evidence while moving it.

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AMANDA WELSH’S BODY: INVESTIGATIONA desiccated husk is all that remains of Amanda Welsh. The body has been cut open (Faith’s work), granting a +10 to an Investigation check Forensics or a similarly relevant Specialization is used. Faith runs interference for the team, granting them an hour to investigate.

• Vital: Amanda’s body has the same kinds of wounds as Charles Jost and the other victims described in the SAVE archive—the body is desiccated and shows signs of advanced decay far out of sync with the amount of time Welsh has been dead. In addition, her body shows signs of extreme blunt-force trauma (most of her ribs are broken, as are her legs).

• Interest: Welsh appears to have been in a fight. She has defensive bruising on her knuck-les and flesh under her fingernails. The flesh doesn’t have any trace of blood, however, as though she scratched a completely blood-less corpse.

• Esoteric: The cell structure seems to be have broken down at an accelerated rate. The process has stopped, which is the cause of the corpse’s current state.

ABBY STINSON: INTERVIEWAbby is Amanda Welsh’s roommate at MMA. She is preparing to leave town and go back to Michigan with her family, but if the envoys act quickly they can talk to her before she goes. Abby caught Lawrence Reilly’s eye at a Christmas concert on the Kennedy. He hunted her down to feed on her. Welsh walked in on the vampire and attacked him, resisting his disci-plines due to the cross she wore. This didn’t work in her favor, though; Reilly simply killed her, drained her dry, and escaped using Time Stop.

• Vital: Abby woke up to find Amanda dead on the floor, her dorm room door open, and people running to the room reporting some kind of fight. She has no memory of any fight or anyone else in the room.

• Interest: Abby hands the envoys Amanda’s silver cross necklace; she took it off Amanda’s body. She says she couldn’t bear to have it get lost and she didn’t know if the EMTs would be careful. Amanda always wore it.

• Esoteric: Abby attended a concert on the USTS Kennedy right before winter break. She met the band leader, Jim, while he was talking to the Dean, Mr. Reilly.

ALEX ZELMER: RESEARCH/INVESTIGATION Alex Zelmer is unreachable during this scenario. He has gone into hiding and is awaiting orders from Lawrence. The envoys may decide to search Alex’s office or apartment (Investigation), or go through his work computer to gain some insights (Research). Zelmer was a skilled hacker and tracking his activi-ties is difficult. Without a Specialization in Computer Forensics or something equally appropriate, the Research check to look into his files suffers a –40 TN; even with such a Specialization a –20 applies.

• Extraneous Clues: Alex has notepads with times, names and office numbers of differ-ent people in the building with a red line crossed through each one. The twelve differ-ent people all confirm that they called him for IT support, as it’s faster than waiting for the real IT. All of his work is above board.

• Vital: While the computer casing matches all the others in a building, it’s obvious that Alex has stripped out the old hardware and replaced it with state-of-the-art pieces. Searching through the stored folders and hard drives turns up an email address that has been contacted repeatedly at MMA.

• Interest: All of the content in the emails are either encrypted or deleted, but the envoys can at least confirm dates. Every year since 2008 he gets an email from a different MMA email address on New Year’s Eve.

• Esoteric: The emails can be decrypted but it will take more time than the envoys have, likely many months of dedicated work. If done, it provides an outline of the missing people from the annual ritual killings; only the name and age. It also provides the loca-tion of Alex’s underground shelter in Maine, though that is beyond the scope of this case.

ALEX ZELMER’S APARMENTZelmer lives in a small, cluttered-but-clean one-bed-room apartment about eight miles away from Buzzards Bay. The apartment building houses a total of 20 apartments, all on the cheap side. Neighbors are always present, ranging from drunk fishermen cur-rently out of work to local college students. Once inside, it appears Zelmer had an active online life based on empty hardware boxes, but no computer is present.

• Vital: The walls are lined with pictures from his time at MMA and as part of the 7th Company Band. The USTS Kennedy is pic-tured in several of them.

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• Interest: In the couch there’s a business card for Amanda Tobin, IT director for the hos-pital where Faith works. A three-week-old newspaper with a story about a missing truck driver, Fred Millar, sits amid a pile of yellowing old papers. The story about Millar is circled in red.

• Esoteric: A set of well-used one-arm weights are under a towel; each weight is 400 pounds. Alex is of average height and weight in all of the pictures.

DR. ISARAH JACKSON: INTERVIEWThe envoys might get referred to Dr. Jackson after asking about the “chronic fatigue syndrome” common to Buzzards Bay. Jackson is a fit African-American man in his early 40s. Obviously brilliant and some-what frustrated, he has not been able to find the cause of the communal chronic fatigue. He brightens when speaking to other medical professionals, but anyone else suffers a –10 target number to Interview checks. A successful Sense the Unknown reveals that Isaiah has recently been in contact with the Unknown.

• Vital: Isaiah is more than happy to discuss the chronic fatigue syndrome gripping the town. He’s a specialist in the field and has spent the last seven years stumped by it. It seems to randomly crop up and has no set pattern. It infects people who have never had it; family members are fine one week and then a month later suffering from it. People suffering go into a form of remis-sion for months and then they are back in the office.

• Interest: He’s less inclined to discuss this but lets it slip: people who are infected seem to suffer minor to moderate cellular damage. When investigated, it appears to be some-thing that has lifelong implications, but when people go into remission, the damage vanishes.

• Esoteric: Isaiah mentions he’s also started to see signs of chronic fatigue syndrome in himself.

AMANDA TOBIN: INTERVIEWAmanda is a white woman in her late 30s who is standoffish at best. She plainly states she’s not a people person and that’s why she works with computers. Any Interview check with her suffers a –30 TN. Sense the Unknown (+30 to TN) or use of Communicative attunement reveals her to be a creature of the Unknown (subject to whatever you decide about curing hol-lowed; see Running In the Domain of the Mariner).

• Vital: She graduated from MMA. She looks much younger than her age would indicate. She attempts to rush the interview and get the envoys out of her office, but she’s not very savvy at doing so.

• Interest: Amanda talks a bit about her days at MMA and says that she remains close to some of the staff, including the dean.

• Esoteric: If the envoys ask questions about the USTS Kennedy or if they bring up Lawrence Reilly, Amanda’s protective instincts kick in. This should be a horrific moment as she hurls the massive oak desk at the envoys. If they run, she doesn’t chase them (but does seek out Lawrence, who hides her until he can figure out a good way to dispose of her). If they remain, she continues her attack. She only uses her bare hands, but as a hollowed she is more than capable of killing an envoy unarmed.

HOSPITAL RECORDS: RESEARCHAmanda will not allow the envoys access to her com-puter without direct, in-person instruction from a senior staff member (like Dr. Isaiah Jackson). If the characters sneak into her office after hours, they can attempt to access her computer, but suffer a –20 to the TN to get through her security and filing system.

• Vital: The envoys find frequent emails between Amanda, Zelmer and someone at MMA with “j.conner” as the email prefix (this address belongs to Lt. Jim Conner, the 7th Company Band leader, which the envoys can easily discover).

• Interest: The emails are all encrypted. The hospital records regarding anyone who has come in with chronic fatigue syndrome have been copied and altered.

• Esoteric: The envoys find a file with a list of all the people killed on New Year’s Eve (listed in the timeline as “annual ritual”). Each victim “file” has home addresses, the case numbers from the local police, and is color-coded based on whether the case is open or closed. If any of them came to the hospital, the times and dates are noted.

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BUZZARDS BAY DISAPPEARANCES: RESEARCH/INTERVIEW If the envoys get hold of Amanda’s notes and data, they know the names and identities of the people that Reilly has killed and might be able to find evidence of their deaths if they look. This kind of investigation would be a long and protracted undertaking, however, and is beyond the scope of this case. If the envoys start looking into missing people in Buzzards Bay, they can find the following:

• Vital: Researching into missing persons turns up the known people from the time-line, and whatever is publicly available about their disappearances or deaths. In some cases, the envoys might be able to interview families or employers, but the information doesn’t change much.

• Interest: All of the disappearances seem to occur around New Year’s Eve, but the police have not taken any precautions, nor do they appear to take these cases seriously.

• Esoteric: Only during one year have two people gone missing. For a serial killer, this would mean some sort of monumental or important moment for them.

LT. JAMES CONNER, 7TH COMPANY BAND LEADER: INTERVIEW Lt. James Conner, 18, is the student leader of the 7th Company Band. He is also hollowed and is much more socially adept than Amanda Tobin. He responds politely and lies to avoid suspicion. When they find him, he and the band are moving boxes (which means he has to be careful what he says; if he says anything obviously untrue as far as the band members know, they might call him out). Interview attempts suffer a –10 TN, and as with Amanda, Sense the Unknown (+30 to the TN) or Follow the Threads reveals his true nature.

• Vital: Both Amanda and Alex were previous bandleaders. James states that he has con-tacted both of them for advice about the position.

• Interest: Dean Reilly likes for them to prac-tice aboard the USTS Kennedy so the entire campus can hear them play. It raises spirits.

• Esoteric: The envoys notice that Conner is moving the heavy boxes with ease.

LAWRENCE REILLY: INTERVIEWLawrence is an athletic white man, apparently in his mid-30s. He is pale, but not deathly so. He’ll be invit-ing and excited to talk about MMA, the history of the town and how drive coupled with determination will make America great again. He oozes a kind of sickly fake charm. He is, of course, a vampire, meaning that if a character successfully uses Sense the Unknown (+50 modifier), they can recognize him as a creature of the Unknown.

• Vital: Shaking hands, he is very warm. He has hand-picked every bandleader since taking over as Dean. His love of music came from his time in the Navy, and he wants to share that with his students.

• Interest: When Lawrence talks, he makes direct eye contact, rarely seems to blink, and his breathing appears very shallow. The office is also very warm.

• Esoteric: If asked about his interest in the USTS Kennedy, he smiles, saying revelations and the sense of coming home occur in the strangest of places.

LAWRENCE REILLY: RESEARCHThe envoys might decide to look into Reilly’s history without (or before) talking to him. If they do, they will probably be surprised at how much information is available.

• Vital: The Reilly family owned a success-ful fishing business for generations, but it went out of business in 2003 follow-ing the Buzzards Bay Disaster. Allan Reilly was arrested and imprisoned after he held some oil company employees at gunpoint (no one was harmed, fortunately), and Mark Reilly attempted suicide shortly thereafter. Lawrence Reilly had left the business some time before hardship befell his family.

• Interest: Lawrence Reilly is not a graduate of MMA; he served in the Navy (specifi-cally the US Navy Band). His education is in management science, and there was some controversy when he became dean of MMA, as some felt that he was unqualified.

• Esoteric: Reilly is a very public figure at the Academy. He is heavily involved with the 7th Company Band and frequents practices and performances held on the USTS Kennedy. However, he has never once attended the band’s annual banquet, nor does attend fundraiser dinners and other such functions.

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CONFRONTING THE UNKNOWNLawrence is a calculating, political, powerful villain both in mundane and supernatural terms. Being the Dean of MMA has made him the backbone of the community simply for the number of jobs the Academy provides. Local law enforcement may intimidate the envoys or suggest they leave town instead of harassing innocent people if they’re too overt in their tactics.

Reilly would rather not act himself and uses his hollowed to carry out actual violence against the envoys, unless confronted directly. If confronted in such a manner, he summons the closest hollowed to his defense. Reilly is, of course, more than capable of killing the envoys on his own—if he needs to fight, he uses his superior strength and disciplines of the Evil Way to attack.

Lawrence allows the envoys to investigate for a few days before turning his attention toward them; he is hoping that they will go away if they don’t find anything. If they get too close to him, he first has Faith killed as a show of force. He then attempts to lure them to an unused wharf, where his hollowed attack while Reilly watches. If the envoys survive, he attempts to turn one of them into a hollowed, and then attacks them when they are cut off from help.

LAWRENCE REILLY EWS: 117 (Deadly)

REF: 80 STA: 95

Injury: Superficial, Minor –10, Serious –20, Major –30, Critical –50, Lethal

Disciplines: Blackout, Change Form (fog), Erase Memory, Influence, Illusion, Stifle, Time Stop (Unique)

Aspects: Bane (garlic, mint, religious symbols), Master, Parasitic, Special Weakness (salt, wood and below sea), Supernatural Speed, Sustenance, Unfeeling, Unkillable, Unliving

Hollowed: Lawrence can create loyal and power-ful servants to do his bidding as part of the Master aspect. He must force them ingest his blood and then sing them a haunting song he learned from the Unknown. The music begins the week-long process. If the prospective hollowed is taken more than 10 miles from Reilly, the effect is broken, but from the initial note the victim feels connected to him and has no wish to be “cured.” (Whether or not the hol-lowed can be cured is up to the Chill Master.)

Special Weakness: While Lawrence doesn’t know it, his Unkillable and Unliving aspects do not function

and he suffers Injury normally if he is attacked below sea level.

THE HOLLOWED STA: 95 EWS: 50 REF: 55

Specializations: Whatever their career occupation is. Amanda Tobin has Computers E70, for example.

Drive: Follow orders from Lawrence and protect him at all costs.

Aspects: Resilient and Bloodless

The hollowed were once humans but now exist beyond us. They remember their past lives, friends and family but feel detached from those memories. Everything other than Lawrence is a shadow of exis-tence waiting for his light to bring warmth.

As written, the hollowed are incurable. If you would rather give the envoys a chance to cure the hollowed, think about how this might be accomplished—do they return to normal if Reilly dies? Is the Protective School of the Art necessary? Do the hollowed need to be purged of Reilly’s blood somehow?

At present, Reilly has three hollowed servants: Amanda Tobin, James Conner, and Adam Zelmer. If he feels he needs more backup, he turns another member of the 7th Company Band into a hollowed. Reilly is uncomfortable with too many hollowed running around.

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RUNNING IN THE DOMAIN OF THE MARINERThis scenario is appropriate for experienced envoys and will probably take several sessions to resolve. The creature in question is powerful both in terms of supernatural ability and mundane influence. Reilly doesn’t have to meet the characters on their terms—he’s an influential, well-respected man, and the local police will protect him whether or not he’s used the Influence discipline on the chief (which he has).

The horror of small-town culture should be ever-present in this case. The locals are nice enough at first, but if the characters do something to call nega-tive attention to themselves, then everyone, from the students at MMA to the barista at the local coffee shop, looks sideways at them. This feeling of constant surveillance should be used with the background horror that something dark is festering in the town and no one wants to see it. When the violence hits, it should be portrayed as grisly and inhuman, hap-pening in plain sight but with no one willing to call attention to it.

The other important consideration in this case is the hollowed. They are no longer human, but they appear human, meaning that unless the envoys are sure that they are incurable, harming them might cause Trauma (particularly if an envoy has the Reluctant to Harm Drawback). If the hollowed can be cured, do they retain their memories of their time as servants to a vampire? If so, they are almost certainly severely traumatized and will require SAVE’s help to recover.

If the hollowed can’t be cured, what the envoys pre-pared to do? Hunt them down and kill them? Where will they dispose of the all-too-solid corpses? The police would love to close out some of the missing persons cases in the town, and the envoy that gets caught over Amanda Tobin’s dead body is probably going to find a very convincing serial murder case hanging over his head (right before he’s found dead in a cell).

Another point of consideration is that Reilly doesn’t act like what the envoys might think of as a

“vampire.” He doesn’t mind sunlight, he’s gregarious and charming, and he’s warm to the touch. The char-acters have their work cut out for them simply under-standing what is happening in Buzzards Bay.