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The Childrens Hour
This plot is a bit unpleasant and has no happy ending to it. I would suggest it be used only in the "darker theme" type of games. It is mostly a morality play; who will the players help and what will the repercussions be of their actions should they attempt to drive out the evil creatures. Hook: The characters will be somehow drawn to a small town to investigate the story of a school teacher being accused of killing one of her students. The teacher claims that the child was actually a monster of some sort, a claim which most believe to be an attempt at getting out of the sentence by claiming insanity. Perhaps one of the characters relatives lives in the town or the events have come to the party’s attention by other means. Line: Margaret Levy has been arrested and charged in the premeditated and rather grisly murder of one of her elementary school students, James Carpenter, with a butcher knife. Margaret claims that the child was actually a monster which replaced James about a week ago and has been threatening her ever since. Margaret also claims that the creature was some sort of shape shifter which grew fangs, claws and glowing red eyes. Margaret is currently in custody pending trial. The characters will somehow get to talk to Margaret, who begs them to watch over her niece, a young girl who shared the same classes as James. Margaret does not know what the creatures are or where they come from, but she insists that the numbers of creatures are increasing as they trade places with more and more children. Sinker: Margaret is correct, the shapeshifting creatures (called Druegar, a race of evil dwarves) are kidnapping children and taking their place. The children have been sacrificed in rituals to allow the dwarves to take their form, they cannot be brought back. Currently, there are 20 or so of the creatures. They take one child a night to a minor nexus point near the city for the sacrifice. The next child targeted is Margaret’s niece.If they think they are about to be discovered or run into a group stronger than they are, they will try to escape and set up shop elsewhere. The entire clan is about 40 members strong and live in a series of foul caves near the nexus. The group is new to the area, having arrived when a rift opened during a recent alignment of stars. When killed, the Druegar retain their last shape, only a very thorough study will find unusual discrepancies. The Druegar aren’t strong individually, but should pose a severe hazard in groups. They have minor earth-based magics (used mostly for tunneling) and rely heavily on illusion. |