The Agency of Narrative Intrigue and Mystery

Setting the Stage

Since this guy is the investigators’ friend, they need to know some stuff about him and have a history with him. You will need to provide a pretty detailed idea of his personality in the Setting the Stage section and some ways the investigators could’ve met him and some stuff they could’ve done with him before, as well as plenty of stuff they could know about his life.

This might not be entirely necessary, but you could also do the same for every other NPC that will be on the trip. In fact this would make for some great clues when one or more of them are not acting like themselves.

A good thing to do might be to create a 1D6 table for each NPC and roll once or even twice on it for each investigator to provide some extra facts they know about the NPC in addition to the given stuff in their Setting the Stage info.

As for the specific friend that invited them and said that cryptic shit, I can tell you that he is an engineer or has some other relatively high paying job in construction or manufacturing.

Truth

Their friend is aware that the company that he works as an engineer for is cutting some serious corners on their manufacturing, and are nowhere near government regulation standards. He has threatened to blow the whistle, and was given a cryptic warning. Now he’s afraid for his life and went out on this remote camping trip to make himself hard to find while he thinks about his options and decides if he’s really going to go through with it. He will divulge all of this to the investigators and other characters present while they are on the camping trip.

Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to him, the company has already made moves to silence him before he blows the whistle. They’ve hired a hitwoman who never fails to make her targets disappear without a trace under circumstances that don’t look too obviously like murder. No one who employs her knows how she does it, but it’s probably best not to ask too many questions that could incriminate them both.

The Assassin

When I come up with Eureka module ideas, I normally don’t like to go with monsters that have a Monster Trait in the rulebook for a number of reasons. Firstly because I like to imagine investigators, especially folkloric paranormal investigators, going up against stuff that is much more “Lovecraftian” in concept (and by that I mean things that evoke the same kind of mysterious horror/dread as original Lovecraft short stories, not specific entities from “The Cthulhu Mythos,” which was compiled and powerscaled into one big canon much later). I consider both The Eye of Neptune and FORIVA: The Angel Game to fit into this category. The paranormal threats in those modules can have their motivations discerned, their actions discovered, and their plans thwarted all through investigation, but what exactly they are and where they come from can only be speculated. And that’s scary to me.

In a lot of ways TFBs and vampires do at least partially fit that bill, but the other reason I prefer to stay away from Monster Trait monsters for mystery modules is, well, their Monster Trait is fully explained in the rulebook. While Eureka doesn’t consider reading these traits to be “cheating” or anything, it does potentially introduce some situations where the player will recognize the full extent of what the monster is long before the investigator. This probably won’t ruin the entire experience, but it’s something I’d prefer to avoid dealing with.

Anyway, it isnt a hard rule for module writers to avoid making Monster Trait monsters the villains, and here I think that this idea is too cool to pass up.

The assassin is a TFB. She can easily consume and digest her targets without leaving a trace behind, and if that alone isn’t enough to sell the disappearance, she can disguise herself as them after and carry out their life long enough to convincingly portray them randomly deciding to cut all contact with their social circles and move to another country or something.

She doesn’t strictly need a “true” appearance, but I like to think that her “default human persona” looks a lot like this early concept art for the female version of the Spy from TF2, including the sense of style.

Anyway, she has already infiltrated the group by posing as one of the other NPC friends that the whistleblower friend invited. She didn’t devour this person she is taking the place of, she studied them, disguised herself as them, and did something that would make them unable to make it to the camping trip but also unable to immediately let anyone know they can’t make it to the camping trip. It would have to be something where they wouldn’t be able to contact the friend group right away about canceling and the friend group wouldn’t think anything is wrong because the TFB assassin showed up disguised as them right on time.

After maybe about a day of seemingly regular camping, the whistleblower friend sits everyone down and tells them absolutely everything about the whistleblowing stuff. This complicates everything for the TFB assassin, because now not only does she have to eliminate the whistleblower, she has to eliminate everyone here. It’ll be a lot to stomach, but she’s up to the task.

Her goal will be to eliminate every other character there before they have a chance to leave with the knowledge they have.

Also a good clue to have would be that there’s no cellphone service wherever they’re camping, but if they get to a tall hill or something they can maybe get like 1 bar and if they try to look into the friend they the TFB assassin first disguised as, the investigators may find like a tweet or something lamenting that they had to miss the camping trip with their friends.. even though.. they’re right here..

Also because the TFB assassin didn’t devour the first friend, her disguise and knowledge of this character’s personality will not be perfect. This will provide clues if the investigators get suspicious enough to think to scrutinize this friend.

However, other characters that the TFB assassin devours she will be able to use the information she absorbs from them to do a much more realistic impersonation.

The Post-Timeline

This adventure module will need a pretty extensive post-timeline, meaning things that are going to happen at certain Ticks on the Ticking Clock barring investigator intervention.

Im thinking gameplay starts when the party gets picked up by their friend and everyone drives out in one vehicle to get to the camp site. This will allow everyone to get introduced to everyone.

They get to the campsite, and everyone can get settled in.

Through some circumstances that would be elucidated in the post-timeline, the TFB assassin does not get a chance to eliminate the whistleblower that night.

Then, the next morning, the whistleblower tells everyone the information at breakfast. The TFB assassin has to change plans fast.

The first thing she needs to do is sabotage the car. In case anything goes wrong or anyone tries to flee, that will prevent their escape or at least make it harder. However, she needs to be able to drive the car back herself, so however she’s going to sabotage it it needs to be in a way that she can easily repair. This could be removing a small but vital piece, like the spark plugs, which she could hide somewhere for when she needs to put them back in and use the car.

Maybe there’s a bit of an itinerary and everyone is scheduled to go fishing mid-morning. While everyone is at the lake or river or whatever, the TFB assassin says she forgot something and has to go back for it. This will give her an excuse to go back to the cabin alone and sabotage the car.

No other NPC will offer to go with her. If a single investigator tries to go with her, she may try to devour them if she gets a chance while their back is turned or something, and then take the spark plugs. If multiple investigators go with her, she won’t try to get them both, but will try to get a short moment alone so she can send out her ancilliary and have the ancilliary steal and hide the spark plugs. If anyone tries to start the car and fails because the spark plugs are missing, a Driving skill check could probably diagnose the problem. Full Success would do it right way, Partial Success might take a Tick. A Driving skill check on the idea of why anyone might steal the spark plugs specifically could tell them that it’s a part of the car that could be put back in easily, perhaps implying that whoever stole them intends to use the car again.

The post-timeline will consist of events like this, where the TFB assassin secretly works to cut off the group’s escape routes and then pick them off one by one.

It’ll probably be innocuous camping things for a day or so until the post-timeline puts the TFB assassin in a position to devour an NPC. Unless the investigators do literally like nothing, the post-timeline probably won’t happen exactly as written, so try to write it kinda flexibly. If she sees an opportunity to devour an isolated investigator and get away with it, she will do so.

She will disguise as multiple people back and forth to keep an illusion of normalcy for as long as possible before it becomes obvious that at least one person has vanished. Like for example, if the TFB assassin is disguised as Bob, and she devours Jill, she may then disguise as Jill. But then where is Bob? Bob must be missing. While everyone searches for Bob she might disguise as Bob again and come back acting like he just took a walk. Jill went looking for him but they must have missed each other on the trail. She’ll probably come back soon. Then “Bob” goes to bed early. The TFB assassin slips out the window, disguises as Jill, and comes back after failing to find Bob out there. She’s so relieved to hear that Bob is back safe but she won’t go wake him up. They won’t see Bob and Jill in the same place from then on for as long as the TFB assassin can juggle these identities. When it becomes too much, she may just let one of the identities fully go missing, which will make everyone on-edge and alert, but by that point she may have eaten like 3 or more people even though the other characters are only aware of 1 disappearance.

Gameplay Concepts

This will probably use a kolchakian-style map and Ticking Clock even though it isn’t really otherwise kolchakian at all.

I was first thinking they are like camping in tents as stuff, but maybe their whistleblower friend has like a really remote cabin and stuff out there. Having a place that has distinct rooms and walls instead of an open campsite would help the TFB assassin isolate people.

This module may benefit from the The Elements optional rule from Extreme Conditions, and may benefit from Rations though probably less so. What it would definitely benefit from from Extreme Conditions would be the bathroom rules because it would provide in-world reasons for characters to go off alone.

Banned Traits

Normally I don’t ban traits just because they could defeat the monster, because finding the monster and how to defeat it is supposed to be the challenge, but since this module will deal with such an extensive post-timeline with relatively little pre-post-timeline evidence in the Truth, and the monster is right next to the investigators from the very beginning, it needs the monster not to be defeated too soon in order to work at all. So im banning Vampire, Wolfman, Fairy, Witch, Gorgon, TFB, Succubus, Living Doll, Changeling, and anyone with the Teleportation Mage Power.

Players Might Play Their Own Dead Characters

This is going to be a deadly module even for a pac-manian Eureka adventure, because the monster is right there with the party the whole time. She won’t discriminate between NPC and PC, if she has an opportunity she’ll take it. However, if the TFB assassin disguises as a devoured investigator, players are going to be wise to it immediately if the GM starts controlling that character. So I think this module should come with a copy-pastable set of instructions to quietly send to any player whose PC gets eaten that explains the situation and that it is now their duty to play the TFB assassin whenever the TFB assassin disguises as their dead PC, and try to keep up the charade. This is basically a co-GM role now which is what they’d be doing anyway after the death of their PC.

Hell, if you have a player you think would be up for this, you could make the TFB assassin herself an optional pregen PC, and have a player play her from the very start. This would also be a co-GM role really, but the other players would think that that player is just another regular player bringing their own investigator to the table. Just tell GMs to keep in mind that if they aren’t completely sure a particular player will say yes to this role, then asking that player will spoil at least part of the mystery for them.

All of this would take a ton of party splitting and texting beneath the table and stuff, but it only needs to work for so long.

NPC Eureka! Points

Normally, it takes a TFB about a week to process an entire adult human body, but that won’t be near fast enough for this premise to work. The TFB Trait does however have a Eureka! Point ability that allows them to digest extremely fast. For this purpose we will allow the TFB assassin, whether PC or NPC, to have Eureka! Points for the purpose of using this ability to devour and digest victims hastily.

CHAPTER 1

Added The Love Witch and Kathy Rain 1 & 2 to the inspirations section.

CHAPTER 6

Magical jewelry now costs 3WP for witches.

Curses slightly more likely to backfire for witches.

Potion of potency and fertility can be used as a cure to the curse of impotency.

Added witch hats and tophats as casting implements for witches. 

Moved the mention of TFB-specific Grievous Wounds to the TFB Trait itself instead of being in Unkillable Monsters and Grievous Wounds. 

Removed the Unkillable Monsters and Grievous Wounds section from the rulebook since everything that would have been there is either out of date completely or has been moved to the relevant Traits. 

Added the ability for witches to use enchanted hats to store things. See “Pulling Rabbits Out of a Hat.”

Removed the separate mostly identical listing for the Android (Metal) and Clockwork (Metal) variants of the Living Doll Trait and incorporated the only differences into being options for the default versions of those rules. 

Added familiars for witches. 

Temporarily cut “Why Do Monsters Care?” Heading

Moved the “Monster vs Monster” section to its own “FAQ” document to be downloaded separately. 

Added Origins and Traditions for the Witch Trait. Origins are how a witch came to learn witchcraft, and Traditions represent the focus of their study as well as their outlook on the practice. When creating a character with the Witch Trait the player chooses one Origin and one Tradition for their witch. There are four Origins and five Traditions to choose from, each with their own unique mechanical benefits and drawbacks. 

Added a small note in Chapter 6 directing people to look at the separate Monster vs Monster FAQ document because it might answer their questions about usual interactions between paranormal powers. 

Made cursed items purchasable with WP for witches. 

Made purchasing potions with WP more expensive. 

Wrote a whole bunch of new stuff for the Witch Trait, finally incorporating Agendas into the Witch Trait. Agendas represent additional objectives imposed on the witch with significant rewards for completing them. Witches do not have to have Agendas, but those that do not will miss out on certain benefits of their community. 

Started fixing up the Mage Trait. We are jumping from the Witch Trait to the Mage Trait because the Mage Powers interact heavily with the Fairy Trait, the Changeling Trait, and the Witch Trait which we have already edited/overhauled and so we feel to fully finish and edit these three Traits it would be best to hit all the Mage Powers now. The majority of the Mage Powers have not been touched by editing, like, at all in over two years so they really really need it. 

Edited/overhauled the Glamour Mage Power. It now has a 1 Eureka! Point option to make the Base bonuses it provides into Contextual bonuses. Also made studying a person to copy them exactly be a Social Cues roll similar to how it works for the TFB Trait.