Mrs. Laura Caine is a recent divorcee of the wealthy banker Joshua Caine of New York. Because of some unproductive idiocy on her part, he’s currently suing her for misuse of funds (she nearly bankrupted them both). She’s a quasi-attractive late 40’s New York High Society type who’s not totally in touch with reality and is currently frantic.

Inside the Penthouse: The PC’s find the bodies of the Nightstlalkers:

• Ashe Grahm, the leader, a thin-haired wiry muscled figure. He has been killed by having a 1-foot tall gold statue of a roman soldier shoved into his stomach and up into his rib cage.

• Roger Fonstad, the team’s second, a shorter & stockier long haired fellow with a number of gothic tattoos. He’s been killed by having his head ripped off (NOT cut).

• Father Terry Lucas, the team’s roman catholic priest. He’s taken a number of shotgun shells to the face and chest (from the shotgun present, used by Roger against the Vamp, deflected to Father Lucas).

• Bob O’Donnel, the spearman. He’s a mop-headed 5’oclock shadow man with strong arms and an impressive 6-foot stature. He’s the one who’s been turned into a ghoul by the vamp to clean up any who come investigating. Otherwise he looks like he’s been punched THROUGH the guts (and clear out the back).

• There are also 5 hookers, Lacy Mane, Tina Jinkins, Barbara Hillup, Constance Sheffield, and Jane Brown. They all have ID on them somewhere and have been killed in spectacularly gruesome fashion (be creative).

GHOUL DATA: Pages 210-211 Dark*Matter hardcover.

CLEANUP: When the combat is done, there are clues to be found. While the hookers have simple, basic ID and purses filled with expected, non interesting items, the men have no ID’s at all. There is a Colt 45 on the dresser of one room and a shotgun among the bodies with Roger Fonstad’s fingerprints on them. Inside Ashe Grahm’s pocket is the picture of Mercy Brown’s Grave (handout). Inside Ashe’s belt pocket is a small key to a safe deposit box at Grand Central station. Inside there is all their ID’s, about 7,000 dollars in cash, two 9mm pistols with clips, and old internet driving instructions to Exeter Rhode Island (handout). Father Lucas has a business card on him, for Stephen Kaplan (handout).

END SCENE: The PC’s will probably deal with the ghoul, and then try to go with the clues. The clues can only lead them to Exeter, Rhode Island or Elmhurst, NY to visit Stephen Kaplan, director of the Vampire Research Center there.

Act Three, Elmhurst, NY

If the characters decide to call the phone number on the business card, it’s answered by a fellow with a calm voice who introduces himself as Stephen Kaplan. If the PC’s begin asking any non-vamp related questions or ID themselves as anything but agents or clergy, he immediately announces they “Must have the wrong number, this is Elmhurst Lighting and Supplies”. If they simply state they found his card on some dead people he will hang up and not answer the phone again.

They will have to travel to Elmhurst. (New York, NY TO Elmhurst, NY 395.3 miles 7 hours 30 mins).

If, on the other hand, the PC’s manage not only to somehow get the jump on Mr. Kaplan and convince him they are the backup for Ashe Grahm’s team or mention Grahm by name, he’ll talk to them briefly.

WHAT STEPHEN KAPLAN KNOWS: Stephen Kaplan is actually a public figure in Elmhurst. While he’s actually the owner of a lamp shop, he’s also the head of the “Vampire Research Center” he runs out of his Attic Office. He’s collected tons of material on Vampires: lore, powers, stories, etc. And offers his services. It was actually he who tipped the Night Stalkers team off to Mercy’s Grave based on her recent ghost sighting again (reported less than 30 days ago) that he got wind of. Since he has been sworn to secrecy, however, he won’t talk about anything he told Ashe’s team, just that he was their contact for certain lore. If the PC’s use special powers of persuasion, he’ll tell all.

Act Four, Exeter, RI

At some point, the PC’s will have to visit Exeter Rhode Island. From Manhattan: New York, NY to Exeter, RI 162.0 miles 3 hours 10 mins From Elmhurst: Elmhurst, NY to Exeter, RI 558.4 miles 10 hours 48 mins Exeter is a small, quiet rural town. Everything you could possibly want to know about Exeter can be found at the town’s web site: http://town.exeter.ri.us/ Basically what they are trying to do is investigate Mercy Brown’s grave. Here’s what they can learn:

• Mercy Brown appeared to some kids about 28 days ago. They were drinking and one of the kids took a picture of the grave with an instant camera, and this face appeared, so they all ran. While the kids all claimed she was horrid and frightening, the truth is she simply appeared, and they were drunk and ran like hell.

• While they get lots of tourists in the fall dealing with Mercy, there has been no activity at the sight off-season for as long as most folks can remember. But then just about 2 weeks ago a group of men with a priest (the Nightstalkers) were through here asking for the grave too.

• If the PC’s go to Mercy’s Grave, they will have one heck of a time getting her to appear. Father Lucas got her to appear by appealing to her innate kindness by placing flowers and pronouncing he’d hear her confessions for forgiveness. If the PC’s have no priest, she still has to appear to keep the game moving, but use your discretion, and make the PC’s work for it.

MERCY BROWN: Mercy’s ghost will not do much talking. She will appear and if the PC’s can hold their cool, she’ll form full-figured. I imagine her with shoulder – length blonde hair in a white burial gown. No vamp fangs. Basically a beautiful young girl. She will not talk a lot, and when she does her mouth will not quite match the hollow voice. “Yes” and “No” are easy. If asked the right questions, in the GM’s own way, she’ll tell of the priest who offered her forgiveness from the Nightstalkers) and the research pinning her cursed ways back to Baron Victor Vislav of London in 1773 who infected the young Sarah Stuckley before her trip on the ships that brought the tea (of the Boston Tea Party) into Boston Harbor. The Nightstalkers took this information and promised him killed. She knows nothing else. If they need this information, the Ghost directs them to Sherril Zelen (listed in the business directory of Exiter) as a local occult bookstore seller. She also has the photo the kids took and the handout on Mercy’s backstory as knowledge she can impart on the PC’s.

ENDSCENE: The group now has to follow up on this Baron Victor Vislav character. If they search information databases, they find nothing but the name Vislav in London as the primary contact for Kingston Antiques of London. http://www.antiquesmarket.co.uk/

A Lord Victor and Lady Jacqueline Vislav are the primary contacts and owners of Kingston Antiques, but no direct contact information is possible, only the phone number and e-mail address of the store itself. Any tries there lead the players with “Lord and Lady Vislav are on extended leave. Please leave your contact information and areas of interest and they will contact you.” Fakes of urgency won’t help because the manager really wasn’t left any contact information, and while he knows their home address he’s certainly not going to tell these folks (supernatural persuasion aside, that is).

The group will have to do a heavy search of the web to find their address (Ambermarque Manor) or visit London directly (they’ll have to visit anyway to solve the mystery).

Act Five, London, England

The group must next charter a flight to London. The trip from New York to Heathrow in England takes about 9 hours.

Basically, in this scene we want the players to discover 3 things. One, that only 1 of 2 vampires were killed. Second, that the remaining vampire has a thing for the bloodline of Sylvia Butane. Three, tracing Sylvia Butane’s family tree leads to a single female direct descendant currently living in San Francisco, California.

• If the PC’s ask around high society or visit web sites or whatever they can find the address of Lord & Lady Vislav, Ambermarque Manor in Liverpool overlooking the Mersey River. The only inhabitants are the Deth Hounds (wolves, Alternity GMG) and Rothe Biddington, the old Butler, who will not let anyone inside. If they get inside, the Deth Hounds will find and attack them. Rothe is very old and serves the master and mistress out of loyalty. It is he that holds the key to unraveling the mystery of the vampire.

• In the basement behind a secret door is an antechamber with a coffin. Beyond is a patch of dirt (Lady Vislav slept in the coffin, Victor slept in the dirt). In the coffin is a mostly decomposed skeleton with a wooden steak sticking through it’s ribcage. Here the group realizes that when the Nightstalkers came here, they killed the only vampire they could find, and then left (Lord Vislav and Rothe were away on business).

• Confronting Rothe is the only way to unravel what happened. He is close to death anyway, and with little persuasion will breakdown and tell the tale, the tale of the vampire that feared death. Yes, Baron Victor Vislav would frequently comment on his own mortality at the hands of slayers. They returned from a business trip and found Lady Vislav dead. Victor was stunned and grief-stricken and swore revenge. He then began plotting to never return. Rothe will explain that he has one chance left to fulfill his destiny, the one that escaped his clutches so many years ago, Sylvia Butane. In his own mind, she was his one true love and he never stopped searching for her, Rothe will account. By Lord Vislav’s reasoning, Lady Butane represents his last goal before death (for he’s going to war against all slayers next). He has just one bit on unfinished business now, the taking of Sylvia Butane’s bloodline. The PC’s must do some intricate family tree research:

Daniel Smith married Madeline Gallier in 1868 in New York.
They had a daughter, Sylvia Smith (later changed to Butane) in 1869.
Sylvia Butane married Jim Rawford in 1897 In Tucson, Arizona.
They had a daughter in 1899, Caroline.
Caroline married Frederick Davidson in 1924 in Denver Colorado and gave birth to son Byron and daughter Juliet in 1929.
In 1945 Byron was killed in WW2.
In 1954 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin Juliet married Jon Carpeton and gave birth to daughter Suzy.
Suzy Carpeton became pregnant but did not marry the father in 1969 in San
Francisco, and gave birth to a baby girl, Angeline.
In 1987 Angeline Carpeton graduated Lowell High School in San Francisco and enrolled in the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 1990. She graduated with honors in 1995 and worked numerous small plays and short films until landing the role of Sister Helen (the lead) in Dead Man Walking at San Francisco Opera House. The show is still running in January 2001.

The group must make their way to San Francisco! But they now have plenty of portraits of the handsome Baron Victor Vislav!

Act Six, San Francisco, California

The trip from Liverpool Airport to San Francisco (via New York and Denver) will take about 22 hours total. With luck the final stage can be run during the nighttime hours. If the PC’s arrive in daylight, have them be too jetlagged and need a few hours rest (just till the sun goes down). If they try contacting her at her Bayfront apartment, they have no luck (she’s out with friends). The PC’s will arrive in San Francisco and get to work on finding young Angeline Carpeton. If they did their homework correctly, they will find her playing the lead part of Dead Man Walking at the San Francisco Opera House.

Victor, too, has tracked her there, and got balcony tickets to the night’s show! Victor has cleverly disguised himself as a blind man, wearing dark glasses and using a seeing eye dog and cane (the German Shepherd is actually a summoned wolf using Call of the Dragon, the cane a sword). The last scene could take place almost anywhere, but needless to say, Angeline won’t be persuaded by any means next to violence to “escape with the PC’s”, they will pretty much have to wait until the vamp makes his move. And here’s his key: he’s already dominated and charmed the director into introducing he and Angeline after the show in her room. It’s there that all hell will probably break loose.

Wolf: Use Canine statistics on page 179 of the Alternity Gamemaster Guide
Baron Victor Vislav (Undead Master Vampire, “Free Agent”)
(for full details on powers, consult Dragon Magazine #264)
STR 19 [+5] INT 13 [+2]
DEX 12 [+1] WIL 11 [+1]
CON 20 [+5] PER 14 [+2]
Durability 22/22/11/11 Action Check: 13+/12/6/3
Move: sprint 32, run 22, walk 8, fly 64 # Actions: 3
Last Resorts: 2
Flaws: Vulnerability to Sunlight (+9)
Standard powers: Kiss of the Dragon, Blood Charm, Create Ghoul,
Regeneration, Resistance to harm
Optional Powers: Claws, Wallcrawling, Undead Endurance, Mist Form, Flight,
Fear, Mesmerize, Call of the Dragon
Attacks
Unarmed-brawl (claws) 20/10/5 d4+6w/d4+7w/d4+8w LI/G
Defenses Natural: LI +3 HI +3 En +1
Reinforced Leather Longcoat: LI d6-2 HI d4-2 En d4-1
TOTAL ARMOR RATING: LI d6+1 HI d4+1 En d4

Web Resources for the GM in preparing the scenario:

Decendants of Cain: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dunes/1888/vampires.html

Living Vampires: http://www.net1plus.com/users/vyrdolak/home.htm

Mercy Brown Info: http://members.tripod.com/~DominiquePerot/

THE VAMPIRE LORE OF R.I. In the early 1770's a Rhode Island farmer named Stuckley, the father of 14 children, feared that his oldest daughter Sarah was a vampire, Sarah ruled the roost, bossing her other brothers and sisters. She seemed to take great pleasure in slaughtering the farm animals. The younger children complained to their parents Sarah licked the blood from her fingers as if it was jelly or honey. In her early twenties Sarah contracted consumption, and within a few months she died. Shortly after Sarah's death her younger sister started coughing up blood. The local doctor diagnosed her disease as consumption, later known as tuberculosis. in one of her deliriums she told her parents Sarah visited her every night sat on her stomach suffocating her and sucking the blood from her neck. The consumption spread through the family and as five more children became ill they complained of nightly visits from Sarah.

Half of the Stuckley's family was wiped out in two years. When Stuckley's wife took ill, and like her daughters she endured nightly visits from Sarah, he decided to take action. He and his neighbors exhumed the body of Sarah. Opening the coffin they found the body well preserved, her hair and fingernails still growing, it was enough evidence to suspect his daughter of vampirism. they decided to stab her in the heart which poured out blood, they next cut out Sarah's heart placed it in an iron pot and cremated till there was only ashes left. Two weeks later Mrs. Stuckley died of consumption.

100 years later in 1874 the village of Placedale, William Rose dug up the body of his daughter and burned her heart for she was drawing energy from other family members. this was reported in the Providence Journal even though details weren't given one can be surmize Rose's actions were a superstitious belief his daughter was a vampire.

The most celebrated case of vampirism occurred 9 years later at Wickford and Exeter Rhode Island, again an outbreak of tuberculosis was the cause of panic. George Brown's wife Mary of Exeter, died of the disease on December 8,1883. Within six months her daughter Mary age 20, passed away of the same illness. George Brown had six more daughters, and one son Edwin. Edwin was married and owned his own farm in West Wickford. Five years after his sister Mary died he too contracted the disease, and fearful for his life he moved to the Rocky Mountains. There less than a year later he got word his sister Mercy Brown, age 19, had also passed away of tuberculosis. Edwin headed back east in 1892, determined to lick the plague. In Colorado the popular cure for tuberculosis was to "eat the fried heart of a rattlesnake," but Edwin also knew the New England cure was to burn the heart of a suspected vampire. Edwin didn't know which one of his deceased relatives was causing his blood to be sapped, so he decided to exhume all three bodies. His mother and his sister Mary were both skeletal, but his sister Mercy, dead two months earlier looked as good as the day she was buried. he then cut out his sister's heart and reburied the body. The heart was then burned on a stake nearby ,and like all the rattlesnake hearts he had eaten in the Rockies ,Edwin chomped on the fried heart of his sister Mercy. The grisly cure didn't work Edwin Brown expired only a few weeks later.

Internet Search to Track Sylvia Butane Timeline

Daniel Smith married Madeline Gallier in 1868 in New York.

They had a daughter, Sylvia Smith (later changed to Butane) in 1869.

Sylvia Butane married Jim Rawford in 1897 In Tucson, Arizona.

They had a daughter in 1899, Caroline.

Caroline married Frederick Davidson in 1924 in Denver Colorado and gave birth to son Byron and daughter Juliet in 1929.

In 1945 Byron was killed in WW2.

In 1954 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin Juliet married Jon Carpeton and gave birth to daughter Suzy.

Suzy Carpeton became pregnant but did not marry the father in 1969 in San

Francisco, and gave birth to a baby girl, Angeline.

In 1987 Angeline Carpeton graduated Lowell High School in San Francisco and enrolled in the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 1990. She graduated with honors in 1995 and worked numerous small plays and short films until landing the role of Sister Helen (the lead) in Dead Man Walking at San Francisco Opera House. The show is still running in January 2001.