Out of Character (OOC):
Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen
Venue: Mage: The Awakening (1st Edition at the time)
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler
Venue: Mage: The Awakening (1st Edition at the time)
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler
Assistant Storytellers: Hannah Nyland & Alex Van Belkum
Zero-X: The Monster (Part V)
So here we are, the creature, the Slenderman himself. All the things I put together to bring this version of the creature to life. Inspired by both The Thief from the nWoD Antagonist sourcebook and the online urban legend phenomena of the Slenderman. I've ran this plot first as a city-wide, venue-wide game for Mind's Eye Theater / Mind's Eye Society / Camarilla fan club plot in 2011 and then again in 2014 for our current Mage: The Awakening chronicle - Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen.
The Slenderman
Aliases:
Slendy, The Thief, The Operator, The Administrator, Der Großmann, Mr. Slim, Keeper, and Stick-In-The-Mud, Daddy-long-legs, The White King, The Pale Knight and of course, Slendy!
Research:
These are things that can be found out about the creature with proper research. Storytellers are heavily encouraged to consider the source is what is discovered and how to tailor the results. Some of this information is misleading rumors which build dread and uncertainty; some have nuggets of truth that will help characters learn more about this threat. The information is purposefully left vague so STs can put their own spin on it based on what has occurred and the true info provided in this kit. There are also suggested dice pools and progression of successes.
Urban Legends
Sources: Blogs, paranormal sites, Tabloids
Dice Rolls: Intelligence + Streetwise or Computer
1. Also known as the "The Slender Man" or "Slendy", Mr. Thin, the Tall Man, the Operator
2. Completely fictional character – some blogger just made him up…
3. Common Threads
- Very old, immortal of sorts
- Black suit and white shirt
- Tentacles hidden on back
- Presence associate with paranoia and strange sickness
- Those who see him are frequently found to be maniacally writing strange messages, and drawing mad scribbles of a dark, faceless figure
- Can stretch limbs and torso to impossible lengths
- Stalks and kidnaps children, kills college students and adults to stalked when they were children
- Size varies from 7 feet to a tall tree or house
- Able to stretch and shapeshift limbs
- Faceless skeletal head with no sensory organs
- Abducts people, removes organs, impales victims on trees or organs and body parts in plastic bags hanging from trees
- Can look like its victims
- Looks like one of the "Men in Black"
- Doesn't speak, can it talk?
- Absorbs victims
- Takes people to an undisclosed location or another dimension
- Dreams, nightmares, and paranoia leading up to abduction
- Parents don't believe kids and their overactive imaginations, then the kids disappear
- Only kids can see him
- It is advised to avoid investigating too much lest you get entrenched too deep...and find yourself the subject of unwanted interest.
Native Legends
Sources: Books, Internet, Interviews
Dice Rolls: Intelligence + Academics
1. Ute, Navajo, Anasasi, Hopi and other western American Indians have legends about “skin-walkers” (See link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin-walker)
2. A witch/shaman who can shapeshift using the pelts of animals, rumored to have helped Native Americans escape white conquerors
3. Pure Evil, use a “Witchery Way” ritual of a perverted song “Black Mass” to get power
4. Most Native Americans are reluctant to speak of them out of fear
5. Can steal skin from humans with eye contact, prefer the dark and eyes glow, can imitate human/animal sounds and read mind
6. Stalk chosen people/prey, cause accidents, fast, agile, impossible to catch even when wounded and maimed.
7. Supposedly speaking the skin-walkers full name makes it sick three days later
8. Use charms like human bone beads, snakes, hair in pottery shards
9. Killed by bullets tip in white ash, many find their guns jammed in presence of the creature
10. Local Ute legend about a slumbering creature in a cave, wakes periodically and feasts on chosen prey
11. Once it is full it hides as a man and sleeps again
12. Plagued Native Americans, hunters that were one with the spirit of nature and the wolf went to destroy it and never returned, but it didn't return either
13. Tried to warn the whites when they arrived but it is just a legend
Western Occult Research
Sources: Libraries and Online Academic Research
Dice Rolls: Intelligence + Academics
1. Based on description - Unknown kind of fairy folk with roots in German folklore
2. 16th century woodcuts of the Dance of Death depict a similar entity dating back to medieval times
3. Ancient Boogieman - "Der Ritter" and "Der Großmann"
4. Snatches children (works for a keeper?)
5. Prefers trees and fog to cover its movements
6. Johanne Goethe poem and Schubert song "Der Erlkonig" (translated- "Night King" or "Boogeyman)
7. Prefers forest, similar wording and ties to the hunt and the Erl Konig of “Earl King”
History:
What did this used to be? A Native American horror like Spearfinger, the Stone Man, Skinwalkers, and Wendigo. This spirit or spirit/flesh being (like a werewolf but a Skinwalker) corrupted by being bound since ancient times above the slumbering Bakken Acamoth know as The Darkness that Thirsts
Aspects of a spirit, flesh, and Abyssal Morphean made whole. Werewolves hundreds of years ago the packs of the United Tribes sealed him in Eagle Butte. Has that bit of shape-shifting with the tentacles slash spider legs.
Anyone who sees it comes mentally linked by dream sympathy. People obsessing over the Slenderman seem to cause Slenderman to gain power through attention, thought form, fears, nightmares, all filtering into the Tenemos and its forested nightmare realm. (Wait, did this used to be a Beast?). Children vanish or become proxied, bodies never found. Obsessive people tend to also vanish. He is the Der GroBmann - The tall man, Germany Fairy in Black Forest, grabs children...
Storytelling Notes
1. As the oil has spread throughout the country the dreams and urban legends of the Slenderman have grown.
2. Once released causes nightmares, drawing images or recent kills, people, especially children show this. They can be very useful, worst turned into proxies
3. It freaks people out that it doesn't attack, can't comprehend what it wants. its poking around looking for supernaturals - eyewitness accounts., linked to people who see it or dream about it.
4. Long fingers or tendrils can slice through flesh and snatch an organ from a living body with horrible suction (granny death), very very precise dissection, no raggad holes... much like the SpearFinger.
5. The reason it has no face is because you cannot remember it the second you look away as a defensive measure to your own sanity... you have enough problems with the Integrity hits.
6. Is this aTulpa? Well kind of. - what came first? The chicken or the egg?
7. Integrity Check the first time you see it in a scene (after that each scene is accumulative +1 or -1 to future looks.Combat tilts - Nasea, incapacitation, etc.... Fear Tilts
8. We have been dreaming subconsciously about it, it leaks maddness and dream-stuff from it, hence urban legend.
9. Psychic energy everywhere, leaking out of astral holes, can't pin down location easily but its a start, Fate also helps. dream/abyssal resonance.
10. Victims clothing cut open carefully and organs precisely sucked out, creating very cylindrical holes.
11. Leaves a big psychic resonance footprint but very little physical evidence.
Description:
- 9 feet plus - spindly and spider-like, sometimes there seems to be more than four limbs… can also have long fingers with bladed ends. 10 tendrils from back.
- Bald - wears hood, black long limbs and fingers
- Gray skin (color and texture of wet concrete), black hands and feet
- No eyes.
- Dark Suit, Black Tie, White shirt.... looks fleshy though, part of the dream/flesh?
- Thin edgeless mouth with razor teeth - can't see it until it is eating you, otherwise no facial features.
- Indistinct skeletal facial features,
- Tentacles and spidery branch/limbs come out of its back when it is angry.
- Makes a rattling noise like a geiger counter, mumbles, clattering of dried sticks, low muttering sounds
Tracking the creature:
1. It creates a wide imprint of psychic energy, strange lack of resonance (Supernally grounded out)
2. Leaves no evidence of being a living thing (because its not)
3. Adults get Dreamsickness, reality breaks down a little around them
4. Electronic Disruptions are tells
5. Animals & children act strangely...
6. Use of Sympathy combined with Mind magic - "dream sympathy" it has with its living victims, proxies, and the Operator and can be used to track it.
7. The connections to its victims also means it dreams them their own evolving mythos of the thing. So it tells the whole internet enough about it to set a good trap! symbol.
8. It's Slenderwalk teleports it (when unseen) through the Tenemos but it doesn't reside there, it just instantly bursts through
Stats: (nWoD 1.0)
Virtue: Prudence
Vice: Gluttony
Stat values are as follows: simplified stat / value starting dots / endgame dots
Attributes: (+1 for each organ devoured throughout the plot, Simple / Start / Finish)
Power: 8; Intelligence: 8/4/8, Strength: 8/6/10, Presence: 8/2/6
Finesse: 8; Wits: 8/5/9, Dexterity: 8/5/9, Manipulation: 8/3/7
Resistance: 9; Resolve: 9/4/8, Stamina: 9/6/10, Composure: 9/4/8
Skills: (unless your using the P/F/R but you can add a single trait and the skill as a pool instead)
Occult: 5
Investigation: 2
Medicine: 4
Athletics: (Jumping) (Climbing) 5
Brawl: (Grappling) (Biting) (Clawing) 5
Firearms: 1
Larceny: (Locks) (Windows) 4
Stealth: (Sneaking) (Blending in) (Hiding) 5
Survival: (Escape) 5
Weaponry: (Tendril Blades) 5
Intimidation: 6
Streetwise: 3
Subterfuge: 5
Merits:
Occultation OOOOO O
Fast Reflexes OO
Fleet of Foot OOO
Unseen Sense (all) OOO – For tracking
Combat Awareness OO (+2 on situational awareness rolls)
Danger Sense OO (+2 to perception on surprise round)
Eidetic Memory OO
Encyclopedia Knowledge OOOO
Emotional Detachment O
Equipped Grappling OO (+2 to overpowers)
Giant OOOO
Iron Stomach OO
Iron Stamina OOO
Parkour OOOOO
Strong Back O
Quick Healer OOOO (double recovery speed) \
Fighting Style: Grappling OOOOO
Advantages:
Health: 19
Willpower: 10
Speed: 20
Defense: 9
Initiative: 19
Perception: 19+2
Size: 9
Weapons:
- Claws
- Tendril Stabs
- Tendril Grappling
- Needle Teeth
- Liston Knife
Supernatural Abilities
O Absorption: (Thief)
It eats the organs of supernatural beings (Major and Minor templates). The number of organs that will grant power are based on Stamina: 1 organ at 2 stam, 2 at 3, and so on - gives +1 to an attribute per organ.
O Obfuscation Analog: (Original)
Roll 16 = cloaked vs perception or mage sight, can be seen on electronic means but blurs and distorts tech. Chooses who and when it is seen. Animals can always see it, that is why they are usually killed, mutilated and placed in plastic bags.. Children always see it but are susceptible to mind-woggity.
O Shifter Camouflage: (Slenderman)
It is a very alien thing, but the suit at a distance is meant to show status or gain trust. Its faceless face part of the ability doesn't seem to work. This mechanism in its appearance is how it has updated its form over the years.
O Shapeshifting Limbs: (Slenderman)
Sprouts tentacles, spider legs, up to 10 total from back/shoulders
O Complete Immunity: (Thief)
Immune to all supernatural powers that target it. It seems to ground out Supernal Magic. It is the ultimate fallen entity. The Resonance it leaves behind doesn't go deeper into the Supernal World... its like it isn't there at all.
O Slenderwalk: (Slenderman)
When not being observed it can teleport through the Tenemos somehow, its reflexive but can only do it once per turn as its movement action. It comes out where it can find madness and its taint on a person, if they have seen it or dreamed of it. Doesn't hurt Sleepers, only special folks.
O No face: (Slenderman)
Occultation to a whole new level, can't remember it. Even if you could you would take an
Integrity check and then forget again (like the Sleeping Curse). Meditation and high willpower help; failing the roll puts up under the influence of the Slenderman. Cumulative -1, +1 to future glimpses at face, causes combat tilts.
O Dreamsickness: (Slenderman)
Nosebleeds, vomiting, paralysis, paranoia, obsession - gain Combat Tilt temporarily, 16 vs Composure + Gnosis to resist: Mental fortification helps
O Dreamflesh: (Original)
Downgrades all conventional damage (Immune to Bashing, Lethal becomes Bashing). One Bashing heals in a round, a Lethal damage heals in 7 minutes and an Aggravated damage is healed in half a day.
O Proxies: (Slenderman)
Children who's mental facilities have been broken down through obsessions become influenced servants and go-betweens to what Slendy doesn't. He doesn't abduct them, they run away
O Psychic Backlash: (Slenderman)
Roll 16 - Resolve = bashing damage, manifests like Paradox Backlash physically, hits all in an area. Uses presence as a weapon like Psychic Blast.
O Numen: Compulsion: (Slenderman)
Roll 16, functions as Compulsion Numen.
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